COWBOY FROM BROOKLYN (1938)

A pleasant little second-feature comedy, the kind that Warners was churning out in assembly-line fashion in the 30's. The movie opens with a cute scene of Dick Powell and his band (The Three Sharps) riding a boxcar though the Midwest on the way to Hollywood; during an impromptu performance, they get thrown off the train and wind up at a dude ranch in Wyoming. Powell meets cute with Priscilla Lane, the daughter of the owners of the ranch, and the boys get a job singing for the vacationing "dudes" who want an authentic cowboy experience--though the owners (Emma Dunn and Granville Bates) complain about having to fake the expected lingo and mannerisms. A vacationing Broadway producer (Pat O'Brien) discovers Powell and offers him a contract to become an "authentic" cowboy radio singer named Wyoming Steve Gibson, but there are at least two hitches to the plan: 1) a real singing cowboy (Dick Foran) who sings terribly and is turned down by O'Brien threatens to expose Powell as a fake; 2) Powell has a phobia of animals of all kinds, from squirrels to horses. The two problems come together at the end when, in order to combat Foran’s claims, O'Brien signs Powell up to perform at a rodeo at Madison Square Garden, leading to an effective slapstick finale. James Stephenson is a hypnotist hired to cure Powell's phobia; Ann Sheridan has a small and thankless part as O'Brien's sister who threatens briefly to become Lane's rival for Powell's affections; Ronald Reagan is O'Brien's PR man; Warners' stock B-men Jeffrey Lynn and John Ridgely have small roles as reporters. It's not exactly a musical, but there are a few songs, the best of which is "Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride" by Johnny Mercer. The singing cowboy was a real radio fad in the late 30's (see the Countess' boyfriend Buck Winston in THE WOMEN from '39). Fun, depending on your tolerance for Dick Powell. [TCM]

I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE (1951)

The novel this movie was based on was also the basis for a 60's Broadway musical which helped launch Barbra Streisand's career, but this film version is strong enough to stand on its own, even though it seems to be largely forgotten today. The film is set in New York City's garment district and stars Susan Hayward as an ambitious model who wants to break out on her own and design the kind of dresses that she has been modeling. With chutzpah, sex appeal, and some calculated lies, she manages to steal two men from a dress house to help her start her own company: old-timer Sam Jaffe, a dressmaker, and energetic Dan Dailey, the company's star salesman. She also lies to her own sister to get some seed money. Hayward flirts a bit with Dailey, but is mostly aboveboard with him about her overriding concern for the company's success. Nevertheless, Dailey falls for her, even as she begins plotting to leave the company and do exclusive, upscale designs for department store owner George Sanders. Hayward and Sanders (who also engage in some hard-nosed flirtation, with both knowing exactly what the score is) conspire to break her contract with her company, betting that Dailey will let her go, but instead Dailey and Jaffe risk bankruptcy to keep their integrity.

Hayward is excellent and quite believable both in her steely strong outward persona and in her more vulnerable moments. Dailey does a nice job as the confident salesman, who's not above using his sex appeal to get what he wants almost as much as Hayward does. Marvin Kaplan, who will be recognized for many of his TV and movie roles as a mousy nerd (he was a regular customer on TV's Alice), is funny in a small role as an assistant who falls for Jaffe’s daughter (Barbara Whiting, real-life sister of singer Margaret Whiting). Sanders is his usual reliable self; there seems to be a bit of an ALL ABOUT EVE-type dynamic in the conniving between Sanders and Hayward, although he's not as caddish as he is as Addison DeWitt. Mary Philips, who plays Hayward's mother, reminds me of Thelma Ritter. The plotline involving Hayward's sister and brother-in-law gets dropped halfway through, but otherwise, the whole thing plays out quite nicely. Recommended. [FMC]

OUR MAN FLINT (1966)

Apparently, James Bond and BLOW-UP weren't the only influences on Austin Powers. In fact, Mike Myers probably based his Powers character and the look of the films more on OUR MAN FLINT than anything else. The odd thing is that FLINT itself was already a parody of mid-60's spy movies. James Coburn plays Derek Flint, superspy and superstud, who is called upon by ZOWIE (Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage) to help fight a group called Galaxy (as far as I could tell, not an acronym) which is trying to blackmail the nations of the earth by disrupting international weather patterns and causing much destruction (and promising more). The film has its share of lulls, as the central plot and action scenes aren’t all that compelling--though the final destruction of Galaxy's Pleasure Island works well, especially considering that in the days before digital effects, this movie used real sets and miniatures, real explosions, and real extras. What fun that remains is almost all in the details: Flint's tie turns into a stethoscope which he uses for breaking into a vault; he has four sexy women living with him in his ritzy bachelor pad; Galaxy is hypnotizing women into being "pleasure units," devoted solely to doing their men's bidding (clearly early versions of Fembots); a quick appearance by Agent 0008 (get it?). The best line comes when Coburn shows his boss, Lee J. Cobb, a nifty lighter which actually has 82 spy functions, "83, if you want to light a cigar." One other funny line (which has some resonance today given our country's recent intelligence problems) comes when Cobb tells off an agent who has messed up: "Great intelligence work--your next post will be Peyton Place." But witty dialogue is not abundant here.

What *is* abundant is "groovy" set design: lots of day-glow colors, psychedelic patterns, and elaborate headquarter sets for the good guys and the bad guys. There is also a giant red phone, the shrill ring of which is exactly like some cell phones today. The idea that Flint is saving women from being unthinking "pleasure units" is rather undercut by the ending, when he has five women oozing all over him, desperate to pleasure him. Coburn looks the part just fine, as does his main antagonist, Gila Golan. Edward Mulhare (who played the Ghost in the 60's TV series of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir") is the main bad guy. Overall, I don't think this holds up all that well today: the satirical elements peter out after the first half hour, and the more traditional action elements don't kick in until the very end. However, the DVD print looks great: a sharp image with good color, though there aren't any extras except trailers. Recommended for Austin Powers fans. [DVD]

LILIOM (1934)

This is a French movie, directed by the German Fritz Lang, and based on a Hungarian play which also became the basis for a popular American musical (CAROUSEL by Rodgers and Hammerstein) which is famous these days mostly for being considered anti-feminist. Even as a kid, I had a hard time buying the plot of the musical; the main character is a no-good carny turned small-time crook who smacks his wife around, dies, goes to Heaven (!?), and returns to earth several years later to make amends at his daughter's graduation; he still winds up letting his anger get the best of him and smacks his daughter, who still loves him because, in the words of the abused wife, "It is possible for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and it not hurt at all." This early non-musical version isn't as irritating, partly because Charles Boyer can get away with being a sympathetic shit better than Gordon MacRae could. We can see a little of what is attractive about his character--I'm not normally a Boyer fan, but he is exuberant here--although it's not clear to me why Julie (Madeleine Ozeray), seemingly a delicate young thing, falls so quickly for the rough-edged Liliom. At the carnival where the two meet, Julie is accused of being a whore by Liliom's boss (played by Florelle) who herself has a thing for him. Liliom is fired from the carnival, and he and Julie wind up living together. Life is no picnic for either of them, but when Julie gets pregnant, Liliom tries to pull off a robbery to get some money; things get bungled and he stabs himself to death rather than face the ignominy of capture (in a nice detail, Julie feels the thrust of the knife herself even though she is nowhere near the robbery). He is sent to Heaven (by two ominous looking celestial "policemen"), and as in the musical, gets a chance to come back to earth years later. Heaven here is a sly parody of the earthly police bureaucracy which we saw in action earlier, and this sequence is the best in the movie. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the message about hitting not hurting; yes, I know that romantic love can make us simple and stupid, but this still doesn't seem like a very redemptive message. Still, this was interesting to see if only for the set design and the shadowy, expressionistic look. The DVD print from Kino appears to have been taken from a tape source rather than celluloid, so it's far from perfect, but it may be the best that is possible. [DVD]

ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948)

On the surface, this feels like a typical film noir, concerned with themes of betrayal, guilt, revenge, destiny, and redemption, but unlike most noirs, it's not about or set in the criminal underworld. Van Heflin, a successful building contractor living in a small town, has built a good suburban life for himself, his wife (Janet Leigh), and his children. One day, he realizes he is being stalked by a crippled man (Robert Ryan) and escapes to a nearby big city where he is befriended by a gold-hearted whore (Mary Astor) and a hitman (Berry Kroeger). We discover that Heflin and Ryan were prisoners of war together and Heflin betrayed a group of men who were planning an escape; he did it thinking he was doing good, but the men were all killed except Ryan who has set out to avenge his fellow soldiers. Phyllis Thaxter, Ryan's girlfriend, tries to talk him out of his vow of revenge, Kroeger closes in on Ryan in an attempt to kill him before he can kill Heflin, and Heflin has to make a tough decision that could lead to redemption. Watchable, with all the actors doing fine jobs; Astor is especially good in a change of pace role as Heflin's world-weary protector. There are some nice noir visuals and the subject matter of what would now be called post-traumatic stress is interesting, but overall not a terribly memorable film. [TCM]

THE FEARMAKERS (1958)

A B-thriller with an interesting premise but not quite enough budget or talent to fulfill its initial promise. Dana Andrews is a Korean War vet who was a prisoner of war and underwent brainwashing before being returned to the U.S. The brief torture scene at the beginning made me think we were headed for Manchurian Candidate territory but this element is basically ignored except to give Andrews a physical weakness (he suffers sharp, sudden headaches) that frequently threatens to put him in danger's way. He returns to the PR firm he co-founded only to find that his partner has sold it to slimy Dick Foran, then died in a hit-and-run accident the very next day. The firm is moving from taking opinion polls to molding public opinion, working specifically for an anti-nuclear group that is actually a front for Communists. Despite some critical commentary I read about the movie, the anti-Commie element is not particularly strong--we get the impression that the firm would do this work for anyone who paid them. Andrews, who is initially rebuffed by Foran, is asked to return to the company for the prestige of his name, and at the prodding of a senator, he does join up so he can infiltrate and fight their insidious "brainwashing" of the public. A secretary (Marilee Earle) and a reporter (Joel Marston) help Andrews; an odd married couple (the wife is B-movie cult figure Veda Ann Borg) try to stop him. Mel Torme plays an evil underling who ends up on Andrews' side because he has the hots for Earle. The low budget is obvious from the sets, the flat lighting, and the stale dialogue, though director Jacques Tourneur (CAT PEOPLE) uses shadows well. Most of it looks like an early TV movie. Andrews isn't bad, but a more energetic lead actor may have helped. The climactic fight occurs between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument--no symbolism there! The general paranoid tone about trust or distrust of PR information remains timely in this age of media monopolies. [TCM]

THE HOT HEIRESS (1931)

An odd little pre-Code romantic comedy that keeps threatening to turn into a musical. It certainly opens like a musical, albeit in an unusual setting: on skyscraper girders several stories up in the air, we see a couple of riveters (Ben Lyon and Tom Dugan) at work who lament their lack of romance by breaking out into song ("Nobody Loves a Riveter But His Mother"). In the middle of handling the red-hot rivets, Lyon gets distracted when he looks through a window of the building next to them and sees a half-undressed heiress (Ona Munson) lolling about in bed. A stray rivet winds up causing a small fire in her bedroom, so Lyon throws a plank over to her window and saves her. Despite their very different social worlds, the two begin dating, but problems arise when Munson tells her friends and folks that Lyon is an architect, without telling Lyon. When the truth comes out at a fancy house party, Lyon leaves her, but thanks to Munson's determination, she wins him back by the end. Aside from the opening, the other high point here is the song, "Like Ordinary People Do," which includes a cute special effects shot of Lyon and Munson singing from inside a painting. Lyon, best known as the aviator in Howard Hughes' HELL'S ANGELS, is looser and more carefree than I've ever seen him; Munson looks the part but is a bit stiff; Walter Pidgeon plays her mean-spirited fiance; Inez Courtney is good as Dugan's romantic interest. My partner noted that this seemed like the kind of movie that Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden might have starred in after "Singin' in the Rain." [TCM]

DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946)

An interesting race-against-time thriller, sort of a "noir lite," and well worth watching. Bill Williams plays a sailor at liberty in New York City until 6 a.m. when he has to catch a bus back to his barracks. The movie opens after Williams wakes up at a sidewalk newsstand from a drunken blackout--he was slipped a mickey by sexy good-for-nothing Lola Lane--and realizes he has a bundle of money in his pocket that belonged to Lane; when he goes back to her apartment, he finds her dead and fears that he killed her. With some help from a sympathetic dance hall girl (Susan Hayward) and a philosophy-spouting cab driver (Paul Lukas), Williams tries to figure out what happened and who was responsible for Lane's death. Was it her ex-husband (Marvin Miller), a blind pianist whom we saw come to Lane's apartment to get money? Was it Joseph Calleia, a gambling thug who knew Lane? Was it Jerome Cowan, a sleazy Broadway producer who was worried about being blackmailed by Lane? Or was it the drunken sailor after all? Although this has strong film noir elements (a shadowy big-city night, a hero who is ready to accept as fate that he might be guilty), there is, at times, a Hardy Boys feel about the proceedings, with the sailor, the girl, and the cabbie joined in their sleuthing by other characters eager to clear their names. And our gang runs across plenty of other characters who are active in the wee hours of the night, including Osa Massen, Constance Worth, and Phil Warren.

Williams is very good at striking a balance between "gee whiz" naivete and fatalism; Hayward is even better as the world-weary (and physically weary) heroine, long before she made a habit of going over the top in her 50's "women's pictures." Lukas seemed a bit too old to be playing the gregarious cabbie (I was thinking Cagney, or for a limited RKO budget, Jack Carson), but we discover later that there's a plot point that calls for him to be that age. Playwright Clifford Odets ladles the stagy dialogue on a bit thick at times, but there are also some nice lines: Hayward, saying it's time "to pause for station identification" as Williams is telling his story; Lukas continually beginning his observations by saying that "statistics tell us that..."; Lola Lane (who is quite good in her very short amount of screen time) opening the movie by opening her door to her ex-husband and exclaiming, "Sleepy Parsons! Aren't you dead yet?" Based on a book by Cornell Woolrich, one of the major noir writers of the era. Definitely recommended. [TCM]

YOU'RE MY EVERYTHING (1949)

Another Fox showbiz musical, a little better than most of the era. The MGM showbiz musicals were generally glossy and fizzy; the Fox movies couldn't resist the temptation to take the plots a little too seriously, and the movies aren't as much fun to watch--and it doesn't feel like they were as much fun to make. This one follows the career of dancer Tim O'Connor (Dan Dailey) who meets the very proper Hannah Adams (Anne Baxter) while touring New England; they fall in love, marry, and wind up sharing a showbiz career, first on the vaudeville stage and later in silent movies. She becomes a major star and he is happy to "retire" as a gentleman farmer. The middle sequence shows the coming of sound, in a similar fashion as SINGIN' IN THE RAIN would do a few years later, though this movie is nowhere near as funny or perceptive as the Gene Kelly film would be. To Baxter's initial dismay, their daughter (Shari Robinson) gets into the biz, becoming a Shirley Temple-type star, even singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and doing a dance with a black dancer, though here instead of the great Bill Robinson, it's (bizarrely) Dan Dailey in blackface. Despite some mild career angst, all ends with everyone relatively happy. Baxter's silent movie scenes are well done recreations, with Buster Keaton in a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo. Dailey has a couple of nice numbers: "The Varsity Drag" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo." The supporting cast is mostly undistinguished except for the wonderful and woefully underused Anne Revere as a maiden aunt. It's in color and doesn't outstay its welcome (it's about 90 minutes), and Dailey and Baxter are fine together, but it begins to vanish from memory as soon as it's over. [FMC]

Two Warner Brothers' B-Movies

STEEL AGAINST THE SKY (1941)
Strong Warner Brothers B-film with all their usual strengths and few of the weaknesses. It's a family conflict narrative, the kind that, with an A-budget, might have had James Cagney and Dennis Morgan. Here, it's Lloyd Nolan and Craig Stevens as brothers who work building bridges; Nolan is the older, plainer, more stable one and Stevens is younger, good looking, and cocky, and also not certain that he wants to follow in the family footsteps. Nolan is dating Alexis Smith (the boss's daughter) until sparks fly between Smith and Stevens (who would get married in real life a few years later). This leads to problems on the job and at home, where the brothers live with their father (Edward Ellis). The scenes on the bridge, though obviously done on studio sets with rear projection, are quite well done considering the low budget, and the climax, during a freezing rain "blizzard," is great. Edward Brophy, the third brother, has some nice comic relief; Walter Catlett provides less welcome comedy as a foolish inventor named Sampson who is working on something called Sampsonite (!); Gene Lockhart is the boss; Howard Da Silva is effective as a villainous agitator; Jackie Gleason and John Ridgely have small roles. [TCM]

SHE COULDN'T SAY NO (1940)
Eve Arden had her first leading role in this short second-feature. She plays a secretary to a lawyer (Roger Pryor), though she herself is also a lawyer; because she and Pryor are engaged, and he wants to "wear the pants" in the family, she has been content to be the hired help. Pryor heads out to a small town to get old man Potter (Clem Bevans, not Lionel Barrymore ;-) to sell some property that Pryor's old boss wants, but the eccentric Bevans won't deal with anyone because he lives in fear of a breach-of-promise suit being served by an old flame, Vera Lewis. Pryor offers to help Bevans in the suit in exchange for the property. Arden arrives in town unexpectedly and through a misunderstanding, winds up being hired by Bevans; Pryor represents Lewis, and both are promised the property. Naturally, there are shenanigans along the way before the happy ending. Arden outshines Pryor (who never rose above B-movie leading man) as does Cliff Edwards who plays a friend to both. Vera Lewis had small roles in over 100 movies, and her rather unpleasant looks make her stand out--she always looks mean and startled at the same time, even when she's smiling. Most of her roles were uncredited bits; this may be her biggest part ever. Fun for fans of Arden, and short enough to be generally fun and painless for all. [TCM]

THE LAST FLIGHT (1931)

This WWI drama is interesting but not terribly compelling; it feels like warmed-over Hemingway, specifically "The Sun Also Rises." It probably felt fresh back then but the weak acting and underplotted script make it something of a chore to sit through now. There is an effective opening montage of WWI battle scenes, then we follow the post-war experiences of a group of American fliers, all damaged in some way by the war, as they decide after their discharge to stay in Paris and become members of the Lost Generation. They spend most of their time drowning their sorrows in a number of bars, and hanging out with odd rich girl Helen Chandler. It's not clear what her problem is--is she drug-addled? Slightly retarded? Inbred? Or just a darker version of the whimsical heiresses who would crop up so often a few years later in screwball comedies? It's also not clear why she is attracted to the group, but they all share their boozy misadventures until the outside world catches up and the group begins to fall apart. Richard Barthelmess, the most traditionally solid of the bunch, has injured hands; David Manners, a bit neurotic, has an uncontrollable eye twitch; Johnny Mack Brown and Elliot Nugent are the other buddies, and they are all trailed around by rich twit Walter Byron, who has a thing for Chandler. There are some neat transitional shots and fluid camera moves, but the delivery of dialogue is off, with lines that should be casually tossed off instead landing with a leaden thud. There is some pre-Code language and a shot of nose-thumbing, and Chandler uses a nifty line to excuse herself from the table: "I'm taking a Chinese singing lesson"; I assumed it just meant she was going to the bathroom, but at least one critic thinks it's a reference to opium use. Worth seeing for fans of 30's movies, but it doesn't have much else other than its unusual atmosphere to recommend it. [TCM]

CANDY (1968)

Slowly, I am catching up on movies from the mid-to-late 60's that I heard about when I was growing up; since I was only 13 in 1969, I was really too young to have seen most of them when they were new (though my liberal-minded mother *did* take me to see BONNIE AND CLYDE when I was 12). That odd burst of idiosyncratic, psychedelic, sexy, and often impenetrable Hollywood movies didn't last long, but there is still a cultural aura about those films that makes them interesting to watch in the same way I find it fun to watch even the most routine pre-Code films of the early 30's, largely in order to get a idea of how popular culture was reflecting and affecting the times. This one is loosely based on Voltaire's "Candide," and may have been an influence on THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN in that a central figure has a series of seemingly unrelated adventures which contribute to his or her education in the ways of the world.

In this film, Candy (Ewa Aulin), a young, blonde, and quite comely girl in her late teens, is thrust into the big bad world of older men who befriend and mistreat her. Her problems start with her befuddled father (John Astin) and her smoothly lecherous uncle (also played by Astin), and along the way she meets up with, among others, a lecherous poet (Richard Burton), a lecherous military man (Walter Matthau), a lecherous Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr, naturally!), and a lecherous guru (Marlon Brando). In all cases, she is used as an ego-boosting sex toy, though never in such a manner that you could really call it rape. Aulin's empty-headed expression rarely changes, so we never know what she's thinking about her own debasement. I have no idea what to make of the opening and closing segments, which seem to imply that Aulin may just be a bundle of cosmic energy which has taken shape temporarily on Earth. I suspect we're not meant to think too hard about any of it. The stars are mostly wasted, with the exception of Richard Burton, who does a wonderfully funny turn as a hippie Dylan Thomas-type; no matter where he is, inside or out, a breeze is always blowing on his long hair and flowing cape. The best acting really comes from Astin in his dual role, but it's a singularly thankless role. There is some music by Steppenwolf, and a catchy closing theme done by the Byrds. The sets, costumes, and colors are more fun to pay attention to than the action of the film. Recommended only for die-hard fans of the period. [DVD]

MURDER BY AN ARISTOCRAT (1936)

This pleasant B-thriller turned out to be sort of an unofficial entry in a series based on the character Nurse Sarah Keate, created by mystery writer Mignon Eberhart. She was played first in 1935 by Aline MacMahon in WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT and in 1938 by Ann Sheridan in THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18 . For this one, the character's name has been changed to Sally Keating and she's played by Marguerite Churchill, who bears a passing resemblance to Mia Farrow. I don't know for sure if Nurse Keating was the exact same literary character as Nurse Keate, but Eberhart gets screen credit for original story and the similarities between the character types and the set-up of the plots are strong. The 60-minute film is mostly enjoyable, though I didn't care much for Churchill who is by far the blandest of the three nurses. In the other films, her boyfriend is a cop but here he's a doctor, played by Lyle Talbot, who doesn't really have much to do. The plot is a standard one, with relatives (gathered in a big old house), blackmail, and murder. The black sheep of the Thatcher family (William Davidson) is blackmailing everyone else for a big sum of money. There's a strong willed matriarch figure (though here, she's a spinster, so technically not a matriarch, I guess), a weak-willed drug addict, and a few other relatives. An attempt is made on the blackmailer's life; he is wounded and Churchill is sent out to the house in the middle of the night to care for him. She suspects the tale that the family tells of a gun-cleaning accident is fishy and she sees and hears many strange things before the blackmailer is actually killed later the next day, while no one else is home. Of course, the nurse cracks the case, without a little help from the cops. There are not a lot of other recognizable names in the cast, except for Claire Dodd as one of the relatives, though IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE's Mary Treen has a small role as a maid. [TCM]

DANCING CO-ED (1939)

Cute little second-feature comedy with Lana Turner in her first starring role. The story begins in Hollywood, as dancing star Lee Bowman discovers that his movie partner is pregnant. A press agent (Roscoe Karns) talks the studio boss into running a national collegiate contest to find Bowman's next partner, for a movie called "Dancing Co-Ed." The trick is that Karns plants starlet wannabe Turner at a midwestern university (conveniently called Midwestern University) to be found by the studio judges. Karns' secretary (Ann Rutherford) goes along to help her with her school work. Richard Carlson is a student reporter who (in a far-fetched plot twist) suspects a studio plant and sets out to uncover her, never realizing that it's Turner, who deliberately gets to close to Carlson to throw him off her trail. Of course, the two start to fall in love for real and complications ensue. At 90 minutes, the movie is a little too long, with a middle section that feels padded, but the actors are all pleasant and the plot just twisty enough to keep your attention. Karns and Bowman are both particularly good, and Monty Woolley has a small role as a professor, but even better is Leon Errol, known mostly for his comedy shorts of the 30's and for the Mexican Spitfire movies of the 40's; here, he's Turner's loving father, a former vaudeville performer who has a very amusing scene pretending to be an actor who is pretending to be Turner's father (yes, I proofread that sentence--it's correct). Bandleader Artie Shaw, who would marry Turner in 1940, plays himself. Fun for Saturday morning viewing. [TCM]

HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY (1934)

The comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey was quite popular in the 30's, going strong right up to Woolsey's untimely death (of kidney disease) in 1938. Today, however, they've been mostly forgotten. Assuming from some of what I'd read that they were mostly a poor man's Marx Brothers, I avoided their movies on the rare occasions when one would crop up on Turner Classic Movies. Now that I've seen one, I must admit I'm sorry I've ignored them for so long. As is the case with most Marx Brothers movies, the plot isn't the most important element, but here it is anyway: Two con men who sell flavored lipsticks wind up working for a cosmetics company (Maiden America, which we see on an office door in the first shot of the movie and which gave me my first chuckle) and wooing two female employees, one an executive and one a model. The boys accidentally wind up with a briefcase filled with stocks and bonds and the cops think they stole it, so they go on the lam at the same time that a nationwide car race (in which the beauty company has a car) is going on. There is also an investment banker hanging around who's supposed to be working for Maiden America but is actually working for a rival company and scamming our heroines. The end of the race serves as a climax for the contest, the scam, the problem with the cops, and the romances.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey do remind me of the Marxes--there's a letter dictation scene right out of ANIMAL CRACKERS if Harpo talked and was medicated, and Groucho was less self-assured--but they also seem a bit like Abbott and Costello, two average guys trying to make a living, get through an adventure by dumb luck, and get a couple girls along the way. I liked the fact that both men were taken seriously as romancers; frequently, Abbott and Costello have girl friends, but I could never buy that any woman in her right mind would be carnally attracted to either one of them. The same goes for the Marxes (except Chico--Harpo always loved the chase, but I thought he wouldn't quite know what to do with the girl once he caught her; Chico definitely would). Wheeler and Woolsey aren't particularly good looking, but their banter and their physicality help to make their affairs believable. It's a pre-Code movie and there is a lot of lusty innuendo, including naked models with their breasts strategically covered by make-up bottles, and a fair amount of kissing and touching between the couples. There are even a couple of "accidental" kisses between the two men. A mildly randy song, "Just Keep on Doin' What You're Doin'," crops up a few times and is now stuck in my head. There is also some Freudian stuff with Wheeler's ever-present banana and Woolsey's cigar. Another plus is a lot of improbable special-effects humor, much of which (including a race car with helium wheels) comes off pretty well. There's even a Kansas twister five years before OZ. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee are the women. Ruth Etting (the singer Doris Day portrayed in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME) has what amounts to a cameo as herself singing a song in the opening scene; George Meeker makes a good slimy bad guy; Bobby Watson has a small bit as a flamboyant dance director. Perhaps the best thing is that the movie is short and the individual comic bits never go on so long that they drag (as a few of the later Marx Brothers bits did). Even if a particular joke wasn't working for me, I knew they'd move on quickly. I'll be watching the TCM schedule for more of this team. [TCM]

DELICIOUS (1932)

I read about this movie in "A Song in the Dark," a very good book by Richard Barrios on early Hollywood musicals, and then it cropped up on Fox Movie Channel. I was glad to be able to see it, even though it proved to be a disappointment, with a slow pace, indifferent acting, and, despite some songs by the Gershwins, unmemorable music. Janet Gaynor, one of the biggest box-office draws in the country at the time, is Scottish lass Heather who comes to the U.S. by ship to live with her uncle. Along the way, she bonds with a group of working-class immigrants (through music and dancing, just like DiCaprio does in TITANIC) including the handsome Russian Sascha (Raul Roulien). She also meets rich American Charles Farrell and his valet (El Brendel). Once she's landed, Gaynor is put back on the ship because her uncle can no longer afford to host her, but she manages to sneak off the ship and winds up living in Farrell's mansion, being taken care of by Brendel. Gaynor is sweet on Farrell, but he has a bitchy fiancee (Virginia Cherrill) so Gaynor considers marrying Roulien, but Hollywood cross-class romance wins out in the end.

Farrell's voice is oddly high and light and doesn't match his handsome looks; Gaynor projects an appealing winsomeness, but her Scottish accent is terrible. Brendel's appeal escapes me completely; despite a Spanish-sounding name, he was an American vaudevillian who acted with a heavy Swedish accent, and he ends up seeming like a dumbed-down Chaplin figure. There is a good dream sequence in which Gaynor imagines what it will be like to land at Ellis Island ("Welcome to the Melting Pot"), and Brendel's high point is with the amusing song "Blah Blah Blah" (and in fact, George Gershwin later turned the piece into his Second Rhapsody). The movie is tolerable, but mostly worth watching as a historical oddity, a movie musical done as Hollywood was, by trial and error, inventing the genre. [FMC]

SHADOW OF DOUBT (1935)

Careful, this isn't the Hitchcock classic about the "Black Widow" strangler--that's SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Instead, it's an MGM B-comedy/thriller that, though not as creepy or suspenseful as Hitchcock, is still quite entertaining. Ricardo Cortez is a wealthy advertising man with an even wealthier aunt (Constance Collier). He wants to marry Virginia Bruce, an actress, but she's gotten tired of waiting for him to make his move, so she's agreed to marry play producer Bradley Page, whom we know from the get-go is a no-good bastard. However, Betty Furness is also set to marry Page, and a lovely nightclub singer (Isabel Jewell) also slips in and out of the proceedings. Page winds up dead, and Bruce and Furness are the primary suspects. Collier, an eccentric woman who hasn't left her home in 20 years, doesn't initially approve of Cortez marrying Bruce, but soon Collier's on the girl's side and she gets involved (with Cortez and the police) in trying to clear Bruce's name by finding the real killer. Collier, in her late 50's, was making her sound film debut (many years later, she played the stuffy matron in Hitchcock's ROPE) and she's quite funny and energetic; she's mostly absent from the middle of the film, but she dominates the last half-hour. She's especially good bantering with the police inspector (Edward Brophy); their relationship is more interesting than that of Cortez and Bruce. Cortez is OK--he looks *weird*, more like Basil Rathbone than himself. Maybe it's just the haircut, but I'd swear that he's wearing a false nose! All the young women are fine, especially the lovely Bruce, whom I know mostly as the title star of that odd little 40's comedy THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Regis Toomey is a gossip hound who tags along with Cortez; Ivan Simpson has a couple of fun moments as Collier's butler. The stormy night finale is great fun, definitely worth sticking around for. [TCM]

BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES (1932)

I have not been a big fan of Marion Davies, perhaps partly because I haven't seen much of her. I didn't care for this Davies vehicle, but I must admit that Davies was good, the best thing in the film. She had spark and life (unlike in GOING HOLLYWOOD or PAGE MISS GLORY, the only other Davies sound films I've seen) and she sometimes looked and acted like Joan Crawford (with a hint of Bette Davis once or twice). The silly plot involves a dragged-out romantic triangle between two old friends (Davies and Billie Dove) and a rich playboy (Robert Montgomery). Davies and Dove grew up together in the tenements; Dove strikes out on her own and gets a lucrative job in the Follies, thanks to some "sugar daddy" contacts. Soon, Dove is happy as a featured chorus performer, being kept in fine style by Montgomery, and she renews her friendship with Davies, who herself winds up in the Follies and attracted to Montgomery. This leads to bad feelings all around (including a couple of rather fun "catfights") and a bizarre tragic on-stage accident which leaves one person crippled and the other two anxious to do the right thing.

Apparently both Davies and Dove were Ziegfeld Follies girls early in their careers, but the movie, despite having a theatrical setting, doesn't give anyone the chance to show off much in the way of singing or dancing talents. I do like the way that the Follies numbers are shown mostly from backstage or on-stage rather than from the audience, but don't watch expecting any Busby Berkeley flights of fancy. Montgomery is less irritating than usual in his role as obnoxious cad, but I was never convinced that he was in love with anyone--which might be the point, though the romantic angle is played so obliquely that I'm not sure. The best performance after Davies comes from James Gleason, as Davies' father, who looked incredibly young and got to show more range than his later parts usually called for. Zasu Pitts, as Davies' sister, was far less "ditzy" than usual; Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan) is fine in a small role as Pitts' husband and Sarah Padden nicely underplays the pathos-filled role of Davies' mother. One fun bit towards the end has Davies and Jimmy Durante (playing himself) doing a parody of Garbo and Barrymore in GRAND HOTEL (both films were directed by Edmund Goulding), but it's not fun enough to save the film. [TCM]

SONG OF RUSSIA (1943)

This is one of those government-encouraged propaganda movies of WWII that glorified Russia and its people when they were our allies; a few years later, when the Russians were our sworn enemy, films like this got their creators in trouble for being "reds." This one is mediocre at best--basically a lethargic romance with a little bit of wartime action thrown in at the end. Robert Taylor plays (unconvincingly) an American orchestra conductor who, while on tour in Russia just before the war, falls in love with a Russian girl (Susan Peters), essentially a peasant who can play classical piano like nobody's business. They marry but then war breaks out; he tries to arrange to stay with her, but others convince him that he can do more for the cause if he travels the globe. Peters stays on as a resistance fighter. Will they ever be reunited? The whole thing feels rather phony from start to finish, including the tepid romance. Robert Benchley is a brief bright spot in the proceedings as Taylor's manager. John Hodiak is a man named Boris (and believe it or not, there's also a character named Natasha!) and other familiar faces include Felix Bressart (Jimmy Stewart's buddy in SHOP AROUND THE CORNER), Michael Chekhov (the old doctor in SPELLBOUND), and a young Daryl Hickman (whose brother Dwayne was Dobie Gillis on TV). Pretty much worthwhile only as a historical oddity that helped get its screenwriters (Richard Collins, Guy Endore, and Paul Jarrico) blacklisted. [TCM]

THE JOLSON STORY (1946)

If NIGHT AND DAY was the bottom of the barrel as far as whitewashed showbiz bio musicals, THE JOLSON STORY is pretty close to the top. This has everything the Cole Porter film didn't have: a strong leading performance, good supporting players used well, and a string of fun production numbers. Larry Parks plays Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, the son of a cantor who decides he'd rather sing in burlesque houses than in synagogues. When he's young (and played by 17-year-old Scotty Beckett) he is befriended by vaudevillian William Demerest. They travel the country doing an act (part of which involves Jolson whistling instead of singing when his voice changes) and when Jolson grows up (Parks), he strikes out on his own as a blackface minstrel. He gets a part in a Broadway show but his natural talent (and hamminess) makes it hard for him to stay in the background and soon he is a breakout star, eventually becoming one of the biggest sensations in show business. He meets the star of the latest Ziegfeld protege (Evelyn Keyes, playing a fictionalized version of Ruby Keeler), marries her, and seems to have a happy family life. Later, they both retire to the country life but Jolson is clearly not happy doing nothing and when the opportunity presents itself to return to show biz, he does, though it means losing his wife (in an awkward, ambiguous closing scene).

Parks looks nothing like Jolson but has lots of energy and does a great job lip-synching to vocals which were newly recorded by the real Al Jolson. Demerest, who remains a business partner and friend to Jolson for life, gives a nicely fleshed-out performance; both actors were nominated for Oscars. Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne are very good as Jolson's parents. Beckett is also good, though he doesn't get to stick around for long. Many of the songs are ones that I heard my parents singing around the house when I was growing up: "After the Ball," "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," "You Made Me Love You," "Toot Toot Tootsie," "Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," and of course Jolson's signature song "Mammy." We see Parks recreate several blackface numbers--I wish I understood what the appeal of blackface minstrel music was--but we never see him as Jolson in his biggest hit, THE JAZZ SINGER. It's mentioned but not shown, perhaps because Jolson's original performance would still have been in the memories of most moviegoers in 1946. Dramatically lightweight but entertaining. The DVD print is nicely restored, with great color, though perhaps a bit heavy on the yellow-gold tones. [DVD]

NIGHT AND DAY (1946)

To prepare for the new Cole Porter biopic DE-LOVELY, with Kevin Kline as Porter, I watched this earlier version of his life starring Cary Grant. Many people criticize this movie for its almost total fictionalization of Porter's life, especially the ignoring of Porter's homosexuality, but that's a given for a Hollywood biography, especially back in the classic movie era. What's worse is that the movie is boring and indifferently acted, and even the production numbers that are usually the big draw in these show biz biographies are no fun. Grant plays Porter as a law student at Yale who has to break it to his grandfather (Henry Stephenson) that he's quitting the law to become a songwriter. Egged on by law professor Monty Woolley (played by himself) who has show biz ambitions of his own, Grant leaves Yale to chase his dream; he becomes a soldier in the war, is wounded, and marries a family friend (Alexis Smith) who just happened to have enlisted overseas as a nurse. He writes a couple of popular songs, then makes his name as a Broadway tunesmith. The demands of Grant's career alienate Smith, who leaves him. At the height of his fame, he has a riding accident which shatters his legs and, despite dozens of operations, he never fully recovers the use of his legs, but the accident does bring his wife back.

Grant seems very uncomfortable as Porter, in somewhat the same way he seemed uncomfortable as the angel in THE BISHOP'S WIFE, but in WIFE that discomfort worked for the part (an angel uncomfortable with his yearnings for a mortal woman). Here, we're left with a character who seems to be sleepwalking through his life, who expresses very little emotion about his music, about his wife and friends, even about his tragic accident. Smith and Woolley are fine, though underused, and Jane Wyman peps up the movie occasionally as a singer who helps popularize Grant's songs. Porter's great music is wasted in stultifying production numbers that never build up any energy. Mary Martin (also playing herself) has a nice bit singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and Woolley gives a droll rendition of "Miss Otis Regrets," but the movie totally wastes great songs like "Begin the Beguine," "In the Still of the Night," "Just One of Those Things," and most unforgivably, the title song. It feels like Warners was trying to compete with MGM in the glossy musical-bio field, but there really was no comparison. [TCM/DVD]

A ROYAL SCANDAL (1945)

To get through this, I had to imagine it as a remake of THE SCARLET EMPRESS done as a TV sitcom. Tallulah Bankhead plays Russian ruler Catherine the Great like a bored but horny CEO. Just as she has dismissed the current Commander of the Palace Guards due to a lover's spat, young and hunky William Eythe arrives, after riding three days, to warn her of a rumored coup. Bankhead is impressed and keeps him around, raising his rank every day or so until he is the new Commander. However, the Empress doesn't know that Eythe is engaged to Anne Baxter, a lady-in-waiting at the court; when Bankhead finds out, all hell breaks loose. Charles Coburn is Bankhead's faithful Chancellor; Vincent Price has a small role at the beginning and end as a French diplomat; Grady Sutton has a funny bit as a "hillboy" from the Urals. Also with Mischa Auer, Sig Ruman, and Eva Gabor (though I didn't notice her). Eythe is nicely packed into his uniform and Bankhead takes notice. Generally, the direction is lackluster and the humor bland, and all concerned seem a little embarrassed, but Price has a funny line about sneaking around in secret passages: "You meet the best people coming out of bookshelves." [FMC]

MOONTIDE (1942)

A character-driven melodrama which plays out like a noir version of Steinbeck's "Cannery Row." Jean Gabin is Bobo, a guy who lives on the waterfront doing odd jobs on boats that dock in the bay. He's likeable but he drinks too much, though we never know what brought him to his current state. He is shadowed by crusty old Thomas Mitchell; first we think Mitchell's a pal, but we soon see him in a different light as a potentially cruel leech. One night, Gabin stops Ida Lupino from committing suicide and the two develop a relationship, helping each other to stay propped up and on the straight and narrow. When harmless Pop Kelly is found murdered, clues point to Gabin as a suspect (he might have done it during a drunken blackout), and the situation threatens to derail the tentative happiness that Gabin and Lupino have found. It turns out that Mitchell has a couple of secrets that lead to a fairly exciting climax. Claude Rains is almost unrecognizable (looking a bit like Barry Fitzgerald) as a barroom philosopher; Jerome Cowan is a middle-class doctor with a mistress, though his storyline doesn't come to much. In fact, the real problem here is that all the plotlines and characters never really come together. It feels like we're supposed to buy into the idea of this nurturing waterfront community, but not enough is done with the supporting characters. There is some nice atmosphere, lots of fog, and a stagy set that manages to be nicely evocative. There are a couple of big names behind the scenes: author John O'Hara wrote the screenplay, and Fritz Lang directed (though he was replaced at some point by Archie Mayo). [FMC]

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (1962)

This is a trashy, overheated soup of a movie that had the potential to be fun, but thanks to some stupendously bad acting and underwritten characters, is mostly a tedious haul through faux-Tennessee Williams territory. Laurence Harvey is Dove Linkhorn (no, that's not a typo), a tall and apparently penniless Texan lad who hitchhikes his way to New Orleans to find his long-lost love (Capucine). She's a sculptor and supports herself by working in a brothel, the Doll House, run by tough-as-nails madam Barbara Stanwyck. Capucine is also Stanwyck's lover. Helped out by a kindly Mexican diner owner (Anne Baxter), Harvey finds Capucine and the two plan to leave New Orleans together to start a new life, but Stanwyck doesn't want to let go of her "girl toy." The wild card in all this is Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda), an ambitious and wildly sexy but nasty underage girl whom Dove finds along the road. She winds up working at the Doll House and helps set in motion a blackmail scheme against Harvey intended to get him out of town and away from Capucine. Harvey and Capucine seesaw back and forth about getting back together, and in the end, after Stanwyck's musclemen beat the living crap out of Harvey, a gun goes off, killing an important character and making sure that no one gets a happy ending out of any of this sordidness.

What's good here? Stanwyck, of course, is fine, giving us a little preview of her "Big Valley" melodramatics. Any fun the movie has is due to her. I liked Fonda in a total spitfire role. Baxter is also good; some critics have taken her to task for her bad Mexican accent, but I thought she was as believable as anyone else. Another plus is the camerawork, with lots of slithery movement around elaborate sets. The music, by Elmer Bernstein, was good, much of it being played by a jazz combo in the brothel. The biggest problem with the movie is Laurence Harvey, who is totally miscast. I've never liked Harvey—the best thing I can say for him in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is that he doesn't hurt the movie. But he definitely hurts this one. He's not a Texan, he has no passion and he is too old for the part. He is terrible. Capucine is not very good, either, though she certainly looks like she could make a good living as a hooker. The weak screenplay is another problem; the backstory of Harvey and Capucine's characters is almost non-existent. Stanwyck's character is married (to a legless man who has become her flunky) and certainly adores Capucine, but she also makes a strange anti-lust speech late in the movie, which makes me wonder exactly what she and Capucine did behind closed doors—lie around in their nightgowns and talk about sensible shoes? I'm quite surprised that they got away with such strong implications about prostitution and lesbianism with the Code still (barely) in force. The credit sequence by Saul Bass, with a black cat slinking around and getting into a fight, is famous and great looking, though the movie doesn't live up to it. But I've got to admit, any movie with a character called Kitty Twist can't be all bad. [TCM]

TIL WE MEET AGAIN (1940)

A totally unnecessary remake of the 1932 Warners melodrama ONE WAY PASSAGE. I suppose there's nothing wrong with this movie, especially if you haven't seen the original, but it adds no new insights in terms of plot or acting. George Brent is the escaped convict (played by William Powell in 1932) caught overseas and being transported back to San Quentin to await execution; Merle Oberon, dying of a heart condition, is the lonely woman he meets on board the ship (Kay Francis in the original). The two fall in love while keeping their dark secrets from each other, at least for a time. Frank McHugh reprises his role in the original as a con man friend of Brent's, and Binnie Barnes is the con woman, a role done much better in '32 by Aline MacMahon. More or less added to this version are Geraldine Fitzgerald as a friend and protector to Oberon, and Eric Blore as an English gentleman whom Barnes is scamming. None of the couplings have much chemistry; certainly Brent and Oberon can't touch Powell and Francis. This version is a little longer and glossier but still feels like a scene-by-scene B-level remake. Also with George Reeves, John Ridgely, and Regis Toomey. Stick to ONE WAY PASSAGE. [TCM]

MY DEAR MISS ALDRICH (1937)

Mildly amusing comedy. Maureen O'Sullivan is the title character, a teacher from Nebraska who inherits a New York City newspaper. She and her aunt (Edna May Oliver) go to the big city and deal with the male chauvinist editor (Walter Pidgeon) who refuses to hire female reporters. O'Sullivan decides to prove that she can be a good reporter and gets involved in a group of businesspeople dealing with an upcoming strike. The last half of the film becomes a long slapstick chase at a roadside inn. The funniest scene in the movie involves O'Sullivan's travails with a dumbwaiter. There's also a nice running gag in which Oliver tries to figure out why on earth a place called Locust Valley has no locusts. Also with Roger Converse, Leonid Kinsky, and Robert Greig. [TCM]

CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)

Fast-paced, interesting urban drama with a great cast. James Cagney plays a guy from the tenements who boxes on occasion to raise money to help out his brother (Arthur Kennedy), a music teacher who has aspirations to write a great symphony about New York City. Cagney has faith in his brother and doesn't want him doing manual work or cheapening his talent by writing pop music. Ann Sheridan is Cagney's girl who wants to be a dancer; soon, she's partnered with Anthony Quinn, who traps her in a contract for ballroom and professional dancing. They make names for themselves on the club circuit but she's unhappy away from Cagney. Meanwhile, Cagney is "discovered" by boxing promoter Donald Crisp and has a rapid rise in the sport under the name Young Sampson (though, truth be told, Cagney, at 41, looks a bit long in the tooth to be billed as "young"). With Kennedy and Sheridan in mind, Cagney makes a lot of money at boxing, but ends up blinded when an unscrupulous opponent puts resin powder on his gloves. Will he reunite with Sheridan? Will his brother's symphony get heard by the public? A melodramatic but satisfying ending reveals all.

The plot sounds awfully cliche, but the film moves quickly (until a little bit of sagging at the end). The actors are all fun to watch, including the unusually large supporting cast: Frank McHugh is Cagney's buddy (as he was in real life); Lee Patrick is a dancer; Elia Kazan is a ghetto pal of Cagney's who makes it big but winds up bumped off; Blanche Yurka is Sheridan's mother; Jerome Cowan and Frank Faylen have small roles. There are a couple of boxing beefcake shots early on, and I chuckled at a line from Crisp to Cagney: "I had a hunch about you from the minute I saw you strip down." There's a tenement dance hall scene that is well shot and reminded me a bit of the way "America" is staged in WEST SIDE STORY. Snippets of "42nd Street" and "Lullaby of Broadway" can be heard in the background of a couple scenes. The symphony that Kennedy writes is a second-rate imitation of Gershwin, but that's the only complaint I have for this movie. [TCM]

YOUNG DR. KILDARE (1938)
CALLING DR. KILDARE (1939)

These are the first two films in the long Dr. Kildare series made by MGM, based on a character created by Western writer Max Brand. (There was an earlier film from Paramount with Joel McCrea, but the MGM series starts from scratch.) I remember my mother watching the Kildare TV show of the 60's (with Richard Chamberlain), but I don't think I ever saw an entire episode, so the characters, their backgrounds, and their interactions were all new to me. Both films feel more like mysteries or police stories dressed up with hospital trappings. I guess that makes some sense, since it's not very exciting just watching doctors diagnose and cure patients. In both movies, Kildare (Lew Ayers) is an intern who has a rough time of it at a big city hospital, largely due to his cranky, wheelchair-bound mentor, Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). Kildare gets into some trouble and Gillespie, who is usually part of the reason for the trouble, helps get him out. In the first one, the problem is a young woman who has tried to commit suicide; her family wants her declared insane but Kildare thinks she's sane and investigates to find out what her trouble is. Monty Woolley has a small role as the psychiatrist with whom Kildare disagrees. In CALLING, the problem is a gunshot victim Kildare tends to without informing the police. He gets wrapped up in the lives of the victim, a young man, and his sister (Lana Turner).

Lew Ayers is fine, as is Laraine Day who debuts in the second film as the character whom I assume winds up in later films as Kildare's love interest. I usually like Barrymore, but I found him irritating here, partly due to his overdone schtick as an irascible but ultimately good-hearted fogey, and partly to the way the character was written. Samuel S. Hinds, whom I know as George Bailey's father in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, is good as Kildare's father. Emma Dunn is the mother, and though she's OK, I kept thinking that Sara Allgood would have been better, if she could have done a Midwest American accent. The handsome Phillip Terry (one of Joan Crawford's husbands in real life) is a fellow intern. The backstory, set up in YOUNG, is that Ayres returns to his Midwest small town for a visit after graduating from medical school; his father, also a doctor, assumes that his son will go into practice with him, but Ayers opts for a internship at a New York hospital. There is also a small town girlfriend (Lynne Carver) who apparently drops out of the series after CALLING. These were both worth watching, but I think my curiosity about the series has been slaked and I don't need to see any more. [TCM]

CHARLEY'S AUNT (1930)

Charlie Ruggles is the main reason to watch this early talkie version of a famous play, later remade with Jack Benny. Charley (Hugh Williams) and Jack (Rod McLennan) are two Oxford students who scheme during an afternoon picnic to ask two girls to marry them. The stuffy uncle and guardian of the girls (Halliwell Hobbes) has decided not to consent to any marriage since he will lose the guaranteed income he has as guardian. The chaperone at the picnic is supposed to be Charley's aunt (Doris Lloyd), a rich widow who lives in Brazil ("...where the nuts come from" becomes a comic catchphrase), but she cancels her visit so the boys get Ruggles, an older student who just happens to be trying on drag for a part in a play, to impersonate the aunt so they can go ahead with the picnic. Hobbes takes a shine to Ruggles (or, more to the point, takes a shine to her supposed fortune), as does Jack's father. In the middle of the afternoon, the real aunt shows up, with a young lady who turns out to be a long lost love of Ruggles'. Farce ensues. Ruggles, in his mid-40's, is really too old to be playing a student, but once he's in full old-lady drag, he's very funny and holds the whole movie together. Zany wordplay and slapstick abound; one of the funniest repeating gags involves Ruggles throwing objects at Hobbes' hat (which he shouldn't be wearing indoors). It's stagy in looks and acting, but the material is funny and Charlie Ruggles is wonderful. For some reason, the Jack Benny version is hard to come by, so I can't compare the two versions. [AMC--years ago when they still showed classic movies]

THE SEA HAWK (1940)

Errol Flynn at the peak of his career. Although I liked him better in the earlier ROBIN HOOD and THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, he is in good form here. I don't know much about British history, so I may have some of the plot details muddled. The movie is set during the reign of Elizabeth I; Flynn plays a privateer, a pirate who works at least partly to protect British interests at sea, though he and his band of men still plunder the ships they board. They take over a Spanish ship carrying a diplomat (Claude Rains) and his niece (Brenda Marshall), free the ill-treated slaves who row the ship, and take Rains to the Queen. Flynn and Marshall fall in love, of course. Flynn and his men then undertake work for the Queen in Panama, but must do so without any offical recognition (like the Mission: Impossible team!). In Panama, they are captured by the Spanish and stumble upon news of the coming attack of the Spanish Armada against England. Flynn and his men, stuck in chains, manage to take over the ship and Flynn tries to make it to the Queen in time to warn her about the Armada.

Flynn is practically the whole show here, handsome, dashing, heroic, and cocky. He and Marshall make a nice couple, though they don't really share much screen time. Flora Robson is great as Queen Elizabeth; she almost steals the show from Flynn. Her final speech is a great example of the not-so-subtle pro-British propaganda that Warners was putting into their films during the early days of WWII while the US was still supposedly neutral. Rains is fine, as always, as are the usual Warners supporting players. Special mention should be made of Henry Daniell as the treacherous Lord Wolfingham, Una O'Connor as Marshall's companion, and Alan Hale as Flynn's trusty sidekick. The Panama scenes are all tinted in a yellow-sepia tone. Michael Curtiz directed, and I'm firmly convinced that he has not received the praise due to him. He wasn't a great stylist or maybe even a great artist, but he could entertain, and there are quite a few memorable scenes here, including the uprising of the enslaved crew and the climactic sword fight between Flynn and Daniell (though it's marred a bit by some awkward use of speeded-up footage). The print that Turner Classic Movies showed was not in very good shape, with some speckling and splices; I don't know if the VHS release is any better. [TCM]

WASHINGTON MELODRAMA (1941)

A surprisingly engrossing B-movie from MGM. It's a crime thriller, a political drama, and a romance, with a musical number and even a water ballet! Frank Morgan is an industrialist who is trying get a bill passed that would allow the U.S. to send money and food to suffering victims of Nazism in Europe (at a time when the government was supposed to be neutral). His future son-in-law, a journalist (Kent Taylor), is dead set against his policy. One night at a nightclub while his wife and daughter are on an extended visit overseas, Morgan hooks up with a chorus girl (Anne Gwynne) who keeps him company while he's lonely--as a sop for the Code, it's made clear that they aren't engaging in any hanky-panky, but I didn't believe it for a minute. The day after his wife returns, the girl is found murdered and some damaging clues that point to Morgan are presented to Taylor, who is torn between his duty as a reporter and some strained loyalty to his future father-in-law. Dan Dailey, the nightclub owner, is the real killer (not a spoiler, since we see him commit the murder), but will he be unmasked before scandalous headlines hurt Morgan and his political cause? Coherent, well acted, suspenseful, and fun. Ann Rutherford is Morgan's sympathetic daughter, Fay Holden is the somewhat less sympathetic wife, and Lee Bowman has a nice non-irritating comic relief role. Fans will recognize Sara Haden and Douglass Dumbrille in small roles. Dailey is quite good playing against type as a scoundrel. Morgan is even better, going for subtlety rather than bluster. The water ballet is quite bizarre, done to a song called "Fishing for Suckers," with chorus girls in bathing suits swimming about in a pool while the rich male clientele literally "fish" for the girls with fishing rods that can hook the girls suits. That's how Morgan reels in Gwynne. Why this trend didn't sweep the country's nightspots is beyond me. [TCM]

THE AMAZING MR. X (1948)

A solid little B-thriller, with echoes of THE UNINVITED (at least in tone and visuals). It falls short of being a truly good movie mostly due to its budget, but it does have a nice Hitchcockian feel on occasion--though Hitchcock would certainly have done some script revision, as well as had a bigger budget. Lynn Bari is a rich widow who lives in a huge house by the sea with her kid sister Cathy O'Donnell. Bari has never quite gotten over the death of her husband (Donald Curtis), but she has finally agreed to seriously consider a marriage proposal from nice guy friend Richard Carlson. One spooky night on the beach, Bari meets the exotic Turhan Bey, a psychic who knows a lot about Bari and begins counseling her. O'Donnell and Carlson are afraid that Bey is a con man who will take advantage of Bari, and we learn that he is indeed a fake, getting his information from Bari's housekeeper (Virginia Gregg). Soon, however, there are complications: O'Donnell falls for Bey, and Bari's dead husband seems to have returned, via Bey's seance. The acting is so-so, though Bey is good as a character for whom our sympathies shift now and then. The limited budget was likely an asset in the look of the film--lots of darkness and shadows to cover up the cheap sets and rear projections. The seance scene is very well done, and the ending doesn't disappoint. Recommended for a rainy night. [DVD]

LUCKY NIGHT (1939)

Myrna Loy might not have been able to single-handedly save every movie she was in, but she's really the only reason to stick with this one, which is full of screwball comedy conventions (influenced especially by IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT) but isn't really a screwball comedy. Loy plays an heiress who is tired of her planned-out whitebread life; she breaks off an engagement and leaves the house of her father (Henry O'Neill) to make her own way. Jobless and penniless, she meets up with another poor soul, Robert Taylor, on a park bench. They hit it off, borrow 50 cents from a cop, and go gambling. They win big on their "lucky night," get drunk, and get married. He gets a job and they seem happy for a time, but soon he becomes an unconventional madcap (to be able to take off work on a Monday rather than a Saturday, for instance) and, though Loy tries to go along, ultimately she leaves him and winds up back at her father's house. There's more drinking, some subterfuge, and finally a reconciliation. It's actually fairly fun until the rushed and slipshod ending. The whole thing has a kind of half-thought through Capraesque tone that doesn't jell, though Loy and Taylor work well together. Marjorie Main has a small role as a landlady. Mostly for Loy fans. [TCM]

HI DIDDLE DIDDLE (1943)

A little-known B-movie from United Artists, rescued from obscurity by Quentin Tarantino and shown on Trio. It's a zany screwball comedy (with the usual dealings in love, marriage, and disguise) that occasionally transcends its low budget with some fun moments. Dennis O'Keefe is a hunky sailor who is set to marry his financee, Martha Scott, while on a 2-day leave. The compounding problems begin when he's late for the wedding because his ship is late docking. His father, Adolphe Menjou, is a fairly disreputable con man who has lucked into marriage with an opera singer (Pola Negri, a great star of the silent screen). Menjou goes to the wedding but hasn't told his wife that he has a grown son, which leads to problems later on. Scott's mother (Billie Burke) has just lost her fortune thanks to her "date" (Barton Hepburn) who claims he deliberately lost the money gambling to see if O'Keefe was only interested in Scott for her mother's money. O'Keefe is, of course, really in love, but he and his father plot to get the money back for Burke, with help from a friendly nightclub singer (June Havoc), who can rig the gambling room's roulette wheel. There's also a scam involving stocks, and it turns out that Burke never really lost the money after all, so keeping tracking of who's got how much of what is tricky. There are a number of funny bits: the wedding is postponed so long that the minister holds a christening (of twins) while waiting for O'Keefe, who walks in just as Scott picks up the babies, which gives him a fright. A girl who shows up in several bit parts is recognized by the actors and said to be present because she's a favorite of the director. There's a funny moment with Burke and her friends practicing double-talk, "just like in the movies!" Havoc sings a duet with her own image on a video screen, and the last scene takes place in a room where the art on the wallpaper comes alive (via animation). An Oscar nominee for best score. Not exactly a classic, but interesting and fun. Thanks, Quentin. [Trio]

THE CROWD (1928)

A silent masterpiece about the dreams and frustrations of everyday people. Office clerk James Murray goes out on a double date with an office pal (Bert Roach) and promptly falls in love with his date, Eleanor Boardman. They get married and have children, and over time, their domestic life seems happy enough, but Murray is continually frustrated at work, with his inability to rise in the company, unlike his friend. Murray keeps telling his wife that his ship will come in, though it gets harder and harder for him to believe it himself. There is one brief bright moment when he wins $500 in an ad slogan contest; they use some of the money to buy new toys for the kids, but in a heartbreaking scene, as the children come running home to see the toys, one of them is hit by a car and killed. Murray, distraught, can't recover from the tragedy, loses his job, is driven from his home, and hits rock bottom, contemplating suicide. His surviving child gives him the strength to go on, even, as the last shot shows, against overwhelming odds that he will ever be able to stand out from the crowd of humanity around him. Much of the look of the movie seems inspired by German expressionism; there's an especially interesting claustrophobic shot early on when the Murray character, as a boy, climbs dark and crooked stairs to discover his father has died. Shots of the office workers, at endless rows of desks, making endless (and seemingly useless) notations on paper, are also quite effective. The tension between the individual and the crowd is often noted, as in a creepy scene where tunnel of love riders at an amusement park are harshly exposed, as though in a zoo, at the end of the ride. The plot, the visuals, and the acting all combine to make this an indelible viewing experience, even for people who don't typically like silent films. Directed by King Vidor, who was married to leading lady Boardman at the time. [TCM]

MIDNIGHT (1939)

Charming screwball comedy involving a storybook mingling of the rich and the poor. Once upon a rainy Parisian night, Claudette Colbert arrives in town by train, having lost everything she owned gambling in Monte Carlo. A cab driver, Don Ameche, takes pity on her and offers her a ride and a place to stay; she takes the ride but gets out at a snazzy night spot where she hopes to pull a con job for food, shelter, or more. She sneaks into a society party, passes herself off as a baroness, and makes friends while playing poker. John Barrymore is a bored millionaire who catches on to her con, but admires her abilities; he backs up Colbert's lies by providing her with a suite at a hotel and a trunk full of clothes. In return, he asks that she help him to woo a playboy (Francis Lederer) who is currently wooing Barrymore's wife (Mary Astor). Colbert agrees and joins them all at a weekend house party; meanwhile, Ameche tracks her down and shows up to take her away (thinking he's saving her from herself, I imagine). Instead, she spins more ridiculous stories and makes Ameche seem like a certifiable loon; he can't figure out why the rich folks won't believe anything he says. Very funny complications follow. Hedda Hopper is Stephanie, a society dowager who is throwing the party in the opening scene; Elaine Barrie, Barrymore's wife in real life, gets in one the best lines as she waits to get into the party: "It always rains when Stephanie gives one of her dull parties--even nature weeps." Monty Woolley has a small part in the end as a judge who tries to disentangle all the webs which have been woven, by Colbert and Barrymore and Ameche. Funny, well acted all around, and wonderfully paced, fast without being frantic. One of the best of the classic screwball comedies. [TCM]

THE CASE OF THE LUCKY LEGS (1935)

Yesterday, I reviewed Warren William as Philo Vance; today, I'll look at Warren William as Perry Mason. The Mason movies are very different in tone and content from the more famous TV series with Raymond Burr. The TV episodes always climaxed in the courtroom, but in the two Mason films I've seen so far, we never see the courtroom; Mason is more a traditional movie detective, though played very nearly for laughs, rather like William played Sam Spade in SATAN MET A LADY. In this one, Mason is called in to investigate when the promoter of a beauty contest (the Lucky Legs of the title) runs off with the money; Mason finds his dead body and has to deal with a number of suspects, including the girl who won the contest (Patricia Ellis), her boss (Porter Hall) who has a crush on her and called Mason in the first place, and her boyfriend (Lyle Talbot) who is also a doctor, an important point when the murder weapon is discovered to be a scalpel. Instead of a courtroom ending, Mason gathers the suspects and narrates a flashback to show what really happened. Allen Jenkins is his usual reliable self as Mason's sidekick, and Genevieve Tobin is fine as faithful secretary Della Street. Warren does a good drunk act in the opening scene (imagine Raymnond Burr shambling about, drunkly shouting out witticisms) and Mary Treen (Tilly at the Savings & Loan in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) has a funny scene as Jenkins' wife. Also with Craig Reynolds (quite handsome as the con man murder victim), Barton MacLane, and Henry O'Neill. It's pretty clear from this movie that William's bland performance as Philo Vance was more a problem with the director or writers rather than with the actor; as Mason, William is loose, funny, and charming. [TCM]

THE DRAGON MURDER CASE (1934)

This is one in a series of movies featuring the sophisticated detective Philo Vance, created by author S. S. Van Dine. I've seen other Vance films with William Powell and James Stephenson; this one has Warren William, who is commonly held to be the weakest of the Vances. At a rather tense cocktail party at the palatial estate of the Stamm family, the man (George Meeker) who is going to marry the lovely Stamm daughter dives into the Dragon Pool and doesn't come out. He is found dead the next day somewhere else on the estate, with what appear to be dragon claw scratches across his chest. Philo Vance is called in on the case and hears rumors of jealousy, madness, and a mythical dragon that inhabits the pool. He solves the case with ease, in a running time of just over an hour. William is OK, but it's true that he doesn't come off as well as Powell. I think part of the problem is the writing--we get virtually no sense of Vance's personality or character; he is fleshed out much more in the earlier Powell film THE KENNEL MURDER CASE and in the original novels. It's like doing a Hildegarde Withers movie without giving Edna May Oliver any insults to make to James Gleason. Eugene Pallette is good as a comic relief police sergeant who keeps saying, "My knowledge of criminology leads me to believe..." before being cut off by William. One of my favorite supporting men of the 30's, Lyle Talbot, is alternately stoic and suspicious as a rival for the affections of the Stamm girl, well played by Margaret Lindsay. Helen Lowell does a nice job as the crazy, cackling Stamm matriarch, and Robert Barrat is good as her drunken son who collects exotic fish which are scattered about the house. The short running time works against the film to the degree that there isn't much time for character development, of Vance or anyone else. The room with dozens of fish bowls and tanks is cool, as is the concept of the Dragon Pool. The mystery itself is fairly easy to follow as it plays out. Ultimately, although I liked Powell better as Vance, I enjoyed this movie more than KENNEL because it was more atmospheric and the story was easier to follow. It makes me want to see more Philo Vance movies, especially CASINO MURDER CASE, which I read and liked very much. [TCM]

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY (1947)

Light satire based on a bestselling novel of the day about a Boston blueblood who finds he must begin to yield to the changing times and manners. Ronald Colman is excellent as the title character in a role he seems born to have played; Apley is a stuffy patriarch determined to run his family (and their personal lives) as he sees fit--the character reminded me occasionally of a cross between Mr. Banks of MARY POPPINS and Mr. Smith of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. He also has a great deal of influence in his moneyed neighborhood; he keeps election signs off the commons and questionable literature out of the library. Eventually, he butts up against the times. His daughter (Peggy Cummins) wants to marry a "radical" teacher, and his son (Richard Ney) falls in love with a girl who has the effrontery to come from somewhere other than Boston, though it has been arranged that he will marry a cousin (Vanessa Brown). Colman finds himself giving in here and there and learning a few lessons along the way, though in the end he refuses to give in the on the issue of his son's marriage. There are many witty lines throughout, some made even funnier by the delivery of Mildred Natwick as his even stuffier sister. When Cummins wants to leave the family to see her beau on Thanksgiving Day, Natwick says haughtily, "I never had a young man on Thanksgiving!" Her husband's reply is, "It's too late now." The bedrock of the family philosophy seems summed up by Natwick's remark, "Whenever I'm depressed, I remind myself that I'm an Apley." Other friends and relatives are nicely played by Richard Haydn (Uncle Max from THE SOUND OF MUSIC), Nydia Westman, and Charles Russell. Witty and charming. (Despite the title, Colman remains alive at the movie's end!) [FMC]

EMMA (1932)

This film has a moderately interesting plotline that eventually devolves into a rather musty melodrama. Marie Dressler plays the title character, a housekeeper and caretaker for the somewhat absent-minded inventor Jean Hersholt and his family after Hersholt's wife dies in childbirth. Most of the film takes place after Hersholt's children have grown; Dressler is still in high demand by the spoiled kids to solve their major and minor life problems. When she finally decides to take a long-planned vacation to Niagra Falls, Hersholt tags along and, along the way, he gets up the nerve to ask her to marry him. She does, but their happy days are brief as Hersholt dies soon after the wedding and the kids, who find it hard to believe that their father would have wanted to marry the woman they only think of as a housekeeper, conspire to prove that she forced the marriage, then killed him to get her hands on the family money. Richard Cromwell is the callow and effete son who winds up being Dressler's only ally, but as he comes rushing to be by her side in court, he winds up dead in a plane crash. Will Dressler prevail? Will the children overcome their snobbish and selfish natures to accept Dressler's side as truth? Among the kids are Myrna Loy and prolific B-player George Meeker. John Miljan, who often played slimy lawyers, is the DA. Watchable but slight, mostly recommended for fans of Dressler & Loy. [TCM]

CALL HER SAVAGE (1932)

Pre-Code filmmaking at its scandalous best, and one of Clara Bow's last movies. The somewhat confusing opening, set many years in the past, features a Old West wagon train leader accused of bringing on an Indian attack because of his immoral womanizing. Years later, his wife bears a child by an Indian father. The girl, named Nasa (Bow), who doesn't know the truth about her parentage, grows up to be wild and uncontrollable (we're to assume this is due to her "half-breed" nature). In one rather shocking scene, she flirts with the handsome, passive half-breed lad Moonglow (Gilbert Roland) and when he doesn't respond properly, she whips him across the face and chest. Her father (or the man she assumes is her father) sends her off to Chicago to be tamed at a girl's academy, but her rebellious nature cannot be overcome. A marriage is arranged with the rich but effeminate Tyrell Davis, but Bow counters by eloping with Monroe Owsley, though not before having a hair-pulling catfight with his fiancee, Thelma Todd. It turns out that Owsley has only married her to spite Todd, and their relationship goes downhill quickly, until he drinks himself almost to death. The pregnant Bow leaves him and later turns to prostitution, and her child dies in a fire while Mama is out making the rent money. There is more scandal and tragedy before Bow's dying mother finally tells her the truth about her father; learning this seems to be the one thing that "tames" Bow, and the film ends with Bow about to forge a bond of sorts (perhaps love but perhaps just affection) with dear old Moonglow.

This film is about as wild as 30's movies get. In addition to all the whoring and drinking and miscegenating, we even get a glimpse inside a Greenwich Village bar, supposedly a haven for "poets and anarchists," but actually full of gay customers and campy waiters. Early on, Bow is dressed in a tight white top which clearly shows that she's braless. There are a number of juicy lines. An unfaithful husband defends his wandering ways while he scolds his unfaithful wife: "I pay the bills, I'm allowed a little leeway." Just before the big fight, Thelma Todd says, "I suppose you know you broke up my home," and Bow replies, "I didn't know you were in a home; when did you get out?" A male escort tells Bow that she won't be happy until some man "beats the devil" out of her. The sexual and racial politics are certainly not "PC," but the movie is entertaining and provides an interesting look at silent screen siren Bow, who only made a handful of sound pictures before she retired at 28. [FMC]

REUNION IN FRANCE (1942)

Under this blandly generic title is a fairly interesting propaganda-romance-thriller with a few CASABLANCA-like touches, set in 1940 Paris. Joan Crawford is a snooty fashion plate who is the mistress of governmant man Philip Dorn; she loves her life of parties, high fashion, and being snobbish to the women who work at the dress shop she frequents. While she's gone on vacation, the Nazis invade Paris; when she returns, her pampered life changes when she finds herself being treated as an unwelcome guest in her own house, which the Nazis have taken over, kicking her downstairs (as in, where the help stay). She also slowly comes to believe that Dorn is a Nazi collaborator. One night, Crawford helps an American RAF pilot (John Wayne) escape detection, and through him she winds up signing on to help the Resistance. She takes a job at the dress shop and passes on information and money; there's a nice scene where she tries to get some hidden money out of the padded shoulders of a coat that collaborationist rich bitch Natalie Schafer (Lovey from "Gilligan's Island) wants immediately. There are nice plot twists along the way as Crawford helps get Wayne out of the country.

There's a very effective moment when the camera pans up in a darknened room to show long tables, lit by candles, put together in the shape of a swastika. There's also a cafe (like CASABLANCA'S Rick's) with a black singer (Ira Buck Woods) performing "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You" with a barbed reference to Hitler that the listening Nazis don't get. Reginald Owen is a possible double agent; Albert Basserman, John Carradine, and Howard Da Silva are various Nazi functionaries. Wayne, though top billed with Crawford, winds up mostly as a supporting player. Crawford is quite good, and she gets to wear lots of fancy gowns. Even though she once claimed to hate this film, I think it's one of her better efforts for MGM. [TCM]

TALK OF THE TOWN (1942)

A long and talky comedy of manners and philosophy, aspiring to be something like THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, but not quite making it. Cary Grant plays a labor activist at a local factory who winds up accused of arson and murder when the plant burns down and a foreman is missing and presumed dead. Grant thinks that the owner of the plant set the fire for insurance money, and that the foreman is in on the scheme and is alive and well somewhere; however, Grant can't prove anything and, knowing he won't get a fair trial, he escapes from jail and hides out in an empty house. It turns out that the house is being fixed up by Jean Arthur to rent to a vacationing law professor (Ronald Colman). Colman believes in the power of the letter of the law, and Grant thinks that the human aspect gets all too often overlooked in legal proceedings. Posing as a gardener, Grant engages Colman in some philosophical discussions and a friendship grows between them before the professor discovers Grant's true identity. Grant is soon threatened with lynching and Colman has to buy into Grant's ideas to save him.

Technically, both men are in love with Arthur, but it's the male-bonding relationship that is most important here. Unfortunately, neither Colman nor Grant seem at ease with their characters and Jean Arthur takes the acting honors. Rex Ingram plays Colman's servant; Glenda Farrell is a young woman with whom Colman clumsily flirts in order to get some information about the missing foreman; Lloyd Bridges and Leonid Kinsky have small roles, and an old vaudeville performer named George Watts has a very funny scene as a judge attending a baseball game with Colman and Arthur. There is also an amusing running gag about cooking borscht. Overall, however, not as light on its feet as it should be; it's like a screwball comedy with all the champagne fizz missing. [VHS]

BLONDE INSPIRATION (1941)

Silly B-comedy directed by Busby Berkeley; he was a great and innovative chreographer but as a director, he tends toward the bland. John Shelton is an aspiring writer who thinks of himself as an undiscoverered literary genius. He gets involved with two unscrupulous fellows (Albert Dekker and Charles Butterworth) who run a Western pulp magazine. They are just about to sell the magazine and leave the business when their only writer (Donald Meek) leaves them high and dry in an alcoholic daze (his condition is played for laughs here). Although Shelton thinks the Westens are below him, the editors get him to write an entire issue of stories in one day, with some help from a pretty secretary (Virginia Grey); they also extract money from him to keep the mag afloat until the sale. Farce ensues. In an interesting twist at the end, it turns out that Shelton is not a good literary writer but he's great at the pulps! Shelton is unattractive and uncharismatic, and most of the film is flat and tedious, although you can see Dekker and Butterworth trying hard. Reginald Owen, in a small role as Shelton's uncle, is a bright spot. The plot is basically an uncredited variation on George S. Kaufman's farce, "The Butter and Egg Man," which itself was made into a movie six times, most notably as AN ANGEL FROM TEXAS with Eddie Albert. [TCM]

THE ETERNAL RETURN (1943)

Jean Cocteau wrote this adaptation of the Tristan and Isolde story. Jean Marais (Cocteau's muse and lover, and star of his BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) plays Patrice, a young man who lives a rather carefree life with his rich uncle Marc and assorted other family members, including Marc's sister and her wicked dwarf son (Pieral). Patrice sets out to find his uncle a wife and brings back Nathalie (Madeleine Sologne), who falls for Patrice, not the uncle. The dwarf puts poison in Patrice and Nathalie's drinks, but it's really a love potion she has brought with her from her guardian, and the two fall madly in love. The uncle goes through with the marriage to Nathalie and throws Patrice out; he falls for another woman, also named Nathalie (Junie Astor) but cannot forget his first love, with tragic results for all. As the beginning feels a bit like Beauty and the Beast, the ending conjures up Romeo and Juliet. Marais and Sologne are both high-cheekboned, blonde, Nordic beauties. Though seemingly set in modern times, the movie, especially at its climax, has a timeless, mythic look and feels like many of Cocteau's films--although the director of record isn't Cocteau but Jean Dellannoy. Pieral as the dwarf gives the best performance; Marais looks the part, but his acting is only so-so. [VHS]

A FREE SOUL (1931)

One of an astounding twelve movies that Clark Gable made in 1931, though this is remembered more for Lionel Barrymore's Oscar winning performance. Barrymore is a lawyer who has just gotten gangster Gable off on a charge of murder--it wasn't clear to me if we're supposed to think that Barrymore cheated or was just sharp as a tack. At any rate, Barrymore's "free soul" daughter (Norma Shearer) meets the dashing Gable and the two hit it off; their first date is marked by an assassination attempt against Gable! The family snubs Gable and isn't all that happy with Barrymore, mostly because of his drinking. When Barrymore finds out about his daughter's affair, he tries to force her to break it off. She agrees to leave Gable if her father will stop drinking, so they go off together on a long trip to the wilderness, accompanied only by Barrymore's faithful assistant, James Gleason. The trip brings father and daughter closer, but as soon as they return to civilization, Barrymore gets drunk, so Shearer goes back to Gable, who threatens her with violence if she tries to leave him again. Leslie Howard, an admirer of Shearer's, winds up killing Gable, and the last scene takes place in the courtroom as Barrymore makes one last heroic stand to save Howard. This scene is considered a tour de force for Barrymore, but I find it fairly typical for him--a mix of hamminess and solid acting. Shearer overdoes the facial expressions, as though she's still emoting for the silent screen, but she and Gable definitely have chemistry. [TCM]

OF MICE AND MEN (1939)

Beautifully acted version of the classic John Steinbeck story. Burgess Meredith is a migrant farm worker who travels with his cousin, Lon Chaney Jr. Meredith is a philosophical type but also a realist; Chaney is a gentle but retarded giant of a man who occasionally forgets his own strength--he likes to pet small, soft things, like rabbits, but not realizing his strength, he sometimes goes overboard and hurts or kills his object of affection. The two are frequently on the run after Chaney unintentionally causes trouble. At the beginning of the movie, they find work on a ranch run by Bob Steele (later one of the Three Mesquiteers of B-Western fame), a cruel but weak man. The two become friendly with most of the ranch hands, and Meredith feeds the hopes of Chaney and others by spinning pipe dreams about living an easy life on a rabbit ranch. Eventually, Chaney gets caught between Steele and his unsatisified wife, Betty Field, and the two must go on the run again. Meredith, realizing things will never get better for or with Chaney, must decide between letting Chaney go to jail for life, or putting him out of his misery through mercy-killing. Although you do come to care about several of the characters, and the last few minutes are emotionally affecting, much of the movie feels more like a fable than a real-life story. This is Chaney's one great performance before he got mired in B-horror films. If you've only seen him in those movies, this will be a revelation. The cast also features Charles Bickford and Noah Beery Jr., and there is lots of human/animal symbolism, especially in a particularly sad incident involving an old man and his sick dog. I'm more a cat person than a dog person, but it still brought tears to my eyes, as did the ending. [DVD]

DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE (1961)

Nowadays, many mainstream comedies have a dark edge, but in the early 60's, the black comedy in film was, I suspect, something fairly new. In this early example of the genre, Marcello Mastroianni plays a member of an old Siclian family which has fallen on hard times. He's stuck in a marriage with a woman (Daniela Rocca) who is constanly demanding attention and affection, and he finds himself in love with his 16-year-old cousin (Stefania Sandrelli) who lives just across the courtyard from him (and on whom more than one frustrated man spies). Just as it seems that she's interested in him, her father sends her off to a convent school, but Mastroianni is determined to have her eventually. Divorce was not legal in Sicily, but he realizes that the code of male honor would allow him to get rid of his wife by killing her if he caught her cheating on him, so he sets out to set up just such a situation. An old boyfriend of Rocca's (Leopoldo Trieste) turns up in town and Mastroianni helps them rekindle their old feelings, although the sexy maid almost derails the plans by setting her cap for Trieste herself. Further complications arise when we discover that Trieste's wife has a similar plan in mind. Even though some people do wind up dead, and some not as happy as they imagined they might be, the movie keeps a light tone throughout. Early on, Mastroianni imagines some scenarios in which his wife would drown in quicksand or get caught in the middle of a Mafia shootout, and he imagines what the judge will say at his future trial for murder. There's a fun reference to Mastroianni's previous film, LA DOLCE VITA--when the scandalous film comes to town, the entire populace shows up to watch it, including Mastroianni. This comedy of murder and morals won't seem shocking to today's viewers, but I imagine it must have been 40 years ago. The director, Pietro Germi, won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay and was nominated for direction. [TCM]

THE CRUSADES (1935)

Cecil B. DeMille's patented mix of sex, religion, and epic narrative works fairly well here, though at two hours, it's about 20 minutes too long. According to some sources, DeMille got a few historical details right but the movie puts entertainment over history (as Hollywood always does). Henry Wilcoxon is Richard the Lionheart, not a particularly noble king, who is anxious to get out of an arranged marriage with the sister of the King of France. His way out comes when a zealous old man known as the Hermit (C. Aubrey Smith) arrives from the Holy Land with stories of the barbarities of the Muslim invaders. Richard joins the Crusade because doing so releases him of any worldly vows that might stop him from going, such as his future marriage. Along the way, he agrees to marry the daughter of the King of Navarre, sight unseen, to get food for his army; assuming this to be just a ceremonial thing, he sends his minstrel (Alan Hale) to the wedding with his sword as a stand-in for him; this detail apparently has some factual basis. However, when he gets an eyeful of her (Loretta Young), he is happy to be her flesh-and-blood mate. As the Christian army tries to force its way into Jerusalem, Young is kidnapped by the Sultan Saladin (Ian Keith), for whom she had expressed respect earlier. After some typical DeMille-style battles, a peace is achieved, partly through Young's diplomacy. Joseph Schildkraut is the villainous Conrad of Montferrat; Katharine DeMille (Cecil's adopted daughter) is the French princess and C. Henry Gordon is her father. Like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, this has scenes of spectacle alternating with scenes of awkwardly staged dialogue; the more intimate the scene, the more awkwardly it plays out. Wilcoxon and Young look their parts, but never truly seem interested in each other. Ian Keith as the somewhat sympathetic bad guy is the standout actor here. I got a nice chuckle out of the Christian slave girls with their incredibly long and shiny hair, but this is not a camp-heavy affair. [TCM]

MARIE ANTOINETTE (1938)

Long and fairly engrossing biographical epic with a lot of very familiar faces. Norma Shearer plays Marie, whom we first see as a young girl of royalty chosen to marry the heir to the throne of France, Louis XVI (Robert Morley). She's beautiful and full of life, he's chubby and awkward and, apparently, impotent. Much depends on the production of a son, and when none is forthcoming, there is nasty gossip aimed at Shearer. The current king's mistress, Madame DuBarry (Gladys George), sends Shearer a "gift" of an empty cradle, and Shearer then insults George in public; the King (John Barrymore) threatens to have the marriage annulled but he dies before he can arrange it. Shearer falls in love with a dashing Count (Tyrone Power) and soon bears a son--I wasn't sure if we were to infer that the son was sired by Power or that Morley's impotence was cured somehow by the King's death. An affair involving Shearer supposedly spending state money on an extravagant necklace while the French people are starving causes her to lose public sympathy, and when the revolution comes, the people's fury leads to the deaths of both Shearer and Morley. The political situation is never made very clear; despite the importance of the mood of the times, we get only a cursory sense of why she was the target of such wrath. The script does not demonize her and Shearer plays her quite sympathetically. She is especially good toward the end when she's thrown in prison and her son is taken from her. George is very good as DuBarry, and the strong supporting cast includes Joseph Schildkraut (as the conniving Duke of Orleans), Henry Stephenson, Reginald Gardiner, George Zucco, Anita Louise, Henry Daniell, and Cecil Cunningham. It's fun to hear Barrymore say, "After me, the deluge," but I waited in vain for Shearer to say, "Let them eat cake." Great costumes and sets; I imagine if this had been shot in color, it would have a stronger reputation today. [TCM]