Tony Curtis

  • Monte Carlo or Bust! aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)

    Monte Carlo or Bust! aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2021) If you’re noticing a slight titling resemblance between Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies and the better known Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, well, that’s not an accident: Monte Carlo or Bust! was made as a sequel to the earlier flying film, and the American release simply retitled the result to make it even more clearly related to its 1965 predecessor. The premise is a ground-bound variant, the characters are similar but not meant to be related (even if some of the cast is the same, no character is meant to carry from one to the other), and the style is very similar: Random comic mayhem across a large ensemble cast, structured around a race that’s never as simple as it would appear in the first place. Terry-Thomas plays a large part in this film, but the ensemble cast includes such notables as Tony Curtis (who, for extra bonus points, also played a racer in the similarly-themed but funnier The Great Race), Dudley Moore, and Gert Fröbe. The 1920s setting means that we’re back in a somewhat heroic era for racing, with many mishaps along the way that would do not exist in a more modern age. Monte Carlo or Bust is decently amusing, but it is not snappy: at slightly more than two hours, it’s very much an epic comedy that favours large-scale practical gags rather than tight dialogue or fast pacing. There’s a little bit of romance to make it sweeter, but the overall impression remains of an amiable, often spectacular sort of comedy. It hasn’t aged as well as it should, but it keeps some of its period charm.

  • Criss Cross (1949)

    Criss Cross (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Any list of landmark film noirs will probably include Criss Cross, and for good reason: As a slickly made criminal thriller describing a heist job going badly, it features a striking sense of place for late-1940s Los Angeles, some clever moments, decent-enough direction and a fatalistic ending that exemplifies the core strengths of the genre. Burt Lancaster has one of his first major roles as a man drawn into a dangerous affair and an even more dangerous criminal plot, and if you’re paying attention, you’ll see Tony Curtis for a few brief moments as a dancer in his uncredited screen debut. (Curtis and Lancaster would later reunite on a few other films, including Trapeze and the terrific Sweet Smell of Success.)  Still, the main draw here is a script that doesn’t have any time for niceties or sentimentality. The location shooting in Los Angeles is brief but effective, further reinforced by special-effect work that lowers the difference between studio shooting and exteriors (most notably through some really good rear-screen projection). Director Robert Siodmak helped define what we think of as noir, and he’s purposeful with his material all the way to the dispiriting conclusion. The fog-drenched heist sequence is still a wonderful piece of work even today. See Criss Cross as a precursor to films such as Heat, certainly — or just as a great noir.

  • Trapeze (1956)

    Trapeze (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) There are a few good reasons to have a look at Trapeze, but almost all of them start with the casting: Burt Lancaster as a crippled trapeze artist, Tony Curtis as an up-and-comer seeking guidance, and the deliciously-named Lola Lollobrigida as (obviously) the woman that comes between them. Probably the next-best reason is the trapeze footage, still impressive today due to the impressive physicality of the performers (some of it without stunt doubles), and the apparent danger of some of the acts. Considering that the story is about the pursuit of the elusive and dangerous triple somersault, visual danger appropriately reflects the stakes at play here. Otherwise, much of Trapeze runs along familiar tracks once you exclude the (rather impressive) Parisian circus aspect of the story: a veteran, an up-and-comer and the love triangle that takes place once a woman comes along. Director Carol Reed does his best in the circus ring, with the rest of the film being along more familiar lines. Still, the Lancaster/Curtis pairing is interesting as a preview to their far better-known Sweet Smell of Success, and Lancaster notches another film in a more interesting filmography than you’d expect from a multi-decade leading man.

  • Don’t Make Waves (1967)

    Don’t Make Waves (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) The mid-1960s were a strange time for Hollywood movies—at once poking and prodding at the social changes occurring over the United States, yet still being held back by decades of slavish adherence to the Hays Code. One of the laboratories through which to study this interregnum is the sex comedy genre, which pushed the envelope… but never too much. They feel charmingly quaint these days, as they play with ideas of infidelity, female characters with their own sexual agenda, and newish modes of living, such as muscle-bound surfers. Is it any surprise if much of it is about the ways Californians were breaking free from US orthodoxy? Such is the situation at the beginning of Don’t Make Waves as a New York promoter drives to California with everything he owns in his car… only to lose it all due to the actions of an inattentive Italian artist. This forces him to live with her, however briefly, and get caught up in a complex web of infidelity, surfing hippies, swimming pool salesmanship and unstable coast-side housing. Tony Curtis is up to his usual good standards as the fast-talking New Yorker almost completely out of his element on the West Coast, but most of the attention usually goes to his female co-stars: Sharon Tate in one of her few roles, this time as a young fit surfer, and the divine Claudia Cardinale as the scatterbrained Italian at the root of his problems. There’s clearly a satirical intention to Don’t Make Waves that’s probably wasted today, as the film goes from one contemporary hot topic to another in a way that may be less obvious in a future in which these topics have become commonplace. Much of the film’s comedy is to be found in one weird situation or another, although the film does hit a highlight later on by featuring a big physical comedy set-piece as the characters are stuck in a house tumbling down a hill. Don’t Make Waves is certainly not a great movie, but like many lesser-known films of the 1960s, it offers a slightly different view on the obsessions of the time, and perhaps even a more honest one even through the comic exaggerations.

  • The Vikings (1958)

    The Vikings (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) There’s certainly a spectacular aspect to The Vikings that makes it interesting to watch: Kirk Douglas going toe-to-toe with a bearded Tony Curtis as they debate the leadership of a Viking colony. Made at a time when historical epics were trying to lure audiences away from the TV, it has lavish production values and some credible outdoor scenes and combat—with longboats! Plus: Ernest Borgnine and Janet Leigh looking a bit weird in non-contemporary setting. It may not be as well-remembered as some of the Roman epics of the time, and the lack of big Viking movies lately is a bit of a wonder by itself (wasn’t the latest one the motion-captured Beowulf from 2007?) Still, let’s not overstate things: The Vikings is not that interesting and even gawking at the stars in unusual turns or the scenery isn’t quite enough to make up for the tepid pacing and overall lack of interest in plot or dialogue. Fortunately, director Richard Fleischer creates a lot of bombast here to keep things afloat.

  • Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

    Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) It can be a tough sell to make a movie about a pair of irredeemable villains, but Sweet Smell of Success takes up the challenge with vigour and delivers a compelling movie despite being unable to cheer for any of the two main characters. Tony Curtis has a welcome and somewhat atypical role (at the time; many more followed) as a morally bankrupt publicist who schemes to get in the good graces of an influential and just-as-terrible columnist played by Burt Lancaster. The casting here is a triumph—Curtis’s good looks being commented upon as a façade, and Lancaster being the incarnation of an “intellectual bully” towering over his co-star and glaring down on him through distinctive glasses. Both characters are profoundly immoral in their behaviour, and what saves the film from overwhelming darkness is the presence of a heroine to save (Susan Harrison, looking as cute as her character needs to be in order to earn our affections) and some terrific dialogue that still packs a punch even today. (This is where “The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river” comes from!) The dialogue’s strength and the cohesion of the story are borderline miraculous in that Sweet Smell of Success was essentially being written as it was shot—but this is what happens when you have professionals working from a strong plan and keeping the polish to the end. While the film is light on murders, the noir atmosphere of the story is impossible to miss, what with corruption reigning and people making themselves worse in order to please the Great Corruptor. There’s a sombre atmosphere that makes the ending almost a relief. While the film does lose itself in a few tangents along the way, there’s a steady trickle of strong sequences even in the subplots (the attempt to blackmail another newspaper columnist being a highlight), and a sense of style in director Alexander Mackendrick’s approach that gives a modern urban grittiness to the result. It’s often subtle, but it’s there: The way “Now here you are, Harvey, out in the open where any hep person knows that this one… is toting THAT one… around for you” is handled is good stuff. You can quote that film for days, but what carries even longer is Curtis and Lancaster going at each other, with the audience rooting for no one in particular. Sweet Smell of Success often gets a mention as one of the top movies of the 1950s, and it’s not hard to see why.

  • The Defiant Ones (1958)

    The Defiant Ones (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) I know, from 2020’s vantage point, that Tony Curtis has played a number of dramatic and unlikable roles in his career. But there’s a good reason why his performance as a racist criminal in The Defiant Ones is still surprising: Even today, well after the end of his career, Curtis is far better remembered as a funny romantic protagonist than anything else. His enduring renown for comedy makes his performance in The Defiant Ones still compelling: In this socially-minded Stanley Kramer film, he plays an unrepentant white racist who finds himself chained to a black man (the excellent Sidney Poitier in one of his earliest performances) while escaping a chain gang. There’s little surprise as to where the film’s overall dramatic arc is going, but some of the details along the way are interesting—the portrait of the American South, with its heavily racist atmosphere and punitive justice, is asphyxiating and almost alien. The film is at its strongest in leaning upon its literalized metaphor of two races chained together, finding a way to get past their animosity for a common goal. The stark black-and-white cinematography works in favour of the film more often than not, leaving all the space necessary for the actors to show their skills playing off each other. By contemporary standards, The Defiant Ones can feel a bit rough on messaging, but is not really any less effective for it.

  • Sex and the Single Girl (1964)

    Sex and the Single Girl (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) The sex comedy subgenre of the early-to-mid-1960s has not aged well at all, and yet it remains curiously irresistible. I could watch several of those films one after the other—the only thing stopping me is that I would run out of them too quickly. So it is that Sex and the Single Girl has both a prime-era Tony Curtis and a spectacular stockings-clad Natalie Wood battling it out romantically against the dual backgrounds of psychiatry and Manhattan magazine publishing. (I strongly suspect that this was one of the main sources of inspiration for 2003’s pastiche Down with Love.) Having Henry Fonda and a gorgeous Lauren Bacall in supporting roles really doesn’t hurt either, even if their roles are underwritten. While the film itself does miss several comic opportunities and could have been more sharply written, there’s a lot of fun to be had simply plunging into the film’s atmosphere, rediscovering relics from another time (gags from coin-operated devices?) and enjoying the naughty-but-not-vulgar style of that era’s guiltless sex comedies. Pure wholesome fun is the special glue holding these films together despite their specific weaknesses. Wood’s Audrey-Hepburnesque qualities are in full display here, and Curtis is at his most Curtisesque all the way to a reference to Some Like it Hot. While the film could have been written more carefully, there’s a deliberate approach to its idiot-plot structure, with misunderstandings and misdirection between characters growing bigger and wilder every minute, climaxing with a consciously self-aware highway climax that’s a pack-and-a-half of logistics to juggle. By the time the characters are all chomping down on pretzels, it’s all non-stop joy that ends remarkably well. I could certainly go for another film much like Sex and the Single Girl right now. A shame they’re not making them like this any more, even with the disappointing writing.

  • Boeing, Boeing (1965)

    Boeing, Boeing (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2019) If you’re looking for a uniquely specific example of 1960s sex comedies, you probably can’t do much better than Boeing, Boeing, which wallows in the atmosphere of the then-trendy jet-set in order to set up a classic French bedroom farce with stewardesses getting in and out of doors with split-second timing. As the film begins, we find ourselves in swinging Paris as our Lothario protagonist (a perfectly well-used Tony Curtis) is a journalist who has figured out how to keep three girlfriends going at once: Thanks to a thorough knowledge of airline schedules and operating procedures, he’s able to have them in and out of his apartment like clockwork. Everything comes crashing down when the airlines get faster planes, and as a colleague (Jerry Lewis, less annoying than usual) comes to stay for a while, completely wrecking the careful scheduling and bringing all the spinning plates crashing down. Adapted from a French theatrical play, much of Boeing, Boeing is in the tradition of bedroom farces, one difficult situation escalating into an even more complicated one with some great bits of physical comedy along the way. Alas, the disappointing ending cuts away to a retreat that takes away the moment of reckoning and spares the protagonists getting their full comeuppance. If Curtis and Lewis get good roles, one can’t say the same for their female co-stars—aside from the much-funnier matron played by Thelma Ritter, all of the female characters are cut from the same 36-24-36 mould and are practically undistinguishable save from superficial physical attributes. Still, Boeing, Boeing itself remains fascinating: the period atmosphere alone is terrific, and the film reflects the evolution of social mores in the past sixty-five years—thankfully, few movies today would dare include the measurements of its female stars on-screen as part of the opening credits!

  • The Great Race (1965)

    The Great Race (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2018) I sometimes do other things while watching movies, but as The Great Race went on, I had to put those other things away and restart the film. There is an astonishing density of gags to its first few minutes (from the title sequence, even) that require undivided attention. While the first act of the film does set up expectations that the second half fails to meet, it does make The Great Race far more interesting than expected. Clearly made with a generous budget, this is a comedy that relies a lot on practical gags, built on a comic foundation that harkens back to silent-movie stereotypes. Making no excuses for its white-versus-black characters, the film features Tony Curtis as an impossibly virtuous hero, facing the comically dastardly antagonist played with gusto by Jack Lemmon in one of his most madcap comic performance. Meanwhile, Natalie Wood has never looked better as the romantic interest (seeing her parade in thigh-high black stockings unarguably works in the film’s favour) and both Peter Falk and Keenan Wynn are able seconds. The film’s visual gags are strong, and so is writer/director Blake Edwards’s willingness to go all-out of his comic set pieces: The legendary pie fight is amusing, but I prefer the Saloon brawl for its sense of mayhem. There is a compelling energy to the film’s first hour, as pleasantly stereotyped characters are introduced, numerous visual gags impress and the film’s sense of fun is firmly established. Alas, that rhythm lags a bit in the last hour, with an extended parody of The Prisoner of Zenda that falls flat more than it succeeds (although it does contain that pie fight sequence). Still, it’s a fun film and the practical nature of the vehicular gags makes for a change of pace from other comedies. I liked it quite a bit more than I expected.

  • Some Like it Hot (1959)

    Some Like it Hot (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) Curiously enough, it takes longer than expected for Some Like it Hot to warm up. The first act, in which two Chicago-based musicians witness a mob murder and decide to go on the run by cross-dressing and joining an all-female musical group to Florida, is occasionally a slog. Sure, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are sympathetic enough, and Marilyn Monroe makes a striking entrance, but the film seems far too busy setting up its ridiculous situation to get many laughs. Things get much better once the story lands in a posh Florida resort, as the complications pile up and the film’s true nature starts coming out. By the time Lemmon’s character has to fake being uninterested in Monroe as she slinks all over him, or as Curtis rather likes the attention he’s getting as a woman, the film starts hitting its peak comic moments. It keeps going to a rather simple but effective final line. It helps, from an atmospheric perspective, that the Floridian passages spend quality time looking at a high-end lifestyle in which yachts are treated as mobile homes for the rich—there’s some wish-fulfillment right there. Thematically, the film has a few surprises in store: For a comedy dealing in cross-dressing and attraction based on misrepresented gender, Some Like it Hot has aged surprisingly well—it’s far less prone to gay panic than you’d expect from a movie from the fifties, and still feels almost progressive in the way it approaches same-sex attraction. As a result of its pro-love anti-hate agenda, it can be rewatched without too much trouble even today, while many (most!) movies of its era feel grossly dated. Much of this credit goes to director Billy Wilder as he allows Lemmon, Curtis and Monroe, to become a terrific comic trio and help the film get over its duller moments. The far more interesting last half makes up for an average beginning, and Some Like it Hot is still worth a look today.