Monthly Archives: May 2016

The Killer Is Loose
Directed by Budd Boetticher
Written by Harold Medford from a story by John and Ward Hawkins
1956/USA
Crown Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

“Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.” ― Walter Scott, The Heart of Mid-Lothian

I love this unsung little film noir.  You have never seen Wendell Corey like this.

Leon Poole (Corey) is a meek bank teller who is having a particularly bad day.  His sergeant from his days in the military shows up as a customer.  The man starts calling Leon “Foggy”and reminds him of the general incompetence that earned him his nickname. Then the bank is robbed. In pretty short order, Detective Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotten) figures out this was an inside job and Leon was the culprit.  The cops go to visit Leon at his apartment, Leon resists, and his beloved wife accidentally is shot by Sam in the scuffle.  Leon vows revenge.

Leon is convicted of the robbery and sentenced to ten years in prison.  He is a model prisoner in every way and is finally sent to the honor work farm.  When he gets an opportunity, he makes a violent escape and sets out to carry out his revenge on Lila (Rhonda Fleming), Sam’s pregnant wife.

The movie is only 73 minutes long and Boetticher makes every minute count.  The screenplay rises up to meet his level.  Corey is simply a revelation, making his character pitiable and horrifying at the same time.  Recommended.

The complete film is currently available on YouTube.

Clip – SPOILER

Plucking the Daisy (En effeuillant la marguerite)
Directed by Marc Allegret
Written by Roger Vadim and Marc Allegret from a story by William Benjamin
1956/France
Films EGE/Hoch Productions
First viewing/Hulu

 [observation, 1987] I gave my youth and beauty to men. Now I’m giving my wisdom and my experience, the better part of me, to animals. — Brigitte Bardot

This Bardot vehicle is a fairly tame and silly farce.

Agnes Dumont (Bardot) is the eighteen-year-old daughter of a general.  She has written an anonymous and scandalous best-seller about her local Vichy society called Plucking the Daisy.  She is about to reveal her identity in a press conference in Paris.  She also plans to meet her brother whom she believes is a successful painter.  On the train there, she finds herself without a ticket and seeks the help of a reporter and photographer both of whom lust after her.  Eventually, she will fall for the reporter.

It turns out her brother is merely a security guard at the Balzac museum.  Not knowing this she goes to the museum, which the brother has used as is address, and makes herself at home.  Still out of cash, she grabs one of the rare books and sells it, using the money to buy a wardrobe and repay her friends for the ticket.  When she finds out the truth, she needs cash fast to buy the book back and resorts to competing in an amateur striptease contest.  She performs in a mask and the film moves into a comedy of mistaken identities.

Not in the film

The material does not glow like Mlle Bardot and the film seemed to go on and on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ92NptyFk8

Clip – PG rated

Godzilla, King of the Monsters
Directed by Ishiro Honda and Terry Morse
English version by Al C. Ward
1956/Japan/USA
Jewell Enterprises, Inc.
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

Steve Martin: I’m afraid my Japanese is a little rusty.

The American release of Gojira (1954) loses a lot of the apocalyptic poetry of the original.  Still good fun.

The movie opens on reporter Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) laying in the rubble after the devastation of Tokyo.  He is taken to the hospital where Dr. Yamane’s daughter Emiko visits him.  He then ponders the events leading up to this day and we move into flashback.  Martin is on a layover in Tokyo where he plans to meet his friend Dr. Serizawa.  The authorities call him in for questioning on what he observed from his plane.  Once they find out he is a reporter, he is given access to all their secret information!

The story of the monster and its destruction is basically the same as outlined in my review of Gojira with much less emphasis on the H-bomb test angle, which makes sense considering this version’s intended audience.

This may be the first good-guy role of this era I have seen Burr in.  He makes a better villain I think.  The way they meld the Japanese actors into the scenes with Burr is often amusing.  If given the choice, I’d recommend viewers seek out the original.  If not, this is still a ton of fun.

Trailer

… And God Created Woman (Et Dieu… créa la femme)
Directed by Roger Vadim
Written by Roger Vadim and Raoul Levy
1956/France
Cocinor/Iena Productions/Union Cinematographique Lyonnaise
First viewing/Hulu

Juliete Hardy: That’s my favorite song!
Antoine Tardieu: It’s the first time I ever heard it.
Juliete Hardy: Me too.

This film made Brigitte Bardot a star and international sex symbol.  It exceeded my very low expectations.

Juliete (Bardot) is an eighteen-year-old orphan who has been taken in by a family in San Tropez.  She is a “wild child” who does and says exactly what she wants at all times. Her family is threatening to send her back to the orphanage because of her bad attitude, particularly toward work.  Juliete has attracted the attention of Eric Carradine (Curd Jurgens), a much-older shipping tycoon.  She flirts with him but is in love with Antoine (Christian Marquand), the eldest son of a family that owns a shipping business that Carradine wants to acquire.  His plan is to “have” her then drop her flat and marry somebody else.  She overhears him talking about this in the uni-sex restroom and drops him first.

Finally, push comes to shove and Juliete’s family calls Social Services on her, she gives lip to the welfare lady, and is now due to be shipped back to the orphanage until she is 21. Marriage or adoption is the only out.   Carradine tries to get Antoine to marry her but it’s no go.  But Antoine’s younger brother Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has been pining for Juliet and is more than willing to take her on despite the vehement opposition of his mother.  Juliete decides she likes him and the marriage is successful at first.

The rest of the movie follows Juliete’s adventures with all the men in her life.

This movie is not great or anything but the Riviera and Bardot both look wonderful.  I love Trintignant and he is good in one of his very first feature films.  Bardot herself is actually not a bad actress and is an expert at the mambo.

Clip (no subtitles necessary!)

A Kiss Before Dying
Directed by Gerd Oswald
Written by Lawrence Roman from a novel by Ira Levin
1956/USA
Crown Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Bud Corliss: Haven’t you heard? Love conquers all.[/box]

This movie is OK but not nearly as good as I remember the novel being.

Bud Corliss (Robert Wagner) is a 25-year-old college student.  He has been dating Dori Kingship (Joanne Woodward), the daughter of a mining tycoon.  They have kept the relationship secret from her very controlling father.  Now she is pregnant.  She breaks the news to Bud, who is not pleased to say the least.  He had been looking forward to marrying the mining fortune and knows that Dori will be thrown out of the family if her father learns of her indiscretion.  Dori doesn’t care about the money or anything really except Bud.  He puts off their wedding in hopes “there will be some change”.  There is none and he starts making other plans.

It is not fair to go further into the plot which relies on a couple of surprises. With Mary Astor as Bud’s mother and George Macready as Dori’s father.

I don’t think much of Robert Wagner as an actor but I must say he is perfect for his character.  Joanne Woodward is always great.  I felt like a fool because I kept looking at her thinking “that looks exactly like Joanne Woodward”!  Then of course it was, I thought she was going to show up in a different part. There’s a lot of Hitchcockian touches and jump cuts in this.  To me it illustrated what a difference the finesse of a master’s hand made in Hitchcock’s films.  They came off as slightly clunky in this one.

Trailer

The Spanish Gardener
Directed by Philip Leacock
Written by Lesley Storm and John Bryan from a novel by A.J. Cronin
1956/UK
The Rank Organization
First viewing/Amazon Prime

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Marcus Tullius Cicero

This psychological drama sounded like it might be right up my street.  Unfortunately, a child actor is in the lead and when that performance didn’t work it took the film with it.

Harrington Brande (Michael Hornden) is a British diplomat with a list of grievances against the world.  His wife left him and he isn’t advancing in the foreign service at the rate he thinks he deserves.  Once you get to know him, you understand exactly why.  He is rigid, self-important and cold.  He has more or less taken his young son hostage.  He refuses to send Nicholas to school and doesn’t let him do much of anything else on grounds that the boy is “delicate”.

After Brande is again passed over for promotion, he and Nicholas are sent from Madrid to a Spanish port town to take over from the man who got the job.  Brande is full of resentment, made worse by the popularity of his predecessor.  Nicholas, however, is rescued by a warm relationship with Juan (Dirk Bogarde), a young gardener he adores. Brande’s jealousy almost destroys them all.  With Cyril Cusak as a butler.

I have a fairly high tolerance for child actors but this one really missed the boat.  He is artificially sweet and twee.  The other acting is fine.  The script is OK.  And I was so looking forward to another Bogarde movie!  He is good but miscast as what should be a hearty Spanish pelota hero.

Clip

Flowing (Nagareru)
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Written by Toshirô Ide and Sumie Tanaka from a novel by Aya Kôda
1956/Japan
Toho Company
First viewing/Hulu

“The river is everywhere.” ― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Japan’s greatest actresses gather in Naruse’s gentler story of aging geishas in a changing world.

Otsuta (Isuzu Yamada, Throne of Blood) runs a geisha house in Tokyo.  Her daughter Katsuyo (Hideko Takamine, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs) has no intention of becoming a geisha or taking over the business but helps out by keeping the books.  This is a painful task as the business is deeply in debt.  The geishas working at the house include Someko (Haruko Sugimura, Tokyo Story).  As the story begins, Otsuta hires the widowed Rika Yamanaka (Kinuyo Tanaka, Ugetsu etc. etc. etc.) as a maid.  The gentle Rika proves to be an ideal, loyal employee and becomes the confidant of many of the other women.

The story is episodic but centers on Otsuta’s efforts to stay afloat.  She seeks help from both her disapproving sister and from a female restaurant owner who hires geishas.  Even so, men will have to be the ultimate source of her financing.  By the end, it is clear she is no longer able to depend on their favors.  But life quietly goes on for Otsuta and her colleagues.

For me the highlight of this film was Tanaka’s performance in a role quite unlike anything I had ever seen her in.  She is the soul of the story.  The film is beautiful to look at as well.  It was interesting to see Naruse’s look at basically the same subject matter as covered by Mizoguchi in this year’s Street of Shame with much heightened drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRk1YJOQXyI

No trailer or clip so here’s some background on the director

Miracle in the Rain
Directed by Rudolph Maté
Written by Ben Hecht from a novel by Hecht
1956/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix Rental

Ruth Wood: How can there be a God when things like this happen, people getting killed?

The plot of this romantic drama sounds very corny.  I cried and loved it.  Jane Wyman is perfect in her part.

The setting is 1942 New York City.  Ruth Wood (Wyman) is a shy office worker.  She spends most of her free time caring for her mother who became an invalid after Ruth’s father abruptly left her for another woman. What little fun she has is with her co-worker Grace Ullmann (Eileen Heckart).  One day, she is walking to the bus and gets caught in the rain.  PFC Art Hugenon (Van Johnson) takes the opportunity to chat her up.  The relentlessly cheerful Art talks non-stop. But that only makes him a perfect match for Ruth.

Art more or less talks himself into having dinner with Ruth and her mother.  He takes Ruth and Grace to the movies the next night.  After dinner, he takes them to a fancy French restaurant.  The piano player there just happens to be Ruth’s father who hasn’t seen Ruth since the day he left her mother.  He flees before she can know he is there.

The courtship proceeds and in short order the couple is in love.  But the romance is short-lived because Art is shipped overseas.   I’ll stop here.

I didn’t know anything about this film before I watched it and had fairly low expectations.  It looked like a real melodrama and in some ways it is.  The screenplay is so strong though and the acting is so good that it was a total joy.  Despite the plot framework the people and details seemed very real.  Jane Wyman plays Ruth with a simplicity that is really winning.  The large cast of supporting characters is very strong and Eileen Heckart earned her crown as my favorite actress of 1956.  Recommended if the genre appeals in the least.

Trailer

The Proud Ones
Directed by Robert D. Webb
Written by Edmund H. North and Joseph Petracca from a novel by Verne Athanas
1956/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Cass Silver, Marshal Flat Rock Kansas: Used to be a nice quiet place.
Sally, Cass’ Woman: That’s the sound of money, Cass. I like it noisy.

This is a solid, if unexceptional, Western with something of a High Noon feel.

Cass Silver (Robert Ryan) is the marshal of Flat Rock.  His girlfriend Sally (Virginia Mayo) urged him to flee from his last position to avoid confronting corrupt and evil gambling boss ‘Honest John’ Barnett (Robert Middleton).  As the film begins, the trail hands who have brought a huge herd of cattle to market are being paid and preparing for a wild few days in Flat Rock.  Cass rides out and warns them to leave half their pay and all their guns in camp.  The townspeople are ecstatic to welcome the cowhands, having raised all their prices sky high in greeting, and Barnett moves his gambling operation into town.

One of the cowhands is Thad Anderson (Jeffrey Hunter).  He has not left his guns in camp. This is because he has vowed revenge on Cass for having killed his father, who was a gunslinger for Barnett in the last town.  Barnett had told him that his father was unarmed at the time.

This time Cass is determined to confront Barnett.  He rounds up several of Barnett’s confederates for murder and puts them under the care of the jailer Jake (Walter Brennan) to await trial.  Everybody in town, including Sally and Cass’s deputy (Arthur O’Connell), pleads with Cass to lay off Barnett.  Finally, the deputy quits.  Despite a number of run-ins, Cass hires Thad to take the deputy’s place.  It is never quite clear where Thad’s loyalties lie.

I always look forward to seeing anything with Robert Ryan in it and he never disappoints. It’s nice to see him as a good guy. I felt like I had seen large chunks of this before but it was engaging throughout.  My husband, the Western aficionado, gave this movie four stars – high praise indeed coming from him.

Trailer