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project1939 · 11 hours

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 127: The Big Sky

Release date: August 6th, 1952

Studio: RKO

Genre: western

Director: Howard Hawks

Producer: Howard Hawks

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt, Arthur Hunnicutt

Plot Summary: In 1843, friends Jim and Boone join a group of trappers and become the first white men to travel 2,000 miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Montana. They bring a Blackfoot woman along, hoping to trade with her people once they arrive in Montana. A rival fur company is determined to keep the Blackfoot trade for themselves, however.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***¼

This was a fairly enjoyable western journey film made interesting by the excellent acting, beautiful location footage, colorful characters, and a somewhat humanizing and progressive view of Native Americans. (Spoilers!)

The Good:

Arthur Hunnicutt as Uncle Zeb. I loved him as a yarn-spinning bronco rider in The Lusty Men, and he is just as good here. He’s skilled at playing kooky characters in a somewhat understated manner for the time.

Kirk Douglas as Jim. It’s hard to find a bad performance by Douglas, and he was excellent here as a salty-tonged backwoods trapper. It was interesting to see the differences between this Jim and another Jim he played in a western in 1952. In The Big Trees, his character was a city schmoozer anti-hero, and he played both roles equally well. The two characters could have been enemies in a different film!

This was an enjoyable journey/travelling story. It was easy and fun to follow their adventures on the Missouri River.

Dimitri Tiomkin’s score was gorgeous.

There was a liberal amount of location shooting in this, and seeing the Missouri river against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains was stunning.

By the early 1950s some westerns were trying to present Native Americans in a more nuanced way, and this was one of them. Boone hated “Indians,” but he was clearly showed to be wrong. The wisest characters saw Native Americans as decent people with a rich and interesting culture of their own. Characters like Zeb even understood how unfairly they were being treated by white men.

The Blackfoot characters spoke in their own language rather than the cringey way too many Indians in old films did- like “Me no shoot. We be friends now.”

This quote: Zeb says the only thing Native Americans really fear is a white man’s sickness. “The Grabs. White men don't see nothing pretty unless they want to grab it. The more they grab, the more they want to grab. It's like a fever and they can't get cured. The only thing for them to do is to keep on grabbin' until everything belongs to white men and then start grabbin' from each other. I reckon injuns got no reason to love nothing white.”

The Bad:

As much as the portrayal of Native Americans could be positive... one character was a horrifying stereotype. Poordevil was a Blackfoot Indian with an IQ of about 60 who drank too much whiskey and giggled over everything. At least Teal Eyes called him a disgrace to his people, but it was still awful even if it was called out. It was made even worse by the fact that he was played by a white man in brown makeup.

Brownface. Poordevil and some other Indian characters were obviously played by white men. Even Teal Eyes, whose actress was part Cherokee in real life, looked like she had to wear some darkening makeup.

The “romance” between Teal Eyes and Boone. They couldn’t say a single word to each other, and I didn’t buy it for a second!

I never fully warmed to the character of Boone.

The pace was too lazy sometimes, and the film could have benefitted from a shorter running time.

The narration by Zeb was often overly folksy and obvious for me. I didn’t hate it, but I sometimes wished it was toned down a little.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #kirk douglas

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project1939 · 19 hours

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 126: Carrie

Release date: July 17th, 1952

Studio: MGM

Genre: melodrama

Director: William Wyler

Producer: Lester Koenig, William Wyler

Actors: Laurence Olivier, Jennifer Jones, Eddie Albert

Plot Summary: Based on Theodore Dreiser's 1900 novel Sister Carrie, Carrie travels to Chicago to make her way in the big city. After getting fired from her factory job, she finds a caretaker in Charlie, a man she met on the train. When she moves in with him before they are married, social stigma destroys her reputation and self-worth. Then a rich friend of Charlie's falls head over heels for her...

My Rating (out of five stars): **¾

This is one of those “prestige films” that falls flat on its bloated self-important face. To be fair, it’s not exactly a bad film... it’s just not a very good one. Laurence Olivier is its saving grace, but even he can’t work miracles. (Spoilers!)

The Good:

Laurence Olivier as George. He is the reason to watch this film. His performance wraps you up with him, and you can almost feel everything George does. It’s impressively natural and expressive at the same time, and I just loved watching it. He maybe leaned a little too hard into the melodrama at the end, but I forgive that because of everything that came before.

Eddie Albert as Charlie. He was really effective and entertaining as a fast-talking salesman who was equal parts charming and caddish.

The period costumes and sets were beautiful.

Some of the writing/dialogue was good. There were several times when I was watching that I thought, “Oooh that's a good line.” I assume this is probably from the source material.

I liked that many of the women weren’t wearing heavy Hollywood makeup. That was much more historically accurate- for the early 1900s, it would have been ridiculous.

The Bad:

The character of Carrie. I don’t know if she had more complexity and agency in the book, but here she was mostly reduced to simpering and helpless.

Jennifer Jones. Part of it was the script, I’m sure, but she wasn’t alluring or interesting enough to rise above the material. I was highly skeptical that she could have caused George to lose all his senses.

There was a lack of detail at the beginning of the romance between Carrie and George, so their love wasn’t very believable or engrossing.

Having to change the source material because it wasn’t safe for Hollywood. The ending was even more bleak in the novel, it was less moralizing, and its sexuality was more overt.

It got much too melodramatic in the last third of the film, and especially in the last 15 minutes or so. The absurd contrast between her success on the stage and his fall into the gutter was way too much.

The music was over the top even for a melodrama. It was so bad it pulled me out of the story and made me laugh more than once.

It was an incredibly bleak film, numbingly and painfully so. Sometimes a bleak film is worth it because of its artistic excellence or the issues it raises. This film had neither.

The Hollywood trope of people who are down on their luck suddenly becoming famous actors. When Carrie is destitute, her solution is to go on the stage! Cause that’s a surefire way to make money, isn’t it? Well, it Hollywood films it is!

Again with the blaming of women for sexual “sins” rather than men. The poster makes it seem like the onus is all on her, when: 1) a guy pretty much tricked her into living with him before they were married, and 2) another man didn’t tell her he was married when he wooed her, and then he married her without telling her he hadn’t divorced his first wife! She was the one at fault?! She was the one “using men”?!?!

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #laurence olivier

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project1939 · 1 day

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 125: Walk East on Beacon

Release date: April 29th, 1952

Studio: Columbia

Genre: spy thriller/noir

Director: Alfred L. Werker

Producer: Louis De Rochemont

Actors: George Murphy, Finlay Currie

Plot Summary: FBI agents systematically surveil and break apart a Soviet spy ring in Boston that is trying to compromise secretive U.S. space technology.

My Rating (out of five stars): **

I love spy thrillers, I love noirs, I love Classical Hollywood films that aren’t overly sentimentalized... and yet I could barely stay awake for this film! I literally fell asleep in the middle of it and had to go back and re-watch the last third of the movie. It lacked suspense, it lacked a clear plot, it lacked characters to become invested in... it was just a big boring dud for me.

The Good:

It was competently made in general, I guess? The cinematography, design, music, etc. were all decent quality, but that’s about it.

Some of the surveillance tech of 1952 was fun to see. An early kind of hidden camera was used that was huge by today’s standards.

One of my favorite scenes was when the FBI agents went to a lip-reading school to have the students decipher what two spies were saying to each other! In Romanian, no less!

The Bad:

The acting was pretty bad. Most of the G-men were about as wooden as the desks they sat behind. George Murphy was the “star” of the film, and he’s basically a low rent Ronald Reagan- a passable actor who became a Republican politician later in life. He is not someone who can carry a film. The “baddies” in the cast were better, but no one was especially good in this.

The plot could be hard to follow and the characters hard to keep track of. I appreciate that the film didn’t spoon-feed us the information, but things were often distractingly unclear.

The structure itself was a mess, and it sucked almost all of the suspense out of the movie.

There were no characters to actually care about. Most of the time we barely knew their names. The Einstein-like Professor Albert Kafer was probably the only one humanized in any way.

The film seemed to be trying to rip off the style of Dragnet- a drier, sparser “just the facts, ma'am” vibe. Dragnet, however, always knew to place engaging well-acted characters in the foreground. Without anything like that here, it’s just dry and boring.

There was a chilling line in the film about how the “freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are available to all loyal American citizens.” No. No. They are available to ALL American citizens- not just the ones who pass whatever your interpretation of “loyal” is!

I felt frustrated so often watching this because I could see the potential for tension, drama, and excitement if the script was better. A moment where a spy in the U.S. was going to get “sent to Moscow” (i.e. killed or imprisoned) could have been terrifying, but instead it barely registered.

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 2 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 124: Red Snow

Release date: July 7th, 1952

Studio: All American Film Corporation

Genre: adventure

Director: Boris Petroff, Harry S. Franklin

Producer: Boris Petroff

Actors: Guy Madison, Ray Mala, Carole Mathews

Plot Summary: In the North Arctic, at the Bering Strait, cold war tensions rise when the U.S. notices Soviets testing a strange new weapon. A US Air Force pilot and a local Inuit man, who is also a sergeant in the army, are tasked with discovering what is happening and neutralizing it.

My Rating (out of five stars): **

Well, I can certainly give this film credit for being unique! It’s basically what would happen if you crossed Nanook of the North with a Soviet spy film. The ostensible hero is a white pilot, but the character with by far the most screen time is an Inuit named Koovuk. When the film opened with this text, my interest was especially piqued: “Dedicated to the men who stand watch on our frozen frontier, the men of the Alaskan Rescue Service... and to a G.I. whose skill and courage has long been unheralded- the loyal American Eskimo.” Would this film avoid racist stereotypes of Inuit people? Ummm... Kinda? And also not really? (Some spoilers)

The Good:

The Inuit people were generally respected here- a main purpose of the film was to highlight the fact that some Inuit people do brave work in the US Armed Forces, and we should honor it. There are some caveats about the way they are portrayed as a people, however...

There was a lot of real arctic footage used. It was almost exactly like Nanook of the North.

On a superficial note, Guy Madison, as Lt. Phil Johnson, was gorgeous!

There were some pretty adorable Inuit nose-rubs in this!

The Bad:

White people and Koreans playing Inuit people! Yuck. Most of the Inuit people in the film appeared to actually be so in real life, but a few of the larger roles were not. Especially egregious were the actors playing Koovuk’s fiancée and the bad guy in the tribe.

The aforementioned bad guy, Tuglu, was played by a Korean man, which was odd enough, but the character was so over the top, it was hard not to laugh. He had shifty eyes, a raised eyebrow, and I almost expected him to twirl a moustache! There was absolutely no suspense about who the spy was.

The movie seemed to have positive motives in portraying a different race and culture, but it also fell into the trap of “exoticizing” the people it was trying to humanize. It also made the Inuit people seem somewhat simple and child-like, which was off-putting.

Accents again! The “Russian” characters were ridiculous. Most of them just sounded like Americans, but some of them were wildly inconsistent and awful!

This reminded me of a recent film I watched, The Jungle, where it seemed like the writers made a bullet list of unrelated things they wanted to show and just shoehorned a plot into it. “Let’s have a hunting scene! Now an Inuit wedding ceremony! Now a dramatic ice floe! Now a polar bear chase!” etc

Because of the above, the plot was all over the place, and I found myself getting bored at times.

You could tell most of the movie was filmed silent and dubbed over later, and it looked cheap.

A scene where a polar bear was killed. I don’t know how real it was, but it was horrifying.

The dialogue the Inuit characters spoke was that awful movie dialect where they said things like- “Danger on trip. Koovuk be careful. Alak worry.”

The anti-Soviet message wasn’t overly heavy-handed for the most part, but a prospective defector at the end gave a cringy speech about his family being killed “for believing in God.” Get out your Bingo cards! “We’re better than Commies cause religion!”

The side romance between Lt. Johnson and Lt. Jane lasted all of maybe 120 seconds, so saying it was an afterthought is an understatement.

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 4 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 123: California Conquest

Release date: July 4th, 1952

Studio: Columbia

Genre: western

Director: Lew Landers

Producer: Sam Katzman

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Teresa Wright

Plot Summary: In the 1840s several powers are fighting for control of California. Many of its inhabitants want the U.S. to annex it, including Spanish nobleman Don Arturo Bodega and tough American cowgirl Julia. They inadvertently find themselves joining forces to fight a group of Mexican bandits with ties to Russia.

My Rating (out of five stars): **¾

Damn! This one started out so promising, but then it just fizzled out. It had a lot of good elements, including the ravishing Cornel Wilde, a strong female character played by Teresa Wright, and some beautiful location shooting... but ultimately it was hindered by a convoluted and lackluster plot. (Some spoilers)

The Good:

Cornel Wilde. I’ll admit I’m biased because he makes me weak in the knees, but his charm and charisma can carry pretty much any film. I don’t think any leading man could have made this one great, however. He was mostly just lovely to look at here.

The character of Julia. Another strong woman in a western! She even got to shoot down one of the main bad guys!

Teresa Wright. Sometimes her delivery got overly gruff, but most of the time she showed off the talents that made her such a respected actress. The scene where she breaks down after the death of a family member was haunting.

There was some nice location footage.

The Technicolor looked good- it especially showed off the colorful costumes.

And speaking of costumes, whoever put Wilde in those clothes deserves a medal!

Another poster with a shirtless Wilde! Every film from 1952 so far has him sans shirt on the poster: The Greatest Show on Earth, At Sword’s Point, and now this! Is this a good thing? I don’t know; it’s kind of objectifying to Wilde, who was a fairly intellectual guy in real life. Apparently the studios thought it sold tickets, though!

The Bad:

The plot felt somewhat labyrinthine at points, and I didn't always understand its trajectory.

Things just deflated about 2/3 of the way in. All the build up didn't go anywhere for me, and I found myself looking at the clock a lot, waiting for everything to wrap up.

There were some moments of noticeably bad rear projection.

The bad guys were pretty unimpressive, because, aside from Martinez, we didn’t really get to know them. The tension was off-balance because of it.

Alfonso Bedoya as Martinez chewed the scenery sometimes.

Russia was the biggest bad guy in the film? In the 1840s? It was all a little bit too 1950s! I'm surprised Karl Marx didn't suddenly show up in California during the movie!

Accents! I love Cornel Wilde, but he was afflicted with the “now you hear it, now you don’t” kind of accent that was pervasive in the Classical Hollywood era.

Do we actually have a queer coded character? It certainly seemed so. Both of the Brios brothers were slightly dandy-ish, but Ernesto in particular seemed to be a huge “wink wink nod nod." At one point, his bother even looked him up and down in an uncomfortable way, saying, “You’ll make a handsome governor, and I’ll have a brother in high office.” It was kinda gross.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 5 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 122: Geisha Girl

Release date: May 2nd, 1952

Studio: Realart Pictures

Genre: adventure comedy

Director: George Breakston, C. Ray Stahl

Producer: George Breakston, C. Ray Stahl

Actors: Steve Forrest, Martha Hyer, Tetsu Nakamura

Plot Summary: Two American GIs in Postwar Japan find themselves caught up in a plot by a Japanese criminal to rule the world with explosive tablets that are stronger than a nuclear weapon. A Tokyo cop, a spy/stewardess, and a hypnotist all help save the day.

My Rating (out of five stars): *½

As a Japanophile, I was both looking forward to this and dreading it at the same time. I was intrigued when I heard it was shot entirely in Tokyo, but I was worried it might be unbearably racist. It certainly had its moments of racism, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. Instead, I was surprised to see it try to respectfully highlight parts of Japanese culture that would have been almost unknown to most Americans at the time. Too bad everything else about the movie sucked!

The Good:

The film was a treasure trove of real-life locations in Tokyo in 1952. That’s gotta be one of the main reasons anyone would be interested in watching this today. It was amazing to see, especially knowing that this was only six or seven years after the war ended.

There were long segments on traditional Japanese culture- geishas, kabuki theater, shrines and temple gardens, etc. It was mesmerizing to see what these looked like 72 years ago. The scenes were shot with deference and seemingly genuine curiosity. It sometimes played up the exoticism for Westerners a bit, but I was generally impressed with the way things were presented.

The actress Michiyo Naoki, who played Michiko, was so beautiful I almost couldn't concentrate on anything else when she was on screen.

The actor Tetsu Nakamura, who played Nakano, was quite good, and he spoke English with almost no accent. He actually grew up in Canada, which wasn't too surprising.

There were no white actors playing Japanese people! Thank god!

The Bad:

The actors across the board were pretty awful. Although I liked Peggy the spy/stewardess, she was one of the worst offenders, performance-wise. Only Nakano and Archie gave decent performances.

The plot was just silly nonsense. It reminded me of one of those old 2-hour TV specials where a sitcom family goes on a trip.

WTF was the magician/hypnotist named Zoro?! He wore a feathered fortune-teller’s hat and could hypnotize someone with only a glance. It was utterly ridiculous and weird.

Archie, the nerdy comedy guy. He was one of the best actors, but he was super annoying anyway. In his defense, though, I think most of the problem was the cringy script. I recognized him from both Kid Monk Baroni (as a kleptomaniac) and Something for the Birds (as a nerdy bird enthusiast).

A “comedy” scene where Rocky and Archie end up in a kabuki show was sooo unfunny I could barely watch.

Everything, except the scenes of Japanese culture, just screamed “shoestring budget!”

The opening and closing title cards with cartoons of Japanese people on them were shockingly offensive. It was especially jarring because one of the film’s agendas seemed to be representing Japan in a positive way.

The movie poster is also pretty cringe- “Japanese women- they're sensational! They’re different!”

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 6 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Now I’ve made it to 120 films, which was my original estimate... but I keep discovering more things to watch! Hollywood was regularly cranking out around 400 movies a year at its height in the late 1940s, so there is no shortage of candidates. Most are not especially remembered today, which means they are easily found online for free. So... I think the new number will be 150 films. Crazy? Absolutely! But a highly interesting experiment, nonetheless.

Film number 121: Anything Can Happen

Release date: April 3rd, 1952

Studio: Paramount

Genre: comedy/drama

Director: George Seaton

Producer: William Perlberg

Actors: Jose Ferrer, Kim Hunter, Kurt Kaszner

Plot Summary: Giorgi arrives in the United States as an immigrant from Georgia, overcoming the hurdles of learning English and settling into a new country. Thankfully he has lots of help from fellow Georgian immigrants and a young American stenographer who records traditional folk music in her spare time.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***½

I really enjoyed this, even if it isn’t a perfect film. It was so cool to get to see Eastern European immigrants as the protagonists in a film from this era. (Some spoilers)

The Good:

Jose Ferrer. He was Puerto Rican in real life, but he played an Eastern European surprisingly well. I’d need a Georgian to tell me if his accent is truly on point, but it certainly worked for me. He was extremely likeable and moving in the role, and it was especially interesting to see how incredibly different his performance here was to his Toulouse Lautrec in Moulin Rouge.

Kim Hunter. I loved her! She was perfect as a sort of intellectual leading lady, and her whole presence was warm and empathetic.

The heroine was a folk music collector! She found and recorded traditional songs performed by authentic singers, and I wanted to jump through the screen and be her friend! Interestingly, The Anthology of American Folk Music was released in 1952- it was a mammoth collection of field recordings of traditional folk music, and it became the basis of the folk revival movement in the 1950s and 60s...

I was excited to learn that this was based on a book written by Giorgi Papashvily himself about his experiences immigrating from Georgia and marrying his wife, Helen.

It was nice to get a positive portrayal of Eastern European immigration to the U.S., especially given that Georgia was part of the Soviet Union at the time. The characters were treated with empathy and respect, reminding Americans that almost all of us were immigrants once.

Most of the other Georgian side characters were colorful and entertaining, although sometimes their cutesiness was a tad too exaggerated.

The little bits of folk music throughout. Ferrer was wonderful to listen to.

The hilariously true problems of English spelling and pronunciation! A longer segment had characters arguing about the pronunciation of “dough.” One guy convinced another it was “duff,” because that’s how “rough,” “tough,” and “enough” are pronounced!

The Bad:

Hunter and Ferrer didn’t have a ton of chemistry, unfortunately. I liked them both a lot, but there wasn’t any sexual tension. (That was supposed to be the case for Helen and Giorgi within the film, so maybe it was a specific direction? I don’t know.)

Another Hollywood warning to young women about the horrors of becoming an old maid! “You become like furniture!” The way Helen’s grandmother pushed her to marry Giorgi, even if she didn’t feel any sparks, was upsetting. “You can get chills down your spine from a cold shower. Fred gave you that, and it was the two coldest years you’ve ever known! He didn’t need you, and that’s the only basis for a marriage- to be needed and wanted.”

Sometimes the film was too sentimental and light-hearted. It definitely only showed the positive aspects of immigrating.

The plot got overly episodic at times as well, jumping from one adventure to another.

More blacklisting again! Kim Hunter was blacklisted in Hollywood after this film until the late 1950s for the “crime” of being a progressive Democrat.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #jose ferrer #kim hunter

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project1939 · 6 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 120: Love is Better Than Ever

Release date: Feb 23rd, 1952

Studio: MGM

Genre: romantic comedy

Director: Stanley Donen

Producer: William H. Wright

Actors: Larry Parks, Elizabeth Taylor

Plot Summary: Stacy runs a successful dance school but is a novice when it comes to romance. While in New York City for a dance convention, she meets Jud, a smooth-talking entertainment agent and confirmed bachelor. He’s happy to wine and dine her but wants nothing more. Stacy vows to do whatever it takes to get him to propose, even if it requires tricking him.

My Rating (out of five stars): **¼

Yikes, this was pretty bad. A romantic comedy will never work if the male lead is an asshole for 95% of the film! Then factor in that he’s a plain looking 38-year-old being wooed by a drop dead gorgeous 19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, and... I spent the whole film shouting WTF?! and Why???!!!

The Good:

Elizabeth Taylor. She looked stunning, of course, even if she was a bit young to be playing a full-grown adult. She also acted quite well, doing the most she could with an inferior script.

Donen’s direction wasn’t bad. He used the camera in some nice fluid ways, and the film certainly looked good visually. That wasn’t the problem.

Gene Kelly had a “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo, but it was fun. When he is told Stacy is a dance teacher who owns a school, Kelly says he used to teach dance in Pittsburg. That was totally true in real life- he had his own school before he even made it on Broadway in the 1940s.

An unruly little girl named Joni! She was an awkwardly funny kid in Stacy’s dance class, and she cracked me up.

It was amusing to see another Hollywood film from 1952 taking a sly dig at television. As Stacy and Jud watch a ball game, it is constantly interrupted by picture quality issues or commercials. “See folks, movies are so much better! Don’t stay home and watch TV and cut into our profits!”

The Bad:

Jud the character. He was a womanizing prick who strung a very innocent young woman along. He was curt and demeaning to almost everyone around him. I kept scrawling “I HATE HIM” in my notes!

Larry Parks. He was too old and too blah to play opposite Taylor, and he literally had almost no sex appeal. His acting was fine, but he was all wrong for the part.

Taylor and Parks had no noticeable chemistry, making things even worse.

The plot was thin and often uninteresting. Even though it was only 80 minutes long, it really dragged for me.

I just never actually cared what happened; there was never anything that hooked me or pulled me in.

The title! It’s so bad and generic, it feels like it was just a title lying in an unused pile somewhere and grabbed at random.

The blacklist rears its disgusting head again! Larry Parks was one of the first actors thrown before HUAC and forced to testify, having a history of ties to the Communist party in America. He testified under much duress, was blacklisted anyway, and this film was shelved for a year because of it.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #elizabeth taylor

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project1939 · 7 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 119: Oklahoma Annie

Release date: March 24th, 1952

Studio: Republic

Genre: comedy western/serial

Director: R. G. Springsteen

Producer: Sidney Picker

Actors: Judy Canova, John Russell, Grant Withers

Plot Summary: Cowgirl Judy Canova owns a general store in a small western town. She is dismayed when infamous outlaw Kurt Walker robs the local bank and puts her store in jeopardy. A handsome new sheriff arrives, however, and she determines to get his attention by catching Walker herself.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***

...And the surprising trend of strong women appearing in 1952 Westerns continues! We had Dietrich, Dale Evans, Dora and Iron Mae... and now we have Judy Canova with a whole town of Women’s Volunteers! Giving this film three stars might be a bit of a stretch, but I found it charming, despite the fact that it is clearly a low budget serial made by a low budget studio.

The Good:

The music. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was cute and catchy. There were only 4 songs throughout, and Canova sang 3 of them. The standout was “Never Never Never,” which had a creatively filmed section to go with it. Canova stands in front of a three-panel mirror, with a different version of herself in each panel, while the recording is multitracked for each image. Surprisingly good for a cheap musical!

Judy Canova- she's pretty unique. She isn’t a great actress, a great singer, or a great beauty, but she is good at playing a larger than life character with an odd charisma. I only knew her previously from her appearances on Tallulah Bankhead’s radio show, and she was always sharp and funny.

The acting of the entire cast was excellent for a low budget film. I recognized a few of the character actors from multiple places.

The plot was actually engrossing and generally well-paced, barring a couple of scenes that dragged out a little too long.

There were a few visually interesting shots. One shot in particular of the barroom singer in the gambling house was notable.

Powerful women! Judy’s dead grandmother was the titular Oklahoma Annie, an actual female sheriff, which Judy herself then became. She had physical fights and shootouts with men, and then she corralled all the town women to fight the bad guys at the end. Some of it was obviously played for laughs, but I thought it was more kick-ass than funny.

There were no stereotypes of Native Americans in this, which is rare for a western.

The Bad:

I’m not a fan of the “Trucolor” color process, although the print I saw wasn’t high quality. The color was muted and muddy.

I wish there had been more music. With only 4 songs, it seemed like the film didn’t know if it was a comedy or a musical.

This is certainly not a deep or thought-provoking film with complex characters! But that should be obvious before you even watch it.

There were some tired stereotypes that westerns tend to have- the scruffy prospectors, the barroom brawlers, the bank robbers, the heroic sheriff, the simple-minded townsfolk, etc.

The non-diegetic background music was kinda kitschy and cheap sounding- like the music in TV westerns from the late 50s-70s.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #judy canova

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project1939 · 7 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 118: At Sword’s Point

Release date: Feb 4th, 1952

Studio: RKO

Genre: adventure

Director: Lewis Allen

Producer: Jerrold T. Brandt

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Maureen O’Hara, Gladys Cooper

Plot Summary: In France in 1648, the dying Queen Anne assembles three sons and one daughter of the famous Musketeers to save her empire from the evil clutches of the Duc de Lavalle.

My Rating (out of five stars): *** ¼

This was just light breezy fun. It flew by at only 80 minutes, and it was less stodgy and easier to follow than some historical Hollywood films of the pre-Enlightenment era.

The Good:

Cornel Wilde. I really loved him in The Greatest Show on Earth as the dreamy but wolfish Great Sebastian, and he didn’t disappoint here. He didn’t have much to do, however, but smile confidently and fight with a sword. His charisma unquestionably helped the film overall, though.

Maureen O’Hara. OHMYGOD she looked ga-ga-gorgeous in this! I don’t always love her, but in this she is somehow both smokin’ hot and ethereally beautiful at the same time. Whenever she was dressed up as a “man” in pants and thigh-high leather riding boots, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else!

Alan Hale Jr. as Porthos Jr. Most of us know Hale today as the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island, but here he was the most charming of the sidekick Musketeers. His broad smile and jovial demeanor were perfect for this kind of film.

The lean fast-paced plot. It just whizzed by like a sword swooshing through the- oh god, I can’t be that cheesy!

Sword fights! The swordplay wasn’t as good as in Scaramouche, but what is? This was truly entertaining and more than good enough for a fun little film like this.

I didn’t know RKO made any Technicolor movies, but the color looked great.

I actually liked the storybook-style painted backgrounds and sets, even if they didn’t look super realistic.

I enjoyed the playful energetic score, especially the soaring main theme.

The Bad:

The evil Duc de Lavalle wasn’t well-developed, and that made him less interesting as a villain.

Princess Henriette was a boring character who was unfortunately not played terribly well by Nancy Gates.

The plot could be a little too thin and simplistic at times.

Most of the characters were pretty one dimensional, although you probably would expect that in this kind of film.

O’Hara is supposed to look like a boy sometimes? Enough to actually fool people? Yeah, no.

The movie poster lied- we did not get enough shirtless Wilde in tight pants! I also didn’t love the mullet hair he had. But he’s too beautiful for me to complain about it too much.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #maureen o'hara #cornel wilde

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project1939 · 10 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 117: Invitation

Release date: February 1st, 1952

Studio: MGM

Genre: melodrama

Director: Gottfried Reinhardt

Producer: Lawrence Weingarten

Actors: Van Johnson, Dorothy McGuire, Ruth Roman, Louis Calhern

Plot Summary: Ellen has suffered from a mysterious illness since childhood that prevents her from living a normal life. Over the past year, however, she’s been blissfully married to her loving husband Dan. One day an invitation arrives and destroys everything. What disease is she really suffering from? And how exactly did she and Dan end up together?

My Rating (out of five stars): ***

If you ever wondered what a Classical Hollywood melodrama is, here you go! This is about as Melodrama as you can get, with all the histrionics, lush musical scores, and tragic heroines that are hallmarks of the genre. It’s not a bad movie, mostly because of its main actors. Don’t expect something great, though. (Some spoilers)

The Good:

Dorothy McGuire! Easily the best part of the movie was her performance as Ellen. I’ve known McGuire only as the mother in Old Yeller, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Friendly Persuasion, so seeing her play a romantic heroine was a great surprise. And she was good! She played a fragile and insecure woman who was extremely easy to empathize with.

Van Johnson as Dan. He gave a really natural performance here, bringing his usual sensitivity to the role.

Louis Calhern as Ellen’s doting father. He’s nearly perfect in everything he does, and this was no exception. A scene where he comforts his daughter, telling her she is not the plain unlovable woman she thinks she is, was especially moving.

Protagonists in their 30s! It was nice to see a couple that got married a little later in life (for the time, anyway).

The music. It really showed off MGM’s justifiably lauded orchestra. Yes, it could be a little over the top and maudlin at times, but for a melodrama, what else do you want?

The portrayal of living with the stigma of illness in the 1950s. Ellen is sympathetic, rather than a sympathy case. Seeing how she is ostracized is difficult, especially against the backdrop of a time in America where conformity was more important than anything else.

The Bad:

Sometimes the melodrama was a little too intense and contrived.

“Surgery ex machina?” Classical Hollywood movies were addicted to providing a magical surgery at the end to cure whatever ailment the protagonists were suffering from. Here it was an annoyingly easy way to a happy ending.

Should Ellen have really just forgiven Dan? It was a complicated situation, yes, but what about all the lies he must have told her? Could she really trust him? The speed at which everything resolved was disconcerting.

The laughable Hollywood idea of what a “plain” woman looks like. Dorothy McGuire is supposed to be unattractive?!? Come on.

Again with the ridiculous poster! First of all, it misrepresents Dan and Maud’s (Roman’s) relationship, but the picture of McGuire as the blonde in the background is even more egregious. On what planet does that look like Dorothy McGuire?! Were they hoping to trick us into believing that Marilyn Monroe was in the film?

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #dorothy mcguire #van johnson

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project1939 · 11 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 116: The First Time

Release date: January 31st, 1952

Studio: Columbia

Genre: comedy

Director: Frank Tashin

Producer: Harold Hecht

Actors: Robert Cummings, Barbara Hale, Jeff Donnell

Plot Summary: Betsy and Joe, a young married couple, comedically deal with the trials and tribulations of their first-born child.

My Rating (out of 5 stars): **¾

This is one of those lower budget A films (B+ films?) that studios cranked out like sausage. It’s kind of cute, but unless you are someone with an interest in the cultural history of the early 1950s, there isn’t much reason to watch it.

The Good:

Barbara Hale as Betsy. I found her immediately likeable- she has a certain strength about her that wasn’t typical for girl next door types. Her voice is a little lower, and she doesn’t have the appearance of a frail little wife. She also handled the comedy pretty well.

The character actors were all entertaining. Bea Benaderet, who played Betsy’s roommate in the hospital, was especially good.

The “Gay Divorcee” grandmother Cassie. I loved her character until a speech she gave at the very end of the movie. Other than that, she was a fun and unique grandmother for the time.

The close-up view of 50s suburban culture. The house in the movie was small and realistic, and seeing things like the size of the oven, the cool clocks on the wall, the weird saloon-door room dividers is totally my jam. The different ideas of child-rearing were interesting as well- some of the characters fought over bottle feeding vs. nursing, and bottle feeding was touted as superior “modern science” that would prevent a mother from losing her figure!

The financial realities of raising a child were explicitly detailed. Joe made $55 a week, which would be about $33,500 a year today. Cloth diapers in today’s money would cost $35 a dozen, and Joe needed help paying an additional $1000 of his hospital bill, while paying a live-in nurse $650 a week.

One scene that really made me laugh was a comedy of misunderstanding. Joe thinks he’s going to a bus stop to pick up the babysitter, but instead he picks up a kind of call girl (although that language was never explicitly used). The best line was when Joe asked, “You’re a sitter, aren’t you?” Her reply? “Just between you and me- two scotches and I’ll sit anywhere!” Amazingly risque for the time!

The Bad:

A lot of the humor was pedestrian and predictable.

The plot was pretty loose and episodic.

It often felt more like an extended sit-com than a movie.

One of the big comedy moments near the end of the film was so unfunny I wanted to fast-forward it. (It was when Joe confronted his boss about the quality of the washing machines they sold.)

Twin beds, really? Joe and Betsy needed to have twin beds? How did they manage to actually have children when the beds were that ridiculously small?

The ending was also predictable, and it predictably hit you over the head with the superiority of heteronormative marital bliss. And the idea that a married couple isn’t complete unless they have children.

The divorcee grandma’s final speech also had to fall in line with the message of the film. Even though she seemed so independent and “gay” (in the old sense), she warned her daughter of ending up like her- old and alone and unattractive to men because she isn’t young anymore. Good god.

The movie poster: that likeness of Robert Cummings is atrocious!

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 11 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 115: Lydia Bailey

Release date: June 2nd, 1952

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Genre: historical adventure

Director: John Negulesco

Producer: Jules Schermer

Actors: Dale Robertson, Anne Francis, William Marshall

Plot Summary: In 1802 Haitians are fighting the French for their independence. Albion Hamlin, a white lawyer from the United States, arrives in Haiti to finalize the will of a rich American whose father’s estate was bequeathed to the US government. While there, he gets caught up in the battles between black Haitians and Napoleon’s forces.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***¼

I’ll admit that I was hesitant to watch this, fearing it would be incredibly racist. I was pleased to discover that the film was surprisingly progressive in a lot of ways. First and foremost, the most compelling, heroic, and charismatic character in the whole film was a black man fighting for his country’s freedom and independence. The movie threw all its chips in with the black Haitians, even explicitly comparing their cause with the cause of U.S. independence.

The Good:

William Marshall as King Dick. He was the movie for me. (And, yes, I know- his character’s name can be giggle inducing today.) His character was, as I said above, a compelling and impressive leader. Marshall himself was a wonderful actor imbuing the character with charisma and an almost regal stature. I would have given the film a much lower rating if he wasn’t in it.

The portrayal of freedom fighters. The black Haitians fighting the French were shown as having a worthy cause- they were the good guys. (There were some black characters that were fighting against our protagonists, and they were villainized, but not any worse than the French.) There was clearly an attempt to make American audiences see parallels with our own revolution.

Black people were generally not dehumanized. Looking at the poster for the film, I worried the Haitians might be portrayed as a foreign “other” with little humanity, but for a film in 1952, this did a pretty good job of avoiding it- go to the Bad section for a caveat, though.

It was exposure to history most Americans know very little about.

It lacked “white saviorism.” The cast was majority black with a white protagonist, but it didn’t turn into a white savior film. Most of the white people were the bad guys. Hamlin wasn’t needed to save the Haitians or help them win the war; he played a minor part in it. King Dick and the real life General Toussaint Louverture were much more influential.

The black characters were all played by black actors!

There was a fun little nod to Ben Franklin’s womanizing ways. An older French woman tells Hamlin she met and adored Franklin, and Hamlin replies, “Yes, I heard he was a great favorite with the ladies.”

The Bad:

The romance and attempted love triangle fell completely flat. Hamlin and Lydia barely seemed to talk enough for there to be anything realistic about their love, it just felt like a typical shoehorned-in romantic side plot in an adventure/war movie.

The character of Hamlin. Dale Robertson was certainly nice to look at, but the script gave him little to work with, and he wasn’t able to transcend it.

Anne Francis. Her acting just wasn’t the greatest- she was pretty wooden. She was beautiful in a way- but although she was 21 in real life, she disconcertingly looked about 15 or 16. It made me uncomfortable.

The plotting and sequencing weren’t the greatest either- it could be confusing at times and title cards kept having to break in, feeding us information about the dates and details of the war.

Accents again! This had the usual Classical Hollywood questionable accents- most egregious was the old mother of D’autremont. The actress was good, but the accent she used was jarringly un-French.

There were some cringy moments of more casual racism.

Regarding the “other-izing” of the black Haitians: Sometimes footage of natives drumming out messages had an exoticizing side-show vibe. The opening title card was a racist dog whistle, explaining that the environment in Haiti at the time was “keyed to hysteria by the constant beat of jungle drums.” Blech.

Trigger warning: blackface. This wasn’t nearly as bad as in I Dream of Jeanie, because no character was performing or entertaining in blackface... but it was still highly uncomfortable to watch. In this case, at least, the plot required Hamlin, Lydia, and her adopted son to blend in with black Haitians. If they were traveling with black freedom fighters like King Dick, other factions of Haitians might think they were French and kill them. They were doing it to not get killed, not demean and appropriate black culture, but still...

The pulp novel style movie poster grossly sensationalized everything, and there was more dog whistling with the “wild beat-beat of a thousand voodoo drums” line. Again, really?!

#100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 12 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 114: The Las Vegas Story

Release date: January 30th, 1952

Studio: RKO

Genre: noir/crime

Director: Robert Stevenson

Producer: Robert Sparks, Howard Hughes, Samuel Bischoff

Actors: Jane Russell, Victor Mature, Vincent Price, Hoagy Carmichael

Plot summary: Lounge singer Linda returns to Las Vegas with her gambling addicted husband Lloyd. While he loses thousands at the craps table, things heat up in a reunion with her ex, Dave, a police lieutenant. When Linda’s $150,000 necklace goes missing and a casino owner is murdered, Dave is left trying to untangle the mystery.

My Rating (out of 5 stars): ***

This is your basic three star “meh” movie. It’s competently made, generally well-acted, and has a fairly interesting plot... but it’s lacking something that would make it a really good film. It’s not a terrible way to spend 90 minutes, but there are many many 1952 films I’ve seen that I would recommend more. (Minor spoilers)

The Good:

The main mystery in the plot. Who killed Clayton and why? As things unfolded, I believed three different people were to blame, and I was genuinely surprised at who the big villain was.

I liked Victor Mature in this. Sometimes he can be a little vanilla for me, but he was good here. He wasn't outstanding, but it worked.

Vincent Price was an expert creep, as always.

The penultimate part of the chase scene at the end was pretty thrilling, even if the very end wasn’t as good (see below). The scenes with roadblocks and a helicopter chasing a car were good.

Thighs! Can I say it again? I love that 1950s female movie stars actually get to have fuller softer and larger thighs. (At least compared to today.) Jane Russell looked scrumptious in a bathing suit scene.

The Bad:

First off- the title! Calling it The Las Vegas Story made it seem like it might be fictionalized history about the city’s origins, but that wasn’t it at all. Why not call it Las Vegas Story, or even A Las Vegas story? Putting The in felt wrong.

Jane Russell. Sorry to say it, but she is just not good in this. It seems like she’s perpetually sedated and can barely open her eyes or actually move her mouth. She didn’t really even smile. I’ve seen her in two other 1952 films so far, and this is always kind of the case with her, but here it was particularly bad.

Jane Russell’s costumes. She is a stunning woman known for her beautiful curves, but you wouldn’t really know it from this film. Nothing she wore flattered her or accentuated her assets. (Except the swimsuit mentioned above, and only marginally)

A weird Hoagy Carmichael “comedy” song about monkeys. It completely ground the plot to a halt in the middle of the movie, and it wasn’t funny at all.

The final part of the chase scene at the end didn’t thrill me. Sometimes taking non-diegetic music out of high-tension moments can work (see the final sword fight in Scaramouche), but here it felt kind of tedious.

The ceaseless objectification of Jane Russell. There isn’t a man alive in her films (or her radio and tv appearances) who can refrain from ogling her and verbalizing all of their thoughts about her body. Examples? When one guy who briefly knew Russell’s character said, “I never forget face,” her own husband turns to her and says, “That man obviously has no eye for figures!” Another time when Linda was basically carjacked, one cop asks if he were the bad guy, “Where would you head to?” another one answers, “With a dish like that, I’d probably park first!” Ughhhhh.

The little side plot of an underage couple wanting to marry. It just didn’t work for me.

Another casualty of the Hollywood blacklist. The main writer on this, Paul Jerrico, had his name taken off the credits because of ties to communist organizations. He was blacklisted in Hollywood for nearly the rest of his career.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 16 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 113: Models, Inc.

Release date: May 19th, 1952.

Studio: Mutual, distributed by Universal

Genre: noir

Director: Reginald Le Borg

Producer: Bernard W. Burton, Hal E. Chester

Actors: Howard Duff, Colleen Gray, John Howard

Plot Summary: A beautiful young con-artist enrolls in a modeling school to seduce its wealthy owner, but when her old boyfriend gets out of prison, he has a scheme of his own. Can she really keep her criminal past away from her new rich husband?

My Rating (out of 5 stars): ***½

OK, this one was fun! For a lower budget noir, this is about as good as it can get. The acting was above par, the story was interesting, and we were blessed with amazing cheesy dialogue and a thrilling ending. It’s far from a towering achievement in film, but it’s hella entertaining. I’m definitely watching it again. (Some minor spoilers)

The Good:

Rusty, the con-woman at the center of everything. Both her character and the actress who played her were perfect for this kind of film. First of all, Rusty is a great name for a shady woman in a noir! She’s basically morally bankrupt, but it sure is fun to watch her.

Howard Duff as Lennie the ex who has been part of Rusty’s crimes. He recently impressed me in Steel Town, where he left me wishing he had gotten the girl in the end. Here he plays a bad guy with strength and aplomb. You love to hate him.

John Howard was effective as John Stafford, the millionaire in the modeling industry who succumbs to Rusty’s charms.

This was a classic sleazy crime-ridden noir in all the best ways,

A terrifically cheesy romance montage- as Rusty and John begin dating we see them go to a horse race, then an art museum, then a classical music concert, and finally a shopping scene where John lets her pick out lots of expensive clothes.

One of my favorite things about noirs is their tendency to have odd everyday characters randomly appear for comic relief or suspenseful delays. This one had a great scene near the end with a man in a bank and a slow customer ahead of Rusty as she's trying to flee.

The details about the modeling school classes were a treat to watch. (Go to the bottom of this post for the details!)

The ending was Perfect!

During a climactic shootout in an alley, we get glimpses of ads papered to the walls. As a character dodges bullets, a sign right next to him has a pouring teapot and reads, “Time for Tea,” which killed me.

There was so much great hilariously “noir” tough-talkin' dialogue. Like- “You can’t blow into town, promise me a job modeling your crummy lingerie, and after a fast pitch slough it off as a sweet dream.” Also, “That’s right, Lennie, neither of us has changed very much. Oh, a better suit or a dress maybe, but in here where it really counts, we’re still the same kids, looking for shortcuts to the rainbow.”

The Bad:

There was maybe a bit too much vagueness of what actually went on with the photo taking racket Lennie starts. I know censors at the time couldn’t outright say prostitution was involved, but...

How could John Stafford, a man who made a fortune creating models, be so stupid as to fall in love with Rusty? Her intentions seemed fairly transparent. I know love can blind a person, but you’d think he'd been around the block enough to figure it out.

During a police car chase scene, you could clearly see that no one in either car was wearing a seatbelt. Afterall, seatbelts wouldn’t be mandatory for fourteen years! (The resources I could find said it was 1966.) It sent me into a mini-panic just watching it!

------As a silly bonus, here’s the schedule on the chalkboard at the Stafford Modeling School:

9:30-10:30 Poise and Personality

10:30-10:45 Exercise

10:45-11:30 Hairstyling

11:30-12:45 Posture

12:45-2:00 Makeup

2:00-2:45 Modeling Stance

So there’s 15 minutes of exercise, but 75 minutes for posture?

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 16 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 112: I Dream of Jeanie

Release date: June 15th, 1952

Studio: Republic Pictures

Genre: musical

Director: Allan Dwan

Producer: Herbert J. Yates

Actors: Bill Shirley, Muriel Lawrence, Ray Middleton, Lynn Bari

Plot Summary: An almost entirely fictional account of American composer Steven Foster’s life. As his music career takes off, he tries to marry a society girl named Inez... but is it her little sister Jeanie that truly loves him?

My Rating (out of five stars): **¾ (with a warning- see below)

When I saw this was a full color musical by Republic Pictures, I was very intrigued. Republic was one of the cheapest B movie studios in Hollywood, known mostly for westerns and serials on shoestring budgets. Why did they do a musical in color? Because Steven Foster’s music was in the Public Domain, and they didn’t have to pay a cent for it! Maybe because my expectations were very low, I thought the movie overall wasn’t too bad. It had tons of music, and the actors were all pretty good. However, there’s a huge caveat- Foster's early music was associated with pre-Civil War minstrel shows, so there is a long segment in the film of white entertainers performing in blackface. It was extremely difficult to watch, and most people today probably wouldn’t want to. Because of that, I would NOT recommend watching it. (I markered over the blackface characters on the poster above, considering this will be semi-publicly posted.)

The Good:

The cast was quite good for a low budget film. I liked Eileen Christy as Jeanie- she was a fine actress with a nice voice and a cute look. Bill Shirley as Foster was also pretty charming and likeable.

Lots and Lots of music! I wouldn't be surprised if more than 50% of the film was musical performances. Foster’s music is antiquated now but generally enjoyable, and it’s a big part of the early American cultural zeitgeist. The singers were all talented and easy to listen to, even if the performances were more pleasant than remarkable.

The character of Edwin P. Christy, the famous minstrel leader. Ray Middleton’s portrayal brought life and humor to the film as a vain celebrity. His singing voice was especially good.

The color looked nicer than I expected. It was something called Trucolor, which certainly wasn’t Technicolor, but it was decent.

The film tried, emphasis tried, to have Foster pay homage to the debt he owed African American music. Most people today would shout “cultural appropriation” about much of his music, which is valid, and I appreciated that the film didn’t totally sweep that under the rug.

The Bad:

Blackface. It’s a terrible shameful part of American entertainment history that we can’t deny, but I never want to actually see it on screen. It was horrifying.

There was definitely racism in other places, even when the filmmakers seemed to have good intentions. As an example, Foster was friendly with a little black boy, even giving up his savings to pay his hospital bill, but... the kid’s nickname was Chitlin for god’s sake.

The story had almost no relation to the real Foster. The movie inexplicably took place in Cincinnati, where Foster never even lived. His life was portrayed as simple and relatively easy, when in real life he died at 37 of possible suicide.

Some of the sets looked comically cheap. At one point there was a river with water that was freaking identical to the chocolate river in 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!

The actress who played Inez was the weakest in the cast. Not only was her acting sub-par, her character was so awful she made me want to scream.

When the movie is called I Dream of Jeanie and a main character is named Jeanie, there’s not exactly any suspense about whether or not she will end up with Steven Foster!

#100 films of 1952

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project1939 · 17 days

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100+ Films of 1952

Film number 111: Steel Town

Release date: May 9th, 1952

Studio: Universal

Genre: drama

Director: George Sherman

Producer: Leonard Goldstein, Ross Hunter

Actors: Ann Sheridan, John Lund, Howard Duff

Plot Summary: Steve Kostane will soon take over the family steel mill and decides to get to know it from the bottom up. He meets a gorgeous redhead, discovers she has a boyfriend, and determines to win her love anyway.

My Rating (out of five stars): ***

This is described as a “noir,” so that’s what I was expecting. I was surprised to find it was more of a light drama set against the backdrop of a steel mill. Even its look defied expectation- are there any Technicolor noirs? The plot was fairly slight, but it’s still basically enjoyable to watch. (Some spoilers)

The Good:

Ann Sheridan. Her distinctive voice is deep and rich and makes me melt. She is strikingly beautiful, but she also has an appealing toughness; she won't take any shit from people. She can push away any man with a deliciously silly line like- “Why don’t you try that glass slipper on someone else- my tootsies are much too large.” !!!

Seeing the minutia of working in a steel mill was kind of cool.

Howard Duff. He played the second romantic lead, and I wish Sheridan had chosen HIM rather than the other guy.

I enjoyed the scenes in Red’s (Sheridan’s) Diner the most. They were colorful and fun.

Nancy Kulp (from The Bevery Hillbillies and The Parent Trap) had a small role as a waitress, and she was cute and funny. She also got to play a more traditionally feminine character for once. (She was fairly open about being a lesbian in real life, which is awesome.)

The rescue scene in the steel mill near the end was pretty thrilling.

The mom’s introduction was hilariously random- she was lying on the roof of her house trying to adjust her TV antenna!

This moment from the autogenerated subtitles: Red said, “I’m a regular Florence Nightingale!” and it got translated to, “I’m a regular farts Nightingale!”

The Bad:

John Lund’s character (and the actor himself, really). I despised Steve- he was repulsively sexually aggressive and little else. I didn’t find John Lund charming enough to offset that.

I hated that Red ended up with him! Why??

Sometimes there was a little too much steel making stuff. It felt almost like a documentary at one point, and the plot came to a virtual standstill for a few minutes.

And speaking of the plot... it was pretty thin. "Boy works in a steel mill, meets a girl, and woos her away from her current boyfriend." There were no high stakes until the very end.

A smaller thing, I know, but... why did Red’s family just give her bedroom to Steve? If my parents took in a lodger and kicked me out of my own bedroom so he could have it, I would be furious!

Going in and expecting a noir, when it wasn’t. No crime, no moral ambiguity, no complicated heroes, no cynicism, no dark and shadowy aesthetic... kind of a disappointment.

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #ann sheridan

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