Category Archives: 1956

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on 10 January 2013 | Leave a comment

The Man Who Knew Too Much is Hitchcock’s only remake and, as such, it probably ought to be a whole lot better. The resulting film suggests he really wanted to make a Moroccan travelogue and symphony picture… assuming he didn’t set out to make a turgid thriller.

There’s also something else awkward about Man–Doris Day. For the first twenty-five minutes or so, Day is the protagonist. And not just a protagonist, but a forceful one. Then, once the plot gets going at the thirty-minute mark, James Stewart takes over. Previously he was ineffectual and unobservant, but then he becomes a more standard hero. For a while, anyway.

The conclusion ocelates between Day and Stewart, though Stewart is never as effective as Day in her early scenes.

John Michael Hayes’s mediocre (at best) script is clearly Man‘s most debilitating problem. Still, given the film ends with a fantastic opportunity for an end cap (without the accompanying opening bracket), Hitchcock holds some responsibility too.

The Albert Hall sequence–the film’s first ending–is absolutely amazing. It’s brilliant filmmaking and, tellingly, doesn’t need the rest of the film to be appreciated.

Bernard Herrmann and Arthur Benjamin’s score is often amazing too. There’s a great scene with quiet, suggestive sublime music while Day suspects newfound friend Daniel Gélin. The score’s better than the film deserves.

Stewart and Day are solid, neither exceptional. Gélin and Brenda De Banzie are excellent. Bernard Miles is awful.

Man‘s a mixed bag, but undeniably well-made.

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock; screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on a story by Charles Bennett and D.B. Wyndham-Lewis; director of photography, Robert Burks; edited by George Tomasini; music by Bernard Herrmann; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring James Stewart (Dr. Benjamin McKenna), Doris Day (Josephine Conway McKenna), Brenda De Banzie (Lucy Drayton), Bernard Miles (Edward Drayton), Ralph Truman (Inspector Buchanan), Daniel Gélin (Louis Bernard), Mogens Wieth (Ambassador), Alan Mowbray (Val Parnell), Hillary Brooke (Jan Peterson), Christopher Olsen (Hank McKenna), Reggie Nalder (Rien), Richard Wattis (Assistant Manager), Noel Willman (Woburn), Alix Talton (Helen Parnell), Yves Brainville (Police Inspector) and Carolyn Jones (Cindy Fontaine).

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Posted in 1956, Arabic, Color, English, French, Paramount Pictures, Thriller, USA

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Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956, Curt Siodmak)

Posted on 16 November 2011 | Leave a comment

Siodmak sure does love his medium shots. He uses the same medium shot for every indoor scene in Curucu, which, along with the atrocious acting and writing, brings some regularity to the film.

I’ve wanted to see this one since I was a kid, mostly because of the excellent poster. It’s strangely unavailable from Universal, even though it’s one of their fifties monster movies. Well, not exactly. It spends most of its running time acting as a travelogue for Brazil and propaganda for missionaries. The native peoples who don’t accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior are evil morons. They’re so moronic, they even have a chief (Tom Payne) who’s wearing blackface. Brown face. Whatever.

Amusingly, priest Harvey Chalk is one of the creepiest priests I can think of in a movie. His performance is awful, but he’s also really creepy.

The acting in Curucu is uniformly horrendous. When budgeting Curucu, which shot on location in Brazil, Universal must not have been paying for cast. They also don’t seem to have wanted to pay for audio–the majority of the running time, Raoul Kraushaar’s terrible score is blaring.

But besides Siodmak (it’s hard to believe this guy wrote The Wolf Man), the fault mostly lies with leading man John Bromfield. Rarely does one get to see such a terrible performance in a theatrical release. Love interest Beverly Garland is bad too.

Save as a cultural artifact (Curucu endeavors to be misogynistic), there’s no reason to subject oneself to this film.

CREDITS

Written and directed by Curt Siodmak; director of photography, Rudolf Icsey; edited by Terry O. Morse; music by Raoul Kraushaar; produced by Richard Kay and Harry Rybnick; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring John Bromfield (Rock Dean), Beverly Garland (Dr. Andrea Romar), Tom Payne (Tupanico), Harvey Chalk (Father Flaviano), Larri Thomas (Vivian), Wilson Viana (Tico) and Sérgio de Oliveira (Captain of Police).

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Posted in 1956, Adventure, Color, English, Universal Pictures, USA

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Rodan (1956, Honda Ishirô)

Posted on 20 June 2011 | Leave a comment

The end of Rodan makes the monster’s death tragic—there are two Rodans (giant pterosaurs) and one commits suicide after its mate dies in volcano fumes. Even more tragic is the Japanese defense force hounded these big dumb birds until they intentionally attacked populated areas and those volcanic fumes? The defense force, advised by a rather not smart scientist (Toho regular Hirata Akihiko in a terrible performance), also caused that volcano eruption by firing rockets at it to cause a cave-in. They were warned by environmentalists and humanists, but why listen to them?

It’s unclear why the audience is supposed to be sympathetic towards the creatures at the end… maybe because their painful deaths make a girl cry.

The first half of the film doesn’t even have the Rodans (either of them). It’s about a mining village discovering these gigantic, man-eating caterpillars. That part of the film—led by Sahara Kenji and Shirakawa Yumi as possibly star-crossed lovers—works. Both actors make up for lack of ability with their appeal and it’s sort of interesting.

Then the giant monster—initially in unrelated sequences—shows up and Hirata and a variety of actors playing military men take over and Rodan plummets.

There are some good miniature effects and some bad ones. If Honda had shot the film in black and white, it probably would have been fantastic. The colors just don’t work with his composition here.

Excellent sound design.

Rodan starts inoffensively enough, then drags on and on.

CREDITS

Directed by Honda Ishirô; screenplay by Kimura Takeshi and Murata Takeo, based on a story by Kuronuma Ken; director of photography, Ashida Isamu; edited by Iwashita Kôichi; music by Ifukube Akira; production designer, Kita Tatsuo; produced by Tanaka Tomoyuki; released by Toho Company Ltd.

Starring Sahara Kenji (Kawamura Shigeru), Shirakawa Yumi (Kiyo), Hirata Akihiko (Professor Kashiwagi Kyuichiro), Kobori Akio (Police Chief Nishimura), Yamada Minosuke (Colliery Chief Osaki) and Tajima Yoshifumi (Izeki).

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Posted in 1956, Color, Drama, Horror, Japan, Japanese, Mandarin, Sci-Fi, Tagalog, Toho Company Ltd.

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Warning Red (1956, Nicholas Webster)

Posted on 9 June 2011 | Leave a comment

What’s strange about Warning Red—a Federal Civil Defense Administration commissioned short about atomic attack—is how effective some of the short can be. Not the silly stuff about the nuclear attack or the neighborhood banding together, but the actual procedural. Joseph Cunningham heads all over his destroyed neighborhood, trying to find his wife and child (of course he does; they’re safe and sound in a new bomb shelter).

His journey is pretty lame and nonsensical, but director Webster really does create an off-putting setting. It’s fires around destroyed buildings (the budget initially hurts it, before the creepiness sets in) and not particularly flashy.

Webster has a good opening shot and then his composition goes south. Similarly, Cunningham starts better than he finishes.

The short tries painfully never to get goofy (which makes it worse). But it’s really worth a look for the scenes set in the destroyed neighborhood.

CREDITS

Directed by Nicholas Webster; written by Kirby Hawkes; director of photography, Bert Spielvogel; produced by Phillip Martin; released by Norwood Studios.

Starring Joseph Cunningham (Martin Dale).

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Posted in 1956, Black and White, English, Norwood Studios, Short, USA

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The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick)

Posted on 24 March 2009 | Leave a comment

I first saw The Killing when I was in high school. I had a great video store and one of the employees–lots of the employees were film school students–recommended the film to me, raving about Kubrick’s use of fractured narrative. He didn’t call it a fractured narrative, I don’t remember what he called it, maybe he just described it; I rented it and watched it and loved it. In some ways, it’s the most lovable of Kubrick’s films because it’s so good and requires so little from the viewer. Years later–I learned Kubrick didn’t come up with the fractured narrative. The source novel had it and he liked the structure.

The heist scene, where The Killing (seemingly–did anyone else use a fractured structure to elucidate a heist before this film?) sets such a precedent, comes after the film’s already wowed. The heist scene, beautifully paced, exquisitely directed (I love the way the camera moves at the bus station, with Kubrick using camera movement akin to sentence or paragraph structure), is a blast. Like all good heist scenes, it’s all about the precision and The Killing doesn’t disappoint. It’s a great heist scene–maybe not the best ever (it gets a tad long as Sterling Hayden gets ready in the locker room), but the best stuff in The Killing isn’t the heist. It’s Elisha Cook Jr. and Marie Windsor.

Oh, there’s some other great stuff in the film. Coleen Gray as Hayden’s crestfallen fiancée–with The Killing, Kubrick gives a lot more time to characters than he usually does. It’s a large cast with people having different levels of involvement in the story overall, but the texture of the characters–look at the relationship between James Edwards and Timothy Carey. It takes up maybe four minutes of screen time but it’s exceptional; it has its own arc. Or Jay C. Flippen’s–unspoken–melancholia. It’s all just so amazing, because it’s so un-Kubrick. The Killing runs less than ninety minutes and it’s boiling over with material.

But Cook and Windsor… their relationship–their scenes together–is amazing. Windsor’s performance is spectacular, because she infuses it with such intelligence and evil, but is also able to make the viewer believe other people can buy it when she’s acting coy. Cook’s got the film’s best role and he gives the performance of his career–and Kubrick seems to know it. The Killing‘s got great sound design, both at the race track during the fractured heist scene, but also during the conversations between Cook and Windsor (Jim Thompson’s dialogue is fantastic). Kubrick holds the camera on Cook, letting him go through a whole range of emotions and thoughts in just thirty or forty seconds. It’s a brilliant moment of cinema.

Then the heist goes on too long and the film starts to slip a little.

Kubrick brings it all back together at the end though, as he infuses an action-oriented sequence with the characters’ unspoken misery. It’s a great big downer, but it’s such a beautifully made film–and it’s near impossible to truly identify with any of the characters outside of enjoying their actions–it works.

Hayden’s great, Ted de Corsia’s good, Joe Sawyer’s good. Gray’s very good in the few minutes she has of screen time. Kola Kwariani’s hilarious in a smaller part. He’s got these great monologues and, with his thick Russian accent, it’s hard to understand what he’s saying, but he’s foreshadowing the entire story for the viewer.

It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking.

CREDITS

Directed by Stanley Kubrick; screenplay by Kubrick and Jim Thompson, based on a novel by Lionel White; director of photography, Lucien Ballard; edited by Betty Steinberg; music by Gerald Fried; produced by James B. Harris; released by United Artists.

Starring Sterling Hayden (Johnny Clay), Coleen Gray (Fay), Vince Edwards (Val Cannon), Jay C. Flippen (Marvin Unger), Elisha Cook Jr. (George Peatty), Marie Windsor (Sherry Peatty), Ted de Corsia (Policeman Randy Kennan), Joe Sawyer (Mike O’Reilly), James Edwards (Track Parking Attendant), Timothy Carey (Nikki Arcane), Joe Turkel (Tiny), Jay Adler (Leo the Loanshark), Kola Kwariani (Maurice Oboukhoff), Tito Vuolo (Joe Piano) and Dorothy Adams (Mrs. Ruthie O’Reilly).

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Posted in 1956, Black and White, Crime, English, Film-Noir, Thriller, United Artists, USA

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The Fastest Gun Alive (1956, Russell Rouse)

Posted on 18 March 2009 | Leave a comment

The Fastest Gun Alive–to put it mildly and politely–is a turkey. I thought, given Glenn Ford in the lead, it was going to be at least a decent Western… but it’s not. Ford’s great (more on him later), but the script is atrocious. It’s rare to see a script so fail its cast; to the point there’s nothing they can do except ride the tide until it’s over. Russell Rouse isn’t much of a director either. He had a couple okay shots, but he seems far bettered suited for television. He doesn’t bring any personality to the visuals. As a director of actors, he’s a disaster. He can’t figure out how to shoot Jeanne Crain’s concerned wife shots and the performance Broderick Crawford gives is awful from the start. Only at the end, when Crawford gets to tread water for a while, is he all right. At the beginning, not even in speaking scenes, he’s terrible.

The script’s a silly revision on High Noon, an idiotic examination of cowardice. The Fastest Gun Alive does have some interesting elements, but they’re unrecognized. Ford’s character isn’t presented as a coward until after a big revelation scene, so before it, he just comes off as a weak-willed man who succumbs to peer pressure. Ford and Crain play these scenes beautifully–going through the film with those assumptions about Ford almost make him the villain, as he abandons pregnant Crain for his fellow men’s image of him. Then there’s Crawford’s character, who–we learn in the last act–is a villain (a fast-drawing villain, of course) simply because his wife left him for a Faro dealer. He’s overcompensating. Unfortunately, this detail is revealed after Crawford’s palled around with a kid, which added some depth to the character. The revelation just explains it.

But Rouse and co-writer Frank D. Gilroy aren’t interested in subtlety or rewarding a participating viewer. They’ve got a generic western and they follow it. The wheel ruts going through the town become a metaphor for the entire picture.

There is some further atrociousness, however. Not satisfied with a seventy-two minute picture, Rouse puts poor Russ Tamblyn on display for an involved, acrobatic dance sequence. It’s amazing what Tamblyn could do, he was a flexible guy, but it not only doesn’t further the story, it degrades Tamblyn. Besides that sequence, he doesn’t have a character. He’s around occasionally, but all as an excuse for a three or four minute dance routine. He’s good in the three or four unrelated deliveries he has. I hope he got paid well for it.

Rouse pads in other places too… introducing useless supporting characters and contrived relationships. Even with all the dressing, The Fastest Gun Alive is anorexic. The most interesting possibilities–like why Crain stuck with Ford for so long or how she got together with him in the first place–are never discussed, because it might reveal the big revelation too early.

There’s a brief moment, in the last scene, when the film could overcome all its defects and really be something, really put forth an idea, really make a statement about violence and the way people interact with each other, the responsibilities of community.

It doesn’t.

CREDITS

Directed by Russell Rouse; screenplay by Frank D. Gilroy and Rouse, based on a story by Gilroy; director of photography, George J. Folsey; edited by Harry V. Knapp and Ferris Webster; music by André Previn; produced by Clarence Greene; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Glenn Ford (George Temple), Jeanne Crain (Dora Temple), Broderick Crawford (Vinnie Harold), Russ Tamblyn (Eric Doolittle), Allyn Joslyn (Harvey Maxwell), Leif Erickson (Lou Glover), John Dehner (Taylor Swope) and Noah Beery Jr. (Dink Wells).

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Posted in 1956, Black and White, English, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA, Western

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The Last Hunt (1956, Richard Brooks)

Posted on 19 February 2008 | Leave a comment

Here’s a strange one. I just had to look to see where it fell in careers, Richard Brooks’s and Robert Taylor’s, because it’s… well, it’s something else. It’s sort of early in Brooks’s directing career, before he took off, and it’s at the very end of Taylor’s MGM contract. Taylor plays a villain in it. And Brooks handles his villainy in a singular way–he never lets anyone get away from it. Some of the scenes play like a hostage situation, but hero Stewart Granger can always leave. Lloyd Nolan and Russ Tamblyn play skinners to Granger and Taylor’s buffalo hunters and they too can leave. Even “Indian girl” (literally, the character has no other name) Debra Paget could, until a point, leave. But no one does. Taylor holds them–and the viewer–captive.

At a certain point–the film gets off to a rocky start, with Brooks having the most trouble establishing the character relationships effectively–it becomes clear it’s not about watching Taylor’s crazed gunslinger turned buffalo hunter (he’s an Indian War veteran, clearly suffering from the experience) redeem himself, but about seeing if the rest of the cast can survive knowing him. And Taylor’s performance might be his best. Once it becomes clear he’s the villain, he’s amazing. Absolutely terrifying, with all the trappings of a tragic character, but he’s so evil, it’s impossible to feel any sympathy.

Brooks juggles two big issues (The Last Hunt certainly signifies, the same year as The Searchers no less, the developing consciousness of the American Western… it also shares a theme with The Searchers, which is a little odd)–buffalo hunting and racism. The two wear heavy on an already somber Granger. Granger, second-billed to Taylor here, gives a great performance too. Brooks doesn’t deal much in subtext here and Granger’s perfect at dealing with conspicuous unrest (even though a lot of his internal turmoil is silent).

The rest of the cast, except Paget, is fantastic. Brooks’s direction is excellent, as is (after the first act) his dialogue. He has some problems with the day-for-night shooting and some rear screen projection, but it’s forgivable. Brooks really makes something great here and it’s a quiet (even though it’s Cinemascope) mid-1950s great.

CREDITS

Directed by Richard Brooks; screenplay by Brooks, based on the novel by Milton Lott; director of photography, Russell Harlan; edited by Ben Lewis; music by Daniele Amfitheatrof; produced by Dore Schary; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Stewart Granger (Sandy McKenzie), Robert Taylor (Charlie Gilson), Lloyd Nolan (Woodfoot), Debra Paget (Indian girl), Russ Tamblyn (Jimmy O’Brien), Constance Ford (Peg) and Joe De Santis (Ed Black).

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Posted in 1956, Color, English, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA, Western

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The King and Four Queens (1956, Raoul Walsh)

Posted on 18 January 2006 | Leave a comment

Clark Gable is an exceptional movie star. I’m not sure how good of an actor he is–his performance in The King and Four Queens is not, for instance, nuanced and textured, but he carries it from the first minute. Movie stars today–the ones who can act–rarely carry their “fluff” roles (I’m thinking of Nicolas Cage in particular). Gable does such a good job carrying the film, entertaining the audience, it’s very easy to overlook all the problems with King and Four Queens.

He’s not alone… both Eleanor Parker and Jo Van Fleet are great too. Van Fleet is given a fuller character to work with but Parker and Gable’s scenes are nice too. Parker holds up against him in these scenes, which are quite good. The film’s pacing is completely off–it’s a small story (and a short film, eighty-two minutes)–mostly because the other three actresses are light. None of them, except maybe Jean Willes, are bad, they just don’t hold up against Gable and Van Fleet. Even so, some of those scenes are very entertaining. On the scene-level, The King and Four Queens has a great script… it’s just in the whole package, there are significant pacing problems.

I know a little about the making of the film–there were significant cut scenes and it’s the only production from Gable’s company, Gabco. Even with the unsatisfying conclusion, it’s an enjoyable experience. I haven’t seen a post-war Gable film since the last time I saw this one (maybe six years ago) and it’s incredible how well he carries the film. The title–probably giving away his role as producer–refers to MGM’s title for Gable in the 1930s, “The King of Hollywood.”

The film comes on TCM every once in a while in a watchable, but visibly unrestored print. This print’s widescreen, however, and I can’t imagine seeing it pan and scan (though I once did). Raoul Walsh likes to move his camera and hold his shots. He’s another of the film’s pleasant surprises.

CREDITS

Directed by Raoul Walsh; screenplay by Margaret Fitts and Richard Alan Simmons, based on a story by Fitts; director of photography, Lucien Ballard; edited by Howard Bretherton; music by Alex North; production designer, Wiard Ihnen; produced by David Hempstead; released by United Artists.

Starring Clark Gable (Dan Kehoe), Eleanor Parker (Sabina McDade), Jean Willes (Ruby McDade), Barbara Nichols (Birdie McDade), Sara Shane (Oralie McDade), Roy Roberts (Sheriff Tom Larrabee), Arthur Shields (Padre), Jay C. Flippen (Bartender) and Jo Van Fleet (Ma McDade).

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Posted in 1956, Adventure, Color, Comedy, English, Mystery, United Artists, USA, Western

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