THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND

John Huston as Jake Hannaford

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (Released 2018). Filmed from 1970 - 1976. Director: Orson Welles.

"He's so crooked he has rubber pockets so he can steal soup!"

"I'm bored with the whole story."

Director Jake Hannaford (John Huston) is celebrating his 70th birthday with a large assemblage of friends, enemies, and sycophants, while bemoaning the fact that he apparently can't complete his latest movie because his leading man, John Dale (Robert Random), has run off, not to mention the usual financial difficulties. Attending his party are such people as director-acolyte Brooks Otterlake (Peter Bogdanovich); critic Julie Rich (Susan Strasberg), who asks too many questions; associate Billy Boyle (Norman Foster); cynical actress Zarah Valeski (Lilli Palmer); and other characters played by Edmund O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, Mercedes McCambridge, Paul Stewart, Gregory Sierra, Dan Tobin, John Carroll, and others. Interspersed with scenes from the party are sections of the uncompleted film-within-a film being made by Hannaford. 

Peter Bogdanovich

As revealed in the excellent book Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of 'The Other Side of the Wind' by Josh Karp, Welles took years to shoot this film outside the studio system and never did complete it. After years of legal entanglements it was eventually finished by others supposedly working from Welles' notes, and then released by Netflix. Some of the material seems to have been watered down from the original intentions for one reason or another, as you only know certain things are going on because you've read about the movie in Karp's book or elsewhere. 

Robert Random and Oja Kodar

The big problem with The Other Side of the Wind is that it has no plot, no decent script, only a premise that is never developed. The party scenes are shot with hand-held cameras that give the movie a very cheap cinema verite feel but also distance the viewer from what's going on on screen. The clips from Hannaford's movie are shot in color and widescreen and these sequences are a bit more striking -- a would-be sex scene in a car between the character played by Dale and the character played by Welles' real-life mistress (and co-screenwriter) Oja Kodar, for instance, and a sequence where Kodar walks about nude in the desert -- with a very hokey phallic symbol in evidence. (Kodar does have a nice body but that's about all you can say about her acting and writing abilities.) One doesn't know who contributed the film's rare moments of quality dialogue, but we can guess. 

Hannaford celebrates his birthday with a cake

We've been told by Welles' chroniclers that in this film Hannaford is a macho closet case who seduces his leading ladies (or the wives of his leading men) when he really wants to bed the leading men, and that he is obsessed with his current (or vanished) star John Dale. The evidence for this consists only of Hannaford keeping many life-size dummies of Dale around his residence, and some remarks made by Strasberg near the end of the film that don't cut quite close enough to make all of this a certainty. ("Have a go at the dummy, Jake," McCambridge says when someone starts shooting at them, "they bleed even more easily than people.") If Welles had finished his film, everything might have been made more explicit or at least more comprehensible, but I'm not sure that it would have made an especially good movie in any case, and the sexually-conflicted Welles, who had some old-fashioned ideas about homosexuality, probably wasn't the best person for this project in the first place. One of the longest scenes has to do with Jake going on about "faggots" to an English professor (Dan Tobin, who is excellent) who once had Dale in his class.

Lilli Palmer

John Huston might seem like perfect casting for Jake Hannaford but he only hits the mark in a couple of scenes, and is not that effective throughout most of the movie. Bogdanovich, although a trifle amateurish at times, suggests that he might have had a major career as an actor had he chosen that route instead of directing (of course he did amass 57 acting credits!!). Strasberg is a cast stand-out, and there are nice vignettes from Palmer, O'Brian, Sierra, Stewart, McCambridge, Mitchell, and others. The Other Side of the Wind truly shows desperation when Welles calls in a bunch of midgets to cause mischief, and although, as mentioned, there is some good dialogue lost in the mess, the movie is more often than not simply pretentious. The film is so briskly edited that you aren't bored, at least until it becomes painfully apparent that there isn't any real storyline. Michel Legrand's nice score does its best to smooth over the rough edges but it's a losing battle. 

Verdict: What a shame! An Orson Welles Home Movie. **. 

PICNIC

An iconic image from Picnic by James Wong Howe

PICNIC (1956). Director: Joshua Logan. NOTE: Logan also directed the stage play. This review gives away some important plot points.

Hal Carter (William Holden) is a drifter and failed, wannabee actor who winds up in Kansas where he looks up an old buddy named Alan (Cliff Robertson), hoping to find work. Alan's father gives Hal a job, but things are complicated at the Labor Day picnic when Hal and Alan's fiancee, Madge (Kim Novak), find themselves attracted to one another. Alan is furious, but Madge's mother (Betty Field) is horrified at the fate in store for her daughter if she runs off with Hal. Meanwhile Madge's younger sister, Millie (Susan Strasberg), is suffering growing pains, and their border, spinster schoolteacher Rosemary (Rosalind Russell), is having a crisis of her own.

William Holden and Kim Novak

Picnic is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning stage play by William Inge, and screenwriter Daniel Taradash has intelligently opened up the drama without apparently losing much of the original's meat. Both of the two leads, Holden and Novak, are too old for their roles -- Novak was twenty-three and Holden thirty-eight looking older -- and Holden is really not the right type for Hal at all, but he still manages to give quite a good performance, as does Novak, whom I've always believed could be quite accomplished with the right role and director. Betty Field and Susan Strasberg score as mother and younger daughter, and Rosalind Russell, while she tends to overplay in some sequences, has a terrific moment when she's begging her steady beau, Howard (Arthur O'Connell, carried over from the stage version), to marry her. Cliff Robertson gives one of his best performances as Alan, a nice guy who is treated badly even as he treats Hal badly out of jealousy. There are also nice turns by Verna Felton (the tough maid on I Love Lucy) as a very sympathetic neighbor who takes to Hal right off the bat, and Reta Shaw and Phyllis Newman in smaller roles.

William Holden

Just as straight writers composed stories that revolved around female objects of desire, some gay writers did the same thing with male figures as the centerpiece. Tennessee Williams comes to mind with his "Orpheus Descending," which debuted on the stage four years after Picnic (although Williams' first version, "Band of Angels," dates back to 1940. Meanwhile "Orpheus" was filmed as The Fugitive Kind with Marlon Brando three years after Picnic hit screens.) Both Picnic and Fugitive Kind deal with sexy bad boys and drifters who burst into town and inflame passions among women; the plays and movies were too soon before Stonewall to deal upfront with any gay influences. This is not to say that the characters were all meant to be male.

Rosalind Russell and William Holden

However, both plays have more on their minds than just virile rough trade. Picnic is basically a study of small-town desperation and loneliness; the film has persistent undercurrents of both. It is made clear that Hal is just as lonely in his own way as Rosemary is, culminating in a painful sequence when Rosemary humiliates Hal after he, in her mind, rejects her advances. The film also looks at the pain of growing older and the anguished jealousy it can engender when a middle-aged person is confronted by someone with youth and promise and more overt attractiveness and sensuality.

Cliff Robertson and William Holden

Picnic has many memorable sequences. There is the amusing montage of scenes at the picnic, with crying babies, cute dogs, and silly games, and -- in contrast -- the sort of sexy slow dance that Hal and Madge do together on the bandstand. James Wong Howe's cinematography is outstanding, and George Duning has contributed a sensitive score. Picnic has to be considered an anti-romantic film. Playwright Inge probably meant the ending to indicate that Madge is giving full range to her feelings and taking a chance on life and love and perhaps getting away from a stifling small-town environment, but in the bittersweet conclusion she's also going off with a man she has known for only one day. (Paging Dr. Phil!) And does anyone really think the relationship between Rosemary and Howard will work?

The play starred Ralph Meeker as Hal, Paul Newman as Alan, Janice Rule as Madge, Eileen Heckart as Rosemary, and Arthur O'Connell as Howard. Aron Copeland's beautiful opera The Tender Land, which debuted around the same time as the stage version of Picnic, also dealt with a young woman who falls in love overnight with a drifter and wants to run away with him.

Verdict: Despite some problems, this is an excellent picture. ***1/2. 

THE BROTHERHOOD

Misleading poster for "Brotherhood"

THE BROTHERHOOD (1968). Director: Martin Ritt. Produced by Kirk Douglas.

Frank Ginetta (Kirk Douglas of Seven Days in May) is overjoyed that his younger brother Vincent (Alex Cord of The Dead Are Alive) wants to join him in the "family" business, but Vince's new wife, Emma (Susan Strasberg) isn't so sure. Her own father, Dominick Bertolo (Luthor Adler of House of Strangers) is in the business and warns Vinnie that Frank is too old-fashioned and objecting to one good deal after another -- this could have serious repercussions not only for Frank but for Vincent. Then Frank discovers that Bertolo was the man who betrayed his father and many other mafioso years ago, and sets out to get revenge, setting in motion events that will have violent consequences ... The Brotherhood pre-dates The Godfather by several years, and while it is not as good, it is not a bad picture, with some effective performances. It's hard to figure out if Frank is supposed to have an accent or not because it comes and goes, but Douglas is good in the role. Cord is not an especially dynamic performer, but he has several effective moments. The film was a box office loser, probably because the studio used a poster showing Douglas and Cord kissing on the mouth. [Not even The Boys in the Band used such an image.] In the movie the kiss, which is shown from a different angle, is one of several affectionate good-bye kisses Frank gives his brother, and is not indicative of homoerotic incest. At least France retitled the film "The Sicilian Brothers" to make it more clear what was going on. Murray Hamilton and Eduardo Ciannelli make a good impression as fellow members of the brotherhood; Strasberg is given little to do. One of the best, most chilling scenes in the movie has Frank relating to Bertolo how he befriended a man he intended to kill and having absolutely no clue as to the complete immorality of what he's describing.

Verdict: Creditable mafia drama. ***.

THE MANITOU

Michael Ansara and Tony Curtis confront the Unknown

THE MANITOU (1978). Director: William Girdler.

Fake San Francisco spiritualist Harry Erskine (Tony Curtis) learns that an old girlfriend of his, Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg), has a little bit of a problem. She has a tumor growing on her back, it's getting larger, and it appears to be a fetus! Erskine discovers that the fetus is the reborn spirit of a nasty Indian medicine man, and enlists the aid of a modern-day equivalent, John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara), to fight the medicine man and the evil gods it conjures. Their only allies are the spirits -- or "manitous" -- of the objects around them. Before long the hospital has become a battle zone as they fight for Karen Tandy's soul amidst corpses turned inside out, frozen, decapitated nurses, and other signs of murder and mayhem. The movie, based on a novel by Graham Masterton, has an interesting cast: Besides the aforementioned actors we've got Ann Sothern (a medium), Stella Stevens, Burgess Meredith (anthropologist Dr, Snow), Lurene Tuttle (a client of Erskine's who takes a tumble) and even Jeanette Nolan. Jon Cedar, who associate-produced and worked on the screenplay, plays Dr. Hughes. Curtis' pants are almost as tight as the ones worn by Robert Conrad in The Wild, Wild West! There are a lot of interesting elements to this movie, and it holds the attention, but somehow it doesn't completely jell. Cedar was also in Girdler's Day of the Animals.

Verdict: Not without interest, but somehow less than the sum of its parts. **1/2.

ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN

ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN (aka Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man/1962). Director: Martin Ritt.

"A man can't get along that don't sleep."

A "coming of age" story, based on the early life of Ernest Hemingway [or at least his fictionalization of it], has Nick Adams (Richard Beymer) leaving home to find himself and reach manhood as he encounters various individuals until he enlists in the Italian army during WW 1 as an ambulance driver -- and the film basically turns into A Farewell to Arms, with Adams romancing a pretty nurse, Rosanna (Susan Strasberg). Paul Newman has an earnest turn as a punch-drunk boxer [pictured]; Eli Wallach is notable as another ambulance driver named John; and Ricardo Montalban scores as the Maggiore, or Major Padula. Jessica Tandy is also a stand-out as Adams' mother. Excellent score by Franz Waxman. The episodic picture holds the attention and is not without interesting moments, but it lacks a dynamic lead and in general seems second-rate.

Verdict: Mis-Adventures. **1/2.

THE COBWEB

THE COBWEB (1955). Director: Vincente Minelli.

"Van Gogh didn't sell a painting in his lifetime, but now they're worth thirty million. They weren't that bad then and they're not that good now, so who's crazy?"

The patients and staff of a Clinic for Nervous Disorders become embroiled in -- believe it or not -- a fight over which drapes to hang in the library. Some want an attractive if standard pattern, while others, such as Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) want to transfer drawings done by a young patient, Stevie (John Kerr), to silk screenings and hang them instead. The complications of the staff's private lives don't help much. Dr. Devanal (Charles Boyer), the former head of the clinic now in a sort of advisory capacity, is an unregenerate skirt-chaser whose secretary (Adele Jergens) is in love with him. Dr. McIver's wife Karen (Gloria Grahame) feels neglected by her husband, who is slowly being drawn to the widowed Activities Director Meg Rinehart (Lauren Bacall). Then there's Miss Inch (Lillian Gish), the prickly, strong-willed spinster with territorial instincts who objects to anyone she sees as threatening to her authority. This is an interesting if overlong melodrama/soap opera with outstanding performances by Gish [great in a mostly unsympathetic part] and Grahame, and very good performances by most of the rest of the cast. The love story between Stevie and fellow patient Sue (Susan Strasberg) is kind of boring, however. Oscar Levant is quite amateurish as a neurotic patient and his scenes should have been cut as they add nothing to the picture. Fay Wray, Myra Marsh [from the operetta episode of I Love Lucy] and Virginia Christine appear in smaller roles. Christine had much bigger roles in The Mummy's Curse, Three Brave Men, and Nightmare (1956). She later became "Mrs. Olsen" of coffee commercial fame.

Verdict: Over-baked but enjoyable for the most part. ***.

SCREAM OF FEAR aka TASTE OF FEAR

SCREAM OF FEAR (1961). Also known as Taste of Fear. Director: Seth Holt.

Penny (Susan Strasberg) arrives in France to live with her stepmother Jane (Ann Todd) and her father, whom she hasn't seen in ten years. She is befriended by the handsome chauffeur, Bob (Ronald Lewis), who kindly listens to her tales of strange goings on in the villa, including sightings-by-night of her father's dead body. Could her stepmother be cooking something up with the doctor (Christopher Lee) who frequently comes to dinner? This is a nice, suspenseful thriller with several neat twists, courtesy of screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, and good acting from the leads. While the story may not hold up under close scrutiny, it makes for an effective mystery, with a nifty sequence in a pool.

Verdict: You may not scream but it is entertaining nevertheless. ***.