THE AMERICANO (1955)

Substandard doings for Glenn Ford at the time, this B-pic for an A-list star skips tough-to-film sequences to keep to its tight budget, missing those special moments that might have made something of this relentlessly ordinary pic. The film started shooting in Brazil, ran out of funds, then picked up back in Hollywood with a few casting changes. (Arthur Kennedy out/Frank Lovejoy in; etc.) It’s a contempo Western that has Ford traveling south (Texas to Brazil) with three Brahma bulls he’s selling to ambitious/ruthless cattleman Frank Lovejoy. But he winds up playing referee in a war between open range herders, hard working native farmers, and some outlaw anarchists. You can go to the Southern hemisphere, but you still can’t get away from standard Hollywood story beats about ranchers vs farmers. Cesar Romero is pretty much alone in having a good time on this one, playing a sly, likable bandito who buds up to Ford. And Ford seems happy having him steal every scene. Heck, not much else going on. Most everyone speaks English, which is fine, but when we do hear the local lingo, it sounds like Spanish. In Brazil? But then, what do you expect with a shlockmeister like William Castle calling the shots. That said, the film doesn’t so much leave a bad taste as an odd one.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For a drama about bringing a new breed of cattle on the range (English stock come to Texas), try James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara & Brian Keith in THE RARE BREED/’66. Horribly directed by Andrew McLaglen, it wastes a heckuva story with a bad script & bad production values. (The acting’s not so hot either, though Keith is strikingly outrageous.) But you can easily see the great story lurking behind the disappointing execution.

L'AMANT DOUBLE / DOUBLE LOVER (2017)

Polarizing psycho-sexual thriller (with one twist too many) from François Ozon, the preternaturally gifted French filmmaker who tends to overthink his projects to the point of collapse. Not this one, it collapses from under-thinking. Marine Vacht, another rail thin Parisian ingenue, is seeing hunky, young shrink Jérémie Renier to still her psychologically induced tummy troubles. But as she gets better, he stops treatment for love and moves in with her . . . and a cat who goes missing. That’s when she spots his secret identical twin psychologist brother on the street and is soon involved in a second affair, one with a sado-masochistic flair. (Tussle-haired Renier to calm her down and combed back Renier to tussle with!) But Ozon tosses in so many scenes that turn out to be either dreams or mirrored doppelgänger sightings, he’s like the boy who cried wolf. You stop caring since it's likely as not imaginary. Eventually, all the parties get wise to each other and fight for supremacy with Vacht off hunting for Renier’s past in the person of Jacqueline Bisset who knows the score from a parent’s P.O.V.  And Ozon has one more rug to pull out from under you. One rug too many. There’s a visual pop to some of the doubleback ideas that gives the film a bit of ‘wayback machine’ Brian De Palma pizzazz, plus an unhealthy dose of ROSEMARY’S BABY. Too much or not enough?

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Maybe Ozon needs to be forced to make a film he thinks he doesn’t want to do. Anything to rebalance his act. He’s got too much talent to waste it like this.

KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES (1953)

Ironically, Tyrone Power was more believable playing a full-blooded Indian doctor in 1939's THE RAINS CAME than as a ‘half-caste’ British officer in this early CinemaScope colonial epic. Put the disparity down to the pull of Golden Age studio æsthetic, the natural abstraction of b&w cinematography and Power’s youthful dazzle. Post WWII, shifting body mass & thickening features (along with Deluxe color prints) add an unwelcome realism, spoiling the illusion. Behind him, a strong production and a classic story line help (only this half-caste can possibly stop a local uprising), while lenser Leon Shamroy nails frame & horizon in the early ultra-WideScreen process and Bernard Herrmann’s score fills in missing emotions. Even sedate megger Henry King finds a stately swagger to his pace (look for a really nice bit of scary special effects weather in the desert), but is ultimately defeated by two badly miscast roles: Goy Rolfe’s swarthily painted Brit as the ‘mad’ Indian khan trying to grab power, and Terry Moore as Power’s love interest. Daughter to Michael Rennie’s sympathetic commanding officer, this reckless Lawrencian object of desire is too much the All-American teen. This one’s best around the edges.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why does Ty Power always look shorter than he actually was? Nearly 6', he looks about as tall as height-challenged Tom Cruise. (Here, he’s got to compete with Rennie & Rolfe, each of them standing 6'4".)

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, THE RAINS CAME. (see below)

CREST OF THE WAVE (1954)

Meant to be explosive (literally explosive) as new, powerful underwater bomb material undergoes rigorous testing off an isolated Scottish isle, this little film from the Brothers Boulting (John & Roy) is seriously underwhelming. Taken from a play, and feeling like it in the extended barracks scenes, the gimmick is that American Navy scientist Gene Kelly (in a rare straight dramatic part) is brought in after a series of failures to fix the problem before the next pair of brave British ‘volunteer’ testers get blown to pieces. John Justin is there to stick up for English Naval research, along with a handful of Her Majesty’s sailors adding comic relief and competitive spirit against the pair of USN seabees Kelly brings along with him. Kelly & Justin are fine as a pair of wary officers who finally start working together, and it’s a treat to find Bernard Lee (‘M’ in early James Bond pics) go proletariat as a tough navy ‘lifer.’ But the rest of the seamen are a dreary, cliché-ridden lot. So’s the pic.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For tough, manly men working thru submarine trials & personality clashes, go for Robert Wise’s RUN SILENT RUN DEEP/’58, with tip-top perfs from Clark Gable & Burt Lancaster.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Composer Miklós Rózsa adds some much needed tension with his score, but also gets stuck underlining comic bits with ‘funny’ music cues he couldn’t have been happy about.

GIDEON'S DAY / (AKA GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD) (1958)

Though hardly the only obscure film from John Ford’s late prime (see WHEN WILLIE COMES MARCHING HOME/’50; THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT/’53; THE RISING OF THE MOON /’57*), none was treated quite so shabbily. Made on quick notice when other projects hit snags, this police procedural (a long day of easily solved cases for Jack Hawkins’ likeable Inspector) was twice cut from it’s original length & lost Freddie Young’s lovely TechniColor lensing in b&w prints made for its token Stateside release. The film hasn’t a bad rep so much as it has no rep. Yet, while minor stuff, it does make for pleasant company, unexpectedly zippy as it gambols about well-chosen London locations & on clever, economically handled sets by art director Ken Adam. Loaded with good humored character actors, most of the relaxed comedy lands nicely though the suspense elements hardly catch fire. Anna Massey makes a sweet debut as Hawkins’ violinist daughter with an evening concert he’s trying to make, but Ford was probably more concerned with giving favored actress/friend Anna Lee her first role after six years on Hollywood’s BlackList. And the real pull for Ford may have been in its idealized depiction of the Inspector’s family. Loving, quick to forgive when work comes before family, a happy alternative to Ford’s own difficult, largely unhappy homelife. In the restored prints now available, it makes a nice rainy day feature. Just don’t go in expecting THE SEARCHERS.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Of those other obscure titles, Ford’s favorite was THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT. Awkward, near great, racially divisive. (see below) REMINDER to SmartPhone users, for easy film-by-film navigation, scroll down to View Web Version LINK to access the MAKSQUIBS Search Box in Upper Lefthand Corner on the full site. (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-sun-shines-bright-1953.html)

TENDER COMRADE (1943)

More talked about than seen nowadays, it was that title (TENDER COMRADE) that added a touch of infamy to this innocuous WWII trifle about four female defense plant workers pooling their rent money to move from furnished flats to a comfy colonial big enough for a family of ten. Voting on disputed issues, hiring a (Jewish?) German exile to housekeep & cook, stopping now and then for uplifting, patriotic pep talks on why their men are fighting overseas, it’s about as radical as a bond drive. Ginger Rogers, finishing up her R.K.O. contract, found some of the talk a little leftie in hindsight. Hmm . . . by such standards her own STAGE DOOR/’37 might have come under suspicion if it had been called STAGE COMRADE! This all makes the film sound rather more interesting than it is, but don’t you believe it. Director Edward Dmytryk got it about right when he called it maudlin, but personally a welcome step up into A-list projects. His biggest concern: would fave photog Russell Metty please Rogers when she saw the dailies? He was on to something. Ginger looks puffy, her eyes unfocused. More importantly, her old school/studio style acting jars against rising co-star Robert Ryan, leaning forward into a more naturalistic, post-war modernism. But this clash pales next to Trumbo’s lazy, uncomfortably misogynistic script, loaded with bickering flashbacks as wise, warm, manly Ryan condescends to Ginger’s female wiles & hysteria. Ruth Hussey, Patricia Collinge & a young Kim Hunter are the other tenants, each with a single problem to work out; while Mady Christians is the Jewish (?) German war refugee they hire to run the house. Ham-fisted, politically harmless fluff, unworthy of director, writer or Commie Hunter.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Dmytryk would quickly make up for this with MURDER, MY SWEET/’44, and later do right by Ryan in a post-war classic, CROSSFIRE/’47. Trumbo also quickly made good, following up with THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO/’44. OR: For a Hollywood view of the family homefront in action, David O. Selznick’s magnificent, if overripe, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY/’44.

PROSPERITY (1932)

Times were good in 1925 when Marie Dressler handed over her small-town bank to son Norman Foster on his wedding day. But now it’s 1932 Depression and a silly spat with mother-in-law Polly Moran leads to her abruptly closing her account, yelling at the teller for her cash, and precipitating a run on the bank that will ruin them all. A surprisingly timely dramedy to come out of M-G-M. (Issues & resolution not so far from Frank Capra’s superior AMERICAN MADNESS made the same year at Columbia.) Even more surprising, while the knockabout family comedy can be forced & downright annoying (Polly Moran’s full-out style has aged poorly), the dramatic side of things (simplistic, naive, highly unrealistic even in context), works very well within the film’s framework. Director Sam Wood, after some stiff Early Talkies, starting to get his camera up & running again (much like the beleaguered bank); Dressler, as always, uniquely fascinating, fussy & overcooked working thru mediocre gags and one-liners, then utterly still and rawly powerful in serious moments. Moving from one extreme to the other without transitions to buffer emotional whiplash. It’s an acting trick Dressler does a lot, a technique more in line with neighboring panels in a cartoon strip than anything like acting in a modern sense. And we’re poorer for the loss.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned above, AMERICAN MADNESS/’32, another ‘bank run’ story that sees the bank manager save the day. And, unlike this interesting pleasantry, a masterpiece.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/03/american-madness-1932.html

REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER (1975)

Clueless attempt to make a gritty Sidney Lumet-like NYC police meller (think SERPICO/’73, DOG DAY AFTERNOON/’75, PRINCE OF THE CITY/’81) fails badly.* With an overwrought Michael Moriarty sabotaging his rising career playing a softhearted/softheaded new generation undercover narc who shoots fellow undercover officer Susan Blakely, unaware she’s on a job, playing mistress to the city’s top black drug dealer. (Imagine that holding up in court.) No spoilers needed here since the whole shebang gets told in flashback as investigators work up their ‘Report to the Commissioner.’ The great Yaphet Kotto is around as the kid’s unwilling partner in the unit, adding a touch of verisimilitude to the proceedings. But he’s fighting a losing battle between lousy toupées on character actors and the film’s big set piece, an overdrawn climax that starts with a chase thru Midtown (with hunky dealer in white boxers) and ends as a Mexican Standoff in a Saks Fifth Avenue elevator! William Devane, Bob Balaban & a very young Richard Gere give the film a bit of a celebrity lift, and ‘70s street vibe adds pulse, but nothing can save this clunker.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with the above mentioned Lumet trio.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Abby Mann co-wrote the adaptation with his signature note of borrowed importance.

DEVIL AND THE DEEP (1932)

Charles Laughton’s Hollywood debut*, a reasonably effective marital drama most of the way which unexpectedly builds real suspense in a thriller-diller last act. And with Gary Cooper, Tallulah Bankhead & (briefly) Cary Grant in the other leads, you shouldn’t have trouble holding on for its action-packed finale. Fabulously shot by Charles Lang, and occasionally very well directed by Marion Gering, it opens with Laughton’s submarine captain murderously jealous without cause over his wife’s friendship with second-in-command Cary Grant. But his jealous rage takes a pathological turn when Grant replacement Gary Cooper meets Bankhead and, without knowing who she is, gives plenty of cause in a desert overnighter. There’s frisson a’plenty just watching Coop’s minimalist approach standing up to Laughton’s maximalism, here justified by incipient insanity. But the root of his jealousy is plainly stated in a gaze at Cooper in his devastating prime, ‘Must be a happy thing to look as you do,’ he says in wonder & abasement. (Ah, Charles, we ALL feel that way!) Tallulah is very good here, yet you’ll see why Paramount was about to drop her after a couple of years. She’s all but impossible to light & photograph; even in good angles, something of a death mask about her. It all ends with the three heading off to sea with sub & crew, Laughton hoping to sabotage the works and send them all down with the ship. Really exciting stuff here. Where has it been hiding?

DOUBLE--BILL: *Paramount had already lent Laughton to Universal for James Whale’s peculiar comic horror pic THE OLD, DARK HOUSE/’32 but they held its release back till DEVIL came out.