1955 - LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, a typical Hollywood love story.

Based on a real life incident.  The love story between an American reporter and an Eurasian doctor is given the 1950's Hollywood treatment.  In other words all of the life and passion has been sucked out of it. In the film Jennifer Jones plays the Eurasian, Han Suyin who slowly falls in love with an American war correspondent played by William Holden.  The film wants to pretend it's somewhat controversial with some very shallow discussions about race but everything is smothered over with lots of travelog shots of Hong Kong where the film is set.  As this was the prissy 1950's absolutely no sign of any kind of passionate love affair between the two of them was allowed.

If anything the behind the scenes antics would probably have made a better film.  Apparently Jennifer Jones and William Holden didn't get along at all.  This culminated in Jones eating garlic before their kissing scenes and extended to her throwing flowers at Holden who had sent them as a peace offering during the shooting.  Jones complained that the cameraman made her look old and she was described as "rude and abrasive," to the production team.  It's a tribute to both the actors that on screen they actually look like they like much less love each other. 

 

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing was filmed in 20th Century Fox's widescreen process Cinemascope and the title tune became a big hit.  The film was financially successful but it is also very bland in a 1950's kind of way.  The dialog doesn't really help matters with Jones who barely looks Eurasian mouthing fortune cookie platitudes about Asia throughout the film.  William Holden comes off a little better.  Apparently the screenwriter John Patrick had his hands full having to incorporate scenes shot in Hong Kong by a 2nd unit and the studio sets where the film was finished.

 

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing is good example of a rather trite love story put over by a good Hollywood production team but it's really not much of a film.  The running time is 102 minutes.

1939 - JESSE JAMES, big sprawling 1930's western

Daryl F Zanuck the head of 20th Century Fox at times personally produced some films.  Jesse James is one of these.  Zanuck's top screenwriter Nunnally Johnson wrote the film and one of the best studio directors, Henry King filmed it.  Jesse James starred Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda, was photographed in Technicolor.  It couldn't miss and didn't, it was a big hit with the audiences.

The film itself, as they say must have involved considerable research to get most of the facts of Jesse James's life wrong.  The outlaw is portrayed at a simple man driven to violence by a cold corporate rail road company bent on taking over the farms of the regular people for the purposes of building their evil train line.

Anyway, the film is entertaining.  A lot of it was shot on location in Missouri and the early 1930's Technicolor is nice to look at. 

The running time is 106 minutes.

1941 - A YANK IN THE R.A.F., a well made studio WWII propaganda film.

20th Century Fox and all the other Hollywood studios for that matter released lots of World War 2 propaganda films to rally the American public in the fight against fascism and what the heck make a few dollars as well.

A Yank In The R.A.F. is a pretty good example of this type of film.  Fox had two of their biggest stars Tyrone Power and Betty Grable as the romantic leads and Henry King one of their best studio directors sheparding this stuff.

The film is basically a romantic triangle with Betty torn between the upstanding British Officer in love with her and the bad boy American flyer played by Power,  who she is obviously attracted to. Throw in a little shoot em up airplane action and lots of romantic fluff with two attractive stars and how could you miss with this film.

 

Tyrone Power to his credit does try to make his character interesting.  Betty Grable is Betty Grable.  In a film with Betty Grable it's all about her famous legs, so the audience is treated to several musical numbers where she performs in a nightclub while volunteering in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force by day.

 

Anyway, the film is entertaining and runs 98 minutes.  It was written by Karl Tunberg and Darryl Ware, but it has all the imprints of the producer Daryl F. Zanuck all over it. 

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.

1955 - UNTAMED, poor man's GONE WITH THE WIND

Large scale film about the birth of South Africa and the fight for independence.  Tyrone Power is the heroic leader fighting off Zulus and romancing hot Susan Hayward.  Power eventually picks freedom fighting instead of staying with Hayward which is a pretty poor pick in my mind.

Power rides around with a bunch of commandos righting wrongs and helping the people of South Africa gain their freedom (unless you are black but that's a different story).

 

Untamed was directed by studio veteran Henry King so it's well staged and acted.  The film was apparently shot on location, a least some of it anyway. 

The film mostly focuses on Susan Hayward's character.  She's kind of a poor man's Scarlett O'Hara as she goes from poor to rich to poor again.  In fact I think it would be safe to say the film definitely revolves around Hayward at the expense of the Tyrone Power character. 

111 minutes, written by Michael Blankfort, Frank Fenton and Talbot Jennings.

1939 - STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE, a true story made up of fiction

We're in Africa with Spencer Tracey as explorer Henry Stanley and his faithful companion Jeff played by a really out of place actor Walter Brennan who should be hanging around with John
Wayne instead of Tracy.  The two of them are searching for Dr David Livingstone who the world assumes has died somewhere in darkest Africa.

After a lot of adventures involving the native population chasing Stanley and his safari around.  Henry Stanley does indeed run into Livingstone in the middle of nowhere.  You would think this would be the end of the film, but no.  When Stanley returns to England it seems no one will believe him.  This plot development takes up the rest of the film.

Since this is one of Daryl F Zanuck's personal projects. The production values are at a very high standard.  Zanuck also assigned the direction to one of his best directors Henry King.  The film is very watchable.  Zanuck even sent a 2nd unit crew to Africa to catch lots of background footage for authenticity.  The problem with this film is that it is almost entirely false.

A couple of minutes on the Wikipedia page for Henry Stanley is quite a different story, Stanley was an exploiter of the African continent for the Belgium government, a racist and probably a murderer.  This was not the true story that would have played well the movie going audiences at this time.  The best thing to be said about this film is that the cast is interesting.

101 minutes.

1926 - THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH, a large scale western epic

This is an epic silent western film from classy producer Samuel Goldwyn and director Henry King.  The film is well cast with Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper and silent actress Velma Banky in one of those romantic love triangles, he loves her, she loves another guy, the other guy thinks she loves the other guy, etc.  

The Winning of Barbara Worth has large scale production values and much of the film was shot on location on some hell hole Nevada desert location. Watching the film today you can't help thinking this was nobody's idea of a fun production. 

The end of the film features a spectacular flood sequence which is a good example of mixing models and optical effects integrated together.  The effects still hold up very well a film that is over 80 years old.

 

  As usual what shoves pictures like The Winning of Barbara to the back of the bus is it's status as a silent film.  But this is as good a film as anything John Ford directed.  The director Henry King was  a complete pro behind the camera and had a long run making successful entertaining films for 45 years.

89 minutes, written by Frances Marion.

1938 - ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND, unending Irving Berlin musical.

A big budget musical drama from 20th Century Fox, a studio not known for their skill in making musicals.  Alexander's Ragtime Band really shows how popular taste in film has changed since the late 30's when this was released.

The film his directed by Henry King in the most pedestrian fashion possible.  King was a good reliable studio director throughout his career but getting a handle on this film seemed beyond his reach.  The musical numbers are strictly lock the camera down and let the actors perform like they were on the stage.

As the leader of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Tyrone Power announces, "I love ragtime music," and does he ever.  The film has a lot of Irving Berlin's songs.  Berlin wrote around 1500 songs during his lifetime and I think they performed almost everyone of them in this film.

The dramatic elements in this story are by the numbers, Tyrone Power's Aunt wants him to have a career in classic music, he wants to play ragtime music.  Power meets Alice Faye, who Don Ameche is in love with.  Faye becomes a famous Broadway star, Power and Ameche join the army and fight in World War I.  Who will Alice Faye choose, third credit name Don Ameche or first credit name Tyrone Power?

Alexander's Ragtime Band is an opportunity to see Alice Faye who was a very popular star in the 1930's and 40's.  Faye was what you would call a "full figured gal."  She was a pretty good vocalist.  Tyrone Power was one of Fox's biggest stars.  A pretty boy who it turned out actually had some talent.

Alexander's Ragtime Band was a big hit when it was released but is fairly unwatchable today.

106 minutes, written by Kathryn Scola and Lamar Trotti.