Mel Ferrer

  • Eaten Alive (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2022) Conventional Wisdom is that writer-director Tobe Hooper was great until a certain point, after which he was a terrible filmmaker. That’s not quite true, though… with Eaten Alive being an example of an earlier not-so-good film. It’s a bit early in the chronology of the horror genre to call it a real slasher, but it feels very much like a slasher: psychotic killer with an unusual weapon (a scythe and crocodiles), a structure that murders a character every few minutes, a dark and foggy atmosphere… sure, there are a few final survivors rather than just one, but the spirit is there. (Plus, Hooper was familiar with such tropes from 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)  The result isn’t quite bad, but it’s not as good as you may expect at that stage of his career. Add it to the list of “last stops for classic Hollywood stars” horror movies, with none other than Mel Ferrer as a father tracking down his missing daughter. Still, the film has an atmosphere of sorts, some mildly effective moments and a rather disarming low-budget approach. It ends up being something not really worth seeking out (unless you’re piecing together Hooper’s filmography), but not necessarily something to shut off if your expectations are accordingly low. But it’s nothing like the movies Hooper did before or immediately after.

  • Born to Be Bad (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) While the natural narrative of film noir is one of a crime thriller, you don’t necessarily need murders, conspiracies and hardened criminals to do bad—perfectly average people can be terrible in their own ways without necessarily breaking the law. So it is that the film noir definitions can expand to cover melodrama, especially when you take a look at something like Born to be Bad, in which the lead femme fatale isn’t a murderess as much as a chronic liar, a manipulator and a back-stabber when it comes to getting what she wants. Most of it is perfectly legal… if reprehensible. It’s up to Joan Fontaine to play the cute and deceptively evil lead, and actors such as Robert Ryan and Zachary Scott (but not Mel Ferrer, oh no) to be the victims of her schemes. What could have been a perfectly acceptable “women’s picture” melodrama of no interest to film noir fans is given an extra dimension or two by director Nicholas Ray, as he draws parallels between his anti-heroine’s actions and larger social forces, plus a bit of moody cinematography. Still, I can’t help but suspect that about half of the film’s claim to the film noir club comes from film historians really wanting to include another Nicholas Ray movie in the canon, even if it doesn’t completely fit. But, ah, no matter whether you consider this an overwrought melodrama or a sentimental film noir, Born to be Bad is still a modest success that explores how a cute young woman can get away with just about anything… at least for a while.

  • Rancho Notorious (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) When is a western not a western? Maybe when it’s helmed by Fritz Lang, who was best known in the early 1950s for downbeat film noir thrillers that pushed a distinct bleak outlook. Maybe when it’s more focused on psychological drama, as a good man increasingly becomes a villain during his quest for vengeance. Maybe, alas, when it’s studio-bound at a time when any western with a decent budget (especially when filmed in colour) headed out in the country. Yes, Rancho Notorious is not quite your typical western. Adding such stars as Marlene Dietrich and Mel Ferrer adds to the interest of classic Hollywood fans, with Dietrich being particularly interesting vamping it up (successfully) at age 50 while echoing a similar turn in Destry Run Again. Still, the studio-bound nature of the production dulls some of its impact—not so much in dramatic heft, considering that the film is more focused on character drama than landscapes, but in overall credibility. (You can compare it with the largely shot on-location contemporary Bend of the River for contrast.)  Still, the interest here is in seeing Fritz push the envelope of acceptable content with sultry Dietrich moments and some frank dialogue. Add that to the decidedly unheroic degradation of the character and you have a western that remains interesting despite its flaws, which is already more distinct than many other films of the period—and the 1950s had many westerns.

  • Enter Laughing (1967)

    Enter Laughing (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) The little-seen Enter Laughing (“never released on DVD or Blu-ray,” notes Wikipedia) is notable primarily for being writer-director Carl Reiner’s big-screen debut as a filmmaker. Adapted (indirectly) from Reiner’s own material, it features a delivery boy’s shaky entrance in theatrical show-business, as his lacklustre acting skills are no match for the attraction he creates in his leading lady and her influence over her father/producer. An early example of a comedy of humiliation, much of Enter Laughing’s jokes run at the expense of its lead character (played with wide-eyed innocence by Reni Santoni), who’s really not that bright nor gifted in the thespian arts. While a fine comic premise, there’s a sense that the joke is not just overdone, but wrung dry over the course of the film’s first two acts. It’s only at the very end, as all of the meticulously assembled setup finally pays off, that Enter Laughing becomes marginally funnier. The ending sequence makes good use of Mel Ferrer’s adeptness at portraying exasperation, and adopts a more slapstick approach relying equally on physical as verbal comedy. Enter Laughing is clearly best suited to audiences with theatrical experience — there’s an insider’s touch to the process of auditioning, dodgy off-Broadway troupes and horrifyingly unfortunate premieres that speaks to Reiner’s experience in the Manhattan comedy world. I eventually liked the result, but Enter Laughing took much longer to deliver the jokes than I expected. Fortunately, when it comes to making an impact, it’s far better to have audiences exit laughing.

  • Scaramouche (1952)

    Scaramouche (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Hey, let’s head back to royal France for some good old-fashioned land-bound swashbuckling! Scaramouche is the kind of expansive epic film that Hollywood was able to execute so well in the early 1950s. Filmed in bright colours, it adapts classic literature into an adventure meant for the big screen. Our hero is a young man ably played by the square-jawed Stewart Granger, who finds himself tempted by two women (the gorgeous red-headed Eleanor Parker, and the no less good-looking Janet Leigh) as he makes an enemy of an aristocratic master swordsman (deliciously played by Mel Ferrer). Realizing that he doesn’t stand a chance in combat, he goes hiding in a theatre troupe, hoping to sharpen his sword-fighting skills until he can confront his nemesis. The emphasis on the theatrical performance of comedia del arte allows Scaramouche to have some intentionally comic interludes in-between the bouts of action and swordplay, but don’t worry: it ends with a magnificent eight-minute sword-fight that goes all around and behind a theatre, blending all of the clichés of Hollywood fencing in a rather delightful package. It’s all quite charming, and an almost pitch-perfect of the kind of Hollywood was churning out on an assembly line at some point. It’s far less leadened than many other historical movies, and Parker is a sight to see while waiting for the climactic sword-fight. The far-fetched plot elements are insane, but completely in keeping with Scaramouche’s slightly feverish pace and attitude.

  • The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

    The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) What an interesting film. Decades before I am Legend, here is The World, The Flesh and The Devil featuring one black man (Harry Belafonte) alone in post-apocalyptic New York City, except that he meets a white woman (Inger Stevens) at the beginning of the second act and they fall in love except when another man enters the picture (Mel Ferrer) at the beginning of the third act and then the action gets downright primal. Often meditative, but simply eloquent by the choice of featuring a lead black actor (playing an engineer, no less) romancing a white woman as the (potentially) last two people on Earth, this is a film worth remembering for its explicit acknowledgement or racism and mental illness due to isolation. Belafonte was Sidney Poitier before Poitier, and he gets to show his charisma and singing abilities here, either by himself in the early minutes of the film, alongside Stevens later on, or in an increasingly antagonistic relationship with Ferrer late in the film. Some haunting shots of late-1950s Manhattan, completely empty of people, are good for a frisson or two. The ending doesn’t quite satisfy—it seems to push things to a breaking point, then draws back for less than convincing reasons. But at least it’s an ending everyone can live with.

  • Lili (1953)

    Lili (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) The comparison points between Lili and other hit movies of previous years underline that this was a follow-up film trying to capitalize on many of the same crowd-pleasing elements without quite having what it takes to pull it off. Itemizing the obvious similarities: MGM musical, picturesque French setting, Leslie Caron in the lead, and a big fantasy ballet number in the last third of the film. Yup; some studio executives saw Gigi or An American in Paris and thought they could do more of the same. It’s hard to fault their thinking—Lili did good business and was nominated for a surprising number of Academy Awards. Let’s remember that this was at a time when MGM could not do wrong. Unfortunately, it hasn’t aged so well: Mel Ferrer is good, but no substitute as a singer/dancer for someone like Gene Kelly, and Caron can’t quite sustain the entire weight of the film on her shoulders. Worse yet is the feeling that this is a rethread, a very deliberate attempt to capture past glory. The puppet motif seems a bit too self-satisfied, and the musical aspect of the film is underwhelming—there aren’t many songs, and they’re not particularly catchy. From a twenty-first century perspective, the idea of a thirtysomething man puppeteering a suicidal sixteen-year-old character into a relationship is far creepier than the puppets themselves. Even if Lili is not bad per se (it even features Zsa Zsa Gabor, if that’s your thing), it’s only worth a shrug when placed alongside the other musicals that inspired it.