Harrison's Reports (1962)

June 16, 1962 HARRISON'S REPORTS 91 the devoted servant of "The Phantom") leaps on to a massive chandelier. Underneath it is Miss Sears. Seeing the danger she's in the real composer rips off his mask, leaps from his box, saves the young prima donna as the chandelier crashes down on him. He dies as the curtain is hurriedly rung down. Produced by Anthony Hinds; directed by Terence Fisher; screenplay by John Elder based on the composition by Gaston Leroux. General patronage. "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" with Richard Beymer, Diane Baker, Corinne Calvet, Fred Clark, Dan Dailey, James Dunn, Arthur Kennedy, Susan Strasberg, Paul Newman (20th'Fox, August; 145 mins.) FAIR. This is endowed with an impressive roster of names with a box office powerhouse like Paul Newman, for instance, taking last billing. Giving him a punch-drunk role as "the battler''1 is not Newman histrionic fodder. His semi-demented character is one of those "I-dare-you-take-it-on" roles that, every now and then, finds an actor taking up the challenge and coming out of it all beaten up, professionally. The girls aren't going to go for this one with their romantic favorite portraying a repulsive, completely unsympathetic character. Because it's Newman, an ordinarily meager role was fattened up completely out of proportion, which in itself is a costly mistake if only because it slows up the overlong film. Jerry Wald didn't get much out of his cinematic tribute to the lusty, rough-and-tumble kind of literature that flowed from the prolific pen of Ernest Hemingway. Where Hemingway stops being himself, in the film, and fiction takes over is hard to say because Wald wanted to make this a pictorial symbol of the manliness with which our young Americans are endowed no matter what the period of time or the age of man. It is regrettable that the production team failed to get more out of this piece of Hemingwayana entertainment-wise. They had a lot going for them if only in cast investiture alone. The action revolves around Nick Adams (Richard Beymer) . The actor is not yet heavyweight enough to carry the arduous role, with its many transitions in mood, make-up, movement and motivation. Arthur Kennedy, as his doctorfather gives one of his sincerely-felt performances, showing emotional weakness only down toward the end when he commits suicide. Jessica Tandy as Beymer's mother is strict, stern, strainedly straight-laced. She does well at it. Beymer has gone through a series of strange adventures. He helps his father perform a Caesarean on an Indian; he breaks up with his boyhood sweetheart (Diane Baker) ; runs away from home; is robbed by a truck-driver; is beaten into a pulp by a freight train brake-man ; is finally befriended by Paul Newman (beyond recognition as a punchdrunk, crazed bum, former boxing champion) and Newman's devoted friend, Juano Hernandez (and what a performance Hernandez turns in). There is Beymer's meeting up with a press agent (Dan Dailey) who likes getting pasted personally better than pasting the circus billboards; going off to Europe in World War I and becoming a lieutenant in the Italian army ; getting shot; fearing he'll be a cripple forever; falling in love with his nurse (Susan Strasberg) seeing her die from wounds, but marrying her before life gives out; returning to his home in northern Michigan. He finds life so strange and disillusioning that he leaves home all over again in search of the adventurous kind of living that belongs to a boy when he reaches man's estate via time's swing of her relentless pendulum. Produced in CinemaScope-De Luxe Color. Photography, good. Produced by Jerry Wald; directed by Martin Ritt; screenplay by A. E. Hotchner based on stories by Ernest Hemingway. General patronage. "Boys' Night Out" with Kim Novak, James Garner, Tony Randall, Howard Duff, Janet Blair, Patti Page (M'G'M'Embassy, July; 115 mins.) FAIR. The M-G-M-Joe Levine forces started early on giving this a real "hard" sell. Now that the final product must be evaluated for what it should do at the box office, the entertainment results hardly measure up to that wonderful prelude with all its showmanship. The fault lies in the weakness of the story, and in the inability of the chief protagonist (Kim Novak) to deliver her part of the acting bargain. Considering the number of big films she's been in, the alluringly lovely Miss Novak should be doing, by this time, a better job of acting in front of those cameras. and, what a cast of seasoned talent the RansohoffGordon team has surrounded their vehicle with : James Garner (with his Tv build-up value) ; Tony Randall as a humble and submissive suburbanite husband; Howard Duff, formerly of Tv; such lovely people as Janet Blair, Patti Page, Anne Jeffreys, even Zsa Zsa Gabor is given a little footage. But, for all this acting talent the story comes out rather wobbly. For all the promise of the names and the catchiness of the title, you fail to come away from the proceedings with that overall feeling that you've had an enjoyable evening's entertainment. Added up it means this to the exhibitor: You shouldn't be taking a licking on this if you too do a strong "sell" on the film. This is a CinemaScope-Metrocolor job with fine photographic results. We pick the boys (four) up as they're planning to rent themselves an apartment in New York the better to enjoy their one night out each week. All but James Garner are married; - Tony Randall to Janet Blair, Howard Duff to Anne Jeffreys, Howard Morris to Patti Page. The boys advertise for a housekeeper and up shows Kim Novak, who really wants to rent the same apartment. She finds it matriculatingly expedient to go along with the mixup because she's boning her way through a flat and sluggish college thesis,--the sexual patterns of the suburban male. Since Garner is the bachelor, he was elected to conduct the rental negotiations,--apartment, housekeeper, etc. The boys think they've pulled off a cock-and-bull story on their wives. But, things do get around and soon the married ladies have a flathxit (Fred Clark) looking into things and over transoms. It isn't long before the tangled-up mess gets itself all straightened out, the married men go back to their embarrassed wives leaving the field for the negotiator. Garner. When the "housekeeper" pursues the fleeing Fred (Garner) and wants to make the whole thing for keeps, it pleases (Continued on Following Page)