Movie review - "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962) **1/2

 Interesting. A famously tricky production - Larry harvey was annoyed, Edwardy Dmytryk really didn't have control, producer Charles Feldman putting his oar in, script changing a lot, Capucine trying a drama role, Jane Fonda super inexperienced, Barbara Stanwyck playing a pioneering screen lesbian.

Script feels endlessly rewritten. Scenes upon scenes.  Basically Harvey wants Capucine back. Capucine is an artist working at a brothel. Dmyrtyk complained about the sleeze Feldman wanted to put in - I think it needed more! Not sure Dmytryk was the right director - needed someone who could do sexually charged material, like Elia Kazan or Joe Mankiewicz.

Capucine is fine, as is Harvey - I thought both would be worse than they are. Fonda is gorgeous but has a little just-out-of-drama-school vibes about her (I'm acting! Look at me act!).

Great music, photography, Saul Bass title credits. 

Book review - "Zeppo the Reluctant Marx Brother" by Robert Bader

 Fascinating, exhaustively researched biography of a famous punch line name. Zeppo didn't want to be in the group but was forced after Gummo (who also didn't want to be in it) left to join the army. A straight man who was not hot enough to be a romantic lead (or a strong enough singer) he kind of hang around though his presence is part of the film's fun.

He was very smart, ruthless, hung out with gangsters his whole life, was a successful gambler, great card player, could charm, ran a successful agency (Barbara Stanwyck was a client and good friend of his wife), then bizarrely a successful factory plant in World War Two, and made profits from Safeway. Always had plenty of money but was skilled at stashing it so sometimes Groucho thought he was poor. Compulsive womaniser, he would occasionally beat women. His wife adopted two children and he was a terrible father (basically shipped them off and ignored them). He was also step dad to his second wife's kid and wasn't that great with him. Cuckoled by Frank Sinatra.

A genuinely unpleasant person. Fascinating book.

Movie review - "The Bride Wore Boots" (1946) **

 A comedy of remarriage that shoud've been a romantic comedy. Because they split up for dumb reasons so I didn't care, and it's so contrived keeping them apart. It's a dumb script.

The set up would've worked as a rom com. Barbara Stanwyck is a horsey outdoorsy woman who falls for booking Robert Cummings who writes about the Civil War. Both can play comed and would be ideal casting - Stanwyck looks physical Cummings can play nerds. But this central conflict isn't dramatised. It's mostly Cummings having literary groupies particularly Diana Lynn who tries to kiss him all the time and Stanwyck eventually sues for divorce. It makes everyone an idiot. Break them up for a solid reason. I mean they've got two kids one of whom is Natalie Wood.

Classy cast includes Robert Benchley, Willie Best. Patrick Knowles is dull as a rival for Stanwyck.

Movie review - “Sorry Wrong Number” (1948) ***1/2

The original radio play is a pretty much perfect 30 minutes - how do you expand it to a feature? You could have kept it with the main lady (Barbara Stanwyck) on the phone, added more twists and turns, or you go more into the motive... which is what this film does. It fleshes out the characters of her husband (Burt Lancaster), who grows to resent his wife’s money, controlling nature and ill health. There’s also her rich dad who is a great character, and her old friend (Ann Richards) who saw Something Suspicious.

It’s not a bad mystery, with William Conrad on hand to provide menace. Richards has another thankless best friend role but get some decent screen time and a suspenseful scene where she follows her husband out to a beach.

Not as good as the play but pretty good - probably Richards' best American film.

Movie review - "Titanic" (1953) ****

Daryl Zanuck was attracted to this via its ability to use CinemaScope and the talents of Clifton Webb, who plays one of the several millionaires on the Titanic. The writers (Charles Brackett and his old Billy Wilder era collaborators Richard Breen and Walter Reisch) have given him a decent plot - he's trying to retrieve wife Barbara Stanwyck.

There's a role for other Zanuck favourites, like Robert Wagner as a young college boy (who's allowed to be heroic but still survive by cutting a rope and falling in the water), and Thelma Ritter as Molly Brown.

It's fun to see a scene where Wagner is trying to get information out of Stanwyck about the latter's daughter Audrey Dalton knowing that in real life Wagner and Stanwyck were getting it on. (She does seem very lively in the scene, as does he - it's a shame they didn't work together more). Later on she reveals to Webb she slept with some young guy on the beach, who impregnated her... this could've been a Wagner type!

Wagner is quite sweet - he sings a number and does a jig. Audrey Dalton is good as the stuck up daughter of Webb and Stanwyck. The subplot about Richard Basehart's drunken priest is a little dull. Thelma Ritter is fun as Molly Brown. Brian Ahern offers some star power as Captain Smith, ditto Edmund Purdom as Lightoller.

The last half hour is terrific with some wonderful moments like Webb's son, rejected by Webb previously, giving up his seat to go and die with his father.

I think this was a solid success rather than a big hit - because of its cost, I wonder if Fox made a profit on it - but it's one of the finest movies Webb made at Fox, not to mention Brackett.

Movie review - "The Lady Eve" (1941) ****

 Perhaps this is a little over rated.There's not a lot of farce. It's mostly a sexy romance with conwoman Babara Stanwyck trying to get millionaire Henry Fonda and falling for him, then getting revenge when he discovers the truth.

I expected more to be done with Charles Coburn - he should have turned against Stanwyck or something.

But as a star vehicle this is first rate. The two leads seem to be having the time of their lives and there is genuine erotic charge. Maybe because Stanwyck has clearly been around and is active in her pursuit.

With the wrong stars though this would sink.

Movie review - "Cry Wolf" (1947) *** (warning: spoilers) (re-viewing)

A version of Jane Eyre - with Barbara Stanwyck as Jane and Errol Flynn as Rochester and Richard Basehart as the mad woman and Geraldine Brooks as the daughter. I mean that's an exaggeration but the structure is similar - Stanwyck meets Flynn, says she was married to his late brother, he's hiding a secret... which is insanity.

This is a fun movie. It's not very well directed - someone like Robert Siodmak would have really amped up the tension. You want creepy corridors and spooky angles... and it's there in theory just not done very well.

Also Stanwyck is far too sensible and strong. I get the appeal of having a powerful female lead but someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown would have given it more tension.

Flynn is an ideal Rochester. Brooks is excellent going nutty as is Basehart. The film could have used a creepy servant or two.

Script review - "Double Indemnity" by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

I think I resented this movie when I first saw it because all these critics insisted it was a masterpiece, but it actually really is very good. It divides into four sequences: set up, the murder, fall out of murder, and the pressure coming in.

It's clear Neff isn't so attracted by Phyllis - though he does find her attractive - but by the desire to pull off the caper, and outsmart his boss, Keyes. The Neff-Keyes relationship is the heart of it. It's not too shocking that Phyllis is dodgy - she suggests killing her husband early on, and doesn't really do that much bad stuff to Neff (she insists they still make the insurance claim, she sees the Italian guy on the side... so what? Neff sees Louisa). But Neff genuinely betrays Keyes, who believes in him - offering him a job, but also defending him to his bosses. And the last scene is between Neff and Keyes.

Keyes has the best dialogue too - flowery, but rich and imaginative. The story is well structured, with good suspense moments (eg Keyes visiting Neff when Phyllis is there, the drunk man appearing at the train carriage). I will say though that it was a very convoluted murder plan - killing someone in a car (in a way to make it look like an accident too... was it choking? A head injury? Wouldn't those things show up?)

Book review - "Robert Taylor" by Charles Tranberg (2014)

Was there a luckier film star than Robert Taylor? No overwhelming passion to be an actor, or even famous, or show off - he just sorted of ambled along through life, growing up in Nebraska, going to college in California. He was a good looking guy, so they cast him in college plays, where he was spotted by MGM because he was a good looking guy. Then the studio signed him and cast him in some things, because he was a good looking guy, and his parts got bigger and he became a star very quickly. And despite basically getting all this way because he was good looking he stayed a star for 25 years.

Okay that's not entirely fair - he knew he was lucky, and worked very very hard, kept his head down, was conscientious and never phoned it in. He listened to his directors and found the perfect studio home in MGM, where he was happy for Leo B. Mayer to boss him around - and later on he got along well with Dore Schary. He had a good speaking voice, the benefit of a star marriage to the elder Barbara Stanwyck, and was comfortable co-starring against the big female names of the time (this is harder than it sounds - and also helped Fred MacMurray become a name). 

His career was managed well - pretty boy leading man parts in the mid 30s, tales of cocky kids who get redemption a la Tom Cruise in the late 30s, Westerns and war flicks in the 40s, film noir in the late 40s, costume blockbusters and Westerns in the 1950s (where he received an unexpected boost as a swashbuckling star). Stardom eventually faded but the decline was gradual - lesser budgets, a TV series, Disney, European thrillers. He died while still being highly employable.

There's a lot of genuinely good films on Taylor's resume: Camille, A Yank at Oxford, The Crowd Roars, Waterloo Bridge, The Bribe, Undercurrent, Bataan, Quo Vadis, Rio Valdez. To be frank, all these parts could have been played better by other stars at the time - he was from the Golden Age but remained a second rate star. (His 50s swashbuckers especially all seemed as though they should have had Stewart Granger in them instead.) Still, the length and bredth of his career demands serious appraisal and Tranberg does a good job. There is solid research and plenty of sympathy.

Taylor comes out of it well - a solid, decent stick, if a bit dull; an old school Republican, which meant he was a dick during the McCarthy era, where he named names, but he also served his country during the war; he enjoyed hunting, fishing and flying, disliked hippies, became Ronald Reagan's best friend towards the end of his life; he enjoyed a happy second marriage to a woman who wanted to stay at home and raise kids (if not her kids to a first marriage - one of whom killed himself shortly before Taylor's death of smoking-induced cancer). Definitely worth a read, especially if you're a fan of golden era Hollywood.

Movie review - "Forty Guns" (1957) ***1/2

Not one of Sam Fuller's more famous movies but I really liked it - full of interesting touches a visuals. Barbra Stanwyck was born to act in a Fuller film - all blazing guns, toughness and sex. And she's not punished for it in the end, either!

Fuller really flexes his directorial muscles here, with great tracking shots, POVs of guns, thundering action sequences (Joseph Biroc was DOP); there are songs, suicide, torment and comedy; it's also very sexy, with a female gunsmith who gets seduced with guns. I did get the actors who played the brothers confused. But great, full on fun.

Movie review - "Ball of Fire" (1941) ***

A bright central idea - nightclub singer Barbara Stanwyck hides out from the cops to protect her gangster boyfriend with some nerdy professors who are writing an encyclopaedia - isn't executed the best. It might have been stronger if the gangster was after Stanwyck but it provides sufficient fish out of water. Stanwyck memorably shows off her splendid legs in one scene. Gary Cooper is the hunky professor whose sex appeal is exploited by the other professors to keep their backer in line. Of course he gets a scene where he feels betrayed and goes into a sulk (this seems to turn up in most Cooper films) but he recovers to get to the rescue.

Some bright lines - the script was written by Billy Wilder and you can see his love/fascination for American slang. A sexy scene in the dark between Stanwyck and Cooper, Stanwyck's hair is very high in a way that reminds me of my grandmother, Gene Kupra does a drum solo, the running time probably goes for too long, the support cast is excellent.

Movie review - "California" (1947) **

Ray Milland isn't one of the first actors you think of as a Western star, but after World War Two all males had to appear on them. He's never quite comfortable in a part that cries out for John Wayne or at least Alan Ladd (who was cast but turned it down over money) - as a tough trail guide with a past leading a group to California, just at the beginning of the Gold Rush.

A lot of this is very familiar: there's a woman with a shady past (Barbara Stanwyck, too old really), a comic but decent Irishman (Barry Fitzgerald). There are some strong anti-slavery sentiments (although the film of course is free of any black people), the villain (George Colouris) has a decent goal (to make California an independent country) and a great characterisation (he's a former slaver tormented by the horrors he's done and is genuinely in love with Stanwyck).

Colouris is the best thing about the film, which has a surprising lack of action, a very pretentious introductory sequence talking about California, and some pretty technicolour photography. It doesn't feel historically accurate and none of the ingredients or the story quite gel. Anthony Quinn pops up in support.

Movie review – “Night Nurse” (1931) ***

Pre-code fun with Barbra Stanwyck as a party loving nurse who nonetheless has a good soul – so while she romances a bootlegger (he’s a nice bootlegger selling good quality booze, but he’s still a gangster), likes a drink and party, and gets changed into her clothes on screen possibly more times than any other character in the 30s, she helps bust a bad doctor and saves two kids who are being poisoned by their mother’s treacherous lover (Clarke Gable!!). 

 

Joan Blondell is perfect as the nurse who is Stanwyck’s wisecracking best friend (she’s always getting changed too) and Ben Lyon is the bootlegger (who arranges for Gable/s murder at the end… and isn’t punished). Some funny dialogue and a bitsy plot.

Movie review – “Baby Face” (1933) ***1/2

“You must use men not let them use you… be strong… exploit yourself…. Use men to get the things you want”. These words are said by an old man (quoting Nietzsche) to inspire Barbra Stanwyck, young and beautiful but old beyond her years already, to go make money.

It’s a remarkable scene in an amazing film – amazing mostly because it’s 1933 and Stanwyck sleeps with four guys within the first twenty five minutes: a guy she wants to persuade not report her for riding a train; an old guy at work; her boss; the father of her boss’ fiancé. Later on she finds true love courtesy of George Brent, but she originally only marries him for his money.

 

She drives him to suicide (she drivers another lover to suicide and murder) when she won’t lend him money that she’s gathered over the years – fair enough says I – he’s not a good shot though so there’s a chance he’ll live on, with Barbra having realised that money isn’t anything. That’s not really punishment for her sins – a year or two later and she’d have to be killed or wind up in prison; here she winds up rich, albeit with possibly dead husband.

There are other good things about this film apart from it’s pre Code attitudes to sex – Stanwyck gives a strong performance, John Wayne makes an early appearance (as a co-worker of Stanwyck’s – one of the few guys she knocks back), Stanwyck has a relationship with a black friend which has an easier camaraderie than we normally saw (although said friend still only becomes a maid when Stanwyck makes it), the acting is solid and the handling brisk, it doesn’t go for much longer than 70 minutes. It is a bit repetitive (another guy, another suicide).

Movie review – Elvis#16 - “Roustabout” (1964) **1/2

You get the feeling they wanted to throw back to old tough Elvis but lost courage – for a change, he’s not just out of the army but is a snarling chip-on-shoulder type, like he played in the late 50s. (He even wears black leather – years before the comeback special!) He sings a song making fun of ivy league colleges and winds up working at a carnival.

The most interesting things about this are the setting and the support cast (including Barbara Stanwyck and Leif Erickson, plus Raquel Welch and Richard Kiel in small roles). The songs aren’t great and Elvis not very likeable.

Radio review - Lux – “Double Indemnity” (1950) ****

The classic noir makes a very strong radio production, helped with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck reprising their roles (Bill Conrad takes over from Edward G Robinson). Good dialogue, solid twists. Is it just me or do MacMurray and Stanwyck have a go at each other at the end during the final chat?

Radio review – Command Performance with Errol Flynn (1944) **1/2

A half hour variety show for the troops, a 1944 version of Rove Live. Special guest host is Barbara Stanwyck and she performs for a crowd of WAVs. Errol Flynn is special guest star – he sings (pretty well) and takes place in a fun sketch where he washes up on an all-women ship and is the object of the captain’s lust. June Allyson, Dick Haymes and Linda Darnell help out. Good fun and a fascinating time capsule.

Radio review – Lux Theatre#153 – “These Three” (1937) ***

The expression “soap” came from the many soap companies who sponsored serial dramas. Lux aimed a bit higher than the soapies, sponsoring this famous anthology of film adaptations (it later did so on television as well). It was hosted by Cecil B de Mille, helping him becoming one of the most famous directors of all pre-auteur theory.

This is an adaptation of the 1936 Goldwyn/Wyler movie which was in turn adapted from Lillian Hellman’s play. Famously the lesbian angle was removed, but the story still works because it is based on one of the great archetypal situations – namely a horrid little girl spreading a vicious rumour which is believed by everyone and ends up destroying lives.

The cast here is different from the movie, but is so high quality they could have easily played the roles: Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Astor and Errol Flynn. All three are strong; this was the first radio role of Errol’s I’d heard him play (he featured in a number of them) and he’s very strong – he had a beautiful, strong voice which made him ideal for radio, even if it’s a nothing part, just the handsome male lead. (NB de Mille introduces him as being from Ireland, and in an interview at the end Errol refers to watching movies when growing up in Dublin – even in 1937 he was pretending to be Irish!)

The three leads are outshone however by the girl who plays the little girl that goes hysterical – although three hysterical breakdown scenes might be too many (the director probably discovered the actor could do it really well and thought “hey let’s get them doing it again”).

Book review – “Pieces of My Heart” by Robert Wagner

It is fitting that Robert Wagner’s memoirs came out around the same time as Roger Moore’s because they are two actors with a lot in common: smooth types who are greatly liked and respected within the industry, don’t enjoy reputation as great actors, thrived under contract for studios, had active love lives, had a career which went into several phases, enjoyed great success on the small screen, turned producer and thrived. Wagner never had a role in his career like James Bond or Simon Templar (although he could have played either role; indeed he says Broccoli approached him about Bond in the immediate post-Lazenby years but he begged off), but he was a bigger star than Moore in the 50s. The two men were friends – both close to David Niven.

This is even better than Moore’s book, not as funny but far better written (Scott Eyman co-wrote). I was familiar with a fair bit of Wagner’s life from an excellent unpretentious paperback bio Natalie and Rj but this adds a lot.

Wagner was born into a wealthy family who lived in Bel Air – his father was mates with Bill Wellman and he used to caddy for Clark Gable. Although Dad wanted RJ (as he is best known) to go into the family business, he wanted to act. Wagner wasn’t blessed with great natural talent but he was very good looking and Fox put him under contract as a sort of back up to Tyrone Power (like Jeffrey Hunter). Like David Niven, he had a great knack for being likeable and getting people to take him under their wing; he worked hard and was very keen and pro-active – he wasn’t his father’s son for nothing – and started to get little roles. A small scene as a soldier in With a Song in My Heart saw him become a bobby sox idol, up there with Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Rory Calhoun. Like many of them, his agent was Henry Wilson.

Wagner never reached the heights of Curtis or Hudson but he did reasonably well for himself. Fox gave him plenty of chances, and he definitely reached the second tier of stardom, playing juvenile leads to older stars in films like Broken Lance. But he never broke through to the top, even when given a chance. For instance Prince Valiant did well but Wagner had a tremendously silly haircut which made him something of a joke for a while; ditto Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, which became a hit off the back of CinemaScope but in which Wagner wore a golliwog wig; or in The Mountain in which he was absurdly cast as Spencer Tracy’s brother. 

Marriage to Natalie Wood gave him a few more years near the top, but when the tide ran out it ran out fast. It wasn’t entirely his fault – Hollywood was changing and Wagner was too associated with old school Hollywood. This turned to his advantage, however, when he became a television star. There were two semi hits, then a big one with Hart to Hart. His remarriage to Wood was one of Hollywood’s greatest love stories; her death from drowning one of its greatest tragedies.

I always figured Wagner was a ladies’ man, but also thought that he was the kind who wouldn’t kiss and tell. Well, I was wrong: we hear about flings with Joan Crawford (they went for a swim – she came out naked and dived into the pool which is kind of hot; apparently she was a domineering and yielding lover), Yvonne de Carlo, Anita Ekberg, Elizabeth Taylor (which surprised me), Joan Collins, chaste dating with Debbie Reynolds, plus a four year relationship with Barbara Stanwyck (a fire cracker in the sack apparently). He knocked back Bella Darvi and Noel Coward (he seems to have had many gay friends throughout his life – but then Natalie Wood was a big time fag hag star).

Wagner is one of those stars who seem to get along with everyone – he was particularly close to David Niven and Spencer Tracy; he even hit it off with Peter Sellers. Errol Flynn gave him a lift when he was a hitchhiker, which is nice of Errol; he later tells about walking in on Errol’s dressing room during the filming of Too Much Too Soon to find the swashbuckler getting a blow job from a blonde – Beverly Aadland?

Wagner was going to make a film with Flynn, Clifton Webb and Joan Collins in the late 50s for Fox called Lord Vanity (off the back of Flynn’s success for Fox in The Sun Also Rises) but Flynn died before it could get going. He was also going to make an interesting-sounded project with Dick Powell, Solo, about a jazz musician with a score by Andre Previn that was unfortunately watered down then cancelled; he turned down the second male lead in Flaming Star for fear it would hurt his career – I think that was a mistake; admittedly the film wouldn’t have done anything for his career, but it was a decent role and is one of Elvis Presley’s best films. He says Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was “dangled in front of him” for a bit – he would have been fine if not magical; he would have been very good as the husband in Rosemary’s Baby which he was apparently all set to do but he couldn’t get released from It Takes a Thief.

Wagner did clash with some people – Frank Tashlin, Maximillian Schell, Lesley Anne Downe, Stanley Donen… actually come to think of it that's a lot (I didn't know Charlie Brackett was gay.) Wagner also gets a bit grumpy at times about things – law suits, the population explosion in LA – and while he tells a good anecdote, he’s maybe a bit too worshipful of older Hollywood stars (maybe because they were his elders rather than his contemporaries eg Spencer Tracey, Fred Astaire, Bette Davis – I mean, what’s there is enjoyable anecdotes but the characters never feel as fleshed out as say in David Niven’s memoirs; it feels as though Wagner is overly deferential). Still a highly enjoyable book; at times very moving, and full of sensible advice for actors, both in terms of craft and career.

Movie review – “Cry Wolf” (1947) *** (warning: spoilers)

An old dark house mystery with Errol Flynn in the Rochester-type role as a brooding aloof man mourning the death of his brother… when he’s surprised by the arrival of said brother’s widow (Barbra Stanwyck). There are spooky sounds coming from the lab, creepy servants, and Errol is trying to bust up the relationship involving his sister (Geraldine Brooks) and her boyfriend.

Structurally maybe the film needed an opening sequence where Stanwyck is shown to be courting the dead brother, just to establish her bona fides (though Babs is so straight up and down you tend to believe her straight away). And definitely the end is a bit of a damp squib. Not the story, the story’s great – hereditary insanity always works (Jane Eyre, The Old Dark House, the movie adaptation of King’s Row) – but the treatment here is a bit flat; it felt as though it needed something spectacular – thunder and lightning and a spiral staircase, or the building on fire or something. And why does Errol stand back passively holding Babs why a bit part actor does the heroic fighting of the baddie? This stops it from reaching the top rank, but I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Babs is very likeable and sensible; a weaker actor (or character), though, may have added to the tension eg Joan Fontaine in Rebecca. Errol is very effective in an atypical role – slightly aloof, cold, rather in the manner of his Soames in That Forsyte Woman. This was “a Thomson Production” – meaning it was made through Errol Flynn’s company.