Maverick1962

I grew up watching Broderick Crawford every week in Highway Patrol on TV in the 1950's and was always impressed with his rapid fire speech pattern. He must have been the fastest talker in Hollywood. Here he doesn't disappoint. Playing the new boss of a newspaper that was losing money, he's brought in and starts working on more solacious headlines and proves to the board of directors that sales are on the up.

Cue the slick young reporter who is his favourite, because he's the kind of guy who will stop at nothing, played by pin up of the 50's, John Derek, and the two set out to change the paper. Derek is canoodling with his colleague, Donna Reed, a superior actress for roles like this in my opinion, but she seems more suspicious of what's going on.

Crawford, it turns out, has changed his name to avoid a wife, played by Rosemary De Camp, but ends up bumping into her at a lonely hearts club. They haven't seen each other for twenty years but he agrees to go back to her flat to talk things out. Things start to take a turn for the worse from here and the drama really begins.

A really well written and acted, noir type thriller I was not expecting when I recorded it to watch. Crawford is superb, twitching and sweating as things go bad for him.

I read that John Derek didn't like acting and thought his voice always sounded flat but why that was puzzles me as he's spot on here as the young brash reporter. He quit acting altogether after a handful of movies and is best remembered for promoting his sex symbol wife Bo Derek in the movie "10".

Donna Reed was to appear the following year in "From Here To Eternity" cementing her status in a classic movie. Always a beautiful, convincing actress, she lights up the screen whenever she appears.

A cracking, b/w, fast paced thriller, Scandal Sheet is to be highly recommended viewing. Look out for Harry Morgan as a press photographer with Derek. He went on to great acclaim later on TV in "Mash".

Based on the Romeo and Juliet tragedy, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' multi Oscar winning 1961 musical West Side Story, is no doubt one of the best made so far. My own personal favourite is Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein but that's another movie. This has a very dark similarity in it's portrayal of leading players characters ending in violence. Not the happy snappy tone of Singing In The Rain or La La Land, whatever your musical preference might be.

Whatever you do if you have not seen either this, or Steven Spielberg's recent updated version, I advise you not to choose the newer one as it's a feeble, unlikeable effort with no feel for Bernstein's music or in choosing suitable talent to carry it through. In short I hated it by comparison.

This 1961 version opens with an overture first of the sensational music against a plain coloured background that goes on for about ten minutes, so be patient. When the camera finally opens, over the skyline of tenements, we are introduced to Riff and his gang, lazily snapping his fingers before bursting into dance. The choreography is wonderful and quickly sets the pace for the rest of the movie. I rather think Russ Tamblyn as Riff is more effective than George Chakirus as Bernardo who won the Oscar but that's my preference.

The Romeo character is Tony, played by Richard Beymer, who being American, meets his Juliet in the shape of Puerto Rican, Maria, (Natalie Wood) and instantly becomes smitten, creating discord with her brother Bernardo. His girlfriend, Anita, is played by sensational actress Rita Morena, a terrific dancer, who also won an Oscar.

Loads of dancing and singing throughout that Spielberg only inserted into his drama as a kind of afterthought is how it struck me.

The great ballads, Maria, Tonight and Somewhere are mixed with the upbeat Officer Krupke, I Feel Pretty and America. I still have Tonight, like an earworm going around in my head. None of that happened with the newer version.

My message is don't mess with re-makes of brilliant original movies, you'll only get burnt. The stars singing voices are dubbed by more proficient singers, although the lip synching seemed spot on and works perfectly. This was common practice in musicals of the time as it made a better movie. Few actors could sing well enough and fewer singers could act well enough with the exception of Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.

Look out for the Gee Officer Krupke number where the kids are all dancing and singing, where Russ Ramblyn (Riff) an acrobat, jumps on a step and does a back flip in the middle of the other kids. Blink and you'll miss it, he's so fast. Before CGI of course, this is the real talent.