Midnight Oil:Movies and More

“Panic in the Streets” (1950) starring Richard Widmark and Jack Palance as directed by Elia Kazan, makes for a scary combination. I’m not sure which one you should take your chances on; the menace of the totally deadly pneumonic plague (a form of the Black Plague) or the totally creepy Jack Palance as the villain. The hero, Richard Widmark, as Lieutenant Commander Clint Reed, runs around New Orleans with his syringe, prepared to do battle with either culprit. (Apparently, it is true that the totally deadly effects of pneumonic plague can be forestalled with a dose of antibiotics within 24 hours.) This highly potent concoction of gangsters, bioterrorism, post-war anxieties with a bit of romance thrown in, thanks to Barbara Bel Geddes as the good doctor’s wife, makes it a highly watchable film more than 50 years later. It may not be Elia Kazan’s best film ever, but it’s worth a look. And it’s so comforting in this crazy post-SARS world of ours to think that there is some nice, upstanding medical man out there who has everything under control with his syringe, if he could just get all those nasty miscreants rounded up.

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Are you ready to "roll up your sleeve"? See the video excerpt from "Panic in the Streets" (1950)

“I Confess” (1953) with Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, and Karl Malden makes for a rather melodramatic situation where the real murderer uses the silence of the confessional as the perfect cover-up for his crime. Alfred Hitchcock’s direction on site in Quebec City gives this film a bit of a different perspective. Once you realize that the setting is supposed to be Quebec City during the 1950’s in the pre-Vatican II Duplessis era, it all starts to make a little more sense – the film, that is, not the murder mystery plot. The murder, cover-up, romance, blackmail and dénouement are all very predictable. What else can we expect when two excruciatingly beautiful people such as Anne Baxter and Montgomery Clift are caught up in a thoroughly impossible situation? It is all completely incomprehensible and implausible in today’s world until you remember that this is supposed to be Quebec in the 1950’s. The prominent landmarks and buildings seen in the film are still there today. (Our family visits quite regularly.) The social and religious landscapes that make this film believable are not. C’est quoi encore le dicton en anglais? “Much Ado About Nothing”?

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See the film trailer for "I Confess" (1953).

"Father of the Bride" (1950) IMDb with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor provides an interesting look into the subject of marriage, weddings and father/daughter relationships. Joan Bennett plays the bride to be's mother and Don Taylor the prospective groom. A very young Liz Taylor makes for a convincing first-time bride while Tracy hams it up in the role of the doting daddy. While

the perspective on marriage and general naïvité of the young persons involved might seem a little odd for today's audience viewing this film, the dynamics of the internal family relationships may prove to be more familiar ground.

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Catch the video trailer for "Father of the Bride" here.

 

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“ Sweet Smell of Success” (1957) IMDb starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster reveals a side of life in the big city that is anything but sweet and sunshiney. Lancaster’s unsavory character, J.J. Hunsecker, is said to be based on real life New York columnist, Walter Winchell. Throughout the film, Lancaster and Curtis as the sycophantic Sydney Falco perform a dangerous dance reminiscent of the mating ritual of the black widow spider. The machinations of the corrupt columnist and equally despicable publicist are accompanied by the cool jazz numbers of the Chico Hamilton Quintet and the rapid-fire dialogue of screenplay writers Lehman and Odets. This kind of film-noir might not be everyone’s cup of tea making it worth staying up for the late show, but I sure thought it was a film worth seeing again. It was just as smooth and searing hot on the way down this time around.

View the SNAM preview of “ Sweet Smell of Success”(1957)

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Catch the video trailer of "the cat in the bag scene" for “Sweet Smell of Success”

"Witness for the Prosecution" (1957IMDb) Billy Wilder's classic court room drama features Tyrone Power as the accused, Leonard Vole, and Marlene Dietrich as his wife. Charles Laughton is at the top of his form as defense lawyer Sir Wilfred Robarts. You never can tell with a wily old fellow like Sir Robarts up to his old tricks in the court room. Not to be missed in this production is the irrepressible Mrs. Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester. Lanchester plays the rather shrill Nurse Plimsoll to the hilt, running after Sir Wilfred with her sharp hypodermic syringe and a wit too dull to perceive crafty old coot’s concealed flask of brandy. Thoroughly entertaining fare derived from a successful Agatha Christie play.

Catch the TVO preview of the movie “Witness for the Prosecution”.

Also presented on on SNAM on the same evening highlighting legal wrangling were films previously featured on Midnight Oil, "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943)and "Compulsion"(1959).

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A must see is this short video scene of the irritating Miss Plimsoll plying her trade with the irascible Sir Wilfred.

Catch the original movie trailer for "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) here.