In Harm's Way (1965)

In Harm's Way (1965) is an epic WWII melodrama with an incredible cast (John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Kirk Douglas, Brandon De Wilde, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Carroll O'Connor, Franchot Tone, and more), and the melodramatic aspects of this actually make it quite enjoyable. It's clearly based on a kind of sexy, potboiler novel, and Otto Preminger has done a somewhat good job of keeping it sexy... although the romantic side plots often seem extraneous to the military drama that feels more in keeping with a John Wayne film. In truth, John Wayne, while still very very handsome, doesn't fit well in this kind of romantic drama. His performance feels forced, as if his persona just can't let him be part of a "woman's novel" like In Harm's Way (it was, in fact, written by James Bassett, but it has a lot of feelings).

Twilight of Honor (1963)

Twilight of Honor is a 1963 murder-trial movie that is very obviously derivative of Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder from 1959. This one stars Richard Chamberlain (who is almost painfully handsome) and a wonderfully old and bright Claude Rains in one of his final film roles.

This movie is billed as one for adult audiences, and indeed it discusses some rather scandalous material, but that's not enough, really, to make Twilight of Honor interesting. It makes too many odd blunders. In the first place, the title refers to the murder victim, who was an honorable man but dies "without honor", or so the film would have us believe. In the second place, this movie is not at all interested in the murderer at the narrative's center. It's so strange: Nick Adams plays this character, and he garnered an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal, but the movie just doesn't pay much attention to him. He is definitely the film's most interesting character, but the filmmakers don't seem to think so. Instead, he is a figure we are supposed to pity and mostly forget as we turn our attention to Richard Chamberlain and his erstwhile romance with Claude Rains's daughter at the film's end.