Appointment in London (1953)

Directed by Philip Leacock; produced by Aubrey Baring and Maxwell Setton

In 1943, 188 Squadron is a typical heavy-bomber unit, though its commanding officer is not so ordinary: Tim Mason (Dirk Bogarde) has completed 87 missions over enemy territory, even though the survival rate for aircrew of Bomber Command is on average no more than two-fifths of a tour. His superiors are worried about his stress-level, which isn’t helped by trouble with his officers, high casualties and talk among the men of a jinx. But Mason is determined to complete three full tours (90 missions), no matter what.

Appointment in London, despite the innocuous title (which refers to officers’ scheduled reception at Buckingham Palace to receive awards from the King; the U.S. title of Raiders in the Sky manages to be even more bland), is one of the best movies about the usual - but often deadly - problems faced by bomber aircrew in the Second World War.

It is what might be termed quietly realistic. There are no speeches or histrionics - the closest to either comes when Mason loses his temper with a stupid subordinate - but the stress and worries, the rather over-the-top hilarity to compensate, all ring true.

This is undoubtedly due to John Wooldridge, the author of the story from which the screenplay (which he also co-wrote) was adapted. Wooldridge was a Regular RAF officer, flying bombers in the war. In case Mason’s goal of 90 missions seems fantastic, it should be noted that Wooldridge himself completed 97 (or 108, depending on the source.) A man of several talents, he also composed more than a dozen film scores, including that of Appointment in London.

Much of the action is earthbound drama, some having to do with the management of a combat unit during wartime, some with the men’s personal lives. It all has a bearing on the squadron’s war effort and, though certain, almost obligatory, diversions are included (eg. Mason’s romance with a war widow (Dinah Sheridan)), the dialogue all has the sound of realism, and what the officers and men say to each other may have come straight from Wooldridge’s memories.

This memory supplies features that I’ve not seen in other movies on the subject. For instance, during the climactic raid on Germany, the audience hears the master-bomber (an officer of the Pathfinder Force, serving as, in effect, the raid’s airborne director) yelling instructions to the hundreds of aeroplanes around him, all the while crews in those machines are conversing about their more narrow objectives. Such scenes contribute not just to the film’s realism, but to its tension, creating urgency, even if the characters are calm.

These attributes are a credit to the direction, as well as the writing. The acting is very good, especially by Bogarde, who, as a performer, always seemed to have a nervous breakdown simmering just beneath the surface. Other players, whether in large or small parts, have the easy casualness that British actors often bring to their roles.

Though no mere motion picture can convey the truth of war, Appointment in London demonstrates aspects of it that are interesting, entertaining and thoughtful.

Thunder on the Hill (1951)

Directed by Douglas Sirk; produced by Michel Kraike

Intense rains have caused flooding throughout Norfolk, and the people of one district are driven to seek refuge at the local convent, situated on higher ground. There, everything is admirably, if strictly, organised by Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert). Among the evacuees are Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth), and her police escort. She was on her way to Norwich to be hanged for the murder of her brother. As events unfold, however, Sister Mary begins to piece together Valerie’s story, and she becomes convinced that the condemned woman is innocent.

The improbable plot is backed up by a simple script. The storyline manages to bring together a number of characters who know of and, indeed, had interaction with either the murder victim, the alleged perpetrator or surrounding events. Thus the flood, and the resultant gathering of locals in one spot, provide the means by which the nun delves into the mystery. This setting, and how it is handled, is really no less implausible than some of Agatha Christie’s books, yet the imagination, intelligence and manipulation of situations by the writers of Thunder on the Hill are inferior to the novelist’s.

If the plot is unlikely, it is not aided by the leanness of the mystery. There are too few suspects (admittedly, introducing more would have strained credulity still further) and the way to the truth is pointed out, at least to the audience, too easily.

Even so, Thunder on the Hill is an adequately involving movie. Director Sirk is now best known for the lushly colourful melodramas he made in the 1950s. However these are regarded – and their status these days is actually higher among critics, especially for their technical achievements, than in contemporary reviews – Sirk worked in many genres. Nonetheless, the manner in which the actors perform in Thunder on the Hill has the hallmarks of melodrama. This, along with the impending fate of Valerie Carns, lends tension, albeit partially artificial, to the film.

Those performances are a bit over-wrought, but persuasive. Colbert’s character’s antecedents are not detailed enough, and don’t really give the impression that a cloistered life would have been that which Sister Mary would have chosen, following her intimated personal crisis. Regardless, Colbert portrays the character well: thanks to her, once she had taken the veil, Sister Mary is believeable. Blyth’s work borders on the histrionic at times, though this may be excusable, considering Valerie’s situation: expecting to be hanged on the morrow, she is given three more days to ponder her end, thanks to flood-waters. The other actors do decent work, though their characters seem stock, rather than genuine.

While Thunder on the Hill presents nothing outstanding, it is a watchable film, betraying its stage origins, perhaps, but with an exciting climax.

Red Sun (1971)

Directed by Terence Young; produced by Ted Richmond

In 1870, Japan is at last establishing diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and its new ambassador to the United States is travelling by rail across the west when his train is robbed by violent bandits, led by Link Stuart (Charles Bronson). Along with $400,000 in cash, his partner Gauche (Alain Delon) also steals a sword the ambassador intends for the American president. Betrayed by Gauche and left for dead, Stuart reluctantly teams with samurai warrior Kuroda Jubei (Toshiro Mifune), one seeking the money, the other the sword, and both hunting Gauche.

Red Sun had a head start in several categories. Nowhere else are you going to find Bronson, Mifune and Delon together in a film: each was a cinematic power at the time in his own country (Bronson popular in Japan, to boot). The notion of a Japanese warrior teaming with an American gunslinger was filled with potential. Terence Young had directed the first two James Bond films, as well as the effective thriller Wait Until Dark. Yet Red Sun is a disappointment.

The problem is undoubtedly the script. The story, which could have been handled more imaginatively, is good, if not very good. But in the writing, Red Sun becomes lackluster and mediocre. The script comes from three writers of very uneven quality (one had written The Magnificent Seven and would write Major Payne; another would go on to The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and Inchon). Red Sun’s screenplay needed more focus, more insight into character, more sympathy for its leads.

The writing has its moments. There is a good scene in which Kurado bitterly laments the passing of the samurai era in Japan. Indeed, it is Kurado who is by far the more involving of the duo, and creates an antidote to the stereotype of the cold, austere samurai. His feeling of empathy for a murdered farmer, his gift of money to a family and his encounter with a prostitute create interest. But the viewer will probably sense that it comes more from the actor than his words. On the other hand, Link Stuart is a murderous criminal, with no remorse for his deeds; he would have been better as a contrast to the homicidal Gauche, rather than a comparison.

The dialogue is bland, and the action is, one might write, unconsidered. Being the Old West, there is the almost obligatory trouble with Indians. Yet there is no reason given for this trouble. The aftermath of two Comanche attacks is shown, while the climax involves a third. Why? Soldiers encountered at the movie’s beginning give no hint of a war with the Comanches, no clue that they may be raiding. And surely there was a better tactician in the tribe than the one who suggested an assault on a collection of buildings should consist largely of riding around it in circles.

The production values seem rather low. In particular, the Comanches appear garbed in cast-offs from half a dozen other films, only a few of which were westerns. Stuart and Kurado’s trek through the desert is rather dull, with no good photography to enliven it. A journey of several days through some severe yet beautiful lands should have begged for well-chosen scenery, finely executed photography, yet it looks little different than what is offered in the average 1970s tv series with a similar setting.

The performances are good, though together, Bronson and Mifune have little chemistry. It might have been more enjoyable had Delon been included as a third partner, and not the quarry. Having him from France, instead of New Orleans, as Gauche is, may have given Red Sun all sorts of possibilities. Then again, if the film can’t take advantage of a samurai and a gunfighter together, anything else might have been pointless.

Red Sun had promise, but squanders it in a half-hearted script and wasted scenes.

Moss Rose (1947)

Directed by Gregory Ratoff; produced by Gene Markey

In late Victorian London, Cockney chorus-girl Belle Adair (Peggy Cummins) is curious about the new man her friend, Daisy (Margo Woode), is seeing. But when Belle discovers Daisy’s dead body, moments after seeing the man leave Daisy’s room, the curiosity turns to horror. She tracks down the gentleman - whom she learns is aristocrat Michael Drego (Victor Mature) - but not with justice in mind, but a peculiar form of blackmail.

Moss Rose is a strange movie, a combination of romance, thriller and whodunit, which doesn’t really succeed in any category. In each case, it doesn’t delve deep enough into the genre.

As a murder-mystery, it has promise. Daisy is found with an open Bible – not hers – next to her corpse, a flower pressed between the pages. The significance of the Bible, marked at a certain page, is ignored, both by the police and the script, and though the flower provides a clue to the smooth and garden-loving Inspector Clinner (Vincent Price), the plant’s actual meaning is never learned. While Scotland Yard commendably centres its investigation around Drego, there is no suggestion that the killer may be someone completely unknown to witnesses, nor is there an indication that questions are asked about who may have visited the lodging house at the time of the murder. Indeed, the solution involves someone who would surely be noticed at such a location.

Another nonsensical element occurs when a character confesses to the murder. There is no reason given for this action; it might be, as another claims, ‘a police trick’. There is a good variety of suspects, but little follow-through.

The predictable attraction between Belle and Drego is without much interest, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in one to appeal to the other, unless it is similarity. At one point, Drego mentions that he and Belle (despite the disparity in their backgrounds) are much the same. This is true, since each is rather casually amoral. Belle threatens Drego with the police, but only to secure from him what she desires, while Drego is willing to pay to be kept out of the affair, with little concern as to who killed his girlfriend.

Moving from London to the English countryside, there is an attempt to create tension in a large, old mansion late at night, with strange comings and goings, locked rooms, family secrets, and the like, but it is not effective. The direction is probably to blame here, though at this point, the story becomes rather creaky.

Despite all of this criticism, Moss Rose is watchable. Cummins gives an earnest performance, and her character is likeable, despite her selfish motives. Ethel Barrymore does her usual fine job. There is, as well, wonder at the form the conclusion will take. And the writers give a genuine depiction of class differences; someone knew their subject. Yet, despite its moderate value as a time-filler, Moss Rose should have been much more, and could have been.

Odd Man Out (1947)

Directed and produced by Carol Reed

Irish nationalist Johnny McQueen (James Mason) leads a daring daylight robbery of a mill during the escape from which he shoots a mill employee and is himself grievously wounded. Abandoned by his panicky accomplices, he wanders desperately as night falls, seeking succor in a cold and opportunistic city.

Odd Man Out is no more about the sectarian, religious and political problems of Northern Ireland than Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a Scottish history lesson. The setting is a backcloth for a moving, involving and, in some ways, disturbing, tragedy of human relations. It is not even, really, a story about crime, nor even about criminals but, rather, about how people react to those in trouble, when how they react will greatly affect themselves.

Almost everyone McQueen meets helps or hinders him – or both helps and hinders – for their own reasons. In his delirious ramblings (physical and mental), McQueen quotes 1 Corinthians: “Though I have all faith…and have not charity, I am nothing.” Whether he knows it or not McQueen is searching for charity, and those around him have nothing. But I think the movie is about something just as fundamental, but more complicated: guilt and innocence.

There are three honest characters in Odd Man Out. One is the police inspector (Dennis O’Dea) hunting McQueen. He tells kindly Father Tom (W G Fay) that he is not interested in good or evil, but in guilt or innocence. One gathers that people are all the same to him, save for that division. He tells Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), the young woman in love with McQueen, to ‘stay out of this business’, the disgust in his voice for the sorry, sordid mess evident. Father Tom too declares that he is interested in guilt or innocence. Respected and admired by all, he wants to find McQueen to save, not his life, but his soul, something infinitely more important than mere mortality.

The other honest man is, ironically, the thief and murderer Johnny McQueen. Having spent eight months in prison before escaping, he states that ‘prison changes a man’; his lieutenant Dennis (Robert Beatty) sees that McQueen’s heart isn’t in the job and, indeed, during the length of his odyssey, McQueen’s principal preoccupation is whether or not the man he shot has died.

All the other characters react to McQueen with varying degrees of sympathy, dislike, fear or greed. Those who left him in the lurch (played by Cyril Cusack, Dan O’Herlihy and Roy Irving) are more concerned with not being blamed. Dennis sees the fugitive’s value only in terms of ‘the organisation’. A neighbourhood panhandler (F J McCormack) is looking for a reward. The half-mad artist Lukey (Robert Newton) wants to paint the face of a dying man. Publican Fencie (William Hartnell) just desires McQueen gone from his premises. There is further irony in that Kathleen comes across as selfish as the others; she wants to save McQueen, but for herself, not for himself.

The script weaves all these characters into story of which McQueen is the centre but, unusually, not, after the first half-hour, the focus. He becomes a catalyst, a symbol, rather than a human being, reflecting how others view him. Yet he remains a human to himself, as his cry of anguish, pain and despair in the pub makes clear.

In this context, Mason’s performance is superb. At first a diffident criminal, he must convey for the remainder of the movie an anonymity yet a real individuality. As he stumbles through the darkening town, soaked by rain, soiled by mud, he becomes almost a soul trapped in a robotic body, wanted to reach out for help, to beg, but ends up being given from one uncaring pair of hands to another.

The rest of the cast equals Mason’s performance. He propels Odd Man Out but the film is carried by the small-part players. It is really an ensemble piece with a major star at its head.

The actors, the writing (by R C Sherriff and F L Green, from the latter’s novel) and production are laid out by director Reed in fine fashion, a bright, crisp day turning into a bleak, Dickensian night. It would not have done to have been shot in colour, for the black-and-white photography (by Robert Krasker) creates a world of shadows and silhouettes, essential to hinting at motives and intentions.

As for the more prosaic aspects of Odd Man Out, it is interesting that it treats a gunshot wound as the serious injury it can be. Wounded in the shoulder, McQueen experiences agony and blood-loss, his body shocked into near-paralysis; there is none of the common film noir application of a bandage and simple sling to cure such damage.

Though set undoubtedly in Belfast, the city is never named. Nor is the Irish Republican Army, though ‘the organisation’ of which McQueen is the local chief is clearly that group. Politics are eschewed; the IRA wants to obtain funds, so they rob a mill; the police track down the criminals. It’s that simple. Again, like Macbeth, Odd Man Out could have been set anywhere, and at any time. (Note the diversity of accents among the characters; some have or manage Irish accents, but some are distinct from others; certainly not all are from Ulster.)

An extraordinary movie from every aspect, Odd Man Out is a superb study of greed, opportunism, guilt, charity and all the types of humanity those qualities create.

Box of Moonlight (1996)

Directed by Tom DiCillo; produced by Thomas A Bliss and Marcus Viscidi

Al Fountain (John Turturro) is an electrical engineer bordering on middle-age. He is married, contentedly if not happily, and has a son who is starting to disappoint him. On a whim, he pretends that his latest job, far from home, has been extended, and travels to find a lake where he spent pleasant holidays with his family. On the way, he meets the Kid (Sam Rockwell), an eccentric petty larcenist, who lives in half a trailer (literally half: he owns the right half) and makes a precarious but satisfying living selling stolen lawn ornaments. With the Kid’s help, Al, though unable to recapture the joy of his youth, recaptures joy, in some form or another.

To judge by its title and its plot, Box of Moonlight appears to be trying to be a charming tale of a man with little direction in his life finding himself. Though it is not a bad effort, the film falls short of whatever its goal may have been.

The major problem is the script. The story itself is good enough to sustain a movie, but it is lost in the details. The catalyst for Al’s adventure seems to be his discovery of his first grey hair. After that, he experiences several times the illusion of time moving backward. The obviousness of the metaphor is plain – though it takes a long time for Al to realise it, even considering his search for the lost lake of his childhood – yet it really has nothing to do with his friendship with the Kid. That is, in truth, a separate movie, and the worries Al may have, subconsciously, over aging are irrelevant.

Al’s character hurts the film. He comes across as largely unlikeable. That’s not to claim that he is a bad person, or even that he cannot be liked. There is just little about him that appeals. He is not very bright, he treats his wife perfunctorily, and isn’t that involved with his son. These elements are marginally remedied at the end, but not by much.

As well, there are parts of the script that are actually unpleasant; the inclusion of a clergyman who turns out to be an axe-murderer is pointless, unless to show hypocrisy. (There is, in fact, an anti-Christian aspect to the movie that serves no purpose except, perhaps, to gratify something personal in the writer (who is also the director). They have no bearing on the plot or the characters.) Al’s rejection of the rigid boundaries of his life are manifested in vandalism of his work-place, which is unimaginative and rather childish.

The one reward in watching Box of Moonlight is the performance of Sam Rockwell. He makes the quirkiness of the Kid, at times rather self-conscious, credible, and ably manages at one point to show the Kid’s secret insecurity and loneliness. This was Rockwell’s first big rôle, I think, though the film itself was not seen much, and showed what he was capable of. His versatility has become well-known.

Over all, Box of Moonlight gives me the impression of having been made for those who are fans of DiCillo, and for the deliberate exclusion of those who ‘don’t get’ the writer/director’s work.