Category Archives: 1956

The Great Locomotive Chase
Directed by Francis D. Lyon
Written by Lawrence Edward Watkin
1956/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

James J. Andrews: I went through pretty far tonight. Let me tell you this: If you can’t drink their toasts and sing their songs, love Jeff Davis and hate Abe Lincoln by next Friday, you’ll never reach Marietta.

This is Disney’s live-action version of Buster Keaton’s The General, told from the perspective of the Union spies who stole Buster’s train.  It’s an OK way to spend an hour and a half – perhaps better than OK if you are a train buff.

The film is bookended by a ceremony presenting the very first Congressional Medal of Honor to Union soldiers who participated in an effort to steal a train in Tennessee and use it to blow up bridges and destroy railroad track in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.  In the ceremony, Secretary of State Stanton states that these men helped quicken the end of the war.

James J. Andrews (Fess Parker) hails from Kentucky and is a civilian spy for the Union. His Southern accent and demeanor blends easily with supporters of the Confederacy.  He recruits a bunch of soldiers for his plot to steal “The General”.  Andrews pretends to be a railroad executive and the other men board with tickets to different destinations.  Conductor William A. Fuller (Jeffrey Hunter) is suspicious however.

The men are steal “The General” at a stop for breakfast.  They proceed to cut telephone lines and dig up rails en route to the Chickamauga River where they plan to burn bridges, preventing Confederate forces near Atlanta from reinforcing their comrades in the west.  Soon enough Fuller and some volunteers are on their trail, at first in a hand-car and later in a steam engine’s cab.  Will they catch the Union spies?  The movie ends with a strong message of reconciliation.

I like Fess Parker’s rugged good looks but I find him a pretty wooden actor.  He is good at being upright, however.  The movie is serious and moderately exciting, certainly no match for Keaton’s masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epp9r-JjYvs

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The Proud and the Profane
Directed by George Seaton
Written by George Seaton from a novel by Lucy Herndon Crockett
1956/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Take any picture you can. One out of four will be good, one out of ten will be very good, and one out of 15 will get you an Academy Award. — William Holden[/box]

This post is part of the Golden Boy Blogathon being hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema.  You can see other excellent posts about William Holden and his films collected here.

In the run up to his performance in 1957’s great The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1956 saw William Holden’s appearance in a couple of lesser-known films – one was the seemingly unavailable Toward the Unknown, the other was this one.  Holden and co-stars Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter are all quite good but it is lesser known for a reason.

Lee Ashley’s (Kerr) genteel Marine husband was killed on Guadalcanal.  She has had herself assigned as a Red Cross volunteer on New Caledonia in hopes that the unit would later be moved on to Guadalcanal to comfort the occupation troops there.  Sassy Kate Conners (Ritter) fought having Lee put in her group to no avail.  Lee spends a lot of time quizzing the returnees from the island on whether they knew her husband.  She also plays chess and teaches French.  Lee and her husband were high society horsey types back home.

One day, she meets the tough, arrogant Lt. Col. Colin Black (Holden).  Black reveals that he is half-Indian and has a gigantic chip on his shoulder.  We also find out during the course of the movie that he has very little compassion for his men, seeing them as basically fighting machines.  When Black was earlier informed of the indentity of Lee’s husband he had no reaction,  when he actually meets Lee he is equipped with a pretty good story.  He pursues Lee, who resists him until she succumbs to his sheer animal magnetism.

They have a passionate affair, just short of making love in the surf.  Finally, Black and his men are sent back to Guadalcanal.  Before he departs, he asks her to marry him.  She eagerly accepts.  I won’t reveal the remainder of the plot but it really irritated me.

This is the first time I have seen Holden in a mustache.  He certainly didn’t need to cover any part of his face but I quickly grew accustomed to it.  The part was in his line of bitter, romantic heroes.  Kerr is always good but she was perhaps made to echo her part in From Here to Eternity a bit too much, down to the blonde hair.  Ritter is always Ritter and always wonderful.  The script and dialogue are on the sentimental side with an important religious subplot.  In short, I was not wowed but it held my attention all the way through.

PARTIAL SPOILER:  In the ending, Holden is caught in a devastating lie.  During the confrontation with Kerr, he manages to push Kerr, causing her to hit her head and putting her in the hospital.  Yet, the climax is all about how Kerr should be a “woman” and forgive Holden.  It’s this attitude that stuck and sticks women in abusive relationships and I can’t stand it.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83O-PG63eu0

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Gervaise
Directed by Rene Clement
Written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost from a novel by Emile Zola
1956/France
Agnes Delahaie Productions etc.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Gervaise Macquart Coupeau, une blanchisseuse douce et courageuse: Morning came and he still hadn’t returned. He’d been out all night. It was the first time. I was so proud to have the handsomest guy around, me, the gimp.[/box]

If you are prepared for real tragedy and depression, this might be for you.  It is certainly well made and acted.

Gervaise (Maria Schell) has a limp.  She considers herself lucky to have caught Lantier, a chronic womanizer.  They have been living together for eight years and have two sons.  As the movie begins, Lantier has stayed out all night.  He taunts Gervaise by wearing a flower given to him by the other woman.  But Gervaise ends up forgiving him and he promises to go to buy her something for lunch.  She goes to the local laundry to do the family wash. She cannot even afford soap.  She ends up getting into a terrific brawl with Virginie (Suzy Delair), the sister of the other woman.  By the time this is over, her children come to announce Lantier has packed up and left.

Segue to some time later.  Gervaise gets work as a laundress and marries Coupeau (Francois Perier), a neighbor who works as a roofer.  They have a little daughter and Gervaise dreams of having her own laundry business.  Then Coupeau falls off a roof.  The accident somehow triggers his alcoholism and things go downhill from there.  Way downhill.

I have covered at most one-half of the tragic plot above.  We follow the destruction of a couple of human beings in one of the most hopeless stories I have ever seen.  It was absolutely not for me at the time.  I have no complaints whatsoever about the actual movie making.

Gervaise was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  The film, Maria Schell and Francois Perier won numerous international awards.

Le coup du berger
Directed by Jacques Rivette
Written by Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Charles H. Bitsch
1956/France
Les Films de Peliade
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.” ― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves![/box]

This is short, sweet, and amusing – a little like an O. Henry story.

A married woman receives a beautiful fur from her lover and would like to take it home and wear it.  But how?  The two cook up a scheme involving a suitcase and a “lost” claim ticket.  Things don’t work out as planned.

The plot is narrated as moves in a chess game.  The movie is only 28 minutes long and lighter than air.  I enjoyed it.

This film was Rivette’s first using 35 mm and sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g9CgAM7ZNE

Clip – no subtitles

Rock Around the Clock
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Written by Robert E. Kent and James B. Gordon
1956/USA
Clover Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail! — Kurt Cobain [/box]

I wouldn’t recommend this for the plot or dialogue but I had a lot of fun with the music and dancing.

Steve Hollis (Johnny Johnston) has been managing dance bands.  This particular band has been fired again from its latest gig.  Steve explains that people don’t like to dance any more – they prefer to listen.  The band fires him before he has a chance to quit and Steve and the bass player head back to New York where he has an uneasy relationship with a female booking agent.  They stop overnight on the way in a small town.  Everybody there is heading to a big dance.  Steve wants to see what all the commotion is about and is introduced to Bill Haley and His Comets and rock and roll music.  Steve sees this as the future of music and arranges to manage the band and the brother-sister act they have leading the dancing.  He falls for the sister half of the act.

In New York, the booking agent, who lusts after Steve, conspires to ruin him and his act. Finally, Steve looks up real life DJ (“Mr. Rock’n’Roll) Alan Freed who owes him a favor. They put together a review with the Comets, another white rock group, and The Platters, who sing Doo-Wop.  Everyone lives happily ever after.

Bill Haley has never been a big favorite of mine but he made me tap my feet along with the beat here.  The Platters are also great.  It’s completely predictable but enjoyable if you share my affection for the music.

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The Great Man
Directed by Jose Ferrer
Written by Al Morgan and Jose Ferrer from Morgan’s novel
1956/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Ginny: Feet of clay, huh?

Joe Harris: Right up to the knees, at least.[/box]

Jose Ferrer does his stuff as both actor and director in this quality look behind the surface of a popular radio personality.

Joe Harris (Ferrer) works as a reporter for a radio network.  The network’s biggest star, Herb Fuller, is suddenly killed in an auto accident.  Double-dealing executive Sid Moore (Keenan Wynn) assigns Joe to put together an hour-long memorial program in his honor.  Although he is warned that few that knew the man will have anything good to say, Joe sets out to capture the memories of Fuller’s associates and fans on tape.  Moore has Joe sign a contract directly with him in exchange for his promise that Joe will take over Fuller’s radio program.

In fact, all but one of people Joe interviews disliked Fuller and have pretty dreadful tales to tell about him.  Nevertheless, a talented engineer is able to edit and put together bits of the tape in eulogistic fashion.  When Joe’s last illusion is shattered, he has a decision to make. With Dean Jagger as the head of the network, Julie London as Fuller’s protegee and ex-mistress, Ed Wynn as the man who gave Fuller his first break and Jim Backus as a staffer.

I had no idea what to expect and liked this very much.  The acting is exceptional.  My favorite performance was by Ed Wynn as a religious small-town radio station owner.  His son is fantastic as well – so evil.  This has some of the flavor of Citizen Kane without that movie’s grandeur.  It has a nifty little last-minute double twist to cap it off.  Recommended and currently available on YouTube.

Fuller was supposedly based on Arthur Godfrey.  I remember him a little from my youth. He sounded like such a nice man!