Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

I recently watched 'Criss Cross', a film noir directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, which I was very underwhelmed by. Nevertheless I approached this film noir with the same director and star with high hopes, as it is a highly regarded adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway short story.  To add to my interest the story was adapted again, in the 1960s, in a terrific version directed by Don Siegel which I have fond if distant memories of. When I say adaptation that’s a bit of a stretch.   Judging from the plot summary on Wikipedia, Hemingway’s story is quite sparse - all that happens is that a couple of hired hit men turn up in a small town, find their victim, and shoot him dead.  The reader is left with the  intriguing question of why the victim doesn’t try to escape from his killers or at least plead for his life. So it would be more accurate to say that this film (like the later one) is inspired by Hemingway’s story in that it attempts to explain ...

This is maybe a unique John Ford Western in that it is about real Wild west characters and events.  In this case we’re in Tombstone so of course the film must climax with the gunfight at the OK Corral.   Not that you would know this from the title, which was apparently chosen by Ford simply because he liked the song.  Accordingly a fictional character, Clementine Carter, was created as a love interest for Wyatt Earp. Many other liberties were taken so that what we have here bears very little resemblance to actuality. This is a story about two warring families, the Earps and the Clantons.  The former consist of four brothers at the outset, although two are killed by Old Man Clanton before we get to the gunfight itself.  The first brother is killed early on when the Clantons (father and four sons) steal the Earps’ cattle.  This prompts Wyatt to become marshal but if the viewer is expecting an exciting revenge tale they will be disappointed. Instead Ford direc...

Apparently it was Katherine Hepburn who when perusing a draft script for this film made the astute observation that Ginger gave Fred sex appeal, and he gave her class. That’s so true, even in this film where Ginger’s character Dale seems plenty classy, judging by her lavish London apartment.  Her  apartment is directly below that of Edward Everett Horton’s theatrical producer Horace Hardwick, and who should be the star of his latest production but none other than one Jerry Travers who is played of course by Astaire. Naturally Jerry has to do some tap dancing in the apartment (why wouldn't he?) which annoys Dale by keeping her awake.  Never mind, they are soon falling for each other and everything seems set fair. Except that  due to an unfortunate misunderstanding Dale then learns (so she thinks) that Jerry is Horace and therefore a married man.  Cue much hilarity given that Mrs Hardwick is a matchmaker who is keen to bring Dale and Jerry together. Mrs Hardwick i...

This 1942 wartime drama opens with the viewer being welcomed to the peaceful corner of rural southern England that is the fictional village of Bramley End, where the so-called 'Battle of Bramley End' took place. Strikingly, we are casually informed that this 'battle' took place some time ago, before Hitler was defeated.  That the War would eventually be won must have been reassuring news for the audience of the day, and it is the first hint that what we are watching has a propaganda element to it. Not that it is without artistic merit, far from it given that it is based on a 1940 Graham Greene short story and that it is directed by a decent (if now forgotten) director, Alberto Calvacanti (who rather pretentiously just referred to himself as Calvacanti). The intriguing premise of the story is that the village is taken over by a group of German soldiers masquerading as British, in order to support an imminent full-scale German invasion, their role being to interfere with ...

This comedy is the last of five terrific films written and directed by Preston Sturges that were released between 1941 and 1944, in a remarkable burst of creativity. We start off in a bar where our protagonist Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith is feeling very sorry for himself.  His lifelong ambition has always been to emulate his dad and join the Marines, but when he enlisted a year ago he was quickly discharged on medical grounds (chronic hay fever, since you ask). Woodrow was so ashamed of his failure (as he saw it) that instead of going home he’s spent the last year working in a shipyard, pretending to his mother that he was on active service, and ditching his fiancée on the pretence that he has met someone new. Who should then come into the bar but six actual Marines, who are sympathetic to Woodrow's story, especially Sarge (played by the wonderful Sturges regular William Demarest) who knew Woodrow's dad before he died in battle. Before he knows what has hit him the Mar...

What induced me to watch this obscure 1947 thriller with a cast of relative unknowns is a bit of a mystery other than that it seemed to have an intriguing plot, and that it has a decent director in Edward Dmytryk. Dmytryk had fled the US where he had been sentenced to prison for refusing to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, so I guess he was happy to take on any assignment he could get hold of. The screenplay is an adaptation by one Alec Coppel of his own play, 'A Man About A Dog', and in very broad outline the story resembles that of the later 'Dial M For Murder' - a husband who discovers that his wife is having an affair with an American responds by planning 'the perfect murder'. In this case the wife's affair is the latest in a long line, and husband Dr Riordan, a psychiatrist, has had enough.  But instead of murdering his wife he plans to murder the lover, Bill, and just to rub it in he wants his wife, Storm, to know that th...