Monthly Archives: May 2016

Elena and Her Men (Elena et les hommes)
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Jean Renoir and Jean Serge
1956/Italy/France
Franco London Films/Les Films Gibe/Electra Compagnia Cinematografica
Repeat viewing/My DVD collection

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” ― Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte[/box]

One would hardly know that a great director was behind this lackluster farce.

The beautiful Polish Countess Elena Sokorowska (Ingrid Bergman) has many admirers and a talent for bestowing good luck upon her favorites through the gift of a daisy.  Her household has run out of pearls to sell though and she decides to marry an elderly munitions manufacturer.  One day she goes out to glimpse General François Rollan (Jean Marais), a war hero.  She meets Henry de Chevincourt (Mel Ferrer), who takes her to meet his friend Rollan.  She gives the General a daisy and he is named as the next Minister of War.

Elena goes off to the country home of her intended but keeps being drawn back to the General, who falls on hard times whenever his lady throws away his daisy.  It is the clever Chevincourt who really loves her, however, and he plots to win her amid the political intrigue surrounding Rollan.

I forgot almost everything about this film as soon as I turned it off.  Bergman and the scenery looked very beautiful but there seemed to be no point to telling this story.  For me, it just lacked the humor and romance that could have saved it.

Clip (no subtitles)

The Killing
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Jim Thompson from a novel by Lionel White
1956/USA
Harris-Kubrick Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Johnny Clay: You’d be killing a horse – that’s not first degree murder, in fact it’s not murder at all, in fact I don’t know what it is.

Early in his career, Kubrick had it all together.

Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) has emerged from five long hard years of prison and immediately sets out planning a spectacular robbery designed to let him retire from his life of crime and marry his patient girlfriend (Colleen Grey).  We watch the planning of an elaborate scheme to steal up to $2 million in the take of a race track before it can be delivered to the armored car.  The set-up involves a number of moving parts, including a couple of insiders, a muscle man, a sniper and a crooked cop.

As always with these things, the heist relies on each of its members.  And if we ever learned anything, it is that you can’t trust a criminal.  With Elisha Cook Jr. as a race track cashier and Marie Windsor as his bored and greedy wife.

This film is only 85 minutes long and each minute is packed with style. The camera work is gorgeous.  I have deliberately kept the plot synopsis brief so viewers can savor every development.  It has one of the great ironic endings and last lines of all time IMHO.  Highly recommended.

Trailer

Baby Doll
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Tennessee Williams
1956/USA
Newtown Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

Baby Doll: Sometimes, big shot, you don’t seem to give me credit for very much intelligence at all. I’ve been to school in my life – and I’m a magazine reader!

I don’t know what I was expecting but it certainly was not this fantastic black comedy!

Baby Doll Meghan (Carol Baker) is nineteen years old and sleeps in a crib.  She is married to Archie Meghan (Karl Malden).  They have an “agreement” that the marriage will not be consummated until she turns 20, which will happen in a couple of days.  Baby Doll does not appear to be enthusiastic and makes it clear that her part of the deal is contingent on the couple retaining the furniture they bought on credit.  This seems doubtful as Archie’s decrepit cotton gin has been put out of business by a modern operation in town.

Baby Doll has pretentions of gentility and Archie sees himself as a good ol’ boy but they both behave like stereotypical White Trash.  Archie has liquor bottles stashed around the place which he frequently sips from on the sly.  The couple lives in squalor with Baby Doll’s Aunt Rose Comfort (Mildred Dunnock) who acts as chief cook and bottle washer when she is not over visiting an acquaintance at the hospital in order to nibble on their chocolate candy.

Finally the furniture company comes and repossesses all the furniture in the house save the nursery set.  In desperation, Archie sets fire to the competition.  Outsider Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach in his film debut) who operates the gin is on to Archie and arrives to get his cotton processed and get revenge.  It turns out revenge is sweeter than expected when he sets eyes on Baby Doll.

My sense of humor is idiosyncratic and possibly warped but I thought this was hilarious. The writing is jam-packed with terrific one-liners and double entendres.  I love Eli Wallach and he is deliciously wicked here.  The other actors match him in excellence.  The direction is also fantastic.  I loved all the shots of farm hands of different races cracking up at the goings on.  Recommended.

The film was condemned by the Legion of Decency for “carnal suggestiveness” and led to an organized nationwide boycott by Catholics.  It was cancelled by 77% of the theaters scheduled to show it.  The film is very suggestive but not graphic by any means.

Baby Doll was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress; Best Supporting Actress (Dunnock); Best Writing, Best Screenplay – Adapted; and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

Trailer

Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (Miyamoto Musashi kanketsuhen: kettô Ganryûjima)
Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
Written by Hiroshi Inagaki and Tokuhei Wakao from a play by Hideiji Hojo and a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa
1956/Japan
Toho Company
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

“A duel, whether regarded as a ceremony in the cult of honour, or even when reduced in its moral essence to a form of manly sport, demands a perfect singleness of intention, a homicidal austerity of mood.” ― Joseph Conrad, A Set Of Six

There are a couple of gorgeously shot and spectacular sword fights in the last installment of the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy.  They are the highlights of the film.

Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune) has continued on his quest to perfect his sword fighting and improve his character.  His rival Sasaki Kojira is itching for a fight.  They meet and eventually set up a fight for the following year.  Miyamoto retreats to a village where he works as a humble farmer.  Lady love Otsu finally locates him there.

In the meantime, Otsu’s rival Akemi has hooked up with Kojiro.  She is still pining for Miyamoto however and eventually takes off to try to find him.  There is a face off between Otsu and Akemi.  What will be left for Musashi after he tests himself with the only worthy rival remaining in Japn?

The title duel takes place on the shores of an island at sunset and is extremely beautiful as well as exciting.  It’s the reason I rank this picture ahead of the two prior films.  Toshiro Mifune is excellent but is not given as much to work with as in his films with Kurosawa.

The Fastest Gun Alive
Directed by Russell Rouse
Written by Frank D. Gilroy and Russell Rouse from a story by Gilroy
1956/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Clint Fallon: Mr. I don’t want to fight! But don’t push it!

There are several reasons I did not like this Western, which attempts to have a broader significance a la High Noon or The Gunfighter.

As the story starts, Vinnie Harold (Broderick Crawford) and his gang of outlaws ride into town.  Vinnie is there to challenge the local champion, who has a reputation as “The Fastest Gun Alive” to a quickdraw shoot out.  Vinnie wins the contest.  The gang then rides out to rob a bank.

We then move to Cross Creek and meet George Temple (Glenn Ford) and his wife Dora (Jeanne Crain).  They have lived in town for four years and run a general store.  But George is tormented by a secret past, which is hidden from us for an aggravatingly long time.  Anyway, Dora is pregnant and is really worried about her man.  He looks about ready to snap and she is tired of moving from town to town when he blows.

It is not too much to reveal that George is, or believes himself to be, the The Fastest Gun Alive.  He has to keep one step ahead of all challengers.  Things come to a head when Vinnie and his gang ride into town to get fresh horses.

I like all the actors in this one but the script dragged it out to the point where it seemed like they were all over-emoting.  George’s secret adds up to a whole lot of nothing.  Jeanne Crain is made up to look like Mrs. 1956.  The whole thing just felt kind of phony to me.

Trailer

The Werewolf
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Written by Robert E. Kent and James B. Gordon
1956/USA
Clover Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Dr. Emery Forrest: You’re not going to kill him!
Dr. Morgan Chambers: You think he still wants to live after what he’s become? It would be an act of charity.

This is not half bad for a cheesy Sam-Katzman produced horror flick.

A stranger walks into a bar in a small mountain town.  He doesn’t know his name or where he is and is acting mighty strange.  His carelessness about money tempts one of the other customers to follow him into a dark alley.  The other customer never emerges, having had his throat ripped out by animal claws.

Eventually we find out that the man was involved in a minor car accident.  Some evil doctors got hold of him and injected an experimental serum designed to allow them to survive the coming nuclear holocaust.  Our friend, who has a wife and child worried about his disappearance, is a werewolf.  Things proceed as might be expected.

I got everything I could possibly hope for from this movie.  That is to say it was mildly entertaining.  Love the torch-wielding townspeople at the end!  The transformation technique left something to be desired but we can’t quibble about the details in these things.

Trailer

Seven Men from Now
Directed by Budd Boetticher
Written by Burt Kennedy
1956/USA
Batjac Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

Ben Stride: [about Greer] A man oughta be able to take care of his woman.

This movie shows that a familiar plot done well can still make an excellent movie.

Ben Stride (Randolph Scott)  used to be the sheriff of a town called Silver Spring until he was voted out of office.  He was too proud to take the job of deputy and couldn’t find any other work.  His beloved wife therefore took a job at the Wells Fargo office.  She was killed during a robbery of the office.  Now Ben is chasing down the seven men responsible. Early on he has success with two of them.  He then heads toward Flora Vista where he believes the others are in hiding.

On the way there, Ben runs into a couple of Easterners named Greer whose wagon is stuck in the mud. The man seems to be completely hopeless at any type of manual labor or decision-making.  His wife Annie (Gail Russell) is a different story.  Ben helps them.  They then find they are heading in the same direction.  The attraction between Annie and Ben is palpable but unacted on.

The party then runs into Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) or rather he runs into them.  He is after the $20,000 robbed from the Wells Fargo office and figures Ben will lead him to it when he finds the targets of his revenge.  Ben locked up Bill twice in the past and there is no love lost between them.  The rest of the movie follows the dynamic of the little group and Ben’s progress toward revenge.

We have seen this same revenge story in several Westerns.  What sets this apart is the excellence of all its elements.  The acting is first rate (I never thought I would say that about Randolph Scott based on his work in the 30’s) and the proceedings are kept moving at a good pace and shot in an interesting way.  Recommended.

Trailer