Classic Films in Focus: SHOCKPROOF (1949)

Having already seen and enjoyed both Lured (1947) and Thunder on the Hill (1951), I decided to try Shockproof (1949), the third picture included in the Criterion Channel's recent collection spotlighting the film noir work of director Douglas Sirk. Of the trio, this romantic crime story is certainly the weakest, with a lot of unexamined issues in its subtext and an abrupt ending that prioritizes neatness over credibility, but it's still entertaining enough to be worth watching, especially for fans of leading man Cornel Wilde. Shock master Samuel Fuller injects his trademark style into the story, which gives the movie much of its appeal, and it's fascinating to see the onscreen chemistry between real-life spouses Wilde and Patricia Knight as the parole officer and recently released murderess who falls to his care.

Wilde plays parole officer Griff Marat, whose latest charge is the newly released Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight), fresh from five years in prison for killing a man to protect her crooked boyfriend, Harry Wesson (John Baragrey). On parole, Jenny is supposed to follow a long list of rules, but she finds it particularly hard to stay away from Harry, even though Griff quickly becomes a romantic rival to the opportunistic gambler. Griff even brings Jenny into his own home, ostensibly as a caregiver for his blind mother (Esther Minciotti). Suspicious and resentful at first, Jenny falls for Griff and wants to extricate herself from Harry's influence, but her attempts only end up turning the lovers into outlaws.

Shockproof arrived near the end of Wilde and Knight's marriage - they would divorce in 1951 after 14 years together - but they heat up the screen when they share a scene. The straight and narrow Griff seems an unlikely admirer for the convicted killer, but Griff repeatedly insists that Jenny is different and better than his other parolees, perhaps because she's also younger and prettier. Jenny is a more ambiguous character in the early scenes, hardened by her prison time and rightfully skeptical of the parole officer's intentions given the extent of the power imbalance between them. Is his attention merely a test of her reformation or a trap designed to send her back to prison? The movie doesn't really address the underlying problems of power and consent here; it's too eager to show us what a good guy Griff is, with his blind mother and kid brother, to stop and wonder whether Jenny actually has the ability to turn him down. Griff, on the other hand, is too sure of himself to suspect that Jenny might be manipulating him for her own advantage or at the behest of Harry Wesson, who hopes to see the moral crusader brought down from his high horse. As Griff relaxes his own code of ethics, Jenny begins to reclaim hers, but their meeting in the middle only creates danger for both.

I don't normally like to spoil an ending, but it's difficult to pinpoint what goes wrong with the movie without addressing its sudden change in tone in the final scenes. Fuller's setup and the actors' performances write doom on the lovers' brows in the vein of Gun Crazy (1950), especially once they go on the run and experience real hardship as they constantly try to avoid capture by the authorities. Griff, his moral code undone by his love for Jenny, has that air of desperation one sees on Paul Muni's face in I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), while Jenny's loyalty to Griff has softened all the hard edges that probably ensured her survival in prison. We've already seen another parolee commit suicide rather than go back to prison in a dramatic moment that highlights the stakes for Jenny should the couple be caught. All of these elements point toward an apocalyptic finale that Fuller intended but rewrites by Helen Deutsch replaced with a completely unbelievable ending that hinges on one of the least plausible changes of heart you'll ever see in a movie. I like a happy ending as much as anyone, but in Shockproof it comes off as phony.

For more from Douglas Sirk, see Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), or the 1959 version of Imitation of Life. Samuel Fuller is both writer and director for noir classics like Pickup on South Street (1953), House of Bamboo (1955), Underworld U.S.A. (1961), and The Naked Kiss (1964). Catch Cornel Wilde in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Road House (1948), and The Big Combo (1955). Patricia Knight left Hollywood after her divorce from Wilde, having appeared in only five films, while Alabama native John Baragrey worked mostly in television.

Classic Films in Focus: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)

Critics often deride The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) as one of the worst Best Picture winners in Oscar history, but Cecil B. DeMille’s elaborate circus spectacle deserves a better reputation among classic movie fans. Yes, High Noon is the better film, but the blame for choosing the safer picture over that politically charged Western belongs to the Academy voters of 1952, not to DeMille or the very compelling actors who star in The Greatest Show on Earth. While the movie does favor the grandeur and leisurely pace of another era of filmmaking, The Greatest Show on Earth remains well worth watching for admirers of its many stars and anyone who feels nostalgic for the big top’s glory days.

Charlton Heston leads a star-studded cast as Brad Braden, the tough, no-nonsense manager of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The circus has fallen on hard times, but Brad takes a chance on a troublesome trapeze artist, The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde), to bring in the crowds. Sebastian has a past with elephant trainer Angel (Gloria Grahame), but he quickly fixes his attentions on Brad’s girl, an ambitious trapeze artist named Holly (Betty Hutton). Other members of the circus family have their own problems, including gentle Buttons (Jimmy Stewart), a clown who hides his mysterious past beneath a painted smile.

The movie alternates between several distinct but overlapping plots, interspersed with documentary-style depictions of real circus life. The romantic entanglements of Brad, Holly, Sebastian, and Angel lead to various disasters, both inside the ring and out, culminating in a catastrophic train wreck that threatens to ruin the circus completely. The wreck is an amazing set piece, with animals running loose, injured people stumbling about, and plenty of smoke and chaos, but the scenes that come before it offer just as many thrills, especially with so many stars performing real circus stunts. Hutton, Wilde, and Grahame do impressive work, although dozens of the performers we see are real circus stars, including Emmett Kelly, Cucciola, The Alzanas, and The Flying Concellos. Their performances often suspend the progress of the narrative, but they provide a grand sense of the circus as a whole.

The Greatest Show on Earth has its flaws. It runs long, Hutton’s musical numbers don’t really work, and the romantic swapping of the protagonists seems arbitrary, especially at the end. Stewart, however, is in great form, and Hutton and Wilde have some fantastic scenes in which they try to upstage one another. People who love circuses will find plenty to admire, and kids will love it if they are old enough to sit still for the whole thing. Bonus goodies include cameo appearances by stars like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, as well as Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd.

The Greatest Show on Earth also won the Oscar for Best Writing, with five nominations in all. If you want to see more of Cecil B. DeMille’s big shows, try The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), and The Ten Commandments (1956). Look for Charlton Heston in other early roles in Dark City (1950), Touch of Evil (1958), and Ben-Hur (1959). Betty Hutton stars in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950), while Cornel Wilde is remembered today for Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and The Naked Prey (1966), which he also directed. See more of Gloria Grahame in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), In a Lonely Place (1950), and The Big Heat (1953). Jimmy Stewart’s other roles from this period include Winchester ’73 (1950), Harvey (1950), and Bend of the River (1952).

Classic Films in Focus: ROAD HOUSE (1948)

Long before Patrick Swayze made the 1989 movie with the same name, Road House (1948) provided an entertaining if dangerous stop for travelers on film noir's dark highway. It isn't the first noir film a classic movie fan should see, but it provides plenty of action and interest and has held up over time quite well. Well-versed noir watchers will want to see it for the performances of such usual suspects as Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark, all doing their thing very satisfactorily in this lesser known example of noir style.

The road house in question belongs to Jefty, who would seem like an okay guy at the beginning if he weren't being played by Richard Widmark, who had become permanently associated with maniacal noir psychopaths thanks to his brilliantly deranged performance in Kiss of Death in 1947. Needless to say, we are supposed to see right away that Jefty's friendship with house manager Pete (Wilde) is going to get ugly, especially after Jefty brings sexy Lily (Lupino) in as the new bar entertainer and his own prospective love interest. Things go south from there, which everyone except Pete can see coming from a mile away; even Pete's sensible, loyal pal, Susie (Celeste Holm), a quintessential good girl type, knows enough to lie to Jefty to protect Pete and Lily from his jealous passion. Susie's caution turns out to be justified, and of course Jefty eventually becomes completely unglued. There's a great scene near the end with him shooting a can of tomato juice and then giggling dementedly that it "looks like blood!"

Widmark is a thrill to watch, like a sleazier Kirk Douglas with a nervous tic; there's a reason he kept getting this kind of role. Wilde makes a perfect straight guy foil; he had been equally noble and equally clueless in the 1945 classic, Leave Her to Heaven. He has the kind of big, open face that just suits a boy scout and a dupe. Ida Lupino's Lily is an interesting character because she isn't really a femme fatale at all; she rejects Jefty's attentions and pursues Pete with very pure motives, even though she realizes that she might be horning in on Susie's territory. To be fair, Pete obviously doesn't return Susie's romantic affection, and Susie admits defeat with considerable grace. Celeste Holm is wonderful in the role, perhaps a little too good, since you might end up wondering why Pete couldn't be attracted to this warm, wise-cracking character instead of Lupino's alluring but prickly Lily. It's not that Lupino isn't great, but her chain-smoking, world weary chanteuse just bristles with misery, and she seems torn between keeping Pete at arm's length and reeling him in. You'll have to decide for yourself whether you like her singing in the film; as Susie says, "She does more without a voice than anybody I've ever heard!" Rather than being dubbed, as was pretty common for actresses at the time, that really is Lupino singing, and her voice is more distinctive than strictly musical.

As a whole, the picture can be taken as an object lesson on how to handle romantic rejection. Jefty would be the example of how not to approach the problem, while Susie shows us how to take rejection on the chin. It's interesting how the movie engineers the situation of the final scenes so that Susie remains a constant presence; she doesn't really need to be there for any practical reason from the characters' perspectives, although she clearly serves an important function for the resolution of the plot. If there are problems with the film, they lie in that resolution and in Susie's distractingly appealing character. Realistically, the end of the movie creates as many problems for the remaining characters as it solves, and we don't get any sense of how the story of what happened is going to play back in town and in front of a jury. If you can forgive the film for these foibles, there are plenty of other attractions to enjoy, especially Widmark's delightfully insane Jefty and some very arch dialogue from both Lily and Susie, as well as a thrilling bar fight scene that completely wrecks the set. Overall, it's certainly worthwhile to pay a visit to Road House.

See more of Richard Widmark in Night and the City (1950), Pickup on South Street (1953), and Don’t Bother to Knock (1952). You’ll find Cornel Wilde in The Big Combo (1955), Sword of Lancelot (1963), and The Naked Prey (1966). Ida Lupino stars in High Sierra (1941), The Man I Love (1947), and On Dangerous Ground (1952). Celeste Holm won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947) and was nominated again for Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950). See more of director Jean Negulesco’s best work in Humoresque (1946), Johnny Belinda (1948), and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).