This is a continuation of last week’s blog in which I paid tribute to some of the late, great film people who inspired, entertained and fascinated us through the medium of film such as animator Ollie Johnson, scream queen Hazel Court and Chuck Heston. Instead of attempting career overviews, however, I chose to either highlight a favorite film or those that are often overlooked and worth seeking out.

ABBY MANN (died 3/25/2008)

A pioneer of the early days of television, Mann was a talented screenwriter and dramatist who worked on such productions as “Robert Montgomery Presents,” “Studio One,” and “Playhouse 90”, before his breakout critical success with JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (1964), his first solo feature film screenplay (for director Stanley Kramer) which won him an Oscar. Like Kramer, Mann was a liberal in the entertainment industry and his work often reflected his social and political interests which could occasionally revert to message mongering in films such as A CHILD IS WAITING (1963), a drama about a school for mentally challenged children, and THE DETECTIVE (1968), a hard-boiled urban crime film starring Frank Sinatra in which Mann tries to address issues of public housing, civil rights and the treatment of homosexuals in the context of a murder mystery. Besides JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, Mann is probably most famous for creating the TV series “Kojak” but I single out his film adaptation of Katharine Anne Porter’s SHIP OF FOOLS (1965) as a career highlight. He may have overstated the anti-Semitic aspect of the story in his treatment of Siegfried Rieber (Jose Ferrer) and his German companions in order to illustrate the growing Nazi menace. And the volatile young lovers, Jenny (Elizabeth Ashley) and David (George Segal), are overly strident caricatures. But most of the other characters are beautifully observed with witty and insightful dialogue to match. It also helps that Vivien Leigh, Lee Marvin, Michael Dunn, Oskar Werner and Simone Signoret are on board to breathe life into these literary creations. Mann’s screenplay deservedly received another Oscar nomination. 

JULES DASSIN (died 3/31/2008)

The expatriot American director who left the U.S. in 1953 after being blacklisted and settled in Europe was lucky in that he saw a resurgence of interest in his career at the end of his life with prestige distributors such as The Criterion Collection releasing some of his key film noir titles – THIEVES’ HIGHWAY (1949), NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950), THE NAKED CITY (1948) and RIFIFI (1955) – in pristine, remastered versions for new generations of fans. And then there was the other Jules Dassin, director of earthy European art films, many of which starred his wife, Greek actress Melina Mercouri. NEVER ON SUNDAY (1960), PHAEDRA (1962) and TOPKAPI (1964) are, of course, the most famous of their collaborations but I’d like to single out one of the lesser known ones - 10:30 P.M. Summer (1966) - for its dynamic visual style and rhythm which is apparent from its mesmerizing opening credit sequence where clapping hands multiple in the frame, beating out a wild, impassioned flamenco dance.

The film, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras from her novel, depicts a sexual triangle in which Peter Finch is at the center with his disillusioned wife (Mercouri) on one side and their beautiful traveling companion (Romy Schneider) on the other. It’s self-consciously arty, loaded with stereotypes about Spanish culture and its people, and some of the dialogue is so risible you’ll burst out laughing. For example, in one scene Schneider asks Mercouri: “What would you do if you came face to face with a murderer?” Mercouri answers, “I would take heem in my arms.” But of course! Who wouldn’t in this crazy, hothouse fantasy world created by Duras and Dassin. Still, despite the film’s excessive nature, it casts a spell and is unlike anything else Dassin has done. Even if I personally prefer his prison melodrama BRUTE FORCE or NIGHT AND THE CITY I still recommend this as a fascinating curio to any Dassin follower who hasn’t seen it. 

CHARLTON HESTON (died 4/5/2008)

What else is there left to say about this iconic actor who reveled in playing bigger-than-life characters? Like my fellow morlocks, I brake for the Heston sci-fi films (PLANET OF THE APES, SOYLENT GREEN, etc.) and am particularly fond of THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954).(Check out these blogs for more Heston tributes from Richard -

http://www.moviemorlocks.com/blog?action=detail&entry_id=8a258bcb192e62a701192ff1ea040005

and from Medusa -

http://www.moviemorlocks.com/blog?action=detail&entry_id=8a258bca192c3c4001192d4a2ef30002)

But there are two earlier roles which stand out for me because they accent Heston’s darker side and are far removed from his more traditional heroic roles as Ben-Hur or El Cid or astronaut George Taylor. One is his opportunistic social climber in RUBY GENTRY (1952), a lusty, over-the-top melodrama directed by King Vidor in the feverish style of his earlier DUEL IN THE SUN (1946), a film this resembles in its depiction of L’amour fou. Heston grits his teeth a lot in this and Jennifer Jones as his spurned girlfriend gives him plenty of reason to as she avenges past wrongs. They end up in a muddy, bloody showdown in the swamp, not a typical ending for Heston’s noble protagonists. More disturbing is Heston’s portrayal as Ed Bannon in ARROWHEAD (1953), who was based on a real life cavalry scout Al Sieber. You won’t find a more misanthropic, racist character in Westerns than Heston’s Bannon who displays his hatred of the Apaches proudly, either through unsanctioned military actions or poisonous remarks. It’s easy to imagine Bannon happily leading massacres of defenseless Native American women and children and feeling like it was his patriotic duty. Jack Palance as Toriano, Bannon’s Apache half-brother, may be just as hateful and bloodthirsty as his counterpart, but he has a valid reason for his behavior. The army is forcibly trying to move his tribe to a reservation in Florida and he takes violent action against them. Heston triumphs in the end, which is probably a lot closer to how the West was really won, but he is NOT a hero which is the strange irony of ARROWHEAD. Who are you really supposed to root for? The Apache are clearly the victims here. This is easily Heston’s most frightening portrayal, right up there with John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERS.

OLLIE JOHNSON (died 4/14/2008)

A longtime employee and animator at the Walt Disney studios – his first motion picture credit was TWO-GUN MICKEY in 1934 – Ollie was the last survivor of the “nine old men,” an inner circle of Disney animators who started out together with Walt at his studio during the Depression years of 1934-35 (The rest of this group included Frank Thomas, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, Eric Larson, Ward Kimbel and John Lounsbery). Ollie worked on so many of the major Disney animated features that it is hard to pinpoint his exact contributions to each one without extensive knowledge of his techniques. (He co-authored a book with Frank Thomas on animation, The Illusion of Life, and was the subject of the documentary Frank and Ollie which sheds some light on his work). Among all of the legendary films he worked on, from SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1939), PINOCCHIO (1940) and FANTASIA (1940), on up to MARY POPPINS (1964), ROBIN HOOD (1973) and THE FOX AND THE HOUND, his final feature, my favorite is actually a short, THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW (1949), which was originally distributed as a feature that included the short THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS under the title THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD. I was always fascinated by Washington Irving’s Hudson Valley folk tales, especially the legend of Rip Van Winkle, and Disney’s animated version of the Ichabod Crane story thrilled me as a kid. It could give you the shivers but also provided some well-timed comic relief to offset the horror. Adult viewers may find there is too much humor in the proceedings and that Ichabod is much more sympathetic and likeable than he is in the original short story, a fact that makes the outcome of Disney’s version ambigious. Brahm Bones, Ichabod’s romantic rival, is depicted as no better than an infantile bully so his victory at the end appears to condone his behavior. But, in terms of the drawings and animation, this short perfectly conjures up Irving’s bucolic setting with its supernatural overtones.  

HAZEL COURT (died 4/15/2008)

A gorgeous, green-eyed redhead, Court graced many a low-budget feature in her native England before establishing her niche in the horror/fantasy film genre with such movies as DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS (1954), THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957), in which her sexy body was amply showcased in low-cut gowns, and THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959). Her reputation as a “scream queen” was confirmed when she came to the U.S. and worked for director Roger Corman on three of his popular Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations, starting with PREMATURE BURIAL (1962), followed by the horror parody THE RAVEN (1963), and then THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964), probably her finest hour on the screen. She usually played the proper Englishwoman and projected a sense of elegance and cool reserve but we always suspected that underneath that aloof beauty was a wild woman with a wicked sense of humor waiting to break out and she throws caution to the wind in Corman’s dayglo-colored nightmare. She not only brands her breast with a hot iron to impress the evil Prospero (Vincent Price) but gives herself to the Devil in a satanic ritual before coming to a bloody end, courtesy of some ravenous birds. It’s a shame her part wasn’t bigger but her presence was always welcome in these films. A reviewer for Time magazine covering one of the Poe films featuring Court got even more specific about the actress, noting “in whose bosom, you could sink the entire works of Edgar Allan Poe and a bottle of his favorite booze at the same time.”

Bebe Barron (Died 4/20/2008)

It is hard to believe that Louis and Bebe Barron, who created what is generally acknowledged as the first electronic motion picture score for FORBIDDEN PLANET in 1956, didn’t continue to compose scores for Hollywood films. That soundtrack, which introduced such strange sounds as the theramin to mainstream audiences, would set the standard for all futuristic fantasy films. Yet the real reason they didn’t continue working in feature films is because the Musicians Union denied them membership because it didn’t consider their FORBIDDEN PLANET score “music.” Instead, MGM was pressured to label the Barrons’ contribution as “electronic tonalities” in their promotion and Louis and Bebe returned to what they loved – making electronic music for experimental short films and recording projects. Although the couple divorced in 1970, they continued to collaborate up until Louis’s death in 1989. Bebe continued to compose after that and her final work was a piece entitled “Mixed Emotions” which she created while serving as a guest artist at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It is FORBIDDEN PLANET though that secured Bebe (and Louis’s) reputation as true visionaries and it’s even more amazing to realize it was created through analog circuits and not the technically advanced digital technology of today. As the couple stated in the liner notes to the Small Planet Records reissue of FORBIDDEN PLANET soundtrack, “There were no synthesizers or traditions of electronic music when we scored this film, and therefore we were free to explore “terra incognito” with all its surprises and adventures.” Just reading the musical selections from the soundtrack album conjures up some fond memories: “Robby Arranges Flowers, Zaps Monkey,” “Giant Footprints in the Sand,” “Robby, The Cook, and 60 Gallons of Booze”…….