Movie Review: Beyond Mombasa (1956)

Genre: Adventure  

Director: George Marshall  

Starring: Cornel Wilde, Donna Reed, Christopher Lee  

Running Time: 90 minutes  

Synopsis: Matt Campbell (Cornel Wilde) arrives in Kenya at the invitation of his brother George, only to learn from missionary Hoyt (Leo Genn) that George has just been murdered by tribals known as Leopard Men. Matt becomes romantically interested in Hoyt's niece Ann Wilson (Donna Reed), and meets George's business associates Rossi (Christopher Lee) and Hastings (Ron Randell). They travel into the dangerous jungle to search for a mine that George had uncovered, and Matt starts to suspect that his brother was betrayed in a business dispute.

What Works Well: The first 30 minutes of this B-movie provide a decent sweaty foundation for an adventure mystery drama. Director George Marshall leverages the on-location scenery to efficiently introduce the characters involved in murder and intrigue, with Donna Reed stylishly overdressed for every occasion but game for a spiky romance with Cornel Wilde.

What Does Not Work As Well: Once the adventure moves into the jungle it degenerates into a repetitive trudge, with stock safari footage (a Noah's arc procession of elephants, crocodiles, giraffes, and rhinoceroses) badly spliced into the action. The flimsy content becomes more apparent with an interminable interlude of tribal dancing. The villain is easy to spot, and the climactic showdown featuring enraged locals borders on ridiculous.

Conclusion: Never mind the beasts, the real jungle hazards include simplistic plot points, macho posturing, and superficial acting.

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Movie Review: The Big Combo (1955)

Genre: Police Procedural Noir  

Director: Joseph H. Lewis  

Starring: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman 

Running Time: 88 minutes  

Synopsis: Police Lieutenant Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) is determined to arrest arrogant criminal Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), a key financier in the Combination syndicate. Brown's crew consists of aging second-in-command Joe (Brian Donlevy) and henchmen Fante and Mingo (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman). Diamond enjoys the company of showgirl Rita (Helene Stanton), but secretly has a crush on Brown's girlfriend Susan (Jean Wallace). She reveals Brown may have something to hide about a woman called Alicia, accelerating Diamond's investigation and resulting in a mounting body count.

What Works Well: This is a gritty and uncompromising noir, featuring clashing personalities, ambition, jealousy, multiple doomed romances, and complex relationships. Once he senses his opponent's weakness, Diamond is a dog with a bone, pursuing the details of a long-ago incident to unearth crucial evidence. Brown is equally tenacious in protecting his power and methodically attempts to rub-out inconvenient witnesses. The shifty dynamics swirling between his underlings Joe, Fante, and Mingo add enjoyable texture, including a couple of innovative - and quite mean - misuses of Joe's hearing aid device.

What Does Not Work As Well: When he is not eloquently philosophizing about his intelligence, Brown is quite careless in his words and actions.  

Conclusion: A hard-hitting duel between dogged detective and debonair desperado.



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Movie Review: Leave Her To Heaven (1945)

A colourful drama with noir shadings, Leave Her To Heaven explores a seemingly perfect marriage undermined by ruinous jealousy.

Author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) meets beautiful rich socialite Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) on a train. She claims he closely resembles her recently deceased father, and break off her engagement with lawyer Russell Quinton (Vincent Price) to marry Richard.

Richard is devoted to the the wellbeing of his brother Danny (Darryl Hickman) who is slowly recovering from leg injuries. But Ellen is exceptionally possessive and starts to resent Danny's intrusion on her marriage. She is also jealous of her adopted sister Ruth (Jeanne Crain) who develops a deep friendship and perhaps a crush on Richard. As the newly married couple vacation with Danny at an idyllic lake, Ellen's emotional avarice takes a dark turn.

Sometimes designated the first film noir in colour, Leave Her To Heaven is more of an overdone mishmash. While Ellen Berent is certainly a memorable femme fatale, director John M. Stahl is less concerned with noir elements and more interested in showcasing his Technicolor crayons with sparkling scenes of lakefront living. The film more often resembles an overheated melodrama, Ellen admitting early to an excessive demand for devotion and an inability to share attention, creating a sturdy but predictable foundation for misdeeds to come.

The film adapts the novel by Ben Ames Williams with hints of underdeveloped storylines hampered by the cinematic constraints of the era. Ellen's relationship with her deceased father is described in a few different vague terms but never confronted for what it may have been. Less excusable is the rather tepid depiction of the bond between Richard and Ruth, a source of much of Ellen's wrath but otherwise poorly defined. And finally Ellen as a potential victim of a mental disorder is never posited as a narrative avenue. Her venom towards others (and herself) is portrayed as simple evil, denying the film texture.

The final act suddenly transforms into amateur hour at the courthouse. In a ridiculous display of theatrics, Vincent Price takes centre stage as lead prosecutor and the Jo Swerling script demonstrates a childish disdain for basic court proceedings.

The cast members are surprisingly stiff, with only Gene Tierney glowing within the colourful aesthetic. Cornel Wilde is mechanical and Jeanne Crain underutilized.

Instead of a deft touch, sinister nuance, and shades of grey, Leave Her To Heaven opts for brash and bold.

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