Showing posts with label 1957. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1957. Show all posts
Frank Harper (Rory Calhoun of Night of the Lepus) is the original instigator of a plot to rob a bank that holds a huge Army payroll. Among Harper's confederates are nervous Zimmer (Robert H. Harris of Mirage), pretty Kay (Mary Costa), Harry (Paul Picerni), big operator Flood (James Gregory of Nightfall), and sexually ambiguous Roy (Corey Allen), who wiggles his ass in front of Kay but is also gleefully whipped by Flood in one weird sequence. Harper has second thoughts about the whole business when he learns that part of the scheme includes blowing up a school ... The kinky characters are what distinguishes this otherwise standard caper movie, which has some good performances, especially from Gregory, Harris and Allen. Roxanne Arlen plays a woman who has the misfortune of getting in with the gang. Robert Stevens also directed In the Cool of the Day and many television shows.
Verdict: Okay caper film with some zesty scenes and acting. **1/2.
THE UNDEAD (1957). Producer/Director: Roger Corman.
"Keep thy place, malignancy!"
Diana Love (Pamela Duncan of Attack of the Crab Monsters) is a prostitute who is regressed to a past life via hypnotism. Suddenly she finds that she is a witch named Helene living in medieval times and dealing with stuff she never had to deal with in the 20th century -- such as the fact that if she doesn't die in the past she will have no future lives at all, and presumably this means her current life as Diana -- as well as such folk as Pendragon (Richard Garland, who was also in Crab Monsters), another witch named Livia (Allison Hayes), Smolkin the gravedigger [there's a nifty scene with Helene inside a coffin with a corpse essayed by Paul Blaisdell], and others. Richard Devon as Satan is a little hokey in the prologue, but gets better as the film proceeds. Dick Miller [A Bucket of Blood] is a leper, Billy Barty [The Day of the Locust] is an imp, and Bruno Vesota [The Wasp Woman] is an innkeeper, while Val Dufour plays Quintus Ratcliff and Dorothy Neumann is the elderly witch, Meg Maud. Duncan gives a good performance, and Hayes is as vivid as ever. This is an interesting picture with an unusual plot; it should have been made into a full-fledged fantasy film with FX, monsters, color and the works. As it is, it's entertaining and special fun for Corman fans.
Verdict: It's certainly different! ***.
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| James Darren, Kathryn Grant, Richard Conte |
THE BROTHERS RICO (1957). Director: Phil Karlson.
Eddie Rico (Richard Conte) has been out of the "family business" -- run by his "uncle" Sid (Larry Gates) -- for some time, but that is not the case with his two brothers. Gino (Paul Picerni) performed a hit on Sid's orders and Johnny (James Darren) drove the getaway car. Now both are in hiding afraid that Sid thinks they're going to talk and wants to silence them. Eddie can't believe that of Sid, whose life was once saved by his mother, Mrs. Rico (Argentina Brunetti), so he agrees to go find his brothers. This couldn't happen at a worse time, as Eddie and his wife, Alice (Dianne Foster of Drive a Crooked Road), are hoping to adopt a baby and Eddie needs to be at an important meeting. He learns to his regret that you can't trust Uncle Sid ... Larry Gates plays Sid with admirable, understated menace, and James Darren is dead-on as the conflicted youngest brother. Although she's billed above the title and gives a terrific performance as Darren's wife, Kathryn Grant (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) is on screen for only about five minutes. Foster and William Phipps as Joe are also notable. The Brothers Rico has some effective scenes, and is well-photographed by Burnett Guffey, but it's somehow unconvincing, and considering what's happening Conte is much too controlled throughout. A funny scene has Grandma Rico delightedly watching Earth vs the Flying Saucers on television [unlikely, since the movie was released only the year before].
Verdict: Acceptable potboiler. **1/2.
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| Brian Keith and Aldo Ray |
James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend Doc (Frank Albertson of Man-Made Monster) are on a hunting trip when they come to the aid of two men -- John (Brian Keith of The Parent Trap) and Red (Rudy Bond) -- who, unbeknownst to them, have robbed a bank. The ingrates murder doc and try to kill Vanning, who takes off with them in pursuit. The crooks take the wrong bag and assume that Vanning has the bag with the money in it. While on the run, Vanning meets a model named Marie (Anne Bancroft of Gorilla at Large) in a bar and she becomes embroiled in his problems. James Gregory plays an insurance man who is also following Vanning, albeit with less sinister intent. Although well-acted for the most part, and well-photographed by Burnett Guffey, Nightfall is a fairly weak entry in the film noir department, only really coming alive at the climax when thieves fall out and there's a sequence involving a runaway snow plow. Bancroft is good, if miscast as a model, and Ray pretty much walks through the movie, barely getting by on a little bit of charm and showing little emotion. Given a lead role, he pretty much muffs it. He kept acting right up until his death in 1991, however.
Verdict: Not much to this cheapie. **.
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| Joanne Woodward and Ken Scott |
Timid Eve White (Joanne Woodward of A Kiss Before Dying) acts strangely at times, so her husband, Ralph (David Wayne), takes her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Luthor (Lee J. Cobb of Boomerang). During their interview, a different, sexier personality named Eve Black emerges. While Luthor and a colleague at first suspect that Mrs. White is faking, they come to the conclusion that she has multiple personality disorder. Her husband can't quite buy this, and her already troubled marriage begins to disintegrate. Then a third personality, "Jane," makes its presence known ... The Three Faces of Eve is based on a non-fiction book by a psychiatrist, so it's introduced and narrated by Alistair Cooke (who is himself "introduced" in this picture) to let the audience know this is real and serious. Whatever the reality of Eve and multiple personalities, this is an absorbing picture thanks primarily to the performance of Woodward, who won the best actress Oscar. [The part was originally to go to Judy Garland, who would have been interesting.] Woodward is subtle in her effects, never once over-acting, and is moving at times as well. Cobb is also excellent, but David Wayne is ludicrously miscast as the ignorant, stumbling husband, and his attempts to portray him are "Hollywood" acting at its worst. Ken Scott [Desire in the Dust] makes more of an impression as a man who falls in love with "Jane." Nancy Kulp [Strange Bedfellows] is cast as Eve's mother in a brief flashback. One suspects that the reasons for Eve's trauma and her developing this disorder have been cleaned up for the screen. The best sequence has Eve White talking to the doctor and realizing that she -- that is, her personality -- doesn't have much longer to live, and doesn't care. Which begs the question: when a personality disappears does it also, in essence, die? This is much better than the knock-off Lizzie which came out later the same year. Unlike that movie Eve doesn't equate sexuality with evil.
Verdict: Intelligent look at a weird and troubling problem. ***.
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| Eleanor Parker and Richard Boone |
Elizabeth (Eleanor Parker of Home for the Holidays) is a timid soul who works in a museum and receives threatening notes from someone named "Lizzie." Then Elizabeth begins hitting the bars at night, wearing sexy clothing and make-up, and affecting a lascivious attitude. A helpful neighbor, Walter (Haas), who is friends with Elizabeth's slatternly Aunt Morgan (Jane Blondell of Advance to the Rear), with whom she lives, suggests she see a psychiatrist named Neal (Richard Boone). Neal is able to determine that Elizabeth has three distinct personalities, but which one will emerge as the dominant one? I'm not certain how Eleanor Parker wound up in this B movie knock-off of The Three Faces of Eve (also released in 1957), but she gives a good performance, and the rest of the cast are all solid. Lizzie equates sexuality with "evil" in some ways, and Parker's least convincing moments are when she turns into a nostril-flaring decadent "Lizzie," eschewing a less subtle way of making each personality distinct. But it works for this movie, which is professionally done but kind of cheap and depressing. Marion Ross and John Reach each make an impression as, respectively, Elizabeth's co-worker and a man she dates as Lizzie. Johnny Mathis also makes an impression playing a pianist/singer in a saloon; he has no dialogue. As an actor, Haas also appeared in Summer Storm and others.
Verdict: Entertaining enough but lurid and unpleasant. **1/2.
This lamentable biopic purports to be the life story of famous stage and screen actress Jeanne Eagels, but it comes off more like a travesty, almost a parody, of movie star biographies. Part of the problem is the casting and atrocious performance of Kim Novak, who has been seen to much better advantage in such movies as Vertigo and Middle of the Night. Apparently given no help at all in shaping her role by director George Sidney, Novak -- who does have a (very) few good moments -- portrays Eagels by lowering her voice an octave and developing an imperious manner and never seeming remotely human -- in fact at times she's more grotesque than anything else. She confuses over-acting with "Great Acting" and even has trouble with simple line readings. Although there was certainly enough drama in the real Eagels's life, with two marriages, a drug problem, and death at 39, Jeanne Eagels needs to make up even more slanderous stuff [her family filed a law suit, but you can't libel the dead in the U.S.]. In the movie an invented alcoholic actress named Elsie Desmond (a creditable Virginia Grey) brings Eagels the script for the play "Rain," hoping the latter will interest a producer in mounting the play as a comeback for her. Instead, Eagels steals the play away from Desmond, who then commits suicide. Eagels is seen as being similarly ruthless in other sequences as well. The two men in her life, one of whom she briefly marries, are portrayed by Jeff Chandler [who basically gives a good accounting of himself] and Charles Drake, who is okay as her husband. As Eagels' stern if loving acting coach, Agnes Moorehead gives a competent performance but at times seems affected by the movie's sheer badness. Murray Hamilton does his typical sleazy, oily, repulsive shtick as a vaudeville performer who tries to rape Jeanne. The movie mixes facts with fantasy, such as when Eagels is suspended from the stage for several months by Actors Equity [true] and has her running to vaudeville when she actually went to Hollywood to make (mostly silent) movies [one of which is inexplicably shown at the end of Jeanne Eagels, only it's a musical!]. In actuality, Eagels had a triumph in the first sound version of The Letter, and was posthumously nominated for an Oscar, but this, incredibly, is never mentioned, even though it would have added up to an effective and bittersweet conclusion. Drake and Grey played a married couple in All That Heaven Allows and George Sidney also directed Bye Bye Birdie, for which he was more suited.
Verdict: Eagels certainly deserved better than this miserable schlock. *1/2.
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| Diana Barrymore |
This very frank memoir written by the daughter of John Barrymore was published in 1957 but reads like one of the "warts and all" embarrassingly frank Hollywood autobiogs of today. Barrymore seems to leave nothing out -- her three marriages, her promiscuity, her nearly hopeless alcoholism -- but one still gets the sense that this self-destructive individual didn't want to take full responsibility for her actions. True, her famous father [who was on a serious down-slide when Diana began her career] and mother, who wrote under the pen name "Michael Strange," were rather self-absorbed people and not the best of parents, but it's not as if Diana, on a trust fund, was raised in the ghetto -- although in later years when the money ran out she certainly got a stark taste of poverty and harsh reality. Thanks to co-author Frank, "Too Much, Too Soon" is compelling and often powerful in its delineation of the depths to which Ms. Barrymore would sink. She managed to throw away many opportunities others would have killed for, such as when she showed up for the first live telecast of "The Diana Barrymore Show" dead drunk and immediately lost the show and the lucrative contract. The anguish of her third marriage to washed-up actor and fellow drunk Robert Wilcox is sharply etched [her first husband was older actor Bramwell Fletcher of The Undying Monster, whom she was wretched to]. She can be capable of some raw assessments of herself, such as when she chastises herself for being outraged by her father's wanting her to phone a call girl service for him [which was a little tacky] when she later realizes she should have shown compassion for his being "sick and broken and lonely and old and unhappy." Whatever you think of Diana -- pathetic, out-of-control alcoholic, or simply a major fuck-up -- the book is a fascinating expose of the dark side of Hollywood that pulls you along from the first page. Diana managed to make about half a dozen films, but she died of an overdose only three years after this book was published. The film version of the book starred Dorothy Malone as Diana and Errol Flynn as her father. John Barrymore and future son-in-law Fletcher appeared together in Svengali.
Verdict: Pride goeth before a fall. ***1/2.