The Fly (1958)

Oct 081958
 
four reels

François Delambre (Vincent Price) receives a call from his sister-in-law, Helene (Patricia Owens), in which she hysterically confesses to killing her husband, Andre (David Hedison—as Al Hedison). The couple loved each other and had no problems, yet she compressed his head and hand in a press, and now refuses to say why. François discovers that before his brother’s death, Helene and her son searched wildly for a white-headed fly, and that fly holds the secret to the killing.

Due to the success of the film and advertising, almost no one can go into The Fly without knowing what is going to happen. That’s unfortunate as it’s a nice little mystery. We’re given a very peculiar killing. Helene has confessed but has no motive. It can’t be a suicide because the giant press came down twice (and it would be a little hard for Andre to activate the machine after being squished the first time). François lusts after his sister-in-law, but appears to have taken her preference for his brother gracefully and was close to both of them. So what happened?

Well, the 99.9% of you who already know don’t need me to say, and the .1% who are unaware shouldn’t have the experience spoiled. It isn’t that the mystery is all that…mysterious, but it is revealed in an engaging way, that brings you in to the story and the lives of the characters. This is first rate filmmaking.

The script, based on a short story by George Langelaan, was written by James Clavell, better know for his novel Shogun.  His deft hand is apparent, particularly in the dialog. The basic premise is hard to accept (and I don’t mean the matter transmitter that Andre was working on), but if you can accept that Andre could have survived the experience, the rest is relatively easy to buy. There’s some real tension built, although things start to drag in the last third.

Price puts in another superb performance as the brother who has little to do with advancing the main story.  He is the viewers’ voice in the world.  He asks the questions the audience would ask if given a chance, and reacts as we would. The rest of the cast is strong, although Patricia Owens’ emotions swing a touch too far. The only weak link is the child who never feels like he’s in the film. Every time he’s on screen you can almost see his mother just out of the picture, whispering, “Charlie, run across the set now Charlie. Go ahead. Good boy.”

The mask for the “monster” is adequate, mainly because it isn’t shown for long.  Darker lighting and a few seconds less would have been even better. As is, it doesn’t distract from the film, though no one is going to watch this film for its creature design.

The Fly is significant in horror history, with several scenes that have been recreated in a dozen other films and a few sitcoms. If it had been made a few years earlier, I’d have placed in on my Classic Horror list along with Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, and Creature From The Black Lagoon.

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The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Sep 261958
 
2.5 reels

Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) happens upon the island of Colossa, where the magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) is running from a giant cyclops. Sinbad rescues Sokurah, but the sorcerer drops a magic lamp containing a genie (Richard Eyer).  When Sokurah can get no help in returning to the island, he secretly shrinks Sinbad’s fiancée, Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant), and then claims that the only way to return her to normal is to sail to Colossa.

A special effects extravaganza, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is fun in the same way most effects-filled films are, and has all the normal flaws, and then some.  It features the stop-motion creations of Ray Harryhausen, and those, and the bombastic score by Bernard Herrmann are the only reason to watch.  In his first color film, Harryhausen creates a giant horned cyclops, a dragon, a two-headed roc, and a sword-wielding skeleton.  They are monsters that any child will remember for a lifetime.  There is also a less successful snake-woman, but she’s not bad, and there’s another horned  cyclops to make up for her.  These creatures get a decent amount of screen time, and while they are there, this is top flight family entertainment.

But the movie can be confusing to anyone who’s been told that Arabia isn’t just north of Oklahoma.  It makes one ask questions, such as: What is an Aryan dude doing in Baghdad and how does he get away with calling himself Sinbad?  Shouldn’t Sinbad be an Arab?  Or at least Middle Eastern?   And why does he have absolutely no sense of humor?  And cut his hair like he’s doing his best to fit in on an episode of  Father Knows Best?  Also, why does an Arabian princess look and act like a hot American college girl going to the big dance?  Then there is the genie.  Should a genie be a preadolescent white kid who is obviously reading everything he is saying?

I also wonder why Sokurah, who is an Arab via Germany, has massive powers to control dragons and skeletons, as well as shrink a girl without effort, but can’t come up with a a spell to generate some cash to pay for a ship back to his own island.  Of course he does live on an island filled with monsters, so maybe he’s just not that bright.  That would explain his plan to get the cyclopes to drink a drug, and his idea to build an unwieldy catapult (is that really an effective weapon against giants if they don’t decide to step in front of it?).  His excess of personality and tendency to scowl evilly while others are looking is also a detriment to ever becoming head of the local evil sorcerers guild.  But I suppose he must compensate since everyone around him has no discernible personality (someone needs to check Sinbad’s pulse from time-to-time to make sure he is still alive).

With a plot filled with holes, characters who are mentally incompetent, miscast stars, and no noticeable directing, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is remembered as a vehicle for Harryhausen. His work is good enough to make me enjoy catching this on Saturday afternoon TV.

Ray Harryhausen’s other features are The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), Mysterious Island (1961), The Valley of Gwangi (1969), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), and Clash of the Titans (1981).

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The Robot vs The Aztec Mummy (1958)

Aug 101958
 
two reels

Five years have passed (even though the film was released seven months later). After an exceptionally long synopsis of the events so far, we find out that The Bat is still at large, and still has hypnotic power over Flor. His plan is…well, the same as always. He wants the breastplate and armband again. And there’s a robot, because why wouldn’t there be a robot?

I hope you like recaps. Hey, who doesn’t. If you like being told what you’ve already seen you will be in paradise. The film is only 65 minutes long, and 25 minutes of it is Eduardo presenting a run down of the previous movies.

But after that overlong synopsis (just fast forward though it), things get really bizarre. The Bat goes full out mad scientist, laughing wildly to the skies and announcing his plan to take over the world. Edward and his sidekick go to investigate on their own for no good reason. And we’ve got a mummy fighting a robot. In the funniest scene of the trilogy, The Bat and his sidekick have Flor lead them to the sleeping mummy and all they do is stand there and insult him. They really hate that mummy.

For a five year gap, Flor looks as good as ever, but that’s not a huge surprise. Five years aren’t that many for a woman in her twenties. And Eduardo looked old in the first film. It is odd, however, that the two children haven’t aged.

The Robot vs The Aztec Mummy is the best of the three, provided you skip over most of the first half. MST3K did an episode with it but their jokes are unnecessary. It is gloriously ridiculous all on its own.

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The Trollenberg Terror / The Crawling Eye (1958)

Jan 291958
 
three reels

Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) is summoned by his friend, Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell), to a small village at the base of the Trollenberg mountain. He arrives in town at the same time is psychic Anne Pilgrim (Janet Munro—a year before Disney put her into Darby O’Gill and the Little People), who felt compelled to stop there, and her sister Sarah. Mountain climbers have been disappearing or being decapitated and Crevett thinks it has to do with a strange radioactive cloud on the side of the mountain. It’s up to Brooks, Crevett, the two women, local villagers, and newspaper reporter Philip Truscott (Laurence Payne) to uncover the mystery.

British alien invasion films of the ‘50s have something over their American counterparts. The three Quatermass films, X the Unknown, and Village of the Damned manage to retain their dignity. The acting—particularly in the secondary roles where American films really suffered—is universally good from the Brits, and the psychological drama is more impactful. But they never hit the high notes (Village of the Damned excluded). Special effects are no friend to these low budget features. And sticking in an American “star” to help oversea’s sales gummed up the works. Still, all of the them are at least a good time.

The Trollenberg Terror, like multiple of the others, was first a television serial. I’d love to have seen it—no longer possible as all copies have been destroyed. It is said to be much like the film, with the exception of Alan, who is nowhere to be found. Forrest Tucker is an amiable actor and the least offensive American addition to these British pictures (he is a far cry from Brian Donlevy’s horrible miscasting in the Quatermass films), but I think this story would work better without a pure hero. The effective part of the tale is the semi-ordinary folks, cut off from the outside with no special weapons or skills, surrounded by an unknown horror. I’d like to have spent more time with the locals, the women, and Truscott as they try to survive in this tense situation.

People have radically different reactions once the great evil actually shows up on screen late in the film. I like the design, but as I mentioned, the special effects are a bit weak and take some people out of the movie. Well, the monster, and the film, work for me, as well as for Stephen King (who borrowed from this film for his novel It) and John Carpenter (who credits the film for giving him the idea of The Fog).

The film was cut by ten minutes and retitled “The Crawling Eye” for its American release.

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Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)

Jan 031958
 
2.5 reels

Nancy Archer (Allison Hayes), a wealthy, mentally unstable alcoholic, sees a “satellite” and a 30 foot giant one night in the desert. Her gold-digging creep of a husband (William Hudson) hopes to use her report as a way to have her put away so he can spend his time with the local tramp (Yvette Vickers), who wears long gowns while dancing at a cheap little diner. But Mrs. Archer’s encounter has the delayed effect of causing her to grow to giant size.

A major member of the cheap, sci-fi, drive-in movement of the 1950s, along with The Amazing Colossal Man and The Giant Gila Monster, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a bad film in many ways, but it has its charms. It isn’t boring or slow and I imagine it did its job for teenagers in 1958, just as I enjoyed it as a kid in the ‘70s on Saturday afternoon TV. The special effects are terrible, but the actors are surprisingly good—giving more depth to each silly moment than I would have thought possible. Allison Hayes and Yvette Vickers, both extremely attractive women, stand out, though the entire cast is solid. That might be due to director Nathan Juran (billed as Nathan Hertz), who is best known for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and was the art director of Harvey and How Green Was My Valley. If his skills with FX were weak, he was much stronger in filming actors on the cheap than those normally helming these sorts of films.

The trick of the flick is that it keeps the non-sci-fi moments moving. With cheapies like this, there’s a tendency to fill out the runtime with drab chatting. Here we get soap-opera melodrama that’s as entertaining at the giants. Vickers’s Honey Parker is hypnotically slutty while the husband defines snake. It may not be art, but it’s entertaining.

Of course the iconic shot of a giant, angry, pin-up really does the trick. The poster does a better job than the film itself with the image of the hot giant woman, but it works in both cases.

Writer Mark Hanna was not on the cutting edge of science. He thought the word “satellite” meant a round spaceship, so that’s how it is used in the picture. In a more solemn movie, that would be a flaw; here it is part of the fun.

For 1958, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a feminist statement, and I suspect Men’s Rights Activists and similar alt-right folks would find it to be one now. This isn’t about an evil giant, but a woman getting the power to strike back. No, you don’t want to take the message, or anything about this film, too seriously, but it is there if you want it.

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Voodoo Island (1957)

Nov 051957
 
one reel

A rich industrialist’s plan to build an island resort runs into trouble when the only member of his survey team to return is in a zombie-like state.  Not wanting superstition to ruin his project, he calls in skeptical journalist Phillip Knight (Boris Karloff) to lead a team back to the island.  Knight insists on taking along his emotionally distant assistant Sarah Adams (Beverly Tyler) and the zombie.  The industrialist sticks him with his own assistant Barney Finch (Murvyn Vye), lesbian designer Clair Winter (Jean Engstrom), nervous islander Martin Schuyler (Elisha Cook), and grumpy captain Matthew Gunn (Rhodes Reason).  As this is a ’50s era horror film, many things go fatally wrong, though nothing particularly frightening.  Before they are done, Knight and company have encountered strange weather, mysterious deaths, carnivorous plants, voodoo dolls, and natives who are led by a white guy who we’re supposed to believe is oriental.

Voodoo Island is one of those movies that I don’t understand.  Not the plot.  OK, I don’t understand the plot either, but it’s the filmmaker’s actions that have me baffled.  If I’d gone to the trouble to assemble a superior cast (Cook was in The Maltese Falcon, Reason is a strong male presence, Tyler is hot, and Karloff is a legend) and bought some nice film stock and paid to have it properly developed (the directing is lackluster with far too many static shots, but the film looks good), then I’d have put some effort into the screenplay.  I can’t believe they started filming with a finished script.  Things happen that are never explained and often aren’t relevant to the rest of the movie (the mysterious bad weather).  Characters have overly flexible personalities, with much dialog appearing ad-libbed.  I hope it was ad-libbed anyway.  Then there is the method of zombie creation.  I won’t give it away for anyone who wants a surprise (a very bad surprise), but it is not the kind of thing that appears in a movie where any thought was given to the story.  The genre wobbles about as well.  In a voodoo movie, why are there man-eating prehistoric plants?  And why do those plants look like they are being inflated with a bicycle pump?

I put this movie on my zombie list because it has a pair of zombies, but don’t expect any zombie action.  All these zombies do is shuffle, and they aren’t very good at that.

Voodoo Island may be of interest to a limited audience as a curiosity.  Karloff is always a pleasure to watch (and listen to).  This is one of his lesser pictures, but even bad Karloff is better than what most actors can manage.  More than for Karloff”s appearance, Voodoo Island is remembered as one of the first films with a blatantly lesbian character.  It’s all the more important because there’s no attempt to make some deep statement about sexuality or use her as a metaphor.  Clair Winter just happens to be a lesbian.  She isn’t judged for it, nor is it a major plot point.  That fact is far more interesting than the movie.

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Quatermass 2 (1957)

Oct 101957
 
three reels

With his moon rocket project’s funding cut, a distraught Professor Quatermass’s (Brian Donlevy) finds mysterious meteorites, a victim burned by an unknown substance, and his domed moon station constructed near the site of a destroyed town. It all means that something is wrong, and the source is outer space. When he tries to alert the authorities, he finds that the highest levels of government are involved and it is up to him, Inspector Lomax (John Longden), and a drunken news reporter (Sid James) to discover what is going on and stop it, before it is too late.

Professor Quatermass, the wise but arrogant scientist, was a sensation in ’50s and ’60s Britain.  After the huge success of the BBC teleplay The Quatermass Experiment, the newly formed Hammer Films bought the rights for a big screen version, which subsequently was a hit under the title The Quatermass Xperiment, and launched the studio into genre filmmaking. So, when the BBC aired Quatermass 2, Hammer was happy to do the feature film honors again, bringing back Brian Donlevy to repeat the lead role. The result is a better film than the first, and an important one in cinema history, but one that still suffers from the problems of the first.

This time out, the pace is rapid, never giving the viewer a chance to catch his breath.  Even before the opening credits we get an out of control car speeding over a rough road, an injured and crazed man, a near accident, a crash, strange burns, and a meteorite. It keeps at that pace for half the film, and then speeds up. No one is likely to get bored.  The story is a mystery, and while the answers are obvious now, in 1957 (and particularly 1955 when the BBC production played) this was new material. There are strange meteors streaking over an abandoned town, a secret research facility that matches Quatermass’ rejected plans for a moon colony, zombie like guards, and a government cover-up of the whole thing.

Quatermass 2 can be considered England’s entry into the paranoid, anti-communist sci-fi movement of the ’50s, but as it is from across the Atlantic, it has a different take on the situation. While U.S. versions tended to be either everyone versus you (there’s no one you can trust), or us versus them (we’re all in this together), the British version was more suspicious of its own government, and more ready to blame its own people, not for being spies or unprepared, but for being stupid. In Quatermass 2, there are “others” coming from the outside, but the real threat is from the government. It is elected officials and their minions that aren’t to be trusted. And one of the biggest threats is secrecy. While anti-communist zealots in the U.S. were yelling for more secrecy, in Britain, which didn’t (and still doesn’t) have the same level of freedom of speech or the press, it was secrecy which could allow a take over. (It should be noted that, unlike here, there actually turned out to be a number of high level “red” spies in the English government.)  The “people” are represented by a town of yokels who have been bribed not to think. They have been given jobs by the government (this isn’t a socialist friendly film) at a top secret instillation, and they are all more than happy to delude themselves that everything is OK.  When Quatermass questions the locals, he is directed to a posted sign which reads: “Remember, Secrets Mean Sealed Lips.”

Action-packed, complex, and with a substantial subtext that could keep a political science class busy for a semester, Quatermass 2 has everything to be a sci-fi classic, along side Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it can’t overcome its lowly production values or its miscasting of Donlevy. The effects are poor throughout the film, but it is at the end, when things begin to look like a bad kids show, that they can no longer be ignored.  While the characters take the situation seriously, any viewer will have a hard time not giggling. Rubber has rarely been used so poorly.

Donlevy, known for his parts in American gangster films, is too brusque, too loud, and to quick-talking for the role of Quatermass.  He rattles off his lines with one generic tone and strides in and out of scenes like he’s searching for a restroom. Script writer Nigel Kneale hated the lack of subtlety Donlevy brought to his character and has stated that the actor was often drunk on set.  Considering the performance, that seems likely.  Still, Donlevy does a much better job than he did in the first film, making Quatermass someone I can bear. In The Quatermass Xperiment, I was rooting for the monster to eat him.

The movie was re-titled Enemy from Space for release in the U.S.

It was followed by 1967’s Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth in the U.S.), and 1979’s The Quatermass Conclusion.

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Pal Joey (1957)

Oct 061957
 
one reel

Joey Evans (Frank Sinatra), a low-rent lounge singer and lady killer recently kicked out of town for playing with the mayor’s underaged daughter, connives his way into a nightclub gig.  After working his way through the chorus line, he hits on Linda English (Kim Novak), the “nice girl” who is resistant to his charms.  He also chases a rich widow, Vera Simpson (Rita Hayworth).  Joey becomes her kept man, but is torn between his own instincts and the two women.

A musical rises or falls on its music, but it’s nice if it has something else going for it.  Pal Joey gets the music right, practically defining the American standard as well as the torch song (well, defining it after the fact).  Just My Funny Valentine would have been enough, or I Could Write A Book, but Pal Joey adds The Lady is a Tramp and trumps them all with Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.  It doesn’t even matter that they weren’t all in the Broadway show, or that they’ve been performed better (though the Hayworth lip-synched Bewitched sends chills up my spine); when the tunes are good, it’s hard to find anything to complain about.

But away from the music, things aren’t so good.  Pal Joey was a racy show, by ’50s standards, so the powers that be sanitized it for your protection, and simplified it at the same time.  Joey’s a cad, but an acceptable cad for the pre-Leave it to Beaver generation.  He has the complexity of a wet paper towel, which works out well, because that’s exactly how much personality Linda has.  Vera doesn’t even have a character.  She’s a walking plot point.  The situation is rife with tension, depth, and fascinating character development, but none of that makes it to the screen.  Joey’s not a charming scumbag; he’s quaint.  Linda isn’t an innocent in jeopardy of losing herself; she’s a cute blonde who hangs around.  And Vera?  She’s just Rita Hayworth in a bad role.

’50s morality rears it’s ugly head when Joey puts a stop to a rehearsal of Linda’s striptease number.  You see, that’s how we know its true love.  No ’50s-era cinematic man would stand for a hot chick that he likes acting sexy.  Had Novak actually stripped, then we’d have had a movie.  As for the faux drunk scene (wow, girls pass out rather suddenly) and the bizarre teamwork to produce a happy ending, those aren’t of any particular decade, but they sure do stink up the joint.

With forgettable dialog, awkward pacing, little in the way of dancing, a drab and predictable story, and poor acting of poorer parts, all that’s here is the music.  If this was the only way to hear it, I’d be stuck recommending Pal Joey.  But it’s not.  It will take a little work to put together the best renditions of the tunes, but a that’s a better use of your time than spending an evening with this flick.  The Broadway cast recordings of Pal Joey and Babes in Arms (that’s the source for several songs) are a good place to start. Both Julie London and Sinead O’connor (yup, that Sinead O’connor) have nice versions of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and Michelle Pfeiffer nails My Funny Valentine in The Fabulous Baker Boys.  Invite over the sexiest girl you know, toss some wood into the fireplace, poor some wine, play the songs of Pal Joey in the background, and never give another thought to the movie.

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The Night of the Demon (1957)/Curse of the Demon (1958)

Oct 051957
 
three reels

A professor investigating cultist Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), dies when his car hits an electrical pole after he sees a demon. Skeptical psychologist, John Holden (Dana Andrews), takes over the investigation, and finds that he too has been cursed by Karswell. Harrington’s superstitious niece, Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins), tries to persuade Holden that he’s in danger from a demon while there is still time to do something about it.

Another stylishly directed genre film from director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie), The Night of the Demon shares the less-is-more viewpoint with those films. I missed it when it first hit the big screen, not being born yet, but I have always been curious about the film that was sampled for Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love (“It’s in the trees! It’s coming!”) as well as being immortalized in the opening song of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (“Dana Andrews said prunes, gave him the runes, but passing them used lots of skill”). While it flopped initially, it has developed a cult following over the years, and now is put on many genre critics “Top 10” lists.

There’s a lot to like in The Night of the Demon. While the day shots are often washed out, the night scenes are beautiful and vivid, with deep shadows and high contrast. The story works as a Hitchcockian thriller, with plenty of suspense and the occasional surprise. It also has one of the most memorable villains you’re likely to find, if he is a villain. Karswell is willing to coldly kill, but he also puts on Halloween parties for the local kids. He is arrogant, but elegant, domineering, but frightened, and enjoyable company as long as you are not trying to expose him. He’s much more likeable than either the obnoxious Holden or the pushy Joanna Harrington. Niall MacGinnis plays this complex personality perfectly.

Unfortunately, the film is marred by the filmmakers knowing little of science or philosophy. Throughout the movie, the “scientists” blurt out silly statements that are supposed to be scientific or at least thoughtful, but are neither. The stupidity starts early, with Professor O’Brien claiming that an uneducated man drawing a picture of a demon that vaguely resembles ancient woodcuttings proves that he’s seen a demon. With all the monsters I drew as a kid, by this reasoning, I must have been visited nightly by the hordes of hell. Almost every conversation that involves any of the “scientists” has something equally ridiculous. The “scientific” knowledge and procedures of Holden and the others is no better. In a conversation with Joanna, he says that runic symbols are a form of ancient writing generally thought to be magical. Well, runes were generally thought to be magical in bad B-movies, though not by educated people in this world. Any film can handle a few such mistakes, but The Night of the Demon is loaded with them.

In a scene that starts interestingly, and then falls apart, the scientists use incredibly easy and effective hypnoses to get information from a comatose mental patient man. However, they in no way restrain him. When it is demonstrated to them that this guy really needs to be tied down (by him jumping up and running violently through the crowds before being recaptured), they still don’t bother trussing him up.  Gee, do you think this could end up causing a problem? This is sloppy writing.

Characters seldom act like real people (except for Karswell and his mother). The king of ludicrous behaviors comes when Holden goes to Scotland Yard. Granted, he acknowledges that move as stupid afterwards, but even with his brain addled by fear, what could he possibly expect the police to do? He reports that he saw evil smoke in the woods and felt like he was followed, and thinks the police will…arrest the demon? Then there is the forced romance. Holden is lecherous and slimy and obviously doesn’t respect Joanna’s views. She is strident, easily offended, and rather dim, and respects his views even less. But it’s a movie so they have to fall for each other.

Much is made of the two short appearances of the demon (and if the studio insisted on more screen time for the monster, and if that harmed Tourneur’s “vision”). It doesn’t matter why the shots are the way they are, but it does matter that they are too long. The film would be anticlimactic without some appearance by the demon, but as he looks, first like a marionette, and then like a Halloween dog mask, less would have helped the film.

Added all those problems is the question of why the events in the story are taking place at all. That is, why did Karswell curse these two scientists? He indicated he is afraid of the powers he has tapped into, and that summoning a demon is very dangerous, so I was expecting some big secret to explain it. But nothing comes. Holden is no threat to Karswell. Why would he care if Holden declares he’s a fraud? It isn’t going to lose him any followers. It will effect nothing (I wouldn’t even think anyone would notice, but this is a world where an unknown psychologist going to a conference gets a headline in the paper), but in summoning a demon, he risks everything.

There’s a lot of talent involved in The Night of the Demon, but not enough intelligence.  Perhaps the script just needed another rewrite or two. It had the potential to be a great film.

Curse of the Demon was the name given to a recut version that played in American theaters (though in recent years, the Curse name has been put on the full British cut). It slices twelve minutes. Some edits help, such as the truncation of an overlong and unbelievable meeting scene with Holden and Joanna on a plane.  Others harm the film, like the removable of Holden’s uneasy confrontation with a family of Karswell’s followers.  Overall, the effect of the cuts is to make the film too abrupt without sufficient character development.

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Desk Set (1957)

Oct 041957
 
four reels

Efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy) is secretly hired to computerize a research department run by the brilliant Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn).  As Bunny worries about her boyfriend’s unwillingness to commit and the possible loss of jobs due to the computer, she finds herself drawing closer and closer to Richard.

Quick Review: This is a play masquerading as a film.  The camera is static, the actors enter scenes from stage right or left, and it’s all dialog.  Luckily, it’s a nice play, with nice actors, and nice lines.  In case you haven’t noticed, Desk Set is nice.  Not great.  Not deep.  Just nice.  There is the feel good story that assures a ’50s audience that machines won’t take their jobs, but the plot is just an excuse for the eccentric characters to sit and spar.  I’ve watched Desk Set once or twice a year for the past ten years, normally at Christmastime, and it wears well.

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The Smallest Show on Earth (1957)

Oct 021957
 
3,5 reels

Matt and Jean Spencer (Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna), a young, financially challenged, city couple, inherit a dilapidated cinema in a small town.  Working with a good-natured solicitor (Leslie Phillips), they attempt to sell it to a wealthy local businessman (Francis De Wolff) who wants the spot for a parking lot, but he decides to try and cheat them.  To get a better offer, the Spencers open the theater with the help of the aged staff: Percy Quill (Peter Sellers), an alcoholic projectionist, Mrs. Fazackalee (Margaret Rutherford), a cantankerous ticket-seller, and Old Tom (Bernard Miles), the senile janitor and doorman.

There’s a strong Ealing feeling to this British Lion film.  It’s a compact movie, with a group of eccentric characters,working together in the “British way” against adversity.  The difference comes in the leads.  Most of the Ealing comedies had everyone as part of the cavalcade of quirky personalities, but Matt and Jean Spencer are only abnormal in that they are better looking and more genial than your neighbors.  Jean is so amiable that there is no chance for the cinematically far-too-common marital bickering to sidetrack the story.  Real-life-couple Travers and McKenna, best known to American audiences as the lion-raising Adamsons in Born Free, couldn’t possibly have been as pleasant as their characters—no one is—but there is a feeling of real affection in their performances.  I was with them from the beginning.

The three ancient keepers of the crumbling theater create much of the atmosphere of the film, but have little of the screen time.  Rutherford, a mainstay of British comedy, was incapable of putting in a bad performance, and is again excellent here, though she has the least to do.  Sellers is at his best when he can lose himself in a character (here, a man forty or more years older than he), and he does that, without any of his characteristic slapstick getting in the way.  He gets many of the broader laughs as he tries to keep “his equipment” in working order.  Yup, there’s a double entendre or two.

Much of the comedy comes from Matt, the normal guy, dealing with strange situations that everyone else takes as normal.  People pay with chickens, a passing train rattles the ceiling, and the patrons are loud and destructive, but the older folks take it in stride.  Surprisingly, once he accepts this unusual world, the film works even better as all the “good guys” plot and plan together.

By 1957, many of the post-war elements were fading from Post-War British Comedies, but not from The Smallest Show on Earth.  It has a notable linage with screenwriter William Rose (Genevieve, The Maggie, The Ladykillers), executive producers Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder (The Happiest Days of Your Life, The Belles of St. Trinian’s, The Green Man, Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s, The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s—and that’s not counting their directing and writing credits), cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (Hue and Cry, Kind Hearts and Coronets, A Run for Your Money, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, The Titfield Thunderbolt).  Plus there is the idiosyncratic characters and the us-against-them plot.  But what really solidifies its position in the movement is the setting, a ruined building, so common in the earlier films.  Run-down theaters were not unusual in England after WWII.  Resources were scarce and could not be spent on anything “frivolous,” so cinemas were looking pretty threadbare by the mid ’50s.

As Sellers went on to become the biggest star of the cast, The Smallest Show on Earth is marketed as a vehicle for his brand of comedy.  It’s a misleading sales pitch.  If you are expecting The Pink Panther, you’ll be surprised by what you get, though not disappointed.

 Post-War British Comedy, Reviews Tagged with:
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