TV review - "Playhouse 90 - For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1958) ***

 Hemingway's novel adapts quite well to the small screen because you can focus on relationships and use close ups - Jason Robards and Maria Schell (the earth moves! quite frank!), Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach, Stapleton and Roberts, Wallach and Robarts.

Very serious in that style. Intense.  

TV review - "Playhouse 90 The Last Tycoon" (1957) ***1/2

 F Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel at one stage meant for Humphrey Bogart and Bacall but he died so they wound up with Jack Palance and Lee Remick. Palance's performance is fascinating - intense, empathetic, strong.

Support cast is amazing - Peter Lorre as a burnt out director, Keenan Wynn is an exec, achingly pretty Lee Remick is a nubile thing hot for Palance (shock).

Story ambles and kind of ends - I think he dies at the end. But then the novel was unfinished. Has that late 50s TV seriousness. 

TV review - "Days of Wine and Roses" (1958) ****

 Legendary television script from JP Miller, turned into a film by Blake Edwards, here directed by John Frankenheimer. This was a landmark in the careers of Frankenheimer, Piper Laurie and Cliff Robertson. Laurie and Frankenheimer had an affair before and during filming which she writes about in her memoir - a lot of high brow melodrama. Resulted in some great acting.

Laurie is terrific - Robertson matches her. Charles Bickford also strong as Laurie's dad. 

TV review - "Playhouse 90: Massacre at Sand Creek" (1956) **1/2

 Every four weeks on Playhouse 90 they would do an all film version - Errol Flynn was in one, Without Incident. This is a little similar to that - it feels like it was written to be a cheaper Western rather than a glossy Playhouse 90, though it's got a tough subject: the Massacre at Sand Creek. Edward Everett Sloan is the Colonel Chivington character, here not called that. It changes from the lead facts - the lead officer is motivated more by ambition, less by racism. We hear about things rather than seeing them (soldiers scalping, wearing ears, shooting innocents). Still, it's quite strong.

John Derek is a decent man, a lieutenant, who winds up blamed for the whole thing somehow. Derek has a few heroic things to do - win a brawl, flash a blade, die heroically - but is basically weak and passive. Which suits Derek's persona - he gave off a sense of weakness.

Gene Evans is good as a sergeant.

It's not that well written, and is unable to shake a B Hollywood Western vibe, but is of interest.

Arthur Hiller directed this.

TV review - "Playhouse 90 - Forbidden Area" (1956) **1/2

The first episode of the legendary Playhouse 90 has some heavyweight talent - adapted by Rod Serling (pre Twilight Zone but still famous for Patterns), directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Charlton Heston, Diana Lynn, Vincent Price, Charles Bickford, Victor Jory, and Tab Hunter.

Hunter was known as a pretty boy star at the time but is very effective as a Russian sleeper agent. It's about a Russian invasion of the US.

There's probably a bit too much going on here... it's a whole invasion of the US, with Hunter just a part of it. It would've been better off just focusing on Hunter trying to fit in. He provides the best moments, killing a fellow soldier, and also the final confrontation with Heston.

The romance between Heston and Lynn isn't very good - he molests her, she falls in love. He looks impressively bad ass though with that eye patch (it's tied in with the story - means he can't fly). Vincent Price is a little oddly cast as a Pentagon boffin but Charles Bickford perfect as a tough type.

It's overly ambitious - and not quite believable this is how Russia would attack the US. Smaller and more focused on Hunter and Heston would've worked better. John Frankenheimer directed.

TV review - "Playhouse 90 - Bomber's Moon" (1958) **1/2

Like a lot of stars, Robert Cummings got chances on TV that he never did in films. He gives a superb performance as an air force officer in World War Two who cracks under pressure. It's really good work - sensitive, tough, never over doing it.

The rest of it is less good. I mean, it's fine - Rod Serling wrote the script, John Frankenheimer directed (using lots of tight two shots and impressively employing shadows over characters' faces at the end). The cast is very good, including Martin Balsam and Rip Torn without a beard (as a cowardly pilot).

Unfortunately the story isn't that interesting. An officer finding it hard to send men to die - that was done in Twelve O'Clock High, The Dawn Patrol, Command Decision. It's not fresh.

Like I said, it's fine, but that's it.

Movie review – “Playhouse 90 – Without Incident” (1957) **1/2

This has a terrific opening sequence, with Errol as the head of a group of cavalry waiting for the Indians to attack while a woman (Ann Sheridan) sings 'Greensleaves'. And it’s a pretty good story - the Indians are after one of Errol’s prisoners, an Indian whom he’s escorting across country. Errol also faces local white settlers who aren’t keen on him stirring up trouble with the natives, a pair of sisters who were kidnapped by Indians (Sheridan and her nympho sister Julie London), and a mutinous bunch of soldiers (led by John Ireland, in his Red River type role performance as troublesome lieutenant).

Errol doesn’t look too crash hot – weather beaten and, surprisingly, a bit pudgy (something that tended to be disguised in his later movies because he usually wore suits all the time). It’s a different sort of character for him – a hated martinet who is willing to sacrifice the life of his men if it means keeping the Apaches at bay (the theme of the movie is sort of “we can’t back down to terrorists”.) He’s not bad – it’s not one of his best performances.

This is far from perfect – there is lots of Acting and Over Acting (especially by London and the bald guy who gets a crush on said nympho – he’s awful). Sheridan isn’t bad in a not-much role, but the role of the widowed leader of the townsfolk is quite good.

It suffers definitely from a low budget, which presumably hampered the ability to shoot decent action scenes – the quality of these is about on par of most 50s television. It’s quite mature that Flynn fails in his mission but there’s an awful scene at the end where Sheridan takes the blame for turning her sister into a woman of easy victue (Sheridan was a former dance hall girl aka hooker whose sister looked up to her). Also the Indians deciding not to attack at the end whiffs of deux ex machina and the ending is a bit irritating – Errol says he’s going to say in his report the trip was made “without incident”… but didn’t several of his soldiers die? How’s he going to explain that?

But you could count on Playhouse 90 to at least try to turn out something of quality, and they have a go. This is definitely Errol’s best television production – though not his best small screen performance, that would be The Golden Shanty.