The Desperate Hours (1955) - Wyler's top-drawer true-crime home-invastion thriller

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Humphrey Bogart - a bona fide heavy on the poster for William Wyler's The Desperate Hours

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A small, normal suburban home gets terrorized by an escaped convict trio, who take the family there hostage, while they await some money to come their way.

SPOILER It is the brave, noble American family, - with Fredric March (A Star Is Born (1937)) sparkling as the sacrificial father, - who in the end serves as a monolith for the sanctity of private property here in this true-crime thriller classic. "Get outta my house!", he commands Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep (1946)), right before furnishing him with a fatal installation of internal AC.
Bogart is a real ornery devil here in his last performance as a villain. The fear he and his thug partners inspire is easy to sympathize with. The unpredictability of the criminals' world, - and of the world surrounding the potboiler nightmare, - as well as the ending makes for a fierce, neat time of suspense here.
Joseph Hayes (The Young Doctors (1961)) adapted his own book and play for the screen with Jay Dratler (The Dark Corner (1946)), and German master filmmaker William Wyler (Roman Holiday (1953)) directed the picture.

Related reviews:

William Wyler: Ben-Hur (1959) - Perhaps the greatest epic film of all time
The Big Country (1958) - A big western gift  
Roman Holiday (1953) - Wyler takes us to marvelous Rome on an unforgettable romantic adventure 

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: 2.3 mil. $
Box office: 2.5 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty
[If Desperate Hours played very well internationally, it may have been a box office success, but it doesn't look like it was a huge hit theatrically. It was remade in 1974 in India as 36 Ghante and in 1990 in Hollywood by Michael Cimino with the same title as the original, - but to considerably worse reviews.]

What do you think of The Desperate Hours?
What's your favorite home-invasion movie?

Confidential Report/Mr. Arkadin (1955) or, The Mysterious Past of the Great Gregory Arkadin

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Sexy women, murder, mystery and massive close-ups of its co-producer/director/star's bearded face are promised on this typical for its time poster for Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin

Mr. Arkadin is a film nour-ish, international spy thriller written and directed by Orson Welles (The Trial (1962)), who also plays the title role as the mysterious tycoon, Mr. Arkadin. It is based on several episodes of the radio series The Adventures of Harry Lime (1951-52), written by Welles and Ernest Borneman (Tremolo (1938)).

The driving character in the film is a small-time smuggler (Michael Redgrave (Assignment K (1968))), who gets hired by Arkadin to dig up information about Arkadin's own past, as he seemingly suffers from a memory loss that has dissolved everything before 1927. 

'Seemingly' is an important word for the mystery that is Mr. Arkadin, (both the character and the film, really), the agent finds out, as he races from country to country on leads, often finding key figures dead on arrival. Besides one stint in Mexico, where he gets to talk to an old, settled ex-girlfriend to the man, who is revealed to have had a different identity before 1927, the investigations take place in several war-weary, cold, poor and disillusion-ridden European countries.
Akim Tamiroff (After the Fox (1966)) plays the disillusioned Jakob Zouk to perfection, a man who just wants a goose liver. In another scene the agent interviews a fascinating flee circus manager, and you get to see actual performing flees. All these curious scenes from a dilapidated, weak Europe are reminiscent of Carol Reed's great movie, The Third Man (1949), in which Welles plays the equally mysterious power figure Harry Lime, and Arkadin was actually inspired by the Lime-character.
Many other scenes take place in Spain, where the production shot in Segovia, Valladolid, Costa Brava, Madrid and possibly more places. Much care and attention went into catching local culture like a procession of penitents and a masque ball.
As to the worth of the film, Mr. Arkadin receives a generously enthused four stars from here.
The problems with it are quite a few, and undoubtedly some of them stem from the fact that it was taken from Welles' creative control and edited into several versions by its co-producer Louis Dovilet. No less than seven versions (at least) thus exist of Mr. Arkadin! In this way, the film itself is also wrapped in an attractive veil of mystery, even if the plot seems frail and at times incomprehensible as a consequence.
Other problems are the very varied performances in photography and acting: Cinematographer Jean Bourgoin (Goha (1958)) sometimes succeeds with sweeping traveling shots and poignant compositions, but at other times, especially in one-on-one conversations, the shots simply do not match together, and the abrupt style and incessant use of Dutch angles is disruptive. No doubt Hal Hartley's awful Fay Grim (2006) draws inspiration from by Mr. Arkadin.
Redgrave is not a very charismatic or interesting in the other lead as Arkadin's agent, and in many instances, acting performances vary, and the dubbing isn't very well achieved.
Still in all, Mr. Arkadin is a fascinating and exciting film, wherein Welles plays with myth and history and stages himself as a kind of grand and mysterious film wizard.
Also, the ending of the film is exciting and does not let down the vivid expectations of tragedy and gloom that the film builds up.

Related posts:

Orson Welles:  F for Fake (1973) - Welles' eccentric fakery meditation is a trip
Catch-22 (1970) - Nichols wages war on war with ensemble cast in absurdist adaptation (supporting actor)
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (co-star)
Citizen Kane (1941) - The cold elephant on the shelf 

Watch Welles as Arkadian tell a story of a scorpion in this 1-minute clip from the film

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[Mr. Arkadin premiered 27 June (Barcelona, Spain) and runs 93-106 minutes (according to which of the seven or so versions of it you watch.) Shooting took place in London, England, Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Italy from January - August 1954. The film was taken from Welles during post- production, when he exceeded a deadline, and the debacle of the film's many 'rival' versions were later described by Welles as the "biggest disaster" of his life. The public domain 95 minute version is not worth watching, as it eliminates the film's nonlinear flash-back structure, whereas the 2006 Criterion edit (completed by experts, including Peter Bogdanovich, 21 years after Welles' demise) may be the one closest to Welles' vision. Mr. Arkadin was released in the UK and Spain in 1955 and in several other European markets in 1956. In 1957 followed Portugal and Argentina, and only in 1962 was the film released in North America. Gross numbers are lost, but it reportedly sold 517k tickets in France, - and likely also drew crowds in Spain due to its many locations there. On an expected low budget, the film may have been profitable. Welles returned with 3 TV projects before his theatrical return, Touch of Evil (1958). As an actor he returned in Moby Dick Rehearsed (1955, TV movie), Ford Star Jubilee (1956, TV-series) and theatrically in Moby Dick (1956). Mr. Arkadin is fresh at 80 % with a 7.14/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Mr. Arkadin?

All That Heaven Allows (1955) or, Not The Widow and Her Gardener!

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The glamorous stars are wrapped in a beautiful, painted embrace on this color-blasting, grand poster for Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows

A good-looking widow, who has a laconic relationship with an older, respectable gentleman in the country club and 'cares for' the 'children', (who are obviously fully grown adults.) She falls in love with a younger gardener, who speaks so divinely about trees, but is not accepted by neither her children nor the surrounding suburban society.

All That Heaven Allows is written by Peggy Thompson (Whirlpool (1935)), based on the same-titled novel by Edna and Harry L. Lee, and directed by Douglas Sirk (April, April! (1935)). SPOILER After a concussion induced by a dramatic snowfall, the two controversial lovers, however, find each other again, while a deer sniffs around in the snow right outside the window (see images below.)
The style of this melodrama classic is absolutely artificial in all its Technicolor, laminated-feel, studio-created crispness, which is also the film's main attraction: It's simply freakish!
Sirk's modern message about a widow finding hot love again after her husband's demise is wrapped in a 1950s material conservatism so thick and obstinate that I sometimes get the creeps.
The romantic melodrama largely came about because the studio wanted to re-join the two attractive stars of Sirk's major success Magnificent Obsession (1954); Jane Wyman (The Kid from Kokomo (1939)) and Rock Hudson (Sea Devils (1953)).

Haven't we all been there, honestly? A romantic, private hour and BAM, a cute deer comes along to join us. It happens in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows

Witness the 50s-type 'passion' and 'ecstasy' right here in the trailer for All That Heaven Allows

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 3.1 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty but likely a big hit
[All That Heaven Allows premiered 25 August (London, UK) and runs 89 minutes. Sirk found the original screenplay "rather impossible". Wyman at age 38 played the 'older woman' mother to two younger actors both aged 24; the 'younger man' gardener Hudson was 30 at the time. Shooting took place in Universal's California lot around January 1955. The film was advertised in women's media and became a solid hit in North America. Its foreign gross numbers are regrettably not made public. If made on a similar budget to Sirk's Wyman/Hudson hit from the year before, Magnificent Obsession, which was reportedly made for 780k $, All That Heaven Allows would rank as a big or maybe even a huge hit theatrically. Sirk returned with uncredited direction in Never Say Goodbye (1956) and as credited director on Written on the Wind (1956). Wyman returned in Lucy Gallant (1955); Hudson in Never Say Goodbye. All That Heaven Allows is fresh at 90 % with a 7.69/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of All That Heaven Allows?