Norman Taurog

  • Please Believe Me (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) I have a hard time mustering more than polite indifference to Please Believe Me, despite it being a romantic comedy in which Deborah Kerr, of course, attracts a trio of suitors. There are misunderstandings of illusory fortunes at the heart of most of the film’s subplots, but we know that true love will win over everything else. The film is at its strongest when it’s aboard an ocean liner going to America, with the old-school splendour and atmosphere of a semi-closed environment helping to build the plot. But the film doesn’t entirely take place aboard the boat, and it loses narrative momentum the moment it boards in New York and we move from the romantic-comic set-pieces to plot resolution. Kerr looks great here, and Peter Lawford can be counted upon as one of his suitors but the film itself (an unusually bland effort from comedy director Norman Taurog) feels overly bland: there are at least two ocean-liner romantic comedies starring Jane Russel that are better than this one. Please Believe Me is okay and fine if you’re receptive to that kind of romantic comedy, but it’s really not worth any undue effort to watch.

  • Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Oh wow—Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine popped up on the TCM schedule as the only film in their “Stars of the month: Robots” monthly feature that I hadn’t already seen, and I’m glad I made a point out of recording it. It’s the kind of bright, funny, energetic film that could only come out of the mid-1960s, it’s dated and a delicious heap of pure fun. Focused on the concept of female robots designed to seduce and rob rich men, the film happens to star Vincent Price as the mad scientist controlling the robots, Frankie Avalon as a secret agent investigating the fembots, Dwayne Hickman as a swindling target and the beautiful Susan Hart as an android designed to break hearts and empty bank accounts. This being said, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is not big on plot—the focus here is on jokey moments and one absolutely terrific chase sequence in and around mid-1960s San Francisco. Thanks to veteran director Norman Taurog, the film is broad goofy low-budget comedy whose misogyny is so pronounced that it becomes satirical. I liked it a lot: it’s a poppy piece of cinema with unexpected delights (including a rather amazing Claymation credit sequence with a title song by The Supremes!), an incredibly carefree atmosphere, Connery-era James Bond spoofing, and a premise that links to Austin Powers. I’m repeating myself, but the San Francisco car chase here is utterly terrific, and only finds an equivalent in What’s Up Doc? a decade later. It’s great good fun, despite a bit of a middle lull and some social assumptions that are bound to offend modern viewers, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine nearly ranks as a must-see if you’re interested in 1960s cinema: it captures something very specific about the pre-hippie clichés of the decade.

  • It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2022) The expression “Clearly a film of its time” strikes both ways for It Happened at the World’s Fair—it would be difficult to imagine it being remade today without being emptied of what makes it special. For one thing, it’s an Elvis film—Elvis Presley here plays a clean-cut young American man (what else?) who’s happiest piloting a small plane or romancing girls (or, in the case of the film’s first remarkable stunt sequence, both at once) but is so unthreatening that an old man sees nothing wrong to ask him to take care of a young girl for a few days. Then there’s the fact that the film takes place at the Seattle World Fair, a uniquely 1962 event. But it’s the Elvis aspect that makes this a film uniquely preserved in time—the ten songs he sings (some of them likable, few of them memorable), the unthreatening womanizing, the sense that there won’t be any serious drama at any time in the film. Another piece of time-capsule history is Kurt Russell’s first movie role as a shun-kicking boy. (Russell would, of course, play Elvis a few decades later, and use his experience meeting The King to record a Presley tribute piece for TCM.)  It Happened at the World’s Fair is never taken seriously, and it’s not that good of a film either: It feels like a second-tier musical running on nostalgic charm more than anything looking like filmmaking craft. The script is serviceable and doesn’t take into account unexpected chemistry (to wit—the early throwaway love interest meant to show Elvis’s character’s good-natured womanizing ends up being far more interesting than the putative female co-lead of the film) or anything like directorial flair from Norman Taurog. But Elvis vehicles are what they are—and this one has the benefit of colourful early-1960s pop-optimism to add to the actor/singer’s undeniable charm. Many Elvis historians agree that It Happened at the World’s Fair is middle-of-the-pack Elvis cinema, and it’s watchable enough as such. But trying to even imagine such a film remade today is an exercise in futility.

  • The Caddy (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2022) Often hailed as the best of the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy duo films, The Caddy shows both performers doing what they do best—being an insufferable comic jitterbug in Lewis’s case, and being a smooth-singing crowd charmer in Martin’s case. (When I was younger, I wanted to be Lewis—now I’d rather be Martin.)  Biographers of the pair tell us that the rift that would blow up the duo a few years later was already apparent by 1953, and indeed The Caddy can be read as a meta-fictional portrayal of two stars finding their chemistry through conflict and very different temperaments. (With a final kicker being the characters meeting the real Lewis/Martin duo.)  The story has something to do about Lewis being a golf instructor to Martin, but that’s not why we’re watching: it’s far more fun to see Lewis being a hyperactive goofball, and Martin strutting out “That’s Amore” (written for the film!) in a rather charming sequence. Viewers aware of the reasons for the Lewis/Martin rift (essentially: Lewis taking more and more space) will recognize the dynamics at play here, with Martin providing the scaffolding for Lewis’s far more noticeable antics. If it wasn’t for “That’s Amore,” Martin would have been sidelined in his own film. While The Caddy is among the best of the pair’s filmography, that doesn’t quite mean that the film itself is all that great—at best, it has a few good moments and plays into the two men’s stage image. But Lewis remains a divisive comic figure, and director Norman Taurog does nothing to stop him from rampaging across the screen. Repeatedly. But that was the shtick, and The Caddy is a polished showcase for both of them.

  • Girl Crazy (1943)

    Girl Crazy (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) As much as we profess to dislike film formulas, they exist because they work. Once you’ve found something that works, why bother changing it? Of course, staleness is the constant danger, and there can be a time where the most entertaining thing about a film series is the way it keeps reworking core concepts in ever-wilder situations. Girl Crazy is the ninth and last film to co-star Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, and the amazing thing about it is how, despite taking its actors to an isolated western ranch campus in twentysomething roles, it still manages to cram in the “let’s put on a show to save the orphanage!” plot of most of their earlier small-town backyard movies. It’s quite impressive in a way… and it comes later enough in the film that we’ve had a fill of new stuff to tide us over. As is often the case, this is a film of moments and musical pieces rather than a sustained narrative — adapted from a Broadway musical, it does have a few snappy numbers and the presence of Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra — “Treat me Rough,” “Fascinating Rhythm” and “I Got Rhythm” are notable standouts, with that last number being a typical Berkeley Busby spectacle before he was replaced as a director by more mild-mannered Norman Taurog. Style and setting of the film bring to mind an appropriate double-billing with Too Many Girls. Girl Crazy is not that good of a musical, but it’s watchable and arguably more interesting than many of the Garland/Rooney films in which the backyard premise was repeated too often without variation even as they were growing older.

  • Palm Springs Weekend (1963)

    Palm Springs Weekend (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) The similarities between the 1960 teen comedy Where the Boys Are and Palm Springs Weekend are definitely not accidental—the studio saw the success of the earlier film and wanted something like that, except set on the west coast rather than in Florida. Reportedly coming up with the title before the script itself, it quickly put the film in production and focused its narrative on youngsters making their way from L.A. to Palm Spring for Easter break and the town steering itself for trouble. This was not such an unusual thing at the time—with the early Boomer generation coming into age and gradually redefining what it meant to be a college-attending young person, there was a spate of teensploitation films poking at the meaning of being young in a booming America, and hopefully driving that audience into theatres. The hijinks of the college students descending upon Palm Springs for “fun” (alcohol and hookups, really) are all rather innocent and cute, although director Norman Taurog is clearly aware of his film’s subtext and takes a rather weird shift toward darker elements near the end (with a rape attempt, a car chase, a serious car accident and police business) before getting back to the silly comedy in time for the end credits. (That darker turn does echo the earlier Where the Boys Are as well.) Some of the period detail is very interesting, though, and you can almost feel the early-1960s pop-optimism radiate through the screen.

  • The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

    The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) No matter what you think about the rest of the film, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown at a title, is wonderful. The premise (a movie star is kidnapped—except everyone thinks it’s a publicity stunt for her next movie in which she plays a kidnapped woman; she falls for the kidnapper) is fine. Jane Russell is more than fine. But the film itself isn’t. Oh, it’s still relatively amusing, and I suspect that time had been kind to it by sheer virtue or encapsulating a late-Golden-age snapshot of Hollywood. Leaden, even at less than 90 minutes, this comedy runs out of steam early on and the dialogue isn’t strong enough to sustain the repetitiveness of the premise. Despite a few funny scenes and moments (the opening is particularly strong and makes the rest of the picture look poorer in comparison), the entire thing feels more laborious than it should – it’s clearly a misfire for director Norman Taurog, otherwise known for much better pictures. Russell has the panache of a movie star, but her co-star Ralph Meeker is not always up to the role as a lovable rogue. (Lovable, fine; rogue, not. ) It doesn’t help that, by being in black-and-white by the late 1950s, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown sends mixed signals: It’s not the kind of serious drama that was shot in black-and-white at the time, and it doesn’t feel like the kind of 1940s movies it looks like. Still, I had a decent-enough time watching it—although I’m a good game for any film in which Hollywood looks at itself. Despite the dubiousness of a captive falling for her captor, this is the kind of less-than-successful film that could use a remake—I can just imagine studio executives deciding not to pay a star’s ransom based on social media feedback.

  • Skippy (1931)

    Skippy (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) In the early days of the Academy Awards, being “Oscar nominated” didn’t quite mean the same thing as today. Being in its infancy as an art form, a popular entertainment medium and an awards show, the Oscars merrily nominated comedies for Best Picture, nine-year-olds for Best Actor (Jackie Cooper) and handed Best Director statuettes to someone who would go on to direct silly Martin/Lewis and Elvis Presley comedies. Yup, that’s Skippy for you—a broad crown-pleaser waiting at the bottom of the “Oscar nominees” list. Considering that it focuses on street urchins and dogs, it’s as old-fashioned as it is blatant in its intention to appeal to the popcorn crowds. (Wait, was popcorn a movie theatre staple back in 1931?) It’s pleasant enough as such—adapted from a then-popular comic strip, it’s relatively innocuous and today’s marketing geniuses would squarely market it as a family film. But if you’re looking for substance… there isn’t much of it. Director Norman Taurog got notice for wrangling a big cast of kids and dogs, which would be admirable if it wasn’t for the most noteworthy anecdote about Skippy’s production being about the director pretending to shoot the lead kid’s dog in order to get him crying on camera. Harrumph. I guess that’s why people go to great lengths to watch Oscar-nominated films—expand your horizons, and try to understand what they were thinking back then.

  • Boys Town (1938)

    Boys Town (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) There’s an immediately recognizable rhythm to Boys Town that works even eighty years later, so closely does it adhere to some conventions of Hollywood feel-good movies. It starts with our heroic priest protagonist (in an understated performance by Spencer Tracy) visiting a death-row inmate and resolving to do what he can to save boys from criminal destinies. Moments later, he’s establishing a reform establishment for troubled boys in the hopes of putting them on a straighter path. (It’s based on a true story.) As regular as clockwork, this is all a setup for the redemption of a particularly troubled soul played by… Mickey Rooney. That’s right. All-American ruddy-cheeked teenage heartthrob Rooney playing a bad boy, going against the establishment and vowing that nothing and no one will even tame him. You can imagine how the rest of the film goes, and that’s actually part of its charm—the utter comfort of watching a film eighty years later and still being able to know with confidence where it’s going. Boys Town was an Academy Awards favourite back in 1938 and the formula it adopts is still being used these days. Still, the fun of the film is in the details and the performances. Even if you don’t buy Rooney as a hoodlum, Boys Town (helmed by then-veteran director Norman Taurog) is a movie that clearly understands what it’s doing, and executes it with good details. The Christianity of the lead character is present without being overbearing; the bad-boy antics of its teenage co-lead are easily acceptable by the audience and the film rides this kind of middle-of-the-road sensibility all the way to a feel-good conclusion. Is it inspiring but predictable, predictable but inspiring or simply both?