What classics did you see last week ? (1 Mar - 7 Mar 2020)

Kiss Of Death / Henry Hathaway (1947). Twentieth Century Fox. Cinematography by Norbert Brodine. Screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) is a nice guy family man career crook who falls back into his old ways after being out of work for a year. KOD immediately jumps into a tense heist underway as the movie begins. Nick and two other guys ride a crowded elevator (it is Christmas shopping season) up to the 23rd floor of a NYC skyscraper to rob a jewelry dealer and then take the long ride back down. Nick gets caught and sentenced. Although kindly Assistant D.A. D’Angelo (Brian Donlevy) offers a deal if Nick will roll over on his two partners, Nick refuses. Later, he has cause to change his mind. He gets out on parole if he will befriend the dangerous sadistic hit-man Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark, film debut) and testify against him. But Udo gets free threatening Nick’s new life and family. If the first scene was tense, the final set-piece in an Italian restaurant where Nick goes to confront Udo quadruples the goosebumps. I wonder if Francis Ford Coppola had this scene consciously in mind when filming the Italian restaurant scene in “The Godfather.” A lot of film critics and historians take Victor Mature’s self deprecating humor about his talent too seriously. So much so that even great detailed and shaded acting such as he does here, doesn’t seem to count. Richard Widmark plays Tommy Udo as a giggling force of malevolence who cannot be reasoned with nor asked mercy of. It is a career making role and Widmark is amazing. Only the crimes go wrong in “Kiss Of Death,” the movie itself doesn’t make a false step. One of the great ones. Also with Coleen Gray, Karl Malden, Mildred Dunnock (who plays Tommy Udo’s most famous victim), and Millard Mitchell.



Richard Widmark


Coleen Gray and Victor Mature. Classic film noir framing and lighting. Check out those ceilings.



Gunman In The Streets / Frank Tuttle (1950). Films Sacha Gordine. Cinematography by Claude Renoir (The Spy Who Loved Me) and Eugen Schüfftan (Metropolis, The Hustler). Eddie Roback (Dane Clark) is an American deserter in Paris who made good as a violent underworld figure. He is finally caught and about to be sentenced when his gang breaks him loose in a shootout with Paris police. Although the tile brings up pictures of an armed man running wild down a street, this film takes an “Odd Man Out” approach: mostly taking place over one long night and early morning hours of the next day as a fugitive tries to get out of the city and avoid a cop dragnet. For help he goes to his former girlfriend Denise Vernon (Simone Signoret) who is already in a relationship with the American reporter Frank Clinton (Robert Duke). Denise is torn between the two men but leans toward violent, aggressive Roback. Dane Clark plays Roback as a bully and thug with no redeeming features whatsoever. An evil force of nature. This was the third and last movie for Robert Drake who is surprisingly good. Shot in France with a French cast (except Clark and Duke), this appears to be a U.S. production. Director Frank Tuttle (This Gun For Hire) is a seasoned noirist from the U.S and all the French actors speak English. Luckily, two top lead performers (Signoret and Fernand Gravey as the Inspector heading the search for Roback) speak excellent, if not fluent, English. Lots of darkness, lots of fog. A tight little suspenser.







The Girl In Black Stockings / Howard W. Koch (1957). Bel-Air Productions. Cinematography by William Margulies. An enjoyable murder mystery set and filmed in the resort city of Kanab, Utah. Edmund Parry (Canadian actor Ron Randell) owns a tourist lodge but is paralyzed from the neck down. Managing the lodge and acting as his caregiver is his sister Julia (Maria Windsor). Also helping is desk and switchboard clerk Beth Dixon (Anne Bancroft). Los Angeles lawyer David Hawson (Lex Barker) is visiting to unwind. He has also fallen in love with Beth. David and Beth are snogging at the lakeside when they discover the mutilated corpse of the town flirt. All the guests of the lodge are suspects so are held there by Sheriff (John Dehner). There are further murders and suspicion bounces from one character to another. There is a lot of outdoor photography emphasizing the Parry Lodge, a real place founded in the 19th century and still in business today. You can search it on Google Maps and see it, mostly unchanged, on the maps’ street view. The Marilyn Monroe wanna-be Mamie van Doran is part of the cast playing a tipsy bottle blonde loudmouthed floozy. Also in small roles are pre-famous Stuart Whitman and Dan Blocker.
TRIVIA: the Kanab area was (and is) a frequent movie location site and the Parry lodge hosted many a movie star. John Wayne was a frequent visitor. In the early 1950s, Wayne, wanting a place to cool off, offered to pay half for the instillation of a swimming pool. The new pool and patio get special attention in The Girl In Black Stockings. The pool, too, is still a part of the Lodge campus.
MORE TRIVIA: Anne Bancroft’s next released movie was The Miracle Worker which won her an Oscar.

The lurid poster makes it look like the movie is about Mamie (it ain’t).


Anne Bancroft and Lex Barker



Our Man In Havana / Carol Reed (1959). Kingsmead Productions. Cinematography by Oswald Morris (Oscar winner, Cinematography: Fiddler On The Roof). Englishman Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) is the Cuban representative of vacuum cleaner company. He owns a shop in Havana but is not very successful at it but his daughter Millie (Joe Morrow) puts him in debt. When he is approached by a haughty Brit (Noël Coward) and offered to be a spy agency’s Man In Havana he agrees because the money is good and he needs it. However, he knows nothing about recruiting sub-agents or gathering intelligence so he starts sending drawings based on vacuum cleaner designs claiming they are aerial photos of a mysterious base in the mountains. This completely shakes up the agency heads in London who send him a secretary, Beatrice (Maureen O’Hara). Meanwhile, the head of the Cuban secret police (Ernie Kovacs) starts to court Millie and his only friend, Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), begins acting suspicious. Suddenly, what was a light satire on Cold War spying turns slowly into a very dark satire on Cold War spying. The movie is based on a novel by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed, the same team that brought us The Third Man. The movie is a slow starter but the wait is worth it. Guinness is brilliant, as expected and Ernie Kovacs shines in a non-comical role. Highly recommended.



Alec Guinness and Maureen O’Hara

Joe Morrow, Alec Guinness, Ernie Kovacs


With his extra spy money Wormold buys himself a 1951 Morris Minor Tourer



Rambo: Last Blood / Adrian Grünberg (2019). Lionsgate. John Rambo has retired and is “keeping a lid” on his hate and rage while ranching in a serene remote spot in Arizona while helping raise his housekeeper’s sweet daughter. When the girl runs off to Mexico to find her missing father, she finds only bad luck and trouble. In revenge, Rambo lures an huge heavily armed gang of sex traffickers back to his ranch where he has set traps and proceeds to kill them all in as gory a fashion as possible. Any good that can be found in this movie lies in the continuation of the Rambo legend and backstory which began in 1982 and in Sylvester Stallone’s acting and screen presence, which is considerable. Fans of Stallone and any who want to follow John Rambo through his old age (and Stallone makes himself look old, indeed) will want to check this out. Otherwise, not recommended for casual movie watchers.