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 :):)
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