Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, 1952)

Mel Ferrer and Marlene Dietrich in Rancho Notorious

Vern Haskell: Arthur Kennedy
Altar Keane: Marlene Dietrich
Frenchy Fairmont: Mel Ferrer
Beth Forbes: Gloria Henry
Baldy Gunder: William Frawley
Maxine: Lisa Ferraday
Mort Geary: Jack Elam
Wilson: George Reeves
Preacher: Frank Ferguson
Harbin: Francis McDonald
Comanche Paul: Dan Seymour
Kinch: Lloyd Gough

Director: Fritz Lang
Screenplay: Daniel Taradash
Based on a story by Silvia Richards
Cinematography: Hal Mohr
Music: Emil Newman

Arthur Kennedy was one of those reliably good Hollywood actors who never made it to the first rank of stardom though he received five Oscar nominations during his 50-year career on screen. He gives what is perhaps the most convincing performance in Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious as the Wyoming cowboy who obsessively tracks down the man who raped and murdered his fiancée, but convincing acting perhaps isn't to the point when you're up against Marlene Dietrich, one of those larger-than-life movie stars who can upend a scene just by tossing back her shoulders, unleashing her familiar hooded gaze, and letting a famous leg slip from the slit in her skirt. The part of Vern Haskell needs a Gary Cooper or John Wayne just for balance. Nor does Mel Ferrer, his reliable blandness offset by frosted highlights in his hair, fare particularly well as Frenchy Fairmont, the current lover of Dietrich's equally absurdly named Altar Keane. But Lang keeps Rancho Notorious from steering too far into the direction of camp, offsetting its Western clichés with some well-staged action scenes and a steady pace that briskly ties up the plot in just under 90 minutes. Unfortunately, Rancho Notorious, which was originally titled Chuck-a-Luck, was tricked out with a narrative ballad accompaniment, "The Legend of Chuck-a-Luck" by Ken Darby, with the unsingable refrain, "Hate, murder, and revenge," that pops up every time you think you can keep a straight face. Still, the film is as watchable as it is incredible.

Turner Classic Movies

Bell, Book and Candle (Richard Quine, 1958)

Kim Novak was an actress of very narrow range, but in the right role and with a good supporting cast, she made a strong, sexy impact, as she does in Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955) and Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958). In Bell, Book and Candle, she is paired again with her Vertigo co-star, James Stewart, and surrounded by a supporting cast full of scene-stealers: Jack Lemmon, Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Gingold, and Ernie Kovacs. The movie is nothing special: a fantasy romantic comedy with Novak as Gillian Holroyd, a witch who runs a primitive-art gallery on the ground floor of the apartment house where Shep Henderson (Stewart), a book publisher, lives. She puts a spell on him; he leaves his fiancée, Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule), for her but breaks it off when he discovers that he's been hexed. And so on. The movie was made after Vertigo, and Novak and Stewart were re-teamed because of a deal Columbia had made when it loaned out Novak to Paramount for the Hitchcock film. It's not the most plausible of pairings: Novak was 25 to Stewart's 50 -- an age difference that was less problematic in the plot of Vertigo, with its theme of erotic obsession. Stewart chose never to play another romantic lead, but Bell, Book and Candle gives him some good moments to show off his exemplary skill at physical comedy, as in the scene in which he's forced to scarf down a nauseating witches' brew concocted by Mrs. De Passe (Gingold). The screenplay by Daniel Taradash opens up a one-set Broadway comedy by John Van Druten that had starred Rex Harrison and Lili Palmer. It was nominated for Oscars for art direction and for Jean Louis's costumes, but lost in both categories to Gigi (Vincente Minnelli). The cinematography is by James Wong Howe.