Movie review - "The Tarnished Angels" (1957) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Has a big rep and it's a well made film. I wasn't as wild about it. Story isn't strong - Rock Hudson tries as a boozing journo impressed by some fliers after World War One. He has strong chemistry with Dorothy Malone (who's very good) the wife of flier Robert Stack. They have a kid. Stack dies, kid bawls which is traumatic.

Beautifully shot. Interesting. Just a little underwhelming. Malone gives best performance. Stack is stiff. Hudson tries but isn't up to his role. 

Movie review - "Blindfold" (1966) **

 Bland Universal programmer. Dull. Rock Hudson tries. Best thing about it is Claudia Cardinale and her outfits. Ended Phil Dunne's directing career. 

Movie review - "Pillow Talk" (1959) **** (rewatching)

 Really good script. Witty. Well structured. Maybe Thelma Ritter could've been used more (her suggestion to Rock is something Rock could've thought up). Risque - bathtub scene, jokes about Rock being gay and Rock having a baby. Rock is handsome and winnings. Doris terrific. But Tony Randall also superb. Everyone is terrific.

Saw this on the big screen. Stylish. Fun.

Movie review - "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980) ***

 After two Peter Ustinov films as Hercules Poirot, EMI Films did Miss Marple as their all star Agatha Christie effort. It didn't do as well - maybe the market tapped out, maybe it lacked the exotic location factor, maybe viewers prefer Poiriot.

Angela Lansbury is a strong Marple and the cast includes some legends - Liz Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis - plus some decent secondary names: Geraldine Chaplin, Edward Fox. Anthony Steel pops up in the film within a film. Film  buffs will like this and the fact the central story was based on Gene Tierney.

Too much time is spent on Edward Fox, film buff, investigating the case. We don't care about him - we want to see Marple. I'm sympathetic to the filmmakers though - he has an excuse to ask questions, Marple doesn't. But Lansbury is hardly in it. She pops in and out then appears at the end. It's a shame they couldn't have distorted the book a bit more to have her, I don't know, go work at the mansion or something.

It is fun to see Taylor, Rock, etc... but no one is actually that good. Liz Taylor wasn't a star by this stage - she was an ex star. Ditto Novak. Hudson never seems like a director.

Oh I'm sniping. This was fine. Just not as good as the Poiots.

Movie review - "Man's Favorite Sport?" (1964) ***

A maligned entry in the career of Howard Hawks but it's bright and colourful with a sense of relaxed camraderie that is winning. Paula Prentiss has this friend (Maria Perschy), who goes along who probably isn't really needed script wise but jokes around and is fun. They probably should have given Hudson a similar friend instead of that random boss figure.

There's some dated jokes about a local who pretends to be a Native American, bright colour, Prentiss is a delight, Hudson is amiable even though his role was clearly meant for Cary Grant and he plays it like Cary Grant (the slow burn, being pursued by a woman). Charlene Holt - like Perschy, a Hawks discovery - is Hudson's fiancee who is never much of a threat.

The whole film has a nice vibe to it.

Book review - "Homework: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years" by Julie Andrews (2019)

No one denies Andrews' status as a Hollywood icon but what should be a fascinating book - a look at the peak of her Hollywood career, from Mary Poppins through to That's Life! - is a hard slog. It covers what should be interesting stuff - the making of Darling Lili, for instance - and manages to make it dull.

I think it was the logistics. There's so much logistics - all her kids, and step kids, and ex, and family, and Blake Edwards' family - and dealing with homes in Switzerland, and Malibu and going on tour. She didn't make that many movies in the 70s but she seems to be always on the move, making TV specials or following Blake Edwards around or performing in concerts. She's forever worried about the kids education or what the kids are up to. It's a wearying book to read.

Andrews doesn't seem like the brightest tool in the shed though her heart is in the right place (she did a lot of charity work for Vietnamese/Cambodian orphans). She seems a fairly uncomplicated person - I could be wrong about this, but her world view seems narrow: she's spent most of her life working and performing and when she made enough to not work as hard she got drawn into this life of domestic minutae.

The book is invaluable however as a portrait of Blake Edwards - charming, charismatic, talented, self centered, selfish, adulterous (it's implied... Andrews only talks of a flirtation with Peter Sellers' wife but then admits Edwards wrote all those scripts about middle aged men tempted into adulterly), manipulative, controlling, drug addicted, boozy, manic depressive. He has a gall bladder attack than turns out to be nothing when Andrews' mother is dying meaning Andrews couldn't be with her - that sort of thing.

Andrews has done a lot of psycho analysis (she meets Edwards by sharing the same analyst) but it doesn't seem to have given her a lot of particular insight - I get the impression she just liked talking about herself (I could be wrong). She talks about her shrink giving her geography lessons and what not to make up for her lack of education - that's a tutor's job! Julie the guy was ripping you off. But then I think Andrews was one of those performers who are susceptible to people pushing her around - which is why she lasted so long with Blake Edwards.

Andrews encounters with famous people are remarkably un-notable - James Garner was nice, Omar Sharif was nice, Paul Newman was nice, Chris Plummer was nice. Rex Harrison was impatient - that's about as juicy as this gets. The one surprise was that she was good mates with Carol Burnett - they should have made a movie together.

Worth readings if you are an Andrews fanatic and/or interested in Blake Edwards.

Aside: I always figured Andrews sabotaged her career in the late 60s with her choices (Star, Darling Lili)... but when you think about it what other musicals could she have been in? Camelot I guess but... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Bedknobs and Broomsticks? She would have been tricky to cast in the 70s.

Rock Hudson Top Ten

1) Seconds (1966)
2) Pillow Talk (1959)
3) Giant (1956)
4) Written on the Wind (1957)
5) Come September (1961)
6) Lover Come Back (1962)
7) Ice Station Zebra (1968)
8) Sea Devils (1953)
9) All That Heaven Allows (1955)
10) Something of Value (1957)

Book review - "All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson" by Mark Griffin

Hudson gets a decent biography with this well researched, even handed account. It tackles head on Hudson's sexuality - the thing that really distinguished him as a Hollywood star, especially the AIDS stuff - but does with compassion and footnotes, and also analyses his appeal and skill as an actor.

Hudson was one of the luckiest stars around - he was blessed with great looks, height and charm. With no training or even stage experience, after a few years of bit parts he was a leading man, and a few years after that he was one of the biggest stars in the world. He remained a star in TV until the early 80s and a leading man all his life.

His great gift was he could play a tough guy but be sensitive - he had a warmth lacking in, say, Jeff Chandler or Audie Murphy, other leading men at Universal. He was more accessible and had more charisma than say Dale Robertson or Rory Calhoun.

He was also lucky. Universal was a good studio to learn your trade at in the late 40s and early 50s - the standard of acting wasn't too high, they turned out a lot of potboilers. Ross Hunter came along at just the right time to put him in Magnificent Obsession then George Stevens put him in another league with Giant and Hunter and Day put him in Pillow Talk which led to half a decade of comedy hits. He was less popular in the late 60s - even sure fire stuff like teaming with John Wayne and doing an Alistair MacLean adaptation and Julie Andrews musical didn't work out - but he found new life doing McMillan and Wife. I was surprised how much theatre he did - including several musicals on the road.

It wasn't all luck. He worked very hard, was conscientious and a nice person. Everyone comments on how nice he was.

He had an exotic personal life. While good friends George Nader and Michael Miller were married to all intents and purposes for years, Hudson had a revolving door of boyfriends, some okay, others a bit less suitable. He drank and smoke very heavily - even if AIDS hadn't have come along this could have knocked him off early anyway.

There's plenty of juicy stuff - stories which you'd assume were urban legends, like Hudson fathering a child after the war, and servicing a college football team, actually could have been true. His father shot through when Hudson was little. When he found out he had AIDS he informed ex lovers anonymously. His last few days were this weird combination of genuine friends paying call, Pat Boone and his wife bringing around the bible, Elizabeth Taylor getting in bed with him for a cuddle, and his friends arguing over memorial services and the estate.

Very good book. Depressing at the end - but Hudson had a pretty good life, a lot of success, and a lot of sex and good friends. He never had a great One True Love but I'm not sure he really wanted one. Like many actors he was probably most comfortable playing other people.

Movie review - "Tobruk" (1967) **

Underwhelming guys-on-a-mission in the desert film which was clearly devised to be made for a low budget - it was written by Leo Gordon and is produced by Gene Corman and is basically about a group of Allied soldiers driving through the desert in a truck.

It has some big names in the cast - Rock Hudson in a more rugged part, George Peppard as a German Jew, and Nigel Green (who was a name-ish at the time) as a stuffy Brit. It's alright... there's a decent subplot about a traitor in the group - I didn't guess who it was - and there is some novelty with Peppard leading a team of German Jews; that's the real point of difference and I wish more had been done with it.

Action scenes are perfunctory rather than skilled though the final raid is well done. I was annoyed there was no mention of Australians. Dramatically I think it was a mistake to have Green's character - really they should have just had Hudson and Peppard and focused on the conflict between them. Hudson's character is far too noble, he just constantly disapproves with Green. 

Green has a great death, unable to let a traitor go... but that would have been better being given to Hudson. I reckon Universal (or Hudson's people) maybe stepped in to soften Hudson's character. I could be wrong.

Book review - "Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars " by Scott Bowers (2012)

Exhausting to read. Fascinating in parts. Not particularly well written. The sort of book where the good articles about it are more entertaining than the book itself. Bowers has no problem being molested as a young boy or a young teen under priests - which I know is the attitude of some people.

There's plenty of choice gossip, and to be honest a lot of it seemed plausible - Vivien Leigh was a wildcat in bed, Charles Laughton and Tyrone Power liked shit in their sex, Cole Porter was into oral, Montgomery Clift and Roddy McDowall were exceedingly fussy with their tastes, John Carradine was kinky, Errol Flynn liked girls but very very young, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott liked dudes, Rock Hudson is in there. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Gore Vidal was a friend.

Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn both being gay does surprise me - I guess it makes sense. Who knows?

Some stuff felt true because the people weren't famous eg producer Frank MacArthur being gay. Some stuff was just funny like Steve Reeves turning tricks for George Cukor. Some of it I did struggle with - like Bowers being around J Edgar Hoover. Maybe it happened, I'm not that wordly, I just struggled with it.

The best bits of the book are where it stories feel more detailed and authentic - like getting Nestor Almederos to the Oscar ceremony. Bowers had a full life!

Book review "Infamous players : a tale of movies, the mob (and sex)"- by Peter Bart (2011)

I've enjoyed Bart's writings in the past - his history of MGM, his collection of essays about the late 90s, his pieces for Variety and Deadline. I noticed the quality would drop whenever he talked about himself - he would always paint himself in the best possible light, claiming to have made key decisions that contributed to successes, claiming to have warned about choices that led to disaster - but he had good access and was a skilled writer. He is always easy to read.

This is a memoir of Bart's time at Paramount in the late 60s and early 70s, a period he often (as in, all the time) refers to in his essays. 

It's perhaps the most self-centered Hollywood memoir I've ever read - and I've read a lot of them - and around half-way through I started hating Bart and couldn't stop.

You see, according to Bart, it's Bart who has concerns about Darling Lili, it's Bart who suggests to Robert Evans that he get Francis Coppola to write The Godfather, it's Bart who champions Love Story and suggests Arthur Hiller direct, it's Bart who helps Warren Beatty cut the sex scene in Don't Look Now, it's Bart who thinks Where's Jack? is a bad idea but helps make The Italian Job behind Charles Bludhorn's back, it's Bart who's not sure Paddy Chayefsky is the right writer for Paint Your Wagon, it's Bart who champions Harold and Maude, it's Bart who liked The President's Analyst, it's Bart who suggests True Grit to Hal Wallis, it's Bart who cautions Paramount on Day of the Locust, it's Bart who swaps Emperor of the North for Play It Again Sam, it's Bart who has doubts about Redford's suitability for The Great Gatsby. 

Bart, according to Bart, is just so darn wise.

Look, any book about this time and that has up close looks at characters like Robert Evans and Sidney Korshak is going to be interesting, but most of it has been done before and better in other books. Bart wastes pages on recaps about Korshak and Gulf and Western when we want personal insights. 

Some of it is interesting - accounts of the making of Blue for instance and Downhill Racer, WUSA, The Parallax View and Sheila Levine is Dead. Stories of The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby and Love Story are more familiar. I would have loved more on the less familiar Paramount movies from his period - say, TR Baskin, Will Penny - or the movie Bart wrote, Making It.

Bart has exasperated affection for Bob Evans, as he should since Evans gave him his job - in part because Bart wrote a flattering article about Evans under the Old Mates Act. Charles Budhorn comes across as Bludhorn always does - a colorful cartoon. Bart is vicious on Frank Yablans - really vicious. There are digs at Robert Redford and Warren Beatty.

The book is laced with homophobia - he brings up Rock Hudson's sexuality all the time, ditto for William Inge and John Schlesinger, and not in a complimentary way. 

He also tends to slag off women - Elaine May is duplicitous, Ali MacGraw is a flake, Julie Andrews is sexless, Julia Phillips is a drug addled fool (he criticises plenty of men too but he also admires lots of them, whereas there's little admiration for women).

There is the odd surprise opinion - he would have preferred Bogdanovich's version of The Getaway with Cybil Shepherd as the girl, and wanted Marlon Brando and Coppola on Gatsby (which actually would have been awesome)

Robert Evans' memoirs are a lot more fun and actually feel more accurate. This feels like a book written in a hurry for cash and was really disappointing.

Doris Day - Top Eleven Abusive Spouse Roles

In preparing my earlier Doris list I was struck by the number of films that showed her being in abusive relationships: (warning - some SPOILERS for old Doris Day films)
1) Young Man with a Horn (1950) - Doris plays a singer who falls for a self centered musician (Kirk Douglas) who leaves her for a lesbian who is experimenting with being straight (Lauren Bacall) then takes Day back when he's broke and drunk
2) Tea for Two (1950) - Doris plays a socialite whose freeloading producer boyfriend (Billy de Wolfe) is cheating on her while using her money to produce a show
3) Storm Warning (1951) - Doris is a pregnant newly wed whose husband is an alcoholic and member of the KKK who tries to rape Doris' sister, and winds up being responsible for her death
4) The Winning Team (1952) - Doris plays the wife of some famous baseball player (Ronald Reagan) who got PTSD and a drinking problem in WW1
5) Young at Heart (1954) - Doris elopes with a depressed man (Frank Sinatra) who tries to kill himself to "set her free"
6) Love Me or Leave Me (1955) - Doris plays a singer who marries and abusive, violent gangster (Jimmy Cagney) out of gratitude for what he did for her career
7) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - Doris plays a woman who had to give up a successful singing career to marry James Stewart
8) Julie (1956) - Doris is a stewardess whose husband (Louis Jourdan) tries to kill her
9) Midnight Lace (1960) - Doris' husband tries to drive her insane and then kill her
10) Send Me No Flowers (1964) - Rock Hudson doesn't tell wife Doris he thinks he is dying
11) Ballad of Josie (1967) - Doris has an abusive husband who she accidentally kills

Movie review - "Scarlet Angel" (1952) ***

Yvonne de Carlo gets one of her best roles as a slightly shady lady in 1865 New Orleans who decides to impersonate a woman who has died and is the widow of a man from a rich San Francisco family. Rock Hudson is the former blockade runner who gets swindled by de Carlo then chases after the debt. Do they fall in love? What do you reckon?

Hudson is a little too nice for the buccaneering character he plays but he has charisma and he and de Carlo team well - even if they can't quite crack the Rhett Butler-Scarlett O'Hara vibe the film is going for (he even has a "I get you baby" speech). It does help that both of them have a mercenary side - he doesn't turn her in so he can benefit financially, she's out for money too, which makes it fresh. I like the fact that they both clearly like money, sex and a good time and they aren't punished for it. (She takes part in a brawl and he laughs, delighted).

Helping the film age well is the greed of the support characters - a relative wants to prove she's a liar to get money, a man romances de Carlo to get money, an old saloon owner and private investigator try to blackmail her for money. I maybe wanted more resolution of De Carlo and the kid - I think they could have found a way for her and Hudson to raise him.

It was written by Oscar Brodney, a bit of an unappreciated filmmaker - he did a bunch of enjoyable unpretentious entertainments for Universal like this one. It's got pleasing set design and great colour. A fun movie.

Script review - "Giant" by Ivan Moffatt and Frank Guignol

This apparently was George W Bush's favourite film and many other Texans love it which bewildered Larry McMurtry who thought it showed them in an unflattering light. But I get why he'd love it - it's a film about family, and proud men struggling with changing times, and sons in the shadow of their father, and race.

The writers know how to focus the story - making it about Bick and Leslie the mismatched couple who fall in love and go to Texas, and their marriage over the years, as Leslie tries to soften Bick. These two are the heart and soul of the piece - and while Bick has the bigger journey Leslie is still a decent role. There are some showy support parts - the sister Link, Jett the surly ranch hand who becomes super rich, the trashy daughter and sensitive son. There's also a dull daughter but she doesn't matter.

The script is solid. Many scenes end with a visual flourish that were surely written with the input of George Stevens the director.

It's a very human story - about family, and changing times. Texans come across as idiots it's true - boorish, stupid, self centered - but you can see why so many of them relate to it.

You wonder why adapters of Edna Ferber novels which followed - Cimarron, Ice Palace - didn't follow this more closely.

Movie review - "The Last Sunset" (1961) ** (warning: spoilers)

Weird. So weird. I mean, it starts off okay - you've got Kirk Douglas as a cowboy meeting up with old flame Dorothy Malone who's married to Joseph Cotten. And then Rock Hudson turns up to arrest Douglas for murder but he can't do it because he's in the wrong jurisdiction. That's fine. And Hudson and Douglas wind up on a cattle drive together and they're harassed by Neville Brand and his gang. That's good, solid, if formulaic stuff. They spice it up by having Rock Hudson fall for Malone, and Cotten be a coward in the civil war.

Its the subplot of this that'll get you. Malone and Cotten's daughter Carol Lynley has a crush on Douglas, which is good dramatically, even if at 15 it's a bit too young. But instead of a love triangle between mother and daughter, which would've been ideal, Malone falls for Hudson. Lynley falls for Douglas. There's a reveal that Douglas is her father... then if I'm not mistaken HE GOES AND SLEEPS WITH HER. I mean we don't see them kiss but they sort of embrace then cut to them lying on a hay bale together looking tired and happy - that's sex in 1961 Hollywood. He finds out she's his daughter and goes and sleeps with her!!!!

Hudson is affable, Malone good. Douglas recites some poetry and acts up a storm. I wish Cotten had had more to do - they get rid of his character far too earlier. He would've been a useful threat - they should've kept him alive until the end.

Carol Lynley isn't up to the demands of her role. She's adequate - but it needed someone better. Sandra Dee, who was offered it, would've been better - though I think the best choice would have been Tuesday Weld, who apparently was going to do it.

Neville Brand and Jack Elam and their young sidekick look like they're going to do something interesting, but don't really.  

It's a really muddled film. Aldrich disliked it. I'm surprised the incest of this isn't better known.

Movie review - "The Undefeated" (1969) **

A lot of John Wayne's films around this time have lingered in the memory of Western fans - True Grit, The Green Berets, Big Jake, Chisum. Not this one despite Rock Hudson supporting and a fantastic central idea.

Because it's not very good. The idea is amazing - based on the true life adventures of a Confederate troop who refuse to surrender and go down south to Mexico and try to enlist in Maximilian's army. But the film wastes it. Hudson is the Confederate, and he and Wayne have a little bit of history but not much - even though Wayne was on the Union side he just happens to be down in Mexico when they cross.

Why not make him pursue Hudson? Or be Hudson's enemy?

The issues raised in the central idea is ignored. Slavery is pretty much entirely ignored - the only black character is a caricatured black carpetbagger who is Bad (smoking a cigar). The sense of loss these people must have felt is ignored.

Even though it's 1969 the film still offers 1941 solutions from Virginia City - to wit, that North and South manage to put aside their differences by taking on Mexicans. Its even worse here because the Americans are in Mexico - and the Southerners were trying to assist Maximilian who was a foreign occupier.

Oh and there's hardly any French characters. When the Southerners rock up the French have lost to the Mexicans, who are the baddies. Oh I guess there's some French baddies ish at the end who the Americans need to beat but since we don't really know any of them it doesn't mean anything.

There's a vaguely progressive subplot about Hudson's daughter being flirted with by Wayne's adopted son, a Cherokee, who the Southerners don't like - but even this isn't developed well. Nor is the romance between Wayne and Hudson's sister in law. It's a really undramatic, unexciting screenplay.

Director Andrew McLaglen doesn't cover himself in glory either. There's a few sequences where he seems to be trying to be John Ford, which Ford would've done well - like a 4th of July BBQ which ends in a brawl - but he can't pull it off. There is the occasional interesting visual flourish like watching Mexicans execute the French, and the support cast has some interesting names, like John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jnr.

This storyline deserved much better treatment.

John Gavin RIP

John Gavin RIP. Most film buffs, even casual, would've seen a movie he was in, because his credits included several classics (Psycho, Spartacus, Imitation of Life) and some movies that were always on TV (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Tammy Tell Me True) Most film buffs, even casual, probably forgot he was in those movies, because he was always so bland and tended to blend into the furniture (Hitchcock called him "the wooden Indian).

I have an affection for him because I once wrote a short play about he and George Lazenby set during the time Gavin was going to play James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever (I say this to explain why I weirdly know so much about him...).

He was a Ken Doll more than an actor but he made a lot of movies, had a really interesting life (President of SAG, Ambassador to Mexico, a successful businessman, married to Constance Towers), and I love the fact he went completely bald.

So in honour of this backup Rock Hudson, a John Gavin top ten:

1) A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) - a forgotten film despite being directed by Douglas Sirk and from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque... no one seems to like it, then or now, and is never gets mentioned today, even by Sirk fans... it's like it barely existed... Gavin had the lead.. yes, it was sympathetic to the Germans but so was The Young Lions, but that had Brando and Clift and A Time to Love had Gavin... he was cast because he looked a bit like Rock Hudson and Universal figured Lew Ayres didn't have much experience when he was in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)... this didn't turn out as well

2) Imitation of Life (1959) - much loved melodrama which is surprisingly complex - Gavin is adequate as the romantic stakes, but out-acted by everyone

3)Spartacus (1960) - Gavin plays Julius Caesar - he mainly hangs around the film and has a sauna with Charles Laughton which presumably made Laughton's day... I am surprised Gavin didn't make more Ancient World spectacles, he had the right sort of "marble" look

4)Psycho (1960) - Hitchcock famously cast Gavin saying "I guess he'll do" (he was cheap) - he's actually not too bad and the film of course is amazing (he plays Janet Leigh's lover who tackles Tony Perkins at the end... still can't picture him, right?)

5) Midnight Lace (1960) - enjoyable woman-in-peril film with Doris Day haunted by a creepy voice (the script is co written by Aussie Ivan Goff)... Gavin battles gamely against his attempt at a British accent and his abilities when he has to demonstrate PTSD - his hair is fantastic, though

6) Breath of Scandal (1961) - Gavin, I'm not kidding, is better than both Maurice Chevalier and Sophia Loren in this film, mostly because they are so disastrously miscast... the film is awful

7) Tammy Tell Me True (1962) - much of Gavin's career was as a prop for leading ladies - here is was Sandra Dee, with whom he made several films, and had no chemistry - it's a sweet, dim movie though

8) Pedro Paramo (1967) - disclosure: I've never seen this film though apparently the novel on which it is based is famous - it's a Mexican film, in Spanish (Gavin was fluent) - and good on him for doing it, I genuinely hope it's good

9) Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) - Gavin livens up a little in a fun, if overlong musical

10) Pussycat Pussycat I Love You (1970) - a sequel to What's Up Pussycat without Woody Allen, Peter O'Toole or pretty much anyone connected to the first film and most people forgot existed. It does have Gavin and he's the best thing about it. (Very small praise). Ian MacShane plays the lead.

A special John Gavin "what if" for history... what if Sean Connery had not changed his mind about Diamonds Are Forever, and Gavin played the role...

oh and musical fans might get a kick out of the fact he was in the original production of "Seesaw" directed by Michael Bennett...

Book review - "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson" By Robert Hofler (2005)

Entertaining, gossipy look at the life, loves and career of legendary agent Henry Willson, best known for discovering Rock Hudson and a bunch of similar pretty boy actors - Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun, Race Gentry,  Chad Everett, John Saxon, John Gavin, George Nader, Robert Wagner, Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue. He also had some female clients - Natalie Wood, Lana Turner, Rhonda Fleming - but he was best known for the boys, some of whom Willson slept with.

He got a reputation as a major Hollywood predator, which hurt him in the long run - actors associated with him would deny the association, he struggled to get new talent. Eventually Hudson dropped him as his agent in 1966 and Willson's career never recovered. He lost all his money (he was a prodigious spender), had poor health (he was an alcoholic) and died broke and alone (he seems to have never had a long term romantic relationship).

The book focuses heavily on Hudson, who was Willson's great achievement - and the agent could lay claim to Hudson being his achievement, he really championed him, and he became the biggest star in the country. There are also long entries on Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun, both of whom apparently Willson slept with, and who represented the twin desires of Willson.

Being gossip heavy the book emphasises the personal life - at times it seems Willson mostly went out seducing men and partying and Hudson just had sex. Occasionally I felt the book was a little unfair to Hudson, who was an engaging, likeable presence on screen - he had warmth which made him a bigger star than many of his contemporaries (eg Jeff Chandler) - whereas this book makes it seem like he slept his way to the top. (He had an affair with Ed Muhl of Universal!!!)

Also it can be a depressing and wearying book - all that predatory sex, straight men allowing themselves to be used for their career, alcohol addiction. It's not always a fun and breezy read.

Still, Willson had a definite place in Hollywood history and deserved a book.

Movie review "Tomahawk" (1951) *** (warning: spoilers)

A bit of a surprise - I didn't know much about this Western, it doesn't have a great rep, but it was intelligent and different. Its very much from the post Broken Arrow school of liberal Hollywood westerns with Van Heflin - offbeat but effective casting - as Jim Bridger, a real life Indian scout, trying hard to prevent war between Sioux and whites.

The real villain in this is Alex Nicol, an ambitious cavalry scout who hero worships Chivington and was part of the famed Sandy Creek Massacre quite bloodily described here (Heflin's Indian wife and child were killed in it). He and other gung go whites are clearly the baddies and the Sioux quite sympathetic - though not terribly personalised. Indeed it's so anti-picking-on-the-Indians (talking about all the treaties the white man has broken I wondered if the writers were blacklisted).

It's not heavy on action - battle scenes are threatened more than delivered. However there is a strong sense of tension because violence is always threatened. And the ending is a genuine surprise - the whites fight off the Indians, but only due to superior technology... and the result it the fort gets knocked down so its a tactical victory for Red Cloud.

Heflin's nervy intensity suits the role - as does his craggy, tormented face. Yvonne de Carlo is wasted as "the girl" - a girl keen on Heflin. Her part could've been cut out of the movie - something you couldn't often claim for de Carlo in her heyday. There's good support from people like Preston Foster and Jack Oakie - Rock Hudson is it in too, briefly.

Movie review - "Sea Devils" (1953) ***

This film gets a bad rap but I've always really enjoyed it. It's got pace, action, colour, historical background and two ideally cast stars in Rock Hudson and Yvonne de Carlo - both very suited for this kind of thing.

Borden Chase's story was supposedly based on Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea but I'm not sure how faithful it is. Chase does a good job, throwing us straight into the action - Hudson is a British smuggler in the Napoleonic Wars, who gets involved transporting Yvonne de Carlo back and forth across the channel. He thinks de Carlo is an aristocrat, then a French spy - in fact she's a British spy.

There's a pleasing amount of double crosses and misunderstandings, and de Carlo gets to be active, which suited her - she was less effective in roles where she just hung out and watched the hero. The baddies are smart; the supporting cast earn their keep as characters - de Carlo's untrustworthy boss, a suspicious French novel, a ruthless French spy, a double crossing British smuggler.

Bryan Forbes is irritating as Hudson's sidekick - I think he made a good move going into writing and directing. Maxwell Reed is better as the villainous fellow smuggler who pops in the second half; Reed wasn't a great actor either but his glowering looks were better suited to villains than heroes.

Location filming in England and France helps, so does Raoul Walsh's brisk handling. It's one of the best movies from RKO in the 1950s (admittedly not high praise).