Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Film: Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Stars: John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee van Cleef, Jack Elam

Director: Phil Karlson

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Good filmmakers watch movies.  I can always tell when a director is going to have a long career during a press tour when they mention movies that they grew up on, and it wasn't just movies that someone their age would naturally love.  No director in the past 35 years encapsulates this quite like Quentin Tarantino.  Tarantino, whenever he talks about films, will talk about the most esoteric pictures from the most obscure corners of Hollywood.  With Kansas City Confidential, though, he more than just watched it.  Seeing this film for the first time, it's impossible not to see the influences the picture would have on Tarantino's first feature-length film, Reservoir Dogs.  The beginning, in fact, is cribbed almost verbatim from it, which makes you understand why Tarantino was such a visionary-to find a pretty average film, and make one of his best pictures from it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie starts with a man named Mr. Big, wearing a mask, recruiting three men to a crime he's committing: Peter (a gambler, played by Elam), Boyd (a murderer, played by Brand), and Tony (a womanizing getaway driver, played by van Cleef).  The four of them stand up an armored car for a bank, and in the process get away with the money, implicating a deliveryman named Joe Rolfe (Payne) in the process.  Rolfe is exonerated when his alibi for the crime checks out, but in the process he loses his job and vows revenge.  He eventually finds out that Peter left the city, and pursues him to Tijuana, where Peter is killed by the police, and Rolfe takes over his identity.  He tries to get a share of the money for his troubles, but in the process falls for a young law student named Helen (Gray) who is visiting her father Tim (Foster) in Tijuana.  It turns out that Tim is Mr. Big, and he did this as revenge for being fired at the Kansas City Police Department, and his plan was to pin the crime on the three men, getting his honor back after being fired in a scandal, and using the reward money to start a new life.  This doesn't go to plan when the men find out, and Tim is killed.  With his dying breath he ensures Helen will not know what he did, and that Rolfe will get the money, presumably to marry & take care of Helen.

If you've seen Reservoir Dogs, you understand the overlap here between Tarantino's picture and Kansas City Confidential.  Both films start with a bunch of criminals perpetrating a crime where none of them knows the others' identities.  In that film, they use colorful names like "Mr. Pink" (Tarantino has a flare for the vibrant), but in both films this concept works really well.  The best parts of Kansas City Confidential are the beginning, where we get this live wire crime moment that crackles, and you don't entirely know if they'll get away with it (or how).  Casting really strong character actors like Jack Elam & Lee van Cleef (both of whom are best-known today for classic Sergio Leone westerns like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West) is a nice touch-the supporting cast here is really solid, and helps elevate a standard film noir once you get past the main, ingenious concept.

If only they hadn't cast John Payne.  I feel bad, as Payne was once one of our Saturdays with the Stars, and I should be nicer to him, but while he's handsome he's rarely any good in movies, and this role needs a lot more charisma.  Put in someone like John Garfield or William Holden, someone with a bit more edge whom it's believable would actually seek revenge, and you're in a stronger spot with the plot.  But the sub-romance with Gray is listless, and she doesn't remotely resemble a femme fatale (which also would've been a fun wrinkle).  With two leads that can't connect, Kansas City Confidential is just a good concept more than a good movie...but a concept that would lead to a great movie 40 years later.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Brute Force, Call Northside 777, Caught, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, The Naked City, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Secret Beyond the Door, Side Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach, A Woman's Secret

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps, Whirlpool

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai

Secret People (1952)

Film: Secret People (1952)

Stars: Valentine Cortese, Serge Reggiani, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Goldner, Michael Shepley

Director: Thorold Dickinson

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Audrey Hepburn: click here to learn more about Ms. Hepburn (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Audrey Hepburn is definitely one of those stars who seems like they were famous from the very beginning of her career, and to a large part, that's correct.  After spending the war in the Netherlands, tacitly (and possibly actively...historians debate this one) supporting the Dutch resistance, her teen years and early twenties were spent studying ballet, but given she'd never be able to be a prima ballerina (due to her malnutrition during the war), she went into acting, first the London theater, then bit parts in movies, and then eventually playing the title role of Gigi on Broadway.  Roman Holiday was her first leading role, and would make her an overnight sensation (and win her an Oscar), but before that she had one relatively large supporting role in a British drama called Secret People, which I chose to kick off our month with Audrey because I wanted to see what it was like for her to not get the lead role, a spot she'd assume in all of the Classical Hollywood films she'd make after.

(Spoilers Ahead) Maria Brentano (Cortese) moves with her sister Nora (Hepburn when the character is an adult) to London fleeing from her home country after her father is arrested (and eventually killed) for defying the country's dictator.  They are raised by Anselmo (Goldner), a sweet restaurant owner, and eventually both girls contribute to the household, with Maria as a cook, and Nora as a promising young dancer.  Maria's old flame Louis (Reggiani) comes to town, and she learns that he is part of a resistance movement fighting against the dictator who killed her father.  Maria wants to stay clean, but he pressures her into an assassination attempt on the dictator when he's in town.  In the process, she doesn't kill the dictator but accidentally kills a waitress, and she feels wracked with guilt over it, particularly when she learns that this is commonplace for those fighting the dictator.  She goes to the police, and assumes another identity, but goes back for one last look at her sister dancing, and realizes that Louis is trying to recruit Nora into his criminal enterprise (and it's somewhat hinted at that he's also started to have a love affair with her too).  In the end, one of Louis's associates kills Maria, but this is enough to convince Nora that their path is wrong, and Louis is arrested before the end credits roll.

The film's politics are pretty complicated, and definitely would be handled with more nuance in a different era.  The dictator is fictional, but it's hard not to assume it's based on Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who was in charge of Spain at the time, and killing thousands.  Today, the resistance fighters would be seen as heroes in this situation, or at the very least complicated martyrs, but here they're seen as brutal thugs, particularly toward the end where it feels less like a political cause and more like a criminal enterprise.  This makes the film hard to sort through, and it also makes it very heavy-handed, particularly when it comes to Cortese's character.  Is she at all sympathetic to the cause, even in the end, knowing that the man they're going after killed her father?  Or is she only capable of seeing the world in absolutes?  Cortese is not a subtle actress, and much of that gets lost here...in the 1970's, this would've been a better movie.

Hepburn's role here isn't large, but it's notable.  Hepburn's airy screen presence is a really strange counter to Cortese's heavy ACTING, and they are not believable as sisters (they don't even have matching accents), but she's quite good, particularly when she dances (something she'd only do in a handful of pictures).  I get why this would've gotten her noticed by casting directors, as well as William Wyler, as this film directly connected to her eventually getting the lead part in Roman Holiday.  Next week, we'll take a look at Hepburn at the peak of her fame, already armed with an Oscar.

Hangman's Knot (1952)

Film: Hangman's Knot (1952)

Stars: Randolph Scott, Donna Reed, Claude Jarman, Jr., Frank Faylen, Lee Marvin

Director: Roy Huggins

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Donna Reed: click here to learn more about Ms. Reed (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Today we're going to continue our journey with Donna Reed oddly with another western (this was not intentional, as this wasn't exactly a staple of Reed's filmography, but last week's first choice became unavailable so I had to pinch hit with Apache Trail to hit our deadline): Hangman's Knot.  It is filmed a decade after last week, and a lot happened between the two films.  For starters, Reed made during this time the most famous film of her career It's a Wonderful Life, which was nominated for multiple Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor, but wasn't something that Reed herself would gain a citation for despite it being probably the best role of her career.  This wasn't a hit for MGM, where she was under contract, though (It's a Wonderful Life was made when she was on loan to RKO), and the quality of her roles didn't improve, perhaps in part because the movie was not commercially successful at the time (it gained much of its popularity when it fell into public domain & became a Christmas classic in the years ahead).  Eventually, tired of playing the same wife & girlfriend roles, Reed moved to Columbia, and made a number of lower-tier films (and one classic we'll discuss next week which would become her other signature film role), one of which was Hangman's Knot.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a group of confederate soldiers who find out in Nevada in 1865 that the war has ended (and they lost).  They also have intercepted a large amount of gold, which their commanding officer Major Matt Stewart (Scott) thinks they should give back to the Confederacy to help rebuild, while his compatriots, specifically Rolph Bainter (Marvin) thinks it would be better in his pocket.  As they are headed back, they come across both a group of bandits who are looking for the gold thieves (and more importantly, the gold), and a stagecoach that's carrying two people (unmarried), including a war nurse for the Union, Molly Hull (Reed).  They take the two, along with a station agent & his daughter, hostage while they hole up in a small building, trying to stave off the bandits who return & are looking for the gold.  This results in a showdown not just outside, but in, as Rolph wants to take the gold & Molly for himself, even though Matt Stewart has similar designs.  In the end, the bigger name on the marquee wins, and Matt Stewart gets the girl and brings the gold back to Virginia.

The movie is honestly pretty good.  I have always struggled with Randolph Scott as an actor (I have heard his movies with Budd Boetticher are what will change your mind about him, and they're on the list but I haven't gotten there yet), but you don't really need him to be good to enjoy this movie.  The Technicolor is beautiful, gorgeous vistas shot in the famed Corriganville Movie Ranch (most-noted for being where the John Ford classic Fort Apache was made).  Our Star of the Month Donna Reed doesn't get a lot to do, it's worth noting.  She kind of just serves as the love interest once again, not a lot different from her days at MGM, and I suspect looking into 1953 she was hoping for different (as we'll discuss next week, she both did & didn't get that).

The best performance in the movie is from Claude Jarman, Jr., who plays the young twink who has never killed a man despite being in the war for years.  Jarman, who was a child star in the 1940's for MGM (he's best known as the boy in The Yearling), was making his first foray into adult film roles with Hangman's Knot, and he has a sensitivity here that stands out.  He wouldn't last as an adult star, though.  He'd make his final film role four years later is Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase, and would soon run the San Francisco International Film Festival and work behind-the-scenes in movies.  At the age of 88, he's one of the last living contract players from MGM in the 1940's.

OVP: The Card (1952)

Film: The Card (1952)...this was also released as The Promoter in the United States so you may know it by either title

Stars: Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson, Petula Clark

Director: Ronald Neame

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Sound Recording)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Here's something weird that I don't know if we've ever discussed on the blog, but is worth remembering in old film discussions.  From the 1930's through the 1950's, it was relatively common for British films (and novels) to come to the Americas with a different name, and the rhyme-or-reason around it was a bit arbitrary.  If you look at the titles of books by Agatha Christie, for example, some of the translations are not particularly American/British to the point where a reader wouldn't have understood the difference (Murder is Easy/Easy to Kill comes to mind) yet they still altered them.  Other times, though, it feels appropriate, as is the case for The Card, which from what I can tell was British slang at the time for a "clever, audacious person."  This feels fitting, as The Card and its central star of Alec Guinness surely deliver a naughty little story about luck (and making your own luck when none presents itself).

(Spoilers Ahead) Our hero in The Card is Denry Machin (Guinness), a man of no station who wants to move his way up through society, and isn't above cheating his way to get there.  Throughout the film, Denry is given multiple opportunities to stay where he is, because his station as a lower-class man demands him to appreciate the meager scraps he's given, or instead to step forward and claim what his talent & ambition demand.  Denry does that, courting the approval of a wealthy Countess (Hobson), occasionally meeting up with an equally ambitious gold-digger named Ruth (Johns), but ultimately falling in love with another woman of little means, Nellie (Clark, yes Petula Clark of "Downtown" fame).  This romance, though, doesn't stop his ambitions, and he eventually, against the odds, watches his mechanizations bare fruit, as he goes from commoner to the city's youngest mayor in the course of the picture.

The Card is a charming feature, the kind that Guinness appeared in quite frequently in this era (before he became a more celebrated dramatic actor with The Bridge on the River Kwai).  It's cheeky, and while it's not as amusing as it should be (Guinness is fun, but considering his skills I know he could've been better), it's still an enjoyable, brief movie that takes a bit about the class system and how honor isn't nearly as important to the conversation as society would've thought in the 1950's (and certainly wouldn't be in the future decades).  Glynis Johns steals the movie wholesale as a sly, social-climbing piano teacher, just as willing to score a point as Guinness's Denry.

The film's nomination for Best Sound is unusual.  The film has one giant scene during a storm that might have attracted the Academy, but otherwise this is an atypical nomination.  It's not a bad one by any means-the film has crystal clear dialogue (Glynis Johns' voice twinkles in every scene), and the score playfully interjects, but it's just a standard movie...there's nothing remotely standout about this movie's sound work.  This was still in the era where the sound wasn't always geared toward "most" or specific tropes for the Oscar, so it's hard to tell Oscar's motives, though while its parades, horse chases, & storm work may be subtle, but it's well-executed within the confines.  I wouldn't have nominated it, but I don't have a lot of complaints.

OVP: Sudden Fear (1952)

Film: Sudden Fear (1952)

Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame

Director: David Miller

Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Actress-Joan Crawford, Supporting Actor-Jack Palance, Cinematography, Costume Design)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

This week our reviews are going to continue to be a mix of films from 2020 (it's hard to imagine that we are still a few weeks away from the conclusion of this snail-paced awards season) and continuing to look into the past as we, well, clean out my DVR.  Today is one of those past-facing titles, as I decided that I wanted to watch a few acting nominees that I've never seen before.  Joan Crawford would only win three Oscar citations in her career, and the last of those would come in 1952, for her work in Sudden Fear.  This film has some iconic imagery, even if it's not the first film you might name-check Crawford for, but it is also noteworthy not just for Crawford, but for bringing another eventual Oscar winner to the Academy's attention: Jack Palance.  Palance was so well-liked in this role that he essentially launched a strange career where he would alternate between international star and nearly work-for-hire parts before finally getting his proper moment-in-the-sun in City Slickers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Myra (Crawford), a brilliant & successful Broadway playwright who in the opening act of the film declines to give Lester Blaine (Palance) a part in her play because she feels he's wrong for the role.  They meet on a train, and seem to make up quickly, and that friendship blossoms into love.  Lester & Myra marry, but Myra (who is extremely wealthy) after the marriage dictates that most of her money will go to a foundation.  Thanks to a voice recorder in Myra's office, Myra (and the audience) discover after she says she'll leave some of her money to him in her will that Lester in fact planned on marrying Myra just for her money & humiliating her in the process, as he's in love instead with beautiful young Irene (Grahame), a former flame.  Myra also overhears on the recording that they are planning on killing her, knowing that if they do so before the will goes through that Lester will inherit her fortune.  After mistakenly breaking the recording, Myra must survive the weekend with both of these two plotting to kill her.  In the end, it is them who die, in a tragic case of mistaken identity, and Myra lives, much wiser from the experience.

The movie is noir, but it functions more as a melodrama.  I tend to enjoy melodramas, but I think the acting in them is hard to gage, and I'll be honest here-I don't get the love of Crawford in this role (and Crawford is generally one of my favorite actresses).  There's no depth to her Myra-Crawford plays her as a saint, but a saint so cloying you wonder how, precisely, she made it in the cutthroat world of theater.  There are also suspensions of belief (are we really intended to buy that beautiful, sexy Joan freaking Crawford has never been pursued by a man before Lester comes into the picture?) that make it harder to follow.  Crawford is a true movie star, and this is enjoyable to watch in parts, but is this good acting?  Probably not.

Palace is a bit better in a different part though again, so much of his character takes place offscreen that it's hard to gage (I get why he became a star after this, though, as he got to play a range of options with this duplicitous part).  Honestly, Gloria Grahame's side girl might be the best performance of the lot.  She is the one person who feels they exist outside the confines of a script that defies logic or convention.

The film won two additional Oscar nominations (and I suspect the score was probably close, though it mercifully was skipped as while the Elmer Bernstein music is sweeping, it impedes on the film at points, giving away key clues about the movie before they even occur).  The cinematography is sublime-great wide shots, and some clever uses of dream sequences.  The closet door ajar with the toy heading toward Crawford is ridiculously fun, and something Hitchcock would've been proud of.  And the costumes are intriguing.  I kind of like the iconic dual looks of both Crawford & Grahame in head scarfs...this would become one of Crawford's most recognizable screen moments (her firing a pearl-handled revolver into the dark dressed immaculately from head-to-toe), so they're doing something right.  Overall, though, I left Sudden Fear underwhelmed even though the actors, plot, and lensing all are things I would normally find irresistible.

OVP: The Sniper (1952)

Film: The Sniper (1952)
Stars: Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, Marie Windsor
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

After our month devoted to classic horror films, we are back into the realm of theme weeks at the blog, and like many of our theme weeks, this one is focused on the Oscars, and we're going to be exploring movies stretched across six decades this week as we take a look at the work of films nominated for their stories & screenplays.  We're going to start our look at Oscar-blessed writing with The Sniper, a film from 1952 that feels like it should be more famous than it is today.  It is, after all one of the earliest examples of a Hollywood trope that in the decades that would follow, would become ubiquitous: the serial killer.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place sort of in a back-and-forth between Adolphe Menjou's detective character Frank Kafka, and Arthur Franz's Eddie Miller, a young delivery man who seemingly hates women.  Eddie's hate appears to stem from jealousy, as he is outraged when women he is intrigued by (and, we assume, sexually interested in) instead are involved with other men, even if they don't know that he exists.  As the film goes on, Eddie is aware that he's mentally struggling (at one point, he burns his hand on a stove as some sort of punishment), but cannot seem to stop or turn himself in in a traditional way, and instead writes an anonymous letter to Menjou's police detective to let him know clues about his identity.  In the end, Eddie is captured by the police in one of his shooting sprees, and is brought to justice.

The ending of the film is somewhat famous amongst cinephiles, as it's the rare movie to try to both portray the killer in a slightly sympathetic light (we are meant to understand that Eddie is suffering from some sort of mental illness), and it's not particularly violent.  In almost any other movie like this, Eddie would die in a shootout with Menjou's Kafka & his detectives, but here he's brought in, a single tear on his face.  We are meant to view the character as human, despite his depraved & violent acts.  This is probably what won the film its Oscar nomination-it was a unique template, one that would become prototypical in the years that would follow, and uniqueness should count for something.

That said, like many trailblazing films, it's also not good at anything other than its one gimmick.  None of the acting, even from Franz (given a plum part) stands out in a major way, and there's nothing in the way of proper character development.  Modern audiences will see that Eddie is acting out of some sort of perverse sexual repression, but the Hays Code would've made it impossible to explore that in a meaningful way, and it clips the film.  As a result, we're given an historical curiosity with little to recommend other than being a curiosity.

OVP: The Big Sky (1952)

Film: The Big Sky (1952)
Stars: Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt, Arthur Hunnicutt
Director: Howard Hawks
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Arthur Hunnicutt, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We will jump back five decades from our French film yesterday to 1952 as we look at Best Cinematography nominees this week.  The Big Sky is a generally well-regarded western from the early 1950's when Kirk Douglas had graduated to proper leading man status, but probably wasn't quite at the point where he'd be amongst the biggest names in Hollywood (like he would be in the late 1950's).  The movie is a retelling of the novel by AB Guthrie, Jr., and isn't necessarily what you think of when you list one of Hawks' best films-after all, the man made Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and that's just the A-list.  But The Big Sky is a surprisingly moving story of friendship buried within the traditional confines of a western, and I left moved but unsurprised that a director as visionary as Hawks was able to craft such a compelling narrative cinematically.

(Spoilers Ahead) In the 1830's, laid-back Jim Deakins (Douglas) comes across a suspicious man named Boone Caudill (Martin) in the wilderness, and while they are opposites, they quickly become good friends, and soon traveling companions as they go out searching for Boone's uncle Zeb (Hunnicutt).  After finding him (and then promptly getting thrown in jail), they join his band of trappers, who are traveling some 2000 miles up the Missouri River to seek trade with the Blackfoot.  They are led on this expedition by Teal Eye (Threatt), a beautiful woman who is the daughter of a chief, and will be how they barter with the Blackfoot into giving them the trade business.  This trade comes with peril, though, as the Missouri Trading Company (a rival) finds out about Zeb's plan to establish trade with the Blackfoot, and consistently attack them (at one point even burning their boat), as they move up the river.  Along the journey, amid multiple dangers, both Jim & Boone fall in love with Teal Eye, and form a romantic rivalry.  In the film's closing moments, Jim pitches his love to Teal Eye, but she only loves him as a brother-she wants Boone.  Boone initially resists, shaming her, and Jim gives him disparagement, but eventually Boone decides to stay with Teal Eye, the two men able to repair their friendship, but likely never to see one another again as Jim returns home.

The Big Sky is the kind of movie that really comes together in the last twenty minutes, which is always a challenge for me as a reviewer.  Up until that point, the film's focus on the constant attacks on Zeb's trading company feels half-hearted, sturdy stuff but I'd want something more even if I'm having a good time (westerns are in my top three favorite film genres).  But the love story, particularly the one of friendship between Boone & Jim (there's some Celluloid Closet going on here), comes into focus in the final moments, and it lifts the picture to be something more than it seemed.  When Jim, angry about losing out on his love, but angrier still that he will never be able to look at his friend in the same way if he doesn't take the woman he loves, confronts Boone-it's great cinema, and the final goodbye from Jim & Boone worked for me.  As a result, we're giving this a 3-star rating, but a very high one, bordering on a 4.

It is in these moments that you come to understand why Hunnicutt received his Oscar nomination.  The actor has so far in the film been a fun comic presence, but not the sort you see nominated in the 1950's (it feels more what you'd see nominated in the 1930's).  However, the smooth-talking Hunnicutt makes the most of a late confession over the woman in his life that got away, and how he never forgot her (and in the process, Jim realizes perhaps that he'll never forget Teal Eye or Boone, the great loves of his life).  It adds a strong depth to Hunnicutt's performance that otherwise was lacking, and while this isn't immediately the sort of performance that would spring to mind for a nomination, it's certainly a reputable one (though his early scenes do feel like he's doing a bit too much of a Walter Brennan impression).

We can't neglect this week's theme, of course, and will need to address the Cinematography.  The movie is filmed almost exclusively outdoors, which usually helps in terms of Cinematography, but it's not using that as a crutch.  The film makes strong use of wide shots, particularly in open scenes along the river & at the Blackhawk camp, and the scenes along the river capture the mood of the film, looking beautiful but finding peaceful & rough shots to match the course of the movie (as if the river is its own credit in the movie).  It kind of feels like it'd have been better in color, to be honest (there's so much beauty in those shots you wish you could catch the blues of the sky & water), but this is a find for cinematography-gorgeous & calming.

OVP: Affair in Trinidad (1952)

Film: Affair in Trinidad (1952)
Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Alexender Scourby, Valerie Bettis
Director: Vincent Sherman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Some performers it feels like a month of Saturdays is long enough to give you a proper depiction of their career, but Rita Hayworth's time in Hollywood, two decades long, is not one of them.  With only four Saturdays, we can just scratch the surface of her career, and as we've profiled some of her most legendary films on the blog before (read here for Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, both masterpieces that are basically required viewing for anyone who loves the movies), we're going to move ahead from the most celebrated era of her career to the 1950's, specifically 1952.  At this point Hayworth had endured two very public (unsuccessful) marriages to filmmaker Orson Welles and playboy Prince Aly Khan, and been one of Columbia's biggest stars, though in 1952 she'd been away from the movies for four years, last being seen in 1948's The Loves of Carmen (similar to Grace Kelly a few years later, it was deemed inappropriate for a literal princess, and not just a Hollywood one, to continue acting).  Divorced, and in need of a comeback, Hayworth reluctantly returned to Columbia to make a film with her Gilda costar Glenn Ford.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film in a lot of ways mimics Gilda, and not just with the stars.  We are once again in a tropical paradise overrun with crime (we've moved north of Argentina to the titular Trinidad), and we have a man shot, initially we assume as a suicide but then we later realize it's murder.  His wife is an infamous nightclub singer named Chris Emery (Hayworth) who does sultry dances, and seems confused by her husband's death.  She is comforted by her husband's friend Max (Scourby), who is clearly desperately infatuated with her.  Things become complicated in his seduction when the late man's brother Steve (Ford) comes to see his sibling, and then tries to solve who killed him.  Naturally, Steve & Chris fall in love, but Max doesn't want to allow that, and as the film unfolds, we find out that Max is a very bad man, selling weapons that could be used against the United States.  The finale has a showdown between Chris, who discovers Max's plans, as well as Steve, who shoots Max and ends up with Chris in his arms, headed back to a more "suitable" location for the sure-to-be-newlyweds, in this case Chicago.

Affair in Trinidad borrows so often from Gilda one would assume it's a remake.  The plots are similar, the stars are exact, and we even see a famous dance number by Hayworth.  Dressed in fabulous, decadent Jean Louis gowns (there's a black sequined number toward the end of the picture that will make your jaw drop, and more than earns the film's one Oscar nomination), Hayworth is every inch the glamour girl we remembered before her wedding, and she brings heat to this role in a way that pretty much saves the picture from the rather dour Scourby & Ford (Valerie Bettis is also fun in a side role as a bitchy drunk, constantly throwing shade at everyone in the way only a beautiful blonde woman can).

The problem is that this is kind of a tired formula by 1952, and since we've seen Gilda, it's not like this is better in any way.  Even the best parts (Hayworth, Bettis, the dance numbers) were all done well before, and as a result this leaves a fine film but one that feels formulaic.  Compared to other, crueler film noir of the era such as The Big Heat or In a Lonely Place, where Gloria Grahame was allowed to be sexy and properly dangerous, Hayworth's Chris is well-performed but never intriguing in the way that some of her previous femme fatales were.  This, however, wasn't the decision of audiences of the time, who welcomed Hayworth back with open arms, and actually made this movie a bigger picture than Gilda, ensuring that even without a prince on her arm, she was still a bankable celebrity & starlet.  Next week we will visit Hayworth at the end of the 1950's, when her seismic career finally started to wane after decades in the spotlight.

OVP: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Film: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Terry Moore, Richard Jaeckel
Director: Daniel Mann
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Shirley Booth*, Supporting Actress-Terry Moore, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Because of the advent of "method" acting in the early 1950's, it's sometimes hard to judge performances.  We take this advantage today when "realism" is valued above else, and it's easy to judge films from the 1930's and 40's, when a star persona needed to always be cultivated, but the early 1950's were when those two styles merged, and as a result, you occasionally get something like Come Back, Little Sheba.  The film, with a weird title that premiered in 1952, starred Shirley Booth, a stage actress who was making her film debut.  Unlike a lot of stage performers of the era (think Jessica Tandy or Mary Martin), this role, which was a smash on Broadway, was not filled with a film actress with more cache above-the-title (a Bette Davis or Kate Hepburn, perhaps), but instead Booth was able to translate the role onto film.  This leaves us with an actress who was doing her film debut, in a movie that largely becomes a staged play, including the theatricality that comes with it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about the troubled marriage of Lola (Booth) and Doc (Lancaster), a childless couple who are celebrating one year of Doc being sober.  Lola longs for her dog Little Sheba, who ran away months earlier, and still looks for him even though there's no indication that he's still alive (he shows up in her dreams).  They take on a pretty young tenant, Marie (Moore), whom they treat like a surrogate daughter even though she views them more as simply two older adults to be amused by.  She's juggling a long-distance boyfriend and an infatuation with a hot local athlete named Turk (Jaeckel), who desperately wants to have sex with her.  As the film goes, it's clear that Lola is miserable, and has internalized years of Doc's abusive alcoholism to a point where she sees no value in herself.  She had married him as a teenager because she was pregnant (but lost the baby through what appeared to be a miscarriage, though of course they never say the word), and had once been young-and-beautiful like Marie, desired by men; there's a strong indication that Doc doesn't think that the baby was even his, but he married Lola anyway.  The film's climax occurs when Doc decides to go back to drinking, and threatens Lola with her life.  Afterward, he apologizes, and Lola admits that she's given up on Little Sheba coming back, and the two decide to be enough for each other.

A lot of your opinion of the film is going to rely upon your interpretation of the ending.  For much of the film, Lancaster's character has been obsessed with Marie.  Initially you kind of assume it's a sexual frustration-that he wants to have sex with this pretty young woman, but as the film progresses you learn that's not it.  Instead, Lancaster is pining for his own lost youth, the lost opportunities that he missed when he married the "pretty young girl" because he had to, giving up his opportunity to be a medical doctor (he's a chiropractor), and have children & a family.  Instead, he has a dependency on alcohol and a wife whom he sees as a joke, and someone that he can put all of his blame on.

Which makes the ending kind of harrowing if you don't look at it as an ending, but as the middle.  Hollywood wants you to believe that Lola & Doc live happily ever after, that with Marie moved out of their house, Doc won't be sexually frustrated and constantly regretful, but that's not really how it reads to a modern audience.  We know that Doc hasn't really addressed his anger and drug problems, and that Lola will continue to bear the brunt of it the next time he slips.  Instead, how it reads is that Lola is the one whose safety net has left.  She no longer has the potential respite of Little Sheba, someone who loves her unconditionally, and after talking to her mother, she realizes she can't go home.  There's a harrowing scene toward the end where, before she takes Doc back, she calls her mother seeing if she can move home, but her father, still betrayed by the pregnancy that Lola had as a youth out of wedlock, won't take her back.  Lola realizes that her only choices are taking her chances with Doc, or risk entering an unknown future, and unknowns have not been good to Lola.  If you take Come Back, Little Sheba by its surface-level finish, it's kind of a disappointment after posing interesting questions.  If you assume that this is the terrifying calm-of-the-storm, it has a more meaningful and darker ending, which is how I interpret it.

The film was nominated for three Oscars, and this is where I get back to the "acting styles" conversation from the beginning of this review.  I personally adored Shirley Booth in this role.  There are times this part might be over-played, and her stage roots show, but she inhabits Lola so fully and completely, especially in ensuring we have the opportunity for a "double meaning" in the ending, that it's easy to forgive.  She makes this woman feel authentic, even if she's the sort of well-meaning person you might avoid at the supermarket because she talks too much.  Moore's nomination is a bit more perplexing.  She has one good scene where her constant flirtation with Turk comes to a head, and Marie stops playing a part and we get to see the true frightened girl under the bravado, and I liked the way she seemed to have a different persona depending on who was in the room, confident in her beauty & youth winning over any situation, but it's not a particularly impressive piece of work.  The script calls for her simply to be pretty, which she is, but only the aforementioned moments feel like she's rising above the script.  The editing being cited is unusual-it's not a "Best Picture demands to be included" sort of nomination that you'd expect, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy here in the editing-it's basically a filmed play-so I'm not sure why it is we're seeing this nominated other than perhaps the final fight scene?  Either way, this is a worthwhile and curious little movie that I'm glad I finally caught.

Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952)

Film: Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952)
Stars: Mitzi Gaynor, Scott Brady, Mitzi Green, Marguerite Chapman, Wally Vernon
Director: Harmon Jones
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Mitzi Gaynor-click here to learn more about Ms. Gaynor (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Mitzi Gaynor is a bit odd in terms of the women we've discussed so far in this series.  Unlike so many of the actresses who spent years in modeling or on the stage or in bit parts, she basically was an overnight sensation.  She was a big enough deal to get her name on the poster for her first film My Blue Heaven, and was already above-the-line the following year with Golden Girl, a film we discussed a while back on the blog.  Since we've already talked about Golden Girl, we're going to instead focus on a movie from 1952, Bloodhounds of Broadway, to ground ourselves in the early days of Gaynor's stardom.  Early on in her career she made a lot of financially successful, but ultimately forgotten films like Bloodhounds (the only movie in her first five years that is remotely discussed today is There's No Business Like Show Business, and that's because it features Marilyn Monroe).  Since rediscovering forgotten gems is pretty much my favorite thing to do on this blog, I was curious if Gaynor would be able to bring some charm to the film in addition to her obvious singing-and-dancing ability.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie's plot, like so many musicals of this era, is largely inconsequential, but suffice it to say we have "Numbers" Foster (Brady), a handsome bookie who is being chased by the police for illegal gambling.  He's being covered for by his vindictive lover Yvonne (Chapman), and she stays behind while he goes to Georgia as the police investigate.  In Georgia, he meets a backwoods girl named Emily (Gaynor) who can sing & dance, but also has the sophistication of Ellie May Clampett.  She's brought to New York by Numbers, and once she transforms from a tomboy into, well, Mitzi Gaynor, suddenly he starts to fall for her, which makes Yvonne jealous and she threatens to run to the cops unless Numbers stops seeing Emily.  The movie ends with Emily confessing her love for Numbers, and convincing him to go straight & do a year in prison, while in the process of course she becomes a big star on Broadway (the title of the film comes from the two giant bloodhounds who come along with Emily from Georgia).

The movie should be better than it is.  Gaynor's dancing is glorious, and it's fun to spot some of the "future star" cameos of Mary Wickes (who is always in such movies) and a very young Charles Bronson as a gangster, but it's also a slog.  The movie's central idea is that the men can't really see that Gaynor is beautiful until she gets dolled up, but with those eyes, and her accentuated bust-line, one has to assume the Georgia air made them blind.  None of the other leading players in this (other than Gaynor) were ever big stars (Chapman was a supporting player her whole career, Brady is known almost entirely for television if he's known at all), and it shows.  There's not enough spark in the performances, or in the script, to really warrant this being a movie to pay attention.  Even the musical numbers, save for a madcap tap number between Gaynor and future Mouseketeer Sharon Baird, are instantly forgettable.

While I have liked Gaynor in other roles (I also find her delectable in interviews-she gives good quote), Bloodhounds is not a good fit for her.  To be fair, this isn't really her fault as I can't think of an actor who might be able to sell Emily as written-the script never finds a way to compromise the innocent young woman with the vamp that she's expected to play in sultry musical numbers on the stage, how she can go from being a hillbilly to a sophisticated Cyd Charisse type (and then back again).  Gaynor is just too glamorous to believe as someone who started the film in braided pigtails.  Next week we'll journey into the center of Gaynor's film career, and considering her costar in the picture, glamour is likely only going to be an asset so I have high hopes as we continue our final star tribute of 2020.

OVP: Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

Film: Million Dollar Mermaid
Stars: Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon, David Brian, Jesse White, (and a cameo by prima ballerina Maria Tallchief)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Esther Williams would continue on past 1952 in the movies, and might be the first actress in this series whose career ended up having too many chapters for us to investigate them properly in just one month.  MGM kept putting her in movies until the mid-50's, even though her aquacade musicals were no longer the guaranteed blockbusters they were in the 1940's, until she refused to take the June Allyson role in The Opposite Sex, and as a result she left the studio.  Williams would go on to make a few more films after 1956, though her husband Lorenzo Lamas preferred she stay home and be a homemaker.  Though she'd flirt with returning to movie stardom (she was wanted for the Shelley Winters role in The Poseidon Adventure, a role that won Winters an Oscar nomination, a distinction that Williams never achieved), she'd have a more successful second act to her career as a businesswoman, selling swimwear & swimming pools, and even served as a commentator as the 1984 Olympics.  As you can tell, there's more to talk about with Esther Williams, but we're going to end our monthlong look at her with what would become her most iconic role, and one that she had wanted to do in Hollywood since the moment she signed with MGM: Annette Kellerman, famed swimmer & actress, in Million Dollar Mermaid.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those unfamiliar, Annette Kellerman (Williams) was a star of the Hippodrome in the early-1910's, having come over from Australia.  In the film, we see her start as a young girl who has weak legs, but uses swimming to strengthen them and in the process becomes a champion swimmer.  However, she and her father (Pidgeon) fall on hard times, and have to sell her trophies just to make rent.  Kellerman meets Jimmy Sullivan (Mature) and his assistant Doc (White), who are relatively successful grifters who have a kangaroo-boxing act, but think that Kellerman could be a major attraction.  They first have her swim 26-miles through the Thames river, and then in Boston they have her wear a one-piece bathing suit to great scandal (and in the process, huge publicity).  Eventually Kellerman becomes a superstar, sharing the stage with prima ballerina Anna Pavlova (played in the film by the first American prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, who is mesmerizing in a grandiose performance as "the dying swan").  However, she longs for Jimmy, who left her when she joined the Hippodrome, and is participating in a series of crazy stunts.  After a freak accident with a giant glass tank (while she was filming a movie), Kellerman is hospitalized, though those that love her predict she'll walk again (real-life spoiler alert since it's not in the movie-she did, and had a very long life), and reunites with Jimmy, a happy ending on the film.

The movie is, well, glossy is about the best adjective I could come up with.  The film is billed as a musical, but it's really more a biopic with a few musical sequences, and unlike some of the sprier investments we had from Williams this month, it tends to drag.  Mature & Williams were having an on-set affair at the time (if you believe her memoirs, which are famously juicy but likely a bit exaggerated), but that charisma isn't really there onscreen.  Esther does her best here, but Mature is such an indulgent actor that he doesn't pair with the subtle Williams, and the supporting cast isn't game enough (or given enough to do) to really warrant much credit.

But it's the musical numbers that are the reason to see this film.  Williams does a gorgeous underwater ballet with a clam shell and a gigantic & fantastic number where she's in a long one-piece metallic gold swimsuit among a cascade of streaming water jets where she does a mesmerizing high-dive.  Best of all is this number with Williams surrounded by pillars of red & yellow smoke and a couple of dozen synchronized swimmers literally diving from swings into a pool, with Williams hanging on for dear life on a ring suspended above them in a circle.  Williams was injured badly in one of these stunts (in the books/articles I read prepping for this month's star, it's hard to tell which of the three numbers it was in), but you can see why this is the film that was synonymous with her legend-these rank among the most impressive sequences that MGM ever put into a musical (and that's saying a lot).  The film's sole nomination for Best Cinematography is no accident-shooting these difficult stunts in such glorious Technicolor must have been a challenge.  As a result, I'm going to give this three-stars, even if the story that tags along with it is middling & doesn't deserve such an endorsement, as you simply have to see these musical numbers.

Williams has been a bit of a conundrum for me this month.  It's clear that she usually played the same role, and wasn't as great of an actress as someone like Linda Darnell or Ann Sheridan, other women we've profiled in this series.  However, she's emerged as one of my favorites, if only because her movies are so distinctive & fun, and she has an effortless grace in her aquatic performances.  Williams was the rare movie star of Classical Hollywood who was genuinely respected for their offscreen talents, not asked to leave them at the studio gate, and it showed onscreen.  Next month we'll take a look at a woman whom the studio simply wanted to be a pretty face, but she (and history) had different plans entirely.