Category Archives: 1957

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Directed by John Huston
Written by John Lee Mahin and John Huston from a novel by Charles Shaw
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Cpl. Allison, USMC: Whatcha gotta be a nun for?[/box]

When I was about 12 years old, I decided Robert Mitchum was the sexiest man alive.  This movie was the reason why.

As the movie begins, a Marine, Mr. Allison (Mitchum), is drifting at sea in a life raft.  In the nick of time, he spots a tropical island.  He rows to shore and looks around.  He can see from a graveyard and church that Christians have been here.  He explores further and discovers a young Irish nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr).  He finds she is the lone inhabitant, having been abandoned when she and an old priest went to fetch the church’s priest.

Sister Angela proves to be a real team player with a sense of humor.  She helps Allison gather food and construct a shelter.  They plan to improve the life raft for a long and dangerous voyage to Fiji.  Then Japanese troops return, destroy the raft and the fruit trees on the island.  The two are forced to hide inside a cave.

Allison eventually declares his love to Sister Angela but she has already given her heart to Jesus.  One night, he gets drunk on stolen sake and makes advances.  She runs, terrified, into the rain.  Now he must nurse her back to health, all the while dodging ever more Japanese.

I was a pre-teen at the time movies of the late 50’s were making an appearance on my local TV station, Channel 9 in Los Angeles. Channel 9 had a feature called The Million Dollar Movies where they would show one movie nine times in a week.  I watched this one over and over.  My catechism-trained heart thought the story was utterly romantic and Mitchum made my blossoming hormones go pitter-patter.

Now, of course, it all seems pretty tame.  Mitchum and Kerr retain their basic appeal though and I think Huston did as well as possible with a rather contrived plot line.  I’ve always envisioned the picture in B&W like on our family’s TV set but it is actually in vivid color.  The South Seas look beautiful.  Worth seeing.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

This post is part of the Second Annual Sex! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon on MovieMovie blog.  For excellent posts on the theme go here and here.

Trailer

Man of a Thousand Faces
Directed by Joseph Pevney
Written by R. Wright Campbell, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts; story by Ralph Wheelwright
1957/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Creighton Chaney at 13: Say, Pop! There’s a great new joke going around school. “Don’t step on that spider. It might be Lon Chaney.”[/box]

Man of a Thousand Faces is a solid biopic featuring one of James Cagney’s classic performances.  If the story is true, poor Lon Chaney Jr. had one messed up childhood.

Lon Chaney Sr.’s (Cagney) parents were both deaf-mutes.  He was born with a chip on his shoulder, a fighting spirit, and sympathy for those who are “diffferent” due to all the teasing he took.  When he is grown he goes on stage on the vaudeville circuit, teaming up with Cleva Creighton (Dorothy Malone).  They marry and she announces she is pregnant.  Only then does he take her home to meet his parents, never having revealed their deafness.  He had been rightly afraid of her reaction, which is something akin to discovering they have leprosy.  The neurotic Cleva is convinced their baby will be deaf as well and announces she no longer wants the baby.

To everyone’s relief, Creighton (the future Lon Chaney Jr.) can hear.  Nevertheless, Cleva never does become a doting mother.  Half the time, she leaves the boy backstage with Chaney, where he is doted on by Hazel Bennet (Jane Greer).  Over the vehement objection of her husband, Cleva finally gets work as a singer and hits the big time.  Eventually, after considerable drama, she disappears, and Chaney sues for divorce.  The judge decides the single Chaney cannot provide his son with a “proper home”, makes him a ward of the court, and puts him in a sort of orphanage.

Cheney is desperate to make money for a better life for Creighton and learns that Hollywood may offer that opportunity.  His talent for changing his appearance leads to lots of work as an extra which blossoms into leading roles.  Nothing changes the court’s mind however until Hazel Bennet puts in an appearance and offers the oblivious Chaney her hand in marriage.

Creighton is reunited with his family and is told his mother is dead.  There are some happy years before the boy is faced with the truth – a truth that threatens to permanently sever ties with his father.

Cagney is excellent, particularly where he performs as Chaney in his vaudeville act and movie roles.  His leading ladies are also good.  (It took me awhile to figure out where I had seen Greer before!).  This movie does not give one warm and fuzzy feelings about Chaney as a person though.  He seems to have been a bit of an autocrat and a fairly cold fish despite, or perhaps because of, his genius.  It was very sad to see that deaf people were treated like freaks at one time.

Man of a Thousand Faces was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

Make-up Artist Rick Baker – Trailers from Hell

The Pajama Game
Directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen
Written by George Abbott and Richard Bissell
1957/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/DVD Collection

Seven and a half cents doesn’t buy a hell of a lot,/ Seven and a half cents doesn’t mean a thing!/ But give it to me every hour,/ Forty hours every week/, And that’s enough for me to be living like a king! — Lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross

This musical was a childhood favorite and I still love it.

The workers in an Iowa pajama factory have been petitioning management for a 7 1/2 cent raise.  Workers for other companies received this months ago.  Management has refused, citing high costs and low profits.  As the story begins, Sid Sorokin (John Raitt) is hired as a floor superintendent.  He is eager to make good.  The workers are uncooperative and he is soon brought before the Grievance Committee headed by Babe Williams (Doris Day).  She is a passionate union activist.  Obviously, the two will fall in love.

Meanwhile, secretary Gladys Hotchkiss (Carol Haney) is pestered constantly by her jealous boyfriend Hinesy (Eddie Foy Jr.), an efficiency expert.  As the workers move ever closer to striking, the relationship between Sid and Babe is threatened.  He takes drastic action to achieve a compromise.

As far as I am concerned, this is a practically perfect joyous experience.  I feel sorry for the IMDb users who disagree.  It has great songs (most famous I think is “Hernando’s Hideaway”) and wonderful choreography by Bob Fosse.  I love Day when she is brassy like this.  The rest of the cast come from the Broadway show and look like they actually could be factory workers.  The production is fairly stagey but I think that suits the story.  Recommended for musical lovers.

Day and company sing “I’m Not at All in Love”

A Face in the Crowd
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Budd Schulberg
1957/USA
Newtown Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marcia Jeffries: You put your whole self into that laugh, don’t you?

Lonesome Rhodes: Marcia, I put my whole self into everything I do. [/box]

This is must-see viewing during any U.S. political campaign but is fantastic any time.

Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) has just graduated from Swarthmore and is aiming to take her uncle’s Arkansas radio station to new heights.  She has started a morning program called “A Face in the Crowd” in which she does man-in-the-street interviews.  This particular Fourth of July day she decides to do her program from the local jail.  The inmates aren’t too eager to participate.  Finally, the sheriff wakes up a guitar-playing drunk and offers to let him out the next day if he will perform.  Taking the bait, the inmate (Andy Griffith) sings and joshes on the radio.  Marcia dubs him Lonesome Rhodes and recognizes his charisma and talent.  The station gives him his own show.  Lonesome sets about attempting to seduce the reluctant Marcia.

Lonesome swiftly builds quite a following with his down-home humor and straight talk.  He is uncontrollable however and throws out his advertising copy, frequently belittling the sponsor.  Despite this, ratings and sales of the sponsored products continue to rise until Lonesome makes another smash hit on TV in Memphis.  He begins to realize he has his audiences in the palm of his hand.  Marcia surrenders.

Lonesome’s show moves on to New York where he becomes much sought-after as an advertising and campaign consultant.  His vices and ego start spinning out of control.  With Walter Matthau as a disillusioned scriptwriter, Lee Remick as a sexy teenaged baton twirler, and Anthony Franciosa as an office boy turned agent.

I love this scathing expose of mass media.  You can’t help wondering what some of our candidates talk about when the cameras and microphones are turned off.

The performances, particularly by Griffith and Neal, are perfection.  Griffith was never seen like this before or since and is a positive revelation.  He can actually be quite sexy and he has the hypocrite nailed.  Apparently, the man himself was more like his TV persona, however.  I’ve never seen Neal give a bad performance and here, coming off a 4-year break from acting and nervous breakdown, she is particularly vulnerable and affecting. Highly recommended.

Andy Griffith, Lee Remick, and Anthony Franciosa made their film debuts in A Face in the Crowd.

Trailer

Monkey on My Back
Directed by Andre de Toth
Written by Paul Dudley, Anthony Veiller, and Crane Wilbur from biographical material
1957/USA
Edward Small Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Rico, Drug Pusher: Start scratchin’. You see, you don’t seem to understand. I’m risking ten years of my life with every move I make. I wanna get paid for it. And if I don’t, my friends will break your wrists.[/box]

By 1957, we had seen this story before.  We would go on to see it many more times.

This is a biopic and told mostly in flashback as ex-boxing champion Barney Ross is admitted to the withdrawal ward of a Veterans hospital for morphine addiction.  He sits in his sparsely furnished room and reflects on his life.

He starts out more or less addicted to being a big shot.  Barney Ross (Cameron Mitchell) wins fight after fight and generally cashes in doubly by betting on himself.  He also makes extravagant wawers on the ponies and any other event on which he can get odds.  He loves making lavish presents.  Finally, a girl catches his eye in the chorus line.  Cathy turns out to be a down-to-earth single mother.  They fall in love but Cathy fears marrying such a big spender.

She proves herself right.  Barney’s luck changes.  He quits fighting after losing the title and opens a saloon.  But his continued gambling and lavish spending eventually puts him out of business.  Before that happens, Cathy gets disgusted and walks out on him.  At age 33, Barney joins the Marines.

Cathy marries Barney shortly he is shipped to the hell of Guadalcanal.  After heroic action to save a comrade, he contracts malignant malaria.  Military doctors treat his severe headaches with morphine.  He is returned to the States where he does further service selling War Bonds.  The father of the man he saves gives him a great job at an advertising agency.  Then the doctors cut off his morphine.

The rest of the film follows Barney’s gradual destruction by his habit.

This movie is OK but nothing special.  I like Cameron Mitchell but I did not quite believe his withdrawal scenes.  I don’t know whether that should be laid to the actor or the director.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VnBeQPr7E

Trailer

He Who Must Die (Celui qui doit mourir)
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by Ben Barzman, Jules Dassin, and André Obey from a novel by Nikos Kazanzakis
1957/Italy/France
Indusfilms/Prima Film/et al
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. — Proverbs 14:31, NIV[/box]

Not all religious allegories work as well as this one.

The story takes place in the 1920’s when parts of Greece were still occupied by Turkey.  As the film opens, we see a village burning and villagers grieving somewhere in Greece.  Nothing is left for them here after many of the men have been massacred and all their homes destroyed.  They set off singing to find a new home under the charismatic leadership of Priest Fotis (Jean Servais).

We move on to a prosperous village where Greeks have reached an accomodation with the Turks.  Each year the village puts on a Passion Play.  Priest Patriarcheas (Gert Fröbe) casts the parts.  He picks the son of the wealthiest man to play the Apostle John, the postman to play Peter, the town prostitute Katerina (Melina Mercouri) to play Mary Magdalene, one of her reprobate customers as Judas and a stuttering shepherd  to play Jesus.

The dispossessed villagers arrive in town.  Patriarchais and the wealthy man tell the villagers that they will never get rid of these “beggars” if they help them.  Finally one of the women collapses dead and Patriarchais declares that the people have cholera and no one should go near them.  Fotis knows these people have plenty of uncultivated land and takes his flock into the hills nearby where they continue to starve.  He refuses to move on.

Finally, the villagers playing Jesus and John go up to the hills.  They discover the people there do not have cholera and need help.  The greed and fear of reprisal by the establishment makes Patriarchais fight them every step of the way.  The tragedy plays out a lot like the Passion Play.

The story is simple but very moving and well filmed by Dassin.  The message is timeless. Unfortunately, the print on YouTube does not measure up in quality.

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Designing Woman
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Written by George Wells
1957/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marilla Hagen: We never argue anymore. And when we do, it never lasts more than a week or two.[/box]

This is a broad MGM Technicolor romantic comedy, full of late 50’s atmosphere and style. The clothes were my favorite part.

Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) and Marilla Brown (Lauren Bacall) meet cute on an airplane headed for California.  He is a sportswriter and she is a fashion designer.  After a whirlwind romance, they marry and head back to New York.

Each has assumed the other has a life a lot like his/her own.  They are wrong.  He is a man’s man with a simple life whose greatest pleasure is playing poker with the boys and going to the fights.  She is loaded with dough and hangs out with the arty set.  Naturally there is a period of adjustment.

A running theme is Mirella’s jealousy of a woman she sees in a cheescake photograph in Mike’s apartment.  This is Broadway star Laurie Shannon (Delores Grey), Mike’s ex-flame. Mike does everything to conceal her role in his life from Mirella, something that becomes increasingly difficult after Laurie becomes the leading lady in a show Mirella is designing for. The other conflict comes as Mike runs an expose on a crooked fight promoter and has to hide out from his thugs.

This is entertaining and looks great.  The style is just not my cup of tea for some reason. My husband, on the other hand, laughed out loud many times, and really enjoyed it.  I have a feeling he holds the majority view.

Designing Woman won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

Trailer

The Strange One
Directed by Jack Garfein
Written by Calder Willingham from his novel and play
1957/USA
Horizon Pictures/Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

“Never do a wrong thing to make a friend–or to keep one.” ― Robert E. Lee

This strange and disturbing film gave movie-goers Ben Gazzara and Pat Hingle among others.

The story takes place at a military college is the South, which is run with a strict disciplinary system and a tradition of respect by underclassmen toward their seniors. Jocko De Paris (Gazzara) is in his senior year and quickly reveals himself to be a sadist, if not an outright psychopath.

He organizes an after hours poker game with plenty of liquor in the room of freshmen Simmons (Arthur Storch) and Robert Marquales (George Peppard, also in his film debut).  Also present are Jocko’s roommate Harold Koble (Hingle) and another upperclassman who is known to be violent when drunk.  The cadet next door reports the noise of an obvious fight coming from the room to his father, an officer at the school.  The next morning, that cadet is found badly beaten and passed out on the quad. A blood test shows he has been drinking heavily.  He is expelled.

Obviously, the participants in the previous night’s revelry know exactly what happened but Jocko has orchestrated matters such that they cannot report them without getting expelled themselves.  He spends the rest of the film tormenting Simmons by setting him up with a blind date and dodging the friendly advances of a very odd self-styled novelist cadet.  Will Jocko ever get what is coming to him?

I hate injustice and cruelty and this movie provoked a reaction in me that guarantees it will never get a repeat viewing.  The acting however is excellent.  Gazzarra’s character is utterly despicable.  There is a very obvious homosexual undertone to the relations among the cadets.  Whether it is homophobic or homoerotic is hard to say.

Trailere

The Giant Claw
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Written by Samuel Newman and Paul Gangelin
1957/USA
Clover Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Mitch MacAfee: Now if this thing of mine works, and we can get close, real close, and bombard that bird’s anti-matter energy shield with a stream of mesic atoms, I think we can destroy that shield. The bird would defenseless then except for beak, claws, and wings. You could hit it with everything but the kitchen sink.

Gen. Van Buskirk: We’ve got kitchen sinks to spare, son![/box]

Only a mother could love this movie’s monster.  And only if the mother were Big Bird or Gonzo …

Once again we are at a missile defense station in the Arctic. Test pilot Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow) sees something like a giant battleship moving at supersonic speed through his airspace.  But the mysterious flying object is not picked up on radar and jets sent to intercept it fail to encounter it.  Mitch, a civilian, is treated as a practical joker and ordered home.  Before he can leave,  other planes report seeing the same phenomenon and are destroyed.

All too soon, we learn that the phenomenon is a gigantic Muppet.  Mitch and beautiful mathematics whiz Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday) are sent to Washington to help strategize the destruction of the creature, which turns out to be protected by an anti-matter shield that is impervious to bullets and undetectable  on radar.

This is about average quality for giant creature films but might be worth seeing for laughs. Each time the monster appears, you just can’t help smiling.  Not only is its appearance ludicrous but it is very obviously a marionette moving by strings.  The complete film is currently available on YouTube.

IMDb trivia:  In an interview, star Jeff Morrow said that neither he nor anyone on the film saw the title “monster” until they went to the film’s premiere in Morrow’s home town. It turned out that producer Sam Katzman had contracted with a low-budget model-maker in Mexico City to construct the “Giant Claw” and no one in the cast or crew had any idea it would come out looking as bizarre and, frankly, laughable as it did. Morrow said that the audience roared with laughter every time the “monster” made an appearance, and he wound up slinking in embarrassment out of the theater before the film was over so that no one who knew him would recognize him.

Trailer

3:10 to Yuma
Directed by Delmer Davies
Written by Halsted Welles from a story by Elmore Leonard
1957/USA
Columbia Picture Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Ben Wade: What are you squeezin’ that watch for? Squeezin’ that watch ain’t gonna stop time.[/box]

I love this.  It may be Glenn Ford’s best performance.  It is certainly my favorite of his.

Courtly, slick outlaw Ben Wade (Ford) holds up a stage coach.  The driver gets too brave and is killed.  The robbery is witnessed by Dan Evans and his sons.  Wade scatters their cattle and steals their horses.  Dan puts up no resistance, humiliating his sons.  Wade and some of the men ride into the nearest town where Wade reports the robbery.  While the sheriff is off investigating, he seduces the bar maid at the local saloon.  While Wade is basking in his conquest, Dan tricks him into conversation and the sheriff is able to apprehend him.

Dan is in town because he is need of a loan to keep his drought-plagued ranch running. When he is denied the loan, he accepts the stage coach owner’s offer to escort the captive to the title train.  The plan is to fool Wade’s men into believing they are going to another location.

Dan and Wade arrive at the station hotel in good order.  They have a few hours to wait for the train.  Wade uses them to needle and cajole his captor and test his courage.

This movie has a High Noon-type theme (the ticking clock, the brave man deserted) without that film’s gravitas.  Ford’s performance as Wade is deliciously wicked and steals the film out from under the also-excellent Heflin. I was looking forward to this viewing and was not disappointed in the least.  My husband loves it as well.  Warmly recommended.

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