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Reviews
English Without Tears (1944)
Rigid and Frigid
English without Tears is a movie of surprising length, considering that its less than 90 minutes long. Perhaps it is so because the war was on in 1944 when it was released - but this is more a farce than comedy.
For such a short movie, there is a lot going on. There is the plot about the butler and one of the girls who professes her love for him. Then there is the plot about the English Instructor with whom the students cheat on their real instructor with. Then there is the farce element of mistaken manners, and confused situations.
There is even an S and M theme going on with how one of the characters treats another, and it serves as their own personal turn on.
Lillie Palmer is radiant and under used in this film. However the casting of frigid and rigid Penelope Dudley-Ward makes the heroine unsympathetic and engaging. Michael Wilding is wooden at ease and uncomfortable when he should be relaxed. It all simply doesn't work.
The most ironic line of all in the movie is "I do not understand jokes because I have no sense of humor" is said by a woman to her uniformed date at a dance, to which the gentleman retorts with "Then I will explain the joke to you".
Movies, like jokes aren't funny when they have to be explained either.
Man on Fire (1957)
Bing Plays Himself
Bing Crosby was a two faced man. The Public Bing was happy go lucky; the Bing Crosby in Man on Fire is not happy go lucky or even likable. This is a bleak little film full of unlovable characters doing their best to behave in ways sure to offend each other and the audience.
The plot is simple, a business man fights to retain custody of his son when sued by his exwife for the rights to the teenager. The impact of the battle and what results from the feud is what this film focuses on - from fathers point of perspective.
While others have called this a very lifelike movie, showing the no win situation that divorce presents a la Kramer vs. Kramer, this film allows people to not only act badly, but behave poorly as well.
First, the characters overact. Bing Crosby plays a man who owns things - a factory and his son among them. As if playing his role as a parody of his real life abusive behaviors, Crosby adds bitter sarcasism to alomst every line he delivers after the judge rules against him in the custody fight. Smart Judge - this inner rage is no type of man to raise a son; no wonder his wife left him! Enter the ex-wife/mother, played by the forgettable Mary Fickett whose breathy delivery is better suited to the stif drawing room dramas that Hollywood cranked out in the early 1930s.
Inger Stevens, in her film debut is beautiful but plays a woman who loves to suffer: the character is smart and preachy, but she is in love with the abusive and unlikable Bing Crosby character. (In real life, the two had a tumultuous affair - Stevens never was able to get over Crosby. She killed herself in 1970 at the age of 35.) Even the party scene is full of unlikable extras playing their roles to the most obnoxious levels imaginable.
In the end Crosby's character does the right thing, and walks off screen with Stevens whose love for the man - who just evening previous had eluded to her character as a dime a dozen type of girl - is hollow. That's shear dysfunctionality.
This also explains why this little gem never made the Sunday afternoon television movie circuit - its just an unpleasant way to spend ones time; its the type of film that makes you wonder what else you could have done with your time that was more productive.
Just like divorces in real life, this film is a no-win for the bystander, in this case, the audience. Case closed.
Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
A victim of Hollywood
Call me a cynic, but I find many of the Hollywood films of the 1960s in which period pieces yielded their authenticity atmosphere to 1960s fashion and make-up almost unbearable because my mind is constant having to tell itself to suspend disbelief.
Movies about young stars, used and tossed aside by raw Hollywood types are a dime a dozen. This one never did stand out from crowd. The story is too melodramatric; was never remade for commercial TV or as a Lifetime movie of the week either.
As for the acting, I've always felt that Natalie Wood was born at the wrong time for talking pictures - she would have been bigger than Mary Pickford had she been born at the turn of the century. Her delivery and facial expressions would have worked much better in the Silents than in talkies like this one. Robert Redford at times seems ashamed to be his character, and in this movie.
As for the direction, Robert Mulligan also directed To Kill a Mockingbird. What happened to his style? The most laughable moment in this film is a fashion sequence of sorts, with Daisy Clover appearing in this little 1960s outfit complete with a cap of sorts. Didn't Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) on Gilligan's Island where a similar outfit when she appeared with Ginger and Mrs. Howell as part of the Honeybees? Note to any Hollywood types who are thinking of remaking this, don't.