Tarantula

 Year:  1955

Director:  Jack Arnold

Screenplay:  Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley, from a story by Jack Arnold and Robert M. Fresco, based on the television episode "No Food for Thought" written by Robert M. Fresco from Science Fiction Theatre 

Starring:  John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll

Running Time:  80 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction, horror

When a strangely deformed man is found dead in the Arizona desert, Dr. Matt Hastings (Agar) investigates the laboratory of the respected Professor Gerald Deemer (Carroll), who has been working on a new nutrient to help feed the world's rapidly growing population, however, in it's unperfected state it causes rapid, uncontrolled growth, and exposure to it was somehow responsible for the deformity and death of the man found in the desert.  Things go from bad to worse when a tarantula Deemer had been experimenting on breaks out and goes on the rampage, as it keeps getting bigger and bigger, and hungrier and hungrier.

This is one of the better examples of the giant bug movies that were crawling all over American screens in the 1950s.  Science and particularly scientists were often depicted quite ambiguously in American film in the 1950s.  While science promised the brave new world of numerous gaudily printed science-fiction magazines, it also unleashed the horrors of the atomic bomb.  Even when the scientists were essentially benevolent and well-meaning, as in Tarantula, when the eggheads inevitably make a complete mess of things it is time for them to step aside and let the US Air Force blow everything to kingdom come. The film used quite advanced and complex special effects for the time, with blown up images of real animals used to depict the giant animals.  Most of the sequences of the tarantula itself use a real tarantula superimposed on to the footage, with model effects used for close-ups of it's fangs, and for the film's climax.  They may look unconvincing today, but the special effects were deemed convincing for the 1950s.  Also a lot of people are terrified of tarantulas anyway.  Jack Arnold was one of the great directors of B-movies, and has a solid cast of veterans, including Leo G. Carroll, who appeared in several Alfred Hitchcock films, as the avuncular professor who is unwittingly responsible for the whole mess.  John Agar, who appeared in a number of John Ford Westerns, plays the square jawed hero, and Mara Corday, who really doesn't have much to do as Carroll's assistant and Agar's love interest.  The film has an interesting script, adapted from a 1955 episode of the TV anthology series Science Fiction Theatre.  Tarantula's lasting legacy in popular culture is probably being name checked in the lyrics to "Science Fiction, Double Feature" the opening song for The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975): "And Leo G. Carroll/ was over a barrel/ when tarantula took to the hills."  You may also recognise the Air Force pilot at the end of the film as it is a very early, uncredited appearance by Clint Eastwood.

Tarantula

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

 Year:  1949

Director:  John Ford

Screenplay:  Frank Nugent and Laurence Stalling, based on the stories The Big Hunt and War Party by James Warner Bellah

Starring:  John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr.

Running Time:  103 minutes

Genre:  Western

1876: At Fort Starke, a remote US Cavalry post, Captain Nathan Brittles (Wayne), six days away from retirement, is heading out for his last patrol: to prevent a new war between the Cheyenne and Arapaho  and the white colonists following the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  However, Brittles' task is complicated by a second order: to deliver his commanding officer's wife, Abbey Allshard (Mildred Natwick), and niece, Olivia Dandridge (Dru), to an eastbound stagecoach.  To make matters worse, two of the soldiers in the patrol are vying for Olivia's affections, causing tensions among the patrol.

Named for a popular US Army marching song,  She Wore a Yellow Ribbon was the second film in director John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" following Fort Apache (1948) and concluding with Rio Grande (1950).  Ford originally didn't want John Wayne for the lead, partly due to the fact that Wayne would be playing a character about twenty years older than he was at the time, and partly because he didn't think that Wayne had the acting skill to play the role.  However, Ford changed his mind after seeing Wayne in the film Red River (1948), which caused Ford to exclaim "I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act!"  Wayne himself considered She Wore a Yellow Ribbon as one of his best performances.  While the film has plenty of broad humour (Victor McLaglen as the stereotypical drunk Irish soldier), it has surprisingly little of the action you might expect from a film like this, although there are a few battles between the cavalrymen and the Native American braves, they are brief and far between. The film has aged pretty badly with it's attitude towards the Native Americans (although there is a sympathetic and layered Native American character, Pony-That-Walks played by Chief John Big Tree), it's sympathetic attitude towards the Confederacy, Victor McLaglen's comic relief Irish character, and also the blood-and-thunder militarism.  The film also gets bogged down in the love triangle subplot between the two soldiers (John Agar and Harry Carey Jr.) , who are pretty much indistinguishable except one has dark hair and one is blonde, and Olivia.  However, the film has a strongly elegiac tone, as Brittles, a lifelong soldier and widower, contemplates a life away from his beloved Army.  John Wayne is at his best here, delivering an unusually thoughtful performance, and Joanne Dru is good, although she really isn't given much to do.  As always in John Ford Westerns, the locations in Monument Valley look spectacular.  

John Wayne and John Agar in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
 

Fort Apache

Year:  1948

Director:  John Ford

Screenplay:  Frank S. Nugent, based on the short story "Massacre" by James Warner Bellah

Starring:  John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple

Running Time:  125 minutes

Genre:  Western

Arrogant, embittered Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Fonda) and his teenage daughter, Philadelphia (Temple), arrive at Fort Apache, an isolated U. S. Cavalry outpost, where Thursday is to assume command.  While Philadelphia adapts well to life at the Fort, Thursday's high-handed manner and strict adherence to military rule and discipline, alienate him from his troops, particularly his second in command Captain Kirby Yorke (Wayne).  To make matters worse, Thursday's ignorance and bigotry towards the indigenous Apache tribes threatens to lead to war.

This was the first of director John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", which also included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), both of which also starred John Wayne.  For the first hour or so, the film feels almost like a comedy, as the strict, strait-laced Lieutenant Colonel finds himself at odds with the ragtag bunch of soldiers he finds himself commanding, while his daughter falls for a dashing young officer (played by John Agar), much to her father's displeasure.  However, it becomes more somber and surprisingly dark as it goes along.   Despite having star billing, John Wayne really has more of a supporting role here, with Henry Fonda's Owen Thursday being the main character.  Thursday was a General in the Civil War and is bitter at being busted down to the ranks and posted to some isolated fort in the middle of nowhere.  From his appearance here, it seems that Thursday was at best an armchair general, who might be able to recite chapter and verse of Genghis Khan's campaigns, but is terrible at the business of real leadership.  His attitude towards the local Native American tribes, in whom he is completely uninterested, veers from hostility to contempt.  In fact it's his daughter Philadelphia who is far better able to adapt to life at the Fort and, while he immediately dismisses the Fort and it's surroundings, Philadelphia is interested and curious about the country and the people who live there.  Fort Apache is notable for Westerns of it's time in taking a sympathetic view of the Native Americans.  While it is still very much from the view of the white settlers, the Native Americans are willing to come to a peaceful solution and their demands are perfectly reasonable, it's Thursday's racism that escalates the conflict.  The film was shot in Ford's favourite location, Monument Valley.  The film takes it's time to get into it's stride and the story doesn't really get into it's stride until it's second hour.  The climax is well staged and exciting and there is a moving epilogue which shows how the myth of the West was being written even while it was happening.  Henry Fonda is good as Thursday, managing to humanise a pretty unlikeable character.  John Wayne does well as Yorke, trying his best to counter Thursday's bigotry and avoid disaster for all concerned.  Shirley Temple is good as Philadelphia, and it is a pity that she isn't even more to do.