Walter Crisham Movies

It took nerve to transpose Shakespeare's Macbeth into a 1930s gangster story using "tough guy" jargon, but Joe Macbeth very nearly pulls the trick off successfully. Paul Douglas plays Joe MacBeth, a successful mobster whose wife (Ruth Roman) has ambitions to be even more successful. Mrs. MacBeth talks her husband into killing his boss while the two of them are swimming, and when Joe timorously leaves the knife behind, his wife dives in after the weapon. Now near the top of the heap, Joe begins to believe that everyone is out to get him. He kills his best pal Banky, whose ghost shows up a banquet later that night (Joe dispenses with Shakespeare's iambic pentameter by shouting "What is this? A gag?") As Joe deteriorates, his wife goes crazy, screaming "Joe! There's blood on my hands!" in her sleep. Both Joe and his wife are killed in a shootout with rival gangsters. Straining to create suitable counterparts for the Shakespearian characters in 20th century Chicago -- the three witches are sidewalk peddlers, while Hecate is a sandwich-board man -- Joe Macbeth veers towards the laughable at times; but the basic story has been a good one for nearly 500 years now, so Joe Macbeth succeeds as often as it falters. Incidentally, despite the American characters and Chicagoland setting, Joe Macbeth was filmed in England, with principally British supporting actors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this bright British comedy, we meet Capt. Henry St. James (Alec Guinness) as he stands before a firing squad and then learn of the curious chain of events that brought him to his fate. Henry is a ship's captain ferrying a steamer between Gibraltar and North Africa on a regular basis, and he's taken the notion of "a girl in every port" to a whole new level; he has a wife on each side of the water. In Gibraltar, there's Maude (Celia Johnson), an even-tempered housewife who keeps the house tidy and has dinner ready when Henry likes it. In North Africa, mate number two is Nita (Yvonne DeCarlo), who is a sultry fun seeker who likes to hit the nightspots and dance 'till dawn. Between the two of them, Henry would seem to have the best of both worlds; Chief Officer Ricco (Charles Goldner) openly envies Henry's remarkable romantic situation. But things start to go sour when Maude suddenly decides she's a stick in the mud and wants to start living it up, while Nita becomes a homebody and begins learning to cook; Henry is none too happy about either development, and before long he finds he has no spouse on either shore. The Captain's Paradise was trimmed from 93 to 84 minutes for its initial United States release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Moulin Rouge is the story of 19th century French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, portrayed by José Ferrer. The film records his frustration over his physical handicap (the growth in his legs was stunted by a childhood accident), his efforts to "lose" himself in Paris' bawdy Montmartre district, and his career as a painter, which brought him money only when he turned out advertising posters--but what posters! Toulouse-Lautrec's drinking and debauchery lead to his early death, which in the hands of director John Huston is staged (brilliantly) in the manner of a musical comedy finale. This is the film in which Zsa Zsa Gabor actually acts, in the role of demimonde entertainer Jane Avril. As a bonus, the film's musical score (by Georges Auric) managed to hit the Top Ten charts in the U.S. When this immensely successful film was released to television in the late '50s, Moulin Rouge proved to be one of the strongest-ever incentives to purchase a color TV set. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Hadley Chase's 1939 bestseller reached the screen for the first time -- which a lot of critics of the book would have said was one time too many -- in 1948, in somewhat bowdlerized form, under the aegis of Renown Pictures and screenwriter St. John Legh Clowes, making his sole bow as director. Filmed in England but set in New York, No Orchids For Miss Blandish tells of a sheltered heiress (Linden Travers) who is abducted on her wedding night by a trio of cheap hoods, in what starts out as a jewel robbery and turns into a kidnapping/murder when one of them (Richard Nielson) kills the bridegroom. More mayhem ensues as the three kidnappers soon end up dead, and Miss Blandish falls into the hands of the Grisson mob, led by Slim Grisson (Jack LaRue), who are pros at what they do, throwing their weight around the underworld at will and not too afraid of the police, either. Slim Grisson isn't really better than any of those around him, but he's smart enough to restrain his worst impulses, which makes him start to look very good to Miss Blandish, who finds herself strangely attracted to him, as the first real man she's ever seen, and also a way out of the sheltered existence she's known all of her life. He's as amazed as anyone around him -- including his own mother (Lili Molnar), who runs the gang in tandem with him -- that he doesn't want to ransom Miss Blandish, or plan on killing her because she knows too much; or that she'll testify on his behalf, if necessary, that the one killing she did see by him was, in fact, a matter of self-defense. They plan to run off together, but neither Grisson's mother nor the rest of the gang can see parting with a potential million dollar ransom, or leaving a witness alive -- even if it means killing Slim Grisson to get to her. And when a nosy reporter named Fenner (Hugh McDermott) starts putting the police on the trail of the gang, Slim himself isn't above committing a few more murders to bury any witnesses. The movie was so violent and amoral, that it appalled critics and social observers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose agonizing over its content actually helped turn the picture into a bigger hit than it might otherwise have been. This was especially true in America, where the movie enjoyed a five week run in one of New York's bigger movie palaces to sell-out business, though it was edited considerably and re-cut twice for US release (the second time, a couple of years later, as Black Dice). Robert Aldrich filmed the same story as The Grissom Gang (1971), with Kim Darby, Scott Wilson, and Irene Dailey. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Somerset Maugham, The Beachcomber was originally released in Great Britain as Vessel of Wrath. This English version was much franker--and much more fun--than the abbreviated, watered-down US release prints. Even the American version, however, is successful in capturing the spirit of Maugham's tale of slovenly remittance man Charles Laughton drinking and wenching away his monthly allowance in the picturesque Dutch Islands. Elsa Lanchester (the real-life Mrs. Laughton) plays the prim sister of sanctimonious missionary Tyrone Guthrie, who slowly regenerates the wastrelly Laughton. Our hero redeems himself fully through his courageous behavior during a cholera epidemic. This version of The Beachcomber is based on the stage adaptation by Bartlett Cormick; the 1955 remake, which played faster and looser with the Maugham original than the Cormack version did, starred Robert Newton, who plays the local British authority in the 1938 film. The Beachcomber was the only film directed by producer Erich Pommer, who spent most of the 1930s as Charles Laughton's business partner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide