It’s late in the cycle of 20th/Fox travelogue-oriented CinemaScope efforts; the ones that promised to take you . . . well, to someplace not yet seen in Wide Screen format. But in this half-hearted entry, only the second-unit made the trip to South America; the stars never left the lot, with locations brought to them via back-screen projection. THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN/’54, the phenomenal (if slightly creepy) success that started the cycle took its cast to Rome. Though only after director Jean Negulesco insisted, proving to studio head Darryl F. Zanuck he could shoot it for less on real locations. (He knew he’d never win the argument bringing up visual quality.) Alas, no such gumption from journeyman helmer Henry Levin. He stands his stars in front of process plates (some damn good*), but obviously not optimal, especially with little else to hold our attention as Clifton Webb (with a bad dye job) impetuously takes his family (Jane Wyman; Carol Lynley) to Brazil, Argentina & Peru after wayward daughter Jill St. John gets serious with either famous South American architect Paul Henreid (also with a bad dye job) or his rebellious artist son. Lynley, who yells all her lines, finds her own tru-love after they arrive, peeling off with pudgy serviceman Gary Crosby once he shows the depth of his feelings by spanking her. Yikes! As light ‘50s family comedies go, it’s not so much bad as dispiriting, with local color used like appliqué in an Arts & Crafts workshop.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: After a three year break, Clifton Webb retired with Leo McCarey’s unfortunate SATAN NEVER SLEEPS/'62, a sort of GOING MY WAY meets Communist China dramedy (really, that’s the set up). So this film, weak as it is, serves as swansong to America’s most unlikely family man. See CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN/’50 to see him really pull it off.
DOUBLE-BILL: Wyman was back for more process plate Europe on yet another family vacation, now in Paris for Disney’s exceedingly odd BON VOYAGE/’62. The only Disney pic to offer Fred MacMurray a street walker. Yikes, again! (He declines, but still . . . )
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *20th/Fox and Paramount, for some reason, generally did the best process/back-screen projection work. At Paramount, Farciot Edouart ran the department and supposedly took his secrets to the grave. (Compare Hitchcock @ ‘50s Paramount to Hitchcock @ ‘60s Universal.) But who was the key man @ 20th/Fox?
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