Monthly Archives: August 2015

When Worlds Collide
Directed by Rudolph Maté
Written by Sydney Boehm from a novel by Edwin Balmer and Philip wylie
1951/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Banner hanging over the Space Ark camp: Waste anything except TIME. Time is our shortest material.[/box]

I was looking forward to this for the special effects.  Unfortunately I did not find them convincing even for the period.

As the film opens, a group of scientists has made a terrifying discovery.  Within a year, the planet Zyra will come so close to the earth as to cause massive destruction.  Two weeks later a star will actually impact, obliterating the few survivors on earth.  Playboy David Randall (Richard Derr) is selected to take the astronomers’ top secret data to a university where a mainframe computer will be used confirm the findings.  The findings are confirmed.  The scientists conduct a special briefing for the UN but are not believed.

The scientists start fund raising for a Space Ark that will take forty hand-picked humans to Zyra to establish a space colony,  They get the final funding from an evil industrialist in a wheelchair.  Head scientist Dr. Hendron resists his demands to select the passengers.

Work begins on the Space Ark.  David Randall morphs from errand boy to critical employee/rocket ship pilot.  He has caught the eye of Dr. Hendron’s daughter Joyce (Barbara Rush) and she starts to reassess her engagement to square M.D. Tony Drake. Will the mission to Zyra survive the chaos that breaks out as disappointed prospective passengers arm themselves to storm the Ark?

I thought the use of miniatures and matte paintings was excruciatingly obvious in this one. The effects were more of a distraction than an asset as far as I was concerned.  I think maybe the same effects would have worked far better in black and white.  The story and acting don’t have much to recommend them.  The film ends with dawn on the planet Zyra.  I think there was an interesting movie to be made starting there.

When Worlds Collide won the Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects.  It was nominated for Best Cinematography, Color.

Trailer

Angels in the Outfield
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Dorothy Kingsley and George Wells; story by Richard Conlin
1951/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Aloysius X. ‘Guffy’ McGovern: Dogs have fleas, managers have reporters.[/box]

This started out really promisingly.

“Guffy” McGovern (Paul Douglas) is the manager of the Pittsburg Pirates. He swears a blue streak, is inclined to fisticuffs, and regularly gets thrown out of games.  The Priates are having a losing season.  The local paper sends out its household hints columnist Jennifer Page (Janet Leigh) out to get the “women’s angle” on the team.  She concludes the players are disheartened by the tongue lashings they receive from their manager.

Then a miracle happens.  Guffy is visited by an angel whom he can hear but not see.  The angel promises heavenly assistance if Guffy can learn to control his temper.

Then the cute little orphans and nuns show up.  One of the girls, Bridget, can see angels standing behind each of the players.  This hits the press and causes quite a stir.  Guffy’s angel has told him that they played together and his curiosity takes him out to the orphanage to see if he Bridget can tell him who the angel was.

Guffy, Jennifer, and Bridget all become really chummy.  In the meantime, Guffy’s archenemy (Keenan Wynne), a sports announcer, tries to get Guffy banned from the game due to insanity.  There is a hearing.  If you don’t know everything that happens in the last act of this movie, you have not been paying attention.  With Spring Byington and Ellen Corby as nuns, Lewis Stone as the baseball commissioner, and Donald Crisp in a cameo as a priest.  We also hear from Bing Crosby and Harry Ruby, playing themselves, on the subject of angels.

This is crisply written and pretty amusing at points.  Halfway in I began thinking I had seen the movie before.  I had.  It was called “Miracle on 34th Street.” All the best stuff in this one seemed much fresher in that film.  You could definitely find worse ways to spend your time, however.

Trailer

Death of a Salesman
Directed by Laslo Benedek
Written by Stanley Roberts from the play by Arthur Miller
1951/USA
Stanley Kramer Productions
First viewing/YouTube

This is a great and devastating story and Fredric March is great in it.

Willie Loman (March) is 63 years old and nearing the end of his 30-year career as a traveling salesman. He has read and absorbed the Dale Carnegie course but finds he no longer wins friends and influences people, if he ever did.  The voices from his past are becoming more real and insistent and he appears to be one bad decision away from suicide.  The hallucinations are so bad he is almost unable to drive a car.  Willie’s incredibly loyal and supportive wife Linda (Mildred Dunnock) is very worried.

Matters all come to head when Willie’s older son Biff (Kevin McCarthy) comes home for a visit.  Biff was a football player and father and son formed a kind of mutual admiration society when Biff was a high school football star.  Since then, Biff has become a drifter and a great disappointment to his father.  Almost anything they say to one another is the beginning of an argument.  To make matters worse, Biff’s playboy younger brother Happy decides to room with Biff at home during this visit.  Happy is a natural peacemaker but has little success with Biff and his father and has somehow gotten on the wrong side of his mother.

All the members of this family suffer from one delusion or another.  As the story progresses, Willie’s illusions are destroyed one by one.  Biff’s are stripped away as well.  The tragic ending is tempered slightly by a glimmer of hope that Biff may be able to escape his father’s fate.

This play hits me where I live and it always leaves me exhausted.  The number of lies these people tell themselves is staggering but not more so than the sadness of the reality they cover.  Fredric March’s performance as Willie Loman may be the one he was born for and absolutely should be seen.  The last few times I looked for this film I could not find it.  If you have any interest, you can catch it right now on YouTube.  Highly recommended.

Death of a Salesman received Academy Award nominations in the categories of Best Actor (March); Best Supporting Actor (McCarthy); Best Supporting Actress (Dunnock); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-OWkN6vMHA

Clip

The Life of Oharu (Saikaku Ichidai Ona)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Kenji Mizoguchi and Yoshikata Yoda from a novel by Saikaku Ihara
1952/Japan
Koi Productions/Shintoho Film Distribution Committee
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Katsunosuke: Lady Oharu, a human being – no, woman – can only be happy if she marries for love. Rank and money don’t mean happiness.

This story of a woman in medieval Japan made a beautiful film.  It also made me really angry.

It is 17th century Japan.The 50-year-old Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka), a streetwalker, sits in a temple.  The faces of the Buddha statues remind her of the men in her life and we segue in flashback.

Oharu begins life as a pretty teenager whose parents are attached to the the court.  A lowly retainer (Toshiro Mifune) in love with her.  She resists his advances at first but then succumbs and the two are caught together.  Since it is taboo for the higher classes to associate with the lower classes, Oshiro and her entire immediate family are exiled from Kyoto.  The lover is beheaded.  Needless to say, Oharu’s parents are not happy with her.  But their opinion changes when a court retainer selects her as the ideal candidate to be the Daimyo’s concubine and bear him an heir, something his wife has been unable to do.

Oharu has a healthy son, from whom she is immediately separated.  Then the Daimyou falls for her and his advisors decide he is “sapping his strength” in the bedroom so Ohayu is sent back to her parents only a tiny bit richer.  In the meantime her father has taken out a large loan in hopes that the match would make him rich.  He decides her to sell her to a high class brothel as a courtesan.

Poor Oharu can’t catch a break.  She  is eventually dismissed from the brothel for insubordination.  She has some happiness as a fan-maker’s wife but he is soon killed by robbers.  She ends up traveling with a thief until the thief is caught.  Finally, some prostitutes see her begging in the street and take pity on her.

This is a very sad movie but it made me more angry than anything else.  The suffering that these women went through while they were basically chattel is mind-blowing.  Although depressing, it is very beautiful to look at and Tanaka is one of the really great actresses in cinema history and does wonderfully with her role.  I just read that Mizoguchi’s sister was sold as a geisha.  I had not known that before.  It explains the themes of a lot of his films, which tend to focus on the plight of women.

In the absence of clips from the film, here is a clip about Tanaka’s visit to Hollywood

The Model and the Marriage Broker
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Richard L. Breen
1951/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box]Kitty Bennett: Oh, I didn’t realize – you’ve got people in there, haven’t you?

Mae Swasey: About 50-50.[/box]

1951 was Thelma Ritter’s year it seems.

Mae Swasey is a marriage broker who introduces lonely hearts to other lonely hearts for a fee.   Sometimes one half of the couple does not know it has been set up as is the case of radiologist Matt Hornbeck (Scott Brady).  But the mother of the fiancee refuses to pay up and Matt gets cold feet at the last moment.

One day, Mae picks up the handbag of department store  model Kitty Bennett (Jeanne Crain) by mistake. In it, she reads a love letter from a married man.  When Kitty comes to return Mae’s bag and retrieve her own, Mae gives her some strong motherly advice to dump him.  Then Mae decides to do a little pro bono marriage brokering and bring Matt and Kitty together.

She keeps her involvement secret from the two and her scheme works swimmingly until Kitty discovers Mae’s profession.  Initially Kitty is  furious but eventually she decides the best revenge is to do a little secret marriage brokering of her own.  With Zero Mostel as one of Mae’s clients.

This was pleasant, if not great.  Ritter is always good and she is undoubtedly the lead here.  I am beginning to like Crain more and more, too.  There is some snappy dialogue but mostly it’s a fairly predictable but solid romantic comedy.

The Model and the Marriage Broker was Oscar-nominated for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yQwZU5kUCU

Trailer

Susana
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel and Rodolfo Usigli from the novel by Manuel Reachi and Jaime Salvador
1951/Mexico
Internacional Cinematográfica
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Sex without religion is like cooking an egg without salt. Sin gives more chances to desire. – Luis Buñuel[/box]

This is an OK melodrama with a few signature Buñuel touches.  I would have liked more of them.

Susana (Rosita Quintana) has been locked up in a girl’s reformatory for unspecified crimes.   She apparently goes wild on a regular basis and is once again locked up in solitary.  Her prayers are answered when the bars of her cell window come loose and she escapes into the pouring rain.

Susana finds herself on the farm of a very happy family, headed by Don Guadalupe (Francisco Soler).  They take her in and everyone loves the “innocent” lass.  This is not enough for Susana, however, and she proceeds to seduce and enslave the father, the son and the overseer.

I don’t have much to say about this one.  The seduction scenes are the best and most Buñuelean.  The director seems still to be on a fairly short leash here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W0kEyA2OlM

Clip

Ginza Cosmetics (Ginza keshô)
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Written by Matsuo Kishi from a novel by Tomoichirô Inoue
1951/Japan
Ito Productions
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman [/box]

This quiet film got under my skin.

Yukiku Tsuji is a single mother who supports herself and her son by working as a hostess at a bar in the Ginza district of Tokyo.  Her work primarily consists of flattering the losers that come in so that they continue to buy overpriced drinks while she talks with them.  Some of the other girls are tempted to earn more money by accepting invitations to go out with the men after the bar closes for the night, but not Yukiko.  The beginning of the film illustrates the hazards of the bar hostess trade from non-paying customers to old admirers who stick around to borrow money.  The business is doing so badly that the owner is thinking of selling.  Yukiko has almost no time with her young son.

Yukiko tries help out the owner by borrowing 200,000 yen from a horrible old admirer and is practically raped in the process.  Then a friend asks her to show a visitor from the countryside whom the friend is interested in around Tokyo.  The decency of this young man begins to make Yukiko think a better life might be possible but she is called away when her son goes missing.

This is a small film without much in the way of plot. It has some humor, mostly derived at the expense of Yukiko’s clients.  I found it kind of depressing though.  I really can’t think of anything worse that relying on cajoling men you don’t like to stay afloat.  The prospects just get worse as the women begin to age.  Naruse is famous for his compassion for women and their situation in post-war Japan and it is fully in evidence here.

Laughter in Paradise
Directed by Mario Zampi
Written by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies
UK/1951
Associated British Picture Corporation/Mario Zampi Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Deniston Russell: With all this on my mind I just cannot face her tonight.

Simon Russell: Couldn’t face her any night. [/box]

I was in the mood for a good comedy and this one fit the bill perfectly.

Henry Russell is a millionaire and notorious practical joker.  His will contains his crowning achievement.  It leaves 50,000 pounds each to a number of relatives but only on conditions designed to challenge their greatest personal weaknesses.  Each relative must complete a task within 28 days.  The relatives will be disinherited if they reveal the will’s terms to any one before 28 days pass or if any of them contest the will.

Henry’s sister Agnes is a bitter spinster who has become nasty taskmaster to her staff.  She is required to get a job as a domestic and hold it without getting fired or quitting.  His nephew is a timid bank clerk.  His job is to hold up the bank with a toy pistol.  Brother (?) Denniston (Alistair Sim) is a retired military officer who writes pulp fiction under an assumed name on the sly.  His fiancee and her father would be scandalized if they knew.  Denniston must manage to get himself arrested and spend 28 days in jail.  Finally, chronically broke playboy Simon must marry the first woman he talks to after the will is read.

All these people have one difficulty after another completing their assignments and get themselves into thoroughly ridiculous situations in the process.  With Ernest Thesinger as the family solicitor and Audrey Hepburn in a tiny part as a cigarette girl.

I came for my beloved Alistair Sim and ended up thoroughly enjoying myself.  I laughed out loud several times – something I have not done at some of the more famous Ealing Studio comedies of the period.  Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBi80VGvyrU

Clips

Don’t blink!

The Red Badge of Courage
Directed by John Huston
Written by John Huston and adapted by Albert Band from the novel by Stephen Crane
1951/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the side of the snoring tall soldier. In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country’s business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf. — Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage[/box]

This adaptation of the classic novel is the simple story of a raw young soldier’s coming of age.  We follow the soldier and his comrades as they move from wingeing unsure recruits to fighting men.

Young Henry Fleming (Audie Murphy) sets out with dreams of glory only to find himself paralyzed by fear when he sees real combat.   After his brief desertion, he returns to the regiment and tries to cover up his flight.  Gradually he finds that he was not alone in his fears.  The regiment is once again tested and Henry and his fellows rise to the occasion.

John Huston got some real life experience in combat during World War II.  It shows here in the convincing footage of the chaos of combat.  The cinematography looks like something out of an old Matthew Brady photograph.  The dialogue has an old-timey ring perfect to this story.  Despite its butchering at the hands of studio executives, I thought this was excellent.  Recommended.

According to the IMDb trivia, “John Huston considered this his best film. After a power struggle at the top of MGM management, the film was cut from a 2 hour epic to the 69 minute version released to theaters. It was never released as a A-list movie but was shown as a 2nd feature B-list movie. Both Houston and star Audie Murphy tried unsuccessfully to purchase the film so that it could be re-edited to its original length. The studio claiming that the cut footage was destroyed. Unless there is an undiscovered copy of the uncut version, this movie will never be viewed as John Huston intended.”

Trailer

Joe Dante talks about the film – Trailers from Hell – Dante’s comments  made me order Picture, Lillian Ross’s book about the making of the film