The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (119 page)

Mr. Donner has made several of the most successful and least interesting films of his age. And one doubts it’s over yet.

Mark Donskoi
(1890–1980), b. Odessa, Russia
1927:
V Bolshom Gorodye
(codirected with Mikhail Averback). 1928:
Tsena Cheloveka
(codirected with Averback). 1929:
Pizhon
. 1930:
Chuzhoi Berez; Ogon
. 1934:
Pesnya o Schastye
(codirected with Vladimir Legoshin). 1938:
Detstvo Gorkovo/The Childhood of Gorky
. 1939:
V Lyudyakh/My Apprenticeship
. 1940:
Moi Universiteti/My Universities
. 1941:
Romantiki
. 1942:
Kak Zakalyalas Stal
. 1944:
Raduga/The Rainbow
. 1945:
Nepokorenniye Semia Tarassa
. 1947:
Selskaya Uchitelnitsa
. 1949:
Alitet Ukhodit v Gori
. 1950:
Nachi Chempiony
. 1956:
Mat
. 1958:
Dorogoi Tsenoi
. 1959:
Foma Gordeyev
. 1962:
Zdravstvuitye Detil
. 1967:
Serdtsye Materi/Heart of a Mother; Vernost Materi/A Mother’s Devotion
. 1978:
Suprugi Orlovy/The Orlovs
.

The “Gorky trilogy” has been one of the better influences on Western liberal attitudes to the Soviet Union. It was not as rigorously geared to propaganda as many other Russian films; indeed, when the films were made, Donskoi himself was not a member of the Communist party. The Gorky films have had rather the same appeal as the Pagnol movies: they are based on rich, authentic emotional treatment; they deal with human beings in terms of the family and traditional aspirations. In that sense, Gorky is a Copperfield-like hero, and the charm of the films, backed up by Donskoi’s skill at period recreation, is partly one of nostalgia for social solidity and the unflawed hopes of nineteenth-century youth. The sentiment, the sense of family, and the dense texture of everyday reality in those films will have won more friends than the montages of Eisenstein or Dziga Vertov’s cameraman protagonist.

Donskoi fought in the Civil War and was taken prisoner by the Whites before he entered films in 1925, first as an assistant to Eisenstein. He did a variety of jobs, including acting and writing. His early films showed an interest in homely, emotional stories, but it was clearly his own friendship with Gorky that gave an extra imaginative intensity to the trilogy. During the war, Donskoi made patriotic films, including
The Rainbow
, a melodramatic, inspirational story of partisans resisting the Nazis. After the war, he was persuaded to repeat his Gorky success: both
Mat
and
Foma Gordeyev
were based on the writer’s work. Nothing equaled the trilogy until
Serdtsye Materi
and
Vernost Materi
, two films about the early life of Lenin, but concentrating on the character of the mother. Again, potential hagiography stimulated Donskoi’s feeling for the turn of the century and allowed his sympathy for matriarchal actresses to come through: Elena Fadeyeva was as moving in these films as Varvara Massaltinova had been as Gorky’s grandmother.

Diana Dors
(Fluck) (1931–84), b. Swindon, England
Tall, curvaceous, with pillows of silver-blond hair, bumper-pad hips, and self-consciously naughty eyes, Diana Dors cried out for some Frank Tashlin or Luis Buñuel who knew how to use her. But all she got was the J. Arthur Rank charm school, endless pinups in the
News of the World
, a succession of disastrous, controlling men, and the British picture business of the forties and fifties. She did get to Hollywood, but it was too late. Of course, those who knew her report that she was “a bit of a prude,” but so was the audience in her day. She could act a little bit; enough, probably, given the right material and sympathetic collaboration. But she was too bold for British timidity, too repressively channeled into still photography and moments of everlasting innuendo. That said, let us not forget the considerable part played in a forlorn career by her fatal choices and gruesome timing. Nevertheless, the Arena documentary on Dors—
Swinging Dors
was the cute title to a book of 3-D nudie shots she did—is a lovely tribute to getting it all wrong.

She began when better parents would have kept her in school:
The Shop at Sly Corner
(46, George King);
Holiday Camp
(47, Ken Annakin);
Good Time Girl
(48, David MacDonald); as Charlotte in
Oliver Twist
(48, David Lean, who made a pass at her);
Here Come the Huggets
(48, Annakin), wowing Jack Warner;
Diamond City
(49, MacDonald);
Dance Hall
(50, Charles Crichton);
Lady Godiva Rides Again
(51, Frank Launder);
The Last Page
(52, Terence Fisher);
My Wife’s Lodger
(52, Maurice Elvey);
The Great Game
(53, Elvey);
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?
(53, Elvey);
The Weak and the Wicked
(53, J. Lee Thompson);
It’s a Grand Life
(54, John Blakely);
As Long As They’re Happy
(54, Thompson);
A Kid for Two Farthings
(55, Carol Reed);
Value for Money
(55, Annakin);
An Alligator Named Daisy
(55, Thompson); in prison in
Yield to the Night
(56, Thompson), her best part;
The Long Haul
(57, Ken Hughes).

She got to Hollywood at last for
The Unholy Wife
(57, John Farrow), costarring with Rod Steiger—an immediate affair;
I Married a Woman
(58, Hal Kanter); but it was back to England for
Tread Softly Stranger
(58, Gordon Parry);
Passport to Shame
(59, Alvin Rakoff). Then to America for
Scent of Mystery
(60, Jack Cardiff);
On the Double
(61, Melville Shavelson), with Danny Kaye;
King of the Roaring Twenties
(61, Joseph M. Newman);
The Counterfeit Constable
(64, Robert Dhéry), which was made in France.

The Sandwich Man
(66, Robert Hartford-Davis) was made back in England, as were
Berserk
(67, Jim O’Connelly);
Danger Route
(67, Seth Holt);
Hammerhead
(68, David Miller);
Baby Love
(69, Alistair Reid);
There’s a Girl in My Soup
(70, Roy Boulting);
Deep End
(70, Jerzy Skolimowski), the best film she was ever in;
Hannie Caulder
(71, Burt Kennedy);
The Pied Piper
(72, Jacques Demy);
The Amazing Mr. Blunden
(72, Lionel Jeffries);
Nothing But the Night
(72, Peter Sasdy);
Theatre of Blood
(73, Douglas Hickox);
From Beyond the Grave
(73, Kevin Connor);
Praise
(74, Freddie Francis);
Swedish Wildcats
(74, Joseph W. Sarno);
Adventures of a Taxi Driver
(75, Stanley Long); “Mrs. Horne” in
Adventures of a Private Eye
(77, Long);
Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair
(79, Willy Roe);
Steaming
(84, Joseph Losey).

Gordon Douglas
(1909–93), b. New York
1936:
General Spanky
(codirected with Fred Newmeyer);
Pay as You Exit; Spooky Hooky; Reunion in Rhythm; Glove Taps
. 1937:
Three Smart Boys; Hearts Are Thumps; Rushin’ Ballet; Bored of Education; Roamin’ Holiday; Night ’n’ Gales; Fishy Tales; Our Gang/Follies of 1938; Framing Youth; The Pigskin Palooka; Mail and Female
. 1938:
Bear Facts; Canned Fishing; Came the Brawn; Feed ’em and Weep; Hide and Shriek; The Little Ranger; Aladdin’s Lantern
. 1939:
Zenobia
. 1940:
Saps at Sea
. 1941:
Road Show; Broadway Limited; Niagara Falls
. 1942:
The Devil with Hitler; The Great Gildersleeve
. 1943:
Gildersleeve’s Big Day; Gildersleeve on Broadway
. 1944:
A Night of Adventure; Gildersleeve’s Ghost; Girl Rush; The Falcon in Hollywood
. 1945:
Zombies on Broadway
. 1946:
First Yank into Tokyo; San Quentin; Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
. 1948:
The Black Arrow; If You Knew Susie; Walk a Crooked Mile
. 1949:
The Doolins of Oklahoma; Mr. Soft Touch
(codirected with Henry Levin). 1950:
The Nevadan; Fortunes of Captain Blood; Rogues of Sherwood Forest; Kiss Tomorrow Good-Bye; Between Midnight and Dawn; The Great Missouri Raid
. 1951:
Only the Valiant; I Was a Communist for the FBI; Come Fill the Cup
. 1952:
Mara Maru;
The Iron Mistress
. 1953:
She’s Back on Broadway; The Charge at Feather River; So This Is Love
. 1954:
Them
. 1955:
Young at Heart; The McConnell Story; Sincerely Yours
. 1956:
Santiago
. 1957:
The Big Land; Bombers B52/No Sleep Till Dawn
. 1958:
Fort Dobbs; The Fiend Who Walked the West; Up Periscope
. 1959:
Yellowstone Kelly
. 1961:
Rachel Cade/The Sins of Rachel Cade; Gold of the Seven Saints; Claudelle Inglish/Young and Eager
. 1962:
Follow That Dream
. 1963:
Call Me Bwana
. 1964:
Robin and the Seven Hoods; Rio Conchos
. 1965:
Sylvia; Harlow
. 1966:
Stagecoach; Way … Way Out
. 1967:
Chuka; In Like Flint; Tony Rome
. 1968:
The Detective; Lady in Cement
. 1969:
Skullduggery
. 1970:
Barquero; They Call Me Mister Tibbs!
. 1973:
Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off
. 1977:
Viva Knievel!
.

When so many American directors were retiring or missing out, it says a lot for Douglas’s zest and flexibility that he made eighteen movies during the 1960s. As throughout the rest of his career, he moved arbitrarily from competence to rubbish and from tedium to a genuinely fresh and engaging film. The productivity befits a man who was trained by Hal Roach and who made some thirty shorts in the
Our Gang
series before graduating to features. Douglas was initially a comedy director:
Zenobia
had Oliver Hardy with Harry Langdon, while
Saps at Sea
is classic Laurel and Hardy.

For ten years, Douglas was working on one cheap series or another and only in the 1950s did he advance to substantial movies. Variety and variability have always characterized him more than anything else, but he is the director of several entertaining movies:
Come Fill the Cup
, with James Cagney as an alcoholic;
The Charge at Feather River
, an exciting Western that carries its 3D lightly;
Them
, an excellent science-fiction film about giant ants, with some atmospheric desert scenes; and
Young at Heart
, a Doris Day musical made sour by a disenchanted Sinatra. Thereafter he declined under Liberace and some dull Clint Walker Westerns.
Call Me Bwana
, with Bob Hope, had little of his early talent, but
Sylvia
and
Harlow
saw him turn Joseph Levine and Carroll Baker to unexpected advantage. That early skill at handling Sinatra suddenly bore fruit with the delicious
Tony Rome; Lady in Cement
was not its equal but
The Detective
is a striking early picture of the policeman losing faith in his job. Douglas remained one of the few directors who could hold Sinatra’s interest.

Kirk Douglas
(Issur Danielovich Demsky), b. Amsterdam, New York, 1916
Demsky still grins through, for surely Douglas was made for Dostoyevsky. He is the manic-depressive among Hollywood stars, one minute bearing down on plot, dialogue, and actresses with the gleeful appetite of a man just freed from Siberia, at others writhing not just in agony but mutilation and a convincingly horrible death. Thus, he left a finger in Hawks’s
The Big Sky
(52), an ear in
Lust for Life
(56, Vincente Minnelli), and an eye in
The Vikings
(58, Richard Fleischer), was beaten up in
Champion
(49, Mark Robson), stuck in the belly with scissors in Billy Wilder’s
Ace in the Hole
(51), rolled in barbed wire in King Vidor’s
Man Without a Star
(55), crucified in
Spartacus
(60), whipped by his own servant (at his own order) in
The Way West
(67, Andrew V. McLaglen), and generally harassed in several other films.

This is not to say that Douglas cannot make such agony credible and moving. On the contrary, in Wyler’s
Detective Story
(51), Raoul Walsh’s
Along the Great Divide
(51), Kubrick’s
Paths of Glory
(57), and above all as Van Gogh in
Lust for Life
, his sometimes facile intensity is marvelously harnessed to the subject of the film and the sense of tragedy is perfectly judged. The balance of passionate creativity and crippling personal inadequacy in
Lust for Life
is all the more praiseworthy in that it is outside Minnelli’s usual territory. At other times, however, Douglas seems on the verge of ridiculing his own outrageousness: thus
The Vikings, The Devil’s Disciple
(59, Guy Hamilton), much of
Spartacus
, and most of his later films are the crude obverse of what can be a highly individual line in flamboyant comic villains. This is probably Douglas most at ease, and again it has a Russian original: Rasputin. Thus, his first screen success was as the laughing gangster in Tourneur’s
Out of the Past
(47); and the same scheming relish was to be seen as the reporter in
Ace in the Hole;
as Jonathan Shields, the movie producer, in Minnelli’s
The Bad and the Beautiful
(52); as Doc Holliday in
Gunfight at the OK Corral
(57, John Sturges); as the outlaw in Burt Kennedy’s
The War Wagon
(67); and as the robber in Mankiewicz’s
There Was a Crooked Man
(70).