Movie Review: The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945)

Genre: Psychological Horror Drama  
Director: Albert Lewin  
Starring: Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Lowell Gilmore, Angela Lansbury, Donna Reed, Peter Lawford  
Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: In London of the 1880's, artist Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore) paints a portrait of Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield), a handsome bachelor establishing a reputation in philanthropy. Their common friend Lord Henry Wotton (George Sanders) is dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, and his influence prompts Dorian to wish for the portrait to age while he remains eternally young. Henry then further inspires Dorian to exploit innocent vaudeville singer Sibyl Vane (Angela Lansbury), and he consequently indulges in hedonism and debauchery, remaining physically young while his portrait reflects his eroding soul.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel is dark, sinister, and packed with observations about the conflict between good and evil inherent in the human condition. Director and writer Albert Lewin surrounds Dorian's story with opposing influences locked in a struggle for behavioural control, and uses punctuating colour to convey the psychological battle's progress. The horror elements are judicious, with one shock revelation exposing the deterioration of Dorian's conscience. George Sanders as the voice of vice rattles off Wilde's witty and eminently quotable prose with astoundingly annoying confidence, while Hurt Hatfield's performance is chillingly subdued.

What Does Not Work As Well: The film is marginally over-narrated, and Dorian's contextual evil deeds in the seedier parts of London are only vaguely hinted at.

Key Quote: 

Dorian: You think it's only God who sees the soul?

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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: Scandal Sheet (1952)

Genre: Crime Drama Noir

Director: Phil Karlson

Starring: Broderick Crawford, John Derek, Donna Reed

Running Time: 82 minutes

Synopsis: Hard-nosed newspaper editor Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) has revitalized the New York Express by turning it into a scandal sheet, fueled by the investigative crime reporting of his protégé Steve McCleary (John Derek). Steve's girlfriend Julie (Donna Reed) works in the newsroom and disapproves of Chapman. She is also sympathetic to the plight of Charlie Barnes (Henry O'Neill), an alcoholic former award-winning reporter. When an inconvenient acquaintance from the past threatens to reveal sordid secrets, Chapman is personally embroiled as Steve digs into the latest crime scandal.

What Works Well: Samuel Fuller's 1944 novel becomes a taut noir, director Phil Karlson squeezing every drop of irony from a story of ambition, crime, and deception. Sharp editing makes best use out of every scene, brevity highlighting the complexities of an editor fixated on personal glory at literally any cost (a dominant Broderick Crawford); the too-good instincts of a star reporter (an adequate John Derek); and hovering over them the well-faded glory of a once-excellent journalist (a heartbreaking Henry O'Neill). When McCleary assembles the city's drunks to pursue a lead, he stumbles upon the city's real boulevard of broken dreams.

What Does Not Work As Well: One character's about-face from seeking sordid stories to striving for honourable outcomes is rather sudden.

Conclusion: Scandal seekers gloriously consumed by their own lust.



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Movie Review: The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)

A romantic drama, The Last Time I Saw Paris is a passionate tale of flawed soulmates struggling against life's challenges. The loose adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story is filled with the hard consequences of reality failing to live up to unattainable idealism.

Paris has just been liberated by Allied troops. In the ensuing wild celebrations, Charles Wills (Van Johnson), a reporter for a US military journal, meets the spirited Helen Ellswirth (Elizabeth Taylor), and they are immediately infatuated with each other. Although the grounded Charles and the wildly unpredictable Helen could not be any different, they fall in love and get married. Helen takes after her father James (Walter Pidgeon), a fun-loving, larger than life man who lives beyond his means. Her sister Marion (Donna Reed) is much more disciplined, but also jealous of Helen's carefree attitude to life and love.

Forced to live within relatively limited means, Helen and Charles try to settle into a life of unsatisfying domesticity in Paris, and daughter Vicki joins the family, while Marion marries the steady Claude (George Dolenz). Charles struggles to establish himself as an author and starts drinking heavily, while Helen finds ways to remain a source of embarrassment for her husband. With the marriage seemingly growing stale, both face severe tests of fidelity, Charles with socialite Lorraine (Eva Gabor) and Helen with suave tennis player Paul (Roger Moore, in one of his earliest notable roles).

The Last Time I Saw Paris is a grand love story, inspired by Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited. Meeting fortuitously in the chaos of Parisian streets overflowing with revellers celebrating liberation, Helen and Charles were meant for each other. But in a case of love alone not being enough, both are reaching for something unattainable: Helen for wealth and the perceived richness of an always exciting life, and Charles for success as a respected author. They both allow their dreams of what cannot be get in the way of what is, and the resultant struggles will strain their love to its limits.

The film is limited by the scope of the two main characters, and they are both more flawed than flourishing. Once the fundamental boundaries of Helen and Charles are defined, she playful, ambitious, and hopelessly flirty, he earnest, reliable but with a weakness for drink, the narrative of their life is confined into a sharp-edged box. Neither will rise above their standing to give the movie a lift, and both in fact yield to the worst excesses of their failings. The film follows along, a chronicle of two people having a go at happiness but confronted by foibles of their own making.

Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson bring a pleasing surplus of vitality to their roles. Taylor lets her inner fire burn bright, Helen never surrendering to the realities of life in her pursuit of fun, but giving her man every chance to keep up with her game of frolicking grown-ups. Johnson succeeds in allowing Charles' lurking demons to gradually emerge and dominate, his lack of success as a writer and inability to match Helen's lust for life driving him to the bottle. With one or both on the screen for almost the entire length of the film, Taylor and Johnson ensure The Last Time I Saw Paris is never less than engaging. Walter Pigeon nails the congeniality of Helen's dad, full of optimism, joie de vivre and love of the good things, affordable or not. He is the tree from where she fell, and she landed quite close to the trunk.

Director Richard Brooks co-wrote the screenplay with Julius and Philip Epstein, and infuses the early parts of the movie with a jubilant yet poignant post-occupation Paris vibe. For a narrative driven almost entirely by the thoughts and conversations of two people, Brooks then does well to find dynamism in a variety of settings, including corner cafes, grand banquets, fancy restaurants and lush parks.

Paris delivers on its promise as the city of love, but after the flame of passion is initially lit, not even Paris can guarantee a trouble-free ride.

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Movie Review: From Here To Eternity (1953)

The lives and loves of soldiers stationed at Pear Harbour in the months leading up to the Japanese attack, From Here To Eternity is a rather turgid examination of sordid behaviour, rescued by memorable characters and copious emotions.

With World War Two rumbling in the headlines, Captain Dana Holmes (Philip Ober) is nominally in charge of Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Holmes is an ineffective leader much more interested in recruiting members to his unit's boxing team rather than ensuring good morale and readiness. He is also a rampant womaniser, altogether neglecting his wife Karen (Deborah Kerr). Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) is Holmes' second in command, and in the leadership vacuum does his best to keep the affairs of the barracks in order. Finally disgusted with Holmes, Warden starts a dangerously illicit affair with Karen.

Meanwhile, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), a single-minded and determined bugler, transfers into the unit and is immediately pressured by Holmes to join the boxing team. Prewitt refuses, having once badly hurt a man in a bout. With Holmes' tacit approval Prewitt becomes a target for daily wretched treatment. One of the few men to befriend Prewitt is Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra), a scrappy and resourceful Italian-American who runs afoul of the burly James "Fatso" Judson (Ernest Borgnine), a boorish Sergeant of the Guard at the stockade.

Prewitt takes his undeserved punishment without complaint and manages to start a steamy relationship with Lorene Burke (Donna Reed), a "hostess" at the local entertainment club. With discipline disintegrating among the men as personal vendettas and affairs of the heart dominate their lives, the Japanese attack arrives as a monumental surprise.

Based on the James Jones novel inspired by his actual experiences, From Here To Eternity is a prototype of the hormone-drenched television soaps that would take over the world of entertainment in another few years. Viewed in the most crass terms, the film is about rather dim-witted characters behaving badly, soldiers of every rank with little to do except find useless trouble with women, trouble with the bottle, and trouble with each other.

But in spite of itself, From Here To Eternity registers an impact thanks to three sharply drawn characters. Sergeant Warden, Private Prewitt and Private Maggio are likable because they are real, flawed, stubborn, and frustratingly unable to avoid life's pitfalls. These men would not be peace time soldiers if they were really good at anything else, and the film mercifully avoids turning them into unrealistic principled heroes.

Instead, Warden succumbs to his lust and embarks on an affair that has "career-ending move" written all over it, Prewitt ignores the clear wishes of Holmes and subjects himself to a life of humiliation, adding to his agony by getting entangled with Lorene (a prostitute in the novel converted to a hostess to satisfy the movie sensibilities of the day), and Maggio has the courage to take on Fatso but not the brains to realize that the outcome is unlikely to be in his favour. All three are dim, yes, but also refreshingly authentic, unsophisticated men proving why they ended up in the army.

Using sparkling black and white, director Fred Zinnemann conjures up some high-impact scenes, most famous being Warden and Karen cavorting on the beach with the foamy surf washing away any sense of guilt. More emotionally intense are Warden and Prewitt having a drunken conversation in the middle of a dirt road, both of their lives reduced to pathetic lamentations, and Prewitt tearfully playing taps to honour a fallen colleague.

Montgomery Clift does emerge with the most fervent performance, creating in Private Prewitt an intractable man who does not mind being externally kicked around as long as he is comfortable with his internal code of conduct. Clift conveys a dark brew of seething anger kept in check by remarkable conviction. Frank Sinatra is also excellent in a role he lobbied heavily for, Maggio dominating every scene he is in with an attitude of battling good humour, intent on making the best out of life's limited opportunities. In contrast with both Clift and Sinatra, the sturdy Lancaster plays the sturdy Lancaster, exactly what is expected of him.

Deborah Kerr steps way outside of her zone of comfort to play a woman leaving a trail of broken toyboy soldiers in her wake, while Donna Reed as the warmer, more intimate Lorene is also memorable as the unexpected soul mate for the brooding Prewitt.

From Here To Eternity dominated the Academy Awards, receiving 13 nominations and winning 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and both Supporting Actor awards for Sinatra and Reed. Warden, Prewitt and Maggio may not represent exemplary behaviour, but sometimes glory can be found in celebrating the foibles of normal men.

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Movie Review: It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

It's A Wonderful Life is a life-affirming movie released in the year after the end of World War 2. It has endured as a story of hope and of believing in the good that life has to offer.

The son of the local banker who specializes in providing home loans for the disadvantaged, George Bailey (James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls. He is a dynamic young man who dreams of leaving to the big-city college and of eventually achieving greatness in engineering. He embodies the dreams of a country with unlimited potential, emerging victorious from a tumultuous war.

Events in life take unexpected turns. Bailey has to take over his father's bank and becomes a beacon of good in a community otherwise dominated by the evil financier Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore). A series of poorly-timed crises gradually conspire against Bailey and finally force him to reluctantly abandon his dreams of ever leaving Bedford Falls. His brother achieves fame in the military and his friend achieves riches in the emerging world of industry. George Bailey just gets married to the beautiful and supportive Mary (Donna Reed), has several children, moves into a dream house, and develops loyal long-standing friends and the gratitude of the entire community.

But one final crisis at Christmas pushes Bailey over the edge, and he decides that he is more valuable dead than alive. At the moment of suicide, a guardian angel intervenes to demonstrate the true meaning of life.

Frank Capra directed It's A Wonderful Life in a whimsical style that never takes itself too seriously (George Bailey's entire life story is a flashback being witnessed by angels in the form of stars), yet nails superb heights of emotion when needed. In addition to the powerful final 30 minutes when George gets to witness what life would have been like without him, there are terrific scenes involving the developing romance between George and Mary, including a stunning telephone conversation where Capra captures what the dawn of love means without the lovers even talking to each other.

James Stewart was born to play George Bailey as a complex, multi-dimensional man grappling with the forces of destiny, at the same time awkward and confident, decisive and full of doubt. Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore are solid in support, but all the supporting characters are strictly one dimensional.

A classic fairy tale for adults and a survival guide for the highs and lows integral to navigating through life, It's A Wonderful Life never gets old, just better with repeated viewings.






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