AGNES OF GOD

Meg Tilly and Jane Fonda

AGNES OF GOD (1985). Director: Norman Jewison. 

A young nun, Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), is arrested for manslaughter when her strangled baby is found in a waste basket at the convent. Dr. Martha Livingstone (Jane Fonda), a psychiatrist, is brought in to assess the nun's mental condition. She has some problems in this due to the nun's reticence in talking about or even acknowledging her pregnancy, and the Mother Superior, Miriam (Anne Bancroft). has objections as well. Martha is a lapsed Catholic and Miriam accuses her of hating the Church. Martha decides to do some investigating and find out who the father of the baby is, and if somebody else strangled the infant. She discovers there's a secret exit from -- and entrance into -- the convent.

Anne Bancroft and Jane Fonda

The film version of Agnes of God, which was based on a stage play by John Pielmeier (who also wrote the screenplay) was packaged in movie houses as a murder mystery. If viewers, especially non-Catholic and non-religious viewers, knew it was actually a kind of dopey exploration of faith and the immaculate conception, there probably would have been even less of them in the theater. The film has a visual gloss to it due to Sven Nykvist's cinematography, some nice music by Georges Delarue, and the acting from the three leads can not be faulted, yet ... Most sensible viewers will feel that Sister Agnes definitely needs a psychiatrist! This is a study of severe mental illness masquerading as an examination of faith.

Verdict: Beatific looks can't help put this one over. **.  

ANNE BANCROFT: A LIFE

ANNE BANCROFT: A LIFE. Douglass K. Daniel. University Press of Kentucky; 2017. 

Anne Bancroft was typical of a lot of what we might call "second tier celebrities." Bancroft was accomplished and celebrated, an Oscar-winner, and had a highly successful career, yet for most of her life she was not really "bankable." Her husband, Mel Brooks, may have even become the bigger "name" at one time. In spite of this, Bancroft managed to amass many credits on TV, on the stage, and in films, with her most famous movies being The Miracle Worker (recreating her stage role) and The Graduate. This excellent biography covers her entire life and career from girlhood to death, and does so with intelligence and sensitivity. Author Daniel also analyzes Bancroft's technique in different roles, and doesn't shy away from recording times when she was off her game, at least according to certain critics. Bancroft toiled in B movies like Gorilla at Large and The Girl in Black Stockings, before entering a new phase and new admiration on Broadway and elsewhere. On the stage Bancroft tackled challenging roles in works such as The Devils and Mother Courage. The book is bolstered with many comments from people who knew and worked with the woman. Bancroft's first movie was Don't Bother to Knock, where she was upstaged by Marilyn Monroe but gave the better performance. She wisely turned down such projects as Myra Breckinridge and Mommie Dearest. 

Verdict: Excellent on every level and a good read as well. ****. 

TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR

Cornel Wilde and Anne Bancroft

TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR (1953). Director: Delmer Daves. 

In 18th century France Jean Paul (Cornel Wilde) becomes the bonded servant of his hateful uncle the Marquis de St. Malo (George Macready). Jean also falls in love -- and vice versa -- with his cousin Marie (Anne Bancroft). Jean is the rightful heir to the estate and money but there is no proof that his parents, who died at sea, were ever married. Jean figures only money can get him out of his predicament, especially after he is arrested for assaulting his uncle and trying to flee, so he takes off on a treasure hunt in Guatemala with a man named MacDougal (Finlay Currie). 

Wilde with Finlay Currie

In Guatemala the two men set off with MacDougal's daughter Clara (Constance Smith) and look for a stone serpent to guide them to the treasure. Despite the fact that the movie made much of the fact that some of it was filmed in Guatemala, it doesn't especially add to the film's veracity, especially when the treasure seems to be found in a matter of minutes. There's a snake, a cave-in, and minimal excitement in the treasure scene. Then Jean returns to France, is put on trial, and has a rousing and satisfying final battle with his awful uncle, the best and most memorable sequence in the movie. Wilde gives a charismatic lead performance, with good support from a slimy Macready and a passionate if duplicitous Bancroft in one of her earliest roles. (When she eyes Wilde with his shirt off you can imagine she'd rather cozy up to him than Dustin Hoffman!) Irish actress Smith had about thirty credits but never hit the heights. Fay Wray has a supporting part as Macready's wife, and Leo G. Carroll is also in the cast, but I didn't recognize Robert Blake as a nasty stable boy.  The rich score by Sol Kaplan is beautifully orchestrated by Edward Powell. The main problem with this movie is that the viewer will expect it to be about a treasure hunt but that only takes up a small portion of the picture.

Verdict: Good cast can only do so much with comparatively weak and derivative material. **1/2.

DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK

Marilyn Monroe

DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952). Director: Roy Ward Baker. Based on the novel "Mischief" by Charlotte Armstrong.

Eddie Forbes (Elisha Cook Jr.) is an elevator operator at Manhattan's McKinley Hotel who wishes he had never let his niece, Nell (Marilyn Monroe), babysit for the young daughter of guests Peter and Ruth Jones (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle of The Manitou). For Nell has been disturbed ever since the man she loved died at sea in a plane crash. It doesn't help that she encounters a pilot named Jed Towers (Richard Widmark), whose girlfriend, Lyn (Anne Bancroft of Gorilla At Large) told him to take a hike because she not only feels they have no future but finds him essentially cold. Confusing Jed with the dead man, Nell becomes increasingly unraveled and things look more and more dangerous for her and the little girl (Donna Corcoran) and possibly Jed as well ... Marilyn Monroe is given a pretty tough assignment to play an emotionally disturbed, indeed mentally ill woman in this, and her performance ranges from some quietly effective moments to the occasionally embarrassing one; but all in all she's good and may even manage to wrangle a tear or two from some viewers. Bancroft and Widmark are excellent, and there is also notable work from young Corcoran, as well as Verna Felton (the stern maid on I Love Lucy) and Don Beddoe, as a nosy hotel guest and her husband. Gloria Blondell is a nightclub photographer, Jeanne Cagney plays a telephone operator, and Michael Ross [Attack of the 50 Foot Woman] is the house dick.  The ending to this is rather moving, and none of the major characters are untouched by the experience. This was released by Twentieth Century Fox with big-name leads, but it's essentially a "B" movie with a short running time. 

Verdict: Sad story of a grieving, neurotic woman disguised as a competent little thriller. ***. 

NIGHTFALL

Brian Keith and Aldo Ray

NIGHTFALL (1957). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend Doc (Frank Albertson of Man-Made Monster) are on a hunting trip when they come to the aid of two men -- John (Brian Keith of The Parent Trap) and Red (Rudy Bond) -- who, unbeknownst to them, have robbed a bank. The ingrates murder doc and try to kill Vanning, who takes off with them in pursuit. The crooks take the wrong bag and assume that Vanning has the bag with the money in it. While on the run, Vanning meets a model named Marie (Anne Bancroft of Gorilla at Large) in a bar and she becomes embroiled in his problems. James Gregory plays an insurance man who is also following Vanning, albeit with less sinister intent. Although well-acted for the most part, and well-photographed by Burnett Guffey, Nightfall is a fairly weak entry in the film noir department, only really coming alive at the climax when thieves fall out and there's a sequence involving a runaway snow plow. Bancroft is good, if miscast as a model, and Ray pretty much walks through the movie, barely getting by on a little bit of charm and showing little emotion. Given a lead role, he pretty much muffs it. He kept acting right up until his death in 1991, however.

Verdict: Not much to this cheapie. **.

GORILLA AT LARGE

GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) Director: Harmon Jones.

When people start getting murdered at a carnival, the police wonder if the culprit is the star attraction, Goliath the gorilla, or someone in an ape suit. Suspects for the latter include the owner Cy Miller (Raymond Burr); his wife, Laverne (Anne Bancroft), who is a trapeze artist who works with Goliath; Joey Matthews (Cameron Mitchell), who has a crush on Laverne; Kovaks (Peter Whitney), Laverne's ex-husband; and a few others. The cops on the case include Lee J. Cobb (The Exorcist), Lee Marvin (Raintree County), and Warren Stevens (Phone Call from a Stranger). [Clearly this is one low-budget movie that has a very interesting cast.] This is a modestly entertaining, generally well-acted thriller that holds the attention if nothing else. Director Hrmon Jones did mostly television work, including a few episodes of Perry Mason. NOTE: Midnite [sic] Movies' remastered DVD looks great in high definition.

Verdict: Fun, even if most of the cast went on to much better things. **1/2.

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE (2003)

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (Cable; 2003). Director: Robert Allan Ackerman.

The cable remake of 2003, with a teleplay by Martin (Bent) Sherman, stars Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez as Karen and Paolo, both of whom are superior to Leigh and Beatty in the 1961 version. Mirren is simply superb and Martinez, a fine actor, doesn't just play Paolo like Beatty does (however well); he is Paolo. Brian Dennehy is excellent as Karen's husband, as is Anne Bancroft as the Contessa, although she is nowhere near as good as Lotte Lenya in the original. The Meg character has been replaced with a male gay playwright who seems based on Tennessee Williams and is given some of Meg's lines with less caustic delivery. Roger Allan is very good in the part but the real Tennessee Williams wasn't as epicene as Allan plays him. This version is, of course, more sexed-up than the original, with the two leads sexily pounding away in a Cadillac out in the country at one point. There is also more of a political subtext to the movie, with Karen Stone representing the wealthy American invaders of Rome, American prosperity in general, during the difficult post-War period when so many Italians were living in poverty, which, of course, gives more impact to, and a strong basis for, Paolo's contempt for her. The handsome tramp or Angel of Death who follows Karen around (played by Rodrigo Santoro) is introduced snatching a discarded piece of pizza from the street and stuffing it hungrily into his mouth. [Unfortunately, this emphasis on his starvation and misery creates the impression that at the end of the movie he will be less interested in raping or killing Karen than he will be in raiding her refrigerator for a sandwich!] In this version, as in the original, the ending just doesn't convince. Mirren, like Leigh, seems much too strong and collected to throw her life away the way she throws her keys down to the man who's been stalking her. And neither film version today can quite escape the dated quality of the novel when it comes to older woman/younger man relationships. Still, both films are very good and worthwhile seeing. The cable remake has the slight edge due to the superior acting of the leads, as well as more scenes delineating Paolo's character, but the original does have the wonderful Lenya – an absolute force of nature! -- as well as an evocative Richard Addinsell score.

Verdict: See it! ***1/2.