A Sergio Mendes Music Break

It is still summer. Saturday, the weather here was lovely. Sunny, comfortably warm and with a nice breeze. As the afternoon grew later, it reminded me of those wonderful Saturday afternoons back in Los Angeles when I was a kid. Mom, Dad, my sister, our little brother and me in the living room with the front door open. We'd be getting a delicious Pacific Coast breeze through the screen door. The smooth, familiar voice of local TV sportscaster would be on local CBS covering horseraces from Hollywood Park and chatting with Hollywood stars. Dad would've grilled hamburgers and hot dogs in the backyard. He was a master on the barbecue. His burgers were classic. Thick, juicy burgers practically the size of Frisbees. For me, Saturdays like that matched Christmas Eve -- because we'd be going to the drive-in movies. Going to the drive-in was my absolute favorite family pastime. Especially when Mom wrapped up the extra burgers and hot dogs, along with chips and a soft drink in a thermos, for our nighttime snacks during the movies. In my Southern California youth, I loved Saturdays in the summer with the family on our block. At the drive-in, you had to hook a little box-like metal audio gizmo onto your window for the sound. At the drive-ins then, there would be music playing before the features started. At the drive-in, on the radio at home, on TV, I always loved hearing Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66.  This group was just the coolest. It provided many of the best sounds of summer. So, let's have a little Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 music break.

Here's the group on the old HOLLYWOOD PALACE variety show. Weekend entertainment on ABC.

Here's my favorite by Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66. Their tasty version of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David tune from the 1967 James Bond spoof, CASINO ROYALE. Here's "The Look of Love."

I hope you enjoyed some of the music from my L.A. youth.

Muriel Box's SUBWAY IN THE SKY

In 1947, she won an Oscar for co-writing the Best Original Screenplay. The movie was the British psychological drama, THE SEVENTH VEIL starring James Mason and Ann Todd. Through the 1950s, she took her place behind the camera and directed several feature films. She directed Shelley Winters, Peter Finch, Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey, and Peggy Cummins, Glynis Johns and Sir Ralph Richardson. Those were noted actors. So why, even in today's discussion of female directors past and present, do we never hear any mention of director Muriel Box? I feel the late director still suffers from the absolute, undiluted, 100% misogyny of the male film critics in her day. I've read reviews of her films. Some were unjustly, uncomfortably harsh. It seems that she never had a champion, never had anyone to applaud her breaking the glass ceiling of the British filmmakers boys club. Why didn't the American film critics give her any encouragement? An Oscar-winning female screenwriter became a British film director working through the 1950s. That was quite an achievement. Director Muriel Box is a forgotten trailblazer in the category of female filmmakers -- and that needs to change.

Maybe she wasn't a David Lean, Carol Reed or Lina Wertmüller. Maybe some of her dramas didn't have the overall gritty and concise punch of the Hollywood films actress Ida Lupino directed in the early 1950s. Nonetheless, Muriel Box gave moviegoers some entertaining features that boasted fine performances.

I written blog posts about films directed by Muriel Box that I've seen. The films are: BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW (1953), CASH ON DELIVERY (1954), SIMON AND LAURA (1955), EYEWITNESS (1956) and THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN (1957). Overall, her films were just as entertaining as Hollywood films from 20th Century Fox in the early 1950s. I thought of the Fox dramas DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK and VICKI. I thought of the early '50s Fox comedies LET'S MAKE IT LEGAL and WE'RE NOT MARRIED, both featuring Marilyn Monroe. Shelley Winters as the lovable, brassy American babe in England trying to claim an inheritance in CASH ON DELIVERY was just as much fun as those two Fox comedies directed by men. Had it been a Hollywood project at Columbia Pictures in the late 1940s, the studio probably would've tooled it for Lucille Ball like it's 1949 comedy, MISS GRANT TAKES RICHMOND, co-starring William Holden. Here's a photo of director Box with Shelley Winters.

Box's comedy, SIMON AND LAURA, lampooned live reality TV in the early days of the BBC decades before reality TV became standard TV fare. BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW is a solid crime drama focused on the hard work of policewomen. Not only was Box a divorced female director (when married, Sydney Box was her co-screenwriter of THE SEVENTH VEIL), her directorial trademark was to focus on the female experience be it funny or serious.

Saturday, I found another film directed by Muriel Box. She directed another Hollywood actor. Van Johnson starred in the military murder mystery, 1959's SUBWAY IN THE SKY. I had a good time watching this mystery/romance. SUBWAY IN THE SKY is another Box film that made me think of the Hollywood films from Fox in the early '50s. In fact, I could see the SUBWAY IN THE SKY script having been tailored as a film noir-ish drama for Betty Grable, something like her 1941 movie, I WAKE UP SCREAMING.

The scene is Berlin. We see a U.S. military jeep speeding back to the base. A sergeant is killed in the woods. The search is on for the killer. In the city, lovely and sophisticated Hildegarde Knef  appears as Lilli. She's renting a deluxe apartment for six months. She's renting it from a rather nervous woman named Anna who's quickly leaving Berlin to care for her terminally ill sister. She dodges leaving a forwarding address. Lilli is with a friend who would like to be more than a friend. However, Lilli tells him honestly that she treasures his friendship. However, she now loves being single and independent. She was married. She loves her job and she loves her life as a single woman who can take care of herself. Lilli sings at a classy nightclub. Says Lilli, "I always wanted to live in a penthouse..." and "...I fancy myself as a spinster."

While alone, Lilli is frightened to see a U.S. soldier enter her apartment. He had a key. He's Baxter Grant and he's wanted as a deserter. How does he have access to the apartment? He's the husband to Anna who's later described as "unstable, neurotic." Baxter deserted because he was framed for a crime. He was a medical officer framed for peddling drugs. This all ties in to the murder. Lilli allows him to hideout and be her roommate while she goes to work and tries to deflect U.S. military police from searching her apartment. The plot may be a bit far-fetched. I think the best way to view this movie is as an enjoyable B-movie mystery.

One of the highlights of the movie is Lilli at work. Dressed like she's ready to be photographed by Richard Avedon for the cover of a glossy fashion magazine, Hildegarde Knef, with her throaty voice, sings a tasty jazz tune called "Love Isn't Love."

Baxter and Lilli will fall for each other. To show how their attraction has progressed, there's a scene that would've been forbidden in a Van Johnson Hollywood film of the 1950s. The camera travels into Lilli's room. We see clothing strewn about on the floor and on furniture and then it pans over to show us her double bed. He's lying shirtless on one side under the covers. We see that a head had rested on the pillow next to his. Then we hear Lilli in the shower. That was pretty sexy for 1959.

After that, the hunt to find the killer intensifies.  As for the odd title, it came from Baxter's childhood. In New York, he got lost once on the subway and felt helpless. Now he has that same feeling of helplessness in Lilli's -- sing it along with me -- "deluxe apartment in the sky -- hy..."

SUBWAY IN THE SKY directed by Muriel Box runs about 90 minutes.

On Chadwick Boseman

This has been the cruelest year. Many of our hearts suddenly cracked and broke again Friday night when we read the news that actor Chadwick Boseman died. He'd been battling cancer since 2016. While battling it, he continued to work. A message on social media from those close to him read "It was the honor of his career to bring King T'Challa to life in BLACK PANTHER. He died in his home, with his wife and family by his side."  Chadwick Boseman, in his early 40s, died loved and appreciated -- probably loved and appreciated more than he ever knew.

He was well-cast as baseball great Jackie Robinson in 42, a 2013 biopic addressing the racism Robinson faced in professional sports while he batted through segregation.

                                                                                               
As good as he was, I felt Boseman was even better as singer James Brown in GET ON UP. Lord have mercy, he burned up the screen with that performance! I was in awe of his talent. I was proud of his talent. Viola Davis starred as the mother of James Brown. Octavia Spencer co-starred  The biopic was directed by Tate Taylor, the man who directed Viola and Octavia in THE HELP (2011).

In 2017, we saw Chadwick Boseman in another big screen biopic. In MARSHALL, the versatile young actor played the man who became the first African American Supreme Court Justice. He starred as Thurgood Marshall.

Then came 2018's BLACK PANTHER with Chadwick Boseman as King T'Challa.

Even as recently as the 1980s, Hollywood's discriminatory notion was "Black stories don't sell." Director Norman Jewison, a successful Caucasian Canadian whose IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1967 with Rod Steiger taking home the Oscar for Best Actor. was stunned at the top studio rejections he got when he wanted money to film A SOLDIER'S STORY, based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play. The rejection came because the story had a predominantly Black cast. Jewison offered to work for way less than his usual fee in order to raise money for the production. He got the movie made -- and A SOLDIER'S STORY, featuring newcomer Denzel Washington, was an Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 1984.

Magnificent talents like Cicely Tyson had to go to TV for steady work and good scripts. After her Best Actress Oscar nomination for her remarkable performance in SOUNDER (1972), Hollywood had no other scripts for the Black actress. No other lead role offers. She had to go to TV to play Coretta Scott King, Harriet Tubman and groundbreaking Chicago teacher Marva Collins. Collins' technique and dedication were covered when she was profiled on CBS' 60 MINUTES. Hollywood did not have such biopic opportunities for Black performers.

Chadwick Boseman starred in three big screen biopics and then he played a king in an action/fantasy that not only showed Africa as a rich and culturally advanced civilization, it had Black actors in the lead roles. BLACK PANTHER embarrassed old Hollywood creeds that "Black stories don't sell" by becoming a domestic and foreign box office blockbuster helmed by a Black director, Ryan Coogler.

The work of Chadwick Boseman made me feel so significant, so proud and so grateful to be alive to see it. I remember one weekend when the popularity and importance of BLACK PANTHER was in the entertainment headlines. TCM was airing old Tarzan movies for early Saturday morning fare. In those early 1930s adventures, Black Africans were never presented as intellectual or important. They were disposable citizens in their own land. They carried Bwana's British luggage on their heads during his journey to exploit their land. If they refused to follow his orders, he'd shoot them. Or they'd be the victims of angry gorillas. Or, in early Hollywood images of "Black on Black crime," they'd be killed by pygmy savages. Those pygmies were played by white actors in blackface. Around that time, the Orange Man in the White House had referred to Africa as "a shit-hole country" in conversation. Shining through and cutting through all that like a giant, golden sword was BLACK PANTHER starring Chadwick Boseman as King T'Challa.

 Angela Bassett co-starred with him in BLACK PANTHER. Upon hearing of his death, she wrote "This young man's dedication was awe-inspiring, his smile contagious, his talent unreal."

Millions of us loved and appreciated Chadwick Boseman. He had the spirit of a great king on screen and off. He used his time and his talents well.

Thank You, MR. SOUL!

There's some powerful Black History in this documentary that many of us missed and many others might not have known was hitting the TV airwaves. The documentary ends with a montage of contemporary faces and images -- people and events that the late TV host, Ellis Haizlip, surely would have talked to or talked about on his show. Spike Lee, Misty Copeland, Ava DuVernay, the murder of George Floyd. Long before the three words became a forceful social statement and a global phrase, SOUL! was a weekly TV talk/variety show fueled by the creed "Black Lives Matter." SOUL! aired on WNET, New York City's PBS station, from 1968 to 1973. Ellis Haizlip gave audiences a show that was a huge groundbreaker in presenting diversity and cultural awareness on television. Mr. Haizlip was Black, a visionary and he was gay.

Melissa Haizlip has directed a documentary about her trailblazing uncle and it's something we really need to see now. I was enlightened, entertained, moved and humbled. I wish I could have met him to thank him for his work, his compassion and his honesty. And, Lord, did he book some sensational talent on his show! Muhammad Ali, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, little Arsenio Hall, Stevie Wonder, Carmen de Lavallade, Harry Belafonte, Ashford & Simpson, poet Nikki Giovanni, the Last Poets. SOUL! was fierce. I loved growing up in South Central L.A. However, I wish I could've been in the New York area at that time to see some SOUL!

The show came along when there was hunger from African Americans for positive images of our community on television. The 1960s had the Civil Rights movement and there was also coverage of the uprisings in Black communities across the country. It's understandable why some Black citizens viewed TV "...as a tool to denigrate human life." The coverage of the uprisings, like the Watts Riots I witnessed as a youngster in that community, were presented via a white male news reporter gaze. My parents and I watched the Watts Riots coverage on local TV news and we read the reports in the Los Angeles Times. There was no Black reporter on TV at a local station to go into our community and file reports. There was no Black reporter on staff at the Los Angeles Times. That was August 1965. SOUL! presented the accomplishments, achievements, angers and attitude of Black people via a Black gaze. The gaze of the remarkable Ellis Haizlip. His show would,  be fresh even by today's standards. He had a mostly female production staff, he gave great attention to female artists on his show, he loved and acknowledged the theatre arts and he featured spoken word artists. Long before rap and hip-hop, we had the Last Poets. He finessed a TV broadcast of poet Nikki Giovanni interviewing James Baldwin. All this cultural richness was in the spotlight thanks to a gay Black TV host and executive producer. Here's a trailer.

Ellis Haizlip punctured sexism and homophobia on TV -- especially within programming for Black audiences. About his being gay, same-gender loving, two spirit or whatever you choose to call it, one of his relatives initially was not accepting of it. Nonetheless, as one person says on-camera about Haizlip's being different, "...that was his magic."

If I had known about SOUL! in the 70s when I was starting college, if I had known there was a gay Black man making positive TV history, if I had seen those shows and learned from them, I'm positive I would have been more confident and braver in my TV career -- especially during my talk show host years in New York City in the late 80s.

A buddy and former co-worker is in this documentary. He's the fascinating Felipe Luciano. Felipe knew Ellis Haizlip. Felipe himself became a TV host. He was a news anchor on New York City's Fox5 station. He anchored on GOOD DAY NEW YORK. For that local morning news show, I did entertainment features in the 1990s. Every time I worked with Felipe on the air, I felt that his energy made me better. He's smart, sophisticated, earthy, sexy, provocative, truthful, giving and wise. He is exactly the kind of person I hoped to meet when I moved to New York. I mention him because, gay man that I am, I always felt safe in his presence be it on-camera or off. I felt I could be myself with him. Ellis Haizlip must've felt the same way. Felipe's warm accounts of their friendship are some of the highlights of this documentary. And there are many. The production is dedicated to the late actress/singer Novella Nelson. She was a marvelous talent many of you may recall from the 2002 drama, ANTWONE FISHER, starring and directed by Denzel Washington. She was in the original Broadway cast of the hit musical, PURLIE!, based on a comedy play by Ossie Davis.

Before Oprah, before Arsenio, there was Ellis Haizlip. SOUL! was an extraordinary cultural landmark. The documentary director says that her uncle "was considered to be the Black Johnny Carson." He was a true pioneer with a revolutionary show. The TV history he made deserves to be remembered. MR. SOUL! starts streaming August 28th. Thank you for this lively and revealing documentary, Melissa Haizlip. It is most relevant today.

www.MrSoulMovie.com.

Suffragette Loretta Young (1941)

This year, 2020, marks the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment in America. The amendment to the Constitution granted Caucasian women the right to vote. It was a victory for suffrage and for democracy. There would be more work to be done to secure voting rights for Black and Native American women. Classic film fans have seen suffragettes in old Hollywood films. Look at the montage in the opening five minutes of KITTY FOYLE (1941).  Olivia de Havilland played a spunky suffragette in the comedy, THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (1941). As a London wife and mother, Glynis Johns was a singing suffragette in Disney's MARY POPPINS (1964). Just like Olivia de Havilland in THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE, there was another spunky suffragette in another 1941 comedy. Loretta Young starred as THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE, a 1941 comedy western from Universal. Her leading man was the handsome Robert Preston.

Is it a 4-star comedy like MY MAN GODFREY, THE AWFUL TRUTH, THE LADY EVE or SOME LIKE IT HOT? No. But it is worth a look for the suffragette angle and to see an upgrade on the kind of roles Black actors got in movies of that era.

Here's the plot: In the 1860s, a prim and proper Philadelphia Quaker schoolteacher gets an inheritance and heads west to Wyoming to open a school for youngsters. She's independent and pro-Abraham Lincoln. There's a selling of lots, real estate, and a scam is being pulled off during the sales. Edward Arnold, in the kind of role he mastered, plays the shady tycoon at the heart of this scam. He's also the tyrant who will oppose the freedom of the local press. Annie Morgan (Loretta Young) gets a deed, of course, and she gets her schoolhouse where she can teach kids about William Shakespeare and Robert Browning. The greedy tycoon is determined to control the water rights of Annie's schoolhouse. His control would deprive farmers of water. Steve Lewis (Robert Preston) is in on the tycoon's scam. He meets Annie. The schoolteacher is experiencing feelings she didn't have in Philadelphia.  "Square dancing and moonlight. Doesn't it sound romantic?" she says to him. We know that love will ensue.

Annie has a quick and formidable temper as the men in the town saloon see for the themselves when she causes some damage. She gets a quick lesson in local politics in her quest to beat the town tyrant. She has to get a bill passed. Annie must proceed to support what one male character calls "that scatterbrained idea." That idea -- she lobbies for women to get the right to vote in the town's local elections. Politics is a new game to suffragette schoolteacher Annie Morgan.

Willie Best was one of those many Black actors constantly given racially stereotypical roles to play in Hollywood films. He was usually a slow-moving, uneducated janitor or elevator operator or porter.

Many classic film fans will surely remember Best as the wide-eyed Algernon in the 1941 crime thriller, HIGH SIERRA, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, Rare was the film like the snappy 1940 mystery/horror comedy, THE GHOST BREAKERS, starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. In that, Willie Best was the well-dressed valet/buddy to Bob Hope's character. It's refreshing to see the quality of scenes he gets with Hope and Goddard in the Paramount feature.

Willie Best plays George in THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE. George and Annie bond. George may seems to be mostly in a service worker role, but he has keen knowledge of politics and how they work. He knows how the game of lobbying to get a bill passed is played. George becomes to Annie what the Jean Arthur character was to James Stewart's newly-elected junior senator in Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939). Except for the romantic angle, it's the same dynamic. The insider tells the newcomer how the game of politics has to be played in order to take-down some town corruption.

Loretta Young was a pro at comedy and she knows the right energy to keep this story afloat. She would win her Best Actress Oscar for another and better political comedy years later -- THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER (1947). In THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE, the Quaker schoolteacher from Philadelphia needs the help and support of other women. She must convince them that the bill for women's suffrage is "...one of the most controversial issues of the day."

The women she connects to, the women who give her advice and support, are the brassy and wisecracking saloon tootsies. They know the secrets of the guys who run the town. They give the movie a nice comedy zest. THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE may be one of the few old Hollywood movies in which we see an all-female jury.

Near the end, Annie walks over to her political mentor and says "Goodbye, George. And thank you so much for everything." She shakes his hand.

Considering the kind of roles Willie Best and other Black actors got at the time in Hollywood, roles in which their characters were presented as second-class citizens, that movie moment with Loretta Young was quite significant.  1941's THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE starring Loretta Young, Robert Preston, Edward Arnold, Willie Best, Gladys George and Iris Adrian runs 1 hour and 28 minutes. You may be able to find it on YouTube. And, yes, Annie Morgan is from Philadelphia even though the movie is called THE LADY FROM CHEYENNE.

See THE APOLLO

It's not just Black history. It's American history. It's entertaining. It's enlightening. At times, it's infuriating because it's socio-political. It's a 2019 documentary I saw on HBO. A documentary called THE APOLLO and it takes us to the truly iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem. The Apollo stands as one of the most famous theaters in New York City.

I've never revealed this about my TV career, but it's the truth. I didn't seek a TV career to become a star. I want to be popular on the medium, yes. Because if I was popular, I was drawing an audience. If I was drawing an audience, I could stay employed. I wanted to do work that I loved and be paid well for a job well done. I wanted to land the kind of work opportunities that were denied Black people when I was a kid and I wanted to make enough money to give my divorced, single mom a better home with a more comfortable life. I did the best I could. There was pay disparity. Between 2000 and 2008, with years of national TV credits on my resume including having been the first African American talent to get his own prime time celebrity talk show on VH1, I was offered national broadcast work that paid $500 a week. When I got those offers, I thought to myself, "They wouldn't offer me this low money if I was white like Rosie O'Donnell or Tom Bergeron."

Despite that, in my career, I have been blessed enough to meet and often interview several people who are interviewed in THE APOLLO. Those people are  Leslie Uggams, Patti LaBelle, the late Nipsey Russell, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Chris Rock, Angela Bassett and Paul McCartney. The documentary, directed by Roger Ross Williams, take us from the 1930s when an unknown singer named Ella Fitzgerald got onstage and sang a song she loved by vocalist Connee Boswell to the modern times of Black Lives Matter. Yes, it's entertaining. However, this doc also makes you say "The struggle is real and the struggle has been long." Here's a trailer.

Patti LaBelle talked about her early career and times when she was not treated with the same respect as white performers. She also talked about the hardships of being a Black woman performer on the road back in the days when restaurants and hotels had a "White Only" policy.

There's talk about the racial inequalities in the entertainment world of yesteryear. There's talk about the racial inequalities in America today.

Paul McCartney tells how he and The Beatles were heavily influenced by Black music and entertainers who headlined at The Apollo. The Beatles wanted to visit The Apollo when they made their first trip to America. During my VH1 years -- 1987 to 1990 -- I flew to London to do an exclusive interview of Paul McCartney for a one-hour special. In it, I asked him about The Beatles' first appearance on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW on CBS. The audience was packed with screaming teen girls. I asked if he noticed that there were no Black teens sitting with those screaming Caucasian girls. He replied that he most certainly did. The Beatles wanted their audiences to be integrated.

THE APOLLO is a very good documentary. Look for it on HBO Max, YouTube or Amazon Prime.

For Richard Burton Fans

He was an extraordinary actor. When he didn't allow the excesses of stardom to dim his talents and wisdom of script choices sometimes, Richard Burton graced the screen with several terrific performances. By the time the celebrated Welsh actor with the magnificent voice starred with Edith Evans in the screen adaptation of LOOK BACK IN ANGER (1959), he was a Hollywood star who had a couple of big screen clunkers and a couple of Oscar nominations under his belt. He'd been appearing onstage in London, wowing critics and audiences, when he was discovered with the help of two high profile fans who'd seen him -- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Richard Burton came to America to screen test for Fox's 1952 costume drama, MY COUSIN RACHEL. Starring as the mysterious and alluring Rachel in the Daphne du Maurier story was two-time Best Actress Oscar winner, Olivia de Havilland. For his Hollywood debut, Richard Burton earned himself an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. For his performance as Fox's 1953 Biblical epic, THE ROBE, he was an Oscar nominee in the Best Actor category. After that, movies like the overblown ALEXANDER THE GREAT (1956) and the soggy SEA WIFE (1957) co-starring Joan Collins as a shipwrecked nun didn't make box office history. However, a great Hollywood romance and some great scripts were only a few years away for him. Great scripts such as BECKET, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD and, or course, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? co-starring Elizabeth Taylor, then Mrs. Richard Burton. 

In between the box office bombs and the sizzling romance with Elizabeth Taylor was LOOK BACK IN ANGER based on the popular and landmark John Osborne British play of the same name. It ushered in the era of "the angry young man" in British plays and films. Burton pounced on the opportunity to play Jimmy Porter, the angry young working class musician. Edith Evans played Mrs. Tanner, the maternal lady who can make him smile and drop his anger for a moment.

For the two actors, the 1959 film was a reunion. At the beginning of his film career, in Great Britain, they played mother and son in the 1949 drama, THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN. He's not the star of the film. A few names appear onscreen in the opening credits before we see his. The two top stars are Edith Evans and Emlyn Williams. Williams not only starred in the film, he directed it and wrote the screenplay. His previous work as a writer is known to fans of classic Hollywood films. Two of his plays -- the psychological thriller, NIGHT MUST FALL, and the dedicated schoolteacher drama, THE CORN IS GREEN, were both made into good, Oscar-nominated Hollywood films. 1937's NIGHT MUST FALL starred Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. 1945's THE CORN IS GREEN starred Bette Davis.

THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN is a tale of revenge and a mother's love. Williams plays the angry businessman who returns to the little village in Wales he left 20 years earlier when he was about 12. He was a poor kid, in a low-income Christian village, who was ridiculed for stealing. He never forgot or forgave some kids for laughing at him when he was caught. Now it's 1892 and he's been a successful businessman working for a water company in London. The haughty man returns to the Welsh village with the intent of buying the town out and making it seem like a great opportunity.

The movie opens with a modern-day scene. People stand on a bridge and read a plaque on a stone overlooking a great body of water. Out of the water, poking up, we see a church steeple. The plaque tells us about the great Dolwyn flooding. Two lives were lost. Only one body was retrieved.

Water from the company has to be distributed. Corporate heads know the water could be distributed around the village. However, Mr. Davis connives his way into handling the account in a rather clandestine way. The conniving Mr. Davis says "Money can buy anything -- and I've got it." He also says "I'm settling an account with the village." Smiling, he gathers the villagers and tells them that, in the name of progress, they will all get money to relocate to Liverpool where they can have better homes and jobs waiting for them in that more sophisticated city. All they have to do is take the money and go over the mountain to the other side. When he reveals the "progress" that will take place, the village clergyman replies "Dolwyn will be drowned."

And it will be. The village will be no more. That's Mr. Davis' evil plan of revenge.

Merri (Edith Evans) is a simple, Christian woman with two grown sons. She constantly reads her Bible. She doesn't push her views on anyone. She just reads her Bible, applies good Christian principles to her own life and she's the caretaker of the town church. She keeps it dusted, tidy and orderly for services.  She's a loving mother who loves the simple life of her village. Her son, Gareth, has lived in Liverpool and he's home for a visit. He too loves his village. Gareth (Richard Burton) is a sweet young man who will find romance during his stay at home.

Ironically, the one thing that keeps mean Mr. Davis from buying the village is a document Gareth finds in his mother's possession. She didn't even realize she had it but it carries great weight with the London corporate heads. It can save the village from being flooded and allow the families to stay in their homes. Merri challenges Mr. Davis.

It's fascinating to see early Richard Burton in this role. He was Welsh. In THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN he plays a villager in North Wales and he speaks Welsh. To hear him speak some of that language, to see him trim and smooth-faced with his voice at a higher octave, to see him energetically running happily through the fields of his village is quite lovely.

The kindness and unselfishness of Merri makes mean Mr. Davis even angrier. His hunger for revenge makes him a crazed man who gets into a brawl with Gareth. Merri will be forced to make a decision she never expected she'd have to make in her lifetime.

Edith Evans -- wow. What a performance. Emlyn Williams is perfectly evil as Mr. Davis and young, unspoiled Richard Burton is a joy to watch. How does the village of Dolwyn get flooded? You must see for yourself. If you can find THE LAST DAYS OF DOLWYN, take the 95 minutes to give it a look. It's good.