Movie Review: 36 Hours (1964)

A clever battle of wits centred on the seminal secret of World War Two, 36 Hours is a twisty and often audacious intelligence thriller.

In early June 1944, final preparations are underway for the D-Day invasion, and Normandy as the location of the landing beaches is the most important secret of the war. The Germans have made the wrong assumption and massed their defences at Calais, and the Allies are doing all they can to maintain the deception. Major Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is one of the few to know the battle plan, but on a trip to neutral Lisbon, he is drugged and kidnapped by the Germans and transported to a remote site in Germany near the Swiss border.

Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) is a German doctor specializing in memory control, and with the help of nurse Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint) has devised an ingenious plan to fool Pike into revealing the invasion details. Otto Schack (Werner Peters) of the SS is sceptical about Gerber's methods and wants to use more brutal interrogation tactics. Gerber has less than 36 hours to extract the information he needs, while Pike has to overcome drug-induced confusion to try and escape his predicament.

Directed and written by George Seaton with Robert Dahl's 1944 magazine story Beware of the Dog serving as inspiration, 36 Hours is an engaging and unique spy showdown. Smart, sharp, and unpredictable, the film is always ready with another bluff. Philip H. Lathrop's black and white cinematography evokes representations of the war era, and the story maintains an edge with deceptor and deceived trading the advantage.

Gerber's elaborate ruse is at the brainy and well-resourced scale of The Manchurian Candidate, and involves creating an illusionary setting for Pike to feel comfortable giving away the invasion plans. Within this tense locale, four distinctive central characters contribute to the cinematic success of the premise. Pike is confident and capable but not beyond being fooled, Gerber is a doctor at heart and not impressed with military buffoonery. In another world Pike and Gerber can be friends and colleagues, their emerging bond adding a layer of disorienting mutual respect to the clinical business of war. Off in the dark corner, Schack combines the characteristics of the consummate intelligence agent with an excellent understanding of careerism.

But Anna emerges as the real catalyst. She is asked to play the most difficult role in deceiving Pike, and also provided with a deep and conflicted backstory revealed in measured increments. Eva Marie Saint rises to the challenge with Anna's multiple layers of stress casting shadows on her face.

Seaton maintains brisk pacing, packing plenty of incident and momentum changes within 115 minutes. The set-up is efficient, Gerber initially seizing the initiative but his rivalry with Schack immediately creating a schism within the German ranks. The outcome remains uncertain, as the three men take turns controlling the psychological upper hand. And while pressure is sometimes applied openly, small and nuanced tricks are just as effective in turning the tide.

The third act is relatively weaker than the preceding material and devolves to a standard escape-and-chase. But the final scene is an unforgettable human connection, capturing in one look why the war needed to be won. With the clock ticking down towards one of history's most important battles, 36 Hours is subterfuge at its best.



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Movie Review: Raintree County (1957)

A misguided attempt to create another Gone With The Wind, Raintree County sometimes looks gorgeous but sets a new benchmark for boredom.

Indiana, 1859. John Wickliff Shawnessey (Montgomery Clift) is a recently graduated young man in love with his sweetheart Nell (Eva Marie Saint). John is also enthralled by his teacher Professor Stiles (Nigel Patrick), and inspired by Stiles' words John goes into the swamplands on a fruitless quest to look for the mythical Raintree that gives the county its name. But John is soon hopelessly distracted by the arrival of the beautiful Susanna Drake (Elizabeth Taylor), a southern belle on a visit. After a brief tryst Susanna announces that she is pregnant, and John does the honourable thing and marries her. But the pregnancy story was a ruse and she was never carrying his child.

Further tension is added when John, a firm pro-Lincoln abolitionist, learns that Susanna supports slavery. On a trip south to her hometown of New Orleans John learns of Susanna's troubled family history, including a tragic house fire that killed her parents and a beloved Negro housekeeper. With Susanna starting to exhibit signs of mental illness, they move back north and start a family. The eruption of the Civil War adds more stress and John eventually has to fulfil his military duty and save his family.

An adaptation of a book by Ross Lockridge, Jr., Raintree County has the ingredients that could have created a rousing epic: a civil war setting, a mismatched romance, a clash of ideas between progressive idealism and prevailing oppression, academic discourse, and plenty of melodramatic personal tragedies. The settings are gorgeous and the costumes are lavish.

Somehow, in the hands of director Edward Dmytryk and screenwriter Millard Kaufman, the film never comes close to igniting. With horrid pacing, stiff dialogue and through-the-motions acting, Raintree County is three hours of tortuous boredom.

Whether before or after the car accident that scarred his face and shut down production for months, Montgomery Clift is bland and boring, a black hole sucking energy at the heart of the film. Elizabeth Taylor is poorly served by harsh characterization that destroys all empathy early: Susanna is a woman who lies about a pregnancy and goes to bed with an army of dolls, including a grotesque half-burned figurine. Subtle, coy or clever she is not, and between Susanna's unhinged personality and John's emptiness the film has nothing to latch onto.

Very late in the film John joins the war effort, and in the company of colourful rogue Orville 'Flash' Perkins (an over-animated Lee Marvin) Dmytryk finally finds a faint pulse, but even the battle scenes carry a cheap whiff.

As Clift and Taylor dominate scene after scene, the secondary cast is confined to the far background. Eva Marie Saint is, well, saintly as the long-suffering true love. Rod Taylor drifts in and out of the film on a single note as a politician-in-waiting. Agnes Moorehead and Walter Abel appear lost as John's parents.

A laborious exercise in endurance despite some pretty visuals, Raintree County is a painful slog through waist-high swamp waters.

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Movie Review: The Sandpiper (1965)

A romantic drama, The Sandpiper sets out to examine the mid 1960s generational divide but is excessively talky, stodgy and melodramatic.

In the Big Sur coastal area of California, Laura Reynolds (Elizabeth Taylor) is a free-spirited artist and single mom homeschooling her 9 year old son Danny. When the child's innocent mischievousness gets him into trouble with the law, Judge Thompson (Torin Thatcher) orders him into a religious boarding school run by Dr. Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton) and his wife Claire (Eva Marie Saint), despite Laura's protests.

Edward and Laura immediately clash about morals, values and perspectives on life, but gradually an attraction develops. Edward starts to find excuses to pass by Laura's beachside house, where he tangles with her friend, outspoken sculptor Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson). A full fledged passionate extramarital affair blossoms between Edward and Laura, causing him enormous feelings of guilt. The reemergence of Ward Hendricks (Robert Webber), one of Laura's former lovers, further complicates matters.

Featuring the celebrity couple of the era at the peak of their fame, The Sandpiper has good intentions to explore the shifting sands of society. Director Vincente Minnelli and a team of writers including Dalton Trumbo deserve credit for attempting to craft a cerebral love story, where the dialogue skips past the inane and engages weightier topics of guilt, personal freedom, and the movement away from traditional, religiously-dictated values and towards personally-defined beliefs.

But the problems are many and start with Taylor and Burton unable to convince in their roles or help the premise succeed. Taylor as a hippie who has turned her back on societal norms just does not wash. The actress is too glamorous for the role, and apart from delivering the lines written for her she never captures what it means to be a free spirit, neither in mannerisms nor looks. Too often Taylor appears in stunning outfits, hair made-up, full make-up on, hat sitting just so, a superstar awkwardly playing at being a hippie.

Meanwhile Burton is reserved and one-dimensional, Edward professing his love for Laura through clenched teeth. As a real life couple rocking the world with their love affair, it is remarkable how little of that chemistry makes it to the screen.

Charles Bronson as a beach artist is miscast, and Eva Marie Saint as the suffering wife is underused.

Minnelli does well to capture the jagged beauty of Big Sur, but otherwise allows the film to drag on for two hours. The plot, from a story written specifically for Taylor and Burton by producer Martin Ransohoff, is simply not strong enough to sustain the running length, and scene after scene of endless gab slow the drama down to a sleepwalking pace. Ironically the film perks up the most in a scene unrelated to the romance, when Edward confronts his professional life and admits that he is a sell-out who has strayed far from his principles.

The Sandpiper is a love story without the requisite passion, the momentum of the ocean crashing onto rocks far surpassing the energy of the central romance.

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The Movies Of Eva Marie Saint

All movies starring Eva Marie Saint and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

On The Waterfront (1954)

Raintree County (1957)

North By Northwest (1959)

36 Hours (1964)

The Sandpiper (1965)

Grand Prix (1966)

Winter's Tale (2014)

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Movie Review: Winter's Tale (2014)

A century-spanning fantasy romantic drama, Winter's Tale combines a love story with an eternal battle between good and evil, with plenty of supernatural elements thrown in. Attempting to be profound, the film is a hopeless mess.

In New York of 1916, Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), having survived been set adrift in a small boat by his parents in 1895 after they were rejected as immigrants, attempts to escape a street gang led by the demon Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). A white horse that can fly helps Peter's getaway, and eventually leads him to the door of the sickly Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), her rich father Isaac (William Hurt), and younger sister Willa.

Peter and Beverly fall in love, while Pearly pleads with his boss Lucifer (Will Smith) for permission to put a stop to their magical romance. Peter stays one step ahead of Pearly, but the relationship with Beverly suffers, and Peter lands in New York of 2014, where his story will continue.

Based on a book by Mark Helprin adapted and directed by Akiva Goldsman, Winter's Tale may have worked well on the written page, but is an unmitigated disaster on the screen. The film's ambition far exceeds its cinematic abilities, and comes across as fairy tale for children being repackaged as a serious romantic drama for adults, and falling into a vacuum of confused and morose nothingness.

The story demands natural acceptance of flying white horses, demons on the loose but with turf restrictions, Lucifer holding court in New York City, and plenty of romanticized bumf about miracles, destiny and people turning into literal stars. The material may have had a chance to succeed with a whimsical light touch, but Goldsman goes the ultra serious route, delivering a grim, dour and boring two hours.

Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe and Will Smith generally embarrass themselves in roles where anything goes since there are no familiar rules in this world. Farrell's character exists as a baby in 1895 and is still going strong in 2014, but never expresses any emotion other than grim displeasure. Crowe as a demon seems obsessed with Peter but Goldsman does not pause to explain why a petty thief is such a danger to a demon. Smith sits back and reflects on a sidetracked career, the devil reduced to dealing with the machinations of a fledgling romance between a burglar and a frail woman.

Jessica Brown Findlay portrays the tragically sick but otherwise perfect vision of a woman who fulfills every superficial man's dream of beauty and tenderness with no depth of character necessary. Meanwhile, Jennifer Connelly and Eve Marie Saint appear in the latter 2014 chapter, and seem genuinely confused about their roles in the story.

Buckling under its own weight of needless solemnity, Winter's Tale is better left untold.

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Movie Review: Grand Prix (1966)

An ambitious journey into the soul of elite motor racing, Grand Prix finds the heartbeat of Formula 1 deep within the majesty of roaring machinery.

Several top drivers are in competition for the 1966 Formula 1 title. Among them is American Pete Aron (James Garner) of the BRM team (and formerly with Ferrari), who is fast but prone to mistakes. At the Monaco race, Aron's refusal to give way causes a serious collision with his teammate Englishman Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford). Stoddard, who races in the shadow of his deceased brother, is injured and misses several races, His headstrong wife Pat (Jessica Walter) is fed-up with loving a man living on the edge and leaves him while he is still in hospital. Meanwhile, Aron is fired from the BRM team for reckless driving.

The Ferrari team are BRM's closest challengers. Veteran driver and two-time champion Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) is still the fastest man on most days, but he is starting to lose his motivation. Sarti is stuck in a loveless, distant marriage with businesswoman Monique (Genvieve Page), and starts a relationship with American journalist Louise (Eva Marie Saint). Sarti's team mate is young Italian Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato), who lives the fast life on and off the track.

Aron hooks up with Pat, is hired by the fledgling Yamura team financed by tycoon Izo Yamura (Toshiro Mifune), and finally finds his winning form. Stoddard returns to racing despite the pain of his injuries, and more determined than ever, goes on a winning streak. With Sarti and Barlini also picking up victories, all four men enter the final race of the season in the hunt for the coveted championship.

Director John Frankenheimer creates a three hour masterpiece celebrating both the men and the machines involved in the international pinnacle of motor racing. Large segments of Grand Prix consist of action from races at the legendary Monaco street circuit, the dangerously fast and incredibly scenic Spa in Belgium, Zandvoort in Holland, Clermont Ferrand in France, Silverstone in England and the final showdown at the imposing Monza in Italy, with its intimidating steeply banked corners.

Other than playing with split-screen imagery, Frankenheimer uses no tricks, and just mounts his cameras at every possible angle on the cars, capturing the pure raw speed, incredible danger, and classic beauty of racing in the mid 1960s. This was the era of rudimentary safety protocols, with drivers facing the risk of serious crashes, injury and death at every corner. The visuals are stunning, with the cars blasting at top speed past unprotected poles, trees, spectators, and structures.

Great as the racing sequences are, the Robert Alan Aurthur script goes looking for the lives and loves of the men inside the cars, and finds a cross-section of drivers at various career stages. The most prominent role goes to Montand as Jean-Pierre Sarti, the ex-champion who has won it all, and who has learned to close his heart to the agony of others as he drives even faster to take advantage of serious crashes on the track. Louise awakens in Sarti emotions he had forgotten actually mattered, accelerating his demotivation from the sport, although he can't help being better than most other drivers anyway.

James Garner as Pete Aron takes centre stage early in the film, a driver seemingly heading backwards in his career. Aron used to know how to win at Ferrari but is struggling at BRM, unsatisfied with the machinery and unable to cope with a faster teammate. Bounced out of the sport and rejected by Ferrari, Aron has nothing left to lose by joining the unproven Yamura, where he discovers an unlikely mentor to reignite his passion.

Stoddard's story is the most compelling, the driven Englishman trying to live up to the legend of his brother, racing against a dead ghost rather than his modern competitors. Stoddard overcomes his injuries, the loss of Pat, and his own demons to make a winning return to the track, an encapsulation of the mental strength required to dance with death. Barlini is at the opposite end of the curve from Sarti, young, care-free, and indestructible, enjoying the jet-setting single life with no second thoughts.

The women of Formula 1 learn quickly not to care too much about what happens to their men. Monique is an absentee wife, living her own high-flying life and perceiving Sarti as one element in her business empire. Pat's reaction to Stoddard's crash is one of selfish detachment, and she abandons him in his hour of greatest need, jumping into the arms of Aron. Only Louise, a newcomer to the circus, falls into the dangerous territory of a serious and committed relationship with Sarti. The Formula 1 world is rounded out with rich secondary characters played by Adolfo Celi as the Ferrari team boss, Mifune representing the new breed of Japanese industrialists bent on conquering the world with technology, and Jack Watson as the BRM team manager.

Frankenheimer finds the right balance between the racing scenes and character development, and as the season heads to a climax at the monstrous Monza, the four leading drivers all have reasons to win and plenty to lose. Grand Prix is an exhilarating celebration of men addicted to the thrill of racing with an unknown destiny, speeding into magnificent madness.

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Movie Review: On The Waterfront (1954)

A masterpiece delving into union corruption and the power of the individual, On The Waterfront is a potent drama with a peerless Marlon Brando performance and an outstanding supporting cast.

Union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules his waterfront district by intimidation, lining his pockets by running rackets and relying on the working men adhering to the "D and D" (deaf and dumb) code of conduct. Terry Malloy (Brando) hovers on the outer edge of Friendly's circle of corruption, and unwittingly finds himself used to lure informant Joey Doyle to his death. Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) demands that the perpetrators be identified and brought to justice, and she shames Father Barry (Karl Malden) into action: he tries to encourage the men into testifying, but Friendly's goons are quick to beat-up anyone who breaks the code of silence.

Terry makes advances towards Edie, and gradually they become close, although she does not know Terry had a role Joey's death. As more men are violently silenced, Terry is influenced by Edie and Father Barry, and starts to consider testifying against Friendly. But his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is one of Friendly's closest associates, and turning against the union boss and his henchmen will carry a high personal cost.

On The Waterfront carries the ominous tones of director Elia Kazan's own struggles. In 1952 he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, naming names and identifying communist sympathizers from years past. In the movie, Terry Malloy is caught between doing what he is being told is the right thing to do, and loyalty to his "group", the organization of Johnny Friendly. Testifying against Friendly means betraying his friends and family, but remaining silent means letting down Edie and Father Barry, and allowing a rotten situation to get worse.

Alternating between an emerging unlikely love and the power of the fist down at the docks, On The Waterfront is full of energy. Friendly and his goons run a tight ship, controlling who gets to work and who does not, who gets the cushy job and who gets to toil, all determined according to favours afforded and gained. The men chafe under a regime imposed by violence and facilitated by their own acquiescence.

The Budd Schulberg script allows plenty of time for the romance between Edie and Terry to develop, and the measured pace contributes to the air of authenticity. Edie initially appears too good and too smart for Terry, and time is needed for her to find the charm and humanity within the self-described "bum". Once they start to care for each other, Edie offers a moral compass and a road to salvation, and Terry starts to understand that he may have something to gain by standing up for what is right. The film's beating heart is found in Terry's transformational journey from dim witted hanger-on to an inspirational leader of men.

Brando is surrounded by the triangle of Cobb (loyalty), Steiger (family) and Malden (conscience), and the four actors create an electric dynamic. Brando is brutally brilliant as a man suddenly being pulled in three different directions at once, the bum-like tendencies of a boxer who long-since sold-out now overburdened by unfamiliar responsibilities and demands.

Terry Malloy, speaking with his brother Charley: You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Cobb is all fiery rule-by-fear, while once awakened, Malden is a tentative force for pure good. It is left to Steiger to provide the most textured supporting performance, Charley smart enough to see the writing on the wall, but hoping his brother would fully enter Friendly's fold before he can be convinced to testify. As much as Terry has a dilemma, Charley has a real problem, since he is all-in with Friendly and subject to potentially humiliating punishment should his brother talk.

All four men were nominated for Academy Awards, with Brando receiving his first statue at the fourth attempt. Eva Marie Saint, in her film debut at age 30, also won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Her turn as Edie is tenacious in the pursuit of justice and enlightened enough to explore a relationship with Terry.

Filled with heart, sweat, agony, blood and triumph, On The Waterfront rocks the docks.

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Movie Review: North By Northwest (1959)

A masterpiece of thrills stemming from unexpected espionage, North By Northwest invented the template for the modern secret agent movie, Alfred Hitchcock creating the trail that James Bond, Jack Ryan, and Jason Bourne would gallivant along for many decades to come.

Except that in North By Northwest, Hitchcock's masterstroke is the void in place of central spy George Kaplan, his existence in itself an act of subterfuge. Innocent bystander Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistakenly identified as Kaplan, and has to simultaneously figure out his predicament while ironically fulfilling Kaplan's mission. An emotional entanglement with Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), the iciest of blondes, further complicates matters. A multi-faceted plot keeps evolving, as few of the characters are who they appear to be, and most of them take their time to reveal their true identities and motivations.

Suave Madison Avenue marketing executive Thornhill is trapped in a small corner of the Great Game, as goons loyal to master spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) kidnap him, accuse him of being Kaplan, fill him up with booze and leave him to die in a staged car crash. Thornhill survives and chases after Vandamm, who is pretending to be diplomat Lester Townsend, to the UN building. The real Townsend is soon dead, Thornhill is left holding the murder weapon, and has to run for his life from both the authorities and the shadowy criminals. He takes refuge on a train to Chicago, where the ultra cool Eve appears from nowhere and helps him to escape by stashing him in her cabin.

Eve pretends to help Thornhill arrange a meeting with the elusive Kaplan, which, in one of Hitchcock's most inventive moments, turns out to be a trap for Thornhill to be gunned down by a crop duster in the middle of rural nowhere land. Again Thornhill survives, and after another encounter with Vandamm's henchmen at an art auction, he finally connects with spy runner The Professor (Leo G. Carroll) who helps him to piece together the mystery of Kaplan, the role of Eve, and the evil mission of Vandamm. Thornhill now has to decide on his final moves in the complicated spy game that he never asked to play in.

Hitchcock keeps tight control of the script by the legendary Ernest Lehman. A complex story reveals it's twists and turns in small but assured steps, and at 136 minutes, Hitchcock provides the necessary time for the characters and the plot to evolve. He sprinkles North By Northwest with a series of outstanding moments, with three particular prolonged highlights: the encounter on the train between Roger and Eve; the crop duster duel; and the auction. Each has become an instantly recognizable classic.

The train scene is a deliciously unfair seduction chess match: Eve is several moves ahead of Roger, he just does not know it, and watching him believing that he is beguiling her to his benefit is exquisite. The jousting with the crop duster is brilliantly set-up with a long introduction, Roger dropped off by the bus literally in the middle of nowhere, and waiting endlessly for Kaplan to arrive, his sense of anticipation heightened with each passing car. And the auction scene combines danger with humour, Roger having to get himself arrested by playing the fool in distinguished company, while under his nose Vandamm obtains the artifact that is more precious than anyone knows.

Cary Grant is perfect in the role of Roger Thornhill, both insulted and intrigued when sucked into a world he knows nothing about, easily susceptible to the trained charms of Eve but resourceful enough to try and save her. Eva Marie Saint won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her contribution to On The Waterfront, but she is perhaps best known for bringing Eve Kendall to life in North By Northwest. She oozes confident sexuality, toys with Thornhill, but gradually cracks under the strain of her increasingly impossible high-stakes assignment. Hitchcock brought many simmering-under-the-surface blondes to life, none better than Eve.

North By Northwest is an adventure in spying of the most entertaining kind, created by a master craftsman of thrills at the top of his game.

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