Richard Bailey Movies

As originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, at the Cannes Film Festival, and on Turner Classic Movies, the mammoth, epic-length documentary Brando chronicles in encyclopedic detail (and with a consistently reverent overtone) the life and career of the man widely regarded as the most formidable American actor of the 20th century - famous for not only reshaping, but reinventing the craft of film acting and teaching audiences how to view a motion picture performance. Divided into chronological, thematically-unified segments, the film first treats Marlon Brando's dysfunctional upbringing - his alcoholic mother, his abusive father, his stint at a military academy - before charting his acting tutelage at the behest of Stella Adler and his early cinematic and theatrical roles, including work for Elia Kazan, who famously made many aggressive (and unsuccessful) attempts to discipline the headstrong actor onscreen. Throughout this segment, many Hollywood A-list actors appear - among them, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Robert Duvall - expostulating at length on Brando's influence over their approaches to performance, and attempting with great effort to define the elusive style known as "method acting" that Brando helped to create. The second half of the documentary moves into Brando's career during the '70s, '80s and '90s, covering the production of The Godfather, the actor's noteworthy political activism, and his tumultuous personal life. Francis Ford Coppola, who of course teamed with Brando for the first Godfather installment and for Apocalypse Now, is noticeably absent from the proceedings. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster in the tense spy thriller The Train. Lancaster plays Labiche, a French railway inspector. Allied forces are threatening to liberate Paris, so Col. Franz von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) is ordered to move the priceless works of art from the Jeu de Paume Museum to the fatherland. The head of the museum (Suzanne Flon) attempts to convince Labiche that he should sabotage the train on which they are transporting the art. Labiche is more focused on destroying a trainload of German weapons. After his friend is killed trying to stop the train with the art, and after a consciousness-raising conversation with a hotel owner (Jeanne Moreau), Labiche resolves to save the antiquities. Lancaster and Frankenheimer had worked together previously on both Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Charles Starrett is back as the masked do-gooder known as The Durango Kid in Columbia's Outcasts of Black Mesa. The plot follows the time-honored pattern established by previous Starrett vehicles. Once again, Our Hero is accused of a crime he didn't commit. Once again, he breaks jail to find the real culprits. And once again, he dons his Durango Kid disguise, whereupon stunt-double Jock Mahoney swings into action. Outcasts of Black Mesa is distinguished by the presence of a relative newcomer to the film game, leading lady Martha Hyer. This "new" film is actually comprised of a handful of freshly shot sequences, spliced together with scads of stock footage from earlier "Durango Kid" entries. (a common practice at Columbia, as witness all those look-alike "3 Stooges" comedies). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They said it couldn't be done, but they did it: Kathleen Winsor's "notorious", bestselling bodice-ripper Forever Amber actually made it to the screen in 1947 with full censorial approval. Of course, it was necessary to tone down the more erotic passages of Winsor's novel, but the end result pleased fans of the book and bluenosed nonfans alike. A last-minute replacement for British import Peggy Cummins, Linda Darnell steps into the role of 17th century blonde bed-hopper Amber as though she'd been born to play it. Feeling suppressed by her Puritan upbringing, Amber heads to London, finding considerable success as a courtesan (that's the polite word for it). The first real love of her life is dashing soldier Bruce Carlton, who leaves her pregnant and penniless when he marches off to war. Subsequent amours include the sadistic Earl of Radcliffe (a superbly loathsome performance by comic actor Richard Haydn), handsome highwayman Black Jack Mallard (John Russell) and privateer Captain Rex Morgan (Glenn Langan). Surviving the Plague and the Great London Fire with nary a hair out of place, Amber ends up in the arms of no less than King Charles II (wittily portrayed by George Sanders), but true love, as personified by Bruce Carlton, will always elude her. Taking no chances, 20th Century-Fox sent out Forever Amber with a spoken prologue, heard over the opening credits, which explained that the film in no way endorsed its heroine's libertine behavior, and that she would be amply punished for her sins before fadeout time (that prologue has thankfully been removed from current prints). A model of restraint by today's standards, Forever Amber was sufficiently titillating in 1947 to post an enormous profit, far in excess of its $4 million budget. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A romantic triangle develops between 2 lighthouse keepers and their love interest. When the woman gets mad at one of the men she marries the other and trouble ensues until the rejected suitor leaves. ~ All Movie Guide

With The Outlaw still being withheld from general release, Young Widow represented the first time that most filmgoers ever saw Jane Russell on the screen. Unfortunately, she was hardly at her best in this lachrymose tale of a woman named Joan Kenwood, who can't get over her husband's death in WW II. A journalist by profession, Joan is reminded in large ways and small of her late husband during every one of her assignments. Sympathetic ex-soldier Jim Cameron (Louis Hayward) follows Joan around throughout the picture, hoping against hope that she'll eventually forget her husband and pay some attention to him. Featured in the supporting cast is Faith Domergue, who like Jane Russell was a well-endowed Howard R. Hughes "discovery." Young Widow was based on the four-hanky novel by Clarissa Fairchild Cushman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If Grecian storyteller Aesop really did exist, he was most likely a black slave. He wasn't an Austrian actor with an Egyptian name, but that's who played him in A Night in Paradise. Turhan Bey portrays the fable-spouting Aesop, who tries to escape his bondage by disguising himself as an old man. It is at the lavish court of King Croesus that the greyed-up Aesop first meets luscious Grecian princess Merle Oberon. The low-born talespinner is smitten, and determines to win the princess for his very own. Moral: If Universal buys a novel by George S. Hellman titled The Peacock's Feather, transforms it into a picture called A Night in Paradise, and appoints onetime Abbott and Costello cohort Arthur Lubin as director, you know what you're in for. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This follow-up to the 1944 hit See Here, Private Hargrove suffers from that common movie malady known as Sequelitis, meaning that it's not quite as good as its predecessor. U.S. artillery corporal Marion Hargrove (Robert Walker) finds himself at large in wartime France -- or at least the MGM backlot version of France -- with wheeler-dealer pal Pvt. Thomas Mulvehill (Keenan Wynn). Inadvertently detached from their outfit, Hargrove and Mulvehill wander into a French village, where they're lauded as conquering heroes by the populace. Later on, our two heroes bumble their way into Paris. Finally, Hargrove and his principal foe Sergeant Cramp (Chill Wills) unexpectedly join forces to rescue Mulvehill from a desertion charge. Like the first "Hargrove" film, What Next, Corporal Hargrove? is based on characters created by the real-life Marion Hargrove, who later became one of Hollywood's most prolific screenwriters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Riders of the Northwest Mounted was one of a handful of "northerns" produced by Columbia's B-western unit. Stalwart Russell Hayden and prankish Dub Taylor go through their paces in Mountie garb and Smokey-the-bear hats. They're on the trail of escaped criminal Dick Curtis, who has the whole great white north as his hiding place. Leading lady Adele Mara waits at home patiently for Hayden and Taylor to get their man. A musical number by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys lends an enjoyable if incongruous touch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide