Category: 1962

The Trial (1962, Orson Welles)

Given how much writer, director, and special guest star Welles cares about performances—not only does he dub over one of the other actors, he steals a juicy monologue from Michael Lonsdale—one would think he’d have seen the problem with star Anthony Perkins. Because everyone’s looping their dialogue in The Trial, Perkins gave this performance at least twice. But probably more. And it never works.

There are contexts where Perkins’s performance could work. Had Welles turned the film into a Fox melodrama, a la Peyton Place, with aw-shucks Perkins discovering the realities of the American legal system, it might’ve worked. Not sure how all the ladies throwing themselves at Perkins would work then, though. It might’ve just been easier to get a different lead.

Perkins plays the part like he’s Jimmy Stewart gone to Washington; only Welles’s adaptation of the source novel doesn’t let time progress or characters develop. I had to check and see if the end’s the same as in the novel (it’s not, Welles made a very, very bad choice), and it also turns out the novel takes place exactly over a year. The movie takes place over a… week? Two? There’s some suggestion of time passing late in the second act. Still, since Perkins is an erratic, obnoxious American in some vaguely Eastern European city, he could also just be an entitled, impatient asshole.

Welles breaks out the film as a series of vignettes, which is nice because it helps compartmentalize the more and less successful scenes. Even with Perkins Mayberrying his way through the film, Welles is fully committed to the adaptation and busts ass. In addition to Perkins, Welles also has to contend with wanting cinematography from Edmond Richard. Richard’s lighting is so universally flat and bland, so ignorant of shadow, it gives the impression there wasn’t time or money for anything better. They’ve got the nifty sets—Jean Mandaroux doing the art direction—and Welles has all sorts of neat shots, but there’s no personality.

It’s so flat it’d be better in color. At least there’d be some insight into what the characters are experiencing in their nightmare world. We see them, but we never see how they see one another. It might also explain why every woman in the movie throws herself at Anthony Perkins, ranging from his widowed landlady (Madeleine Robinson) to a couple dozen tweenage girls. In between, he romances Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider the most seriously.

Actually, wait, there’s also Elsa Martinelli. I lost count.

Perkins isn’t surprised at being irresistible, either. It’s apparently the norm for him, which suggests a far more lurid prequel, which Welles might’ve enjoyed directing. He tries his damndest to make Perkins and Schneider’s romantic interlude play like an exaggeratedly overt Hollywood melodrama. It’s never sexy because the women all have ulterior motives, and Perkins knows it and plans on bedding and abandoning them.

While Perkins disappoints, the rest of the cast is mostly excellent. Moreau, Schneider, and Akim Tamiroff are the standouts. Welles’s extended cameo is just okay. He under-directs himself.

The Trial’s fascinating. It’s long, it’s repetitive, it’s confounding, but it is fascinating as well. The use of music is outstanding; Jean Ledrut composed. The editing’s okay—better than the cinematography—but the cutting sometimes overcompensates for Welles not being able to do something because of budget.

Then there’s the ending. Of course, Welles had his reasons for changing the novel’s ending, but if he was going to do something so silly, why didn’t he end it at Stonehenge (where the demons dwell)?

But then, thanks to Welles being Welles, the film pulls up just a bit through the end credits—narrated by Welles—for a better landing. He just needed to remind everyone he’s Orson Welles, and he made this picture.

This post is part of the 2022 Classic Literature On Film Blogathon hosted by Paul of Silver Screen Classics.

Carnival of Souls (1962, Herk Harvey)

Carnival of Souls is another film in the “way too literal ending” genre. After seventy-five minutes (of seventy-eight) recounting its protagonist’s bewildering, terrifying experiences, the finish is a big wink and shrug. Though there’s a seemingly unintentional casting gaffe to tie the disparate narratives together. Unfortunately, that low-budget coincidence doesn’t add anything to the ending.

The film opens with lead Candace Hilligoss surviving a terrible car accident. She and her gal pals are drag racing some boys, and their car goes off a bridge; Hilligoss is the sole survivor. The opening titles are moody, beautiful lighted shots of the river, so when Hilligoss emerges, it’s in a familiar location. It sets a higher expectation than the film will achieve with recurring locations.

Hilligoss can’t remember what happened in the car—the boys have already lied to the cops about what happened, so they luck out, but it goes unexplored anyway. After a very brief recovery, Hilligoss is ready to move on to her new job at a church in Utah; she’s a professional organist, which means there’s going to be so much organ music in the movie. At the beginning, especially during the titles, it seems like Gene Moore’s music will be an asset. However, once it’s clear it’s just organ music—probably the same organ music, it’s all indistinguishable, even when the music becomes a plot point—and it’s very tiresome.

In Utah, Hilligoss hallucinates some scary ghouls around her car as she passes a closed carnival pavilion in the distance. The pavilion’s Souls’s best and worst; when Hilligoss eventually tours it, the experience is perfectly dreamy (Maurice Prather’s black and white photography is remarkable for such a low-budget effort and superb in general). But when she frequently daydreams about it, those sequences don’t have any of the dreaminess. Bill de Jarnette and Dan Palmquist do the cutting, and they’re a little too blunt about it; they’ve got no rhythm. Though with Moore’s organ music going in the background, what could they really do?

Hilligoss finds herself a room; Frances Feist’s her landlady, Sidney Berger’s the creepy sexual predator neighbor who judges Hilligoss for not being religious enough even though she works at a church. She wants to be paid for playing music in church—doesn’t it give her nightmares? Souls has a peculiar relationship with religion, especially since Hilligoss’s boss, Art Ellison, is a combination dipshit and asshole. At least he’s not a creep. Lots of the old dudes in Souls exude creep, including the local doctor (Stan Levitt), who determines Hilligoss is unfit to be in public without him evaluating her (even though he’s not qualified). Her old boss, organ manufacturer Tom McGinnis, was also a little too intrusive.

All the men agree Hilligoss is a little too independent, a little too headstrong, and has too much agency, which are interesting complaints, though none of them matter in the end.

As she tries to get acclimated to her new job and surroundings, Hilligoss starts seeing one of the ghouls from her trip around town. Director Harvey plays this lead ghoul, who’s definitely creepy, but technically much less threatening than, say, Berger. No one else can see Harvey, which confuses Hilligoss, but not as much when she has fits of insubstantiality when no one else can see or hear her, and she can’t hear them either.

It’s basically a “Twilight Zone” stretched out, with less budget than the TV show and questionable performances. Hilligoss does about as well as can be expected in the lead with such thin motivation and characterization. As needed, she looks terrified, though sometimes it’s unclear why she’s not terrified by what she’s experiencing (and vice versa). Berger’s amateurish but such a creep it ends up helping. Doctor Levitt and (apparently not Mormon in Utah) preacher Ellison are just bad. Though Souls has terrible ADR from the start, the looped deliveries aren’t just poorly acted but often clearly do not match the actors’ lips. So maybe it’s not all on them. Also, the script; Levitt and Ellison are the biggest patronizing assholes in a movie full of condescending assholes.

As far as Harvey’s direction… he’s definitely got his moments. However, he can’t do a regular conversation scene, which hurts the film since it’s mostly conversation scenes. The eerie pavilion material is usually quite good, and he makes some other big swings, mainly in the first act. Once Hilligoss is settled in Utah, fending off Berger, running from ghoul Harvey, there’s basically none. Harvey instead relies on the editing, which doesn’t (no pun) cut it.

Carnival of Souls isn’t terrible. It’s got a handful of moments; John Clifford’s script doesn’t do the film (or its actors) any favors, outside—albeit pointlessly—establishing Hilligoss as a singular (for the setting) protagonist. None of it adds up, not Hilligoss, not even the eerie pavilion, but at least the cinematography maintains throughout.

Sadly, so does that organ music.

The Intruder (1962, Roger Corman)

The Intruder has third act problems of the deus ex machina nature, and they’re actually welcome. If the film figured out how to finish better, it’d be more challenging to talk about. It’s already an exceptionally unpleasant experience.

William Shatner gets top-billing as the title character. He’s a slick, charming, clean-cut Northern (well, Western—he’s originally from California) white supremacist who heads to a Southern town to stir up trouble thanks to a recent integration ruling.

Director Corman and writer Charles Beaumont (adapting his novel and co-starring as the pro-integration school principal) never humanize Shatner’s character. They initially make a joke about it—he helps a little girl off the bus—but then they immediately establish he’s an evil person in search of stupid evil people who need a leader.

He’s in luck; the town’s full of stupid evil people. So Shatner works out a deal to organize the white trash for Southern blue blood Robert Emhardt, who’d never, and do something about the impending integration.

Unfortunately for everyone, Shatner doesn’t realize how dangerous stupid makes evil people, even the respectable ones like Emhardt.

The film juxtaposes Shatner’s story with local newspaperman Frank Maxwell. Maxwell starts the film believing you follow the law even if it says to integrate. Seeing how Shatner affects his fellow townsfolk, Maxwell becomes an integrationist himself. Even though it might lose him wife Katherine Smith. They have a particularly painful scene together where Smith says she’ll stop being so racist because she has to do what her husband says. Intruder’s solution for racism is always patriarchy and some toxic masculinity for effect. But only for those who need it. Otherwise, just patriarchy.

When the film’s heading towards some kind of showdown between Shatner and Maxwell, it’s on solid ground. The juxtaposition works. But Shatner can’t leave well enough alone—he’s already done some heavy petting with Maxwell’s teenage daughter, Beverly Lunsford, if not more, but he also decides he needs to rape Jeanne Cooper. She’s married to traveling salesman Leo Gordon, and since Gordon’s machismo threatens Shatner, he needs to assault Cooper when Gordon’s a way to prove he’s a man.

It’s an exceptionally unpleasant scene in a film with nothing but unpleasant scenes.

But it puts Shatner and Gordon on a collision course, which changes the dynamics. It’s not about Shatner being a racist piece of shit and Maxwell realizing racist pieces of shit are bad; it’s about Gordon and Shatner’s sales styles. And, of course, Shatner assaulting Cooper. But more the sales styles.

There’s also the story of Black high school student Charles Barnes, who gets caught up in the hostilities. The film avoids putting a face on the white students or their parents (outside Lunsford). It’s too busy implying the racist white people aren’t the white school parents. They’re the barely employed white trash who have time to drop everything and make racist picket signs to threaten children.

The third act problems save the film from an unsuccessful scene where Maxwell appeals to the good whites because Corman and Beaumont know it’d play hollow. The resolution they do find, however, plays contrived. Even if there’s a lot of good acting in it.

Obviously, completing the performances is tricky because they’re primarily mundane villains. Terrifying ordinary white guy racists. Maybe they’ve got bad teeth, but nobody in the movie, save Shatner probably, has good teeth.

Gordon’s good, Cooper’s good, Maxwell and Lunsford are good. Lunsford gets a weak part, however. Though she does at least get to have a showdown with her mom’s racist dad, Walter Kurtz, who berates son-in-law Maxwell for not being racist enough.

It’s all distressingly realistic.

Shatner’s performance is exceptional. He’s got maybe one iffy scene—a rally—but only because you can’t believe anyone would fall for such loud stupidity. Or at least you didn’t used to be able to believe it. Reality hasn’t let The Intruder age. It just kept making it more and more true to life.

Corman’s direction’s good. He and cinematographer Taylor Byars do a lot with focus and contrast. There are some weird things—lack of high school establishing shots, for example—but they always seem like they’re probably budget-related.

Good music from Herman Stein.

The Intruder’s pretty good—with that incredible Shatner performance—but it’s got a lot of problems, so it’s almost better it’s not indispensable overall.

This post is part of the Corman-Verse Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry of Cinematic Catharsis.

The Longest Day (1962, Ken Annakin)

The Longest Day picks up when the Normandy beach invasion starts. It happens maybe ninety minutes into the three-hour film. There are the overnight paratrooper drops, which have such dull action scenes it seems like the film will never improve, but then it turns out the large-scale battle choreography is exceptional and could potentially make up for the rest. It doesn’t, however, because Robert Mitchum turns out to be terrible once he gets more to do—he’s playing the rah-rah American general who chews on stogies—and is the one who motivates the men to get off Omaha Beach, the only unsuccessful D-Day landing point. In the film, anyway. It’s been way too long since my World War II class in undergrad. I mean, I aced the blue book, but not a-plussed it. Not that one.

Anyway.

The actual history doesn’t matter. It should because Longest Day is an exhausting exposition dump through the first hour as actor after actor churns through facts and figures, but no one ever thinks to describe the plan. Even though it’s a war movie with a mission and working a plan description into it is literally the easiest thing in the world (Longest Day is great to see how subsequent war films succeeded its narrative failings). Instead, it’s just a variety of guest stars mugging through endless dialogue. The worst performances—for the dialogue dumps—Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger. John Wayne’s not good at them either, but he’s nowhere near as bad as those two. And Steiger’s just in it for a scene. Ryan’s at least got a briefing. There really aren’t many dialogue dumps from the Germans, except maybe Richard Münch. He gets to describe the D-Day invasion before it happens because it’s what he would do if he were Eisenhower, but Eisenhower’s got no stones.

According to The Longest Day, D-Day succeeded for a handful of simple reasons. First, Eisenhower manned up and acted recklessly with the invasion location and launching in lousy weather. Second, Adolf Hitler was a silly yelly milksop who needed his nap (his generals dismiss him as a “Bohemian corporal,” though that quote is from somewhere else). Third, a bunch of the German generals were just lazy or intentionally distracted. Again, I can’t remember my D-Day history, but it seems like if you’re doing a three-hour Army recruitment commercial, you should at least make the good guys deserve to win for something other than dumb luck. Because if it is just dumb luck….

There’s a nod to the futility of war, right at the very end, with Richard Burton acting opposite Richard Beymer. Burton’s bad in the movie but not risible. Beymer’s middling in the film but never better. Get them together, however, and they’re just godawful together. Especially with the dialogue. Especially since it takes place at sunset on June 6, after the film’s skipped ahead not a few hours, but something like ten. Because ten p.m. sunset on June 6, 1944. Thanks, Google. I’d have used military time, except the movie doesn’t for the first hour, so I kept wondering how Eisenhower was going to hold a meeting at 9:30 in the morning on June 6 when the invasion boats left already.

The invasion boat arrival scene with Hans Christian Blech is one of the best, not large-scale scenes. The film’s never good with its composite shots, from the second or third scene, and you think it’ll somehow not matter because of the gravitas, but it matters every single time, especially with Mitchum, who doesn’t need any more excuses to be checked out. At least Wayne’s engaged. Wayne’s not good, not at all, but he’s engaged in the film. Mitchum is phoning it in. Eddie Albert holds up their scenes together, which is concerning.

The film’s got three credited directors, but there are at least two more uncredited contributors, and then whoever orchestrated the battle sequences, which were shot from helicopters, it looks like. Those sequences are about the only time the lousy sound effects are okay. Otherwise, Longest Day’s editing, visually and aurally, is never impressive. Some of it's obvious lack of coverage and continuity—neither Annakin nor Marton establish their battle scenes well. Wicki doesn’t get any battle scenes. Maybe the marching scene, which ends up being better than the paratrooper stuff. And then the landing. Okay, so for actual action, Wicki does best. Then whoever did the French commando scene, which has some of the film’s best-acting courtesy Georges Rivière.

Longest Day has over a hundred speaking parts. It’s got a big name American, British, French, and German movie stars. It’s got like six good performances, a whole bunch of middling ones, then a dozen terrible ones. Best performances are—in alphabetical order—Blech, Münch, Edmond O'Brien, Wolfgang Preiss, Rivière, Robert Wagner. I’m not going through the worst, but Peter Lawford and Nicholas Stuart are on the list; Stuart doesn’t even have any lines. There are a handful of senseless cameos—Steiger, O’Brien, Henry Fonda—because no one can really figure out how to write the characters. They’re just star cameos, not people, not even caricatures. Jeffrey Hunter gets a big part in the last hour, but Marton directs him poorly. Red Buttons is better than most of the other guys he’s around. Mel Ferrer’s fine in his brief appearances. Sean Connery’s dull but better than some of the other Scots, particularly Kenneth More, who seems to have been churned out by the War Office.

If Mitchum or Wayne were good, Day’d have something. Or if Beymer were good. Or Sal Mineo. Burton’s not in it enough to matter. But the direction would still be wanting. The script—only five screenwriters—is a mess. The helicopter sequences are fantastic, though. Shame it’s profoundly shallow.

Even before you get to the Paul Anka theme song.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)

During To Kill a Mockingbird’s exceptional opening titles, I wondered how it was possible the film was going to look so amazing yet had no reputation for being some exquisitely, precisely directed piece of cinema. Then up came Stephen Frankfurt’s credit for title design, which kind of dulled my excitement for a moment. Could Mulligan maintain what Frankfurt set up—along with composer Elmer Bernstein, who’s score is essential to the film–with these opening titles?

Short answer, yes. The first hour of Mockingbird is, while obviously not as fastidiously executed as the opening titles (which examine the various contents of a child’s mementos box), is exquisite. Mulligan, Bernstein, cinematographer Russell Harlan–Mockingbird is a gorgeous black and white—screenwriter Horton Foote, and actors Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, and John Megna create this bewitching window into a memory of childhood. An uncredited Kim Stanley narrates from—presumably—the present; she’s grown-up Badham, who’s just about to start school (South in the early thirties, guessing first grade versus kinder); Alford’s her older brother, Megna’s the new kid on the block, an out-of-town visitor. Her dad’s a widower, respected lawyer Gregory Peck. They’re not rich but they’re respected. They’ve got a Black housekeeper (Estelle Evans), who Peck treats with as much respect as if she were his white housekeeper slash babysitter. It’s a progressive block. They’re not country white trash. The first hour has a little about race, but a lot of it is about how tomboy Badham learns about class differences and societal norms.

The first hour is this lovely, mostly lyrical look into Badham and Alford’s childhood. Running through the distant background is Peck’s subplot about defending a Black man accused of rape. The kids aren’t allowed in the courthouse (by Dad Peck); Foote and Mulligan gradually introduce the subplot. And the idea of Peck as the lead. Until the second hour, it’s from Badham and Alford’s perspective. A little bit too much from Alford’s given Badham’s literally the narrator but thanks to Mulligan’s gentle, deliberate direction of the kids’ perceptions of events, Harlan’s great photography (which is even better at night), and Bernstein’s music, it gets a pass; narrative-wise. The film’s got enough going for it, you can give it slack for not sticking close enough to Badham.

In fact, the film’s got so much going for it, you want to give it that slack even after it becomes obvious it’s never looping around to Badham again. Even with further narration breaks, once the film starts straying from Badham’s perspective, it never comes back. It goes to Alford, then Peck—albeit for the continuous second act courtroom sequence—then back to Alford in an almost peculiar way (the film avoids Badham during the court scenes), then to Peck for the finale because he’s got top-billing. Though not in a significant way. Even though he’s top-billed, even though he’s got the lengthy court scene mostly to himself, Peck always feels like a special guest star. “And Gregory Peck as Atticus (Dad).”

Whenever Peck comes into the film in the first act, the kids bring him in somehow. Either they call him into the scene or go find him or call him into the scene… but it starts with the kids. Foote and Mulligan keep that perspective in the second act, just before the trial starts, when the kids go and stand by Peck as he’s standing off against a white trash lynch mob. It’s a good segue to the courtroom and Peck taking over the narrative. It makes sense; his subplot’s been building and the trial is occupying the children’s minds too.

So during the trial—Brock Peters plays the accused, not actually appearing onscreen until his day in court—the kids (Badham, Alford, and Megna) watch from the second floor balcony, where a kindly Black minister (Bill Walker) they know gets room for them. The trial seems to take less than a day. 1930s South. Every once in a while as Peck tries to convince his fellow white people Black people are people too and you can’t frame them for rape just because you’re an asshole, the film cuts up to Alford watching his dad crusade, presumably inspiring him. Megna gets some reaction shots too, which makes it seem like as long as Southern Whites aren’t white trash they won’t be racist but… I don’t know, aspirational 1962 film. The film’s got a few moments of bald-faced white saviorism but since it’s 1962, it’s not like the Black characters appear enough to be shown in specific suffering. It’s a weird way to get a pass but… it works.

But no shots of Badham. Not even after the end of the trial. Not right away. And they’re way overdue. We don’t get any idea how Badham experiences the trial, other than she’s tired when it’s over. It’s all about Alford. And not from Badham’s perspective.

The third act epilogue, which resolves everything and ends in a nice narration bow from Stanley and very deliberate, effective direction from Mulligan, somehow centers on Badham but, again, not her experience of it. Mulligan and Foote commit to one way of doing a big scene, maybe the only way they could do it in 1962, and it’s a well-executed scene with some great filmmaking… but it doesn’t do anything for Badham or give her much to do. Then it tries to wrap it up with Peck and it’s… awkward. Not even because of the narration.

Lots of great performances but the kids are where it’s at. Badham and Alford are phenomenal. Megna’s really good too but he’s more functional. The film takes its time with Badham and Alford’s character development, showcasing it, which just makes downgrading them in the second half even worse. Evans is good (there’s a film in her perspective of the events), Peters is excellent, Frank Overton’s good as the police chief. James Anderson’s terrifying though a little thinly written, which is weird given how the film goes out of its way to empathize with “redeemably racist” white men, as the victim’s father. Collin Wilcox Paxton is okay as the victim. If the film ended strong for Badham, she’d get a pass… but she’s another example of how Foote and Mulligan try to avoid giving the female characters too much focus.

To Kill a Mockingbird is an excellent film. But there are some asterisks after that positive adjective.

Eegah (1962, Arch Hall Sr.)

Eegah is a rather bad, rather weird, and yet spirited budget King Kong picture—with a prehistoric Southern California caveman instead of a giant ape. Sure, there’s the teen idol aspect to it, but once the film commits to damsel in distress Marilyn Manning madly crushing on survived since the Stone Age Richard Kiel and the film basically then being about Manning and dad (director Arch Hall Sr.) trying to keep Kiel preoccupied so he doesn’t remember to rape Manning… okay, maybe it’s a little bit more than just a budget King Kong. Though Kiel running amok in riche South California in search of true love Manning has an almost earnest quality to it, especially since Manning’s actual boyfriend (Arch Hall Jr., son of producer-director-costar Hall Sr., natch) is kind of a dipshit. He’s a wanna be blond Elvis in 1962, complete with band; he gets three big numbers in the film… maybe more actual songs but three showcases. The first act of the film plays like a promotional video for Hall Jr.; hey, he can “sing” and he can “act.”

Though it’s probably unfair to get on any of the actors for their performances because the whole thing is looped, presumably by the original cast but who knows; the sound person didn’t, you know, record the sound. Hall Sr. probably should’ve paid a little more. Though maybe the dubbing gives Eegah some of its charm… also maybe not. It’s never entirely clear if the film has charm or just seems like it ought to be charming. Because of the dubbing, it’s impossible to know what Manning’s original intent was during the attempted rape scene. It’s literally contradictory and very rough. In the middle of this silly pseudo-monster movie (but biblically accurate, the film reminds a couple times) there’s this plot development about the impending sexual assault, then the actual sexual assault (with daughter Manning sacrificing herself to save father Hall Sr., so, there’s something there too)… and it never gets dealt with. Other than Manning mooning for Kiel because she realizes what a lamer she’s got in Hall Jr.

Even though Hall Sr. kind of gets that Manning is hot for Kiel. And Hall Sr. is vaguely creepy around Manning. Though it seems more like a budgetary problem than anything actually creepy… wait, no. There’s a scene where Manning wants to pamper Hall Sr.; they’re being held captive by Kiel and Hall Sr.’s ego is bruised. He’s a famous adventure writer and this caveman who survived thanks to sulfury water is one upping him and about to rape his daughter. So Manning gives Hall Sr. a shave.

That shave leads to Kiel wanting a shave and Manning realizing without his hundreds of thousands of years old caveman beard, Kiel’s kind of hot in a giant way.

Kiel’s “dialogue” consists of grunts and gibberish, frequently saying “Eegah,” which convinces questionably competent adventurer Hall Sr. its Kiel’s name. Because he goes around saying his name to himself. And go around he does. When Kiel’s chasing the heroes in their dune buggy—the film’s very big on Hall Jr.’s dune buggy. It’s a shock he doesn’t have a musical number while driving it, though I suppose he does do an expository monologue about dune buggies during their ride, which is also something. There are occasions where Eegah is almost accidentally good, like when Hall Sr. gets dropped off by helicopter—or maybe it’s just because it’s cool to see “M.A.S.H.”’s Korean landscape again–and it’s this intense, silent sequence of shots, with Hall Sr. no doubt calling in some favors. In lieu of good sets or complex shots or… tripods, Hall Sr. has helicopters and really nice cars and….

Oh, crap. I forgot the swimming sequence.

So while Hall Jr. sings a song about another girl—all of his songs have a girl’s name in them, never Manning’s, because he wants her to think he’s a player—Manning swims around and twirls off the crappy water slide in the country club Hall Sr. got permission to shoot in. Or didn’t get permission. But it’s a long song, long swimming sequence, weird swimming sequence. One can only imagine Hall Sr.’s “swim sexy” direction to poor Manning.

So, yeah. There’s some icky stuff to Eegah, especially if Manning is supposed to be sixteen.

The film’s weird. And often terrible in amusing ways. It’s impossible to take seriously in pretty much every way. Unless you’re interested in early sixties Southern California visuals. Or for examples of how not to light people on location. Vilis Lapenieks does some stunningly inept lighting.

Eegah is one of those movies where you wonder if the making of stories are better than the movie, but it’s still weird enough to be amusing. The weird also covers some of the iffy material. Though… the third act does actually have a lot more potential than the film realizes. I can’t believe I forgot about the third act.

There’s this fight scene between Hall Jr. and another band member. The other band member wants Manning. There’s like a dance off before the fight, with Hall Sr. and some other old guy standing there commenting on it pseudo-obliviously….

It’s all just so strange. It’s ineptly produced, with terrible sets, yet it still manages to be weird in ways unrelated to being too cheap or not, you know, good. Eegah’s sort of bewitching. And sort of not.

Tower of London (1962, Roger Corman)

Tower of London almost makes it. The film gets through the low budget, which has a static picture of a model Tower of London instead of a picture of the real Tower for establishing shots, obvious backdrops, not great makeup to age or deform its cast, and the occasional reused footage. Director Corman keeps the pace up—the film doesn’t even run eighty minutes and covers two years and at least a half dozen murders. Well, more assassinations than murders. The film’s about Richard III (Vincent Price, who’ll either get a half sentence or a paragraph later, both are suitable) and his mad quest for power. He kills off kin, children, women, and the elderly, most of whom come back to haunt him as ghosts. See, Tower of London isn’t just Vincent Price and Roger Corman doing a historical horror picture together, they’re doing Shakespeare. More specifically, Price is doing Shakespeare, while Corman refuses to give Price that stage. Though probably for budgetary reasons, not to spare the audience.

The film’s best sequence is when handsome, fit, good guy Robert Brown is trying to get the Queen and her two sons to safety. Richard III, historically, in the play, and in this film, wants to kill off his little nephews so he can assume the throne. Brown isn’t going to let that happen. He’s handsome, fit, and good, after all. Unlike Price’s Richard, who’s got a varying-sized hunched back (it doesn’t jump left to right and then back, unfortunately) and an ostensibly withered arm. We never see the arm (Price always has on a glove) but it seems perfectly strong enough to wield a sword. But Price is a warrior, something Brown is not. Though Price being a warrior doesn’t matter because he goes crazy.

But the escape sequence. There are a few times in Tower of London when everything comes together and the escape sequence is the best example of it. Corman’s pacing, the sturdy professional performances from Brown, Sarah Selby, Joan Freeman, and Richard Hale (they all seem to be able to pretend they’re doing Shakespeare, not Tower of London), Archie R. Dalzell’s excellent black and white photography (it’s not moody but it’s outstanding), and, I don’t know, the added value of children in danger. The escape sequence is really good. You wish the movie could somehow end with it, even before you find out how the movie’s actually going to end.

Because Tower’s greatest strength is everyone but Price. Price gives a hammy, drooly performance, limping and wrenching his back to and fro, full of energy. His monologues are enthusiastically whiny. His character is a combination of a jackass and an idiot. The only people stupider in Tower of London than Price are the entire rest of the cast because he’s always killing people and never getting even suspected of it. When the rest of the cast finally gets to just act like they know Price is killing people left and right, Tower enters into its best phase—the escape sequence is in this portion. But getting to watch the actors opposite Price when he’s cavorting? Their professionalism, if not better (Joan Camden is actually good as Price’s wife, who Lady Macbeths him, and Michael Pate is kind of awesome as Price’s chief stooge), makes Tower interesting to watch.

Unfortunately the finale—and blame Shakespeare—gets rid of the supporting players and is instead just Price hamming it up in an absurd suit of armor—the costuming is probably inaccurate but is at least not absurd for most of the film, but Price’s king outfits are hilarious. There’s one where he wears the crown over his silly hat and then his armor has a visibly cheap crown incorporated into the helmet, which also has a big floofy feather. He should win the battle when everyone else starts laughing and he can take them out. He also doesn’t have much of a hunch in the armor, which is annoying since Price’s looked goofy the whole movie because he’s wearing such a big hunch, who knows how he might’ve played without it to leverage. Price somehow isn’t overtly theatrical, but borrows devices from such a performance and applies them badly to whatever he’s doing.

But, yeah, the end. No one else around to react to Price, just him blathering… Tower falls just when it needs to stay strong. It’s too bad, though probably inevitable.

An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Ozu Yasujirô)

In An Autumn Afternoon, director Ozu has a peculiar approach to how he presents his cast delivering dialogue. They stare just off camera and speak calmly, gently, no matter what. Ozu and photographer Atsuta Yûharu are incredibly precise with the composition; while Hamamura Yoshiyasu’s editing needs that precision, it also creates a distance. And Autumn is a character study, so it having such a definite, consistent distance is a little strange.

Especially when Saitô Takanobu’s music is always playful, always inviting.

Ozu presents a couple hours of these characters’ lives–during what could be a momentous occasion, but he and co-writer Noda Kôgo skip it–and lets the viewer get to know them. The way Ozu shoots the dialogue, the way he shoots medium shots–never from the character’s perspective, always from something impossible as a participant–the viewer is intrusive. But that intrusiveness is never acknowledged.

An Autumn Afternoon is a film constructed to keep the viewer aloof while never acknowledging there can be a viewer; all while the music and Kanekatsu Minoru’s gorgeous production design invites the viewer into the film. Ozu doesn’t even let himself get excited about his accomplishment in that aloofness. He’s always focused on the characters.

It’s like he can’t be bothered with the idea anyone’s going to watch Autumn.

All the acting is strong, especially Ryû Chishû in the difficult lead role, Okada Mariko as his daughter-in-law and Tôno Eijirô as his old schoolteacher.

An Autumn Afternoon is hostilely brilliant.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Ozu Yasujirô; written by Noda Kôgo and Ozu; director of photography, Atsuta Yûharu; edited by Hamamura Yoshiyasu; music by Saitô Takanobu; production designer, Kanekatsu Minoru; produced by Yamanouchi Shizuou; released by Shochiku Company.

Starring Ryû Chishû (Hirayama), Iwashita Shima (Michiko), Sada Keiji (Koichi), Okada Mariko (Akiko), Nakamura Nobuo (Kawai), Kita Ryûji (Horie), Mikamo Shin’ichirô (Kazuo) and Tôno Eijirô (The Gourd).

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Lolita (1962, Stanley Kubrick)

The first half of Lolita is a wonderful mix of acting styles. There’s James Mason’s very measured, very British acting. There’s Shirley Winters’s histrionics; she’s doing Hollywood melodrama on overdrive but director Kubrick (and Winters) have it all under perfect control. And then there’s Sue Lyons as the titular character. She’s far more naturalistic than either Mason or Winters–and certainly more than Peter Sellers in his supporting role. The second half of the film loses that mix. Instead of Mason playing off other styles, he’s mostly left to his own hysterics.

And Winters was better at them.

Lolita is a difficult proposition as Mason, as a supreme pervert, has to be somewhat sympathetic. Winters, who should be sympathetic, has to be a villain. Lyons, who is a victim, has to be villainous. And what about Sellers? He has to not run off with the picture, which he almost does every time he’s in the movie.

That first half, which Kubrick tells in summary, is gloriously well-paced. It moves in short sequences–sometimes just a shot with actors entering and leaving–and it moves it lengthy scenes. It’s far more interesting stuff than the second half of the film, which is a Hitchcockian thriller without any thrillers.

Great music from Nelson Riddle, great photography from Oswald Morris.

Everything sort of falls apart in the third act as Kubrick rushes to find a conclusion. The second half, with Mason’s outbursts and arguments, can’t compare to the sublimity of the first.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Stanley Kubrick; screenplay by Vladimir Nabokov, based on his novel; director of photography, Oswald Morris; edited by Anthony Harvey; music by Nelson Riddle; produced by James B. Harris; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring James Mason (Prof. Humbert Humbert), Shelley Winters (Charlotte Haze), Sue Lyon (Lolita), Jerry Stovin (John Farlow), Diana Decker (Jean Farlow), Lois Maxwell (Nurse Mary Lore), Bill Greene (George Swine), Marianne Stone (Vivian Darkbloom) and Peter Sellers (Clare Quilty).

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Ride the High Country (1962, Sam Peckinpah)

Ride the High Country is a fine attempt. It’s not a successful attempt, but it’s a fine one. Director Peckinpah seems to know what he wants to do, but he’s too trapped in Western genre tradition. Having icons Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as his leads (they’re both great), George Bassman’s intrusive score and Lucien Ballard’s strangely flat photography might all be forgivable if N.B. Stone Jr.’s script were all right but it’s not.

The plotting is awkward. Retired lawman McCrea hires old partner Scott to help him transport gold, not knowing Scott is planning on taking said gold with the help of his new, youthful partner, played by Ron Starr. Along the way, they meet farm girl Mariette Hartley, who Starr gets involved with, much to the chagrin of the older men. Country runs just over ninety minutes and most of the important scenes involve Hartley and her poor choice to marry James Drury. McCrea and Scott spend their time talking about their glory days, which is cute the first couple times, but tiring when it’s clear Stone doesn’t have any other ideas for them and Peckinpah doesn’t seem to care.

Peckinpah doesn’t seem particularly interested in the film until the shootouts at the end; he does spend some time on the scenery, which should be prettier (that drab photography).

Both McCrea and Scott get pretty decent iconic moments at one point or another in the film, they just don’t get actual characters to play. It’s too bad.

This post is part of the CinemaScope Blogathon hosted by Becky of Classicbecky’s Brain Food and Rich of Wide Screen World.