Flickers in Time

Story of a Love Affair (Cronaca di un amore)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Daniele D’Anza et al
1950/Italy
Vilani Film
First viewing/Netflix Instant

I feel like a father towards my old films. You bring children into the world, then they grow up and go off on their own. From time to time you get together, and it’s always a pleasure to see them again. — Michelangelo Antonioni

Antonioni’s feature film debut looks beautiful.  Unfortunately, the soundtrack rendered it almost unwatchable for me.

Paola Fontana (lucia Bose) is incredibly beautiful and married to a much older and extremely wealthy man.  Before her marriage several years ago, she had an affair with Guido, who was engaged to another woman at the time.  The two let the woman fall to her death in an elevator shaft.  They could have saved her by giving her a warning.  A mysterious man is nosing around about the incident.

Feeling guilty, the two had gone their separate ways after the fiancee’s death.  Now the investigation prompts Gulio to get in touch with Lucia.  Their passion is still strong and they resume where things left off.  Now her husband is standing in their way.

This is a good-looking if not profound story in The Postman Always Rings Twice vein.  The dissonant modern jazz score that accompanies the film had an effect on me similar to fingernails on a blackboard.  The other post-production sound and dialogue were jarring as well.  Never again.

Clip – 360 degree pan

Trailer – featuring the music

Treasure Island
Directed by Byron Haskin
Written by Lawrence Edwin Watkin from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson
1950/USA
Walt Disney Studios
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Long John Silver: Arrrh![/box]

Disney’s first live-action feature is quite OK.

This is a relatively faithful adaptation of Stevenson’s tale of pirates and buried treasure.   Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) lives at a seaside inn owned by his invalid mother. Old Billy Bones turns up with a mysterious chest and hides out, terrified that an one-legged man will find him. Soon other unsavory characters turn up in search of Billy.  Before Billy’s untimely death, he entrusts a treasure map with Jim.  Gentlemen of the town hire a ship to search for the treasure. Before they know it, unscrupulous but loveable Long John Silver (Robert Newton) has signed on as cook and brought aboard his pirate cronies as crew. Long John and Jim become fast friends and the adventure begins.

Long John is a master manipulator and uses Jim to get around the many strictures imposed by the all-business captain of the ship.  He can barely restrain the crew from mutinying before the ship arrives at the island.  Thereafter, it is the pirates against the greatly outnumbered gentlemen in a race to the treasure. Now Jim has become a valuable hostage for the pirates.  The gentlemen find an ally in Old Ben Gunn, who was marooned on the island several years earlier.

This is a well-made film that should appeal to all adventurous-minded boys.  I couldn’t help comparing it to 1934 MGM version with Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery.  The older movie is livelier somehow and Cooper far outshines Driscoll in the charisma department.

Trailer

Armored Car Robbery
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Earl Felton and Gerald Drayson Adams; suggested by a story by Robert Angus and Robert Leeds
1950/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Film Noir Classics Vol. 5

[box] Ryan: You should see her workin’ clothes. Imagine a dish like this married to a mug like Benny McBride… the naked and the dead.

Lt. Jim Cordell: Very funny.[/box]

This is a tight hard-bitten “B” noir perfect for filling out a double bill at just 67 minutes.

Dave Purvis (William Talman) is a mysterious criminal mastermind with a clean arrest record.  He is one of the few to pull off a successful armored car robbery.  Is is in town again for a repeat performance.  Benny McBride, someone with a long record, helps him recruit more accomplices. Unbeknownst to Benny, Dave is having an affair with his stripper wife.

Dave has the robbery planned to its last detail.  The men have 3 minutes to empty the armored car before the police arrive.  Everything goes to hell when a passing cruiser happens to hear the call and arrives in seconds.  In the melee that follows one of the policemen is killed and Benny is seriously wounded.

Lt. Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw), the partner of the slain officer, spends the rest of the movie in grim pursuit of the wily gang.

This definitely cuts to the chase, which moves along at a rapid pace!   Not a moment is wasted.  I love McGraw and Talman in these things.  It’s hard to say whether the cop or the criminal is the more ruthless here.

Clip

The Blue Lamp
Directed by Basil Dearden
Written by T.E.B. Clarke and Alexander Makendrick, original treatment by Jan Read and Ted Willis
1950/UK
Ealing Studios
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Diana Lewis: What d’ye think I am? Soft or something?

Spud: Yeah.[/box]

What starts out as a rather wholesome police procedural turns into a gritty thriller and fine character study of a punk courtesy of a young Dirk Bogarde.

The movies begins with a plea for more police presence to combat post-war crime and a look at the daily duties of a London bobby.  Eventually the story focuses on PC George Dixon (Jack Warner) who is due to retire soon and PC Andy Mitchell (Jimmy Hanley), the rookie he takes under his wing.  We see the pair on the beat and George introducing Andy to his wife as a potential boarder.  Andy is promptly adopted as one of the family.

This is accompanied by the activities of a couple of delinquent thieves, Tom Riley (Bogarde) and Spud.  Tom has talked seventeen year-old Diana Lewis into running away from home and serving as an accomplice in their next job.  Separately, Andy is assigned to track her down.  He finds her but she cannot be held or forced to go home because she is of age.

Somewhere along the line,. Tom gets hold of a gun.  He enjoys the power it gives him far too much.  He has fun seeing how much he can terrify Diana with it.  Then he uses it against a policeman in the course of a robbery and the chase is on.

Bogarde is fantastic in this.  I liked the way he conveyed a kid who is tough on the outside and panicky on the inside and so cocksure he does the first three or four stupid things that occur to him.  There’s quite an impressive car and foot chase at the end, including the cops trying to capture their suspect from a crowded racetrack.  Recommended.

The Blue Lamp won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

No movie clip so here is a montage of clips in tribute to Dirk Bogarde set to “As Time Goes By”  sung by Brian Ferry – what an actor!

The Damned Don’t Cry
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Harold Medford and Jeronme Weidman from a story by Gertude Walker
1950/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Ethel Whitehead: Don’t talk to me about self-respect. That’s something you tell yourself you got when you got nothing else.

Joan Crawford sleeps herself to the top in this melodramatic noir.

Ethel Whitehead (Crawford) hates her life. Her family, a blue-collar worker husband and young son she adores, still lives with her parents.  The husband is so mean he won’t even let her buy a bicycle for the boy.  She does anyway and her son is killed while riding. That’s Ethel’s cue to walk out.

Before long, our heroine’s looks and figure are noticed and she starts working as a model for a dress manufacturer.  One of the model’s jobs is to entertain the buyers in the evening which earns them some extra cash.  Ethel initially is reluctant to do this but ends up more hard-bitten than the colleague who broke her in.

Ethel meets Martin Blankford (Kent Smith) an accountant.  She gets interested before she finds out he actually doesn’t make much money.  So she introduces him to the owner of a fancy restaurant she frequents.  His accounting skills impress the owner and pretty soon Martin is called for an interview with a syndicate.  It turns out the syndicate is a front for various vice rackets and Martin doesn’t want anything to do with them.  Ethel persuades him to go along.

Then George Castleman (David Bryan), the boss, makes his move on Ethel.  As part of her advancement she gets a fancy apartment and wardrobe and a new name, Lorna Forbes.  She easily passes in the ritziest of circles.  Martin is understandably peeved but persists in hanging around.

Finally George sends Lorna out west to find out what’s up with his West Coast man Nick Prenta (Steve Cochran).  Lorna gets in deeper than George intended.

I thought this was OK.  I never can buy Crawford as a man magnet but she is always convincing as a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.  The men surrounding her are, as always, pretty uncharismatic.  There’s something I like about Steve Cochran’s heavies though.

Trailer

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Written by Harry Brown from the novel by Horace McCoy
1950/USA
William Cagney Productions
First viewing/My DVD collection

[box] Holiday Carleton: He’s too smart for you!

Ralph Cotter: Oh no, he stopped being smart when he took my money.[/box]

This was a bit of a let-down after James Cagney’s inspired Cody Jarrett in White Heat the previous year.  It’s still entertaining though.

The film is bookended by testimony in a criminal trial of a number of the associates of Ralph Cotter (Cagney).  As the story begins, Cotter escapes from prison with a couple of other men. One of his fellow-escapees is shot.  Holiday Carlton (Barbara Payton), the sister of the slain man, is waiting in the getaway car.  Although Holiday blames Ralph for getting her brother shot and swears unending hatred for him, Holiday and Ralph are soon lovers.  Cotter then organizes a heist.

Violent and corrupt police inspector Charles Weber (Ward Bond) and sidekick John Reece (Barton MacLane) more or less stick Cotter up for the proceeds of the job.  But Cotter has a few tricks up his sleeve and with the help of equally corrupt lawyer Cherokee Mandon (Luther Adler) soon has the cops in the palm of his hand.  Then Cotter makes the fatal mistake of two-timing Holiday with an ex-governor’s daughter.

This was OK but I was expecting the crazier side of Cagney and he never showed up.  In fact, various characters refer to Cotter as crazy but the character seemed more clever and calculating that anything.  This doesn’t have the script or direction White Heat had going for it but is solid nonetheless.  It was good seeing all those Warner Bros. character actors in supporting roles.

Trailer

Cheaper by the Dozen
Directed by Walter Lang
Written by Lamar Trotti based on the novel written by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Cary
1950/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix Instant

Frank Gilbreth: No person with inner dignity is ever embarrassed.

This film would probably have worked better for me if I had not been looking forward to Clifton Webb once again playing Mr. Belvedere. Here he is positively avuncular.

The movie is based on a true story and takes place in 1920 New Jersey.  It is narrated by eldest daughter Ann (Jeanne Crain) looking back at her life in a family with eleven siblings.  Pater familias Frank Gilbreth (Webb) is a noted efficiency expert.  He and wife Lillian (Myrna Loy) planned from the beginning to have an even dozen of children.  The sixth boy precisely timed to match the six girls is born during our story.

Frank applies his efficiency theories at home in a big way.  He has his children timed to respond to a whistle in a matter of seconds. He is also quite-straightlaced. He holds family council meetings for democratic votes on various issues, though he is quick to announce a suggestion out of order if he does not agree.  Education is very important in the Gilbreth family and reminders of facts about space, etc. are painted on the walls.  All these idiosyncrasies are displayed along side a lot of love and, in the long run, Frank has a hard time denying the children anything they want.

The story covers episodes during several years of family life ranging from new schools to mass tonsillectomies, to dating.  One of the most memorable is when the Planned Parenthood lady (Mildred Natwick) unsuspectingly comes by to ask Lillian to serve as chairperson of the local chapter.  With Edgar Buchanan as the family doctor and Sara Allgood as housekeeper.

I kept thinking about how happy Joe Breen would have been with this script and its good American Family Values.  Clifton Webb manages to disappear into his character but I kept wanting Mr. Belvedere back.  Despite all that and dragging somewhat, this is a basically enjoyable family film.

Trailer

Mystery Street
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Sydney Boehm and Richard Brooks; story by Leonard Spigelglass
1950/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Film Noir Classics Vol. 4

This is a well-paced police procedural with nice flourishes from director Sturges and noir master cinematographer John Alton.

The setting is Boston.  As the movie open, we see blonde Vivian Heldon (Jan Serling) arguing with somebody on the phone while her landlady Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester) nags her in the background for the rent.  She isn’t able to get the person on the other end of the line to come to her so she gives up and goes to work.  It develops that Vivian is a “bar girl” with plenty of numbers in her little black book.

Vivian heads off to “work” where she spots Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson) who is busy drinking away his troubles, having left his wife in the hospital where she is being treated following a miscarriage.  She makes another phone call then takes off with Henry in his car.  He is drunk and she is driving.  She asks him to trade places and, while he is walking to the driver’s side, takes off with it.  Soon enough, we see a shadowy figure approach her in the parked car and shoot her.  Segue to some time later and Henry is collecting on his car insurance, having reported the car as having been stolen from in front of the hospital.

Segue to months later and a skeleton is found on the beach.  Detective Peter Moralas (Ricardo Montalban) is assigned to the case.  He takes the bones to the Harvard Legal Medicine Department where he works closely with Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett) to determine the identity and cause of death of the victim.

When the body is discovered to be Vivian’s, Moralas interviews Mrs. Smerrling at the boarding house.  She proves to be quite the detective herself, in the service of a possible blackmail scheme.  As soon as the car is tied to Henry he is in a world of hurt.  The only person who believes in him is his wife Grace (Sally Forrest).  With Betsy Blair as another resident at Mrs. Smerrling’s boarding house.

This is a tight little police procedural and looks beautiful.  My favorite shot was of Jan Sterling at the bar next to a swaying hula dancer lamp.  It just said everything about her character that you needed to know.  Elsa Lanchester is a real hoot!  Recommended.

I should have mentioned before now that all the films in Volumes 1 – 4 of the Warner Brothers Film Noir Classics Collection have excellent commentaries by film historians, sometimes with input from participants in the production.  I hadn’t known before listening to the one for this film that Betsy Blair had been blacklisted for campaigning for women’s rights within the Screen Actor’s Guild despite the fact that she was never affiliated with the Communist Party.   She got back to work only after husband Gene Kelly refused to do any more pictures for MGM unless the ban was lifted.

Trailer