THE NIGHTCOMERS (1971)

Just before THE GODFATHER/’72 ended a decade’s run of commercial decline, Marlon Brando capped his ‘60s free fall with this perverse period thriller. He’s rather good in it, if you can accommodate the Barry Fitzgerald Irish accent. But then, he was good in a number of indifferently received flops over the period. This one, coarsely directed by Michael Winner, purports to be a prequel to Henry James’s TURN OF THE SCREW*, though except for its risible climax, it’s more rehash than prequel. And more D. H. Lawrencean than Jamesian while also doing away with James’s note of ghostly uncertainty. Everything else is familiar as a wealthy uncle ignores his responsibility to his orphaned young niece & nephew, leaving them largely in the care of the housekeeper, governess & groundskeeper at their isolated, stately estate. Brando’s groundskeeper, unofficial mentor to the kids, is the whole show here, an amusingly corruptive influence on everything he touches: spurious wisdom, torture & sex something of a kinky specialty. But perhaps the children learn their lessons a bit too well. A good subject for a director who knew the difference between a glance and a blow. Which naturally makes Michael Winner exactly the wrong man for the job. But the tone is odd enough to keep you watching.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Excellent SCREW adaptation: THE INNOCENTS/’61 (Jack Clayton/Deborah Kerr). OR: Another literary prequel, this time to JANE EYRE, in WIDE SARGASSO SEA/’93.

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (1941)

First-rate Americana, or rather faux Americana, from Stephen Vincent Benet, out to write an original Faust-like New England folk tale, expanding on his own short story. Initially released as ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY, then re-released at various lengths as TDADW, the Criterion DVD gets close to the original edit and the film is a dandy. (Though print quality compromised.) With Walter Huston channeling his bliss as a very American Devil out to claim the soul of the farmer he’s thoroughly corrupted with seven years of good fortune and Edward Arnold’s Dan Webster pleading for the defense to a jury of ghostly American scoundrels. (H. B. Warner a standout as an ectoplasmic judge.) Arnold could be pretty self-indulgent, but really collects himself in his big court summation. Standing up to Huston no small thing! Imaginatively directed by William Dieterle working beautifully with cinematographer Joseph August and editor Robert Wise; neat special effects, too. And what a well handled mix of exteriors, real design integrity on location or soundstage. Add Bernard Herrmann’s Oscar® winning score to hold things together (he beat his own CITIZEN KANE this year*), and the film is a rare treat.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: Writers always tip the scales against the devil in final battles over sinners who’ve sold their souls. A built-in dramatic problem in these things. (Even G.B. Shaw cheats getting Don Juan Out of Hell.) See A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH/’46 which also uses historic characters in its fantasy courtroom scenes for another example. And doesn’t that acclaimed film look a bit overcooked after watching this.

LINK: *Here’s Bernard Herrmann conducting a modern recording of the title track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UyBwMQiBpk

HIDE-OUT (1934)

Robert Montgomery is just fantastic (smooth, funny, debonair, dangerous) in this smart little romance about a four-gal-a-night B’way Playboy who fronts for a protection racket, but needs to make himself scarce when cops start putting on the heat. Racing out of town, he crashes into a sweet little farming family and ‘gets religion,’ so to speak, when a week’s recovery opens his eyes to a different sort of life and the lovely farmer’s daughter (school teacher Maureen O’Hara). Everybody involved gets the tone just right: the creatives (Producer/Director/Married Writers Hunt Stromberg/W.S. Van Dyke/Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett fresh off THE THIN MAN/’34) and none of the cast slumming. The First Act is particularly fine, a dazzling pass thru NYC Nightclub life, with hot shows always going on behind the main players (and with a fresh pair of Nacio Brown/Arthur Freed tunes) as Montgomery makes the nightly rounds: cajoling or threatening slow paying owners while working the babes. Fast and believable, the vibe is pure Damon Runyon. Once in the country, the gambit turns to fish-out-of-water gags, but with situations avoiding easy slapstick and a note of truth in the farce. (Even a young Mickey Rooney stays in bounds as the kid brother.) A groundswell of gentle humor and unexpectedly touching romance in this package, with lenser Ray June going glam as needed. A real find.

DOUBLE-BILL: Released about the same time, HE WAS HER MAN/’34 sends James Cagney’s mob man countryside for a more sobersided life changing experience with Joan Blondell. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/11/he-was-her-man-1934.html

THE CAPTIVE HEART (1946)

Sticking with British director Basil Dearden (see POOL OF LONDON directly below), here’s a well made P.O.W. pic that holds close to the usual conventions. Less than a year after the war and all those Prisoner-of-War tropes already in place as men left behind in the Dunkirk evacuation march to heatless barracks, food shortages, delays on Red Cross packages & news from home, escape attempts, a spot of landscaping, Christmas pantomimes, Dear John letters & camp hijinks.* With so many events, these films are always in danger of making P.O.W. Camp look like summer camp . . . but with real bullets. (Wait!, my summer camp did have real bullets!) There’s also action on the home-front: from Pre-War days via flashback (as in Noël Coward’s IN WHICH WE SERVE/’42) and current happenings, especially for Michael Redgrave’s Czech Concentration Camp escapee hiding in plain sight using the uniform of a dead British officer whose body he literally bumped into. Needing to maintain the impersonation, he corresponds with the dead man’s estranged wife who assumes her husband is not only alive, but a better person than the cold man she left before the war. This leads to some interesting complications, not quite brought off here in a script that has too many happy endings. On the other hand, Redgrave’s ‘wife’ is played by real wife Rachel Kempson in a rare screen sighting, looking amazingly like all her famous children: Corin, Vanessa & Lynn, from different angles. She’s very good, as is everyone in here, but the film is awfully predictable.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Very brief BLACKFACE Alert during a nighttime mission in camp.

DOUBLE-BILL: *The P.O.W. format was so quickly codified that by 1951 on B’way (1953 on film) STALAG 17 got much of its dramatic charge playing off them.

POOL OF LONDON (1951)

Tightly crafted British noir, loaded with waterfront atmosphere, a jewel robbery gone bad, and a merchant seaman caught in the middle of the con. Director Basil Dearden, who went on to bigger, if not better things, nails hardscrabble dockside life, all shot on location: dreary tenements, dance halls and the cheap amusements ship’s crews flock to on shore. One of them, Bonar Colleano, wiseguy & small-time smuggler, gets involved as a secret courier for the jewel thieves, a safe, easy gig. But the police catch on to the caper before he and the contraband get back to ship. So he hands the stuff off to best pal Earl Cameron, an easygoing Jamaican less likely to be searched. What Colleano doesn’t know is that a man has been killed during the heist, and all bets are off. Very well plotted, with plenty of believable complications & characters, including three excellent girlfriends of wavering constancy. One relationship, for Cameron and a white girl he picks up, quite exceptional, with racial niceties & prejudices very advanced for the period. (Cameron, now over 100 & still working, luckier than the intriguing Bonar Colleano who died young in a car crash.) A real find here.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL: Jules Dassin’s classic noir NIGHT AND THE CITY/’50, shot in London the previous year, an obvious influence. With both cinematographers (NIGHT’s Max Greene and POOL’s Gordon Dines) aping Robert Krasker’s legendary lensing on THE THIRD MAN/’49.

BATTLE CIRCUS (1953)

Tepid Korean War film, well matched to America’s tepid response to the war. An attitude of indifference that gives rise to one of the few impassioned moments in here. But interest in seeing how the fighting was treated at the time, at least from the vantage point of an Army Field Hospital (it’s the original M.A.S.H. Unit pic), is largely defeated by M-G-M production standards. Cinematographer John Alton hamstrung by airless soundstage exteriors meant to pass as real, not stylized, and writer/director Richard Brooks pulling away from combat & medical scenes to favor the supposedly breathless romance between Humphrey Bogart’s commitment phobic/battle-hardened surgeon and June Allyson’s marriage-fixated newbie nurse. (Less yin & yang than chalk & cheese.) The sole standout: always reliable character actor Robert Keith, CO & Surgeon, with more screen time than usual and making the most of it. Brooks tries to cover up what’s been missing with a big, compound action sequence right at the end with the entire hospital rolled up, packed and on the move as staff and injured are forced to split up so they can all reach the relative safety of a new location. But he’s all thumbs at putting it over. As if he forgot D.W. Griffith perfected parallel editing back in the ‘teens.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Brooks’ previous film, also with Bogie, DEADLINE - U.S.A./’52 (not seen here), is a newspaper drama with a much better rep.

THE SCARLET EMPRESS (1934)

After five consecutive films and recent declining revenues, Paramount separated Marlene Dietrich from her Svengali-like director, Josef von Sternberg , assigning her to Rouben Mamoulian for the marmoreal SONG OF SONGS/’33, a pairing that did little for either party. Hence, Dietrich’s quick return to Sternberg’s loving care & idolatrous attention in this obsessive bio-pic on the unlikely, but triumphant rise of Catherine the Great from childhood in Prussia to Empress of Russia. An extravagant, one-of-a-kind folly that lost a fortune, it showcases Sternberg at his most visually extreme in thrillingly over-detailed sets, costumes & decor, following a cruel storyline that’s really not much more fictionalized than an average naturalistic bio-pic. Bartered as a teen for political purposes, Catharine finds herself engaged to the future Peter III, a man stunted physically, mentally & morally, a personal disaster that ends up freeing her sexually, intellectually & politically. The work, fascinating & beautifully controlled, combines the visual & narrative compulsions of Erich von Stroheim, along with something of his curdled humor, and Sergei Eisenstein's monumental Russian Orthodox iconography. (Indeed, anticipates Eisenstein.) The soundtrack, a disappointing assemblage of (mostly) Tchaikovsky & Mendelssohn, is the only element in the production that doesn’t feel radically advanced. A monstrosity in many ways, you’ll see why it failed at the time, but also a great cinematic thrill. And in John Lodge, able to stand up to (or is it withstand?) the force of Marlene’s personality, a leading man who got away. Sternberg was never this extreme again.

CONTEST: There are two Catherine The Greats in this cast. Name the other Catherine, and the film where she played the role, to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of a film of your choice.

DOUBLE-BILL: Dietrich & Sternberg weren’t the only actor/director team to reunite via Catherine the Great. The recently restored Ernst Lubitsch delight FORBIDDEN PARADISE/’24 (another lux visual stunner from Paramount) found Lubitsch calling shots for the fifth and last time with old partner Pola Negri, four years after they co-starred in his SUMURUN/’20. (Hopefully a beautiful new restoration from 2019 will soon show up in some video format.)

HUSH . . . HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964)

Following up the shocking success of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE two years on (same leisurely running time/twice the budget), director/producer Robert Aldrich had the same writers place similar story beats in a Southern Gothic setting, bolstered with lifts out of GASLIGHT, SUNSET BOULEVARD and DIABOLIQUE for a second Bette Davis/Joan Crawford slug-fest. But when Crawford ankled (illness, competitive fatigue, stubborn pride), Aldrich & Davis convinced Olivia de Havilland to step in, joining Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and Mary Astor (in her last role) in this neat package of Southern-Fried horror. In many ways, it’s a better, more balanced film than BABY JANE, but missing the sheer audacity & surprise factor of that first chiller. But still a wicked good show, especially in the last act when the plot threads tighten and ‘good cousin’ de Havilland starts to let loose. Davis whops things up to grand (guignol) effect right from the start as the mentally fragile mistress long thought to be a murderess, now fighting eviction from her crumbling Southern estate. But even Bette can’t keep up with Moorehead's divine scenery chewing as her loyal, slatternly servant.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: The pacing of BABY JANE is on the pokey side, but makes it up in daring & originality when compared to CHARLOTTE’s ‘well-made movie’ qualities. (p.s. Watch BABY JANE first.)   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-ever-happened-to-baby-jane-1962.html

STAMBOUL QUEST (1934)

Three years after Greta Garbo was MATA HARI and Marlene Dietrich was DISHONORED, Myrna Loy had her own WWI counter-espionage assignment as a glamorous German spy undone by love. Released two weeks after the Hollywood Production Code began strict enforcement, this one still feels very Pre-Code with Loy perfectly willing to do overnights for love (with American civilian George Brent, livelier than at home studio Warners) or country (with C. Henry Gordon, the venal Turkish commander of the Dardanelles she’s been sent to expose). It gives a new meaning to undercover work! The best agent on spy master Lionel Atwill’s roster, she makes quick work of Leo G. Carroll’s traitor right after informing on lovestruck/useless Mata Hari, unaware she’s destined for the same fate. Or does she have a trick up her stylish sleeve that will save the day, her lover and her life? Heavenly nonsense, ravishingly shot by James Wong Howe (Loy rarely looked better) and neatly directed from a sharp Herman J. Mankiewicz script by an unusually energized Sam Wood. A snazzy slice of romantic entertainment, perhaps its Pre-Code manner in a Post-Code world kept it from being rediscovered. Don’t let that stop you.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above: From 1931, MATA HARI and DISHONORED. OR: Binge Myrna Loy with MEN IN WHITE; MANHATTAN MELODRAMA; THE THIN MAN; EVELYN PRENTICE; BROADWAY BILL and this, all from 1934.

THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE / (aka PURSUIT OF THE GRAF SPEE) (1956)

It’s all about the VistaVision in this Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger WWII seafaring epic, where real ships on a real sea (ravishing captured by cinematographer Christopher Challis in the strikingly sharp two frames per exposure VistaVision process) dwarf studio-shot battle scene artifice and some oddly ineffective dramaturgy. A shame and a surprise since, while the Powell/ Pressburger writing/directing/producing team are best known for fanciful things (RED SHOES; A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH; BLACK NARCISSUS), they also hit bull’s eyes in more straightforward fare, like the superb WWII drama THE SMALL BACK ROOM/’49. But this late project, on a 1939 WWII naval showdown between the Graf Spee (a Nazi ‘pocket’ battleship proving itself to be unnervingly accurate sinking U.K.-bound supply ships) and a trio of armed British cruisers hunting her down, keeps losing the dramatic thread what with four ships to juggle, officers & crew (x 4), plus scores of prisoners from sunken supply ships now being held in the Graf Spee hold. So the main character action of growing respect between supply Captain Bernard Lee and Graf Spee Captain Peter Finch never builds properly. And a third act, as damaged ships limp into the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay post-battle (the city, again, dazzlingly caught by Challis) to work thru farcical Rules of Neutrality becomes so hopelessly befuddled Pressburger is forced to concoct an American radio broadcaster to help us keep score on what’s happening. Never as involving as it wants to be, the film is mostly worth a look for its impressive cast and those gobsmacking VistaVision vistas.

LINK: If you don’t mind the subtitles, here’s a LINK to an excellent HD stream: https://archive.org/details/TheBattleOfTheRiverPlate1956_201810

DOUBLE-BILL: Without the visual panache, SINK THE BISMARCK!/’60 gets a similar job done from subterranean distance, very nicely, too.

GAMBIT (1966)

Amid a flurry of comic-tinged mid-‘60s heist capers (PINK PANTHER: laughs; TOPKAPI: suspense; HOW TO STEAL A MILLION: chic; HOT MILLIONS: middle-class got’cha; THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR: sangfroid), GAMBIT was the one that passed for sophisticated Hollywood fun. Still does. Michael Caine, fresh off his ALFIE breakthrough, is the man with the scam; a scam that needs Shirley MacLaine’s Hong Kong dance girl to work since she’s a ringer for art collector Herbert Lom’s late wife. And the big gimmick our poster begs us not to reveal? Reels two & three show the caper going off without a hitch, but only in Caine’s imagination. Once the action starts up for real, nothing goes quite as planned.* And if this non-linear fake-out no longer startles, it does set up a template to bust up before it’s cobbled back into place by Caine & MacLaine, thinking on their feet & turning into an improbable couple. Director Ronald Neame, like Caine in his Hollywood debut, doesn’t drop a stitch pulling the seams together, working exceptionally well with journeyman lenser Clifford Stine to get an exotic location feel. (No small feat at Universal Studios in ‘66.) And from a bad period for MacLaine, when her kooky persona had lost dewy freshness and become self-conscious, she refuses to push, leading with smarts & natural charm. Something that must have rubbed off since everyone brings elegance & restraint to their comically heightened characterizations. And wrapped with a satisfying final twist in scripter Alvin Sargent’s feature debut.

DOUBLE-BILL: A Coen Brothers rethink (GAMBIT/’12, not seen here) flopped miserably. *Instead, see Preston Sturges create the imagined perfect run-thru gimmick in UNFAITHFULLY YOURS/’48. (Poorly remade in 1984.) OR: Caine’s pleasing return to the genre in the otherwise mediocre FLAWLESS/’07.

HUDDLE (1932)

Diligently groomed by director Rex Ingram at Metro Pictures to handle the exotic male leads Rudolph Valentino left behind when he moved to Paramount, Ramon Novarro made an impossible task look easy in grand entertainments like SCARAMOUCHE/ ’23; BEN-HUR/’25 and especially THE STUDENT PRINCE OF OLD HEIDELBERG/’27 for Ernst Lubitsch. (Maybe more, two or three important Ingram titles are effectively lost films.) But M-G-M fumbled his transition to sound, overworking a light pleasant tenor into something quasi-operatic and in whiplash casting that moved between swooning romantic nonsense and ‘Regular Joe’ types. This one takes the ‘Regular Joe’ approach, sending his immigrant coal stoker thru four years at Yale where he never quite fits in, falls for Madge Evans’ rich girl, and finally leads the football team to victory in spite of a burst appendix. Yikes! Hard to believe seven writers worked on this puerile crud while Novarro, a bit long in the tooth for college at 33, seems to be gaining, not losing, his Mexican accent. One good scene shows campus Pledge Night as various Frat houses sing their house song and dash up dormitory stairs to offer a hand to their newest brother of choice. A fascinating lost tradition; made more interesting here when no one picks Novarro and his roomie declines his own pledge offer to stay true to his pal. (A bond of brotherly love that dare not speak its name?) Director Sam Wood does nicely with a couple of close-quarters fights, but flunks out on the football field. Another miss for Ramon who was fast running out of opportunities.

DOUBLE-BILL: While it can seem as if M-G-M was out to deliberately sabotage their older silent stars (seven hacks scribbled out this one), it wasn’t by design. Two years on, they‘d figure out how to use Novarro properly in the delightful CAT AND THE FIDDLE/’34 (dir. Wm. Howard; Jeanette MacDonald). Though by then it was too late.

TIGER BY THE TAIL (1970)

Crappy little film about ex-cop Christopher George, set up as the guilty party when his estranged brother is shot to death during a racetrack robbery gone wrong . . . if it has gone wrong. George, up to inherit the horseracing property has motive, but the stolen million in cash went missing after the robbery, and the thieves he supposedly hired died when their getaway helicopter exploded mid-air. Now, Sheriff John Dehner & Deputy Skip Homeier want to arrest him while track co-owners hope to buy his shares for peanuts. Not a bad setup, and there should be a bit of fun spotting some oddball directorial or writing touches in one of these efficient, low-budget quickies. Not here, ultra-generic execution by vet hack R. G. Springsteen keeps this a personality-free non-event. Even the debut of Charro (!) is of little help. (We do see her butt thru a shower door*, but not even a Las Vegas conventioneer would take notice.) Tippi Hedren is around as George’s ex (she may have been involved in the caper), looking more relaxed than usual, but still with the grating voice & dead line readings. On the other hand, old time trooper Glenda Farrell shows sparkle & moxie as a sympathetic ballistics expert, even under tv-friendly, flood-light lensing. The producers must have had NBC’s rotating murder mystery show THE NAME OF THE GAME in mind as template, but missed the target.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Charo & George have an exposed chest contest! She with boobs; he with manly brawn appeal and three open buttons on his shirt. Advantage . . . Charo!

THE SILVER CORD (1933)

Playwright Sidney Howard was behind both signature roles of twittering character actress Laura Hope Crews. But while everyone knows her sweet, comically nervous Aunt Pittypat in GONE WITH THE WIND, few know this rather terrifying Mother-Love gone bad portrait, adapted from Howard’s play with Crews reprising her B’way success of 1926. Fifth billed on our poster, she still gets the delayed star entrance and dominates the action after a brief added prologue showing newlyweds Irene Dunne (research biologist) and Joel McCrea (architect) about to leave Germany for NYC, new jobs & new mother-in-law for Dunne. Things go bad right from the start as Mother Crews immediately begins planting wedges between the two just as she has been doing with weakling second son Eric Linden & fiancé Frances Dee. As written, Howard has some trouble keeping the boys blind to Mom’s sick, clinging devotion, yet there’s something powerful and downright creepy in her possessiveness that holds you, in spite of the situation’s obvious/simplistic psychological underpinnings. It’s a very unsophisticated sort of sophistication, sometimes dated & laughable, but hard to shake off . . . or forget. The men are more or less trounced by the ladies in this one, with Dunne, Dee & Crews all taking honors. And quite nicely trimmed & tricked out by director John Cromwell, moving things briskly around without tearing up the play’s structure.

CONTEST: In addition to Crews & Howard, there’s a third GWTW connection in here. Name it to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949)

Lauded, popular, not so good; this John Wayne WWII standard really showing its age. Allan Dwan, a major director in silent days, slowing falling to solid but minor efforts after early sound success, here gets one of his biggest late-career budgets and makes it work impressively on the larger battle scenes, many interspersed with real Iwo Jima combat footage (always a dicey thing). But as for the rest (barrack life, training, leave, personality conflicts), it’s 80% corn, delineating a typically motley crew of Hollywood Marines with single differentiating marks (ethnicity, geography, social/financial status). Fine when aligned to smart character acting & dialogue, but this is boilerplate stuff. Hence, Wayne’s problem: not enough family; John Agar’s: too much; and so on down the ranks. (One truly odd touch has Wayne’s latest drinking binge interrupted by a middle-aged gal who invites him home for drinks only to have Wayne discover her unattended infant. Yikes! Today, we’d lock her up for soliciting and neglect; Wayne just tosses a wad of cash in the crib.) 1949 was pretty late in the day for such an easy glide thru atoll warfare with quick reversals of fortune playing out as story beats with a tinny ring to them. Think people would have known too much to let this pass? Think again, SANDS was a major hit, earning award action and still fiercely defended.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Though Oscar-nom’d, SANDS wasn’t even Wayne’s best work of the year (see SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON), nor his best WWII pic (see THEY WERE EXPENDABLE/’45 or IN HARM’S WAY/’65).

DOUBLE-BILL: Clint Eastwood’s paired 2006 films on the battle (not seen here): American P.O.V. in FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS; Japan’s in LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, the better received.

OSSESSIONE (1943)

Luchino Visconti appeared all but fully formed in his directing debut, a loose, unlikely Italian adaptation of James Cain’s THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Made in Fascist Italy without rights clearance*and long suppressed, it’s exceptionally well cast and characterized, pure melodrama as story (older husband, unhappy wife, handsome drifter, murder, life insurance jackpot, delayed ironic justice), but a naturalistic game-changer in execution, a precursor to post-war Italian Neo-Realism, less James Cain than Émile Zola. (Very THERESE RAQUIN). Visconti, personally obsessed with Massimo Girotti before casting him as the hunky drifter, gives him a sweaty complexity and projects an unlikely pair of admiring friendships on him: a seaman (leftist/gay) who more or less picks him up and a young tart who also takes him in. As the unhappy wife, Clara Calamai, substituting for a pregnant Anna Magnani, was a lucky switch, with more sympathy than fierceness. A stop-and-start production (money problems, Visconti losing a brother in the war), you’d never know it from Aldo Tonti's fine, atmospheric lensing though a bit of confusion during the investigation may have resulted from the trouble. Beautifully paced at 2'20", a long running time for a first pic (Visconti tended to dawdle), but this feels very tight, very memorable.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Two legit POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE adaptations: clean, effective & weightless in 1946 for John Garfield/Lana Turner; sweaty with passion & dirty fingernails if less assured in ‘81 for Jack Nicholson & Jessica Lange.

IN THE FRENCH STYLE (1963)

Jean Seberg gets a sentimental education in this modest Robert Parrish film, adapted by Irwin Shaw from a pair of his own stories. Working a bit too hard to be frank & adult (circa 1963), the first story finds 19-yr-old American Seberg painting in Paris on her parents’ dime; meeting a charmingly arrogant, devilish beau mec (Philippe Forquet); and hoping to lose her virginity on her own terms. Parrish gets a nice visual flow on Paris streets & interiors, with Nouveau Vague tech work & talent (cinematographer/composer) to help it look & sound right. It’s the attitudes that feel out of touch, prurient in a ‘40s manner as if Shaw were working on a gender-swapped memoir. These two horny kids aren’t innocent, they’re square. Four years on, Jean’s painting is stuck in a rut, but her social life is very LA DOLCE VITA (LA DOUCEUR DE VIVRE?). Dad comes from the States for a visit, worried she’s drifting. And while love with hunky foreign correspondent Stanley Baker has it’s charms, how often is he actually in town? The paired tales have their clunky aspects, but Parrish & Shaw aren’t phoning it in, and the earnest quality can pay off. As in a final scene for Baker & Seberg on love & regret. With a neatly handled resolution in the final shot. And while there are limits to Shaw & Parrish's craft, the film has its charms.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Glam’d up in the second story with teased ‘60s hair & sewn into a sparkly black dress, Seberg shows just the look Alfred Hitchcock must have been trying for (but missed) with ‘Tippi’ Hedren in THE BIRDS and MARNIE.

THE SEARCH (1948)

After a dutiful decade of ‘shorts’ and mid-list features @ M-G-M, director Fred Zinnemann had a breakthrough (style, subject, quality) with this deeply felt, deeply moving film about post-WWII displaced children. Filmed quickly in Switzerland with a small foreign crew and on-location in the Berlin ruins, Zinnemann’s documentarian leanings are merged with Italian Neo-Realism, especially in the first half. The rest, if more traditionally structured with story beats and even a melodramatic race-against-the-clock finale, also beautifully handled. Ten-year-old Ivan Jandl makes a very believable lost boy, a runaway from his new American guardians who may want to help, but look too much like concentration camp authorities. Alone after his more outgoing pal drowns during their escape, he’s discovered scavenging by U.S. Army soldier Montgomery Clift who takes him in like a wounded pup. Neither knows the boy’s mother has also survived the war and is hunting for him everywhere. A broken pair, the sole family survivors, their path to recovery and reunion exceptionally touching, with Zinnemann’s natural restraint & reserve opening honest floodgates of emotion. A truly wonderful film.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: On the acting front: Clift, in his official film debut (he’d already shot RED RIVER, but this opened first) must have been a revelation at the time. And he still is, rarely so emotionally unguarded and open. The mother is played by the great operatic soprano Jarmila Novotna, a legend at The MET as Susannah in MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (with Bruno Walter & Ezio Pinza) and a stunning Violetta in LA TRAVIATA. Previously seen only in ‘30s German operetta films, she’s a natural. Why no more similar roles? Zinnemann earned kudos for his work with the film’s displaced children (actual war victims) and for helping Jandl win a ‘Juvenile’ Oscar®. He deserves even more credit for getting animated, sensitive playing out of dull Wendell Corey.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Least seen of Roberto Rossellini’s post-WWII Neo-Realist trilogy, GERMANY YEAR ZERO/’47 tackles similar issues & situations, but (pace critical opinion) is a surprisingly lumpy and far more melodramatic work. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/germany-year-zero-1947.html

A MAN ALONE (1955)

With the cushion of a big hit behind him (Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER/’54), and Hollywood studios in contraction, Ray Milland shook up his career with a tv series and a long cherished move into directing. Playing safe with a modest Western as debut, he’s both conventional and a little bit odd. Conventional in that he plays the ubiquitous stranger in town, wrongly fingered for a series of recent murders; odd in that three-fourths of the film stays indoors, a Housebound Western. Not a bad choice for a novice helmer with little aptitude for outdoor staging. (Milling crowds in small town streets a particular challenge.) The story eventually puts Milland in literal handcuffs, thanks to Sheriff Ward Bond, and in figurative handcuffs all thru the pic, thanks to Mary Murphy, the Sheriff’s daughter & love interest who comes to believe in his innocence. She's bad enough to undermine the film, even looks a bit off in the restored TruColor print on this fine Kino Lorber DVD. But nice support for a little Republic Pictures pic, with early sightings of Lee Van Cleef and Alan Hale Jr., plus Raymond Burr in an alarming maroon jacket as the hissable villain. Nothing to write home about, though. Maybe if the film were just a little bit odder . . . ?

DOUBLE-BILL: Milland's next directing gig, LISBON/’56, is mighty flat, but #3, THE SAFECRACKER/’58, if no third time charm, does show some improvement.

EIGHT MEN OUT (1988)

Think the 1919 World Series ‘Black’ Sox scandal is ‘can’t-miss’ film material? Think again. (And it’s not that John Sayles’ well-intentioned work has aged badly, it flopped on release.) Though made with the admirable intention of avoiding standard baseball tropes & clichés as much as possible, Sayles doesn’t come up with good substitutions, so plot & characters are left dangling in the wind. And a touristy quality in period detail has the mostly fresh-faced cast struggling to make you believe they might be wearing circa 1919 itchy wool undergarments. These hardened ball players, horribly mistreated by their ogre-like owner, could pass more easily for Mercury 7 astronauts. And the tricky split focus between players, reporters, gangsters & corporate big-shots, positioned inside a complicated story structure (a three act World Series/then newspaper montage investigation/an abbreviated three act trial/then epilogue) defeats Sayles as stylist. While Sayles-the-didact is unable to find a spot for a lecture on, say, the struggle between labor and capital in early Major League Baseball. The film begs for an epic vision, for the long view, but Sayles settles for relief story-pitching and a line-up of lousy accents that miss the mark on Boston, Chicago & New York.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Sayles is okay as sportswriter Ring Lardner, but iconic Chicago newsman Studs Terkel is a delight & real-deal eccentric as fellow sports-writer Hugh Fullerton.

LINK: Added 10/10/19 – Turns out, almost everything we thought we knew about this scandal is wrong all the way down the line-up! https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/opinion/black-sox-scandal-1919.html

I WALK ALONE (1947)

Out of prison after a 14 year prohibition-era rap, Burt Lancaster meets up with ex-partner Kirk Douglas to collect on the 50/50 split they’d promised each other back in the day should just one get caught. But too much has changed in the post-WWII corporate America Lancaster now finds himself lost in for that bargain to hold, the bigtime nightclub Douglas built up no longer run out of a petty cash drawer. Lancaster tries strong-arming his way in, rounding up a depleted gang of thugs to pressure Kirk; Douglas staying one step ahead using nightclub chanteuse Lizabeth Scott to kiss and tell on Burt. Only Lizabeth falls for the lug while a third partner (Wendell Corey) has an ace up his sleeve in a secret set of tell-all accounting books on Kirk’s business interests. Plenty of narrative angles for the usual film noir tropes, but for some reason, producer Hal Wallis gave second-unit/special effects man Byron Haskin the directing reins and Haskin, in his feature debut, seems to be learning on the job. Such lumpy, bumpy work; every edit a visual jolt, and not offering a lot of help on the acting front, either! Wallis seems to know it, too, slathering a loud, overactive musical track to cover all gaffes like meat gravy on a blue-plate special. Only pulling back on the score in the third act when Haskin (or someone . . . vet cinematographer Leo Tover?) suddenly ups his game. Okay, but could have been a lot better.

DOUBLE-BILL: See this done right (and with Kirk Douglas in a very similar role) in Jacques Tourneur’s OUT OF THE PAST/’47, released about a month earlier.

STATE FAIR (1933)

First-rate Americana from director Henry King (Americana his specialty), the best adaptation of Philip Stong’s novel*, showing real connection & deep feeling for terrain & the human comedy/zero condescension to rural folk. Hard to find good DVD or streaming options, but even compromised visuals can’t fail to capture the warmth of Janet Gaynor, Will Rogers, Louise Dresser & Norman Foster’s farming family, off to the annual State ‘do,’ where the young adults will court romance (fleeting or permanent) while the parents enter pickles, ‘spiked’ mincemeat & a world class hog for prizes. (For modern audiences, it's the best introduction to Rogers, who can be a pokey, if richer character in his John Ford films.) And everyone glowing from within under Hal Mohr’s honeyed lensing. Mohr, Mary Pickford’s cinematographer after her split with Charles Rosher, does wonders for Gaynor, making her chance-meeting & romance with that nice young Lew Ayres an enchantment. So’s the whole film.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Stong’s other film adaptation in ‘33, another rural romance from another filmmaking ‘King,’ director King Vidor, his masterful, criminally unheralded THE STRANGER’S RETURN/’33.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Remake #1: Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1943 film musical with pleasing songs and one real classic (‘It Might as Well Be Spring’) gives off an antiseptic Iowa-via-B’way vibe, shiny & TechniColor bright; while a Texas-set 1962 remake of that version misses on every level.

TOKI O KAKERU SHÔJO / THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME (2006)

Very popular Japanese story with multiple adaptations (Live-Action; Anime; TV) gets what is generally considered its most satisfying treatment in this 2006 anime feature from Mamoru Hosoda . The gimmick (and, alas, it is just a gimmick) has our coming-of-age adolescent high school girl stumbling upon a gurgle in the time continuum allowing her to take a step back on the clock for a redo after some typical teenage accident or social faux pas. Revving up to speed for an out-of-control running leap, she crash lands and finds herself transported back minutes, hours or days, whatever is needed. (These set pieces pure eye candy, with a long run to the rescue late in the pic a real visual tour-de-force.) But the time leaps also feel like a narrative cheat since they make it too easy to fix any problems with an instant redo. (Less GROUNDHOG DAY than golfer's Mulligan.) Most of the story deals with her budding romantic relationships with two ultra-cool guys she meets regularly for baseball practice, a nerdy hunk and a hipster hunk, each a foot & half taller than she, BTW. One of these guys holds the secret to the time-travel, but the story wisely shies away from too much explanation. Maybe if the physical look were less of a disappointment (sharp & bright in the time-shift scenes, but unpleasantly hazy in regular action in school & at home) or if the girl weren’t such a teenage angst-ridden pain-in-the-neck. All told, probably best for YA novel fanciers.

DOUBLE-BILL: Many of the visual, narrative & character ideas touched on here get a far better, far more clever/carefully worked out treatment in YOUR NAME/’06 (see below), a well-deserved blockbuster up for Stateside remake. But try and see the Japanese original.

LEFT HAND OF GOD (1955)

There’s a new man in town. And he’s charming the locals in spite of idiosyncratic ways & a serious lack of expertise in his claimed profession. Truth is, he’s a fake, making it up as he goes along and just getting away with it. But he’s also caught the eye of that pretty single gal while raising suspicions from the town’s leading couple. No secret to us, he’s confessed his plan to a fellow professional even while spreading tidbits of joy to people he meets in town. He’s even got the kids learning a catchy foreign tune by ear. (Cue sentimental reprise of said tune at the finale when the authorities finally catch up to him and send him packing.) Sure sounds like THE MUSIC MAN, no? But we’re not in Iowa anymore. (Heck, we’re not even in Kansas.) Nope, Mainland China, 1949, Catholic Missionary in place of a Marching Band and Humphrey Bogart as a phony priest on the run from Lee J. Cobb’s powerful warlord. (Cobb the only Caucasian masquerading as Asian in here, and thankfully with minimal YellowFace makeup.*) Bogart & Gene Tierney do nicely playing the suppressed passion routine, but Bogie’s less convincing putting off mass week after week, stumbling thru a prayer & a sermon while speaking more Chinese (Mandarin?) than Latin. You’d think someone would notice. Director Edward Dmytryk wisely doesn’t linger long enough for anyone to think this thru (a two-hour story arc compressed to 87 minutes), and he’s much helped by Franz Planer’s handsome lensing. Ultimately, it’s all a bit silly, but pleasant, even fun.

DOUBLE-BILL: Big budget post-WWII Chinese Missionary stories oddly popular at the time. At 20th/Fox alone, splashy CinemaScope productions of LEFT HAND, INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS/’58 and SATAN NEVER SLEEPS/’62.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *See Cobb do full YellowFace duty in ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM/’46.

A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT (1932)

Clemence Dane’s arthritic play, trimmed & kept on its feet by director George Cukor, is still worth a look for Katharine Hepburn in her all but fully-formed debut & for John Barrymore’s star turn, remarkable right from his glamorously delayed third-reel entrance. At 50, he’s a handsome, shell-shocked WWI vet, just fled from the mental asylum he’s been at the last 15 years. Recovered . . . or about to relapse? Unexpectedly showing at the family manse, he unwittingly upsets all carts, unaware that ex-wife Billie Burke has finalized a divorce and plans to re-marry; meeting newly engaged daughter Hepburn for the first time. Worse, his fragile mental health may have been induced by shell-shock, but it stems from a family history of bad blood & inherited insanity . . . guess who’s likely to get it next. Yikes! Somehow, under Cukor’s smooth handling, they pull off this drawing-room claptrap for an act and a half, but come the third, all devolves into one long slog of selfless martyrdom punctuated by arias of renunciation for each major player. A bit much even when the play was new in the ‘20s. Yet what an entrance for Kate, sweeping down a staircase, looking & sounding like nothing ere seen on film. She hasn’t the range for her big renunciation scene with mild-mannered fiancé David Manners (and wouldn’t till her Mary Tyrone in LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT/’62), but her presence is immediately apparent. And Barrymore is continuously fascinating. Slipping easily between calm naturalism and plunges into quick-spent flurries of barnstorming matinee idol madness. Barrymore finally taking film acting with the seriousness of his stage work. As if working with Greta Garbo in GRAND HOTEL and Hepburn here had him at last seizing on possibilities in the medium. (Or just shamed him into improving his game.) And for the next two years, until his alcoholic breakdown at the end of 1934, putting up a brief, precious master-class in film acting.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Four classics in eight films: TOPAZE; DINNER AT EIGHT; COUNSELLOR AT LAW; TWENTIETH CENTURY. (And three of the remaining four not far behind.)

DOUBLE-BILL: A John Farrow remake from 1940, w/ Maureen O’Hara & Adolphe Menjou (not seen here), rarely shows.

(HORROR OF) DRACULA (1958)

Seen in the 2007 British Film Institute restoration (on Warner Archive), Hammer Horror’s take on Bram Stoker, the follow-up to their game-changing CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN/’57, surely reps the company’s high-water mark in the genre. There’s real dread, real suspense in director Terence Fisher’s cinematic vision, utilizing vivid TechniColor now looking sharper & more refined. Just as much effect stems from Jimmy Sangster’s tightened narrative and geography*, along with an emphasis on sex that’s built into the script and buttressed by Christopher Lee’s vampire swagger & blood-sucking hormonal appeal. Dracula’s bites, love-hickeys that penetrate. Mostly busty woman, but he’s equally drawn to Jonathan Harker’s tasty neck at first. And, unlike later Hammer Horror, forward momentum never giving way to spinning wheels as Michael Gough’s skeptical husband & Peter Cushing’s doctor/avenger bring battle-worthy team play against this supernatural beast.

DOUBLE-BILL: Ridiculous & slow as molasses in winter, Universal’s Tod Browning/Bela Lugosi DRACULA/’31 remains memorably odd & essential.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Pity to lose dear, bug-besotted Renfield, but without Dwight Frye to play him . . . ?

HOLY MATRIMONY (1943)

British author Arnold Bennett is probably best-known Stateside for this clever bit of Shavian social/class whimsy about a famous/publicity-shy artist who serendipitously assumes his valet’s identity after the man’s unexpected death . . . then marries the valet’s intended! (The bride mistakenly identifying him from a picture of the two.) All is bliss until an art dealer recognizes the ‘dead’ artist’s style in some brand new ‘posthumous’ pictures and, even worse, when the valet’s abandoned wife & family show up 25 years after last contact. Yikes! Hard to imagine a starless B-pic taking on this sort of sophisticated, delicate comedy and not trouncing it to pieces. Yet the film is something of a minor triumph, with Monty Woolley & Eric Blore getting things off on the right foot as artist & valet, plus an outstanding supporting cast for such a little pic (Franklin Pangborn, Laird Cregar, George Zucco, Una O’Connor, Melville Copper, Alan Mowbray) joining in. As the perfect middle-aged wife, Gracie Fields (a great favorite in Britain) is something of an acquired taste, her down-to-earth act a bit unyielding, but she grows on you. Kudos to scripter Nunnally Johnson for a smart adaptation, director John M. Stahl for finding (and sticking to) just the right tone, and lenser Lucien Ballard for . . . well, for being the great Lucien Ballard! It’s a small, unexpected gem.

DOUBLE-BILL: Two silent versions (one with Lionel Barrymore) are lost/unavailable, and a 1933 version with Roland Young & Lillian Gish is awkwardly handled by legendary theater producer/director Arthur Hopkins in his only try at the movies. Instead, something completely different in a similar whimsical tone: Samuel Fuller’s THE BARON OF ARIZONA/’50 with Vincent Price.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: And speaking of Vincent Price, he starred in a quick flop 1968 B’way musicalization of this (Jules Styne/'Yip' Harburg) called DARLING OF THE DAY against the great Patricia Routledge who won a Tony in spite of its brief one-month run. Watching the film, you’ll spot the problem, Price’s obvious role isn’t the withdrawn artist, but Laird Cregar’s egotistical art dealer.

INTERRUPTED MELODY (1956)

Standard-issue (read mediocre/highly fictionalized) bio-pic of Australian dramatic soprano Marjorie Lawrence whose career was ‘interrupted’ by polio. With Eleanor Parker unable to do the one thing she must: convince us that Eileen Farrell’s thunderous voice is emanating from her throat. Oh, the mouth moves more-or-less in synch with the arias & pop tunes (Farrell unusually comfortable in all genres), but there’s no sense of a body participating in vocal production as she flings her arms out. And there's even less going on physically between Parker and Glenn Ford as the doctor/husband who didn’t want to become Mr. Marjorie Lawrence, then gave it all up to help her recover enough strength to resume her singing career to some extent. (The film has her return to the MET for the five hour TRISTAN AND ISOLDE!) Alas, all the dramatics in this M-G-M production, before and after her health crisis, have aged as poorly as the hazy print out on Warner Archive’s VOD. And director Curtis Bernhardt’s early CinemaScope megging feels nearly as wheelchair-bound as our protagonist. Somehow this tripe won a Best Writing Oscar® for William Ludwig & Sonya Levien. Ho-Yo-To-Ho, indeed!

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The first half of the film (farm girl/ Paris studies/stage/romance) is so conventional, it’s a relief when polio comes into play and gooses up the drama. How sick is that?

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: The year’s best musical bio-pic was more ‘Pop’ oriented: LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME with smash perfs from Doris Day & James Cagney (and even stiffer CinemaScope compositions from a becalmed/befuddled Charles Vidor).

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Listen up during a brief excerpt from CARMEN where William Olvis makes a standout partner for Parker on film (and Farrell on the vocal track).  His next gig put him on B’way (and the Original Cast Recording) for all the character tenor roles of Leonard Bernstein’s masterpiece CANDIDE.