ADA

Dean Martin and Susan Hayward

ADA (1961). Director: Daniel Mann.

Bo Gillis (Dean Martin of Sergeants 3) is a pleasant, uncomplicated good ol' boy running for governor under the direction of men like Steve Jackson (Martin Balsam) and savvy if crooked politico Sylvester Marin (Wilfrid Hyde-White). One night Bo is introduced to"B" girl Ada (Susan Hayward of And Now Tomorrow) and against everyone's advice eventually decides to marry her. Bo becomes governor and Ada, who doesn't trust Marin as far as she can throw him, makes a deal with him to become Lt. Governor, an idea that goes badly with Bo's male pride. When Bo announces that he's going to start reading bills before signing then and is out to clean up corruption, he is badly injured in a murder attempt. Now Ada is the acting governor, but she may find that Marin and his forces are not about to let this former whore boss them around.

Ada tells off biddies, including Kathryn Card, 2nd from left

With a plot like that -- hooker winds up becoming governor -- you would think that Ada would be a real trash wallow, but it's actually somewhere between a strong drama and a guilty pleasure and never quite makes up its mind which. The film does have a feminist perspective, even if it's only from a dated sixties point of view. Dean Martin is perfect casting for Bo -- he has to have enough charm and charisma to convince the voters but also be laid-back enough to be seen as comparatively "weak" next to strong-willed Ada. Hayward plays with her customary authority, and is especially good in a scene at a party at the governor's mansion, where she tells off a bunch of patronizing old biddies -- one of whom is Kathryn Card, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy, here a tough old bitch and not the dithery Mrs. McGillicuddy.

Ralph Meeker and Susan Hayward

As for the supporting cast, Ralph Meeker [The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown] makes the best impression as Colonel Yancy, employing his trademark insolence to good effect as he makes flagrant passes at the governor's wife on a regular basis. (In the book this film is based on, Ada Dallas, Yancy and Ada were former lovers.) Martin Balsam is always solid but in this he isn't given much to do. The usually reliable Hyde-White is a major disappointment, giving a performance devoid of flavor and nuance -- there are at least a dozen character actors who could have given this role more bite.

Although Hayward and Martin performed surprisingly well together on camera, they did not like each other at all off-screen. For more on this and other Martin films see Martini Man: The Life of Dean Martin.

Verdict: Minor potboiler with some interesting elements. **3/4. 

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA

Oscar-winning Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA (1952). Director: Daniel Mann. Based on the play by William Inge.

"You didn't know I'd get old and fat and sloppy, but I didn't know it, either." -- Lola to Doc.

Lola Delaney (Shirley Booth) is a housewife who is always afraid that her husband, a chiropractor named Doc (Burt Lancaster), will fall off the wagon again. The couple got married years ago when Lola got pregnant, but she lost the baby, and fears that her husband feels trapped and disappointed with life and marriage. Doc does, of course, but he has a bond with Lola, although trouble appears when they take in a pretty young boarder named Marie (Terry Moore of Peyton Place). Marie becomes a symbol to Doc of lost youth and opportunity, just as Lola's old dog, Sheba (who probably ran away to die), is a symbol of her own faded dreams. When Doc comes to believe that Marie is not the sweet innocent he thought she was, he can't resist going to the bottle ...

Richard Jaeckel and Terry Moore

Shirley Booth played the role on the stage, and it would have been criminal for her not to repeat her part on the screen (she won a well-deserved Oscar for it). As she was not seen as being sufficiently box office, Lancaster was secured for the leading male role. Although Doc was always meant to be an older man, Lancaster is not as miscast as you might imagine. He's quite good, in fact, if not up to Booth. (One has to remember that Lola has become chubby and slovenly over the years, and there have been many cases of couples in which the husband is better-looking, or at least in better shape, than the wife.) Terry Moore also does some nice work, as do Richard Jaeckel [The Dark] as a football hero she dallies with and Richard Kelley as her fiance, Bruce. There are other good character performances in the film as well, including Lisa Golm's [Anna Lucasta] as a sympathetic German neighbor.

Terry Moore and Burt Lancaster

Come Back, Little Sheba is full of lovely and sad touches, such as Lola's phone conversation with her mother, when she desperately wants to come home for awhile, but her father, who has never forgiven her for past indiscretions, won't allow it. An amusing moment occurs when Lola tells Doc that she'll prepare him a hot meal if he comes home for lunch, but the "hot meal" turns out to be cottage cheese and buttermilk! The film is well-directed by Daniel Mann, and there's a nice score by Franz Waxman.

NOTE: I could only get a few minutes into a 1977 TV version of the play in which, incredibly, Laurence Olivier is even more miscast (and less effective) than Lancaster, and Joanne Woodward, also miscast, doesn't come even close to approximating Booth's genius. Booth had a pixilated, almost pathetic quality that made her just perfect for Lola.

Verdict: "Some things should never get old" -- A strong and touching drama. ***1/2. 

BUTTERFIELD 8

Liz Taylor and Laurence Harvey

BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960). Director: Daniel Mann.

"Every awful moment of it, I Loved!" -- Gloria.

Gloria Wandrous (Elizabeth Taylor) is a model and good-time girl who has a male best friend, Steve (Eddie Fisher), who may be in love with her, to the consternation of his girlfriend, Norma (Susan Oliver). Gloria begins an affair with an unhappily married man named Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey of Summer and Smoke) and is convinced that her sordid liquor-and-sex past is over, that she has found true love at last. But there is still the wife, Emily (Dina Merrill) to deal with, and more than one ugly misunderstanding ...

Eddie Fisher and La Liz

Butterfield 8 is undoubtedly a sanitized, cliff notes version of John O'Hara's 1935 novel, and has apparently been updated to the late 1950's. Gloria is not an especially sympathetic character (nor Weston) until she reveals to Steve what happened to her in her childhood in a powerful sequence. Like something out of Harvey's film Room at the Top, Weston has apparently married for a good job and social position, although his wife seems to blame her own family for making things too easy for him. Taylor gives a very good performance, and won an Oscar for her portrayal. Harvey is also excellent, and there's good work from Merrill, Oliver, Kay Medford as a motel proprietor, Carmen Mathews as Emily's mother, and especially Mildred Dunnock as Gloria's mother and Betty Field as her very blunt best friend, Frances. Eddie Fisher, who was married to Taylor at the time (after leaving Debbie Reynolds for her), gives a respectable performance.

Verdict: Good performances and some good dialogue lift this a notch above the soap opera level. ***. 

HOT SPELL

Shirley MacLaine and Shirley Booth

HOT SPELL (1958). Director: Daniel Mann.

Housewife Alma Duval (Shirley Booth) is hoping that the 45th birthday celebration for her beloved husband, John (Anthony Quinn), will be a memorable occasion, but things are brewing that may make that impossible. John is very unhappy with his life and has taken on a lover who is decades younger than he is. Oldest son Buddy (Earl Holliman) feels that his dad doesn't take him seriously and is always putting him down. Daughter Virginia (Shirley MacLaine) is in love with aspiring doctor, Wyatt (Warren Stevens), but is only headed for heartbreak. And youngest son Billy (Clint Kimbrough) is uncertain about himself and unable to understand his father's unhappiness. Based on a play, Hot Spell is a thoughtful and beautifully-acted drama that looks at the ins and outs of marriage and family life with compassion and perception. Heading a terrific cast is a splendid Booth [About Mrs. Leslie], who must contend with her children's problems even as her own marriage, and her dreams of a happier future (tied to a home they lived in many years before), begin to crumble. Quinn is also superb, adding dimension and sympathy to what could have been an odious character in some ways, with fine work from Holliman [The Big Combo] and MacLaine (especially the latter). Kimbrough was an attractive and sensitive young actor who should have had many more credits than the twenty he amassed. Eileen Heckart [The Bad Seed] also appears as Alma's friend, Fran, and is also very good, as expected. One could argue that the movie is resolved a little too neatly, but it is generally quite effective and at times very poignant.

Verdict: A lost gem. ***1/2.

FIVE FINGER EXERCISE

FIVE FINGER EXERCISE (1962). Director: Daniel Mann. From the stage play by Peter Shaffer.

When Philip Harrington (Richard Beymer) comes home from Harvard, he discovers that his mother, Louise (Rosalind Russell), has hired a German tutor, Walter (Maximilian Schell), for her young daughter, Pamela (Annette Gorman). Louise is pretentious and fancies herself more cultured than she actually is (she shells peas as Walter is giving a piano concert), and finds her husband, Stanley (Jack Hawkins) to be gruff, plodding and unimaginative. Philip is going through his own growing pains, and resists Stanley's attempts to bond with him, even as Stanley continually berates the young man for being too "sensitive" and is angry that his wife seems ungrateful for all he has given her. Louise finds herself becoming romantically and physically drawn to Walter, and it is more than likely that the confused, troubled Philip has developed a crush on Walter as well. Trouble begins when these characters allow their assorted jealousies to get the better of them. Five Finger Exercise was based on a very successful 1958 British play by Peter Shaffer, and the story was transplanted to American shores and watered down, as was usually the case with material too frank for the Hollywood censors. Beymer [Adventures of a Young Man] gives it the old college try and has some good moments, but he's miscast, while an excellent Schell [Return from the Ashes] is more appropriate for his role. Rosalind Russell and Jack Hawkins [She Played with Fire] go together like oil and water, which is perhaps the point -- both give good performances. Philip has a good speech about how he is more than just an extension of his father, but is his own distinct person. An in-joke shows a poster of Russell in Auntie Mame when she walks into a store.

Verdict: Family Values turned upside down. ***.

ABOUT MRS. LESLIE

Robert Ryan and Shirley Booth

ABOUT MRS. LESLIE (1954). Director: Daniel Mann.

Vivian Leslie (Shirley Booth) operates a boarding house out of her suburban home and tries not to get too involved in the lives of her tenants. After Pixie (Eilene Janssen), the spoiled teenage girl next door, tells her she should mind her business because she's never been married or had children, Vivian thinks back to her relationship with a man named George Leslie (Robert Ryan), who is a Civil War aficionado. Was he her husband, or wasn't he? .. Since the movie is unpredictable I won't say any more about the plot, but the picture holds the attention. After winning both a Tony and an Oscar for her role in the stage and screen versions of Come Back, Little Sheba, Shirley Booth co-starred in this interesting soap opera although her performance is a trifle uneven. She and Ryan play well-together even if you can't quite see them as a couple. Interspersed with the flashbacks is the secondary love story of dancer Lan McKay (Alex Nicol) and aspiring actress Nadine (Marjie Millar). Although About Mrs. Leslie is in many ways a nice picture, the fact remains that much of it is superficial and doesn't ring true -- some scenes haven't the required impact -- and Ryan's character is not altogether commendable. Great Old Movies' favorite Percy Helton figures in a funny scene wherein he plays a restaurant owner. Alex Nicol [Because of You] gives a good performance, but Marjie Millar, who had a tragic life and early death, can't act, sadly. Nicol later directed The Screaming Skull.

Verdict: Unsatisfying but intriguing soaper. **1/2.

BUTTERFIELD 8

BUTTERFIELD 8 (1960). Director: Daniel Mann.

"Let's face it -- I was the slut of all time!"

Gloria (Elizabeth Taylor) is a beautiful "model" who is chased by men and considered a complete slut by the prudish. Her best friend is Steve (Eddie Fisher), whose girlfriend Norma (Susan Oliver), is jealous of Gloria. Gloria's latest conquest -- or is it the other way around? -- is Weston Liggett (Laurence Harvey), who is married to the very wise Emily (Dina Merrill). Things threaten to come to a boil when Emily finds her mink coat missing, unaware that hubby loaned it to Gloria ... Mildred Dunnock is Gloria's concerned mother and Betty Field the mother's friend, Fanny. Kay Medford is an ex-vaudevillian motel owner who sadly remembers the glory days and Carmen Mathews has a good turn as Emily's mother. Harvey is excellent, Taylor is quite good [although perhaps not quite deserving of the Oscar she won], and Fisher -- who was then married to Taylor -- does a nice job as well, although he always tends to get knocked by critics and biographers. Taylor has an especially good scene telling Fisher about her childhood sexual abuse. The movie has the odd distinction of being somewhat "modern" and yet dated at one and the same time. The impression one gets is that the film is trying to paint Gloria as an emotionally wounded "sexaholic" yet there's also that old double-standard that men who sleep around are studs but women who do the same are whores -- and that ending!

Verdict: At least you've got Liz sauntering sexily. ***.