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!

Rock and Dorothy Write It in the Dusty Wind; Leslie Caron Can't Replace Doris

Dorothy Malone may have won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Written on the Wind (1956), but Rock Hudson benefited more from the film's success. Along with Giant (1956) and his Jane Wyman pairings, Written on the Wind propelled Hudson into a major star. Thus, he was at the peak of his career while Malone's film roles were fading when they teamed up with Kirk Douglas in The Last Sunset. Malone's guest appearance in a 1961 two-part episode of Route 66 signaled the beginning of her transition to a television career that eventually resulted in the hit nighttime drama Peyton Place.

In The Last Sunset (1961), Malone plays the wife of a drunken, cowardly rancher (Joseph Cotten) who unknowingly offers a job to his spouse's former lover Bren O'Malley (Douglas). A Texas lawman named Stribling (Rock Hudson) wants O'Malley for the murder of his brother-in-law. The two men encounter each other at the ranch and, surprisingly, agree to put their showdown aside to help Malone and Cotten drive a herd of cattle through dangerous territory.

Considering the talent involved, including former blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo and director Robert Aldrich, The Last Sunset should have been a better film. Nevertheless, the cast keeps it interesting and Kirk Douglas makes Bren one of the most poetic cowboys in American cinema, as evidenced by the passage below:

Find yourself a nice, big boulder with the waves breaking against it. Look deep. Dream of seahorses and they'll come. Not many people know of it. Not many people care. But the sea is a place where the seamen shoe the hooves of the wild sea mare. Not many men have seen it or caught the faintest gleam of the ice green cave in the deep green sea in the heart of the cold sea stream, but the sea mare hides her young sea colt wrapped in a shy sea dream. But probably all the people know and can absolutely say that the foam on the sea is the sign that you see the mare and her colt at play.

Carol Lynley, in one of her first major roles, has the best scenes as Malone's daughter. Ironically, the two actresses share a Peyton Place connection. Carol played Allison in the film Return to Peyton Place (1961), while Dorothy Malone later portrayed Allison's mother on the 1964-69 TV series.

Malone might have improved her performance in The Last Sunset by toning down the glamour. One can almost overlook the soft blonde curls, but her heavy pink lipstick and eye shadow seem inappropriate for a woman driving the chow wagon on the cattle trail.

Finally, one can't discuss The Last Sunset without mentioning a climatic revelation that may make some viewers cringe. It's not that the revelation is surprising--I suspected it from the beginning. It's that the screenwriters insert a scene that will convince many viewers that their suspicions cannot be correct. Thus, when the "truth" (assuming Malone's character isn't lying) is revealed, the realization of what happened (and what could have happened) is an "oh my" moment. If this paragraph doesn't make sense, read it someday after you've seen the movie.

Chadwick talking with two girlfriends
at the same time.

Rock Hudson's versatility and popularity made him one of the busiest actors in the 1960s. In A Very Special Favor (1965), he trades his Western duds for a business suit as a New York-based "trouble-shooter" named Paul Chadwick. He defeats a French attorney, Michel Boullard (Maurice Chevalier), in court by sleeping with the female judge. The elderly Boullard admires Chadwick's way with the ladies. In turn, Chadwick bonds with Boullard and, feeling bad about how he won the case, offers to perform a future favor.

It turns out that Boullard is visiting New York City to spend time with his daughter--whom he hasn't seen in many years. He learns that she is a female psychiatrist (Leslie Caron) who completely dominates her fiance (a very funny Dick Shawn). Deciding that his daughter needs someone who can ignite her passion at least once, he calls in his very special favor with Chadwick.

Leslie Caron.

What follows is the kind of sex farce that Rock Hudson and Doris Day carried off so effortlessly in Lover Come Back (my fave), Pillow Talk, and Send Me No Flowers. The problem with A Very Special Favor is that Leslie Caron lacks Doris' comedic chops--and there's no Tony Randall!

It's still amusing to see Rock, who was a fine comedian, play a ladies' man masquerading as a sensitive guy who's afraid of the opposite sex. His performance, though, is just a variation of the role he played to perfection in Lover Come Back. And without Doris Day--the ying to his yang--A Very Special Favor falls flat too many times.