THE TALK OF THE TOWN

 

I recently purchased this movie on DVD at a discounted price (what did you expect??) I had seen THE TALK OF THE TOWN multiple times before, but it had never caught my fancy, despite the fact that it stars two of my favorites, Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. The film was produced and directed by George Stevens, and it wound up getting nominated for seven different Academy Awards (including Best Picture), but for me it is an uneasy mixture of screwball comedy and social drama. 

Jean Arthur plays Nora Shelley, a schoolteacher renting out her old family home during the summer to a distinguished Harvard law professor named Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman). One night while Nora is getting the house ready for Lightcap's arrival, her childhood acquaintance Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) shows up, looking for sanctuary. Dilg has escaped from jail, where he was awaiting trial on charges of murder & arson. The professor also shows up, a day early, and Nora has to hide Leopold while keeping the suspicious Lightcap happy. Leopold reveals himself, posing as a gardener, and he and Lightcap become friends, despite their very different opinions on the application of the law--the professor believes the law should be followed to the letter, while Leopold thinks a flexible human element should be injected into it. Both men are also attracted to Nora, while she's also attracted to them. Nora tries to figure out a way to get Lightcap to help Dilg prove his innocence while keeping the latter from being captured. 

Needless to say, the plot of THE TALK OF THE TOWN is rather convoluted. The story veers from romantic-triangle farce to discussions about law and its effect on the individual. There's also a political aspect to it--the movie takes place in a fictional town called Lochester, which happens to be corrupt. Dilg is accused of burning down the factory owned by the town big-wig, and it's highly likely that Leopold will be lynched if he is caught again. 

With all the various elements of the plot, the movie (and George Stevens) never figures out which tone to take. It appears that Stevens was trying to go down the Frank Capra route, but he isn't able to pull it off, despite all the award accolades the movie received. 

One big issue is that in my opinion Cary Grant is miscast as Leopold Dilg. It is established in the story that Dilg is the town malcontent, a guy always getting into trouble--and one just can't see Grant as that type of person. The very name "Leopold Dilg" suggests someone who has a working-class immigrant background, and that is decidedly not Cary Grant's screen persona. Someone like John Garfield would have been much better as a desperate wanted man with a chip on his shoulder. 

Another issue is that while Dilg and Professor Lightcap are set up as opposites, they wind up becoming fond of each other, almost as fond as each of them are to Nora. Predictably both men even come around to the other's point of view about the law. If the men really had been major romantic and intellectual rivals, the movie would have had more of an edge to it, and it would have been more interesting. (The dramatics over Dilg's plight are tempered by the fact that you just know Cary Grant isn't a murderer and an arsonist.) 

Jean Arthur's poor Nora is stuck in between both men and all the plot complications, and she spends the whole movie in a state of exasperated panic. Arthur is great in this type of role, but you never get the feeling that she's all that enamored of either Dilg or the professor--she worries about them simply because she's the main female lead, and that's what she's supposed to do. 

Among the supporting cast in THE TALK OF THE TOWN: Edgar Buchanan, Glenda Farrell, Tom Tyler, Rex Ingram, and a very small appearance by a young Lloyd Bridges. It's the three main stars that get all the attention, and there are plenty of talky scenes involving the trio that feel like they come from a stage play. 

Cary Grant and Jean Arthur are always worth watching, and Ronald Colman is quite good as the bemused upper-class fellow trying to do the proper thing, but THE TALK OF THE TOWN never seems to come together properly. It is a production that tries hard to be important instead of natural and entertaining. 

DESTINATION MOON On Blu-ray From Film Masters

 

Film Masters continues its series of home video releases of neglected classic genre films with a sparkling Blu-ray of George Pal's 1950 space exploration saga DESTINATION MOON. This release also comes with a bonus disc featuring the 1951 sci-fi adventure FLIGHT TO MARS, a movie about as different from DESTINATION MOON as you can get. (I will be covering FLIGHT TO MARS in a future blog post.) 

DESTINATION MOON was meant to be a serious and earnest attempt to dramatize a realistic trip to the moon, based upon what was known at the time. I'm sure that for many viewers today DESTINATION MOON comes off as quaint and old-fashioned, but one can't deny the honesty and integrity that producer Pal, artist Chesley Bonestell, and writer Robert A. Heinlein applied to the project. 

What needs to be realized is how far-sighted DESTINATION MOON actually was. The main plot details how a group of industrialists and businessmen band together to plan and implement a trip to the moon, despite the fact that the American government--and shadowy forces--are not too keen on the endeavor. That plot description has a very 21st Century feel to it. There are some elements of DESTINATION MOON that seem creaky--Dick Wesson's wisecracking "regular guy" crew member in particular--but the overall production holds up very well if one places it in the proper context. 

What's most important is how great DESTINATION MOON looks on this Blu-ray. The transfer was taken from a new 4K scan of 35mm elements, and it is colorful and clear, bringing out all sorts of detail. The sound quality is excellent as well. 

As usual, Film Masters provides plenty of nice extras. This release comes with an illustrated 15-page booklet that has an essay on the film's production history by Sloan De Forest. The disc has a 23 minute featurette which also details the movie's background and history, along with a gallery of pictures from the film's pressbook. There's also a 40 minute audio reading of an article written by Bob Burns detailing how he actually visited the set of DESTINATION MOON, and his long friendship with George Pal. This extra is presented by Tom Weaver, and it is set up to run along with the last half of the movie. An original restored trailer for the film is also included. 

The main extra is a new audio commentary by George Pal biographer Justin Humphreys. It is an excellent talk that is well-paced, insightful, and informative. Humphreys provides the listener with everything they need to know about DESTINATION MOON, and he rightfully goes out of his way to explain why the movie is one of the most important American genre films ever made. 

For some reason DESTINATION MOON very rarely gets shown on TV anymore, so hopefully this magnificent release gives the film some much-needed attention. A 75 year old movie about a trip to the moon may seem totally outdated to most, but it had a major impact on the cinematic science fiction boom of the 1950s, even though most of its brethren were not in any way as well crafted or as well thought out. Film Masters has been coming out with some impressive products recently, and this Blu-ray of DESTINATION MOON is one of their best releases yet. 

THE DEATH KISS

 

A few weeks ago I took advantage of Kino's summer sale to purchase a few items. One of the Blu-rays I picked up was THE DEATH KISS, a 1932 murder mystery that has become a public domain staple. 

THE DEATH KISS has had a multitude of home video releases over the years, mainly due to the fact that it features three performers from Universal's 1931 DRACULA: Bela Lugosi, David Manners, and Edward Van Sloan. Despite this, THE DEATH KISS is not a horror film--its main novelty comes from the story being set in a minor Hollywood studio. 

The movie starts out with a very clever double twist. We see a well-dressed man exiting what appears to be a nightclub, and a sultry woman proceeds to walk up to him and give him a kiss. The man is then gunned down in a very early cinematic example of a drive-by shooting. It is revealed, however, that this is a scene being staged for a film....and then it is revealed that the actor really was shot and killed. 

This sequence is the best thing in the movie, and it also provides the reason for the title (the man in the scene was given "the death kiss"). The murdered actor is Myles Brent, who despite being the leading man of Tonart Studios has a very bad reputation. Screenwriter Franklyn Drew (David Manners) takes it upon himself to investigate the crime, even though he's hampered by a sarcastic police inspector (John Wray) and the studio manager (Bela Lugosi). 

THE DEATH KISS is what I would call a nifty little feature. There's nothing outstanding about it, but it does provide 70 minutes of decent entertainment, especially if you are an old movie geek. Seeing the behind the camera aspects of a 1930s production company is one major highlight (the story was shot at the Tiffany Studios). There's also the bonus of seeing David Manners, Lugosi, and Edward Van Sloan playing different types of characters. I've always found David Manners to be lightweight and annoying, but he comes off more personable in this picture, even though I have to agree with the police inspector that the screenwriter is a bit of a noisy pain in the neck. Edward Van Sloan plays film director Tom Avery. Usually in a movie that is about movies, directors are portrayed as cartoonish dictatorial types, but Van Sloan's Avery is shown as someone who is trying to get a job done (in more ways than one). The only major female role, that of Tonart Studios' main leading lady, is played by Adrienne Ames, whose character appears to have some sort of involvement with every man in the story. 

Bela Lugosi fans have always been disappointed in THE DEATH KISS, for he really doesn't get all that much to do in it. Bela is once again a red herring, but this time he doesn't even act all that suspicious. At least in this film Lugosi got to play a "normal" role, and he looks quite sharp wearing early 1930s-era suits. A number of misleading publicity stills (see below) were taken for this movie in which it appears that Bela is some sort of diabolical menace, which he assuredly is not. 

The mystery aspects of THE DEATH KISS are quite good, and the methods of murder are quite inventive. The movie can't be called an all-out thriller due to its excess of comedic scenes. There's a dopey studio cop (Vincent Barnett) who gets way too much screen time, and there's also the studio president (Alexander Carr) who constantly mangles the English language, and a prissy production assistant. The movie is enlivened with some brief color hand-tinting, which was restored for this Kino Blu-ray. The hand tinting is striking, but there's very little of it. 

THE DEATH KISS was the directorial debut of Edwin L. Marin, who went on to become a solid Hollywood filmmaker. Like most early 1930s pictures, the story zips along, and it's fun to see a studio from the inside, so to speak. (This movie continues a cliche that I've seen over and over again--whenever a film or TV show is set on a studio lot, we always see cowboys and chorus girls wandering around in the background. The next time you watch a show or movie with studio scenes, look out for this--you could play a drinking game with this cliche.) 

I wouldn't call this Kino Blu-ray of THE DEATH KISS a brilliant restoration, but it is better looking than the usual versions one sees of this film. If you can get over the fact that Bela Lugosi doesn't have anything major to do in it, you'll find that THE DEATH KISS is a nice example of entertaining low-budget 1930s movie making. 

Bela Lugosi and Adrienne Ames in a very misleading publicity still for THE DEATH KISS 

HORROR OF DRACULA On 35mm!

 

Last night I had the rare opportunity to see a 35mm Technicolor print of HORROR OF DRACULA in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center. The showing was part of the Chicago Film Society's "Technicolor Weekend" series, in which a number of classic features were shown in their original color prints--a unusual treat in today's digital age. 

A lady from the Chicago Film Society gave an introduction before the showing, and she explained that this print of HORROR OF DRACULA came from a private collector, who couldn't remember where it came from. It was the real deal--it opened with the Universal-International logo, and it was the full version of the movie, or at least the full American version of the film. 

The print had not been restored or remastered in any way--it had some scratches on it, and there were times when the focus wavered a bit, and it had some wear--but it was a glorious experience to see one of my favorite movies shown in this manner. 

One thing I noticed in particular was how deep and vivid the colors were. if you've seen HORROR OF DRACULA you know that the main titles are in red--and this was a very rich red. The settings and the costumes came off magnificently. The sound was very clear and direct--James Bernard's fabulous punctuation of a score came out wonderfully. 

Once again, this wasn't the version that the present-day Hammer is preparing to put out on home video soon. This was the 1958 HORROR OF DRACULA, shown to American audiences....and I can assure you, there was absolutely no blue tint!!!!

Now....I have to cover the audience reaction, which was notable, to say the least. 

First of all, the seating accommodation in the theater in which it was shown wasn't large, but nearly every seat was filled. I assumed there might be plenty of other Hammer fans in the audience....but as the movie was rolling along, there were plenty of snickers and laughs. There were even some laughs during the climax!

I certainly didn't expect people to worship this film, but some in the theater were laughing at it most of the time. I thought maybe a big-city audience made up of cineastes would put HORROR OF DRACULA in the proper context, but maybe I was expecting too much. (Michael Gough's performance as Arthur Holmwood really got blasted--the audience laughed at nearly everything he said and did.) 

And to top it off, I wore my Peter Cushing shirt to the event.....and no one acknowledged it. Maybe it was because I was also wearing a White Sox hat, or maybe I'm just weird to begin with--heck, I don't know. 

Even though the audience didn't react the way I thought it should, I don't regret driving all the way out to Chicago and dealing with tolls and bad traffic--when are you going to be able to see a Peter Cushing-Christopher Lee film in original 35mm Technicolor? Seeing HORROR OF DRACULA on the big screen in an actual theater was truly tremendous. 

THE MAN UPSTAIRS

 

The final film that I will be covering in Kino's BRIT NOIR COLLECTION III Blu-ray set is THE MAN UPSTAIRS, a 1958 film released by British Lion. 

The entire story of THE MAN UPSTAIRS takes place in a dingy apartment building. The man of the title is played by Richard Attenborough, who one cold night goes out of his way to annoy nearly everyone else in the building he is staying at, causing one of the tenants to call the police. When the police arrive, the situation takes a turn for the worse. The mysterious man (who goes by the name of Wilson) barricades himself in his upstairs room, while various authorities and the other tenants debate how to deal with him.

One would expect THE MAN UPSTAIRS to be all about Attenborough's character and his problems, but he doesn't have as much screen time as one would think. Much of the story is devoted to how numerous officials react to the situation, and how the other tenants feel about Wilson in the context of their own lives. The other tenants are a bickering lot, and they become so annoying that one wonders if they are the ones who have driven Attenborough over the brink. 

The movie tries hard to create sympathy for Attenborough's character and his plight, but it doesn't give the viewer much to go on. Attenborough is edgy, nervy, and temperamental, and eventually we learn he was somehow involved in some sort of accident which caused the death of his fiancee's brother, but this incident isn't established enough. The result is that while watching this movie I kept thinking "Is someone finally going to go up there and deal with this guy??" (I kept expecting a flashback explaining what set off Attenborough, or at least one showing what his character was like when he was "normal", but it never comes.) 

The supporting cast does what they can with some very one-note roles. Bernard Lee is a tough police inspector who just wants to go up and end the situation once and for all (and I can't say I blame him), while Donald Houston is a welfare officer who bends over backward to try and help Attenborough. Patricia Jessel (from CITY OF THE DEAD) is the building's brash landlady, while Kenneth Griffith is a milquetoast tenant and a young Edward Judd plays a constable. 

THE MAN UPSTAIRS was directed by Don Chaffey, who is best known now for helming such colorful fantasy adventures as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. Those movies are about as far away from THE MAN UPSTAIRS as you can get. THE MAN UPSTAIRS is in black & white, very talky, and very claustrophobic. Chaffey and cinematographer Gerald Gibbs do throw in a few unusual shots here and there, and the pace does go up a bit as the story goes along....but just when it seems things are coming to a boil we get another sequence where various people stand around and debate what to do. THE MAN UPSTAIRS might have been better if the focus was squarely on Attenborough and the viewer had more info and insight into his character. 

As in the other BRIT NOIR COLLECTION sets, the visual and audio quality in the third one is excellent. Once again new audio commentaries are provided for each film. In my opinion PAYROLL is the best movie in the third set......and yes, Kino has a BRIT NOIR COLLECTION IV set coming soon. 

If Hammer Films Had Made THE ODYSSEY

 

I know what you are thinking....."Hammer Films would have never had enough money to make a version of THE ODYSSEY!!!" Your thoughts are correct--they would have never even attempted such an epic and highbrow concept. 

But let's say that Hammer's 1965 version of SHE became a huge mainstream success, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, their partner in that production, decided that they wanted to use the British company to make even more ancient spectacles. So....MGM gives Hammer more money than they are used to working with, and they suggest an adaptation of Homer's classic tale. 

Let's imagine that the movie starts out with Peter Cushing as Homer, telling the story to a rapt audience. The film then fades into the main action, with Cushing's voice periodically narrating parts of the story and filling in gaps (such as describing scenes that Hammer didn't have the money or the wherewithal to shoot). 

The cast & crew of this non-existent spectacular is listed below. I know one thing--no matter how it would have turned out, it wouldn't have taken more than three hours of your time to watch it! 

MGM and Hammer Films Presents THE ODYSSEY 

Starring 

Stanley Baker as Odysseus

Oliver Reed as Telemachus

Barbara Shelley as Penelope

Ursula Andress as Helen of Troy

Christopher Lee as Agamemnon

Michael Gough as Antinous 

Michael Ripper as Eumaeus

Martine Beswicke as Athena

Hazel Court as Calypso

Francis Matthews as Menelaus

Andrew Keir as Eurylochus 

Milton Reid as the Cyclops

Richard Pasco, Patrick Troughton, Duncan Lamont, Marne Maitland and George Pastell as members of Odysseus' crew

With special guest star Barbara Steele as Circe and Peter Cushing as Homer 

Special Effects by Ray Harryhausen 

Music by Bernard Herrmann

Screenplay by Richard Matheson 

Produced by Michael Carreras and Anthony Nelson Keys

Directed by Don Chaffey 

THE ODYSSEY

 

I realize that this movie is the major trending topic right now, but personally I wasn't impressed with it. Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's ancient epic is a lumbering, dreary affair that has a murky, overcast look to it. 

Nolan tries to make the story "realistic", which results in a lot of awkward dialogue and awkward performances. None of the main actors seem comfortable with what they are doing--things might have worked better if Nolan used a cast of unknowns, but if he did he wouldn't have gotten the clickbait he received from the trendy people he did use. 

There's a lot of flashbacks and flash-forwards in THE ODYSSEY, which is a Nolan staple, but here it just seems to drag things out more. As with all of Nolan's work, there's a remoteness and coldness here that prevents a viewer from being all that engaged with what is going on. 

Plenty of folks are absolutely gushing over this film, so what do I know? For whatever reason, I just wasn't able to get into it. If someone had given Mario Bava about $200,000, a cast of European cult actors, and about 90 minutes of screen time, and told him to do a version of THE ODYSSEY, he no doubt would have a much more entertaining--and much more interesting--film.