Dean Jones, Walt Disney, and a Quartet of Monkeys (or rather, Chimps)

Yvette Mimieux with one of the chimps.

We've been on a Disney movie run at the Cafe, revisiting some of the studio’s lesser-known live action films. There have been some pleasant surprises (Emil and the Detectives) and a few major disappointments (Dick Van Dyke wasted in Never a Dull Moment). The incorrectly-titled Monkeys, Go Home! falls somewhere in the middle.

The title tune, a breezy piece featuring lush strings, sounds more like a romantic comedy than a family film. And despite the presence of some playful chimpanzees, that's just what Monkeys, Go Home is.

Dean Jones stars as Hank Dussard, an American who has inherited an olive farm in a small French provincial town. He actually knows very little about harvesting olives, so he's surprised when the local priest informs him that the olives fall from the trees and have to be picked up from the ground by children or women because of their light touch (I'm still researching whether this is true).

Maurice Chevalier in his final role.

Father Sylvain (Maurice Chevalier) recommends that Hank get married and have lots of children. Of course, that strategy doesn't account for the fact that the children won't be old enough to pick olives for several years! It also makes Hank, who is already leery about marriage, initially distant when a pretty local woman (Yvette Mimieux) takes an interest in him.

Instead, Hank hatches on to an unconventional plan. He buys four female chimpanzees that he trained for NASA space missions. He figures if they can learn to become astronauts, they can learn how to pick olives.

I saw Monkeys, Go Home! at the theater when I was probably 10 years old. It'd be intriguing to go back in time and ask my younger self what I thought of it. Except for a handful of scenes with the cavorting chimps, I can't imagine any kid being entertained for long.

Dean Jones as Hank.

As a 1960s romantic comedy, Monkeys might have worked better with a different star. I like Dean Jones, but he comes across as a little cold and pragmatic as Hank. A lead with more inner warmth might have worked better, say, James Garner.

Yvette Mimeux isn't required to do much, but look adorable (which she does) and act sweet (ditto!). If you want to see a good example of her acting chops, you'll have to track down the very un-Disney Jackson County Jail (which garnered recognition, too, for her young co-star Tommy Lee Jones).

As you may have noticed, the title of the film is quite misleading. Chimpanzees are not monkeys; they are great apes and related to gorillas and orangutans. Apparently, the Disney executives just didn't understand the difference. Their earlier comedy, The Monkey's Uncle, also featured a chimp. Hey, no one would call Lancelot Link a monkey!

The Alternate Movie Title Game (April 2024)

Here are the rules: We will provide an "alternate title" for a film and ask you to name the actual film. Most of these are pretty easy. Please answer no more than three questions per day so others can play. You may have an answer other than the intended one--just be able to defend it!

1. Running in the Sand.

2. The Man from Z.O.W.I.E.

3. A Man Called Harmonica.

4. Jo and Meg and Beth and Amy.

5. Music Shop Pen Pals.

6. The Town That Became Glad.

7. Eight Dozen and Five Dogs.

8. Looking for Moose's Girlfriend.

9. The Dancing Welder.

10. The Linen Wall of Jericho.

11. The Pie's Big Race.

12. I Saw a Big Bug in the Sewer.

13. Smithy Forgets.

14. The Tunnel King.

15. Car vs. Truck.

Klute and Tender Mercies

Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda.

Klute (1971). When a businessman suddenly disappears and obscene letters are found among his work papers, the man's wife hires private detective John Klute to conduct an investigation. Klute (Donald Sutherland) quickly learns that the mystery centers around part-time NYC prostitute Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), the intended recipient of the letters. Bree doesn't remember the missing man, but thinks he could have been a client that beat her up years earlier--and may be stalking her now. More character study than psychological thriller, Klute earned Jane Fonda a Best Actress Oscar for her performance and garnered a nomination for its screenplay. The decision to reveal the villain's identity barely 45 minutes into the movie is an interesting one. Unlike Hitchcock's Vertigo, that knowledge doesn't generate any tension. Rather, it robs Klute of its potential as a whodunit (though the villain's identity is obvious from the beginning, so perhaps that's irrelevant). Clearly, the writers and director Alan J. Pakula are more interested in exploring what makes Bree and Klute tick. In Bree's case, they take the direct approach by including her therapy sessions with her psychiatrist. These monologues provide an acting field day for Fonda, though the character insights are strictly Psychology 101 (e.g., Bree's "tricks" make her feel like she controls her interactions with men for a brief period). As a result, the more interesting character is the quiet and always watchful John Klute. Relentless in his investigation, the introspective detective shows his patience as he develops feelings towards Bree and eventually pierces her self-defensive veneer. Sutherland gives a compelling portrayal and it's a shame that his acting was not as widely recognized as Fonda's. She is very good, but Sutherland is the reason to watch Klute--after all, the movie was named after his character. 

Duvall as Mac Sledge.

Tender Mercies (1983).  After a night of heavy drinking, Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall), a washed-up, alcoholic country singer, wakes up at an isolated Texas roadside motel and gas station. The owner, a young widow named Rosa Lee (Tess Harper), allows him work in exchange for room and board. Mac slowly rebuilds his life, creating a family with Rosa Lee and her young son Sonny and even recording music again. Like its protagonist, Tender Mercies is a quiet, slow-moving film that finds emotional resonance in its simplicity. Director Bruce Beresford lovingly captures the rustic setting with the wind whistling gently across the plains. Robert Duvall delivers a low-key, natural performance that earned him a Best Actor Oscar (the motion picture, Beresford, and screenwriter Horton Foote were nominated as well). Although it's a film about redemption, writer Foote ensures that Tender Mercies avoids easy resolutions. Mac's relationship with his ex-wife remains full of friction and his efforts to reconnect with his adult daughter are hindered by tragedy. In the end, Mac finds an inner peace of sorts, but every day will still bring its own challenges so that one has to cherish each moment of contentment.

The Crimson Kimono and The League of Gentlemen

James Shigeta as Detective Joe Kojaku.

The Crimson Kimono (1959). Writer-director Samuel Fuller's once-controversial cult film revolves around two police detectives, one Caucasian and one Japanese, who try to solve a complicated murder case involving a stripper in the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles. Along the way, both detectives fall in love with a key witness, leading to a love triangle that threatens their friendship. Fuller's on-location shooting, in and around Little Tokyo in L.A., gives The Crimson Kimono a vibrant and gritty feel. It's a perfect setting for a quirky film noir and the opening scene, in which stripper Sugar Torch is fatally shot as she runs into a busy street, promises as much. However, Fuller's primary interest lies elsewhere, leading to a plot detour into an examination of the relationship between detective Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta) and Chris, an art student (Victoria Shaw). Joe has to cope with his own cultural norms (his family expects him to marry a Japanese woman) and what he perceives as racial bias from Charlie (Glenn Corbett), his detective partner and longtime best friend. It's an interesting theme and James Shigeta effectively conveys Joe's inner struggle. Still, it's a shame that there's little left time left for the mystery. When it gets wraps up quickly at the climax, I felt that Fuller had cheated me out of a potentially brilliant film noir.

Jack Hawkins as Norman Hyde.

The League of Gentlemen (1960). Forced into retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Hyde (Jack Hawkins) recruits seven former army officers, each facing desperate or humiliating circumstances, for a bank robbery. Hyde convinces the team that a large-scale crime, planned and executed with military precision by former soldiers, is a "can't miss" proposition, It also helps that he guarantees each man a payout of over £100,000 (equates to $2.9 million in 2024). Like the heist it depicts, The League of Gentlemen is a well-executed film that grabs the viewer from its opening shot: Hyde, dressed in black tie, emerges from a manhole on a London street at night. While the climatic heist is sufficiently engrossing, the film's highlight is an earlier theft of weapons from an army depot. It allows the always entertaining Roger Livesey to impersonate an army general looking into a fictitious complaint about inedible army food. In addition to Hawkins and Livesey, the fine cast includes Richard Attenborough, Nigel Patrick (delightful as the second-in-command), and Bryan Forbes (who co-wrote the screenplay with John Boland). My only quibble with The League of Gentlemen is its ending. It works well enough...it's just not what I wanted to happen (which is not a valid complaint at all).

Jeff Chandler Plays a Make-Believe Parent in The Toy Tiger

Jeff Chandler as Rick.

Had a bad day at work? Relatives causing undue stress? If so, then perhaps you need to sit down and watch a mindless 1950s comedy. You know the kind. It's entertaining enough while you're watching it, but it won't linger in your brain. It's like cotton candy--light and tasty, but not filling and quickly forgotten. If that's what you're looking for, then The Toy Tiger (1956)--a remake of the earlier Mad About Music--is the movie for you.

Laraine Day plays Gwen Harkinson, a widowed advertising executive who has shuffled her son off to a private boarding school. Gwen's plan is to work hard, make a lot of money, and then "retire" to spend time raising son Timmy (Tim Hovey). She has no time for romance, which is a bummer for Rick Todd (Jeff Chandler), an art director at the agency who loves her. Rick is fed up with advertising, but agrees to go to a small upstate New York town to convince an ex-colleague to work on a new ad campaign. He is completely unaware that the town is also the home of Timmy's boarding school: The Meadows.

Meanwhile, Timmy is dealing with a bully at school, who suspects (quite rightly) that Timmy has created an imaginary father: a world-famous explorer who sends him letters about his quests. In reality, Timmy is writing the letters and mailing them to himself. When pressured by the bully, Timmy states his father is arriving in town that day on a bus. The other boys become excited to meet Timmy's dad and go to meet the bus. When Rick gets off the bus, Timmy identifies him as his father!

Laraine Day, Tim Hovey, and Jeff Chandler
in a publicity still from The Toy Tiger.

It's a lightweight premise that functions surprisingly well for most of the movie. As expected, Rick eventually decides to go along--not realizing Timmy is Gwen's son--and play the part of Timmy's "famous" father (good thing the Internet didn't exist back then). Jeff Chandler seems to be having a good time as Timmy's make-believe dad and he and young Tim Hovey create a believable father-son relationship. It also helps to have a couple of old pros, Cecil Kellaway and Richard Haydn, playing the brothers that run the boarding school. (Both deserve more screen time!)

The Toy Tiger gets bogged down, though, when Gwen shows up. She is just not a likable character. Granted, Laraine Day and the writers faced a tough challenge: the film hinges on peeling back the layers of Gwen's business-focused persona to reveal a caring mother and a woman who wants to be in a loving relationship. Laraine Day never quite gets there. Perhaps, a more accomplished actress like Doris Day could have pulled it off. Or the writers could have opted for a more realistic ending, in which Gwen finds a way to spend more time with her son, but rejects a relationship with Rick.

Of course, that would be a different movie altogether. And we've already established that you just want to watch The Toy Tiger and enjoy it for what is. There's nothing wrong with that. You'll be pleasantly amused for 88 minutes and then you'll forget it.

Seven Things to Know About Linda Cristal

1. Linda Cristal was born on February 23, 1931, in Rosario, Argentina, as Marta Victoria Moya Burges. In addition to her native language of Spanish, she became fluent in Italian, French, and English. She got her acting break in 1952 when she appeared as a school girl in the Mexican film When the Fog Lifts (Cuando Levanta la Niebla). It was then that she changed her name professionally to Linda Cristal.

2. She had made several Mexican films when she heard that United Artists wanted to cast a Latina female lead opposite Dana Andrews in Comanche (1956). She got the part and was billed in the opening credits as "And Miss Linda Cristal as Magarita."

3. Linda Cristal won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer in 1959 for her performance in the Tony Curtis-Janet Leigh comedy The Perfect Furlough. She plays a movie sex symbol--the Argentine Bombshell--who accompanies Tony's Army corporal on the "perfect furlough" to Paris.

4. Linda worked with John Ford in Two Rode Together and The Alamo (where he was the uncredited second unit director). She said in an interview: "It was such a wonderful thing to say that I worked under the direction of John Ford. If I never do anything else ever again, I'd die happy." In both films, she played the love interest of men much older than her: James Stewart (23 years her senior) in Two Rode Together and John Wayne (24 years older) in The Alamo.

Linda Cristal as Victoria Cannon.

5. Linda Cristal gained international recognition for her role as Victoria Cannon in the popular Western television series The High Chaparral, which aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971. In a 2015 interview, Cristal's High Chaparral co-star Henry Darrow told me: "The High Chaparral was the first time in a series that a Latino family was on an equal level with an Anglo family." For her performance as Victoria, Linda Cristal was nominated for two Prime Time Emmy Awards and won a Golden Globe in 1970 as Best Actress in a Drama Series.

6. After her 1966 divorce from actor-producer Yale Wexler, Linda Cristal dated celebrities such as Bobby Darin, Adam West, and Christopher George. One Hollywood gossip magazine even published an article about Linda coming between Bobby Darin and ex-wife Sandra Dee (whom fans hoped would reconcile).

Linda Cristal as Cleopatra.

7. Linda Cristal's autobiography A Life Unexpected: The Linda Cristal Story, co-written with her son Jordan Wexler, was published in 2019. Among her many acting credits in film and TV are two unusual ones: Legions of the Nile (1959) and Mr. Majestyk (1974). In the former, an Italian production also known as The Legions of Cleopatra, she plays the title role four years before Elizabeth Taylor. According to one source, 20th Century-Fox bought the rights to Cristal's film so as to limit its distribution in the U.S. prior to the release of Taylor's big-budgeted Cleopatra (1963). Mr. Majestyk, one of her last theatrical films, paired her with Charles Bronson as a migrant worker and union activist. It gave her an opportunity to show what she could do in an action picture. Today, Mr. Majestyk is recognized as one of Bronson's best-reviewed 1970s films.

The Alternate Movie Title (January 2024)

Here are the rules: We will provide an "alternate title" for a film and ask you to name the actual film. Most of these are pretty easy. Please answer no more than three questions per day so others can play. You may have an answer other than the intended one--just be able to defend it!

1. Flex Martian--Bodybuilder.

2. The Pin Is a Mighty Sword. (Note that all spelling is correct!)

3. Will Kane Stands Alone.

4. The Watch of Colonel Mortimer.

5. The Christmas Angel.

6. The Singing Cricket.

7. Masquerade for Money.

8. The Wrong Man Wins the Cake.

9. Love, Love, Love in Rome.

10. Barn Burner!

11. The Red-Haired Pirate and The Spy.

12. Law, Jazz, and Hardboiled Eggs.

13. The Hit Man Who Liked Cats.

14. And the Waves Washed Over Them.

15. Homer's Chapel.

Working Girl and The Verdict

Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford.

Working Girl (1988). Mike Nichol's R-rated update of a familiar comedy formula, Working Girl earned six Oscar nominations, made a star (albeit briefly) of Melanie Griffith, and transformed Harrison Ford into a romantic lead. Griffith plays Tess McGill, a hard-working, ambitious young woman who thinks she has landed the perfect job when she becomes the personal assistant to business executive Katherine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). Katherine listens to Tess's ideas. It turns out that she also steals one of them, which Tess discovers while Katherine is in the hospital recovering from a skiing accident. Rather than confronting her boss, Tess passes herself off as one of Katherine's fellow executives. She uses her smarts to set up a big business deal, but will she be able to pull it off before Katherine discovers the charade? Kevin Wade's script offers no surprises, so Working Girl relies heavily on Griffith, Ford, and Weaver. Fortunately, they deliver whatever is required: Griffith's plucky heroine is vulnerable yet tough; Ford provides a charming romantic foil; and Weaver delivers a deliciously funny performance as the film's villain. Director Mike Nichols makes fine use of the New York City locations. However, his inclusion of three brief nude scenes (including two of Griffith) seems unwarranted in a film about female empowerment. Carly Simon's song "Let the River Run" earned Working Girl its only Oscar despite those six nominations. (Personally, I think a more deserving Carly Simon song was "Coming Around Again" from Mike Nichols' 1986 movie Heartburn.) 

Paul Newman as Frank Galvin.

The Verdict (1982). Paul Newman earned the seventh of his nine Best Actor Oscar nominations as Frank Galvin, an alcoholic, washed-up Boston lawyer. When a friend tosses a medical malpractice case his way, Galvin chooses not to settle it out of court. Instead, he ignores his clients' wishes and takes the case to trial. The reasons for his decision are unclear. Has Frank rediscovered his passion for law? Is he trying to prove to himself that he can still be a successful attorney? Is he solely concerned with justice for the comatose victim? David Mamet provides no clear answers. In his original draft of the screenplay, the verdict was never even revealed (the movie does include it). While I admire Mamet's intent, I find the The Verdict to be ambitious without being fully successful. There's a twist involving Charlotte Rampling's character that's obvious from the moment she is introduced. James Mason, a fine actor, struggles to find any nuance in his high-powered defense attorney who will do anything to win. On the plus side, Paul Newman breathes life into Galvin and convinces the audience to root for this self-pitying attorney--who may or may not have found his self-respect at the film's conclusion. I know many fans of The Verdict and I encourage them to make their case in the comments below or on Twitter (I'm @classic_film). I have made my final summation.