Monthly Archives: February 2016

Summertime
Directed by David Lean
Written by Lean and H.E. Bates from a play by Arthur Laurents
1955/UK/USA
London Film Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Signora Fiorini: When in Italy, you should meet Italians![/box]

David Lean gives us all a romantic holiday in Venice.

Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is a secretary of a certain age.  She has saved up the money to take a long holiday in Venice.  She is traveling alone and her loneliness is palpable.  She dives into all sights with gusto and understanding, however.

One day, as she is having a drink alone in an outdoor cafe on the Piazza San Marco, she notices a handsome man staring at her.  This makes her uncomfortable.  The next day she goes into a shop to inquire about a red glass goblet and it turns out that the man is the store owner, Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi).  He sells her the goblet and gets her address so that he can let her know if he finds a match to complete a pair.

Jane goes back to the store to ask if he has found the glass.  He shows up at her penzione that night to ask her out.  Jane is both terribly attracted and deeply suspicious of the Italian’s motives.  We share their bliss, followed by Jane’s soul searching.

I could have looked at Lean’s portrait of Venice for hours without a story to keep my attention.  But this is a pretty good tale as well.  My least favorite Hepburn character is the 40-year-old virgin that she played for about a decade around this time.  However, on revisiting the film, I found a lot to like about both her and the character.  Not that I personally could have resisted Rossano Brazzi for more than a minute …

Summertime was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Actress.

Clip – visit to Murano

Shree 420
Directed by Raj Kapoor
Written by Kwadja Ahmad Abbas and V. P. Sathe
1955/India
R.K. Films Ltd.
First viewing/Netflix

[box] There is nothing in this world except love. The more you spread it or give it, the more it expands. The more you accept love, the stronger it becomes. The more you bring out love, the better and greater you become. There are many forms of love. If you make it narrow, then it becomes selfish. Selfish love can benefit a person but he loses his significance. — Raj Kapoor[/box]

Another entertainment from the Chaplin of Bollywood.

Raj (Raj Kapoor) is having no luck hitch-hiking to the big city where he hopes to find work. Finally, he decides to collapse in the middle of the road.  He is picked up by a rich man and his family who say they will take him to the hospital.  He doesn’t like this idea so he “wakes up” when he hears this.  He is ejected from the car as a fraud and reflects that he gets help when he lies and abuse when he tells the truth.

He is a fish out of water in the big city and goes through further hard knocks before he is adopted by a kindly banana vendor and other poor folk who live on the pavement.  Although he is a college graduate, the only job he can get is in a laundry.  After a rocky start, he begins courting a poor school teacher (Nargis).

Finally, when he goes to deliver clothes to the house of a rich family, he reveals his prodigious school at cheating at cards.  This turns out to be the same family that picked him up hitchhiking.  They put his talents to work and eventually he becomes a con artist shilling for the father of the family.  The school teacher is disgusted with him.  When he is asked to con the poor out of money they think will buy them houses, he sees the error of his ways.

As usual, the plot is secondary to the many catchy tunes and production numbers.  There is a message of solidarity among the poor underlying the whole thing.  Kapoor is a talented physical comic and has a really appealing personality that makes everything go down easily.

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

Clip – song

We’re No Angels
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Ranald MacDougall from a play by Albert Husson
1955/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Joseph: We came here to rob them and that’s what we’re gonna do – beat their heads in, gouge their eyes out, slash their throats. Soon as we wash the dishes.[/box]

Here’s a lesser-known movie for your Christmastime viewing.  Unfortunately, it won’t be making  my list.

The entire story takes place at the end of the 19th Century on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day somewhere in French Guyana.  Two murders, Albert (Aldo Ray) and Jules (Peter Ustinov), and one con man, Joseph (Humphrey Bogart), have escaped from Devil’s Island.  They blend in well with all the parolees in the town where they land and have plans to take the first ship out.  This is stranded in the harbor because of a health quarantine.

The trio hatch a number of schemes to feed themselves in the meantime.  They chance upon the shop of Felix Ducotel (Leo G. Carroll) and sign on as day laborers, planning to carry out a major robbery that night.  But Felix is very kind to them and the lonely men take a liking to his wife Amelie (Joan Bennett) and daughter Isabelle.

The shop is failing and Felix is terrified of its owner, his Uncle Andre (Basil Rathbone).  His daughter is in love with Andre’s cousin Paul.  Andre is on the quarantined ship with Paul. They eventually bribe their way off the ship and arrive intent on auditing the shop’s books. The convicts contrive to help the family celebrate Christmas, rid themselves of Andre, and let true love triumph.

Obviously, this has quite the dynamite cast.  I just didn’t find it very funny and the heartwarming part felt phony to me.  Maybe it was the idea of loveable murderers.  This has a high IMDb user rating and might be someone else’s cup of tea.

Trailer

It Came from Beneath the Sea
Directed by Robert Gordon
Written by George Worthing Yates and Harold Jacob Smith from a story by Yates
1955/USA
Clover Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Cmdr. Pete Mathews: The next time I cruise in these waters I’m going to have torpedoes with warheads on them.[/box]

A dopey love triangle meets some pretty cool special effects and a liberated lady.

An atomic sub picks up a strange object on its sonar – too big to be a whale and shaped wrong for another submarine.  The crew also notices excessive radiation in the area. Cmdr. Pete Matthews (Kenneth Tobey) calls on biologists Dr. John Carter and Dr. Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) for advice.  They analyze some debris and determine that the object is a huge octopus.

Lesley is a biology wizard and refuses to be left out of the more dangerous assignments. She is also not averse to shedding her lab coat and revealing her Jane Russell-esque curves when it serves her purposes.  Naturally both Cmdr. Matthews and Dr. Carter are in love with her.

Back at the ranch, the octopus creates havoc at sea and in the Pacific Northwest before heading to San Francisco to attack the Golden Gate Bridge.  How can it be destroyed?

Truthfully, the main reason to watch this movie is that it features early special effects work by Ray Harryhausen which is light years ahead of the other special effects of this period. The octopus is fairly slow but it does look awfully good.  The Blu-Ray contains a nice commentary by Harryhausen and a couple of fans.

Trailer

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no kettô)
Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
Written by Tokuhei Wakao and Hiroshi Inagaki from a play by Hideji Hôjô and a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa
1955/Japan
Tojo Company
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance. — Confucius [/box]

This is probably of most interest to lovers of kick-ass samurai sword fighting.

At the end of the last film, Musashi Miyamoto (Toshiro Mifune) had left his true love Otsu waiting on a bridge while he went off in search of the inner character to be a true samurai.  The movie doesn’t waste any time.  Miyamoto immediately takes on a famous older samurai armed with a kind of mace.  Then we find out that Otsu has been waiting by the bridge for three years.  She meets Akemi, the daughter of the evil mother from the last movie.  Akemi is longing for Miyamoto as well.

Akemi’s evil mother is trying to arrange a marriage between her daughter and Seijuro, the master of a famous martial arts school.  Miyamoto has already been picking off Seijuro’s students handily.  When Seijuro finds out that Atami’s heart belongs to Miyamoto, he becomes the samurai’s sworn enemy.  The film builds to a showdown between Seijuro and Miyamoto but not before Miyamoto must defeat an ambush by 80 of Seijuro’s disciples single handed.

This is not strong on characterization and I am not a swordplay aficionado so it’s not a great match for me.  It’s OK though and samurai action fans might love it.

Trailer – the murky print is also a feature of the DVD

Tarantula
Directed by Jack Arnold
Written by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley; story by Fresco and Arnold
1955/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Andy Andersen: [viewing what’s left of his dead cattle] I never saw anything like it! No footprints! No blood! No sign of a struggle! The bones just stripped clean like peeling a banana![/box]

This is a very solid example of the giant mutant animal genre.  Also may be your only opportunity to see Leo G. Carroll in fright make-up!

As the story begins, a disfigured man in pajamas staggers out of a rock formation in the desert and collapses, dead, on the ground.  He is identified as the associate of preeminent biologist and medical doctor Prof. Gerald Deemer (Caroll).  Deemer diagnoses the cause of death as a rare glandular condition.  Local MD Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar) is not so sure.

We segue to the Professor’s lab where he is doing some kind of experiments that have resulted in giant animals.  He is attacked by another horribly disfigured and enraged man he addresses by name.  In the struggle, the lab catches fire and a tarantula the size of a German Shepherd escapes.

Student scientist Stephanie Clayton arrives to work with the dead associate.  Professor Deemer takes her on.  She soon becomes an item with Dr. Hastings.  The rest of the movie is devoted to the increasingly desperate attempts to rid the desert of the growing arachnid.

This, together with Them!, is up there with the cream of the crop of giant creature movies. It is tight and enjoyable.  The creature effects aren’t all that spectacular but they work and it is 1955 after all.  Recommended to fans of the genre.

Trailer

The African Lion
Directed by James Algar
Written by James Algar, Winston Hibler,Ted Sears and Jack Moffet
1955/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] “Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn’t roar?” ― Friedrich Schiller, Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua[/box]

This is an entertaining documentary showing what animal life thrived on the African savannah circa 1955.  It’s not just lions.

We see the big cats at rest, with their cubs, and on the hunt.  We are also introduced to their neighbors and their prey.

I’ve always wanted to go on a photo safari.  This is the Disney version.  It’s cute but not too cute and the filmmakers captured some extraordinary images.  One that stuck with me was about 20 lions just lounging together in the open.  I wonder if the parks are still teeming with so much life.  Makes me sad to think about the struggles the animals have with poachers, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1vHqj9oywI

Clip

Richard III
Directed by Laurence Olivier
from the play by William Shakespeare as adapted by David Garrick and Colley Cibber
1955/UK
London Film Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Richard III: Conscience is a word that cowards use.[/box]

Olivier makes a detestable yet somehow seductive Richard and gathers quite the cast around him.

This is the Shakespeare play with a few insertions from the Henry VI plays for exposition. The time is at the tail end of the Wars of the Roses which pitted the House of York against the House of Lancaster.  Richard’s brother King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) sits on the throne of England.  Richard is determined to get the crown. His other brother, the Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud),  and Edward’s two young sons stand in his way.  Richard’s first step is to seduce Anne (Claire Bloom), widow of the Lancastrian Prince of Wales.  He accomplishes this despite having killed both her father and her brother.

Richard becomes best buddies with his cousin the equally ruthless Duke of Buckingham (Ralph Richardson).  He then convinces Edward to have Clarence executed for treason. On his sickbed, Edward pardons his brother but Richard intercepts the message and has Clarence murdered.  This treachery kills Edward.  Next is to rid himself of the two little princes.  We follow the bloody story and Richard takes the throne.  But Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, is waiting in the wings to become Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, thus finally ending the War of the Roses.

This is a handsome production with some superb Shakespearian acting.  Richard’s villainy knew no limits!  Anyone who enjoyed Olivier’s other two Shakespeare films, Henry V and Hamlet, would surely enjoy this.

Laurence Olivier was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-P0xHwjxiI

Trailer