Compulsion (1959).

Review #2052: Compulsion.

Cast: 

Orson Welles (Jonathan Wilk), Diane Varsi (Ruth Evans), Dean Stockwell (Judd Steiner), Bradford Dillman (Artie Strauss), E.G. Marshall (District Attorney Harold Horn), Martin Milner (Sid Brooks), Richard Anderson (Max Steiner), Robert F. Simon (Police Lt. Johnson), Edward Binns (Tom Daly), Robert Burton (Charles Straus), Wilton Graff (Mr. Steiner), and Louise Lorimer (Strauss's mother) Directed by Richard Fleischer (#453 - Soylent Green, #460 - Doctor Dolittle, #624 - Conan the Destroyer, #829 - Red Sonja, #870 - The Narrow Margin, and #881 - Fantastic Voyage)

Review: 

If you had a career that involved being awarded an Academy Award for your work as a director and included doing plenty of genres in multiple decades of film work, one would probably think that such a name would be fondly remembered for their work. But alas, it isn't always the case to give every director their due, as is the case with Richard Fleischer. Fleischer had directed a handful of films from his debut in 1946 for RKO Radio Pictures (along with the documentary Design for Death, which as producer earned him an Oscar in 1947), which resulted in a few noted releases such as The Narrow Margin (1952). But he shifted his focus to work with other studios as well, such The Happy Time (1952) being for Columbia or Disney with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). But with Violent Sunday (1955), the resulting success led to a contract to direct further with 20th Century Fox. With some exceptions, he would direct there for the next fifteen years, and one of his most noted films made there was Compulsion. It is an adaptation of the 1956 novel of the same name by Meyer Levin (who studied at the University of Chicago in the 1920s while also becoming a news reporter at the same time) that was inspired by the real-life events of what was called "the trial of the century" with the court case of Nathan Leopold Jr and Richard Loeb (two students at the University of Chicago) that saw them put on trial for murder after they tried to commit the "perfect crime" in the murder of Bobby Franks (with a chisel and gag), with one of them having been a firm believer in the concept introduced by Frederick Nietzsche in the "superman".  And yes, the first inkling in catching them involved finding a certain pair of glasses near the scene of the crime. Clarence Darrow, hired to defend the two, went for a criticism of capital punishment in terms of what kind of justice it was that resulted in Leopold and Loeb be sentenced to life in prison rather than death (he had them plead guilty to start, so that he could play this out to a judge rather than leave it to a jury). One year after his famed defense, Darrow would be asked to serve on the side of John T. Scopes for a trial involving evolution (deliberately staged for publicity), which would inspire its own play and film. Incidentally, the Leopold and Loeb case also inspired Rope, a 1929 play turned into a film in 1948 by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1958, the surviving Leopold (Loeb was killed in prison in 1936) was granted parole. A year later, he tried to sue the filmmakers on various counts that included "defamation" from the book that tried to block production of the film; incidentally, when he had written and published his own memoir in 1958, it only talked the aftermath of the crime with no childhood mentions or the crime itself; his response to Levin when asked about writing a book together was to ask if Levin would want to help write the memoir, which obviously Levin rejected (incidentally, the film doesn't show the actual killing portrayed on screen). The lawsuit went on for over a decade, for which I'm sure you can see how Leopold lost the lawsuit. 

The novel had been turned into a play that ran from 1957 to 1958 that had Dean Stockwell and Roddy McDowall star in the lead two roles. It is a devilishly good time in terms of the queasy murder-thriller that shows one thing above all else: give a rich person time and ideas and they could go crazy. Well, that isn't really the goal by Fleischer, because he really aims to make a solid gripping film with no rest for showing the wicked in all of their pathetic habits that would feel right at home for future films such as In Cold Blood (1967) when it comes to brutal turning-the-screws atmosphere. Of course, the fact that the film was done in CinemaScope probably helps in that regard, giving a scope to such a murky feeling where one is watching Dillman and Stockwell try to go along their way in the aftermath of such brutality to, well, no avail. Welles is given top billing because, well, who says no to Welles? Actually, he only appears after the first hour of a 103-minute film, and I'm sure you know that he will have at least ten minutes to employ a long monologue meant to evoke the actual Darrow and his defense at the trial, which if you did not know, was a closing argument that lasted twelve hours. Apparently, Welles was a grouch for the time he was on set because he wasn't asked to direct the film, which resulted in tantrums on set (the final speech needed a bit of cobbling together because he had to leave right afterwards). Regardless of all that, he does rein in a worthy performance fit for what the film requires as the knight of eloquence that does not overstate the matter at hand. It is about the nature of justice that matters rather than his obviously guilty clients. Of course, Dillman and Stockwell are no slouches when tasked to hold their part of the film, with the latter in particular being a tremendous presence. Stockwell has the challenge of presenting a killer with a varying level of brilliance (as one expects when basically playing Leopold, an intellectual and ornithologist) that is fascinating to view regardless of the amount of pity that can be driven from such a situation. Dillman maneuvers his way around with pronounced confidence that obviously believes in the acts of superior men getting to commit such wanton acts without remorse that makes for such a watchable pair of scoundrels. They make for quite the pair in terms of such deluded belief in superiority that they pretty much overshadow the others, although the recognizable nature of the faces (except for Varsi, who is mostly known for her Academy Award-nominated debut in Peyton Place that appeared in eleven total films) that includes the sharp timing of Marshall or the attempts at making the Milner-Varsi dynamic anything other than just a footnote (look I don't really think about them in a film that sounds more like a Columbo prototype, so...). At any rate, what matters most in such queasy drama is the conviction laid out by Fleischer and company to make the drama matter as much as possible when it comes to making a dark act of murder come out to such a useful piece of fascination. It ranks well among the films of Fleischer and his varying skills for whatever genre he was sent out to do that makes for a useful film to watch today, whether one has a compulsion for the classics or not.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Valley of the Dolls.

Review #1931: Valley of the Dolls.

Cast: 

Barbara Parkins (Anne Welles), Patty Duke (Neely O'Hara), Paul Burke (Lyon Burke), Sharon Tate (Jennifer North), Tony Scotti (Tony Polar), Lee Grant (Miriam Polar), Susan Hayward (Helen Lawson), Martin Milner (Mel Anderson), Charles Drake (Kevin Gillmore), Alexander Davion (Ted Casablanca), Richard Angarola (Claude Chardot), Naomi Stevens (Miss Steinberg), and Robert H. Harris (Henry Bellamy) Directed by Mark Robson (#1797 - Home of the Brave)

Review: 

In 1966, Jacqueline Susann saw her first novel published in Valley of the Dolls. She had aspired to become an actress at a young age in the 1930s, and she got to appear in a handful of stage shows and television, but likely her most known quality was in commercials, which she wrote, produced and starred in for a number of years; she also had a habit of downing amphetamines (calling them "dolls") around this time, which apparently started not long after her son was diagnosed with autism and put into an institution when he was 3. In 1962, at the age of 44, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She then made a pact with God to say that she would prove herself to be the best-selling writer in the world if she was given ten more years of life. Often called the first "brand-name" novelist, Susann became quite the show-woman in promoting books, and her first published work was Every Night, Josephine! in 1963 (inspired by letter she wrote to her pet dog). Valley of the Dolls, the work she is most famous for, came in 1966. Years after steamy novels like Peyton Place succeeded with readers (not with critics), Valley of the Dolls was a twenty-year odyssey in the lives of three young women who all happen to fall prey to drugs called "dolls" that featured other characters inspired by real-life stars such as Ethel Merman, Carole Landis, Judy Garland and Dean Martin. Fifty years after its release, the book has sold more than 31 million copies, and it inspired a film, a "continuation novel", two TV adaptations and a parody with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). A book into the process of making Valley of the Dolls called one of the most beloved bad book and movies of its time was written by Stephen Rebello in 2020. Robson was an interesting choice to direct. The Montreal native honed his craft as an editor before he became a director, directing 34 films from The Seventh Victim (1943) to Avalanche Express (1979), with a number of the films seeing him also serve as a producer. Harlan Ellison, Helen Deutsch, and Dorothy Kingsley were brought in to work on the script, although Ellison hated what they did to the book and requested his name taken off - imagine a book that already sees a character kill themselves and another go off the wagon ending on a breezy note. Two further adaptation of the five novels Susann wrote have followed: The Love Machine (1971) and Once Is Not Enough (1975). In 1974, after over a decade of a battle with cancer, Susann died in 1974 at the age of 56.

Just like the film adaptation of Peyton Place (released in 1957 with Robson as director) and Sex and the Single Girl, the book really is steamier than the film it came from, since the book featured elements of homosexuality in both men and women. Of course, the movie takes place in the current day rather than the book timeline from the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s. Jacqueline Susann saw the film on a cruise ship premiere, and she thought it was crap, although she kept that opinion to herself so to not give the movie an early thrashing...which came plenty (probably didn't help that the casting wasn't what she wanted, since she wanted people like Ursula Andress, Bette Davis, Shirley MacLaine and Elvis Presley for the lead roles). The movie and book ended up reflecting each other: audiences dug it while critics trashed it. The movie is an explosion of gloss and grooviness that looks like it was processed in the 1950s that makes a tale of sexual liberation and the entertainment industry seem quite amusing. Adultery, divorce, addiction and deviancy seem like something pulled from the silliest of moral stories.  It's no wonder why she didn't care for it: it's a movie that doesn't know what foot to put in front of the other and looks like a soap opera run amuck. Parkins is just the everyman character, firmly in the middle of weirdo things happening around them with the appeal of a broomstick stuck in a schmaltzy molasses. You might say a normal-ish person is the ideal among all the weirdness, but ordinary isn't always fun. Apparently, Duke wanted to do the film to help transition her into more adult roles, since her role was the most dynamic (she had won an Academy Award for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and she also had her own TV show). She even gets the opportunity to sing (dubbed by Gail Heideman). The funny thing is that the movie nearly walloped her career, although really, she does pretty well in the art of eating the screen. She eats the screen in all the ways one would hope. Tate is okay, at least because Burke and Scotti are blander. Judy Garland was originally cast in the role later played by Susan Heyward, and promotions were done with that in mind, and she would get to sing a song, which was pre-recorded. After a week, she suffered from her dependence on alcohol and Demerol that saw her get fired from 20th Century Fox. Apparently, on the final day, Robson made her wait until 4pm to film her scenes after making her wait since 8am, in the belief that she would be upset and drunk at the time (so yes, if you believe the account from Duke about Robson, the latter sounds like an asshole). Heyward, an Academy Award winner, is decent in terms of vaunted confidence without particularly having much to really do besides one scene of Duke fighting her over who has the fake appendage on and how to go on. Grant seems to be shuffling through as if the paycheck is just tempting enough to go on. Eh, the movie is as it is: silly but mostly watchable, if one accommodates it being more for the experience rather than a full collection of interesting people. Sure, people think it may be a camp classic with its stylistic kitsch or maybe a revealing look into the struggles of women, but in the end, it all boils down to an absurd and amusing affair that can be thought of as a fantasy for whoever is watching: the gossip-obsessed people desiring a pop event, or people looking for a silly crappy movie to watch (or maybe gay people that look to reclaim the film as a camp classic, but I will let you decide that, since I'm not here for that). In that sense, 55 years has given Valley of the Dolls is overwhelming in the best and worst ways that could only come from a certain time and certain perspective. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Well, we have reached the ninth and final film of Turkey Week. I really wanted to scrap the bottom of the barrel in terms of movies fitting for the label of "turkey" for Turkey Week. Since the first two Turkey Weeks had eight reviews, I wanted to try and include at least one more movie than what I did before, and I can say that there were a few candidates that missed the cut that may be considered for next year

The Scarlet Letter (1995), Turks in Space, Sidekicks, Verotika, An American Hippie in Israel, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and The Conqueror

Any and all suggestions are welcome for next year.

Life with Father.

Review #1370: Life with Father.

Cast: 
William Powell (Clarence Day Sr), Irene Dunne (Vinnie Day), Elizabeth Taylor (Mary Skinner), Edmund Gwenn (Rev. Dr. Lloyd), ZaSu Pitts (Cousin Cora Cartwright), Jimmy Lydon (Clarence Day Jr), Emma Dunn (Margaret the Cook), Moroni Olsen (Dr. Humphries), Elizabeth Risdon (Mrs. Whitehead), and Martin Milner (John Day) Directed by Michael Curtiz (#125 - Casablanca, #416 - Yankee Doodle Dandy, #505 - The Adventures of Robin Hood, #529 - Mildred Pierce, and #719 - Mystery of the Wax Museum)

Review:
"I put all the art into my pictures that I think the audience can stand."

What better way to accompany the 1940s than a family picture based on established material of the time? The film was based on the 1935 autobiographical book of the same name by Clarence Day, Jr, who had based it on episodes of humor in his family life, specifically his father in the 1890s. He died of pneumonia that year, but a follow-up book called Life with Mother was published posthumously in 1937. Two years later, the books were adapted into a play called Life with Father by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, which ran for 3,224 performances in nearly eight years, and it still ranks as the longest running non-musical play on Broadway. The film was adapted to the screen by Donald Ogden Stewart (who you might recognize for his work on films such as Love Affair and The Philadelphia Story). It should prove no surprise that the film came from prolific director Michael Curtiz (who was 38 when he left Hungary for Hollywood, who could do a variety of genres through his own kind of visual style involving camera movement and lighting that combined with his intense style of activity (such as skipping lunch), with his friends nicknaming him "Iron Mike" for his fitness; in his 49-year career, he directed a total of 166 films before his death in 1962. 

It is evident from the roughly $4.7 million budget that Warner Brothers wanted to make a big achievement in making this book-turned-play-turned film an engaging one that draws on the humor that its brash patriarch inspires, with varying results. I can't necessarily say that this is a great comedy, since it does tend to veer on the edge of being dated, but there is a decent cast and useful production value that makes it a fair curiosity. Powell commands the film with fairly amusing results, drawing a few laughs in his attempts in family humor with his type of bluster that seems somewhat relevant for a family comedy. Dunne (in a role that she found rattlebrained that took coaxing to do from Curtiz) accompanies him with her own kind of charm, matching in dignity through fair chemistry with Powell. Taylor, who had risen to teen star earlier in the decade with National Velvet (1944), does well with grace whenever on screen, having the most presence among the teenagers and children despite having scattered focus. Gwenn contributes with warmth and dignity that is to be expected from him.  The film treads okay at 118 minutes, showcasing a 3-strip Technicolor tale of a comedy of manners that inspires chuckles more than yawns, even if it is entirely predictable (regardless of what era it was made in, I suppose). Life with Father is an average film with prominent talent and a prominent place because of its public domain status that makes it a decent gem worth looking for its look at a quirky family and the situations that come with them.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

13 Ghosts (1960).

Review #1071: 13 Ghosts.

Cast: 
Charles Herbert (Arthur "Buck" Zorba), Jo Morrow (Medea Zorba), Rosemary DeCamp (Hilda Zorba), Martin Milner (Benjamin Rush), Donald Woods (Cyrus Zorba), Margaret Hamilton (Elaine Zacharias), John van Dreelen (Van Allen), William Castle (Himself), David Hoffman (Messenger), and Roy Jenson (Dr. Plato Zorba's ghost) Directed by William Castle (#369 - House on Haunted Hill)

Review: 
Oh my, look what today is. So why not do a film with "13" in it? Also, I figured that it was time to do a William Castle film again, seeing how it was in April of 2013 that I last reviewed one of his films. Enjoy Friday the 13th, and if you miss out it won't be too bad since the next one is in July. 

What is there to say about a haunted house horror film? Quite a bit, actually. This is the kind of movie that tries to have fun with its premise with a few frights and a charming nature that permeates throughout its 84 minute run-time. Who can give this movie criticism for wanting to showcase a tight story and a few thrills that doesn't lie about its intent? One of my favorite lines in the film happens nearly an hour in: "I met a lion". Said line is stated by Herbert, who provides a fairly sincere performance for a twelve year old, being fairly adept in his environment that never cloys over the others. The rest of the cast prove to be fairly decent, never overplaying their hand nor going too much toward ridiculousness, with DeCamp and Woods being fairly useful parents for the film. Milner does fine, never too assuming or obvious in his role. Hamilton is also pretty fine to watch, having a strange aura around her that is watchable without being overt. On the whole, the movie is never boring, mostly because the cast plays along with the plot without being tongue-in-cheek or too serious, having a fine line of energy to it. The movie doesn't have too much of a great plot, but it manages to have a few twists and moves that actually seem riveting.

This was Castle's fourth film (with the others being Macabre (1958), House on Haunted Hill (1959), and The Tingler (1959)) to utilize a gimmick to promote the movie, with this gimmick being dubbed "Illusion-O". As stated by Castle himself in the beginning, whenever there were scenes involving ghosts, the viewer had a choice (through a cardboard square with blue and red tint celluloid) to see the ghosts, since the footage for the ghosts was shot so that the viewer would see them if they saw through the red lens, while the blue would result in not seeing the ghosts. It takes roughly a third of the film for the first ghost to appear, and it's certainly an interesting gimmick - sure you can see the ghosts even without the glasses, but it doesn't detract too much from what is an interesting idea to see play out. It may not be very scary, but it at least is somewhat interesting to watch play out. This is a movie with vast showmanship, never betraying its principles of entertainment for a cheap force-out, having a fine time with its thrills (and gimmick) that will certainly prove satisfactory for most.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Sweet Smell of Success.

Review #897: Sweet Smell of Success.

Cast: 
Burt Lancaster (J. J. Hunsecker), Tony Curtis (Sidney Falco), Susan Harrison (Susan Hunsecker), Martin Milner (Steve Dallas), Sam Levene (Frank D'Angelo), Barbara Nichols (Rita), Jeff Donnell (Sally), Joe Frisco (Herbie Temple), and Emile Meyer (Lt. Harry Kello) Directed by Alexander Mackendrick (#567 - The Ladykillers)

Review:
This is the kind of movie (often put under the category of film noir) that lures you and never seems to let go of your interest, even with character such as these and dialogue spoken in ways that are still as sharp as they were nearly 60 years after its release. Lancaster and Curtis are the perfect pair of leads that will make you recoil at their actions and how they convey them with the right sinister touch, where it's hard to tell who is more villainous and who is more pathetic. The way that the movie is shot is also another positive, where the lighting (particularly on Lancaster) really give the movie a certain feel that mike make one a bit squeamish, and for good reason. Harrison doesn't get much to do, but she certainly does a fine job at portraying a pawn in a movie all about schemes. Milner is also pretty decent at playing such a headstrong character that contrasts well enough with the rest of the characters. The supporting cast is also pretty good in making the atmosphere even more seedy. There is certainly a good degree of wit and pacing where you can be uncomfortable with the implications (read: actions) brought by the movie and still find the movie an achievement in film-making, with a good run time at 96 minutes as well. Mackendrick certainly manages to make a movie (based off a novelette by Ernest Lehman with the film written by Clifford Odets) worth watching, thick in its own layers of darkness within its cleverness. It's not a movie for anyone, but it is a movie worth watching, in part because of how well crafted it is, from the production values to the cast.

Countdown to #900: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.