The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Stephen King gave an interview once where he was foolishly challenged with a question about literary history. I don’t know why, but journalists always think they can show up popular authors by exposing them on literature knowledge — this one oddly asked the former English teacher if he had ever “read the classics.” It was like some poor sap trying to heckle Don Rickles. King, like nearly every other best-seller out there, not only knows his business but is usually slicker than the person asking the questions. I’ve always loved his glib response, which went something like: “I don’t know anything about William Faulkner, but I’ve read everything Dean Koontz ever wrote.”

I recently had a similar moment chatting on a Facebook message board when someone accused me of not knowing anything about “film” because I’m not a David Lynch fan. For example: “If you knew anything about surrealism you might begin to understand and appreciate Lynch’s films.” Instead of taking the easy way out, as Stephen King could have done, and sharing that in real life I’m in the chair of a university department of art and art history, I took a page out of King’s book and shot back, “I may not know anything about surrealism, but I’ve seen every picture Tyrone Power ever made.”

That was almost true — I had somehow missed this one; which you can file neatly in the forgotten gems category. Like most other musical biopics, Columbia’s 1956 film The Eddie Duchin Story relates the life events of yet another mid-century musical personality. Aside from a relatively early Kim Novak performance there’s little about the film that would really pull in contemporary audiences, which is a shame. After all, Duchin’s name is all but forgotten these days — as he wasn’t a composer or lyricist none of his tunes became standards, and his untimely death in 1951 didn’t contribute to his longevity. The Eddie Duchin Story isn’t an MGM picture either — coming instead from Harry Cohn and major-minor Columbia, not a studio well known for musicals that didn’t feature Rita Hayworth. Still though, stars and studios aside Duchin’s story is great film fodder; and the resulting movie is a fine romance and a tear-jerker of the first order.

Tyrone Power and Kim Novak are a strange match — a generation apart, Power exists in the mind as a primarily a black and white film actor while Novak is pure Technicolor. He on the tail end of a robust career and she at the beginning of one too short. Opinions differ concerning Novak’s strengths and weaknesses, but who doesn’t wish she made more films? This one cleverly handles the delicate issue of the billing: Power above Novak, same size type on the printed materials; but Novak first in the film’s titles, with Power getting a special “Starring Tyrone Power as Eddie Duchin” screen to himself just after director George Sidney’s. Although Power was nearly twenty years Novak’s senior, her character was actually supposed to be a little older than his. The film tries to split the difference, clumsily hiding Power’s age in the early scenes, and making Kim look a bit dowdier than necessary.

Power was 41 when this was made, so it seems a bit strange that he would be cast in the first place, however all concerns evaporate when he sits down at the piano. Duchin’s trademark as a pianist was the speed and complexity of his fingering, and Power is certainly up to the challenge. Sidney and cameraman Harry Stradling (he of 14 Oscar nominations, Eddy Duchin included — and 2 wins) go out of their way to ensure the viewer knows that the hands on the keyboard belong to the star — and if Power is somehow faking Duchin’s virtuosity then he deserved an award for it. All of the musical scenes are well done, and any inclination viewers might want to hit the fast-forward button during the musical bits (Can anyone say Funny Lady?) is lost here. The film is beautifully photographed and makes New York City look stunning. A pseudo-montage that takes place when Power and Novak are courting is particularly beautiful, and takes full advantage of Novak’s spectacular rapport with the camera.

Surprisingly, Novak’s part is short given her billing; and there’s a great deal more to the story than has been mentioned here. As I wrote earlier this is both a romantic film and a tear-jerker, with the emotional scenes coming on heavy as the film approaches the two hour mark. There’s one moment in particular — a small one — where a uniformed Power happens upon a burnt up piano in a wrecked bar on Mindanao. It’s a brief but important scene, and certain to bring a smile to your face — for me it made the picture. In the end, this is a movie about more than just those loved and lost. It’s concerned greatly with familial relationships and the ties that bind fathers to their sons. It looks good, it sounds good, and it entertains. What’s not to like?

The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Grade: B

Directed by George Sidney
Released by Columbia Pictures
Starring Tyrone Power, Kim Novak, and James Whitmore
Running time: 121 minutes
Availability: DVD, Netflix

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Of all the riffs on this particular episode of American mythology, 1957’s big-budget Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is my favorite. Burt Lancaster is a stoic and statuesque as Wyatt Earp; Kirk Douglas does the heavy lifting as Doc Holiday. More often than not that’s how these things play out—producers bend over backwards to animate Earp, while Holiday, with his cards, his cough, and his Kate, rides into the sunset with the film tucked away in his breast pocket.

Gunfight is straight ahead, humorless, and not especially bothered about the opposite sex. Rhonda Fleming makes the expected Technicolor splash as a renowned lady gambler, but she’s not on screen long enough to be merit third billing. Her purpose is merely to oblige Lancaster to choose between a quiet future as her shopkeeper husband and the family honor—answering his brother’s call to destiny in dusty Tombstone. She won’t have him both ways and makes a hasty exit.

That leaves Jo Van Fleet as Kate Fisher, Holiday’s companion. We can tell that she loves him, but it’s a sans-affection, hate-hate relationship in Gunfight. Van Fleet sparkles as a Western femme fatale, stoking the rivalry between Holiday and Johnny Ringo as she vacillates between the two men, neither of whom actually seems to want her. Oh wait, I get it, it isn’t really about her. 

John Ireland turns in a clean-shaven Ringo, perfect for Eisenhower’s America. (Ireland played young Billy Clanton is 1946’s iteration, My Darling Clementine.) In fact, everyone here looks so coiffed and pretty that it can be difficult to tell the good guys from the bad. Perhaps that’s why professional villain caricature Lyle Bettger is Ike Clanton—there’s no mistaking him for a hero.

The climactic gunfight itself is surprisingly short on the bravado that has made this story so irresistible to filmmakers and audiences alike. Damn near every bullet is fired from cover, with combatants hiding in ditches and lurking behind wagons. The finale suffers from not having that expected moment where two enemies stand and face each other, whizzing bullets be damned. It finally winds down with an angst-filled Dennis Hopper cornered in a saloon, a cautionary episode imploring the delinquent teens of the 1950s to steer clear of wasted youth.

In the end, it’s star power (get a load of that poster) and Vistavision that puts this one over. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas (who’s 101 years old and hitched 64 years as I write this—keep punchin’ champ) have a rare sort of chemistry that placed them opposite each other in seven films, each of which is somehow remarkable. Lancaster projects moral authority unlike any other actor of his generation (it’s easy to see why he earned an Oscar for upending that in Elmer Gantry) while Douglas’s screen persona is somehow able to flout Lancaster’s gravity and humanize him. Along with John Sturges’s capable direction and the panoramas we expect from a mid-century western, this is well worth your time.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Grade: B+

Directed by John Sturges

Starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland, Lyle Bettger, DeForest Kelley, Dennis Hopper, Ted DiCorsia.
Written by Leon Uris

Released by Paramount Pictures

Running time: 122 minutes

Availability: Airs on TCM, widely available. 

Golden Girl (1951) and Les Girls (1957)

Mitzi Gaynor is a recent re-discovery for me, having never been a fan of South Pacific, which I saw once eons ago and promptly moved on from. I just watched a much younger Mitzi in 1951’s Golden Girl, and found something in her first featured performance quite endearing. The forgotten film casts Mitzi as Gold Rush honey Lotta Crabtree, making her name as a performer in the mining camps throughout California during the Civil War period. There’s not much to speak for Golden Girl beyond Gaynor — the songs aren’t memorable and the romance with a dashing southern spy / officer (TV Western star Dale Robertson) who robs Union payrolls feels dated and a little uncomfortable. The climax finds Gaynor bleating a tearful rendition of Dixie in a high-falootin’ San Francisco auditorium just as news of the surrender at Appomattox has made its way west. Golden Girl has never been released on DVD (or VHS?), and the print showing on Turner Classic Movies is so poor as to not bode well for its future. On a side note, the poster for Golden Girl is simply one of the most awful I’ve ever seen.

And then there’s Les Girls. If it were not for Mitzi, whose part is too small for my tastes, I would have liked it a great deal less. If you are a fan of MGM musicals however, Les Girls is available everywhere and is a film that you simply have to see, even if I say that in a somewhat weary, obligatory tone of voice (being a completist has its downside). The production values are as sumptuous and as artistic as anything else Metro did during the period — particularly in Mitzi’s big number towards the end of the film. (The film was an Oscar winner for its costumes.) The narrative gets a little tedious though: the story is centers around a London courtroom libel suit that finds two of Gene Kelly’s former troupers — Les Girls — at each others throats over a tell-all book one has just written. The same set of events are related three times, each time through the eyes of a different character, and before long we see way in which all the strings are going to tie neatly together.

In addition to Gaynor and Gene Kelly, the film casts lanky Brit Kay Kendall as the author of the tell-all, and sexy Finn Taina Elg as the libeled lady. Elg was certainly a stunner, but she never really caught on with American audiences, while Kendall had all the talent in the world yet never had a fighting chance to use it — she would succumb to leukemia two short years later, in 1959. While each of the girls brings something worthwhile to the film, they never quite gel on screen together in the way they do with their male costars, and the movie suffers a little for it.

The biggest drawback for me is that this is yet another late-cycle musical that fails to properly integrate the musical numbers into the story. As so often became the case as the fifties grew tired, the musical interludes show up like television commercial breaks — here in the form of the Les Girls nightclub acts, each one a little more artsy-fartsy and self indulgent than the last. (And don’t get me wrong either, I think An American in Paris is great stuff!) This is not a bad film by any means, but it is rather soul-less and clearly shows that the musical was running on fumes in 1957, and desperately needed the shot in the arm that West Side Story was stirring up on Broadway at the time, and would in a few years give the motion picture musical.

At almost 80, Mitzi is still out there somewhere, though her motion picture career was too damn short: eighteen credits, and no big screen work after 1963. She did a number of TV specials in the seventies, but they are nowhere to be found. It’s too bad, Gaynor had a look, style, and screen presence that doesn’t translate to photography — you’ve gotta see her in films.

Golden Girl (1951)

Directed by Lloyd Bacon

Starring Mitzi Gaynor, Dale Robertson, and Una Merkel

Released by Twentieth Century Fox

Running time: 108 minutes.

Availability: Has aired on TCM

Les Girls (1957)

Directed by George Cukor

Starring Mitzi Gaynor, Gene Kelly, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg

Released by MGM

Running time: 114 minutes.

Availability: Widely on DVD, airs on TCM

Arabian Nights (1942)

Arabian Nights is a first-rate Saturday afternoon matinee released in 1942 by Universal. It’s one of the many recent classic DVD releases that Netflix has not chosen to add to their library. I’ve had it in my queue since the DVD debuted in 2007, and I finally gave up and requested a copy via interlibrary loan. The exclusion by Netflix is particularly disappointing considering that this is a relevant film that earned an impressive four 1942 Academy Award nominations. I’ll be the first to admit that Oscar nods don’t guarantee quality and rentals, but

Arabian Nights is a safe bet. It has top production values, including fantastic costumes and some of the most vivid Technicolor photography you’ll ever see — accentuated by the pristine DVD transfer. This is all especially surprising considering the film was made at Universal; and falls outside of the constantly struggling studio’s big four proven cornerstones: horror, Deanna Durbin, Sherlock Holmes, and Abbott and Costello. The story of how this came about is an interesting one.

Maverick producer Walter Wanger had just been released from a long-term contract with United Artists before coming to Universal in 1941. Wanger was a proven commodity in Hollywood, and his deal with UA had been a rich one that offered the filmmaker a great deal of latitude in the production of prestige products. Under the deal Wanger developed Algiers with Charles Boyer and the John Ford / John Wayne classic (6 Oscar nominations) The Long Voyage Home. The relationship with UA went sour after a few box office disappointments, including (surprisingly) Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent, which led Wanger to shop his in-development projects around Hollywood — Universal took the bait. Wanger signed on to produce films for Universal on a picture-by-picture basis, the first of which was Arabian Nights. The film would be Universal's first three-color Technicolor production, and the studio was willing to risk the colossal sum (for them) of $900,000 on the budget. Although Wanger himself dismissed the film as merely an exercise in “tits and sand,” the movie paid big dividends ($4,000,000 gross) for all involved and cemented the producer-studio relationship for the next few years and six more pictures.*

The business model at Universal, more than any other studio, relied on turning successful projects into drums that could be beaten again and again, until the public grew tired of the tune. Yet during the war audiences were hungry for the most lavish and exotic escapist fare possible, and the stars of Arabian Nights caught the public interest at exactly the right moment. Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Jungle Book star Sabu would appear together regularly in a succession of lower-and-lower budgeted features that nevertheless raked in the wartime dollars for the studio. Sabu, the unlikely teen superstar, would receive top billing in most of the features, with Hall second and Montez third. Hall was the good-looking star of numerous B projects at Universal, he enjoyed modest success in Hollywood but never achieved the big time. Much the same can be said of Montez, though in her case it’s surprising. She was truly a stunning woman — bearing a vague resemblance to Gloria Grahame, only with a better figure — it’s difficult to take your eyes off her.

On a morbid note, each of the film’s three stars died tragically: Hall, wrecked with cancer, shot himself at 64, while Sabu died of a heart attack at age 39, and Montez drowned (due to a heart attack) in her Paris bathtub at only 34.

Arabian Nights is a winner. It’s easy to see why wartime audiences responded so well — the film couldn't get much lighter. We expect these things to be special-effects bonanzas, but there’s not much too see here beyond a parade of girls and marvelous costumes. All the genies have been replaced with light comedy, and supporting characters merely named Sinbad (Shemp Howard!) and Aladdin will have to placate those looking for faithful literary adaption.

* Thanks to Thomas Schatz and his wonderfully instructive book, The Genius of the System for the assist on the facts and figures.

Arabian Nights (1942)

Directed by John Rawlins

Starring Sabu, Jon Hall, Maria Montez

Released by Universal Studios

Running time: 93 minutes

Availability: DVD, but no Netflix.

Pal Joey (1957)

Damn you, Kim Novak, why can't I make up my mind about you? If ever there was a woman — an astonishingly beautiful woman at that — who photographed better than she filmed it was Kim Novak. There are photographs of Kim that stagger the mind, that grab you and force you to admit that this was one of the world's great faces. Those eyes framed with the too-thick painted on brows, lips always parted, and the platinum hair swept back from her face — If Monroe's approachable sexuality begged the photographer to step back and take her all in, Novak's did just the opposite, asking us to look closer, to zoom in, to try to unravel the mystery. It was a quality almost entirely lost in motion pictures — only Hitchcock truly understood how to use her.

Her first name was (I mean, is … Kim is still with us) Marilyn, but that couldn't be used for obvious reasons, so Columbia boss Harry Cohn landed on Kim. The studio brought her along slowly with the idea that eventually she'd replace Rita Hayworth as Columbia's resident "Queen of the Lot." Pal Joey, which is one of those movies that has backstories related to everything from the source material to each of the stars was meant to be the moment where Rita more or less passes the torch to the younger star. And while that seems to take place, the movie rests firmly on the narrow shoulders of Frank Sinatra.

I don't like Kim here. Pal Joey was her second film with Frank Sinatra after their success three years earlier in The Man with the Golden Arm. The role is simply too straight, and calls for an actress with more a more deft comedic touch than Novak had at that time, or ever. It's easy to criticize Hayworth as an actress, but, had she been younger she would have hit a home run in Novak's role. Kim is simply too much woman for the diminutive Sinatra, too sultry for her good-girl character, and she looks uncomfortable in almost every scene. Her very next film would be her most famous, and it's easy to understand what doesn't work about her and Frank together in Pal Joey by looking at what does work between her and James Stewart in Vertigo. The Hitchcockian restraint, the mystery, the elegance, and even the leading man suit her better.

Sinatra lovers rejoice, he's at the top of his game. (I know, you've seen this many times already.) And I don't mean as an actor, or as somebody hitting his marks and speaking the lines — it always seems to me that Sinatra mailed it in in that regard. I'm thinking of the musical numbers, especially the ones in which he appears on the nightclub stage. The guy really comes to life under the hot lights. He works the audience and looks like a man who knows what he's doing and loves it. Of all Sinatra's pictures I think this one gives the best impression of how he must have appeared on stage in one of his Vegas shows — albeit in a much smaller way. Watch Pal Joey and think swagger, without the bullshit rat packers hanging on his pant legs.

There's a melancholy feeling that one gets watching Rita Hayworth in this film. Although out of respect Sinatra conceded top billing to her, she has the smallest and least affable part of the three leads. She's the older woman — a gold digger who scored to boot — who plays sugar daddy to Sinatra's dream of owning his own club and consequently keeps him away from Novak, the girl he really belongs with. Rita loses out in the end, but she does it with class. There's one great moment early on when we are reminded of her signature number in Gilda, but it's fleeting. Instead we are left with the impression that this is an actress getting put out to pasture, and there's something in the pursing of her lips that lets us know she doesn't quite like it. She's as beautiful and talented as ever, but Hollywood was even more fickle in those days than it is now and the parts just weren't made with her in mind anymore. Like Kim, Rita's next film was a heavyweight, though admittedly Separate Tables is an ensemble film, and Rita would never again appear in a production of this magnitude.

Pal Joey doesn't add up to the sum of its parts, but it's an enjoyable musical and something of a minor essential.

Pal Joey (1957)

Grade B

Directed by George Sidney

Starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak

Released by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 111 minutes

Availabilty: Widely on DVD.

Our Very Own (1950)

It has been famously said that the basis for all Hollywood pictures is melodrama. While this is certainly true — after all, melodrama in general is characterized by the emotional crisis of the main character — one of the challenges of the filmmaker is the extent to which the subject matter is allowed to become … overtly melodramatic. As a viewer I always am struck by movies in which the authors recognize the inherent dramatic potential of the subject matter and then move forward with restraint. This approach often results in films described as small, quiet … and powerful. One such picture is 1950's Our Very Own, a domestic drama infused with a little comedy and healthy dose of Americana. It tells the story of a popular girl who discovers, in the days leading up to her high school graduation, that she was adopted. The film explores the repercussions of this discovery within an idealized nuclear American family.

The girl is played by Anne Blyth, who proves to be a better actress than I had previously given her credit for. She's an absolute knockout, but her performance in this film is one that comes across with great subtlety, despite the heavy studio trappings. Blyth is matched by mom Jane Wyatt in a big role (this is a mother / daughter picture), as well as a universally strong cast that includes beau Farley Granger, dad Donald Cook, and sisters Joan Evans and Natalie Wood. All of the performers are strong, but Ann Dvorak absolutely steals the show as Blyth's “real” mother.

In 1950 the term birth mother had not yet entered the vernacular, so the awkward and mildly insulting term real is used in its place. I actually thought the term was worked into the script as a set-up — meaning that after repeatedly hearing Blyth refer to Dvorak as her real mother there would be a moment of payoff when Blyth recognizes Wyatt as the only true mom she's ever had. Being that the term real is in fact utilized as the functional term of the era, the payoff never materializes, though the film's ending certainly delivers the goods.

The strength of the film lies in its script, which places real emotion and small moments over that most common of mid-century dramatic stand-bys: scandal. Time and again throughout, the characters react believably to all of the film's potentially melodramatic moments — saying as much with quiet facial expressions and body language as with words. Furthermore, and much to my surprise, everyone around this popular girl takes the news of her adoption in stride. She's not heckled at school or whispered about as she walks down the street. Blyth's Gail gets all the support and understanding that anyone could hope for. The main thrust of the drama is in Gail's disillusionment with her place in this carefully constructed family, and how in the wake of this emotional slap in the face she has to recapture her seemingly lost identity and consequently, her place in the world. This is an authentic and knowing film.

There a few moments worth sitting up for in Our Very Own, both narrative and filmic. In one scene Gail stays out all night, despondent after learning of her adoption. When she arrives home, on the bad side of three in the morning, she says the wrong thing to her worried father, who responds with one of the most surprising, yet appropriate, slaps in film history. The scene is so raw that I suspect even Blyth didn't know what hit her. Another great sequence depicts Gail's first meeting with Dvorak. It's a rather involved series of cuts, but suffice it to say that I viewed the scene multiple times — for acting, cutting, and music. Themes of disillusionment, cynicism, heartbreak, and regret collide as these two women encounter each other for the first, make that the second, time in their lives.

Circling back around to the notion of melodrama, the climactic scene in Our Very Own plays almost entirely without music. Considering the etymology of the word melodrama: melos (music) and drama — it's impressive to see fifties studio filmmakers recognize that the movie's most emotional scene was strong enough to unfold in near-silence. Yet another moment of calculated restraint in marvelously subdued picture.

Our Very Own (1950)

Grade: B

Directed by David Miller

Starring Ann Blyth, Jane Wyatt, Natalie Wood, Farley Granger

Released by RKO Pictures

Running time: 93 minutes

Availability: VHS, airs on TCM.