Splendor in the Grass (1961)

If you remember your high school days when your hormones were a raging monster and you felt like you were going to explode if you didn't "go all the way" with your boyfriend or girlfriend, SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) is the film for you.  Or is it? Introducing Warren Beatty in his first feature film and co-starring the rapidly growing up before our eyes Natalie Wood, the two young actors play a high school football star and his sweetheart struggling with their sexual impulses in a repressive small Kansas town in 1928 leading to Wood's mental breakdown.

I first saw a Warren Beatty film during possibly the best decade of his career. After his huge success in Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), Beatty followed up with great roles in Robert Altman's MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER (1971), Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974), and Hal Ashby's SHAMPOO (1975).  My first Warren Beatty film was the comedy HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978) co-directed by Beatty and Buck Henry, a remake of Alexander Hall's HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (1941). Beatty was funny and good looking with a self deprecating style. At the time I saw HEAVEN CAN WAIT, I imagined him as a kind of modern Cary Grant. It wasn't until I watched one of his earlier films, John Frankenheimer's ALL FALL DOWN (1962), that I discovered how wrong I was. Beatty was groomed at the start of his career to be the next Paul Newman or James Dean, playing disillusioned, rebellious young men.

So what better director then Elia Kazan for Beatty to have his film debut in SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. Kazan had previously directed smoldering young actors Marlon Brando in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and James Dean in EAST OF EDEN (1955). Joining Kazan was powerhouse playwright William Inge who wrote the original screenplay for SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. Inge's plays (which became films) like Joshua Logan's PICNIC (1956) and Logan's BUS STOP (also 1956) had young, restless males characters trying to figure out their lives.  SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS was the right choice at the right time for young Mr. Beatty.

Kazan and Inge show us right away the crux of the story in SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. High school sweethearts Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty) and Wilma Dean ("Deanie") Loomis (Natalie Wood) necking passionately by a sensuous bubbling waterfall.  Bud wants to go farther but Deanie resists. Bud takes Deanie back home, sexually frustrated yet still in love with her. Mrs. Loomis (Audrey Christie) warns Deanie that she must maintain her virtue, not become one of those bad girls who ruin their reputation. Bud comes from the wealthiest family in town. Bud's father Ace Stamper (Pat Hingle) owns several oil wells. Ace idolizes his only son. Ace wants Bud to go to Yale to be educated and later run one of his businesses. Bud wants to stay closer to home, marry Deanie, and become a farmer. Both families are nervous that Bud and Deanie will consummate their love too soon and bring scandal.

Although many of the stills for SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS are black and white, the film is in color.

Cracks begin to emerge in Bud and Deanie's relationship. After a football game, Bud stops to talk to one of those bad girls Juanita Howard (Jan Norris), making Deanie jealous. Bud brings Deanie home after school one day. Mrs. Loomis isn't home. Bud makes advances again but Deanie's scared they will get caught. Bud's wild, older sister Ginny Stamper (Barbara Loden) returns home from Chicago, bringing tension between her and Ace. When Ace has to leave town for business, he asks Bud to keep an eye on Ginny. Ginny immediately brings a new boyfriend home, Glenn (Sean Garrison), who works at a gas station.

1929 arrives. Bud collapses during a high school basketball game, his illness a mystery. Deanie visits Reverend Whitman (playwright William Inge in a cameo) and prays for his recovery. Bud recovers after several months, asks Doc Smiley (John McGovern) for sex advice which the doctor laughs off. Bud reaches out to Juanita and takes her to the waterfall where they have sex. The high school learns about the tryst before Deanie.  When Deenie realizes Bud has cheated on her, she has an emotional breakdown. Bud and Deanie grow apart as their senior year draws to a close. Bud's teammate Allen "Toots" Tuttle (Gary Lockwood) ask Deenie to the prom. Bud attends the prom with Deanie's friend Kay (Sandy Dennis). Deanie tries to win Bud back, attempts to seduce him but Bud rejects her. Deanie asks Toots to take her to the waterfall. She ditches Toots and attempts to drown herself before park officials rescue her.

Mr. Loomis (Fred Stewart) sends Deanie to Wichita for treatment.  Bud follows his father's wishes and attends Yale, trying to flunk out at every chance he gets. Bud meets and falls in love with an Italian waitress Angelina (Zohra Lampert). Deanie starts occupational therapy, working on art projects.  She begins a relationship with John (Charles Robinson), a former Med student who also had a breakdown.  Bud's father Ace comes to Yale to visit him. The stock market crashes that day. Ace takes Bud out to a New York show hosted by Texas Guinan (Phyllis Diller's first movie role) and tries to get Bud laid by one of the dancers. Later that night, Ace jumps out a window, committing suicide, his fortune gone. Bud returns home with Angelina, begins to raise cattle on one of his father's properties.  Deanie returns home, soon to marry John.  High school friends Hazel (Crystal Field) and June (Marla Adams) come to visit and tell her Bud lives outside of town.  They drive her out to see Bud on his father's ranch.  He's married to Angelina with a child and another one on the way.  Bud and Deanie, the perfect couple, never to be united, crushed by the weight of their parents interference and their own sexual hang-ups, meet for one last time.

I like when a playwright like William Inge writes an original screenplay like SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. Playwrights have a good feel for symbolism and metaphors. In SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, the waterfall in the opening scene acts as the sexual tension bubbling between Bud and Deanie.  The water is sensuous, shimmering, frothing like the two teenagers hormones.  It's where the high school kids go to make out, touch, and lose their virginity. But Deanie resists the impulse to go all the way.  Later, Bud will take another girl Juanita to the waterfall where it's implied they do have sexual intercourse. Juanita is the type of girl Deanie's mother doesn't want her to become but the type of girl Bud's father Ace tells Bud he should sow his wild oats with before settling down. Deanie will ask Toots to bring her to the waterfall after the prom. After fighting off Toots advances, Deanie bolts for the waterfall, nearly drowning herself in the torrent of water, her perfect world shattered by her repressed sexuality and Bud's infidelity.

Both Bud and  Deanie's parents are uptight with their sexual morals, in different ways, scarring Bud and Deanie in ways they never imagined. Deanie's mother Mrs. Loomis proudly tells Deanie she never let Mr. Loomis touch her until they were married. Even after the wedding, she only gave herself to her husband to have a baby. The Loomis's lack of intimacy seeps into Deanie's psyche. When Mrs. Loomis asks if Bud has spoiled her, Deanie cries out, "I'm not spoiled mom. I'm just as fresh and virginal like the day I was born, mom!"

Ace Stamper fears scandal if Bud and Deanie were to have sex before getting married. Ace's angst stems from his scandalous daughter Ginny who got knocked up in Chicago the year before. Ace paid for her abortion. Ginny's back home now, stirring up trouble, driving all the single men in town crazy with desire.  The irony is Ace wants Bud to lose his virginity to a bad girl yet his daughter is the epitome of the whore. Even Ace himself has slept with disreputable women like his daughter in his younger, halcyon days before marrying the docile Mrs. Stamper (Joanna Roos). It's sexual hypocrisy. Ace pushes for Bud to sow his wild oats with a bad girl before settling down with Deanie. Bud only wants Deanie. But his desire to make love with Deanie butts up against her resistance. Bud's desire to have sex with Deanie and her rejection makes him physically ill. When he becomes better, he goes straight to Juanita for the intimacy he craves. She's his cure. Things will never be the same for Bud and Deanie after that. When Deanie tries to seduce Bud at the prom, dressed in a sexy red flapper girl dress, it's Bud who flinches. What about your pride, he asks. "My pride? My pride? I don't want my pride," she screams.

Thomas Mallory's The History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table have a connection to A SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. Deanie's English teacher Miss Metcalf (Martine Bartlett) asks her class about King Arthur and the Knights.  One student says, "they had a high regard for women." Although it might not seem like it, Bud is the shining knight in this town. He stays true to Deanie.  He's polite and a gentleman.  Deanie is Bud's Guinevere.  He holds her to the highest pedestal.  He's willing to marry her right away so they can consummate their relationship. But Ace wants Bud to go to college first, then think about marriage. Bud starts out like King Arthur but he becomes Lancelot, a flawed knight.  After his illness, he gives in to his lust when Juanita provides him the carnal knowledge that Deanie can't.

I'll talk about the young stars Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood momentarily but two of the most interesting performances in SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS come from Pat Hingle as Bud's oil baron father Ace and Barbara Loden as Bud's promiscuous older sister Ginny. My recollections of Pat Hingle are later in his career when he usually played authority figures like judges or as Police Commissioner Gordon in Tim Burton's BATMAN (1989). SPLENDOR is early in Hingle's career and what a role.  Hingle's Ace Stamper is a tragic, flawed patriarch. Injured in his youth from a fall off an oil derrick (Hingle actually fell 54 feet down an elevator shaft in real life before the film), Ace is a cripple physically and in his psyche, hobbling around his family and empire like a force of nature. Ace wants to control everyone especially his two children. Bud is everything that Ace couldn't be. A good athlete, handsome with a bright future. Ace lives vicariously through Bud. Ace has Bud's future laid out but Bud has other ideas. 1929 and the Stock Market Crash loom.  Ace's future will not end well. Ace may be Hingle's finest role until he played sadistic gambler Bobo Justus in Stephen Frears THE GRIFTERS (1990).

The other mesmerizing role is Barbara Loden as Virginia i.e. Ginny, Bud's older sister. If Bud is the future of the Ace Stamper family, Ginny is his disappointment. Ginny scandalously became pregnant in Chicago before Ace had to reluctantly come to the rescue (paying for an abortion and paying off the suitor). She'd tarnish the Stamper name if Ace didn't have so much oil money to almost hide it. Ace's dilemma is that Ginny is the bad girl that Ace feels Bud needs to roll around with before he marries Deanie. It tears Ace up that Ginny is that type of woman that men (like Ace) use and discard.  There's a harrowing scene at the Stamper New Year's Eve party where a pack of tuxedoed men follow a drunk Ginny around the house like dogs in heat.  Ginny's almost raped by one of them until she's rescued by Bud. Actress Loden was a protégé of director Kazan and would marry him in 1967.

But the young stars of SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS are Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood.  As Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis, the two young love birds are a bit like Romeo and Juliet except their families like each other.  Only Bud comes from a wealthy family and Deanie's family is modestly middle class. Ironically, the Loomis family will sell their stock in Ace's oil company to pay for Deanie's therapy before the stock market crashes.  The Stamper fortune is wiped out. The Loomis family survives the Crash. SPLENDOR is Beatty's first film after appearing on television in shows like THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS (1959-60).  He's perfect as the sexually frustrated but gallant Bud. Beatty would play these conflicted young men roles for the early part of his career before breaking out as bank robber Clyde Darrow in BONNIE AND CLYDE.

Natalie Wood grew up before our eyes first appearing as a child actor in films like MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) and THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947).  She would move into young teenager roles in John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (1956) and Nicholas Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955). 1961 would be quite a year for Wood appearing in both Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins WEST SIDE STORY and SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. In SPLENDOR, Wood makes the leap from teenager to young adult.  It's a demanding role as she begins as the perfect girlfriend and descends into a mental meltdown as her knight in shining armor rejects her for maintaining her virtue. Wood is absolutely stunning.  Beatty and Wood would have a brief affair during the making of  SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS.

When you watch SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, the first thing that might come to mind is "what does that title mean?" The title is from a William Wordsworth poem called Ode: Imitations of Immortality. The poem goes "Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor of the grass/of glory in the flower/we will grieve not/rather find strength in what remains behind." Deanie is asked by Miss Metcalf at the worst possible moment in her life what the poem means. Deanie replies, "when we're young, we look at things very idealistically I guess. When we're grown up...we have to forget the ideals of youth...and find strength." Bud and Deanie's relationship had its moment of splendor. They were the perfect couple and should have married. But outside forces including pressure from their families to conform a certain way ruined the happy ending they should have had.  Bud and Deanie can never get that feeling back.

Director Elia Kazan was an actor's director and one of the top director's in the late 1940s and 1950s on Broadway and in Hollywood.  Kazan had a string of hits beginning with Marlon Brando in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) and ON THE WATERFRONT (1954). Kazan worked with James Dean in EAST OF EDEN, Carroll Baker in BABY DOLL (1956) and Montgomery Clift in WILD RIVER (1960). But Kazan was also controversial, naming names and causing several of his colleagues to be blacklisted when he testified at Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities in the early 1950s. Kazan would only make four more films after SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, his last film an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's book THE LAST TYCOON (1976) starring Robert De Niro and Tony Curtis.

Playwright William Inge had a string of stage hits in the 50s including Come Back, Little Sheba, Picnic, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. He wrote the exceptional screenplay for SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS.  But like Kazan, Inge's career would struggle after SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS.  Taking a page out of SPLENDOR, Inge would commit suicide like his character Ace Stamper, choosing carbon monoxide poisoning rather than jumping out a window in 1973. A sad ending to such a gifted playwright.

Both Kazan and Inge should be proud of SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, a tragedy in the Midwest about sexual repression and sexual hypocrisy.  Kazan directed a string of meaningful films dealing with social issues that provided us with some of the greatest acting performances in cinema history. Inge wrote some of the finest characters ever portrayed on the stage.  Together, they created a provocative film in SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS that showcases two young actors Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood just emerging into grown up roles in their fledgling careers. The film also provides two excellent supporting roles for Pat Hingle and Barbara Loden as bickering father and daughter in the Stamper family.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Michael Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) will always be entwined with two events during my boyhood.  A pretty young school girl named Judy and a strange instrumental pop song from the 70s called Hot Buttered Popcorn. When I first saw THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD on television one afternoon, the character of Maid Marian played by Olivia De Havilland resembled a pretty young girl in my 2nd grade class named Judy. I fell head over heels for both Judy and Maid Marian. They had smooth oval faces, high cheekbones, long lustrous hair, and luminous round eyes. Judy would move away after 2nd grade but the swashbuckling adventure film about the legendary Robin Hood would keep me company for years to come.

After watching THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD as a young boy, I would go to my room, close the door, and have imaginary sword fights against Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham.  During one of these duels, I must have turned on the radio and Hot Buttered Popcorn was playing.  It seemed to blend perfectly with my antics.  Whenever the synthesizer bop came on the radio, I would immediately jump on my bed and start play fencing. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is the seminal movie that opened CrazyFilmGuy's eyes to the pleasure of a good old fashioned Technicolor adventure film starring one of literature's first action heroes.

Australian actor Errol Flynn's iconic performance as Sir Robin of Locksley aka Robin Hood in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is the benchmark for all Robin Hood films. Yes, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr played the swashbuckling hero in the 1922 ROBIN HOOD but it was a silent, black and white film. Kevin Costner, Cary Elwes, Russell Crowe, and even Sean Connery have all played the outlaw leader but Flynn (riffing off Fairbanks' swashbuckling performance) is the one we all remember.

Warner Brothers and MGM were initially going to make two separate Robin Hood movies in the 30s. Warner Brothers film would be adventurous. MGM's film would be a musical opera. MGM never did make their movie. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD has an operatic like feel from Erich Wolfgang Korngold's rousing musical score to the colorful spectacle of Michael Curtiz (and William Keighley's) direction filled with castles, grand feasts, an archery tournament, and hundreds of Merry Men. The decision to film ROBIN HOOD in Technicolor at a time when black and white was still the norm is a monumental decision. Sherwood Forest (actually a state park in Chico, CA) never looked more beautiful.

Borrowing from ancient Robin Hood legends and ballads, Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller are the credited screenwriters for THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. The film begins with the backstory. King Richard the Lion-Heart (Ian Hunter) has gone off in 1191 to fight in the Crusades.  His evil brother Prince John (Claude Rains) kicks out Richard's temporary guardian Longchamps and assumes the throne.  On his way back from the Crusades, Richard is kidnapped by King Leopold of Austria.  Prince John claims to collect taxes from the Saxons to pay for Richard's ransom but he has no intention of rescuing his brother.

We first meet Sir Robin of Locksley aka Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) on horseback as he and his red attired squire Will Scarlett (Patric Knowles) rescue a Saxon named Much the miller's son (Herbert Mundin) from the clutches of Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) and the High Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper) after Much has killed a deer in the royal forest. When Prince John hears of Robin's impudence, he wants him dead. Robin shows up at Gisbourne's Nottingham Castle with the dead stag, dropping the beast on Prince John's table during a banquet, arousing the curiosity of Prince John's guest the lady Marian Fitzwalter aka Maid Marian (Olivia De Havilland). Prince John tries to trap Robin but the outlaw escapes from the castle with Will and Much's assistance.

Robin begins to add to his band of merry men as he roams the countryside. The gregarious Little John (Alan Hale) and the heavy set Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette) join Robin's cause after brief bouts of good natured jousting and sword fighting. Robin's declared an outlaw by Prince John.  Robin gathers all his followers at the Gallows Oak and pledges to fight against the oppression of the Saxon people by stealing from Prince John and the wealthy Norman land barons. Robin and his men ambush a caravan led by Sir Guy, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Maid Marian returning with tax money collected for Prince John. Robin takes their clothes and shares the food with the less fortunate. He shows Marian how poor and hungry the locals are, winning over Marian's heart and mind. Robin keeps the money but lets Sir Guy and the Sheriff return to Prince John.

Furious, Prince John wants Robin Hood hanged. The Sheriff of Nottingham proposes an archery tournament to lure Robin Hood with the prize a golden arrow to be awarded to the champion by the Lady Marian. Robin and his men know its a trap but Robin's accepts the challenge anyway.  Disguised, Robin enters the contest and surprise! He wins the tournament. But, Robin's captured by Sir Guy and his soldiers.  Marian asks her loyal lady in waiting Bess (Una O'Connor) where she can find Robin's Merry Men. Marian takes a clandestine trip to the Kent Road Tavern. She locates the Merry Men and suggests a plan to rescue Robin.

Robin is brought to the town square to be executed. Will, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Much pull off a daring rescue, thwarting Prince John and Sir Guy's hopes of killing Robin Hood. Robin returns to Nottingham Castle that night to thank Maid Marian as the couple profess their love for each other. At the Kent Road Tavern, the Bishop of the Black Canons (Montagu Love) encounters a group of travelers. One of them is King Richard the Lion-Heart (incognito). The Bishop hurries back to the castle to warn Prince John. Maid Marian is imprisoned after she overhears the Bishop and tries to send word to Robin that Richard has returned. Robin and his men capture Richard and his knights as they ride through Sherwood Forest. They receive word that Prince John plans to become king. Robin, King Richard, and the Merry Men disguise themselves as monks and infiltrate the castle to disrupt Prince John's coronation and rescue Maid Marian in a rousing finale.

For many years, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD has been in CrazyFilmGuy's Top Five Favorite Films of all time. Only recently had it fallen out of my Top Five only because I had not watched it in a while (I think John Ford's THE SEARCHERS had bumped it). Watching it again, I remember why I fell in love with it. The swashbuckling Robin Hood making his brazen appearance in Prince John's castle, a stag draped over his back.  The first time we see Maid Marian without her head dress, her long braided hair dangling over her shoulders. Robin and Little John's playful quarter staff duel. Robin winning the archery tournament, splitting an arrow no less. Marian's gaze as Bess explains what love feels like (it made a 2nd grade CrazyFilmGuy goosepimply as she spoke), Robin and his merry men ambushing Sir Guy's caravan in Nottingham forest, leaping and falling Merry Men everywhere. Robin's final duel with Sir Guy of Gisbourne, their battling shadows cast upon a castle wall. All in glorious Technicolor with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's stirring "March of the Merry Men" theme playing.

Besides King Arthur and the Three Musketeers, Robin Hood is one of the world's first super heroes. Yes, he's handsome, the best archer in the land, and a born leader. He robs from the rich and gives back to the poor. But he's not invincible. He's human. Little John bests Robin in a three quarter staff duel.  Friar Tuck dunks Robin in a stream. Robin's overconfidence nearly gets him hanged when he's caught by Gisbourne after winning the archery tournament. Like Marvel or DCs comic superheroes, Robin has his mistakes and human weaknesses yet he overcomes them in the end to defeat tyranny and injustice.

Errol Flynn performance in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is nothing short of marvelous. CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935, also directed by Michael Curtiz) was Flynn's first lead role. It took Flynn awhile in that film to find his feet as the exiled doctor who becomes a pirate.  In ROBIN HOOD, Flynn grabs the screen from his first entrance (Flynn actually has three grand entrances in ROBIN HOOD). As Robin, he's charming, roguish, romantic, and loyal to his king and men. Flynn would be my first film idol from the Golden Era of films (soon followed by Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant). Flynn's career spanned from playing pirates and Robin Hood to cowboys and even the doomed General George Armstrong Custer in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941).

If Errol Flynn was my first matinee idol, Olivia De Havilland who plays Maid Marian was my first on screen crush. Even today, when I see her in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, my heart flutters. I was aware of feminine beauty even back in grade school but when De Havilland first appeared in ROBIN HOOD, I became all tingly and goose pimply in love just as Marian's lady in waiting Bess describes that feeling to Marian. De Havilland has a nice arc in ROBIN HOOD as she goes from loathing the green tighted bandit to understanding his fight for the poor and downtrodden to falling in love with him. De Havilland would play the love interest to Flynn and many other leading men in films in the early 30s and early 40s.  Wishing more dramatic, substantial roles, De Havilland would sue Warner Brothers to get out of her contract and pursue stronger parts.  Surprisingly, she won her case. De Havilland would go on to appear as twins, one a murderer in Robert Siodmak's THE DARK MIRROR (1946); as a woman fighting mental health issues in THE SNAKE PIT (1948); and would finally win an Academy Award for Best Actress in William Wyler's THE HEIRESS (1949) co-starring Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson.

Robin Hood is an exciting hero but THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD would not be as universally loved without a colorful cast of Merry Men and a few dastardly villains. The role of Little John is a crucial component and actor Alan Hale fills the role perfectly.  Little John is the big guy with the kind heart. His rollicking laugh puts strangers at ease but he's Robin's # 1 bodyguard and enforcer. The quarter staff fight between Robin and Little John may be one of the most famous introductions of two friends ever. Apparently, Alan Hale was born to play the role as he appeared as Little John three times spanning three decades.  Hale first played Little John in the Douglas Fairbanks 1922 version of ROBIN HOOD.  Then, in 1938 in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. Hale would make one more appearance as the jolly giant in ROGUES OF SHERWOOD FOREST (1950), his last film before he died that same year. Fans (like me) of the television show GILLIGAN'S ISLAND will recognize Hale's son Alan Hale, Jr who played the Skipper.

The other key Merry Man role is Friar Tuck.  Tuck needs to be rotund and feisty but with a good heart.  A man of the cloth but willing to spill blood in the name of King Richard.  Eugene Pallette stepped into the role of Friar Tuck in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD and owned that character.  With his bullfrog deep voice and penchant for mutton, Pallette made Friar Tuck both likable and another ally for Robin Hood. Patric Knowles who resembled the dashing Errol Flynn but never quite had his career plays Robin's squire and troubadour Will Scarlett.  It may be Knowles most memorable role. Rounding out the Merry Men is the rubbery faced Herbert Mundin as Much the miller's son. Watching Much and lady in waiting Bess flirt is a hoot.  Sadly, Mundin would die in a car accident in 1940.

Good villains are just as important as good sidekicks. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD provides three excellent, unforgettable bad guys. Claude Rains as Prince John has a field day as the slightly effete brother of Richard the Lion-Heart. With a chip on his shoulder for his brother passing him over as regent in Richard's absence, Prince John exacts his revenge on the Saxon people, in particular Robin Hood. Rains was adept at making his villains or corrupt characters nefarious yet charming in such films as Michael Curtiz's CASABLANCA (1943) and Alfred Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS (1946). Rains is one of my favorite supporting actors to grace the silver screen.

Basil Rathbone had sparred with Errol Flynn in CAPTAIN BLOOD and they face off against each other again in ROBIN HOOD. Rathbone plays Sir Guy of Gisbourne, a Norman supporter of Prince John and suitor for Maid Marian's hand. Gisbourne lacks the charisma or nerve to show his true feelings to her. Robin Hood inflames his jealously when he woos Marian away from him. Rathbone makes a handsome villain and a worthy foe for Flynn.  Rathbone could play both heroes and villains with ease. Usually in the Robin Hood legends, it was the Sheriff of Nottingham who was Robin's main nemesis.  In THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, it's Gisbourne.  The High Sheriff of Nottingham played by Melville Cooper is comic relief in this ROBIN HOOD. In other Robin Hood films and the legends, the Sheriff is Robin's primary antagonist.

There are plenty of connections between actors in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD as many were contracted to Warner Brothers during this period. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland would make eight films together besides ROBIN HOOD including CAPTAIN BLOOD and THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (1939). Michael Curtiz directed those two films and many others with the pair. Errol Flynn and Alan Hale (who were good friends offscreen) would make 13 films together (a few were cameos for Hale) including DODGE CITY (1939) and ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN (1948). Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone also worked (and dueled) together in CAPTAIN BLOOD and co-starred in THE DAWN PATROL (1938).  Flynn and Patric Knowles played brothers in Curtiz's THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936). Claude Rains and Patric Knowles both appeared together in Universal's THE WOLF MAN (1941). Flynn, Rains, and Una O'Connor all made Curtiz's THE SEA HAWK (1940) together. But for me, Flynn, De Havilland, Rains, Rathbone, Hale, Knowles, and O'Connor are my cinematic family in ROBIN HOOD.

Nobody directed genre films better than Michael Curtiz.  Horror, Swashbucklers, Westerns, War, Melodrama, Musical, Film Noir -- Curtiz did it all, mostly for Warner Brothers. Curtiz was fabulous staging action scenes, filling his screen with hundreds of extras, and making studio backlots look like French Casablanca, a seedy Mexican dive bar, or medieval Nottingham square. For THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, William Keighley began as the director but was replaced by Curtiz after studio heads thought Keighley's footage lacked pizazz.  Several 2nd Unit directors helped film insert and non-essential actor scenes but Curtiz directed the remaining big scenes including the archery tournament and the final battle inside Nottingham Castle. I love the way Curtiz frames certain shots and moves the camera, loading the screen with loads of detail.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD'S success can be traced to using the best tales from the Robin Hood legends for its movie. Because of its universal success, future Robin Hood films were forced to find different storylines for their films. Kevin Reynolds ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES (1991) has Robin (a miscast Kevin Costner) just returning to Nottingham from the Crusades not with the Merry Men but a Moorish companion (Morgan Freeman) to find the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) in charge. Ridley Scott's ROBIN HOOD (2010), shows us the man before he became a legend. Russell Crowe plays Robin Longstride who returns from the Crusades and assumes the identity of a dying knight named Robert Loxley with a final request. Richard Lester's ROBIN AND MARIAN (1976) gives us Robin (Sean Connery), Marian (Audrey Hepburn), and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) as older versions of their characters. And what would the Robin Hood film canon be without director Mel Brooks poking fun at the hero and his world in ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS (1993).

A few fun Robin Hood facts.  What is the name of the hat that Robin Hood wears?  Is it a hat?  A bonnet? It's called a bycocket which is a fancy name for a cap.  It has a wide brim turned up in the back and pointed in the front like a beak. Only Errol Flynn and Cary Elwes in ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS wore the bycocket in their films. No one really knows who Robin Hood was. His name first appeared in William Langland's Piers Plowman in the 14th Century. Ballads about Robin Hood emerged in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Some scholars believe Robin Hood may have been many sources that merged into one. As for Maid Marian, she is believed to have been referenced first in a French pastoral play from the 13th Century, later adapted by the English in the late 15th Century in the May Games which paired her with Robin Hood. For all the Robin Hood facts and fiction, check out this website http://www.robinhoodlegend.com/

Errol Flynn will forever be associated with Robin Hood in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD just like Clint Eastwood will always be associated with Dirty Harry or Harrison Ford with Indiana Jones.  Some roles are just meant to be played by one person.  Flynn had the dashing good looks, the athleticism, the roguish smile. He looked good in green tights and wearing a bycocket.  Whether Flynn knew it or not, he made quite an impression on an eight year old kid. Robin Hood was my first super hero. Also making an impression on CrazyFilmKid was the attractive Maid Marian, her allure casting a spell on me that endures to this day. In my estimation, there is no more perfect blending of adventure, romance, humor, and music than THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.

Elf (2003)

What are the odds that someone would finally come up with a script about an elf (or at least a human raised by elves) at the same time that an up and coming comedy actor was looking for a breakout feature film role. Those two entities collided in the surprise hit comedy ELF (2003).  The one Christmas character that had received the short end (no pun intended) in the Christmas film genre was Santa's elves. Santa Claus, his reindeer, and even snowmen had received more screen time in movies and television specials than the blue collar workers who make all the toys for the good boys and girls of the world. TVs RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER (1964) was the first program to give Santa's elves a little love in the guise of Hermey, an elf who wanted to become a dentist. But no one had made an elf the centerpiece of a film.

Will Farrell was already a comedy star on NBCs SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE creating a plethora of comic characters during his stint from 1995 to 2002. He had appeared briefly as a minor character Mustafa in a couple of AUSTIN POWERS films and co-starred in A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY (1997) with Chris Kattan as the Butabi brothers which they played in skits on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. But Farrell wanted to break into films like previous SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE alums like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy.  Farrell needed the right project to utilize his comic talents and improvisational skills. And along came director Jon Favreau with ELF.

At the time, Favreau was better known as an actor (SWINGERS, THE REPLACEMENTS) than a director.  Favreau had directed a couple of TV movies but nobody could have predicted his success directing ELF.  From the opening scenes with homages to RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER to some inspired casting of James Caan, Bob Newhart, and Ed Asner in key roles, Favreau has total control of this modern holiday classic.  And, he had the good fortune of having Will Farrell in the lead role as Buddy the Elf.

Directed by Favreau with a screenplay by David Berenbaum, ELF opens with a quick flashback on how the human Buddy ended up in the North Pole. Santa Claus (Ed Asner) stops at an orphanage in New York City during Christmas Eve.  As he munches on a cookie, a small baby climbs into his toy sack. When Santa returns to the North Pole, he discovers the stowaway.  The elves name the human baby Buddy (after his diaper brand Little Buddy Diaper). Buddy is raised by Papa Elf (Bob Newhart). Buddy outgrows his bed, his school desk, and his work station in the toy shop.  He doesn't quite fit in. Buddy overhears a couple of elves gossip that Buddy's not an elf but human. This forces Papa Elf to reveal to Buddy that he's adopted. Buddy's a human and his real father lives in New York and doesn't know he exists.

With Santa and Papa Elf's blessing, Buddy leaps onto a piece of ice (another nod to RUDOLPH) and floats south until he reaches the Big Apple. Buddy begins searching for his father Walter Hobbs (James Caan), a grumpy executive for a struggling children's book publisher located in the Empire State Building. Buddy finds Walter (where Buddy's mistaken for a singing elf messenger) who promptly throws Buddy out of his office (but not before revealing to Walter Buddy's mother's name). Buddy wanders over to Gimbel's, a giant toy store where he meets and falls in love with Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), who works in the store's Christmas section (dressed as an elf no less). Buddy improves the decorations in the Santa area and sleeps in a display window.

The naïve Buddy discovers the big city as he plays in revolving doors, samples discarded chewing gum on subway bannisters, and acts like a giant kid. But when he starts a fight with a fake Gimbel's store Santa (Artie Lange), Buddy is arrested and thrown in jail.  He's bailed out by his real father Walter who brings him home to meet his wife Emily (Mary Steenburgen) and teenage son Michael (Daniel Tay). Walter's a workaholic who's neglecting his family during the holidays. But Walter begins to wonder if Buddy might be his son.

Buddy proceeds to drive Walter crazy with his infinite energy. Walter brings Buddy back to the office only this time in a suit.  Walter puts Buddy to work in the downstairs mailroom. Buddy begins to gain confidence with his new surroundings.  He bonds with new step brother Michael during a snowball fight against some bigger kids. Buddy takes Jovie out on an ice skating date and they have their first kiss. It's all going so well until Buddy interrupts a book pitch meeting to Walter by famed children's book author Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage) to save Walter's job.  Buddy thinks Miles's is an elf and insults the diminutive Miles. Walter kicks Buddy out of the office and tells him he never wants to see Buddy again.  This time, Buddy runs away from home (after leaving his family an Etch-A-Sketch goodbye note).

Michael barges into a board meeting to tell Walter that Buddy is missing.  Despite threats to be fired by Walter's boss Mr. Fulton (Michael Lerner), Walter walks out on the board meeting with Michael to find Buddy.  Buddy wanders aimlessly near Central Park when he sees Santa emergency land in Central Park. The device that powers Santa's sleigh, the Clausometer, is malfunctioning.  As four Central Park Rangers (on horses no less) chase after the elusive Santa, Buddy, Michael, and Jovie are able to get several onlookers including Walter to show some Christmas spirit.  Powered by true believers, Santa's sleigh lifts off from Central Park to finish delivering toys around the world.  Buddy and Walter patch up their relationship and everyone lives happily ever after.

Cognizant that ELF is a Christmas movie competing with dozens of Christmas classics, director Favreau peppers ELF with many references to other Christmas film favorites. As mentioned, the opening sequences of Buddy in the North Pole are mixed with stop animation that resembles RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER.   There's a talking snowman (voiced by musician Leon Redbone) in the spirit of Burl Ives Sam the Snowman. Buddy even waves good bye to three misfit toys as he begins his journey to New York. When a despondent Buddy is kicked out of his father's office, Buddy walks along a snowy bridge that parallels Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey standing on a snowy bridge in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946). But rather than an angel intervening, Buddy encounters Santa and his sleigh making an unexpected landing in Central Park.

Buddy's encounter with the department store Santa Claus at Gimbel's echoes Ralphie's department store Santa Claus moment in A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983). In comedies, department store Santas are played for laughs and do not represent the true spirit of old St. Nicholas. ELF'S best modern take on a Christmas character is with Buddy's real father Walter Hobbs. Walter is the Scrooge in ELF.  Consumed by his work, he's barely a husband and father to his wife and son. He's on Santa's naughty list. "He's lost sight of what's important in life," Santa tells Buddy. Walter has lost the Christmas spirit until Buddy enters his life. Like the three ghosts of A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951), Buddy shows Walter the true meaning of both family and Christmas.

I enjoyed that the filmmakers did give the real elves some screen and story time in ELF.  Papa Elf played drolly by Bob Newhart narrates the beginning and end of the film, sharing "elf-isms" as he relates how Buddy came to the North Pole. Director Favreau chooses not to use dwarfs or midgets to play the elves, incorporating sleight of hand scale to show the larger human Buddy living and working alongside his smaller elf brothers and sisters. We get an inside view of Santa's Workshop where the elves make shoes, bake cookies, and build toys including modern toys like Etch-A-Sketches. Refreshingly, it's all real sets and costumes in the North Pole with very little CGI involved.

Ten years earlier, Jim Carrey almost played Buddy the Elf (when the ELF script first appeared and Carrey was at the height of his career). But ELF seems tailor made for Will Farrell.  Farrell's height and expertise at physical comedy fits in perfectly with Buddy's awkwardness assimilating into elf society. Farrell also thrives at playing grown men who act like children (see STEP BROTHERS, TALLEDEGA NIGHTS, or ANCHORMAN). In ELF, it works to perfection. Buddy's fish out of water journey to New York City makes sense.  He comes from an insulated, safe home in the North Pole to the wild, big city. Buddy's a kid let loose in a candy store aka the Big Apple.

Although Farrell is the reason for ELF'S success, it's the supporting cast that surprises. Director Favreau's casting decisions are both unexpected and bold. Perhaps revealing his love for classic 1970s television sitcoms, Favreau gives us Bob Newhart (from TVs BOB NEWHART SHOW) as Papa Elf and Ed Asner (from TVs THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW) as Santa Claus. Both play their parts to perfection. And casting against type, Favreau has tough guy James Caan (best known from films like THE GODFATHER and THIEF) as Buddy's biological father Walter Hobbs. It's funny to see Caan trying to stay calm as Farrell does childish like things around him. I kept waiting for Caan to punch Farrell.  But Farrell and Caan's entirely different acting methods complement each other.

Zooey Deschanel is perfect as Buddy's love interest Jovie.  Deschanel has an elfish like quality herself and an ethereal innocence. Besides working in film and an accomplished singer, Deschanel has her own successful TV series NEW GIRL (2011 - 2018). The lovely Mary Steenburgen plays Walter's understanding wife Emily Hobbs. Steenburgen is eternally youthful. She must be a fan of Will Farrell's humor as she would play his mother in STEP BROTHERS (2008). Faizon Love steals his few scenes in ELF as Jovie's Gimbel's manager. His exasperation as Buddy wreaks havoc with the store's commercial interpretation of Christmas is priceless. Amy Sedaris brings some cheer to the sour Walter Hobbs as his secretary Deb.  And Favreau gives us another Christmas movie Easter Egg with Peter Billingsley who played the bespectacled young Ralphie in A CHRISTMAS STORY cast as Ming Ming, Buddy's exasperated elf shift boss in Santa's toyshop.

As much as I enjoy ELF, the third act is a let down after the first two thirds of the movie.  It just seems rushed with Buddy finding Santa in Central Park, trying to fix his Clausometer so the sleigh can fly again while four Central Park rangers on horseback (acting like either the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or the wraith riders of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING) race around trying to catch Santa.  Farrell disappears in this section which is devoted to Walter finding his Christmas spirit and regaining the love of his son Michael.

But it's not enough to sour my thoughts on ELF as one of the better modern day Christmas movies. ELF maintains its charm throughout the film thanks to the breakout comedy performance from Will Farrell surrounded by a cast of veteran and new actors who keep the story focused on Buddy's journey to find his real father. ELF'S humor never strays into today's gross out style, its laughs sticking with the film's concept and Christmas spirit. ELF is the gift that keeps on giving each Christmas season. 

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)

It's not surprising for studios to entice directors to recapture the magic of a previous hit film by making another film using a similar formula or in the same genre or with the same actors. Director George Roy Hill paired Paul Newman with Robert Redford and had a smash hit film BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969). Newman and Redford's chemistry was electric. Hill would cast Newman and Redford together again in the Depression era caper film THE STING (1973). After Francis Coppola made his massive twin hit gangster films THE GODFATHER (1972) and THE GODFATHER PART II (1974), he mostly misfired on his next few projects. So what did Coppola return to make? Another gangster film called THE COTTON CLUB (1984). But the one film director I never expected to reuse one of his own formula's was John Huston.

Now Huston had made several classic films about men and women's greed ending with catastrophic results in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941), THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (1948), THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950), and THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975). But one of Huston's most endearing films and an outright classic is THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn as two polar opposites who become attracted to each other in the heart of Africa during World War I.  It's a different kind of John Huston movie, the closest to a romantic film that he would do.  I thought it was the only one Huston made. That is until I watched Huston's 1957 film HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON.

Whether a studio convinced Huston to try the formula again or if Huston himself read the Charles Shaw novel and saw the similarities, HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON is a reworking of THE AFRICAN QUEEN formula. The setting is similar. HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON takes place at the end of World War II in the South Pacific. THE AFRICAN QUEEN takes place during World War I in German East Africa around 1914. The characters from both films are similar as well.  Two completely different people thrust together in a time of upheaval who find comfort in each other despite coming from different worlds.

Co-written by John Lee Mahin and John Huston and directed by Huston, HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON has no dialogue for the first ten minutes as U.S. Marine Corporal Allison (Robert Mitchum) drifts unconscious in a rubber raft before washing ashore on a seemingly deserted South Pacific island during 1944 World War II. On the beach, Allison comes across a few bungalows and a church before stumbling across Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), a Roman Catholic nun and the only other inhabitant of the island (if you don't count rats and wild pigs). Allison was on a reconnaissance mission when the Japanese attacked his submarine. Floundering in the water, Allison found a raft and jumped in. Sister Angela came to the island with Father Phillips to find another priest Father Ryan and evacuate to Fiji before the Japanese could conscript him. But Ryan had already been taken and Phillips became sick and died leaving Angela alone. Allison and Angela must work together to survive and figure out how to get off the island.

The soldier and the nun manage to catch a sea turtle and cook it for food.  They prepare to build a raft to get off the island when a Japanese reconnaissance plane flies overhead.  Allison takes Angela to a cave he discovered not far from their beach huts. The Japanese bomb the beach before coming ashore and setting up a makeshift camp. Allison sneaks down into the camp one night to steal some food from the camp. He becomes trapped in the kitchen when two cooks show up. Sister Angela wakes up to find Allison missing.  She hears gunshots and fears Allison has been shot. But it's just the Japanese shooting at a wild pig.  Allison returns with his booty. Angela's happy he's alive but upset he left without telling her.

Allison begins to fall for Sister Angela. Angela confesses she's hasn't completed all her vows which gives Allison hope. The two of them watch a sea battle between the Japanese and the Allies on the horizon. The next morning, they wake up to find the Japanese have left the island. Allison picks this moment to confess his love to Sister Angela.  But Angela won't give up her love to God. Scrounging for supplies that the Japanese left behind, Angela finds a bottle of Saki.  Allison becomes drunk on Saki and upsets Angela with his rants.  Angela runs out into a storm and falls asleep in the outdoors wet and cold. Allison eventually finds Angela among the tall grasses, shivering and feverish.  He brings her back to the cave.

Allison sees naval ships off in the distance. At first, he thinks it's the U.S. Navy but soon realizes the Japanese are returning to the island. With Sister Angela near death, Allison sneaks into the camp again to grab some blankets. A Japanese soldier catches him in the hut. They struggle and Allison kills the soldier. Allison returns Angela back to health but at a price.  The Japanese begin burning the bamboo and grasses on the island to find the castaways.  As the two of them prepare to become prisoners, Angela says a prayer. Suddenly, explosions fill the air and U.S. planes fly over, bombing the Japanese. Allison feels God telling him to take out the Japanese cannons so the U.S. landing will be safer.   Can Marine Corporal Allison pull off this divine suicide mission?

Just as the alcohol loving riverboat captain Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogard) and the prim missionary Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) made THE AFRICAN QUEEN so endearing, we have the same archetypes with Corporal Allison and Sister Angela in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON. Two completely different people. A marine and a nun.  The military and the Catholic church. But Allison and Angela's vocations, although seemingly polar opposite, have a lot in common.  Cpl. Allison was raised an orphan.  The marines are his family.  The Marine Corps are his religion just like Catholicism is Angela's.  They both wear clothing connected to their employer. Marine green for Allison. Angelic white for Angela. Both were raised by tough teachers. Allison by a DI (Drill Instructor). Angela reveals she had her own type of drill instructor: a nun she and the other sisters called "the holy terror."

I've always liked movies about unrequited love.  They can be frustrating but you keep watching hoping the two people will kiss and/or fall in love. HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON is that kind of film. Allison begins falling for Sister Angela.  They get along well. It appears as if they're going to be on the island for some time. When Allison proposes to Angela, she turns him down. It's not that she doesn't have feelings for Allison. She's fond of him. But Angela has promised her love to a higher power. Jesus Christ. But the filmmakers come up with a plot device that is the closest to intimacy they will have. When Allison finds Angela feverish outside the cave after he scared her with his "drunk talk", he undresses her (off camera) and wraps her in warm blankets so she doesn't die of exposure. He tells Angela what he had to do. Angela approves of the act. It's the two characters way of consummating their relationship without making love. Allison and Angela are a modern day Adam and Eve on this island. Only there's no snake to tempt them. Just the Japanese army to hide from. The film's ending hints that there still could be hope for the two. As Allison is taken by a stretcher to a nearby ship, Angela follows holding both the comb Allison made for her and a cross from the church.  The camera lingers on both as if to suggest Angela's mind is not completely made up whether she will choose God or Allison.  Maybe that's why the title suggests only "heaven knows" Angela's decision.

Who wouldn't fall in love with the lovely Deborah Kerr as Sister Angela? Kerr has a wonderful porcelain face that shines throughout the film as that's all we really see of her.  Just as we ache to see Kerr and Mitchum kiss, we yearn to see a glimpse of Kerr's hair.  For almost the entire film, she wears her habit.  Only her face is seen. But Huston does provide one scene in which Angela is out of her nun's clothing and we see her short cropped red hair. My first encounter with Kerr was in Fred Zinnemann's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) as the unfaithful wife to an army captain.  Sister Angela is a far cry from ETERNITY'S cheating wife. But Kerr had the versatility to bounce between demure characters like the English teacher in THE KING AND I (1956) to another philandering wife in THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1955) as well as classical performances like Portia in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's JULIUS CAESAR (1953).

Robert Mitchum began his career playing tough guys and cowboys in films like Don Siegel's THE BIG STEAL (1949) or Raoul Walsh's PURSUED (1947). But Mitchum would break out from being typecast when he played the malevolent preacher Harry Powell in Charles Laughton's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955).  Mitchum would work with many great directors throughout his career including Howard Hawks (EL DORADO), David Lean (RYAN'S DAUGHTER), and Sydney Pollack (THE YAKUZA). Corporal Allison is one of Mitchum's finest roles.  He brings both a gritty toughness yet boyish tenderness to Allison as he protects and falls in love with Sister Angela. One moment, Allison's a love struck teenager bringing Sister Angela a comb he made by hand as a gift.  He's in love for the first time in his life. "I've never even lived before," he tells Angela. "Never really..lived...inside" as he taps his heart. The next moment, he kills a Japanese soldier with his bare hands to protect their presence on the island. It's a daring performance by Mitchum.

When I think of Hollywood on screen couples, I usually think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, or Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.  HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON would be the first of four films (one a television movie) that Robert Mitchum and Debora Kerr would appear in together.  After watching their chemistry in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON, it's not surprising. Mitchum and Kerr would also star in Fred Zinnemann's THE SUNDOWNERS (1960) set in early 20th Century Australia and Stanley Donen's THE GRASS IS GREENER (1960) co-starring Cary Grant and Jean Simmons.

When I first saw HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON, the island location struck me as unique.  The island looked dense with palm trees.  I wondered did they really film HEAVEN KNOWS somewhere in the South Pacific?  Director Huston was known for filming in far away locations like Mexico for THE TREASURE OF SIERRE MADRE or the Belgian Congo in Africa for THE AFRICAN QUEEN. It turns out the location for HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON is Tobago, one of the two island in the Caribbean known as Trinidad-Tobago.  Tobago has an incredibly lush look and most likely resembles the hundreds of small islands in the South Pacific.  Ironically, Mitchum had just made a film the year before called THE FIRE DOWN BELOW (1957) in Tobago co-starring Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon. Fans of Disney's 1960 adventure THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON will recognize Tobago as the location for that film too.

Kerr and Mitchum are the only two stars of the film.   They have almost all the screen time.  But Huston does give a few scenes to the Japanese actors who portray the Japanese army in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON.  Huston shows them as human beings just like anyone else. Shining boots, dancing to music, engaging in some physical athletic games. Two cooks exemplify the universal grunt in war.  They both show their disdain for a superior (after he leaves the kitchen). The battle boredom by playing a board game and drinking Saki that was meant for the officer. They seem like nice enough men.  Allison watches them, trapped in the kitchen until they go to bed.  As normal as the two cooks appear, Allison would kill them in a heartbeat if they were to discover him. It's nice to see Huston show the human side of the enemy.

The opposites attract film went to great lengths in the 80s to be vastly different in movies like Ron Howard's SPLASH (1984) where a man falls in love with a mermaid or John Carpenter's STARMAN (also 1984) that has a woman falling in love with an extraterrestrial who can resemble her dead husband.  But John Huston perfected the formula with his classic film THE AFRICAN QUEEN. But Huston's lesser known HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON might be even more true to the formula than THE AFRICAN QUEEN. HEAVEN'S two protagonists are almost fated to never be together due to Angela's vows.  But it's worth watching and hoping that they might become a couple.

The Brides of Dracula (1960)

It was Universal Studios that introduced the world to Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man back in the 1930s. The Universal monsters reign of terror lasted until the 1940s when the real horror of World War II replaced the cinematic horror of vampires, werewolves, and the undead.  It would take a British film company known as Hammer Film Studios to revive the horror film in the late 1950s. Hammer would resurrect Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and yes, Dracula. Hammer had two things going for it that Universal Studios did not back in the 30s.  Hammer's horror films were in color and Hammer's films could amp up the sex and blood.

One of  Hammer's earliest hits was THE HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) starring a young Christopher Lee (today's audiences know Lee from THE LORD OF THE RINGS films) as Count Dracula. It was another retelling of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Hammer had a hit and commissioned another Dracula film.  But Christopher Lee didn't want to be typecast as Dracula (he would play the part again in 1966's DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM HIS GRAVE and 8 more times afterward). So Director Terence Fisher (who directed THE HORROR OF DRACULA) and three writers (Jimmy Sangster, Peter Bryan, and Edward Percy) moved forward with a vampire film without showing Dracula that would be called THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) in which one of Dracula's disciples terrorizes an all-girl's school.

I first came across THE BRIDES OF DRACULA like I came across a few Hammer horror films while playing at a friend's house when I was a young boy.  My best friend Richard's mother always had the television on at noon.  A local channel seemed to be showing Hammer horror films at that time.  I recall watching BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE (1958) also written by Jimmy Sangster and THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) which was also directed by BRIDES Terence Fisher while at his house.  But I will never forget when THE BRIDES OF DRACULA came on in my friend's living room.  The two scenes that etched in my mind were a dead girl's hands clawing out of the earth as she rose for the first time as a vampire and the giant windmill climax in which the hero destroys the vampire. I would not see THE BRIDES OF DRACULA again for more than twenty years until I rented bad video copy of the film in the early 90s.

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA opens with a narrator telling us Dracula is dead but his disciples live on as the 19th century comes to a close.  Marianne Danielle (Yvonne Monlaur) rides a carriage from Paris to Badstein where she's to be a French student teacher at an All-Girls Academy.  While stopping at the Running Boar tavern for food, one of those disciples (Michael Mulcaster) pays the coachman (the aptly named Michael Ripper) to take off without Marianne.  Seemingly stranded at the inn, a late night visit for wine by the Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) turns into an invitation to spend the night with her at the nearby Meinster Castle. The Baroness says she lives alone except for her servant Greta (Freda Jackson). But from her bedroom balcony, Marianne sees a man in the courtyard below. The man is Baron Meinster (David Peel), the Baroness's son.

Marianne sneaks down to meet the Baron and discovers he's chained by the leg to the wall. Meinster begs her to steal the key from his mother's room and free him.  The naïve Marianne obliges not realizing that Meinster is a vampire.  No longer shackled, Meinster turns on his mother the Baroness then flees. When Marianne discovers the hysterical Greta grieving over the dead Baroness, she runs from the castle into the nearby forest.  She's discovered the next morning by a coach carrying Doctor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Stopping at the Running Boar again, Van Helsing learns a young village woman (Marie Devereux) has died from mysterious circumstances. Before investigating the death, Van Helsing escorts Marianne to the Ladies Academy in Badstein.

At the Academy, Marianne meets the stern headmaster Herr Otto Lang (Henry Oscar) and his more warm hearted wife Frau Helga Lang (Mona  Washbourne). Marianne meets the girls and hits it off with another student teacher Gina (Andree Melly). Van Helsing returns to the village to check on the dead girl but she's already been buried. When he goes to inspect her grave in the church yard, he witnesses Meinster's servant Greta urging the village girl to scratch her way out of the ground. Van Helsing tries to stake her but the village vampire girl escapes.  Van Helsing wanders up to Meinster Castle and discovers Baroness Meinster inhabiting the grounds.  She's also a vampire.  The Baron is hiding out there as well. He escapes in his coach. Van Helsing waits until sunrise before hammering a stake through the Baroness's heart to give her peace.

Back at the Academy, Baron Meinster shows up to woo Marianne.  He proposes to her and she accepts. Later that night, Meinster bites Gina.  When Van Helsing returns to the Running Boar, he finds a Dr. Tobler (Miles Mallson) has arrived.  He's been called to look into a death at the Girl's Academy. Tobler invites Van Helsing to join him.  Van Helsing discovers that Marianne's engaged to Meinster. Gina's body lies in rest in a barn next to the school. When Gina rises and almost bites Marianne, Van Helsing arrives to intervene.  He tracks Gina to an old windmill where Meinster is hiding out. Meinster battles Van Helsing and bites him. Van Helsing takes a hot iron and cauterizes the bite. Meinster returns to the Academy and grabs Marianne, taking her back to the old mill to join his other brides. He's surprised to find Van Helsing still alive. Good versus evil ensues as Van Helsing and Meinster duel with holy water and fire underneath the massive wind mill while Meinster's vampire brides watch with delight.

Hammer films were an exciting new interpretation of the Universal horror films. Hammer brought good production value to the stories (although you recognize some of the same sets and forests in their films). Early films like THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and THE HORROR OF DRACULA are well made if a bit over the top at times.  THE BRIDES OF DRACULA is no exception. But there's something about BRIDES that raises it to a higher level than some of Hammer's other hit films. What seems unlucky in having Christopher Lee bow out as the tall, elegant Dracula provides an opportunity for the shorter but well coiffed David Peel to step in as a new vampire Baron Meinster. The film's location at an All Girl's School promises some sexual tension between the Baron and the young women he preys on. The relationship between Baron Meinster and his mother feels like Greek tragedy. And set pieces like the young vampire girl digging out of her coffin or the finale at the giant windmill (resembling a humongous holy cross) are memorable and will be copied by future filmmakers. But the key to THE BRIDES OF DRACULA popularity are those vampire babes...I mean brides.

Dracula's brides have always titillated audiences.  The King of Vampires has three beautiful undead wives fawning over him.  Do they all sleep together in one coffin?  What do the brides do when he's gone? Iron his cape and dust the abbey? In Tod Browning's DRACULA (1931), we only get glimpses of the brides, dressed in flowing white gowns. They're beautiful and mysterious but Browning leaves us wanting to know more about them. He doesn't play up their sexuality. The Spanish version of DRACULA (also 1931) utilized Dracula's brides sensuality better than the English version. It wasn't until more recent films like Francis Coppola's DRACULA (1993) and Stephen Sommers' VAN HELSING (2003) put Dracula's brides front and center, emphasizing their sexiness and blood lust. But it was THE BRIDES OF DRACULA that first put a spotlight on the feminine side of vampirism.

There's always been something sensual about a vampire biting the neck of a young woman and drinking her blood. It's the supernatural equivalent to sexual intercourse. Whether the vampire is  Dracula or Baron Meinster in THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, the men are usually handsome and aristocratic. The women they pursue are often virgins or soon to be married young ladies. Although DRACULA had the Count pursuing mainly one woman (Mina), BRIDES finally focuses on a multitude of women that Meinster wants to add to his flock. He's like a bloodsucking Warren Beatty. DRACULA and VAN HELSING showed the brides already dead and serving Dracula. THE BRIDES OF DRACULA is the first film to show a vampire like Meinster trying to create his trio of terror.

I would consider THE BRIDES OF DRACULA a cult film. I knew there was something unique about BRIDES but apparently so did some of Hollywood's best filmmakers.  In the THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003), the Wachowski Brothers sequel to THE MATRIX (1999), THE BRIDES OF DRACULA can be seen playing on a television during a scene. In Tom Holland's FRIGHT NIGHT (1985), Roddy McDowell's character Peter Vincent is a homage to Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. McDowell definitely channels Cushing's Van Helsing and dresses like him too. But the biggest homage to THE BRIDES OF DRACULA is from director Tim Burton (BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN).  In Burton's SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999), the finale takes place in a huge windmill that clearly is a nod to THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (and with a better budget).  Burton even uses Hammer film stars Christopher Lee and Michael Gough (HORROR OF DRACULA, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) in supporting roles for SLEEPY HOLLOW.

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA doesn't miss a beat with virtually unknown English actor David Peel as the main vampire Baron Meinster replacing Christopher Lee who chose not to return as the Count after THE HORROR OF DRACULA. Even though Dracula is mentioned in the title, Peel's Baron is one of his disciples, perhaps bitten by Dracula. The Baron comes off as a spoiled brat, a petulant son, and when cornered, a snarling vampire. We feel sorry for Meinster early when we learn his overbearing mother, the Baroness Meinster keeps him chained up. The Baroness sees her son as an embarrassment to the family name and a danger to the community. Mother knows best right? She still loves her son, even worships him. She later confesses she encouraged his partying with a bad crowd. Filled with guilt for what he's become, the Baroness lures Marianne to their castle, a sacrifice to her son to keep him happy. But the Baroness's plan backfires. Meinster tricks Marianne into setting him free. The first person Meinster turns on?  His loving mother. Whereas Christopher Lee would return as Dracula in 1966, David Peel would give up acting and become a successful art dealer.

It's a sad moment when Van Helsing stumbles across the Baroness, now herself a vampire. She's embarrassed to be a member of the undead instead of the ruling elite. She gladly accepts Van Helsing's wooden stake through the heart to bring her peace. Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing brings his usual class and gusto to the role of vampire killer. Cushing is a master at incorporating props with his acting. Watch him in BRIDES as he's always washing his hands, opening his medical bag, or in the finale, branding himself with a hot iron to rid himself of Meinster's curse. Cushing would play everything from Sherlock Holmes to a pirate captain for Hammer but he would mostly play either Van Helsing or Dr. Victor Frankenstein. After a distinguished career mostly appearing in the horror genre, Cushing would be rewarded with his most famous role as the evil Grand Moff Tarkin in George Lucas's STAR WARS (1977). Well done Mr. Cushing.

Sprinkled throughout THE BRIDES OF DRACULA are character actors whose performances also help make BRIDES so memorable.  There's the alluring Yvonne Monlaur as the French student teacher Marianne and focus of Baron Meinster (Monlaur was actually French). Martita Hunt brings elegance as Baroness Meinster, the over protective mother of her vampire son. You will never hear a more bloodcurdling cackle than from Freda Jackson as the Meinster's loyal servant Greta. For comic relief, we have Miles Malleson as Dr. Tobler, the eccentric local doctor and a bit of a hypochondriac himself. Both Cushing and Malleson appeared in THE HORROR OF DRACULA although Malleson played a different, smaller role in HORROR.

Budget limitations hinder THE BRIDES OF DRACULA at times.  Both Meinster Castle and the giant windmill are clearly models instead of the real thing.  The large vampire bat that Meinster turns into is slow and not very realistic or scary. Yet THE BRIDES OF DRACULA has an operatic style to it. To hell that the production can't afford a real castle and windmill.  Dramatic organ music played over the insert shots make the castle and wind mill seem big and real. Director Fisher uses lots of garish colors - velvety purples and burgundy reds to make BRIDES more flamboyant, vibrant. THE BRIDES OF DRACULA is a feast for the eyes with its sets, wardrobe, and overall visual look.

Hammer Films would ignite a new generation in the late 50s and 60s to discover the Universal monsters that gave audiences chills back in the 30s. Hammer would update these classic tales with lurid color, more blood, and a little bit of sex. THE BRIDES OF DRACULA would be one of Hammer's early successes. BRIDES has all the classic vampire motifs: caskets and graveyards, holy water and crosses, wooden stakes and giant bats, and blood thirsty vampires and oh, those wonderful, beautiful vampire brides.  Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Mummy would be in good hands with Hammer Films for the next decade.