Harrison's Reports (1950)

178 HARRISON'S REPORTS November 11, 1950 "Kansas Raiders" with Audie Murphy, Brian Donlevy and Marguerite Chapman (Univ.'Int'l, November; time, 80 min.) This western-type Technicolor melodrama, which depicts Jesse James and several other famous outlaws in their younger days as members of the infamous Quantrill raiders, has all the excitement that one expects to find in a picture of this kind, but it is unpleasant. Not only is the action ruthless and excessively brutal, but the story is demoralizing in that it attempts to win sympathy for murderous char' acters. Moreover, it is ethically unsound, for at the finish the desperadoes, although deserving of punishment for their misdeeds, ride off into the hills scot-free. Aside from these shortcomings, the story is unconvincing, and the character' izations confusing, for their motivations are never made quite clear. The acting is adequate, in spite of the fact that the script is below par. The story casts Audie Murphy, as Jesse James; Richard Long, as Frank James; Anthony Curtis, as Kit Dalton; and James Best and Dewey Martin, as the Younger Brothers. Led by Murphy, the five men, all under twenty-one, ride into Kansas to join up with Brian Donlevy (as Quantrill), leader of a guerrilla band that was looting and burning Union towns in the name of the Confederacy. When the boys meet Donlevy, they make it clear that they were out to avenge themselves on Union soldiers who had burned their farms and had murdered unarmed relatives. Donlevy tests Murphy's courage by having one of his tough aides pick a fight with the youngster. Murphy stabs the man to death. Impressed by the lad's fighting ability, Donlevy makes him a top aide. Marguerite Chapman, Donlevy's mistress, takes a liking to Murphy and warns him that Donlevy is nothing more than a blood-thirsty murderer seeking personal profit and power. Murphy realizes the truth of these words on his first raid, when the raiders swoop down on a farm settlement, killing unarmed men and looting and burning the buildings. The sight of the wanton destruction is revolting to Murphy and, under Martha's prodding, he decides to quit, but he soon comes under the spell of Donlevy's magnetism and stays on, despite his abhorance of the continued wanton killings. Eventually, both the Union and Confederate military leaders brand Donlevy as an outlaw, and his raiders are compelled to split up to evade capture. Donlevy, wounded in a clash with Union soldiers, is taken to a hideout by Murphy and his group, but the soldiers, headed by Richard Arlen, soon find the hideout and sur' round it. At the finish, Donlevy sacrifices his life in a suicidal dash from the hideout, thus drawing the soldiers' fire in a way that permits Murphy and the others to escape. It was produced by Ted Richmond and directed by Ray Enright from a story and screen play by Robert L. Richards. Adult fare. "Paper Gallows" with an all-British cast (Eagle-Lion, September; time, 68 min.) A mediocre British-made murder melodrama; it will probably have tough sledding in this country even as the lower half of a double bill. The story is a grim, moody affair that unfolds in an obvious manner and, even though it does have a few thrills and several suspenseful moments, the acting is so unrestrained that one loses interest in the proceedings. Not much can be said for the direction, which is amateurish, nor for the production values, which are extremely modest. Moreover, the English accents of the players are so thick at times that one has difficulty understanding the dialogue: — John Bentlcy and Dermot Walsh, brothers and authors of crime stories, share a large country home with Rona Anderson, their pretty secretary. Rona loves Bentlcy, a clean-cut chap, arousing the jealousy of Walsh, a inoody, neurotic fellow. Walsh, determined to write a classic murder thriller, goes to great lengths to obtain authentic color, even to the point of murdering an ex-convict, a friend who had come to call on the brothers. The man's failure to keep his appointment causes Bentley to suspect his brother of foul play, but Walsh shrewdly attempts to make it appear as if the missing man was still alive. Bentley, however, continues to search for the body. An intense hatred grows up between the brothers, and Rona herself soon finds reason to suspect and fear Walsh. Learning that Bentley had come across a clue that was sure to reveal him as the murderer, Walsh starts dictating his new novel to Rona. She soon becomes aware of the fact that the story was, in reality, an account of how he had committed the murder and of the manner in which he had covered up the crime. For the final chapter to the novel, he forces Rona into a storage room and prepares to hang her from a rafter, but the attempt is thwarted by the timely arrival of Bentley. Walsh, by this time a total nervous wreck, meekly awaits the police. John Guillermin wrote the screen play, directed it, and co-produced it with Robert Jordan Hill. Adult fare. "Mad Wednesday" with Harold Lloyd (RKO, no rel. date set; time, 77 min.) (Editor's 'Hote: The following review was originally published in the February 22, 1947 issue, under the title. "The Sin of Harold Diddlebocl{." Originally set for release through United Artists, the picture was held bac\ and is now ready for release through RKO. Twelve minutes have been cut from its original running time of 89 minutes. The review is being reproduced for the guidance of this paper's subscribers.) A highly amusing slapstick comedy, with many uproarious laugh-creating situations throughout. The film marks the return of Harold Lloyd to the screen, and a welcome one it is, for his brand of comedy is as effective as ever. The story, which was written, produced, and directed by Preston Sturges, has many novel and original touches, centering around Lloyd's transformation, as a result of his first drink, from a timid, middle-aged bookkeeper to a brazen, un' inhibited playboy, who paints the town red, wins a fortune gambling on the horses, and wakes up from his drunken orgy to find that he had invested his winnings in a circus that was on the verge of bankruptcy. The most hilarious sequences have to do with his efforts to sell to uninterested bankers in Wall Street the idea of sponsoring a free circus for children in order to win friends. Meeting with rebuffs, he decides to make the bankers listen to him by calling on them with a tame lion in tow. The commoition he causes in the financial district will have your patrons literally rolling in the aisles, particularly the sequence in which the lion breaks loose, crawls onto a fire escape, and from there onto a narrow parapet many stories above the street. Lloyd's efforts to get the lion back into the building, and his slipping off the ledge and dangling in mid-air from the lion's leash, is all-out slapstick in the "Safety Last" manner, but it is extremely well done and should provoke riotous laughter. The start of the picture is novel in that it opens with an actual sequence from Lloyd's "The Freshman," which he produced in 1925. This sequence is the one in which Lloyd, as a water boy on the football team, is permitted to enter the game only because injuries to the team left no other player available. How he wins the game through a series of mistakes is just as comical now as it was then, and it should make one laugh to his heart's content. The present story dovetails with the old one by showing Lloyd being acclaimed as a hero in the dressing room, where Raymond Walburn, an alumnus, offers him a job in his advertising agency. He starts work at the bottom and, twenty-two years later, we find him doing the same perfunctory work, tired and resigned to his menial job. It is not until he is fired for being too old that he meets up with Jimmy Conlin, a racetrack tout, who talks him into having his first drink, which in turn sets him off on his wild spree. Conlin, incidentally, does an outstanding comedy job. Others in the cast include Rudy Vallee, Edgar Kennedy, Arline Judge, Franklin Pangborn, Lionel Stander, and Frances Ramsden, a charming newcomer, with whom Lloyd finds romance. Unobjectionable morally.