Movie Review: North To Alaska (1960)

A comedy western, North To Alaska throws a spiky romance into a rough-and-tumble gold rush.

The setting is the rambunctious town of Nome, Alaska during the 1900 gold rush. Logger-turned-prospector Sam McCord (John Wayne), his friend George Pratt (Stewart Granger) and George's younger brother Billy (Fabian) strike gold, while the conniving Frankie Canon (Ernie Kovacs) is slithering around town looking to get rich without working for it. Sam, who harbours strict anti-marriage opinions, heads to Seattle by boat to purchase mining equipment and escort George's fiancee Jenny back to Alaska.

Sam: Ahh, women! I never met one yet that was half as reliable as a horse!

In Seattle Sam finds Jenny, but she is already married and has forgotten about George. At a swanky nightclub Sam spots French hostess Michelle "Angel" Bonet (Capucine) and invites her to Alaska as a replacement wife for George. She starts to fall in love with Sam, and once in Alaska, Billy also gets infatuated with the sophisticated French beauty. Meanwhile Frankie has a history with Angel, while the region descends into lawlessness with competing cross-claims triggering violence.

Featuring no shortage of comic mass brawls, a few perfunctory shoot-outs (but no casualties) and plenty of trudging through the muddy streets of a recreated Nome, North To Alaska does not take itself too seriously. This is a western light, John Wayne happy to poke fun at his persona as his character Sam McCord is pulled, pushed and shoved into admitting he can, indeed, fall in love with a woman.

Sam: George, a wonderful thing about Alaska is that matrimony hasn't hit up here yet. Let's keep it a free country!

And Angel, a classy prostitute in all but name, is sure able to send Nome into a tizzy. George, Billy and Frankie take turns trying to win her attention, but she decides early Sam is the only man for her and alternates strategic seduction with patience to help his heart yield.

About five different writers had a hand in developing the script, and filming started with no clear direction where the story was going. Director Henry Hathaway could have trimmed the 2 hours of running time, and the disjointed scattershot approach to ideas is apparent. Many scenes meander aimlessly and take forever to get nowhere, with minor characters checking in, leaving no impression, and quietly checking out. 

The subplot about cross-claims erupting into violence is haphazardly tossed into the pot, mainly to justify one messy shootout and another comic highlight involving Wayne in a runaway cart. A loggers picnic in Seattle is a long and tiresome distraction, but even worse is an endless sequence between young Billy and Angel, as the 17 year old tries to act older and falls flat on his face (literally and figuratively).

Michelle: Are you going to leave me here alone?

Sam: Make yourself at home. Billy's here.

Michelle: Who's Billy?

Sam: George's little kid brother.

Michelle: How little?

Sam: Seventeen. But he's man enough to take care of you!

Michelle: That's what I'm afraid of!

The cast buys into the sense of fun and hams it up appropriately, Capucine emerging with plenty of credit as a self-confident and playful woman in a hostile environment. Ernie Kovacs is another stand-out as the oily Frankie, and the film would have benefited from giving him more screen time.

North To Alaska eventually gets to its destination, covered in mud but with a smile on its face.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

 

Movie Review: Our Man In Havana (1959)

A cold war satirical drama, Our Man In Havana adapts the Graham Greene novel of spy intrigue in pre-revolution Cuba with an emphasis on the more humorous elements. Under the guidance of director Carol Reed, the film is a sharp condemnation of the great game by the foot soldiers pressed into fighting a shadow war.

Havana in the late 1950s. Hawthorne (Noël Coward) of the British Secret Intelligence Service recruits vacuum cleaner salesman James Wormold (Alec Guinness) to be the local operative. Wormold's daughter Milly (Jo Morrow) has expensive tastes, and so he accepts the assignment lured by the easy money and the prospect of joining the prestigious country club. Wormold is friends with Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), a philosophical larger-than-life German, while Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs) is the pompous Havana police chief, keeping an eye on all the spooks in town and lusting after Milly.

Pressured by London into actually earning his money by nurturing local sources and uncovering enemy secrets, Wormold invents a fake network of agents reporting to him, and draws imaginative sketches of non-existent massive new weapons systems (inspired by vacuum cleaner parts) uncovered by his spies. Unfortunately his British superiors take it all very seriously, and dispatch Beatrice Severn (Maureen O'Hara) as a secretary to bolster Wormold's Havana station resources. Death threats and dead bodies soon sweep over Havana, with Wormold finding his life in danger as his light-hearted dabbling in the spy world turns deadly serious.

Our Man In Havana distills the cold war to on-the-ground spies caught up in the absurdity of a conflict that rumbles on in distant capitals but insists on casting a long shadow towards every corner of the world. Wormold is more bemused than upset that his country needs him, and proceeds to milk the opportunity for pure personal gain and then for fun.

Greene, who wrote the script, does not hesitate to reveal the paranoia-driven idiocy of Hawthorne and his bosses in London (including Ralph Richardson as "C"), who can't tell a vacuum cleaner sketch from a real weapons threat. And the other side is not much better, intercepting and believing Wormold's grandiose transmittals and triggering a round of needless violence and bloodletting.

Filmed in Havana months after the communist revolution but set in the pre-revolutionary era, Our Man In Havana captures the sights and sounds of a bustling city full of life, lust, suspicion and chicanery. From bars to night spots, street corners to country clubs, apartments to police stations, Reed fills the screen with activity. Every shot has something going on in the background, adding to the sense of constant motion and potential eavesdropping.

Despite the stark black and white photography and the pervasive literal and metaphorical shadows dominating the city, Reed keeps the mood light and the plot humming along. The emphasis is on Wormold's sardonic view of the world as all those around him appear to be going off one edge or another. Hawthorne is fully invested in the craziness of the spy world, Hasselbacher is suspended between a murky past and a dwindling present, while Segura is prowling the streets of Havana looking for enemies and trying to endear himself to Milly.

It is in the character of Milly that the movie stumbles a bit, her out of control spending and tolerance of Segura never quite explained against her otherwise normal context. And Wormold does undergo an unlikely late transformation from make believe spy to a more professional recruit capable of outsmarting his seasoned foes.

But with Guinness, Kovacs and Ives delivering performances rich in texture and island scheming, Our Man In Havana succeeds thanks to the twinkle in its eye and a barbed attitude.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.