Jim Hutton top ten

 Can we get there? Let's see...

1) And When the Sky Was Opened (1959) - Twilight Zone so maybe cheating but I'll do it

2) Ellery Queen (1975)

3) Where the Boys Are (1960)

4) Who's Minding the Mint? (1967)

5) The Horizontal Lieutenant (1961)

6) Time to Love and a Time to die (1958)

7) Period of Adjustment (1962)

8) The Hallelujah Trail (1965)

9) The Green Berets (1968) - don't yell at me! His performance is fine

10) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

There I go - did it! I haven't seen a lot of his TV work. 

Movie review - "The Osterman Weekend" (1983) **1/2

 Sam Peckinpah's famously mediocre last movie. Dutch actor Rutger Hauer plays an all American TV host who hosts weekends for his old college friends. Then CIA agent John Hurt (a British actor) tells him that his friends are spies. The friends are played by Dennis Hopper, Chris Sarandon and Craig T Nelson.

Actually this film wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I felt it was easy to fix - they should have told the whole story through Hauer's eyes. The reveals come when he's revealed. Also more characterisation work please - I couldn't tell the difference in personality between Hopper, Sarandon and Nelson. 

Everyone had a blonde wife too - Hopper ( a sort of trashy hooker), Hauer (scary eyed Meg Foster who at least got to kill someone with a bow and arrow), Hurt (whose wife masturbates before being killed). Sarandon's wife was played by the woman who was Kris Kristofferson's sad eyed lover in Convoy.

 The action scenes are done very well. The voyeur stuff is irritating - the CIA watch everything on screens. How did they film everything? I got confused in a lot of places.

This actually should have been a character piece - dig into the notion of friendship.

But I didn't mind it. I guess my expectations were super low.

Movie review - "The First Time" (1952) ***

 Frank Tashlin's directorial debut (as a feature) is a comedy about new parents Barbara Hale and Robert Cummings. Its a series of small vignettes - waiting for the baby to come, she gives her will in case something goes wrong during the birth (not unreasonable at the time), scenes of grandmas and mid wives ripping babies out of mum's hands, struggle to get sleep, worries about finances which prompts Cummings to take a job he doesn't like.

Tashlin's vision arrived pretty formed. There's lots of his touches, like jokes about sex (Cummings collects a hooker/floozy thinking she's a baby sitter), animation references (the family watch a cartoon).

I feel a third main character would have helped more - there's a nanny but even she's a little thinly drawn.

Still this is charming and sweet.

Movie review - "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) ***

 A big deal in its day - Anna Magnani had buzz, Tennessee Williams and Burt Lancaster were stars, Daniel Mann was consideredn an exciting director.

It's not bad. Magnani is a woman whose husband dies in an accident. She whines about it. Her daughter Maria Pavan is horny for Ben Cooper. Like all these Williams' adaptations I've been watching it feels a half an hour too long. It drags. Lancaster doesn't appear until like 45 minutes in.

At first I was resistant to it and I'm not convinced it's a great movie or anything - too 1950s-adaptation-of-Broadway - but I got used to it.Lancaster is clearly trying - he's slightly amateurish but he's giving it a go, suits the part physically, and is a handsome charismastic star. Magnani Acts all over the place but she commits too. It helps a lot that the two seem into each other and like each other. This was missing in Fugitive Kind - Brando and Magnani didn't seem to care in that one.

Lots of dialogue and acting and two handers. Cooper is fine, I guess. Pavan is sweet. It's a more upbeat Williams. Happy ending and so on.

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.

Book review - "Ernie" by Ernest Borgnine

 The sort of book you'd imagine Ernest Borgnine to write - it has an "aw gee I can't believe I did it" quality. He was lucky he came along when he did. But you also make your own luck - he worked hard, took all sorts of roles, could act, could play leads and support parts. He was lucky to get Marty which put him in a new league but he never really became a star. On TV it was different. Spent something like ten years in the navy but never saw active service.

This book is hazy is some stuff, notably his love life. He had a number of divorces (including with Katy Juarando and Ethel Merman) before getting lucky with number five... a woman who became a make up tycoon.

Sam Peckinpah told him to fuck off several times, Gene Wilder was meant to play Red Buttons' role in Poseidon Adventure, he was briefly sacked on The Adventurers for giving direction to an actor, he doesn't mention Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, he said Lee Marvin referred to Jim Brown as a n*gger and had to be pulled into line by Bob Aldrich, he wanted to play the warden in Escape from New York, he calls Chuka undistinguished.

Not a great memoir, too chipper, but not bad.

Movie review - "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" (1976) **

 That's right, Robert Altman made two films with Paul Newman. This one has Burt Lancaster too. And Harvey Keitel, Will Sampson, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall.

It's long. Over two hours. Ambles. Nice visuals, production value. It ambles. Bill puts on a show. Chats. Chats with a woman in his bed. There's Indians. Sitting Bull is stoic.

It shows Bill to be a bit of a braggart and a tool. That was blamed for the film's commercial failure. I don't think it was that - I think it's because the film was dull. Altman wrote the script with Alan Rudolph but they weren't working from a particularly strong source material, I'm guessing.

I was glad it was over. The acting and photography and stuff is fine, it's just dull.

Movie review - "From Here to Eternity" (1953) ****

An iconic movie of its time - the exemplification of a 1950s blockbuster: based on a best seller, sexy but censored, all star cast, angst, war.

It's beautifully made. Lovely stars. Fred Zinnemann cast the third act, as they say: Monty Clift isn't the first actor you think of as a soldier or a boxer but he is perfect as a sensitive, self destructive rebel, who could turn things around but refuses, and is into his male friend rather than his girlfriend  - what a stunning actor and star. Donna Reed is a sort of hooker who is actually very smart and a nice person with plenty of ambition. Deborah Kerr is actually hot for a bit of sex, like Kerr was IRL apparently. Burt Lancaster is a tough professional not keen on a relationship. Frank Sinatra is, in hindsight, super ideal as a proud, cocky, angry man who refuses to back down and gets in fights when he shouldn't have.

Lots of this is moving - the defiance of Sinatra, the constant casual bullying of people in positions of power (and the formal bullying), the death of Sinatra. Some scenes such as Clift playing taps and the Pearl Harbour attack are very well done.

Movie review - "Judgement at Nuremberg" (1961) ***

 Stanley Kramer cops it from hipster critics and maybe he did believe his own publicity too much for a time, but his movies stood for decent liberal values and were important. Maybe concentration camp victims are low hanging fruit but who else was tackling this head on in Hollywood?

This one focuses on a fascinating aspect of the trials - not straight up evil Nazi commandants, but the judges who enforced the rules at the time. Among those on trial are Burt Lancaster as a German. Lancaster gives his role dignity though his make up does seem a little odd.

Presiding over it is Spencer Tracy as a super judge. Actually he's well cast - who does craggy intensity better. I didn't know William Shatner was in this, as Tracy's aide.

Montgomery Clift is electric in his one scene as a German laborer who has been sterilised. Clift's nerves, intensity and crazy eyes were never used to such good effect. He's brilliant.

Also good is Judy Garland in a short scene as a woman who denies rooting a Jew who was killed falsely for the crime of having sex with her.

Bigger roles go to Richard Widmark (prosecutor) and Maximillian Schell (the firey defendant). Both are fine. Widmark gets a drunk scene, maybe put in there to make his role more attractive (acting!). Schell gets to make some flamboyant speeches. Dietrich gets to be... female, I guess.

It goes for three hours. I don't think it needed to be that long. I kept seeing places where it could have been cut.

Some stuff really packs a punch like newreels of little kids in the camps. Other times I was like "alright, already". But an important movie.

Play review - "Come Back Little Sheba" and "Picnic" by William Inge

 Sex and loneliness in small town Kansas. Sheba is the dog that used to be owned by a middle aged lady (Lola) married to boozy doc. They both get het up about young hot things - a sexy dame and a muscular athlete she's rooting who takes his shirt off. There's a milk man who takes his shirt off - alright already Inge.

Picnic is about a hot stud who comes into town. A middle aged lady paws at him and wants him, a younger girl wants him even though he's no good. It is very well crafted and written with affection. The world is bigger than Sheba. 

Both had just the right amount of sex and empathy for the times. In Sheba the depiction of an abusive marriage is extremely well done - when Doc lets Lola have it. Picnic is also very well crafted.

Both are famed for middle age horny woman but both also have horny young women - I think this was the secret sauce to making a hit of these 50s plays.

Movie review - "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" (1959) ** (warning: spoilers)

The sh*tness of this version really gets to me. Why did it have to be so bad? I mean, I guess they tried. But it's bad.

The play was very effective. Simple. Didn't have to cost a lot. Nothing wrong with setting it in Sydney. I get they wanted things like the Harbour and Luna Park.

But they stuffed the structure. They don't set up Bubba and the boys, there's a weird middle section where Roo has a fight with the wrestler and Dowd is all forgiving. And the ending is shocking - Roo makes up with Barney and then Roo and Olive seem to reconcile. The piece loses all its power.

The acting is bad. Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth would've been great... if they didn't want to do it then surely it could have been reworked for Peter Finch who did The Shiralee with Leslie Norman. He was a good enough actor to act older.

Ernest Borgnine and John Mills can act but they just feel wrong - they never seem like mates. Anne Baxter and Angela Lansbury are also fine actors but they struggle with their accents. They seem so uncomfortable. Vincent Ball and Janette Craig aren't very good as the young ones - they're fine, but I wished at least Rod Taylor (who had done a movie for HHL) had the role.

"The Americans" copped the blame for this but I think it was more the British.

Movie review - "Lawman" (1971) **

There's an interesting idea at the core of this movie - lawman Burt Lancaster is so determined to see justice done he runs around blasting away everyone while ostensible baddy Lee J Cobb is actually more reasonable and businesslike.

That isn't really developed - subplots should accentuate this theme fail to do so.There are some strong actors around like Richard Johnson, John Beck, Robert Ryan, Robert Duvall - but generally they play tropes (whimpy sheriff etc) without going into too much detail.

The handling is vigorous at first but then the film seemed to run out of puff half way. Technical stuff is adequate. Burt Lancaster is fine - Charles Bronson would have been more interesting. Or actually come to think of it Kirk Douglas. Lancaster doesn't seem that interested in what's going on. 

Sheree North is the smurfette character, an ex of Lancaster's.

Audrey Hepburn age gaps with her co star (it's approximate)

Roman Holiday - 24 to Greg Peck's 37
Sabrina - 25 to Bogart's 55 and Holden's 36
War and Peace - 26 to Fonda's 50 and Mel Ferrer's 38
Love in the Afternoon - 28 to Gary Cooper's 56
Funny Face - 28 to Fred Astaire's 56
Green Mansions - 30 to Tony Perkins' 27
Unforgiven - 31 to Lancaster's 47
Breakfast at Tiffany's - 32 to Peppard's 33
The Children's Hour - 32 to James Garner's 33
Charade - 33 to Cary Grant's 59
Paris When it Sizzles - 35 to Holden's 46
My Fair Lady - 35 to Rex Harrison's 56
How to Steal a Million - 37 to Peter O'Toole's 34
Two for the Road - 38 to Albert Finney's 31
Wait Until Dark - 38 to Effrem Zimbalist's 49
Robin and Marian - 47 to Sean Connery's 46
Bloodline - 50 to Ben Gazzara's 49
They All Laughed - 52 to Gazzara's 51

(Again I stress these are approximate ages - I don't know exact shooting dates - but it will give you some idea of the gap.)
 

Movie review - "Scorpio" (1973) ** (warning spoilers)

This film is silly. At its core it is simple - a veteran assassin is chased after by the CIA who send the assassin's protege after him. Burt Lancaster is ideal as the veteran - sad eyed, old but still athletic.

But too many moments feel like "ooh let's have a twist" or "let's have a cool action bit" or "let's do a cute bit". Lancaster's wife is shot, and Delon's girlfriend is a double agent, and Delon likes cats.

There's no momentum - they keep having action sequences then Delon goes back to the office and reporting to John Colicos. Delon seems silly working for the CIA - he has trouble with English, he feels ill at ease.

There is plenty of action and bang bang but what should be a simple story is made pointlessly confusing... you don't care or feel anything. At least I didn't. The locations help and the quality of the cast is strong - it also includes people like Jame Sikking and Paul Scofield, whose scenes with Lancaster are the best thing about the movie which should have been about their relationship.

Movie review - "The Leopard" (1963) ***1/2

I always wondered about the high reputation of this film - a really rich family realises the world is passing on... Is that the stuff of grand cinema? It's epic and stately and deals with the passing of time. It was like The Magnificent Ambersons I guess. You can feel its influence on The Godfather films with its rich tapestry of period detail, family scenes, country rituals.

It's extremely well made - you can feel the love and care and detail. The acting is beautiful - it took a while for me to get used to Burt Lancaster being dubbed but he has the gravitas the part needs, he has weight and can act... at the end his face is very moving.

I'm just not sure I cared. Lancaster inherited his position. People get where they are because of nature and God as opposed to what they actually do. I guess Alain Delon and Terence Hill at least fight in the army.

Claudia Cardinale is stunningly beautiful as the daughter of the nouve riche though Visconti packs the film with more beautiful young men - Alain Delon, Terence Hill and that random relative who gets all these close ups.

It's stately and beautiful and all that. I absolutely recognise its quality -the big screen, the period recreation, the battles, the ball. I'm just not sure it was for me.

Book review - "John Frankenheimer: A Conversation with Charles Champlin"

Frankenheimer had one of the all time hot streaks - both during the Golden Years of television where he was one of the stars, but also his early films. Young Savages, All Fall Down, The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, Seven Days in May, Seconds... Critics cooled on him from Grand Prix onwards after which his career seemed to wobble: The Extraordinary Seaman, The Fixer, The Gypsy Moths, I Walk the Line, The Horseman, Impossible Object, The Iceman Cometh, 99 and 44/100% Dead,. There were some "commercial" films - French Connection II, Black Sunday, The Prophecy - and a drinking problem. His career dipped in the 80s but he came back in the 90s with TV work. This book is before Ronin.

Obviously a smart guy - lucky in how he got into tv, but you make your own luck, developing material, taking chances, taking risks. Strong work ethic - he managed to kick the booze. He whinges a bit about studios and like all people in their memoirs blames other people for his films that flopped but in fairness takes some brickbats too.

The film is full of interesting bits like his sometimes prickly relationship with Burt Lancaster, saying James Garner was only effective when playing "a shit", his hopes for The Horseman (the Afghan government offered him free land), Gordon Stulberg of Fox agreed to finance 99 and 44/100% Dead if Richard Harris was cast, Don Johnson was a pain on Dead Bang.

An entertaining book, I just wish it included some of his later career.

Movie review - "Apache" (1954) ***1/2

Breakthrough film for Robert Aldrich and also Burt Lancaster, as it was the first he did for United Artists. It gets off to a strong star - James Webb was a good writer - with Lancaster refusing to surrender along with Geronimo and being arrested, then escaping and going for revenge.

But the thing is what sort of revenge is he going to do? How is he going to keep up the fight? He doesn't really have a goal - just random acts of terrorism. He kidnaps Jean Peters, who adores him and they have this uncomfortably abusive relationship where he treats her badly but she can't help loving that man. Eventually she persuades him to grow corn but them the others come in.

For me the frustrating thing about the movie was it lacked a proper baddie - there are two candidates, a slimy dude played by John Dehner who hates Indians and tries to kill Lancaster, but he's killed half way through. There's also Charles Bronson's Uncle Tom Indian... but the thing is the whole movie is about Apaches learning to live with the white man so he can't really be bad. I feel they say needed someone ripping off the Apache, or someone who did sell out Geronimo, or make Peters' father really evil or something.

Having said that it's still fresh, even now, to have an Indian as the hero, even if Lancaster is in brown face. He's determined, brave and tough - but a fanatic. So the film in a way is an interesting take on terrorism - he's one of those hard core dudes who refuse to believe the fight is over, but is eventually tamed by domesticity. And while Lancaster just causing random destruction is frustrating dramatically it is truer to life about terrorism.

The film offers an interesting relationship between Lancaster and John McIntire's Indian agent. I liked they cast an old hand like McIntire instead of some young spunk - he seems old, tired, wise. He does well.

Aldrich and Lancaster wish the ending could have been changed to Lancaster died. But I totally bought the sold out ending -the film builds towards his domesticity, and the dramatic device of having the baby cry out works. I do have doubts with everyone just standing around letting him walk off. I mean, he did just kill a bunch of people. (Aldrich had a soft spot for such illogical endings eg Too Late the Hero).

The handling is vigorous. It's not a big budget movie - lots of two handers between Lancaster and someone else, normally Peters.  It's entertaining.

Movie review - "Vera Cruz' (1954) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Fun Western which I think I'd really love if it didn't have Gary Cooper in one of the lead roles. I've developed such an intense dislike for Cooper - he's so gaunt and worn out here he looks like he already has cancer (maybe he did), and he's so weak and whiny, playing a, gee, poor old Confederate who's lost his land so is moving around Mexico. He seems to be after a pay day but he's as honorable as anything - you never think for a moment he might do the wrong thing.

He's blown off the screen acting wise by Burt Lancaster who is superb as a smiling villain. Mind you Lancaster does have the best part - all flashing teeth, and eating like a pig, and getting offended easily, and having a bromance with Cooper, and being super brilliant fighter. You get the sense that Lancaster really likes Cooper but you never get the feeling Cooper likes Lancaster.

Super impressive gallery of supporting rogues including Charles Bronson, Jack Elam and Ernest Borgnine - you wish they'd been given more to do. Maybe that's unfair, they do have a bit to do, but they are generally lumped together and its hard to tell them apart.

Denise Darcel (countess) and Sara Montiel (local) have quite large roles but neither are particularly good actors.

The budget was big and the film was shot in Mexico. Aldrich uses it well - production values are high, and there's lots of shots from a distance with soldiers on the horizon.

Some clever bits of writing such as getting out of being surrounded by Mexicans by using kids. Aldrich's misogyny was already apparent - he's got Lancaster slapping Darcel, and a really uncomfortable attempted rape by Bronson on Montiel. I know everyone's tough and has a rough time in Aldrich films, but he doesn't have women inflicting the violence.

Still a good example of how to make a vehicle for two stars.

Book review - "Yvonne" by Yvonne De Carlo (1987)

The cinematic work of Yvonne De Carlo deserves re-appraisal - for a time there in the late 40s and early 50s she was a genuine lower level star at Universal, playing a succession of slinky Eastern dancing girls and tough Western dames in some unpretentious technicolor films. She and Maureen O'Hara were these quasi-feminist adventure stars, until the 50s took hold and both wound up staring admiringly at the heroes.

De Carlo was an old pro in the best sense of the world. She started quite young, with a pushy mother and absent father (very common elements in biographies of female star). She did a lot of dancing when younger and moved to the US from Canada; her looks saw her win beauty contests which resulted in a dancing gig at the Florentine Gardens. She worked hard at her dancing and was eventually picked up for the movies, doing a stint at Paramount.

In the 1940s girls with "exotic looks" were not discriminated against; de Carlo played a series of dancing girls and natives; she was going to step in for Dorothy Lamour in Rainbow Island but Lamour changed her mind. She also just missed out on good parts in For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Story of Dr Wassell. Her career was stagnating there but got a huge boost when Walter Wagner cast her in the lead of Salome Where She Danced which turned her into a star.

Salome was made by Universal who put her to work in lots of Easterns and Westerns, and wanted someone easier to deal with than Maria Montez (and De Carlo could sing and dance which Montez couldn't). Occasionally she got the chance in something more prestigious like Criss Cross. De Carlo eventually branched out into comedy, notably in England, and got a few parts in "A" pictures, like The Ten Commandments and Band of Angels. But she never made the full transition to "A" stardom - it's harder for women, especially in the macho late 50s. And to be fair De Carlo didn't have the individuality of great stars - or even great icons like Maureen O'Hara; she lacked spark and life-sometimes she blended into the scenery. But she could act and sing and dance, often better than she was given credit for.

De Carlo found things harder  from the late 50s onwards, but she kept at it - working regularly in TV and having a career boost when starring in The Munsters. She also achieved fame on Broadway in Follies. She expresses regret her agents didn't push her for Broadway roles earlier; I'm surprised she didn't appear in more musical films - Universal did make them, though not as often as they did in the 40s.

As a good looking girl De Carlo spent a lot of time fending off lecherous Hollywood wolves/sex pests - Errol Flynn, Franchot Tone, Orson Welles. She was keen on Sterling Hayden but he didn't do anything. Ditto James Stewart. She had amiable dates with Red Skelton and knew Burgess Meredith, a romance with Ray Milland before finally losing her virginity to someone called Carl Anthony. She says Billy Wilder was the first great love of her life. She later had serious romances with Howard Hughes (who made love like an engineer which made me laugh), Robert Stack, Howard Duff and Jock Mahoney (she fell pregnant to him but lost the baby), flings with Burt Lancaster, Carlos Thompson, Tony Curtis and Robert Taylor. There was Aly Khan, of course, who was a great lover - it isn't a very discrete book!

The book gets harder going as once De Carlo marries stuntman Bob Morgan. A sexy man's man, he was overly fond of a drink, and not a particularly devoted husband. She was going to leave him but then he had an accident which resulted in him losing his leg. From then on it was work, work, work as she took every gig going - night club acts, crummy roles in films. She was perennially unlucky in love - she had a taste for love rats (married men, pricks), which never improved.

I liked reading about her encounters with Maria Montez - de Carlo came to Universal as a Montez back up taking her role in Frontier Gal but Montez and she got along; Montez would talk about her being reincarnated, warn her off Howard Hughes and recommend de Carlo and Jean Pierre Aumont (her love interest in one film) play more love scenes because you got more close ups that way.

De Carlo admits to being a right winger - I would've been interested to hear more about this. (I imagine a lot of actors who slogged their way up from the chorus were right wing eg Ginger Rogers.) The book was written before her son died.

It's an entertaining book - a little harrowing (all the sexual harassment), and sad (the career and financial battles). De Carlo had a pretty good life - fame, some good parts, sex with handsome men - but struggled to hang on to money and a good relationship. Still, the world was a better place for her being in it.

Movie review - "Criss Cross" (1949) ****1/2 (re-viewing)

In an earlier review of this film on this blog, I regarded it as a story-lite remake of The Killers. Seeing it on the big screen I was knocked out what a good movie it is, brilliantly shot and directed (by Robert Siodmak).

The story held up better than I originally thought, and there were heaps of things I didn't notice - notably the richness of the support cast: the slimy waiter, amiable bartender, drunken girl at the bar, the fiancee of Lancaster's brother, his brother, the collection of gangsters (the quiet spoken white haired guy, the drunken mastermind of the operation, the tubby gangster, the lean one).

The story was full of richness I hadn't noticed - the interplay between the gangsters, the level of Lancaster's addiction for Yvonne de Carlo, Lancaster's family life (his brother Richard Long gets his girl to kiss him by "mock" threatening to hit her).

De Carlo isn't fantastic (this film shows that she was never an A-tier star... she simply doesn't have the charisma) but she's pretty good and has that fantastic dance moment where Lancaster sees her dancing (with Tony Curtis) after a long absence. Lancaster is superb - with his physique and puppy dog eyes, hopelessly hooked on de Carlo (for a macho star Lancaster was excellent at playing sensitive). Dan Duryea is good as always as the gangster.

A really superb film noir.