Films

Two tough guys muscled their way into town recently to publicize their respective motion pictures. One of them was Jack Palance who, on the screen, behaves like a well-bred panther. Off the screen — as we discovered when we met him in a nearby bistro — he behaves exactly the same. He shakes your hand, smiles pleasantly, speaks in well-modulated tones; he sips a drink and handles a wedge of pizza with enviable grace. It's all very civilized. But there seems to be an undercurrent of jungle below the surface. We got the uneasy feeling that if we said one false word, he'd clutch us by the Adam's apple and fling us to the opposite end of the bar. But maybe our imagination was working overtime. The other tough customer was Marlon Brando. We were visiting an old friend at Chicago's swank Ambassador East Hotel 9:30 of a bleak winter morning when, unshaven and tired from a long train trip, Brando shuffled into the lobby, the collar of his dark overcoat turned up as a defense against the raw blast that swept off Lake Michigan. Jean Simmons leaned on him for support, or maybe it was the other way around. We followed them into the elevator. During the ride, we noted that Brando, like Palance, behaved pretty much as he does on the screen. He pouted very well, sighed with expression, and blinked the well-known Brando blink. He said nothing. His hands remained sunken into his overcoat pockets. We thought of starting a conversation with some bright mot like "Hiya, champ," but he did not appear in the mood for repartee. So, recalling how he messed up Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront, we kept a civil tongue in our heads (we have several) and blinked back. Miss Simmons, obviously bushed, buried her tousled head in his lapel, and he uttered low, consoling noises. Then the doors opened and the two of them stepped off to start a gruelling day of selling Guys and Dolls.

If you must see Guys and Dolls, we recommend you take along a box lunch, a soft cushion and a change of underwear. It's a large (CinemaScope), long (23/4 hours) film. The original Broadway show, we recall, was a fast, funny fable. It wasn't easy to turn this into a grim fairy tale, but Samuel Goldwyn, by golly, has succeeded. He had help, of course: from a director who left gaps between cues big enough to drive a truck through, from a designer who couldn't make up his mind whether to be realistic or stylized, from a brace of musical arrangers (one named Alexander Courage, which we don't believe for a minute) who not only schmaltzed up but also slowed down the songs, and from a well-meaning cast who obviously had too little rehearsal. There was more wasted on this ponderous production than a mere six million bucks — the colorful role of Nathan Detroit (impresario of The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York) was wasted on Frank Sinatra, who brought to it little enthusiasm, less invention, and no wit; and the rare gifts of Marlon Brando were wasted on a shallow role that demanded only a fraction of his talent. The picture is worth seeing (providing your seat muscles are sturdy) if only for the excellence of its basic Runyon – Burrows – Loesser material, and to hear Brando sing. Not much of a voice, but so much warmth and style that he makes the not-up-to-snuff Sinatra of this film look like he's still competing on Major Bowes' Amateur Hour. Vivian Blaine accurately re-creates her original role of Adelaide, and Jean Simmons reveals a pleasantly clear and true soprano in her assignment as "a mission doll." If you're worried that Goldwyn might not get back his six million, rest easy: we understand he's taking 90c out of every box office dollar — which is bigger than any cut Nathan Detroit ever took out of The Oldest Established.

The picture Palance was plugging was The Big Knife, a drama which we advise you to see. It's a riot. Scripter Clifford Odets hasn't got a subtle bone in his body, and he's still the wild-haired rebel he was in the Thirties, but he does have a wonderful flair for unconscious comedy. In this incredible fiasco, there is only one character who does not, at one point or another, break into hysterical weeping. The story relates the downfall of Chuck Castle, screen star, whose talents have been systematically exploited by the Hollywood leeches he has attracted in his rise to fame. There is a constant parade of characters through the single set (Castle's apartment) until one begins to feel that if the front door had been locked, there'd have been no picture. Palance, as Castle, is good, though mannered, and, like a real trouper, manages to spit out some treacherously actor-buster lines. Rod Steiger walks away with most of the acting laurels, though: at the screening we caught, the audience actually cheered his speeches. This independently-produced film is such a vicious indictment of Hollywood that West Coast moguls are supposedly trying to suppress it. Distribution may, therefore, be somewhat limited, so you better grab the first chance you get to dig this crazy (continued overleaf) flick. We might add, by way of preparation, that it was filmed in 18 days.