Movie Review: Pal Joey (1957)

Genre: Musical Romance  

Director: George Sidney  

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: Nightclub singer and crass womanizer Joey Evans (Frank Sinatra) has been thrown out of every joint he's ever worked at. He arrives in San Francisco, weasels his way into performing at a club, and is soon lusting after innocent chorus girl Linda English (Kim Novak). Joey has ambitions to open his own club, and romances rich widow (and former stripper) Vera Prentice-Simpson (Rita Hayworth) into funding his project. But trouble arises when Vera realizes Joey may really be in love with Linda.

What Works Well: The loose adaptation of a 1940 Broadway musical (based on a John O'Hara novel) is drenched in vivid nightclub ambience where performances are tacky and desperation hangs in the air. The sturdy love triangle offers sharp edges derived from character fundamentals, while in the central role a jaunty Frank Sinatra navigates the complex arc of a manipulative scoundrel confronting a new set of values. Some of the songs are imported from other musicals, and the better highlights include The Lady Is A Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, and There's A Small Hotel.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is wafer thin, and Joey's Neanderthalic attitude towards women creates a distasteful character for most of the running time. The singing voices of Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak are dubbed, and Novak never finds her footing as a naive chorus girl from a rural background. Beyond the three leads, there are no notable secondary characters to animate the surroundings.

Key Quote:

Joey (to Vera): Nobody owns Joey, but Joey.

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Movie Review: Never So Few (1959)

Genre: World War Two Adventure Romance

Director: John Sturges

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Paul Henreid

Running Time: 124 minutes

Synopsis: The setting is 1943, and in Burma's jungles, cocky American Captain Tom Reynolds (Frank Sinatra) and British Captain Danny De Mortimer (Richard Johnson) help a small group of native Kachin fighters engage Japanese forces. While in Calcutta to secure medical supplies, Tom sets eyes on the beautiful Carla (Gina Lollobrigida), the companion of wealthy businessman Nikko Regas (Paul Henreid). Tom nevertheless romantically pursues Carla between stints of warfare.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Tom T. Chamales' novel combines military skirmishes with lavish far-from-the-front-lines British Empire locales, and occasionally threatens to become interesting. In early roles, Charles Bronson as a Navajo soldier and Steve McQueen as an enterprising corporal trained on New York's streets are robust and charismatic respectively. Gina Lollobrigida adds sultry allure in a succession of stunning outfits (when she's not seductively naked in the bathtub).

What Does Not Work As Well: The narrative lacks focus, the tone is uneven, and Sturges never finds the right balance between the stiff combat scenes and a deeply unconvincing romance. Tom bluntly tells the sophisticated and worldly Carla he wants her perpetually pregnant and in the kitchen, and she melts into his arms. One seemingly relevant character just conveniently disappears, while the third act introduces a complex geopolitical conspiracy out of nowhere. A disengaged Frank Sinatra goes through the motions, but at least he loses his hideously conceived facial hair early.

Conclusion: The promise of sizzling action and torrid love is lost in the jungle.



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Movie Review: Von Ryan's Express (1965)

Genre: World War Two Escape Thriller

Director: Mark Robson

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Trevor Howard

Running Time: 117 minutes

Synopsis: In 1943, US Air Force pilot Colonel Joseph Ryan (Frank Sinatra) is captured in German-occupied Italy and thrown into a POW camp. He becomes the highest ranking prisoner, clashing with his predecessor British Major Eric Fincham (Trevor Howard). In the chaos of Italy's surrender all 400 inmates escape, but are eventually recaptured by the Germans and placed on a prisoner train. Ryan and Fincham lead the men in overpowering the guards, but plotting a path out of Nazi-controlled territory will be a challenge.

What Works Well: The adaptation of David Westheimer's book offers compelling dilemmas: Ryan's more humanistic approach to war backfires more than once, causing serious harm, earning him the title von Ryan, and pitting him at odds with the crustier Fincham. The production qualities are high, with sparkling on-location cinematography by William H. Daniels. Once the journey approaches Milan, the final chapter perks up considerably and director Mark Robson orchestrates stellar war action: the prisoner-commanded train plots a course towards freedom, but the Nazis pull out all the stops to recapture their prisoners.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot tries too hard to amalgamate The Bridge On The River Kwai with The Great Escape, and is often stranded in search of purpose. The supporting cast is underpowered and lacking in memorable characters. The middle act on the rail tracks notably sags, both Sinatra and Howard taking a back seat to repetitive scenes of an American Chaplain impersonating a German commander and an Italian mistress introduced for decorative reasons.

Conclusion: Uneven but ultimately satisfyingly raucous World War Two adventure.



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Movie Review: The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)

Genre: Addiction Drama

Director: Otto Preminger

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak

Running Time: 119 minutes

Synopsis: Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) returns to his old neighbourhood after a six month addiction treatment stint. An ace card dealer for back-alley poker games, he now wants to stay clean and become a jazz drummer. His bitter and clingy wife Sophia (Eleanor Parker) is confined to a wheelchair and hiding a secret, but Frankie has a warmer relationship with his downstairs neighbour Molly (Kim Novak). Frankie finds it difficult to resist bad influences and is soon pressured back into old habits.

What Works Well: Screenwriter Walter Newman and director Otto Preminger create a hypnotic down-and-out litter-strewn neighbourhood corner dominated by the local bar and neon signs for gaudy nightclubs. This is not an environment for kicking an addiction habit, and unsurprisingly Frankie's good intentions are threatened by well-entrenched sleazoids, from his wife to the local drug peddler (Darren McGavin) and the poker game organizer (Robert Strauss). Frank Sinatra finds a career peak, throwing himself into an addition ordeal with admirable zest. Elmer Bernstein's music and Saul Bass' opening credit sequence are both iconic.

What Does Not Work As Well: The outdoor set is clearly studio-bound on the RKO lot, and Frankie's up-and-down cycles are a bit repetitive.

Conclusion: A gritty and compelling humanization of addiction's stranglehold.



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Movie Review: Not As A Stranger (1955)

A medical drama, Not As A Stranger is a modestly successful story of ambition, combining character flaws, overheated emotions, and operating room dramatics. 

Lucas Marsh (Robert Mitchum) is a medical student driven to succeed, but he can barely afford the tuition since he comes from a poor background and his father (Lon Chaney Jr.) is an alcoholic. He gets by with financial help from his best friend Alfred Boone (Frank Sinatra) and the kindness of Dr. Aarons (Broderick Crawford). Lucas romances plain-looking Swedish nurse Kristina (Olivia de Havilland) after learning she has saved a handsome sum of money. They get married, although she only hopes he loves her. 

As he completes his studies Lucas develops a reputation as a perfectionist intolerant of mistakes and quick to judge and humiliate others. He is also genuinely interested in caring for patients and less obsessed than his classmates about getting rich. Upon graduating he accepts a position in the rural town of Greenville assisting the elderly Dr. Runkleman (Charles Bickford), gaining valuable experience although his marriage to Kristina grows ever colder. Lucas then meets the alluring and lonely widow Harriet Lang (Gloria Grahame), and is tempted into considering an affair.

The first movie directed by producer Stanley Kramer, Not As A Stranger adapts a Morton Thompson book into an engaging-enough cinematic experience. The emotions are often running hot and never far from the surface, but the plot offers a worthwhile drama filled with memorable characters, several medical crises, and crackling interpersonal dynamics. 

The 135 minutes of running time are rich with incident and rarely drag, the screenplay by Edna and Edward Anhalt providing a bountiful central character arc. Marsh's single-minded drive to become a doctor is fuelled by humble origins, but his inability to modulate, accept imperfections, and choose his spots lands him in repeated trouble. He has the smarts to apologize, but will need to confront his own fallibilities before properly coming to terms with the difference between idealism and success.

Despite the undoubted talent on display, the casting choices are dubious. Robert Mitchum (38 years old) and Frank Sinatra (40 years old) are too old to convince as medical students, and they lumber through the first half looking exactly like middle-aged guys not too interested in pretending to be up-and-comers. Meanwhile, Olivia de Havilland's Swedish accent randomly fades in and out. A smoldering Gloria Grahame and the supporting veteran actors fare better, while Lee Marvin has a small role as another medical student.

On several occasions Kramer takes his cameras into the operating room, and the surgery scenes are often tense and sometimes boldly graphic. Two crisp and humorous montage sequences effectively convey experience gained over the passage of time: the first as Marsh and Boone become residents and commence treating patients; the second when Marsh starts working as a small-town doctor. Not As A Stranger may lack scalpel sharpness, but comfortably meets the requirements to graduate.



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Movie Review: Suddenly (1954)

A low budget B-movie juiced with better than expected performances, Suddenly is a short and sharp assassination and hostage drama.

The small and sleepy town of Suddenly receives the exciting news that an unscheduled train carrying the President of the United States is due to make a quick stop in town. Sheriff Tod Shaw (Sterling Hayden) is the local law, and he pauses his romantic pursuit of war widow Ellen (Nancy Gates) to coordinate security with Secret Service agents led by Dan Carney (Willis Bouchey). Meanwhile, the still-grieving Ellen is trying to shield her young son Pidge (Kim Charney) from any symbols of violence.

Pop Benson (James Gleason) is Ellen's dad and a retired Secret Service agent himself. Pop's house provides a strategic vantage point over the train station. Hitman John Baron (Frank Sinatra) and two accomplices arrive in Suddenly pretending to be FBI agents. They forcefully occupy Pop's house, and hold Tod, Pop, Ellen and Pidge as hostages while they set-up a high powered sniper rifle and await the arrival of the President's train.

In the vein of movies about killers holding innocents hostage including landmarks like The Petrified Forest, Key Largo and The Desperate Hours, Suddenly occupies a curious place for a variety of reasons. After the big budget From Here To Eternity, Sinatra takes quite a left-turn to land in this tiny movie as his next project. Later, he would appear in 1962's The Manchurian Candidate, which again features a slow-burning assassination plot. After the 1963 Kennedy assassination, Sinatra attempted to have Suddenly withdrawn from circulation upon hearing that Lee Harvey Oswald had watched the film before the killing.

In itself this is an intriguing film that builds and maintains a good head of steam. Director Lewis Allen demonstrates a penchant for edgy and noirish perspectives and punches the clock at a no-nonsense 77 minutes. Once the premise is established and Baron's intentions are revealed, most of the action takes place in Pop's house, the setting confined to a couple of rooms as Baron awaits the train and Shaw, nursing a bullet wound in his arm, attempts to figure out a way to gain the upper hand.

The set-up opens the door to a decent psychological duel between the sheriff and the hitman. Shaw realizes that Baron is emotionally troubled and gets him talking, allowing Suddenly to venture into interesting territory related to the upbringing and training of an assassin. Frank Sinatra's intense performance as an unhinged cold-hearted killer who feels the world owes him plenty elevates the film well past its humble intentions. Hayden is adequate but quite stiff.

Given the modest budget and B-movie status, there are plot holes and inconsistencies aplenty in the Richard Sale screenplay, and of course the characters behave as the script requires to keep the drama simmering, rather than in accordance with any logic. Nancy Gates and James Gleason provide decent support behind Hayden and Sinatra, but the rest of the cast members read their lines with the awkward intensity of first rehearsal at the local high school play.

A taut countdown thriller peppered with masculine and threat-laden dialogue, Suddenly does not set any new standards in filmmaking, but it's much better than it needed to be.

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Movie Review: Guys And Dolls (1955)

A colourful musical hampered by odd casting choices, Guys And Dolls stretches a minimalist plot to a remarkable 150 minutes, but maintains interest with a steady drizzle of highlights.

In New York, a group of small-time con men addicted to gambling entrust organizer Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) with finding a location for an illegal craps game, despite the close attentions of Lieutenant Brannigan (Robert Keith). Nathan is also under pressure from Miss Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), a stage performer and his fiancée of 14 years, to finally get married. Looking for a quick $1,000 to secure a gambling venue, Nathan makes a bet with the laid back Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando): Sky will win the bet and $1,000 if he manages to take Sister Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons), leader of the Save A Soul Mission, to Havana for dinner. Otherwise, he will have to pay $1,000 to Nathan.

Sky moves quickly to court Sarah, who is struggling to attract anyone to her Mission. Meanwhile, the pressure on Nathan grows with the arrival of Chicago mobster Big Jule (B.S. Pully) in town, looking for some gambling action, while Miss Adelaide runs out of patience with Nathan's gambling obsession. Sky does indeed get Sarah to Havana, but their budding relationship is damaged when her Mission is used as a venue for gambling. With Big Jule looking for big winnings, all the gamblers meet in the sewer for a high stakes game, while Sky has to find a way to win back Sarah without falling into Brannigan's clutches.

With a story built almost entirely around the flimsy premise of finding a location for craps and a fairly basic bet-motivated romance, Guys And Dolls scrambles around for sub-plots and themes to hang some content on. To a certain extent the film finds humour and irony in the clash between a group of rough gamblers and a Mission intent on saving the souls of any and all sinners. The script by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Ben Hecht, based on the 1950 Broadway show, makes the most of small situations, but there is no escaping the overall slow pace and long waits between meaningful story developments.

The casting choices of producer Samuel Goldwyn had more to do with cashing in on Brando's skyrocketing popularity after the success of On The Waterfront than suitability for the role. Despite the prevailing spirit of fun throughout Guys And Dolls, Brando, Simmons and Sinatra all seem marginally uncomfortable. Brando is no singer, and while he does his best, his warbling is laboured. Simmons isn't a singer either, but she is asked to do less of it, and when she does deliver her highlight If I Were a Bell, she belts it out with some conviction. Sinatra, meanwhile, is given relatively little singing to do, and he just comes across as too smooth and too inherently good for the hustling character of Nathan Detroit.

Mankiewicz' direction is often static and unimaginative. He does relatively little to add motion picture dynamism, and many scenes carry the unmistakable whiff of a stage show being unimaginatively filmed. The sets are always animated with stacks of extras, but also obviously studio bound and lacking the authentic air of a real city.

Guys And Dolls does find some excellent moments. The scenes between Brando and Simmons gradually gain heat, and reach a fine boil in the prolonged Havana sequence, by far the best stretch of the movie. Surrounded by a night full of Latin sensuality, Sky melts away Sarah's stiff inhibitions to reveal the steamy woman within. Also good is the climactic craps game in the sewer, Mankiewicz finally finding some energy with a lively dance number and then a couple of all-or-nothing duels involving Nathan, Big Jule and Sky.

And the film wins plenty of style points, the set designs exploding with a vivid intensity, matched by slick men's outfits featuring a wide variety of colours, with Sky's sense of cool standing out in his love of variations on black.

A celebration of the simple pleasures that occupy men who should know better, Guys And Dolls is an undemanding roll of the dice.

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The Movies Of Frank Sinatra

All movies starring Frank Sinatra and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

On The Town (1949)

From Here To Eternity (1953)

Suddenly (1954)

Not As A Stranger (1955)

Guys And Dolls (1955)

The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)

High Society (1956)

Pal Joey (1957)

Never So Few (1959)

Ocean's 11 (1960)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The List Of Adrian Messenger (1963)

Von Ryan's Express (1965)

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Movie Review: On The Town (1949)

A rapturous celebration of wild fun, quick love and the pleasures of New York City, On The Town is an infectious musical with a glittering cast.

Three sailor friends have a 24 hour shore leave in New York. Gabey (Gene Kelly) wants to find the girl of his dreams, Chip (Frank Sinatra) wants to see all the sites, and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) is the overwhelmed sidekick. Gabey falls in love with the picture of the latest winner of the monthly "Miss Turnstiles" subway competition, and soon catches a glimpse of her: Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen) is a simple girl from a small town, but Gabey thinks that she is a high society star. He is determined to catch up with her, and convinces Chip and Ozzie that they should help.

But as soon as they start their search for Ivy, anthropologist Claire (Ann Miller) bumps into Ozzie at the museum and is immediately enamoured with him, while determined taxi driver Hildy (Betty Garrett) sets her lustful sights on Chip. Ozzie and Chip abandon Gabey as they set off to have fun with Claire and Hildy respectively, and Chip gets to meet Hildy's nasally roommate Lucy Schmeeler (Alice Pearce). Gabey does track down Ivy and a serious romance ensues as they reconnect with Chip, Ozzie and their girls. The wild night progresses from the top of the Empire State Building to a variety of nightclubs, ending with a madcap police chase across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Coney Island.

An adaptation of the war-time stage musical, On The Town is revitalized for the screen with on-location shooting (unique for the time), a largely new musical score, and high energy dance numbers. Most of Leonard Berstein's songs for the stage production were dumped in favour of more upbeat material by Roger Edens, as co-directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen start pushing to define the boundaries of the new form of screen musical that will take hold in the 1950s. The dancing is high tempo, athletic and mixed with large doses humour, Kelly getting the flamboyant best out of Vera-Ellen and Ann Miller.

The highlights include the opening number New York, New York, as the sailors start their shore leave, and the quite hilarious Prehistoric Man with Claire wrapping Ozzie around her finger as Ann Miller tap dances up a storm. The aggressive Hildy finds all sorts of reasons for Chip to abandon his tour of the city and instead Come Up to My Place, while Gabey and Ivy imagine a small town date on Mainstreet.

Vera-Ellen features much more prominently than her sixth-ranked billing suggests. She shines as the multi-talented Ivy in Gabey's Miss Turnstiles imagination before he even meets her, and again dancing with Kelly in the dreamy ballet sequence.

As the day draws to an end the energy of the movie just gets stronger, the screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden drawing inspiration from all that New York has to offer to maintain momentum. The sub-text of man-hungry women like Claire and Hildy hunting down the sailors is somewhat surprising, but likely linked to the war-time origins of the musical, with men absent from the home front and women doing their duty to entertain those on leave. A clever tour of various nightclubs adds more humour and builds the romance between Gabey and Ivy to a crescendo, complete with a Cinderella-style runaway lover close to midnight.

With a compact running length of just under 100 minutes, On The Town turns into the perfect day in the big city, and a perfect musical experience.

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Movie Review: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

A Cold War thriller packed with psychological intrigue, The Manchurian Candidate dances artistically on the nerves of a home front confronting an unseen and therefore omnipresent enemy.

In the Korean War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) and his platoon, including Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), are lured into an ambush, captured by the enemy, flown to Manchuria, and subjected to sophisticated Russian mind control techniques. Shaw and his men are brainwashed into believing that Shaw is a war hero deserving of the Medal of Honour. The reality is that Shaw has been programmed by the communists to kill without emotion, once he is triggered into accepting commands by exposure to the queen of diamonds in any deck of cards.

Back in the United States, Marco and other men in Shaw's platoon start to have nightmares about their brainwashing experiences. Marco befriends the sympathetic Eugenie (Janet Leigh), and turns to his army commanders for help in deciphering his nightmares. Meanwhile, Shaw is activated as a communist assassination machine. He harbours particular hatred for his conniving mother (Angela Lansbury), a rabid right-wing political activist busy manipulating the career of her dim-witted husband (and Shaw's step-father) Senator Iselin (James Gregory). Mrs. Iselin prods the Senator to instigate a McCarthy-style witch-hunt for phantom communists who have infiltrated the US government, raising the Senator's profile and placing him in contention for the Vice Presidential ticket. Marco has to uncover the mind control conspiracy to try and avert a national crisis.

Based on the Richard Condon novel, The Manchurian Candidate is a thought provoking, complex thriller, expertly preying on the fears bubbling under the surface of the Cold War. The threat of advancing communist science is combined with wild McCarthy-style accusations to create the perfect storm of paranoia, programmed killers blended with undercover agents plotting to secretly take control of key government functions.

The Manchurian Candidate enjoys a dramatic, unforgettable plot twist, as the communist threat is revealed to be deeply embedded and camouflaged into the United States political landscape. The extreme left and the extreme right always eventually meet in the spherical world of twisted ideology, and the devious plot brings this merge to life as Raymond Shaw falls into the clutches of his controller.

Director John Frankenheimer colours the nightmare in black and white and plays with chilling flashbacks, Shaw's soldiers enduring nightmares from their experiences in Manchuria, imagining themselves in attendance at a dreamy gardening club meeting while in fact they are being presented in their brain-washed state to leading Russian and Chinese intelligence agents. Frankenheimer does not back away from sharp violence, the final proof of mind-control requiring Shaw to commit murders in cold blood, the camera capturing the horror of a killing machine carrying out programmed orders.

The three central performances are persuasively understated. Frank Sinatra delivers a mature performance as Marco, a man struggling with puzzle pieces that don't quite fit, trying to square his nightmares with his sudden admiration for Shaw, a man who was previously detested by his men for being a rigid disciplinarian. Laurence Harvey is perfectly cold as Shaw, wearing the title of hero heavily, fully aware of his previous unpopularity and tracing the cause of his misery to a domineering mother.

And finally Angela Lansbury is extraordinary as Mrs. Iselin, a calculating, power-hungry woman who demands complete control over her environment and is willing to pay any price to achieve victory. Lansbury was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.

Janet Leigh is somewhat wasted in a sketched-in role, while Henry Silva makes an eerie appearance as a North Korean agent who shows up in all the wrong places.

The Manchurian Candidate heats up the cold war, with new weapons, old power grabs, and a countdown to an insidious government overthrow.

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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: High Society (1956)

A glittering cast of musical superstars adds an irresistible shine to the romantic story of one woman choosing between three men as her wedding day fast approaches. High Society is a classy romp, with a terrific score by Cole Porter providing the soundtrack for all the frolicking among the exorbitantly rich.

Tracy Samantha Lord (Grace Kelly), a member of the elites living in the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, is about to get married to the dull George Kittredge (John Lund). Samantha's former husband Dexter (Bing Crosby) is still hopeful of winning her back, and as a ruse to get close to the wedding arrangements involves himself in local jazz festival preparations featuring Louis Armstrong (as himself) and his band.

Meanwhile, Spy magazine wants to cover the celebrity wedding and dispatches reporter Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) to get the story. Samantha initially wants nothing to do with neither Dexter nor Mike, but a lot will change before she walks down the aisle.

With energetic, light hearted and catchy musical numbers like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Well, Did You Evah! and Now You Has Jazz delivered with plenty of pizazz by Sinatra and Crosby, and Armstrong contributing his unique blend of hearty jazz, High Society celebrates the rich while lustily making fun of them.

In her final movie, Kelly holds her own and in terms of acting dominates the movie, her performance a combination of comic passion and intentional exuberance. Samantha spends a large part of the movie's second half under the influence of a little too much alcohol, and Kelly pulls off the slightly drunken act with plenty of tantalizing verve.

The John Patrick script, adapting The Philadelphia Story, strikes the right balance between humour, music and confused romance, High Society distinguished by solid pacing and a reasonably entangled, character-rich plot compared to most musicals. Director Charles Walters lets his stars shine, and stocks the movie with symbols of wealth: massive mansions, glamorous gowns, and fashionable furniture are prominently on display in every frame, High Society filled with the champagne of life in the extravagant lane.

Tracy Samantha Lord may not be quite sure who she is intending to marry, but she generates a whole lot of fun on the way to finding out.

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Movie Review: Ocean's 11 (1960)

A disjointed caper movie featuring the Rat Pack, Ocean's 11 has a bit of style and not much substance. The assembled stars offer minimal acting effort and even less engagement, and around them the plot meanders for too long then yields to awkward execution.

Former military colleagues are slowly reassembled to pull-off a daring simultaneous robbery of five Las Vegas casinos. Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) is the informal leader with Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) as his main buddy. The key insiders include Sam Harmon (Dean Martin), a lounge singer at one of the Casinos, and garbage truck driver Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.). Beatrice Ocean (Angie Dickinson), the estranged wife of Danny, contributes the eye candy.

Exactly how the complex robbery unfolds is explained in only the most sketchy terms, but apparently a combination of a power failure, re-wired electrical switch boxes and glow-in-the-dark powder sprayed on door handles is all is takes to relieve five casinos of millions of dollars. All goes swimming well for Ocean and his gang, until one of the eleven drops dead of a heart-attack in the middle of the strip, attracting attention to the unusual gathering of former army men in Vegas.

Former criminal Duke Santon (Cesar Romero) then offers his services to the casinos: in exchange for recovering the missing millions, he demands a hefty cut. There are some desperate shenanigans related to hiding money in caskets before the entire heist goes up in smoke.

Director Lewis Milestone never gets a handle on the material, and allows Ocean's 11 to drift endlessly for it's first hour, picking up no momentum whatsoever as a succession of Danny Ocean's friends are clumsily introduced. There is a painfully unfunny recurring joke related to Ocean and Foster making repeated prank phone calls to the brains behind the plot, an incomprehensible Greek with the name of Spyros Acebos (Akim Tamiroff).

Ocean's 11 picks up somewhat once the actual robbery starts to unfold, but the rudimentary acting, directing, writing and cinematography conspire against any memorable moments. The one thing going for the movie is a decent sense of style: Sinatra and his crew are sharply dressed and well pressed, and the Vegas casinos represent the height of glamour circa 1960.

Ocean's 11 enjoys a few moments of panache, but it is generally all wet.

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