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The Glass Bottom Boat Review

By Christopher Null

In 1966, The Glass Bottom Boat found Doris Day in the final days of her career (she retired in 1968 at age 44), seen here wearing an ill-advised bob and carrying some lingering pregnancy fat in a procession of increasingly hideous outfits. Those who remember Day as the gossamer girl from Pillow Talk and its ilk will be downright shocked to see Day dressed up in all yellow and looking like a rotting banana.

I'm being a little cruel, yes, but Boat is a pretty thin picture anyway and it doesn't merit a whole lot of sympathy. The story involves a misunderstanding (imagine that!) wherein Day is mistaken for a spy. Eventually she plays the part (when she isn't busy romancing Rod Taylor), when she isn't stuck in compromising positions with Dom DeLuise and/or Paul Lynde.

Continue reading: The Glass Bottom Boat Review

The Young Savages Review

By Christopher Null

Good

Despite its pedigreed cast list, The Young Savages, John Frankenheimer's first feature film, is a relatively tepid affair, though it hints at a grittiness and edge that films that would come 10 years later would start to exhibit. The story involves a small juvenile Italian gang that murders a blind Puerto Rican boy, but Burt Lancaster's prosecutor isn't so sure the case is cut and dried. Interesting ponderation on racial tension, but far from classic.

Elmer Gantry Review

By Christopher Null

Excellent

Burt Lancaster shines as the titular Elmer Gantry, a revival preacher with a questionable past and uncertain motives, in the epic film that won Oscars for Lancaster, Shirley Jones (as a hooker from Gantry's past), and the script by Richard Brooks. Written with an assured bite, Gantry skewers "that old-time religion" with a dramatic wit rarely seen in this era. Never corny (though its modern-day analogues most surely are), the film was a huge success in its day, and is all but forgotten now. Highly recommended for fans of Lancaster or Jean Simmons, who plays the earnest young preacher who gets caught up in Gantry's web.