High Society (1956)

Woeful musical that has dated very badly. 

Grace Kelly plays Tracy, a wealthy divorcee who is about to remarry a new sweetheart. Bing Crosby plays her ex. When a journalist (Frank Sinatra) comes to her home, she is torn between the three men. 

It’s extremely wooden. The songs aren’t very memorable and there aren’t even very many of them. They seem like last-minute hackwork. Likewise, the script appears to have been written on the day they shot it. 

Louis Armstrong plays himself as a band leader and – despite the half-baked material – his singing, along with Crosby’s and Sinatra’s, is probably the best thing about the film. Otherwise, it completely lacks artistry. 

It’s erratic and uneven. Early on, there’s the suggestion that it could become a farce or a comedy of manners when a father and uncle have to switch places. But this thread is quickly abandoned and no comedy ensues. Likewise, Tracy’s young sister is active for the first third and then drops out of the film, perhaps because the writers didn’t know what to do with her. It’s not funny or romantic and it doesn’t even really work as a musical. What a mess.

Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)

Google: “In this fact-based film, distinguished U.S. Army Col. David Marcus (Kirk Douglas) is enlisted by the Israelis to perform the difficult task of preparing their fledgling nation for battle against the Arabs. Before long, he feuds with the local leaders, quits his post and goes back home to his pregnant wife (Angie Dickinson) in the United States. However, Marcus, who is Jewish himself, soon has a crisis of faith and decides to return to duty to help the untrained Israelis form an army.”

The film is slow and laboured. The sound quality is poor and the dialogue isn’t synchronised quite right. There’s a disjointed, awkward feel. 

John Wayne, Topol, Frank Sinatra and Yul Brynner all appear, but no amount of star charisma can make the script work. I do like Senta Berger as Magda Simon. She has a certain warmth and charm that is lacking elsewhere. Kirk Douglas is watchable, too, but seems much too chirpy most of the time, adding to a feeling that the whole affair is rather shallow.

On the plus side, there are a few good lines. For example, when David asks his wife why she’s up so late, she replies: “I worry better when I’m awake.”

Suddenly (1954)

Rather unexceptional drama about a fake FBI agent (played by Frank Sinatra) who attempts to kill the US President. He and his henchmen take over the Benson family’s house in the town of Suddenly, California, in order to aim their gun at the railway station where the President is shortly due to arrive. 

Although there’s some excitement in the ticking-clock countdown to the planned assassination at 5pm, the performances are mainly wooden and/or half-baked. Sinatra has a definite magnetism and out-performs everyone else, but there’s a B-movie feel that it cannot rise above. 

It’s mostly interesting for its attitudes. Ellen (Nancy Gates) wants to prevent her son playing with a toy gun, but her boyfriend, the sheriff (Sterling Hayden) tells her “Stop being a woman!” Shocking stuff. The “moral” seems to be that guns are great – unless a psychopath happens to get hold of one – and that masculinity is incomplete without them. 

The most remarkable aspect of the film is explained by Wikipedia: “Sinatra asked United Artists to withdraw Suddenly from circulation because he heard the rumor that Lee Harvey Oswald had seen it before shooting President Kennedy. According to Hollywood legend, Sinatra bought up all remaining copies of Suddenly and had them destroyed, but this was not true.”