Lists: those American dramas ...

Final List of the season - we are all listed out! After covering British, French and Italian favourites its now a return look at those great American dramas from the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s - the heyday of Kazan and Kramer,  Wyler and Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz, Cukor, Minnelli, Nick Ray, Preminger, Brooks, Ritt, etc. and when American drama was ruled by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, William Inge etc. We have covered them in detail here before, so this is a quick roundup. Lots more at labels - particularly Tennessee Williams ,,, (below: NIGHT OF THE IGUANA)

We have to begin of course with those early Kazans; 

• A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• ON THE WATERFRONT
  
• EAST OF EDEN
• A FACE IN THE CROWD
• Nicholas Ray's THE LUSTY MEN in 1952, a strong rodeo drama bringing out the best in Mitchum and Susan Hayward.(right) 
• More baroque Ray with his 1954 JOHNNY GUITAR - the first film I saw, aged 8. 
• Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE of course, and Stevens' GIANT to complete the Dean hat-trick. 
• Cukor's 1954 A STAR IS BORN, the best musical drama ever
• THE BIG COUNTRY in 1958 is really a William Wyler drama which just happens to be set in the west. 
• CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
• SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
• BONJOUR TRISTESSE
• SEPARATE TABLES
• THE NUN'S STORY
• ON THE BEACH.

Those 20th Century Fox literarary adaptations came thick and fast:

• THE LONG HOT SUMMER - Faulkner, 1958
• THE SOUND AND THE FURY in 1959 - Faulkner, Good cast: Brynner, Woodward, Leighton
• THE WAYWARD BUS - a long unseen Steinbeck from 1957, Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins! Its a fascinating mess or Trash Classic
• SONS AND LOVERS - D H Lawrence gets the Fox treatment in 1960 ...
• SANCTUARY - another Faulkner misfire, from Tony Richardson in 1961 - Lee Remick and Yves Montand make the oddest team, but Lee shines ...
• HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN - 1962, as per recent review. 

The 1960s upped the ranks with those new directors like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Robert Mulligan, while John Huston went on and on ....

• THE MISFITS
• ONE EYED JACKS - Brando's brooding western, 1961
• ALL FALL DOWN - a perennial favourite
• THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
• SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS
• THE MIRACLE WORKER
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
• DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
• LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
• THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
  
• TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN 
• THE STRIPPER
• NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 
• WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
• REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE
• SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
• SUMMER AND SMOKE
• THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED
• INSIDE DAISY CLOVER
• THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE 
• MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
  

Sixties rarity: Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man, 1962

Another of those 1962 dramas, another 20th Century Fox literary adaptation, produced as usual by Jerry Wald and this one is directed by dependable Martin Ritt. Is a little turgid and long-winded though, as we follow Nick Adams on his adventures around rural America and into World War I in Italy, a tepid re-run of A FAREWELL TO ARMS. I have not read Hemingway's stories, but the episodic nature of the film takes us from Nick's typical Hemingway life in rural Michigan, hunting, shooting and fishing with his father and evading his icy, controlling mother, until he runs away, encountering various characters like that broken-down boxer The Battler (a Paul Newman cameo), Fred Clarke, Dan Dailey and others, and Eli Wallach as another ambulance driver in Italy as the First World War rages. Pallid Susan Stransberg is the nurse he loves and loses (Beymer and her are not quite Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones in the 1957 film). Arthur Kennedy scores as the doctor father, who eventually kills himself  (very Hemingway) no doubt to escape from or punish his controlling wife. Jessica Tandy is terrific as ever here, a dry run for her equally controlling mother for Hitchcock in THE BIRDS the next year. Diane Baker gets one scene as the obligatory girlfriend who does not understand our hero ...

Young and restless Nick Adams, the only son of a domineering mother and a weak but noble doctor father, leaves his rural Michigan home to embark on an eventful cross-country journey. He is touched and affected by his encounters with a punch-drunk ex-boxer, a sympathetic telegrapher, and an alcoholic advancement for a burlesque show. After failing to get a job as reporter in New York, he enlists in the Italian army during World War I as an ambulance driver. His camaraderie with fellow soldiers and a romance with a nurse he meets after being wounded propel him to manhood

Rural America of the early 20th century is nicely caught, as in EAST OF EDEN. It ends as Nick returns as a war hero, to confront his mother and make his way as a writer, a coming of age story, similar to the climax of our 1962 favourite ALL FALL DOWN, or that other literary Fox film of D H Lawrence's SONS AND LOVERS.

Richard Beymer has to carry the film, but is not really strong enough -another James Dean would be required or the young Warren Beatty then, but it has the required 20th Century Fox plush look, one to file along their other 'literary' works like Faulkner's THE SOUND AND THE FURY or SANCTUARY, Steinbeck's THE WAYWARD BUS, Inge's THE STRIPPER  or those PEYTON PLACE potboilers. 

Star power

Interesting news that Warren Beatty. 79, and Faye Dunaway, 76, will present the Best Film Award at the upcoming Oscars, 50 years after BONNIE AND CLYDE. I was 21 when Faye and Warren bowled us over in Penn's extraordindary film back in that glorious year 1967 - are we all 50 years older? 

Here's another example of star power: Paul Newman, 67, and Elizabeth Taylor, 60, presenting the Best Film Award in 1992, decades after their CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. 

1950s boys ...

That screen test James Dean and Paul Newman did when both were testing for Kazan's EAST OF EDEN. Paul would soon be replacing Dean on celluloid ...

Class of '54: The Silver Chalice

It been fun re-seeing anther 1954 favourite which made an impression on me as a kid: THE SILVER CHALICE,  best known now as Paul Newman's first role which he was so embarrassed about that he apologised publicly .... well Paul need not have worried, he is the least interesting thing here, as the film is stolen by Jack Palance and Virginia Mayo as Simon the magician and his assistant Helena - Paul's lost love, played when young by Natalie Wood in a blonde wig! Pier Angeli completes the lineup as the dutiful love interest of Newman, as Basil the sculptor.

A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and eventually to Rome to complete the task. Meanwhile, a nefarious interloper is trying to convince the crowds that he is the new Messiah by using nothing more than cheap parlor tricks.

Natalie Wood becomes Virginia Mayo

The 1950s was, for me, the great decade of musicals and westerns and epics/peplums or costume dramas, whether biblical or medieval, starting with QUO VADIS and THE ROBE and ULYSSES. 1954 was full of them: DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, THE EGYPTIAN, KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS, THE BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, ATTILA, TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, PRINCE VALIANT, SIGN OF THE PAGAN, PRINCESS OF THE NILE and yes, THE SILVER CHALICE. 

(1955 delivered THE PRODIGAL LAND OF THE PHAROAHS,  HELEN OF TROY, MOONFLEET and QUENTIN DURWARD while 1956 had Cecil's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (we had a school outing to see that...), ALEXANDER THE GREAT, WAR AND PEACE, then THE VIKINGS in 1958 and those biggies in 1959: BEN HUR and SOLOMON AND SHEBA, plus THE BIG FISHERMAN, THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES and those Steve Reeves movies, and the Sixties dawned with SPARTACUS followed by EL CID, BARABBAS, CLEOPATRA, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, GENGHIS KHAN ... Visconti's 1963 THE LEOPARD is an epic too. Lots of these are covered at epics, peplums labels.

THE SILVER CHALICE is the oddest of the lot, with those surreal sets. Jack Palace is in his element as the mad magician who thinks he can fly with that great climax as he climbs the tower to fly off it .... as Helena tries in vain to stop him .... Mayo is great here with that odd eye make-up, a petulant Nero then has her thrown off the tower to see if she can fly. This entertaining farrago is a riot now, directed by Victor Saville - a long way from those 1930s Jessie Matthews musicals. 
Palance also scored in '54 as Attila The Hun in Sirk's entertaining SIGN OF THE PAGAN (while Anthony Quinn in Italy was also a ferocious Attila in ATTILA with young Sophia Loren); Virginia Mayo also amused that year as the Plantagenet princess wooed by Saladin (Rex Harrison) in the enjoyable farrago that is KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS. 

Magazines 1: 'Honey' 1971 hunks calendar

Thanks to Colin for sending me this spread from a vintage magazine - girls' magazine HONEY, popular in the 1970s. I have not seen any of these before, not being a "Honey" kind of guy - I was more TOWN and all those movie magazines.....

Here though is their ad/order form for their calendar for 1971 (click to enlarge) with a hunk a month - its interesting seeing who is on it, and who are still here and still working. 

The surprise here is the inclusion of the young Ian McKellen, who seems an odd choice here, was he on the "Honey" girl's radar then? as in 1970 he had only really done a small part in ALFRED THE GREAT (with my favourites David Hemmings and Michael York, neither chosen here), A TOUCH OF LOVE with Sandy Dennis, and several television roles including a David Copperfield and Hamlet. Not quite in the same league as Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Terence Stamp, or the popular boys of the time like Leonard (ROMEO) Whiting, Martin (FELLINI SATYRICON) Potter, or Helmut Berger (Visconti's THE DAMNED and DORIAN GRAY)! Pop boys Marc Bolan, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Elvis also made the cut. 

Well, Sir Ian is probably the busiest name here now, Sir Tom now judges the BBC talent show "The Voice", Sir Mick does his thing, Terence looks great in the new VANITY FAIR Hollywood issue, and a weather-beaten Redford was terrific in ALL IS LOST last year. Leonard, Martin and Helmut are still here too having long shed their pretty boy images.... More hunks at Hunks label.

(I've been accused of name-dropping - thank you, Martin in Derry - when I mention I have met people, but I was chatting with Ian when out clubbing over a decade ago (at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern pub and Crash club in London); we used to see Terence around town a lot as his then apartment at The Albany in Piccadilly backed onto my office in Regent Street; Marc Bolan guested at one of the early Elton John shows I saw at Croydon in 1973, and Leonard relieved himself next to me at the Gents urinal at the BFI back in 1970, in a blue crushed velvet suit ... it didn't seem appropriate to speak though! - we were both attending a discussion on nudity in the movies (with Billie Whitelaw among others - oops there I go again), a hot topic then as actresses - and actors (as Leonard had to for Zeffirelli) - had to get their kit off for those daring new movies of the era.).

Comedy 1: A New Kind Of Love, an old kind of movie

We have been looking at some '60s romantic comedies recently - see reviews of SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL, PRUDENCE AND THE PILL, GOODBYE CHARLIE etc- 60s/comedy labels. Now for one I dimly remember seeing the trailer for, but not seen until now .... A NEW KIND OF LOVE from 1963, which had the bright idea of sending Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward to Paris, and glam frumpy Joanne up, throw in Thelma Ritter to wisecrack a bit, and - the masterstroke - add in Maurice Chevalier "as himself" to sing some of his hits like "Mimi". So far, so excruciating ..... then there are all the hideous fashions - Joanne couldn't wear more hideous outfts or wigs. So, what went wrong?

The fashion industry and Paris provide the setting for a comedy surrounding the mistaken impression that Joanne Woodward is a high-priced call girl. Paul Newman is the journalist interviewing her for insights on her profession.

This after all is written and directed by Melville Shavelson, who did some delightful '50s comedies that still work now, like HOUSEBOAT and IT STARTED IN NAPLES, both showcasing Sophia Loren perfectly. But it seems that, like Billy Wilder, he too was stranded as the '60s took off and he suddenly appeared dated. The Newmans were probably looking for a change of pace - they had already done Paris seriously in PARIS BLUES for Martin Ritt in 1961, and comedy in RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS in 1958 (review at Newman label). But this romantic comedy set in Paris falls very flat like champagne that has lost its zing. 

They seem to be aiming for the light Rock and Doris touch - but Newman (unlike Rock or Tony Curtis) seems very charmless in these kind of roles (but then I never found him that particularly interesting) while Joanne - who was it who coined her "the duchess of dowbeat"? - starts off as the 25-year-old old maid in fashion publishing with pencils in her spikey hair and always in dark glasses. She has devoted herself to her career instead of bagging a husband - he is the wolf journalist sent to cover their Paris show.   

Later she has a transformation as he thinks she is a high-class call girl - then the Rock and Doris confrontation with the roles switched - he knows she isn't as she gets ready to go through with their seduction scene, but even that is muffled here. Its all gratingly old-fashioned, even for 1963, as the swinging decade was about to take off. With Eva Gabor, and Sinatra sings the title song. Woodward seems much more at home with material like THE STRIPPER (Woodward label) or THE LONG HOT SUMMER or even those Fox films like THE SOUND AND THE FURY or NO DOWN PAYMENT. She just seems simply at sea here. 

Forgotten '70s movies: Newman! Remick! Fonda! Sarrazin!

The dawn of the Seventies had some big outdoor movies: Altman's M A S H and that stunning western McCABE & MRS MILLER. SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION (called for some reason NEVER GIVE AN INCH here in the UK, maybe the original title was too clunky - though not as clunky as the film...) could have been a contender, but quickly got lost and never seen again here. Looking at it now, easy to see why ...

When a logging town in Oregon, goes on strike against a large lumber conglomerate, the non-union Stamper family, headed by Paul Newman and his father Henry Fonda, keep working and quickly become the enemy of every now-out-of-work family in town. Shot on location along the Oregon coast, the film’s characters are dwarfed by the monolithic landscape and the buzzing of chainsaws, resulting in a leafy green palette that’s simultaneously scary and overwhelmingly beautiful. Based on Ken Kesey’s follow-up novel to ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST Paul Newman’s second film as a director (after directed his wife in the highly-regarded RACHEL, RACHEL in '68) mixes hard-luck violence with genuine sympathy. But maybe being director as well as star, orchestrating the large family get-togethers and the logging sequences, meant there was no room for the central  story of husband and wife. The men are the focus here with the women firmly in the background, serving big breakfasts and washing .... Newman was in his prime here but his rather unlikeable character does not play for sympathy.

Henry Fonda as the clan's stubborn father is second billed and we see a lot of him, at the expense of Lee Remick, rather sidelined as the wife. Eventually she packs her suitcase and leaves about three-quarters through. It would have been nice to see Newman and Remick as a great romantic/dramatic team - like she was with Lemmon or Clift. But they don't have that many scenes together with no central focus. They were of course both in Ritt's THE LONG HOT SUMMER in 1958, each partnered with someone else (Woodward, Tony Franciosa). It seems Newman's character does not even miss her, as he is busy with Hank Fonda's injury and death, and the stunning central sequence of his brother Richard Jaeckel slowly drowning as he is trapped under a log, as Newman tries to free him .... 

It all looks marvellous, with some appropriate country style music, and the green and leafy Oregon countryside and that marvellous house all look correct. Michael Sarrazin also scores as the long-hair hippie son who returns home and rejoins the family business, and he has a few nice scenes with Lee's neglected wife, whom he understands more than her husband does.

This film was actually on release when I saw and met Lee Remick at London's BFI National Film Theatre in 1970, I remember a clip being shown, before we moved on to Remick's other roles. Report on that at NFT label,

and this is my tribute from 2010 to the marvellous Lee Remick - for me up there with Julie Harris and Geraldine Page ... 

http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/remembering-lee-remick.html

http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/1970-72-when-stars-came-out-to-talk.html

Soon - Remick and Claire Bloom in the film of Iris Murdoch's A SEVERED HEAD (also 1970), and one of her later tv movies EMMA'S WAR

RIP - Julie Harris

It was to be expected at 87 and she had been in ill-health, but this is one celebrity death that I am truly sad about. I always loved Julie Harris (1925-2013), ever since her wonderful Abra in EAST OF EDEN (where she was just 5 years older than Dean). Her Sally Bowles is tremendous too in I AM A CAMERA, and of course her 12 year old (when she was 26) in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING.

She excelled in so many things. In 1977 she brought her Emily Dickinson show to London, THE BELLE OF AMHERST, and a friend and I had booked, but I felt unwell on the night with a bad cold and did not think I was up to it, but he persuaded me. Of course I loved it and her as Emily, and without thinking anything more about it, I wrote her a note to tell her so, posted to the theatre. It must have been towards the year's end but some days later I received a lovely handwritten note from her, thanking me and wishing me all the best for 1978, as shown at link below. 
RIP to one of the great ladies of the American theatre and a much-loved iconic film actress and star.

It was enjoyable seeing her in recent re-runs of HARPER, REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, THE HAUNTING. I never saw her later tv work such as KNOT'S LANDING, but its good it provided a retirement fund for her later years.

As said on IMDb: She was one of a kind and, like Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, and Marlon Brando, was an actor's actor. She will be missed and remembered. What a gift she was to the art she loved. 

She was one of my 'People We Like' profiles here, back in 2010:
http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/people-we-like-julie-harris.html

Brando visits Kazan, Harris & Dean on EAST OF EDEN.

Newman double: Rally round the sweet bird

After tacking some Brando films recently, here's a brace of Paul Newman ...

SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH. Handsome Chance Wayne never found the Hollywood stardom he craved, but he's always been a star with the ladies. Now back in his sleepy, sweaty Gulf Coast hometown, hes involved with two of them: a washed-up, drug-and-vodka-addled movie queen, and the girl he left behind - and in trouble. Paul Newman, Best Actress nominee Geraldine Page, Rip Torn and Madeline Sherwood recreate their stage roles and Ed Begley won Best Supporting Actor as the town's corrupt political boss in a bravura film version of Tennessee Williams' Broadway hit. Sex, money, hypocrisy, financial and emotional blackmail - familiar elements of Williams' literary realm combine powerfully as Chance battles his private demons in a desperate bid to redeem his wasted life and recapture his lost sweet bird of youth.   
That's the dvd blurb ...

I can't believe I never saw SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH until today - despite getting that Tennessee Williams boxset in 2006, and liking his texts and short stories, and seeing most of the films, I particuarly like NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE (see Williams label). . I had been meaning to watch it all week, and I am totally stunned by Geraldine Page all over again, her Alexandra Del Lago is on the same level as Leigh's Blanche or Taylor's Maggie the Cat. Ignored for stretches of the movie as Newman's Chance Wayne scenario plays out, he is tired of satisfying rich women in the hope that he can find fame in Hollywood. The film suddenly blazes into life with her astonishing telephone call scene when she realises she is a success and not the failure she imagined after taking refuge in vodka, hashish, oxygen masks and young studs… Chance is her latest, after she promises to get him a movie contract ...

Newman though just isn't that interesting here - maybe I only really like him as HUD - and Chance is quite despicable at first, tape-recording Alexandra's ramblings and trying to impress his old crowd with his Hollywood contacts;   we only really feel for him during his "me, me" reactions while Alexandra is on the phone to Winchell.  What was so touching about this SWEET BIRD was the 2006 documentary with the older Madeline Sherwood (excellent again as Begley's mistress) and Shirley Knight (so perfectly beautiful as Heavenly) talking about the film now, and it fills in how compromised the ending is with Heavenly and Chance driving off together after his face is injured - when of course in the original she has been left barren after a hysterectomy contacted via veneral disease from Chance, who is castrated by her family as their revenge - which certainly ends his career as a stud. Mildred Dunnock is also quietly perfect as ever, and Begley is ideal as the venal corrupt Big Daddy figure, with Rip Torn as his malevolent son.
The screen test with Page and Torn (included on the dvd) was fascinating too as they do the terrific phone scene - they were of course married.  I will now have to go back to Tessessee's SUMMER AND SMOKE with Page as Alma, and of course one could never forget her stunning moments in INTERIORS, and will be catching her role in that HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE soon ... SWEET BIRD may be by Tennessee, but was "written for the screen" and directed by Richard Brooks, (how could he have been happy with this false ending imposed on the play?) and who helmed those other 'important' literary translations like Lewis's ELMER GANTRY, Tennessee's CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF,  Dostoevsky's THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV and went on to Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. I liked his early 1954 THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS when he tacked F Scott Fitzgerald, with the impossibly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor, Geraldine Page (1924-1987) here though is a whole fireworks display, and transforms herself into another stunning beauty - like Julie Harris or Kim Stanley she was one of America's greatest stage actresses who was also a movie star. SWEET BIRD may not be the best Williams, but is certainly a compendium of his themes, as like Arthur Miller and William Inge he returns to the same subjects time and time again and creates that recognisable Williams universe.

1962 might have been the best Actress line-up ever - I had Remick as my personal favourite, but now it could well be Page - and with Davis and Hepburn and Bancroft also in the mix, one could almost make it a 5-way win !  SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH was the Williams I did not really know, so its been good to finally see it, it is of course one of the great American dramas, and is currently enjoying a successful revival in London, with Kim Cattrall as 'The Princess'. It might be good to see the play as originally intended ....

RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS. Leo McCarey’s 1958 comedy is another of those Fox movies that never get shown here, so I imagined it would be a treat seeing it again after 50 years or so – I was about 12 when I first saw it.  It’s a moderately amusing affair, not one of the better Newman-Woodward comedies – well, better than A NEW KIND OF LOVE at any rate; its the usual comedy of misunderstandings and poking fun at suburban living. He is a harassed husband trying to get a drink on the crowded commuter train - the men all wear hats - and she is involved in community affairs and leads a protest against a proposed army base in their suburban community, the site of a pilgrims' landing. 

Add in Joan Collins as Angela, the vamp next door who has designs on Newman, Jack Carson as a military man, and the teenage Tuesday Weld who has just discovered boys (Dwane Hickman). Its from a novel by Max Schulman and an uncredited George Axelrod had a hand in the script. Its interesting seeing the serious Newmans trying to do comedy in Rock and Doris or Jack Lemmon style, but much as they try comedy is just not their forte. Luckily Joan and Tuesday have the required light touch. Re-seeing RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS again yesterday after a 50 year gap what seemed funny then was painfully tedious now. Jack Carson has a few funny moments though particularly when he is fired into space in that rocket, but on the whole, it all seems tediously slow. 

1966: The Chase, Hurry Sundown, Harper ...

Here's 3 big dramas from that terrific year 1966 - see previous posts below. I didn't see either THE CHASE or HURRY SUNDOWN (filmed in 1966, released here early 1967) at the time, but remember liking HARPER or THE MOVING TARGET as it was called here, with Paul Newman as Ross McDonald's laconic private eye, with 4 terrific dames in tow (Bacall, Janet Leigh, Julie Harris, Shelley Winters). First though, Penn's riveting THE CHASE, a Sam Spiegel production for Columbia, scripted by Lillian Hellman from Horton Foote's story - add in a powerhouse cast and a John Barry score and watch sparks fly ...

The moral foundation of a small Texas town is torn apart in this explosive drama about power and greed. Sheriff Calder isn't the only person chasing Bubber Reeves when he escapes from prison. Oil and cattle baron Val Rogers wants Bubber out of the way to cover up the love affair between his son Jake and Bubber's wife Anna. THE CHASE is on. When bigotry and booze propel the townsfolk into a vigilante mob, Calder's wife tries to convince her husband that he doesn't have to bring Bubber in alive. But the sheriff is fighting for justice and he won't be stopped until the shattering climax. No one escapes untouched in acclaimed director Arthur Penn's action-packed drama. 

That about sums it up .... the stunning cast here comprises Brando in one of his better '60s roles (he was back in the deep south the next year in Huston's REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, in a totally different role and milieu... as we will discover in due course), with Angie Dickinson terrific as ever as his wife. Brando has another great scene where he is beaten up (as in ONE EYED JACKS); the town bullies are a venal mob fuelled by booze and their dissatisfied wives - Martha Hyer is terrific as a drunk, and Janice Rule scores too. Miriam Hopkins has some good moments as Bubber's mother, E.G. Marshall is the local Mr Big with Robert Duvall an employee. At the centre of the film though are a terrific trio: young Robert Redford as blighted golden boy Bubber, Jane Fonda in one of her better roles as his wife, having a long romance with Jake, - James Fox, surprisingly effective in this milieu, after his roles in THE SERVANT and KING RAT (see below). 

The core of the film is the meeting of this trio at the local junkyard before the mob turn up .... the drunken violence that escalates is brilliantly depicted by Penn - who of course went on to BONNIE & CLYDE next. I don't know why I didn't see this at the time, I would have enjoyed it a lot, with that cast - but its certainly worth seeing now. For a 1966 film it also prefigures those political assassinations in 1968 - as one just knows what is going to happen as Bubber is being brought in. The portrayal of small-town bigotry, duplicity, jealousy, betrayal, and infidelity is well-done, with great scope and colour, and the spectacular junkyard climax is a chilling finale.... the ironic aftermath shows the Sheriff and his wife leaving town, which is certainly a circle of hell as depicted here.  THE CHASE aims for significance and I think achieves it, a key mid-'60s American film, whereas HURRY SUNDOWN falls flat on its face, a hilariously awful cartoon ...

Jane Fonda was back down south in Otto Preminger's production HURRY SUNDOWN, which is a prime slice of southern trash now. This is a much reviled film and finally seeing it one can see why .... as in THE CHASE the 'n' word is used a lot (as of course was 'fag' in those movies like THE LOVE MACHINE). This though is a lurid potboiler with all the usual Preminger finesse, which Horton Foote also had a hand in writing. Otto is a curious case, after his '40s classics like LAURA and his "interesting" '50s films like CARMEN JONES he seemed to hit his peak for me with ANATOMY OF A MURDER and ADVISE AND CONSENT (review at gay interest label) (I missed and never cared for EXODUS) while THE CARDINAL was more tedious histrionics (but at least had Romy Schneider) .... I still have one of his last and reputed worst SKIDOO to see, some rainy day, or snowy night by the fire ...

The dramatics on show here play like a demented comedy now as we watch Alfie and Barbarella and her blonde angel with Bonnie Parker ... Michael Caine is the hissable cartoon villain and Jane Fonda is wasted as his wife, apart from that scene with the saxaphone! are the rich folk, while John Philip Law in dungarees and Faye Dunaway in her first main role are the dirt poor relatives on that plot of land which Caine just has to get for the evil company who wants it and the neighbouring plot by poor but honest black folk Robert Hooks and his soon-to-expire mother, Beah Richards, who was Fonda's Mammy. Sassy Diahann Carroll is soon on their side as unscrupulous Caine will stop at nothing, not even that Southern accent of his!
This is comedy drama with broad brushstrokes as the whites are depicted as venal and corrupt and bigoted, and the blacks are all noble salts of the earth .... Burgess Meredith chews scenery as a corrupt judge with Jim Backus on the side of the good folk, while George Kennedy is the sleazy local chief of police, fond of getting down with the coloured folks, and Madeleine Sherwood reprises her Sisterwoman from CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Fonda finally comes to her senses and leaves her snivelling husband who has one more ace up his sleeve in flooding the land .... while Law and Dunaway share their passion on his return from combat overseas - this is all supposed to be 1945 but hardly looks it. HURRY SUNDOWN is a delicious piece of southern fried trash then - one should ask friends around and serve appropriate food and drink and howl along with it .... particularly when Caine is in full panto villain mode ...

HARPER: Lew Harper, a cool private investigator, is hired by a wealthy California matron to locate her kidnapped husband. Jack Smight's 1966 thriller is still a nifty piece of cinema catching Newman in his prime - remember how he retrieves yesterday's coffee grounds from the trashcan to make some more coffee, as the credits unroll?. This time the in-joke is that it is Lauren Bacall as the rich dame who hires him to solve the case (she played the daughter of General Sherwood who hires Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP), Janet Leigh is effective as his ex-wife frying those eggs, Shelley Winters is the ex-child movie star "who got fat", and best of all, Julie Harris as the junkie jazz singer singing that song "Living Alone", words by Dory and music by Andre Previn (they also did "You're Gonna Hear From Me" from that year's INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (Natalie Wood label), another Warner biggie then. 

Add in Robert Wagner, Rober Webber, Strother Martin and sizzling young Pamela Tiffin and the scene is set for a tightly-plotted detective scenario. Smight of course went on to the delicious NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY (Remick label). Newman is in his prime here after HUD and went on to LADY L with Loren, and COOL HAND LUKE, and of course had done TORN CURTAIN with Julie Andrews for Hitch ...the one Hitch movie I had no interest in seeing. Good to see him here with marvellous Julie Harris (see Harris label), he had tested for EAST OF EDEN, as per those tests with James Dean. Nice also to see Jacqueline De Wit again (the fearsome Mona Plash in ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Rock Hudson label).
HARPER is still a terrific movie with a great cast in their prime, even for non-Newman devotees like me, and catches that mid-'60s vibe nicely (where Americans were growing Beatle haircuts and dancing the frug) like the next year's IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. Photographed by Conrad Hall with a cool score by Johnny Mandel.

Next 60s: SHIP OF FOOLS, THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG, and more Deep South shenanigans with REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, TOYS IN THE ATTIC and SUMMER AND SMOKE, and Lumet's THE SEAGULL and THE DEADLY AFFAIR - '60s dramas at their best then.