Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (Giv'a 24 Eina Ona) 1955

 

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

 

Artists and Models (1955)

 

All That Heaven Allows (1955) **1/2

No one in classic Hollywood did melodrama better than director Douglas Sirk.  With films like All I Desire (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1954), There’s Always Tomorrow (1956), Written on the Wind (1956), Imitation of Life (1959), and today’s entry, All That Heaven Allows (1955), Sirk made movies that focused on domestic concerns, almost always centered around the emotional needs and desires of women. Over and over again certain themes would appear in his pictures: female alienation from social norms; motherly love tested by the selfishness of their children; and, criticism of conformity—although this particular theme was not always recognized by critics, at least not until the veil was lifted about how un-ideal the 1950s actually were for many American women.  Yes, the plots of many of his films played like a soap opera, but no soap opera was ever so well acted or sumptuously lensed. 

Such is the case with All That Heaven Allows, a melodrama which reteamed Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson following their hugely successful pairing in Magnificent Obsession. While Wyman was a star and an acclaimed actress (she had three Best Actress nominations and one Oscar statute) when she first worked with Sirk on Magnificent Obsession (for which she earned her fourth Best Actress nomination), Hudson was pretty much a second, third, or fourth banana in Hollywood and was regarded more for his looks than for his acting abilities.  Sirk must have seen something in Hudson that others did not, because between 1952-1958 he and Hudson made nine films together at Universal.  All That Heaven Allows was their fifth collaboration, and their second pairing with Wyman.  Clearly, Wyman was the star of the show, but by this point Sirk new how to get the most out of Hudson that he could.

Based on Edna and Harry Lee’s 1952 story of the same name, All That Heaven Allows is billed as a May/December romance between a well-to-do widow and a working-class gardener/arborist.  Mrs. Cary Scott (Wyman) is a lonely widow who feels isolated by the world she and her deceased husband used to occupy. Her two grown children, Kay (Gloria Talbott) and Ned (William Reynolds), are preoccupied with their lives at their Ivy League schools and assume that their mother will eventually marry a mature, and very passionless, man from their social set—or purchase a television set to spend her evenings with.  However, she strikes up a friendship with Ron Kirby (Hudson), the man who prunes her trees, and against her better judgment begins an affair with the handsome man who is both younger than herself and who is also of lower social standing.  She is attracted to more than his good looks, though.  She admires his individuality and his simplicity, and through interactions with he and his friends Cary finds a world where people care about other people—not about how much money they have or their social standing.  Yet, when Ron asks her to marry him, at first she says that it will never work because of their differences. Ah, but love is strong and she decides to take a chance—and that’s when the nastiness begins.  Her snobby friends (sans poor Agnes Moorehead’s Sara) find the relationship scandalous and her children think it’s humiliating—mostly to them.  Unable to “thine own self be true”, Cary breaks off the engagement to appease her beyond-selfish children and finds herself alone and miserable.  Finding herself at a personal crossroads (in front of a television nonetheless), Cary has to make up her mind about whether she’s going to live her life for others or for herself.

Personally, I don’t think this is a film about a May/December romance. Wyman was 38 years old and Hudson was 30 when they made All That Heaven Allows. While I know Cary is supposed to be in her early to mid forties and have two college-age children, she doesn’t look all that much older than Ron.  Perhaps that was a focal point in the Lees’ story (I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be fifteen years older than Ron), but it really isn’t in the movie. Yes, there are a few barbs from the town gossip (Jacqueline De Wit) and a not so kind muscle reference from her son that insinuates that there is an age difference, but that’s not really what All That Heaven Allows is about.  Instead, I view it as an critique on American consumerism and conformity (there’s a reason Cary reads from Thoreau’s Walden).  The thing that seems to rankle Cary’s friends and children the most about Ron is that he’s not one of them—driven by money and having fine, expensive things.  He doesn’t belong, nor does he want to, to their worldview.  And the fact that someone from their social/economic group would want to shed the life that they so value and esteem to live a simple existence is almost anathema to them.  Cary doesn’t want to conform and so she is ostracized by her friends and shamed by her own children.  As a result of doing what others expect of her, she finds herself locked inside a world that holds no meaning for her.  It is only when she realizes that she needs to do what makes her happy that she can truly be free.  In 1955, women, in general, did not do this and I expect the ending of this film was shocking to some—hopefully, it was also enlightening to others.

While she may not be as well remembered as Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, or Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman was a very fine actress who could do comedy or drama, and was also a dancer and a singer.  Wyman, much like Stanwyck, had had a difficult childhood which she used to her advantage when playing characters who needed to draw upon their own internal fortitude to face difficult situations.  And although she was not what one would call a classic beauty, she had a certain personal grace and countenance that was admired by moviegoers.  These qualities, of course, allowed her to play Cary Scott as a gracefully polite woman stifled by the circumstances of her life.  It’s not easy to play a sacrificing woman and not be tinged by sanctimony, but Wyman does an excellent job of melding Cary’s two worlds and personalities into one overall character.  She must be refined, composed, and repressed at certain times, and at others she is free to display desire, unencumbered happiness, and hopefulness—but not too much, because there are voices of doubt that still rattle around in her mind that makes her happiness guarded and almost unrealistic. 

Other than Wyman’s performance, the thing that most stands out about All That Heaven Allows is its aesthetic appeal.  Sirk’s cinematographer of choice on this, and many of his most esteemed films, was Russell Metty.  Working in the wonderful, sumptuous world of Technicolor, they created a beautifully lensed picture.  Throughout the movie they use muted colors to heighten the personal alienation and torment of their characters.  Perhaps the most memorable scene in the film is when Cary goes to the mill to tell Ron that she’s breaking off their engagement. Set against a Monet-esque snowscape looming outside, Ron’s partly refurbished mill-home is conspicuously and overbearingly full of open space and made up of wood and stone.  Sirk and Metty will revisit this particular setting later in the film when they capture the most lasting image of the film: Cary standing in front of that same snowscape in a fully refurbished home staring at a stag standing right outside the massive window.

If I have one critique of All That Heaven Allows is its heavy-handed use of Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 3.  Yes, we get it, it’s a melodrama, do we really need to have such overly dramatic music soaring in the background? 

Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard) (1955) ***

(Warning: Some images in this post may be disturbing.)

Ten years after the end of World War II and the frightening revelation of what Nazi Germany attempted to do to “rid” the world of Jews, French director Alain Resnais made his startling short documentary, Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog), which unflinchingly documents the horrors of Nazi concentration camps.  The images depicted in the film are startling to watch and serve as a reminder to countless generations that true evil did and does exist in human beings.

The film opens in color, with the camera capturing the grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek.  The overgrown and deserted camps look like long-lost factory towns where people may have worked and raised families in a saner world.  However, as the narrator, Michel Bouquet, reminds us, these were places of unimaginable horror. The film transitions to black and white stock photos and newsreel-esque footage to attempt to explain how millions of “deportees” found themselves transported to and then imprisoned, tortured, and killed in these seemingly innocent looking camps.  Yes, the emaciated bodies, hollowed-out faces of the dead, and the mass graves are unfathomable and almost incomprehensible to anyone with a shred of human decency, but perhaps the most perplexing images are those of the detainees first being loaded into the trains that would take them to the camps. The sheer number of people being peacefully herded into the cars, some even waving as the train pulls away, is mind-blowing.  Of course, we, the viewer, know what is in store for these unfortunate souls, so for us it is unconceivable that anyone would get on such a train without being drug onto it.  Yet, these detainees, at least in the early stages of the deportments before horror stories started to be whispered about in the ghettos, had no idea that they were being sent to hell of earth.  Who in their right mind would have imagined the true intentions of the Nazis?

This is why Night and Fog, among other documentaries about genocide, is important.  Seemingly normal people put those deportees on the train, ran the train, declothed and deloused the deportees, took all their possessions, denied them adequate food rations and medical care, worked them to death, shot, raped and tortured them, and told them that they were going to take showers when in reality they were going to be gassed.  And, as if that wasn’t enough, they denied them proper burials, removing their teeth for silver and gold and using their bodies to make soap and other “products”—as if they were actual cattle that had arrived in cattle cars to a slaughterhouse. Perhaps one of the most telling scenes in the film is when the guards at the camps are put on trial and they say, “I am not responsible” for which the narrator answers, “Who is responsible then?” At what point did human decency leave these people? 

Hanns Eisler’s haunting score intensifies, if that’s even possible, the ghastly and grisly images that pass on the screen.  Decapitated bodies with their heads stacked in a bucket, mounds of bodies being pushed by bulldozers, and innumerable skeletons strewn across the grounds of the camps are beyond horrible to witness.  It is difficult for me to understand how anyone could have seen such images and then went on to commit similar atrocities in places like Cambodia, Serbia, Bosnia, and countless African and South American nations.  Is hate such a strong motivator to enact such heinous acts of evil? 

I cannot quibble that the narrator is obviously not attempting to give an unbiased accounting of what happened in the concentration camps, who could be unbiased? What happened in these places was horrible—is there possibly another side to the story? If so, I don’t want to hear it.  My one qualm with the film is that it is too short (although who knows how much more one could actually stand to watch) at 32 minutes.  Perhaps I have been spoiled (and one might even say over-exposed) by such Holocaust documentaries as Shoah (1985) and Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988), but a short excerpt from a camp survivor would have added even more weight to an already powerful and emotionally jarring, no-holds barred look at one of the worst facts about humankind—unspeakable evil is possible. 

The Night of the Hunter (1955) **1/2

Renowned screen actor Charles Laughton played some of the most memorable cinematic characters ever: Captain Bligh, Quasimodo, Nero, Dr. Moreau, King Henry VIII, Captain Kidd, and Sir Alfred Robarts, just to name a few, but like most actors, he thought he’d like to direct.  He’d had experience directing plays but wanted to helm a film that would make moviegoers "sit up straight again” at the theater and take notice.  And, so when he became enthralled with David Grubb’s best-selling novel, The Night of the Hunter, Laughton decided he would make it into a film. Unfortunately, it was both a commercial and critical failure and Laughton never directed another movie before his death in 1962. Today, his The Night of the Hunter (1955) is regarded by critics as one of the best films of the 1950s. I’m sure a man with such an ironic sense of humor as Laughton’s would have found this somewhat depressing. 

Set amidst the West Virginian countryside during the Great Depression, this is a movie that is one part gothic fairy tale and one part morality tale.  It is written in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” This pretty much sums up ‘Reverend’ Harry Powell’s (Robert Mitchum) sociopathic existence.  Plagued with a pathological disgust of women (calling Dr. Freud) but an insatiable need for money to bankroll his false prophesies, Harry finds himself compelled to kill widows.  After being incarcerated for stealing a car, Harry shares a cell with a man (Peter Graves) sentenced to death for killing two people in a bank robbery where he stole $10,000 that was never recovered.  Once released from prison Harry sets out to find the man’s widow and the missing money. The problem is the widow, Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), has no idea where the cash is stashed, but her two young children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), do but have promised never to reveal that it’s hidden in Pearl’s doll. What ensues is a true battle of good versus evil.

The Brothers Grimm and German expressionism obviously influenced Laughton’s vision of this film. James Agee is credited with the screen adaptation of Grubb’s novel, but in reality it was Laughton and his assistant directors, Terry and Denis Sanders, who wrote most of the script that ended up on the screen. Much like the novel, the film focuses on the duality of good and evil, which is quite literally etched on Harry’s knuckles, with one hand reading Love and the other one Hate.  When a film starts off by quoting Matthew 7:15: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves,” and the next thing you see is a man in clerical garb, wearing a hat that looks like it has satanic horns, then you know this isn’t your everyday story of good versus evil.  Somehow the fact that Harry is perceived as a man of God makes his evil ways even more dark and sinister—a fact that would have not been lost on the Brothers Grimm.

There are two particular shots in the film that are obvious nods to the likes of Fritz Lang and Robert Wiene, pioneers of the German Expressionistic movement. The first comes early in the film when John is telling Pearl a bedtime story about a bad man looking to do harm.  Standing in a moonlit window as he relays the story, the boy finds himself silhouetted by the outline of a Puritanical hat belonging to a man singing his abased version of “Lean on Jesus” which he sings as “Leanin’”.  When film teachers instruct students on the power of a good foreshadowing scene this is beyond an obvious choice.  The other tip of the hat to Lang and Wiene comes in the bedroom scene where Harry kills Willa.  By this point in the story, Willa has become a brainwashed disciple of Harry and is so far gone that she can’t see him for the demon that he is, even when it is right in front of her face.  As she prattles on about her spiritual shortcomings, the scene is framed in such a way to make the bedroom appear as a church (steeple included)—she quite literally can’t see behind the shadows of delusion. 

While the first half of the film is dedicated to the depiction of evil, the second half focuses primarily on good. This is where Lillian Gish comes into the story.  Laughton desperately wanted Gish for the role of Mrs. Cooper and did what most could not do: he convinced her to come out of retirement and play what he thought was the lynchpin role of the film. Mrs. Cooper’s Christian compassion and charity are the perfect dichotomy to Harry’s greed and hatred.  As she says, she is a “strong tree with branches for many birds.” Reminiscent of the Old Lady in the Shoe, Mrs. Cooper is the caretaker of orphaned children and she takes John and Pearl in when they run away from Harry.  She is a formidable adversary to Harry, which is showcased in their pivotal showdown of wills and, well, religiosity. Never has there been a stranger duet than Harry singing “Leanin’” with Mrs. Cooper chiming in to sing the correct version of the song, “Lean on Jesus”. It is here that good and evil meet and only one can win—it helps that one brought a knife to a shotgun fight, though.

Mitchum campaigned hard for the role of ‘Reverend’ Harry and it shows in what is perhaps his finest performance.  Cool and cunning, as well as evil and deranged, never looked so good on a man.  There are very few actors who could pull off being both vile and charming, but Mitchum does it exceedingly well.  It is a shame that he was overlooked by the Academy Awards, but perhaps the world of 1955 wasn’t ready for such a dark and disturbing film. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Night of the Hunter. The story was gripping and Stanley Cortez’s photography was inspired. If I have one complaint about the film it has to be the character of Pearl. Was there ever a more helpless child in the world?  If I had to see John drag her up steps or attempt to put her uncooperative self in a boat one more time I may have screamed., “O come ye little children indeed!”

Bob the Gambler (Bob le Flambeur) 1955 **1/2

When you ask a film lover to name some of their favorite film noirs you might hear such titles as: Double Indemnity (1944), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Laura (1944), Murder, My Sweet (1944), Out of the Past (1947), or The Maltese Falcon (1941), but you would rarely hear the name of the often overlooked Bob le Flambeur (1955). Perhaps this is due to it being a French-language film from a relatively unknown French director in Jean-Pierre Melville. Whatever may be the reason, Bob le Flambeur is a film noir that should get more attention from cinephiles—and not just the ones who recognize the name Bob le Flambeur because it was mentioned in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), either. 

Fans of Melville know that his best films are minimalistic but stylish—think Le Samourai (1967), Le Cercle rouge (1970), and Un flic (1972, with our fave Catherine Deneuve).  A French Resistance fighter during WWII, Melville was his own man in every sense.  When he couldn’t get a job in the French film industry he started his own studio and made his own unique brand of films.  His independent style allowed him to veer away from the then-stagnant nature of French filmmaking, and employ techniques that were hugely influential to New Wave directors like Godard and Francois Truffaut.  His films relied on location shots (primarily by handheld cameras), and employed the use of jump cuts (which were a big no-no at the time). While the Cahiers du cinéma are often remembered for their reverence of such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, and Max Ophuls, Melville’s work was also viewed favorably.  He along with Jean Renoir and Jean Cocteau are perhaps the Frenchmen the Cahiers (and the subsequent French New Wave) most admired. 

Cinematographer Henri Decaë filmed primarily on locationn in Montmartre (a section of Paris known for its nightclubs and bohemian culture), but scenes were also shot at a horse track in La Havre as well as in Deauville for the casino sequences. Films shot on location always seem to have a notable edge to them—perhaps this is because they side-step the artificiality of a studio set. I think this is one of the striking features of Bob le Flambeur—it adds to the overall grittiness of the picture.  When you start your film with a multi-perspective shot of a street cleaning truck circling the Montmartre rotunda and your main character driving his 1955 Plymouth Belvedere you are making a statement. In addition, the night shots of the busy streets of Montmartre do a tremendous job of exhibiting the world in which Bob Montagné (Roger Duchesne) operates. These shots are completely atmospheric and unlike what most French filmmakers were doing at the time. Godard would later borrow heavily from this when he shot the nighttime scenes in Breathless, and I’m sure Eric Rohmer was also thinking of Melville when he worked on My Night at Maud’s (1969).

Still, even though the exterior shots are what most people focus on, there are a number of standout interior shots as well. My favorite one is an extreme overhead (I mean in the ceiling) shot that watches as Bob paces in his kitchen. There is an added element in this scene, because the story has voice-over narration (by Melville nonetheless) and when you watch it you feel almost voyeuristic, as though you are in collusion with the all-seeing narrator.  One of the other things I noticed about many of Melville’s interior scenes is his fascination with checks and rectangles—they inundate almost every one.  This is a subtle reference to the game of chess, and we the viewer get to watch how the game plays out for Bob. 

While the innovative camerawork and set design are what make this a memorable piece of cinema, the overall story and acting is good, too.  Penned by Melville and Auguste Le Breton, the film is about a compulsive gambler (and ex-con) and his eclectic crew of associates. Dapperly dressed and graced with the manners of a gentleman, Bob is liked and admired by everyone—including the police, headed by Inspector Ledru (Guy Decomble). He’s the type of man who exudes confidence and has the ability to convince others to go along with whatever he wants to do.  Which comes in handy when he decides he wants to rob the Deauville casino. Overall, the story is crisply paced and remarkably believable.  I view it is as ironic realism—something you don’t always get with a noir or a heist film.

Early in his career Melville was known for casting relative unknowns—primarily because he never had enough money to pay anyone.  While both Duchesne and Daniel Cauchy (who plays Bob’s surrogate son Paolo) were established actors, Melville did launch the career of Isabelle Corey when he gave her the would-be femme fatale role of Anne in this picture. Duchesne is obviously the star of the film, but both Cauchy and Corey bring an added rawness to their roles.  Corey, in particular, stands out for how she plays her character as both opportunistic and naive.  You don’t know whether to embrace her or slap some sense into her. 

There are many reasons to like Bob le Flambeur, and that’s why it’s such a shame that more people aren’t familiar with it.  If you don’t believe me, take the word of director Stanley Kubrick, who said Bob le Flambeur is the greatest crime film ever made. High praise indeed.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) **

(This article is from guest contributor Sarkoffagus and first appeared at http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/.  The rating in the title is my own.)

Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) opens with a woman's bare feet sprinting on an apparently deserted road. The woman, Christina (Cloris Leachman, in her film debut), stands in front of an approaching vehicle. Gumshoe Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) swerves his car to avoid hitting her, and he reluctantly agrees to take her to the bus station. On the way, Christina tells Mike that, should they not make their destination, he needs to do one thing for her: "Remember me," she ominously states. Suddenly, they are forced off the road, and a semi-conscious Mike later sees a congregation of feet, while hearing Christina being tortured and killed. The dazed P.I. and the woman's body are put into Mike's car and pushed down a cliff.

Mike Hammer awakens in the hospital and is subsequently questioned by the police. The private eye, who specializes in divorce cases, soon has people asking about him, following him, and idly threatening him. Cops and criminals alike think that Mike is withholding pertinent information, and after having his private investigator's license and gun permit revoked, he tells his secretary and lover, Velda (Maxine Cooper), to forget the cheating spouses so that they can focus solely on "something big." And what everyone seems to be after is indeed big, bigger than Mike could ever anticipate.

Kiss Me Deadly was based on a novel of the same name by Mikey Spillane, featuring his immensely popular character. Reportedly, screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides, who adapted the book, had such aversion for the source text that the film ultimately took a dim view to Mike Hammer, turning him into a rather vile and despicable character. When initially interrogated, Mike refuses to talk, and the cops seem disgusted by him, asking him questions and patronizing him by "answering" on his behalf. When the gumshoe leaves, one of the men vindictively states, "Open a window." This is a man who knocks someone down a long flight of steps and smirks as he watches him roll down, a vicious person who clearly takes pleasure in slamming an uncooperative man's fingers in a desk drawer. He's the definitive antihero. He drowns the world out with loud classical music and screens his phone calls.

There are so many twists and turns in this film that it feels like constant movement. The first shot of Kiss Me Deadly is, appropriately, running feet. There's a distinct impression that Mike is running from place to place, hoping to be two steps ahead of everyone but more accurately having trouble keeping up. The concept of momentum is a significant component of the movie. Mike tries to identify Christina's killers by shoes, the deceased woman is equated with her roommate, Lilly (Gaby Rodgers), as she is likewise introduced with bare feet, and when Mike is taken captive, he is knocked unconscious and dragged (on a beach, as his feet leave a trail), and he is bound by feet and hands.

Mike moves forward with the investigation, and the villains want to stop him. His first car is wrecked, and he is "given" a second car with an explosive surprise. Other people have been killed in "accidents" involving vehicles. It's fitting that one of Mike's only friends is Nick (Nick Dennis), an auto mechanic whose catchphrase is, "Va-va-voom!" He's essentially an antithesis to the villains, wanting to fix what they wish to destroy.

With this in mind, the film's title can take on multiple connotations. A superficial view would associate the "kiss" with succumbing to the affection of the opposite sex, letting down your guard and opening yourself to a lethal reciprocation. But it can also refer to what Mike himself calls "the sweet little kiss off," an acknowledgment of death or, more specifically, the very thing which kills you. This gives deeper meaning to a warning provided by Velda: "Keep away from the windows. Somebody might blow you a kiss." Most notably, however, Kiss Me Deadly is a recognition of both good and bad, that sex ultimately leads to violence, as the two go hand in hand. Perhaps the film's quintessential shot is Lilly lying in bed, adorned in a robe and pointing a gun at the door.

Aldrich's film is abundant in atmosphere and style. Furthermore it's surprisingly violent, some of it even by today's standards. The majority of the violence's impact is not from the presentation itself but rather the callous way in which Mike dishes it out. Ralph Meeker has incredible presence, making Mike Hammer the type of character who makes a viewer feel both unassailable and anxious. At one point, Mike is shadowed by a stranger. The P.I. spots him almost immediately and seems to enjoy the moments preceding the inevitable attack. When the stranger pulls a switchblade, Mike forces him to drop the knife with the greatest of ease, before knocking him around and slamming his head against a building several times. It takes an extraordinarily cruel protagonist to make an audience sympathize with a man whose intent was to literally stab someone in the back.

The thing that everyone wants -- what Velda calls "the great whatsit" -- will likely be a surprise for anyone who hasn't seen the film (and hopefully hasn't been told how the film ends). Kiss Me Deadly continues its winding plot all the way to the closing credits, creating one of the grandest and most gleefully erratic cinematic endings of all time. Interestingly, for years the film's conclusion was truncated and left a couple of characters' fates in question. More recent copies of the film (the DVD, for instance) have the original ending intact.

Kiss Me Deadly is a solid entry in the film noir genre. Mike Hammer in Mikey Spillane's novels was a driven man, taken to seeking his own brand of justice; just look at some of the titles -- I, the Jury, Vengeance is Mine, etc. But Aldrich's cinematic Hammer is much more brutally simplistic. He just wants the payoff, indifferent to the people he hurts or kills, ignoring the police's requests for information, etc. In the end, it's impossible to tell if Mike wants to solve the mystery, if he's still hoping for monetary compensation, or if he's merely going through the motions. Such an enigmatic and unlikeable character within a baffling plot makes Kiss Me Deadly a beautifully complex and highly recommended feature.