Sorry, but there's no sexy sidewalks here

A few weeks back, Eddie Muller's selection for Noir Alley was a movie I had never heard of before, The Naked Street. I wanted something a bit shorter than what I had been watching, so recently I sat down to watch it.

Farley Granger plays Nicky Bradna, a small-time gangster who, at the start of the movie, is on death row in Sing Sing for having killed a man. He clearly did it and if you believe in capital punishment, probably deserves it, which brings up the interesting question of how the Production Code is going to handle the rest of the movie. But that's not important right now. What is important is Rosalie Regalzyk (Anne Bancroft), the kid sister of a much higher-up gangster, Phil Regal (Anthony Quinn).

Phil loves his sister, and wants what's best in life for her, and will stop at nothing to get that, which is going to mean breaking the law if necessary, something he has no compunction about doing. And Phil is greatly distressed when he learns that Rosalie had been the girlfriend of Nicky. Partly because he'd like Rosalie to escape the sort of life he has, and more importantly because she really hasn't. Indeed, she's gotten pregnant by Nicky, and the thought of Rosalie giving birth to a bastard child horrifies Phil.

So Phil does what any good big brother would do, which is to engage in some good old witness intimidation so that the witnesses who saw Nicky commit the murder will say no, they really didn't, and get Nicky sprung from prison in time for him to marry Rosalie and make a respectable woman out of Rosalie. Phil also gets a decent job for Nicky, but that's not out of the goodness of his heart. Instead, he wants to be able to keep close tabs on Nicky and make certain that Nicky stays on the straight and narrow and does right by Rosalie.

Nicky is thrilled to be out of prison and not have death hanging over him, so he accepts this bargain, and even seems to be a fairly good husband. At least, until disaster strikes in the form of the unborn child strangling itself to death on the umbilical cord. A devastated Nicky starts seeing other women, as well as taking up gambling and other stuff. It's only a matter of time before Phil discovers what's going on and vows revenge on Nicky.

The Naked Street is a movie with a plot that strains credulity, and for once that's not because of any script gymnastics the screenwriters have to do to deal with the Production Code. Instead, the idea of all of this happening in the real world seems a bit far-fetched. However, the movie is saved by good performances, to the point that you don't think that much about the unrealisticness of the plot. Also in the cast is a young Peter Graves, as a reporter who's been trying to bring down Regal and who provides the narration.

The Naked Street certainly isn't one of the all-time classics of the noir cycle, and it's also not the best movie of any of the main stars. But it's one that entertains successfully enough to be worth a watch.

Anot

Behave Yourself

One of the movies that ran during TCM's Summer Under the Stars that I hadn't seen before and sounded interesting was Behave Yourself. So with that in mind, I recorded it, and recently sat down to watch it and do a review on it here.

The movie starts off with a bunch of gangsters using a trained dog named Archie to deliver messages, much in the way that some people might have tried to use carrier pigeons in a different era. However, one of the gangsters has to make a phone call at a pay phone, and the dog gets away. Meanwhile, accountant Bill Denny (Farley Granger) is celebrating his wedding anniversary. Well, he's supposed to be celebrating it. But he forgot, and there's not a whole lot to celebrate anyway. He and his wife Kate (Shelley Winters) are still living with Kate's mother, and boy does she make Bill feel like he's not enough of a man to be able to support Kate properly.

Bill, having suddenly been reminded of the anniversary, goes out to buy a gift for Kate, which is where Archie shows up in Bill's life. Unfortunately for Bill, Archie makes a mess out of Bill's attempt to buy something nice for Kate, instead following Bill all the way home and making Kate believe that it's the dog that's Bill's anniversary present for Kate.

At least, unlike Room for One More, the other spouse is OK with getting a surprise pet as a present. Bill, however, isn't pleased, because he makes the obvious assumption that a dog as well-trained as this has to belong to somebody, and that somebody is going to want their dog back. And how is Bill going to explain to his wife that no, this isn't really your anniversary gift and I forgot to get you anything? (If Bill is lucky, there might be some reward money for the return of Archie, and might make a good gift for Kate.)

Bill, having pored through the classified ads, finds one that looks like it's Archie's owners looking for him. It was placed by one Albert Jonas (Elisha Cook Jr.). Bill, unsurprisingly, doesn't know that Albert is one of the gangsters. Worse for him, he doesn't know that just after getting in touch with Albert to arrange for the return of Archie, another man, Gillie (Hans Conried), enters Albert's apartment and stabs him to death, or that Gillie is going to try to frame Bill for the murder.

Police detective O'Ryan (William Demarest) enters the case to investigate, while everybody and his brother in the underworld is now looking for Archie, which means that there's danger all around for Bill, who knows at least some of what's going on, and Kate, who doesn't. Now, of course, the Production Code was still around at the time Behave Yourself was made, so you know that things are most likely going to end up well for Bill and Kate, and that the bad guys are all going to face justice in one way or another.

The existence of the Production Code is a bit of a problem for Behave Yourself, but a lot of movies in that era faced the same strictures and handled them just fine. The bigger issue with Behave Yourself is that the story is just too convoluted for its own good. Supposedly the script was written in four days, and it really shows. It's a shame because the premise of using a dog to commit crime is certainly fairly original, even if getting an innocent couple mixed up in all of it isn't. Farley Granger isn't quite adept enough to pull off such a madcap story, and he and Shelley Winters aren't the best of screen couples.

Still, the movie has such an interesting premise that Behave Yourself is the sort of movie you'll want to see at least once, just to judge it for yourself.

The Story of Three Loves

One of the movies in the Kirk Douglas tribute on TCM tomorrow that I haven't blogged about before is The Story of Three Loves, which comes on at 10:00 AM.

Douglas doesn't come into the movie until the third act, but that's be design, since as you might have guessed from the title, this movie is an anthology of three love stories, with the hook tying the three together being that the men in the love stories are all traveling on the same transatlantic liner to the United States.

First up is James Mason, in a story called "The Jealous Lover". He plays Charles Coutray, a choreographer and producer. His love is a tragic one, being involved with ballerina Paula Woodward (Moira Shearer). Or maybe I should say ex-ballerina, since she has a heart condition that is supposed to keep her from dancing. But she's so desperate to dance that she runs off to Charles and does a tremendous dance for him. Too tremendous, in fact.

The scene then goes to young boy Ricky Nelson, playing Thomas Campbell. He had a French governess named Mademoiselle (played by Leslie Caron; "Mademoiselle" is also the title of this segment), who was taking care of him while his family was in Rome. He couldn't handle the French poetry and irregular verbs that Mademoiselle was trying to make him learn. On a dare from another American, he goes to see alleged witch Hazel (Ethel Barrymore), who gives him a special ribbon that turns him into an adult for one night (Farley Granger), a night on which he falls in love with Mademoiselle.

Finally, we get to Kirk Douglas, in a story called "Equilibrium". Kirk plays Pierre Narval, a French trapeze artist who is no longer doing his routine because it was an extremely daring one. Too daring, in fact, as it killed his previous partner. But then he meets Nina (Pier Angeli) and thinks she'd be perfect as his new partner. This even though she knows nothing about the trapeze and has a tragic past of her own, having lost her husband in World War II and having tried to commit suicide as a result. Still, Pierre trains Nina and the two fall in love along the way. But then the time comes for the two to do their most daring stunt without a net....

Anthology films are quite often uneven because each story is self-contained, and naturally some stories are going to be more interesting than others. For me, I found that The Story of Three Loves had a different problem. It was made in nice Technicolor at MGM, and all three stories are very competently filmed. But to me the movie kept having that MGM touch that I've described before where everything seems a little too perfect, winding up cold and sterile instead of full of vitality. Some point out that "The Jealous Lover" has an obvious comparison to The Red Shoes, and to be honest I've never been a fan of The Red Shoes either (not that it's bad, just that I find it a difficult watch). Leslie Caron isn't my favorite actress, so for me the Kirk Douglas story is the best of the three.

But I'm sure that other people will like The Story of Three Loves more than I did, considering how professionally made it is. The movie is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive, so if you can't catch the TCM showing, you can still watch and judge for yourself.

The Purple Heart

A movie that first showed up on FXM Retro a month or two ago is The Purple Heart. It's getting a pair of airings tomorrow, at 4:00 AM and 9:30 AM.

The movie starts off with a bunch of foreign correspondents from various countries assembled at a Shanghai courtroom. This is sometime in late 1942, so it's occupied China and after the US entered the war against Japan and the correspondents are from countries not at war with Japan. (Note that the USSR didn't declare war on Japan until 90 days after the German surrender, so they were still neutral on the Asian front.) Obviously these reporters know that there's something important going on, but what could be so important that Japan would want to assemble all these reporters?

All is made clear when the defenders walk into the courtroom. They're American, led by Capt. Harvey Ross (Dana Andrews). Ross was the pilot and commanding officer on one of the flights that was part of James Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, something that is dramatized in the book and movie Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. In the movie, the raid is portrayed as having continued westward from Tokyo, with the planes hoping to land in free China. Ross' plane encountered mechanical difficulties and was forced to ditch in a part of China controlled by the Japanese. A friendly local government officer picked them up, but it turned out that the officer was friendly to the Japanese, promptly turning the Americans over to Japan.

And so the Japanese put the men on trial for war crimes, saying that the Americans bombed obviously neutral targets like schools and hospitals. In reality, though, the Japanese want to know where the American planes took off from. The Geneva Convention dictates that captured soldiers only have to give their name, rank, and serial number, so this is what the Americans do. The Japanese obviously don't like this, so they come up with the bright idea of using torture to try to extract the information they want from the Americans. Meanwhile, the trial is still going to go forward.

The Purple Heart is an interesting movie for a whole bunch of reasons. First, it's based on actual events, although the names have been changed. It's not just the Doolittle raid that actually happened; Japan captured some downed air crews and put them on trial. Second, the cast contains a number of young actors who would go onto bigger and better things. In addition to Dana Andrews, there was also Richard Conte and a very young Farley Granger. Third, the movie is interesting as a propaganda piece. Since the movie was released during World War II while the events would still have been fresh in the minds of American audiences, the story is pretty one-sided, depicting the Americans as heroes who would never break under torture, while the Japanese are brutal and sadistic. (There is, however, also a conflict between a Japanese general and admiral over whether the Americans took off from aircraft carriers or from China.)

The overall result is that The Purple Heart winds up being a movie very much of its time. It's good at times, but clearly designed for the benefit of wartime audiences who would have needed a pick-me-up. Watching from the perspective of 70 years of hindsight, it comes across as a bit datedand almost overbearing. (The final scene is particularly heavy-handed, I think.) But The Purple Heart is still worth a watch.

Strangers on a Train

I gave a one-paragraph mention to Strangers on a Train back in November 2008. This month's TCM Guest Programmer, retried basketball star turned color commentator Reggie Miller, has selected it as the first of his four movies, so it's airing again tonight at 8:00 PM.

Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a tennis player on a train to Washington DC to meet his girlfriend Anne (Ruth Roman). He'd love to propose to her, but there's a problem in that he's already got a wife. Sure, he could get a divorce, but that takes time, and then there's alimony and that other stuff -- and that's if one's wife even wants a divorce. While on the train, who should run into him but Bruno Antony (Robert Walker)? Who's Bruno, you ask? That's a good question, and it's not as if Guy knows Bruno. But Bruno knows of Guy since Guy is a famous tennis player, and strikes up a conversation. It seems as if they've got something in common: a relative who's causing problems in their life. He's got serious daddy issues, and thinks his father is the cause of all is problems. If only something could happen to Father. At which point Bruno reveals his brilliant plan. Find two people who each have somebody they want to get rid of, have them have a chance meeting, and then have each of them perform the murder for the other one! It's not as if the police would be able to discover a motive.

Guy thinks this is nuts, and understandably gets off the train figuring that he was just talking to some oddball. I mean, who on earth in real life would come up with an idea like this? Of course, this isn't real life, but the movies, so it's perfectly normal to have oddballs like Bruno, and boy is Bruno a nut. Or, more accurately, a psychopath. Where Guy thought Bruno was just a nut and Guy was just humoring him, Bruno figured -- in no small part because it was also convenient for him to draw this conclusion -- that Guy was agreeing to the "let's commit each other's murder" plot. So he goes off and kills Guy's wife.

This presents an obvious problem for Guy. The bigger problem is that Bruno wound up with Guy's cigarette lighter when he accidentally left it on the train, and could use it to implicate Guy. And, having committed murder, Bruno expects Guy to fill his half of the bargain. Going to the police is of no use, since Guy doesn't have an alibi, either. (Well, technically he does, but it's not believable and conveniently can't be corroborated.) So Bruno continues to stalk Guy, while the police have their eye on Guy for the more obvious reason.

Strangers on a Train is a wonderful plot, although it's also a plot that, because of its outrageousness, is easy to lampoon. Depending upon your point of view, it either helps the movie tremendously, or is a bit of a problem 60 years on, that Hitchcock also used visuals that are ripe for imitating: there are some striking visuals of Washington DC that make me want to get out my copy of Blackmail to check whether the shots of the British Museum in the earlier movie are a precursor to what Hitchcock would do in Strangers on a Train. But the one big difference in any case would be the presence of Robert Walker in the shots, who is really the focus, with everything around him being framing. That's even more true in the famous tennis match shot. The idea of spectators moving their heads back and forth to follow the tennis ball is exaggerated in most movies, and even more here. But Bruno is absolutely still, eys fixed on Guy. Robert Walker, in fact, is excellent throughout the movie. Everybody else is at the very least good enough. Of note is Alfred Hitchcock's daughter Patricia, playing Ruth Roman's sister.

Strangers on a Train has gotten multiple DVD releases, including one of those four-film bare-bones box sets that TCM likes to advertise.

For the record, Reggie Miller's other three selections are:

Chain-gang member Paul Newman eating 50 hard-boiled eggs in Cool Hand Luke at 10:00 PM;
Dustin Hoffman being pursued by cougar Anne Bancroft, in the days before such women were called cougars, in The Graduate at 12:15 AM; and
Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy meeting their daughter's black fiancé (Sidney Poitier) in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at 2:15 AM.