Reeling Backward: "Kiss of Death" (1947)

"Kiss of Death" is a movie that's well-remembered, but mostly for the wrong reasons.

Like "From Here to Eternity," it's a film that's come to be summed up in the popular gestalt for a single scene, even though that scene isn't particularly representative of the movie around it. It's like putting an unexpected ingredient in the middle of a sandwich, say a chocolate bon-bon inside a turkey on rye.

It doesn't matter if the sandwich was bland or wonderful; people are going to remember the bon-bon.

For "Eternity" it was the beachside kiss. For "Kiss of Death," it's a soulless hood pushing a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to her demise.

Like many people I'd seen snippets of the wheelchair scene, but not the whole movie. Having recently viewed "Kiss of Death," it struck me that within the context of the story, it's a rather brief, almost throwaway scene. It exists not because the woman is important -- we're introduced to her moments before she dies -- or that her death plays a pivotal role in the story. It's simply intended as a shocking moment to depict how despicable the villain, Tommy Udo, really is.

To audiences in 1947, it surely must have been quite a surprise to see a disabled woman ("crippled" they would have said in those days) killed by a giggling lunatic for no good reason at all. But it's a shame that people more readily recall that act of depravity than the character behind it, or the actor who created him.

Truthfully, "Kiss of Death" is a rather flat and unengaging example of early film noir, a crime story that's meant to underscore the value of upright citizenship. But its real thrill is luridly exposing the audience to a wildly charismatic villain.

For my money, Tommy Udo should be right up there with Keyser Soze and Hannibal Lecter on the list of greatest cinematic villains. He's a jittery, shivery figure who makes you feel like bugs are crawling all over you whenever he's onscreen.

It was the first film role for Richard Widmark, who'd mostly been known for his stage work, and would earn him his first and only Oscar nomination. It also set the tone for his career, in which he largely played men who easily turn to violence during his younger years, and corrupt cops or misguided soldiers as he got older. Even his heroic roles like "Warlock" are shot through with moral ambiguity.

After Tommy Udo, straight heroics were out for Widmark.

Widmark's look and mannerisms in the film are highly stylized and memorable. He always wears dark shirts with a light-colored tie, the mark of an operator. He moves in a languid style, almost as if the world around him bores him. When he's talking to someone he tends to stare them straight in the eye, virtually without blinking, a rictus smile seeming to split his skull horizontally. His teeth somehow seem malovelent.

He speaks in a nasally Noo Yawk pattern, warping his vowels and swallowing his consanants, to the point where it can be hard to understand what he's saying. At one point on a train he announces that it's his birthday, but it comes out something like, "Ehz meeh boithdoy!"

If Widmark's Tommy Udo seems evocative of a certain other character, that's because he is. Widmark was reputedly fascinated with the Joker in the Batman comics of that era, and patterned his look, smile and laughter after the famed psychopath who would later be portrayed by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger and others.

The only difference is there's no joking to Udo, despite his nearly non-stop laughter. That giggle seems to escape out of him like noxious gas out of cesspool, unable to be contained. According to biographer Kim Holston, Widmark would be approached by strangers for years afterwards asking him to reproduce the famous laughter, or even record it for them.

Udo laughs at those around him, whom he divides into two categories: "squirts," the everyday folks who deserve only to be browbeaten and murdered, and a "big man" who carries himself above the rest.

The only other person in the movie Udo regards as a big man is protagonist Nick Bianco, played by Victor Mature in a performance that can only be described as bored. Nick's a thief who gets shot by the police during a jewelery heist in the opening sequence, and eventually gets squeezed into being an informant for the assistant district attorney (Brian Donlevy).

The first half of the movie is utterly tedious, apart from a brief couple of scenes where Nick first meets Tommy in jail. It's basically a morality lesson where Nick tries to play the part of the proud criminal who refuses to become a snitch. But then his wife kills himself over being left destitute with two young daughters, and he sees the error of his ways.

That sets up the pursuit of Udo, which doesn't go very well when he's acquitted by a jury and comes after Nick. Or, more accurately, Nick -- now living under an assumed name -- seeks out Tommy to settle things between them once and for all.

That doesn't really make much sense, since it's doubtful Tommy could have even found him. But it's all part of the nitwit plot concocted by screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, based on a story by Eleazar Lipsky.

It's a decent-looking film (directed by Henry Hathaway) though it doesn't have much of the extravagant juxtaposition of light and dark that other noir films would use so expertly. The movie also opens with a strange scrawl assuring the audience that everything they see was shot in the actual location where it happened -- odd, considering it is a fiction film.

Interestingly, Widmark was not considered by the studio to be any big shakes when they were marketing the movie -- his name does not even appear on the poster. Coleen Gray, who was also making her film debut playing Nick's nanny-turned-new-wife (ick!), got the glamorous "and introducing..." treatment.

Frankly, if it weren't for Widmark's wonderfully off-putting Tommy Udo, "Kiss of Death" would have been a completely forgettable film -- even with the wheelchair push.

Reeling Backward: "Wing and a Prayer" (1944)

"Wing and a Prayer" would be little remembered as a rather standard World War II propaganda movie, except for a couple of things. The first is the absence of an obsessive focus on a disparate cast of characters with predictable geographic backgrounds and personalities -- the tough guy from New York, the laconic Texan, the All-American Midwesterner, etc. I've written before about my fatigue with the whole "swell bunch of guys" thing in war pictures.

What stands out more about this 1944 movie directed by Henry Hathaway is its innovative battle scenes. It combines some convincing footage of real planes photographed on an aircraft carrier with stock battle footage. For once, the stock stuff is actually blended well into the action, so the cutaway moment isn't totally obvious like it usually is when using canned stuff.

Even better are several scenes where Hathaway juxtaposed actors in the foreground against a background of battle footage. Though the combination isn't seamless, it was still impressive for its day -- perhaps one of the first uses of a "green screen" type of technology.

I was also impressed with a tactic employed by Hathaway during the climactic battle. Since it would have been unfeasible to depict a battle between American planes and Japanese carrier fleet while the war was still ongoing, the director cuts away to the captain on the bridge listening to the radio byplay among the pilots and their crewmen. He orders this piped through the ship's P.A. system, so we watch as the sailors react to the pilots' exultant shouts after shooting down a Zero, their screams of pain and their shouts suddenly being cut off.

At first I thought it to be a corny cost-saving measure, but Hathaway expertly manipulates the verbal diaspora so the audience feels like it's in the middle of the action, despite no corresponding visual element. One exchange is particularly memorable, as a pilot learns his gunner is paralyzed and cannot bail out as their stricken plane careens toward the ocean. "Guess we'll take this last ride together..."

Of course, it was probably not technologically possible to beam the entire radio transmissions of a flight of bombers throughout an aircraft carrier, and even if it was I seriously doubt a naval commanding officer would do so. But as I said, it makes for an effective narrative ploy.

"Wing and a Prayer" got its title from a hit song that came out in 1943, and its plot from a fictionalized version of events leading up from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of the Coral Sea and eventually the Battle of Midway. Sometimes subtitled "The Story of Carrier X," the film follows a single carrier as it runs a series of maneuvers meant to distract and misinform the Japanese high command into thinking the American Navy is dispersed and disorganized.

Their orders are simple: fly missions to look for the enemy, then run away as soon as they're spotted. Needless to say, the pilots are dismayed at fleeing from the enemy. Eventually, of course, they get to have their big fight.

An interesting thing about "Wing and a Prayer" is how subservient characterization is to the plot. If the theme of this movie, like many of its ilk, is that "we're all in this together," then it's underscored by having no one character stand out.

Dana Andrews is ostensibly the lead playing the redoubtable commander of the pilots, though a close second is Hallam "Oscar" Scott, a callow young pilot whose cocksure nature is not matched by his prowess at the plane's controls.

In an interesting ploy, Scott (William Eythe) is supposed to be a movie star who joined up to fight. He got his nickname from the Academy Award statue he won and carries with him in the cockpit as a good luck charm. The rest of the crew beg him for stories of kissing Betty Grable and other big Hollywood stars, and in one scene they watch one of her movies, "Tin Pan Alley."

The third lead is Bingo Harper, the taciturn flight commander played by Don Ameche. It's an unrewarding part, as Ameche scowls his way through the entire movie, his character's stubbornly by-the-book ways earning no adoration from the rowdy pilots. In the end he's portrayed as an honorable man of duty who sublimates his emotions to protect the entire ship.

Also notable in the sprawling cast is Charles Bickford as the grizzled captain, Kevin O'Shea as a veteran ace battling the shakes, Richard Jaeckel as an underage gunner and the inimitable Harry Morgan as a loudmouth ensign.

The planes used in the movie were SB2C Helldiver bombers and TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, sturdy little ships with a crew of three. Curiously, I noticed that the pilots fly almost the entire time with the glass cowl of their cockpit slid back, exposing them to the wind and elements. I suppose this must be historically accurate, since a contemporaneous movie made with the cooperation of the Navy surely wouldn't get such an important detail wrong.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel" (1951)

The fact is not lost on me that this column is posting on June 6, the 67th anniversary of D-Day -- quite possibly, the most pivotal day in the history of mankind. If the Allied invasion at Normandy had failed, there's no telling the dark path down which humanity might have been set.

The man charged with defending the German beach defense was Erwin Rommel, regarded by many of his enemies as the finest military mind of his generation. His exploits in North Africa are legend, and if he hadn't spent most of his time fighting with one or more arms tied behind his back -- short on men and weapons, and under the thumb of a madman -- Rommel might well have resisted the invasion by British and American forces.

It is strange that figures such as Winston Churchill felt compelled to memorialize the man who briefly held the fate of the world in his hands, but such is the vagaries of war. Had Rommel been able to direct the defenses to his own design, we might be spitting his name as a vile oath now.

The film about him, "The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel," is a muddled mess. Despite the title, there is little to nothing in the way of narrative about his African exploits -- the way his tanks commanded the desert, and he himself acquired an almost supernatural reputation for avoiding harm.

Call me a literalist, but a biopic that does not even touch on the defining period in a man's life is doomed from the start. Imagine "The Spirit of St. Louis" confined to Charles Lindbergh's life after his historic Atlantic flight.

The story opens with the failed mission by some British stealth soldiers to assassinate Rommel. Then there's a brief sequence about Desmond Young, the English colonel who briefly met Rommel while a prisoner of war. Young, playing himself (though his supposed narration was dubbed by an actor), returned to Germany after the war to find out the truth about Rommel's death. His book formed the basis of this movie, screenwritten by Nunnally Johnson and directed by Henry Hathaway.

The purpose of the book and movie is not to tell the complete story of Rommel's life, but to set the historical record straight about his death. To wit: Rommel did not die of a heart attack or succumb to war wounds, as Hitler's Nazi regime reported to the German people, but was forced to commit suicide in retaliation for Rommel's tacit approval of the failed assassination attempt of Hitler.

As Germany's most celebrated soldier, the revelation of Rommel's participation would have been a tremendously demoralizing blow, Hitler's cronies felt -- never mind that Rommel didn't actually collaborate with the assassins, and in fact was hospitalized in a coma after his car was strafed by enemy airplanes at the time Hitler's bunker was bombed.

Faced with certain conviction, public humiliation and a painful death by garroting, Rommel still demanded a public trial -- until Hitler's henchmen warned that his wife (soulfully played by Jessica Tandy in an undersized part) and son (William Reynolds) would not be spared. Faced with no choice at all, Rommel agreed to be driven to a remote forest, swallow a cyanide capsule and let the lie about his death be spread.

This should be riveting stuff, and if the entire movie were about Rommel's last days and his final choice -- to die a good soldier -- it might have been better for it. Perhaps the film could start with the presentation of Rommel's stark decision, and flashbacks to his life would paint a picture of why he could only arrive at the choice he did.

But I learned from Gene Siskel way back when that a reviewer should criticize a movie for what it is, not for what it is not. So rather than wishing for the film that might have been made about the life of the Desert Fox, I can merely express my disappointment at the one they did.

James Mason plays Rommel, his hair cropped so short his fleshy scalp peeks through, in a performance of clipped diction and ramrod-straight posture. Mason plays Rommel as a man so consumed by his sense of duty, and to an Old World sense of chivalry about the gentlemanly art of war, that he refused to act upon the clear evidence before him. The man who could have best ensured an orderly transition from the insanity of Hitler's regime to peace was simply incapable of an overt act of treason.

It's the credo of Edmund Burke, writ large: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Alas, all that is necessary for a bad film to be made is for people with good intentions to muddle their way through without a clear sense of purpose. "The Desert Fox" bounces around from Africa to Normandy to Berlin, skipping over months and even years at a time without much rhyme or reason to it.

The film reaches a comically awful low point when Rommel confronts Hitler as one final test for himself before he throws in with the conspirators. Luther Adler plays Hitler as a prissy, chubby little joke of an enfant terrible. That works fine for "The Great Dictator," but for a drama like this Hitler should be unnerving and terrifying -- more Bruno Ganz in "Downfall."

"The Desert Fox" is a well-meaning but ultimately wrong-headed account of a great man who was a product of his time.

1.5 stars out of four