Toys in the Attic (1963)

In a recent 60 Minutes interview promoting The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep, when asked how current films and performers stack up to those of years past, claimed that while the classics are the classics, her contemporaries are just plain better actors. Certainly Meryl, like almost everyone else in the film-watching world, forgot about Geraldine Page.

Although Page finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress in the year before her death for The Trip to Bountiful, the award smelled of a payoff as she had previously been nominated for Oscars seven times, beginning with 1953’s Hondo. She was at her formidable best in the sixties, handling character-style leads in the adaptations of Summer and Smoke (1961) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). She earned Golden Globe nominations for the subject of this essay, Toys in the Attic (which merely got a costume nod from Oscar) and for the following year’s Dear Heart, a seldom seen dramedy opposite Glenn Ford in which she is absolutely spectacular.

I’ll give myself credit for one thing as a film watcher: my range is exhaustive. You name it, I’ll happily watch it if I haven’t seen it already. Genre? Who cares — and after having passed the twelve thousand mark, I’ve probably seen it already. Regardless, I’ve seen enough movies, read more than enough books, and surfed enough film writing on the internet and in newspapers to know with a large degree of certainty that Geraldine Page is one of the five greatest actresses in movie history, and undoubtedly the most underappreciated actress of all time by the masses and film buffs alike.

Like Streep’s The Iron Lady, Toys in the Attic is by no means a great film, but the 1963 adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play is fascinating. Page is in her wheelhouse as Carrie Berniers, a New Orleans spinster who shares a house with her older sister Anna (Wendy Hiller, underappreciated as well, and no slouch either!) and dotes on her foolish younger brother, Julian, played by a game but off-cast Dean Martin, in his final dead-straight film role. Julian is a dreamer who bounces from one get rich scheme to another, always in trouble and falling back on the good will of his sisters. At the beginning of the film, he arrives unannounced at the family home, except this time he has money, gifts aplenty, and a brand new wife. His newfound fortune raises the eyebrows of Anna, while the presence his shy wife (Yvette Mimieux) seems to particularly upset Carrie. The film burrows — sometimes unpleasantly — into the issues of the Berniers family’s past and present. Where did Julian’s money come from? Who is his wife? What is the nature of his relationship with each of his sisters?

At the center of it all is Page, her performance here is probably too big for the film itself, once again bringing Streep to mind. Page dominates the thing so much that it’s as if the other actors are barely there, and she does it all without giving the impression of chewing the scenery. Her Carrie is someone we all know: the shrill, affected soul (gender doesn’t matter) who tries to hard — the one who pretends to be the smartest person in the room yet suspects deep-down that everyone exchanges secret, knowing glances when she makes an entrance. And yet in spite of this faint self-realization, she blindly plows forward in her pretension and vanity — becoming more and more manic as the scenes unfold and her sense of security is slowly stripped away, like the dark paint flaking off an aging iron porch rail.

Hiller accedes to her colleague’s meatier role and gives Page all the space she needs, but Dean Martin doesn’t fare well against her, and Mimieux — terribly miscast in the first place — seems lost. Jason Robards played the part of Julian on Broadway, and it’s interesting to imagine how the dynamic of the film might have changed with him in the male lead. A handsomely aging Gene Tierney appears as well, in a small but critical role, and she’s able to draw on her own sad misfortunes enough to generate adequate pathos to match Page in their brief time together. Actually their exchanges are some of the most gratifying in the film.

Hellman seems to wander into Tennessee Williams territory here. This is a story of unfulfilled, incomplete people. Dreamers, fools. The naïve and the cowardly. Beaten, broken, and at times — vicious. The moral center of the movie is Hiller’s Anna, though she seems to lack the courage to speak her mind or act on her suspicions. As the onion of the narrative is peeled back, the relationships of the characters are exposed layer by layer, until tragic consequences are unavoidable. And frankly, for such a verbose and theatrical production, the film’s climax is jarringly brutal. Toys in the Attic is a roughly made film that gets better as it goes: it plods through its first few acts towards an exciting and well-constructed finish. Although its home video status is rather vague, it is worth seeking out. If only for Page. 

Toys in the Attic (1963)

Directed by George Roy Hill

Starring Geraldine Page, Dean Martin, Wendy Hiller, and Gene Tierney

Running time: 91 minutes

Released by United Artists

Grade C

That Man from Rio (1964)

Off-beat French film mega-star Jean-Paul Belmondo stars in the zippy adventure spoof That Man from Rio, a humorous riff on spy thrillers, Hitchcock, and edge-of-your-seat Saturday afternoon serials. Belmondo is certainly talented — this film (as well as his monumental filmography) provides particular proof — but he has always baffled (and impressed!) me as a film star. No matter what the role Belmondo always seems miscast. Be it Breathless, Le Doulos, Is Paris Burning?, or whatever, Belmondo just doesn't seem to quite fit in. Yet maybe that's why he makes such a strong impression: he forces you to justify his presence in each of his films, and possibly this owes to his boy-next-door quality: Belmondo always appears to be in just a little over his head, and slightly baffled by what's happening around him. If Bogart always appeared to be one step ahead of everyone else in his films, Belmondo appears to be a step behind — to the benefit of himself and everyone watching.

That Man from Rio finds Belmondo as Adrien Dufourquet, a member of the French air force set to enjoy a weekend pass in Paris with his girlfriend Agnes (Françoise Dorléac). Before Adrien can even get settled, Agnes is kidnapped and spirited to Orly airport, where she is drugged and loaded onto a flight for Brazil. Adrien pursues, and the first of the films many chase scenes unfolds. That Man never stops moving, as one pursuit sequence seems to fold into the next, as the movie sprints from Europe to South America and then back again. Planes, trains, automobiles, motorcyles, boats, and jungles vines — this one puts everything to use.

The film owes a great deal to Alfred Hitchcock, and this is as much an homage as it is a spoof. Philippe de Broca deftly manages to evoke the same feeling — that particularly difficult to pull off melding of action and light comedy that somehow doesn't offend one's intelligence. Others have mentioned the James Bond connection, which given the production year of 1964 makes for a natural assumption, though That Man from Rio has a great deal more in common with North by Northwest than it does with Thunderball (despite sharing a cast member in Adolfo Celi). The film posters push the association as well. The one below is clearly designed to appeal to Bond fans, while the poster above more accurately represents the vibe of the movie — and dig that cool sixties style. Belmondo is clearly channelling his best Cary Grant, while Georges Delerue's music is positively Herrmann-esque.

If Hitchcock and Bond have anything in common, it's the presence of a MacGuffin — and That Man from Rio has one too. In this case it's a set of three Amazonian statues that lead somehow to a hidden cache diamonds leftover by the fictional Maltec civilization. Everyone is after the statues, yet the identity of the film's bad guy is its most closely-kept secret. Instead, Adrien spend most of the running time either running to or away from the criminal mastermind's native goons — all of whom sport poison dart-firing pistols and seem to be made of something stronger than steel — in an effort to retrieve the pale-beauty Agnes.

That Man from Rio is a fun ride, albeit a difficult one to find. It's a movie lovers' delight, referencing everything from silent Harold Lloyd to Hitchcock, and even anticipating the adventure films of the following generation. By the end, viewers are certain to feel as if they've left Hitchcock behind in favor of Indiana Jones. Lawrence Kasden and Steven Spielberg certainly saw this before Raiders of the Lost Ark — and just as Temple of Doom is best forgotten, I won't even mention Sir Winston, Belmondo's delightful little sidekick.

That Man from Rio (1964)

Director: Philippe de Broca

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo and Françoise Dorléac

Released by United Artists

Running Time: 110 minutes
Availability: Difficult. Foreign DVD.

Personal Affair (1953)

Ah … scandal, that old time religion of the classic melodrama. The driving force behind so many of the silver screen’s great and not-so-great films, scandal is, almost undoubtedly, the most significant narrative theme abandoned by contemporary filmmakers. Yet scandal enjoyed its heyday in the 1950s, and it’s the driving force behind the 1953 British film Personal Affair.

Leo Genn stars as Mr. Barlow, a Latin teacher in an “experimental” (co-ed) British seconday school. He has a beautiful — but jealous — American wife, Kay (Gene Tierney), who can’t seen to adjust to English society and consequently wastes her days imagining all the ways in which her good looking and popular husband might be untrue. When he invites shy Barbara (Glynis Johns) to his home for extra tutoring, Kay recognizes what her husband doesn’t — that the young woman is carrying a torch for her teacher. In a fit of jealousy Kay accuses the confused young girl of making a play, and Barbara flees. When Mr. Barlow learns of this, he arranges to meet Barbara later in hopes of making things right. When Barbara fails to return home that night, or the following day, the small town becomes a hive of gossip, innuendo, and yes — scandal.

The movie offers a different, yet equally fascinating exploration of the same themes and academic setting of The Children’s Hour (and the equally wonderful earlier version, These Three); though Personal Affair explores the husband-wife relationship and exists almost entirely with the spaces of domesticity. There are moments where Barbara’s school friends spread rumors, and even go to the police, but it only serves to develop the theme of rampant gossip — and everyone in the town chips in. A woman’s picture from top to bottom, the film is nevertheless unkind to its female characters, possibly with the exception of Barbara. Gene Tierney is quite good as the disturbed wife whose emotions run the gamut from jealousy to fear to rage. Only Tierney, however unfortunately, could have played the part so well.

Personal Affair is a thoughtful drama, though it may be marred by an ending that cops out to the positive — somewhat surprising considering it isn’t a Hollywood production.

Personal Affair (1953)

Grade B+

Directed by Anthony Pellisier

Starring Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Glynis Johns

Released by Two Cities Films

Running time: 82 minutes

Availabilty: VHS, has aired on TCM.

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

If ever a poster didn’t do its film justice, this is it. The darn thing is too heavily steeped in what we (I’m a graphic design professor) have a tendency to call 101-Dalmatians-style to suggest the content of the Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw, which while romantic, is too tinged with melancholy and loneliness to be captured in this light-and-bright style.

Robert Mitchum stars as an attorney from Omaha who flees his failing marriage for the streets of New York, where he chances upon an unusual romance with Bohemian dreamer Shirley MacLaine. Seldom was Mitch’s signature world-weariness put to better use. He comes across beautifully here, channelling (ha!) all of the alienation and loneliness that one can feel amidst the canyons of Manhattan into his role. Though the films have nothing in common, Mitchum is almost as good here as he would be as Eddie Coyle more than a decade later. While Mitchum is thought of as a screen persona (or force of nature) more than as an actor, he holds his own quite well opposite the incredibly gifted MacLaine — she of the Best Actress Oscar and trio of Best Pictures. The clash of his repressive midwestern morality versus her Greenwich Village flightiness makes for an interesting contrast in the early scenes. The film is primarily concerned with how the pair manage to contrive a romance in spite of their differences.

Before I get any farther, I have to talk about Ted McCord’s black-and-white cinematography for Two for the Seesaw, which is among, I kid you not, the best in the history of Hollywood. I was able to watch this recently in high-definition on the MGM HD channel, and found the depiction of the streets of lower Manhattan to be nothing short of staggering. As a film noir enthusiast, this film ironically boast one or two of the most iconic representations of not only the urban landscape, but of a trench-coated protagonist among them. There is a scene in the middle of the film that finds a chain-smoking Mitchum waiting on a dark street outside MacLaine’s apartment following a bitter a quarrel. Mitchum is framed so beautifully against the deserted streets that my breath literally caught in my throat. At the conclusion of the picture, I rewound to the moment and enjoyed the frame for quite some time. McCord had a long-lasting career in Hollywood, but he isn't particularly well known to film buffs. His two biggest credits are East of Eden and The Sound of Music, as well as a three or four B-noirs. Wise however was a visually stylish director, especially when utilizing black-and-white, and the two worked together here to craft a sensuously, richly beautiful film — all the more surprising considering theatrical source material.

It has been said by some that Mitchum and MacLaine don’t have solid chemistry and the film is too long, but I disagree and would advise anyone to see this and judge for themselves. See this for the performances, for the beauty of the filming and of the city, and for the verve of Andre Previn’s great score. Just do me a favor and see it.

Although this does air on television from time to time, it isn't generally available otherwise, having never been widely released on DVD. It was recently made available from Amazon.com as a made-on-demand DVD, in much the same fashion as the Warner Archive DVD series.

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Grade: A-

Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine
Released by United Artists
Running time: 119 minutes
Availability: Amazon DVD on Demand.