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Post by topbilled on Aug 1, 2023 15:07:33 GMT
This month Jlewis is back and we will be reviewing four interesting films, as part of the home invasions sub-genre:
August 5: BLIND ALLEY (1939)
August 12: RAWHIDE (1951)
August 19: THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR (1955)
August 26: THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955)
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Post by topbilled on Aug 5, 2023 20:05:31 GMT
Essential: BLIND ALLEY (1939)
TopBilled:
 BLIND ALLEY is considered the forerunner of the home invasion sub-genre, which would become popular in the 1950s. It is a modestly budgeted Columbia programmer with a very strong cast of players, even the minor roles are performed by competent character actors. It does what many films set out to do yet often fail to achieve: it tells a provocative story in a thoughtful way that leaves you with some new perspective on human behavior.The 69-minute drama starts with a deceptively calm prologue that features a college professor of psychiatry (Ralph Bellamy) with his students on an idyllic American campus. These are mostly well-mannered kids with a sense of humor who look up to their instructor. One student (Stanley Brown) practically worships Bellamy and views him as a mentor, and will miss him when he goes off to serve an internship.
 The film’s gentle introductory sequence lulls us into a sense of complacency. As a result, we are totally unprepared for the jolt we receive when the action cuts to a prison escapee (Chester Morris) traveling down a country road with his moll (Ann Dvorak), his pals (which include Milburn Stone) and a warden who’s along as a hostage. The car comes to a sudden stop after they cross a state line. Morris orders the warden out and then shoots him point blank. Now that’s vicious!From here we see Morris, Dvorak and their cronies drive to a lakefront area where they will meet a boat to get away after it’s dark. While waiting to be picked up, they decide to take over a home near the lake. And you guessed it, the home is owned by Bellamy, a place he shares with his beautiful wife (Rose Stradner) and their precocious son (Scotty Beckett).
 It just so happens that Dr. Shelby and his wife will be entertaining dinner guests. So there’s a houseful of people when Morris and Dvorak barge in with their gang and begin aiming their weapons at innocent people. There is a sense of immediate danger and tension. Morris and Dvorak now control everything that occurs inside the professor’s home, and everyone must put on an act when the professor’s star pupil stops by on his way out of town. The ruse is repeated again later when cops come by to check on things.
 There’s another unexpected killing scene, and we watch the various subplots play out in the different rooms upstairs and downstairs. As part of the writers’ comment on social class, we even see the maids locked in the basement, finding a way out. Ultimately, what takes place is a series of smaller dramas amongst the guests which will occasionally pit the criminals against their hostages in unexpected ways. The story heads into unique territory with the ‘treatment’ that Bellamy performs on Morris, while being held captive. He knows Morris is haunted by the past, and he starts to explain in psychiatric terms how Morris’ brain is constructed and how parts of his brain are at war with each other. To be honest, I expected some of the mental doctoring to be a bit phony, with some naive Freudian concepts lobbed at viewers, but actually the dialogue was most restrained and logical.Part of the fun is watching Morris play his villain as a guy with a huge vulnerable spot which Bellamy is able to penetrate by analyzing a surreal dream that plagues Morris every time he tries to get some shuteye.
I especially thought Charles Vidor’s direction was superb in the presentation of Morris’ troubling recurring nightmare, which employs some imaginative special effects. And later when the dream is fully decoded and we see the first man Morris killed as a kid, we get another jolt.This is a great motion picture that leaves the audience with some profound realizations. I can only imagine what it was like for moviegoers in 1939 who expected a routine humdrum Hollywood programmer, and instead were given a smart think piece in the form of cinematic entertainment.***Jlewis:
Leslie Halliwell was a British film critic who wrote and bi-annually updated a popular Film Guide from 1977 through his unexpected passing in 1989 before turning sixty. He was an old fuddy duddy, favoring the classic Hollywood over the post-New Wave stuff and refused to give anything four stars past BONNIE AND CLYDE. Most of us would never agree with his “Blimpish” opinions as another critic critiquing Halliwell put it, borrowing the name from a character who might have resembled him, Colonel Blimp. Even 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, the first two installments of THE GODFATHER and the initial STAR WARS trilogy fell slightly short by his lofty standards.However, his short capsule reviews always make for entertaining reading and I also love how thorough the information was in all of his books, considering the fact that they were all published long before the internet made info-gathering so easy for the rest of us. 
His books involved a ton of research and enormous concentration and patience on his part. I also enjoyed Leonard Maltin’s key movie books during the same period, like his earlier published The Great Shorts (1972) and the later Of Mice and Magic (1980 & ’87), but his own TV & Film Guides involved more cooperation by others as a team (not that I believed Halliwell was entirely solo either) and were less entertaining to read due to Halliwell’s wildly eccentric opinions.For a change of pace, I am using his 5th edition hardback (a must-have on any film buff’s shelf) as additional fodder to analyze this month’s crop of essentials and do a little agreeing and disagreeing with him here myself. He certainly liked BLIND ALLEY, a May 1939 release from Columbia, labeling it an “unusual lowercase thriller with effective dream sequences; it was much imitated.” The “much imitated” praise was used frequently with titles he enjoyed. He quite often favored films that are pioneering in a particular theme, if overlooked in the great passage of time despite others in the business later milking the same idea to more fame later.I greatly enjoyed this one despite it showing its age. This story comes off as rather silly and far-fetched by today’s standards but audiences were far more lenient in those pre-war years. Charles Vidor as director was pretty prolific in Hollywood’s golden age and had well-tuned his techniques by then. His expertise ensures that it maintains just the right amount of suspense despite the oh-gosh-golly set-up.  It also benefits from a great performance by Ralph Bellamy as Dr. Shelby, here being an arrogant and know-it-all psychiatrist instructor with his students. Most of us remember him as a supporting actor to bigger names; classic examples include the Cary Grant classics THE AWFUL TRUTH and HIS GIRL FRIDAY, followed by the ROSEMARY’S BABY ensemble and continuing on to the Julia Roberts era with PRETTY WOMAN. He did get star billing on occasion, but most of these efforts have sadly been forgotten in our collective movie fan conscience and titles like this one deserve to be dusted off again.
Gangster Hal Wilson (Chester Morris, later of Boston Blackie fame), with his girlfriend Mary (Ann Dvorak) in tow, puts his arrogance in his place when he breaks into his home, holding him, his family and special guests hostage. This includes Doris Shelby (Rose Stradner) and little boy Davy (Scotty Beckett of “Our Gang” fame, being so naive by asking the villain “Is that a real gun?”), Also we have George and Linda Curtis (Melville Cooper & Joan Perry playing the stuffy bank folk who attempt to buy their freedom from Hal later) and Dick Holbrook (John Eldridge). Hal does a great job micromanaging his underlings in control, preventing any from calling the police. Yet his motives for holding them is obscure. Is it for money?When the good doctor’s star pupil Fred Landis (Stanley Brown) visits, they all go along pretending Hal is a guest, despite Fred claiming he has heard Hal has been on the loose in his radio news feed! I love how antiquated the 1930s were, complete with “calling all cars!” declarations (reminding me of a popular radio series of the era much lampooned in the media). Of course, it doesn’t take long before Fred realizes who Hal is and he too is added to the hostage round-up. Fred succeeds in a fist-fight attack but dramatically becomes a victim to Hal’s gun, elevating the suspense angst here. 
Per Dr. Shelby, analyzing Hal’s brain is the best solution. He soon gets unexpected support with Mary, who clearly wants a different life than the one she has with our villian. Yet she still defends her boyfriend (the sex must be great, I guess, even if he is accused of being “impotent” with his twitchy fingers) and she is quick to defend herself with him in front of critical Doris. One of these dream sequences boasts impressive negative filter techniques and another, related by Hal himself, has stylized art-deco sets with boarded walls slanted to create anxiety. In the former, umbrellas with iron bars trap his psyche, which prompts Shelby’s line of “Rain seems to bother you…” that puts Hal on edge.We soon learn of the gangster’s upbringing. His father used him as a punching bag and his mother was overly doting to becoming almost incestuous with him. (Too much maternal affection was a big no-no back in He-men daze.) We also learn…*spoiler alert*.. that patricide was involved.  I was pretty impressed by Ann Dvorak as Mary here. She plays competing roles as girlfriend and co-shrink, pretending to argue in front of both Shelby and Hal. She keeps Hal relating more and more details about his subconscious by convincing him that such talk re-enforces his bravery and mastery over everybody.Eventually the cops arrive to get the much softened up villain, no longer having the urge to kill now that he knows the root cause of it all thanks to psychoanalysis. Crime must not pay so, of course, he meets his doom rather than just being a prisoner, which allows one more emotional send-off by Ann as an actress. Probably my main complaint here is that it all ends rather abruptly when so much more could be developed from its premise.  Remade nine years later as THE DARK PAST, also a Columbia release, BLIND ALLEY was a big hit at the box-office. The following year (February 25, 1940), it received an impressive radio adaptation on THE SCREEN GUILD THEATER with Edgar G. Robinson in the lead role (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPbGKJmKfYI).
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Post by topbilled on Aug 12, 2023 7:45:16 GMT
Essential: RAWHIDE (1951)
TopBilled:
In RAWHIDE, Tyrone Power gives a much more mature and focused performance. It also helps that he is paired with Susan Hayward, and that they are both directed by Henry Hathaway on location in Lone Pine, California. Joining them is a fine supporting cast that includes Hugh Marlowe, Jack Elam in a scene stealing role, recent Oscar winner Dean Jagger, George Tobias and Edgar Buchanan.The best part of the picture, however, is the writing. Dudley Nichols’ original script plays like a home invasion movie. A band of crooks, led by Marlowe, have busted out of a nearby penitentiary. They’ve heard about a shipment of gold passing through the area. It will be stopping off at the relay station run by Power and Buchanan. Soon they show up and hold everyone hostage while waiting for the valuable cargo to arrive. During the siege that ensues, we learn various things about the characters. Hayward is first seen arriving by stage with a little girl everyone assumes her daughter. She later reveals that one-year-old Callie (Judy Dunn) is her niece and she’s taking her back to Missouri to be with grandparents since Callie was orphaned in San Francisco. The crooks think Hayward and Power and married and that the little girl is their daughter, which they can use to their advantage to stay alive. At one point Power pretends to get drinking water in the kitchen, which is more of a ruse to steal a large kitchen knife that he hides inside the pitcher. As soon as he returns to the bedroom, he and Hayward use the knife to carve out a hole in the wall under the bed, in the hopes of escaping. There are some interesting scenes with Jack Elam’s shady character desiring Hayward and trying to get his grubby paws on her, but failing. In the meantime Power starts to have genuine feelings for Hayward, and she develops similar feelings for him. We know that by the end of the picture, after the siege is over, that they will be a proper couple and raise Callie as their own. A few deaths occur as the big showdown takes place at the end, and these are very well staged by Hathway. The on-location shooting gives us a very authentic western-looking setting. I got the impression that the entire cast worked hard to get it right, and it is not only a suspenseful drama but a most satisfying one to watch in terms of what it says about human relationships. ***Jlewis:
As with my previous review, it is fun to check out old fuddy duddy Leslie Halliwell (see my introduction on him in BLIND ALLEY above). Any film getting at least two stars in Leslie Halliwell’s Film Guides is a well-produced offering according to him. His description here is brief: “Good suspense western with excellent technical credits” that include, highlighted in Halliwell’s trademark italics, writer Dudley Nichols, director Henry Hathaway and photography by Milton Kramer. No italics for the performances which I guess he considered average for the cast, most being prominent stars of 20th Century Fox at this time period of 1950 (film released in early ’51).We begin like any old time western made before the civil rights moment with talks of “injuns” disrupting mail service by stagecoach (Overland Mail Company a.k.a. “jackass mail”), much bragging about 19th century Americanism and “Oh Susanna” repeated endlessly on the soundtrack instead of the Bill Monroe tune I was mistakenly expecting initially. Our setting is just before the Civil War since no mention of it is made here and the location somewhere undefined between St. Louis in the east and California in the west. Tyrone Power as Tom Owens is questioned by Edgar Buchanan’s Sam Todd, a buddy of his boss father years back, if he is masculine enough for his job, constantly taking baths and being too spruced up. Apparently the message hinted, to great comic effect, is that the place (called Rawhide Station) lacks the woman’s touch. Susan Hayward as Vinnie Holt arrives only six minutes in and makes quite the impression, complete with yearling tot Callie (not her own but her niece whom she has taken care of after Callie’s parents were killed). Before long, she and Tom discuss baths with him suggesting a hot spring instead of the mules’ trough. Posing in the beginning as Deputy Miles, Rafe Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) is the invader here in our month’s theme of home invasions. He is leader of a rustler gang with kooky Tevis (Jack Elam, the most interesting character here to modern viewers with his psycho-grinning), Gratz (George Tobias) and Yancy (Dean Jagger). Unlike BLIND ALLEY, which doesn’t make the villain’s motives very clear at first, things are more cut and dry here: they are all here to steal federally controlled gold from a visiting mail stagecoach and they are hardly the “injun” type.As in the other film, we get a casualty right away when Sam is shot and killed, which is shame because Edgar Buchanan was getting quite entertaining in his old poke mannerisms and, sadly, Tom doesn’t get to impress him like his wish-you-were-more-like-your-father with his bravery. When Vinnie arrives back, she is also taken hostage but thought incorrectly to be Tom’s wife, a fact that Tom uses to their survival advantage. Tom gets Vinnie to send an SOS letter to the upcoming stagecoach driver but it accidentally gets discarded…and found by Gratz later. A trio from the latest stagecoach visit briefly for lunch and the villains allow it as long as Tom and company follow along with the charade that Rafe is a sheriff. Rafe also tries to weasel information about the gold from the all too talkative visitors.Tevis’ urges without any sex “after two long years” take over his “id” and he starts harassing Vinnie, which gets Tom to play her knight in shining armor. The potential love birds are again held captive in a room and we get some tedious kitchen knife attempts to escape through the wall. Like the note, the knife is temporarily lost, flipped out through a hole and retrieved by our villains before Vinnie can retrieve it (at first…they later get it back). This all keeps our suspense going. I did enjoy last week’s film but this one is noticeably better and more prestigious. A lot of its appeal comes from the camera work by Milton Kramer which covers not just establishing shots in the scenic desert Rockies terrain but also in magnificent close-up shots involving the disappearing and reappearing knife that becomes our hero and heroine’s top survival prop. We also get lots of coyotes in this story even though we don’t see them; their howls help conceal the noise of the escape scrapings and there is clever symbolism connecting the wild canines with both the outlaws and the scavenging Tom and Vinnie. There is some great drama in the final reel when little Callie wanders off in the desert and evil lurker Tevis attempts yet another sexual assault. Fortunately our villains lose in the end…spoiler alert!…with Gratz killed first, then Tevis kills Rafe in a skirmish between villains and Vinnie (appropriately) kills Tevis, thus leaving Yancy as the easy-to-subdue survivor to send back to the authorities. Tom proves to the next incoming stagecoach and police authorities that he is well skilled for his father’s job. We can end, in satisfactory please-the-masses fashion, with a potential new nuclear family in creation with Tom, Vinnie and Callie.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 20, 2023 0:22:07 GMT
Essential: THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR (1955)
TopBilled:
 The actual title itself seems like it would be better used for a horror film, instead of a noir. This is an entry in the home invasion sub-genre, which became popular in the mid-50s. A much more superior product in this cycle is Paramount’s THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955) which I will be covering later. Vince Edwards as the gang leader may be eye candy in this picture, but he’s no match for Bogey’s excellent acting in a similar role in the other picture.To be frank, THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR tested my patience in spots, since it seemed ludicrous how the basic concept played out even though it was supposedly based on a real-life police case. I started to believe midway through the story, that a lot of embellishments must have been made by director Andrew L. Stone who also produced and wrote the screenplay.Some of the dialogue is absurd, and often there seems to be no real purpose in the individual scenes except for upstanding family man Gene Courtier (Jack Kelly) to be taunted by Edwards and his thuggish pals (played by John Cassavetes and David Cross). The thugs have perfectly groomed hair, nicely pressed slacks and Cassavetes in particular sports a sharp tie that makes it seem like he’s conducting crime on the way to an imaginary office. Cassavetes’ talents are thoroughly wasted in the film, since Edwards gets to do most of the talking when the bad guys are on screen. Jack Kelly is the star, so of course when the gang members are threatening his family, he receives most of the reaction shots. One plus is actress Hildy Parks who plays the wife. She gives the most credible performance in the whole film. The couple has two kids but the kids are barely seen, which is a mistake, because their safety should be a key concern, which is how THE DESPERATE HOURS presents this scenario. Instead of Kelly being a conflicted guy trying to protect his family, we basically have him being a patsy to the gang and then going off with them on a “joy ride” through the desert while the wife is left back at home to decide if she should call the police.Sometimes it seems as if auteur Stone can’t decide if this is supposed to be a domestic drama or a road movie. The violence is watered down, except for the end, when the group is inexplicably overpowered by police and shots ring out. I don’t want to discourage others from watching the film, since some of the scenes inside the house do work…but overall I found it a disappointing effort that could have been so much better. But then, maybe nothing can compare to Fredric March and Humphrey Bogart in THE DESPERATE HOURS.***Jlewis: Released by Columbia the same year as Paramount’s THE DESPERATE HOURS (also filmed late 1954), this is a much more modest production but one that Leslie Halliwell in his vintage Film Guides still considered “above average” with a star given as a blessing by him. I like his eloquent wording here: “Effective, detailed, low-budget police melodrama; its plot may be overly familiar now but, at the the time, it was refreshing and the whole film an intelligent exercise in suspense.”He also lists writer-director Andrew Stone in his trademark italics to note his importance to the production. I think Halliwell favored this one over THE DESPERATE HOURS despite rating them the same because it had the smaller budget and none of the same box-office name prestige. It is a little picture attempting to compete with the big-wigs. Vince Edwards of future TV fame and John Cassavetes, still an actor and not a director of leading “indy” cinema of the sixties and seventies, are the two familiars here in the cast, but I doubt many average moviegoers knew who they were back then. We open with a narrator telling us that this is based on a true case with all names changed. Allegedly the actual family our Courtiers (played by Jack Kelly and Hildy Parks as the parents Gene and Doris) are based upon is presented in an original photo. Columbia faced some serious lawsuits over this tidbit by not getting proper permission.A couple similarities to THE DESPERATE HOURS to note here, including a full trio attacking Dad, Mom, son and daughter. The attackers are Robert Batsford (John Cassavetes), Victor Gosset (Vince Edwards) and Luther Logan (David Cross). “What happened to the Courtiers COULD happen to you” as the narrator announces. Jack Kelly’s Gene co-narrates in flashback so you know that he somehow survives the experience.
Initially they don’t invade his home at first, starting out as hitchhikers who hold Gene at gunpoint in a desert setting. Again, the motive is for money even though he isn’t particularly rich. The villains succeed in getting their hostage to change cars at a dealer in order to evade the police better, an added plus that brings added realism to our story. Gene pleads to not involve his family in his situation but this story officially hits our home-invasion theme by the 15 minute mark. We are actually given a reason why Gene does not own a gun in this case, since he always feared having one with children around.Joyce McCluskey as Phyllis Harrison is the investigative neighbor who isn’t taken hostage too when she eavesdrops, which becomes a mistake for the captors as she helps contribute to the family’s rescue after a second secret meeting with Doris when she is briefly free of all controlling eyes and ears. Another loophole to their advantage is that one of the actual gangsters, Luther, starts feeling sympathetic to Gene’s plight and admits in total secrecy that he was forced to be part of this heist against his will. Throughout our story, we also follow the usual investigations by the authorities, including Eddie Marr as Capt. Cole and Jack Kruschen as Detective Pope.The story may not be all that unique, but what I love about it is the visual style, making clever use of everyday places as the cameras follow our characters outside the house to banks, car dealers and other local places that permitted cameras. There are few actual actors in these additional scenes and my guess is that many were actual workers at their jobs doing their best to behave as if they didn’t see any cameras. Long before reality TV and while the “cinéma vérité” movement was still mostly restricted to documentaries, this was quite the novelty, making it a “New Wave” film a few years before the French made it all trendy. Even the sound is rather unusual, but only in comparison to so much other product of 1954-55. Microphones follow the actors through rooms and corridors with far less effort to capture each line of dialogue as perfectly as, say, in THE DESPERATE HOURS. Yet it wasn’t necessarily an innovation as it was something that had gone out of fashion at that time…and would come back into fashion later.For example, director Henry Hathaway worked on THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET in much the same style back in 1945 (being modeled after his producer Louis De Rochemont’s “March of Time” docu-shorts with their many “reenactments”) but did not by the time he made our previously discussed RAWHIDE in 1950 (and for that same studio, 20th Century-Fox) in order to market better against other westerns of that time. I guess the acting sometimes dates it slightly. Not because anybody is bad here. In fact, Hildy Parks is especially good in her emotional outbursts and strong determination to succeed in this time of danger, thwarting off the advances of one of her captors much as Susan Hayward’s Vinnie did in RAWHIDE. There are nonetheless moments when you realize that this is still a fifties movie made in the fifties and not a seventies or eighties art-house effort set decades before and made in black and white such as THE LAST PICTURE SHOW or RUMBLE FISH. All in all, it is still an often overlooked gem of a little movie that feels almost as fresh today as it was when it was made.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 20, 2023 2:52:31 GMT
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The Night Holds Terror from 1955 with Jack Kelly, Vince Edwards, Hilda Parks and John Cassavetes
With a small budget and second-tier actors, The Night Holds Terror feels more like a TV movie than a motion picture, but it's a reasonably good TV movie.
Billed as noir, but more crime drama with noir elements, the straightforward story has a man, played by Jack Kelly, picking up a hitchhiker, played by Vince Edwards (TV's future Ben Casey) with everything then going horribly wrong for Kelly.
The hitchhiker, after brandishing a gun, has Kelly pull over so his other two gang members, played by John Cassavetes and David Cross, can catch up. They rob Kelly, but are angered because he only has ten bucks on him.
As will happen several times, the criminals then plan on the fly and accept desperate-to-stay-alive Kelly's offer to sell his car and give them the money. But that necessitates some cumbersome banking, which holds up the money until tomorrow. So it's off to Kelly's house where his unsuspecting wife and two kids are waiting for him.
The movie now segues to the standard crooks-holdup-with-the-victim's-family script: tensions run high, the crooks fight amongst themselves, one crook comes on to the (good-looking) wife, a few escape plans by the family are abandoned or fail, neighbors inconveniently knock on the door and the phone rings a bunch, causing much stress.
By next morning, after getting the car money, the crooks plan, again on the fly, to demand a ransom for Kelly after they learn his father owns a chain of grocery stores.
This ad-hoc move follows the standard kidnapping script: money is demanded, the police are covertly called and phone lines are tapped, while the kidnappers fight, worry about the death penalty and fantasize about getting away with the money (you're not even sure they really believe that's possible). At the same time, the cops trace phone lines and connect small clues, while the wife and kids worry about daddy.
It's nothing special, but it has its moments as the small budget and not-well-known actors gives the film an intimacy, since there's not much to distract you. It could easily have been reverse engineered into a stage play.
At an hour and half in length (what would be a two-hour TV movie with commercials), it drags a bit here and there. Yet it mainly holds your attention, especially when the cops and phone company's efforts at tracing a call from the kidnappers takes you on a trip through state-of-the-art 1955 communications technology, all with the clock ticking.
I wouldn't search for The Night Holds Terror, but if it pops up, its serviceable story, plus its fun mid-1950s time travel, makes it an okay watch. Surprisingly, though, John Cassavetes - an actor who can certainly own a scene and create a memorable character - walks through this one without much spark or energy. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 20, 2023 14:12:42 GMT
I think Jlewis regards THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR more highly than I do and higher than FadingFast does.
I don't really see it as an early new wave type film, I think that is giving it a little too much prestige or credit. It is a Columbia programmer that sensationalized a real-life story to draw people into the theaters. It is competently made but still lacking in spots.
On the IMDb, I gave it a 7 out of 10. Its overall rating on the IMDb is a 6.3....but I do agree with Jlewis that some of the outdoor sequences breathe life into it and give the proceedings a sense of realism.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 20, 2023 14:27:31 GMT
I think Jlewis regards THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR more highly than I do and higher than FadingFast does.
I don't really see it as an early new wave type film, I think that is giving it a little too much prestige or credit. It is a Columbia programmer that sensationalized a real-life story to draw people into the theaters. It is competently made but still lacking in spots.
On the IMDb, I gave it a 7 out of 10. Its overall rating on the IMDb is a 6.3....but I do agree with Jlewis that some of the outdoor sequences breathe life into it and give the proceedings a sense of realism. |
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Post by jlewis on Aug 21, 2023 2:25:47 GMT
Maybe I did overpraise it a bit in my commentary. I did not think it was a masterpiece necessarily but rather interesting in its visual look. Many films of the late fifties and sixties resemble it but not as many that came before it.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 26, 2023 20:44:07 GMT
Essential: THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955)
TopBilled:
Dramatists who are inspired by real-life events tend to, well, over-dramatize those events. Why? Because it’s their job, and also because some of the actual details might seem mundane, and if a situation is going to become the basis for a book, play and motion picture, which is what happened here, then it has to be exciting with elements of danger. The Pennsylvania family, the Hills (called Hilliards in Joseph Hayes’ recreated version and transplanted to Indiana) ended up suing over how they were depicted in the story. They claimed their captors were actually quite polite and not as menacing as seen here.THE DESPERATE HOURS isn’t quite the level of IN COLD BLOOD, but there are desperate acts and a murder takes place while the home invasion scenario plays out. The three captors, recent penitentiary inmates who’ve engineered a jailbreak, are on the lam and duck into a suburban home to hideout, while waiting for funds to aid in their continued escape. On stage, the middle-aged suburban couple was portrayed by Karl Malden and Nancy Coleman. Paramount’s feature film adaptation is shot in VistaVision in black-and-white (because the leads were past their prime and looked slightly younger in b&w). The couple is portrayed by Fredric March and Martha Scott. Film trivia buffs will note that March and Scott had previously been cast as a morally upstanding couple in 1941’s ONE FOOT IN HEAVEN. The lead convict is played by Humphrey Bogart, in his penultimate motion picture. His character is a re-do of his famous gangster role Duke Mantee from THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936). Bogart’s long career at Warner Brothers was built on his playing these types of hoodlums, so it’s interesting to see him revisit this in 1955 as an older man.The Broadway production had featured young rising star Paul Newman as the ringleader, which means the screenplay had to adjust for Bogart’s age. One thing the screenplay glosses over is the fact that one of the other guys is his younger brother (Dewey Martin). Instead of proportionately aging the younger bro, they keep him the same age he was in the play. Bogart was 24 years older than Martin and it shows. But I guess Bogart didn’t want to play Martin’s father, and so we have two brothers with a rather glaring disparity in their ages.The play and film both take their time to get to the final standoff with police surrounding the house. Mrs. Hilliard (Scott) is the first to be “visited” by the felonious crooks. As the other members of her family arrive home during the day, they all become hostages. The rest of the family includes a teenaged daughter (Mary Murphy) and preteen son (Richard Eyer), as well as the husband (March). There’s a subplot involving Mary Murphy's character who wants to marry a businessman, played by Gig Young. Mr. Young is old enough to be Miss Murphy’s father. I think if they’d had Young switch roles with Martin, the casting would have been more correct. Despite some of the miscasting, the picture provides electrifying performances…especially from Bogart and March. Incidentally, March’s role as the patriarch was intended for Spencer Tracy, who refused to take second billing under Bogart. A few years later, Tracy and March would team up for INHERIT THE WIND, with March once again second-billed, because Tracy still wouldn’t relinquish top billing.I should mention that the Broadway production of The Desperate Hours was a hit. It received financial backing from actor Robert Montgomery and his daughter Elizabeth Montgomery. RM directed the Broadway version, and he earned a Tony award. EM would marry Gig Young in 1956, and that brings us full circle.***Jlewis:
Leslie Halliwell wasn’t as gaga over this one as the others we are profiling this month, although he gave it an “above average” star rating (his star ratings differing from other movie guides by only giving stars to product worthy of it). According to him, it was a “ponderous treatment of an over-familiar situation with only the acting and an ‘A’ picture look to save it.” Over-familiar it may be, but it was touted as being “based on true events.” The 1940s and ’50s had plenty of radio dramatizations and more modest B-films focusing on domestic invasions by criminals so it is easy to understand that his opinions reflect one who had seen a lot of similar product back to back.Age is also an important factor to film criticism as different generations take on different perspectives. In contrast, Leonard Maltin praised this one with a three and a half star rating in his competing guide-books, also published in the seventies and eighties. Halliwell was born in 1929 and Maltin in 1950, the latter part of the Baby Boomer generation that saw more old time Hollywood entertainment on the burgeoning small screen rather than big one. Maltin was only belatedly discovering the impressive filmographies of both key stars of THE DESPERATE HOURS, Humphrey Bogart and Frederic March respectively (given that Bogart passed away in 1957 when Maltin was still a little kid). My guess is that Halliwell only saw this once in its initial release in theaters and was expecting much more from it, given its multi-Oscar winning director, William Wyler. Did he rewatch and re-evaluate it later?This was filmed between October 1954 and January 1955 in impressive VistaVision, albiet in black and white instead of color as was the increasing custom. Since most film noir type suspenses were more economically produced, more may have been spent on it than needed. Paramount lost money initially on it despite its top star billings. One interesting characteristic of the films reviewed this month that makes them all quaint leftovers of a bygone era is the general lack of guns owned by the home-owners. Now…I personally don’t own one but I am a curious exception in this country today. In states run by Republican governors in particular, Florida being a classic example, the number of guns pretty much outnumber both humans and Palmetto bugs, the primary invaders Floridians fuss about the most. Therefore, all of these storylines would have been resolved barely twenty minutes after the opening credits if remade today. A later Paramount release, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, summed up the changing American attitudes decades later when Indiana Jones cuts to the chase against a sword wielding Arab.Then again, there are three villains here: Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart), his younger pretty-boy brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and slightly comic-looking Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton). The family being invaded are the archetypical upper class nuclear family popularized in Eisenhower Era television sitcoms: the Hilliards involve a well-to-do daddy Dan (Frederich March), stay-at-home mommy Eleanor (Martha Scott), teen daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) who is dating boyfriend Chuck (Gig Young) and little Ralphie (Richard Eyer)…but don’t call him that. He prefers Ralph.Our set-up is established right away with radio announcements of the trio of convicts’ escape and the cops all investigating; these include head honcho Jesse Bard (Arthur Kennedy) and a detective played by Alan Reed (the famous radio performer who later voiced Fred Flintstone), among others. Eleanor is at home alone when invaded, but clutching her purse. By the time the other three come home, Bogie’s Glenn has already investigated the family finances and learns that barely 800 in cash is available on hand. Money needed to make the great escape is the key motive here. There is a great talk between daddy and junior about it being OK to be afraid and junior Ralph needs to “grow up” by developing patience until they receive additional help from the police. Later, over the breakfast table, Glenn mocks Ralph by saying “If you don’t drink your milk, you won’t grow up to be a strong man like your daddy.” The message here is that strength lies in holding one’s cool in the worst situations. Gradually son and pop bond over the course of our story. Chuck becomes the fifth visitor and ample competition to younger hood Hal, who kinda-sorta has taken a shine to her (although nothing develops here), but the family cleverly throws him out for his own protection. Chuck later helps aid in the family rescue, after being questioned by the police. Hal himself is a sympathetic villain, only involved in this crime due to his older brother, but he still will be doomed in the end since, as we all know, crime does not pay.The gangsters allow daddy to gas up the car, briefly visit his office and the teen to date her beau without worrying about them squealing on them, although the threats are still made to keep them under control. Some of the dialogue and plot elements show their age, again relics of a more quaint era, especially scenes involving additional characters in the Hilliard orbit acting all broad and naȉve about their situation. However, I did like the bit part by future Waltons star Helen Keeb, who is more convincing as the concerned secretary detecting genuine trouble with Dan. For Bogie, this was a throw-back to his PETRIFIED FOREST era at Warner Brothers but he clearly looks older and slightly more feeble in his role here. Not that he can’t pull off the menace at times; one memorable scene involving him holding Ralphie at gunpoint. The character of Sam is merely the third wheel here who doesn’t do much apart from enforce Glenn’s hold on the household, but there is a dramatic scene that hits you suddenly when he shoots a delivery man in the back after taking over his truck. Scenes like these help make this a fondly remembered classic among devotees of suspense drama even if certain other aspects show their age and prevent it from delivering its full impact.Eventually the cops save the day, but there is plenty of good suspense and some impressive camera angles of cars in chase leading up to the all-expected finale. Lee Garmes is credited as cameraman in charge and is as much of a star here as the performers. Some scenes work better than others (the shot of the authorities looking through a window down at Dan returning to the house and deal with the hoods comes off as hokey with its optical effects) but it all keeps up to a climactic pace. The gunshots all over the suburban Andy Hardy style neighborhood lawn are a nice touch. Death comes to the villains, but some modern viewers may consider it happening a bit too fast; the ending being rather compact and too easily resolved like so much fifties entertainment.Despite some flaws, this is still a highly entertaining melodrama.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 26, 2023 21:22:09 GMT
The Desperate Hours from 1955 with Fredric March, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Middleton, Arthur Kennedy, Dewey Martin, Gig Young and Mary Murphy
Acting, writing and directing talent elevates this "home invasion" movie above many of its peers in this perennially popular Hollywood genre.
In The Desperate Hours, Fredric March plays the father of an upper middle-class family - Martha Scott plays his wife, Mary Murphy; his nineteen-year-old daughter and Richard Eyer; his nine-year-old son - whose home is taken over one morning by just-escaped convicts looking for a temporary hideout.
Humphrey Bogart plays the leader of the gang, which includes Dewey Martin playing Bogie's younger brother and big Robert Middleton playing the "muscle" of the three.
Director William Wyler sets the tone early as Bogie's thuggish and scruffy gang appears completely out of place - like invaders - in the Marchs' clean and pretty house.
They randomly break things and look silly eating off of nice china at a comfortable dining room table with their guns resting next to their plates.
It's a long, tense movie as Bogie is waiting for his girl to come with money for their escape, while March is always looking for an angle that gets his family out of this safely. Meanwhile, the police, searching for the convicts, have no idea where they are.
Many of the usual home invasion things happen including innocent tradesmen and neighbors knocking on the door, the phone ringing too often and playmates and boyfriends showing up.
In a neat and tense twist, March and his daughter are allowed to go to work to keep up appearances, while his wife and son remain hostages. Meanwhile, young thug Martin eyes March's pretty daughter Murphy, especially when Murphy's boyfriend, played by Gig Young, comes knocking.
What centers and drives this one, though, is Bogie facing off against March as we see two acting pros draw you into their mano-a-mano story, where Bogie starts off cocky only to see March slowly begin to outmaneuver him.
Also engaging is the theme of criminals taking versus honest people earning. March has a job he goes to everyday to pay for the things his family has; whereas, Bogie and team take by force; the contrast could not be more stark.
This is further brought home when we see Martin begin to realize that his older brother has sold him on a bad philosophy - a life of crime and not being "the sucker." Martin can't help noticing the house's pretty curtains, comfortable furniture, well-stocked refrigerator and the general comity of the family - all things he's never had.
When Martin finally snaps at Bogie, who's played a father figure to him, and tells Bogie you never taught me how to get a home like this, the movie's theme is laid bare: hard work and honesty, not stealing, is the path to a better life.
It's a well-written script where we see even the police at odds as the lead detective, played by Arthur Kennedy, fights over priorities with his boss, played by Ray Collins.
Collins, with an eye on the upcoming election, simply wants what will be popular with the public, Bogie's gang dead or captured; whereas, Kennedy wants to do the right thing and put March's family's safety first.
It's a powerful scene that shows that even the police have conflicting and, sometimes, selfish motives that don't always nicely align with "protect and serve."
Almost every actor is outstanding in this one, but you want to keep a special watch out for Middleton's incredible performance as the lumbering, psychotic giant whose unpredictability combined with his menacing street smarts makes him the scariest member of the gang.
Maybe the end is a bit too cute and gimmicky, but it's also tense and dramatic as movies like this have to do their thing and deliver an emotional and action-filled climax.
The Desperate Hours is an engaging, albeit not groundbreaking picture. Still, with a smart script, Wyler at the helm and too-many talented actors to name, it's what a good movie should be: entertaining as heck with a small message tucked inside. |
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Post by sagebrush on Sept 1, 2023 23:16:56 GMT
Another good film which involves a home invasion is SUDDENLY (1954.)
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Post by topbilled on Sept 2, 2023 5:08:20 GMT
Another good film which involves a home invasion is SUDDENLY (1954.)
I had told Jlewis in an email that of the four we selected to review in August, my favorite was RAWHIDE...because I found it a bit more innovative than the other ones...using the western format to tell this type of story. I have always considered westerns and gangster films to be very similar, in the way they tend to have the most vicious and most depraved villains. The killings are violent in westerns and gangster pics, and when you wrap that type of menace around a home invasion plot, then things really become interesting. |
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