Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Leora Dana, Karl Swenson. Director: Delmes Daves
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CRITICA EN EL PERIODICO "ABC DE MADRID" (5-3-1959)
"Cenizas bajo el sol", la película que se proyecta en el cine Paz, es un relato cinematográfico de excelentes calidades. Seguimos en él la historia, digamos amorosa, ya que hay un amor y un amorío de dos militares norteamericanos, en la última guerra mundial, durante las luchas que siguieron al desembarco de las fuerzas aliadas en la Costa Azul. El guión está construido con gran habilidad, de manera que hay escenas bélicas y los episodios amorosos en los que intervienen ambos combatientes, un oficial y un sargento de transmisiones de la misma unidad, se equilibran de manera que la narración no resulta en ningún instante sobrecargada. desde luego, la historia es dramática, pero su dramatismo se ha sabido buscar y hallar principalmente en las situaciones de la muchacha que ha despertado los sentimientos de los dos hombres, y entre ellos mismos, en sus actitudes diferentes hacia ella. Todas las reacciones de los personajes centrales que son cuatro: los dos soldados, la joven motivo del conflicto que se plantea y explaya, y la madre de ésta, se han cuidado muy particularmente, así que la pintura de los caracteres resulta acabada. El clima de la película, es igualmente, otro acierto, un clima hecho de la vida en las ciudades costeras, y de recreo, en tiempo de paz, y de los campos de batalla, a cuatro pasos de ellas. La interpretación es excelente, asimismo en general -y señalamos las de los cuatro artistas principales-, pero es la de Frank Sinatra la que sobresale, y, quizás una de las mejores que hemos admirado de este celebrado actor. A Tony Curtis en cambio, le hemos visto más afortunado otras veces, quizás porque en ésta su papel resulta un tanto ingrato. En cuanto a las dos mujeres, dan, cada una en su estilo, versiones exquisitas de sus personajes.-DONALD.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some tasty technical credits on offer here; two fine novelists fashioned the screenplay and versatile veteran Delmer Daves, no slouch as a writer himself, was behind the camera. Southern writer Joe David Brown had three of his novels adapted for the screen beginning with Stars In My Crown and ending with Addie Pray which became Paper Moon with this one in the middle. His fine novel was altered in keeping with the climate of the times yet although the girl survives we are still denied a happy ending. This is one of Sinatra's finest acting jobs and his understated Sam Loggins surpasses the flashier Frankie Machine of The Man With The Golden Arm because he is saddled with the thankless task of portraying basic decency, if not goodness, and not being Jack Lemon, James Stewart or Gary Cooper, all of whom personify the quality before saying a word or doing a thing, Sinatra is obliged to ACT it and makes a first rate fist of it. The Sinatra persona we know is highlighted in the opening sequence; it's 1944 and Sinatra's company are in the South of France marching to a new base camp; Paris has just been liberated and the locals are cheering the arrival of the Americans but one old lady (Maris Isnard) silently offering a drink of wine - probably all she has - is totally ignored and even Sinatra's Lieutenant Sam Loggins passes her by at first but then he pauses, walks back to her and graciously accepts a glass of wine with a smile. They exchange pleasantries then Sinatra leaves and as he does so he gently takes the bottle from her and hands her the glass. Economically the screenplay introduces the second male lead, Sergeant Britt Harris, a replacement radio technician. This is the kind of part that Tony Curtis used to phone in; a brash, arrogant, smarmy,full of himself little s**t; this time around he's rich as well, the spoiled brat who's managed to avoid any dangerous assignments and treats a world war as a glorified night club. In the fullness of time Sinatra meets Monique Blair (Natalie Wood) and is instantly smitten. The following week he meets her mother, Leora Dana, and becomes a regular guest at their large villa on every weekend pass he gets. In nothing flat both mother and daughter are so comfortable with him that they reveal that Monique's father was Black (or, as they used to say in 1958, a Negro). The stage is now set for Curtis to upset the apple cart and he duly obliges when Sinatra foolishly takes Monique into Nice for a night on the town and they stumble into a club where, lo and behold, Curtis turns out to be a dab hand with the trumpet. From then on Sinatra gets less of a look-in than he did previously until the inevitable moment when Curtis informs all concerned that he never had any intention of going through with marriage to Monique on the grounds that he is a bigot but not averse to Black tail. In the novel Monique who had led a sheltered life to say the least - her parents had deliberately moved to France for her birth and Sinatra was the first American she had ever seen - commits suicide and Sam kills Britt but in the movie Sam sees to it that Britt is killed, loses an arm himself and visits Monique for a last farewell before returning to the States; since the death of her mother (for which no explanation is offered) she has taken to running a school for orphans and that's where we leave her. There are two excellent performances from respectively Sinatra and Leora Dana, who was actually some eight years younger than Sinatra and made up to look the forty-something she was meant to be. Curtis is just Curtis, mediocre to fair and Wood is unconvincing as a girl born and raised in France. Jazz buffs are catered for in the nightclub scene where the musos include Red Norvo, Pete Candoli, Mel Lewis and Richie Kamucha but playing the kind of 'modern' jazz more representative of the 1950s - as exemplified by the Chico Hamilton combo in another Curtis movie, The Sweet Smell Of Success - than 1944. On balance a good rather than a great film but more than worth a look.
Thanks for your comment, Paco Granados
ReplyDelete