THE HONEY POT

Cliff Robertson and Rex Harrison

THE HONEY POT (1967). Writer/director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.  

At his palazzo in Venice, wealthy Cecil Fox (Rex Harrison) has concocted a scheme inspired by Ben Johnson's classic play "Volpone." He has hired out-of-work actor William McFly (Cliff Robertson) to help him "stage manage" the situation when he pretends to be dying and invites two ex-wives and a long-time lover to Venice, where he will tease them about which will inherit his money. The ex-wives include actress Merle McGill (Edie Adams of The Oscar) and Princess Dominique (Capucine of The Queens), and the lover is Mrs. Sheridan (Susan Hayward of I Thank a Fool), who brings along her nurse, Sarah (Maggie Smith). Complications ensue when Mrs. Sheridan reveals that she is Cecil's common law wife. Then one of the women is murdered, and Cecil's own life seems to be in danger ... 

Capucine, Susan Hayward, Maggie Smith

For much of its length, it isn't certain exactly where The Honey Pot is going nor what the audience is supposed to think of it. It eventually emerges as a light-hearted murder mystery with some clever (if suspect) touches. As with most of these tricky pictures, the plot may not hold up under intensive scrutiny, but while the movie seems oddly disjointed at times, it can't quite be called boring. Because it's necessary to hold secrets from the audience, the characters aren't that well-developed, although the actors give it the old college try. Harrison is as marvelous as ever, Robertson better than expected, and of the ladies Hayward probably makes the best impression, although the others are also good. The ending may seem cute but it ignores some niceties of law. It's interesting that Cecil's dream was to be a ballet dancer, and he and a double dance to the strains of the ballet music from Ponchielli's La gioconda at one point (Allan Sherman used the melody for his "Camp Granada" novelty song.) 

Verdict: An interesting oddity that doesn't quite work but entertains in spite of it. ***. 

DRAGONWYCK

Gene Tierney and Vincent Price

DRAGONWYCK (1946). Written for the screen and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Colorized. 

In the mid-19th century Miranda Wells (Gene Tierney) is sent for by her sort-of cousin, Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price), who invites her to live at his Catskills estate Dragonwyck with his wife, Johanna (Vivienne Osborne) and daughter, Katrine (Connie Marshall of Wake Up and Dream). Katrin's parents hardly pay attention to the lonely child, but there's an attractive doctor named Jeff Turner (Glenn Langan) who is kind to both the girl and her companion, Miranda. Unfortunately Miranda falls not for the doctor but for Nicholas, and it isn't too long before Mrs. Van Ryn falls ill ...  Miranda discovers it is all too true to "be careful what you wish for." 

Vincent Price and Glenn Langan

Based on an old-fashioned gothic novel by Anya Seton, Dragonwyck is an earnest if sometimes silly melodrama that is bolstered by some very good acting and, especially, an outstanding score by Alfred Newman that richly embellishes every sequence (although some may fell the film is over-scored). As the haughty patroon who lords it over the resentful tenant farmers (including Harry Morgan in a good turn) Price gives a good if theatrical performance that is full of dramatic flavor but isn't always convincing. Tierney is excellent throughout, and Glenn Langan make his mark as the good doctor. Langan was talented enough that he shouldn't have wound up in The Amazing Colossal Man (although it mut be said that he gave a strong performance in that). Walter Huston and Anne Revere score as Miranda's simple Connecticut parents, and Spring Byington has an unusual role as a somewhat sinister and gossipy maid named Magda. Jessica Tandy [A Woman's Vengeance] is fine as Miranda's crippled maid, Peggy, who comes in for Nicholas' cruel scorn. The picture is beautifully colorized. 

Verdict: Well-acted, entertaining, and with a great score. ***.

SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1959)

"And this you won't believe:" Albert Dekker and Liz Taylor 

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (1959). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenplay by Gore Vidal from the play by Tennessee Williams. NOTE: This review includes important plot details. 

Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) is utterly appalled at the tale being told about her son Sebastian's demise by her niece Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) and "wants that hideous story cut out of her brain." To that end she has called in a neurosurgeon, Dr. Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift of Lonelyhearts), and promises financial aid to a possible clinic named after her son if the doctor performs a lobotomy on Catherine. Dr. Cukrowicz meets with the distraught woman -- the two are attracted to each other -- and he can clearly see that she is not the kind of hopeless case who would need a lobotomy. Instead he brings Catherine to her aunt's house -- accompanied by her mother (Mercedes McCambridge of All the King's Men) and brother (Gary Raymond of Jason and the Argonauts), who hunger for Sebastian's money -- and administers a truth serum. Catherine then tells the horrifying truth about what happened to Sebastian in the village of Cabeza del Lobo in Spain.

Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift

The problem with Suddenly Last Summer is the same as it is with all plays and films written and produced before Stonewall. The viciously negative stereotypes about homosexuals abound, and it makes no difference that Williams and Gore Vidal were contributors to the picture. Although we never meet or see Sebastian, he hits all the stereotype buttons: vein, superficial, pretentiously "artistic," a bitchy momma's boy, and worst of all, a sexual predator. (One senses that when Taylor refers to boys in relation to her cousin she doesn't mean boys as in "boys and girls," but underage boys.) The production code had a lot of problems with Suddenly Last Summer but ultimately the film was released because, after all, homosexual Sebastian does die, which just proves the "negativity" of the gay lifestyle. (Of course gay men have always had a problem with being cannibalized, LOL!) While a modern interpretation might suggest that Sebastian is gay-bashed, it is much worse than that.  

a tormented Liz Taylor

The laughable notion of the play and movie is that Sebastian, who is supposedly shy, uses good-looking women like his mother (until her stroke) and then cousin to attract men and then presumably pounces on them be these men gay or straight (or offers them money -- or food). Most gay men really don't need this subterfuge to meet other men, even back in the thirties when this takes place -- and the idea of gay men using women to attract hopefully gay men is ludicrous -- although it's also stated that his mother has social connections so I guess Sebastian can meet the "best," well, meat. Of course, there have been self-hating homos who insist only on having sex with "straight" men -- you can see the problem there -- or who buy hustlers who may or may not be gay but are probably at least bi. 

McCambridge, Taylor and Raymond

In any case, playwright Williams was not necessarily being literal when Catherine tells of her snobbish cousin being chased by starving homeless boys who use their musical instruments, made mostly of tin cans, to cut away and eat pieces of their victim after they chase and surround him. The movie however, intimates that this is what actually happened. Could Williams, who had become quite a success by this time, have been thinking about the handsome young actors who wanted to use him so they could get cast in one of his plays? Were they figuratively "devouring" him? Or did he have some guilt over his own behavior? Williams at this time was not exactly what today we would call "out and proud." This was also true of Montgomery Clift, so one can only imagine what the hell he thought of the picture! 

Angry Liz 

Playing in "dragon lady" mode, Katharine Hepburn gives a strong, if imperfect, but very showy performance. Mankiewicz clearly worked with Taylor to help her give as strong a performance as she does. The role is basically beyond the actress' limited range, but she gives excellent line readings, and really delivers during her horrifying climactic speech, giving her readings a frightening urgency and intensity. Clift is basically fine in a not-terribly-interesting part, and McCambridge and Raymond are just about perfect. Albert Dekker, okay as an associate of the doctor's. plays a role that was not in the play. The romantic sub-plot, if that's what you can call it, is expanded, and there are added scenes showing Catherine in a nun's retreat and the state asylum. (A continuity flaw shows a crazy old lady in a rocker in both the nunnery and the asylum.) The film has zero period atmosphere and just comes off as if it takes place in the fifties when it was made. 

Verdict: Yes, this has fascinating aspects but it's terribly dated, quite homophobic, and emerges more as a sick and dirty joke than anything else. **1/2. 

THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA

Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner

THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (1954). Written, produced, and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. 

Spanish dancer Maria Vargas is turned into a movie star by spoiled wealthy producer Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens of The Price of Fear), famous director Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart), who has been on the wagon for several months, and ass-licking public relations man Oscar Muldoon (Edmond O'Brien). The beautiful Maria is desired by a great many men, including the South American millionaire Alberto Bravano (Marius Goring), and Italian Count Torlato-Favrini (Rossano Brazzi), but she has other dalliances with men not quite as rich. One of these dalliances will lead to tragedy ... 

The Barefoot Contessa opens with Maria's funeral, so you know her fate from the first, and the movie's flashbacks show how she got there. There isn't much about the picture-making process, and Maria -- although she stars in three films in a row -- is never shown on a set, nor do we see Dawes working his magic on his star. One of the most interesting sequences purports to show Maria dancing in a nightclub, although we never actually see Maria, only the varying reactions from the people in the audience, an audacious touch. (Later on Maria is shown dancing with a gypsy in the forest.) A lot about Maria's character is given away in drips and drabs. Gardner is really required only to be beautiful and sensual and a bit enigmatic, and she carries this off quite well, although it could not be called great acting. On the other hand, Bogart gives one of his best performances in this. O'Brien won an Oscar for his supporting performance, although it's well within his rather wide range. Stevens and especially Goring are both fine as dueling millionaires, and their sallies at one another at a party makes for one of the most arresting sequences in the movie. Edwards seems to derive no joy from his money, while Bravano enjoys life to the fullest. Rossano Brazzi is certainly a very handsome fellow, but in this film his performance lacks passion, although one could argue that he is playing a highly depressed character who probably has trouble getting excited about anything, except perhaps Maria, from whom he keeps a terrible secret.

Warren Stevens and Ava Gardner

There are some solid supporting performances in the picture: Mari Aldon as Myrna, who is badly mistreated by Edwards; Diana Decker [Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?] as a drunken blonde at a party who gets into it with Maria; Elizabeth Sellars [The Chalk Garden] as Jerry, a script girl who is Dawes' girlfriend; Valentina Cortese as Brazzi's sister; young Enzo Staiola [The Bicycle Thief] as a busboy with an eye for the ladies; Franco Interlenghi as Maria's brother, Pedro; Carlo Dale in a sexy, insinuating silent performance as Brazzi's chauffeur and Maria's lover; and former silent star Bessie Love as a patron at what is probably meant to be the casino at Monte Carlo. 

The Barefoot Contessa is an entertaining and absorbing picture, but there may be less here than meets the eye. Mankiewicz' targets are pretty familiar: wealthy movie producers who never worked a day in their lives and have no real taste; glamorous movie stars who seem to have no appreciation of their careers and what it's given them: oily publicists; the idle rich and the European jet set; and so on. Still, there are some amusing and trenchant observations scattered throughout the picture, along with some great dialogue. The situation with Maria and the count is a pathetic and intriguing one as well. The ending, in which Bogart is saddened by Maria's death but displays no anger at her killer is odd, but may be indicative of the production code's edict that adulterers must be punished. It's a major weakness in the movie. Marlon Brando was originally sought for the part played by Bogart, but I can't imagine Brando in the role. 

Verdict: Colorful picture that is not exactly about the picture business. ***.

SLEUTH (1972)

Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine

SLEUTH (1972). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenplay by Anthony Shaffer from his play.

"Sex is the game; marriage the penalty." -- Andrew

"You are the complete clown." -- ditto

Mystery writer Andrew Wyke (Lawrence Olivier) receives a visitor at his country estate: Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), who owns his own hairdressing salon and happens to be the lover of Wyke's wife. Milo is hoping that Andrew will agree to give his wife a divorce, but Andrew has other plans. He wants Milo to steal some of his wife's jewelry -- Milo can sell the jewels and have enough money to keep his lover in style, and Andrew will get a huge insurance pay-out. But Andrew may have a more sinister scheme in mind than insurance fraud. It isn't too long before Inspector Doppler comes a calling ... 

Inspector Doppler deals with Andrew

Based on Anthony Shaffer's stage play, this is a twisty mystery-thriller that provides two good actors with some juicy roles and real opportunities for scene-stealing. While Caine is marvelous, Olivier is outstanding, putting on a thespian show of grand proportions. That's what makes the film entertaining even if you've seen it before and remember the plot twists (although it's a bit more fun when you're seeing it for the first time). The film is overlong at over two hours, and I confess this business at the very end with police showing up out of nowhere makes little sense, but the movie is certainly worth one look. The play is intelligently opened up by Shaffer, and Mankiewicz's direction is inobtrusive and keeps things moving. The picture is quite amusing until things get serious -- and even afterward. 

Verdict: Perhaps not nearly as wonderful as people remember -- even back then one of the twists seemed obvious -- but memorable in spite of it. ***. 

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT (1946). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenplay by Howard Dimsdale and Mankiewicz. 

 "Time doesn't change. it goes on and on but it doesn't change. I know because I've watched it. Nights. Days. Nights. Always the same. Nights are always gray. Days can have different colors, but the nights are dark and empty. Only people change. They grow old and ugly -- and pitiful. I've made believe so much for so long. That I was alive. That I had friends. That I wasn't dead. I wanted so much to make believe that somebody loved me." 

An amnesiac WW 2 veteran named George Taylor (John Hodiak) learns that someone named "Larry Cravat" has put $5000 for him in a bank account but can't remember why or even who the man is. So he begins a search for the elusive Cravat, encountering a pretty singer named Christy (Nancy Guild) who takes a shine to him and vice versa. During his search Taylor encounters assorted thugs, a villain named Anzelmo (Fritz Kortner) and a hard-boiled dame named Phyllis (Margo Woode). After she kisses an unresponsive Taylor, Phyllis says "I've had more fun drinking a bromo seltzer." (Sheldon Leonard has a notable turn as Phyllis' husband.) Lloyd Nolan is a police officer who's also looking for Cravat -- and George Taylor. 

John Hodiak

This interesting mystery has an intriguing plot and good dialogue, and is well-acted by Hodiak and everyone else. Woode is snappy as Phyllis, and Guild very appealing as Christy. (Guild gets to lip sync to a very nice torch song entitled "I'm in the Middle of Nowhere.") The cast stand-out, however, is Josephine Hutchinson as desperately lonely Elizabeth, who is very affecting in her brief scene wherein she speaks the dialogue quoted above. Somewhere in the Night is a snappy, absorbing picture, even if its wind-up is a little predictable and disappointing, but it has well-realized characters and memorable performances. Mankiewicz's direction is only routine for this type of material, however. This was Guild's first film; she also appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man. She makes a much better impression in this film. 

Verdict: Suspenseful and different. ***.

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS

Jack Oakie and W. C. Fields

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (1932). Director: Edward F. Cline.

Traveling salesman Migg Tweeney (Jack Oakie of Thieves Highway) comes to the small, impoverished nation of Klopstokia -- where the men are all named George and the women are all named Angela -- and promptly falls in love with the President's (W. C. Fields) daughter, Angela (Susan Fleming) and vice versa. But the President will not allow Angela to marry Migg unless he can come up with a way of raising needed capital to keep the man in office as his advisers plot to oust him any way they can. Noticing how athletic the people are, Migg comes up with the idea of Klopstokia entering the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. But will Angela's countrymen be able to keep up their morale once Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti) pulls a vamp on all of them and sets one against another? Million Dollar Legs is a very silly movie, and some of the gags in the script co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz are creaky groaners (although still funny) but the movie is amiable and amusing enough to work, with many clever sight gags. The wonderful Fields [The Bank Dick] is simply not given enough to do, and one can only imagine how much better the movie would have been if Bob Hope had been cast in the Oakie part. (Oakie gets equal billing with Fields, a situation that would not last much longer.) Susan Fleming is an appealing heroine, but the real scene-stealer in this is Lyda Roberti. Although Mata Machree is billed as "the woman no man can resist" there's a comic absurdity in the fact that Roberti, while cute, is not exactly a raving beauty, but she certainly can dance in a mighty sexy manner, slithering sensually in a way that borders on camp. Ben Turpin and little Dickie Moore [Blonde Venus] are also in the cast and add their own brand of humor.

Verdict: More of Fields would have helped, but this is a cute picture with lots of laughs. ***.

HOUSE OF STRANGERS

Tense date: Richard Conte and Susan Hayward

HOUSE OF STRANGERS (1949). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Gino Monetti (Edward G. Robinson) is the opera-loving head of a bank and has four sons, one of whom, the lawyer Max (Richard Conte of Thieves' Highway), he seems to love unconditionally. The oldest son, Joe (Luthor Adler) is bitter that Gino treats him with disdain and employs him only as a poorly-paid bank teller. Pietro (Paul Valentine of Love Happy) resents the fact that his father thinks he's stupid. Tony (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) seems more interested in the ladies than in anything else. Although Max has a pretty fiancee named Maria (Debra Paget), he can't help but be attracted to a zesty, very self-confident lady named Irene (Susan Hayward), who comes to him for legal advice and with whom he enters into a sexy if exasperating love-hate affair. Then Gino discovers that his unorthodox approaches to lending have brought him under the scrutiny of bank officials and he may go to jail. Max has a scheme to get his father out of trouble, but he doesn't reckon with Joe's hatred ... House of Strangers is an absorbing, well-acted drama that just misses being really special, but is still quite worthwhile. Although Robinson is miscast as an Italian, he still gives his customary fine performance, and Conte and Hayward make an arresting couple. Luthor Adler almost walks off with the movie with his quietly ferocious portrayal of deceptively steel-hard Joe. Hope Emerson (Peter Gunn) is fun in a small role as Maria's termagant mother, trading verbal and nearly physical blows with Robinson, whom she towers over.

Verdict: Has quite a few memorable and powerful sequences. ***.

5 FINGERS

Unholy Alliance: James Mason and Danielle Darrieux

5 FINGERS (1952). Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Based on a true story, 5 Fingers looks at the secret "career" of Ulysses Diello (James Mason) who is valet for the British ambassador in Turkey, a neutral country, during WW2. Diello had originally been valet for the late husband of the Countess Anna Stavisky (Danielle Darrieux of Madame de), who has become friends with the ambassador and is the "impoverished widow of a pro-German count." Diello wants to make a lot of money and doesn't care how he gets it, so he steals top secret papers from the ambassador's safe and sells them to the Germans. He enlists the countess' aid and she agrees -- for a price. Still, the countess may still see Diello as a servant, even if she is attracted to him... Michael Rennie [Phone Call from a Stranger] is a British Intelligence agent who takes over the security for the embassy, but it sure takes a hell of a long time for anyone to change the combination to the safe. In spite of that, 5 Fingers is absorbing and very well acted, with Mason giving another terrific performance; Darrieux is also on the money. Mankiewicz is no Hitchcock, and does little to maximum the story's considerable suspense, but the movie is still effective enough in spite of it; Bernard Herrmann's musical score certainly helps. There are ironic developments and an interesting climax.

Verdict: Mason at his slimiest. ***.