Summer re-runs: Its Always Fair Weather, 1955

Its that time of the year again, when we dig out old favourites for another enjoyable view. 1955's ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER is a film I love, I first saw it at a Sunday matinee when a kid in Ireland, and it has stayed with me. It seems curiously under-cherished in the pantheon of great musicals, being over-shadowed by Gene Kelly's bigger hits. BRIGADOON in 1954 is a bit dismal apart from a few great moments, but this, Gene's next one in 1955, with co-director Stanley Donen ticks all the boxes for me. 

It was originally intended as a sequel to 1949's ON THE TOWN, but that was jettisoned when Sinatra (who was on a roll then and didn't need to be second banana to Gene any more) declined, so Kelly and Donen decided to make it a dance-oriented musical and hired Dan Dailey and choreographer Michael Kidd to substitute for Frank and Frank Munshin. Made during a period of austerity at MGM, it obviously lacks the gloss of some other musicals but that works in its favour for the gritty story of street life in New York as the 3 returning sailors meet up again after 10 years and find they have nothing in common as it satirises the world of advertising and manipulative television shows - enter Madeline with her "Throb of Manhattan" sobfest. The dance routines are witty and energetic - Kelly on rollerskates, and the dustbin lids number - Gene had perfected his amiable heel routine, Dailey (fresh from THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS) is great as the advertising man, Cyd Charisse has some great moments too, particularly that dance routine in the gym (as Pauline Kael said: "Cyd Charisse is benumbed until she unhinges those legs") and stealing the show is the great Dolores Gray as Madeline. That number "Thanks A Lot But No Thanks" is a knockout, as is that dress, and I love that line "I've got a man who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined"! Jay C. Flippen is ideal too as the gangster who wants Gene's protege to lose the fight, thus causing mayhem in the studio as Madeline's saccharine show about the three G.I.'s reunion goes wrong. 

Kelly and Donen though found they could no longer work together, so this was their last movie in tandem, The CinemaScope format is perfectly used here, and Andre Previn's score is perhaps his best ever. It is all a mordantly funny, witty investigation of friendship as the three wartime buddies find their relationship has not survived the peace. It is surely one of Hollywood's most personal works dressed up as a witty musical. More on it at labels.  Here is what I wrote back in 2011:

It is the perfect mid-century story of 3 wartime buddies meeting up 10 years later in 1955 and realising that they don't like each other much now, and indeed Kelly and Dailey don't much like themselves either. Gene is mixing with hoods and managing a dumb boxer, while Dan Dailey has risen to "Executive Vice-President" level in advertising and is sick of the advertising game as he lets rip in his terrific solo number "Advertising-wise". Cyd Charisse is the television researcher who stumbles across them and realises their reunion is ideal for her television show "Midnight with Madeline" for "The Throb of Manhattan" spot where saccharine stories are featured. This is the early days of live television and the movie is a splendid satire on those artificial tv hostesses like Madeline and her diva tantrums. Cyd gets the hoods to confess on live air, Madeline has a hit show, the 3 buddies realise they are still friends after all. It's a perfect conclusion as Cyd joins Gene and the the guys back at the bar where they vowed to meet up 10 years previously.

Cyd and Gene sparkle as they spar with each other, and Dolores steals the show. What's not to love? It is a dark, sometimes bitter take on ON THE TOWN a decade later as the 3 buddies meet again -  Produced of course by Arthur Freed, with songs by Andre Previn, script by Comden and Green; perfect entertainment. The DVD includes a fascinating 'Making-Of' chronicling the fallout between Kelly and Donen, and several out-takes including a terrific inventive (that word again) deleted number between Kelly and Charisse "Love is Nothing But a Racket" which has been unseen for far too long, and Michael Kidd's solo spot with some kids, but Gene did not want that included, after his number with kids in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS! Essential stuff then.

I met Gene at a recording of a Parkinson interview for the BBC in 1975 - Donen of course went on to direct several of my enduing favourites: those Audrey Hepburn films like TWO FOR THE ROAD and CHARADE, Kendall in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, Peck and Sophia ideal in ARABESQUE, and the marvellous BEDAZZLED with Pete and Dud and Eleanor Bron in 1967. We won't mention STAIRCASE or LUCKY LADY!  Gene of course after this went on to do another favourite of mine: Cukor's LES GIRLS in 1957 - as per label. 

Something for the weekend: the mystery of Cyd's skirt

Here's a mystery: Cyd Charisse is clearly wearing a skirt with a pleat at the start of this lovely number with Fred in the 1957 SILK STOCKINGS. But if you look closely during the number it turns into a pair of culottes, presumably to aid the high kicks - but did they think nobody would notice? Maybe they didn't. Cleverly edited though ...

It becomes fairly obvious during the "Fated to be Mated" duet between Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse that Charisse is wearing a skirt one moment and culottes (or flared shorts) the next. The bottom half of her costume changes on each cut of the dance when they are doing deep knee bends, and this is where the culottes show. For the upright spins and lifts, the skirt shows. The dance was obviously performed twice and edited into one sequence.

Marilyn by Lee & and that 1962 film that wasn't ...

Marilyn Monroe would be 90 this year. Yes, I know, its impossible to imagine her - or James Dean - being "old" now - they are forever young, preserved in amber in that Golden Age: the 1950s and early '60 for Marilyn. Would she have aged like her once room-mate Shelley Winters? Would he have aged like Brando ? 

What is astonishing now is looking once again at those test shots for the uncompleted 1962 Fox film SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE where she looks simply radiant and totally gorgeous - a new sleek. slim, svelte slimmed-down Marilyn for the new decade, a few months before that still mysterious death - compare with how chubby (by today's standards) she looked in the second half of the 1950s: in that skintight white dress she spends most of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in, those Orry-Kelly (see below) creations in SOME LIKE IT HOT, how her looks and weight varied in LET'S MAKE LOVE in 1960, or in THE MISFITS in '61 ... I like this pensive shot of her on set in that dress in 1962.

Here also is what remains of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, mainly Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse, and that pool scene which Marilyn did, her intention was to get Liz Taylor (shooting the wildly expensive CLEOPATRA in Rome) off the covers of the world's magazines - 
she certainly succeeded there. We still find those pictures and footage fascinating. Liz of course was getting a million from Fox while Monroe was still on her contract salary and this would be her final Fox comedy - it looks as if it would have been more fun than her last one, the rather dull and tedious LET'S MAKE LOVE ...  I somehow never wanted to see MOVE OVER DARLING, Fox's reworking of the material for Doris Day in 1963 ...

Right: MM and Curtis on the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT ....

Here too is that 1987 documentary hosted by our Projector favourite Lee Remick  (four years before her own death in 1991....) - maybe the best of the Monroe documentaries - fascinating seeing one star commenting on another and of course Lee, back in 1962, had been named as replacing Marilyn in the Cukor film - which it seems was a bargaining ploy to get Marilyn back - it was the only film Fox had in production apart from the ruinously expensive CLEO .... I have the video-cassette of the Monroe/Remick documentary, shame its not on dvd. 
Left: that Nov1962 issue of British TOWN magazine with some of those last photos of Marilyn on the beach at Malibu, shot by George Barris - more on these at MM labels. We love those photos here ...I had this magazine when I was 16, it now fetches astronomical prices on the internet, I have seen it on eBay for £100, or £299 on a vintage magazine site - luckily I snapped up another copy of it last year for £40 ! 

Cyd is a party girl .... Sterling is Johnny Guitar

Deliriously camp trailer for a favourite meller, 1958's PARTY GIRL from MGM, with Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse (who gets to dance too) as the party girl in thrall to hoods led by Lee J. Cobb and John Ireland. What lifts this above the average is that is a Nicholas Ray movie with great imagery - a noir in lurid colour. When I first saw it as a kid that scene where Cobb threatens Cyd with the bottle of acid, which he pours over the christmas decorations and we see them melt was terrific - of course in the shootout the acid goes over his own face .... 
PLUS - the trailer for Ray's 1954 classic JOHNNY GUITAR - with all its highlights here. This, as per other posts was the first film I ever saw aged 8 - I was agog - what an introduction to the vivid world of cinema! 

Sunday treats

What a busy day - "The Sunday Times" has "100 Soundtracks to Love" - fascinating, but does not include my favourite five: BLOW-UP, UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, AMERICAN GIGOLO, CLEOPATRA or THE LION IN WINTER  (Kate Hepburn, below).... 

The Times also has a hilariously awful interview with Aretha Franklin (to plug her new album, see Aretha label) where it is obvious Aretha does want to to be there or do the interview .... this is compulsive stuff for Aretha fans here in England, as we do not get enough of her over here now.

Then there was that equally fascinating interview with Maggie Smith yesterday, as per post below, and now that Sophia Loren's book is out, there are some - yes, that word again - fascinating reviews plus a new interview she granted in Geneva to Chrissy Iley of The Sunday Telegraph .... 

Then we looked at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT 3, recorded from yesterday, with some choice moments like Dolores Gray doing our favourite from IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER: "Thanks a lot, but no thanks" (where she has a man "who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined") - and the juxtaposition of Joan Crawford in that lurid outfit and "tropical makeup" miming to India Adams' vocal for "Two Faced Woman" in TORCH SONG - which Cyd Charisse (those legs!) had also done for THE BANDWAGON, but that number was cut from the film. Both were in 1953 - at least Joan got to immortalise it, but Cyd's is nifty too. See them both here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LMUJtcID5c

Falling for Fred & Ginger again ...

It was fun discovering those Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals back in the Sixties, when I was a young movie buff. Back then one either saw them if on television or we trekked along to the National Film Theatre or other revival house if they were doing a season on Fred & Ginger, like they would do on Garbo so a new generation saw them for the first time. The BFI even ran an all-night Fred & Ginger marathon which some pals and I went to (as we did to their Mae West and Marilyn all-nighters)! Now of course, these musicals are always with us on disk and tape and constant revivals, like now as our BBC screen them once again. 

My favourite has to be THE GAY DIVORCEE which I have been watching a lot this last week. particularly that "Night and Day" and "The Continental" sequences, which repay endless replays. TOP HAT is terrific too and as for that "Pick Yourself Up" number from SWING TIME (with Eric Blore) - I can simply watch it on a loop. "I Won't Dance" is from ROBERTA, 1935. The great thing watching these numbers is they are shot full frame so we see their whole bodies dancing, and with no cuts - unlike modern musicals (CHICAGO) where it is all done in the editing ...

SILK STOCKINGS from 1957 was a treat again too ... Fred and Cyd - just as good as Fred and Ginger - not only here but also THE BANDWAGON. Bring them on ...and here's that skirt Cyd wears that turns into culottes - very odd! 

Paris in 1957 ... magic time.

Rome in the early '60s - the LA DOLCE VITA era; London in the mid-'60s - it swung; New York in the '70s - tough and gritty .... the zeitgeist always moves on and comes full circle again ..... it was Paris in the 1890s, that Fin de Siecle era, and in that jazz age the 1920s with Hemingway and Fitzgerland and the 'Lost Generation', but in the late '50s Paris was also, it seems, the place to be. Hollywood studios must have been falling over each other there (like they were in Rome in 1962).

Fred and Audrey were doing FUNNY FACE .... with Donen creating a magical Paris, not least with Audrey being photographed Avedon-style, in all those locations ...

Fred and Cyd heading up SILK STOCKINGS .... I wonder how much of this was actually filmed in Gay Paree ?

Gene Kelly, often in Paris - got in the act with his dance troupe LES GIRLS - but this was actually filmed at MGM - Kay Kendall's only film actually made in Hollywood, but George Cukor and Heuningen Heune gave it the required French look, and with Orry Kelly's clothes, the girls were perfect. I simply love their French apartment, which seems to be on several levels ... 

Otto too had Jean Seberg driving around Paris in those moody black and white scenes in his seminal BONJOUR TRISTESSE - more Sagan - or dancing while - who else? - Juliette Greco intoned that theme song ...before Godard teamed her with Belmondo in some other French classic ...

1958 saw Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh in Paris in their comedy THE PERFECT FURLOUGH, an early Blake Edwards film. Later in 1961 Tony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman (right) were driving around Paris in Sagan's GOODBYE AGAIN - review at Bergman label - while Tony teamed again in Paris with Sophia for 1962's FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT. Hollywood was also in town for Ritt's PARIS BLUES with jazz musicians Newman and Poitier. By then the Nouvelle Vague was in full swing after Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD in 1958, and Truffaut's 400 BLOWS, Chabrol's LES COUSINS, Mocky's LES DRAGUEURS, another Paris-by-night opus, all 1959 ...

1962 saw Truffaut's JULES ET JIM in Paris, where Agnes Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, wandered around, waiting for her medical test results ... Audrey Hepburn of course practically lived in Paris with so many of hers set there ... 1957 also saw LOVERS OF MONTPARNASSE (left) about the painter Modigliani practically starving in a garret, with those quintessential Parisians Gerard Philipe and  Anouk Aimee,

Brigitte charmed us too as UNE PARISIENNE in 1957, with Henri Vidal, who was also (his last film) in her COME DANCE WITH ME (VOULEZ VOUS DANSER AVEC MOI?) in 1959 ...  more on all these at French label.

Next location: Australia and the Outback !!!

Heatwave movies: Maroc 7

I first reviewed this in 2010, but it deserves another look, as a great summer movie!

MAROC 7 is a riot of colour, girls, guns - a delicious crime caper from 1966 that plays like a UK version of those Dean Martin Matt Helm films such as THE SILENCERS. Here it is Gene Barry as the suave agent infiltrating a fashion shoot in Morocco - that endlessly fascinating mysterious exotic location (also well used in the caper DUFFY in '68, also reviewed here).

MAROC 7 was made about the same time as Antonioni's BLOW-UP and also features a photographer and lots of model girls - here though Leslie Philips (who also produces) is the snapper with crime on his mind, but its the girls who are the main interest. Cyd Charisse (for it is she) is the fashion editor using her magazine shoots to cover her criminal activities, top model girl is the stunning Elsa Martinelli (as nice here as for instance as her Dallas in Hawks' HATARI!) and that very intriguing Canadian actress Alexandra Stewart who had a career in European films (LE FEU FOLLET, DAY FOR NIGHT, ONLY WHEN I LARF with Hemmings, and Penn's MICKEY ONE with Beatty) and is still working now. She plays police inspector Denholm Elliot's assistant. Cyd and Leslie are ruthless in their ambitions, disposing of one of the girls who knows too much and the professor who won't reveal the whereabouts of a priceless medallion. The plot involves secret maps, robbing tombs and multiple double crosses, after a nice start with Evans breaking into Charisse’s house and stealing jewels while she returns and takes a shower. Then there is one of those ‘60s parties …… and then its off to Morocco with all those girls and those '60s outfits!

Above: girls on location.

It is all deliriously put together by director Gerry O'Hara, that '60s movie-maker of low budget independent glamour films (his THE PLEASURE GIRLS (1965 label) is an interesting minor film about girls in Swinging London) and he also helmed episodes of THE AVENGERS and, er, THE BITCH! This one kind of looks cheap but that suits it perfectly. It is great to see the mature Charisse, she is ideally cast here, her looks and voice are still sensational. I simply cannot wait to see it again .....it's a cult movie to match DANGER DIABOLIK!

Above: Elsa Martinelli, below: Alexandra Stewart and with David Hemmings in ONLY WHEN I LARF.

Rome, 1962: 2 weeks in another town

TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN: Former film star Jack Andreus is released from a sanitarium where he has lived for the previous three years, suffering from alcoholism, a traumatic automobile accident, and a severe mental breakdown. He's been offered two weeks of dubbing work in Rome by Maurice Kruger, his old director, who himself is near the end of his fading career and under pressure from his parsimonious Italain producer to finish his picture on time and under budget. Jack is also pressed from a manipulative ex-wife, a rising but self-destructive young star, the director's shrewish wife, and a temperamental Italian diva who requires handling with kid gloves. When the Kruger suffers a heart attack, Andrus views the opportunity as a last chance at the redemption of his personal life and professional career.

Nice to have another look at Vincente Minnelli's 1962 glittering lavish drama set among the La Dolce Vita set in Rome - at the highlight of that era. Kirk Douglas, back with Minnelli after THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (we see clips from it here) and LUST FOR LIFE, delivers another intense performance as the alcoholic actor seizing his last chance for redemption when he takes over the film Edward G Robinson is working on, dealing with the insecure actor (George Hamilton, from that time when he was an interesting young actor), the diva actress whose lines have to be dubbed (Schiaffino), Carlotta his devious ex-wife - Charisse, the acme of glamour here, rather like Delphine Seyrig in LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD - that feather dress she wears is sensational. Daliah Lavi is the young innocent, not part of the jaded movie crowd, that our hero feels he has a second chance with... I liked Daliah a lot in LORD JIM (one to revisit) and that fun Agatha Christie TEN LITTLE INDIANS in 1965. 

This is all very Irwin Shaw, generally well-served by the movies (THE YOUNG LIONS, IN THE FRENCH STYLE, writing credits on THE SEA WALL/THIS ANGY AGE and other favourites of mine), and so it proves here as Vincente piles on the gloss and the agony. Lana Turner had that great scene driving the car in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL - there is a reprise here with Kirk and Cyd which is even more delirious. TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN may have got rather overlooked in that great year 1962 - hard to believe its 50 years ago!
but certainly pays rewatching now. No one was better than Minnelli when it came to taking pure "camp" elements and turning them into the kind of cinematic excess that had to be seen to be believed. This one is a prime example particularly when Edward G and Claire Trevor reprise their spats from KEY LARGO. Pity Cyd though does not get to unfurl those legs, but she looks deliriously glamorous here as the kind of woman to drive any man to distraction. Its also interesting as an American look at that Cinecitta cinema which was all-powerful then. Some may see it as a trash camp classic but it certainly delivers on all levels - Quality Trash then ! 

This week too I can also catch a tv screening of Vincente's other drama from the same year: that remake of the old Valentino hit FOUR HORSESMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, where Ingrid Thulin is surprisingly dubbed by Angela Lansbury! Bring it on ....

Gene Kelly - 100 !

They couldn't get 100 candles on the cake

We are taking a moment to celebrate that Gene Kelly would be 100 this year - and of course any excuse to print another still from one of our favourite movies LES GIRLS from 1957. There's Taina, Kay and Mitzi with Gene above.

I have to confess I don't actually care for SINGING IN THE RAIN or AN AMERICAN IN PARIS that much any more, BRIGADOON is so-so, but I absolutely love every frame of 1955's ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER and LES GIRLS, Gene's last musical in '57 and that one is really about the Girls and not him. Of course he also directed Barbra in HELLO DOLLY which we like a lot more now than we did back in 1969 .... and then there's his terrific '40s films like ON THE TOWN (Gene always looked great in a sailor suit...) and his amazing physicality in THE PIRATE, no longer so under-rated.   So, a quick celebration of Gene then .... he may have been, by several accounts, a hard task-master to work with - but what remains is what is up there on the screen. 

I got close to Gene back in 1975 when he was recording a Michael Parkinson TV show for the BBC at the Mayfair Hotel here in London, which was a great show, and Gene signed my copy of that then new biography of him by Clive Hirshhorn, and was very pleasant. Left: another delirious number from THE PIRATE.
See labels for more on Gene and those movies

Gene, Dan, Michael and fantabulous Dolores Gray - Its Always Fair Weather, where's Cyd?

1956 double bill ...

A little seen musical and western ...

The big hitters of 1956 for me remain FRIENDLY PERSUASION (Cooper! young Tony Perkins! Pat Boone's song! Samantha the goose!), GIANT, THE SEARCHERS, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, WAR AND PEACE as well as those iconic BUS STOP, THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT, BABY DOLL, RICHARD III etc, but despite my love of those musicals of the '50s I grew up with, I somehow always missed MEET ME IN LAS VEGAS, maybe the last of the MGM musicals in 1956 - there was of course LES GIRLS in 1957, a key movie for me, but it is somehow more a sophisticated comedy than an out and out musical, as Cukor puts Kay Kendall and the other 2 (Mitzi and Taina) through their paces, with that hoofer guy Kelly - LES GIRLS label.

MEET ME IS LAS VEGAS is a star-studded entertainment highlighting Las Vegas, that temple of gambling and nightclub acts at those big hotels, heavily featured here. It re-teams Cyd Charisse and Dan Dailey from 1955's ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, which I posted about a while ago, another favourite musical - though Cyd is teamed with Kelly in that one while Dailey and Dolores Gray steal the show. It was Dailey's finest hour since Fox's 1954 THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS.

Here though in LAS VEGAS Dailey is the rancher on his annual trip to Vegas to gamble ... there is something rather oafish about him and his insistance of holding a woman's hand while spinning those dice. One girl he grabs is ballerina Cyd who is annoyed to find that the patrons will be eating while she dances, as hotel manager Jim Backus has just advised her. Cyd leads a very sheltered life as supervised by her manager Paul Henried and her chaperone/companion. So initially she fights off farmer Dan but they do have this amazing chemistry that they win whenever they hold hands ... so they become a well-known Vegas couple at the casinos constantly winning ... there are music interludes too, as in Fox's THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT, we are treated to lots of cabaret acts at the clubs: Lena Horne sings one number but the other one which was cut out (and is on the dvd) is a lot better: "You got looks". Frankie Laine sings up a storm too as the chorus girls go wild behind him, as choreograophed by Hermes Pan. We see lots of the famous names of the era too: there's Debbie Reynolds, and isn't that Pier Angeli? Frank Sinatra has a few more seconds playing the slot machines, and contract players like Jeff Richards and Elaine Stewart are in the audience, and Peter Lorre has a moment too.

One ritzy number is "I refuse to Rock and Roll" by Cara Williams, its a hoot and Cara tries to sink her claws into Dan to Cyd's aloof annoyance - Cyd also does some ballet, and that terrific "Frankie and Johnnie" number, as sung by Sammy Davis Jr. Cyd's tipsy ballerina also dances up a storm with the Vegas chorus girls, and young George Chakiris (after his chorus boy spots with Marilyn Monroe and Rosemary Clooney) and Betty Lynn are a pair of naive newly-weds.

We also head back to the ranch, an idealised version of chicken factory farming and happy animals, as presided over by Dans mother - none other than Agnes Moorehead, who comes to approve of Cyd. The hens in their cages lay eggs and the oil well even gushes! There is also another terrific Hermes Pan number "The Girl with the Yellar Shoes" .... back at the casinos manager Paul Henreid turns up to protect his protege, and then they lose their magic touch at the gambling tables ... will they still stay in love and continue with their plan of 6 months at the farm and 6 months for her careeer ? It is nicely resolved, and there is a lot to appreciate here, as directed by a Roy Rowland, produced by Joe Pasternak and script by FUNNY GIRL's Isobel Lennart.

DAKOTA INCIDENT is basically a western B-movie but with a touch of class - its our old favourite: a group of disparate people on a stagecoach all with their reasons for reaching Laramie heading through hostile Indian country. Sure enough the redskins attack, the coach is over-turned and our survivors are picked off one by one as they squabble among themselves as the water runs out in their hideout gulley. Dale Robertson is the outlaw left for dead, Linda Darnell the showgirl - in that vivid red dress - and Ward Bond is the pompous politician who thinks he can understand the Indians ... the first half sets up our characters with Linda in her element. Ward asks her if Dale is bothering her to which she retorts "No, but I think I bother him". There is a surprising conclusion as white man and redskin come together and of course our leading couple head off into the sunset. As directed by Lewis R Foster, it has that Republic Pictures look in spades, and was one of Linda's last leading roles. Dale was popular too then as a cowboy star, his SITTING BULL and GAMBLER FROM NATCHEZ were among the first westerns I saw, after that iconic JOHNNY GUITAR, the first film I saw when I was 8, as reported elsewhere here ...