Anne Baxter

Three Violent People

/ Colin McGuigan / 69 Comments

There are movies with strong openings, those which grab one’s attention from the very first shot and never relinquish their grasp thereafter. Others are slow burners, seemingly leading viewers down drifting, meandering paths till they finds themselves inveigled into the story in spite of themselves. Then of course there are the uneven affairs, movies which could be said to suffer from an identity crisis, confidently striking out in one direction before abandoning that plan entirely and gradually transforming themselves in a wholly unexpected manner. Three Violent People (1957) falls into that latter category, the broad beginning flirts and teases then segues into a lengthy middle section that lacks energy, before hitting the home straight with renewed vigor and purpose.

Colt Saunders (Charlton Heston) returns to Texas after the Civil War with three basic aims: to get his sprawling ranch back on a paying basis, to keep the grasping Carpetbaggers at arm’s length, and to find a woman to settle down with and make his wife. A brief dust-up with some of the aforementioned Carpetbaggers leaves him with a sore head, empty pockets and the strong suspicion that he’s just been rolled by newly arrived Lorna Hunter (Anne Baxter). She is one of those ladies discreetly referred to as “saloon girls”, though with a polished line in patter that creates the illusion of refinement and gentility. Her plan is to hook the well-to-do Captain Saunders and worry about the consequences of his finding out about her real past later. Well, she manages the first in record time and, not long after setting up home on the Saunders ranch, that deception does indeed come back to haunt her. In the meantime, Saunders finds himself butting heads with the crooked representative of the provisional government (Bruce Bennett) and his chief enforcer (Forrest Tucker).

Three Violent People was written by James Edward Grant and it is a very inconsistent picture. The opening suggests we’re in for a relatively light confection and both Baxter and Heston play it accordingly at that stage. However, as soon as they are married and the action moves to the ranch, the tone alters radically, not least with the introduction of Heston’s one-armed brother (Tom Tryon). It morphs into something that borders on the Shakespearean; guilt, retribution and envy all jostle for position as honor, decorum and the weight of expectation gaze broodingly from out of the past, and quite literally down from the portraits hanging sternly above the hearth. The ingredients here are certainly tempting, strongly spiced by the complication provided by Baxter’s pregnancy, while the machinations of Bennett and Tucker act as a savory side dish. Still and all, the end result is a stodgy concoction, that overstuffed middle proving to be a little too rich. The last act saves it somewhat – a face-off timed by an upturned whiskey decanter, a brisk yet gratifying duel, and a wrap-up that blends vindication and personal growth.

Three Violent People wouldn’t rank as Charlton Heston’s best role in westerns, but he still does what he can with it. He had a knack for walking that line between pride and implacable priggishness. That emotional puritanism is given a good run-out here and collides headlong with the natural compassion that arises from the plight that Baxter finds herself facing. As he finds almost everyone turning against him, he starts to unbend emotionally and morally and manages to redeem himself in the end. Baxter is fine as the woman looking for a way out in life, taking the kind of rash decision that fits the feisty and mischievous woman we first encounter and then finding that she has the requisite steel within when her deception is dragged out into the light.

Tom Tryon, an actor I’ve never been that keen on excepting a good enough turn in Preminger’s In Harm’s Way, is much less effective as the maimed brother. His role is poorly defined, there is resentment there, as one would expect, and bitterness too. However, his demeanor is a little too glib and arch and it’s difficult to get a handle on his real motives. It doesn’t help either that his character’s disability looks hugely unconvincing – just like a man wearing a large and bulky sling under his shirt. Forrest Tucker is reliably mean as the hired gun, conniving and blustering in his characteristic style. One of the real standout performances, however, comes from Gilbert Roland as Heston’s foreman. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Roland give a bad performance and his role in Three Violent People offers ample opportunity to display his unique style, that suave, man of the world wisdom and shrewdness. He brings a touch of grandness to the part, offering Heston’s stiff prude an object lesson in dignity and true honor in one of the key scenes late in the movie as he disdains a tainted toast following the birth of his employer’s child. It is a terrific moment and Heston’s stung and startled countenance as the man he has esteemed all his life excoriates his pompous moralizing is something to behold. It is his holding up of a mirror to Heston’s sanctimony that sets the character on the road to salvation. In support, Bruce Bennett is a bit colorless and lacks bite, while Jamie Farr (who I will always think of as Klinger from MASH) and the controversial and recently deceased Robert Blake both appear as sons of Gilbert Roland.

The movie was released on DVD by Paramount many years ago and the widescreen transfer looks acceptable, but maybe not a strong as some of the studio’s other titles do. Generally, I am fond of the films of Rudolph Maté, but Three Violent People is a weaker effort. It’s not a bad film, and I certainly hope I haven’t slated it here, but it is not all it might have been either. The writing needed to be tighter and some of the internal conflict lacks the punch it ought to have. This, in conjunction with some rather lackluster work from Tom Tryon in a pivotal role, diminishes the overall effect of the production.

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

/ Colin McGuigan / 53 Comments

If there’s one thing that turns my stomach, it’s respectability.

By the 1950s the western itself could be said to have attained something very close to respectability. Mind you, the relative dearth of awards bestowed on the genre, even in these peak golden years, possibly contradicts that. If respectability hadn’t entirely been conferred or, as the above quote from Miriam Hopkins’ character asserts, wasn’t even something worth angling for, it would be hard to deny the popularity the genre was experiencing. There are all sorts of theories propounded to account for that popularity, and I guess we’ve all become familiar with a fair few of them. In filmmaking terms, it’s the ultimate American genre, and for many that makes it part of the bedrock of cinema. I think the myth of the Old West as portrayed on screen is one of the strongest representations of the myth of America, and I’m referring to America here as an idea as much as a nation. One of the central tenets of that idea, to  my mind anyway, relates to rebirth, renewal and, that word which is hard to avoid under the circumstances, redemption. All the best examples of the western hinge on this, and The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952) is no exception in that regard.

The story begins in the town of Poker Flat, in deep and forbidding darkness. The foul and muddy streets glisten in the night, and few people are to be seen, most are whooping it up in the saloons as they drink and gamble the evening away. Yet, there are a few figures abroad, detaching themselves from  the shadows momentarily to move from one brightly lit establishment to another, although a handful are heading in another direction. These are the men led by Ryker (Cameron Mitchell), and they are on their way to the assay office, planning to raid the safe within. That robbery, where Ryker cynically betrays and sacrifices his confederates, sees some new graves filled and a residue of bitterness left among the miners.

If justice can’t be fully meted out, then outraged morals can at least be assuaged, and so it is that certain undesirable elements are to be run out of town. The can in this case is to be carried by the gambler Oakhurst (Dale Robertson), the drunken Jake (Billy Lynn), ageing saloon girl the Duchess (Miriam Hopkins) and a young woman called Cal (Anne Baxter). The latter is the wife of Ryker, and is in possession  of the proceeds of the robbery, but this is not known to her ill-assorted traveling companions. However, this fact is to play a crucial role as the outcasts along with a young man and his pregnant fiancée are forced to lay up in an abandoned cabin to shelter from and wait out a blizzard.

Remakes are nothing new, it’s a practice stretching right back to the early days of moviemaking. The Outcasts of Poker Flat, freely adapted from Brett Harte’s story,  had already been filmed in 1919 by John Ford, and again in 1937. I’ve not seen either of the earlier versions so I can’t comment on how Joseph M Newman’s 1952 movie compares. It does develop the plot in a different way to Harte’s original text though, reducing the tragic elements and instead building up the positives. This is where I see the western movie, especially in the key post-war years and on into the 50s, bringing those redemptive concepts to full fruition, using contemporary sources and situations, retaining the core shape and then molding them all to slot into the mythic framework we now recognize. In The Outcasts of Poker Flat it’s those title characters who redeem themselves and are spiritually reborn via their confrontation not only with evil but also through society’s rejection of them and, as a consequence of this, their own revitalized self-reliance and self-confidence.

In visual terms, the progress of the characters along the road towards renewal is plain to see. The film starts out in deep and grimy darkness, rooted firmly in an uncommunicative, isolated and threatening environment. By the end though, light has come to dominate, a literal birth is soon to take place and the two leads opt not to return to Poker Flat but to take an alternative turn and strike off towards a new destination. Newman’s direction throughout has been very solid, emphasizing the narrowness and lack of space of the cabin, clearly drawing attention to the parallels in the characters’ lives. And then there’s the gradual widening  of perspective, leading up to the bright, airy and liberated feel of the final scene – a literal journey into the light, towards open horizons. While Newman’s direction is assured and controlled, the real star of the show is the wonderful and expertly lit cinematography of Joseph LaShelle.

The cast is small and ample time is available to allow most to make a mark. The principal female lead is Anne Baxter, a versatile actress who was in her prime at this stage and she offers good value as the conflicted wife who doesn’t quite know how best to extricate herself from the tangled mess her life has become.  Dale Robertson is generally a good western lead, a dependable presence who tends to anchor movies securely. That’s exactly what happens in The Outcasts of Poker Flat, where his unflappable stoicism keeps the tension manageable and the melodrama in check.

That tension comes from a combination of the elements, the isolation and then the return of Cameron Mitchell’s menacing villain. He does a neat line in shiftiness in this movie, coming across as genuinely mean and dangerous and with just enough insecurity to go along with it to add a layer of unpredictability. Billy Lynn is fine as the befuddled drunk and Barbara Bates (who had appeared with Baxter in All About Eve) is appealing and vulnerable but has little to do. On the other hand, Miriam Hopkins is on top form as the jaded and weary Duchess, a woman who knows her best years are behind her, and delivers some of the best lines with an acid relish.

For some reason The Outcasts of Poker Flat doesn’t seem to be widely available. I don’t think it’s out on disc in the US but there are European releases. There’s a French disc which I imagine will suffer from non-removable subtitles and there’s also an Italian DVD. I have a copy of the latter and I have to say the film looks terrific, it has been given a very clean and sharp transfer and the print used is clearly in great shape.

This piece represents the 200th western movie which I have written about on this site and I hope others will think it’s an appropriate choice. Sure I could have picked a big, better known title, but as I said some time ago when I marked the 100th western, it somehow seems more fitting to choose the kind of less celebrated movie I’ve spent a lot of time (although by no means exclusively) flagging up over the years.

Other Joseph M Newman westerns:

The Gunfight at Dodge City

Fort Massacre

A Thunder of Drums

I Confess

/ Colin McGuigan / 53 Comments

Hitchcock films get mentioned and written about all the time, but it’s almost always the same dozen or so that receive all the attention and plaudits. A good many of his movies are really only spoken of in passing, often referred to as bridges between his major works and, while it’s rare to see them dismissed outright, it sometimes seems that the perceived flaws and (relative) lack of success is what draws most comment. I Confess (1953) probably belongs in this category, being regarded as a little too personal and flirting with inaccessibility as far as non-Catholics are concerned. Whatever the popular view might be, it’s a film I’m very fond of, and one which of course contains the now familiar wrong man theme.

The movie opens in a typically quirky and macabre fashion, a succession of street signs flashing before our eyes and leading inexorably to the scene of a murder. As the camera peers through the open window the corpse is laid out on the floor and the door is just closing on the exiting killer. We follow the murderer through the shadowy, cobbled streets, his silhouetted figure suggesting a clergyman. Then, as he casts off the soutane, it becomes apparent that the priestly garb was no more than a convenient disguise, no doubt inspired by the fact that this man earns his keep working for the church. When a man has committed the ultimate sin, has compromised his soul and is wracked with guilt and fear, then it’s not unnatural that he should seek solace and sanctuary in a holy place. The man in question is Otto Keller (O E Hasse) and his entering the church is witnessed by chance by one of the priests, Father Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift). Keller insists that Fr Logan hear his confession and the latter duly obliges. Much has been made of the fact that non-Catholics may have difficulty appreciating the seal of the confessional, the inability of a priest to ever reveal what he hears under such circumstances. I understand how there are those who might be unaware of this but the absolute confidentiality is made clear in the script so I think it’s not really reasonable to criticize the film on this score. Anyway, both the viewers and Fr Logan are aware of the identity of the murderer almost from the beginning, but further complications are to arise and cast official suspicion in a different direction. If all those signs in the opening sequence led us to a dead man, another set of pointers lead the police, headed up by the dogged and practical Inspector Larrue (Karl Malden), towards Fr Logan. The murderer’s literal cloak of convenience helps of course, but the priest’s connections with the victim, a blackmailing, shyster lawyer, fan the flames of suspicion. As the reasons for Logan’s seemingly odd behaviour are laid bare and the object of the blackmail becomes known, the priest’s refusal or inability to speak up damns him in the eyes of the law. With the wheels of blind justice now in motion, Logan finds himself morally trapped and apparently powerless to protect either himself or those he cares about.

Anyone who has ever read anything about Hitchcock will be aware of two facts: his Catholic upbringing, and the distrust he felt for the law and the institutions of justice. Both of these influences on the director’s life are very much to the fore in I Confess. Church dogma colors every aspect of Logan’s behaviour throughout, cutting down his options and, again through no fault of his own, leaving both him and those around him exposed to misguided moral outrage. And of course all this leaves him at the mercy of a justice system which is unsympathetic to what it’s unaware of. Essentially, Hitchcock is presenting us with an ethical conundrum, a true dilemma where betrayal (be it spiritual or emotional) lies in wait whichever path is chosen. Really, it’s a classic noir scenario, with fate seemingly laying a complex and delicate trap for the unsuspecting protagonist – every act, the noble and the innocent most of all, being misconstrued and misinterpreted. Robert Burks’ lighting and photography, particularly the night scenes, is bathed in expressionistic shadow and Hitchcock blends the tilted angles, telling close-ups, tracking shots and deep focus beautifully. You could say the symbolism is laid on a touch heavily at times – the allusion to the trek to Calvary springs to mind immediately – but it’s all so wonderfully composed that it sounds a little churlish to harp on it too much.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of the Method approach to acting, finding it phony and distracting for the most part. However, there are always exceptions, and it’s nice to be able to highlight a positive example. Montgomery Clift was one of the first (perhaps the first?) practitioners of the Method on the big screen, and I feel he was generally very successful. I like internalized performances and I like subtlety, and Clift was a first-rate exponent of this. Great screen acting comes from the little things, the barely perceptible changes of mood and the altered thought processes which we sense as much as see. Clift had many blessings but among the most significant were his composure and his eyes. The early scene in the confession box is a marvelous bit of work with those eyes revealing so much. And the same can be said for every important plot development – the increasing desperation and hopelessness of the situation is perfectly conveyed but never exaggerated. At one time I felt that Anne Baxter was less than satisfactory as Clift’s former love, but I now feel she judged it well enough. Again, it’s a role that calls for as much to be held inside as freely expressed. The longish flashback which clarifies the nature of her relationship with Logan is told from her point of view and it’s probably here that she comes across best. Frankly, there are good performances all round: Malden’s probing and restless detective, Brian Aherne’s rakish prosecutor, O E Hasse as the craven yet pitiful killer, and of course Dolly Haas as his conscience-stricken wife.

A film like I Confess, one which is so heavily dependent on its visuals, needs to be seen in good quality. Fortunately, the Warner Brothers DVD offers a strong transfer that shows off the contrast between light and dark to good effect. It’s clean and acceptably sharp, a solid-looking presentation. The disc also has a “Making of” documentary included, which provides some analysis along with production and background information – a worthwhile extra in my opinion. The film continues to be underrated as far as I can tell, and that probably says more about the strength of Hitchcock’s body of work than it does about the movie itself. I reckon it accomplishes about all it sets out to do but others may disagree with that assertion. Either way, I’d urge people to give it a chance, or perhaps watch it again if they’re already acquainted with it – I believe there are plenty of positive aspects to  focus on.

Yellow Sky

/ Colin McGuigan / 10 Comments
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OK, so I’ve taken a break from this thing for a while now. I’ve generally found that I need to take a step back from time to time and allow myself a chance to recharge the batteries before starting anew. My last post was on a western, and my latest one is also another oater – for the sake of continuity if nothing else. Yellow Sky (1948) is a typically stylish William Wellman movie that trades on those perennial themes of greed and honor.

The film opens with a bank raid in a small town and concludes, with a quirky twist, in that same town. However, the robbery plays only a small part in the story; it’s the events that it leads to that form the core of the movie. Stretch Dawson (Gregory Peck) is the laconic leader of a band of outlaws who think they’ve just made an easy killing. While their initial getaway appears to have been clean there is a troop of soldiers on their trail, and the outlaw gang find themselves forced onto a barren and punishing expanse of salt flats in an effort to elude capture. From this early stage the first cracks appear in the group. Stretch is the acknowledged boss but his authority begins to be challenged by Lengthy (John Russell) and especially by Dude (Richard Widmark). As these men haul themselves painfully across the hellish landscape they are driven to the very limits of human endurance. Just as they are about to succumb to the effects of exhaustion and dehydration they stumble into the abandoned former mining town of Yellow Sky, and this is the point at which the story becomes most interesting. The old ghost town is not all it seems – for one thing it’s not strictly a ghost town at all. There are two inhabitants, an old half-crazed prospector and his daughter ‘Mike’ (Anne Baxter). Even in their weakened state the outlaws are not so dumb as to believe these two are living there for the good of their health. Putting two and two together, they decide that there’s only one reason anyone would choose to live in a dead town – gold. What remains to be seen is how far each individual is prepared to go in order to satisfy his craving for riches, and whether or not the notion of honour among thieves has any basis in truth. Like all the best westerns, it raises questions about one’s word of honour and, in this case, if that has any value for those who live outside the law.

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William Wellman’s direction offers a lesson in style, utilizing close-ups, long shots, deep focus, shadows and high contrast. There’s also an especially notable shot down the smoothly rifled barrel of a gun (see pic. above) which foreshadows the famous 007 pre-credits sequences. I’d also like to mention the climactic shootout between Peck, Widmark and Russell that takes place in the gloomy ruins of the town saloon – all the gunplay is unseen by the audience with only the bloody aftermath revealed. The location photography is another positive feature, with the inhospitable Death Valley occupying the first half before the action moves to Lone Pine for the scenes around the titular town. When looking at the characters, the first thing that jumps out is that every single one is known only by a nickname from beginning to end – the sole exceptions being Peck and Baxter, whose full names are revealed to the viewer. Peck handled his leading role competently as the reluctant hero who eventually finds a kind of redemption. John Russell and Richard Widmark make for a worthy couple of adversaries, the former consumed by pure animal lust and the latter with a hunger for wealth and the power to visit retribution on those he feels have slighted him in the past. Widmark in particular is the epitome of villainy, still at that stage in his career when he tended to get typecast as nasty pieces of work for the hero to vanquish. Anne Baxter’s role called for her to be a kind of self-sufficient tomboy who still remains sexually provocative. To her credit, she managed this balancing act and emerged as a fully rounded character that you can believe in. Throughout the film she proves herself the equal of the male cast members and her only concession to the traditional image of femininity comes at the very end when she dons a frivolous little hat that Stretch has brought her as a gift.

The R1 DVD from Fox presents Yellow Sky in a handsome full frame transfer that’s clean and sharp for the most part. Extras on the disc consist of galleries of advertising material and a selection of trailers. The film itself is absorbing and well paced and it was only at the end that I realized how little violence is present, and how even that takes place off screen. This is one of those late-40s westerns that helped usher in the more complex works that dominated the following decade. Recommended.

 

Chase a Crooked Shadow

/ Colin McGuigan / 11 Comments

Throughout the 60s Hammer produced a smattering of what have come to be referred to as “mini-Hitchcocks”, due to the acknowledged influence of Psycho. Broadly speaking, these movies usually featured a damsel-in-distress plot where all was not quite as it seemed at first glance. While it’s undeniable that Hitchcock’s 1960 shocker played a significant part in bringing about these films it seems to me that they also owe something to Michael Anderson’s 1958 suspenser Chase a Crooked Shadow: there’s a small cast, an isolated and endangered woman with a question mark over her psychological state, and men whose motives and loyalties are not always clear.

Kim Prescott (Anne Baxter) is a wealthy heiress living in a sprawling villa in Spain. Her father was a victim of suicide and her brother has perished in a road accident in South Africa – or so it would appear. After a late night gathering at the villa, when all the guests have departed, a stranger turns up claiming to be the brother back from the dead. Ward Prescott (Richard Todd) alleges that he was turned over by a guy he gave a lift to, and that the thief was the one who died in the smash-up. Kim remains unconvinced, determinedly so in fact, and calls in the police. Vargas (Herbert Lom), the local police chief, can find nothing wrong with Ward’s credentials and is powerless to do anything. Within a disconcertingly short period of time, Ward has taken up residence in the villa, hired his own new staff, and is causing Kim to question her mental state. She maintains both her hostility and her disbelief yet is unable to convince anyone else that this man in her house is an impostor. The viewer is left to wonder who is telling the truth and, if Ward is indeed merely an impersonator, what the purpose of the subterfuge and masquerade is. There are plenty of clues and red herrings sprinkled throughout, but it’s not until the very end that everything is revealed – all I’ll just say is that it’s unwise to jump to any premature conclusions.

Director Michael Anderson brings Chase a Crooked Shadow in at a tight 84 minutes and judges the pace well. The plot never has a chance to sag and there are some nicely staged sequences – in particular, there’s a well shot and hair-raising scene involving a high speed race around a picturesque mountain road with precipitous drops flashing into view. Anderson does indulge in a bit of flashiness here and there: low angle shots and some slightly self-conscious focusing on foreground objects (like the screencap above), but they generally serve to add to the suspense and feeling of unease. Aside from the twisty plotting, the film depends heavily on the performances of the three leads, and they hold up well. Both Richard Todd and Anne Baxter bring an ambiguous quality to their respective characters which this kind of “is he or isn’t he” drama calls for. Baxter is just brittle enough as the woman under pressure and avoids descending into hammy histrionics. The recently deceased Richard Todd was always a solid performer and his inherent reserve is used to good effect to keep the viewer guessing. In contrast, Herbert Lom’s policeman plays the anchor role in a movie where no one else can really be trusted. It’s not a showy part in any way, but it is a vital one as it helps provide a necessary point of reference.

Chase a Crooked Shadow is available on DVD in the UK via Optimum, and it’s not a bad transfer. The image is 1.33:1, although 1.66:1 would seem a more likely ratio for British movies of the period, and is quite clear and detailed. There are vertical lines and scratches that appear intermittently all the way through, and the blacks could be a little blacker at times. However, none of this is seriously distracting and shouldn’t count heavily against the transfer. Once again Optimum have added nothing to the disc, no subs and no trailer but it can be bought very cheap. This is the kind of movie that’s very appealing to those who enjoy tense British thrillers and it’s a highly competent production. Anyone familiar with the Hammer movies I alluded to at the beginning will recognise the parallels – but that’s no bad thing.

The Blue Gardenia

/ Colin McGuigan / 1 Comment

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There are lots of sub-categories within film noir, and one of my favourites is what is sometimes termed nightmare noir. Fritz Lang’s The Blue Gardenia (1953) fits this description by presenting a protagonist whose world gets turned upside down after making one ill-judged decision. This kind of story offers all sorts of opportunities for some of the staple ingredients of noir – paranoia, suspicion, the idea that bad luck is waiting just around the corner, and the fact that the course of one’s life can hinge on something as simple and inocuous as a mix up over a phone call.

Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) is a switchboard operator who leads a fairly humdrum life, sharing an apartment with two other single women and biding her time till her lover comes back from Korea. However, it doesn’t take long for things to start to unravel and for life to hand her the first in a series of unexpected kicks in the teeth. She’s just bought herself a new dress, cooked a special meal, and plans to sit down and share it with her absent G.I. boyfriend. So, with his photo propped in front of her, she opens his latest telegram and starts to read. It’s a brush off, he’s met a nurse, fallen in love and plans to marry her. Norah is naturally distraught and more than a little bitter, so when she takes a call meant for one of her flatmates she makes that one bad decision. On the rebound, she agrees to a date with the slightly sleazy ladies man Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr). During the course of dinner Prebble ensures that Norah gets well and truly tanked on cocktails before taking her back to his apartment. When he starts to get a little too friendly, Norah struggles with him but quickly blacks out. On awakening, she finds Prebble dead on the floor, his head smashed in with a poker. Panicking, and with only the haziest of memories of what went before, she flees the scene of the crime but leaves a few clues behind. The rest of the movie involves Norah’s attempts to evade the law, while playing a cat and mouse game with smooth newspaperman Casey Mayo (Richard Conte). The only real problem I had with the film was the fact that the element of doubt doesn’t really work for the viewer. While Norah and the characters around her cannot be sure of her guilt or innocence, it’s fairly clear to us. For this kind of story to work properly it’s preferable if the viewer experiences the same level of uncertainty the lead feels.

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Anne Baxter takes centre stage as the haunted and hunted Norah, and does a pretty good job of conveying her mounting sense of paranoia and isolation without resorting to histrionics. Richard Conte is reliable as usual in the role of the reporter who has his doubts. Raymond Burr was still at that stage of his career where he seemed to play nothing but heavies, but he did it well and his Harry Prebble has a nice touch of the sinister about him. However, while those three turned in fine performances, the picture really belongs to Ann Sothern. Her sassy turn as Norah’s seen-it-all-before flatmate is the highlight, and she walks away with just about every scene she appears in. Lang’s direction is as classy as one would expect, and the themes involved are right up his street. He seemed to have a thing for artists and reporters, and both play a prominent part here – although his most biting critique of the media, the ascerbic While the City Sleeps was still a few years down the road. There are strong noir credentials throughout the movie with Vera Caspary (Laura) providing the source material and Nicholas Musuraca working his magic behind the camera – the shadowy shots of the deserted newsroom at night being especially atmospheric.

The R1 DVD from Image is generally quite good, although there are a few damage marks here and there. It’s a totally barebones disc but should be available fairly cheap. The Blue Gardenia was originally distributed by Warner Brothers but is thankfully no longer controlled by them – I couldn’t imagine writing that just a few months ago, but this is the kind of film that might well be consigned to the appalling Archive programme now. All in all, it’s a fine noir that I’m happy to recommend.

 

Five Graves to Cairo

/ Colin McGuigan / 4 Comments

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I suppose it goes without saying that war movies made while WWII was still in progress are inevitably going to be propaganda pieces. The more routine ones can lay the flag waving and speech making on so thick as to appear more than a little stodgy when viewed from a distance of over sixty years. The more memorable examples, at least from a present day perspective, are those that manage to tell a story that goes beyond merely depicting heroic resistance, a story that remains absorbing and exciting in its own right. Such is the case with Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943). Naturally, the film was conceived and produced with the aim of assisting the war effort, but it avoids beating the viewer over the head with its message – at least until the final minutes. What we get instead is a tight, suspenseful yarn where the propaganda is served up sparingly and, for the most part, with subtlety.

Corporal Bramble (Franchot Tone), the sole survivor of a tank crew after the fall of Tobruk, stumbles out of the desert and into a battered, run down hotel. With the British in full retreat the only occupants are the owner (Akim Tamiroff) and a French maid by the name of Mouche (Anne Baxter). While the owner panics, Mouche is openly hostile to the new guest due to her bitterness over what she regards as Britain’s desertion of France at Dunkirk. However, the arrival of the Afrika Korps, and their illustrious chief Rommel (Erich von Stroheim), signals a softening of her attitude; not by much mind, but she can’t bring herself to betray Bramble. Therefore, Bramble assumes the identity of the recently deceased waiter Davos who, it turns out, was actually a Nazi agent sent on in advance. As such, Bramble finds himself in the dangerous yet privileged position of having Rommel’s confidence as the Field Marshal prepares for his assault on Cairo. That task would seem an impossible one given the demands made on his lines of supply. Yet Rommel’s ebullient self-assurance suggests he holds a trump card, which is hinted at via references to five graves and a mysterious professor. Bramble/Davos now faces the challenge of discovering the identity of the professor and the significance of the five graves before his cover is blown. None of this is made any easier by the continued ambivalence of Mouche, who is determined to “do business” with either Rommel or his aide (Peter van Eyck) in order to secure the release of her brother from a Nazi concentration camp.

Directing only his second feature in Hollywood, Billy Wilder was already showing signs of his trademark style. Bleak is a word that has been used to characterize Wilder’s world view, and that’s certainly in evidence in the opening shots which show a tank trundling remorselessly across the vast desert, manned by its crew of dead men. There are lots of inventive little touches throughout the movie, such as the point of view shot seen through the intricate lattice work of the hotel desk, or the zoom cut to the transom as it snaps shut and knocks a concealed weapon into plain view. Alongside this is the sharp dialogue and strong characterization one typically associates with a Wilder picture. There’s a nice contrast of acting styles on show from both von Stroheim and Tone; von Stroheim is all swaggering Germanic confidence while Tone underplays his role as the ingratiating and obsequious waiter/spy. Anne Baxter does well enough as the conflicted maid, but it’s a tough slog with all the showmanship going on around her, not to mention the scene stealing comedic turn of Akim Tamiroff. The other supporting roles are well filled out by a young Peter van Eyck, Fortunio Bonanova, and Miles Mander’s British colonel, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Field Marshal Montgomery.

Five Graves to Cairo was a Paramount picture so the rights now reside with Universal who, in association with Madman, have released this on DVD in R4, at least both of their logos appear on the cover and on the disc itself. The transfer is a particularly fine one and is crisp and sharp throughout. There are some occasional damage marks but I can’t say I found them to be very distracting. The disc also has a 25 minute documentary on Anne Baxter, and there’s a nice 15 page booklet on the movie by Adrian Danks inside the case. This was one of the few Billy Wilder films I hadn’t seen before and I enjoyed it immensely. There’s so much going on that the 90 minutes seemed to fly by yet the pace never feels forced, save the ending which is a bit rushed. If you count yourself a fan of Wilder, or you just like war/spy movies, then Five Graves to Cairo is well worth seeking out.