Harrison's Reports (1954)

202 HARRISON’S REPORTS December 18, 1954 “Young At Heart” with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra Ok (Warner Bros., Jan. 1; time, 117 min.) A wholesome and heart-warming romantic drama with music, photographed in WarnerColor with prints by Technicolor. It should go over well with the general run of audiences, for it has deep human appeal and good comedy, both in situation and dialogue, and songs both old and new that arc made all the more pleasurable by the singing of Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. The picture is a remake of “Four Daughters,” produced by Warners in 1938, and except for some minor changes the story is substantially the same. There are situations that tug at one’s heartstrings and others that provoke considerable laughter. The direction is fine and the acting very good. Doris Day is as winning as ever in the principal feminine lead, and Frank Sinatra gives further evidence of his dramatic ability by his outstanding performance as a frustrated, moody music arranger who takes a new interest in life when he falls in love with Miss Day. The actions of all the characters seem natural and real. The color photography is tops: — The happy home of Robert Keith, a musician, Doris Day, Dorothy Malone and Elizabeth Fraser, his daughters, and Ethel Barrymore, his spinster sister, is made happier when Gig Young, a handsome and carefree composer, moves in with them. He wins over every one by his infectious gayety, but the interest he shows in Doris causes the other two sisters to suffer pangs of jealousy, even though they had boy-friends of their own. Shortly after his arrival, 'Young sends for Sinatra, his music arranger, a bitter fatalistic fellow, who was convinced that the world was against him. Doris, feeling sorry for him, tries to cheer him up and is so successful that he falls madly in love with her. His dreams are shattered, however, when Doris and Young announce their engagement. On the day of her wedding, Doris learns that Elizabeth, whom she adored, was in love with Young, though Young himself was unaware of it. Not wanting to hurt Elizabeth, she runs away with Sinatra and marries him. They live in New York, where Sinatra struggles to make a living playing a piano in a dingy nightclub. They return to Doris’ home at Christmas time for a family reunion, where they meet up again with Young, who displays no animosity over the disappointment he had suffered. Meanwhile Elizabeth had gotten over her crush and was preparing to marry Lonny Chapman, a local suitor, while Dorothy had already married Alan Hale, Jr. Sinatra, discouraged over his financial struggles and believing that Doris would be happier with Young, deliberately crashes a car he was driving in an attempted suicide. At the hospital, Doris pleads with him to live, reveals that she is going to have a baby, and convinces him that she truly loved him. It all ends on a happy note, with Sinatra recovering and looking forward to a successful future as a composer of his own songs. It was produced by Henry Blanke, who made the 1938 version, and directed by Gordon Douglas, from a screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Lenore Coffee, based on a story by Fannie Hurst. Family. “Devil’s Harbor” with Richard Arlen and Greta G)mt (20th Century-Fox, December; time, 71 min.) A mediocre British-made crime melodrama, of program grade. Revolving around a series of drug robberies and around the efforts of an insurance investigator to trap the crooks, the story itself is very ordinary and it fails to hold one’s interest mainly because it is given more to talk than to action. Another handicap is the choppy editing. Its chief asset insofar as the exhibitors in this country are concerned is the name of Richard Arlen, who is the only American player in the otherwise all-British cast. The direction is routine and the acting so-so: — Arlen, captain of a small cargo boat, breaks up a fight between two men who scamper away, leaving behind a small package. Arlen puts the package in his duffel bag, unaware of the contents. Meanwhile Donald Houston, chief investigator for an insurance company, seeks to solve a series of drug robberies. It comes out that the gang of thieves committing the robberies were seeking the package that Arlen had put in his duffel bag, and they begin to trail him in the hope that he will lead them to the bag, but he had left it in a cafe as security for an unpaid food bill. In the complicated events that follow, Arlen finds himself annoyed when both his room and that of Greta Gynt, his sweetheart, are ransacked by the thieves. He trails Mary Germaine, an insurance company employee in cahoots with the thieves, to her office, and in that way stumbles into Houston and learns about the drug robberies, which he connects with the package in his duffel bag. He then joins forces with Houston to track down and capture the gang, thus earning a handsome reward that enables him to marry Greta. It was written and produced by Charles Deane, and directed by Montgomery Tully. Unobjectionable morally. “Bad Day at Black Rock” with Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan and Anne Francis (MGM, January; time, 81 min.) An impressive, suspenseful melodrama, one that is tense and exciting from start to finish. Photographed in CinemaScope and Eastman color, the story, which takes place in 194? in a drab, isolated Southwestern town, and which centers around the mixed reaction of hostility and fear that grips the thirty-seven inhabitants when a stranger arrives and inquires about a JapeneseAmerican farmer, has been given a fascinating and intriguing treatment, one that results in constantly mounting tension as the reasons for the stranger’s visit and the town’s reaction to him become apparent. Spencer Tracy turns in one of his top screen performances as the fearless stranger with a paralyzed arm. The manner in which he uncovers that fact that the whole town was trying to cover up the murder of the farmer, and the methods he employs to bring the guilty persons to justice, despite the danger to his own life, will keep the spectator on the edge of his seat. A highly exciting sequence is where the crippled Tracy, goaded into a fight by a bully, skillfully employs judo tactics to beat him into unconsciousness. The direction is expert and so is the acting of the other players in the cast. The drabness of the desert backgrounds and the magnificence of the distant mountains, as caught by the CinemaScope camera and color photography, create just the right mood for this unusual story: — As the first stranger to visit the tiny town of Black Rock, a whistle-stop, in four years, Tracy finds himself greeted with suspicion and hostility by the inhabitants, several of whom menace him to the point of violence as they try to find out the reasons for his visit. It subsequently comes out that he was seeking a JapaneseAmerican farmer, to give him a medal won by his son, who had died while saving Tracy’s life in the Italian campaign. Tracy’s mission sets in motion a series of incidents in which the townspeople, dominated by Robert Ryan, a powerful rancher, try to force him to leave without delay. Actually, they were trying to prevent him from learning that the man he sought had been murdered by Ryan and several accomplices during the war. Annoyed at first, Tracy becomes furious at the hostility he encounters and manages to ride out to the farm owned by the farmer. There he finds the place in ruins and discovers evidence that he had been murdered. When his efforts to communicate with the state police are thwarted, he tells Ryan bluntly that he knows he killed the farmer and that he would make him pay for the crime. Ryan then sees to it that Tracy is not permitted to leave the town, and he sets up an elaborate scheme to have him murdered. Aware of Ryan’s intentions, Tracy manages to convince Dean Jagger, the inept sheriff; Walter Brennan, a kindly old veterinarian; and John Ericson, the hotel clerk, that the whole town will always live in fear unless Ryan is brought to justice. Ericson arranges for Anne Francis, his sister, to drive Tracy out of town in her jeep. But Anne, in league with Ryan, leads Tracy into a trap. Ryan kills Anne to eliminate her as a witness and then starts to shoot at Tracy, but by an ingenious trick Tracy sets Ryan on fire and kills him. He returns to Black Rock with the bodies of Ryan and Anne, and finds that Jagger, aided by Ericson and Brennan, had put Ryan’s murder accomplices behind bars. He leaves the town, confident that it had regained its self-respect. It was produced by Dore Schary, and directed by John Fturges, from a screenplay by Millard Kaufman, based on a story by Howard Breslin. Family.