Guys and Dolls

The next movie coming up on TCM that I DVRed the last time TCM ran it is Guys and Dolls, at 8:00 PM tonight, Nov. 8. IT's airing as part of a night of movies based on Damon Runyan stories.

Guys and Dolls was based on a Broadway musical, and the opening gives that away immediately. There's a long, extremely choreographed scene showing a fictionalized view of Times Square someplace both a bit exciting, but also possibly a bit dangerous because of the crime. Whether the choreography is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of personal preference, I suppose. The choregraphy is of an extremely high technical standard, but that also makes the whole scene totally artificial, which has always been one of the issues I've had with musicals.

Eventually, the scene stops on two guys: Nicely Nicely (Stubby Kaye) and Benny (Johnny Silver) who are underlings of Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra). Nathan has a reputation as a facilitator of gambling, and has been running one of the biggest floating craps games in the city. However, he's recently lost his preferred location, in part thanks to a crackdown by Lt. Brannigan (Robert Keith). That, and he's got a very long-suffering girlfriend in Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), who is the headliner at the Hot Box. She's been pushing Nathan to marry her for years, to the point that she's written totally fake letters to her mom saying that they're already married and have several children. (Wouldn't Mom have come down from Providence at least once in 14 years?)

Also in the original Times Square choreography sequence was a group of Salvation Army-like missionaries, running a mission for the downtrodden which seems like it would be impossible to do in midtown Manhattan if only because of how high the rents would be. The face of the missionaries, because they need a pretty face to try to bring the bums in, is Sarah Brown, with the technical head of the branch being her uncle Arvide (Regis Toomey). However, they're not having much success, and the head of the organization is threatening to shut the branch down.

These two strands come together thanks to the return to New York City of another professional gambler, Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando). Nathan needs $1000 to be able to rent the location where he wants to host the craps game, and thinks he can come up with a sucker bet to get the money from Sky. However, his first idea fails because Sky is no dummy. So Nathan comes up with a better idea. He wagers that Sky can't get a woman to go to Havana with him, where Sky is planning to inspect his operations down there. Nathan gets to pick the target, and picks... Sarah Brown.

Sky is a smooth operator, and even claims to know the Bible thanks to having read all those Gideon bibles in hotel rooms being a well-traveled person. But certainly getting a missionary to abandon her mission to go on a date in Havana? Then again, Sky is no dummy either, and quickly finds leverage, offering to bring a bunch of sinners to the mission's next revival meeting in exchange for Sarah's accompanying him to Havana. Of course, Sky begins to find himself falling in love with Sarah....

I think how much you like Guys and Dolls is going to depend upon how much you like musicals, and how much you like Damon Runyan. I already implied above that I had a bit of a problem with the choreography of the opening scene, and the big craps game at the climax has the same sort of choreography. I also had a problem with the dialog, in that most of the gamblers talked in a very artificial way. It also goes without saying that Marlon Brando was not a professional singer by any means. All of this is a bit of a shame, since at the heart of the movie is a story that's not a bad one. Guys and Dolls really ought to be better than I found it.

The Grass is Greener

Back at the beginning of January when I posted about Robert Mitchum being TCM's Star of the Month for January, I mentioned that one of his movies I hadn't heard of before was The Grass Is Greener. Recently, I finally got around to watching it before it expired from the DVR, and now I can do a post on it.

The opening credits, designed by Maurice Binder, oddly show a bunch of infants, with four names getting roughly equal credit and only one name being listed among co-stars. After the credits, we get a song from Noël Coward about British stately houses and how the aristocrats who lived there can now no longer necessarily afford to do so. Cut to one such manor, where Victor (Cary Grant) and Hilary (Deborah Kerr), the Earl and Countess of Rhyall respectively, live, together with their two children. The couple live in a couple of rooms in one wing of the house that are marked "Private", which is because the rest of the house with all its artwork and other museum-quality furniture is subject to guided tours to help pay for the upkeep of the house. They even have to get rid of the governess, giving those duites to the butler, Sellers (Moray Watson, the one non-star in the credits).

During one of those tours, a man walks into what is essentially Victor and Hilary's living room, claiming that he did not see any "Private" sign because it fell off the door. That man, Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum) is an American oilman who is in the UK on an extended holiday. Hilary is obviously none too pleased at first about seeing this strange man walk right into her living quarters, but the two strike up a conversation and Charles reveals himself to be extremely charming, as they head out onto the grounds. Eventually, however, Victor comes back into the living room from his office, discovering the two, and figuring out (correctly) that there's some sort of budding romance taking place.

Charles heads back to London where he's staying, and Hilary finds a reason to go to London, namely to get her hair done. But the only appointment is first thing in the morning, before the train would get her there, so she's going to have to stay overnight. She calls her and Victor's frend Hattie (Jean Simmons), a recent divorcée living off the alimony, to ask to stay there. What Hilary apparently doesn't know is that Hattie and Victor were romantically involved. Hilary spends several days in London consistently meeting up with Charles, while Hattie goes to see Victor, with the latter two planning a way to get back at poor Hilary.

That "revenge" is to try to get Charles to agree to a duel, and to use that duel to get Hilary to make up her mind about what to really do. Along the way, however, there's a lot of verbal jousting over who knows what about whom. The duel does eventually take place, albeit with somewhat surprising results.

It's mentioned in the opening credits that The Grass Is Greener is based on a stage play, and despite the attempts by the playwrights (who also wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation) to open up the play, it's always very obviously based upon a stage play. Now, all five of the players give very good performances, and the movie isn't bad by any means. However, I must admit that it's once again the sort of material that probably would have worked better on the stage with a live audience than in this screen version. Watching it by myself, and with the stars not having any audience energy to play off of, it just feels like something is missing.

Of course, it's also not as if The Grass Is Greener is going to be widely revived on the stage for people to be able to see, so this movie version is going to have to suffice. It's a thoroughly professional outing from everyone involved.

[gets up during the soliloquy to see Vivien Leigh]

It wasn't all that long ago that the 1953 version of Julius Caesar showed up on TCM and, as I had it on my DVR, I watched it to do a post here. I've got another Shakespeare adaptation that TCM ran during 31 Days of Oscar, and now it's on again about two months later: the 1948 version of Hamlet, tomorrow (May 11) at 10:30 AM.

This is the Laurence Olivier version of the movie, and as you can guess, he plays Hamlet and even directs himself. I assume most people already know the plot of Shakespeare's play. Hamlet was the crown prince of Denmark, son of the king, but while he was studying in what is now Germany, his father died and his uncle Claudius (Basil Sydney) not only took the crown, but married Hamlet's mom Gertrude (Eileen Herlie)! Ballsy. However, something that looks like it could be the ghost of Hamlet's father has been walking the castle parapet at night. Hamlet, having returned home, is the only one who can hear the ghost, and it tells him that yes, this is the ghost of his father the former king and that Claudius killed him, so you Hamlet must avenge my death!

Meanwhile, advising Claudius is Polonius (Felix Aylmer), who has two kids. Laertes, his son, is sent off to France, while Ophelia (Jean Simmons) is in love with Hamlet, and the feeling is mutual. But to make certain that Stepdad doesn't suspect him, Hamlet feigns insanity until he can find out for real whether or not Claudius killed his own brother in order to usurp the throne. Hamlet concludes that yes, it did happen, but he still can't bring himself to kill Stepdad because, as Olivier tells us in an opening monologue, this is a play about a man who can't make up his own mind.

Since the major Shakespeare plays all have well-known plots, there's more to discuss than just the plot when talking about an adaptation. The first thing is what gets removed. Shakespeare's plays being so well-known, and having a lot of fans, taking stuff out to simplify things for a movie audience is likely to cause problems. Imagine if somebody tried to do Hamlet without the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, or Romeo and Juliet without Juliet on the balcony. But the play itself would run a good four hours if nothing is edited. As it is, Olivier edited it down to a little over two and a half hours in part by getting rid of Fortinbras on one hand, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the other. Also, if Olivier delivered the "The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King" line, I must have missed it. So some purists may not like the edits.

Then there's always the chance you'll get actors who are good in normal movies, but not necessarily up for the difficult early 17th century Shakespearean dialogue. I mentioned this in the earliest days of the blog when I discussed Warner Bros.' 1935 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which makes the inspired choice of putting the studio's comic actors into Bottom's acting troupe. Whether you think James Cagney does well with the material is a different question. (I happen to think he does OK, although the British stars are more natural.) And let's not talk about Edna May Oliver and Andy Devine at the beginning of the MGM adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

However, Olivier is unsurprisingly quite good himself, and mostly gets good performances out of the others. Sydney and Herlie are, I think more of stage actors than movie actors as I didn't really recognize them from anything else. Simmons was at the beginning of her career, and I read some reviewers who think she's a weak point here, but I didn't notice that. Terence Morgan as Laertes, is a particular standout in a good way among the supporting cast. And watch for Peter Cushing and Anthony Quayle in small roles.

Then there's the staging. Olivier had made Henry V in Technicolor, but reverts to black and white here, which actually suits the material well with the brooding shadows of the ghost among other things benefiting.

Some people might want a complete presentation of a Shakespeare play, but if you've never actually seen a production of Hamlet before, the Laurence Olivier version isn't a bad place to start.

Yes she could have

TCM is running a bunch of Robert Mitchum films tomorrow (April 20) morning and afternoon even though it isn't his birthday. I have two of the films on that schedule on the DVR that I want to blog about, so we're getting one Mitchum movie today and another tomorrow. First up is She Couldn't Say No, airing at noon tomorrow.

Now, an eagle-eyed viewer might be able to guess that Mitchum is not playing the "She" in the movie's title. The "She" is instead played by Jean Simmons, as a character named Corby Lane. She's rich enough that she was able to spend a lot of time in England an buy a car in cash now that she's back in America, hoping that the dealer can move the steering wheel over to the right-hand side, just because she's more used to it. It's a relative throwaway scene other than to show just how idle rich Corby is.

But Corby has a plan for the car, and for her wealth. She heads down to the small town of Progress, Arkansas, with a population of about 200 people and the sort of small southern town that led Variety to write the famous 1935 headline "Stix Nix Hick Picks". It's full of stereotypes, starting with the lovable town drunk, Odie Chalmers (Arthur Hunnicutt) who spends his time at the general store/post office, presumably waiting for a relief check. But Corby isn't so interested in him; she's looking for Dr. Sellers.

Corby gets directions to Dr. Sellers' house, but he isn't there, so she rings the emergency bell even tough what she wants to talk about isn't an emergency, and Dr. Sellers (that's Robert Mitchum as if you couldn't tell) thinks it's more likely to be something like the pregnant Mrs. Jordan about to give birth. And Corby isn't exactly pleased to see this Dr. Robert Sellers, as she was expecting somebody much older. In fact, she was expecting Robert Sr., but he's dead and the son took over the practice because Progress needs a doctor.

Dr. Sellers and Corby, using the pseudonym Corby Johnson, go out for a drink, or enough drinks to get Corby incredibly drunk since Sellers is clearly trying to pump her for information about why she's here. That should become clear the next day, after Mrs. Jordan gives birth. Some anonymous donor decided to buy a whole bunch of baby supplies for the Jordans. Too much, in fact, as the Jordans don't have space for it all.

Dr. Sellers, having seen that Corby's luggage is monogrammed "CL", is able to put two and two together. Corby was one of his father's patients a long time ago, when she was just a kid. Her father was working in the oil fields, traveling wherever there was work, and stopped in Progress for a while. But he was a bit down on his luck as Corby fell ill and needed some sort of operation that she couldn't get in Progress. So the townsfolk took up a collection for her to send her to St. Louis (why not Little Rock??) to get that operation. Corby's father eventually made good in the oil industry, and Corby wants to pay back the townsfolk of Progress, albeit anonymously.

The problem is, every way she tries to pay somebody back only backfires. She buys fine alcohol for Odie, only to learn that he being an alcoholic, the bartender has been surreptitiously watering his liquor. Buying the veterinarian a new car leads him to want to leave town. And when she just says the heck with it and anonymously sends everyone in town cash, that makes the news and gets a bunch of greedy little shits from the rest of the country to come to Progress stupidly thinking they could get some money themselves.

She Couldn't Say No is the sort of movie that, 15 years earlier before World War II, would have made a silly little programmer for any studio picking up the story and providing it to two of its contract players. But by the mid-1950s, it feels dated and a bit beneath both Mitchum and Simmons. Not that the two of them are bad; they both give a professional effort and do the best they can with the material. It's more that the material does everybody in. It doesn't help that this being RKO, the movie looks like it was done on a discount.

Still, if you want some pleasant enough fun hearkening back to a different era, you could do a lot worse than to watch something like She Couldn't Say No.

The country of size

Gregory Peck was honored in TCM's Summer Under the Stars last August. That gave me the opportunity to record one of his films that I hadn't blogged about before, The Big Country. Actor Burl Ives picked up a Supporting Actor Oscar for his role, so TCM can use it during 31 Days of Oscar as well. Indeed, it shows up again this year, getting its airing tomorrow (March 30) at 11:15 AM. So as always, I made a point of watching it with an eye to doing a review on it here.

Gregory Peck stars as Jim McKay (but would not go on to host Wide World of Sports), a man who had worked as a captain in his family's shipping company but is now going west. That's because in port one of those times, he met Pat Terrill (Carroll Baker), who was going east for some reason not specified, since all of that took place before the action depicted in the movie. The two fell in love and McKay proposed to her, so now he's coming out to marry her since her father Maj. Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford) owns a substantial ranch.

McKay meets Pat in town, where Pat is staying with friend Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons). Julie is the local schoolteacher, but she owns a spread of her own that is fallow since the death of her father. The big thing about her spread, however, is the "Big Muddy", a lake which has a good deal of water on it that's important for watering one's cattle. Julie is intent on letting everybody water their cattle, but for obvious reasons various landowners want the lake for themselves.

On their way out to Maj. Henry's ranch house, Jim and Pat run into the Hannassey brothers, whose father Rufus (Burl Ives) is one of the ranchers who wants Big Muddy and has been trying for years, obviously unsuccessfully, to get Julie to sell. Rufus at heart does have a sense of honor, as we'll see in the finale, but he's raised his kids badly as eldest brother Buck (future Rifleman Chuck Connors, getting to play one of his bad-guy roles) leads the rest of the brothers in trying to waylay Jim and Pat. Indeed, there's long been a feud between the Hannasseys and the Terrills.

Further complicating matters is the presence of Maj. Terrill's ranch foreman, Steve Leech (Charlton Heston). He has a feeling his position is going to be in jeopardy once Pat marries Jim, since the major has no sons to take over the ranch. Steve also isn't so sure an easterner who spent a lot of time on the ocean is one to know much about ranching, so he doesn't have much respect for Jim.

Things get more complicated for Jim as he begins to learn about all the things that have been going on in the time before he got to the area. Things get even worse when the major decides he's going to try to prevent the Hannasseys from watering their cattle, resorting to force if necessary. As mentioned earlier, Rufus Hannassey has been trying to get Julie to sell, and she hasn't. But Jim, unsurprising for a character played by Gregory Peck, has an uncompromising and unerring sense of right and wrong. After seeing first-hand the conflict between the major and Rufus, Jim decides to buy Julie's ranch, with the proviso that he's going to let everybody water their cattle there.

When Pat finds out about that wrinkle and that the ranch isn't a wedding present to her, she gets furious. Rufus understandably thinks that if Jim has bought the ranch, it's going to screw him over since everybody knows Jim and Pat are supposed to get married. (Well, nobody knows yet that the engagement has been broken off.) It leads to the final battle between the Hannasseys and the Terrills.

The Big Country is a big movie, running 166 minutes. And frankly, that's the one big problem with the movie. It's unsurprisingly well acted, with very nice cinematography. But at its heart it's a fairly simple western story that had no need to be expanded to 166 minutes. The writers could easily have distilled this down to around two hours and come up with something just as good. Still, the quality of the other parts of the movie is good enough that its length is less of a flaw than in some other movies.

So definitely give The Big Country a go. Just be aware that you're in for the long haul.

Spartacus

I've got a box set of Kirk Douglas movies that has Spartacus in it. I'd been a bit reluctant to sit down and devote a good 196 minutes to the movie, sort of the same issue I had with Cleopatra a few weeks back. But Spartacus is going to be on TCM tomorrow (Mar. 12) at 4:30 PM, so I recently fired up the DVD player and finally watched Spartacus.

Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) is a slave of Thracian (roughly modern-day northern Greece) origin who at the start of the movie in the 70s BC is working in a mine in Libya, where the slave-masters drive everyone hard until they mostly die a fairly early death. Spartacus is unsurprisingly truclent about it, but there's not much way to resist when you're a slave. He's about to have a bit of luck, if you can call it that, in the form of slave trader Batiatus (Peter Ustinov). He looks at several of the slaves, and buys Spartacus.

However, it turns out that Batiatus runs a training school for gladiatorial combat, and intends to put Spartacus into combat with all the other slaves there, another occupation that has a fairly limited lifespan, since combat is generally to the death. But Spartacus is able to become romantically invoved with one of the females cooking and feeding the slaves, Varinia (Jean Simmons), to the point that she's going to become pregnant with his child. But the two of them are split up when Roman Senator Crassus (Laurence Olivier) buys Varinia. And after Crassus wants to see some combat, Spartacus decides to revolt.

They're able to break out of the training school, but if you think about it, it's not going to be easy to evade detection in Italy. Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to go north to Gaul, but that's a pretty long journey. Instead, Spartacus contracts with a group of pirates represented by Tigranes (Herbert Lom) to take the ever-increasing group of rebel ex-slaves by boat over to the Balkans, requiring them to head down to Brindisi in the heel of Italy.

The Romans, of course, are up in arms about what's going on, and politics intrudes on what the best course of action should be. Pompey has been fighting a war in Hispania and is brought back to pursue Spartacus' army from the direction of Sicily, while another legion will attack from Brindisi. This will force Spartacus to head back north toward Rome, where Crassus has his own troops, and political reasons for driving Spartacus toward his troops.

In the meantime, there's been quite a bit of political maneuvering going on in the Roman Senate. Crassus, as we have seen, has tried to grab power for himself by becoming the hero in putting down Spartacus' revolt. Gracchus (Charles Laughton), patriarch in an old patrician family, is horrified at this, as he sees this as the first step toward tyranny. (Of course, he was ultimately right, as it would be less than 50 years until Rome became an empire.) A young Julius Caesar (John Gavin) ultimately takes Crassus' side, which I suppose was instrumental in Caesar's eventual rise to power.

The Romans also don't get to live happily ever after. Crassus loses Varinia, who runs away and joins Spartacus' army, and Gracchus is declared an enemy of the state by Crassus because Gracchus is the one person who could still challenge Crassus' power. Crassus also loses his manservant, Antonius (Tony Curtis), a slave who runs off after coming to believe he's going to be made a sex-slave.

The life of Spartacus is the sort of material that would probably work well in a miniseries, assuming that you want to cover the political situation that affects how the Romans handle the rebellion. At 196 minuts, this movie version of Spartacus is a little long, mostly because the final battle in which Spartacus is defeated but not killed comes with a good 40 minutes left in the movie. There's a lot of political ends between Crassus and Gracchus that the writers want to clean up, and a Hollywood scene at the end that's supposed to leave the viewer hopeful.

The version of Spartacus in the box set I have is the 2015 restoration which, if I had a good enough home theater to watch it, would probably look pretty darn good, although not as good as the Blu-ray release.

Ooh, goody, another potboiler!

Another of the movies that was new to me when I saw it pop up in the FXM schedule was Hilda Crane. It's got its next airing tomorrow, Aug. 25, at 6:00 AM, so I sat down to watch it and do a review on it here.

Jean Simmons plays Hilda Crane, who at the start of the movie is returning to her home town of Winona, one of those small towns with a liberal arts college that dot the landscape of Hollywood movies during the studio era. (The University of Nevada in Reno was used for the college scenes but the movie doesn't otherwise mention where Winona is.) Hilda had spent some time in New York, where she wasn't much of a success, having been married and divorced twice and losing her job because she didn't have what it takes. So now she's coming home to mother (Judith Evelyn).

Not long after getting home, Hilda gets a letter from Russell Burns (Guy Madison). The two had been friends before Hilda went off to college. Both of their fathers died relatively young, and while the Cranes are modestly comfortable, the Burnses are the town's wealthiest family, thanks to Russell's mother (Evelyn Varden) having worked her ass off to get to this point. Russell is not big in the construction business in town, although you wonder how big the business could possibly be considering the size of the town.

In that letter was a marriage proposal from Russell to Hilda. However, Mrs. Burns absolutely doesn't want Russell getting married to Hilda. Or, frankly, to anybody. Mrs. Burns is convinced that the only possible reason a woman could be interested in her son is because he's got money now, and she's trying, she thinks, to prevent Russell from making a bad decision. Hilda, for her part, wasn't certain she wanted to marry Russell. She's made a mess of her life and knows that she isn't exactly a good girl. She also thinks about one of her old college professors, Jacques de Lisle (Jean-Pierre Aumont). Jacques is working on a novel which if it were successful would certainly pay more than being a backwater liberal arts professor, even though all the students seem to love him. He knows Hilda has been to New York, and wants the excitement.

Eventually, Mrs. Burns henpecks the Cranes so much that Hilda decides she's going to get married to Russell just to spite nasty Mrs. Burns. Mrs. Burns says not to do this to her because she's got a bad heart, and starts play-acting the put-upon dying mother. Except that it turns out she really does have a bad heart that even her doctor didn't know about, and she drops dead on the day Hilda and Russell get married.

The ghost of Mrs. Burns hangs over Hilda and Russell's relationship, and Hilda responds by becoming one of those heavy day-drinkers that populated 1950s potboilers, the sort who would use the word "tight" to describe the fact that they've gotten drunk. That's bad enough, but then Prof. de Lisle returns from New York with his book having been somewhat of a success.

Hilda Crane is a silly little potboiler, and frankly a minor one in the cycle of potboilers. Simmons is the one big star (by Hollywood standards) here, and she's not really right for the Crane role, or any potboiler if you ask me. Guy Madison is bland, and when I see Aumont romancing Simmons, I can't help but think of Mahogany 20 years later and an older Aumont going after Diana Ross. Evelyn Varden, however, is a hoot, tremendously overacting the guilt-tripping mother from hell. It's too bad her character has to die halfway through the movie.

If you want some unmemorable unintentional comedy, Hilda Crane isn't a bad choice for that. If you want a quality movie, look elsewhere.

This may or may not be the night

I've stated before that there's something about the gloss of the MGM production values that, while they're professionally and competently produced, often has a tendency of making them seem like there's something not quite right about them. A good example of this is This Could Be the Night.

Jean Simmons stars as Anne Leeds, a new teacher in the big city who's come from small-town New England and is not quite wise to the ways of the world as a result. Teaching doesn't pay enough, so she decides she's going to get a second job to help pay the bills. She finds this working as a secretary at the Tonic, a nightclub run by Rocco (Paul Douglas).

Now, with a name like Rocco, you might think this is a joint run by mobsters, and you might be right, except for the fact that there's that pesky Production Code and Rocco is clearly supposed to be a good guy here. Rocco shows Anne her duties, which Anne takes to fairly well, to the point that Rocco not only likes her in a fatherly way, but almost considers her indispensible.

However, Rocco has a junior partner in Tony (Anthony Franciosa), who gives off greater vibes of being connected to the Mob in some way, and when faced with Anne's virginal nature and honesty, doesn't think she's right for the type of place that the Tonic is. If I had to guess, I would guess that Rocco and Tony may have had some sort of gangster relationships in the past, much like James Cagney's character in Picture Snatcher, but that they're going straight now. This, I think, is bolstered by the fact that one of their guests one night is Waxie (Murvyn Vye), who recently got out of prison and is thinking of opening his own place.

Along the way, Anne helps everybody who works at the Tonic, including Hussein (Rafael Campos), son of Arab immigrants who wants to become fully American, even by changing his name; and the St. Clairs, Mom Crystal (Joan Blondell) and daughter Patsy (Nelle Adams), the younger wanting a stove of her own for their apartment. Also along the way, Tony begins to find himself falling in love with Anne, despite having relations with a lot of women, including showgirl Ivy (Julie Wilson).

There are a lot of good ideas here, yet I found that the movie felt a bit flat and not quite having the bite is should. It's a comedy, in a vein that goes a long way back to movies like the aforementioned Picture Snatcher and continued through any number of Paul Douglas movies like Love That Brute. Douglas is well cast, but I think it's the other two leads that cause problems for the movie. Jean Simmons isn't quite believable in what is supposed to be her naïveté, while Franciosa is too wooden and lightweight. It also doesn't help that they don't seem to have much romantic chemistry together.

Still, This Could Be the Night could have been a lot worse. It's just that there are other movies in the genre that are a lot better. The movie is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive Collection should you wish to watch for yourself.

Time for the full-length post on Désirée

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned that the movie Désirée showed up on FXM, but that I didn't have the time to do a full-length post on it for various reasons. It's going to be on FXM again, tomorrow at 10:50 AM and then again at 8:00 AM Thanksgiving, so now's the time to do that full-length post.

Jean Simmons plays Désirée Clary, a young woman living with her family and working at the family's millinery in Marseilles, France in 1794. If you know your history, you'll recognize the date as toward the end of the French Revolution. So who should show up in the Clarys' milieu but Napoleon Bonaparte (Marlon Brando), together with his brother Joseph (Cameron Mitchell)? Napoleon has plans of going to Paris to do great things, and gets more or less betrothed to Désirée in Marseilles. Désirée has a sister Julie (Elizabeth Sellars) who gets engaged to Joseph.

Napoleon does go to Paris, and some time passes. Sadly, Désirée receives no word from Napoleon. So she rather impulsively goes to Paris in order to look for Napoleon. She finds that he's at a party, but it's one of those swanky invitation-only things held by high society, and not only does Désirée not have an invitation; who's going to let her in anyway. Thankfully for her, one of the guests, General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (Michael Rennie), shows up without a companion. He's so taken by Désirée's beauty and her ardent desire to get into the party that he makes her his guest.

Désirée, of course, is going to find that Napoleon has met Josephine (Merle Oberon), who is of much higher upbringing than the Clarys and so better for Napoleon to have politically. In theory he still could have loved Désirée -- and in some ways he still does. But he needs a marriage that can help him obtain his ultimate desire, which is power. Josephine can provide that; Désirée can't.

Désirée settles by marrying Bernadotte, and it turns into a marriage of love, which is more than can be said for Napoleon and Josephine. Napoleon also has the problem that Josephine is barren, and he needs an heir once he's crowned himself emperor. But Désirée already has children by Bernadotte, so she's out of the question.

Political events become more heated as Napoleon is trying to take over all of Europe. He's installed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, and then it turns out that Sweden needs a new monarch as well. So they call on Bernadotte, offering to make him King because their current royal house has no heirs. He accepts despite Désirée knowing no Swedish.

She's unhappy in Sweden with the austere court life and her lack of Swedish, so she eventually decides to return to France, just in time for Napoleon's disastrous 1812 campaign. This leaves her effectively a prisoner in France under house arrest. And after that comes Waterloo and Napoleon's refusal to abdicate. The other powers all think Désirée is the only one who can get Napoleon to go to St. Helena....

Désirée is a nice enough Hollywood look at history, with the House of Bernadotte being one of the parts of the Napoleonic era not to get much mention in any other Hollywood movie. I don't have much idea how inaccurate the movie is, of course. Still, it's nice to look at, and the main actors all do reasonably well. The one big problem is with the print FXM is running, which was letterboxed and pillarboxed. So if you've got a smaller TV screen, this one is going to look pretty darn tiny. It also doesn't seem to be on DVD, which is a shame.

Until They Sail

I recorded quite a few of the movies TCM ran during the salute to Star of the Month Paul Newman, so it's time to start getting through them. First up is Until They Sail.

Newman plays Capt. Jack Harding, a US Marine who at the start of the movie is testifying in a criminal trial in Christchurch, New Zealand, in November 1945. If you guessed that he was involved in World War II, you'd be right. The US stationed a lot of men in New Zealand as part of the staging to send them north to fight the Japanese, and many of them wanted to take on local women as wives, what with all the Kiwi men being away fighting the war. Harding's job was to investigate to make certain the women wouldn't be "undesirables" in America.

Flash back to the events that necessitated Harding's testimony. Well, actually, let's go back further than that. The Leslies are a family of four sisters -- both parents are deceased -- in Christchurch, with second-oldest sister Barbara (Jean Simmons) having a husband off fighting in North Africa. Eldest sister Anne (Joan Fontaine) seems to have something against men, while youngest sister Evelyn (Sandra Dee in her movie debut) is too young for that stuff yet.

Then there's third sister Delia (Piper Laurie). She seems desperate for any man. The only adult male of marriageable age is Phil, nicknamed Shiner (Wally Cassell). Anne and Barbara think he's terrible for Delia, but she doesn't care; she wants a man. So she marries him, and when he gets called to fight, she decamps to Wellington. Ostensibly, it's to do her part for the war effort; really, though, it's because there's a greater number of US soldiers stationed there.

Barbara goes up to Wellington to see Delia and learns the truth of what Delia is doing. But also there, she meets Harding. They strike up a bit of a friendship, but it's clearly nothing more than that because she's married and he's been through an emotionally difficult divorce that led to him taking up heavy drinking. But all sorts of events are going to turn Barbara against the Americans the way Anne seems to be.

I say seems, because eventually Anne meets a soldier of her own, Capt. Bates (Charles Drake), with whom she eventually falls in love and could get married if the authorities (with Harding investigating) approve. As you can see, in life things have a way of turning out differently than one might expect.

But back to the beginning of the movie, and Harding's appearance in court. Why is he testifying? Well, all that cavorting with American servicemen Delia did causes her to realize she made a dumb move in marrying Shiner. When he finally gets released from a POW camp after the war, she plans to tell him that she's going to get a divorce from him. He's going to contest it and never let her get it, which leads to... well, that's why Harding is testifying.

Until They Sail is a well-made drama, although if there's one flaw, it's that most of the characters' story lines are wrapped up a bit too neatly. Life isn't always so straightforward. But the road there is a bit twistier, like real life. And the performances are mostly quite good. It's an interesting look at a part of World War II that's probably not quite so well known to Americans.

Until They Sail is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive collection.

Sinuhe egyptiläinen

If you've already got copies of everything that TCM is running tonight, you could switch over to the Fox Movie Channel and catch The Egyptian at 3:30 AM. Or, this being FMC, you could wait for the repeat, which is going to be tomorrow afternoon at 12:35 PM.

Edmund Purdom plays Sinuhe, the title character in the original novel by Finnish writer Mika Waltari; the "Sinuhe" was removed from the title when translated to English. Sinuhe is, at the beginning of the movie, writing his memoirs at the end of his life sometime around 1350 BC, where he's in exile somewhere near the shores of the Red Sea. Flash back to the early part of his life....

Sinuhe was abandanoned by his birth parents, being sent down the Nile on a reed boat ostensibly to die, but being discovered by foster parents who raised him. Sinuhe's foster father was a physician, such as they were in the ancient world, but regardless of the quality of doctors back then Sinuhe follows in Dad's footsteps and becomes a doctor himself. One day, together with his friend Horemheb (Victor Mature), who wants to be in the military, he goes hunting for lions but instead saves the life of a man attacked by a lion. Horemheb and Sinuhe are arrested because hunting lions is only for royals, but what is only discovered later is that the man they saved was the new Pharaoh, Akhenaton (Michael Wilding). Sinuhe become the Royal Physician, while Horemheb gets a plum posting in the army.

This gets Sinuhe into the ancient Egyptian version of the smart set, which is where he meets Nefer (Bella Darvi), who seems to be ancient Egypt's equivalent of a socialite who's famous for being famous, or something. Sinuhe falls for her, hard, even though he'd be much better off with tavern owner Merit (Jean Simmons). Merit loves him, but he doesn't return the favor, instead sacrificing all his worldly good for Nefer, eventually being forced to go into his first exile as a result. In this first exile, Sinuhe meets the Hittites, who have developed a new metal that's tougher than any of the metals they have in Egypt, and which the Hittites are turning into swords with which they're going to conquer the known world! Sinuhe has to warn his people.

So he goes back to Egypt, only to discover that the place has changed. Akhenaton, despite being Pharaoh, is also somewhat of an apostate, at least in that he only believes in one god, as opposed to the plethora of gods that made up Egyptian theology. The military doesn't like this, and they plan to stage a palace coup with the help of Akhenaton's sister Baketamon (Gene Tierney). However, in the meantime, there is a portion of the regular population that has taken up Akhenaton's monotheism, and the military is going to have to deal with them, too. And this includes Merit -- that's also not her only secret....

Sinuhe has the chance to take part in the palace coup by poisoning Akhenaton, who for his part is perfectly ready to die. And, in fact, we know that whatever action Sinuhe takes, it's going to lead to his eventual exile, since that's where he was at the start of the movie. But since we're getting close to the climax of the movie, I'll spare the plot details so as not to give everything away.

The Egyptian isn't the world's greatest movie, but it's not terrible either. There are nice sets and nice cinematography, although it's too bad Fox couldn't come up with more location shooting, at least for establishing shots. The ancient Egyptian monuments would probably look good in Cinemascope. The plot is meandering and a bit of a mess at times. For example, I don't see exactly what Sinuhe sees in Nefer, and the palace coup section goes on a bit too long. As for the acting, everybody is ostensibly playing ancient Egyptians although they could just as easily be playing archetypes, as the story could almost be set in Rome or possibly Henry VIII's England or any of a number of other places and times. Nobody is terrible -- not even Bella Darvi -- but nobody particularly shines, either. All in all, The Egyptian is certainly worth a viewing. It's no worse than most of the other ancient epics that Hollywood was making in the mid-1950s.

Amazon suggests that The Egyptian has been released to DVD, but it's either imports or out-of-print stuff.

So Long at the Fair

A search of the blog suggests that I have never done a full-length post on So Long at the Fair before. It's airing again this evening at 10:15 PM, so today's a good day to blog about it.

Simmons stars as Vicky, a young Englishwoman who is traveling to Paris with her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson) to attend the World's Fair. (It's been long enough since I saw the movie that I don't recall whether it's the 1889 or the 1900 Fair; IMDb reviewers suggest both.) They get rooms in a hotel and see some of the sights of the exhibition. What a nice trip! Of course, we know that something's going to happen. The next morning, Vicky goes to her brother's room. Instead of her brother, she finds a bathroom! That's odd. Well, she could have gotten the room numbers wrong; such things have been known to happen. But in this case, she can't find her brother at all! Oh my, that's a problem.

Faced with a brother who's missing, Vicky does what any sane normal person would do. She asks for help. However, the folks at the hotel show her that her brother is not in the register, while that room he was supposed to have has always been a bathroom. How could he ever possibly have taken that room to sleep in? Going to the authorities doesn't help, either, as Vicky is unable to provide any evidence that she even came to Paris with a brother. In fact, Vicky, we're beginning to wonder whether you're sane at all!

This is a premise that has been used in several movies that I've mentioned in the past. Probably most notable is The Lady Vanishes, where Margaraet Lockwood can't prove to anybody that Dame May Whitty existed, at least until Michael Redgrave comes along. In Dangerous Crossing, it's Jeanne Craine on a boat with a husband for whom there's no evidence of his existence. All such movies have one big issue: how to make the conspiracy theory plausible. After all, there has to be some conspiracy if our heroine isn't insane.

In the case of So Long at the Fair, if I think too hard about it, I find that the conspiracy to keep Vicky from learning about her brother is ludicrous. There's no way that many people could pull it off, and no good reason for them to want to. True, they do claim to have a reason at the end, but while it explains the difference, I don't think it explains the motivation for not telling Vicky. That having been said, I think So Long at the Fair is also part of a genre of film that shouldn't be looked at quite as seriously for plot holes. We can enjoy The Lady Vanishes, or any of Hitchcock's "wrong man tries to prove his innocence" movies, despite the fact that most of them strain credulity. And in that same light, So Long at the Fair is really a pretty good movie. Simmons is fine as the woman who can't find her brother, while Dirk Bogarde plays the kind man who eventually starts to believe her. There's nothing too taxing here, but some good entertainment.

So Long at the Fair has been released to DVD in Europe, but I don't know if it's received a DVD release in the US.

Divorce American Style

About a month ago, TCM ran Divorce American Style as part of a salute to actor Dick Van Dyke on getting the Screen Actors' Guild (I think) lifetime achievement award. The movie has received a DVD release, but it seems to be out of print based on the ridiculous price Amazon is asking, as well as TCM's on-line schedule not listing it as available for purchase from their online shop. It's receiving another airing on TCM tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM.

The movie starts off with a montage of couples bickering in their suburban tract housing, because, well, that's what American middle-class married couples do. Cut to one particular couple, Richard and Barbara Harmon, played by Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds. They hold a dinner party for their friends one night, but things don't go well, because afterwards, the two wind up at each other's throats as they clean up and then get ready to go to bed. Their adolescent son Mark (Tim Matheson in his movie debut) has obviously heard this all before, as when he hears the argument through the ventilation ducts, he's got a checklist of the things Mom and Dad use against each other.

What's a bored housewife to do? Barbara goes to her therapist, who has gotten Richard to agree to come in to one of the appointments in an effort to patch up the relationship, but that doesn't work, at which point Barbara calls her lawyer cousin who suggests a separation. Separation turns into divorce, with Barbara getting the house and everything in alimony, leaving Richard with the princely sum of $87.50 a week. Trying to put together the pieces of his life, Richard meets divorcée Nancy Downes (Jean Simmons). She's on relatively good terms with her ex-husband Nelson (Jason Robards), and likes Richard. This is wonderful for Nelson, since he'd love to see Nancy get remarried: there go his alimony payments. Of course, there's a problem wih the fact that even if Richard gets remarried, he still has to pay alimony. The only way he can get out of alimony is if Barbara remarries.

So, Nelson and Nancy immediately proceed to try to find a suitable husband for Barbara. Eventually the see an advertisement from used-car dealer Al Yearling (Van Johnson), whom Nelson had tried to hook up with Nancy, except that Al had a mother he was looking after. Mom has since died, so that means Al would quite possibly be good for Barbara, if the two can hit it of together. So, it looks as though everybody is going to live happily ever after: Richard with Nancy; Barbara with Al; and Nelson with his fiancée. Or will something come about to prevent the various couples from hooking up this way?

Divorce American Style has some potential. Parts of it come across as reminiscent of The Awful Truth, as you -- and Barbara and Richard -- wonder whether it was such a good idea for the two of them to get divorced in the first place. But this is not meant to be a screwball comedy; instead, it's trying to be more like a Paddy Chayefsky dark comedy. And there are times where that works too, as in the opening montage. There's also a very well choreographed sequence in the bank, when both Richard and Barbara have been advised by friends to clean out the joint bank account and remove the contents of their safety deposit box. Both go to the bank at the same time, with one going to empty the safety deposit box and the other going for the bank account, neither ever noticing the other.

Ultimately, though, Divorce American Style comes across as a bit of a mess; not quite sure of what it really wants to be. There's also something about the movie that seems firmly dated in the 1960s as opposed to The Awful Truth or Chayefsky's The Hospital or Network, all of which come closer to timeless. Debbie Reynolds comes across as a bit unappealing; the relationship between Nelson and Nancy seems a bit hard to believe; and the movie resolves its problems in a way that seems decidedly like a deus ex machina. It's a bit odd that the movie winds up as a mess, considering how much talent there is in it. In addition to all the actors, the screenplay was written by Norman Lear, while the director is Bud Yorkin: two men who went on to achieve great success together with the TV show All in the Family.

Home Before Dark

I mentioned some of the continuity problems I had with the movie Home Before Dark back in July 2011. The movie is airing agin tomorrow morning at 11:45 AM, so now would be a good time to write a fuller-length post that's actually about the movie.

At the start of the film, we see a woman, Charlotte Bronn (played by Jean Simmons), being released from the state mental hospital in Marblehead, MA, one of those coastal New England communities that had their day in the sun decades ago and are now becoming eclipsed by other more economically vibrant parts of the country. Picturesque and full of big, drafty old houses, but more importantly, a stock character for upper-middle-class strait-laced social values. Think Peyton Place or the town at the beginning of Valley of the Dolls before the action swings to New York and Hollywood. Charlotte is being brought home by her husband Arnold (Dan O'Herlihy), who stuck by her all this time despite the accusations she made while mentally ill which many people would have found damaging. Namely, Charlotte suggested that Arnold was having an affair with her stepsister Joan (Rhonda Fleming)! But now that Charlotte has been cleared of those delusions, she's safe to go home.

When she gets home, she finds that some things have changed. Specifically, they've got a lodger, in the form of Jake Diamond (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.). He's a visiting professor at the same college where Arnold is a professor, and since he's going to be there for only one semester, why not live with one of the professors who has a spare room in his house? Some things, on the other hand, haven't changed. Arnold seems strangely aloof, and there's a lot of talk in low tones about Charlotte, as though they're talking about her and don't want her to know about it. It naturally leads Charlotte to begin to wonder again whether her suspicions that landed her in the mental hospital in the first place were true. This time, however, Charlotte has a bit of an ally in Jake the outsider, and also has a plan to prove whether or not what she suspects is what was actually happening....

Home Before Dark is an interesting idea, but one that really gets bogged down. It's wildly overwrought at times, much like a previous Charlotte who had a nervous breakdown (Bette Davis' Charlotte Vale in Now Voyager). It's also incredibly talky: the story probably could have played out in about a 100-minute running time (for some reason, I'm suddenly reminded of Ingrid Bergman's suspicions in Notorious), but in fact runs a bloated 136 minutes. The color and scenery could do with a crisper print, too, although apparently there aren't better prints out there. Jean Simmons does well in a movie that's all about her, but the rest of the movie swings between the formulaic and the unrealistic. As I mentioned in 2011, Home Before Dark has made it to the Warner Archive collection.

British anthology movies

I've recommended a couple of anthology movies made at 20th Century-Fox in the past, and even at least one made by MGM. Anthologies were made all over the place, however, as you can see from the British movie Trio, which is airing tonight at 8:00 PM

The popularity of the anthology genre can be shown by the fact that Trio was a follow-up. In 1949, the movie Quartet was released, which was based on four short stories by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, with Maugham himself narrating the pieces introducing each of the stories. The movie proved popular enough that Trio, which as you can probably guess from the title tells three more of Maugham's stories, went into production. (Another movie, Encore, was made after this.) As for the stories themselves:

First up is "The Verger", which tells the story of a church sexton (James Hayter) who has been doing his job well for close to 20 years despite being functionally illiterate. A new vicar comes along, however, and fires the sexton, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as our hero goes on to start his own business and wind up much more financially successful than he ever could have been as a sexton.

Next is "The Know-It-All", about a bunch of passengers on a sea voyage who have to suffer through an obnoxious self-styled know-it-all. Some of the passengers decide to extract a measure of revenge on him by embarrassing him over a piece of costume jewelry. The plot could backfire, though, as the costume necklace might be authentic, in which case the woman wearing it didn't get it from her husband.

Finally is "Sanatorium", a story about the various patients at a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Scotland. Star of the Month Jean Simmons shows up here, as a young female patient who falls in love with fellow patient Michael Rennie although everybody around them knows it's destined to be a doomed affair. This is the longest of the three stories, and also the best, at it has a whole bunch of vignettes in it dealing with all of the patients. It's not just the story of Simmons and Rennie.

To be honest, Trio isn't without its flaws. The first two segments ended rather quickly, which quite surprised me, as I didn't expect "Sanatorium" to run so long. Also, "The Know-It-All" is a relatively weak story, not helped by the fact that the main character is so irritating, and unctuous enough to make Jack Carson's Wally Fay look tame by comparison. It's a worthy enough movie, however, and the sort of movie that doesn't get made today.

Star of the Month Jean Simmons

TCM finally gets to its new star of the month for June, Jean Simmons. Simmons was born in the UK and started her flim career there, and it is with some of those early British movies that TCM is starting its salute to Jeam Simmons tonight.

The first of those movies is David Lean's 1946 version of Great Expectations, in which Simmons plays the young Estella. Estella, of course, is the young girl our protagonist Pip (John Mills playing Pip as an adult) falls in love with, although she's being raised by the spinster Miss Havisham to do everything she can to break men's hearts. This is a very well-made production, although it seems as if the British were always good at adapting Dickens to the big screen.

It's followed at 10:15 PM by Black Narcissus, a movie about a bunch of Anglican nuns (led by Deborah Kerr) who are on a mission in British India and occupy an old place in the Himalayas that has more of an effect on them than they realize. Simmons actually plays one of the locals here, not a nun. This movie was made in goregous color, directed by the other great British director of the 1940s, Michael Powell.

OK, I'm not a big fan of George Bernard Shaw either

TCM concludes its salute to September Star of the Month Vivian Leigh tonight with four more of her movies, including Caesar and Cleopatra, at midnight ET.

Based on a play by George Bernard Shaw (who also wrote the screenplay), Claude Rains plays Caesar, who comes to Egypt on one of his campaigns and finds the young Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh). Together, the two plot to get Cleopatra the throne away frmo her borther Ptolemy, who is leading the Egyptians against the Romans. The story line, however, is really just there in service of the epigrammatic writing of Shaw.

To be honest, this is where I find the movie a big problem. Other than that, it's an extremely well-made movie. Rains is as good as ever playing Caesar, and Leigh is good (if too old) as Cleopatra. Her Cleopatra is supposed to be a teenager, and Leigh does well portraying not-quite-mature, and smitten with Caesar. The supporting cast is good, too; you've got a young Stewart Granger as the Greek, Flora Robson as Cleopatra's servant Ftatateeta, and a bunch of names that might be more recognizable if you watch British movies. Appearing in small roles are Michael Rennie (a centurion), Jean Simmons (a harpist) and an uncredited Roger Moore as a Roman soldier. To top it all off, the set design is impressive, especially considering that this was made at the height of the Nazis' bombardment of Britain with its V-rockets. And, the movie is made in absolutely lovely technicolor.

The problem, though, is Shaw. He seems so enamored of his own writing that he allows his wit to overpower an otherwise interesting story and good performances. I found myself particularly irritated by the way everybody said "Ftatateeta" as if this odd name was the funniest thing in the ancient world. However, I'm sure there are people out there who like Shaw's work. If you're such a person, you'll probably love this movie.

Apparently, Caesar and Cleopatra has only been released to DVD in North America as part of a box set of Shaw's work.

Not one of Eve's faces

Coming up this afternoon is the fun, if flawed, movie Angel Face, at 4:00 PM ET on TCM.

Robert Mitchum stars as Frank Jessup, a paramedic who is only working the job until he can make enough money to open up a garage. One night, he gets called to the home of wealthy Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil), who has been overcome by gas from a heater in an apparent suicide attempt. There he meets Catherine's husband Charles (Herbert Marshall), a writer who's living off of his wife's financial support; and Charles' daughter (and Catherine's stepdaughter) Diane (Jean Simmons). Diane quickly arranges for Frank to get a better job, working as a chauffeur for the Tremaynes. Frank also begins to fall for Diane, despite the fact that he's already got a girlfriend in Mary (Mona Freeman).

By now, you've probably seen enough noirs to know that falling for Diane like this is a Big Mistake for Frank to make. Diane sabotages Frank's relationship with Mary, and gives Frank good reason to suspect the stepmother's "suicide attempt" was in fact an attempted murder. Unfortunately for him, however, he can't get out of the situtation: Diane has been asking innocent questions about car mechanics, and using the information she's learned to rig up an "accident" that will kill her father and stepmother. Nobody but Frank knows about her newfound mechanical expertise and, since he was the one whose duty it was to keep the car in working order, he's the obvious suspect for the murder charges that come once the cops investigate and find the car has been sabotaged. What's a man to do? Apparently, the only thing he can do in this case it to marry Diane, which gives them both spousal immunity and keeps them from having to testify at the trial. There goes the evidence.

But how can Frank get out of a marriage to Diane when he's learned about her true nature, and doesn't love her? There's that great line in Double Indemnity about the two murderers being tied together in perpetuity, "straight down the line" -- and so it is here. There really is no way out. And yet, that's one of the things that makes the movie not as good as it could be. By the time it was made in the early 1950s, much of the noir genre had already been done to death (no pun intended), and the plot here seems trite. The ending, in particular, seems more laugh-inducing than anything else. Still a cast like Mitchum, Simmons, and Marshall is more than worth watching. It's been released to DVD, but the only one apparently available right now is part of a Robert Mitchum box set. Not that Mitchum isn't worth watching, of course; but if you just want to watch Angel Face, you might want to stick to the TCM airing.

Charles Dickens

One of the movies TCM showed last night as part of its salute to Jean Simmons was a 1946 adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations. I read the book in one of my English classes back in junior high or high school many years ago, but had never seen the movie before.

I'm not certain if it's the best adaptation of a Dickens novel out there. I argued when I recommended Chariots of Fire that one thing latter-day moviemakers have an advantage in is location shooting being able to make pictures look more authentic. I mentioned the Merchant/Ivory movies and that period of British history in connection with Chariots of Fire, if only because most of those stories are set in the interwar period. But I think the point also holds with works from the Victorian era and earlier. TCM is showing the 1939 adaptation of Wuthering Heights this evening at 8:00 PM ET and, while it's a well-made movie, there's something about it that seems wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, but studio-bound or limited in some way compared to things like the more recent adaptations of Jane Austen's works (yes, I know Wuthering Heights wasn't written by Austen).

Getting back to Dickens, TCM is showing another adaptation of a Dickens work: the 1958 Dirk Bogarde version of A Tale of Two Cities, at 8:00 AM Sunday. Dickens has proved to be one of the more popular writers to adapt as well, with everything from short movies to TV miniseries. Which is your favorite film adaptation of a Dickens work?

TCM's Jean Simmons tribute

TCM has announced its programming changes to mark the death of Jean Simmons. They've selected a three-film salute in prime time Friday (January 29):

Great Expectations, one of her earliest movies, kicks off the night at 8:00 PM ET;
Elmer Gantry follows at 10:15 PM; and
The Happy Ending will air at 12:45 AM Saturday.