Motion Picture Daily (Jan-Mar 1951)

6 Motion Picture Daily Tuesday, March 6, 1951 Motion Picture Daily Feature Reviews "Teresa" (Arthur Lociv-Mctro-Goldivyn-Maycr) Hollywood, March 5 EXHIBITORS operating so-called "art theatres'' might do quite a thing with this picture by advertising it as proof that an American producing outfit can take a crew to Italy and come back with a picture as good, in the same ways, as the Italian outfits export to us. Such advertising might induce controversy and attendance. But the commercial exhibitor is likely to find it much more difficult to persuade his regular customers to turn out in force for a 103-minute feature unprovocatively titled, thin as to names, and decidedly scrambled in point of subject matter. Whether customers who do turn out for it will consider themselves repaid for their time and money is for tomorrow to tell, but those among them who do will have won out over many discouragements. These include background noises that obscure the dialogue, much of which is in Italian or spoken with Italian accent, abrupt changes of scene, arbitrary switches of theme emphasis and, finally, a resort to close-ups of babies as a means of rescuing a floundering story. The players, in screen-credit order, are : Pier Angeli, an Italian actress, John Ericson, Patricia Collinge, Richard Bishop, Peggy Ann Garner, Ralph Meeker, Bill Mauldin, (famed otherwise than for acting), Ave Ninchi, Rod Steiger, Aldo Silvani, Tommy Lewis, and so on. The film was produced by Arthur M. Loew, largely in Italy and partly here, and directed by Fred Zinnemann, who made quite a name for himself with "The Search," a fact an exhibitor can refer to in exploiting this picture. The screenplay is by Stewart Stern, from an original story by himself and Alfred Hayes. There appears to have been some lack of agreement between them as to what they were going to write about. The picture bpens in Italy, near the close of World War II, with Ericson, a big, but timid New York recruit, joining an Army company that has taken possession of a small Italian town where Miss Angeli, mild-mannered member of a large family, lives. They are attracted to each other, and are getting on fairly well when he is sent into action, loses his nerve, becomes shocked and is hospitalized. Released from the hospital when cease-fire has come, he returns and marries her, leaving shortly thereafter for New York, with her to follow. At home he decides to conceal the fact of his marriage for a time from his family, but his mother finds out about it, and eventually he sends for his wife. When she arrives they share the parental apartment with his father, mother and sister, and he seeks work, but does not have much luck at it until, after his wife has told him she is expecting and he has ordered her to go away and have her baby somewhere else, he gets a job in a YMCA and leaves home. He is miserable, his possessive mother, to whose solicitudes his weaknesses have been attributed by now via various incidents, is miserable, and his father, dominated by the mother, is presumably miserable also, until his wife pops up in the hospital having birth pains and lets them know where she is. That fixes up everything, to the satisfaction of the writers, at least, although it leaves half a dozen story points flapping in the breeze. Some of the scenes shot in Italy, especially some views of Rome, are very interesting, scenically, and at times, as when the camera is showing the hunger on the faces of starving children, the film is momentarily eloquent. Running time, 103 minutes. Adult audience classification. Release date, not set. William R. Weaver "Only the Valiant" (William Cagney Productions — Warner Brothers) THE FAMILIAR battle tale of men facing insuperable odds is given a gripping performance in this William Cagney production starring Gregory Peck as a taciturn martinet whose life is in as much danger from the men under him as from the Indians they battle. Gordon Douglas' direction of the screenplay by Edmund H. North and Harry Brown keeps attention focussed on the little band of men, split and embittered by their own hatreds and fears, who hold off marauding Apaches for three days. Action-minded audiences will find this taut, well-paced film to their liking. The locale is Arizona in 1867 when U. S. Cavalry posts were the only protection against the unsubdued Apaches. When a young lieutenant, Gig Young, is sent on a suicide mission the garrison blames Peck because of Young's rivalry for the hand of Barbara Payton, daughter of another officer. Already hated by the men as a stern disciplinarian, though grudgingly admired as an officer, Peck's move to protect the fort from an impending Indian attack by holding it off at an outpost is construed as motivated by suicidal remorse. Peck carefully chooses the men to accompany him from those that hate him most — determined, they think, to finish off his enemies as he himself dies. Actually, Peck has chosen them as the men the undermanned fort could most easily lose, but he fully intends to return with as many men as possible. The picture's main sequences are in the outpost where the men, continually attacked through a narrow pass by the Indians, bicker and quarrel among themselves. Performances are excellent, with Ward Bond effective as a whisky-loving corporal, Lon Chaney as a brooding Arab trooper, Neville Brand as a brutal, ambitious sergeant, Jeff Corey as a scout, Dan Riss as. a tubercular junior officer, and Warner Anderson, Steve Brodie and Terry Kilburn, all troopers. Only three, including Peck, survive by the time a relief troop, bearing a newfangled Gatling gun, arrives and vanquishes the Indians. Peck and Michael Ansara, the Apache chieftain, fight hand-to-hand as the battle ends. Running time, 105 minutes. General audience classification. For April 21 release. Vaughan O'Brien "House on Telegraph Hill" (20th Century-Fox) ROBERT WISE's direction contributed substantially toward making this Robert Bassler production a satisfactory suspense thriller. Had the script by Elick Moll and Frank Partos not left a number of loose ends and unanswered questions for audiences to puzzle about after the picture closes, "The House on Telegraph Hill" might stand a few notches higher in the category. From a plus standpoint, though, the exhibitor is offered good star values, namely, Richard Basehart, Valentina Cortesa and William Lundigan. Capitalization on these and exploitation of the lady-in-distress theme should pay off agreeably at the box-office. A Pole who had been persecuted by the Nazis, Miss Cortesa employs the strategem of impersonation to secure entry into the U. S. Over here she seeks out the wealthy 10-year-old son (Gordon Gebert) of the dead Polish friend whom she pretends to be, marries the child's guardian and soon has reason to believe that the bridegroom, Basehart, is bent on murdering her so he may have undisputed control of the boy's wealth and possession of the family's roccoco mansion on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill. Tension mounts subtly under Wise's direction as the husband takes to stalking the hapless lady from room to room. Additionally, a fearsome mood is heightened by the use of familiar lighting and lensing contrivances. On top of this, a measure of actuality is suggested by the many location shots featuring San Francisco's buildings and precipitous streets. In the climax, Basehart is stricken by a poisoned drink he had intended for Miss Cortesa, but thereafter the film takes leave of what believeably it had achieved. The audience knows the lady is innocent of murder, but the investigating police seem shockingly unquestioning in accepting as true the story of one who admittedly had entered the country illegally. Thus Miss Cortesa is free to marry a sympathetic friend, Lundigan, while the child's intransigent nursemaid, who had been the wife's rival for Basehart's affection, is taken into custody on a relatively flimsy charge. Running time, 93 minutes. General audience classification. For June release. Charles L. Franke "The Magnet" ( Rank U mversa'l-In ternatio nal) THE adventures of an English schoolboy whose acquisition of a large magnet leads to a series of misunderstandings with his parents and his nurse form the narrative base for this Michael Balcon British-made production. The reactions of the boy and others around him point up the differences between English and American behavior patterns — and, incidentally, the film exemplifies the differences in U. S. and English cinema tastes. "The Magnet" will do best at "art" theatres in this country. T. E. B. Clarke, the screen writer, and Charles Frend, the director, seemed not to have completely made up their minds whether this film was intended to be a psychological study of a 10-year-old boy, a quiet English domestic comedy or a satire on psychologists. However, despite certain satiric and humorous overtones, the film's major impact puts it into the psychological study class. Actor William Fox effectively plays the principal role, the only child of psychologists Stephen Murray and Kay Walsh. The boy trades an "invisible watch" for a large magnet with a much younger child. The child's nurse accuses the boy of stealing. He runs off and soon believes the police are after him. After several unsuccessful attempts to get rid of the magnet, he presents it to the organizer of a campaign for an iron lung for the local hospital. The magnet is auctioned in the fund campaign and finally is mounted on the iron lung as a tribute to the unknown donor. Meanwhile, the psychologist father makes a completely inaccurate diagnosis for his wife of the boy's worries. In the end the boy meets the child whom he thought had died as a result of losing the magnet, and trades back his "invisible watch" for the gold medal which the mayor had bestowed on him for his part in the hospital campaign. Running time, 78 minutes. General audience classification. February release. "Flame of Stamboul" (Columbia) AS A SPY MELODRAMA, "Flame of Stamboul" runs a standard course. ■ It has some good action and conflict scenes although the story is quite transparent. Set in Istanbul, the story concerns a gang of thieves that are out to get defense plans which are vital to the protection of the Suez Canal. Dispatched to the distant outpost is an American intelligence officer, played by Richard Denning. The vital plans are concealed in a jewel box of a wealthy Egyptian who is attending a peace conference. By way of strategy, the outlaws get Lisa Ferraday to assume the identity of a dancer known as the Flame of Stamboul, and then press her into friendly relations with the Egyptian's son. Denning has considerable difficulty getting necessary information before he finally cracks the case. By way of romantic denouement, he also wins Miss Ferraday after persuading her of the virtues of uprightness. George Zucco plays the mastermind of the criminals, known as "The Voice," while Nestor Paiva plays another American operative who is killed in the dangerous business and Norman Lloyd portrays the part of the paid informer. The production is done in a sepia tint. Wallace MacDonald produced and Ray Nazarro directed, from a screenplay by Daniel B. Ullman. Running time, 68 minutes. General audience classification. For April release. Mandel Herbstman