Monthly Archives: June 2015

Three Came Home
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Nunnally Johnson from a book by Agnes Newton Keith
1950/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] [first lines] Agnes Newton Keith: Six-degrees north of the Equator, in the heart of the East Indies, lies Sandakan, the tiny capital of British North Borneo. In Sandakan in 1941, there were 15 thousand Asiatics, 79 Europeans, and 1 American. I was the American. [/box]

Claudette Colbert is always great as this type of woman surviving against enormous odds.

Harry Keith (Patrick Knowles) works as a government official in British Borneo, accompanied by his wife Agnes (Colbert) and their adorable four-year-old son. Agnes previously published a book about life in Borneo which took a sympathetic view of Asians. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the European residents of Borneo spend most of their time preparing for invasion.  It comes quickly enough.

After a few weeks of unpredictable treatment by the Japanese on the island.  The Europeans are ordered to prepare to be transported to another location.  Before they are, Agnes is ordered to present herself to the commanding officer for the local theater, Colonel Suga (Sessue Hayakawa).  It turns out he admired her book and wants a copy with her autograph.  We also find out he was educated in the U.S. and has small children at home in Japan.

Agnes’s pleasant chat with Suga does her no good whatsoever.  The women and men are first put in separate and adjacent camps.  They can make highly dangerous attempts to meet but mostly spend their time worrying, starving, and suffering from malaria.

Then things get worse after they are again moved.  They must survive years of separation, malnutrition and hard labor.  We see the women eating garbage, which they regard as a lucky treat. Agnes is attacked in the dark by a Japanese soldier with rape on his mind.  She uses another meeting with Suga to complain.  This backfires on her in a big way when Suga is no longer around.  The title gives away the ending.

I tend to like POW stories and this was no exception.  It is very well done and Colbert is outstanding.

The complete film is also currently available on YouTube.

Clip

Scandal (“Shubun)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima
1950/Japan
Shochiku Company/Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.” ― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan[/box]

Kurosawa’s beautiful staging and the great actors are overcome by a sudsy story.  I was disappointed.

Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) is a free-spirited artist.  He is staying at a mountain resort to paint some landscapes.  Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamoguchi) is a famous singer staying at the same resort for a much needed break.  She is carrying a number of parcels when comes across him in the mountains and has missed her bus back to the hotel.  He offers to take her home on his motorcycle.  Thereafter they briefly talk in her room with the door open.  Reporters from a tabloid are lurking there and their paper uses the resulting pictures  to spin up a scandalous love affair between the two.

Ichiro is outraged and announces his attention to sue.  Hack lawyer Hiruta (Takashi Shimura) drops by and offers to represent him.  Ichiro decides he has his lawyer when he meets Hiruta’s sweet bedridden daughter who is suffering from TB.  But Hiruta is a moral weakling with a taste for alcohol and gambling.  He is easily bribed by the publisher to throw the case.  The rest of the story deals with Hiruta’s battles with his guilt and a really improbable trial sequence in which he eventually achieves redemption.

This is Kurosawa at his most sentimental.  It was really not for me.  I must say that some of the direction was stunning.  The outstanding sequence is a bunch of drunks photographed from a host of angles while belting out the Japanese version of “Auld Lang Syne” in boozy stupors.

Clip – no subtitles but little dialogue

No Man of Her Own
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
Written by Sally Benson and Catherine Turney based on the novel “I Married a Dead Man” by Cornell Woolrich
1950/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Bill Harkness: [returns to car after dumping a dead body onto a moving train] He stayed on, caught on the catwalk or whatever it is, but his hat and… came off.

Helen Ferguson: Don’t.[/box]

The preposterous story and overuse of the internal monologue suck any pleasure from a couple hours with Barbara Stanwyck right out of this film.

As the movie begins, Helen Ferguson (Stanwyck) is banging on the door of sometime boyfriend Steve Morley (Lyle Bettger) in tears.  He stays safely inside his New York apartment with his blonde paramour.  Eventually, he slips a five-dollar bill and a one-way ticket to San Francisco under the door  to the pregnant, penniless waif.  From his knowing smirk to his current girlfriend who says “you will never give me the brush off like that” we know that Steve is a rat bastard.

Helen looks so pathetic on the train that a young married couple, the Harknesses, takes her under its wing.  While Helen and the also pregnant Patrice Harkness are in the ladies room, for some reason Patrice asks Helen to wear her wedding ring.  The next instant there is a horrific train crash.

When she wakes up in the hospital after extensive surgery, Helen discovers she has delivered a healthy baby boy by caesarean section, both “Helen Ferguson” and Mr. Harkness were killed, and she is being addressed as Mrs. Harkness.  Her “in-laws” are showering the baby with presents.  Helen remembers that the Harknesses have never met Patrice and decides to go along with the charade, emerging as Patrice Harkness when she arrives in Mr. Harkness’ hometown.

Of course, “Partice” knows suspiciously little about her husband.  The inlaws attribute this to grief and shock.  The husband’s brother (John Lund) is on to her right away but has fallen so desperately in love with her that he doesn’t let on.  The inlaws adore the baby and are so downright lovable that Helen cannot bear to reveal the deception.  Later the mother-in-law’s heart condition keeps her from spilling the beans.  Then Steve Morley shows up with blackmail on his mind.  The only solution to Helen’s predicament might be murder.

I was not in the mood for a melodrama as over the top as this one.  It was impossible for me to suspend my disbelief at any point.  The ending is an absolute eye-roller.  To top it off we are treated to Helen’s interior monologue throughout.  It is always something obvious like “I can’t possibly get away with this” or “he will never leave me alone”.  The lazy storytelling really got on my nerves.  Stanwyck’s inherent strength of character is totally wasted on this material.

Trailer

Winchester ’73
Directed by Anthony Mann
Written by Robert L. Richards and Borden Chase
1950/USA
Universal International
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#238 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] High-Spade Frankie Wilson: Not men. Hunting for food, that’s alright. Hunting a man to kill him? You’re beginning to like it.

Lin McAdam: That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t like it. Some things a man has to do, so he does ’em.[/box]

This beautifully crafted Western gave us the new darker, angrier James Stewart.  Miles away from Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey, made the same year.

Lin McAdam (Stewart) is traveling with sidekick High Spade (Millard Mitchell) on a mission to find and kill Dutch Henry Brown in revenge for killing his father.  En route, they stop in Dodge City on the day when a priceless Winchester ’73 rifle is to be awarded as the prize for winning a sharpshooting contest.  Lin and Dutch end up vying for the gun.  Lin wins handily but Dutch ambushes him in his hotel room and takes it away from him.

Dutch and his gang hightail it out of town.  The gun appears to be cursed and passes from one hand to another in a series of violent reversals.  Dutch must sell it to a crooked Indian trader, he loses it to the chief of a warring Indian tribe (Rock Hudson in his screen debut), it is taken away during a battle with the Indians and awarded to a coward, and he is killed for it by Waco Johnny Dean (Dan Duryea), who is on his way to join up with Dutch.  Lin participates in many of these fights and continues his relentless pursuit after Dutch.  With Shelley Winters as a dance hall girl/love interest, Will Geer as Wyatt Earp, J.C. Flippen as a cavalry sergeant and Tony Curtis in a tiny part as a soldier.

Jimmy Stewart loses every trace of his aw-shucks demeanor in this film and becomes one hard hombre.  He is compelling all the way through.  The film is beautifully staged and shot.  If you like your Westerns violent, this should not be missed.

Trailer

Last Holiday
Directed by Henry Cass
Written by J.B. Priestley
1950/UK
Associated British Picture Corporation/Watergate Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] George Bird: How do you keep smiling with a stiff upper lip?[/box]

I fell for this sleeper in a big way.  Such a fine performance by Alec Guinness.

Ikiru-style, the film begins with George Bird (Guinness) in a doctor’s waiting room presumably to get the results of a routine physical.  In the doctor’s office, the physician is looking over his patient’s X-rays.  It is bad news.  George is suffering from a rare disease that is invariably terminal.  The doctor matter-of-factly informs him he has six weeks to live after which he will slip into a coma and die painlessly.  After determining that George has no family or close friends, he suggests that George quit his job, cash in his savings and his insurance policy and enjoy the remainder of his life.

George quits his job as a farm equipment salesman.  George’s boss who had previously refused his request for a raise now is willing to pay almost any amount to keep him.  But George heads to a travel agency where he books a one-way ticket to the poshest seaside resort he can find.

Fortuitously a tailor soon offers him an incredible deal on some bespoke Saville Row clothes that fit him perfectly and a couple of suitcases that are covered with travel stickers.  George himself has never been anywhere.  George is feeling adventurous and picks up the lot for 65 pounds.  The tailor advises George that he will be a new man in these clothes, especially if he treats himself to a new haircut and shaves off his moustache.

The resort treats George like royalty on arrival.  All the other guests are intrigued by this mysterious stranger.  Everything he does turns to gold.  Newly liberated from his inhibitions, he speaks his mind to a few influential people and is rewarded with new job offers.  He wins big every time he gambles.  A lady married to a broke wastrel finds him irresistible.

But George is basically miserable.  It takes him most of the story to confide his secret to anyone.  Then a couple of things happen that make a real difference.

I loved Guinness in this, a departure from his comedy performances of the period.  His character is subdued and retiring but there is clearly so much going on inside him that you just have to feel for him. I was surprised by the unexpected ending, which made the whole story so much more thought-provoking.  Recommended.

Trailer

La Ronde
Directed by Max Ophüls
Adapted by Max Ophüls and Jack Natanson from the play “Riegen” by Arthur Schnitzler
1950/France
Films Sacha Gordine
First viewing/Hulu

[box] The camera exists to create a new art and to show above all what cannot be seen elsewhere: neither in theater nor in life; otherwise, I’d have no need of it; doing photography doesn’t interest me. That, I leave to the photographer. – Max Ophuls[/box]

This light look at love and lust features a dynamite cast of French stars past, present, and to come along with the always wonderful Anton Walbrook.

The film is taken from a stage play and remains bound to its roots.  The stories play out in Vienna.  It is introduced by a cynical master of ceremonies (Walbrook) who speaks directly to the audience at some times and assumes small roles (butlers, waiters, etc.) at others.

The story begins with a liaison between a soldier and a prostitute (Simone Signoret) who offers him her services for free in a fit of patriotism.  The soldier moves on to seduce a housemaid (Simone Simone).  When he is  through with her she seduces an inexperienced young aristocrat who later woos a married woman (Danielle Darrieux).  Her husband has an affair with a young girl.  The girl falls for a poet (Jean-Louis Barrault) who is having an affair with an actress.   The actress follows on with an admiring Count.  The Count misses a date with her for an drunken session with the prostitute and the circle is completed.

This is just charming in the way French farces often are.  It is set to a very catchy waltz tune.  I was delighted throughout though I don’t know how long this will stay in my memory.

Montage of clips – no subtitles