Tonight's Movie: I Love Trouble (1994)

Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte star as sparring newspaper reporters in I LOVE TROUBLE (1994).

The movie was directed by Charles Shyer, who passed away last year; it was written by Shyer and his wife, Nancy Meyers.

This film, released over three decades ago, attempts to be a throwback to classic screwball comedies, with a bickering couple who eventually fall in love. The movie is only somewhat successful; it's mildly diverting but not much more than that, despite the star wattage of Julia Roberts.

Nolte and Roberts play Peter Brackett and Sabrina Peterson, who work for rival Chicago newspapers. She's new on the job and very gung ho, while he's been working in the business for years and is juggling a newspaper column with his career as a crime novelist.

Brackett and Peterson meet while covering a train derailment, and it's off to the races as the accident leads them to discover a much bigger story. Attempts on their lives lead to the two reporters teaming up, though they still can't quite resist trying to score unique bits of information.

Roberts has always been a favorite, and she's as pleasant to watch as always. Nolte is less appealing but adequate. He's probably too old for Roberts, with a 26-year age gap, but the difference is acknowledged and I can't say it bothered me.

There are some good scenes sprinkled throughout, especially when the duo end up having an unexpected Vegas wedding as a way to hide out from the bad guys. That moment got a chuckle out of me.

Both reporters, on the other hand, need to learn not to meet sources late at night in empty buildings!

Speaking of late-night meetings, the film has uneasy balance between light comedy and deadly murder. The attempts on Brackett and Peterson's lives are very real, yet they never really seem to take it seriously, each living up to the film's title. It's a bit difficult for the viewer to take it seriously as well, given the number of bullets they face which never manage to hit them.

Other than a brief look at a corpse, this film from Disney's late, lamented Touchstone division is very PG despite all the murder attempts, so that aspect was quite welcome to this viewer.

Like other films of this era, a fun aspect is seeing how technology has changed over the years. For example, in 1994 cell phones were still not a thing, but an airplane phone for in-flight calls was available; computers were still fairly primitive.

The movie has a welcome number of familiar faces, most in small roles. Clark Gregg, later to be Agent Coulson of Marvel's AVENGERS movies and TV series, plays one of the passengers on the train.

Marsha Mason shows up very briefly as a senator, in a role not fully fleshed out, with Olympia Dukakis as Nolte's secretary. Kelly Rutherford of TV's HOMEFRONT series plays a lab employee. Also on hand are Robert Loggia, Charles Martin Smith, Saul Rubinek, Lisa Lu, and Eugene Levy.

The movie, which runs a slightly too long 123 minutes, was filmed by John Lindley and scored by Thomas Newman.

A trailer is available. I watched the film on DVD. It also had a VHS release. It doesn't appear to have ever come out on Blu-ray.

As a side note, the movie bears no relationship to the detective film I LOVE TROUBLE (1948).

In the end, one could find better entertainment, but a viewer could also do quite a bit worse.  The movie is fairly pleasant company, and Julia Roberts fans in particular will want to check it out.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: Plunder Road (1957) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

The Dark Side of Cinema Blu-ray sets from Kino Lorber keep bringing us lots of noirish crime goodness!

I have Volumes XXII and XXIII on hand for review, with XXIV due to arrive soon.

The XXII collection combines THE ENFORCER (1951) and THE SCARLET HOUR (1956), two films I've enjoyed at past Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festivals, with a new-to-me title, PLUNDER ROAD (1957).

PLUNDER ROAD plays like it was made just for me: It's a short 72-minute heist movie filmed at locations all over the Greater Los Angeles area, including Hollywood and Glendale.

The very interesting lead actors are a pair of now-grizzled lesser stars of the '30s, Gene Raymond and Wayne Morris. Morris, who took time out for World War II and was a highly decorated flying ace, matured into a really interesting character actor in the '50s, in films such as THE DESPERADO (1956).

In this Regal Films production released through 20th Century-Fox, Raymond and Morris play Eddie and "Commando," part of a five-member gang who pull off an audacious train robbery planned by Eddie. Eddie is described as being the leader with the brains because he has a college degree; it's his first heist.

The men successfully make off with gold bars headed toward a mint, then transfer it into three separate trucks as part of a plan to evade discovery.

As the trucks travel toward their Los Angeles rendezvous point, where the plan is to melt down the gold before hopping a ship at San Pedro, things...happen. I will save the details for viewers to discover, but there's some ingenious use of police radios and truck scales among the moments which move the story forward.

The opening heist scene on a rainy night is absolutely gripping, on a par with any other better-known robbery sequence, and the film maintains interest from there straight through to the final shot.

The screenplay by Steven Ritch, based on a story he wrote with Jack Charney, is perfect, keeping the story constantly in motion while letting out bits of character back story along the way.

I really loved Raymond and Morris in these roles. Morris's character is a former stuntman who's a mixture of patient kindness and absolutely cold-blooded brutality. While I've enjoyed Morris in other '50s films, as mentioned above, I don't think I'd seen Raymond in anything of this era save for the MGM musical HIT THE DECK (1955).

Raymond, like Morris, left Hollywood to serve as a pilot in World War II, and he would later serve in Vietnam. He was long married to Jeanette MacDonald, from 1937 to 1965, and acted all the way up until 1976.

We don't know what has led Raymond's college man to commit his first crime in PLUNDER ROAD, but despite having a devoted, much younger girlfriend (Jeanne Cooper), his dour demeanor hints at a sad, frustrated life.

I particularly enjoyed a series of musicals and comedies Raymond made at RKO in the '30s such as WALKING ON AIR (1936) with Ann Sothern and LOVE ON A BET (1936) and CROSS-COUNTRY ROMANCE (1940) with Wendy Barrie. The fatalistic PLUNDER ROAD is the antithesis of those lighthearted movies.

The other gang members are played by Elisha Cook Jr., Stafford Repp, and Steven Ritch, who all sketch memorable characters in a limited time frame. Nora (also known as Naura) Hayden has a nice scene as a truck stop waitress.

PLUNDER ROAD was directed by Hubert Cornfield. It was filmed by Ernest Haller in black and white Regalscope. I loved everything about the movie's stark look, from that opening rainy night to the traffic jam on the Harbor Freeway in the final minutes. (And by the way, who knew that smog tickets were given out in 1950s Los Angeles?!)

The Blu-ray print is from an HD master from a 4K scan. There are some speckles here and there, including during the opening credits, and also a line down the middle of the screen for a period at one early point, but all in all this is a very good print with a clear soundtrack.

Extras consist of three trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber, plus a commentary track by Jeremy Arnold. Jeremy is an expert on minor films such as this one and definitely in my "Top 5" commentary track narrators, so I'm very much looking forward to listening to his comments soon.

I'll be reviewing THE ENFORCER (1951) and THE SCARLET HOUR (1956) here at a future date. As I've seen them before and know they're very good, I can highly recommend this collection.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

Gary Cooper stars in THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL (1955), recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

I was previously unfamiliar with this film, based on a true story. It was written by Milton Sperling and Emmet Lavery, with direction by Otto Preminger.

In the years following World War I, Col. Billy Mitchell (Cooper) crusades for the future importance of air power, but his hopes to improve America's air force are ignored by top brass, who simply aren't interested in the possibilities.

More importantly, existing planes and dirigibles are allowed to deteriorate to the extent that they become death traps. Following a series of fatal accidents, including a dirigible disaster which kills his friend Lt. Commander Zack Lansdowne (Jack Lord), Mitchell decides to inform the public what is happening and gives an inflammatory statement to the press.

Mitchell is court-martialed for going outside proper military channels and leveling his public criticism, leading to a lengthy trial sequence which includes the dramatic testimony of Lansdowne's widow Margaret (Elizabeth Montgomery, in her film debut).

Given the story and top cast, the movie had the potential to be something special, but I frankly found it disappointing for a number of reasons.

The performances in this film are all over the map. I like Cooper, but I felt he underplayed so much in this as to be dull. He's given very little background, with limited mention of his family, and he's very emotionally constrained.

We know Billy is upset about lost friends, but very little of that is shown directly. Interestingly, I've found a still (seen here) with Cooper visiting Montgomery's widowed character which did not appear in the film. A scene or two like that might have gone a long way to give his character more emotional shadings.

Ralph Bellamy and James Daly are likeable as Mitchell's defense attorneys; indeed, Bellamy breathes life into every scene. Unfortunately Fred Clark and Rod Steiger overact as the prosecutors. Clark, in particular, is a completely unsympathetic cartoon character here, rather than a professional doing his job, and Steiger isn't much better. They're simply nasty men.

The cast also includes Charles Bickford, Peter Graves, Darren McGavin, Will Wright, Ian Wolfe, Griff Barnett, and other familiar faces. The movie runs 100 minutes. It was scored by Dimitri Tiomkin.

THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL frankly has an odd overall look, for multiple reasons. It's not a surprise that many of the backgrounds are drab, given the army setting, not to mention the warehouse where the trial is conducted -- but what's with the pink walls of Ralph Bellamy's office? Even where the film's look might have been improved by the set designers, there doesn't seem to have been much effort.

The use of CinemaScope, as filmed by Sam Leavitt, is especially curious. When Elizabeth Montgomery testifies, there are some close-ups, but in a number of the shots she's a tiny dot to the right of the screen with part of her left side cut off.

Perhaps the director wanted to emphasize the small woman speaking out surrounded by so many hostile men, but in my opinion these shots diluted the impact. There were some other choices in camera blocking which were hard to understand, and that's not something that I typically notice and mention in a film review.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray print is from a 2023 HD master from a 4K scan. It is not of the typical high Kino Lorber quality, but I suspect that has to do with the original source material rather than lack of effort on Kino Lorber's part. The film was shot in WarnerColor, which is rather notorious for inconsistent-looking prints which have not held up well over time.

The print color changes dramatically within a scene, most noticeably during Steiger's cross-examination of Cooper, with the look spanning the spectrum from washed-out to dark and overly harsh. There are also occasional speckles and scratches, but there are no skips or jumps.

I'd stop short of saying the film was bad; it was watchable enough, thanks largely to the deep cast. However, its various issues, including performances, scripting, set design, and cinematography, combined to make it rather surprisingly disappointing.

The film is presented by Kino Lorber as a special edition, with a cardboard slipcase. Disc extras consist of a commentary track by Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin along with a gallery of eight trailers for other movies.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet

Around the Blogosphere This Week

Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the Internet...

...Fantastic Blu-ray news from Kino Lorber today, the long-awaited announcement that the Audie Murphy Collection IV is "coming soon." The set will feature THE KID FROM TEXAS (1950), THE CIMARRON KID (1952), and DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER (1954). Can't wait!

...Many thanks to Christine for letting me know about a new PBS series on movie locations.

...In her Classic Movie Hub "Noir Nook" column, Karen Burroughs Hannsberry takes a look at four classic film noir titles celebrating their 75th anniversaries this year.

...The March lineup on the Criterion Channel streaming service will include Douglas Sirk Noir and French Poetic Realism, the latter with an introduction by the great Imogen Sara Smith.

...Farran Smith Nehme (aka the Self-Styled Siren) has written an interesting companion piece to a current Criterion Channel series, "Cast Against Type: Heroes as Villains."

...Season 5 of ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL releases on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on March 11th.

...FLIGHT RISK (2025), which I reviewed late last month, releases on DVD and Blu-ray April 1st.

...Movie reviews I've recently enjoyed: Rachel reviewed Alan Ladd and Virginia Mayo in THE IRON MISTRESS (1952) at Hamlette's Soliloquy...Kristina reviewed Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders in JOURNEY TO ITALY (1954) at Speakeasy...at Trailers From Hell, Glenn Erickson took a look at the (infamous) John Wayne movie THE CONQUEROR (1956), which was just released on Blu-ray...Leonard Maltin likes the new CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD (2025) more than most reviewers...At Riding the High Country, Colin reviews the Richard Widmark film THE TRAP (1959), a movie I didn't know at all...Classic Movie Ramblings looks at Audie Murphy in DESTRY (1954)...and Jessica has reviewed the Kay Kyser film PLAYMATES (1941) at Comet Over Hollywood.

...We had a fantastic time last evening seeing Hitchcock's ROPE (1948) in 35mm nitrate at the Egyptian Theatre. My appreciation for the film has grown considerably since my first viewing in 2012.

...Notable Passings: Alice Hirson, remembered by many of us as Miss Ellie's friend Mavis Anderson on DALLAS, has died at the age of 95...Character actor Peter Jason, whose film career began with John Wayne's RIO LOBO (1970), has passed on at 80.

...For additional recent links of interest to classic film fans, please visit my February 15th column.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: Short Cut to Hell (1957) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

SHORT CUT TO HELL (1957) is the final film reviewed from the terrific Kino Lorber Dark Side of Cinema XXI collection.

I previously reviewed the set's SHACK OUT ON 101 (1955) and CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946).

SHORT CUT TO HELL is something of a curiosity, the only film directed by James Cagney. Cagney, who is said to have directed as a favor to producer A.C. Lyles, appears in a brief pre-credits sequence to introduce unknown lead actors Robert Ivers and Georgeann Johnson; that's his only screen time.

SHORT CUT TO HELL is a Paramount Pictures film remaking the studio's earlier hit THIS GUN FOR HIRE (1942). If Paramount was hoping that Ivers would strike the same lightning as Alan Ladd did in the original film and become a star, that didn't happen, but it's an interesting movie nonetheless.

Is SHORT CUT TO HELL a pallid remake of the original, with stars Ivers and Johnson lacking the sizzling chemistry of Ladd and Veronica Lake? Yes.

Is SHORT CUT TO HELL a quite entertaining film despite its deficiencies? Also yes, especially if a viewer loves relatively minor fare as I do.

It's fun very much on the level of STEP DOWN TO TERROR (1958), the next year's low-budget remake of Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943); the films also share in common a 15-year gap between the first classic version and the remake. I liked both remakes and would watch them again, while also acknowledging they aren't anywhere near the caliber of the originals.

In SHORT CUT TO HELL hit man Kyle Niles (Ivers) first meets singer Glory Johnson (Johnson) on a train from Oakland to Los Angeles, where Glory has a nightclub gig.

Niles has just killed two people in a hit commissioned by Bahrwell (Jacques Aubuchon, reminiscent of the original's Laird Cregar). Bahrwell betrayed him with marked bills, and the cops, coincidentally including Glory's police detective boyfriend (William Bishop), are now on Niles' trail.

The screenplay, written by Ted Berkman and Raphael Blau based on W.R. Burnett and Albert Maltz 1942 script, loosely follows the original for much of its 89 minutes.

A lengthy chase in the film's final third is transferred to a warehouse, with some evocative fluorescent lighting filmed in VistaVision by Haskell Boggs. (Incidentally, the following year Boggs filmed HOUSEBOAT (1958), reviewed here a few days ago.)

There's some creative staging of that warehouse sequence by Cagney, including the use of an overhead crane, though it runs on too long. I could say that about the movie in general, as somewhat surprisingly this film is several minutes longer than the original.

I found Robert Ivers adequate, if fairly colorless, while Georgeann Johnson, who much later played Jane Seymour's mother in several episodes of DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN, was quite likeable. A lengthy discussion between the two in the warehouse gets a little "stagey" and obvious, but for the most part they do fine, in keeping with the overall level of the film's performances.

Ivers, as a side note, was long married to the pretty '50s Universal Pictures actress Marcia Henderson.

Offscreen Johnson was eight years older than Ivers, and her relationship with him in this film seems more motherly than romantic; each time they meet she ends up as the wise older friend trying to get him to take a good look at himself and what he's doing with his life.

Bishop, who's attractive and appealing in a fairly small role, was also eight years older than Johnson, but they are a well-matched pair. Sadly Bishop would pass away just a couple years later.

Beyond the enjoyable Johnson and Bishop, the film's appeal for me was a good story with some familiar faces and nice Southern California location work.

The cast includes Richard Hale, Sarah Selby, Yvette Vickers, Murvyn Vye, and Douglas Spencer (THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD).

The movie's locations included an unnamed train station along with the warehouse. More significantly, quite a bit of filming was done at the Cravens Estate in Pasadena. The estate was owned by the Red Cross from 1962 to 2018, when it was sold to Michael Feinstein.

While much of the film looks fairly ordinary, as previously mentioned there are some excellent visual moments thanks to Haskell Boggs' cinematography. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray print is an HD master from a 4K scan and is clean of scratches or other problems.  

Disc extras consist of a commentary track by Gary Gerani; the trailer; and two additional trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

This Dark Side of Cinema XXI set has proven to be one of my favorites in a wonderful series, featuring two excellent -- but very different -- espionage films along with this enjoyable remake. Recommended.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: Road to Morocco (1942) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

ROAD TO MOROCCO (1942), the third film in the long-running "Road" series, is part of the seven-film On the Road With Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Blu-ray collection from Kino Lorber.

ROAD TO MOROCCO followed the previously reviewed ROAD TO SINGAPORE (1940) and ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941), and I can easily say it's the best of the three films seen to date.

ROAD TO MOROCCO has a more coherent plot than its predecessors, with a screenplay written by Frank Butler and Don Hartman. The songwriters, Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, also worked on ROAD TO ZANZIBAR, but here they outdo themselves with the title tune "(We're Off on the) Road to Morocco," and especially the classic "Moonlight Becomes You."

This time around Crosby and Hope play Jeff and Orville, aka "Turkey." After being adrift at sea on a raft following their boat exploding, they make it to land in North Africa.

Before long they're entangled with Princess Shalmar (Dorothy Lamour), who proposes to Orville because of a prophecy that her first husband will die within a week. Shalmar wants to ensure that her true love Mullay Kasim (Anthony Quinn) survives...but then she falls in love with Jeff after he serenades her with "Moonlight Becomes You." Needless to say, Mullay Kasim isn't happy to learn he has a rival for the beautiful princess.

Orville is dismayed to learn the princess doesn't love him, but he's not left out in the cold, as pretty Mihirmah (Dona Drake) falls hard for him. Drake is a delightfully energetic performer I'm always glad to see turn up in a film. Offscreen she was married for decades to Oscar-winning costume designer Travilla.

Needless to say, the whole thing is pretty silly, but I liked that this film had more of an actual story than the earlier films, which were closer to a bunch of comedy bits strung together. Lamour and Drake represent '40s movie escapism at its finest, and viewers can even glimpse pre-stardom Yvonne De Carlo as one of Lamour's handmaidens. It's easy to imagine stressed-out wartime audiences loving this one, and I enjoyed it over eight decades later.

ROAD TO MOROCCO runs 82 minutes and was directed by David Butler. The director of the previous two films, Victor Scherzinger, had sadly died in 1941, a few months before production began on this film.

The movie was filmed in black and white by William C. Mellor. The supporting cast includes Vladimir Sokoloff, George Givot, Leon Belasco, Cy Kendall, Dan Seymour, and Nestor Paiva, among a number of other familiar faces.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray is an excellent print. The disc comes with a trailer, plus a "Trailers From Hell" trailer commentary by director John Landis; a featurette on Bob Hope; a short, COMMAND PERFORMANCE 1945; and a commentary track by Jack Theakston.

This disc, like four other films in the set, has optional English subtitles; only ROAD TO RIO and ROAD TO BALI are missing subtitles.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: Teacher's Pet (1958) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

Newspaper movie meets "rom com" in TEACHER'S PET (1958), a terrific film just released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

I reviewed the movie here over a decade ago, in 2014, and if anything I was even more impressed on this viewing.

The two-hour script by Oscar-nominated Fay and Michael Kanin absolutely sparkles with a combination of great dialogue and excellent plotting.

The movie is played to the hilt by two of the greatest performers ever in the movies, Clark Gable and Doris Day, ably aided by Gig Young, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Add in a great newsroom set and an excellent cast of supporting players, especially Charles Lane, and this is a movie which fires on all cylinders.

Day plays a journalism professor who finds herself debating Gable on the value of education versus experience. Gable's newspaper editor has come up the "hard way," without even a high school diploma. They initially start out annoying one another but before long they're appreciating each other's insights...and each other.

Gable and Day simply couldn't be better and have wonderful chemistry. Her reaction the first time he kisses her is classic comedy. They're each incredibly confident, assured performers and when they meet it's movie magic. The script is very good, but it's what these two pros do with it that's key.

Young is wryly funny as the psychologist who is initially Gable's rival but soon finds himself playing matchmaker for his two friends -- most of the time while nursing the world's worst hangover.

As I noted in my 2014 review, while some bits about women in the workplace now seem "dated" -- I think of it more as simply reflective of the era, for good or ill -- the movie remains quite relevant to the modern viewer, discussing issues like newspapers struggling to remain a going business proposition. Back then papers competed with TV and radio; now it's with not only TV but the internet.

One of my favorite things about the movie continues to be Charles Lane, sitting to Gable's left at the big table in the center of the newsroom. His very being adds tons of what we might call "gravitas" to every scene.

There are other familiar faces scattered throughout, including Marion Ross, Mamie Van Doren, Nick Adams, and Frank Albertson. Bess Flowers can be spotted in (what else?) the nightclub scene.

For a few more thoughts I'd like to encourage readers to click over to my 2014 write-up. Suffice it to say this is a terrific film and I highly recommend it.

The movie was directed by George Seaton and filmed in widescreen black and white by Haskell Boggs. The film was scored by Roy Webb.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray is from a new HD master by Paramount Pictures from a 6K scan of the 35mm VistaVision original camera negative. Picture and sound quality are excellent.

Disc extras consist of the trailer; a gallery of eight additional trailers; and a new commentary track by Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet

Around the Blogosphere This Week

Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the Internet...

...It's a fairly slow week for classic movie news, but a few things of note! First, we had a marvelous time last evening seeing a very beautiful nitrate 35mm print of PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948). It was shown as part of the American Cinematheque's 2025 Nitrate Film Festival. Additional screenings have been added to the series, including a second showing of ROPE (1948); the screening we're attending next Friday sold out.

...The Film Noir Foundation has announced the dates for this year's Noir City Hollywood Festival. It will be held at the Egyptian Theatre from March 20-23 and March 27-30.  The titles have not yet been revealed.

...Kino Lorber Studio Classics made a very interesting "coming soon" Blu-ray announcement this week: The pre-Code NIGHT WORLD (1932) starring Boris Karloff, Lew Ayres, and Mae Clarke will be out in the future, from a brand-new HD master.

...I've been confirmed to review the new MGM Blu-ray releases of OUTPOST IN MALAYA (1952) and LADY OF VENGEANCE (1957), so be on the lookout for those. They should arrive in a few days.

...Toby has reviewed the new Criterion Collection release of WINCHESTER '73 (1950) at his site 50 Westerns From the 50s.

...For The American Scholar, published by Phi Beta Kappa, Noah Isenberg has reviewed former Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan's brand-new book LOUIS B. MAYER AND IRVING THALBERG: THE WHOLE EQUATION, published by Yale University Press. It sounds like a "must read."

...Speaking of books, last night at Larry Edmunds Bookshop I picked up two older books, THE CINEMA OF EDWARD G. ROBINSON, a 1972 book by James Robert Parish and Alvin H. Marill, and Scott Eyman's THE SPEED OF SOUND: HOLLYWOOD AND THE TALKIE REVOLUTION 1926-1930.

...At Comet Over Hollywood Jessica has reviewed CONSPIRACY (1939), a Lew Landers "B" film starring Allan "Rocky" Lane and Linda Hayes. Although this isn't one of Landers' strongest "B's," I'm always glad to see his work get attention; he usually managed to give programmers a little "something extra," and I'm always interested when I see his name in the credits.

...I loved Toby's memories of the CBS Late Movie, shared at The Hannibal 8. I was also a young late-night movie viewer, though more often I was up in the wee hours watching old MGM films on KTTV Channel 11 out of Los Angeles.

...For additional recent links of interest to classic film fans, please visit my February 8th column.

Tweet

Tonight's Movie: Houseboat (1958) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

HOUSEBOAT (1958), one of the very earliest movies I saw as a child, has just been released on a beautiful Blu-ray by Kino Lorber Studio Classics.

When I began tracking my movie viewing at age 11, the first thing I did was make a list of all the movies I could remember ever seeing up to that point in time. HOUSEBOAT was near the very top of the list, along with several other films starring Cary Grant; my mother was a fan, and we watched many of his movies together on local television.

Though I saw HOUSEBOAT countless times as a child, it had been a good long while since I last watched the movie, so I felt that I was taking it in fairly fresh when revisiting it on this Blu-ray -- and it holds up very well. It's not perfect, due in part to some silly slapstick, but it's solid; there's a mature storyline about meeting adult responsibilities and other issues, yet it's also easy to see why the film appealed to me as a young viewer.

Grant plays Tom Winters, a businessman who's been an absentee father to David (Paul Petersen), Elizabeth (Mimi Gibson), and Robert (Charles Herbert). Following his estranged wife's death, Tom determines to get to know his children better and be their full-time parent.

Tom is finding things rough going with his resentful children when Cinzia (Sophia Loren), the daughter of a famous Italian symphony conductor (Eduardo Ciannelli), stumbles into their lives. Tom has no idea of her background, but the children love her and he hires her as a maid. Cinzia is happy to accept for reasons of her own, chiefly that she needs to get out from under her controlling father's thumb.

Tom, Cinzia, and the children end up living on a dilapidated houseboat -- it's a long story -- but despite Cinzia's lack of cooking and housekeeping skills, bit by bit she helps a previously broken family reconnect.

She and Tom begin to fall for one another, but his lovely, newly divorced sister-in-law Carolyn (Martha Hyer) loves Tom too...

The outsider helping a broken family heal is something of a familiar storyline, whether it's older films like FIFTH AVE GIRL (1939) and IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE (1947) or later films such as MARY POPPINS (1964) -- but it turns up every so often for a reason: It makes for good drama.

Though some of the previously referenced slapstick humor gets in the way, this is a well-done film which actually is surprisingly dark at times. The children are clearly emotionally troubled and acting out in various ways, with David stealing and Robert clinging to a harmonica which he tends to play at inappropriate times.

Grant's Tom starts out rather unlikeable in the early going, a man who hasn't been around to be a proper father to his children; Tom's in-laws (John Litel and Madge Kennedy) have actually made plans to raise Elizabeth, with Carolyn taking the boys, when Tom decides he's going to do the right thing and step up as a parent.

Thanks to living in close quarters on the houseboat, and the aid of the stunningly lovely and charming Cinzia, Tom gradually unbends and gets to know his kids. A scene where Tom discusses death and life changing forms with David is particularly moving.

The conflict with Carolyn vs. Cinzia almost seems extraneous to the plot, though it does lead to a great scene where it hits Tom like a thunderbolt which woman is the right one for him. (And it's nice to see in the movie's final scene that there seem to be no hard feelings!)

Loren is a delight and really makes the movie; she was my standout memory from watching the film those many times as a child, and watching it again it's easy to see why. She's warm, funny, thoughtful, and of course gorgeous, particularly in a scene where she wears a gold dress to a country club dance.

The children are all very natural, especially Gibson, a favorite child actress whose many credits include THE OKLAHOMAN (1957) with Joel McCrea.

This 110-minute film was directed by Melville Shavelson from a script he wrote with Jack Rose. Grant's then-wife, actress Betsy Drake, did uncredited work on the original script, envisioning it as a vehicle to costar with her husband in the vein of their earlier ROOM FOR ONE MORE (1952).

Grant's affair with Loren while making THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION (1957) changed those plans, while Loren's marriage to Carlo Ponti during the filming of HOUSEBOAT gives this film quite a production backstory.

HOUSEBOAT was filmed in VistaVision by Ray June. Costumes were by Edith Head. The supporting cast includes Harry Guardino, Murray Hamilton, and Werner Klemperer. Look for famed "dress extra" Bess Flowers in a couple of scenes, including the final sequences.

Kino Lorber's Blu-ray print is from a new HD master by Paramount Pictures from a 6K scan of the 35mm original VistaVision camera negative. It looks and sounds terrific.

Extras consist of a pair of trailers; a gallery of eight additional trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber; and a new commentary track by Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

Tweet