SEPARATE TABLES

Rita Hayworth and Burt Lancaster

SEPARATE TABLES (1958). Director: Delbert Mann.

"I have no curiosity about the working classes." -- Mrs. Railton-Bell.

"Being alone in a crowd -- it's so painful ... frightening." -- Ann Shankland.

At the seaside Beauregard Hotel in Bournemouth, England -- where several people are permanent residents -- certain little dramas are unfolding. The highly snobbish Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) has discovered the inappropriate behavior of Major Angus Pollock (David Niven), who has bored everyone with fictional stories of his allegedly heroic wartime exploits. Mrs. R-B gathers the other residents to vote on whether or not to insist that the man be thrown out of the hotel. Mrs. R-B's neurotically shy daughter, Sibyl (Deborah Kerr), who is exceptionally fond of the major, undergoes an emotional crisis when she learns of his illicit activities. Meanwhile, the proprietress, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller), who has become the lover of American resident John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), discovers that his ex-wife, Ann (Rita Hayworth) is still in love with him and has taken a room in the hotel.   

David Niven and Deborah Kerr

Separate Tables was originally two plays by Terence Rattigan, sharing several supporting characters, that took place in the same location and were presented together on one evening in the theater, Although Rattigan was importuned to change this before the play debuted, the Major was originally a closeted homosexual and not a pervert who bothered women in a movie theater. (Although the movie is quite sympathetic to the major, it's a question how this would play in these post- MeToo days.) 

Separate tables indeed

The two plays have been intelligently put together and opened up (but not too much) and the film never appears stage bound or too talky, undoubtedly because Rattigan's dialogue is often excellent and perceptive. David Niven won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal and Deborah Kerr, who is outstanding, should have won but was only nominated. (Niven is quite good but a cut below Kerr. Hiller won Best Supporting Actress but was surprised by this, as she isn't onscreen very long and complained that her best scenes were cut.) Playing a comparatively superficial if vulnerable character, Rita Hayworth is effective as Ann, as is Burt Lancaster, although he really can't compare to some of these venerable British actors. Gladys Cooper and Cathleen Nesbitt as her friend are exemplary, as are Hiller, Felix Aylmer as Mr. Fowler, and Mary Hallatt as the brisk and self-sufficient Miss Meacham. Rod Taylor and Audrey Dalton have the thankless roles of a young couple temporarily staying in the hotel, their lines undoubtedly cut back to make room for the emoting of Hayworth and Lancaster.  Delbert Mann also directed the beautiful Middle of the Night and many others. 

Verdict: Superior British drama with some excellent performances. ***1/4. 

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT

Highly punchable: David Niven

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT (aka Happy Ever After/1954). Director: Mario Zampi.

"We could be very happy in an unhappy sort of way." -- Jasper.

Aged General O'Leary of Rathbonie Ireland is determined to make a dangerous jump on his horse as he does every year, but this time he has an accident and eventually dies. His estate goes to relative Jasper O'Leary (David Niven of Death on the Nile), who sets the entire town against himself by refusing  to honor his uncle's death bed bequests and the old man's forgiving of certain debts. Meanwhile the recently widowed Serena (Yvonne De Carlo), who had hoped to snare handsome former fiance Dr. Michael Flynn (Robert Urquhart of The Curse of Frankenstein) against her sister Kathy's (Noelle Middleton) wishes, deides that it might be better to set her cap for the obviously interested new Squire, Jasper. But now all of Jasper's many enemies decide the only thing to do is to assassinate Jasper ...

Barry Fitzgerald and David Niven

Black comedies can work --witness the wonderful The Wrong Box -- but Tonight's the Night is an appalling concoction and only has three solid laughs throughout its ninety minutes running time. For one thing the two lead characters, the  heartless priss Jasper and the gold-digging Serena, are too loathsome to be amusing. Character flaws can make people funny, but these two, Jasper in particular, are utterly worthless individuals. One feels sympathy for the wronged townspeople -- Jasper wants to evict one elderly man out of the home he's lived in for decades -- until they start indulging in IRA tactics including bombs and the like. One plan to kill Jasper has to do with tying a rope across the road in the hopes that Jasper will be beheaded when he drives by in his motorcar! Such lovely people!

Robert Urquhart and Yvonne De Carlo

Much of the second half of the film is taken up with the town folks' bumbling attempts at murder, which makes them resemble especially malevolent variations on the Bowery Boys but with even less laughs. Niven, although playing someone whose face you want to punch almost from the first, gives a good performance (nobody could be more obnoxious than Niven when playing a detestable prig); De Carlo is snappy and has an okay Irish brogue; the supporting cast does its best; and Barry Fitzgerald nearly steals the picture -- not that he would necessarily want it -- in his portrayal of Thady, the tippling butler. Niven and De Carlo don't have that much chemistry, and the characters of Kathy and the doctor are never sufficiently developed. A highlight of the film is when a talented Irish tenor sings the lovely ballad "My Heart is Irish." Mario Zampi also directed The Naked Truth, another dark comedy that was much, much better than this..

Verdict: Essentially unfunny and atrocious but for Fitzgerald and the tenor. *1/2. 

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES

David Niven and Doris Day

PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES (1960). Director: Charles Walters.

Kate MacKay (Doris Day) and her husband, Larry (David Niven of Enchantment) are raising four adorable if rambunctious boys and planning a move to the country. Larry, a professor of drama, is made a theater critic for a top newspaper. In a contrived event, he is assigned to review his best friend, Alfred's (Richard Hadyn), new musical, and not only slams it, but prints that the leading lady, Deborah Vaughn (Janis Paige of This Side of the Law), has no talent. This leads into amusing encounters between Larry and Deborah as well as an opportunity for Alfred to get a kind of revenge on Larry. Meanwhile Kate is worried that her husband is turning into the kind of justifiably-abhorred critic who is more interested in making clever jokes at a playwright's expense than in writing serious and fair-minded theater reviews. If you take some of the improbable developments (they move into a house that resembles a castle) with a grain of salt, Please Don't Eat the Daisies is a delightful comedy, with the two leads in top form. Day and Niven work very well together and seem to be having as much fun as the audience. Some of the critical words that come out of the mouth of Doris' mother make her seem like a monster, but the casting of sweet Spring Byington makes her character more palatable.  Patsy Kelly plays the housekeeper but isn't given much of a chance to shine, although Hadyn scores as the angry Alfred, and Paige is just wonderful and very sexy as Deborah. Jack Weston is also fine as a taxi-driving wannabee playwright, and Kathryn Card of I Love Lucy appears briefly as a principal. The business with the baby being kept in a locked cage would raise eyebrows today and frankly makes little sense. (The rationale is that he can pick locks, but wouldn't that include the locks on his cage?) Please Don't Eat the Daises -- the title comes from a reference to one of the boys eating flowers -- is based on a novel by Jean Kerr, a playwright who was married to Walter Kerr, best-known as a theater critic for the N.Y. Times; the couple had six children. Doris does a reprise of "Que sera, sera" from The Man Who Knew Too Much and also nicely warbles the title tune and "Anyway the Wind Blows."

Verdict: Very amusing and well-acted comedy with an especially winning Day. ***.

EYE OF THE DEVIL

Deborah Kerr

EYE OF THE DEVIL (1966). Director: J. Lee Thompson.

Phillipe de Montfaucon (David Niven) lives in Paris with his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr), and their two beautiful children, Jacques (Robert Duncan) and Toni (Suky Appeby). Learning that there is a possibility that his vineyards back in his ancestral home of Bellenac may be failing, Phillipe returns there and tells Catherine to stay in Paris with the children. But Catherine misses her husband and brings the children to his side, where she discovers strange things are going on around the Castle Bellenac. Men in black robes gather in underground rooms and in the forest, and also hovering about are a strange brother and sister team, Christian (David Hemmings). who shoots doves with his bow and arrow, and Odile (Sharon Tate), who seems to have magical powers. Catherine eventually figures out exactly why her husband came back to Bellenac, but she may be too late to save him ... Eye of the Devil predates both The Wicker Man and Thomas Tryon's novel Harvest Home, both of which also deal with pagan sacrifice, but there's something a little off in this movie. Niven and Kerr, along with Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson, Donald Pleasence and little Robert Duncan all give good performances, but there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to create real tension or a sense of encroaching dread until the admittedly effective climax. Two sequences when Jacques and then his mother nearly fall to their deaths from the castle roof are also taut. Sharon Tate [Valley of the Dolls] had appeared in one film and several TV shows before she was "introduced" in this movie, and she is perfectly cast and adept (if possibly dubbed) as the very strange and rather sinister Odile. Hemmings [Deep Red] has less to do but maintains the proper spooky attitude.

Verdict: Not entirely successful and slightly supernatural thriller. **1/2.

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937)

Ronald Colman meets Ronald Colman

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937). Director: John Cromwell.

Major Rudolph Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) is vacationing when people keep remarking upon his strong resemblance to Prince Rudolph (also played by Colman). The two men meet and turn out to be cousins. When the prince is given a knock-out potion on the night before his coronation, his aides importune the major to impersonate him or all will be lost. But there are two complications. Will Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll), the prince's beloved, be able to see past the deception? And what happens when the real king gets kidnapped? Colman is terrific in both roles, and there is also expert work from the lovely Carroll [My Son, My Son] ; Raymond Massey [Possessed] as his evil brother, who wants the crown for himself; C. Aubrey Smith and David Niven as the king's friends and comrades; Mary Astor as the woman who loves Massey not wisely but too well; and especially Douglas Fairbanks Jr. [Little Caesar] as the haughty, deceptively sinister Rupert. The film is capped by an exciting sword fight between Colman and Fairbanks, but it never quite becomes a classic. Remade at least once.

Verdict: Colman  and Massey are always interesting to watch. **1/2.

A KISS FOR CORLISS

Tom Tully, Shirley Temple and Gloria Holden

A KISS FOR CORLISS (aka Almost a Bride/1949). Director: Richard Wallace.

In this sequel to Kiss and Tell, Corliss Archer (Shirley Temple) gets in more hot water when her father, Harry (Tom Tully), represents the wife of a much-married man in a divorce action. Kenneth Marquis (David Niven), the husband in the case, hates Harry Archer and begins playfully courting his daughter for spite. Meanwhile Corliss writes fake stories about her involvement with Kenneth in her diary in order to make boyfriend Dexter (Darryl Hickman) jealous, resulting in the engagement of Kenneth and Corliss hitting the papers and Harry having conniption fits!.A Kiss for Corliss has an amusing script, but the problem is in the casting. Temple is fine as Corliss, but I can think of a dozen actors who could do more with the part and be a lot funnier than Tully (who played the role of a neighbor in the earlier film). Gloria Holden as Corliss' mother is most famous for playing the lead in Dracula's Daughter, but again she's hardly a skilled comedienne. Niven's role is completely one-dimensional but he displays his customary charm. Hickman, also cast in another role in the earlier film, takes over from Jerome Courtland as Dexter, and Kathryn Card returns as the Archer housekeeper, as does Virginia Welles as Corliss' friend, Mildred Pringle -- all are fine. Oddly, Mildred got married to Corliss' brother in Kiss and Tell, but seems to be single -- with no husband or brother in sight -- in the sequel. Robert Ellis [Space Master X-7] is fun as the nasty little teen Raymond Pringle; later he played Dexter in the 1954 TV series Meet Corliss Archer. This was Shirley Temple's last film, retiring from movies at the ripe old age of 21.

Verdict: Goodbye Shirley! **1/2. .

MURDER BY DEATH

Truman Capote

MURDER BY DEATH (aka Neil Simon's Murder By Death/1976). Director: Robert Moore.

"As a man you are barely passable, but as a woman you are a dog." -- Milo Perrier summing up the situation. 

A mysterious man invites variations of Sam Spade, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Miss Marple. and Hercule Poirot to his home where he challenges them to solve a murder that will occur at midnight. The host is played by Truman Capote, and the detectives by James Coco (Milo Perrier); Peter Sellers (Sidney Wang); Elsa Lanchester (Jessica Marbles); David Niven and Maggie Smith (Dick and Dora Charleston); and Peter Falk (Sam Diamond). If there's one problem with this rather cute movie is that it's a complete farce, with no real plot (just a premise) and nothing much to hang the jokes on. As for the jokes, for every one that garners a laugh there's two that land with a thud. However, the performances are all wonderful, and there's expert support from Estelle Winwood (Miss Marbel's nurse, who now needs looking after herself); Richard Narita as Wang's son; Nancy Walker as the deaf-mute maid; James Cromwell [American Horror Story: Asylum] as Perrier's chauffeur; Eileen Brennan as Diamond's girlfriend; and especially Alec Guinness [The Swan] as the blind butler, Bensonmum. Truman Capote is no actor, but on an amateur level he isn't too terrible as Lionel Twain. On the other hand, Peter Sellers [The Wrong Box] is simply wonderful. Don't expect any coherency (even for a comedy) and you may have fun.

Verdict: Silly, hardly for all tastes, but beautifully-acted and zany. ***.

THE OTHER LOVE

Richard Conte and Barbara Stanwyck

THE OTHER LOVE (1947). Director: Andre De Toth.

"I'm not fooled, doctor. I know death is a guest here. Though he sent me his compliments."

Karen Duncan (Barbara Stanwyck) is a successful concert pianist who comes to a sanitarium for treatment of an unspecified illness. She and her doctor, Anthony Stanton (David Niven), find themselves falling for one another, and he suggests that Karen spend many months just resting. But Karen is restless for life, and goes off with race car driver Paul Clermont (Richard Conte) for a romantic and wearying time in Monte Carlo. Trying to evade her fate, Karen only gets sicker ... The Other Love is based on the story "Beyond" by Erich Maria Remarque. Fourteen years after The Other Love was released, Remarque wrote the novel "Heaven Plays No Favorites," which was filmed as the Al Pacino starrer Bobby Deerfield, which also deals with a dying woman and a race car driver. The Other Love proves no more convincing than Deerfield and Stanwyck's fine performance is wasted in a trite, superficial soap opera. Although Stanwyck is never that good at portraying vulnerability, she easily out-acts her two male co-stars. Gilbert Roland has a nice turn as a croupier who tries to take advantage of Karen, and Joan Lorring [The Corn is Green] is notable as another doomed patient in the sanitarium. Natalie Schafer briefly appears to sparkle in that certain sleazy way of hers as a guest at Monte Carlo. Miklos Rozsa' score doesn't help at all. Roland had a much more memorable appearance with Stanwyck in The Furies. NOTE: For more on Bobby Deerfield see Al Pacino In Films and On Stage.

Verdict: Dark Victory this isn't. **.

ENCHANTMENT

David Niven and Evelyn Keyes

ENCHANTMENT (1948). Director: Irving Reis.

During the London blitz an elderly man, Rollo (David Niven of The Pink Panther) thinks back on his life after he meets his niece, Grizel (Evelyn Keyes), who is an ambulance driver. Flashbacks tell the story of how Lark (Teresa Wright) came to his house in childhood after her parents were killed in an accident. A grown-up Rollo and Lark fall in love, but there is interference from Rollo's jealous sister, Selina (Jayne Meadows). Rollo tries to convince Grizel not to turn away from love with a soldier, Pax (Farley Granger), just because she was once hurt, sparing her his fate. I wanted to like Enchantment but somehow this romantic movie just doesn't work for me for several reasons. The going back and forth from the past to WW2 becomes tiresome, the characters never seem that dimensional, and Lark's actions and subsequent fate are slightly mystifying. The acting isn't bad, although Jayne Meadows plays her character like an all-too-obvious villainess. Gigi Perreau (introduced in this picture, although she'd appeared in several earlier films) and Peter Miles [Possessed] are excellent as Lark and Rollo as children. Miles was Perreau's brother and was also in The Red Pony and The Betty Hutton Show. Sherlee Collier is also good as Selina as a child; she died at only 35.

Verdict: Star-crossed but unconvincing love story. **.

THE PINK PANTHER

THE PINK PANTHER (1963). Director: Blake Edwards.

The "Pink Panther" is an enormous diamond with a flaw that resembles the title animal. There is an ongoing legal debate as to whether it belongs to the people or to Princess Dahla (the smoky-voiced Claudia Cardinale). In any case, stealing it is the next project for a master thief known as the Phantom, but -- as we learn really on -- is really the dapper Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven). Bumbling French inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is assigned to protecting the jewel, completely unaware that his wife (Capucine) is not only having an affair with Sir Charles but is the Phantom's accomplice! Complicating matters is Sir Charles' American nephew, George (Robert Wagner), who makes a play for Mrs. Clouseau when she accidentally winds up in his bed. Although this film introduced Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau character, it is by no means an "Inspector Clouseau" movie as he's just one of several characters -- one could argue that Niven is the star [although he has equal billing with Sellers] and gets more screen time. There are amusing scenes and good performances in the movie -- Sellers is marvelous -- but for a farce the pace at times is much too leisurely. And on occasion the comedy gets pretty desperate, with not one but two men running around in that tired old standby, a gorilla suit! The film was extremely popular, however, and eventually engendered a great many sequels both with Sellers and without. One of the best was the immediate follow-up, A Shot in the Dark. 

Verdict: Amusingly frenetic at times, but chiefly memorable as introducing Sellers' Clouseau. **1/2.

BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE

BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE (1938). Director: Ernst Lubitsch.

Nicolle (Claudette Colbert) falls in love with the extremely wealthy Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper) but right before the wedding she discovers that he's already been married to -- and divorced -- seven other women! Distraught not only by the fact of his previous marriages, but his cavalier -- and financial --attitude toward matrimony in general, Nicolle marries Michael but becomes the Wife from Hell, hoping he'll divorce her and she'll get a lifetime annuity. This meant-to-be-frothy comedy, although written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, is comparatively dull and mostly unfunny and illogical, and is no "screwball" classic. Cooper tries hard and has his moments, but he's no Cary Grant, and Colbert is at her most artificial and "actressy." Scenes between the two have absolutely no spontaneity but seem carved in cement. The supporting players, including Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Elizabeth Patterson, and David Niven, are more on the mark.

Verdict: One or two laughs, maybe, and you can miss them. *1/2

DODSWORTH

DODSWORTH (1936). Director: William Wyler.

"Love has to stop somewhere short of suicide."

Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) has retired and his younger wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton) wants to spend her remaining days with him on the continent, where she wants to forget she has grown children and live a gay social whirl. Dodsworth is a simpler, less exciting soul and only wants to return to Zenith, the small town they come from. "You're rushing at old age," Fran tells him "and I'm not ready for that yet!" Before long Fran is being courted by and falling for younger men while Sam meets a sympathetic woman named Edith (Mary Astor). The interesting thing about the movie is that you find yourself switching allegiances mid-stream, at first rooting for the lively, fun-loving (if pretentious and snooty) Fran to shake the starch out of Sam, but then recognizing that Fran's life-loving vivacity has its dark and selfish side. Huston and Astor are fine, but Chatterton nearly steals the picture as Fran, and there are also excellent performances from Maria Ouspenskaya (as the mother of one of Fran's suitors), David Niven, Paul Lukas, and Gregory Gaye. "Have you considered how little happiness there can be for the old wife of a young husband?" Ouspenskaya asks a horrified Chatterton. John Payne also has a small role. Screenplay by Sidney Howard from the novel by Sinclair Lewis.

Verdict: A bit contrived at times but otherwise excellent. ***1/2.