Daily Archives: April 15, 2016

The Great Locomotive Chase
Directed by Francis D. Lyon
Written by Lawrence Edward Watkin
1956/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

James J. Andrews: I went through pretty far tonight. Let me tell you this: If you can’t drink their toasts and sing their songs, love Jeff Davis and hate Abe Lincoln by next Friday, you’ll never reach Marietta.

This is Disney’s live-action version of Buster Keaton’s The General, told from the perspective of the Union spies who stole Buster’s train.  It’s an OK way to spend an hour and a half – perhaps better than OK if you are a train buff.

The film is bookended by a ceremony presenting the very first Congressional Medal of Honor to Union soldiers who participated in an effort to steal a train in Tennessee and use it to blow up bridges and destroy railroad track in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.  In the ceremony, Secretary of State Stanton states that these men helped quicken the end of the war.

James J. Andrews (Fess Parker) hails from Kentucky and is a civilian spy for the Union. His Southern accent and demeanor blends easily with supporters of the Confederacy.  He recruits a bunch of soldiers for his plot to steal “The General”.  Andrews pretends to be a railroad executive and the other men board with tickets to different destinations.  Conductor William A. Fuller (Jeffrey Hunter) is suspicious however.

The men are steal “The General” at a stop for breakfast.  They proceed to cut telephone lines and dig up rails en route to the Chickamauga River where they plan to burn bridges, preventing Confederate forces near Atlanta from reinforcing their comrades in the west.  Soon enough Fuller and some volunteers are on their trail, at first in a hand-car and later in a steam engine’s cab.  Will they catch the Union spies?  The movie ends with a strong message of reconciliation.

I like Fess Parker’s rugged good looks but I find him a pretty wooden actor.  He is good at being upright, however.  The movie is serious and moderately exciting, certainly no match for Keaton’s masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epp9r-JjYvs

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The Proud and the Profane
Directed by George Seaton
Written by George Seaton from a novel by Lucy Herndon Crockett
1956/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Take any picture you can. One out of four will be good, one out of ten will be very good, and one out of 15 will get you an Academy Award. — William Holden[/box]

This post is part of the Golden Boy Blogathon being hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema.  You can see other excellent posts about William Holden and his films collected here.

In the run up to his performance in 1957’s great The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1956 saw William Holden’s appearance in a couple of lesser-known films – one was the seemingly unavailable Toward the Unknown, the other was this one.  Holden and co-stars Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter are all quite good but it is lesser known for a reason.

Lee Ashley’s (Kerr) genteel Marine husband was killed on Guadalcanal.  She has had herself assigned as a Red Cross volunteer on New Caledonia in hopes that the unit would later be moved on to Guadalcanal to comfort the occupation troops there.  Sassy Kate Conners (Ritter) fought having Lee put in her group to no avail.  Lee spends a lot of time quizzing the returnees from the island on whether they knew her husband.  She also plays chess and teaches French.  Lee and her husband were high society horsey types back home.

One day, she meets the tough, arrogant Lt. Col. Colin Black (Holden).  Black reveals that he is half-Indian and has a gigantic chip on his shoulder.  We also find out during the course of the movie that he has very little compassion for his men, seeing them as basically fighting machines.  When Black was earlier informed of the indentity of Lee’s husband he had no reaction,  when he actually meets Lee he is equipped with a pretty good story.  He pursues Lee, who resists him until she succumbs to his sheer animal magnetism.

They have a passionate affair, just short of making love in the surf.  Finally, Black and his men are sent back to Guadalcanal.  Before he departs, he asks her to marry him.  She eagerly accepts.  I won’t reveal the remainder of the plot but it really irritated me.

This is the first time I have seen Holden in a mustache.  He certainly didn’t need to cover any part of his face but I quickly grew accustomed to it.  The part was in his line of bitter, romantic heroes.  Kerr is always good but she was perhaps made to echo her part in From Here to Eternity a bit too much, down to the blonde hair.  Ritter is always Ritter and always wonderful.  The script and dialogue are on the sentimental side with an important religious subplot.  In short, I was not wowed but it held my attention all the way through.

PARTIAL SPOILER:  In the ending, Holden is caught in a devastating lie.  During the confrontation with Kerr, he manages to push Kerr, causing her to hit her head and putting her in the hospital.  Yet, the climax is all about how Kerr should be a “woman” and forgive Holden.  It’s this attitude that stuck and sticks women in abusive relationships and I can’t stand it.

The Proud and the Profane was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83O-PG63eu0

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