The Next Voice You Hear...

The Next Voice You Hear... (William A. Wellman, 1950) Leo, the M-G-M lion doesn't roar in The Next Voice You Hear... probably so as not to offend any Christians with Roman Coliseum associations that might produce a "thumbs down."  But, that's not the oddest thing in a picture steeple full with them.  The wildest thing is to see William "Wild Bill" Wellman's name as director—maybe he's atoning for all those gangster pictures he did in the '30's—associated with its theme.  On a Tuesday, at 8:30 in the evening when Mary Smith ("American," as she's identified in the credits, and as well she should be as she's played by Nancy Davis, soon to be Nancy Reagan) is helping son Johnny (Gary Gray) with his long division, and Dad Joe ("American," played by James Whitmore) having finished doing the dishes for his pregnant wife after a typical pot-roast dinner, and settled down with a beer and his paper, that something peculiar happens on the radio.

Not that we get to hear it.  God speaks on the radio.  "This is the voice of God.  I'll be with you for the next five days."  Joe, a bit stumped, walks in to tell his family, and the first thing out of mother Mary's mouth is "Was it one of those Orson Welles things?"

Funny.  Joe thinks a local kid is pulling a stunt with a ham-radio kit, but a phone call reveals that another neighbor heard the same voice interrupting another program on another station.  "Did it sound like Lionel Barrymore?" asks Mary, out of the blue.  After the first night, Joe's pals at the Ajax Aeronautics factory have their own speculations "It's mass-psycho-orology. Only fat-heads are gonna fall for a gag like that!"

But, the next night, God shows up again.  The stations try to record it, but nothing shows up on the electrical transcriptions.  More people are hearing it, and it's determined that it's a global phenomenon.  And people are starting to seriously freak out.  Before the week is over, Joe "American" is going to go on a major bender, when all he wanted to do is buy a pack of smokes, and the resulting loss of stability splinters his family.

Not that he was any too stable to begin with.  What keeps The Next Voice You Hear from sinking into a sermon swamp is the casting of Whitmore and, yes, even Davis as the American couple.  Whitmore is no leading man material, but is a facile actor who pulls off charming even when he's a bit of a louse.  Here, he's impatient to a fault, perpetually late for work, flinty with co-workers, disparaging of supervisors, and even he and the wife do a little sniping back and forth at each other.  There's one sequence where son Johnny, so used to Dad's frustrating ritual of resuscitating a faltering car engine, mimes it for Mom split-seconds before the sound effects of the effort come clanking through the door.  It's not dysfunctional to any degree, but it is refreshingly a couple notches below "Father Knows Best."

Credit screenwriter Charles Schnee and Wellman for daring to throw a little real conflict (and a healthy dose of irony) into the thing to keep audiences out of a diabetic coma, and to make it as palatably earnest as one of Norman Corwin's inspirational radio-plays.  

And should one get all-blustery and harumph about the overt religious message, one should bear in mind that the next year The Day the Earth Stood Still would cloak the homilies in the shiny jump-suits of science-fiction.

Missed It By That Much: Quo Vadis

"Quo Vadis" (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) This is M-G-M's first big biblical epic in the post-World War II environment, the one that spawned a genre that prospered in theaters for the next twenty years...and that has been revived for these times—you can't have enough bread and circuses for a recessed populace. The studio re-built the war-torn studios of Cinecittà, which would be home to Roman epics for the next two decades. The expansive sets would increasingly overtake the films created, until the out-sized production of "Cleopatra" nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

"Quo Vadis" tells two stories—of the Fall of Rome and the Rise of Christianity. Marcus Vinicus (Robert Taylor) returns from the wars to a very different Rome than the one he left; The Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov) has declared himself a god, and the city is divided by his heinous act of murdering his wife and mother in order to marry the courtesan Poppaea (Patricia Laffan). Now, convinced of his own infallibility, the Emperor indulges his every whim and artistic pretension. That he's not very good at anything does not occur to him; anything a god can do must be significant.

Vinicus, like the rest of Rome, indulges the Emperor—as long as what he does doesn't touch their lives, he can do anything he wants. For the returned tribune, what he wants is wine and wenching; Nero's wife is eyeing his lasciviously, but Vinicus sets his sights on the ward of the Senate, the captured princess of a Roman campaign, Lygia (Deborah Kerr). She is made a gift to him for his duty for Rome, but she initially spurns his advances. She's a follower of the teachings of the martyr Christ, as taught by his followers Paul (Abraham Sofaer) and Peter (Finlay Currie). This merely amuses Vinicus. But, when the Mad Nero decides he's going to design a new Rome in his own honor, and torches the old (without any evacuation plans), Vinicus sacrifices all to save Lygia.

It takes a lot of screen-time to get to that point in the story, and the film still has to have the persecution and throwing of Christians to the lions at Nero's behest, not to mention resolve all the story-tangles. So, the Christianity theme of "Quo Vadis" is given short shrift, despite the fact that the story hinges on it. As it ultimately leads to the establishment of The Church on the very spot where some of the events occurred, it undermines the religious under-pinning of the story.

The acting is a bit arch, as well. Leo Genn does a good turn as one of Nero's sycophants, but Kerr and Taylor are stuck in theatrical star mode, Taylor seems a bit out of place as a Roman Tribune, and doth protest too much when playing the Roman egotist. Peter Ustinov's Oscar-nominated turn as Nero is over-the-top and slobbering, a rare instance when the actor isn't doing precisely the right thing, even though the performance is an amusing one. All these elements lend a falseness to a story that has major significance to history and religion (however apocryphal it may be)

The Latin words "Quo Vadis?" translates to "whither thou goest?" or "where are you going?" It is what Simon Peter, fleeing Rome and its persecution of Christians, asks the passing vision of Jesus he encounters on the road. "Quo Vadis, Domine?" And the reply is "Eo Romam iterum crucifigi" (I am going to Rome to be crucified again), prompting Peter to return and sacrifice himself for his church. It's not a part of the "recognized" "approved" Bible—it is a section of the Apocrypha. And it is dramatised in the film with Christ speaking through the voice of a child. Peter goes back, and when confronted by his tormentors says "To die as Our Lord did is more than I deserve," to which the Roman guard replies in the tough-guy-henchman mode of the movie era, "We can change that." Another example of how this first modern Epic owes as much to LeRoy's gangster pictures as it does to the source material.*

It's always terrible to play the "what if?" game—the movie on the screen is the movie that was made. But in its early stages, it was being developed, and would have been directed, by...John Huston. Huston's historical films are always interesting for their attention to detail, and one ponders what he would have done with ancient Rome with a sad interest. His ironical eye would have been interesting, as well, when it came to Church matters. At that stage, before Huston's run-in's with Louis B. Mayer soured the deal (as reported in Lillian Ross's "Picture"), Marcus Vinicus was to be played by Gregory Peck and Lygia by Elizabeth Taylor, all of 19 years old. Now, Peck was not the most versatile of actors, but he could be counted on to deliver a prideful manliness with some depth, the kind that Taylor musters up as an oafish braggadocio. Taylor manages to pull off the scenes of Vinicus in distress, but Peck would have provided a younger, more believable protagonist. Elizabeth Taylor would have been able to pull off the vulnerability that Kerr has difficulty providing, while also giving Lygia the same spine of steel as Kerr's. What might have been... One looks at this "Quo Vadis" and wishes things could have been different.

"Whither thou goest?" At this point in the history of the Catholic Church—at this cross-roads it has reached—where it is caught in a choice between Unquestioned Authority and the culpability of its representatives, that question has never been more pertinent.

Quo Vadis? Indeed.


* Nero's last words in the film are the same as Johnny Rico's at the end of LeRoy's "Little Caesar:" Is this the end of (me)?"

King Solomon's Mines (1950)

"King Solomon's Mines" (Compton Bennett and Andrew Morton, 1950) The classic H. Rider Haggard novel, the first in the adventures of Allan Quatermain* has been filmed several times,** but this one is the best known, earning several Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and inspiring all sorts of African set adventures throughout the '50's.

This version boasts dazzling Technicolor cinematography as well as a vast array of wild-life photography including an impressive stampede of zebras, gazelles, even giraffes that threaten to trample the explorers mid-way through their travels to find the husband of Elizabeth Curtis (Deborah Kerr) who has been lost in unexplored Africa (unexplored by whites, that is). It also featured Stewart Granger (he was known as James Stewart in Britain, but changed it so as not to be confused with the American actor) as Quatermain, who's a bit of a stiff, but still manages to be a commanding presence, as he's always the "smartest guy on the veldt."

But, for all the talk of the mines, there is very little time spent in them, as it is used (as in the book) as a trap to contain the colonialists while royal political struggles are going on outside. Where in the novel the Brits are trapped for days, they almost escape immediately in the film (some trap—but a lot of time-compression goes on in the film as a daunting trek seems to take no time at all, with not much wear on the explorers—nobody so much as rips a shirt).

Another worrisome aspect is the sense of a time; there is none. Despite the presence of pith helmets and stabs at period dress, there is no indication that the film is going on in the 19th rather than the 20th century. In fact, Haggard's novel and Quatermain's character are a bit more advanced than the film is willing to go, taking out any references to an interracial romance in the party and Quatermain's expression, though condescending, of admiration for some natives over Europeans. ***

This one is for the exotic locales and for the testy romance that occurs between Curtis and Quatermain (Curtis is a man looking for his brother in Haggard's novel and needless to say there isn't any romance!). But it would be interesting to revisit the story, make it truer to the source—and that includes not making it an "Indiana Jones" ride as in the 1985 film. I'd also like to see a film of Haggard's combining of his two great creations, "She and Allan." One would hope that they'd be better than this.


* That's how you spell it, though not necessarily how you pronounce it. Among other egregious liberties taken with the character, the film adaptation of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" featured the character (played by Sean Connery) and a mis-spelling of his name as "Quartermain."

** Including the heinous two-part version done for laughs by the Golan-Globus studios that featured Richard Chamberlain as an Indiana Jones re-write of the character, and Sharon Stone moments before she would become a star.

*** One other good thing about it (as revealed in an IMDB thread written by a native Kenyan) is that the languages are accuracte swahili and kikuyu—spoken well by Granger—and that members of the indigenous tribes were used for the African parts.

Winchester '73

"Winchester '73" (Anthony Mann, 1950) One in a thousand. That's how many perfect Winchester rifles were produced. One in a thousand so perfect of bore and rifling that a man using it need not compensate for anything except that thrown at him by God. Men would fight for one. Men would kill for one. And the Winchester '73 that Lin McAdam (James Stewart) wins in a marksman's contest probably ends up a little less than perfect as it goes from hand to hand, and is even used as a shield and a club in the long circuitous route of the movie. But, as the repeating rifle has become the difference between life and death in the heady days after Little Big-Horn, the Winchester is the weapon of advantage in skirmishes on the plains.

The first of five westerns Stewart made with Anthony Mann in the 1950's that deepened and darkened the Stewart persona from the "aw, shucks" townie to a complex, psychologically challenged character who could be pushed to undisciplined anarchy, "Winchester '73" has more going on in it than most of the other Stewart-Mann films, which had more straight-forward story-telling through lines. This one is practically episodic, as McAdam and fellow-traveler "High-Spade" (the terrific Millard Mitchell*) start in Dodge City with run-ins with Wyatt Earp (Will Geer, before the blacklist got him), Bat Masterson and a stranger-in-town named Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) before winning the perfect Winchester in a shooting match.

He doesn't have it for long as the stranger beats McAdam up and steals it from him. From there, it falls into the hands of an unscrupulous Indian trader (John McIntire), a Sioux warrior (Rock Hudson--you read that right), briefly in the hands of horse-soldiers Jay C. Flippen and Anthony—soon to be Tony—Curtis), then to an untrustworthy homesteader (Charles Drake) and finally, the possession of desperado Dan Duryea. Quite the cast (where's Harry Morgan?), and add in Shelley Winters as the saloon-girl trying to make good, and even if you didn't have Mann's steady hand with action, you'd have a movie full of good character parts.

Duryea is at his hipster best, playing an outlaw determined to out-laugh all of his opponents, McIntire is nicely droll as the Indian giver/trader, and Shelley Winters gives off an "I'll deal" vibe that endears you to her immediately. In one of the little authentic touches Mann inserts to show how rough the West really was, Winters nearly bounces off a buck-board dangerously careening through the desert, and when McAdam hesitates when giving her a gun to defend herself during a Native attack, she gives him a toothy grin and says, "I understand what the last one's for..."

I want that girl on my side.

It is capped with a mountain shoot-out between old-antagonists-with-a-past McAdam and Brown that is a primer for any action director to clue an audience to the strategies and complications that a fight for advantage in the mountains can entail. Add to that Mann's experiments with light in landscape far outside and past the urban noir settings he had bathed in shadow and slivers of light in the post-war 40's.

But in the same year as Stewart and Delmer Daves dared make a western that showed the First Peoples' side of things ("Broken Arrow"), Mann and Stewart** (and Stewart and other directors) began a decade-long exploration of the cracks in Western civilization's veneer that showed the fragility of the individual—how, in a so-called "decent" society, there's only an angel's breath of morality distinguishing a maverick and a psychopath. Everyone can be pushed over the edge. And the only advantage is how many rounds you can fire off before the other guy feels the first one. The repeating fire-arm was the great leveler when it came to fighting. But it was also what prevented letting cooler heads prevail. Cooler heads don't have a chance against hot lead fired by a cold heart. It's how the West was taken...and still is. The chances of surviving it to build something decent?

Probably one in a thousand.

* Mitchell has a great stoved-in character face and a likable self-deprecating manner that are also on display in his other prominent movie role-in "Singin' in the Rain." He died in 1952.

** One of the joys of the current DVD version of "Winchester '73" is a rare commentary track by the elderly Stewart who goes into detail about the filming and his working relationship with Mann and the other actors. It's done without the "Stewart persona"--he's just watching the film and answering questions--but at the end, you can't help but smile when he blurts "Ya know, I'm just really impressed with this laser-thing."

In a Lonely Place

"In a Lonely Place" (Nicholas Ray, 1950) Risky Hollywood-noir/murder mystery/psychological drama produced by Humphrey Bogart's Santana Production Company and directed with a sure grip by the great Nicholas Ray. Bogart plays Dixon Steele, a hot-headed screenwriter on a cold streak. His temper has gotten him into a lot of violent scrapes that the studios have managed to sweep under the rug. Now, a hat-check girl that was in his apartment the night before has turned up strangled and the police are certain he was the culprit.

His one alibi is his neighbor, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), part-time actress, who has a fairly air-tight alibi for Steele, and the two of them subsequently begin an affair that keeps Steele on the straight-and-narrow and the police suspicious. They'd be less tenacious if he didn't have that long rap sheet, the sick sense of humor and the unhealthy glint in his eyes when the subject of murder comes up. Steele is an odd bird who can't control his temper and pretty soon the police's suspicions make Laurel have her doubts which Dix only amplifies by his actions.

Can love survive? Can Laurel?

This is a great mystery in which the central murder ultimately doesn't matter; the players and their ability to destroy each other in a cynical battle of survival when they're at their most vulnerable does. Gloria Grahame, who would endure a career of also-ran women's roles, displays the gifts of a great character actress in the lead. And Bogart exploits his dual persona playing a bad-good man (or is that the other way around?) who has no control and betrays a self-loathing that's painful to watch. He and Grahame are great together—she's one of the few women who doesn't kiss Bogart awkwardly, and their relationship feels real and not phoney—and the screenplay crackles with the good dialogue that makes great Bogart movies. That the movie is taking shots at Hollywood and the loungey L.A. lifestyle is merely a refreshing bonus (What was it about 1950 that turned out all these anti-Hollywood movies?). Bogart is at his best when he's taking chances with his material, and "In a Lonely Place" provides a wealth of opportunities: a creative murder mystery with a great romance and the possibility of mutual self-destruction. It's a stunning noir that's a highlight of the careers of all parties.

Olde Review: Sunset Boulevard

This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the snarky, clueless kid I was back in the '70's a break. Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.

So, ya think being a famous actress is an easy life, huh? Fool! Everything you know is wrong! So learn a lesson from this Friday's ASUW Films in 130 Kane: Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve."

"Sunset Boulevard" (Billy Wilder, 1950) "Sunset Boulevard" is probably the most vituperative, back-stabbing, self-hating, malicious and just-plain-cynical look at the glamour of Hollywood. It is also a brilliant film with a capital "B" directed by one of America's foremost directors, Billy Wilder. Joe Gillis, is a down-on-his-luck writer who, when, being chased by his creditors, happens upon the estate of Norma Desmond, a once-great silent film queen.

Now, consider the casting: Norma Desmond, "once-great silent film star" is played (and played brilliantly) by Gloria Swanson, "once-great silent film star." Her servant, Max von Mayerling, once-great-director-destroyed-by-Hollywood's-system, is played by Erich von Stroheim, once-great director-destroyed -by-Hollywood's-system. Hack writer Joe Gillis is played by William Holden who, more than any other actor is director-writer Billy Wilder's cinematic alter-ego. It is cruel in how it treats the old discarded Hollywood, and it is cruel (and probably right) in the view of the 1950's Hollywood being just as bad with its over-eager starlets and corrals of hacks like Gillis. It is filled with a black steaminess—a fetid atmosphere (something I felt again this Summer walking down Hollywood Boulevard). It shows a view of Hollywood as something like a Venus Fly-trap, something that looks lovely and inviting from a distance, but once you get up-close you find that is merely a plot to attract and drag you in.

Another thing: this movie is full, dense with ideas and brilliant strokes by its creators with reverberations that go beyond the film. When you leave the theater it haunts you even more effectively than a finely crafted horror film. It is a horror movie—with a black widow spider at the hub of a web, dragging everything around her touch into degradation and death. Maybe I should say that, in the first of bizarre touches that create the film's atmosphere, that Joe Gillis narrates the film, even as we see him floating face-down dead in Norma Desmond's swimming pool.

Broadcast on KCMU-FM on February 3-4th, 1976

Quite a few other films (and one highly-rated television series) have used that "speaking from the grave" bit since. It's the ultimate authority for putting things in perspective. But that was Wilder being conservative (as an aside, I find it funny that I call Wilder one of America's great directors--he is/was also Germany's, as well). He initially wanted Gillis to sit up in the police morgue and start telling the story from his slab.

I think you can make a case for "Sunset Boulevard" being prime film-noir (and maybe an American Grand Guignol), as Wilder was adept at it—he also directed "Double Indemnity" and "Ace in the Hole," which would be his next picture for Paramount. The only thing leavens the bite a bit is the dark humor of it all, inspired by the excess and fatuousness of the movie-making scene. It's not so amazing that Hollywood let Wilder do this film. Every few years some disgusted writer or director claims to make an expose that'll blow the lid off Hollywood, be it "A Star Is Born," or "The Big Picture," or "S.O.B.," or "An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn."

Yeah, yeah. They all pale in comparison to "Sunset Boulevard" which starts in the gutter and stays there until its last shimmering-with-Vaseline fade to pitch-black. It doesn't surprise me at all that Gloria Swanson returned to movies for this part.* It's a fearless performance, full of self-awareness and assured brio. It would stay with her the rest of her life, and she would play a benign version of the role in what little work she did later on. It is interesting that Erich von Stroheim agreed to his butler role as he was a silent film director (and star) whose career was stalled by the extravagant budgets on his films—in fact, the "Norma Desmond" film that she shows Gillis was directed by von Stroheim (the barely-released "Queen Kelly").** It's also curious that Cecil B. DeMille participated in it, but not really. Although extremely conservative, it gave DeMille an opportunity to trumpet his new version of "Samson and Delilah," (and get paid doing it). That's the movie he's shown filming in his scenes.***

It's also neat that Franz Waxman, the movie's composer, snuck in the Paramount News-reel Theme in a couple places in the score. There are lots of in-jokes like that.

Not sure I agree with myself about the Billy Wilder/William Holden alter-ego thing, as you could also apply it to Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

And the movie's DID get small.

"Sunset Boulevard" is one of those must-see films. Just have a shower ready for after.

* The part was offered to Greta Garbo, Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri, who all turned it down, out of vanity or, in Pickford's case, horror at the material. Montgomery Clift was to play Joe Gillis, but quit two weeks before filming began. Clift was engaged in an affair of sorts with an older woman at the time, and probably thought comparisons would have been made.

** There's a story for you: financed by Joseph P. Kennedy (father of John, Robert and Edward) who was having an affair with the star, Gloria Swanson, and directed by von Stroheim, who was fired after a third of the picture had been shot. It was originally intended to be four hours long. That was a short subject compared to von Stroheim's original cut of "Greed" (1924), which ran for 9 hours. MGM's first feature length film, von Stroheim cut it down to 5 hours, then it was taken away from him by the studio and Irving Thalberg had it shortened to 2 1/4 hours. The rest of the film, and all the out-takes were melted down for the silver content. Max von Mayerling could be based a bit on German director Josef von Sternberg, who made Marlene Dietrich a star, and had something of a co-dependent relationship with her. Wilder tapped a rich vein when he wrote "Sunset Boulevard," as he did when he took on the press and its role in celebrity in "Ace in the Hole," (which, maybe because he didn't spare his scrutiny of the public's ability to be hood-winked, didn't do at all well at the box office. You don't bite the hand that feeds you...not directly, anyway).

*** Later, during the days of the Black List, DeMille would continually refer to Wilder (who was quite liberal) as "Billy Vilder" accentuating his German roots (as if his accent could disguise it!). The publicity angle is nothing new for deMille; he was a huckster. He started a campaign to have chiseled displays of the ten commandments erected in major city's courts for his 50's epic "The Ten Commandments." These are the same monuments that conservatives are falling all over themselves to preserve--even though they started out as movie SWAG.

John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy"

Fort Apache (1948)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Rio Grande (1950)

"This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend"

Chronologically, they're out of order. Two are in black and white. The third in glorious Oscar-winning color. Some characters appear in two of the three films. One man's story forms a character arc across two films, but you don't have to see both to know his story. They're all about honor. They're all about duty. They're all about family. They're all about the U.S. Cavalry during the move West. They're about carving civilization out of a rough-hewn wilderness.

And they're about the devastation of the Native people to achieve it. Ford would tackle the subject of the inherent racism behind that tragedy starting with The Searchers five years after the last of these films, then throughout the rest of his westerns. He touches on it in these films, in the duplicity of the white bureaucrats, military men and profiteers and you can see the crack forming in history as it occurred and History as it was presented in text...and the movies, as obvious as the crags etched into the location of all three films-the magnificent Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation.

And there is a fourth story not told in these films, but behind the scenes, of a film director bucking the studio system, and in so doing, casting a safety net to a civilization whose extinction was being chronicled, and often celebrated, in that system.


Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948) At Fort Apache, a finger of civilization has poked through the wild west. For the U.S. Cavalry, the isolated post has become home to some of the families of the men, and so tensions are high--there is unrest among the Apaches, led by Cochise--and security is a priority. Brought in to lead the way is Civil War general Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), an arrogant ideologue and martinet, with his own vision of the West that has nothing to do with reality.

Any similarity to George Armstrong Custer is strongly suggested—this at a time when the legend of Custer was still very much in keeping with his widow's intentions of keeping her husband in the most heroic of lights, aided and abetted by fawning newspapermen, nickel-biographers, covetous land-barons, and even the Anheuser-Busch company.*  Indeed, the "legend" of Custer would extend deep into the 1960's, decades after Ford's film.

Thursday takes no prisoners and no guff from his veteran cavalryman, Captain Kirby York (John Wayne), passed over for command of the fort, and who prefers a policy of negotiation. York doesn't blame the natives for the Apaches' anger, but, instead, the double-dealings of corrupt Indian agents. After watching years of uneasy relations shattered by Thursday's inflexibility, York must grit his teeth and watch as it leads to disaster, and then defend his superior officer's reputation for the good of the Corps.

Years later, in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the dictum behind York's reactions were spelled out plainly: "When the Legend becomes Fact, Print the Legend." York does what he does for the good of the Cavalry, but by promoting the myth. he is complicit in the further hard-nosed approach exemplified by Thursday and the decimation of the tribes.  The film's triumphant huzzahs to the U.S. Cavalry have a tinge of melancholy to them, as York's words are matched by a shot of riding troops in a pane of glass—a reflection.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949) Ford was encouraged by Wayne's performance in director Howard Hawks' Red River** to cast him as retiring Cavalry Officer Col. Nathan Brittles, a by-the-book cavalryman who bends rules until they almost snap. That includes personally negotiating with Cheyenne Chief Pony That Walks (Chief John Big Tree) to head off a bloody up-rising. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is full of Ford's hi-jinx and low humor, with squabbling lovers (Joanne Dru, John Agar and Harry Carey, Jr.), drunken sergeants,*** and the imminent retirement looming. Ford had worked in color before (Drums Along the Mohawk) and his set-pieces are bright contrasts to the red clay of the Monument Valley dirt. There is one unnervingly beautiful sequence of a night-time trek through Monument Valley in the middle of a lightning storm, done over the objections of the Technicolor Consultant, who subsequently won an Oscar for their "work."

Along with Carey, McLaglen and other members of the Ford stock company, a new face appeared--Ben Johnson, who in 1971, would win an Academy Award for The Last Picture Show. He was a horse wrangler and rider in Ford's productions and proved invaluable on the set. So much so that Ford rewarded him with a speaking part as Trooper Tyree, the Unit's invaluable scout, the first of many roles Johnson would play for Ford.

And it contains one of my favorite Ford moments: Wayne 's Brittles confronting the Chief Pony That Walks , played by Seneca Chief John Big Tree. In a quavering, ancient voice and shouting his dialogue, the old man still holds his own against Wayne, who usually blew other actors off the screen. "Hallelujah, Nathan! I am a Christian!" he shouts in greeting. His appearance must have given strokes to the "suits" in Hollywood. A native! Doing a speaking part! And you can't understand him! Why couldn't Ford get Anthony Quinn or something?****

And here, we interrupt to tell a tale. An aside, certainly, but on a subject more important than movies. There's a reason Ford consistently shot his Westerns in Monument Valley. Pictorially, it has a lot to do with a representation of vast, uncivilized space--rough-hewn ancient structures that show no sign of man, an unmarked slate. But, practically, it was more than that. Monument Valley sits square in the Four Corners on the Navajo Reservation. And to use that location, Ford had to pay the tribe. If he'd gone to Arches National Park a day's drive away, the money would have gone to the State of Utah. But, Monument Valley, the tribe.

On top of that, Ford and his production team used the Native's as extras, stuntmen, horsemen, consultants--money in the pockets of each tribesman. Those long lines of native riders beading the horizon in Ford westerns? All paid employees. The women and children that stuff the frames of village shots are not merely there for "color." They were all paid to get the tribe through a tough winter in one of the more inhospitable environments on the continent. And the Chief John Big Tree, though he may have had difficulty with his lines (and probably learned them phonetically) was paid the highest scale, merely for speaking lines in the script. There is a reason there is a John Ford tourist center at Monument Valley, and why he was made an honorary chief. Ford's Westerns saved more Indians than were represented to be killed. And his politically incorrect first suggestions of white duplicity in the "taming" of the West (which would culminate in his films The Searchers and Cheyenne Autumn--in which he endeavored to make a movie about "The Trail of Tears") began to seep the true story behind the "shoot-em-up's" and "Cowboys-and-Injuns" pictures which were a staple of American entertainment.

Ford's color sense and composition has a Master's eye.

Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) To finance the third Cavalry film (after the $1.6 million budget of Yellow Ribbon), Ford turned to B-movie studio Republic Pictures. Ford yearned to make The Quiet Man there, but studio head Herbert Yates, with no confidence in the script, persuaded Ford to first make Rio Grande.

Rio Grande takes a look at the further career of John Wayne's Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (he's sprouted an "e" on the end of his name, for one thing). Estranged from his wife (Maureen O'Hara), posted to the frontier to protect settlers from attacking Apaches, with inadequate forces to do the job, Yorke is feeling a lot of pressure, especially when Phil Sheridan asks him to cross into Mexico to confront the renegades where they're hiding. Then, on top of that, Yorke's son is stationed to his troop. Throughout the course of the movie, Yorke comes dangerously close to becoming the type of commander his old superior, Owen Thursday, was.

Ben Johnson returns as Trooper Tyree, as does Victor McLaglen as now Sgt. Major Quincannon. Harry Carey, Jr. plays another role entirely.

Ford made other western during this time period--Three Godfathers, his "Christmas Western," with Wayne, "Dobe" Carey and Pedro Armendariz, and Wagonmaster about the Mormon trek to Utah, with Ward Bond, Carey and Ben Johnson. But Ford's next film with a Cavalry presence would be "The Searchers," in which, accompanied by a jaunty Irish tune, the heroes of this trilogy would be responsible for the murder of women and children, and one of the main characters would turn to the other and question them "What'd they kill her for? She didn't hurt nobody!"

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance a newspaperman tells Congressman Stoddard "This is the West, sir. When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend," "becomes" in the sense of casting a better light on the Truth. Ford filmed his "Cavalry Trilogy" with that maxim in mind, and had even showed its employment in distorting History. Now, in the last part of his storied career, he would tear the Legend away to expose Truth, and show Americans in their entertainment, what was lost in winning the West.

* The beer giant commissioned a painting (below) that was distributed and hung in every saloon that carried their product.

* "I didn't know the dumb son-of-a-bitch could act!" he would remark to Howard Hawks.

** Played by Ford favorite, Victor McLaglen, whom Ford directed to a Best Actor Oscar for The Informer. McLaglen's character Sgt. Quincannon appears in the next Cavalry picture, Rio Grande, as well. There is a Sgt. Quincannon in Fort Apache, played by Dick Foran, rather than McLaglen. McLaglen plays the similar role of Sgt. Mulcahy in Fort Apache.

*** It was a common Hollywood practice to give the most prominent "foreign" role to white actors in make-up, and Ford was as much a victim of the practice as any director. In order to get his "Trail of Tears" epic Cheyenne Autumn made he was forced to use "name" stars such as Latinos Gilbert Roland, Dolores Del Rio, and Ricardo Montalban, and Italian Sal Mineo. Quinn, Mexican-American, has played Latino, Arab, Greek, Italian, Inuit, etc., etc.

Night and the City

"Night and the City" (Jules Dassin, 1950) Frenetic film noir directed by Jules Dassin two steps ahead of the HUAC that was trying to get him to name names. Dassin fled to London under the auspices of Darryl F. Zanuck to direct this turgid Film-Noir-in-London about a Charlie Hustle tout, Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark), exploiting people's passions trying to make a big score any way he can, this time through wrestling tournaments, encroaching on the turf of Kristo (Herbert Lom), who'll do anything to stop him. eEverything that is, except cross his father, who just happens to be Fabian's new business partner.

The first time we see Fabian, he's running. He spends a lot of time running in the film, trying to out-pace his creditors, or the next guy who wants to kill him, or dashing after The Next Big Thing, but the line between him running to something or from is a bit blurred now. And there's not much difference between the patter he spins his long-suffering girlfriend (Gene Tierney, whose small role belies her second billing placement) or any of the marks he's trying to hustle. Fabian's sincerity is veneer-thick, just enough to make you think he's on somebody's side besides his own. When he stands helplessly on the sidelines while his meal-ticket fights for his life (a brutal sequence amazingly staged by Dassin and the two wrestlers involved), you get the sense that he's distraught because his future could go up in smoke.

The thing is, Fabian's a rat in a trap, which is visually communicated by Dassin's many shots of him stuck in place, or running the maze-like side-streets and ruins of London, as well as the cages that substitute for offices in the sleazy back-world the denizens inhabit. Despite the squalor, the film is beautiful to look at, with Dassin and his cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum bending the shadows into Gothic patterns that rival those of "Citizen Kane."

"Night and the City" is a fascinating film, with an animated (perhaps too animated) Widmark performance-probably to make his character a bit more sympathetic; the British actors have their emotions checked in reserve and come off best, while Tierney's performance is all Fox-ingenue. And the desperate, frentic sense feels like it was made by a man on the run. Dassin stayed in Europe, continuing his career, which hit an international career-peak with "Never On Sunday" in 1960. He died March 31st this year in his adopted home of Greece.

"Night and the City" was remade in 1992, starring Robert DeNiro and Jessica Lange. It was not improved on.

Panic in the Streets (1950)

"Panic in the Streets" (Elia Kazan, 1950) Kazan's gritty "N'Orleans noir" with pneumonic plague substituting for the rot in men's souls. Richard Widmark steps away from playing giggling gangsters to take on a too-earnest-by-half Naval doctor who is alerted to a murder victim's communicable disease and must find the killers and anyone they've come in contact with before the people of New Orleans start falling in the streets. He's given grudging help by the police commisioner (Paul Douglas, great in a non-comedic role), but it's the targets of the man-hunt that are the real interest. One of the perpetrators is played by Zero Mostel, looking a hundred pounds lighter but with the same crazy comb-over and the quicksilver reactions that threaten to spill into comedy. As his boss Blackie is one Walter Jack Palance--yup, him, in one of his first movies--very young, very tall and with a face of so many concave facets that Kazan's naturalistic lighting schemes pay off in wierdly evocative ways. There's an extended chase through a coffee warehouse where the stunts, some of them a bit risky, are performed by Palance...and Mostel! Seeing the slightly svelter Zero leap from a ceiling transom to a stack of coffee bags is pretty scary to consider. Filmed on location with a lot of "real" folks playing "real folks" (and a lot of them are really good!), this kinetic movie keeps wanting to drop into hysteria at any moment--a Kazan trademark--but, that lends credence to the whole impending disaster.