Category Archives: 1957

Tammy and the Bachelor
Directed by Joseph Pevney
Written by Oscar Brodney from a novel by Cid Ricketts Sumner
1957/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Tambey ‘Tammy’ Tyree: Just think, Miss Renie, that same moon that’s shinin’ down on me this very moment, is shinin’ down on Pete’s tomatoes![/box]

“Cute” is a good one-word review for this romantic comedy.

Tammy Tyree (Debbie Reynolds) is a seventeen-year-old backwoods girl who associates mostly with her moonshiner Grandpa (Walter Brennan) and pet goat.  One day, the two learn of a plane crash in the area and go out with hopes of salvaging some valuables. They find a survivor as well, Peter Brent (Leslie Nielsen) and nurse him back to health.  He goes back to his family in ten days, but not before Tammy has fallen in love with him.  He thinks of her as a child, however.

When Grandpa is put in jail for his illegal manufacturing, he sends Tammy to the Brents. There she discovers that Pete comes from a swanky Southern family that lives in an Ante-Bellum plantation mansion.  Appearances are deceiving though, and the Brents are land poor.  Pete has hopes of making the place pay by developing a superior type of tomato. Progress in this effort is slow.

All the Brents except Pete and eccentric Miss Rennie (Mildred Natwick), look down on Tammy and on Pete’s desire to be a farmer.  They want him to marry Barbara and join her family’s advertising business.  Three guesses as to how this all plays out.  You will only need one of them.

This is a well-made trifle that goes down easily.  Reynolds is charming as a hayseed.  It has some of the sit-com feel that befits a movie that spawned several sequels and a TV series.

The title song was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original song.

Trailer

A Hatful of Rain
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Written by Michael V. Gasso, Alfred Hayes and Carl Foreman from Gasso’s play
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/My DVD collection

[box] “I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” ― Edgar Allan Poe[/box]

This entry into the addiction movie cycle of the late 50’s features some great performances.

As the movie begins, John Pope Sr. (Lloyd Nolan) travels from Florida to New York City to visit his sons Johnny (Don Murray) and Polo (Anthony Franciosa).  This is the first time he is to meet Johnny’s wife Celia (Eva Marie Saint).  Neither of the boys showed up at the airport to meet him and he is slightly put out.  The father’s main motive is to get $2500 dollars that Polo told him he had saved and would loan to him.  He needs the money to renovate a club he plans to open in Florida.

But Polo no longer has the money.  There is a bitter confrontation during which Polo refuses to disclose what he did with it.  Johnny was clearly always his father’s favorite and becomes only more so now.  We gradually learn that Dad, a widower, put both his boys in institutions and foster homes during their youths.  Johnny was the favorite there too.

But it turns out that Johnny, a Korean War hero, is also the brother with the monkey on his back.  He has concealed his habit from his long-suffering pregnant wife and his unexplained absences and “long walks” have almost destroyed the marriage.  Polo lives with the couple and is in love with Celia.  He has also continuously enabled Johnny.  Celia is so fed up she is about ready to give in to Polo’s charms.

The other conflict in the film comes from the pushers Johnny owes big bucks to.  Their menace increases as the film progresses.

There are no surprises in this film but it is so well-directed and well-acted that I didn’t mind much.  I especially liked that Polo’s culpability as an enabler is explored, something I don’t recall seeing before in these things.  I especially enjoyed Lloyd Nolan’s performance. His long career leaves it honed to a fine edge.

Why do we never see the addicts in these things appear to be high or drugged up?  They act perfectly normal when they get their fixes.

Anthony Franciosa received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in A Hatful of Rain.

Clip – opening

The Tin Star
Directed by Anthony Mann
Written by Dudley Nichols; story by Joel Kane and Barney Slater
1957/USA
Persea Company
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Morg Hickman: How come they picked you?

Sheriff Ben Owens: I’m only temporary.

Morg Hickman: You’re more temporary than you think.[/box]

Anthony Mann and Henry Fonda both mean quality.  Here they are working together with a quality script.

The mayor appointed young Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins) as interim sheriff after his predecessor was killed in the line of duty.  He is determined to prove himself and earn the permanent job despite the objections of his girl and the advice of the wise old town doctor.

As the film begins, bounty hunter Morgan Hickman (Fonda) rides into town with a dead outlaw in tow.  He does not receive a warm reception, not least because local stable owner and thug Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand) is the dead man’s cousin.  His first stop is the sheriff’s office to claim his reward.  There he sees that Owens is hopelessly unqualified for his job.  When Owens learns that Hickman is a mean hand with a gun and a former sheriff himself, he begs him to teach him the ropes.  Hickman takes pity on the boy while continuously advising him to just quit.

Denied a room at the town’s only hotel, Hickman takes up lodging in the home of a widow (Betsy Palmer) and her half-Indian son.  He forms a warm relationship with the son and later his mother.

Owen’s mettle is finally tested when some bad guys rob a stagecoach, kill the driver, and then eliminate a witness.  He must control a posse that is intent on bringing the brothers in dead rather than alive.  When the widow’s son decides to get in on the action, Hickman is reluctantly brought into the inevitable confrontation. With Lee Van Cleef as one of the brothers.

For some reason I thought this would be another High Noon rip-off but fortunately it is not.  The plot is somewhat cliched but everything is done so well that it is totally enjoyable.  I spent much of the film pondering the greatness that was Henry Fonda but the staging of the thing is fantastic as well.  Recommended for Western fans.

The Tin Star was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

Trailer

Pharaoh’s Curse
Directed by Lee Sholem
Written by Richard H. Landau
1957/USA
Schenk-Koch Productions/Bel-Air Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Lo, thou trusted in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. — Old Testament [/box]

Not so bad for a 1957 mummy movie.

A British officer is ordered to go into the desert and apprehend a British-American team of archeologists that is unearthing a tomb without permission of the Egyptian government.  Authorities fear there will be an uproar if the expedition is discovered.  The officer is also saddled with taking the wife of the chief archeologist along.  Naturally, they fall in love.  Accompanying the party is a mysterious young Egyptian.  En route, the company meets a even more mysterious young woman who appears out of nowhere intent on sabotaging the effort.

Meanwhile, the archeologists are about to enter the tomb.  When will these people ever learn that ancient curses mean business?

I wouldn’t run out to see this but it’s OK enough for its hour long running time.  The print on Amazon Instant is really excellent.  The film is currently on YouTube but I can’t vouch for the quality there.

Hell Drivers
Directed by Cy Endfield
Written by John Kruse and Cy Endfield
1957/UK
The Rank Organization/Aqua Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Lucy, Hawlett Trucking Secretary: You think I’m flinging myself at you, don’t you?

Tom Yately: You’re doing a fair imitation.[/box]

This film has its merits but is not for those with even a touch of car sickness or, ultimately, for me.

Tom Yately (Stanley Baker) has been recently released from prison.  He learns about opportunities for skilled drivers at Hawlett Trucking Company from a friend.  He assumes a fake identity, fakes a license, passes an arduous driving test and is hired.  His fellow drivers are a bunch of thugs and drifters.  They must deliver 12 loads of ballast a day over bad roads or be fired.  The lead driver and foreman is Red (Patrick McGoohan), a real miscreant who can deliver 18 loads a day and holds the coveted 22-carat gold cigarette case awarded to the fastest driver.  Tom decides he must own that cigarette case.

Tom is assisted by his only friend, Gino (Herbert Lom) a warm Italian trucker.  Tom’s efforts to keep his nose clean and best Red have earned him the ruthless enmity of all the other drivers, who do everything in their power to sabotage him.  To add to his problems, company secretary Lucy (Peggy Cummins), whom Gino loves, keeps coming on to Tom.  With Sean Connery as a trucker and David McCallum as Tom’s lame younger brother.

It’s a lot of fun to watch this group of British actors who would go on to major careers in TV and film starting out.  I thought Lom was the highlight.  Unfortunately, at least half the film is devoted to ear splitting car chases which became tedious by the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV9Vs9tOEaI

Trailer

I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Directed by Gene Fowler Jr.
Written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel
1957/USA
Sunset Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Tony Rivers: People bug me. [/box]

The horror film is updated for the rock ‘n roll era.

Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is a budding juvenile delinquent.  The only people that see the good in him are his widower father and his girlfriend. He has a hair trigger temper and hates to be touched, even lightly.  He gets into a violent fist fight and a kindly detective suggests that he go for treatment from psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Brandon.  Tony resists seeing a head shrinker.  Then we move to a Halloween party that Tony and his buddy have organized, complete with practical jokes and an R&R song performed by a bongo playing teenager.

Another altercation at the party gets Tony to agree to see Brandon, who uses hypnotism as part of his treatment.  What he doesn’t know is that the evil doctor is doing research on returning man to his most primitive and Tony has been selected for his special proclivities. The title tells the rest of the story.

This was a fun way to ease back in to my movie watching schedule.  It’s not great or anything but is entertaining enough and captures a certain spirit of the late 50’s quite well. It was Landon’s big screen debut.  He would go on to be a fixture of prime time TV in such series as “Bonanza” and “Little House on the Prairie”.

Trailer

My husband and I left today for a combined driving/cruise vacation.  We are renting a car in Fresno then visiting friends in the San Joaquin Valley.  We will then drive from Sacramento to Vancouver, Washington on the Pacific Coast.  I’m pretty excited since I have never seen the coast above Mendocino.

After that, we will cruise on the Columbia and Snake Rivers from Vancouver, WA to Clarkson, WA.  Haven’t been there either!  We will return on July 18 and I will pick up where I left off with 1957.

The Enemy Below
Directed by Dick Powell
Written by Wendell Mayes from a novel by D.A. Rayner
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

Captain Murrell: I have no idea what he is, what he thinks. I don’t want to know the man I’m… trying to destroy.

A cat and mouse game between two expert mariners makes an entertaining combat film.

The action takes place in 1943, somewhere in the South Atlantic.  The USS Haynes has a new commander, Capt. Murrell (Robert Mitchum).  The men think he must be a “feather sailor”, since he takes a long time to emerge from his quarters.  Murrell is a veteran of the merchant marine and quickly disabuses them of this idea when a blip appears on the radar.  He determines it to be a U-boat and sets about trying to destroy the enemy while not allowing the U-boat to discover his destroyer.

The U-boat is commanded by hardened veteran Captain Van Stolberg (Curd Jürgens).  The two match wits and develop a respect for their unseen rivals over a 24 hour period.  Each appears to be one step ahead of the other.  Can either prevail?

This features two good performances by the leads, a tight script and some nice battle sequences.  The German commander is made disillusioned and human.  Worth watching for fans of the genre.

The Enemy Below won the Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects.

Trailer