Jenny or Jenny ?

Jenny Bowman or Jenny Stewart, that is. Both are legendary Broadway divas, very used to getting their own way.  Joan Crawford is Jenny Stewart and TORCH SONG is Joan's first in colour, in 1953, and is a camp riot of garish colour, particularly with Joan in "tropical makeup" for the bizarre "Two Faced Woman" number. One feels sorry for the chorus boys Jenny terrorises and Michael Wilding as the blind pianist who is the only man who can stand up to her. Very odd too is her pack of teenage fans crowding the stage door to meet her .... I have reviewed this Camp Classic several times, as per Crawford label, so these are just a taster: love her party where she is the only woman. Joan truck gold again the following year with the equally bizarre western JOHNNY GUITAR, the first movie I saw, aged 8; again see label.

I COULD GO ON SINGING is more serious fare, with Judy Garland's final role, a decade after her A STAR IS BORN, where she plays Jenny Bowman, a version of herself, superbly aided by Dirk Bogarde. The numbers are great and Judy is caught here at a good moment for her in the early sixties. The shoot though was a nightmare, as per Dirk's memoirs. Lots more at Judy label,

White Feather, 1955

WHITE FEATHER is a perfect mid-'50s western, which somehow I never saw at the time. I was 10 or so then and seeing all those early 50s westerns with my father: JOHNNY GUITAR (the first film I saw aged 8, what a vivid introduction to cinema), SHANE, THE COMMAND, DRUM BEAT, SITTING BULL, THE GAMBLER FROM NATCHEZ, GARDEN OF EVIL, CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA, THE MAVERICK QUEEN, THE LAST WAGON, RIVER OF NO RETURN, BROKEN LANCE etc. We kids loved anything with covered wagons and Indian attacks on forts, and heroes like Dale Robertson, Clint Walker, Audie Murphy or Guy Madison, or as teamed several times, Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter. 

My father also took me to all those John Wayne and James Stewart westerns, like NIGHT PASSAGE and Ford's THE SEARCHERS, where Hunter had his immortal moment as half-breed Martin Pawley (Wagner had tested for that for Ford would not cast him, it would have been Wagner's first teaming with Natalie Wood if he had).  

WHITE FEATHER: The story of the peace mission from the US cavalry to the Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming during the 1870s. The mission is threatened when a civilian surveyor befriends the chief's son and falls for the chief's daughter.

Wagner is the  lead here, and Jeff is Little Dog, the Indian brave, with Hugh O'Brien as his sidekick.  Debra Paget is the indian princess and stodgy John Lund also features. 

We have covered Jeff Hunter several times before - he is one of "People We Like" - he of course died aged 42 in 1969, Wagner is still here and writing entertaining books, at 86, while Hugh died last year aged 91. Wagner and Hunter appeared in at least 5 films together, as well as the all-star THE LONGEST DAY, while Hunter also did five with Debra Paget - we are very partial to their 1954 PRINCESS OF THE NILE where Deb does one of her torrid dances, and Jeff wears a turban and harem pants, in old Cairo, right. Debra was back out west with Elvis in his first film LOVE ME TENDER in 1956.

WHITE FEATHER though is well done, scripted by western maestro Delmar Daves, but directed by one Robert D. Webb.  

"That'll be the day"

A western double bill, for late autumn afternoons. Only the best western ever: John Ford's THE SEARCHERS, and a routine oater from 1949 MASSACRE RIVER, only of interest now for teaming of the young Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun - see previous on them, below, or at labels.

We have written about THE SEARCHERS here before, and my 2010 appreciation on Jeffrey Hunter is at 'Jeff Hunter 1' label. Looking at Ford's classic again (I also have it on Blu-ray, as Martin would say) it is a timeless American Classic and the climax is as emotionally stunning as the end of CITIZEN KANE or CASABLANCA. Maybe they are the Top Three American Movies Of All Time?  Its certainly in my Top 10 (along with my other favourite western JOHNNY GUITAR)

The images and the scenery - did Monument Valley ever look more iconic? - stun one again, as does Ford's narrative, Wayne is superlative, Jeff Hunter has his best ever role as halfbreed Martin Pawley - he and Natalie are so poignant together, a perfect Fifties pair, Vera Miles excels as ever, and grown men cry when Ethan picks up Debbie at the end ....

Ford has some amusement too with Wayne's son Patrick and the regulars are all here from Ward Bond down. The early sequence when the settlers realise that Scar is about to attack is chilling and brilliantly done too, as is the scene where Ethan and Martin meet Debbie again in the wigwam with those scalps. Ford orchestrates it all perfectly, as per previous reports; and of course that line of Wayne's "that'll be the day" which gave Buddy Holly the title of one of his best songs ... Max Steiner's score is one of his most evocative and complements the images perfectly. 
Ethan Edwards is racist towards the Indians and the depiction of them may be problematic for some now, though Ford 'atoned' for that with his CHEYENNE AUTUMN in 1964; the squaw Martin gets married to is despatched rather heartlessly. 

MASSACRE RIVER on the other hand is pure studio dross, but a very rare film. I had ordered the dvd only to see it crop up on our Western channel, otherwise known as TCM uk. This must be where Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun got pally, as per my previous on them, and the various reports on their longtime relationship, despite their marriages, and some scurrilous rumours, but there are lots of photos of them together - just like Cary and Randy. 
They share a tub in this and one can see the chemistry between them. Calhoun was an ex-con who got into the movies, mainly rememered now for his two with Monroe and with Hayward in WITH A SONG IN MY HEART. Madison continued in westerns and dramas - both were filming in Europe by the early Sixties, Calhoun in the rather good COLOSSUS OF RHODES by Sergio Leone, so maybe they were meeting up then too. 

THE SEARCHERS though will live forever. 

Joan and sudden fear somewhere in the night ...

A 1950s Joan Crawford movie I had not seen: 1952's SUDDEN FEAR begins well but limp to an unstisfactory ending ..... I actually like Joan Crawford's 1950s output more than that of her main rival Bette Davis, who after the enormous success of 1950's ALL ABOUT EVE was soon back in routine programmers; well so was Joan of course but they were more fun that Bette's: TORCH SONG in 1953, JOHNNY GUITAR in '54 (the first film I saw, aged 8 as per reports on that, see label) and those campy lurid items like QUEEN BEE, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO up to her cameo in 1959 "as Amanda Farrow in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - Bette too was cameo-ing in 1959 (two of them, a scene or two with Alec Guinness in THE SCAPEGOAT and coming on for the last five minutes as Catherine The Great in the otherwise turgid costumer JOHN PAUL JONES, hardly seen now. Of course 1962's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BAY JANE? got them back in the limelight again ...). But back to Joan in 1952.where Woman's Picture meets Film Noir:

Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a "romantic leading man." On the train from New York to San Francisco, Blaine sets out to prove Myra wrong...by romancing her. Is he sincere, or does he have a dark ulterior motive? The answer brings on a game of cat and mouse; but who's the cat and who's the mouse? 

Myra is an essential Crawford role, the middle-aged wealthy woman looking for love and thinking she has found it. Palance is ideal with his odd looks, and add in Gloria Grahame at her bitchiest .... 

It plays like a delicious antique now: those early Dictaphone machines where Myra overhears the plot against her, her odd wardrobe of buttoned-up tops and showing her legs and nylons and high-heels as well as those long white gloves both ladies wear. The plot though as she counterplots against her attackers could have ended better ....... cue large close-ups of Joan agonising, suffering, suffering, suffering, yearning as she conveys the fear and rage at the duplicity of others ...... Directed by David Miller, but those empty streets of San Francisco do not look realistic. 

Now back a decade for another Noir thriller: Mankiewicz's SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT from 1941, his second feature as director. 
My friend Leon describes it thus:

Somewhere In the Night dates from 1946, the same year Mank's second directorial effort Dragonwyck was released and it's well up to snuff. A lot of 'amnesiac' films are, by definition, forgettable, but not this one. Mank assembled as tasty a supporting cast as had ever been shoehorned into one film ranging from Whit Bissell through Harry Morgan, Jeff Corey to the standout Josephine Hutchinson. Leading from the front are the slightly wooden John Hodiak - marriage to Ann Baxter didn't improve his acting -, newcomer Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan and Richard Conte and Mank keeps the balls spinning in the air leaving little time for awkward questions - like why would Conte - who'd got away with murder for three years, introduce Hodiak to a detective friend (Nolan) knowing that Hodiak was trying to get to to bottom of the very murder for which he, Conte, was responsible. This the kind of movie, popular at the time, in which a protagonist who is possibly a murderer is befriended by a girl/woman who's never met him before - for example Alad Ladd and Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia and/or in which a street-wise gal like Guild here, has to have the expressions 'private eye' and 'shamus' explained to her. None of this detracts from an enjoyable ride and it's one to add to your Blockbuster shopping list.
Leon was quite right, its a zippy intriguing little meller, essential for anyone keen on 1940s noir and Mankiewicz's style. Pleased I found it. 

John Hodiak (1914-1955) was an interesting guy, of Polish descent he was one of the second-tier actors who came to prominence during the early Forties - like Dana Andrews - when the big hitters were away during the war. He only lived to be 41 though, and had some big hits at the time, and even married Anne Baxter for several years (right). I saw him again the other day in Hitch's LIFEBOAT with Tallulah, and he is the male lead in the entertaining THE HARVEY GIRLS with Judy in 1946. We particularly like his DESERT FURY here, from 1947, one of the great camp Hollywood movies, where he and Wendall Corey are an intriguing pair, plus Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor playing her mother, and a young Burt Lancaster - its a delirious 1940s concoction as per my review (Hodiak label). 

Coming up: A '60s Kim Novak double-bill, and then its off to THE RITZ in THE GAY METROPOLIS.

Top 20 Desert Island Movies

"Desert Island Movies" don't have to be "masterpieces" or classics (though they can be of course), they are not the Best Movies but simply the movies one enjoys watching and can return to many times (you would have to on a desert island) so no Tarkovsky then, Martin Bradley, or even CITIZEN KANE or history of the cinema items (unless of course you enjoy watching Orson's classic over and over, I like it a lot, but ...). No Trash Classics either, much as we like them one would soon tire of them. Movies then with people one likes spending time with and by directors whose visions we like .... (I have written about these extensively already here, as per labels).

• JOHNNY GUITAR - a favourite western and the first movie I ever saw, aged 8, what a vivid introduction to cinema, I never tire of it. The BFI has it on the cover of their new "Sight & Sound" magazine and it features in their upcoming western retrospective. 
• A STAR IS BORN - another early one I saw as a kid in 1954, its even better now its been restored, the best musical drama ever? I love Cukor's staging of those CinemaScope images in rich Warner-color, and of course Judy and James.
• SOME LIKE IT HOT - for me THE Billy Wilder classic and the still funniest film ever made
  
• THE AWFUL TRUTH - a 30s classic thats a fairly recent discovery
• ALL ABOUT EVE - Mank's script and situations and characters we never tire of
• A LETTER TO 3 WIVES - see above
• THE QUIET MAN - back to that mythical Ireland in Ford's enduring favourite
• THE SEARCHERS - Ford's poetic vision of the West is another enduring favourite
• BLACK NARCISSUS - 2 Michael Powell classics - I sometimes think this and I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING are my top favourite films of all time ..... 
• I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING - I love that mythical highlands, those great characters and its a perfect '40s dreamworld movie. 
• BLOW-UP - maybe still my Number One, on my island I want to re-visit that green park and be back in mid-60s London
• L’AVVENTURA - Monica and Antonioni still fascinate me
• THE LEOPARD - I want the opulence of Visconti's classic and revisit that great ball sequence many times, with that Verdi waltz and Delon and Claudia being impossibly beautiful.
• BARRY LYNDON - this or 2001 ? - hard to decide, but I would get more enjoyment re-visiting this Kubrick classic 
• BRINGING UP BABY - the best of screwball, Hawks, Hepburn and Grant? 
  
• THE SCARLET EMPRESS - we also want the opulence of Josef Von Sternberg - this or Marlene emerging from the gorilla skin in BLOND VENUS or the delirious SHANGHAI EXPRESS?
• THE BANDWAGON - maybe my top favourite musical - endlessly rewatchable,
• THE MISFITS - another movie I used to be obsessed by and can live in.
• NIGHT OF THE IGUANA - another Huston favourite, maybe the best Tennessee Williams, great characters and people I like.
• EL CID - probably my favourite epic, again I can revisit it a lot, even though Sophia dismisses it in her latest book. I remember Chuck towering over me back at the BFI in 1971 ...
  
• Oh, let's have one more, it has to be CASABLANCA - a key Golden Age '40s movie that never goes out of fashion - we will always want to go back to Rick's Cafe Americain with Ingrid, and Sam playing "As Time Goes By" ...

Martin has commanded me to stick to 20, so I am gutted to leave out lots more: there's nothing fairly recent here, not even Scorsese; no '40s noirs, no Garbo or James Dean movies, or other musicals (MEET ME IN ST LOUIS, FUNNY FACE) or dramas I love (ANATOMY OF A MURDER, SEPARATE TABLES), and no Hitchcocks - I could do 10 Hitch classics, but which to decide?, then theres all those Hollywood classics and European stuff I like (PLEIN SOLEIL!), or favourites like LES GIRLS or THE WOMEN and its '56 remake THE OPPOSITE SEX or Vincente's DESIGNING WOMAN or THE LION IN WINTER or THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE Then there are Ingmar Bergman's like AUTUMN SONATA or his enchanting recording of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE - ideal for desert island balmy evenings!  It could be a different list some other day ...

1950: party boys - or stag night at the steamroom ...

What young actors had to do to get publicity in those 1950s fan mags!  My IMDB pal Melvelvit (a denizen of their Classic Film Board) unearthed this feature from a 1950 issue of "Modern Screen" featuring young chaps around town (Hollywood) entitled: "Stag Night At The Steamroom" - it was a more innocent time of course, but this comes across as so screamingly gay now - even down to a naked Rock Hudson (risque for 1950) getting a rubdown .... add in young Tony Curtis and occasional cowboys Scott Brady and Hugh O'Brien and John Bromfield (?) - all clients of that notorious Hollywood agent Henry Willson, if his other clients like Rory Calhoun and Guy Madison were included as well, the steam room would certainly have steamed up!

Rock and Tony were starting out then -both had small parts in that year's WINCHESTER 73 (see Westerns label).  Here is the full feature, with that delirious text.:

 http://themave.com/bijou/50/stagnite1.htm

"The heat is on at Finlandia, the only place a man is put on the shelf - and likes it" ...

Saunas must have been a new concept then, as the feature goes into all the details of what having a sauna entails. There is lots of saucy banter here, and the boys get fed too: "huge cuts of roast beef, turkey, ham, scandanavian cheese and lots of potato salad". One gets pretty hungry working up a sweat - fruit juice, soda and beer were also on tap, then it was time for a nap. Eating and drinking at the sauna does seem a little counter-productive ...

Scott Brady went on to play the Dancin' Kid in that cult western JOHNNY GUITAR, one of my enduring favourites and the first film I ever saw aged 8, suddenly it seems a lot gayer now. He also paid his dues in many westerns like THE MAVERICK QUEEN with Stanwyck. It seems he did not marry until later in life ("The seemingly one-time confirmed bachelor decided to settle down in 1967 at age 43") and developed into a reliable character actor, with later roles in THE CHINA SYNDROME and GREMLINS (he died aged 60 in 1985). Hugh O'Brien, 90 now, of course did lots of westerns too (SEMINOLE, TAZA SON OF COCHISE, WHITE FEATHER, BROKEN LANCE) while Rock and Tony were soon heading for the A-list, leaving layouts like this behind them. Thirty years later in 1980 when perhaps past their prime they were reunited for the enjoyable camp farrago THE MIRROR CRACK'D. 
Below: Scott Brady with Crawford and Sterling Hayden in JOHNNY GUITAR.

1950: In a lonely place

Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE remains a brilliant noir from 1950 - it should be as well known as that year's other major movies like SUNSET BOULEVARD, ALL ABOUT EVE, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE or WINCHESTER '73.  

Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?

Poor Mildred - quickly murdered and forgotten about, so it seems. Even who did it is immaterial, as it is not about that at all, but the tortured relationship between Dixon and Laurel who provides his alilbi that night he quickly gets Mildred out of his apartment after she has told him the story of the novel he is supposed to read by morning. Laurel's apartment overlooks Dixon's and she sees Mildred leave alone .... 

They get to know each other at the police station, and things quickly develop between them. Laurel is initially attracted to him, but his violent temper, like when he beats up that car driver and almost kills him, soon causes her to have doubts .... By the time the police confirm it was not Dixon, it is too late for them ..... By turns charming, cold, romantic and remorseful, Dix Steele is as unpredictable a character as Bogie has ever played - an abusive man with a quick temper. It is a joyless view of love and fate.

Laurel is Gloria Graham, director Nick Ray's wife at the time, and it is one of her better roles. She remains one of the underrated great US actresses of the 50's (THE BIG HEAT, OKLAHOMA!), and has an electrifying chemistry with Bogie. Frank Lovejoy heads a fantastic supporting cast. The reasons for Mildred's murder are never satisfactorily made clear, but it doesn't matter. Laurel witnesses how Dixton treats his old friends and starts to worry for her own safety. The more she tries to escape from Dixon the more trapped she becomes and the more violent he gets ..... until that last telephone call. 

This is a noir that focuses on romance rather than crime and is a gut-wrenching love story,and should be so much better known, A perfect noir/twisted romance complete with those big cars driving by night, nightclub scenes and lots of shadows. One of Rays best too - up there with REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and JOHNNY GUITAR. 

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! 

Stanwyck out west

Few of Hollywood's leading ladies looked as capable with a gun holster and riding a horse as 'Missy' (to her friends) Barbara Stanwyck, who seemed to spend most of the 1950s out west - apart from being on the TITANIC in 1953, and CLASH BY NIGHT or ESCAPE TO BURMA or that EXECUTIVE SUITE. Joan Crawford of course made the west her own in 1954's JOHNNY GUITAR (the first film I ever saw, aged 8, as mentioned before), but Barbara had all guns blazing in westerns as diverse as oaters like THE CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA in '54 or THE MAVERICK QUEEN in 1956 - how we liked those as kids.. 

1955's THE VIOLENT MEN was a tense one where she is the deceitful wife of crippled Edward G Robinson (they were both in DOUBLE INDEMNITY - below), during the climax she throws his crutches into the blazing house and hopes he is trapped there, as Glenn Ford and her lover Brian Keith shoot it out ... Sam Fuller's FORTY GUNS is another terrific one where she takes the bullet at the end, and Anthony Mann's THE FURIES is a delirious one in 1950 where Babs wields that scissors at rival Judith Anderson .... add in Beulah Bondi and Blanche Yurka for extra Furies. 

One I liked a lot is 1957's TROOPER HOOK where, following Ford's THE SEARCHERS, she is a white woman rescued from the Indians,with a halfbreed son, and his Apache father in hot pursuit ..... review at Stanwyck label. 

Barbara earlier in the 1930s took to the west in ANNIE OAKLEY in 1935, and UNION PACIFIC in 1939, and later, after her hits like THE LADY EVE and Sugarpuss O'Shea in BALL OF FIRE and her "maybe I'm just a dame and didn't realise it" in THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN, and guesting in various tv westerns, had her own western tv series THE BIG VALLEY, and of course she was a hit in THE THORN BIRDS and certainly enlivened THE COLBYS!. 
Maybe not a western as such, she was re-united with Gary Cooper in the 1953 torrid melodrama down Mexico way in BLOWING WILD where she lures husband Anthony Quinn to his death by oil derrick, while Ruth Roman is the good girl here, and yes again there is a bullet with Barbara's name on it ... (Below: FORTY GUNS).

We will have to re-see her 1962 Trash Classic WALK ON THE WILD SIDE again soon, with that terrific cast of Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, Stanwyck dominating all and Laurence Harvey sleepwalking through it all as usual ...