Movie review - "Miss Tatlock's Millions" (1948) **

 There was a time Paramount really thought John Lund was going to be the next big thing - he starred in four Charles Brackett productions,of which this was number three.

It's a comedy where Lund is a stuntman (leading to an opening film sequence with cameos from Ray Milland and Mitchell Leisen - as in Hold Back the Dawn) who is hired by Barry Fitzgerald (not in a big role) to play the odd son of a rich family.  "Odd" as in mentally disabled and Lund spends slabs of running time with glasses and a slack jawed expression playing a Jerry Lewis character - stuff that has to be seen to be believed.  Lund was fine holding a hat and propping up a woman but called on to be "funny" he collapsed in a heap, as shown in My Friend Irma. 

The basic story of this is fine - impersonate a rich person to get money, clash with greedy relatives (including Monty Woolley and Robert Stack, here in a support role)... fall in love with your "sister" so you are torn. (Branded did a serious Western version of the story with Alan Ladd).

But it's so unfunny. Lund hasn't got the star charisma to pull this off. Watching him impersonate people isn't funny. Wanda Hendrix is pretty enough but there's no heat between her and Lund. Fitzgerald and Wolley pop in and out but there's no sense of tension, accumulating gags. Lund plays a character who is a dill sometimes, normal others.

Richard Haydn directed and plays a role. Charles Brackett wrote it with Richard Breen and produced. It's dull, not fun. It made some money - was a minor hit and profitable according to Brackett's diaries (I guess it mostly takes place in a house with B quality talent.)

Movie review - "Lightyear" (2022) ****

 Great fun. Clever, with heart (I teared up at the time jump stuff), some twists. I wonder what happened to the rookie with the sad eyes - that was set up for a plot that's not paid off. Everything else is. Not an origin story so much as the story of the movie that inspired the toy in Toy Story. Some exciting action sequences. Funny cat - which is admittedly used a lot to get the writers out of tight corners.

Movie review - "Garden of Evil" (1954) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Not a very well known Western but it has virtues - CinemaScope photography is expertly used amongst some mountain vistas, there's decent star power with Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward and Richard Widmark, plus Cameron Mitchell as "sidekick turned rapist" and Hugh Marlow, it's set in Mexico near the coast. It's full of interesting bits. The story has elements of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bernard Herrmann wrote the score.

I should've liked this more. The story is interesting in pitch - woman lures men into desert to find husband and gold. I think the woman was meant to be a femme fetale and logically she should die - she's responsible for Marlowe being crippled and Widmark giving up her life - but she's allowed to live and go off with Cooper. Cooper looks old and emaciated, as if he's dying. Hayward is competent but forced to be too restrained. She needed to be full vixen. Widmark is okay when given the chance - he often isn't given that chance. Mitchell's rapist cowboy is stock. He tries to attack Hayward, Cooper goes "bad boy" then scolds Hayward for leading him on.

A good movie in here struggling to get out though not without interest, especially for fans of the stars.

Movie review - "D Day the 6th of June" (1956) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Fox had a big hit telling the story of D Day in The Longest Day - this is more a romantic drama bookended by the D-Day attack. 

Robert Taylor and Richard Todd are soldiers taking part in the invasion. Taylor loves Dana Wynter. They're not much of a couple. He's married, she's posh, her dad is John Williams. Taylor liked this because it was reminiscent of Waterloo Bridge but that had more point because she was a streetwalker. It's really hard to care. Wynter is sort of with Richard Todd (barely in the film) who goes off and vanishes for a few years, she starts a fling with married Taylor, whose wife we never see, then Todd comes back injured and he's all noble about it, Wynter's dad kills himself out of feeling useless, then D Day happens and Taylor is injured and Todd walks on a mine and dies, and then back in England Wynter doesn't tell Taylor Todd has died so Taylor can go back to his wife. I think that's meant to be noble but it's hard to care. All the sympathy goes to Todd, who is brave, does a lot of fighting and dies.

Wynter is very beautiful and classy, Taylor is craggy handsome sucking down those ciggies. Edmond O'Brien is blustering and chubby as an officer who blabs about D Day to a journo and is traumatised by the Dieppe Raid (this was based on a book by a Canadian, apparently)... who is more interesting than any of the leads.

It's a weird movie, never seems to quite get it's tone right. Todd and Taylor should have been friends, Wynter and Todd should've been married. For a film with a high death toll set in wartime made by veterans there's little life to it.

Movie review - "The Gift of Love" (1958) **

 One of those films I don't think anyone remembers - except maybe completists for Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, director Jean Negulesco, and producer Charles Brackett. It's a remake of Sentimental Journey which was a hit in 1946 - very reassuring tale of living on after death which would have had resonance during the war. Maybe not so much in 1958, or it could've been the handling and stars.

This has Lauren Bacall and Robert Stack, who'd just been a hit together in Written on the Wind - but that film was stolen by Dorothy Malone and had Rock Hudson, who has a lot warmer screen presence. It's hard to care too much how Robert Stack fares after the death of Bacall.

Look, I've got a seven year old daughter so I got into this and the kid isn't bad. It's touching how she's determined to find a home and keeps getting rejected by families at the orphanage - and has a big imagination and doesn't get along well with science-y Stack. That's all fine.

It's just kind of pointless. Annoying theme tune.

Has that handsome late 50s Fox look. Like a lot of Brackett productions it's done with taste and care and is dull. Maybe with different stars... Hmm. No don't think that was it, either.

Movie review - "Niagara" (1953) **** (warning: spoilers)

 One of the best films Charles Brackett ever made - watching his post-Billy Wilder output I think he benefited from working on tougher, pulpier material where his good taste and class elevated things, as opposed to comedy, where it dragged the material down.

This uses CinemaScope for good instead of evil - the Niagara falls setting works a treat and the photography is spectacular. Marilyn Monroe has star power to burn even if it is to see her play a bad girl (a rare lead where this was the case - her first two leads for Fox were bad girls, this and Don't Bother to Knock).

There's some terrific dialogue - "to wear a dress like that you've got to start laying plans when you're right" - and a decent story, plus Monroe's charisma, excellent work from Joseph Cotten as the traumatised sap married to Monroe, and Jean Peters and Casey Adams very engaging as a normal couple on honeymoon at Niagara.

The film does lose a bit of steam in the last half hour, after Monroe's character is killed.

Movie review - "The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker" (1959) **

 Example of the Buddy Alder regime at Fox: contract stars, contract support, contract talent, glossy photography and CinemaScope, underwhelming box office, popular source material (hit play). It was produced by Charles Brackett, directed by Henry Levin and written by Walter Reisch - all of whom teamed far more successfully on Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

The star was Clifton Webb. He'd played a family man a few times, including Cheaper by the Dozen which I think they aped here and also Holiday for Lovers which was also directed by Levin and had Jill St John (that may have been shot afterwards I'm not sure). Dorothy McGuire is Webb's wife. Neither seem that engaged by the material. I didn't buy Webb fathering all those kids. Burgess Meredith played the part on Broadway - maybe that worked.

Jill St John and Ron Ely are ingenues. Webb's kids include David Nelson, Ray Stricklyn and Joan Freeman.

It's all so nice. McGuire is a bit shocked that Webb had another family but gets over it. So do the kids. So do everyone. There's no second wife alive (she's dead) which would have given the piece some kick. I couldn't tell any of the kids apart - Jill St John wanted to get married, David Nelson hung around. There was some squabbling.

It didn't work. Looks great. Beautiful photography and sets. It's in the 1890s - for me a period that never comes alive. Too much art department or something.

Henry Levin once wrote this interesting account of working with Clifton Webb - it's here.