Category Archives: 1959

Our Man in Havana
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Graham Greene (novel)
1959/UK/USA
Kingsmeade Productions/Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] ‘C’: In our service it is essential to bury the past very quickly and very securely.[/box]

I find this cold war comedy to be darker than many do.

The film is set immediately before the Cuban revolution.  Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) sells vacuum cleaners in Havana.  He is raising his teen-age daughter alone since his wife left him.  Wormold has many worries, principally regarding his finances.  His daughter is being pursued by Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs), a distasteful policeman.  She is at the age when she wants the finer things in life, currently a horse.  Jim’s best, perhaps only, friend is a similarly downtrodden fellow expatriate named Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives).

Jim’s life changes when he is approached by a British Secret Service official (Noel Coward) to spy and recruit agents.  He is to be paid handsomely.  Dr. Hasselbacher advises him that he can do no harm if he simply makes his secrets up.  Dr. Hasselbacher could not be more wrong.  Jim works the Home Office up into a frenzy when he submits drawings of vacuum cleaners as secret weapons being developed in the mountains.  Soon he finds himself saddled with a secretary (Maureen O’Hara) who threatens to blow his cover. Worse, he has made himself a target of the Other Side.  With Ralph Richardson as ‘C’.

Something about Alec Guinness’s performance in this strikes me as so sad that I don’t laugh as much as I would like.  My husband, on the other hand, chuckled out loud repeatedly. I had not realized Ernie Kovacs could act.  In Reed’s hands and with this cast, it’s quite well made.

Trailer

The Nun’s Story
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Written by Robert Anderson from a book by Kathryn Hulme
1959/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Rev. Mother Emmanuel: Do good, then disappear.[/box]

A stand-out Audrey Hepburn performance is only one of the highlights of this beautifully shot and thoughtful film.

Gabrielle van der Mal (Hepburn) is the highly intelligent daughter of a prosperous and famous research physician.  She has been assisting him in the lab and is an accomplished nurse.  As the film opens, she is preparing to become a nun in a nursing sisterhood.  One senses that her calling has more to do with nursing in the Congo than with a religious vocation.  Her father (Dean Jagger) doubts that his daughter has the selflessness to keep vows of obedience.

Sure enough, Gabrielle struggles from the outset with the order’s Rule, which requires inner and outer silence, sacrifice and humility.  She tries her utmost and eventually takes the name Sister Luke and permanent vows as a Bride of Christ. After several frustrating years, she is sent to Africa where she thrives in a less restrictive environment.  But the onset of war presents yet more challenges.  With Peter Finch as a surgeon; Edith Evans as the mother superior; Peggy Ashcroft, Mildred Dunnock and Beatrice Straight as nuns; and Dolleen Dewhurst as a mental patient.

The initial sequences of Gabrielle’s initiation into convent life have always rather terrified me.  They are shot in a very severe and off-putting way.   I can’t imagine being strong enough or humble enough to withstand the discipline of this particular order.

I think the film might have benefitted by more of an emphasis on faith and love, but maybe that is not the point.  There is an appealing feminist strain in this story, which examines the plight of a woman whose drive and talents really have no place in either the outside world or the convent.  The performances are all great and the color cinematography is stunning. Recommended.

The Nun’s Story was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of:  Best Picture; Best Actress; Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

The Ghost of Yotsuya (Tôkaidô Yotsuya kaidan)
Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa
Written by Masayoshi Onuki and Yoshihiro Ishikawa from a play by Nanboku Tsuruya
1959/Japan
Shintoho Film Distribution Committee
First viewing/Hulu

[box] No ghost was ever seen by two pair of eyes. Thomas Carlyle [/box]

This gory ghost story turned out to be perfect for Halloween.

This is from an oft-filmed legend.  A greedy ronin and his sidekick murder a wealthy man who refuses to allow the men to marry his daughters.  The men trick the women into marrying them by vowing vengeance against fictitious culprits.  The ronin’s gentle wife Iwa grows to truly love him and bears him a son.  But the ronin’s greed and cruelty know no bounds and he spots a more profitable marriage prospect.

The ronin resorts to murder via a disfiguring poison.  He tries to set up an acquaintance for the crime but ultimately murders him as well.  Both victims take horrifying revenge from the grave. Buckets of blood ensue.

It takes some time for this film to get going.  When it does, it boasts some truly scary and graphic special effects.  The whole thing is beautifully shot in vivid color.  Recommended if the subject appeals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH0qXzVaO48

Fan trailer

The Giant Gila Monster
Directed by Ray Kellogg
Written by Jay Simms; original story by Ray Kellogg
1959/USA
Hollywood Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Tag Line: Only Hell could breed such an enormous beast. Only God could destroy it![/box]

Sometimes bad rock and roll, hot rodders, and a giant lizard aren’t enough …

Despite his love for his crippled sister and entrepreneurship, tow truck operator Chase Winstead is considered by some to be the local bad boy,  So the town’s big wheel blames him when his son and son’s girlfriend go missing.  Turns out the real culprit is a slow-moving pink and black gila monster whose mere presence causes trains to derail.  Chase goes to the rescue, in between souping up cars and belting out “rock” classics like “Laugh Little Children”.

One would have thought that B movie makers would have giant creature effects down to a fine art by 1959.  Here we had some particularly lazy ones that concentrated on close ups of an actual lizard.  There are a couple of scenes in which we see the creature with fake looking miniatures.  The rest of the movie is an ultra-lame teen flick of the era. I watch some of these so you don’t have to.

Trailer

The World, the Flesh and the Devil
Directed by Ranald MacDougall
Written by Ranald MacDougall from a story by Ferdinand Reyher and a novel by M.P. Shiel
1959/USA
Harbel Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Benson Thacker: I have nothing against negroes, Ralph.

Ralph Burton: That’s white of you.[/box]

I was loving the post-apocolyptic part.  Then it turned into a more ordinary but still OK love triangle.

Ralph Burton (Harry Belafonte) is a miner who is waiting to be dug out following a mine collapse.  After a couple of days he stops hearing any digging and can’t get anyone on his radio.  Eventually, he frees himself.  When he reaches daylight he can’t find anyone around – anywhere.  He makes it from Pennsylvania to New York City, which is absolutely deserted.  Gradually, he learns that an unknown country let loose a killer radioactive gas into the upper atmosphere, the big cities were evacuated, and he may be the only person left alive.

There is at least one other person, though.  She is Sarah Crandall (Inger Stevens).  She watches him long before he sees her.  Finally, they meet and become friends.  They are clearly attracted to one another but neither breaches the racial divide.  Then suddenly Benson Thacker (Mel Ferrer) arrives from South America.  He is not shy about what he wants and what he will do to get it.

The clever us of the atomic poison, which wipes out people but not things, allowed the filmmakers to create a convincing post-apocolyptic world on a small budget.  Belafonte is very good, especially in the early sequences when he is all alone.  The scenes with Inger Stevens are also kind of endearing.  Then Mel Ferrer shows up.  The love triangle is much less effective, though there is a racial prejudice/tolerance angle to it that is an interesting glimpse into the times.  Give it a try if the plot appeals.

Trailer

Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoe pismo)
Directed by Mikhail Kalatazov
Written by Valeri Osipov, Grigori Koltunov, and Viktor Rozov
1950/USSR
Mosfilm
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “More than kisses, letters mingle souls.” ― John Donne[/box]

Director Kolotozov and cinematographer Sergey Urusevskiy created a series of some of the most breathtakingly beautiful images ever made.  Unfortunately the love triangle turned disaster flick doesn’t take off.

Each summer a group of geologists goes to the Siberian wilderness to search for diamonds, so far without success.  The story is framed by a long letter the lead geologist is writing to his wife back home.  Since there is no way to send it, it is more or less a diary. The other people on the team are a bespectacled nerd-type and his beautiful girlfriend, Tanya, and a lusty young man named Sergei.  Sergei is in love with Tanya (Tatyana Samoylova) and there is much unspoken tension as to whether Sergei will shoot the boyfriend or rape Tanya.

Before that issue can be resolved, however, the team is caught in a raging forest fire with a broken radio.  Most of the film is devoted to their agonizing struggle to survive long enough to be rescued.

This movie is pure eye-candy and eye-candy is my favorite food.  However, I longed for a little more.  Both halves of the movie drag on and on.  The survival story goes from bad to worse with little action or suspense.  There’s a bit of propaganda thrown in to boot.  Too bad.

Note:  I watched this one out of sequence because IMDb changed the date of this film from 1959 to 1960 and I didn’t catch it.  There doesn’t seem any rhyme or reason to how their system works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSloFAFCqY4

Trailer

Samurai Vendetta (Hakuôki)
Directed by Kazuo Mori
Written by Kosuke Gomi and Daisuke Ito
1959/Japan
Daiei Studios
First viewing/Amazon Instant

 “A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms.”― Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, The Soul Of Japan

This is notable mostly for its swordplay.

Nakayama Yasube is one of the 47 Loyal Ronin.  It is helpful but not essential to be acquainted with that story (see The 47 Ronin (1941)).  He is advancing on Lord Kira’s castle with his comrades while reflecting on his life and the film segues into flashback.  Samurai Tange Tenzen befriends him when he is engaged in a fight with about 10 opponents to defend his school of swordfighting.  Their lives will be entwined ever after.  For one thing, they both love the same woman, whom Tange marries.  Most of the film deals with Tange’s quest to avenge her honor.

Even knowing the back story, this one is pretty hard to follow.  There are a host of characters who all have some sort of agenda or other.  Fans of martial arts will not want to miss it though.  There is good sword fighting throughout and the final fight in which the one-armed, one-legged dying hero takes on his five enemies in the snow is nothing short of spectacular.

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLlHaFb1tIM (no subtitles)

Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben)
Directed by Frank Wisbar
Written by Frank Dimen, Heinz Schröter, and Frank Wisbar from a novel by Fritz Wöss
1959/West Germany
Deutsche Film Hansa
First viewing/YouTube

Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world. — Friedrich Paulus

This is the story of the German 6th Army’s defeat at Stalingrad told from the perspective of a young officer.  It’s quite watchable.

Oberleutnant Gerd Wisse is an attractive man with a bright future.  Then he gets assigned as liaison to the Romanian army at Stalingrad.  He distinguishes himself there to the chagrin of his superior officer, Major Linkmann.  Linkmann plots to have him transferred to his command at the heart of the fighting in the city.  Wisse becomes increasingly disillusioned by the pointless, endless fighting, the dwindling supplies, Linkmann’s cowardice and the callousness of Hitler, who will not countenance retreat.

This is a straightforward historical movie that kept my interest all the way through.  I learned a lot about conditions at Stalingrad.  Immediately after I watched the movie, the next thing on the YouTube AutoPlay was a documentary about Field Marshall Paulus. Oddly, he is presented much more sympathetically in the movie than his quote or the documentary would indicate.

Suddenly, Last Summer
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams from a play by Williams
1959/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/Horizon Pictures/Academy Pictures Corporation/Camp Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

Mrs. Venable: My son, Sebastian and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.

I don’t know how or why I avoided this film all my life.  It has my new favorite Katharine Hepburn performance.

Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) is a young psychiatrist and neuro-surgeon from Chicago.  He is at the State Hospital in New Orleans to perform his specialty, lobotomies.  The condition of the hospital and operating room is deplorable and the asylum’s director (Albert Dekker) is desperate for an infusion of cash.

The eccentric and immensely wealthy Violet Venable (Hepburn) lost her son Sebastian suddenly last summer while he was on a European vacation with cousin Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor).  Now Violet is desperate to shut Catherine up about the circumstances of his death.  A lobotomy is just what she wants the doctor to order.

Violet sweetens the pot with a million dollars for the hospital if Dr. Cukrowicz will perform the surgery.  The doctor inconveniently needs to determine if drastic action is actually necessary,  He visits Catherine and decides that what she really needs is to dredge up her repressed memories of last summer.  These will prove more horrifying than anyone could imagine.

If I had known this would be at bottom a pitch-black comedy, I might have seen it long before this.  Hepburn captures the essential tone of the piece beautifully.  I had a grin plastered on my face each time she appeared.  I am surprised they were able to get away with the homosexual sub-text in this.  While not actually saying so, the images and words made it abundantly clear that Sebastian’s primary interest in the women in his life was to attract a better class of young men.  Taylor is pretty terrific herself.  Recommended.

Suddenly, Last Summer was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress (Hepburn); Best Actress (Taylor); and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.

Trailer

The Angry Red Planet
Directed by Ib Melchior
Written by Ib Melchior and Sidney W. Pink
1959/USA
American International Pictures/Sino
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Maj. Gen. George Treegar: The hell with radiation. Let’s go.[/box]

This movie is a lot of boring build-up to some bad matte paintings and a bat/spider puppet.

The first mission to Mars has been lost for over two months.  Then the spacecraft is spotted and brought home.  Only two of the four crew members survive.  One is being attacked by an amoeba like growth and is in a coma.  The other has been so traumatized that she can’t remember a thing.  Under hypnosis, she finally tells the tale of their ordeal via flashback.

This is packed with filler consisting of the operation of the spacecraft and lots of “scientific” discussion.  Then the money shots don’t pay off.

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