Last night we watched a Sirkian noir entitled "Three Bad Sisters"(1956), which isn't accurate because one sister is nice. Their father, a wealthy industrialist, has just died in a plane crash. At the FAA hearing, the pilot, "Jim Norton" (John Bromfield), who survived, says it was a suicide move. "He grabbed the stick and wouldn't let go. We went into a dive. I tried to save him when we hit, but his legs were pinned." Now the man's fortune is to be inherited by the good daughter, "Lorna Craig" (Sara Shane), who's unfortunately also inherited her Dad's suicidal tendencies. When we meet her, she's contemplating diving off "Devil's Bridge", a rocky outcropping at the edge of the family estate that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The pilot Jim Norton rescues her.
Despite the plane crash, he's been hired on the sly by the evil sister "Valerie Craig" (Kathleen Hughes), to come on to the virginal Lorna, steal her away from her arranged fiance, and gain power of attorney over her affairs because she's manic depressive. Valerie offers Jim two hundred thousand smackers for the job. "Just get the money out of her name and into mine." The middle sister, also bad, is "Vicki", a dark haired seductress. She'd like Dad's money, too, but what she really wants is Jim. She's a nympho with only one thing on her mind. Being the most desirable of the sisters is very important to her psyche. There's a competition in that regard between Valerie and Vicki, and Vicki is winning because she's a sex machine. Valerie is a stunner also, but cold and calculating. Finally, to get rid of Vicki, Valerie slashes her face in a fight, which destroys Vicki's looks, and causes her to drive into a hillside. It seems that suicide is in the family DNA, all except for "Aunt Martha" (Madge Kennedy), a crabby old crone. Dad Craig was her twin brother. She doesn't believe, or won't accept, that he committed suicide and was willing to take the pilot with him. Instead, she declares that Jim murdered Mr. Craig by deliberately leaving him in the flaming airplane wreckage, so he could move in on the sisters, particularly Lorna, and gain control of the family fortune. At one point, Jim has a great line, regarding the kooky family members: "Lemme outta this nuthouse!" But really, it's Valerie and her cruelty that are manipulating the others.
Now that's she's rid of Vicki (her sexual competition), she sets her sights on beautiful, sweet Lorna, her monetary foe. Jim Norton, whom she hired to deceive Lorna, has instead fallen in love with her. They've flown to Vegas and gotten married. Now, Jim does indeed have power of attorney, but it's because Lorna has made him an equal partner, putting him in charge of a real estate development in Bel-Air.
This angers Valerie, who brings back Lorna's rejected fiance (a lawyer) to try and screw Jim out of the deal. When that doesn't work, she tries to kill Lorna on a horseback outing. Devil's Bridge is always in the back of Lorna's mind as a last resort. She's still willing to kill herself if she has to.
When I saw the title, I thought, "cheesy drive-in classic." Three Bad Sisters, right? But instead, we get a movie that has a lot of effort put in, from the psychological undercurrents, to the adequate-to-above-average acting by everyone, especially the sisters (and you'll never see three more beautiful women in one movie). John Bromfield maintains his manliness throughout, never falling prey to the wiles of Valerie or Vicki.
It's well photographed, released by UA, and surprisingly good, like a movie Douglas Sirk would've made if he were lurid. The differing motivations of the sisters, the canyon locale of the mansion, with its hairpin switchback roads, and the constant threat of suicide combine to signal a fascination with death brought on by too much money. There are two spectacular car chases, and several spectacular early 50s cars.
Two Big Thumbs Up and a very high recommendation for "Three Bad Sisters" The picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night we had a P. O.W. movie called "The Bamboo Prison"(1955), set in North Korea during the Korean War. As it opens, the G.I.s in the main barracks hate their sadistic guard, known as "Meatball". When he's not barking orders in pidgin English and shoving them around, shouting "Make Snappy!", he's waking them up with a loudspeaker on a stick, which he inserts in their window at 5 am every morning, blasting "The March of the Proletariat", which sounds like you'd expect: Heroic Commie Music. The only man they hold in more disdain is one of their own, "Master Sergeant John Rand" (Robert Francis), who's gone over to the other side. Every day, he's in the commandants office, kissing up, getting "re-educated", and - as a result - enjoying privileges, like chicken dinners and tea served in a samovar.
Sgt. Rand also broadcasts messages to American troops (and the world), "speaking of his own volition, un-coerced," stating that communism is the wave of the immediate future. On air, he blames Wall Street for the war, and spouts the usual Commie propaganda (and although he's not altogether wrong about Wall St., and while capitalism as it now stands is corrupt and far less than perfect, would you really want communism? Are you joking?). The US prisoners hate him; "Corporal Pike" (Leo Gordon) wants to kill him. So does new guy "Corporal Brady" (Brian Keith). It's only when Rand and Brady meet alone in a service hut, and Brady gives him a secret code, that we learn Rand is working as a spy. He's really an intelligence officer pretending to go Commie, but the camp commandant believes he's a convert. Also in camp is a British diplomat, "Clayton" (Murray Matheson), who isn't faking it. Clayton, a slick, older chap with a Russian ballet dancer wife, is the liaison between the Chinese and their Russian masters. The Chinese got communism from the Russians, and answered to them in the Korean war. They probably still do, even though it's all capitalism now. The communism is only to keep billions of people from revolution. One brief scene shows "Private Slade" (Jack Kelly), a car salesman before the war, trying to sell Keye Luke a Cadillac. Luke is the "Comrade Re-educator", in charge of brainwashing the GIs. We love Keye Luke, who's so great in "Kung Fu" and the Charlie Chan movies, and in this movie, he secretly loves All Things American, but can't admit it.
E.G. Marshall is the camp's Catholic priest, "Father Dolan". He sneaks the men stolen bars of soap, for which he light-heartedly begs God's forgiveness. Some of the men try to escape, and are sent to The Icehouse, the camp's freezing-cold solitary confinement cell. "Doc Jackson" (Earle Hyman), a Black medic, is pressured by the commandant, who tells him "As a negro, you are oppressed in your country, the USA!" Doc looks at him like, "Pot calling the kettle black." Then he makes a tremendous speech. According to IMDB, Earle Hyman was a longstanding Broadway actor.
Sergeant Rand finally gains the confidence of Clayton's Russian ballet-dancer wife, whose icy demeanor melts in his company. She admits to him she hates communism. "I only married him because he say he take me to America." She has jewels and furs, but she's trapped in North Korea. Meanwhile, grey-haired Clayton is only in it for the glory. He's a morally bankrupt middleman who believes in nothing but power and money. Rand confesses to "Tanya" (the wife) that he's working undercover, and she shows him a drawer with Clayton's secret papers, which detail the Russian supply lines into China, and into Korea. It seems that Russia funded China, and supplied them with tanks and artillery, to fight a proxy war through Korea. Luckily they didn't start WW3, but they probably didn't wanna take it that far. Then they tested the waters again with Vietnam....which we never should've escalated, but LBJ was a psycho and a megalomaniac, and he also killed JFK.
Poor Robert Francis, the actor playing Sgt. Rand, only lived one more year after making this movie, which should've made him a big star. He died in a plane crash at Burbank Airport on July 31, 1955, at 25 years old. He's great in this movie, which yet again is a total actors flick. There's even a classic comedic moment, in the barracks, where a prisoner (played by Joe Turkel) does a hilarious imitation of Boris Karloff going bowling. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Bamboo Prison". We've been on a Two Huge roll lately. Brian Keith and E.G Marshall are great as always, and the picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Legend" by Henry Cow and "Heatwave" by Univers Zero. My late night is "Tristan und Isolde" by Wagner. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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