MY SISTER EILEEN (1955)

Janet Leigh and Bob Fosse

MY SISTER EILEEN (1955). Director: Richard Quine.

Ruth Sherwood (Betty Garrett) and her younger and prettier sister Eileen (Janet Leigh of The Spy in the Green Hat) come from Ohio to Greenwich Village to pursue careers as, respectively, a writer and an actress. Eileen becomes entangled with lunch counter waiter Frank (Bob Fosse) and on-the-make reporter Chick (Tommy Rail), while Ruth is involved with prominent magazine editor, Bob Baker (Jack Lemmon). Will the sisters find success and romance?

Bob Fosse and Betty Garrett

My Sister Eileen was originally filmed in 1942 with Rosalind Russell playing Ruth. Russell then reprised the role in a Broadway musical version entitled Wonderful Town with music by Leonard Bernstein. Columbia Pictures, which owned the rights to the original film, wanted to do a film adaptation of Wonderful Town with Judy Holliday stepping into the lead, but the show's producers wanted too much money. Therefore they decided to remake Eileen and add a completely new and different score by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. Meanwhile, Judy Holliday became unavailable and Betty Garrett, oddly, was signed to the part.

Jack Lemmon

Garrett, who was married to the blacklisted Larry Parks, is pleasant and competent enough as Ruth, but she can't hold a candle to Rosalind Russell. My Sister Eileen did not lead to major stardom for Garrett, who had bigger successes on television (All in the Family; Laverne and Shirley). Aside from a film noir feature some years later, Eileen was, in fact, Garrett's last starring role. Everyone in this remake is a step downward from the cast in the earlier film with the exception of Bob Fosse, who is very appealing, and Tommy Rail, who is handsome and adept, although, like Fosse, better known for his dancing (and in Fosse's case, choreography and direction). Ironically, Fosse's role in the original picture was played by Richard Quine, who co-wrote (with Blake Edwards) and directed this remake. Jack Lemmon is also quite nice as the editor, Bob Barker. Lemmon and Quine reunited for How to Murder Your Wife ten years later.

Kasznar, Leigh, Garrett, York

Other roles are filled by Kurt Kasznar as the landlord and Dick York as the off-season football player (which the skinny York scarcely resembles) who lives upstairs. The roles of the sisters' father and grandmother have been eliminated, along with the fortune teller Effie. This remake is not only in Technicolor and CinemaScope but it's been opened up with scenes in Frank's drug store, the El Morocco nightclub, and even the Brooklyn Navy Yard, although the apartment and Village scenes are clearly filmed on a sound stage. The Portuguese merchant marines have become Brazilian sailors. Expanding this sequence just creates a ridiculous scene in which these guys all chase after the not-very-sexy Garrett, something not handled quite so blatantly in the original. The conga scene from the original movie becomes a big production number but loses most of its charm. Another change has Ruth pretending that her stories about Eileen are really about her, an unnecessary development that goes nowhere.

Garrett, Fosse, Leigh, and Rail

Then there are the songs. Jule Styne, the composer of Funny Girl, Gypsy and Darling of the Day can be counted on for some nice numbers and he delivers such good tunes as "I'm Great But No One Knows It," "There's Nothin' Like Love" and "Give Me a Band and My Baby." One of the best scenes in the movie has Fosse and Rail doing a dancing dual as Eileen goes off for an audition.

Verdict: On its own terms, this can be entertaining, and the musical interludes are generally nice, but on a whole it's a cut below the original. **1/4.

CASBAH

Yvonne De Carlo and Tony Martin 

CASBAH (1948). Director: John Berry.

Thief Pepe le Moko (Tony Martin) hides out in the Casbah while the friendly cop Slimane (Peter Lorre) hopes he'll step out of his safe harbor so he can arrest him. Pepe falls for Gaby (Marta Toren), who is the fiancee of the wealthy Claude (Herbert Rudley of Decoy), inspiring jealousy both in Claude and in Inez (Yvonne De Carlo), who thinks of herself as Pepe's one true love. Naturally, nobody's plans work out as they intended. It was only a matter of time before someone got the idea of making a musical out of the Pepe le Moko story -- filmed at least twice before as Pepe le Moko and Algiers -- and this is the closest you'll ever get, as this is what you might call a semi-musical remake with crooner Martin singing a couple of vaguely pleasant tunes by Harold Arlen and Leo Robin (Martin is in splendid voice). Casbah is not nearly as bad as you might expect, with Martin making a sexier and gruffer Pepe, and Peter Lorre spicing up the proceedings with his typically interesting portrayal of Slimane. In this version the Casbah seems less a filthy ghetto and more a mere tourist attraction, but it has at least as much artificial atmosphere as the first two versions. Unlike Algiers, Casbah is not a copy of Pepe le Moko, but eliminates some characters, has different sequences, and makes Gaby even more independent than in the other versions but also less likable. Swedish actress Toren had a few uncredited parts before being "introduced" in this film as the "next Ingrid Bergman." She's adequate and managed to amass a number of credits but she died tragically young at thirty. Yvonne De Carlo is her saucy self as Inez, although she's not always photographed very flatteringly. Other cast members include Douglas Dick [The Accused] in an unsympathetic character part; Hugo Haas as a friend of Pepe's; and the always-interesting Virginia Gregg as a friend of Gaby's. If there's any problem with Casbah, it's that this version tries too hard to make this some kind of tragic love story when the lovers barely know one another, are completely one-dimensional, and Martin and Toren don't even have that much chemistry together. The shot of Martin on the runway while the plane bearing Toren soars overhead is a dramatic composition but it also comes off as a little hokey considering. Interestingly, while the earlier versions only talk about how difficult it would be for the police to get a captured Pepe out of the Casbah, this version actually shows us how difficult it would be, as all of Pepe's cronies come to his rescue after he's been handcuffed, attack the cops, and free him. John Berry also directed Tension.

Verdict: The odd but arresting duo of Martin and Lorre almost make this work. **1/2.