Category Archives: 1961

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

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Directed by José Quintero
Written by Gavin Lambert and Jan Read from a novel by Tennessee Williams
1961/USA
Louis de Rochemont Associates
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Paolo di Leo: Rome is a very old city. Three-thousand years. How old are you? Fifty?[/box]

Well, the scenery is gorgeous and we get a great scene-stealing performance by Lotte Lenya.

Stage actress Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh) is not making a big hit as Rosalind in a new production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. She still has the acting chops but is simply too old to play ingenues.  Karen abandons the play and decides she needs a real vacation.  Her doting much-older husband accompanies heron the plane trip to Rome.  He dies of a heart attack over the Atlantic.  Karen installs herself in a posh apartment and “drifts”, a lost and lonely soul.

Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales (Lenya and what a great character name!) is in the business of arranging meetings between beautiful young italian men and wealthy ladies too old to be able to attract them independently.  In exchange, she demands 50% of whatever her protege earns from the affair.  She is trying this ploy with a gorgeous young Italian named Paolo di Lio (Warren Beatty) and Mrs. Stone.  It takes an inordinate amount of time for him to get next to her but once he does she falls in love and begins throwing caution to the wind. Tragedy seems inevitable.

My biggest problem with this film was the performance of Warren Beatty.  His character is not supposed to be likable but he takes that to the next level with an arrogance that completely turned me off.  I did’t find him believably Italian either.

When Lenya took the screen I was mesmerized.  Her character has so many layers of humor, cynicism, and hatred of the human race that she sucks all the energy out of the rest of the room.  This is no mean feat when you are working with Vivian Leigh, who is also fine.

Lotte Lenya was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Trailer

The Innocents
Directed by Jack Clayton
Written by William Archibald and Truman Capote; additional dialogue by John Mortimer; from the novel “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James
1961/UK
Achilles/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Miles: It was only the wind, my dear.[/box]

Here is a beautiful, scary, and ambiguous ghost story for adults.

Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) seeks employment as a governess, having just left the household of her father, a fundamentalist preacher.  “The Uncle” (Michael Redgrave) hires her to care for his two orphan wards despite her total lack of experience.  He admittedly has little to no interest in his charges, preferring to carouse in town.  Miss Giddens gets the job based on her earnestness and professed love of children.  Omninously, she is replacing a young governess who died on the job.  The Uncle gives her total control of the household.

“The Uncle’s” country estate seems like a dream come true to Miss Giddens.  She instantly warms to little Flora and the housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins).  Flora’s brother Miles is away at school but Flora uncannily predicts his quick return.  Sure enough, a letter arrives announcing Miles’s expulsion due to his bad influence on the other boys.  The mystery of what exactly Miles did wrong will consume Miss Giddens for the rest of the film.

Miss Giddens begins seeing visions of people she identifies as Miss Jessel, the former governess, and Peter Quint, a former groundskeeper, also deceased.  As time goes on, she comes to believe these apparitions have possessed the children and that it is her duty to “save” them.  Is she going mad or could her visions be real?

I find twisted little children to be inherently scary and we get them here in spades.  Add in the ghosts and you have something special.  The cinematography and art direction combine to make the film a visual feast.  This was reportedly Deborah Kerr’s favorite of all her film performances which is really saying something.  Recommended.

Trailer

The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Directed by Val Guest
Written by Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest
1961/UK
Melina Productions/Pax Films
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Peter Stenning: So Man has sown the wind – and reaped the whirlwind. Perhaps in the next few hours, there will be no remembrance of the past, and no hope for the future that might have been. All the works of Man will be consumed in the great fire out of which he was created. But perhaps at the heart of the burning light into which he has thrust his world, there is a heart that cares more for him, than he has ever cared for himself. And if there is a future for Man – insensitive as he is, proud and defiant in his pursuit of power – let him resolve to live it lovingly; for he knows well how to do so. Then he may say once more: Truly the light is sweet; and what a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the Sun. [/box]

This interesting sci-fi film shows there is more than one way to achieve climate change.

The US and USSR acidentally engage in powerful H-bomb testing simultaneously.  Soon the newspapers are full of stories of bizarre weather around the world.  Reporter Peter Stennings (Edward Judd) is put on the story when a solar eclipse occurs several days earlier than predicted.  All scientific authorities on the subject refuse to talk.  Finally, it is revealed that the axis of the Earth was shifted by the bomb.

The remainder of the story follows London’s response as temperatures rise and water dwindles.  Stenning’s remaining time is also occupied with a sometimes strained new romance with secretary Jeannie (Janet Munro).  With Leo McKern as another reporter.

If this story was made today it would be filled with riots, explosions, and conflagrations. This film is much tamer but still very effective.  Its stiff upper lip attitude actually makes the dilemmas of the characters more compelling.  A lot of the conversations sound a lot like end-phase climate-change scenarios posited today.  Recommended to the curious.

Trailer

Come September
Directed by Robert Mulligan
Written by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin; story by Stanley Roberts and Robert Russell
1961/USA
Universal International Pictures/7 Pictures/Raoul Walsh Enterprises
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Lisa Helena Fellini: Why be miserable with someone you don’t love? Better to be miserable with someone you do love![/box]

This is a pleasant enough “sex comedy” of its era, with the added advantage of taking place on the Riviera.

Robert Talbot (Rock Hudson) is an American millionaire bachelor who apparently has only one month out of the year to spend with his main squeeze, the fiery Lisa Fellini (Gina Lollobrigida).  Usually this is September, but Robert can’t wait that long this year and arrives for his month-long holiday in Italy in July.

This throws various spanners in the works.  Lisa finds out about Robert’s arrival on her wedding day to a stuffy Englishman.  She realizes her error in the nick of time and agrees to join Robert at his villa.

When the couple arrives there, they find the place occupied by a large group of teenage girls and their chaperone.  It turns out that Robert’s major domo (Walter Slezak) has been running the villa as a hotel during the other eleven months of the year.  The girls are man-magnets and soon Robert has a squad of young men camped just outside his gate.  Young Tony (Bobby Darin) sets about seducing 18-year-old Sandy (Sandra Dee).  Robert is highly moral when it comes to the younger set and counsels Sandry to play hard to get.  Meanwhile, Robert is not having his long-awaited  “alone time” with Lisa.  And Lisa is getting ideas from Sandy.

This is basically a piece of fluff in a gorgeous setting.  All the actors do well with comedy and the film goes down easily.

Trailer