The Proud Ones (1956)

Directed by Robert D Webb; produced by Robert L Jacks

The railway has come to a small Kansas town, prompting a boom: cattlemen are driving their herds in for shipping, hotels and saloons are opening, and gambling houses are mushrooming. Marshal Cass Silver (Robert Ryan) is probably alone in disliking the sudden growth. Especially since along with the wave of sudden prosperity comes ‘Honest John’ Barrett, an entrepreneur with a shady past and a history with Silver. Each man wants the other gone, but only Barrett will stoop to murder to have his way.

The Proud Ones is not a particularly distinguished western, despite the good cast. It has some interesting elements. That it takes place at a time of sudden and almost over-night growth in a town is different than in many westerns; it’s more usual to have a town where nothing is seen to change. The change happening here is a catalyst, not just for the plot, but for characters: most of the town is in favour of the increased business, new people and excitement. Even Silver’s girlfriend, Sally (Virginia Mayo), who runs a restaurant, likes it. For the marshal, it just means trouble.

The plot doesn’t take as much advantage of this as it could. It is shunted too strongly toward a semi-revenge story-line: young Thad Anderson (Jeffrey Hunter) thinks Silver killed his father, and just happens to be driving cattle near Silver’s town. His decision to befriend Silver is too abrupt, and even then, he seems to waver between believing Silver’s version of past events and not.

Added to the mix is Silver’s trouble with his eyesight: a blow to the head leaves him with periodic blurry vision.

Any of these elements would have been enough to build a story around. Including all of them leaves each not only incomplete but only half-heartedly contributing to the movie.

The acting is good. It’s enjoyable to see Ryan playing an unmitigated good guy, though he still gives the impression that he is the last man any troublemaker would want to annoy. Hunter does well, though I am beginning to think that he had too many early rôles as a young man with a chip on his shoulder. Mayo is under-used in her part; as well, Walter Brennan and Arthur O’Connell were at points in their careers when they should have had more to do in the film.

The direction is nothing extraordinary. This may have been Webb’s biggest effort in that regard; he alternated work as a director of mediocre films with that of a second unit director on bigger budget movies (eg. The Desert Fox) and even blockbusters (eg. Cleopatra). Despite his experience, and his family’s history in Hollywood, he creates nothing remarkable in The Proud Ones.

A fairly standard western, The Proud Ones has some interesting features that may allow it to be remembered. Nonetheless, I can’t see any viewer wanting to see it a second time.

Dark City (1998)

Directed by Alex Proyas; produced by Andrew Mason and Alex Proyas

A man (Rufus Sewell) wakes in a hotel room, remembering nothing of who he is. A telephone call warning him that people are coming for him sends him on the run from strange-looking men, as well as the police, who suspect him of being a serial killer. Discovering himself to be John Murdoch, he is lost in a city of endless night, where everything, including memories, keeps changing.

Dark City combines science fiction and fantasy with film noir in a highly original movie. Though the principal actor is Sewell, the real stars are the set design and art direction. The setting looks like a 1940s American city, maybe New York, maybe Los Angeles, and neither. The clothes, technology and furniture suggest the same time and place, but with enough difference to imply that quality of dreams that places the dreamer in a location he recognizes, even though it looks nothing like the real thing.

The story is intriguing and involving. It builds as the characters, including William Hurt as a cerebral police detective who finds too much wrong with the case he’s inherited, realise there is more going on than simple if heinous crimes. There are some holes in the plot, such as the fact that if a person’s memories alter enough to make him a different individual, all the memories of those who ever met him would also need to change to support the new identity. And the ending is weak, though only because it is rather more literal than what had preceded it.

The script is well written, and complements the dream-like - at times nightmarish - aspects of the story. It is especially effective when dialogue gives vague or inconclusive answers which, paradoxically, accentuate features of the movie. At one point, Murdoch tries to reach a location only to find the subway doesn’t go so far; he must take the express. When the express doesn’t stop for him, he is told that of course it doesn’t stop: it’s the express. The lines spoken help create a puzzle seemingly without escape: frustrating for the characters but intriguing for the viewer.

Sewell does very well in the lead. He is suitably dark and brooding for an air of possible menace to be given to Murdoch, but sympathetic enough for a hero. Jennifer Connolly does a good job in the role of Murdoch’s bemused wife, and Hurt, who probably would have had a longer and fuller career as a leading man if audiences had not had to think about his performances, is likeable as the investigator.

Many of the cast is Antepodean (Proyas was raised in Australia), reflecting its origins, including Bruce Spence, Melissa George and Colin Friels. Richard O’Brien, who wrote the original stage version of The Rocky Horror Show (1973; adapted for the screen as The Rocky Horror Picture Show two years later) is the leading antagonist, Mr Hand. Ian Richardson gives both authority and evil to his part as Mr Book.

A cinematically visual treat, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Dark City is an entertaining and, at times, mesmerising journey into a strange and frightening world. (If possible, see the director’s cut, which removes the exasperating exposition at the beginning, which gives the game away; the studio felt audiences needed to be told the whole story at the start.)

Bob le flambeur (1956)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; produced by Jean-Pierre Melville, Serge Silberman, Roger Vidal

Bob Montagne (Roger Duchesne) is a veteran criminal and gambler. He’s a respectable, classy man, whom everyone likes, even the police, a high-ranking officer of which (Guy Decomble) owes his life to Bob. But Bob’s luck comes and goes. The day he is down to his last few francs is when he learns that the casino at Deauville routinely keeps a fortune in its safe. Naturally, that safe is heavily protected. Just as naturally, Bob wants to rob it.

An interesting movie, Bob le flambeur comes across as a cheaper, less refined version of the better French crime-films of the mid-1950s, such as Touchez pas au grisbi (the first movie reviewed on this blog this year). The direction seems that of someone still learning his trade, though this was Melville’s fourth feature.

There are several scenes which include people in the background watching the events, as if the filming was conducted without permission, or without involving everyone visible in the shoot. In another scene, shot outdoors, the sound of an aeroplane flying overhead nearly blots out the dialogue, indicating that later dubbing was not used, and little care taken to preclude unintended noises. Though much of the direction is effective, it nonetheless almost conveys the impression of a student film, shot by someone of considerable but undeveloped talent.

The acting too is less capable than in other French movies of the era. Duchesne had made more than a dozen movies in four years, many of them during the German occupation of France. He was shunned afterward as a collaborator, and had not acted for thirteen years prior to Bob le flambeur. While good, he has not the ease or charisma of actors who would rise to the top of French cinema, such as Gabin, Belmondo or Delon.

The performer who stands out most prominently is seventeen year old Isabelle Corey (here credited as Isobel Corey). Her portrayal of Anne, a youngster on the road to ruin, until saved by Bob, is convincing. So too is Decomble’s, playing a cop who is good at and dedicated to his job, but preferring to prevent crime than investigate it.

The script is better than other elements, co-written by Auguste Le Breton, who penned, among other screenplays, Rififi and Razzia sur la chnouf. It creates a winning character in Bob, who protects Anne from a violent pimp, but shuns romance with such a kid, despite her willingness; whose robberies hurt no one - except himself - and whose instinct is to help, even his enemies. The other characters are, if not well-defined, realistic, variously driven by love, greed, desperation and boredom.

A good but not very good film, Bob le flambeur would probably not be one to entice viewers deeper into French 1950s cinema, as would a number of other choices. But for someone who isn’t demanding, and who is willing to be entertained without being impressed, it is a reasonably enjoyable evening at the movies.

Venetian Bird (1952)

Directed by Ralph Thomas; produced by Betty E Box

Private detective Edward Mercer (Richard Todd) travels to Venice to find Renzo Uccello, who had saved an RAF officer’s life in the Second World War. To his surprise, he finds Uccello elusive, people reluctant to speak of him and the police even more interested in finding him than Mercer is himself. Soon, the investigator is caught up in bribery and political assassinations, and becomes the subject of a hunt more dangerous than that for Uccello.

Victor Canning, who wrote both the novel from which Venetian Bird is adapted, and the adaptation itself, was a prolific author of thrillers in the 1930s, ‘40s and later. Venetian Bird seems fairly typical of his work. Like The Golden Salamander - a movie derived from another of his books and reviewed on this blog in December of 2017 - it involves an Englishman who is inadvertently caught up in intrigue and romance in foreign parts. Venetian Bird is the better movie but, though an adequate adventure film, not really memorable. It gives the feeling of coming from an author who put out more or less similar work once a year as a job, which is what Canning was.

Todd is usually an engaging hero, boyish, active, as ready with his brains as with his fists. He does well here in a rôle that doesn’t really ask him to stretch his talent. His love-interest, Eva Bartok, is suitably mysterious, but not as good an actor as her male counterpart. The best parts are filled by George Coulouris, as a harassed police chief, and John Gregson as a street photographer/police agent. The film comes more alive during their scenes.

The direction is good. Thomas is a work-a-day director, without much flair or spectacular style, but he knows what to do with the location shooting, and incorporates with competence scenes obviously shot in Venice with those just as obviously shot on a sound-stage. (Much was probably filmed in England, as may be guessed by the British supporting cast, including Sidney James as an Italian undertaker.) A chase over tiled roofs is well-handled.

The story is serviceable, but the script gives the impression of not having had enough thought put into it - or, rather, not enough thought given to taking ideas far enough. Mercer talks about how he let a suspicious character escape, implying that he was losing his skills. Nothing is made of this observation, however. As well, we are told that he and a female associate (Margot Grahame) participated in an ‘assassination’ during the war. Viewers may assume that it had to do with the conflict - perhaps a collaborator was targeted - but that is not explained. The villain is rather easily traced to an apartment merely because another villain owns the building.

Definitely a B-movie, Venetian Bird entertains well enough for an evening, but it could have been more, and possibly relied too much on the writer’s fame, rather than any skill he may have had.