Success in the Cinema:
THE MONEY-MAKING MOVIES,
The Critics’ Choices & the Audience Favorites
John Howard Reid
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Copyright (c) 2011 by John Howard Reid
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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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Original text copyright 2011 by John
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Hollywood Classics 19
2011
Other Books in the “Hollywood Classics” series:
1. New Light on Movie Bests
2. “B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West
5. Memorable Films of the Forties
6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s
7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Supporting Program
8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Movie Entertainment
9. Hollywood Gold: Famous Films of the Forties and Fifties
10. Hollywood “B” Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills
11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics
12. These Great Movies Won No Hollywood Awards
13. Movie Mystery & Suspense
14. Movies International: America’s Best, Britain’s Finest
15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic
16. Hollywood Movie Musicals
17. “Hollywood Classics” Index Books 1-16
18. More Movie Musicals
19. Success in the Cinema
20. Best Western Movies
21. Great Cinema Detectives
22. Great Hollywood Westerns
23. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Cinema
24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies
25. Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24
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Additional Movie Books by John Howard Reid
CinemaScope
One: Stupendous in ’Scope
CinemaScope Two: 20th
Century-Fox
CinemaScope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge
CinemaScope
Four: M-G-M MOVIES Light Up the Screen
Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD: A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills
Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD
British Film Entertainments on VHS and DVD
MUSICALS on DVD
WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD
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Table of Contents
Alias Bulldog Drummond (see Bulldog Jack)
B
C
a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949)
D
E
Ernie Pyle’s Story of G.I. Joe (see the Story of G.I. Joe)
F
G
G.I. Joe (see Story of G.I. Joe)
Going to Town (see Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town)
H
I
J
K
L
Letters of Fire (see Five Star Final)
a Letter to Three Wives (1949)
M
Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1951)
Miss Tatlock’s Millions (1948)
Mister Peabody and the Mermaid (1948)
Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
O
One Fatal Hour (see Five Star Final)
Operation Disaster (see Morning Departure)
P
R
S
the Story of Dr Wassell (1944)
T
U
V
Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936)
W
War Correspondent (see Story of G.I. Joe)
Y
Clark Gable (Harry Patterson), Greer Garson (Emily Sears), Joan Blondell (Helen Melohn), Thomas Mitchell (Mudgin), Tom Tully (Gus), John Qualen (Model T), Richard Haydn (Limo), Lina Romay (Maria), Philip Merivale (“Old” Ramon Estado), Harry Davenport (Dr Ashlon), Tito Renaldo (“Young” Ramon Estado), Pedro de Cordoba (Felipe), Chef Joseph Milani (Rudolfo), Martin Garralaga (Nick), Dorothy Granger (cashier), Elizabeth Russell, Barbara Billingsley, Rebel Randall, Sue Moore (dames), Esther Howard (Blister), Florence Auer (landlady), Eddie Hart (milkman), Lee Phelps (bartender), Morris Ankrum (Ludlow), Martha Wentworth (woman), Byron Foulger (Littleton), Rex Ingram (black preacher), Kay Medford (Red), Stanley Andrews (officer), Bess Flowers (modiste), Tom Kingston (chip man), Sayre Dearing (roulette man), Audrey Totter (Ethel), Ralph Peters (Joe), Joseph Crehan (Ed), Ray Teal (Rio), Marta Liden (Adele), Harry Tyler (doctor), Joan Thorsen (model), Max Davidson, Claire McDowell (people in library), Jack Young (captain), Harry Wilson (big mug), Betty Blythe (Mrs Buckley), Pierre Watkin (Buckley), Charles La Torre (Tony), Dorothy Vaughan (Mrs Ludlow), Garry Owen (Jabbo).
Director: VICTOR FLEMING. Screenplay: Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, Vincent Lawrence. Adapted by Anthony Veiller and William H. Wright from the 1946 novel The Anointed by Clyde Brion Davis. Photography: Joseph Ruttenberg. Film editor: Frank Sullivan. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary. Set decorator: Edwin B. Willis. Costume supervisor: Irene. Special effects: Warren Newcombe. Music composed by Hebert Stothart, orchestrated by Murray Cutter. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Hair styles: Sydney Guilaroff. Associate costume designer: Marion Herwood Keyes. Sound recording supervisor: Douglas Shearer. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Sam Zimbalist.
Copyright 8 January 1946 by Loew’s Inc. A Victor Fleming Production, presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 7 February 1946 (ran 5 weeks). U.S. release: February 1946. U.K. release: 15 April 1946. Australian release: 13 June 1946. 11,793 feet. 131 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Tough bosun meets demure librarian.
NOTES: With a domestic rentals gross of $4.3 million, Adventure came in 13th at North America’s ticket windows in 1946.
For this, Gable’s first picture after his service discharge, M-G-M’s publicity department unleashed the memorably mindless motto: “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!”
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: Based on a novel by Clyde Brion Davis, Adventure starts out as a strong masculine film, an opposite starring vehicle for Clark Gable’s return to the screen after an interlude with Uncle Sam. Clarke plays a tough bo’sun, a man’s man surrounded by other men’s men of the sea (Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen, Tom Tully, Richard Haydn). This merry band spends five days in a lifeboat after their ship has been torpedoed by villainous Orientals. But once on terra-firma, Mitchell, a bit touched by sun and surf, thinks he’s lost his soul. Clark’s a bit touched, too. So they set off together for the nearest library, to learn all about lost souls. Here they encounter Lady Greer Garson, posing as a librarian. At this point, the hardened critic hears wedding bells in the not-so-dim distance. Fait accompli. But just as the critic is gathering up his notes, the veil of celluloid harmony is rent by domestic discord. Clark returns to the sea. Miss Garson descends on Reno.
Needless to say, all this takes a considerable time — 130 minutes to be exact; and one is constantly wondering just what producer Sam Zimbalist had in mind. It must be one of the most weirdo vehicles Gable was ever cast in — and this itself would not be so bad were it not so listlessly presented by all concerned.
OTHER VIEWS: A more conspicuous fizzle than this film cannot be readily imagined — not by this writer anyhow. And if anyone wants a prize example of bungling and bad taste he might point right at Adventure and say, “People, there it is!”
— Bosley Crowther in the New York Times.
This must be one of the most talkie films Gable was ever cast in. Fleming’s idea of direction seems to have been to cram as much dialogue into every second as possible — and such dialogue: it would bore the teeth off a camel! It’s not as if he was trying to get it out of the way to concentrate on the action scenes, as these are presented in a most desultory fashion, largely off-camera. And despite the cracking pace with which the dialogue is delivered, it often seems some scenes (the encounter in the library, the aftermath of the marriage) are never going to end! The players try to liven up the film by gross over-acting — to no avail. Nothing could liven up a story of such mind-numbing absurdity, or bring to life such a parade of muddled characters whose erratic behaviour defies both sympathy and credulity! Despite the long running-time, the film was obviously made on the cheap. A process screen is used for every exterior, the direction is flat, the photography uninteresting and the music score banal.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.
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Edward G. Robinson (Joe Keller), Burt Lancaster (Chris Keller), Mady Christians (Kate Keller), Louisa Horton (Ann Deever), Howard Duff (George Deever), Frank Conroy (Herbert Deever), Lloyd Gough (Jim Bayliss), Arlene Francis (Sue Bayliss), Henry Morgan (Frank Lubey), Elisabeth Fraser (Lydia Lubey), Walter Soderling (Charles), Therese Lyon (Minnie), Charles Meredith (Ellsworth), William Johnstone (attorney), Herbert Vigran (Wertheimer), Harry Harvey (judge), Pat Flaherty (bartender), George Sorel (headwaiter), Helen Brown (Mrs Hamilton), Herbert Haywood (McGraw), Joseph Kerr (Norton), Jerry Hausner (Halliday), Frank Kreig (foreman), William Ruhl (Ed), Al Murphy (Tom), Walter Boon (Jorgenson), Richard La Marr (workman), Victor Zimmerman, George Slocum (attendants).
Directed by IRVING REIS from a screenplay by Chester Erskine based on the stage play by Arthur Miller. Photographed by Russell Metty. Film editor: Ralph Dawson. Music composed by Leith Stevens and orchestrated by David Tamkin. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun and Hilyard Brown. Set decorations: Russell A. Gausman and Al Fields. Costumes designed by Grace Houston. Hair styles: Carmen Dirigo. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Special photographic effects: David S. Horsley. Camera operator: Phil Lathrop. Assistant director: Frank Shaw. Script supervisor: D. Hughes. Grip: Dean Paup. Still cameraman: Sherman Clark. Production manager: L. Leary. Sound recording: Leslie I. Carey and Corson Jowett. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Chester Erskine.
Copyright by Universal Pictures Co., Inc., 8 June 1948. U.S. release date: April1948. New York opening at Loew’s Criterion: 27 March 1948. U.K. release: 11 October 1948. Australian release: 1 July 1948. 8,449 feet. 94 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A small-town manufacturer is exonerated when his plant sells defective airplane parts to the U.S. government during World War 2. His partner, however, is sent to prison.
NOTES: First of only two films for stage actress, Louisa Horton, the other being Walk East on Beacon (1952).
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Suitable for all.
COMMENT: Arthur Miller’s stage play, All My Sons, began the first of 328 performances at the Coronet Theatre in New York on the evening of 29 January 1947. It was produced by Harold Clurman, Walter Fried, Herbert H. Harris and Elia Kazan and was directed by Kazan. It starred Ed Begley as Joe Keller and Arthur Kennedy as Chris. Although the critics were not wildly enthusiastic at the time — they praised the play’s human and moral values but denigrated some of its structural devices such as the reliance on coincidence, a slip of the tongue and the too-convenient introduction of a letter — they later voted it the best play of the year, by-passing Eugene O’Neil’s The Iceman Cometh to do so.
The screen rights were purchased in May 1947 and Miller himself — who had become famous literally overnight — was asked to write the screenplay. He refused, however, as he felt he had already done enough work on it and wanted to concentrate on something fresh. This was perhaps just as well for Miller had made another structural mistake on the play — which he didn’t concede at the time, though he was later to come around to the critics’ viewpoint — which he would doubtless have perpetuated in the screen version. This was the long, slowly-paced and often deliberately banal First Act. This Act is three times as long as Act Three and almost as long as Acts Two and Three together. Miller’s idea was to give the audience an impression of everyday normalcy. As the curtain opens, we find Joe Keller and Jim Bayliss sitting out in the yard, each reading a section of the Sunday newspaper. Jim stands up, taps his pipe on a tree, blows through the pipe, feels in his pockets for tobacco. He has none, so he asks Joe for some. Joe thinks he left his pouch on the table. Jim walks, “slowly” Miller directs, all the way across the stage, finds the pouch and fills his pipe. Then Keller says, “Gonna rain tonight”. There is a brief exchange of dialogue. Then the neighbour, Frank Lubey enters and he, according to Miller’s direction, “rather saunters in, leisurely, nothing to do”. There follows a good deal of expository dialogue, cleverly disguised, but more than somewhat padded out, and concluding with a long, totally irrelevant and wearisome duet between Keller and an eight-year-old neighbourhood kid called Bert, who, I am pleased to say, has been completely eliminated from the film version.
There is no need to go on. The rest of the Act proceeds in the same fashion (fortunately only the gist of the explanatory dialogue is retained in the film) until towards the end, the subject of the cracked cylinders is broached. Keller has some solid dialogue here which Robinson gets his teeth into with relish in the film.
Acts Two and Three are much faster in pace and most of their speech is carried over intact into the film. Erskine has used some pointers in the play to vary the settings (the visit to the restaurant, the card game) and has introduced a few new characters (most importantly and obviously, Herbert Deever, beautifully played with just the right note of resigned bitterness by Frank Conroy). He has also penned a memorable line of dialogue — “If you want to know, ask Joe!” — which makes Chris’s realisation of his father’s guilt clearer. In all, as far as the screenplay is concerned, it adopts a faithful, yet cinema-conscious approach to the original.
Irving Reis’s direction is inclined to be static, but it has its moments (the camera tracking back in close-up as the woman advances on Keller’s table). Russell Metty’s skilled cinematography contributes to the atmosphere.
But it is Robinson’s powerful performance that really holds the film together, even though it is the sort of character study with which he has made us perhaps a trifle over-familiar over the years. Burt Lancaster does not fill Arthur Kennedy’s shoes as well as Robinson does Ed Begley’s, but he makes a game try even though he is not as perfectly cast as is Howard Duff as the somewhat boorish George. The rest of the players are equally effective. Particular mention must be made of Mady Christians and Louisa Horton, both of whom handle roles of some difficulty with subtlety and skill.
Production values are generally first-class, though the sets are inclined to look more like Hollywood back-lot than the outskirts of middle-class suburbia.
— John Howard Reid.
OTHER VIEWS: Superb performances from a strong cast give this film considerable dramatic impact, particularly in the exchanges between Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster. The theatrical origin shows through from time to time but it remains an arresting and gripping film.
— E.V.D.
This adaptation of Arthur Miller’s stage play, respectfully directed and lovingly photographed, comes across as an earnest though not particularly distinguished affair. It is theatrically larger-than-life both in dialogue and characterisation and is played, more often than not, with all stops out. This does not make for the convincing naturalness the writer/producer is obviously aiming for. The trouble is though that when the performers are not barnstorming around the cinematic stage, the proceedings drag by at a pace that can only be described as “dreary”. Perhaps this alternation of the wearisomely banal and commonplace with episodes of frenzied melodrama, works well on the stage and involves the audience effectively, but on the cinema screen it leaves most audiences cold. When melodrama is acceptable on the screen the pace must be fast and it must be leavened with humour or wit — or, alternatively, the characters must move through settings of incredible luxury. All My Sons is neither fast nor funny, while its backgrounds are as familiar as our own kitchen. Miller has stated that he was strongly influenced by Ibsen in the writing of All My Sons. The influence of Ibsen is not only evident in Miller’s construction and methods of characterization, but the plot line itself has obviously been taken over from Ibsen’s play, Pillars of Society (1877). Like Consul Bernick who is prepared to send a ship out of his yard knowing it to be unseaworthy, Joe Keller feels no guilt for his action until it is sheeted home to him by the death (in Ibsen’s play the supposed death) of his own son. The relationship between Bernick and his foreman, Aune, is akin to that between Keller and Deever.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.
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Helen Morgan (Kitty Darling), Joan Peers (April Darling), Fuller Mellish, Jr (Hitch Nelson), Henry Wadsworth (Tony, the sailor), Jack Cameron (Joe King), Dorothy Cumming (Mother Superior), Roy Hargrave (Slim Lamont), Mack Gray (Slim’s brother), Jack Singer (producer), William Browning.
Director: ROUBEN MAMOULIAN. Screenplay: Garrett Fort. Based on the novel by Beth Brown. Photography: George Folsey. Film editor: George Bassler. Songs: “What Wouldn’t I Do For That Man” (Morgan) by E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney; “Give Your Little Baby Lots of Lovin’ ” (Morgan) by Dolly Morse and Joe Burke; “I’ve Got a Feelin’ I’m Fallin’ ” by Billy Rose, Harry Link and Fats Waller; “Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula” by E. Ray Goetz, Pete Wendling and Joe Young; “Pretty Baby”, “Waiting For the Robert E. Lee”, “The Turkey Trot”. Sound recording: Ernest F. Zatorsky. Producer: Monta Bell. Uncredited producers: Jesse L. Lasky, Walter Wanger. Executive producer: Adolph Zukor.
Copyright 3 January 1930 by Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. U.S. release: 30 August 1930. New York opening at the Criterion: 7 October 1929 (sic). U.K. release: 28 April 1930. 9 reels. 7,357 feet. 82 minutes. Censored to 80 minutes in Great Britain.
SYNOPSIS: The convent-educated daughter of a burlesque queen doesn’t wish to follow her mother’s footsteps.
NOTES: Film debuts of Fuller Mellish, Jr (he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrage on 8 February 1935, after making only two more movie appearances), Jack Cameron (he made only one more movie appearance as a footman in Little Lord Fauntleroy), and Henry Wadsworth. Final film of Dorothy Cumming (she died in 1985).
COMMENT: This first film from Broadway director Rouben Mamoulian garnered plenty of well-deserved praise in its day for its technical breakthroughs in the early days of sound (although with a few important reservations) and was still being hailed as a masterpiece in the 1980s, but it now seems both a little dated and much too downbeat. With two notable exceptions, the players seem to go out of their way to overstate their portrayals, though they all remain starkly effective nonetheless. Oddly, it’s the neglected Henry Wadsworth (whom everyone overlooks in the rush to eulogize Helen Morgan) who easily walks away with the acting honors, giving an attractively sincere, natural performance in what is after all a rather hackneyed role. Joan Peers comes across convincingly too, her very awkwardness contributing to the effectiveness and credibility of her role. This is not say that Helen Morgan and Fuller Mellish fail to make any impression. In fact they enact their roles so forcefully they both lose all audience sympathy. And sympathy is what Kitty Darling badly needs.
Mamoulian has directed in an innovative and arresting style. But to what purpose? His portrait of burlesque is ugly and horrible, yet probably no more true to life than all the rosy flashbacks in films of the forties. Whilst the truth doubtless lies midway between these two extremes, I’d rather watch the lovely chorines conjured by Busby Berkeley, Dave Gould, LeRoy Prinz and company than the leering, seedy, ravaged faces Mamoulian constantly thrusts before our eyes in Applause. In fact the musical numbers and songs are not presented with any choreographic or visual excitements at all. The director’s emphasis remains solidly fixated on the tawdry and repulsive.
When I was a student, this movie was often touted as one of the greatest films ever made. It fails to live up to that reputation.
OTHER VIEWS: The villain seems to be patterned after his ilk in the melodramas of old... Applause is a sordid tale without the saving grace of real drama.
— Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times.
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Pat O’Brien (Bill Morgan), Joan Blondell (Timmy Blake), Margaret Lindsay (Arline Wade), John Litel (Dr Eugene Forde), Eddie Acuff (Murphy), Craig Reynolds (Snoop Davis), George E. Stone (Mac), Walter Byron (Carlton Whitney), Ben Welden (Sam Sherman), Regis Toomey (Buck), Raymond Brown (Attorney Bottsford), Gordon Hart (Dr Hanley), Granville Bates (Dr Evans), Herbert Rawlinson (District Attorney Saunders), Spencer Charters (sheriff), Emmett Vogan (1st telephone operator), Edward Gargan (guard), Frank Faylen (reporter), Howard Hickman (judge), Bernice Pilot (Dorinda), Anderson Lawler (Dutch Jason), Bill Hopper (Pete Edington), Milton Kibbee (Pink Thomas), Edward Price (Sid Roark), Veda Ann Borg (Gertrude), Ellen Clancy (Alice), Willard Parker (Ben), John Harron (George), Loia Cheaney (Enid), Robert Darrell (assistant despatcher), Eddy Chandler (chief operator), Tom Brower (foreman), Spec O’Donnell, Jack Bart (newsboys), “Babe” Kane (switchboard operator), Stuart Holmes (barman).
Director: RAY ENRIGHT. Screenplay: Warren Duff. Based on a Cosmopolitan magazine story by Adela Rogers St John. Photography: Arthur L. Todd. Film editor: Clarence Kolster. Music director: Leo F. Forbstein. Art director: Hugh Reticker. Dialogue director: Jo Graham. Costumes: Howard Shoup. RCA Sound System. A First National Pictures Associate producer: Sam Bischoff. Producer: Hal B. Wallis.
Copyright 21 September 1937 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Strand: 3 October 1937. U.S. release: 25 September 1937. Australian release: December 1937. 9 reels. 82 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Newspaperwoman has more trouble landing editor than scooping headlines.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Okay for all.
COMMENT Not highly regarded by contemporary reviewers, probably suffering a surfeit of crisp-paced, fast-talking newspaper yarns, but it will probably delight today’s nostalgia buff. O’Brien and Blondell are expertly cast and Margaret Lindsay gives a stand-out performance as the victim of yellow press scandalmongering. The support cast is also a joy, the dialogue has zip, the direction sparkle and production values are comparatively lavish.
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Irene Dunne (Ray Schmidt), John Boles (Walter Saxel), June Clyde (Freda Schmidt), George Meeker (Kurt Shendler), ZaSu Pitts (Mrs Dole), Shirley Grey (Francine), Doris Lloyd (Mrs Saxel), William Bakewell (Richard Saxel), Arletta Duncan (Beth Saxel), Maude Turner Gordon (Mrs Saxel, Sr), Walter Catlett (Bakeless), James Donlan (Profhero), Paul Weigel (Schmidt), Jane Darwell (Mrs Schmidt), Robert McWade (Uncle Felix), Paul Fix (Hugo Hack) Russell Hopton, Gene Morgan, James Flavin (reporters), James Farley (conductor), Bob Burns (streetcar conductor), Rolfe Sedan (croupier), Grace Hayle (lady in street), Jack Chefe (onlooker), Mahlon Hamilton, Virginia Pearson, Caryl Lincoln Beulah Hutton, Rosalie Roy, Tom Karrigan, Rose Dione.
Director: JOHN M. STAHL. Screenplay: Gladys Lehman. Dialogue: Lynn Starling. Based on the 1931 novel by Fannie Hurst. Photography: Karl Freund. Film editor: Milton Carruth. Art director: Charles D. Hall. Costumes: Vera West. Assistant director: Scott R. Beal. Sound. C. Roy Hunter. Associate producer: E.M. Asher. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.
Copyright 25 July 1932 by Universal Pictures Corp. U.K. release: February 1933. New York opening at the Mayfair: 28 August 1932. 10 reels. 93 minutes.
NOTES: This first version of Fannie Hurst’s perennial best-seller has had a curious history. When it opened at the Mayfair Theatre on 28 August 1932, critics were not unkind about Miss Dunne’s performance (indeed some went overboard in praise) but the writing and the direction came in for some criticism. The public, however, loved it and the film was nationally reissued in 1935 and the novel itself was remade in 1941 and 1961. These remakes caused this original version to be suppressed until it surfaced again at the 1970 New York Film Festival. This time, Stahl’s direction was lavishly praised (especially by auteur critics, Stahl having gradually amassed a kind of pre-Douglas Sirk reputation since his death in 1950) and Miss Dunne received much less attention.
Voted number 9 in The Film Daily Annual Poll of American Film Critics for the Ten Best Pictures of 1932.
COMMENT: Stahl’s trilogy Magnificent Obsession, Back Street and Imitation of Life have a dignity and conviction that the Hollywood weepie rarely carries, totally out-classing their fifties’ remakes for all their real locations and glossy color. The film’s surprising female-equality theme occurs again in Stahl’s The Walls of Jericho (1948) and it is unfortunate that the current feminist movement has been so directed to the work of women directors as to ignore the more significant contribution of writers (like Fannie Hurst) and missing the chance to pick out interesting films like these.
Technically, much of the direction is unfortunately awkward with eye-lines that don’t match and clumsy film editing. The unnecessary ZaSu Pitts character weakens many scenes. While some of the support players are excellent, John Boles is always stiff and faintly ridiculous in his bowler hat, upsetting the film’s balance of sympathies. The few moments of good film handling — the shot of the neighbour with her dress blazing, the mixes to the tragic band concert which cover the final explanation — stand out from the film’s routine texture.
Back Street certainly derives most of its appeal from the superb performance by Irene Dunne. Here, as in Show Boat (1936) and Cimarron (1931), she ages from young girl to grey-headed matron (the make-up job is outstanding). With only a few implausible characteristics (given her by the writers), she builds up a complete character of the lively 18-year-old who sacrifices her career and then her entire life for the married man who keeps her (advising the neighbour without bitterness, “There isn’t one woman in a thousand who’s ever found happiness in the back streets of any man’s life.”).
As a mirror of its time, Back Street is quite intriguing. The opening title refers to the period before the 18th Amendment and there is an effective contrast between the small town where Ray is step-daughter in a complacent family and the city where she makes her career.
The low-contrast photography, lack of hysterical emphases, the documentation of the period and, above all, the sustained two-shots in which Irene Dunne carries the film, make this a rewarding movie which is remembered after less flawed films have totally faded.
— Barrie Pattison.
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Charles Boyer (Walter Saxel), Margaret Sullavan (Ray Smith), Richard Carlson (Curt Stanton), Frank McHugh (Ed Porter), Tim Holt (Richard Saxel), Frank Jenks (Harry Niles), Esther Dale (Mrs Smith), Samuel S. Hinds (Felix Darren), Peggy Stewart (Freda Smith), Nell O’Day (Elizabeth Saxel), Kitty O’Neil (Mrs Dilling), Nella Walker (Corinne Saxel), Cecil Cunningham (Mrs Miller), Marjorie Gateson (Mrs Adams), Dale Winter (Miss Evans), Charles Arnt (Mason), Emmett Vogan (card player with glasses), Eddie Acuff (card player), Irving Bacon (ticket clerk), Charles Watts (hotel clerk), Charles Lane (Blake), Charles Trowbridge (Captain Anderson).
Director: ROBERT STEVENSON. Screenplay: Bruce Manning, Felix Jackson. Based on the 1931 novel by Fannie Hurst. Photography: William Daniels. Film editor: Ted Kent. Music director: Charles Previn. Assistant director: Seward Webb. Sound supervisor: Bernard B. Brown. Art directors: Jack Otterson and Richard H. Riedel. Set decorator: Russell A. Gausman. Costumes: Vera West. Costumes for Miss Sullavan designed by Muriel King. Music composed by Frank Skinner. Sound technician: William Hedgcock. Associate producer: Frank Shaw. Producer: Bruce Manning. A Bruce Manning Production, presented by Universal Studios.
Copyright 5 February 1941 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Rivoli: 11 February 1941. U.S. release: 7 February 1941. Australian release: 12 June 1941. 8,131 feet. 90 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A lifelong love affair between a married man and a young woman who is content to remain in the background.
NOTES: Number 14 at Australian ticket-windows for 1941.
Frank Skinner was nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture, losing to All That Money Can Buy.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Okay for all.
COMMENT: At 90 minutes, this second picturization of Fannie Hurst’s bestseller, doesn’t out-stay its welcome. Indeed, this is my favorite version. It has everything: Deft acting by a fine cast, including Frank McHugh, who is surprisingly effective in a rare dramatic role; exceptionally attractive photography; marvelous sets; a superb music score; and gloss-high production values.
Poignant, tragic, yet beautiful, this stirring “if only” story has been realized with masterful skill by director Robert Stevenson. Of course, he had the talents of the exquisitely vulnerable Margaret Sullavan to work with. Plus Charles Boyer. No actor was ever more skilful in the interpretation of utterly charming yet essentially weak-willed characters than Boyer, who is perfectly cast here as the banker who is unwilling to toss aside his reputation and social standing for True Love.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.
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Susan Hayward (Rae Smith), John Gavin (Paul Saxon), Vera Miles (Liz Saxon), Virginia Grey (Janie), Charles Drake (Curt Stanton), Reginald Gardiner (Dalian), Tammy Marihugh (Caroline Saxon), Robert Eyer (Paul Saxon, Jr), Natalie Schafer (Mrs Evans), Doreen McLean (Miss Hatfield), Alex Gerry (Venner), Karen Norris (Mrs Penworth), Hayden Rorke (Charley Claypole), Mary Lawrence (Marge Claypole), Joe Cronin (airport clerk), Ted Thorpe (hotel clerk), Joseph Mell (proprietor), Dick Kallman (sailor), Joyce Meadows (showroom model), Lilyan Chauvin (Paris airport employee), Joanne Betay, Vivianne Porte, Isabelle Felder, Melissa Weston, Bea Ammidown (Harper’s Bazaar models).
Director: DAVID MILLER. Screenplay: Eleanore Griffin, William Ludwig. Based on the novel by Fannie Hurst. Photographed in Eastman Color by Pathe by Stanley Cortez. Film editor: Milton Carruth. Art director: Alexander Golitzen. Dialogue director: Leon Charles. Music composed by Frank Skinner, supervised by Joseph Gershenson. Title song by Frank Skinner (music) and Ken Darby (lyrics). Set decorations: Howard Bristol. Costumes: Jean Louis. Hair styles: Larry Germain. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Assistant director: Phil Bowles. 2nd assistant director: James Welch. Script supervisor: Marshal Wolins. Oil paintings by Alison Hunter. Harper’s sketches: David Webb. Furs: Alexandre. Production manager: Lew Leary. Sound: Waldon O. Watson, Frank H. Wilkinson. Producer: Ross Hunter. A Ross Hunter-Carrollton Production for Universal-International.
Copyright 20 August 1961 by Ross Hunter Productions/Carrollton, Inc. Released by Universal-International. New York opening at the Capitol: 12 October 1961. U.S. release: 11 October 1961. U.K. release: 5 November 1961. Australian release: 27 October 1961. 9,630 feet. 107 minutes. Censored by approximately 1 minute in Australia.
SYNOPSIS: World War II has just ended and Marine Corps Captain Paul Saxon (John Gavin), flying home to Chicago, is grounded at Lincoln, Nebraska, where Rae Smith (Susan Hayward) is a U.S.O. hostess at the airport. Leaving the canteen to meet her fiance, Curt Stanton (Charles Drake), Paul discovers that she has a midnight appointment there with Venner (Alex Gerry), who professes interest in Rae’s fashion sketches.
Later, when Venner makes a pass at Rae, Paul comes to her rescue. There is instant attraction between the pair and next day when Paul reveals that he is heir to the Saxon Department Store chain and Rae tells of her ambition to be a fashion designer, they decide that she will accompany him to Chicago.
Paul, however, confesses he has problems, and Rae bitterly suspects another woman. Although her sister Janie (Virginia Grey) urges her to go with Paul, Rae hesitates too long and misses Paul’s plane.
Weeks later, Rae learns that Paul is married. Moving to New York, she goes to work for courturier Dalian (Reginald Gardiner), and becomes a successful designer, and when Paul finally traces Rae to that city, she tells him she knows of his marriage and is not content to be the “other woman”.
NOTES: Nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Color Costume Design, Jean Louis, lost to Irene Sharaff for West Side Story.
COMMENT: An uninteresting example of how to make a fairly glossy-looking film on a somewhat limited budget — the $2½ million quoted by Time would not just be the negative expenditure, but a proportion of studio overheads and most importantly the cost of advertising and publicity plus the cost of the release prints. If we add these factors to the salaries of Susan Hayward and the rest of the cast and the admittedly modest fees of the technical crew, we have a what’s-actually-on-the-screen cost — the sets, the costumes, the real locations, the number and variety of camera angles, the music, the lighting — of less than $1 million.
To achieve a quality-looking end product on this sort of budget, it is necessary to cut corners. One of the first decisions Ross Hunter made, would have been to film and make release prints in the comparatively inexpensive Pathécolor and to hire ace but also comparatively inexpensive cinematographer Cortez — an expert with Pathécolor — to achieve a glossy look, despite some of the technical disadvantages and inadequacies inherent in the process which tends to accentuate blues and put blue tones through everything, especially whites. Cortez has risen to the challenge nobly. His glossy lighting and pastel-toned colorations are really the only factor that make this version of Back Street worth seeing.
Miss Hayward is obviously too old for the young heroine, a fact which no amount of pancake make-up can disguise. While Vera Miles and Reginald Gardiner contribute some interest to the cast line-up, acting generally is rather dreary.
Miller’s direction is flat-footed and uninteresting and seems mainly confined to ensuring that the camera does not pan off the set.
John Gavin did a day’s shooting on location in New York, but Miss Hayward and the rest of the cast remained firmly in the studio with a very obvious double doubling for Miss H in the New York, Rome and location sequences (which were, however, shot by Cortez himself — another advantage in hiring an inexpensive cameraman).
The film moves at a reasonable pace and the old melodramatic story still has a bit of punch. The sets, the gloss, the photography and the music help make its 107 mins fairly entertaining despite everything — the dated and ridiculous story with its improbable characterizations, the overacting of Miss Hayward, the stodgy portrayals of Mr Gavin and many of the other players including Mr Drake, and the use of process screens and other budget-trimming stratagems.
OTHER VIEWS: A woman’s picture of the old sudsy school, this release figures to bring out the hanky brigade. Ladies are apt to enjoy every moment of romantic misery but men who tag along may be miserable… The yarn is never fully plausible, nor are the characters (especially the sour wife). The drama is full of coincidence, the dialogue full of gush.
— Variety.
“The funny thing about life,” Miss Hayward announces at one point, “is that all the old clichés are true” — and maybe they are, but they are downright boring all the same.
— Paul V. Beckley in The New York Herald Tribune.
The performances are drowned in the script’s sea of clichés, ponderous emotional significance and heavily contrived attempts to draw water from the tear ducts. The last half-hour is especially appalling with its completely unbelievable storyline and some incredible dialogue.
— E. V. Dyer.
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W. C. Fields (Egbert Sousé), Cora Witherspoon (Agatha Sousé), Una Merkel (Myrtle Sousé), Evelyn Del Rio (Elsie Mae Adele Brunch Sousé), Jessie Ralph (Mrs Hermisillo Brunch), Franklin Pangborn (J. Pinkerton Snoopington), Shemp Howard (Joe Guelpe), Richard Purcell (Mackley Q. Greene), Grady Sutton (Og Oggilby), Russell Hicks (J. Frothingham Waterbury), Pierre Watkin (Skinner), Al Hill (Repulsive Rogan), George Moran (Loudmouth McNasty), Bill Wolfe (Otis), Jack Norton (A. Pismo Clam), Pat West (assistant director), Reed Hadley (Francois), Heather Wilde (Miss Plupp), Harlan Briggs (Doctor Stall), Bill Alston (Cheek), Jan Duggan (woman in bank), Kay Sutton (young woman on bench), Fay Adler (bank president’s secretary), Bobby Larson (boy in bank), Russel Cole (bank clerk), Pat O’Malley (cop), Billy Mitchell (black bank customer), Eddie Dunn (James, the chauffeur), Emmett Vogan (hotel desk clerk), Margaret Seddon (old lady in car), Eddie Acuff (reporter), Mary Field (woman), Dorothy Haas (script girl).
Director: EDWARD CLINE. Original story and screenplay: W. C. Fields (under the pseudonym “Mahatma Kane Jeeves”). Photography: Milton Krasner. Film editor: Arthur Hilton. Art directors: Jack Otterson, Richard H. Riedel. Set decorations: Russell A. Gausman. Costumes: Vera West. Music director: Charles Previn. Chase director: Ralph Ceder. Sound recording: Bernard B. Brown. Sound technician: William Hedgcock. Western Electric Sound System. No producer credited.
Copyright 29 November 1940 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Palace: 12 December 1940. U.S. release: 29 November 1940. Australian release: 3 April 1941. 8 reels. 6,453 feet. 73 minutes.
U.K. release title: The BANK DETECTIVE.
SYNOPSIS: Some years before, Egbert Sousé won a Bank Night prize, and since then has done nothing more strenuous than lift a few liquid stimulants daily at the Black Pussy Cat Café. At this same café, Egbert meets Mackley Q. Greene, manager of the Tel-Avis Picture Productions, in Sousé’s town (Lompoc) on a location trip. Spinning a tale of his career with Griffith, Sennett, etc., Sousé impresses Greene, who engages Egbert to finish direction of a picture on which they are engaged. Egbert starts, but is called off the job when the regular director, A. Pismo Clam, sobers up.
Once more seated on a bench waiting for the Black Pussy Café to open for business, Egbert’s relaxation is spoiled when a bandit, making his escape after robbing the bank, trips over Egbert’s feet. When the police arrive, Egbert is sitting on the outlaw. At the bank, Egbert is complimented for his bravery by Mr Skinner, the bank president, and awarded the job of special officer.
NOTES: Universal’s top money-making domestic release of 1940.
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Unsuitable for bluenoses, killjoys, wowsers, prohibitionists, Baptists, Methodists and other Bible belters including Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists, conservative politicians, business and family men, child psychologists, feminists, doctors, bankers, hotel-keepers, film producers, auditors and other sundry shopkeepers and pillars of society.
COMMENT: One of the funniest films ever made. A shotgun blast of barbs, bites, visual and aural put-downs, slapstick, wit, sarcasm and satire. Virtually no authority figure is spared as Fields mockingly undermines just about everybody in town from the local bank president to his mother-in-law.
Fields’ disarmingly casual delivery is brilliantly utilized by the director to drive home every jape and jest to perfection. But screenwriter Fields has not only provided a wonderful character and superlatively funny bits of business for himself, but has handed almost equally meaty opportunities to other members of the cast, particularly Grady Sutton (his best role ever), Bill Wolfe as a walking hunger-striker, Jack Norton as the inebriated Clam, Franklin Pangborn as the classic prissy snooper, Shemp Howard as the tender of the impossibly bric-a-braced Black Pussy Café, and even Dick Purcell as a marvelously gullible publicity man. (This list is a long way short of exhaustive. It seems churlish not to mention Harlan Briggs as a venal quack or Emmett Vogan as the teetotaler of a desk clerk at the New Old Lompoc House, but we have to stop somewhere).
OTHER VIEWS: A long-time cult favorite, The Bank Dick has the two prime qualities cultists admire: outrageous characters and a healthy disrespect for authority. Fields lambasts small-town “virtues” at the same time as he uncovers vice and hypocrisy in the business and professional elite. In his never-ending jousts with the dragons of “Respectability”, the quixotic comedian puts on his full armor of rapier wit, bludgeoning slapstick and true-arrowed satire. Assisted by a top-drawer support cast and equally sympathetic technicians, Fields has created one of the most devastatingly funny films of all time.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.
Not as funny as the same team’s Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), though it uses some of the same gags like the much reprinted car chase finale. Plenty of Fields humor remains, however, with him ordering a “death bomb” at the bar or about to hurl an enormous stone pot at the repellent child. Most of the best gags occur in the movie sub-plot like the scout’s account of the film with the 36-hour schedule that opens tomorrow and the perfect sequence with Fields explaining to evening-suited Reed Hadley that the script has been changed and he is now the school’s star half-back! Even off the screen, Fields manages to impose his own special brand of humor as in the scene where the emaciated extra is told by his doctor that he’ll have to give up health foods for a while!
There is a bit too much plot and we see too much of Franklin Pangborn — though his falling-through-the-window gag just about makes up for it! The rest of the support cast is first-rate, with fine characterizations by Grady Sutton and Russell Hicks.
Credits, including a rather witty music score, are well up to Universal standards.
— Barrie Pattison.
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Richard Burton (Becket), Peter O’Toole (Henry II), Donald Wolfit (Bishop Folliot), John Gielgud (King Louis VII), Martita Hunt (Queen Matilda), Pamela Brown (Queen Eleanor), Sian Phillips (Gwendolen), Paolo Stoppa (Pope Alexander III), Gino Cervi (Cardinal Zambelli), David Weston (Brother John), Percy Herbert (1st baron), Niall MacGinnis (2nd baron), Christopher Rhodes (3rd baron), Peter Jeffrey (4th baron), Michael Miller (5th baron), Peter Prowse (6th baron), Felix Aylmer (Archbishop of Canterbury), Frank Pettingell (Bishop of York), John Phillips (Bishop of Winchester), Hamilton Dyce (Bishop of Chichester), Inigo Jackson (Duke of Leicester), Paul Farrell (farmer), Rose Howlett (farmer’s wife), Linda Marlow (farmer’s daughter), Gerald Lawson (old pheasant), Jennifer Hilary (peasant’s daughter), Veronique Vendell (French girl), Wilfrid Lawson (old soldier), Graham Stark (Pope’s secretary), Edward Woodward (Clement), Tutte Lemkow (2nd courier), Michael Anthony (3rd courier), Patrick Newall (Corbeil), Victor Spinetti (French tailor), Geoffrey Bayldon (Brother Philip), Riggs O’Hara (Prince Henry), Magda Knopkf (girl on balcony), and Dave Clark.
Directed by PETER GLENVILLE, from a screenplay by Edward Anhalt based on the 1959 stage play by Jean Anouilh as translated by Lucienne Hill. Photographed in Technicolor and Panavision by Geoffrey Unsworth. Production designer: John Bryan. Art director: Maurice Carter. Set decorations: Robert Cartwright, Patrick McLoughlin. Costumes: Margaret Furse, Phyllis Dalton. Music composed by Laurence Rosenthal and directed by Muir Mathieson. Film editor: Anne V. Coates. Make-up: Charles Parker. Hair styles: Joan Smallwood. Production manager: Denis Holt. Assistant director: Colin Brewer. Assistant to the producer: Richard McWhorter. Sound: Buster Ambler. Producer: Hal Wallis. A Hal Wallis/Keep Films Production, released world-wide by Paramount.
Copyright 9 March 1964 by Keep Films. New York opening at Loew’s State: 11 March 1964. U.S. release: March 1964. U.K. release: 8 March 1965. Australian release: 16 September 1964. Sydney opening at the Prince Edward: 16 September 1964 (ran 22 weeks which, excepting The Ten Commandments was the longest season in that cinema’s history). Filmed in 35mm Panavision. 35mm footage: 13,353. 148 minutes. Running time of a blown up 70mm roadshow version is quoted at 165 minutes, but this doubtless includes pre-credits, Interval and close-out music.
SYNOPSIS: In 12th century England, King Henry II is at odds with the church because he spends most of his time hunting, drinking and womanising with his friend, Thomas Becket. The king makes Becket chancellor. Following the death of the archbishop of Canterbury, Henry appoints Becket, despite the protests of most of the clergy.
NOTES: Edward Anhalt won prestigious Hollywood award for Best Screenplay — based on material from another medium, defeating Dr Strangelove, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady and Zorba the Greek.
Also nominated for awards for Best Picture [My Fair Lady], Best Actors, both Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole [Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady], Supporting Actor, John Gielgud [Peter Ustinov in Topkapi], Best Directing, Peter Glenville [George Cukor for My Fair Lady], Color Cinematography [Harry Stradling for My Fair Lady], Color Art Direction [My Fair Lady], Best Sound Recording, John Cox, sound director of Shepperton Studios [My Fair Lady], Film Editing [Mary Poppins], Original Music Score [Mary Poppins], Color Costume Design [My Fair Lady].
Becket was also nominated for Best Film at the British Film Academy Awards, losing in both the Best Film From Any Source and Best British Film categories to Dr Strangelove. However it did pick up three BFA awards: Best British Color Cinematography, Best British Color Art Direction (awarded solely to John Bryan), Best British Color Costume Design.
Best Film of 1964 — National Board of Review.
2nd Best Film (to My Fair Lady) of 1964 — Fim Daily annual poll of over 500 U.S. film critics.
Paramount’s highest-grossing release in Australia for 1965.
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: Working with Wallis as he did on Summer and Smoke, Glenville here achieves a film more complex and effective than anything else he has done. The Anouilh play is an odd choice for a big-budget movie but the two stars give it a sound box office appeal and it has not been significantly cheapened in the adaptation. The episode of the Welsh girl has been given an up-beat twist and a couple of telling lines like “Who would have thought there were so many people in England?” are missing. The production values are really something — enough to sustain this film and crop up redraped in Tomb of Ligea. But the film rests on its two central performances. O’Toole here gives his most successful screen characterization outclassing Christopher Plummer’s interpretation on the London stage and suggesting reasons that the more sophisticated Becket could have for his devotion. The scene where the king curses Becket for making him cease being like his barons has more meaning and impact here. Burton handles the powerful passages with the authority they need but is less consistently impressive. The support cast are often as effective for their features as for their performing skills — even on the Gielgud-Wolfit level.
Technically (except for a split-screen close-up in a key moment that doesn’t work) the film is superb. The sets, cunningly filmed from different angles to make them seem even more impressive, make a rich and convincing backdrop. The color is subdued and telling, while the film editing by the man who also cut Young Cassidy at this time shows here as there that expert pacing can be a major element of a film’s impact.
— Barrie Pattison.
OTHER VIEWS: One October evening, on a trip to New York, I saw Anouilh’s famous play, Becket. It was a powerful story of crown against church; of secular against clerical; of one extraordinary man, King Henry II, against another, Thomas à Becket. I felt it could be a superb film.
I was right. Becket was a huge success.
— Hal B. Wallis.
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Johnny Mack Brown (Billy the Kids), Wallace Beery (Sheriff Pat Garrett), Kay Johnson (Claire Randall), Wyndham Standing (Tunston), Karl Dane (Swenson), Russell Simpson (McSween), Blanche Frederici (Mrs McSween), Roscoe Ates (Old Stuff), Warner P. Richmond (Ballinger), James Marcus (Donovan), Nelson McDowell (Hatfield), Jack Carlyle (Brewer), John Beck (Butterworth), Chris-Pin Martin (Santiago), Marguerita Padula (Nicky Woosiz), Aggie Herring (Mrs Hatfield), and Soledad Jiminez, Don Coleman, Hank Bell, Lucille Powers.
Director: KING VIDOR. Story continuity: Wanda Tuchock. Dialogue: Laurence Stallings. Additional dialogue: Charles MacArthur. Based on the 1926 book The Saga of Billy the Kid by Walter Noble Burns. Photography: Gordon Avil. Film editor: Hugh Wynn. Art director: Cedric Gibbons. Wardrobe: David Cox. Technical advisor: William S. Hart. Sound recording engineers: Paul Neal, Douglas Shearer. Movietone Sound System. Photographed in both 70mm “Realife” and 35mm on actual historical locations in New Mexico. Producer: King Vidor.
Copyright 23 October 1930 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp. New York opening in 70mm Realife at the Capitol: 17 October 1930. U.S. release: 18 October 1930. 11 reels. 8,808 feet. 97 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A cattleman (Standing) recruits a rustler (Brown) to help him in his war with a range baron (McDowell).
NOTES: M-G-M’s first movie in 70mm. The process was discontinued after The Great Meadow until it re-emerged as Camera 65 in 1957 with Raintree County. Although making the list of the top twenty domestic box-office champions of 1930, the film’s gross rentals was less than $1 million which did not cover its negative cost.
A favorite character of the silents, Billy the Kid was personified in numerous talkies, including the 1940 re-make of this picture with Robert Taylor. In 1939 Roy Rogers starred in Billy the Kid Returns. Billy has also been interpreted by Jack Beutel in The Outlaw (1943), Audie Murphy in The Kid from Texas (1949), Don “Red” Barry in I Shot Billy the Kid (1950), Tyler MacDuff in The Boy from Oklahoma (1954), Scott Brady in The Law Versus Billy the Kid (1954), Anthony Dexter in The Parson and the Outlaw (1955). For other appearances see the TRUE STORY below. The 1960s brought A Bullet for Billy the Kid, Deadwood ’76, The Outlaws Is Coming, Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, A Few Bullets More, Freedom To Love and Chisum.
THE TRUE STORY: William Henry Bonney was born in the slums of New York City sometime in 1859 to a respectable family. They all moved to Kansas when Billy was only 3 years old and shortly thereafter his father passed on. It wasn’t long before the task of raising a headstrong lad became too much for Billy’s mother. She married a miner who moved the family to New Mexico, where the boy grew into an awkward, buck-toothed, baby-faced lad, small in build but large in ambition and determination.
The large endless prairies of New Mexico were made for raising cattle. Cattlemen and cowpunchers swarmed into Lincoln County, closely followed by the usual gamblers, fast-buck women and hired guns. Renegades and outlaws were the order of the day rather than the exception.
With cattle and rustlers both in gigantic proportions, it was inevitable that the most prominent cowman for miles and miles, John Chisum, would find himself in the middle of the biggest range war the United States has ever seen. The “Lincoln County Wars” opened New Mexico still further for double-dealers, back-shooters and gunmen. Bonney fought back and forth, first on one side and then on the other, but eventually wound up working for Chisum.
Two years after the range war broke out, in 1878, a close friend of Bonney’s — an Englishman who went by the name of Tunstall — was ambushed and murdered by an over-eager posse. Billy the Kid swore he’d kill every last one of the posse members if it took him all his life. Sheriff Brady, who led the posse, and his deputy were the first to go. This induced the state government to return a murder indictment against the Kid and to post rewards for his capture, dead or alive.
There were now plenty of people on both sides of the law laying for him and while hiding in a store owned by a former friend, Billy and his band were trapped. The store was set on fire, but Bonney managed to escape. However, several on-lookers were killed in the shooting. Sheriff Pat Garrett set out on Billy’s trail, but before he was able to catch up with him, the Kid had walked into the office of the new Governor of New Mexico, General Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur), who, in a desperate bid to halt the fighting, had offered a free pardon to al the combatants who would agree to lay down their arms. Billy offered to testify but got tired of waiting for Wallace to sign his amnesty, so he cut out for Fort Sumner, where he was captured by Sheriff Garrett.
Half-believing the Kid’s boast that no jail could hold him, Garrett decided to hold Bonney in a store with two armed guards instead of in the Lincoln County Jail. But in April, 1881, Bonney managed to overpower and kill both his guards and made good his escape.
Two and a half months later, on Independence Day, Garrett was sitting in the shadows on the porch of one of Billy’s friends, when he saw the familiar slender figure ambling up, his light hair glistening in the twilight. The Kid, not recognizing Garrett right off, called out, “Quien es?”, the last words he uttered. Garrett didn’t give the Kid a chance, but shot him dead on the spot.
Vidor’s Billy the Kid was the first in a long string of talkie film “biographies”, although it was 8 years before Republic made Billy the Kid Returns. But then in 1940, PRC began their Billy the Kid series with Bob Steele and Al “Fuzzy” St John as his comic side-kick, later replacing Steele with Larry “Buster” Crabbe who played the Kid in Cattle Stampede, Fugitive of the Plains, Law and Order, The Renegade, The Kid Rides Again, The Mysterious Rider, Western Cyclone, Billy the Kid Trapped, Billy the Kid Wanted, Billy the Kid Roundup and Billy the Kid’s Smoking Guns. In 1947, PRC did a one-shot with Al “Lash” LaRue as Son of Billy the Kid.
In 1941, M-G-M re-made Billy the Kid with Robert Taylor and in 1946 Jack Beutel played the Kid in The Outlaw. In 1950, Don “Red” Barry essayed the role in I Shot Billy the Kid. 7 years later the Kid appeared on the screen in The Parson and the Outlaw starring Anthony Dexter. The following year, Warners released The Left-Handed Gun with Paul Newman. The latest Billy is Geoffrey Deuel who plays the part in Chisum (1970).
See also Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
TV title: The HIGHWAYMAN RIDES.
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Okay for all.
COMMENT: It’s something of a comedown to see Billy the Kid on TV. Not only does the movie’s scope seem diminished, but the story now seems even more simplistic than we’d been led to expect. Apparently two endings were shot: a happy one for domestic consumption in which Billy lives and is waved a cheery bye-bye by Pat Garrett; and a more factual finale for foreign picturegoers in which Billy is killed. Needless to say, it is the fictitious version that survives.
OTHER VIEWS: Headed “A New Wide-Screen Process”, Mordaunt Hall’s review in The New York Times states that the Capitol did not use 70mm projection equipment as stated in most reference books. According to Hall, a 35mm reduction print was used. In other words the technique is that of VistaVision, namely the making of 35mm prints from a large negative in order to reduce the grain. (It’s odd that Fox seemed to be unaware that 70mm could be so easily reduced to 35mm when Oklahoma was being shot. Two entirely different versions were made. And then there was the famous row with Frank Sinatra about making two versions of Carousel. After Sinatra left, it was suddenly put out that Fox technicians had invented a way of making reduction prints in the lab. And yet here we have a claim made way back in 1930 that the technology existed all the time). Hall goes on to say that the dimensions of the 35mm frame were enlarged, however, by removing the sound track. In other words, M-G-M went back to the silent aperture, using the full width of 35mm between sprocket holes, with a corresponding increase in height as well. (Warner Bros were already using this frame with their sound-on-disc system. As Movietone was sound-on-film, presumably a separate, synchronized projector was used for the track).
“The wide screen helps this narrative,” Hall avers. “One is permitted to see the characters at what frequently seem to be great distances... The views on the wide screen are so compelling that when one goes to see a picture on an ordinary-sized screen, the standard image looks absurdly small.”
Hall felt that the image was not as sharp as in the Fox Grandeur process (which is understandable). He sums up: “This picture is chiefly noteworthy for this enlarged screen idea which fills virtually the full width of the Capitol stage, but has an increased height which other such inventions do not possess. It is questionable, however, whether the images are as sharp as in the Grandeur productions, although the outlines are never perceptibly blurred... The scenes in the open are impressive, and often they have a stereoscopic illusion, which was also beheld in the Grandeur subjects.”
As for the picture itself, Hall’s opinion reflected many of the same critical observations of nearly 25 years later when CinemaScope was introduced: “Merely a moderately entertaining and often unconvincing Western melodrama.”