Summer of Angela: A Life At Stake (1954) with minor spoilers

August 15, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.

Up this week was A Life At Stake, another crime noir “B-movie” and another chance for Angela to show her evil side. Honestly, she’s been evil in a lot of the movies I watched with her throughout this summer, which cracks me up since a lot of people associate her with being sweet in kind from things like Murder She Wrote and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

This movie was not the best I’ve ever seen plot-wise but the dialogue was actually very well written and the sexual tension was something I didn’t expect for a 1954 movie.

The movie is essentially about a man who is very paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him. Or, as Google describes it: “After an out of work architect accepts a business proposition from a married woman, he soon begins to suspect her motives, and fear for his life.”

Edward Shaw, portrayed by Keith Andes had a business failing and now he’s been approached by a lawyer with the prospect of a new business.

Edward tells the lawyer he really doesn’t really want to get involved. He keeps a $1000 bill framed on his wall to remind him of his failures and encourage him to try again. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a $1,000 bill by the way.

Anyhow, I digress, the lawyer puts him in contact with Doris Hillman (Angela), wife of Gus Hillman (Douglass Dumbrille). Edward goes to Doris’s home and the housekeeper says he needs to call out before he goes to the pool because Doris has been known to swim in the nude. Edward quips back, “That’s okay. I’ve been known to swim in the nude too.”

Doris isn’t naked but she does tell Edward he should have called out. From their first meeting the flirting begins in earnest. Doris even covers herself with a towel but removes the top of her swim suit underneath it because she says it’s uncomfortable.

Eventually they get to business talks and Doris says Gus wants Edward to run the company, buying up property with money Gus will give him and for Doris to sell the property using her past real estate experience.

Edward is agreeable but feels suspicious about it all, especially when Doris says they will need to take an insurance policy out on him for half a mil. He doesn’t, however, seem to feel suspicious about Doris and later that night at home when he gets a call, he asks his land lady if it is a woman calling. It is clear he’s hopeful Doris will be calling soon and about a lot more than business.

Doris does call another day and asks him to meet her a hotel room. From there he’s laying it on heavy, flirting all over the place, but she lets him know she’s not interested. She’s only interested in business. Edward (sort of a horny jerk if you ask me) leaves but later that night Doris pulls up outside his apartment.

She says something flirty and then before we know it, he’s in the car practically shoving his tongue own her throat.

All is going well with their little liaisons and business dealings until Edward meets Doris’s sister, Madge (Claudia Barrett). Madge thinks he’s just lovely and starts hitting on him. She invites him to dinner in front of Doris and Gus and because he doesn’t want Gus to know about his affair with Doris, he agrees.

During dinner Madge drops a bombshell and says that Gus is Doris’s second husband because her first husband died a few years ago in an accident. What’s weird is that Doris and Gus were in a business with him too and when he died Gus and Doris got the insurance money since they’d taken out a policy on each of them for the business.

Edward is incensed. He had a feeling Doris and Gus were up to something and now he knows what it is. They really do want to kill him and get the money for the insurance policy they took out in his name.

He’s still thinking about this when Doris calls and says she wants to show him something.

He reluctantly agrees and she drives him up on a hill. She shows him some property she says will be great for development but when she goes to park, the brake slips and the car keeps rolling. She gets it in park and says she’s going to go get the property owner because he said he would show them around.

After she leaves, though, with Edward sitting in the passenger side, the car starts to roll toward a bank with a long drop and Edward just barely stops it.

That cinches it for him. Doris and Gus are in on this together and they are going to kill him.

I won’t give away the ending but most of the rest of the 70 minute movie (yes, it’s that short) will be Edward waffling back and forth between suspecting the couple and being in love with Doris while Madge is in love with Edward and knows all about the affair. Later she also knows about Edward’s suspicions.

This is a dark movie and it took the path I thought it might but I did think there might be more of a plot twist toward the end. Actually, there did seem to be a bit of a plot twist based on something said by a character right at the end but I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it or not.

I will share that I did read Cat’s review (found on her blog Cat’s Wire) before finishing this post up and I have to agree that I did not really connect with or like the main character.

I don’t think I would have cried much if he had been murdered (okay, so I gave a little away here…..he isn’t murdered). He was very unlikable and rude. He wanted to have his little fling with Doris but also keep her and her husband from killing him. He was sort of ruled by his privates to me and it severely affected his judgment. And though there were some good lines in this one – the writing overall was just not very strong.

*I’m sure this is just motion blur in the image, but all I can think of when I see Angela’s hand in this photo is that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry dates a woman with “man hands.”*

I liked Angela’s performance and thought she succeeded once again in pulling off playing someone evil and making it hard for the viewer to figure out if she was really in love with Edward or not.

I listened to an interview with Angela last week when writing about The Picture of Dorian Gray, and she said she made a lot of not-so-great movies over the years. This may be one of them she was referring to.

The movie was directed by Paul Guilfoyle, for those who care about such things. The film was restored in 2021 and resulted in a few noir crime movie buffs blogging about it.

One of those, Michael Barrett from the site Pop Matters, wrote: “You’d have to know me to understand how unlikely it is that I’d never heard of this picture, but the commentary by scholar Jason A. Ney points out that this film is so obscure, it’s not listed in most noir references, despite the presence of a major star. So this might count as more of a rediscovery than restoration.”

About the acting and plot he writes, “The film runs only 76 minutes, but a bunch of stuff happens at a nice clip, sometimes too quickly for us to analyze how much adds up, with some elements more obvious than others. In a sense, everyone is clumsy and transparent, and that feels reasonably credible. The story mixes common sense (e.g., going to the cops and the insurance company) with devious cupidity and lust amongst tawdry, small-minded people.”

Glenn Erickson on Trailers from Hell wrote: “Filmed in 1954, producer Hank McCune’s A Life at Stake is notable for its fairly competent production and a decent if somewhat thrill-challenged screenplay — and the fact that it stars an actress one wouldn’t think would be associated with an 11-day cheapie thriller. The great Angela Lansbury is the odd star out on a list of creatives that reads like a call sheet for ambitious Hollywood underachievers, all thirsting for the right show to get their career in motion.”

I have to agree with Erickson when he writes: “The movie generates some tension but can’t quite convince us that Ed Shaw is as helpless as presented.”

I enjoyed Erickson’s entire review and background so if you would like to know even more about the film and Angela’s role in it, please check it out.

Some facts and trivia:

“The unusual convertible Doris Hillman (Dame Angela Lansbury) drove was a Kaiser Darrin. Only 435 production Darrins and six prototypes were built. Its entry doors slid on tracks into the front fender wells behind the front wheels, which was patented in 1946, had no side windows and a three-position Landau top. The car’s only criticism by enthusiasts was the front grill, which looked like it “wanted to give you a kiss.” (Source: imdb)

This was an independent feature produced by Hank McCune, who briefly starred in his own free-wheeling TV sitcom, The Hank McCune Show. (source: Pop Matters)
McCune created the story and hired people from his television series, including writer Russ Bender and supporting actor Frank Maxwell. (source: Pop Matters)

The director’s wife, Kathleen Mulqueen, plays Shaw’s mom-like secretary. (source: Pop Matters)

Directly from imbd.com: “In the first scene, Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) roams about his room in the boarding house wearing only form-fitting pajama bottoms and stripped to the waist, giving audiences ample chance to view his impressive musculature from every conceivable angle. In a comic twist, an attorney enters the room, and one of his first lines of dialogue to Edward is “Come now, you’re not the first man to lose his shirt!””

In order to please the Italian music unions, an agreed number of American films had to be re-scored by Italian composers for release in Italy. A bit of irony is that Les Baxter had his original music replaced by Costantino Ferri, Baxter himself would later join AIP and re-score over a dozen movies previously done by Italian composers. (Source: imbd)
When Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) gets into a taxi after leaving his office, in the background, the old Sunset Theatre is seen, which was located on Western Avenue just north of Sunset Boulevard; the double feature shown on the marquee is Da Vinci also Julius Caesar (with Marlon Brando) , which dates the shot as May 1954. The theatre no longer exists. The intersection has been redeveloped.

Left on my Summer of Angela list for August are:

August 22 – I’ve decided to substitute A Long Hot Summer for All Fall Down for a couple reasons — I’ve watched A Long Hot Summer before and it will allow me to admire Paul (Newman) again and I watched a preview for the film and this annoying kid kept calling the main character Barry-Barry and that just seemed super, super annoying. Plus, I’ve heard it is a dark film. I originally wanted to watch it because I’ve never seen a Warren Beatty film (don’t you dare ever remind me of Dick Tracy! Never! Ever! I would like to burn that memory out of my brain with the end of a cigarette! My brother and I walked out of that film and I have never attempted to watch it again and I still have PTSD!). I can always watch another Warren Beatty film instead.

August 29 – Something for Everyone

If you want to read about some of the other movies I watched, you can find them here:

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The Manchurian Candidate

National Velvet

The Pirates of Penzance

Gaslight

The Pirates of Penzance

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sources:

https://www.popmatters.com/paul-guilfoyle-life-at-stake

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047178/trivia/

https://trailersfromhell.com/a-life-at-stake/

Summer of Angela: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

June 30, 2025July 1, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 19 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies. This week — well, last week — I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

First, a movie description:

During the Battle of Britain, Miss Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury), a cunning witch-in-training, decides to use her supernatural powers to defeat the Nazi menace. She sets out to accomplish this task with the aid of three inventive children who have been evacuated from the London Blitz. Joined by Emelius Brown (David Tomlinson), the head of Miss Price’s witchcraft training correspondence school, the crew uses an enchanted bed to travel into a fantasy land and foil encroaching German troops.

The children come to live with Eglantine Price not because she wants them to, mind you. She is sort of cohersed into it by a lady from the community who ran out of room for the other children who came from London.

Once there the children decide they are going back to London. Miss Price doesn’t eat normal food (she doesn’t eat any sausages at all!). Miss Price can’t let them go back to London because the city is being bombed but..oddly enough…later in the movie she takes them all back to London via a magical bed. Yes, you read that right. A magical, flying bed.

The movie is based on two novels by Mary Norton, The Magic Bed-Knob (1945) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1957), about the adventures of an apprentice witch and the three children who come to stay with her to escape the bombing of London during World War II.

In some parts, the movie mixes live action and animation, similar to Mary Poppins.

Walt Disney (the man, not the company) purchased the rights to the first book the year it was published, but the movie wouldn’t be made until five years after his death, partially because of Mary Poppins. It took Disney years and years to convince P.L. Travers to give the rights to Mary Poppins. Walt wanted to make a movie based on Bedknobs and Broomsticks but decided he’d hold on to that one if he couldn’t get Mary Poppins. Of course, he did get Mary Poppins so Bedknobs was pushed aside for a bit.

Walt said the stories were very similar, so he wanted to wait to make Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a title that combined both book titles, when the frenzy from Mary Poppins had died down a bit. In the end, Walt died before Bedknobs and Broomsticks was developed and released.

Observer.com says this about the movie: “Bedknobs and Broomsticks is just as unhinged as it sounds. The 1960s through the 1980s was a period of decline for Disney, and the internal drama at the studio plus the Mary Poppins-related delays are evident in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a film that’s all over the place (ironic, as Lansbury called her performance “acting by the numbers;” each scene was storyboarded ahead of time). At first, it strikes the same chord as Chitty Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), but then it veers into West Side Story (1961) territory with extended dance numbers (including dancers in brownface). The scenes where the group travels using Miss Price’s magical bed are bizarrely psychedelic à la the tunnel scene in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which premiered the same year. And the arcs featuring a mix of live action and animation, particularly the soccer scene on the cartoon island of Naboombu, feel like precursors to future hits like Space Jam (1996).”

Who is in it:

The movie stars Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson (the father in Mary Poppins, incidentally) and three wonderful child actors Ian Weighill, Roy Snart, and Cindy O’Callaghan.

Highlights for me:

The children in this movie were absolutely amazing. They were hilarious, quick-witted and delivered their lines perfectly.

In one scene, the oldest boy decides he’s going to blackmail Miss Price into giving them better food (not vegetarian food that she eats) by telling her that the kids know she’s a witch. They know this because when they were trying to sneak out of the house to go back to London, they saw her trying to ride a broom for the first time and falling off into a bush.

“What we have here is an opportunity,” he says when he sees her fall off her broom. “She don’t want us to tell anyone she’s a witch so….”

Oh gosh, the kid is so funny in his delivery. His sister isn’t very pleased with him trying to manipulate Miss Price, by the way, and Miss Price isn’t easily manipulated so it doesn’t really work.

Angela, of course, was very good in this movie. I have to agree with some reviews that said she wasn’t as animated in the movie as she could have been. However, later in life she talked about how technical these types of movies have to be, adding that it is hard to improvise or do anything that breaks too much from the script when the movie is storyboarded so exact for the technical aspects.

There was one song that sort of made my eyebrows raise: Portobello Road. Mainly because of the women who come up to the professor on Portobello Road and seem to be flirting with him. They are dressed in brightly colored dresses that have a certain “look” to them. These same women are in the background of the song flirting with the soldiers and even get their own break out dance moment. As my mom would say, “Oh. Oh my!”

I’m really surprised they put “those type of women” in the movie, which was, clearly, meant for children. I kept looking for any commentary online about this and did find some, but mainly from bloggers.

“I mean, it wasn’t until this viewing that I worked out that, yes, those are prostitutes attempting to pick up Professor Browne and not just friendly women,” Gillianred on The Solute.com wrote. “Which is . . . not something I expected from a Disney movie. But if you look at what they’re wearing and exactly how they size him up, it seems to me that, yup, they’re wondering if he’s got a few bob in his pocket to spare for a little bit of fun.”

I also enjoyed all the different cultures represented during the Portobello Road song. Soldiers who fought for the British during World War II were shown dancing in their own moments during the song, including Scottish, Indian, and Jamaica. Online there was at least one site that called this scene racist but I guess I didn’t see it that way. I just thought it was nice they were representing the other countries who fought with England.

I also felt that the Jamaican section in particular was very respectful because they were dancing to traditional music, the Jamaican women had the best dresses of anyone else in the dance sequence and everyone around them was clapping and enjoying themselves.

The children were even enjoying watching the dances and weren’t making fun of them, but trying to mimic them and try to dance like the people. To me the sequence is a chance to talk to children about the differences between culture. While the depictions are not completely accurate, to me, they are an attempt to bring awareness to all of those different countries that fought with the British during that time.

Eglantine’s cat looked like it had died – so that was funny to see. It looked like the cat we had, who we loved dearly, but was 19 when she died and looked awful. She looked like an animatronic cat that had gone through a garbage disposal at that point.

What I thought overall:

I liked this movie a lot but I don’t know that I would watch it again and again. Maybe if I had watched it as a child and had a sentimental connection, I would have loved it. Instead, I only liked it.

I almost loved it, maybe that’s a better way to say it. This was a comfy, cozy movie for me, even if it wasn’t my favorite Disney film. Yes, I know comfy and cozy are essentially the same word. Just go with it.

I loved the humor of the children and how they made the movie. I loved the silliness and the absolute detachment from reality it had , something people in the 40s would have really needed. Since the movie was released in 1971 it would have provided some people a happier way to frame that period, which was so dark for the world, but especially British people.

I’m actually glad children back then couldn’t see movies like this or read books like the Narnia Chronicles. They might have thought they were all going to mansion with professors or witches where they would disappear into a magical land via a wardrobe or fly away to adventure on a bed.

Nazis showing up at the end of the film was awkward and I imagine would have been very scary for children who watched it when really young.

Mr. Brown dreaming of Angela in a revealing acrobat outfit was also…er…interesting. Not inappropriate but a bit strange. In a funny way.

And, of course, the ending when — well, have you seen the film? I hate to give it away but I will say that a spell is cast and very exciting things happen to help make sure there is a happy ending.

If I were to boil down my overall opinion of the movie into one sentence I would say that it was a magical adventure for me that allowed me to escape life stresses and that is exactly what I think the makers of this movie wanted to do.

What Angela said about the movie:

I could not find the source for this again, but at some point, I was watching an interview with Angela and she said that what really made the movie was the children. Their acting was so good and, of course, children love to watch movies with other children in them.

In 1998 Disney released an extended version of the movie, adding in deleted scenes and musical numbers. Interviewed by Disney for the project, Angela said only those who acted in the movie knew what was missing all these years, but they were so glad to add those parts back.

“It was my passport to an entire generation of youngsters,” Angela said in the interview for Disney. “Now those children are all grown up and they are showing Bedknobs and Broomsticks to their kids.”

“To fly is everybody’s dream,” she continued in the interview. “And to have that experience of being suspended and moving freely through the air is a lovely feeling.”

Pullies and wires were used to help Angela and the other actors seem to fly but special effects also came into play.

“It has to do with make believe,” Angela said. “We had to understand that we were interacting with an animated creature, so your hand had to be in a certain position for him to put his hand on yours in the final print.”

A bit of trivia or facts:

Julie Andrews was offered the role of Miss Price in the movie but declined. When she made up her mind she did want to do it, it was too late. Angela had been offered the role and had accepted.

The Beautiful Briny was actually written for Mary Poppins, but saved out and filmed for Bedknobs and Broomsticks instead.

The song A Step in the Right Direction was cut from the movie and the footage could never be found to restore it to the restored version of the movie. Disney did, however, clip together some images and present it on the Disney Channel before airing the movie with all the deleted scenes added back in. (https://youtu.be/J-VwRkQGkAw?si=QpQ0jjsfKoP5H9wa

In the establishing shot of the animated soccer game, a bear wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt can be spotted in the crowd on the right side of the picture.

There were differences between the books and the movie. For example, in the first book of the series, the warm is not explicitly mentioned and the children are not orphans but are instead sent to spend the summer with their aunt in the country. It’s heard they meet Eglantine Price, who gives them the magic bedknob in exchange for not revealing she is a witch. In the second book, set two years after the first, the children travel back in time to 1666 before the Great Fire of London and that’s where they meet Emelius Jones (not Brown) and bring him back with them to the future.

Another difference between the movie and book is that Eglantine ends up traveling back with him to his time and takes the bed with her, which means the children will not have any more adventures or trips.

From TCM.com: “In an interview filmed for the thirtieth anniversary of the film that was included as added content on the DVD release, Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, the brothers who were the film’s composer-lyricists, stated that they were given the task to write songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks while the studio awaited permission from author P. L. Travers to film Mary Poppins. In an interview reprinted in a modern source, the brothers reported that Disney assured them that he owned another story about magic for which their songs could be used if Mary Poppins was not produced. According to the Shermans, the song “The Beautiful Briny” actually was written for, but never used in, Mary Poppins.”

According to 1971 studio production notes, three blocks of Portobello Road as it looked in 1940 were reproduced on Disney Studio soundstages. Among the props used for this sequence were carts rented from A. Keehn, a company that had a monopoly on them, according to set decorator Emile Kuri, who stated that for over a hundred years the company had collected a shilling a day for each barrow rented by vendors on Portobello Road. (Source TCM.com).

All longer scenes with Roddy McDowall as the local pastor “Mr. Jelk,” were cut from the film and he ended up in only a three-minute clip in the original film.

The New York Times stated in their review that Angela projected a “healthy sensuality” in the movie. (*giggle*)

This was the last Disney movie released while Roy O. Disney was still alive. He died a week after its U.S. premiere.

The armor in the climactic battle with the Nazis was authentic medieval armor, previously used in Camelot (1967) and El Cid (1961). When any item of armor was to be destroyed, exact fiberglass replicas were created and used.

In this movie, the King of Naboombu’s name is Leo. In official merchandise guidebooks, his full name is King Leonidas, after the Spartan King who died at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

This was the last Disney-branded movie to receive an Academy Award until The Little Mermaid (1989). Others received nominations, and two Touchstone Pictures movies, The Color of Money (1986) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), received awards before that.

If you want to read a very fun review of this film, I enjoyed this one by Mutant Reviewers Movies: https://mutantreviewersmovies.com/2013/03/25/deneb-does-bedknobs-and-broomsticks/

Cat from Cat’s Wire also watched this one this week and you can find her thoughts here:

Up next in my Summer of Angela is Gaslight.

Here is my full schedule of movies I am watching:

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 – The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

August 8 The Picture of Dorian Gray

August 15 – A Life At Stake

August 22 – All Fall Down

August 29 – Something for Everyone

Additional resources:

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#notes

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#articles-reviews?articleId=188901

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#photos-videos

https://www.the-solute.com/disney-byways-bedknobs-and-broomsticks/#:~:text=I%20mean%2C%20it%20wasn’t,a%20little%20bit%20of%20fun.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066817/trivia/

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Summer Movie Marathon: Summertime (1955) with a spoiler

August 22, 2024August 29, 2024 / Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

Continuing with my Summer Movie Marathon today I am focusing on the movie Summertime, released in 1955 and starring Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi and directed by David Lean.

First, a little description of the movie:

Middle-aged Ohio secretary Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) has never found love and has nearly resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone. But before she does, she uses her savings to finance a summer in romantic Venice, where she finally meets the man of her dreams, the elegant Renato Di Rossi (Rossano Brazzi). But when she learns that her new paramour is leading a double life, she must decide whether her happiness can come at the expense of others.

Summertime isn’t exactly a summer movie in my opinion, other than the fact that Katherine Hepburn travels to Venice in the summer. It could really take place anytime, but it’s called Summertime because Katherine has her first big international adventure and her first big romance on this trip that is in the summer.

Okay, fine, maybe it is a summer movie, but I guess I think of summer movies being on the beach and being a bit silly. This movie is not silly. It is, in fact, quite serious at times. There are funny moments but there are also some big life issues that hit Katherine’s character, Jane.

Jane is a lonely woman who can’t seem to fit in. She’s a little odd by some standards, though I love her character – except when she flies off the handle at this one small thing in the movie and is all over dramatic at other times.

She likes to read and take photos and film little movies on her reel-to-reel camera and doesn’t believe she could ever be loved. (She sort of sounds like me.)

At first I found Katherine’s way of acting in this part grating. I wondered why they picked her for this role, but the more I watched, the more I got it. Yes, she is a bit grating in the way she talks and handles herself but that is how the character is. She’s abrasive and bold and overly excited and also suspicious of others who seem interested in her romantically.

In this case she ends up being correct to suspect Renato De Rossi and here is where spoilers will come in so if you haven’t seen the movie and want to, you might want to stay clear of the following paragraphs.

Jane meets Renato in one of the sexiest scenes I have ever seen in a movie. No, there is no sex or nudity or crude language. The actor who plays Renato simply looks at Katherine Hepburn in a way I could only dream of being looked at. The resolution on this clip is not great but this is the look:

Brazzi absolutely oozes sex appeal throughout this whole movie – from the first moment he checks her out, his gaze gliding down her legs and back up to the back of her neck while she films the scenes around her.

Jane is embarrassed by his attention and decides to leave the restaurant but a couple of days later she’s face to face with him when she wants to buy a goblet for sale in his antique shop. He is thrilled to see her again because he could not stop checking her out at the restaurant. He asks where she is staying and the next day he shows up and wants to take her out on the town.

But, back to Jane being suspicious – she has every right to be. Renato is not who he says he is. I mean, he is attentive and passionate and romantic and very possibly in love with her but he isn’t exactly unencumbered, shall we say. He has a family – not just nieces and nephews like he eludes to but a wife and children. The wife, he claims, is living somewhere else, by her choice. She’s fine with him seeing others because she’s doing the same. That’s how Italians are, he claims. Maybe they are, but that isn’t who or how Jane is.

Still, she is drawn to Renato and can’t seem to let him go and…well, you will have to watch the movie to know what happens, but I will say there was one scene that suggested….okay. Again. You will have to watch it.

I love the scenery in this movie. It was shot on location in 1954 and it is gorgeous. The film had a budget of $1.1 million and was one of the first British-produced films to be shot entirely on location.

According to the site Luca’s Italy, (https://lucasitaly.com/2017/11/30/venice-in-the-movies-summertime-1955/) “Most of Summertime was filmed in and around the Piazza di San Marco and Campo San Barnaba, where Brazzi’s shop was located. The building is still a shop, but today sells toys rather than red Murano glass goblets, but curiously, never seems to be open.”

The blog post also states, “The Pensione Fiorini, where Hepburn stays, is now the stunningly named Splendid Hotel on Rio dei Bareteri.”

If you would like to read more about the movie here are a couple of reviews:

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/32-summertime

https://www.criterion.com/films/368-summertime

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/7/16/a-year-with-kate-summertime-1955.html

https://lwlies.com/articles/summertime-katharine-hepburn-performance/

I watched this movie on Amazon but I do see it is free on YouTube. I can’t vouch for the quality:

I had to switch things up for my next movie because I couldn’t find Having A Wonderful Time streaming anywhere. I also decided not to watch Clambake because I tried to watch it and I couldn’t push through. Plus, if I had watched Clambake and written about it, I would have run into the Comfy, Cozy Cinema that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are planning and going to start September 5.

If you are interested in joining in, Erin has designed some wonderful graphics again this year and you can see the list below:

Next week I am going to write about Summer Magic with Hayley Mills to wrap up my Summer Movie Marathon.

So far I’ve written about the following movies:

Gidget

Beach Blanket Bingo

Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation

Summer Movie Marathon: Beach Blanket Bingo

August 8, 2024August 7, 2024 / Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

I know that summer is winding down for most of us already, with kids already heading back to school in some places, but around here we don’t say summer is over until the first of September so I am watching summer movies for the month of August.

This week I am writing about Beach Blanket Bingo from 1963.

I started this movie and immediately decided I might not be able to make it through it. Ultimately I decided to push through it so my readers never have to.

And so I’d have some funny material for my blog.

I suffer for my blog readers. What can I say?

So here is the plot of the film – um….there isn’t one. I don’t think so anyhow.

There is just Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon jumping out of an airplane for whatever reason, kids (who actually look anywhere from 30 to 40 years old) dancing half-dressed on the beach, a lot of singing for no apparent reason, perverted old men chasing young girls, and some bumbling bad guy in a “motorcycle gang” who’s goal is to – er – I am truly not sure. Kidnap a pop singer I think.

Oh and a mermaid. There is a mermaid.

There is also a singer who is in love with Frankie’s character and Annette is jealous of.

I watched the movie and still had to go search online for a summary so I know what in the world happened.

Online it said this: “Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and the gang are hitting the beach for some good old-fashioned shenanigans. To get the party underway, the manager (Paul Lynde) of pop singer Sugar Kane (Linda Evans) decides a skydiving publicity stunt will really do the trick. As Frankie and the others are pulled into the plan, things get out of control. Throw in Bonehead (Jody McCrea) falling in love with a mermaid (Marta Kristen) and a kidnapping biker (Harvey Lembeck), and the party’s just getting started.”

Do the trick of what? I have no idea.

This movie was the fourth one in an eight-movie series with the first one released in 1963 and the last one being released in 1987 (yikes). From what I can see each movie had the actors playing different characters with unique plots. (Or what were supposed to be plots).

Three of the movies were released in 1964 and three in 1965.

So I looked this particular movie up on Wikipedia and it said this (there are spoilers but don’t worry…I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to rush out to watch this one), “A singer, Sugar Kane (Linda Evans), is unwittingly being used for publicity stunts for her latest album by her agent (Paul Lynde), for example, faking a skydiving stunt, actually performed by Bonnie (Deborah Walley).

Meanwhile, Frankie (Frankie Avalon), duped into thinking he rescued Sugar Kane, takes up skydiving at Bonnie’s prompting; she secretly wants to make her boyfriend Steve (John Ashley) jealous. This prompts Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) to also try free-falling. Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his Rat Pack bikers also show up, with Von Zipper falling madly in love with Sugar Kane. Meanwhile, Bonehead (Jody McCrea) falls in love with a mermaid named Lorelei (Marta Kristen).

Eventually, Von Zipper “puts the snatch” on Sugar Kane, and in a Perils of Pauline-like twist, the evil South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey) kidnaps Sugar and ties her to a buzz-saw.”

So….yeah…ahem. There you go. The scene with the buzz saw? Completely psychopathic material. It got very dark at that point I thought.

I did like at least one exchange between characters.

The manager of the pop singer says, “I didn’t catch your name, boy.”

And Frankie shoots back, “I didn’t throw it.”

When I first started the movie and saw Don Rickles was in it I thought, “The only thing that will save this movie is Don Rickles.”

As I got more into the movie, though, my thought was, “Not even Don Rickles can save this movie.”

But there is one stand-up act he performs in the middle that actually does save the movie…more about that below because is it just me or did Annettee always look like she was 40 even in her late teens?

She was 18 in this movie but seriously looked like 40 to me, or at least 30. Even Frankie looked old(ish) to me but he was 25 in the movie. Did you know he’s still alive? I didn’t. I knew Annette was gone – she passed away from complications of MS several years ago. I remember because my mom and I were talking about her since she was more from my mom’s era than mine.

Of course, I am teasing a bit about how old they looked. Everyone else in the movie probably was in their 30s or 40s, though. Even Rickles noticed. According to information I read online, he even broke character at one point while pretending to be in a nightclub act, teasing Frankie and Annette by asking why they were in the film, because they were so old. I must have missed this when I first watched the movie because I went back to watch it again and cracked up for the first time watching the movie. I absolutely love how you can tell how the cast is actually laughing for real – it’s so authentic.

The movie is supposed to be goofy fun so I tried to cut it some slack, but … oh my ….it was hard to struggle through most of it. The campy sound effects didn’t help anything and then there were these scenes interspliced into the movie of an old man chasing (literally) a young woman in a bikini. Weird.

I thought it was interesting, or unsettling I guess, to read that the pop singer was originally going to be played by Nancy Sinatra but she dropped out because part of the plot of the movie was a kidnapping and her brother, Frank Sinatra Jr., had only recently been released after he was actually kidnapped at the age of 19. A ransom was paid by his father Frank Sinatra to have him released.

John Ashley plays Steve, the husband of the sky-diver, in this movie (and was her actual husband in real-life) but usually played Frankie’s friend in other movies. One reviewer said the movies were about friendship ultimately and it was weird to see Ashley not playing Frankie’s friend in this particular movie.

There is plenty of music in these movies from Frankie and Annette and several other real-life artists including, Donna Loren and the Hondells and I have to admit the music really isn’t that bad.

The pop singer for the movie was portrayed by Linda Evans but she lip synched songs sung by studio vocalist Jackie Ward.

A 12-page comic book was produced by Dell Comics and released at the same time as the movie.

Frankie later said of the movie, “That’s the picture of mine that I think people remember best, and it was just a lot of kids having a lot of fun — a picture about young romance and about the opposition of adults and old people. There’s nothing that young people respond to more than when adults say `These kids are nuts,` and that’s what this movie was about. It was also fun because we got to learn how to fake skydive out of an airplane.

I thought it was also interesting to read that a skit on the Carol Burnett show with the cast and Steve Martin was based on the movie. I recently saw that clip and knew it was based on one of these movies but not which one.

I watched the movie on Amazon Prime. It’s free right now with a Prime subscription.

If you are interested in another fun review about the movie I enjoyed this one on Funk’s House of Geekery.

Next up in my Summer Movie Marathon is:

Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation (August 15)

Summertime (August 22)

Having A Wonderful Time (August 27)

Clambake (August 29)

Summer Movie Marathon: Gidget (1959)

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024 / Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

This month I will be writing about classic summer movies that I’ve picked out on my own or that were suggested to me. These will be movies released before 1970.

Some will be campy, some will be about the cheesiest thing you’ve ever seen, but all will have an element of fun in them.

First up is Gidget (1959) starring Sandra Dee.

This movie had me all kinds of nervous and stressed, let me tell you.

First, they seemed to be rushing very young girls toward sex and romance way too early and that surprised me for a movie from the late 50s.

Second, while much of the scenes were meant to be funny, I just kept thinking about how dangerous many of the situations young Gidget was in were.

I was practically yelling at the TV at one point.

We start with Francine Lawerence in her bedroom and her friends are telling her it’s time she grew up and tried to get a man. She’s about to turn 17 and her friends are taking her to the beach so she can join them in trying to hunt men.

Of course, much of the movie is meant to be silly so when her mother asks why she doesn’t look excited to go, Francine’s friend says it’s because she’s going on her first “manhunt.”

The mom is a little shocked but sort of shrugs it off when Francine’s dad protests that she’s too young for that.

Francine is of the age when young girls look for boyfriends, her mother says.

Again, I was a bit shocked with this declaration but continued on.

On the beach, Francine’s friends undress to their bathing suits and do their best to catch the attention of a group of young men lounging on the beach next to their surf boards.

Francine isn’t as – ahem – developed as her friends so she doesn’t garner much attention.

The boys are also on to the girl’s ploys and mock and ignore them for the most part.

Francine would rather go swimming than catch boys anyhow so she sets out into the ocean and gets herself caught in some seaweed, which leads to her calling for help.

A young surfer named Jeffrey “Moondoggie” Matthews (James Darren) comes to her rescue and once she is rescued his friends mock him and Francine, but one of them offers to take Francine back to their hut and help her learn about life. Eek.

Francine is naïve and clueless about the flirting surfer so she ignores him and instead wants to know how she can get a surfboard too. She’d love to be part of the gang, she says.

They all wave her off and tell her to go home but the next day she is back at the beach to buy a surfboard and meets the Burt “The Big Kahuna” Vail, played by Cliff Robertson – a man who is close to 30 but spends his days surfing the waves all over the world.

Francine eventually inserts herself into the group and gains the nickname Gidget from them. Moondoggie isn’t too happy with her being in the group because he knows his fellow surfers aren’t the nicest guys and will try to take advantage of her.

At point he has to rescue her from the first guy who suggested teaching her how life works – ahem again – and tells her to go home.

“The lessons you’re going to get here aren’t what you are looking for.”

And they aren’t because the lessons Gidget wants are ones that will teach her how to surf so she can fit in with the guys, especially Moondoggie, who she’s fallen for.

Meanwhile at home, while Dad was once nervous about his little girl becoming a manhunter, he decides he should use her to get in good with his boss by having her go out with the boss’s son who is visiting.

The word pimp came to my mind at this point, I’m sorry to say.

There is a ton of humor in this movie, even if I was cringing at some of the scenes with men trying to take advantage of Gidget’s innocence.

I didn’t like the idea that a girl is expected to start dating men at such a young age, even if it was a different time.

Still, I had some fun with the movie and liked the surfing and beach scenes, even if the surfing scenes were very fake.

I thought it was interesting that Elvis was the first choice to play Moondoggie but he was in the U.S. Army at the time. Luckily he went on to make some dumb beach movies on his own in the future, including Clam Bake, which is one my list to watch for this series.

The movie was based on the book Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas by Frederick Kohner who based the main character on his daughter Kathy. According to Wikipedia, the screenplay was written by Gillian Houghton, who was then head writer of the soap opera The Secret Storm, using the pen name Gabrielle Upton.

There were a few more Gidget movies made after this including Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Gidget Goes to Rome, Gidget Grows Up, Gidget Gets Married, and Gidget’s Summer Reunion.

Different actresses played Gidget in each movie.

There was also a series called Gidget that ran for one season in 1965 and starred Sally Fields.

The original movie is said to have kicked off the “beach genre” movies, a couple of which I plan to watch.

I didn’t look up a ton of reviews and trivia about this one but did see this excerpt of a review by Craig Butler in Allmovie notes: “Although the very title prompts snorts of derision from many, Gidget is actually not a bad little teenaged flick from the ’50s. Great art it definitely isn’t, but as frivolous, lighthearted entertainment, it more than fits the bill. Those who know it only by reputation will probably be surprised to find that it does attempt to deal with the problems of life as seen by a teenager—and that, while some of those attempts are silly, many of them come off quite well. It also paints a very convincing picture of the beach-bum lifestyle, much more so than the Frankie Avalon–Annette Funicello beach party movies.”