Out west with Anita Ekberg

Another of the movies that TCM ran during their Summer Under the Stars day with Sterling Hayden was Valerie. Once again, not havng heard of it before, I decided to record it to be able to watch it later and write up what is not this post on the movie.

The movie opens up with the Sterling Hayden character, John Garth, and his ranch hand Jim Mingo (Jerry Barclay) riding up to a ranch house which they enter. We don't follow them inside the house, but hear several gun shots and the men exit the house. The next morning, the sheriff comes to Garth's house to arrest Garth on a charge of murder. It turns out that two people in the house were killed, although Garth thought that there were three dead. Indeed, Garth has just finished up writing what is a sort of confession -- or defense, depending on your view -- of what he did, which was to shoot his wife Valerie, née Horvat (Anita Ekberg), and her parents who had immigrated here from Europe. The parents died but Valerie is currently only severely injured although not expected to live.

Cut to a shot of the doctor's house where he and a nurse are treating Valerie, which is where we learn that there are a lot of people in town who might well take Garth's side of the dispute. In any case, with a couple of dead bodies, we've got a murder trial coming up. And here's where things get interesting: we get various witnesses giving accounts reminscent of the movie Rashomon, describing their view of what happened, and all trying to make themselves look good.

First is Rev. Blake (Anthony Steel, Ekberg's real-life husband at the time), who is new to this town and gets a message from Valerie to come and visit. Since this is one of those towns with only one church preaching some generic form of Protestantism where everybody goes to the same church, it's unsurprising that the Garths might want to see the reverend too, or at least Valerie. She's deeply unhappy about something, and she as well as her parents and possibly John's brother Herb (Peter Walker) seem to be taking Valerie's side. Rev. Blake starts ministering to Valerie enough that pretty much any man would be filled with jealousy.

Then John himself testifies, which seems a bit odd considering it wouldn't be the prosecution calling him. John was a major in the US Army during the recently-concluded Civil War, having dealt with getting information from Confederate prisoners, which probably gave him some dark cynicism and a propensity toward psychological manipulation and some outright torture-like violence. He only returned home when his father fell ill. The reason for the marriage isn't so happy, as Dad was an inveterate gambler who's left quite a bit of debt behind, and a marriage for John, the older brother, would be financially convenient.

Having heard those two views, we then get the fairly ridiculous premise of Valerie herself testifying, which is surprising since it was thought she was on her deathbed. But testify she does, and by the end of the movie we learn the truth.

Valerie is another of those movies where there's a good idea behind the movie, although in the telling it falls a bit flat. To be honest, it's always going to be tough to compare to a classic like Rashomon. And Valerie is like the old programmers of a previous generation, not necessarily a prestige movie. But still, Valerie is just there. There's no real excitement or tension to it. My guess would be that it's down to the director, Gerd Oswald, who had the great good luck of a debut film like A Kiss Before Dying but was mostly only good enough for B-level work and TV episodes.

Still, Valerie is one of those films you're going to want to watch and judge for yourself.

The Alphabet Murders

My sister was a big fan of Agatha Christie when she was a teenager. I never really got into reading mysteries, but when one or another of the movies based on Christie's stories has shown up, I've always been willing to give them a try. Recently, that meant watching The Alphabet Murders, based on Christie's book The A.B.C. Murders.

Tony Randall shows up, sans make-up, at the beginning of the credits to inform us that he's going to be playing Hercule Poirot, Christie's Belgian private eye who just loves a good mystery. Poirot shows up in London to see his tailor, followed by a man from Scotland Yard, Capt. Hastings (Robert Morley). Scotland Yard ostensibly wants to keep Poirot safe since his being harmed while in England would create an international incident. But the real reason is that Scotland Yard doesn't want Poirot involved in investigating a murder on English soil.

Of course, you just know that there's going to be a murder and that Poirot is going to wind up investigating it. At a public swimming pool, the clown Albert Aachen, who does a high-diving routine, gets killed by a poison dart to the neck, the killer leaving behind a copy of a guidebook called ABC London. Not long after that, a woman with the odd name of Amanda Beatrice Cross (Anita Ekberg) shows up where Poirot is taking a steam bath and gives Poirot a bowling scorecard.

So Poirot goes to the bowling alley, which is where he meets Betty Barnard, an instructor there. Not that Poirot needs a bowling instructor, but that's another story. Anyhow Barnard gets killed, and Poirot puts two and two together. The first victim had the initials AA and the second BB, so the next is going to have the initials CC.

Scotland Yard, meanwhile, knows fully well that Poirot is trying to investigate, and at every turn, Hastings and his boss Inspector Japp (Maurice Denham) try to get Poirot deported and sent back to Belgium. But every time, Poirot is able to outwit them, on his way to ultimately solving the murders. Well, with a little help from the police who keep him from getting bumped off.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Poirot learns that Amanda's psychologist has the initials DD, being a man named Duncan Doncaster (Guy Rolfe). He also learns that the CC who seems to be the next victim is one Carmichael Clarke, who has family set to inherit a large sum of money should he die. But how does it all tie together?

Frankly, I found the mystery in The Alphabet Murders to be rather convoluted and unsatisfying. I think that's in no small part because director Frank Tashlin and the writers seem to have decided to make this a rather more comic mystery, with the casting of Randall. Tony Randall is not a bad actor by any means, and can certainly do comedy. But I get the impression Tashlin wanted Randall to be way over the top here, and a little bit of Randall's Poirot goes a long, long way.

I thought the print TCM ran didn't look so good, and since it was 4:3, I figured it had to have been panned-and-scanned. But a look at IMDb suggests that it was in fact filmed this way.

If I were going to introduce people to Agatha Christie movies, I think I'd start with the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express. I also like the Margaret Rutherford Marples, even though supposedly Rutherford isn't anything like the Marple that Christie wrote. The Alphabet Murders would be far down the list.