[6] No, it’s not a movie about a whore. It’s Greer Garson, for fuck’s sake! Her Twelve Men, also known as Miss Baker’s Dozen, features Garson as a new teacher at an all- boys’ school where she’s not made to feel terribly welcome. The head of the school (Robert Ryan) doesn’t think she’s qualified and since she’s the first female faculty member they’ve ever known, …
[3] Robert Altman made his directorial debut with this inauspicious teenaged rebellion romp. Tom Laughlin stars as Scotty, a young guy who just wants to hang with his girlfriend (Rosemary Howard), but her parents intervene to keep them apart. So poor old Scotty does what all grown-ups in 1950s America thought teenagers did: he joins a gang of hoodlums. The girlfriend gets caught up in …
[3] Gordon Scott makes his debut as Tarzan in this entry. He’s a taller, beefier Tarzan — kinda cute, but certainly the dumbest of the lot. Poachers are in the jungle (again), and a well-meaning animal doctor is accidentally leading them into an area of the jungle ripe with big game. There’s also a skiddish African tribe called ‘the Sukulu’ drifting around in the screenplay. …
[4] Near the end of both Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris, there is a big, epic dance number that feels very out of place. It’s the only thing I don’t like about Singin’ in the Rain, and the only thing I DO like about An American in Paris. The later film is essentially a superb 20-minute dance number tacked onto an …
[7] William Holden leads an ensemble cast in Billy Wilder’s adaptation of Stalag 17. The film takes place entirely in a German prisoner-of-war barrack, where the captured Americans are beginning to suspect that Holden’s pessimistic black marketeer character may be informing on them to the Germans. But Holden knows better — that there’s a German spy planted in their midst, secretly thwarting all their chances …
[6] Often regarded the best of the atomic age ‘giant critter’ flicks, Them! is best in the beginning, during two police officers’ discovery of a little girl roaming the desert in a catatonic state. Looking for her family, they come across a demolished trailer and a destroyed store, a few dead bodies — and what’s that eerie sound? It’s genuinely spooky for a while. Production …
[6] Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meet aboard an oceanliner and fall in love, despite the fact they are both already in relationships with partners waiting for them stateside. I like the first half of An Affair to Remember. Grant and Kerr are playing it cool in traditional screwball comedy fashion during that part of the film. And as far as romance is concerned, I …
[5] Robert Mitchum headlines this William Wellman flick about a family battling their personal demons while also trying to hunt and destroy a near-mythical black panther that is preying on their cattle during a deadly snowstorm. Mitchum plays one of three brothers, along with William Hopper and Tab Hunter. Mitchum and Hopper go off into the blizzard to kill the panther, but the family’s just as …
[6] John Wayne leads an ensemble cast in this William Wellman film about the passengers and crew of a trans-Pacific flight who experience engine failure and a loss of fuel. When they realize they won’t reach the California shore, everyone prepares for the worst. The High and the Mighty plays more like a straight drama than the disaster flicks that would come after it in the 1970s. …
[4] Montgomery Clift plays an eager journalist who risks losing his girlfriend after his editor nudges him into an affair with another woman. The dreary storyline struggles to rise above its theatrical roots and lead star Clift, whom I normally like, is dreadful in this whiny, wussified role. (He’s never been photographed worse, either.) The best thing about the movie is its supporting cast, including …
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