Movie review - "The King and I" (1956) ***

 It's definitely a movie but it feels like a stage play - the construction, the staging, the gags. You can hear the pauses for laughs, the moments that would've worked well. Shots are set up with mid body two handers to enable the stars to do their thing.

What a down-home hit: feisty female lead, strong male opposite her, urst for the 1950s ("ooh he's got so many kids and is shirtless I can dance with him but not have sex with him because he's coloured but he still adores me" ), lots of cute kids, some sappy romance among young lovers, king expiring on stage. It scolds imperialism but still pushes the superiority of the West. Like a lot of Rogers and Hammerstein it has a plot where a woman comes along to a man of power and goes "your household is a mess here let me fix it" (South Pacific, Sound of Music). Presumably that's why they were so popular.

The art direction and colour is glorious as is the CinemaScope photography. Deborah Kerr is fine, her kid is hideous and Yul Brynner is magnificent as the King. Rita Moreno is very good as the wife in love with another guy (the actor who plays him isn't as crash hot).

I enjoyed this a lot to start off but it went on too long. Plenty to admire. Nice songs just too many of them. Brynner is perfect.

TV review - "The Only Murders in the Building" (2021) ****

 Splendid murder mystery with engaging stars, plenty of twists, a theme (finding friendship and love later in life). Still can't avoid the villain doing a convenient monologue at the end but how else to do it. The three stars are terrific together. I enjoyed the Broadway gags too.

Movie review - "The Virgin Queen" (1955) **

 Bette Davis returns to the part of Elizabeth I, this one focusing on her relationship with another handsome young lout, here Sir Walter Raleigh played by Richard Todd.

There's bright colours and set design and it all looks splendid in CinemaScope - I assume that's a big reason why Fox greenlit this project.

Dramatically it's not very interesting. The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex was stronger because it concerned a great love, built up to Essex leading a rebellion against Elizabeth and being executed..

This has less focus. It's about Walter Raleigh trying to persuade Elizabeth to finance ships and he marries Joan Collins which annoys Davis but not that much and she lets them go. The "baddies", Robert Douglas and Jay Robinson, are bad because they don't like Todd because... it's never really spelt out. I didn't care about Raleigh and Elizabeth because he was just after her cash and she was just a little egotistical but basically decent. There's no stakes.

They should've done the Mary Queen of Scots story with Davis as Elizabeth. That would've been more worthwhile. The one effective moment is when Elizabeth reveals herself to be bald. I guess when Dan O'Herlihy died.

Rod Taylor appears as a Welsh soldier delivering a message from the palace while Dan O'Herlihy is there - he passes on gossip that Collins is pregnant.

It was so hard to care. Todd and Collins were so selfish.

Henry Levin

 Talk about obscure. Hard to find anything about him.

He would routinely direct sequels, or films where he replaced the original director (at Columbia he stepped in for Charles Vidor several times - Guilt of Janet Ames and Man from Colorado).

He was raised in his parents' theatrical boarding house. Went on the stage at age two. He was a song and dance kid, playing in family burlesque. He would wear blackface and sing Jolson songs.

Levin graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. degree in economics, stage-managed for the Theatre Guild, ran a summer theater in Massachusetts and acted whenever he could.

In 1936 appeared on stage in Prelude to Exile see here.  Oct 1937 in to Quinto and Back review here.

Nov 1940 on stages in Glamour Preferred review here.

1941 stage manager for Two Storey House and acted on stage in Cuckoos on the Hearth see here.

June 1941 running Bass Rocks Theatre with Martin Manulis did production of Tovarich see here.

Dec 1942 signed to Columbia.

May 1943 signed as dialogue director at Columbia. See here

Making Where the Boys Are the cast thought Levin was keen on Dolores Hart - she admits she "got a lot of close ups".

Article on filming Aladdin is here.

Oct 1960 signed four year deal MGM see her.

Karl Malden called him "a decent craftsman totally lost with actors"... a "non director".

Movie review - "To Each His Own" (1946) ***1/2

 Expertly constructed "woman's film" that was a deserved hit and a tribute to the talent of Charles Brackett, who produced, provided the story and co wrote the script. His old Wilder-Brackett colleague Mitchell Leisen directed, very well.

Olivia de Havilland is excellent in the lead, a woman who has a child out of wedlock. Everyone loves her in this film - John Lund, a pilot who bangs her then dies, leaving her pregnant; Phillip Terry, the small town man who wants to marry her, always loves her, raises the kid, and whose wife hates her and keeps Olivia away from the kid; Bill Goodwin, a travelling salesman turned bootlegger who joins forces with Olivia making cold cream, and helps her become super rich. It's a brilliant role for Olivia, who gets to age, suffer, be poor and glamorous, love her child, be loved.

John Lund made his debut. A showy part - parts rather, he plays his own son. He has a virile presence that served to give a false image of his capabilities of a star (he could act well enough, he just wasn't a star).

Victoria Horn is nice as a no-nonsense nurse. Great last line. Brackett made some top line films away from Wilder and this is one.

Book review - "Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Imitation of Life" by Sam Staggs

 One of Staggs' growing library of works on camp classics (which doesn't mean the films can't be good). This melodrama - race, sex, singing - is beloved by cultists, with its Douglas Sirk direction and Lana Turner recovering from the family stabbing.

The structure was slightly odd -I would've preferred a more straight up chronological approach. And it felt padded in places - I don't mind a long book but a lot of it felt like stretching. There's some original scholarship, but not that much.

I did appreciate profiles of people like Ross Hunter, Douglas Sirk, John Gavin, Troy Donahue, etc.

Book review - "Flashman" by George MacDonald Fraser (1969)

 The first in the series feels different, in hindsight, to what came later - darker, more spectacular, harsher. Flashman punches Judy in the face, rapes Nareem - he would not really do either again (though he was harsh to the Cleonie in Flashman and the Redskins). He is rewarded for his transgressions with fame and wealth although is punished too - he suffers three times at the hands of Gul Shah, a terrific villain, goes through the horrific retreat from Kabul (some of Fraser's best ever writing), gets exiled to Scotland, is cuckolded by his wife (though Fraser keeps it a little ambiguous).

Fraser's writing is often inventive - he gets Flashman out of trouble with a duel, in the dungeon (quick thinking means he outsmarts a dwarf) though Flashman is rescued several times. The satire of Elphinstone and company is excellent, there is a rich galaxy of characters including Cardigan, Avitable, Wellington, Akbar Khan, McNaughton, Burnes, Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington,  etc. The action sequences, particularly the murder of Burnes and the retreat, are superb.