Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #31: Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan), 1951

"I've got five fingers on my hand and so does he. Do we have to know one another or each other's names to be brothers? No!"

Miracolo a Milano, 1951

Director: Vittorio De Sica
Writers: Caesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Suso Cecchi
Cinematographer: G. R. Aldo
Producer: Vittorio De Sica for Cinecittà Studios (Rome, Italy)
Starring: Francesco Golisano, Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa, Guglielmo Barnabò, Brunella Bovo, Arturo Bragaglia, Erminio Spalla, 

Why I chose it
When looking at various "best of 1951" lists, this film showed up on one of them and I jumped at the chance to view my first-ever Italian film for this series, and from renowned director De Sica, no less. Easy choice.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
An abandoned baby is found by an old woman in her garden in the outskirts of Milan, and she raises the boy until her death. The school-aged child, Totò, (Gianni Branduani) is deposited in an orphanage just to be released alone into the big city on his 18th birthday. Completely unaware of how to make a living, yet convinced of the goodness of everyone he meets, Totò (now Francesco Golisano) meets up with a homeless man on the street who leads him to his shantytown on the edge of the city where the indigent live. Using his natural leadership abilities and aided by a magical dove gifted to him by the spirit of his dead mother, he helps spruce up the property and grants the wishes of everyone around him, including a young woman, Edvige (Brunella Bovo), who has caught his fancy. With his new superpowers, he takes on the cause to keep his "village" from being decimated by Milan real estate developers who covet the property since oil was discovered there.

Production Background
Actor turned filmmaker De Sica was in the midst of a fruitful collaboration with writer Zavattini, a partnership that produced the tragic classics of Italian neorealism: The Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. The characteristics of that movement included highlighting the disparity between rich and poor in the still recovering post-War era, with location shoots and non-professional actors. Miracolo a Milano, falling between those two classics, was a bit of an oddity, as it was a comic fantasy about the poor in post-War Milan. Yet, it was filmed in and around Milan, showcasing the city's most famous landmarks as well as the wasteland around the train station.

Vittorio De Sica

De Sica himself acknowledged the inevitable comparisons with his other films in an essay on the Criterion website (link at bottom of this post): "...What decided and won me over to the idea imagined by Zavattini was, as always, the humanity of the central figure who, beneath his present disguises, is again closely related to the characters of the worker and child in Bicycle Thieves." He went on to say that viewers must not strain to insert too many deep interpretations or symbolism into the happenings: "Miracle in Milan, despite certain realistic overtones capable of varied, even antithetical, interpretations on the social level, is simply a fairy story and only intended as such." A critical success at its release, the film won the Grand Prize at the Cannes film festival.

The film inspired a new generation of filmmakers. Liv Ullman was quoted in Forbes magazine in 2000: "I saw it when I was a child, and somehow it almost changed my life. I wanted to be part of the world, part of doing something in the world--it made me want to be a good person."

Some other notable film-related events in 1951 (from Filmsite.org):

• Legendary film critic and theorist Andre Bazin established the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma (literally 'cinema notebooks'), arguably the most influential film magazine in film history. Future filmmakers and critics, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette contributed to the publication, advocating the auteur theory and proposing the use of more individualistic styles. 
• Aging motion picture mogul-executive Louis B. Mayer was forced to resign in 1951 after 27 years as the head of MGM Studios that he had founded. Mayer's resignation, pushed by parent company Loew's, followed continued disagreements with his eventual successor Dore Schary over cost-cutting and the issue of creating socially-relevant pictures. 
• MGM's Technicolored film remake of the Kern-Hammerstein musical play Show Boat - the most financially successful of three film versions, premiered at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles in July and went into wide release in September. It starred Howard Keel, Ava Gardner, and Kathryn Grayson.
• The first of many 1950s Cold War-inspired science-fiction films, Robert E. Wise's allegorical The Day the Earth Stood Still, was released, featuring the most famous phrase in sci-fi history -- "Gort, Klaatu barada niktu" -- as well as stunning, state-of-the-art visual effects and a Bernard Herrmann score. The classic cult film featured the first modern robot, the silver giant Gort.

My Random Observations

• There's a famous line from my favorite screwball comedy, My Man Godfrey, in which the lead character, Godfrey, says "The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job." I couldn't help thinking of this while watching Miracolo a Milano, as a key theme is the kinship of all humanity regardless of wealth or circumstance. The movie shows how the residents of the shantytown build up their community to resemble a normal town, and then bicker over small slights or succumb to greed - just the same as a moneyed society might. There's also the line quoted at the beginning of this post where real estate mogul Mobbi (Guglielmo Barnabò) says because all of them share the same anatomical parts, they're brothers. This sentiment gives hope to the residents of the shantytown. Of course reality intrudes to keep the poor down while maintaining the wealthy in charge. Whether De Sica intended this theme to be taken as irony or philosophy can be argued; its poignancy in this film cannot.
  

Wealthy real estate developer Signor Mobbi surveys the 
residents of the Milan shantytown.

Mobbi in his palatial office, furnished with a Renaissance-style
statue, welcomes the shantytown delegation, only to send them
away empty-handed later.

• On the subject of other films, it appears that De Sica and Zavattini know their silent clowns; the trope of the lovable tramp, of which there are many here, was perfected in the art of Charlie Chaplin. And Buster Keaton was evoked late in the film when a platoon of black uniform-clad cops descend en masse upon the shantytown in numbers rivalling the group in Keaton's brilliant short Cops.



Shantytown residents cluster to stay warm in the
rare spots that the sun pokes through the clouds in winter.






Lucky resident wins a "whole chicken" and eats with
relish. While this was real food, this scene reminded me of
the Little Tramp eating his shoe in The Gold Rush.






Massive numbers of cops descend on the shantytown.



• Be prepared for a genre-bending ride with this film. Despite the down to earth depiction of poverty, the script did not wallow in pathos. The first half of the film was tongue-in-cheek funny. Despite the obvious sadness of a little boy, orphaned, walking alone behind the casket of his dead mother, humor intrudes when a disheveled man pops into the scene and joins the boy, appearing to sob as if the dead person is dear to him, too. We see that, in reality, the man is trying to evade a couple of cops on the street corner, and makes a beeline from the bier as soon as the cops lose sight of him. A second example is the way in which Toto's mother greets a large leak from the wash machine on the floor. Instead of being angry, she's delighted that a miniature river criss-crosses her kitchen, and proceeds to decorate the site with scale model houses and trees, as Toto looks on in amazement and pleasure.

A river of spilled wash water is decorated with miniature
buildings, people and trees.

• Then in the second half of the film the genre morphs into a supernatural fable, where spirits come down from the sky and doves fulfill every wish and people joyride on broomsticks.

The ghost of Totò's dead mother (Emma Gramatica)
cvisits him in his time of need.

A statue of a beautiful woman comes to life in the center
of the shantytown, fulfilling the fantasy of many a resident.

Totò and Edvige take a joyride above the Duomo, and wave
to their friends to do the same.

• Whether the actors were professional or locals recruited from the streets of Milan, the faces were astounding throughout. It looked like little to no make-up was used, and cinematographer G.R. Aldo accentuated the features for stunning visual interest.

A group of shantytown residents consider what life would 
be like if they suddenly became rich. Interesting here is Jerome
Johnson, an African-American actor who was present in many 
scenes but did not receive an on-screen credit.

Where to Watch
It's currently available for streaming on Amazon, and it's free with ads on IMDb-TV. It's also on DVD, although most commercially available DVDs appear to be formatted for the European region.

Further Reading
For the director's perspective in his own words, read this essay. And for a contemporaneous U.S. view of the film, read NY Times' Bosley Crowther's review here.

Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #30: Champagne for Caesar, 1950

This post is my contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association's Fall Blogathon, "Laughter is the Best Medicine." Go here to find your next classic comedy from the picks shared by the best in the classic film blog community. 

Gwen Bottomley: "Happy Hogan really is interested in the piano! I'd like to continue what we started...with the piano."

Beauregard Bottomley: "Gwen, my dear, you are unwise in the ways of the world. This insidious instigator of infamy stands poised at my vitals with a knife of treachery!"

Champagne for Caesar, 1950 

Director: Richard Whorf
Writers: Story and screenplay by Hans Jacoby and Frederick Brady
Cinematographer: Paul Ivano
Producer: Harry M. Popkin for Cardinal Pictures
Starring: Ronald Colman, Celeste Holm, Vincent Price, Barbara Britton, Art Linkletter

Why I chose it
Vincent Price in a comedy? Price is such a unique film star, now remembered primarily for schlocky horror. Whenever I have a chance to see Price earlier in his career pre-typecasting, I jump at it. The premise of this one, culture vs. education vs. corporate America in the 1950s as seen through the lens of TV quiz show shenanigans, intrigued me.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
It's 1950 and radio and TV quiz shows are sweeping the nation. Unemployed scholar, egghead, and renaissance man Beauregard Bottomley (Ronald Colman) finds himself the center of attention as the persistent star of "Masquerade for Money" quiz show, hosted by "Happy" Hogan (Art Linkletter) and sponsored by Milady Soap Company. The chief executive of Milady Soap is Burnbridge Waters (Vincent Price) a shallow despotic clown of a man who prompted Bottomley's long run on the quiz show because he refused to hire him. Bottomley's game is to win enough to buy Milady and usher Waters into an early retirement. For his part, Waters deploys his secret weapons: "Flame" O'Neil (Celeste Holm) who romances our hero while attempting to uncover a gap in his prolific knowledge, and "Happy" Hogan himself, who seeks the same information while romancing Bottomley's sister, Gwen (Barbara Britton). All the while, Bottomley's cynical pet parrot Caesar comments on the proceedings mainly by demanding "let's get loaded!"

Production Background

Harry Popkin was head of Cardinal Studios that he managed with his brother Leo. He produced a few interesting films in the late 1940s and early 1950s, most notably the cult noir D.O.A. with Edmond O'Brien. In 1949 he assembled a strong team of actors, headlined by former romantic leading man Ronald Colman, whose cultivated English accent set him up perfectly to play an erudite but lonely bachelor. In a 1990 interview, Vincent Price mentioned how thrilled he was to work with "Ronnie" Colman, one of his favorite actors, whom he studied to hone his craft in front of the camera. Cast as quiz show host was Art Linkletter, who went on to have a great career in radio and TV but never had as big of a role in film. 

Linkletter later described how all the actors made a deal with Popkin to take (smallish) flat fee in exchange for a share in the 'net' -- and then later they never got their 'net'. When driving down the Popkin's street, Linkletter apparently looked up at the house and said "we're co-owners!" Even Colman, according to his daughter, would shake his fist at Popkin's house and say "that's where that son-of-a-bitch Harry Popkin with all my money used to live!"

In a case of life imitating art, a few years after the film, Price himself was a guest on an episode of "The $64,000 Question" that focused on fine art. Price was an art expert, and somewhat of a collector, like his opponent on the show, Edward G. Robinson. Price was embroiled in controversy when he may have manipulated an answer during a key showdown on the show.

The film was the second-to-last film appearance, as a member of the quiz show's studio audience, of bit player Jean Spangler, who made headlines for her mysterious disapperance in October 1949. She was never found; only her tattered purse was recovered in a park, containing a note to "Kirk", whom some think was Kirk Douglas. The case remains sadly unsolved. 

Some other notable film-related events in 1950 (from Filmsite.org):

• Hollywood began to develop ways to counteract free television's gains by the increasing use of color, and by introducing wide-screen films (i.e., CinemaScope, Techniscope, Cinerama, VistaVision, etc.) and gimmicks (i.e., 3-D viewing with cardboard glasses, Smell-O-Vision, etc.).
• John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo were imprisoned and the eight remaining members of the Hollywood Ten were convicted of contempt of Congress.
• Japanese director Akira Kurosawa released Rashomon (1950, Jp.), a crime mystery about a man's murder and the rape of his wife. It was the first Akira Kurosawa film to be nominated for an Oscar (Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White). The tale was told through the subjective recollections and perspective of four different characters - a template called the "Rashomon Effect" that has been reproduced many times henceforth. 
• Studio control of stars further eroded when James Stewart signed a precedent-setting independent (or free-lance) contract to share in the box-office profits of the Anthony Mann western Winchester '73 (1950), and for the film version of the stage comedy Harvey (1950). The first-ever back-end deal was negotiated by legendary agent Lew Wasserman. In fact, for all of Stewart's Universal Studios films (including Bend of the River (1952), and The Far Country (1954)), he took no salary in exchange for a large cut of the gross profits -- which turned out to be a very lucrative deal. 
• Producer George Pal's Destination Moon (1950) was one of the first science-fiction films to take a serious look at space exploration, with its attempt to provide accurate details about space travel.

My Random Observations

• Vincent Price, man. I'm not sure what I expected of him, but he over-delivered. His "Burnbridge Waters" was at once loathsome, hysterical, and sympathetic. His first scene ratcheted up the farce by ten, as the camera zoomed in on his rigid frame, in stop-motion at a large executive desk, with his henchman looking worriedly on. It turns out that Waters often falls into trances with no warning: "He's on another plane," whispered his associate, with a note of awe. Throughout the film Price's broad style was perfectly executed - this from someone who is not a particular fan of broad comedy. I missed him when he wasn't on screen. 

Bottomley first meets Waters in one of his "higher-plane" trances.

Waters reacts to Bottomley answering a difficult quiz question
right, again.

• If nothing else, this movie provides a perfect time capsule of mid-20th-century popular entertainments, especially the nascent ones. You've got radio, TV, quiz shows, and, so as not to leave out the film industry, drive-in movies. Today, as we marvel at the latest smart technology or gasp to see citizens taking joy-rides into space, it was fun to relive the wonder and excitement of the burgeoning technologies we take for granted today, even if the film poked fun at our obsession with them. And, as some critics have pointed out, the film was prescient in portraying how quiz shows can manipulate their audiences in variety of ways; the "Twenty-One" scandal was only a few years away.

Early quiz show (with Gordon Nelson) features obscure science
factoids and doesn't go over well with audiences. 

Goofy quiz shows catch on, however. Here is "Happy" Hogan
(Linkletter) with a contestant dressed as Cleopatra.

Gwen Bottomley and "Happy" Hogan have a date at the drive-in.

• Ah yes, the classic trope of the scholar who knows everything (and here Bottomley really knows EVERYTHING), yet is a social misfit making no measurable contributions to society. In somewhat of a pleasant surprise, Bottomley is shown to have more street smarts than the stereotype would ordinarily allow. When given the right circumstance, a scholar can make it in our success-obsessed society after all.

  

  Scholar as Celebrity

  
  

  

  In his first appearance on "Masquerade for Money", 
  Bottomley appears as the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

  
  For this role, Colman was perfectly suited. In a contrast to Price, his comedy was subtle and somewhat underplayed. Colman knew that just reading the hilarious lines given to him with his British accent and with a slightly raised eyebrow would be all that's needed from him. Despite his film career playing straight heroic or leading man types (don't miss him in A Tale of Two Cities), Colman had already made a foray into comedy with his radio and then TV series The Halls of Ivy, where as head of a small New England college, he has to juggle academic issues and his marriage with a former Music Hall star, played by his real-life wife Benita Hume. Watch an episode of the TV series below.

• Leading lady Celeste Holm gets ripped off a bit here. She doesn't appear until halfway through the film, and then her first series of scenes, in which she ingratiates herself as a "nurse" to an under-the-weather Bottomley, go way too long. (That was my only issue with an otherwise hilarious and well-paced script). Holm plays well off of Colman, though, and shows a flair for comedy as well as romance.
  

  

  "Flame" O'Neil (Holm) cloyingly turns the charms on a willing
  Bottomley.

• I think I'm going to include a section in these reviews called "Bit Player Bingo", in which I appreciate small roles inhabited by well-known players. In addition to the sad and infamous Jean Spangler, whom I discussed above, you'll see Lyle Talbot, former leading man of the pre-code era, as one of Waters' executive staff, and hear renowned cartoon voice artist Mel Blanc supposedly voicing Caesar, the parrot. I say supposedly, as some writers state that while he was credited, others, notably a woman, actually stepped in that key 'avian' role.

Lyle Talbot (left) peers around at Bottomley in the lobby of 
the Milady Soap Company.

Where to Watch
The film is in the public domain and can be streamed from Archive.org here. It's also been released on DVD.

Further Reading
Read this "bubbling" review from fellow CMBA blogger Rick of Rick's Classic Film and TV Cafe.

Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #29: Adam's Rib, 1949

Amanda Bonner: "After you shot your husband... how did you feel?

Doris Attinger: "Hungry!”

Adam's Rib, 1949

Director: George Cukor
Writers: Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin
Cinematographer: George J. Folsey
Producer: Lawrence Weingarten for MGM
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, Jean Hagen, David Wayne

Why I chose it
My local classic movie discussion group had a Judy Holliday event this summer, and we focused on two of her best-known films: Born Yesterday and It Should Happen To You. In researching her career for the event, I learned that her breakout film was Adam's Rib...and I had made a note that I needed to see it for Holliday's performance. It also seemed like the perfect opportunity to fill the gap in my viewing of Hepburn/Tracy films; sadly, to date the only other one I've seen is Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

High-powered attorney couple Adam and Amanda Bonner
(Hepburn and Tracy) take their eyes off the road when sparring.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
Adam and Amanda Bonner are attorneys who try to keep their working life out of their marriage find themselves on opposite sides of a controversial criminal court case. Adam represents the state against Doris Attinger, who shot at her husband and his lover in a fit of anger, while Amanda chooses to take up the case for the defense. Amanda is a 'modern' woman who feels she can advance the case of women's rights through getting Mrs. Attinger acquitted, an outcome she feels that society would easily condone if it were man who shot at his philandering wife. As the trial heats up, the dueling attorneys increasingly dig their heels in, and find that the cracks in their marriage are widening over their differences in attitudes toward gender roles.

Production Background
The husband and wife writing team of Gordon and Kanin were inspired by the real-life story of married lawyers Dorothy and William Whitney, who broke up after being on opposing sides of a divorce suit and ended up marrying their clients, one of whom was actor Raymond Massey. Gordon & Kanin, seeing the comic potential of a somewhat altered storyline, planned to cast successful middle-aged screen (and off-screen) couple Tracy and Hepburn in the roles of the opposing attorneys. 

Judy Holliday had been starring on Broadway in Born Yesterday, which was also written by Garson Kanin. When Columbia began developing the movie version, they ran into push-back from studio head Harry Cohn who wasn't fond of the idea of casting Judy, whom he supposedly called "a fat Jewish broad". Kanin, by then working with Hepburn & Tracy for Adam's Rib, was encouraged by Hepburn to consider Holliday for the role of Doris Attinger, the 'housewife' who attempts to punish her husband and his lover with a gun. Once she was cast, the filming commenced on location in NYC, which accommodated Holliday's ongoing stage commitment.

Utlimately Holliday's success in this smaller role, and no doubt her Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, convinced Columbia to hire her for Born Yesterday. 

Some other notable film-related events in 1949 (from Filmsite.org):

• The UK's anti-authoritarian Ealing Studios, a British film and production company (and claimed to be the oldest continuously working film studio in the world), released Passport to Pimlico (1949), starring Margaret Rutherford. It was the first of a series of acclaimed post-war classic "Ealing comedies" - the studio's hallmark - celebrated, intelligent comedies (many of which starred Alec Guinness).
• The film career of the Marx Brothers extended from 1929 to 1949. Marx Brothers Groucho, Chico and Harpo made their final film appearance as a team in Love Happy (1949), with a young 23 year-old Marilyn Monroe (in a walk-on bit role).
• The first musical feature film to be shot (partially) on location (in New York City, including exterior sites such as Coney Island, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Plaza, and Central Park), was MGM's On the Town, although most of the film was shot in the studio.
• UPA's Mr. Magoo cartoon character (aka Quincy Magoo) made his debut appearance in the theatrical short Ragtime Bear (1949). The popular character (voiced by Jim Backus) was crochety, eccentric, bumbling, semi-senile, short-sighted, resembling W.C. Fields, and forever finding himself in trouble due to his eyesight problems (and denial that there was any problem). It was the studio's first popular success.

My Random Observations

• Clearly this was a top flight MGM production, with George Cukor's direction, the location filming, brilliant script, and of course, that cast. On top of that, a Cole Porter song was adapted and became somewhat of a running gag through the picture as sung by David Wayne's character Kip: "Goodbye, Amanda." There was a great scene that featured home movies of Hepburn and Tracy as Mr. and Mrs. Bonner having fun. Despite its quality, I struggled to connect with the film and I'm not sure why. It may be that I need to see it on a large movie theater screen to appreciate the nuances. I had been similarly unmoved by a Cukor film from 1940 with Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story, until I saw it at my local cinema.

Annoying neighbor Kip Lurie needles Adam
by singing "Goodbye, Amanda."

• Each actor makes a unique impression and their parts could not be handled better by anyone else. That is perhaps most true of Judy Holliday, who plays a variation of her lovable, bubble-headed blonde who is hiding a keen intelligence. Holliday was reportedly very nervous when beginning filming, but she seems completely at ease with these veteran movie stars. I am sad that her career and life were cut short by her death from cancer in 1965 at age 43.

Doris Attinger is shocked, shocked! that she actually shot her 
husband.

• Perhaps what bothers me most about the film is the choice of an attempted murder trial as the catalyst for Amanda Bonner's crusade for equal rights for women. I realize the film is somewhat of a farce, but the argument that a man would get significantly more sympathy for shooting at his wife and her lover vs. a woman doing the same thing seems a stretch to make the point of a double standard, gender-wise. Furthermore, Amanda endures constant sexist badgering and condescending remarks from her husband ("you're cute when you're mad") and largely takes it. I suppose that's the point, and part of the comedy, but considering how strongly she feels about the issue, perhaps she should have married someone a bit more progressive? Despite that, and with credit to Hepburn and Tracy, I keenly felt the pain each felt when their marriage began to break down under the weight of the trial.

Over breakfast, Amanda Bonner is pleased to read that a woman
shot at her unfaithful husband, while discussing the day's plan with Adam.

• I'll still take a film that tackles the issue of women's rights head on. And Adam gets a comeuppance of sorts when he's lifted high off the ground in court by a female circus perfomer. 

It's all women in this law office, even on the wall.

Mr. Attinger (Ewell), recovering from being shot, confesses his 
distaste for his wife to Adam, left, while his lover Beryl (Hagen)
provides moral support.

• 

  Amanda prepares to share a surreptitious word with her 
  husband under the table during the Attinger trial.

Where to Watch
Adam's Rib can be rented for streaming from a variety of platforms ... for specifics, go here.

Further Reading
Fellow CMBA blogger 'Movie David' extols the script of this film by Gordon and Kanin, and provides much production backstory here.

TCM desribes why this movie should be considered 'essential' here.

Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #28: Yellow Sky, 1948

Yellow Sky, 1948

Director: William A. Wellman
Writers: Screenplay by Lamar Trotti from a story by W.R. Burnett.
Cinematographer: Joe MacDonald
Producer: Lamar Trotti for 20th Century Fox
Starring: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark; Robert Arthur, John Russell, Harry Morgan, James Barton, Charles Kemper.

Why I chose it
Three reasons: 1) It's a Western (a neglected genre in my blog series so far); 2) a Western directed by the great William Wellman; and 3) a Western directed by William Wellman starring Gregory Peck. Peck is an actor whose filmography has remained largely unseen by me...and I'm not sure why. But he's a giant of the classic era and I need to see more of him.

Where and when Yellow Sky is set

'No-spoiler' plot overview 'Stretch' Dawson (Gregory Peck) leads a gang of Western bank robbers in the post-Civil War Southwest. After a robbery they escape the pursuing cavalry only to run into a stretch of desert that nearly desiccates them. But then they come upon a ghost mining town inhabited by "Mike" (Anne Baxter), a young woman who has a fondness for brandishing a gun, and her grandfather. It turns out that there is gold in them thar hills, and Stretch manages to gain the trust of the local pair and arranges a deal to get a share of the gold if he can find it. Meanwhile, rifts develop among the men as greed gains its hold. 'Dude' (Richard Widmark) hatches a plot to claim all the gold, and a series of confrontations ensue.

Stretch (Peck) taking charge of a Wild West bank robbery.
William Gould is uncredited as the bank teller here.

Walking across Death Valley with no water is pretty rough
on one's features, as seen here in Robert Arthur's character "Bull Run"

Production Background
Director William Wellman was known for his rugged individualism both in front and behind the camera. Affectionately known as "Wild Bill", this WWI veteran didn't hesitate to execute dangerous stunts for himself and his cast and crew in the interests of splashing tales of masculinity-tested on screen. He was known for Wings, a silent classic about WWI fliers, and boundary-pushing pre-codes such as Safe in Hell, The Public Enemy, and Night Nurse, just to name a few. He also directed comedies (Nothing Sacred) and dramas (A Star is Born) before getting into Westerns with The Ox-Bow Incident, which I reviewed here. A couple of years ago on this blog, I had intended to publish a series of posts discussing Wellman's films, but sadly only managed one so far: it's here. 

William Wellman as a young man

Yellow Sky was the only time Wellman worked with Gregory Peck. Peck was not completely new to the Western genre; he had already starred in the Western Duel in the Sun, in which he played an unsavory type. He went on to make several more in the late 1940s and for much of the remainder of his career, off and on. His dark, lean, and rugged good looks served him well here.

Stretch (Peck) looking a bit peaked. "You smell!, Mike tells him.

Here Stretch is shaved and cleaned up.

 
While the cinematography by Joe MacDonald may not reach the iconographic height of a John Ford film (MacDonald had been employed by Ford to shoot My Darling Clementine in 1946), the locations were well used here: the scene in the desert was filmed in the Death Valley salt flats and other scenes in the Lone Pine rock formations of California, adding a grounded realism to a plot that largely develops on an intellectual rather than narrative level. And MacDonald made terrific use of black-and-white.

Preparing to ride into the desert.

The rugged beauty of the Wild West, captured by Joe MacDonald's camera.

Some other notable film-related events in 1948 (from Filmsite.org):

• The Supreme Court ruled that the "Big Five" movie studios had to end their monopolization of the industry. They were forced to divest themselves from theater chains by selling them off. Block booking, the system by which an exhibitor was forced to buy a whole line of films from a studio, was also deemed illegal by a court decision that legislated the separation of the production and exhibition functions of the film industry. This marked the beginning of the end of the studio system, and was partially responsible for a major slump in the movie business by all the studios in the late 1940s.
  
• Maverick film producer, aviator, and eccentric wealthy industrialist Howard Hughes purchased RKO Studios for a reported $8.8 million. Hughes led RKO during a long period of decline until the mid-1950s.
  
• In the horror-comedy spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Bela Lugosi (as Count Dracula) and Lon Chaney, Jr. (as The Wolf Man) portrayed their iconic horror characters for the last time on-screen in a feature film. It was Lugosi's second and final time as Count Dracula, following the original 1931 film.
  
• Director Alfred Hitchcock's first Technicolored feature film was the experimental thriller Rope (1948), the first of four films with James Stewart. The film was notable for its seamless intercutting of long 10-minute takes, creating the appearance of the film's action occurring all in real-time.

My Random Observations

• This was an entertaining movie all around. That's why it struck me as incredibly odd that for most of the running time there was no musical underscore. Composer Alfred Newman got the credit for the music, but I kept thinking that this must have been an easy assignment for him. There was some music at the beginning and then near the end, but its significant absence was disconcerting to me. As it was a deliberate choice, perhaps the silence was meant to symbolize the lack of life in the desert and then the ghost town? 
• Gregory Peck is a compelling Western hero. He not only convinced as a rough opportunist, but his subtle transformation and internal struggle as he found his moral center was well portrayed. 
• In the early part of the film I was feeling echoes of Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), in which the gang implodes over greed; it became clear after a bit that this narrative was going in a different direction and Peck was going to emerge victorious through the violence that his compatriots initiate.

Real Western men take off their shirts when working, as demonstrated
by 'Lengthy' (John Russell) and Stretch (Peck).

The gang's negotiations with bedridden Grandpa are a bit tense.

• I'm becoming a fan of Anne Baxter. Before my classic film obsession began, I only knew her as the exotic, emotional Nefretiri in The Ten Commandments. In this one her role as "Mike" couldn't have been more different. Extremely young and projecting innocence despite her exterior thick skin, you'd be hard pressed to recognize her as the same actress. (Of course, she had powerhouse performances as Eve in All About Eve and had just come off her Oscar-winning performance in The Razor's Edge). As a bonus, she had great chemistry with Gregory Peck.

Spunky "Mike," as played by a very young and sweet-looking Anne
Baxter, doesn't take prisoners.

Yep, there is a romance developing here.

• Richard Widmark was also very good, although he didn't impress me much as I felt his performance was a close cousin to the various somewhat unhinged villains he'd made his specialty to that point; his wild grins and laughter grated a bit for that reason. (See my post about his villain Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death here; this one was made just a year before Yellow Sky).

Widmark as "Dude" flashes his impish, insidious smile.

• While I had an idea of where this would lead in the end, the script of the last couple of scenes surprised me. And to keep the spoilers at bay, I won't say any more! 

Where to Watch
A DVD is available from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It can be streamed with a subscription to one of a few streaming services: check here.

Further Reading
Fellow blogger Caftan Woman wrote a terrific review of the film here.