Tag: Glenn Ford

Gilda (1946) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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This is considered a film noir.  I’d call it a happy ending in search of a plot.

The movie begins with Glenn Ford as Johnny Farrell, a down on his luck American in Argentina that is rescued from an armed robbery by a mysterious man with a sword cane.  This man, Ballin Mundson, ends up hiring him to run his illegal casino and soon enough he is Mundson’s right hand man and has all the secrets of Mundson’s fabulous wealth and power.  Apparently Mundson was in cahoots with Nazis who gave him fabulous secrets for cornering the market on fabulous tungsten.  Really, tungsten.  We’re told that a monopoly on tungsten will give Mundson control of the world!  So, since this is 1946 there are disgruntled ex-Nazis running around.  Apparently, they gave him the secrets of tungsten.  Plus, Mundson marries Gilda (played by the very beautiful Rita Hayworth) who was heavily involved with Farrell back in the United States.  But although Mundson suspects that they have history neither will admit to it.

For whatever reason that you care to come up with yourself we’re supposed to believe that Johnny and Gilda hate and love each other and all the tricks Gilda plays to make Johnny either jealous, or worried about Mundson becoming jealous, or both, make sense.  But they don’t.  It’s silly and annoying.

But all good things must come to an end.  Both the Argentine police and the Nazis are closing in on Mundson.  Probably a spike in the price of tungsten.  In rapid succession, Mundson kills one of the Nazis, orders a plane to be ready for him at an airfield, sees Gilda and Johnny kissing in her bedroom then flees to the airfield with Johnny and the police in hot pursuit.  They arrive in time to watch Mundson’s plane take off and then explode over the Atlantic Ocean.  But Mundson parachutes out and is picked up by a waiting boat.

If that’s not goofy enough, Johnny then marries Gilda, the heiress to the tungsten cartel and takes the reins of tungsten power.  He then tells Gilda that she will be treated as a prisoner with no conjugal privileges until she admits to all the love affairs she’s had since Johnny left her in their old life.  Huhh?  She runs away to Uruguay (!) but the Tungsten King has his henchmen bring her back.  Gilda and Johnny are very unhappy.

Meanwhile the police want to bust up the tungsten cartel and they close the casino to force Johnny to give them the information.  When he does, the police inspector tells Johnny that Gilda and Johnny are both in love with each other and they should go back to America and be happy.  So, Johnny walks into the casino to ask Gilda to forgive him and return to America with him.

Just then Mundson returns and intends to shoot Johnny and Gilda.  But the bathroom attendant stabs Mundson in the back with his own sword cane.  And the police inspector tells Johnny and the bathroom guy that since Mundson committed suicide months ago he can’t be murdered.  Huhh?

I forgot to tell you about the bathroom attendant.  He’s comic relief that advises both Johnny and Gilda on life.  Plus, he’s a bathroom attendant.

So, Gilda and Johnny live happily ever after unless they screw up again.

Okay, that’s unbelievable isn’t it?  But the guy who plays Mundson is fun to listen to with his German accent and his love of canes and capes and stuff.  Rita Hayworth is fun to look at and she dances sometimes and lip synchs to someone singing “Put the Blame on Mame.”  And even though all this stuff sounds absurd the movie moves right along and, well, before you know it there’s that plane crash and then that happy ending.

This is a silly movie but I think it’s worth watching because Rita Hayworth is very pretty and looks swell dancing.  And there are Nazis and there is that bathroom attendant who is sort of a home-grown philosopher and pretty handy with a sword cane.

So, I recommend this film but if what I wrote doesn’t convince you then give it a pass.

The Big Heat (1953) – A Movie Review

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This is film noir has Glenn Ford as homicide detective, Dave Bannion in a city where mob boss Mike Lagana controls the police department all the way up to police commissioner Higgins.  When one of the crooked cops, Tom Duncan, has a change of heart and kills himself, leaving a file with all the details of the police corruption, his not so grieving widow Bertha hides the file and tells Lagana that she wants to keep getting money or she’ll have the file released to the newspapers.

Dave Bannion is assigned the Duncan suicide but when he starts sniffing around Duncan’s life, he finds that the supposedly honest cop is involved with a lot of shady people.  Dave’s boss Lieutenant Ted Wilks, gets pressure from the Commissioner’s office to stop digging into the case but Dave refuses.  Bannion finds that Duncan had a barfly girlfriend named Lucy Chapman who tells him that Duncan was unhappy in his marriage and felt guilty about being a crooked cop.  Unfortunately, Lucy is overheard talking to Bannion by one of Lagana’s men and she ends up tortured and killed by his henchmen.

Now Bannion is sure that Lagana is responsible for Duncan’s and Chapman’s deaths and he confronts Lagana at his palatial home.  After roughing up Lagana’s bodyguard and threatening the mob boss he leaves and the next day is dressed down by Wilks who has been ordered to stop Bannion from continuing with the crusade.

The next night when Dave gets home his wife is killed by a bomb that was planted in his car and was meant for him.  After moving his young daughter to his sister-in-law’s home under police protection Bannion returns to work where Wilks and Higgins try to persuade him to let the department solve the murder of his wife.  Bannion as much as accuses Higgins of being Lagana’s stooge and Higgins demands his badge and gun.  Bannion gives him his badge but says the gun is his own and when Higgins warns him not to use it, he replies, “I won’t use it until I find my wife’s murderers.”

Lagana has a hood named Vince Stone, played with mad dog panache by Lee Marvin.  Vince and another hood Larry Gordon are handling the Duncan problem for Lagana.  Living with Vince is his girlfriend Debby Marsh played by the alluring Gloria Grahame.  She is the comic relief while Vince and Larry are berated by Lagana over the bungling way they committed the murders of Lucy Chapman and Bannion’s wife.

The rest of the plot revolves around Bannion digging into the murder of his wife and the fallout from this search.  Because an election is going on Lagana warns Vince and Larry to be discrete in public so when Bannion confronts them at a bar Vince and Larry leave the bar in full flight and Debby Marsh gets left behind.  She becomes fascinated by this cop who is able to send Vince scurrying away and follows Bannion back to his hotel.  But Debby doesn’t provide any information for Bannion and he insults her romantic advances so she leaves.

But that is the fuse that drives the story to its conclusion.  One of Vince’s boys followed Debby back to Bannion’s hotel and when she lies to Vince about where she was, he flies into a jealous rage and throws boiling coffee at her, hideously scarring one side of her face.

Realizing that her life is in danger Debby runs away from the hospital where she had received treatment for her burns and calls on Bannion at his hotel room.  He agrees to hide her and she provides information on who was responsible for his wife’s murder, Larry.  Bannion goes after Larry and beats the truth out of him about the murders and the Duncan case.  Bannion then tells Larry that he better run because Bannion will tell Lagana where he got his information.  And sure enough, when Larry does run Vince catches up to him and kills him.

Now Bannion knows about Bertha Duncan’s arrangement with Lagana and he pays a visit to her and threatens to kill her because he knows that her death will automatically trigger the release of Duncan’s file to the newspapers.  But he is interrupted by a police detail that Lagana sent to her house as protection against Bannion.

Meanwhile the protective police patrol at Bannion’s sister-in-law’s house is called off by Lagana and Bannion hurries there to find that his brother-in-law has called in the help of his old army buddies to protect the house and in fact Lieutenant Wilks and one of the other detectives have volunteered to guard the building on their own.

Meanwhile, Debby Marsh decides to go over to Bertha Duncan’s house and being a crook’s girlfriend, she decides that it is her place to kill Bertha Duncan and, in that way, put an end to Lagana and his mob.  After shooting Duncan she heads to Vince’s penthouse apartment and hiding in the dark she throws scalding hot coffee in her boyfriend’s face and gloats about it.  He shoots her a few times and right then Bannion shows up and backs Vince onto the terrace with his own gunfire.  He calls the police and ambulance and then goes out and shoots it out with Vince.  But when Vince runs out of bullets Bannion beats him down and hands him over to the police and comforts Debby as she succumbs to the gunshot wounds.

The movie ends with Dave Bannion back at the homicide squad doing his job.

I would describe this movie as a melodrama.  The emotional strings are being pulled pretty hard.  A likeable police officer with a pretty young wife and little daughter see’s his wife killed in front of his eyes by a bomb meant for him.  You couldn’t come up with a scenario more fraught with pathos.

But it works.  In fact, this was Glenn Ford’s sweet spot.  This kind of average good guy in an impossible situation was what he did best.  So, this works.  I’m not saying there aren’t a couple of spots where you yell at the screen, “Oh come on!”  But the movie is enjoyable and the audience gets the payoff it expects.  Ford is heroically vengeful.  Marvin is delightfully vicious and Grahame is comic and tragic at the same time.

This isn’t a perfect movie but it’s good of its type.  I recommend it for fans of film noir and fans of Glenn Ford.

Ransom – A Movie Review and Comparison – Part 1

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I am as old as hell itself so I remember seeing Ransom in the theater in 1996.  It was a very popular movie and Mel Gibson was a big star back then.  I was dimly aware that the movie was a remake of a film of the same name.  Actually, the original was Ransom!  That exclamation point must have been big news back in 1956.  I’ve since had a chance to see the 1956 version and I intend to review it and then review the 1996 remake and compare them.

Glenn Ford and Donna Reed star as David and Edith Stannard a married couple with a young son named Andy.  They are very wealthy because David and his brother Al own a very successful company.  We see the child and parents in a comical argument caused by Andy “stealing” the boards from under his parents’ bed to build his backyard fort.  We witness the way David dotes on the boy and promises to break away from his busy work to join the boy in his construction project.  The mother and father send the boy off to his school bus and then David heads off to work.  We also meet the major domo of the household servants Jesse Chapman.  He is a Southern Black Christian man, much given to reciting scripture who very seriously attends to the welfare of his employer’s family.

At work we find David contending with his brother Al over whether the company should continue to advance into new product models or wait until more return is collected on the earlier models.  Although the brothers quarrel, they show affection for each other.  Later we see David return home having “stolen” some lumber from a willing construction site foreman and asks his wife where their son is.  She says he is still at school but David informs her that it is past his time.  Immediately the phone rings and Edith hear from a school administrator that a “nurse” from Dr. Gorman’s office took Andy from school to be seen by the doctor.  Now, both frightened by this news, David calls Dr. Gorman and hears his worst fears, that the doctor did not send for the boy.  David calls the police and Chief Backett arrives and sets in motion the police actions.  An electrician sets up a separate phone line and a tape recorder.  And the police set up a trace on the line waiting for a ransom demand over the phone.  At this point a newspaper reporter named Charlie Telfer (played by a very young Leslie Nielsen) enters the house uninvited.  The Chief counsels the Stannards to allow Telfer to stay during the investigation and so keep him from printing wild speculations by the promise of an exclusive story.  Charlie proves himself to be a cynical young man who attempts to bribe Chapman to get some photos of Andy’s room.  Chapman spurns the offer as an insult.

The parents become rattled from the waiting and now the school administrator shows up and complains that she is the wronged party by the kidnapping.  Edith grabs for the fireplace poker and is only stopped by the police chief from braining her.  After she is escorted out the phone rings and the kidnapper tells David what he wants, $500,000 in small bills and to show that the money is ready the television show which David’s company sponsors will be the signal.  The host will wear a white suit jacket.

Now Al arranges for the money.  It is being counted and serial numbers recorded.  Now David talks to the Chief and Charlie about the exchange.  But when David expresses the hope that Andy will be home by end of day the men crush his hopes by telling him that regardless of whether he pays the ransom or not the chance of return is the same, two out of three.  And hearing this, David’s logical mind jumps to a conclusion.  Now he goes to the television station and tells the host that the plan has changed and he, David will speak to the audience.  He spreads the ransom money on a table and then tells the camera that he will not ransom his son.  Instead he will use the $500,000 as a reward to anyone who will turn in the kidnappers.  And to the kidnapper he adds that if Andy is returned unharmed then the reward will be rescinded and if the kidnapper happens to be captured David will act as a character witness on the kidnapper’s behalf because of the mercy shown his son.  And then he finishes by swearing on a Bible that all he said would be observed.

But when David returns home, he is told by all, by the chief, by Al, by Charlie and most of all by Edith that he has done a terrible thing. She begs him to undo it and go back to the kidnappers and reverse himself.  David tells them it is too late.  For good or ill the die is cast.  Edith breaks down and is taken to Al’s house down the street to mourn.  A crowd that has assembled outside the home reacts to the news with rage and stones are thrown through the windows.  Charlie goes outside and tells the reporters to go home and leave the family to its agony.  Then the police disperse the angry crowd.  Finally, Andy’s shirt is found in an abandoned car and delivered to his father.  But there is a quantity of blood on the shirt.  Now David despairs and breaks down in tears.  The only one who has not deserted him in his lowest hour is Chapman who tries to comfort him and reminds him of King David’s grief at the death of his son Absalom.  After he calms himself David goes into the yard and looks at the fort that Andy was building the other day.  And as he stands there, he thinks he hears Andy calling him.  And looking up he sees his son.  Unable to believe his eyes he clasps Andy in his arms in joy but notices that Andy’s wearing a strange shirt.  Andy explains that they gave it to him after he bit the nurse and her blood got on his shirt.  Now the house is alerted.  Chapman calls Al’s house to let Edith know the good news and the movie ends in front of the house with Edith running up and being embraced by her son and her husband embracing them both.

This is some serious melodrama.  Every heartstring there is gets tugged.  But the story works and the acting is good.  Any parent watching this will feel every fear and experience the anxiety of such a daring plan by David to save his son.  This is a good movie of its kind, a personal drama.  I can recommend it.  In the next part of this review, we’ll look at what forty years changes in the story as we look at the remake.

Ransom – A Movie Review and Comparison – Part 2