Category: 1954

Wild Wife (1954, Robert McKimson)

Wild Wife is easily McKimson’s best cartoon (of those I’ve seen, anyway). I was going to start by talking about McKimson as an unlikely feminist, since Wife mostly concerns a housewife whose male chauvinist pig husband berates her for not getting enough done.

The cartoon then flashes back to show exactly how full her day has been, mostly with his little tasks. Then it sadly diverts to her being a shopaholic and a gossip, which is more what I expected.

But the ending recovers somewhat and McKimson and writer Tedd Pierce never make judgements. It’s a shocking cartoon coming from McKimson.

He’s even ambitious in his direction; though the character design lifts a lot from Blondie and the animation’s fairly bad. It also lifts a Blondie gag.

But it’s a good cartoon. Bea Benaderet (who’s uncredited as the lead, showing sexism wasn’t dead in the title card department) is great.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert McKimson; written by Tedd Pierce; animated by Herman Cohen, Phil DeLara, Charles McKimson and Rod Scribner; edited by Treg Brown; music by Carl W. Stalling; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Bea Benaderet (Marsha / Daughter / Old Women with pennies / Beautician) and Mel Blanc (John / Son / Mailman / Bank Teller / Red Cross Nurse / Casper J. Fragile / Soda Jerk / Pedestrian / Officer).

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Dragon Around (1954, Jack Hannah)

If someone was unfamiliar with Donald Duck–and missed the opening titles, which imply Dragon Around is a Donald Duck cartoon–he or she might read the ending as Chip and Dale killing Donald Duck.

And Donald Duck definitely deserves it.

Initially, the chipmunks confuse Donald’s power shovel for a dragon, but then the viewer learns Donald is clearing the chipmunks’ dwelling for a freeway. He delights in not just the destruction, but also in causing terror and harm to the chipmunks.

Director Hannah doesn’t even take a moment to make Donald the least bit likable, even as a jerk. Donald’s a very bad guy in Dragon.

Giving the chipmunks such a definite and vicious villain removes any charm from Dragon. It’s a thriller.

The animation’s okay, but indistinct. Similarly, Hannah’s direction is uninspired.

I kept hoping a hunter would come along and shoot Donald, which probably wasn’t Hannah’s intent.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Jack Hannah; written by Nick George and Roy Williams; animated by Volus Jones and Bill Justice; music by Oliver Wallace; produced by Walt Disney; released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Starring Dessie Flynn (Dale), James MacDonald (Chip) and Clarence Nash (Donald Duck).

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By Word of Mouse (1954, Friz Freleng)

I feel like By Word of Mouse should be better. It turns out it’s a Sylvester cartoon–not without good gags–but the concept deserves more.

A German mouse heads to the U.S. to visit a relation; free market capitalism–well, American consumerism, wows him and the two cousins find a professor (also a mouse) to explain it all. The explanations for the viewer too, of course.

But this cartoon takes place in the fifties and it’s unclear if the German mouse is from the West or East (presumably West). German just doesn’t seem the right nationality for the concept to work.

Freleng’s direction is good, the style is charming, and the economics lesson is just right for a younger audience.

Still, Word doesn’t really have an ending… Sylvester ruins the mouse’s trip and he heads back. Or maybe has other adventures, it’s unclear.

It’s likable, but completely doldrum.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Friz Freleng; written by Warren Foster; animated by Ted Bonnicksen, Gerry Chiniquy, Arthur Davis and Ben Washam; edited by Treg Brown; music by Milt Franklyn; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Sylvester / Hans / Uncle / Aunt / Elevator Operator / Mice Children).

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An Inspector Calls (1954, Guy Hamilton)

For the majority of An Inspector Calls, I thought Alastair Sim’s delicate, thoughtful performance was out of place. The film’s incredibly melodramatic and contrived. After the twist ending… well, I’m pretty sure it’s still melodramatic and contrived, but it gives the impression of having an escape clause.

Regardless of title, it is not a mystery. Rather, it’s a British class piece (see the way I used the word “rather,” thought that choice was classy). But it’s a forceful class piece and not a subtle one. Subtlety probably would have helped some.

Even though he’s top-billed and he’s the best actor in the film, Sim is not the protagonist. He doesn’t even have the most screen time. But his every move is perfect.

Jane Wenham gets the most screen time and she’s good. Her role’s difficult, mostly because she never gets to act in a scene for herself; her scenes are always played for the other actor. Even when she’s alone in it.

Of the supporting cast, Eileen Moore and Bryan Forbes are good. Forbes is actually rather excellent, something not immediately clear because of the narrative structure. Brian Worth is sometimes good and sometimes bad. More bad than good. Both Arthur Young and Olga Lindo are comically bad. One has to wonder, especially at the end, if director Hamilton was instructing them to up the sinister.

Hamilton’s direction is solid and occasionally inspired. Francis Chagrin’s overblown score doesn’t help.

Sim’s great… but I’m not sure he makes it worthwhile.

Grand Canyonscope (1954, Charles A. Nichols)

In Grand Canyonscope, Donald Duck is the typical disrespectful, annoying American tourist. What’s funny about the cartoon is how–in 1954–it was one in every bunch of tourists… whereas now it’s the inverse.

The cartoon’s in CinemaScope and director Nichols uses the width to mixed effect. There are some great iconic frames of the Grand Canyon, which eventually gets destroyed, but the action in those frames doesn’t need to be CinemaScope.

After Doanld’s initial acts of casual disrespect, things get much worse. But it’s not Donald’s fault. It’s dimwit Ranger Woodlore, yet Canyonscope blames Donald for all the destruction.

Since Nichols’s CinemaScope direction is so flash in the pan, there’s really nothing to recommend the cartoon. It has no comedic gags, except a great sight gag of small planetoid Woodlore on a mule, just chases through the imagery.

Still, there’s good voice work from Clarence Nash and Bill Thompson.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Charles A. Nichols; written by Milt Schaffer and Nick George; animated by John Sibley and Julius Svendsen; music by Oliver Wallace; produced by Walt Disney; released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Starring Clarence Nash (Donald Duck) and Bill Thompson (Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore).

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Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Mizoguchi Kenji)

Sansho the Bailiff is one of cinema’s most depressing pieces. I don’t think, after about twenty minutes into the film, there’s a single positive moment. Good things happen–occasionally–but they only lead to bad things (or the revelation of bad things).

The film opens with an epigraph, establishing the time period and some basics. It also implies Sansho is a folk tale and it does follow many of the traditions of (Western) fairy tale. The family of a royal–I’m paraphrasing and summarizing and Westernizing to fit that fairy tale comparison–are forced into slavery, only to have the son escape, rise to the proper position and return to save his family. Thanks to Walt Disney, there’s always room for a little fact-free hopefulness and it helps with Sansho. There are long periods of time without anything positive going on where the fairy tale comparison can keep one’s spirits afloat.

There are other downbeat films, ones even more relentlessly so. Where Sansho is different is in the setting. It’s the most affecting film about slavery I’ve ever seen. But the lack of any positive forces at work–one character even talks about the cruelness of the world and can only offer a monk’s solitude as a suggestion for reprieve–makes the viewing experience singularly rending.

I didn’t know anything about Sansho going in–I thought it was a samurai movie, actually, and Sansho would be the main character (I wondered why he came so late in the opening titles)–which might have amplified the experience for me. Mizoguchi fills the film with beautiful shots, with Miyagawa Kazuo’s outdoor cinematography some of the most exquisite I’ve ever seen, but they’re usually in contrast to the story. Only at the beginning, as the characters walk through a field of tall flowers, does Mizoguchi really let any physical beauty influence the characters. The rest of the film, no one really has any time to appreciate it. In lesser hands, it’d be cynical, but Mizoguchi instead creates an invisible barrier. By the time–following a long introduction sequence at the slave manor–he returns to beautiful scenery, he’s got the viewer so despondent, it’s going to take a lot more than some pretty trees to get him or her vivified.

Technically speaking, the film’s perfect. Mizoguchi fills his frame–and Miyagawa maintains such precise focus–the film feels like it has to be widescreen (it isn’t). The exterior shots don’t just cause this sensation, it’s also the interiors. The way characters talk to each other, move around each other, it’s as though they’re subject to Mizoguchi’s barriers as well. All of them–good and bad–are blissfully ignorant in some way or another. Even the titular Sansho, as villainous as he is, is rendered somewhat absurd as he cows to (much younger) superior.

The acting is all excellent, with Kagawa Kyôko the standout. Hanayagi Yoshiaki, the eventual lead (the son), has some problems starting out, but he eventually comes around–or it’s just the natural progression of the character.

It’s an awkward film to recommend–I imagine seeing it in a theater, with its bleakness julienning the communal film-going experience is a rare experience–but it really is a singular motion picture. I’ve just been writing about it for five hundred or so words and I can’t quite believe I was able to verbalize any part of my response to the film.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Mizoguchi Kenji; screenplay by Yahiro Fuji and Yoda Yoshikata, based on the story by Mori Ogai; director of photography, Miyagawa Kazuo; edited by Miyata Mitsuzô; music by Hayasaka Fumio, Mochizuki Tamekichi and Odera Kanahichi; production designers, Ito Kisaku and Nakajima Shozaburo; produced by Nagata Masaichi; released by Kadokawa Herald Pictures.

Starring Tanaka Kinuyo (Tamaki), Hanayagi Yoshiaki (Zushiô), Kagawa Kyôko (Anju), Shindô Eitarô (Sanshô), Kôno Akitake (Taro), Shimizu Masao (Masauji Taira), Mitsuda Ken (Prime Minister Fujiwara), Okuni Kazukimi (Norimura), Kosono Yôko (Kohagi), Tachibana Noriko (Namiji), Sugai Ichirô (Minister of Justice), Omi Teruko (Nakagimi), Kato Masahiko (Young Zushiô) and Enami Keiko (Young Anju).

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Valley of the Kings (1954, Robert Pirosh)

Eighty-six minute movies are not supposed to be boring. Eighty-six minute sound films anyway. Valley of the Kings manages to be boring in the first twelve minutes. Even those twelve minutes are boring. It takes the film until just over the halfway point to actually get moving. Not interesting, not good, but moving. There are three action scenes back-to-back–a sandstorm, a Bedouin duel, and a fist-fight atop a giant Egyptian statue. The film tries to start with action too–a buggy chase within the first six minutes, but chases are hard enough to do in cars, much less buggies.

Valley of the Kings was filmed on location in Egypt, so I imagine those visuals were much of the prospective appeal, but the writing’s bad–in multiple ways–and the director doesn’t know how to make the visuals work for the film. They’re background instead of attraction and the film still tries to replace content with them. At eighty-six minutes, it’s hard for a film to take much responsibility–and Valley of the Kings tells the story of the archeological proof of Joseph in Egypt (something archeology has yet to prove), and it’s a deep subject. A lot has to go on… and nothing goes on in Valley of the Kings. It tries to be a few films–one about this search for evidence, another about adulterous relationship, and yet another (action-filled one) of grave-robbing intrigue. In the end, it doesn’t any of these subjects seriously and there’s little to hold together….

…except, of course, the locations–which are excellent in the second half–and Robert Taylor. Valley of the Kings is Taylor and Eleanor Parker’s second of three films together (for MGM). Their first, Above and Beyond, was great. This one manages to waste Parker by changing her character in the third act (she becomes positively unlovable in the last three scenes, then the film expects the audience to embrace her). She has a cuckold, played by Carlos Thompson (who I’ve never seen in anything else, much to my glee)… but the opening credits tell us the film stars Taylor and Parker. Taylor is getting the girl, so there aren’t many surprises once it gets going. Taylor is great in the film and would have been even better had to been serious film about archeology or adulterous affairs.

The film has a lot respect for the Muslim characters it portrays, much more respect then they get today in films–even in culturally sensitive films. It’s a reasonably important footnote in the history of American perspective of Muslims (Islamic fundamentalism hadn’t come around yet) and they’re treated with more respect then the European character, who’s a big shithead.

Valley of the Kings isn’t terrible thanks to the second half, but Robert Pirosh is a bad writer and a bad director. Of the two problems, the writing hurts the film most. With a good script and another twenty minutes, Valley of the Kings would… still not be as good as Above and Beyond, but it wouldn’t be so middling.