Category Archives: 1956

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

The Girl Can’t Help It
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Written by Frank Tashlin and Herbert Baker
1956/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

Barry the paperboy: [after Jerri Jordan walks by] If that’s a girl, then I don’t know what my sister is!

Tom Ewell plays the same nebbish as in The Seven Year Itch, this time opposite Jayne Mansfield as the blonde.  It’s a cartoonish comedy enlivened by many fantastic rock and roller’s of the 50’s.

Gangster Fats Murdock (Edmond O’Brien) is engaged to blonde bombshell Jerri Jordan (Mansfield).  He feels like he can’t marry a “nobody” so he wants to turn her into a star.  He hires alcoholic agent Tom Miller (Ewell) to make her one, almost solely because he has the reputation of keeping his hands off his female clients.  It turns out Jerri is with Fats only from gratitude for getting her father a lighter prison sentence.  Jerri’s big dream is being a wife and mother but she is willing to play along with aiming for stardom.

Of course, Tom and Jerri develop feelings for each other and Fats gets suspicious.  Fats also gets involved in the project  by coming up with a silly song about breaking rocks in prison.  One way or another, the film manages work in almost non-stop performances by the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, and Julie London.

I don’t ordinarily go for these leering type 50’s comedies but the music kept me riveted to the screen.

Trailer

clip – Little Richard sings “Ready Teddy” and “She’s Got It”

Don’t Knock the Rock
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Written by Robert E. Kent
1956/USA
Clover Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

Arnie Haines: He seems to think that running around in my underwear or getting thrown out of my hotel is news. And does that sound like news to you guys?
Member of Applejacks: If you were Kim Novak, it might.

The story, the lead, and a lot of the acts are pretty dopey.  Little Richard and some dynamite dancing almost make up for it.

Alan Hale is a teen idol being managed by Alan Freed.  He gets sick of all the publicity hype so he and his band take a vacation in the farming community he hails from.  His mere presence causes a firestorm of controversy.  The mayor decides to build his re-election campaign on an anti-rock and roll platform.  An influential columnist is also on the scene to report developments.  Her daughter has a weakness for the new music.  So Freed brings in some big acts for a rock and roll dance in a neighboring town designed to demonstrate how harmless the music is.  Naturally, Hale falls for the columnist’s daughter and a jealous hussy tries to sabotage the proceedings.

As with most of these Columbia rockers, the story is built around convincing adults that rock and roll is wholesome.  Their problem is that good rock and roll is dangerous!  Little Richard clearly was.  Thus he is the bright light amid a lot of dweebish acts and a formulaic plot.

It looks like this film was the first to include a song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David – “I Cry More” performed by Alan Dale.  Little Richard sings “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally”.

Clip – Little Richard rocks out

Bill Haley covers Little Richard (if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!)  + some fantastic jitterbugging

The Eddie Duchin Story
Directed by George Sidney
Written by Samuel A. Taylor; story by Leo Katcher
1956/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

Eddy Duchin: What I want to know is why! Why do they have to destroy a man twice? You work and work and just when you get… everything. When it gets too good they take it away.

Today is Little Richard Day at FlickersinTime.  The movie I review here illustrates just how big the gap was between the mainstream and rock and roll in 1956.

This is a fictionalized biopic.  Eddie Duchin (Tyrone Power) has been attending pharmacy school while playing piano in the college orchestra.  Band leader Leo Reisman attended one of their sessions and complemented Eddie on his playing.  Eddie took that as a job offer and shows up at the Central Park Casino where Reismann’s band plays.  Riesman and his manager Lou Sherwood (James Whitmore) disabuse Eddie of his mistake.  He goes out and plays the piano for his own amusement and is heard by Marjorie Oelrichs (Kim Novak).  She likes him and his playing and decides Eddie will play while the band is on break.  Eddie is so good that the people keep dancing after the band stops playing and in pretty short order he has a job with Riesman.  Soon Sherwood becomes Eddie’s manager.

Eddie is very clearly driven by a thirst for money and status.  Marjorie comes from a very wealthy family (in reality the niece of Averall Harriman, then governor of New York) but is fiercely independent and manages the casino.  Eddie eventually forms his own orchestra and works on the side at society parties.  Gradually, Eddie and Marjorie fall in love and marry.  She becomes pregnant but tragedy strikes when baby Peter is born.

Eddie is inconsolable and goes on a long tour leaving the boy with Marjorie’s aunt and uncle the entire time.  When WWII breaks out, he joins the Navy almost hoping to be killed. But he survives and now feels the need to become a father to Peter.  This is easier said than done.  Peter is not easily won over and Eddie must also vie for authority with his pretty young governess Chiquita.  Just when things are looking up, a second tragedy strikes.

Although the movie is well made and acted, I wasn’t crazy about it.  The problem was the script.  There is a truly cringe-worthy deathbed scene and the melodrama is spread thick at all points.  In addition, Duchin’s piano playing sounded to me like lounge music, not my favorite.  I’m not sure what Duchin actually sounded like though because for some inexplicable reason what we are hearing is actually Carmen Cavallero, who apparently had a totally different style.

Trailer

Lovers and Lollipops
Directed by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin
Written by Morris Engle and Ruth Orkin
1956/USA
Spire Production Company
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. — Scott Adams

This is another one of the slice-of-life docu-fiction movies by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin.  It is ok but not a match for their Little Fugitive.

Ann, a young widow, is raising her precocious seven-year-old daughter Peggy in New York City.  Peggy has been helping a photographer with a photoshoot at the zoo.  Larry, an old friend of Ann’s, returns from several years working in South America and visits her.  As their love blossoms, Peggy does everything in her power to get in the way.

This is cute and has a very sweet ending but is beset by slow parts.  One big plus is you believe Peggy 100%.  The use of amateur actors keeps things real.

Clip