The Man Who Never Was

The Man Who Never Was (Ronald Neame, 1956) I first read the story of the off-beat plan to distract the Nazis from British invasion plans in grade-school with a scholastic printing of Ewen Montagu's fascinating book.  I knew there'd been a short-lived TV series with Robert Lansing in the 60's—more live-spy than the actual event—but this had nothing to do with that.  This one was a true story.  It started a fascination with the morally ambiguous world of spies (in WWII and beyond) that still fills my trench-coat to this day.

But this story was true; the name of the corpse washed ashore was changed to protect the Allies on the invasion route to Sicily.  

On April 30, 1943, the body of Major William Martin of the Royal Marines was washed ashore on the beach of Huelva, Spain.  Chained to the loop of his trench-coat was a briefcase containing personal documents (so they wouldn't be transferred through official channels) that hinted that the invasion, code-named Operation Husky, would land at Greece and Sardinia, and that  deceptive intelligence efforts would be made to convince the Germans that the invasion would take place attacking Sicily.

It was all a hoax.  There was no Major Martin (although his obituary did appear in The London Times), and the body was a plant by British intelligence forces to sway the Germans from the actual Husky invasion of Sicily, a strategic "must" for the invasion of first Italy, and then the Eastern pincer move on Germany. (Winston Churchill once remarked that "Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it's Sicily").  The plan, dubbed "Operation Mincemeat"—in the hope that the Germans would "swallow" it—was concocted by Flight Lt. Charles Cholmondeley* and Lt. Cmdr. Montagu.  A corpse (that of a 34 year old Welshman Glyndwr Michael, who had no immediate family) was obtained, an elaborate back-history created, documents forged (including love letters and family correspondence), and dumped by submarine off the Spanish coast.

The Germans bought it...to the point where they still anticipated the attack two weeks after the Allies landed in Sicily.  The film of the book by Montagu (played in the film by Clifton Webb) takes a few liberties—it romanticizes some of the incidents (for instance the authorship of the love letters) and creates a follow-up operation that ensures the information is transferred by a German agent (Stephen Boyd, in his film debut) without embellishment to the enemy, but it's an interesting dramatization ("It's the most outrageous, disgusting, preposterous, not to say barbaric idea I've ever heard, but work out full details and get back to me in the morning!") about one of the wierder operations in a war full of them. 

* Cholmondeley got the idea from a multi-schemed memo by one intelligence officer named Ian Fleming (who was inspired by a novel by Basil Thomsen), who in 1953 would create his own intelligence agent, James Bond.

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.

The Greatest Show On Earth

"The Greatest Show On Earth" (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952)

Insufferable.

In every way, insufferable.

Let's leave out winning the 1952 Best Picture Oscar (over "High Noon" and "The Quiet Man"*), as obvious Hollywood Industry pandering during the McCarthy Era anti-communist witch-hunt to the Grand Wizard of that cause, Cecil B. DeMille.

Let's just take that out of the equation and take the film for what it is.

"The Greatest Show On Earth" is an extended commercial/documentary/drama for The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Filmed in eye-popping Technicolor (which is where the film, showing off the bright colors in many hues, truly is spectacular), that begins with the Director sepulchrally narrating a series of work-a-day location footage of the circus being prepped for its yearly run. The pompous tone that he sets is akin to a war film, the army metaphors stacked up thick and deep like a chain of marching elephants, with all the accompanying lack of grace and subtlety. Leave it to DeMille to take the fun out of a circus and turn it into something resembling boot-camp.

We transition (roughly, as DeMille's favorite transition is a quick right to left scene wipe, making it all seem like a moving slide-show) to the stars of the film acting roles that the folks who are told to stay out of their way actually do. Charlton Heston is the circus "boss"--the show-runner, if you will--who, in order to guarantee a "full season" (the complete city tour) has brought a marquee name, "The Great Sebastian" (Cornel Wilde, cheerily smarmy) to take the center ring, displacing his aerialist sweetie, the plucky but vain Holly, played by Betty Hutton.

This top-billed character is particularly annoying. Hutton could play dumb well (with a vocal range from A to A-), but here's she's a schizo in need of a pair of padded tongs and a generator, with a change of motivation and character for every change of scene. Buffed up to do her own trapeze stunts (smattering of applause for that), her character is so insecure that she's a harpie spinning like a Tasmanian Devil: "I HATE the Great Sebastian!" "I'm JEALOUS of the Great Sebastian!" "I LOVE the Great Sebastian," "No, now I HATE the Great Sebastian!" "I LOVE you, Sebastian!" "I feel GUILTY about Sebastian" "I'm going to forsake my Ca-REER for Sebastian!")

I pity Sebastian, myself. As well as Heston, the guy you see rubbing his neck from whip-lash. See, she's in love with his character, although she's annoyed with the fact that he spends all his time trying to keep the Circus going, thus letting her keep the only job she's capable of, besides waving on floats. Hutton's Holly not only wears her heart on her sleeve, but also her ankle, around her pretty little neck as a broach, as a hat, anything but a symbol of commitment. She accuses Heston's Brad Braden** of having "sawdust in his veins"--at least he's got something in his. I wanted her capped in the head with her own trapeze twenty minutes in. Probably sawdust in that, too.

No such luck. Before one can turn their attention to what Holly would look like in the tiger-cage and quicker than one can shout "Sebastian! No! Don't do it without the net!!," tragedy does befall the circus leading to broken bones and souls, angst and recrimination and another case of Holly-pong in desperate need of a net...held by men in white coats.

The movie sets up a dull pattern: stentorian documentary section narrated by DeMille on "Circus as War Machine"/slide wipe to melodrama/slide-wipe to an extended sequence of abbreviated cir-cussedness that manages to make you feel slighted while still feeling interminable each time. Along the way, much of the subjects' opportunities are squandered, if not down-right sabotaged. For a scene of DeMille's heavies planning badness, DeMille stages the two Runyon-esque hoods*** (without the quaint patois) in front of a process shot simulating the outdoors. Halfway, DeMille cuts to a tighter shot of the two, but behind them the projection-screen image doesn't move, making it look like they've quantum-jumped closer to the camera. It's an amateurish give-away of a process shot.

And there's a cynical, rather crude attitude towards the circus audience—pandering to the audience while bashing them at the same time by endlessly showing giddy parents consuming ice-cream cones while their bored children look like they to want to erp up their cotton candy. But as the originator of this particular circus so famously said: "There's a sucker born every minute!" DeMille knew that lesson well.

Another lesson is the one of justice, where kindly Dr. Buttons (James Stewart in perpetual clown make-up...Richard Kimble never used that trick!), a surgeon on the lam for murder, unselfishly sacrifices himself by helping injured people on a train-wreck, exposing his true identity and is rewarded by getting cuffed and hauled off to the iron bar hotel. It was the '50's, after all—he could have been lynched. That would have to wait for prison, I guess. Thanks, doc! Take him away, boys.

Another little game of the movie is a sporadic "Spot the Stars." There's Hopalong Cassidy ! There's...somebody? Is that dewey debutante Jeanne Crain or a DeMille "ingenue?" And Bob Hope and Bing Crosby show up during Dorothy Lamour's number because its a Cyclical Universe on the Paramount Lot, with very tight gravitational rules; you could almost make a case for Creationism.

At some point during this megalith, you begin to realize with butt-numbing certainty, that if DeMille had cut out any of his "Circuses aren't some pink clown-show, they're American Hard Work" lectures, or maybe cut a "Tribute" sequence or parade or two, or one of the forgettable songs (or allowed Holly one less seizure) that the movie wouldn't have had to clock in at 2 1/2 hours in length.

2 1/2 hours is a longish book, with...ya know...subtlties, not a circus movie. But DeMille must have seemed unable to strip whole sequences, however redundant, away. Like Spielberg wanting to over-stuff "1941"**** with beloved-by-none-but him-gut-and-budget-busting sequences, DeMille super-saturates the screen until the Technicolor fairly bleeds. And he couldn't bear, or didn't know enough, to cut any of it.

The only thing never mentioned in the many of DeMille's "Bozo Marches On!" narrations, is the requisite shovelling of the tons of manure. Why bother? The evidence is all there on the screen.

* ...and the not-even-nominated "Singin' in the Rain."

** ?...Brad Braden...of the "we-couldn't-come-up-with-a-better-last-name" Bradens? I think he became an "Ewok" trainer in later life.

*** One of them being Hollywood bad boy/guy Lawrence Tierney. He and Heston have a seething scene of clashing testosterone blasts.

**** It was this very movie that inspired the Spiel-boy-g to pursue a career directing films. Spielberg learned his lessons concerning movie elephantiasis in his 20's. DeMille was in his 60's.