Movie Review: Never So Few (1959)

Genre: World War Two Adventure Romance

Director: John Sturges

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Paul Henreid

Running Time: 124 minutes

Synopsis: The setting is 1943, and in Burma's jungles, cocky American Captain Tom Reynolds (Frank Sinatra) and British Captain Danny De Mortimer (Richard Johnson) help a small group of native Kachin fighters engage Japanese forces. While in Calcutta to secure medical supplies, Tom sets eyes on the beautiful Carla (Gina Lollobrigida), the companion of wealthy businessman Nikko Regas (Paul Henreid). Tom nevertheless romantically pursues Carla between stints of warfare.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Tom T. Chamales' novel combines military skirmishes with lavish far-from-the-front-lines British Empire locales, and occasionally threatens to become interesting. In early roles, Charles Bronson as a Navajo soldier and Steve McQueen as an enterprising corporal trained on New York's streets are robust and charismatic respectively. Gina Lollobrigida adds sultry allure in a succession of stunning outfits (when she's not seductively naked in the bathtub).

What Does Not Work As Well: The narrative lacks focus, the tone is uneven, and Sturges never finds the right balance between the stiff combat scenes and a deeply unconvincing romance. Tom bluntly tells the sophisticated and worldly Carla he wants her perpetually pregnant and in the kitchen, and she melts into his arms. One seemingly relevant character just conveniently disappears, while the third act introduces a complex geopolitical conspiracy out of nowhere. A disengaged Frank Sinatra goes through the motions, but at least he loses his hideously conceived facial hair early.

Conclusion: The promise of sizzling action and torrid love is lost in the jungle.



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The Movies Of Peter Lawford

All movies starring Peter Lawford and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Mrs. Miniver (1942, uncredited)

Sahara (1943, uncredited)

Mrs. Parkington (1944)

The Picture Of Dorian Gray (1945)

Easter Parade (1948)

Royal Wedding (1951)

It Should Happen To You (1954)

Never So Few (1959)

Ocean's 11 (1960)

The Longest Day (1962)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: It Should Happen To You (1954)

A featherweight romantic comedy, It Should Happen To You benefits from a vibrant Judy Holliday and takes a few perceptive shots at the shallow world of fame, but otherwise has limited substance.

Free-spirited New York fashion model Gladys Glover (Holliday) has lost her job, but still dreams of being famous. Wandering through Central Park she meets budding photographer Pete Sheppard (Jack Lemmon), who has a down-to-earth view of life and cares little for the celebrity culture. Pete immediately falls in love with Gladys, but she is pursuing her dreams of fame and fortune. Gladys then spots an empty billboard in Columbia Circle and invests all her savings into buying the space and putting her name up in bold letters.

The Adams Soap Company usually rents that advertising board, and company executive Evan Adams III (Peter Lawford) attempts to negotiate with Gladys, offering her money and several alternative billboards around the city to free up the lucrative Columbia Circle location. Evan also starts to fall in love with Gladys, and as her dream of becoming famous suddenly becomes real, it's up to Pete to try and keep her feet on the ground while trying to win her heart.

It Should Happen To You predicts the ever increasing obsession with celebrity for the sake of celebrity, Gladys literally buying her way to notoriety and gaining fans, and then a contract, simply by emblazoning her name on billboards. Her stunt is the most crass form of marketing, and it works, an indictment of the industry and the public's fascination with a familiar name.

With a limited, one-idea premise, the film's appeal resides with Holliday, and she delivers with a deft comic touch. Holliday keeps Gladys on an even keel, mixing starry-eyed determination with large doses of naivete as she strides towards her goal of being a somebody. Her eyes are only opened when she gets close to the success she craves, and unfortunately the Garson Kanin script saddles her with a sudden and unconvincing awakening to the hazards of her ambition.

Lemmon, in his first credited role, quickly establishes his screen persona as normal man happy to be the voice of reason and one of the crowd, but still marching to the beat of a slightly peculiar drummer. His role as Pete is the straightforward conscience of Gladys, and although there are traces of chemistry between them the romance remains a stretch. Overall, the love triangle between Gladys, Pete and Evan plays second fiddle to the commentary on Gladys' fascination with fame.

Director George Cukor keeps the pacing brisk and wraps up the movie in 86 minutes. It Should Happen To You lingers just long enough to deliver it's simple message, then moves along like a time-limited ad campaign.

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Movie Review: Easter Parade (1948)

A musical stacked full of singing and some dancing, Easter Parade is mildly enjoyable as a talent show but awfully thin on the ground in terms of plot and characters.

Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) has a falling out with dance partner Nadine Hale (Ann Miller), when she accepts a starring role in a big-budget Ziegfeld-produced musical. The furious Don vows that he can turn any girl into a dancer to replace Nadine, and he plucks singer Hannah Brown (Judy Garland) out of a cheap diner routine and starts training her as his new partner.

With Nadine's career enjoying the spotlight, Don and Hannah struggle to establish themselves. Hannah falls in love with Don but he still has feelings for Nadine while his friend Johnny (Peter Lawford) lusts after Hannah.

Easter Parade had a troubled production, Astaire coming out of a short-lived screen retirement to replace Gene Kelly after Kelly had broken his ankle, and Ann Miller rescued from B movie obscurity to replace Cyd Charisse, after Charisse broke her leg.

With an endless parade of songs by Irving Berlin, Easter Parade is not as much a movie as a disjointed stage show. The 14 musical numbers are thrown at the screen in exhaustive fashion, the plot elements treated as rude interruptions between costume changes. The film reveals its intentions early, as Astaire gets to perform the opening two numbers, Happy Easter and Drum Crazy, before a single word is spoken, director Charles Walters signalling that the characters and story are very much a secondary concern.

When the personalities behind all the singing are sketchily introduced, they are unusually unlikable. Don Hewes is obsessed with his dancing and treats Hannah with disdain, using her to get back at Nadine. Garland does deliver the most engaged performance, but there is no chemistry between her and Astaire, and any reasons for Hannah to fall in love with Don start and stop at childish infatuation. Don never convincingly reciprocates any feelings, leaving the central romance a lopsided jumble.

Nadine is portrayed as cold and manipulative, Miller stuck with a plastic smile throughout, while Johnny is abandoned with no character development whatsoever, Lawford stranded as a the blandest of second-fiddle lovers.

The enjoyment does come from the better musical numbers, all making use of sparking colours. Drum Crazy is an energetic Astaire romp through a toy store, Miller rocks the joint and steals the movie with machine gun tap dancing in Shakin' the Blues Away, while Astaire and Garland enjoy their best moments in A Couple of Swells.

Easter Parade is a musical overburdened with the music, not lacking in talent but skipping too many ingredients essential for a well-rounded movie experience.

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Movie Review: Ocean's 11 (1960)

A disjointed caper movie featuring the Rat Pack, Ocean's 11 has a bit of style and not much substance. The assembled stars offer minimal acting effort and even less engagement, and around them the plot meanders for too long then yields to awkward execution.

Former military colleagues are slowly reassembled to pull-off a daring simultaneous robbery of five Las Vegas casinos. Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) is the informal leader with Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) as his main buddy. The key insiders include Sam Harmon (Dean Martin), a lounge singer at one of the Casinos, and garbage truck driver Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.). Beatrice Ocean (Angie Dickinson), the estranged wife of Danny, contributes the eye candy.

Exactly how the complex robbery unfolds is explained in only the most sketchy terms, but apparently a combination of a power failure, re-wired electrical switch boxes and glow-in-the-dark powder sprayed on door handles is all is takes to relieve five casinos of millions of dollars. All goes swimming well for Ocean and his gang, until one of the eleven drops dead of a heart-attack in the middle of the strip, attracting attention to the unusual gathering of former army men in Vegas.

Former criminal Duke Santon (Cesar Romero) then offers his services to the casinos: in exchange for recovering the missing millions, he demands a hefty cut. There are some desperate shenanigans related to hiding money in caskets before the entire heist goes up in smoke.

Director Lewis Milestone never gets a handle on the material, and allows Ocean's 11 to drift endlessly for it's first hour, picking up no momentum whatsoever as a succession of Danny Ocean's friends are clumsily introduced. There is a painfully unfunny recurring joke related to Ocean and Foster making repeated prank phone calls to the brains behind the plot, an incomprehensible Greek with the name of Spyros Acebos (Akim Tamiroff).

Ocean's 11 picks up somewhat once the actual robbery starts to unfold, but the rudimentary acting, directing, writing and cinematography conspire against any memorable moments. The one thing going for the movie is a decent sense of style: Sinatra and his crew are sharply dressed and well pressed, and the Vegas casinos represent the height of glamour circa 1960.

Ocean's 11 enjoys a few moments of panache, but it is generally all wet.

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