Blockade

Henry Fonda

William Dieterle's Blockade is about the worst film I have seen from the golden age of Hollywood in the last year or so. This does not seem to be an unusual or controversial stance. When Otis Ferguson wrote about the film for the June 29th, 1938 edition of The New Republic the review was entitled Spanish Omelette, with Ham. However, the flick is interesting from a historical perspective as one of the few American films to address the Spanish Civil War during that conflict. Blockade was released in 1938, the only other Hollywood feature I could think of that addressed the war before Pearl Harbor was 1937's The Last Train to Madrid. This is do to many factors, such as the Neutrality Act, but it is closely aligned with Hollywood's kid glove treatment of rising fascist regimes in the 1930s.

Henry Fonda delivers a typically nuanced and sensitive performance, but is woefully miscast as a Spanish shepherd.  He meets cute with the top billed Madeleine Carroll when her jalopy plows into his oxcart. Fonda and his oxen pull Carroll to a fictional port town, where they sadly part. Moments later in screen time, Fonda is musing to his best buddy (Leo Carrillo) what a peaceful and serene place their Spanish valley is when their idyll is broken by the sound of cannons. Immediately caught up in war, Fonda rallies the peasantry to defeat the fascists brandishing a rifle a half a century out of date. The brief combat section displays that action was not Dieterle's forte. The picture ambles into international intrigue as it is revealed that Carroll and her father (Vladimir Sokoloff) are fascist agents who the newly promoted Fonda must apprehend. Soon, the port town where all the characters have congregated is under attack by bombers with submarines poaching the nautical supply line. Carroll eventually sees the error of her ways, but most viewers will have checked out long before.

Blockade is an odd hodgepodge of war, bathos (lots of starving children), thriller elements, and even comedy. The point of the film was not entertainment, but agitprop to call attention to the fascist menace in Spain. However, the film contorts itself to muddy the actual issues that provoked the war. The name Franco is never mentioned. Viewers of 1938 could probably suss that Fonda is fighting for the Loyalist army defending the Spanish Republic, but fear of censorship dilutes the film's impact. William K. Everson has sagely noted the similarity between Blockade and another Madeleine Carroll potboiler, 1936's The General Died at Dawn. That film was directed by Lewis Milestone, memorably deemed a formalist of the Left by Andrew Sarris, who was initially slated to direct Blockade. Ms. Carroll had also had  success in a number of Hitchcock thrillers, but Blockade doesn't have the thrills or the sophistication of The 39 Steps or Secret Agent. Outside of those two films, Ms. Carroll displayed little onscreen charisma and the paucity of her character in Blockade does her no favors. Dieterle's wispy expressionism adds little to this muddled message picture. What does tie the picture together is Rudolph Maté's sparkling cinematography which achieves Eisensteinian heights picturing the huddled masses during the final reel.

There are two other artists behind the film that I think qualify more than Dieterle to be the film's true auteur. Walter Wanger was probably the only independent producer to have cojones to make a picture like this at the time. Fonda had starred for him the previous year in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Carrillo had appeared as the comic relief chef in Wanger's production of History is Made at Night, Frank Borzage's sublime masterpiece from 1937. I think it is fair to say that comedy is out of place in a film about the Spanish Civil War. Carrillo is wonderful in the earlier Wanger production, but his comic efforts are flat beer in Blockade. Which leads me to the man who I think was the real auteur behind this flick, screenwriter John Howard Lawson. Lawson was the sole writer credited on this picture, so one can only conjecture on the contributions of Clifford Odets, who also contributed to The General Died at Dawn (I'll guess continuity) and James M. Cain (sex). Lawson eventually became the most unrepentant member of the Hollywood Ten. He remained a committed communist and was never invited back into the Hollywood fold. He was a big influence within the CPUSA ranks and it was his efforts to make What Makes Sammy Run? hew closer to the official line that made Budd Schulberg quit the party. One watches Blockade and hears Lawson use his feeble characters as a mouthpieces to decry the rape of Spain. Henry Fonda closes the picture by exhorting his comrades to continue to resist fascism, crying out to isolationist America, "Where is the conscience of the world!" Despite noble intentions, this is one lame flick.

Three in the Attic

Yvette Mimieux

Richard Wilson's Three in the Attic is an above average AIP exploitation flick from 1968. Yvette Mimieux is the top billed star, but this film was primarily designed to exploit male lead Christopher Jones after his success in AIP's Wild in the Streets. Screenwriter Stephen Yafa adapted the film from his novel Paxton Quigley's Had the Course. In the film, Jones plays Quigley, a young Lothario allegedly attending an all male college in Vermont. The role is within his range, a preppy James Dean who reads Kierkegaard. His main squeeze, Toby (Ms. Mimieux), attends a nearby all female school. She is an All American gal with an incredible wardrobe who is trying to steer Paxton into a commitment. John Beck is in support, dependable as always, as Paxton's best pal back at the frat. 

Beck's character is always counseling Paxton to steer clear of the wimmun, but the boy can't help himself. Every time he runs into a chick there is a gimmicky boing editing effect that signals a future conquest. The first is an African American gal named Eulice (Judy Pace, who had a pretty good film career and was at one point Mrs. Curt Flood) who he picks up hitchhiking. Eulice is both a student, an accomplished painter, and a kindergarten teacher. She teaches an afternoon class that is all black, an anomaly in Vermont, but not in North Carolina where the picture was filmed. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill stands in well enough as the two campuses. Eulice speaks in a playful southern drawl and calls Paxton "Poopsie". She has Paxton pose nude for her, but ends up only painting his face. When he ask why, she replies, "I only wanted to take a peek." On his way to a tryst with Eulice, Paxton runs into a self-described psychedelic Jewess named Jan. Jan and Paxton have sex, sample "magic" brownies and, de rigueur for a 1968 flick, paint flowers all over each others' nekkid bodies. Paxton juggles his three women for awhile, but the audience knows his Captain's paradise can't last.

Once Paxton's hound dog ways are exposed, the three women plot revenge with Toby taking the lead. They imprison Paxton in a sorority attic where they have him sexually service each of them. Paxton goes on a hunger strike and the authorities become concerned about the missing student. A kindly and pipe smoking Dean (an effective Nan Martin, most famous for her dual role in Nightmare on Elm Street 3) susses the situation and counsel Toby to forgive Paxton so she can move on. Toby relents, but wants Paxton to offer a rationale for his misbehavior. Something, of course, that he is unable to do. Toby heads to the bus station, but Paxton stops her from leaving in a sequence that shamelessly cribs from the then recent hit, The Graduate.

Christopher Jones and Judy Pace

I would not quite call Three in the Attic a good film. It is padded by ineffective musical montage sequences which serve as the film's Hamburger Helper. The music alternates between songs by Chad and Jeremy, already has-beens by 1968, and an anonymous raga rock score by Chad (Stuart). The latter is used to ridiculous effect in one sequence in the attic when Paxton gets lost in a book of Hindu erotic sculpture. However, the film charmed me more than I thought it would. It seems like no one took the making of this sex farce too seriously, certainly not director Wilson who was a past associate of Orson Welles. The sexual politics of the film holds up. Each of the female characters is given sexual agency and even Paxton redeems his porcine side by trying to prevent the molestation of a stripper at his frat. In full egalitarian mode, we see as much of the naked Jones, though not Jones' Johnson, as we do of the ladies. The portrait of frat life in the 1960s is reasonably accurate. Three in the Attic is a much better film than Wild in the Streets and most sex farces of that era such as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.  

 

Buchanan Rides Alone

Manuel Rojas and Randolph Scott attend a necktie party

Budd Boetticher's Buchanan Rides Alone, from 1958, is a pivotal film within the Ranown Westerns, the five B oaters that marked the collaboration between producer Harry Joe Brown, director Boetticher, and star Randolph Scott. The films are all revenge potboilers that don't exceed eighty minutes, yet they contain a multitude of great characterizations and portraits of the many grey shades of villainy and heroism. Randolph Scott plays, of course, Buchanan who rides into the border town of Agry at the beginning of the film and departs the burg for Texas at film's end. Agry is controlled by the family of fat cats which includes the corpulent and bloviating Sheriff, Lew Agry (Barry Kelley), Amos Agry (Peter Whitney) who runs the hotel and resembles Tweedledee, and the big boss, Judge Simon Agry (Tol Avery). Buchanan soon cottons to the crooked nature of Agry, but runs into trouble before he can hit the road. 

Buchanan runs afoul of the Agry's by defending a Mexican youth named Juan de la Vega (Manuel Rojas) who he sees being beaten by the sheriff and his deputies. Unbeknownst to Buchanan, Juan has just murdered the prodigal son of the Argy clan because he had raped Juan's girl back in Mexico. Juan and Buchanan barely escape a lynching thanks to the intercession of the Judge who has a scheme up his sleeve. The Judge has learned that Juan comes from a prominent family and intends to extort $50,000 from the family for his release. When news of this plan leaks out, the Sheriff and his minions kidnap Juan in order to score the ransom money. Buchanan, who has bonded with Juan during their time together in the clink. works to help free him. Of all the Ranown Westerns, it is Buchanan Rides Alone that best fits Andrew Sarris' description of Boetticher's films as "...floating poker games where every character took turns at bluffing until the final showdown." 🌵

L.Q. Jones and Randolph Scott

Buchanan Rides Alone's script is credited to Charles Lang who also wrote the script for Decision at Sundown, the film made just before Buchanan... in the Ranown cycle. These two films are closely aligned. In each, Scott rides into a Western town that is controlled by an evil oligarch. In each film, Scott runs afoul of the oligarch and is imprisoned in the town. In Buchanan..., Scott is twice imprisoned in the hoosegow, in Decision... he is trapped in a livery stable along with a sidekick played by Noah Beery for much of the film. This is why Decision at Sundown is the least interesting film in the series: it suffers from stasis. The film lacks the gorgeous tracking shots of men on horses that Lucian Ballard provides for Buchanan Rides Alone.

The other factor that makes Buchanan... a superior film to Decision... is the depth of characterization. This is presumably due to the uncredited efforts of Burt Kennedy who was brought in to punch up the script. Kennedy was credited as the sole author of the scripts for the other three films (The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Comanche Station) that comprise the Ranown cycle. Kennedy's dialogue tends to be wittier than Lang's and he provides more ambivalent motivations for the villains. This film provides rich opportunities for supporting players such as Craig Stevens who suavely embodies the personage of Carbo, Judge Agry's lead gunsel, and Joe De Santis who plays the right hand man of the unseen Mexican patriarch. 

I also especially enjoyed Peter Whitney as the film's comic relief, particularly his gambols around town to fill the characters in on the latest development in the overly convoluted plot. The character of Amos is as scuzzy in his mien as he is in his morals.

Jennifer Holden

The performance I will most cherish from this film is by L.Q. Jones. He plays Pecos, a hired hand of the Agry clan who is eventually instructed to help in the assassination of Buchanan. However, the two have bonded over shared Texas roots and Pecos dispatches his fellow assassin, saving Buchanan. The relationship between the two men is foreshadowed by a brief moment in Decision Before Sundown in which Scott acknowledges a fellow Texan. This is amplified in Buchanan Rides Again into a warm portrait of nascent male friendship. Before Pecos' inevitable demise, he and Buchanan talk of partnering on a ranch in Texas, a pipe dream marriage of males out of Leslie Fiedler. Jones was born in Beaumont, Texas and the role suits him perfectly. It is nice to see him for a change in a role in which he is not a creep or a cold blooded killer. Scott was a preppy from the south, but was always pretty good at approximating a Texas drawl. His aristocratic demeanor is helpful in this series because he is playing an embodiment of noble rectitude. He would have made a good George Washington. On the other side of the acting spectrum from the petrified statuary of Scott are the few flashes of Jennifer Holden, who is lightening in a bottle in this very good Western. After appearing in Jailhouse Rock and Gang War, this was her final screen appearance.

🌵 Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, pg. 124.