Movie Review: The Prize (1963)

A drama, comedy, romance and spy thriller rolled into one, The Prize is beyond far-fetched but nevertheless mindlessly entertaining.

The Nobel Prize winners are announced, and the shock is American author Andrew Craig (Paul Newman) winning for literature. He has not published in five years, his first few books never sold well, and his life now consists of drinking, womanizing, and writing pulp detective novels under a pseudonym. Upon arriving in Stockholm for the grand ceremony, Inger Lisa Andersson (Elke Sommer) of the Swedish Foreign Office is assigned as his handler to keep him out of trouble.

The winners also include American physicist Dr. Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson), who fled Germany after the war and in Stockholm reunites with his niece Emily (Diane Baker). The medicine prize is shared by American Dr. Garrett (Kevin McCarthy) and Italian Dr. Farelli (Sergio Fantoni), although Garrett believes Farelli stole his work. The chemistry winners are the French husband and wife team of Claude and Denise Marceau (Gerard Oury and Micheline Presle). The passion has dissolved out of their marriage, and Claude's mistress Monique (Jacqueline Beer) accompanies them in Stockholm.

Max Stratman is summarily kidnapped by evil East German agents and replaced by his twin brother Walter (also Robinson), with Emily complicit in the plot. The observant Craig is the only person to suspect something is amiss and starts investigating. His life is soon in danger, but Inger Lisa and others dismiss his concerns as stemming from the imagination of an alcoholic. Nevertheless he persists in trying to save Stratman, and unintentionally also helps the other Nobel winners resolve their issues.

An adaptation of the Irving Wallace book, The Prize oscillates between the heights of an intellectual gathering of the world's smartest people to the lows of bumbling agents unable to eliminate the threat of an alcoholic author playing at amateur detective. Along the way Ernest Lehman's script features no shortage of plot holes as director Mark Robson chases, with patchy success, the Hitchcockian vibe of North By Northwest (also written by Lehman).

At 134 minutes, the film is padded and longer than it needs to be. Some of the scenes are just too obviously derivative and unnecessarily prolonged. Running for his life, Andrew Craig stumbles into a nudists' meeting and makes a fool of himself to get arrested, an homage bordering on rip-off of Cary Grant at the auction. A foot chase through the streets of Stockholm and a nighttime visit to a hospital both provide a limited return on investment. And on a couple of occasions the jumps in continuity are jarring.

But with suspension of disbelief set to high, fun can be found. Elke Sommer sparkles whether pouty or seductive, and the slow-cooked romance between Craig and Inger Lisa sizzles. Character introductions are one area where Robson does invest time to good effect, and the travails of the other award winners emerge as worthwhile sub-quests, cleverly tied together by Craig's inadvertent investigation. The dialogue crackles with wit, and the international cast finds the right groove between humour and spy action, with Leo G. Carroll hovering on the edges to underline the Hitchcock connection.

The Prize does not win plausibility points, but earns plaudits for perky playfulness.



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Movie Review: Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1959)

A science fiction adventure, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth is a family-friendly descent into a strange world. The science is suspect and the special effects dated, but the film nevertheless delivers easy entertainment.

Edinburgh, 1880. Celebrated geology Professor Sir Oliver Lindenbrook (James Mason) researches a piece of rock gifted to him by his student Alec McEwan (Pat Boone), and finds a hidden message from legendary explorer Arne Saknussemm who attempted to reach the centre of the Earth 300 years ago. McEwan interrupts a fledgling romance with Lindenbrook's niece Jenny (Diane Baker) and joins Sir Oliver on a hastily arranged expedition to retrace Saknussemm's path through an Icelandic volcano.

Once in Iceland they tangle with rival Swedish Professor Göteborg (Ivan Triesault), who is promptly poisoned to death by a mysterious evil doer. His widow Carla (Arlene Dahl) joins the expedition, as does local man Hans (Peter Ronson). Sir Oliver and his team descend into the volcano and discover an amazing world of caves, salt deposits, crystals, underground oceans, tree-sized mushrooms and massive reptilian creatures, but the main threat comes from Count Saknussemm (Thayer David), who wants to protect his ancestor's legacy.

An adaptation of the classic Jules Verne novel directed by Henry Levin, Journey To The Centre Of Earth is an efficient, almost mechanical, recreation of a fantastical expedition. Focussing much more on a succession of impressive (for the era) sets rather than character nuance and interaction, the film defaults to a series of set-pieces. Lindenbrook's group sequentially encounter and overcome one obstacle at a time with barely a pause for reflection, the challenges covering the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms.

The film is undoubtedly enjoyable for its vivid colours, outlandish sets, and earnest "what next" construction, but singularly lacks intensity and tension. Any sense of real danger, drama or conflict is easily swept away by the pedestrian execution, remarkably clean clothes and staged encounters, Levin never coming close to injecting anything that resembles emotion or genuine scientific discovery. Questions as to why gigantic reptiles live in the bowels of the earth, how oversized mushrooms grow down there, or what brought an ocean and a long-lost city to exist miles below the surface are barely even asked, let alone answered.

The character dynamics are equally superficial. There is some fun to be had in the banter between Carla and Sir Oliver, and her insistence on joining the adventure and proving her value is a welcome early feminist flagpost. But otherwise this team of intrepid explorers mainly exists to stop and stare in wonderment rather than conduct any actual science. The performances match the tone, Mason working up a theatrical sweat as the group's leader while Pat Boone awaits the next opportunity to take off his shirt and warble a song for his real fans.

Journey To The Centre Of Earth cannot be taken seriously, but remains a celebration of childlike imagination

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The Movies Of Diane Baker

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

Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1959)

The Prize (1963)

Marnie (1964)

Mirage (1965)

The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

The Net (1995)

The Cable Guy (1996)

Courage Under Fire (1996)

Murder At 1600 (1997)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Mirage (1965)

A psychological thriller that demonstrates some promise, Mirage proceeds to overcomplicate itself to the point of silliness. The meek resolution, when it arrives, buckles and snaps under the weight of lofty expectations.

As he evacuates a New York high-rise during a power outage, David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) meets the mysterious Shela (Diane Baker). She seems to know him but he does no know who she is. Indeed, David is severely disoriented. On the same day, noted humanitarian and global peace activist Charles Calvin (Walter Abel) appears to jump to his death from the same high-rise in an unexplained suicide.

After encountering two threatening goons named Lester and Willard (Jack Weston and George Kennedy), who refer to a man known only as The Major, David visits psychiatrist Dr. Broden (Robert H. Harris) for help, and begins to realize he is suffering from severe memory loss, with possibly the last two years of his life now a blank. With Shela drifting in and out of his days, seemingly either trying to help or trap him, David finds himself on the run, and hires wise-cracking private detective Caselle (Walter Matthau) to try and piece his life back together again.

Beware thrillers built on the fragile premise of memory loss. Mirage attempts to overcome one of the weakest of plot devices by layering on mysterious events, interesting characters and some action, but ultimately the film disappoints. The complexity loops back onto itself and demands an exceptional explanation. Instead, the screenplay by Peter Stone and Howard Fast can only deliver a flimsy struggle over a most unconvincing MacGuffin, a literally paper-thin climax that crumples into a small ball of overwhelming disappointment. Worse still, the resolution undermines plenty of what went on before.

While the bedraggled final 20 minutes cause a lot of damage, Mirage is not a total loss. Under director Edward Dmytryk's steady hands, and making full use of Joseph MacDonald's slick black and white cinematography, the film offers a dense enigma, with plenty of hard boiled crime elements, including goons full of guns, a lady full of lies and lust, and a droll detective full of dry discernment.

David does not know what is going on or who these people are, but with no memory of anything better to do, he plays along, avoiding the bad guys and seeking help where it can be found, as he tries to assemble the scattered puzzle of his life. It's all a bit of Hitchcock meeting Sam Spade's world, and it only starts to fall apart when the cake caves in with too much dark cream.

Gregory Peck cruises through Mirage with a pre-set I'm Determined To Get To The Bottom Of This expression, and he is less than convincing on the few occasions when he loses his temper or has to get physical. Diane Baker flutters in and out of the movie at the whim of the script, the character of Shela being the most intriguing role, except that she remains intriguing well past the time when mystery should have been replaced by cohesion.

Walter Matthau and Robert H. Harris chew their roles with a conviction that hints at unintended comedy, as they both creep over a line into a whole other movie. Harris' Dr. Broden auditions for a Carry On Psychiatry farce, while Matthau's detective Caselle wisecracks his way out of incompetence and into Cousin of the Pink Panther.

Mirage shimmers with the promise of quality, but disappears into mediocrity just when anticipation peaks.

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