SALOME (1953) - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2013. 

I've written some pretty harsh reviews of older Biblical movies in the past, and generally take heat for it whenever I do. It's a genre that hasn't necessarily aged well. The earnestness of movies like The Song of Bernadette [review] has only grown more clunky over the decades, and some dramas like The Robe [review] now come off as more campy than intended. It's not that I am opposed to these kinds of movies, but it seems they need to be of a finer vintage, like DeMille's The King of Kings [review] or the silent version of Ben-Hur.

William Dieterle's 1953 interpretation of Salomé proves to be a solid exception, albeit an imperfect one. Rita Hayworth leads a fine cast as the stepdaughter of King Herod (Charles Laughton, Island of Lost Souls [review]). Herod's marriage to Salomé's mother (Judith Anderson, Rebecca [review]) has brought him unwanted attention from John the Baptist (Alan Bedel), a prophet in a new religion who also preaches sedition against Rome. While Herod is in service to Rome, he is afraid to move against the Baptist due to an old prophecy and his fears that the preacher may be the Messiah.

Salomé herself recently left Rome, tired of being persecuted and rejected by Roman men as an outsider. She is thus understandably upset to hear that her mother is suffering from small-minded bigotry, as well. Travelling with her is Claudius (Stewart Granger, Caesar and Cleopatra), an emissary sent to check up on Herod. Claudius turns out to be sympathetic to Herod's dilemma, sensing that harming the Baptist would turn the King's subjects against him. The soldier also turns out to be susceptible to Salomé's charms.

The gnarled motivations and backstory of Salomé is largely what makes the movie still interesting. At first I thought it odd that Harry Kleiner and Jesse Lasky Jr.'s script was working so hard to humanize the people who are, essentially, the villains of the piece, but this ends up working toward establishing Christianity as a transformative movement. John the Baptist's message appeals to the fundamental humanity in his oppressors, and it offers redemption to all, including Salomé, who ends up joining his cause. It's her mother who will be the one to demand the prophet's head.

No surprise there, really. Anderson is at her best when she is being selfish and shady. Laughton mainly sleepwalks through yet another bored ruler role, while Granger and Bedel play their parts with a stiff reverence. At times, they serve as little more than props on the elaborate sets, clotheshorses for the fancy costumes. The colorful photography of Charles Lane (Charade [review], Summer and Smoke) eclipses just about everyone. Salomé is a Technicolor delight.

Only Rita Hayworth, with the help of her trademark red hair, manages to stand out. As always, she is lovely, and she wears her gowns with elegance. (Her outfits were designed by Jean Louis, who also made Rita's knockout black dress in Gilda [review].) The actress struggles slightly with Salomé's naïveté, overdoing the wide-eyed routine just a tad. This could just be the downside of playing a character who was considerably younger than she was, even if she somehow still manages to look as fresh-faced and youthful as required. It was interesting to watch this film back-to-back with Miss Sadie Thompson [review], released in the same year. In that one, Hayworth plays a woman of some experience, and she is allowed to show her maturity, both in performance and appearance. You'd swear they were shot at least a decade apart.

The climax of Salomé is Hayworth performing the "Dance of the Seven Veils" to distract Herod. It's an excellent number, with both the costumer and the dancer delivering on the choreography's sensual promise. It's too bad that an uncut version of the routine doesn't exist. It's a crime every time Dieterle breaks away from his star to show the backstage shenanigans. It's Salomé's biggest selling point, and makes the more rickety plotting well worth sitting through.

THE MALTESE FALCON - FILMSTRUCK

This review was originally part of a piece on the second Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection for DVDTalk.com in 2006, and covers three different adaptations of the Dashiell Hammett novel.

I've seen the '41 version of The Maltese Falcon more times than I can count and read the Dashiell Hammett novel at least twice; however, I had never seen the other two movie versions before. I thought it would be fun to watch them in order and see how the story climbs up the ladder. How many Sam Spades and bands of thieves does it take to catch a priceless bird?

Sam Spade circa 1931

Sometimes known as Dangerous Female, Roy Del Ruth's 1931 adaptation isn't a bad film, but it does have the clunkiness of early Hollywood. The story is essentially the same as its more famous descendent--private dick Sam Spade is hired by a dazzling dame to chase after a pack of lies, leading him into a nest of crooks all searching for a fabled jewel-encrusted statue of a bird--but without any of the hardbitten dialogue. What really sets the two apart, however, are the actors. Ricardo Cortez, who would also later play Perry Mason in The Case of the Black Cat, doesn't really pull off Sam Spade. He's a little too flip, trading on his sarcastic Cheshire cat grin rather than commanding the room. If he were under the gun with John Huston's villainous 1941 cast, he'd never get out alive.  Thankfully for Cortez, the band of thieves he must contend with aren't nearly as sinister. The only actor who comes close to achieving the same level of menace is Dudley Digges. As Gutman, he manages the arch façade of the criminal mastermind. The homosexual undertones between himself and Wilmer (Dwight Frye, who was Renfield in Dracula) is also easier to read than you'd expect for the time period, as is most of the story's sexuality. The problem is that the film just isn't tough enough, something that is all too evident in the climactic confrontation between Spade and Ruth (Bebe Daniels, 42nd Street). Sam's womanizing is so exaggerated in the early scenes, and his interaction with his partner Archer (Walter Long) so cold, it's hard to believe he would be all that concerned with the man's death, an essential part of the story.

One thing Del Ruth does have that is not in the 1941 film is a coda where Spade visits Ruth one last time. It's actually the one scene where Cortez's take on Sam really works, as he begins the scene with humility and sadness and ends by covering up those emotions with the same rakish smile. It's what he'd been shooting for all along, but unfortunately for him, he only managed to snag it in the last two minutes.

Sam Spade circa 1936

1936's Satan Met A Lady, directed by William Dieterle, shares only a superficial resemblance (and one screenwriter, Brown Holmes) with the previous film. Sam Spade becomes Ted Shayne (Warren Williams, from the 1934 Imitation of Life), a gadabout private detective whose only sleuthing skills are finding gullible marks among rich widows. Run out of the town he had been hanging his shingle in, he returns home to annoy his old partner Ames (Porter Hall) and make woo with the man's wife (Wini Shaw). It's an easy gig until big money comes his way, a wad of cash by the name of Valerie Purvis (Bette Davis). Purvis' trumped-up case gets Ames shot, and when she comes clean, she asks Shayne to find a jewel-filled horn once owned by the legendary French soldier Roland. Competing for this trumpet is a tall Englishman Travers (Arthur Treacher as the stand-in for Cairo) and Madame Barabbas (Alison Skipworth as a female Gutman). The tone here is more comedic, and Hall plays Shayne with a droll wink. It's amusing as it goes, and it features many of the same double-crosses as the more famous adaptations of Hammett's novel, but it's only a slight diversion. Davis comes and goes in the movie, only occasionally showing hints of the talent that earned her reputation. A fun inbetweener, nothing more.

Sam Spade circa 1941

The true classic comes with John Huston's faithful 1941 retelling. Sticking as close as possible to the Hammett text while still translating it to film language, Huston's Maltese Falcon proved to be the breakout role for Humphrey Bogart and one of my favorite all-time films. Much has been said over the years about The Maltese Falcon, and there isn't really more to add. Just know that this movie needs to be in your collection. Its stylish angles, snappy pace, and crisp dialogue brings the story to life in a way few other hardboiled adaptations can match. Only 100 minutes long, you'd swear far more happens than the space can contain, but the editing and the camera keeps the story moving. Bogart does everything with Spade that Ricardo Cortez could not ten years before. He wears his cynicism as casually as his finely tailored suit. He is at once manipulative, humorous, and seductive, and yet beneath it all, he is honorable. Bogart makes Spade the ultimate example of an existential hero in the first half of the 20th century.

Yet, Bogart couldn't do it alone. Huston has cast the picture to give him a supporting cast that is just as interesting as the lead. If we weigh the scales on darkness and eccentricity, then we might even call them more interesting. Peter Lorre is the dandified, oily Cairo, while Sydney Greenstreet makes a formidable film debut at the age of 61 as the malevolent benefactor, Gutman. Mary Astor is both frail and dangerous as the femme fatale, while Elisha Cook Jr. is blood curdling as the quietly explosive Wilmer and Lee Patrick provides a real world counter balance as Spade's longsuffering secretary. Even the most minor of roles is given the utmost attention, ensuring that Huston and Hammett's meticulously constructed underworld is as full and rich as it deserves to be.