John Mills Rules! : in "The Long Memory" & "Forever England"

This blog was begun the night of March 29, 2021 :

John Mills has just been paroled after 12 years in prison. With no place to go, he heads down to a desolate beach where an old wooden boat is stranded. It's just a hulk, and looks wrecked, as if it's been in a fire, but Mills needs a place to sleep, so he goes below deck, has a look around, and is flooded with the memory of a night long past. You could call it "The Long Memory"(1953), an excellent English film noir that becomes a meditation on revenge.

As Mills prepares to bed down for the night, we go into flashback mode, where a dozen years earlier he was in the same place, in the ship's cabin with his fiancee and her father. The ship was intact then, but the relationships are broken. In a scene with no expository dialogue, we are given fragments of the situation : Mills wants to marry his girlfriend but doesn't approve of her father's hold on on her. He's an abusive alcoholic in debt to a hoodlum, yet she feels protective toward him. The hoodlum then shows up demanding payment, with two henchmen in tow. A fight breaks out, someone grabs an iron poker and starts swinging. An oil lamp is smashed and the ship catches fire. Mills' fiance makes a break for the lifeboat, also dragging her decrepit father to safety. The last we see of Mills, he's jumping off the burning deck, then swimming to shore.

Cut to a courtroom. Mills is now the defendant in a murder trial, accused of killing the hoodlum (described as an "honest businessman" of course), whose charred body was found at the bottom of the bay. The star witness for the prosecution is none other than his fiancee, who testifies that she saw Mills strike the man with the poker. She's also identified the body of the deceased as the hoodlum in question (although because it is badly burned, you'd think a medical examiner's opinion would be required).

No matter : Mills is convicted on his fiancee's testimony, and that of one of the thugs, a scramble-brained ex-boxer. Here the flashback ends, and Mills is back in the boat, lost in thought. We can tell he's pissed off, and the cops know it too. They've been tailing him ever since he left prison, fearing he'd be out for revenge, which leads us to believe they knew all along his fiancee had lied.

But why did she do so? To protect her father, who owed money to the hood and therefore should've been the prime suspect. She chose her dad over John Mills and ended up framing him, which cost him twelve years of his life.

Once Mills gets his bearings, he sets out to find the two perjurers who testified against him. The first is the boxer, whom Mills inquires about at a roadside diner near the beach. The joint is little more than a shack, with a rough & tumble proprietor and a clientele to match, but during his visit Mills attracts the attention of an employee, a beaten down but beautiful young woman of foreign extraction who, like John Mills before her, is in a bad situation and has no one to turn to.  

Mills does locate the boxer, who's now so feeble that he's frightened of Mills and volunteers to change his testimony, to tell the truth in other words. He goes to the police station to do just that, and it's at this point that the Plot Conundrum kicks in - the police inspector in charge of the case is now married to Mills' ex-fiance, the woman whose false testimony landed him in prison. The Inspector suspects his wife may have lied all those years ago, which is why he put a tail on Mills the moment he was paroled. He's worried that Mills may try to find and kill her. And, Mills plans to do exactly that. But then two things happen that derail his plan. Firstly, he found he couldn't kill the pleading boxer. His anger dissipated in the face of the man's fear. The second thing is love. In a subplot that changes the arc of the story, the foreign woman from the diner (Eva Bergh) shows up at the boat one day. She begs Mills to let her stay there, saying she's quit her job and has no money. "I had to leave that horrible place", she tells him. "But I knew the moment I saw you that you were kind, I saw it in your eyes".

Mills doesn't want anyone telling him he's kind; not when he's got revenge on his mind. It might cause him to lose his nerve, but then.......that already happened with the boxer. Still, he tells the woman to go away and leave him alone. But she persists, until he finds himself reluctantly in love. Now he's got a choice to make. Forget about the past and start anew with this lady, or continue with his plan, which has been churning in his mind and stomach for twelve long years.

We've seen variations on this story from time to time, it's a familiar noir device - the choice between love and death, or love and hatred, which in this case will lead to Mills' re-imprisonment and thus qualifies as self destruction. But it's well told here, and there's a second subplot that'll kick in.......I'm not sure I should mention it, so I'll give you only a broad hint - it has to do with the dead hoodlum. This turn of events will render Mills' plan moot. Which doesn't mean he's giving up on revenge, not yet anyway, but he'll have to greatly revise the objective. 

What can I say but "John Freakin' Mills"? We love the guy and he's great once again in "The Long Memory", which gets Two Big Thumbs Up and has, in addition to a strong plot, some great black and white location photography at the seaside and in an industrial section of Kent, England, looking grim like the end of the world. //// 

And the previous night's Mills :

Okay, so we've been on a John Mills kick, during which he's become one of our favorite actors. Now we've got one one more reason to like him : "Forever England"(1935), featuring Mills in his first starring role as a Royal Navy sailor who becomes a hero during World War One. 

As "Albert Brown", Mills has sailing in his blood. His father, who he's never known, was a Navy captain and in 1913 Mills is in training at naval cadet school. When his ship is visited by a crew of German sailors, in the spirit of seafaring fraternity, he forms a friendship with one of the Germans, based on their shared skill at boxing. The visit is enjoyed by all, until the German captain receives a message : return to your ship! World War 1 has erupted!

Midway through the film, Mills' ship is sunk by a torpedo, but he and a few other survivors are rescued by none other than their recent German visitors, now unfortunately their enemies. The German ship in turn is blasted by the heavy guns of an English destroyer, leaving a huge hole in it's side. As it limps away in search of a hiding place, I'm getting a sense of deja vu that gets stronger when it reaches the Galapagos Islands. "Wait a minute - I've seen this movie before"! And it was true, in a sense, because just three weeks ago we watched a film entitled "Sailor of the King", that starred Jeffery Hunter as a US Navy sailor who becomes a hero in World War Two. It turns out that "Sailor of the King" is a remake of "Forever England", and both movies are based on a book called "Brown on Resolution", written in 1929 by C.S. Forester. I didn't recognise any similarities until halfway through "Forever" because it does away with a lot of the dramatic preamble featured in "King". At 70 minutes, versus "King"'s 83, it doesn't waste any time in getting to the action and is thus a more efficient film. Also, as good as Jeffery Hunter was in the lead role, John Mills is even better. He's only 27 here (and as mentioned it's his film debut) and looks every bit the action hero.

For a more detailed review of the plot, go back to my "Sailor of the King" review, but one last thing I do wanna mention about "Forever England" are it's battle scenes. The artillery explosions are so realistic that they could pass as stock footage from the actual war. The budget doesn't look otherwise extravagant, but the filmmakers went all out in this respect.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "Forever England", then, and you've got yourself a John Mills Twofer to write home about.

That's all for now. Have a great afternoon, tons of love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

John MIlls in "The Vicious Circle" & "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" w/Doris Day and David Niven

This blog was begun the night of March 27, 2021:

You just can't go wrong with John Mills. He's one of those actors like Tom Hanks - if he's in a movie you know it's gonna be good, and tonight was no exception with "The Vicious Circle"(1957), a crime thriller in which he plays a doctor suspected of murder. As the movie opens, Mills is leaving the office when he's visited by a reporter, seeking tidbits for a human interest story about the medical profession. After rebuffing inquiries into his personal life, and generally showing no interest in the interview, Mills receives a telephone call from a movie producer friend, asking him to pick up an actress from the London airport. (some setup, eh?) When the reporter - still in Mills' office - offers to do the driving, he accepts, even though he was entirely unfriendly to the man just moments before.

(and he's got a friend who produces movies......thank you mister screenwriter)

Well at any rate, they arrive at the airport and pick up the actress (Lisa Daniely, who we've seen a lot of recently). It turns out she's German, and a big star in her home country. After dropping her off at a hotel, the reporter takes Mills home, too. But when he enters his flat, he discovers the actress dead on his living room floor. How can this be? She only just got out of the car at her hotel a few minutes earlier.

Mills immediately calls the police, knowing full well he'll be labeled a suspect. But he's suspecting an obvious frame-up, and for some reason the police inspector believes his story. For the moment, Mills remains free, though he is now crashing at a friend's bachelor pad to avoid further visits from the coppers.

The problem for Mills is that the police cannot verify the existence of the reporter. No newspaper or magazine has ever heard of the man. Mills is then visited by a dapper looking older gent (Wilfrid Hyde-White), who identifies himself as "a good friend of yours". This guy is clearly an agent of some kind (MI-6?), but seems to be trying to blackmail Mills, offering up a clandestine photo of him and the reporter at the airport that he can use as proof of his alibi. However, he won't give Mills the photo without some quid pro quo. I won't tell you what that is, but there's some serious three level chess being played here, so you'd better brush up on your skills. Mills feels comfortable enough at this point to resume his daily practice, but then sees a new patient who describes a hallucination that closely resembles the details of the murder in his apartment.

(are you following along?)

Good, because shortly thereafter, the hallucinating woman turns up dead at his friend's place, the pad Mills was staying at to avoid the police. This is one of those Agatha Christie-style scripts where nobody knows what's going on except the writer, and maybe Wilfrid Hyde-White. Mills will eventually discover that he's the pawn in the chess game, being moved around at will to affect a checkmate. But against whom? The reporter? He doesn't exist. The movie producer? Naw....c'mon. He's just a voice on the telephone. What about Mills' fiance? Hmmm, it could be her. Mills certainly has his suspicions, and risks alienating her by voicing them. And what about Mills himself? He seems to feel he's the killer : "Why haven't you arrested me"?, he asks the Inspector. "Oh, we've got enough evidence to arrest you a hundred times over" comes the answer. So what're they waiting for?

You'll have to stick around find out, but you'll have a good time guessing. This is one of those dialogue-heavy mysteries with little exposition. Nothing is explained, the actors' lines are like puzzle pieces, so keep the remote handy, you may have to hit rewind a time or two. But John Mills delivers yet again, and "The Vicious Circle" gets Two Big Thumbs Up.  /////

The previous night we had another a change of pace with a dvd from the Libe : "Please Don't Eat The Daisies"(1960), a light rom-com starring Doris Day as a housewife married to a New York theater critic (David Niven). Just as his star is on the rise, she asks him to keep his promise, made years earlier, to relocate to the country. As the movie opens, Day is shown dealing with her brood of four young boys, including an infant named "Adam" who is kept in a cage, haha, because he's so unruly.  :) It's all snappy stuff, kid chaos versus Supermom, but Day wants out of the Manhattan high rise the family calls home, if only for some extra space to do battle. The trouble is that Niven has just written a scathing review of a play, and his pithy remarks have drawn notice of some large circulation magazines. Suddenly he's in demand as a Top Critic, one of the Holy Seven of Broadway, whose viewpoint can make or break a show.

Niven is at first immune to the power that comes with his new status....or so he proclaims. But after he destroys the play of a longtime friend, he begins to feel his oats, and justifies himself by writing, in print, "When I see tripe, I shall report it"! This leads to an enormous inflation of his ego and a desire to remain in New York, where he can throw his weight around and be the center of attention. He's riding high when an actress (Janis Paige), whose talent he's belittled, comes on to him in order to reverse his opinion. Despite his venomous print persona, Niven at heart is really a mild family man. But what appears to be an affair with the actress will lead to his comeuppance, much to his chagrin.   

All of this is played "Doris Day style", like 1960s screwball comedy with a PG raciness. At a party, one of Day's kids asks a gender-bending guest : "are you a man or a woman"?. How would that play now?

Niven eventually turns the potential tryst into a friendship with the would-be vixen, the unspoken commentary being that he can see she's lonely and smarter than she pretends. He also feels guilt for trying to ruin her career, and sets out to make amends, in his professional life and at home. But it might be too late, because his former friend (the Broadway producer) has set him up by giving Day a play to produce for her church group. It's author? None other than Niven himself, written when he was in college with hopes of becoming a dramatist. But the play is terrible - so bad that it led Niven to switch to criticism. And that's the point. The disgraced producer hopes Niven will see the play and review it with his usual sarcasm, thereby skewering himself.     

The hijinx is supported by a few brief musical interludes, sung by Doris in that inimitable voice of hers. You've gotta love this style of comedy, popular in the Camelot days of the early 1960s, when adult topics were given an edge but the tone was G-rated, and the overall feeling was breezy. I also like to note the color in motion pictures from this era. Technicolor was excellent, but of course was known for it's bold saturation of primaries (bright Reds in particular), and it was right around this time that Deluxe was perfecting it's Pastel Look, which offered a more nuanced set of hues. If you look at many of the Color by Deluxe pictures from that era, the palette resembles a candy store, though not in a gaudy way. They just offered a production designer or costumer greater color choices and so opened up a whole new "paint box" for filmmakers. Other labs eventually caught up (and in fact "Daisies" was processed at Metrocolor), but it was Deluxe who perfected the process, and their films from the early 1960s still look incredible. 

"Please Don't Eat the Daisies" is not classic Doris Day, ala "Pillow Talk", and it's as much David Niven's film as hers, but it's still fun and merits Two Solid Thumbs Up. And it looks great in widescreen to boot.

Well that's all for the time being. Have an awesome Day (get it?).........:)

Tons of love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

  

"The First of the Few" starring Leslie Howard & "Journey Together" w/ Richard Attenborough

This blog was begun the night of March 25, 2021 :

Tonight we were back on familiar territory with "The First of the Few"(1942), a brilliant biopic starring Leslie Howard as R.J. Mitchell, the British aircraft designer who created the legendary Spitfire fighter plane, which was flown by the RAF in WW2 to great success against the Luftwaffe. I came across the film in a search for "movies about the RAF" and in fact it was it's American title of "Spitfire" that caught my eye. I was expecting an aerial combat flick in the same vein as "The Battle of Britain" (a must-see classic), but instead was treated to the story of the famous airplane and it's development, which began in the early 1920s when Mitchell, as a young man, observed seagulls in flight and - noting their grace - wondered why a plane couldn't be designed in the same way.

"We're piecing them together", he says in the movie. "Holding the wings to the body with struts. I'm going to design a plane that's all-of-a-piece, one of uniform structure and with single wings, just like a bird".

And so he sets out to do it. At first he has to convince his bosses of the feasibility of his project. The chairman of Supermarine Aviation takes one look at his model of the plane and scoffs, "An aeroplane with one wing? How will it get off the ground"? But after talking him into a rock-bottom budget to build the prototype, Mitchell enters his first Supermarine Seaplane into a racing competition in Italy.....and wins! Now that he's earned the trust of the chairman, Mitchell is given free reign to improve on his design, which he does repeatedly as the years pass. By 1929, he's raised the top speed of his Supermarines to over 300 miles per hour, an amazing achievement when you consider the Wright Brothers flight of 7mph just a quarter-century earlier.

His racing victories attract the notice of a German air force official, who invites Mitchell and his test pilot (David Niven) to visit Germany for an honorary dinner. The year is now 1933. The Germans are forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles from building anything other than gliders, but as the officer explains, they have no intention of continuing to honor the treaty, especially now that their new leader - Adolph Hitler - has promised to return the country to it's former greatness. The friendly atmosphere at the dinner becomes strained at this point, and moreso after a drunken lietenant proclaims that "one day, even England will bow to us". Mitchell is then introduced to Willy Messerschmitt, who explains his own plans for a cutting-edge fighter. By the time Mitchell and Niven return to England, he is alarmed enough to report to the government about what he has seen and heard, and asks for permission and funding to develop a fighter for the RAF.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Mitchell's race against time to finish the Spitfire, as his workaholic nature has rendered him ill. His doctor has given him some startling news (which I won't reveal), but he nevertheless continues to spend every waking hour working on the airplane's final details. He feels it's more important than his life : "England's survival is at stake here".

There's not a lot of combat flying in "The First of the Few", save for the final scenes of the 112 minute picture, but it's one hell of a story and it gets Two Big Thumbs Up from me. Also interesting, and tragic, is the fact that the film's star, Leslie Howard, was himself killed in the crash of a commercial BOAC flight in 1943, only a year after this movie was released. Howard was one of the biggest stars in British history, but for some reason his flight was shot down by the Luftwaffe over the Atlantic Ocean. There are all kinds of theories about this shootdown of a civilian craft, and the incident has remained topical enough for several documentaries to cover, including one that is still in production called "The Mystery of Flight 777". We'll have to watch it when it's released.  /////   

Last night we watched a more action-oriented warbird flick, one that put us in the cabin of a Lancaster for some white knuckle bombing runs over Germany. Starring Richard Attenborough, "Journey Together"(1945) is the story of a Royal Air Force cadet who flunks out of flight school and is retrained as a navigator. We all know Sir Richard as an older man, balding and a tad plump, but here he's just 22 and looks 15, like an English Mickey Rooney. He and his mate "John Aynesworth" (David Tomlinson, a familiar face) have arrived at the base determined to become pilots. Attenborough is the smart one who aces each exam. Aynesworth sits behind him, looking over his shoulder to copy. He's not as good with the math and engineering equations every pilot must know, but the instructor lets his cheating pass because John has natural born flying ability that Attenborough lacks. Despite his lesser book smarts, Aynesworth becomes a Lancaster pilot while Attenborough fails because he can't land a plane. It turns out he has no depth perception, a liability impossible to compensate.

After he is transferred for retraining to an American airbase in Arizona, an understanding flight instructor (Edward G Robinson), suggests switching specialties : "Being a pilot isn't the only thing in the world, son". But Attenborough is too sullen to listen, thoroughly disappointed at the loss of his heart's desire. Edward G tries to explain that in the modern air force, every job is equally important. In other words, being a navigator carries just as much glory as a pilot, and it just so happens that Attenborough's aptitude with numbers make him well suited for the navigator's seat.

His first mission is a near disaster when he miscalculates and directs his pilot off course. They nearly run out of fuel, but what the pilot doesn't tell him is that it was all a test. The crew has been playing him because of his bad attitude. "You can't be moping on a real mission or you'll get us all killed", the pilot tells him. Attenborough finally shapes up, and in the film's last act is assigned to substitute for a wounded navigator from the squadron's most accomplished crew. The pilot and co-pilot mutter their displeasure at being given his services - his reputation as a malcontent has preceded him. But it's too late for a change. The mission is all set to go and it's make or break for the Allies, the destruction of an armaments plant deep in Germany. The weather is not good, heavy overcast with a strong side wind. Will Attenborough be able to keep his wits, and keep his attitude in check? He needs to prove himself this time, not only do the crew's lives depend on it, but it's integral to the success of the war.

"Journey Together" follows a similar formula to other RAF Bomb Crew films we've seen. The first half of the movie involves the training of the airmen and group camaraderie. Much of this story is about Attenborough's youthful discouragement in not getting what he wanted, and his eventual turnaround in attitude. Then comes the last 20 minutes, which entails the bombing run over Berlin. It's tense, realistic and spot on, making this a great film of it's kind. If you like Lancasters, this is the movie is for you. The Big L was one impressive (and scary looking) aircraft, and you really get a feel for what it was like to go on a raid over Germany. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Journey Together". And there you have it, an All Airplane Double Feature.  /////

My album of the day is Opeth's "Orchid", their first and one of their best. Now it's time for my hike and a run to Super King for veggies. Have an awesome evening, and tons of love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Movies With Grimsley : "All About Eve" & "Mud" (plus George C. Scott)

This blog was begun the night of March 23, 2021:

Tonight, Grimsley brought over the dvd of "All About Eve"(1950), a film we previously watched and reviewed here at the blog (within the last two years I'd guess), but Grim had never seen it and it's such an incredible movie that I had no problem watching it again. I hope you don't mind if I run through a second review as well. I'll just give you the basics and a quick rundown. 

Anne Baxter plays "Eve Harrington" a star-struck fan of Broadway actress "Margo Channing" (Bette Davis). Eve worships Margo to the extent of attending every performance of her latest show, and waiting by the stage door afterward. As the movie opens, "Karen", the playwright's wife (Celeste Holm) spots Eve lurking timidly in the shadows and - having seen her there night after night - strikes up a conversation, after which she's so impressed by Eve's devotion to Margo that she invites her backstage to meet her idol.

Margo is at first dismissive, polite but eager to be rid of just another zealous fan. But after witnessing Eve's genuine reverence for her, Margo invites her to talk about her background. "What brought you to New York, Eve? Where are you from? Do you have a family"? Eve tells the backstage gathering (which includes the playwright and his wife, the play's director, and Margo's personal assistant) an abbreviated version of her life story, which ends with the startling revelation that she had been married but her husband was killed in the war. Heartbroken, she turned to her love of the theater for solace, and in particular her admiration of Margo, her favorite actress. The meeting ends with Margo inviting Eve over for dinner, and after a montage lasting five minutes, a few days have gone by and Eve has been hired as Margo's new assistant.

As time passes, Eve has become the perfect attache, arranging every detail of Margo's life. She's even begun to dress like Margo, and one day Margo catches her holding up a stage costume in front of the mirror, as if imagining herself in a starring role. It's clear that Eve now has designs on becoming an actress herself. This worries Margo, as her boyfriend (Gary Merrill) is the play's director and has become attracted to Eve, who has blossomed into a beautiful and charismatic young woman. Also, in contrast to Margo, Eve is the Soul of Politeness and Courtesy. This is one of Bette Davis' most famous roles, in which she utters the classic line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night"! This takes place during an elongated party scene at Margo's house, during which she gets drunk and increasingly hostile to everyone in attendance. Her anger is really at Eve, who she now thinks is trying to usurp her life entirely.

"All About Eve" was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 6, including Best Picture and Best Director (our pal Joseph Mankiewicz). After we finished watching, I told Grimsley that Bette Davis also won for Best Actress, but I later found out I was wrong. Shockingly, neither she nor Anne Baxter won an Oscar for their portrayals, though both were nominated. Still, I would call Davis' performance one of the five greatest female leads in motion picture history, and Baxter's "Eve" was deserving of Best Supporting Actress.

The great George Sanders did win a Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as "Addison DeWitt", a cold-blooded theater critic whose reviews can make or break any play, and any actor or actress. And it turns out that DeWitt will have a hand in Eve's desire to become a star in her own right. There's just one hell of a twist that will occur before that happens - if it does - and of course I can't tell you what it is.

It goes without saying that "All About Eve" gets my highest rating, "Two Gigantic Thumbs Up", and AFI ranked it #16 on their list of Greatest American Movies, so you know it's a must-see. In particular, I think it's one of the greatest scripts ever written (also by Joe Mankiewicz), and the acting by the entire cast is in the stratosphere. Do yourself a favor and watch it a.s.a.p, even if you've seen it before.  ////// 

Grim also came over the previous night with a fairly recent film :"Mud"(2012), starring Matthew McConaughey as a disheveled and desperate man hiding out on an island in a river in Arkansas. Have you seen "Mud"? I had, quite a while ago, but like "Eve" it was good enough to watch again. Two fourteen year old boys, looking for adventure, discover Mud's hideout while exploring the island one day. The boys live nearby with their families and Mud tells them he's from the area, too, a small community of fishermen who live in houseboats on the river's edge. He looks like a homeless man, and the kids call him a bum, but he's intelligent and his underdog nature gains their trust. In fact he's an outlaw, wanted for killing the abusive suitor of his would-be girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon). Now the police are after him - and worse, the suitor's family who are stone cold bounty hunters. Only the two boys know of his whereabouts, and Mud gets them to bring him food, take notes to his girl, and finally to help in his escape, all at great danger to themselves.

You've probably seen "Mud", so you know it's an excellent film with a standout performance by Mathew McConaughey. Even though he's down and out, he's still in Full Existential Mode as only McConaughey can do, and in fact you could think of his Lincoln commercials as "Mud" all cleaned up and free of trouble, having finally "made it" in life and pondering The Meaning of It All. There is an element of "Stand By Me" to the movie, as a coming-of-age adventure for the two boys, whose lives at home are harsh and depressing. Young Tye Sheridan stands out as "Ellis", an idealistic boy whose parents are divorcing. Ellis will do anything for Mud because Mud and his girlfriend share true love, or so it appears.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "Mud". See it if you haven't already done so.  /////

I wanna cut in to mention an acting performance I saw over the weekend, not in a movie but a tv show. I think I mentioned that I recently began watching episodes of "The Virginian", having purchased the first season on dvd from Amazon. "The Virginian" was a classic Western series from the golden age of television in mid-50s to late 60s. The difference with "The Virginian" was that it ran 90 minutes (75 on dvd, when commercials are deducted), so each episode was like a movie. Accordingly, the scripts and characters were well developed, the main cast was stellar, and every week there was an accomplished actor as a guest star. On the episode I'm referring to it was George C. Scott, but in his role he was so unlike the George C. we know that I was astonished to watch him. He was young here, only 34, and thin and healthy looking, his facial features well defined. Later, he became the more bloated, raging actor we know so well, fuller in body and ready to explode at any moment. But in "The Virginian", he is playing a meek and refined schoolteacher from the east, who comes to Wyoming with his wife seeking work, and before long finds himself in a standoff with escaped convicts who are holding his students hostage.

It's rare that a TV performance would affect me so strongly, but it really was one of the greatest acting jobs I've ever seen. You can watch it for yourself if you can find it on Youtube. The episode is called "The Brazen Bell".  ////

That's all for now. I'm still reading the McCartney book but closing in on the finish line, and I'm listening to early Opeth, the albums "Morningrise" and the ridiculously titled "My Arms, Your Hearse". Michael should've added a wink wink nudge nudge after that one. Good album though!

Have an awesome afternoon. We'll be back to our usual movie fare starting tonight, meaning spys, Brits, and British Spies, etc. etc.....

Tons of love as always.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

John Wayne & Frances Dee in "A Man Betrayed" + "The Man in the Road" + Elizabeth

Hey Elizabeth! It's nice to see you back & posting again. I hope your year is going well so far, and I know you must be enjoying the start of Spring. I trust you're getting out on a lot of hikes, and still working on music of course. Well, those were some nice pics this morning (and the homemade jam looked really good!) Keep posting whenever you can; your pictures always inspire me to shoot as well. :)

And now for some movies : For starters, how 'bout John Wayne in a screwball comedy crime caper? Throw in a political scandal involving election fraud, and the beautiful Francis Dee as the crooked politician's socialite daughter - whom Wayne woos - and you've got the mashup that is "A Man Betrayed"(1941), courtesy of Republic Pictures.

The Duke plays a small-town lawyer who comes to an unnamed big city to investigate the death of a college friend. It's been ruled a suicide, but Wayne knows his pal wouldn't have killed himself. "Heck, he was a basketball star with everything to live for". After making some inquiries, he learns that the young man was partying in a local nightclub right before he died. Wayne heads over to the joint, and boy is he in for an eyeful. The place is called Club Inferno, and even though this is 1941, it's every bit as out-Regis as a modern club. In fact, it has a Satanic theme! You walk through the Devil's mouth to enter, then down a flight of steps (down, naturally) to the floor proper. There, dancers in devil costumes cavort with pitchforks to a faux-flaming background. The waiters all wear similar get-ups, complete with long pointy tails. I'm telling ya, today's Goth clubs have nothing on this place. There's even a line of Hipster Chicks waiting behind a rope, hoping the doorman will let them in.

Aha!, thinks Wayne : "So this is where my buddy was last seen". Now he's sure something shady is afoot, and sets out to find the owner of the club, who turns out to be a wealthy and influential city supervisor. This is where the plot will make a significant turn, for the young man's murder and the setting of the nightclub will have little to do with the rest of the story (only serving as a bookend), and the tone itself will change, from murder mystery to fast-talking screwball. Wayne meets the politician, who at first seems friendly enough, and by association honest. He confirms that the death of Wayne's friend was indeed a suicide : "Yes, I'm afraid he shot himself. He'd lost all his money in a dice game and was too ashamed to return home".

Aha!, thinks Wayne again : "So there's gambling going on in that club"! He's "shocked" of course, just like Claude Rains in "Casablanca", but he figures it must be backroom gambling, since he didn't see any on the main floor, and thereby likely illegal. So he starts digging into the finances of the club, and it's owner the politician, and he discovers a "political machine" at work, one in which the wealthy supervisor maintains power through election fraud (I told ya this story is current!).

The thing is, though, the supervisor has a daughter (Frances Dee) who's a charmer of the first order. She dresses in skin tight lame', and is the kind of chic young 40s gal who calls her father "darling". As an aside, I've wondered how this practice originated and have Googled it, but to no avail. Does anyone know the origin of young rich kids calling their parents "darling" in the 30s and 40s? Well anyhow, it's pretty obvious what's gonna happen, and it does : Wayne falls for Dee, and now he's in a real dilemma, because how's he gonna investigate her dad without alienating her in the process. She's 100% loyal to her Dad, and anyway, he really doesn't seem like such a bad guy in person. On paper he's a certified crook, but could someone else be behind the voting schemes?

This is a highly stylised film full of breezy rather than menacing performances, and if you're wondering if John Wayne can do screwball comedy the answer is yes. He's really good, and I didn't know (until I IMDB-ed him) that Republic Pictures owned Wayne's contract at that early point in his career, and were placing him in a wide variety of roles to make him as marketable as possible. Of course he found his niche in Westerns, but he's very adept in a Cary Grantish role in this film, believe it or not. I looked up Frances Dee too, wondering why someone with her looks and talent wasn't a major star, but it seems she married Joel McCrea (one of our favorite Western stars and a friend of The Duke's) and left Hollywood to raise a family on their ranch in Thousand Oaks. Dee and McCrea were married 57 years (both are now gone) and their ranch is an open space park now that the public can visit, like the William S. Hart Ranch in Newhall. So, I'll have to take a trip to the McCrea Ranch one of these days, which I discovered via this film.

"A Man Betrayed" is a conglomeration of styles, as noted, and has a subtheme of social justice commentary, kind of like a Preston Sturges movie. But overall it's a jazzy comedy with a lot of zest, and you've gotta dig that nightclub. It's worth seeing just for that! The whole thing is really good, though, and it's been restored by Olive Films so it looks perfect. Two Big Thumbs up from me. /////      

The previous night, I found a cracking good thriller from Paul's Classic British Films: "The Man in the Road"(1956), in which a Man wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how he got there. His arm and leg are broken and he's got a bandage on his head. He can't remember his name, either. In fact, he has full blown amnesia. His doctors explain that he was found in The Road after being hit by a car. We the audience saw the incident at the beginning of the movie and may beg to differ, but then we are not in charge of this patient, nor the plot. His care is given over to a certain "Professor Cattrell" (Donald Wolfit), whose resemblance to Leonid Brezhnev and skill as a hypnotist might give us a clue as to what is taking place.

"Cattrell" informs the patient that after a diligent effort, he has been able to establish the man's identity : "You are Ivan Mason". While saying this, he flicks on his cigarette lighter and waves it slowly back and forth until the groggy gentleman agrees, well sort of : "Ivan......Mason? Are you sure that's my name? It doesn't ring a bell but if you say so".

"Yes. You are Ivannn........Mayyy...sonnn (waving the lighter again). You were born of an English father and Russian mother, and you work at the Russian embassy in London". This is of course a brainwashing ruse to set the man up as a Russian courier, so that he will enter the Soviet Union. The problem for "Professor Cattrell" is that the truth is partially revealed to the amnesiac by a drunken former doctor at the facility. The man will then try to escape, and in the process will stumble upon a Thatched Cottage in the English countryside. The cottage is owned by - of all people - an American woman who just so happens to be a mystery author. She knows how these kind of plots work, in other words, and she offers to help the man foil the the spooks back at the asylum, and uncover his real identity in the bargain.

The budget is low here, but everything is well photographed and the acting and script are very good. Think "Manchurian Candidate" without the assassination plot. "The Man in the Road" has no frills, but no fat either, and gets Two Solid Thumbs Up. Both films reviewed are highly recommended.  ////

Well, that's all for the moment. I'm gonna head up to Aliso for a quick hike, then to Vons for some shopping.

Did you know that "Mull of Kintyre" is the biggest selling single in British history? Just another tidbit I learned from my Paul McCartney book. Ah, that Sir Paul.....what an amazing life story.

Have a great rest of the day, and tons of love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

James Cagney in "13 Rue Madeleine" + The Confusing But Fun "Operation Diplomat"

Tonight I actually watched a movie on dvd, procured from the Libe via their walkup service. Entitled "13 Rue Madeleine"(1946), it tells the story of an OSS mission into Occupied France, where intelligence agents will try to locate a German V-2 launching site and kidnap it's French designer. In the prologue narration, presented as docudrama, it is explained that the Germans are staking their final hopes on a concentrated V-2 attack against the English port of Southampton, from where they have surmised the Allied invasion will embark. For the record, the OSS was the precursor to the CIA, though I'm sure you knew that already.

James Cagney stars as "Bob Sharkey", a WW1 vet brought in as the OSS spy chief because of his experience in covert ops during that war. In keeping with the movie's quasi-historical tone, "Sharkey" is presented as a real person. It wasn't until I looked him up afterward that I saw he was fictional, but no matter; the character was doubtless based on an actual spymaster, and before delving into the plot, the narrator gives us some background on the formation of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and how their leaders were chosen. As the head of the French mission, Sharkey has to select just the right agents for the job, but like him, they're all newbies - there's never been such an agency before. And unlike Sharkey, the candidates are all much younger, soldiers with little to no wartime experience or even civilians; bright college students and even a female member of the French Resistance. After a series of rigorous exams and physical training, a final team is settled on. I should cut in here to mention that the training segment of the movie is fascinating, involving high-level memory and observational exercises. It looks like what they used to call a "study film" in school, because of the testing itself and the locations used, which the filmmakers say were the same as the real OSS sites.     

In the story, the French infiltration is complicated by the discovery that one of the involved agents is a Nazi spy. I won't tell you who it is, but when this person is identified it will cause James Cagney to have to trash the entire mission and resort to a Plan B. Instead of simply arresting the German interloper right there on the spot, while he's still training with the group in England, Cagney instead opts to give him some "leash", with which he hopes the spy will lead the OSS to the Gestapo headquarters in Le Havre.

It's a very complicated plot, but helped by expository dialogue delivered in Cagney's clipped, precise diction. This is no Britspeak, with it's garbled syllables and liberal use of slang (though we love Britspeak too), but highly articulated American English, where each glottal stop is separated from the next. Without it, we'd have difficulty following the intrigue. And man, does this movie have some twists! We're talking double and triple-crosses, and many a situation where you can't trust anyone (except James Cagney of course). The great Sam Jaffe (aka "Dr. Zorba" from "Ben Casey") makes an appearance in the final 30 minutes as the Mayor of Le Havre. Unlike some of the other actors portraying Frenchmen, Jaffe sounds like one. His accent and manner are perfect, and though he's a member of the so-called Vichy Government, which kowtowed to the Nazis, he knows how to play the spy game just as well, if not better, than the Americans.

"13 Rue Madeleine" is fast-paced and full of action. It also looks great in Gothic Black and White. Everything hinges on the freedom given the German double agent. Will Cagney regret not arresting him when he had the chance? This is one flick you won't wanna miss, up there with the best spy movies we've seen, and apparently based on an actual, similar mission. It gets Two Big Thumbs Up from yours truly. ////

The night before, we took a brief diversion from our military diet of late, to watch a quick, sharp mystery thriller called "Operation Diplomat"(1953). Guy Rolfe (an actor who rivals John Carradine in gauntness), stars as a surgeon who is summoned out of the blue to operate on an unidentified man at an undisclosed location. Now wait.......did I say he was summoned? Kidnapped is more like it. Rolfe has just left his hospital on a break, when an ambulance pulls over and a nurse jumps out. She requests his help with a medical emergency, but when he agrees and gets in, he sees he's been tricked. Besides the nurse, there's also a man with a gun riding in the back. They take Rolfe on a three hour journey to a house in the English countryside, where there is indeed a patient waiting - an unconscious man -  but neither one of Rolfe's kidnappers will identify him. The gunman does offer Rolfe a substantial fee if he will perform the necessary (but unspecified) operation, and he does so not for the money but because the alternative is getting shot.

When he is finished, he's given a glass of whiskey to calm his nerves, but it's been drugged and he passes out. The next thing he knows, he's back home, waking up with a headache and late for work. He has only a fuzzy memory of the night before, but when he gets to the hospital, he visits a patient whose son and the son's girlfriend are in the room with her. That's when Rolfe has an OMG moment, because he recognises the girlfriend as having been present at the the secret operation. Rolfe confronts her in the hospital hallway, but she tells him he's crazy : "I've never seen you before"! 

Of course it's not true. She was there at the house and she knows the identity of the unnamed man, but she's not gonna admit it. Not while her boyfriend is within earshot at any rate. Rolfe then goes to the police, who don't believe him, especially since he can't provide any details of the night in question. He doesn't know where the house was, nor the patient's name, not the identity of his kidnappers. There's nothing to go on, and the coppers chalk it up to either "too much to drink" or "working too hard"........the usual excuses.

Does it sound confusing? It is! And we don't have James Cagney on hand to explain it for us, either. According to IMDB, this film is a remake of a popular British mini-series of the same name, so the screenwriters had to boil down three hours of original material into a 70 minute movie. No wonder confusion abounds! But you won't mind, because Guy Rolfe is such a magnetic (if droll) action hero, assisted by his loyal nurse (Lisa Daniely) in the Girl Friday role. Everything moves at 100 miles per hour, and there are so many police inspectors, real and impersonated, that you'll have trouble keeping track. But it's a blast, like a Mystery Movie Thrill Ride, and what's more, the picture has been restored to perfection by some film institute or another (I forgot the name). But it looks perfect, and you should watch it despite the bewildering storyline. "Operation Diplomat" gets Two Solid Thumbs, and a side benefit was that I found it on a Youtube page called Paul's Classic British Films. I only made a quick browse of his list, but it looks like a gold mine. I have a feeling we'll be frequenting Paul's for many a movie to come. /////

That's all for now. Happy First Day of Spring! I'm gonna head up to......hmmm, where to? Maybe O'Melveny, I'm not sure yet. I wanna get some pictures as I haven't taken any for a while. So O'Melveny might be a good bet. I'll just start driving and see where I wind up.

I've been listening to Rick Wakeman's "The Red Planet" and Eric Johnson's "EJ2", both goosebump inducing records. I've also started a second book (while still working on the McCartney), called "The Skorzeny Papers". It's about an ex-Nazi intelligence officer named Otto Skorzeny who may have had a connection to the JFK assassination. I was skeptical until I read some of the reviews. Now I'm 25 pages in, and it's "veddy in-teresting" stuff indeed (cue Arte Johnson). Google the book's title for details. 

And have a great day! Tons and tons of love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Frogmen and a P.O.W. Escapee : "The Silent Enemy" and "The One That Got Away"

This blog was begun on the night of March 17, 2021:

Tonight we have a variation on our Naval Theme : a movie about Frogmen, specifically the divers in a British mine disposal unit based on Gibraltar. Lawrence Harvey (of "Manchurian Candidate" fame) stars as "Lieutenant Crabb", a Royal Navy seaman who is sent to beef up the diving team at the base, after several ships are sunk by Italian commandos. To gain stealth, the Italians are using an underwater vehicle no one has ever seen before, the so-called Human Torpedo, nicknamed the "chariot". You've seen similar conveyances on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" - they look like tubular Jet Skis with two seats, handlebars and a propeller on the back. Riding these, the Italians deploy in the middle of the night to place mines on the hulls of British ships, as well as merchant freighters delivering supplies. Harvey and his superiors can't figure out where they're launching from, so an espionage mission is called for, across the water to Algeciras in Spain. From there Harvey and his right hand man will impersonate locals while sneaking around trying to locate the Italian sabotage cell.

While the movie was very good in all respects, the direction was somewhat "Hollywood-ized", British Style, so that the tone shifts back and forth between tense action scenes, where the mine unit is all business, and light-hearted hijinx, in which the onscreen charisma of Lawrence Harvey is emphasized and is played against goofy characterizations of Incompetent Sailor Types. Between the mine deactivating scenes, which are excellent, a lot of time is spent in the familiar "whipping the troops into shape" mode, and while the CPO character is fun in a Cockney sort of way, the film would've benefited from a cut of ten minutes in this regard.

Also, when not donning their scuba suits for another ship-sinking jaunt to Gibraltar, the Italians, hiding out in a swank apartment, all look and dress like off duty Formula One drivers, impossibly handsome and chic. Still and all, it's a highly watchable film, enjoyable throughout, and apparently (I just found out from Google) is a biopic based on a real life Royal Navy Frogman named Lionel "Buster" Crabb, who was awarded an OBE for his exploits. Having said this, it was clearly produced as a star vehicle for Lawrence Harvey, and so lacks the realism of what we saw from Sir John Mills in "We Dive At Dawn". Nevertheless, Two Solid Thumbs Up for "The Silent Enemy", shot in widescreen black and white, entirely on location on Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. Good stuff.  /////   

And for something slightly different (but only slightly because we are still in the military) - how about a prisoner-of-war flick? Though the subgenre isn't as large as, say, that of submarine movies or spy films, it has produced some memorable pictures over the years , including "Stalag 17", "Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Great Escape", and the lesser known but no less great "A Man Escaped" by Robert Bresson. Those are just a handful of titles but let's add one more to the list, watched two nights ago : "The One That Got Away"(1957), the true story of the only German soldier ever to escape from a British prison camp and make his way back home.

The great Hardy Kruger stars as Oberleutnant Franz Von Werra, who - like Lionel Crabb - was also a real person, a Luftwaffe pilot who was shot down over England and taken prisoner by the RAF. The only plot to the film are his attempts to escape, thus there are no subthemes or extracurricular characters, but Von Werra is so irrepressible in his desire to break away from his captors that each of his three bids for freedom are separate adventures in themselves.

The security is surprisingly lax on his first attempt, and he manages to avoid  a search party for five days before being recaptured, after which you'd think he'd be put into a locked cell but he isn't. The Brits are keen on sticking to the rules of the Geneva Convention and are sensitive to any accusations of prisoner maltreatment. Kruger's cocky Oberleutnant is swift to remind the camp warden of his rights, so he's placed in a dormitory ala "Hogan's Heroes", from where another escape attempt will be planned with his fellow p.o.w.s. After he's recaptured a second time, the authorities have finally had enough, and Kruger is shipped off to Canada by way of Halifax, Nova Scotia (a familiar stop for us by now). "You'll never get out of there", a guard tells him on the way over. But he is already plotting his third escape, without even waiting until he arrives at the Canadian camp. I don't wanna tell you how it goes down, but it's on this third try where the going will really get tough for Kruger, who will nearly freeze to death trying to cross the St. Lawrence River in order to enter America, where he believes he will be granted asylum, as the year is only 1940 and the U.S. has not yet entered the war; it's still a neutral country.

Like Lawrence Harvey, Hardy Kruger was an actor of great charisma and likeability. Even with his distinct German accent and face (he resembles a shorter haired Michael Schenker), he was still able to cross over into international stardom for a period in the late 50s to mid 60s. This is his movie all the way, and even though he's playing a German officer and therefore (to American and English audiences) the character is a Bad Guy, you find yourself rooting for him in his escapes, because of his sense of humor and the way he continually outsmarts his captors, with a grin on his face. Having the audience side with Kruger is clearly the intention of the writer and also director Roy Ward Baker, who make it noted in the dialogue that "Von Werra doesn't believe in Hitler - he only believes in Von Werra". He's not a true Nazi in other words, so it's okay to cheer him on. It's also interesting to note that Hardy Kruger could have invested some of his own life experience into the role. As a sixteen year old, he joined the Hitler Youth, as all German boys were forced to do. According to his IMDB, he hated it, and discovered acting as a way out, which led to a prolific career. He's still alive at 93 and retired now, but you should see him in "The One That Got Away", which gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and also in the original "Flight of the Phoenix"(1965) and especially in the French classic "Sundays and Cybele", in which he plays a psychologically damaged soldier. It's his greatest role, and the movie won an Academy Award in 1962 for Best Foreign Film. ////

That's all for the moment. I'm gonna head out for my afternoon hike now. I'm still working on the 800 page Paul McCartney book. Man, the breakup of The Beatles was brutal. I might take heat for this (well, for half of it anyway), but I think they might've remained together, for at least a few more years, had John stayed with Cynthia and Paul with Jane Asher. I'm just sayin'......

Have a great rest of the day. Tons of love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

We Might As Well Join The Navy : "Away All Boats" & "We Dive At Dawn"

This blog was begun on the evening of March 15 2021 :

I'm back at home tonight, and I watched a most excellent seagoing drama : "Away All Boats"(1956), starring Jeff Chandler as the macho captain of attack transport ship APA-22, nicknamed "Belinda". Attack transports are the size of battleships and have artillery to defend themselves, but their main duty is to deliver landing craft ashore in enemy territory. Think of the opening scene in "Saving Private Ryan", where the rectangular watercraft are hitting the beach at Normandy. The gates drop and adrenalized troops pour out to begin the invasion. Well, those boats are carried in by the attack transport ship, and in the movie, Captain Chandler and his crew are stationed in Pearl Harbor - after December 7, 1941 - training to enter the war in the Pacific. The "Belinda" is a brand new ship, it's welds still settling, and Chandler is a determined taskmaster, set on whipping his sailors into shape until they are the best drilled APA crew in the Navy.

Most of the film is devoted to this preparation, and the first 75 minutes alternates between the crew practicing boat "drops" (hence the movie's title), and the more casual aspects of life aboard such a ship, and Navy life in general. Different character types are presented, Hollywood Style, such as the hayseed garbage grinder (yes, there is such a job), the college football hero turned junior officer, and the pretty boy CEO, straight out of Annapolis but with no combat experience. Minor rivalries are developed to pad out the drama, but the first 3/4ths of the film has no combat and is really more akin to the big dramatic set-ups you see in major war films like "From Here To Eternity". Character development is what's happening, between Jeff Chandler (who had true star quality), his crew of misfits (who become top sailors), and the ship itself, which will develop a heroic personality of it's own.

The cast is terrific; besides Chandler (who tragically died young, you should IMDB him), you've got George Nader as his loyal Lieutenant, Richard Boone as the chief engineer, Lex Barker (aka Tarzan) as the CEO, noir tough guy Charles McGraw as a Marine lieutenant, Jock Mahoney (another Tarzan) as a sharpshooter, Julie Adams (of "Creature from the Black Lagoon" fame) as Nader's wife, and even Clint Freakin' Eastwood in a "blink and you'll miss him" scene near the end.

The last half hour is where all the buildup will pay off - and big time - as the Belinda finally sets out to sea and comes under immediate attack by waves of Japanese Kamikazes. This is expertly staged by director Joseph Pevney and his special effects team, whose work is state-of-the-art not only for 1956, but looks as good as anything up to the 1990s. The suicide planes come right at the Belinda, and you can feel yourself in Jeff Chandler's shoes as they close in.

Though it has more drama than combat, "Away All Boats" still rates as a classic Big Studio War Movie, and I'm gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up accordingly. Filmed in Technicolor, it's a sweeping sea epic.  /////  

And I'm thinking that we might as well join the Navy and be done with it, because :

Wow! Now that's how you do a Submarine Movie. After getting a partial fix with "The Spy in Black", my appetite was whetted for a full-strength undersea submersion, and I found it the previous night in the declaratively titled "We Dive at Dawn"(1943), starring Sir John Mills as the captain of a Royal Navy submarine, searching the waters of the Baltic for a new and deadly German battleship. He and his crew are about to go on a seven day leave as the movie opens, and most are thrilled for the pass. Two, however, would just as soon stay on the boat. One sailor has a wife who plans to leave him and another has a wedding imminent but has come down with cold feet. As in "Away All Boats", these domestic dramas will serve as character developing plot devices and will take up the first third of the 92 minute film, but will not drag it down.

John Mills, a legendary English actor who was Knighted in 1976, is so authentic as "Captain Taylor" that you'll find yourself ready to jump at his every command. And is there anyplace on Earth where you've gotta be as "on your toes" as in the clautrophobic confines of a submarine, crammed full of switches and levers and screens and meters and pumps and engines and loading tubes? The actors operate every piece of machinery with the same accuracy, and you wonder if director Anthony Asquith had them train with or observe an actual sub crew at work. The chase for the German "Brandenburg" goes so far afield that Mills and co. are in danger of running out of fuel, but like Capt. Ahab, he won't give up. Mills isn't reckless, however, and has a plan to get his sub back to port, but it will involve waiting in silence after the attack for a German convoy to pass, as their oxygen runs low and the inevitable retaliatory depth charge strike commences. The tension will ratchet up with each explosion.

Co-starring with Mills is another familiar English actor, Eric Portman, a man with a strong face whom I'm sure you'll recognise from other UK films. He usually played serious-minded hero types and does so here, as the sonar operator who volunteers for a solo commando mission into a dock in Denmark, where in the black of night he will row ashore to locate a fuel depot. By now the sub needs oil as well as petrol, and Portman will be on dangerous turf because the port is littered with German troops and their trusty machine gun bunkers. Here's where the marital dramas at the beginning come in handy: Portman's character was the one who got a Dear John letter before the sub left home. His wife is leaving him, the news has eaten away at him all during the mission but has never affected his job performance. Still, with their sub in trouble and only one way out, he doesn't care if he lives or dies (telling Mills "no one will miss me") and thus steps forward when the crucial night mission presents itself.

Will he be successful in saving the sub? You'll be biting your nails to find out, in one of the best finales to maybe the best Submarine Movie we've ever seen. "We Dive At Dawn" is a must-see classic, rating "Two Huge Thumbs Up" from your Captain here at the blog. One final word about Anthony Asquith, he's a director whose name I've seen attached to many British films, and we've seen a couple over the years, including "The Browning Version" and "Way To The Stars", but I've never before thought to look him up. Turns out he was the son of the British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith (1908-1916), and had quite a fascinating life. It's worth IMDB-ing to read about.  ////

That's all for now. I'm gonna head up to either Aliso or Santa Susana for my first hike in a while, so have an awesome day and we'll watch a movie tonight. Tons of love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

A Powell & Pressburger Spy Flick (yay!) and a Chames Mason Noir (but it's not)

How about a spy thriller by the team of Powell & Pressburger? You remember P&P, don't you? We did a retrospective of their films at the CSUN Cinematheque, back in Fall 2014. They always worked in tandem, with Michael Powell directing and Emeric Pressburger writing the screenplays. P&P were similar to the Hollywood Craftsmen in that they were capable of making any type of motion picture and indeed they did, producing everything from the wistful romance "I Know Where I'm Going" to the Technicolor dance fantasy "The Red Shoes", to "Peeping Tom", one of the creepiest crime flicks (bordering on downright horror) since "Psycho", which came out the same year, in 1960. The duo also made several war-related movies, like the classic "49th Parallel", "Blackout", and "The Small Back Room". And tonight, thanks to another Youtube recommendation, we discovered their espionage gem "The Spy in Black"(1939), an early P&P effort that has been restored to cinematic perfection by the British Film Institute.

The legendary Conrad Veidt (from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari") stars as "Captain Ernst Hart", the commander of German U-Boat 29, which is sent to the Orkney Islands north of Scotland (pronounced Skiort-lnd or Skeert-lnd), to sink a dozen Royal Navy ships stationed therein. Please note that Scottish pronunciations will take more practice than most of the dialects we've encountered, so perseverance is stressed. 

Britttissh Intelligence, as always being aware of plots hatched against them, are on to Veidt's surprise attack, thanks to a female counterspy they've installed at Orkney in the form of a schoolteacher (Valerie Hobson). Naturally there will be a romantic subplot, as the angular Veidt - with his German Expressionist face - presses Hobson for a tryst. But she's posing as his superior officer, the woman in charge of the U-Boat mission, and is therefore successful in rebuffing him by chain of command. But in reality, Hobson is a counterspy, working with "Lieutenant Ashington" (Sebastian Shaw) of the Royal Navy who is posing as a traitor to fool the Germans.

The story is even more confusing at first than last night's "Yellow Canary", and has it's hard-to-decipher segments of Britspeak as well. But you are hooked from Frame One by the impeccable camera eye of Michael Powell, one of the greatest photographers in all of cinema, with a talent for composition that is second to none. We were talking in the last blog about Hollywood Craftsmen vs. Auteurs, and I suppose you could say that P&P qualify as both. We've already noted their abilities as Craftsmen (though they didn't work in Hollywood), but they also left their own stamp on each picture - a mark of the Auteur. For instance, there are bits of English humor that you wouldn't normally see in a spy film, as when Veidt, as "Captain Hart", is being prepped to impersonate an Englishman during his furtive stay in Orkney. Due to the war, there are food shortages in the UK but even moreso in Germany, so when Veidt sees a large block of butter on the table of his language coach, he exclaims : "Ah, finally some butter"!, pronouncing it "boo-ter". His coach has to correct him on this word later at a restaurant, and it becomes one of the light-hearted running gags that P&P sprinkle throughout the film. Another one involves an engine room sergeant on a British destroyer, who every so often pops his head up from below decks to complain, in Scotty/Star Trek style but using Cockney slang, that he'll never be able to generate enough power to satisfy the captain's orders.

A similar light touch marks almost all of Powell and Pressburger's movies (with the exception of "Peeping Tom), that you might call a trademark English optimism of the kind seen in Monty Python's Knight, even after all his limbs are sliced off.

Veidt was an incredible actor, however, and he's mostly here to inject menace. I don't wanna reveal too much of the plot because one spoiler could ruin the whole story, but there will be a point where Veidt is in deep trouble and will pull out a technique from his Silent film days. You'll know it when you see it; his facial expressions in this scene are harrowing and he looks like a man who is actually in this situation in real life.

The lovely Valerie Hobson (a P&P regular) goes toe-to-toe with Veidt, matching him scene for scene as his superior officer, the spy turned schoolmarm. And yes, "The Spy in Black" features grade-A espionage, but it's also part Submarine Movie, so you'll get a minor sub fix and also some highly detailed close ups of the English destroyer's artillery at work : the loading of the shells, the hydraulic aiming system. It's incredible stuff, and as with the rest of the movie, Michael Powell gives it a look that is hyperrealistic, using a full grey scale that is somehow richer than the sum of it's parts. This is one great looking picture, and I was happy to see that it's been restored by the British Film Institute, so the Youtube print is Criterion quality.

Man, we've been on a roll with these English Spy Flicks, and I could watch a dozen more, at least, so let's keep looking. "The Spy in Black" gets Two Huge Thumbs Up and is not to be missed, it's the best one we've seen so far.  ///////

And now for our second feature :

Last night I stepped away from the spy game just on a whim, and I kind of wish I hadn't. Instead of browsing my trusted movie lists, I chose the first recommendation that popped up on Youtube. They base those on your viewing history, and in my case their suggestions have usually been pretty good. This one looked promising as well, a noir entitled "One Way Street", and best of all it starred Chames Mason. How could I go wrong, right? Mason is never less than stellar and his co-star Dan Duryea delivers in every film regardless of the role. Add in the movie's title and it sounded like you had a heck of a hard-boiled noir.

But as one reviewer noted, it's really an Oreo cookie of a noir : dark on the outside but white and fluffy in the middle. It's like the director wanted to make a humanistic film but didn't have a context in which to frame it, so he chose film noir. Strange is the direction this picture takes, and I will now explain it to you.

The movie opens in the aftermath of a bank robbery. Dan Duryea is the boss of the operation, one of those "legitimate businessman" hoodlums with henchmen in tow, in this case several stooges who pull off the bank job while he waits in a hotel, ready to divide up the take of 200 Grand. But something's gone wrong - one of his boys has not yet returned, and of the two who are back at the hotel, one has been shot. Duryea remains calm enough to summon his crooked doctor, who happens to be stationed down the hall. That is Mason, who removes the bullet from the wounded man's arm, then tends to Duryea with some asprin for a headache. After some tough-guy talk between the hoods, Mason picks up his bag to leave, but then Duryea notices that he's got a second satchel in hand - the one with the money in it.

"Whataya think you're doing"?, he demands.

"Exactly what it looks like", Mason tells him, as he strides towards the door with the 200k in bank money. "I've just given you a pill that will cause convulsions within 30 minutes and death within an hour. Before you shoot me you should know I have an antidote, which I have hidden but will reveal the location by phone if you allow me to leave this room. And really.....what choice do you have"?

All of this is recited in the most Chames Mason-est of tones, and I urge you to picture it for yourself.

Okay, so Duryea allows Mason to leave, with the promise of the antidote callback, but Mason goes one step further by taking Duryea's gal with him, too. That's the final straw : "You'd better just let me die", he snarls at Mason, "because I'm gonna find you and kill you no matter how long it takes".

"No, I'm  man of my word", Mason replies. "I shall call you within an hour as I promised".

But once they are in his car, Mason tells "Laura" (Marta Toren) that there's no need to call Duryea back. "I only gave him an asprin, but he fell for it", meaning the poison pill deception. But he knows that once Duryea figures this out, he's gonna come looking for them, so he has a plan. "We're going to Mexico City", he tells his new ladyfriend.

Okay, so far so good, right? An excellent noir set-up. But all of this only takes 10 or 15 minutes, and now the movie is gonna take such a turn that it becomes a different picture altogether. To get to Mexico City, the pair cross the border then ditch Mason's car, figuring Duryea could trace it. Mason then hires a local pilot to fly them there, but on the way, his Cessna's fuel pump breaks down and they are forced to land in a rural area. Freezing in a field in the middle of the night, they are discovered by a priest from a small Mexican village, who invites them back to his adobe for some food and a place to sleep. Okay fine, but is the chase still on?

No, it isn't. What happens is that, over the next few scenes a transformation occurs. Suddenly, Laura, previously Duryea's gangster moll, is now wearing peasant clothing, preferring to stay in the small Mexican village rather than accompany Mason to Mexico City. She's decided she likes the stress-free lifestyle. For his part, Mason is still planning to leave as soon as the pilot's plane is repaired. But five minutes later, he's become a convert too, after using his medical skills to heal a farmer's sick horse. Suddenly he's like a Saint to the superstitious villagers, who previously relied on a Witch Doctress to treat their ailments. Mason decides he likes using his skills for good, whereas before he always felt guilty stitching up bullet riddled criminals.

"Okay, Ad......but is the chase still on"?

No, I told ya it's not. I mean, there are occasional cutaways to the hotel room back in an unnamed American city, where Dan Duryea fumes to sidekick William Conrad. "Have you traced that licence plate yet?! Well get on it already"!!

But basically the noir is over until the last ten minutes of the 79 minute picture. What you get in the middle hour is more or less a human interest story about Mason's transformation from amoral MD to third world missionary. It's like he's joined the Peace Corps all of a sudden, and it's such a 180 for his character that you have a hard time believing it. It's true that Mason specialised in playing Men Torn. Witness his conscience-stricken IRA terrorist in the classic "Odd Man Out". So you could say this change of heart is par for the Masonic course, but there are other problems as well. Nothing really adds up or amounts to anything in the plot, such as when Laura is briefly terrorised by a trio of village banditos. Nothing comes of this diversion, so there was really no reason to include it. There is less than meets the eye here, and the ending is so manipulative and just plain unfair that you feel as if the director wanted to put you through the wringer.

Having said all of that, it's not a boring film by any means. It moves, and it'll hold your interest. But it's too far fetched, and it's not a real noir, so even with Mason's presence I can't recommend it, unless you need a Chames Mason fix. One Thumb Up, for his performance, otherwise skip it.  /////

That's all for the moment. Daylight savings time is here, hooray for long evenings! Have a great one yourself, and tons of love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A Two-Fer of English Espionage : "The Yellow Canary" and "The Two-Headed Spy"

Tonight's war movie fell once again into the espionage subgenre, and as a matter of fact so does it's co-feature. I actually chose "The Yellow Canary"(1943) because it came up as a recommendation after last night's "The Two-Headed Spy"; both had the same screenwriter, a gentleman named Miles Malleson. In "Canary", Anna Neagle stars as "Sally Maitland" a young woman scorned by her upper middle-class English family during WW2 because of her apparent sympathy toward Nazi Germany. Her attitude stems from having lived in Deutchland before the war and experiencing it's rise from the ashes after Hitler took power. At the dinner table, her views are roundly condemned. She's seen as unpatriotic (and worse), especially in a family where everyone is serving the war effort, including her younger sister Bette, who's joined the Royal Navy.

Sally tries going out on the town with her boyfriend, but is shunned at a local club where the patrons talk behind her back. Ultimately, she feels like a pariah in London, so she boards a ship headed for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she plans to live in exile. Though it isn't explained at first why she chooses that city, you'll later find out.

During the voyage, she strikes up a conversation with a Polish man, Jan Orlock, who hates the Nazis with a passion, as his Warsaw home was bombed by the Lufwaffe, leaving his mother blind and crippled. She's moved to Halifax and he's on his way there to reunite with her. While at sea, he falls in love with Sally despite her pro-German views, which are never vociferously expressed in any event. He has some competition, however, from a second gentleman, one "Lieutenant James Garrick" (Richard Greene), a handsome chap wearing a smart Navy uniform. Garrick also chats Sally up, drawing the ire of Orlock, who does some snooping around and finds out that Garrick is with British Naval Intelligence.

Hmmmm.......why is he asking Sally so many personal questions, Orlock wonders. Does it have anything to do with her political views? Is Garrick in fact spying on her? We'll learn the answer to this eventually, but many more questions will present themselves as the plot opens up when we disembark at Halifax. I have to cut in here to ask if you've ever heard of the Halifax Explosion of 1917. I had not, nor was I aware that the city was a major military port during WW1, when the explosion took place. You can Google it for more details, but it figures into the film, and when it occurred it was the largest man-made explosion in history.

"The Yellow Canary" is a little confusing to begin with, in part - at least in my opinion - because it was not adapted for American audiences. It's an entirely Brrrittish production, and Veddy Much So at that, and I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but the Brits speak rapidly, and in movies made for UK audiences, the characters use a syntax that includes slang and colloquialisms that we in the US aren't familiar with. When you combine the speed of their speech with the unfamiliar phrasing, it's sometimes hard to understand a plot reference (at least for me), and so I had to hit "pause" and "rewind" a few times to sort out what I was hearing. However, this is a terrific movie with excellent twists, and just when you think it's getting too complicated to understand, all the knots will come untied and every last detail will be explained. Man, what a finish! I give it Two Big Thumbs Up, you won't find a better spy movie anywhere, and the print is good too.

Now, hang on a sec, because.......did I just say "you won't find a better spy movie anywhere" ? Well you may not, but I've got one just as good, with the script once again written by the aforementioned Miles Malleson. It's called "The Two-Headed Spy"(1958), a riveting thriller starring British actor Jack Hawkins as "General Alex Schottland", an Anglo-German Nazi who long ago renounced his half-English heritage to fight for the Fatherland in World War One. By the time of the Third Reich, he has risen to become a member of Hitler's General Staff. Schottland oversees the Wehrmacht's supply lines, and has done such a good job of keeping the war machine well oiled that he's become one of Der Fuhrer's most favored advisors.

What Adolf doesn't know is that he's a spy, actually loyal to England, and that he's been working with a contact to get messages back to London, with up-to-date information on German military plans and positions. His go-to is a little old antique dealer in Berlin (pronun.), whose connections to British Intelligence are well hidden.

Things run smoothly for General Shottland until he is assigned an assistant, a young captain who comes from the Gestapo. As a former member of the secret police, he is naturally suspicious of Schottland's half-English parentage, and tries several times to trip him up in conversation, to get him to reveal his true loyalties. But Schottland is so skilled in diversion that he turns all suspicions back on the heads of his accusers. As a confidant of Hitler himself, he reports these detractors as "defeatists", a sure death sentence for them. It is only because he has the ear of Mueller, the Gestapo chief, that the captain is able to escape such a fate. He will continue to try and spring traps for Gen. Schottland, however, and throughout the movie this will provide the tension in the plot. There is also a romantic interest played by the beautiful Gia Scala, as a nightclub singer who is possibly involved in the intrigue.

What's really noteworthy about this gripping film is that it was based on a book by a real life British spy named A.P. Scotland. As you can see, his last name was Germanised for the name of the lead character. He's supposed to be "General Schottland", so while you're watching you're going "OMG! Was there really an English spy in Hitler's cabinet"? I won't give any secrets away, and even if you read about A.P. Scotland it's hard to determine the truth, but in the movie "General Schottland" is portrayed as being in The Bunker right after Hitler's suicide, and if that's true it's a mindblower. The thing is, the Brits are the best at the spy game, they've always been acknowledged as such, and they play their cards so close to the vest and throw so much mud into the water that we'll probably never know the whole truth about the things they've accomplished in their various guises as MI-5 and MI-6, et al.

Jack Hawkins projects military bearing and authority as "Schottland", who operates inside The Lion's Den and must have balls of steel to not only stay alive but to sabotage German war plans, such as The Battle of The Bulge. Once again, if this stuff is true........holy smokes. folks! Look for actor Hawkins in another classic Brrrittish war film, "The Cruel Sea".

Like "The Yellow Canary", "The Two-Headed Spy" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, so it's a double home run for screenwriter Malleson. Also worth mentioning is that "Two-Headed" was directed by yet another top Hollywood Craftsman, Andre de Toth. For my money, the Craftsmen are every bit as talented as the directors from the later Auteur school-of-thought, and should be acknowledged as such. That's why I always trumpet their names. /////

Well, there you have it. Another great Two-Fer. Both of these flicks are guaranteed to please, so don't miss 'em. And have a great evening!

Tons.......tons.......and tons..........of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A Good WW2 Double Feature : "Eight Iron Men" and "Tonight We Raid Calais"

This blog was begun Tuesday night, March 9 2021 :

Well, guess what? Tonight's film was once again based on a play, was dialogue heavy, and was stylistically not what I expected when I chose it from a list of "old black and white war movies", our main genre of late. It sounds like I was in the same sinking boat I found myself in while watching "Tight Spot" the other night. So why was I able to not only endure "Eight Iron Men"(1952), but to find it redeeming enough to warrant a positive review? Two words come to mind : brevity and precision. While there was Endless Yammering in both films, "Eight"'s wordy wanderings were divided between several characters, and the editing was sharp, whereas in "Tight Spot" the director allowed Ginger Rogers to riff ad nauseam in Brooklynese, with no cutaway, and thus no chance for the audience to come up for air.

"Eight Iron Men" stars Lee Marvin as an Army Sergeant heading up a platoon of G.I.s hunkered down in a bombed-out village in Italy. This is a set-piece, with one location, but it looks very realistic and the director was Edward Dmytryk, another top level Hollywood Craftsman, who made everything from the weird Karloff Klassic "The Devil Commands", to the well-known noirs "Murder, My Sweet" and "Crossfire", to the epic "Raintree County" with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, to the major war release "The Young Lions" starring Marlon Brando. In other words, Dmytryk (who was one of the Hollywood Ten blacklist), knew how to put a film together no matter the content, so even though "Eight" is not an action based combat movie, it still looks great, moves well, and the acting is uniformly good.

The main character is actually not Marvin's "Sgt. Mooney" but the wisecracking "Pvt. Collucci", played by Bonar Colleano, whose name is unfamiliar but you're sure to recognise his face. He will do most of the talking in the 80 minute picture, constantly joking to break the tension. As the movie opens, three of the men are out on patrol when they are opened up on by a German machine gun nest. Two of them manage to make it back to their outpost, a crumbling brick house, but the third falls and becomes trapped in a muddy bomb pit. Sgt. Mooney decides that there's no way to rescue their comrade until nightfall as the machine gunner still lays in wait. This causes a huge bone of contention between Mooney and "Private Coke" (Richard Kiley), a gung-ho G.I. who wants to pull the soldier out of the pit now. Kiley doesn't seem to care that Marvin's in charge; he yells back at his Sergeant as if he's on equal footing, until Marvin threatens to deck him. Meanwhile, "Private Collucci" cracks one-liners to keep the fracas from boiling over. Actor Colleano bears a resemblance to Alan Alda, and his vocal delivery is eerily similar, so much so that his endless jokes sound like a scene from M.A.S.H. He has foils in some of the other soldiers (there are eight in all), and this repartee does go on a bit long, but not to the extent it did in "Tight Spot", where you were fighting to stay above water.

The whole plot boils down to Arguing The Moral Imperative : should the men attempt to rescue the trapped soldier immediately, with high risk to their own lives (Kiley's position), or should they wait, because it's not worth risking the entire platoon, and besides, they don't even know if the soldier's still alive (Lee Marvin's stance). Adding to the pressure is that the squad is scheduled to move out the next day. Their hard-case captain (stationed down the road) won't make any exceptions for a man left behind. If they don't extricate their buddy soon, they'll lose the chance. Then he'll certainly die if he hasn't already. 

The main reason to watch this film is that it looks great and the actors are excellent. Really, you could substitute the plot for "12 Angry Men" and you'd have the same format. It's an Argument Film, peppered with corny jokes (and a dream sequence about a gorgeous woman), with about ten minutes of actual combat at the beginning and end. I'm gonna give "Eight Iron Men" just Two Regular Thumbs, but I still say you should watch it, just because Short Films Rule and this one delivers despite it's drawbacks.  ////  

The previous night's War Flick was action-oriented, and as a result was a bit more involving. It was the Veddy Britttissh "Tonight We Raid Calais"(1943), directed by John Brahm, yet another Hollywood Craftsman (born in Germany) who helmed everything from classic horror movies ("The Lodger", "Hangover Square"), to truckloads of episodic television, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and twelve episodes of "The Twilight Zone". His name helped cinch me on this flick, in addition to seeing on it's IMDB page that the movie is a favorite of Quentin Tarantino's. Though his own films are hit-and-miss for me (mostly miss), Q does know his Hollywood history, so his recommendation lent the picture some weight.

Very briefly, John Sutton stars as an English commando, who volunteers to trek into German-held territory in France, in order to locate a munitions plant and mark it for bombing by the RAF. He makes his way to the town of Calais (and-a-hey-and-a-hey), where he meets a family of French farmers who direct him to the factory. It's located right on the outskirts of their property. This leads to the plot conundrum of collaboration, which we dealt with the other night. The father (Lee J. Cobb, doing his best to imply a French accent) is willing to hide John Sutton in his barn, at the risk of his entire family being shot if Sutton is discovered by the Nazis. Cobb's daughter (French actress Anabella), doesn't want him there. Her brother was killed by a Brit fighting on the German side; thus she hates all Englishmen. To complicate matters, she is being courted (meaning "forced to comply") by a Nazi suitor (played by Howard Da Silva hiding a Brooklyn accent). He visits their farmhouse on a regular basis, which will make it difficult to keep Commando Sutton hidden. A solution to this problem is arrived at by Sutton himself, that he will impersonate the deceased son. He speaks fluent French, so this deception will allow him to mingle among the villagers and recruit more help for the subterfuge. The catch is that no one besides the family members know the Cobb son is dead.

Or do they?  /////

I know we've been stuck on war films, but these two are short and tight. "Tonight We Raid Calais" runs just 70 minutes, the plot and action flow swiftly, and like Edward Dmytryk, John Brahm knows his way around a camera and a movie set. Both "Eight Iron Men" and "Calais" look fantastic; I'm giving the latter Two Big Thumbs Up. Tarantino was right, it's a Good 'Un, and you should watch both films back-to-back. You can get in and out in two and a half hours for the double feature. Need I add that both flicks are in Beautiful Black & White?

That's all I've got for the moment. Still workin' on early Beatles in the afternoon (I'm up to "Beatles '65") and Mahler at night (the 4th symphony). Still reading about Sir Paul McCartney, too.

Have an awesome day. I'm gonna do a CSUN walk before it starts raining again, then back to Pearl's.

Tons and tons of love.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Sailor of the King" (excellent) and "Tight Spot" (oy)

I'm running a little bit late again, but here's last night's blog :

Tonight's movie was an excellent adventure called "Sailor of the King", starring Jeffrey Hunter as a Canadian signalman enlisted in the British navy during WW2. He's sailing with a convoy that is tasked with locating and destroying the "Essex", a powerful German "raider" with long-range guns that has been causing havoc for the British fleet in the Pacific. This is another one of those points where I must cut in and say that I had no idea the Royal Navy ever was operating in the Pacific Ocean. Didn't a similar issue come up a few blogs ago? Well anyway, apparently they did have ships in the Pacific (WW2 extended to the far corners of the globe) and in the story, Hunter's co-star Michael Rennie is leading the convoy in one of three battleships. In their first confrontation with the Essex, one of the Royal ships is sunk. Rennie is now doubly determined to catch and sink the German behemoth, but the plot structure is unusual and it's only half his film.

Let me explain. The movie opens with a ten minute sequence that, as the film progresses, seems so out of place that it's like it was inserted from a different movie altogether. Following the opening credits, a younger Rennie boards a train, headed for home and some R&R in the middle of World War One. He's already a Navy captain, but in his compartment on the train he meets a very proper and reserved English lady (Wendy Hiller), and after she attempts to ignore him, soon they are engaged in conversation and within five minutes (in movie time) they're in love, staying at an Inn after she misses her stop. What's unusual about this segment is that it's fully developed as a dramatic sequence, so much so that - as the opening scene in the film - you are wondering if you clicked on the wrong movie. Wendy Hiller was a legendary actress (and Rennie was very good as well), and so for the first ten or twelve minutes you are watching what looks like a classic English Period Romance. Near the end of the sequence, Rennie has proposed to Hiller but she declines, saying that a sailor will always love the sea more than any woman. It's played as heartbreaking, and as the movie shifts into the main plot - that of a naval battle  - you are left wondering "what was that opening sequence all about"?

And as the story shifts, so does it's main star. Jeffrey Hunter takes over, as a sailor who is determined to sabotage the Essex after he is taken aboard the German ship, as a survivor of the sunken English vessel. He is willing to give his life in the effort, because he knows the rest of the convoy is on it's way and will eventually catch up to the Essex, which is now anchored in the Galapagos Islands. This is a Grade A movie, with superb battle scenes and top notch black and white photography, including some incredible artillery footage. Jeff Hunter is a dedicated action hero, and Michael Rennie (best known as the Alien in "Day the Earth Stood Still)" is appropriately dignified and stoic as the fleet Commander. Peter van Eyck is good as always as the platinum blonde German captain, and overall this is one of the best Navy films we've seen in some time, running tight and fast at 82 minutes.

But still, you're gonna be wondering "what's the deal with that opening sequence"?

And you may just get an answer. Of course, I can't tell you if you do or not, but by all means watch "Sailor of the King". It's highly recommended and gets Two Big Thumbs Up from me.  /////

I wish I could say the same for Saturday night's movie : "Tight Spot"(1955), starring Ginger Rogers as a brassy broad from Brooklyn with the proverbial Heart of Gold, who is doing time in a New York women's prison for crimes unspecified. Shortly after the movie opens, she's offered a commutation of her sentence if she will testify in Federal court against a big league Italian Mafioso (Lorne Greene) with whom she's had a fleeting acquaintance. The Feds, headed up by Edward G. Robinson, have been trying to get this crook for ages. Finally they have a charge that will stick; he's recently entered the country illegally, on a rich crony's yacht. As a model and Good Time Gal, Ginger was on that yacht. Edward G. implores her to do the right thing and testify against Greene, promising the full protection of the U.S. Federal Justice System, but she's aware that a previous witness was assassinated on his way to the Grand Jury. No wonder she's reluctant to agree to Robinson's deal, even if it means getting out of prison. Indeed, "It's the only place I feel safe", she tells him. But he pulls her out of prison anyway, just to try and convince her.

At present, she is holed up in the St. Charles Hotel with Detective Brian Keith as her protector. He's from NYPD and working under the aegis of Robinson and the Feds. To prime Ginger, they offer her carte blanche on the hotel's swanky menu. Keith also starts to fall for her and spends his own money to buy her a beautiful dress. But she's just not gonna talk. Lorne Greene and his henchmen are too deadly, and all-pervading. Heck, the police have already stopped two attempts by the bad guys to enter the hotel and do away with Miss Ginger, so who can blame her for keeping a zipped lip?

I always check IMDB before watching any movie on Youtube, just to look at it's rating number and to take a quick glance at the most prominently placed review. "Tight Spot" had a 6.6, which is pretty good considering the fickle fans of filmdom. It was described as a Noir, and the fan review posted at the bottom of the page referred to the title this way : "'Tight Spot'  - an excellent position to be in". That was enough to sell me, so I pressed play, saw that the print was not only razor sharp but in widescreen, and I settled in for what I expected to be not only an exciting noir, but one with a notable cast and grade-A budget. And on all of those counts I was not disappointed.

How.....ever (and this is one of those Howevers where you have to separate the syllables, or at least the "How" and the "ever", and draw out the distance between them, because you are trying to show an Abrupt Turnaround in your opinion of the film. In short, you must make "Howwwww........evvverr" sound like a Long, Slow Pronouncement.

Did you do your "however"? Okay, good. Mine amounted to this : I went in expecting a noir, and for the first ten minutes, it looked like that was what I was gonna get. The first witness was shot dead on the courthouse steps right after the movie began. Then they cut to the prison, where Ginger Rogers was called to the Warden's office for her chance to be released.

Okay fine. But then she winds up her room at the St. Charles Hotel with Brian Keith, and for the next 70 minutes, the noir goes out the window and you are subjected to a barrage of words that even the hardiest viewer will be recoiling from. 

This is another movie I hate to criticize, in this case because Rogers is the centerpiece, and if there was ever a likable actress it is Ginger Rogers, especially in her non-Astaire films where she was proving herself on her own. Her range was not wide, but in the films we've seen and reviewed, she always turned in a quality dramatic performance, playing down to earth characters with a light comedic touch.

In short, we love Ginger here at the blog, because how can you not, but it is with regret that I admit I found myself in a "Tight Spot" as well, as to whether or not I was gonna make it through the movie........

Because it wasn't really a noir, but a wordfest, set in a hotel room, and it's important to remember that the film was based on a play. Normally, when such an adaptation is written, some of the verbiage is excised and action inserted, for the purpose of maintaining cinematic energy. In plays, the audience is relying on the actors to enliven a Static Stage, and they do so by reciting reams of dialogue. But in movies, the advantages are manifold - there are sets, and locations, and a moving camera, and a soundtrack including all kinds of music and effects to color and fill out the plotline. In short, there are other ways, besides endless dialogue, to move the story along.

So Holy Smokes, why did the director in this case make this film like a play?

Even the usually stalwart Edward G. Robinson cringes under the bombardment, and at one or two points onscreen, you can watch as he pauses, not in character but as an actor in the scene, as if to show that he's overwhelmed. I want to stress that none of this is Ginger Rogers' fault. The film was clearly a star vehicle for her, but the director didn't know when to pull back or cut away from her character......and after awhile you feel you are taking a beating. I myself was on the ropes by the 30 minute mark, and I struggled to finish the film. T'was only by herculean effort that I made it.

"Tight Spot" did become a true noir in the final twenty minutes, and there is a twist and a resulting payoff, but the going is pretty rugged in getting there. I was surprised to read the reviews afterwards and see how many fans enjoyed the movie - and you might also - but despite the razor sharp print and solid production values, and good acting, I'm afraid I can't recommend it because of the sheer effort it takes to sit through. I'm still gonna give it one and a half thumbs - held sideways - because of Ginger, but that's as good as I can do. Give it a try, though, you might like it better than I did.

But make sure and watch "Sailor of the King".

That's all for the moment. Have a great afternoon. Tons and tons of love!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"The First Legion" directed by Douglas Sirk, and "Identity Unknown" with Richard Arlen

How about a movie set in a seminary, in which most of the characters are Jesuit priests? The context was intriguing, not to mention something different from the Noirs and war films we've been watching, but what really drew me in was the name of the director : Douglas Sirk. You probably know him, but in case you don't, he specialized in melodramas that had a touch of mysticism about them, almost as if they were filmed through a gauze of wonder, or rapture. The characters in his films were always searching for meaning in the various plots in which they found themselves, and Sirk's velvety touch with the camera added to the spiritual effect. I thought I'd seen all of his major works, but tonight I discovered one I'd missed. It was called "The First Legion"(1951). The Jesuits are presented as an order apart from the greater Church. They are ultra-disciplined and even see themselves as militant. When the rigidity of Jesuit life proves too much for one Novice (Wesley Addy), he threatens to walk away, to go back to his old life as an aspiring pianist.

The head priest, known as the Father Rector (Leo G. Carroll), asks him to reconsider, but his mind is made up. Before he is set to leave, he goes upstairs to the room of his elderly mentor, Father Jose, who is bedridden with paralysis. Shortly thereafter, as Addy is saying goodbye to the rest of the Brothers, suddenly there appears on the staircase the figure of Father Jose. Though frail, he is walking down the steps, imploring Wesley Addy not to leave.

It's got to be a miracle. At least that's what the Father Rector believes. The local doctor who serves the seminary has no explanation for Father Jose's recovery, and Jose himself explains that he prayed to Blessed Joseph, the founder of their order, just before he stood up and walked. So, there can be no other answer - it's a miracle, and the papers in town trumpet it as such.

One skeptic, besides the doctor who doesn't believe in faith, is Father Arnoux (played by the great Charles Boyer). Arnoux is wary of declaring a miracle because the Jesuits, in their strict discipline, have always avoided such grand religious pronouncements without absolute proof, lest they be challenged for accuracy. Think of Father Karras in "The Exorcist", who tries to talk Mrs. McNeil out of an exorcism for her daughter Regan. He does this because, though he's a priest, he's also got one foot in the modern world, meaning that he believes in science. For an exorcism to happen, there needs to be evidence of possession, and likewise, science is evidence-based.

In "First Legion", now that the miracle has been declared, the worst case scenario has happened. It's exactly as Father Arnaux feared : every invalid in the region has descended upon the seminary, waiting at the gates in hope of their own miracle healings. This is dealt with in conversations between the true believers among the priests on one side, and Father Arnaux on the other. For his part, the doctor tries to stay out of it, though his disdain for religion and it's miracles is known to all involved.

In the movie's main subplot, there is a young woman, confined to a wheelchair, who lives in town nearby. She has a severed spine from a horse-riding accident and has been told by the doctor that she'll never walk again. But she too wants a miracle, and is determined to petition for one. Specifically, she wants access to the seminary, where she believes healing will occur.

That's all I will reveal about the story, except to say that a very large monkey wrench will be thrown into the works at some point. You'll know it when you see it. Besides Charles Boyer, and Leo G. Carroll, you also get William Demarest (cranky "Uncle Charlie" from My Three Sons) in a fine supporting role as the town's Catholic Monsignor, a friendly rival to the Jesuits who ribs them for their austerity.

The script is excellent and was based on a play, but the dramatization here is pure Douglas Sirk, with few exclamation points in the dialogue where quiet ponderings will suffice, instead. It's shot in black and white, and the print I saw was serviceable but not razor sharp nor in full grey scale. But don't let that stop you from watching "The First Legion", which was filmed at the Riverside Mission, a majestic setting for a wonderful story. I'd like to see a Criterion restoration, but I still give it Two Big Thumbs Up as is. Highly recommended!  /////

And now, if you can handle another war movie, we've got last night's "Identity Unknown"(1945), starring Richard Arlen as a WW2 vet suffering from amnesia. As the movie opens, he's aboard a hospital ship, where the head psychiatrist is trying to help him remember his name. All the doctors know is that he was found unconscious in a bombed-out barn in France, along with three other soldiers who were burned beyond recognition. There'd been a raid by the Luftwaffe; all of the men had their dog tags blown off in the attack and thus the Army doesn't know who was who. As the sole survivor, Arlen holds the key to the mystery. 

When their efforts prove unsuccessful, the doctors discharge Arlen after agreeing to let him try an experiment. He asks for - and is given - the names and addresses of the four soldiers whose names are on the dog tags. Surely he must be one of them. Knowing that three of the soldiers are dead, he receives permission to visit the residences of all four, expecting that at some point he will be recognized by a father, mother, brother or sister as part of the family.

This is a movie that I hate to criticise, because it's heart is in the right place with a message about healing the deep wounds of war. The trouble is, that for much of the first 45 minutes of it's 71 minute run, it comes off as gimmicky because of it's "process of elimination" plot structure. We know that, in taking the train cross-country to visit each of the four soldier's homes, that Arlen is going to find three of them deceased (which we're already aware of), and thereby discovering that he's the only one remaining. It's a variation on the Ten Little Indians format, or in this case the "Let's Make A Deal" arrangement, where you have to anticipate behind which "door" the answer will be found. The Arlen character eventually comes to be seen as a Heavenly Messenger who is healing the families of the deceased soldiers, and for that message the movie is commendable, even if it feels more like a TV drama than a fully fleshed out film. There is a romance that bookends the story, co-played by an actress named Cheryl Walker, who I feel the need to mention because of her 1940s sincerity. I looked her up on IMDB and found that she was Rose Queen of Pasadena in 1938.

Two Regular Thumbs, then, for "Identity Unknown", and Two Gigantic Thumbs, highest rating, for it's message of honoring - and never forgetting - fallen soldiers.  ////// 

See you in the morning. I'm reading the Paul McCartney bio and listening to early Beatles.

Tons and tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)