Monthly Archives: October 2015

Hondo
Directed by John Farrow
Written by James Edward Grant from a story by Louis L’Amour
1953/USA
Warner Bros/Wayne-Fellows Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Hondo Lane: A man oughta do what he thinks is best.[/box]

This workmanlike Western is notable as the screen debut of Geraldine Page.

Hondo Lane (John Wayne) lived with the Apache for some time and had an Apache wife until she died.  Lately he has been working off and on as an Indian Scout for the cavalry.  While on patrol, his horse goes lame and he stops at the farm of Lowe farm for help. Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page) claims her husband is off tending to some sick cattle and will return any minute. The couple’s six-year-old son cannot be discouraged from petting Hondo’s wary dog.  Hondo exchanges farm labor for Angie’s help.  When he leaves, he encourages her to evacuate with her son as some Apache are on the warpath.  Angie maintains they have always had good relations with the Indians and have nothing to fear.

Angie is wrong, of course, and is soon visited by an angry band of Apache.  Luckily for her, their leader Vittorio admires the courage of the little boy and makes him a blood brother. Angie is later ordered to pick a brave as her husband as the Apache believe him to be dead.  She is given a reprieve until planting season.

The remainder of the film is devoted to several action sequences and a romance between Hondo and Angie.  With Ward Bond as Hondo’s buddy.

This is a serviceable Western.  I always like Geraldine Page and she adds a lot of depth to the romance.  This was her film debut.  I don’t really have anything else to say about the movie.  If you like Westerns, it’s a pretty good one.

Page received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress.  L’Amour’s story was originally nominated then withdrawn when it was revealed it had come from the author’s published magazine story.

Trailer

House of Wax
Directed by Andre de Toth
Written by Crane Wilbur from a story by Charles Belden
1953/USA
Brian Foy Productions/Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing?/Netflix rental

[box] Prof. Henry Jarrod: Everything I ever loved has been taken away from me but not you, my Marie Antoinette, for I will give you eternal life.[/box]

This is a practically perfect example of the ’50’s horror genre with 3-D and Vincent Price to add to the fun.

Professor Henry Jerrod (Price) is an eccentric sculptor with a genius at creating lifelike wax images of historical figures.  He considers these pieces to be his “children” and thinks of his work as art.  In contrast, his greedy partner Matthew Burke wants him to install a Chamber of Horrors and other spectacular content to draw crowds.  Jerrod is hopeful of attracting an investor to buy Burke out.  Burke is not content to wait however and sets fire to the premises for the insurance money with Jerrod still inside.  His body is never found.

Time passes.  Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones) excitedly tells her friend Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) about her new boyfriend, an older man who is lavish with attentions and money.  She goes out to the theater with the man.  Later that evening, Sue is threatened with eviction if she does not come up with the rent.  Sue goes to Cathy room to beg a loan.  She finds only a corpse with the horribly disfigured murderer still in the room.  He flees.  Cathy’s  body disappears from the morgue.

Soon after, Jerrod appeals again to his investor for help in recreating the museum.  He is successful.  Bodies do not stop disappearing.  I will stop here.  With Charles Bronson as deaf-mute assistant Igor.

I found this totally enjoyable.  The production is lavish and Price is scary as always.  The color was outstanding and I thought the effects were very good for the time.  It is interesting to look at the various 3-D gimmicks inserted in this early example of the technique from paddle-ball demonstrations to the kicks of some can-can dancers.  Recommended.

House of Wax is a remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) with Lionel Atwood and Faye Wray.  That one is good but this is the definitive version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Du3nrKXHo

Trailer

How 3-D was demonstrated in 1953

Calamity Jane
Directed by David Butler
Written by James O’Hanlon
1953/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Oh, the Deadwood stage is a-rolling on over the plains / With the curtains flappin’ and the driver a-snappin’ the reins / A beautiful sky, a wonderful day / Whip-crack-away, whip-crack-away, whip-crack-away — “Whip-Crack-Away”, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster[/box]

I have loved this movie since I first saw it on my parent’s black-and-white TV set.

Calamity Jane was a real person.  This musical takes liberties with her story.  Calamity Jane (Doris Day) is a popular figure around Deadwood in the Dakota Territory.  She shoots as well as a man, dresses like one, and loves to tell tall tales about her exploits.  She is secretly in love with a handsome Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin whom she rescues from some Indians.

The population of Deadwood seems to be entirely male aside from Calamity.  The men lust after the photograph of singer Adelaid Adams.  The saloon owner sends off for an act called Francis Fryer and is disappointed to find out that he is a man as well. This almost causes a riot and Calamity sets out for Chicago to hire Adelaid Adams.  She makes a bet with friendly rival Wild Bill Hickcock (Howard Keel) that she can secure the singer’s services.  Hickock says he will attend the first performance dressed like a squaw with a papoose if she is successful.

Through a misunderstanding, Calamity brings back Adams’s dresser Katie Brown thinking her to be the famous singer.  Katie’s performance is timid and finally she must confess that she is an imposter.  Once she conquers her nerves, the town falls in love with her.  This includes both Wild Bill and the lieutenant.

In the meantime, Katie becomes Calamity’s roommate and cleans up both her and her cabin.  They are happy until Calamity catches Katie kissing the lieutenant.

This movie is just as fun if not more so than I remembered.  I love Doris Day when she is in tomboy mode and can belt out her songs.  The songs are catchy and there is not much dancing.  Probably won’t make a musical lover out of anyone but if you like them, I can recommend this one.

“Secret Love” won the Oscar for Best Music, Original Song.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Sound, Recording and Best Music, Scoring of a Motion Picture.

Trailer

Keel and Day sing “I Can Do Without You”.

A Japanese Tragedy aka Tragedy of Japan (Nihon no higeki)
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by Keisuke Kinoshita
1953/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth[/box]

I don’t like films that constantly flip flop between flashback and present day.  This is one.

The story frequently shifts from a time immediately after Japan’s defeat in WWII to present day 1953.  Haruko is a widow who worked hard at menial jobs to support her two children and keep them in school amid post-war hardship.  It seems they spent most of their time living with their uncle’s family, who treated them harshly.

Currently, Haruko is working as a hostess in some sort of drinking establishment or geisha house. She drinks too much and is fairly volatile. Her grown son, whom she continues to support through medical school, wants her to permit an elderly couple to adopt him so he can inherit the husband’s clinic.  Naturally, this is very hurtful to Haruko.  The daughter is profoundly ashamed of her.

We follow these unhappy people as they run into outsiders who are just as unhappy and self-centered as themselves.

Due to the film’s structure, I never quite figured out exactly what Hakuro had done to make the children resent her so. The flashbacks were too short to really add much information.  Every person in the film is out for themselves.  Besides the flashbacks, the film contains a fair bit of historical footage.  Through all this, the filmmakers’ condemnation of post-war Japanese society comes through clearly.  I think we were supposed to identify with the mother but she was so flawed I couldn’t completely sympathize. I wouldn’t have wished the film’s ending on her though.

White Mane (Crin blanc: Le cheval sauvage)
Directed by Albert Lamorisse
Written by Albert Lamorisse and Denys Colomb de Daunant; English narration by James Agee
1953/USA
Films Montsouris
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities. — Herman Melville [/box]

If you love horses or beautiful cinematography this short film is a must see.

The film is almost dialogue free with a voice-over narration.  The story is set in Southern France where herds of wild horses still roam.  A beautiful stallion named White Mane is the leader of his particular group.  He does not like people and can get pretty violent in his efforts to escape them.  This only makes a group of local horsemen covet him more. He is also admired by a boy of maybe 10 or 12.  The men finally catch him but he escapes.

The boy lives with his grandfather and small sister.  He fishes in the local marshes.  A flamingo lives with the family and eats out of the boy’s hand.  The boy extracts a promise from the leader of the men that if he can catch White Mane he will be the boy’s.  It isn’t easy but the boy finally captures the horse and makes friends with it.  But that is not the end of the tale.

I love LaMorrisse’s The Red Balloon and this is only more beautiful.  It is a fine way to spend forty minutes and highly recommended.

Montage of clips  – DVD print quality is far superior

Titanic
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, and Ricard L. Breen
1953/USA
Twentieth Century Fox
First viewing/Netflix Rental

[box] Annette Sturges: Mama, you should have protested. It’s a really bad table. There’s not a person we know at the end of this room.

Julia Sturges: Be brave Annette. These tragedies happen sometimes in life.[/box]

What’s a film about the Titanic disaster without a little melodrama?

There are several subplots running through the film.  The main one concerns the demise of the marriage of Richard Ward Sturges (Clifton Webb) and his wife Julia (Barbara Stanwyck).  Julia has left Paris for America with their two children Annette (Audrey Dalton), who is in her late teens,  and Norman, who is maybe twelve.  Richard finds out at the last moment and gets on the sold out ship by buying the ticket of the father of a steerage class family.  He promptly moves from steerage to first class and confronts his wife.

The children adore their father and he obviously loves them.  We find out that Julia, a “common” Midwest girl when she married Richard, does not want her children spoiled by the Parisian lifestyle or her husband’s effete manners and class-conscious world view.  It is possibly too late for Annette, who when she finds out that the stay is to be permanent demands to be taken “home” to Paris.  Julia is insistent that Norman is hers to stay however.

In addition to the drama about Richard and Julia we get the shipboard romance between Annette and Purdue man Gifford Rogers (Robert Wagner), a defrocked alcoholic priest (Richard Basehart) and words of homespun wisdom from Maude Young (Thelma Ritter), a standin for the Unsinkable Molly Brown.  We all know how this will end but not necessarily who will rise to the occasion.  With Brian Aherne as Captain Smith.

I was not crazy about the Academy Award winning Screenplay which managed to be both overblown and not dramatic enough somehow to carry us through to the sinking.  Things get relatively exciting when the ship hits the iceberg.  Stanwyck and Webb are both very good.  It was good to see Webb with play a part with some real emotion behind the waspishness.  Robert Wagner is made to sing and dance – a mistake in my opinion.  In sum, this was entertaining enough but nothing great.

The DVD contains two commentaries.  One is by film critic Richard Schickel.  The other one, which I preferred, is by Sylvia Stoddard, a Titanic buff, with a cinematographer and actors Audrey Dalton and Robert Wagner.  The actors made Stanwyck sound like one of the nicest people ever.  I had not known before this that she was able to produce real tears on cue!

Titanic won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.

The Living Desert
Directed by James Algar
Written by James Algar and Winston Hibler
1953/USA
Walt Disney Studio
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] “I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince[/box]

I believed less than half of what they were trying to teach me but enjoyed looking at the American desert, my current home.

This is a very Disney documentary.  First we get an animated explanation of how the desert is formed by the clouds bumping up against the Sierra Nevada mountains.  The film then focuses mostly on the animal life of the desert.  Several species are covered.  Many of the little stories involve predator-prey behavior.

All the animals are seen through a simplistic human-centric lens.  Their behavior is shown in heavily edited little dramas conforming to what a child might imagine the motivation to be. We don’t really see quite this kind of nature documentary anymore.  Disney captured some nice footage though and the narrative is entertaining.

The Living Desert won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Features.

Clip

Genevieve
Directed by Henry Cornelius
Written by William Rose
1953/UK
J. Arthur Rank Organization/La Societe de Film Sirius
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Hotel proprietress: Nobody’s ever complained before.
Guest: Are they Americans?[/box]

This is a pretty funny film.  I imagine it would be hilarious if you happened to be a classic car owner or better yet the spouse of one.

Alan McKim (John Gregoson) inherited a 1904 Darracq from his father and with it the tradition of driving in the annual London-Brighton classic car rally.  Alan spends virtually all of his free time tinkering with this car.  His wife Wendy (Dinah Sheridan) is not too thrilled and this particular year she threatens not to accompany Alan to the event.  She eventually relents however.

Ambrose Claverhouse (Kenneth Moore) is a friend of the family who introduced Wendy to Alan.  He owns a 1905 Spyker and  also participates in the yearly event.  Ambrose is a bachelor and this year he has invited the unsuspecting Rosalind (a hilarious Kay Kendall) in hopes of a “really beautiful emotional experience” during the weekend at Brighton.

Alan and Ambrose have a not always friendly rivalry with respect to their cars.  Alan’s car is constantly breaking down but he is certain of its superiority to Ambrose’s.  The movie follows Alan’s mishap-filled journey to Brighton.  After arrival,  Alan becomes jealous of Ambrose’s attentions toward Wendy and makes a bet the couple can scarcely afford to lose.  Against all the rally rules, he says Genevieve can beat the Spyker on the trip back to Westminster Bridge.  One adventure after another confronts the ruthless drivers.

I thought this was amusing.  My favorite part was when Kay Kendall played the trumpet.  If you know someone obsessed with a hobby such as this you might find it even funnier.

Genevieve was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmsPJ1RHfo4

Clip

Gion Bayashi (A Geisha)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Matsutarô Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda from Kawaguchi’s novel
1953/Japan
Daiei Studios
First viewing/Hulu

[box] Miyoharu: A geisha’s lie is not a real lie. It’s a cornerstone of our profession. Do we not amuse our clients by agreeing to all their requests?[/box]

Here Mizoguchi offers some small hope for his heroines amid their pain.  I liked this a lot.

Sixteen-year old Eiko is the daughter of a geisha who married one of her customers. Eiko’s mother has died and she is estranged from her pathetic loser father.  She has been living with an uncle who claims she owes him money and demands she sleep with him as repayment.  So Eiko flees to the Gion district of Kyoto and begs her mother’s friend Mioharu to sponsor her for training as a geisha.  Geisha training and outfitting is very expensive and Eiko has no capital nor will her father be her guarantor.  Finally, Mioharu relents and sponsors the girl herself.

Eiko is a diligent student and she is ready for her debut scarcely a year after this.  The kimonos and other gear required are immensely expensive.  So Mioharu goes to “Mother” who runs this particular band of geishas for a 300,000 yen loan.  Mother doesn’t appear to be the world’s most generous person but she agrees.  Eiko makes a very beautiful Geisha.

Things go downhill form here.  Eiko’s father takes to coming around regularly for hand outs.  It turns out that “Mother” did not actually lend Mioharu the money.  Instead the loan came from Kusuda, a 62-year-old wheeler dealer,  in exchange for “Mother’s” promise that he could be the 17-year-old Eiko’s “patron” (aka lover).  Then, Kasuda, who has been spendiing a lot of time and money on wining and dining a Ministry official in pursuit of a big contract, wants Miocharu to sleep with the official.  Neither woman wants to comply.  But “Mother” has even more tricks up her sleeve to get what she wants, not limited to completely barring the geishas from working.  How long can they resist?

It struck me that poor Eiko’s job as a geisha was not all that different from her situation with her uncle.  Her body was still her main commodity.  Only the kimonos were more expensive.  We get lots of scenes where these exquisitely refined and trained women have to be nice, and more, to a bunch of lecherous drunks.  It is truly disgusting.  At least, the ending of this one is not 100% bleak.  This is really well written and acted.  The print available on YouTube didn’t do any favors to the images.  Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOHm3TivgQ

Trailer