“Leave Her To Heaven”/Ben Ames Williams

Director: John Stahl, 1945
Everything about “Leave Her To Heaven” is overly ripe, from the performances (particularly Vincent Price’s sneering district attorney) to the Technicolor, awash in purplish hues, to the dialogue, also awash in purplish hues. Based on the popular 1942 novel by Ben Ames Williams (more on him later), the movie tells the melodramatic story of Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney), seriously gorgeous but—alas—also seriously psychotic. Ellen has a major father fixation, and when daddy croaks she spots novelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde, who sadly was anything but wild). Harland, you see, reminds her of her late father. Tierney, one of the most beautiful actresses of her day, is so overly and unnecessarily made-up here she could have inspired Lady Gaga. Ellen digs Richard so much that she proposes to him, even though she’s engaged to Vincent Price. Once married, Ellen turns out to be a homicidal control freak who will tolerate no one in her life but Richard.
Unfortunately, Richard has a younger brother, Danny, who has polio. Danny provides the one bravura scene in the film: when he develops a cramp in the middle of a lake, Ellen in a nearby canoe ignores his pleas for help and lets him drown. From there, complications arise of the sort you’d expect in a movie derived from middlebrow, best-selling claptrap (don’t get me wrong: I like middlebrow, best-selling claptrap, particularly from this era).
In short, “Leave Her To Heaven” is ridiculous—but it’s rarely dull; there are far worse ways to kill a few hours (say, a night spent watching Nancy Grace, or deciding to finally get around to renting “Yentl”).
Ben Ames Williams (1889—1953) is a perfect example of a celebrated author whose name and work quickly disappear from the culture after death. In life, Williams published 432 short stories and more than 30 novels, several of which were made into movies besides “Leave Her To Heaven” (including 1953’s “All The Brothers Were Valiant”). Where are those 432 short stories now? When was the last time anyone read one of them? As for the novels, his 1947 Civil War epic, “House Divided,” was reprinted in 2006, and it’s a hell of a doorstop: 1,514 pages in its original hardback--that’s about 720,000 words, or 275,000 MORE than “Gone With The Wind,” according to Orville Prescott in his New York Times review, which was decidedly mixed. Yet 17 recent readers praise the novel on Amazon. Nevertheless, life really is too short to take on 1,514 pages.
One odd fact about Williams (and this seems like something from The Onion): the second headline on his NYT obit reported that “Ben Ames Williams, 63, Is Dead—Author Succumbs During Curling Contest.”
That’s right: Williams died while playing curling.
And you thought bobsledding was dangerous.

Curmudgeon

I'm in one of those moods today, so I have to say that I don't give a damn about Larry King or his successor, and while I don't want to speak ill of the dead, George Steinbrenner's death only leaves me wanting to watch Larry David's impression of him in all those great "Seinfeld" episodes. But given Steinbrenner's churlish behavior over the years, and the fact that you have to mortgage your home to afford a ticket to Yankee Stadium these days, I'm not shedding any tears, either.
Branch Rickey was a baseball executive to admire. Not George Steinbrenner.

“Zombieland” 2009

Director: Ruben Fleischer
A while back I wrote about “Dead Snow” and ‘fessed up to my endless fascination with movies about the undead—specifically ravenous, merciless zombies who like to chomp on brains as they surround the usual bunch of humans who have turned into mercenaries in order to survive.
“Zombieland” has a sharp script and a fine cast. The zombies are quick on their feet and enjoy munching on the few people left in the world.
The movie is played mostly for laughs and gross outs—and works well despite the last fifteen minutes or so that seem a bit perfunctory. There’s also a terrific cameo by Bill Murray. Catch it on cable when it pops up.
As for all of my fellow zombie-lovers: some need to lighten up in their comments about this zombie flick or that zombie flick, pointing out flaws, inconsistencies of plot, absurdities. Let’s face it: all zombie movies are absurd. If you think about it, it makes no sense that dead people—no matter how ambulatory—would have any hunger at all. We eat to live. If we were dead, why would we need to eat human brains—or any other human part? We’d just be wandering around the streets or in our homes, bumping into things or other zombies. Pretty damn dull.
So let’s just sit back, make some popcorn and enjoy 90 minutes with the ridiculous—but usually quite entertaining—undead.