VALERIE

Sterling Hayden and Anita Ekberg

VALERIE (1957). Director: Gerd Oswald. Colorized.

Valerie begins with a literal bang as two men enter a home, shots are fired, and in short order there are three corpses lying in the living room. However, one of these corpses, Valerie (Anita Ekberg of Back from Eternity), is still alive, although it is a question if she will ever wake up out of a coma. Her husband, John Garth (Sterling Hayden of The Asphalt Jungle), is put on trial but insists he only fired in self-defense. He tells his story on the witness stand,  as does Reverend Stephen Blake (Anthony Steel of Another Man's Poison), who tried to get Valerie to safety although Garth claims he was "running off" with his wife. These conflicting accounts have everyone confused, until Valerie wakes up and tells everyone her side of things -- and a completely different story emerges. 

Peter Walker and Sterling Hayden

Nowadays Valerie -- which takes place in the post-Civil War period -- is a forgotten movie, but it doesn't deserve to be, as it has themes that resonate even today. It's fascinating the way the viewer is carried along by the original narrative -- poor John Garth married a faithless woman who's just after his money -- only to have it turned on its head by the climax, which is as violent as the opening. One also comes to conclusions about Valerie because of her voluptuousness. Hayden's performance seems slightly off in this perhaps because in many scenes he has to play it a certain way to keep the viewer in suspense. Ekberg is not only gorgeous, but convincing as the confused and tormented Valerie. There is also good work from Anthony Steel, who was (briefly) married to Ekberg at the time. Peter Walker, who mostly did television work, is adequate as Garth's brother, Herb. 

Anthony Steel

Valerie is well-photographed by Ernest Laszlo. It also has a good and interesting score by Albert Glasser, who usually scored science fiction and monster movies such as The Beginning of the End, but here is allowed to flex his musical muscles and delivers. Gerd Oswald also directed Ekberg in Screaming Mimi and Paris Holiday, but he got his best work from her in Valerie. Oswald's most famous film is A Kiss Before Dying. 

Verdict: An unusual and twisted romance. ***. 

CRIME OF PASSION (1957)

CRIME OF PASSION (1957). Director: Gerd Oswald.

Kathy (Barbara Stanwyck), a lonelyhearts columnist turned reporter, meets and marries cop Bill (Sterling Hayden). Stifled by dull married life, she transfers all of her ambition to Bill, who is perfectly happy plodding along the way he is. First Kathy schemes to become friends with Bill's boss Tony (Raymond Burr) and his wife Alice (Fay Wray). Then she tries to Talk Tony into giving Bill his job upon retirement and then ... Let's just say that Stanwyck gives it the old college try, yelling all over the place, but her vivid performance is the only thing that will keep most viewers watching. This lacks the intensity and steaminess of true film noir; it's just a rather silly melodrama with a heroine who seems too smart to do the stupid things she does. Hayden and Burr are adequate; a middle-aged Wray is fine, and the second zestiest performance comes from Virginia Grey as a woman who's jealous of Kathy and Bill's friendship with the boss.

Verdict: Not exactly Madame Bovary. In fact it's not even Beyond the Forest.**.

SCREAMING MIMI

SCREAMING MIMI (1958) Director: Gerd Oswald.

After nearly being stabbed to death by a maniac, Virginia Wilson (Anita Ekberg) is sent to a sanitarium. She runs off with her doctor (Harry Townes) and reinvents herself as "Yolanda Lange," exotic dancer. When she is attacked on the street one night, everyone assumes she was nearly the second victim of "the ripper," who stabbed another blond beauty to death a month before. Phil Carey is newspaperman Bill Sweeney, who falls in love with Yolanda, and Gypsy Rose Lee is her employer, owner of El Madhouse nightclub. Carey decides to try and find out who the ripper is, and what he has to do with Yolanda. Part of the mystery centers on a figurine of a screaming woman that Sweeney believes is a fetish for the killer. Based on a novel by Fredric Brown, Screaming Mimi might be considered a very early "mad slasher" flick were it not for the fact that its style is completely different from that genre, which began in the late 70's. For one thing, Screaming Mimi has no style, tension, or suspense, making it hard to care who the slasher is or his connection to Virginia/Yolanda. Too much has been made of the fact that Virginia is attacked while taking an outdoor shower in a film made two years before Psycho -- the movies and the sequences are really nothing alike. There were other pre-Psycho films where the killer had psycho-sexual motives. The psychological aspects of Screaming Mimi are dubious. There's some moody if unspectacular photography from Burnett Guffey. The uncredited score seems to have been lifted from a much better picture.

As for the buxom Ekberg? Well, she isn't awful. She manages to get across the emotions of her character, although not with any kind of Katharine Hepburn-like skill. Some might say she's almost out-acted by her protective, snarling Great Dane, Devil (who isn't much use in protecting her on two separate occasions). Ekberg's "dancing" is both sexy and comical. Gypsy Rose Lee, who isn't bad, is given the best line: "The way he looks at her you'd think a bosom is something unique." (Well, Ekberg's bosom was kind of unique.) There seems to be a hint that Lee's character may be gay, but this isn't explored. Townes is effective as the doctor who's madly in love with his deeply disturbed patient. With all that's supposedly going on, it's amazing how dull the movie is. Screaming Mimi is not a gruesome shocker or flamboyant thriller along the lines of William Castle's Homicidal, more's the pity. Gerd Oswald also directed the far superior A Kiss Before Dying. He doesn't seem to have been inspired much by the script for Screaming Mimi.

Verdict: Even less interesting than it sounds.

A KISS BEFORE DYING

A KISS BEFORE DYING (1956). Director: Gerd Oswald. NOTE: Some plot details are discussed in this review.

Okay adaptation of Ira Levin's suspense novel features Robert Wagner as a charming sociopathic killer who shoves his pregnant girlfriend (Joanne Woodward) off of a roof and then zeros in on her equally wealthy sister (Virginia Leith). Mary Astor is pretty much wasted as Wagner's mother; Jeffrey Hunter offers an odd performance as a pipe-smoking junior detective; and George Macready is positively weird – like Igor in one of the Frankenstein movies – as Leith and Woodward's cold-hearted father. The CinemaScope photography is very good, although Oswald often employs very, very long takes [often the fashion in wide-screen movies of the period] which aren't very cinematic. However, the movie is entertaining and suspenseful, and Wagner's performance is smooth if not outstanding. [The bad remake starring Matt Dillon makes little sense, as Dillon already seems like a hoodlum before he commits a single murder.] It's hard to tell which murder is more disturbing: Woodward's high-story plunge, or the shooting death of the disk jockey that Wagner frames for the murder even as the frightened young man (Robert Quarry) pleads for his life. Woodward is as good as ever and Leith is more than adequate.

Verdict: Intriguing, if imperfect, thriller. ***.