Bad Girls Do Cry (1954/1965)

The director.

I'm getting worse and worse. I watched a 1954 film, Bad Girls Do Cry, directed by Sid Melton (Green Acres' Alf Monroe). It wasn't released until 1965. A sex movie with no sex or nudity. We do see a woman changing her clothes a couple of times but she wears proper undergarments.

A tall blond lady moves to the big city. She gets a job as a waitress. Someone suggests she go for a modeling job, and she does, but she's attacked, drugged and forced into prostitution. I don't know how that made her a "bad girl" and she never showed any strong emotion. The movie made it seem less upsetting than you'd probably imagine.

Filmed without sound and dubbed. A lot of scenes without dialogue or with someone talking on a phone, or we hear them talking in the next room. In a couple scenes, two people are talking but they never show the person speaking. They keep cutting to a close-up of the other person listening thoughtfully. The opposite of "Dragnet editing".

There were only nine characters which is fine. I didn't notice while watching, but according to IMDb, only one character has a name.

Free on Tubi.

The Day the Clown Cried interview

An interview with French film writer Jean-Michel Frodon who has seen The Day the Clown Cried and gives a more positive view of the film.

I always found it strange that people laughed about the children dying at the end of the movie. Realistically, how else could it have ended? Frodon says in the interview:

"One of the shocking things to me about Schindler’s List is that it was made to be as much of a crowd-pleaser as possible, with several tricks, one of them being addressing the evocation of the slaughtering of 6 million persons through the survival of a few of them. This is for me a very clever maneuver."

Read it here on the Vanity Fair website:

The French Film Critic Who Saw Jerry Lewis’s Infamous Holocaust Movie—and Loved It | Vanity Fair 

The Day the Clown Cried getting a second chance at life

I thought the script to The Day the Clown Cried had been available online for years, but K. Jam Media founder Kia Jam has reportedly gotten hold of the original version before Jerry Lewis started revising it. He managed to find the people who owned the rights to it and is trying to find a director to make the movie. 

If it gets made, it won't be the Jerry Lewis version, but it's all we're going to get.

Read about it here:

‘The Day The Clown Cried' Script Resurrected: Turned Into Famed Unreleased Jerry Lewis Holocaust Tale, Funded ‘Clown' Script Might Finally See The Light Of Day (msn.com)

Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Koybayashi, 1967)

Toshiro Mifune as a samurai working for a feudal lord in 18th century Japan. The lord has a tiff with his main concubine (Yoko Tsukasa), a young woman with whom he has had a child. He wants to throw her out so he orders that Toshiro Mifune's son (Go Kato) marry her. Mifune, his wife and son are all against it, but, in the end, they do what the lord orders, and it turns out okay. The son and his new wife get along great. 

 

But after the death of the lord's legitimate son, the child he had with the concubine is his only heir, so he wants the young lady to return to him. He orders this, and Mifune and his son refuse to go along with it. The lord has the girl abducted. Mifune and his son prepare to fight it out even though they wouldn't last long.

    

Toshiro Mifune was called The John Wayne of Japan, and, like John Wayne, he acted way too cheerful about going into mortal combat. Like a lot of westerns, it starts as a historical drama before turning into an action film.

With Tatsuya Nakadai.

Available on The Criterion Channel.

Law vs Billy the Kid (1954)

The guy playing Billy the Kid (Scott Brady) was about 30, but people looked older in 1954. He was awfully well-groomed. I don't think I've seen anyone in real life with his hair parted that neatly. I didn't know they had Vitalis back then.

Watching the documentary about the recently discovered photo of Billy the Kid playing croquet, I learned things I didn't know about him, like he worked for an English guy, hence the croquet. This movie was historically accurate in that regard. Billy works for an English guy who is murdered by local law enforcement. Billy the Kid was a terribly loyal employee who evens the score.

The movie opted for clarity over realism. Everything is brightly lit and explained in dialogue. Directed by William Castle, later known for his gimmicky horror movies.

Only actor I recognized in it was Alan Hale, Jr.

Had things you don't expect in a western. They put up Christmas decorations in the jail and Billy goes into a Mexican restaurant over-decorated with colorful rugs hanging on the walls.

Free on Tubi.

Inferno (1953) Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan

Wealthy alcoholic Robert Ryan has fallen off his horse and broken his leg in the desert. His wife and her lover, William Lundigan, have hurried away to get help. In fact they've left him there to die. They report him missing, but direct searchers to the car they left stuck in a ditch. Can Robert Ryan save himself, making his way through the desert with a broken leg? I didn't know how I'd feel about Robert Ryan's voice over, but I got used to it quickly.

Filmed in 3D, not that that does us any good now.

I know people who just love the desert. I don't know why. I don't like being anywhere without ambulance service. 

There was an episode of Gilligan's Island where the Skipper tells Gilligan they can stave off thirst by sucking on pebbles. If this movie is to be believed, this is a real thing. I don't know if you can really get water from a cactus.

Available on the Criterion Channel, part of their Vacation Noir collection.