Road to Bali (1952)iMDB Rating: 6.9
Having to leave Melbourne in a hurry to avoid various marriage proposals, two song-and-dance men sign on for work as divers. This takes them to an idyllic island on the way to Bali where they vie with each other for the favours of Princess Lala. The hazardous dive produces a chest of priceless jewels which arouses the less romantic interest of some shady locals.
The Bali High equivalent of Flying High
On a scale of one to a million this rates about a 999,999 on the silly scale. In colour and with beautiful production values ROAD TO BALI made in 1952 contains as many up to date movie and social references as an encyclopedia written by Ludwig Von Drake. In a huge theatre these ROAD films must have lifted the roof with laughter, and as a DVD diversion in 2006 any of them can be a generous and loony mood lifter. There is actually many laugh out loud moments still to be had even if you weren't born or aware of life in the early 50s. THE ROAD TO BALI (pronounced "Bally" by Americans; "Barley" by the rest of us) is basically flat-out hilarious with quips and ad libs galore. Even if you cringe at Bing Crosby as I do, there is enough genuinely funny lines and situations and terrible gags to overwhelm you...much like THE PRODUCERS released this year insists we find it relentlessly dementedly funny. To me Bob Hope has always been Daffy Duck (Groucho Marx was Bugs Bunny) and it is his vaudeville lunacy that carries Crosby inbetween squabbling over Lamour and pushing through all parts of the set. This film has some excellent special effects, very admirable for '52. A hilarious cameo from Jane Russell is the cherry on the icing. Some big dance scenes are an added bonus. Fun fun and demented fun. What a year 1952 was for hilarious films (look 'em up).
Cocktails in the Kitchen (1954)iMDB Rating: 5.7In postwar London a young graduate and his girlfriend decide to marry. Her well-to-do parents are not convinced, but they agree once he has got a £5.10.0 job and a 30/- a week single-room flat. The newly-weds find money fearfully tight, the flat cramped, the neighbours a trial, and her parents always hovering. Can faith conquer all? Is there some way of getting rid of tea-leaves except down the sink?
Too unremittingly 'pleasant'?
"For Better, For Worse" is a representative example of comfy cosy middle-class 1950s British cinema. Tony (Dirk Bogarde) and Ann (Susan Stephen) are an awfully nice young couple of newly-weds from upper middle-class families who find it expensive to set up home in the West End of London. They have to settle for a rented studio flat with furniture on hire purchase. Being much in love, Ann really doesn't mind living in a style decidedly more modest than that to which she is accustomed - but how does one host a proper dinner-party in such very trying circumstances?
There are various reasons for their finding themselves in this dilemma. Perhaps the most plausible is the housing shortage of the time. Then Tony, though educated at Charterhouse and Oxford, can find work only as a grade-three clerk on £5 10s per week. Strange this, given that the 1950s were not a time of especially high unemployment. Ann cannot take a job herself: "My fiancé thinks a woman's place is in the home". They are too proud to accept money from Mummy and Daddy, so they have to make do as best they can. "There are hundreds of us in the same boat," exclaims Tony. This nod in the direction of socio-economic criticism hardly convinces.
Genteel light comedy of this sort depends on its charm. Bogarde gives his usual proficient performance (on the lines of his Simon Sparrow in the 'Doctor' series). Susan Stephen seemed considerably less effective in the eyes of this viewer - not sufficiently appealing, to be frank - but what constitutes charm is always very subjective. Dennis Price and Peter Jones do their comic turns as an estate-agent and a second-hand car-dealer - rather like their roles in the later (and much funnier) "School for Scoundrels" - though even these apparently shady characters turn out be rather nice really. The working-class types (chief among them a charlady played by Thora Hird) are all predictably quaint.
British comedy films of the 1950s are commonly attacked as bland, complacent, shallow, and 'unduly bourgeois'. Often I would wish to rally to the defence. In the case of "For Better, For Worse", however, it would surely be far wiser not to give battle.
Drums of Tahiti (1954)iMDB Rating: 5.1In 1877, Tahiti secretly plans to revolt against France, aided by British gun-runners who are no match for police commissioner Duvois. Now, prosperous American Mike Macklin is persuaded by Queen Pomare to help. As an excuse for sailing to San Francisco, he must enlist a "wife" of convenience; enter gold-digging showgirl Wanda Spence. Will Mike tame her or ignore her in favor of inauthentic dancer Mawaii? A hurricane's brewing, the natives are restless...and so is the volcano!
Exciting romance about the attempt of the Queen of Tahiti to liberate her islands from the French.
This is a delightful little adventure/romance which could just as easily have fit Bogie and Bacall, though I doubt if they could have done better than O'Keefe and Medina. O'Keefe is great as the tough American merchant in Tahiti who turns out to be a sucker for the underdog, and joins Queen Pomare's attempt to import guns from San Francisco in order to start a revolution against the French. In order to allay the French Commissioner's suspicions, he states that he is only going to Frisco to get married, but the Commissioner unexpectedly decides to accompany him, in order to be best man at his wedding. The shenanigans that occur as O'Keefe tries to find a woman to play the part of his intended bride while he is secretly obtaining guns, and the love/hate relationship that develops between he and Medina. under the watchful eye of the suspicious Commissioner are delightful, and Francis L. Sullivan deserves a lot of credit for his performance as the lovable but shrewd Commissioner, as well. Very entertaining!
Jhansi Ki Rani (1956)iMDB Rating: 7.4The Jodhaa Akbar of the 1950s
Today we make huge hoopla if any Hollywood technician is associated with any Bollywood film. But more than half a century back Sohrab Modi made an epic costume drama employing some very prolific names from the West. His 1952 film Jhansi Ki Rani boasted of Hollywood technicians like Oscar winning cinematographer Ernest Haller (Gone with the Wind), Oscar winning writer Geza Herczeg (The Life of Emily Zola), Oscar nominated editor Russell Lloyd (The Man Who Would Be The King, Moby Dick) and some more on its credit list.
Sohrab Modi was known for his spectacular historical films like Pukar, Sikandar (Alexander – The Great) and Prithvi Vallabh. He continued his legacy of making epic historical biographies with Jhansi Ki Rani which was mounted on a lavish budget and had every element that would add to the magnificence of a costume drama from opulent sets, rich costumes, dramatic dialogues, theatrical performances, extravagant action with lifelike battlefield sequences involving hundreds of horses, elephants and soldiers. To give reference with a contemporary analogy, Jhansi Ki Rani was the Jodhaa Akbar of the 50s.
The film is based on the life history of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, who was one of the first Indians to rebel against the British Government. Rani Lakshmibai finds a prominent mention in history textbooks of India but Sohrab Modi's film takes an in-depth look on the entire biography of the queen from her childhood to her death. In Bollywood history, other than this film, Rani Lakshmibai had a faint one-scene reference in the Ketan Mehta directed Aamir Khan starrer Mangal Pandey towards the end in an epilogue where Varsha Usgaonkar posed as the Rani. (Incidentally Sohrab Modi's Jhansi Ki Rani had a one-scene reference to Mangal Pandey). The common link between Lakshmibai and Mangal Pandey is that both were associated with the First War of Indian Independence – the uprising against British that started in 1957.
Ketan Mehta had planned a biographical on Rani Lakshmibai as a follow-up film to Mangal Pandey and an extension on the 1957 Uprising. Unfortunately with the box-office failure of Mangal Pandey, his film never took off. Similarly actresses Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai had once contemplated playing Jhansi Ki Rani but none of the projects materialized. Thankfully that leaves Sohrab Modi's production as the only feature film on the life of Rani Lakshmibai and its authenticity remains un-tampered. A TV series on Rani Lakshmibai is currently on air but the literary manipulations to the biography to adapt to the long-drawn-out requirements of the small screen, completely spoils the essence of the legend.
Sohrab Modi took the effort to keep his film's screenplay (penned by half a dozen writers) historically accurate and comprehensive and yet entertaining. The film opens with the queen's childhood when she was known as Manu and had the courage to face an elephant. When the chief adviser of Jhansi, Rajguru (Sohrab Modi) sees her valour, he asks Manu's father Moropant to get her married to the much-elder King of Jhansi, Gangadhar Rao (Mubarak). So the 9-year-old Manu is married off to the 50-year-old Gangadhar. Trained under Rajguru, Manu grows up to be Lakshmibai (Mehtab), the Rani of Jhansi who is proficient at all physical and political challenges. (Ironically, in real life Mehtab was married to Sohrab Modi who was elder to her by 20 years).
Lakshmibai has a son from Gangadhar Rao who soon succumbs to illness after which the couple adopts a boy Damodar Rao to be the heir of Jhansi. But the British East India Company rejects the adopted Damodar Rao as the claimant to the throne of Jhansi and wants to seize the kingdom. That results into conflict between the Queen and British resulting into rebellion that led to the First War of Indian Independence in 1957.
Sohrab Modi came from the stage background which reflected pretty much in his film. The drama induced through the heavy-worded dialogues was intense and the performances were very theatrical. There was no compromise to get the period look of the film perfect (real foreign actors played the British characters) and the magnificence showed in every frame. As the film nearly perfected in getting the 'costume' era feel and dense 'drama' effect, Jhansi Ki Rani aptly justified its genre of 'costume drama'.
The film had a US release in 1956 and was titled 'The Tiger and the Flame' based on one elaborate dance piece that Gangadhar Rao organizes to welcome the grownup Lakshmibai to the court and take charge of the kingdom. This was India's first Technicolour film, though unfortunately the DVD I got had a Black and White print of the film and I kept wondering throughout on how the film would look in each frame had it been in colour. However despite all its visual brilliance and historical relevance, the film didn't perform as expected at the box-office and was reportedly a big loss to Sohrab Modi who was the producer as well.
Nevertheless Jhansi Ki Rani is a wonderful watch if you like well-made historical costume dramas.
Penne nere (1952)iMDB Rating: 6.4Alpine soldiers return home, face more conflict.
(Some spoilers) "Penne Nere" ("Black Feathers") is set in Italy during the last crucial two years of World War II, after the Badoglio government had signed an armistice with the allies. Throughout the nation the original Fascist army was disbanded and soldiers were pretty much on their own. Most tried to find their way back home and hope for the best, although with much of the nation now occupied by the Germans, the situation would be precarious.
Our hero, Pieri, is a young Alpine soldier (they wear black feathers in their caps.) He is from the village of Stella, where much of the story unfolds, and is in love with Gemma (Marina Vlady.) Having made their way back to their village over the Alpine snows after the news of the army disbandment, the soldiers, with the townspeople, become engaged in an effort to prevent the Germans from blowing up a dam.
At the end of the war, the two lovers are able to marry and we see the arrival of their first child. The movie is splendidly photographed and some of the shots of the Alps and the snows and the village environs are terrific. Marcello Mastroianni , appearing quite young here, cuts a handsome figure. His voice is dubbed, however, by someone else, always a common practice in Italy. Marina Vlady as his girl is very pretty and suitable to the part. Guido Celano plays Olinto, Pieri's brother who is killed in a German ambush. Young Enzo Staiola, famous as the boy in De Sica's "The Bicycle Thief" plays Olinto's son Tonino who smiles a lot and is given a substantial amount of screen time. The direction is by Oreste Biancoli, better known as a screenwriter.
Although the film does not have any reputation as a major work, it is still a very interesting one and does not disappoint at all.
Drum Beat (1954)iMDB Rating: 6.5President Grant orders Indian fighter MacKay to negotiate with the Modocs of northern California and southern Oregon. On the way he must escort Nancy Meek to the home of her aunt and uncle. After Modoc renegade Captain Jack engages in ambush and other atrocities, MacKay must fight him one-on-one with guns, knives and fists.
A Little Known True Incident
One of Alan Ladd's better post Paramount films was Drum Beat, based on a little known incident from the Indian wars.
For the first time an American general was killed during the wars against the Indian tribes. The little known Modoc war was another of those lesser known conflicts as action against the Sioux on the Great Plains and the Apache in the Arizona desert got far more attention.
The Modocs were moved from a reservation in northern California to one in Oregon to share with the Klamath, a tribe that had a long feuding history with the Modoc. That was the immediate cause of the war. It was kept going by one of the Modoc's more charismatic leaders, a chief named Captain Jack.
On April 11, 1873, General E.R.S. Canby among other peace commissioners who were sitting in council with Captain Jack and the other chiefs were suddenly shot and killed, in fact Captain Jack personally did shoot General Canby. Charles Bronson in his very first film with that name having dropped his real birth last name of Buckinsky plays Captain Jack. Warner Anderson plays the feckless and luckless Canby.
The horror of that incident aroused some bad public opinion against the Modocs, not to dissimilar against to what was aroused against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor and Islamist extremists after the World Trade Center attack albeit on a much smaller scale. It certainly shifted priorities for a while in the War Department from the Sioux and the Apache.
Alan Ladd plays a real frontier figure named Johnny MacKay who as the film has him was a civilian scout employed by the army to find Captain Jack. His role in real life was not at the center stage of the film, but he did play a part in the Modoc Wars. And he was not among the surviving peace commissioners he wasn't at the meeting when the assassinations happened.
For all its inaccuracies Drum Beat is the only film I know to deal with this incident that shocked a nation during The Gilded Age.
The Bushwhackers (1951)iMDB Rating: 5.7Plot here has Confederate veteran Jeff Waring arriving in Independence, Missouri shortly after the Civil War, and intending never again to use a gun. He finds that rancher Artemus Taylor, an arthritic despot, and his henchies, Sam Tobin and Cree, are forcing out the settlers in order to claim their land for the incoming railroad. The plot nearly predates "The Great Train Robbery" in age but the gritty execution and well-acted performances take it out of the norm... way out, in a couple of instances. Brassy Myrna Dell is on hand as Taylor's independent daughter, only slightly less meaner than her father, and the always welcome Dorothy Malone is the pretty school marm on the side of good. Needless to say, Ireland's passive outlook on life changes before the end.
An interesting low-budget western.
Using a theme that became quite popular decades later, Amateau scores well on his directorial debut. The original title of this movie was to be "The Rebel" however, producer Broder was unable to keep his hands off anything he was involved in, hence the uninspired title. It is interesting to note that Director Amateau years later in his TV show "Dukes of Hazzard" named the automobile "The Rebel." Ireland is perfectly cast as the emoting Civil War veteran, only seeking peace, but willing to fight and kill to get it. The supporting cast is extremely interesting, featuring the, by then has-been Morris, Tierney, Dell, and Chaney. Considering that Ireland, Chaney, Tierney, and Morris were renown for their drinking bouts, working on this picture must have been a real challenge. The end result is a very good, if dated western, featuring some of the finest acting put on celluloid.
Paula (1952)iMDB Rating: 6.5Distraught after her second miscarriage & learning definitively she could never have children Paula, while driving at night, accidentally injures a child. Confused and due to her commitment to attend a function that honors her husband she doesn't follow the child to the hospital as she thought she would. She attempts to tell her husband about the incident but has trouble finding the right time. Later, overcome with remorse, she looks to get close to this child and becomes a helper at the hospital. The child is an orphan with limited health care available. The doctor recognizes Paula's need to be useful and asks if she would become his speech therapist and guardian. She finds meaning and purpose in her life as she engages the little boy in intensive therapy necessary to recover his ability to speak. Will she be caught and punished, when the boy is able to speak, will he implicate her?
Good Drama
Paula (1952)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Interesting but too overly dramatic film about a wife (Loretta Young) who suffers her second miscarriage and is about to give up on life when another tragedy strikes. While speeding to a meeting, she runs over a seven year old boy who becomes deaf to the wreck. Another man takes the boy to the hospital so the police don't know who hit him but the woman feels so guilty that she adopts the boy so that she can try and teach him to speak again. However, the police are still on the hunt for who hit the boy and the boy eventually remembers who it was. This film could have been a lot better had they toned down the crying moments. By crying moments I mean that this is one of those films that tries to make you cry every five minutes, which becomes quite annoying after a while. The scene where Young learns she lost her second baby is heartbreaking but other moments don't come off as good. Young is very good in her role, which requires her to be a snob, a heartbroken mother and a woman trying to do what's right with both the child and the law. Kent Smith is also very good as her husband who at first doesn't want to take in a mute child. The film loses some steam in the final act as things turn very stupid during one scene where the man who drove the kid to the hospital shows up at Young's house and starts a fight. The ending is predictable but touching.
Girls in the Night (1953)iMDB Rating: 7.7A morbid and rugged look at life in the tenements of New York City. Chuck Haynes and his girl friend, Georgia Cordray, plan to rob a fake beggar of a supposed fortune, But Irv Kellener and his girl friend have the same idea also, and get there first, but end up killing the old man. And Chuck and Georgia are the prime suspects.
A Sleeper
This is one of those films that few people have ever heard of. It is a shame, because GIRLS IN THE NIGHT, while not a masterpiece, is certainly an entertaining and well-made little film. Actually a film noir, GIRLS IN THE NIGHT tells the story of a young would-be hood, Chuck (Harvey Lembeck,) who is wrongly accused of robbery, and, if memory serves, also murder. Lembeck, (long before he became the comic biker "Erich Von Zipper" in those Beach Party movies) puts in a fine dramatic performance. The film is stolen, however, by Jaclynne Greene as Vera, a character in love with Chuck. Vera is nicknamed "Ugly" and photographed in harsh lighting to emphasize her street toughness. A good look at Greene, however, shows that she is far from ugly. She gives a credible, sensitive portrait of a wildly misunderstood woman
One more thing: The title of this film is misleading. From the name of the film one would think that this would be a cheaply-made story about B-girls. It is not. Rather, it is a tale of desperation, a tale of frustration about young people trapped in an environment that simply will not let them go
The Pathfinder (1952)iMDB Rating: 5.9Pathfinder, a white man raised by the Mohican Indians, joins forces with the British army to avenge himself on the Mingo warriors and the French, who have brought death and pillage to his people. He takes on a mission to retrieve secret plans from within the French fort at St. Vicente.
Routine but fun James Fenimore Cooper tale
Bloodless battle scenes are interspersed with fairly well-written dialogue scenes in this inexpensive (but in good 50's color) tale of Indians, French and English conflict. George Montgomery and Jay Silverheels ("Tonto") are dashing, and the first Helena Carter is pretty and plucky. Like a TV dinner served in a tin tray, this film is pure "comfort". I haven't read the book, but I'd bet that the plot is pretty close except for the love story (in Cooper, romantic incidents are usually mental but never become physical). If you know Cooper better than I do (I've only read "Mohicans"), please add a comment.
Chance Meeting (1954)iMDB Rating: 6.6Good But for "the Soft Plash of Cognoscenti Being Sick in their Hats"
(The quote above is from a review of a concert where Robert Shaw conducted Bach's mighty B-Minor Mass, then followed it with some spirituals for encores.)
A lot of water has crashed over the dam in sexual relationships since this movie was released 53 years ago. Yes, the sexual frankness is a bit higher than we expect, about at the level of "West Side Story" (a woman in her slip sitting up in bed), but the notion that two people can simply fall in love and move mountains to maintain that love seems pretty quaint to us today. You will groan at some of the clichés the lovers spout in the process.
And speaking of "West Side Story", oh, my, there's a lot of "Romeo and Juliet" here as well. There's also a bit of "A Farewell to Arms", but I won't specify what, so's not to spoil.
Well, the film satisfied a craving in the audiences of its day, and we can watch it even today with interest, though it's not particularly compelling anymore. There's good pacing, good film-making, very plausible visuals, and a great crescendo of almost Hitchcockian excitement toward the end, but the plot also depends on some very weak twists to pull it through, I'm afraid.
I stopped the film about ten minutes from the end, and asked myself, "It appears they'll either make it, or they won't. Do I care?" And yes, I had to admit, I was invested in it at that point. I cared. And so I played it, willingly, to the end.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)iMDB Rating: 7.3Lorelei and Dorothy are just "Two Little Girls from Little Rock", lounge singers on a transatlantic cruise, working their way to Paris, and enjoying the company of any eligible men they might meet along the way, even though "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." Based on the Broadway musical based on the novel.
Howard Hawks tackles a Broadway show and Marilyn Monroe.
As a demonstration of Hawks' versatility, this picture stands out. It's anything but a faithful adaptation of the Anita Loos story, but in Hawks skilled hands, it's as delightful and silly as his best screwball comedies, and an evocative example of the sexpot exploitation prominent in it's day. Monroe and Russell complement each other nicely as glamour babes beyond belief. The flamboyant musical numbers are deliriously fetishistic and there are some particularly hilarious bits involving a hoarse-voiced little boy and a dirty old man. Sensationally staged and provocatively primitive.
One Big Affair (1952)iMDB Rating: 5.6Jean Harper, a Pomona school teacher on vacation, is taking a bus tour through Mexico. Bored, she misses the bus and soon finds herself looking at Jimmy Donovan...30 years old and six feet high, and she thinks he is better to look at than ruins 1000 years old and 900 feet high. He is a high-priced divorce lawyer, also on vacation, and bicycling his way to Acapulco to "stay out of trouble." Thus begins a tour of Mexico by bus, bicycle, ox-cart and by foot and, before they reach Acapulco, he is accused of kidnapping Jean and both become the object of a nation-wide search. They also get adopted, along the way, by a whimsical Mexican orphan boy.
Light but underrated
Certainly not a work of art, but a little underrated. The story is thin and contrived, but really no more so than many highly regarded films. The writing has some nice moments and is pretty amusing in parts, especially the scenes involving the "Mexican cousins." This was the first film I have seen with Evelyn Keyes. She is compelling in an unusual way. Reading some background about her made it all the more interesting. Regarded as a perennial B- movie actress, she certainly had a fascinating Hollywood life, and her performance here is never bad and at at times very appealing. The movie also features some good character performances, especially the boy-crazy Mary Anderson and the very-Brooklyn Connie Gilchrest. All in all, an entertaining movie in my opinion. They can't all be award winners, and this one isn't, but it is light and pleasant.
Okaasan (1952)iMDB Rating: 7.8A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
Charming and rueful
OKASAN is one of the rare instances when Naruse was able to create a film with a little more humor than usual; for this reason, this study of an adolescent girl and her mother has moments of great charm, even though the general sadness which pervades so many of Naruse's films cannot help but add dimension to the story. The ending of the film is more upbeat than is usual for Naruse, and so the effect is bittersweet and rueful, rather than despairing and sad. It's a film full of delicate touches of great tenderness; it's a film that really does celebrate motherhood, though in a very unsentimental way. Though Naruse does emphasize the problems of the family, he allows the affection that the family feels for each other to texture the film with a feeling of genuine warmth. This remains a very special film for Naruse for this reason.
Bitter Creek (1954)iMDB Rating: 6.6In a film incorrectly reported as Bill Elliott's last starring western, "Bitter Creek" (released in March of 1954 carrying 16843 as the PCA number) falls a tab bit short of that as it was followed by "The Forty-Niners", (released two months later on May 9, 1954 with 16874 as the PCA number), but the correctly-reported absence of production values is duly noted. As Clay Tindall (Bill Elliott as Wild Bill Elliott), comes to a town in a search for the killer of his brother and quickly becomes unpopular with the townspeople who are unwillingly but submissive subjects to the whims of local cattleman Quentin Allen (Carleton Young) and his motley gang of hired hands and henchies. At the end, Elliott is given a typical line from his Columbia and Republic days that indicates that killing for revenge isn't admirable or the right thing to do, although he has just finished a rather thorough job of doing just that.
Wild Bill Elliott's last screen appearance in a western
This was to be Elliott's last western picture. Gone are the slick production values Elliott enjoyed while at Republic, and this entry from Allied Artists is an obvious low budget formula western. Elliott plays the part of the revenge seeking gunslinger to the hilt, but is hampered by pedestrian direction, a soft script, and cheap sets. But somehow the presence of Elliott, as the tight-lipped non-compromising anti-hero shines through, and we are left with a very watchable picture.
