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| Julie - 1956 |
Our next film on the blog is 1956's thriller "Julie", starring Doris Day and Louis Jourdan. A wife discovers that her husband is a killer who will do anything to stop her from leaving him.
The film's supporting cast includes Barry Sullivan, Frank Lovejoy, Jack Kelly, Barney Phillips, Ed Hinton, Hank Patterson, and Aline Towne.
The film opens with Julie driving herself and her husband Lyle home from an evening out. She's furious with him for embarrassing her in front of her first husband's cousin. Julie's first husband killed himself and afterwards she married Lyle.
While she is expressing her anger at his behavior at the party, Lyle pushes his foot on top of hers and the car accelerates to a dangerous level as it winds along twisty coastal roads. Julie pleads for him to stop, but he doesn't listen. Just when it seems that they are going to go over a cliff, Lyle takes control of the car and brings it to a stop. Julie runs off. Lyle catches up with her and apologizes, saying he just couldn't stop and that he was jealous of her first husband's cousin Cliff when they were talking.
Julie feels sorry for Lyle and stays with him. Later, she confides in him that Cliff was telling her that her first husband's suicide doesn't make sense. Lyle tells her somewhat forcefully to drop the matter.
While playing golf one day, Cliff tells Julie that her first husband's suicide could've been staged. He asks if anyone was at the house that day. She tells him that Lyle was at the house. Cliff tells her that he could be insane and a murderer. She doesn't want to believe him, but she can't help feeling that there could be some truth to what he says.
Later, while she is listening to Lyle feverishly play the piano, Julie begins to feel afraid. "I'd listen by the hour to Lyle practice. He played so beautifully. But today there was
something strangely disturbing about his music.
A sort of savage fury
that...that was almost frightening," she says.
Lyle later confesses to her that he killed her husband so that he could marry Julie himself. He also tells her, "don't ever try to leave me."
When Lyle goes out, Julie runs with Cliff to the police, who advise her to leave town. Lyle follows them everywhere, but they always seem to be just out of his grasp.
Cliff takes Julie to San Francisco, where he gets her a room in a crowded hotel under an assumed name.
Somehow, Lyle finds out where Julie is staying. He telephones her room and plays a recording of his music. Julie is instantly frightened. Then, Lyle tells her that she's going to die. "Just wait for it to happen. You'll never know when that's going to be, will you,
Julie?"
Julie and Cliff rush to the police station. However, in the absence of proof that he killed her husband, there is nothing that the police can do to Lyle. "He admitted killing my husband. He admits that he wants to kill me, and nobody can help me do
anything. It's fantastic," she says as she cries.
The police recommend that she change her identity to get away from her husband. The detective in charge also assigns two officers to protect her until the next day. At her hotel room that night, Lyle plays the music recording loudly from the parking lot, sending Julie into a panic.
Eventually, Julie returns to the job she had before she was married: airline stewardess. She stays with a friend, and seems to be getting along happily.
Lyle corners Cliff one night. After shooting him (but not killing him), Lyle discovers Julie's location and makes plans to find her.
That same night, Julie is called in to work a shift on a plane leaving San Francisco within a short time. She hurriedly gets ready and goes to the airport. Though, she feels someone is following her.
Once the airplane has taken off, Julie is called to the cockpit, where the police inform her that Cliff has been shot (but will live) and that Lyle could be on the plane.
Julie walks back among the passengers and sees the back of his head, confirming her worst fears.
As makes her way back to the cockpit, Lyle grabs her and shuts the cockpit door. He pulls a gun on the captain. The captain also has a gun, and the two take shots at each other. The captain is fatally injured and Lyle is wounded. Just before he dies from the gunshot, Lyle tells Julie that she will be all alone in the cockpit with no one to fly the plane. Then, he shoots the first mate. Lyle then collapses onto the floor dead.
The first mate is not mortally wounded, but is unable to fly the plane. A doctor on board comes up to help with his injuries. The first mate tells Julie that she will have to fly the plane with assistance from ground control.
She nervously gets into the captain's chair and guides the plane back to San Francisco. The first mate is able to help her at first, but soon passes out from his injuries.
Julie endures a tense twenty-five minute plane ride back to San Francisco. The ground crew nervously waits as they give her instructions. She lands the plane, but it bounces back up. After some more instruction, she is able to land it again.
She pushes hard on the breaks so that the plane will come to a complete stop.
When it does stop, Julie breathes a sigh of relief that her terrible ordeal is finally over.
Cast rundown:
Doris Day................................Julie Benton
Louis Jourdan..........................Lyle Benton
Barry Sullivan..........................Cliff Henderson
Frank Lovejoy..........................Lt. Pringle
Jack Kelly................................Jack
Barney Phillips.........................Doctor
Ed Hinton................................Captain
Hank Patterson........................Ellis
Aline Towne.............................Denise Martin
And that's all for Julie. Filming locations for this film included the region surrounding Monterey, California. Doris Day fell in love with the area during production. When she retired from acting, she moved to the region in the 1970s and remained in residence there until her death in 2019. This film is one of the few films where Doris Day is shown smoking cigarettes. Apparently, Doris's co-star Louis Jourdan caused her husband Martin Melcher to become extremely jealous, mirroring her on screen character and her husband.
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| The Good Earth - 1937 |
Coming up next is 1937's "The Good Earth", which stars Paul Muni and Luise Rainer as a Chinese couple who work their plot of land during times of plenty and times of desolation.
The film's supporting cast includes Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charley Grapewin, Jessie Ralph, Soo Yong, Philip Ahn, and Roland Got.
Our film begins with Chinese farmer Wang Lung. He goes to the a large house in the village for a wife, sight unseen. She's a slave who works there, and her name is O-Lan. She bids her mistress farewell and the two set off for Wang Lung's humble farm.
Along the way, as they are eating peaches, Wang Lung throws his peach pit on the side of the road. O-Lan bends and picks it up. "A tree will grow from this seed," she says quietly as she tucks it away.
O-Lan is thrilled to be mistress of her own establishment, however humble. After her wedding guests have gone, she goes and plants the peach seed in the earth.
Wang Lung is a hard worker who dreams of a better life for himself and his family. O-Lan works equally hard. She even helps bring in a harvest on the morning that she gives birth to a child.
Wang Lung is thrilled to have a son. He tells her that he's going to gather eggs, paint them red, and distribute them to everyone in town so that all will know that he has a son.
Later, he proudly shows off his firstborn son to his family at a gathering on his farm.
O-Lan goes to the Big House where she was a slave and shows off her son to her former mistress, who tells O-Lan that he is a fine child. On that trip, Wang Lung buys a second field and feels proud that now he owns two fields.
The years pass. Wang Lung acquires more land, and O-Lan gives birth to two more children. The family is thankful for their good fortune.
Their good fortune is not to last, though. A famine and drought quickly dry up all the crops. Wang Lung is left with nothing but his family and his land.
O-Lan gives birth to a fourth child, who dies soon after birth. Since there is no food, the family is forced to eat a soup that is mixed with dirt to fill their stomachs. When Wang Lung says he will sell his land, O-Lan refuses to let him. "No, not the land. We’ll not sell the land. We’ll keep it. We’ll go south, and when we
return, we’ll still have the land," she tells him.
They do indeed go south. O-Lan and her children beg for change, and Wang Lung is forced to take on work that is normally done by animals.
A change of regime in the city causes rioting and the looting of the homes of the rich. O-Lan is caught up in a mob that ransacks a huge house looking for anything of value. The crowd is so great that O-Lan is trampled under their feet.
When she awakes, she's badly injured. However, she finds a bag of precious gems that has been overlooked by the greedy mob. She hides it in her coat.
The Chinese republican army arrests and shoots people that are looting. O-Lan is caught and scheduled to be shot. However, the army is ordered to move out just as it is her turn to face the guns. She and the rest are released.
She goes back to Wang Lung, shows him the jewels, and tells him they can go home. They waste no time in packing up the family and heading back to the land they worked so hard for.
O-Lan asks for two jewels, the small white pearls. Wang Lung gladly gives them to her.
In the intervening years, Wang Lung acquires more land. He even acquires the house where O-Lan was a slave. He does business with a great many merchants, and his sons go into business with him.
One day, Wang Lung goes to a local tea house. There he sees a beautiful dancer named Lotus.
He's completely captivated by her. Eventually, he decides to make her his second wife. He takes away O-Lan's pearls and gives them to Lotus.
Lotus's presence in the house causes great strife between Wang Lung and his youngest son, who has a crush on her. Wang Lung banishes his youngest son to his old farm to work the land.
When Wang Lung visits the farm, he comes at a time when there is a locust swarm on the way. His sons lead the workers in combating them.
The locusts arrive and sweep over the crops, devouring everything in sight. The workers organize a fire break to try and stop them, but the locusts smother the flames.
Eventually, a great wind comes up and sweeps the locusts away. Wang Lung's relationship with his youngest son is restored after he proves himself at the farm.
A while later, the youngest son is getting married. O-Lan is deathly ill, but still manages to give her daughter-in-law advice.
Wang Lung goes in to see O-Lan. He places the two pearls he took from her back into her hands. She smiles at him and dies.
Wang Lung walks outside to the peach tree that O-Lan planted on the day of their marriage. He remembers how she loved the land and fought to keep it instead of selling it. He looks into the sky as he touches the tree, "O-Lan, you are the earth," he says.
Cast rundown:
Paul Muni.................................Wang Lung
Luise Rainer..............................O-Lan
Walter Connolly.........................Uncle
Tilly Losch................................Lotus
Charley Grapewin......................Old Father
Jessie Ralph..............................Cuckoo
Soo Yong..................................Aunt
Philip Ahn.................................Army Captain
Roland Got...............................Younger Son
And that's all for The Good Earth. Luise Rainer received her second Best Actress Academy Award for her heartrending portrayal of O-Lan. She had won the same award the previous year for her work as Anna Held in "The Great Ziegfeld". She became the first person to win back to back Oscars.
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