Last night's recommendation was "Okinawa"(1952), a war film we'd never heard of. We've been getting lucky that way lately, though this flick was better than "The Flying Saucer". It's short by war movie standards, only 66 minutes, and half of that is spent below decks watching banter between the usual various ethnic and character types mandated by War Film Law. You've got your Romantic Spanish Guy from the Rio Grande, your Nerdy Intellectual Bookworm, your Filipino cook who yearns to man an ant-aircraft gun, to get back at the Japanese who've invaded his country. You've got the Old Man in charge of the gun deck, who everyone calls Grandpa (he's 47). Then you've got the East Coast Jokester, usually specified as a short, dark-haired Brooklynite, but who this time is a a tall, thin, wiry guy with a pulled-down Gilligan hat ala Donald Sutherland in "Mash", whom he somewhat resembles with his handlebar mustache.
This guy is the star of the movie, and when I found out who the actor was, I was impressed. The non-stop bantering is because the crew are nervous. They've heard the scuttlebutt, that the Japanese are down to their last offensive strategy, the use of Kamikazes. The sailors know all about Kamikaze pilots, and can't believe that any soldier - no matter his country - would willingly commit suicide, but they understand better when The Intellectual explains it to the dumber guys.
Because the Kamikazis never seem to arrive, the guys go stir crazy waiting, as their Naval squadron forms a ring around the island of Okinawa to protect American ground troops. To allay his fear, The Jokester makes bets on when the Japanese will attack. He tries to gibe his way around the almost certain eventual sinking of their ship, claiming that he owns half the beer on board through gambling winnings and wants to drink it before it ends up on the bottom of the ocean. He's got a death-grip handshake he uses on everyone but the new Captain (Pat O'Brien), who strategizes on the executive deck with his distinguished first mate (Richard Denning of sci-fi fame), using toy boats to simulate the blockade.
The Spanish Guy strums his guitar and shows off pictures of his Senorita while The Intellectual tries to figure out the Japanese battle plan. When a boiler explodes, anonymous wounded men look forward to being shipped home, then that hope is dashed when their rescue ship is torpedoed and sunk. Amazing stock footage is featured in the first ten minutes, and then again in the final 20 when the Kamikaze attack begins, and man, is it hair raising. More stock footage of guys firing those huge turret guns, trying to shoot the Zeros out of the sky before they can crash into the ship like a guided missile. We see many of the Kamikaze planes burst into flame, spin out of control and hit the water full force.This is the real thing, so you're actually watching a pilot's death, though he's just an anonymous enemy from 80 years ago. But such was the war, and the Captain actually remarks on the random mayhem of it all toward the end, when he philosophically remarks to Richard Denning that kids should run the world instead of adults. It's quite a statement in such a film, which usually features a more stoic, fatalistic outlook from a Captain or General. Pat O'Brien is the perfect choice for the role.
Cameron Mitchell is the actor playing "Grip", the mustachioed East Coast wise guy. I've always liked Mitchell, way back since "High Chaparral", my favorite TV Western in the 1960s. Later, of course, likely needing a paycheck, he starred in the notorious "Toolbox Murders"(1978), now considered a classic of the '70s B-horror genre. We saw it at the Parthenia Theater and when it was over, Grimsley drove us past the Canoga Park apartment building it was filmed at. Cameron Mitchell was actually good as the psycho in that movie, and he was a very good actor overall, as evidenced here, though you'd never recognise him. It's only 1952, and he's still a Skeeny Keedo, just 32 years old. He would get bulkier and more grizzled on "High Chaparral", but he always had that outsized persona, and in "Okinawa" his character represents the "whistling-past-the-graveyeard" black humor soldiers engage in when any moment could be their last. Two Big Thumbs Up for a compact war movie that distills the famous naval battle down to its essence. The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night we had an unusual women's prison film, featuring one of the best prison breaks we've seen. In "Blonde Bait", the plot revolves around a covert Federal operation to nail a hoodlum who's killed a government agent. To entrap him, they plan to enlist his girlfriend, American nightclub singer "Angie Booth" (Beverly Michaels), who's become a sensation in London. Angie doesn't know much about "Nick Randall" (Jim Davis), only that she loves him. Nick's got a hold on her, even though he's gone for three months at a time, without explaining the absences. This one, he promises, will be the last. "Meet me three months from tonight, on New Years Eve, at the Old Owl Inn. This time I'm gonna marry you, baby."
Angie has no idea he's a criminal. She's lonely in England and glad to have an American boyfriend. But the US has chased Nick across the Atlantic and are looking for anything they can pin on him now that he's gone into hiding. They get a break when Angie goes to jail for six months after bopping her British manager with a brick. The movie turns into a Women's Prison Flick after that, and remains so until the breakout fifteen minutes from the end.
In jail, Angie is sullen, wanting to escape so bad it's all she thinks about, so she can be at the Old Owl Inn on New Years Eve to meet Nick, as promised. Never has a gal been so desperate. The prison matron tries to bring her out of herself, encouraging her to go to chapel and the library. Slowly, Angie makes friends with old "Gran" (Thora Hird), a lifer, and "Marguerite" (April Olrich), a Spanish inmate with a baby that's about to be taken from her and placed in an orphanage. For comic relief, there's also "Cleo" (Joan Rice), a bubbly gal who's in jail for bigamy. She sees nothing wrong with having two husbands and loves to talk about them, "It gives me variety. I wouldn't mind marrying a third." With Angie locked up, MI5, who are working with the US State Department, gets an idea that will lead them to Nick: a deliberate breakout, abetted by the warden and led by "insider" inmate Gran, who will be in on the plot. Her end of the bargain is to get outside for a few days and have an adventure, in addition to helping the cops, which will earn her some in-house privileges. The middle 30 minutes is devoted to the goings-on in a women's prison, including the cooperation between inmates and matrons to make the joint a more livable place. The chaplain plans a Christmas variety show, to be put on by the inmates, and the US agents decide this is when the assisted breakout will take place. Through the warden and the matron, they've informed Gran just what to do to escape, and what routes to take and who to meet once she's outside prison walls with Angie. The objective is to deliver Angie to the Old Owl Inn at Midnight, as per her desire to meet her beloved Nick so the agents can arrest him. But a complication arises when Marguerite, the Spanish gal, escapes with them in order to save her baby. Angie, who's all heart, is compassionate toward Marguerite, as is old Gran, even though Marguerite's presence has screwed up the escape mission. But they decide not to turn her away even though she's slowing them down. Angie swears she's gonna help save Marguerite's baby before she saves herself, and this leads to a diversion in the undercover escape plan to capture Nick.
The gals hide out at the home of "Bessie" (Avril Angers) Gran's former partner in crime. But Bessie's a biddy who wants to turn them in to the police, who haven't been told of the plot and will surely send Angie back to jail. From there, things twist to a deadly conclusion, as Gran does her best to follow through with the escape as originally planned, while still trying to accommodate Marguerite and her baby. Gran knows she's going back to prison, but any good deed she can do will help her overall karma and also inside the joint where the matron respects her.
Beverly Michaels, who plays Angie, was a fashion model-turned-actress and a good one at that, with striking Scandinavian features and looking much taller than her listed 5' 9" height. She's another performer (like George Nader the other night) where I wondered, "why wasn't she a bigger star?" At any rate, we talk a lot about atmosphere, and this movie is chock full. The breakout is the best part, featuring a wild car chase with an old drunken guy shooting off bottle rockets and roman candles on New Years Eve as old Gran drives the getaway car. Great stuff, verging on Two Huge Thumbs. Beverly Michaels is a woman you can't take your eyes off of, even if she's unconventionally attractive. The picture is good, not great. ////
And that's all for this evening. I had a nice hike in full sweatshirt on a drizzly, 61 degree day in mid-June. This is getting weird! Aliso is beautiful right now, though, overgrown with wildflowers and more lush and green than I've ever seen it. My blogging music was "Divine Discontent" by Sixpence None the Richer, one of my favorite '90s bands. I love their guitar sound and (of course) Leigh Nash's voice. My late night is Handel's Alcina Opera. I hope your weekend was a good one and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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