Directed by John Farrow (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Aug 05, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
John FarrowRelease Date(s)
1942-1953 (April 24, 2024)Studio(s)
Columbia Pictures/Paramount Pictures (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: See Below
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A
Review
A boxed set devoted to director John Farrow is a little surprising. Accurately described by director Joe Dante as a poor man’s Victor Fleming, Farrow worked for a variety of studios (first Warner Bros., then RKO, and Paramount) in myriad genres, though like Fleming leaned toward commercial, manly adventure-type pictures. He was not without talent; many of his films feel more authentic with greater verisimilitude than other genre films, and in many of his pictures there’s some unique quality or unusual approach to the material that makes it stand out. Visually, Farrow’s films are also often quite interesting; many have extremely long, uninterrupted takes using a mobile camera (often on a crane) roaming large groups of people in both extremely wide and tight close shots, a style probably inspired by director Max Ophüls. Admirably, and quite unlike many younger filmmakers who utilize this now-familiar technique, Farrow’s use of these long takes is never distracting; it’s easy not to even notice its use.
Nevertheless, John Farrow is not the kind of filmmaker that turns up on lists of the Top 100 Directors. Partly sullying his reputation is that, on a personal level, Farrow was something of a monster toward his family and film crews. (James Mason, playing a cruel sadist in Farrow’s Botany Bay, based his performance on... John Farrow.) He was something of a religious hypocrite, a supposedly pious Catholic—he kept a 7-foot-high crucifix in his home—but also a notorious philanderer who habitually cheated on his actress-wife, Maureen O’Sullivan (remembered today as Jane of the early Tarzan films), fathering many children out of wedlock. He was also physically abusive to his seven acknowledged children, with some historians and Farrow family members suggesting this extended to sexual abuse. (His youngest son, John Charles, later served time for molesting two young boys, and dark Farrow family history may have influenced the baseless allegations against filmmaker Woody Allen by Farrow’s actress-daughter Mia.)
Imprint/Via Vision’s sturdy boxed set Directed by John Farrow includes Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942), The Hitler Gang (1944), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), Submarine Command (1951), and Botany Bay (1953), as well as a 96-minute documentary, John Farrow: Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows (2021), directed by Frans Vandenburg and Claude Gonzalez.
Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) is an above-average piece of wartime propaganda, partly because this Columbia Pictures production less resembles Hollywood’s typically hyperbolic flag-waving from the period than a more restrained British wartime picture. The result is an unusual thriller featuring a high-quality cast populating a picture shot far from Hollywood, in British Columbia, doubling coastal Norway.
Not exactly what its title suggests, the movie opens as the peaceful residents of a Norwegian fishing village celebrate the marriage of fisherman Gunner Korstad (Richard Derr) to Anna (Elisabeth Fraser, later of Sgt. Bilko). The wedding reception also honors visiting dignitaries British Admiral Bowen (Cedric Hardwicke), his son Robert (Robert Coote), and the admiral’s daughter, Judith (Anna Lee), the latter falling in love with widower and harbormaster Eric Toresen (Paul Muni), doting father to his daughter, Solveig (Ann Carter of The Curse of the Cat People). Despite their burgeoning relationship, Judith has no choice but to return with her father to England the next day.
Soon after, the Nazis invade Norway, occupying the village, imposing rigid curfews and threats of execution to any resistance. They burn books, confiscate food and blankets from people’s homes, and indoctrinate the children to hate Jews. Bergesen (Ray Collins), an outspoken critic of the Nazis prior to invasion, is arrested, tortured, and eventually released back to his wife (Lillian Gish) a broken man. Outraged, Eric organizes a resistance group among the village men, but Gunner is arrested and executed, and when Eric fatally stabs the German officer in charge of the village, the Nazis threaten reprisals unless Eric is turned over.
It’s hard to tell whether the exterior sets of the town are actual Canadian homes and businesses redressed with Scandinavian flourishes, or if the entire thing is a temporary set, but it’s very believable regardless. The relative ordinariness of the Norwegians, not the noble, democracy-loving Chinese or exotically continental Europeans of other such films adds to its credibility, while the Germans themselves are less a combination of buffoons and sadists as one traditionally finds in these pictures.
The quality cast of unusual names also helps. Muni and Gish had mostly left films for the stage at this time; it was only Gish’s fourth talking picture after a busy career in silents. Collins, fresh from Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons (he was especially memorable in the latter) is very good in an atypical role while Anna Lee, soon to join John Ford’s stock company, is luminous in her scenes, and Cedric Hardwicke must have been relieved to appear in this after his rather embarrassing turn in The Ghost of Frankenstein. Rosemary DeCamp (as the resigned wife of a Norwegian traitor), Rod Cameron (as a defiant pastor), and George Macready (as an angry schoolteacher) all add additional weight.
The film intrigues in the way the cruel Nazi occupation toughens up the initially placid villagers; toward the end they’re as hardened and unforgiving as the Résistance fighters in Melville’s Army of Shadows. Oddly, it’s when the Commandos business gets going for the climax the picture loses steam. The big battle scenes are well-done but look much too choreographed, like an explosions-filled stunt show at a Universal Studios theme park. B+
Wikipedia describes The Hitler Gang (1944) as a “pseudo-documentary,” but that’s entirely wrong. Rather, this very unusual film is a historical drama-propaganda piece with speculative but generally accurate recreations tracing Hitler’s rise to power. It’s no more documentary-like than Casablanca.
Except for the Paramount logo and title card, there are no credits at the beginning; everything else has been shifted to the end, presumably to add an air of authenticity to what the audience is about to see. Rare for a big studio picture, there are no stars in the cast, which instead is dominated by German and other European expatriate character actors, many of whom fled Europe when Hitler came to power.
Somewhat curiously, the movie traces Hitler’s (Robert “Bobby” Watson) rise only from the end of World War I up to the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 but not after Hitler consolidated his power following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg (Sig Ruman). Maybe Paramount hoped for a sequel to dramatize the events leading up to and early days of the Second World War.
Of course, the film’s main purpose is as propaganda. Over the course of the story Hitler is depicted as an informant, easily bribed and manipulated by others, and a coward who unhesitatingly abandons his wounded men to save his own skin. To gain support for his cause, he tells everyone exactly what they want to hear, even if his promises directly contradict other promises made to others. He demonizes the Jews, less out of anti-Semitism than to make them convenient scapegoats of all of Germany’s problems. He’s not a man of his word, and he has “longings” for a blood relative. In the film, Hitler comes off as obsessive and whiny, his single talent an ability to captivate audiences with his incendiary speeches.
The film gets some facts wrong—many are duly noted at the IMDb—but most are either minor, dramatic license errors, or mistakes made because certain facts were not entirely known in 1944. And, at least until the end, the picture soft-peddles its propaganda compared to other Hollywood wartime films.
The Hitler Gang’s biggest asset is its casting of generally good, lookalike actors. Bobby Watson built a mini-career around his strong resemblance to der Fuhrer, in any least nine film appearances, including gag cameos in Preston Sturges’s The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair. As an actor Watson is just okay, and his strong American accent runs counter to all the English-speaking but German-accents of most of the other players. Particularly good here are Martin Kosleck as Joseph Goebbels, Roman Bohnen as Ernst Rohm, and Luis van Rooten as Heinrich Himmler. Victor Varconi is the spitting image of Rudolf Hess, though Alexander Pope’s Hermann Goring is a bit too gregarious and American, like a morphine-addicted Alan Hale. B+
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) is a superb supernatural thriller boasting fine direction by Farrow, a compelling screenplay by Barré Lyndon and Jonathan Latimer, but most especially an outstanding performance by Edward G. Robinson. He made this the same year as his iconic appearance as gangster Johnny Rocco in John Huston’s Key Largo, the far better-known film, but that was a part Robinson could have done in his sleep. Conversely, his Oscar-worthy performance in Night Has a Thousand Eyes must have required incredible sustained concentration and commitment on his part; he’s positively mesmerizing in one of his all-time best performances.
In Los Angeles, Elliott Carson (John Lund) prevents his heiress fiancée, Jean Courtland (Gail Russell), from leaping off a bridge over a trainyard in an apparent suicide attempt. They go to a restaurant to meet John Triton (Robinson), Elliott wary of the man who claims to be clairvoyant and whom Elliott believes is manipulating Jean into her suicidal state.
Triton then attempts to convince the couple he only wants to help Jean by explaining what began 20 years earlier. In flashbacks, Triton is the headliner of a phony medium act with partners Jenny (Virginia Bruce), his fiancée who acts as his assistant, and pianist Whitney Courtland (Jerome Cowan). Triton’s ability to see into the future is a complete fake, but then he begins to experience sometimes terrifyingly real visions: he interrupts his act to warn parents in the audience that their daughter is in danger and to rush home. They do, rescuing her from a house fire. More visions allow the threesome to become rich betting on horses and buying up oil-rich land, but Triton is haunted by his “gift,” especially after he foresees but is unable to prevent the death of a newspaper boy in an automobile accident. When he has a vision that Jenny will die in childbirth, a distressed Triton breaks off his engagement and vanishes. She instead marries Courtland but dies anyway giving birth to their daughter, Jean.
Relocated to Los Angeles, adjacent to Angels Flight—one could build an entire Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid-type movie around all the noir and crime film characters ensconced there—Triton attempts to warn Courtland about a new vision of plane crash when his old, now millionaire partner attempts a record-breaking cross-country flight. Another, far more detailed vision has even bleaker news for Jean.
Very loosely adapted from a story by Cornell Woolrich, Night Has a Thousand Eyes is a pip. The screenplay is admirably ambiguous—until almost the end the film never shows its hand. Are Triton’s visions real? Is he plotting with confederates a scheme to steal Jean’s millions? Is he mad? The movie audience is cautiously in Triton’s corner, attentive viewers aware that the film would have to really cheat (a la Hitchcock’s Stage Fright) were it all an elaborate ruse. Instead, viewers quickly accept Triton supernatural “gift,” and empathize with his conflicted feelings. Picking winners at the track is one thing, but premonitions of violent death he cannot prevent is another.
Edward G. Robinson’s expresses this existential crisis so grippingly it’s one of those performances where it’s impossible to imagine any other actor in the role. In dialogue, narration, as well as wordless reactions on his expressive face, Robinson is a wonder throughout; you can’t take your eyes off him whenever he’s onscreen. John Lund is okay as the doubting boyfriend but Gail Russell, with her sad, expressive eyes, is ideally suited to play the seemingly doomed heiress. William Demarest turns up late in the story as a skeptical police lieutenant; he’s not quite comic relief but, in underplaying his usual exasperated screen persona, adds a welcome light touch to the oppressive, fate-driven plot.
It’s a shame Night Has a Thousand Eyes isn’t better known. It’s as good as the acclaimed Nightmare Alley, which is kind of the flipside of the same basic premise. It’s engrossingly eerie, in many ways superior to Paramount’s The Uninvited, which also starred Russell. A
Some reviews of Submarine Command (1951) claim this as one of the first movies to dramatize post-traumatic syndrome disorder (PTSD), but there’s no evidence of this in the film at all, really. Indeed, the picture is a singularly trite war movie overrun with genre clichés. Supposedly star William Holden so liked the script he invested $20,000 of his own money into the production. (This seems unlikely.) Regardless, it’s hard to imagine what about its script might have excited him so.
Late to the Second World War, Lt. Commander Ken White (Holden) of the USS Tiger Shark is brand-new to the job when he’s forced to make a crash dive after Japanese fighters strafe the submarine, leaving topside the wounded captain (Jack Gregson) and quartermaster. Mere hours later, the war is over. White’s actions send CPO Boyer (William Bendix) into a tizzy, but White knows he made the right decision. Even the captain’s father, Rear Admiral Rice (Moroni Olsen) and widow, Alice (Peggy Webster), support White’s decision, but he’s still wracked with guilt.
After the war, White marries Carol (Nancy Olson), and he’s eventually assigned to look after the mothballed sub fleet. When Boyer is assigned to White’s unit, and a reporter (Philip Van Zandt, a regular in Farrow’s movies) asks White about the crash dive, not knowing White himself condemned the two men to their deaths, he grows irritable to all those around him, even Carol, to the point of threatening their marriage.
She talks him into resigning from the Navy, but just then the Korean War heats up and the Tiger Shark is taken out of mothballs and White is in command once again, improbably with virtually the same crew from 1945.
Submarine Command is little more than a collection of war movie clichés: the protagonist forced to doom two men to save his sub and its crew, the dutiful wife of the protagonist whose marriage is threatened by the guilt he can’t shake, the lower-ranking everyman sailor who can’t forgive his superior officer for sacrificing a popular captain, etc. Even the structure of the film—fighting men during World War II reactivated to duty to fight in Korea—was not without precedent, as a number of Hollywood films linked the two wars in a similar manner. The dangerous, almost suicidal mission of the film’s last act provides colorful action (and blatant, very ‘50s pro-military propaganda) but is especially tiresome, with Boyer so impressed with White’s bravery all is instantly forgiven and he even becomes White’s bestest pal forever.
Holden, such a superlative, irreplaceable actor, keeps it watchable, and the supporting cast is unusually good: besides those mentioned above, Don Taylor, Darryl Hickman, Jack Kelly, Jerry Paris and others, many uncredited, populate White’s crew. A real submarine was used for all interiors; believably cramped they lend an air of verisimilitude often missing in such films. Indeed, Arthur Franz, in a supporting part, would later appear onboard another sub also called Tiger Shark in Atomic Submarine (1960), but that film was so cheap its submarine interiors were laughably inadequate. C+
Despite lush Technicolor, Botany Bay (1953) is impressively gritty by 1950s Hollywood standards, with a greater-than-usual emphasis on historical accuracy. In 1787 a group of condemned prisoners at Newgate Jail are allowed to serve commuted life sentences in New South Wales—Australia—and board the Charlotte, a prison ship of the First Fleet captained by sadist Paul Gilbert (James Mason). Among the prisoners are American-born medical student Tallant (Alan Ladd), who admits his guilt but expects a pardon since he stole his own money, embezzled by a crooked agent; and Sally (Patricia Medina), whose beauty attracts the attention of the married captain, who gives her preferential treatment in exchange for, he presumes, certain favors.
A veritable Captain Bligh, Gilbert runs a tight ship and unforgiving of any prisoner or crew deviating from his rigid command. When Tallant tries to escape Gilbert sentences him to 50 lashes, and later orders him keel hauled. Surprising given Production Code restrictions, Gilbert’s cruelty extends to a young boy caught stealing; he’s sentenced to solitary confinement and when the ship takes on ice-cold seawater he’s found dead in his cell from exposure after Gilbert refuses to move him to dryer quarters. By this point Sally is in love with the brave Tallant, sparking Gilbert’s obsessive determination to see the man hang.
The authenticity of the shipboard scenes—all soundstage sets deftly combined with good miniatures for long shots—raises Botany Bay several notches above other films of this type. Ladd is good, Medina is okay, but James Mason is excellent, as are several supporting players, including Lost in Space’s Jonathan Harris (in his screen debut) and Murray Matheson (as a reverend imprisoned for his political views). Once the Charlotte reaches New South Wales the film becomes rather unreal, with inapt aborigines (African-Americans in makeup and wigs) and soundstage jungle sets, surprising given its Australia-born director, but this is a minor complaint. B+
Directed by John Farrow is an attractive boxed set, with six Blu-ray discs each given separate, attractive cases. No information about the transfers is provided but the 1.37:1 presentations are all very good-to-excellent, with deep blacks and good contrast on the black-and-white titles while the Technicolor Botany Bay seems sourced from the original black-and-white separation camera negatives as there are no misalignment issues and the color really pops. Unfortunately, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, the best of the films, has the weakest video transfer, which is okay but awfully dark in the many nighttime scenes and seems to come from secondary film elements, and its LPCM 2.0 mono audio is on the hissy side. All of the films have optional English subtitles.
The primary extra is the feature-length documentary John Farrow—Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows. Produced in 2021, it starts well, with a lot of good background on Farrow’s early life in Australia, but gradually becomes more of a film-by-film examination of most of his major films, cutting between film clips and interviewees, including several generations of esteemed film scholars but also the late Charles Higham, whose notorious celebrity biographies were poorly researched and frequently made dubious claims. Largely representing the Farrow family is John Charles Farrow, the aforementioned convicted pedophile; other Farrow family members are acknowledged in the credits, and there’s a very awkwardly inserted moment near the end in which the film stops to praise Ronan Farrow, heretofore unmentioned. John Charles and others acknowledge some of John Farrow’s personal problems but only to a point, and the documentary never quite connects the dots between Farrow’s personal story and the themes and attitudes of his more personal films.
Extras on this disc include an interview with its two directors; Botany Bay and Plunder of the Sun sequence; The Big Clock with Joe Dante; and trailers.
Oddly, Commandos Strike at Dawn has no extra features at all, but the other four all have commentary tracks with Daniel Kremer, Alan Arkush, Imogen Sara Smith, Lee Pfeiffer, Tony Latino, Paul Scrabo, and David Del Valle. The Hitler Gang also includes two features: Master of Invention, a video essay by David Cairns; and The Rise of a Dictator (1944), an educational/propaganda film featuring extensive footage from Farrow’s film. Night Has a Thousand Eyes includes an interview with writer Marilyn Moss about her biography of Farrow, a trailer, and a 1949 radio version. Submarine Command includes A Weapon Called Style, a video essay by Jeremy Arnold on Farrow’s war years and combat films, and a radio adaptation from 1952. Botany Bay includes an excellent interview (with dodgy audio) with director Joe Dante, talking at length about Farrow’s filmography and career.
Directed by John Farrow proves to be a richer collection of titles than what one might have expected. There’s only one clunker in the bunch and all of the others are rewarding, with Night Has a Thousand Eyes easily the best of the batch, a must-see. The video transfers are mostly excellent and the supplements bountiful. Highly Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV