HONEYWALL1 Reviews

The Deerslayer (1957)

Acceptable in its time...46 years ago!

[10/10 · 31 July 2003]

The others contributing to the comments section on this 1957 film seem pre-occupied with the so-called Political Correctness and racism of today. One goes so far as to say that he can't understand how children of the 1950's could accept this as entertainment. Well, let me comment on the last thing first. This film was released in the UK in December, 1957, when I was ten and three quarters years of age. At that time, both myself and all my boyhood pals had recently gone through the Davy Crockett phase and subsequently, any movie set in Colonial America and having plenty of yipping injuns; frontiersmen and flintlock muskets and pistols was bound to be popular with us. In this respect and at that very different time, THE DEERSLAYER was bound to be popular with the juvenile audience it was aimed at. It also had beautiful, warm and sunlit scenery, spendidly photographed

in CinemaScope and Color by De Luxe and a memorable score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter.

At the time, I thought this film was marvellous and very exciting, especially the Indian attack on the fort in the middle of the lake. Me and my pals had a new hero in The Deerslayer and incorporated him into our games of cowboys and Indians in which some of us would play the Hurons, mown down mercilessly by the musket fire of the other boys.

This may seem very strange now to younger readers of this site who can't remember the 1950's, but this was the way it was then. Throughout our childhood, we had been indoctrinated by the cinema into believing that what would now be considered racist ideas about native Americans were correct. They were represented as "squalling polecats" and "savages" and "heathens", not as people. Just as anonymous targets to be mown down. A hindrance and a thorn in the side of white settlers pushing the frontier Westward.

So this film is a product of its time and should not be judged by our modern standards. There had been the very isolated film like BROKEN ARROW, that gave a more accurate and sympathetic view of the American Indian, but for every BROKEN ARROW, there were a dozen films of the calibre of THE DEERSLAYER; THE GUNS OF FORT PETTICOAT and DRAGOON WELLS MASSACRE. I do not think that our ideas as children about Red Indians would have been considered racist in 1957, because we kids had never heard that word at that time. But I like to think that we've all grown up a lot in our knowledge and attitudes since then. After all, I realise now that the Indians were fighting for their land, which was being stolen from them by the whites and fighting to preserve their way of life. They had a right to fight back. Looked at today, THE DEERSLAYER may look corny and racist, but it was filmed in 1957, not 2003. For it's time, then, a rousing Boy's Own adventure that would have been popular with juveniles. Modern boys in the eight to thirteen age bracket, though, probably wouldn't like it.

One Foot in Hell (1960)

An excellent psychological Western with an offbeat theme.

[22 April 2001]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I went to see this movie in 1961, when I was fourteen, and I thought it was an excellent psychological Western with an offbeat theme. Alan Ladd plays a hate-crazed ex-Confederate who takes a violent revenge on the townsfolk of Blue Springs, Arizona, whose initial indifferance led to his wife dying in childbirth when they first arrived in the town. The townspeople are contrite, doing all they can to make amends...even giving Ladd the job of Deputy Sheriff. But secretly, Ladd is full of hatred for them and, while out hunting rustlers with the Sheriff, he murders him in cold blood and, bringing his body back to town, blames the outlaws for the killing. Now, the townsfolk make him Sheriff and he sets about forming a gang in nearby Royce City to help him rob the Blue Springs bank of $100,000, kill all those he blames for his wife's death, and burn the town to the ground. Two of the gang (Don Murray and Dolores Michaels), left to look after the gang's log cabin hideout, fall in love and want no part in the plans. After the raid is over, Ladd guns down the other gang members (Dan O'Herlihy and Barry Coe) and goes after the lovers, intent on killing them, too. A terrific fight ensues between Ladd and Murray and Ladd is killed. Hoping the town will forgive them, Murray and Michaels take the stolen money back to Blue Springs. Although Ladd is unusually convincing as a baddie, the film really belongs to Murray and Michaels. Their romantic scenes together on the banks of a sunlit woodland stream are beautifully played against a haunting score by Dominic Frontiere. If the film has a message, it must be that hatred is like an acid. It will eat into your soul and kill you before you die.

The Story of Ruth (1960)

A beautifully made, sincerely acted and totally under-rated movie.

[10/10 · 13 April 2001]

I first saw this movie in October, 1960, when I was thirteen and a half. Like many others of my generation, I had purchased the wonderfully made Dell Movie Classic comic book adaptation of the film, with its impressive color photo cover...obviously designed as pre-release publicity to make you want to go to see the film when it arrived in town. I was very impressed with the film and it became one of my all time favorite movies. I watched the great Biblical love story come alive and unfold itself across the CinemaScope screen and I found certain parts of it very moving...especially the death of Mahlon (Tom Tryon) in that cave. As Ruth, twenty years old Elana Eden is superb. As she realises that Mahlon has just died in front of her, she falls to her knees, buries her face in her hands and sobs bitterly (very much in the mold of Jennifer Jones in that final scene of LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING) and I found the scene so moving that, as Elana Eden sobbed, so I began to sob, also. It was so well done, I became totally involved in it for two hours and twelve minutes of screen time. Because this is one of the quieter Bible stories, and contains no chariot races or battle scenes, it has been somewhat overlooked by most of today's movie historians and has only been shown on UK television once...in December, 1972, when it was already twelve years old...and not shown since. So, a couple of generations have come into the world since its original release who have never had the opportunity to see it. But it's certainly worth seeing and I give it ten out of ten. Thankfully, it's available on video in the USA and I was able to send to amazon.com for a copy last year. As to what became of Elana Eden, I'd like very much to know. According to the British November, 1960, edition of Photoplay, she signed a long term contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1960, presumably on the strength of her superb debut performance in this movie. Yet, as far as I know, she never acted again. Does anyone out there know why and whatever became of her? She was so very, very beautiful. I fell in love with her from the first time I saw her on the cover of that Movie Classic comic. A wonderful movie with an unmistakable air of sincerity about the whole production, THE STORY OF RUTH is something quite removed from most of Fox's output of the period.

A Dog of Flanders (1960)

By far the best of quite a few movie adaptations over the years of the classic children's story.

[10/10 · 13 April 2001]

I went to see this movie in 1961, when I was fourteen, and it became one of only four movies seen during my life that actually moved me to tears in the cinema (for the record, the others were LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING; THE PROUD REBEL and THE STORY OF RUTH). A DOG OF FLANDERS is a superb tear-jerker, filmed on location in Holland and Belgium in 1959, but set in 1900. It stars the then twelve-year-old David Ladd as the orphan Nello and veteran actor Donald Crisp as his elderly and infirm grandfather. Although devoted to one another, they live a very poor life selling milk from a hand cart they pull around Antwerp. Nello is an artistic, intelligent and sensitive little boy who wants to paint like his idol, Peter Paul Rubens, but he has no money to enable him to study or to buy proper materials to paint with. They find a badly treated dog, left to die at the roadside by his heartless owner and take him home and care for him. Because he's been so badly treated, it takes time for him to accept them as his friends. But eventually, they gain his trust. Nello names him Patrasche...the name that Rubens had given to his dog...and he becomes part of the small family, even pulling the cart when grandfather is unable to do so any more. One day, Nello has just finished a sketch of the old man dozing in a chair outside their one-roomed hut and goes to show him the finished drawing. But he cannot awaken him and slowly, he comes to realize that his beloved grandfather is dead. Completely bereft and unable to keep up the rent on their home, Nello and Patrasche are evicted by an uncaring landlord in the middle of winter. Somehow, they have to learn how to survive without his grandfather in a harsh and bitter world. A DOG OF FLANDERS, from the 1872 novel by Ouida, had been filmed previously, notably in 1934, but never so well as this. It really is beautifully done all round and everyone connected with it should feel very proud of the result. The music score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter is very haunting and David Ladd, who had previously given such a truly wonderful performance alongside his father Alan in THE PROUD REBEL (1958), is superb. David and I shared the same Christian name, were both the same age and had similar looks, which made it easy for me to identify with him in A DOG OF FLANDERS, which became one of my all time favorite movies. Theodore Bikel has a good character role in it as an artist who befriends Nello, eventually adopts him and helps him to realize his dreams. Beautifully filmed in CinemaScope and Color by De Luxe, this is a wonderful film and you really would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by it. I give it ten out of ten.

The Proud Rebel (1958)

Alongside Shane, Alan Ladd never made a better movie than THE PROUD REBEL.

[10/10 · 13 April 2001]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I went to see this wonderful Technicolor film in 1958, when I was eleven, and it became one of my all-time favorite movies. Alan Ladd is top-billed, but the film belongs to his real-life, eleven year old son, David, who, in a truly outstanding performance, practically steals the whole film from his famous father. Set just after the end of the American Civil War, Alan Ladd plays John Chandler, a Confederate traveling the countryside searching for a doctor who can cure his mute son, David, who has been struck dumb with shock after seeing his mother killed in front of him and his home burned to the ground during the war. David's constant companion is his sheep dog, Lance, and the pair are devoted to one another. They are taken in by a spinster, Linnett Moore (Olivia de Havilland), in return for them helping her on her farm, which is coveted by a land-hungry rancher, Harry Burleigh (Dean Jagger) and his two obnoxious sons. When a doctor is found in far away Philadelphia who holds out a hope of curing David, John, unable to raise the money any other way, sells Lance to a dog breeder without David knowing. The operation is a failure and when David returns home to find Lance gone, he is inconsolable. Meanwhile, Lance has fallen into the hands of Burleigh, who, knowing John must come to get the dog back for his son's sake, sets a trap for him. David follows his father to Burleigh's ranch and the shock of seeing his father about to be shot from behind restores his power of speech. Just in time, he shouts a warning to his father, who turns and shoots his attacker, killing him. The final scene, where David runs across the fields with Lance into the arms of Linnett, sobbing "I...can...talk...I can...talk!" had me and the rest of the audience in tears. Jerome Moross' wonderful music score greatly added to the overall effect of this classic movie, which I rate ten out of ten!