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Season 17’s second four from a hack director concludes this week with the final film by Edward Dmytryk under discussion, a color saddles-and-stirrups flick WARLOCK (1959).

Arguably a better title of ≪L'Homme aux colts d'or≫ in its French-language release, Warlock as a two-hander Western covers the entry into the unincorporated community of Warlock by Henry Fonda’s Clay Blaisedell, a legendary gunslinger who owns a pair of golden six-shooters and, separately, the evolution of Richard Widmark’s Johnny Gannon from reluctant outlaw cowpuncher to sheriff of Warlock whose prominent citizens earlier lacking a sheriff had contracted Blaisedell to clean up. Homoerotic tensions arise between Blaisedell and Anthony Quinn’s Tom Morgan when Blaisedell decides to pursue romance with a significantly younger woman in lieu of their money-making vigilante partnering ways. Sheriff Gannon’s character also finds a love interest as the movie builds toward <> its final act, a post-shootout shootout between Blaisedell and Gannon with no Morgan to watch the former’s back. And no plot summary would be complete without mention of Star Trek TOS’s very own DeForest Kelley as “Curley” Burne, a member of Gannon’s former gang with some magnetism remaining in the character’s moral compass.

This week, Thomas expands on a list of movies whose misleading titles lead to disappointment; Ken expresses he’s not fonda Fonda in this film; and Ryan soft-shoes the homoerotic tension.

We’re taking a week off before shifting gears and entering the demolition derby that will be our next four in the 4x4 starting with Ron Howard’s debut film Grand Theft Auto.

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It’s calm seas and second helpings of strawberries this week as the TGTPTU boys cover their third of four curated Edward Dmytryk films, the multiple Oscar-nominated picture THE CAINE MUTINY (1954).

Saving its then “issues” producer (and subsequent to this movie an issues director) Stanley Kramer’s bacon, Dmytryk delivered a bona fide hit picture adapting the already popular book by Herman Wouk about a fictional mutiny during WWII among American seaman upon the titular Caine. Deviating from the Broadway courtroom play starring Henry Fonda (who’ll show up in next week’s Dmytryk film), the movie hews closer to the novel depicting on screen and in glorious Technicolor events aboard the ship leading to the mutiny, leaving the theatrical adaptation’s courtroom drama for the third act. The movie would also add Yosemite National Park as a romantic getaway between its Ivy League, very mid, blonde protagonist and POV character Ensign Willie Keith played by a now relatively unknown Robert Francis who died tragically at age 25 after a plane crash and his character’s fiancée May Wynn played by May Wynn who changed her stage name to that of her character on the recommendation of Kramer. And for more on the plot, there’s IMDB, Wikipedia, and further resources on the World Wide Web if you don’t have a great-grandpa around to ask.

The film would have seven Academy Awards nominations and no wins, with Bogart losing out to Brando (and Kramer to Spiegel) for On the Waterfront.

This episode Ken and his metaphor get sweaty towards the ep’s end; Ryan reveals the thuggish life of Joan Didion; and Gen Z’ers Jack and Thomas settle the TGTPTU style guide dispute over how to pronounce “gif.”

And now for an important announcement:

Despite what your lying ears have heard, there has never been a recorded mutiny on TGTPTU. The truths of each episode lie not in their incidents, but in the way these three hosts in the battle for the Pacific Northwest meet the crisis of their lives. Now sound the Star Trek Original Series whistle, we’re coming onboard.

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Mirage

Season 17’s Hacks continues with MIRAGE (1965), the latest selection from Edward Dmytryk’s filmography curated by cohost Ryan phoning in from Arizona for his second of four flicks picked in this season’s 4x4. And another black-and-white noirish mystery loosely adapting a novel.

Dmytryk’s reworking of the uncredited print material (the 1952 novel Fallen Angel) created a film that exploits the conventions of the genre to obscure the film’s conceit and twist reveal, which is <> that the protagonist David Stillwell played by Gregory Peck has amnesia of the non-explosive kind (clarification for Matt Groening fans, yes, we see you Portland, Oregon whose citizens named their streets after Simpsons characters; Vancouver, WA, putting you on blast: when are you going to get onboard and do the same for your streets using Futurama characters?) and where were we? This amnesia seems to set yours falsely back two years, or was it two days, like this protagonist Stillwell who thinks he’s a cost accountant and meets Sheela played by Diane Baker on a stairwell that descends more stories than the building physically has. But with our introduction in media res to Stillwell proverbially and literally in the dark after power loss at the high rise that leads to this stairwell descent, the audience is set up for misdirection. Add in what seem cutaway scenes that might actually be flashbacks and vice versa, and the art of editing and our movie literacy actually impedes, as intended, our understanding the events of the film. Yet with the help of a scene-stealing Walter Matthau as novice private eye Ted Caselle and later a psychologist and throughout with Kevin McCarthy who plays Stillwell’s coworker Josephson in the employ of mysterious and powerful character The Major, Stillwell is able to piece together the puzzle of his missing and nonchronological memories. Using his cunning intelligence during the standoff at the film’s climax, Stillwell forces Josephson to make a moral decision, and the stakes couldn’t be higher: The Major wants to make nuclear war clean, i.e., make the use of atomic weapons feasible for the U.S. military, and Stillwell—not a cost account—has the equations to make it so. <>

Non-spoiling: The editing in this film is amazeballs. And its jazz-inspired score is by Quincy Jones.

This week, experience relative deprivation as Peck’s car purchase for his screenwriter has Ken disappointed in Spielberg’s gifting as discussed back in Season 6; Ryan covers the second half of Dmytryk’s life and career during and post-HUAC; Jack takes another bye week; and Thomas dives back into his recent 70’s disaster film watches to provide unrelated information. Also, Ken has a surprise that might presage a pattern for hosts and films this 4x4 season.

To borrow from the Futurama episode “Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television”:

“When I grow up, I’m gonna have so much amnesia!”

“Me too. I mean, I have it now, but I forgot.”

This episode is dedicated to The Greater Good. May your best days be before you still.

Now where was I? Seems like I was just on SE Fry St where it intersects with Bender Blvd.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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