IN A LONELY PLACE (1951)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 34 of 50)

If you love film noir (and if you are a film buff, you're pretty much required to love film noir), In a Lonely Place is a required addition you need to add to your viewing resume. Humphrey Bogart plays a screenwriter with a violent temper who is accused of murder and one begins to wonder as the movie progresses whether or not he might really be guilty. Bogart seems to have aged quite a bit by 1951, but the force of his personality really shines through and I have no trouble believing a saucy dame like Gloria Grahame could fall for him. 

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to..Gloria Grahame. The lovely Miss Grahame has shown up in a handful of 1001 movie listings, including The Big Heat, where Lee Marvin famously throws coffee in her face. She also plays the Bedford Falls slut in It's a Wonderful Life and the equally easy Ado Annie in the musical Oklahoma! She also has a interesting if minor turn as Dick Powell's wife in The Bad and the Beautiful. Her role as the tough but vulnerable Laurel in In a Lonely Place might be her best role of the bunch. Her relationship with Bogart's character Dixon Steele is uneasy, yet passionate, difficult, but inevitable. But this is film noir and there ain't gonna be no happily ever afters, sweetheart.

OKLAHOMA! (1955)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 33 of 50)

I'm not sure how Fred Zinneman could have adapted Oklahoma! to the screen any better than he did. He took it off the stage and opened up great technicolor vistas that you couldn't have in a theater. But there are a lot of musicals that are established on stage that are just better on stage. You simply can't beat the intimacy of live theater with the songs and actors right in front of you. So I would say that you should see Oklahoma! in some form, it just doesn't have to be on celluloid.

Confession #1: The Farmer and the Cowboy Should be Friends is near the top of my list of  favorite songs from a musical. 

The Partridge Family vs. The Brady Bunch: A chapter in this ongoing debate that I didn't know about is Oklahoma! I knew that future hot Partridge Family mom Shirley Jones played Laurie in the movie. What I didn't realize was that future hot Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson played Laurie on Broadway in 1953. You learn something everyday, I guess.

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to..Eddie Albert. Honestly, most of the laughs that Oklahoma! generates comes for Albert's Ali Hakim, the Persian peddler man, who spends tmost of the movie trying to avoid getting married to Ado Annie. Albert had many other scene stealing supporting roles during his career, including the artist in Roman Holiday. But it is funny that his best know role is as the lead in the TV show Green Acres, when he had to play straight man to some of the goofiest characters in TV history. 

Confession #2: Green Acres is still one of my favorite shows.

THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 32 of 50)

Before there was Altman's The Player, there was Vincent Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful. It's the story of ruthless movie producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) who runs over many bodies to get to the top, including a starlet (Lana Turner), a director (Barry Sullivan) and a writer (Dick Powell). Even within the limits of what you could show in 1952 Hollywood, the movie digs up a lot of dirt and shows enough manipulation and bad behavior to be a strong Hollywood self-examination. Plus, Kirk is fun to watch and it's really his movie much more than it is the top-billed Turner.

Censorship alert! There is an important scene in the film where the audience needs to see the desperate starlet played by Lana Turner throw herself at Jonathan Shields. We have to establish in that scene that she is an alcoholic and a slut. And we see her do it! It's not coyly implied, it's clear what she is doing. I'm not sure how the censors let that one pass, even if it is an important plot point. There is also a scene when Shields is on the phone and asks the ladies man actor if he'd like to squire a southern belle. After the unheard response on the other end, Shields say, "No, I said SQUIRE." It's not too hard to guess what word the actor thought he said.

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to..Barry Sullivan. The Bad and the Beautiful is generally regarded as Sullivan's best movie role, playing the director friend of Jonathan Shields who gets left out in the cold by him. Sullivan did occasionally have a staring role, such as the film noir The Gangster. In later years, I remember him as a doctor in Earthquake. But Sullivan really belongs in the character actor Hall of Fame for his many TV roles. And I mean many! From the 50's until the end of the 70's, Sullivan credits include virtually every TV show on the networks during that time. I guess whenever a role came along for a dignified, middle-aged doctor or lawyer role came along, I guess producers would shout out, "Let's get Barry Sullivan!" One of his last roles was in an episode of The Love Boat, the defacto retirement home for many Hollywood careers.

FORCE OF EVIL (1948)

HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE

(Post 31 of 50)

Force of Evil is a movie that grew in prominence years after it was released due to the admiration of certain critics as well as Martin Scorcese (Of course, Martin Scorcese!). It involves a lawyer played by John Garfiled mixed up in the numbers racket with various gangster types. He begins to grow a conscience partly based on his guilt about getting his brother involved with criminals and partly because of his growing affection for his brother's young secretary. One thing the movie really emphasizes is that it isn't just some bad apples that are spoiling the barrel, but the entire structure of the barrel itself that may be the problem. It's an interesting role for Garfield, as none of the other movies I've seen him in would he have been a likely candidate to get a law degree. This is a compact, worthwhile film, though I'm pretty easy when it comes to recommending film noirs.

And the Elisha Cook Jr. supporting player award goes to…Paul Fix. I probably should have given this to Thomas Gomez, who really is the conscience of the film as Garfield's brother (above), a man of character that remains true to his beliefs at great risk to his well-being. But I'm going with Paul Fix, who plays an unsympathetic crook name Bill Fico in Force of Evil. Fix's long career included 336 IMDB credits. He was a staple of Westerns, and an associate and mentor of John Wayne. He also had such varied roles as the Judge in To Kill a Mockingbird and as the ship's doctor in the pilot episode of Star Trek! He is probably best know (at least to me) as Micah the sheriff on the classic TV western, The Rifleman.