ONE TOUCH OF VENUS (1955)

Russell Nype and Janet Blair

 ONE TOUCH OF VENUS (1955 telefilm). Director: George Schaefer. 

Museum owner Whitelaw Savory (George Gaynes) is anxiously waiting for a statue of Venus to arrive in his office when a substitute barber named Rodney Hatch (Russell Nype) places a ring on the statue's finger and she comes to life. Venus (Janet Blair) inexplicably falls in love with the nerdy Rodney, although he resists her charms because he's engaged to the rather witchy Gloria (Mildred Trares). Venus disposes of Gloria even as Whitelaw woos the goddess and still tries to find out where the statue is. Eventually Rodney is accused of Gloria's murder, but fortunately the gal isn't gone forever. Rodney and Venus happily plan for a rather earthbound future on Staten Island. But will these two opposites continue to attract? 

George Gaynes and Janet Blair

One Touch of Venus is a TV version of the 1943 Broadway musical, which was turned into a theatrical film in 1948 with Ava Gardner playing Venus. This telefilm is taken from a production of the show done for the Dallas State Fair. This is presumably more faithful to the original stage version as the movie made a great many changes to the plot and dropped most of the score by Kurt Weill and Odgen Nash. Whatever its flaws, this telefilm retains virtually all of the songs, and they are all memorable: "A Stranger Here Myself" sung by Venus; Rodney's "That's How Much I Love You'" and "Wooden Wedding;" Savory's song to his lost love, "West Wind;" Venus' "My Foolish Heart" and "That's Him;" the amusing chorus "The Trouble with Women;" and the love duet "Speak Low When You Speak Love." Savory's secretary, Molly (Laurel Shelby), sings the title tune. Although Janet Blair is the only one of the principal performers who dances, the telecast does include dance numbers and ballets. 

As for the performers, no one really has the light touch that this type of whimsical material requires, making the story pretty silly, but it's saved by the songs. And the singing of the principals really makes this work. I always knew Janet Blair as a competent light dramatic and comedic actress but never knew how really talented she was, as she sings her numbers for all that they're worth. Russell Nype also has a good voice and delivers on his numbers. George Gaynes was a busy Broadway performer and while some may find his voice old-fashioned, I have to say I love his singing style. Nype also did a lot of stage work. Weill's music is lilting; Nash's lyrics clever and funny.

Verdict: This may seem crude compared to the film version, but this has all the songs and they sing! ***. 

MY SISTER EILEEN (1942)

Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair

MY SISTER EILEEN (1942). Director: Alexander Hall.

Ruth Sherwood (Rosalind Russell) and her younger and prettier sister, Eileen (Janet Blair), feel that they'll get nowhere fast if they stay in small town Ohio, so the gals head for New York City with the encouragement of their grandmother (Elizabeth Patterson) and to the dismay of their father (Grant Mitchell). They manage to find an apartment in Greenwich Village, but soon discover that they're blasting for a new subway tunnel right underneath their feet. Ruth tries to sell her writing to a magazine edited by Bob Baker (Brian Aherne) while Eileen hopes to become an actress. As their money runs out they meet an assortment of characters who live in the building on Barrow Street. These include "Wreck" Loomis (Gordon Jones) and his jealous wife, Helen (Miss Jeff Donnell); the fortune teller Effie (June Havoc), who used to live in the apartment; drug store owner Frank Lippincott (Richard Quine); and slimy reporter Chic Clark (Allyn Joslyn).

Richard Quine with Blair and Russell

My Sister Eileen is based on a play by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, who also did the screenplay. The movie boasts some very adept performances and is consistently amusing and amiable. Although she was never quite the comic genius that Lucille Ball was, Rosalind Russell is still a fine actress who can not only do comedy well but can reveal the dramatic nuances under the laughs; she's wonderful. Blair is very effective as the not-so-naive Eileen, and once you get used to his blustering over-acting early on, Aherne makes a good foil for Russell. In addition to the others named above, there is also good work from Donald MacBride as a blithering cop; Chick Chandler as a friend of Effie's and an air raid warden; George Tobias as the landlord and wannabee painter, Apoppolous;.and Arnold Stang as the annoying copy boy, Jimmy. There are also the group of handsome Portuguese merchant marines who form a conga line in the village, a delightful sequence. And you must not miss the hilarious cameo by the Three Stooges!

The Fleet's In 

My Sister Eileen was turned into the Broadway musical Wonderful Town -- with a score by no less than Leonard Bernstein -- in 1953. Russell, who had already been a little old for the part in the film, and who couldn't really sing, was cast as Ruth yet again, and the show was a big hit, eventually being televised. In 1955 Columbia did a color and widescreen remake of My Sister Eileen with Janet Leigh and Batty Garrett. This was directed and co-written by Richard Quine [Sunny Side of the Street] , who plays Lippincott. To date there has been no theatrical film version of Wonderful Town, which is rarely revived.


Verdict: Fun movie with a terrific and talented cast. ***. 

I LOVE TROUBLE

I LOVE TROUBLE (1948). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

Private eye Stuart Bailey (Franchot Tone) is hired by a man named Johnston (Tom Powers, the victim in Double Indemnity) to investigate his wife, who has been getting a series of letters threatening to expose her "past," and eventually disappears. Bailey discovers that Mrs. Johnston (Lynn Merrick) was once an entertainer known as Janie Joy, so he pursues that angle via some of her old associates, then gets warned off by a thug, Martin (Donald Curtis) in the employ of John Caprillo (Eduardo Ciannelli). Bailey encounters a young lady, Norma (Janet Blair), who claims that the woman he's after is her sister, even though she doesn't recognize a photograph of her. Then there's sexy "Boots" (Adele Jergens) who sometimes drinks too much; Reno (John Ireland), who runs a nightclub; and his boss, Keller (Steven Geray), all of whom may know more about the missing woman than they're saying. There are a couple of twists, a couple of murders, and a final confrontation in Bailey's apartment. I Love Trouble may not get high marks as a mystery nor film noir, but it's smooth and entertaining, and Tone is excellent, and has a highly adept supporting cast. Raymond Burr and Arthur Space have small roles (as muscle and cop, respectively), and an unrecognizable (perhaps slightly more subdued and older) Glenda Farrell is snappy as Bailey's very efficient secretary. Janis Carter [Night Editor] also is vivid in a pivotal role whose exact nature I won't reveal here. Simon also directed The Fuller Brush Man (which also had Blair and Jergens) and many others.

Verdict: Pleasant time-passer with some good scenes and a modicum of suspense. ***.

BURN, WITCH, BURN

Janet Blair indulges in witchcraft as Peter Wyngarde sleeps

BURN, WITCH, BURN (aka Night of the Eagle/1962). Director: Sidney Hayers.

Professor of sociology Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) is disturbed to discover that his wife, Tansy (Janet Blair) is using fetishes and other talismans of witchcraft to increase his good fortune and protect him from his enemies at university. This goes against everything the rational man believes in (or doesn't), so Norman destroys all of Tansy's little items, and things go from bad to much, much worse ... Fritz Leiber's novel "Conjure Wife" was first filmed in 1944 as Weird Woman; this version is also very creditable. The two leads are quite effective and there is also solid support from Margaret Johnston (The Psychopath) as Flora, a sinister background figure. One of the best sequences has to do with a huge stone eagle that comes to life and pursues Norman through passages and corridors at the college.The story was filmed a third time as the comedic Witch's Brew. The versatile Blair was Red Skelton's leading lady in The Fuller Brush Man while Wyngarde was Peter Quint in The Innocents and did a lot of television work as well. Hayers also directed the British chiller Circus of Horrors.

Verdict: Zesty supernatural item. ***.

THE FULLER BRUSH MAN

Red Skelton succumbs to the charms of Adele Jergens

THE FULLER BRUSH MAN (1948). Director: S. Sylvan Simon.

Red Jones (Red Skelton), who has trouble holding on to a job, to put it mildly, is told by his girlfriend Ann (Janet Blair) that if he doesn't make good at something they're through. He decides to try for a job at the Fuller Brush company where Ann works, but a romantic rival, Mr. Wallick (Don McGuire), who's a top salesman, makes it his business to screw up Red's chances at every turn. Things take a turn for the worse when Red becomes the suspect in the mysterious murder of Commissioner Trist (Nicholas Joy), who fired him from his last assignment. Skelton is in top form in one of his funniest movies, with an inventive script by Frank Tashlin [and Devery Freeman] that is full of so many great sight-gags that the movie is at times a live-action cartoon [typical of Tashlin's work]. A bit in a garden involving bug spray, pruning shears, and legs in weird positions is nearly classic, as is a hilarious sequence wherein Red tries to sell a shower brush to the man-hungry starlet Miss Sharmley (Adele Jergens), who's "brushed off more men than the porter at the Waldorf." In this brief bit sexy Jergens almost walks off with the movie, but there are also very good performances from the rest of the cast, which includes Hillary Brooke as Trist's wife, Sara Franzen as his protege, and Arthur Space as a police lieutenant. Don McGuire scores as the wolfish cad Wallick and Blair is attractive and capable as Skelton's girl.The ending in a factory is also full of clever physical action, all well-handled by director Simon and a variety of stunt people. Verna Felton and Jimmy Hunt [Invaders from Mars] have a funny scene wherein Red tries to sell the former one of his brushes and her not-so-adorable grandson interferes.

Verdict: One of Skelton's best! ***.

THREE GIRLS ABOUT TOWN

THREE GIRLS ABOUT TOWN (1941). Director: Leigh Jason.

Hope (Joan Blondell) and Faith Banner (Binnie Barnes) are hostesses at a hotel that caters to male conventioneers out for a good time. The more upstanding ladies of the city want to close the hotel down and essentially accuse the two women of being hookers. When a dead body (Walter Soderling) is discovered in one of the rooms, the girls panic, afraid that a murder will surely get the place shut down for good. In the meantime Hope's boyfriend, reporter Tommy Hopkins (John Howard), realizes the dead man is the negotiator who has come to mediate a labor dispute, and wants to scoop other papers with the story of his death. There begins a supposedly comical moving about of the corpse that reminds one of later films The Trouble with Harry and Weekend with Bernie. Added complications include the fact that hotel manager Wilberforce Puddle (Robert Benchley) wants to marry Faith, and the arrival of third sister Charity (Janet Blair) who makes a play for Tommy and is always kissing him. And we musn't forget the drunk conventioneer (Eric Blore) who is always asking for "Charlie." Nobody ever expresses the slightest sympathy for the dead man (although there's a twist where that's concerned). Blore nearly walks off with the picture, not that that's such a great feat in a movie that has only exactly two laughs. Even the scene when Tommy brings the corpse to a poker game falls flat. [Of course someone refers to the dead man, who's won at poker, as a "lucky stiff." Ha, ha.) The actors give it their best, but this is a monumentally stupid "comedy" that lacks the light touch it needs and becomes a positive effort to sit through.

Verdict: Atrocious. *.

ONCE UPON A TIME

ONCE UPON A TIME (1944). Director: Alexander Hall.

"Despite all of its grief and turmoil, there are still beautiful things in the world."

Okay. Producer Jerry Flynn (Cary Grant), who is in danger of losing the theater he owns because of one flop after another, runs into a boy, Binky (Ted Donaldson), who has a pet caterpillar, Curly, who can dance -- but only to the strains of "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." From that premise, you might expect that the film would be a rollicking farce, but instead it's a comedy-drama-fantasy with Grant giving his usual adept performance but he's perhaps more restrained, given the subject matter, than he should have been. Janet Blair is Binky's concerned sister, and James Gleason is Jerry's pal and colleague. Once Upon a Time wants to be a whimsical, meaningful [see quote above] fantasy, but never quite approaches that level, although it does look into adult-child relationships, keeping promises, personal accountability, with some degree of success. The best scene -- which finally reaches the level of loopiness that the premise deserves -- is when a trio of scientists inspect Curly in a laboratory, and are stunned by their findings. ["Maybe a 1000 years ago he was Salome."] The problem with Curly is that it's hard to sympathize with the creature because we never actually see him (until the end, after he's undergone an expected metamorphosis). In any case, this damned picture has an undeniably moving conclusion. Little Donaldson not only gives a terrific performance as Binky, but is right up there with Grant throughout the picture. He went on to appear in a number of "Rusty" dog films, and was also in Phone Call from a Stranger.

Verdict: At least it's different. ***.