Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin (1963)

"Follow the Boys" to the room and destroys the demon, but Price also perishes in the inferno. SuiuteM &<tiiK? O O Plus Fluffy, amusing romatic Comedy embellished with songs by Connie Francis. Should do well with youthful trade. This M-G-M release is a lightweight romantic comedy about the sailors of the U.S. 6th Fleet and the wives and sweethearts ("seagulls") who follow them from port to port. The bright, youthful cast, a package of lilting songs (delivered with zest by popular Connie Francis) and handsome on-the-Riviera Metrocolor-Panavision backgrounds should make "Follow the Boys" a popular attraction with the youth element, despite the rather thinly stretched plot. Richard Thorpe's frothy direction makes the most of the various plot complications. Miss Francis is seen as a sailor's bride of two hours, who follows the fleet to France to make her marriage something more than a name. Roger Perry is the husband who finds himself in plenty of Navy dutch while trying to spend a few hours with her. Fast-rising star Paula Prentiss portrays a "hip" young heiress to a canning business and the fiancee of meat company heir Richard Long, a wolf in officer's clothing. Janis Paige is cast as a "seagull" for thirteen years who intends placing husband Ron Randell on dry land, where they can start a home and babies. French star Dany Robin is the fourth boy-chaser, a debt collector secretly commissioned to get Long to make some bad checks good. Russ Tamblyn is also on hand as a young lieutenant who has a girl in every port. Numerous complications unfold before Miss Francis and Perry finally manage some time together, Miss Prentiss lands Tamblyn, Miss Paige gives in forever to Randell's waterlust, and Long decides he wants to change his roving ways for Miss Robin. M-G-M. 95 minutes. Connie Francis, Paula Prentiss, Ron Randell, Janis Paige, Russ Tamblyn. Produced by Lawrence P. Bachmann. Directed by Richard Thorpe. "Diary of a Madman" 3ct4iKC44 7£<Zt£tt$ O O PIUS Expoitable horror entry with Vincent Price raising plenty of of goosepimples. In color. OK dualler for ballyhoo market. That horror hambone, Vincent Price, has another eye-rolling field day in this United Artists shocker based on stories by Guy de Maupassant, and handsomely mounted in Technicolor. If backed by imaginative promotion, "Madman" will prove a profitable dual bill item for the action-ballyhoo market. Directed by Reginald Le Borg in a manner certain to satisfy devotees of goosepimple fare, and aided by grotesque murders and special effects, the film traces the downfall of 19th Century French magistrate Price, who finds himhelf possessed of a demon (the Horla) who forces him to kill. Nancy Kovack costars as a sensual model who agress to give up her struggling artist husband, Chris Warfield, and run away with the wealthy Price. Producer-scripter Robert E. Kent's plot finds the invisible Horla convincing Price that he is evil and responsible for his wife's suicide. Then the Horla sends knife-wielding Price to murder Miss Kovack. The next morning, remembering nothing of the previous night, Price is horrified to find Miss Kovack's severed head on a bust he has sculptured. The police arrest Warfield, and Price denies knowing Miss Kovack. Now completely possessed by the Horla, Price is ordered to kill pretty Elaine Devry, an art gallery owner's daughter in love with Warfield. About to knife her on a dark street, the shadow of a cross comes into Price's view. He awakens from his trance and throws the knife away. Price writes everything down in a diary, gives it to Miss Devry with orders not to open it until after his death, then locks the Horla in his study. He sets fire United Artists. 96 minutes. Vincent Price, Nancy Kovack. Produced by Robert E. Kent. Directed by Reginald Le Borg. "Five Miles to Midnight" S«4tHC4d IZctiUy O O PIUS Moderately suspenseful melodrama about husband's involvement of wife in insurance fraud. B.O. depends on Lor en, Perkins drawing power, promotion. This suspense melodrama concerning an attempted insurance fraud, produced and directed by Anatole Litvak, will find boxoffice returns leaning heavily on the drawing power of stars Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins, plus the aggressive showmanship put behind it by United Artists. It should receive its most satisfying response from action and adventure fans. Although Litvak's knowing directorial hand is in evidence, including the effective Parisian backgrounds he employs, the Peter Viertel-Hugh Wheeler screenplay doesn't quite ring true. Tighter editing would help produce the heightening of tensions obviously intended. The plot finds Miss Loren fed up with her immature American husband, Perkins. The latter departs on a Casablanca business trip, the plane crashes, and all aboard are presumed dead, but Perkins turns up alive (having been thrown clear during the crash) and decides to play dead and collect $120,000 worth of insurance. There is a certain degree of suspense— Perkins passing tedious days hiding out in their apartment; an unwilling Miss Loren nervously going through the formalities to collect the insurance (just to be rid of Perkins); Perkins discovered by a curious youngster; drunken friends dropping in unexpectedly on Miss Loren. Unfortunately, Perkins is too unsympathetic as the sniveling weakling and Miss Loren is wasted in a far-fetched characterization. Gig Young has a small part as a newspaper correspondent with whom Miss Loren falls in love, and Jean-Pierre Aumont appears briefly as another newspaperman with whom Miss Loren is having an affair. Miss Loren collects the money and Perkins, refusing to give her up, threatens to involve her in the swindle if she leaves him. Driven to the point of madness, Miss Loren runs Perkins down on a deserted road. Young learns the truth and convinces Miss Loren to turn herself in. United Artis's. 110 minutes. Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young. Produced and Directed by Anatole Litvak. The Vieu from OuUiJe ( Continued from Page 8) around with; but it has never occurred to him to do anything about the trashy girlie magazines in his home, or the elastic moral standards they imply. v Don't get me wrong. Sex is a wonderful thing — and a clean thing — when you grow up into it the right way. But lax parents are a perversion of nature, and their children don't grow up the right way. We live in the idea that we no longer have to work for local law and order. Law and order are regarded as a standard municipal service like water supply or garbage collection. They aren't quite the same. If we want to stamp out rowdyism, we've got to be good tough parents and citizens willing to stand up for our rights. We've got to be willing to back up our law enforcement agencies with the facilities, the laws and the cooperation they need. And those in the movie business at the creative end of the line might remember that if suggestive costuming and sensationmongering don't cause riots they certainly don't bring out the best in people, either. Page 18 Film BULLETIN March 4, 1963