TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965)

Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965). Director: George Pollock. 

Ten people, including two servants, are given invitations to work or play at an isolated estate located high atop a mountain and accessible only by cable car. They discover the strange nursery rhyme about "ten little Indians" in each of their rooms The mysterious voice (Christopher Lee) of their unseen host declares that they have each gotten away with killing someone, and now it is time to pay the piper. The first to go is singer Mike Raven (Fabian), who ran over two people and barely got a slap on the wrist -- he dies by arsenic -- and then more murders occur, somehow each corresponding to the method of death mentioned in the rhyme. Will anyone be left alive? 

Leon Genn and most of the group

George Pollock had previously directed four Agatha Christie "Miss Marple" adaptations, and he does a good job adapting her "And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians" to the screen. While I might have preferred a little more tension, this is not quite as "cutesy" -- for lack of a better word -- as the forties film And Then There Were None. Hugh O'Brian pretty much smirks his way through the movie, as if he were above it all (which he isn't), but his performance is adequate, although the other cast members are more on target. Stanley Holloway, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Leo Genn, and Mario Adorf (as the houseman) deliver adept performances, while Fabian gets an "A" for effort and Wilfrid Hyde White seems to think he's back in that forties adaptation and can best be described as annoyingly impish. Surprisingly Daliah Lavi has a very good turn as the high-maintenance actress Ilona Bergen, and comes through in her scene when she admits all about her past. As the cook and housekeeper Marianne Hoppe is, perhaps, a bit too hysterical. 

Dennis Price and Wilfrid Hyde White

This version transplants the story from an island to a mountaintop and two of the murders center on falls from great heights, one in a cable car whose cable snaps, and the other while a character attempts a climb down the mountain to get help; these are well-handled, and the film has genuine suspense. O'Brian and Eaton are given a love scene that seems a bit out of place. Malcolm Lockyer's jazzy score does little for the picture, but the lensing is sharp thanks to cinematographer Ernest Stewart. This was George Pollock's last theatrical feature. 

Verdict: Very entertaining Christie picture with some fine performances. ***, 

VENGEANCE VALLEY

Robert Walker and Burt Lancaster 

VENGEANCE VALLEY (1951). Director: Richard Thorpe.

Owen Daybright (Burt Lancaster) was taken in by cattle man Arch Strobie (Ray Collins), when he was a boy, and he grew up with Arch's son, Lee (Robert Walker). Owen has often had to cover for Lee, who can be irresponsible. Lee impregnated Lily (Sally Forrest) --  apparently before he married his wife, Jen (Joanne Dru) -- but Owen has to front for him. This causes Lily's two brothers, Hub (John Ireland) and Dick (Hugh O'Brian), to assume he is the baby's father, and they start gunning for him. Fearing the truth may come out, Owen tells Lee that he should take his wife and make a fresh start elsewhere, but Lee has other plans.

Out for blood: Hugh O'Brian and John Ireland

Vengeance Valley is strange. While this isn't technically a "B" movie, it has all the appearances of one, and aside from the business with the pregnancy,  it plays like something Roy Rogers could have starred in. The acting is all good, although Ray Collins, best-known as the detective on Perry Mason, sometimes seems disinterested. Carleton Carpenter is also in the cast as Hewie, a cowpoke who has a crush on Lily, and he's fine. Ted de Corsia also scores as another rancher who comes afoul of Owen. Director Richard Thorpe doesn't make the most of the film's dramatic moments, but the story is nothing special and doesn't live up to its title. This was Lancaster's first western.

Verdict: So-so western with a very good cast. **1/2. 

ON THE LOOSE

Joan Evans

ON THE LOOSE (1951). Director: Charles Lederer.

Jill Bradley (Joan Evans) is a small-town 16-year-old girl who has distracted parents (Lynn Bari and Melvyn Douglas) and a seemingly devoted boyfriend named Larry (Robert Arthur of Naked Youth). When Larry brings Jill to his house when his parents are gone, he passes out on the sofa and is found hungover the next morning. Larry is forced to break up with the "fast" Jill, who dates lots of guys to get over her heartbreak and winds up with a "reputation," nearly leading to tragedy. On the Loose is a time capsule of a movie, looking back at 1950's attitudes towards dating and premarital sex, as well as at timeless troubled marriages, and on that level is quite effective. Joan Evans [Roseanna McCoy] gives a very good performance as the confused and unhappy young woman, and the rest of the cast are also on target, with Melvyn Douglas [Hud] delivering some fine moments when he does his best to bond with his daughter in the second half of the film. Hugh O'Brian makes an impression as a kind-hearted doctor, and Tristram Coffin plays a judge, who shows up after some melodramatic developments in a bar. The ending is unrealistically happy but nevertheless touching.

Verdict: Teen angst well-played. ***. 

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

The technicolor finale of There's No Business ...

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954). Director: Walter Lang.

Molly Donahue (Ethel Merman) and her husband Terence (Dan Dailey) are long-time vaudevillians who have three children who join their act: girl-happy Tim (Donald O'Connor); pretty Katy (Mitzi Gaynor); and jazz baby Steve (Johnnie Ray), who actually prefers to enter the priesthood. Tim falls hard for a sexy lady named Vicky (Marilyn Monroe), but a misadventure with her sends him running off from a role in a Broadway show on the eve of WW 2. Is this the end of the Five Donahues? Aside from the title tune (which actually comes from Annie Get Your Gun), you'd be surprised that the music is by Irving Berlin, as the new numbers are pretty terrible and the older ones are ruined by inappropriately jazzy arrangements. As Steve, Johnnie Ray over-sings everything and makes faces, and his rendition of "Alexander's Ragtime Band," which he butchers, has to be seen to be believed. Ray also delivers the pious "If You Believe" (while mimicking Elvis' movements!) while the Adorable One -- La Monroe -- sexes up "Tropical Heatwave" in her inimitable style, although she's dubbed by Delores Gray and the number is otherwise not especially memorable. Although Monroe isn't quite up to her more "serious" scenes, she's positively luminescent in this and delivers her comedy sequences with her usual panache. As for the rest of the cast, Merman is terrific, with fine support from Dailey, Gaynor [The Joker is Wild] and O'Connor; Ray is fairly pleasing when he isn't singing. Hugh O'Brian [Rocketship X-M] shows up briefly as a theater man who falls for Katy; Robin Raymond [The Glass Wall] is the crude Lillian, who dates Tim; and Chick Chandler and Lee Patrick hardly get any lines as a couple of old vaudevillians at the Donahues party. The ending is nicely sentimental, and the last production number is a positive riot of brilliant technicolor.

Verdict: It would be all too easy to quibble about this picture's general mindlessness and often hokey numbers, but it all plays in spite of it. ***.

ROCKETSHIP X-M

The astronauts explore red planet Mars

ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950). Director/producer/writer: Kurt Neumann.

The first manned spaceship and its team -- consisting of Colonel Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges), Major William Corrigan (Noah Beery Jr.), Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery of Kronos),  Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen), and Harry Chamberlain (Hugh O'Brian) -- take off for the moon but somehow, as if they were Abbott and Costello, wind up on Mars instead. Wandering around in stark, red-tinted landscapes, they discover stone age savages and eventually come to a depressing realization. The decent production values insure that the sets and FX are less cheesy than they are in similar movies, and there's a nice theme by Ferde Grofe [Albert Glasser was musical director]. The picture was also photographed by Karl Struss [Sunrise] and has a downbeat conclusion. Morris Ankrum gives perhaps the best performance as Dr. Fleming back on earth. There are no giant spiders in this although some may feel it could have used them.

Verdict: Not quite serious sci fi but close. ***.

LOVE HAS MANY FACES

LOVE HAS MANY FACES (1965). Director: Alexander Singer.

Wealthy Kit Jordan (Lana Turner) is living in Acapulco and married to ex-beach bum, Pete (Cliff Robertson of Obsession). When an old flame of hers, another beach bum named Billy, washes up dead on the shore, it causes tension in her marriage, a situation that isn't helped by the arrival of Carol (Stefanie Powers of Die, Die My Darling), who once cared for Billy, and who attracts the attentions of Pete. Meanwhile half-naked hustler Hank (Hugh O'Brian) and his buddy, Chuck (Ron Husmann), zero in on two middle-aged tourists, Margot (Ruth Roman) and Irene (Virginia Grey). Although the movie is in general well-acted [by Hollywood standards] -- with an especially noteworthy and reptilian O'Brian -- the actors still aren't brilliant enough to make these stereotypes come to life. Marguerite Roberts' thrice-removed screenplay moves the characters around in allegedly interesting tableaux but nothing of consequence ever happens, and the dialogue is as empty as the people. The sub-plot with O'Brian and the ladies really goes nowhere.

Verdict: Go to the beach instead -- or Acapulco! *1/2.