Sierra (1950)

Sierra is an early (1950) Audie Murphy western. I’ve become a rather obsessive Audie Murphy fan. I’ve now seen seven of his westerns. They’re all enjoyable and a couple of them, in my opinion, rank among the very best westerns of the classic western era.

Sierra begins with a cute but headstrong girl, Riley Martin (Wanda Hendrix), causing a major headache for Ring Hassard (Audie Murphy) and his dad Jeff (Dean Jagger). They live in a shack way up in the mountains. No-one knows they’re there. That’s how they want to keep things. They have a good reason. They need to avoid the law. Years earlier Jeff Hazzard was accused of murder. He always proclaimed his innocence but he couldn’t prove it.

Now Riley Martin knows about them. She could talk. She promises she won’t. They trust her. They have to. They can’t kill her. They’re outsiders but they’re nice guys.

There’s another problem. Riley also, quite inadvertently, brought about an accident in which Jeff was so seriously injured that his life in danger. That means they’ll need to get a doctor up there. Then everyone will know that they’ve been living in the mountains and the sheriff will send a posse.

In the midst of all these dramas Ring shoots Riley. He had to. It was for her own good. She’d been bitten by a rattlesnake. You can learn fascinating things by watching movies. Apparently you can eliminate rattlesnake venom by shooting the person in the infected area. It’s something worth remembering.

Of course this attracts more attention.

Jeff and Ring have an obsession. It’s an enormous herd of wild horses. No-one believes the herd exists but they’ve seen it. They aim to round up that herd one day. Then they’ll have the money to buy the ranch they always wanted.

So Ring (with help from some other semi-outlaws) is trying to round up the mustang herd whilst keeping a step ahead of the posse. And he’s made a couple of other very dangerous enemies as well, and they’re also gunning for him. He has a lot on his plate.

Of course Riley has fallen for Ring. A girl always feel closer to a guy after he’s shot her. And he has the glamour of being a sexy outsider rebel with a sensitive side. How could she resist him? Ring thinks Riley is pretty special as well.

It’s a fairly routine but serviceable western plot and a bit on the contrived side. You can see the crucial plot twist coming up a mile away.


The biggest problem is Burl Ives. He plays Jeff Hazzard’s wise old buddy Lonesome. Lonesome is a sort of comic relief character and he’s already irritating enough and he starts to sing. And he just keeps on singing. I guess this is supposed to add a folksy warm-hearted touch but I just wanted someone to fill Lonesome full of lead.

On the plus side it’s a Universal International 1950s western in Technicolor and they always looked nice. This one has cinematography by Russell Metty so it looks very nice indeed.

And it has Audie Murphy. This was the kind of role he handled with erase - a quiet self-effacing nice guy but you can tell that underneath the mild exterior there’s real grit and a stubborn obsessiveness. Added to which Murphy had charm and charisma.

Wanda Hendrix makes a fairly likeable Feisty Heroine. Riley has had a fancy big city education but she was born on the frontier and was one of those girls who learned to ride before she learned to walk.

Look out for Tony Curtis in a bit part.

Sierra is nothing special but it’s enjoyable and it’s recommended. It's included in the second of Kino Lorber's Audie Murphy Blu-Ray boxed sets.

Over the course of the 1950s Audie Murphy’s westerns just got better and better and towards the close of the decade he made the excellent Hell Bent for Leather (1960) and the absolutely magnificent No Name on the Bullet (1959).

The Unfaithful (1947)

The Unfaithful is a 1947 Warner Brothers production directed by Vincent Sherman. It’s sometimes described as a film noir but it’s more of a woman’s melodrama somewhat in the mould of Leave Her To Heaven and The Letter.

While her husband is away a man who has been lying in wait forces his way into the home of Chris Hunter (Ann Sheridan). There is a struggle. The man ends up dead, stabbed to death.

We see these events in silhouette through a curtained window. We can’t be entirely sure what happened.

Given that the maid heard a woman scream a moment before the man’s demise the police see this as as a very obvious case of a killing in self-defence. This was clearly an attempted rape.

The only problem for the police is that the story that Chris tells them is not the one they expected to hear. She tells them that the man, whom she had never seen before, tried to rob her. He tried to steal her jewels. That doesn’t quite make sense to the cops. A simple burglar would not have entered a house he knew to be occupied. A stick-up man would have had a gun. This man carried no weapon of any kind. Her story just doesn’t quite hang together. If she had said that he tried to rape her it would all make perfect sense. That’s why he waited until she was home and her husband was away, and that’s why he carried no gun. They would have believed a story like that without hesitation. But she’s telling them a different story and Detective Lieutenant Reynolds isn’t entirely happy with it.

It’s not that this is a case of a movie plot being made incomprehensible by the Production Code. While the movie has to use euphemisms the cops do ask her if it was an attempted rape. So the movie’s plot is fine. We are expected to jump to the same conclusion that Lieutenant Reynolds jumps to, and like him we are supposed to be feel the beginnings of a slight suspicion about Chris’s story.

The dead man is struggling sculptor Michael Tanner.

Chris’s attorney, Larry Hannaford (Lew Ayres), is an old friend of Chris and her husband Bob (Zachary Scott). He has no suspicions because he doesn’t want to be suspicious. Until he gets a phone call and an art dealer tries to make a sale to him.

So firstly, the movie’s good points. Ann Sheridan isn’t too bad. It is, for 1947, surprisingly open about sex.

Now the movie’s problems. At 109 minutes it’s half an hour too long. The plot is largely completed by the halfway stage and is completely resolved half an hour before the end. The characters then start talking. And they talk and they talk and they talk. They talk until the viewer is ready to beg them stop. But they keep talking. They’re talking about stuff we already know.

Lew Ayres doesn’t have any dialogue. He has speeches. Lots and lots of speeches.

The last 40 minutes is like a therapy session. You know how, if you’re even been unlucky enough to go to therapy, you start looking for an escape. You wonder if they’ve forgotten to bolt the door. Maybe you could make a run for it. Or the French windows. If they’re unlocked you might be able to flee across the garden. That’s what this movie is like.

The Unfaithful was apparently a major reworking of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play The Letter and the 1929 and 1940 film. Screenwriters David Goodis and James Gunn have managed to eliminate everything that made the 1940 movie so good.

The idea that this is a film noir is laughable. It has none of the noir sense of inevitable doom. It has no femme fatale. It lacks even a trace of noir visual style. It does not contain a single film noir ingredient. This is a women’s melodrama. Now I happen to like women’s melodramas, but this is a particularly turgid example of the species. And it’s so grindingly slow.

If you’re a very very keen Ann Sheridan fan you might want to check out The Unfaithful. Otherwise it’s one to avoid.

The Warner Archive DVD looks very good.

Oddly enough in 1947 Ann Sheridan starred in another Vincent Sherman-directed women’s melodrama, Nora Prentiss, which s actually a very good movie and well worth seeing. So I suspect that most of the blame for The Unfaithful should be laid at the feet of the screenwriters.

Campbell’s Kingdom (1957)

Campbell’s Kingdom is a slightly unconventional 1957 British thriller. It was based on the 1952 Hammond Innes novel of the same name. Innes is now largely forgotten but he was one of the great thriller writers.

This is a frontier adventure tale of sorts. Bruce Campbell (Dirk Bogarde) arrives from England to take up his inheritance in the wilds of Canada. His inheritance is known as Campbell’s Kingdom. It’s a completely worthless tract of land, but Campbell doesn’t think it’s worthless. His now deceased grandfather thought there was oil there. Nobody ever believed him. His grandfather was accused of fraud and sent to prison. But Bruce Campbell believes his grandfather was right.

He has his own reasons for believing and he has his own reasons for being determined to find that oil. Those reasons do not include greed. Even if there is oil Bruce Campbell will never see any money from it.

His immediate problem is Owen Morgan (Stanley Baker). Morgan, a very shady construction contractor, has a contract to build a dam. The dam will flood Campbell’s Kingdom. After that, even if there is oil there, no-one will ever be able to be able to find it or access it.

The most recent geological survey by the seismological surveyor, Bladen (Michael Craig), confirmed what everybody knew. There is no oil. But a conversation with Bladen arouses Campbell’s suspicions. And that conversation arouses Bladen’s suspicions as well. He is an honest man. Perhaps he has been deceived in some way as well.

Test drilling would provide the answer but in a few short weeks the whole valley will be underwater. Even worse, Morgan controls all access to Campell’s kingdom. There is no way to do any test drilling. But Campbell has a plan.

And he has the man to help him carry it out. James MacDonald (James Robertson Justice) is a wildcat oil driller and he’s a man prepared to take a huge gamble.

This is a thriller with almost no violence at all. There’s crookedness and skullduggery but not violence. There is however plenty of action and excitement. And explosions! And there are two race-against-time elements. Ralph Thomas was the director. He made fine movies in lots of different genres, in fact in just about every genre you can name including some good thrillers. It’s no surprise that he is able to get plenty of thrills out of this story.

Dirk Bogarde might seem an odd casting choice but it works. This is a clash between two men representing very different types of masculinity. Stanley Baker as Morgan is aggressive, overbearing, hard-driving and overtly macho. Bruce Campbell is quiet, passive and self-effacing but he does not lack courage and under the surface is a steely determination and an iron will. This is a guy who never backs down and never gives up. Which is why the casting of Bogarde works - he is the perfect counterpoint to Baker.

Michael Craig plays Bladen as a nice guy but he’s also tougher than he looks. James Robertson Justice is of course a delight.

There is, naturally, a girl. Jean Lucas (Barbara Murray) played a part in Bruce Campbell’s past, a part of which Campbell knew nothing. For a number of reasons she knows she cannot play a part in his future. This is in spite of the fact that she fallen instantly head over heels in love with him, and he’s obviously pretty fond of her. Barbara Murray plays her as feisty and likeable.

Look at for Sid James in a small role.

Hammond Innes always made superb use of either nautical settings or settings in the frozen wastes of the North. He had a real feel for such settings, and that’s reflected in this movie. There’s some lovely location shooting, all done in Italy (with the Dolomites standing in for Canada). The special effects are extremely well done.

It’s refreshing and unusual to see a movie in which the oil men are the good guys.

Campbell’s Kingdom is unusual enough to be interesting, it looks great, it has excitement and some romance and some fine acting. Highly recommended.

The Blu-Ray from the now defunct Network is still available and it looks lovely.

Murder Me, Murder You (1983 TV-movie)

Murder Me, Murder You (1983) is one of two Mike Hammer TV-movies which served as pilots for the successful TV series.

Stacy Keach plays Hammer in both the TV-movies and the series.

My full review can be found at Cult TV Lounge.

Casino Royale (1967)

The 1967 Casino Royale is an object lesson in how to create a cinematic disaster.

The movie came about because Eon Productions owned the rights to all the Bond novels, apart from the first. For complicated reasons producer Charles K. Feldman owned the rights to Fleming’s first novel, Casino Royale. He knew he wanted to make it into a movie. He had no idea how to do so. He never did figure it out.

It ended up with ten writers and five directors. Five directors at the same time, each directing part of the movie.

Feldman initially thought of doing a straight Bond movie. Then he decided to make it a spoof.

David Niven had been under consideration for the role of Bond in the late 50s. Feldman persuaded him to take the role in Casino Royale. Then he decided it would be cool to have Peter Sellers play the role. So they both play Bond. So we get a crazy scheme to have lots of Bonds. Not because it was a cool or clever idea but because the movie had already become a chaotic mess with nobody have the slightest idea what they were doing and none of the people involved in the movie making any attempt to co-ordinate their wildly differing ideas.

Then Feldman started adding lots of Bond girls. There are no less than three lady super-spies, played by Deborah Kerr, Ursula Andress and Joanna Pettet. Plus we have Miss Moneypenny’s daughter (Barbara Bouchet) playing at being a lady super-spy as well.

We have two diabolical criminal masterminds, played by Orson Welles and Woody Allen, Yes, Woody Allen. Neither of these diabolical criminal masterminds has any actual master plan. That’s because the movie has no actual plot. It has no plot at all.

There were some very good spy spoof movies made during the 60s and what they all have in common is that they have actual spy movie plots. The humour comes from taking a spy movie plot and then playing it for laughs. But you need a plot. If you have an actual spy plot you can extract lots of humour from it. Without that all you have is a bunch of comedy sketches thrown together for no reason at all, which is what Casino Royale is. Which is why Casino Royale is so much less funny than the other 60s spy spoofs.

If you have a plot and you have characters you can extract more humour from the interactions between the characters, especially between the hero and the sexy lady spy and between the hero and the super-villain. Casino Royale is so overloaded with stars and characters that none of the characters is developed sufficiently to bring out their comedic potentials. The interactions are not funny because the characters are not characters, they’re just random actors speaking lines to each other for no discernible reason.

If you’re aiming for comedy it helps to have some decent gags. There’s not a single truly funny moment in this film.

This film relies on being zany, crazy, outrageous and madcap. But it manages to be zany, crazy, outrageous and madcap without actually being funny.

Then there’s the Peter Sellers factor. I have to put it on record that I have never thought Peter Sellers was funny but here he’s particularly feeble. Every single scene in which he appears would have worked better had it been played by David Niven.

There really are just too many unnecessary characters. One diabolical criminal mastermind is enough. Orson Welles could have been a very fine and very amusing tongue-in-cheek Bond Villain but he needed to be given more scope for evil plotting. Woody Allen is one villain too many and he seems to belong to a totally different movie and being a villain is not the kind of role that plays to his comic strengths. There’s probably one too many lady super-spies and they all belong in different movies.

This movie has some huge flaws but it does have a few major strengths. The cinematography, the production design and the costumes are stunning and delightfully extravagant and fun. I love the spy school that looks like it’s straight out of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

I love this film’s extreme artificiality. At times, visually at least, it does achieve a wonderful wild surreal comic-book feel. It looks totally amazing.

A major asset is Ursula Andress. She speaks with her own voice here. She was dubbed in her earlier movies. She has a strong accent but it makes her an even sexier lady spy. She’s enormous fun when she’s being seductive and she projects stupendous amounts of glamour. Her costumes are bizarre but magnificent.

Look out for Alexandra Bastedo and Jacqueline Bisset in bit parts (Bisset plays Miss Goodthighs).

For all its many and egregious flaws Casino Royale is worth a look if you enjoy spectacular but morbidly fascinating cinematic trainwrecks.

I’ve reviewed lots of 60s spy spoofs including Deadlier Than the Male (1967), The President’s Analyst (1967), the Matt Helm movies - Murderers’ Row (1966), Matt Helm in The Silencers (1966), The Ambushers (1967) and The Wrecking Crew (1969), the Derek Flint movies Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967) and the absolutely delightful Hot Enough for June (Agent 8¾, 1964). These are all examples of totally successful spy spoofs.

Casino Royale came out a year after Modesty Blaise (1966), which suffers from some of the same problems, having been made by a director, Joseph Losey, who did not have a clue what he was doing. Modesty Blaise, like Casino Royale, was aiming for a psychedelic vibe but misses the mark.

Dead Men Tell (1941)

Dead Men Tell is a 1941 20th Century-Fox Charlie Chan mystery starring my favourite screen Chan, Sidney Toler.

Dead Men Tell has a contemporary setting but the opening scenes take place on a sailing ship that looks like it’s right out of a pirate movie. And the ship is about to take part in a treasure. With a treasure map. And the captain’s cabin is filled with pirate memorabilia. OK, this movie has grabbed my attention right away.

Most of the action in fact takes place aboard this sailing ship. An eccentric old lady, Miss Nodbury (Ethel Griffies), has a map showing the location of treasure buried by notorious pirate Blackhook. He was one of her ancestors, which explains her obsession with pirates.

She has organised an expedition. She has torn the map into half a dozen pieces. Each member of the expedition has one piece. Miss Nodbury is a very suspicious old bird. She trusts nobody.

Of course you know that someone will commit murder to get hold of that map. The murder occurs, by one of those amazing detective story coincidences, while Charlie Chan and Number Two Son Jimmy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) are aboard.

Number Two Son has witnessed something important but he doesn’t recognise its significance and Charlie is always inclined to be sceptical when Number Two Son claims to have uncovered vital evidence.

There is indeed a murder. And it won’t be the last.

There are plenty of shady characters about - treasure hunts don’t end to attract reliable responsible citizens. The treasure hunters are not necessarily quite the people they claim to be.

And something happened in the past that could have a bearing on the current situation.

And that notorious pirate Blackhook will exert a certain influence on events.

I like Sidney Toler as Chan because he gives the character a very slight edge. Charlie’s a really nice guy but he is a cop. You don’t become a high-ranking police detective without a certain toughness.

Number Two Son is of course basically a comic relief character but Victor Sen Yung can be genuinely amusing and he’s not excessively irritating. And the character does get to do a few relatively important things. The supporting cast is solid.

Being a B-movie made by a major studio Dead Men Tell is a polished professional production. A B-movie shooting schedule didn’t allow for anything too fancy but it’s clear that director Harry Lachman and DP Charles G. Clarke are at least making an effort to create some atmosphere and to add a bit of visual interest. Although it never leaves port the sailing ship provides an excellent setting.

Dead Men Tell is a fine entry in the Fox Chan cycle. That cycle was drawing to a close by this time (although Charlie and Sidney Toler would find a new home at Monogram) but the quality remained high. Dead Men Tell is highly recommended.

This movie is included in Fox’s Charlie Chan Collection Volume 5 DVD boxed set. The transfer is very nice indeed.

I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Sidney Toler Chan movies - Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940), Charlie Chan in Panama (1940), Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) and Murder Over New York (1940). They’re all excellent B-movies.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

I avoided Saturday Night Fever for years, assuming it was going to be a syrupy teen musical. That turned out to be a spectacularly wrong assumption. Saturday Night Fever is so far removed from that that it’s in a whole other galaxy. This is a grim, gritty, deeply pessimistic deep dive into despair, futility, alienation and nihilism.

Tony Manero (John Travolta) works in a hardware store. On weekends he goes to the 2001 disco. He’s the king of the dance floor there. But 2001 isn’t a glamorous night spot where you’ll run into A-list celebrities. It’s a third-rate dive in Brooklyn. It’s cheap and it’s tacky.

And Tony doesn’t have dreams of using his dancing as a gateway to fame and fortune. He doesn’t have the imagination for that. He’s a loser.

He hangs out with his buddies. They’re all losers.

He lives with his folks. His dad is a chronically unemployed construction worker. His mom prays all the time. Her only consolation is that Tony’s brother Frank is a priest. He’s almost a god to her.

Tony is hoping to win the dance competition at 2001. This is not exactly a big deal. The prize is a lousy five hundred bucks but that’s the total extent of Tony’s dreams.

He has a dancing partner, Annette (Donna Pescow). She’s madly in love with him. Tony dumps her when he sees Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) dancing at 2001. He persuades Stephanie to be his new dancing partner.

Tony thinks Stephanie has class. He thinks that because he’s never met a woman with actual class. Stephanie does at least have ambitions but she’s as working class as Tony. Her middle-class affectations are merely absurd and tragic.

Stephanie dreams of success in Manhattan, perhaps in public relations. She probably won’t make it. She didn’t go to the right school, she didn’t go to college, she doesn’t have the right accent. She’s Brooklyn. She will always be Brooklyn. Maybe she will make an OK life for herself but she’s never going to have a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Maybe she needs to set her sights a bit lower.

Maybe Tony needs to set his sights a bit higher.

The most powerful moment in the movie and the moment when Travolta really nails it is when Tony comes face to face with reality. He works in a hardware store. He’s a moderately good dancer. His chances of making it as a big-time dancer are zero. He’s just not good enough.

Annette needs to figure herself out as well. Her one real ambition is to go to bed with Tony.

This is also a gang movie. Tony’s gang is a bunch of losers and low-rent thugs. They get into fight with other gangs, who are losers as well. The other gang members are possibly even dumber than Tony.

There’s not a single characters in the movie who isn’t contemptible.

The guys treat the women with disrespect but they disrespect everybody and most crucially they have no respect for themselves.

There’s a subplot concerning Tony’s brother who has left the priesthood. It’s entirely pointless, it goes nowhere, it slows the movie and really it should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Subplots that go nowhere simply irritate viewers. It may have been included purely as an anti-Catholic element. The hostility to Catholicism here is pretty virulent.

This film is typical of a certain strand in Hollywood filmmaking - movies in which middle-class intellectuals express their seething hatred for America and for ordinary working-class Americans. It’s no coincidence that screenwriter Norman Wexler was Harvard-educated. Wexler also wrote the screenplay for Serpico, my least favourite 1970s Hollywood film.

This is a movie all about social class and the way different social classes inhabit different universes. Manhattan and Brooklyn are two different universes. Travel between those universes is not possible.

This is not a musical. There is dancing. Tony’s obsession with dancing is a major plot point. But it’s not a musical in the usual sense. There are no real big musical production numbers. The dancing sequences are rather unglamorous. Again, this seems to be a deliberate choice. This a story about Tony trying to figure out why his life is going nowhere, why he feels dissatisfied and empty. And trying to figure out if there is something he can do about it. The dancing really is incidental. Tony could have been a tennis player or a guitarist. It wouldn’t have mattered. What matters is that dancing is an escape from reality for him, and perhaps a way out.

What’s fascinating is that this is a visually very unattractive movie and this is clearly deliberate. Everything is grimy and seedy. You can almost smell the garbage rotting in the streets. There’s not a trace of glamour. There’s nothing glamorous about 2001. It’s just a dive. They have dancing and they have strippers as well. You can almost smell the stale liquor, the tobacco smoke, the sweat and the desperation.

This movie is a product of the New American Cinema and it has the miserable feel and scuzzy look often associated with that movement.

Saturday Night Fever is a deeply unpleasant movie about deeply unpleasant people. That was obviously the intention. It’s a good movie but it ain’t a feelgood movie. Recommended, if you know what to expect.

The Blu-Ray release is fine. I suspect this is a movie that was always supposed to look dark and depressing. The audio commentary by director John Badham isn’t really worth bothering with.