Movie Review: Valley Of The Dolls (1967)

A show business drama, Valley Of The Dolls is a soap opera with overclocked emotions bursting forth at every turn.

The elegantly sophisticated Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) leaver her small New England town to seek her fortune in New York City. She finds a job at an agency specializing in show business contracts, and meets Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke), the understudy for stage megastar Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward). Helen spots Neely's talent and fearful of being upstaged, fires her. Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) is an admittedly talentless chorus girl surviving on her seductive physical attributes.

Neely works hard, achieves stardom as a singer and an actress, and marries Mel (Martin Milner). Jennifer marries singer Tony Polar (Tony Scotti), whose career is managed by his sister Miriam (Lee Grant). Anne embarks on a relationship with her boss Lyon (Paul Burke), although he never wants to settle. She then achieves some fame as a model for a cosmetics firm. Although Anne, Neely and Jennifer all appear to be on the fast-track to happiness, plenty of unexpected surprises await, including increasing dependencies on "dolls", the pills that boost energy or induce sleep.

Jacqueline Susann's salaciously trashy book, one of the biggest bestsellers of all time, is turned into a salaciously trashy movie. Directed by Mark Robson, Valley Of The Dolls is undercast with mediocre talent, and overburdened with melodrama. The claws are out, the daggers are drawn, the pills are gulped, and three women (four, counting Helen Lawson) have their careers clouded by negativity, addiction, and backstabbing.

Stuck somewhere in the twilight zone between a really warped take on All About Eve and an early model for the primetime television soap operas of the 1980s, the film is filled with naked ambition, hysterical ups and downs, some brief but at the time scandalous nudity, and an entrenched attitude that for one woman to succeed, another has to fail. Of course all the men are also either manipulative or susceptible to manipulation, or both.

As social commentary, the film has some value in marking the sexual revolution of the 1960s and feminism merging into the mainstream. Anne, Neely and Jennifer are sexually independent, free to pursue both careers and husbands, easily drop the men who disappoint them, and never question their strength as women. Unfortunately, in Valley Of The Dolls independence and meanness are often conjoined in both genders.

Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke and Sharon Tate were never more than middling talents, yet here they land as the three stars of a much-anticipated film adaptation. Parkins does little other than look chic, Duke devours most of the scenery with a wildly over-the-top performance, and Tate appears unfortunately perfectly cast as the expressionless and talentless actress surviving on her physical attributes.

Susan Hayward and Lee Grant add some class and bite, but are consigned to supporting roles. The men fare worse: television non-entities Martin Milner, Tony Scotti, Paul Burke and Alexander Davion as Ted Casablanca are all plastic, interchangeable and disposable.

Valley Of The Dolls scores some points as bad enough to be good and a guilty pleasure to suit the right mood, but otherwise just registers as annoyingly overwrought.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Reap The Wild Wind (1942)

A colourful maritime epic, Reap The Wild Wind has a bit of everything but not much of anything.

It's the 1840s, and Key West, Florida is a key marine gateway to the United States. Vessels frequently wreck in the rough seas, and salvage operators rush to rescue sailors and retrieve cargo. Rough and ready Loxie Claiborne (Paulette Goddard) runs a legitimate salvage company, while her rivals King Cutler (Raymond Massey) and his brother Dan (Robert Preston) are more interested in causing wrecks for profits. As a further complication, Dan is secretly in love with Loxie's cousin Drusilla (Susan Hayward).

The Cutlers' chicanery causes the ship captained by Jack Stuart (John Wayne) to wreck. Loxie rescues Jack and they fall in love. He dreams of captaining the Southern Cross, a modern steam boat owned by shipping tycoon Commodore Devereaux. Loxie travels to Charleston and flirts with Steven Tolliver (Ray Milland), Stuart's rival and Deveroux's influential second-in-command, to try and secure the Southern Cross command for Stuart. Instead, Tolliver falls in love with Loxie. Tolliver travels to Key West to investigate the Cutlers, heating up the love triangle but also forcing Tolliver and Stuart to cooperate to try and stop the escalating series of shipwrecks.

Produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Reap The Wild Wind is a bright, boisterous, and busy adventure. The story hops between the bustling port of Key West and the much more refined and civilized Charleston, with frequent sailings out to sea to experience the world of cargo ships in rough waters and the salvage crews who either provide assistance or prey on misfortune. The production values are high, the screen pops with colour, the costumes are lavish, hordes of extras populate every corner of the screen, and the sets and special effects are state of the art for the era.

With no shortage of characters and events, the film breezes through the two hours of running time, and DeMille somehow contrives to end his epic with a dangerous underwater dive featuring a massive angry squid, but only after the film takes a substantive detour into courtroom drama territory.

The romantic triangle and underhanded business alliances crackle away as DeMille alternates between affairs of the heart and cut-throat underhanded double-crosses. It's all happening all the time, not a surprise given that Reap The Wild Wind is based on a newspaper serialization. The film benefits from the brisk fun factor, and also suffers from the consequent lack of depth and any sense of lasting substance.

Loxie is in the middle of everything, an irrepressible independent woman well ahead of her time in a man's world, and Goddard injects the necessary energy to allow Loxie to drive the film ever forward. The men are more troublesome and less worthy, rendering the romance moments more irritating than engaging. Ray Milland as Tolliver is foppish, bland and abusive, and worst of all attached to silly dog ventriloquist tricks. John Wayne as Stuart is sturdy but maybe none too bright, and the fistfights between the two men erupt all too predictably.

Reap The Wild Wind is undoubtedly entertaining, and just as definitely sailing in shallow waters.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Beau Geste (1939)

An epic military adventure about brotherhood and sacrifice, Beau Geste is an absorbing and richly rewarding drama.

It's the middle of the Sahara desert, and a French Foreign Legion relief column, responding to reports of Arabian tribal attacks, arrives at Fort Zinderneuf and finds no signs of life. All the men inside the fort are dead but positioned at their parapet firing stations with rifles pointed at a departed enemy. Only two men lie dead in more natural positions, one of them killed by a sword and holding  a note confessing to the theft of "Blue Water", a precious gem.

Fifteen years earlier, the Geste brothers Beau (Gary Cooper), Digby (Robert Preston) and John (Ray Milland) are adopted orphans being raised by the kindly Lady Patricia Brandon (Heather Thatcher). The brothers are close friends and dream of joining the French Foreign Legion. Patricia is running into money problems, and her one remaining precious asset is Blue Water, a massive sapphire worth a fortune but also legendary for bringing bad luck to its owner.

The boys grow up into upstanding young men, and John falls in love with his childhood sweetheart Isobel (Susan Hayward). One evening Lady Patricia and her adopted sons are admiring Blue Water when the lights go out and the jewel disappears. No one confesses to the theft. Soon after, the three men do join the Foreign Legion and undergo training at the hands of the brutal Sergeant Markoff (Brian Donlevy). Digby is separated from his brothers before circumstances lead to a reunion at Fort Zinderneuf.

A remake of the 1926 silent film and making use of the same sets, the 1939 version of Beau Geste is a lavish adaptation of the classic P.C. Wren novel. Director William A. Wellman and his excellent cast weave the intricate story with confidence, delivering in under two hours a deeply satisfying adventure touching on themes of military honour, family bonds, companionship, and sacrifice.

The narrative arc is supremely elegant. The opening scene at an isolated fort filled with dead soldiers is unforgettable, setting a sweeping mood of anticipatory dread. It is followed by a flashback to events 15 years prior with the Geste brothers as young boys, Wellman and screenwriter Robert Carson cleverly unveiling the brothers' personalities and future legacies. Both scenes boast details that will echo back in amplified tones close to 100 minutes later, when the events at the fort are finally revealed.

A large part of the film's appeal lies in the complexity of the characters. None of the Gestes are presented as impeccable heroes, lending weight to the mystery of the missing Blue Water gem. And the ambitious and brutal General Markoff, the closest thing to the villain of the piece, gets plenty of time to demonstrate his qualities when the going gets tough. Brian Donlevy's chilling turn as Markoff, bordering on psychotic but finding an arena where psychosis may be a good thing, was deservedly nominated for an Academy Award.

The rest of the cast members share the screen time, with Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston getting their individual moments without dominating. In one of her earliest roles, Susan Hayward gets a relatively few scenes. The rest of the supporting cast is filled with sturdy character actors, including J. Carrol Naish, Albert Dekker, and Broderick Crawford.

Beau Geste is packed with plot, and all the pieces come together in the rousing final act. Once the action moves into the fort for the final third of the film the mystery of the missing jewel intermingles with a brewing mutiny and an external threat to the troops. At the middle of it all are brothers looking out for each other. Wellman never loses sight of the heart of his story, and proceeds to deliver one of the screen's most poignant farewells. Whether in the comfortable surroundings of home or in an unforgiving desert surrounded by death, gallant gestures matter.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

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.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Susan Hayward

All movies starring Susan Hayward and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:

Beau Geste (1939)

Reap The Wild Wind (1942)

The Fighting Seebees (1944)

Rawhide (1951)

With A Song In My Heart (1952)

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1952)

The Lusty Men (1952)

Garden Of Evil (1954)

Valley Of The Dolls (1967)

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.

Movie Review: Rawhide (1951)

An often overlooked Western, Rawhide is a tense and compact hostage drama set at an isolated overland mail outpost.

Rawhide Pass is a remote rest stop for the Overland Mail Company, on the treacherous yet popular route to deliver mail, passengers and cargo via stagecoach between San Francisco and St. Louis in 25 days. Grizzled veteran Sam Todd (Edgar Buchanan) is the stationmaster, and he is assisted by the inexperienced Tom Owens (Tyrone Power), who is still learning the business. The mysterious Miss Vinnie Holt (Susan Hayward) arrives at Rawhide on the eastbound wagon, accompanying a young child named Callie. But Miss Holt and Callie are forced off the wagon and asked to spend the night at Rawhide as a safety precaution, because convicted criminal Rafe Zimmerman (Hugh Marlowe) has broken out of prison and is threatening the safety of stagecoaches in the area.

Miss Holt is beyond irritated and immediately clashes with Tom. But things get a lot worse when Zimmerman and three other escaped inmates, including the borderline psychotic Tevis (Jack Elam), arrive at Rawhide, dispatch of Sam, and take control of the station. Zimmerman wrongfully jumps to the conclusion that Vinnie and Callie are Tom's wife and child, and holds them hostage to manipulate Tom into cooperating. Zimmerman and his men intend to ambush the eastbound coach arriving the next day and carrying a large quantity of gold. Tom and Vinnie have to find a way to tolerate each other, maintain the pretense of a married couple, and survive the ordeal.

Playing with some of the same themes from The Petrified Forest (1936) and Key Largo (1948), Rawhide is less about action and more concerned with establishing a remote, cut-off location, exploring bubbling tensions within a small group under stress, and presenting an intelligent antagonist with a back story, struggling to maintain control of his shifty allies and terrified hostages. The ingredients are mixed well by director Henry Hathaway, and the result is a taut 89 minute exercise in character dynamics.

The Dudley Nichols script gets most things right. Tom and Miss Holt get off on the wrong foot, creating a natural conflict that is only made worse when they are mistaken for husband and wife. And on the other side, the dangerous Tevis is introduced as an unstable member of the invading gang, injecting a source of volatility that Zimmerman will rarely have full control over. And finally, little Callie is the most vulnerable hostage, and also a delightful catalyst capable of generating doses of unpredictability.

It can be argued that Zimmerman would have been better off ambushing the gold-laden stagecoach on the trail rather than at Rawhide, and his background and motivations would have benefited from some additional elaboration. When Zimmerman's crimes are revealed it is others who do the talking, and the film would have been enriched had the escaped convict himself had an opportunity to tell his story.

But Hathaway keeps the narrative moving and the stress mounting, as deep fractures appear among the outlaws, and Tom and Vinnie reach the limit of their tolerance for captivity and the charade of marriage. Tyrone Power demonstrates welcome vulnerability as a man who is afraid and devoid of answers, while Susan Hayward brings her typical fieriness to the role of Vinnie Holt, a strong woman having to deal with a large number of men, many of them dangerous. Marlowe as Zimmerman is adequate, but more handsome than menacing. Jack Elam gets a larger supporting role than usual, and with an everpresent sneer, he ensures that Tevis is a memorably despicable villain.

As effective as the pioneering overland mail service it celebrates, Rawhide delivers the goods with admirable efficiency.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: With A Song In My Heart (1952)

A musical biography of wartime singer Jane Froman, With A Song In My Heart sprinkles a little bit of story with a whole lot of songs. Susan Hayward in the lead role and Froman's actual singing voice ensure a reasonable level of enjoyment.

In the late 1930s, unknown singer Jane Froman (Hayward) is discovered by small-time music writer Don Ross (David Wayne) when he helps her to prepare for a radio audition. With assistance from Ross, Froman's career takes off, and she is soon propelled to the front ranks of stage performers and recording artists. After a lot of prodding, she agrees to marry Ross. But his songwriting career is going nowhere, and the inevitable jealousies creep into the relationship.

With World War Two raging, Froman heads out on a tour to entertain the troops. Tragedy strikes when her plane crashes off the coast of Lisbon, with many of the passengers losing their life. Froman survives, but one of her legs is severely damaged. During a long recovery phase, Froman falls in love with Captain John Burn (Rory Calhoun), a fellow survivor of the crash. She also establishes a deep friendship with nurse Clancy (Thelma Ritter). Once she recovers sufficiently, and despite her mobility challenges, Froman heads back out on a triumphant tour to raise the morale of America's fighting men.

A solid two thirds of With A Song In My Heart is occupied with performances of Froman's songs. In various settings, the radiant Hayward is excellent at emoting, and Froman's deep and distinctive voice shines. The film carries around 17 songs, not counting another 10 that feature in a climactic medley celebrating the good old U.S. of A. For fans of Froman's voice and music, the film delivers.

As a dramatic experience, the remaining 40 minutes or so of narrative development are adequate at recounting the story of Froman's rise from obscurity to stardom, the struggle to overcome debilitating injuries, and her comeback as a performer who uniquely understood the scars of men wounded in the line of duty. The film is narrated by Wayne, Calhoun and Ritter, and therein lies its nagging weakness: this is Froman as superficially seen through the eyes of others, and director Walter Lang, working from a script by Lamar Trotti, never comes close to delving into her essence. The film offers nothing about Froman's background, motivation, values, or inner thoughts.

Wayne and Calhoun provide relatively low-key support as the two men in Froman's life, while Ritter offers some of the film's best moments, and crackles as the nurse who became a key friend and companion. Both Ritter and Hayward earned Academy Award nominations. Robert Wagner has a small but memorable role as a paratrooper entertained by Froman first in the United States, and then under very different circumstances in Europe.

With A Song In My Heart is first a celebration of music and then a sketched story of a life. More a concert show than a drama, it nevertheless soldiers on, powered by the fuel of good intentions.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Fighting Seabees (1944)

A propaganda film designed to boost conscription in the US Navy's Construction Battalions, The Fighting Seabees is a heavily fictionalized account of the unit's creation. It is also a formulaic programmer with a ridiculous plot, wooden dialogue and one of the worst wartime love triangles ever to splatter onto the screen.

With World War Two raging in the Pacific, construction crews hired by the Navy to build military facilities like airstrips and pipelines on remote islands are targeted by the Japanese. But being civilian contractors, they are neither trained nor armed to defend themselves. With too many of his men getting killed and injured, tough construction boss and recruiter Wedge Donovan (John Wayne) teams up with the Navy's Lieutenant Commander Robert Yarrow (Dennis O'Keefe) to demand the creation of the Construction Battalions (CBs).

As the Navy brass consider the request, Wedge takes matter into his own hands and arms his men on their next job, with unintended consequences. Meanwhile, both Wedge and Yarrow are falling in love with war correspondent Constance Chesley (Susan Hayward). Approval is finally granted for Wedge to create a battalion and train the first batch of Seabees. The now battle-capable men will get a chance to prove themselves on the next construction mission.

It is almost pointless to criticize a film apparently conceived and delivered for the purpose of motivating the home front with the war still theoretically in the balance. The Fighting Seabees is propaganda intended to glorify the Navy thinly disguised as entertainment, and other than serving its patriotic 1944 duty, it's a miserable cinematic experience.

The dialogue and characters are a combination of the mechanical and the bland, and the performances are strictly stock. Director Edward Ludwig hustles the actors through their scenes aiming for the cold efficiency that comes with reading lines from the nearest wall. Wayne inexplicably prances around with his shirt partially or fully open for almost the entire first half of the film. Hayward's character is dropped in with no context, while O'Keefe provides conclusive proof of his limited talent.

The action scenes are almost comically bad, with construction workers storming - slowly -  into battle riding on bulldozers, and Japanese fighter pilots and snipers portrayed as silent but smiling demoniacal monsters every time they pull the trigger. On every island Wedge manages to find new ways to disobey orders and create carnage, and after leading one ill-fated charge that costs the lives of many, instead of being banished as far away from the military as possible, he is somehow put in charge of creating the first Seabee unit.

The relationship between Wedge, Constance and Yarrow is a disaster zone built on confused hormones. Wedge and Yarrow seem to fall in love with Constance because she is the only female in their universe of greasy soldiers. She, in turn, first decides to love one, then the other, then both, then she wisely professes her true love for the one who is still alive. In the meantime, about halfway through the film she shows the wisdom of a dingbat to stumble through a battle zone and get herself shot, to make sure that Wedge and Yarrow have her to worry about in addition to the small matter of a world war.

A painful example of good talent wasted on a bad project with era-specific intentions, The Fighting Seabees is only watchable for the presence of Wayne and Hayward, although neither can claim this to be anywhere near their better achievements.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1952)

The reminiscences of an acerbic writer reflecting on his life and loves while awaiting either medical aid or death in Africa, The Snows Of Kilimanjaro is an introspective journey that gradually but surely gathers inner strength.

Writer and amateur big game hunter Harry Street (Gregory Peck) has a badly infected leg at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. Helpless on his back and almost delirious with pain, Harry is nevertheless self-obsessed and churlish. He verbally spars with his companion and caregiver Helen (Susan Hayward), before slipping into remembrances of his life's key moments.

Aspiring to be a writer since he was a young man, and always attracted to a life of travel and adventure, Harry meets Cynthia Green (Ava Gardner) in Paris. She becomes the love of his life, and joins him on a game hunting expedition in Africa. But when Cynthia finds out she is pregnant, she longs for a stable life of domesticity, but realizes Harry only ever wants to travel and pursue new experiences as inspiration for his writing. They part ways under difficult circumstances in Spain. Harry has further romances with a domineering Countess (Hildegard Knef) and then meets Helen, but Cynthia never fully leaves his heart, and they are fated to meet again.

The Casey Robinson script keeps the spirit of Ernest Hemingway's semi-autobiographical short story, but changes many essential elements, including introducing the crucial character of Cynthia Green and altering the ending. The film becomes primarily an ode to essential love lost as seen through Hemingway's caustic lens on life.

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro does have to struggle against an unsympathetic central character. Harry Street is not exactly easy to like, almost outright mean to Helen, who happens to be the only friend he has as the buzzards circle over his immobile body and rotting leg. And as the memories reveal more about Harry, he proves to be deaf to Cynthia's needs, narcissistic in pursuing his own agenda, oblivious to the feelings of others, and quick to mock those closest to him.

But gradually, a sympathetic man emerges, finally coming to terms with what matters in life and pursuing  more noble pursuits, including a war against creeping oppression and a final, desperate attempt to revive the core relationship of his life. The surprising power of the movie comes from the gathering strength of Street's character, as he evolves into a man slow to recognize the signposts of life, but ultimately following them, albeit possibly too late.

Henry King directs in lush colour, The Snows Of Kilimanjaro enjoying grand visual depth and plenty of stock footage of the African wilds, as well as European scenes in Paris and Madrid that are alternately impressive and melancholy. Harry's first meeting with Cynthia in Paris is a magical encounter of mood, music, movement and mirth, brought together by the magnetism of a love meant to spark over a common cigarette lighter. In other scenes King mixes the authenticity of a writer's free spirit with the competing demands of compromise to thrive in life, a contest in which Street often performs poorly.


Peck does well in a role against type, Harry on the opposite side of the street from the upstanding heroes often embodied by the actor. Gardner gives an assured performance as a vulnerable Cynthia, a woman a couple of steps ahead of her man in understanding life but not willing to ruin his rush to boyish adventurism. By comparison, Hayward has relatively little to do, as Helen is consigned to fending off Harry's pessimistic jabs, unwilling to fight back against an already stricken man. Leo G. Carroll has a typically small but important role as Harry's uncle.

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro is a thoughtfully slow exploration of an error-filled life. As in big game hunting, knowing when to take a shot and when to back away comes naturally for some, but is a lifelong pursuit for others.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Lusty Men (1952)

Lost lives and lost loves on the rodeo circuit, The Lusty Men is a spirited romantic drama. A love triangle grows steamy and simmers against the unforgiving macho world of riding wild broncos and angry bulls.

Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) is an ageing ex-champion on the rodeo circuit. After one spill too many, he walks away from the sport with barely a dollar to his name, having squandered his substantial winnings on gambling, booze and women. McCloud returns to his home town and finds employment as a cowboy, working alongside Wes Merritt (Arthur Kennedy). Wes is married to Louise (Susan Hayward), and while she is happy that they are slowly saving to buy a farm of their own, Wes is less patient. He believes that the rodeo presents a short-cut to riches.

Wes and Jeff form a partnership: Jeff will teach Wes the tricks needed to succeed on the circuit, and they will split any of Wes' winnings. Louise is displeased but agrees to join them on the rodeo tour. Jeff's real motive in helping Wes is to remain close to Louise and try to win her heart, although she is loyal to her husband. All three discover that Wes has a real talent riding broncos and bulls, and he is an immediate success, raking in the cash. He also falls in love with the hard drinking, hard partying lifestyle, causing stress in his relationship with Louise. And with success and higher stakes, resentment grows between Jeff and Wes.

The Lusty Men works both as a romance and an inside look at the life of rodeo cowboys. An army of writers adapted the Claude Stanush novel, and created rich material for director Nicholas Ray to work with. All three points of the love triangle are strong. Wes and Louise are convincing as a married couple, united by a vision but in conflict as to how quickly they need to get there. Jeff is the catalyst for both, inspiring Wes to seek a quicker source of income and, having put his own dangerous riding days behind him, Jeff is also intriguing enough to pique Louise's interest.

But The Lusty Men truly shines when it moves to portraying the rodeo circuit. Ray creates a dynamic environment where success and money provide just a thin veneer. The rodeo life is littered with harsh accommodation, broken men, broken dreams, tall stories, gold-diggers, and countless ways to lose money quicker than it is earned. Jeff has passed through all the temptations and emerged on other side with nothing except plenty of broken bones. Wes is starting on the same journey, and the speed with which he both finds success to earn big money and the seductions to lose it accelerates the pressure on Louise to question her marriage and take a close look at the relative wisdom and stability offered by Jeff.

Mitchum and Hayward get the more complete roles, and both are excellent. Mitchum portrays Jeff as a has-been whose heart still beats for one last romantic fling, this time with a lady instead of a floozy, and one last crack at the tour, this time as a coach instead of a rider. Unsure about the success of either initiative, Jeff ironically needs both Wes and Louise to believe in him, likely more than he believes in himself, and Mitchum is perfect in portraying a damaged hero unsure about what comes after the heroics are over.

Hayward's Louise is the pivot between two strong men, one her husband with a fire in his belly and the other a friendly intruder into her married life with a growing passion in his heart. Hayward tenderly walks the fragile line of a wife torn between loyalty, frustration and determination as Wes tests her patience and Jeff tests her commitment. Arthur Kennedy as Wes is fine, if a bit more predictable and vivid in his delivery compared to Mitchum and Hayward.

If for no other reason than to display Hayward's flaming red hair, The Lusty Men should have been filmed in colour. More seriously, the movie is full of what should have been colourful settings, from expansive farmlands to the picturesque sequences within the rodeo grounds, and the many thrilling bucking horse and angry bull rides that drive the narrative forward. The black and white photography courtesy of Lee Garmes is good, but colour would have been much better. Regardless, The Lusty Men kicks up plenty of dramatic dust and delivers a rollicking ride.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.