The Naked Jungle (1954, Byron Haskin)

If there are faults with The Naked Jungle, ones not the result of having to follow the Hays Code–which the film skirts thanks to Ben Maddow and Ranald MacDougall’s excellent dialogue, Eleanor Parker’s fantastic, intelligent performance and Charlton Heston’s brute force approach–they fall on director Haskin. The film is well-directed with Parker and Heston’s character drama, even with the special effects heavy expository shots, but Haskin refuses to get too far into any characters’ perspective, which cuts down on the thrills.

Oddly enough, I just realized the film opens on a shot from Parker’s perspective. One she even discusses with co-star William Conrad. But, even when it would serve a scene to go with the character’s perspective, Haskin does not. He’s lucky the script and actors can carry it.

But that odd directing misstep, which is most problematic in the third act, can’t overshadow Haskin’s excellent work in the rest of the picture. Parker’s a mail order bride, Heston’s her plantation owner–an extraordinarily good one, the film carefully reveals–husband. They don’t get along. Parker does some great work from her first scene (that one with Conrad); she establishes herself quickly. Heston’s more of the one with the internal character arc. Parker–and the viewer–are basically just waiting for him to grow up. And it’s a lot of fun watching him grow up. On one hand, there’s this refined (while still playful), thoughtful performance from Parker. Heston’s not refined or even playful. He’s really good at being a complete jackass. He runs with it. It works out.

It’s forty-five minutes into The Naked Jungle before the possibility of action thrills get revealed, but then the script puts it off even more. The character drama is the most important part of the film. Once it’s resolved, then Heston gets to be an action star. Somewhat late into the thrills even–by the time he comes to the rescue, The Naked Jungle has gone through many of its excellent special effects process shots. Some great matte paintings in the film.

What makes the film so peculiar is the script. Maddow and MacDougall are deliberate in how they make work Parker and Heston’s relationship. Until they’re a duo, the action barely ever plays to anything but furthering their personal conflict.

It’s rather neatly done. And beautifully acted. Heston clearly loves the role as white savior, Parker’s magnificent, Conrad’s fun as serious comic relief. Great photography from Ernest Laszlo and an effective Daniele Amfitheatrof score round it off.

Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1963) s01e03 – Seven Miles of Bad Road

Once you get past Jeffrey Hunter (at thirty-seven) playing a character about fifteen years younger–and some other significant bumps, Seven Miles of Bad Road isn’t entirely bad. It shouldn’t be entirely bad, even with those bumps, but it’s an episode of “The Chrysler Theatre,” shot on limited sets with limited imagination from director Douglas Heyes.

Heyes also wrote the teleplay, which tries real hard. Heyes is talking about big issues–he’s talking about men, women, post-war, youth, age, responsibility, regret. There’s subtext about race and class and all sorts of things. Heyes doesn’t know how to direct any of it. He doesn’t know how to direct his actors. Neville Brand–as Eleanor Parker’s abusive husband–is simultaneously good and bad in the part.

The overbearing Jerry Goldsmith music doesn’t help.

Parker and Hunter have their problems due to Heyes’s direction, but they’re effective. Parker’s got a couple fantastic scenes.

Busses Roar (1942, D. Ross Lederman)

Busses Roar is a slight propaganda film. It doesn’t fully commit to any of its subplots, not even the patriotism. With the exception of the establishing the villainous Japanese, German and the gangster at the opening and the flag-waving speech at the end, it’s not too heavy on it.

Most of the film’s almost an hour runtime takes place in a bus terminal. The gangster (Rex Williams, who isn’t any good, but isn’t as bad as the film’s worst) has to take a bus to deliver a bomb to some oil fields. There’s the whole range of bus passengers to put in danger, but the actual bus in crisis sequence is hurried. Director Lederman does a lot better establishing all the characters.

Most of that action is Julie Bishop trying to get someone to buy her a ticket. Her character is the smartest part of George Bilson and Anthony Coldeway’s script, just because they can introduce so many supporting cast members through her storyline.

Ignoring its overtly bigoted elements, the film has some decent performances and moments. For example, the storyline with newlyweds Harry Lewis and Elisabeth Fraser isn’t bad at all.

The most hilariously awful performance is probably Peter Whitney as the German spy.

Richard Travis gets top-billing–and is Bishop’s eventual love interest–and he manages to be both weak as a leading man, but somewhat likable.

Unfortunately the big action finale is ineptly and cheaply executed; the bus depot scenes look perfectly good.

Roar it doesn’t. More like gurgle.

Scaramouche (1952, George Sidney)

Scaramouche is a deliberately constructed film. I’m curious if screenwriters Ronald Millar and George Froeschel followed the source novel’s plot structure, because it’s a very peculiar series of events. It doesn’t open with the leading man, instead starting out with villain Mel Ferrer. Janet Leigh, as his love interest, gets introduced long before Eleanor Parker–who’s second-billed and leading man Stewart Granger’s love interest.

Except, of course, Ferrer and Granger are Frenchmen so the idea of them having one love interest is… against their character. But there’s also the matter of Richard Anderson, who sort of sets off the big plot–Granger’s want for vengeance–and on and on.

Director Sidney does a beautiful job focusing the viewers attention where it needs to be in each scene, but also where it’s going to need to be in the next scene. A couple huge details–maybe even three–only come up in dialogue. Scaramouche isn’t a film for the disinterested viewer.

But it’d be hard not to be enraptured with the picture. Charles Rosher’s lush color cinematography–which equally showcases the fantastic location action sequences but also the eye-shadow they’ve got on Parker–makes for a transfixing experience.

All the acting is good. Granger’s an able leading man, Ferrer’s fantastic as the villain, Parker’s outstanding in the most complicated role. In the second most complicated (the men aren’t complicated though so it’s not much), Leigh occasionally wavers but is still quite strong.

Wonderful Victor Young score too.

Scaramouche is delightfully thrilling.

Madison Avenue (1962, H. Bruce Humberstone)

Madison Avenue somehow manages to be anorexic but packed. It only runs ninety minutes and takes place over a few years. There’s no makeup–which is probably good since Dana Andrews, Eleanor Parker and Jeanne Crain are all playing at least ten years younger than their ages.

Director Humberstone doesn’t do much in the way of establishing shots–I think there’s one real one. Most of the exteriors are obviously on the backlot (even the real one is probably somewhere on the studio lot). He does have some decent transitions from interior to interior, but he never visually acknowledges all of the time progressions.

And there’s no real conflict. Andrews is an ad man who loses his job and tells his ex-boss (an extremely amused Howard St. John) he’s going to come get his accounts. To do so, Andrews has to team with Parker. The problem with Avenue is its actors are good, its script has some good scenes, but there’s no depth to it. Norman Corwin can write decent back and forth banter, just not a real conversation.

Parker’s got an unfortunate arc, but her performance is fine. She’s really good at the beginning. Andrews is appealing and doesn’t look fifty-four. He looks about forty-five, but he’s probably supposed to be playing thirty-one. Crain looks more contemptuous of her material than the other leads; she does okay.

Nice supporting turn from Kathleen Freeman as Andrews’s secretary.

Avenue’s a studio picture fifteen years too late.

The Great American Beauty Contest (1973, Robert Day)

Trying to figure out where The Great American Beauty Contest stands on the women’s lib movement is a headache. Actually, the whole thing is a little misogynist but not for the obvious reason–not because the titular contest’s participants are being objectified (I doubt director Day could competently objectify anything or anyone), but because it presents all the women as shallow enough to want to be part of such a ruse.

Oh, Stanford Whitmore’s script forgives a couple of them. Tracy Reed is all right because she’s black and she’s doing it to set an example. And Kathrine Baumann’s okay too. She’s just too dumb to be anything but sincere.

But Whitmore successfully demonizes Farrah Fawcett (and not for her terrible performance) and Susan Damante (she’s atrocious too, actually worse than Fawcett) so well… I spent the big reveal hoping neither of them won. Whitmore’s dialogue’s terrible, Day’s a bad director, but together they do manage to get some kind of investment from the viewer.

Maybe it’s because there are some decent elements. Eleanor Parker’s troubled contest organizer has a good arc. Robert Cummings is surprisingly sturdy as her sidekick. Best has to be Louis Jordan, who’s utterly odious and gleefully so. Jordan and Parker make the film worthwhile. Well, as worthwhile as it gets.

Another big problem is Whitmore’s artificial structure. He treats it like a two parter–Fawcett gets the first half’s big story, Damante the second.

Aside from occasional good performances, Beauty’s best as a strange artifact.

Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963) s01e20 – Knight’s Gambit

Knight’s Gambit plays a little like a serious, American James Bond variation. Roger Smith is a former CIA agent–he inherited hundreds of millions and quit–out to seduce Eleanor Parker for information. Parker is a disgraced politician’s secretary; they’re living in Spain, in exile.

The spy stuff is terrible. Smith’s boss–Murray Matheson–wears around long shorts and wears an eye patch. Smith is atrocious in the scenes with Matheson. The big villain is a mobster too. The script never explains that angle enough.

Parker’s outstanding as a woman trapped and Smith does show his conflict once he takes to her. Ted de Corsia’s fine as the bad guy and Chester Morris’s good as Parker’s boss.

Lorenzo Semple Jr. and Halsted Welles write Parker some excellent dialogue.

Good John Williams music too.

Grauman’s direction is weak, but nothing could fix the bad spy action finish.

Still, Parker sells it.

Men of the Sky (1942, B. Reeves Eason)

Men of the Sky opens with General Henry H. Arnold addressing a graduating class of air cadets. Charles P. Boyle’s Technicolor photography is glorious and Harold McKernon’s editing is outstanding and Sky feels like an almost too precious time capsule.

Only then the realism shatters when Arnold starts directly addressing actors, not actual air cadets. All of a sudden, though Boyle’s photography remains wondrous throughout, Sky‘s propaganda becomes a chore to stomach. The problem’s Owen Crump’s script. Crump also narrates the short, so he’s at least enthusiastic in that responsibility, but he can’t string the elements together.

I think Eleanor Parker–as the wife of one of the pilots–has the most lines (like two of them); she’s only in it for thirty seconds. None of the cast are particularly distinctive, not even with Crump trying so hard.

Even as propaganda, Sky is bad. Crump’s too awful a writer.

Ghost Story (1972) s01e07 – Half a Death

Half a Death gets off to a troubled start thanks to Tod Andrews. He’s only in the episode for the first scene, but he’s just awful. Watching Eleanor Parker act opposite him is painful. While Henry Slesar’s script is no great shakes in the dialogue department, Parker still turns in a good performance. Andrews just flops.

Then Pamela Franklin–the protagonist–shows up and Death gets quite a bit better. Franklin and Parker are both excellent and they often make Death worthwhile. Slesar has a decent plot, if a bit contrived at times.

But the ending is so contrived, even with good supporting performances from Signe Hasso and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Brooks, it’s hard to get involved. Slesar jumps forward too much in the timeline, making his long scenes the only effective ones.

The ending is summary.

Still, Franklin and Parker give outstanding, complex performances.

Soldiers in White (1942, B. Reeves Eason)

Everett Dodd’s editing makes Soldiers in White painful to watch. Some of the fault is director Eason’s, of course. His insert close-ups are awful. Given Soldiers is half comedy and half Army propaganda film (the titular soldiers are Army doctors), it’s hard to believe Eason was worried about running short and felt the need for more footage.

The narrative concerns William T. Orr as a whiny little intern who gets drafted. He harasses nurse Eleanor Parker and, once he’s wounded, is inspired by fatherly John Litel to knock off the wiseacre stuff and be an army doctor. Orr’s real bad. I kept hoping the moral of the story was he’d get run over.

Parker manages to make Owen Crump’s lame script seem good. Litel, who isn’t bad, can’t manage that feat.

Eason’s direction is weak.

The short’s tepid, of note only for Parker and Wilfred M. Cline’s Technicolor photography.