SON OF FURY (1942)

Very enjoyable period melodrama with Tyrone Power near the peak of his career. The central story is of a twisted, dysfunctional family. Roddy McDowell is the young Benjamin Blake, the offspring of a duke and a poor girl who were married, but after the duke dies, his dastardly brother (George Sanders) hides evidence of the marriage so that McDowell won't be able to make any claims to money or property when he grows up. To keep control over him, Sanders snatches the boy away from his loving grandfather (Harry Davenport) and makes him a stable boy. Years later, when Ben grows up (Tyrone Power), he falls for Sanders' daughter (Frances Farmer) but when Sanders hears of a possible liason, he beats Power brutally and Power escapes, spending some years on a South Seas island, romancing Gene Tierney and collecting pearls to take back to England to make his fortune. When he does get back home, he tries to take Sanders on in court and discovers ex-flame Farmer to be a betraying wench. Power is handsome and charming (and shirtless in a few scenes) and Tierney is lovely, though she doesn't really have much to do except look good in her flowery swim suit and do what seems to be an early version of the Macarena. The black and white camerawork is occasionally stunning, far more "artistic" than I would expect in an average swashbuckler of the era. Sanders is excellent as the thoroughly evil villain, raging with sadistic fury at Power. Also in the cast: John Carradine as a sailor who befriends Power, Elsa Lanchester as a helpful barmaid, and Robert Greig as a judge. Quite fun all around; well made and nice to look at. [FMC]

THE GREEN GODDESS (1930)

An anti-"Lost Horizon" in which a group of British travelers are stranded in an isolated Indian village at the mercy of a cruel rajah. Its stage play origins show but it's fun to watch, largely due to George Arliss in the villainous lead role, and to the somewhat wild twists and turns the plot takes. Ralph Forbes is piloting a small plane carrying a stuffy old major (H.B. Warner) and his younger wife (Alice Joyce) when they are forced to crash land in relatively uncharted territory near the village of Rukh. At first they are welcomed by Arliss (the alternately cool and friendly Rajah) but it turns out that Arliss' brothers are about to be executed by the British and Arliss plans to hold the three hostage, either to negotiate a release or to take their lives for the lives of his brothers. Arliss tells Joyce he will spare her and send for her children to join her if she agrees to be his mistress (so that they can breed a small race of supermen!), but of course she turns him down. The prisoners try to get the British butler (Ivan Simpson) to help them send out a Morse Code message for help, but he betrays them, so they toss him out the window to his death in the rocky valley below. Can Warner get a message out before the Rajah catches on to their plan?

The direction, as was the case in many early talkies, is static, with some shots awkwardly framed and some of the performances lacking power. Forbes does a good job looking like he's scared shitless as the plane goes down, but he has a more difficult time expressing subtler emotions. In a scene where he's trying to get Joyce to relax, he comes off like a demonic hypnotist (no wonder she doesn't calm down). Joyce is bland, but old pros Warner and Arliss are fine. Arliss was considered one of the greats in the 20's, on screen and stage. Warner appeared in over 100 movies in five decades, starting in 1914, and is probably best known as Christ in the silent KING OF KINGS, and as the druggist Mr. Gower in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Some of the sets are grand, especially the ritual room where the prisoners are to be sacrificed at the end. Of course, Joyce and Forbes are rescued, but Arliss is left unmolested by the British and gets in a good last line about Joyce, as he mutters, "She probably would have been a nuisance." [TCM]

CHRISTOPHER STRONG (1933)

Although Colin Clive (mostly known as Dr. Frankenstein in the original 1931 FRANKENSTEIN) plays the title character, it is Katharine Hepburn who is at the center of this film. She plays Lady Cynthia Darrington, a free thinking aviatrix whom, though rich and popular, has never had time in her life for a lover. Clive is Sir Strong, a sturdy, serious minded British type: husband, father, member of Parliament. His daughter (Helen Chandler, Mina in DRACULA) brings her father to a scavanger hunt party as a found artifact, a faithful husband. Chandler's married boyfried (Ralph Forbes) brings Hepburn as a virgin. Clive and Hepburn, both feeling quite out of place at a wild party, bond and soon begin an affair which hurts everyone around them, including Chandler, who comes to look upon Hepburn as a mentor, and Clive's wife (Billie Burke). Hepburn sets out to break some flying records (egged on, no doubt, by being referred to as "just a girl"), but Clive talks her into giving up flying for him. However, when she finds out she's pregnant, she goes for an altitude record, breaks it, then commits suicide by crashing the plane rather than have Clive leave his family for her. The movie's most infamous moment is Hepburn's appearance in a wild silver moth outfit—she's wearing it to a party, but it feels jarringly out of place in the serious discussion she has with Clive. The acting all around is solid, and even Clive, who is usually a stick or a neurotic (or both), is OK, though his chemistry with Hepburn comes and goes. Burke's dithery mannerisms are completely absent here. Even though there are pre-Code elements, the ending is still drearily moralistic, punishing Hepburn for being an unconventional and "uppity" woman. [TCM]

DULCY (1940)

Screwballish B-ish MGM comedy, mostly notable for giving Ann Sothern something of a change of pace role. Instead of being her usual brassy, streetwise, working-class dame, here she's a ditzy rich girl who meddles ineffectively in the lives of everyone around her, getting things so messed up that they suddenly turn out right. The movie opens with a young Dan Dailey singing "Singin' in the Rain" in the shower until the hot water suddenly goes out; it's his sister Dulcy's (Sothern) fault as she's tinkering with the boiler until it explodes (in a short but funny scene). There's a bunch of seemingly unrelated plotlines set up: Dailey is concerned with the imminent visit of his fiancee's parents (Roland Young and Billie Burke); an inventor (Ian Hunter) is hanging around trying to sell his new airplane engine; there's a crazy man (Reginald Gardiner) who thinks he's actually his own brother, an airplane magnate; there's an ex-con (Guinn Williams) that Sothern takes under her wing as a butler. All the plotlines come crashing together when everyone winds up spending the weekend at a mountain cabin. Thanks to Sothern, all the wires that can get crossed, do, until everything is righted at the end. There's even more characters, including Hans Conreid as a surrealist playwright and Jonathan Hale as a lawyer who is chasing after Gardiner. The short length and fast pace are pluses. There are many funny bits, and Sothern comes off pretty well doing a variation on Hepburn's BRINGING UP BABY part. Of course, Young and Burke are joys, as always. [TCM]

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

A disembodied hand keeps popping up in a creepy mansion peopled with unlikeable characters. This movie plays out like an overlong Twilight Zone episode rather than a full-blooded horror movie, but it *is* a different kind of film for its era. The mix of characters is potentially interesting, but only Peter Lorre really brings the film to life. At the center of the story is Victor Francen, a pianist with a paralyzed arm who lives in an Italian town; he's cared for by pretty nurse Andrea King, with whom he's fallen in love. She, however, has the hots for the disreputable con man Robert Alda, who has gotten into Francen's good graces by writing one-handed arrangements of music so he can continue playing the piano. Lorre is Francen's creepy secretary, who spends his free time perusing a library full of occult books. King wants to leave with Alda, but Lorre rats her out to Francen, who then tries to strangle Lorre. That night, Francen dies in an accidental fall and some shifty relatives descend, trying to grab the house from King (the legal heir) and the books from Lorre. Soon it's discovered that the corpse's hand has been severed; hand sightings, eerie music, and a death follow. The scenes of the hand are quite good, except for the unfortunate coincidence that it looks rather like the Thing in The Addams Family TV series, which caused me to chuckle a few times. There are two trick "punch-line" endings. [TCM]

SHANGHAI EXPRESS (1932)

Interesting collaboration between director Josef von Sternberg and his muse Marlene Dietrich, though not as exotic or racy as some of their other films. It's a pre-Code romance/thriller set almost entirely on a train going from Peking to Shanghai. Dietrich is Madeleine, now known as Shanghai Lily, a "coaster" who goes about living off of a string of men. When she is asked if her name change was due to marriage, she replies with the infamous line, "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." Her equally notorious traveling companion is Anna Mae Wong, and when they are in their compartment with the gramophone cranked up, lounging about in dishabille, they evoke casual decadence as well as Joan Crawford did in RAIN. Clive Brook is Dietrich's former lover, a British officer and doctor who left her years ago over jealousy and a lack of faith in her. Warner Oland is a businessman who turns out to be a Chinese warlord in disguise; after an important underling of his is arrested just before the train departs, Oland stops the train midway in its route, looking for a hostage, and decides to hold Brook, who is needed in Shanghai to operate on an important person. Soon, however, Oland is threatening Brook's life and Dietrich agrees to become the warlord's mistress to save her ex-lover. The action of the last 15 minutes, involving murder and a test of Brook's faith, leads to a rather hollow happy ending as Dietrich takes Brook back.

Eugene Pallette, less froggy and clownish than usual (he is perhaps best known as Friar Tuck in the Errol Flynn ROBIN HOOD) is good as a fellow passenger; Gustav von Seyffertitz (featured in dozens of 30's movies as thuggish or ridiculous Germans) is an opium dealer who insults Oland early in the movie and pays a price later. Lawrence Grant is a minister who rails against the two fallen women (also reminiscent of RAIN), but who later shows compassion for Dietrich when Brook won't; he ends up being a go-between in their eventual reconciliation. Oland looks a great deal like Charlie Chan, whom he played in several movies, but sounds nothing like him and is very good in the part--I was almost hoping that he *would* get Dietrich. As in many of Sternberg's films, the visuals are often striking; here, the best looking scene is when bandits (actually Oland's men) come out of the fog and swarm over the train. Brook is stiff as a stick and almost totally unromantic--why the fabulous Dietrich would lose her heart to him is beyond rationality. Dietrich rarely got a leading man worthy of her; not Brook, not Lionel Atwill, and not Herbert Marshall; Gary Cooper, in MOROCCO, came close, and he would have been a much better choice for leading man here, Still, a movie well worth seeing. [VHS]

ABSOLUTE QUIET (1936)

An odd duck of a movie. Lionel Atwill is a big-shot money man under lots of pressure from all sides; his doctor suggests that he get away for some peace and quiet, so he arranges to spend a week at his isolated ranch. But, of course, things wind up not so peaceful or quiet. A plane attempts to make an emergency landing near Atwill's ranch. On board are a starlet (Ann Loring) on her way to Hollywood for a screen test that had been set up by Atwill (her ex-sugar daddy, I assumed), a fading actor (Louis Hayward) traveling with Loring, a reporter (Stuart Irwin), and the governor (Raymond Walburn), Atwill's nemesis. Before Atwill can get his private airstrip lit up for the landing, a pair of escaped criminals (Wallace Ford and Bernadene Hayes) arrive, looking for a car. They force Atwill to leave the airstrip dark; the plane crash lands, killing the pilots; Walburn shoves Loring aside in a cowardly fashion to escape injury, and Hayward suffers major facial damage that he assumes will kill his career. The rest of the film plays out a bit like KEY LARGO as the motley group of good guys and bad guys interact. There is too much going on for a short B-film with limited writing and directing talent behind it. Atwill is good, remaining an ambigious figure throughout: sometimes likeable, sometimes reprehensible. Irene Hervey, who has accompanied Atwill to the ranch, seems to be a mistress figure (her husband is on his way to the ranch in another plane, piloted by a drunkard!), but she comes off more like Atwill's niece. Ford and Hayes are the most interesting characters; it turns out they're ex-vaudevillians who've become Bonnie & Clyde-type murderers. All this makes the movie sound more interesting than it really is. [TCM]

COUNSELLOR AT LAW (1933)

I have never been terribly impressed by John Barrymore, but he is excellent here playing a Jewish lawyer who has worked his way to the top of his profession. Despite having a large office suite high up in the Empire State Building, he still keeps his door open to old friends and neighbors, and his sweet old mother frequently drops by to chat (Yiddish phrases like "goniff" pop up here and there in the script). Years ago, early in his career, Barrymore helped a friend (John Qualen) fake an alibi. Now a rival lawyer has discovered this and is threatening to expose him. As if this career crisis weren't bad enough, Barrymore also discovers that his wife (Doris Kenyon), who has two obnoxious children from a previous marriage, has been unfaithful. Distraught, Barrymore attempts suicide; can his faithful secretary (Bebe Daniels), who walks in just as he's about to leap from a window in his office, help him find the will to overcome his troubles? Despite his occasional lapses (including some rather egregious overcharging of his rich clients), Barrymore is meant to be seen as a basically good man, and it's no surprise that he does indeed set things right by the end, even though he has to resort to blackmail to do so--and since it's a pre-Code movie, he gets away with it. The film moves at a fast clip, almost like a screwball comedy, which it's not, even though it has its comic moments. The movie was based on a play and it shows, as almost all the action takes place in the offices, but the busy style is anything but stagey as the camera constantly bustles around and we observe several supporting characters with their own stories: Isabel Jewell is fun as a fast-talking, food-munching telephone operator; Marvin Kline is an office boy with a rather pathetic crush on Daniels; Onslow Stevens is Barrymore's office partner. Thelma Todd and Mayo Methot (Bogart's ex) also appear. Barrymore's performance is full blooded but not hammy, as he tended to be in other films. [DVD]

SINGAPORE WOMAN (1941)

Despite the exotic allure of the title, this is a mostly bland remake of an early Bette Davis vehicle, DANGEROUS, which was not very compelling the first time around (even though it won her an Oscar). David Bruce owns a rubber plantation in Singapore; one night, while out on the town with friends (including Jerome Cowan, who was Miles Archer in THE MALTESE FALCON), he sees Brenda Marshall, a former rich girl who ran into bad times and dropped out of society. Bruce was present when the scandalous event that started her slide occured: a man, distraught over her inattention, killed himself in her bedroom--a flashback scene that feels borrowed from another Bette Davis film, THE LETTER. Marshall now considers herself a jinx but Bruce decides to take her to his plantation and reform her, despite the imminent arrival of his fiancee, Virginia Field. At first, Marshall is a tough and unrepentant cookie but soon Bruce is giving her financial backing so she can resuscitate her father's business and things are looking up. Suddenly, Marshall's husband, presumed dead, shows up and tries to take over the business. As in DANGEROUS, there is alcoholism, a car crash, and redemption. At around an hour, it goes by fairly painlessly; Bruce is deadly dull, but Marshall's not bad. [TCM]

CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946)

A Fritz Lang spy film set in the latter days of WWII. Gary Cooper is a physics professor (at Midwestern University!) who is working on the atom bomb; he is recruited by the OSS to go off to Switzerland to debrief a brilliant Hungarian scientist who has defected to the Allies (Helen Thimig); they need to find out how far along the German atom program is. Soon after he meets her, she is kidnapped by Nazis and, even though Cooper and others chase after her, she is eventually killed. Cooper then heads off to Italy in an attempt to bring back another atomic scientist (Vladimir Sokoloff); he will go willingly only if they can free his daughter, who is being held by the Nazis. Most of Cooper's band of Resistence fighers (including Robert Alda, Alan's real-life father) go off to get the daughter, while Cooper stays with Lilli Palmer and, of course, a romance develops. There is some brutal violence, including a memorable fight between Cooper and the thuggish Marc Lawrence (a scene that seems to have influenced Hitchcock in TORN CURTAIN) and some double crosses involving lovely female Nazi spies. The Cooper/Palmer romance bogs the proceedings down, especially a silly bit with a meowing cat, but generally the movie goes along at a nice clip, and the wrap up in the last 15 minutes is satisfying. James Flavin plays an old friend of Cooper's who visits him from the OSS; Marjorie Hoshelle has a nice bit as a spy. I don't normally notice background music, but the score by Max Steiner is quite good, at least until the last 5 minutes, when it gets bizarrely bombastic. One complaint: there isn't nearly as much spying and sneaking around in the dark as the title leads one to expect. [DVD]

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL (1952)

A noirish crime film with John Payne as an ex-con who's gone straight and makes his living delivering flowers. One morning, just after he's made a delivery, he gets caught up in the aftermath of an armored car heist because the crooks used a duplicate of his truck. He's picked up for questioning and eventually clears himself but goes on the trail of the gang for revenge. The gang members, brought together for this one robbery, all wear masks so they won't be tempted to pull any double crosses before they split the money a few weeks later in Mexico. The head honcho is Preston Foster, an ex-cop gone bad. Payne, in Mexico on his trail, falls for Foster's daughter (Coleen Gray). The other thugs are Jack Elam (quite young and not nearly as freakish looking as he was in later years), Lee Van Cleef, and Neville Brand. 40's starlet Dona Drake (ROAD TO MOROCCO) plays a Tijuana beauty stuck mostly in the background. There are a lot of fisticuffs and close-ups of sweaty faces. Payne, looking much older and craggier than just four years earlier in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, overacts a bit but Foster is quite good. Despite the title, very little of this takes place in Kansas City. [DVD]

THE GORILLA MAN (1943)

A Warners B-movie, and not one of their better ones. The title conjures up horror or sci-fi, but this is a straightforward spy story. It's set in England during the war; John Loder is a British soldier who is being kept in a hospital under observation for shell shock, but it turns out that Nazi spies are holding him prisoner to stop him from conveying important information to his superiors. The set up has promise, but the picture becomes drab and forgettable. With the weasly John Abbot as a Nazi and Ruth Ford as the romantic interest. Loder is his usual dependable second-string lead self, but for a better B-spy movie masquerading as a horror film with John Loder, see THE MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR. [TCM]

THE UNGUARDED HOUR (1936)

A twisty little crime/courtroom thriller. Franchot Tone is an ambitious prosecuting attorney who is trying a murder case, based on circumstantial evidence, against a mild-mannered man (Dudley Digges) accused of throwing his wife off a cliff. Tone's wife, Loretta Young, could testify to Digges' innocence; she was present at the scene but won't come forward because she was there to pay off a blackmailer (Henry Daniell) who has incriminating letters from Tone to another woman (Aileen Pringle). Soon, Pringle is found murdered and circumstantial evidence points to Tone. I don't want to give away the tricky ending, but I will say that Tone isn't quite up to the task of presenting subtle shifts of character to keep us off-balance. Because of his rather weak performance, the solution is a little more obvious than it should have been. Roland Young is good as a friend of the family; there's a nice scene toward the end in which Young and Lewis Stone sort through the evidence against Tone. Worth seeing. [TCM]

ESCAPE IN THE DESERT (1945)

A needless B-movie remake, in the Warners tradition, of THE PETRIFIED FOREST, with Nazis replacing gangsters. The rather wooden Philip Dorn stands in for the passive Leslie Howard, as a Dutch pilot and artist who winds up in the middle of the desert at a roadside diner where Jean Sullivan and her father (Samuel S. Hinds) mistake him for a Nazi spy. Helmut Dantine is the real spy who holds folks hostage; Kurt Kreuger is a cute Nazi who wears a football jersey; Alan Hale and Irene Manning show up briefly. Not a terribly effective movie, although the action toward the end may be enough to satisfy B-movie fans. Sullivan was a starlet who made three movies in the 40's before vanishing until popping back up on a soap opera ("Somerset") in the 70's. [TCM]

LILLIAN RUSSELL (1940)

Fictionalized biography of a famous turn-of-the-century singer and actress. In the usual 20th Century Fox Fox fashion, there are problems with bland acting and plot-heavy proceedings. Alice Faye plays Russell, born and raised in Iowa; her mother (Dorothy Peterson) is a suffragette who, after the family moves to New York, runs unsuccessfully for mayor. Faye is afraid her serious-minded mother won't approve of her attempt at a singing career, but ultimately, her family backs her up--including her father (Ernest Turex) and grandmother (Helen Westley). The rest of the movie is an episodic account of her life as she finds fame and fortune and many friends, but is less successful with love. The supporting roles are filled with familiar names: Henry Fonda is a young man who saves Faye from runaway horses and, years later, reconnects with her. Don Ameche is a songwriter who marries Faye but never quite finds professional success of his own. Edward Arnold is Faye's dear friend Diamond Jim Brady (a part he played in DIAMOND JIM five years earlier) and Warren William is a rich admirer. Nigel Bruce is Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan); Eddie Foy Jr. plays his own real-life father and Una O'Connor is, what else, a maid. The movie is a bit long at 2 hours, and Faye is a big blank at the center of the film; she's certainly not terrible, but there is no spark in her eyes and her voice and bearing suggest nothing about what might have made the real Lillian Russell special. There are some nice musical numbers, such as "After the Ball," "The Band Played On," and "Under the Bamboo Tree." One highlight has her making news by singing to President Grover Cleveland over the telephone from backstage at a show. Westley has the best line in the movie; when someone asks if Russell's father is still alive, she replies, "With a suffragette wife and five daughters, I don't know if you can call it living." [FMC]

H.M. PULHAM, ESQ. (1941)

This is one of those movies in which a character looks back on his life from some high or low point and re-assess everything. The first 45 minutes or so are quite enjoyable, but as it focuses in on one story, it loses some of its charm. Robert Young is Pulham, a young man of means who tries to make his own way in life, but gets sucked back into the family circle. His best friend, Van Heflin, helps keep him grounded. He is supposed to marry Ruth Hussey, a rich but bland girl, but he falls for Hedy Lamarr, a co-worker at his advertising agency. His father (Charles Coburn) disapproves of his son's decisions; after Coburn dies, Young returns to his old life and settles down with Hussey. Most of the film is a flashback occasioned by a return visit from Lamarr; Young realizes he has always done what was expected of him by others, but never done what he wants. He is tempted to have an affair with Lamarr, but resists the temptation and ultimately seems to make his peace with Hussey and his situation. Ho-hum. [TCM]

FIRST A GIRL (1935)

The very funny 1982 comedy VICTOR/VICTORIA was based on a German film from 1933, but in between, there was this British version with the same plot, with less emphasis on gay and camp elements. British music hall star Jessie Matthews is Elizabeth, a young woman hoping to make it big in show biz. She meets up with Victor (Sonnie Hale), a female impersonator with a yearning to do Shakespeare. When he loses his voice one night, Elizabeth goes on as Victoria and is a big success. A princess (Anna Lee) and her fiance (Griffith Jones) get entangled in their affairs. Unlike in the Blake Edwards version, there is some real (albeit brief) sexual tension when Jones thinks that Matthews is really a man--I never felt any real tension between James Garner and Julie Andrews. The overall plot structure is the same as in the 80's film. This version has some wonderful Busby Berkeleyesque musical numbers. Overall, an enjoyable diversion. Lee was Sister Margretta in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and Jones was the father of Gemma Jones, the mother in BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY. [VHS]

ROMANCE IN MANHATTAN (1935)

Despite the title, this is nowhere near being a definitive Big Apple love story--THE CLOCK, ON THE TOWN, or even SERENDIPITY come much closer to that. In fact, it's the romance element that is sorely lacking here. Francis Lederer plays a Czech immigrant who arrives in New York with 50 bucks and no immediate job prospects; the immigration officials tell him he must have at least $200, so he is put on the next boat back to Europe. However, he manages, rather too easily, to jump ship and make it back to the city. Roaming the streets, he sneaks into a theater during a rehearsal and takes some of the backstage food spread. Chorus girl Ginger Rogers, who already has her hands full taking care of her little brother (Jimmy Butler, from MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH), befriends him, not knowing he is illegally in the country. Rather by rote, they fall in love, but that is a side plot compared to 1) Lederer's situation, and 2) Rogers' problems when her show closes and she is considered not fit to raise her brother. With Lederer's proposal of marriage and the help of a friendly Irish cop (J. Farrell McDonald), everything works out in the end. Lederer spouts many cooing love speeches to New York and America, and he and Rogers do get a little chemistry going, but they never really seem to be in love. The happy ending comes about even though many people flout many laws. For me, the most romantic moment is when Lederer sleeps on the roof of Rogers' building and rhapsodizes about the (patently false) Manhattan skyline. Also with Sidney Toler, Donald Meek, and Eily Malyon, the ubiquitous landlady/maid of 30's movies. [TCM]

THAT LADY IN ERMINE (1948)

The problem with this, like FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, is that it tries way too hard to be light and whimsical. Set in a fictional European kingdom, the plot involves an invading colonel (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) who meets his match in a lovely countess (Betty Grable). The story that plays out between the two matches a renowed historical event 300 years earlier when Grable's ancestor (also played by Grable) seduced and killed a similar invader (also Fairbanks). In the present-day plotline, the spirits of the royal ancestors come alive (stepping out of their portraits hung in a grand hall) and rally to help inspire the current countess. The tragedy of the past becomes romantic comedy in the present. Cesar Romero is Grable's new husband, something of a cowardly gold digger; Walter Abel is Fairbanks' assistant; Reginald Gardiner is a ghostly ancestor; Harry Davenport (who must have been about 112) and Whit Bissell also appear. It's a colorful movie with some nice touches, like an animated sun that shoots up in the sky at dawn, and there's a very funny moment when background orchestral film music turns out to have been played live by a small combo in the room. Ernst Lubitsch began work on this, but died early on and Otto Preminger (as far from whimsical as you can get) took over. Fairbanks is a bit long in the tooth for the role, and doesn't give 100 percent. Grable is better, but still mostly just serviceable. The whole thing needed to be played lightly and more broadly. [FMC]

THE LOST SQUADRON (1932)

This begins like a WWI war film and becomes a nifty little thriller of personal brutality and revenge. Richard Dix, Joel McCrea, and Robert Montgomery are pilot buddies whom we first see in the air, shooting down enemy planes in the last minutes of the war before the Armistace goes into effect. They return home to reduced circumstances--despite headlines that celebrate the bravery of our vets, the men have a hard time adjusting to civilian life and getting jobs. Dix, McCrea, and their former mechanic Hugh Herbert become hobos, riding the rails to California. At the premiere of a movie called "Sky Heroes," they run into Armstrong, who has become a successful Hollywood stunt pilot. He gets them all jobs in his next project for tyrannical director Erich von Stroheim. The director's leading lady and wife, Mary Astor, is an old flame of Dix's and the two resume a mildly flirtatious relationship. Out of jealousy, Stroheim works Dix extra hard and eventually tampers with his plane so he'll crash during a stunt. However, Armstrong winds up in the plane and, though Dix flies up to warn him, Armstrong crashes and is killed. McCrea finds evidence of Stroheim's guilt and the rest of the film follows his revenge plot, which works but at a cost. The footage of planes, in war and in moviemaking, is very good. Stroheim seems to be playing himself, or at least the public persona he had as a strict Germanic disciplinarian. Dorothy Jordan is "Pest," Armstrong's kid sister who falls for McCrea. After a couple of early scenes, Astor doesn't have much to do. The pre-Code plot allows at least one person to survive without "paying" for a crime, and there's a great (and very clear) shot of Armstrong giving Dix the finger. The movie premiere scene looks a great deal like the one at the climax of John Schlesinger's DAY OF THE LOCUST. [TCM]

I SEE A DARK STRANGER (1946)

I suspect this British film was intended to be an interesting mix of tones and genres like Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES, but the master's touch is missing from this one; both films were written by the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, but this was directed by Launder. I know little about the history of the Irish Republican Army, so some of the plot points were lost on me. Deborah Kerr is the daughter of an Irish patriot who tells tales of his exciting past fighting the British, though it turns out that most of his stories are rather exaggerated. During WWII, Kerr goes off to Dublin hoping to join the IRA, but instead she gets involved with a gang of Nazi spies who want her to smuggle some information. There are some genuine thrills here, with the threat of arrest and death always nearby. A British soldier on leave (Trevor Howard) takes a fancy to her and helps her escape the clutches of the Nazis after she realizes the extent of the betrayal she's gotten herself into. Raymond Huntley is her chief contact, and there's a good scene involving him, a wheelchair, and a cliff. Garry Marsh and Tim Macaulay are a pair of policemen on the hunt for Kerr even as she's right under their noses--these characters seem clearly to be modeled after the comic duo of Caldicott and Charters in LADY VANISHES. David Tomlinson (Mr. Banks in MARY POPPINS) has a small part somewhere, though I didn't see him. The tone shifts, from danger to humor and back, aren't totally successful, but it's an interesting movie anyway, and Kerr is funny and sly. [DVD]

MEN MUST FIGHT (1933)

A very odd film, especially considered as a mainstream studio production, a bit like the later THINGS TO COME, but with less emphasis on the sci-fi trappings. We first see Diana Wynard as a nurse, sending her pilot lover off into the dangerous skies of WWI France. He is promptly shot down and killed, leaving her alone with child. Lewis Stone, an older friend, offers to marry her for convienence. The story then jumps ahead to the future (1940); Stone is now the American Secretary of State as another world war threatens to break out, as WWI did, over an assassination. Stone has to stand by his government's decision to go to war with Eurasia, but Wynard and her grown-up son (Phillips Holmes) are pacifists. Much of the movie consists of philosophical debates about war, peace, and patriotism, and at a peace rally, Wynard proposes a solution, seemingly inspired by Aristophanes' "Lysistrata": women should refuse to bear any more children until their men stop waging war. This is dropped, however, when the rally ends in violence. Ultimately, although the pacifist side is held up as respectable, it is shown to be impractical, hence the title of the film. The enemy bombs New York City, destroying skyscrapers and injuring Wynard; she changes her mind and backs her son's enlistment in the armed forces. Robert Young is Wynard's WWI lover; May Robson is Stone's mother; Hedda Hopper and Robert Grieg also appear. The only real futuristic touches are some picture phones and the occasional streamlined set design. Even though its climax has become unexpectedly relevant after the World Trade Center attacks, the film is too talky with too many tedious stretches. The same things harm the flow of THINGS TO COME, but the sets, costumes, and effects are more interesting in that film. [TCM]

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE (1950)

Heavy handed whimsy which wastes a potentially good cast. The movie came at the end of what was a short cycle of angel movies during and after WWII, such as A GUY NAMED JOE, HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, THE BISHOP'S WIFE, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE; it's pretty clear that Hollywood had exhausted the theme by the time this was made. Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett are a show biz couple (he's a producer, she's an actress) who are so devoted to their careers that they have neglected to start a family; the little unborn soul which has been waiting seven years to be born (Gigi Perreau) hangs around pining away in their apartment; Clifton Webb and Edmund Gwenn are angels who have come down to earth to help nudge the couple along to grant Perreau's wish. Hearing the couple refer to needing an "angel" for their next show, Webb materializes as a rich Texan (he imitates Gary Cooper) who might back their next play. Joan Blondell is the author of the play; Jack LaRue is a gangsterish actor who can't quite get the hang of flipping a coin, George Raft style. Tommy Rettig (later the boy in TV's "Lassie") is another unborn soul who pops up occasionally; Whit Bissell is a psychiatrist who observes Webb. I like Bennett but I've never been a big fan of Cummings; they come off like a second-string version of Broadway couple Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm in ALL ABOUT EVE, and in fact, there is a specific EVE reference to the play "Footsteps on the Ceiling." Webb tries hard, and his Cooper imitation is fun for a while, but he's just not as casual and charming as he needs to be. Gwenn looks tired, and it feels like he thinks he's above the material, which both he and Webb are. A couple of the special effects are good, and Webb gets off a great line to Gwenn: "Successful angels do *not* use sarcasm!" A minor fantasy entry, recommended only for die-hard fans of the actors involved. [FMC]

HARD TO GET (1938)

A delightful little comedy featuring Olivia de Havilland just before she hit it big in GONE WITH THE WIND. Dick Powell plays a frustrated architect, working at a gas station, who has a run-in with de Havilland, a flighty heiress who stops by for gas but has no money on her. He makes her work off her debt, which humiliates her. She vows to get even, so she feigns interest in him and his grandiose plans for a chain of "auto courts," intending to crush his dreams. Of course, they fall in love for real and a happy ending is had by all. Both the leads are good, but a strong supporting cast is also present. Charles Winninger is de Havilland's rich father; Melville Cooper is his butler who spends most of his time playing games and wrestling with Winninger; Bonita Granville is the little sister; Allen Jenkins is Powell's buddy. Penny Singleton, the future "Blondie" of the movies, has a small but juicy part as a maid who poses as de Havilland, with de Havilland posing as the maid, during an amusing dinner scene. Also with John Ridgely and Grady Sutton. It has a screwball feel to it, and also has a couple of songs, including "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." Worth catching. [TCM]

THE BISHOP MISBEHAVES (1935)

A jaunty comic thriller from, I assume, the MGM British unit. Edmund Gwenn is the title bishop, a big fan of mystery novels, who gets caught up in a real-life adventure involving blackmail, stolen jewels, and a variety of thugs. Maureen O'Sullivan has been wronged by Reginald Owen, so with the help of her American boyfriend (Norman Foster, director of several Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan movies), she conspires to steal some jewels and incriminating papers from Owen. Things don't go smoothly, however, and when Gwenn and his sister (Lucile Watson) stumble into the middle of things, Gwenn, acting out of a schoolboyish desire for adventure, gets involved. It's all very light, even when guns get waved around; the first half is quite fun, but it gets a bit bogged down later with lots of chases and double-crosses. Gwenn and Watson are very good, and Owen is at his blustery, befuddled best. [TCM]

BORN TO KILL (1947)

A bleak and brutal film noir, directed by Robert Wise. Renowned B-movie tough guy Lawrence Tierney is an intense psychopath (who is not nearly as attractive as all the characters keep saying he is); the girl he's seeing in Reno (Isabel Jewell) intends to make him jealous by stepping out with another guy (Tony Barrett), but Tierney winds up killing them both, then going on the lam to San Francisco. The dead girl's landlady (Esther Howard) hires a detective (Walter Slezak, coming off a bit like M. Emmet Walsh in BLOOD SIMPLE) who picks up on Tierney's trail. Also involved is Claire Trevor, who was living in the same house with Jewell while her divorce went through, and who saw both the dead bodies before the cops did. In San Francisco, Tierney lusts after Trevor, but she has a rich fiancé (Phillip Terry) so he goes after Trevor's sister (Audrey Long) instead. Trevor discovers the truth about Tierney but is attracted to him for his (in her words) "strength, depravity, and corruption." Meanwhile, Tierney's buddy (Elisha Cook Jr.) tracks down Howard and tries to kill her one night on a deserted beach, but Tierney, thinking Cook has been flirting with Trevor, follows and, in a truly nightmarish scene, goes after Cook. Things just get more twisted from there until the inevitable downbeat ending. The most perverse moment in the film (and maybe in all 40's noir) is when Tierney and Trevor get all hot and bothered by rubbing against each other while reminiscing in detail about the dead bodies of Jewell and Barrett. Tierney sounds like George Raft and sometimes looks like a harsh-edged Gene Kelly. The only truly caring relationship in the movie is Cook's genuine feelings of concern for Tierney, but that doesn't get Cook a happy ending. Also with Ellen Corby, and Tommy Noonan (DING DONG WILLIAMS) as a cute bellboy who flirts with Howard. A good solid noir film with virtually no redeeming characters. [TCM]

DING DONG WILLIAMS (1946)

A surprising little delight of a B-movie that gets by on fun music and quirky charm. Glen Vernon (who played the martyred Russian boy in DAYS OF GLORY) is the title character, a "hot jazz" clarinet player. When Felix Bressart (James Stewart's friend in SHOP AROUND THE CORNER) a studio music chief, can't come up with the right "modern" (Gershwinesque) music for the climax of a movie in production, his secretary (Marcy McGuire) suggests they hire Vernon for the job. They see him and his band perform and hire him, but it turns out that Vernon can't read or write music; he can improvise some great stuff, but only when he's in just the right mood. Bressart and McGuire use various tricks to try to get him in a "hot music" mood, and have arrangers Zing and Zang (Cliff Nazarro & Tommy Noonan) sitting ready to transcribe his music, but nothing seems to work. Anne Jeffreys is a studio belle, James Warren is a western star whom Vernon admires, and 11-year-old prodigy Richard Korbel plays some Chopin and Grieg. Real-life RKO music director Constantin Bakaleinikoff conducts an orchestra on camera, and Bob Nolan & the Sons of the Pioneers, who appeared in a number of B-westerns, play their hit "Cool Water." The songs are fun and the pace is zippy, although the action stops dead whenever the kid plays piano. I like Bressart being annoyed at a dance club by what he calls all the "noise and acrobats." Amusing and different, sort of a B-movie version of a 30's Rooney/Garland movie. Noonan (better known later as Marilyn Monroe's nerdy boyfriend in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES) and Nazarro are especially fun. [TCM]

DAYS OF GLORY (1944)

An effective WWII propaganda movie by Jacques Tourneur. As with his Val Lewton movies (like CAT PEOPLE), Tourneur turns a low budget into something of an asset with shadowy, expressionistic lighting and atmospheric sets. The movie rarely feels real, but taken on its own terms, it is often compelling. Gregory Peck, in his first movie, plays the leader of a small group of Russian resistance fighters who carry out acts of sabotage and murder against the occupying Nazis, while waiting for word from higher ups about a major offensive due to start soon. The group lives in the underground remains of a bombed-out monastery. Though there are occasional tensions, they work together well until Tamara Toumanova, a ballerina, is brought into the fold. At first, she is resented because she is not fit for either guerilla fighting or "housework," but soon she proves her mettle and Peck falls in love with her. Glen Vernon is a young boy who has a schoolboy crush on the ballerina; near the end, when he is threatened with hanging unless he betrays the group, he is able to martyr himself because Toumanova is watching and inspiring him. Also in the cast are Hugo Haas (later a B-movie director), Lowell Gilmore, and Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flintstone).

The opening credits are narrated, with a solemn announcement about Peck's great talent. The first scene is of two Nazis on motorcycles who get picked off by a guerilla fighter who turns out to be a female (Maria Palmer). Most of the movie is effective, except for a moment when Toumanova wakes up startled at the same moment that one of the group is killed—it's an almost supernatural scene of empathy that doesn't work. The finale is also a bit much, with Peck declaring his love for Toumanova as she takes the "official" Resistance pledge while both are lobbing hand grenades at oncoming German tanks. The pro-Russian slant is heavy and sometimes a bit hokey, but as a movie that wears its propaganda on its sleeve, it generally works quite well. [TCM]

LADIES MUST LIVE (1940)

A Warners B-film adaptation of a George M. Cohan play, "The Hometowners." Wayne Morris plays a rich farmer; Rosemary Lane is a big city chorus girl whose car gets stuck in a pothole on his property. He helps her out and she thinks he's just another hick until they meet up again in New York City and fall in love. As their wedding day approaches, Morris's best friend, Pighead (Roscoe Karns) and his wife (Lee Patrick) enter the scene. Karns thinks that Lane is just a gold digger and that her entire family will take advantage of Morris's money. Complications, based on prejudices about farmers and city folk, ensue. Generally, this is a fast moving comedy that feels like it's been edited down a bit too much, especially in the set-up. Morris is an attractive cornfed hunk; Lane doesn't register much one way or the other; Karns is amusing, as usual, but best of all is Lee Patrick (Effie in THE MALTESE FALCON) in a Ruth Hussey-type role. She gets the best lines and delivers them well. It's a shame she never had a stronger A-film career. George Reeves is Lane's brother and William Hopper is a jock ex-boyfriend. [TCM]

A LOST LADY (1934)

This is based on a Willa Cather novel, though most reviews say that only the title and character names remain intact. Barbara Stanwyck is on the eve of marrying Philip Reed, but he is shot and killed by the husband of a woman Reed was seeing on the sly. Stanwyck has a breakdown and is convinced that she will never love again. Her family sends her off to a mountain retreat to recover, and while hiking one day, she is injured. Lawyer Frank Morgan finds her and nurses her back to health, both physically and emotionally. She agrees to marry him because she feels in debt to him, but they agree it will be a sexless, non-romantic relationship. She's happy for a while, and even fends off the advances of the handsome Lyle Talbot, who works for Morgan. Then the soap suds start up when she meets obnoxious but rich pilot Ricardo Cortez and, despite his general brashness, falls in love with him. Stanwyck decides to leave Morgan, and he promptly has a heart attack. Will she run off with Cortez or stay and nurse Morgan? A rather bland melodrama; everyone is rich but no one is particularly likeable. Frankly, I was rooting for Talbot to come back at the end and take her away. For all the plot threads, it's very short and doesn't have a strong supporting cast to give it some color. Morgan's Lassie-type dog is as interesting as any of the human characters. [TCM]

THE INVISIBLE MENACE (1938)

Despite the title, this isn't horror or sci-fi, but a Warners B-mystery, set on an isolated military base on the West Coast. One foggy night, Army private Eddie Craven smuggles his new bride (Marie Wilson) onto the island; it also happens to be the night that a man is found murdered (and tortured, with bayonet slashes across his chest). The island is quarantined and the chief suspect is Boris Karloff, who has a criminal record which he claims is due to a past wrongdoing by the dead man. The commanding officer (Henry Kolker) gets an Army Intelligence man (Cy Kendall) to fly in that night to investigate. It's not hard to figure out that Karloff is a red herring; other suspects include Charles Trowbridge as a civilian doctor who seems awfully dead set against Karloff, and Regis Toomey as an efficient lieutenant who helps Kendall with his investigation. Kendall himself comes off as rather suspicious for a while. Frank Faylen and John Ridgely also appear. Everyone talks very quickly and it's over in an hour, no muss, no fuss. As usual with Warners, the (limited) sets are very good for a B-film, though undoubtedly the fog helps hide any budget limitations. Marie Wilson is good, as she always is, but is underused. The amusing last scene is of Craven and Wilson finally consummating their marriage in a tent, under the watchful eye of a sentry! [TCM]

THE ADVENTURES OF JANE ARDEN (1939)

Fairly undistinguished B-thriller based on a popular 30's comic strip (which ran through the 60's). The title character, played charmlessly by Rosella Towne, is a go-get-'em girl reporter who winds up on tracking down a gang of gem smugglers who use women to bring in the stolen booty, then kill them when the trail gets too hot. What interest the movie has is provided by a decent supporting cast. James Stephenson is very good (slick and ruthless) as the chief bad guy; William Gargan has some charm as Arden's editor, but he doesn't have much to do. Dennie Moore (very funny as Olga the gossiping manicurist in THE WOMEN) and Benny Rubin (Warner's stock Jewish comic) supply solid comic relief. John Ridgely is a reporter. There is a surprisingly brutal killing in the first few minutes of the film, all the more surprising because the victim is a woman. The hour-long movie is not bad, but not terribly compelling, undone mostly by the lead. [TCM]

STAR DUST (1940)

Charming show biz comedy, apparently based loosely of the early career of actress Linda Darnell. Roland Young, a talent scout for Amalgamated Pictures, heads southwest by train to find new talent, even as we see the studio send back to the Midwest yesterday's new faces who didn't quite make the grade (including George Montgomery in a tiny role). It's interesting that the sendoff is played not for laughs, but in a bittersweet (though not despairing) tone. Young discovers three young people to send to Hollywood: John Payne as a college football star, Mary Healy as a singer, and Linda Darnell as a 17-year-old aspiring actress. Young actually thinks Darnell is too young, but she outsmarts him and gets handpicked by the studio head (William Gargan). The rest of the film is concerned with the ups and downs of the three, focusing on Darnell who winds up competing with a newly signed starlet (Mary Beth Hughes). A good supporting cast includes Charlotte Greenwood as the studio acting coach (who has some fun scenes with Young), Donald Meek as a rival talent scout, and Jessie Ralph as Darnell's aunt. Frank Coghlan Jr., who played bellboys and messengers in dozens of 30's and 40's movies, and Mantan Moreland have small roles. Sid Grauman, of Grauman's Chinese Theater, has a cameo as himself. Gargan is fun, playing a caricature of the real Fox exec Darryl Zanuck. In a running gag, Payne keeps breaking his nose at inconvenient times. It's not a musical, but Healy and Greenwood have a fun number, "Don't Let It Get You Down." [FMC]

YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH (1941)

This first of two films for Columbia that paired Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth is sillier than any of the Astaire/Rogers movies (and they could get pretty silly), and worth watching only for the dancing. Astaire is a dancer who gets entangled in his producer's extramarital intrigues, leading to complications involving his fellow dancer Hayworth. To get out of the situation, he goes to the draft board and gets in the Army (even though he's underweight), but Hayworth and the producer (Robert Benchley) wind up at Astaire's camp to put on a free show. More complications ensue. There's no denying that Astaire and Hayworth have some great dancing moments, but the rest of the movie is stolen by the drily funny Benchley and Frieda Inscourt doing what amounts to an Eve Arden impersonation. A bland nobody named John Hubbard is Astaire's romantic rival; Cliff Nazarro, an expert in double-talk, has a couple of nice moments as a soldier nicknamed "Swivel Tongue." The songs are by Cole Porter, including "Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye" and "The Wedding Cake March," which includes a snatch of "Night and Day." Astaire does a nifty number in a guardhouse with accompaiment from the Delta Rhythm Boys, an all-black combo. Generally mediocre. It doesn't make me want to see the second Astaire/Hayworth film, YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER, but against my better judgment, I still might. [TCM]

MOON OVER MIAMI (1941) & THREE BLIND MICE (1938)

These Fox movies are both based on the same source material which was used by Fox again in the 50's for HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. MIAMI is a colorful Fox musical, not quite as fun as the same year's SUN VALLEY SERENADE, but better than average. Betty Grable and Carole Landis are sisters from Texas who work at a drive-in restaurant. When they come into a small inheritance, they take off to Miami in order to land rich husbands—I guess the city had a reputation for being overrun with wealthy bachelors. Grable pretends to be a successful businesswoman, Landis poses as her secretary, and their aunt (Charlotte Greenwood) goes along as a maid. Jack Haley is a bellhop who, not realizing that the girls are poseurs themselves, offers to help Grable steer clear of gold digging men. Grable meets Robert Cummings and they begin romancing, but the man she really has chemistry with is Don Ameche, who turns out to be one of those gold digging men, thanks to a busted family fortune. After some rough patches, everyone winds up with the right people, even Greenwood (with Haley). Robert Greig, who was very good as Hives the butler in ANIMAL CRACKERS, plays another butler here, and Fred Astaire's choreographer Hermes Pan dances with Grable in one number, a conga set to nursery rhymes. Most of the songs are not especially memorable, but the sets are nice and the whole thing has a fun Astaire/Rogers feel to it. The leads are fine (Landis is a bit bland), but Haley and Greenwood are the most fun. Some location footage from Florida is used, but feels superfluous. Generally, good escapist fare. THREE BLIND MICE is not a musical and compared to MOON feels a bit draggy, but it's worth seeing for its cast. In this one, Loretta Young has the Grable role, with relative unknowns Marjorie Weaver and Pauline Moore playing her sisters. Both of the men who seem to be rich (Joel McCrea and David Niven) aren't; the man with the money is bartender Stuart Erwin (the Haley equivalent here). Also in the cast: Binnie Barnes, Franklin Pangborn, and, in a tiny role, Elisha Cook Jr. as a boyish romancer, a startling change of pace from most of his later roles. [Fox Movie Channel]

LIFE BEGINS (1932)

A slice-of-life melodrama set in a maternity ward; it's based on a play and it often feels rather stagy. Aline MacMahon presides over a ward of "problem" cases. When a police matron brings convicted killer Loretta Young in, we see that MacMahon acts all tough, but is a softie inside. Young's boyish husband, Eric Linden, is nervous and a bit hysterical at times--he comes off like a grown-up Dead End Kid. We never learn much about the couple's circumstances (she claims to have killed in self-defense, though the jury didn't seem to buy it), but we do see Linden hock his overcoat to buy her a scarf, so clearly they are both in tough straits. Other expectant mothers in the ward include Clara Blandick, an old pro at childbirth with six previous kids, and Glenda Farrell as a tough cookie who is expecting twins and is trying to "sell" them to a good mother. She puts gin in her hot water bottle and drunkenly (and callously) sings "Frankie & Johnny," a racy song about a murderess, to Young. However, before the end of the movie, we see Farrell get all nurturing and decide to keep the kids. Dorothy Peterson is a psycho case who wanders through the wards, stealing babies. Frank McHugh is a nervous father sent off on a fool's errand (to buy more ether for the hospital!!) to keep him out of the nurses' hair. Preston Foster, Elizabeth Patterson, and Gilbert Roland also appear. Linden and Young have chemistry together; we know that, one way or another, their story will not have a happy ending, and we're not disappointed in the tear-jerking conclusion. Good soap opera movie. [TCM]

THE MILLIONAIRE (1931)

Mildly amusing story in the "eccentric rich people" mold so popular back then. George Arliss is the head of a manufacturing company who is told by his doctor that he should slow down for his health. He retires and finds himself drifting toward total inactivity. A visit one day from a fast-talking insurance salesman (James Cagney) convinces Arliss to find something he can throw himself into to get reinvigorated, so he decides to buy a small gas station from Noah Beery whom, we discover, is selling because he knows the opening of a new highway will kill the old business. Arliss' business partner is young David Manners, who doesn't know that Arliss is a millionaire. The two raise money, get rid of the old property, and build a new station along the new highway and wind up competing with Beery. This new double life does re-energize Arliss, much to the pleasure of his wife, Florence Arliss, and his doctor, both of whom think that his recovery is the result of rest and medication. Manners meets and falls in love with Arliss' daughter (Evalyn Knapp), who is in the process of dumping her rich but shallow boyfriend, Bramwell Fletcher. Will the business succeed? Will the nice guy get the rich girl? There are no surprises, but the film is light and fluffy stuff that is easy to sit through. Arliss, a grand old man of the stage and screen who was over 60 when he made this, is a bit stagy but is convincing in his transformation from sickly to robust. Manners is his usual passive but handsome self, and Cagney gives the movie a shot in the arm with his single high energy scene. [Turner Classic Movies]

Re-Introducing Myself

My "mission" with my blog is primarily to write reviews of classic-era movies that I see on DVD, tape, or cable (mostly Turner Classic Movies or Fox Movie Channel). I find it difficult to be objective or rationally critical about old movies which I have already seen and loved, so that's why I usually do not review more well-known classics like CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, or SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. At this point in my movie-watching life, I am actively searching out less well-known movies, or movies that are hard to come by, or films about which it is difficult to find critical information in movie reference guides. My favorite genres are mystery, film noir, musical, horror, and WWII films (actually made during the war rather than made later but set during wartime). I also enjoy B-films of the 30's and 40's, and pre-Code movies (from 1930-1934, before censorious Production Code restrictions became mandatory). Silent movies are not my cup of tea, but I will watch one occasionally. I avoid westerns and, frankly, 50's movies in general; after WWII, Hollywood went into a creative decline that didn't end until the mid-60's. My cut-off date for "classic era" is 1969, but I may begin violating that rule this year, and sometimes briefly mention current movies that I enjoy. I will also start noting whether I saw the movie being reviewed on cable, video, or in a theater (I'm lucky that here in Columbus, Ohio, we have a theater downtown that shows classic movies all summer long, and also a university that occasionally presents older films). I enjoy the feedback I get and continue to encourage it; check my sidebar to contact me. I am also going to try to start noting in my blog when certain favorites of mine will be showing on TCM or FMC. And I'll start by noting that a good Fritz Lang thriller, MINISTRY OF FEAR, will be on TCM Saturday, Jan 3, at 8 a.m. (all times Eastern)

2003: My Year in Movies--Part Two

Of the 180 or so classic-era movies I saw for the first time and reviewed on my blog in the past year, here are my least favorite:

ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND (1938): Not an awful movie, just very disappointing. All the weaknesses of the Fox musicals are writ large here: a tediously predictable story, unexciting production numbers, excessive length, and Alice Faye. Good Irving Berlin songs and a nice supporting performance by Ethel Merman, but not much fun.

FIRST LADY (1937): My tolerance for Kay Francis depends on her surroundings. Here, she has some good material (by George S. Kauffman) but is directed badly and supported by a bland cast. A total washout.

HITTING A NEW HIGH (1937): Actually, a new low among musicals. Lily Pons couldn't act, Jack Oakie couldn't stop overacting, and the usually reliable Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore can't save it. Clever plot, bad execution all around.

LADY SCARFACE (1941): Judith Anderson is completely wasted in a supporting role of little consequence, even though she plays the title character. Sub-par crime movie with boring leads.

THE LADY TAKES A SAILOR (1949): Years after the screwball comedy genre had peaked came this tired retread. I like the stars, Jane Wyman and Dennis Morgan, but clearly their hearts weren't in this ridiculous comedy with few laughs.

THE SMILING LIEUTENANT (1931): An Ernst Lubitsch comic operatta that is well made, I suppose, but not very light on its feet, despite some good work by Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins. Maurice Chevalier's presence is definitely not a plus in my book. Boring, which this kind of whimsy should never be.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1935): Drab, draggy, depressing, despite two actors I usually like, Paul Lukas and Walter Abel. Abel is badly miscast as D'Artagnan. Avoid at all costs. Thankfully, Turner Classic Movies rarely shows it.

UNDERCURRENT (1946): A glossy noirish soap opera from MGM, proving that "glossy"and "noir" really don't belong in the same phrase. Not terrible, but not up to the usual standards of MGM, director Vincente Minelli, or star Katharine Hepburn.


Some highlights of the year:
I discovered Harold Lloyd, thanks to TCM. THE FRESHMAN was very funny, THE CAT'S PAW a little less so but unique and interesting. I have a couple more on tape to watch soon. I hope Lloyd's daughter will allow his films to be released on DVD sooner rather than later. I also saw Buster Keaton's THE CAMERAMAN on the big screen with live organ accompaniment, which was great fun.

I got Fox Movie Channel, which helps offset the loss of American Movie Classics, which has gone so far downhill that I don't even check their schedule anymore. Thanks to Fox, I saw movies with Will Rogers, Betty Grable, and Don Ameche; some restored Charlie Chan movies; and the wonderful CHANDU. My only complaint: they don't show enough 30's and 40's movies, and they repeat too much. It seemed like Fox executives thought ACE ELI AND RODGER OF THE SKIES was the gem in their crown.

There were some excellent DVD's out this year: A superb restoration of the early Karloff horror film THE GHOUL, a nice line of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (together and separately) films from Universal (I especially appreciated the double bills), Kino's excellent disc of METROPOLIS, Fox's Studio Classics line with great prints of ALL ABOUT EVE, THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, and SUNRISE, and Warner's dazzling package of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. On the other hand, Columbia put out mediocre prints of THE AWFUL TRUTH and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, and overcharged for THE DEVIL COMMANDS, charging 25 bucks for an hour-long film that looks only OK. Even the usually reliable Criterion made a mistake with THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER: a complete and good looking print, but plagued with annoying flickering for much of its running time.

My favorite recent movies, seen in theaters or on DVD: THE HOURS, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (Catharine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney must be among the most beautiful people on the planet), AMERICAN SPLENDOR, SPIRITED AWAY, CHICAGO, A MIGHTY WIND, THE ITALIAN JOB, and THE BIG LEBOWSKI (a movie I had avoided but my friends made me watch). ELF was sweet and one of the best Christmas movies in many years. 28 DAYS LATER and LOST IN TRANSLATION were worth seeing but not as wonderful as the critics seemed to think. SWIMMING POOL and RUSSIAN ARK were interesting but disappointing. THE TRANSPORTER and CABIN FEVER were pretty bad. THE RECRUIT was worth watching only for the steamy Colin Farrell, who I'm still not convinced will be a great actor. And my personal favorite celebrity crush Jeremy Piven had a small but nice role in RUNAWAY JURY (and did commentary on the DVD of the otherwise wretched PCU).

2003: My Year in Movies--Part One

Of the 180 or so classic-era movies I saw for the first time and reviewed on my blog in the past year, here are my favorites, with year of release and the month of my review:

CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR (1950/Sept): TV quiz show spoof that has become newly relevant lately. Ronald Colman is good, but Vincent Price steals the movie with a unexpectedly delightful supporing performance. (On DVD)

CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (1932/Oct): Wonderful fantasy/adventure fun with Chandu trying to stop a super-villain from using his death ray to bring the world to its knees. Edmund Lowe as the lead hero is bland, but Bela Lugosi is excellent as the scenery-chewing bad guy. Paced and structured like a movie serial, but over in under 90 minutes. Fun special effects as well, much better than in any serial I've seen. (Fox Movie Channel)

DANCING LADY (1933/March) and SADIE MCKEE (1934/Sept): Two movies that gave me a new appreciation for Joan Crawford. Long before her screen persona hardened into that of a soapy, campy Queen Bitch, here she's much lighter on her toes playing sympathetic young women looking for love. The lovely and quiet scene in SADIE when Gene Raymond sings "All I Do is Dream of You" to Crawford is one of my peak movie moments of the year. (Turner Classic Movies)

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK (1933/Dec): An underrated WWI war drama (sort of an anti-war, anti-buddy movie) with powerful performances by Fredric March and Cary Grant. (On VHS)

FEMALE (1933/June): A great pre-Code comedy/drama with Ruth Chatterton as a powerful working woman who likes to dally with her handsome employees, but refuses to let them get too serious, until George Brent comes along. The ending is a letdown, but until the last 10 minutes, this is a fun "turnaround" plot; never under the Code could a woman who wasn't a prostitute be seen as enjoying brief sexual flings as Chatterton does. (TCM)

THE GLASS KEY (1942/Sept): Alan Ladd at his best in this early film noir, staying loyal to his boss (Brian Donlevy) while romancing Donlevy's girl (Veronica Lake) and getting the shit beaten out of him in an archetypal noir torture scene with William Bendix. Seeing this helped me make sense of the Coen Brothers noir pastiche, MILLER'S CROSSING. (TCM)

THE NAKED KISS (1964/Jan): I'm not exactly a Samuel Fuller fan, but seeing this after having seen SHOCK CORRIDOR last year has helped me appreciate him. Trashy melodrama about a hooker with a heart of gold who gets tangled up in some sordid small town affairs. Cheaply made but compelling, with a unique look and tone. (On DVD)

RHYTHM ON THE RIVER (1940/May): Light and frothy Bing Crosby musical, with a rare leading performance by Mary Martin. The show biz plot is a little silly, but perfectly serviceable, and almost every musical number is fun. (On DVD)

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1934/Jan): Sink me! This is sort of a cheat since I'd seen this wonderful adventure film before, but this was my first DVD viewing. This may be Leslie Howard's best performance ever, and the Oscar Wilde-like dialogue is delightful. Raymond Massey makes a formidable villain. Grand fun. (On DVD)

Runner-ups include a few WWII films (WING AND A PRAYER, A YANK IN THE R.A.F, BERLIN EXPRESS), some good pre-Code films (POSSESSED, TORCH SINGER, MADAM SATAN, MAN WANTED, and JEWEL ROBBERY), and some fine noirish thrillers (LURED, WHEN STRANGERS MARRY, D.O.A., WOMAN ON THE BEACH). Also worth noting: THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, ROXIE HART, SCREAM OF FEAR, THE CONFORMIST, and OLIVER TWIST. I enjoyed discovering Eric Linden, a pre-Code juvenile lead, in BIG CITY BLUES and AGE OF CONSENT; a few more of his movies are on my list for 2004. I liked Will Rogers in A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and enjoyed seeing more of Chester Morris in THE GAY BRIDE, AERIAL GUNNER, and THE GREAT WHITE HOPE; an e-mail pal sent me a couple of Morris' Boston Blackie movies which I'll review soon.

I appreciated Bob Hope more than ever this year in STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM , THE CAT AND THE CANARY, and ROAD TO UTOPIA, but of all the celebrity deaths of the year, Katharine Hepburn's was the one that affected me the most; she made some bad movies like anyone else, but she gives three of the greatest acting performances of all time in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, THE LION IN WINTER, and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. I think Tracy Lord remains one of the most interesting and fleshed-out women in any movie. We'll never see another like her.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941)

This is the movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture instead of CITIZEN KANE. KANE was certainly robbed, but this is a fine movie in the sentimental family saga genre. Set around the turn of the century, it's about the childhood of Huw Morgan, played by 12-year-old Roddy McDowell, the youngest child in a family of Welsh coal miners. The episodic narrative (told in voiceover by Huw as an adult—Irving Pichel, whom we never see on camera) covers the gradual dispersal of the five other sons as the fortunes of the mines rise and fall. First, union agitation causes a rift between the boys and their father (Donald Crisp). Later, two sons leave for America when an economic downturn causes layoffs. Ivor (Patric Knowles, who is seen quite a bit but has almost no dialogue) marries Bronwyn (Anna Lee) and later dies in a mining accident on the very day his wife gives birth. Huw's sister (Maureen O'Hara) is in love with the local minister (Walter Pidgeon), but he thinks she would be unhappy having to sacrifice to share his impoverished state. She winds up in an unhappy marriage with the rich son of the mine owner. Later, when she returns to the town still married but alone, gossip flares up about her and Pidgeon. We also follow various other trials undergone by McDowell, Crisp, and Sara Allgood, the mother of the brood.

Basically, the arc of the story is downward; things get worse and worse, and then someone dies, and they get worse some more, although the tone of the movie is not as downbeat as that description implies. The episodes get shorter and choppier in the last half, giving the film a rushed feeling (probably due to the fact that it was based on a novel and was intended to be a 4-hour epic on the scale of GONE WITH THE WIND). Crisp and Allgood are excellent and the movie would be worth watching if only for the two of them—both were nominated for Supporting Actor Oscars and Crisp won. McDowell is fine, although he's not convincing as a growing boy; several years pass but he looks and acts the same age throughout. John Loder, usually a B-movie lead, is good as one of the sons; Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields, real life brothers, pop up in small roles, with Shields memorable as an unpleasant church elder. The look of the film, though occasionally artificial, is generally quite good, with the sloping street of houses and mine chimneys providing a strong backdrop for much of the action. The luminous black and white cinematography is by Arthur Miller who won an Oscar. Overall, not exactly an uplifting movie, but an absorbing one which I imagine will stand up to multiple viewings.

HERE COMES THE NAVY (1934)

Typical Warners film of the era; the plotline may have been original back then, but now it feels full of cliches and stale stereotypes. James Cagney is Chesty O'Connor, a scrappy ironworker who delights in taunting the Navy men who work nearby, particularly Pat O'Brien. Their antagonistic relationship blows up at an ironworkers' party where O'Brien steals Cagney's girl (Dorothy Tree) and wins a fist fight. Cagney decides to join the Navy to get back at O'Brien; in the meantime, he starts dating O'Brien's sister (Gloria Stuart, the older Rose in TITANIC), and when they get serious, O'Brien tries to lay down the law. Cagney manages to piss off all the Navy men with his cocky, anti-authoritarian patter, but he comes through for his fellow sailors during a fire on board a ship, the Arizona (the same ship that, in real life, was sunk at Pearl Harbor). Later, he even saves O'Brien's life when both of them wind up hanging from an airborne dirigible. They develop mutual respect, if not friendship. Frank McHugh plays Cagney's buddy Droopy; a running gag involves Droopy's mom's false teeth and her ability to sing. The Cagney/Stuart relationship is not fleshed out very well; it's difficult to see what someone of her relative refinement sees in Cagney's rudeness and tough demeanor. The friendship between Cagney and McHugh is the most heartfelt thing in the movie; there's no homoerotic charge between them, though at one point, a sailor yells at them, "Swish!! What are you two, a couple of violets?" Recommended mostly for fans of Cagney, or fans of the military-buddies-at-peacetime film, if that is indeed a separate genre.

Christmas on TV--2003

I hardly ever watch made-for-TV movies, but given my love of all things Christmas, I make an exception in December and allow myself to watch one or two of the holiday offerings each year. As I sat down to write this, I was thinking that my taste in Christmas TV movies gravitated towards those which featured smoothly and blandly handsome leading men, but I think perhaps that is an inescapable ingredient of TV movies in general. Two years ago, I enjoyed THE SONS OF MISTLETOE with the handsome and likable George Newbern; last year, I watched (but didn't enjoy as much) SANTA JR. with the handsome and likable Nick Stabile. This year, my handsome and likable pick is Steven Eckholdt (who I always used to get confused with the handsome but mean Aaron Eckhart) in SECRET SANTA. Actually, the star is Jennie Garth, who plays a human-interest reporter dying for a shot at a good investigative story; she winds up in the small town of Hamden, Indiana trying to find out the identity of the Secret Santa who has for several years given deserving poor folks in town expensive and life-altering gifts. Her first guess is Eckholdt, a local rich nice guy and widower, but what about Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver on "Leave It to Beaver"), sweet resident of a nursing home who gives Garth a copy her favorite story, "The Gift of the Magi"? Or Charlie Robinson (the clerk on "Night Court"), a sweet natured employee at the home who devotes much of his time to the residents? It's easy to figure out the identity of the gift-giver, as it's easy to predict what Garth will do with her story. Garth, despite her years on "Beverly Hills 90210," is a little out of her league here, which is a shame because she's the only actor given much to do. Eckholdt, Billingsley, and especially Robinson are good but underused. Still, the time flew by fairly quickly and the inevitable kid in the wheelchair doesn't turn into Tiny Tim.

I also watched ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME which, surprisingly, also had a blandly handsome leading man, though he only gets fifth or sixth billing. Eloise, the heroine of a series of children's books of the 50's, is the little rich girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel. I have enjoyed the illustrated books, but when she comes to life, it turns out she's not all that likable. It's not the fault of the actress, 11-year-old Sofia Vassilieva, who is quite good. It's just that when her shenanigans are taken off the page and brought to the small screen, they seem more obnoxious than charming. Despite the Christmas trappings, the story has little to do with the holiday. Eloise winds up playing matchmaker for the daughter of the hotel owner (Sarah Topham) who has returned to New York for the first time in years, and the poor but handsome and likable bellman (Gavin Creel) who has had an unrequited crush on her for a long time. Unfortunately, she's getting married to the rich but irritating Rick Roberts (and it turns out he isn't even rich, but is basically a gold digger) and Eloise only has a few days to make things come out like they should. Julie Andrews is wonderful as the nanny (of *course* she is!), though she doesn't have a lot to do. Creel is quite dashing and a good dancer. I just wish it had been a bit more Christmassy.

AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CAROL (1979)

This TV-movie version of the Dickens classic doesn't have the reputation it deserves, perhaps because it rarely shows up on TV, though it has been issued on tape and DVD. Set in a Massachusetts town during the Depression, it stars Henry Winkler as Ben Slade, a mean and lonely old man who delights in spending his Christmas Eve evicting unemployed folks and repossessing furniture. Thatcher, his assistant, played by R.H. Thomson, gets no glee from accompanying Slade, and winds up getting fired for his suggestion that Slade could use his fortune to reopen a local quarry so the townsfolk could get back to work. That night, Slade is visited by the ghost of his late business partner and warned to expect "visitations" that will show him the error of his ways. The supernatural visitors take the form of the down-on-their-luck people that Slade has visited earlier that day. We see Slade go from an enterprising young man to a successful but ruthless businessman who alienates most everyone who was important to him. Of course, when he wakes up Christmas morning, he's a changed man. The character of Slade is a little more fleshed out than some movie Scrooges, and Winkler is good (though his old man makeup is not terribly convincing). David Wayne, a bookseller, becomes the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Dorian Harewood, a poor black man who had his oven and furniture taken, is the Future, dressed in gold chains and a leisure suit, which dates the movie a bit. Slade's time-traveling is denoted by his radio, which plays snatches of music and news from various eras. There are few surprises here, but it's fun to see how the elements of the original story get transformed (and surprisingly there is no "God bless us every one" from Tiny Tim, or Little Mr. T. as he's called here). While this version doesn't approach the heights of the Sim or Scott versions, it's still most definitely worth a seasonal look.

BIRTH OF THE BLUES (1941)

One of the less interesting Bing Crosby musicals from his heyday in the 40's. Set in the unspecified past in New Orleans, Crosby plays a musican who is set on starting up the first all-white blues band (!?). He and his gang of part-time musicians hear of a "hot" cornet player from Memphis (Brain Donlevy) who has blown into town and right into jail, so they all leave they day jobs, get Donlevy free, meet up (quite improbably) with Mary Martin (a "hot" girl singer) and together get a good start on bleaching out the blues. Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson is Crosby's loyal sidekick, Carolyn Lee is Martin's nine-year-old aunt (!?), and some real musicians (Perry Botkin and Jack Teagarden among them) make up the band. I'm hardly an expert on the blues, but most of the music in the movie sounds nothing like the blues, except for a nice sequence when Anderson seems to be on his deathbed; the band plays "St. James Infirmary" and his wife Ruby Elzy sings "St. Louis Blues." More often, the songs are vaguely "hot" arrangements of songs like "Wait Til the Sun Shines Nellie" and "Melancholy Baby." The numbers are fine, but they sure ain't the blues. J. Carroll Naish and Warren Hymer also appear, and Cecil Kellaway has a cameo. Aside from the opening buisness with Donlevy, the rest is fairly slow going. Botkin's name was familiar to me from seeing it on album jackets in the 60's and 70's; he did musical arrangements for, among others, The Lettermen, the Friends of Distinction, Carly Simon, and Harry Nilsson, including one of my favorite albums of all time, "Pandemonium Shadow Show."

VANESSA: HER LOVE STORY (1935)

This was the last movie Helen Hayes made for almost 20 years; I don't know that this one drove her into screen retirement, but it is no classic—it's an episodic melodrama with little to distinguish it from any other run-of-the-mill melodrama of its day. Hayes is Vanessa, daughter of Lewis Stone and granddaughter of May Robson (who is turning 100 as the film begins). Hayes is in love with a cousin, the dashing and slightly roguish Robert Montgomery, and he with her. However, Otto Kruger is also in love with Hayes; he's the opposite of dashing (and a little neurotic), but he's also a bit more respectable than Montgomery. Hayes and Montgomery are soon to be married when a tragic fire sweeps through her family house and claims her father's life. Montgomery saves her, but she thinks he deliberately didn't save her father—we know what she doesn't, that Stone was dead of a heart attack by the time Montgomery got to him. She tells him off and he goes on a bender and winds up married to a lusty barmaid. Over time, Hayes sees the error of her ways but gives in and marries Kruger, who is mentally ill (though that information is kept from Hayes—by this time, I was beginning to think they all lived in Pine Valley!). Montgomery becomes free, but by that time, Kruger has gone insane and Hayes feels she cannot leave him. Despite being made during the Production Code era, the impression is definitely given that Hayes and Montgomery are rather openly carrying on an affair. In an abrupt ending, Kruger dies and Our Lovers can make it legal. There are lots of short scenes, almost tableaux, and after the first 20 minutes or so, the dramatic tension slackens. Also in the cast are Henry Stephenson, Donald Crisp, and Jessie Ralph. Produced by David Selznick and not his finest hour, although a few elements here would make their way into GONE WITH THE WIND (ill-starred lovers, dying soldiers, and a scene of two people standing silhouetted in the distance under a huge tree—remember Scarlett and her father early in the movie?).

MOONFLEET (1955)

A moody opening (reminiscent of GREAT EXPECTATIONS) is the best thing about this routine pirate melodrama which plays out like a cross between JAMAICA INN and a Disney kid's adventure. Young orphan Jon Whiteley is sent to the town of Moonfleet, a British coast town, to be taken care of by town squire Stewart Granger who, despite his respectable trappings, is also the head of a local smuggling ring. Most of the story is seen through the boy's eyes as Granger's men (including Melville Cooper and Sean McClory) become figures of menace when Whiteley finds a code that leads to the discovery of a missing valuable jewel. Viveca Lindfors is underused as Granger's lover; also underused are George Sanders and Joan Greenwood as a scheming couple. Dancer Liliane Montevecchi has a sexy (if totally out of the blue) dance number. Scenes set in graveyards and secret passages are properly atmospheric but the film, like many 50's movies, is too bloated to be fun, or to be taken seriously. Directed by Fritz Lang using a widescreen process (which he was on record as despising).

TWO IN THE DARK (1936)

Nifty B-mystery which begins quite effectively with a close-up of the face of Walter Abel--he is stumbling through a foggy park at night, disoriented and with a small head wound. He has amnesia and becomes convinced that he was involved in the murder earlier that night of a theaterical producer. With the help of an out-of-work actress (Margot Grahame) whom he meets in the park, Abel tries to figure out who he is and how he's tied to the murder. Some circumstantial evidence suggests that he is the dead man's chauffeur but after hooking up with a cop (Alan Hale) and a reporter (Wallace Ford) by pretending to be a reporter himself, Abel and Grahame begin to solve the puzzle. The solution involves the manuscript of a play and a writer who was being cheated out of money and credit. The strong supporting cast includes Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes, Leslie Fenton, and Ward Bond. I've always liked Abel, who usually played supporting roles (HOLIDAY INN, AN AMERICAN ROMANCE) and he makes a good B-lead here in one of his earliest movies.

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK (1933)

Spoilers included!
A superb WWI film; though it doesn't have the epic sweep or tone of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, it does have a strong anti-war message and is almost as powerful as the earlier, better known film. Fredric March is a pilot for the British Air Corps who becomes a "top gun" in the skies over France, heading several successful missions. He slowly becomes distressed as he loses a total of five "observers" during his flights, men who sit behind him and observe the ground for enemy information. Despite these losses of life, he is still hailed as a hero every time he returns, and this begins to temper his initial gung-ho attitude. Cary Grant is a fellow serviceman who doesn't cut it as a pilot and is relegated to observer status, causing some resentment between the two men. Jack Oakie is buddy to both men and tries to keep the peace. The growing disillusionment of all the men is shown--at first, they have a boyish, sporting ethusiasm for their job, but the growing death and destruction get to them all. When Grant kills a German who was parachuting from a burning plane, he is ostracized by the other men for not playing fair.

At one point, March is given a leave, visits Paris, and has a brief fling with Carole Lombard (billed as "The Beautiful Lady"), but when he returns his attitude isn't much better. Shocked at the youthfulness of the new pilots, he snaps completely when he shoots down a renowned German ace who turns out to be just a boy. March delivers an impassioned, if not totally coherent, anti-war speech at a drunken party given in his honor, then goes to his room and kills himself. Grant finds him and takes extraordinary measures to make sure his death is seen as brave and sacrificial. Grant is very good in a role unlike any others in his career. March is outstanding, especially in the last half. Oakie has an amusing line spoken to a young lady that probably could not have gotten in under the Production Code a year later: "You might be Fifi to the rest of the world, but you're nothing but Fanny to me." An excellent movie that deserves to be much better known. It doesn't crop up on cable, but it is available on video and worth seeking out.

THE DEVIL BAT (1941)

A notorious Poverty Row horror "classic" which feels in retrospect very much like a forerunner of the films of Ed Wood. Bela Lugosi is Dr. Carruthers, a seemingly kindly old doctor in a small town who, unbeknowest to the populace, has been experimenting with producing large mutant bats in his home laboratory--we're told this in an opening title card, the lazy, no-budget way of gettting exposition across. He's disgruntled because he feels cheated out of his share of the Heath cosmetics millions; he creates scents, but sold out his rights for cash years ago, and now gets no dividends from the company's success. His new scent is disguised as a men's shaving lotion, but it actually works to both attract and repel his giant bats, who hunt down and kill whoever is wearing it. A couple of times, the bat is effective, but mostly it's a ludicrous effect, looking like a tired buzzard on wires. Dave O'Brien, known more for the Dave Smith short comedy films of the 40's, is a wisecracking reporter; Donald Kerr, an uncredited bit player in hundreds of movies, is the gratingly silly photographer One-Shot McGuire; Suzanne Kaaren is the lame female lead. The sets are cheap, the acting mostly third-rate. Lugosi is OK, except when he continues to exaggeratedly intone, "Good-BYE!" to his future victims as he gives them the shaving lotion. This has become famous as one of Lugosi's worst movies, though it's not quite as bad as his Ed Wood films of the 50's. Too bad that MST3K never got their hands on this one.

DESPERATE (1947)

A minor entry from the classic era of film noir. The first few minutes set up the situation: Steve Brodie is a trucker with a new wife (Audrey Long) and a fledgling independent business. Raymond Burr, an acquaintance from years ago, hires Brodie for what seems to be a routine job but which actually ends up as a heist. Once Brodie realizes what's happening, he tries to back out but not before the whole thing goes bad: a cop is shot and Burr's kid brother is arrested and charged with murder. Burr tries to force Brodie to take the rap by threatening to get his wife, but Brodie and Long manage to get out of town. Most of the rest of the movie follows their progress from city to farmland (where they stay briefly with Long's family) to the West Coast, where Burr finally catches up with him on the night of the brother's execution. The highlight of the movie is an archetypal noir scene of torture (Burr beating up Brodie) beneath a swinging bare light bulb in a dark basement. There are a few other visual treats as well, including the climax which takes place on an apartment stairwell. There's a surreal moment when Brodie hides in a truck filled with gigantic carnival faces. Douglas Fowley is a detective Burr hires to find Brodie; Jason Robards Sr. is a cop who isn't sure whom to believe. The lead couple is rather bland, but Burr is very creepy. Directed by Anthony Mann, known for his noirs and westerns.

JEWEL ROBBERY (1932)

Because this feels so much like Ernst's Lubitsch's classic TROUBLE IN PARADISE, it's bound to come off as a sort of poor cousin to that film, but this has some charms of its own, primarily in the chemistry of the romantic leads. In Vienna, bored rich Kay Francis is getting an expensive diamond ring as a gift from her husband, the Baron (Henry Kolker). While in the jewelry store with him (and her young lover, Hardie Albright), suave and daring jewel thief William Powell shows up with a large gang of assistants and cleans out the store; he holds them all at gunpoint but is charming and gentlemanly about the whole thing. He even gets a security guard (Spencer Charters) to help him (unwittingly) get the gems out to his getaway car. Francis flirts with Powell; she's attracted by Powell's looks and daring, but she also wants her ring back. He locks everyone up but her and she lets him escape, claiming later to the police that she fainted. Powell sneaks into Francis' bedroom and returns the ring while also planning to stash the gems in her safe until the heat dies down, but his plans appear to be dashed when a detective (Alan Mowbray) catches him trying to escape out the window. However, things are not quite as they appear and ultimately, Powell gets away scot-free to France and the married Francis, in the very last shot of the film, lets us know she'll be joining him.

The first 20 minutes or so drag a bit as the characters of Francis and her group are set up, but when Francis and Powell are on screen together, they keep things interesting. This is the absolute model of a pre-Code film, with the thief getting away and the married lady having affairs and going unpunished. Most surprsingly, however, is the importance of marijuana to the plot. Powell hands out "drugged" cigarettes to keep folks off-guard, and they are clearly filled with pot. They make people dizzy and happy; the smokers eventually fall asleep and wake up with healthy appetites. The funniest scene in the film has the disgraced security guard getting high with the chief of police (Clarence Wilson). Helen Vinson plays Francis' best friend and has a few good lines, though generally she is underused. Ruth Donnelly has a small role as a maid. Despite a few Lubitsch-like touches, this is not as frothy or "sophisticated" as the genuine article, but it's certainly likeable and a must-see for any fans of Powell or Francis.

BERLIN CORRESPONDENT (1942)

This WWII B-thriller from Twentieth Century Fox is a mixed bag, certainly not as scrappy or light on its feet as a similar Warner Brothers film would be. Dana Andrews is a foreign correspondent (in Berlin, of course) in November, 1941, just before the Americans enter the war. He gets tips about German troop movements and "smuggles" them over the airwaves in code so his newspaper is able to get a string of exclusive stories. Gestapo captain Martin Kosleck enlists his own fiancee (Virginia Gilmore) to figure out how Andrews is getting his information, but she is unaware that the spy helping Andrews is none other than her own father (Erwin Kalser) who seems to be just a harmless stamp collector. Kalser is put in a concentration camp then transfered to an asylum; Andrews poses as a Nazi to get him out, but that's only the beginning of his troubles. Kosleck's jealous secretary (Mona Maris) throws monkey wrenches into everyone's plans. The movie has a vaguely uncomfortable mix of tension and humor, starting with a running gag about how easy it is for Andrews to outfox whoever is assigned to tail him. At one point, when Andrews starts talking about putting Kosleck on trial, the Gestapo man replies, "Court? Trial? My dear man, this is *Germany*!" Gilmore, who had a short career at Fox as a B-film actress, looks a little like June Lockhart. Short (70 minutes) and filled with incident, but not as fun as it should be.

LITTLE TOUGH GUY (1938)

The first in a B-movie series spun off from the Dead End Kids, done by Universal. Billy Halop is Johnny, a kid from a working class neighborhood in New York City; his father, while working as a scab, accidentally kills a cop during a wild fracas. With the father in jail, the family moves to a lower-class area and Halop gets in with a gang of street toughs, including Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall, and David Gorcey. They all wind up "adopted" by a snooty rich kid (Jackie Searl) who craves a taste of danger and helps the kids pull off a small scale crime spree. Halop briefly winds up in a reform school but the gang breaks him out. When one of the kids is killed by police gunfire, the whole group ends up in reform school, including Searl. The ending implies that they are all are indeed getting reformed and on their ways to solid, productive futures--what other ending was possible in those days? Peggy Stewart is a girl from the old neighborhood who remains sweet on Halop. A drab, lifeless actor named Robert Wilcox is the drab, lifeless "hero" who is sweet on Halop's sister and tries to help the family out. Marjorie Main is not at her best as Halop's miserable whining mother. A few more Little Tough Guys movies followed, but I don't think I need to see any others.

THE GREAT AMERICAN BROADCAST (1941)

An totally fictional account of how radio became a mass medium. The movie begins in a sprightly and humorous way but, like many Fox musicals of the era, it gets bogged down when it tries to get serious around the halfway point. John Payne is a young WWI vet who has just failed at his first business, a small airport; he meets up with enterprising Jack Oakie who has ideas about using radio as a vehicle for entertainment. With financial backing from Cesar Romero, they begin broadcasting live music and boxing matches to a citywide audience, eventually building to a nationwide network. Oakie's singer girlfriend, Alice Faye, falls for Payne (given the choice between Payne and Oakie, who wouldn't?) which leads to a falling-out between the buddies. Oakie & Romero hit it rich--Payne and Faye get married, but when she goes behind Payne's back to get some money from Romero for their enterprise, proud Payne leaves her. All are reconciled by the end in a number that might have influenced the end of HOLIDAY INN. We see quick clips of Jack Benny and Kate Smith in the beginning; the Nicholas Brothers do a spectacularly athletic dance number and the comic Weire Brothers do songs and jokes, including a very funny ad for Chapman's Cheerful Cheese. Despite the downturn in the last half, this is worth watching, especially for fans of Faye and Payne. Even Oakie is a little less obnoxious than usual. One complaint--the period detail (supposedly the 20's) is virtually non-exisistent.

CRACK-UP (1946)

A noirish thriller with potential, rendered somewhat bland due to the two male leads, Pat O'Brien and Herbert Marshall. O'Brien plays an expert on art and art forgeries who works for the Manhattan Museum. Early in the film, we see him come crashing into the lobby of the museum, apparently drunk, smashing some windows and a sculpture. After he is subdued, he claims that the last thing he remembers was escaping a dangerous train wreck, but there is no report of any train accident that night. He loses his job but is determined, with the help of Claire Trevor, to get to the bottom of his predicament. The scene in which he boards the train in an attempt to recreate what happened to him the night of the supposed accident is suspenseful and plays out very nicely. It turns out that some forgers at the museum who want O'Brien out of the way are behind his unusual experience (and the explanation of that experience is clever, if a bit far-fetched). Herbert Marshall plays an ill-defined character on the sidelines who, it turns out, works for Scotland Yard. Ray Collins is the chief bad guy and Wallace Ford is a cop. The plot partially turns on the dichotomy between high art and popular art, in a way similiar to how many 40's musicals played on the split between classical music and modern jazz.