Slander

Not without interest and surely applicable Today, this expose of Tabloid Journalism and what used to be called "Scandal Sheets/Rags" is cold and overly sentimental at the same time. It never seems to find its groove and what is left is a noble, cheap looking misfire.

Van Johnson's Character is sugary sweet, His Wife is barely memorable, and the Son is used for a most overwrought and ludicrous ending. There is some edge to the Movie but it wavers sometimes, with some stiff situations and the look of a TV Production.

Worth a view for its B-Movie effort done by a Major Studio that couldn't seem to go all the way with anything more than the weakest and predictable of conclusions. It is Melodramatic when it should have been darkly cynical. The TV appearance by the Star, unintentional or not, is eerily reminiscent of Nixon's Checkers Speech.

By the way, Slander is Spoken...Libel is Written.

Plot—Family man Scott is about to hit the TV big time with his engaging puppet show. Trouble is a scandal magazine run by the unscrupulous Manley threatens to publish a damaging article on Scott's past unless he spills the beans about the indiscretion of a celebrity much bigger than he that only he knows about. Thus Scott faces a moral dilemma—should he make the trade-off or not.

Back in the mid-50's, a lot of folks were tired of Photoplay, Screen Stars, and their like. In short, they wanted insider stories, real low downs on the seamy side of the air-brushed celebs of show biz. Thus Confidential magazine hit the stands with a splash that shook up the whole industry. Hollywood, in particular, quaked in fear; after all, they had big money invested in their carefully molded stars, and any hint of scandal could mean ruin for their investment. Rumors circulated that lesser figures could be sacrificed to the scandal sheets to protect bigger ones, e.g. George Nader to protect Rock Hudson. Of course, public morals were much more stringent in those days. Homosexuality and infidelity, for example, were strictly forbidden, and, if exposed, could wreck a career.

Clearly, Slander is a Hollywood attempt to strike back at the scandal purveyors. Just as clearly, the deck has been loaded by casting choices. Cochran's dark good looks usually translated into tough hoods. Here he still carries a dark appearance and a sinister reputation, but executes the oily slick Manley in expert non-thuggish fashion. It's the most tightly controlled turn I've seen from the fine actor. On the other hand, who embodied All-American virtue more solidly than sandy-haired freckle-faced Van Johnson. Add the sweet innocence of actress Blythe and the boyish appeal of moppet Eyer, and the deck is loaded from the outset.

Nonetheless, the movie's first part setting up Scott's (Johnson) moral dilemma is quite well- done, tight and economical. The second half, however, descends into heavy-handed melodrama, contrived and far-fetched. I take the latter as MGM's effort at hyping the price the magazine and Manley (Cochran) must pay for their unscrupulous acts. Too bad that the screenplay over-hyped this second part since the trade-off's sleaze factor is enough to discredit the magazine's shady enterprise. At the same time, the contrivances not only overdo the worthy message, but work to remind us that this is only a movie, after all.

Of course, changes in public morals have dated the movie. Nonetheless, with a less contrived second half, the film might succeed on its own merits, even now.

A curious period piece not without interest, Slander was made in the heyday of guttersnipe periodicals like "Confidential," that ruined show-biz careers and blackmailed victims into spilling dirt on bigger prey. Steve Cochran portrays the oily gossip publisher, a bachelor with a strangely solicitous relationship with his alcoholic mother (Marjorie Rambeau). In trying to dig up the goods on a beloved Broadway star, he zeros in on Van Johnson as a boyhood pal, a third-rate puppeteer who has finally got his big break in the new medium of television. Alas, the puppeteer once served four years in the hoosegow for armed robbery, despite the fact that he's now a devoted family man with wife (Ann Blyth) and son (Richard Eyer) in tow. Van Johnson refuses to knuckle under to the blackmail demands, and much melodrama ensues. Today, with a no-holds-barred press with almost non-existent restraints when it comes to public figures, Slander looks a bit quaint. But in the 50s, these tactics -- which probably wouldn't have been tolerated except for the parallel phenomenon of McCarthyism -- were seen as a deadly threat to the studios and their stars. Scandal, made at MGM under Dory Schary, is Hollywood's overwrought (and none too good) response. The following year, Alexander Mackendrick's chillingly dark Sweet Smell of Success (with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis)trod much the same ground in a far more memorable way.

The excesses of '50s tabloid journalism, embodied by the Confidential-like magazine portrayed herein, get a solid shellacking in this minor MGM production. It's written by the often-interesting Jerome Weidman and directed by the often-boilerplate Roy Rowland, and it was made at just the right moment to capture the public's love-hate relationship with scandal sheets. A couple of details don't ring true: Would the puppeteer (Van Johnson, quite OK) really become a major TV personality from these tired kiddie sketches, and are we really to blame the reptilian editor (Steve Cochran, excellent) for what happens to Johnson's son? And the climax involving Cochran's mother (Marjorie Rambeau) I don't believe for an instant. But it's worth a look as a portrait of the glam life at the time, with posh two-bloody-Mary lunches and Park Avenue apartments and big, big cars.

I heartily concur with the first posted comment. Far from being "superficial" as Leonard Maltin's review describes it; "Slander" is a smart, straightforward drama, well acted by all the leads and expertly crafted by veteran director Roy Rowland.

Steve Cochran, generally an inarticulate brute in films, here plays the slick, debonair owner of a notorious gossip magazine who is anxious to break a big scandal to reverse a recent decline in sales. He zeroes in on children's entertainer Van Johnson, a decent, stand-up guy who nonetheless has a secret in his past which would most likely end his suddenly flourishing television career if found out. Johnson can save himself and his family from disrepute if he "trades" Cochran damaging information he has about a popular movie actress he knew while growing up in a tough neighborhood years ago.

The movie chronicles this moral dilemma in a balanced, intelligent way, methodically laying the emotional and intellectual groundwork for the difficult choices the major characters end up making. It's one of those nifty little flicks that reminds one of some efficient piece of machinery - no wasted motion.

Cochran once again is excellent. His technique is exceptional, unerring. He's got this guy, a bullying, insecure poser, down. Watch the scene in the restaurant where he finds out that he's being bumped from a TV talk show due to a fellow guest's refusal to appear on the same program with him. Just before the steely resignation and the business-like thirst for payback, he's hurt, like a little boy who finds out he hasn't made first team. Johnson and Blyth are appealing as the devoted husband and wife, as is the child actor Richard Eyer, who plays their son.

But special mention has to go to the great Marjorie Rambeau, sort of a Susan Sarandon type in her younger days, here she plays Cochran's weary, alcoholic, deeply ashamed mother. Her impossibly large, sad, soulful eyes aptly foreshadow the tragedies that follow.