Category Archives: 1958

Me and the Colonel
Directed by Peter Grenville
Written by S.N. Behrman and George Froeschel from a play by Franz Werfel
1958/USA
William Goetz Productions
First viewing/YouTube

“My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.” I exploded: “What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” ― Elie Wiesel, Night

Despite its grim subject matter, this is a charming film with my favorite performance yet by Danny Kaye.

S.L. Jacobowsky (Kaye) is a man without a country, having fled Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in succession.  He finds himself in Paris just as the Nazis begin their occupation of France.  He lives in the same hotel as Colonel Prokoszny (Curd Jurgens), a proud, arrogant, and womanizing Polish Count.  Prokoszny has orders to deliver secret papers to the resistance in England.  He is to meet a submarine on the French coast.

Both men need to flee, only there are no available vehicles and no gasoline. The resourceful Jacobowsky rounds up both the car and the gas.  That kind of thing is beyond Prokoszny so the pair end up sharing the trasportation.  They prove to be a very odd couple, not least because of the Pole’s anti-Semitism.  First, Prokoszny insists on picking up his one true love in the opposite direction.  The rest of the film follows the party’s adventures en route to the border.  With Akim Tamiroff as the Colonel’s orderly.

Plot summary aside, this is actually a comedy.  Kaye is wonderful, subtle and touching in his part and Jurgens reveals an unexpected comic flair.  It reminded me a little bit of how Lubitsch handled To Be or Not To Be.  Recommended.

Montage of stills set to music from the film

The Horse’s Mouth
Directed by Ronald Neame
Written by Alec Guinness from a novel by Joyce Cary
1958/UK
Knightsbridge Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Gulley Jimson: I like it here: bricks and broken glass, and an old garbage can. It’s the story of my life.[/box]

Artistic genius isn’t too “pretty” in this comedy.

Gulley Jimson (Alec Guinness) has just been released from jail for making harrassing calls to his wealthy sometime benefactor Hickson (Ernest Thesiger).  He is met by Nosey, a young man who worships his art.  Gulley has nothing but bemused contempt for everyone.  He is immediately on the phone to Hickson to try to cadge money for paints.

He also hits up Dee Coker (Kay Walsh), a combative plain spinster.  She wants him to retrieve the paintings his ex-wife gave to Hickson to pay his debts and press-marches him in that direction.  Sir William Beeder, another wealthy art patron has been trying to get his hands on one of Gulley’s early works.

Gulley manages to worm his way into the Beeders’ London flat while they are on vacation and proceeds to destroy it while painting a mural of the Raising of Lazarus.  After he is caught at that, he turns himself to the wall of a church that faces demolition.

This is Guinness’s only screenwriting credit and it’s an antic somewhat messy farce that also manages to say something serious about the creative process.  He’s marvellous as the completely uninhibited painter.  Sometimes it’s all a bit much but mostly the film is very entertaining.

Alec Guinness was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Trailer

Brink of Life (Nära livet)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ulla Isaksson
1958/Sweden
Inter-American Productions/Nordisk Tonefilm
First viewing/You Tube

[box] Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one. — Gloria Steinem [/box]

Bergman looks at the emotions of three expectant mothers.

As the story begins, Cecilia (Ingrid Thulin) arrives at the obstetric ward bleeding heavily. She has already lost her baby, two months into the pregnancy and has a D&C.  The entire experience has convinced her that she is unworthy to be a wife or a mother and that her proper schoolteacher husband doesn’t love her or want the baby.  She is basically an emotional wreck.

Cecilia joins two other women on the ward.  The first is teenaged unwed mother Hjordis Petterson (Bibi Andersson), who also had bleeding but did not miscarry – much to her dismay.  The second is Stina Andersson (Eva Dahlbeck) who is in labor with her first son and is positively radiant and ecstatic.  We follow the stories of these women and their interactions with each other.  With Max Von Sydow as Stina’s smiling, upbeat husband.

It’s a real pleasure to see these three wonderful actresses play off each other.  Bergman, as usual, cuts to the heart of the matter.  There’s a lot of sadness but the film ends on a life-afirming note.

The Law and Jake Wade
Directed by John Sturges
Written by William Bowers from a novel by Marvin H. Alber
1958/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Clint Hollister: Well, did you say a few words over the boys?

Ortero: Yeah…good-bye.

Clint Hollister: Very touching.[/box]

It’s always fun to watch Richard Widmark play a villain. Otherwise this is run-of-the-mill Western fare with some nice vistas of the Rocky Mountains.

Jake Wade (Robert Taylor) and Clint Hollister (Widmark) were in the same unit during the Civil War.  Afterwards, they and some of there friends took to robbing stagecoaches.  They were caught after a successful robbery and Clint was taken into custody.  Jake broke Clint out of jail and then took off with the loot.  Jake reformed and is now a marshall.  When Clint is apprehended, Jake breaks him out of jail to repay Clint’s previous favor.

Clint is determined to get what he considers to be “his” money.  With the original gang, he abducts Jake and his fiancee and forces him to lead them to where the loot is buried.  The rest of the movie covers their journey, the pair’s various escape attempts, and the inevitable show-down.  With Henry Silva as a mean, crazy hombre as per usual.

I have liked Robert Taylor in a few films, where he is grim and hard, but mostly he is fairly bland as here.  Widmark is smart and fairly subtle.  There are a lot of dead spots during the journey.  It’s watchable though.

Trailer

Indiscreet
Directed by Stanley Donen
Written by Norman Krasna from a play by him
1958/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Anna Kalman: I like a man with a glass in his hand.[/box]

The best part was watching two beautiful adults fall in love with each other.

Anna Kalman (Ingrid Bergman) is a famous actress on the London stage.  Philip Adams (Cary Grant) is a famous American international economist.  Anna’s brother-in-law wants Philip to take a job with NATO in Paris.  Philip thinks maybe he would prefer to go to Mexico.  Anna and Philip are introduced.  She is clearly smitten at first sight and invites him to go with her to the ballet. He informs her that he is married but separated and can never be divorced.  She is willing to date him under these circumstances and he rapidly decides to stay in Europe.  They fall deliriously in love.

Later, the lovestruck Anna is informed that Philip has lied to her about his marital status. The third act is devoted to her comic revenge.

Grant and Bergman retain all the chemistry they had in Notorious.  She is still radiant at age 43 and he is still, well, Cary Grant.  Watching them together makes up for any slightly silly comedy.  Also we get to watch Cary Grant dance!  Recommended for fans of these actors.

Clip – Cary Grant kicks up his heels

Lonelyhearts
Directed by Vincent J. Donehue
Written by Dore Schary from the play by Howard Teichmann and the novel by Nathaniel West
1958/USA
Dore Schary Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Fay Doyle: All right, what did you call me up for? Who are you kidding? Listen, you wanted a sad story, you heard a sad story! You also wanted some action![/box]

This had its hits and misses for me.  The acting made it work.

Adam White (Montgomery Clift) is a sensitive and thoroughly decent young man.  He is also very smart and eager to become a writer.  His immediate goal is to get a job as a reporter so he strikes up the acquaintance of Florence Shrike (Myrna Loy), wife of the city editor of a prominent daily, at the local watering hole.  Finally he gets his introduction to William Shrike (Robert Ryan).  Shrike is an embittered cynic.

After they match wits over ginger ale (White) and Scotch (Shrike), Adam gets his job. Unbeknownst to him, Shrike’s main motivation is to torture the young man his wife took an interest in.  Shrike has still not forgiven her for an affair she had 10 years before.

So Shrike saddles White with responsibility for a new feature, a Miss Lonelyhearts advice column.  The tales of woe in the letters he receives are too much for the young man to bear but Shrike offers no way out.  Finally, White learns some hard lessons about his correspondents and himself.  With Maureen Stapleton’s film debut as one of the letter writers and Delores Hart as White’s fiancee.

What a treat to see Myrna Loy again!  She gives a heartfelt and subtle performance.  For my money Loy is the best thing about this movie though all the acting was of a high standard.  The problem is with the very wordy script.  There are tons of speeches that ring false and a lot of predictable melodrama.  Nonetheless, I had teared up by the end though I would have preferred to see the story told in the eyes of the great cast.

Maureen Stapleton was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Lonelyhearts.

Clip

The Lovers (Les amants)
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louise de Velmorin
1958/France
Nouvelles Editions de Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “I know it [obsenity] when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring)[/box]

If you look, you will see the birth of the French New Wave.

Jeanne Tournier (Jeanne Moreau) is bored despite her great wealth and social standing.  Her husband Henri, a newspaper publisher, barely tolerates her.  The couple live in a grand chateau in the countryside outside Dijon but Jeanne spends as much time as possible in Paris.  There she carries on an affair with polo player Raoul Flores and gossips with her shallow friend Maggie.  Even this doesn’t satisfy somehow.

Henri eventually works up enough interest to demand that Jeanne invite Maggie and Raoul for the weekend at their home.  Naturally, Jeanne thinks this is a terrible idea but she complies.  On her way home from Paris, her car breaks down.  Now she is in danger of leaving her friends alone with Henri.

But a passing stranger comes to the rescue.  He’s not too impressed with Jeanne but agrees to drop her off at her home.  Henri invites him to stay the night.  The stranger proves to be the spark that lights Jeanne’s fire.

This is quite OK and Moreau, as always, is a joy to watch.  Here she goes through several different mood changes and it is amazing to see her appearance change drastically.  The New Wave elements come in most clearly when Jeanne and Raoul go to an amusement park.

Don’t go into this looking for anything even approaching obscenity.  The film is almost anti-erotic until the stranger enters the picture.  Even then there is zero nudity and though the couple go to bed the camera is discreet.  There are some shots of Moreau’s face when her character is clearly enjoying whatever is being done to her off camera.  But it was all apparently too much for Cleveland Heights, Ohio at the time.

Fan trailer – clips set to Brahms

Endless Desire (Hateshinaki yokubô)
Directed by Shohei Imamura
Written by Shohei Imamura and Hisachi Yamanouchi from a novel by Shinji Fujiwara
1958/USA
Nikkatsu
First viewing/Hulu

[box] I like to make messy films. — Shohei Imamura[/box]

Is this film noir or pitch black comedy?  A bit of both really.

A group of veterans agreed to meet on a certain date to uncover a cache of morphine that had been buried by one of them, a lieutenant Hashimoto.  From the start, things are not as they should be.  Hashimoto’s “sister” and her thug husband tell them that he is dead and insist on joining in the hunt.  Likewise, the band is unable to shake a hanger-on whom nobody recognizes.  Finally, the group is required to hire the owner’s son in order to rent the building from which they plan to dig.  They are under time pressure as the authorities plan to demolish the whole shopping area where the drugs are located.

The hapless team have nothing but trouble en route to the treasure.

Imamura could have picked up the pace a bit but basically this is an amusing romp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu_5ME1uJAY

Trailer (no subtitles)

White Wilderness
Directed by James Algar
Written by James Algar
1958/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] The prediction that glaciers will be gone from Glacier National Park has been moved up by 10 years to 2020, the same year it’s predicted the Arctic Sea will be ice-free in the summer. — Bill Kurtis [/box]

Disney’s faked lemming mass suicide turned out to be murder.  Otherwise, it’s about par for the course for a 50’s Disney nature documentary — that is to say corny but watchable.

The formula has now been set.  We begin with an animated “origins” sequence, follow with scenes illustrating the geology and climate, and end with many scenes of cute animals going about their daily business.

When I was posted to Finland, I covered Arctic Council meetings and learned to love the extreme North.  This was made in Canada so the fauna is different but I still enjoyed it.

From Wikipedia:  A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary, Cruel Camera, found the lemmings used for White Wilderness were flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where they did not jump off the cliff, but were in fact forced off the cliff by the camera crew.  Because of the limited number of lemmings at their disposal, which in any case were the wrong sub-species, the migration scenes were simulated using tight camera angles and a large, snow-covered turntable.

White Wilderness won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Feature.  It was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Clip –  Lemming exodus

Rusty Knife (Sabita naifu)
Directed by Toshio Masuda
Written by Shintaro Ishiharo and Toshio Masuda
1958/Japan
Nikkatsu
First viewing/Hulu

[box] “You can get much further with a kind word and a gun then you can with a kind word alone” ~ Al Capone[/box]

This is a gritty Japanese noir with more graphic violence that we would have seen on US screens at the time.

The authorities have been unable to pin anything on local crime boss Katsumata so he is loose and creating chaos.  Finally they get an anonymous letter from one of three men who witnessed the murder of a city councilman by Katsumata and his gang.  Katsumata astutely guesses and eliminates the rat.  The other two witnesses were named in the letter and it is a race between the mob and the police as to who will catch up with them first.

One of the witnesses has been trying to go straight after five years in jail for murdering the thug who raped his girlfriend and caused her suicide.  During the course of the story, he learns that he may not have eliminated all the culprits and sets about trying to do so.

This is solid if not great.  There’s some nice cinematography and a jazzy score.  One wonders how corrupt Japan really was at the time.  It seems to be a recurrent theme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0GZPcqod0E

Trailer (no subtitles)