Movie Review: The Way West (1967)

Genre: Western  

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen  
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Sally Field  

Running Time: 122 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1843, former politician William Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) leads a caravan of families heading from Missouri to Oregon in search of a better life. Tadlock recruits the experienced but reluctant Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum) as the main guide and scout for the expedition. The travelers include Lije and Rebecca Evans (Richard Widmark and Lola Albright) and their teenaged son Brownie. He develops a crush on free-spirited Mercy McBee (Sally Field), although she sets her eyes on an older man trapped with a frigid wife. On the long trail to Oregon, the caravan experiences natural hazards, skirmishes with the Sioux tribe, and inter-personal rivalries.

What Works Well: This Harold Hecht production adapts A.B. Guthrie Jr.'s book into is an ambitious and sprawling cinematic experience filled with magnanimous cinematography. Loosely based on the actual Great Migration, director Andrew V. McLaglen finds highlights in an impromptu hanging, a river crossing, a trek through the desert, and finally an audacious descent into a ravine. Although they rarely need to stretch beyond the confines of pre-defined characters, Kirk Douglas (driven and unempathetic), Robert Mitchum (laid back as ever), and Richard Widmark (tightly coiled) ensure an abundance of star power.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a choppy and episodic adventure, with limited character evolutions and no narrative focus beyond the obvious "get to Oregon!" objective. And with a large number of cast members competing for time and space with oxen, mules, horses, and wagons, none of them achieve compelling depth. Mercy McBee's sexual escapades threaten to derail the caravan into sordid home wrecker and union-of-convenience territory.

Key Quote:

Lije (discussing whether or not to do battle with the Sioux): I guess we'll have to fight, Dick.

Dick: Well, all right, but some of us are gonna have to settle for a piece of ground a little short of Oregon.

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Movie: The Final Countdown (1980)

Genre: Science Fiction  

Director: Don Taylor  

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, Charles Durning, James Farentino  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: Captained by Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas), the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is one of the largest warships in the world. While hosting industrial executive Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen), the vessel passes through a freak electrical storm in the Pacific Ocean. It emerges on December 6, 1941, one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. After rescuing Senator Chapman (Charles Durning) and his assistant Laurel (Katharine Ross) from their sinking yacht (destroyed by a Japanese strafing attack), Yelland, Air Group Commander Owens (James Farentino), and Lasky have to decide whether to change the course of history.

What Works Well: An intriguing "what if" conundrum, this is an imaginative sci-fi military adventure. The production values are high (filming took place on the Nimitz with the full cooperation of the US military), and the cast is filled with quality in the key roles, Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen contributing subdued authority.

What Does Not Work As Well: The premise is much more interesting than the conviction-free execution. Once the Nimitz commanders wrap their heads around the time warp, the movie shifts into sail-in-circles-to-kill-time mode, occupying itself with the fulminating senator, a Japanese pilot plucked from the ocean, and a tepid would-be romance. A good chunk of the running time is consumed by imagery of warplanes taking-off, landing, and conducting surveillance maneuvers. This is dream eye candy material for military hardware fans, but most of these scenes are superfluous to the plot.

Key Quote:

Lasky: Think of the history of the next forty years...

Commander Owens: I have a suspicion history will be a little more difficult to beat than you imagine, Mr. Lasky.

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Movie Review: Town Without Pity (1961)

Genre: Legal Drama

Director: Gottfried Reinhardt

Starring: Kirk Douglas, E.G. Marshall, Barbara Rütting, Christine Kaufmann

Running Time: 105 minutes

Synopsis: Four US soldiers stationed in Germany get drunk and rape 16-year-old Karin (Christine Kaufmann), a respected banker's daughter. The rapists, including meek Corporal Larkin (Robert Blake), are soon arrested. Outraged local village residents demand the stiffest penalty, and prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Pakenham (E.G. Marshall) agrees to hold an open court and seek the death penalty. Defence attorney Major Garrett (Kirk Douglas) has to brush off intrusions by reporter Inge Koerner (Barbara Rütting), and realizes he may have to destroy Karin's reputation to save the accused men from death.

What Works Well: An uncredited Dalton Trumbo helped adapt the novel by Manfred Gregor, and director Gottfried Reinhardt confidently strides into controversial - and often incendiary - territory. Rape, the sexual appetite of a young woman (before she was assaulted, Karin's lust was frustrated by her 19-year-old boyfriend), victim-blaming, exhibitionism and voyeurism, town gossip, and pride over truth are all thrust into the courtroom. The combustible mix is layered onto a foreign army's propensity to ravage, and Kirk Douglas cuts through the luggage with sharp-eyed - and heartless - clarity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The crime consequences push in many directions at once, and the sloppy handling of court procedures adds confusion to any intended narrative sympathies. The "lawyers are scummy but conflicted" and "in some court cases everyone loses" themes register, but Reinhardt muddles his intentions by abandoning one character to a horrid fate with inadequate reflection. Dimitri Tiomkin's music is both dissonant and over-used, while the Gene Pitney theme song is a melodic mess.

Conclusion: Groundbreaking, but also suffering from ethical disarray. 

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Movie Review: A Letter To Three Wives (1949)

A drama about relationship ups and downs in a leafy small town, A Letter To Three Wives is a spry snapshot of post-war middle class domesticity.

Deborah (Jeanne Crain), Rita (Ann Sothern), and Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) are friends and neighbours, and about to chaperone a community children's picnic. Just before departing for the day, they receive a letter from common acquaintance Addie (voice of Celeste Holm) informing them she has run off with one of their husbands, but not disclosing which one. In separate flashbacks, the women review the state of their marriages.

Emotionally fragile Deborah met husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) when they both served in the navy. He is from a wealthy and respected family, while she is from humble origins. Deborah always felt inferior and a misfit with the country club crowd. Brad fuels her insecurities whenever he mentions the vivacious Addie.

Brassy Rita has a successful career as a radio theatre writer, while husband George (Kirk Douglas) is a proud but low-paid school teacher. He looks down upon her commercial brand of writing, and the tension between them rises when Lora Mae nudges him to consider a career change. George knows Addie from college and she is more aligned with his love for the arts.

Confident Lora Mae grew up in a poor household on the wrong side of the tracks. While working at a department store she caught the eye of the wealthy owner Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas). He pursues her but she does not yield to his affections until he proposes marriage. They are never truly in love but always honest with each other, including Porter expressing his admiration for Addie.

An adaptation of a story that appeared in Cosmopolitan, A Letter To Three Wives boasts a clever structure, three casually related mini relationship portraits, and a mean streak of humour to punch-up the drama. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz also wrote the screenplay, and delivers an entertaining summary of first-world problems lurking in the households of the haves and want-to-haves.

Addie provides mischievous narration without making an appearance, instead hovering over the lives of others as a cunning plot device to cut through the facade of marital bliss. The three stories expose a range of women's emotions and intentions, including Deborah's deep-seated self-doubt and desperate desire to fit in, Rita's well-intentioned but misplaced attempt to elevate the earning potential of her husband, and Lora Mae's singular focus on snaring a wealthy man.

The men here are mostly static beings, war-winning objects to be captured, cared for, manipulated, improved and jealously guarded. In turn, the revealed lives of Deborah, Lora Mae and Rita revolve fully around their husbands, and even working woman Rita insists on muddling her career with her marriage.

The performances are lively, Jeanne Crain, Ann Sothern and Linda Darnell quickly creating distinct and memorable personalities. They receive equal screen time and ample opportunities to navigate a range of man-instigated crises. Mankiewicz's writing is human-centred: despite their different backgrounds, it's easy to believe these women are friends. In the supporting cast, Thelma Ritter has a significant but uncredited role as a housekeeper.

Although the ending settles for a relatively quick wrap and lacks zing, A Letter To Three Wives remains a savvy peek into three couples' lives.



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Movie Review: Lonely Are The Brave (1962)

A contemporary western eulogy, Lonely Are The Brave explores the loss of a way of life through the story of a good-natured cowboy playing by the old rules.

In New Mexico, Korean War veteran Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) and his horse Whiskey still crave the open frontier cowboy lifestyle. Jack laments the fences, property lines and roads infringing on his freedom to move wherever he pleases. When he learns his buddy Paul (Michael Kane) is in prison for helping illegal immigrants, he visits Paul's wife Jerry (Gena Rowlands) and commits to help.

Jack: Have you ever noticed how many fences there're getting to be? And the signs they got on them: no hunting, no hiking, no admission, no trespassing, private property, closed area, start moving, go away, get lost, drop dead!

Jack welcomes a bar fight then instigates a scuffle with police to get himself arrested and thrown into the same cell as Paul. He tangles with prison guard Gutierrez (George Kennedy) before offering Paul an opportunity to escape by sawing through the prison bars. But while Paul has a wife and child to consider, Jack lives for himself and for today, and with Whiskey makes a run for the mountains. Sheriff Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau) organizes a pursuit.

Desk sergeant: Look, cowboy, you can't go around with no identification. It's against the law. How are people going to know who you are?
Jack: I don't need a card to figure out who I am. I already know.

A lyrical western, Lonely Are The Brave carries honest intentions and a clear-eyed distinction between past and present. Dalton Trumbo's script sets out to bid a fond farewell to men like Jack, and despite the bittersweet sense of loss, even Jack is under no illusions. He knows his time has come and gone, and so does everyone else, but nothing will stop him from trying to wind the clock back.

The other men have moved on and are now more circumspect than freewheeling. Jack's good buddy and rival for Jerry's heart Paul is no longer interested in jail break escapades. Sheriff Johnson brings a resigned approach to his job, recognizing men like Jack are capable of disappearing into the wilderness, and maybe that's not a bad outcome. Meanwhile Jerry is exasperated not just with Jack's carefree attitude, but with men's general dense-headed and cavalier disregard towards the benefits of domesticity. 

Jerry: Believe you me, if it didn't take men to make babies I wouldn't have anything to do with any of you!

David Miller directs with a relaxed stance, the black and white cinematography harkening back to an earlier era where only mountain ranges interrupted the landscape. And Kirk Douglas brings his impish smile and an open, approachable demeanour to the fore, convinced every fence can be cut and every problem has a straightforward common-sense solution.

Jerry: Maybe you'd be better off if they caught you.
Jack: Maybe, but I'd like to put it off for as long as possible.

Jack's escape destination is a mountain ridge easiest to cross alone and on foot, but his tradition demands a man look after his horse, despite Whiskey's intransigence. Some of the scenes featuring the horse being forced up the steep terrain make for difficult viewing, but the old west was not for the faint of heart. Of course on the other side of the mountain is another barrier, even more difficult for Jack and Whiskey. No matter, they will carry on, intent on finding a sunset now obscured by the headlights of busy traffic.

Jerry: Jack, I'm going to tell you something. The world that you and Paul live in doesn't exist. Maybe it never did. Out there is a real world. And it's got real borders and real fences, real laws and real trouble. And you either go by the rules or you lose. You lose everything.
Jack: You can always keep something.

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Movie Review: The Last Sunset (1961)

An astute western, The Last Sunset adds character texture, multiple romantic threads and complex themes to traditional genre elements.

In Mexico, Bren O'Malley (Kirk Douglas) rides to the ranch of Belle Breckenridge (Dorothy Malone), his lover from years ago. She is now married to the limping and bottle-dependent cattle baron John Breckenridge (Joseph Cotten), and has a 15 year old daughter Melissa (Carol Lynley). Bren is honest about his intentions to win back Belle's love while Melissa quickly develops a crush on the handsome stranger, despite their age difference.

Sheriff Dana Stribling (Rock Hudson) arrives at the Breckenridge ranch with a Texas-issued warrant to arrest Bren for murder. But this is also a personal pursuit, because the murder victim was Stribling's brother-in-law. Dana is immediately smitten with Belle, creating a romantic triangle. The two men agree to pause their looming showdown and help the Breckenridge family drive 1,000 head of cattle to Texas, where the fugitive and the sheriff will settle their differences.

An adaptation of a Howard Rigsby novel produced by Douglas' company Brynaprod, The Last Sunset delivers all the staples expected from a conventional western. The cattle drive as a centerpiece and transformative journey carries echoes from Red River, as does the conflict between two strong personalities at the helm. An epic fist-fight, no-good bandits (including the omnipresent Jack Elam), foul weather, stray cattle, quicksand and a run-in with a native tribe all make an appearance. 

Despite the cliches and some sticky, creaky and melodramatic moments, director Robert Aldrich keeps the action moving, aided by visually rich and colourful cinematography courtesy of Ernest Laszlo. But writer Dalton Trumbo, in a post-blacklist credit, is also interested in pushing well beyond typical genre topics. The Last Sunset features multiple elaborate romantic pursuits and two compelling women in the mother-daughter pair of Belle and Melissa, both provided with expansive arcs.

Belle finds herself at the centre of three men. Her husband is the weakest (Joseph Cotten in a thankless role), O'Malley is the fiery lover from her past and Stribling the potentially more promising and stable presence. Dorothy Malone strikes the right balance portraying a woman with a sudden range of options and a pragmatic disposition to assess them, and Belle takes her place among the more memorable women in westerns.

Melissa (nicknamed Missy by O'Malley) slowly gains presence, first as an awe-struck teenager then as a more outspoken woman-in-the-making. Carol Lynley grows into the role and asserts increasing influence as the cattle drive reaches a climax. The relationship twist in the tail is not difficult to anticipate, and Trumbo strides into dangerous territory with eyes open and an elegant ending in mind.

Douglas gave Hudson first billing, and he is fine in the lead role as a guardian of the law with a personal sting. But Douglas reserved the more intricate role for himself as Bren O'Malley, a man at the crossroads and eager to right past wrongs but still at the mercy of his character failings. He pursues a long-gone vision of Belle and is emotionally ambushed by the emergence of Missy as an eager here-and-now lover. O'Malley has to navigate away from a dark past and into a potentially impossible future.

In a relatively tangential side-story, the resolution of John Breckenridge's journey reveals the breadth of narrative ambition. His past as a confederate soldier catches up with him, and Trumbo writes a soul-destroying scene for a broken man facing the ultimate humiliation. The Last Sunset is a challenging time for men and women on the frontier, and a more than worthwhile western.

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Movie Review: The Heroes Of Telemark (1965)

A World War Two action film based on real events, The Heroes Of Telemark depicts attempts by Norwegian resistance fighters to disrupt Germany's atomic bomb development.

It's 1942, and Norway is occupied by Nazi Germany. In the Telemark region, Norwegian scientist Nilssen (Ralph Michael) runs an industrial facility producing heavy water. The Nazis press him to ramp up production to support the manufacturing of an atomic bomb. Nilssen smuggles information to local resistance leader Knut Straud (Richard Harris), who connects with physics professor Dr. Rolf Pedersen (Kirk Douglas). 

Initially reluctant to get involved, Pedersen eventually agrees to help and reunites with his ex-wife Anna (Ulla Jacobsson) and her Uncle (Michael Redgrave), who are already helping the resistance. With assistance from Allied leadership in London a plan is hatched for 50 British commandos to storm and destroy the facility. When this operation goes wrong Straud and Pedersen attempt a dangerous raid with just a few men, but knocking out the heavily guarded facility will prove exceptionally difficult.

A worthy addition to the cannon of World War Two mission movies, The Heroes Of Telemark is a British production based on books by Knut Haukelid and John Drummond. With filming locations in England and Norway, the plot outline is based on historical events, but the usual moviedom liberties are applied for cinematic spicing purposes. 

Director Anthony Mann, delivering his penultimate film, extends the script by Ben Barzman and Ivan Moffat to 130 minute. The engrossing material is sufficient to justify the length, but Mann, perhaps chilled by the often frigic Nordic surroundings, is cold and calculating rather than intense. Many chase and infiltration sequences, although never less than well-executed in snowy terrain and often dark conditions, go on for longer than necessary.

Three distinct centrepiece action scenes occupy the core of the film, and Mann opts for silence as a powerful weapon. Driven by the imperative of stopping the Germans from winning the race to develop a devastating weapon, a commando-style assault, an air-raid, and finally an attack on a ferry are all meticulously constructed with cohesive editing and minimal talk, the unfolding action speaking louder than any words.

Less successful are the interpersonal relationships. The cold-and-hot antics between divorced couple Rolf and Anna Pedersen represent a classic romantic subplot insertion where none was needed. The drama between Knut and Rolf is also clunky, both Richard Harris and Kirk Douglas more detached than usual and standing outside their characters. Douglas' portrayal of Rolf Pedersen has to survive a lack of exposition on how a professor transitions to a fearless all-action hero complete with knowledge of weaponry and explosives.

But The Heroes Of Telemark ski jumps over some flaws to deliver a rousing salute to wartime heroism in a picturesque but otherwise little known corner of Europe, where the world's destiny may well have been decided.

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Movie Review: Seven Days In May (1964)

A Cold War political thriller, Seven Days In May uses a tense military takeover scenario in the United States as an avenue to explore themes of democracy, loyalty and nationalism in the shadow of a global conflict.

It's the early 1970s, and U.S. President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) is facing severe criticism and protests for pushing ahead with a nuclear disarmament deal with the Soviet Union. He believes the agreement to be the only pathway to peace, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster) believes the President is severely undermining national security.

Scott's right-hand man Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas) picks up cryptic clues suggesting Scott is planning a coup d'etat within a few days, using a covert military unit funded without appropriate authority and assembled and trained at a secret base near El Paso, Texas.

Jiggs takes his evidence to Lyman, who believes enough to investigate. He dispatches his chief aid Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) to interrogate a Navy commander stationed in the Mediterranean, trusted Senator Ray Clark (Edmond O'Brien) heads to El Paso, and Jiggs approaches Scott's former mistress Eleanor Holbrook (Ava Gardner) to dig up potentially useful dirt. But with the clock ticking, finding hard evidence against the plotters will prove a challenge.

With the Cold War at its peak after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Seven Days In May joined Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe in a trio of 1964 films exploring various what-ifs of the conflict. Based on a novel by Charles W. Bailey II and Fletcher Knebel with a script by none other than Rod Serling, Seven Days In May delves into the perils of harbouring trust in a peace process, and at least as a starting point comes closest to predicting the actual course of negotiations eventually pursued by the United States and the Soviet Union.

The film uses the Cold War as background stage set. The focus is on the erosion of trust in a President's actions at the highest levels, and the potential for a cabal of generals and politicians to hide in plain sight while plotting a governmental takeover. Serling places intrigue and evidence gathering at the forefront of the story, Seven Days In May not featuring a single act of serious violence despite the threat of massive military and political upheaval. Director John Frankenheimer luxuriates in choreographing deep focus black and white scenes, turning the nation's most secretive boardrooms and offices into cerebral battlegrounds.

Along with star Kirk Douglas, Frankenheimer was instrumental in pulling the project together, and he assembled a dream cast, adding Lancaster, March, Gardner, O'Brien and Balsam, all in good form and tackling grim roles with requisite seriousness. And the film passes the baton around the lead roles at regular intervals, Douglas, Gardner and then March taking turns in the spotlight, with Lancaster a menacing presence throughout.

By the end March rolls back the years and emerges as a dominant presence, his scenes opposite Douglas (revealing the conspiracy threads) and Lancaster (a tense confrontational showdown) both mesmeric. Serling's script may be faulted for underplaying the President's hand and authority as the climax approaches, but also allows for the epic interpersonal clashes to play out.

As the race against time to unmask the conspiracy hurtles towards the designated hour of action, the film grabs opportunities to debate the merits of pursuing peace. General Scott cannot fathom how a powerful ideological foe can ever be trusted to disarm and has the public on his side, while Lyman, with sinking approval ratings, is convinced negotiating a treaty from a position of strength is the only path to a non-ruinous future. It's an eternal warmongers versus peacemakers polemic, and sometimes nothing less than the future of a powerful nation hangs in the balance.

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Movie Review: Ace In The Hole (1951)

A drama about personal ambition trumping journalistic integrity, Ace In The Hole is a masterful indictment of society's addiction to bad news and the reporters who provide it.

Big city reporter Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) has been fired from every major respectable newspaper for either pushing the truth or acting irresponsibly. He washes up in Albuquerque, and the straitlaced editor of the Sun-Bulletin Jacob Q. Boot (Porter Hall) offers him an opportunity to rebuild his reputation. A year later Chuck is still stuck in the doldrums, unable to find a big story.

Chuck, seeking a job with Jacob: I've done a lot of lying in my time. I've lied to men who wear belts. I've lied to men who wear suspenders. But I'd never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both belt and suspenders.

All that changes when he stumbles upon ancient Indian caves in the remote community of Escudero, where local trading post owner Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) has just been trapped in a cave-in deep inside the unstable mountain. Leo's wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) appears surprisingly composed. Chuck senses an opportunity to place his name back in the spotlight by creating a sensational national story around the rescue attempt. He secures the help of corruptible Sheriff Kretzer (Ray Teal), and proceeds to orchestrate a high publicity circus, unconcerned with the human costs and consequences.

Chuck: It's a good story today. Tomorrow, it'll be yesterday's news and they'll wrap a fish in it.

An uncompromising statement on a journalistic subculture quick to exploit personal tragedies to sell news and trinkets, Ace In The Hole is a bleak perspective on the human condition. Inspired by the real-life event of W. Floyd Collins (mentioned in the film), writer, director and producer Billy Wilder gives free rein to his dark tendencies, eschewing any hints of humour as he draws a picture of naked ambition. Ace In The Hole starts with Chuck's grim determination to climb back up the journalistic ladder by any means, and traces his journey of cold-blooded career reclamation by event manipulation.

Chuck: I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.

Kirk Douglas is at his best leading with his considerable chin as the ultimate puppet master, and Wilder surrounds him with other unsavory characters either looking after their self-interest or easily led down the wrong path. With her husband trapped under rubble, Lorraine spots an opportunity to escape the nothingness of Escudero; she is quick to change her mind when the tourist money starts rolling in. The loyalty of Sheriff Kretzer is easy to buy, as all he cares about is reelection and Chuck offers him unprecedented free publicity.

Lorraine, to Chuck: I've met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you--you're twenty minutes.

The supposed rescue team leader proves to be a hapless follower, his path to a quick rescue derailed by a mountain drilling plan concocted by Chuck to prolong the incident from hours to days. Jacob Q. Boot is the one principled character, and he is confined to the Albuquerque backwater, reduced to stepping stone status and ultimately completely sidelined.

But most depressing is the predictable Pavlovian public reaction to the "human interest" story. Tatum's plan works because he fully understands the public's appetite to exploit a tragic but ultimately irrelevant sob story. Entertainers, buskers, peddlers, families on vacation and national reporters descend on the site in their thousands to be part of an event they have no vested interest in, and where there are crowds there is money to made and celebrity to be pumped.

Chuck: Human interest. You pick up the paper, you read about 84 men or 284, or a million men, like in a Chinese famine. You read it, but it doesn't stay with you. One man's different, you want to know all about him. That's human interest.

The mammoth purpose-built set is an awe-inspiring location, and Wilder builds up the crowds with measured expertise as the desolate desert outpost mushrooms into a chaotic town overwhelmed with parked cars and the cheesiest of carnival scenes.

As Ace In The Hole pushes further towards the tawdriest of human tendencies, events spiral even beyond Chuck's control. But then maybe he was never in control, just the catalyst unleashing the worst tendencies of a society suffering the malaise of misplaced priorities.

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Movie Review: Two Weeks In Another Town (1962)

A film industry drama, Two Weeks In Another Town idles in place, choking on an emotional void.

Former superstar film actor Jack Andrus (Kirk Douglas) has spent three years in a sanitarium after suffering a nervous breakdown. He caught his wife Carlotta (Cyd Charisse) cheating, resorted to alcoholism, and intentionally crashed his car into a wall. Now almost recovered, he accepts an invitation from director Kruger (Edward G. Robinson) to shoot a few scenes for good money in Rome.

Kruger and Andrus collaborated on seven previous features when they were both hugely successful. Now Kruger's career is also in decline, working for a cut-rate Italian producer and constantly nagged by his wife Clara (Claire Trevor). Jack steps in to help complete the film, including straightening out wayward star Davie Drew (George Hamilton), who is suffering from the sudden onset of stardom. Jack also starts a relationship with Veronica (Daliah Lavi), but Carlotta's presence in Rome complicates matters and re-triggers Jack's insecurities.

Ten years after the brilliant The Bad And The Beautiful, director Vincente Minnelli reteams with star Kirk Douglas for another inside-Hollywood story. They need not have bothered. This adaptation of the Irwin Shaw novel is a miserable screen experience, wasting a good cast and made worse by a CinemaScope format intended to showcase Rome but instead dwarfing what is intended as a character study.

As soon as Jack arrives in Rome the film stalls and drifts sideways with no apparent purpose and then starts to inch backwards into unintentional satirical territory. A romance with Veronica drops in from another movie, a miscast George Hamilton tries in vain to generate intensity, and Cyd Charisse as Carlotta appears to exist for the sole purpose of aggravating Jack.

In the meantime any sense of drama is supposed to be generated by Jack overseeing the dubbing process and then taking over directing duties: his techniques include kicking his star lady in the butt to get her to perform. Only Edward G. Robinson as once-celebrated director Kruger trying to reverse a precipitous career slide emerges with any credit.

By the time Jack emotionally regresses into a crazed driver mode both Douglas' wild-eyed over-the-top acting and Minnelli's equally bungled rear projection staging threaten to turn the film into bad comedy. Two Weeks In Another Town should have just stayed home.

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Movie Review: Lust For Life (1956)

A rather laborious biography of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, Lust For Life is filled with good intentions and dedicated acting, but struggles to create a story for the man who died alone, unknown and penniless.

The film opens in the late 1800s with van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) trying to define what he wants to do in life. He attempts to establish himself as a priest in a tough mining region, but soon realizes he prefers social work and rubbing shoulders with the miners rather than preaching to them. His brother Theo (James Donald) is an art dealer and extends continuous financial help as Vincent embarks on a fledgling career as an artist.

Vincent has plenty of passion but few useful social skills. He is rejected by the love of his life, starts a relationship with a lonely woman, and paints obsessively, honing his skills and looking for a break. He travels across Europe, from the countryside to Paris where he meets and briefly mingles with the impressionists, especially the flamboyant Gaugin (Anthony Quinn). Vincent generates a large volume of work, but finds no market for his paintings. With his physical and mental health starting to fail due to various ailments, he settles in the town of Arles, taking over a yellow house and revelling in the bright colours of the French countryside. Gaugin joins him for a stint, but tensions develop between the two men, and Vincent will face his final days on his own.

Directed by Vincente Minnelli, Lust For Life tackles a legendary subject but has little material to work with. The truth is that van Gogh did not live an exciting or celebrated life. He was a struggling and lonely artist, practicing his craft in the shadows of obscurity, struggling with undiagnosed and creeping sicknesses. With no family of his own, no friends who could tolerate him for too long, and no clients, van Gogh's life, unlike his work, is a sad but relatively boring canvas.

Absent an involving plot, Minnelli makes good use of the artist's letters to his brother to stitch together thoughts and emotions. The film is also filled with close-ups of van Gogh's paintings, and the credits acknowledge a long list of galleries and collectors for allowing the artist's paintings to be photographed for the film. Most notably, Minnelli bathes Lust For Life in vivid colours and an emphasis on bright reds and yellows, creating an aesthetic that resembles the bursts of life that define van Gogh's works.

Douglas throws himself into the role and delivers a serious, sometimes dour, performance. He conveys van Gogh as full of passion and sometimes fury at an unforgiving world, but also willing to be a student, learning from nature, and always striving to improve despite bleak prospects. Douglas' chiseled features are perfect for a character who only ever knew the hard life, and yet never stopped struggling to perfect his art. Anthony Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Gaugin. It's a relatively short but still earthy performance typical of Quinn, parking nuance at the door and doubling up on fervour.

Lust For Life does the best with what is available: intensity of spirit, burgeoning talent, and static images.

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Movie Review: The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

A fictional biography of a Hollywood producer, The Bad And The Beautiful is a riveting exposé of the power games that make an industry tick.

A-list director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), movie star Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner) and Pulitzer prize winning screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) all refuse to accept a phone call from producer and former colleague Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), who is now residing in Paris. Movie producer and Jonathan's long-time partner Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon) gathers the three in his office and asks them to reconsider. Jonathan wants to work with them again, despite their tumultuous history.

The movie is then structured into three flashback chapters. The first charts Jonathan's rise from obscurity. After the ignominious death of his father, Jonathan vows to create his own legacy and restore glory to the Shields name. He teams up with struggling director Fred Amiel and together they start cranking out Z-grade movies for Poverty Row producer Harry Pebbel. Once they learn their craft, Jonathan and Fred set their sights on more ambitious projects, and before long Jonathan's courage and vision propel them towards the big time. Pebbel will end up working for Shields; while Amiel will learn just how ruthless Jonathan can be in his quest to succeed as a studio head.

The second chapter finds Jonathan at the height of his success. He plucks unknown actress Georgia Lorrison out of obscurity and casts her as the leading lady in his latest big-budget production. Georgia has lived her life in the shadow of her infamous and now deceased father. Jonathan cajoles Georgia into overcoming her demons and quitting the bottle, and helps her commit to the role, giving her the chance of a lifetime to become a star. But Georgia will find out the hard way that he is as persuasive as he is insincere.

In the final chapter Jonathan convinces professor and author James Lee Bartlow to adapt his book into a screenplay. The problem is that Bartlow's wife Rosemary (Gloria Grahame) is a constant source of interruption, and sometimes irritation, preventing Bartlow from concentrating on his writing. Jonathan spots the obstruction and arranges for movie star "Gaucho" Ribera (Gilbert Roland) to distract Rosemary. The results are unexpected, both for Jonathan's studio and the Bartlow marriage.

Back in the present, Pebbel reminds his three guests that despite Jonathan's driven personality and abrasive methods, they all owe their career success to him. Fred, Georgia and James Lee have to again decide whether to accept the phone call from a man they vowed to shun.

In just under two hours, director Vincente Minnelli packs plenty of Hollywood into a potent film. The Bad And The Beautiful is navel gazing at its best, a film that strips naked the drive, ambition, and desperation of the people behind the images on the screen. Filled with oblique references to real people, shots of films in the making, cutthroat backroom deals, and glitzy parties, as well as the arm twisting, false ego pampering and emotional manipulation that goes into the making of every movie, The Bad And The Beautiful shines the spotlight on the larger than life personalities that create the silver screen magic.

The three chapter format works surprisingly well, and at around 35 minutes each, ensures brisk pacing. Several secondary characters make appearances in all three segments, including Pebbel, Gaucho, and pompous director Von Ellstein (Ivan Triesault), helping to tie together Jonathan's story from obscurity to ostracism. Even Georgia's character has tiny roles in the first and third story, perhaps to justify Lana Turner's top billing.

Star rankings aside, this is undoubtedly Kirk Douglas' movie, Jonathan Shields proving to be one of his most suitable and memorable roles. Douglas' features are put to best use as a driven, manipulative executive, his mind always working overtime to further his own cause while leading others along unfamiliar garden paths.

The Academy Award winning Charles Schnee screenplay (based on the book Tribute to a Badman by George Bradshaw) creates characters that are real and sympathetic without being necessarily always nice or honest. Jonathan Shields and his industry colleagues display strong streaks of selfishness and raw self-interest. But they are all true to their career ambitions, and achieve success laced with the regret of hard lessons, lost relationships and failed ventures. Fred, Georgia and James Lee travel along impressive character arcs, and all undergo profound but credible transitions under Jonathan's influence.

The Bad And The Beautiful exposes the ruthless conniving at the root of the surface glamour, and finds human intrigue worthy of the full Hollywood treatment.

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Movie Review: Out Of The Past (1947)

A classic film noir brimming with betrayal, murder, theft and manipulation, Out Of The Past toys with desolate drama driven by the desperation of the doomed.

A brooding tough guy called Joe (Paul Valentine) shows up at a middle-of-nowhere California gas station looking for the owner Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). Joe wants Jeff to travel to Lake Tahoe for a meeting with Joe's boss, shady businessman Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Jeff agrees and takes along girlfriend Ann Miller (Virginia Huston). On the drive to the meeting Jeff recounts in flashback his chequered history with Whit. As a private detective Jeff and his partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie) were hired by Whit to find his girlfriend Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) after she shot him four times and fled with $40,000 of his money.

Whit: You just sit and stay inside yourself. You wait for me to talk. I like that.
Jeff: I never found out much listening to myself.

Jeff found Kathie in Mexico, they fell in love, and escaped from the clutches of Whit. But when Fisher stumbled upon them living in hiding, Kathie shot and killed Fisher and promptly fled, leaving Jeff to deal with the mess of his former partner's dead body. Back in the present, Jeff enters the meeting and is stunned to find Kathie back with Whit, having returned to him after the Fisher killing. Whit appears friendly enough towards Jeff, and offers him an assignment to recover financial files being used by lawyer Leonard Eels (Ken Niles) to blackmail Whit. Jeff suspects a trap, and soon finds himself in multiple layers of trouble as the bodies pile up and his past catches up with him.

Jeff, narrating: And then I saw her, coming out of the sun, and I knew why Whit didn't care about that forty grand.

Among the most perfect examples of film noir, Out Of The Past luxuriates in slow smoke, bad intentions, illicit affairs, vivid shadows and razor sharp dialogue dripping with cynicism. The mood is unrelentingly dark and suspicious, the action hurtling towards only bad outcomes. Jeff narrates his own story with the tired resignation of a man who knows the game is up once the ghost of the past, in the form of Joe, shows up at his gas station. Nothing good can happen after that.

Director Jacques Tourneur packs a highly complex story into 97 minutes of grim pessimism. With pacing that accelerates as Jeff's destiny spirals ever downwards, the film's final 30 minutes do feel rushed, as the Daniel Mainwaring script races towards an incomprehensible cliff, but just manages to hang on as Jeff gets sucked into the vortex where Kathie, Whit, and Fisher all see him as a step-stool towards something else.

Kathie: You know, you're a curious man.
Jeff: You're gonna make every guy you meet a little bit curious.
Kathie: That's not what I mean. You don't ask questions. You don't even ask me what my name is.
Jeff: All right, what's your name?
Kathie: Kathie.
Jeff: I like it.
Kathie: Or where I come from?
Jeff: I'm thinkin' about where we're going.
Kathie: Don't you like it in here?
Jeff: I'm just not ready to settle down.
Kathie: Shall I take you somewhere else?
Jeff: You're going to find it very easy to take me anywhere.

Every time Jeff thinks that he's dodged one crisis he finds himself surfacing in a muddier swamp of trouble, and it all stems from falling in love with the wrong girl at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Kathie is a most dangerous femme fatale, and Jeff is the tragic hero with an inability to resist her seductive charms. Both are scrapping for more than what they deserve, in the vain hope that fate will give them a break and they can get away with undeserved contentment.

Kathie: Jeff, we've been wrong a lot, and unlucky a long time. I think we deserve a break.
Jeff: We deserve each other.

Robert Mitchum is perfectly depressing as Jeff, his economy of words and actions portraying a man allowing life to happen to him. Douglas brings menacing intensity to Whit, his toothy smile not trying to hide the arrogance that comes with illicit riches. And Jane Greer defines the irresistibly attractive manipulator, Greer exuding the intelligent sex appeal used by Kathie to confuse the weak and snare a man who can potentially help her get away from Whit. She is wrong, as is everyone else looking for a happy ending. In Out Of The Past, one mistake a long time ago is all it takes to condemn the future.

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The Movies Of Kirk Douglas

All movies starring Kirk Douglas and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Out Of The Past (1947)

A Letter To Three Wives (1949)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

The Big Trees (1952)

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

The Indian Fighter (1956)

Lust For Life (1956)

Gunfight At The O.K. Corral (1957)

Paths Of Glory (1957)

Spartacus (1960)

Town Without Pity (1961)

The Last Sunset (1961)

Lonely Are The Brave (1962)

Two Weeks In Another Town (1962)

The List Of Adrian Messenger (1963)

Seven Days In May (1964)

The Heroes Of Telemark (1965)

The Way West (1967)

The War Wagon (1967)

The Final Countdown (1980)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.