It turns out Hilda has two failed marriages behind her while still in her 20s, and of course like all women then dresses just like her mother: fur coat, gloves, little hats, and of course smokes incessantly. It makes for a fascinating social document. This is a small-scale story, with basically only 5 characters, but gets the full Fox Cinemascope and De Luxe Colour treatment, as directed and scripted (from a play – its very talky with reams of dialogue) by Philip Dunne. Simmons though, just after GUYS AND DOLLS seems too fresh and young, Hilda Crane is really a Stanwyck type (though she was too old by then – a year or two later it surely would have gone to Fox’s new favourite, Joanne Woodward). 
This though should be much better known by those who study these things as a key woman’s film of the ‘50s depicting how they feel about themselves and their place in society. Hilda though she dresses like her mother sees herself as modern woman but her choices are limited (and don’t seem to include work). Luckily her old boyfriend Guy Madison is on hand and stills want to marry her – marriage number three for Hilda! – while her old college professor, French Jean-Pierre Aumont, now a successful writer, also wants her but not to marry her. His type don’t marry “experienced” women like Hilda, but he wants her as a mistress or as he puts it “a courtesan”. Hilda though is honest and does not want that, or the life her mother chose, to settle for respectability and keeping up appearances and an ordered existence. Mother is Judith Evelyn and her disappointed face explains everything about her – while Guy’s mother is a monstrously vile creation by Evelyn Varden who does not want her son to marry Hilda and will do anything to stop the wedding – she certainly succeeds in spoiling the big day! Guy is pure teak here as the solid boyfriend while Aumont plays the cad, and Jean is certainly at her peak. 
CLAUDELLE INGLISH (now called YOUNG AND EAGER on it’s IMDB page! – though WILD IN THE COUNTRY would be the perfect title…) – is a more modern (1961) look at a liberated (or is she?) miss and it follows on from the success of those teen hits like PARRISH and SUSAN SLADE. This though is Erskine Caldwell territory set in the backwoods where the local yokels (and their fathers!) are all agog over young Claudelle, and the local rich landowner who is depicted as an oaf (Claude Akins) also wants her. Claudelle starts out pure and virginal as she is courted by Chad Everett, but after he goes into the army he jilts her, and she seeks her vengeance by going out with all and sundry and receiving presents from them. Mom and Dad are reliable Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford (re-united from A SUMMER PLACE). 
It is a good role for Kennedy which he inhabits nicely, and Ford depicts another of her nightmare mothers, here as the dreary fed-up wife tired of being poor, so she pushes Claudelle into the arms of Akins, and tries to take her place (in a toe-curling scene) when Claudelle is not interested in him. Things come to a climax with a gun, but it is all hilariously melodramatic and way over the top. Diane McBain, a starlet of the era, is nice as Claudelle but if she such a vamp perhaps a more exotic type, perhaps a young Ann-Margret, would be more suitable. McBain really seems a poor man’s Sandra Dee. It is all assembled by reliable studio hack Gordon Douglas (who also entertained us with his Carroll Baker movies SYLVIA and the HARLOW abomination - see my reviews at Trash label). 
Later the birth of her children when in her 30s after she finally gets her husband to consummate the marriage is all glossed over rather quickly. The mob only appear once at the climax as she bows to the will of the people and we end with her and her family in a carriage, as the sun sets, on their way to their destiny – just as at the start she is that young girl on her way to France in another carriage. The cast is quite good – nice to see Marianne Faithfull (if only briefly) as her mother Maria Theresa, and comedian Steve Coogan as the advisor, Rip Torn as the older king and Jason Schwartzmann as the diffident husband, plus Judy Davis and Tom Hardy. We also get to see a lot of the opulent and eccentric court at Versailles as Marie matures. Other characters like the Princess Lamballe and Count Fersen are rather glossed over. 
Here where I live, just outside London, we have a local litte art cinema run by the local council, a plush 68 seater, which has been ideal in recent years since I discovered it for seeing the best of recent releases [like UNCLE BOONMEE, THE KING'S SPEECH, ANOTHER YEAR, NINE, THE HISTORY BOYS, BROKEBACK etc and revivals [PANDORA!] in comfortable surroundings. I don't think I could go back to the multiplex with kids texting and using their mobile/cell phones .... but all good things come to an end. This little cinema - grandly titled The David Lean Cinema [he was a local boy] closes in a few weeks, due to the current economic climate and cuts imposed on councils. The cinema though is part of the town hall, so it is not like it is a separate building which has to be maintained, so I dare say it cannot save that much, but if libraries and drop-in centres are being cut back, so too are cinemas! 
nright fat (or zaftig?) by today's skinny standards. One can now appreciate a lot more Olivier's sly performance as the Prince Regent, and of course those legion stories of the difficulties of it's making - there is even going to be a film on it, from the book by Colin Clark [with, would you believe, Judi Dench as Sybil Thorndike! - Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Williams impersonate the warring leads...). 
The period detail is nice and there is a good supporting cast of British reliables: Sybil Thorndike, Jean Kent, solid Gladys Henson as the theatre dresser and best of all a good substantial role for splendid Richard Wattis - that stalwart of almost every British film of the '50s and early '60s - as the equerry. He has some nice scenes with Monroe, as indeed does young Jeremy Spencer (below) as the young prince - but what happened to him thereafter? He is one of those young actors who seem to define an era, here the late 50s, but then seems to vanish. I dare say as the '60s began there was a whole new raft of actors emerging ... but there he was with Marilyn here, a scene with Katharine Hepburn in SUMMERTIME, the young man stalking Vivien Leigh in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE to whom she throws down the keys at the end, and he was also in a few other films, then he seems to have disappeared! Most other actors keep working in smaller roles or on television once their hot years are over... 
This is also Terence Rattigan's centenary year - and this is one of his scripts. Some lovely moments include Marilyn's closeups in the carriage and cathedral scenes where she never looked more radiant, despite the turmoil going on at the time. Cardiff's book MAGIC HOUR on his illustrious career has a chapter on Monroe which really makes all the other books on her redundant. Highly recommended, as per other Cardiff posts here, at label. 
Yolanda wanders through it totally distracted with only that great dane for comfort… Phil Carey becomes obsessed with her, as is the doctor from the sanitarium who thinks he is controlling her. 
More desert exotica in ZARAK a ’56 release by Warwick Films who seem to be an English company released through Columbia – they often featured Victor Mature and/or Anita Ekberg (SAFARI, INTERPOL, THE BANDIT OF ZHOBE etc). We get both here along with Michael Wilding (with Eunice Gayson as his wife), Bonar Colleano and old reliables like Finlay Currie. – there is also a young Patrick McGoohan. It is set on the North West Frontier between India and Afghanistan, with much crossing back and forth, as Mature is Zarah Khan who becomes a notorious outlaw after being flogged for falling for his despot father’s latest wife, Anita – who does not have much to do but looks sensational as she does a few dances, and of course with that obligatory ruby in her navel (see top). We get all the usual uprising against the British Raj with Wilding as the very correct officer and he and Zarak grow to appreciate each other before the final conflict. There are also a few more floggings. The same team of executive producer Albert Broccoli, writer Richard Maibaum and director Terence Young would provide the first Bond adventure DR NO a few years hence, also with Gayson as the first lady to hear that “Bond, James Bond” reply. 
BACK FROM ETERNITY - a good 1956 entry in the "doomed flight" movies, its the one where the plane crash-lands in the jungle where head-hunters are. Can they fix the plane and get out in time as they are picked off one by one? I saw this as a kid and it was quite scary actually, so it certainly made an impression. It's a John Farrow film and his second film on the same story. The motley cast here include Robert Ryan and Anita as a shady lady down on her luck but of course she looks stunning. Rod Steiger has one of his early roles as the criminal being taken back to be tried, Keith Andes and Phyllis Kirk make up the crew and the other passengers include Beulah Bondi. Anita gets a few good moments before the exciting climax, as Steiger predictably goes into over-drive.
OMAR KHAYYAM – William Dieterle’s 1957 take on that Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam is a childhood memory but looking at it again now it is a confused muddle and rather a plod for a ‘50s sword and sandal costumer. Cornel Wilde should be ideal as Omar but seems a bit subdued here, Debra Paget is his lost love, there are not that many harem ladies as the plot involves a cult of assassins (perhaps an earlier Taliban) led by Michael Rennie who have to be thwarted by our hero before he gets Debra at the end. Add in John Derek, Raymond Massey and Sebastian Cabot to flesh things out…. The score is by Victor Young and Yma Sumac is also on hand to warble a few ditties, but it could have been so much better. 
The real doozy turns out to be SON OF SINBAD, one I had not seen previously. This is a Howard Hughes production from 1955 – though actually filmed in ’53 and as usual held up by Hughes while he tinkered with it. Here the girls are to the forefront and how, as the interesting comments on it on IMDB make clear, describing it as “a kids’ movie for dirty old men” and this priceless comment: “every stripper and burlesque queen in the greater L A area must have got a gig on this notorious desert romp”! Sinbad is cowboy star Dale Robertson (SITTING BULL, THE GAMBLER FROM NATCHEZ) who looks odd in high-waisted harem pants and a turban but the real joy here is Vincent Price as, yes, Omar Khayyam which he plays in a very camp manner when not leering at the many harem babes. It all starts with Vincent as Omar looking for Sinbad as we stop for five minutes for an exotic dance, while Sinbad gets into the harem to see Lili St Cyr. 
Soon we get the 40 thieves who are the female descendants of the original 40 and we head off to the desert for some derring-do, with ample dances and slave girls en route. Things come a stop again before the end for a pole dance by Sinbad’s love Sally Forrest, quite expicit for the era. It is all great fun and I enjoyed it enormously. Directed by one Ted Tetzlaff, and with Mari Blanchard (who has the secret of early gunpowder which she has to be hypnotised to reveal) and Jay Novello and of course all those scanty dressed showgirls out in the desert! Victor Young again scores. 
SIREN OF ATLANTIS. Is this not the film that movie critic Myron Breckinbridge (soon to be Myra) was able to travel through the television to enter the actual set of, as set out in Gore Vidal’s seminal novel? Oops, no it was not, that was “Siren of Babylon” – I better re-read my Gore. This one turns out to be a rather damp squib from 1949, we do not seen too much of Maria Montez (who comes across as very leaden here) and it is not in glowing Technicolor. I was expecting another COBRA WOMAN, but this is a painfully slow, rather stilted affair with two explorers finding the lost city of Atlantis somewhere under the Sahara, and finding it ruled by a mysterious queen who has a penchant for embalming her lovers and using them as ornamental statues in her gallery, until finally, she met a lover who could resist her charms. He is Montez’s husband Jean-Pierre Aumont, of the French Foreign Legion, who is found wandering in the desert and has a strange story to tell, and it seems history will repeat itself… Henry Daniell is as ever a lot of fun as the court librarian, with Dennis O’Keefe, and directed by one Gregg C Tallas. 