Russ Tamblyn Top Ten

 

1) Gun Crazy (1950) - Tamblyn's breakthrough role as a child star was in Samson and Delilah but I go for this, because it's a more brilliant film and tamblyn's more believable as a young John Dall than as Saul (Samson is quite fun, though)

2) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) - a lot of MGM musicals were losing money around this time but this was a smash hit, in part due to its energy and colour, including a great turn from Tamblyn - this turned him into a dancing star. The story line is inherently dodgy ("let's abduct some women").

3) The Fastest Gun in the West (1956) - at MGM Tamblyn developed a niche playing keen teens in support of older actors, such as Glenn Ford - this is a good Western, and they put in a dance number for Tamblyn which Ford (one of the biggest divas of the 1950s) tried to get removed

4) Peyton Place (1957) - a triumph of adaptation to get this past the censor and make it cohesive (I've read the book)... the film is a lot of dodgy fun, including Tamblyn who is genuinely good as a weird teen (he turns "normal" in this which he didn't in the book but he should have played more weirdo roles)

5) Tom Thumb (1958) - charming musical fantasy with Tamblyn ideal in the title role.

6) High School Confidential (1958) - terrific fun with Tamblyn doing 21 Jump Street, as an overage undercover cop battling dope pushers, the seduction of Mamie Van Doren, and beatnik dialogue... this was a big hit, and other Albert Zugmith films for MGM weren't... maybe because they didn't star Tamblyn, who knows, he was in a lot of hits around this time.

7) West Side Story (1961) - Tamblyn was a little old to play Riff but he had tremendous energy - no George Chakiris but better than Richard Beymer, shall we say.

8 ) War of the Gargantuas (1969) - in the late 60s Toho would import American stars for their films (usually Nick Adams) - this had Tamblyn, looking stoned and ad libbing dialogue (as he would in his other cult classic, Satans Sadists) - lots of fun.

9) The Haunting (1963) - genuinely good film showing what Tamblyn could do - he didn't like acting that much though and went bohemian soon after.

10) Twin Peaks - Tamblyn makes a comeback as the eccentric Dr Jacoby, totally fitting in Lynchian world.

Book review - "Dancing on the Edge" by Russ Tamblyn

 I spoke with Tamblyn in 2004 and he said he wanted to write a book so it took him a bit of time but I think Tamblyn likes to go his own way in life. A genuine name in Hollywood in the 1950s - not a big star, but a regular lead player in studio films with a long term contract to MGM - he dropped out very quickly, via choice really (he moved to Topenga Canyon to pursue art). He never got his groove back, could never quite re-consolidate despite a stint in Twin Peaks but hung in there. Found love third time round.

I liked the book. Listened to audio version. Tamblyn did it. He sounds amiable, a bit spacey. The third section is mostly about his daughter and Neil Young - like many in Hollywood people try to stay relevant where they can.

Interesting vignettes. Jeff Richards was a boozehead and smashed up Tamblyn's place, Dean Stockwell was a good friend but eventually alcoholism destroyed him while Dennis Hopper of all people got over it, Tamblyn was a polyamorist in like 1960 at Malibu, his second wife was a boozer (she's a tragic figure), his first wife an interesting character (Anna Lee's daughter), Glenn Ford tried to get Tamblyn's dance removed from Fastest Gun in the West, Tamblyn and Yvette Mimieux went for a skinny dip and had sex one night making Brothers Grimm, Tamblyn had a fling with Regina Carroll making Satan's Sadists.

If you like that period and these movies this book is hard to resist, even if it does need an edit.

Movie review - "The Great Rupert" (1949) **

 George Pal's first production is a slight oddity. It's more reminiscent of a sentimental MGM film, featuring Jimmy Durante and Tom Drake, both of whom are in this. There's lots of talk of money, so much talk, it gets annoying. 

Everything is a little off. Drake was just that little bit too old by now. He doesn't match that well with Terry Moore who is full of life and vitality though seems too young for him. For me, a little of Jimmy Durante goes a long way.

It's half a musical. Feels as though it wants to be a musical. There's some musical numbers but it's not one.

There's a very cute squirrel who drops money down to the floor below... but really the whole story could have been told without the squirrel. The money could have just dropped. They should have used the squirrel more.

A film that isn't quite sure of itself.  Kind of a nice heart. But I didn't like how that family expected money to rain down. Or how Moore expected her false love interest boyfriend to help her career. Everyone is greedy.

Movie review - "Conquest of Space" (1955) ** (warning: spoilers)

 A flop which led to George Pal leaving Paramount. Before I saw the film I was surprised to hear it wasn't successful - mid 50s was peak sci fi and I was sure the effects would be good. And they are. And there's a simple story at the core - it's about a trip to Mars and the captain goes psycho and has to be knocked off. That's a very dramatic situation.

But the script is muddled. It's written by the guy who did Destination Moon and has similar flaws - all male story (it's the future - couldn't they find a way to get a woman along), achingly awful military stuff (haw haw haw comic relief Irish sergeant haw haw haw comic Italian, the men clapping and howling at a movie of a woman singing in an Arab harem), clunky dialogue, lack of interesting characterisation. The dramatic build isn't very effective either - the general going nuts and being killed by his son is so meaty but dealt with too quickly.

It's a shame because the effects of the space station and space walk, etc are so effective. And that basic set up - man having to kill dad who goes nuts - has great potential.

The son is played by Eric Fleming, who later starred in Rawhide and died shooting a movie.

Movie review - "When Worlds Collide" (1951) ***1/2

 Much better than Destination Moon - stronger story, more memorable characters, females (well, one Smurfette). Has one of the all time great set ups - a planet is headed to destroy the earth so we'd better get off and set up at another planet. Full on. Much of the world refuses to see there's a problem (hello global warming parallels before warming was a thing) but some richies stump up the cash. There's lottos to pick who goes and... this film actually raises more issues than it can deal with, it basically has a greedy millionaire in a wheelchair, some random couple, and a love triangle involving Barbara Rush and two guys who want her (a doctor and a pilot).

The fact most of the human race is going to be wiped out isn't really dealt with - this should be remade. But it's a kick arse story, the acting is decent, I liked Barbara Rush, the others were fine, the effects were decent (superb for the time). It's a serious, full on, big stakes film.

Movie review - "Destination Moon" (1950) **

 Historically important - helped kick off the 1950s sci fi boom. Impressively serious treatment of going to the moon. Impressive effects for the time.

Just dull. Buttoned down. Hard to tell characters apart. There was some wise cracking comic relief guy. Needed a traitor or a woman or something.

There's some camp Cold War era fun with scientists in suits worrying about being beaten in the space race and pitching to industrialists why they should finance moon exploration.

And interest in seeing Woody Woodpecker explain how the technology works - this was "homage-d" in a similar scene in Jurassic Park.

Movie review - "The War of the Worlds" (1953) ***1/2

 Bleak, grown up, intense. The sfx have aged but are still effective and it's scary because the martians kick butt. Gene Barry finds evidence of something or other but it's not really of any use. The only thing that stops them is bacteria.

I could have done without the religious stuff in the end - everyone running into church.But up until ten it's very effective. The mayhem strikes a real chord.

Movie review - "The Power" (1968) ** (warning: spoilers)

 There's a decent enough story at the core of this - a scientist investigates murders committed by a psychic  but the treatment was needlessly confusing. I also think it wasn't very well directed by Byron Haskin, towards the end of his career/life. The treatment cried out for spookiness, scariness, atmosphere, but too often looks like a flat Universal movie from the late 60s. There's no MGM lushness or style.

As a whodunnit it's not effective because we forget (or I did) who the people at the start of the movie were. I'm not sure George Hamilton was up for the challenges of the role although it is one of his better performances. I wish Suzanne Pleshette, who plays his girlriend, and who should have been the main baddie, had played his part. Or, if it had to be a man, then Rod Taylor, who was attached to this for a time.

Some decent moments like going out to the desert where Aldo Ray tries to kill Hamilton. This needed to be shot outside a studio, with a director really keen to make it work, not an old pro.

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

 A very sweet biopic of the famous escape artist - I assume hugely fictionalised. Gorgeous photography, sets and costumes and Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh are extremely likeable in the leads. They are young a fresh faced and their chemistry works a treat.

Curtis is clearly trying and gives a good performance. Leigh is lovely. No one else gets much of a look in.  Michael Pate pops up as a heckling Brit. Connie Gilchrist, who soon went to Oz to play in Long John Silver, is in it as well.

George Pal should have done more biopics. I guess tom thumb and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm fall into that category. Directed with typical unobtrusive skill by George Marshall.

Movie review - "The Naked Jungle" (1954) ***1/2

 Fun film based on the classic short story about killer ants. Instead of padding that out, it provides around 30 minutes of story. The other hour - at the front - is sweaty melodrama with Eleanor Parker as a purchased bride for plantation owner Charlon Heston who gets his virginal knickers in a twist when he discovers she's been married before. He acts abusive and cruel without any of the softness that say Rock Hudson or Tyrone Power might have brought to it - I know this trope was considered Romantic at the time but now it's just watching an abuser.

Still the acting is strong and it gives Eleanor Parker something to play. She's a red head and thus is super beautiful - she always took on an extra dimension in red. Heston has swagger - this is one of his "macho American in a backlot third world" performances like Secret of the Incas.

William Conrad is a local. It could have done with more ants but that last third is exciting and the first two thirds quite entertaining and Parker is gorgeous.

Movie review - "Doc Savage The Man of Bronze" (1975) *

 A low-ish budget didn't help but wasn't fatal. A goofy tone didn't help either but wasn't fatal. This was simply inepty made without love or care.

Maybe it's faithful to the books. I can't believe the books are this stupid or unexciting. There's no charm. No sense of adventure.

It's shot like an episode of a TV series complete with backlot shooting and Frank De Vol score. It's undercast. Some players try to ham it up - at least they try.

Ron Ely is unmemorable as Doc Savage. His sidekicks are the worst things- indistinguishable and bland. They could be cut out of the movie. I hated his sidekicks.

It's dopey. Lazy.

Pamela Hensley at least adds from beauty. They just should have made it about her and Doc Savage. Or just made it well.

Movie review - "Atlantis the Lost Continent" (1961) **1/2

 Not regarded as top tier Pal and it isn't but I enjoyed it. Yes, Edward Platt looks silly in his headdress. Yes, Anthony Hall is a debit as the lead and makes you wonder why MGM couldn't have found someone else. (I know he was last minute but they had a bunch of actors under contract.) Yes, they could have done more work setting up Greece as an every day society. (I actually think the hero should have come from the modern era but anyways).

But it looks great. Lovely cinematography. Solid sets. The story works - slave uprisings are always solid. Fun to see John Dall again, in blonde hair. I liked Joyce Taylor. It's silly and fun.

Movie review - "The Seven Faces of Dr Lao" (1964) ***

 Tony Randall does a Peter Sellers, playing multiple roles. George Pal was behind this fantasy which as he himself admitted is a little bit of everything... a little bit Western, some Ancient World analogy, a little bit travelling salesman, a little bit newspaperman taking on corrupt townsfolk.

Arthur O'Connell is a less sympathetic person than normal. John Erickson is fine as the juvenile. Barbara Eden has surprisingly little screen time as the female lead. There's a young kid.

It's fuzzy and ramshackle but full of charm. You never quite know where it's going or what it's going to do.

There is yellowface.

Movie review - "tom thumb" (1958) ***1/2

 Charming musical fantasy with gorgeous photography, music, and a strong cast. Plot a little on the light side. Russ Tamblyn is winning in the title role, Terry Thomas and Peter Sellars are fun as crooks. The tunes are memorable: I'm surprised this wasn't turned into a stage musical.

Movie review - "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" (1963) **1/2

A film much beloved by some and I think if I'd seen it as a child I would have been one of them. It really needed to be 90 minutes and made as a regular film. It was dragged out to over two hours, the Cinerama photography is clunky (you can tell it was shot with three cameras).

Even then though it would have had problems - the surrounding storyline of the Grimm brothers is fairly (sorry for the pun), grim. Who cares about them having financial troubles, writing a paid gig for a duke or whoever. Karl Boehm and Laurence Harvey aren't very interesting; neither is Harvey's marriage to Claire Bloom (it's not happy) or less forgivably Boehm's romance with Barbara Eden. 

The two brothers have some differences - Harvey is more happy go lucky Boehm more serious - but it's not that electric. Who cares if Harvey gets sick or continues to write? We want to focus on the stories!

Better are the sequences, which are charming. George Pal went for less familiar tales. Once MGM wanted to go to Cinerama I think this was a mistake - they should have gone for famous stories and star cameos.

But I loved the sets, the costumes, the location work in Bavaria, the puppetoons. Terry Thomas is fun as is Buddy Hackett; I liked Russ Tamblyn and Yvette Mimieux is an ideal princess.

Radio review – Lux – “The Naked Jungle” (1954) ***1/2

Very silly and lots of fun with Charlton Heston in fine glowering form as the plantation owner who buys himself a wife (here played by Donna Reed, not Eleanor Parker) and is upset to find out she's been married before. Then killer ants come and threaten to devour everything. This story had it's origin as a radio tale so it adapts very well - you can let your imagination run riot at the thought of these ants eating their way across the jungle. I enjoyed the melodrama of the married couple at the beginning too.

Radio review – Lux - “War of the Worlds” (1953) **1/2

Sci-fi works well on radio because what your imagination comes up with is often better to special effects. This is a decent adaptation of George Pal’s film version of Wells’ tale; it’s not as good as the famous Orson Welles version, but it’s alright. The main debit is irritating Pat Crowley as a chirpy girl – I always remember Crowley being introduced by Paramount with this big credit at the end of the Ginger Rogers-Bill Holden starrer, Forever Female; she seemed to disappear soon after that and to be honest it’s not that much of a mystery. Dana Andrews takes over Gene Barry’s screen role as a physicist – there’s a fun bit where Andrews, “speaking on behalf of his fellow physicists” encourages the military to use nukes. Like they didn’t consider that already! It’s always entertaining listening to Andrews on radio because you can’t help wondering if he’s drunk.

George Hamilton

Vanity Fair published this extract from George Hamilton's memoirs. It's great to see Hamilton still up and about - he's been one of Hollywood's great survivors, has Hamilton. John Milius quoted him once as saying, "you all think I'm a second-rate actor when in fact I'm a first-rate conman".

Hamilton became famous in the early 60s as a ridiculously good looking tanned teen idol - he had those sort of pretty boy looks that really irritate men. His career got off to a terrific start with a meaty role in a solid, popular film, Home from the Hill (the movie that also helped launch George Peppard's career). This earned him a contract at MGM, for whom he played the romantic lead in Where the Boys Are. Such are the ways of popular culture, Where the Boys Are would be the better-remembered film today.

Hamilton became one of the bright lights of MGM during its Vogel-Siegel years. He turned in some good performances in strong movies - but unfortunately the public didn't really go for them: Light in the Piazza, Act One, Two Weeks in Another Town, Angel Heart. My Cheatin' Heart, in which Hamilton played Hank Williams, was another such film, perhaps the best he ever made.

His last big hit was The Victors (also with Peppard), although he popped up supporting Bardot and Moreau in Viva Maria and kept in the public eye by dating LBJ's daughter. His career as a movie star tapered off in the late 60s with some unsuccessful films for MGM such as Jack of Diamonds and The Power; he went into TV, tried producing (a film about Evil Kenevil written by Milius), hosting TV shows and went into real estate.

He made a comeback with a terrific performance in a popular film, Love At First Bite. A follow up, Zorro the Gay Blade didn't do as well but Hamilton has kept busy. He has been wonderful in small parts in Godfather 3, Doc Hollywood and Hollywood Ending, as well as his business interests and habits of dating high profile women.

Hamilton's current status is as a sort of camp/cool icon but you don't last as long as he did without hard work and some ability. It's a shame some of his early 60s performances aren't better known or at least appreciated - but everything has it's time and I think that day will come. Here's hoping Hamilton gets the chance to enjoy it before he dies.

There are some interviews with Hamilton are here and here.

Movie review - "The Time Machine" (1960) ****

A deserved classic, one that looks even better over the years. The time machine is a marvellous Victorian invention, backed up by imaginative special effects and photography. A captivating feeling of melancholy and loss permeates the film, giving it unexpected power (the sequence in 1966 with the world on the verge of World War Three is particularly potent). 

Support performances are fine (Yvette Mimieux is lovely), with intelligent directing and scripting – though it does have to deal a few logic problems faced by most time travel films. (For instance, one can not help but wonder what sort of world Rod Taylor’s character goes off to join at the end of the film - now that he has taken away the Eloi’s food supply and re-introduced them to violence!) 

A great deal of the success of the film comes from Rod Taylor’s performance: he is believable both as a man of thought and a man of action – as Rod himself put it, a combination of “highly intellectual” and “ballsiness”, someone capable of inventing a time machine, and beating up Morlocks. He acts with energy, sensitivity and complete conviction, being particularly strong in his scenes with Mimieux and Alan Young.

Movie review - "The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal" (1985) **1/2

Solid documentary on the influential filmmaker who helped popularise science fiction. The best thing about the doco is it has plenty of clips, both from Pal's famous films such as The Time Machine but also his earlier work like The Puppetoons. It also has a number of newsreels, photos and interviews with people who worked with Pal, including Rod Taylor. Main drawback: it stops at The Seven Faces of Dr Lao in 1964, when Paul made a few more films- The Power, Doc Savage. I know the filmmakers wanted to end on a high but it feels weird - they didn't have to do into too much detail, but they should have mentioned he made two more films and died, at least.