Pier Angeli

  • Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

    Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) I don’t generally like boxing movies, but there are plenty of exceptions, and Somebody Up There Likes Me is one of them. Based on the life of middleweight legend Rocky Graziano, it’s a film that greatly benefits from early Paul Newman’s streak for rebellious yet somehow likable characters. It’s also a film that, while clearly boxing-centric, has most of its dramatic action take place outside the ring, offering a well-rounded portrait of the lead character. Newman plays Graziano (in a star-making turn) with uneducated roughness but a great deal of charm even if his early life is one of teenage delinquency, troubles within the army and defiant attitude. Things start turning around for him when he discovers an aptitude for boxing and meets his future wife (a good turn from Pier Angeli). Newman is surprisingly good at the physical part of the role — he convincingly plays the boxer and channels the rebelliousness into physical aggression. But more than that is the film’s balancing of personal life and professional life (that is, boxing), all the way to a surprisingly dramatic third act that doesn’t solely depend on the outcome of a big match. In other words, there’s more than boxing in Somebody Up There Likes Me to keep even non-boxing fans happy.

  • The Devil Makes Three (1952)

    The Devil Makes Three (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Even when not singing and dancing, Gene Kelly was blessed with considerable charm as an actor, and his presence in The Devil Makes Three transforms what could have been an unremarkable postwar genre picture. Here he plays an American aviator who returns to Germany (during his annual Christmas vacations!) to meet again with a family that saved him during the War. Shot on location to take advantage of tax breaks, the film makes good use of wintertime German landscapes to tell a story of postwar black-market shenanigans and neo-Nazis. One sequence of historical interest is the climax, shot in the ruins of Hitler’s house right before it was demolished. In strictly entertainment terms, The Devil Makes Three is merely average: Kelly is very likable, co-star Pier Angeli is cute enough, the genre elements are deployed effectively, but the result somehow fails to ignite much interest. Still, it’s a good illustration of Kelly-the-Actor’s strengths, and a decent-enough period piece set in the murky Postwar period away from Berlin.