Movie Review: To The Devil A Daughter (1976)

Genre: Occult Horror  

Director: Peter Sykes  

Starring: Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Nastassja Kinski, Honor Blackman  

Running Time: 92 minutes  

Synopsis: In London, occult author John Verney (Richard Widmark) accepts a request from Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliott) to hide Henry's daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski). She was raised as a nun in seclusion by excommunicated priest Father Rayner (Christopher Lee), who has plans to unleash a version of Satan with a ceremonial baptism on Catherine's 18th birthday. John has to protect Catherine and find a way to stop Rayner's plot.

What Works Well: This low-budget Anglo-German Hammer adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's book benefits from a high caliber cast. A beady-eyed Christopher Lee revels as a dark side priest, Denholm Elliott is sweaty and flustered as a father trapped in a Faustian pact, Richard Widmark is serviceable, and Nastassja Kinski suitably mysterious. Director Peter Sykes conjures up some effective moments of sexualized suspenseful disgust. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Some plot details appear to be either incoherent or made up on the fly, the sinister conspiracy is barely explained, and after 20 years of plotting and with apparent supernatural powers at their disposal, the evil doers are all too easily stumped by a stuffy author. The budget limitations are exposed by choppy or inconsistent audio, editing, and cinematography.

Key Quote:

Verney: 98 percent of so-called Satanists are nothing but pathetic freaks who get their kicks by dancing naked in freezing church yards. They use the Devil as an excuse for getting some sex. But then there's that other two percent. I'm not so sure about them.

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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 Review: Flight From Ashiya (1964)

Genre: Rescue Adventure  

Director: Michael Anderson  

Starring: Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark, George Chakiris, Shirley Knight  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: A cargo vessel breaks up in rough seas off the coast of Japan, and the US Air Force Rescue Service is dispatched to pluck survivors out of the ocean. The rescuers include Major Sergeant Mike Takashima (Yul Brynner), Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Stevenson (Richard Widmark), and 2nd Lieutenant John Gregg (George Chakiris). Flashbacks reveal stories that shaped the men: Gregg was traumatized by a rescue-gone-wrong in the German mountains; Stevenson found his great love (Shirley Knight) and learned to hate during World War Two in Manila; and in the North Africa campaign, Takashima romantically pursued a Tunisian girl (Danièle Gaubert).

What Works Well: The cast is rich in talent, and the plot's ambition is not in doubt: co-writer Elliott Arnold (adapting his novel) traverses snowy mountains, raging oceans, the North Africa desert, and wartime Manila to cover distinct dramas. The bookend ocean rescue is a straightforward story of heroism, sacrifice, and overcoming psychological barriers, while the flashbacks coalesce around the theme of loss. 

What Does Not Work As Well: With no one story to focus on, the four episodes stumble on hokey improbabilities, and none are sharp enough to stand on their own merits. Sappy romantic interludes dominate for long stretches, and while both Stevenson and Takashima fall madly in love based on momentary infatuations, at least Takashima's lusty pursuit ends in a non-recoverable tragic (and unintended) comedy. The writing is rudimentary, the emotions superficially one-dimensional, and the recruitment propaganda is of the in-your-face variety.

Conclusion: The rescuers need rescuing from dangerous contrivances.



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Movie Review: The Swarm (1978)

Genre: Disaster Thriller  

Director: Irwin Allen  

Starring: Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Katharine Ross, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Lee Grant, Olivia de Havilland  

Running Time: 155 minutes  

Synopsis: A swarm of killer bees originating from Africa kills most personnel at an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Base in the United States. The President appoints scientist Dr. Crane (Michael Caine) to lead the response, and he immediately clashes with the military's General Slater (Richard Widmark). Crane finds an ally in the base's medical officer Dr. Anderson (Katharine Ross), then recruits scientists Dr. Krim (Henry Fonda) and Dr. Hubbard (Richard Chamberlain) to try and develop a bee-defeating strategy. Meanwhile, the swarm attacks the nearby small town community of Marysville, then heads towards Houston.

What Works Well: The scenes of bees swarming fallen victims are impressively yucky.

What Does Not Work As Well: An inept and laughable script combines with plastic performances to contend for the title of worst 1970s-era disaster movie. The science is bad, the military response is worse, and most of the special effects are childish. Michael Caine and Richard Widmark embarrass themselves with frequent shouting matches, but Olivia De Havilland, Ben Johnson, and Fred MacMurray are also awful as participants in the cringiest of love triangles. Ross collapses and recovers multiple times, but still stumbles through a wedged-in romance with Caine. Lee Grant as a television journalist suddenly disappears, and only Henry Fonda as a wheelchair-bound scientist salvages a modicum of dignity.

Conclusion: As an unintended parody, The Swarm is pathetically funny.



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Movie Review: Night And The City (1950)

Genre: Noir Drama

Director: Jules Dassin

Starring: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Hugh Marlowe

Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: In London, Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is a small-time hustler determined to make it big. To finance his far-fetched schemes he constantly demands money from his increasingly exasperated girlfriend Mary (Gene Tierney), who works at the nightclub owned by businessman Phil Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan) and his wife Helen (Googie Withers). After meeting retired Greco-Roman wrestling legend Gregorius, Harry believes he can become an influential wrestling promoter. For different reasons, Nosseross, Helen, and Gregorius' son Kristo (Herbert Lom), himself a financier of entertainment wrestling, are all interested in Harry's venture.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Gerald Kersh's book is a grim, plot-rich, and relentless journey through London's underworld. As Harry Fabian, Richard Widmark's combustible mix of desperation, self-belief, and smarminess scorches the screen, as his obsessive search for a shortcut to riches obsures ever-increasing risks. Director Jules Dassin adds a deep set of well-rounded characters pursuing conflicting agendas, and peppers the drama with London riffraff: a forger, a beggar merchant, and a riverfront smuggler all influence Harry's destiny. Strained relationships underpin motivations, including the unhappy Nosseross marriage, Gregorius' disappointment in his son Kristo, and Mary believing in Harry even as he tests her limits. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Other than Mary and her non-entity neighbour Adam (Hugh Marlowe), none of the characters are deserving of much sympathy.

Conclusion: Big plans for rich rewards come with hefty hazards.



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Movie Review: Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

A military drama, Twilight's Last Gleaming wields the threat of launching nukes, but sinks into the silos.

In Montana, disgraced former Air Force General Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) breaks out of prison along with convicts Powell, Garvas, and Hoxey (Paul Winfield, Burt Young, and William Smith). They infiltrate and take control of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch site. With his finger on the button that could launch nine nuclear warheads towards the Soviet Union, Dell connects with his former commander General Martin MacKenzie (Richard Widmark) and demands to talk to US President David Stevens (Charles Durning).

Dell wants Stevens to publicly release top secret documents revealing the futility of the Vietnam War. MacKenzie crafts a plan for a military assault on the silo base to end the takeover, while Stevens weighs his options with a group of advisors.

Twilight's Last Gleaming enjoys an impressive-looking set at the silo base, and the opening facility penetration is decent when swallowed with a liberal dose of just-go-with-it. But while a rogue General could have plenty of reasons to initiate global destruction, releasing the minutes of a White House meeting about a past conflict must be close to the bottom of the list. Walter Wager's novel may have worked on paper, but the script by Ronald M. Cohen and Edward Huebsch rarely extracts tension out of the doofus premise, and director Robert Aldrich makes matters worse by extending the exercise to a wholly unnecessary 146 minutes.

Minutiae replaces substance and the pace slows to a crawl. Several sequences consist of Dell and his crew in the launch room waiting for President Stevens and his advisors to make a decision, with MacKenzie playing the role of joker in the pack. Aldrich attempts an artificial injection of energy with overuse of split screens, and twice resorts to prolonged handle-this-gizmo-with-care-or-it-will-explode scenes. 

Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark are always watchable and come close to rescuing a few moments. An unlikely choice for President, Charles Durning appears suspicious of his own abilities to convince. He is surrounded by veterans like Melvyn Douglas and Joseph Cotten spouting their lines with earnest plasticity. 

The final act throws logic to the wind, the previously cold and calculating Dell succumbing to a bout of idiocy but only after Stevens opts for a ludicrous plan to end the showdown. The plot suddenly veers towards unearned notions of grand self-sacrifice, further hastening Twilight's Last Gleaming's descent into darkness.



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Movie Review: Yellow Sky (1948)

A thoughtful western with eerie settings, Yellow Sky contemplates themes of honour, greed, and leadership.

In 1867, outlaw James "Stretch" Dawson (Gregory Peck) leads his gang into a town where they quietly rob the local bank without hurting anyone. The gang members include the cool and detached Dude (Richard Widmark), the ambitious but highly strung Lengthy (John Russell), the noisy Walrus (Charles Kemper), and the young Bull Run (Robert Arthur). Chased by a posse, they escape into a hostile desert.

Suffering dehydration and exhaustion, the gang arrives at the abandoned town of Yellow Sky. The only inhabitants are a young woman named Mike (Anne Baxter) and her Grandpa (James Barton), a prospector. Mike triggers sexual tension among the gang members, while Lengthy and Dude take turns challenging Stretch's leadership. When Dude learns that Grandpa has a stash of gold, Stretch negotiates a share agreement, but greed causes gang rivalries to explode into violence.

Directed by William A. Wellman, written by Lamar Trotti, and inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, Yellow Sky enjoys unconventional twists. The absence of a natural protagonist is pleasantly disorienting. Stretch Dawson is an outlaw, and has to work hard to reveal the gradations of good separating him from the other gang members. The settings and terrain are also more mythical than traditional westerns, the narrative seeking mental and physical isolation as triggers for organizational breakdown. The desert crossing sequence is a brutal odyssey across unforgiving land, and at the end of it the ghost town of Yellow Sky is the antithesis of salvation.

A watering hole at the town's edge emerges as the one initially unifying source of life, until a woman, gold, and greed combine to bust up the gang. Mike's male name metaphorically signals she is unaware of her impact on men. Quickly a target of their lust, she also wields power beyond the rifle to influence outcomes. 

Some of the film's other elements are less refined. The large group of Apaches who ride into town are an unwieldy plot contrivance in the evolution of trust between Stretch and Grandpa. Wellman excels when the pacing is deliberate, but struggles when emotions run high, the scuffling and shootout scenes lacking polish. And the search for gold takes a detour into an unlikely and clumsy mine excavation.

But the aesthetics are always engaging and convey a slightly surreal trapped-in-a-nightmare mood, the black and white cinematography (courtesy of Joseph MacDonald) making excellent use of sparsity to surround Stretch and his men with ramshackle nothingness. And the narrative strengthens with the sturdy character arc navigated by Stretch, Trotti providing him with a background, a reason to reform, and an opportunity to stand by his word and seek redemption. In Yellow Sky, the pathway from money to wealth passes through an arid test of self-reckoning.



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Movie Review: No Way Out (1950)

A racism drama set in the world of medicine, No Way Out tackles prejudice through the story of a doctor forced to defend his reputation. 

Dr. Luther Brooks (Sidney Poitier) is the first black doctor at a respectable hospital. His mentor Dr. Dan Wharton (Stephen McNally) assigns Luther to the prison ward, where the racist criminal Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark) and his brother Johnny are admitted with gunshot wounds. 

Johnny dies while Luther is trying to save his life, but Ray insists his brother was murdered by the doctor and refuses to authorize an autopsy that would prove the cause of death. Luther and Wharton turn to Johnny's ex-wife Edie (Linda Darnell) for help, but she is manipulated by Ray, who wants to spark racial riots between adjacent white and black neighbourhoods.

Sidney Poitier's first major screen role is a powerful, sometimes painful, commentary on poisonous white supremacy. Ray Biddle is a despicable character who makes no attempt to hide his blind hatred of blacks, and in the hands of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, No Way Out becomes a searing examination of what Dr. Brooks is forced to endure. Despite the robust support of his mentor Dr. Wharton, Luther is surrounded by eyes loaded with suspicion, doubt, or outright contempt.

While always impactful, No Way Out suffers from some needless meandering. The script (by Mankiewicz and Lesse Samuels) goes searching for a larger story about inter-neighbourhood strife in an attempt to expand from the personal to the collective. Scenes of goons from adjacent communities prodded into street battles are impressively staged, but stray away from the compelling central characters and individual conflicts.

Better are the representations of Dr. Brooks' home life, and the emphasis on his family's normality. In portraying a black family striving towards the common American dream, Mankiewicz succeeds in isolating Ray Biddle as the outlier somehow expressing contempt for the nation's most admired traits.

Caught in the middle is the character of Edie Johnson, representing internal turmoil between a tainted past and a potentially better future. She intuitively knows she must distance herself from the toxicity of former brother-in-law (and illicit lover) Ray, but is still susceptible to his fake charms and false narratives. Poitier, Richard Widmark, and Linda Darnell add plenty of streetwise grit in the three central roles, investing in deeply uncomfortable and emotionally draining scenes.

Ray and Johnny Biddle have a third brother, the deaf and mute George. He is observant, conniving, and an eager enabler of prejudice, virulent bigotry thriving in the shadow of silence.



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Movie Review: Madigan (1968)

A tough police procedural, Madigan tackles multiple storylines but is more successful as a television series template than a cohesive film.

In New York City, detectives Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino) are humiliated when fugitive Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnay) slips from their grasp and steals their guns during what should have been a routine arrest. They set out to make amends, contacting Benesch's known associates to track him down. 

Meanwhile Police Commissioner Anthony Russell (Henry Fonda) has other problems: he receives proof his long time friend and deputy Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitmore) is on the take, while the distinguished Dr. Taylor (Raymond St. Jacques) is accusing the police department of harassing his Black son.

Madigan is finding it increasingly difficult to manage the expectations of his wife Julia (Inger Stevens), who resents his frequent absences and low salary. Russell is single, but is having an affair with the married Tricia (Susan Clark). Through bookie Castiglione (Michael Dunn) and then part-time pimp Hughie (Don Stroud), Madigan and Bonaro close in on Benesch, but he is determined to evade arrest.

An adaptation of Richard Dougherty's book The Commissioner with a script by Howard Rodman and Abraham Polonsky, Madigan deserves credit for attempting to round the two principal characters into people who have private lives and frustrations beyond solving the crime at hand. And the concurrent stories add a dose of realism, a Commissioner like Russell not afforded the luxury of solving one problem at a time. 

While the change in title from book to film suggests an increased focus on top-billed Richard Widmark's detective, director Don Siegel still tilts the screen time more towards Henry Fonda's commissioner. In this case, this is not necessarily a good thing, Fonda appearing dour and vaguely disinterested throughout. His multiple worries surrounding the evidence against Inspector Kane, Dr. Taylor's allegations of brutality and racism, and his illicit relationship with Tricia spread the movie too thin. Madigan threatens to drop to the level of a television pilot where future episodes will pick up the many loose threads (a short-lived network series did follow).

Siegel does better foreshadowing 1970s urban grittiness and loose-cannon detectives. Madigan deglamourizes New York City into yellows and browns, the action playing out in back alleys, narrow hallways and nondescript motel rooms. And with Widmark relishing his character's joy at operating just slightly over the line, the film starts and ends with short and sharp bangs, taut encounters with the dangerous Benesch making up for some of the flab in the middle. The police officers may have romantic partners to appease and cocktail parties to attend, but nothing replaces the thrill of the chase.



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Movie Review: Panic In The Streets (1950)

A crime drama and medical thriller, Panic In The Streets adds the threat of an epidemic and pointed character dynamics to a gritty on-location police investigation.

In New Orleans, a grungy poker game is interrupted when Kochak (Lewis Charles), a recent stowaway arrival in the city, feels sick and departs with his winnings. Gangster Blackie (Jack Palance) is not impressed: he shoots Kochak dead. The dumped body is found the next day, and after the coroner raises the alarm, Lieutenant Commander Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) of the Public Health Service determines Kochak was suffering from the contagious and deadly pneumonic plague.

Reed teams up with police Captain Tom Warren (Paul Douglas) to trace the movements of the dead man and inoculate all who came in contact with him. They have 48 hours before an epidemic breaks out and the press release the story. The investigation leads to a port hiring hall, then a freighter, and finally a Greek restaurant. Blackie and his associates Fitch (Zero Mostel) and Poldi (Guy Thomajan) sense heightened police interest in their victim and conclude Kochak was hiding something important.

Filmed on location in New Orleans, Panic In The Streets finds director Elia Kazan delving into stark territory with hard-headed men engaged in uncompromising pursuits. The discovery of an unknown murder victim should barely warrant a mention in a city like New Orleans, but here the dead man becomes the critical victim zero of a potentially catastrophic epidemic, forcing doctor Reed and Captain Warren to begrudgingly work together.

The men are not natural allies, and the film benefits by underlining their contrasts. Reed is dogmatic about the impending crisis, pushing Warren into a skeptical and unimpressed mood. The script by Richard Murphy and Daniel Fuchs gives the conflict time and space to breathe, mutual respect growing slowly and in earned increments.

The film also expands into the home front. Clinton is feeling sorry for himself, stuck in a non-glamorous government job and insufficient income to pay the bills. His wife Nancy (Barbara Bel Geddes) frets about finances while longing for a second child to provide a sibling for their young son Tommy. But in the middle of the evolving crisis Nancy works up the courage to provide a crucial ego boost to her exhausted man, Bel Geddes shining in her designated moment.

The focus on characters helps the film overcome its obvious rough patches. Kazan has fun with sharp shadows and pointed contrasts in grimy locations, but is otherwise caught between a police procedural and a medical thriller. The plot often trips over itself trying to explain why the epidemic will hold off for 48 hours, and how finding Blackie as a crime perpetrator without tracing his contacts is somehow cause to proclaim the end of the crisis.

Richard Widmark adds a high level of intensity, his quick temper matched only by his rapid reach for a syringe to poke antidotes into everyone's arm. In his film debut, Jack Palance casts a tall shadow as a cold-blooded thug.

Despite a few questionable doses, Panic In The Streets wields a pointy needle.

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Movie Review: Slattery's Hurricane (1949)

A drama, thriller and romance, Slattery's Hurricane packs plenty of incident into a short running length, but adheres to obvious and superficial tones.

With a hurricane rapidly approaching Miami, retired Navy man Will Slattery (Richard Widmark) steals a plane and flies towards the storm. In flashback, he recalls recent events with regret.

Both Slattery and his girlfriend Dolores (Veronica Lake) are employed by chocolate importing tycoon R.J. Milne (Walter Kingsford), Slattery as a pilot and Dolores as a secretary, and they both turn a blind eye to their employer's drug-running side-business. Slattery bumps into his old buddy Hobson (John Russell), who now flies for the Navy's weather monitoring service. Slattery quickly rekindles a passion for Hobson's wife Aggie (Linda Darnell), who was Slattery's old flame.

By pursuing a torrid affair with Aggie Slattery betrays both Hobson and Dolores, and his life is further complicated when he gets inadvertently involved in a drug run. The Navy reconnects with Slattery to right an old wrong, and as Dolores slips away from him, he recommits to fixing his life.

Filmed with the cooperation of the Navy and the Weather Bureau, Slattery's Hurricane wraps a gritty story of illicit romance, betrayal, crime and atonement around a salute to the men flying dangerous missions to track hurricane trajectories. Despite a running length of just 83 minutes, many scenes feature actors bouncing inside fake cockpits and airplanes flying through clouds. Director Andre DeToth adopts a direct, no-nonsense approach to storytelling, colouring the characters with blunt crayons, breathlessly bringing the Herman Wouk story to life with rapidfire intensity but minimal depth.

As a result, only Slattery emerges as a somewhat rounded individual, and even he borders on incredulous. Richard Widmark is in fine uncompromising form portraying Slattery as an egocentric man with several chips on his shoulder. He is sore at the Navy for ignoring his heroics and never emotionally recovered from Aggie abandoning him (after he repeatedly ignored her). And so Slattery's me-first mentality is impressively dismissive of both Dolores and Hobson as he selfishlessly maneuvers to win back Aggie. His late-in-the-day attempts at redemption are sudden and seemingly inconsistent with his core.

The other major characters barely rise above cursory. Dolores is plain, Veronica Lake (also Mrs. DeToth at the time) missing her trademark hairdo and unable to reignite her career. She was shortchanged once the script ran afoul of the Production Code, DeToth forced to punt a subplot about Dolores' ailment. Aggie and Hobson remain empty vessels for Slattery to take advantage of, and the villains are barely defined.

Despite the shortcomings Slattery's Hurricane boasts undeniably engaging fury, the stormy rains and winds combining with Slattery's bulldozer attitude to create incessant forward momentum. The duration is brief, but the passion palpable.

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Movie Review: Kiss Of Death (1947)

A character profile focusing on the dilemma of an informer, Kiss Of Death is an intense crime drama heightened by an unforgettable Richard Widmark performance. 

It's Christmas time in New York City. Ex-convict Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) joins three hoodlums to rob a jewelry story at the Empire State Building, but he is the only one caught. Assistant District Attorney Louis D'Angelo (Brian Donlevy) offers leniency in return for the names of the other gang members, but Nick refuses to squeal and is sentenced to a long stint behind bars.

Three years later, Nick learns his wife has committed suicide, and his two daughters are in an orphanage. His ex-neighbour Nettie (Coleen Gray) visits him in prison and reveals that Rizzo, one of Nick's former associates, may have mistreated his wife before her death. Nick now strikes a deal with D'Angelo, naming names to earn visits with his daughters. Soon Nick is released on parole and settles down with Nettie, but D'Angelo wants his help to nab the dangerous Tommy Udo (Widmark), a psychotic killer.

In one of the more memorable big screen debuts, Richard Widmark announces his arrival with an incendiary performance. When he is on screen as the cackling, unhinged Udo, nothing else matters. He commands his scenes with a murderous edge of barely contained psychosis, creating one of the screen's most noteworthy villains.

When Widmark is not dominating, the screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer is primarily interested in Nick's soul searching as he struggles to decide whether the criminal code of silence is worth the impact on his family. Despite a robust and heartfelt Victor Mature central performance, the narrative is sometimes bogged down wondering if Nick can be a good man at heart. 

But director Henry Hathaway also punctuates Kiss Of Death with short and sharp moments of extreme violence, including allowing Udo to earn his place in cinematic infamy in a scene involving a wheelchair and a staircase.

Some elements proved too troublesome for the censors and audiences of the day, leaving Nick's story somewhat muddled. His wife's death, and the role of the criminal Rizzo, were truncated to the edge of incomprehension. The romance between Nick and Nettie proceeds at jarring speed, and the climactic showdown is too far fetched, even for the standards of hardboiled men.

But Hathaway also produces some moments of noir-infused brilliance to compensate for the rough spots. In a couple of sequences, time slows down to a crawl to build unbearable tension. The endlessly long elevator descent from the opening scene of the crime to the lobby of the Empire State Building allows Nick plenty of time to reflect on his life's downward trajectory. And later, Udo's emergence from behind a curtain at an Italian restaurant is prolonged to an epic noir moment.

On either side of the prison walls, Kiss Of Death offers only dark paths to redemption.

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Movie Review: Pickup On South Street (1953)

A Cold War espionage film noir, Pickup On South Street packs thrills, romance and complex characters into the story of a pickpocket who unwittingly disrupts a communist spy operation.

On a busy subway train in New York City, courier Candy (Jean Peters) has her wallet stolen by professional pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark). The theft is spotted by investigators tracking Candy, who is a mostly clueless courier working for ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley), a member of a communist spy ring. Her wallet contains a valuable stolen microfiche, and now Skip is the most wanted man in the city.

Police agents seek the help of dotty underworld informer Moe (Thelma Ritter) to identify and locate Skip, while Candy uses her own contacts to find his riverfront shack. Skip now realizes he is in possession of valuable merchandise and can sell to the highest bidder, if he can stay alive. But a simmering romance ignites between him and Candy, complicating all agendas.

An uncompromising story of treason crashing upon the rocks of passionate individual desires, Pickup On South Street combines a Cold War-inspired national security thriller with intimate portraits of small people caught up in big events. Writer and director Samuel Fuller jams three character studies into 80 minutes, and still allows time for soul searching, brutality, murder and expertly crafted moments of devious suspense.

Secondary people on the margins of other films here take centre stage. Skip is cocky, sarcastic and one misstep away from lifelong incarceration. Attracting the attention of a communist ring and police investigators is the last thing he needs. And yet he recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime when he sees it, but pesky romantic feelings towards Candy start to interfere. Meanwhile she proves more resourceful and resilient than an average underworld courier, first to find Skip then understand their joint predicament. At personal cost she buys them both just enough time to manoeuver.

And finally, and most poignant, is the stoolie Moe. In many ways Pickup On South Street is the story of the eccentric informer, surviving by selling neckties for $1 and information for whatever amount she can extract from any buyer on either side of the law. Only Moe cares about Moe, and she is deeply aware how disposable and irrelevant she is. Ultimately she will have to decide if any cause actually matters more than a few crumpled bills thrown her way.

Apart from the characters, Fuller packs the film with violence, and the brutality towards women is sometimes difficult to stomach. Elsewhere suspense takes over, including a clever interlude involving a dumbwaiter.

Despite the short length some sections do drag, the romance between Skip and Candy laboriously reaching a slow boil, and the climax features a few unlikely contortions towards a brighter-than-needed ending.

But Fuller leans on his dream cast to get through the lethargic sections, and intense close-ups are rewarded with career highlights. Richard Widmark is smooth and slick, Jean Peters seductive and sly, and Thelma Ritter sad and soulful.

Pickup On South Street features one stolen wallet and three unforgettable lives changed forever.

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Movie Review: The Domino Principle (1977)

A conspiracy thriller, The Domino Principle (also known as The Domino Killings) takes forever to get to the point only to realize it does not have one.

Decorated Vietnam War veteran Roy Tucker (Gene Hackman) is serving a long prison sentence at San Quentin for murdering the former husband of his wife Ellie (Candice Bergen). He passes the time enduring the tall tales of his talkative cellmate Spiventa (Mickey Rooney). Tagge (Richard Widmark) and Ross (Eddie Albert) represent mysterious interests and start visiting Tucker in prison, delving into his background with a promise of an early release in exchange for unspecified assignments.

Eventually Tucker and Spiventa gain their freedom in a staged escape. Transported to Costa Rica, Tucker is provided with a fake identity and bank account and reunited with Ellie at a lavish villa. He also meets retired General Reser (Eli Wallach), another of Tagge's associates. Relocated to Long Beach, Tucker balks at the designated assassination assignment, endangering Ellie's life.

Director and producer Stanley Kramer, known for his cerebral socially conscious dramas from decades past, steps way outside his comfort zone and predictably stumbles. The Domino Principle clambers onto the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam pile of films tapping into government mistrust, but the adaptation of Adam Kennedy's book is a vacuous exercise in hinting at something that never happens.

The premise of dark hands manipulating everyone and everything is used as an excuse to explain nothing, and instead the film settles down first as a prolonged prison interview and then a travelogue hopping from San Francisco to Costa Rica then Long Beach. The cinematography by Fred J. Koenekamp and Ernest Laszlo is often spectacular and always bright and colourful, but cannot hide the absence of actual content.

Tagge, Ross and General Reser represent a heavy-hitting trio of mystery men (and talented actors) who never reveal anything beyond shuffling Tucker from one location to another. The assassination assignment is inferred, neither the victim nor the cause ever discussed. And Tucker's insubordination at every turn, attempting with decreasing success to wrangle free from the men now controlling his life, becomes the tired focus of the film.

All of which is a waste of a stellar cast. Gene Hackman, Richard Widmark and Eli Wallach all deserved better, and even Eddie Albert and Mickey Rooney deliver better-than-usual work here, all of it unfortunately misdirected. The biggest victim is Candice Bergen, miscast and struggling mightily in deglamorized role.

The Domino Principle bungles both the set-up and the knock-down.

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Movie Review: Bear Island (1979)

A basic thriller, Bear Island offers a good cast and plenty of stunts, but the rather senseless plot is beyond salvation.

American academic Frank Lansing (Donald Sutherland) joins a group of international scientists researching climate change on the remote and icy Bear Island, located between Norway and the Arctic Circle in the Barents Sea. The expedition leader is German Otto Geran (Richard Widmark), and the other scientists include Norway's Heddi Lindquist (Vanessa Redgrave), Poland's Lechinski (Christopher Lee), American Smithy (Lloyd Bridges) and Canada's Judith Rubin (Barbara Parkins).

Bear Island was a Nazi naval base bombed heavily towards the end of the World War Two, and Lansing reveals he is the son of a German U-Boat commander. Geran designates parts of the island off-limits to the other scientists. Suspicious mishaps including avalanches and explosions start to beset the expedition and it becomes quickly apparent that an evil plot is unfolding and the scientists are in grave danger.

A Canadian production directed by Don Sharp, Bear Island is a perfunctory adaptation of the Alistair MacLean's novel. The cast is talented, the stunt performers do their job well and Sharp effectively conveys the unforgiving environment of ice, snow, wind and bitter cold. But the sloppy and barely defined treasure hunt story is straight from the bottom drawer of adventure ideas and unlikely to resonate with anyone past the age of ten.

Bear Island jettisons all its intriguing climate change research subplot within the first 15 minutes. After brief introductions the scientists are reduced to unwilling participants in a frozen version of And Then There Were None, one scientist killed or seriously hurt every ten minutes or so. Once revealed, the villains are a disappointing clutch of featureless characters, while the assorted red herrings are just as bland.

The action scenes are plentiful and feature a killer avalanche, a mammoth explosion, a completely unnecessary dunk in icy waters and a high speed chase across snowy terrain using innovative motorized vehicles. Due to the lack of engaging content elsewhere, Sharp prolongs these scenes well past what is necessary, and as a result the stunt performers appear to get more screen time than the cast members.

Bear Island is cluttered with hidden history and secret agendas, all of them best kept frozen.

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Movie Review: The Alamo (1960)

A cinematic recounting of the famous battle, The Alamo is a well-staged but bloated western. Historical events are used as a faint foundation for mainly fictional heroics.

It's 1836 in a Texas conceivably controlled by Mexico, with the army of General Santa Anna sweeping through the countryside to consolidate his rule. Ramshackle pro-independent Texas forces are militarily disorganized but united in opposition to Santa Anna. General Sam Houston (Richard Boone) is the leader of the fledgling Texas Army and to gain precious time to recruit and train troops, he appoints Colonel Travis (Laurence Harvey) to make a stand at the abandoned Alamo mission compound.

Travis has only a few dozen men under his command, and a strained relationship with fellow Colonel Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark), an adventurer who commands his own small contingent. The two men can barely stand each other but join forces to cobble together a defensive plan. They are eventually joined by former Tennessee congressman and legendary maverick Colonel Davy Crockett (John Wayne), who adds his band of two dozen men into the ranks. Altogether about 200 men prepare to defend the Alamo against an army of more than 1,800.

A passion project for director and producer John Wayne, The Alamo is a grand western with elaborate sets, thousands of extras, mythological themes of heroism, nation building and sacrifice, and rousing battle scenes, including the climactic final assault. The film certainly does not lack ambition, but features enough misplaced bombast to also aggravate.

The film extends to close to three hours, and the fat surfaces in errant emphasis. The James Edward Grant script barely provides any context to the Texas Revolution. Instead an entire pre-siege sub-plot featuring a fledgling relationship between Crockett and Mexican widow Maria de Lopez (Linda Cristal) and her unwanted suitor drops in seemingly from another movie, and is then unceremoniously scrubbed out of the narrative. Hit-and-run raids by the mission defenders to sabotage a Mexican cannon and then steal heads of cattle are fictional enhancements and serve as juvenile distractions to introduce action and prolong the adventure.

Wayne injects a few soap-box soliloquies about freedom and his love of republics, and these land in the gap between rousing and cringe-inducing. Better are the inter-character dynamics, and here Wayne does invest welcome time is defining and building upon the tension between Travis and Bowie. Travis is a top-down by-the-book authoritarian, Bowie is an instinctive freewheeling and adventurous leader. They cannot reconcile their contradictory styles but both are effective, and the best moments of the film are drawn from the evolution of the barbed dynamic between them.

The cast is large, although not many secondary characters are provided an opportunity to shine. Heartthrob singer Frankie Avalon appears as a young soldier to attract the teenage demographic to the theatres. Chill Wills as a Tennessean known as Beekeeper, Ken Curtis as the loyal Captain Dickinson and Joan O'Brien as his resolute wife Sue get a few perfunctory scenes.

The Alamo ends with the Mexican army deploying overwhelming force in a final push to dislodge the dogged defenders. The combat is suitably spirited, bustling, daring and a bit bloody, another case where the western legend is perhaps more important than the more mundane facts.

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Movie Review: Death Of A Gunfighter (1969)

A second-rate Western, Death Of A Gunfighter strives for earnest intensity but lacks the talent, skill, or depth to deliver.

The setting is the town of Cottonwood Springs, Texas, in the early 1900s. Progress is coming, the railroad has arrived in town, horseless carriages are starting to appear on the road, and the city elders want to attract more business. Standing in the way is Marshal Frank Patch (Richard Widmark), who has held the job for 20 years and knows all the town's dirty secrets and scandals. Patch still settles disputes the old way, and proceeds to shoot dead a drunk and depressed man, albeit in self defence.

City council members and business leaders, including Mayor Chester Sayre (Larry Gates) and the smarmy Lester Locke (Carroll O'Connor), try to convince Patch to quit on his own terms, but he is too stubborn and too proud to listen. County Sheriff Lou Trinidad (John Saxon) arrives in town to try and arrest Patch, but is rebuffed and bloodied by the Marshal. The town elders have to decide whether or not to resort to more violent methods to end the reign of their long-term protector.

The first film credited to non-existent director Alan Smithee, Death Of A Gunfighter started under Robert Totten and finished under Don Siegel, after Totten had a falling out with star Richard Widmark. Totten was mostly a television director, and Death Of A Gunfighter has the plastic, staged look and feel of a slightly glorified TV movie. The premise of the passing of the old west is simple and stale, the execution ponderous, and with the ending given away in the title, precious little drama is generated.

Once the conflict is established between Marshal Patch and the townsfolk, the script stalls. There are rudimentary attempts to create a dynamic between Patch and a young man who hero worships the Marshal, and a lukewarm long-term romantic relationship with local woman Claire Quintana (Lena Horne, in a rare dramatic role) stutters in the background. Another father-son pairing enters and exits the fray with only the outlines of a relationship sketched in. None of the subtexts move past the perfunctory.

Meanwhile, Richard Widmark tries too hard to carry the weight of the film, grimacing fiercely at the injustice of it all and allowing Patch's increasingly irrational stubbornness to dominate. John Saxon wanders in from a whole other movie only to get beaten up by Patch in short order, but Saxon does enough with the character to suggest the film would have only been better with a bigger role for Lou Trinidad. Other than Carroll O'Connor ensuring baddie Lester Locke drips mean connivance, the other conspirators against Patch remain poorly defined.

Death Of A Gunfighter is a lightweight exercise in bundling old genre themes into an unfortunately bland rehash.

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Movie Review: Garden Of Evil (1954)

Despite a stellar cast, stunning scenery and a potentially intriguing premise, Garden Of Evil stumbles into a narrative morass and withers into insignificance.

A steamboat carrying a group of men towards the California gold rush runs into engine trouble and is forced to dock at a small Mexican port for repairs. On board is the quiet and mysterious Hooker (Gary Cooper), professional gambler Fiske (Richard Widmark) and the excitable Luke Daly (Cameron Mitchell). At the local tavern they meet the desperate Leah Fuller (Susan Hayward), offering large sums of money for the services of men willing to help rescue her husband, trapped under rubble at a remote mine site.

Hooker, Fiske and Daly and local Mexican Vicente (Victor Manuel Mendoza) join Leah on the dangerous multi-day journey to the mine through Apache territory, including a narrow mountain pass. Once at the mine they rescue the trapped John Fuller (Hugh Marlowe), but his injuries mean the journey back will be even more hazardous.

Directed by Henry Hathaway from a Frank Fenton script, Garden Of Evil simply fails to ignite. All the ingredients are ready, but the mix is out of balance, and ultimately the film descends into endless and repetitive scenes of the group riding, camping, and on the return journey, taking turns dying as the numbers are whittled down.

Garden Of Evil is an attempt to draw rich and sometimes philosophical characters, consumed by greed, lusting after a beautiful woman, challenged by the terrain and guarding against each other while fending off hostile opponents (in this case Apache Indians). The themes are drawn from The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, but the execution is wholly unconvincing. Hooker and Fiske manage some clever exchanges of dialogue, but otherwise the characters are flat and stuck on a single note, the tension between them contrived, with Hooker easily the smartest, toughest, and coolest.

Other fundamental flaws include a difficult to believe negative dynamic between Leah and John Fuller, the latter quick to castigate his wife after she went to great lengths to save his life; and an incomprehensible decision to embark on the return journey soon after arriving at the mine site, the script seemingly ill at ease with anything except the group riding through the terrain.

Which leaves the scenery to admire, and Garden Of Evil is frequently visually stunning. Filmed in Mexico and brought to life in CinemaScope and Technicolor, Hathaway makes excellent use of spectacular mountain passes, lush vegetation, sunrises, sunsets, and silhouettes, and the camera angles innovatively emphasize both the beauty and dangers offered by the secluded locales.

Beautiful to look at but carelessly throwing away its promise, Garden Of Evil is overgrown with weeds.

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The Movies Of Richard Widmark

All movies starring Richard Widmark and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Kiss Of Death (1947)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Slattery's Hurricane (1949)

Night And The City (1950)

No Way Out (1950)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

Pickup On South Street (1953)

Garden Of Evil (1954)

The Alamo (1960)

Judgment At Nuremberg (1961)

How The West Was Won (1962)

Flight From Ashiya (1964)

The Way West (1967)

Madigan (1968)

Death Of A Gunfighter (1969)

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

To The Devil A Daughter (1976)

Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

The Domino Principle (1977)

Coma (1978)

The Swarm (1978)

Bear Island (1979)

Against All Odds (1984)

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The Movie Star Index is here.