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Post by topbilled on Aug 21, 2024 2:34:33 GMT
⇧ I really enjoyed your review and your insights into Sloan Wilson's life.
I've read the book, but never the sequel, but think I might have to now.
Also, while I've seen the movie four or five times, I was surprised, when I looked, to find that I had never written a review of it or even a set of comments in bullet format.
But we have your review and I doubt I could add much to it.
Edit Add: a copy in "very good" condition for $6.10 is on its way to me now. Used books are the best dollar-for-dollar entertainment you can buy, assuming you like reading, of course. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 29, 2024 7:19:32 GMT
This neglected film is from 1953.
Boy becomes a man in the west
This is for all intents and purposes a vehicle meant to feature young Robert Wagner’s talents. And though he’s third billed after stars Dale Robertson and Rory Calhoun, it’s clear the bosses at 20th Century Fox are grooming Wagner for bigger things. He would, of course, make films across a variety of genres, with more westerns in the mid-50s— including a starring role in THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES. But this is a turning point in the actor’s career.
Wagner plays a boy who’s anxious to grow up and take on the reigns of more responsibility, literally, as the stagecoach driver for an important line. He’s been trained and vouched for by Robertson, who functions as a mentor.
But Robertson doesn’t always go by the rules, and neither does Wagner initially. When Wagner is tired of waiting to be promoted and tells his girl (Kathleen Crowley) that he’s leaving, she goes to Robertson who puts in a good word with the manager to give Wagner a chance.
However, he is not quite ready for the added responsibility. During the next journey, he is taking $27,000 worth of gold and a lovely lady passenger (Lola Albright) who works in a saloon and is Robertson’s main squeeze. At a way station, they are ambushed by a gang of thieves who kill Albright and an elderly stagecoach employee (Burt Mustin) then take off with the gold.
There is some good stunt work during the robbery scene, and from here the story kicks into high gear. The thrust of the drama now focuses on Robertson’s plan to go after the crooks, while Wagner joins a posse headed by the sheriff (Rory Calhoun) to aid in the search for those men as well as the missing gold. Wagner has lost his job with the stagecoach company, and he becomes Calhoun’s new deputy. During this part of the narrative, he is mentored by Calhoun, whose approach to law and order sharply contrasts with Robertson’s.
Though the scenarists don’t exactly make Robertson a villain, he is definitely a vigilante who’d rather shoot a man on sight then put him in jail to await trial. In a way this is a western reworking of FURY (1936), with a touch of HIGH NOON (1952) thrown in because the message is an indictment on the evils of mob violence and the need for a young lawman (Wagner) to do what is right, even if it’s unpopular with the general population who want a lynching.
The film clocks in at 73 minutes, so there are no drawn out sequences. It all moves at a quick pace, but it also manages to take the time to show how Wagner’s character matures from boy into man and learns what is the right thing to do. Robertson and Calhoun are really playing support to Wagner, but Robertson has an edge, since he’s been given the most interesting morally challenged character who also must learn what is the right thing to do.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Aug 29, 2024 19:26:50 GMT
I've watched The Silver Whip twice in the last month or so since GRIT shows the film. It does have my favorite T.V. western actors in Robertson (Tales of Wells Fargo), and Calhoun (The Texan).
I liked the character interactions between the 3 men. As noted the film is well paced but still has time for character development especially by the young man as played by Wagner.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 7, 2024 14:45:59 GMT
This film is from 1953.
At 11:40 p.m. on the 14th of April 1912
The stories of the Titanic survivors are startling, no other word can describe it. And truthfully, no motion picture is ever going to come close to depicting what they endured during the sinking and what haunted them all the years that followed. Most of their families had been torn apart forever, with fathers and older brothers left on the doomed vessel to face death.
When 20th Century Fox premiered its ‘A’ budget extravaganza on April 16, 1953 (which nearly coincided with the April 15, 1912 date of the sinking), several survivors attended the event in New York City. Two of them were Leah Aks and her son Frank Phillip Aks, who hung out with Thelma Ritter at the premiere. More than four decades had passed since the tragedy, but you can imagine what seeing the film was like for them.
The film went on to do respectable business at the box office and earned an Oscar for its screenplay. However, contemporary critics complained that the studio didn’t stick to the most important facts. As a result, there are some historical inaccuracies, but as a work of fiction inspired by a true event, the feel of the picture probably seems right. There were separate socio-economic classes on board the vessel which was traveling from England during its maiden voyage to America. British families and American families were on board, though not all their issues mirrored the made-up problems of the Sturges clan in the movie.
I’ve always thought Clifton Webb was miscast in the role as the father, since he’s not usually the first person who comes to mind when you think of a man that Barbara Stanwyk, playing the wife, would have married. Yet Webb was Fox’s first choice for the role. The teen daughter was played by Audrey Dalton on loan from Paramount, though initial reports said Margaret O’Brien was considered for the role. In the part of the younger brother is child actor Harper Carter. Incidentally, Dalton and Carter are both still living as I write this.
James Cameron’s 1997 remake likes to act as if it’s not a remake by tacking on drawn-out scenes with Gloria Stuart’s centenarian character that bookend the story. Cameron’s version was undoubtedly influenced by news about divers finding parts of the wreckage in the mid-1980s. So there was a renewed interest in what had happened to the Titanic.
By the 1980s and 1990s, some of the last remaining survivors began to speak about the experience. Many of those who came forward did so after years of avoiding publicity and after years of dealing privately with what they had lost. The very last survivor, Millvina Dean, died in May 2009 in Britain. She was only two months old when she and her family boarded the ship. Her anecdotes were things her mother had told her. Interestingly, she wasn’t informed she had been a Titanic survivor until she was eight years old. That demonstrates how difficult it was for the families to discuss it.
The longest-living survivor who had actual memories of the ship going down was an American woman, Lillian Asplund, who died in 2006. She was five and a half when she took the trip with her relatives.
She shunned interviews and took no money from media outlets that wanted to publish her recollections. One of her memories was how the ship looked when it was sinking, while she and her mother and a young brother were put on a lifeboat. Lillian recalled seeing her father and older brothers on the deck looking down at them one last time before they turned and took off, presumably to find another lifeboat (which sadly, did not exist).
Many bodies of the deceased could not be identified but the body of Lillian’s father was identified due to his pocket watch being on the corpse. The watch had frozen and stopped keeping time at 2:19 a.m., one minute before the Titanic was fully submerged in the icy cold waters south of Newfoundland.
Lillian also remembered what is was like being rescued around 4 a.m., when she and her brother were hoisted with their mother from the lifeboat up on to the Carpathia. She mentioned how her clothes had to be removed because they were wet and dirty. But there were no other clothes to change into…these are the kinds of real-life stories that aren’t depicted in the movie recreations.
Going back to Millvina Dean for a moment, her family had been leaving England to start a new life in the United States, Kansas to be specific. But they never made it to Kansas. Since her father had died and her mother was now penniless, they took another ship back to England a month later. Whole lives were changed because of an iceberg.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 19, 2024 7:31:12 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Effective noir programmer
This effective noir programmer was produced by Jack M. Warner. He was the son of Jack L. Warner, head of Warner Brothers. Jack Junior, as he was known, had a strained relationship with his father. There were periods of estrangement between the two men after Senior divorced Junior’s mother in the mid-1930s and married a woman who’d had a child by him out of wedlock.
The reason I mention Warner family history is because Jack Junior remained very close with his mother Irma, who was from a privileged San Francisco background. Her relatives still wielded considerable influence over the northern California city. Anyone who’s seen THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF knows the final sequence is filmed on location in San Francisco, which I am sure was no accident. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the title of the film, which is in reference to the character Lee J. Cobb plays in the story, is a veiled reference to Jack Senior.
Jack Junior had spent several years on the payroll at his dad’s studio, but he was eager to strike out on his own. This film began as an independent production that was going to be released thru United Artists, but eventually was purchased by Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. Zanuck had made a name for himself at Warner Brothers before forming his own company in the mid-1930s; he probably could relate to Junior’s need to get out from under the father’s shadow.
In the story Cobb is cast as a police detective who is embroiled in a scandalous relationship with a woman (Jane Wyatt) anxious to be rid of her wealthy husband. During a quarrel, she kills the husband and Cobb helps get rid of the body and covers up the crime. He will be assigned to investigate this homicide.
Because he’s in love with Wyatt, Cobb has no intention of betraying her and sending her to the gas chamber. There is added irony when Cobb’s younger brother (John Dall), another cop on the scene, is searching for clues and ends up learning the truth. He will be the one that stops Cobb and Wyatt from getting away with murder; the one preventing another man (Alan Wells) from getting the blame.
It’s interesting to watch Wyatt manipulate Cobb’s character in this film. The role is a far cry from the pleasant wife she played in BOOMERANG with Dana Andrews; or in PITFALL with Dick Powell. Even if those earlier hits were crime stories, Jane Wyatt was always on the right side of society and the right side of the law. Of course, she would continue to exploit that type of character in OUR VERY OWN and in the classic TV sitcom Father Knows Best, where she was always seen as a positive and morally sound woman.
But here Wyatt is working against type. A performance like this reminds us what a good and unjustly underrated actress she is. She brings a level of class and sophistication to the femme fatale archetype, and she works well in her scenes with Cobb. The final sequence, where they are on the run and end up at Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge is expertly played by both of them.
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 19, 2024 9:39:24 GMT
That is an excellent review, TopBilled. I checked and was surprised to find I've never reviewed it myself. I get it confused in my small brain with "Shield for Murder" and "Night Editor."
I also agree wholeheartedly with your comments about Jane Wyatt's talents. I remember I had noted something similar in a review for the movie "None But the Lonely Hearted," where I said, "Wyatt impresses in a small role as the young woman who is smart enough to know that she has to let Grant come to her as trying to 'hook' him will only drive him away. Hers is a thoughtfully nuanced performance." She is, though, in this one, once again, on the side of light and goodness.
Hollywood is one of those fields where just being talented is not even close to being enough to allow one to fully realize the breadth and depth of one's talent.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 19, 2024 14:02:19 GMT
That is an excellent review, TopBilled. I checked and was surprised to find I've never reviewed it myself. I get it confused in my small brain with "Shield for Murder" and "Night Editor."
I also agree wholeheartedly with your comments about Jane Wyatt's talents. I remember I had noted something similar in a review for the movie "None But the Lonely Hearted," where I said, "Wyatt impresses in a small role as the young woman who is smart enough to know that she has to let Grant come to her as trying to 'hook' him will only drive him away. Hers is a thoughtfully nuanced performance." She is, though, in this one, once again, on the side of light and goodness.
Hollywood is one of those fields where just being talented is not even close to being enough to allow one to fully realize the breadth and depth of one's talent.
Cobb would run afoul of McCarthy shortly after this film was made and he was blacklisted for a period in the early 1950s, before he "named names" and became a so-called friendly witness with the investigating committee. Wyatt never ran into that sort of trouble, since her family knew the Roosevelts and I would imagine, there was a certain amount of protection she was afforded. She usually took thankless assignments as the supportive wife who didn't make waves, and through these characterizations she would espouse conservative values in many of the roles she played.
I didn't realize what a fine performer she was until I saw her on a few episodes of St. Elsewhere. She had a recurring role as Norman Lloyd's wife. She wasn't on the show too often, but usually appeared once or twice a year. Wyatt and Lloyd had both started in the same theater group in the '30s, and they were old friends. When I watched those episodes, it was more than her easy rapport with Lloyd that caught my attention; she just brought a sharp understanding of what needed to be accomplished in each scene.
I started looking back over her film roles. In all those thankless parts she did, I realized how intelligent and nuanced her performances are. There's a reason she had such a long and successful career as an actress. Because of her family connections and her husband, she was certainly someone who didn't have to work. She had been looked at derisively by members of her own family who felt that being an actress was beneath her. Lucky for us, she didn't feel the same way. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Sept 19, 2024 18:12:08 GMT
The Man Who Cheated Himself is a good noir film. Wyatt shows she could be much more than just a housewife (e.g. Father Knows Best). She shines.
Cobb gives a balanced performance in this film and avoids the Rod Steiger school of acting, that Cobb would sometimes fall into.
As for Cobb the cop in the film: I believe he really believed Wyatt killed her husband in self-defense and thus there was no crime, i.e. he was covering up what he believed was justified homicide. Once he found out he was being played for a fool he was in too deep. That is how he cheated himself.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 20, 2024 1:37:39 GMT
The Man Who Cheated Himself is a good noir film. Wyatt shows she could be much more than just a housewife (e.g. Father Knows Best). She shines. Cobb gives a balanced performance in this film and avoids the Rod Steiger school of acting, that Cobb would sometimes fall into. As for Cobb the cop in the film: I believe he really believed Wyatt killed her husband in self-defense and thus there was no crime, i.e. he was covering up what he believed was justified homicide. Once he found out he was being played for a fool he was in too deep. That is how he cheated himself. |
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Post by topbilled on Oct 8, 2024 15:01:07 GMT
This neglected film is from 1939.
Railroaded!
The film has a credit at the beginning which acknowledges historical research. But as we know, much is fictionalized to present the idea that Jesse James (Tyrone Power) and his brother Frank James (Henry Fonda) are Robin Hoods at heart, battling the railroad. Farmers have been pushed off their land in unscrupulous ways, and these two are fighting back.
Their poor ma is played by Jane Darwell. It’s interesting to see her and Fonda as mother and son in this film a year before they appeared in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
Darwell’s character dies early on, by a fire that’s caused by Brian Donlevy and his men who are working for Donald Meek’s expanding railway company. Things come to a head one summer day after Power angrily shoots at the men, nicking Donlevy in the shoulder. A sheriff’s posse is assembled to arrest the two boys, but they run off to avoid being railroaded, pun intended.
One thing that always impresses me about the film is how tightly edited it is, and how so many memorable characters are introduced quickly in the beginning. In addition to the James family and their neighbors, we have the railroad men as well as a group of townsfolk led by a newspaper publisher (Henry Hull) and his daughter (Nancy Kelly).
Miss Kelly functions as a love interest for Power. Also there’s a law officer (Randolph Scott) who gets involved with Kelly, whose job it is to capture Power and Fonda. This is all intricately connected by good writing, sharp performances and editing which keeps the action humming along.
There are some spectacular stunts, like shots at dusk when we see the James boys hop on top of a train then proceed to rob it. Later, after Power has married Kelly, and is on the run with Fonda, we see a spectacular fall with a horse off the side of a cliff into a raging river below. This is an exciting film at every turn, and it’s no wonder it was such a hit. Re-released several times by 20th Century Fox, it always cleaned up at the box office…audiences couldn’t get enough.
Though the two Jameses are initially depicted as sympathetic characters, we do watch how robbing and killing gets into their blood. They can’t seem to stop. Hull, Kelly and a colored man (Ernest Whitman) who worked on the James farm, know justice won’t be done. With increasing rewards put on their heads, someone will betray the James boys.
The scenes near the end are bittersweet, where Power visits Kelly and their young son. There is no chance for him to settle down and be a normal family man. The Ford brothers (John Carradine & Charles Tannen) show up and we know what will happen. The film ends with our title character’s burial. But his brother is still out there somewhere. And of course, this sets up Fox’s hit sequel a year later with Fonda in THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (1940).
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2024 13:29:18 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Henry Fonda returns as Frank James
Realizing what a box office bonanza they had on their hands with 1939’s JESSE JAMES, the executives at 20th Century Fox decided to make a sequel. The result is this above-average follow-up that continues the James family narrative without Jesse. However, Tyrone Power’s character is seen briefly at the beginning in a flashback that shows how he was killed.
This wasn’t the first time an ‘A’ feature had a sequel, nor was it the first time that a flashback was used in this way. TOPPER TAKES A TRIP had employed the technique to explain the absence of Cary Grant’s character, while the story rolled on with Constance Bennett. It’s an effective way to recap the previous installment, provide continuity and carry things forward.
Since THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES was made so soon after the original, this production has several distinct advantages. First, Henry Fonda who reprises the title character hasn’t aged one iota, so we have a direct continuation of the action in the preceding film. Also, most of the supporting cast are back in the roles they had originated…even if there are a few conspicuous absentees like Randolph Scott and Nancy Kelly.
As Jesse’s widow Zerelda, I think Nancy Kelly should have been included, at least at the beginning, before the story is handed over entirely to Henry Fonda as the surviving brother. We also don’t see Jesse’s son again, which feels like a mistake. But these are minor quibbles. Another benefit of the studio’s decision to produce a sequel so quickly is that the high production values are maintained, including its use of Technicolor, with many behind-the-scenes crew resuming their old jobs.
As the solo lead this time out, Mr. Fonda sustains interest in a storyline that shows what happened to Frank James after Jesse’s assassination by Bob Ford (John Carradine). Of course, Frank is still a fugitive and sought by the law. We learn he dropped out of sight after the disastrous bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota; and now lives under a different name. Colored farmhand Pink (Ernest Whitman) is with him, as well as a young man (Jackie Cooper) who is the son of a deceased member of the gang. Cooper’s character is fictional, as the plot contains embellishments.
Other historical accuracies involve the fact that while Frank is intent on carrying out a plan of vengeance after learning about Jesse’s murder, he in fact was not directly involved in the killings of the Fords. What is true, however, is that the Fords did receive pardons by the governor, which is depicted in this film– something that no doubt did not sit well with Frank James or the people who sympathized with the plight of the James family. Of course, Frank would go to trial twice after he was forced out of hiding, and a jury of his peers exonerated him both times.
For the sake of an engaging on-screen drama, the scenarist has Frank leave the rural spread where he’s been living in Missouri and travel to Denver where the Fords are said to be. Cooper’s character, named Clem, accompanies him. To get the money for the trip, Frank again commits robbery, holding up a train station office. This part seems like a deliberate rehash of the original movie, to create a series of ‘adventures’ for Frank and Clem. Obviously, the male bonding between these two men is meant to evoke the bonding between Frank and Jesse.
Another death occurs, and a hefty reward is offered for Frank’s capture. However, Frank and Clem make it to Colorado, and in Denver, they meet a beautiful lady reporter (Gene Tierney in her debut). There are some interesting scenes that follow where Frank and Clem observe the Fords (John Carradine and Charles Tannen) performing in a stage play re-enactment of Jesse’s death. Amusingly this bit is very far-fetched, with Frank clearly disgusted by how the Fords have been capitalizing on his brother’s death. The sequence seems to be historically correct.
After the re-enactment, we have Frank follow Charlie Ford (Tannen) into the mountains for a showdown, while Bob Ford (Carradine) vanishes. The outdoor scenes, shot in Bishop California, are exciting to watch…culminating in Charlie’s death, slipping off a rocky cliff. It ends with Frank saying: ‘That’s one of them, Jesse.”
The film does a remarkable job of getting us to side with Frank, which is aided by Fonda’s sincere performance in the role. We are supposed to feel that he has been wronged all his life– he lost his family’s farm; he lost his mother; and he lost his brother. Everything Frank deals with is an exaggerated injustice.
When Pinky is sentenced to hang back in Missouri, Frank must go back to help… even if this means turning himself in and forgetting about going after Bob.
I think the reason Cooper’s character was added to the mix is fairly obvious. For he is the one who ends up killing Bob Ford, after Frank is acquitted. This plot device takes Bob’s murder out of Frank’s hands, so he can start life anew. At the same time Cooper is conveniently shot and dies for his trouble to satisfy production code requirements.
While not as exciting as the first hit film, this sequel still has a lot of energy and it did well with audiences. The real Frank James lived to age 72 and died in Missouri in 1915. He held jobs as a salesman, telegraph operator and a betting commissioner. Fittingly, he spent his last years back at the old James homestead, where he showed tourists around.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 24, 2024 14:17:52 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Characters do crazy things
Try saying THE BEAUTIFUL BLONDE FROM BASHFUL BEND three times, fast. The title of this screwball western comedy is a real tongue twister. But it’s a good way to describe Betty Grable and the character she plays. Although she is beautiful, she’s anything but bashful. Especially when using firearms. In the opening segment she learns to fire a gun at her grandpappy’s knee.
In fact the little girl is not allowed to play with her favorite doll until she has completed her shooting practice each day. Grandpappy won’t always be around and these skills might come in handy. Take that. Bang! And that. Bang bang!
Flash forward to Grable as a saloon singer twenty years later. She now has considerable skill with a gun. She’s in love with a good-for-nothing gambler (Cesar Romero). While performing a musical number she leaves the stage, goes into the crowd then up a long staircase. The scene shows off her trademark legs. As she works her way up the stairs, the crowd below thinks it’s part of her act.
Romero is in one of the rooms above the saloon with another girl, and when the song ends Grable hurries down the hall to pump him full of lead. Unfortunately she hits a judge in the backside who was in middle of a romantic rendezvous of his own.
This is a Preston Sturges movie where characters do crazy things. The production code never seems to interfere with Sturges’ stories, since the scenarios are depicted as broad farces. Perhaps this lax “morality” is why the film did not do well with audiences in 1949. Seeing a gal solve her problems by shooting people is a lot to accept.
In the next part Grable gets out of jail and takes a train west with her friend (Olga San Juan). She intends to start a new life and assumes the identity of a schoolmarm. While working as a teacher she puts the fear of god into some wicked kids with, what else, her gun. This kind of stuff would not fly today given the amount of school shootings that have occurred.
The supporting cast includes character actors and actresses that worked with Sturges on some of his earlier films. They’re experts and make the most of the contrived premise. None of them ever react to the situations or to each other. They are too busy hamming it up and setting up the next gag. It gets wilder and wilder.
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Post by sagebrush on Oct 24, 2024 21:55:49 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Characters do crazy things
Oh my: I was just thinking about this film yesterday! I last saw it on FXM about a year ago and I have watching to see if it will be shown again.
What a fun film. I always enjoy Betty Grable and Olga San Juan was adorable!
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Post by topbilled on Oct 24, 2024 23:37:09 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Characters do crazy things
Oh my: I was just thinking about this film yesterday! I last saw it on FXM about a year ago and I have watching to see if it will be shown again.
What a fun film. I always enjoy Betty Grable and Olga San Juan was adorable!
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Oct 25, 2024 0:08:49 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Characters do crazy things
Oh my: I was just thinking about this film yesterday! I last saw it on FXM about a year ago and I have watching to see if it will be shown again.
What a fun film. I always enjoy Betty Grable and Olga San Juan was adorable!
Betty Grable had a spark, how could I not be delighted by her. This is one fun film and in many ways a throwback to the early screwball comedies. |
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