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Thursday, July 26, 2018

WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (1953)

As major films like AFRICAN QUEEN/’51 and MOGAMBO/’53 were starting to send big stars like Bogart, Hepburn, Gable, Gardner & Kelly to Africa for at least some exterior shooting, this 20th/Fox production stays old-school with no one but the second-unit giving up the comforts of Hollywood backlots. It’s all process shots & soundstage mockups for Susan Hayward & Robert Mitchum, both at their most attractive, as missionary nurse and fortune hunter, with director Henry Hathaway shooting as if nothing other than TechniColor had changed in either film technique or “Dark Continent’ racial attitudes since TRADER HORN back in 1931. And what an unpromising start as Mitchum loads up caged wild animals to ship off to zoos only to have a man-in-a-gorilla-suit break free and cause havoc. Things can’t help but improve after that! So too a print with color registration problems that clear up starting at reel four. By then, our wary stars are warming up to each other as Mitchum rethinks his fortune-hunting partnership with crude Walter Slezak. Meanwhile, Hayward is taking charge of her clinic and saving Africans left & right, including a young native prince from an isolated tribe of savages. (Savage for a reason, mind you.) Standard doings, right down to the noble black guide who takes a fall for Bwana Mitchum. It works, after a fashion, thanks to good story structure that deftly ties all the narrative lines together, pulling you along in spite of all reasonable objections.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK: The main rationale for watching, or rather listening, is the film’s phenomenal Bernard Herrmann score, best heard on it own in this superb suite from a 1970s recording, one of a series of Classic Film scores conducted by Charles Gerhardt for RCA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAh_uQcyJf8

DOUBLE-BILL: KING SOLOMON’S MINES/’50 probably deserves credit (if that’s the word) for restarting the fad for glossy, well-produced African adventure films.

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