Foster on Film – Page 106 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Three Giant Bugs

Jun 031955

Tarantula (1955)

The Black Scorpion (1957)

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

The ‘50s giant bug craze was part of the larger atomic monster sub-genre which started with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and went on full tilt for the next decade. These were B-pictures—or C-pictures—where sparing expense was always a factor. Still, they tended not to be too cheap.

The movies followed the same general plot set up in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and solidified in Them! (1954). They were constructed as mysteries, except the titles gave it away. In an isolated location, a soon-to-be hero would discover a series of deaths: human, wildlife, and livestock. The culprit was a giant monster, normally either created, or set free by man’s new scientific knowledge. A team would be set up to track and destroy the monster, made up of a romantic lead (normally that guy who discovered the bodies, though not always), an attractive girl, and a short, elderly scientist played by a skilled character actor. Over the course of the picture, these people would be called in when it made no sense to do so, and take on missions obviously suited better for professionals specifically trained for it. Toward the end of the film, often after the monster was assumed to be killed, the location would switch to a large city where the military would destroy the beast. Once the monster’s existence was known, no one would doubt or hesitate and the government and military would work in perfect harmony. These were positive films. While things might get a bit rocky, in the end, our government is on our side, our military can take care of any threat, and Americans all pull together. Yeah… It was a different time. To keep the budgets low, much of the military action is delivered via stock footage of ships at sea and jets taking off or landing.

Them! is the quintessential, and best, of the bug films, and so, gets its own review. The Black Scorpion, The Deadly Mantis, and Tarantula do a good job of filling out the field. All are reasonably good fun for a summer afternoon.

Tarantula (1955)

When secretive scientist Gerald Deemer’s (Leo G. Carroll) partner turns up dead of an unlikely disease, the local doctor, Matt Hastings (John Agar) gets suspicious. But it is going to be a while before he discovers that a giant Tarantula is now running around the desert, killing cattle and the occasional person. Until then, he flirts with Deemer’s sexy new assistant, Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton (Mara Corday) and chats to old-timey Sheriff Andrews (Nestor Paiva).

“I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel when Tarantula took to the hills” — Science Fiction/Double Feature.

Tarantula varies from the formula a bit more than the others, but then it came out only a year after Them! The main difference is the merging in of the ‘40s-era mad scientist story. The monster is not the result of nuclear testing, but of Professor Deemer’s attempt to make a super-food. His food was unstable and we get over-sized rats and guinea pigs before the still growing tarantula escapes. Our triad is Deemer, the local doctor, and the cute assistant, but as Deemer is less help than the scientists in these types of films normally are, the sheriff gets to fill in on the heroic team. It is unfortunate as Carroll is the best thing about the film.

The isolated location is the Arizona desert where Deemer has set up his mysterious lab. We never get to a large city, with the local town having to supply all the panicking civilians. We do get the required stock footage Air Force jets.

Tarantula is mildly enjoyable, and while the best in terms of cinematography and acting, overall, it is the weakest of the three. It is too laid back, taking far too long to get to our giant bug. That gives more time for the romance to develop, which isn’t in itself a bad thing. But if your movie is called Tarantula, no one is watching to see the romantic leads chat while they smoke (they always smoke…), sitting on some desert rocks. There needs to be more monster action than coy smiles and a mad scientist ranting.

Director Jack Arnold is known for his genre work on It Came From Outer Space (1953), the last of the great Universal horror films, The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and its weak sequel Revenge of the Creature (1955), along with The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).

The Black Scorpion (1957)

After a volcanic eruption, people living near an isolated Mexican village begin to disappear. A pair of geologists, one American (Richard Denning) and one Mexican (Carlos Rivas), on their way to study the volcano, find a damaged police car, dead officer, and abandoned baby. They soon find themselves in the middle of the mystery given away by the title. On the less monstrous side, they meet the local ranch owner and hot woman, Teresa Alvarez (Mara Corday), so of course we have a romance blooming.

The ‘50s and ‘60s giant bug craze did not produce many original films and The Black Scorpion isn’t one. It is two-thirds a note-for-note rehash of Them! and one-third The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Hey, if you are going to copy, copy from the best.

Our isolated desert location has moved south to Mexico, where once again a home is found damaged and a child found alive—this time a baby instead of a catatonic little girl. I know all these films follow a formula, but that’s getting pretty close to plagiarism. Our hero soon teams up with an elderly scientist and strikes up a romance with the only female to get more than three lines—played once again by Tarantula’s Mara Corday. Once it is clear they are dealing with giant bugs, it is only a matter of time before they lower themselves into the monsters’ lair, and beat by beat, we follow the story of Them! The scorpions even make the same sound as the ants did. The one deviation from Them! is that the all-knowing, elderly, short scientist has a smaller part, and just pops up when needed. So we get a second young scientist to complete the triad, though for some reason, he never has a chance with the girl.

There is a child I quickly learned to hate who repeatedly runs recklessly into danger. The kid is stuck in to raise the stakes—putting a child in jeopardy is a standard, old-school monster movie bit—but it doesn’t work because the child is too stupid.

While most of the giant monster movies used puppets or men in suits, The Black Scorpion was one of the few to use stop motion, executed by Willis O’Brien, the man who brought King Kong to life twenty years earlier. In the final years of his career, he no longer had access to the resources he needed. Still, O’Brien’s work gives the film a magical quality most similar films lacked. He even uses some models left over from Kong. With passable acting, a reasonable pace, amiable characters, and O’Brien’s scorpions, The Black Scorpion is one of the better giant bug pictures.

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

A series of mysterious disappearances in the arctic leads the military to call in paleontologist Ned Jackson (William Hopper). His keen use of a magnifying glass allows him to work out that the culprit is a giant praying mantis, recently released from the ice. Ned teams up with Colonel Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens) and hot magazine editor Marge Blaine (Alix Talton) to stop the giant creature.

Once again, the film follows the ‘50s giant monster template. The secluded area where the monster first appears has moved north (or returned north as that’s where things start in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms). Our triad is a soldier, the girl he romances, and a scientist, with the change that our scientist is neither old nor short. Plot-wise, we’ve seen it all before.

Where The Deadly Mantis stands out is in how literal it makes its metaphor. This is a cold war film and the mantis is a stand in for the Russians. The film begins with an explanation of the US radar system—requested by the actual US government to be added to the picture to calm average citizens and assure them that we are always on the lookout for the commie attack. And it isn’t a brief comment. Buckle up for a full-on lecture with all the maps and stock footage you could ever desire. But don’t worry, there will be even more stock footage later.

The military is all over the film—with stock footage jet fighters taking off every five minutes—and is competent and caring (though individual soldiers are a bit girl-crazy). Civil defense is often mentioned and there’s very much a feeling of “we’re all in this together against those sneaky commie mantises.” The in-film government even requests the help of the civilian Ground Observer Corps, a real organization of normal folks who watched for enemy aircraft—it was shut down in 1959. Strangely, this never gets too heavy or feels like we’re joining Joseph McCarthy. Partly that’s due to the characters being likable and partly due to the focus being on everyone working together by choice rather than giving up rights for safety or questioning our neighbors.

The acting wasn’t going to win any awards, but is passable. The cinematography gets by with the help of some genuinely spooky fog-filled scenes. And, grading on a curve, the effects are good. The mantis is one of the best non-stop-motion creatures. The before-mentioned fog helps. We get to see plenty of the monster, but often in situations that hide the weakness of the model.

OK, so it doesn’t make sense or follow any kind of science. Bugs don’t work this way. Air force pilots don’t lead army soldiers in ground-based attacks. But then that kind of silliness is a given going in. While worse in almost every way than Tarantula, its pace and silliness makes it more fun.

Giant Monsters

The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1955)

May 191955

Peculiar Dr. Ted Stevens (Kent Taylor) and bizarre government agent Bill Grant (Rodney Bell) discover a radiation burnt body on an unusual looking beach. Ted approaches oddball oceanographer Professor King (Michael Whalen) and his attractive daughter who’s the only one who seems human. Meanwhile King’s assistant follows king around and hides in bushes while his secretary shakes with paranoia. Oh, and there’s a really poorly designed rubber suit monster swimming around.

Normally a film this cheap, this poorly made, isn’t worth the time. By most objective standards, this is a terrible film. But The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues earns a point for being weird. Everything is a bit off. The acting isn’t bad in a normal way—it’s strange. Lines are delivered in a cadence that doesn’t quite match speech. And what do they say in that inhuman cadence?

You know, science is a devouring mistress. She devours all who seek to fathom her mysteries. And for every secret she reveals, she demands a price; a price that a scientist must be prepared to pay. Even at the cost of his life or the lives of others who stand in the way of his search.

And that’s just normal conversation.

I could never replicate the way Ted and Bill walk—so close to human, but not quite. And there’s a lot of that strange walking right off the bat as a third of the cast saunters along the beach in the middle of the night (or at least the film soon after informs me it is the middle of the night—there’s no way to tell from the lighting what time of day it ever is). As there’s only around ten people that exist, four acting like a scout troop at midnight is just another bit of oddness.

Everything is shot either in drab midrange or in overly tight close-up, the second of which allows for characters to suddenly appear next to each other when they should have been visible to each other for minutes. The nonsensical comings and goings of characters turns the film into a comedy. Maybe they can all teleport? Why not since Ted is an expert on atomic death rays. Yes, atomic death rays. Oh, and there is a hot Russian spy who sunbathes in the gray light while everyone else wears jackets.

If there was a big reveal at the end that everyone is really dead or aliens from the planet X, then the film would have made a kind of sense. But nope. The movie is just perplexing. But that goes with the title which is wrong in every way. A more accurate one would be The Humanoid, Mutated, Radiation Monster From 10 to 20 Feet Down, though that would imply the monster is relevant to the story. I’d go with Weird People Being Weird on a Weird Beach.

I rarely find films “so bad that they’re good,” but this is the exception. It doesn’t even need a MST3K track. It is hysterical and you’ll have no trouble inserting your own jokes.

Horror, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)

May 151955

Three service men, Ted Riley (Gene Kelly), Doug Hallerton (Dan Dailey), and Angie Valentine (Michael Kidd), discharged from the army in 1945, pledge to meet in ten years to prove that they will still be friends. In the intervening years, Riley ends up mixing into the seedier side of New York and manages a crooked boxer, Hallerton gives up his plans to be an artist and becomes a successful advertising executive with a failing marriage, and Valentine runs a hamburger restaurant with his wife and has a bunch of kids. When they do meet in 1955, they dislike each other. Before they can separate, Jackie Leighton (Cyd Charisse), an “idea man” in Hallerton’s company, decides it would be advantageous to put them on an ambush TV show, so they are tricked into sticking around for the day.

It’s Always Fair Weather was pitched as a follow up to On the Town, but the studio wasn’t interested in dealing with Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin was no longer a draw, so they adjusted the story substantially. I can see the connection, but this film has a very different tone. While it isn’t “dark,” it doesn’t have the happy effervescence of On the Town. Riley, Hallerton, and Valentine are generally depressed, with anger being their second most common emotion. They have ego problems and two of them are lonely. Still it is more comedy than drama and more fun than not. Problems still get solved easily and in unlikely ways, and love blossoms in an evening.

Michael Kidd (better known as a top choreographer) and Dan Dailey are better sidekicks than Kelly normally had, each a strong dancer. The best number has the three of them dancing and drinking their way through the city at night. Perhaps because of this, Cyd Charisse isn’t used well. She lacks the screen time to make the romance work (she doesn’t appear till 30 min in), and has a single dance number, one that hardly shows off her skills. She could have been replaced by any actress in a tight sweater.

The music is pleasant, but forgettable, which limits how good this musical can be. But actually having a plot, and one that isn’t embarrassing (Kelly was not always that lucky) buoys things up a bit, leaving us with an enjoyable, if unremarkable Kelly vehicle.

My other reviews of Gene Kelly films: Cover Girl (1944), Anchor’s Aweigh (1945), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), The Pirate (1948), Words and Music (1948), On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), Brigadoon (1954), It’s Always Fair Weather (1955), Les Girls (1957), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).

Musicals, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

The Constant Husband (1955)

Mar 091955

A man (Rex Harrison), later identified as Charles Hathaway, wakes up in Wales with amnesia. With the aid of a specialist (Cecil Parker), he discovers he’s rich, married to a beautiful woman (Kay Kendall), and is an important government official. But quickly things don’t fit properly. His boss (Raymond Huntley) only seems to know him through a club and his best friend (Robert Coote) relays a vague story of violence and lies. He’s soon after kidnapped, revealing more and more secrets and that he, most likely, used to be an unmitigated cad.

The description sounds like it comes from a Hitchcock film, but then this is a Frank Launder & Sidney Gilliat production, and they did write The Lady Vanishes for Hitchcock. However, this is farce. Gilliat is in charge, writing and directing, besides co-producing, and was gifted with a suburb cast. Harrison needed the right kind of role to really shine, and that of a sometimes frightened, sometimes annoyed amnesiac was perfect for him. He’s supported by some of the best England had to offer; besides Kendall, Parker, Huntley, and Coot there’s George Cole, Jill Adams, and Michael Hordern. It’s a team that makes it easy to create a good film.

And this one really takes off from the first. With a different score, and different directing choices, the first two-thirds could have been very tense, as Charles digs into mysteries and finds only more and more mysteries. Instead it’s hilarious, while still keeping me curious. Composer Malcolm Arnold (a longtime time collaborator with Launder & Gilliat, but probably most famous for his music for The Bridge on the River Kwai) sets the perfect tone.

Unfortunately, for a piece that starts so strong, the ending lets it down. It isn’t bad, but once we know what actually happened, and we know it all too early, much of the energy fades. “Charles” is more sympathetic when he’s running and searching and being accosted for things he doesn’t understand, then when he’s finally able to stop and take a stand. Whatever message the film had also slips away, along with the laughs. It feels like they radically changed the last act after they’d started production. This is a good film that looses its way. It should have been a great one.

Other Gilliat & Launder (produced, directed, or written) Post-War British Comedies: The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), Folly to Be Wise (1952), The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954), Geordie (1955), The Green Man (1956), Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), The Bridal Path (1959), Left, Right, and Centre (1959), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), Only Two Can Play (1961), The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966), Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980)

Post-War British Comedy, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Jan 281955

Peter and Freddie (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello) find themselves mixed up in the murder of a professor. Trying to clear their names only makes things worse as both a criminal (Marie Windsor) and a cult leader (Richard Deacon) want the amulet they have, an amulet that leads to the treasure of an ancient tomb, guarded by a mummy.

Yes, I’m once again pushing the definition of “Classic,” but this is where the trail leads from the Universal monster films.

Early in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, Costello finds a dead body, and runs out, yelling “Abbooooooott!” The thing is, Abbott isn’t playing a character named Abbott. He’s playing Peter Patterson. Throughout the film, the two continue using each other’s real names. So, was this a bit of humor, breaking the forth wall, or was the continuity just that bad? Either way, it showed they didn’t care. And that says all you need to know about this film.

Meet the Mummy isn’t bad. Certainly it is a long way from the best of their “meets a” movies, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but it isn’t horrible, provided you like Abbott and Costello. But it’s tired. The jokes are very old. You’ve heard them all before. They confuse language, switch a plate of food back and forth while forcing the other to look at girls coming in the door, and Abbott yells at Costello that he’s imagining things when he claims to see a dead body or a monster. If it was funny once, well then it’s…well, that’s the thing about jokes—they really aren’t funny the sixty-fifth time.

The secondary actors all play it relatively straight, and the Mummy is a sad, skinny guy in ribbons. Again, they aren’t bad. That seems to be the best thing I can say.

With Meet the Mummy, the duo finished their collaborations with Universal monsters, and nearly finished their careers. Costello would die four years later from a heart attack. Watching them here, they feel finished. If this pops up on TV, you probably won’t have a bad time if you leave it playing, but why bother? If you need an Abbott and Costello fix, there are better films to watch that will have the same gags.

Back to Classic Horror

Classic Horror, Mummies, Reviews

The Ladykillers (1955)

Jan 121955

The bizarre and ruthless criminal, going by the name Professor Marcus (Alec Guiness), masterminds a robbery for a gang consisting of conman Major Courtney (Cecil Parker), hit-man Louis (Herbert Lom), spiv Harry (Peter Sellers) and muscle One-Round (Danny Green). The focus of his scheme is an innocent old lady, Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), They gain entrance to her house by renting a room and claiming to be a string quintet. The idea is to use her to unknowingly pick up the money they’ve swiped in a violent attack on a van, after they’ve stashed it in a train station. Things go as planned at first, but then take a wild turn, and the gang is pitted against Mrs. Wilberforce, who has no idea she’s in a life and death struggle.

I can heap accolades on The Ladykillers. One of Ealing studio’s finest films and one of the finest in the Post-War British Comedy movement, it contains the best work of director Alexander Mackendrick and Alec Guiness’s greatest performance, and that last one is saying something substantial. It also has Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom before they both leaned hard into overacting. It is beautifully filmed (in color, a rarity for Ealing) and perfectly edited. It is one of the greatest comedies ever filmed.

It is clearly an Ealing film, filled with quirky characters and and it is British to its core. But it has a fundamental difference from the studio’s other films of the time. It plays with its connection to thrillers and horror (one scene paying homage to The Lodger), with slightly off kilter shots of an off kilter house. When Mrs. Wilberforce isn’t onscreen it feels sinister and if you entered at the wrong moment, you might think you’d walked in on a Noir or Hitchcock’s latest. Sure, Ealing movies were filled with thieves and even murderers (in Kind Hearts and Coronets), but in those the heroes and villains were basically good natured. Not here. These are irredeemable criminals, which sets up the heart of the comedy—nasty, horrible, fiends verses a wholly innocent little old lady. Everything appears to be on their side of this conflict, but appearances can be deceiving. The darkest comedy the studio ever made, it still manages to be joyful.

When Guiness was given the script, he thought it was a mistake, and that it was meant for the other mainstay and master of the movement, Alastair Sim. When he was assured it was meant for him, he based his performance on Sim, and had his makeup done as a caricature of Sim. I would have loved to see Sim in the part as he’d have been wonderful, but that would have deprived us of Guiness’s amazing performance and that’s too high a price.

This is a Post-War British Comedy, which means it also examines British society, but The Ladykillers isn’t trying to assure the public that they are different than the fascists they’d spent so much to defeat the way Passport to Pimlico and The Lavender Hill Mob do. Instead it examines the fractured and demoralized state of Britain after the war. Mrs. Wilberforce is the personification of old Britain. She (it) is a bit dotty and often annoying, with no understanding of the harm she can cause and has caused, and she no longer holds the respect of those around her. But she is basically good and worth preserving, to the extent that she can be preserved. She is fading, as is the empire (well, perhaps “faded” is more accurate). Her finest days are over. The gang represents the corrupt segments of post-war Britain. Major Courtney is the degenerate military class. One-Round is the mindless and violent working class. Harry is delinquent youth. Louis is the influx of crooked foreigners. And the Professor is the self-serving, rotten political class. None of that is needed to enjoy the film, nor was it apparent to me, as an American, when I first watched it many years ago, and I’m not sure if I would have worked it out without reading a statement from the director, but once you know it, it seems obvious, and lends an extra layer of brilliance to a film that was already many layers high.

I first saw The Ladykillers over forty years ago and was taken by its clever dialog and twisted and fleshed-out characters. Time has been good to the film, not aging it a bit. I have aged, however, and can now find even more in this treat. This high point marked the end of Ealing; it was sold the year The Ladykillers was released. You couldn’t go out on a higher note.

The Coen brothers attempted a remake, but failed to understand the basic structure of the film. (My review)

Alexander Mackendrick’s other Ealing comedies were Whisky Galore (1949), The Man in the White Suit (1951), and The Maggie (1954). He left England after The Ladykillers for Hollywood, where he made the Noir-ish Sweet Smell of Success.

Guinness also appeared in the Post-War British Comedies Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), A Run for Your Money (1949), Last Holiday (1950), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Card (1952), Captain’s Paradise (1953), To Paris with Love (1955), Barnacle Bill (1957), The Horse’s Mouth (1958), and Our Man in Havana (1959).

Important, Important Post-War British Comedy, Post-War British Comedy, Reviews Tagged with: Five Reels

The Belles of St. Trinian’s (1954)

Dec 061954

It’s the start of another term for the gin-making, thieving, violent girls of St. Trinians. Head mistress Millicent Fritton (Alastair Sim in one of the great drag performances) is mainly concerned with how to get enough cash for the school to remain open, and bets the school’s money on a race horse owned by a sultan who’s just sent his young daughter to school there. Her mob-connected brother Clarence (also Sim) is concerned with using his 6th form daughter to pick up racing information from the princes. The local police want to shut it all down, and send Sgt. Ruby Gates (Joyce Grenfell) undercover to join the unqualified teaching staff. This sets up a conflict between Miss Fritton, the spiv Flash Harry (George Cole), the staff, and the 4th form girls who want the sultan’s horse to run and win, and Clarence, the mob, and the 6th form girls, who want to stop it, with Superintendent Kemp Bird (Lloyd Lamble) and the agent for the Ministry of Education (Richard Wattis) stuck in the middle.

Ronald Searle created the world of St. Trinian’s in a series of one frame cartoons. Think of it as if Charles Addams had focused on boarding school girls. He drew the first few before he became a POW during WWII. The cartoons took a darker and funnier turn after the war, often filled with the smiling young girls and their deceased victims. Searle and his girls became extremely popular.

The producing/writing/directing team of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder had made a name for themselves with their script for Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938), and its semi-sequel, Night Train to Munich (1940), and went on to create one of the best films of 1946, the Foscar nominated I see a Dark Stranger. Launder was an expert with farce while Gilliat’s greatest skill lay with harsh satire. Both were known for their ability to bring characters to life and their skills meshed well. They dove into the Post-War British Comedy movement with The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), a boarding school comedy starring Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, with support from Richard Wattis, Guy Middleton, and Joyce Grenfell, and with opening titles animated by Ronald Searle. It was a success and so when it came time for a follow-up, they didn’t have to go far: St. Trinian’s. They added frequent co-writer Val Valentine, kept Launder in the director’s chair, and decided to keep most of the cast, adding Sim’s protégé, George Cole. The comedy would be much broader, as fit the material. And then a misfortune turned lucky; Rutherford was unavailable, so they double-cast Sim, having him play his own sister. Rutherford is always wonderful, but no one could have surpassed Sim’s performance. It is the stuff of pure comic genius.

The cartoons had no story, so one had to be invented. The script cleverly follows Miss Fritton, Clarence, and Sgt. Gates instead of the school girls. The girls never could be real and if they were front and center, you couldn’t ignore that half of them should be dead and the others arrested for murder in our world. Instead the girls are the foundation, forever present, but behind our main players. The fun comes not only from the girls making gin, setting off explosives, stealing horses, torturing other girls, and being a mix between adorable and fiends from hell, but from how everyone responds to them. It’s the fear of them that makes them so hilarious, or in a few cases, the nonchalant way characters treat the mayhem. It’s the drinking and drug-taking that the authorities indulge in to calm their nerves whenever the school is mentioned that makes it all work. A small child banging on nitroglycerin is amusing; Miss Fritton calmly advising her to be careful with the explosive is what puts it over the top.

Another marvelous invention is the 6th form girls. The cartoons just had little monsters. The film adds older girls—too old to be in school, which is one of the jokes. “Pogo” (and yes, you are supposed to think about how she got that nickname) is married. “Not officially,” chimes in Miss Fritton, but you get the point. These elder girls are just as evil, but less random. They scheme and plan and add seduction to their armory, and are the basis for the St. Trinian’s Girl fetish in Britain, where the idea of the sexy Catholic school girl was replaced. And this allows for an additional type of humor in the film, perhaps tame by current standards, but risqué for 1954.

Launder’s direction is nimble, but not showy, keeping the jokes coming, and allowing his cast of most of the best England had to offer to shine. The Belles of St. Trinian’s is a near perfect comedy. It’s hard to gauge its legacy, but the still-present St. Trinian’s cosplay parties show that this film may no longer sit at the front of British culture, but it has made its mark.

It was followed by a series of progressively weaker sequels made by Launder and Gilliat: Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966), and The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980). It was rebooted as a girl-power film in 2007 with the simple title of St. Trinian’s, which got it’s own sequel, St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, two years later.

Alastair Sim is perhaps best known for Scrooge (1951). In addition to this film, he appeared in 11 films in the Post-War British Comedy movement: Hue and Cry (1947), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Laughter in Paradise (1951), Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), Folly to Be Wise (1952), Innocents in Paris (1953), Escapade (1955), Wee Geordie (1955), The Green Man (1956), Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), Left Right and Centre (1959), School for Scoundrels (1960).

The list of other Post-War British Comedies directed, produced or written by Launder and/or Gilliat mainly repeats the sequel and Sim lists, but to be complete: The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951), Folly to Be Wise (1952), Wee Geordie (1955), The Green Man (1956), Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), Left Right and Centre (1959), The Bridal Path (1959), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966), The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980).

Important Post-War British Comedy, Post-War British Comedy Tagged with: Five Reels

On the Waterfront (1954)

Nov 141954

Terry (Marlon Brando) is a failed prize-fighter that now acts as muscle for the corrupt longshormen’s union. He’s sent by his brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), and boss, Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), to trap a squealer who is then murdered. The dead man’s sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint), and the local priest (Karl Malden) won’t let things go, and Terry starts to fall for Edie. The question becomes, should Terry rat on the people who he used to see as friends?

You can’t look at On the Waterfront without looking at it’s director, Elia Kazan. The easiest take on Kazan is that he was a man controlled by anger and guilt. That’s probably too simple, but there is weight in that view. He joined the communist party, not out of conviction, but out of anger with wealthy women he thought were looking down on him. He quit soon after, again not due to conviction, but because he felt he wasn’t getting the respect he deserved.

His films were filled with social commentary. Gentleman’s Agreement was THE issue picture of the late ‘40s, rejecting good storytelling in favor of making a strong statement about the evils of anti-Semitism. Kazan was the message filmmaker. And then he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Some suggest he had the power to stop the blacklists (just the blacklists since they were a Hollywood deal, not shut down the committee). I doubt it. He didn’t try. He talked. He named names.

Of course, he was angry. Some say he was greedy as talking led to jobs, but he’d have worked in any case. He was also a theater director and the blacklist had limited power there. No, greed dosn’t have the force of anger, and perhaps self-loathing. So he talked the way few others did, even those who gave in to the pressure. He made himself the focus of attention, giving more than he was asked for. As is normal with actions based on anger, he didn’t think it through. He always thought he deserved respect from all, particularly from those in the arts around him. He assumed he’d get it. It didn’t work out that way. He kept his power in the industry, but he made enemies of friends, and spent the rest of his life desperately trying to justify himself, nearly as often to himself as to everyone else. It’s hard to say if he managed for himself, though he never managed to justify it to anyone else. His friend and collaborator, Author Miller, had tried to persuade Kazan to do the right thing before he testified. Kazan rejected the advice. Miller then wrote The Crucible to show the evils of witchhunts. Kazan responded with On the Waterfront.

Terry Malloy is Kazan, as Kazan saw it. He’s the informer, but informers are good guys, and everyone turns on the poor, innocent, and pure informer. When Brando whines about being mistreated after he testifies, that’s Kazan feeling mistreated. He was wealthy, with power and connections, but he saw himself as the lone martyr, the Christ figure being crucified for doing the right thing. On the Waterfront is a two hour long justification for informing. Naturally he stacks the deck. The mob threat is real, immediate, and life-threatening, instead of the mostly imagined and philosophical Red Menace. But more, Malloy not only informs due to the oppression of the mob, but because they murder his brother. Kazan makes it personal so the audience will buy it.

So, is On the Waterfront a good movie? Yeah, for a self-justification for rotten behavior and a middle finger to those who chose the right path, it’s pretty good. It drags and I’ve given my thoughts on method acting and Brando elsewhere, and there’s a huge problem with the actions of the mob (they kill the wrong guy), but it’s a nicely shot film with some solid performances and a great score by Lenard Bernstein. It slips a bit when Kazan shifts off reality to more fully make himself look good. In the original script (well, one of them), Malloy dies. But here he rises up, Christ-like, to lead his people home, and give Kazan the heroic send-off he either thought he deserved, or desperately wanted to feel he deserved. This is not a story that should have a big hero moment, but Kazan wanted one.

Can you ignore the message and Kazan’s purpose and just enjoy the story? Not really. The story is just there to support that message, to promote Kazan’s side and maybe persuade himself that he was a good guy. The story is slight and sometimes silly. The message is what you’ve got. And it’s the wrong message.

Overrated Films, Reviews

White Christmas (1954)

Oct 081954

After The War (that’s WWII for anyone in doubt), two military buddies, Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) team up, becoming highly successful song and dance men. When Betty and Judy Haynes (Rosemary Clooney, Vera Ellen), a sister act, enter their lives, Phil decides to do a bit of matchmaking. This leads them all to Vermont, where their old general (Dean Jagger) is having a rough time as a inn keeper. How do you pair up the leads and save the day? With an elaborate stage show and the music of Irving Berlin, of course.

Is there a better icon of the light, colorful, and joyfully shallow side to Christmas than the bright and shiny musical White Christmas? Obviously I think not. Oh, it hasn’t got a brain in its cute little head, but brains can be over rated. It’s got more schmaltz than an After School Special about orphans with cancer, and characters whose behavior has little to do with human beings and a lot to do with whatever the plot needs at the moment, but damn is it fun. If you know someone who doesn’t understand the true meaning of Christmas, forget about The Nativity or A Christmas Carol. Just hand him a mug of hot chocolate and sit him down with this classic.

So, if the story jogs between the simple and the absurd (why is the finale any less of a blow to the general’s pride than putting him on TV would have been?), and Betty Haynes brings overreaction to new heights, why does the movie work? The cast has a lot to do with it. Crosby and Clooney were two of the best singers of the silver screen (well, make that the Vistavision screen; White Christmas was the first film shot in this wide screen format), plus Crosby has an amiable persona that invites the viewer to join him for late night buttermilk and cookies, or several beers. Vera Ellen’s talent was less with her vocal cords and more with her legs. Her dancing is beyond her co-stars’ skills (and beyond just about anyone’s you’re likely to find), so dancer John Brascia was brought in, to try and keep up with her (and given only one line). It doesn’t matter; when she begins to move, you won’t notice anyone else on screen. Danny Kaye supplies broad comedy. He was the Jim Carry of his time, but with talent. He could sing and dance, and while he was often teetering on the edge between funny and stupid, he usually kept his footing, and always did in White Christmas.

This is a musical, and no musical works without good songs. No problem here. Irving Berlin offers many of his finest tunes, some borrowed from earlier productions. Even the lesser numbers (We’ll Follow the Old Man, Sisters) may cause you to tap your toes, and the latter is played for laughs: Crosby and Kaye in drag, lip syncing to Clooney. Most of the rest are memorable pieces that have caused many to search for a soundtrack album (there isn’t one; Clooney was signed with a different record company than Crosby). The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing and Abraham provide the backdrop to electric dance numbers, and Count Your Blessings is such a simple, sweet song, that your kids are likely to be humming it for weeks. Of course there is the title song, performed first by Crosby alone, accompanied only by a music box, and then as a grand production number.

With spectacular costumes by Edith Head, beautiful cinematography in rich Technicolor, and the always sure hand of director Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Casablanca, We’re No Angels), it adds up to entertainment for the entire family that can be watched again and again.

Conceived as a sequel to Holiday Inn (Fred Astaire turned down the offer), White Christmas keeps only one star (Crosby) and a pair of songs from the older film. It’s very different, but equally good. Both are on my shelf, and should be on yours. It may no longer be considered hip, but not everything has to be. Every once in a while, it’s nice to embrace a bit of non-cynical fluff.

Christmas, Musicals, Reviews Tagged with: Five Reels

Them! (1954)

Oct 081954

A small child is found in a state of shock, walking in the desert. A trailer is ripped apart and there are signs that the inhabitants have been killed. The deaths mount, but Police Sgt. Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) can’t make any sense of it. That’s before Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his daughter, Dr. Pat Medford (Joan Weldon) show up. They have identified the culprits as giant, mutated ants.

Along with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Them! started the American, nuclear-created, giant monster craze. Dozens of films followed these, each doing their best to be carbon copies. None managed. Them! brings us enormous killer ants, and does it with style. It develops suspense and tension (not things you’ll find in The Giant Gila Monster) and combines a touch of humor with its generally serious tone.

Like the movies that copied it, Them! copied its predecessor. The young heroes are a policeman and a FBI agent instead of a scientist and a military officer, and there are multiple monsters instead of one, but the rest is very familiar. Sometimes, repetition works. Both The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Them! are entertaining, and the small changes are enough to keep away deja vu while watching.

While Arness, Whitmore, and Weldon give above average (substantially above) performances for a film in the genre, Sandy Descher is the actress you won’t be able to forget. Nine-years-old at the time, Descher is amazing as a girl who has been shocked into near catatonia. Where do you learn not to blink? When she finally snaps out of it, she switches from freaky to frightening as she screams “Them!” Edmund Gwenn is also wonderful, stealing every scene except when he’s with Descher. Best known as Kris Kringle in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street, here he’s taken over the Cecil Kellaway role from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and is every bit as good. Still, he’ll always be Santa to me, and there’s something odd about Santa pronouncing Biblical prophecies involving the end of days.

The effects are adequate, though not exciting. The ants are too stiff, and whenever one moves, I can’t help thinking that there’s a guy just off camera pushing a half puppet on a wheeled cart. There probably was. Still, there’s a touch of creepiness about the creatures, and they aren’t seen often. This puts more of the weight of the film on the shoulders of the characters than in most giant monster films, but they can carry it. I can’t think of any film in the genre with more engaging characters.

There’s a subplot with two lost children that’s too saccharin, and one two many bold predictions of disaster, but overall, Them! is good, horrifying fun.

It’s unlikely that James Cameron missed Them! since its influence on Aliens is unmistakable. The frightened child, soldiers in cramped corridors, and the flame thrower in the egg chamber are just a few of the blatant similarities.

Giant Monsters, Reviews

Brigadoon (1954)

Oct 061954

Two hundred years ago, a miracle took the village of Brigadoon out of time, making it appear for only one day every hundred year. On the second day after the “miracle,” American Tommy Albright (Gene Kelly) and his grumpy sidekick Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson) stumble upon the town. Tommy falls for Fiona (Cyd Charisse) but isn’t certain he believes the myth and isn’t ready to give up his modern life to join the town, as no resident can ever leave or they will all be destroyed. Within the town, a spurned lover wants out, threatening everyone’s existence.

A studio-bound musical that tries desperately to look like it was shot on location, Brigadoon benefits from some pleasant Lerner and Loewe songs and good leads, but little else. I don’t recall a more claustrophobic film, at least not one that purports to be showing the great outdoors. The dancing is competent, but the choreography is boring and occasionally embarrassing, and most of the numbers are too long. But then, the entire production is too long.

An early widescreen movie, the blame for its look is often placed on Hollywood in general not yet knowing how to direct the new format. But Hollywood wasn’t directing; Vincente Minnelli was, and he certainly didn’t have a clue. A close-up might have been nice. Perhaps a reaction shot. But the whole thing looks like a camera (without a changeable focus) was plopped down fifty feet from the action. On a small screen, you’ll have to identify characters by their wardrobe. With a DVD, you’re likely to finally use that zoom feature.

Van Johnson is the comic relief in a film in desperate need of it, but he’s given nothing funny to say. Grouchy does not equal funny. The Broadway musical does have humorous moments, but those songs and the dialog that went with them were cut from the screenplay.

The main story is thinner than good cold cuts, with Tommy and Fiona falling in love at first sight. You know what is going to happen, and it does, without a great deal of emotion. The subplot, involving Harry, who doesn’t want to be stuck in Brigadoon forever, and is willing to destroy everything to end an unpleasant existence, is dealt with in the cheapest way possible. There’s some tricky morality at play, but instead of having the characters wrestle with the situation, an accident takes care of it and it isn’t given another thought. While Harry is painted as a villain for not being “grateful” for his unasked for imprisonment, he’s the one likely to rouse the sympathies of modern audiences, and the rest of the village’s reaction to him blemishes this paradise.

Kelly was the wrong choice for the lead. His talents lay in his footwork and in his speaking-toned singing voice, which made it almost seam natural when he’d burst into song. But that tone also makes him sound light and reedy. Brigadoon needs a rich tenor (or a baritone) as Tommy, and that isn’t Kelly. The Broadway version of the show contained several balletic dances, which would have been right up his alley, but those are missing from the movie, leaving little that needed his hoofing skills.

If you are a musical fan, forget the flick and buy the soundtrack. I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean and Almost Like Being in Love are worth hearing, if not seeing.

My other reviews of Gene Kelly films: Cover Girl (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), The Pirate (1948), Words and Music (1948), On the Town (1949), Summer Stock (1950), An American in Paris (1951), It’s Always Fair Weather (1955), Les Girls (1957), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).

Musicals, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The High and the Mighty (1954)

Oct 041954

In this parody of disaster movies… What? It’s not a parody? This is serious? OK. In this deeply deeply serious disaster film, a plane-full of eccentrics (Jan Sterling, Sidney Blackmer, David Brian, Claire Trevor) make excessively long speeches, sometimes accompanied by flashbacks, detailing far more of their personal lives than other passengers or the audience want to hear. Thankfully, the plane loses an engine so they’re given something else to talk about. Captain John Sullivan (Robert Stack) is busy having a mental breakdown so disturbed co-pilot Dan Roman (John Wayne) has to be excessively manly. Only the stewardess (Doe Avedon) gets out without embarrassing herself.

It’s hard to imagine that the filmmakers, and even the initial 1954 audience, took this bombastic melodrama seriously. There were clever people in Hollywood at that time, at least I think so. They must have perceived The High and the Mighty as a joke and trusted that no one would see them laughing in the back row. It’s is pretty funny stuff, with sections dropped into 1980’s comedic Airplane! unchanged (Robert Hays copies Robert Stack’s “acting” as he wipes the sweat from his brow; just having Stack in an airplane disaster flick makes the connection more obvious ).

The High and the Mighty may be the earliest of the “Grand Hotel” disaster films, where multiple intertwined plot-threads focus on the soap opera problems of thinly disguised stereotypes played by actors on the down-slope of their careers. It may also have the worst dialog (I’ll have to re-watch Zero Hour! to be sure). In endless exposition, characters expound on the trials of their life. They don’t do anything, they just talk and talk and talk. The movie pauses so we can hear absurd soliloquies. When everything has been tied up, an airline exec watches John Wayne and says “So long, you ancient pelican.” What the hell? Someone wrote that line and didn’t crack up? I don’t think so.

The situations are good for a laugh. Which is the funniest? It’s hard to say. The contestants:

A reasonably attractive woman takes off her makeup, looks in the mirror, and repeats that she’s ugly and bad.
A jealous nutcase pulls a gun, but it is taken away by other passengers and one keeps it in his pocket. No member of the flight crew bother to do anything. Later, the crazy dude looks sad and says he’d really like his gun back…and he gets it.
Robert Stack sits, listening to the voices in his head.
Wayne slaps Stack for being yellow.

They are great moments for a MST3K-style viewing party. The hammy acting accentuates the rest of the silliness. Wrap your head around this: John Wayne puts in the most subtle and realistic porformance.

With little happening besides torturous speeches, it is mind boggling that the filmmakers couldn’t wrap this turkey up in 90 minutes. It goes on for 147 minutes, which is about 147 too long.

Disaster, Miscellaneous, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

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