The Desperate Hours.

Review #2551: The Desperate Hours.

Cast: 

Humphrey Bogart (Glenn Griffin), Fredric March (Daniel C. Hilliard), Arthur Kennedy (Deputy Sheriff Jesse Bard), Martha Scott (Ellie Hilliard), Dewey Martin (Hal Griffin), Gig Young (Chuck Wright), Mary Murphy (Cindy Hilliard), Richard Eyer (Ralphy Hilliard), Robert Middleton (Samuel Kobish), Walter Baldwin (George Patterson), Whit Bissell (FBI Agent Carson), Ray Teal (State Police Lieutenant), and Ray Collins (Sheriff Masters) Directed by William Wyler (#509 - Roman Holiday, #1022 - Jezebel, #1360 - Mrs. Miniver, #1368 - The Best Years of Our Lives)

Review:  

In 1952, there was a family in Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania that encountered three escaped convicts (Joseph and Ballard Nolen, Elmer Schuer) that held them hostage for 19 hours. The Hill family did not receive harm, and the convicts were soon apprehended (read: two of them died in a shootout in New York while the other got years in jail) after leaving the house. Influenced by the ordeal, Joseph Hayes wrote a novel in 1953 called The Desperate Hours that soon saw a theater production in 1955 (set in Indianapolis*), which saw Robert Montgomery stage it while featuring Karl Malden & Nancy Coleman as the parents opposite the convict leader played by Paul Newman. For the film, they wanted Spencer Tracy to play the second role opposite Bogart, but neither wanted to yield top billing, so you get Fredric March instead. You might say this is Bogart coming full circle, as his turn in The Petrified Forest (1934 play and 1936 film) as a gangster on the run was the one that catapulted him into public attention (of course, months before this film was released, Bogart starred in a televised production of that play); diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1956, this was his penultimate role prior to his death the following year. This was the fourth of seven movies in the 1950s for Wyler, sandwiched between Best Picture nominee films Roman Holiday [1953] and Friendly Persuasion [1956]. Hayes wrote the screenplay for the film (various others have been listed as doing contributions, although this might not be correct). Made on a reported budget of over $2 million, the movie was not exactly a hit with audiences. In later years, it was adapted into a TV film in 1967, a film for India with 36 Ghante [1974] and a 1990 American remake with Desperate Hours that had Michael Cimino as director.

Sure, it probably doesn't hit as well as other thrillers, particularly since it strains a bit of credibility at a certain point in its housebound trappings, but you'll get a few interesting performances to make a decent time regardless with the Hilli(ard) family. It's a thriller not so much about when the cops get into the picture but instead a thriller about if that would actually turn out well for the family at all. It mainly rests on the shoulders of Bogart to make it all work with such an unsettling nature that basically sets the tension on the same level as cutting through butter, doing so with such smoothness that you can't take your eyes off him and his weary eyes, regardless of how movies like this were inevitably going to go back then. March does hold it together in a different type of intensity that wants to hold it all together for the sake of his family that is fairly palpable to where you probably can see him working fine over if it had been Tracy instead. It's a bout of men trying to assert who is the bigger man that happens to involve spectators that could get in harm's way (well, in a movie made a few decades later, probably more so for "harm", but still). Scott and others are more just ordinary, although there is a few moments of sophistication from Young* to go with piggishness from Middleton. It's a big house to set a film in, which is why there are moments spent away from the house because, well, you can only go so far with tension unless you set in the workplace (or, in one instance, the dispatching of one of the criminals). By the time it closes out its 113-minute runtime, you've closed the book on a movie that is fairly solid in lean suspense involving the threat of those with the supposed power and strength to hold you down in your place of residence before the inevitable hit of reality (for a movie at least) steps in. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

song of the day!

*For whatever reason, Life magazine published an article about the doubt of the Broadway show and had pictures of the actors in the house that the family lived in when they were held hostage and called the play a "reenactment". The Hills decided to sue them for violating the privacy law in New York. It eventually wound up in the Supreme Court, where Richard Nixon actually argued for the Hills. Narrowly, in 1967, the court found in favor of Time, Inc.

*The play hasn't been on Broadway since. Incidentally, Sammy Davis Jr did do a run of it for a playhouse a few times: Sammy Davis, Jr. - Theatre - “The Desperate Hours”

*This is the first time I've covered a movie with Gig Young in it. Young, a future Academy Award winner, was plagued by alcoholism in the later years of his life. In 1978, he murdered his wife and killed himself at the age of 64.

The Trouble with Harry.

Review #2509: The Trouble with Harry.

Cast: 

Edmund Gwenn (Capt. Albert Wiles), John Forsythe (Sam Marlowe), Shirley MacLaine (Jennifer Rogers), Mildred Natwick (Miss Ivy Gravely), Mildred Dunnock (Mrs. Wiggs), Jerry Mathers (Arnie Rogers), Royal Dano (Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs), and Parker Fennelly (Millionaire)

Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (#219 - Rope, #223 - North by Northwest, #446 - Spellbound, #447 - Psycho, #450 - Vertigo, #455 - Rear Window, #553 - Strangers on a Train, #800 - Shadow of a Doubt, #910 - Notorious, #963 - The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, #964 - The Ring (1927), #965 - Downhill, #970 - Mr. and Mrs. Smith, #977 - Frenzy, #1343 - The 39 Steps, #1739 - The Birds, #1828 - Rebecca, #2014 - The Lady Vanishes, #2032 - The Man Who Knew Too Much, #2374 - Blackmail [1929])

Review: 

"With Harry, I took melodrama out of the pitch-black night and brought it out into the sunshine. It's as if I had set up a murder alongside a rustling brook and spilled a drop of blood into the clear water. These contrasts establish a counterpart; they elevate the commonplace in life to a higher level."

I suppose it is hard to be the ugly duckling of a string of movies, but The Trouble with Harry is certainly a curious film in the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Of the eleven movies Hitchcock directed in the 1950s, it served as his only comedy (and one of just two that weren't thrillers, and the other was the based-on-a-true-story The Wrong Man [1956]). Of course, it wasn't his first comedy, as evidenced by Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), but Hitchcock apparently was quite keen on doing this film the way he wanted, complete with doing it in VistaVision with primary filming in Vermont (well, at least until they needed leaves on the trees or scenes in a certain gym). There were a few firsts here too. This was the first Hitchcock movie with music by Bernard Herrmann, who he would work with all the way to Marnie (1964). It was also the feature film debut of Shirley MacLaine*. She was not even in her twenties when she moved to New York to try out acting, which had her go from a bit role in Me and Juliet on Broadway to being the understudy-turned-star of The Pajama Game (due to an ankle injury of the star). The result of stepping into the role on Broadway attracted attention by Hal Wallis that eventually saw her signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures (and, well, Hitchcock apparently was interested to do a film with a charming unknown). Based on the 1949 novel of the same name by Jack Trevor Story, John Michael Hayes wrote the screenplay in his third collaboration with Hitchcock (having previously done the screenplay for Rear Window [1954], To Catch a Thief [1955] before doing The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956). While the movie was not a big hit in the States, it did play fine in Europe for years and apparently the film was one of Hitchcock's personal favorites. Hitchcock had the film rights until his death, whereupon it made the rounds in reissuing in the 1980s. 

You might call it a morbid little movie or one of Hitchcock's more mellow efforts, one that might actually be thought of as filled with whimsical nature. So yes, it is a pretty warm and fairly enjoyable affair (one that even can thread the needle of suggestion when one character asks if they can sketch them in the nude). The body is there just to be there, because the mystery is peeling the layers of these peculiar people in this landscape (yes, even with some studio shots, you get some neat views of the autumn season) for 99 minutes. You either are with the film in its casual sly nature for all the things that come with a ride that basically handles death as if it really was just a case of "so it goes" (yes I am cribbing from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five that had its own views about death, but, well, I actually did read that in college). Leading the way is Gwenn in one of his swansongs. This was among the last of Gwenn's films as an actor, as he appeared in two more movies (and one episode of Hitchcock's Alfred Hitchcock Presents) prior to his death in 1959 at the age of 81. He deftly handles it with the solid professionalism that comes with selling someone who really can just coast with some of the offbeat lines that come in observation and newfound zest, which probably overshadows Forsythe and his offbeat non-conformism (at least he wasn't going for "beatnik") a bit by comparison. Even as the youngest of the ensemble, MacLaine holds her own with a sense of odd grace and the type of confidence that leaves one invested in their lives and the wayward path that might come with being paired with Forsythe. Natwick rounds it out with solid dignity and understated charm, at least when one doesn't see the considerable age difference [28 years] between her and Gwenn. Rounding it out is Dano pulling out the humorless dry authority figure that mostly balances out the whims had by the main quartet, which I guess works out to how it goes in our everyday lives in sobering qualities. In general, it might not be among Hitchcock's best of the best, but it is a curious film you should seek out, one that has some amusing moments within a film full of peculiar characters brought to life with useful energy and a leisurely pace to make it all matter at the end.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Starting now, we're doing a song of the day. Enjoy at your own risk.

*Yes, that would be the younger sister of Warren Beatty. Go figure each actor would use modifications of their names for films, as she would use a modification of her middle name (MacLean) while, well, someone took off a "t" from their last name of Beaty

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Review #2493: Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Cast: 

Toshiro Mifune (Miyamoto Musashi), Kōji Tsuruta (Sasaki Kojirō), Mariko Okada (Akemi), Kaoru Yachigusa (Otsu), Michiyo Kogure (Dayū Yoshino), Mitsuko Mito (Okō, Akemi's mother), Akihiko Hirata (Seijūrō Yoshioka), Daisuke Katō (Tōji Gion), Kurōemon Onoe (priest Takuan (Takuan Sōhō), Sachio Sakai (Matahachi Honiden), Yū Fujiki (Denshichirō Yoshioka), Machiko Kitagawa (Kogure), Eiko Miyoshi (Osugi, Matahachi's mother), and Eijirō Tōno (Shishido Baiken) Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki (#2173 - Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto)

Review: 

Sure, let's do another samurai movie. You might remember Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) utilized the epic novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (about the life and deeds of swordsman Miyamoto Musashi) for a worthwhile film that obviously had to keep going. A variety of people returned to do this film ranging from its director in Hiroshi Inagaki and its writer Tokuhei Wakao (who co-wrote the last one with Inagaki as based on a play by Hideji Hojo), its assistant director in Jun Fukuda and select members of its cast. You get some action pretty quickly in the film with the opening that sees the kusarigama (a chain-sickle) get used up before one sees the lead engage himself in self-development while also trying to take on a school of swordsmanship. One year later saw the release of Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, which I take it will surely have an involving duel between Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, who apparently was described as the toughest opponent he ever faced (of course all of this happens before Musashi even turned 30, because the actual man ended up dying in 1645 in his sixties, in a cave, from what might have been lung cancer).

Sure, you might wonder where the path of enlightenment comes from for a movie that involves a good deal of slashing. Well, there is meant to be a path for the pilgrims who wish to learn the ways of what a samurai are besides thinking it means to turn people into dead slabs (it doesn't involve blood, but in fairness, it was the 1950s). Mifune is now going through the road of stoicism that basically reveals that the road of honor and respect can be a very tenuous one when nobody plays exactly to the rules. There are no easy solutions to growing up as a person beyond actually doing it. Everyone has their own murky intentions because no one is defined by just being someone in somewhere. It just so happens that committing to fight one man ends up being a confrontation with a school because of other people's waylaid views. Mifune is about as good in stoic conviction, mainly because you get the idea pretty quickly that his destiny is going to go down to his choices of seeing himself beyond who he thinks he is and to actually realize it. One respects things in nature and life without becoming reliant on them, I suppose. Tsuruta makes for a solidly addition to the proceedings, curious in his maneuvering at least when compared to the drama played out by returners such as Yachigusa (okay there's also another going after him and a whole thing about other returners, but I think you get the idea). The opening battle sequence is there to show that the journey isn't getting better at swordplay, because anybody can go with swords when they are young. The ambushes that are shown in the film are pretty interesting for the time period, and in general you get a movie that allows its final sequences to breathe on their own in what is past and what is to come. As a whole, Samurai II continues the journey of its one curious samurai with plenty of energy and interest in making a journey of fulfillment come around with enough fun beyond looking at things as just moving through the next blade movement. It sets the stage for what is to come in the next film in setting how the journey has gone in learning and seeing beyond the trappings of period and action dramas for a pretty good time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Les Diaboliques.

Review #2462: Les Diaboliques.

Cast: 

Simone Signoret (Nicole Horner), Véra Clouzot (Christina Delassalle), Paul Meurisse (Michel Delassalle), Charles Vanel (Alfred Fichet), Jean Brochard (Plantiveau), Thérèse Dorny (Madame Herboux), Michel Serrault (Monsier Raymond), Georges Chamarat (Dr. Loisy) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (#2337 - The Wages of Fear)

Review: 

Sure, let's go for another movie with plenty of horror and thriller in it. The movie takes its inspiration from the novel She Who Was No More [Celle qui n'était plus], as originally written by the writing team of Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud in 1952. Apparently, Clouzot was informed about the potential of making a movie of the book by his wife Vera, who read it and told him immediately to read it, sleep be damned. Supposedly, Clouzot purchased the rights to the book just before Hitchcock could do so (just as well, Clouzot took over a year to actually get down to filming). Clouzout and his brother Jean (who for whatever reason went by Jérôme Géronimi for credit) are credited with the screenplay while René Masson and Frédéric Grendel were given a "with the collaboration of" in the credits. There were a few changes, mainly because it dealt with a travelling salesman teaming up with his mistress to murder the spouse (with one big thing in the climax being particularly different). Narcejac once stated that while the film does not resemble the book, the combination of the suspense, pacing and unfolding action were effectively in line with what they wanted, while Boileau noted that the film had an "immersion of the character in a collective universe was the best equivalent to the solitude we described in writing." At any rate, Hitchcock got his chance to adapt a Boileau-Narcejac novel later in the decade with Vertigo (1958). The movie was quite the hit at the time and even had an American release (which apparently trimmed the runtime of 114 minutes to 107), which is where it was known as "Diabolique". Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel Psycho that became its own film by Hitchcock (with its own warning about spoiling the movie), said that Clouzot's film was his favorite horror film of all time.

Apparently, Clouzot was tense during production, even once stating to Signoret that he shouldn't have let her read the end of the script. The tension is palpable for the movie, which practically boils it down to a science with a worthwhile group to lead it. It is the kind of movie that allows you to participate in a game of watching a trap spring all the way to its logical conclusion with the dread of knowing that it is all so believable in motive and the horror of wondering just what is going to happen next in the clear-cut way things are shot. The atmosphere by Clouzot with a boarding school is particularly spooky to consider because of the fact that it probably could be considered as an off-kilter fairy tale (in fact Clouzot aimed to do both a sinister atmosphere and "a somewhat fairytale universe"). The Clouzots married in 1950, the same year Vera worked as a continuity assistant on the film Miquette. This was the second of three movies she appeared in as an actress, which started with The Wages of Fear (1953) and ended with Les Espions (1957); she died in 1960 at the age of 46. Her performance of seemingly aiming for a martyr is fine in her defeated outlook towards it all, even when she gets into the eventual scheme involving a body in the bathtub. Her drawn out nightmare is our drawn-out nightmare, for which Signoret (a future Academy Award winner) excels in drawing the knowing fear that comes with people that know who they are and what they have done in diabolical nature and like it. Of course, it helps that Meurisse makes for a worthwhile lout to set all of this up in unsavory timing. The questions we ask about the movie aren't because we are grousing but because we want to know how the trap will spring.

Now, as for the ending: 

Don't be DIABOLICAL!

Do not destroy the interest that your friends may have in this movie.

Do not tell them what you have seen.

Thank you, on their behalf

Yes, it may be a movie that is seven decades old, but you just have to see it to believe it, really. There is just something so swiftly diabolical in its rug-pull that could only come from someone expressly interested in making everything snap into place. Do I love the ending? Well, it is fine in that final snap of the real trap, but I will say that the part right after it is a bit, well, convenient (which also is changed from the novel). You can only do so much with authority figures that show up now and then, I guess. As a whole, it is the kind of suspense horror movie you just have to watch just as it is. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Yes, it's time for the seventh rendition of having horror movies from November 1 to November 7 with 7 Days of the Week After Halloween

Rififi.

Review #2404: Rififi.

Cast: 

Jean Servais (Tony "le Stéphanois"), Carl Möhner (Jo "le Suédois"), Robert Manuel (Mario Ferrati), Jules Dassin (César "le Milanais"), Magali Noël (Viviane), Claude Sylvain (Ida), Marcel Lupovici (Pierre Grutter), Robert Hossein (Rémy Grutter), Pierre Grasset (Louis Grutter), Marie Sabouret (Mado), Dominique Maurin (Tonio), and Janine Darcey (Louis) Directed by Jules Dassin (#1043 - The Naked City)

Review: 

'What I loved and really enjoyed was to see the film in public in Paris. All the nice bourgeois people who go to the movies were rooting for these guys to succeed. I had one of the gang hit a single piano key and the audience jumped. When I was writing it, I knew you had to have that rooting interest; the film would work only if I made people want them to succeed. First I introduced the element of friendship, because if you're going to care for the people who are going to be crooks, you have to have some sympathy for them as people. But part of it is also thinking that these guys are real professionals and work well together. It's like wanting a great star to come up to bat and hit a homer.''

It helps to refresh my memory of certain filmmakers. The son of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, Jules Dassin was raised in New York and became involved in acting from a youth with the Yiddish Art Theatre and studied abroad for years. He first became a director with radio plays in the late 1930s before moving to stage plays such as the Children's Theatre. It was around this time that he joined Communist Party USA. Later, he signed to become a studio director for RKO Radio Pictures that saw him work only as an assistant director before Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer eventually had him direct. He made his first film as a short with The Tell-Tale Heart (1941) before Nazi Agent (1942) became his feature debut. Dassin directed eight films for MGM in five years that he felt were fine. However, he soon directed a handful of films in freelance/20th Century Fox that he really felt was his growth, as highlighted by The Naked City (1948) and Night and the City (1950) Unfortunately, Dassin was blacklisted by the 1950s because of his name being connected with organizations connected to the "Communist-front" but at least never appeared before the "Un-American Activities Committee" like some of his peers. He was offered a job in France to direct movies and went with it, although there would be such difficulty in finding work that didn't involve American film distribution companies that his first film there was with Rififi (1955). Dassin directed twelve further movies that concluded with Circle of Two (1981); Dassin died in 2008 at the age of 96. The movie is, shall we say, based on the novel of the same name (okay it actually is known as "Du rififi chez les hommes" but I imagine it makes sense people know it by the shorter title, because the word means fight or bust-up) by Auguste Le Breton, once described as "the prince of argot". Apparently the slang used in the novel irked Dassin, and he once described the book as being "all about Arab bad behavior, including necrophilia", but the small chapter about a heist was interesting enough to whip up a script (incidentally, one praise of the film came from critic-turned-director François Truffaut that said Dassin made the best crime film out of the "worst crime novel I ever read"). The result is as such for writing: Dassin for the adaptation, René Wheeler and Le Breton for collaboration and Le Breton for dialogue. Apparently, the movie was only available on videotape for quite a few decades until a restoration in the 2000s.

 

It is an efficient movie, that's for sure. Dassin made a noir as grey as one could do, one that didn't need a big fistfight or music to convey a stone-cold thriller. Sure, it wasn't the first of its kind with elaborate heists, since the decade started with films such as The Asphalt Jungle (1950; Dassin contended he saw the movie only after making Rififi). You see the streets in winter and see a natural atmosphere of doubt within listless souls. It works pretty well in swift ice-cold entertainment (115 minutes) and it does so with a litany of actors that aren't necessarily big names (well, at least Servais appeared in multiple Dassin movies) but still manage to make the movie roll along with relatively few troubles. It helps the heist sequence was based on an actual burglary in Marseille in 1899, where a hole in the floor was cut of a travel agency's office in order to dig onto a jewel shop while catching the debris with an umbrella to make off with valuables. You just have to see it to believe that a director can make a heist sequence (in the midst of the film, not at the end) seem so fascinating with no need for music or dialogue to make it clear of efficient professionalism*, at least with what you get from these folks. Servais is probably the most dependable of the presences in the film, which is comprised of wayward people trying to make a living that can only find jagged edges with the tiniest bit of hope there even among the rugged flaws that come out in prideful figures in a movie like this; it helps to pay attention to a movie that has fate as the villain lurking behind the thugs, if you think about it. It does make it a bit distinct to have the climax involve a litany of crosses and quick decisions without need for just having authority clamping down even when you know that some crimes don't pay and it has the swiftness to close right down the road as if it would make a worthwhile companion to The Wages of Fear (1953) in sudden fates, if you will. As a whole, this is a pretty neat noir, building its tension and shrouded curiosity to meaningful execution that will prove a worthwhile time down the line for classic world cinema.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

*Incidentally, Dassin's other caper with Topkapi (1964) had a heist sequence that apparently proved some inspiration for the 1966 TV series Mission: Impossible, and the 1996 Mission: Impossible movie in turn featured a scene inspired by Topkapi.

Next in August: a new theme, of sorts...

Bad Day at Black Rock.

Review #2368: Bad Day at Black Rock.

Cast: 

Spencer Tracy (John J. Macreedy), Robert Ryan (Reno Smith), Anne Francis (Liz Wirth), Dean Jagger (Sheriff Tim Horn), Walter Brennan (Doc Velie), John Ericson (Pete Wirth), Ernest Borgnine (Coley Trimble), Lee Marvin (Hector David), Russell Collins (Mr Hastings), and Walter Sande (Sam, the diner owner) Directed by John Sturges (#427 - The Magnificent Seven, #1395 - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, #1412 - The Great Escape)

Review: 

As one might expect, the genesis for the film came from a story adaptation. Howard Breslin had wrote a short story called "Bad Time at Honda" that was initially published by The American Magazine in 1947. Apparently, Don McGuire was sent to do a screenplay of the film with Joel McCrea in mind to star as an indie or MGM production. Somehow the progression of directors in mind went from George Sidney to Richard Brooks to the final choice, John Sturges (director of such previous films as Mystery Street [1950] and Kind Lady [1951]), while Millard Kaufman was hired by MGM to rewrite the script (both Kaufman and McGuire were credited for the script). Regardless of how old Spencer Tracy was at the time of filming (54), MGM (specifically Dore Schary, near the end of his little run in heading production there) got what they wanted with him as the lead, with the apparent drawing element being that he would be playing one-armed man (well that and apparently jumping at the film when he was told that they were considering Alan Ladd); it would end up being the last movie Tracy made for the studio. The movie was a general hit with audiences and earned its director, star, and writer Academy Award nominations.

For what we say about the past and what we say about present and the ever-unknown future, it is important sometimes to have a movie that reminds one of the times where people made profoundly stupid mistakes. The advent of World War II led to paranoia and probably one of the worst decisions made by an administration in wartime: forcible relocation and incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent that lasted for several years. Here we have a movie with a slow boil about what happens when people have gotten too comfortable with what they have done (or watched others do) and react to "outsiders" trying to pry things into the light. Sure, it is a crime drama movie, but there are those elements of the Western and noir present even within the vast scale that arises in CinemaScope with a particular setting that might make for a worthwhile pairing with say, High Noon (1952). With our "stranger" character that will arrive just as quickly as he will depart, how many movies have someone go up and compare them to a disease? (the answer is not too many, probably). But the tension and all-around terror that comes through here is a movie that is not afraid to simply let you broil with these crude people because you might recognize that at some point in time, they were as normal as you or me. Now they find that plugging one's ears to the drums of doubt is preferable more than anything, which is quite an unsettling thought, particularly since our one-armed lead is really just a man of the ordinary type of honor: being curious. In that sense, Tracy mines it for all it is worth, approaching folks with an unnerving sort of charm that has the audience watching with intent curiosity (mainly because when thinking of how one would do when thrust into the same spot, one probably has escape on their mind). One just sees a man when they see Tracy, with the whole one-armed thing not coming off as a gimmick and the age just seems to be a number, particularly when it comes to that one particular bar fight, which is an astounding one in its cut-rate efficiency. And then of course there is the cast around him*, who each excel in their own ways of unsettling nature. Ryan in particular is a devilishly terrific adversary, one with such an unsettling nature that comes with bubbling hatred that is quite unsettling to see in all of its layers, and the fact that he played so many hardened folks doesn't make it any less effective. Marvin and Borgnine make for quality heavies to see in the landscape, grim and worthy enough to match against Tracy, while Jagger and Ericson make for quality weak-willed people that are probably closer to reality than any of us would like to admit (i.e. folks who yield to what they see with their own eyes). Brennan closes it out with conviction in his wavering apathy. Regardless of what you might see coming from the film (look how many surprises can you think of for a movie in the 1950s), it still makes for a quality punch when it arrives at its departure point in all-around truth. In general, it is a tight 81-minute feature that manages to carefully reveal the unsettling qualities that arises in unchecked values in the name of "loyalty" that is startling in its effective execution with worthwhile presences and direction to steer it all together.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

*Incidentally, there is quite a load of talent of the movie that seems curious to mention. Tracy you probably already know as an Academy Award winner (twice), but you've also got a three-time winner with Brennan, future winners with Marvin and Borgnine (who won it in 1955 with Marty), a nominee with Ryan, and a previous winner with Jagger.

The Quatermass Xperiment.

Review #1917: The Quatermass Xperiment.

Cast: 

Brian Donlevy (Professor Bernard Quatermass), Richard Wordsworth (Victor Carroon), Jack Warner (Inspector Lomax), David King-Wood (Dr. Gordon Briscoe), Margia Dean (Mrs. Judith Carroon), Maurice Kaufmann (Marsh), Harold Lang (Christie), Lionel Jeffries (Mr. Blake), and John Wynn (Det. Sgt. Best) Directed by Val Guest (#224 - Casino Royale (1967))

Review: 

"It wasn’t quite like anything fans had seen before. The success of the picture helped put Hammer on the road to specializing in sci-fi and horror movies.”

You may know the film as The Creeping Unknown, since that was the issue title when released in America (with a run-time of 78 minutes as compared to the British 82 minutes). But we are talking about a film made by Hammer Film Productions as one of their first big hits, and the reason for the X is because that was the Certificate (rating) it got from the British Board of Film Censors. The film is adapted from the 1953 television serial The Quatermass Experiment, which was broadcast for six episodes from July 18 to August 22 on the BBC (who agreed to a deal with Hammer for the rights to do a film). The episodes were transmitted live, but only the first two episodes survive due to the other four not even being recorded on their live broadcast. Each episode was written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Rudolph Cartier. Hammer co-produced the movie with Robert L. Lippert, the distributor/producer behind a number of American and British movies that had seen him finance and supply American stars for certain Hammer films in exchange for distribution of his films in the UK. With this film, American star Brian Donlevy was brought in to serve as the main character, as originally played by Reginald Tate. At director was Val Guest, who actually started out as an actor before he became a writer, first for London's edition of the Hollywood Reporter before a challenge by an interviewee had him writing his first screenplay, which led to a comedy career for a time before becoming a director in 1943. A director for Hammer of fourteen films (starting with The Men of Sherwood Forest), Guest wanted to make the film look as if it was filmed by hand-held camera. Kneale would write three further television serials (1955, 1958-59, 1979), with each being turned into feature films in 1957, 1967, and 1979, respectively. Hammer also did X the Unknown (1956), which was meant to be a sequel to this film before they had to do a bit of re-branding when Kneale refused to allow the title character of this film to be included, but Hammer would later be behind the 1955 and 1967 Quatermass features, with Guest directing the former.

It should be noted that Kneale was not too big on this film, one he had no involvement in and one that he did not like the casting of Donlevy. The ending being modified for one with action to decide the climax rather than a "talking down" as per the original probably didn't help either. As a film though, it does work out pretty well, primarily because it makes for a fundamentally sound 82-minute feature in balancing procedure and the eventual horror with useful and chilly atmosphere. Yes, it is a movie involving British astronauts being spooked by a mass of space from out there, but it is a clinically useful movie, never wasting its time on anything too pointless, aside from a few quiet characters. Donlevy is firmly in the middle between the general scientist cliche: he isn't a mad doctor nor is he exactly the one envisioned by Kneale, which certainly tried to appeal to scientific and moral authority, although he has been quoted as wanting to write a strong character that counteracted the "horrible people" in American sci-fi films. Honestly, I understand where he is coming for in his sensibility (I mean, he has more written works than most ever dream of), but I found Donlevy to be the ideal fit for what the film needs: hard-set in ways, regardless of the terror provided. He may seem like he was pulled out of a noir, but it works to his beat because of how he maneuvers the situation without becoming beholden to gobbledygook. If it was this guy that had to "talk the creature to death", we would laugh at it, so he seems right for what the script really wants in. He looks like a guy who cares about what he does in terms of basic execution and nothing else, which makes for quality tension when compared to the others - so yes, moving forward matters most. Wordsworth is the one notable interesting supporting presence, if only because he is the key man besides Donlevy to make an impression because of what he is asked to do as a slowly mutating (and quivering) shape. I enjoy seeing him play out the fear required to make this horror a relevant one to bring terror to proper shape (which evidently used bovine entrails and tripe). The stunt of electricity at a set to double for Westminster Abbey is a quality climax to go with a movie that for all of its low budget surroundings is generally involving, and I especially like the final little shot of Donlevy walking back without saying much to get back to what matters most in the logical sense: Beginning again.

As a whole, it may not compare to the original serial it arose from, but it does manage to make a useful impression for its audience that wants to enjoy what Hammer set out to do in horror sci-fi entertainment. It set the stage for them to seep further into the world of horror to entertain audiences in ways that hadn't been seen before, and for that, I think it makes the film a useful curiosity to look into.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: House of Usher.

The Eternal Breasts.

Review #1812: The Eternal Breasts.

Cast: 

Yumeji Tsukioka (Fumiko Shimojō, née Nakajō), Ryōji Hayama (Akira Ōtsuki), Junkichi Orimoto (Shigeru Anzai), Hiroko Kawasaki (Tatsuko), Shirō Ōsaka (Yoshio), Ikuko Kimuro (Seiko), Masayuki Mori (Takashi Hori), Yōko Sugi (Kinuko, Hori's wife), Chōko Iida (Hide), Bokuzen Hidari (Hide's husband), and Tōru Abe (Yamagami) Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka.

Review: 

The story of female film directors also has a chapter dedicated to the first two women directors in the country of Japan. Tazuko Sakane was the first female director in the country, debuting in 1936 after having spent a couple of years as an assistant director and editor for Kenji Mizoguchi; the film was released as Hatsu Sugata [New Clothing]. However, it was the only feature film she would end up doing, because its failure precluded her from doing further features. Her only opportunity to direct came with the Manchukuo Film Association with educational nonfiction films that were aimed for Japanese immigrants. Of those films, only one survives (Sakane died in 1975 at the age of 70). Coincidentally, the second female film director in Japan would have an association with Mizoguchi. Kinuyo Tanaka had been an actress since she was fifteen years old (and graduated to lead roles in 1929), and she would be directed by various names in Japanese cinema such as Heinosuke Gosho, Yasujirō Ozu, and (eventually) Mizoguchi. After World War II ended, she took a different approach to acting, such as going on a cultural envoy to the United States (which attracted criticism of "Americanization", which perplexes me) and going for freelance work in acting. She even wanted to become a director, for which she aspired to join the Directors Guild of Japan, which had Mizoguchi as president. However, he strongly recommended against hiring her as a director because of his belief that she was not fit to direct (on that note, screw him); she was the only women in the Guild to her death. However, she would persist in her ambition, and she would get her chance with Love Letter [Koibumi] (1953). In time, Tanaka would direct five further films between 1953 and 1962, with The Eternal Breasts [Chibusa yo eien nare] being her most acknowledged work. As for her acting career, she would act in over a hundred films before her last in 1976, and she died in 1977 at the age of 67. 

The late 1950s were a Golden Age for Japanese cinema, and it shouldn't surprise you to see this as one of the interesting works within the era. Produced by Nikkatsu, the film was loosely based on the life Fumiko Nakajō, a poet who went through two mastectomies before her death of breast cancer in 1954 at the age of 31. The film was written by Sumie Tanaka. With a run-time of 110 minutes, it is pretty easy to recommend this film, one that shows plenty of efficiency within its storytelling and frank honesty in a bittersweet drama that shows just what can happen to a woman who finds a new streak of independence within tragedy. It is the story of a woman who goes through divorce (and the loss of a child to said divorced parent), the growing of a poetry career, and then breast cancer (which is the most-common invasive cancer in women for the world). It depicts the struggle of a newly divorced women with cancer by not turning it into something for exploitation or easy solutions (in that sense, it seems quite progressive even now). Tsukioka is the key to the proceedings, since this journey is one that requires an earthy sense of timing and capable charm. She does that in spades, never straining under the pressure on route to a tremendous performance that likely will stick with you for a time. Hayama plays the friendly second in a timely affair that happens around the climax, which results in a patiently assembled tender romance for worthy effect (on the other side is Mori, who Tsukioka has a carefully planned distance with). Likely the most arresting sequence is the one involving a long hallway with pushing from nurses...which goes behind an iron gate for the morgue. It is a bleak, honest movie that hits the mark in its filmmaking, one that I highly recommend watching as a film that shows plenty of expression without trouble. Death may be inevitable, but it does not mean the legacy of a director like Tanaka will be forgotten, particularly with a film as haunting and as effective as this movie proves to be.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: The Connection (1961).

Revenge of the Creature.

Review #1586: Revenge of the Creature.

Cast:
John Agar (Prof. Clete Ferguson), Lori Nelson (Helen Dobson), John Bromfield (Joe Hayes), Nestor Paiva (Lucas), Grandon Rhodes (Jackson Foster), Dave Willock (Lou Gibson), Robert Williams (George Johnson), Charles Cane (Police Captain), Robert F. Hoy (Charlie), Brett Halsey (Pete), with Ricou Browning (Gill-man - Underwater), and Tom Hennesy (Gill-man - Land) Directed by Jack Arnold (#420 - The Incredible Shrinking Man, #464 - It Came from Outer Space, and #1290 - Creature from the Black Lagoon)

Review:
Undeniably, it is hard to make a sequel work. But hey, having a director return is at least a promising start. Jack Arnold read science fiction as a child, and he wanted to be an actor growing up before serving in the Signal Corps (and later the Air Corps) in World War II, learning under Robert Flaherty on camera work in military films. From his first film in With These Hands (1950) until his last film (a TV production) in 1980, Arnold had a career of three decades as director, yet it was the films he made involving science fiction that have lasted in the public consciousness. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), his best regarded films, happened to be released by Universal Pictures. The first film had been written by Harry Essex, Arthur Ross, and Maurice Zimm, while Revenge of the Creature would be done by Martin Berkeley and William Alland (who like the first film also served as producer). The film was primarily filmed in Marineland, Florida (a town that has the oceanarium of the same name), as the Gill-man now has his biggest foe: being trapped in a marine park.

If you can believe it, this film is not exactly up to the standards of the prior Gill-man film a year earlier. One way to start is the fact that a good part of its 82 minute run-time is spent with the creature just being trapped away from its surroundings in a tank, while Agar and Nelson serve as our new human focuses, while the only ones to return are Lucas (for the first few minutes, anyway) and Browning. The first feeling one has for this film is "rushed", because this is seriously the best idea they could come up with? Actually, I should have seen this coming, because one would have to be convinced by its opening sequence to even sell the idea of capturing the not-quite dead Gill-man: they blow up the water with dynamite and knock out the creature (hey, it works to get fish, why not a fish/human looking hybrid?). Agar and Nelson lead the film in their study of the creature, and they sure are a boring duo to lead the way through. Bromfield isn't really much better, and Paiva is again only there for a momentary time and is then just out of the film (unsurprisingly, it seems like the creature has less bodies to sort through this time, although there is a slight novelty in seeing a scene with a young Clint Eastwood appear). Somehow, it just all seemed more interesting before with the pursuit of the leading lady by the Gill-man a year before, mostly because one was interested in this ancient amphibious creature of the sea in its sympathy and interest driven by the bare surroundings of life around him (some people even found inspiration in having sympathy for the creature for their own film, such as with The Shape of Water (2017)). Here, it is a bunch of wooden acting that interact with the creature too many times in the water that make it seem like one is at the zoo, which makes it a rather tiresome affair to wait for the inevitable escape. The costume for the Gill-man looks a bit different here, seeming a bit more easier to breathe for its costumer, which may or may not help in terms of seeing googly eyes when the monster does appear in his cell-tank from time to time. The creature even gets the same fate as before, being shot by an array of bullets after his captured lady escapes his clutches, as if this end is any more final than the one before (with a sequel following a year later, owing to the fair success of this film). There seems to be more inevitability this time around, which doesn't benefit a film that looks like it was made just to further the profits along, but it seems to honor one Universal horror tradition in mediocre sequel-making as opposed to abysmal quality-making. It isn't anybody's best feature, but those who would like to see more from director Arnold or for some occasional gill-man horror might be okay with the 82 minute run-time for a lark. It doesn't go enough to recommend it as a positive winner, but average isn't too far off.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Surprise! In a year that spread horror films lightly across the year, it never hurts to further the horror trend with Halloween: The Week After Part II, which will continue with surprises along the way until November 7.

The Man with the Golden Arm.

Review #1391: The Man with the Golden Arm.

Cast: 
Frank Sinatra (Frankie "Dealer" Machine), Eleanor Parker (Sophia "Zosh" Machine), Kim Novak (Molly Novotny), Arnold Stang (Sparrow), Darren McGavin ("Nifty Louie" Fomorowski), Robert Strauss (Zero Schwiefka), John Conte (Drunkie John), Doro Merande (Vi), and George E. Stone (Sam Markette) Directed by Otto Preminger (#657 - Laura)

Review: 
Film almost always seems to generate more interest when it is allowed to push the envelope in boundaries for the time, such as the case with addiction with films like The Lost Weekend (1945) or this one. The 1950s had a clash of television and film that had the latter try various techniques and gimmicks to keep people with the cinema (at least until they realized they could utilize television to their advantage), but it was a decade with shifting tastes for a new key audience of teenagers along with challenges to the restrictive Production Code that would lead to it taking a final beating and end a decade later. One key figure in that fight was Austrian-Hungary director Otto Preminger, who had developed interest for the theater in acting before he was approached to direct for film with Die große Liebe (1931), which proved a success for the 26-year old despite having less experience with filmmaking than with the theater. He emigrated to the United States four years later and soon found a chance to direct on Broadway along with 20th Century Fox through Darryl F. Zanuck, which resulted in two completed films (1936's Under Your Spell (1936) and 1937's Danger – Love at Work) before being fired off Kidnapped (1938) by Zanuck that led to a hiatus for five years. Preminger found his way back to Fox and gradually found his way back to doing dramas and noirs (along with occasional acting) over the course of the next eight years that had its high point with Laura (1944). His challenges with the Production Code took place over two of his films in the 1950s. His 1953 film The Moon is Blue attracted complaints about its treatment of seduction and chastity, with United Artists deciding to release the film without Code approval (which resulted in a few places banning the film from being shown or restricted viewings for adults). He received attention from the code for this film, since it deals with drug addiction (implied to be heroin), a taboo subject in their eyes (other subjects included mixed-race romances and kidnapping). However, Preminger and United Artists persisted on and released the film anyway (both films eventually received PCA codes of approval in 1961). By the time he directed Anatomy of a Murder (1959), a frank courtroom drama film, the PCA did not object this time around. The talented but rough director would do over 35 films before his death in 1986.

The film was adapted from Nelson Algren's 1948 novel of the same name, which was significantly bleaker in tone when it came to its main character, with the most notable change being that he does not survive to the end in the book, having found himself trapped with no way out of his predicament caused by his inhibitions after inadvertently murdering his drug dealer. The changes made by screenwriters Walter Newman and Lewis Meltzer, along with a lack of compensation for his work, did not sit well with Algren when it came time to release. When it comes time to having a prime star for an envelope pushing film, one can't go too wrong with famed singer-turned-actor Sinatra, who studied rehab clinics in preparation for this film. He proves to the task of living up to such a fascinating role, proving to be quite gripping to the audience in his attempts to pull himself upward from a whirlpool of city seduction. Parker proves just as well in controlled anguish that does so while spending most of her time sitting down. Novak provides a warm calm presence whenever on screen, while Stang provides his a seedy and loyal dramatic turn for the notably comic actor. McGavin and Strauss both do well with providing the seedy elements of city life with the kind of conviction and allure one would expect from them. In any case, the film does well with showing a look into a person trying to escape the demons that haunt his personal life and himself, with Preminger and Sinatra doing well in making a capable tragedy seem useful to view, such as a cold turkey sequence with the latter that accompanies the climax. While the film may have aged a bit in the six decades since its release, there is certainly still a power that this film has that can't be swept away for curiosity, and it is a feature that can be recommended for public domain viewing without too much trouble.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

The Seven Year Itch.

Review #1390: The Seven Year Itch.

Cast: 
Marilyn Monroe (The Girl), Tom Ewell (Richard Sherman), Evelyn Keyes (Helen Sherman), Sonny Tufts (Tom MacKenzie), Robert Strauss (Kruhulik), Oscar Homolka (Dr. Brubaker), Marguerite Chapman (Miss Morris), Victor Moore (Plumber), and Donald MacBride (Mr. Brady) Directed by Billy Wilder (#106 - Some Like It Hot, #194 - Ace in the Hole, #422 - The Fortune Cookie, #641 - The Apartment, #809 - Sunset Boulevard), and #1384 - Stalag 17)

Review:
"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

When it comes to bombshell actresses, one that stands out most evidently for their role in popular culture is Marilyn Monroe. She had grown up under a turbulent childhood, with a nonexistent father and a mother that had a mental breakdown that had her committed by the time Monroe was eight years old, which led to years of bouncing around orphanages and lodgers to stay with. She found herself attracting to becoming an actress at a young age, mostly because it seemed like an escape from her real world troubles. Adulthood had plenty of paths for her to take, such as housewife to factory-work to modelling before she eventually took steps to acting, where she made bit part appearances for 20th Century Fox in 1947 before being let go the following year, although it did help her in enrollment to the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, which she found enticing. Her determination in wanting to make it as an actress eventually led to some roles, such as her first lead role with Ladies of the Chorus (1948), or small parts in 1950 films like Love Happy, All About Eve, and The Asphalt Jungle. Soon after she found herself with a contract back with Fox and her popularity gradually rose over the decade that made her a sex symbol, with highlights including Niagara (1953), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Through the course of a career tragically cut short at the age of 36 in 1962, Monroe struggled with trying to branch out in roles beyond the bombshell types alongside struggles in her private life such as anxiety and addiction. In any case, Monroe's stature as an icon has endured long after her death, particularly with films such as this one, with one scene involving her dress being blown up by wind to show her legs being a particularly notable one for the decade.

The film was adapted from George Axelrod's 1952 play of the same name, which had run for over a thousand performances with Ewell on Broadway. However, turning the play into an acceptable film for the censors proved to be quite a challenge, with Wilder later stating that he was "straitjacketed" and wished that he had made the film in a later time that would have allowed the affair to be shown in the film, as opposed to it being in the imagination of Ewell's character, along with the fact that dialogue considered racy had to be omitted. In other words, the sin became one of boredom over lust. In any case, this is a fairly decent film, filled with a good deal of laughs that make an adequate farce firmly in the middle of Monroe and Wilder's careers given the circumstances of the time. Ewell makes for a fine panicky presence to go with, talkative to the audience and others with a few chuckles to deliver that make it palatable when faced without scenes with Monroe. She naturally steals the show, a bright presence of charm that commands our attention along with having fair timing with humor. The other members of the cast are okay, filling the 105 minutes around moments not with Monroe with fair patience. On the whole, this is definitely something that has aged a bit for its time, an envelope pusher in search of more to open within romance that nevertheless will prove adequate for those who like something carefully done by Wilder with plenty to highlight in Monroe.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Kiss Me Deadly.

Review #1389: Kiss Me Deadly.

Cast: 
Ralph Meeker (Mike Hammer), Albert Dekker (Dr. G.E. Soberin), Paul Stewart (Carl Evello), Juano Hernandez (Eddie Yeager), Wesley Addy (Lt. Pat Murphy), Maxine Cooper (Velda), Cloris Leachman (Christina Bailey), Gaby Rodgers (Gabrielle/Lilly Carver), Nick Dennis (Nick), Jack Lambert (Sugar Smallhouse), and Jack Elam (Charlie Max) Produced and Directed by Robert Aldrich (#105 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and #778 - The Longest Yard, and #1014 - The Dirty Dozen)

Review: 
"The power is for the director to do what he wants to do. To achieve that he needs his own cutter, he needs his cameraman, he needs his own assistant and a strong voice in his choice of writer; a very, very strong voice on who's the actor. He needs the power not to be interfered with and the power to make the movie as he sees it."

A director can come from anywhere if their heart is set on it. The descendant of prominent family members of wealth and society, Robert Aldrich found himself with plenty of pressure to succeed in the line of other Aldriches before him, with his father being a newspaper publisher while others had served in office or in war. He attended both Yale and the University of Virginia, but he found himself at odds with his family when it came to his beliefs that were less focused on wealth and money than his family was, particularly with the advent of the New Deal in lieu of the Great Depression. He dropped out of studying economics for a chance at working at RKO Radio Pictures as a production clerk at the age of 23, which resulted in him being disinherited. From this, he would work his way up to positions higher up such as associate directing and producing to writing and directing for television (which he viewed as a crash course for directors in terms of rushed schedules). He worked for a variety of directors for a decade such as Lewis Milestone, Robert Rossen, Charlie Chaplin, and Jean Renoir, learning from their strengths and weaknesses about the fundamentals of filmmaking. In 1953, at the age of 35, Aldrich made his directorial feature debut with Big Leaguer, a low-budget baseball movie that he felt was good, but not what he wanted to express in the film medium. Aldrich found his next effort more to his interest with World for Ransom the following year, and he soon found himself hired by Burt Lancaster for two Westerns in Apache and Vera Cruz (1954), with the relative success of those films helping in him forming his own company in The Associates and Aldrich. In total, the fiercely independent and rambunctious Aldrich would direct 29 total films before his death in 1983 at the age of 65, having a rapid work pace that was equaled with his constant use of crew members like editor Michael Luciano or composer Frank De Vol for several of his films.

It probably isn't a surprise that certain types of people felt this film was a menace to juveniles in terms of delinquency, which was the case of one government commission. Of course the material the film was adapted from attracted its own kind of attention for its violent content (which led to trouble in adapting the generally cold-blooded killer detective to the screen acceptable for the standards of the time) for its hardboiled character of Mike Hammer, which Mickey Spillane featured in thirteen novels over the course of 49 years. The film was an adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was the sixth of thirteen novels (with the series continuing after the author's death in 2006). This was the second of three Spillane novels to be turned into a film in this decade (the other two being I, the Jury and My Gun is Quick). The writing for the film was done by A.I. Bezzerides, who changed the novel's adversary of Mafia gangsters while also adding the nuclear suitcase aspect (as opposed to the pursuit of certain substances in the book) along with changing the occupation of the private eye to divorce case P.I, with Bezzerides noting that he wrote the script with contempt and quickness, which apparently did not sit well with Spillane. In any case, this is a wonderful film noir, filled with plenty of intrigue and tension with a dynamite cast and execution from Aldrich and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo. Meeker leads the film with cynical conviction, a blunt instrument of macho nature that fits the film's maze of brutality. The rest of the cast follow along in varying levels of principle that range from the cleverly understated Rodgers to the hard-line authority in Addy to the careful menace of Dekker. Of note is the debut of Broadway-turned-television actress Cloris Leachman, who appears for the first couple of minutes in a key role that sticks out in panic. In any case, one finds themselves swept up in the film in its path, whether that means having our lead break a record or hurt someone's fingers or even when it comes to explaining the mysterious glowing whatsit. By the time one has spent 106 minutes with the film, you will find yourself electrified by a film that lands most of its punches with precision and paranoia that makes for an explosive climax, which has thankfully been restored in recent years (for decades, the film abruptly ended on a shot of the burning house that made it look like the lead had died looking around the house as opposed to ending on the beach). On the whole, this is a fine gem in Aldrich's body of work that stands today as a neat noir for a prime decade of thrills and paranoia for audiences to gaze upon.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Godzilla Raids Again.

Review #1098: Godzilla Raids Again.

Cast: 
Hiroshi Koizumi (Shoichi Tsukioka), Setsuko Wakayama (Hidemi Yamaji - Koehi's Daughter), Minoru Chiaki (Koji Kobayashi), Takashi Shimura (Dr. Kyohei Yamane-hakase), Masao Shimizu (Zoologist Dr. Tadokoro), Seijirô Onda (Captain Terasawa of Osaka Defense Corps), Sônosuke Sawamura (Hokkaido Branch Manager Shingo Shibeki), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Tajima, Member of Osaka Defense Corps), with Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla), and Katsumi Tezuka (Anguirus) Directed by Motoyoshi Oda.

Review: 
Six years after doing the original film (#167), I figured it was finally time to do the sequel. Apologies for the wait.

The original film managed to evoke its share of terror and fine moments with its monster in 96 minutes, being an interesting piece of world cinema from Japan in my eyes. It had its share of human drama that I found to be moderately entertaining to accompany the narrative, and it had a conclusion that felt satisfying. Six months after its release, a sequel, going by the title of Godzilla Raids Again (whose title in Japan translates to Godzilla's Counterattack), and it certainly tried to stand out - for better or worse. For one thing, Godzilla fights another monster (this one called Anguirus), with the explanation being that the two monsters were brought back to life by the bomb that had awoken the original Godzilla, and naturally they fight each other, complete with miniature sets and destroying a pagoda. Like before with the original, Eiji Tsuburaya assisted with the special effects, serving as Director Of Special Effects for this film, and they certainly fit well for the spectacle that plays out on screen. The human drama this time isn't too particularly interesting, having its share of cliches and actions that you'd probably expect, and it borders a bit on tedious at moments but it proves to be mildly conventional enough to fit fine. Koizumi and the others (including Shimura briefly reprising his role from the earlier movie) do okay in carrying the movie to the points where it needs to go in its 81 minute run-time. The film isn't as good as the original film in the sense that it doesn't resonate so much with its action and narrative, but it does prove to be a fairly decent product of entertainment. It would be seven years until King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) continued the series.

One year after the release of this film, the original film was heavily re-edited in order to be released into American audiences, which was released as Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, with new scenes filmed with Raymond Burr describing the action that occurs in the movie that were directed by Terry Morse. In 1959, a re-edited version of the sequel followed (after trying to make a new film with the effect footage dubbed The Volcano Monsters failed), with it being called Gigantis the Fire Monster. This version, released into U.S theaters by Warner Brothers, had numerous edits such as replacing the original music by Masaru Satō with stock music, dubbing over the voices (with such voices like Paul Frees and George Takei), and even replacing Godzilla's roar with Anguirus' roar, while being released in a double bill with Teenagers from Outer Space. It should be noted that both films in their original form had played in theaters in Japanese-American neighborhoods, with the re-edited version of the first film being released in Japan in 1957. In any case, the modern age has led to the original versions of either film (and the re-edits) being more available, and it's not hard to see why as both of these movies are fine pieces of entertainment, with Godzilla Raids Again serving as a fair sequel for any sort of audience.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Five Guns West.

Review #1039: Five Guns West.

Cast: 
John Lund (Govern Sturges), Dorothy Malone (Shalee Jethro), Mike Connors (Hale Clinton), Robert Wright Campbell (John Candy), Jonathan Haze (Billy Candy), Paul Birch (J.C. Haggard), James Stone (Uncle Mike), and Jack Ingram (Stephan Jethro) Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, and #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters)

Review: 
Admittedly, Five Guns West does not stand out too particularly well from other Roger Corman productions, but it does have the distinction of being Roger Corman's first film as director. Prior to this film, he had been involved in the production of three other films: Highway Dragnet (1954), which he contributed the story to, Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954), which he served as producer, and The Fast and the Furious (1955), which he provided the story and served as producer. Corman served as producer and director for this film, with Robert Wright Campbell providing the story and also starring in the movie, which was filmed in nine days for a sum of $60,000. The plot shares some similarities with The Dirty Dozen (#1014), involving outlaws being pardoned in order to perform a dangerous mission set near the end of the American Civil War. There isn't anything too terrible in this Western, although it definitely doesn't stand out much. This is a B-movie through and through, although it is fairly well-made and fairly competent, despite not having much in terms of big entertainment. It feels a bit talkative at times with its dialogue, but at least the words that are used aren't too wooden. Lund and Malone prove to be fairly useful leads, having a bit of chemistry with each other, although it isn't anything too special. The rest of the main group (Connors, Campbell, Haze and Birch) are not too bad, with their own little conflicts that aren't too shabby, although I can't say they really are much in terms of villainy, but I digress. The action is fairly decent stuff, having some gun action that works alright for the intent of the film. The look of the movie isn't too bad, either. At 78 minutes, the movie doesn't feel too long, so in that way it helps the movie feel a bit worthy for watch. There isn't anything that is great about the movie, but there also isn't anything that is terrible about the movie either. It falls in the middle in terms of quality, for better or for worse. It won't win any kind of honor, but it is a fairly okay film for people wanting to see something from Roger Corman, even if it is formula entertainment such as this.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.