Category Archives: Movie Reviews

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Directed by John Ford
Written by Frank S. Nugent and Laurence Stallings from a story by James Warner Bellah
1949/USA
Argosy Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Captain Nathan Brittles: Never apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.[/box]

This lacks the gravitas of the previous entry in Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy – Fort Apache – but it is very appealing, looks splendid, and contains one of John Wayne’s better performances.

Wayne plays Capt. Nathan Brittles, a forty-year man who is about to retire.  He clearly has mixed feelings about leaving his beloved cavalry.  His right-hand man Sgt. Quincannon (Victor McLaglen), a hard-drinking blustery Irishman, is also due to retire a couple of weeks after him.  Wayne is a crusty mentor to two young men who are coming up in the ranks, Lt. Flint Cohill (John Agar) and Second Lt. Ross Pennell (Harry Carey, Jr.).  These are vying for the affections of spunky Olivia Dandridge (Joanne Dru), niece of the fort commandant, Major Allshard (George O’Brien).

The victory of the Sioux at Little Big Horn has inspired the local Indians to band together to drive the white man out of their hunting grounds once and for all.  The major is anxious to get his wife (Mildred Natwick) and niece out of harm’s way and orders Brittles to take them along by wagon.  Brittles protests but obeys.  The presence of the women slows down the company and it proves impossible for Brittles to take them to the stage they are to catch.

By the time he gets back to the fort, Brittles has only a few hours remaining of his military career.  After a touching send off, he uses the time he has to try to defuse the crisis with the Indians.  With Ben Johnson as a fount of wisdom on Indian ways.

I had seen this before but remembered nothing about it.  Truth to tell, the plot is subsidiary.  Much time is devoted to the love triangle and to Victor McLaglen’s drunken antics, which are only too familiar from his playing the same character is just about every Ford film.

And yet there are many tender moments to savor.  The 42-year-old Wayne was outstandingly convincing playing a 60-year-old and his farewell scene is something to treasure.  Lots of the dialogue is sharp as well and the cinematography is breathtaking.  This is the film that contains the beautiful shots of the troops riding through a thunder storm.  Recommended.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color (Winton C. Hoch).

Trailer

The Pirate
Directed by Vicente Minnelli
Written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich from a play by S.N. Behrman
1948/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Manuela: Someday Macoco is going to swoop down upon me like a chicken hawk and carry me away.[/box]

Minnelli’s 1948 musical with wife Judy Garland was a notorious flop.  There were reasons for this but there are also real pleasures to be found here.

Manuela (Garland) is a sheltered lass living in a quiet village.  Her aunt (Gladys Cooper) has arranged her marriage to the much-older town mayor (Walter Slezak) but Manuela dreams of being swept of her feet by the notorious pirate “Black Mack” Macoco.  She talks her aunt into letting her go on one last trip to a nearby port city.  There she spots actor Serafin (Gene Kelly).  Initially she mistakes him for Macoco.  When she finds out his true identity, she wants nothing to do with him.  She sneaks into see his show anyway and he takes advantage of the opportunity to hypnotize her into revealing her true feelings.  They are for Macoco, not him.  In a trance, Manuela breaks into song to the wild applause of the audience  Now Serafin needs her as the headliner for his show.

Serafin follows Manuela back to her village.  He pretends to be Macoco and threatens to burn down the place unless Manuela is given to him unmarried.  Her fiance objects but it turns out Serafin is possession of a secret that allows him to carry on the charade.  For the time being …  With George Zucco as the viceroy.

The characters of Kelly and Garland are comically overacting for most of the film.  This was not what 1948 audiences wanted to see no matter how clever some of the dialogue might be.  The film also bogs down in places and the Cole Porter tunes, with one exception, are not his catchiest.  The movie is worth seeing, however, just for the number in which Gene Kelly dances with the Nicholas Brothers to “Be a Clown” and the song’s reprise with Garland.

The DVD includes an interesting commentary by a film historian outlining the film’s troubled and protracted production history.  Garland was about ready to implode at this time. Honestly, none of it shows up on the screen.

Lennie Hayton was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Trailer

Clip – “Be a Clown” – Cole Porter was sure a good sport when Freed ripped this off for “Make ‘Em Laugh’ in Singin’ in the Rain

All My Sons
Directed by Irving Reis
Written by Chester Erskine based on the play by Arthur Miller
1948/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] “I know you’re no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.”
― Arthur Miller, All My Sons[/box]

Even in its sub-par YouTube version and in parts, this was a powerful and wonderfully acted drama.

During the war, Joe Keller (Edward G. Robinson) made a fortune churning out airplane parts for the government.  Later, both he and his partner were tried for delivering defective parts that resulted in the deaths of 27 men when their planes crashed.  The jury believed Joe’s testimony that he was home sick when his partner made the decision to ship the parts.  His partner and next door neighbor, Herbert Deever, was convicted and is now serving a long stretch in prison.

Joe and his family live in a storybook neighborhood in small town America.  Their son Larry, a pilot, was listed as missing in action three years ago.  His mother, Kate (Mady Christians), refuses to believe he is dead.  She suffers from insomnia and assorted nervous ailments and Joe treats her with kid gloves.  Their other son Chris (Burt Lancaster) lives at home and is being groomed to take over the factory.

Chris has just announced he intends to ask Ann Deever, Joe’s partner’s daughter and his brother’s ex-fiancee to marry him.  His mother is adamantly opposed to this since approving of the marriage would mean acknowledging that her other son is not coming home. In addition, there is resistance against having any member of the partner’s family around although this point is not pressed.  Ann and her brother have not visited the father in years out of shame.

Although Joe enjoys a cordial poker-playing relationship with his neighbors, it is privately believed by many that Joe knew all about the parts shipment.  After all, everybody at the plant always says “Ask Joe” if you have a question about anything at all.  Joe confronts it all with bluster and defiance.  Chris believes in his father.  Then Ann’s brother George (Howard Duff) arrives demanding to take her away.  He has finally visited his father and now believes  his father’s version of the events.  There is a massive confrontation and it looks like the engagement is off.

Heartbroken, Chris goes to visit Deever in jail.  Now he’s not so sure about his father any more.  Meanwhile, still in love with Chris, Ann shows up with a piece of information for his mother that will turn the Keller household upside down.  With Arlene Francis and Harry Morgan as neighbors.

Edward G. Robinson is genius in this movie.  His character must be ruthless, courageous, and kind all at once and this is definitely the actor to pull that mixture off spectacularly.  He must convey the tragedy of a man both betrayed by and betraying the American dream and has all the gravitas necessary for the part.  While it is totally incredible that Burt Lancaster could be his offspring, the younger actor’s power matches him well.  I also thought Mady Christians was superb.  I had never seen the play or the movie before and I thought the writing was up there with Miller’s Death of a Salesman.  Recommended.

Trailer

Clip

The Portrait (Shozo)
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by Akira Kurosawa
1948/Japan
Shôchiku Company
First viewing/Hulu Plus

This is one of the best films by Kinoshita that I have seen.  The script by Akira Kurosawa probably helped.

The story takes place just after the end of World War II.  None of the character names, except for the female lead’s, is available to me.

Two middle-aged real estate brokers are able to buy a house very cheap because it is occupied by a family that no one has been able to evict thus far.  One of the men decides to move into the upper room with his much younger mistress, Midori, in hopes that they will crowd the family out.

The family cheerfully accepts anything that is thrown its way.  In fact, everyone in the family seems to get a tremendous kick out of the simplest things.  The father is a painter and offers to paint Midori’s portrait in lieu of paying the rent.  It is clear that no one could have the heart to throw these people out.

So Midori begins sitting for her portrait wearing an old kimono that her mother gave her.  The family has been allowed to believe that she is the boyfriend’s daughter.  As she sits for her portrait and observes the happy family life around her, Midori becomes more and more miserable.  Finally she is so unhappy that the portrait seems to be accusing her of living a lie and she is tempted to destroy it.

I really thought there was a lot of psychological truth behind this film.  The young woman’s struggle with her conscience and her way of life first makes her hard and drunken.  She has a friend that seems to be stuck in this mode.  But there is something in Midori, which the painter has caught, that is fundamentally honest and good.  The film moves right along, unlike many of Kinoshita’s lesser works, and there are many beautiful moments.  Recommended.

There are many films by this director available on Hulu Plus.  I have not bothered to review most of them here.  I keep on plowing through them, though, because about one in three proves to be a gem.

Clip – Dancing in the Moonlight (subtitles unnecessary)