Monthly Archives: May 2017

Mr. Sardonicus
Directed by William Castle
Written by Ray Russell from his novel
1961/USA
William Castle Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Baron Sardonicus: [leading Sir Robert to the torture chamber] This castle is very old, Sir Robert. It was built in a dim age of fearful barbarity.[/box]

William Castle’s films never live up to their trailers.  They are a lot of fun anyway.

The story takes place late in the 19th Century.  Sir Robert Cargrave is a genius researcher into treatments to relax muscles stiffened in cases of tetanus.  One day he receives a letter from Maude Sardonicus begging him to come to her in the Eastern European country in which she lives.  Maude was Robert’s sweetheart when she was forced by her father to marry the Baron Sardonicus and he has never loved another.

On arrival, Robert is met the baron’s creepy one-eyed “man of all trades” Krull (Oskar Homolka).  He observes fearful experiments being done on the maid using leeches. Eventually, Robert meets the Baron who constantly wears a mask.  He learns that Sardonicus was once a simple peasant.  His face was frozen into the grotesque permanent grin of his dead father when he opened the grave in search of a winning lottery ticket.

Sardonicus is a terrible sadist and he threatens Maude with unspeakable torture if Robert does not fix his face.  I will stop here.

This movie could have been much scarier but not much more fun.  Castle himself opens the proceedings to provide the audience with a definition of the word “ghoul” and closes them by running a rigged audience poll on whether Sardonicus deserves further punishment.  The best thing about the movie is Homolka’s delicious hamming.  What a long career he had!  The DVD print is outstanding.

Trailer

101 Dalmatians
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wolfgang Reitherman
Written by Bill Peet from a novel by Dodie Smith
1961/USA
Walt Disney Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Anita: How are you?

Cruella De Vil: Miserable, darling, as usual, perfectly wretched.[/box]

The artwork is charming and who could resist all those adorable puppies!

The Dalmatian Pongo (voiced by Rod Taylor) and his “pet” Roger, a songwriter, are lonely bachelors – except that Roger doesn’t know it yet.  Pongo plots to find a woman for him and finds one, Anita, along with a mate for himself named Perdita.  The pairings are blissful and before long Perdita gives birth to a litter of 15 puppies!

Somehow, the gentle Anita ended up tolerating her old classmate Cruella De Vil.  Cruella is a chain-smoking, fur-wearing nightmare with some of the mannerisms of Tallulah Bankhead.  She is determined to have a Dalmatian-skin coat or six and has been buying up all the Dalmatian puppies she can find.  When Anita refuses to sell her litter, Cruella resorts to dognapping with the assistance of evil but bumbling henchmen Horace and Jasper.  The police have no luck, so it is up to Pongo, Perdita and assorted animal friends to rescue their babies.

Well, this is just a ton of fun.  Unlike other Disney animated features, this has only one song.  The animal behavior is amusingly captured and the animation style is quite a departure for Disney.  I really enjoyed it.

Trailer

A Raisin in the Sun
Directed by Daniel Petrie
Written by Lorraine Hansberry
1961/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] What happens to a dream deferred?// Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?/ Or fester like a sore—/ And then run?/ Does it stink like rotten meat?/ Or crust and sugar over—/ like a syrupy sweet?// Maybe it just sags’ like a heavy load.// Or does it explode?  – “Harlem” by Langston Hughes[/box]

This film was made at a critical moment in the course of the civil rights movement in America.  More than a time capsule, however, it is an excellent and powerful film with an extraordinary cast.

Five members of the  Younger family live in a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment.  The young son of Ruth (Ruby Dee) and Walter Younger (Sidney Portier) sleeps on the sofa. The family shares a bathroom with the other tenants on their floor.

Walter works as a chauffeur and his mother and wife work as domestics.  Walter is angry.  He wants a lot more than this.  His dream is to open a liquor store with some friends. Walter’s intelligent sister Beneatha (Diana Sands) is in college and hoping to enter medical school.  Currently she is obsessed with all things African. Walter’s mother Lena (Claudia McNiel) is clearly the head of the household.  She is a strong, God-fearing woman who doesn’t take much nonsense from anyone in her home.

Walter’s father died recently and the family is due to receive a $10,000 insurance payout. The  windfalll sends the family into a tailspin.  Walter wants it all to himself to buy the liquor store.  There is no way his Mama is going to invest in such a venture.  So Walter sulks and begins to drink heavily.  Mama has a plan for the money that is going to suit every other member of the family down to the ground.  Will the Youngers be allowed to fulfill her dream?  With Louis Gossett Jr. as Beneatha’s sometime rich and snobbish boyfriend.

This came from a stage play and feels it but the play is so strong I don’t mind.  The acting is uniformly wonderful.  The story is basically about Portier’s coming to manhood.  He is fantastic during every stage of his development from drunkard to head of the family.  McNeil is very powerful.  I love this movie.  Highly recommended.

Fan Trailer

Zero Focus (Zero no shôten)
Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura
Written by Shinobu Hashimoto and Yoji Yamada from a novel by Seicho Matsumoto
1961/Japan
Shochiku Company
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes[/box]

After starting out strong, the mystery got steadily less intriguing.  It’s not a bad movie though.

Teiko’s family is thrilled with her arranged marriage to Kenichi Uhara, an up-and-coming business executive.  He has just been promoted to a new position in Tokyo so Teiko will not have to move.  Kenichi needs to say his goodbyes to clients at his old post in Kanazawa. They are married one week when he departs, promising to return on December 12.

Kenichi fails to return and Teiko travels to Kanazawa to search for him with the new branch manager.  She finds out she knows almost nothing about him.  This is a mystery and I will refrain from giving away any more of the plot.

This movie uses the voice-over narration of the wife as she becomes her own best detective.  I was getting ready for a really surprising pay-off.  I guess you couldn’t have expected the solution very far ahead but when it came it was just too drawn out and convoluted for my taste.  It’s a well made movie though and many may like it better than I did.  There many beautiful shots of Japan covered in snow – scenes that we don’t see often in Japanese movies.

Summer and Smoke
Directed by Peter Glenville
Written by James Poe and Meade Roberts from a play by Tennessee Williams
1961/USA
Hal Wallis Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “You’ll be surprised how infinitely merciful they [these tablets] are. The prescription number is 96814. I think of it as the telephone number of God!” ― Tennessee Williams, Summer and Smoke[/box]

Geraldine Page didn’t make enough movies.

The setting is the American South sometime at the end of the 19th Century or the beginning of the Twentieth.  Alma Winemiller (Page) is a preacher’s daughter and has been known as a prig since childhood.  She delights in flowery language and high-toned ways.  Her father is of the fundamentalist stripe and her mother (Una Merkle) is suffering from some form of dementia  that has robbed her of self-control.

Alma has been in love with her next-door neighbor John Buchanan, Jr. (Laurence Harvey) since an early age.  His doctor father has a lot in common with her father.  John, who has just returned from medical school, is still sowing his wild oats with a vengeance.  He expresses some interest in seeing more of Alma but is almost immediately pulled into a tumultuous affair with fiery Latin Rosa Zacharias, whose father owns a notorious road house on the outskirts of town.

Alma struggles mightily with her longing, which eventually drives her into heart palpitations that John treats with some type of tranquilizers.  He repeatedly disappoints her.  When it looks like she may be losing him for good, Alma decides to take drastic action.

There are several tragedies here, not least of which is how the principals work at cross purposes throughout the story.  The film also contains plenty of Williams’ characteristic black humor.

This is one of the better Tennessee Williams adaptations, up there with Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  Page makes a perfect Williams repressed spinster and the other performances are first rate.  I am iffy on Laurence Harvey but this is one of his better performances.  Recommended.

Summer and Smoke was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress (Page); Best Supporting Actress (Merkle); Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

The Young Doctors
Directed by Phil Karlson
Written by Joseph Hayes from a novel by Arthur Hailey
1961/USA
Millar/Turman Productions; Drexel Films
First viewing/YouTube

[box] “The life so short, the craft so long to learn.” ― Hippocrates[/box]

The AMA must have loved, perhaps sponsered, this homage to the medical profession.  It’s an entertaining little melodrama.

Joseph Pearson (Fredric March) has become an institution as head of the pathology department at a Manhattan hospital.  He relishes meetings at which he can upbraid other doctors for wrong diagnoses revealed in his post mortems.  At the same time, there have been complaints about delays in test results from his team.  Pearson blames any perceived failures on hospital bureaucracy that consistently denies him requested personnel and supplies. The administration decides to inject new blood into the department in the form of Dr. David Coleman (Ben Gazarra).

Dr. Pearson is a prickly old coot, resents Coleman’s hiring, and makes it clear he is boss and is not going anywhere.  This means he is also resistant to any suggestions of newfangled methods or tests in pathology.  During the course of the story we get a romance and several medical crises.  With Dick Clark as a young doctor who is also an expectant father, Eddie Arnold as an obstetrician, Ina Balin as a nurse/patient/love interest, and Aline MacMahon as an old hand.

This is one of those pictures where everyone who is not a doctor is a patient and every patient is possibly terminal.  You can see the influence on TV shows and soaps such as Dr. Kildaire, Ben Casey, and The Young Doctors.  Despite a lot of inserted speeches expounding on the ideals of the medical profession, the film makes for a nice easy afternoon watch.

Montage of stills

Pocketful of Miracles
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend based on a screenplay by Robert Riskin and a story by Damon Runyon
1961/USA
Franton Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Junior: She’s like a cockroach what turned into a butterfly![/box]

Comparisons are odious.  Without them, this is an entertaining and amusing Cinderella story.

The story is a remake of Frank Capra’s Lady for a Day (1933) and if you’ve seen that you won’t need a plot summary.  Anyway, Apple Annie (Bette Davis) sells apples on the streets of Manhattan during the depression and apparently is also the leader of a syndicate of panhandlers.  Gangster Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford) buys an apple a day from Annie, believing completely that they bring him luck.

Annie has a secret.  Her daughter (Ann-Margret) has been away in Spain at a convent school since an early age.  She believes her mother is a wealthy socialite.  Now she is about to become engaged to the son of a Spanish count and the Count wants to meet her family.  This sends Annie into a tailspin and jeopardizes Dave’s supply of lucky apples.

In the meantime, Dave needs all the luck he can get because another gangster wants to bring Dave’s territory under Syndicate control.  In the end, Dave must juggle fooling the Count, dodging the rival, and bucking reporters simultaneously.  With Peter Falk as Dave’s henchman; Thomas Mitchell as a stand-in for Annie’s “husband”; Hope Lange as Dave’s girlfriend; Arthur O’Connell as the Count (!); Edward Everett Horton as a butler and a host of familiar faces from times gone by in small roles.

It seems we went to a lot of movies when I was a kid.  I remember some of these better than parts of my own childhood.  Anyway, I saw this in the theater at a young age and loved it.  Of course, I hadn’t seen Lady for a Day at that time, and that is by far the better film.  That doesn’t prevent this from being light, charming, and a lot of fun.  Some of the best parts are watching the old character actors and Davis do their stuff.

Pocketful of Miracles received Academy Award nominations in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Falk); Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Music, Original Song (for the title tune).

This marked the final film of Capra and Thomas Mitchell.  It was Ann-Margret’s first film.

Trailer – print quality of DVD is much superior