Tag: Jeffrey Hunter

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.

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.

The Searchers (1956, John Ford)

John Ford is never trying to be discreet with The Searchers, he’s just not willing to talk down to the audience. In the first ten minutes of the film, he and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent quickly establish John Wayne’s character and his relationship with his family. Ford, Nugent, Wayne and the rest of the cast make it clear–one has to wonder what kind of direction Ford gave the actors (Ward Bond in particular)–but there’s no such thing as expository dialogue in The Searchers.

There are a handful of moments where Wayne is talking to someone and he eschews the idea of going into exposition. The one time he does it–right at the end–is with co-star Jeffrey Hunter, whose character has needed some expository explanation the whole time. More than anything else, the film hinges on their relationship. The film positions Hunter and Wayne against one another while they search together for the same thing–kidnapped Natalie Wood. Their differing reasons, never fully explained, and how they collide with each other throughout the search drive the film.

Almost every relationship in the film is complex–Ford gets magnificent performances out of the cast–just because Wayne’s character is so intentionally out of place amongst the settlers. Meanwhile, Hunter goes through a big, quiet character arc. He has some great courtship scenes with Vera Miles, who’s sort of the unspoken third lead.

Beautiful direction, photography from Winton C. Hoch, editing from Jack Murray.

The Searchers is remarkable.

The Last Hurrah (1958, John Ford)

While the title refers to politics, The Last Hurrah also, unfortunately in some cases, provided to be the last hurrah of a number of fine actors as well. It’s a fitting–I can’t remember the word. It isn’t eulogy and tribute seems intentional. I don’t know if Ford knew he was making the last film like The Last Hurrah, and there are a number of films like it. Watching it, the mood, the politics, and James Gleason reminded a lot of Meet John Doe. Jane Darwell, for some odd reason since she wasn’t in it, reminded me of The Informer. The Last Hurrah is very much the last film in style–and not the exact style, Ford was a fluid filmmaker–Ford pioneered in the 1930s. While Touch of Evil is, I suppose, a later stylistic descendent, The Last Hurrah‘s the last in the storytelling vein.

Ford’s direction here, his composition, his camera movements, are all very assured, very confident, but also very sentimental. He ties the composition to the story content, letting the frame express what sometimes Spencer Tracy cannot verbalize. I meant to start with Tracy, then I thought I’d save him, but now’s as good of time as any. Tracy’s performance, down the way his nose moves when he breathes, is perfect, so perfect it’s hard to remember he’s Spencer Tracy and was probably in a hundred movies. He’s nothing like any of them. He and Ford, whether by design or accident, create something amazing–Ford for constructing the framed arena capable of supporting Tracy’s performance–but also needing nothing less–and Tracy for filling this field.

The other performances, starting with Jeffrey Hunter, are excellent. Hunter’s great as the film’s emotional reference. He’s new to it, so is the viewer. The rest of the characters have all been around a while; Hunter doesn’t lead the story or even provide an access point, he just shows on screen what the viewer is experiencing. Frank S. Nugent’s script’s something fantastic, but in the story it tells, and the way it tells it. Everyone’s good so it doesn’t make sense just to list them all, but Basil Rathbone’s great as a villain, Carleton Young as Tracy’s assistant, Dianne Foster as Hunter’s wife and Edward Brophy. Brophy’s role’s hard to describe and what he does for the film. Pat O’Brien too, in maybe the least flashy of the film’s roles for good actors.

The way Ford finishes it. Coda. Is coda the word I’m looking for? Maybe The Last Hurrah is coda for certain kind of film, the adult drama of the 1930s and 1940s. Anyway, Ford’s last shot in the film. The pace, the sound, the shadows. It gets blood from a stone. It reveals a deeper capacity for feeling. It’s his best close.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by John Ford; written by Frank S. Nugent, based on the novel by Edwin O’Connor; director of photography, Charles Lawton Jr.; edited by Jack Murray; production designer, Robert Peterson; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Spencer Tracy (Mayor Frank Skeffington), Jeffrey Hunter (Adam Caulfield), Dianne Foster (Mave Caulfield), Pat O’Brien (John Gorman), Basil Rathbone (Norman Cass Sr.), Donald Crisp (Cardinal Martin Burke), James Gleason (‘Cuke’ Gillen), Edward Brophy (‘Ditto’ Boland), John Carradine (Amos Force), Willis Bouchey (Roger Sugrue), Basil Ruysdael (Bishop Gardner), Ricardo Cortez (Sam Weinberg), Wallace Ford (Charles J. Hennessey), Frank McHugh (Festus Garvey), Carleton Young (Winslow), Frank Albertson (Jack Mangan), Bob Sweeney (Johnny Degnan), Edmund Lowe (Johnny Byrne), William Leslie (Dan Herlihy), Anna Lee (Gert Minihan), Ken Curtis (Monsignor Killian), Jane Darwell (Delia Boylan), O.Z. Whitehead (Norman Cass Jr.) and Arthur Walsh (Frank Skeffington Jr.).

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