Movie review - "Prince of Players" (1955) **1/2

 A dream team in a way - Moss Hart wrote the script, based on a best selling novel, with CinemaScope, Richard Burton fresh off The Robe playing a great actor, Maggie McNamara coming off Three Coins in the Fountain and The Moon is Blue, Philip Dunne as producer and director (well, it was his first film as a director but he was associated with "A" product as a producer and writer).

There's great material here - Edwin Booth had a controlling brother, a wife who died, a brother who shot Lincoln. But the material is treated like a musical biopic with renditions of Shakespeare instead of musical numbers. It's interesting to see Burton recite the verse but that's what he does - recite rather than act. McNamara isn't much as the wife. Derek livens up every scene he's in but it's the part more than the actor - still Derek doesn't disgrace himself. Really the film should've just been about the brothers.

Movie review - "Hilda Crane" (1956) **

20th Century Fox seemed to make a bunch of CinemaScope melodramas in the 1950s - tales of infidelity and angst in the middle classes, often based on best sellers: The View from Pompey's Head, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Ten North Frederick, Peyton Place.

This was written and directed by Philip Dunne, who made several said films, and was based on a play which wasn't that popular. You actually wonder why they made it - perhaps because it has a pretty good central female role, the title character, who has been divorced twice and returns to her small town. Apparently Susan Hayward was set to play it, and really she probably should have... instead they get Jean Simmons, who I've never been wild about, although some people love her.

The movie falls between two stools - it's not insightful and skilful enough to be an actually good movie, and not enough happens for it to be trashy fun.

The potential is there for either. The set up is promising ish - a twice divorced female lead returning to a small town... that has novelty. Everyone thinks she's a slut, especially mom... you could do something with that. She's torn between a professor she loved and a local boy... that's great.

But it all feels underwhelming. Star power is badly lacking - you've got Simmons, Jean Pierre Aumont and Guy Madison, plus Judith Evelyn as mother and Evelyn Varden as Madison's mother.

Varden is the one who really clicks - she plays the role as a controlling bitch. You know where she's coming from, you get the character.

Evelyn's character  is more confusing - she's kind of ashamed of her daughter and it's all kind of her fault, but the punches are pulled. She gets too close to Varden's character at times but when she's different she's just bland. Maybe she needed to be more passive aggressive.

Madison is too handsome, too wealthy, too understanding, too perfect. Really he needed to be dull or less good looking. I know it's Hollywood but he's too much of a viable candidate. You never get why Simmons would go for Aumont, with his funny head and lecherous ways. Aumont needed to be dangerous, sexy, a bad boy... Madison a good dull boy. Or an older guy... that could've worked... someone a bit old, insecure about Hilda. Or really young. It just needed more differentiation.

And there's no meat to the drama. Varden has a heart attack but she deserves it. Simmons tries to kill herself but fails. She doesn't cheat. It needed more story. Or just needed to be better done.

Book review - "Screewriter, the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnson" by Thomas Stempel

A biography of Nunnally Johnson? Sure, why not? It helps that Stempel is a pleasant writer, who has done a number of illuminating book on screenwriting.

Johnson occupies a curious place in American film history - I'm not sure how well he is remembered. Possibly he was better known say 40 years ago when his films would have been more widely seen on television.

He was a journalist and short story writer who went to Hollywood, as so many of them did at that time (Charle Brackett, Ben Hecht etc). Like many of them he sometimes had a reputation of someone who sold out their talent - a trope which Stempel rightly mocks. Did we really lose so much from Johnson giving up his stories of small town life in Georgia for Hollywood screenplays?

It took him a little while to get going, but what made him thrive was working for Darryl F. Zanuck at the new Twentieth Century Pictures, which became 20th Century Fox. Johnson became one of Zanuck's gun screenwriters, along with Philip Dunne and Lamar Trotti. Like he eventually moved his way up to producing, more out of boredom than anything else. Like Dunne he became a director as well who isn't remembered particularly fondly - though I feel his reputation is slightly higher than Dunne's because he made Three Faces of Eve with Joanne Woodward.

He did leave Zanuck for a period, working for Bill Goetz at International Pictures, but didn't do particularly well and returned to Zanuck. He eventually retired in 1970.

It was an extremely good career, a lot of classics: House of Rothschild, Jesse James, The Grapes of Wrath, Roxie Hart, The Gunfighter, The Desert Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire. He kept relevant up until the end - in the 1960s his credits included popular James Stewart comedies like Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (with Fabian), as well as The Dirty Dozen and Flaming Star. He tried Broadway a few times and it didn't work but there's no shame in that.

He seems to have been a nice man, gentlemanly, perhaps a little fond of the bottle, very dedicated to work. The book hints his third wife - the marriage that lasted - wasn't perhaps entirely happy giving up her acting career.

Stempel doesn't touch on some of the more racist aspects of Johnson's work such as the depiction of blacks in The Prisoner of Shark Island. He is very strong otherwise on analysing Johnson's scripts, particularly the man's interest in writing about marriage and having married heroes.

A very interesting book.

How I Would Fix the 1954 film "The Egyptian"

I'm talking the 1954 20th Century Fox film, which I think would have troubles even if Marlon Brando had starred in it. (He didn't make Desiree a classic).

Firstly I think films in Ancient Egypt struggle if they don't feature mummies. They happened simply too long enough. Cleopatra was late Ancient Egypt and is around the time of early Christianity - just before it. Early Christianity is familiar from the Bible. Before that it's hard to get resonance for audiences today - unless, say, it's about the human race struggling for survival against dinosaurs.

But it was based on a best seller, so let's assume that's non negotiable. Anyway there's no reason a film in Ancient Egypt couldn't work.

Here are the main things I feel could have changed:

* The relationship between Edmund Purdom and Victor Mature (I'm just going to use actor's names) should've been stronger.  I would've made them brothers if possible. (Mature's dad could've been the guy who adopted Purdom). Or at least really established the link.

* I would've combined the Bella Darvi and Gene Tierney role.  Darvi's role I got... she was a vixen who while being upfront made Purdom go ga-ga. But Tierney felt like she repeated her part -another femme fetale. Have Darvi/Tierney as the great love of Purdom's life. The woman she can't resist. So at the end when she offers him the throne it's even harder to resist.

* Purdom needed to be more selfless - tending the poor and what not. It's kind of there, but I think they should've simplified his goal... "everyone is entitled to a doctor" or something. The stuff about worshipping the one god felt so vague. I think the theme of this was ambitious, but overly ambitious. Maybe "there is one good" would have worked but Michael Wilding craps on so much.

* They needed to do more with Purdom's son. This is partly Purdom's fault but the guy looks as though he could barely care about his son's existence. I feel Purdom should've been driven more by wanting to help his son - make the world a better place, etc. And have him meet his son at the end instead of never having tracked him down. That's just slack.

* Michael Wilding shouldn't have been such a crap Pharaoh. He' so weak. There's no reason you can't believe in one god and be nice and also defend your country against the Hittites. It's stupid.

Still a gorgeous looking film and not without interest.

Movie review - "Way of the Gaucho" (1952) **1/2

You have Westerns, and Westerns set in the north called Northerns, and Westerns set in the Middle East called Easters... I'm not sure what a Western set in South America should be called? Southerns? But I always figured that was a Western set in the Southern states (that weren't Texas).

This was one of a series of movies 20th Century Fox made overseas after the war to use frozen funds - Captain from Castile, The Black Rose, Kangaroo. They usually starred Tyrone Power or were clearly meant to star Tyrone Power - he isn't in this one, instead they use Rory Calhoun has a substitute, and Calhoun isn't bad. At least he looks interested in women and can handle the action stuff well enough.

There's some really fantastic views of Argentina - the deserts, snow capped mountains, plains, gauchos. It looks fantastic.

The story is dull. Calhoun is a gaucho who kills a man in a duel, then goes into the army as opposed to prison, then deserts, then meets Gene Tierney, then leaves, then becomes a bandit, then goes on a trek, then gives himself up.

And it's annoying because the piece has so much potential. A gaucho worried about a changing world, a world of increasing automation and loss of his way of life - that's a great theme. But the way the material is presented here, the story is just dull - and there's no sense of catharsis at the ending. It's like writer-producer Philip Dunne got too caught up in doing location work he forgot to do the script.

The gaucho having a lifelong bond with a childhood friend who works for the railways - that's got heaps of potential. But not only is dull Hugh Beaumont cast, the character is flat. He just sort of pops up to help out Calhoun - and he does it so often it's like "are they in love"? Beaumont should have been Calhoun's actual brother - I thought he was until re-reading a synopsis.

The Tierney-Calhoun romance starts off interestingly - she's this high class girl who is saved by the gaucho. But she just ends up as this weak sap who hangs around the gaucho, wanting him to get married. She's got no spirit, no spine - the whole she's rich-he's-poor thing barely makes a mention. We needed to see more of her living high class - being with Beaumont, having him be rich too. Make it a real love triangle. There needed to be another female character too as a counterpoint to Tierney.

Richard Boone starts off promisingly as the army sergeant who gives Calhoun a hard time. Then he spends the rest of the movie chasing Calhoun around, like he's in love with him too. Why not just make Boone a villain? The film badly needs one

Things that sound exciting are minimised - like Calhoun becoming a bandit. Everett Sloane livens up a few scenes as a gaucho but there's too little of him.

It's a shame. You know a lot of this exotic Fox location adventure movies aren't very good - King of the Khyber Rifles, Lydia Bailey.

Movie review - "Blue Denim" (1959) *** (warning: spoilers)

Teen pregnancy drama was very much a film of its time - the Clutter kids from In Cold Blood saw it before they murdered, and I gather it was a cool thing to see.

It's actually aged surprisingly well. Absolutely, its a period piece but misunderstanding between the generations doesn't age - there's some good moments with parents wondering why their kids won't communicate with them, then the kids trying to communicate and the parents missing the point.

It helps that the stars Carol Lynley and Brandon de Wilde look so young. Most movie teens are played by young adults - these two look like teens and naive teens what's more. It makes the drama more effective - you can sense they had sex without really knowing what they were doing and are totally in over their heads.

Lots of scenes have power - like going off with the abortionist who puts a blindfold over Lynley's eyes, or where de Wilde and his friend Warren Berlinger smoke and drink and play poker. There's some nice family scenes - Philip Dunne who co wrote and directed was a family man and I think you can tell; he has affection for his characters. It also helps he wrote the script with a woman - there's plenty of female POV including the mothers and the sisters.

De Wilde looks so perfect but is fairly terrible as an actor. Given too many lines and too much emotion he falters. But he's great when just looking like a lost puppy dog. Lynley is better. MacDonald Carey smokes a pipe and looks befuddled in what much have been an audition for Days of Our Lives.

There's too much Warren Berlinger, who can act, but is annoying - he's got so much energy he blows de Wilde off the screen but there's too much indicating and moral indignation at de wilde. He gives a "stage"y performance. I did quite like the musical number he sang with another girl at the dance.

Props to the piece for honesty - parents and kids are at fault, the kids are respected. Also at the end when de Wilde goes off to be with Lynley I liked how de Wilde's parents both just sort of went "well his life's stuffed."

Movie review - "Lydia Bailey" (1952) **

Darryl Zanuck's biggest male star at Fox was Tyrone Power and as time goes on he constantly tried to created new Tyrone Powers who he'd put in movies that Power didn't want to be in: Rob Wagner, Jeff Hunter, Rory Calhoun and, in this one, Dale Robertson. His female co star is Anne Francis in a role that badly needed Susan Hayward or Linda Darnell. So its very much the B team.

Really Zanuck shouldn't have made it without stars because there's no real reason for this to have been filmed otherwise. Oh I guess it was a best seller and all that. And its fascinating culturally because it concerns the Haitian Revolution - how many other films are set in that period? I'm guessing nil.

But it feels so pointless. Robertson turns up in Haiti trying to get local slave owner Francis to sign over her dead father's property to the US, as he wanted.  They wind up doing a lot of running around and escaping from various fighting forces - it's one of those movies where you get the impression the lead duo could be cut out of the film, and nothing would change to the overall plot, which isn't great. Neither Robertson or Francis do anything that key - I guess he helps William Marshall into the compound to kill a traitorous general. And Robertson is a spokesperson for Touissant. But that's about it.

The interesting things about this movie are the bits on the side of the central couple. The black roles are really good - William Marshall gets to play a driven, polygamous, charming revolutionary, very sympathetic; Ken Renard's Touissant gets the halo treatment of, well, white freedom fighters; Roy E Glenn plays a vicious killer. It's got more diversity among its black support characters than any "A" Hollywood film I can remembers.

There's a voodoo ceremony, Napoleon's sister being saucy, the villainous white guy accidentally shoots his on. There's lots of scenes with Robertson in blackface - Francis joins in as well.

Robertson and Francis are disastrously undercast but it's a movie with many fascinating things about it.

Movie review - "Ten North Frederick" (1958) **1/2

Ah, the Buddy Alder regime at 20th Century Fox. CinemaScope. Best selling novel source material. Lush photography. Young players under contract of various quality.

This was written and directed by Phil Dunne, who had many major successes when working just as a writer, but none as a director, not really - and he directed ten films. This is perhaps his best known.

Its part of that genre of 50s novels about angsty middle aged men - often their wives were bitches and they had affairs and were unhappy at work and had a lot of money: The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Executive Suite, Patterns, From the Terrace.

In this one Gary Cooper is a successful lawyer whose wife Geraldine Fitzgerald is a bitch who wants him to go into politics, whose daughter Diane Varsi marries a musician (Stuart Whitman), whose son Ray Stricklyn wants to be a musician, and who has an affair with his daughter's flatmate, Suzy Parker.

Spencer Tracy was originally cast in the lead but Cooper is far more appropriate. Cooper specialised in playing weak, impotent neurotics so he's totally at home here - he punches out someone but it's not very convincing. He's more handsome than Tracy and was a noted cocksman so its more believable that Parker goes for him.

This actually was the best bit of the film - Cooper comes alive in these scenes, he's charming and decent. Parker is a bit wooden but I liked them as a couple. At least Cooper is active in these scenes - he's weak and passive for the rest... which I've got to say is what the role requires. I normally loathe Cooper and can't say I'm a massive fan even after this but he is, as I've said, well cast.

Fitzgerald does what she can. In fairness the character is given some depth because Cooper and her daughter have thrown away his political career - so she suffers and because the times are what they are she can't go and get a career.

I'm not a big Diane Varsi fan - her hysterical performance is okay, but I kept wishing, say, Hope Lange (also under contract to Fox at the time) had the role. Ray Stricklyn is terrible - what did they see in that guy? Did they imagine he was a sort of junior Jack Lemmon? He has this awful drunk acting scene where he tells everyone off.

In a weird way this film feels British - Parker and Cooper do act on their feelings but then pull back. There's no confrontation with the mother, with the sister while dad is alive, with the brother, with the girl's boyfriend or father.

It's a star vehicle - it needed someone like Cooper. It also needed better actors to play the kids. After a slow start where Cooper's character was really pathetic this got better, and I found the end where he drank himself to death quite touching.

How I Would Have Fixed Forever Amber

It's a terrible movie. Depressing. Amber bangs her head against a brick wall for the whole time chasing a guy who is never in to her. He dumps her to go overseas, has little interest in their kid, scolds her for seeing another guy (false scene because Amber isn't engaged, the guy lies).

It's disastrously undercast. Linda Darnell can be superb but she's all wrong as Amber. Otto Preminger wanted Lana Turner. I guess. Personally I think they should have gone for Maureen O'Hara who at least was a natural red head. The men are dreadful. Cornel Wilde is a shocker - stiff and self righteous and he only gets one sword fight to redeem himself. They should have tried Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. George Sanders is good as is Jessica Tandy. Richard Greene is so anonymous. So is Glenn Langan. All these men look alike. John Russell is okay but the role is a dream. Zanuck was not great on casting.

The big problem is the script.I know the censor was hot on them, but what they came up with doesn't work. It feels like a classic case of talented people writing down to their ability.

Compare it with Gone with the Wind. You've got Scarlett who wants Ashley who is interested in Scarlett but marries Melanie because he knows she's better for him. Rhett loves Scarlett - her spunk, her style, her beauty - and is so perfect for her, but she refuses to see it. Melanie likes Scarlett because she's brave.

Wind is better than Amber for the following reasons
a) the dramatic lines are cleaner - Scarlett is spoilt and selfish, she gets everything she wants and wants Ashley. She's also brave. Amber is born poor to horribly strict people and suffers injustice so you automatically feel sorry for her and dislike all the tsk tsking.
b) Rhett is dashing and good and driven by love for Scarlett. Bruce is dashing and treats Amber horribly - like a villain. He impregnates her, leaves her, scolds her for causing a duel which isn't his fault and is rewarded.Rhett dashing and good.
c) in Wind Ashley is weak, Melanie good. There is no equivalent in Amber. Really Bruce is the Ashley - someone not worthy of Amber's love. But no one is - there's no male character like Rhett for us to rely on to go "oh amber pay attention to that guy". They set up this friend of Bruce's played by Richard Greene who should have played that role but they don't. (Michael Rennie performed a similar role in The Wicked Lady).
d) in Wind Scarlett earns respect by constantly having trouble thrown at her. She's got a Civil War, husbands keep dying, she helps Melanie escape the burning of Atlanta, she shoots a Yankee soldier who seems to have rape on his mind, makes sure the baby gets born for Ashley, helps Tara get back on its feet financially.  Now Amber actually does a bit of that - she helps nurse Bruce from the plague, runs through the fire. But she rarely does it for other people. Her goal is to get a title to marry Bruce which is dumb because Bruce never seems to want to marry her.
e) There is a good reason for Scarlett and Rhett not to be together - her love for Ashley and later on the psychological damage done by the war and the loss of their child. Here the reason is that Bruce simply doesn't like Amber.

There were either two ways to go:
1) make Amber a goodie
2) make her a baddy

(1) Could have worked but you would have had to soften it a lot. A good example is the 1945 film Kitty with Paulette Goddard - she plays a pickpocket in love with Ray Milland but he doesn't love her. He wants to use her to get into the foreign office though so he has a reason to be in her orbit.

You could have made Amber completely sympathetic. Make every other woman a bitch.

(2) Could also have worked. May have made it easier to get past the censors. Have Amber empathetic but ruthless. You could have had more sex that way. She would have to suffer. Possibly die. She didn't die in the novel - you could end her on a downer. It happens anyway.

I do think you would have had to flesh out two support parts:

a) a man who loves Amber all through the film. Doesn't have to be a huge part - just keep cutting back to him. Someone who the audience can see who should be with her. I'd make the Earl of Almsbury this. 

b) a woman to be a counterpoint to Amber. If she's good she should be a real bitch. If she's bad she should be pure but still love Amber. The woman who loves Bruce could be good for this.

I think either way you'd have to make Bruce bad. James Mason, originally offered the part, would have been perfect. Ditto Stewart Granger. Bruce is the villain of the piece. He's simply irredeemable.

Amber should want to raise their son to get him back. Amber should do everything for their son - money, title, safety, etc That's extremely sympathetic.

I think the easiest way would have been to go the (2) option. Make her "bad". But make clear she's driven by love and in love with a no good guy.

Bruce should have suffered at the end. I would use the character of Jemima, Amber's step daughter - make her a friend. Make her the "good" counterpoint to Amber.

I think that would have worked.

Movie review - "Son of Fury" (1942) ***

Adaptation of a best seller, crafted into a star vehicle for Tyrone Power. He's very handsome and dashing and all that. Fox made sure this was a hit - dependable Phil Dunne did the script, John Cromwell directed, George Sanders offered support, there's decent production value Gene Tierney is a native girl and Frances Farmer the fake love interest.

Dunne does a solid job - there's three acts and a prologue, with Roddy McDowall excellent as young Tyrone. The piece has a theme too - the injustice of laws that so favour the nobility. Act two is an idyllic life in Tahiti with Power romancing Tierney - I really liked how he was allowed to go back with her at the end, she didn't even have to turn out to be white or anything. I liked McDowall for not wrecking Henry Davenport's life by running off.

George Sanders does his Sanders thing well. In the opening scene he takes his shirt off for a boxing match - the most physical role Sanders ever played? No hiding those man boobs. It's not that satisfying Power grows up to beat up old Sanders - I mean, he is pretty old.

John Carradine livens things up as Power's friend. Frances Farmer was good value too as the fake love interest - she actually seems interested in what she's acting.

Movie review - "The Rains of Ranchipur" (1955) ** (warning: spoilers)

The 1950s were a time of studios remaking their old hits in colour with Cinemascope - this one also benefits from real Indian locations but suffers by still having the main Indian character in brownface (Rchard Burton!), and changing the dramatic point.

I've never heard a good thing about this movie so my expectations were low and I found some pleasant surprises: Lana Turner is very well cast as the girl about town who finds true love with Burton; she's not a good actor but has been photographed well and is effective. Burton is good as the prince, despite the make up - he's got soul, sex appeal and charisma, which was what that part needs. Joan Caulfield works well as the young girl who falls for a dissolute man; I don't know much about Caulfield's career, but here he's fresh faced and winning.

That dissolute man is played by Fred MacMurray, who was a great villain but is uncomfortable as a drunk and a character in India and as someone dissolute. Some of his scenes are really amateurish such as when he tells off Turner for falling in love with Burton. George Brent was better  in the original.

They also made a big mistake changing the story of Turner's character. In The Rains Came she went to nurse flood victims, devoted herself selflessly to the cause, got sick and died. Here she doesn't nurse and just leaves. It means she doesn't love Burton and he doesn't love her (because if it was true love they'd try to find a way). 

Also she's not redeemed because she doesn't so any nursing - Burton says there's a lovely person inside but we don't see it. They also don't kill off her husband - played here by Michael Rennie. He delivers this sexist misogynist speech at the beginning slamming her then mostly disappears for the film and comes back at the end to go off with Turner.

So they departed from the original and suffered accordingly at the box office. A mistake. Still, not as bad as I'd heard.

Book review - "Take Two" by Philip Dunne (1992)

In his diaries, Charles Brackett makes a few swipes at Philip Dunne as a dull, boring liberal. It was a little nasty of Brackett - and ironic, especially considering Brackett worked as Dunne's producer at 20th Century Fox several times in the 1950s. But after reading this book I get the feeling Brackett was right.

Dunne was a very good writer who seems like a nice guy with impeccable liberal credentials - helping set up with WGA, early opposition to Nazism and communism, making movies in the war, solid Democrat... But his memoirs are so dull.

To me, at any rate - he talks far too much about the politics in Hollywood at the time, all the dealings with anti-fascist organisations, and Communist groups, and labour and the studios, and it's written in stuffy, unengaging manner. Towards the end of the book he goes on and on (and on and on) about Ronald Reagan the politician, and American politics of the 80s and 90s, and it's just so dull and you don't care.

And more surprisingly it's not very well written. Yes, okay, I"m not that much interested in the politics of the time but surely Dunne could have made things more lively - had more of an eye for character and anecdote?

The most interesting big comes in the middle where Dunne talks about some of his adventures in the screen trade - a screenwriter for Fox in the 30s, working his way up to become one of Daryl Zanuck's top guns, credits including How Green Was My Valley and Pinky - eventually turning producer and director.  Film buffs will particularly enjoy his anecdotes about making Wild in the Country, The Robe, David and Bathsheba, Prince of Players and Ten North Frederick. But Dunne doesn't seem that interested in talking about films - his preference seems to be crapping on about politics.

Dunne would up directing ten features none of them particularly distinguished except Ten North Frederick (he did helm Wild in the Country with Elvis Presley!). He's full of excuses as to why none of the movies particularly worked - not enough budget, public didn't go for the subject matter, studio wouldn't give him the names he wanted in the cast. So it comes as a shock at the end to read Dunne considered him more suited to directing than writing; I'm sorry but ten times at bat, you should have an idea of how good you are and he was simply mediocre. A very good screenwriter - and obviously a decent humane man. A mediocre memoirist.

Movie review - "The Rains Came" (1939) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Highly enjoyable melodrama/disaster picture set in an Indian state which seems to be mostly run by Indians - something that gives the picture extra kick because even though the Indian characters are played by Hollywood actors in brown face, at least the Indians have more power. They seem to like the British - or at least drunken, dissolute artist George Brent, given one of the best roles in his career. 

Brent's really the leading man - which surprised me because I thought the movie was more about Myrna Loy's romance with "Indian" Tyrone Power. That plot is definitely in there, but as much if not more time is spent on Brent, and his friendship with old flame Loy (a fellow slut), and romance with adoring Brenda Joyce.

The quality of acting is high - Power is good as the decent, anxious to do well Indian (if you can get past the brown face factor), and Loy is excellent as always in a less typical role for her (I was disappointed we never got to see much good-time-girl-ing from her). 

Maria Ouspensaka plays a strong Indian ruler - and actually the movie has decent female characters, all headstrong and in charge of their destinies. (Although admittedly Loy dies while Brent gets to live and have happiness... price of forbidden interracial romance, I think.) Good to see Nigel Bruce in a less sympathetic role, as an aristocrat whose valet hates him.

The special effects were impressive for the time and some sequences really hold up well today - such as a room collapsing under the weight of water, and Brent swimming through the flood (surely not a good idea). Stylish directorial touches too like when Loy realises she's drunk dodgy water.

Book review - "It's the Pictures That Got Small" by Charles Brackett

What a sensational find! The diaries of Charles Brackett, best remembered today as Billy Wilder's collaborator - but also a top level producer at Fox for many years, plus a member of the smart New York sophisticate set of the 20s and 30s. The result is one of the best books about Golden Era Hollywood screenwriting I've ever read.

We start in 1935, with Brackett unhappy with his Hollywood existence, fretting about money and his career, making oblique references to his wife's illness (she was an alcoholic), worried about his talent and whether he's a sell out. There's a series of unsuccessful/unsatisfactory script assignments, work on his play and novel, before he's teamed up with Wilder and his career starts to flourish.

Naturally there's plenty of insight into work with Wilder - maddening, furiously talented, acerbically funny, womanising (his technique to pick up women - no kiss at all until the end of the second date, just asking lots of questions - then kiss madly, runaway, go to a phone booth and say "I can't do this it's too dangerous..." then apparently it's on for young and old), egotistical, fight happy. You can just picture it.

There's also fascinating insights into other aspects of Hollywood at the time - Marc Connelly refusing to believe his wife has left him, Brackett's swipes at the dullness of Phil Dunne (both personally and his writing) and Ray Milland's acting, Franchot Tone arguing over every comma of the script of Five Graves to Cairo, being threatened with Alan Ladd's casting in various projects, hating the thought of Helen Walker in The Uninvited, John Farrow cracking jokes about Loretta Young at the commissary. It's very reassuring to see how often Brackett and Wilder were rewritten and worried about jobs.

Less fun is Brackett's consistent casual anti-Semitism - entirely typical of men from his class and age. He seemed to enjoy being a solitary Republican among left leaning screenwriters; he also must have been good company, despite all this neurosis, because he's always going to a party.

Slide's introduction goes into detail about the Brackett-was-gay rumours, tracking their source and pointing out they are hard to prove (diaries don't indicate much gay activity but not indicate a high hetero sex drive either, and he never ever mentions his wife's alcoholism). Then he, correctly, swings the focus back to Brackett the writer and producer.

It's a wonderful, wonderful book - my only quib is it cuts out when he and Wilder break up. I would have loved to have read his account of working at 20th Century Fox - with Zanuck, Monroe, etc.

Book review - "Don't Say Yes Until I've Finished Talking" by Mel Gussow (1971)

A bright lively bio of Daryl F.  Zanuck written when he was the last surviving tycoon of the great days of Hollywood; not that he lasted much longer, being turfed from his position around the time the book came out. He then pretty much went into retirement, and apparently went senile, living in Palm Springs - however he did live to see his son Dick become one of the leading producers in Hollywood.

This book benefits from the fact so many of its participants were alive, chiefly Zanuck himself - but also his son, wife, colleagues. While an admiring book, some warts are shown - Gussow doesn't stint on criticism of Zanuck's midlife crisis (performing acrobatics, running off with various women) and some of 20 Century Fox's poorer movies; it explores his prickly personality, womanising, various corporate struggles, unusual family life.

Full of lively anecdotes, such as the competitive croquet games, and memorable bits like Zanuck's touching admission that he doesn't have many friends. You need to read this in conjunction with later books on Zanuck but its very entertaining.

Movie review - "Last of the Mohicians" (1936) ***1/2

In making his own version of the famous novel, Michael Mann paid tribute to Philip Dunne's adaptation for this one, saying he really knocked the book into shape. He did too, focusing the drama on the clash between Hawkeye and the Heyward, making the action flow logically, and creating believable romance.

I noted Mann made some changes - for instance, here the movie ends with Hawkeye and Heyward going to rescue Cora (both determined to die for her) and not the fight between Magua and Chingachook, and also here Heyward is allowed to live (so too is the colonel); this movie is a bit more sympathetic to that character and the British although the American-British tension is still shown. It also puts more emphasis on the Alice-Uncas romance.

It's a very exciting movie - I didn't expect to keep watching but I did. Randolph Scott is fine as Hawkeye (there's not much you can do about those fur caps), Binnie Barnes is bland as Cora but Herbert Wilcoxon is ideal as the stuffy Heyward, Robert Barrett and Heather Angel are likeable interracial lovers (as if they're going to be allowed to live) and Bruce Cabot a wonderful villain. Not particularly well directed - imagine if John Ford had been able to have a go - but great fun.

Book review – “Memo from Darryl F Zanuck”

Not as enjoyable as other memo books for Selznick and Warner Bros, this is nevertheless interesting enough. It’s clear that Zanuck was a fine script editor (his thoughts on story are first rate – John Ford and Joe Mankiewicz never worked on better scripts than the ones they did for Zanuck), gutsy (backing Gentlemen’s Agreement, Wilson, Pinky), derivative in his creative ideas (he was always remaking stories and pinching ideas fom previous movies), constantly sniping at Jack Warner (his old boss), owner of a healthy ego (like Selznick he is always invoking is track record and claiming to accurately predict failures), polite to great talent, smart. 

It lacks a little fire - maybe Zanuck wasn't as good on paper, maybe the records aren't as strong... or the book is too short. Still, very entertaining.

Movie review - "Demetrius and the Gladiators" (1954) *** (warning: spoilers)

Hollywood didn't go in for sequels as back back in the 1950s, outside of official movie series, but The Robe made so much money, and had such potential for a sequel 20th Century Fox no doubt felt it was rude not to follow it up. Yes, Richard Burton and Jean Simmons went off to their unconvincing martyrdom (shown in reprise in the first minute here with Susan Hayward added in), but there's still Victor Mature, the robe and Jay Robinson's Caligula who hadn't received his comeuppance yet.

This has a great concept - Caligula hears that the robe has special qualities and asks for it to be tracked down. Having said that, this tends to get sidelined as the action progresses and we concentrate on the story of Mature, as he's forced to become a gladiator - at first he's reluctant (he won't fight humans but takes out a poor tiger), but after a good little Christian girl (Debra Paget) is manhandled by gladiators (Richard Egan mostly) and seems to die somehow, Mature takes to killing gladiators with a vengeance, and banging Messalina (Susan Hayward), going to parties with dancing girls and eating grapes. But he gets his faith back when Peter (Michael Rennie here) shows him that the girl isn't dead, just resting. (So Mature's faith is conditional upon miracles.)

People interested in Ancient Rome will enjoy depictions of gladiator life and portrayals of St Peter, Caligula, Claudius, Messalina, Macro, Cassius Chaera; film fans will get a kick out of seeing a young Richard Egan, Anne Bancroft and Julie Newmar. 

There's also one of the most positive black characters who had appeared in a Hollywood film - William Marshall as the gladiator who gives Mature advice on how to survive, has to fight him in the ring, but unlike Woody Strode in Spartacus is allowed to live, get his freedom, become a Christian, and share the final frame walking alongside Rennie and Victor Mature.

A lot of this is campy e.g. slave girls, Hayward throwing herself at Mature, Hayward at the end of the film swearing she won't root around no more laughing gladiators. Ernest Borgnine was born to train gladiators and Hayward is beautiful, even if her character is all over the place (is she a tramp? religious? genuinely in love with Mature?) 

Mature seems mostly tired and doesn't pull off the emotional requirements of his role, Jay Robinson got on my nerves as Caligula (it's a gift part but he's amateur hour) and some of the handling of action scenes was slack. But there's certainly plenty to keep you interested and there are some great bits like Caligula ordering a prisoner to be killed to test the robe.

Movie review - "Anne of the Indies" (1951) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Anne Bonney, the famous female pirate (famous because she's a female, really) gets her own film and has some heavyweight talent (Phillip Dunne on script, Jacques Tourneur behind the camera) but is unfortunately let down by the disastrous miscasting of Jean Peters. She tries but is far too mild and uncharismatic in a role that cries out for someone with strength: Maureen O'Hara, Susan Hayward or Jane Russell. This was Peters' big chance and she fails.

It's a remarkable swashbuckler in that it really doesn't have a hero - Peters is a sympathetic anti-hero but is still a ruthless pirate who orders Louis Jourdan flogged and has prisoners killed; her ship's doctor Herbert Marshall is meant to be her conscience, but is really an alcoholic buffoon who is irritating; the British who fight the pirates are very ruthless, blackmailing Louis Jourdan into helping fight Peters. Jourdan I suppose is a nominal hero, but he's really mean - going undercover and making Peters fall in love with her, kissing her on the boat (surely they were having sex)... when he has a wife (Debra Paget) back at home who he prefers! I think we're meant to be on Jourdan's side when Peters kidnaps Paget and threatens to sell her into a harem, but, sorry, my sympathy's with Peters. So her about-face at the end when she comes to Jourdan and Peter's defence against Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez) isn't terribly convincing.

The chief attraction of this film is its difference to regular pirate movies: there's a female protagonist, the male romantic lead is French rather than British, Peters and Paget have some enjoyable squabbles. There's also a decent amount of colour and action plus some fun scenery chewing performances from Thomas Gomez and James Robertson Justice. But it still feels like a failure.

Movie review - "David and Bathsheba" (1951) ***1/2

Gregory Peck isn't the first actor you'd think to appear in a Bible epic - Tyrone Power, his fellow big name at 20th Century Fox, probably would have suited it more. But he's handsome and has authority and does his best as the King who gets the hots for Bathsheba after seeing her take a bath on her roof (they hint at nudity but I'm pretty sure when she gets in she's got underwear on).

The main attribute of this is it's first rate script from Philip Dunne. It's a real character study - don't laugh: David is a torn man, tired from war, in a bad marriage with a wife he's only with for political reasons. He's drawn to Bathsheba for her sexiness, seduces her out of wedlock, and has hell to pay, constantly agonises over religious stuff. There's some great scenes with the prophet Nathan (Raymond Massey), the local religious lunatic - lots of interesting stuff about God and being a ruler.

Bathsheba isn't much of a character - she's hot but not super hot (Susan Hayward), just seems to drift along. She's no temptress, but is more a victim of fate/circumstance. Maybe this was a censor issue. Keiron Moore play Uriah who displays so little interest in his wife (always running off to battle and not having sex with her) that it makes your eyebrows raise.

 

Structure wise this is kind of odd - Dunne was faced with the challenge of padding out a very short section of the Bible, and most the drama is done by the time the affair is exposed. So the climax of the film is a flashback to the time David fought Goliath, which doesn't really have anything to do with Bathsheba. Yet it worked.

 

Henry King directs with sensitivity and the support cast are strong, including James Robertson Justice. It's not a big spectacle - most of the action takes place indoors, there aren't teems of extras. Perhaps the most thoughtful of the epics.