Charles Schnee Movies
Yale Law School graduate Charles Schnee forsook a burgeoning legal career in 1946 to become a Hollywood screenwriter. Schnee spent most of his subsequent career as both writer and producer (Torch Song, The Prodigal, Somebody up There Likes Me) at MGM, with only occasional forays away from the studio for such projects as Red River (1948). He won an Academy Award for his scriptwork on The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and just before his death penned that film's unofficial sequel, Two Weeks in Another Town (1962). For reasons unknown, Charles Schnee signed his script for By Love Possessed (1961) pseudonymously as John Dennis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1957
- NR
Adapted by Robert Anderson from a story by James A. Michener, the Robert Wise-directed soaper Until They Sail is set in World-War-II New Zealand. Paul Newman plays been-there-done-that U.S. marine captain Jack Harding, assigned to investigate servicemen's requests to marry local girls. An unemotional cipher, Harding begins to warm up when he meets war widow Barbara Leslie Forbes (Jean Simmons), a woman with three sisters (played by Joan Fontaine, Piper Laurie, and Sandra Dee -- what a gene pool!). The Newman-Simmons relationship is played against the romance between uptight spinster Anne Leslie (Fontaine) and good-natured officer Richard Bates (Charles Drake), and the dysfunctional marriage between the emotionally desperate (and nymphomaniacal) Delia Leslie (Laurie) and slimy Shiner Friskett (Wally Cassell), who is off in battle. The fourth sister, Evelyn (Dee), watches her sisters' amorous pursuits longingly, her mind occupied by her own true love, who is off to war. Until They Sail was a copacetic reunion between star Newman and director Robert Wise, who'd previously collaborated in Somebody Up There Likes Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Simmons, Joan Fontaine, (more)
- 1951
- NR
Though Frank Capra wrote the original story treatment for MGM's Westward the Women, he was too busy to direct the film, and handed the reigns instead to his former Liberty Films partner William A. Wellman. This stark, no-nonsense outdoor drama stars Robert Taylor as a trail guide named Buck, who in 1851 is hired by California settler Roy Whitman (John McIntyre) to head a wagon train full of mail-order brides from Chicago to the West Coast. Though Buck spares the brides nothing in describing the hardships they're about to face, most of the ladies agree to undertake the journey. Starting out with 104 women, Buck leads the expedition through some of the most treacherous territory in the West. Several of the women die en route, killed off by the elements, Indian attacks, and sundry unexpected mishaps. Most of the male travellers likewise fall victim to disaster, save for Buck and his courageous Japanese cook Ito (Henry Nakamura). Even when the wagon train reaches its destination, the story is far, far from over. Though second-billed Denise Darcel is the most prominent of the women, the large cast generally works as an ensemble, with everyone pitching together for the common good, just as their real-life counterparts had done back in the 1850s. Throughout, the film abruptly (and effectively) switches moods, veering precipitously from raucous comedy to profound tragedy (some of the deaths occur so suddenly that they can still elicit gasps from the audience). An expertly assembled and reasonably realistic saga, Westward the Women is one story that needs to be told in black-and-white; the currently available colorized version should be avoided like the plague. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel, (more)
- 1952
During the Vatican Holy Year of 1950, confidence trickster Joe Brewster (Paul Douglas) disguises himself as a priest and heads to the Holy City. It is Brewster's intention to use his faux clerical garb to evade arrest by the American authorities. But through the influence of American priest Father John (Van Johnson), Brewster experiences an epiphany and changes his ways. Reverent to a fault, When in Rome could have been insufferably saccharine, but the no-nonsense performances of Paul Douglas and Van Johnson carry the day. Enhancing the film is producer-director Clarence Brown's decision -- thankfully approved by the MGM front office -- to lens much of the story on location in Rome and Vatican City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Johnson, Paul Douglas, (more)
