Month: February 2023

The World of Suzie Wong

/ Colin McGuigan / 47 Comments

To whom it may concern…

Integrating into an essentially alien society or culture is a process which demands that one should not only become familiar and comfortable with the prevailing mores and customs but, and this is arguably an even greater challenge, also reassess oneself. This complete awakening, a combination of introspection and extrospection acts as a powerful dramatic hook. It lies at the heart of The World of Suzie Wong (1960) and applies particularly to William Holden’s stranger in a strange land. However, the setting in colonial era Hong Kong and that curious Eurasian atmosphere it generates, coupled with its examination of the demimonde that flourished in the bars and dance clubs of the city by night, means that it has an application for Nancy Kwan’s title character too. All of this ties in with the quest for fulfillment, a theme that figures prominently in Strangers When We Meet,  the other Richard Quine directed movie released that year.

It all starts in a lighthearted, playful way, with Robert Lomax (William Holden) sparring and flirting with the Chinese girl he encounters on the boat ride into Hong Kong. The mood alternates between coy and farcical and is buoyed along by the irrepressible optimism and positivity that films of the era seemed able to tap into without ever needing to break sweat. She is Suzie Wong (Nancy Kwan), a veteran of the waterfront bars despite her youth, although Lomax is not initially aware of this, having seen no reason to doubt her claims of coming from a wealthy and decorous background. Both of these characters are at heart dreamers, one spinning a yarn for the sheer fun of it, just to indulge her fantasy harmlessly in the company of a stranger she is unlikely ever to meet again, while the other harbors hopes of transforming his desire into something real – I guess this contrasting perspective might, in a nutshell, be seen as defining the nature of dreams in youth and maturity.  Lomax has come east to make a fresh start, and a radical one at that. He has grown weary of life as an architect and has decided to have one last shot at making it as an artist, giving himself in the region of a year, or until his money runs out,  to either realize this ambition or face up to the fact it is not to be.

Suzie (Nancy Kwan), on the other hand, is motivated, superficially anyway, by the kind of ephemeral thrill-seeking, bordering on hedonism, that is the preserve of the young. Yet these flights of fancy really only exist on the surface, and as the movie progresses it becomes apparent that there is a depth of longing within her too, that need for emotional stability and security which is innate to every person. In her case it is perhaps even stronger due to her own particular personal circumstances. So, there are quite profound themes and issues being explored and, despite the occasional but well integrated foray into lighter areas, they gradually build and grow in intensity, revealing themselves in an almost kaleidoscopic manner with tones and shades of meaning and motivation forever shifting or altering the perspective of both the characters on the screen and that of the viewers of the drama.

If fulfillment is the bedrock of the story then rediscovery represents the path which should be taken. Suzie is Robert’s inspiration in every sense, the muse who forms the basis of his art and also the person who opens up that route back to a fulfilled life. While it’s not explicitly stated in the script, although I feel there are oblique hints, the journey undertaken by Robert Lomax to such an alien environment, tossing aside what one might assume would have been a successful career to try to make a fresh start as a painter, is suggestive of some trauma in his life. His initial rejection of any kind of commitment – his claim that it is basically the result of his straitened finances is only half-credible, I think – indicates a man who is in retreat from personal relationships.

If his art is inspired by Suzie, then I reckon it is fair to say his reconnecting with life through that art is similarly achieved. At one point she tells him that he will die inside without his art, that it both sustains and defines him. Then later Kay (Sylvia Syms), the well-to-do banker’s daughter who finds herself by turns jealous and besotted, suggests that if he never painted Suzie again he wouldn’t die. It is at this moment that he becomes completely aware of himself and his situation. He is now conscious of the fact that his whole existence has become bound up with Suzie – his art, his love, his life itself are essentially one and the same. If one aspect or ingredient is absent or denied, then he can never attain fulfillment. So, love, art and life are inextricably linked for Robert Lomax, with no one part functioning properly without the other. And it is the unlikely figure of Suzie who acts as the gravitational hub for all of these elements.

Richard Quine may have come on board as a replacement for Jean Negulesco, but this notion of fulfillment earned through an imperfect love underpinned Strangers When We Meet and thus I can’t help wondering whether the theme didn’t have some resonance for the director. The movie does appear to have been strongly influenced by producer Ray Stark and writer John Patrick as much as anyone yet the mere fact Quine occupied the director’s chair for two films released in the same year which were both so markedly informed by this theme is certainly intriguing. I would like to mention too that I was struck by the fact that both movies present emotional crescendos played out in the midst of intense rainstorms. Quine made only a handful of dramatic movies overall, which I think is a pity as he did display an affinity for this type of material, although that should by no means be taken as a criticism or dismissal of the highly entertaining comedies and satires he is more commonly associated with. As with Strangers When We Meet, George Duning contributes another lush and evocative score and Geoffrey Unsworth’s cinematography makes the most of the Hong Kong locations as well as the beautifully lit interiors.

Watching movies featuring William Holden never disappoints, the man could be tough or sardonic, flippant or intense, but whatever the part he consistently brought a sense of a real person to his roles. The part of Robert Lomax has a number of dimensions, jauntiness, adventurousness, humility, a hint of desperation and, crucially, a solid core of compassion. Holden had become such an accomplished performer by this stage that he could convey all of this smoothly and convincingly. Nancy Kwan was making her screen debut in the title role and took the place of France Nuyen, who had been originally cast and then fired by the producer. She brings a beguiling freshness to the role, frank and energetic throughout, and coping well with the powerful and dramatic moments. Michael Wilding comes across as something of a caricature of an Englishman abroad; it’s amusing enough in its way, but I’ve always thought there was a touch of the artificial to many of his performances. Both Laurence Naismith and the recently deceased Sylvia Syms offer good support.

The World of Suzie Wong ought to be easy enough to track down on DVD and it has also been released on Blu-ray by Imprint in Australia. Personally, I feel it has a lot going for it; it looks squarely and unflinchingly at such matters as prostitution and casual racism yet never patronizes nor loses sight of that alluring and elusive central theme, and of course Nancy Kwan is enchanting throughout. I think it is a really great movie.

Johnny Stool Pigeon

/ Colin McGuigan / 55 Comments

It’s interesting to watch movies that might be described as halfway house efforts, they have an air about them of remote outposts on clinging on at the frontier of genres, one eye fixed on a particular set of circumstances and the other looking in a different direction like a sort of cinematic Janus. Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949) has a touch of that, casting ahead to the rapidly approaching decade where the focus would shift firmly to tales of a society under threat from shadowy but large scale criminal organizations while still retaining a concern for the battered and bruised individuals who represent the life blood of the genre.

A federal sting aimed a netting a drugs courier just off a boat in San Francisco leads to the suspect taking a bullet during a chase through a dockside warehouse. The agent who had been hoping to make an arrest is Morton (Howard Duff) and he’s the insistent type. Running down the man who did the shooting is easy enough, but picking him up in order to apply a bit of pressure proves trickier. Organized crime is dependent on tip offs and betrayals, and so it is that word filters through of what the authorities have in mind. The result? Another mouth silenced and another link cut out of the chain leading back to the narcotics suppliers. This is all routine stuff so far, but the apparent brick wall confronting Morton calls for some creative thinking, and enlivens the story as a consequence. His reasoning is that if the organization can’t be broken from the outside, then it will have to be done from the inside. The problem of course is how to get in. The key to unlocking that particular door rests in the hands of Johnny Evans (Dan Duryea), a hood and gangster serving time in Alcatraz thanks to the efforts of Morton, and nursing the kind of deeply felt grudge one might expect. Conveniently, from Morton’s standpoint at any rate, Evans’ wife has recently died from the effects of drug addiction so there’s plenty of emotional leverage on hand. Forming an uneasy alliance, Morton (now going under the name of Doyle) and Evans head first to Vancouver in Canada and then back down south to Arizona on the trail of the head of the syndicate. While all this is taking place, there is an added complication provided by Terry (Shelley Winters), a girl keen to escape the clutches of the mob.

Frankly, the gangbusters element of the story is by the numbers stuff, well enough executed but hardly riveting. Any plot that makes use of the lawman going undercover trope naturally generates suspense and tension, and that is certainly true here. I guess the involvement of a potentially hostile figure such as that portrayed by Duryea adds a touch of uncertainty, although there aren’t really any jaw-dropping twists in store. For all that, the movie is entertaining in the way so many Universal-International crime pictures are. It displays a brisk lack of pretension, a utilitarian stylishness that is alluring. William Castle is best known these days for those horror and thriller movies he concentrated on from the late 1950s onward. However, his credits in the preceding years show the breadth of his body of work. He worked in many genres and deserves more recognition for the frequently tight and fast-moving westerns, adventures and crime movies he cut his teeth on. When Johnny Stool Pigeon was made he had just moved to Universal-International after spending years working on a number of series for Columbia, such as Crime Doctor (somebody please release a set of these enjoyable B pictures!) and The Whistler. The economical shooting and storytelling style of these low budget movies would stay with him and inform much of his subsequent work.

I have  seen and enjoyed so many Dan Duryea performances over the years. Broadly speaking, he tended toward two characteristic types. On the one hand, there was the sly, wheedling good-for-nothing, slouching from one cheap subterfuge to another. On the other hand, he could be a loud, booming braggart, a strutting peacock daring all to challenge his brashness. His role in Johnny Stool Pigeon is something of a hybrid, with a couple of real firecracker scenes that have him cutting loose and barking at Barry Kelley and Howard Duff respectively, as well as more subtle, yet paradoxically more powerful and affecting, moments such as his visit to the morgue to identify the body of his wife. Threaded trough the whole performance though is that air of tough melancholy he always wore. He had about him the aura of a man assailed by wry bitterness and relentlessly pursued by some nameless regret.

Howard Duff enjoyed a fairly successful run from the late 1940s till the middle of the next decade as a lead of the square -jawed variety. I wouldn’t say he had great range but he was an agreeable screen presence. He is rather aloof in Johnny Stool Pigeon, distant and frankly stiff in many scenes. In his defense, the role he was playing was that of a man in an especially precarious position, one who would have needed to maintain a cool and icy grip on himself at all times. Still, the contrast with Duryea’s full-blooded performance is marked. Shelley Winters weighs in with a credible mixture of street-smart and vulnerable, and her character’s influence on both her co-stars and the eventual resolution of the story is noteworthy. In support, John McIntire is typically impressive, his back-slapping bonhomie masking a dry, cold core. Tony Curtis, in one of his earliest appearances, has the role of a mute assassin. He may not have had any dialogue but he gets plenty of screen time to glower and brood.

Johnny Stool Pigeon was another movie that was impossible to view in anything other than the crummiest condition until Kino released it recently. It’s not going to make anyone’s list of the best films noir, and just about everyone involved would make stronger movies. Nevertheless, it is very watchable and enjoyable, brief and pacy and possessed of that appealing Universal-International vibe this viewer generally finds irresistible.

The Square Jungle

/ Colin McGuigan / 25 Comments

Hollywood in the 1950s seemed to fall in love with the idea of jungles, metaphorical ones at any rate. They ranged from the Asphalt to the Human, from the Blackboard to the Female, and those titles always carried at least a hint of film noir about them. The Square Jungle (1955) has been marketed as noir, but I don’t believe it fits in that category. Sure the trajectory followed by the protagonist takes a detour into the darker corners of despair and disgust, but it is ultimately headed in a different direction and is arguably best approached as a sporting melodrama that charts the sometimes painful journey from hubris to humility.

Eddie Quaid (Tony Curtis) is a man with ambitions, albeit modest ones at first. He’s working as a grocery store clerk and doing his best to offer moral support to his father, Pat (Jim Backus), who is weighed down by an unholy trinity of widowhood, unemployment and alcohol dependence. Desperate to haul his old man back from the brink after he’s been arrested for a drunken assault, and smarting from the consequent break-up of his relationship with Julie Walsh (Pat Crowley), he stumbles into the world of prizefighting. Since Eddie is clearly showing aptitude for the fight game, his father along with a sympathetic cop, McBride (Paul Kelly), persuade him to give it a go as a professional boxer. Under the watchful tutelage of Bernie Browne (Ernest Borgnine), an atypically learned and thoughtful man who is almost Socratic in his approach to training, Eddie (or Packy Glennon as he is known in the ring) rises fast through the ranks to earn a shot at the world title. This all occurs in the first twenty minutes or so of the movie, cutting through a lot of potentially tedious build-up and allowing the focus to rest firmly on Eddie’s period at the top, the three fights and their consequences that define him as a champion and, more importantly, as a man.

Many a boxing drama has focused on the corruption and underhanded shenanigans taking place in that shadowy world beyond the stark and floodlit square where the modern gladiators jog out to do battle with the promise of riches, glamor and celebrity always just one punch away. Yet there is little if any of that on display in The Square Jungle. Instead, it is replaced by a kind of ragamuffin romanticism, where pride, honor and self-respect are put to the test and are seen to win the day as opposed to the self-regarding venality that one normally associates with the fights.

I guess director Jerry Hopper would be classified as a journeyman, although that is not a term I am especially fond of due to that air of drabness it carries with it. He is never going to be regarded as a great and there isn’t any one film he made that commands our attention. Then of course there is also the fact that he worked so extensively in television, with many more credits in that medium than in the cinema, and that was rarely a career route that brought critical praise, or which permitted the creative breathing space essential to it for that matter. For all that though, I don’t think I have watched anything Hopper made which I didn’t enjoy on some level and those often undervalued television credits include some exceptionally fine work. One welcome feature of The Square Jungle is the pacing, the story maintains a strong sense of forward momentum all the way through, and I’ve already mentioned the brisk and efficient way the early part of the story is handled. Naturally, a boxing film needs to have well staged fight scenes and I think that is the case here, with the three major bouts being shot and edited in such a way as to impart a kind of brutal intimacy. The aftermath of each successive fight is vital to our understanding of the emotional, and indeed the spiritual, development of Eddie in particular. It’s quite subtly achieved given the nature of the subject matter and the brash milieu of fighters, trainers, promoters and sundry hangers-on. Personally, I was taken by the marvelous stillness that Hopper brought to the end of the fateful third fight, an all-encompassing silence that descends abruptly, the gravity of it all perfectly captured in the terseness of the referee and the wordless, tear-stained anguish of one woman’s face.

Eddie Quaid/Packy Glennon was the second time Tony Curtis would play a fighter, having already done so a few years earlier in Joseph Pevney’s Flesh and Fury. It is a good performance, charming throughout and moving smoothly from the open, selfless young man of the early scenes to the conceited and vaguely boorish champion he becomes before finally attaining wisdom and warmth, and winning a far more valuable prize in the process. Pat Crowley is quietly supportive as the girl he loves and who helps anchor him.

However, this is not a love story, but rather a look at how men can reach an accommodation with themselves, with their own masculinity in all its forms. As such, the relationship Eddie has with his father is a key one, the older man – who has tasted failure many times – living vicariously through his son’s success and the way that impacts on the younger man. Jim Backus was good in that kind of role. I find I tend to hold onto my first conscious impressions of actors and in the case of Backus that would have been his part as James Dean’s father in Rebel Without a Cause, so he is someone I automatically associate with weak but well-meaning figures. Then there is Ernest Borgnine, who could do no wrong around this time, as the saturnine philosopher carrying his own private guilt. In smaller roles, Paul Kelly, David Janssen, John Day, John Marley (long before he would wake up next to a horse’s head in The Godfather) and Leigh Snowden all make telling contributions. There is also a very brief cameo from former heavyweight champion Joe Louis.

Gradually, it is becoming easier to catch up with Universal-International titles that had long been hard to see. The Square Jungle has been released on Blu-ray in the US by Kino in one of their film noir collections and I’d like to think it might turn up in Europe or the UK at some point.It is a solid boxing drama with an attractive cast and a reliable director, and it’s well worth watching.