Tuesday, July 16, 2024

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1952: The Stars Are Out

You may notice that for most of today's films - all October releases, many of them B pictures - I've very little to say. Well, not every month is going to be full of shoulda-been classics. Still, it's a star-studded group: Susan Hayward in two flicks, Bela Lugosi in a film that bears his name, the Harlem Globetrotters playing themselves, etc.

The Lusty Men
release: October 2
dir: Nicholas Ray
pr: Norman Krasna / Jerry Wald
scr: Horace McCoy and David Dortort, suggested by a story by Claude Stanush
cin: Lee Garmes

A couple is torn apart when the husband pursues rodeoing. Robert Mitchum is the washed-up vet who comes into their lives and teaches Arthur Kennedy the trade while falling in love with Kennedy's wife Susan Hayward. Hayward is the good woman who knows she's losing her husband, feels drawn to Mitchum, but is as faithful as she is a spitfire. You should see the way she reacts to women making eyes at her husband, I cheered. No one catfights like Hayward, as Valley of the Dolls demonstrated. Great performances of complex characters aren't the only appeal: there's also great drunk acting and, yes, hair-raising rodeo acts: bucking broncos, furious bulls, the whole magilla.

Because You're Mine
release: October 3
nominations: Best Original Song ("Because You're Mine")
dir: Alexander Hall
pr: Joe Pasternak
scr: Karl Tunberg / Leonard Spigelgass, from a story by Ruth Brooks Flippen & Sy Gomberg
cin: Joseph Ruttenberg

An opera star drafted into the army falls for his sergeant's sister. Terrible.

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
release: October 8
dir: William Beaudine
pr: Maurice Duke
scr: Tim Ryan, additional dialogue by Leo "Ukie" Sherin and Edmond G. Seward
cin: Charles Van Enger

Two buffoons wind up on an island where a mad scientist conducts experiments. I will take this moment now to address the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis films that took two of the year's Top Ten box office spots. I find Jerry Lewis unwatchable, at least in Jumping Jacks. In this film, we get Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, Martin-and-Lewis knockoffs, so much so that Lewis threatened to sue. Well, all I can say is he's easier to take than the real thing. Bela Lugosi, underrated (even by himself, I reckon) as a comic actor, gives good double takes. I don't need to tell you this thing is bad.

The Thief
release: October 10
nominations: Best Score (Herschel Burke Gilbert)
dir: Russell Rouse
pr: Clarence Greene
scr: Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse
cin: Sam Leavitt

Completely dialogue-free thriller about a scientist recruited into espionage. I appreciate that in the same year as Singin' in the Rain, we get an arthouse innovation like silent cinema. But hey, the execution here is committed and clever: not a murmur, not a title card, just score, performance (Ray Milland is so great), and editing to tell a story. It's a little long for what it is, I dozed off a little, but I admire it.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro
release: October 23
nominations: Best Cinematography - Color, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Color (Lyle R. Wheeler / John DeCuir / Thomas Little / Paul S. Fox)
dir: Henry King
pr: Darryl F. Zanuck
scr: Casey Robinson, from the short story by Ernest Hemingway
cin: Leon Shamroy

An adventurer-novelist reflects on the choices that brought him to the brink of death at the base of Kilimanjaro. Gregory Peck was best known for playing stand-up guys, but I prefer him like this: randy, selfish, likable but a prick. Breathtaking Technicolor brings us to Paris, Madrid, the battlefield of the Spanish Civil War, the grasses of an African safari. The women in Peck's life are played by an entrancing Ava Gardner, a snotty Hildegard Neff, and a faithful, spunky (of course) Susan Hayward. Worth watching and rewatching for the visuals alone.

The Harlem Globetrotters
release: October 24
dir: Phil Brown / Will Jason
pr: Buddy Adler
scr: Alfred Paca
cin: Philip Tannura

A headstrong college student joins the famed Globetrotters. You get to see the actual Globetrotters of the era do their thing. You also get a movie about the power of sports, education, and, yes, publicity to advance society's views on race - at one point, our athlete even says he never bothered with "all that," for which he's strongly upbraided by Coach Abe Saperstein, played by Thomas Gomez in a fatherly, tough-loving manner.

Flat Top
release: October 26
nominations: Best Film Editing (William Austin)
dir: Lesley Selander
pr: Walter Mirisch
scr: Steve Fisher
cin: Harry Neumann

The crew aboard an aircraft carrier prepares for battle in the Pacific. I just wasn't into this one, sorry.

The Card (aka The Promoter)
release: October 28
nominations: Best Sound Recording
dir: Ronald Neame
pr: John Bryan
scr: Eric Ambler, from the novel by Arnold Bennett
cin: Oswald Morris

A working-class man slowly advances through charm and ingenuity. Alec Guinness turns in yet another brilliant comic performance, and to see the way people go for his schemes is delightful. The women are the real story here: Petula Clark is the nice girl; Valerie Hobson, always a welcome presence, continues to be great as a Countess charmed by this social climber; Veronica Turliehg is his proud, skeptical mother; and Glynis Johns steals the show as a beautiful woman just as ambitious as Guinness, and knows exactly how to get what she wants, and from whom, without giving up anything in return. Breezy going, a delight.


Tomorrow, the last of the Best Picture nominees.
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