JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS

Mary Tyler Moore and Christine Lahti

JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS (1986). Written and directed by Allan Burns. 

Holly (Mary Tyler Moore), who is happily married to seismologist Chip (Ted Danson of Mad Money), becomes fast friends with Sandy (Christine Lahti), a woman she meets at gym class. The two women really bond, but both are unaware that Sandy's new lover is actually Holly's husband; an awkward situation develops when Holly invites Sandy to dinner. Holly is still unaware of the truth when tragedy strikes, but will the revelation of the affair destroy the two women's very real friendship?

Sam Waterston and Ted Danson

Just Between Friends was clearly inspired by the so-called "women's pictures" of the thirties and forties, and is just as clearly inferior to most of them. The death of a major figure undercuts the whole triangle situation, and the film even has the audacity to introduce yet another cliche -- when one of the other characters gets pregnant (guess who?). While initially entertaining, the picture utterly collapses with the pregnancy bit, turns into a bore that will have you longing to hit the fast forward button, and culminates in a sort of "feel good" ending that is completely contrived.  

Lahti and Danson

The acting helps put the whole thing over. Although she occasionally falls back on "Mary Richards" mannerisms from her sitcom (no surprise in that this is a sitcom), Moore is fine as the bushwhacked wife. (One big distraction is the cosmetic surgery that lifted Moore's face but widened her mouth to such a degree that it seems like the biggest maw in creation!) Lahti, whose appearance in this only led to a career on episodic television, is also quite good. Ted Danson is basically Ted Danson. Sam Waterston [Hannah and Her Sisters] does his best as Chip's co-worker and best friend, who cares for Holly and feels guilt over constantly covering for him. One senses Chip is not worthy of either woman. Salome Jens of Seconds is cast as the owner of the gym and Jane Greer makes the least of her role as Holly's mother. There is one nice moment, when Sandy lovingly touches Chip's suit hanging in the closet. 

Verdict: Director Allan Burns should have hired someone besides himself to write the script! **1/2.

CONVERSATIONS WITH CLASSIC FILM STARS

CONVERSATIONS WITH CLASSIC FILM STARS: Interviews from Hollywood's Golden Era. James Bawden and Ron Miller.  University Press of Kentucky; 2016.

I have already posted on the sequel to this book, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, which came out the following year. This is Bawden and Miller's first collection of interviews with famous film folk, and frankly, this volume is superior, with some really solid and interesting interviews. There's a funny piece on the ever-eccentric Gloria Swanson in the section on silent film stars; Joseph Cotten and Melvyn Douglas being rather blunt in their pieces in the section on Leading Men; everyone from Anne Baxter to Dorothy Lamour to Anna Lee and Jane Wyman are covered in Leading Ladies; Audrey Totter and Marie Windsor have their say in Queens of the Bs; and we've got the Singing Cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers; plus a piece on Bob Hope, and a final section  on not-quite-stars like Keye Luke, Harold Russell, Margaret Hamilton, and Diane Varsi (who did Peyton Place and then pretty much disappeared because she rebelled against her studio). Other stars interviewed include Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas and more.

The stars are frequently scathing in their assessment of other actors, with Melyyn Douglas insisting that both Spencer Tracy and Fredric March were "one-dimensional" (!) in Inherit the Wind (Douglas did a TV version). Joan Fontaine comments on her sister Olivia De Havilland ("it takes two to feud"). You'll also learn that Jane Wyman got so sick of former movie goddesses being hired for her series Falcon Crest, that she laid down the law: "No more international harlots!" I didn't know that beautiful Jane Greer was once married to Rudy Vallee nor that Margaret Hamilton was nearly killed playing the witch in The Wizard of Oz and spent some time in the hospital. The book gets across that most self-absorbed movie stars are simply not normal people.

Verdict: Fun, informative book that is hard to put down. ***1/2.  

OUT OF THE PAST

Jane Greer

OUT OF THE PAST (1947). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

"You're like a leaf that's been blown from one gutter to another."

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) has a new life running a gas station, as well as a girlfriend named Ann (Virginia Huston), when his past catches up with him in the person of gunsel, Joe (Paul Valentine). Joe works for crooked big shot Whit (Kirk Douglas), and some time ago he hired Jeff to go after his gorgeous gal pal, Kathie (Jane Greer), who not only shot Whit but left town with $40,000 in cash. In flashback we learn how Jeff caught up with Kathie and decided he wanted her for himself. But Kathie may have had other plans. Now she's back with Whit, who wants Jeff to do a favor for him -- or else. Well, Out of the Past should be prime film noir -- it certainly has all of the elements (even if much of it is actually played in sunlight instead of shadows), including a beautiful femme fatale, but somehow this just doesn't add up. The characters are little more than stick figures, brought to life with satisfactory but somehow second-rate thesping. Everyone, especially Douglas, who underplays nicely, is cool and professional but there's something missing, although Paul Valentine [House of Strangers] probably has the best role of his career in this and runs with it. Virginia Huston [Tarzan's Peril] is pleasant and competent but she only had a few credits after this. Dickie Moore [Passion Flower] makes an impression as the deaf and mute boy who works for Jeff at the gas station, as do Ken Niles as the nervous lawyer, Eels, and Rhonda Fleming as his secretary. Others in the cast are Steve Brodie as Jeff's former partner, and Richard Webb as a man who's carrying a long-time torch for Ann. The film is beautifully photographed in crisp black and white by Nicholas Musuraca [Clash By Night], and Roy Webb has contributed an effective theme. There's a certain poignancy to the conclusion, hinging on a not-so-little white lie. (Whether the lie should have been told or not Ill leave up to the individual viewer.) There's so much confusing going back and forth from place to place by the cast that it gets somewhat tiresome after awhile.

Verdict: For a great film noir with Robert Mitchum watch Otto Preminger's Angel Face instead of this. **1/2. 

THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME

THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME (1947). Director: Irving Pichel.

A man named Larry (Robert Young), on trial for murder, takes to the stand and tells his sordid story to the jury in an effort to save his life. Married to the lovely but somewhat controlling Greta (Rita Johnson of The Second Face), Larry enters into an affair with Janice (Jane Greer). Later he finds himself falling for yet another woman, Verna (Susan Hayward), and plans to run away with her. But fate intervenes, two of those women wind up dead, and Larry's in deep trouble. The absorbing picture is uncompromising not just for its anti-hero and other unsympathetic characters, but for its knock-out of an ironic ending. Johnson, Hayward and Greer all deliver, and Young, who did play bad guys in the days before Father Knows Best, is nonetheless cast against type as Larry  -- that just makes his performance more effective. Most of the characters in this are distinctly unlikable for one reason or another, but that doesn't affect one's enjoyment of the movie. Jane Greer [Run for the Sun] looks especially luscious in this. Johnson and Young also appeared together in Honolulu.

Verdict: Very satisfying and well-done film noir.

BILLIE

Patty Duke pulls ahead of the boys

BILLIE (1965). Director: Don Weis.

15-year-old Billie (a 19-year-old Patty Duke) is a real tomboy who excels in sports, especially track. Before long the coach (Charles Lane) is making her his star player, but she's afraid this won't make her seem feminine enough. Will her new boyfriend, Mike (Warren Berlinger), accept her as an equal, or will she have to change herself to keep him? Billie, which was based on the play "Time Out for Ginger," has a surprisingly feminist perspective, until it completely cops out at the very end. [An entire book, which I have not read, has been written about this movie and its implications.] The elephant in the room, which is never mentioned outright, is that her family deep down probably fears that the boyish, athletic Billie may be a lesbian [or transgender]. She's given a whole song in which she rhapsodizes about discovering she's attracted to boys. The dated aspect of the movie is that even in the sixties there were female athletes, and they weren't all gay. [Not to mention the innumerable movies about tomboys who discover they're "women."] Duke [Curse of the Black Widow] is okay, although there are too many close-ups of her running, her scrunched-up face being positively thrust out at the viewer. A production number of chorus boy/athletes has them acting as if Duke were the sexiest teenager in the world, when actually Jane Greer [Run for the Sun], playing Duke's mother, is a lot more attractive (although Duke looks okay at the end when she's dolled up). Greer is excellent, Jim Backus is quite good as Billie's father, and there's nice work from Susan Seaforth as Billie's sister who, unbeknowst to her family, is married and pregnant. Others in the cast include Billy De Wolfe as Backus' political opponent -- who is not given enough to do -- and Ted Bessell as Seaforth's husband. Don Weis also directed Looking for Love with Connie Francis.

Verdict: Doesn't seem to understand that a woman can be an athlete and a "girl" at the same time. **1/2.

THE OUTFIT

Tom Reese and Duvall with Karen Black in the background

THE OUTFIT (1973). Director: John Flynn.

Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) gets out of prison to discover that his brother was murdered. It seems the two of them knocked off a bank that was owned by the crime cartel, the "Outfit." Macklin decides to pay back and wage war on the Outfit by carrying out heists -- with his pal, Jack (Joe Don Baker) -- that will hit the Outfit where they live. His main antagonist is Outfit bigwig Mailer (Robert Ryan), who lives in a big mansion with bodyguards and has a fairly disinterested wife (Joanna Cassidy). The Outfit is loosely based on the third "Parker" novel by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake), a series of books in which a career criminal is the protagonist. [Another Parker adaptation was The Split.] Frankly, the book is much more entertaining than this indifferently directed "thriller" in which only Robert Ryan gives an especially memorable performance. Baker isn't bad, Karen Black [Trilogy of Terror] has her moments as Macklin's girl, and Duvall is Duvall. Sheree North [Mardi Gras] also has some flavorful moments as the wife of an associate, but Jane Greer isn't very good as Macklin's sister-in-law. Richard Jaeckal, Marie Windsor, and Henry Jones aren't on screen long enough to register much but are all effective. John Flynn also directed The Sergeant.

Verdict: Indifferent adaptation of a gritty Parker novel. **.

THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS

Jane Greer and Lizabeth Scott

THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS (1951). Director: John Cronwell.

NOTE: Some plot points are revealed in this review. Diane (Jane Greer) is released from prison after passing bad checks and the like, and is assigned to parole officer Joan (Lizabeth Scott). Diane resents kindly Joan from the first, and makes a major play for Joan's boyfriend, Larry (Dennis O'Keefe of Hold That Kiss), which the big lug falls for. Before long Larry and Diane are in love, but they need Joan's approval to marry ... what a weird situation. The problem with The Company She Keeps is that the two lovers are pretty unsympathetic, with Diane returning Joan's friendship by stealing her boyfriend, and Larry betraying the faithful [if eternally busy] Joan, who is too sweet for words -- or reality. Fay Baker [The Star] plays another parolee who works with Diane as a nurse, and Gertrude Hoffman [My Little Margie] has a silent role as a woman on the parole board. Paul Frees is a judge's clerk and Great Old Movies' favorite Kathleen Freeman plays another parolee. Jeff Bridges and his brother Beau supposedly appear as an infant and a small boy. Given Diane's essential nature, it's unlikely that the "happy" ending for this couple is going to last. The acting is generally solid.

Verdict: These two lovers deserve each other. **.

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.

DICK TRACY (1942)

DICK TRACY (1945). Director: William Berke. 

The first of four Dick Tracy features stars Morgan Conway as a more-than-acceptable Tracy investigating a series of murders committed by "Splitface" (referring to a scar), played by Mike Mazurki. [One of the problems with the film, although it's entertaining, is that the suspense is minimized because we know all along who the killer is, a serious mistake, frankly.] Anne Jeffreys makes a pretty sexy Tess Trueheart. Equally pretty Jane Greer plays the saucy daughter of one of the potential victims; she's always making a jealous Tess nervous. The cadaverous Milton Parsons is well cast (as usual) as the undertaker, Deathridge. Mazurki is fine as the villain of the piece. A fast pace helps smooth over the flaws. Followed by Dick Tracy vs. Cueball. Also known as Dick Tracy, Detective. 

Verdict: You can't keep a good Dick down. **1/2.

GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS

GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS (1945). Director: Felix E. Feist.

Joan (Joan Davis), a comedienne with George White's Scandals, wants to marry partner Jack (Jack Haley), but his older sister Clarabelle (Margaret Hamilton) insists he can't wed until she does. And with her looks and personality that's a real problem. This plot -- if you can call it that -- is regularly interrupted by performances by Gene Krupa and his band and others. BetteJane (Jane) Greer is cast as a bitchy chorus girl, and Phillip Terry (Mr. Joan Crawford # 3) plays one of White's staff. The men in this movie seem to have a real disdain for women, or at least chorus girls, whom they dismiss and talk about as if they were so much cattle. Rose Murphy is fun as Joan's saucy maid, Hilda. Fritz Feld, who seems to have been in every other movie ever made, is in this one, too. Glenn Tryon plays George White. Hamilton is swell and her encounters with Davis are very amusing.

Verdict: Anything with Joan Davis in it is worth watching, but this ain't no masterpiece. **.

RUN FOR THE SUN

RUN FOR THE SUN (1956). Director: Roy Boulting. 

Although this will probably hold your attention if you're unfamiliar with earlier versions, this is a fairly lamentable remake of the far superior Most Dangerous Game. Whereas the first film got us right into the action, this variation takes forever to get to the main event, with a protracted sequence wherein Jane Greer plays a magazine reporter trying to find out why famous writer Michael Latimer (Richard Widmark) vanished to Mexico when he was at the top of his game. After an hour or so of this, Widmark offers to fly Greer out of the village he's buried himself in but they crash land in an even more remote area where Trevor Howard and Peter van Eyck have taken up residence. The bad guys in this picture don't actually hunt humans as the villain did in The Most Dangerous Game -- stripping this version of the story's most interesting aspect -- they just don't want Widmark and Greer to get away knowing their secret (which isn't much anyway, although one can understand why they don't want their uninvited guests going off and telling anyone). The scene when the plane nearly crashes is well done, but the climactic chase is slack and unexciting. Roy Boulting was never a good choice to direct thrillers; years later he made a botch of Twisted Nerve. Jane Greer radiates her usual refined sexiness and Widmark, while never a great actor, is full of his usual insolent authority. Trevor Howard is merely wasted in a throwaway part. The music is okay but the widescreen cinematography is unimpressive. It all looks like it was shot on a back lot anyway. 

Verdict: Watch The Most Dangerous Game instead. **.

THE BIG STEAL

THE BIG STEAL (1949). Director: Don Siegel.

Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) meets up with Joan Graham (Jane Greer) in Mexico where both discover that they are in pursuit of the same man, Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles), who stole money from them. In the meantime Captain Blake (William Bendix) is in pursuit of Halliday. It takes a while to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in a movie that consists of a lot of seemingly aimless running and driving around. It all comes together in the climax, but by then it's a little too late. However, there are some exciting and suspenseful moments in the film, and the acting is good. Mitchum was at his best in roles like this, and The Big Steal offers one of his most credible performances. While Greer is not on his level, she's quite good when she's testily bantering with Mitchum. The ever-reliable Bendix is as good as ever and even Knowles turns in a solid performance. However the picture is almost snatched away by middle-aged Ramon Navarro, who is delightful as Inspector General Ortega. (Don Alvarado plays his lieutenant.) Pascual Garcia Pena of Black Scorpion and The Beast of Hollow Mountain plays a construction worker who helps Greer and Mitchum momentarily get away from Bendix.

Verdict: Distinctly minor but entertaining. **1/2.

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES

MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES (1957). Director: Joseph Pevney.

The life of the great silent actor Lon Chaney, with a focus on his first failed marriage and his love for, and competition with, his son Creighton [later known as Lon Chaney Jr, a talented actor in his own right.] This is one of the best backstage biopics to come out of Hollywood, with a superb performance by James Cagney in the title role. In recreations of scenes from Chaney's hits, Cagney even gets across the style of acting employed by Chaney in the silent days. Jane Greer offers one of her loveliest performances as Chaney's second wife, Dorothy Malone is vivid and pathetic as wife number one, and even Robert Evans is fine as Irving Thalberg. In addition, Marjorie Rambeau has a nice scene as an extra called the “Duchess” who shows new-in-Hollywood Chaney the ropes. If there is a problem with the film it's that there seems to be too much of an effort made to turn wife number one into a villainess. At first Malone seems to be overacting as her character overreacts to the fact that Chaney's parents are deaf mutes, but it becomes evident later on that the picture wants to paint her as being a mite disturbed. The movie works up some sympathy for Malone in the final quarter. According to the film, wife number one was bored being left home alone with a baby, desired a career for herself as a singer, and when she went out and got one was basically told to stay home where she belongs by her disapproving, chauvinistic husband. Her reunion with her son brings about an estrangement between Lon and Creighton that is movingly resolved before the former's death. Whatever its flaws and dramatic licenses, this is an excellent film that features a dead-on Cagney performance. The CinemaScope photography is not really necessary for a more intimate type of story as this, but Frank Skinner's score for the film is one of his finest.

Verdict: Great biopic. ***1/2.