Julie London Films, 1958

The Films of Julie London

1958 (part 1)

Saddle the Wind A Question of Adultery

Saddle the Wind

1958. MGM. 84 mins. Not available on VHS or DVD. IMDb page.


Click to see film photos.	Click to see pressbook, ad, lobby, 2 record covers, and posters.

Armand Deutsch - Producer

Robert Parrish - Director

Rod Serling - Screenwriter

Thomas Thompson - Short Story Author

George Folsey - Cinematographer

John McSweeney, Jr. - Editor
Otto Siegel, Henry W. Grace - Set Designers
Malcolm Brown, William Horning - Art Directors

Elmer Bernstein, Jeff Alexander - Score
Helen Rose - Costume Designer

Cast:
Robert Taylor - Steve Sinclair
Julie London - Joan Blake
John Cassavetes - Tony Sinclair
Donald Crisp - Mr. Deneen
Charles McGraw - Larry Venables
Royal Dano - Clay Ellison
Richard Erdman - Dallas Hansen
Douglas Spencer - Hamp Scribner
Ray Teal - Brick Larson

PLOT: Rod Serling's first original screenplay for the Big Screen was the psychological western Saddle the Wind. In one of his best performances, Robert Taylor plays Steve Sinclair, a world-weary gunslinger. Hoping to become a rancher, Sinclair is given a plot of land by patriarchal Dr. Deneen (Donald Crisp), on the proviso that Steve tries to curb the violent tendencies of his younger brother Tony (John Cassavetes). Unfortunately, Tony is not so easily controlled; he not only seethes with sibling rivalry, but also takes near-orgasmic delight in his gunslinging skills. Determined to prove to Steve and to his saloon-girl paramour Joan Blake (Julie London) that his shooting prowess somehow makes him a superior being, Tony brings tragedy to all concerned. Elmer Bernstein's overemphatic musical score is ideally suited to the larger-than-life histrionics of Saddle the Wind. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New York Times review by "H.H.T." (March 21, 1958)

"Saddle the Wind" is an intelligent little Western drama that remains interesting rather than walloping. Yesterday's new arrival at Loew's State, starring Robert Taylor, John Cassavetes and Julie London, should and could have been both. Yet this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer entry, produced by Armand Deutsch in Cinemascope and color, is admirably compact, well-acted, extremely well-spoken and, indeed, often moving.

Adapted by Rod Serling from a "screen story" by Thomas Thompson, the plot deals with a tiny, gun-quiet community of cattle ranchers, where a restless young extrovert, Mr. Cassavetes, abruptly explodes some trigger-happy violence. Mr. Taylor plays his older, solicitous brother, a gunfighter turned solid citizen.

He also disapproves of Miss London, a nice derelict, whom the boy has blithely installed at home as his fiancée. The picture ends with a grim showdown between the brothers, after the shoot-'em-up youngster murderously hounds some land squatters. That's the gist of the action.

However, the emphasis is on talk. And the dialogue—whether Mr. Serling's or his source's—is excellent: blunt, thoughtful and scathing, in turn. The picture is worth seeing simply to hear what these people will say next.

Furthermore, the lean construction of Mr. Selling's blueprint and Robert Parrish's equally forthright direction keep the little community in such tight focus that we feel we really know them all, from Donald Crisp, as the firm, ruling patriarch, down to a quaking saloonkeeper.

The three stars are consistently good. But a superlatively affecting performance by Royal Dano, as the squatters' leader, steals the picture and cuts it in two. This middle sequence, as a desperate intruder bucks a hostile community, is staged with heartbreaking realism. So much so, in fact, that after Mr. Dano's death, a murderous young punk seems inconsequential. (This is said respectfully, for Mr. Cassavetes' smiling young psychopath wasn't an easy role.)

Consequently, the home-stretch—the brothers' showdown—seems prolonged, overly conversational and, worse still, anticlimactic. And the film, for all its solid assets, makes the viewer wonder uneasily if a brisk, early community hanging wouldn't have conveyed a lot more than any words.

A Question of Adultery

1958. National Theatres Associates. 86 mins. Not available on VHS or DVD. IMDb page.


Click to see film photos.	Click to see 5 lobbies and an insert.

Raymond Stross - Producer

Don Chaffey - Director

Stephen Dade - Cinematographer
Peter Tanner - Editor
Dan Sutherland - Play Author
Anne Edwards, Denny Freeman - Screenwriters
Philip Green - Score

Cast:
Julie London - Mary Loring
Anthony Steel - Mark Loring
Basil Sydney - Sir John Loring
Donald Houston - Mr. Jacobus
Anton Diffring - Carl Dieter
Andrew Cruickshank - Dr. Cameron
Conrad Phillips - Mario
Kynaston Reeves - Judge
Frank Thring - Mr. Stanley
Mary Mackenzie - Nurse Parsons
John Rae - Foreman of the Jury

PLOT: In this drama, a couple experiences marital turmoil because the husband is a hot-tempered race-car driver with a jealous streak. The woman then gets pregnant and begins hoping that a baby will bring them back together. Unfortunately, the two get into a terrible accident, she loses the baby, and her husband is rendered sterile. This makes her all the more desperate to have one and so she suggests artificial insemination. Her husband isn't totally for it, but then decides to go through with it. Unfortunately, he then changes his mind after the deed is done. At his father's urging, he files for divorce. In court, a jury must decide whether adultery (the film was made in the days before no-fault divorce) was committed. They cannot, but that is okay with the couple who reconcile and go on to become wonderful parents. Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

New York Times review by Eugene Archer (July 6, 1961)

A woman who undergoes artificial insemination against the wishes of her husband is the unlikely heroine of "A Question of Adultery," yesterday's new British import at the Apollo.

Since an objective viewer might well conclude that this is not a situation that would often arise, the film's extensive discussion of the problem seems, at best, superfluous. In its present artless, low-budget form, the subject matter seems designed to invite censorial wrath.

With Julie London enacting the central role with husky-voiced sincerity, the longsuffering heroine is at least attractive. The explanation offered for her conduct is a misguided attempt to save her marriage to a neurotic husband left sterile as a result of an automobile accident.

Anthony Steel, as the husband, is a jealous type who argues against her course and sues for divorce, labeling her action adulterous. The actor plays his role glumly under the lurid direction of Don Chaffey, as do Basil Sydney as his unsympathetic father and Anton Diffring as an innocent bystander.

After a protracted, hysterical trial scene more notable for the frankness of its language than for dramatic credibility, the jury, to no one's surprise, leaves the legal question unresolved. When the husband drops the case and returns to his wife, both seem sorry they brought the matter up in the first place. So was the audience.

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