Film review: Captain Blood (1935)

Amazing to think that Olivia de Havilland only just died this July but is in this 1935 movie.  And very alluring she is too.  

But of course, the main draw is Errol Flynn, bursting on to the screen in his debut (which he only got because Robert Donat's asthma was acting up, apparently).  

As is often the case, I find, movies that have the reputation of being action-packed epics of the past, turn out to be rather slow and talky.  This one takes what seems like forever before Flynn and his crew are pirates.  It starts out, improbably enough, in Bridgewater.  I know Bridgewater - it's a hole (or it was when I was growing up not far away), but it's near Taunton, where the famous "hanging judge" Jeffries was based, and he makes an appearance here.  Flynn plays Doctor Peter Blood, who, after a career of being a mercenary across Europe, has hung up his sword to be a man of peace. He is awoken by a rebel to ask him to come and tend to a wounded man.  His treatment is interrupted (to his amazement and outrage) by the King's men, and after he gives the captain what for, he is dragged off to be hanged alongside them.  He continues his speechifying when the group is brought before Judge Jeffries (which, I see, is spelled "Jeffreys" in IMDB) and would have been hung (hanged?) had it not been for the greed of the king (James II) who is informed that he can make money by selling off convicts as slaves to the West Indies.  When they get there, the "lucky" ones are bought by Colonel Bishop for his plantation, while the unlucky ones are bought cheap for quickly-fatal work in the mines.  Several of the gang are judged plantation-worthy, but Blood is, of course, mouthy and would be consigned to the mines, but the mine-owner is outbid by Bishop's niece, Arabella (de Havilland, naturally) who is intrigued by this character.  

He surprises her by not being grateful, because he objects to the idea of being bought.  Anyway, he toils away for a bit until the gouty governor of the island grows tired of his ineffectual doctors and Arabella suggests Blood as a replacement.  He works wonders and is quickly indispensable.  However, he realizes he can exploit the two fired doctors' desperation to his advantage, and asks them to give him the money to buy and equip a boat so that they get their business back again.  Finally (after what seems like a very long stretch of the movie without even so much a sniff of piracy), the night of the escape is here!  But, alas, the odious Bishop suspects something and has the young man who is a trained navigator tied up and flogged.  Then, when he catches Blood tending to his wounds, he has him bound, and is about to flog him when... Spanish pirates attack the port!  This provides the opportunity for the escape, and in so doing our heroes take over the Pirate ship and sink all the Spaniards' landing boats on the way back to their ship.  Colonel Bishop, not knowing who has taken over the ship, is overjoyed and comes out to congratulate them.  This should be a fatal mistake, but while his crew want to hang Bishop, the (already decked out in pirate gear that he's found somewhere) new Captain Blood just has him thrown overboard.  They then agree on some Principles, including sharing all booty, what bonus you get for various limbs lost (an occupational hazard, as is well known) and also that there must be no women kept as prisoners on pain of being marooned.  

Thus begins the plundering of the Caribbean!  But, somewhat surprisingly, an awful lot of piracy is yada-yada'd through - we see a little montage of the taking of ships and are informed that Blood and his men are immediately successful.  Meanwhile, Arabella sets off for England and sails within sight of the pirates.  Blood considers attacking her ship, but his men are ready for some shore leave and the ship sails on unmolested.  While on shore at a port that is tolerant of big-spending brigands, we run into the other big name star in the movie - Basil Rathbone playing rakish French pirate Levasseur.  He and Blood forge an alliance, with the stipulation that Frenchy and his crew obey the Principles. They then agree to meet at some other place having done a bit of plundering first.  And, wouldn't you know it, Levasseur captures the ship carrying Arabella (and an emissary of the new King William, Lord Willoughby).  Levasseur has a weakness for les femmes, and wants to keep Arabella for himself (while waiting for her ransom), but Blood reminds him of the rules and, as Levasseur is not allowed to keep female prisoners, and pays the ransom himself.  

But Levasseur won't give her up, and they duel, 

with the inevitable result that Rathbone ends up dead in the surf (mirroring his watery exit in Prisoner of Zenda).  (Blood had never liked the alliance anyway, so this just accelerated its end.)  So, now we have Arabella and Blood reunited, only this time he owns her.  Unsurprisingly, she objects to this state of affairs and claims to hate him (although Willoughby isn't fooled).  Stung, Blood promises to deliver Arabella and Willoughby to Port Royal, despite knowing that Colonel Bishop should have a fleet of ships waiting there for them.  This understandably makes his crew nervous, but they obey him nonetheless, and in fact find French ships attacking the town.  Willoughby reveals that he has been sent by William (and, that in fact William is king, and not the hated James - Blood and crew have been out of the loop somewhat) to recruit Blood in the fight against the French.  Cue an excellent extended naval battle, which is what we wanted from the film all along.  Great effects, and a boarding scene unrivaled in any film I've seen.  But what will happen to Blood afterwards?  And where was the British fleet?  Well you'll have to watch it and see, won't you?

Film review: Lady in the Lake (1946)

 

This is an interesting failure.  As you might gather, it's a film of the Chandler Marlowe novel, but the twist is that, apart from an opening and closing scene where Robert Montgomery's Marlowe addresses the viewer directly, everything is literally seen through his eyes.  This means you only ever see him in mirrors from that moment on, and you see his hands reach out on either side of the camera, and you see the screen go blurry when (as happens often) he is slugged on the head, and you even see him staring at a sexy blonde secretary and ignoring the person talking to him.  Oh, and a pair of lips loom in to the camera when he gets a kiss (from Audrey Totter, who plays the principal female role, and who is the best thing about the movie).  Sadly, this approach does not work (as you might gather from the fact that no other film does it).  Basically it's as if you're playing a video game, only you're not controlling it.  The main problem is that it makes for a boring watch, because there are LONG scenes where people are just talking at you.  You can't have the camera roam around people or have interesting camera angles - everything is dictated by the height of Marlowe's eyes at that particular juncture.  Another problem is that Marlowe is obnoxious.  I mean, I know the character of Marlowe is a misogynistic drunkard at the best of times, but this one is smug with it, and has an annoying voice that makes him sound, well, a bit thick.  As I have found with other Chandler/Marlowe stories, the plot is pretty much incomprehensible (I believe that even Chandler professed not to be able to follow the plot of The Big Sleep) - the chief pleasures are supposed to be the snappy repartee.  That's why it's an almost fatal blow to have Marlowe not be good at it.  I'll give it a shot, though.  Marlowe has decided to make money by writing stories for pulp magazines based on his real experiences.  One "A. Fromsett" calls him in to the office to discuss his story, and it turns out to be the aforementioned Audrey Trotter.  Why is she the best thing in the film?  I'll let the gifs do the talking:

Anyway, she's the assistant to the big boss, whose wife has gone missing, and she has worked out from Marlowe's story that his an honest sap and wants to hire him to detect where the wife is.  She invites him back to her place where a wire is lying out conspicuously supposedly from the wife from Mexico saying she's running off to marry Chris Lavery.  But Adrienne (that's what the "A" stands for) knows that Lavery isn't in Mexico and tells Marlowe to find him in "Bay City" (not the one in Michigan, a fictional part of LA, it seems).  Marlowe finds him, and finds him to be a Southerner, and gets knocked out for his troubles, and wakes up in the Bay City jail, because he was found in a wrecked car reeking of alcohol.  He gets a lecture from Captain Kane and his surly assistant Lt. DeGarmot, but goes on his way.  Anyway, there's a lot of back and forth, during which time he surmises that Adrienne wants the wife out of the picture so that she can move in on her millionaire boss.  She admits as much, but sends him off to the boss's ski lodge where his housekeeper has been arrested for allegedly murdering his wife.  Then there's another woman (who seems a little unhinged), 

a subplot involving DeGarmot (who tries the old "cover him in alcohol" trick on Marlowe again, but Marlowe manages to substitute an actual drunk and crawl away, Chris Lavery is found shot in the shower...  There's a lot of plot.  And through it all we're supposed to believe that Adrienne is falling for Marlowe despite his loutish behavior and leering comments.  

Oh, and it turns out to be an Xmas movie, thus accidentally continuing our theme of the last film.  A funny little oddity.

Film review: The Bishop's Wife (1947)

We've been away from movie watching for a while because we had to binge-watch the two seasons of Icelandic Nordic Noir Trapped that we found on Amazon.  Check it out!  Season 2 gets a little bit silly (and gratuitously kills off a beloved character, like the first season of The Killing) but both are gripping.

Anyway, it's that Xmas Movie time of year, and this one has been sitting on our shelves for a while, so what the hell.  Verdict: pretty entertaining, but if it didn't have Cary Grant playing the angel it would probably be insufferable.  Also a bit odd: Cary Grant plays sexy angel "Dudley" (do-right?) who comes to Earth purportedly to help Episcopalian (you can tell he's not Catholic by the very title) Bishop David Niven (did he ever not have that stupid little mustache?) find his way after having lost it by being promoted from the small inner-city parish where he was doing good, to a Bishop obsessed with getting a cathedral built with help from rich donors, but who ends up essentially romancing the titular wife, played by skinny waif Loretta Young.  

Niven (whose other Heaven-themed film, A Matter of Life and Death serves him much better) doesn't noticeably improve from the snappy jerk he is at the start, and even gets exasperated towards (and jealous of) his heavenly assistant.  Meanwhile Grant charms all he encounters, including Elsa Lanchester (who is transitioning from the Mary Shelley of Bride of Frankenstein to the Katie Nanna of Mary Poppins) as the maid, and even the battleaxe rich dragon whose outrageous design demands for the cathedral Niven is caving to.  The only person who initially resists him is Monty Woolley as an old atheist professor who still lives in the seedy neighborhood the Bishop and wife have abandoned, but he warms to Dudley partly because he gives him an inexhaustible sherry bottle and partly because he removes his writer's block (he's been struggling to write a history of Rome for years, but never could think of anything original to say) by telling him personal anecdotes that he (Dudley) remembers from those years.  This is a film that's not afraid to have a little bit of a wallow (extended scene of a boy's choir singing a carol, Dudley enthralling the couple's daughter Debby with a story of King David) 

and wear its religion on its sleeve (although Woolley is presented as an unapologetic unbeliever, and accepted as such, we see him show up to church for the midnight Xmas Eve sermon at the end), but it has genuinely charming scenes, such as an extended skating sequence 

(complete with slapstick from the cabbie that Dudley and Loretta Young drag along).   

Grant refrains from his Arsenic and Old Lace slapstick antics (mercifully, no mugging or double-takes) and instead is suaveness personified (albeit with a slightly unearthly air), and this makes the whole shenanigans work, where it could easily have crossed over into malarkey.  The ending, where he has to go on to another mission, and wipe all memories of him from the humans he has helped, despite having fallen for Loretta Young, even manages to be poignant. Definitely appropriate watching for the week or so before Dec. 25th. 

Film review: Calamity Jane (1953)

 This is the Doris Day movie where she sings "Just blowed in from the Windy City" as well as lesbian anthem (if it isn't, it should be) "Secret love".  Not to be confused with Annie Get Your Gun, which was a 1950 Bettie Hutton feature where she plays a very similar character and they sing "Anything you can do, I can do better", which also stars the improbably deep-voiced Howard Keel (who was a non-singer in Day of the Triffids, but is otherwise fairly unmemorable).  I struggled to enjoy this one just because it was so cartoonish, and I didn't really like the main characters (particularly the two men, Bill Hickock (Keel) and Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin, who are quite nasty to our plucky heroine (who, let's face it, is pretty annoying).  The basic plot is that the owner of the theater in Deadwood accidentally hires male actor Francis Fryer instead of a female (Frances) actor he thought he was getting, and after a failed attempt to pass him off as female (what with Calamity's outfits, there's a definite cross-dressing theme in this one), 

the audience is about to desert him when Calamity offers to go and recruit the famous actress Adelaid Adams whose cigarette card all them men compete for.  She accidentally confuses Adams's assistant Katie Brown for the real thing (Chicago is beneath her, let alone Deadwood), and Katie, wanting her own career, goes along with it.  Then follows a sequence where, after this deception is uncovered, Calamity persuades the town to accept Katie and they fall for her, and then Katie comes to live in Calamity's shack so she can teach her how to be ladylike.  

Then the Lieutenant (whose life Calamity has saved [from the injuns - this film does not have a progressive view of them, numerous of whom Calamity has bumped off], the ingrate) pursues Katie and breaks Calamity's heart.  It's jolly enough in its way, and most of the cast seem to be Broadway actors, and Katie (Allyn Ann McLerie) and Doris Day show enviable acrobatic ability in some dance numbers, but it's about suitable for a Saturday afternoon showing on BBC 2 in the Xmas holidays.  At least Day's hair isn't as frumpy as it would subsequently be.

Film review: Teacher's Pet (1958)

 This film is misleadingly named (and not to be confused with one of our favorite criminally underappreciated animated films).  It sounds like it's going to be a To Sir With Love kind of classroom-centered thing, but in fact it's mostly about the newspaper business.  It's a better film than A Touch of Mink, and Doris Day is better served by it (she plays a competent university instructor rather than a ditsy nobody from Sandusky), but I don't much like Clark Gable in it.  Once again, Gig Young (why have I never heard of this person before now?) steals it, though.  As Jami pointed out, Gable's character is as if It Happened One Night never happened to his character from that film, and he stayed in the newspaper biz.  He is James Gannon, a crusty city editor on the New York Chronicle (or some such invented paper), while she is Erica Stone, an instructor teaching a night class at CUNY (?) who has invited him to give a guest lecture, to which he has responded with a rude letter about how you can't teach journalism, you have to live it, and he doesn't even have a high school diploma.  Despite this, he is called in by his boss and told he has to go.  When he shows up to her class, he is first amazed to find out that she's a woman (he only had her initials given to him before) and second that she is such a young, attractive woman (albeit, as usual, saddled with an incredibly dowdy (to my eyes) hairdo, as was always Doris Day's fate). He hasn't had a chance to introduce himself before she reads his letter to the class and then proceeds to describe how she imagines him (and gets it so alarmingly right that he hides his hat, because it fits her description too well).  He slips out, but broods on this encounter and decides that he will sign up for her class and show her up.  So he shows up to her class, calls himself "Jim Gallagher," 

and, although he has shown up late, asks to have the chance to produce a piece of writing to be critiqued, as with all the other students.  She gives him an actual incident that has just happened (a murder committed by a young Puerto Rican) and tells him to write 250 words on it.  In no time flat he knocks out 150 words and expects to hear her wrongheaded critique of what he knows is a top-notch piece of newspaper writing.  He is a little taken aback when she recognizes its worth and explains it to the class, and still further taken aback when she adopts him as her star pupil and tries to encourage this self-professed employee of a wallpaper company to consider going into journalism.  But he is reassured again in her eggheadedness when she insists that his journalism is a bit old-fashioned, and what is really needed are thinkpieces, that explain the "why" of incidents like the murder he wrote about.  (He is particularly annoyed when an old employee of his newsroom seems to confirm the public interest in these questions, as he says repeatedly (of a bomb threat) "I keep asking myself "why"?")  Being a sexist old bachelor, he is keen to move in on his doting professor, 

but is finds that she is always having meetings with a famous Psychology professor, Dr. Hugo Pine, whom her secretary (who works nights - this struck me as implausible) informs him "has the inside track".  He ends up encountering Pine (who is Gig Young, and is the best character in the film) and Erica when they show up at the nightclub he's at with his girlfriend (Mamie Van Doren, a performer in said nightclub, and an example of the usual, let's say, uncomplicated women he goes for).  While she goes off to get ready to perform, he joins Erica and Hugo at their table and tries to prove that Pine is only good at being an egghead (something he knows because he ordered his books to research him and discovered that there are piles of them, despite the fact that Pine is young and dishy).  To his increasing dismay, he finds out that Pine is not only charming, he knows everything about everything, including baseball trivia, war trivia (he served) and Watusi drum rhythms.  

Added to this that Erica gets to witness an embarrassing performance by the girlfriend (which you absolutely have to watch) and Gannon is distinctly out of sorts.  So much so that he bribes the waiter (while Pine is demonstrating his skill at dancing) to spike Pine's drink.  This appears to have no effect, while Gannon gets more and more plastered, until Pine reveals that he researched inebriation and trained himself so he is immune to its effects.  At least he is until he goes outside and takes a deep breath, whereupon he passes out instantly, and Gannon and Erica have to take him home and tuck him in, in the process of which she reveals that she isn't in love with him, she's just working on a book with him, about her father, who was "the editor of a small country newspaper".  They go to her place and she is making fun of his girlfriend's performance (remember, Doris Day started out as a big band singer, so she's no slouch) when he discovers that her father is a famous former winner of a Pulitzer, and someone he has idolized.  He feels ashamed and ducks out while she is looking for food in the fridge.  And the next day he shows up to Pine's place to ask for his advice, and is surprised at how well they get along (despite Pine's titanic hangover).  

As you can imagine, eventually she discovers his deception, before he can reveal it himself, and the love she had started to feel for him evaporates.  Pine attempts a reconciliation, because Gannon has lost all confidence in his work, but then recovers it when reading the newspaper her father wrote and discovers that, although he was a great editorial writer, he was a terrible newspaper man.  The film ends with them reconciling, each having learned something from the other, but not necessarily in a relationship, which was sort of refreshing.  All-in-all, a very good plot, some social commentary (if a bit crude), and characters who continually surprise you, which is a sign of good writing.  Gable is a bit of a caricature, and does a fair bit of eye-bugging, but he is perfectly believable as a crusty newspaperman with a soft center (see the subplot about Barney, his young would-be-protege), and as I said, Gig Young is great.

Film review: That Touch of Mink (1962)

 We enjoyed this far more than we thought we would, and far more that you might expect to, given the premise and the Doris-Day-ness.  The outline of the plot is that he, "Philip Shayne," is a titan of industry (who also gives speeches to what looks like the United Nations about the need to raise up the people of all nations) and she, "Cathy Timberlake," a member of the struggling unemployed, sharing a room with her friend Connie (Audrey Meadows) who works at the automat, and they meet because his limo runs through a puddle and drenches her and he feels bad enough that when he spots her going in to the automat (to cadge a cheap lunch off her friend) across the street from his office, he sends his assistant to pay her off.  But his assistant, Roger (Gig Young - very Jack Lemmon-y), 

a neurotic economics whiz, who keeps complaining that Shayne lured him from his professorship at Princeton by the underhanded method of paying him a huge salary, decides that it would be good if a member of the underclass cut Shayne (whom he actually likes, even though his relationship is complicated) down to size by throwing his money back in his face.  He bustles Cathy out of the automat, which confuses the watching Connie into believing that Roger is a caveman type, out to exploit and abandon her, something that will cause Roger no end of trouble every time he tries to get lunch at the automat from then on, and takes her up to meet Shayne, eager to see him brought low.  But what actually happens, of course, is that it's Cary Grant (even if a 58-year-old version) and she is instantly besotted.  This is a great disappointment to Roger, who runs off to his analyst, Dr. Gruber.  The exchanges between these two are a running subplot.  Psychoanalysis really seemed to be taking off in the public consciousness in the fifties onward, and it's clear that the writers don't have much respect for it, as Gruber is exploiting Roger for his stock tips.  Gruber also becomes convinced (it's contrived) that Roger believes that he's being pursued by Shayne, and as it goes on, that Shayne is marrying him and finally that they have a child together, and you can see an internal struggle in Gruber to be open-minded about all this.  But I digress.

Shayne sweeps Cathy off her feet and flies her around the world, but, in a rather squirm-inducing sequence, she is too virginal (Doris Day was about 40 at the time) to let him consummate their relationship, in the luxurious Bermuda hotel he has flown them to, and comes out in a rash.  From that point on, it's on-again, off-again, with both Connie and Roger opposed to the union, until at last they aren't and contrive to force the would-be lovers together, 

with the help of the oblivious (and odiously lecherous) Beasley, an unscrupulous employee of the unemployment office played by the wonderful John "Gomez Addams" Astin.  There's also a very funny cameo at the end for Piglet, 

that is John Fiedler, as well as one for Dick "second Darren in Bewitched" Sargent at the hotel in Bermuda.  Notable scenes include Roger getting slapped by the automat, Doris Day getting drunk and falling out of a windo, Cary Grant getting a taxi clad only in a towel, 

Roger falling down two flights of stairs, Doris Day getting three actual Yankees hall-of-famers tossed from a game, and John Fiedler calling his mother to come pick him up because she was right, women are no good.  Oh, and (as far as I know) the first instance of the joke spoofing the movie trope of a woman taking off her glasses and letting down her hair and becoming beautiful.  Roger tries that with his secretary and her hair is a fright and she squints terribly.  The film doesn't seem to be very highly regarded, perhaps because it's very similar to (and shares a writer with) the earlier, better-known Pillow Talk, but for all Day's virginal fears of sex, there's some dialogue that has definitely sexual connotations, and a lot of genuinely funny shenanigans.  It helps, of course, that every member of the cast is top-shelf and firing on all cylinders (even if Cary Grant has less to do than most).  Another good pick-me-up film for when you can't take anything remotely heavy.

Film review: Operation Petticoat (1959)

The Criterion Channel clearly knows its audience, because it's just added a slew of Cary Grant comedies.  Sadly, we have seen most of them, even trifles like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, but there are some later color ones that we'd manage to miss, of which this was one.  The expressions on our co-stars faces basically give away the tone of the thing, as does the fact that (a) it was directed by Blake Edwards, and (b) it involves a pink submarine (although not until well into the film).  But at the same time, it's not outright farce, and some of the settings and scenes certainly appear to be realistic depictions of wartime action.  It is bookended by Cary Grant, now an Admiral, visiting his first command, the submarine Sea Tiger, on the day it is to be scrapped, and becoming absorbed in the handwritten log.  Cue flashback to a Japanese air attack that practically cripples the sub before it has ever had a chance to run a mission.  Grant insists that it can be patched together enough to reach a dockyard where more extensive repairs will be possible, even though the nearest one, in Darwin, is thousands of miles away.  His CO is doubtful, and half his crew has already been reassigned, but he gives Grant and crew a couple of weeks to work miracles and promises him he'll find a few more sailors to complement the crew.  One of these turns out to be Nick Holden (Tony Curtis), who is at first mocked by the scruffy crew (parallels with The Caine Mutiny) because he shows up in the glowing white uniform of admirals assistant, and is known to circulate among the high society of the local base, and admits never to have actually put to see except once by accident, but who turns out to be a devious scrounger with a poverty-stricken childhood, who has sworn to use the uniform to marry into money (and has already found a railway heiress who is game).  Anyway, he proves his worth by essentially stealing all the bits of equipment that the crew have failed to requisition (with the help of his friend Ramon, whom he recruits from jail), 

and the Sea Tiger is able to put to sea (after an incantation from a local witch doctor, hired by Nick), albeit with only one engine working, and that one barely (the witch doctor removes his mask and expresses doubt about their chances after they putter off).  Nonetheless, the Sea Tiger is seaworthy (even though she groans loudly while submerged).  They soon after put in at an island and Nick goes ashore for some reason I can't remember, only to return with a troop of army nurses who have been stranded when their plane flew off in a Japanese air attack.  Grant's commander is not happy but agrees to transport them, and the real film kicks in, which is about the crew of the sub reacting to the presence of hot women in their midst.  

One particularly busty but clumsy one (the Marilyn Monroe role, in this case played by Joan O'Brien) evidently falls for Grant, but the chaos she keeps causing (like causing the sub to miss a sitting duck enemy tanker by backing onto a button) keeps coming between them.  

Meanwhile Nick pursues the blonde Dina Merrill, 

and she is initially keen to reciprocate until she starts talking about families and he lets slip about the railway heiress.  Their commanding officer, meanwhile, a more mature woman of 38 (Virginia Gregg) drives the woman-hating mechanic crazy by being a better mechanic than him.  MEANWHILE, they stop off in the Philippines, and Nick is sent ashore to get more equipment, which he procures by setting up a fake casino and trading engine parts (otherwise not available) for chips, while the Filipino dealers he's working with ensure they never have to pay out.  This is where the pink comes in: there's not enough "red lead" or "white lead" undercoat for the whole sub, so they have to be mixed, to produce the color that mortifies the second-in-command.  

The plan is to paint it over with grey, the next day, but... There's also an incident with a pig, which they steal from an irate farmer with plans to roast it for New Year's dinner.  But this is interrupted both by a Japanese air attack and the arrival of a number of Filipino women (a couple heavily pregnant) and children, whom Nick has promised the husbands of that he would transport them to safety.  Off they go, with the nurses now able to practice their midwifery skills.  Tokyo Rose broadcasts a threat to the pink submarine that is picked up by allied forces and interpreted as a ruse to get them not to attack a Japanese sub, so when our heroes surface next to an allied ship in an attempt to offload their passengers, they are attacked and depth-bombed after they submerge.  The only way to get them to stop is the reason for the film's title...  I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I feared.  It's much slower-moving than a modern comedy would be, but this allows you time to get to know and like the characters.  The sexist humor isn't too offensively so, and every character is viewed affectionately, which lends a warm glow to the proceedings.  There are some tense moments, too, although the sub never actually sinks anything, despite Grant's character's earnest wish to.  And of course both Grant and Curtis (fresh off Some Like it Hot, where of course he does a Cary Grant impersonation) are effortlessly charming.  So, thumbs up!

Film review: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Another classic we'd somehow managed never to see before crossed off the list, thanks to the Criterion Channel.  This one fits with the "Western Noir"s we watched a while back, particularly The Walking Hills, because, like that one, it's not set in the 19th Century.  In fact, this one takes place in 1945, and, given the events, couldn't happen before then.  Like many a classic Western, it's also filmed in glorious technicolor wide-screen and looks fabulous.  It begins with a train (a modern diesel one) racing through the desert, finally to pull up in the tiny one-horse town of Black Rock, to the amazement of its residents, because the train hasn't stopped there in four years.  Out steps Spencer Tracy, clad in a sober black suit, which contrasts nicely with the spectacular desert landscape, making him look small and isolated, which, in effect, he is.  His left arm doesn't work, which prompts cracks like "you look like you could use a hand" and names like "crip" from the unsavories he will encounter.  The first person to seem alarmed at his arrival is the telegraph operator, a weaselly little fellow who gets on the phone to somebody to tell him about this strange arrival.  We soon learn that Tracy is a man called John Macreedy and that he's looking for a man called Komoko.  After open hostility from everyone from the young blond Hotel desk clerk (who is fairly easily steamrolled by Macreedy into letting him take one of the clearly empty rooms that he claims are unavailable) 

to thugs, played convincingly loathesomely by Lee Marvin (Hector) and Ernest Borgnine (Coley), whom Macreedy seems positively meek around.  It turns out that Komoko's farm is a few miles out of town, and initially Macreedy is unable to get transport out there.  Eventually he persuades the girl who runs the local garage (Liz, the sister of blond Pete from the hotel) to rent him her jeep, something that enrages Robert Ryan's Reno Smith, the local Big Man, and someone not to be crossed.  

Prophetically he says of the money Macreedy has given Liz that it will be the most dangerous $10 she ever earned.  Out at Komoko's place Macreedy finds a working well but also a burn-out house and new wildflowers growing out front.  On the way back Coley rams the jeep off the road, but Macreedy, despite his one arm, is obviously a skilled jeep driver.  It later emerges that this is because he's just out of the army, and in fact the reason he wants to find Komoko is to give him the medal that his son earned saving Macreedy's life (at the cost of his own).  The odious Reno has claimed that Komoko was taken off to an internment camp in 1941, immediately after Pearl Harbor (and the set for this film was in fact built in the shadow of a real internment camp, out in the wilds of central California), but the wildflowers tell a different story.  The rest of the film is very western-esque, as Macreedy knows that Reno and his thugs will kill him before he can leave town and expose their secret.  Coley has special reason to hate him, because he finally pushes Macreedy too far in the local diner (putting ketchup in his chili) 

and gets karate-chopped into unconsciousness for it.  Eventually Macreedy shames Pete and the local doctor (old reliable Walter Brennan) and the broken-down old drunk town sheriff into helping him, and thinks he's got safe passage out of town with Liz in the jeep, but Liz is too in love with Reno, and tragedy awaits...  All in all a rip-snorter with a message, tightly plotted in breathtaking scenery with a cast jam-packed with top character actors, and a central performance by Spencer Tracy that commands the screen.  We listened to a bit of the director's commentary, and he confessed that it was at his insistence that there were no extras, so that the town appears to be peopled only by the very few main characters, which, as he concedes, is artificial, but serves the movie.  It heightens the sense of isolation of Tracy's character, who is as outnumbered as Gary Cooper in High Noon, only without the guns.  The director (John Sturges) also revealed that studio heads were mystified by him wanting wide-screen for a movie with a small cast, believing that it was only suited for "cast-of-thousands" sword-and-sandal epics.  Well, he showed them.

I think Quentin Tarantino was probably inspired by this when he insisted on filming his similarly small-cast-in-one-location film The Hateful Eight in wide-screen.

 All in all, a deserving classic, far superior to Sturges' more star-studded Magnificent Seven, if you ask me. Good dialogue, too, and a satisfying denouement. Oh, and interesting nugget: the actors who play siblings Liz and Pete, Ann Francis and John Ericson, later teamed up in a short-lived American Avengers rip-off called "Honey West".  So there's that.