Author: Colin McGuigan

Time Lock

/ Colin McGuigan / 33 Comments

The simplest stories can sometimes be the most absorbing. Having just spent a very rewarding hour and a half viewing Time Lock (1957), I reckon it would also be fair to say such films can be among the most suspenseful too. In this case it really is down to the quality of the story itself. The budget must have been slight, the cast is limited and has no especially big names, and the direction is not particularly showy. However, the subject matter is such that it grabs the attention and then holds it in a steely grip right up to the moment the end credits roll.

Toronto on a sleepy Friday afternoon in the middle of July. It’s a time when most people will be thinking of the days ahead, pleased to have left the trials and pressures of another working week behind them. In a sense, all the danger signs are present in that period of time, a soporific blend of relief at what’s been relegated to the past and anticipation for what the future may hold leading to casualness or indeed carelessness in the present. It should come as no surprise then that the arrival of Lucille Walker (Betty McDowall) at the bank where her husband Colin (Lee Patterson) works is accompanied by a degree of laxness on the part of everyone there. Pretty much all of the staff, the manager (Alan Gifford) included has at least half an eye on something other than work. It’s also the Walkers son’s sixth birthday and he’s naturally being treated with even more indulgence than usual.  As he scampers around the bank clutching his new flashlight and seeking out various nooks and crannies to test its effectiveness, there is the sound of a collision on the street outside. It draws the attention of everyone, even the manager and Colin Walker, who are in the process of setting the time lock on the vault. A quick glance through the windows shows that nothing serious has occurred, not outside anyway. And then the vault door is swung shut and the locks activated. Just as the heavy, unyielding steel seals itself, an even heavier realization descends on those in the bank – the boy is nowhere to be seen, and has clearly been shut up tight in a strongroom that cannot be opened till Monday morning. Disbelief is soon shooed aside by panic, which in turn finds itself chased away by a gnawing sense of desperation. The air supply is finite, the vault virtually impenetrable, and the only man who might know how to get in (Robert Beatty) is off for a weekend of fishing.

It’s a very simple and uncomplicated story, a small boy trapped in a vault and a race against time to free him. However, it is the simplicity that makes it work so well. It is a situation that is both unthinkable yet also entirely credible. These two factors add an edge to the suspense that grows naturally from any race against the clock tale. At first, I was a little surprised to see that the script was derived from a play by Arthur Hailey. There is the temptation to see his bestselling novels and their adaptations for the big and small screen as large scale, sprawling affairs – Airport and Hotel certainly spring to mind.  Yet even those are quite contained in a sense, and there’s no getting away from the fact that his subject matter favored scenarios where unexpected drama was wrought from essentially mundane circumstances.

Perhaps more surprising is the production team behind Time Lock. When the credits announce that the feature is directed by Gerald Thomas and written and produced by Peter Rogers, well one would be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that a ribald comedy was on the cards. After all, those two were responsible for the long running Carry On series of movies. You’d never know that from a viewing of this film though, the tone remaining deadly serious all the way through as befits such a tense premise.

Looked at from today’s perspective, the movie had one big star – Sean Connery. However, this was right at the start of his career and his role is small, as one of the workmen called in to see if there was any chance of their oxyacetylene cutting gear making an impression on the vault door. The main parts are filled by Lee Patterson and Betty McDowall as the helpless parents who are unable to anything other than wait and hope and pray. Alan Gifford, who shared the screen with Patterson the same year in the rather good The Flying Scot, gets a reasonably juicy part as the guilt-ridden bank manager. Robert Beatty heads the cast, even though he only enters proceedings about half way through, as the expert on safes. When he does appear he ushers in a sense of even greater urgency, brisk and brusque in his management of a situation whose margins of error have by then been shaved right down to the bone.

I don’t think Time Lock has ever had a DVD release in the UK, although it has appeared in the US, included in one of Kino’s British Noir sets, and in Australia in the past. It would have been a good title for Network’s British Film line, but the company’s sad and sudden demise means that will never happen now. Anyway, it remains a terrific little suspense yarn that manages to do a lot with limited resources. I definitely recommend the film to anyone who is not yet familiar with it.

So Evil My Love

/ Colin McGuigan / 20 Comments

Guilt, corruption and obsession. That’s a heady mix for any movie, though it could be said to be nothing out of the ordinary for film noir. So Evil My Love (1948) is a kind of film noir, more Gothic melodrama I suppose yet it’s still dark and fatalistic enough, both visually and thematically, to just about make the cut as far as I’m concerned. It is something of a hybrid in more ways than one. Leaving aside any discussion of its noir credentials, the movie is one of those Hollywood funded and produced pictures that were made on location in the UK, and in this case making use of a cast of largely British and Irish actors – although all of the principals were working mainly in the US at this point. While there is much to enjoy and admire in the movie, there is a weakness which I feel ought to be mentioned. It has a marvelous visual sheen and well judged sense of atmosphere, but there’s also one central performance that I regard as deeply problematic, though fortunately it’s not as harmful overall as the issue that blighted Caught for me.

On a ship carving its way across the ocean from Jamaica to England a lone figure stands on deck, either oblivious to the spray on her face and the pitching deck beneath her or perhaps enjoying the experience. Olivia Harwood (Ann Todd) has been recently widowed, the death of her missionary husband leaving her with no option but to return home. She allows herself to be reluctantly coaxed into ministering to the ill on board the ship, chiefly one Mark Bellis (Ray Milland). On arrival in Liverpool it is immediately apparent to the viewer that Mark Bellis is perhaps not all he seems. He is ostensibly a painter, but his cautious probing to discover what, if anything, he revealed while in the throes of fever and then his determination to avoid the authorities set the alarm bells ringing. The fact is Mark Bellis (though that is merely one of the wide range of names he makes use of) is a genuine good-for-nothing, a swindler, a thief, a master manipulator, and apparently a murderer too. To such a man, a lonely, vulnerable and most likely gullible widow provides tempting game. And so it is he goes to work on Olivia Harwood, slowly worming his way into her heart while he sets about organizing his next robbery. However, the failure of that endeavor sees him altering his plans, and the beginning of his methodical and relentless corruption of Olivia. Under his tutelage, she finds herself not only taking advantage of an old friend, but also betraying and undermining her, taking a path that will inexorably lead to blackmail and murder.

The film has bags of atmosphere, with ponies clipping along cobbled thoroughfares, discharging their silken passengers outside addresses that might be mean and unforgiving or forbidding in their splendor. Wherever the characters go, their surroundings seem to crowd them regardless of whether they are immense or cramped. Somehow there is a sense of all the hypocritical baggage of the late Victorian era forever pressing and suffocating. This feeds into or fuels the feeling of fatalism that pervades the movie. Right from that first scene on the deck of the ship there is an unmistakable air of characters trapped or hemmed in by a destiny shaped by their own weakness and frailty. Mark Bellis is unquestionably a bad lot and that is never in doubt, but it is Olivia’s downward spiral that is the focal point of it all. Director Lewis Allen made only a relatively small number of movies (just 18 over a period of fifteen years) but there are some real gems in among them – The Uninvited, The Unseen, Desert Fury, Suddenly and Another Time, Another Place are all good or better in my opinion.

This is was a fairly productive and successful period for Ray Milland, coming only a couple of years after his Oscar winning turn for Billy Wilder in The Lost Weekend and he would follow this up with a pair of strong films noir for John Farrow in The Big Clock and Alias Nick Beal. This type of role, an oily and calculating charmer, was a good fit for Milland. He had the polish to carry it off convincingly and was also able to tap into a rich seam of desperation when the whispers of his typically dormant conscience grew more insistent. Geraldine Fitzgerald is characteristically fine too as Olivia’s ill-fated friend, brittle and foolish, quick to trust in her hunger for companionship and kindness, and touchingly meek in her willingness to accept her guilt.

Nevertheless, as I alluded to above, there is an issue that damages the movie seriously. The behavior of Ann Todd’s character simply fails to convince me. She is right at the center of things, the heart of the movie in truth, and both her actions and the core characteristics need to ring true for it all to work. And for me this does not happen. I can accept that obsession and infatuation is capable of driving people to places they would not normally go, but I find Olivia’s sudden decision (remember, this is the widow of a Victorian missionary we’re talking about here) to betray her friend’s confidence and the consequent acceptance of the necessity for extortion to be so abrupt as to defy credibility. What’s more, there is then far too much inconsistency on display, the character’s morality and motivation shifting almost from scene to scene. This is a writing issue of course rather than an acting matter – the script is adapted from a story by Joseph Shearing (a pseudonym used by Marjorie Bowen) who also provided the source material for Blanche Fury and Moss Rose. The latter film does have some contrived or unrealistic elements, but there’s not that inconsistency which troubles me here.

On the other hand, there are some excellent supporting turns to help restore the balance. Martita Hunt is chillingly intense as the overprotective grande dame. It is a bit of a stretch to see Raymond Huntley as her son – he was only four years her junior after all – but his cold lack of compassion is neatly done. Moira Lister sashays in and out of the tale as a trashy model whose vanity and vulgarity bring matters to a head. Leo G Carroll’s low-key detective lurks around and does his bit to draw the net tighter. And Maureen Delany, Hugh Griffith and Finlay Currie all have small yet memorable parts.

All told, So Evil My Love is a movie that works in places. There is no doubt that it has style, and some of the acting is excellent – Geraldine Fitzgerald rarely fails to impress me, for example. Still, Ann Todd’s role is an issue. That zigzagging from demure respectability to coquettish scheming and back again on the way to grim vengeance is something I just can’t buy into. Others may well regard this as less problematic. As it stands, I guess it amounts to two thirds of a good movie, or maybe three quarters if I’m in a more generous frame of mind.

X the Unknown

/ Colin McGuigan / 62 Comments

I’m going to have to confess that I’ve drifted away from contemporary Sci-Fi movies, or maybe they have drifted away from me. It’s a tricky genre in many respects; there is the obvious need to make movies that entertain, but in order to rise above mere popcorn fare it is necessary to have a story underpinning it all that asks questions or offers ideas for consideration. Now one could say that this applies to all genres and I’d tend to agree. Yet what sets Sci-Fi apart is the fact its inherent inventiveness and malleable boundaries allow for a more enticing examination of themes that might appear dull if presented in other genres. I guess it boils down to the need to strike a balance between the entertaining and thought-provoking aspects.

Growing up, I was entranced by classic Sci-Fi, and the entertainment quotient was what grabbed my attention back then. Later, I came to appreciate the way that many of these movies wove social and philosophical commentary in among the thrills. Of course filmmaking has changed a lot over the years, and the visual effects that enhance and enrich the wondrous nature of Sci-Fi have advanced impressively. Sometimes I think that this huge improvement also conceals behind its cloak of digital magic the seeds of my gradual dissociation from the genre. Has the balance shifted a little too sharply, and has the superabundance of visually startling imagery and whizz-bang effects obscured some of the thoughtfulness that once characterized the best of the genre? I found myself wondering about such things as I watched Hammer’s X the Unknown (1956) the other day, the type of cheaply made movie that fascinated my younger self, and still does in fact.

Paranoia fueled so many of the great classic era Sci-Fi movies with the concept of the enemy within growing out of the Cold War and the fears and misunderstandings that accompanied it. Often the enemy within was presented as an infiltration of society, either on an individual or communal level. X the Unknown takes a different path, one leading not to the heart of mankind but to the heart of our planet itself with the implication that our greatest threat comes not only from a fatalistic and seemingly unstoppable force of nature, but one which has been festering away deep below the surface, practically written into the DNA of our world. It’s a fine idea in itself and the execution offers a lesson in how to extract as much suspense and implied horror as possible on a shoestring. It all begins during a tiresomely routine military exercise, the random placement of a mildly radioactive object causing the sudden appearance of a mysterious fissure and the consequent death and destruction that is unleashed. The frequency of fatal encounters with whatever broke free of that fissure gradually picks up pace and even leads to the leveling of that old charge that scientific tinkering and dabbling lies at the root of it all. That notion, happily, is given short shrift, dismissed almost the moment it is uttered and both challenged and disproved by the close. I have an unpleasant feeling though that were this movie to be remade today, in a climate where quackery is all too often hailed while science is belittled, the reverse might actually be the case.

In all honesty, however, I don’t see how a movie like this would be made at all nowadays. The cast is almost exclusively male and middle-aged at that. There is nothing remotely glamorous about leads such as Dean Jagger and Leo McKern, but what they do bring is a sense of calm authority and a reassuring coziness (and I use that term without any pejorative undertones) amid all the mayhem. The source of the danger is kept out of sight for most of the running time, only glimpsed very briefly before the one hour mark and sparingly and sporadically thereafter. It works on the principle that what exists in the mind’s eye is apt to be more unsettling than full exposure to creaky effects. A modern version would feel obliged to conjure up and highlight some effect that would undoubtedly dazzle yet would also be less likely to capture the suspense that comes from dread unseen.

Hammer had just made and enjoyed success with their version of Nigel Kneale’s  The Quatermass Xperiment and so were looking to capitalize on that with a follow up. Kneale appears to have objected to the name of his lead scientist being used and so Jimmy Sangster’s script has Adam Royston rather than Bernard Quatermass desperately seeking a way to battle the terror seeping from the Earth. Had Kneale been involved, it seems likely the plot would have involved some kind of alien presence or interference. That would undoubtedly have been a literate and intelligent approach, but I have to say I rather like the fact that what we got is a wholly terrestrial and primal threat – somehow the notion of danger emanating from that which we know best and which is dearest to us adds an attractive twist to it all. If you’ll forgive the pun, it serves to ground the story. While I wouldn’t quite categorize it as an early Eco-thriller, it does raise questions about our symbiotic relationship with the planet itself. Leslie Norman directs efficiently and briskly enough, though it is tempting to wonder how it might have turned out had first choice Joseph Losey not dropped out. It has been said that the blacklisted Losey was removed at the insistence of Jagger, but there are also claims that it was actually down to a health problem suffered by the director.

X the Unknown was given a Blu-ray release in the US back in 2020. I’ve only seen some images from that version and they look appealing, sharp and in a 1.75:1 ratio. My own copy is a long out of print UK DVD that appears to be open matte. While it won’t have the crispness of the BD, it’s not a bad effort and, in my opinion anyway, remains perfectly watchable. This is the kind of Sci-Fi I adore, modest in scale yet expansive enough in vision and imagination to override its technical limitations.

Caught

/ Colin McGuigan / 22 Comments

Seeing as Max Ophuls came up in some of the comments on the previous post, I decided to go back and have another look at one of his movies that I have struggled with in the past, namely the 1949 production of Caught. As a rule, I have enjoyed what I have seen of the director’s work, but this film has never worked for me. Anyway, with his name fresh in my mind, as well as the knowledge that the movie seems to be well regarded by many other viewers, I thought I should give it another chance. In brief, and this will be one of my shorter posts, I still have major issues with the movie. To be honest, the fact that I made it to the end was as much through a sense of obligation as anything.

The whole thing is an examination of wish fulfillment and the consequent importance of being very careful indeed of what one wishes for. It opens with two sisters in a shabby tenement mooning over glossy magazines and browsing for dreams, a gem encrusted necklace here, a platinum bracelet there, and so on. As ever, money and the power it bestows matters very much to those who have little of it. Leonora (Barbara Bel Geddes) wants the security and the comfort that comes with wealth, and it does come her way as the result of an invitation to a party on a yacht, an invitation she very nearly turns down. This is the thing with Leonora – she wants things and then doesn’t want them when their real cost becomes apparent. When she makes the acquaintance of Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan), a tycoon with a deeply disturbed character, she is soon on the fast track towards the high life on Long Island. However, this is where it all goes wrong for just about everyone involved. Ohlrig is a domineering, controlling and cruel man, an obsessive soul at war with himself and the world in general. Leonora soon comes to see the stew she’s landed herself in and, wisely one would say, moves out and ends up working as a receptionist in a slum neighborhood for Dr Quinada (James Mason). From here the movie devolves into a series of sorties back and forth for Leonora as her indecision along with a deep-seated conviction that she has to “improve herself” at all costs winds up being a good deal more expensive in emotional and physical terms than she’d bargained for.

Max Ophuls’ direction is a pleasure – his camera swooping, swinging and panning, following his characters and sometimes sweeping past them to draw attention to the variously opulent or cheap surroundings while they debate, argue or simply muse out of shot. It’s a distinctive style and Lee Garmes’ cinematography adds to the eye-catching visuals. Attractive as all this may be, it’s not enough to paper over the paucity of genuine character at the heart of the movie. Robert Ryan’s Howard Hughes inspired sociopath is a showy piece of work, neurotic and foul and yet also somehow pitiful in his inadequacy. However, there’s a big hole in the middle of it all for me, and that’s the result of the role played by Barbara Bel Geddes. I started off feeling for her as she struggled to dig herself out of the poverty trap. The fact is though that she’s a playing a woman with essentially no character, a whiny, vacillating type who seems to revel in helplessness and indecision. This is the person who is the main focus and it’s very hard to like a movie where the central role presents such a moral vacuum. And the less said about the “happy ending” we’re asked to buy into, the better. James Mason’s first Hollywood starring role is fair, but he’s given little to do to stretch him –  he does have at least one good scene in the garage confrontation with Ryan and Bel Geddes. The support is mainly an attractively homespun turn from Frank Ferguson and a well observed peek at degradation and dissipation by Curt (“Tough, darling, tough.“) Bois.

Max Ophuls made far better films than this – The Reckless Moment, again with Mason, came shortly afterwards and is superior in every respect, and there are his great French movies such as  The Earrings of Madame de… and La Ronde. I honestly wish I could like this film more, but it just does not do it for me.

River Lady

/ Colin McGuigan / 19 Comments

Movies that exist at the periphery regularly catch my attention. They may be movies that occupy a place on the margins of a particular genre, they may be transitional efforts that straddle different eras, or they may even be a bit of both. Such is the case with River Lady (1948) a film which is not entirely successful, partly as it’s difficult to pin down the genre – a hint of the western, a dash of riverboat melodrama, and a pinch of the frontier adventure – and partly due to the time it was made. While it might not be the kind of movie that broke new ground or made a strong enough impression to encourage frequent revisits, it is still engaging in the way so many of George Sherman’s titles are.

I’ve lost count of how many westerns have turned a spotlight on the encroachment of civilization on the frontier. Sometimes it’s a matter of the railroad hammering out an iron clad tattoo across the plains and relentlessly shoving the old world to one side. At other times it is the stringing of the telegraph line, or the gradual extension of the reach of the law itself. River Lady concerns itself with the expansion of organized business interests, in particular the conflict between small, independent logging outfits and the hungry syndicates. Nevertheless, corporate kerfuffles of any type have a limited appeal at best and it’s always advisable to bring the human drama and the human faces of the players and antagonists to the fore. So it is that attention is focused on a roughneck logger called Dan Corrigan (Rod Cameron) and Sequin (Yvonne De Carlo), the owner of the titular paddle boat and undisclosed boss of the syndicate which is buying up all the struggling outfits on the river. This allows for a double-edged conflict, both the tangled business affairs and the romantic tug-of-war between a hardheaded free spirit such as Corrigan and the ambitious and manipulative Sequin. And any time the mixture looks like drifting off the boil the silky and stealthy Beauvais (Dan Duryea) is on hand to stoke it up once again.

As has been stated, in terms of genre, there’s a fluidity to the movie that mirrors the flow of the timber down the river. I guess that could be seen as versatility in the script, or even as a determination to resist the imposition of boundaries on the part of the filmmakers. However, it makes it hard to get a handle on the movie, a situation I’ve found can crop up from time to time in mid to late 1940s westerns, where it’s possible to detect elements of breezier B pictures rubbing shoulders with themes that carried a bit more weight. One could even say something similar about George Sherman’s career trajectory itself at this point. The rights to the story drifted around Universal for many years before the movie was finally made and perhaps this fairly lengthy gestation period has something to do with the feeling that the finished product imparts.

Rod Cameron is third billed but has the leading role. He provides a strong physical presence, although he does end up on the receiving end of a terrific beating meted out by Duryea at one stage. His acting is adequate overall, but the way his character is written is problematic. I think it’s clear enough that the intention is for a redemptive arc to be traced, which is fine as far as it goes. The thing is though that, as written, Corrigan isn’t really a likeable figure for much of the film’s running time. He’s not just a man who is on a learning curve, he’s downright unpleasant to the women in his life and comes across as spoiled and petulant instead of grittily independent. Duryea, as the villain of the piece, actually brings more nuance and therefore more interest to his part. I suppose it comes down to the fact that Duryea, even when we was showboating shamelessly or backstabbing with the worst of them, had a soulful air about him. Top billing went to Yvonne De Carlo but she is off screen for far too long and her role ends up largely undeveloped. Helena Carter is her romantic rival for Cameron’s affections and actually gets the more rewarding part. In support, John McIntire, Florence Bates and Jack Lambert all have their moments.

As a Technicolor production, River Lady might be expected to look better than it does. I have a German DVD that is acceptable all told, but there is a certain muddiness to it too. Perhaps the fact the movie is part of a George Sherman box that has it packaged alongside solid Blu-ray versions of The Last of the Fast Guns and Red Canyon serves to draw attention to its weaknesses.

Viewing notes – in brief

/ Colin McGuigan / 43 Comments

Just a few very brief comments to ensure the place doesn’t stagnate completely, which I’ve posted elsewhere, all on some movies I’ve been revisiting lately. Normal service should be resumed soon. I hope.

 

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

God knows how many times I’ve seen this over the years. Even so, as soon as Bernstein’s famous score kicks in there’s that same tingle of excitement and anticipation I first experienced as a child. Even though John Sturges is almost certainly best remembered for his longer movies such as this and The Great Escape, I think he did his most effective work on the shorter and more tightly structured films he made in the previous decade. While the first half of this one has some terrific scenes and moments – Calvera’s initial appearance, the ride up to Boot Hill and back etc – there is padding there too.
Something else I’ve become aware of over time is the way Steve McQueen’s “look at me” performance has lost a lot of its appeal. I find it very self-conscious, mannered and less satisfying every time I see it. On the other hand, Brynner’s work stands up well while Bronson is crafty, subtle and quite affecting.

 

The 39 Steps (1935)

Donald Spoto reckoned this movie improved with age and familiarity and I fully agree. It’s the best version of Buchan’s story (not the most faithful by any means, but that’s neither here nor there) and I consider it the best of Hitchcock’s British movies. The Lady Vanishes might run it close, but it’s the little moments, what John Ford would refer to as grace notes, such as Peggy Ashcroft’s aching wistfulness or Lucie Mannheim’s doomed spy that elevate it.

 

The Wrong Man (1956)

More Hitchcock and this time a man trapped in the relentless and merciless machine that is the justice system. I’ve a hunch I only saw this film once before, and that was a very long time ago. In some ways it is atypical Hitchcock, stylistically anyway – measured, sober, with a gritty realism. In another sense, thematically, it’s very characteristic with the title itself telling us that and it’s also very Catholic, even more so than I Confess.

My memory was of a rather harsh and decidedly grim picture and that’s exactly what it is, and it’s possibly the reason why it’s so long since I revisited it. Still, it’s a terrific movie which is held together by two fine, understated performances. Henry Fonda was always an immensely dignified actor, even down to his posture and gait, that quality adding much to his portrayal of a shell-shocked regular guy. Of course the real gut punch comes from what happens to Vera Miles, something which can’t be easy to convey in such a controlled way.

A Trio of TV Episodes – Take 2

/ Colin McGuigan / 31 Comments
As I’ve been taking a short break from posting, or at least not posting just as regularly as I usually like to, I’m happy to have regular visitor and commenter Gordon Gates share some of his extensive knowledge of vintage TV once again.
First up is an episode of the western series. Trackdown “The Marple Brothers” from 1957.

This is the first episode of the 1957 to 1959 western series, Trackdown. Robert Culp stars as a Texas Ranger who wanders the State putting the grab on various wanted types. The series ran for a total of 70 episodes.Texas Ranger Robert Culp is on the trail of four wanted brothers, the Marples. Culp and another Ranger had caught up with them a while back and wounded one of the foursome. Culp’s fellow Ranger though had been fatally wounded.Culp has now tracked the Marple brothers to the small town of Stockton. The men have holed up in the town church. They have hostages, the local Sunday school group. They want a doctor pronto like or bodies of the Sunday school bunch will start to pile up. They have already killed one man to make their point.Ranger Culp now arrives on the scene and takes charge. He has the local Sheriff, Roy Engel, keep an eye on the local men to make sure they do not do something stupid. Culp heads to the church to see about the women and kids being held inside.A deal is reached with the villains to get the wounded brother to the town doctor. James Griffith, the eldest brother, tells Culp everyone will be okay if the townsfolk play ball. They just want their brother patched up and a head start on a getaway.Needless to say, several of the local men decide to make a stab at a rescue. The fat is soon in the fire and bullets are flying every which way with a few finding live targets. After the smoke clears, three of the outlaw brothers are toes up, ready for Boot Hill and the other in cuffs.This is a pretty nifty episode for a series starter. The cast is all top flight and includes, besides, Griffith and Engel, James Best, Jan Merlin, Gail Kobe and Tom Pittman.Behind the camera, we have a pair of b film and television veterans, director, Thomas Carr and cinematographer, Guy Roe. Fans of film noir will know Roe from the excellent B noir, Trapped, Railroaded, The Sound of Fury, In This Corner and Armored Car Robbery.

Next up is an episode of,  Meet McGraw “McGraw in Reno” from 1957.

Meet McGraw was a Private Investigator television series that starred Frank Lovejoy as P.I. McGraw. The show started as a stand-alone episode of the popular Four Star Playhouse in 1954. It took until 1957 before the actual series hit the airwaves. It ran for 42 episodes between 1957 and 1958. This particular episode is the 23rd of the series run.While visiting Reno, Private Investigator McGraw (Lovejoy) is hired by mobbed up gambler, Harry Landers. Landers would like McGraw to keep an eye on his wife, Angie Dickinson. Landers tells Lovejoy that Dickinson had seen a killing back in Detroit and she is in danger. A fistful of hundreds tossed on the table quickly find their way to Lovejoy’s wallet.Lovejoy introduces himself to Dickinson and explains that her husband has hired him as a bodyguard. Dickinson is not impressed and tells Lovejoy to blow. It seems that Dickinson is in town to get a quickie divorce from Landers. Dickinson and a friend, Jeanne Bates are staying in town till the divorce is settled.Lovejoy takes his job seriously and sticks like glue to Dickinson. Dickinson however pulls a fast one and bolts out of the hotel garage in her car. Lovejoy follows the woman up into the hill country. There, he sees another car run Dickinson’s automobile off a handy cliff. The car needless to say goes up in a big blaze, leaving little to id the corpse.The Police are called and are not sure what to make of Lovejoy’s story of another car. They write the incident off as a spot of poor driving by Dickinson. Lovejoy of course smells a rather smelly rodent in the old cheese cupboard. He roots around tracking down various leads.He discovers that Dickinson is very much alive and staying at a country cabin. The crispy critter in the car had been her friend, Jeanne Bates. It appears that the whole thing was a play by Landers to kill his soon to be ex-wife. He could not handle that she was dumping him. He had run Bates off the road thinking it was Dickinson in the car. The Police are summoned and Landers is soon up for a long fall with a short rope.A pretty good episode that has a few nice curves tossed at the viewer. William F Claxton directs with Joe Novak handling the cinematography duties.Interesting to see Dickinson before she went blonde, the dark hair suits her very well. The then 26 year old is quite the looker!

Last on the bill is an episode of, Four Star Playhouse “A Spray of Bullets” from 1955.

Dick Powell headlines this episode of the top flight anthology series, Four Star Playhouse. This series ran for 130 episodes between 1952 and 1956. Each week, one of either, Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, David Niven or Ida Lupino would be the lead in the episode. This one is the 5th episode of season 4.In this episode, a western, Dick Powell rides into a small town and ties up his horse. A local, Raymond Hatton, recognizes him as a fast with the gun Lawman. Hatton figures there is going to be trouble in town, as just a few hours earlier Robert J. Wilke had ridden into town. Wilke is also a fast gun, but he is anything but a law abiding type.The town Sheriff, Art Space is soon calling. It turns out that Sheriff Space and Powell are friends. They had worked together years before. Powell and Space’s daughter, Jean Howell had been an item for a while. Powell tells Space that he is no longer a Lawman. He is just in town on a personal matter. He did not even know that Space and Howell were in town. He also adds that he wants nothing to do with gunman Wilke.We now find out that Powell is in town to see an eye doctor. His sight is going and everything over 20 yards away is a blur. This is why he quit being a lawman. Now Powell and Wilke bump into each other. Wilke asks Powell to have a drink with him. Powell says maybe later. Wilke wonders why the man is in town.Local Raymond Hatton, tells Wilke that he saw Powell pay a visit to the eye doctor. This of course gets Wilke to thinking. While Wilke is pondering this bit of info, Powell is paying his former girl, Howell a visit. He tells the pretty Howell that he is there to get a set of glasses. He wants nothing to do with gun play anymore. He is willing to settle down.Needless to say this plan goes south in a hurry. Gunman Wilke decides to call Powell out for a quick draw. He figures that killing Powell will help his reputation as a top drawer gun hand. Wilke intends to keep a fair distance between himself and Powell. Guns are pulled and Powell, the quicker of the two, fans his gun and sprays lead towards the blur. The smoke clears and Wilke is face down in the dust, gun beside him. It looks like Powell lucked out. He walks off arm and arm with Howell.There are shades of Liberty Valance here as the viewer finds out that maybe someone else had fired the killing shot.This is a top notch episode all around. The always villainous Robert Wilke, as usual, is in great form as the gunman. Well worth a look.

Gordon Gates

Barbara Stanwyck – The Miracle Woman

/ Colin McGuigan / 29 Comments

There was a time when writing on the cinema was a bit thin on the ground. Then movie writing, criticism, and frankly anything related to the screen seemed to explode. Genres were hashed, rehashed and dissected, sometimes in celebration and sometimes in condemnation, theories were propounded and expounded, and reputations were analyzed, constructed and dismantled. That issue of reputations was and indeed is most noticeable in the writing of biographies. The movie biography, with its focus on those who have lived out their lives under the typically remorseless and unforgiving glare of publicity can prove problematic. Let’s face it, everyone writing a book wants people to read it and in the field of movie biographies the temptation to angle for readers using the promise of juicy personal revelations as bait must be a powerful one. Personally, I’m not all that interested in how well or badly individuals behaved in their personal lives – it is the public persona, or the screen work to be more accurate, which would have drawn my attention in the first place. As such, I often approach biographies with caution – too much gossip and too little appraisal of someone’s body of work doesn’t really appeal to this reader. Happily Dan Callahan’s book on Barbara Stanwyck, first published in hardback in 2011 and recently reissued in paperback by the University Press of Mississippi, does not go down that route , although there are some other issues present.

The book is not a standard bio, it’s an examination of the person via their screen, and to a lesser extent, their stage work. Callahan divides his study into seventeen chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of Stanwyck’s career. While it’s not a strictly chronological journey the chapters themselves do look at her performances and projects in that way. It begins with a short look at the star’s beginnings in life itself and her first steps as a performer. Callahan devotes separate chapters to the films she made for Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, to her appearances in films noir, in westerns and in screwball comedies. There is also an in depth look at what the author sees as one of her defining roles in King Vidor’s Stella Dallas. This is an approach which I think makes sense as it attempts to unravel common threads running through movies that, either as a result of the genre or the filmmakers involved, tend to have a shared sensibility. All the major films receive attention and Callahan offers his own take on their strengths and weaknesses.

In terms of structure and organization, the book is very appealing. Added to that is the fluid style of writing, one which is largely engaging and never overburdened with jargon or the kind of impenetrable formality that tends to afflict more academic texts. These are all positive aspects. However, as was mentioned above, there are other points which I have a few reservations about. I think the easiest way to express this is to note that the book is the work of someone who is clearly a fan of the actress. People may be wondering why that’s used as a lead-in to some of the book’s weaknesses, so let me expand a little. I feel the author is a fan of the actress above all, to the extent where he is frequently dismissive, or at least ungenerous with regard to some of the films she appeared in and the people she collaborated with. Frank Capra and Peter Godfrey both come in for some strong criticism, the former for his approach or vision, and the latter for his filmmaking in general. Those are just a couple of examples, but the writer regularly praises the quality of Stanwyck’s work, occasionally drawing inferences from events in her personal life and how they may have affected her screen work. In itself, that’s fine, but, more often than I feel is necessary, I detect a strong tendency to denigrate films and some other performers and artists in order to highlight his subject’s talents. The films that are slated and those which earn praise seem to be selected on a puzzling basis too. I was pleased to see only one chapter dedicated to her personal life, and at least some effort made to tie that into her career development as well. Stanwyck’s first husband Frank Fay comes off quite badly; it has to be said I’ve never heard anyone have a good word to say about the man so that’s hardly surprising. I did find it odd though to see the author take such a virulent dislike to Robert Taylor, both as an actor and as a person.

So, I found Callahan’s book a bit of a mixed bag. It is informative and offers some detailed analysis of Stanwyck’s movies, is organized and presented in a satisfying way, comes with a complete filmography and an index, but I would have preferred if he could have reined in or disciplined his fandom and enthusiasm and allowed more fairness in certain assessments.

Barbara Stanwyck – The Miracle Woman by Dan Callahan

252 pages. Paperback edition published 2023 by University Press of Mississippi

Take One False Step

/ Colin McGuigan / 28 Comments

Any time I come across a mention of William Powell the name of Nick Charles springs to mind. The Thin Man and the series of sequels he made alongside co-star Myrna Loy represent only a fraction of his output, but it came to be something of a signature role for him. Those movies were enormously entertaining and Powell was perfectly cast in a part that allowed him to be smart, debonair and funny. Take One False Step (1949) came along much later, long after he had left Nick Charles behind, yet there is a hint of those light and stylish mysteries about it, easily as much as the film noir elements that its recent reissue might encourage one to believe to be dominant.

How much store should one set by the superficialities surrounding a film? I’m referring to the title, the credits, perhaps even the promotional material. The reason for posing that question is the fact that the opening credits for Take One False Step, and maybe the title itself, are strongly suggestive of some kind of late era screwball comedy. Of course all of this is emphasizing the need to remain vigilant, lest some major or minor catastrophe should befall one. The opening shot proper continues this theme, keeping the focus on a man’s feet as he enters a bar to order a drink before being addressed by some female counterparts. Well, it catches the attention. The man in question is Andrew Gentling (William Powell), a professor in the process of getting a new university off the ground. The woman who hails him from the bar is Catherine Sykes (Shelley Winters), an old flame he hasn’t seen in years, not since the war when both parties were unmarried and less burdened by life’s more mundane concerns. Should old acquaintances share a cup of kindness, or a couple of martinis at any rate? This pair do so and then part, as befits respectably married people. That ought to be the end of the matter, but Catherine is a restless type, pining for the immediacy of those dangerous wartime years, a woman prone to acting on her impulses. She calls Andrew up and invites him to a party, twisting his arm in a sense, but in a jokey, lighthearted way. Poor judgment, or momentary weakness, has been the undoing of many a noir protagonist and there is a whiff of that to Andrew’s acquiescence.

He soon discovers that he’s not only the guest of honor at this bash, but essentially the only guest. There’s nobody else present aside from another mutual friend Martha (Marsha Hunt) and she’s only there because her house happens to be the venue. Andrew is no longer the swashbuckler or adventurer Catherine remembers and perhaps he never really was, but he’s got a good heart and takes it upon himself to see the lady back home. She’s not so keen on this and he ends up taking a short stroll to let the fact sink in that there is to be no rekindling of lost romances on the agenda. Returning, he sees Catherine totter unsteadily back along the sidewalk towards her own place. However, that is only the beginning of the tale – the following morning brings news of Catherine’s disappearance, with only a bloody scarf, his scarf, left behind. Rather than go directly to the police, Andrew listens to some questionable advice and sets out to look into the business himself first. This leads to more trouble, with the cops, Catherine’s shady husband, a potentially rabid dog, and a race against time from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Is it reasonable to say Take One False Step is a film noir? I wouldn’t use the term myself, though I understand how parts of the movie could attract such a legend. The setup does point in that direction, with the innocent man finding himself in over his head very quickly, and his actions and their effects achieving a nightmarish quality. Franz Planer’s cinematography fits the bill too, getting some real value from the everyday and unremarkable. In truth though, this is a straight up mystery, not that far removed from the kind of material William Powell was headlining back in the 30s when he was playing Nick Charles or Philo Vance. There is a touch of humor in it too, as that credit sequence suggests. It’s not overwhelming, simply lightening the mood on occasion and I can’t say I found it unwelcome. Those going in looking for an uncompromising noir picture may find it grating, but as I said that’s not the way to approach this movie. Chester Erskine was the director and he does good work, conjuring up some attractive compositions and keeping a handle on the pacing. Nevertheless, I think it would be fair to say his credits as a writer (Angel Face, Split Second) and as a producer (The Wonderful Country) are more significant than his assignments as a director.

William Powell simply oozed sophistication, ever graceful and charming regardless of how difficult a situation might threaten to become. This was his stock-in-trade, the foundation of his screen persona and he made use of it in almost every genre he appeared in. Yet he carried along with it a kind of wry awareness of the fact this was a persona, enabling him to look at himself, his fellow characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves with a knowing air. This worked well in classy comedies and he was able to blend it into his mystery roles too. I mentioned the part of Nick Charles at the top of this piece as I have a hunch that characterization will be more familiar to many readers, which is not meant to suggest it was his only notable role. I also referred in passing to Philo Vance and I imagine those who have seen him play that part might agree he was an ideal fit. Personally, I find that any time I read Van Dine I have the image of Powell in mind. As the hapless professor he is less in control of events than he was in some of those mysteries, but this affords him the opportunity to exploit those characteristics that made him attractive to viewers – that smoothly polished exterior with a hint of panic stirring beneath, but with good manners and restraint holding it in check. There is one particularly effective scene, full of grim humor, around the mid-point, where the professor is seriously concerned about a bite he suffered and has sought medical assistance from a grouchy doctor (Houseley Stevenson) who tests his patience, and that of the viewer, to the limit.

Shelley Winters was in some excellent movies around this time, in what I think of as her dissatisfied vamp period, before A Place in the Sun saw her get nudged towards playing more needy types. She brings a lot of energy to the early scenes before Marsha Hunt steps into the spotlight. Hunt, who passed away last year at the ripe old age of 104 and who was one of those almost hounded out of the business during the shameful HUAC episode, is the faithful best friend, a classic Girl Friday part which she embraces and excels at. As the lawmen on the trail of Powell’s fugitive academic, Sheldon Leonard and James Gleason are responsible for most of the humor. Leonard is his usual loud self, forever on the brink of exasperation, while Gleason provides another variation on that hard-bitten but likeable cop that he brought to both the Miss Withers and The Falcon series. Another notable supporting part is filled by the instantly recognizable Felix Bressart, in his last role. He had appeared with William Powell years before in the rather good, if rarely mentioned, Crossroads and specialized in playing the kind of quirky middle European types he takes on here.

Kino has been instrumental in rescuing a whole raft of Universal crime, noir and mystery pictures, titles that were hitherto either impossible to see or only available in dreadful beat up prints. Take One False Step has been included in one of their film noir boxes and while I see how there are traces of noir to be found, it really is more of a straight mystery with a few comedic touches here and there. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this film, it’s of a type that I find most appealing and the cast are uniformly excellent. I strongly recommend checking it out.

Mister Cory

/ Colin McGuigan / 51 Comments

Another day, another movie that appears to defy categorization. Of course, there is no good reason why anyone ought to feel it is necessary to categorize a movie, but it is a pastime that we film fans like to indulge in.  Mister Cory (1957) does not comfortably wear any of the labels I’ve seen hung on it, not that there are many people who have actually commented on the film one way or another. It has been referred to variously as a crime picture, a drama, even as a film noir. I guess there are elements of all those genres and styles to be found there, but none of them are entirely satisfactory. Perhaps one could call it a Blake Edwards film. However, I’m not sure I would be able to define that either, certainly not for something coming at this early stage of his career as a director/writer. So what is it? There is a hint of The Great Gatsby about the setup, it maybe even casts a glance in the direction of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (and Stevens’ adaptation A Place in the Sun), and there is too a touch of the humor that Edwards brought to so many of his films. If anyone can produce a convenient label out all that, I salute them. Frankly, I’m happy enough to just think of it as a good movie that is not as well known as it might be.

The first view of Cory (Tony Curtis) is of a young man making his way along a heaving sidewalk in Chicago, one of those tenement slums where all human life is to be found, the kind of place where hope can all too often wither or where the seeds of all-consuming ambition can take hold. Cory is a man with ambitions, and the first steps towards realizing them are going to see him keep right on walking out of the neighborhood he grew up in. They carry him out of the city to one of those exclusive lakeside resorts where only those with blue blood, deep pockets and an Ivy League education can afford to lunch and lounge with poise. Now Cory may not have any of the usual qualifications to hang out in such environs, but he does have poise, even if his is borne of audacity. He’s hired as a busboy, right down at the bottom of the pecking order. However, he has no intention of remaining in that lowly position and employs a combination of cunning and chutzpah to hobnob with the cream of society and keep an eye on the main chance. To be precise, he has set his sights on Abby Vollard (Martha Hyer), an ice cool society blonde, and for a time it looks as though he might just pull off the deception and bag the prize he so craves.

However, that would be too simple and dramatically, not to mention ethically, unsatisfying. No, a tale requires a twist if it’s not to become too predictable. So, with his imposture revealed and his scheme shattered, Cory is forced to move on. He does so, and moves far and wide, returning to his roots in a way as he falls back on the skills as a gambler he acquired early in life. All of which segues into the second part of the story, the rise of Cory as a slick and smooth front for Ruby Matrobe (Russ Morgan), a big man in the Chicago underworld. With money no longer an object, prestige and deference (even from those who once demanded the same of him) his constant companions, he would appear to have fulfilled his ambitions. Yet there is still the ever present itch that he yearns to scratch – Abby. That he is now in a position to woo her successfully is complicated by both the need to conduct the business and romantic equivalent of a high wire act. Her long time fiancé (William Reynolds) is the son of a man with significant political clout, capable of delivering a knockout blow to Cory’s backers and by extension to Cory himself. And then there is the sneaking suspicion he begins to have that maybe Abby’s now grown up sister Jen (Kathryn Grant) is the one he should have been pursuing.

Mister Cory was adapted from a Leo Rosten novella, which Tony Curtis bought the rights to and had Blake Edwards adapt for the screen. It has a classic “rise and fall” structure that makes for good drama. There is a lot of emphasis placed on the nature of ambition, the old exhortation to be careful what one wishes for never being far from the surface, as well as other maxims regarding all that glitters and so on. This is all very well, but not that compelling at the same time. On the other hand, the movie is on much firmer ground when it posits the theory that human nature is immutable, rendering notions of grasping ambition, social climbing, and all the deceit and falseness that tend to accompany those wraiths redundant. At the heart of the story is the belief that running away from one’s true self, denial of one’s nature in essence, is a doomed enterprise. Sooner or later, this dawns on pretty much every character. It can be seen in Charles Bickford’s veteran gambler, a man who intuitively knows when the game has grown stale. Cory may be one of the last to fully grasp this, though it does grow on him gradually; there is a terrific scene where, with success won, he wanders back to the old neighborhood where he grew up, strolling down the middle of the empty nighttime street, gazing at the building he was born in, the locations that spelt loss and tragedy and the places he learnt his trade. Lost in the cool solitude of reminiscence, surrounded by the echoes of voices long gone and words drifting across time, his past and present knit together in a moment that marks the beginning of his acceptance of self.

Curtis deftly captures the many facets of the character, the roguish charm that never really deserts him, the drive concealed behind this, and the awareness that all the polish and front is simply that, a veneer that does nothing to shrink the distance between the one-time street urchin and the elegantly clad dream merchant he has cast himself as. Again, I’m drawn back to that scene I mentioned above, so much of the character is encapsulated in it after all, with Russell Metty’s camera tracking the lone figure via a crane shot that shifts from cool objectivity to intimacy and serves to highlight the contrast between the slick facade Cory has adopted and the grimy background that produced him. With the lens focused on his troubled features, it’s clear to see that he hasn’t traveled so very far. Martha Hyer was an actress who flirted with true stardom yet never quite broke through. Around this time she had roles in some good movies – Battle Hymn for Douglas Sirk, and she earned an Oscar nomination for her work in Minnelli’s Some Came Running. The part of Abby called for someone who was able to convey chilly snobbery in tandem with a weakness for slumming  and hypocrisy, which Hyer gets across successfully.

Kathryn Grant graced some fine films throughout the 1950s and she brings a liveliness that is quite infectious to the part of the younger Vollard sister. Playing the third arm of a romantic triangle frequently proves to be something of an unrewarding task, but William Reynolds takes it on manfully and achieves a degree of pathos as the flawed fiancé. The reliably crusty Charles Bickford brings dry humor coupled with down to earth wisdom to the table and acts as a stabilizing influence on his often hot-tempered protégé. Another interesting piece of casting is band leader Russ Morgan as the Chicago hood, something which sounds like an odd choice but which ends up working out just fine. Finally, a word for Henry Daniell, a man whose long career saw him regularly playing highly cultured villains. He brings great suavity to his work here, insisting on good manners and propriety at all times, the very personification of moral rectitude. And then he gets to deliver a genuinely killer punchline to wrap up the climactic confrontation in the casino.

Mister Cory has had DVD releases in France, Spain and Italy, and I strongly suspect all of them will be using the same source. I have the Italian release, which presents the movie in the correct ‘Scope ratio. It’s a colorful if rather soft transfer though and the images I’ve added above should give some idea of how it looks. I would love to see this film get a brush up because it really deserves better treatment. I hadn’t seen it before and I’ve never heard anything much about it either. Every year brings a few new discoveries for me and I feel this movie rates as the most enjoyable and worthwhile of them so far in 2023.