Now Metamorphosis Briggs was old and tended to suffer from stress and he died of a heart attack in the withering heat of the midsummer of 1961.  He drank and smoked and was heavily overweight and worried a great deal about trivial things and the doctors were not surprised at his sudden death in the least.

The Devil At 4 O’clock is a volcano about to blow a Pacific Island to oblivion, but Spencer Tracy as crusty Father Doolan persuades three convicts, led by Frank Sinatra, to parachute into the local leper colony and lead the crippled children to safety. It was based on the book by Aussie author Max Catto, otherwise known as Simon Kent. Amusingly, Sinatra’s character was an Australian in the book, but cranky Frankie wasn’t about to befool himself in an accent as difficult as that. Dodgy dialogue and special effects but the film managed to equal a pretty good book. It’s all marred by a clumsy Christian message at the climax that inadvertently argued that such superstitious nonsense was irrelevant, since heathens can be just as brave and good as believers. Anyhow, the fireworks were fine.

 

James A. Mitchner’s little book The Bridges of Toko-Ri is much better than his bigger books in every way. It tells of pilots running bombing raids from carriers in the Korean war with a refreshing lack of heroics and flag-waving. In 1954, it was made into a very hard hitting film, especially when the principle character (William Holden) is downed simply and shot like a rat in a ditch by the enemy. It was one of the first real signs that Americans wanted to know something of the truth of their war history. Unfortunately, it proved to be a false signal.