Movie Review: The Bridges At Toko-Ri (1954)

Genre: War Drama

Director: Mark Robson

Starring: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney

Running Time: 102 minutes

Synopsis: During the Korean War, Lieutenant Harry Brubaker (William Holden) is a Navy pilot serving on the USS Savo Island aircraft carrier. Returning from a mission, Brubaker has to ditch in the ocean and is rescued by helicopter pilot Mike Forney (Mickey Rooney). While on leave in Tokyo, Brubaker enjoys a reunion with his wife Nancy (Grace Kelly), but his commander Admiral Tarrant (Fredric March) then selects him for a dangerous mission to bomb the strategically important but well-defended Toko-Ri bridges.

What Works Well: James Michener's story is loosely inspired by actual events, and director Mark Robson seeks balance between the mechanics of aircraft carrier operations and fatigue with a far-away war failing to captivate the home front. The military hardware glistens in the sun and the engines roar with satisfying thrust, but the toll on the human psyche and the anti-war message also surface with blunt eloquence. The tone builds on elements of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Twelve O'Clock High before delivering a wallop-packing final chapter.

What Does Not Work As Well: The first two thirds are patchy and meander in search of a direction, too many shots invested in aircrafts maneuvering on, off, and around the carrier deck. The performances are perfunctory at best, the humans taking a back seat to the equipment. The mission planning details are hard-boiled and delivered with notable disinterest.

Conclusion: Just as men can plot to damage bridges, war can damage men.



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Movie Review: Green Fire (1954)

A quest-for-riches romantic adventure, Green Fire is more stodgy than fiery. 

In Colombia, mining engineer and adventurer Rian Mitchell (Stewart Granger) discovers a long-lost mountainside emerald mine in rugged terrain. He is attacked by local bandits working for El Moro (Murvyn Vye), rescued by Father Ripero (Robert Tafur), and recovers from his injuries at the nearby fledgling coffee plantation owned by Catherine Knowland (Grace Kelly) and her brother Donald (John Ericson). 

Rian's business partner Vic Leonard (Paul Douglas) is ready to give up on the adventurous life and settle down in Canada, but Rian convinces him to stick around and help activate the mine. Rian starts a romance with Catherine, although she is displeased when Donald gains an interest in mining and redirects resources away from the plantation. The emeralds are elusive, the mine is dangerous, and El Moro claims the land as his own and demands a cut.

Director Andrew Marton reunites with star Stewart Granger after the success of 1950's King Solomon's Mines, but the results in Green Fire are less impressive. Co-writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts adapt the 1942 memoir by Peter W. Rainier, with the on-location filming providing undoubted authenticity and CinemaScope suggesting a grand scale. But the plot and characters are far from memorable, and the details are handled poorly.

The deficiencies are many. With the mine stubbornly yielding nothing and no real adventure to pull the drama along, Rian, Catherine and Vic are caught repeating the same conversations. A rather desperate romantic triangle is tossed into the mix to create artificial tension. The costumes and make-up departments insist on a glamorous look for Grace Kelly no matter the context, and so she is ridiculously dressed in the most expensive outfits while toiling the fields. The climax impressively ignores both physics and engineering by conceiving a plan to blow up a mountain and redirect a river without the slightest nod to even napkin-level calculations.

Somewhere on the mountainside is a half-decent cautionary tale about the destructive dangers of unchecked greed, the limits of friendship, and the nature of sacrifice. But the happy ending imperative means that a silly gun fight is wedged into the plot to produce stock heroics, before love conquers all despite the flies buzzing around the fresh corpses littering the landscape.



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Movie Review: To Catch A Thief (1955)

A romantic thriller, To Catch A Thief is heavy on allure and light on plot. The story of a retired cat burglar clearing his name showcases exotic locations and fancy gowns, to the detriment of narrative momentum.

In the French Riviera, John Robie (Cary Grant) is a retired jewelry thief nicknamed "the Cat" and a former member of the French Resistance. When a spate of audacious jewelry thefts hits the region, all deploying the Cat's signature rooftop entry technique, suspicions naturally fall on Robie. He tries to find refuge among his old Resistance buddies including restaurant owner Bertani (Charles Vanel) and his head waiter Foussard (Jean Martinelli), but they treat him with mistrust. Nevertheless Bertani arranges for Foussard's feisty daughter Danielle (Brigitte Auber) to help Robie escape.

To clear his name, Robie teams up with reluctant insurance company representative H. H. Hughson (John Williams) and tries to get ahead of the burglar by predicting who the next victims will be. His sleuthing leads him to rich widow Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) and her gorgeous daughter Frances (Grace Kelly), who soon uncovers Robie's motives and starts seducing him. But as the thefts continue, Robie finds it increasingly difficult to claim innocence and stay ahead of the law.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, To Catch A Thief is a rather flimsy excuse for a film. The entire script (by John Michael Hayes) could have been written on the back of a napkin over drinks on a sunny patio in the south of France, and the suspense elements are clumsy and tired. Much more of a romance than a thriller, the story is a thin excuse to bring two of Hitchcock's favourite performers together for a whirlwind on-screen love affair: the icy but smoldering blonde matching wits with the debonair but potentially dangerous man.

And an easy pleasure is derived from the glamourous setting for two charismatic stars in sparkling form. Once Kelly enters the movie her chemistry with Grant shines bright, and from then on Hitchcock's main concern is to showcase Kelly in a succession of stunning outfits. She delivers the requisite purring sexuality as Frances simultaneously peels away Robie's layers of deceit and seduces him into submission.

Otherwise there is cinematic flab and fat everywhere. Between Robie latching onto Frances and the climax where the burglar is unmasked, about an hour of screen time needs to be killed, and Hitchcock stumbles about looking for unlikely plot points, the sloppy editing and lack of logical continuity not helping matters. He throws in a superfluous but well-executed high speed car chase and a bungled robbery that telegraphs the obvious conclusion to come.

Finally To Catch A Thief resorts to an exceedingly tiresome costume party, giving up on pretending to care about plot and giving in to what it really is: an extravagant fashion show featuring handsome stars having a breezy vacation and enjoying expensive outfits on location.

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Movie Review: High Noon (1952)

A classic ticking clock Western, High Noon explores the theme of steadfastness in the face of adversity, and finds a society easily yielding to compromised appeasement.

In the town of Hadleyville, Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) marries his sweetheart, Quaker girl Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly). Just as they are heading off on their honeymoon, news filters in that gang boss Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) has been unexpectedly released from prison and is arriving in town on the noon train, seeking revenge. Indeed, three of Miller's hoods are already at the station, waiting for their boss. Kane interrupts his honeymoon plans and returns to Marshal duties, much to Amy's disgust.

Five years earlier, Kane cleaned up Hadleyville by arresting Miller and sending him to face justice and an expected hanging. Now Kane attempts to swear-in deputies to help him in the new looming confrontation with Miller, but finds no willing volunteers. Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) quits early, and in turn Kane's best friend, his mentor, the town judge, the pastor and other usually reliable allies turn their back on him. Meanwhile a disgruntled Amy plans to leave town, along with local businesswoman Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), who has a history with both Miller and Kane, and an uneasy relationship with Pell.

Directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by Carl Foreman who co-produced with Stanley Kramer, High Noon is a pessimistic study of societal failings. The action unfolds in real time, a looming clock making an appearance in almost every other scene, the tension building as Kane appeals for help and is rebuffed at almost every turn. The tight 85 minutes are dedicated to uncovering the various excuses the residents of Hadleyville concoct to avoid supporting their Marshal, resulting in the irony of a man forced into individually protecting a community that does not deserve his protection.

With Foreman labelled an uncooperative witness for refusing to name names by the McCarthy witch hunt, High Noon builds on the struggles of a man insisting on doing the right thing in the face of widespread public condemnation. With the noon hour approaching, everyone wants Kane to leave town and allow the bad guys to take over, a preferable outcome compared to a messy public confrontation that can ruin the reputation of the community. He refuses, stares down evil in the bright sunshine and exposes the appeasers as unworthy of their own societal freedoms. The story also carries echoes of non-interventionist attitudes to Nazi Germany prior to World War Two, and condemns the propensity to give in and get along for the sake of avoiding harsh truths.

The film is not without its weaknesses. The bad guys carry little menace, and waste away for most of the film at the train station waiting for Miller's train. Helen's backstory and previous involvement with both Miller and Kane deserves better than the sideways hints it receives. The relationship between Kane and Amy is quick to rupture, there being apparently no reservoir of love, trust and good will to help them through their first crisis. Modern Los Angeles makes an appearance in the background of an otherwise impressive crane shot, and the film's signature song Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin' plays pretty much continuously on a maddening loop for the duration of the film.

But Zinnemann overcomes the shortcomings with a stunning visual aesthetic, making full use of Cooper's increasingly anguished face as Kane's realization of just how pathetic his own community is grows with every encounter. The town empties out as High Noon approaches its titular climax hour, and Zinnemann achieves grandeur by setting his lonely Marshal against eerily empty streets and vacant buildings, one man standing tall, both mad enough and brave enough to defend principles everyone else is more than willing to abandon.

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The Movies Of Grace Kelly

All movies starring Grace Kelly and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

High Noon (1952)

Mogambo (1953)

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Rear Window (1954)

Green Fire (1954)

The Bridges At Toko-Ri (1954)

To Catch A Thief (1955)

High Society (1956)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Mogambo (1953)

An adventure romance set in darkest Africa, Mogambo makes good use of its setting and star charisma to overcome an overwrought love triangle.

Victor Marswell (Clark Gable) runs a big game hunting and animal capture business deep in the African jungle, his base accessible only by river boat. His associates are the sympathetic John "Brownie" Brown-Pryce (Philip Stainton) and the hard-drinking Boltchak (Eric Pohlmann). Eloise "Honey Bear" Kelly (Ava Gardner) arrives at Victor's outpost one day hoping to connect with a rich maharajah friend, but he is long gone and she is stranded. Undeterred, Kelly makes herself comfortable and tries to win Victor's affections.

Next to arrive are English couple Donald Nordley and his wife Linda (Donald Sinden and Grace Kelly). He is an anthropologist who wants to study gorillas, while Linda is faithful to her husband but stuck in a passionless marriage. She is immediately attracted to Victor, who also falls in love with her, ignoring Kelly. But Honey Bear will not give up easily, and as the party moves ever deeper into dangerous gorilla territory, Linda has to decide if Victor is worth destroying her marriage for, while Kelly waits for her opportunity to regain Victor's attention.

Mogambo means passion in Swahili, and the passion overflows throughout the film. Kelly and Linda lust after Victor, he is passionate about his lifestyle, and Donald is passionate about capturing the sights and sounds of gorillas in their natural habitat.

Despite the obvious shortcomings, it is really difficult to dislike Mogambo. This is old fashioned Hollywood filmmaking at its most gloriously hokey, director John Ford, as far as possible from his comfort zone of westerns, mixing location shooting with stock footage, ignoring the obvious mismatches in colour and lighting, and stirring in an overcooked love triangle layered so thick with gooey syrup that even the gorillas shake their heads.

In Mogambo, the mere presence of Clark Gable is enough to bring women to their knees. Victor does not need to actually do anything or reveal any personality. Gable may be too old for the role, but it doesn't matter: the jungle heat dominates. Victor's gruff exterior and "lord of the jungle" posture is enough to make first Kelly then Linda melt into hopeless puddles. Honey Bear does not hide it, while for the sake of appearances Linda tries to but fails and literally falls into his arms. It's the sort of romance-by-hero that makes no sense, and yet in deepest Africa, surrounded by local tribes, wild animals, monsoon rains, a rudimentary yet cozy lodge and the life of the hunter, the overheated emotions seem to perfectly match the surroundings.

On her way to securing her only nomination for the Best Actress Academy Award, Ava Gardner is easily the brightest flower in the jungle, her Honey Bear filled with earthy wise cracks, self-deprecation and no small amount of determination to make the best of her situation. Meanwhile, on the cusp of stardom, Grace Kelly's soon to be established cold blonde persona is out of place in the rough, and Linda knows it. She is only there to support her bland husband Donald, but Victor gives her a reason to dream about an alternate life filled with both animals and animal magnetism. Gable is Gable, a no nonsense take-me-for-who-I-am-and-I'll-take-you-any-way-I-like persona. In Mogambo there are baby gorillas and adult gorillas, but only one king gorilla.

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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: Rear Window (1954)

An Alfred Hitchcock classic, Rear Window peeks into the lives of neighbours to find a potential murderer, but more importantly uncovers a changing society about to be transformed by unstoppable forces.

Photojournalist Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart) has badly broken his leg while on assignment, and he is stuck in his hot and humid apartment for another week before the cast comes off. With a crushing heatwave forcing all the neighbours to keep their windows open, Jeff whiles away the time observing from his rear window the goings on in various apartments. Jeff's nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend society girl Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) visit him daily. The crusty Stella does not approve of Jeff's voyeuristic habit, while Jeff is having trouble finding a way to imagine the fashionable Lisa fitting into his rugged international photojournalist lifestyle.

One of the many apartments that Jeff keeps an eye on is occupied by Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a salesman, and his bed-ridden wife. One dark night Jeff observes Mr. Thorwald repeatedly leaving and returning to his apartment with a large briefcase. The next day Mrs. Thorwald has disappeared from her bed, and Jeff observes Mr. Thorwald cleaning a large knife and a sharp saw. Jeff is convinced that Mr. Thorwald killed his wife and dismembered her body. He calls upon his friend, Detective Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), who is sceptical but starts a low level investigation. As the ongoing lives of the neighbours unfold and sometimes intertwine, Jeff, Lisa and Tom are drawn ever deeper into the mystery surrounding the Thorwalds.

Rear Window offers up an increasing dose of tension, but the thriller elements are only the outside packaging. The film's rich texture resides in its mature portrayal of a society in quiet upheaval, and the prescient look ahead to a world filled with plenty of image consumption and dangerous levels of pleasure derived from voyeurism.

The John Michael Hayes screenplay is rich with social observation, starting with the evolving role of women. The nurse Stella is the model for the first post-war generation of working women, independent, opinionated and confident, and she may be the midpoint of the spectrum. Jeff's neighbours cover the range of rapidly evolving women's roles in society: At the extremely traditional end is Miss Lonelyhearts, a depressed widow close to the end of her rope. Mrs. Thorwald, the victim, is utterly dependent on her husband and unable to defend herself against his violence.

Towards the mid-range are the couple sleeping on the balcony, representing the average married man and wife of the era, content and resourceful. Tilting to where society is headed, the newly-wed wife is sex-obsessed but turns against her husband as soon as he loses his job: perhaps the prototype of the newly independent woman, not shy about her sexual and financial needs. Miss Newlywed is unlikely to ever suffer at the hand of her husband. And at completely the other end of the scale from Miss Lonelyhearts is Miss Torso, young, exhibitionist, enjoying the company of a multitude of men, and hiding her own secret. She controls and manipulates the life of the men around her, at the edge of a new movement about to explode out of post-war repression and into a revolution of liberation.

Jeff's own relationship with Lisa has to navigate the turbulence of women's changing role in society. Clearly in love with each other, but coming from different worlds and both financially secure, neither is immediately willing to sacrifice a valued lifestyle for the sake of the relationship. While Jeff seems to recognize that asking Lisa to fundamentally change her life is a wrong foundation for a marriage, Lisa is more brash about pushing Jeff to change his life to suit her. Lisa goes ahead and proves her willingness to be adventurous, but Rear Window ends with persistent question marks about the viability of their couplehood: the sense is that Jeff's version of adventure is too crass for Lisa's high flying, high fashion, high society taste.


Rear Window's other objective is to transform all viewers into voyeurs, as guilty as Jeff in enjoying the sordid lives of others. Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms, Stella says in her first scene. Hitchcock leaves his audience no choice: watching the movie is a Peeping Tom experience, with most of the camera angles representing Jeff's point view, and the camera movements mimicking the motion of his eyes. Jeff's behaviour can only be castigated by those who did not actively participate in it, and the film's construction makes this impossible: we are all as culpable as he is, and deserving of his fate. Hitchcock anticipates an era when watching will become a lot more popular than doing, and few complain about it.

Rear Window is a participatory masterpiece, a multi-layered film that elegantly represents its society with sharp commentary woven into an arresting mystery.

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Movie Review: Dial M For Murder (1954)

In London, struggling professional tennis player Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) plots the perfect murder and an airtight alibi to get rid of his rich but cheating wife Margot (Grace Kelly). 

But while his plan seems ingenious, in practice everything unravels with unintended consequences. Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) and Margot's lover Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), a crime fiction writer, are soon trying to untangle a mess of a plot gone wrong.

Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Frederick Knott's nimble play is both sure-footed and clever. Hitchcock keeps the tone, pacing and settings close to their stage roots, allowing the strength of the story, sharp dialogue and a confident cast to deliver a simple yet gripping film.

Ray Milland as the has-been tennis star husband is effectively slimy and sinister as he conjures up two plots against his wife: the first he planned for years; the second he has to develop in minutes. Grace Kelly does well as the seemingly innocent wife-with-a-lover who is suddenly confronted with death twice over. And John Williams is most watchable as Chief Inspector Hubbard, who uses his wits and old-fashioned detective work to piece together a plot involving a planned yet bungled murder, an unintended victim, apparent blackmail, and infidelity.

Hitchcock delivers thrills, tension and a battle of wits in an economical 105 minutes, and deploys ever-interesting camera angles to wring suspense out of simple settings.

Evil intentions make the call, but Dial M For Murder still gets the right number.






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