Harrison's Reports (1959)

118 HARRISON'S REPORTS July 25, 1959 "A Private's Affair" with Sal Mineo, Christine Carere, Barry Coe, Barbara Eden and Gary Crosby (20th Century-Fox, August; 92 mins.) The hi-jinks, low antics and amatory adventures of a spirited trio of draftees in the peacetime Army forms the basis for this richly mounted CinemaScope' De-Luxe Color comedy-with-music from 20th-CenturyFox. Strictly summerweight in content, and designed as a showcase for young talent — Sal Mineo, Barry Coe, Gary Crosby, Christine Carere, Barbara Eden and Terry Moore — the film should gather in some respectable box office grosses among the teen set, particularly in the drive-ins. In addition to the aforementioned sextet, the film also boasts the presence of two fine character players — Jim Backus and Jesse Royce Landis. Despite the presence of this sterling marquee lineup, the biggest laughs of the film are garnered by a chimpanzee act — The Marquis Family, who cavort and caper in typical chimp fashion and prove to be thoroughly cativating in the process. Raoul Walsh, the director, keeps things moving in lively fashion and doesn't give the viewer the opportunity to reflect on the thinness of the screenplay. There are three songs by Jimmy McHugh, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans with one — "The Same Old Army" having the best chance to click: — Sal Mineo, a beatnik with beard, Barry Coe, cleancut collegian, and Gary Crosby, playboy cattle rancher, are drafted at the same time and all end up in the same barracks of a New Jersey army camp. The three become fast friends and are soon involved with three girls; Mineo with Moore, Crosby with Eden, an army sergeant, and Coe with Carere, a French temptress. When the three men are chosen to appear on Jim Backus' television show as a vocal trio, Coe complicates matters by coming down with laryngitis. While he is in the hospital, Jesse Royce Landis, Assistant Secretary of the Army, appears, and as a result of an incredible mix-up, is wedded to Coe who is under sedation. Coe dimly remembers the incident and winds up under psychiatric observation when he mentions it. He escapes and returns to the TV show but ends up in trouble with Carere who wants no part of a married man. In a further attempt to right the matter he is deposited in the psychiatric ward once again, but finally manages to convince the psychiatrist that he is telling the truth. This causes a minor crisis in the Pentagon, but Jesse Royce Landis hears of it and sets the entire situation to rights by destroying the marriage papers and legally dissolving the marriage just in time for Coe to return to the TV show and join his buddies and their girl in the singing of the final song. It was produced by David Weisbart and directed by Raoul Walsh from a screenplay by Winston Miller. Family. "The Scapegoat" with Alec Guinness and Bette Davis (M-G-M August; 92 mins.) The incomparable Alec Guinness, who has fashioned a career out of playing multiple roles, is at it again with two successful characterizations in the film version of Daphne Du Maurier's best-selling suspense novel. He starts out as a mild-mannered, lonely English schoolmaster, and ends up as a de bauched French aristocrat, replete with family and mistress. The film has many intriguing characteristics; it is well-acted and well-directed as well as being fascinating and suspenseful for most of the footage. But despite these assets, several ingredients are absent that would lift it out of the class of ordinary mysteryfilms and into the rarefied atmosphere of such as "Odd Man Out" and "The Third Man." Basically the faults are lack of depth in the characterizations and a palpably weak conclusion. Business prospects will not be bright away from the big cities — and even there the film is best suited for art house presentation. In addition to Guinness, Bette Davis provides a baroque characterization as a cigar-smoking, morphineaddicted, terrorizing harridan, Irene Worth and Nicole Maurey both contribute excellent performances as the wife and mistress of Guinness respectively while Pamela Brown and Annabel Bartlett are equally effective: — While on a motoring tour of France, Guinness, a mild and meek Englishman reflects upon his lonely state in life, but is soon blasted from his reverie by the appearance of a stranger who is his exact double. The pair drink the night away but the English Guinness wakens to discover that his French counterpart has disappeared, leaving Guinness to take over his life as an impoverished French aristocrat. Guinness attempts to avoid this, but when the chauffeur of the French version arrives, he finds himself unable to explain the switch. After much vain argument he finally decides to attempt the impersonation. Once at the Frenchman's castle, he discovers the reasons why the man had been so anxious to be replaced; he discovers his mother, Bette Davis, to be a morphine-addicted tyrannical harpy, his young daughter to be an insecure, frightened girl with a religious mania that centers around the gorier of saintly episodes, his wife, Irene Worth, turns out to be a psycopath, his sister, Pamela Brown, hates him, and his brother-in-law draining the profits of the small family business. About the only bright spot is the lovely Italian mistress, Nicole Maurey The story continues uneventfully, except for some minor incidents about the impersonation being unmasked, until the real Frenchman returns and murders his wife. Guinness confronts Guinness in the final scene and the Englishman shoots the Frenchman thereby turning the tables on the Frenchman who hoped to profit from the money that was to come from the death of his wife. Film closes with Guinness going to Nicole Maurey with an implied promise of future happiness. It was produced by Michael Balcon and directed by Robert Hamer. Screenplay by Gore Vidal and Robert Hamer. Adult. "Face of Fire" with Cameron Mitchell and and James Whitmore (Allied Artists, August; 83 mins.) This version of Stephen Crane's classic tale, "The Monster," a British import, made in Sweden, is a sensitively produced film about the changes wrought in the life of a popular man when his face is disfigured by fire. In addition, it is a faithful and realistic reproduction of life as lived in a small town in the United States at the turn of the century. The film, produced by Albert Band and Louis Garfinklc, makes no attempt to pander to popular tastes nor docs it have any