Salomé

I just saw this movie for the first time ever and I liked it. Her dancing was very entertaining. I read somewhere that she got the part in this movie because she knew how to dance. The scenery was great too. Yvonne is such a talented woman and beautiful. WE laughed at the silly kissing scenes, but that is what is great about old movies! I grew up with her on The Munsters and I am enjoying watching her in her earlier movies. They may not all be the best out there but still worth watching to see her act and sing. I am slowly purchasing all her movies and watching them as I receive them. I have a large collection of her memorabilia.

Okay, so this is a movie with a throw-away script, characters and situations profoundly unlikely, some very inept acting, and even a title which doesn't make sense. So what?

DeCarlo was gorgeous, Albert Dekker was the heavy. They, and everyone else in this movie who should have had an accent, made a valiant -and occasionally effective- attempt to sound foreign.

This is popcorn Saturday afternoon matinée art. It is meant to be a joyride on a merry-go- round. Don't criticize the painted horses because they don't look real. Okay, Yvonne wasn't much of a dancer, but she could dance well enough for grade school kids. The color was pretty good. There were impressive sets, a bit of outdoor action, plenty of extras, and even some how-to-live-life-right by that venerable Asian philosopher, Abner Biberman.

Miss DeCarlo's starring debut has everything the writers could come up with -- from the Franco-Prussian War to the US Civil War, the great American West, San Francisco in its heyday, ballet, opera, vaudeville, stage coach bandits, and a Chinese junk. Just when you thought the plot couldn't get any screwier, it does. It's magnificent, taken tongue in cheek. DeCarlo's character (here called Anna Marie -- NOT Salome, that's the role she dances) is loosely based on the career of the notorious Lola Montez, who was the mistress of the King of Prussia and caused a revolution when he gave her the crown jewels. She did escape to the American west. There is a town in Arizona called "Salome, Where She Danced," based on the historical fact that Lola Montez did dance the role of Salome there. StageCoach Cleve and the Russian nobleman who fall under her charms are not historically accurate, nor I assume is the Chinese wise man with the Scottish accent -- but it is one of my favorite all time camp classics and DeCarlo is breathtakingly beautiful throughout.

Much underrated camp movie on the level of Cobra Woman, etc. Photographic stills resemble Rembrandt prints. Sometimes subtle dialog and hidden literate touches found throughout.

Ms. De Carlo did some great films - "Criss Cross", "Band of Angels" - but her acting skills never had anything to do with it. Both films I mentioned had her teaming with excellent directors and leads who made up for her limited range. One of the (many) problems with "Salome" is that De Carlo is on her own, neither director nor actors being good enough to provide any supply. David Bruce in particular is so non-expressive he makes Sylvester Stallone looking like Alec Guinness. His love scenes with De Carlo are ridiculous, as he conveys as much love feeling as he had a cow in his arms. So sad, for a better acting *might* have made the screenplay a pill easier to swallow. It takes much humor or abnegation to believe in such a mess of a story, blending Lee and Bismarck, Prussia and West America, and filled with implausible characters and situations. I guess some viewers may find it funny, but I found it simply dull and boring. The only good thing about this flick is its looks: photography is splendid, worthy of a better material, and Ms. De Carlo is really beautiful - if not in an emotive way.

Bombs like this one belong to Golden Age of Hollywood as well as celebrated masterpieces, so one has to accept their existence. But it is not a reason to waste one's time watching them.