THE CHAPMAN REPORT (1962)

Director George Cukor suffered more than his fair share of damaging post-production interference from second-guessing moguls. Half an hour bled from A STAR IS BORN/’54 after its initial release* and ‘clarifying’ voice-over narration & dumbed-down restructuring on BHOWANI JUNCTION/’56 being only the best known examples. And while much the same sort of distortion happens here, courtesy of producer Darryl F. Zanuck, it’s hard to mourn the loss. Anyway you slice it, and DFZ sliced with abandon, the film would still be a dud. With a stylish quartet of Malibu women to sample, we follow their personal crises with stops for participation in a Kinsey-esque sex survey they’ve volunteered for. Amazingly, they all seem shocked!, shocked! when their mystery interlocutor has the temerity to ask about . . . their sex lives! (Did they think it would be Coke?; Pepsi?; or Dr. Pepper?) Jane Fonda, still learning to read lines, is the frigid young widow; Shelley Winters is cheating on her all-too-solid hubby with a commitment-phobic two-timer; Claire Bloom’s the alcoholic-nympho who digs debasement; and Glynis Johns plays comic relief, scared at the brink of ravishment with a hunky beach boy. The script, nearly as desperate as the ladies, wants to be daring, modern, adult, but (again like the ladies) has trouble taking the gloves off. (Those dress gloves! Were they still omnipresent in Cali/’62?) And the big revealing sex interviews? Empty soliloquy workouts for the gals. (But offering a fresh ensemble at every session. Check out Fonda’s stupendous white hat! Just the thing for research.)

Halfway in you realize what Zanuck was up to, trying to sculpt a newfangled version of an old hit, A LETTER TO THREE WIVES/’49, now with psychological trimmings. All better handled by writer/director Joseph Mankiewicz in the earlier pic, and whose nephew, Don Mankiewicz, just happened to co-write this.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As mentioned, LETTER TO THREE WIVES which actually had FOUR wives until DFZ took a blue pencil to Mank’s first draft.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Lovingly restored in 1983 to something near it’s original condition/length.

SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972)

‘Too much’ was never enough for Brit filmmaker/ provocateur Ken Russell. But this largely overlooked bio-pic, on the intense, if platonic, relationship between manically gifted young artist Henri Gaudier (1891-1915) and older novelist Sophie Brzeska, finds purpose in excess, and far surpasses his better known/plusher films on Liszt, Tchaikovsky & Mahler.* Not that it’s without major faults of its own, starting at the top with fresh-faced ‘discovery’ Scott Antony, all wrong as Gaudier. (See self-portrait of the real Gaudier.)

Trying for artistic bliss & untamed spirit, he’s merely unfocused, ultimately exhausting. Dorothy Tutin's Brzeska gets closer to the maddening core of their odd partnership, but the real excitement shows up in stellar support from actors playing various avant-garde intellectual types (hilariously pretentious &/or insufferable), particularly young Helen Mirren as militant suffragette, bed partner and full-frontal nude goddess. Some superbly grungy sets from future ‘Queer Cinema’ pioneer Derek Jarman (putting the have-not into hovel) and resourceful lensing from Dick Bush reflect what must have been a real starving artist’s budget in a positive way. Maybe that very lack of funds helped keep Russell more on-track than usual, capturing something normally missed in artist bio-pics between his usual crudities & knee-jerk iconoclasm.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Russell’s at his very best in his early tv films, topped by SONG OF SUMMER/’68 on composer Frederick Delius. (And one on Edward Elgar, not seen here, has a fine rep.)

CONTEST: Spot the anachronistic Beatles reference to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of your choosing.

THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE (1956)

Intriguing adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, relocated to the US/Mexico border from France(?), is just good enough to frustrate by not being better. A literal Am-I-My-Brother’s-Keeper story, its Cain/Abel dichotomy is complicated by not quite knowing which role Van Johnson & older brother Joseph Cotten play. (This idea, directly expressed in dialogue, must be straight from the novel.) On a dark & stormy night, escaped convict Johnson, held back by flash floods from reaching his family in Mexico, seeks help from long-estranged brother Cotten. Financially well off, but in a barren marriage to Ruth Roman, Cotten has cut family ties to gain success . . . and buried any guilt for it. Director Henry Hathaway (with cinematographer Lee Garmes, CinemaScope & Deluxe® Color) can’t quite pull this off (let down by on-the-nose writing & playing), but still gets some tremendous effects from the SouthWest ‘Country Club Chic’ look in the well-to-do interiors of Cotten and, in a wicked party scene, their friends Jack Carson & Margaret Hayes. The latter, a tv actress, is particularly fine reveling in the chance to play mischief-maker, goading the worst out of her guests for the entertainment value. A final set piece, as the brothers patch things up trying for the border, is all but flawlessly run by Hathaway . . . which unfortunately exposes the tag ending as something of a cop-out. (Be sure to look for Harry Morgan in a perfect little scene at a roadside diner to see how this great supporting actor pulls the best out of Johnson.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: With his M-G-M contract running down, Johnson did some of the best work of his career, often as borderline alcoholics. (In 1954 alone, heavy tippling in BRIGADOON, CAINE MUTINY and LAST TIME I SAW PARIS/’54.)

DOUBLE-BILL: Hathaway & Cotten are even more in their element in the TechniColor suspense of NIAGARA/’53.

ABOVE AND BEYOND (1951)

Visually dull with flatfooted staging, the writing/directing team of Melvin Frank & Norman Panama specialized in leaving the canvas blank for comedians like Bob Hope & Danny Kaye to romp in. Here, they drop the jokes (all but one, involving a low-flying plane & a water tower) for a rare serious outing, while staying visually dull with flatfooted staging. Robert Taylor, least fondly recalled of Hollywood’s top Golden Age stars, takes the lead in this fact-inspired story of the pilot who dropped the first Atomic Bomb. And with a woman’s angle filling half the pic as put-upon wife Eleanor Parker grows increasingly frustrated at being left in the dark.* Dramatically, all highly respectable, even attempting to deal with the difficult issue of innocent war casualties. But it’s a subject that calls for daring. (Unlikely at early ‘50s M-G-M; though not impossible; see John Huston’s RED BADGE OF COURAGE/’51.) This one's neither great nor awful, plodding ahead tastefully . . . which in a way is worse. Frank/Panama do manage a bit of atmosphere on the eve of the mission, and the bomb run lends some tension (how could it not?), but the film is only intense in being intensely unmemorable.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Worried about appealing to ‘The Ladies,’ the trailer features encomiums from nearly every major female magazine editor & gossip columnist of the day. Starting with the holy press trinity of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons & Sheila Graham.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In a brief, tardy appearance, Gen. Curtis LeMay adds his approval to the bombing. (He famously didn’t believe in the concept of innocent civilians and in ‘68 ran for Vice Prez on the George Wallace ticket.) To play him? Who else but Mr. Magoo! Er . . . Thurston Howell of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND!! Oh, it’s Jim Backus.

THREE BLIND MICE (1938)

Made in 1938, but feeling five years behind the times; a lag that shouldn’t much matter after eight decades. Yet it makes all the diff in this modest romantic comedy since those involved know they’re handling stale goods and, under William Seiter’s routine megging, make a hard sell out of what ought to be light fun. The story is one more variation on the 'Three Girls Looking for Love' storyline, here with Loretta Young & two sisters leaving their Kansas chicken farm to find a millionaire in California. Parked at a swank resort, Loretta goes all La-Di-Da while her siblings act as her social staff. Sure enough, rich types Joel McCrea & David Niven come a’courting . . . but only one is really a millionaire. Young’s comic touch is harsh & overly bright, as if she were bribing us to chuckle, but if you hold on till the third act, the film detours into Screwball territory with a wild perf from Binnie Barnes as Niven’s hedonist sis. She’s not really as funny as she thinks, but her character, a beer guzzling lush in furs & couture, with a taste for hunky men, is so peculiar, you can’t take your eyes off her. Then the script pairs everyone up for a happy ending except her. How graceless.

DOUBLE-BILL: Joel McCrea's next attempt at this sort of thing came charmed with greatness (even wisdom), Preston Sturges’s THE PALM BEACH STORY/’42 with Claudette Colbert & Mary Astor effortlessly giving Young & Barnes a demonstration on how to play brittle sophisticated comedy.

THE STONE KILLER (1973)

This Michael Winner/Charles Bronson film came out the year before they struck vigilante paydirt with DEATH WISH/’74. (They’d been milking violence since CHATO’S LAND and THE MECHANIC in ’72.) But where DEATH WISH caught the Zeitgeist in having Bronson’s regular guy pushed toward shoot-em-up revenge, here he’s no fish-out-of-water agent of death just a trigger-happy cop with quick fists in the interrogation room. Leaving NYC for L.A. after shooting one punk too many, he winds up working both coasts when some suspects get bumped off mob-style. Coincidence? Connection? Turns out Godfather Martin Balsam (really?) is on a Mafioso consolidation spree and there’s been collateral damage. Winner was just about the coarsest of mainstream hacks: kick down a door and find a titillating lesbian couple, bluntly staged chases & fight scenes, action that slams but doesn’t build, and zoom-lensed non sequitor transition shots. At least he cast well, with actors who can take care of themselves. (Hey!, it’s John Ritter & Norman Fell before THREE’S COMPANY.) If he could only keep his coasts straight. (Where are we?) Or sort out his car chase drivers before wrapping things up with a cheap amoral tag and a witticism from Mr. Bronson. Perhaps the crap cinematography by Richard Moore was intentional.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Winner, who’s on the short list for Worst Film of All Time (normal budget division) with WON TON TON: THE DOG WHO SAVED HOLLYWOOD/’76, did try to break out of his rut adapting Alan Ayckbourn’s darkly farcical A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL/'89 (with Jeremy Irons as the unwitting Lothario in an amateur theatrical company - a fabulous project), but he simply hadn’t the chops for the job.

THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (SWEENEY TODD) (1936)

Before B’way composer Stephen Sondheim supplied musical cachet & cultural gravitas, SWEENEY TODD was Penny Dreadful stuff; camp, comic, playfully gross. As in this ‘Quota Quickie’ from George King, a specialist in these mandated British ‘B-pics,’ sops to the U.K. import/ export production ratio. Some directors, like Michael Powell & Carol Reed began there, then moved on; George King remained. This one, available in dupey, tv sourced prints with slightly cropped framing, features a grandstanding turn from the aptly named Tod Slaughter, wringing his hands & chuckling as the murderous barber. Hammy, but undeniably creepy, especially in the alternating rough/unctuous treatment of John Singer as young apprentice Tobias, recognizable from later supporting roles. Except for a brief tangent in the tropics, the story stays more or less the same (young sailor makes good; hopes to wed a wealthy man's young ward; is nearly turned into a human-meat pie!!). With suitably penny-dreadful production values, but not nearly as dire as you first expect; some of the secret back-street chambers have real Dickensian flavor, so too the flamboyant acting. (Something of Uriah Heep in this Sweeney.) Try to ignore the milling music that comes & goes to no particular purpose on the soundtrack. Added later for tv showings?

DOUBLE-BILL: Tim Burton’s trimmed 2007 rethink of the Sondheim musical is impressive, particularly on the male side.

ALLIED (2016)

With the exception of FLIGHT/’12 (ducked here), Robert Zemeckis has sojourned for nearly two decades in cutting edge CGI TechnoLand & motion-capture performance. Results have been mixed. (As in some worked commercially/all creepy to sit thru.) It makes this try at traditional WWII romantic suspense seem less old-style thriller, more career intervention. Everything feels a little ‘off,’ right from the opening title that sees ‘ALLIED’ subliminally fade to ‘LIE.’ Glam spies Marion Cotillard & Brad Pitt meet for cocktails in Casablanca (‘of all the gin joints in all the towns . . . ‘*) playing faux married couple to run a dangerous Nazi takedown op. Real marriage follows back in London before Pitt gets confronted with the possibility that he’s just wed a German agent! Plots don’t come more old-fashioned than that. Yet with all the meticulous period detail and seamless CGI effects, plotting & attitude (cultural & military) fail to convince or add up. (Pitt’s accent is noted as too Québécois, but 21st century mores get a pass.) Credit for a great action set piece when Pitt sneaks in to occupied France and then has trouble getting out. (Staying out of the brig after this is another matter.) And look fast for some b&w wedding photos that show our handsome stars suddenly looking just right for their parts.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Speaking of Casablanca, or rather of CASABLANCA/’42, Steven Knight, whose tone-deaf script is the film’s biggest stumbling block really has no shame, tossing in a brave rendition of ‘La Marseillaise’ before a roomful of German officers as a major plot point.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Bertrand Tavernier’s LAISSEZ-PASSER/ SAFE CONDUCT/’02, tells a twin tale of WWII espionage & resistance from within the film industry that’s both thrilling and true.

I THANK A FOOL (1962)

Late Susan Hayward vehicle, Made-in-the-U.K., is moldy as Stilton cheese, and none the worse for it. Taken from a novel Daphne Du Maurier might have disowned, it feels comforting, like a second-rate play you inexplicably enjoyed, ‘opened up’ for filming. Hayward, out of jail after 18 months on a euthanasia charge, is turned down for job after job before suddenly getting a position as companion/nurse to Peter Finch’s mentally unbalanced wife . . . and he’s the prosecutor who sent her to jail! Why has he searched for her, of all people? And just what’s wrong with wife Diane Cilento? Hayward’s late style tended toward over-determination, but here she’s relaxed & sensible, playing nicely against the conventions of Modern Gothic in the story. And just as surprising is Robert Stevens’ smooth megging, a tv director with a natural feel for the size & pace of a CinemaScope production. The twisty wrap-up is silly & barely motivated, but at least it’s speedy. Comforting in a proudly ridiculous, guilty-pleasure sort of way. Fun.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: After winning a belated Oscar® for I WANT TO LIVE/’58 (hardly her best), Hayward films always seemed to be sending her off to court. Here, twice.

DOUBLE-BILL: Hayward's at her youthful best in the under-seen beauty DEADLINE AT DAWN/’46 (see below), playing a ‘dance hostess’ who helps a sailor on a murder charge.