'40s kitsch with Jade and Judy, not to mention Carmen !

Sometimes its hard to get one's head around the fact that in the last desperate years of World War II while dreadful things were happening in Europe and the Far East, Hollywood was still turning out those dream factory products like MRS MINIVER, RANDOM HARVEST, MEET ME IN ST LOUIS and this piece of oriental make-believe, made in 1944. (The MINIVER film though was designed to showcase the plucky Brits and gets Americans involved, like Anna Neagle's I LIVE IN GROSVENOR SQUARE). It must have seemed a good idea at the time to get Katharine Hepburn to play Chinese - after all, Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young did in THE HATCHET MAN in '32; along here with that cast including Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Akim Tamiroff and Turhan Bey. Kate is Jade, a pre-feminist Chinese woman who struggles with her family for survival when the Japanese invade. Presumably audiences of the time did not mind that other races were played by well-known actors. The film made while atrocities against the Chinese were being carried out reflects the American thinking at the time, as depicted through the keen expert eyes novelist Pearl S. Buck, author of THE GOOD EARTH. It also reflects what was available to Hollywood film-makers at that desperate moment. Given the time and the circumstances, the movie does quite an adequate job. Hepburn's name on theater marquees also ensured that many more people would see the film than otherwise (like Bette Davis in WATCH ON THE RHINE). Hollywood was of course also courting the South American audience, as their films were not available in wartorn Europe, with all those Carmen Miranda films set DOWN ARGENTINE WAY...

The plot here is: Ling Tang and his family live on his prosperous farm in rural Southern China and have not yet felt the impact of the Japanese invasion in the North. Tang's two oldest sons, Lao Ta Tan and Lao Er Tan are married and hard working while youngest son Lao San Tan remains a free spirit. Er's wife Jade is also willfully unconventional and desires to exercises her literacy skills by reading books, a most unfeminine practice in 1930's China. Tang's only daughter is married to Wu Lien, a city merchant who profits from selling Japanese goods. When the dreaded invasion reaches their village, the family is scattered as the sons join the resistance while Wu Lien survives by collaborating with the enemy.
Hepburn, thankfully, is less mannered and less on display than usual - her idea of being Chinese amuses now - and as a wartime drama it holds the attention. An interesting curiosity now then.

The later 40s shows the dream factory in full force with those favourites like A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, ROADHOUSE, THE HEIRESS etc and now A DATE WITH JUDY in 1948. Another 40s dreamworld where the middle-classes have roomy comfy homes and domestic help - yes its a coloured maid here, as Jane Powell as the perky teen Judy sings at the local high school, is friends with Carol - Elizabeth Taylor, the local rich girl, and worries about her parents' marriage as it seems father (Wallace Beery) is having an affair with a woman at his office. She though is Carmen Miranda who is teaching him how to rhumba to Xaviar Cugat's music at his wedding anniversary! Carmen is a bit subdued here but adds some sparkle, Jane Powell trills some songs like "Its a Most Unusual Day"; young Robert Stack is the new guy in town working in the drugstore whom both girls have their eyes on. 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor is marvellous here, patenting her future roles as the nice rich girl with some steel when it comes to getting her man. A Joe Pasternak production directed by Richard Thorpe, it is a pleasing discovery now. Perfect late 40s entertainment, particularly when Wallace Beery shows off his rhumba skills and the girls get their beaus, and of course with Leon Ames as another paterfamilias who learns the importance of his family. And of course teens then were just younger versions of their parents until the '50s when teenagers were suddenly invented and got their own culture as rock'n'roll arrived!

Anna / Mangano / Loren / Gold of Naples

A Silvana Mangano double feature, with Sophia Loren too !

1949's BITTER RICE was the successful Italian film which introduced Silvana Mangano to international audiences. I have not seen it yet (but will be shortly) - producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti who combined to produce all those Italian films of the 50s, repeated its success, along with co-stars Raf Vallone and Vittorio Gassman, with Silvana as ANNA in 1951, a torrid melodrama reuniting its 3 young stars (who would all have great international careers). As per my other posts on Silvana she was never an ambitious actress (like Loren or Lollo) but as Mrs De Laurentiis she headlined her husband's films. Also on the fast track then was the next Italian sensation, Sophia Loren, who had Carlo Ponti to guide her career. It is amusing seeing Sophia here in the more or less silent bit part as one of the nightclub girls (with Gassman, below left); 3 years later by 1954 Sophia (barely 20) was headlining those terrific movies I love like WOMAN OF THE RIVER and TOO BAD SHE'S BAD (where is SCANDAL IN SORRENTO ?) after working her way up in films like the amusing Sordi vehicle TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, by which time Gina Lollobrigida was also another major Italian star, heading for international movies.



Back to ANNA - this may well be my discovery of the year. Silvana is luminous as the indispensible hospital nursing nun (but she has not taken her final vows yet....) beloved by her patients and the surgeon she assists at operations, but what is her secret?
One night we find out as wounded Raf Vallone is brought in, Sister Anna rushes to the opera to get the head surgeon who is needed to operate and we see in flasback, that she was a nightclub singer and was going to marry country boy Raf, but her jealous lover Vittorio cannot let her go .... after tragedy she finds peace as a nun. Silvana gets to sing here, two delightful numbers which were released on disk and it seems they are still available (I shall have to investigate...). This is an engrossing drama that still works now - it is in fact an ideal "woman's picture" much better than any today. The three young stars in their youthful prime command the screen, Silvana framed by that nun's habit looks sensational - that face and profile, with that long nose and expressive eyes. The drama continues as Raf comes out of surgery, Sister Anna tries to evade his attention but can the lovers get back together or will her life at the hospital, as an emergency train crash victims arrive, prove too strong? Terrific stuff then. Alberto Lattuada directs - he also helmed Silvana's THE TEMPEST which I liked a lot back in 1958, the year Silvana did Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) with Tony Perkins (see labels for more on these), 1960 saw Martin Ritt's downbeat FIVE BRANDED WOMEN - all Laurentiis productions as was ULYSSES in '53 with Silvana as Penelope and Circe, 1954's MAMBO where Silvana also sings and dances up a storm in another torrid melodrama by Ponti-De Laurentiis but releases by Paramount, with Gassman and wife Shelley Winters; in this one though its Silvana whom Shelley has a yen for! ANNA though is a great discovery with great Lux film production values. I loved it.

After some 60s films like BARABBAS and the amusing IL DISCO VOLANTE (see post below) Silvana mainly worked for directors like Pasolini (OEDIPE RE, TEOREMA) and Visconti (DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG, CONVERSATION PIECE) in the 70s, she had more or less retired from cinema as Vitti and Cardinale took centre stage; a heavy smoker she died in 1989, aged 59; one of her final appearances being in De Laurentiis's DUNE.

Finally one can see GOLD OF NAPLES (L'ORO DE NAPOLI) De Sica's 1954 portmanteau collection - which he followed in the 60s with his segment in BOCCACCIO 70 and the Loren-Mastroianni hit YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW. GOLD OF NAPLES though showcases Naples in all its vibrancy and is where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of Napolitean episodes : a clown (Toto) exploited by a gangster, he is even paid to say prayers at the grave of the gangster's wife, its richly comic when the worm turns; an unfaithful pizza seller (Sophia) losing her emerald ring - and the young Loren is sensational walking through those Neapolitan streets; the funeral of a child; the gambler Count Prospero (Vittorio himself) defeated by a kid; the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa (Silvana), a prostitute, a touching tale, Mangano has a long climactic close-up. With Eduardo De Fillipo and scripted by De Sica regular, Cesare Zavattini. Bliss to finally catch up with now. Like Rossellini's VOYAGE TO ITALY it captures that early 50s Italian scene perfectly. and now for BITTER RICE .... see Italian label for more on all these; Vittorio's return to Naples in the first segment of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW being particularly choice, (and whose locations seem the same as the Toto episode here in GOLD OF NAPLES), also his Loren segment of BOCCACCIO 7O, and those other Italian portmanteau 60s films like LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE, with Vitti and Lollobrigida..

5 BRANDED WOMEN: Mangano, Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes, Carla Gravina; TEMPEST - Agnes Moorehead ideal as Mangano's mother.

Movies I Love: All That Heaven Allows

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS is probably my favourite Douglas Sirk movie, this 1955 melodrama is just as good if not better than IMITATION OF LIFE or WRITTEN ON THE WIND, camp classics both. I also like Sirk's INTERLUDE with June Allyson, reviewed a while back here (Allyson label), and his 1958 A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS though is the perfect commentary/critique on small town America in the affluent '50s. I somehow find his MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION a little too schmalzy, and THE TARNISHED ANGELS (also with Hudson and Malone) has not been seen in years.



Here, Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson are re-united - she is Cary, the recent widow (we sense her husband was older) at a loose end, with her son and daughter away most of the time; he is the gardener fixing her garden, the son of the old gardener. She offers him lunch, they talk - he seems impossibly good-looking and attentive. They slowly get to know each other ... her friend Sara (Agnes Moorehead) warns Cary about small-town gossip, in particular Mona Plash (Jacqueline DeWit), stalking the town in her fur coat, and being the terror of the country club. Rock takes Jane to his secret place - the old mill outside town which he has plans to do up and move into, and he even repairs that broken Wedgewood coffee pot.



Then it is time to introduce him to the children - the jealous incredulous son, furious that his father's trophy and picture have been put in storage (and as the daughter says, resentful that his mother is still attractive to other men), and the know-it-all daughter (Gloria Talbot). There is that interesting exchage of dialogue between them where the daughter comments on the old Egyptian custom of burying the widow with the deceased's other possessions and saying that does not happen any more. "well, perhaps not in Egypt" says Cary dryly. Then, at the country club all hell breaks loose when an old admirer taunts Cary about her new young man, the snooty locals look down on the gardener who trims their trees and Mona is in her element as a fight breaks out: "Why, Cary, isn't one man enough for you?" - Ron (Rock) has also taken Cary away to meet his more down to earth friends who overcome her resistance to the idea of her marrying Ron. She changes her mind though after all the disapproval, but soon find it was a pointless sacrifice as her headaches get worse, but her doctor can find nothing wrong and urges her to do what is right for her - it turns out the son has plans to spend a year abroad and the daughter is marrying, so poor Cary is left with the new television she did not want - the comfort of every lonely housewife and widow. There is of course the old family friend who wants to marry her, but makes it clear it is for companionship. Will fate intervene and bring the lovers together again, will Ron recover from that fall?







It is a perfect realisation of small town middle-class America; the women going to meet the train in the snow, the station wagons and estate cars, large roomy comfy houses (as in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, another Movie I Love soon), and of course the mill and the snow falling, and the deer looking in the window. Delirious! Wyman isn't a particularly compelling actress, but (like Allyson) she kept busy through the '50s, and she is just right here as the hesitant Cary. Sirk also directed some interesting costumers: CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT with Hudson, in Ireland in 1954, and SIGN OF THE PAGAN with Jack Palance as Attila and Jeff Chandler as a Roman centurion - its one of the better costumers of its era.

Another batch of '50s rarities ...

O HENRY’S FULL HOUSE – This 1952 20th Century Fox compendium of 5 O Henry stories has never surfaced anywhere during my 40 years here in England, so when I saw it on Amazon I just had to get it, and its quite nice if nothing very special. Odd for a film about one writer’s work it is introduced by another: the much better known John Steinbeck (whom I had not seen on film before) who links the stories. It has that early ‘50s Fox look and a lot of those young Fox players of the time, but the most interesting sequence is a practically wordless one of hobo Charles Laughton trying to get back into jail for the winter – Marilyn Monroe appears for maybe a minute as the streetwalker he insults, and its just great seeing them together. Oddly enough the story directed by Howard Hawks works least of all and is rather bizarre - but Fox stalwarts Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulseco, Henrys Koster and King direct the other episodes: cop Dale Robertson having to arrest old school pal Richard Widmark (guying his tough guy image) is a lively diversion; poor newly weds Jeanne Crain and Farley Granger trying to afford Christmas presents is nicely touching; and sisters Anne Baxter and Jean Peters play in an amusing anecdote with Gregory Ratoff.

CARNIVAL STORY – This was a dim childhood memory but I really enjoyed seeing it again now. Anne Baxter is terrific as the poor girl joining a carnival touring Germany and rising from washing dishes to being the headline act with a daring trapeze stunt, as she falls for no-good hunk Steve Cochran and marries trapeze star Lyle Bettger (usually a western heavy, but nicely effective here). George Nader also gets involved and good old Jay C Flippen runs the show. Anne runs the gamut and the stuntwork is effectively done and it all comes to an enjoyable climax. Nice period feel and colour, as directed by a Kurt Neumann for RKO. A perfect programmer for 1954 then. Glynis Johns did a similar trapeze act in a British compendium of Somerset Maugham stories (ENCORE) which may well have influenced this one.

THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER – This was a real delight, a ’56 programmer which I thought would be a cheapo effort but it’s a Scope and color Fox production from producer Buddy Adler and directed by Raoul Walsh and headlines Jane Russell in one of her bad girls trying to go good mode. Mamie is a hard-boiled but good-humoured dame being run out of San Francisco and put on a cargo ship to Hawaii – the only other passenger is writer Richard Egan. They both know the score but get involved anyway. He already has a fiancée waiting for him, and Mamie heads for the local dancehall with hostesses or is it really a brothel? It is run though by no nonsense madam Agnes Moorehead who has had a makeover and is blonde and quite glamorous here, as aided by henchman Michael Pate she keeps the girls in order and maximises the takings. It does not take Mamie long to see how the operation works as she becomes the star attraction and desperate Aggie has to increase her take to 60% to keep her, as Mamie begins to profit from the war buyng up cheap properties. Oh did I mention it is 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbour begins… It has a nicely dry ending and Jane is terrific here and those ‘50s costumes are delirious treats now. Below: blonde madam Agnes Moorehead lines up her gals (Jane on the left) before opening time....

INTERLUDE – another dim childhood memory, also long unseen. It’s a '57 Douglas Sirk from Universal and a Ross Hunter production – but its not even included in that recent Sirk boxset. It is set back in Sirk’s Germany in nice Munich and Salzburg locations and drenched in classical music as library assistant June Allyson at the American Embassy gets involved with broody but handsome conductor Rosanno Brazzi – but of course, he has a mentally ill wife (Marianne Koch) tended by old but wise Francoise Rosay, while doctor Keith Andes wants June to return home with him as his wife. Again its nicely resolved but there is no real chemistry between the leads. June Allyson is a curious case in that she is usually forgotten in any discussions on ‘50s leading ladies but there she was throughout the decade, all ladylike in those buttoned up blouses and white gloves, in those popular James Stewart vehicles, remakes of Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer movies (MY MAN GODFREY, THE OPPOSITE SEX (ie THE WOMEN), right up to ‘59’s Ross Hunter sudser STRANGER IN MY ARMS with Jeff Chandler, Mary Astor and Sandra Dee. Allyson is perfect though in WOMAN'S WORLD and THE OPPOSITE SEX. INTERLUDE has a yuckky theme song by the McGuire Sisters which sets the tone here ...
This was also remade in 1968 with Oscar Werner and should be worth a look.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN – and yet another childhood memory and one not seen since as again it never surfaced anywhere, until a friend got a copy recently. This is a 1957 Muriel Box film crammed with British thespians, as an aged Laurence Harvey looks back over the women in his life. Cue some of the actresses and starlets of the day: Diane Cilento, Mai Zetterling, Eva Gabor, Jackie Lane, Lisa Gastoni in amusing little playlets and gowned by Cecil Beaton, Christopher Lee is also as effective as ever. The heart of the film though is the episode with Julie Harris playing with her usual total sincerity the nice girl Harvey gets trapped with in the lift who becomes his wife and the mother to their children, but … Its all nicely put together even if Larry seems to be just playing his usual self with grey whiskers, and its certainly a period piece now, but good to see Harvey and Harris re-united after their I AM A CAMERA in ’55. English viewers of a certain vintage will be amused to see the final lady is tv Eurovision presenter Katie Boyle in a mink stole!

People We Like: Agnes Moorehead

While we are discussing formidable women, here's a nod to Agnes Moorehead - whom I have seen in quite a few crackers recently. Agnes of course is up there with Thelma Ritter and Eve Arden and Jessie Royce Landis as one of the great character players and she has enlivened scores of films since those early appearances with Welles in CITIZEN KANE and her brilliant role as Aunt Fanny in THE MAGNIFICIENT AMBERSONS. Without checking her filmography I remember her Aunt Reed in that good verson of JANE EYRE in '44. She worked steadily through the '50s and into the '60s - films like SHOWBOAT, RAINTREE COUNTY, HOW THE WEST WAS WON and that slatterny servant in HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE where she and aged Mary Astor (as Jewel Mayhew) practically steal the film from Bette and Olivia. I did not see her BEWITCHED series though ... (Left, her aged Countess in THE LOST MOMENT with Susan Hayward, in '47, based on Henry James' THE ASPERN PAPERS).

here though are some choice Mooreheads:

THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER - Aggie is blonde here and - gasp! - glamorous as the no-nonsense madam of the brothel in wartime Hawaii where Jane Russell's Mamie Stover becomes the star girl, in '56. I will be writing more about this shortly ... but Aggie is terrific here.

THE STORY OF MANKIND - that 1957 lulu (which I have previously written about here) by Irwin Allen, full of those odd cameos. Agnes has a minute or two as Elizabeth I and is a terrific addition to those Virgin Queens by Davis, Robson, Jackson ...

THE TEMPEST - the 1958 Dino De Laurentiis co-production with mainly Italian players like Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman. Agnes is perfectly cast here as Mangano's mother (they both have a similar profile) and it was a treat to see again recently, as per my review a while back.

THE SWAN - This is rather ignored now as HIGH SOCIETY took all the attention as the last Grace Kelly film, but this is a real treat now, with a good role at last for Jessie Royce Landis playing Grace's mother (again), and terrific MGM production values realising the castle as Prince Alec Guinness comes wooing, and princess Grace falls for lowly tutor Louis Jourdan. Estelle Winwood is also on hand, and Agnes makes a brisk apperance as the Queen setting them all aflutter.

THE OPPOSITE SEX - A perennial favourite as I have reviewed it several times, Agnes scores here as the Countess whom June Allyson meets on the train on the way to her divorce in Reno, in this perfectly '50s remake of THE WOMEN. Right: a bizarre shot of the ladies all lined up in costume!

Add in those roles in ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, CAGED, Wayne's mother in THE CONQUEROR, with Hayward again in UNTAMED, the grouch in POLLYANNA, and the crotchety nun in THE SINGING NUN ... and I really must get around to watching JEANNE EAGELS !
I have just discovered a terrific website (thank you Google) devoted to all things Agnes: Aggie's Place: www.agnesmoorehead.org - check it out!