Another Time, Another Place

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I had heard a lot about this film. I like Lana Turner and I have always thought that Glynis Johns is one of the loveliest British actresses who ever went to Hollywood - our loss, their gain. She seemed to steal every scene that she was in. I thought this was just going to be another love story with a wartime background, but it was more than that. It turned out to be a very touching and human story. The scenes of Cornwall were beautiful. It would have been great in colour, and the film had the loveliest ending that I have ever seen in any film of this genre. Lana Turner never won an Oscar, but I am surprised that she was not, at least, nominated for an Academy Award for this picture. She was always good at playing this sort of role, lighting up the screen as her performance developed. I am not usually a fan of love stories, but there was just something about this film that made me keep watching it. I do not know what it was. Maybe it was just Lana Turner's performance and the beautiful scenes of Cornwall. I have recorded it on Talking Pictures. I might even watch it again. I have also enjoyed watching Sean Connery in one of his early roles. He is always good, no matter what film he is in. However, I should imagine that British audiences must have sat in the cinema wondering how a Scotsman could have been born in Cornwall.

ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE is a slow-moving romantic melodrama set at the tail-end of WW2. It sits rather incongruously in the cinematic mood of 1958, when Hammer's full-blooded gothics were wowing audiences at the cinemas and the new and exotic 1960s were just around the corner. This feels like a weepie from the 1930s more than anything else. Lana Turner (whose private life during this period is more interesting than anything in this film) somewhat unbelievably plays a journalist who turns up in London and begins dating a BBC reporter, as played by bushy-eyebrowed Sean Connery. You can guess what follows, but it's not much; the whole second half of the film is based around a few characters chatting around the kitchen table and it's all told at a snail's pace. A shame, because the cast (which includes Glynis Johns and Barry Sullivan) is above average and with stronger writing this could have been good.

More focus has been placed on the goings on behind the story rather than what really should have been the focus. I must say that the set-up of this film was dull as dust with the romance of two journalists played by the very attractive Lana Turner and Sean Connery. He is suddenly killed in a plane crash just as the war ends and Turner finds herself in the village where she finds herself a guest of his charming wife Glynis Johns and their young son. Guilt and memories set Turner up for a break-down. Unfortunately, this isn't an affair to remember even if the scenes with Johns become very touching. That lovely squeaky voice and absolute charming demeanor make you want to hug her from the moment you meet her and it only serves to show what an ice princess Turner was. She could be certainly lovely and dominate attention, but a coldness oozes off her lovely shoulders showing that she was never allowed to grow past that sweater girl image and truly become a woman. Barry Sullivan, top billed in the male lead, seems embarrassed with his lack of a role. If it wasn't for Ms. Johns, this would be a true turkey.

Lana Turner first made her name in the forties as a glamorous seductress in films like "The Postman Always Rings Twice", but in the late fifties and sixties she tended to specialise in "women's pictures". These were romantic melodramas predominantly aimed at a female audience with a strong female character, generally played by a big-name Hollywood star at their centre. The male characters, and most of the other female ones as well, were defined in terms of their relationship with her. Turner was often cast in the sort of parts which a few years earlier would have been taken by actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. "Another Time, Another Place" is an example, as are films like "Peyton Place", "Imitation of Life" and "Madame X". Those three films were all American, but "Another Time, Another Place" was made in Britain. Turner plays Sara Scott, an American newspaper reporter working in London during the Second World War. The film is less about her journalistic work than about her romantic life. She is torn between love for two men, her American editor Carter Reynolds and Mark Trevor, a British reporter for BBC radio, eventually choosing Mark, even though she knows that he is married with a young son. Shortly after the war, Mark is killed in a plane crash, and Carter persuades Sara to take a ship from Plymouth back to New York. She takes this opportunity to visit Mark's home town in Cornwall where she meets his widow, Kay, and even takes a room in Kay's house without revealing her true identity. Although Mark is supposed to be Cornish, he is played by Sean Connery with his normal Scottish accent. Cornwall was presumably chosen because of its proximity to Plymouth, so it would not have been possible to change the plotline to make Mark a Scot. Connery also seemed too young for the role; he would have been 28 in 1958, making it difficult to accept him as the married father of a nine-year-old son. Connery's isn't the only dodgy accent in the film; the South African-born Sid James was never convincing as an American newspaperman. It is a long time since I last saw "Peyton Place", but I would not rate "Another Time, Another Place" as highly as "Imitation of Life" and "Madame X". Both these films have their weaknesses, but they also have their strengths. The strengths of "Imitation of Life" are the direction of Douglas Sirk, especially his subtle use of colour, and its use of the melodrama form to explore serious social issues, especially racism. The main strength of "Madame X" is its powerful ending, which suddenly transforms what had previously been a dull, plodding film into something worth watching. "Another Time, Another Place" doesn't have anything comparable. It lacks the strong ending of "Madame X"; indeed, its ending, in which Sara goes to live with Kay, a development never really explained, is one of the weaker elements of the film. "Another Time, Another Place", which is in black-and-white also lacks the visual attractiveness of "Imitation of Life", although some of the shots of the Cornish coast are well done. Unlike that film, it does not have any real social comment. It is a melodramatic weepie of the type that was popular in the forties and fifties but which today looks faded and dated. 5/10.

Super-mega spoiler coming up! Don't say I didn't warn you! While some might have been surprised by a romance between Sean Connery and Lana Turner due to the difference in their ages, I am sure most Brits actually were more surprised by hearing the Scottish Connery saying he was from Cornwall--in the very southeast corner of Britain. The accents are so very different, I could just imagine the Brits watching the film getting a bit peeved--though at the time, most Americans wouldn't have noticed. The film is set in the latter portion of WWII. The first few minutes are great--very tense and I felt myself on edge as a man disarmed an unexploded V-2 rocket! Turner and Connery are there because they are war correspondents and it seems they have fallen deeply in love...or at least Turner has. In their scenes together, you can detect a hint of apprehension in Connery. So, when he later divulges that he is married, the audience isn't terribly surprised--but Turner is crushed. But, after thinking about it, she shows she is also a person without character--and STILL wants to marry Connery (I would have preferred her kicking him in the crotch--but that didn't happen). Then, after he agrees to ask for a divorce, he's unexpectedly killed in a plane crash. Now if you were in Turner's situation, what would you do? Yes, you'd go off to Cornwall to see where Connery lived--and even see his wife and son incognito. This is all a bit creepy and weird--and against her doctor's advice. When she arrives, she is befriended by Connery's widow (Glynnis Johns)--a nice lady who you can't help but like. However, as Turner has some weird sort of Hollywood ailment following Connery's death, she wanders outside of Johns' home later and faints! She clearly isn't do well and so she is invited to stay with Johns for several days. Talk about awkward! When Turner's boss and ex-boyfriend (Barry Sullivan) learns where she is and what she's doing, he's upset and rushes to Cornwall to retrieve her. After all, he reasons that sooner or later the wife is going to learn the truth if Turner stays much longer. Oddly, however, Connery's old assistant (Terence Longdon--who wants Turner to leave ASAP) turns out to be the one who convinces Johns that perhaps Connery was cheating on her. That's because whenever she mentions her dead husband, the assistant looks away and changes the subject--and she suspects something was amiss. What will come of all this? See the film. While it's hard to believe the plot, hard to like Turner (she is so selfish and a bit goofy) and the music a bit overdone, the film is an interesting soap opera. And, it ended very well. In other words, I enjoyed it even though I know it was a rather flawed film. In fact, Turner made quite a few flawed soaps during this era--and yet they were mostly very enjoyable.

*Spoiler/plot- 1958, Another Time, Another Place, A struggling British news reporter finds love after competing with his American female arch-competitor during Britain's WW2 years. *Special Stars- Sir Sean Connery plays male lead. Lana Turner plays female lead. *Theme- Love will find away, even in wartime. *Based on- WW2 news stories. *Trivia/location/goofs- A very early British film with a young heavy eyebrow-ed full head of hair Connery and then American girlfriend star, Turner. Turner and Connery started to date during the film. This film was brought up in court testimony during the murder trial of Ms. Turner's daughter knife killing of local LA mobster, Johnnie Stampanado. This murder case testimony got Mr. Connery too much personal attention from LA's organized crime leaders and they ordered him to leave Hollywood ASAP while working on Disney film called, Darby O'Gill. Connery temporarily moved from Hollywood to the SF Valley to continue his filming days and then he went home to the UK. *Emotion- An easily forgettable film except for the fact this was one of the few earliest film roles that started Connery onto his international film stardom today.

NOTES: Locations in the fishing village of Polperro, Cornwall. Interiors filmed at Elstree Studios, London. COMMENT: Out of a dime- store women's novel, Stanley Mann has constructed a screenplay of stupefying boredom, indifferently acted, and directed with suitable dullness. The film's only attractive feature is Jack Hildyard's black- and-white VistaVision photography, particularly of the locations in a small village in Cornwall. For a while there, it looked as if VistaVision was going to pose as a serious rival to CinemaScope, but this didn't happen. The fact that VistaVision (a non-anamorphic process achieved by the simple expedient of running standard 35mm film horizontally – instead of vertically – through the camera) produced a much sharper image failed to impress audiences who were sold on the much wider 'Scope screen.

Set in Cornwall (not that you'd know from the accents, least of all Connery's) in 1945 (not that you'd know from Lana Turner's chic fifties wardrobe). The title is apt, as it belongs to a very specific moment in 1957 when Sid James was still playing Americans, Lana's film career was simply treading water (just before the publicity resulting from the Stompanato scandal revived it again) and Sean Connery - suffering yet another false start - cost next to nothing. Likewise it completely lacks the glossy high contrast colour photography by Russell Metty and mellow piano music by Frank Skinner (rather than the noisy score here by Douglas Gamley) that became a hallmark of her vehicles for Ross Hunter. Turner's penchant for Bad Boys showed both in her offscreen liason with Johnny Stompanato and her onscreen one with a Connery still sporting his original bushy eyebrows. But it's really about Lana's relationship with Connery's wife Glynis Johns.

Lana Turner and Barry Sullivan are the only Americans in this British production where a name Hollywood star got the top billing to insure a good foreign market. In this case Turner also produced Another Time, Another Place so she dictated the billing in any event. This film also features Sean Connery as a Richard Dimbleby type radio broadcaster in a film set right at the end of World War II. Turner has a fling with Connery who breaks it off and confesses he's got a wife and child back in a village in Cornwall from where he comes. After that Connery killed in a plane crash going to report on the surrender of Kesselring's army in Italy. So the brokenhearted Turner goes to said village and meets up with wife Glynis Johns and son Martin Stephens. Some might find that romantic. Personally I found that whole thing just ghoulish. If Turner had any decency she would have taken the advice of her boss Barry Sullivan and returned to the states. In the end she does. Sullivan has little to do but wait for Turner to come to her senses and finally win her. Not one of Lana's best. Connery is well cast though.