Giant (1956) - Stevens' great-looking Texas epic

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Three attractive super-stars top a blistering landscape on this poster for George Stevens' Giant

We meet a marriage in Texas between a woman and a man who owns a quarter of a million acres of land there. An unloving marriage, which also turns problematic when employee Jett inherits land with oil.

 

Giant is written by Fred Guiol (The Nitwits (1935)) and Ivan Moffat (Bhowani Junction (1956)), adapting the same-titled 1952 bestseller by Edna Ferber (Saratoga Trunk (1941)), and directed by Californian master filmmaker George Stevens (The All-American (1932)), whose 23rd feature it was.

Elizabeth Taylor (Malice in Wonderland (1985, TV movie)) and James Dean (Studio One in Hollywood (1952-53)) are incredibly beautiful in this huge epic, and they act well, but Giant is a film that drifts aimlessly and quietly forward, as decades pass in the story, and the actors get grey or bluish hair, and their aging process makes one wonder.

Giant is a bit about racism; a bit about alcoholism; a bit about marriage. - Potent topics that are nevertheless presented without great weight. The photography, by William C. Mellor (Back from Eternity (1956)) and the production are nevertheless breathtakingly gorgeous. Giant is not a bore. But it also is not particularly exciting.

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 5.4 mil. $

Box office: 35 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.48 times its cost)

[Giant premiered 10 October (New York) and runs 197 minutes. Ferber's novel was based on an actual Texas ranch and its owner, as well as an oil tycoon she had once met.  Taylor was paid 175k $ for her performance; Hudson 100k $; Dean 21k $. Shooting took place in Texas, Virginia, Arizona and California, including Los Angeles, from May - October 1955. Dean passed away in a racing accident before the film was released. Different reports say that the film made 12 mil. $ in rentals in North America, and a 14 mil. $ domestic gross, while a third source lists its domestic gross at 32.6 mil. $. The 35 mil. $ total may be incorrect, but seems to back up that the film was largely an American crowd phenomenon, though it did generate 3.7 mil. admissions in France, where it was the 9th biggest seller of the year. It was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning one for Best Director. It lost Best Actor (Rock Hudson (All that Heaven Allows (1955)) and Dean, (his second posthumous nomination) to Yul Brynner in The King and I, Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge (Medical Center (1970, TV-series)) to Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind, Art/Set Direction - color to The King and I, Costume Design - color to The King and I, Editing to Around the World in 80 Days, Drama/Comedy Score (Dmitri Tiomkin) to Victor Young for Around the World in 80 Days, Picture to Around the World in 80 Days, and Adapted Screenplay to James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman for Around the World in 80 Days. It won 1/3 Golden Globe nominations and a David di Donatello award, among other honors. The film was distributor Warner Bros. highest-grossing until Superman (1978); and it inspired Dallas (1978-91). Stevens returned with The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Taylor returned in Raintree County (1957); Hudson in Battle Hymn (1957); Dean in The Big Story (1953-57); Giant was his last theatrical performance. Giant is certified fresh at 95 % with a 7.76/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Giant?

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?

A Farewell to Arms (1957) or, Love in Spite!

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Despite this handsome poster for Charles Vidor's A Farewell to Arms, David O. Selznick's final production is not all that it promises to be

A Farewell to Arms is the second adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's (Death in the Afternoon (1932)) same-titled, semi-autobiographical 1929 novel.

The film portrays a romance during WWI between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse, who fall in love in Italy, before the war splits them up, and they later again find each other and are forced to flee to Switzerland, SPOILER where, however, tragedy awaits.

Despite criticisms to the contrary, I found Rock Hudson (Dynasty (1984-85)) and Jennifer Jones (The Wild Heart (1952)) to be a lovely couple, and the movie also attracts interest with its big sets and period vehicles etc., a warm sense of humor, - especially in the hospital scenes, - and in supporting roles, Viennese star Oskar Homolka (Five Fingers (1959, TV-series)) as a suspicious doctor, and great Italian actor/director Vittorio De Sica (Men and Noblemen/Uomini e Nobiluomini (1959)) as an Italian major. The film also has beautiful images of Milan, Switzerland etc.
But the lavish epic's second half does require strong nerves to take: The romance here turns too extravagant and unrealistic, SPOILER and the inevitable death is drawn out excessively. So the problem may lie mainly in screenwriter Ben Hecht's (Trapeze (1956)) work. Though Hecht penned scripts for many certified masterpieces and great films, he was also highly productive, and with impressive 165 writing credits, there is naturally a healthy dose of slush in there as well.
The movie is directed by Hollywood Golden Age filmmaker, Austrian-Hungarian Charles Vidor (Gilda (1946)).

Related post:

Charles Vidor: The Bridge/The Spy (1929) - Time-playing fine short debut of Charles Vidor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.3 mil. $
Box office: 6.9 mil. $ (worldwide rentals by 1958) - final gross reportedly 20 mil. $
= Big flop at release - later reportedly became a big hit
[A Farewell to Arms was released 14 December (North America) and runs 152 minutes. Power-producer Selznick wanted for long to make a film of Hemingway's novel, and bartered with Warner Bros. for the rights in return for his foreign rights to A Star Is Born (1937). Selznick hired master director John Huston (The Kremlin Letter (1970)), but the two fell out before shooting, and Vidor was hired instead, although he also had a hard time collaborating with Selznick. Shooting took place in Italy, including in Rome's Cinecittà Studios. Hemingway was to be paid a 50k $ bonus, if the film made profits, but the Nobel Laureate was incensed at Selznick's hiring his 38 year-old wife Jones for the novel's 24 year-old nurse character and told him to "take all of that money down to the local bank, have it converted to nickels, and then shove them up your ass until they come out your mouth." US critics lambasted the film upon its release, and Selznick never recovered his costs for the film, which became his last, but it did eventually make Fox money. The film was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (De Sica), lost to Red Buttons for Sayonara and also won a National Board of Review award. Vidor returned with one last film, Song without End (1960)). Hudson returned in Twilight for the Gods (1958); Jones in Tender Is the Night (1962), and De Sica in Holiday Island/Vacanze a Ischia (1957). A Farewell to Arms is rotten at 0 % with a 3.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Vidor's A Farewell to Arms?