NFR Project: 'High Society' (1956)

NFR Project: “High Society”

Dir: Charles Walters

Scr: John Patrick

Pho: Paul C Vogel

Ed: Ralph E. Winters

Premiere: July 17, 1956

111 min.

The premise was golden. Remake the classic screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940) as a musical. Get Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, the two greatest singers of their respective generations, to act and sing together. Have Cole Porter write the songs. Throw in Louis Armstrong. Throw in Grace Kelly in her last starring role.

Fortunately, it works. An excellent screen adaptation by John Patrick draws on both the Oscar-winning original screenplay and the original 1939 Broadway play, written expressly for Katharine Hepburn by Philip Barry.

The story is this: young socialite Tracy Lord (Kelly) in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island is on the eve of her wedding to an earnest dullard (John Lund). Her ex-husband, songwriter and incidentally crooner C.K. Dexter Haven (Crosby), decides to woo her back. Added to this is an intrusive reporter, Mike Connor (Sinatra), who also falls for Tracy. Complications ensue. Safe to say all is sorted out by film’s end, which culminates in the remarriage of Dexter and Tracy.

Now, the plot is shoehorned into the frame of a musical fable narrated by none other than the immortal Louis Armstrong. With his sidemen, he introduces the story, comments on it, and wraps it up at the end. It’s always a pleasure to watch him play and sing, and the movie captures his performance with Bing of “Now You Has Jazz.”

Now it’s a little creepy as Bing was 53 when he made this film, and Grace Kelly was 26. He’s old enough to be her father. (Evidently the two did have an affair.) Still, the Old Groaner aka Der Bingle floats easily through the film, exuding quips and serenely taking Tracy back. Sinatra is fine as Mike – and who wouldn’t want to have a record of Crosby and Sinatra singing together? Celeste Holm and Louis Calhern have fun with their respective characters as well.

The biggest surprise is that Grace Kelly can do comedy. It’s not something she was called on a lot to do in her brief career (she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in April), but she handles the gags with charm, and reacts splendidly throughout. The songs are good, of course, especially “True Love” and “Well, Did You Evah!” Director Charles Walters seems to have trouble with the broad VistaVision format. He divides the screen into thirds, and places something in each third. The scenes are static. The performers stand in their places and crack wise and sing soulfully.

So the movie rests on the charisma of the three primary players. Crosby, Sinatra, and Kelly manage to put the thing over.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

NFR Project: 'Giant' (1956)

 

NFR Project: “Giant”

Dir: George Stevens

Scr: Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffat

Pho: William C. Mellor

Ed: William Hornbeck, Philip W. Anderson, Fred Bohanan

Premiere: Nov. 24, 1956

201 min.

It’s a big, giant film. Unfortunately, it’s boring as hell.

It’s a three-and-a-half-hour epic that covers decades in the lives of rancher Bick (Rock Hudson), his wife Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor), and rival Jett Rink (James Dean in his last role). The setting is the bare plains of Texas, where Bick runs cattle on more than half a million acres. Bick initially dismisses his wife’s attempt to take part in male conversation; she leaves him for a while, but they get back together.

Then Jett strikes oil on a small plot bequeathed to him by Bick’s sister. He becomes unbelievably, obnoxiously rich and soon becomes an annoying drunk as well. Bick tries to get his children interested in running the ranch, but they all want to lead their own lives. Bick drills for oil too.

Later, Bick’s son Jordan is incensed by Jett’s orders that no Hispanic people be served at his big new hotel; Jordan’s wife is Mexican-American. The two fight, and Jordan is hauled out of the banquet hall where they confront each other. Bick realizes that this prejudice is unacceptable. On their way home, the family stops at a diner where the owner refuses to serve Bick’s daughter-in-law and son. Bick fights him and loses. Leslie declares how proud she is that he stood up for Hispanics. The end.

It’s all delivered in a long, slow, casual, soap-opera style. Hudson can’t act; Dean mumbles. We are supposed to watch the characters age, but they never really evolve. Director Stevens is at his best when he is composing images of great depth and beauty – an elaborate mansion sitting by itself on the empty plains, a seething, churning roundup, a soldier’s coffin returned home. Unfortunately, the movie is not worth the effort.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: High Society.

NFR Project: 'Forbidden Planet' (1956)

 

NFR Project: “Forbidden Planet”

Dir: Fred M. Wilcox

Scr: Cyril Hume

Pho: George J. Folsey

Ed: Ferris Webster

Premiere: March 2, 1956

98 min.

This is the first epic science-fiction film to be made since Things to Come in 1936, the first in color, the first in CinemaScope – one of the first in the genre to really to be conceived of as an A-list picture.

Read Ian Olney’s excellent essay on this film at the National Film Registry here.

No expense was spared to tell this outer-space tale. The sets were designed by Cedric Gibbons and Arthur Lonergan, who created a vast alien world for our protagonists to explore. A key character is Robby the Robot, who was created by industrial designer Robert Kintoshita at a then-astronomical cost of $125,000. Disney animator Joshua Meador created the at-times invisible monster of the film. All in all, every effort was expended to make this film look convincing.

It’s the story of a United Planets space expedition to the distant planet Altair IV, on which a ship crashed 20 years before. The crew seeks the survivors. There they find only a scientist, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his grown daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Morbius warns that an unknown power slaughtered everyone in his expedition save himself, his late wife, and his daughter. Soon an immense, invisible creature starts attacking the crew, killing them off one by one and damaging their spaceship.

Morbius explains to the ship’s captain (Leslie Nielsen) that the planet was the home of the late Krell, a civilization wiped out in one night 200,000 years ago. The Krell were incredibly advanced, and eventually they figured out how to make any thought in their minds real using their superior technology.

It turns out that the Krells, in creating their mind machines, unleashed the contents of their subconscious minds. These “monsters of the id” wrought havoc, destroying everything. Morbius had tinkered with the Krell’s technology, and Morbius’s subconscious created a monster that destroyed everyone around him save his daughter. Now the monster is out to kill off the rescue mission, and even Altaira, who falls for the captain and plans on leaving the planet with him.

Horribly, inexorably, the monster advances on the remaining individuals. Only the collapse of Morbius, who finally realizes it is he himself who is the monster, makes the monster disappear. Knowing that the power the Krells wielded is deadly, Morbius sets off a self-destruction device and urges the survivors to flee. They escape, and the planet is vaporized.

It’s intelligent and interesting stuff, to be sure, well thought out – not the usual juvenile content of most sci-fi films of the era. The top-notch production values sell the film, taking us into outer space and onto Altair IV. The suspense and thrills of the story are intense, leading to a satisfying conclusion. Forbidden Planet set the bar for the science-fiction genre, and was not equaled for many years.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Giant.