Monthly Archives: April 2016

The Mountain
Directed by Edward Dmytryck
Written by Ranald MacDougall from a novel by Henry Troyat
1956/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Netflix

[box] Zachary Teller: You’re sweating! Thinking of the dead men’s money is making you sweat! I blame myself. It’s my fault for you being like this. Somewhere I must have done something wrong for you to be like this.[/box]

Spencer Tracy channels Manuel from Captains Courageous in portraying an ancient mountaineer.  It’s an excellent performance.

Before the credits roll, we see a plane crashing on a mountain peak.

Zachary Teller (Tracy) raised his much younger brother Chris (Robert Wagner) from birth. Zachary used to be a mountain guide but quit when a client was killed on one of his climbs.  He now confines himself to herding sheep.  Chris has grown up to be a spoiled brat and works at a ski resort.  He has had an affair with a wealthy woman.  Her husband disses him by offering him money and calling him “boy”.  He is now obsessed with the need to get money of his own.  It does not occur to him to work for it.

Zachary refuses to guide a search party up the mountain to retrieve mail from the plane. The search party is eventually forced to turn back and decides to wait for better weather.  Chris wants Zachary to guide him on his own mission to retrieve all the valuables of the passengers.  Zachary initially refuses but relents when it becomes clear that Chris will go on his own and perish without him.

The rest of the film follows the arduous and dangerous climb.  With Claire Trevor as Zachary’s lady friend and William Demerest as a priest.

I thought this was one of Tracy’s better performances.  Not only does he portray Zachary with a very touching simplicity but he also is convincing as an experienced mountain climber.  There are many white-knuckle moments in this film with people dangling from ropes and reaching to grab very tenuous hand-holds. It was fun to see Trevor and Demerest after several years without them.   I have a touch of acrophobia but enjoyed the film anyway.

Fan trailer

Kabe atsuki heya (The Thick-Walled Room)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
Written by Kôbô Abe
1956/Japan
Shinei Productions/Shochiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu

[box] The Tribunal shall have the power to try and punish Far Eastern war criminals who as individuals or as members of organizations are charged with offences which include Crimes against Peace. The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

a. Crimes against Peace: Namely, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a declared or undeclared war of aggression, …;

b. Conventional War Crimes: Namely, violations of the laws or customs of war;

c. Crimes against Humanity: Namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political or racial grounds … — Tokyo Charter, Article 5 [/box]

Here is an interesting look at post-War Japan’s conflicted views of WWII as seen in the microcosm of a prison for convicted war criminals.

We look at many different prisoners in turn.  We are primarily interested in Class B prisoners who were convicted of war crimes as enlisted men following orders.  The film flashes back to the crimes themselves.  One man was ordered to shoot a Filipino who fed his troop in the suspicion that he was a guerrilla that would reveal their movements.  An American was shot for stealing food.  Many of the prisoners are angry because they feel like the people responsible for the war were treated less harshly than they.  A few still believe in the Emperor and the Japanese cause.  One is a Communist.  One seeks atonement and peace.  All are disappointed when the peace treaty finally signed between Japan and the U.S. does not mean their immediate release.

This was interesting, if not a masterpiece.  Kobayashi is still coming into his own.  His anti-war, anti-military theme is taking hold and he is beginning to use some of the stylistic flourishes that would characterize his later work.  There are some dream-like sequences.

Clip (poor quality)

The Great Locomotive Chase
Directed by Francis D. Lyon
Written by Lawrence Edward Watkin
1956/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

James J. Andrews: I went through pretty far tonight. Let me tell you this: If you can’t drink their toasts and sing their songs, love Jeff Davis and hate Abe Lincoln by next Friday, you’ll never reach Marietta.

This is Disney’s live-action version of Buster Keaton’s The General, told from the perspective of the Union spies who stole Buster’s train.  It’s an OK way to spend an hour and a half – perhaps better than OK if you are a train buff.

The film is bookended by a ceremony presenting the very first Congressional Medal of Honor to Union soldiers who participated in an effort to steal a train in Tennessee and use it to blow up bridges and destroy railroad track in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.  In the ceremony, Secretary of State Stanton states that these men helped quicken the end of the war.

James J. Andrews (Fess Parker) hails from Kentucky and is a civilian spy for the Union. His Southern accent and demeanor blends easily with supporters of the Confederacy.  He recruits a bunch of soldiers for his plot to steal “The General”.  Andrews pretends to be a railroad executive and the other men board with tickets to different destinations.  Conductor William A. Fuller (Jeffrey Hunter) is suspicious however.

The men are steal “The General” at a stop for breakfast.  They proceed to cut telephone lines and dig up rails en route to the Chickamauga River where they plan to burn bridges, preventing Confederate forces near Atlanta from reinforcing their comrades in the west.  Soon enough Fuller and some volunteers are on their trail, at first in a hand-car and later in a steam engine’s cab.  Will they catch the Union spies?  The movie ends with a strong message of reconciliation.

I like Fess Parker’s rugged good looks but I find him a pretty wooden actor.  He is good at being upright, however.  The movie is serious and moderately exciting, certainly no match for Keaton’s masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epp9r-JjYvs

Clip

The Proud and the Profane
Directed by George Seaton
Written by George Seaton from a novel by Lucy Herndon Crockett
1956/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Take any picture you can. One out of four will be good, one out of ten will be very good, and one out of 15 will get you an Academy Award. — William Holden[/box]

This post is part of the Golden Boy Blogathon being hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema.  You can see other excellent posts about William Holden and his films collected here.

In the run up to his performance in 1957’s great The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1956 saw William Holden’s appearance in a couple of lesser-known films – one was the seemingly unavailable Toward the Unknown, the other was this one.  Holden and co-stars Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter are all quite good but it is lesser known for a reason.

Lee Ashley’s (Kerr) genteel Marine husband was killed on Guadalcanal.  She has had herself assigned as a Red Cross volunteer on New Caledonia in hopes that the unit would later be moved on to Guadalcanal to comfort the occupation troops there.  Sassy Kate Conners (Ritter) fought having Lee put in her group to no avail.  Lee spends a lot of time quizzing the returnees from the island on whether they knew her husband.  She also plays chess and teaches French.  Lee and her husband were high society horsey types back home.

One day, she meets the tough, arrogant Lt. Col. Colin Black (Holden).  Black reveals that he is half-Indian and has a gigantic chip on his shoulder.  We also find out during the course of the movie that he has very little compassion for his men, seeing them as basically fighting machines.  When Black was earlier informed of the indentity of Lee’s husband he had no reaction,  when he actually meets Lee he is equipped with a pretty good story.  He pursues Lee, who resists him until she succumbs to his sheer animal magnetism.

They have a passionate affair, just short of making love in the surf.  Finally, Black and his men are sent back to Guadalcanal.  Before he departs, he asks her to marry him.  She eagerly accepts.  I won’t reveal the remainder of the plot but it really irritated me.

This is the first time I have seen Holden in a mustache.  He certainly didn’t need to cover any part of his face but I quickly grew accustomed to it.  The part was in his line of bitter, romantic heroes.  Kerr is always good but she was perhaps made to echo her part in From Here to Eternity a bit too much, down to the blonde hair.  Ritter is always Ritter and always wonderful.  The script and dialogue are on the sentimental side with an important religious subplot.  In short, I was not wowed but it held my attention all the way through.

PARTIAL SPOILER:  In the ending, Holden is caught in a devastating lie.  During the confrontation with Kerr, he manages to push Kerr, causing her to hit her head and putting her in the hospital.  Yet, the climax is all about how Kerr should be a “woman” and forgive Holden.  It’s this attitude that stuck and sticks women in abusive relationships and I can’t stand it.

The Proud and the Profane was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83O-PG63eu0

Clip

Gervaise
Directed by Rene Clement
Written by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost from a novel by Emile Zola
1956/France
Agnes Delahaie Productions etc.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Gervaise Macquart Coupeau, une blanchisseuse douce et courageuse: Morning came and he still hadn’t returned. He’d been out all night. It was the first time. I was so proud to have the handsomest guy around, me, the gimp.[/box]

If you are prepared for real tragedy and depression, this might be for you.  It is certainly well made and acted.

Gervaise (Maria Schell) has a limp.  She considers herself lucky to have caught Lantier, a chronic womanizer.  They have been living together for eight years and have two sons.  As the movie begins, Lantier has stayed out all night.  He taunts Gervaise by wearing a flower given to him by the other woman.  But Gervaise ends up forgiving him and he promises to go to buy her something for lunch.  She goes to the local laundry to do the family wash. She cannot even afford soap.  She ends up getting into a terrific brawl with Virginie (Suzy Delair), the sister of the other woman.  By the time this is over, her children come to announce Lantier has packed up and left.

Segue to some time later.  Gervaise gets work as a laundress and marries Coupeau (Francois Perier), a neighbor who works as a roofer.  They have a little daughter and Gervaise dreams of having her own laundry business.  Then Coupeau falls off a roof.  The accident somehow triggers his alcoholism and things go downhill from there.  Way downhill.

I have covered at most one-half of the tragic plot above.  We follow the destruction of a couple of human beings in one of the most hopeless stories I have ever seen.  It was absolutely not for me at the time.  I have no complaints whatsoever about the actual movie making.

Gervaise was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  The film, Maria Schell and Francois Perier won numerous international awards.

Le coup du berger
Directed by Jacques Rivette
Written by Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Charles H. Bitsch
1956/France
Les Films de Peliade
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.” ― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves![/box]

This is short, sweet, and amusing – a little like an O. Henry story.

A married woman receives a beautiful fur from her lover and would like to take it home and wear it.  But how?  The two cook up a scheme involving a suitcase and a “lost” claim ticket.  Things don’t work out as planned.

The plot is narrated as moves in a chess game.  The movie is only 28 minutes long and lighter than air.  I enjoyed it.

This film was Rivette’s first using 35 mm and sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g9CgAM7ZNE

Clip – no subtitles