Category Archives: 1952

Come Back. Little Sheba
Directed by Daniel Mann
Written by Ketti Frings from the play by William Inge
1952/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/You Tube

[box] Doc Delaney: Alcoholics are mostly disappointed men.

Lola Delaney: Sure, I know. [pause] You was never disappointed, were you, Doc?[/box]

Shirley Booth is so entirely her character that she breaks your heart.

Lola Delaney (Booth) is one of those women that drives people nuts.  She can’t stop talking and aims way too hard to please.  While alone, she lives in a dream world of romance and music and her brief past as a pretty high school girl.  She stays in her nightclothes way into day and never quite gets around to any housekeeping or cooking. Beneath all of this it is clear that Lola is deeply, tragically lonely.  Her only true friend was apparently Sheba, a dog that ran away weeks or months ago that she continues to call.

Lola is married to Doc Delaney (Burt Lancaster), a recovering alcoholic.  He has somehow won back some of his chiropractic patients.  He spends as much time as possible at work or doing Twelfth Step work in AA.  He is always pleasant to Lola but you can tell that he finds it hard to tolerate her prattling.  He is also seething with resentment.  He was going to a prestigious medical school when he impregnated Lola.  Marrying her meant dropping out.  Then they lost the baby. As for Lola, her strict father has not forgiven her to this day.

Lola decides to rent a room in house.  The first applicant is a pretty young college student, Marie (Terry Moore).  She ends up taking a downstairs room that she can also use as a studio for her art work.  Terry is an incorrigible flirt and has Doc in her power from day one. Although she is engaged to a boy back home, she is dating a star athlete who spends the entire film trying to get into her pants.  Lola sees this as romantic and spies on their trysts. Doc definitely does not approve and finally breaks under the strain.

This is a movie to watch for the acting.  Lancaster is cast against type, presumably to add star appeal at the box office, but does well in his role.  Booth, who played the part on Broadway, is the soul of the film. Recommended.

A note about the YouTube version I watched: The print quality was very poor and the film was interrupted by ads at least every ten minutes.  The ads could be switched off after five seconds but it was still a distraction.  There is a version in English with Greek subtitles that looks somewhat better and has no ads.

Shirley Booth won the Oscar for Best Actress.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actress (Moore) and Best Film Editing.

Trailer

Secrets of Women “Kvinnors väntan”
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman; story by Gun Grut
1952/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
First viewing/Hulu

[box] Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. — Abraham Lincoln [/box]

This episodic film is not one of Bergman’s stronger efforts.  It does have its moments, of course.

The wives of four brothers are gathered together in a lakeside cottage where they await the return of their husbands from an event held by their family company.  In the background sits the much younger sister of one of them.  To kill time and share, each of them relates the story of a pivotal moment in her relationship.

The first is very short and is more a complaint of one of the wives about the lack of passion or intimacy in her marriage.  The second one is the tale of a wife’s adultery with a former lover.  In an effort to resolve her guilt and bring them together, she reveals her indiscretion to her husband and has to deal with the consequences.

The third wife reaches back to a time before her marriage.  She discovers she is pregnant on the same day her boyfriend’s father dies.  He calls it quits before she has a chance to announce her condition.  When he tries to reconcile, she refuses to take him back.  Most of the episode covers the experience of her childbirth, including a dream scene while she is under ether that presages some of Bergman’s later work.

The last and best story deals with the oldest and wealthiest of the wives, Karin (Eva Dahlbeck).  After a night out, she and her husband Fredrik (Birger Malmsten) are stuck all night in an elevator.  It’s a very witty and even sexy look at what can happen when a long-married couple have some alone time to resolve their problems and rekindle their romance. With Anita Björk and Maj-Britt Nilsson.

I loved the last story with Dahlbeck and Malmsten.  Bergman really should have done more comedy.  I think the rest might have made pretty good full length films.  The vignettes didn’t give us enough time to really know the characters, I thought.  There’s a lot more hope in this than in some of the director’s previous work, which is a plus.

Discussion of the film – spoilers

Macao
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Stanley Rubin; story by Robert Creighton Williams
1952/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Margie: [to Nick Cochran] You’re up early for a loser.[/box]

You’d think the combination of Josef von Sternberg, Robert Mitchum, and Gloria Graham might produce a really classic film noir.  Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case.

Nick Cochran (Mitchum), Julie Benson (Jane Russell), and Lawrence C. Trumbell (William Bendix) meet on the boat from Hong Kong to Macao.  Trumbell is a salesman intent on gambling and Julie intends to get work as a singer.  Nick’s intentions are a bit of a mystery.  Julie introduces herself by lifting Nick’s wallet.  All three end up in the same hotel run by gangster Vince Halloran.

Vince is tipped off by the local police that Nick is undoubtedly an American cop travelling incognito.  He offers to pay Nick’s way back to Hong Kong via the roulette table, presided over by Margie (Grahame). In the meantime, he hires Julie who he clearly had designs on. Nick and Julie mend their differences and in no time they are an item.  Nick is now not going anywhere.

Lawrence asks Nick to play middleman on a deal to sell a valuable diamond necklace to Vince.  The only catch is that Vince would have to travel to Hong Kong and he has an allergy to being in international waters.  Nick bites and ends up in a world of hurt.

Despite its exotic setting, this came off as a tired retread of every other film noir ever made.  The story clearly bored Mitchum who sleepwalked through his part.  Or maybe I’ve now seen too many of these things.  The DVD did have a commentary which I haven’t listened to yet.  The history of making movies during the Hughes years at RKO is always worth a listen and his meddling may well have had an effect on the final product.

Trailer

The Stranger in Between (AKA “Hunted”)
Directed by Charles Chrichton
Written by Jack Whittingham from an idea by Michael McCarthy
1952/UK
Independent Artists/British-Filmmakers
First viewing/YouTube

[box] I love the camera and it loves me. Well, not very much sometimes. But we’re good friends. — Dirk Bogarde[/box]

This is an excellent movie about a couple of lonely souls on the road.  That one is the other’s kidnapper is almost incidental.

Merchant seaman Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde) has recently returned home from the sea. One of his first actions is to murder someone.  During the movie, we gradually find out why.  Six-year-old Robbie (John Whitely) stumbles upon him and the corpse shortly after the deed has been done.  In a panic, Chris scoops up the boy and flees.  Chris is quite rough with the boy at first but soon discovers that his charge has no desire whatsoever to return home.  After awhile, the child’s biggest concern is that Chris not abandon him.

And it doesn’t take long before Chris realizes his mistake in seizing Robbie.  He has no money to feed him, or himself, and is constantly reminded that the boy is hungry and tired. He does come in handy as a lookout on a few occasions. The police are hot on Chris’s trail the entire time. Finally, the two set off on foot on an arduous cross-country journey to Scotland where Chris has a brother he hopes to stay with.  With Elizabeth Sellars as Chris’s wife and Kay Walsh as an innkeeper.

I love Dirk Bogarde and he is at his haunted, sensitive best in this movie.  There is a sequence where he tells the boy a bedtime story that I thought was really moving. The child actor is pretty good as well.  I was caught up in the suspense the entire time. This is one of those stories where you almost hope the criminal goes free.  Recommended.

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

Trailer

Carrie
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from the novel Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
1952/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Carrie Meeber: When you’re poor, it gets all mixed up. You like the people who are good to you.[/box]

Catch this for a fine performance by Laurence Olivier as a mid-Westerner.

This is a slightly expurgated version of the Dreiser novel.  Carrie (Jennifer Jones) is a small-town girl who comes to Chicago for work and possible marriage.  At first she stays with her sister who has done the necessary and is now keeping house.  Carrie injures herself with a sewing machine at work and is fired.  She knows her sister and husband will not be sympathetic and will continue to expect their rent money.  While she is looking for work she meets one Charlie Drouet (Eddie Albert) a fast-talking traveling salesman.  He more or less tricks her into staying a few nights at his place while he is “away” and soon they are lovers.  His promises to marry her go nowhere.

Charlie does like to show Carrie a good time though and takes her to a fancy restaurant. This is managed by George Hurstwood (Olivier).  George is smitten with Carrie at first glance and sends wine over to the table.  Charlie is a regular at the restaurant and George comes over to visit him ostensibly to offer Charlie theater tickets.  But Charlie will be out of town and suggests that George take Carrie to the theater.  He does and follows this up with a number of other outings.

Carrie, who has been carrying a lot of shame from her illicit relations with Charlie, soon falls for George.  George is madly, in more ways than one, in love with Carrie.  She promises to leave Charlie for him.  But then Charlie returns home and informs Carrie that George is married.  He is on the verge of divorce from his wife, claims George.  But of course his awful wife Julie (Miriam Hopkins) refuses to set him free.  George takes drastic action and tells a number of additional lies to make Carrie his own.

So begins a downward spiral for George Hurstwood.  It looks like he will take Carrie with him until she finally finds work in the theater.

I thought Olivier was really excellent in this one.  He has to run the gamut of emotions and all in an American accent and carried it off quite well I thought.  I can take or leave Jennifer Jones and she was better than usual here.  Albert is always good and Hopkins is at her best when she is evil.

I was an English major in college and for some reason had to study the novel more than once.  I never understood, and still don’t, why Carrie was to blame for anything that happened to George.  He ruins himself for “love” of her but she would have been appalled had she known ten percent of the lies he told and the things he did to get her.  And yet it is clear that somehow Carrie is at fault for being a “bad girl”.  Nonetheless, I recommend this movie.

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

Clip

The Crimson Pirate
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Roland Kibbee
1952/USA
Hecht-Lancaster Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Vallo: [narrating] Remember, in a pirate ship, in pirate waters, in a pirate world, ask no questions. Believe only what you see. No, believe half of what you see.[/box]

This starts as a fun pirate adventure/spoof and ends with a fantasy worthy of Terry Gilliam. Mainly it’s a good chance to see Burt Lancaster show off his acrobatic skills.

Captain Vallo aka The Crimson Pirate (Lancaster) is the scourge of the Spanish Main.  He captures a British warship carrying Baron Gruda who is on a mission to stamp out an independence movement on a Caribbean island led by El Libre.  Vello comes up with the idea of selling the ship’s store of arms to El Libre then doubling his money by collecting a ransom for turning over El Libre to Gruda.

When he reaches the island, Vello is soon captured  by the rebels.  He has many adventures escaping them and is helped by El Libre’s beautiful daughter Consuelo.  His love for Consuelo causes him to give up his plan to sell El Libre to the British.  This does not set well with his own crew who believe it violates the pirate’s code.  Vello has more adventures as he escapes from the British and from a mutiny by his crew.  At the end, he is aided by a scientist who says he has learned the secrets of explosives, an air ship and an underwater ship.

It certainly looks like Lancaster had fun making this movie and to a certain extent it is infectious.  My husband, who apparently is looking for a little more realism in his pirate movies, thought the ending was stupid.  I didn’t mind.  Good for an afternoon popcorn movie.

Trailer

Monkey Business
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and I.A.L. Diamond; story by Harry Segall
1952/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Lois Laurel: [at her secretrial desk, responding to Barnaby’s remark that she is at work early] Mr. Oxley’s been complaining about my punctuation, so I’m careful to get here before nine.[/box]

I don’t think I’ve ever really liked a comedy with a chimpanzee in it.

Dr, Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) is the epitome of the absent-minded scientist.  His wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) understands him completely.  Today they can’t even get out of the house to go to a dance.  Barnaby is preoccupied with his experiments on an anti-aging drug.

Barnaby’s boss Mr. Oxley (Charles Coburn) is getting on in years and is eager for results. Barnaby has been experimenting on chimpanzees.  The audience is allowed to know that a mixture created by one of the chimps and dumped in the water supply as changed an old chimp into a frisky six-month old.  Barnaby doesn’t know this and decides to test the formula on himself.  It works immediately, turning him into a 20-year-old with perfect vision. He gets a youthful haircut, wardrobe and convertible and goes on a spree with Mr. Oxley’s secretary Lois (Marilyn Monroe).

In a few hours, the formula wears off.  Barnaby intends to continue his experiments but before he can drink down an additional done, Edwina downs it herself.  It works a treat on her as well.  Increased doses later turn both of them into young kids.  Hijinks aplenty ensue. With Hugh Marlow as a family friend with a crush on Edwina.

This is just the sort of silly, frenetic fifties comedy with lots of double entendres that just isn’t for me.  Your mileage may vary.

Trailer

The Atomic City
Directed by Jerry Hopper
Written by Sydney Boehm
1952/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting. — Richard M. Nixon [/box]

This starts out with an intriguing premise then turns into a more routine kidnapping/chase/police procedural action movie.

The Addison family lives in the “Atomic City”, Los Alamos, New Mexico.  This is a self-contained strictly guarded community that houses the workers on top-secret nuclear projects at the facility there.  The children know better to breath a word about what daddy does. Dr. Frank Addison (Gene Barry) is the preeminent nuclear physicist at the facility.  His wife Martha worries that their son Tommy is being warped by the experience.  For example, he talks in terms of what he wants to be IF he grows up.

One day, all the children in Miss Haskell’s class go on a field trip to a fiesta in Santa Fe. Tommy has been pumped up about possibly winning a bike in the raffle there. He does win, but when his name is called no one answers.  He has simply disappeared.  Miss Haskell starts frantically looking for him.

Segue to the Addison home where Frank has come home early, upset that one of his associates has received radiation burns.  He and Martha start getting ready to go to a community dance.  Then a telegram arrives telling them that they will receive further information about their son’s whereabouts at the dance.  Martha begs her husband not to call the police.

They go to the dance and get slipped a letter saying that Tommy will be killed if the police are called but that they will get him back unharmed if Frank will turn over all is H bomb secrets.  Martha is by now hysterical.  Instead of calling the cops, Frank goes into the facility on a Sunday.  He is caught by the FBI as he is about to leave his office with a folder of papers.  These were dummy equations designed to buy time.  After checking, the FBI decides to use the papers as a decoy to trap the spies.  They make it very clear that their number one priority is catching spies and Tommy’s safety will have to take second place.

The rest of the film shows how the FBI goes about its work.

I thought this was quite OK though nothing earth shaking.  Gene Barry had a hard time convincing me that he was a nuclear physicist but the rest of the players were fine.  This is another interesting glimpse into Cold War paranoia and I thought the beginning about life at Los Alamos was fascinating.  All the spies in this one are 100% American.

The Atomic City was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay.

Trailer