Movie Review: The Big Country (1958)

Genre: Western

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Jean Simmons, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Chuck Connors, Charles Bickford

Running Time: 166 minutes

Synopsis: Former mariner James McKay (Gregory Peck) relocates from Baltimore to the west as he prepares to marry his fiancée Pat (Carroll Baker). Her father Henry "the Major" Terrill (Charles Bickford) owns a massive ranch, and his loyal foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) desires Pat and resents James' presence. The Major is locked in a feud with nearby landowner Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives), as both are dependent on water from land owned by schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), who is romantically pursued by Rufus' loathsome son Buck (Chuck Connors). James attempts to peacefully de-escalate every situation, but his quiet dignity unsettles the locals.

What Works Well: An epic western, William Wyler's adaptation of the Donald Hamilton book explores multiple grand themes, from personal (a man's measure of self-worth) to societal (the slow evolution towards non-violence). Strong romance elements provide James McKay with two possible matches in Pat and Julie, and as illustrations of his character, McKay's treatment of women contrasts sharply with the more brutish Leech and Buck. The film's strength resides in multiple sturdy character arcs, veterans Charles Bickford and Burl Ives adding depth to the antagonism between The Major and Rufus, while the father-son tension between Rufus and Buck provides a powerful undercurrent. Expansive cinematography by Franz F. Planer complements a running "big country" reference, and the music score by Jerome Moross is one of the iconic western soundtracks.

What Does Not Work As Well: Given the breadth of storytelling, the ending deserved more reflective exposition.

Conclusion: Big narrative ambitions fulfilled on a big canvas.



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Movie Review: The Carpetbaggers (1964)

A business-and-romance drama, The Carpetbaggers is fueled by a tortuously obsessed personality.

In the 1920s, Jonas Cord Jr. (George Peppard) inherits his father's chemical business, and proceeds to build an audacious empire centred on the burgeoning airline and film industries. His long-term associates include ex-cowboy Nevada Smith (Alan Ladd), who raised Jonas from a young age, level-headed lawyer McAllister (Lew Ayres), and airplane pilot Buzz Dalton (Ralph Taeger).

A driven workaholic, Jonas also has a tumultuous lustful relationship with his father's young widow Rina Marlowe (Carroll Baker), and eventually turns her into a movie star. He marries - then ignores - Monica Winthrop (Elizabeth Ashley), before courting starlet Jennie Denton (Martha Hyer). Along the way Jonas tangles with sleazy agent Dan Pierce (Bob Cummings) and studio boss Bernard Norman (Martin Balsam). 

Inspired by Howard Hughes, The Carpetbaggers adapts Harold Robbins' novel into an effective cinematic experience. John Michael Hayes wrangles a cohesive but still epic 150 minute screenplay out of the book, and Edward Dmytryk hustles the sprawling narrative along, never dawdling or pausing to contemplate. The outcome is a sustained rhythm mixing business compulsion with warped romance, both propelled by voracious character traits.

The film tackles business issues head-on, and presents Jonas as never likeable but nevertheless fascinating, a demanding cut-throat overachiever and impossible boss, but also a willing and constant learner. The emotional underpinnings for his behaviour are only hinted at, until the suitably bombastic final act revelations. George Peppard fits the role well, his stone cold expressions capturing an antipathy only satisfied when exerting control and achieving domination, consequences be damned.

Dmytryk infuses the aesthetics with the gaudy look of greed and lust, and most of the romantic scenes are dripping with undertones of conquest and egomaniacal seduction. With a lot of ground to cover, the editing demonstrates a preference for bold brevity bordering on choppiness, powered by Elmer Bernstein's brass-and-drums dominated music.

The supporting cast is impressive, from the friendly stoicism of Lew Ayres to the scheming of Martin Balsam and Bob Cummings. Carroll Baker (manipulative), Elizabeth Ashley (hopeful), and Martha Hyer (opportunistic) create a triangle of naturally flawed women grappling with Jonas' troubled psyche. Most notable is Alan Ladd in his final screen role, providing the one robust anchor in a stormy life.

Embracing boardroom and bedroom lubriciousness, The Carpetbaggers crackles with connivance.



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Movie Review: Terror Storm (1978)

A cheapo disaster / horror hybrid from Mexican schlockmeister René Cardona Jr., Terror Storm (also known as Cyclone) features horrid production values, atrocious performances, and a few former Hollywood types embarrassing themselves.

A massive storm unexpectedly wallops the Caribbean near an unnamed island. Out at sea, a plane is caught in the turbulence and crashes into the ocean. A fishing boat capsizes, and a tourist boat is stranded without power. The rescue effort is slow in coming. The survivors from the three incidents eventually converge onto the tourist boat, where water and food are running low, tensions are high, and the sharks are circling.

Cardona Jr. made a small career out of budget disaster films in the 1970s, ripping off the decade-long obsession with the genre and cobbling together Mexican / Italian / Spanish co-productions with enough funding to attract a few fading stars. Terror Storm features a sudden Caribbean storm, a plane crash, cannibalism (with crunchier details in the longer "international" version) and a late-in-the-day shark attack, all filmed using bargain-basement techniques, stock footage, and oh-so-obvious not-so-special effects.

To give credit where due, Terror Storm offers up several moral dilemmas worth mulling over, and the film's best moments are in the form of group discussions. Should a pet dog be treated with humanity and provided with precious water in dire circumstances. As the number of survivors on the tourist boat increases, the rationing of water supplies becomes an issue. And finally when cannibalism has to be considered, the topic is debated with some thoughtfulness.

But the few good moments are comprehensively swamped by the prevailing awfulness. The cyclone scenes on the island consist of detached shots of rushing water that appear to be sourced from a documentary. When extras are hit with water, mostly on the crashing plane, it is laughably obvious that they are being hosed down. And once the sharks start munching, they feast on undefined slabs of meat wrapped in white cloth, simulating the human victims. Unsuccessfully.

The dialogue is agonizing, and particularly during the on-island scenes, the words are delivered by actors with blank looks that scream for a mercy killing. Somehow, Arthur Kennedy (as a preacher), Carroll Baker (as the insufferable dog owner) and Lionel Stander (as a pompous tycoon) ended up in this mess, and all three ham it up with bewildering excitedness that does nothing to set their careers back on any sort of recovery. Needless to say, the set design is virtually non-existent. Terror Storm is a tedious exercise in waiting for the sharks to arrive and save the day.

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Movie Review: Giant (1956)

A sprawling Texas family epic set in the first half of the 20th Century, Giant tackles a myriad of social issues but suffers from a meandering second half.

Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr. (Rock Hudson) is a wealthy Texas cattle rancher, and an owner of an enormous acreage. He travels to Maryland to buy War Winds, an expensive horse belonging to the Lynnton family. Bick not only buys the horse, but he also falls in love and marries the Lynntons’ daughter Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor).

Upon returning to Texas, Leslie immediately clashes with Bick’s unmarried sister Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), who runs the Benedict household and is threatened by Leslie’s presence.  Upon her death Luz leaves a small parcel of land to Jett Rink (James Dean), a loner ranch hand who maintains a tense relationship with Bick. Jett develops a crush on Leslie, and refuses to sell his newly inherited property despite a seemingly generous offer from Bick.

Leslie proves herself to be tough, independent, and outspoken, and forces Bick to confront sexism and racism issues in his social circle. She demonstrates unusual compassion to Mexican peasants living in a nearby village, and displays disgust when Bick attempts to exclude her from business conversations. Meanwhile, Jett strikes oil and starts to build enormous wealth. Despite tough times, the marriage between Bick and Leslie endures; they raise three children, and have to deal with the trials of parenting and unmet expectations as the oil boom brings unimagined riches and World War Two erupts.

Based on the Edna Ferber book, the first half of Giant is a compelling story of the sophisticated but headstrong Leslie carving out space for herself in the new and strange world of rural Texas. The narrative generates a steady current of topical issues, including attitudinal differences towards the hired help, racial sensitivities, and the status of women. Hudson, Taylor, McCambridge and Dean sparkle as they challenge the prevailing limits, Taylor reveling in the role of Leslie as a change catalyst, upsetting a status quo that already featured simmering and unresolved issues swirling around Jett’s mysterious charisma.

Director George Stevens explores these themes against a backdrop of the wide-open plains of Texas. This is country where the personalities have to be big to match the endless terrain. The film is filled with impressive and sometimes breathtaking widescreen shots that convey the scale of both the expansive outdoors and the lavish indoors, and Stevens then adds the vertical element as an army of oil derricks sprouts out of the earth and reaches for the sky, pumping black gold.

There is enough drama for a complete film in the story of Bick and Leslie meeting and establishing their life together. But Giant is an ambitious 201 minute effort, and the second half inevitably starts to drag. Bick and Leslie's kids grow up and introduce a new dynamic, and the film starts to stutter from one bland familial conflict to another, rehashing themes already chewed on in the first 100 minutes. Jett Rink evolves into a surly oil tycoon, providing James Dean, in his final film role, with the opportunity to indulge in the worst excesses of method mumbling.

Giant also suffers from some simply awful makeup effects when it comes to the aging of Bick, Leslie, and Jett. Hudson, Taylor, and Dean are provided with ridiculous mops of silver blue hair to denote middle age, but otherwise appear to suffer no wrinkles, weight gain or change in posture. The effect is amateurish and becomes an unfortunate distraction in the film’s latter stages.

The large cast helps to maintain interest. Carroll Baker does her best to enliven the second generation as Luz Benedict II, the daughter of Bick and Leslie. Jett’s unsavoury pursuit of the younger Luz is the most interesting sub-plot in the latter stages, as he tries to fill the void of the friendship he had with the older Luz and his unrequited love for Leslie. Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo and Rod Taylor also contribute small supporting roles.

Giant boasts a mammoth scale, and although the achievement does not fully match the intent, the result is impressively grand in scope and ambition.

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The Movies Of Carroll Baker

All movies starring Carroll Baker and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Giant (1956)

Baby Doll (1956)

The Big Country (1958)

How The West Was Won (1962)

The Carpetbaggers (1964)

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

Captain Apache (1971)

Terror Storm (1978)

Kindergarten Cop (1990)

The Game (1997)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Kindergarten Cop (1990)

An enjoyable light-weight thriller with large doses of pointy comedy and some low-key romance, Kindergarten Cop established Arnold Schwarzenegger as a major cross-genre star.

Detective John Kimble (Schwarzenegger) has been on the tail of psychotic drug trafficker Cullen Crisp Sr.(Richard Tyson) for a long time. Crisp, meantime, is tracking down his ex-wife Rachel who disappeared with their young son Cullen Jr. after purportedly stealing $3 million of Crisp's drug money. A tip points to Rachel hiding out in Astoria, Oregon. With Crisp temporarily locked up and fighting a murder charge, Kimble teams up with Detective Phoebe O'Hara (Pamela Reed) and they head to Astoria to try and track down Rachel before Crisp gets to her.

With Rachel living under an unknown assumed identity, Kimble inserts himself into the local elementary school as a substitute kindergarten teacher, much to the dismay of principal Schlowski (Linda Hunt), and sets about trying to identify which of the kids may be Cullen Jr. There are plenty of candidates, and as Kimble finds his feet as a teacher and learns to deal with the kids, the community warms up to him, and he starts a tentative romance with Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller), another teacher at the school. Egged on by his obsessed mother Eleanor, Crisp also makes his way to Astoria, aiming to abduct his son and take revenge on his ex-wife.

Kindergarten Cop does struggle at times to define itself. The film covers the spectrum from a demented, dangerous villain to cutesy six year old kids, passing through a fledgling romance and plenty of humour. The mix of comedy, violence and courtship is occasionally lumpy, and points to a movie perhaps trying to be too many things to too broad an audience, as Schwarzenegger strives to proactively appeal to a less macho-obsessed demographic.

Despite the film's schizophrenic personality, director Ivan Reitman is able to maintain good control. Working from a script by Murray Salem, Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris filled with sharp one-liners and some genuinely funny words coming out of the kids' mouth, Reitman delivers a zippy, entertaining film. Kindergarten Cop does not have a dull moment, with the story moving briskly to set-up the premise, Schwarzenegger having his classroom fun and courtship with Miller's schoolteacher, all leading to a dramatic climax at the school. The scenes of violence at an elementary school are relatively benign in terms of harm to kids, but remain quite disturbing in the context of more recent real events.

The scenic, almost idyllic setting in the small town of Astoria is a big plus, as is the large number of prominent roles dedicated to women. Kindergarten Cop is a welcome showcase for good and sometimes underrated actresses: Miller, Reed, Hunt, Baker, Cathy Moriarty and Jayne Brooke (the latter two as mothers who may be Rachel-in-hiding) all shine. Reed in particular demonstrates a strong spunk factor and deft comic timing as Detective O'Hara. Richard Tyson may be one dimensional as the bogeyman, but he is disturbing, and Baker as his mom reveals the destructive forces of manic mothering.

As for Schwarzenegger himself, Twins (1988) had established the potential for a range wider than pure action, and here he slips into whatever persona each individual scene requires. From kick-ass undercover cop in the opening 20 minutes to the doofus in the classroom matching wits with elementary kids, to the unsure man falling first in like then in love with a fellow teacher, Schwarzenegger demonstrates workable versatility and broadening ambition.

Kindergarten Cop graduates into grade school maybe not at the top of the class, but certainly with honours.

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Movie Review: Captain Apache (1971)

A muddled Spaghetti Western, Captain Apache gallops headlong into a botched collection of nondescript characters killing each other at drudgingly predictable intervals. Lee Van Cleef's substantial presence and some wry notes of humour are not nearly enough to rescue the film.

A half-breed member of the US Cavalry known only as Captain Apache (Van Cleef) is investigating a murder when he learns of a mysterious plan known only as April Morning. With everyone in town seemingly hiding something but no one willing to talk, Captain Apache's snooping eventually leads to Griffin (Stuart Whitman) a rich industrialist, who enjoys the company of Maude (Carroll Baker), a higher-class prostitute of sorts.

A sub-plot involving gun smuggling may or may not have something to do with April Morning, and as Captain Apache treks back and forth across the Mexican border to investigate, he runs afoul of a witch with hallucinatory potions. As the calendar ticks towards April, Griffin, Captain Apache, Maude, various gunmen and shady senior cavalry officers converge on a train as the heinous plan starts to unfold.

Director Alexander Singer, who spent most of his career in television land, fills Captain Apache with characters who make brief appearances, their role in the overall plot never fully understood, and within a few scenes they end up as so much gun fodder. From a chicken-chomping general in charge of a barracks, to a priest with something to hide, to twin blond and mustachioed gunfighters, disparate people come, spout a few lines, and are shot dead. The Philip Yordan and Milton Sperling script sacrifices all search for depth in the rush for the next undefined body to hit the floor, riddled with bullets.

A sturdy Lee Van Cleef, looking strange without his moustache, tries to hold the film together, and his half-breed law man offers some originality. He gets to wear a cool jacket and in one scene stands almost naked, stomach sucked way in, to prove his redskin credentials.

But even he is defeated by a story that offers him nothing except a search for the mysterious April Morning from the first scene to the last. Basic plot-advancement devices such as gradually revealing tantalizing additional clues to maintain interest are foreign here, Yordan and Sperling confining their hero to asking the same question and getting the same non-answer for the best part of 85 minutes.

Stuart Whitman gives Griffin some personality as the main antagonist, but Carroll Baker's role is poorly defined, Maude hastily sketched-in to inject some frivolous female participation.

Jarringly edited and photographed with no style, Captain Apache can at least boast Van Cleef singing, or at least warbling, the title song over the opening credits. It's a tune so ridiculously bad it's really good, which is more than can be said for the rest of the film.

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Movie Review: Baby Doll (1956)

A bizarre yet delectable descent into a world of twisted and simmering sexual tension, Baby Doll became one of the most controversial films of its day, and still packs a wallop. The story of the young virgin wife, lustfully frustrated older husband, and the dark stranger who explodes into their life starts out strange and swirls in ever tighter loops of dangerous depravity.

Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden) is a down-on-his-luck cotton gin owner, living in a large but unkempt mansion deep in the south. He has been married for four year to the much younger Baby Doll (Carroll Baker), but the marriage will only be consummated tomorrow, when Baby Doll turns 20. Archie Lee's sexual frustration has reduced him to peeping on his young wife through holes in the wall, as she sucks her thumb while sleeping in a crib, wearing short nightgowns.

With his furniture repossessed and facing financial ruin, Archie Lee attempts to destroy the competition by burning the cotton gin belonging to Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), a suave Sicilian business man. Silva is quickly onto Archie, and takes his time pretending to befriend him while in reality seeking to seduce Baby Doll on the way to destroying everything that Archie cares for.

Based on Tennessee Williams' play 27 Wagons Full Of Cotton, and adapted for the screen by Williams apparently with help from director Elia Kazan, Baby Doll is a momentous slow burn under the searing southern sky. Banned from theatres upon release but nevertheless celebrated for its artistic achievement, the film marked the start of mainstream Hollywood's irreversible march towards liberation from strict moral codes.

The three main characters compete for levels of smouldering sexual deviancy rarely seen on the screen. Archie is too old for Baby Doll, probably does not deserve her, and has succumbed to deviant behaviour targeting his own wife. Resorting to arson is unlikely to endear him to anyone, and instead of solving his problems the crime simply hastens his final humiliation. Karl Malden plays Archie full of worry, sweat and pent-up frustration, a man almost tasting the coming satisfaction of a night with Baby Doll, but unaware how far he really is from domestic happiness.

Carroll Baker, in her second major role after Giant, drapes the screen with an irresistible allure. Baby Doll is uneducated but far from dumb, a girl transitioning to adulthood and waking up to her world, but not liking what she sees. Instinctively repulsed by Archie she is immediately attracted to Silva, and the long scene between them generates intense eroticism packaged into eerily twisted behaviour. Baker emits a ferociously destabilizing combination of childlike innocence and sultry sexuality, a woman unleashing her powers before she even begins to understand them.

Eli Wallach makes his film debut and immediately establishes the persona of a shady man oily enough to manipulate others while working towards his own agenda. Silva easily outmanoeuvres Archie and seduces Baby Doll before finding and demonstrating some genuine warmth towards her and reconsidering his end game. The cosmopolitan to Archie's red-neck, and thoughtful while Archie is boorish, when Archie allows the red mist to rush him into the heat of a clumsy act of arson, Silva serves his revenge cold.

Throughout Baby Doll Kazan frequently keeps his principals in close-up, filling the screen with three people heading in different directions, colliding for a few hours as destinies intertwine before they are spun out into unexpected orbits, with nothing necessarily resolved but everything certainly changed.

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