Monthly Archives: September 2016

The Haunted Strangler
Directed by Robert Day
Written by John Croyden and Jan Read from a story by Read
1958/UK
Amalgamated Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] James Rankin: You mean he killed while in some sort of trance?[/box]

This is a low-budget horror flick that is actually worthy of Boris Karloff’s talents.

James Rankin (Karloff) is a novelist who is researching a book about the Haymarket Strangler, who was executed twenty years previously.  He is convinced that the wrong man was convicted and sets out to prove it.

No one will believe him so he must resort to undercover operations.  These include robbing the condemned man’s grave to uncover the murder weapon.  But in Rankin’s hands, this knife is even sharper …

The Jekyll-Hyde story itself is nothing special but the 70-year-old Karloff is very good.  He transforms himself convincingly without make-up.

Actually, the commentary on the DVD was more interesting than the film.  Richard Gordon, the producer, reminisces about the film and his brother Alan, who made pictures in America, talks about their long relationship with the actor.  This was a project brought to the producer by Karloff.  The distributor insisted on a double-feature and The Haunted Strangler was released with Fiend Without a Face, made simultaneously.  The latter film proved to be more in tune with the times.

Trailer

Bonjour Tristesse
Directed by Otto Preminger
Written by Arthur Laurents based on a novel by Françoise Sagan
1958/USA/UK
Wheel Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Cecile: It’s getting out of control. I just wish I were a lot older or a lot younger.[/box]

I don’t remember Otto Preminger for his imagery but this is a beautiful film.  Of course, the Riviera never hurts.

As the film begins, we are introduced to Cecile (Jean Seberg), a young girl who drifts from one man to another, feeling nothing for any of them.  Her life is filled with a deep sadness. As she dances to the title song, she thinks of happier times and we segue into flashback. Scenes of Paris in the present will be alternated with scenes of the Cote d’Azure in the recent past throughout.

Cecile and her father Raymond (David Niven) are kindred spirits.  He is a playboy who has a ditzy blonde in tow for the duration of his vacation and she lives for fun and good times with a law student she hooks up with.

Into this menage comes Anne Larson (Deborah Kerr).  Raymond has even forgotten that he invited her to come down for a couple of weeks.  The fashion designer is a more serious sort.  When she and David fall in love, she tries to steer Cecile back onto the straight and narrow.  It proves to be the recipe for the tragedy that haunts the girl’s Paris nights.

I’m still sorting out my feelings about this one but overall I was entertained.  Jean Seberg’s flat line delivery has always left me a bit cold but she certainly is beautiful and suits her character well.  The Riviera never looked better and the black-and-white sequences could almost have come out of a French New Wave film.

Montage of clips set to the title tune

Terror in a Texas Town
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Written by Dalton Trumbo (fronted by Ben Perry)
1958/USA
Seltzer Films
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] [explaining how he got the nickname “Wagon Wheel Joe”] I carried a box filled with different wagon wheels. Whenever I’d come to a scene which was just disgraceful in dialogue and all, I’d place a wagon wheel in one portion of the frame, and make an artistic shot out of it, so by the time the scene was over you only saw the artistic value and couldn’t analyze what the scene was about. — Joseph H. Lewis[/box]

Here is your only opportunity to see Sterling Hayden with a Swedish accent and a shootout involving a harpoon vs. a sixgun.  I thought it was a ton of campy, pulpy fun.

Ed McNeil (Sebastian Cabot) is a fat, greedy city slicker with a big appetite for the local land.  He claims he owns all of it via a land grant and that the honest farmers of the place are squatters.  Nonetheless, he tries to buy the settlers out.  If that doesn’t work, he turns to his trusty hit man, Johnny Crale.  A few settlers try to unite to stand up against McNeil but fear holds them back.

Enter George Hansen (Hayden).  He has returned from his last whaling voyage to join his father on the farm they have jointly bought only to find his father has been shot down.  He gets little cooperation from the sheriff or anyone else until a humble Mexican reveals the possible reason behind McNeil’s lust for the land.

This movie is a hoot!  The dialogue is supremely clunky but that only suits the ridiculous story.  Watching the stone-faced Hayden sporadically attempt a Swedish accent only adds to the fun.  I’m surprised this is not a cult classic.

This was Lewis’s last feature film.  He continued to direct in television.

Montage of clips

Ten North Frederick
Directed by Philip Dunne
Written by Philip Dunne from a novel by John O’Hara
1958/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

Kate Drummond: Ann, a stuffed shirt didn’t give me that ruby.

This, another in the line of slightly racy Peyton Place-type melodramas of the era, didn’t wow me.

The story begins at Joe Chapin’s (Gary Cooper) wake.  His widow (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is hosting the biggest wheels in town and all are engaged in their customary backstabbing.  Relations are not warm between mom and her daughter Ann (Diane Varsi) or drunken son Joby.  We segue into flashback as Ann considers the sins of her parents.

Somehow Joe was both a man of high integrity and willing to buy himself a political nomination.  His aspiration was to be Lieutenant Governor on his road to the Presidency (why this would be a winning strategy is never made clear).  He gets in with some mighty unsavory party hacks in the process.  We sense that much of this is done to appease the rabid ambition of his wife.  Anyway, the push to get the nomination means that both wifey and cronies will do anything to avoid scandal.  So when Ann marries (horrors!) a trumpet player, both her happiness and her unborn child must be sacrificed.

Poor Joe cannot catch a break, Ann leaves home for New York, and his bad marriage steadily deteriorates.  So when Joe becomes acquainted with Ann’s roommate (Suzi Parker), she is almost irresistible despite the pair’s vast age difference.

At least this time Gary Cooper is playing a father rather than strictly a romantic lead and his age is acknowledged.  This is fairly well put together but too sudsy for me.  The movie was not aided by the print available on YouTube or by watching it in parts.

Clip

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Directed by Mark Robson
Written by Isobel Linnart from a novel by Alan Burgess
1958/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [Robert Donat’s final line in his final film] The Mandarin: We shall not see each other again, I think. Farewell, Jen-Ai.[/box]

This is an overlong but solid drama about faith and endurance, featuring the always radiant Ingrid Bergman.

The film is loosely based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, an English missionary to China.  Gladys (Bergman) is a simple working-class girl who feels called to spread the gospel in China.  She applies to the official missionary society and is rejected as “unqualified” due to her humble class and education.  Undeterred, Gladys goes to work for an aristocratic China hand as second maid and saves enough money for an un-sponsored journey by train through Europe and the USSR.

She has an introduction to an elderly missionary in hand and joins her to establish the titular inn in a remote mountain town.  This is designed to attract muleteers with its lack of fleas, good food, and Bible stories.  Gladys’s colleague dies soon after and she must carry on on her own, but has no funds.

Fortunately, Gladys’s financial worries are resolved when she is befriended by a mandarin (Robert Donat) who is under instructions by Chang Kai-Shek’s government to enforce the law requiring girl’s feet to be unbound.  He is in need of a willing “foot inspector” and Gladys fills the bill nicely.  She also becomes his messenger to the hinterlands and very popular with the populace.  At about the same time, Gladys meets Nationalist Capt. Lin Nan (Curd Jurgens) and they eventually become friends and start an unconsumated romance.

Time goes by and China is invaded by the Japanese.  Gladys has adopted several children and is entrusted with about a hundred more whom she must take across treacherous mountains to safety.

It was touching and a bit sad to see Donat in his final film.  I thought this was quite OK but it could have been trimmed by at least half an hour with no ill effects.  The DVD contains a good commentary by film scholars.  It appears that the trek across the mountains was only one of the many hardships Gladys underwent in service of her Lord.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.

Trailer

The Fly
Directed by Kurt Neumann
Written by James Clavell from a story by George Langelaan
1958/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Insp. Charas: He put his head and his arm under the press. Why?

Helene Delambre: I cannot answer that question; coffee, Inspector?[/box]

This glossy technicolor horror flick is genuinely creepy.  I suppose the ick factor is affected by how one feels about flies – I don’t like ’em much.

The setting is contemporary Montreal.  As the film begins, a scientist is found crushed to death in a mechanical press.  His wife is seen fleeing the scene.  She readily admits killing her husband but refuses to reveal her reasons to either his brother (Vincent Price) or the inspector investigating the murder (Herbert Marshall).  The brother deduces that the motive has something to do with a fly Helene is obsessed with catching and finally drags the story out of her.  We segue into flash back.

Helene and Andre were blissfully married with a young, adorable son.  They are also both animal lovers.  One day Andre had a surprise for her.  He had invented a process for teleporting solid objects which he thinks can cure world hunger.  Unfortunately, his invention has a few kinks in it.  When he tries the device on the family cat, it disappears.

Andre spends weeks locked up in his lab working out the problems.  Loving animals as he does, Andre decides to experiment on teleporting himself.  When a fly lands on the teleporter at the wrong moment, the couple’s problems really begin …

The whole concept of a person trapped in the body of a fly grosses me out. This movie is graphic enough.  I’m sure I could not cope with the David Cronenberg version.

Trailer

Separate Tables
Directed by Delbert Mann
Written by Terence Rattigan and John Gay based on Rattigan’s play
1958/USA
Hill-Hecht-Lancaster Productions/Clifton Productions/Norlan Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Ann Shankland: I didn’t mean any harm.

John Malcolm: That’s when you do the most damage.[/box]

This ensemble-piece melodrama contains some excellent performances.  Unfortunately, some of the amateur psychology in the screenplay hasn’t aged very well.

No-nonsense Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) runs a hotel near the seaside.  The guests are largely long-term residents and one of the calling cards of the place is that guests are seated at separate tables.  Therefore, the hotel has attracted a lot of lonely people.  Pat is unofficially engaged to one of them – John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), an alcoholic American writer with a troubled past.

The other guests include Major Angus Pollock (David Niven), a pompous veteran of seemingly every campaign in WWII, and shy spinster Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr) and her domineering mother (Gladys Cooper).

American socialite Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth) drops in seeking a room for an unspecified period.  Really she is there to check up on ex-husband John Malcolm.  Ann is the cause of John’s drinking as well as a stint in prison.  Much heated conversation ensues.  At the same time, Major Pollock is caught “nudging” a woman in a darkened theater.  When this and several lies are revealed by the press, Sybil’s mother seeks to have him ostracized.  Sybil, who had been his special friend, is forced to take sides.

The acting honors were well deserved for this.  I especially admire Hiller’s performance which is beautifully subtle.  I’m not as fond of Kerr, whom I think is miscast, but then I’m not fond of her characterization by the writers either.  If you substitute homosexuality for “nudging” the plot would make more sense but then the Kerr-Nevin relationship wouldn’t work.  The Lancaster-Hayworth conflict seems too overblown to me as well.

David Niven won a Best Actor Oscar and Wendy Hiller won for Best Supporting Actress. Separate Tables was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actress (Kerr); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

Auntie Mame
Directed by Morton DaCosta
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from the novel by Patrick Dennis
1958/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Auntie Mame: Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death![/box]

Rosalind Russell IS Auntie Mame and this is an entertaining film in the 50’s brash Technicolor mode.

Patrick Dennis’s father was writing a will and saw no other option but to leave the boy in the care of his eccentric sister Mame, his only living relative.  He also provides for a banker to supervise his son’s education.  No sooner is the ink dry on the will when the father drops dead.  Patrick is soon welcomed to New York by his larger-than-life aunt, who provides him with an upbringing that is one part bathtub gin, one part bohemian society, and one heaping helping of genuine love.

When the banker gets wind of the nudist school Patrick is attending, the boy is shipped off to a conservative boarding school.  He continues to enjoy weekends with his aunt.  She loses everything in the stock market crash but meets an oil man and proceeds to travel the world with him.  While she is gone, Patrick’s conservative education takes hold and she fears she has lost him for good.  With Peggy Cass as an unwed mother in Mame’s household and Forrest Tucker as the oil man.

The plot summary doesn’t sound as funny as the movie is.  You can’t help but fall in love with Russell’s character.  Her rapid-fire repartee is a bit remiscent of His Girl Friday and she looks wonderful in her Orry-Kelly wardrobe.

Auntie Mame was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actress (Cass); Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; and Best Film Editing.  How it missed a nomination for its costumes is beyond me.

Trailer

The Colossus of New York
Directed by Eugene Lourie
Written by Thelma Schnee and William Goldbeck
1958/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone”

The cheese factor complements a story that’s a little different for its time and genre.

The Spensser’s are a talented family.  Father William (Otto Kruger) is a noted brain surgeon.  Son Henry is a pioneer in the field of automation.  The most gifted of all is the youngest boy, Jeremy (Ross Martin).  As the film begins, he has just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on food production in the polar regions.

Sadly, just after his family returns from Stockholm, Jeremy is hit by a truck and killed.  William demands that an ambulance be sent for and takes the body back to his laboratory.  William and Henry combine their skills to revive Jeremy’s brain in an automaton body.  Their work backfires spectacularly.

This is cheesy but very entertaining.  The scenes between the colossus and Jeremy’s little son are classic.  The film does suffer from an odd and obtrusive piano score.

Trailer