Variety (March 1959)

22 PICTURES P^rieSy Wednesday, March 25, 1959 Film Reviews Continued from page 6 ; [The adventures, emotions and deceits that befall its characters .Thunder In the Sum £ 8i Mi4° Ha y y rd C 4v™e e o£ P «'he ! areTrong“'en“ough and oniy“tTei? 0.1 "J 1 -® vfc-ara, ® j comparison to the most inhumane- party s leader, Carl Esmond. ; ]y ^ acts ever to be exhibited He won’t take ‘ non for an an- commercially makes the storyline swer, a.though Miss Hazard keeps seem m nd reminding him, ^me^un&n- j The scenes build a vmcmgly, that s ^ s ® ,ie p. y i ^F ! troubled romance between a warm ned Finally, tthe J \ G.I. <James Best) and, a sympathe- catches her at one of those outdoor ^ German gir i (Susan Cummings), bathing scenes that aoparently! with the latter part of the film w ere staples of the Conestoga bein g tjgvQted to tfee thought-pro- parties. Chandler again attacks her. j wsi]n»M<>^ vi tihp tTitlpr Esmond starts to come to her res¬ cue, is mistaken for an Indian by a nervous sentry and is shot dead. By Basque custom, Miss Hayward is* then immediately betrothed to vokidg T - resurgence:’' o£the .■ Hitler youths in&jMi bmufc—a Idnd. df ersfijitr ^atpack"*— y^hich loot£ kills, aids escaped war crim¬ inals and generally poses intoler¬ able ' trouble " td tnV American Esmond s younger brother, Jacques • Military Government. Key to the Bergerac. Such outlandish-foreign : band’s destruction is the girl’s 15- customs cut no ice with Chandler, y ear . 0 i(j brother, a member of the who continues puffing alter Miss gang, who becomes disillusioned Hayward until, in the end, he gets upon attending the Nuremberg her. Seldom has a ’hero been v/ar criminal Trials and seeing limned so unappetizmgly. [ the captured German film of Nazi It is a small point, but the ; horrors. “I didn’t know,” he sobs, Basques are represented as speak-; and it’s believable he didn’t. He ing French, although this singular: provides the military with infor- race between the French andjmation on the pack, and its death Spaniards is unique in speaking a follows. language unrelated to any other in Fuller’s production is excellent, Europe. It was a further mistake having the look and feel of a film to impose this inaccurate accent on j more costly than it likely was. His Miss Hayward, particularly since; direction is good, often excellent, the rest of the cast, except for 1 and his cast responds adeptly. Best Bergerac, uses any accent handy. 1 is forceful in his determination to There are some good points of j love in the days when it, as so authentic historical accuracy. The | many things, was forbidden. Miss custom of the mountaineering . Cummings is very good throughout, Basques of communicating by a ! growing steadily with the film com- fearful warbling scream, for in- i ing across expertly in the final stance, and their rugged fierceness.; sequences. The late Tom Pittman The latter is utilized in a really j ha $ introductory billing in the film, good sequence at the end. largely ! and, as the leader of the wild staged by second unit director . youth, showed fihe style and sound "Winston Jones. Indians threaten to l talent. Also good are Paul Dubov ambush the party at a mountain ’ as the commanding officer, Harold pass. Since the Basques are as Da y e as the b °Y> Sasha Harden as handy on a craggy peak as the In- a young German, with Dick Kall- dians, the Europeans decide to am- ‘ man > as_ a hungry pack member, bush the aborigines, instead of fol- 1 turning in an outstanding perform- lowing the customary script. What aRce * follows is * a rolling, tumbling.; The film is put together with bloody battle-scene that is gen- skill, lacing back and forth from uinely different and exciting. It is Hollywood shots to German foot- over too soon, however, and the age with finesse. Photographer film ends with Chandler getting Joseph Biroc and editor Philip Miss Hayward, as clear-cut example Cahn rate special nods, with John of vice triumphant as the screen Mansbridge’s art direction top-, has ever attempted. notch and sound by Jean Speak and Miss Hayward, such a good Bert Schoenfeld particularly good. • actress, founders on the role as ; Harry Sukman’s musical score, she does on the improbable accent, i whil e too heavy on Beethoven’s Her characterization, at least as it Flf th, is adeptly written. As for appears on film, consists largelv of; tbe Sukman-Mack David title tune eye-flashing and bosom-heaving. 1 lsu ng by Paul Anka), it is a lilting Chandler’s character is so unpleas- l° ve hallad that is completely out ant that he is neither sympathetic harmony with the scenes of nor interesting. Bergerac comes off ba Hle and death, over which it is pretty well, and Blanche Yurica, as heard. Ron. a Basque matriarch, shrewdly ig- | — : - nores the French accent altogether. ; SOS Gletsehcrpilot and succeeds largely by force of | (SOS Glacier Pilot) personality in making an impres- | (SWISS) ‘ * sion. Carl Esmond. Fortunio Bona-; Zurich, March 17. nova and Bertrand Castelli are . Praesens-Film release’ of Unitas-Film those most prominent in the sup- . !£f£= ar Twf n b iiV p £°£ u ^ < £: -? tars T AnQ ,*r porting cast who appear to some : SSr'. 1 D “ J Sf„T SfiS? ’SSg- advantage. . Schmidhauser, Hermann Geiger. Directed Stanley Cortes* camera wnrlr ic P y Victor Vicas. Screenplay. Werner Wol- j-? V,01K 15 Merger; camera, Emil Bema; editor, capable, and Other credits are ac- Hans Heinrich Egger; music, Hans ceptable. Cyril Mockridge’s music n I i nt cl iTn, < , At inn C Mm^ heatre * Zurich * Run * contains some interesting orches- : Mo n if . a ’ \__ _ tration, but the title song seems Gisfer ."".".". . ^oterpFreiffg entirely out Of key With the film, g r - Gruber ... Leopold Biberti •Ubmnh what the title means fa in the undertaking. Drama sets in when they get stuck in the glaciers by accident, with some of them killed immediately and others dangerously injured. Immediate search parties over the glaciers and by air succeed in rescuing some of tbe victims, but not all of them. French -U.S. director Victor Vicas, experienced in documen¬ taries and feature , pix, lead to his being chosen for this one, does a commendable job but cannot over¬ come the film’s earlier script weaknesses. Camera work by Swiss vet cameraman Emil Bema is masterful and one of the brightest assets. Cast Is well chosen, although Miss Duringer and Robert Freitag, both satisfactory acting^wise, have been handed some especially trite dialog as the romantic interest. Anne Marje .Blanc and Leopold Biberti 4$ a married couple with the dSKrtoce-tn-ages problem, are cdfcvii£fng^while Hannes Schmid- hauser, usually cast in romantic leads, is excellent as a ruthless young leather-jacketeer. Among featured roles, Patrick Jordan, re¬ cruited from Britain, is standout as an English mountaineer finding death in the glaciers. Locally the pic is in Swiss-German, but Prae- sens also makes a German version available. Mezo. L’lle Da Boat Da Monde (Isliutd At the End of The World) (FRENCH) Paris. March 24. Lux release of Riviera Filins production: Stars Rosssna Podesta, Magali Noel, Dawn Addams, Christian. Marquand. Directed by Edmond GreviUe. Screenplay, Greville, L.-A. Pascal, Henri Crouzat from novel by Crouzat; camera, Jacques Lemare; edi¬ tor, Jean Ravel. At Balzac, Paris. Run¬ ning time. 405 MINS. Jane .XI..... Magali Noel Victoria .... Dawn Addams Caterina ... Rossono Podesta Patrick....Christian Maxquand ‘ac'iOtj never explained, any way. Verboten Well-done film with shocking Nazi footage. Lends itself to exploitation. Hollywood, March 13. J. Arthur Rank (via Ilya Lopert-UA) release of a Globe Enterprises-RKO Radio production. Stars James Best and Susan Cummings; introduces Tom Pittm-m. Written, produced and directed by Samuel Fuller; camera, Joseph Biroc; editor, Philip Cahn; music, Harry Sukman. Pre-' viewed March 15, ’59. Running time* M David... .. James Rest Helga . Susan Cummings Bruno . Tom Pittman Capt. Harvey. Paul Duhov Franz . Harold Daye Helmuth. Dick Kallman Colonel .Stuart Randall Burgermeister . Steven Geray Frau Schiller... Anna Hope SS Officer .. Robert Boon Erich . Sasha Harden Guenther . Paul Busch Sgt. Kellogg.Neylc Morrow Infantryman . Joseph Turkel The photographic record of Nazi atrocities which Samuel Fuller has incorporated in “Verboten” is time¬ less horror and piercing documen¬ tation of the low point in modem history. Grim authenticity gives this exploitability. J. Arthur Rank (since out of U.S. distribution) releases this Globe Enterprises Production, financed by RKO Radio, and, while it lacks star value, “Verboten” can be properly exploited to a profitable boxoffice. Fuller wrote, produced and di¬ rected the film and has created an interesting picture of a German city in the first days of U.S. occu- * pation following World War II. Glacier Pilot Rita .... Perren ....: .Robert Bichler Baumann .. Zarli Carigiet i Pcrtmann. Ettore Celia : Roby ... Helmut Foernbacher : f, er £® n > .Fritz Ganmienthsler £ uckIe __. Patrick Jordan Garage Owner . Max Knapp Kalbermatten . Erwin Kohiund This latest Swiss feature," brought in at a (by Swiss standards) ‘ relatively high budget of $175,000, impresses as an honest attempt at a theme long overdue for local j filming. It is a story about the ■ often mortally dangerous rescue | actSSpsi of lost nr wounded moun- f.talheers . in. the Swiss Alps' by ftipuntain guides and glacier pilots. Three months of shooting under hazardous circumstances on loca¬ tion, at altitudes of 11,000 to 14,- 000 feet, resulted in a visually exciting film whose stark realism in the mountain scenes make it a contender for presentation abroad, including the U.S. Of the cast members, Annemarie Duringer, under contract to 20th-Fox, is not . unfamiliar to Yank audiences. Participation of real-life Swiss j glacier pilot Hermann Geiger, adds ; to the plausibility of the rescue * sequences which make up most of j the film’s second half. Up to this point, screenplay developments are often sketchy and sometimes un¬ convincing. Filin’s forte, there¬ fore, lies definitely in all semi¬ documentary passages of which there are many. Plot involves the personal des¬ tinies of a group of people df various backgrounds, reunited in a perilous mountain tour, and their different reasons for participating Film’s plot has three comely femmes shipwrecked on a tropical isle during the last war along with one virile male. Their adventures^ and sex involvements, gives this mainly exploitation pegs on some forthright love scenes and justifi¬ able nudity. However, this vehicle has a tendency to be literary. Too, it spills many aphorisms on life with three women and a man. He falls for all three femmes but ends with none because one dies .in trying to reach another isle for help, the second is killed-by the third, who turns out to be a homicidal maniac. She, in turn, commits- suicide, allowing the man to be rescued alone. Christian Marquand fares well as the male but Magali Noel over¬ charges her nympho role. How¬ ever. she makes up for it with plenty of heavy breathing and un¬ veiled charms. Rossana Podesta and Dawn Addams are effective as the other two women. Pic is only intermittently effective, with characterizations uneven and the sudden twists in the plot too much telegraphed. - But this film has a good tech¬ nical mounting and probably is in store for good local biz, with obvious okay hypo possibilities for abroad. Mosk. ALLIED ARTISTS Starts, this Year. .. 2 This Date, iasf Year.. 6 COLUMBIA Starts, This Year . 5 This Date, Last Year . 8 Faagelse « . (Prison) (SWEDISH) Paris. March 17. Telecinez release of Terra FUm pro-' , dUction. With Doris Svedlund, Birger 1 Malmsten. Eva Henning, Hasse Ekman, ' Stig Olin. Irma Christenson, Anders Hen- riksson. Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Camera, Goran Strindberg; edi¬ tor, Lennart Wallen: At Studio Des Ursulines, Baris. Running time, SO MINS. Brigitte ... Doris Svedlund Thomas . Birger Malmsten Sophie ' . Eva Henning Martin_...:...Hasse Ekman Peter; .. . Stig Olin Linnea ir.. Irma Christenson Professor Anders Henriksson "ADAMSON IN AFRICA" (Warwick Prods.) Dir.—Richard Thorpe (Shooting in Africa) „ „ Prods.—Irving Allen, A. R- Broccoli Robert Taylor, Anne Aubrey, Gregory Aslan, Martin Broddy, Anthony Newley (Started Feb. 16) "THE LEGEND OF TOM DOOLEY" (Shpetner Prods.) Prod.—Stan Shpetner Dir.—Ted Post , , Michael Landon, Jo Morrow, Jack Hogan, Richard Rust, Ken Lynch, Dee Pollock, Ralph Moody, Howard Wright, John Cliff, Jeffrey Morris, Anthony Jochim, Jason Johnson, Cheerio Meredith, Juney EUis, Red Morgan, Bill Hale (Started March 2) "BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA" (Morningside Piets. Corp.) Prod.—Charles Schneer Dir.—Paul Wendkos Cliff Robertson, Gia Scala, Gene Blake¬ ley, Patricia Cutts, Gordon Jones, Tom Laughlin, K. L. Smith. L. Q. Jones. Robin Hughes, Rian Garrick, Patrick Westwood. Teru Shimada, James Takeichi, Goto, James Forrest, Eiji Yanashiro. Rollin Moriyama. Rob¬ ert Okazaki, Logan Field, Dale Ishi- moto (Started March 6) METRO Starts, This Year .4 This Date, Last Year .8 "IT STARTED WITH A KISS" (Shooting in Spain) Prod.—Aaron Rosenberg Dir.—George Marshall Glenn . Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Eva Gabor, Gustavo Rojo, Fred Clark (Started March 1) "LIBEL" (Shooting in England) Prod.—Anatole de Grunwald Dir.—Anthony AsquiDh Dick Bogarde. Olivia De Havilland (Started March 2) "TARZAN, THE APE MAN" Prdd.—A1 Zimbalist Dir.—Joseph Newmann Dennis Miller, Joanna Barnes, Cesare - Danova. Robert Douglas' (Started March 23) This make? the 10th pic by Swe¬ dish writer-director Ingmar Berg¬ man t/tf get art house unveiling here this season. Bergman, however, is more than a fad but a definite, original film talent. But this film, an earlier one, is somewhat loaded with private symbolism and expres- sionistic bric-a-brac to be anything more than a limited, arty entry abroad. The theme concerns a film direc¬ tor toying with the idea of doing a production with the theme of hell on earth. Then pic tells three stories, bound together with that of the director, concerning a group of people whose life is hell. Though adroitly interspersed and well no¬ tated, this lacks the breadth to make aH the grim activity mean¬ ingful. Bergman shows his versatility in the handling of actors, symbols and tensions. However, he misses out by turning this into a downbeat af¬ fair without the true revealing facets to make all this suffering and dreariness a comment on hu¬ man problems. Technical credits are fine. - , - Mosk.- - PARAMOUNT Starts, This Year ., 4 This Date, Last Year . 3 ’ONE-EYED JACKS" (Permebaker Prods.) Exec. Prods.—George Glass. Walter Seltzer Prod.—Frank P. Rosenberg Dir.—Marlon Brando Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Pina Bellicer, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Timothy Carey, Ray Teal, Sam Gilman, Larry Duran, Lisa Lu, John Dierkes, Mickey Finn, Wil¬ liam Forrest, Clem Harvey, Henry Wills, Maria Monay, Marguerite Cor¬ dova (Started Dec. 2) "HELLER WITH A GUN" Prods.—Carlo Ponti, Marcello Girosl Dir.—George Cukor Sophia Loren, Steve Forrest, Margaret O’Brien, Anthony Quinn. Eileen Heckart. Edmund Lowe (Started Jan. 19) • "TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE" (Shooting in London) Prods.—Sol Weintrauh, Harvey Hayu- tion Dir.—John Guilkerman Gordon Scott, Sara Shane. Anthony Quayle, Niall McGinnis (Started Feb. 6) "CAREER" ... (Hal Wallis Prod.) Prod.—Hal B. Wallis Dir.—Joseph Anthony Dean Martin, Anthony Franciosa, Shir¬ ley MacLaine, Carolyn Jones (Started Feb. 23) 20th CENTURY-FOX Starts, This Year . 3 This Date, Last Year ...... 9 "HOLIDAY FOR LOVERS" Prod.—David Weisbart - Dir.—Henry Levin Jane Wyman, Clifton Webb, Paul Hen- reid, Gary Crosby, Carol Lynley. JiU St. John, Nico Minardos, Marjorie Bennett, Nora O’Mahoney .(Started Feb. 9) "BLUE DENIM" Prod.—Charles Brackett Dir.—Philip Dunne Macdonald Carey, Carol Lynley, Bran¬ don de Wilde, Marsha Hunt, Warren Berlinger (Started March 23) WARNER BROS. Starts, This Year . I This Date, Last Year ...... 2 A SUMMER PLACE" (Shooting at Monterey) Dir.—Delmer Daves THUNDER IN THE SUN’ A BROOKLYN OPENER “Thunder in. the Sun,” Para¬ mount western starring Susan Hayward, Jeff Chandler and Jac¬ ques Bergerac, In Eastman Color, is skipping a Broadway.showcasing, Clarance Greene production bows today (Wed.) at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre. Greene’s part¬ ner, Kussell Rouse, did the screen¬ play and directed. INDEPENDENT Starts, This Year . 16 This Date, Lest Year . 25 "THE UNFORGIVEN” (HctM-HhB-La ncast er for UA>' Forum Sans Beacon Minneapolis, March 24. Former Hollywood film column¬ ist Tony Beacon is out as North¬ west Exhibitors Business Building Forum executive secretary after holding the post only a few months. Harry Green, Forum head, is expected to name a suc¬ cessor to Beacon and decide upon the date for the body's first 1959 conclave within a fortnight. Forum’s avowed purpose is to help its members to attain the ut¬ most possible boxoffice potential for their attractions and to induce the film companies to saturate the territory with all Important re¬ leases so that every exhibitor will get them in time to capitalize on pre-selling. During its first year, 1958, For¬ um held two successful meetings here, providing those in attend¬ ance with advertising and pubficity ammunition that helped to stimu¬ late the boxoffice throughout the area. It also accomplished consid¬ erable film saturation. PAR'S MEMPHIS SWITCH Bill, Inspect From Former Ex¬ change Point—Nicholson Stays Paramount is dropping its Mem¬ phis exchange outlet effective April 3, according to v.p. Hugh Owen. An office will be main¬ tained In this city for purposes of inspection and shipping of filnvbut its major business, such as billing, accounting and collections will be handled out of New Orleans. : Howard Nicholson, Par’s long¬ time Memphis branch manager, will continue to represent the com¬ pany on the sales end of the terri¬ tory. It’s a “streamlining” move, says Par*-