I Am Waiting (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

I Am Waiting (1957) – K. Kurahara

Film noir, as a genre with fuzzy boundaries, really did sweep the world – with its roots in pulp fiction (e.g., Dashiell Hammett), it overtook Hollywood in the Forties and Fifties (and continues to this day, but is usually called “neo-noir”).  Ore wa matteru ze (“I am waiting”) is a perfect example of how the genre’s tropes were cut-and-paste into another culture – perhaps it makes sense for Japan to have captured it so well, given the influence that America had at that time (see also Kurosawa’s Stray Dog, 1949).  In this film, the protagonist (Yûjirô Ishihara) is an ex-boxer who retired after killing a man (in a bar fight).  He dreams of following his brother to Brazil to become a farmer, but he just needs to raise the dough (in his own bar/restaurant).  One night, he “rescues” a mysterious trench-coated woman (Mie Kitahara) who was drenched by the rain – she’s in trouble with a bunch of hoodlums, led by a fedora wearing club owner, of course.  (You can see some parallels to Melville’s French version of noir that takes place in similar settings here). One thing leads to another, and it turns out the brother in Brazil never actually made it there – and the club-owner and his henchman are somehow involved.  Director Koreyoshi Kurahara employs many of the clichés of the genre but they feel fresh enough in this different cultural milieu; in Hollywood, this might just be another run-of-the-mill picture in the crowded field of noir. The director went on to more confrontational material in the future (e.g., The Warped Ones, 1960).  

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) – J. Pevney

James Cagney plays Lon Chaney (Sr.) in this biopic of the silent film star.  Cagney excels in the early scenes from Chaney’s vaudeville days (given his own tendency toward being a song-and-dance man) but we see fewer of the performances and more of the tense life story as the picture progresses. Interestingly, it turns out that both of Chaney’s parents were deaf and the family communicated with sign language (his three siblings could also hear), which the film tries to relate to his success in pantomime.  But Chaney had significant troubles with his first wife (played by Dorothy Malone) who yearned for her own career instead of being weighed down by the responsibilities of motherhood. Chaney is less than sympathetic and when she leaves him and their young son, Creighton (later Lon Chaney, Jr.), he is denied custody by the courts who think that his Hollywood career is far from stable. Eventually, when he becomes famous (as a result of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1923, and the Phantom of the Opera, 1925) and remarries (to Jane Greer), his son comes to live with them (often spending time in a remote cabin, given Chaney’s unsociable nature) until he discovers his mother is still alive and leaves to be with her.  Of course, he returns when Chaney begins to have signs of the heart trouble that killed him at only 47.  Overall, a solid, though glum, effort by Cagney and his costars -- but it can’t overcome the clichés of the genre.  I had hoped for some insights into the actual making of films, but alas.   

Run of the Arrow (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Run of the Arrow (1957) – S. Fuller

Sam Fuller brings his blunt brisk directorial style to the Western, not his first but a particularly even-handed look at White-Native American relations during the period just after the Civil War.  Rod Steiger plays a Confederate soldier who refuses to join the United States after the war, preferring instead to head out to the Western territories to join up with the Sioux/Lakota (kudos to Fuller for recognising and explicating these two names).  After falling in with an elderly Sioux man, Walking Coyote (Jay C. Flippen), who worked for the army, Steiger finds himself captured by some young braves led by Crazy Wolf (H. M. Wynant).  They give the pair a chance to escape called “The Run of the Arrow” (they have a head start as far as the arrow can fly but then must run for their lives).  Of course, Steiger succeeds with the help of Yellow Moccasin (Sara Montiel) who becomes his wife when he is accepted into the tribe (foreshadowing Costner’s Dances with Wolves, 1990).  Later, Steiger as a Sioux man is selected to negotiate with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (led by Brian Keith) who seek to build a fort on a Sioux hunting ground. He finds himself opposed by Ralph Meeker’s Lieutenant Driscoll (a Union solider once shot by Steiger’s O’Meara).  As you can see, Steiger is not a perfect hero – he still stands for the South (even when Fuller’s script challenges him with reference to the Ku Klux Klan) and his decision to join the Sioux may be more a reaction to the Civil War and less clearly a love for the Sioux (although he does love his wife and the young mute boy that they adopt). Incidentally, the Sioux are led by Charles Bronson and it seems likely that most of the Native Americans are played by whites; this was likely true of the times and Fuller still manages to make his film feel more progressive than most with this problem. You can see the influence this film had on Jim Jarmusch and his Dead Man (1995), a more recent progressive Western, particularly in the relationship between Walking Coyote and O’Meara.  If only Fuller had access to better resources, this could have had less of a B-movie feel – that said, this is also one of its charms. 

A King in New York (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A King in New York (1957) – C. Chaplin

Chaplin’s last starring vehicle (and penultimate directing effort) is a satirical swipe at the country that just kicked him out (for communist sympathies and moral transgressions).  He plays a European king who has escaped a revolution by fleeing to New York City where he discovers that he is broke, having been fleeced by a member of his government.  To make ends meet (staying in the Ritz Hotel), he starts endorsing products and starring in TV commercials (falling into this rather fortuitously).  On one of his charitable visits to a boys’ school he meets a kid whose parents are communists (eventually sentenced to prison by HUAC); when he ends up looking after the boy (played by his real son Michael Chaplin) when he’s run away from the school, he too is accused of being a communist (ironic since he is a royalist).  These are the basic facts of the plot, but as usual with Chaplin the film is more or less a series of gags sewn together hanging on this loose structure.  The Americans seen in the film are often gauche, obsessed with body hygiene (“you are giving me a complex!”), and, of course, insanely concerned about communism.  Chaplin’s script takes potshots at TV, widescreen films, plastic surgery, the atomic bomb, and more.  Perhaps it isn’t always funny and probably it doesn’t always cohere – but there is enough here to keep you interested and Chaplin is never less than charismatic.  And, at the end, when you discover that the young boy has been forced to name names to get his parents out of prison, you feel that Chaplin has sadly hit the bullseye (and he looks directly at the camera to let you know he knows).  That said, this film fails to scale the heights of Monsieur Verdoux (1947), his last great (and very dark) masterpiece.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) – F. Tashlin

Perhaps you had to grow up in the 1950s to find Frank Tashlin’s films funny (he began by working with Jerry Lewis)?  Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum finds this film to be a subversive masterpiece, but I find myself scratching my head to understand why.  (Tashlin’s Son of Paleface, 1952, with Bob Hope was funnier).  Sure, he brings the same comic book sensibility to this satire of the advertising world, with oddball intertextual references and nearly surreal action (she drops a flowerpot on his head, popcorn pops in his pocket – some of this could have easily happened in Loony Tunes).  Tony Randall plays Rock Hunter, a TV jingle writer who manages to convince Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield) to endorse Stay-Put Lipstick for his agency – but only if he pretends to be her lover (“Lover Doll”) in order to make her current boyfriend (a Tarzan-type) jealous.  Of course, this is all a bit of a tilt at Marilyn Monroe (and Arthur Miller) but sixty years later, it feels rather obvious; that said, there are apparently sly references to all manner of fifties phenomena that went right over my head.  What I didn’t miss was most of the sexual double entendres (aimed at Mansfield’s figure, of course) but there are surprisingly fewer of these than expected. Naturally these aren’t why the Rosenbaum thinks the movie delightfully subversive – instead, it’s the overall assumption that material success isn’t worth it.  Rock Hunter discovers that the big office isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (and he’d rather be a chicken farmer).  In fact, Randall spends the entire film learning that what society taught him to want (money, glossy gals, etc.) isn’t really what he wants.  Maybe that message was more subversive or funny in the 1950s.

  

The Brothers Rico (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Brothers Rico (1957) – P. Karlson

To me, Richard Conte seems the epitome of the noir villain, probably due to his evil role as the crime boss in The Big Combo (1955).  So, when he shows up as a mob accountant turned small business man named Eddie Rico, you aren’t quite sure where he stands.  As it turns out, he’s on the straight-and-narrow – but his younger brothers are still involved with the mob.  And when a once-fatherly mob kingpin asks Eddie to find his brothers (who have gone missing) so that they can be “protected”, Eddie naively helps out (persuading his aging mum to tell what she knows).  Of course, mob kingpins are never that generous and nefarious ulterior motives soon appear; Eddie’s safe family life (he and his wife are about to adopt a child) is soon jeopardised.  Director Phil Karlson doesn’t do anything fancy visually with the material (and Martin Scorsese notes this in his introduction to the film, arguing that this makes it come across tougher); but he’s an old hand at noir and it shows (previous films include Scandal Sheet, 1952; Kansas City Confidential, 1952; 99 River Street, 1953; and The Phenix City Story, 1955).  This isn’t top tier but it’s solid.

  

The Smallest Show on Earth (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Smallest Show on Earth (1957) – B. Dearden

Charming Ealing-style comedy (although not quite as broad or zany) that takes place in a dilapidated old cinema (“the fleapit”), inherited by a young couple (Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers). Along with the cinema comes three aged employees, played by Margaret Rutherford, Bernard Miles, and Peter Sellers (underplaying in old age make-up).  The new owners hope to sell the property to a nearby modern cinema that needs the land for a parking lot but the offer is too low – so they decide to run the movie house (making a small profit!) to force their competitor to raise his bid.  Of course, predictable chaos ensues.  There’s also a sentimental moment where the oldsters are caught showing an old silent film (Comin’ Thro the Rye, 1923) late at night with Rutherford accompanying it on the piano.  This sort of British comedy tickles my fancy and, while not uproarious, The Smallest Show definitely elicited a chuckle or two and that warm feeling of affection toward characters you like.  The black comedic ending does tilt toward the similar vein running through Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) or The Ladykillers (1955).  Worth a look.

I Vampiri (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

I Vampiri (1957) – R. Freda & M. Bava

Mario Bava took over the direction of this Cinemascope horror film from Riccardo Freda after first serving as cinematographer.  A persistent journalist seeks to find a serial killer that the police haven’t been able to identify; the killer’s trademark is that all of the blood is drained from the victim.  Less a vampire film and more of a mad scientist yarn with a close kinship to Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960), all of the victims are female and their disappearance is related to a duchess who refuses to grow old.  Enough said.  The film varies from plodding and stagey to a more gloriously creepy use of the widescreen with Halloween-esque sets visited in tracking shots.  Bava, the master stylist, may have still been learning the ropes (or we could blame Freda for the less fluid parts).  Worth a look for its first peek at Bava who would soon produce Black Sunday (1960), a more fully realized look at his talent. (Beware the shorter American print, I’m told).

Ill Met By Moonlight (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Ill Met By Moonlight (1957) – M. Powell & E. Pressburger

The final joint venture by The Archers, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a straightforward military adventure story that takes place in Occupied Crete in 1944.  Dirk Bogarde is the leader of a small band who plot to kidnap the local German general and smuggle him off-shore to Cairo in order to embarrass the Nazis.  To this suspenseful plot, The Archers add a dose of respect for the local culture, never subtitling the Greek (or German) that is spoken and using the music of Crete liberally on the soundtrack.  Unlike some of their earlier art-directed-to-high-heaven films (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus), things are scenic but not too style-conscious here – rocky mountain vistas predominate.  Bogarde is charmingly heroic and much less chilly than he would later turn for Losey and Pinter.  Not a bullseye but enjoyable nonetheless.

Hell Drivers (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Hell Drivers (1957) – C. Endfield

Sullen Stanley Baker arrives at the gate of a trucking company looking for work.  He’s willing to take the job, despite the clear pressure to break road rules to deliver as many loads as possible each day.  Rough tough and possibly insane Patrick McGoohan is the pacesetter (18 loads per day) and foreman who won’t stand any competition – and will sabotage another driver to keep his status.  Herbert Lom is gentle “Gino” the Italian immigrant who befriends Baker and Peggy Cummins is their love interest.  Cy Endfield directs with panache and this is a truly taut tense tough and gripping affair.  Who knew delivering rocks could be this exciting?  (Maybe Clouzot did – but he had nitroglycerine as the load in The Wages of Fear).  Great cast of British character actors and stars-to-be (including young S. Connery).