Movie review - "Where No Vultures Fly" (1951) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Sometimes Henry Watt really got it right - with  The Overlanders and this. I take the point this has patrionising colonial attitudes but it's trying to modernise. The baddy is a white man and gives this speech about how the continent has gone to the dogs and how the people are useless which Anthony Steel nobly refutes - mind you there's no three dimensional black character in the film.

It's probably Steel's best role and performance. Not that the part is too demanding but he's ideal as a cheery, dogged game warden - third generation African he's careful to say at the opening. Steel is believable as an outdoorsy, honest warden - Stewart Granger lite. I mean who else could play it? At least Steel looks believable chasing after lions and shooting elephants.

Beautiful location work. Enjoyable white villains. Dinah Sheridan does well enough as the wife, exasperated but lovely. Female parts at Ealing were rarely any good. Cute shenanigans with a kid.

This is a real crowd pleaser. I mean, 1951 British crowds, but still... it's in colour, has lots of animals, has female and kid characters so it's inclusive, is Imperial but post-war Imperial. The sequel is far more racist and patronising.

Aaron Sorkin and dobbing

I listened to an interview with Barry Diller the other day who defended Scott Rudin over the “bashing up assistants” thing which led me to think about how Rudin is Sorkin’s main producer (Mockingbird, Jobs, etc) and how Sorkin has been so quiet on Rudin which then reminded me that one of Sorkin’s tropes that isn’t much discussed is the “don’t dob” storyline - he really loves it

A big arc of the final series of Newsroom was Dev Patel/Neil not “giving up a source” and indeed going on the run (and indeed disappearing from the show, to turn up and mock the social media team who were coming up with listicle click bait articles).. and there was another arc for Jeff Daniels not revealing a source and going to prison and then being let out because... I think just because

And on West Wing there was that plot where Martin Sheen decides to hire Lily Tomlin because she didn’t dob on her boss...

And from memory Richard Schiff who plays Toby hasn’t stopped complaining about his series 7 plot line where Toby did dob.

And in Molly’s Game the big... B plot, I guess, or A minus plot, is Molly not dobbing on her clients... apart from a few... I think... I got a little confused but I think she was meant to be admirable for not dobbing, but dobbing on Toby McGuire was okay, or something, and the lawyer’s daughter was studying The Crucible, which is all about not dobbing on yourself for doing something you didn’t do...

And there was that episode in Studio 60 on Sunset where they met the crazy writer Eli Wallach who it turned out was blacklisted and at the end of the episode one of the leads forced everyone to sit down and listen to Wallach’s blacklist stories...

And a great part of A Few Good Men hinges on the accused soldiers not dobbing, and the soldier who died was killed (basically) for dobbing

Then there was that time IRL when that female writer who worked on Newsroom took to twitter to complain about the rape storyline, and decry responsibility, and Aaron Sorkin responded he was upset that writer dobbed, eg betrayed the sanctity of the writer’s room

So anyway Aaron Sorkin and dobbing... lots of connections!

Movie review - "Out of the Clouds" (1955) **1/2

 Easy going Ealing film, professionally done (Basil Dearden directed). It doesn't go for big excitement - it's reminiscent of Airport but doesn't pile on the action like that film. The subplots include some gossipy old ladies, a romance between two Jewish passengers (he's going to Israel she's going to America to marry a rich man), a pilot (Anthony Steel) may be tempted into smuggling, another pilot (Robert Beatty) is grounded and wants to fly again.

The film pulls its punches - there's no crashing, Steel decides not to smuggle in the end (would've been a better film had he gone bad).

Steel is top billed but is off screen a lot of the time; Beatty has a bigger role. Later Bond girl Eunice Grayson is an air hostess - her part isn't big (there should have been more or at least bigger female roles).  There's a racist "foreign baddy" who tries to get Steel to smuggle. James Robertson Justice is a pilot.

There's a sequence where the Jewish couple go off to some colourful East End club which was kind of fun (I enjoyed the locals talking about cricket) but it pulls the action away from the airport. Didn't the filmmakers have faith in the concept?

Book review - "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood" by Quentin Tarantino (2021)

 A delight. Liked it more than the movie. It can go on detours. It's more joyous. Less anti woman. I didn't quite buy Cliff was so into European film, that sounded like Quentin, but I did love how he held his dead wife together for seven hours waiting for the coast guard. Warm heart. Love the changes from the movie, like ending it on the girl and Rick discussing how much they loved acting. Enjoyed the Aldo Ray chapter. Enjoyed pretty much all of it.

EMI Film Articles

 

 

Evening Standard 25 March 1971

Evening Standard 25 Nov 1969

Movie review - "The Shiralee" (1957) ***1/2 (re-watching)

A film that means even more to me now because I'm the father of a young girl, and the beautiful casting of Peter Finch is even more effective. It's a mystery how director Leslie Norman stuffed up Summer of the Seventeenth Doll but made such a good fist of this. Having the perfect star of course helps - Finch was never better as the charming, irresponsible drifter who abducts his kid in a fit of pique and is stuck with her.

The Australian outback is beautifully conveyed - the camraderie on the back of trucks, the slang, the casual mateship, the horrible local bullies (Guy Doleman and Lloyd Berrell) threatening Finch at the pub, the loneliness of Nial Maguiness. Charles Tingwell gives Finch a lift in the truck - is his voice dubbed?

Superb performance from Dana Wilson the little girl. Love the moments like her tagging along, and laughing in the rain with her dad, and him carrying her on her shoulders.

Rosemary Harris is lovely as the girl Finch once impregnated. Russell Napier is her dad - he was an Aussie, I wasn't familiar with him.

There is some stuff that I really didn't like. When Elizabeth Sellers the wife turns up wanting her child back... he holds his ground, the kid picks him, then Finch tries to dump the kid with his friends. What a lousy dad. I think they should've made the mum a drunk or something and not into the kid. They do at the end, kind of, but not enough - not when she goes to visit him in the country town. That's the twist at the end but they should've bought it in earlier. She's too sympathetic! She should go with her mother. He's not a very good dad, always dumping the kid outside pubs and in cars and leaving her with people he's just met like Reg Lye and talking about packing her off to boarding school.

Also I didn't like all the fat jokes all the characters make about Tessie O'Shea. They really pour it on.

The film recovers for a decent last act though - with heartbreaking stuff of Wilson chasing after Finch going "dad, dad". And the lovely moment where Finch roots the shop girl (Barbara Archer) who dreams of going to Wagga Wagga and some decent heartbreak when the kid is run over (off screen - they miss a trick).

Oz movie fans will love seeing familiar faces bob up like Bruce Beeby (Finch's lawyer), Frank Leighton (a barman who knows Rosemary Harris), Henry Murdoch (Aboriginal actor in a car).

Movie review - "Day of the Triffids" (1963) **

 John Wynham's novel is a classic. This isn't that but has it's own charm especially when you realise the Howard Keel section was shot first then they ran out of money or script and then filmed the Keiron Moore-Janette Scott stuff in a lighthouse later.

Some nice moments like the icecream truck and... I think that's about it. I guess there's some decent ish scenes of panic.

Actually this film isn't that good. It's a mess. A jumble of scenes.

Movie review - "The Young Lions" (1957) ***

 A fairly typical 50s Hollywood blockbuster... sex, significance, stars, best seller origins, the war. The three stars are great - Monty Clift in full nervy post accident anxiousness, looking like he's going to have a breakdown; Brando, lingering over his German accent; Dean Martin, getting by on simply being really well cast.

It's very long. Far too long. But interesting because of the leads.

Most of the film consists of two handers - Brando and Max Schell, Martin and Barbara Rush (best performance of hers I've seen, very polished), Martin and Clift, Clift and Hope Lange. A lot of the story consists of Clift being beaten up by his fellow soldiers in a masochistic way. The anti Semitism of the time is effectively conveyed - with a look at the camps, and the anti Semitism in the American army.

Dean Martin is far better cast than Tony Randall would have been, incidentally.

Movie review - "Raintree County" (1957) ** (re-watching)

 A flawed film. A bigger hit in its day than is remembered but it cost so much it lost money. It didn't have to cost a lot - it all could've been shot on the backlot (there was location filming in the US but the scenery isn't exploited). It didn't have to be as poor as it is.

Some good things. Gorgeous photography. Strong cast. And a decent story.

The story is actually simple - Montgomery Clift is an idealistic Northern teacher who falls in love with a Southern girl who goes mad during the Civil War. That's solid. You've got love, insanity, a war.

But the film stuffs it. It's got too much bloat - the version I saw ran at 2 hours 40 minutes and there's a three hour one. The story could've been dealt with in 90 minutes. It actually didn't need battle spectacle sequences. Clift ducks out from his war service to find Taylor and finds his son - that's all cheap.

Too many scenes are talked about rather than dramatised - all the exciting stuff about Taylor's father's relationship with the slave and dying in a fire. (This film might've been better if it had been from Taylor's point of view.)

Clift's character is vague and passive. He gets trapped into marriage by Taylor who fakes a pregnancy. Why doesn't he just love her? Want her? Dump Eva Marie Saint for her? Clift and Taylor's relationship have none of the passion that they showed in A Place in the Sun. Maybe it was Clift's accident. Maybe the actors weren't into it. Maybe it was the director. (It's not very well directed - Edward D lost something when he got out of B pictures.)

Clift's performance is... fine. Not bad. Not great. The accident is distracting - some scenes he seems truthful, others bashed up and tormented. His character doesn't have a drive. He just sort of drifts along. What's his passion? Teaching? Taylor? He doesn't seem to be in to anything. Clift in A Place in the Sun was into Taylor - why didn't they just make it that? A grand passion?

Taylor is beautiful and has her moments but for me she struggled with her voice and the accent and the role. She could deliver the goods but she needed more help.

Rod Taylor's opportunistic townsfriend of Clift has his moments. Nigel Patrick has a flashy character, the sleazy articulate "professor" but Patrick isn't that great. Lee Marvin shines as Clift's friend. He has easily the best scene - defending Clift and Clift's son who are escaping, being taunted by a Confederate soldier who calls out in the dark. I wonder if this came from the novel (which I haven't read) or screenwriter Millard Kaufman, a former marine. 

Eva Marie Saint has a terrible role - she just sits and stares at Clift. Compare it to say Melanie/Olivia de Havilland in Gone with the Wind - she did stuff, had a baby, stuck up for Scarlett. Saint here just hangs around; I guess she scolds Clift towards the end for not wanting to run for office.

The film's also racist. Clift's an abolitionist and Taylor is terrified of being black but there's hardly any black people in it. A few hang around. Only one gets some dialogue.

Simply not very good. A good movie inside, trying to get out.

Interview with Millard Kaufman I did on 3 December 2003 about Raintree County

I did it about Raintree County - we did it via phone. I put it up here just out of interest.

How Kaufman Got Involved

“I was under contract to MGM, they had this thing, this book called Raintree County and it had won a prize which Metro offered for fiction. I was a rare thing I don’t think they’d offered it to anyone before or after... Metro had this novel which ran over 1000 pages… once they got it they didn’t know what to do with it. They gave it to a couple of people who didn’t know what to do with it.”

How come you succeed it? 

“I’m a pain in the ass… I don’t know.”

“I was very taken with it [the novel]… It was very complicated in terms of literary form. It was complex and turned on itself in a number of ways which at that time which was unusual… Followed almost the construct of James Joyce.”

“It’s a very good book.” 

On  Ross Lockridge

"He was an English instructor at the Uni of Indiana, where those two people did v important sexuality in the US, Kinsey and woman he worked with. Kinsey seemed to be very fond of Ross Lockridge. Lockridge was a little strange. He’d spent 19 years writing this book. This is book that won the prize. Kinsey told him that now that he had some money he strongly suggested he try psychoanalysis. Lockridge who was unhappy person along with other difficulties approached his wife about what Kinsey said. She said ‘absolutely not too much of a disgrace for the family’. At that time there was something ungainly about psychoanalysis… Everyone a little goofy. He never did enter analysis. Not long after that killed himself."

What Kaufman thought of the film

“The main problem with picture was I kept too much.  I went on various tangents which should have been left out. I did this not because I lacked craft of screenwriter but I included too much of the novel.   I went on too many tangents. The screenplay was over 200 pages.”

On director Edward Dmytryk. 

“This apparently, and I’m not sure of this, was something discussed heads various studios…  Dmytryk one of Hollywood ten. Did six months in gaol, when got out of gaol he rather peculiarly turned on people he went to gaol with and named names. He became an informer. Because of that it was said he was rewarded to direct this picture, biggest picture at that time MGM had ever made.”

“Eddie was an enormously bright guy who wanted to be a mathematician and you know how many mathematicians are successful in this world so he became a cutter then a director… By the time he became an informer, some people would say he ratted on the people who were his friends… I didn’t feel that way. I was then and am now rather far to the left. I was rather contemptuous of people who had informed. That’s how he got that job. He was rewarded  for coming back into the fold…"

"Professionally he was fair, which is very good. He shot the script as it was.  Most of these crazy bastards won’t to that. Unfortunately it would have been better if he hadn’t.”

On Dore Schary

"The idea of making another Gone with the Wind might have been somewhere but only briefly and haphazardly in Dore Schary’s mind.. He thought Gone with the Wind was the best movie ever made… He never saw foreign pictures which I think where the best anywhere at the time.”, like Grand Illusion. " 

“Dore was a wonderful guy. Thoughtful, understanding of writers having been a writer himself, he had a great sense of humour which was rare – unique – amongst heads of studios. He was able to relax at all times.. He was younger than others heads… He had one problem – he was inordinately ambitious. I believe he was a bit preoccupied with his own fame. I think he wanted to increase it. There was a period where he thought he might be a diplomat, the US ambassador to Israel. That was when Adlai Stevenson running for President; he and Dore were great friends. Stevenson promised Dore the ambassadorship if he won. He took this very seriously, even to the point of learning Hebrew. In the Middle East he made a speech to the [didn't get name] in Hebrew. I said to him, ‘This is a pipedream, Eisenhower is going to kick the hell out of Stevenson. I’m not normally a political guru or anything but in this case I was right. Eisenhower was re-elected. Dore remained at MGM for a while, then he was kicked out.”

Dore was not not very involved with Raintree… He was very good with writers… He left them entirely alone. I think because of his experience and his breadth it would have been a better picture if he imposed more than he did.”

On David Lewis

“The producer of his picture didn’t know his ass… He was a guy who’d formerly been a producer and had met Dore’s sister on Elizabeth II coming back from Europe and they became friends. She’d been divorced and was on her own as an agent. She took him under her wing in a rather astonishing way.. I think she foisted him on Dore. He was a very nice rather inept man.”

The production

“I was the force behind the goddam picture and I think I screwed it up. If it was a bad picture the fault wasn’t Eddies, it wasn’t David Lewis and it sure wasn’t Dore. It was mine.”

“It was a big picture. It had a long shooting schedule. It was a costume picture with a large cast.”
 

“At that time it was the most expensive picture MGM had ever made. It cost $11 million. Today you can’t blow you nose for that.”

“The casting informal because of my relationship with Dore. We got along well, I liked him, he liked me. When you write a picture almost invariably characters come to mind. It’s different from a novel, all characters come from novelist’s heroic vision of himself… Film is active characters. Like Monty Clift, which he was. I suggested Clift and Elizabeth Taylor… I talked Eva Marie who’s a good friend of mine into it when she didn’t want to do it. She was going to be playing second fiddle to Elizabeth Taylor.” 

“When I suggested these people… Usually writers not in the position I was in MGM, because Dore thought of me very highly… I had the kind of power most writers never would have had in an American studio. Dore thought I was great.  It was because I’d been in the Marine Corp and been in combat. It had nothing to do with my ability to write. If they needed a combat picture I would write it.”

“Monty Clift accident was most unfortunate… The press all knew he goddam near had his head chopped off, and he was heavily criticised when he should have been applauded for his courage going through with the damn thing. He was a very nice young man, a very decent person.”

“The cast was exceptional. Everyone in it was so decent… Nigel Patrick was great, a wonderful guy - as they say in the New Yorker - as a human being.”

“Elizabeth Taylor - she was great. People constantly underestimated her because she was beautiful… Quickest study I ever knew. She’d come on set two minutes before hand, ask a director what are we doing today, and memorise scenes in two minutes… She was wonderful.”

Clift’s accident. “We shot around him as much as we could, then maybe shut down for a few days…"

 On Lee Marvin 

“Lee and I go back to the Marine corp… his death scene and all the exuberant alive scenes… He swings around the post in the middle of the room. We had a stunt man to do that, he couldn’t do it, so Lee did it… He was a very bright man… The scene of the race he could run maybe ten times faster than Monty Clift and he did it in such a way you could swear both running at full stop.. He was a very good athlete. He got shot up in the Marine Corp.”
 

“I had contract MGM as a writer-director-producer. Of jobs I hated producer, I hired a friend of mine, he could hardly read a script. I found out getting on stage every morning and telling a group of people how to behave… I hated directing.”

What would you do differently? 

“I would have concentrated much more on the relationship between Monty and Elizabeth. I brought in I think too many extraneous relationships”

Thoughts on the American South. 

“It’s been mythologised, not history it’s a sacred text. They’re still refighting that war. What you had and still have with this business of the Confederate flag it’s an insult to black people… They were still fighting that war when we made Raintree County. It was one of few pictures dealing with Civil War which had a hero fighting with Federalists, the north… When word got out we were doing this picture they raised hell. Thought it was placing an unseeming burden on the South. They didn’t want to be involved in situation where they had a film which thought freeing slaves was a good idea… There was something which I didn’t manage to keep in the script… I had Clift going off to fight for the Federalist forces. I had Clift shooting his mouth off in anti-slavery way. People in South didn’t like idea. Dore then had the idea the reason Clift goes into the army was because his wife, Elizabeth, who was a nut had disappeared into the south where she came from, so he has to go looking for her, which was ridiculous. There was nothing I could do. It was a question of finance. They didn’t want to lose the Southern markets. And in movies, greed wins.”

Casting of Rod Taylor

"He did a rather smart thing, a truly Hollywood sense of interaction. He read the script – I don’t know where he got it, he didn’t get it from me, it was around the studio…  He went to Dore Shcary and said he’d like to play that part, Dore gave it to him. He actually got it himself.”

“I do remember he and I being on location together and spending some time together… I knew he was an Australian and that he had a good sense of humour. He was outgoing, and had a lot of energy, which is always good in an actor.”

“I had heard stories, the fact he’d had some difficulty in Australia something to do with his wife… He was very much still apparently taken by her or so I remember.”

“His character was the antithesis of Clift’s character – aggressive, outgoing he made bad jokes, he was terribly politically ambitious. This made a terribly good character when put against Clift’s character who was sensitive, decent, almost plodding. He was almost a complete characterisation with his job, he was a school teacher… Can’t remember what Rod’s job was but he went into politics…  [His character] He was hardly a villain. He wasn’t vicious or brutal or any of that. He was an antagonist but not a stereotypical American villain.”
 

Was Rod nervous? 

“Not in the least or at least he didn’t show it… He had a great gift of brass. He knew what he wanted and he got it. Became a hell of a movie actor… It was the only picture I had anything to do he was in…”

“I liked him very much. On location we had dinner with him.” 

“The only time [Dore] talked about him [Rod] was to tell me how he got the part… He walked in and got it. Dore was susceptible to that sort of thing - I guess you call it filmic romance. The stand-in goes on for the star who breaks her leg, that sort of thing.”

Movie review - "From Here to Eternity" (1953) ****

An iconic movie of its time - the exemplification of a 1950s blockbuster: based on a best seller, sexy but censored, all star cast, angst, war.

It's beautifully made. Lovely stars. Fred Zinnemann cast the third act, as they say: Monty Clift isn't the first actor you think of as a soldier or a boxer but he is perfect as a sensitive, self destructive rebel, who could turn things around but refuses, and is into his male friend rather than his girlfriend  - what a stunning actor and star. Donna Reed is a sort of hooker who is actually very smart and a nice person with plenty of ambition. Deborah Kerr is actually hot for a bit of sex, like Kerr was IRL apparently. Burt Lancaster is a tough professional not keen on a relationship. Frank Sinatra is, in hindsight, super ideal as a proud, cocky, angry man who refuses to back down and gets in fights when he shouldn't have.

Lots of this is moving - the defiance of Sinatra, the constant casual bullying of people in positions of power (and the formal bullying), the death of Sinatra. Some scenes such as Clift playing taps and the Pearl Harbour attack are very well done.

Movie review - "The Misfits" (1961) ***1/2

Legendary assembling of, well, legends - John Huston, Arthur Miller, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift... even Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter in their own more sensible way. Imagine the talk around that commissary.

Miller writes it like a play - there's entrances and exits - but it is carried off well, long dialogue scenes, much talk about people we don't see. It still works, because Huston has cast such superb actors.

Marilyn is heartbreakingly good - a superb part, she's smart, beaten down by life, warm.  Gable is terrific too as the uncomplicated but melancholic cowboy who has done a lot of living. Clift rounds out the trifecta. Of course Wallach and Ritter are fine.

I didn't realise that Wallach's part was so big - he's a love rival for Monroe. Maybe his part could've been blended with Clift's.

It's moving seeing these people who are about to die soon pal around. It's a hang out movie - like The Sun Also Rises should have been. 

I will admit I felt it went too long. It needed maybe a half hour cut out or something.

Movie review - "Terminal Station" (1954) ***

 Montgomery Clift really worked with the cream of the crop - Hawks, Zinnemann, Hitchcock, Kazan, Stevens and here Vittorio de Sica. This is the tale of a romance between Jennifer Jones and Clift in Rome.

The film doesn't have a good reputation - no one who liked it seemed happy with it - but I liked it. It's very simple, a one act play... not really enough material for a feature: it's about the end of a relationship rather than the whole relationship. It feels more suited to say an hour long TV play and even then could be pushing it. It needs a subplot, to meet Jones' sister at least (mother of the Richard Beymer character); maybe the husband; maybe a friend of Clift's; a stronger subplot (there is one about a pregnant woman but that's not really in depth).

But it's done with a lovely seemingly-effortless style, with skilful photography among the rail station. I'm not a big Jennifer Jones fan but she's fine; with Elizabeth Taylor I think this could've been a minor classic. Clift is excellent in his handsome, intense leading man phase. You look at this Clift and go "he would've make Wild River really sing". He really disintegrated in a few years. He's not that Italian but it hardly matters.

Strong atmosphere. Fun to see young Richard Beymer. Confidently handled. Like I say not really enough story for a feature but entertaining.

Oh I wasn't wild about the domestic violence aspect - Clift smacks Jones across the face. Apparently this is alright because his character is Italian or something.

British Box Office 1955

 Kinematograph from December 1955

The big hits of the year: 

1) The Dam Busters 

2) Doctor at Sea 

3) White Christmas.

Other hits of the year included several British movies:

* Above Us the Waves

* Cast a Dark Shadow

* The Colditz Story

*The Constant Husband

*Footsteps in the Fog

*Geordie

*I am a Camera

*John and Julie

*A Kid for Two Farthings

*The Love Match

*Man of the Moment

*One Good Turn

*Prize of Gold

*Raising a Riot

*The Sea Shall Not Have Them

*Touch and Go

Interesting to see what worked. War movies of course (Colditz, Above Us the Waves, The Sea Shall Not Have Them), but also thrillers (Cast a Dark Shadow, Footsteps in the Fog), star vehicle comedies (Man of the Moment and One Good Turn with Norman Wisdom, Raising a Riot with Kenneth More, Touch and Go with Jim Hawkins, The Constant Husband with Rex Harrison, The Love Match with Arthur Askey). Geordie was a comedy without a star. There's also action-y pieces (Prize of Gold).

Some are more random. Kid for Two Farthings and John and Julie had child protagonists. I am a Camera  was drama, albeit based on a well known book.

Birmhingham Gazette 29 Dec 1955

British Box Office 1959

Kinematograph Weekly

Biggest hits of the Year

1) Carry on Nurse

2) I'm Alright Jack

3) The Inn of Sixth Happiness.

A good vote for British comedy!

Other better than average offerings that were British:

* The Bridal Path

*The Captain's Table

*Carry on Teacher

*Darby O'Gill and the Little People

*The Doctor's Dilemma

*Horrors in the Black Museum

*The Hound of the Baskervilles

*I Only Arsked

*Jack the Ripper

*Left Right and Centre

*Look Back in Anger

*North West Frontier

*Operation Bullshine

*The Rough and the Smooth

*Sapphire

*Serious Charge

*The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw

*The Square Peg

*Tarzan's Greatest Adventure

*The 39 Steps 

*Tiger Bay

*Tom Thumb

 Interesting to analyse what was popular. Comedies of course (I'm Alright Jackl, Operation Bullshine, The Birdal Path, Left Right and Centre, The Captain's Table). Franchises (Carry on, Tarzan, Norman Wisdom comedies). Kenneth More vehicles (39 Steps, Northwest Frontier, Fractured Jaw). Films with kid protagonists. Musical adaptations (Serious Charge). Low budget thrillers (Rough and the Smooth). Horror (Black Museum, Hound of the Baskerville, Jack the Ripper) Only two dramas (Sapphire, Doctor's Dilemma).

British Box Office 1960

The big hits of the year - Doctor in Love (they don't need Dirk Bogarde!), Sink the Bismark (Kenneth More draws them in) and Carry On Constable.

All three films very "British". Two of them "franchises".

Other British money makers:

* Battle of the Sexes

* Brides of Dracula

* Conspiracy of Hearts

* Dentist in the Chair (what is that film?)

* Expresso Bongo

* Follow a Star

* A French Mistress

*Kidnapped

*The League of Gentlemen

*Light Up the Sky

*Make Mine Mink

*The Millionairess

*Our Man in Havana

*Please Turn Over

*Sands of the Desert

*The Savage Innocents

*School for Scoundrels

*Sons and Lovers

* A Touch of Larceny

*the Trials of Oscar Wilde

*Two Way Stretch

*Village of the Damned

*Watch Your Stern

So what can be learned?

The British public still liked a good war movie (Bismark, Conspiracy of Hearts) and loved a star vehicle for Peter Sellers (Battle of Sexes, Millionairess, Two Way Stretch), Terry Thomas (School for Scoundrels, Make Mine Mink), Norman Wisdom (Follow a Star) and the Carry On gang (Watch Your Stern). Alec Guiness still worked in a comedy (Havana). They liked random comedies with stars from other mediums (Dentist in the Chair with Bob Monkhouse,  Please Turn Over with Ted Ray, Sands of the Desert with Charlie Drake, Boutling comedies (A French Mistress), heist comedies  (League of Gentlemen), war comedies (Light Up the Sky). Expresso Bongo was a musical. Kidnapped a classic novel adaptation.

Horror was a new earner (Brides of Dracula, Village of the Damned). Some heavy drama got through eg Sons and Lovers, Trials of Oscar Wilde.

But 26 British films...  over half were comedies.
 

British Box Office 1954

 

Big British hits of the Year:

1) Doctor in the House

2) Trouble in Store

3) The Bells of St Trinians

This year kicked off three franchises that would power through the 50s and 60s: the Doctor series, the St Trinians series, and the Norman Wisdom series (I count that as a franchise).

A golden year for popular British film.

The Other Money Makers list is interesting. The British films on it were:

* Dance Little Lady (a forgotten Val Guest film with Mandy Miller and Terence Morgan - I had never heard of it)

* Duel in the Jungle (basically American adventure tale)

* Father Brown (Alec Guiness as the crime solving man of God... why no franchise?)

*For Better, for Worse (hideous newly wed Dirk Bogarde comedy)

* The Green Scarf (random mystery)

* Happy Ever After (musical with David Niven)

*Hell Below Zero (basically American adventure tale with Alan Ladd)

*His Majesty O'Keefe (lots of Aussies in that - shot on Fiji)

*Hobson's Choice (David Lean, Laughton, Mills)

*The Kidnappers

*Knights of the Round Table

*The Maggie (late Ealing comedy I had heard was a flop)

*The Purple Plain

*Rob Roy

*The Seekers ( Glynis Johns in New Zealand)

*The Sleeping Tiger

*Trouble in the Glen (so this did okay!)

* The Weak and the Wicked

It's an interesting array of movies. Lots of adventure tales shot here. Comedies very big. Some war movies. Thrillers.

British Box Office 1957

 

British Box Office 1952

 

Movie review - "Wild River" (1960) ***

 A bit of an underground work of Elia Kazan's studio films. A box office flop, not widely available afterwards, it took a while to get a cult but it got there. That's why you try to work with good directors - people will analyse the movies eventually. Some critics claim this is one of Kazan's  best movies. I'm sure they honestly feel that way. But personally I think they're influenced by its underground and little known status. Praising On the Waterfront gets boring so they look for other idols to worship.

This has a simple story - get the old lady off her land to build a dam. Normally in Westerns the old lady is the hero but here the hero is the TVA man who is doing it. He's played by Montgomery Clift who is always interesting to watch but he's simply miscast. The younger, handsome, soulful Clift would have been perfect but this is post accident, dyed hair, nervy, crazy eyed Clift. Kazan would've been better off using Warren Beatty in this one (but I guess Beatty was still a film away from being discovered). Look, as I say, it's interesting to see him - but maybe too interesting in a way. Clift's presence gives rise to questions about this character that aren't dealt with in the script. The character was envisioned as younger - 25 and Jewish. I think he should've been younger, in over his head; maybe Jewish as well but really he just had to be "city". 

This plot actually could make the basis of a cheerful musical in a way.  Maybe it's too much of a downer.

It's beautifully shot - colour, CinemaScope (this was a Fox film), location filming. James Earl Jones' dad is in it. The Clift-Remick scenes have decent intensity.

Best performance comes from the guy who plays the racist who threatens Clift and beats him up not once but twice. Clift's character is pretty whimpy.

Movie review - "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961) ***

 Stanley Kramer cops it from hipster critics and maybe he did believe his own publicity too much for a time, but his movies stood for decent liberal values and were important. Maybe concentration camp victims are low hanging fruit but who else was tackling this head on in Hollywood?

This one focuses on a fascinating aspect of the trials - not straight up evil Nazi commandants, but the judges who enforced the rules at the time. Among those on trial are Burt Lancaster as a German. Lancaster gives his role dignity though his make up does seem a little odd.

Presiding over it is Spencer Tracy as a super judge. Actually he's well cast - who does craggy intensity better. I didn't know William Shatner was in this, as Tracy's aide.

Montgomery Clift is electric in his one scene as a German laborer who has been sterilised. Clift's nerves, intensity and crazy eyes were never used to such good effect. He's brilliant.

Also good is Judy Garland in a short scene as a woman who denies rooting a Jew who was killed falsely for the crime of having sex with her.

Bigger roles go to Richard Widmark (prosecutor) and Maximillian Schell (the firey defendant). Both are fine. Widmark gets a drunk scene, maybe put in there to make his role more attractive (acting!). Schell gets to make some flamboyant speeches. Dietrich gets to be... female, I guess.

It goes for three hours. I don't think it needed to be that long. I kept seeing places where it could have been cut.

Some stuff really packs a punch like newreels of little kids in the camps. Other times I was like "alright, already". But an important movie.

Movie review - "Dune" (1984) **1/2

 I remember reading the comic book version of this film before seeing the film and went "wow what a great story". The film isn't up to the story. In some ways. In other ways it does it justice - Kyle McLachlan is excellent. The art design is stunning. I liked Brian Eno's theme. (Not Toto's music so much.) Consistently stimulating.

It doesn't do justice to its story. The emotions are distant. The death of the allies of Paul, the betrayals, the exile and return... that's all primeval stuff. David Lynch can't do it. Or at least can't do it justice.

Looks beautiful. I wanted to like it. Some hammy moments like the dissolve of Kyle M and Sean Young kissing. Sting in a cod piece. It felt cult but also long.

There is a good film in here struggling to get out.

Movie review - "I Confess" (1953) ***1/2

 One of Hitchcock's half classics. Great central idea and a perfect lead in Monty Clift who was born to play a tormented, guilt ridden person.

There's no humour and it's not much of a mystery - we know who did it, and Clift is required to be passive for the whole film, then deux ex machina wife speaks up. It lacked another plot or twist or something. Also Anne Baxter always makes me wish someone else had been cast in her part. That is mean, I know - she's a fine actor. I just wish someone else was in it... I mean, imagine Grace Kelly or Ingrid Bergman in that part, to go the obvious route.

It's very serious. The Quebec setting is different and Hitchcock fans will get off on the Catholicism of it all.

Movie review - "A Place in the Sun" (1951) **** (re-watching)

 Some serious 50s cinema - George Stevens at his most post-war, Montgomery Clift at his most moody lonely young man. This was a breakthrough for Elizabeth Taylor and also Shelley Winters - Winters is particularly superb. Taylor is pretty good too. Clift was never better as the handsome loner.

This has been called a seering indictment of capitalism. I don't think it is, not really. Maybe I'm missing something. Rather it's about aristocracy. Taylor is an aristocrat, Clift is an impoverished aristocrat, Winters is a peasant. Clift is marking time until he can get royal favour (he could always work his own way up somewhere else but he's basically trying to get a short cut by going via his uncle, yes). He's bored so he roots Winters. He falls for Taylor, a fellow aristocrat - both gorgeous. Then Winters his pregnant so Clift has to crush a peasant revolt. He can't go through with it but still gets caught.

Whatever the social commentary it is a first rate melodrama with big stars and beautiful images. You can hear the audience watching this devouring popcorn going "oh... she's making a mistake... aw, they're so pretty... if only he'd been honest... it's sad he died... but he had to."

The scenes between Taylor and Clift have remarkable heat. Fred Clark and especially Raymond Burr are excellent lawyers.

Movie review - "Freud: The Secret Passion" (1962) ***

 One of John Huston's lesser known works. This was made off the back of all those 50s adaptations of Broadway hits where a shrink got to the bottom of the Secret: Suddenly Last Summer, Three Faces of Eve, Home of the Brave, etc. They have the most famous shrink of all time getting to the bottom of the Secret involving Susannah York.

There's not a murder or something at stake though. It doesn't quite work and the film is too long but this is a stimulating, thought provoking movie. There's superb black and white photography and atmospheric Jerry Goldsmith score. It reminded me of the Corman Poe pictures.

I think dramatically the big issue is too much of the film consists of questions and answers as opposed to bringing the drama on its feet. We see flashbacks in terms of images rather than scenes and don't really get to know friends/family of York. I recognise that was probably a deliberate choice from Huston but don't feel it entirely works.

David McCallum is excellent as another patient. Larry Parks randomly pops up as a colleague of Freud - he isn't very good. Susan Kohner is superb as Freud's worried wife, as is York in a gift part. Best of all is Montgomery Clift whose crazy eyes, nervous intensity, intelligence and aura of self destruction makes him a perfect Freud... along with the fact you sense he is Hiding Secrets. It's a showy role and extremely good work.

Production on the film was very difficult. The budget blew out, Huston and Clift did not have an easy collaboration. The resulting film isn't a classic but is absolutely worth watching.

Movie review - "The Defector" (1966) **

 Uninspired spy story about a physicist ordered over the Iron Curtain to retrieve a Thing. Scenes are awkwardly staged (Raoul Levy was a good producer but I don't think much of a director). Dialogue is clunky. The cinematography, normally a highlight of 60s spy films, is washed out and poor.

The main point of distinction is Montgomery Clift. This was his last film. He looks unwell but that adds to the film - his once handsome face all scarred, the hair seems phony, the nose hooked, the lips have cracked.

The supporting cast is of interest and includes Roddy McDowall (as a CIA man!), and Hardy Kruger (as a commie agent).

It's so unexciting and dull. It really needed some decent action helmer, as Variety would say.

Movie review - "The Honey Pot" (1967) **

 Sounds like a dream combination - Joe Mankiewicz, Rex Harrison and Ben Jonson - but it doesn't come off. Harrison is deal for Mankiewicz's dialogue but the talk is of poor quality and Cliff Robertson, an actor I like, feels terribly miscast and all wrong.

The women aren't up to it - Susan Hayward, Edie Adams and Capucine have all been good in other stuff but aren't here. (I think Mankiewicz was throwing back to Letter to Three Wives by having a trio.) The exception is Maggie Smith who is very good.

It isn't much of a story. Confusing set up. There's a murder mystery but you don't care who dunnit.

This was really disappointing.

Movie review - "The Delinquents" (1957) **1/2

 Robert Altman's first feature was written in a week and looks it but benefits from excellent photography and stylish handling - he had worked steadily making industrial films and you can tell that experience. The acting isn't bad; it helps having Dick Balakalyn as a juvenile delinquent. Tom Laughlin is the hero - his character is very wet (he's always getting beaten up, told what to do, etc). Hilarious added on disapproving narration at the end.

Book review - "Katanga 1960-63: Mercenaries, Spies and the African Nation that Waged War on the World (2015) by Christopher Othen

 Excellent book on the history of Katangan succession. Touches on the 1964 Simba crisis and 1967 rebellion. Lots of people to keep track of. Harrowing reading. Maybe some more analysis would've been handy but I guess the author was more into a presentation of facts. Some fascinating characters.

Movie review - "The Heiress" (1949) ***1/2

 Adaptation of Henry James is done with tremendous style and care, with Olivia de Havilland playing Hollywood ugly, i.e. still gorgeous but playing plain, and her acting is very good. So too are Ralph Richardson has her mean father, Montgomery Clift as the fortune hunter and Miriam Hopkins as her sympathetic aunt.

I can get why this wasn't a big hit - it's a downer (he is a fortune hunter, Richardson dies, de Havilland winds up with money but is mean). The strength of the piece is that Richardson and Clift are right in a way to do what they do but cruel - and de Havilland learns that lesson. The one nice and smart person is Miriam Hopkins who knows de Havilland may as well pay for Clift's love.

It's very well made. Acted. Clift's nervous energy gives his handsome lout freshness.

I did wonder if the costumes needed to be that opulent and if you needed all those extras dancing.

Movie review - "The True Story of the Kelly Gang" (2019) **

Fantastic locations. Beautiful photography. The kid who plays little Ned is amazing. Russell Crowe lights up the screen, as they say, as Harry Power. Maybe the film should've just concentrated on that relationship.

I think if this had come out in say 2002 it would've really hit home. But it feels... I don't know. Off. Fake. Straight men making a film about homoeroticism. Opening scene of Ma Kelly giving head to a cop, Ma Kelly being punched in the face, people putting guns to the head of babies... that sort of thing. As if "hey - shock value". It's really obsessed with men wearing dresses.

It has period authenticity at first. Then at the end goes more broad and expressionistic. Either is fine. Mixing them maybe doesn't work as well.

The film always feels as though its changing gears and/or is in specific chapters. The Russell Crowe section, the Essie Davis section, the Nicholas Hoult section, the final terrorism section. The characters of the supporting three bushrangers aren't fleshed out. Neither is Ned's girl.

It wasn't for me. I'm sure some people would really get into this.

Play review - "Come Back Little Sheba" and "Picnic" by William Inge

 Sex and loneliness in small town Kansas. Sheba is the dog that used to be owned by a middle aged lady (Lola) married to boozy doc. They both get het up about young hot things - a sexy dame and a muscular athlete she's rooting who takes his shirt off. There's a milk man who takes his shirt off - alright already Inge.

Pinic is about a hot stud who comes into town. A middle aged lady paws at him and wants him, a younger girl wants him even though he's no good. It is very well crafted and written with affection. The world is bigger than Sheba. 

Both had just the right amount of sex and empathy for the times. in Sheba the depiction of an abusive marriage is extremely well done - when Doc lets Lola have it. Picnic is also very well crafted.

Book review - "The Postman Always Rings Twice" by James M Cain

 Jeez. Racy stuff. Biting lips. Sado masochistic sex. Lots of plot and short sentences. Barrels along. Plenty of twists. I loved the DA who just figured out how they did it straight away. Then it went into legal fights and shenanigans. I got a little lost here. There's a puma owning girl, a pregnancy and a car crash death. Full on. Good read.

Movie review - "The Big Lift" (1950) ** (warning: spoilers)

 The Berlin Airlift is an amazing story. Hard to dramatise though because it was mostly transporting food. I mean, there were Soviets hanging around, and planes crashed and it was high tension, but... they were truck drivers.

Come to think of it, mabye that's how this film should've been done - the story of truck drivers, like They Drive All Night, with accidents and banter and being brave.

But after the first half hour this film basically drops the airlift story (I wonder why? Fear of upsetting Russians? The Cold War had started but maybe they needed their co operation to film on location in Germany). Instead it becomes a two-American-soldiers-romance Germans story. 

The Americans are Montgomery Clift, as an naive air craft crew guy, and Paul Douglas as a blustering German hater. The story progressed in an unexpected way. Both fall in love with local girls but Clift's is only pretending to get out of the country, while Douglas uses his girl as his mistress then falls for her (was this influenced by Letter to Three Wives?) and the girl discovers democracy.

The location footage is interesting as is the semi documentary treatment. And I enjoyed seeing Clift. But it isn't a very good movie. It feels as though it was made with one hand tied behind its back. The whole Berlin Airlift angle is barely used - you rarely get a sense of Soviet pressure,it could be set any time in the immediate post war period. It was dull. George Seaton who directed has done a lot better.

Movie review - "Red River" (1948) ****1/2

 Big epic Western which marvellously combines a been-around-for-a-bit star, John Wayne, who was just starting to play old men (he was a A minus star for most of the 40s, 1948 turned him into an A plus one) and an exciting new face, Montgomery Clift. They thrown in old reliable Walter Brennan, and an up and comer John Ireland... plus a surprising amount of juicy support parts (I'd forgotten because most analysis of the film concerns the leads but there's good support cowboys, like the bald dude from The Searchers; also Colleen Gray as Wayne's true love).

It's a very good story - Mutiny on the Bounty on the trail is a tremendous idea - very well developed, beautifully shot. It's full of Hawksian moments and/or homo-eroticism, with Clift and Ireland fondling their guns and making eyes at each other and Joanne Dru being hit by an arrow but not mentioning it and everyone being sassy.

The ending is maybe a little silly. It builds to this epic confrontation and sort of drifts into a shaggy dog treatment. I'm not sure how else you do it... I'm sure scholarship has been done on this but Ireland's death seems thrown away.

John Ireland Top Ten

 A wife beater with a taste for under-age starlets. Still, thought it was worth doing a top ten.

1) Red River (1948) - superb supporting role, flashy and eye catching. It's unsatisfactorily resolved because Ireland annoyed Howard Hawks.

2) All the King's Men (1949) - overshadowed by Broderick Crawford but Ireland has a forceful presence.

3) The Fast and the Furious (1955) - not a great film but historically important as the first production from Roger Corman. Ireland directed as a condition of appearing and does a decent enough job. It feels more like a Corman picture. Ireland was clearly smart and had ambition I think maybe he didn't have the right temperament. That's just a guess.

4) The Good Die Young (1954) - some excellent characters and ideas in search of a better movie but Ireland gives a very good performance as a veteran who takes part in a bank robbery.

5) I Shot Jesse James (1949) - in addition to being there at the beginning of Roger Corman's career, Ireland was in at the start of Sam Fuller's.This is has some excellent, thought provoking moments. Not as good as later Fuller classics but still pretty good.

6) I Saw What You Did (1964) - enormously fun William Castle film, which is known as Joan Crawford movie but actually Ireland has the bigger part as a killer who is prank called.

7) My Darling Clementine (1946) - Ireland's stock in trade was baddies in Westerns. He's superb as one of the villainous Clantons. Not a big part but a showy one in a classic.

8) Raw Deal (1948) - another showy "support baddy" part in an interesting noir. Good film. Ireland suited this world as well as westners.

9) Gunslinger (1956) - Ireland was an ideal male lead to female stars because he had presence and didn't necessary overshadow the woman. He should've done that more. This is an ideal performance where he's up against Beverly Garland. It's Johnny Guitar esque, an early Roger Corman effort.

10) Spartacus (1960) - this is a very good movie but Ireland isn't very good as Crixus. to be fair to him, the role of Spartacus' bestie is taken by Tony Curtis so Ireland doesn't have much to play.

Movie review - "The Search" (1948) ***1/2

 Extremely well done account of a displaced person in post war Europe - a little kid who lost his family in the camps. Mum is looking for him but she's up against it.

This was the first time audiences got to see Montgomery Clift (though he'd made Red River earlier). He doesn't appear until 35 minutes in and is role isn't that big - it's still a lead but the little kid and his mother have more screen time. Also Aline MacMahon, as a no nonsense official has a big role. A more conventional film would've had this part be played by a starlet who had a love affair with Clift.

Clift is great - kind, awkward,decent. Wendell Corey has a small role (apparently he was holidaying in Zurich when this was made). There's some fake drama in act three when Clift tells the kid his mother's dead when the mother is alive.

Movie review - "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985) ****

 Kind of depressing. But Woody at his peak. Funny, inventive, beautiful production design. Mia Farrow is excellent as a waif, ditto Jeff Daniels as the character who steps out of the movie screen and the actor who plays him.

Fellow movie characters are played by John Wood, Zoe Caldwell and Van Johnson - they are terrific fun. Danny Aiello is all too believable as Farrow's horrid husband. Diane Wiest appears as a hooker. There were a lot of hookers in Allen films.

The ending is mean. But also perfect.

Book review - "Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway" by Michael Ridele

 Wonderful book. As good as The Season. Well maybe not that good. But excellent. I didn't think of the 90s as a golden age in Broadway. But when you look at it as written here... Sunset Boulevard, The Lion King, Rent, the straight drama plays of David hare and Edward Albee... It really made Broadway pop again. Garth Dabrinsky offers a great old school hucketer.

Movie review - "Doctor Doolittle" (1967) **1/2

 I was prompted to see this after reading Pictures at the Revolution about the important year of 1967. I'd read a lot about Doolittle before in books like The Studio and The Hollywood Hall of Shame - dealing with temperamental Rex Harrison, and hiring then firing Sammy Davis Jnr and Sidney Poitier, and having trouble with animals and filming in England, St Lucia and Hollywood.

There was nothing wrong with the idea for this film and Rex Harrison was the perfect star. Some of the songs are charming.

It's beautifully shot by Robert Surtees. Anthony Newley and Samantha Eagger look their parts and Richard Attenbrough and Peter Bull are fun.

It's just too long for the story -which is far too slight.

Movie review - "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996) **1/2

 This is an end of an era film for Woody Allen in a way. The last time he really experimented with form, doing a musical. (He used to try to mix up the form every few movies - meta rom com, sci fi, Fellini-esque, pseudo documentary - but after this basically stopped taking visual risks).  It's a lively piece with some fun numbers and tunes.

It was also the first time he had some spectacularly awful casting - Julia Roberts and Woody are an utterly mismatched pair. I love Julia Roberts, her acting is lovely but she's totally not suited to being with Woody; it started a depressingly long trend where he was teamed with much younger actors and where that age difference wasn't the point of the story. The flipside of that is that this has some really nice casting - Drew Barrymore's role was something of a turning point for her, she'd normally played vixens as a grown up but the "good girl" type she plays here would be a lot more lucrative for her; Natasha Lyonne had her first lead role with this; it's early parts too for Natalie Portman, Billy Crudup and Edward Norton. Goldie Hawn plays the Mia Farrow role. Tim Roth is hilarious as an ex con.

The musical conceit has the actual actors singing - like what Peter Bogdanovich tried to do with At Long Last Love. Like that this is a shaggy dog story among the rich - Allen's feels like it should have been set in the 30s, with its (mostly) super rich protagonists living a la la lifestyle, but was set in the present in day, presumably for cost. 

It ambles along. There's some funny jokes. The last half hour is  a drag because the key subplots have resolved (Barrymore is back with Norton, Roberts has dumped Allen) and the climactic number is between Allen and Hawn (who we've hardly spent time with). It was having a good time until then.

Some scenes make me a little awkward, I admit, considering the allegations against Allen: Natalie Portman running around on the beach in a swimsuit when she was very young; super young Lyonne being sexually precocious at 17 (I think - though is she meant to be older than Drew Barrymore?) and telling her father she wants to get marriage.