CONFESSIONS OF BOSTON BLACKIE

Joan Woodbury and Chester Morris

CONFESSIONS OF BOSTON BLACKIE (1941). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

"You have a little Gestapo in you."

Ex-thief Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is again accused of murder when a shot rings out at an art auction, a man falls dead, and a young lady, Diane (Harriet Hilliard of Gals Incorporated), winds up in the hospital. As Blackie does his best to elude Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane), he discovers another problem in the form of ferocious Mona (the big-faced Joan Woodbury of The Time Travelers), who insists she's married to Boston and wants a big pay-off. Then there's a missing corpse, and a tense finale when Boston and others are trapped in an underground vault. The Boston Blackie series took a major leap forward with this second entry, with is superior to the first [Meet Boston Blackie] on nearly every level, with an excellent cast giving their all, and quite a few funny lines. In a brief bit Ralph Dunn makes an impression as Police Officer McCarthy, and there's another bit by a feisty old nurse who is, alas, uncredited; Lloyd Corrigan is also notable as the art lover Manleder. Morris hits just the right note as Boston -- as does George E. Stone as "the runt" -- and Woodbury looks as tall and tough as an Amazon.

Verdict: This one is fun. ***.

OBSESSION aka THE HIDDEN ROOM

Triangle: Newton, Brown and Gray

OBSESSION (aka The Hidden Room/1949). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

Psychiatrist Clive Riordan (Robert Newton of 1952's Les Miserables) discovers that his wife Storm (Sally Gray) is carrying on with a sort of cousin, Bill (Phil Brown of Weird Woman), and decides to take matters in hand. He kidnaps the latter at gunpoint and takes him to an isolated location and chains him up. The two men have most civilized discussions about when and how Clive is going to murder Bill and how he's going to get rid of the body, wanting to experiment on Storm's little doggie at one point, which Bill strenuously objects to. Meanwhile, Storm doesn't go to the police to avoid a scandal -- what a gal! This doesn't stop Superintendent Finsbury (Naunton Wayne) from investigating Bill's disappearance, however. Will the headshrinker be found out before he has a chance to do away with his rival?  Obsession is low-key [like Newton] and unexceptional, but manages to be entertaining in spite of it, with fairly good acting, although most of the time Phil Brown doesn't seem nearly as harried, hungry or upset as he ought to be. Stiff upper lip is one thing, but most people in his situation would be literally crawling the walls. Dmytryk also directed Captive Wild Woman and many, many other films.

Verdict: Okay low-budget British suspense film. **1/2. 

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

Barbara Stanwyck

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (1962). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

"I know what it's like to love someone and not be able to do anything about it."

In the novel A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren, the protagonist, Dove Linkhorn, is a 16-year-old drifter who winds up in the sex business when he's paid to deflower [supposed] virgins for eager voyeurs. In the Hollywood adaptation, Dove is now thirty [played by British Laurence Harvey], a former caregiver for his dying father, and is shocked to discover that his lady love, Hallie (Capucine), has become a prostitute at a famous New Orleans brothel. The story is still set in New Orleans in the 1930's, but everything else is screenwriters John Fante and Edmund Morris' invention and has virtually nothing to do with Nelson Algren. Dove has gone to work for the Italian store owner Teresina (Anne Baxter) while hoping to re-connect with Hallie, a sculptress who is now hooked up with brothel owner Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck), who seems to think Hallie is her personal property. Courtney's husband Dockery, (Don "Red" Barry) has lost his legs, and Jo deludes herself that her feelings for Hallie are not lustful [this latter business is more tacit than explicit]. When Dove does his damnedest to get Hallie back, all Hell breaks loose, resulting in tragedy. The "Doll House" is the least bawdy "bawdy house" that I've ever seen on film, and I've no doubt some viewers at the time had trouble figuring out whether Hallie was a prostitute or not. Jane Fonda has a supporting part as Kitty, another lost gal who winds up at the Doll House, and Richard Rust, who played the bellboy who marries the blond in Homicidal, is vivid as one of Jo's nastier associates. The performances are okay, with Fonda and Stanwyck, especially Stanwyck, taking top honors, although the material is far beneath the latter. It's pretty much beneath everyone, in fact.

Verdict: Vaguely entertaining and well-made but kind of schlocky in spite of it. **

THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1955)

Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson

THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1955). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

"It's quite simple really. One just does one's best."

"Are we to be children all our lives?"

In war-torn London, writer Maurice Bendrix (Van Johnson) has an affair with Sarah Miles (Deborah Kerr), the wife of a colleague, Harry (Peter Cushing). After Maurice is nearly killed in an explosion, he gets the paranoid impression that Sarah would have preferred he died so that the affair could end with ease, He becomes obsessed with finding out why she broke things off immediately afterward. He's unaware that Sarah, fearing he was killed, made a certain promise to a God she doesn't quite believe in ... The End of the Affair, based on a novel by Graham Greene, gets points for at least attempting to be adult fare and dealing with [semi] intellectual matters instead of merely blowing out the soap bubbles, but it is so talky and so smothered in awful religiosity that it's nearly a complete misfire. A supposedly atheistic character seems dragged in for balance, but he's really just an embittered, disfigured man who hates God, the movies' misconception of an atheist. The End of the Affair is the kind of picture that thinks talking about God and theology is somehow profound, giving it a pretentious and heavy air just when you should be getting caught up in the drama [what there is of it] and the characters. Speaking of which, both Maurice and Sarah are rather unsympathetic; neither ever gives a thought to husband Harry, who may be dull but seems a decent sort after all. Although The End of the Affair does illustrate the torments d'amour rather well at times, at other times it's almost comically awful, wasting some very good acting, a fine score by Benjamin Frankel, and moody cinematography by Wilkie Cooper. Deborah Kerr gives the best performance, better than the movie deserves, and Van Johnson, while not on her level, is quite good for the most part as well. Peter Cushing, in one of his rare non-horror parts, also acquits himself nicely as Harry, and John Mills has a good turn as a private detective hired by Bendrix. Greene's novel was again adapted as a film in 1999 with Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes in the Kerr-Johnson roles.

Verdict: A for effort, maybe, but this just doesn't work. **. 

MIRAGE

MIRAGE (1965). Director:Edward Dmytryk.

"If we can lie, cheat, steal and kill in broad daylight, but have to wait until it's dark to make love ... what does that have to say about us as a society!"

"If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space."

In 1951 Howard Fast published the novel "Fallen Angel" (which was reissued years later in paperback under the title "Mirage") under the pen name Walter Ericson. The book was well-written, but typical of post-WW2 fiction, in that it was grim and fatalistic and occasionally pretentious. "Fallen Angel" was the basis of two films, Mirage and Jigsaw. Mirage is by far the better of the two.

Although there are some changes made, Mirage is pretty faithful to the novel. David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) discovers that he has amnesia on the same day that a man plummets to his death in the same office building in which Stillwell works. Or so he thinks. The office has disappeared; a pretty young woman  named Shela (Diane Baker) claims to know him although to him she's a complete stranger; and worse, people are trying to kill him and demanding he turn over something -- but he has no idea what it is or what they're talking about. Stillwell hires a first-time private eye named Ted Caselle (Walter Matthau) to help him, but the man uncovers more questions than answers.

Mirage is a first-rate suspense film (although it can be argued that it succeeds due to the acting and plot more than to Dmytryck's standard if more-than-competent direction). Peck gives a very good performance, and although Baker isn't quite the femme fatale type the attractive actress nevertheless acquits herself nicely. Matthau, in his pretty much comic turn as the private eye, doesn't really seem to fit into the movie. Of the supporting cast, Robert H. Harris makes the best impression as Dr. Broden, but there are also notable turns by Jack Weston, George Kennedy, Walter Abel, Leif Ericson, Kevin McCarthy, and Anne Seymour. There's an excellent use of New York City locations, and an exciting chase sequence in Central Park. Ann Doran has a bit part as the neighbor of a murdered man who wants to keep her nose clean. Peter Stone's screenplay intelligently adapts the novel, makes things a little clearer than they are in the sometimes murky book, and has some excellent dialogue as well (see above).

Verdict: Classy suspense film with a convoluted but fascinating storyline and very good performances. ***1/2.

CORNERED

CORNERED (1945). Director: Edward Dmytryk. 

Laurence Gerard (Dick Powell), a Canadian shot down over France and helped by the underground, learns that the resistance fighter he married and hardly knew was murdered along with many others under the orders of a collaborationist named Jarnac -- who is supposedly dead. Gerard travels to Buenos Aires to find Jarnac, even though he doesn't know what he looks like or what name he might be using. Helping and hindering along the way are Jarnac's widow (Micheline Cheirel), the hostess Mrs. Camargo (Nina Vale), her mousy husband (Steven Geray), a shady tourist guide (Walter Slezak of Lifeboat), and the sinister Dr. Satana (Morris Carnovsky). Even Edgar Barrier and Nestor Paiva get into the act as, respectively, an insurance agent and a police official. Powell and Slezak give terrific performances, with a sharp assist from Luthor Adler and the rest of the supporting cast. The movie is unpredictable and basically absorbing, though it has no great Hitchcock-like set-pieces and is rather talky at times. Still, it is undeniably intriguing and has an exciting climax. NOTE: Cornered is one of the eight films on Warner brothers' Film Noir Classic Collection Volume 5. 

Verdict: Powell proves again that he's not just a song and dance man. ***.

WHERE LOVE HAS GONE

 WHERE LOVE HAS GONE (1964). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

"What's a honeymoon? Two weeks of people telling each other lies ... they'll never live up to."

"When you're dying of thirst you'll drink from a mudhole!"

War hero Luke Miller (Michael Connors) marries wealthy sculptress Valerie Hayden (Susan Hayward), and things fall apart pretty quickly -- with help from Miller's mother-in-law, Mrs. Hayden (Bette Davis). After their divorce, the Miller's troubled daughter, Danny (Joey Heatherton), is accused of stabbing her mother's lover to death. This roman a clef regarding the Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato case, based on Harold Robbin's best-selling novel, is well-acted, absorbing, and very entertaining. Davis and Hayward have at least one sizzling confrontation, and Joey Heatherton is simply terrific -- she should have had a much bigger career. Jane Greer and Anne Seymour are fine as, respectively, a social worker and psychiatrist, and Anthony Caruso scores in a brief bit as a horny blackmailer. In bit parts are Ann Doran (It, the Terror from Beyond Space; The Man Who Turned to Stone) and Walter Woolf King (Swiss Miss; A Night at the Opera). DeForest Kelley of Star Trek fame is very memorable as Valerie's agent, and George Macready as adept as ever as her mother's lawyer. As for Davis, good, bad or indifferent, Bette Davis is always Bette Davis. In this film she's already starting to split up her sentences in a way that indicates her constant smoking gave her such breathing problems that she could rarely complete a line without taking a breath somewhere. [Eventually she would have to take two breaths per sentence.] Jack Jones sings the pants off the title tune. John Michael Hayes' script was undoubtedly superior to the book.

Verdict: Definitely a guilty pleasure. ***1/2.

THE DEVIL COMMANDS

THE DEVIL COMMANDS (1941). Director: Edward Dmytryk. 

Dr. Julian Blair (Boris Karloff) is a kindly scientist who is devastated when his wife Helen (Shirley Warde) is hit by a car and killed. He becomes obsessed with the notion of speaking to her past the veil of death, and creates machines and odd electronic helmets that will, hopefully, enable him to do so. He teams up with Mrs. Walters (Anne Revere) , a phony medium whom he suspects has some actual powers of some kind. Meanwhile he neglects his concerned daughter Anne (Amanda Duff) and goes to an isolated area with Walters to continue his weird work in private. There the townspeople react as if he were Dr. Frankenstein himself ... This movie is mostly amusing gobbledygook -- there isn't even an attempt to explain exactly how Blair's devices meant to be used to speak to the dead are supposed to work. Karloff and Revere make a highly interesting team, however, and the picture is entertaining. There's a wild climax, and you have to see Revere in her helmet with psychic waves radiating all around her to believe it. 

Verdict: There have been worse. **1/2.

RAINTREE COUNTY

RAINTREE COUNTY (1957). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

John Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift) lives in a Northern county which has the legend of a mysterious, magical raintree in the swamps, which he tries to find but fails. He is loved by Nell (Eva Marie Saint) but winds up married to a neurotic Southern gal named Susanna (Elizabeth Taylor), who fears that her true mother was a Cuban black woman with whom her father supposedly had an affair. What's worse -- for essentially racist Susanna -- John is an abolitionist ... and then the Civil War breaks out. If this all sounds interesting be warned that it's stretched out to a tedious 2 hours and 48 minutes and the movie never really jells. Part of the problem is a meandering script without any major focus, but director Dmytryk isn't much help, either. Clift gives a good performance, but it was clearly affected by the shattering car accident he was in that occurred during filming. Elizabeth Taylor deserves an A for effort but she's not really up to playing a character that has so many different facets and psychological problems. Rod Taylor is good as a swaggering rival of John's, and Lee Marvin certainly scores as the charismatic Flash, with whom John has a race and who winds up in the Army with him. But the best performance is from Eva Marie Saint, who stands by John through thick and thin, and who is better than the picture deserves. DeForest Kelley shows up briefly as a rebel soldier. Fine cinematography by Robert Surtees and a good score by Johnny Green, but this is mostly a bore.

Verdict: Three hours of your life you can never get back. **.

THE SNIPER

THE SNIPER (1952). Director: Edward Dmytryk.

Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz) is a delivery man for a cleaning service and has a problem with women. When one of his customers, a singer named Jean (Marie Windsor) innocently excites him but sends him away when her boyfriend shows up, he begins a spree of shooting women, with Jean the first victim. Franz, who is excellent, is the perfect choice for the title role, with his clean cut features and appealing presence in stark contrast to the terrible crimes he's committing. The movie certainly has an interesting cast. Adolphe Menjou is the head cop on the case, Lt. Frank Kafka, and Richard Kiley, that Man of La Mancha himself, is a police psychologist. He gives disturbing statistics about sexual predators (the situation has obviously gotten much worse since 1952). Frank Faylen and Gerald Mohr are also cast as policemen. Miller's landlady is played by Mabel Paige, who sold Lucy and Ethel her dress shop in a classic I Love Lucy episode. Jay Novello, who also appeared on I Love Lucy, turns up in another amazing characterization as Pete, the owner of the bar where Jean sings for her supper. The movie is well made and completely absorbing, but it does give rather short shrift to the victims.

Verdict: Probably Franz' finest hour. ***.

THE CARPETBAGGERS

THE CARPETBAGGERS (1964). Director: Edward Dmytryk. Screenplay by John Michael Hayes.

George Peppard gives a surprisingly dynamic performance – his best, ever – as Jonas Cord, a Howard Hughes-type rich boy's son who weds and beds many a wench, starts an international airline, and takes over a movie production company and creates a star out of his own, very sexy former stepmother (Carroll Baker). Based on Harold Robbins' novel, this could easily be dismissed as trash were it not for the fact that it's quite well-acted, well-scripted (for what it is), and moves at a pace that leaves little time to ponder events but much time to be extremely entertained – there isn't a boring moment and much of the film is even striking in its way. Peppard and Baker are both better than you'd expect them to be, although they may not capture whatever nuances other actors might have found in their characters. Alan Ladd scores as Peppard's old companion and surrogate father, who becomes a cowboy hero of the movies and marries Baker. Ladd's climactic fight scene with Peppard is a highlight of the picture. Elizabeth Ashley, who later married Peppard in real life, is excellent as the wife he terribly mistreats, and even Martha Hyer is sexy fun as another blond hooker Peppard decides to turn into a star. Ralph Teager is fine as Peppard's pilot buddy and Bob Cummings is right on the money as a rather slimy Hollywood agent positively dripping with charm. Lew Ayres has one of his best latter-day roles as Peppard's business advisor, who is eventually disgusted by his antics (their parting scene is very well played).

Verdict: Overall, this long, lusty, often amusing and exciting picture isn't bad at all. ***.