101 Forgotten Films

Brian Mills

• Publisher: Kamera Books
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781842432525
• eBook ISBN: 9781842433904
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Somewhere in the labyrinth of our memories are films that we have seen and cannot forget but frustratingly may never see again because they have mysteriously vanished from the public domain. They may be hidden away in a film studio's vault, buried beneath the floorboards of a filmmaker's home, imprisoned by some ancient legality, refused release at a director's whim, or simply not optioned by a distributor. This book brings back to life 101 films that are entombed in a cinema cemetery and in so doing unearths a film noir masterpiece, a French classic, a Mastroianni feature comparable to Cinema Paradiso, a pioneering Independent film of the 1950s, a Joan Crawford headliner, an amazing Nicholas Ray experimental feature, Italian comedies by Nichetti, and lost gems by Widerberg, Hitchcock, Lang, Ford, Lubitsch, Litvak, Dmytryk, Kazan, Cacoyannis, Boetticher, Zinnemann, Ray, Huston, and many more luminaries of the silver screen. Though critics may acclaim them, audiences applaud them, and Sundance or Cannes may screen them, no film is guaranteed a general release, and too many disappear into oblivion. This book pays homage to those lost films that deserve to be exhibited beyond the screen of our memories.

THE 1950s

Gloria Swanson was ready for her close up in Sunset Boulevard, Robert Walker was conspiring murder in Strangers on a Train, Warners promised a lion in your lap with 3-D in Bwana Devil, Gene Kelly kicked at puddles in Singin’ in the Rain, Lee Marvin threw hot coffee in Gloria Grahame’s face in The Big Heat, while Marilyn Monroe reminded men that diamonds were a girl’s best friend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Bogart clicked ball-bearings while contemplating strawberries in The Caine Mutiny, Sinatra crooned with Crosby in High Society, Deborah Kerr didn’t keep her appointment at the Empire State in An Affair to Remember, Tony Curtis matched Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell of Success, Audrey Hepburn took an oath in The Nun’s Story and Cary Grant was chased by a crop-sprayer in North by Northwest. It was a platinum period for movies, yet there were escapees that included three films by Rudoph Maté, a Kazan, a Zinnemann, a Cukor, a Ray, a brilliant screenplay by Chayefsky, and two Kirk Douglas movies. They are out there somewhere…

I’ll Get By 1950

Directed by: Richard Sale

Written by: Robert Ellis. Pamela Harris (story).

Cast: June Haver (Liza Martin), William Lundigan (William Spencer), Gloria DeHaven (Terry Martin), Dennis Day (Freddy Lee).

Story: Remake of Tin Pan Alley, the film has a winning combination of good music and a lovely actress in the lead. Two song peddlers, Spencer and Lee, are struggling to be recognised in the music business and along the way happen to meet two beautiful sisters and fall in love. William Lundigan and Dennis Day played the songsmiths, and June Haver and Gloria DeHaven the singing sisters.

This film really flirted with my heart when I first saw it and fell in love with June Haver. It had some great music, particularly the title song sung by June and trumpeted by Harry James. The latter inspired me to use it as my imaginary band’s signature tune. Other songs were Takin’ a Chance on Love, sung by Gloria DeHaven, You Make Me Feel So Young, The More I See You, I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo, There Will Never Be Another You, Deep in the Heart of Texas and I’ve Got the World on a String.

There were a couple of interesting cameo parts that were filled by Jeanne Crain and Victor Mature. And the soldier that danced with June and Gloria was Dan Dailey. Sweet memories. Sad loss.

RARITY RATING: 4/5

Has become almost as rare as the musical genre itself.

June Haver: Haver started in showbiz at the age of six in a local stage production of Midnight in a Toyshop, had her first screen test at the age of nine, and at the age of sixteen signed with Fox. In the following year of 1943 she appeared in her first film, The Gang’s All Here. She rose to fame at the same time as Betty Grable, billed as the girl with the million dollar legs. Haver didn’t have million dollar legs, but a million dollar smile. Groomed by Fox to take over from Grable, Haver had other plans and, after making The Girl Next Door, left films completely. She entered a convent for a short while and then met actor Fred MacMurray whom she married. Besides the lost musical I’ll Get By, she appeared in her most popular film in 1949, Look For The Silver Lining, opposite Gordon MacRae.

Union Station 1950

Directed by: Rudolph Maté

Written by: Sydney Boehm

Cast: William Holden (Det Lt William Calhoun), Nancy Olson (Joyce Willecombe), Barry Fitzgerald (Inspector Donnelly), Lyle Bettger (Joe Beacom).

Story: Joyce Willecombe (Nancy Olson) notices a man on a train carrying a gun. She reports the sighting to a train conductor who seems disinterested but reluctantly reports it to the police. Joyce is met at Chicago’s Union Station by the chief of the railroad police Willy Calhoun (William Holden) who discovers that there is a plan to kidnap a blind heiress. One of the kidnappers girlfriends tells Calhoun that the plan is to murder the girl after the ransom is paid. There is a culminating chase in a maze of tunnels that criss-crosses downtown Chicago.

Any crime noir film directed by Maté, who directed the outstanding D.O.A., would arouse interest and a full-scale investigation of its own. There is a thin line between police brutality and the methods used by the criminals as shown in the scene when they threaten to throw a kidnapper in front of a train. Holden wins out in the acting honours here against his nearest rival – Union Station itself.

RARITY RATING: 4/5

Once available on video, but sometimes copies appear on eBay.

William Holden: Nicknamed Golden Boy, a sobriquet that he inherited after he appeared in the film of the same name as Joe Bonaparte, a pugilistic violin player. The film shot Holden to fame but it wasn’t until Billy Wilder cast him as the writer in Sunset Boulevard that the public began to really take notice. He had a glib way of delivering his lines which made him ripe for comedy and he was cast opposite Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, which was a box-office hit. The ‘golden boy’ really hit gold as Sefton in Stalag 17, winning a Best Actor Oscar for his role as the cowardly prison camp informer. He continued his successful roll in his next picture, which was the (then) sexually controversial The Moon is Blue. Suddenly his good looks were in demand and he was starring in films that displayed his assets as a romantic lead, pairing him with Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina Fair, Grace Kelly in The Country Girl and The Bridges of Toki Ri, Jennifer Jones in Love is a Many Splendoured Thing, and Kim Novak in Picnic. David Lean cast him in the war drama The Bridge on the River Kwai with Alec Guinness and then he began to take a few knocks and looked like being counted out from the Hollywood ring. But then Sam Peckinpah directed him in the classic western The Wild Bunch and he was assured screen immortality.

Holden’s real passion in life was animal preservation in Africa, and in the 1970s he purchased a large piece of land there and began an animal sanctuary.

One Way Street 1950

Directed by: Hugo Fregonese

Written by: Lawrence Kimble (story).

Cast: James Mason (Dr Frank Matson), Marta Toren (Laura Thorsen), Dan Duryea (John Wheeler).

Story: A crook named Wheeler has just masterminded a big heist and is holed up in an apartment with his girlfriend Laura, and Ollie, who was shot in the preceding robbery. A doctor named Matson is called to tend to Ollie. He does so, but then manages to escape with the booty and Wheeler’s moll to Mexico. There is a lull in the story while it concentrates on Matson’s sojourn in Mexico, but everything picks up to knife-edge intensity when he returns to confront his pursuers.

Two actors whose acting skills were weaned on villainy, Mason and Duryea wrestle with stealing scenes from each other in this great thriller. Fregonese was not a familiar name on films noirs – he was too often saddled with westerns – but he did direct Palance in The Man in the Attic, so not all was lost; only this film.

RARITY RATING: 4/5

Come on out, wherever you are… Sadly, not available on DVD.

Marta Toren: Never lived long enough to fulfil the promise of being the next Ingrid Bergman as her career ended abruptly at the age of 31 when she suffered a brain haemorrhage. During her short life, Toren desperately wanted to gain stature as an actress but somehow never got the roles that allowed her to show her abilities. Probably her best-known film is The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By; like the actress, it seemed very promising but died an early death.

The Silent Voice 1952

Directed by: Rudolph Maté

Written by: Larry Marcus (story). James Poe.

Cast: Loretta Young (Paula Rogers), Kent Smith (John Rogers), Alexander Knox (Dr Clifford), Tommy Rettig (David Larsen).

Story: The logline on the poster* of this movie read, ‘If you were Paula, what would you do?’ This is Paula’s (Loretta Young) dilemma when she accidentally knocks down and injures a child in her car. She decides to try and heal him and teach him to speak again, and eventually passes herself off as his legal guardian. Young delivers an utterly convincing and heartfelt performance.

The film poses questions to the audience: will Paula be caught and punished for her crime? When the boy regains his speech will he implicate her?

RARITY RATING: 5/5

Rudolph Maté: Maté was a respected cinematographer with films such as Dodsworth, Foreign Correspondent, The Pride of the Yankees and Gilda among his honours. He moved into directing in 1931 with It Had to Be You, the first of 31 films he helmed. The film that really placed him above the credits was the (now) classic film noir D.O.A., which opens on a character entering a police precinct to report his own murder. There was also Second Chance, an underrated thriller, which starred Jack Palance and was released in 3-D. Unfortunately many of his films have been lost.

See: Union Station, The Mississippi Gambler.

Act of Love 1953

Directed by: Anatole Litvak

Written by: Alfred Hayes (novel). Joseph Kessel (French dialogue).

Cast: Kirk Douglas (Robert Teller), Dany Robin (Lise Gudayec/Madame Teller), Barbara Laage (Nina).

Story: An American GI falls in love with a des...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• PRECIOUS GEMS
• THE 1920s
• THE 1930s
• THE 1940s
• THE 1950s
• THE 1960s
• THE 1970s
• THE 1980s
• THE 1990s
• PLEASE RELEASE ME
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Copyright
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