Movie Review: Midway (1976)

Genre: Historical World War Two Action  

Director: Jack Smight  

Starring: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Edward Albert  

Running Time: 131 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 1942, and the United States Navy is weakened and reeling after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune) wants to press Japan's advantage and plots an attack on the Midway Atoll in the Pacific. A cryptographic unit led by Commander Rochefort (Hal Holbrook) breaks enough of the Japanese code to allow Admiral Nimitz (Henry Fonda) to plan a high-risk ambush, committing all of the Navy's aircraft carriers. The trusted Captain Matthew Garth (Charlton Heston) is assigned to the USS Yorktown, along with his son Lieutenant Thomas Garth (Edward Albert). With both countries holding nothing back, tense surveillance maneuvers precede an epic battle, with the fate of the Pacific War at stake.

What Works Well: This is a grim-faced and square-jawed recreation of the seminal World War Two naval battle, filled with star presence and impressive hardware. The storytelling represents both sides and seeks the small details that shape history, including a broken radio preventing a crucial transmission, malfunctioning electronics resulting in lost torpedo bombs, and crucial battlefield decisions made within the fog of war and riding on gut instinct. Director Jack Smight admirably translates unfolding battle tactics into comprehensible plot points.

What Does Not Work As Well: A wedged-in romance between Lieutenant Garth and his interned Japanese-American lover is a clunky distraction. Equally clumsy is a hodgepodge of ineloquently inserted historical footage borrowed from other Hollywood productions and unrelated battles. Some stars like Robert Mitchum and particularly James Coburn lend their presence to just a few scenes before cashing their cheques.

Key Quote:

Admiral Nimitz (to Captain Garth): We can't trade them carrier for carrier, Matt.

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Movie Review: Appointment In Honduras (1953)

Genre: Jungle Adventure  

Director: Jacques Tourneur  

Starring: Glenn Ford, Ann Sheridan, Zachary Scott, Jack Elam, Stuart Whitman  

Running Time: 77 minutes  

Synopsis: American adventurer Jim Corbett (Glenn Ford) is on a mission to deliver a large sum of money to the rebel forces of deposed Honduran president Prieto. Needing to traverse the jungle to arrive at a rendevouz point, Corbett recruits four convicts led by Reyes (Rodolfo Acosta), and takes hostage bickering wealthy couple Harry and Sylvia Sheppard (Zachary Scott and Ann Sheridan). For Corbett's mission to succeed, the group has to survive wild animals, army patrols, and many double-cross attempts.

What Works Well: The colour cinematography conveys the milieu's sweatiness, and at a duration of 77 minutes, the adventure does not linger.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a laboriously fake trudge through the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, with awkward-to-bad special effects, plastic and uniformly unlikeable characters, a disinterested cast delivering stiff acting, rudimentary dialogue, and clumsily executed action scenes. At least the zoologists in the audience can debate which of the jungle creatures are actually native to Central America.

Conclusion: Painfully paddles in place.



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Movie Review: Lust For Gold (1949)

Genre: Western  

Director: S. Sylvan Simon  

Starring: Glenn Ford, Ida Lupino, Gig Young  

Running Time: 90 minutes  

Synopsis: Legends persist of a huge gold mine in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix. Barry Storm (William Prince) arrives in the region and claims to be the grandson of "the Dutchman", who located the mine decades ago. Many men have since been murdered trying to retrace his steps. Barry interviews old timers and researches state records, and flashbacks reveal the story of his grandfather Jacob 'Dutch' Walz (Glenn Ford). He found the gold then succumbed to the charms of local woman Julia Thomas (Ida Lupino), who was desperate to escape an unhappy marriage to the useless Pete Thomas (Gig Young). Back in the present Barry continues his search for the gold, despite great risks.

What Works Well: Based on a few facts obscured by many legends, this western treasure hunt tale is enlivened by numerous flashbacks to different eras, tracing the gold mine's origins to Mexican adventurers and Apache Indians. The film's heart is the long flashback to Jacob Walz's story and his romance with Julia Thomas, director S. Sylvan Simon portraying them both as conniving products of an uncompromising frontier and deploying Noir touches through Julia's strong femme fatale tendencies. The final chapter of Walz's adventure is a brutal revelation of true colours at the treasure's gateway.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite ending in a literal cliffhanger, the bookend story is unworthy, with underpowered casting and a profound lack of logic undermining villainous intentions.

Conclusion: Greed persists through the ages.



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Movie Review: The White Tower (1950)

Genre: Mountaineering Adventure

Director: Ted Tetzlaff

Starring: Glenn Ford, Alida Valli, Claude Rains, Oskar Homolka, Cedric Hardwicke, Lloyd Bridges

Running Time: 98 minutes

Synopsis: Carla Alten (Valli) arrives at a Swiss Alps village inn nestled at the base of the imposing White Tower mountain. She wants to conquer the summit in memory of her father, and recruits a climbing team consisting of fading author DeLambre (Claude Rains), aging geologist Radcliffe (Cedric Hardwicke), and local guide Andreas (Oskar Homolka). Hein (Lloyd Bridges) joins them despite displaying Aryan superiority tendencies, while American Martin Ordway (Glenn Ford), a laidback retired Air Force pilot, is more interested in pursuing a romance with Carla.

What Works Well: The Paul Jarrico script (based on a book by James Ramsey Ullman) works hard to create well-rounded characters, with an overarching objective of uncovering the individual reasons for each party member to embark on the climb. The ascent scenes capture the hazards and exhilaration of navigating imposing vertical terrain.

What Does Not Work As Well: The romance elements between Carla and Martin are never not clunky, and both Hein's proud Nazi tendencies and DeLambre's tortured author agonies are overplayed. Despite the relatively short length, tedium creeps in.

Conclusion: Admirably seeks to answer the timeless why-climb-the-mountain question, with mixed success.



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Movie Review: The Rounders (1965)

A comedy western, The Rounders is the shallow story of two contemporary bronco busters and one stubborn horse.

In rural Arizona, best friends Ben Jones (Glenn Ford) and Howdy Lewis (Henry Fonda) break wild horses for a living. Despite creeping age they love what they do and accept another job from shrewd businessman Jim Ed Love (Chill Wills) to break in his latest batch of horses. Included among them is an ornery and unpredictable roan horse that resists all of Ben's attempts.

The next assignment is to spend the winter on a high plain rounding up hundreds of stray cattle heads. Along the way Ben and Howdy reconnect with moonshiner Vince Moore (Edgar Buchanan) and his two daughters (Kathleen and Joan Freeman). Try as they might to get rid of the roan, the horse always ends up back with Ben and Howdy, and although Ben continues to talk about his wish to destroy his nemesis, an affinity develops between man and untamed beast.

A laid back modern-day western, The Rounders is more about lifestyle, landscapes and a love of the great outdoors than any specific plot. Written and directed by Burt Kennedy as an adaptation of a Max Evans book, the film starts slowly and maintains a disinterested attitude towards anything resembling narrative momentum. Instead, Kennedy captures impressive vistas of wide open landscapes, the type of terrain men like Ben and Howdy will always call home.

Too many scenes feature bucking wild horses with cowboys hanging on before being thrown off, and the overdependence on stuntmen is obvious and distracting. Colours, light levels, textures and horses constantly switch as Kennedy intercuts distant shots of professionals riding bucking horses and close-ups of movie stars landing in the dust. Many other shots zoom in on the mischievous roan, giving the horse some personality but in a mystifying move, not a name.

Glenn Ford is the more animated and hot-headed of the two men, Henry Fonda agreeably taking a back seat, his passivity almost transporting him to the distant mountains. The men exchange easy banter, but plenty of the attempted humour is utterly juvenile, including the late arrival of a couple of dimwit party girls (Sue Ane Langdon and Hope Holiday) used for mid-1960s era cheap shock value derived from partial nudity.

The Rounders metaphorically compares Ben and Howdy adhering to their rustic way of life with one horse equally resisting any forced domestication. It's a simple message, delivered in lackadaisical packaging.



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Movie Review: Experiment In Terror (1962)

A muddled crime thriller, Experiment In Terror offers dashes of style but suffers from a flabby script and an unconvincing plot.

In the Twin Peaks neighbourhood of San Francisco, bank teller Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick) is threatened in her dark garage by an unseen intruder. He demands she steal $100,000 from the bank, otherwise he will hurt her younger sister Toby (Stefanie Powers). Despite the intruder insisting on no police involvement, Kelly connects with the FBI's John Ripley (Glenn Ford).

With few clues to go on, Ripley places Kelly under surveillance. Meanwhile, he is also contacted by Nancy Ashton (Patricia Huston), a troubled woman who may be going through a similar experience to Kelly. Ripley's investigation also leads him to Lisa Soong (Anita Loo), the mother of a sick child who may also be connected to the criminal. As the clock ticks down and the threats intensify, Kelly has to commit the theft or face the consequences.

A rare departure towards darker material for director Blake Edwards, Experiment In Terror lathers on the noir style with odd camera angles, nighttime scenes, characters hiding in shadows, plenty of fog and stark light sources. But the credible production design cannot hide a wayward plot filled with weird distractions and plenty of loose ends.

After the opening attack Kelly is unfortunately reduced to an afterthought in her own story, and the film defaults to an uninteresting police procedural. And for a seemingly well-resourced detective provided with plenty of advance notice about a crime in the making, Ripley manages to repeatedly botch the basics. Equally improbable is a convenient criminal who always does just enough to move the plot along but never enough to push through with his threats.

The problems reside in the overburdened script by the husband and wife crime writing team of Gordon and Mildred Gordon, and a saggy running time extending to over two hours. The characters of Nancy Ashton, Lisa Soong and her suffering son occupy large swaths of screen time to no great effect, their connection to the central crime barely sketched in. Meanwhile the details related to the villain's plot to steal and keep the money are all but omitted. Finally young sister Toby is placed in proper peril, but when the opportunity arises the film appears caught flat footed between seeking terror and settling for timid.

Lee Remick, Glenn Ford and a young Stefanie Powers provide plenty of star appeal, but despite the flashy execution this Experiment In Terror is flawed.

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Movie Review: Blackboard Jungle (1955)

A classroom social drama, Blackboard Jungle takes a grim view of adolescence in sounding a loud warning about the latest inter-generational gap.

War veteran Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) is offered his first job as an English language teacher at an inner city trade school in a tough multi-ethnic school. The students have a reputation for not caring about education, and the other teachers are generally just concerned about survival and cashing the next cheque. Richard is married to Anne (Anne Francis), who is pregnant and worried after having lost a previous child.

On the first day of classes Richard rescues fellow rookie teacher Lois Hammond (Margaret Hayes) from a rape by a student. He finds it difficult to connect with his students, but spots talent and leadership potential in Miller (Sidney Poitier) while gang leader Artie West (Vic Morrow) proves to be a handful in and out of the classroom. Richard stubbornly digs in to try and educate, but the strain of teaching starts to spill over into his personal life.

An adaptation of the Evan Hunter book directed by Richard Brooks, Blackboard Jungle is notorious for several reasons not quite related to its narrative content. The film opens with Bill Haley and His Comets' Rock Around The Clock, the first use of a rock song on a film soundtrack, at a time when rock music was still regarded with deep suspicion. The film's music and subject matter were considered near-scandalous and indeed despite plenty of censorship attempts teenage audience enthusiasm overflowed into violence and riots throughout the United Kingdom.

And in one of his earlier roles Sidney Poitier is arguably the second most important and prominent character in the film after Glenn Ford's Dadier. Yet Poitier's name is about tenth on both the opening and closing credit lists, a sad of example of Hollywood's opinion of black performers at the time, even in a film all about social upheaval.

As to the actual content of what is on the screen, Blackboard Jungle is an unrelenting and exaggerated portrayal of every parent's nightmare from the era. The schism between the Greatest Generation and their oldest children who missed out on war service but grew up with parents pre-occupied by the war is portrayed as a hostile battlefield. The bad behaviour starts as openly belligerent and quickly descends into regular and harrowing bouts of violence against teachers, including rape, back alley beatings, destruction of property, broad daylight heists and open threats of physical harm with weapons.

The episodes are multiplicative and Brooks' script becomes difficult to stomach as it paints itself into a corner. After spending the best part of 90 minutes exhibiting contemptible behaviour, the sharp turn towards partial redemption in the final 10 minutes rings hollow.

Poitier's performance is the only one that carries depth and subtlety, as he allows Miller to reveal hints of the person he could become given half a chance. Ford bulldozes his way through the role, his hard head a good match for the film's pounding message.

An undoubtedly forceful drama, Blackboard Jungle is also excessively stark and alarmist.

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Movie Review: The Secret Of Convict Lake (1951)

A Western with a difference, The Secret Of Convict Lake is a tight and tense drama set in an isolated community during an unforgiving winter storm.

It's 1871, and six convicts escape from Carson City and make their way on foot across a mountain range in a snow storm. The chasing posse has to turn back due to the harrowing conditions, and the escapees are presumed dead. One of them does perish, but the remaining five, including the level-headed Jim Canfield (Glenn Ford), conniving Johnny Greer (Zachary Scott) and the young but ailing Clyde (Richard Hylton) make it over the peak and down to the tiny community of Monte Diablo Lake.

There they find only women, including Marcia (Gene Tierney), her future sister-in-law Rachel (Ann Dvorak), the young and innocent Barbara (Barbara Bates), and the bedridden but strong willed Granny (Ethel Barrymore). The men of the community, including Marcia's fiance Rudy (Harry Carter), are away on a long-term prospecting trip.

Initially the women have the weapons and the upper hand, and the five men are confined to a lodge. Johnny is convinced that Jim has hidden $40,000 in stolen money, but gradually other truths emerge: Jim does indeed have links to the Monte Diablo community, involving a revenge motive due to false murder testimony. Tensions and emotions rise as Jim and Marcia are strangely attracted to each other, Johnny pursues the frosty Rachel to gain an edge, and Clyde emerges as potentially the most dangerous of them all at Barbara's expense.

Loosely inspired by real events, directed by Michael Gordon and co-written by an uncredited Ben Hecht, The Secret of Convict Lake is an unfortunately forgotten gem. Packing an astounding amount of plot, conspiracy and character dynamics into its 83 minutes, this is an enjoyably intricate and thoughtful Western exploring original territory.

Gordon plays with the power dynamics between men and women as well as the struggle for domination between the men themselves, as the story reveals its layered secrets on its own terms. Despite some clunky action scene staging and editing, the resolution is exceptionally clever, and the denouement pushes the boundaries of the cinematic era.

This is a Western with an abundance of narrative arcs, and the ever shifting character motivations and evolutions dramatically enhance the film. Jim, Marcia and Rachel all undergo transformations as the storm-enforced confinement unfolds, while Johnny and Clyde reveal a lot more about themselves than first meets the eye. Once the inevitable gun smoke clears, an entire community has been changed forever, and indeed Monte Diablo Lake gains a new name.

The Secret Of Convict Lake carries seeds of stories later extrapolated in better known films. The theme of sexual tension between prisoners and women standing on guard appears in the classic The Beguiled, while a group of men and women starting out on a hostile footing in an isolated setting but developing unexpected relationships was exploited for fun in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. The Secret Of Convict Lake adds a surprisingly intriguing personal double-cross and revenge story, conflict between future sisters-in-law, and lonely women unable to resist the temptation of treacherous men.

Glenn Ford plays to his strengths as an almost honest man caught up in crooked events, Jim Canfield victimized to the point of not caring about the consequences of his grim course of action. Gene Tierney emerges as the most resilient of the local women, initially unaware of her role in the dangerous showdown looming at her doorstep but gradually distinguishing between the shades of grey.

Underrated and mostly forgotten, The Secret Of Convict Lake is well worth rediscovering.

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Movie Review: The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1962)

A melodrama set mostly in Paris under Nazi occupation, The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse enjoys some juicy character dilemmas but otherwise falls foul of a turgid romance that never sparkles.

Madariaga (Lee J. Cobb) is the patriarch of a proud Argentinian clan. One of his daughters is married to Frenchman Marcelo Desnoyers (Charles Boyer), while the other daughter is married to German Karl von Hartrott (Paul Lukas). Julio (Glenn Ford) and Heinrich (Karl Boehm) are the now adult offspring of Marcelo and Karl respectively. With the clouds of war gathering over Europe, Madariaga is horrified to learn that Karl and Heinrich have joined the Nazi Party. Madariaga dies during a raucous family dinner, haunted by images of the biblical four horsemen of the apocalypse: Conquest, War, Pestilence, and Death.

Marcelo and Julio relocate to Paris along with Julio's sister Chi-Chi (Yvette Mimieux). Julio enjoys the playboy life, and wants no involvement in the world of politics and conflict. War does indeed erupt, but not before Julio meets and falls in love with Marguerite (Ingrid Thulin), although she is married to harried newspaper publisher Etienne (Paul Henreid). With the Germans threatening Paris, Etienne is shipped to the front lines, creating space for the romance between Julio and Marguerite to blossom. Paris falls and soon Karl and Heinrich make their presence felt as part of the occupation force, Karl as a local German military administrator and Heinrich as an influential member of the feared SS.

With high level contacts among the German occupiers, Julio finds himself in a position of unwanted privilege. He has to fend off the brutish advances of General von Kleig (George Dolenz) towards Marguerite, but then events turn serious when Etienne is released from a prisoner of war camp, Chi-Chi starts to demonstrate sympathies with the French resistance, and Julio realizes that despite his natural inclination to remain uninvolved, the war will demand he chooses a side.

MGM's 1921 adaptation of the Vicente Blasco Ibáñez novel is fondly remembered as a star-making vehicle for the young and virile Rudolph Valentino. By the late 1950s the studio was scrounging around for properties to help revive its fading fortunes, and settled on this epic remake, resetting the story to World War Two and bringing in director Vincente Minnelli to infuse the project with prestige. It didn't quite work as intended. The 1962 version does enjoy some moments of cinematic grandeur, but it is also relatively slow, bloated, and lacking in charisma.

A large part of the problem resides in the casting of the two central characters. Glenn Ford is most unconvincing as a Latin playboy. He instead comes across as Rick Blaine's boring cousin, an American in Paris passively observing events passing him by. Julio's romance with Marguerite enjoys an initial 10 minutes of glamour, then collapses into tiresome domesticity, bickering, and passive aggressive tension, a very poor foundation on which to build a 150 minute movie. Even when Julio swings into action in the final third, both the missions and the execution are unconvincing.

Ingrid Thulin is just as cold in the role of Marguerite, not the fault of the actress, but again a poor casting choice that shifted the romance to an older age where rationality trumps devotion. For most of the film there is hardly any genuine chemistry between Ford and Thulin, undermining Julio's reasons to hang around Paris and deal with the mess of the occupation.

As the feisty Madariaga, Lee J. Cobb expires spectacularly within the first half hour. Cobb takes his role to the extreme end of theatricality, submitting his resume to join the ranks of the horsemen as the harbinger of dramaturgy.

It's not all a loss, and despite the film's stodginess, there is plenty to admire. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse looks good, with Minnelli recreating a wartime Paris where opulence persists behind closed doors while tensions rise on the street corners. The special effects to create the galloping horsemen in the clouds are impressive, but undoubtedly overwrought. At least Minnelli shows restraint by using them in small doses. The other cast members are more reserved and often more than adequate, with veterans Henreid, Boyer and Lukas showing that good things happen when actors are properly fitted to roles.

And eventually, the film does build some epic weight in the story of individuals caught up in the whirlpool of history, with Julio facing a triangular moral dilemma: his partial French heritage demands that he act, his beliefs require him to remain on the sidelines, and his German uncle and cousin offer him the prestige of high-level connections at a time when knowing the right people is the difference between life and death.

The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse ride into the bloodiest conflict in world history. After stumbling around in somewhat questionable manner, they emerge still holding the flag, albeit a rather tattered one.

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Movie Review: The Gazebo (1959)

A sharp dark comedy, The Gazebo nicely builds to a healthy dose of laughs in the story of a television executive dealing with an inconvenient blackmail problem.

Elliott Nash (Glenn Ford) produces crime dramas for live television. His harried life is that much more stressful because Elliott is also being blackmailed by a mysterious man who goes by the name of Shelby. Elliott is married to budding stage star Nell (Debbie Reynolds), and he does not want her to know that Shelby is in possession of compromising photos that can threaten their relationship. Elliott turns to his friend and lawyer Harlow Edison (Carl Reiner) for some advice, but Harlow has eyes for Nell and is of little help.

In addition to trying to convince Nell to sell their house to raise money, Elliott starts to nurture the idea of killing Shelby to get rid of the problem once and for all. Things get more complicated when Nell decides to buy a large gazebo for their backyard, and crusty construction crew chief Sam Thorpe (John McGiver) becomes an intermittent visitor around the house. But the gazebo's concrete foundation presents an opportunity, and Elliott's dabbling in a possible murder plot will also include the unlikely involvement of none other than Alfred Hitchcock.

An underrated and often forgotten gem, The Gazebo works its way to often hilarious levels of farce. Director George Marshall adopts a measured pace in the first 30 minutes to set up the premise, and then unleashes the laughs to good effect. The George Wells script (an adaptation of the Myra and Alec Coppel play) delivers a compact 100 minutes of fun, with likeable protagonists who are sympathetic despite all their foibles.

Good as the film is, there are some weaknesses, notably performances that are very much overly theatrical. While Debbie Reynolds almost manages to find the right tone, Glenn Ford is guilty of going over the top early and often. Ford is funny as the frantic everyman digging an ever deeper hole of trouble for himself. But he doesn't even attempt any level of circumspect nuance, instead going for the all-flappy all-the-time stance more appropriate for the stage than the screen. There are also a few issues with timing, some plot events happening at unlikely hours just to feed the laugh-o-meter.

But the film adds to the fun quotient by cleverly keeping many of its surprises hidden from view. The exact nature of the blackmail takes some time to become apparent, and the various bad guys who will get involved in the plot as Elliott's nightmare spirals out of control are not exactly who he thinks they are. Every time Elliott starts to think he's gaining a measure control, another twist sends him on a new frenzy of uncertainty. Ironically, the calmest presence is a plucky pigeon, saved by Elliott early in the film and intent on hanging around.

The Gazebo includes a loud-talking house maid, a wild shooting leading to a ridiculously funny and prolonged death scene, an inopportune rain storm, and hideous curtains that can conveniently serve to hide a crime. It's the worst possible combination of items and events to assemble a staid backyard gazebo, but a terrific recipe for madly enjoyable revelry.

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The Movies Of Glenn Ford

All movies starring Glenn Ford and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Gilda (1946)

Lust For Gold (1949)

The White Tower (1950)

The Secret Of Convict Lake (1951)

Affair In Trinidad (1952)

The Big Heat (1953)

Appointment In Honduras (1953)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

3:10 To Yuma (1957)

The Gazebo (1959)

The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1962)

Experiment In Terror (1962)

The Rounders (1965)

Midway (1976)

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Movie Review: Gilda (1946)

A classic film noir, Gilda smolders in the Buenos Aires heat as a small time gambler, his ex-flame and an illegal casino baron get embroiled in a personal duel against the backdrop of a dangerous cartel emerging from the post-war shadows.

American Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) washes up in Buenos Aires penniless but still adept at cheating his way to winning at any gambling opportunity. He is spotted by Ballin Mundson (George Macready), the smooth but ruthless operator of a lavish underworld casino, where the elite come to play. Ballin hires Johnny as his business manager and second in command, and the two men develop a strong friendship. But the trust between them starts to evaporate when Ballin returns from a trip suddenly married to the beautiful Gilda (Rita Hayworth).

Although they both initially deny it, it becomes obvious that Johnny and Gilda are former lovers who broke up on bad terms. Gilda, perhaps a mistress of the oldest profession, is a wild spirit who cannot be contained by Ballin, and she starts running around with any available man, primarily to make Johnny jealous. Ballin becomes preoccupied when his involvement with an illegal, Nazi-linked tungsten cartel starts to catch up with him. He asks Johnny to keep an eye on Gilda and make sure she stays safe, but the flame of passion between Johnny and Gilda is about to be reignited.

Directed by Charles Vidor, Gilda is a careening adventure into the sordid world of lovers' revenge, packed into the tight quarters of shady gambling and global intrigue. It's a breathless exercise in smooth narcissism, every man for himself, one woman on a twisted vendetta, all in a foreign location where all the normal rules are suspended. Photographed by Rudolph Maté in smoky black and white, almost every scene is a masterpiece of shadows, angles and lighting that hides the sinners in the corners.

Gilda is populated by slippery secondary characters who animate Ballin's casino, oozing hidden agendas from every pore and turning the gambling den into the favourite hangout for the crooks, the cops, and the crocked. Maurice Obregon (Joseph Calleia) doesn't drink and doesn't gamble, he is there as a government agent charged with keeping an eye on the place and untangling the tungsten cartel's secrets. The durable Uncle Pio (Steven Geray) looks after the bathrooms, and is a lot more astute than he looks.

And then there is the twisted-looking old man who regularly walks in, bets on "2 black" at the roulette wheel, and walks away with a wad of cash, all part of the effort to keep the peace. And finally there are the two "Germans" who show up to try and reclaim control of the cartel away from Ballin, now that the world war is over and all.

It's all reminiscent of Rick's Cafe Americain, of course, but the Gilda screenplay (by Jo Eisinger and Marion Parsonnet) is not concerned with great struggles between good and evil. At Ballin's casino it's all about personal greed, lust, jealousy and betrayal, a world full of selfish Ricks who are looking out for their personal gain and pleasure.

A luminous Rita Hayworth has never been in a better film, and she creates in Gilda a seductress, a lover and a victim all rolled into one amazing woman who can neither be resisted nor controlled. Liberated by Gilda's unrestrained sexuality deployed in a frontal assault to reclaim her one shot at true love, Hayworth gets to perform two sizzling dance numbers (with singing dubbed by Anita Ellis). Put The Blame On Mame is an inferred striptease meant to make the walls sweat, while Amado Mio is a more subdued but still sinewy number. Glenn Ford and George Macready are both excellent as the two men in her life, but Vidor ensures that whenever Hayworth is on the screen, nothing else matters.

Gilda proves to be the catalyst for both Johnny and Ballin. Both men are enjoying financial riches until she walks into their lives, and by the time the drama has played out, it is clear that no life stays on the same trajectory once Gilda makes an appearance. An exceptional force of nature and an alluring partner for the man who tames her heart, Gilda is a game changer.

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Movie Review: Affair In Trinidad (1952)

An average conspiracy thriller, Affair In Trinidad reunites Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford from Gilda (1946), but a sophomoric "evil lurks here" plot limits the film's effectiveness.

In the sultry Caribbean British colony outpost of Trinidad, fledgling American artist Neil Emery is found dead in a small boat. It is left to local Inspector Smythe (Torin Thatcher) and American diplomat Anderson (Howard Wendell) to break the news to Neil's wife Chris (Hayworth), a nightclub performer. There are indications that Neil may have committed suicide, but Smythe suspects that mysterious local tycoon Max Fabian (Alexander Scourby) had something to do with the death. Smythe recruits Chris to secretly infiltrate Max's circle and investigate, a task made easier by Max's infatuation with Chris.

Neil's brother Steve (Ford) arrives in Trinidad in response to a letter that Neil wrote before his death, and is shocked to find his brother dead and his sister-in-law already sidling up to Max. Although Steve and Chris are attracted to each other, she has to keep her distance in order to seduce Max and poke around his mansion for clues of wrong-doing. With Steve uncovering his own evidence that Max is up to no good, Chris stumbles onto a dangerous international plot being orchestrated by Max, and involving a ragged group of traitors.

Affair In Trinidad has some noirish elements, but it is more earnest than cynical. Max and his plotters come across as a bunch of Nazi outcasts forming an amateur science club in his garden shed, and Steve steams through the movie with a boiling temper unbefitting of a thoughtful saviour. The movie is more of a Hayworth comeback role, and she is the central focus not as a femme fatale but rather a widow and victim clumsily thrust into a conspiratorial world. Her two musical numbers are a mish mash of the seductive and the ungainly, Hayworth stomping around rather than gliding on the dance floor, her moves more aggressive than graceful.

Director Vincent Sherman does conjure up a good mood. The nightclub and the parties at Max's mansion evoke a carefree yet tense island lifestyle where the rich and the riffraff all have something to hide and the heat helps to elevate the levels of agitation. The love quadrangle, with Chris struggling with feelings towards the hot-headed Steve, the smooth-tongued Max, and the deceased Neil, creates a flow of bubbling emotions.

The three central performances are also steady. There is no faulting Hayworth's commitment in the central role, her presence magnetic with shades of conflict, although despite many fetching gowns she never fully catches fire. Ford and Scourby play opposite characters and both deliver, Ford full of pent-up anger as Steve and Scourby full of himself as Max.

With Max's rag tag villains more bumbling than menacing, ultimately the rather inane plot undermines any momentum that Affair In Trinidad may have generated. The film ends in a rush and with an exceptional number of loose ends flailing in the Caribbean wind, waiting to be picked up by more polished movies.

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Movie Review: 3:10 To Yuma (1957)

A taut psychological western, 3:10 To Yuma thrives on an asymmetrical battle of wills between two men.

The notorious Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) leads his gang in a violent stagecoach hold-up witnessed by rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin). Ben and his wife Alice (Leora Dana) are struggling financially due to a severe drought. At the small town of Bisbee, Ben seeks the comfort of barmaid Emmy (Felicia Farr), but a ragtag posse financed by stagecoach owner Mr. Butterfield (Robert Emhardt) catches up with him, and Ben is arrested. For extra money, Dan and the town drunk Alex (Henry Jones) volunteer to escort the captive Ben to Contention City, where the outlaw will be placed on the 3:10 train to Yuma to face justice.

Dan, Alex and the handcuffed Ben stop over at Dan's ranch in a ruse to throw Ben's gang off their trail. Ben meets Alice and Dan's two boys, who are proud of their Dad for helping to capture the fugitive. Dan and Alex then escort Ben to Contention City, where they take refuge in a hotel room waiting for the train departure time. As Ben's men close in to try and rescue their leader, Butterfield desperately tries to recruit additional man power, and Ben gets to work on Dan, probing for a way to convince the rancher to set him free as the clock ticks towards 3:10.

In the tradition of High Noon (1952), 3:10 to Yuma establishes a tense countdown to a violent confrontation, and a lone hero who has to do the right thing in the face of everyone else's fear. 3:10 To Yuma adds a delicate psychological struggle between a confident gang leader and a vulnerable rancher. In a compact 92 minutes, with not a scene or word wasted, director Delmer Daves pushes well past the confines of the genre to explore the limits of honour in the face of danger and temptation.

The Halsted Welles screenplay, based on a story by Elmore Leonard, establishes Ben and Dan as two men who crave what the other has. Ben has money, the adventurous life, and the respect of his men. Dan is penniless, scraping a living by chasing after cattle, and has to withstand the quizzical stares of his kids and wife when he does not intervene to try and stop the stagecoach robbery. But Dan does have stability and the love of his family, while Ben is reduced to life on the run and liaisons with anonymous barmaids.

When the balance of power tilts towards Dan, wielding a shotgun and escorting Ben to Contention City, Ben resorts to a relentless series of low-key mind games, threats and enticements to try and get the upper hand. He finally exploits Dan's financial misery, and makes an offer that Dan will find difficult to refuse. As the clock creeps towards 3:10 and a death-inviting walk from the hotel to the station beckons, even Mr. Butterfield urges Dan to walk away from the mission, and the journey to justice hangs in the balance.

In a fine performances, Glenn Ford humanizes the outlaw Ben Wade without betraying his criminal essence. Ford ensures that Ben always remains a cold-hearted gangster willing to kill as needed, but he also makes him a person, ready to communicate, negotiate and capable of appreciating his own emotions. Van Heflin provides an excellent counterpoint as Dan Evans, carrying in his expression the pain of a rancher unexpectedly swept up by the challenging confluence of financial need and the call for justice. The melancholy title song by Frankie Lane adds a layer of sad fatalism to the unfolding drama.

3:10 To Yuma is the hour of truth, two men who want nothing to do with each other unexpectedly forced to share a common destiny.

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