THE CARDINAL

Father Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) faces the KKK

THE CARDINAL (1963). Produced and directed by Otto Preminger.

At his birth it was decided that Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon of The Unholy Wife) would become a priest, and he never questioned it. Seen as being too ambitious by Bishop Glennon (John Huston), Fermoyle is sent to one of the poorest parishes in the nation, where he works with the dying Father Halley (Burgess Meredith). Not certain that he wants -- or ever wanted -- to be a priest, he takes a leave of absence and falls in love with the Austrian woman Annemarie (Romy Schneider) and vice versa, but his faith is reignited and he remains in the priesthood. As he advances at the Vatican due to the patronage of Cardinal Quarenghi (Raf Vallone), he jeopardizes his career by helping a black priest, Father Gillis (Ossie Davis), in Georgia and comes afoul of whip-wielding members of the Ku Klux Klan. Later he goes to Vienna to consult with Cardinal Innitzer (Joseph Meinrad), who has capitulated to the Nazis but is betrayed by them. He manages to escape an attack on Innitzer's quarters and with most of his family present is made a cardinal. 

Raf Vallone with Tom Tryon

Over three hours long, The Cardinal -- which spans WW1 up to the beginnings of WW2 and the rise of Hitler -- is never boring. I only watched the film because I was curious how actor-turned-novelist Tom Tryon would handle such a demanding lead role, and he comes through with flying colors. Unfortunately, The Cardinal was a financial flop, and that adversely affected his career. One of the film's greatest strengths is the performances of the entire cast, although John Huston, despite some solid moments, is as uneven in this as he was in The Other Side of the Wind. Carol Lynley makes her mark as Stephen's sister, who falls in love with a Jewish man, well-played by John Saxon. Broadway star Bill Hayes is also effective as Stephen's brother, Frank, as is Dorothy Gish as their mother. Others in the cast include Patrick O'Neal as a southern bigot, Murray Hamilton as one of the racist group who tries to help Stephen, Chill Wills as a bishop, and Bobby Morse (appearing with the Adora-Belles) as the main performer in a spirited nightclub act. 

Joseph Meinrad with Tryon

One problem with the film is that apparently some scenes had to be left on the cutting room floor, or perhaps were never filmed. The resolutions of storylines involving the sister and her fiance, as well as Annemarie in Nazi-controlled Vienna, are left dangling. Some scenes, such as a confrontation between Stephen and his sister's Jewish fiance after a tragic occurrence, cry out to be recorded but are never shown. On the other hand, there are some powerful moments, such as a chorus of Catholics in Vienna attracting the negative attention of the SS and Hitler Youth, forming a startling contrast, and the sequences when Nazis storm Cardinal Innitzer's quarters, which actually happened. Joseph Meinrad [Sissi: The Young Empress] is excellent as the cardinal, who was a real-life individual. 

Brothers: Tom Tryon with Bill Hayes

The Cardinal does something unusual in that it depicts the Nazi persecution of Catholics. Although ordinary members of the clergy (Protestants as well as Catholics) were sent to concentration camps or killed, higher-ranking clergy were generally left alone so as not to become martyrs. In any case, this doesn't compare to the persecution of Jews, whose ordinary citizenry were slaughtered in appalling numbers. Annemarie's husband has Jewish blood, and comes to a bad end, but otherwise The Cardinal doesn't really deal with antisemitism, another serious flaw of the film. Despite the fact that the film was partially bankrolled by the Vatican (the church's liaison later became Pope Benedict XVI), it is made clear that the church didn't really want to get involved in civil rights, let alone in the troubles of the Jews.  

Whatever its flaws, The Cardinal boasts a beautiful, expressive score by Jerome Moross [The Big Country] and superb cinematography courtesy of Leon Shamroy [The Robe] . 

Verdict: I am not remotely Catholic but I enjoyed this movie -- the religiosity never quite becomes overbearing, it is great to look at, and much more interesting than you might imagine, with a great cast. ***. 

OF MICE AND MEN (1939)

OF MICE AND MEN (1939). Director: Lewis Milestone. 

"It's just havin' someone to talk with. It's just bein' with another guy."

George (Burgess Meredith) and his brain-damaged cousin Lennie (Lon Chaney Jr.) arrive at a ranch and hope to save up enough money to buy their own farm and be their own boss. The elderly Candy (Roman Bohnen), afraid of almost literally being put out to pasture, wants to go in with them, as does Crooks (Leigh Whipper), the black man who is isolated in his own shack away from the bunk house with the other men. But then there's the nasty little Curley (Bob Steele), the boss's son, and his bored, lonely wife, Mae (Betty Field), and the trouble they represent. John Steinbeck's heartbreaking tragedy is brought to the screen with great intensity and power and has many memorable moments: the death of Candy's dog; Curly gets his hand crushed; the climactic accidental death. Bohnen gives perhaps the best performance, but Meredith and Field are also great, and Charles Bickford, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bob Steele are no slouches. Okay, maybe the acting is a little over-emphatic at times, and Copland's score is nice but not that special. Still, this is a very strong and memorable picture. The streak of misogyny -- if that's what it is -- and the moral ambiguity of the ending, only make it more fascinating. Remade several times, including a version in 1992, starring and directed by Gary Sinise of CSI New York. 

Verdict: Another masterpiece from 1939 and a great study of loneliness. ****.

BEWARE! THE BLOB

Gwynne Gilford and Robert Walker Jr. 

BEWARE! THE BLOB (aka Son of Blob/1972). Director: Larry Hagman.

Chester Hargis (Godfrey Cambridge) brings home a frozen specimen that defrosts and turns into the Blob, and it rapidly devours the residents of a small town, including bowlers and ice skaters. Beware! The Blob could have been a perfectly good sequel to The Blob if the approach had been different. Larry Hagman, who was in-between I Dream of Jeannie and his career-reviving role on Dallas, decided to turn this into a free-wheeling borderline parody despite the fact that the whole premise already has black comedy aspects to begin with. So Hagman cast some friends and character actors and guest-stars -- such as Carol Lynley, Burgess Meredith, and Shelley Berman -- all of whom seem to be having fun, but not one of whom is actually funny. Most of the death scenes are also played for laughs. The shame of it is that the script is workable and there's genuine suspense in the situation at the climax, with hero Bobby (Robert Walker Jr.) trying to freeze the monster while the cops outside start to set fire to the building. Walker and Gwynne Gilford [Fade to Black] as his girlfriend, Lisa, wisely play their roles straight and are all the more effective for it -- there's also a good scene when their car is engulfed by the creature. The special effects are, if anything, even more low-tech than in the original. Veteran Richard Webb [The Invisible Monster] plays Sheriff Jones and Cindy Williams is a party guest who has one excruciating scene with a guy singing and playing guitar. Hagman directed a few television episodes, but mercifully this is the only film he ever helmed.

Verdict: Almost makes the original look like a masterpiece. *1/2.

FANFARE FOR A DEATH SCENE

Richard Egan and Al Hirt with his trumpet

FANFARE FOR A DEATH SCENE (1964). Director: Leslie Stevens.

"An intelligent enemy is better than a foolish friend." -- Lord Kahn

This telefilm certainly has an intriguing title, but it's actually just the unsold pilot for a series called Stryker. Richard Egan [Wicked Woman] plays an agent in an ersatz spy movie (somewhat reminiscent of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) who is up against a mysterious evil figure named Lord Kahn (Telly Savalas). The opening scene is a macabre one in which dozens of poisoned corpses are found in a sanitarium after a harried Professor Bannermann (Burgess Meredith) has made his escape. Both the good guys and the bad guys want Bannermann's formula. The interesting cast includes trumpeter Al Hirt (playing a trumpeter); a pre- Mary Tyler Moore show Ed Asner; Tina Louise from Gilligan's Island; J. D. Cannon [An American Dream]; Joseph Ruskin: and Viveca Lindfors [Silent Madness], who nearly walks off with the whole movie as a kind of femme fatale, along with Savalas.

Verdict: It's just as well this didn't become a series. **.

ADVISE AND CONSENT

Anderson (Murray) walks out on Ray (Granger)

ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962). Director/producer: Otto Preminger.

"Us old buzzards can spot a dying mouse from 10,000 feet up. Us old buzzards have the sharpest eyes in creation. Right now I'm studying the terrain ..." -- Senator Seabright Cooley

The President (Franchot Tone) has selected Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda) to be the new Secretary of State, but first the senate has to "advise and consent" to his nomination in a special hearing. The person primarily opposed to Leffingwell is a senior southern senator named Seab Cooley (Charles Laughton), who is concerned about Leffingwell's possible communist ties, and also has a personal dislike of the man after he once showed him up in public. Presiding over the hearing is young Senator Brigham Anderson (Don Murray), who is very concerned when he discovers that Leffingwell lied under oath about his personal ties to his chief witness against him, Herbert Gelman (Burgess Meredith). But then Senator Van Ackerman (George Grizzard), who wants Leffingwell to get in, institutes a blackmail plot against Anderson, having to do with the Senator's relationship with a Ray Shaff (John Granger) while stationed in Hawaii, leading to tragedy. This business is a major plot point of Advise and Consent, with a scene in a gay bar [full mostly of gay caricatures] when the self-loathing, closeted Anderson goes to confront Shaff, who told of their former relationship because he was desperate for money. Advise and Consent is an interesting, if talky political film, with the "villains" coming from both sides of the political spectrum. Fonda is fine in what really amounts to a supporting role, but Charles Laughton, who is superb in his final movie, would have walked off with the picture were it not for Murray's strong [if imperfect] portrayal of Brigham Anderson. Inga Swenson is also quite good as Anderson's wife and Edward Andrews is excellent as Senator Orrin Knox. Gene Tierny has a small role as a wealthy Washington hostess who is the secret lover of the Senate Majority Leader (Walter Pidgeon, who gives one of his better performances). Grizzard, Lew Ayres as the vice president, and Tone, are all notable, as is Betty White in a brief turn as the only female in the senate. Peter Lawford is okay as another senator but he is a little lightweight in this company. John Granger, who played Ray, did not appear in another film for 19 years! Allan Drury, who wrote the novel that this film was based upon, apparently based the Anderson business on a real-life incident. One wonders what Frank Sinatra thought of one of his records playing in the background in the gay bar. Sam Leavitt's black and white photography is outstanding, with one beautifully-composed widescreen shot after another. One of Preminger's better directorial efforts.

Verdict: It's the acting and the look of the film that puts it over. ***.

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST

The movie premiere that climaxes Locust

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1975). Director: John Schlesinger.

"I could only let a fabulously rich man love me. I could only love a man criminally handsome. Please try to understand."

In Hollywood of the 1930's, artist Tod Hackett (William Atherton) lives in the same complex with aspiring star Faye Greener (Karen Black) and her father, an old-time performer named Harry (Burgess Meredith). Although Tod is very drawn to Faye, she wants a man with money, and winds up sexlessly cohabiting with the somewhat strange but wealthy Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland). There is a nasty-minded midget (Billy Barty) and a bratty Shirley Temple clone (actually played by the male Jackie Earle Haley), as well as two guys who run cockfights out of Homer's garage. After two hours of meandering, the film arrives at a climax at a movie premiere that seems intended to wake the benumbed audience out of their lethargy but is too little, too late. When The Day of the Locust was released, it was overpraised in some quarters because of the admittedly vivid climactic riot and a "daring" scene of a child being stomped to death, which fooled people into thinking this piece of treacle was more adult and "meaningful" than it really was. Time has, unfortunately, not made the movie any better. Karen Black probably gives her all-time worst performance, so irritating is she that she almost sinks the movie right from the first, and Burgess Meredith isn't that much better. Atherton isn't bad at all, but Sutherland gives the best performance as Homer. Barty can do nothing to make his character less of a caricature, but Haley in drag is certainly vivid and memorable. Still, the movie presents unpleasant, and worse, uninteresting characters that you simply don't care about. Natalie Schafer, Nita Talbot, and William Castle [as a director] have small roles, as does Geraldine Page as an evangelist. A scene when a set collapses is well done from a technical standpoint. This was based on a novel by Nathaniel West; I don't know how faithful Waldo Salt's screenplay is to the source material, but it's pretty bad. The absolutely most disgusting scene shows poor Billy Barty kissing a rooster on its bloody beak. Dick Powell Jr., plays his father at the premiere-within-the-movie, which explains why he looks so much like the actor. Although Schlesinger was considered a "serious" director as, say, compared to Robert Aldrich, this movie is in reality little better than Aldrich's atrocious Legend of Lylah Clare! This is almost as bad as Schlesinger's Darling.

Verdict: Just a mess -- and boring to boot! **.

THE MANITOU

Michael Ansara and Tony Curtis confront the Unknown

THE MANITOU (1978). Director: William Girdler.

Fake San Francisco spiritualist Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) learns that an old girlfriend of his, Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg), has a little bit of a problem. She has a tumor growing on her back, it's getting larger, and it appears to be a fetus! Erskine discovers that the fetus is the reborn spirit of a nasty Indian medicine man, and enlists the aid of a modern-day equivalent, John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara), to fight the medicine man and the evil gods it conjures. Their only allies are the spirits -- or "manitous" -- of the objects around them. Before long the hospital has become a battle zone as they fight for Karen Tandy's soul amidst corpses turned inside out, frozen, decapitated nurses, and other signs of murder and mayhem. The movie, based on a novel by Graham Masterton, has an interesting cast: Besides the aforementioned actors we've got Ann Sothern (a medium), Stella Stevens, Burgess Meredith (anthropologist Dr, Snow), Lurene Tuttle (a client of Erskine's who takes a tumble) and even Jeanette Nolan. Jon Cedar, who associate-produced and worked on the screenplay, plays Dr. Hughes. Curtis' pants are almost as tight as the ones worn by Robert Conrad in The Wild, Wild West! There are a lot of interesting elements to this movie, and it holds the attention, but somehow it doesn't completely jell. Cedar was also in Girdler's Day of the Animals.

Verdict: Not without interest, but somehow less than the sum of its parts. **1/2.

BURNT OFFERINGS

BURNT OFFERINGS (1976). Director: Dan Curtis. 

A married couple with a young son rent a mansion for the summer for a ridiculously low price, with the "catch" that they have to prepare meals for the reclusive matriarch of the house, who stays alone in her room in the attic. The occupants of the house -- who are going on vacation -- also include Roz Allardyce [an effective Eileen Heckart] and her brother Arnold [Burgess Meredith, who is also effective, although for some reason he plays the role as a total gay stereotype]. Karen Black and Oliver Reed, both giving good performances, are the married couple, and Lee H. Montgomery also does a fine job as their son, David. As their Aunt Elizabeth, Bette Davis is at first as "grand lady-ish" and affected as she usually was in her older days, but eventually settles in to give one of her better latter-day performances. And we mustn't forget Anthony James, who makes an impression as the sinister nightmare chauffeur without ever saying a word. [James has over 75 credits in movies and television.] Burnt Offerings is an entertaining horror flick, even if it's not always convincing as to the [confusing] supernatural aspects of the storyline. Nonsense the movie may be, yes, but it still builds up to tragic consequences and the ending packs a small wallop. You might say that Burnt Offerings does for the haunted house story what Rosemary's Baby did for witches. William F. Nolan and Curtis scripted from Robert Marasco's novel. 

Verdict: Disquieting -- and depressing -- in its own mostly quiet way. ***.

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981)

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). Director: Desmond Davis. 

"I was partial to tragedy before experience taught me that life was quite tragic enough without my having to write about it." -- Ammon [Burgess Meredith]. 

 

When the lovely princess Andromeda (Judi Bowker) is told by the angry goddess Thetis (Maggie Smith) that she must be sacrificed to the Kraken or her entire kingdom and everyone in it will be destroyed -- because Andromeda's mother dared suggest her daughter was more beautiful than Thetis -- the smitten Perseus (Harry Hamlin) sets out to capture the head of the gorgon Medusa, to use to destroy the Kraken. (Both the Kraken and Medusa are "titans," hence the title.) The deliberate pace of the film -- it does take a while to get going -- turned off the critics at the time of its release, but it's actually a fine fantasy film with excellent Ray Harryhausen stop motion FX (although it is not quite in the league of Harryhausen's masterpiece Jason and the Argonauts). The scene when Perseus and his pals invade the temple of Medusa to slay her is outstanding, and there are also some fine scuttling giant scorpions, the winged horse Pegasus, and the hideous Kraken who shows up for his sacrifice -- and supper. The scene when Thetis condemns Andromeda is handled with dramatic flair (as opposed to a similar sequence in the recent remake). Hamlin is fine as Perseus; Meredith is excellent as his friend, the writer Ammon; Bowker and Tim Pigott-Smith memorable as Andromeda and the warrior Thallo. Laurence Olivier, merely flexing his acting muscles, is superb in his portrayal of Zeus, King of the Gods, and he gets wonderful support from Smith and Claire Bloom. Laurence Rosenthal's score and the art direction are assets. Bubo, the mechanical owl that is a gift from the Gods, is slightly irritating, but he grows on you. The scene with Perseus confronting the three blind witches (Flora Robson, among them) is also notable. 

Verdict: Not Harryhausen's best, perhaps, but still quite entertaining. ***.

TORTURE GARDEN

TORTURE GARDEN (1967). Director: Freddie Francis. Screenplay by Robert Bloch. 

Several people go backstage at a sideshow exhibit and are given glimpses of their possible futures by Dr. Diabolo (Burgess Meredith.) The first man has his mind taken over by a cat after he murders his wealthy uncle; a blindly ambitious young actress discovers the secret of a handsome, seemingly ageless actor to her regret; a jealous piano -- no, that's not a misprint -- apparently possessed by the spirit of his dead mother torments a woman who's fallen for a famous classical pianist; and -- in the best of the four stories -- Jack Palance and Peter Cushing -- both of whom are terrific -- trade off as collectors of rare and expensive Edgar Allan Poe memorabilia. But Cushing tells Palance that he has the ultimate Poe collector's item in his basement ... With the exception of this final tale most of Robert Bloch's stories are fairly lame, but the film is entertaining in spite of it. 

Verdict: You have to see that piano go on the attack to believe it! **1/2.