Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Five Pennies
Directed by Melville Shavelson
Written by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson; story by Robert Smith
1959/USA
Dena Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original. – Louis Armstrong

This is a solid little biopic.  The fabulous jazz takes it up a notch.

It is the Roaring Twenties. Loring ‘Red’ Nichols (Danny Kaye) is spotted playing the cornet out in his hometown of Ogden, Utah and hired to play in band in New York.  He promptly meets and falls in love with fun-loving singer Willa ‘Bobbie’ Stutzman (Barbara Bel Geddes) and they marry.  She sticks by him in his numerous run-ins with bandleaders who do not appreciate his penchant for Dixieland jazz or clowning.  Finally, he starts his own band and goes on to success on the road.  His bands include many of the players who will become stars in the big band era.

Red and Bobbie both dote on their daughter Dorothy.  When she is about six, Bobbie feels they should settle down and put her in school.  Red doesn’t want to give up his band and they compromise by putting the child in boarding school, where she is miserable.  Dorothy develops polio and Red blames himself.  He works at a WWII shipyard while the couple nurse her back to health.  Can Red be separated permanently from his horn?  With Tuesday Weld as the teen-aged Dorothy.

The best thing about any movie with Louis Armstrong in it is Armstrong and this is no exception.  Furthermore, it is jam-packed with music from Satchmo and Red Loring, who is heard while Kaye mimes the playing.  The story is sweet and a little corny but could not have been done better for its kind.  Kaye and Bel Geddes are both endearing.

The Five Pennies was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; Best Music, Original Song (“The Five Pennies”); and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LGhi-s5qc

Clips – fabulous trumpet playing

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
Directed by Edward L. Cahn
Written by Orville H. Hampton
1959/USA
Vogue Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. William Shakespeare [/box]

I thought this was one of the creepier B horror films of its vintage.  There is just something about shrunken heads …

Jonathan Drake’s brother Kenneth dies on his sixtieth birthday, allegedly of natural causes.  Drake, who believes there is a curse on the family, insists on viewing the corpse.  Sure enough, the body has been decapitated.  Could it have something to do with the sinister archeologist (Henry Daniell) who has been hanging around or his mute Indian sidekick? Drake, his daughter, and a police inspector must find out before Jonathan becomes the next victim.

I found all the scenes with the heads super gruesome, although bloodless.  This is not a bad little flick for its genre

Clip – Two villains shrink a head

The Wreck of the Mary Deare
Directed by Michael Anderson
Written by Eric Ambler from a novel by Hammond Innes
1959/UK/USA
Blaustein-Baroda
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Gideon Patch: You listen! I didn’t ask you to come on board, and I’m in command here! Now, if you don’t like it, you can go over the side and swim![/box]

This has some good performances and special effects but in the end I was left wondering what Hitchcock would have made of the story.

John Sands (Charleton Heston) runs a small salvage ship with one other man.  In the midst of a violent storm, they come upon the apparently derelict Mary Deare, which is billowing smoke and from which all but one lifeboat has been launched.  Sands boards the vessel to see what riches they may be able to salvage from the ship.  He is met by the half-crazed captain Gerald Patch (Gary Cooper).

Despite the fact that the ship is obviously in serious trouble, Patch will not accept assistance and orders Sands off his vessel.  But the storm prevents Sands from safely departing and Patch must save his life.  He stays on board and eventually follows orders until the two manage to wreck the ship on a rocky shore.  Patch refuses to explain any of the suspicious circumstances until he can be heard from a court of inquiry.  Sands reluctantly agrees not to reveal the location of the ship until that time.

When the men are finally rescued from the remaining lifeboat, Sands learns that Patch has quite a history with wrecks.  Surviving crew members accuse him of panicking and unnecessarily ordering the crew to abandon ship.  Patch desperately seeks to clear his name in the ensuing inquiry.  With Richard Harris as a sadistic bad guy and Michael Redgrave as the attorney for the Ministry of Transportation.

This starts off strong with an intriguing mystery.  It loses steam when the men reach shore and a fairly routine courtroom drama begins.  Gary Cooper’s late-50’s haggard mien and intensity suits his character well and the mainly British supporting cast is quite good.  The writing and pacing could have used more oomph, though.

This novel was one of the first projects Hitchcock was supposed to tackle when he came to the U.S.  It was interesting to ponder what he could have done with it.  In the end he and screenwriter Ernest Lehman could not come up with a satisfactory treatment so the problem may have been in the source material.

Trailer

Too Many Crooks
Directed by Mario Zampi
Michael Pertwee; story by Christiane Rochefort and Jean Nery
1959/UK
Rank Organization/Mario Zampi Productions
First viewing/YouTube

Sid: [Billy Gordon has refused to ransom his wife] What are we supposed to do now? Keep her as a pet?

The leading lights of classic British comedy make a for a genuinely funny comedy of errors.

Fingers (George Cole) is the hopelessly incompetent mastermind of a gang of crooks that barely tolerate him.  He comes up with a scheme to rob millionaire and notorious tax evader Billy Gordon (Terry-Thomas).  When this fails miserably, his next idea is to kidnap Billy’s beloved daughter, who is about to marry a tax inspector.

As usual everything goes wrong and they end up with Billy’s wife (Brenda de Banzie).  The womanizing cheat doesn’t want her back.  The gang is up a tree until the wife decides to get delicious revenge.

Though the source is not credited, this is basically a take-off on O’Henry’s classic short story “The Ransom of Red Chief”.  One of my favorite comedies of all time is Ruthless People (1986,) which is drawn from the same source.The dry wit, double entendres, and Monty Pythonesque physical humor in this film made it thoroughly enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfmOgvOq1s8

Trailer

Pillow Talk
Directed by Michael Gordon
Written by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin; story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Green
1959/USA
Universal International Pictures/Arwin Productions
First viewing?/Netflix rental

[box] Alma: If there’s anything worse than a woman living alone, it’s a woman saying she likes it.[/box]

This Technicolor 50’s “sex comedy” was rescued for me by the chemistry and performances of its leads.

Jan Morris (Doris Day) is a smart, independent interior decorator to the New York elite. She shares a party line with Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a womanizing song writer.  Brad gets on her last nerve by talking on the phone constantly with his various conquests.  Eventually, she confronts him but he continues behaving badly.

Jan’s wealthy client Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) wants to marry her.  He also happens to be the backer of the Broadway show Brad is composing.  Jonathan’s description of his prickly neighbor intrigues Brad so he poses as a mild-mannered Texas rancher to date her up.  Misunderstandings and witty repartee ensue.  With Thelma Ritter as Jan’s hard-drinking housekeeper and Marcel Dalio as Jan’s boss.

This was cute, pleasant and entertaining.  One can immediately see why Day and Hudson went on to make two other films in the same vein.  The supporting performances are strong and the dialogue, while silly, is sharp.  This film just screams late 50’s Technicolor comedy.  If you like those, you should not miss this.

The DVD I rented contained a fun and affectionate commentary by film historians.

Pillow Talk won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Actress (Day); Best Supporting Actress (Ritter); Best Art Direction – Set Decoration, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

Two Men in Manhattan (Deux hommes dans Manhattan)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville
1959/France
Belfort Films/Alter Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.” ― Werner Herzog[/box]

This is sub-par film noir but, as a time capsule of late-night late-50’s Manhattan, it’s a winner.

The French delegate to the UN has gone missing.  The editor of the French news service AFP assigns crack reporter Moreau (Melville) to track him down.  Moreau looks up photographer Delmas, a paparazzi who knows the dirt on everyone.  Delmas has pictures of three different women who have been the diplomat’s mistresses.

The two search through the night for the women.  They eventually lead them to their man. When they find him, they are faced with an ethical dilemma. The two men face this in very different ways.

This is one of those foreign films containing lots of English.  It appears to be both spoken and written by non-native speakers and is a distraction.  The plot slowly meanders all over the place until the final act, when the ethical question provides some interest.  The ending doesn’t help, though.

However, this was recently restored and Melville makes a loving and beautiful travelogue of New York at night.  It is accompanied by a really good jazz score.

Restoration trailer

Our Man in Havana
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Graham Greene (novel)
1959/UK/USA
Kingsmeade Productions/Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] ‘C’: In our service it is essential to bury the past very quickly and very securely.[/box]

I find this cold war comedy to be darker than many do.

The film is set immediately before the Cuban revolution.  Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) sells vacuum cleaners in Havana.  He is raising his teen-age daughter alone since his wife left him.  Wormold has many worries, principally regarding his finances.  His daughter is being pursued by Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs), a distasteful policeman.  She is at the age when she wants the finer things in life, currently a horse.  Jim’s best, perhaps only, friend is a similarly downtrodden fellow expatriate named Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives).

Jim’s life changes when he is approached by a British Secret Service official (Noel Coward) to spy and recruit agents.  He is to be paid handsomely.  Dr. Hasselbacher advises him that he can do no harm if he simply makes his secrets up.  Dr. Hasselbacher could not be more wrong.  Jim works the Home Office up into a frenzy when he submits drawings of vacuum cleaners as secret weapons being developed in the mountains.  Soon he finds himself saddled with a secretary (Maureen O’Hara) who threatens to blow his cover. Worse, he has made himself a target of the Other Side.  With Ralph Richardson as ‘C’.

Something about Alec Guinness’s performance in this strikes me as so sad that I don’t laugh as much as I would like.  My husband, on the other hand, chuckled out loud repeatedly. I had not realized Ernie Kovacs could act.  In Reed’s hands and with this cast, it’s quite well made.

Trailer

The Nun’s Story
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Written by Robert Anderson from a book by Kathryn Hulme
1959/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Rev. Mother Emmanuel: Do good, then disappear.[/box]

A stand-out Audrey Hepburn performance is only one of the highlights of this beautifully shot and thoughtful film.

Gabrielle van der Mal (Hepburn) is the highly intelligent daughter of a prosperous and famous research physician.  She has been assisting him in the lab and is an accomplished nurse.  As the film opens, she is preparing to become a nun in a nursing sisterhood.  One senses that her calling has more to do with nursing in the Congo than with a religious vocation.  Her father (Dean Jagger) doubts that his daughter has the selflessness to keep vows of obedience.

Sure enough, Gabrielle struggles from the outset with the order’s Rule, which requires inner and outer silence, sacrifice and humility.  She tries her utmost and eventually takes the name Sister Luke and permanent vows as a Bride of Christ. After several frustrating years, she is sent to Africa where she thrives in a less restrictive environment.  But the onset of war presents yet more challenges.  With Peter Finch as a surgeon; Edith Evans as the mother superior; Peggy Ashcroft, Mildred Dunnock and Beatrice Straight as nuns; and Dolleen Dewhurst as a mental patient.

The initial sequences of Gabrielle’s initiation into convent life have always rather terrified me.  They are shot in a very severe and off-putting way.   I can’t imagine being strong enough or humble enough to withstand the discipline of this particular order.

I think the film might have benefitted by more of an emphasis on faith and love, but maybe that is not the point.  There is an appealing feminist strain in this story, which examines the plight of a woman whose drive and talents really have no place in either the outside world or the convent.  The performances are all great and the color cinematography is stunning. Recommended.

The Nun’s Story was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of:  Best Picture; Best Actress; Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

The Ghost of Yotsuya (Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan)
Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa
Written by Masayoshi Onuki and Yoshihiro Ishikawa from a play by Nanboku Tsuruya
1959/Japan
Shintoho Film Distribution Committee
First viewing/Hulu

[box] No ghost was ever seen by two pair of eyes. Thomas Carlyle [/box]

This gory ghost story turned out to be perfect for Halloween.

This is from an oft-filmed legend.  A greedy ronin and his sidekick murder a wealthy man who refuses to allow the men to marry his daughters.  The men trick the women into marrying them by vowing vengeance against fictitious culprits.  The ronin’s gentle wife Iwa grows to truly love him and bears him a son.  But the ronin’s greed and cruelty know no bounds and he spots a more profitable marriage prospect.

The ronin resorts to murder via a disfiguring poison.  He tries to set up an acquaintance for the crime but ultimately murders him as well.  Both victims take horrifying revenge from the grave. Buckets of blood ensue.

It takes some time for this film to get going.  When it does, it boasts some truly scary and graphic special effects.  The whole thing is beautifully shot in vivid color.  Recommended if the subject appeals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH0qXzVaO48

Fan trailer