Strait-Jacket.

Review #2301: Strait-Jacket.

Cast: 

Joan Crawford (Lucy Harbin), Diane Baker (Carol Cutler), Leif Erickson (Bill Cutler), Howard St. John (Raymond Fields), John Anthony Hayes (Michael Fields), Rochelle Hudson (Emily Cutler), George Kennedy (Leo Krause), Edith Atwater (Mrs. Allison Fields), and Mitchell Cox (Dr. Anderson) Produced and Directed by William Castle (#369 - House on Haunted Hill (1959), #1071 - 13 Ghosts, #1418 - The Night Walker, #1703 - Undertow, #2261 - Macabre, #2300 - Homicidal)

Review: 

Sure, William Castle got to reap the benefits of making a movie that seemed a bit familiar to Psycho (1960), which you might remember was a loose adaptation of the famed Robert Bloch novel. Bloch had just finished his first screenplays with 1962's The Couch (where he worked off a story that had been devised by Blake Edwards and Owen Crump) and The Cabinet of Caligari (which had its own litany of troubles). So anyway, here is a movie written by Bloch directed by Castle. Oh, but this one has a gimmick far more noted than buzzers and skeletons: it has the same star from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) in established stars dipping in suspense: Joan Crawford (cast after Joan Blondell, star of, well, not Baby Jane, dropped out somehow). Crawford, if you remember correctly, had a hell of a time with her final decade in filmmaking, which resulted in a good deal of horror movies that come with casting old familiar names, which saw her career close out in film with I Saw What You Did (1965, re-uniting with Castle), Berserk! (1967), and, well, Trog (1970). Crawford had enough influence to make sure that Anne Helm (apparently nervous being cast opposite Crawford) was quickly replaced with Baker before rewarding the production with commitment in promoting the film (this went with a plastic ax giveaway of course). As for Bloch and Castle, the two worked together once again in The Night Walker, which came out the same year involving a different accomplished actress in the main role (Barbara Stanwyck) in his first film away not distributed by Columbia Pictures after five years (his last seven films were either distributed by Universal or Paramount); Bloch would soon work in collaboration with Amicus Productions on a regular basis, most notably doing six film scripts from 1965 to 1972.

The body-count is five, although two come for the prologue that just gives you a quick rundown of one person's solution to adultery way back when: the ax. How could I resist? Sure, Crawford may have been stuck playing for scripts that weren't exactly Mildred Pierce, but there is never a moment where you find her looking like it is beneath her talent to give commitment (and yes that includes the scene where they give her a wig to make her look years younger, but would you really think Crawford was in her late fifties with this?). Audiences did flock to the film despite such devastating critiques that called the movie "inexcusable for its scenes of violence" (seriously, did people just watch horror movies with blinders back then). It's very amusing to see a movie past and future Academy Award winners (Crawford and Kennedy, respectively) mixed in with a PR vice president for Pepsi in Cox (Crawford was a board member, incidentally) for a movie that goofs around with axe-murdering (Homicidal had a stabbing early, this one has fake heads chopped off with a sound effect that would be fun to guess about). Crawford is enjoyably on point for a film that relies on commitment to really make it work in vulnerability among a returning member of society and in family. She never looks foolish or makes one think they are wasting their time in seeing her play horror, and Baker clearly is game to match with her in reasoned timing that goes along with the rest of the seasoned cast. I like the bubbling tension in just what is going on in what you expect for a movie about nuts and axs and what you end up with in passive sadness in adjustment, albeit one that is undoubtedly a Castle film through and through (hokey is not a mean word when you like it). Strangely enough, the one thing that bugs me about the film is the exact last scene of it all, because it really doesn't need a tight-winded explanation of what you saw (hey, let it play out), it could've just ended right as that twist crashes into you; apparently, it was Crawford who "suggested" that scene be in the film to end it all. As a whole, I think it actually is a neat film, managing to get a worthwhile performance from Crawford in gnashing the screen that makes for a capable Castle experience.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Special Announcement: For the second straight year, you get to enjoy a Halloween Triple-Threat Spectacular: The Cabin in the Woods goes first.

One, Two, Three.

Review #2235: One, Two, Three.

Cast: 

James Cagney (C.R. "Mac" MacNamara), Horst Buchholz (Otto Ludwig Piffl), Pamela Tiffin (Scarlett Hazeltine), Arlene Francis (Phyllis MacNamara), Liselotte Pulver (Fräulein Ingeborg), Hanns Lothar (Schlemmer), Howard St. John (Wendell P. Hazeltine), Leon Askin (Peripetchikoff), Ralf Wolter (Borodenko), Peter Capell (Mishkin), Karl Lieffen (Fritz), and Hubert von Meyerinck (Count Waldemar von Droste-Schattenburg; Sig Ruman as English voice) Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder (#106 - Some Like It Hot, #194 - Ace in the Hole, #422 - The Fortune Cookie, #641 - The Apartment, #809 - Sunset Boulevard, #1384 - Stalag 17, #1390 - The Seven Year Itch, #1825 - Double Indemnity) 

Review: 

"We knew that we were going to have a comedy, we [were] not going to be waiting for the laughs. But we had to go with Cagney, because Cagney was the whole picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny. But just the speed was funny...The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world...And yeah, we did not wait, for once, for the big laughs. We went through the big laughs. A lot of lines that needed a springboard, and we just went right through the springboard...We just did it, nine pages at a time, and he never fumbled, he never made a mistake."

This was the 18th feature film to be directed by Billy Wilder, who had been quite busy as a filmmaker by this point in time of his career. He wrote the screenplay for this film with I. A. L. Diamond for yet another collaboration with each other as the two worked together mostly uninterrupted from Love in the Afternoon (1957) to Buddy Buddy (1981); inspirations for this film (read: borrowed) was the Ferenc Molnár's 1929 play Egy, kettő, három but also Ninotchka (1939), which had been co-written by Wilder. As such, he picked James Cagney to be the star, despite queries about the fast-paced intent. This would be the penultimate performance for Cagney, who went from liking the idea of doing a film in West Berlin to being annoyed at the experience of filmmaking with having to go with such a high pace of speaking along with not enjoying the presence of Buchholz in terms of scene-stealing. If one sees the sequence involving clothes and wondering about a morning coat and "striped pants", keep in mind that it apparently took over fifty takes to get that sequence exactly to Wilder's liking (the result was that Cagney would not appear in a film for two decades). The film was released four months after construction of the Berlin Wall started (which is why the film came out with a preface mentioning August 13, 1961 and that the people one would be dealing with here are "real shifty") and generated a muted response, although a few decades later, it found an appreciation in West Berlin. Wilder and Diamond would stay busy regardless, working together three more times in the decade with Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), and The Fortune Cookie (1966).

Well, it is a fairly well-rounded production, this much is for sure. Seeing the film with the best available view (i.e. paying attention to its widescreen) will at least make one appreciate the effort taken to place these characters in as wide a space as possible to display such madcap-type of dialogue. It never really reaches a place of greatness, but it isn't hard to at least defend the movie as a silly time involving the satire of go-getters on one side of Berlin and, well, the folks in the East. It is probably one of the more obvious "hit or miss" kind of comedies, where you are either with it or find it to be a lead-footed film. Cagney may not have had the most enjoyable experience with filming, but he sure does dominate the film with a tremendous amount of commitment that anchors the film in ways that would've been lost with a lesser actor. He runs with the film and never loses a step while being quite funny in having to shift gears from enterprising razzle-dazzle to screwball razzmatazz with the right cadence to lift it all rightfully. Suffice to say though, he was probably a bit correct about Buchholz, because he is merely adequate when compared to the rest of the cast in terms of timing beyond just that edge of bluster that is only slightly funny, particularly when compared to Tiffin, who is far more interesting with her hearty timing. Francis matches well with Cagney in those screwy moments together (such as referring to her husband as "mein führer" multiple times). The rest deliver a few chuckles in parts, such as Lothar having to dodge the ramifications that arise from being asked to borrow a dress in public or a few mishaps spent with a trio of communists. The 104-minute runtime is about on par with what one might see from a really fast film with a few hijinks that may be around the speed of His Girl Friday (1940) but the end result is merely just a selection of chuckles rather than hearty laughs to go with appreciation for its look. It doesn't wear out its welcome by the end, but one can see where it may have been just a bit out of its time when it comes to the final result that is sometimes silly, sometimes overwhelming and yet one that is curious enough to seek out for those big on Wilder beyond the obvious choices.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars. 

The Men.

Review #1377: The Men.

Cast: 
Marlon Brando (Ken Wilocek), Teresa Wright (Ellen), Everett Sloane (Dr. Brock), Jack Webb (Norm), Richard Erdman (Leo), Arthur Jurado (Angel), Virginia Farmer (Nurse Robbins), Dorothy Tree (Ellen's Mother), and Howard St. John (Ellen's Father) Directed by Fred Zinnemann.

Review: 
"If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It's the ultimate hustle."

We all have our own challenges to face in life. If one rises to the occasion with courage or dedication, they may find themselves with success or at the very least something to be proud of. In the case of Marlon Brando, it was opportunity that fell onto him, as he had a knack for mimicking since he was a youth. He eventually set out to study acting, the one thing he enjoyed and felt accepted with. He credited the teachings of Stella Adler and Elia Kazan in acting, more specifically the Stanislavski system, where one is encouraged to look into what makes the character they are playing inside and out with realism. He found himself on Broadway in 1944, but his big break came with Kazan's direction of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) as Stanley Kowalski. He would later reprise the role for the film adaptation four years later, but his debut film came in this feature, where he accustomed himself to the role by remaining in a wheelchair on and off the set for filming. One should not be surprised to find Fred Zinnemann behind the director's chair for a film with stark realism that certainly seemed to take risks outside of the usual fare for dramas. He had grown up with ambitions of music before graduating with a law degree in his time in his native Austria, but he found himself interested in film and how they were produced, which is where he became a cameraman. One of his first films he worked on was People on Sunday (1930), but he soon moved to America, working a variety of film jobs such an extra or with Robert Flaherty, and his debut film came with Redes (The Wave) in 1936, a documentary-turned-drama about the plights of a small fishing community in Mexico. He eventually found films with darker reach such as The Seventh Cross (1944), which featured German refugees in some of the roles, and The Search (1948), which depicted the attempts at reuniting families separated by World War II. In a career that spanned over five decades, Zinnemann would make over 20 films, with two of them winning Best Picture (From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons), while Zinnemann won a total of four Academy Awards (two for short subjects, two for directing).

One can always applaud the efforts to make a compelling social drama that strives for honesty, whether it involves adjustment back to society or adjusting romances, which both applies to this film, with paraplegic veterans trying to adjust back to society. The film was written by Carl Foreman, who had previously collaborated with producer Stanley Kramer with films such as Champion (1949). The film utilizes actual patients from the Birmingham General Hospital (located in the town of Van Nuys, California that closed down in 1950), which Brando lived for a month to study people there. He proves himself with a worthy debut, one that is tragic and absorbing, whenever dealing with his condition or with the world at large while having to act in either a bed or in a chair, which works to an actor like Brando. Wright makes for a fine show of professionalism and patience, reflected in the careful chemistry demonstrated with Brando that makes for a few quiet highlights. Sloane shines in a resounding patient role, while Webb (noted for creating and starring on Dragnet, which started on radio the previous year) shines with a mix of cynicism and humor, such as when he recites lines from Shakespeare. In any case, the film runs at a fair pace with 87 minutes, reaching most of the points it wants to make without seeming like an overreach when it comes to its message or seeming outdated. It is a film that approaches its subject with a sense of honesty and sensitivity, highlighted by a dynamic debut from a transcendent actor like Brando and capable directing from a maverick like Zinnemann to make a little gem of a film count now.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.