Love Is a Ball and A Big Hand for the Little Lady

Love Is a Ball (1963).  I thought I had seen every 1960s romantic comedy until the blandly-titled Love Is a Ball popped up on the cable channel Screenpix. It stars Charles Boyer as Etienne Pimm, a matchmaker who is part Pygmalion and part con artist. He specializes in pairing titled, but financially poor, European aristocrats with wealthy potential spouses. The catch is that the latter have no idea that they're the "target" of a matchmaking scheme. Pimm's latest client is Duke Gaspard Ducluzeau (Ricardo Montalbán), who not only lacks wealth...he also lacks sophistication. To address Gaspard's deficiencies, Pim hires three men to teach Gaspard how to speak properly, how to drive fast cars and play polo, and how to eat fine food. Problems arise, though, when heiress Millie Mehaffey (Hope Lange) becomes attracted to one of Gaspard's teachers, former race car driver John Davis (Glenn Ford). The first half of Love Is a Ball moves along at a merry pace--and who knew that Ricardo Montalbán could be so funny? Inevitably, the focus shifts to the romance between Millie and John, who are the film's least interesting characters (and seem like a poor match to boot). Shot mostly on-location on the French Riveria, Love Is a Ball is a mildly pleasant romcom that overstays its welcome and mostly wastes the fine performances of Boyer, Montalbán, and Telly Savalas. Director and co-writer David Swift fared better at Disney where he made Pollyanna (1960) and The Parent Trap (1961). In Paul Mayersberg's book Hollywood, the Haunted House, Swift stated that Glenn Ford "approaches his craft like a twelve-year-old temperamental child." Needless to say, they never worked together again.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966).  Well, this is one of those movies that you can discuss with a "spoiler alert" warning. Or, one can tread very carefully when describing the plot. I will opt for the latter in discussing this deceiving Western about an annual high-stakes poker game involving the five richest men in Laredo. Even though the whole town knows about the big event, no one else is allowed to participate, watch it, or even stay informed about the current standings. That changes when a farming family passes through town and is forced to spend the night after a wagon wheel breaks. Meredith, the family patriarch, is a recovering gambling addict with a hefty bankroll--to be used on a purchasing a farm. However, he succeeds in getting a seat at the poker table and proceeds to bet his family's nest egg on what he claims is to a sure-fire winning hand. There is a lot of gamesmanship going on in Big Hand for the Little Lady and your enjoyment of the movie will hinge on your acceptance of the ending. I was pleasantly surprised on my first viewing many years ago, but the plot struggled to hold my interest in subsequent viewings. The cast almost overpowers the premise with solid work from Joanne Woodward, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Kevin McCarthy, and a slew of familiar faces. (I recognized the young actor that plays Meredith's son from Samuel Fuller's fascinating The Naked Kiss.) Director Fielder Cook and screenwriter Sidney Carroll based on A Big Hand for the Little Lady on "Big Deal in Laredo," a 1962 episode of the one-hour TV series anthology The DuPont Show of the Week. It starred Walter Matthau and Teresa Wright in the Fonda and Woodward roles. I haven't seen it, but wonder if the shorter running time might have strengthened the premise.

Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man

Ernest Hemingway wrote two dozen stories about his alter ego, Nick Adams, throughout his literary career. Playwright and novelist A.E. Hotchner, a Hemingway friend who later penned the biography Papa Hemingway, combined several of the Nick Adams stories into the 1962 film Adventures of a Young Man. Hemingway liked the idea and wrote the movie's opening and closing narration. It was his intent to record it, but he died in 1961.

The film opens in a small northern Michigan town in 1916 with Nick (Richard Beymer) feeling frustrated with a life already laid out for him by his parents. He loves his father (Arthur Kennedy), the town's physician, but can't cope with his domineering mother (Jessica Tandy). Nick sets out on "the road" to discover his place in the world and perhaps become a writer. On his odyssey, he encounters a punch-drunk former boxer (Paul Newman) and his caring friend, an alcoholic small-time promoter (Dan Dailey), and a newspaperman who admires Nick's spunk--just not enough to give the inexperienced young man a job.

Richard Beymer.

Nick ends up working in a restaurant in New York City, where he volunteers for the Italian Army (despite not being able to speak Italian). Once he joins his unit overseas, he is assigned to the medical corps where he befriends a fellow American (Eli Wallach) and an Italian officer (Ricardo Montalban). The horrors of war, a serious injury, and the death of two loved ones change Nick's outlook on life--leaving him more experienced, perhaps sadder, but also better prepared for the challenges that await him.

The idea behind Adventures of a Young Man is both interesting and worthy. The opening scenes, set during a colorful autumn and accented by Franz Waxman's score, have an almost lyrical quality. It's a shame that the rest of the film--which clocks in at almost 2 1/2 hours--can't sustain it. Instead, it tries to mask its obvious flaws: a bland protagonist, miscasting, and a lack of cohesion.

Having never read the Nick Adams stories, I can only comment on the character presented on screen. He's a self-centered, incredibly naïve, and uninteresting young man until much too late in the movie. Even in his final scenes, when he's supposed to have undergone a transformation, Nick's focus seems to be on his own needs. It would have been nice to see him show some interest in what became of his jilted girlfriend (Diane Baker) and loyal friend (Michael J. Pollard).

Paul Newman in makeup.

It doesn't help that Nick is played by Richard Beymer, best known for starring as Tony in the 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story. Beymer's All-American looks may work to his advantage as Nick, but his limited acting range becomes more apparent as the movie progresses. His later scenes opposite seasoned pros Eli Wallach and Ricardo Montalban are almost painful to watch. (Surprisingly, though, Paul Newman gives the film's worst performance as "The Battler," a former boxer who mumbles incoherently and stares open-mouthed into space. It just goes to show that anyone can have a bad day--but when A-list actors do, it's captured on celluloid for posterity.)

Other than sequencing Hemingway's stories, screenwriter Hotchner makes no attempt to connect them. As a result, Adventures of a Young Man unfolds like a string of disjointed TV episodes featuring a single continuing character.

Still, I suspect that Hemingway fans will want to see Adventures of a Young Man. For those readers who admire the Nick Adams stories, here are some of the titles interwoven into the plot: The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife, Indian Camp, The End of Something, The Three-Day Blow, The Battler, and Now I Lay Me.

The Movie That Saved a Franchise--Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan

I recently watched all six of the Star Trek films featuring the original cast. That experience confirmed what I had long suspected: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan may be the best sequel to follow a mediocre first film. To be fair, Star Trek: The Motion Picture wasn’t as bad as I remembered—but it’s a lumbering journey to “where no man has gone before.” There’s too much stately footage of the starship Enterprise and the new characters (weakly played by Stephen Collins and Indian actress Persis Khambata) lack interest. Despite critical drubbing and much Trekkie criticism, the film was a boxoffice smash and so Paramount gave the green light for a sequel.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was ousted from the project and the reins were handed over to producer Harve Bennett. A non-Trekkie, Bennett watched every episode of the TV series and determined that the first film lacked two ingredients: (1) a dynamic villain and (2) an emphasis on the on the “triangle” of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy.

The Wrath of Khan resurrects one of the series’ most memorable bad guys, the supergenius Khan (Montalban), who attempted to take over the Enterprise in the TV episode “Space Seed.” After being thwarted by Kirk and crew, Khan and his followers were marooned on an unpopulated planet and given the opportunity to start again. Alas, in The Wrath of Khan, we learn that the destruction of a neighboring planet has turned Khan’s world in a deadly desert and that Khan’s wife has perished as a result. When a starship on a scientific mission inadvertently provides Khan with a means to escape, the mad man seeks his vengeance on Kirk.

Khan lures the Enterprise to a scienctific station working on the Genesis Project, an experimental device that can create life on a planet with no life—but which can also used as a devastating weapon. It just so happens that the Genesis project leaders are one of Kirk’s former flames…and the son Kirk has never seen.

The coincidental aspects of the story are a bit hard to swallow, but co-writer/director Nicholas Meyer zips the plot along so speedily that one has little time to notice. I really like how he crosscuts from Kirk to Khan to the Genesis team as they all converge on the same location.

The Kirk-Spock friendship forms the heart of the film (McCoy is used primarily for comic relief). Their closing scene together is the best in all Trek films and also provides the most memorable line of dialogue: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one.”

With its back-to-basics approach, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan laid the groundwork for the rest of the Trek films and pretty much saved the Star Trek franchise. It also forms a trilogy with the Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (their plots are connected, whereas the last two films are stand-alone adventures).

In addition to Wrath of Khan, writer-director Nicholas Meyer was also involved in the next two best series entries in the series: The Voyage Home (an amusing time travel adventure) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (an effective mix of politics, sci fi, and mystery). Meyer, whose filmography is surprisingly short, also directed another time travel tale: the classic Time After Time.