Film Reviews by Steve

Comedy-thriller set in a rundown hotel in North Africa during WWII which keeps changing hands as the armies of Montgomery and Rommel advance and retreat. A British soldier (Franchot Tone) wanders in from the Sahara just as the Germans arrive, and assumes the persona of a dead waiter, who turns out to have been a Nazi spy imbedded while the British were last in control.

The film starts with a stark and pessimistic image of the campaign so far, as a British tank full of dead soldiers moves randomly through the dunes. The main thrust is propaganda, as Tone persuades a French, pro-Nazi maid (Anne Baxter) to side with the Allies. Erich von Stroheim plays Erwin Rommel as a stiff, aloof, hubristic Prussian aristocrat.

Most of the comedy is entrusted to Akim Tamiroff as the anxious, baffled but well meaning Egpytian hotel boss, in a fez. The McGuffin of where the Germans have buried their fuel dumps is slight but effective. The story ends with the British sweeping back into town and a moving reminder of the sacrifices that winning the war would entail as we discover the maid was shot by Rommel's men.

The fascists are portrayed as efficient and ruthless, not the fools they appeared in the British comedies of the war years. This has the rich production values those films couldn't dream of. The b&w photography is gorgeous. While it is a diversion, it is a handsome suspense film, and a morale booster that leaves its audience with optimism that the tide of the war has turned.

This follows a platoon of US infantry in WWII, from landing on a beach at Salerno to their primary objective, the seizing of a heavily defended farmhouse six miles away. Which they achieve through great loss of life. It is understated, and unheroic for a US war film. There is no propaganda. Much of the time, the men are waiting, or glimpsing distant flashes of combat.

Yet, it is theatrical. There are three narrative voices on the soundtrack, including a sung commentary of ballads. The constant impassive crosstalk of the soldiers is intended to be realistic; they rarely talk of the danger of their situation, but repeat verbal leitmotifs,  which are usually ironic: "You kill me', 'Nobody dies'. This chorus feels unreal and dreamlike and literary.

 Despite this, many returning soldiers said this best captured their experiences. They walk from the beach to the assignment as members of their group are picked off. The Lieutenant dies on the landing craft and his second in command becomes incapacitated through fear. Dana Andrews stands out as the pragmatic Sergeant suddenly thrust into the role of leader.

 This is another WWII film that brings together an ensemble of many ethnic and social groups.They capture the farmhouse bravely, but the stress of constant danger is unsustainable. It's a weary, noirish film which feels appropriate for men who have been at war for three years with no impression of how it will end. It is one of the best Hollywood combat film made in the war years .

This is a companion to William Wellman's The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), sharing the same writer and some of the cast, as well as its laconic style, abstract studio sets and absence of music. There is a different photographer, but similarly stark, ominous high contrast black and white. It's a fascinating, schematic heist narrative, from a story by WR Burnett.

Six men (Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, et al) rob a bank and are chased into the salt desert of Death Valley. Rather than give themselves up, they continue into the barren, hostile wilderness. As their resilience gives way the outlaws stumble on a ghost town occupied by an old gold prospector (James Barton) and his rugged grand-daughter (Anne Baxter).

 It unfolds like a medieval parable. The men destroy themselves as their desire for the gold and the woman open up their already significant divisions. It's really an anti-western. The men are ruined by their individualism, and the only survivor is Gregory Peck, the gunman who develops the capacity to compromise and not be ruled by impulse.

Predictably Peck plays the tough leader who develops some integrity and Widmark is the cruel, mercenary killer. There's little dialogue, just the visual impact of the derelict shacks huddled in the desert as the men betray each other. It's the sombre mood and melancholy cynicism that linger. It's one of the first of the western noirs to emerge after WWII, and one of the best.

This is the western as political history. Of course it is fictionalised to fit an acceptable narrative, but it is a biopic of Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) a US army scout who constructed a relationship with Cochise (Jeff Chandler) leader of the Apaches in 1861, which was instrumental in ending the war in Arizona. Clearly, it's Hollywood history and primarily an entertainment.

It condemns America's western expansion for ethical reasons as well as for the entrenched racism- which more reflects US values after WWII. It recognises the Apaches' strength as warriors and stresses that they were a civilised and principled people, even compared to American imperialists. It treats their culture as worthy of respect.

There was location shoot in Arizona, in Technicolor. It's a vivid spectacle full of well staged action scenes. As so often, Stewart is able to mute the heroics and reveal the common man within the hero. Chandler is dignified and charismatic and plays Cochise as a philosopher-warrior. Debra Paget is appealing as Jeffords' Apache love interest. .

It reflects on the perspectives of both the indigenous people and the settlers. James Stewart has to do a lot of editorialising to draw out the nuances of their relative positions. Roughnecks on either side threaten the treaty. It humanises the Native Americans and acknowledges that greed and corruption are the instruments which will overwhelm Apache traditions, and their territory.

The Baron (Herbert Marshall) and the Countess (Miriam Hopkins), share a romantic supper in his swanky hotel in Venice. But they soon they tumble each other as fellow con artists. After they have returned the trinkets they lifted from each other, they move to Paris as a duo and steal a diamond covered handbag from a rich perfumer (Kay Francis).

Marshall finagles a job as the tycoon's secretary and develops romantic feelings for her while embezzling a fortune from the company. But Hopkins wants him for herself. It's a love triangle, except two of the lovers are kleptomaniacs trying to gyp the third, and each other.

Marshall is very much at home in Ernst Lubitsch's Paris.  But it's Hopkins film, in a performance that goes a long way to establishing a female archetype of the screwball comedy, with her mix of the ditzy, impulsive and volatile.  

The dialogue is charming and witty and the farce is adorable. But it's also a comedy of manners which refers to Trotsky and the wages of the poor. Surprising and imaginative at every twist this is the last word on the sophisticated comedy which was Lubitsch's gift, set in the romantic destinations of Europe, places of irony, charade and repartee. And scandal. 

Musical version of Anita Loos' durable 1925 novel, via the Broadway stage. It's updated from the jazz age to the 1950s. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are two showgals from Little Rock, Arkansas. Monroe is a gold-digger, Russell a sort of she-wolf. They sail to Paris with the red blooded boys from the US olympics team, and an elderly gent (Charles Coburn) who owns a goldmine.

Predictable chaos ensues. Neither Monroe nor Russell were dancers and they kind of wiggle and sway through the scenes in synchronicity, singing half a dozen pretty good musical numbers, including the legendary showstopper, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.

There's a very funny script by Charles Lederer, heavy with innuendo, and Howard Hawks is a legendary comedy director.  But the film shines because of the two stars. They make dazzling, glittery magic, particularly Monroe, playing a sort of distorted femininity.  Its look probably influenced the future of drag more than mainstream chic. 

 It's completely weightless, and its values are materialistic, mercenary and soulless. But it is hilarious, irreverent and unique. It made Monroe a major star as the good time blonde. What she does here, I'm not sure it's acting at all, or even sexy. But as far as the Hollywood comedy is concerned, she heralds the hedonistic, consumerist '50s.

This is a vehicle for Charles Laughton's ripe comic talents.  He is Ruggles, a valet won in a game of poker by a tycoon from the US west, (Charles Ruggles, channeling Walter Brennan) from an English aristocrat (Roland Young).  It's a fish-out-of-water comedy, but there is also a little propaganda, as the inhibited servant finds freedom and equality in the new world.

There is plenty of Ernst Lubitsch in the premise (and Young and Ruggles are among his regulars) but Leo McCarey paints with a broader brush and a heavier touch. He even has Laughton quite solemnly reciting the Gettysburg Address!

 The earlier scenes are the funniest, as the wife of Laughton's new employer (Mary Boland) tries to get Ruggles to gentrify her reluctant spouse, mocking the (supposed) vulgar pretensions of Americans abroad. Eventually, Ruggles finds dignity in the American west and escapes the control of those in who would exploit his compliance.  

Laughton and Young give most unusual performances, almost catatonic, so inhibited are they in their feudal relationship. They are both damaged by their dependence on each other and their fatalistic belief that this is inevitable. Laughton's acting is a matter of personal taste, but this is his best comedy.

 This is one of the Laurel and Hardy scenarios in which they have jobs, their own homes, and wives, which always feels a stretch because they are incapable of carrying out even the simplest of instructions. We never find out what their work is, only they want to go to their fraternity's yearly convention to make business connections!

Which of course, their wives will not allow. The duo inhabit a domestic world of bullying and fear. Ollie's wife (Mae Busch) is often wielding a big knife and Stan's other half (Dorothy Christie) invariably holding a huge rifle for killing ducks. They go anyway and inevitably get found out. Ollie is punished ruthlessly, with crockery.  

As ever, it's the characters of Stan and Ollie and the comic performances of the great stars that are the best parts of the film; their clowning, their optimism, their aspirations and their inevitable failures justified by the pair through the distorting lens of self delusion.    

There's a good script and Charlie Chase is memorable as the drunk, middle aged practical joker they get lumbered with at the convention. Busch spars well with Ollie, and Christy is really quite scary. Laurel and Hardy often suffered with inauspicious directors and meagre budgets, but this is among their finest.

Low budget film noir with Helen Walker as an unfaithful wife who schemes have her rich husband (Brian Donlevy) murdered during a car trip. When her lover/accomplice fails to complete the kill and is consumed in the flames of a crash with a petrol truck, everyone assumes it is Donlevy's burned corpse at the scene of the accident.

While the concussed, amnesiac husband stumbles into a small town in Idaho to work as a mechanic for the tomboyish Ella Raines, Walker is busted by a smart Irish cop (Charles Coburn) and goes on trial for a murder that never happened.

Impact demonstrates how robust are the conventions of film noir. It's a reshuffling of noir archetypes and situations, made by a minor director and crew with a B standard cast. But it's still very entertaining, with plenty of atmosphere and strong performances.

Donlevy is fine as a schmuck that gets played for a sap, and Raines lifts the second half as the down to earth good girl who contrasts with Walker's glamorous femme fatale. Arthur Lubin was a lifelong director of support features, but he could turn out a pacy thriller and he handles the narrative well.  Film noir rarely lets you down.

The best ever backstage musical offers a vicarious glimpse into life on Broadway in the '30s while also reflecting on contemporary social handicaps. It's one of the the great films about the depression because it approaches it obliquely and through the genre conventions of the musical, avoiding the sanctimony that is sometimes the Hollywood way with the big issues.  

There's a realistic chorus line story with characters which would become archetypes: the lecherous financier (Guy Kibbee); the hardboiled, stage director (Warner Baxter) under pressure and giving the company hell; the sassy, wisecracking, starving dancers led by Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel. Bebe Daniels is the hot tempered diva; Dick Powell the pretty, romantic juvenile.

And of course, as the ingenue who gets her chance when the star goes down lame, Ruby Keeler. In the immortal words of Warner Baxter: 'Sawyer, you're going out a youngster but you've got to come back a star!'. The punchy, sassy dialogue is a blast. OK, Keeler dances like a horse, she's overweight and her acting is little more than enthusiastic, but this doesn't really impair the exprerience.

It's Warner Bothers so there are unpretentious proletariat scenarios. But the last three numbers, are staged by legendary dance director Busby Berkley with prodigious panache.  Shuffle Off to Buffalo, Young and Healthy, and the showstopping 42nd Street. The title song is immortal, and Berkley's living tableau of the Great White Way channels a metropolitan mythology which remains rich and joyous.

Musical biopic- cleaned up from Lillian Roth's bestselling memoir- which is transformed from standard '50s nostalgia for the musical theatre of the depression, into a vehicle for Susan Hayward's huge, dynamic performance. It tells of Lillian's upbringing by her stage-door mother (Jo Van Fleet) and Broadway success before succumbing to alcoholism.

 There's a great big band sound from Alex North which adds a flavour of the vaudeville era, back when mother pushed her little girl to auditions, teaching her to fake her true feelings and desires. When stardom arrives, Roth fills her emotional emptiness with the booze that will drive her from pawnshop to fleapit to dives.

 Susan Hayward got to sing her own numbers, but the film doesn't really feel so much like a musical. It's all about Lillian's self destruction, whether courtesy of the bottle, or men, or business choices. Alcohol completes her, and then it destroys her.  

Daniel Mann creates a rich and credible ambience of backstage rootlessness and after show parties. He has a reputation as a good director of actors and credit to him for allowing Hayward to dominate to such fabulous effect. It's one of the great performances of the decade.

The 12 men of the jury are in recess during the murder trial of a Spanish American teenager charged with killing his father. Eleven think he is guilty. A unanimous vote would send him to the electric chair. Only Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) isn't convinced and stands in the way of his execution. He thinks they should at least talk about it a little.

 Gradually, we become aware that the decisions of the other eleven were based on their assumptions and preconceptions, or even just the dynamics within the jury room, and not on the facts of the case. Doubt passes around the table, from man to man, and the jurors must confront their prejudice, or their own desperate guilt.

 Fonda brings his candid integrity to the role of the quiet hero, who demonstrates the importance of serving your conscience, even if it should isolate you. The rest of the cast (mostly from tv) is expertly selected, and their ensemble work is wonderful. The script reveals their characters with precision and economy building to moments of intense dramatic conflict.

 12 Angry Men demonstrates the precariousness of justice and the personal nature of truth. It is about citizenship and the responsibility of the individual. It is also an incredibly inspiring and moving experience. An astonishing debut from Sidney Lumet who makes a great virtue of the location within a single room.

Howard Hawks' revision of Hecht and MacArthur's 1928 newspaper play The Front Page made star reporter Hildy Johnson a woman and the ex-wife of cynical editor Walter Burns, rather than just a colleague. What a fabulous inspiration, enhanced by a hilarious rewrite from Charles Lederer. The funniest lines are all his.

Cary Grant, as the scheming Burns, and Rosalind Russell as the ultimate fast talking dame, hot shot newshound Hildy, deliver all time great comedy performances. This is screwball heaven. She intends to leave the paper to marry slow-but-steady insurance man Ralph Bellamy. And yes, he's wonderful too.

 The first half hour is the most sublime comedy I've ever seen, as Grant starts to spin his web of deception around Bellamy, and of entrapment around Russell. The story gets steadily darker in tone and eventually critiques the death penalty, the depression, communism and political corruption!

The sparring between the stars is inspired and legendary. The rapid fire dialogue is boundless, dizzying and hilarious. It is weakened by taking Cary off screen for 30 minutes, which just robs it of perfection. The Front Page is a fine comedy (with more emphasis on the business of news reporting) but now this feels definitive. It's the ultimate Hawks screwball. 

This intelligent western is one of the best thrillers of the 1950s. It's mostly a two-hander, with the insidious killer (Glenn Ford) held at gunpoint in a rural town by a stubborn farmer (Van Heflin). While the captive waits for his ruthless gang to spring him before the train arrives to take him to the prison in Yuma, he whittles away at his emergency warder's insecurities...

One of the main attractions is the artistic film noir lighting, but Delmer Daves takes more from noir than its look. This is a psychological film about doubt and anxiety. It also has a remarkable atmosphere for a western, a poetic sense of loneliness most poignantly expressed when the wanted man dallies to seduce a forlorn bar worker, which allows him to be caught.

This melancholy is enhanced by the lovely acoustic guitar score. Of the support cast, Felicia Farr is heartbreaking as the unloved girl willingly seduced by the outlaw's welcome lies. Their sexual liaison is quite candid for '57. The visual imagery is haunting, particularly a very desolate, austere funeral. The script from Elmore Leonard's story is wise, and elegant.  

The brilliant performances of Ford and Heflin dominate, framed against the parched wilderness of the land. The drought that is killing the farmer's herd. Daves directs with finesse. He seems to be gazing into the desolate heart of every scene. This is an exciting thriller, but it's the undertow of sadness that resonates.

Tough psychological western set around the time when the civilising of the west was threatening to end of the age of the outlaw. After many years of peaceful living, an ex-gunfighter (Gary Cooper) by chance runs into his ruthless former gang. He gets sucked into a bank job, while he tries to devise a plan to to extricate himself and co-travelling chanteuse (Julie London).

When the bandits stage the heist they discover the bank is now in a ghost town. They leave a few of their own bodies behind. It is an apt location for their futile shoot out. They are the phantoms of the old west, the anachronistic spirits of men who have outlived their ascendency with the arrival of law and order.

Cooper is 20 years too old, even for a reformed gunfighter. He looks unwell. Consequently Lee J.Cobb is buried under a heap of cosmetics in order to play his uncle. Julie London is for long stretches mostly employed as decoration. But they all still deliver memorable performances.

This is a bleak, brooding western. The family of outlaws are all vicious grotesques. There's some humour early on, but this becomes a bitter, violent experience, with an authentic look. Perhaps it was the film's brutality which meant it didn't find an audience at the time, but it has subsequently become a critics' favourite.