Van Heflin

  • A Woman Rebels (1936)

    A Woman Rebels (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) If there is no Katharine Hepburn biography titled A Woman Rebels, then it’s a missed opportunity for the ages. The film of that name is so very much a 1930s Hepburn film, featuring her headstrong personality and embracing surprisingly feminist themes roughly three decades before everyone else. In Victorian England, a woman shows her independence by raising a child out of wedlock, and by becoming an activist for women’s causes -an ideal role for the iconoclastic Hepburn. Often blunt but nonetheless fascinating, A Woman Rebels is an illustration of just how good Hepburn was in the 1930s—a mesmerizing beauty, a ferocious screen presence and a canny performer. Alas, the film flopped and led to a near-career-death experience for Hepburn, who took years to get back on top as box-office performer. File this one under “the future knew better.” Also worth noting: Van Heflin in his film debut. While A Woman Rebels is not that good of a film (a bit fuzzy, a bit jumbled, a bit overlong), Hepburn easily overpowers those flaws to make the film worth watching, especially for her fans or anyone interested in film progressivism.

  • Patterns (1956)

    Patterns (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) I really wasn’t expecting, as I sat down to watch Patterns, to have such a shining illustration of how things have not changed in business between the mid-1950s and now. Redress the sets, change a few technical details with Internet mumbo-jumbo, and this tale of corporate office intrigue would fit right in 2020. Van Heflin stars as a young executive brought to headquarters after performing brilliantly in a satellite office. His mentor is a high-level executive whose hard-nosed attitudes run against his second-in-command’s desire to reconcile business with humanity. Torn between two influential superiors, the protagonist illustrates the constant tug-of-war between those two contrasting attitudes, with the prize being membership in the Manhattan business community. As I said – Timeless themes, bolstered by a no-nonsense execution by director Fielder Cook, working from a screenplay by the legendary Rod Serling. There’s some interesting examination and cross-examination of business ethics here, somewhat undermined by the eventual epiphany that the only people out of the rat race are the dead. Nonetheless, the script does have a compelling moment-by-moment rhythm to it, and it climaxes in a fantastic (if not entirely realistic) confrontation between the protagonist and his former mentor. We think that the world has changed, especially in offices, but the surprising timelessness of Patterns belies the claim.

  • The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

    The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Film noir classic The Strange Love of Martha Ivers may not be all that iconic, but it has enough great things in it to warrant a look for fans of the genre. For one thing, it sports Grande Dame Barbara Stanwyck playing the kind of superpowered character she did best. Then the casting gets surprising: Kirk Douglas (in his film debut) playing her weak and easily cowed husband, then Van Heflin as a street-smart punk whose arrival on the scene creates danger—for he is the third holder of a secret that could have a devastating impact on the two other characters. There’s more, and quite a bit of murderous melodrama along the way, but the film (as with its score) builds up to a grandiose ending. It’s pretty good—although film noir fans will say that it doesn’t have enough noir concision to be a classic. True, but also besides the point: By the standards of mid-1940 Hollywood melodrama, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is competent and absorbing. See it for Stanwyck, for Douglas or for Heflin, but it’s worth a look.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, September 2021) It’s really interesting to revisit The Strange Love of Matha Ivers after tearing through Barbara Stanwyck and Van Helfin’s filmographies, because their on-screen antagonistic romance is the highlight of the film. It felt like a decent-enough film noir upon first viewing, but re-watching it with particular attention to Stanwyck’s performance as a femme fatale, and Heflin’s unusually muscular turn as a man who easily dominates every room he’s in (often roughly) is a different experience. As is, for that matter, seeing Kirk Douglas’ first film role as a meek, ineffectual, rather loathsome supporting character. The other highlight is the aggressive score, which shows no shame in highlighting the action with bold musical accents every time the characters butt heads – which is often. There are a few subplots and a prologue starring the characters as kids, but the film is most fascinating when Heflin and Stanwyck figuratively dance warily around each other, sometimes kissing, sometimes trying to kill each other. A fine noir melodrama, it’s easy to see why The Strange Love of Matha Ivers continues to earn such acclaim – and even more so if you’re a fan of both lead actors.