RED GARTERS

Rosemary Clooney

RED GARTERS (1954). Director: George Marshall.

The citizens of Limbo County are holding a barbecue to celebrate the death of a hated individual, when said individual's brother, Reb (Guy Mitchell), shows up wanting revenge on whoever murdered him. It doesn't make any difference that Red also hated his brother, it's "the code of the West." Someone who is sick of this code and all of the fighting and killing is saloon singer Calaveras Kate (Rosemary Clooney of White Christmas), who is inexplicably in love with the fat Jason Carberry (Jack Carson), the unofficial leader of the town. She refers to the bloodthirsty townspeople as "Modern-day Romans." While Reb draws closer to Jason's ward, Susan (Pat Crowley), another romance develops between bandit Rafael (Gene Barry) and newcomer-from-Boston Sheila (Joanne Gilbert). Reb and Rafael have also become fast friends, but what will happen when Red learns that it was his buddy who shot and killed his brother?

Guy Mitchell and Pat Crowley

Red Garters is easily both the weirdest musical and western that I have ever seen. For one thing, the movie is so highly-stylized that it often seems like a cartoon. In some westerns there is some attempt to make sets on a soundstage resemble the real thing, but the town in Red Garters is completely artificial. That pretty much matches the farcical absurdity of the screenplay. However, without putting to fine a point on it, the film has a subtext of using logic to reduce violence, personified in the character of the quite sensible Kate (aside from her infatuation for Jason). Similarly Clooney dominates the movie, and gives a terrific performance. Not only is she surprisingly sexy doing such numbers as the title tune, "Code of the West" and especially the splendid "Bad News," but she delivers her songs with more assurance and professionalism than I've ever quite seen from her before. 

Joanne Gilbert and Gene Barry

As for Guy Mitchell, who was essentially a singer, he gives a good performance in Garters, but his lack of good looks probably didn't help him and he made only two movies, this and Those Redheads from Seattle. Joanne Gilbert, also a good singer, was introduced in this film and she is notable as well, but she did mostly television work and her career petered out in the sixties. Gene Barry's turn as a Mexican bandit may be on the stereotypical side, but he is nevertheless excellent. Buddy Ebsen is only given one number but he dances up a storm as expected. Buck-toothed Cass Daley plays an Indian squaw. Reginald Owen and Frank Faylen score as respectively, Sheila's father, the judge, and a cowardly if highly vocal townsperson. Crowley and Carson do their turns professionally. The songs by Livingstone and Evans [Somebody Loves Me] are a mixed bag, some quite forgettable and others rather pleasant.  

Verdict: Like a Western animated movie with flesh and blood players. **3/4.

THE ANDREWS SISTERS TV SHOW

Patti, Maxene and LaVerne Andrews

THE ANDREWS SISTERS TV SHOW (1951). Director: Jean Yarbrough.

This is the pilot for a sitcom-musical series that wasn't picked up by any network. The Andrws Sisters -- Patti, Maxene, and LaVerne -- basically playing themselves, run a music shop in Hollywood but are always behind on the rent. Patti is dating Willie (that amusing nebbish Marvin Kaplan), and LaVerne has set her cap for a character, Tex, played by Buddy Ebsen [Breakfast at Tiffany's] who is not that far from Jed Clampett. In between the limited plot, the gals do song numbers, including the comic "Hawaii: and "Pennsylvania Polka." Patti does a solo on "I Can Dream, Can't I?" and is excellent at putting across this classic romantic ballad. The sisters do two promos for possible sponsors, singing songs, invoking the name of Bing, and mentioning how they can easily get guest-stars from show business. Donald MacBride [Murder Over New York] angrily (as usual) plays the dyspeptic landlord who wants his rent money. One could certainly quibble about many aspects of this pilot, how it's lame at times and hokey, and the gals are certainly not in the league of say, Lucille Ball as comediennes, but they are otherwise not bad actors, with Patti, as usual, being the most accomplished and effervescent, and the show might have been successful if given a chance.

Verdict: Pleasant sitcom with welcome song numbers. **1/2.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961). Director: Blake Edwards.

Paul Varjak (George Peppard) is an author being kept by the married Mrs. Fallenson (Patricia Neal). Paul meets his slightly kooky neighbor, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), who has no desire to talk about her past. Holly makes her living accepting gifts from men. Will these two hustlers triumph over their demons and find true love? Breakfast at Tiffany's is the kind of utterly artificial movie that only Hollywood could churn out, not dealing with reality on any particular level. Part of the problem, of course, is that the film is a complete bowdlerization of Truman Capote's novella, on which this was very loosely based. (In turn, Holly was inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles). Hollywood needed to "straighten" out the Paul character so a romance between the two main characters was fabricated. Hepburn's performance is more than adequate for this, but Holly never seems like a real person. Often through the movie Hepburn is self-consciously "cute" and seems over-rehearsed without a moment of spontaneity. Peppard [The Carpetbaggers] does the best he can with his own underwritten and dishonest role. Patricia Neal [Diplomatic Courier] adds a degree of class in the thankless role of the "cougar" (as we would say today) with a hankering for Paul. To say she is one-dimensional is a major understatement. Mickey Rooney is surprisingly good in his way as Holly's excitable upstairs neighbor, but others have also noted that he is an hysterical Japanese caricature. The movie does have some nice moments, such as an excellent scene between Holly and her ex-husband, Doc (Buddy Ebsen, who would star in The Beverly Hillbillies one year later), when they say farewell at a bus station. And cat fanciers will go "ahh" over the shot of Holly's poor cat sadly looking after her after she (temporarily) sets her free. Mercer and Mancini's "Moon River" is possibly the best thing about the movie.

Verdict: Bohemians strictly from Hollywood. **1/2.