esmondj Reviews

BBC Play of the Month: Maigret at Bay (1969) Season 4, Episode 6

They shoulda Quit while they were Ahead

[6/10 · 5 December 2022]

Final belated instalment, in a way, of the long-running 1960-4 series, lacking several prior cast members who were either unavailable or had been written out one way or the other. They shoulda quit already. The plot of this episode makes no sense whatsoever: why exactly were the people concerned trying to conceal what they were trying to conceal? And why did they depute the person they deputed to do what she did?

On the other hand, the high point, literally, of this episode, shot in 1969, is that mini-skirts were also, literally, at their high point. If you like that sort of thing ;-)

My mother used to love this series because she had formed the quite erroneous belief that Mme Maigret did all the real detection. This episode is the only instance known to me of Mme contributing anything to a case whatsoever other than cooked lunch and dinner every working day.

The Narrow Corner (1933)

Good, should have been better

[6/10 · 14 April 2022]

For an alleged 'B' movie they sure threw a budget at this, with not one but two storm-at-sea scenes. This should have been a better movie: Doug Jr is ideally cast as Fred Blake, and the other male parts are well cast, even Ralph Bellamy as a Dane once you get used to the idea, and the accent which seems more Norwegian than Danish to me. The main problems are two: (1) the girl is too young and inadequate to the part, and (2) they tried to get too much of the book into a bit over an hour: the entire sequence about the manuscript could have been deleted without loss, and there are a couple of other very entertaining incidents in the book that could have replaced it. Or maybe it should have been made to a 80-90 minute length. This seems to have been a case of Warner Bros. Still not quite knowing what exactly it was doing ... and blaming Doug Jr.

Interrupted Melody (1955)

Comment on the casting

[7/10 · 26 February 2022]

I just want to respond to the ludicrous question in another review as to why MGM didn't just cast Jeanette MacDonald or Kathryn Grayson. This part called for real dramatic acting, which neither of these two were much chop at frankly: and Grayson would have certainly blown a gasket trying to sing most of this repertoire; probably MacDonald as well, who was not in great health by this time. The thought of either of them as Carmen makes me feel quite ill.

And the end result would have been just another musical ...

I also want to point out that Lawrence was far from the second Australian opera star after Melba. There were Florence Austral, John Brownlee, many others.

Snowbound (1948)

Superb second unit and superb cast (mostly)

[2 April 2021]

It has to be admitted that Dennis Price, God bless him, was miscast. He gets blown off the screen by, successively, Robert Newton, Stanley Holloway, Marcel Dalio, Mila Parély, Herbert Lom, and even Guy MIddleton, not to mention several of the minor players, all of whom are good. But the 2nd unit work makes up for everything. The skiing scenes are gorgeous, and the rescue sequence starting from the bell tolling and ending up with the skiers' torches circling inward when they find him is really quite beautiful: apart from the overloud music, a completely silent sequence worthy of some of the best silents.

The Black Rose (1950)

Tyrone Power shows his limitations

[6/10 · 2 April 2021]

Tyrone Power has always puzzled me. He has some of the equipment of a good actor: good looks, keeps still, knows his lines, listens ... But by this period of his life he was starting to think of himself as a great actor, and this movie shows how wrong he was. Technicaly there is very little development from his work in Lloyd's of London 15 years earlier. He still makes no attempt to sound English: indeed he makes no attempt to modulate his accent in any movie except Cafe Metropole where he slips in and out of a Russian accent rather unreliably. Line delivery is generally pretty flat. He doesn't register much in the way of emotion beyond a generalized petulance. Low in humour as well.

The rest of the movie is a mixed bag. Jack Hawkins, the least poetic actor on the planet, is woefully miscast as the poetic archer. He has his strengths but this isn't one of them. On the other hand I seem to be in a minority of one in liking Orson Welles' performance as the General. He has the wit to play it wittly for once, with some humour, instead of say what Jack Hawkins himself would have done to it.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Screwball comedy meets Hepburn on the make

[4/10 · 29 June 2020]

Hepburn had just been labelled box-office poison, and had already had to send herself up with the calla lilies being in bloom in Stage Door after a famous Broadway flop in which she butchered those same lines. So she commissioned Philip Barry to write her a star vehicle for the Great White Way, making sure to acquire the movie rights too, so when L.B. Mayer came calling for them she could say 'guess what?' Thanks Daddy.

The resulting script doesn't make a lot of sense. It is about the last in the runaway-heiress cycle, the only difference being that she is running away while still at home, and all she is running away from is her perfectly nice ex-hubby next door. Can you bear it? Barry wisely keeps Kate off-screen for 12 minutes, or 20, or however long it may be, so that all the other characters can tell us how wonderful she is first, and all she has to do is walk on: cue applause. Probably works on Broadway. In the movie once she appears all residual interest in the film basically evaporates. Impossible to imagine any two grown men fighting over her, or even one. Grant as one of them has a good scene with Stewart as the other that is more or less irrelevant to the actual plot, which includes the preposterous notion that she wants her father to masquerade as her uncle, and for some reason everybody goes along with it. The did-she-didn't-she aspect of the second half is both pointless and tasteless.

This movie used to play on Australian TV with dozens of projectionist's cuts that made the editing look crazy. Maybe it really was. Or maybe I was for watching it.

GREAT jazz-at-the-Philharmonic score by Franz Waxman.

Secrets of Britain: Secrets of Westminster (2014) Season 1, Episode 6

'Royal extortion and dead people'

[1/10 · 12 August 2018]

No, that isn't my summary, that is the History Channel's own summary of this incomprehensible show, featuring a Professor of Mediaeval History whose salient feature is the gold crucifix disappearing down her cleavage. Don't waste your time with this drivel.

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

One wife out of three

[6/10 · 24 September 2017]

I've always found this movie rather overrated.

First, Addie Ross herself sounds like a vain and tiresome woman, and it is impossible to imagine her, as presented, getting involved with either Jeffrey Lynn or Paul Douglas. Nor is it possible to imagine any of them leaving their law practice/tenured position/retail chain and houses and running away with Addie. Why? When she's already right there in town? (Now running away with Linda Darnell ... maybe.) The actual letter itself is merely bad manners on an epic scale, and not at all what one would expect this self-confessed paragon to be up to.

The first act, with Lynn and Jeanne Crain, is very over-written: again, it is impossible to believe in Jeanne Crain being so gauche after just finishing several years in the Navy, from whence one would expect her to come out pretty brisk, and certainly self-confident, and the silly business with the silly flower on the silly dress is high-school stuff.

The second act is merely preposterous, starting with the very idea of Kirk Douglas being married to Ann Sothern, continuing with Sothern doing what she does for a living while Kirk does what he does for a living, and terminating with the ludicrous concept of entertaining the sponsor, which would be smoothly handled by the network management, not left as a risk in a college town home with a mad professor running amok. Again, this act is badly over-written, and the sponsor and her bad behaviour are beyond parody. And Kirk should already know better than to play his precious Brahms 78 to the sponsor.

The movie only really gets going in Act 3 with Paul Douglas and Linda Darnell going at it hammer and tongs. Darnell is priceless ('it's not a drive in') as the small-town bombshell, and all the family stuff is very well done.

There are other good moments in the film, such as the terrible picnic, the terrible country club, and aspects of the small town setting, but overall it's a long wait for the fun to start. Until then, credulity is strained at every turn, and the talking never ceases.

77 Sunset Strip: Target Island (1963) Season 5, Episode 26

Worst episode ever

[1/10 · 4 November 2016]

Robert Logan is given this one and fails dismally to carry even 48 minutes of a well-established show.

Warner Brothers had accidentally discovered how to start a series with a star and then continue without him via Maverick when Jim Garner walked out (fortunately they still had the wonderful Jack Kelly and then, improbably, Roger Mooore), and raised it to deliberate policy with this series, where you have to sit through hours of Roger Smith just for an occasional glimpse of Ephrem Zimbalist Jr, and then gave Edd Byrnes and even Jacqueline Beer episodes of their own, but this episode shows the limitations of the formula. You do need someone in the lead part who can actually act when required.

Boring plot about AWOL sailor, his sister, Navy buddy, girlfriend, landlady, etc., something mysterious on the island, who knows? I couldn't even watch it all, and I've sat through every prior episode, including a few duds.

Father Brown: The Missing Man (2016) Season 4, Episode 7

Complete disaster, sorry

[1/10 · 6 June 2016]

An RAF Wing Commander would not keep a loaded gun in the house, or even keep the ammunition in the same place as the guns. Or the bolts, for those guns that had bolts. Three separate locations. Gunmanship 101. And I do expect people writing British crime drama to know that you don't 'hire' barristers: you retain solicitors, who retain barristers. This improbable episode also has the victim returning from 8 years 'away' doing XXX to spoil his wife's wedding, only to resume doing XXX the very same night, and then the police and everybody else apparently conniving at letting the actual murder get off without trial. The wedding scenes, two of them, have Fr Brown behaving more like a Californian marriage celebrant than a Catholic priest, and reciting not one but twice a text unknown to the Catholic marriage service. It is also a continuing mystery how the Catholic Church managed to retain a Gothic parish church during the Reformation.

Have the makers considering using what Chesterton actually wrote?

77 Sunset Strip: Adventure in San Dede (1962) Season 5, Episode 10

Total fiasco in Central/South America

[1/10 · 12 April 2016]

This episode is so bad I was suspecting Roger Smith had written it. It comes complete with rose-between-the-teeth senorita and a guitar played, unfortunately, by Roger Smith, while he sings and makes with the hand percussion on the guitar top. We are all supposed to be rolling around on the floor laughing at the Spanish-American stereotypes including a hotel desk clerk who uses a megaphone to address a guest eight feet away across the lobby, and to tolerate the completely lame plot about 'business contracts' mysteriously acquired by Bailey & Spencer and provided to local businessmen without anyone wondering about professional ethics. The worst I've seen in this mostly enjoyable series. Sadly the senorita isn't even credited here yet: she is the only thing worth watching.

Women He's Undressed (2015)

Appalling travesty

[1/10 · 7 March 2016]

This unwatchable show is chock full of bizarre directorial conceits, which start immediately with the odd notion that Orry-Kelly is 'unknown' despite having no fewer than 302 movie credits as one of the best-known costume designers in Hollywood from 1930-63. Curiously enough this claim is specifically contradicted by one of the first interviewees.

The tale is largely told using shots of the protagonist rowing a boat, for no apparent reason whatsoever; his mother is cruelly reduced to an Edna Everage caricature putting out the washing next to a lighthouse, for some other unexplained reason; there is not nearly enough of the actual dresses, which is the actual point after all; and even the title is wrong. Orry-Kelly dressed women, not undressed them. The remainder is basically the usual unsubstantiated scuttlebutt about Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, etc.

Among many other inaccuracies, David Selznick did not produce Casablanca.

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The word is co-respondent, not correspondent

[10/10 · 16 April 2015]

Most of these reviews don't appear to understand the plot. As the law in England then stood, the only reliable way to get a divorce was on the grounds of adultery, which required citing a co-respondent (not 'correspondent'), who was required to have been discovered in flagrante delicto with the marriage partner, i.e. having breakfast in the same room. This was usually delegated to a professional co-respondent such as depicted in this movie, who was certainly not a 'would-be Latin lover' at all but just a guy hired to do a job and be seen by a chambermaid at a legally appropriate time.

Stunning movie, perhaps my favourite of the series, with the unsurpassed 'Night and Day' number and an excellent large-scale production number for the Continental, using every inch of a vast RKO Big White Set, although it isn't quite as big as it appears in one shot: look for a bit of matte work.

The Fountain (1934)

A lovely movie

[8/10 · 16 April 2015]

A lovely movie. Ann Harding in one of her many best performances, in a matinée movie with unusually literate dialogue, and a stunning score by Max Steiner, showing he could really compose when free of Selznick memos and the requirement to make Bette Davis seem romantic. Note his very subtle use of a C major theme, which initially appears over Paul Lukas's portrait, initially seeming to be excessively pro-German, accentuated by its second appearance as a military march, but which eventually reveals itself as a Peace and Harmony motif. Excellent performances from Paul Lukas and Brian Aherne, not to mention Jean Hersholt (Greed, Grand Hotel) who seemed to be able to play anything, having been in movies since 1906; and sumptuous production from RKO, the masters of this in the 1930s.

You will also spot some rather good serve-and-volley tennis being played by Ralph Forbes.

Note to other reviewers: if you want Mae Clarke being squished in the face with a grapefruit, this is not the place to look, but criticizing a movie for not being like another movie is an elementary critical fallacy.

Rogue's March (1953)

An old friend

[6/10 · 16 April 2015]

This is our old friend the Bengal Lancers movie. Hero in disgrace, redeems himself by saving the honour of the regiment. Unlike most of the genre (The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Four Feathers, etc) this one is actually set in India or nearby for the most part. Peter Lawford is too weak for the lead; Richard Greene slightly too fruity, as always, for the second banana; and I don't know how Janice Rule got a gig as the English girlfriend, although she wears her best corset and a stunning Victorian ballgown trimmed with flowers at the bodice. Overall it's a fun example of the genre, and the battle scenes at the end, shot in the real Khyber Pass somehow, are alone worth the price of admission, giving you some idea of strategy & tactics, not just the usual hand to hand biffing.

77 Sunset Strip: The Down Under Caper (1962) Season 4, Episode 16

At least he doesn't play the guitar

[5/10 · 24 February 2015]

Quite fun. Like many of Roger Smith's 77SS scripts, this one makes no real sense, and seems to exist only to give RS some extremely unconvincing action sequences, and a part for his previous/current/future wife Victoria Shaw. He never seems to have considered the strong probability that the girl might have made a valid will, or to have bothered to look up (a) what 'billabong' means, lazily substituting 'lake', or (b) how a boomerang is thrown and why it is distinctive. The episode was clearly shot entirely in Burbank and the foothills, apart from some file footage of the Harbour Bridge, various marsupials, a bushfire, etc. Nice to see Michael Pate at work: at this point he was still resident in USA. Pate and various other Aussies slightly overdoing it.

My Brother Jack (1965)

Fondly remembered

[10/10 · 4 February 2015]

I saw this when I was 13-14, very fondly remembered indeed, especially the always likable Ed Devereaux.

There were several episodes, not just one as listed here. I particularly remember the haunting music by Herbert Marks, which was scored for simply a harmonica.

It's the story of a young writer, a genre which I now normally hate, but the interaction with his brother Jack, and with his pushy wife was really well done.

Devereaux was an under-appreciated staple of Australian movies & TV at the time.

Calendar Girl (1947)

Ensemble piece, not a star vehicle, wonderfully directed

[7/10 · 3 August 2012]

For me the main reason to see this film is Allan Dwan's wonderful direction. He has the good sense to park it and point it when the action dictates, e.g. in the musical sequences, but he also takes the opportunity to explore every inch of a very complicated set with the camera: up and down the stairs, out the back from low and high, in and out the front door, all around the top studio apartment, and towards the end an enormous crane shot of the house fronts.

And he gets good performances out of the cast. I don't agree with the other comments about the acting. The women are all excellent (Jane Frazee in the lead, Irene Rich as the landlady) and Gail Patrick is downright sensational as the cousin from Boston. Victor McLaglen and James Ellison as the Boston sleaze-bag are both excellent; Kenny Baker works hard at it; Franklin Pangborn always a delight: only William Marshall as the composer is a bit wooden, but then he is the designated sap in the script.

All in all a very nice ensemble piece with good music too. The firemen's ball number is hilarious.

Donovan's Reef (1963)

Clichés and overacting abounding

[5/10 · 29 November 2006]

Fun movie if you can get past the clichés. Ford's use of Marcel Dalio as a French priest is appalling, ditto the Royal Australian Navy coming on like a bunch of Cockneys saying they were born in Tipperary, complete nonsense, but Dorothy Lamour is a delight, as are Elizabeth Allen and Cesar Romero. Wayne and Marvin seem to have been over-encouraged to just play themselves and the results are pretty disastrous. I don't know why John Wayne would really spin wheelies every time he got into his jeep and leave skid-marks on people's lawns. The fight scenes are pretty tedious really.

Good use of landscape and interiors.

Re the music, it seems badly played to me. The band is clearly not a Hawaiian band at all but a bunch of C&W pickers who are in entirely the wrong idiom. And we didn't need a thousand repetitions of the theme song or especially Frere Jacques.

Tiger in the Smoke (1956)

Pretty good movie. Interesting aspect of the adaptation.

[1 March 1999]

Pretty good movie this.

The adapters very sensibly completely omitted the vapid Albert Campion and the pallid Amanda. As usual with Margery Allingham, they are entirely redundant to the plot, and I've never found either of them even slightly credible.

The ending shows the British cinema's usual utter inability to deal with landscape.