Tag: Edmond O’Brien

Seven Days in May (1964, John Frankenheimer)

Screenwriter Rod Serling really likes to employ monologues in Seven Days in May. John Frankenheimer likes to direct them too. And the actors like to give them. Because they’re good monologues. The monologues give all then actors fantastic material. Everyone except George Macready, who isn’t the right kind of scenery chewer for Seven Days. Maybe Ava Gardner, who gets the thankless role of being the only female character of note in the film; doubly thankless, given her part is of a fallen woman and her monologue is the weakest in the film, writing-wise. She’s at least good and effective, just shoe-horned in. Macready has a choice part and oozes too much through it.

There are a lot of actors in Seven Days, there are a lot of monologues. The only one not to get any monologues (well, within reason, given the size of the part) Kirk Douglas. For the first half of the film, he’s sort of bouncing between monologues as he has a conspiracy thriller discovery arc as well as a “why the heck are there so many facists in the Armed Forces” arc. Douglas works for Burt Lancaster, who’s the top dog general at the Pentagon. Lancaster gets some great monologues. Fredric March is the President of the United States, who’s just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets. Lancaster thinks March is a weak sister. Douglas thinks the military should stay out of politics and, somewhat naively, believes it does. But he also doesn’t think fascists are okay, so when it seems like there’s something suspicious going on with an upcoming nuclear threat drill–Douglas goes to the White House and tells March there’s a conspiracy for a military coup of the United States.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? And it’s a success. Seven Days is great entertainment. It just ought to be a lot better.

When the film starts, it’s Frankenheimer showing off. There’s a fight scene. Protestors for and against nuclear peace. Shocker, all the people against are white males. They throw the first punch. Riot in front of the White House. Frankenheimer shoots it stark, documentary style. There’s some issues with the scale of it, but it’s still an effective sequence. It’s also the only time Frankenheimer does anything approaching vérité. So while it’s distinctive, it’s a rouse. Seven Days isn’t going to be vérité. Though there are occasional later hints, which never pan out.

But then it almost immediately becomes Douglas’s movie. For the first half of the picture, until he tries to seduce Gardner for information to take down Lancaster, Douglas is the protagonist. The movie’s about the conspiracy, sure, but it’s about how he’s reacting to his role working against his commanding officer. After the Gardner seduction, the movie reduces Douglas to a supporting role. It’s got no real lead, just March, Lancaster, Edmond O’Brien, and sort of Martin Balsam. Balsam’s the only other person in the main cast not to get a monologue. He and Douglas are doers. Everyone else is a talker, especially O’Brien, who’s a drunken Southern senator who chows down on every line, sweating profusely and spectacularly. It’s a thin role at times–O’Brien gets to talk the movie version of politics, which hurts everyone who has to expound on it eventually; not even Lancaster and March can make the third act work.

See, Seven Days is able to get away with its American exceptionalism but not warmongers movie politics because Serling and Frankenheimer never double down on them. The thriller aspect is bigger. There’s even a military sand-crawler chase sequence. For a while in the second act, right after the film drops Douglas down, it seems like it might get action-packed. Then it doesn’t. It goes through a series of false endings and hinges the whole thing on the movie politics and how well Serling can write monologues about them.

And he chokes a little. There are too many monologues in the third act and they’re all too long. Lancaster gets away with one too long monologue. Poor March gets two.

Acting-wise, almost everyone’s fantastic. Not Macready. Andrew Duggan’s got a great small part. Lancaster’s great, March is great, Douglas is great. The problem is Serling’s switch from specific protagonist–Douglas–to a general one witnessing the events, which ends up being March most often. Serling fumbles that switch in perspective, but he and Frankenheimer keep the narrative distance about the same. So it’s not successful, but far from a failure.

Gardner’s good. The part’s crap. Even in the context of the story, the part’s crap–she’s Lancaster’s former now drunk mistress, who Douglas exploits for information. She’s got like three scenes, interacting with no one but Douglas. Again, shoe-horned in. Still, she makes the part work. It’s just she and Douglas really get boned by the script in the second half.

O’Brien’s kind of amazing. He’s a little broad, but he and Balsam as globe-trotting spies is one of Seven Days’s nicer second act touches. Balsam’s good too, he’s just got a far less showy part.

The film’s got great production values–big scale from Frankenheimer–amazing editing from Ferris Webster, good photography from Ellsworth Fredericks, solid Jerry Goldsmith score. It’s great entertainment.

It’s just a little thin.

This post is part of the Ava Gardner Blogathon hosted by Maddy of Maddy Loves Her Classic Films.

A Cry in the Night (1956, Frank Tuttle)

If it weren’t for the cast, there’d be very little to distinguish A Cry in the Night. John F. Seitz’s black and white photography is often–but not always–quite good, though director Tuttle struggles with the composition. He composes for the squarer Academy ratio, not widescreen. Cry in the Night is widescreen.

And David Buttolph’s music is all right. It never quite lives up to the promise of the opening title music; it’s still all right. It rallies at the end for the showdown.

Of course, maybe the title not having any bearing on the film should be an indicator of the inevitable problems–the source novel has a different title. There is no cry in Cry in the Night. Sure, Natalie Wood screams when Raymond Burr kidnaps her. He’s a peeping tom who assaults Wood’s fiancé, Richard Anderson, after Anderson confronts him. Then Burr grabs Wood and drives off in Anderson’s car. Wood screams, but since they’re at a makeout point, the other youngsters who overhear it just yell back to hit her some more; girls like it.

Cry in the Night has a lot of gross moments; that one is probably the worst. The film’s opening narration focuses on what those teenagers are doing all by themselves on makeout points throughout the country, but the film never actually blames Wood (or Anderson) for poor judgment. It lays the blame some other places, not necessarily better, but never there.

Anderson gets hauled in by the cops, who don’t care he’s bleeding and confused. They think he’s a drunk. Luckily there’s a saintly doctor (Peter Hansen) who has to argue with the cops to reexamine the concussed man. The movie runs seventy-five minutes yet is full of treading water moments like police captain Brian Donlevy whining at Hansen about reevaluating Anderson only for Donlevy to immediately change his mind when it’s time for the next scene.

Wood is a cop’s daughter. Not Donlevy, who’s stiff but lovable compared to her dad, Edmond O’Brien. O’Brien isn’t stiff. He’s wild, desperately in search of something to chew on for his part. He’s an overbearing, overprotective, insensitive misanthrope control freak. He’s got constant energy. Only there’s nothing much to be energetic about. Certainly not when Tuttle is shooting in his boring, ubiquitous middle two shot. The actors are slightly angled in profile. They talk to each other, standing just to the left of center. Over and over again, the same shot, no matter the location, no matter the actors, no matter the scene content. By the time the film gets to the third act and Tuttle doesn’t use it as much–there aren’t the same opportunities for two shots–it’s an actual shock. About the only one in the film.

Half the movie is Donlevy, O’Brien, and Anderson looking for Wood (and the identity of her kidnapper), half the movie is Wood trying to survive Burr’s attention. He takes her to his lair in a deserted factory; it’s where he hides from his overbearing mother (Carol Veazie). David Dortort’s screenplay is never more godawful than when dealing with the mental conditions of Burr and Veazie. It’s painful at those times.

Wood tries reasoning with Burr, she tries escaping him, she tries confronting him. Even though O’Brien has explained he raised her to know what to do in crisis situations, turns out she doesn’t, because then there wouldn’t be a movie. She’s a damsel in distress, nothing more, which is an utter waste of Wood’s performance. She gets squat to do in the opening scene–really, after she watches Burr lay out Anderson she’s really going to go over and ask why Burr did it–before Burr knocks her out. She faints later on too, when Dortort can’t think of any reason to keep her awake.

The movie keeps it moving until the finale, when it just doesn’t go anywhere; O’Brien has a rude awakening about his controlling behavior from the other women in his life–wife Irene Harvey (who’s so much better than the material) and spinster sister (because O’Brien drove her suitors away) Mary Lawrence. Lawrence gets a crap scene but she’s not better than it. Cry in the Night goes into the finale following the film’s worst scene.

Donlevy’s stiff but fine. Who knows how his performance would’ve played if Tuttle weren’t so dedicated to those lousy medium two shots. O’Brien and Wood just needed better material. Anderson’s fine. Burr’s a lot scary before he starts talking. Veazie is creepy, which is an achievement given her scenes are terribly conceived, written, and directed.

The attempts at making the investigation seem ultra-modern with the constant radio calling around the police precinct are also goofy.

Director Tuttle and screenwriter Dortort sink A Cry in the Night. They make a narratively inert kidnapping thriller; the film’s set over what ought to be four or five unbearably tense hours. And they flush all the potential the material gives the actors. It’s a waste.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Frank Tuttle; screenplay by David Dortort, based on a novel by Whit Masterson; director of photography, John F. Seitz; edited by Folmar Blangsted; music by David Buttolph; production designer, Malcolm C. Bert; produced by George C. Bertholon; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Natalie Wood (Liz Taggart), Richard Anderson (Owen Clark), Raymond Burr (Harold Loftus), Edmond O’Brien (Capt. Dan Taggart), Brian Donlevy (Capt. Ed Bates), Irene Hervey (Helen Taggart), Mary Lawrence (Madge Taggart), Peter Hansen (Dr. Frazee), Charles Kane (Sam Patrick), and Carol Veazie (Mrs. Mabel Loftus).

THIS POST IS PART OF THE NATALIE WOOD BLOGATHON HOSTED BY SAMANTHA OF MUSINGS OF A CLASSIC FILM ADDICT.

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The Wild Bunch (1969, Sam Peckinpah), the director's cut

The Wild Bunch opens with a methodically executed heist slash shootout sequence. Director Peckinpah quickly introduces cast members, partially due to the dramatic plotting, mostly due to Lou Lombardo’s fantastic editing. All juxtaposed with some kids watching ants kill scorpions. The Wild Bunch opens with one heck of a declarative statement. Peckinpah wants to look at violence and how people treat violence as entertainment.

Unfortunately, he also wants to do a Western about men getting old and being men and bonding even though they don’t like each other because they’re men after all and men stick together. Just look at “villain” Robert Ryan, who is pursuing his old gang–led by William Holden and Ernest Borgnine–and is now stuck with a bunch of low-life bounty hunters. Real men aren’t low-life bounty hunters with bad teeth. Edmond O’Brien, the eldest of the “Wild Bunch,” has bad teeth but he’s not a low-life bounty hunter. He goofs off in the steam bath just like Holden and Borgnine.

After the opening, which is simultaneously exhilarating and horrific, The Wild Bunch does a more traditional first act. There’s setup with Ryan hunting down the gang, there’s setup with the backstory between Ryan and Holden, there’s a full introduction of the supporting cast. Ben Johnson and Warren Oates are brothers and dissenting voices in the gang. Jaime Sánchez is the other guy, who’s apparently been there longer than Johnson and Oates, but not as long as Borgnine. It doesn’t really matter because the characters aren’t deep. They’ll occasionally get deep characterizations from the actors, but the script’s pretty thin. In the script they’re just old, mopey, angry, drunk, tired, horny, or some combination thereof.

For Johnson and Oates, it doesn’t matter. They’re around to be flashy so Holden can dwell on all his mistakes. For Holden and Borgnine, it does matter. Borgnine has almost nothing whatsoever to do except back up Holden, so it’d be nice for there to be a reason more than Borgnine admires Holden. And if not a reason, at least something melodramatic. Something melodramatic would show Peckinpah and co-writer Walon Green carried a little.

Instead, no. It’s undeveloped. Just like almost everything else in The Wild Bunch, except Sánchez’s backstory. Out of nowhere, the film goes from being Ryan hunting Holden and company to Holden and company hanging out in Sánchez’s home village in Mexico and becomes darn likable. Oates goes from ominous and dangerous to affable in about three minutes once they get to the village. Cute even. But Peckinpah doesn’t want the audience to like the characters for too long–at least not without reservations or comprise–so they’re always doing something awful.

There’s some good acting in The Wild Bunch. Holden’s a strong lead and he has a handful of phenomenal little moments. They don’t add up to anything, but they’re real good. And Peckinpah’s on for them too, which is nice. Borgnine’s fine. He really is just support for Holden. Sánchez is fine too; Peckinpah was apparently intentional about making him frequently pout. Oates is wild and crazy and it’s okay. It’s an enjoyable performance, but the character is still exceptionally unlikable. Johnson does a lot with a thin part.

Edmond O’Brien is amazing. He chews scenery, drools or spits it out with his chaw, but always with restraint. Whoever thought of dubbing his laughter over shots should’ve had a different thought, however. After some a lot of imaginative stylization in the first third, the film cools down until the grand finale. And that grand finale just shows the same techniques applied to different content; Peckinpah foreshadows pretty much everything in the spectacular open.

As far as the bad guys, Ryan’s okay. Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones are initially amusing as his most vocal moronic sidekicks. They soon get tiring, once it’s clear there’s no more material for them. Ryan gets it worst in that department, however. He’ll be going along fine and then get some trite, waxing nostalgic monologue. It makes for a long movie.

Jerry Fielding’s music is on the low side of mediocre. It’s kind of all right at times, but Peckinpah and Fielding go for a traditional Western score and it doesn’t bring anything to the film. And then there are the times Fielding does action thrill music, which do not work at all. In fact, they’re unpleasant. You’re sitting around waiting for something to happen and then there’s some action and Fielding kneecaps it.

I know Wild Bunch is a sparse, moody look at the male psyche, violence, and the myth of the Old West, but it should better at doing that thing. Peckinpah neglects his actors; not an insignificant problem since there’s only three or four intricate action sequences. There are a couple more elaborate ones, which have spectacle but not much else. But Peckinpah’s ignoring them when there’s nothing else going on except the characters walking, talking, riding.

Despite some dynamic filmmaking from Peckinpah, ably edited by Lombardo, Wild Bunch just doesn’t add up. There’s not enough for the actors, neither in the script nor in Peckinpah’s directorial attention.

This post is part of the 2nd Annual Golden Boy Blogathon hosted by Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

D.O.A. (1950, Rudolph Maté)

D.O.A. is a wonderful example of a gimmick having nowhere to go. Edmond O’Brien is a small town accountant who decides to spend a week in San Francisco drinking and carousing (leaving girlfriend and secretary Pamela Britton back home). Out of the blue, he gets poisoned and has to solve his own murder.

His investigation takes him into a seedy underworld of illegitimate metal sales, maybe money laundering. It’s not a good mystery. It’s not a good solution. Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene’s script is mostly filler, which is a problem since the red herrings are weak and the actual reveal isn’t any better. It might even be worse.

In the lead, O’Brien is fine. He’s a bit of a jerk, but it’s Edmond O’Brien, he does oblivious jerk perfectly well. Though the script’s careful to make most of the people who he treats like jerks absolutely awful. He also muscles around at least two of the women in the picture, which is a little strange. Those muscling around parts take place indoors too, where pretty much every shot director Maté sets up is boring. The outside stuff, even when it’s just in the story and not filmed on location, is better. The indoor stuff is yawn inducing, probably because so much of it is just Rouse and Greene spinning their wheels for melodramatic purposes.

The film has a frame establishing the poisoned protagonist MacGuffin, which I hope wasn’t always part of the plan. If so, the dramatics the film puts O’Brien (and the viewer) through make very little sense.

The supporting cast is weak. Britton’s only sympathetic because O’Brien’s so awful to her. Luther Adler’s sort of amusing as the illicit metal dealer, though only sort of. Neville Brand’s disturbing as a gunsel. He’s not good, but he’s disturbing and effective.

Decent photography from Ernest Laszlo, good editing from Arthur H. Nagel. The film’s got some fine action suspense sequences, but they’re not enough to save it.

Dimitri Tiomkin’s score makes me understand why people don’t like his scores.

D.O.A. relies almost entirely on O’Brien’s appeal. He’s got a lot, but there are limits.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Rudolph Maté; director of photography, Ernest Laszlo; edited by Arthur H. Nadel; music by Dimitri Tiomkin; produced by Leo C. Popkin; released by United Artists.

Starring Edmond O’Brien (Frank Bigelow), Pamela Britton (Paula Gibson), Luther Adler (Majak), Beverly Garland (Miss Foster), Lynn Baggett (Mrs. Philips), William Ching (Halliday), Henry Hart (Stanley Philips) and Neville Brand (Chester).

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The Bigamist (1953, Ida Lupino)

With a sensational title like The Bigamist, one might expect something lurid and exploitative from the film. Definitely from the titular lead, Edmond O’Brien. But, no, poor O’Brien is just a married traveling salesman with a barren, work-oriented wife (Joan Fontaine) so who can blame him for stepping out. And he only did it once; he’s not a bad guy, he’s tragic hero.

Nearly all of O’Brien’s story comes out in a flashback–screenwriter Collier Young’s use of layered narrative is the film’s biggest problem–when he reveals all to kindly Edmund Gwenn, who has just discovered him.

The flashback portions are exceptionally insensitive to both Fontaine and Ida Lupino (which is surprising, as she directed the film after all) but the present action scenes with them are better. The film does cheat Lupino out of any great emotive moments, while Fontaine gets a couple.

As the lead–but fourth-billed–O’Brien has trouble with the impossible role. After spending fifteen minutes making him a suspect, Young’s script spends the rest turning him into a hero. Except O’Brien can’t seem to get behind playing the role heroic, which causes a bit of a disconnect… not to mention a general disinterest in how the story turns out. I had been hoping they went for the cheap, obvious ending, which would have resulted in less melodrama (but robbed Kenneth Tobey of a great scene).

Lupino’s direction is somewhat stilted at times, but generally okay. Except the Los Angeles exteriors; they’re way too lifeless.

Just like the movie.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Ida Lupino; screenplay by Collier Young, based on a story by Lawrence B. Marcus and Lou Schor; director of photography, George E. Diskant; edited by Stanford Tischler; music by Leith Stevens; produced by Young; released by Filmmakers Releasing Organization.

Starring Edmond O’Brien (Harry Graham), Joan Fontaine (Eve Graham), Ida Lupino (Phyllis Martin), Edmund Gwenn (Mr. Jordan), Kenneth Tobey (Tom Morgan), Jane Darwell (Mrs. Connelley), Peggy Maley (Phone Operator), Lillian Fontaine (Miss Higgins), Matt Dennis (Singer) and John Maxwell (Judge).

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The Star and the Story (1955) s01e01 – Dark Stranger

Dark Stranger is a high concept story about a writer meeting a character out of his novel. The concept’s ambitious because the script–from Betty Ulius and Joel Murcott–is so thorough. Edmond O’Brien’s writer isn’t a Bohemian who might buy into the idea. He’s calculating and positively bewildered.

The script goes through O’Brien’s investigations, his interrogating, all while the subject of his attention–Joanne Woodward–goes through her own crises.

Ripley is really good with the leads’ scenes together. The composition sometimes hints at where their relationship is going, sometimes offers more sympathy to one character than another. Stranger is a television production, so there isn’t much in the way of grand movements; Ripley just knows how to facilitate his actors.

Woodward excels in the second half, as she starts asking more and more questions. O’Brien’s solid. Good support from Evelyn Ankers.

The ending’s lame, but otherwise, Stranger’s good.

Fantastic Voyage (1966, Richard Fleischer)

Among Fantastic Voyage‘s many problems, the two salient ones are the general lack of tension and the utter lack of wonderment. Fleischer is responsible for both, though maybe not so much the first. The story can’t really be tense because there’s very little at stake. The film’s principal characters–reduced in size to perform brain surgery from inside the brain–have a time limit of sixty minutes before they automatically enlarge.

And the guy with the brain injury isn’t a character, he’s just some scientist who picked the U.S. over the Reds. It’s not like anyone really cares about him.

As for the lack of wonderment, Fleischer is hampered with old special effects, but plenty of old movies have lots of wonderment. He clearly just doesn’t get it.

There are two or three effective sequences in Fantastic Voyage, which can’t make up for the lame script or Raquel Welch’s insufferable performance. She doesn’t even talk her first ten minutes in the film and she’s clearly terrible. Fleischer and the screenwriters do manage to contrive a way to get her into a wetsuit, of course. Oddly, it’s for one of those effective sequences–Fleischer’s excellent with three dimensions.

When the film opens with Stephen Boyd and Edmond O’Brien, the two actors are so strong together, it seems like Voyage will be all right. Sadly, it’s not.

Boyd’s good, O’Brien’s good, so is Arthur O’Connell. Arthur Kennedy has good moments, Donald Pleasence has less.

It’s a tedious film. Great opening titles though.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Richard Fleischer; screenplay by Harry Kleiner, based on an adaptation by David Duncan and a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby; director of photography, Ernest Laszlo; edited by William B. Murphy; music by Leonard Rosenman; produced by Saul David; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Stephen Boyd (Grant), Raquel Welch (Cora), Edmond O’Brien (General Carter), Donald Pleasence (Dr. Michaels), Arthur O’Connell (Col. Donald Reid), William Redfield (Capt. Bill Owens), Arthur Kennedy (Dr. Duval) and Jean Del Val (Jan Benes).

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The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak)

When it comes to film noir, more than any other genre, I always wonder how some of these films got their sterling reputations….

The Killers isn’t too bad. It never gets as good as the opening, the adaptation of Hemingway’s actual story (it was a Nick Adams story in fact). The rest, with insurance investigator Edmond O’Brien explaining the killing, well… O’Brien is really good and so’s Sam Levene. It’s nice to see Levene in a full role, even if it is a sidekick role, it’s a central sidekick role. There’s a nice relationship between O’Brien and Levene and it makes the film seem a lot more innovative than it really is. Well, maybe innovative isn’t the right word. Special might be. Their relationship makes the film seem special. And the film isn’t special.

The failing is the concentration on one deception that has nothing to do with why Burt Lancaster accepts death in the beginning of the film. Oh, did I spoil it? I shouldn’t have, it’s kind of famous. There’s no pay-off with Lancaster. He’s around, but his character doesn’t do much. It’s impossible to feel anything for him, because we don’t get to see this man’s real struggle. The real struggle isn’t in the film, it’s in a five-year stretch the film ignores.

To some extent, I’m being harder on The Killers than it deserves. If I’d paid any attention to Movielens, I would have seen it didn’t predict a super-rating for the film, but The Killers is one of those films from my period of blind film snobbery. When it aired on TV, I knew someone recording it for three or four people. It was a big deal. Incidentally, Criterion’s release isn’t very good. I know it’s an older release, but film restoration–just the garden variety digital kinds–really makes it look terrible in comparison to current releases. I wanted The Killers to be good. Instead, it was a really, really long a hundred minutes. Really long. LONG.

But the Hemingway stuff… Great stuff.