Movie Review: Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter (1950)

Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter, 1950.

Gregory Peck delivers an excellent performance as Jimmy Ringo in the 1950 western The Gunfighter. It’s a taut and tense little movie, and much of it’s 85 minute running time takes place in almost real time, upping the tension. As the movie opens, we see Ringo entering a saloon in a new town. His reputation as a famous gunslinger precedes him, and Eddie, a brash young man (Richard Jaeckel) challenges Ringo. Ringo warns him to not cause any trouble, but Eddie keeps provoking him, and when he draws on Ringo, Ringo shoots him dead. Ringo is warned to leave town, as Eddie’s brothers will be looking for revenge. Ringo leaves town and heads to Cayenne, where his old friend Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell) is the sheriff. Cayenne is also where Ringo’s estranged wife and son now live. The entire town of Cayenne takes to the streets as word spreads that the famous gunfighter is in town. Ringo takes refuge in the local saloon, owned by Mac (Karl Malden). Strett wants Ringo to leave town before any trouble ensues, but Ringo wants to see his wife and son. His wife Peggy (Helen Westcott) refuses to see him at first, but eventually relents. Ringo tries to reconcile with her, promising to go straight and to move to a place where no one knows of his reputation. Peggy says she will reconsider his offer if he can come back after a year of staying out of trouble. Ringo is also able to meet his son, who knows of Ringo’s fame, but doesn’t know that Ringo is his father. Ringo is just about to leave town when town punk Hunt Bromley (Skip Homeier) shoots him in the back and kills him. Before dying, Ringo tells Strett to spread the story that he drew first, as he knows this will increase the pressure on Bromley as “the man who shot Jimmy Ringo.” The film ends at Ringo’s funeral, as Peggy lets the town know that Ringo was her husband.

The Gunfighter is an excellent film with good performances by everyone in the cast. Peck might not have been everyone’s first choice for a deadly gunslinger, but he gives Ringo the humanity needed for us to sympathize with him. It’s very strange for me to see Millard Mitchell in a western, since in my mind he will always be R.F. Simpson, head of Monumental Studios, from Singin’ in the Rain. Mitchell does an excellent job playing Strett, who used to be part of Ringo’s gang, but has since gone straight. Strett tries his best to be fair to both Ringo and the nervous townspeople. 

A major theme of The Gunfighter is Ringo’s fame and notoriety, as this causes punks like Eddie and Hunt Bromley to pick fights with him. They say “Aw, he doesn’t look so tough,” and they think they can become the man who shot Jimmy Ringo. Ringo deliberately lies to Strett as he is dying, because he wants people to think that Hunt Bromley outdrew him, not that Bromley shot him in the back like a coward. Ringo knows that if people think Bromley outdrew him, they will hound him for the rest of his life, and he will constantly be fighting to uphold his reputation, just as Ringo had done. 

Veteran director Henry King was behind the camera for The Gunfighter, and he did an excellent job of crafting an engaging movie with many memorable characters. King directed his first movie back in 1917, and some of his notable credits are the first movie version of State Fair, from 1933, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, with Jennifer Jones and William Holden, and Carousel, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. King also directed matinee idol Tyrone Power in 11 movies, including Lloyd’s of London, which tells the thrilling tale of how the insurance company was formed. No, really! It’s on my list of movies I want to see, just because I’m curious about how you could make that into an interesting movie. But seriously, King directed Power in many of his most famous movies, hits like Jesse James, A Yank in the R.A.F., The Black Swan, Captain from Castile, Prince of Foxes, and The Sun Also Rises. King had previously directed Peck in Twelve O’Clock High, and they would make six movies together. Another one of King’s movies that sounds interesting to me is 1959’s This Earth is Mine, about a winemaking family trying to survive during Prohibition, starring Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons. There aren’t very many movies about winemakers. 

If you’re looking for an excellent western with a compelling plot and well-drawn characters, you’ll enjoy The Gunfighter.

Movie Review: Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Arabesque (1966)

Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren make an attractive couple in Arabesque, 1966.

It looks like the sight of Sophia Loren about to take a shower is giving Gregory Peck heart palpitations. Which is understandable.

Gregory Peck on the set of Arabesque. In case you weren't aware, this picture should let you know that Gregory Peck was seriously handsome. This picture is on the cover of the book Icons of Men's Style.

The director Stanley Donen imitated many of Alfred Hitchcock’s trademarks in his 1963 film Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Three years later, Donen would borrow liberally from the elements of Charade in his movie Arabesque, starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. According to IMDB, Peck’s role was written with Cary Grant in mind. Like Charade, Arabesque is a thriller where things are not quite what they seem. Peck plays Professor David Pollock, an expert in hieroglyphics. At the beginning of the film, we see him lecture about hieroglyphics, and it feels a bit like The Da Vinci Code. But fortunately, there are no scenes in Arabesque where the plot comes to a screeching halt as someone explains something to us in great detail. Arabesque opens with a murder in an optometrist’s office, and there are plenty of tricky camera angles throughout the movie, as we are constantly looking into mirrors and through prisms. I greatly enjoyed all of the camera trickery, as it made Arabesque more interesting to watch.

Arabesque also borrows from Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, as Peck plays an ordinary man caught up in a plot to kill a prime minister of an Arab nation. North By Northwest is echoed at the beginning of the movie, as Peck is forcibly shoved in the prime minister’s car while jogging, which echoes Cary Grant’s kidnapping at the beginning of Northwest. Other references to Northwest include Peck being given a shot of truth serum and then dumped out onto a highway. Feeling drunk, Peck first thinks he’s a matador and the cars are bulls, but he eventually commandeers a bicycle and gets away safely. This sequence is an homage/rip-off of the scene in North By Northwest where Grant is forcibly intoxicated by James Mason’s hoodlums and dumped in a Mercedes-Benz convertible along a twisting road near jagged cliffs. Of course, Grant also gets away safely. At the end of Arabesque, Donen stages his own version of the famous crop-duster scene from Northwest, as Peck and Sophia Loren have to crawl around while being chased by sharp and pointy farm implements. 

Unfortunately for Donen, Arabesque can’t hold a candle to North By Northwest. Gregory Peck does his best with the light comedy of the script, but as you watch, you can’t help but feel that Cary Grant would have done it better. It’s unfair to compare Peck to Grant, as Peck was not a comedic actor, and Grant was one of the greatest light comedic actors the movies have ever seen. But because Arabesque so blatantly copies other films starring Grant, the comparison is inevitable. 

Peck and Sophia Loren don’t have a lot of chemistry together, which also hurts the movie. She plays a mysterious woman whom Peck meets at the house of a businessman named Beshraavi, played by Alan Badel, who seems to be impersonating Peter Sellers. Peck has been hired by Beshraavi to decipher a code. However, it soon becomes obvious that Beshraavi is going to kill Peck as soon as he finishes deciphering the code. So Peck hides out in Loren’s bathroom as she takes a shower-which I read as a nod to the scene in Charade where Cary Grant takes a shower with all of his clothes on. Like Charade, where the audience and Audrey Hepburn are constantly wondering whose side Cary Grant is on, the audience of Arabesque and Gregory Peck are wondering whose side Sophia Loren is on. (Spoiler alert for Charade: of course Cary Grant’s the good guy! Duh! Cary Grant is ALWAYS the good guy!)

Sophia Loren looks gorgeous, which is pretty much all that the role requires her to do. For his part, Peck looks very handsome and dashing at age 49 and the grey in his hair just makes him look more distinguished, as though he really needed to look more distinguished. Looking distinguished was what Gregory Peck did all day, every day. 

Arabesque isn’t a great film, but it’s an enjoyable enough movie if you’re looking for a 1960’s Hitchcock-lite trifle.

Movie Review: Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster in Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952. Burt's doing his best to look boring and dull.

Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster in Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952. Burt's kneeling. Shirley Booth was not a giant.

I recently watched the 1952 movie Come Back, Little Sheba, starring Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster, and based on William Inge’s play, which opened on Broadway in 1950. It’s a pretty dated and boring movie, but it’s important in Lancaster’s filmography as it was his first real dramatic acting role. Lancaster had appeared in film noir dramas before, but Come Back, Little Sheba required him to show that he was more than just a muscle-bound action star. Since his film debut in The Killers in 1946, Lancaster had been slowly expanding his acting range, and the role of alcoholic Doc Delaney in Sheba was a “stretch” part for Lancaster, the kind of role that he sought again and again in his career, as he wanted to show the full range of his acting talents.

The plot, meager as it is, centers around Lola Delaney, a housewife played by Shirley Booth, and her dull marriage to Doc Delaney, a recovering alcoholic. The Delaneys take in a boarder, Marie, played by Terry Moore, a young girl who is a student at the nearby university. The Delaneys have had a difficult existence, as Doc married Lola because she was pregnant. Lola’s father disowned her; she lost the baby and was unable to have any more children. Doc had to drop out of medical school and couldn’t continue his studies, thus he is a chiropractor and not a full MD. And then he became an alcoholic and drank away his inheritance from his mother. Both Lola and Doc enjoy having Marie live with them, as she provides vicarious entertainment for them. Doc develops something of a crush on Marie, and doesn’t like the jerky jock Turk (Richard Jaeckel) that she flirts with. Marie shows kindness towards Doc and only has good things to say about him. 

One of the problems with Come Back, Little Sheba is that there’s no dramatic tension whatsoever. You’re watching these characters meander through life, but you’re not really wondering what will happen next because nothing does. The title refers to dog the Delaneys had that ran away, and Lola keeps blindly hoping that the dog will return, even though it’s been gone for months. (I can’t really blame the dog for running away from the Delaneys.) 

Booth had previously played Lola on Broadway, and won a Tony. She would go on to win the Oscar for Best Actress, making her one of just 9 performers to win both a Tony and an Oscar for playing the same role. Booth does a good job, but her character is so annoying that it overshadows her artistry. Booth’s grating voice predates Jean Stapleton’s squawking tones as Edith Bunker on All in the Family, which doesn’t make Lola any more pleasant or sympathetic. Booth’s overwrought performance looks very dated now; whereas Lancaster’s comparative underplaying still holds up well. The movie shows very clearly how acting styles have changed in the last 60 years. 

Booth and Lancaster are a completely mismatched couple. Booth was 15 years older than Lancaster, and she was the right age for the part. She was 53 when filming began in February, 1952, and Lancaster was only 38. Lancaster does well in the role, but to be honest, he was completely miscast. Lancaster was too strong, too virile, too tall, and too young for the part. The role called for someone who was more of an everyman, someone like Lee J. Cobb, or Karl Malden, although they both would have been too young for the part as well. The most ridiculous line of the movie is when Booth says something about Doc not being athletic. Nope, not true, your husband is Burt Lancaster; he’s a former trapeze artist. 

One way in which a more everyman actor would have brought different shadings to the role is Doc’s crush on Marie. It should probably be more of a hopeless infatuation, and this would have worked better with an older, more plain-looking actor in the role. As it is, you half expect Terry Moore to start making out with Doc because he’s Burt Lancaster in the prime of his life.

Lancaster did a fine job playing Doc, and communicating Doc’s quiet battle against his alcoholism. Lancaster clearly had a strong affinity for Doc, and he said “It was a part I wanted to play more than any other I ever got close to. Doc Delaney is the most human, if imperfect, kind of guy ever written into a play or script.” (Burt Lancaster: Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies, by Tony Thomas, p.54) Although he never said as much publicly, the role of Doc no doubt touched some sort of a nerve with Lancaster, perhaps in part because his second wife Norma, the mother of all 5 of Lancaster’s children, was an alcoholic. In order to play Doc Delaney, Lancaster buries all the handsomeness, all the charisma, and all the physical energy that made him such an electric performer. He wore padding while playing Doc to make himself look heavier and grey was added to his hair to make him look older. Lancaster always conformed to the part; he didn’t try to change the role to fit his image or to play to his strengths. Throughout his career Lancaster played roles that didn’t trade off of his good looks or his charisma. He does it in Sweet Smell of Success, The Leopard, Seven Days in May, Judgment at Nuremburg, and Atlantic City, to name just a few. The amazing range of characters he played is what makes his career so interesting and so varied. 

Terry Moore does a fine job as Marie, playing a girl who is torn between the handsome but shallow Turk and Bruce, her steady boyfriend from back home. Moore was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role. On a side note, Moore claimed that she was secretly married to billionaire Howard Hughes in 1949. Her claims have been disputed, but Moore wrote two books about Hughes.

Come Back, Little Sheba was director Daniel Mann’s first movie, and it shows. Mann had directed the play on Broadway, which was why he was chosen to helm the film. The film is terribly edited, as camera angles change for no reason in the middle of scenes. The continuity is also poor, as, to name just one example, Lancaster is seen opening a car door twice-because the camera angle changes for no reason. Amazingly, the movie was nominated for an Oscar for Best Editing! Fortunately, it didn’t win. 

Come Back, Little Sheba is a rather dated relic now, more than 60 years after it was released, but it’s still of interest because of the performances by Booth, Lancaster, and Moore.

Movie Review: The Marriage-Go-Round starring James Mason, Susan Hayward, and Julie Newmar (1961)

Julie Newmar, James Mason, and Susan Hayward in The Marriage-Go-Round, 1961.

Julie Newmar tries to seduce James Mason. He looks rather pleased with himself.

The Marriage-Go-Round, is a rather dull 1961 comedy starring James Mason, Susan Hayward, and Julie Newmar. It’s based on the play of the same name, written by Leslie Stevens, which was produced on Broadway in 1958, and was quite a hit, running for over 700 performances. Julie Newmar won a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Katrin Sveg. The Marriage-Go-Round is about anthropology professor Paul Delville (Mason), who is happily married to Content Delville, who is the dean of women (Hayward). They get a visit from a Swedish professor friend of Mason’s and his daughter, Katrin (Newmar). But there’s a catch. Katrin’s father doesn’t make the trip, and Katrin, whom the Delvilles last saw as a young girl, has blossomed into a voluptuous young woman of 20. And Katrin boldly tells Professor Delville that she would like him to be the father of her baby. Katrin tells Delville that with her body and his intelligence, they will have a wonderful child together. Of course, Mrs. Delville is less than thrilled by Katrin’s proposition. But Katrin assures Content that she doesn’t want to steal Paul from her, merely “borrow” him to father her baby. 

It’s a rather silly story, and of course characters don’t behave in logical ways, as Content keeps leaving Paul and Katrin alone together. When Paul and Katrin kiss and he discovers he can’t resist her, he orders her out of his house. Which makes sense. No use having temptation right under your nose, especially when she’s sunbathing without a top on. But when Content learns that Paul told Katrin to leave, she inexplicably makes him go back on his word and invite her to stay longer. Which makes no sense. The whole thing ends happily, for the Delvilles anyway, as Paul doesn’t cheat and Katrin goes back to Sweden without a father for her future baby. 

Besides the silly plot, the major problem of The Marriage-Go-Round is that Mason and Hayward were dramatic actors, and not comedians. I’m not sure why they were cast in the movie in the first place. I’m a big fan of Mason’s acting, so I found it quite amusing to watch him play light comedy given his serious image. It’s amusing to watch Mason slowly light up as Katrin flatters him. The scenes where Newmar flirts outrageously with Mason are quite funny to watch if you think of them as a kind of reverse twist on Lolita, a film of Mason’s that would be released just a year and a half after The Marriage-Go-Round. Hayward has a more difficult part, as Content’s behavior seems quite daffy, and hard to figure out. Nothing Hayward’s character says or does struck me as that funny. Newmar comes off the best, as she invests Katrin with the right amount of sweetness and smarts. With her statuesque figure, Newmar was perfect for the part of a Swedish bombshell. 

The Marriage-Go-Round shows how some comedies just don’t age well. I think that, in general, since 1961, the way we view comedies has changed much more than the way we view dramas. I think that it’s much easier to enjoy a drama from 1961 than a comedy from 1961. Of course, there are exceptions to this, as there are movies that were funny when they were released and are still funny now. Audiences might have found The Marriage-Go-Round quite funny in 1961, but in 2014 it seems quite dated and more apt to raise a chuckle than a hearty guffaw.