New York Times review of Slattery's Hurricane- August 13 1949

MOVIE REVIEW

Slattery s Hurricane (1949)

Review 1 -- No Title; 'Slattery's Hurricane' at Roxy Barely Touches the Secrets of Meteorological Fury

T. M. P.

Published: August 13, 1949

Considering the title of the Roxy's new film, "Slattery's Hurricane," it is quite proper that howling wind and driving rain should figure importantly in the drama. In fact, we wish that Twentieth Century-Fox had given even more footage to the raging elements and to the fascinating business of plotting the course of hurricanes by flying planes into the "eye" of the disturbance, where an awesome, dead calm prevails. For there is fresh excitement in the sequences showing how daring Navy pilots, operating out of an east Florida coast base, gather data which en-ables meterologists to determine when and where these big blows will strike inland.

That is a lot more than can be said for the routine recollections which pass through Will Slattery's mind and take up most of the camera's attention. Trying to right a wrong done to a friend by taking his place on a dangerous weather mission, and with the wind tossing his plane about as one of its twin engines goes dead, Slattery's mind backtracks over the years. The picture he gets of himself is far from consoling. He has been pretty much of a heel, and the wonder is that the scenarists had the temerity to make a hero out of him in the end.

A wartime Navy fighter pilot, who single handedly sunk a Jap cruiser, Slattery becomes an aerial chauffeur to a candy manufacturer. Although his several bosses have all the characteristics of gangsters, he chooses to give them the benefit of doubt because the money comes easily. When he finally discovers that he is mixed up with dope smugglers, he tries to cash in on the racket. He also has put an admiring female in the hospital in a state of nervous collapse with his indifference. And, having discovered that his wartime buddy is married to an ex-flame, Slattery does his best to wreck that marriage.

His redemption up in the wild and not-so-blue yonder is a palpable hoax. However, Richard Widmark plays this conventional rogue with more intensity and professional acumen than the role deserves. But it is a good thing that Mr. Widmark was so willing and earnest because had his acting been less worthy "Slattery's Hurricane" would have tumbled like a stack of cards in the wind. Andre de Toth's direction is good in that it keeps the story moving and, curiously enough, the constant switching via flashbacks from the plane to detailed visualizations of Slattery's recollections is not as disturbing as might be expected.

Linda Darnell is pleasing, but doesn't have much of an opportunity to really act, in the role of the wife who is sorely tempted by her old boy friend. Veronica Lake is pleasing, too, as the other girl. John Russell, Gary Merrill and several others in lesser roles are quite good also. But since those who planned this film either didn't have the imagination or the desire to concentrate on the business of exploring hurricanes the end result of "Slattery's Hurricane" is just a very ordinary movie. There still must be a rousing dramatic experience lurking in man's latest campaign to fathom the secrets of nature's fury.

Sid Caesar and Evelyn Knight are featured in the Roxy's stage show which also includes a new ice revue.

SLATTERY'S HURRICANE, screen play by Herman Wouk and Richard Murphy based on the book by Mr. Wouk; directed by Andre de Toth; produced by William Perlberg for Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy.
Slattery . . . . . Richard Widmark
Aggie . . . . . Linda Darnell
Dolores . . . . . Veronica Lake
Hobson . . . . . John Russell
Commander Kramer . . . . . Gary Merrill
Milne . . . . . Walter Kingsford
Admiral Ollenby . . . . . Raymond Greenleaf
Frank . . . . . Stanley Waxman
Gregory . . . . . Joseph De Santis
Dr. Ross . . . . . Morris Ankrum
G-Girl . . . . . Amelita Ward
M. C. . . . . . Kenny Williams
Nurse Bailey . . . . . Ruth Clifford
Nurse Collins . . . . . Maudic Prickett
Dispatcher . . . . . William Hawes
Walter . . . . . Norman Leavitt
Navigator . . . . . Lee MacGregor
Taxi Driver . . . . . Dick Wessel
Maitre D . . . . . John Davidson

Fantasy league - Shakespeare

In an interview (shown as an extra on the Night and the City DVD) Jules Dassin ruminated on what Widmark could have done, what he could have been capable of, given his range.  Dassin was convinced he would have suited Shakespeare and wished Widmark had played Hamlet.  Which leads us into a whole other area of 'what ifs'.  So, what if you got hold of a Tardis and managed to get Widmark lined up for a run of Shakespeare.  What would he do?

Hamlet is one of my favourite plays, but somehow I can't see RW as the Dane - it certainly would have stretched his range though.  Hamlet is too indecisive, and bear in mind he's supposed to be very young.  He's also quite powerless, and far too moody.  Actually the more I think about it, the more I can see Widmark muttering to himself in corners, succumbing to the madness that could be real or could not .... and Hamlet is by definition pretty much film noir ... yes we'll have a Hamlet, thank you.

However what I had in mind were more powerful, military figures, the kind Widmark played often though in more modern guise.  But crop his hair shorter and throw a toga on him, and those cheekbones give an instant  patrician air - perfect for Julius Caesar.  Or get RW in his younger days and do a run of history, with Widmark as the wild young Prince Hal in Henry IV part 1, the prince who cuts his old friend Falstaff off without a glance in part 2 and then the hero of the wars in France, Henry V, plastered in mud, walling up the breaches with the English dead and wittering on about St Crispin's Day.  (I'm from an ex-shoemaking town and St Crispin is the patron saint of shoemakers.  Bet they didn't mention that in A-level Eng. Lit.  Don't say this blog isn't useful for something.)

Widmark was good at doomed, tragic figures.  I wonder how he might have done as Richard II?  Would the Midwestern accent be too offputting for the Scottish play, with Widmark meeting his fate at the end of Macduff's sword? - with Poitier for Macduff?  Actually if we've got Sidney Poitier, we could do Othello and Widmark back to playing baddies as Iago.  Or get Widmark as a much older man, with long grey hair and a tattered cloak - a perfect King Lear shouting at the storm...

But top of my list would be Widmark in his late thirties as Richard III, the ultimate bad guy (according to Shakespeare at least) but also a brave soldier and a doomed king.  You can just see him, staring down Buckingham with eyes like ice and voice to match, unmoving and unblinking as he orders the deaths of the little Princes in the tower:

"Shall I be plain?
I wish the bastards dead ..."

Chilling.  He wouldn't even have to laugh.

Filmography

You can only stand in awe and look at the sheer number of films Widmark made.  Good grief, that man kept busy.  The amount of energy he must have had ... I know Hollywood really churned them out in the early days, but just look at some of these dates; even allowing for production and editing and all the other stuff that goes on, he must have been making two or three per year, finishing one off and going to learn the lines for the next.  Sometimes they all bunched up and he had three or four films out in one year - just look at the early 1950s.  It's impossible to think of that happening now.  But 62 films - plus all the other TV and documentary work - that's nothing for us to grumble at! 

Critically speaking, his best stuff seems to be from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, but he was always good, even if the films he was in ... weren't.  I give you Murder on the Orient Express as a shining example.  But then it was the 1970s.  Arty dramas, film noir and even Westerns had had their day, and it was over to action packed adventure or horror films.  C'est la vie.

Films in bold are ones I've watched and covered in the 'genre' pages.   

Kiss of Death (1947)

The Street with no Name (1948)

Road House (1948)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Down to the sea in ships (1949)

Slattery’s Hurricane (1949)

Night and the City (1950)

Panic in the Streets (1950)

No Way Out (1950)

Halls of Montezuma (1950)

The Frogmen (1951)

Red Skies of Montana (1952) 

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952)

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)

My Pal Gus (1952)

Destination Gobi (1953)

Pickup on South Street (1953)

Take the High Ground! (1953)

Hell and High Water (1954) 

Garden of Evil (1954)

Broken Lance (1954)

A Prize of Gold (1955)

The Cobweb (1955)

Backlash (1956)

Run for the Sun (1956)

The Last Wagon (1956)

Saint Joan (1957)

Time Limit (1957)

The Law and Jake Wade (1958)

The Tunnel of Love (1958)

The Trap (1959)

Warlock (1959)

The Alamo (1960)

The Secret Ways (1961)

Two Rode Together (1961)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

How the West was Won (1962)

The Long Ships (1964)

Flight from Ashiya (1964)

Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

The Bedford Incident (1965)

Alvarez Kelly (1966)

The Way West (1967)

Madigan (1968)

A Talent for Loving (1969)

Death of a Gunfighter (1969)

The Moonshine War (1970)

When the Legends Die (1972)

Brock's Last Case (1973)

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)
The Sell Out (1976) 

Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977)

The Domino Principle (1977)

Rollercoaster (1977)

Coma (1978)

The Swarm (1978)

Bear Island (1979)

National Lampoon Goes to the Movies (1982)

Hanky Panky (1982)

Who Dares Wins (1982)

Against All Odds (1984)

True Colors (1991) 

The first film starring Widmark I ever saw was Last Wagon. It must have been back in the 1980s, so I would have been a teenager.  I'd always had a soft spot for antiheroes (Robin Hood (Michael Praed and Jason Connery), Knight Rider, Streethawk and Airwolf -of the three, Jan-Michael Vincent in Airwolf was my firm favourite- and of course Zorro in various incarnations) and I was transfixed by Comanche Todd, this brave suffering outcast who turned out to be the hero after all.  The problem was, I'd just happened to catch Last Wagon by sheer luck; I hadn't planned to watch it, we didn't have a TV paper and there was no internet then.  Though I longed to see it again, I had nothing go on; not the name of the actor or the title of the film - nothing but the name of the character. And it wasn't until this year that I finally got round to typing 'Comanche Todd' into Google, and that's when everything changed.

For the first time I discovered who this fantastic actor actually was; not only that, but I found that he'd had an extremely prolific career. I took it easy at first, ordering the DVD of  The Last Wagon, waiting impatiently for it to arrive (all of a couple of days later) and then watching it more or less back to back about twenty times in succession. And it was as good as I remembered; perhaps better in some ways. But what if the other stuff wasn't as good? What if I didn't like it?

Well you can guess the rest.  I watched what I could on You Tube or Westerns on the Web (does exactly what it says on the tin), often ordering the films on DVD if I liked them - which I did.  Most can't be seen online first so I had to go on trust, getting DVDs in from all over the place; UK, Germany, France, Spain, even Australia.  I don't like all his output; I'm not mad keen on war films, for example, but I always like him. And thanks to Widmark I've been introduced to film noir, and to a whole bunch of other great actors and actresses that I might never have heard of or appreciated otherwise.  And the more films I watched with Widmark in, the more I marvelled that he managed to do something different with each character.  Most actors - especially these days - seem to be the same person with a different hat.  Widmark was the character.  Yes of course there were many similarities, particularly that edge of anger, that contained tension (sometimes not so contained), that hint or threat of violence that sometimes erupted in the most dramatic way.  One critic described the young Widmark as 'extraordinarily beautiful' - I don't think even I would go that far - but he had the most dramatic face, skull-like with deep set eyes and a scary ability to maintain absolute stillness even whilst speaking, even whilst angry - even whilst murderous.  Because you just know that when he does erupt into action it's going to be fast and it's very likely to be lethal.

The older Widmark got, the more craggy he became, his skin damaged perhaps by a combination of too much sun and far too much smoking.  It's always a shock to see just how much people smoked in those old films.  In Roadhouse, Widmark as Jefty tells the singer Lily that she smokes far too much - talk about the pot calling the kettle black.  In every film I've seen except Backlash and Last Wagon he's lighting up in nearly every scene he's in.  Still, thanks to his fantastic bone structure and the fact that he never seemed to put on any significant weight, Widmark always looked younger than he was and managed to carry off the leading roles into his fifties.   But in Death of a Gunfighter (1969) he plays an old man; he looks like an old man and though no doubt a lot of it is down to make-up and some deeply unforgiving close-ups, you realise that his high-octane leading roles are behind him.  I still reckon that his best stuff was early on in what I've heard called 'the long fifties' - from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

As a person, Widmark seems to have been the direct opposite of most of the parts he played; no doubt a psychologist would have fun with that.  He had a long and happy marriage to one woman to whom he was faithful; he was teetotal, liberal and anti-gun.  He was apparently also quite shy.  How you square all that with some of the gun-toting, fist-throwing psychos he featured - Udo, Jefty, Biddle and Hollister to name but a few - is a tough one; that's what makes him amazing.  Not just that he played baddies and did it so well but that he did them all differently.   Good guys weren't really his strong point, I feel.  Not enough to go on, perhaps?