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: Trapeze (1956)

A big tent drama and romance, Trapeze creates an impressive canvas but gets hopelessly bogged down in a distasteful and seemingly interminable love triangle.

Mike Ribble (Burt Lancaster) was a legendary trapeze artist who permanently damaged his leg in a fall while attempting the near-impossible triple somersault in mid-air. Now reduced to working as a rigger in a Paris-based circus, Mike is approached by the young and enthusiastic Tino Orsini (Tony Curtis). Blessed with an abundance of raw talent as a trapeze artist, Tino eventually convinces Mike to return to performing as his catcher with the aim of perfecting the triple.

Mike and Tino train hard and make good progress as the big opening day approaches. Meanwhile, the glamorous Lola (Gina Lollobrigida) is a member of a middling acrobatics show at the same circus. Overly ambitious and blindingly egotistical, Lola is looking only at self-preservation and her own career advancement. She dumps her fellow acrobats and attempts to weasel her way into the Mike and Tino act. Mike is vehemently opposed to the duo becoming a trio, believing Lola to be a distraction, but she is not an easy lady to dissuade, and will use every weapon at her disposal.

Directed by Carol Reed in CinemaScope, Trapeze aims for a busy, boisterous vibe with something happening in every corner to animate the large screen. The film is only partially successful. While Burt Lancaster (an actual circus acrobat in his younger days until forced to quit due to injury) and Tony Curtis provide good star power and committed performances, the script offers them sub-par material to work with. A gaggle of writers were involved trying to wrangle the Max Catto novel The Killing Frost into a movie, and the lack of a single strong vision is apparent.

The film is an uneasy mix of disjointed grand spectacle and nasty personal feuds. The final hour is fully consumed by Lola's disruptive influence on Mike and Tino, and Trapeze slips down a slippery slope of obnoxious behaviour. Reed is unable to find level ground to steady the drama, as Lola's conniving is matched by Mike's plotting. Lola pretends to love Tino because she wants into the show, Mike pretends to love Lola because he wants her out of the show, and Tino is buffeted by emotional waves propagated by a presumed lover and an essential performance partner. Lola is presented as a wholly unsympathetic character, helping to push the whole love triangle into sordid television soap opera territory, leaving behind a circus context struggling for relevance.

The surrounding backstories are mediocre and rarely liven up the film. There is the gruff circus owner, the New York-based rival circus tycoon who promises a better paycheque, the midget who is growing too tall and is supposed to provide comic relief but doesn't, and an underdeveloped subplot involving Mike's former lover Rosa (Katy Jurado). None of them really register.

Better are the actual trapeze performance scenes, and Reed uses these sequences sparingly to maintain their effectiveness and impact. The quest for the elusive triple is presented as an almost spiritual obsession, and gives the film some positive purpose. Star close-ups are seamlessly woven into long-shots for the stunt trapeze artists, and the film is in its element delving into the rigours of training and the stress of performing in front of a large tent full of expectant spectators. Trapeze has a few tricks and performers worth watching, but the show rarely soars.

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Movie Review: Beat The Devil (1953)

A small story of greed and lust among a group of unsavoury characters, Beat The Devil sits out in the sun for too long, but is made tolerable by the presence of enough talent in the cast to overcome a sense of drift.

Four adventurers wait at a small Italian port town for a steamer to be repaired, so that they can travel to British East Africa. Through questionable means and using inside contacts, they plan to seize control of land rich in uranium. Three of the men appear to have shady pasts and criminal backgrounds: the fat leader Peterson (Robert Morley); the nervous O'Hara (Peter Lorre) and the thuggish Major Ross (Ivor Barnard). The fourth man is Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart), and he is the group's outsider, not friendly with the others but essential to the plan since he controls the corrupt official who will enable the land transaction. Billy's wife Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) is with him, but generally bored with her husband's antics.

Also at the port waiting for the same ship are the British husband and wife team of Harry and Gwendolen Chelm (Edward Underdown and Jennifer Jones). Maria is quickly enamoured by Harry, while Gwendolen falls hard for Billy. Peterson, O'Hara, and Ross don't like Billy getting involved with a new woman, and grow wary of the Chelms. Their suspicions are fed by Gwendolen's wild and ever-changing stories about Harry's background and the purpose of their trip. Eventually all six get on the steamer for a slow journey to Africa, and nothing on the trip goes as planned.

Peterson: You mean Mrs. Chelm is an unqualified liar?
Billy: Well, let's say she uses her imagination rather than her memory.

With a script apparently written on-set and day-by-day by director John Huston and Truman Capote, Beat The Devil emits the slightly off-putting whiff of a movie thrown together at the last minute, trading on star names and hoping for the best. The generally uninteresting characters sit around waiting for something to happen, as does the film. Stuck somewhere between a second-rate travelogue, an unconvincing romance, a clumsy comedy and an awkward attempt at recreating elements of The Maltese Falcon, Beat The Devil is a curiosity despite itself.

Gwendolyn: Harry, we must beware of these men. They are desperate characters.
Harry: What makes you say that ?
Gwendolyn: Not one of them looked at my legs!

After the initial six characters are set, which requires all of 15 minutes, Beat The Devil struggles through a solid hour of icky dalliances and amateurish scheming, burning time and money as everyone waits for the boat to be fixed. The slow-moving climax moves from sea to shipwreck to shore, with a painfully unfunny (was it meant to be?) excursion into an unnamed Arab country where all the characters get to experience local heavy-handed gendarme hospitality. Huston simply does not find any magic moments to brighten the film, his directing surprisingly bland, given the cast and the potential.

Billy (to Harry): The only thing standing between you and a watery grave is your wits, and that's not my idea of adequate protection.

But all is not lost. Beat The Devil boasts an admirable number of memorable lines, zingers delivered straight, perhaps intended as social commentary or outright comedy, but either way they help to keep the film watchable through the dead patches. The best lines may have little to do with the weak plot, but at least they keep a modicum of energy pumping against the prevailing lethargy.

Billy: I've got to have money. Doctor's orders are that I must have a lot of money, otherwise I become dull, listless and have trouble with my complexion.
Gwendolyn: But you're not like that now, and you haven't any money.
Billy: It's my expectations that hold me together.

And any movie boasting Bogart, Jones, Lollobrigida and Lorre is worth a look. Bogart tries hard to call on the ghosts of glorious roles from past movies, but his caustic charm flickers rather than shines. Jones is almost too perky, her character playing for comedy and almost leaning towards a plea for institutionalization, but she is plain fun to watch. Lollobrigida is the expected sultry European and Lorre is the typical nervous man with more to hide than his face is capable of concealing. Robert Morley lends heavy weight in support, the character of Peterson trying all too hard to reincarnate the fat man from The Maltese Falcon.

Beat The Devil is neither a hidden gem nor a lost classic, but survives as an odd film that could have been much better, but settles for not too bad.

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