MAN AFRAID

George Nader

MAN AFRAID (1957). Director: Harry Keller.

A man sneaks into a child's bedroom window and runs into the boy's mother, hitting her in the face and temporarily blinding her. When her husband, minister David Collins (George Nader), comes to her rescue he winds up inadvertently killing the intruder. Although not charged with any crime, Collins learns that the dead man's father, Carl Simmons (Eduard Franz), is following his little boy, Michael (Tim Hovey), around town in a threatening manner. Collins' wife, Lisa (Phyllis Thaxter), feels helpless because her eyes are bandaged. As Simmons becomes more and more bold, going so far as to invade Collins' very home, the minister tries to get Lt Marlin (Harold J. Stone) to take some kind of preventative action. But will it all come too late?

Nader with feisty Mabel Albertson

Man Afraid is a solid suspense film with very good performances. Nader has always been under-rated because of his participation in such films as Robot Monster, but he's fine in this, as are Thaxter and little Tim Hovey, an appealing and talented child actor. Reta Shaw offers a little spice as a nurse hired to look after Lisa, and Mabel Albertson certainly makes her mark as Simmons' tippling and fairly obnoxious landlady. Stone also makes the policeman more obnoxious than he needs to be. Tom Nolan is also notable as Michael's friend, "Skunky," who is neglected by his father (Judson Pratt), an aggressive newsman. He tells the sympathetic Collins that his father claims he makes too much noise "but when I'm dead they'll wish I was able to make any kind of noise." Franz is effective in a near-silent role.

Nader with Phyllis Thaxter

Man Afraid is well-photographed in CinemaScope by Russell Metty, and has a very good score by Henry Mancini. Keller's direction is adroit, and the climax is tense and exciting. One odd sequence concerns a boxing match between little boys in an actual arena, a match that Michael participates in! Considering that the "burglar" entered the Collins' house when the couple was home, and immediately snuck into the boy's bedroom, one has to wonder exactly what the man was after, but this aspect goes unexplored. Harry Keller also directed Nader in The Female Animal and The Unguarded Moment. 

Verdict: Absorbing suspense film with good performances and a satisfying conclusion. ***. 

ACT OF VIOLENCE

Robert Ryan

ACT OF VIOLENCE (1949). Director: Fred Zinnemann.

Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a respected man with a wife, Edith (Janet Leigh), and an infant son. Into their lives comes Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), a friend and associate of Frank's during the war. Trying to save the lives of his men in a German POW camp, Frank made a terrible mistake, and these same men died torturous deaths. Joe is one of the survivors and has come to kill Frank, whose guilt and shame is at times overpowering. A woman Frank encounters named Pat (Mary Astor), puts him in touch with someone who can help, but then he learns that the plan is to murder Parkson ...

Van Heflin, Mary Astor, Berry Kroeger

Very well directed by Fred Zinnemann, Act of Violence is a superior crime film with some excellent characterizations and performances. The film doesn't offer easy answers, as even Frank himself wonders how noble or base his motives may have been during the war. Heflin turns in another sharp turn as Frank, and I don't think I've ever seen Janet Leigh better. Ryan has less to do than the others but he is effective and is given some fine moments. Phyllis Thaxter also makes an impression as Ann, a woman who is in love with Joe and tries to talk him out of murdering Frank. Strangely, the only performance that doesn't work at all is Mary Astor's, herein miscast as a middle-aged barfly, one of the few if only times I haven't been impressed with her work. (Her introduction into the story is rather contrived as well). Berry (sic) Kroeger [Atlantis the Lost Continent] certainly scores as the sinister Johnny, who plans to kill Joe for money.

Van Heflin and Janet Leigh

There are some comparatively minor problems with Act of Violence. It makes little sense that Edith wouldn't have had Joe arrested when he forces his way into the house, at gunpoint no less. That would certainly have gotten him off the streets for quite a while. The ending of the film is ill-conceived as well, although it gives Frank a chance at redemption. Unusual for a film made in the forties, there are no opening credits except for the title, with the rest of the credits coming at the very end. An interesting question: by refusing his superior officer, Frank's orders, was Joe more responsible for the men's deaths than Frank was?

Verdict: Worthwhile forties melodrama with more depth than usual. ***. 

THE BREAKING POINT

Patricia Neal and John Garfield

THE BREAKING POINT (1950). Director: Michael Curtiz.

"A man alone ain't got no chance."

NOTE: Some plot points are revealed in this review.

Harry Morgan (John Garfield) is married to a loving wife named Lucy (Phyllis Thaxter) and has two adorable little girls. Harry is trying his best to keep his charter fishing business afloat, but it doesn't help when one client takes off and stiffs him, leaving behind his girlfriend of the moment, Leona (Patricia Neal). Harry resists Leona's charms, but he can't resist getting into criminal activity to pay his bills, and after an interlude with some smuggled Chinese, winds up using his boat as a getaway in a robbery. But will anybody get away with anything? The Breaking Point is the second (and apparently more faithful) version of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, and for much of its length plays like gritty if meandering film noir. Patricia Neal makes the most of her few scenes, but she seems thrown in for little purpose except to test the anti-hero's resolve -- at least one scene seems completely contrived. Garfield is good, while Thaxter perhaps underplays too much as his wife. Wallace Ford [The Mummy's Hand] is memorable as a slimy lawyer who offers Harry less kosher jobs when he needs the money, and Victor Sen Yung [Charlie Chan in Honolulu], formerly one of Charlie Chan's sons, scores in a sinister role as a man smuggling his fellow Chinese but who doesn't give a damn about them. One of the most notable performances comes from William Campbell [Dementia 13] as a smart-talkin' hood with an itchy trigger finger. Juano Hernandez is also fine as Wes, Harry's ill-fated deck hand who tries to keep his boss and friend out of trouble to his ultimate regret. The final shot of the film, showing Wes's little boy all alone on the dock wondering where his father is, is absolutely heart-breaking, reminding the audience of the tragic cost of  Harry's actions. It is an unusual way to end the film, as generally the lives and deaths of supporting (especially minority) characters were forgotten by the closing credits. The Breaking Point is imperfect, but it may be the best adaptation of Hemingway ever. Superior cinematography from Ted D. McCord. Composer Max Steiner was clearly not allowed to break out all the stops but he should have been.

Verdict: Absorbing, generally well-acted melodrama with an extra layer of depth. ***.

WOMEN'S PRISON

WOMEN'S PRISON (1955). Director: Lewis Seiler.

"They never get things right in prison pictures."

Convicted of vehicular manslaughter after accidentally killing a child, neurotic Helene (Phyllis Thaxter of The Sign of the Ram) is sent to a women's prison adjacent to a men's penitentiary. Her fellow inmates include Joan (Audrey Totter of The Saxon Charm), whose husband manages to cross over to see [and impregnate] her, returnee Brenda (Jan Sterling of Johnny Belinda), Mae (Cleo Moore of One Girl's Confession), and Dottie (Vivian Marshall) who does pretty bad impressions of Bette Davis and others but does a fairly good job of imitating Ida Lupino, who just happens to play the neurotic and slightly evil Amelia van Zandt, a prison official who lords it over the women's compound. All hell breaks loose when van Zandt is told she better find out how Joan's husband, Glen (Warren Stevens) managed to get in to see her [we never find out] and she begins slapping around the pregnant woman, raising the inmates' ire and leading to a fairly exciting climax. Women's Prison is the kind of junk movie that pretends to have some kind of social conscience while parading superficial platitudes and one-dimensional characters who have little basis in reality. Ida Lupino, with her mostly arch overplaying, does the best she can with terrible material; her real-life husband, Howard Duff (Dante), comes off much better and is quite good as the compassionate prison psychiatrist who thinks van Zandt is a psychopath. Thaxter is fine, but except for scenes when she's victimized gets little chance to etch a real character, and Ross Elliott is also good in his brief turn as her husband. Sterling and Totter aren't bad and Cleo Moore is Cleo Moore. The big trouble with this picture is that it isn't even very entertaining.

Verdict: A pretty bad "Bad Girls" picture. **.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: SEASON FOUR

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS Season 4. 

A whole bunch of ironic, amusing, and suspenseful stories served up by the ever-droll Hitch. "Poison" features Wendell Corey in a tale of a snake in a bed. "Man with a Problem" finds Gary Merrill out on a ledge threatening suicide. "Tea Time" teams Margaret Leighton and Marsha Hunt in a tale of wife vs. mistress. "Mrs. Herman and Mrs. Fenimore" is a delightful tale of a miserly uncle and the two women in his life, Dora Merande and Mary Astor, both of whom are wonderful. Then there's the creepy "Waxwork," and Franchot Tone and Mary Astor again in "The Impossible Dream" about an aging actor. Bette Davis stars in "Out There, Darkness," about a woman who pays the price for her jealous actions, and there's nice work from Fay Wray in "The Morning After." Other notable episodes include "Murder Me Twice" with Phyllis Thaxter in a tale of reincarnation; "The Desert Shall Blossom," with two cowboys and a gangster; "Kind Waitress," with Olive Deering; "The Diamond Necklace" with the great Claude Rains; Dennis Day in "Cheap is Cheap;" and Robert Morse and Paul Douglas in "Touche." 

Verdict: More fun with Hitchcock. ***.

THE SIGN OF THE RAM

THE SIGN OF THE RAM (1948). Director: John Sturges.

In Cornwall Leah St. Aubyn (Susan Peters, pictured) became wheelchair-bound after a swimming accident in which she saved her stepchildren but was bashed against some rocks. Now she has a pathological fear of being abandoned, and those feelings are exacerbated by the arrival of a pretty secretary, Sherida (Phyllis Thaxter), whom she's afraid might stimulate the interest of her husband, Mallory (an unlikely Alexander Knox). Eventually Leah resorts to blatant and cruel falsehoods to manipulate the relationships of those around her (though it's a touch disingenuous that she gets blamed for one disturbed character's poisoning of another). Susan Peters, who was actually in a wheelchair after a freak hunting accident -- this was both her come back and her final film -- does her best and has her moments, but her performance is a little too obvious and director Sturges gives her no help at all. Ron Randell (the handsome doctor), Dame May Whitty (a busybody neighbor) and Peggy Ann Garner (one of the stepchildren) are also in the cast. Despite some interesting aspects, and partly because of its dimestore psychology, this is an unconvincing potboiler from start to finish. The tragic story of Peters' real life [dead at thirty-one!] would have made a more engrossing drama to be sure. The title refers to Leah's astrological sign.

Verdict: Watch Queen Bee with Joan Crawford instead. *1/2.