1953 - PLUNDER OF THE SUN, a noir film more interesting for it's location

During the 1950's John Wayne along with his producing partner Robert Fellows formed a production company called Wayne-Fellows Productions.  Their goal was to make a series of modestly budgeted films some of which Wayne would appear in and some without him.  As with these actor created companies they had their hits and misses.  Plunder of the Sun was one of the films that was produced by Wayne-Fellows that did not star Wayne.

Glenn Ford plays a down on his luck adventurer who gets involved with a dealer of antiquities played by character actor Francis L. Sullivan.  Sullivan is looking for him to smuggle a map with the location of treasure supposedly hidden in the Zapotec temple ruins in Mexico.  Ford is channeling a Humphrey Bogart type of cynical character.  He has not one but two femme-fatale characters he has to deal with.  There is also another treasure hunter on the prowl played by a blonde haired Sean McClory.  McClory was part of John Ford's stock company and is the bad guy this time instead of some whimsical boob of an Irishman in a Ford film. 

 

Frankly the treasure hunt story isn't anything special.  The director John Farrow does a decent job moving things along but the script doesn't really do him any favors.  What this film really has going for it is the on location filming at the spectacular Zapotec temple locations and the city of Oaxaca, Mexico.  This is really the only reason to watch this film.  The locations are well photographed in black and white.  The film has a nice noir look to it.

 

The film was written by Jonathan Latimer, the running time is 82 minutes. 

1953 - THUNDER BAY, not one of the better James Stewart/Anthony Mann films.

The third collaboration between James Stewart and director Anthony Mann was not one of their best.  Stewart plays an oil wildcatter who raises money to set up an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico to "drill baby drill" because as Stewart says, "America needs oil."  However the shrimp fishermen aren't crazy about the oil explorers drilling into their shrimp beds.  There lies the contrived conflict.

This is a mediocre film at best.  The chief offender is the very poor script.  Stewart falls in love with the head shrimp fisherman's pretty daughter played by Joanna Dru one of the blandest performers of the 1950's.  Dru plays a bitter woman who has been "used" by men in the past whatever that means. Their romance is very forced.  Anyway the actors go through the motions with this story for the most part.  James Stewart always brought a kind of integrity to the films he appeared in this one is no different.  Stewart's oil drilling buddy is played by Dan Duryea who always seemed to play weaselly little bad guys especially in some of Fritz Lang's films.  Duryea was always fun to watch in the many films he showed up in throughout his career.  He worked with Stewart for the last time in the excellent Flight of the Phoenix.

 

Anthony Mann had a weak script and apparently knew it.  But Mann and his cinematographer William Daniels managed some nice location photography in Louisiana and the Gulf which is about the only reason to even give this film a look.

 

Stewart and Mann were a good team for a while but their best films were the five westerns they made together which are kind of minor classics in the genre.

The film was written by Borden Chase and John Michael Hayes, the running time is 103 minutes. 

1953 - SAADIA, another exotic film drama from the exotic Albert Lewin

 It's kind of amazing the director/writer Albert Lewin even had a career as a film director.  This was a guy who the phrase "high brow" films was synonymous with his name.  Saadia is a strange adventure/love story epic filmed in Morocco with an eccentric cast.

Rita Gam is the mysterious Saadia who is controlled by a witch who for 1953 clearly has repressed lesbian desires for her.  Mel Ferrer plays a French doctor in love with Saadia and Cornel Wilde in another odd ball piece of casting is the ruler of Morocco who is of course is also in love with Saadia.  It's sort of a four sided love triangle.

 

Throw in some middle eastern bandits who want to overthrow the kingdom of Morocco and you have kind of an action climax.  Frankly I don't know what this film is even remotely supposed to be about.  However it looks great thanks to Christopher Challis the cinematographer who had a long association photographing the films of  Powell and Pressburger.  

 

An interesting but weird film.  Unsurprisingly the film lost money.

Written by Albert Lewin, the running time is 82 minutes.

1953 - GIVE A GIRL A BREAK, a forgotten MGM musical

One of the masters of the Hollywood musical Stanley Donen directed this basically forgotten musical.  There were apparently a lot of behind the scenes production issues and the generous budget MGM allowed for the film didn't really translate to any kind of commercial success.

The film was loaded with talent in front and behind the camera.  Donen had co-directed Singing in the Rain and On The Town with Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse was in the cast an excellent dancer at this point in his career.  Marge and Gower Champion were a talented dance team.  Debbie Reynolds was certainly a very hard working performer in the traditional sense of the movie business.

Behind the scenes was the cameraman William C. Mellor frequently associated with George Stevens so he was no slouch when it came to photographing films.  Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin wrote a decent score for the most part.

 

But the problem seems to be the screenplay written by Albert Hackett and  Frances Goodrich.  They were top writers but for some reason they sure didn't bring their "A" game to this film.  The very simple story is about 3 aspiring dancers hoping to land the lead in a Broadway musical is just a pack of cliches.  The story is so thin it's amazing they were actually able to get an 84 minute movie out of it.

 

The dancers, Debbie Reynolds and Marge Champion were very good no wimping out in a Stanley Donen musical that's for sure.  Then there is the very strange story of the third lead dancer Helen Wood.  She is certainly as talented as the other two but for some reason her career in Hollywood never really turned off and eventually she returned to NYC and ended up in porno films of all things.  In fact she appears in Deep Throat as a performer called Dolly Sharp.  

 

What's let to enjoy in this film are the musical numbers themselves.  The film may be a next to nothing confection but there is a high degree of performing skill particularly in the sequences with Bob
Fosse and Debbie Reynolds performing together.  It's kind of amusing to see Fosse playing a clueless hayseed from Montana who knows nothing about dating a woman.  This certainly contrasts with his later life where he was a notorious womanizer.

1953 - FAIR WIND TO JAVA, adventure on the high seas

Cheapskate Republic studios made this film which has an unusually large budget for them.  Shot in color and with at times lavish sets the film is almost a blueprint for the kind of escapist entertainment Hollywood could turn out in their prime.

The story involves heroic sea captain Fred MacMurry (!) in charge of a ship searching for the proverbial fortune in diamonds.  Along the way he picks up dancer named Kim Kim played by Vera Ralston.  Ralston was an actor who just happened to be married to the head or Republic studios Herbert Yates and was generally derided for her lack of talent. Also in the cast are Victor McLaglen, Paul Fix and Claude Jarman Jr amongst others.

The film has enough action for about 3 films.  Fred and his crew have to fight off pirates, deal with a mutiny and to wind it all up keep from getting blown up by the legendary volcano Krakatoa.  Definitely never a dull moment.

Probably the standout feature of this film is the special effects work by Howard and Theodore Lydecker, two brothers who pioneered the use of models and miniatures in Hollywood films.  In fact the Lydecker brother's techniques were still being used in Steven Spielberg's 1941.

The film is extremely entertaining and they certainly don't make them like this anymore.

Screenplay by Richard Tregaskis,  the running time is 92 minutes.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET - Fuller's Commie bashing spy story

Richard Widmark is pickpocket Skip McCoy who picks the purse of prostitute Jean Peters playing a character named Candy.  Little does Skip know, that Candy is also a courier for a Communist spy ring trying to smuggle a piece of microfilm out of the country.  With the help of Moe a snitch for the police the chase is on with the cops and the commies in hot pursuit of Skip.

And so starts another Sam Fuller film where everyone talks tough and Fuller's idea of a love scene is to have Skip punch Candy out and knock her into unconsciousness.

Widmark has played this kind of very tough guy many times but the fact is he is very good at it.  Peters who at times was a sensitive actress is also pretty good as the hooker, Candy.  But probably the best performance in the film is veteran character actress Thelma Ritter as the ultimately tragic stool pigeon, Moe.   

The film is filled with the usual flamboyant camera angles and it zips along at a quick 80 minutes.

1952 - BEND OF THE RIVER, 2nd in the Anthony Mann James Stewart western series

Within the restrictions of a typical western film plot, this is a good tough film from Anthony Mann and James Stewart.  Anthony Mann liked his actors out in real locations, he felt it contributed to the overall feeling of the film.

Stewart abandoned at lot of his usual acting ticks and played an actual tough guy for a change. Arthur Kennedy was a good foil as Stewart's friend/foe.

A good western however you cut it.  Mann was an underrated director but when it came to staging scenes on location he was the equal to John Ford and John Sturges.

 Borden Chase an expert in writing interesting westerns was the screenwriter on this film.  The photography on location at Mount Hood and the Columbia River is a real plus.  The film runs a brisk 91 minutes.

1953 - WAR OF THE WORLDS - now a Criterion Blu Ray

 Criterion has released a 4k Blu ray enhancement of George Pal's 50's classic.  The film looks very good. 

The big news with the release is the removal of the wires that held the Martian War machine models up during the special effects sequences.  Controversial or not it looks very cool to see these creepy things floating across the landscape without wires.

War Of The Worlds was a rather modest production in terms of budget but the producer George Pal and the director Bryon Haskin packed a lot into it along with the awesome Paramount special effects team.

  

Still one of the finest science fiction films from the 1950's.

Written by Barré Lyndon the film runs an efficient 85 minutes.

1953 - KISS ME KATE, a good musical

MGM and director George Sidney did a very good job filming this Cole Porter musical.  The songs are good, the dancing is great and the film has that overall MGM polish that they always gave their films.

The stars were Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson who were acting together for the third time in a musical.  Grayson was a soprano and Keel was a baritone.  Their bombastic style made them a pretty good match when it came to singing together.

Kiss Me Kate is noted for the dancing and beginning choreography of Bob Fosse.  Fosse did a little two minute bit where you can see the start of his finger snapping and strutting style.  But really all the dancers are  excellent particularly Ann Miller a very good tap dancer and Tommy Rall who was no slouch when it came to dancing.

The film was shot in the silly 3-D process then released flat as the bottom feel out of the 3-D market.  You can see the scenes where they are throwing stuff at the camera and other such nonsense but this doesn't distract from the quality of the film.

109 minutes, screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley.

1953 - KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES, pretty disappointing considering the talent involved

Considering all the talent involved in this film this should have been a much better picture. 

The director was old studio pro Henry King.  Tyrone Power was always worth watching.  The film was shot in CinemaScope.  The problem with this film is that for an adventure epic it is extremely boring. 

This is another one of those British Army puts down the crazy Muslims in Indian during the early 1900's story I guess.  Naturally this being Hollywood, Arizona has to substitute for the Indian frontier for the location filming.

Tyrone Power is the half caste British officer who has to earn the respect of the command.  He falls in love with the General's daughter played by a way to young Terry Moore.  Well I guess you can figure where this plot if going.  

This is film is supposed to be an adventure film but it's mostly Tyrone Power romancing Terry Moore at the expense of the action aspects of the film.  Good looking production but again kind of boring film.

100 minutes, written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts.

1953 - SEMINOLE, The US Army vs Indians except in the swamps.

It's the United States Army vs the Seminole Indians fighting it out in the Florida swamps.  The director is cult filmmaker Budd Boetticher although you would find it pretty hard to believe he has a describable style based on this by the book studio production. 

Rock Hudson in one of his many Universal Studios films is the Army officer who wants to live in peace with the Seminoles.  Richard Carlson is his superior who is one of those crazy martinet officers like Henry Fonda in Fort Apache who just wants to kill all the Indians.  Anthony Quinn is the leader of the Seminoles, Barbara Hale is the love interest stuck in a silly love triangle between Quinn and Hudson.  You get the picture.  Did I mention that Lee Marvin turns up in a small part with black hair no less?

The film is a fairly sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans which was somewhat rare for a western in this time period.  The action scenes are not that bad but for the most part this is pretty standard stuff.  At least it's short.

87 minutes.

1953 - SHANE, on Blu Ray

George Steven's extremely well made western looks great on this Blu Ray presentation.  The film was shot in standard format.  However Paramount wanted it printed in the Vista Vision format so they hacked the top and the bottom of the frames when they printed it to get it that widescreen look.

However this Blu Ray release is in the original standard format and it looks great.  The scenic values shooting with the Grand Tetons in the background are very impressive.

Stevens was known as a meticulous director who would shot take after take after take in order to get what he wanted.  He would drive the production costs of a film up and at the same time drive a budget conscious studio crazy.

However the end results can't be denied this is an impressive film.

118 minutes.

1953 - WINGS OF THE HAWK, not bad Budd Boetticher western

Probably not a western that the director Budd Boetticher will be remembered for.  Nevertheless this is a pretty decent western.  The action is well staged by the director and while the cast may not have been "A" quality talent but they all acquainted themselves very well.

Universal knocked out a lot of these cheap back lot westerns.  Wings of the Hawk is one of the better ones that I have seen.  Probably not a personal project for Boetticher, but he did a very good job with it.

80 minutes.

1953 - FLIGHT NURSE - Korean War love story

Will cute flight nurse Joan Leslie fall for air force pilot stud Forrest Tucker or wimpy helicopter pilot and 3rd string actor Arthur Franz?  Here is the dilemma that has to be resolved in about and hour and a half.  It's all happening during the Korean War so there's bombs and lots of stock war footage.

 

Flight Nurse is full of Korean War propaganda which uncomfortably sounds like World War II war propaganda.  Instead of Japs it's now Commies and the propaganda is constant not very subtle or particularly well written

The picture was made at cheapskate Republic Studios and directed by and old silent film guy Allan Dwan who was probably wrapping up his career.  Dwan had been around so long he had a list of around 400 films he signed off on.

Flight Nurse is supposed based on the life of a real nurse but let's hope the real individual had a more interesting life that this disappointing film.  Kind of a time waster.

90 minutes, written by Alan Le May.

1953 - THE WILD ONE, an iconic film for Brando

Brando's about the only reason to watch this drama about a motorcycle gang taking over a small California town.  By now everyone is familiar with the iconic image he created with the sideburns, the bizarre cap and the leather jacket.  As silly as it should look today, it looks pretty bad ass on him.

The film opens with a disclaimer that the studio clearly stuck onto the beginning of the film.  "This is a shocking story", and concludes with "it is a public challenge."  But who was kidding who?  This film is all about violence and violent behavior.  The whole movie is a wallow in sadism,  mentally and physically.

The film was well photographed by Hal Mohr who had worked with Von Stroheim in the silent era.  Shooting a lot of scenes at night has always been a challenge for a cinematographer but Mohr does a very good job.

As silly as the film gets at times, and lets face it these guys in the motorcycle gang are not "boys" like everyone says, it's fun to watch Brando strut around as some two wheel bad boy on his Triumph cycle.

79 minutes.

1953 - I CONFESS, one of Hitchcock's very underrated films.

Alfred Hitchcock had a lot of problems making I Confess.  Warner Brother's studio found the story of a priest caught in a murder/love triangle a little too hot of a subject for their taste.  Hitchcock had to modify the story and change the ending of the film.  Hitchcock wanted to use Swedish actress Anita Bjork but Bjork had a rather messy personal life which the studio thought would have been fodder for the gossip columns.  

For his male lead, Hitchcock cast Montgomery Cliff a method actor who was also a very emotionally tortured person.  Hitchcock was a director who preferred actors who worked to his carefully preplanned visual pattern.  With Montgomery Cliff, Hitchcock had to wait for him to get into the mood.   But for all the problems Hitchcock had with Cliff, it is a very impressive performance

I Confess is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best directed films.  He shot much of the film in Quebec and brought a real feeling of atmosphere to the film.  This was a story that the Catholic director put a lot of himself and his feelings about religion into the film. 

I Confess is one of the few films that does not feature singing nuns or comical Irish priests but instead focuses on the individual's personal spiritual relationship to their religious beliefs.

92 minutes, written by George Tabori and William Archibald.

1953 - ROB ROY THE HIGHLAND ROGUE, I suppose.

The Walt Disney Studio had money frozen in England from box office receipts.  Disney decided to spend this money producing some films over seas.  Treasure Island, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, The Sword and The Rose and then there's Rob Roy the Highland Rogue.

Rob Roy the Highland Rogue was based on a book by Sir Walter Scott, the author of Ivanhoe, but this is no Ivanhoe.

Guys running around in kilts, undecipherable accents and a story that has something to do with the English vanishing the name of Rob Roy's clan McGregor.  It's all about the Scottish clans fighting off the oppressive rule of the British in the 1715 uprising like anyone could care about that in a movie. 

This is a film you really have to pay attention to.  Those accents make for some seriously hard going as you try to figure out what is happening  By the end of the film Rob Roy takes his bagpipes and marches to London to see the King in a scene so ridiculous it would almost be funny if you could understand what they were saying to each other.

This is an unusual stinko of a film from the Disney Studio in spite of the very good looking production they spend their frozen assets on.

81 minutes

1953 - THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT, John Ford's favorite film?

By now it's fairly well known by film buffs and scholars that this is supposedly John Ford's favorite film.  It's kind of hard to believe when you compare The Sun Shines Bright to films like The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, Three Bad Men, They Were Expendable and How Green Was My Valley among others.  

If The Sun Shines Bright is Ford's favorite film it's probably because he was able to indulge himself in many of his favorite themes and situations.  There's his general feeling for a romanticized American past which he saw as a country that was now losing many of it's values by the 1950's.  Also the setting of Kentucky a state in the defeated South plays into his "victory in defeat" theme he rehashed in many of his films.  There's also the usual Ford tropes, stuff about the importance of ritual, parades, cornball comedy and a very outdated view of Black Americans.  

Not generally though of as a director good with actors, the performances are very good in this film with Charles Winninger who was usually cast in character parts playing the the main lead  Billy Priest  the southern judge up for reelection.  

Ford's direction is excellent as usual with interesting but not showy camera work and deliberate but not leisurely pacing throughout the film.  If the film seems a little patronizing especially towards Black Americans this film is infinitely preferable to Ford's first Judge Priest film with Will Rodgers.

100 minutes, written by Laurence Stallings.

1953 - MOGAMBO, one of John Ford's lesser films.

After battling Republic pictures president Herbert Yates during the making of The Quiet Man and The Sun Shines Bright, John Ford signed up with MGM for an elaborate big budget remake of Clark Gable's early "sex in the jungle" film Red Dust.

MGM and Ford hired Gable again for this remake of Red Dust now titled Mogambo.  Ava Gardner got the role of the sexy, naughty bad girl with a heart of gold and Grace Kelly got the part of the uptight and prim English wife who was basically a dirty tramp underneath all her refinement.

The plan was to shoot on location in Africa to capture some spectacular scenery.  John Ford who was a master of scenic compositions would seem to have been the perfect person to hire for this film.  Ford could do for Africa what he did for Monument Valley, the problem was that Ford hated filming in Africa.

Once Ford arrived in Africa he found out he hated everything about it, the weather, the living conditions, the animals and the dust.  Ford shot quickly and dumped large chunks of the script in order to get out of there as fast as possible.  The production ended up filming on studio sets in London.  The climatic action scenes involving gorillas were shot with a phony looking rear projection.

The end result, Mogambo is essentially a boring soap opera which shows a director completely detached and uninterested in the story, however it made money for the studio and probably didn't hurt Ford's career as a commercial director.

115 minutes, written by John Lee Mahin.

1953 - THERESE RAQUIN, film noir from France

The story of a married woman who has an affair with a truck driver, Therese Raquin is based on a novel by Emile Zola so you be be sure this won't have a happy ending.

This is film noir starring smoldering European actor types.  Simone Signoret was one of those French actors who in their prime was sort of an earthy sex symbol.   Raf Vallone played her lover pouring on the male sex appeal as only an Italian can.  The film was directed by Marcel Carne who had made a reputation for himself with Children of Paradise during World War II.

The acting and direction are at a very high standard and even though you know none of this isn't going to turn out well for anyone you stick with it to see how it's going to get to the end.  There is nothing like a film with a strong sense of European fatalism.

102 minutes, written by Marcel Carne and Charles Spaak.