De hombre a hombre

It's the first part, "The Secret Sharer", that will stick in your mind and remain there. It's a story by Joseph Conrad and actually one of his best and one of the very few that ends agreeably. James Mason is a captain on his first ship somewhere around Malaya (as usual) when he gets a swimmer on board, who has been swimming the whole day. He confesses to have murdered a person on board his own ship and therefore can't return. This naturally causes a predicament for James Mason on his first and crucial command. It's a fascoinating psychological drama, but the best part is all the insights you get by the film of how to run a sailing ship. The photo is magnificent and rich in its great panoramic compass of all the life on board, how the sailors work, impressing pictures of the ship at sea - this is a treat for fans of sailing ships, and as such it is first class and unforgettable. The second part with Robert Preston as a sheriff in the wild west is a comedy about how he has to cope with the problem of a drunk colleague running wild in his absence while he is off for a wedding. It is dwarfed by the realism of James Mason's performance.

Face to Face is quite good, but it is, essentially, two different movies based on two different books, stuck back-to-back for no apparent reason. Personally, I think the two stories share a sneaky anti-Christian undercurrent, but other than that they don't share a lot of similarities. The first story is based on a book by Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), which is about a first-time navel officer who, while on watch, finds a murderous refugee from another ship swimming in the ocean. It had a thoughtful and steady pace, and was fairly serious in its storytelling, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The second story is based on a Stephen Crane book about the gunslinging Marshall of a small western town who gets married in San Antonio. It's a more light-hearted story which is surprisingly funny at times, especially when the town drunk puts on his 6-shooters and decides to stumble around town raising heck. I don't know why these two 40-odd minute movies were stuck together in order to make a feature length film, but it seemed to work pretty well because it told two complete short stories in under 90 minutes. A neat and enjoyable film. Whee!

Watching these two films spliced together and believe me despite the opening narrative the Joseph Conrad story The Secret Sharer and Stephen Crane's The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky have really nothing in common at all. James Agee wrote the screenplay for both and he was far better on the Crane story than the Conrad story.

The Secret Sharer is a dull work as new captain James Mason with an unfamiliar crew stands watch himself one night and takes aboard a man swimming for his ship. It was Michael Pate who is mate of another vessel and he's killed a member of that crew. He tells a story so convincing in his justification for the homicide that Mason decides to help him flee.

No real action in this one, it's Mason with his crew and then with Pate doing a lot of talk talk talk. This was not one of the better film versions of a Conrad story by far.

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky concerns Marshal Robert Preston who has cleaned up the town of Yellow Sky so much so that he's gone to San Antonio to wed Marjorie Steele and bring her home. The only problem is that old time outlaw Minor Watson has gotten all liquored up and is terrorizing the town waiting to kill Marshal Preston. Watson who usually plays dignified establishment type figures is really in an offbeat role as the old time outlaw and he's good.

Marjorie Steele at the time was Mrs. Huntington Hartford and note the fact that Hartford is producer at RKO for this film. He would have had to deal with Howard Hughes who owned the studio then and the negotiations between those two billionaires must have been something. Though she's fine in the part of the bride, the film did not lead to a big movie career for Mrs. Hartford.

If you watch the film, I'd skip the first half lest you be bored and go right to The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky in Face To Face.

Two short features make up this movie. The first, THE SECRET SHARER, is based on the Joseph Conrad story. James Mason is a young man in the days of sail, enjoying the solitude of the midnight watch on his first command, when Michael Pate swims up and asks for refuge; he's been falsely accused of mutiny and fled for his life.

Mason gives a marvelous performance, filled with intelligence and curiosity that fills the viewer with confidence. I didn't know why he trusted Pate, but even when he seems to be driving his ships into the rocks to give the refugee cover to escape, I trusted him. It also offers some offbeat casting, with Gene Lockhart as bearded skipper.

The second story is THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY. It's a Bret Harte sort of story originally written by Stephen Crane. In it, sheriff Robert Preston is fetching his bride, Marjorie Steele, back to town, while old-timer Minor Watson is getting drunk and shooting up everyone between him and Preston. Once again, Watson is cast far outside his usual authority-figure personna, and is having a lot of fun. The performances seem very stagey here, possibly because Miss Steele was more a stage actress; she was also the wife of Huntington Hartford, the owner of about a third of A&P, and the producer of this movie.

Despite some issues with the second story, it's very good to see the tales told without padding to bring them up to full feature length. With Dan Seymour, Olive Carey, and James Agee -- who wrote the script for the second tale.