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: Assignment - Paris (1952)

Also Known As: Assignment: Paris; Assignment - Paris!  

Genre: Cold War Espionage Drama  

Director: Robert Parrish  

Starring: Dana Andrews, Marta Toren, George Sanders, Audrey Totter  

Running Time: 84 minutes  

Synopsis: Nick Strang (George Sanders) runs the Paris desk of the Herald Tribune newspaper. His reporters Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) and Jeanne Moray (Marta Toren) start a romance while covering the story of an American imprisoned in Budapest on spying charges. With Jeanne on the trail of an even bigger story about the Hungarian Prime Minister plotting a break from Russia, Jimmy is assigned to Budapest, while Hungarian communist officials eager to root out dissidents keep a close eye on both reporters.

What Works Well: This Cold War drama peeks behind the Iron Curtain and is unafraid to cram a complex plot within a short running time. Romance, ambassadorial machinations, spies, dissidents, investigative reporters, and prime ministerial secret plots all find a niche in William Bowers' screenplay (adapting a book by Paul and Pauline Gallico). Director Robert Parrish rounds the intrigue by affording many scenes to the Hungarian communist antagonists, and finds some innovative camera angles to supplement the tension.

What Does Not Work As Well: Too much is going on for the 84 minutes of running time, and some storylines (including the romance and the initial American imprisoned in Hungary) are all but abandoned despite considerable early investment. The need to hustle the plot along forces plenty of logic shortcuts.

Conclusion: An effective but over-ambitious assignment.

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Movie Review: The Last Voyage (1960)

Genre: Disaster Adventure

Director: Andrew L. Stone

Starring: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, George Sanders, Edmond O'Brien, Woody Strode

Running Time: 91 minutes

Synopsis: The aging luxury ocean liner Claridon is crossing the Pacific with Captain Robert Adams (George Sanders) at the helm. The passengers include Cliff Henderson (Robert Stack), his wife Laurie (Dorothy Malone), and young daughter Jill. An engine room fire triggers a large explosion, separating Jill from her parents and trapping Laurie under debris. As Captain Adams dithers, Second Engineer Walsh (Edmund O'Brien) and his crew struggle to prevent water flooding into the damaged vessel, while Cliff tries to save his family with help from crewman Lawson (Woody Strode).

What Works Well: Andrew L. Stone directed, wrote, and co-produced (with his wife and editor Virginia) this effective disaster thriller, and focusses with cold and detached efficiency on three groups grappling with the unfolding crisis: the officers surrounding the slow-to-react Captain Adams, the crewmen led by the scrappy Walsh, and the Henderson family. The narrow focus results in crisp storytelling, enhanced by excellent special effects and imaginative cinematography. Themes of sacrifice, determination, and life prioritization are unafraid to wander towards dark emotional places.

What Does Not Work As Well: Other than the Hendersons, all the other passengers are irrelevant extras, and the cumbersome attempts to rescue Laurie from under the debris occupy excessive screen time.

Conclusion: As the crippled ship slowly sinks, the thrills soar.



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Movie Review: Action In Arabia (1944)

A low budget World War Two adventure, Action In Arabia has enough ideas to maintain interest, but not enough budget nor talent to deliver on its ambition.

American newspaperman Michael Gordon (George Sanders) and fellow reporter Chalmers (Robert Anderson) arrive in Damascus, a hotbed of World War Two intrigue and espionage. At the airport Chalmers is smitten by Mounirah al-Rashid (Lenore Aubert), the daughter of an influential tribal chief. She is greeting shadowy French spy Leroux (André Charlot). Chalmers decides to snoop around Leroux's business and receives a fatal knife in the back for his troubles.

Meanwhile Gordon bumps into hotelier and Nazi sympathizer Eric Latimer (Alan Napier), American agent Matthew Reed (Robert Armstrong), professional information merchant Josef Danesco (Gene Lockhart) and the alluring Yvonne (Virginia Bruce). They all insist he leave town immediately, but Gordon senses something big is about to happen, with both sides of the war eager to win al-Rashid's backing.

An RKO production produced at the height of the war, Action In Arabia reaches for a Casablanca-style vibe but falls well short. The script by Philip MacDonald and Herbert J. Biberman is rich with potentially compelling characters harbouring competing secrets and pursuing clashing agendas. And notwithstanding a few too many camels, the RKO backlot disguise as a Middle Eastern locale is decent.

But otherwise, the execution, exposition and narrative flow expose limited resources all around the camera. At 75 minutes the film features too much scheming and not enough time, and despite George Sanders' best efforts to convince, his white suit remains stubbornly spotless as he ventures in and out of teaming bazaars and greasy planes, tangling with sweaty assassins along the way.

Meanwhile, the seemingly pivotal character of al-Rashid is introduced about 10 minutes from the end, and barely gets any lines of dialogue. Another conniving tribal chief is even less defined, and overall the plot and conspiracy elements are botched. The romance and infatuation interludes featuring the exotic Mounirah and Yvonne are laughably juvenile.

Least convincing are rudimentary surveillance and action scenes, director Leonide Moguy unable to construct anything resembling rational sequencing, editing or tension. At one point Gordon takes off in a small plane in the middle of the desert with no clue in which direction to fly, but is anyway soon spotting all the important tribal movements and encampments down below (actually footage filmed for a whole other unreleased movie).

Action In Arabia cannot be faulted for aspiration, but is ultimately betrayed by insurmountable inadequacies.

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Movie Review: Foreign Correspondent (1940)

A World War Two thriller, Foreign Correspondent overcomes some war time propaganda stiffness thanks to epic espionage showpieces expertly crafted by director Alfred Hitchcock.

It's 1939, and hard-nosed reporter John Jones (Joel McCrea) is chosen by the editor of the New York Globe newspaper to head to Europe, cut through the diplomatic drivel and determine if war is indeed imminent. In London, Jones interviews key diplomat Van Meer (Albert Basserman) but can get little useful information out of him. Jones also meets Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), who runs a for-peace advocacy group, and falls in love with Fisher's activist daughter Carol (Laraine Day).

Moving on to Amsterdam, Jones finds himself witness to a shocking assassination and a cover-up, and stumbles onto a nefarious enemy agitator cell hiding out at a rural windmill. As the war drums beat louder, he teams up with fellow reporter ffolliott (George Sanders, playing a character with two "f"s and no capitals in his surname) to try and uncover the work of enemy agents in western Europe, and Jones himself becomes a target.

After a slowish start to establish the premise, director Hitchcock transforms Foreign Correspondent into an unrelenting spy adventure movie. In his second Hollywood production after Rebecca, many of the director's soon-to-be signature themes emerge. Jones is a man plunged into events greater than he could have imagined, vast conspiracies are unfolding behind veneers of respectability, and the bad guys are quick to resort to innovative assassination methods to get the job done and cover their tracks.

Foreign Correspondent features several highlights signalling Hitchcock's emerging mastery of the polished and playful suspense set-piece. The Amsterdam staircase assassination scene and subsequent escape, starting on foot amongst a sea of black umbrellas and evolving into a car chase, is the film's startling pivot point. Quickly afterwards, Hitchcock unspools a tense hide-and-seek game inside a windmill, filled with clever touches including an uncooperative overcoat and unforgiving machinery.

The director then hits his stride. Jones has to extricate himself from an upper-floor hotel room with two assassins waiting inside. But this is only a prelude to another deliciously taut encounter with a covert killer-for-hire (Edmund Gwenn), this time culminating at the top of a cathedral observation tower, and another gasp-inducing punctuation mark of a climax.

Remarkably, Hitchcock is far from done. The film ends with a prolonged climax featuring a spectacular plane crash into the water, and then a rescue and still more clever duplicity onboard a neutral American ship. After Jones' epic survival saga on land, air and sea, the film's appeal for American involvement in the war emerges as a short but powerfully effective piece of propaganda.

A large part of the film's appeal is the wealth of characters and events that make it onto the screen. Hitchcock populates every scene with details and people who may or may not prove to be relevant, but keep the eye and mind engaged. From Jones being provided with the clumsy pseudonym Huntley Haverstock to the wide-eyed Latvian diplomat seemingly hovering on the edge of every encounter, there is always something going on just to the side of the main plot.

Before dedicating most of his career to Westerns, Joel McCrea was a versatile actor, and he is surprisingly effective as Jones. He gives the central character a sharper edge compared to Hitchcock's later reliance on the more rounded personas of Cary Grant and James Stewart. Herbert Marshall and George Sanders provide potent support, both men scheming their way in and out of trouble, and indeed in the second half of the film the dynamic between Fisher and ffolliott takes some of the load off Jones.

Hitchcock's McGuffin in this case is career diplomat Van Meer, Albert Basserman bringing to life a frustrating obfuscator harbouring valuable secrets that could tip the balance of power in the event of war.

Foreign Correspondent is an entertaining milestone, creating the how-to template for powering an absorbing plot with a high voltage current of suspense.

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The Movies Of George Sanders

All movies starring George Sanders and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Rebecca (1940)

Foreign Correspondent (1941)

Sundown (1941)

The Black Swan (1942)

Action In Arabia (1944)

The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945)

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

All About Eve (1950)

Assignment - Paris (1952)

The Last Voyage (1960)

The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Sundown (1941)

A World War Two adventure drama set in colonized Africa, Sundown carries the exotic feel of faraway military exploits but is hampered by low-budget production values and stiff performances.

In a remote military outpost in British East Africa, commander William Crawford (Bruce Cabot) is trying to keep the peace while protecting Allied interests from the creeping dangers of the global war. Rumours of guns being smuggled into the hands of a local aggressive tribe cause anxiety. Major Coombes (George Sanders) arrives to increase a sense of readiness. Also in and around the base are Italian prisoner turned cook Pallini (Joseph Calleia), Dutch geoscientist Jan Kuypens (Carl Esmond) and local big game hunter Dewey (Harry Carey).

The arrival of exotic and mysterious local leader Zia (Gene Tierney) signals the start of real trouble, as the suddenly well-armed tribesman Abdi Hammud (Marc Lawrence) threatens to lead his men in armed attacks against the outpost. Both Crawford and Coombes are infatuated by the alluring Zia, but they also have to find out who is supplying the guns and how to put a stop to the smuggling.

Directed by Henry Hathaway, Sundown features an early role for Gene Tierney, with support from a decent cast including an uncredited Woody Strode in his debut. Despite the confused mix of African tribalism infused with Arab shadings interacting with British colonialism in a California Mojave desert pretending to be East Africa, the story does carry potential as a sweaty action drama set in a forgotten outpost as the dark clouds of war move closer.

With Crawford's base accessible mainly by air, the film boasts an impressive number of scenes featuring assorted small planes taking off and landing in unforgiving terrain.

But otherwise this is a case of ambition exceeding talent and resources, with the film's good intentions hampered by cardboard execution. The screenplay (co-written by Charles G. Booth and Barré Lyndon) is a stiff exercise in emotionless line delivery. The story, simple as it may sound, is bungled and tripped up by incomprehensible events, including characters wandering in a trance into battle and some horribly inefficient use of firepower.

The action scenes border on amateurish, the acting is second rate at best, there are too many characters hanging around the base and none of them display any subtlety. The Italian Pallini emerges with the most animation, Joseph Calleia displaying admirable commitment, but while he emotes the others stand and stare, waiting for their next line.

And when it comes to Ms. Tierney, standing and staring is what the film does. Hathaway insists on long lingering close-ups every time she makes an entrance, applying a freezing agent in time and space to allow the camera to get its fill.

Sundown demonstrate how conceivably tasty ingredients in the jungle can be wasted in a rudimentary jumble.

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Movie Review: The Black Swan (1942)

A second-rate pirate swashbuckler, The Black Swan mechanically ticks off the genre boxes and generally forgets about context, character and charm.

In the battle between the British and the Spanish for supremacy on the seas, Britain relies on privateer pirates to extend its power. The legendary Captain Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) is the most prominent, and his loyal followers include the charismatic Captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power), better known as Jamie Boy, and the crusty Captain Billy Leech (George Sanders), commander of the fast and powerful ship Black Swan. Just as Jamie extricates himself from his latest entanglement with the Spanish, and sets eyes on Lady Margaret (Maureen O'Hara), a peace of sorts is declared. As a reward the King installs Captain Morgan as the new governor of Jamaica, replacing Margaret's father, Lord Denby (George Zucco).

This causes a rift among the other Captains. Jaime remains loyal to Morgan and joins the side of law and order in Port Royal. Leech does not trust the peace process and decides to stay independent, terrorizing the Caribbean seas. Jamie continues his pursuit of Margaret, although she already has a suitor in the form of English gentleman Roger Ingram (Edward Ashley). Morgan finds the job of ruling difficult, and he is undermined by both the elitists of Jamaica and Leech's piracy. Jamie has to find a way to help his friend and win Margaret's heart.

Although it offers a modicum of enjoyment, everything about The Black Swan feels rushed. Directed by Henry King, the film clocks in at 85 minutes, and sacrifices most of what passes as thoughtful narrative development. The ship-to-ship battles are perfunctory, the politics rudimentary, and the characters neatly break down into good and bad. Hardly any background context is offered for any of the individuals, and the screenplay, co-written by Ben Hecht as an adaptation of a Rafael Sabatini story, strips down character interactions to almost childish levels.

Even allowing for the era portrayed, the treatment of women is close to harrowing, with ladies reduced to so much property thrown over the shoulder by uncouth men as spoils of battle. When Jamie suddenly reforms into a government man, he does modify his behaviour and pursues Margaret in a more gentlemanly way. She plays hard to get throughout the film, as well she should.

On the plus side, the The Black Swan does look great in rich technicolor, and won the Best Cinematography Academy Award. Maureen O'Hara is gorgeous as she rises above the material and looks sniffily down on the ramshackle happenings around her. Tyrone Power is frequently given reasons to lose his shirt, amplifying the film's all-round visual appeal. George Sanders is an imposing villain, and Anthony Quinn appears in a small role as another of the rough seamen.

The Black Swan creates plenty of splashy noise, but is singularly lacking in requisite elegance.

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Movie Review: All About Eve (1950)

The story of jealousy, backstabbing, ageing and the desperate climb to the top among Broadway's elite actresses, All About Eve is a breathlessly magnificent view of the raw human desire to succeed, often by knocking others out of the way.

The film starts with Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), the latest sensational star of the theatre world, accepting the distinguished industry award for best actress under the watchful eye of caustic critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders). In flashback, the story of Eve's remarkable rise to the top is revealed.

Just eight months previously, Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is the reigning queen of Broadway, although age is catching up with her. Margo is starring in the latest hit play produced by Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff), written by celebrated playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), and directed by Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), who is romancing Margo. A dedicated fan, Eve attends the play every day to study Margo's performance.

Lloyd's wife Karen (Celeste Holm), who is also Margo's close friend, notices Eve outside the theatre and eventually brings her into the dressing room to meet Margo. Eve's story of humble Wisconsin origins, dedication to the theatre, and losing her husband to the war touches Margo, who takes Eve in as her dedicated assistant, although Margo's helper and confidant Birdie (Thelma Ritter) is skeptical.

Lloyd (about Eve): I like that girl, that quality of quiet graciousness.

Eve quickly proves herself extremely capable, organizes every detail of Margo's schedule, and becomes an indispensable and essential part of her life. But Eve's behaviour also borders on obsessive and controlling, and she does not hesitate to flirt with Bill, fanning the flames of jealousy within Margo. When Eve manipulates Karen to gain the part of Margo's understudy, the hostilities break out into the open, with Margo feeling deeply threatened while Bill, Lloyd and Karen are caught between loyalty to Margo and the sparkle of Eve's undoubted talent. The patiently observant Addison, meanwhile, tries to manage the situation to his advantage.

Addison: We all have abnormality in common. We're a breed apart from the rest of humanity, we theatre folk; we are the original displaced personalities.

Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve boasts a sharp wit, a spry pace, and a prickly attitude. The film drops in on a small group of characters and exposes the destruction caused when naked ambition collides with self-doubt. It's a breathtaking jaunt through the world of Broadway's elite, where the rarefied air only serves to heighten the tension between those seeking a way up and those clinging on with their fingernails to avoid sliding down.

Margo: Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

Mankiewicz's dialogue is filled with legendary zingers. Whether fuelled by alcohol, spite, or in the case of Addison DeWitt, a self-applied sense of supremacy, the characters are children of the theatre, and they don't hold back. Whether the insults are veiled or explicit, they are delivered with zeal. Only Karen, being the semi-outsider, resents Margo's frequent descent into verbal prickliness. Lloyd and Bill are not only used to it, they depend on it. In the cocktail party scene to celebrate Bill's return from a Hollywood trip, Mankiewicz creates a legendary piece of cinema, a prolonged battlefield where words are bullets, attitudes are fortifications, and visible emotions are deployed as chemical weapons.

Margo: Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman.

While there are at least three important male characters in the cast, the heart of the movie is all about women, as suggested by the title. Mankiewicz creates a triangle consisting of Margo the queen, Eve the plotter, and Karen the unwitting enabler. (The three do parallel Caesar, Cassius and Brutus). The film rides on the energy of three ladies fighting intertwining battles, Margo for survival, Eve for power and Karen for friendship. It's a fascinating conflict, and through it Mankiewicz comments on what really constitutes success, the sacrifices to stay at the top, the insecurities that come with professional ambition, and the price that has to be paid in stressed and ruined relationships.

Margo: Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.

The performances in All About Eve are mythical in their greatness. In her storied career, it is doubtful whether Bette Davis ever had a role as good as Margo Channing, and she bites into it with absolute relish. This was also likely Anne Baxter's finest moment, and she is simply chilling as the innocent-looking schemer, always about 10 steps ahead in a brutal game of chess, while disarming all around her with an innocuous attitude.

Celeste Holm, George Sanders, Hugh Marlowe and Gary Merrill also find career peaks in the jungle of the theatre world. Thelma Ritter plays her typical self, before surprisingly disappearing from the second half of the film. Marilyn Monroe gets her first significant role as wannabe actress Miss Casswell, hovering around the edges of the elite crowd, looking for a break.

Eve: If nothing else, there's applause... like waves of love pouring over the footlights and wrapping you up.

Shining with the timeless bright lights of Broadway, All About Eve is an absolute gem of an achievement.

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Movie Review: The Ghost And Mrs. Muir (1947)

A fantasy romance set in England, The Ghost And Mrs. Muir is a charming love story between a lively young widow and the crusty ghost of a dead sea captain. The absurd premise works ridiculously well.

It's early in the 1900s, and one year on from the death of her husband Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) is fed up living with her stifling in-laws in London. She packs up her daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and housekeeper Martha (Edna Best) and heads to the coast. She tangles with real estate agent Mr. Coombe (Robert Coote) and insists on renting Gull Cottage, a long-abandoned estate known to be haunted. Lucy soon encounters the ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), the former owner of the house. He tries to scare her away but she is unmoved, and they soon negotiate a co-existence deal: he will allow her to stay in the house as long as she allows him to peacefully haunt her bedroom (formerly his room) at will, and he stays away from scaring Anna.

Over the following weeks and months the Captain and Lucy get to know each other, he calls her Lucia and she learns about his love of the sea and his eventful, adventurous life. When she hits a financial crisis he inspires her to write a book about his life. But when Lucy meets the attractive Miles Fairley (George Sanders), a successful author of children's books, the relationship between the ghost and Mrs. Muir is further complicated.

Directed with a deft touch by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, The Ghost And Mrs. Muir is a whimsical tale of impossible love serving as inspiration for a life change. An adaptation of the novel by R. A. Dick, the film strikes all the right notes. Instead of slipping into contrived drama or overwrought emotions, the film draws inspiration from the gorgeous yet rugged setting and confidently strides in self assured directions, pushing boundaries wherever it can.

The two central characters offer genuine emotional depth, and elevate the film from romance to an inquisitive exploration of life's opportunities, gained and lost. Lucy Muir is a feisty heroine who stares down the scare tactics of a ghost and pushes back to create a mutually respectful relationship. The presence of a ghost is treated as a matter of fact, and the Captain never compromises his salty language and manly ideals, but still finds the space to graciously accommodate a woman in his estate and his heart.

Mankiewicz cleverly allows the film to play both as a romantic fantasy and a psychological case study. Of course the prolonged interaction with the ghost may just be a creation of Lucy's mind to focus her courage, as a young woman breaking all the social norms and setting off on her own in a conservative society. Whether present as a ghost or as merely a prevailing influence in the new surroundings, Captain Gregg serves as inspiration and motivation, prodding Lucy onwards to confront her fears, define her own life, achieve financial independence and dare to again interact with men.

Miles Fairly finally emerges as the first potential opportunity for Lucy to find a suitable real man, and the lessons learned from the Captain will serve her well in dealing with forthcoming emotional upheavals. Regardless of Fairly's attributes, Lucy now has a high standard to measure him against.

Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison allow the film to sparkle, creating a compelling couple and finding the strangest chemistry built on contrast, a combustible mix of stubbornness, honesty and admiration. He is supposed to be gruff, she is supposed to be fragile, but Tierney and Harrison delve into the complexities below the surface to find the independence that binds the characters.

George Sanders arrives relatively late and adds the heartfelt passion of an author who is perhaps too eager to add excitement to a life he perceives as dull. Edna Best is excellent as the housekeeper who is also a lifelong and trusted companion, while Natalie Wood in an early role is amiable as young Anna.

Bernard Herrman conjures up one of his most celebrated music scores to augment the romance, contributing enormous depth to the majestic setting of a seaside house witnessing a poignant love. The Ghost And Mrs. Muir then goes on to offer one of the all-time weepiest and most bittersweet endings, a triumph of the souls that lives on for the ages.

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