BERNARDINE

Pat Boone and Dick Sargent

BERNARDINE (1957). Director: Henry Levin.

Some high school pals in a club imagine the perfect woman and for unaccountable reasons call her "Bernardine." One afternoon Sanford Wilson (Dick Sargent) meets a beautiful young lady named Jean (Terry Moore of Mighty Joe Young), and he is instantly smitten -- she is his Bernardine. The other guys in the club also think Jean is special, but her relationship with Sanford hits the rocks when she meets Langley (James Drury), the handsome older brother of Sanford's friend, Beau (Pat Boone). With a little help from his friends, Sanford tries to win the hand of fair lady.

Terry Moore and Dick Sargent

Although Pat Boone and Terry Moore are top-billed in Bernardine, the main character and the one who gets the most running time, is Dick Sargent's Sanford. Pat Boone, playing a very unlikable person (although most of the boys in the film are unlikable) does have some screen time and gets to warble three numbers, the okay title tune, the highly sexist "Technique," and the more memorable "Love Letters in the Sand," which I believe was a big hit for Boone, who kind of imitates Der Bingle a bit. Terry Moore actually has very little to do in the film considering she is the leading lady. Bernardine asks us to accept Sargent, Boone, Ronnie Burns, and others as high school students when they have clearly left their teenage years far behind them. This makes their behavior at times seem borderline grotesque. They are particularly obnoxious to a nerd named Kinswood (Hooper Dunbar), although eventually he's somewhat accepted by the others.

Janet Gaynor

Natalie Schafer plays Boone's mother in a couple of brief scenes, but the stand-out in this is Janet Gaynor [Sunrise], who plays Sargent's mom and is given a couple of strong moments. "It's crazy, it's wild, it's improbable -- but don't tell me you passed!" she says to Sanford, who is not a great student. Sargent has some good moments, too, but again he's too old, his character isn't very appealing, and the more serious moments when he's dealing with heartbreak are almost worse than the comedy sequences. Although Sargent subsequently appeared with Boone in Mardi Gras, his film career never really developed and he mostly did television. Walter Abel and Dean Jagger are also in the film. This was Pat Boone's first movie and Janet Gaynor's last; she had two television credits after that.

Verdict: In spite of "Love Letters in the Sand," this is so bad it's depressing. *1/2. 

SOME ENCHANTED EVENINGS

SOME ENCHANTED EVENINGS: The Glittering Life and Times of MARY MARTIN. David Kaufman. St. Martin's; 2016.

Mary Martin went to Hollywood early in her career, but although she appeared and even starred in a few movies, she was dissatisfied with her film work and had much greater success on Broadway. Like many artists, this very talented woman lived for her work, and had a problematic, but ultimately loving, relationship with at least one child, her son Larry Hagman, famous as "J. R" on Dallas. Martin's marriage to her son's father did not last long, but she had a much longer union to her second husband, the mostly gay Richard Halliday, who guided her career when he wasn't alienating people with his temper and his alcoholism. Her shows included One Touch of Venus, South Pacific, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and for my money made the best Annie Oakley when she did Annie Get Your Gun on the road and for television. Some Enchanted Evenings also looks at Martin's work in less successful shows, such as the musical Jennie, and the play Legends, in which Martin was teamed with Carol Channing. The book hints at a "special relationship" between Martin and Janet Gaynor (Gaynor's husband, interestingly enough, is the only person quoted in the book who knocks Martin), as well as Jean Arthur, without ever really elaborating.When a reporter spoke to Martin about Larry Hagman, and asked what it's like having an icon for a son, she responded, "My dear, my son is a star. I am an icon." Although the author mentions his husband in the acknowledgments, the book does on occasion betray a kind of amusingly old-fashioned take on LGBT issues.

Verdict: Exhaustive, well-researched, imperfect, but very readable bio of the venerable entertainer. ***1/2.

A STAR IS BORN (1937)

Norman accidentally smacks Esther at Oscars

A STAR IS BORN (1937). Director: William A. Wellman. Produced by David O. Selznick.

"For every dream of yours that comes true, you'll pay the price in heartbreak."

In this technicolor re-visioning of What Price Hollywood? -- a star on the rise juxtaposed with a star on the wane -- the two main characters are romantically involved and get married, adding some dramatic heft to the basic plot line. Norman Maine (Fredric March) is a heavy-drinking lead actor who is in danger of being cast off as too difficult to work with. [As one wag puts it, "his work is beginning to interfere with his drinking."] He becomes smitten with a sweet little hopeful named Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor of Sunrise), who is taken under his wing and signed to a contract. Rechristened "Vicki Lester," she becomes a big star even as Norman's phone stops ringing, culminating in an embarrassing scene at the Academy Awards when he storms in drunk as she gives an acceptance speech. The film shows much more of Esther's early life than either of the two remakes. Gaynor is fine as Esther, but she seems an unlikely bet for major stardom, although in real life she had already won the first Best Actress Oscar [for two silent films] and was an established name and one-time top box office attraction before the film was made -- her performance in this was also nominated for an Oscar, but ironically she had few film roles afterward. March does the best he can with a severely underwritten role. [It also seems unlikely that Maine would be so completely forgotten in so short a time.] Adolph Menjou, Lionel Stander, and Andy Devine are all notable in important supporting roles, and peppery May Robson is as wonderful as ever as Esther's loving grandmother. Max Steiner's score is one of his least memorable.

Verdict: Entertaining behind-the-scenes look at one of Hollywood's sad stories but not quite a true classic. ***.

SUNRISE

SUNRISE (1927/U.S.). Director: F. W. Murnau. NOTE: This review describes key plot points of the movie.

A beautifully photographed and well-directed, cinematic film from Murnau, but this is also a little too dopey and irritating to quite hit the category of masterpiece, although it certainly has its moments. George O'Brien is a farmer who is tempted by a vamp from the city (Margaret Livingstone) who tells him that if his wife (Janet Gaynor) were only to “drown” they could be together forever. O'Brien is at first outraged by the mere suggestion, but after a few more kisses he dutifully rows his wife out to the middle of a lake and stands above her with murder in mind; only the distraction of a bell saves the woman's life. The best protracted sequence in the movie shows what happens after O'Brien, who can't bring himself to kill Gaynor, rows back to shore and the heart-broken, horrified Gaynor runs off to a trolley that takes both of them to the city. Gaynor's shock, desperation, and despair are almost palpable.

First of all, though, we have to wonder why either O'Brien or the hotsy totsy he was sleeping with thought it necessary to dispose of the poor wife. Sure, her mother could look after their little child, but why get rid of Gaynor in the first place? Couldn't O'Brien have simply done what tens of thousands of other husbands have done and run off to the city and presumable eternal bliss with the vamp?

O'Brien eventually convinces Gaynor that he is full of repent over his almost-murder, and the film abruptly changes into – get this – a romantic comedy as the two have a second honeymoon in the city, going to a dance, a carnival, eating dinner, even running after a cute little piglet that causes havoc in a kitchen. These sequences, like everything else in the film, are extremely well-done, even amusing, but they're completely out of tone with the mood that has been established since the beginning. And frankly, you keep hoping to see more of that mean, sexy vamp.

Then the film turns tragic as the happy couple return home across the lake (but why exactly do they have to cross the lake when he rowed backwards to get to shore after the murder attempt?) and a storm comes up, washing both of them overboard. O'Brien survives, Gaynor is apparently killed, and a distraught O'Brien nearly strangles his lover until he learns that Gaynor has actually survived. The vamp returns dejectedly to the city, and the husband and wife wake up to a brand new sunrise with their child.

The trouble with the movie is that no wife could ever look at her husband in the same way after she realizes that he had made a conscious and planned decision to kill her (and it would take more than a couple of hours to get over it). You're never convinced that O'Brien won't eventually want to hook up with the vamp again. Yet we have to remember that Murnau's films were often like poetic fairy tales [for instance The Last Laugh], so these criticisms have to be taken with a grain of salt, although it is also probably true that Murnau wanted you to take this film in perfect seriousness. That is not possible to do. But it is possible to appreciate its many moments of beauty and power, its inventive approach to many sequences, the excellent photography by Karl Struss, fine acting by the leads, and a highly effective musical score (in the later sound version currently being shown on Fox Movie Channel). Despite its glaring flaws, it is easy to see why Sunrise is much beloved in some quarters.

Verdict: Definitely worth a look. ***.