1957 - HELL DRIVERS, the world of macho British truck drivers

Stanley Baker is an ex-con looking for work.  He ends up getting a job at a company that hauls gravel for a road construction project.  The catch is that the drivers are expected to drive really fast in order to meet their daily quota.  A young Patrick McGoohan is the leader of the truck drivers.  He's a nasty bully and we know this because he always has a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  Peggy Cummins is the office secretary who knows where all the dirty secrets are buried at the trucking company,  Sean Connery and Gordon Jackson are also in the cast as truck drivers in smaller roles. 

As some critics pointed out at the time this was an unusual film since it was filled with lots of macho posturing and tough action.  Usually British films had a more shall we say refined approach to excitement as in the boring film The Scarlet Pimpernel.  For a change Hell Drivers was a rare film at this time that focused on the lives of the British working class.

The film was directed by a blacklisted American writer/director Cy Enfield.  Enfield relocated to England and filmed some tough crime and action films.  Enfield's big picture was Zulu which he produced with Stanley Baker.

Peggy Cummins had an aborted career in Hollywood after being recast in Forever Amber is in this film to sex it up.  Cummins most memorable film was the classic Gun Crazy.  Perennial British character actor Herbert Lom shows up playing Baker's Italian friend.  Ace cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth shot the exciting driving scenes.  Overall an entertaining action film. This film is dripping with testosterone and mano a mano fighting.  The action is rough and exciting.

The screenplay is by Cy Enfield and John Kruse, the running time is 108 minutes.

1957 - THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION - large scale epic about pulling a big cannon around Spain

Liberal producer Stanley Kramer had carved out a decent career making quasi goody two shoe films aka "message films" for Columbia pictures.  They were generally well made thanks to talented directors Kramer hired like Mark Robson, Fred Zimmerman and Richard Fleischer.  Kramer decided to move into directing as well as producing his own films and his skill as a director was to put it mildly uneven.  In 1957  Kramer really rolled the dice with a large scale production of a C.S. Forrester novel "The Gun" which was sort of a Bridge of San Luis Rey multi character story except instead of a bridge it was a really big cannon.

The film made considerable changes to the novel.  During the war with the French in the early 1800's the British send an officer who is an expert on field artillery to assist the Spanish guerillas.  The plot involves the guerillas hauling a huge cannon around the Spanish countryside in order to take part in an attack on a French fort.  The film ends with a large scale battle with the usual cast of thousands running around.  However the drama on this film was all behind the camera.

A very uncomfortable looking Cary Grant is the British artillery officer.  Grant did not usually take roles in period films as he felt he was more suited to comedy.  Grant apparently signed up for this film to escape from a troubled marriage in Hollywood.  Frank Sinatra was cast as the Spanish guerilla leader.  Well it can be said that Italian American Sinatra wearing brown makeup and a rather ridiculous wig was probably miscast.  Apparently Sinatra took the part to be near his then wife Ava Gardner also making a film in Spain, they were having marital problems as well.   

 

Finally there was Italian actor Sophia Loren who was trying to break into Hollywood.  This was about her second or third American production and her English was none to good.  The solution was to put her into lots of low cut blouses to distract from her dialog.  To top it all off Cary Grant decided he was in love with her and spent most of the film chasing her around.

 

All this foolishness with the cast was not going to help make this a good picture.  Stanley Kramer probably had his hands full dealing with these three actors and managing and expensive production. In spite of everything The Pride and the Passion is entertaining enough although it could have been a whole lot better.  The chief merits of this film were the excellent photography, interesting Spanish locations and the kind of viewing pleasure watching a large scale production with lots of large scale action scenes can provide.

The film was written and rather poorly by Edna and Albert Anhalt, the running time is 132 minutes. 

1957 - INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, short and sweet

American International Pictures at their wacky best even for them.  This drive-in feature is a mixture of science fiction, comedy and bad acting but it sure is fun.

Space aliens land on earth near a lover's lane filled with teenagers making out. Except the actors playing the teenagers are way way past their teenage years.  The aliens get the attention of the United States Army who are expected to keep the flying saucer invasion under wraps.  A couple of con men stumble onto to the flying saucer one of who is killed by a space alien who's hands are claws that inject alcohol into him thereby overdosing him with booze.  

There are a couple of young lovers and I use the term "young" very loosely.  They try to alert the police to this alien menace which in these types of movies is usually impossible since the police are typically clueless.  There's a cow that the aliens try to kill by filling it full of alcohol and the Army which is supposed to keep all of this secret has a public relations officer for some reason.

 

With a little research it's nice to find out that none of this stuff was taken seriously.  The acting is not very good but that only adds to the fun of this film.  These cheaply made movies with their quick running times were a staple of the drive-in market in the 1950's and 60's.  It's easy to sneer at the low production values on this film but you could argue that they are a lot more entertaining than some of the made for streaming movies floating around on the internet, I'm talking to you Brazen, Mother of the Bride, The Kissing Booth and The Kissing Booth 2.

 

The screenplay was by Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Al Martin, the running time is a zany 69 minutes. 

1957 - OMAR KHAYYAM aka THE LIFE, LOVES AND ADVENTURES OF OMAR KHAYYAM

This Paramount film about the life of poet, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Omar Khayyam hardly mentions any of these achievements.  Instead this film should be called "Omar Khayyam Love Sick School Boy," since the film is basically about Khayyam carrying on over a Persian princess for almost the entire run of the film.

The actors in this piece of junk are all white Europeans with some brown makeup smeared on their faces to give the illusion that they are descended from anywhere but Southern California.  Pretty boy Cornel Wilde is Omar Khayyam and he looks and acts like he would rather be anywhere else than in this film.  Wilde started his career playing romantic leads but eventually moved into producing and directing probably because of appearing in films like this.

 

The film also features Debra Paget, Raymond Massey, Michael Rennie and "Mr French," himself, Sebastian Cabet all actors pretending to be of middle eastern descent.  The director was William Dieterie who had seen a lot better days in the 1930's and 40's with films like A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster and Portrait of Jennie.  Dietrie's career ran into trouble during the blacklist era in Hollywood where he was associated with left wing causes although apparently he was not a communist.

 

Omar Khayyam was shot primarily on the back lot with lots of sets and costumes that look like something you would see in a community theater production of the musical Kismet.  I suppose it would have been unrealistic to stick to the actual facts of Khayyam's life.  No moviegoer in the 1950's would want to watch a film about a mathematician discovering algebraic proofs and inventing the 365 day calendar.  Still that stuff would have been more interesting than watching Cornel Wilde constantly quote poetry throughout the film.  Clearly the goal of this film was to be an exotic romance however the actual execution of this film was really poor.  The film isn't even campy fun.

The film was written by Barré Lyndon, who had a few decent films on his resume, the running time is 101 minutes.

1957 - THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH aka BIG TIME OPERATORS

This film is one of those modest British comedies that were popular in the 1950's.  The  studio that comes to mind is Ealing where you would find actors like Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins in stories that usually emphasized a type of understated British humor.  Frankly a lot of these films weren't exactly laugh out loud funny it was always more like a minor chuckle.

The Smallest Show on Earth was not produced by Ealing Studios but it's a typical Ealing type of film.  A young couple played by the real life married team Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a run down movie theater complete with ancient staff played by Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles and Peter Sellers who is made up to play an old drunken projectionist.  The story involves Travers and McKenna's attempts to get the theater profitable so they can sell it to a more prosperous theater chain.  Let the quirky humor begin.

 

The audience gets lots of "screwing up the film" jokes as the drunken projectionist pushes the wrong buttons to make the film go to fast or to slow or getting the dialog out of sync with the picture etc. 

This is a film made relatively early in Seller's career,  He was always the master of dialects and he does his usual impressive job playing Mr. Quill the alcoholic projectionist.  Margaret Rutherford was one of those actors you hired when you needed someone to play dotty old ladies.  Bernard Miles was kind of a mainstay of the British cinema, he appeared in a lot of films. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna basically play a typical aka boring "working class" couple.

 

The director was Basil Dearden was a good prolific director who was adept at filming comedies or dramas.  Douglas Slocombe who photographed the Indiana Jones films late in his career handled the cinematography.  The Smallest Show on Earth is for the most part an inoffensive time killer.

The film was written by William Rose, John Eldridge, the running time is a quick 80 minutes.

1957 - WILD STRAWBERRIES, Bergman’s classic film about old age

 In the film business when you're hot you're hot and Ingmar Bergman was burning up in the late 1950's.  He was entering one of the most creative periods in his career.  Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal had been very successful for him.  The Virgin Spring and his "God Trilogy" were in his future.  Bergman had been thinking a lot about the passage of time and memory when he wrote the screenplay for this film.

 

Wild Strawberries is about an old physician Isak Borg, played by 78 year old director Victor Sjöström who is literally on a journey that causes him to recall his youth while traveling to relieve an honorary university degree.  Most of his memories are about the disappointments in life which he is now attempting to come to terms with as he reaches the end of his existence.

 

This is an extremely well made film.  The black and white photography by Gunner Fischer is excellent.  The performers are from Bergman's famous "stock company." Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand and Max von Sydow in a small role as a gas station attendant of all things.  They are at their usual high caliber of acting for a Bergman film.

 

But the film is in many ways a tribute to Victor Sjöström.  Sjöström was one of the most important Scandinavian filmmakers dating back to the silent era.  Sjöström even for a time worked for MGM of all places.  He made a couple of masterpieces in America, The Scarlet Letter and The Wind with Lillian Gish before he returned to Sweden.  He was also a mentor to Ingmar Bergman at the beginning of his career.

Wild Strawberries is considered one of Bergman's masterworks and more importantly one of his most accessible films.  It held up very well on my current viewing.

Written by Ingmar Bergman, the running time is 91 minutes.

1957 - THE VAMPIRE, decent B movie horror film

I guess the moral of the film The Vampire is don't mix vampire bat blood into your medication as the town doctor is about to find out the hard way.  The film is sort of a vampire film but it's really just another version of Robert Lewis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde.

 

For a low budget film of $115,000 the producers Arthur Gardner, Jules Levy and the director Paul Landres did a fairly good job of stretching their budget.  Paul Landres mostly did film and TV westerns but he managed to work up a couple of decent suspense moments in this film.  One scene in particular shows the vampire infested doctor stalking our heroine Coleen Grey at night, Landres photographed some good tracking shots during these scenes.

 Obviously the cast isn't the top of the Hollywood heap.  John Beal was in a lot of A and B film productions.  Coleen Grey had her big break in Howard Hawk's Red River as the woman John Wayne leaves behind.  But her career really never big time took off.  Then there's every film buff's favorite Kenneth Tobey.  He is chiefly remembered as one of the military men fighting off the original Thing. Tobey had a long career in film and TV.  He was a favorite of director Joe Dante who hired him for parts in The Howling and the Gremlins, films shot towards the end of his career.  Tobey was always a welcome presence when he showed up in a film or TV show.

The film was written by Pat Fiedler,  a rare woman writer who worked in the B movie genre.  The running time is a brisk 75 minutes.

1957, THE TIN STAR, disappointing Western from Anthony Mann

 I'm not sure what happened with this film.  The screenplay was by a reliable old pro Dudley Nichols, Henry Fonda gave a good performance as a former sheriff turned bounty hunter.  Fonda has to teach a very new and green sheriff played by the interesting actor Anthony Perkins before he gets shot up by the town bully.  Unfortunately the film just kind of goes through the motions.

This is rather surprising, the director Anthony Mann was a master of the western genre and certainly knew a thing or two about filming in widescreen.  But for some reason Mann didn't seem to be able to work up the interest or enthusiasm for this film.  It's clear they were attempting some sort of "adult" western to compete with all of those TV westerns that were all over the early television networks.  But The Tin Star is just not interesting.  Even the action scenes are somewhat of a dud.

 

Mann had filmed all of those great James Stewart westerns so maybe he had lost interest in the genre by the time this film rolled around.

 

Running time, 93 minutes.

1957 - I'LL MET BY MOONLIGHT, Powell and Pressburger towards the end of their run.

 Michael Powell has gone on record as expressing his dissatisfaction with this film. He was unhappy with his partner Emeric Pressburger's screenplay, dissatisfied with the lead actor Dirk Bogarde and forced to film in black and white Vista Vision in the Alpes-Maritimes region of France which was a location stand in for the island of Crete where this war story was set.

The film is based on the true story of Patrick Michael  Fermor a British commando who captured a German general on Crete and then smuggled him out to Cairo.  Quite the daring raid during the war.

 

I'll Met by Moonlight is certainly not Powell and Pressburger at their peak but it is still a very well made and entertining film. The mountains of the Alpes-Maritimes make for a spectacular backdrop and Dirk Bogarde does supply the light touch that Powell appears to have had in mind  telling this story.

 

The British have always had a thing about treating some of their war movies as some kind of boy scout romp and this film is no exception.  The film does have that strange Powell and Pressburger touch of making the German general a somewhat sympathetic villian, a character that shows up in many of their films.

The film runs 104 minutes and is certainly not a failure.

1957 - THE ENEMY BELOW a very good war film

A very good war film from former actor turned producer/director, Dick Powell.  In the South Atlantic  during World War II a United States destroyer escort ends up playing cat and mouse with a German U-Boat.  The captains of both ships are highly skilled seaman and the film turns into a battle of the wits between the two of them to see who will sink who first.

The film is noted for not being some anti-German propaganda piece.  It had been over 10 years since the war ended so the portrayal of Germans was slightly more nuanced.   In fact one of the stars of the film Curt Jurgens, (in a strong performance) had been sent to an internment camp during the war by the Nazis. 

 

Robert Mitchum usually a performer who encouraged a myth that he was just walking through his roles as he waited for quitting time so he could hit the nearest bar also gave a very good performance as the destroyer captain.

 

The screenplay was by an old Hollywood pro Wendell Mayes. The running time is a tight 98 minutes.

1957 - SWEET SMELLL OF SUCCESS - a classic film.

 A film classic directed by former Ealing studios director Alexander Mackendrick. The film was a commercial failure probably because of all the unlikable character in it particularity the ones played by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.  Audiences weren't used to seeing such nastiness on the screen.

Burt Lancaster is J.J. Hunsecker a columnist based on Walter Winchell a legendary gossip columnist.

The film was shot on location in NYC by the legendary Warner Brother's cameraman James Wong Howe.

Tony Curtis is the manipulative press agent Sidney Falco not above pimping his girlfriend Rita out played by Barbara Nichols.

Among a great cast is a personal favorite Emile Meyer as corrupt cop Harry Kello.

The film was written by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, it runs 96 minutes.

1957 - PATHS OF GLORY, an excellent antiwar film.

 A masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick.  An antiwar film that is actually an antiwar film without resorting to glorified action scenes which in other antiwar films dilute the whole point of an antiwar film which is to be against war. 

 Besides the well written script, the film is an impressive technical achievement considering a lot of it was shot on location.  The film is set in France and based on a true incident.  Needless to say the French government was not happy about the film and managed to have it banned for quite a while

 

The cast is also very impressive with old pros like Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready and the eccentric actor Timothy Carey giving excellent performances.  Douglas's production company has a screen credit and he made it possible for film to get the film made.

The film runs 88 minutes.  The screenplay was by Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson.

1957 - THE SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS, an odd Billy Wilder film

Exactly what Jewish director Billy Wilder saw in famed aviator (and probably Nazi) Charles Lindbergh will probably forever remain a mystery.  In any case Wilder got Warner Brothers to shell out seven million dollars and hired James Stewart and actor in his 50's to play Lindbergh a man in his 20's. 

 The result was a box office disaster, Warner Brothers lost their money the public didn't come out and the critics focused on Stewart's age.  As it turned out nobody much remembered who Lindbergh was which probably didn't help the popularity of the movie.

This film on Lindbergh is somewhat of a miss.  Wilder brought his usual professionalism to the project but for some reason he just couldn't seem to get it to come together. Maybe watching a guy sit in a cockpit flying a plane was not the public's idea of exciting film making.  Not a bad film but not the classic about a questionable American hero that Wilder was aiming for.

 

The screenplay was as usual by Billy Wilder with help from Charles Lederer and Wendell Mayes. The film runs 135 minutes.

1957 - THE MYSTERIANS, Toho's science fiction battle epic.

Toho's first color science fiction film shot in a widescreen process called TohoScope.  The film is about an invasion by aliens from a destroyed planet called Mysteroid.  Earth Defense Forces primarily led by the Japanese battle to keep these aliens from kidnapping and mating with our women.

This is very colorful stuff to put it mildly. Special effects are the real star.  It features Eiji Tsuburaya's models and lots of work with the optical printer creating laser rays and lighting bolts to put it mildly.

 

Ishiro Honda, a reliable director of these types of movies was in charge of assembling this film.  

Takeshi Kimura wrote the screenplay. The rousing music score was by Akira Ifukube.  The film runs about 90 minutes.

1957 - FORTY GUNS, crazy Sam Fuller Western

 Barbara Stanwyck is Jessica Drummond the owner of a large ranch and the ruling power in the county. She has a gang (harem?) of 40 riders who zip around on their horses scaring the crap out of everyone.  Stanwyck also has a worthless brother who's a drunk and a coward and not adverse to a little back shooting so you know he's gonna be trouble.

Into this setup comes Barry Sullivan and  his brothers playing thinly disguised versions of Wyatt Earp and his brothers.  Let the gun play and perverse situations begin after all this is a Sam Fuller film.

Fuller never met a weird camera crane shot or closeup he didn't like.  He got his director of photography Joseph Biroc a cameraman who would go on to be associated with Robert Aldrich to enable him in his passion for at times outrageous photography.

Is the movie any good?  Beats me. But it's certainly flamboyant as only Sam Fuller can do.  Fuller wrote the screenplay. The film runs a brisk 80 minutes.

1657 - THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON , aka PARADISE LAGOON

Kenneth More is Crichton the resourceful butler in the James Barrie play about a manservent  and the upper class people he serves.  The Barrie play speculates about what happens to class structure when situations are reversed and the masters become the servants. 

The satire and social commentary are mild for the most part.  Barrie makes his points but nothing is really taken very seriously.  This film is far from a rallying cry to overthrow the British ruling class.

The film is well done, the acting fine, this is what was called a civilized entertainment once upon a time.

 94 minutes.

1957 - 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH on Blu Ray

Ray Harryhausen reworks King Kong again but this time the film is set in Rome and the monster climbs to the top of the Colosseum before it's shot down.

This is another film made early in the career of Harryhausen who demonstrated what a talented special effects artist and technician could do on a low budget. 

 

 B movie terrritory for the most part. The film is enjoyable and doesn't push it's luck by running too long. This film is a lot more fun than a lot of the more "A" production science fiction films.

82 minutes written by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf.