Showing posts with label 1952. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1952. Show all posts
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| Broderick Crawford |
SCANDAL SHEET (1952). Director: Phil Karlson.
"You're a neurotic screwball!"
The stockholders of the New York Express are up in arms because new editor-in-chief Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) has decided to increase profits and circulation by turning the paper into a vulgar tabloid. Chapman has been promised a significant bonus if he can really turn the paper around, and he's determined to publish hard-hitting stories no matter who he upsets. His protege, Steve (John Derek), wants to be just like Chapman, while Steve's girlfriend, Julie (Donna Reed), wishes he'd emulate just about anybody else. Things become complicated when a woman at a lonely hearts gathering sponsored by the Express recognizes Chapman as the husband who deserted her twenty years before, only now he has a different name ... Before long Steve is tracking down a story that Chapman wishes he could bury twenty miles deep. Scandal Sheet has an interesting premise and characters, is quite well-acted by the entire cast, but somehow it just misses the boat, perhaps because you're always one step ahead of most of the characters -- it just lacks sizzle and tension. Crawford is fine, and Henry O'Neill makes a notable impression as the alcoholic ex-reporter, Charlie, as does Rosemary DeCamp [Nora Prentiss] as Chapman's wife. Others in the cast include Kathryn Card and Ida Moore [The Egg and I], both of whom appeared on I Love Lucy. This was based on a novel by Samuel Fuller.
Verdict: Comes so close but misses. **1/2.
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| "I am the queen of the gypsies..." |
SQUIRE/FRED MERTZ: "There's lots of ale and stout upon the shelf.
And I take a drop or two myself"
PEASANTS: "A drop, he says! The squire's got the gout.
The stout makes him ail, and the ale makes him stout."
Needing to quickly replenish the treasury of the Ladies Wednesday Fine Arts League (or whatever the heck it's called), Lucy decides to write and put on an operetta entitled "The Pleasant Peasant." Since Ethel can sing much better than Lucy, she is given the lead role of Lily, while Lucy has to be content with Camille, "the snaggle-toothed old queen of the gypsies." To drown out Lucy's awful singing, the cast has been instructed to join in every time she opens her mouth. The costumes and scenery have been rented, everything's going well on opening night, but as always when Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) is in charge, things don't go quite as expected ...
Asked who wrote the songs, Lucy replies "Did you ever hear of Victor Herbert?" Of course, Lucy wrote the songs herself. When I first saw this in reruns as a child, I thought the rather tuneful music really was composed by Victor Herbert -- it's in his melodious style -- but I've never been able to determine who really did the music. [I Love Lucy has credited composers such as Eliot Daniel and Wilbur Hatch but they did general music for many episodes.] In any case, all of the songs are surprisingly memorable, including Ethel/Vivian Vance's delightfully-performed number "Lily of the Valley" ["when other girls go walking on their arm they've got a swell beau; whenever I go walking on my arm is just my elbow"], Ricky's love song to Lily, the drinking song, the Squire/Fred's number, and so on. I assume the clever and amusing lyrics were written by the Lucy writing team, Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr. The episode was directed by Marc Daniels.
Ball, Vance, Desi Arnaz, and William Frawley are all in top form, aided and abetted by Myra Marsh as the club president and the other ladies, especially the woman who interrupts the performance to sing to Lucy about a bounced check, and whose identity I can't determine [she isn't listed on imdb nor even on the I Love Lucy DVD], although I have definitely seen her elsewhere, possibly other Lucy episodes.
Verdict: Classic comedy. ****.
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| Jeff Chandler gives one of his best performances |
Flashy Christine Carroll (Loretta Young) is given a package by her fiance, Mike (Alex Nicol), and suddenly finds herself arrested and in jail despite her truthful protestations of innocence. She trains to be a nurse in prison and winds up ministering to a handsome vet named Steve Kimberly (Jeff Chandler), with whom she falls in love and vice versa. Her parole officer (Helen Wallace) warns her that Steve must be informed of her prison record before they can marry, so an apprehensive Christine manages to get around this, and a child soon follows. Then Mike comes back into her life and everything starts unraveling ... Because of You is an entertaining soap opera that soon becomes a study of frustrated mother love, with good performances from Young (in a Joan Crawford-type role) and Chandler, who is at his best in this. Notable supporting players include Alexander Scourby as a doctor at the veteran's hospital; Frances Dee as Steve's lovely sister, Susan; Lynne Roberts as his friend, Rosemary; Gayle Reed as little Kim; and Arthur Space as a judge. Pevny also directed Chandler in Female on the Beach and Foxfire.
Verdict: Pleasant enough if unremarkable soaper with two solid lead performances. **1/2.
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| Ray Milland and Joan Fontaine |
Alan Miller (Ray Milland) is a recovering alcoholic with a wife, Edna (Teresa Wright), and son. An elevator boy (Harry Bellaver) he knows calls him in to council a drunken hotel guest whom Alan assumes is male, but turns out to be a woman; Alan nevertheless decides to speak to her. Jenny (Joan Fontaine) is an actress who is letting alcohol strip her of her career and her dignity. Almost against their own wishes the two discover a mutual attraction, but there is the problem of Alan's marriage -- and his torment over his conflicted feelings ... Some contemporary critics saw Something to Live For as pure schmaltz, but for the more romantic-minded, it's an interesting picture with very good [if not necessarily great] performances from the leads. Teresa Wright with her expressive face offers a sensitive portrait of the wife who knows more than Alan realizes, and there's nice work from Richard Derr [When Worlds Collide] as an obnoxious, self-centered director with whom Jenny was once involved. Paul Valentine and Douglas Dick are also in the cast in smaller roles. One could argue about which classical composer influenced Victor Young the most, but his lovely score for the film is a decided asset. The ending may seem a little abrupt and simplistic, but it works beautifully. Stevens also directed Giant and many, many other notable films.
Verdict: While this is certainly not on the level of Brief Encounter, which it resembles in some ways, it is a worthwhile romantic picture. ***.
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| The brat: Mike (Tab Hunter) peers at the object of his affection |
"Unpleasant -- brat!"
When a ship is bombed during WW2, the only survivors are a young marine named Mike (Tab Hunter of War-Gods of the Deep) and a middle-aged lady doctor named Elizabeth (Linda Darnell of Hangover Square). After they make their way to a deserted island that resembles paradise, their antagonistic relationship softens into a mutual attraction. Despite their situation, all seems quite blissful until an English pilot crash lands on the island and a triangle soon develops ... One problem with Island of Desire is that the two main characters never mention their lost comrades, nor wonder what's happening with the war; instead they engage in silly banter not long after everyone else is killed. However the fact that both of them don't quite seem to fit in and have no one else in their lives helps make their relationship more plausible. Darnell is quite good, and Hunter is also believable as the callow marine who bristles at being called a boy. This was Hunter's second film and he shows some acting ability to go with the considerable sex appeal. It would be easy to dismiss this as an "old maid's" fantasy film --virginal woman winds up on an island with handsome Royal Air Force pilot and Tab Hunter -- or sheer romantic folderol, but it holds the attention, is well-acted, well-photographed by Oswald Morris, and has a nice score by William Alwyn. John Laurie appears in flashbacks as another man who was shipwrecked on the island.
Verdict: For romantic souls and Tab Hunter/Linda Darnell fans. ***.
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| Unholy Alliance: James Mason and Danielle Darrieux |
5 FINGERS (1952). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Based on a true story, 5 Fingers looks at the secret "career" of Ulysses Diello (James Mason) who is valet for the British ambassador in Turkey, a neutral country, during WW2. Diello had originally been valet for the late husband of the Countess Anna Stavisky (Danielle Darrieux of Madame de), who has become friends with the ambassador and is the "impoverished widow of a pro-German count." Diello wants to make a lot of money and doesn't care how he gets it, so he steals top secret papers from the ambassador's safe and sells them to the Germans. He enlists the countess' aid and she agrees -- for a price. Still, the countess may still see Diello as a servant, even if she is attracted to him... Michael Rennie [Phone Call from a Stranger] is a British Intelligence agent who takes over the security for the embassy, but it sure takes a hell of a long time for anyone to change the combination to the safe. In spite of that, 5 Fingers is absorbing and very well acted, with Mason giving another terrific performance; Darrieux is also on the money. Mankiewicz is no Hitchcock, and does little to maximum the story's considerable suspense, but the movie is still effective enough in spite of it; Bernard Herrmann's musical score certainly helps. There are ironic developments and an interesting climax.
Verdict: Mason at his slimiest. ***.
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| Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum |
ANGEL FACE (1952). Producer/director: Otto Preminger.
"If you want to play with matches, that's your business, but not in gas-filled rooms."
Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) goes out on a call to a California estate where Mrs. Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil of Stella Dallas) has had a close call with a gas jet in her room. Frank meets the woman's step-daughter, Diane (Jean Simmons), and the two begin a sort of romance, despite the fact that Frank has a steady and reliable gal in Mary (Mona Freeman). Diane loves her father (Herbert Marshall of Girls' Dormitory), a writer who is down on his luck and living off of his wife, whom Diane loathes. Then there's a horrendous accident in which two deaths occur ... how much did Diane have to do with it? Angel Face is a very entertaining melodrama with very good performances from the entire cast, which includes Leon Ames as a defense lawyer and Kenneth Tobey as another ambulance driver with an eye for Mary. There are two incredible car crash sequences, a knock-out ending, and a fine score by Dimitri Tiomkin. For my money this is superior to Preminger's Laura. Some people find similarities in this to Leave Her to Heaven, made in 1945, and they probably aren't wrong.
Verdict: Zesty, absorbing film noir with some bite to it. ***1/2.
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| Teaching Davey to speak: Rettig, Knox and Young |
PAULA (1952). Director: Rudolph Mate.
After a miscarriage Paula Rogers (Loretta Young) is told by her doctor that she can't have any more children, and it is in this distracted mental state that she accidentally hits a young boy, David (Tommy Rettig), while driving home. Although she immediately gets out of her car and rushes to the child, an old man, Bascom (Will Wright) -- who actually contributed to the accident -- decides unfairly that she is drunk and forbids her to accompany them to the hospital. As Paula's husband, John (Kent Smith) may lose a coveted position if there's any hint of scandal, Paula hides the truth and decides to help the boy behind the scenes. She becomes a kind of nurse's aid, befriends the boy -- who has lost his ability to speak due to the trauma, and is an orphan -- and eventually takes him into her home. But what happens when and if he recognizes her from that night? And there's still that horrible old man who claimed she was inebriated ... Young gives a good performance and Rettig (Elopement), with his little, expressive face, is just marvelous. Alexander Knox (Son of Dr. Jekyll) plays a doctor who tries to get Davey to speak, and Kathryn Card (I Love Lucy) is cast as a nurse. While this is more of a light drama than a suspense film, it definitely has a lump-in-your-throat finale. Mate also directed the classic D.O.A.
Verdict: Minor but effective enough on its own terms. **1/2.
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| Cornel Wilde pitches the woo to Betty Hutton |
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952). Producer/director: Cecil B. DeMille.
Late in The Greatest Show in Earth, star Betty Hutton (also star of the "craptastic" Betty Hutton Show), playing trapeze artist Holly, is shown doing acrobatics on a cross bar in a parade down Main Street. Or rather Hutton is superimposed over the parade, and you can actually see through her in an embarrassingly cheap process shot. That pretty much encapsulates this whole cheesy movie, which purports to be about circus life. What it actually is -- against a backdrop of Barnum and Bailey/Ringling Brothers circus -- is a tiresome soap opera wherein Holly is in love with manager Brad (Charlton Heston), rival trapeze artist Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) is in love with Holly, and Jimmy Stewart wears clown make up throughout because he's hiding a secret. Dorothy Lamour of Donovan's Reef sings a number or two and is sardonic, while Gloria Grahame, also carrying a torch for Heston, has a good scene trading minor barbs with Hutton. The acting in this isn't bad -- even Hutton is more palatable than usual -- but you may find the elephants far more impressive. Wilde swaggers around with an okay Italian accent and is effective. [Although Wilde is billed over Heston, the latter is featured on the DVD cover due to the vagaries of Hollywood fame.] There's a not-bad train crash at the climax. DeMille only directed one more movie, The Ten Commandments, four years later.
Verdict: Okay, but Berserk is more fun. **1/2.