THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1965)

As a lapsed Catholic boy, I am still driven now and then to religious movies, especially at Easter. I enjoy the high camp of DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (I know it's a Passover film, but can I help it if the networks confused me as a child by always running it at Easter?) and the more serious, austere, and ambiguous films of directors like Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson, and I even have a soft spot for those impossibly reverent, usually lifeless spectacles like KING OF KINGS. This film by gay Catholic Marxist director Pier Paolo Pasolini is unique in the canon of Jesus movies. It is reverent to the extent that the narrative is straight out of the Gospel of Matthew, but it is filmed in the Italian "Neorealist" style, almost as though a documentary or reality show crew is following Jesus around. The actors are almost all amateurs and the sets are (I assume) found locations in the hills of Italy, which double fairly well for the Holy Land. The upshot is that this movie brings Jesus to life more than any other film I've seen. There is surely no need here for a detailed plot summary; the film covers most of the highlights of the Christ story including His birth, the visit by the Wise Men, Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents, Christ's temptation by Satan, His encounter with John the Baptist (and John's later encounter with Salome), and on to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Pasolini's non-pro actors don't have much dialogue, but they have faces ranging from lovely (Christ, played by Enrique Irazoqui, and the young Virgin Mary, played by Margherita Caruso) to frat-boyish (the soldiers who carry out Herod's slaughter) to grotesque (lepers and various onlookers), and much of the story is told through close-ups of the characters. The best example of this is the opening: Joseph, discovering that Mary is pregnant (and apparently not by him) walks away from her in anger and confusion, but is met by an angel (a rather scruffy young woman in plain white robes) who tells him what to do. Neither Mary nor Joseph has any dialogue, but their faces (and body language) express their feelings. There are a couple of nicely done montages of Christ preaching, and the intense Irazoqui varies between loving concern and angry passion. His Christ is the most interesting portrayal I've seen yet. The social messages of Jesus are made clear, but so are His fiercer concerns about the soul. The eclectic musical score ranges from Bach to the blues (folk singer Odetta singing "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"). A superbly made film, accessible to the religious and the agnostic alike. The Water Bearer DVD is OK--it is letterboxed, but the print is not in great shape and the subtitles are occasionally hard to see. This cries out for a restored Criterion edition. [DVD]

BEN-HUR (1925)

Not the award-winning Charlton Heston movie, but the silent film on which the 1959 remake was based. It's been a long time since I've seen the later film so I can't really do much direct comparison except to say that both cost a lot of money to make and both were big box-office hits. It's subtitled "A Tale of the Christ," and is indeed bookended by the Nativity and the Crucifixion, but it's really the tale of Judah Ben-Hur, the latest in a long line of Jewish princes. With Roman tyranny worsening, the Hur family riches are spirited away by the loyal slave Simonides. Judah (Ramon Novarro) meets up with boyhood pal Messala (Francis X. Bushman); at first, their reunion is friendly, but it becomes clear that Messala has become a ruthless Roman through and through, and when a stone falls from the Hur balcony and injures the new Roman governor, Messala has Judah, his mother, and his sister arrested. The women languish forgotten in prison, becoming lepers, and Judah becomes a galley slave on a Roman ship. His bravery during a pirate raid leads his "boss" to adopt him and he becomes renowned as a great athlete, but is still a tortured soul as he searches for not only his family but also his missing fortune. Along the way, he rides in a chariot race against Messala, finds his family, falls in love with Esther (May McAvoy), daughter of Simonides, and becomes a follower of Jesus Christ. The first half of the movie is fast-moving and mostly great fun; the last half is slower going, and the ending, after the Crucifixion, is rather anti-climactic. Most of the acting is a little less stagy than the usual silent acting type, though Novarro and the women who play his family members do have their overboard moments. It helps that Novarro is handsome and that the sets are spectacular. The big setpieces--the sea battle and the chariot race--are impressive, as are the Technicolor scenes inserted periodically, and the opening Nativity scene is also nicely done, looking like a procession of animated religious postcards. It's a little odd that we never actually see Christ, just his hand or his feet or his glow. Good Easter season viewing, and a great opportunity to see a famous silent star at the peak of his powers and popularity. [TCM]

CLIVE OF INDIA (1935)

Almost everything wrong with this undernourished historical epic can be summoned up by imagining LAWRENCE OF ARABIA remade as a 90-minute TV movie with Tom Selleck in the title role. Selleck is fine when he sticks to his strengths (light adventure and romantic comedy), but he would be quite at sea as Lawrence; similarly, Ronald Colman, excellent as a man of quiet authority in movies like LOST HORIZON and THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, has no business playing the real-life Baron Robert Clive, an impetuous, eccentric empire builder. At the start, we see him as a common clerk with the East India Company in 1748, and, over the following decades, he rises in the company by joining its militia and helping to bring about major victories against the French (and, I assume, the natives) in colonizing India for the British Empire. After one particularly important victory, he installs a "puppet" ruler (Cesar Romero, playing the kind of ruler that George Bush would undoubtedly like to have in Iraq); in gratitude, Romero gives Colman a small fortune and this leads to a scandal back home in which Parliament votes to censure him, casting a shadow over his twilight years. Colman never comes across realistically as the kind of feisty oddball that Clive is written to be. Loretta Young does fine as his long-suffering wife, who seems a bit happy with his disgrace, since it means he'll be retiring and not journeying off to India whenever he feels adventurous. Mischa Auer, Colin Clive and Leo G. Carroll play supporting roles. Aside from Colman's miscasting, the other big problem is the production, or lack thereof. Though there are a couple of interesting set pieces, including a brief look at the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, most of the action is kept offscreen. There are long scenes of dialogue in which characters explain things to us and each other, then, over a montage of indistinct action scenes, we get title cards which tell us about the exciting events we don't actually get to see. The climactic battle of Plessey comes off looking like a tableau of Washington crossing the Delaware. Potentially exciting material that never comes fully to life. [FMC]

MARRIED BACHELOR (1941)

Silly romantic comedy made bearable mostly by its amiable cast. Robert Young is a charming young man who has gotten by for years on small-potatoes schemes and scams; his wife Ruth Hussey is ready for some stability. Young promises Hussey he'll go respectable, but he winds up in a partnership with a small-time bookie (Sam Levene). When Young takes a long-shot bet on a horse race from thuggish Sheldon Leonard, the horse wins and they owe Leonard $17,000, which is about $16,000 more than they have. In an attempt to get some money owed to them, Young and Levene go to penniless professor Felix Bressart, who gives them a manuscript on modern marriage; if they get it published, they might be able to pay Leonard. Young finagles his way into the office of publisher Lee Bowman, presenting the book as a bachelor's jaded view of married life; Bowman takes the book and when it's promoted into a bestseller, Young has to appear in public as a bachelor, which understandably irritates his wife, who gets back at him by posing as an unmarried woman and flirting with Bowman. Of course, a happy ending is never in doubt. The screenplay, by future MGM studio head Dore Schary, has a screwballish feel and some good ideas, but the movie is never able to transcend its B-movie feel. The actors are all fine, with Leonard especially funny (though not at all threatening) as a slang-talking hoodlum who has to have all his conversations translated for Bressart by Young. Connie Gilchrist has an amusing moment at the very end. [TCM]


THE KID FROM TEXAS (1939)

Dennis O'Keefe plays a Texas cowboy who has somehow developed a taste for polo out on the range. Members of a rich Eastern family come out to O'Keefe's ranch to buy polo horses; when they decide to take Lone Star, O'Keefe's favorite horse, he heads back with them to help train the horse. Of course, he's also fallen in love with the daughter (Florence Rice) and we know it's just a matter of time before she figures out that she's in love with him, despite his crude galumphing ways. Rice's brother (Anthony Allan) and fiance (Robert Wilcox) allow O'Keefe to join them on their ritzy polo field, but his hot-dogging ways cause him to be thrown off the team, so he joins up with a Wild West show and develops a hit novelty act with a "cowboys vs. Indians" polo team. O'Keefe and Rice try to forget each other, but things are righted by the end. This lightweight second feature has some bright moments and a decent supporting cast including Buddy Ebsen as O'Keefe's sidekick, Jessie Ralph as Rice's wise old Aunt Minnie, and Jack Carson as a reporter who becomes O'Keefe's PR man. O'Keefe makes a handsome and charming lead, though Rice is a bit colorless. As comedies about cowboys and polo go, this is near the top of the heap. [TCM]

SCARFACE (1932)

This is a historically important pre-Code movie: in its day, it was considered extremely violent and for that reason, and because it supposedly glorified the gangster lifestyle, it was a frequently censored film. It also helped to establish the gangster movie genre as we know it today--even THE GODFATHER, which is often thought of as the, well, "godfather" of the modern gangster movie, owes much to SCARFACE. Nevertheless, the movie is rather slow going for much of its running time. Paul Muni plays Tony, a two-bit hood who acts on his aspirations to be rich and powerful; he gets in good with crime boss Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins), killing off betrayers and rivals, but he eventually goes too far for Lovo's comfort so Tony kills Lovo and anyone else who stands in his way. Contrasted with his rise in power is his messy private life; he is interested in Poppy (Karen Morley), Lovo's girl, but she plays hard to get. Clearly, his real feelings lie with his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak); he's overly protective of her (perhaps with some reason, since she seems headed into a rather "loose" lifestyle), but his protection seems to spring mostly from his own unacknowledged physical lust for her. Tony's trusted right-hand man Rinaldo (George Raft) falls for Cesca and while Tony is gone in hiding for a while, Rinaldo marries Cesca. When Tony returns, he finds the two living together and, not realizing they are husband and wife, kills Rinaldo. The climax has a horde of cops closing in on Tony; Cesca wants to kill him, but can't bring herself to do so, so she winds up helping him to fend off the cops. They both end up dead.

Relationships between characters are not always clear, and some of the acting is weak. Muni and Dvorak are very good, as is Raft (he seems fresh here, but he got stuck in an acting rut for most of the rest of his career). Morley is a weak link--she seems totally disengaged from her character, though I can't help but think that this is partly a fault of the direction (by Howard Hawks). Osgood Perkins (the father of Anthony Perkins) is not a commanding enough presence to be a believable crime boss--he seems like he should be a whiny underling. Some of the cinematography is quite good, especially the long tracking shots that start the movie, when we see Muni make his first hit after an all-night party. Critics have noticed the preponderance of "X" shapes, mostly in shadows and usually related to the foreshadowing of death scenes. This is the second time I've seen the movie and I think it's more worth seeing as a historical example than has a fully-engrossing movie. The 1983 remake with Al Pacino isn't a particularly good movie, but it does highlight the undercurrent of incest which is only hinted at in the original, and it also has a hell of an ending, closely modeled after the 1932 ending but again much more explicit. [TCM]

GOVERNMENT GIRL (1943)

It's true that I'm not the world's biggest Olivia de Havilland fan but I have grown to like her over the years; however, it seems she did her weakest work in 1943, with PRINCESS O'ROURKE (horribly bad) and this movie (not horrible but not all that good). The narrative is set in the same context as George Stevens's classic THE MORE THE MERRIER (which came out several months before this movie), with events playing out against the background of a crowded wartime Washington filled with love-starved females. Sonny Tufts is an auto executive who patriotically comes to D.C. to do his wartime duty by setting up plane manufacturing plants. Olivia de Havilland is a pool secretary who meets Tufts in a hotel lobby and takes an instant dislike to him; of course, she winds up assigned to work for him. She has two other admirers, but one (Paul Stewart) isn't true-love material--if this had been made in the 80's, his character would be gay--and the other (Jess Barker) is an opportunistic fink, so eventually she and Tufts fall in love. The climax is a weakly-done Capraesque courtroom scene in which she comes to the rescue of Tufts, who is about to be drummed out of government service for shaking up the bureaucracy too much. The tone of the movie is that of screwball comedy, with lots of frantic motion and some slapstick moments, but the writing generally isn't as witty as it needs to be. I liked Tufts in SO PROUDLY WE HAIL, but he's not very successful here as he seems to be going for a Gary Cooper vibe and not hitting the mark. De Havilland tries, working full steam at her physical comedy scenes, but she can't carry the movie alone. A couple of supporting players are good (in addition to Stewart, who played Kane's butler in CITIZEN KANE, Agnes Moorehead and Una O'Connor are fine in small roles) but all the franticness gets tiring after a while. It was interesting seeing James Dunn, whom I know mostly from his very serious Oscar-winning role in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, doing some light comedy as a newly-married soldier who is cheated out of his honeymoon by the housing shortage in the nation's capital. Not a total waste of time, but not top-drawer comedy. [TCM]

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1964)

Based on the criticism I've read of this movie, I need to present two disclaimers. First, the 2000 sword-and-sandals epic GLADIATOR apparently covers the same ground and has some of the same characters as this movie, though I haven't seen the later movie so I can't compare them. Second, this movie has been accused of playing quite fast and loose with historical fact; here again, I cannot be a judge since most of what I know about ancient history comes from the movies in the first place. What I can tell you is that this film has some wonderfully shot scenes, gorgeous landscapes, and spectacular sets and costumes, but falls down woefully in the acting department. GLADIATOR may have stolen from this film, but this film's set-up is right out of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Alec Guinness plays Marcus Aurelius, the dying Roman emperor who must name a successor (just as Sethi had to in the DeMille film); his son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer) should be heir, but, like Yul Brynner in TEN COMMANDMENTS, he is not considered worthy; Stephen Boyd plays Livius, the Moses figure who wants to free many of the Roman slaves (particularly the noble but primitive Barbarians) and is in love with the emperor's daughter (Sophia Loren). After Guinness's death, a power struggle ensues between close friends Plummer and Boyd, leading to war and decadence and disloyalty, and supposedly the fall of the Empire, though the somewhat mistitled movie ends before that occurs. The spectacular look of the movie is all the more impressive when you consider that the crowds of extras, the elaborate sets, and the lovely natural scenery (especially an early scene set at dawn and later scenes in the snow) are all real, not the work of digital effects technicians. Guinness and Plummer are very good, and a handful of supporting players manage to make their marks (James Mason, Anthony Quayle, Omar Sharif), but Boyd and Loren are quite weak and have zero chemistry--I was desperate for some Anne Baxter-like writhing ("Oh, Livius, Livius, Livius, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!!") to liven up the proceedings, but to no avail. I haven't seen much of either actor, and this movie makes me think that I'm not missing much. At over three hours, it's much too long, but if you decide to watch it for its impressive production and cinematography, be sure to see it letterboxed. [TCM]

SING AND LIKE IT (1934)

As TCM host Robert Osborne has pointed out, this little-known second-feature comedy may have been an influence on Woody Allen's BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. Nat Pendleton, usually a supporting actor, gets a chance to star as a rich but dumb gangster who heads up a kidnapping and safecracking ring. While robbing a bank office, he overhears a little theater troupe rehearsing a musical revue and is overcome by awe and sentiment when he hears Zasu Pitts singing a sappy ode to mothers. Thinking that Pitts is a great singing talent (we know she's not), Pendleton strongarms Broadway producer Edward Everett Horton into hiring her to star in his latest show. The gangster and his gang ride roughshod over the production, eventually rewriting (badly) much of it, but on opening night, thanks to some handgun persuasion, the town's chief critic seems to love the show, and since all the rest of the critics (and much of the audience) take their cues from him, the show is a hit. The movie is quite fun in its first half-hour as we get to know the characters; the last half is a little too plot-heavy and shoddily constructed. A couple of the supporting players outshine the stars: Pert Kelton, who, 30 years later, played Ron Howard's mother in THE MUSIC MAN, is quite funny as Pendleton's moll, who has been angling for some time to be a musical star herself. John Qualen has a few nice moments as Pitts' milquetoast boyfriend. But best of all is deadpan Ned Sparks as Pendleton's sidekick who has to translate any multi-syllable vocabulary down to its earthiest essence for the gangster. It's a pre-Code movie so there are a few nicely risque zingers, but some of my favorite lines, thanks to their delivery, are throwaways, like when Pendleton first hears Pitts singing and claims he hears an angel; Sparks' dry reply: "Somebody must be plucking the feathers out of her wings." I also like hearing Pendleton call the tough and sleazy Kelton "Snugglepups." A scene where Pendleton gives Kelton two black eyes is potentially offensive, but earlier in the movie, we see that she is generally capable of holding her own with the big lug. Not a classic, but consistently amusing. Biggest flaw: we have to sit through Pitts' complete rendition of the "Mother" song three times. [TCM]

BLACK SHEEP (1935)

Average shipboard melodrama with a fairly light touch. On the S.S. Olympus, we follow four characters whose lives get entangled. Edmund Lowe is a professional card sharp who fleeces passengers; Claire Trevor is apparently a "fallen" woman, constantly trying to light a cigarette with an empty lighter as a way to cozy up to men; Adrienne Ames is a rich woman who steals for kicks--she has stolen some jewels and needs to find a way to smuggle them past customs; Tom Brown is a naive young man who has lost a lot of money gambling--Ames loans him the cash to pay off his debts, but then blackmails him into carrying the jewels for her. Lowe and Trevor circle each other warily at first, sneaking onto the first class deck and flirting a bit, and soon find common ground when they see Brown getting taken at cards by practical joker Eugene Pallette. When Brown sets out to kill himself by jumping off the ship, Trevor and Lowe befriend him and Lowe soon finds out that Brown is actually his son, from a failed marriage, whom he has never seen. The rest of the movie consists of watching Lowe and Trevor stick it to both Ames and Pallette. Trevor's quite attractive and does a nice job with a role that is a little different from the cynical rough-edged dames she would become famous for. Lowe is a bit too old and tired for the part of the dashing anti-hero--William Powell could have done better in his sleep. Brown is fine, and Ames is quite good as the scheming bitch with no redeeming qualities. Overall, nothing special, but there is some fun watching it all work out in the last 10 minutes. [FMC]

DAMN YANKEES (1958)

Despite the presence of two Broadway legends (Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse), this film version of the hit musical never really takes off. One problem is the plot, which manages to be both too thin and too convoluted: a middle-aged baseball fan (Robert Shafer), frustrated because his team, the Washington Senators, is behind again, sells his soul to the devil (Ray Walston) to help the team get to the World Series. The catch: Walston transforms Shafer into a young athlete (Tab Hunter) with a powerhouse hitting talent. Shafer leaves his wife (with no explanation), joins the team (as Hunter), and provides the spark for a winning season. Hunter has an "escape clause" with Walston, which must be activated on the day before the pennant will be clinched. Naturally, there are complications. The devil conjures up the sexy but demonic Lola (Verdon) with which to tempt Hunter into forgetting about his escape clause, and Hunter/Shafer struggles to remain true to his wife, and to keep his escape route open while still making sure that the Senators win the championship.

That sounds rather complicated in the telling, but somehow, all those plot strands never really take off to keep the narrative compelling. The acting is bland--poor Hunter is usually criticized for his cardboard line readings, but no one else around him is especially good, either. At least Hunter looks the part: handsome looks and an athletic build. Walston is just OK, not really having the devilish spark needed for the part, and Verdon's character is underwritten. The supporting cast, mostly from the original show, is singularly unexciting, except for Jean Stapleton who provides a couple of fun moments. But the production numbers do redeem the experience somewhat. The best numbers are the ones with the most participants, such as "Shoeless Joe" (performed by the baseball team and assorted hangers-on) and "Two Lost Souls," with Verdon, Hunter, and the denizens of a crowded nightspot. Bob Fosse, who did the choreography, also dances a mambo onscreen with Verdon in "Who's Got the Pain," and they're good but not really sizzling hot. "Good but not sizzling" is an apt phrase for the movie as a whole. If you've only seen this in a pan & scan TV print, you should see it again letterboxed. [DVD]

DESTINATION GOBI (1953)

Routine wartime thriller made vaguely interesting by its situation: Instead of soldiers in combat or families on the homefront, this focuses on a group of Navy weathermen stationed in Inner Mongolia on a secret mission to collect meteorological data to help the troops in the Pacific. Richard Widmark, the only real combat sailor in the group, is the reluctant leader of, or as he sees it, "wet nurse" to, the men after their commanding officer is killed in a Japanese air raid. Alone in the desert with no orders to follow and no relief in sight, the men bond with a group of traveling Mongols. Their trust in each other ebbs and flows until Widmark requisitions dozens of saddles for the Mongols to use on their horses in exchange for their help. However, the fragile trust is broken when, after a rift between two of the Mongol leaders, the Mongols leave, apparently reluctant to risk battling the Japanese. Widmark and his men, with supplies running low, make an agonizing trek across the desert, heading for the sea, and before it's all over, they discover the Mongols are mostly still faithful friends, even getting dubbed the First Mongolian Cavalry. Among the Navy men are Don Taylor, Darryl Hickman, Martin Milner, and Ross Bagdasarian, later better known as the voice of Alvin & the Chipmunks. The beginning of the film, with its unusual premise, shows great promise, but by the middle, it becomes a by-the-numbers story of desperate flight across a barren terrain. The color is nice, especially the blue of the desert night scenes. There are cute references to Tarzan and Harpo Marx, and the frequent shirtlessness of the men is a bonus. Supposedly based on an actual wartime incident. [FMC]

CALL OF THE WILD (1935)

This adventure/romance set during the Klondike Gold Rush has little to do with the famous Jack London dog story it's named after, and it's one of Clark Gable's weaker efforts from the 30's, but it's also the movie during which Gable and Loretta Young consummated their affair, leading to a out-of-wedlock child whom Young later claimed to have adopted in Europe. Gable is Jack Thornton, a Yukon prospector; he and his buddy, Jack Oakie, get on the trail of a map which is alleged to show the location of a rich gold strike. They don't actually have the map, but Oakie has memorized most of it. In the wild, they discover Loretta Young, whose husband has disappeared and is presumed dead; they befriend her and find out that she has the original map, so the three join forces to find the property. Out to snatch it away from them is Reginald Owen, who follows along with his thugs, and Young's husband (Frank Conroy) who was only injured. Oh, yeah, there's a dog here, too, a St. Bernard named Buck, though unlike in the novel, he is not at the center of the story. Gable buys him, even though he's not broken as a sled dog, to keep him out of the clutches of the abusive Owen. Gable and the dog form a bond which is tested a couple of times, most famously in the scene (which is right out of the book) where Gable bets that Buck can haul 1,000 pounds 100 yards by himself. Unlike the book, there's a happy ending in store for all, and even Buck's reversion to the wild is presented in a Disneyish fashion when we see him with his happy "wife" and "kids." Gable and Young have some chemistry, but neither is at the top of their game. Owen makes for a grandly hissable villain (with a highly twirlable mustache, although I don't think he actually does any such twirling) and Oakie, whom I don't usually like, is pretty good as the comic sidekick. Sidney Toler (the Charlie Chan of the 40's) has a small role as an animal dealer. The last 10 minutes of the movie are oddly anti-climactic. If you have to write a book report on the London story, don't cheat by watching this instead! [FMC]

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932)

The archetypal DeMille concoction of sex and religion, not as fun or as spectacular as his later THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, but much naughtier, filled with flesh and sadism and decadence. Set in 64 A.D., the movie opens with Charles Laughton as Nero, lolling about like a huge baby, fiddling while Rome burns (and, by implication, fiddling around with some young paramours, including at least one scantily clad boy). The rest of the film is concerned with the clash between the powerful pagans (like Laughton and his wife, Claudette Colbert) and the oppressed Christians (like the lovely and pious Elissa Landi). Marcus, the Prefect of Rome (Fredric March) is loyal to the state until he gets hot and bothered by Landi and is persuaded that Christians are people, too. Alas, March cannot stop the feeding of the Christians to the lions, so he winds up throwing in with them and getting sacrificed with Landi in the final arena slaughter. Although there are lots of titillating scenes of almost-naked women and lusty men, the overall mood of the movie is somewhat depressing. The Christians, doomed from the start, seem too passive; the decadent Romans are having fun but none of them except March are sympathetic. This is a movie to see for its parade of set pieces: Colbert flashing a bit of nipple in a bath of cow's milk; a lesbian seduction dance by Joyzelle Joyner (which is interrupted by praying Christians, perhaps an influence on Steven Spielberg in a similar scene in THE COLOR PURPLE); the torture and carnage in the arena. Nat Pendleton has a small role as a man who hunts Christians for money; Ian Keith is one of Nero's troublemakers, spreading rumors that the Christians started Nero's fire; Tommy Conlon has a nice bit as a young Christian who accidentally betrays his fellows. Definitely worth at least one viewing. [TCM]

BORN TO BE BAD (1934)

One of the last of the Hollywood sex melodramas to be released before the Hays Code kicked in during the summer of 1934, this is a nice little gem, almost an archetypal pre-Code movie. Loretta Young is the "bad" woman referred to in the title, an unwed mother who works as a whore for businessmen who want a little entertainment for the night. She's raising her 7-year-old son (Jackie Kelk) to survive by disrespecting authority, being tough, and getting whatever you can by whatever means necessary. Kelk is hit by a milk truck and, although his injuries are slight, Young (in collusion with a crooked doctor and lawyer) sues the milk company and has her son fake serious injuries. She is exposed in court, her son is taken away from her, and the guy who drove the milk truck (Cary Grant) adopts the boy. Of course, Grant isn't just a milkman, he's the president of the company (who just happened to be driving a truck that day!), so Kelk gets used to the soft life, living in a mansion with Grant and his wife (Marion Burns, a rather bland Mary Astor-type). Meantime, Young keeps up her crooked schemes, first trying to get the kid to steal some booty and run away with her, and when that fails, conning her way (via the old fainting trick) into spending a couple of days at the mansion and seducing Grant. Using a hidden phonograph recorder, she tricks Grant into sex and threatens to use the recording to regain custody of her son, but Grant is nobler than she thought: he has already told his wife that he plans to leave her and go off with Young. This forces a crisis: will Young actually break up the home, even though she doesn't really love Grant, or will she do the right thing for the first time in her life?

The movie is just an hour long, so the event-packed narrative doesn't do much with character development, which is a problem when Grant suddenly, with little motivation (except a little friction against the thighs), falls for Young's scheming. Otherwise, the movie is quite fun. Young gives a full-tilt performance as one of the "baddest" of the pre-Code dames. Kelk does a great job as the kid, and it seems strange that he basically gave up movies after this, though he did some TV many years later. Henry Travers plays a kindly old bookstore owner who gave Young a job and a place to live when she was a pregnant 15-year-old collapsed on his doorstep (in a rainstorm, of course) and continues to look after her, even though he is horrified by her philosophy of life. Russell Hopton is Steve, Young's boss/pimp, and Paul Harvey is Young's shyster lawyer--presented as an outrageous anti-Semitic stereotype. Grant isn't terribly impressive, mostly because he's steamrollered by the smoldering and conniving Young. Definitely worth seeing, especially for fans of the pre-Codes. [FMC]

MIDNIGHT ALIBI (1934)

This second feature crime thriller is based on a Damon Runyon story, which helps it stand out a bit from most of the other crime movies of the time; it's not a great movie, but it is a little different. Richard Barthelmess plays a small-time gambler returning to New York from overseas; on the ship, he falls in love with Ann Dvorak, and he offers to go straight for her, but it turns out she is the sister of Robert Barrat, a powerful mobster, and the two men are on the outs. On the run from an underworld hit, Barthelmess ducks into the mansion of "old doll" Helen Lowell, a rich spinster who always leaves her back door unlocked. She tells him the tragic story of her own youthful romance, which was ended when her father (Henry O'Neill) shot and killed her boyfriend when he was trying to get into the house through the door, which was locked; O'Neill didn’t like the boy and took the opportunity to shoot, claiming he thought the boy was an intruder. She has left the door unlocked ever since. Barthelmess tells Lowell about his own romantic troubles and she counsels him to do whatever it takes to win Dvorak. Barthelmess visits Barrat to ask for his sister's hand, but they get into a fight; a henchman of Barthelmess's stumbles in and shoots and kills Barrat, but Barthelmess is arrested for the killing. As anyone can figure out from the title, the stories of the old doll and the gambler converge at the trial when she lies in the courtroom to give Barthelmess an alibi so he can be freed and live happily ever after with Dvorak--but in a final O. Henry twist, it turns out the alibi isn't really a lie after all.

In the old lady's flashback, Helen Chandler is the Lowell character and Barthelmess plays the doomed boyfriend. Barthelmess, toward the end of his career, is fine in the role, as is everyone else except Dvorak, who, to be fair, has little to do. In addition to the "old doll" terminology, other Runyon touches include characters named Angie the Ox and Babe the Butcher, and a passing appearance by a grifter posing as a blind man. At just under an hour, it's painless entertainment, and better than the single-star ratings it receives from some critics. BTW, All Movie Guide and TV Guide get an important plot point wrong (as they frequently do in their summaries of B-movies) when they say that Barthelmess and Barrat are brothers. [TCM]

SHINE ON HARVEST MOON (1944)

Competent show biz musical about the real-life performing and songwriting team of Bayes and Norworth, who wrote the title song. Apparently, as with most movie bios, there is little truth in this one, but the story moves along nicely and the performances are solid. Dennis Morgan is Jack Norworth, a vaudeville performer and songwriter who hits the big time as the composer of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." He discovers singer Nora Bayes (Ann Sheridan) in a dive singing one of his songs and soon he helps her on to bigger and better things; along the way they alienate a couple of folks: Morgan refuses to do a duo act with singer Irene Manning, and Sheridan makes a fool of club owner Robert Shayne. After Morgan and Sheridan marry, they find themselves blacklisted from vaudeville houses by Shayne; Manning, by now Shayne's mistress, agrees to help Morgan but only without Sheridan. Eventually, the couple part with her career rising as his falls, but a happy ending is in store. Most of the numbers are performed on stages, with "Shine On Harvest Moon" getting the grand Technicolor treatment as the finale (the rest of the film is in black & white) although there is one fun number, "It Looks Like a Big Night Tonight," that breaks out in a police station, with the cops joining in with the singing and dancing. Jack Carson and Marie Wilson provide strong support as buddies to Morgan and Sheridan, and S.Z. Sakall is his usual befuddled self as an agent. Pleasant, with lots of songs and period atmosphere. [TCM]

YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FOREVER (1942)

Breezy, well-paced second feature which is a fairly successful combination of crime thriller, newspaper story, romance, war propaganda, and comic relief. The opening segment is memorable: reporter Brenda Marshall, assigned to an execution, falls asleep and misses the pardon that arrives at the last minute, so she calls in a story saying the execution went on as scheduled. She winds up in hot water, as does her boss (George Brent), who is trying to get the goods on black marketeer Eduardo Ciannelli. Brent winds up demoted to writing the lovelorn column (a job no one wants), but he, Marshall, and sidekick Roscoe Karns get on Ciannelli's trail and discover that a lonely hearts club is a front for smuggling rubber, sugar, and other items which have been rationed in wartime. There are a couple of nice setpieces: the first is a lively brawl in the lonely hearts hall, and the second is a climactic car/truck chase. I've grown to like Marshall in her B movies and she carries this one quite well. Brent and Karnes are both good, and there is some standout support from Gene Lockhart, Erville Alderson, and Dick Elliott (the mayor on the Andy Griffith Show) who gets in a good line complaining about his assignment: "What a world! My wife makes battleships and I write lovelorn columns!" The title is meaningless (unless if refers to the future marriage of Brent and Marshall). [TCM]

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1936)

Disappointing Bing Crosby musical from the days before he hit his stride at Paramount in GOING MY WAY and the Road movies with Bob Hope. Crosby is fine; the real problem is the screenplay, a hodge-podge of vaguely interesting ideas that don't get developed very well. We first see Crosby in prison, finishing up a sentence for smuggling and playing the lute (!) from his cell. A man headed for the electric chair asks Crosby to deliver a letter for him when he gets out and Crosby, a restless traveler (otherwise known as a hobo), agrees. The killer tries to make amends to the family of the man he killed by giving them a house he used as a hideaway, and for the family (teenager Edith Fellows and grandpa Donald Meek), the "gift" comes just as a social worker (Madge Evans) is about to send the girl to an orphanage. Fellows gets a crush on Crosby and he feels obliged to stick around to help them get on their feet. The dilapidated house they move into is supposedly haunted, so Crosby manages to get some backing to turn it into the Haunted House Cafe, but those plans go awry, and the rest of the movie consists of Crosby trying to help Meek and Fellows gain a financial foothold so the girl won't become a ward of the state. Of course, an improbable romance develops between Crosby and Evans, and despite a daredevil accident, a hospital stay, and a brush with the law, there's a happy ending for all. If the movie had stuck with the restaurant idea (which may have provided some inspiration for the set-up of the later Crosby classic HOLIDAY INN), it might have worked, but there are just too many disparate plot strands which are rushed through in the last half hour. Fellows is appealing as a tomboyish teen and Louis Armstrong has a small role as a musician who helps out at the ill-fated opening of the cafe. The title song, sung twice, is fine, and the first ten minutes is interestingly moody for what becomes a run-of-the-mill musical romance. The DVD from Columbia is one of their better looking efforts, though it's not as clean-looking as the Crosby Paramount movies from the 40's that Universal has issued. Aside from the title song and the depression setting, this has nothing in common with the much more interesting 1981 Steve Martin musical. [DVD]

GARDEN OF THE MOON (1938)

Busby Berkeley was a great choreographer but rather surprisingly, for all his style and innovation with dance numbers, he was not a great director. His movies tend to be either solid but drab, assembly-line products (FOR ME AND MY GAL, GOLD DIGGERS OF 1937) or hyperactive fantasias which, after their high points, tend to get irritating (THE GANG'S ALL HERE, BABES IN ARMS). The good news here is that GARDEN OF THE MOON, while not a classic, is a well-paced, fun little B-musical. Pat O'Brien is the manager of the fancy title nightclub, located in a Los Angeles hotel. He's a bully who'll stop at nothing to get what he wants; when bluster and threats don't work, fake sentiment does. Margaret Lindsay is his assistant. She doesn't care for his methods and it's unclear why she's stayed with him all this time; there are hints that he feels romantic toward her, but nothing serious ever happens. When Rudy Vallee's band has a bus accident and can't keep their engagement, Lindsay suggests a struggling big band led by John Payne. O'Brien reluctantly agrees to try them out and they become a smash success. Payne and the boys feel this is their shot at the big time, but O'Brien only wants them until Vallee returns, so he actively tries to sabotage their PR attempts. The rest of the movie consists of Payne and O'Brien playing a nasty game of one-upmanship, punctuated by some small-scale but clever and tuneful musical numbers. Payne handles the songs quite nicely and is handsome and charming, though Lindsay is rather colorless. A good supporting cast includes jive-talking Johnnie Davis (who originated "Hooray for Hollywood" in Berkeley's HOLLYWOOD HOTEL), double-talking Jerry Colonna, and befuddled maitre'd Melville Cooper. Real-life gossip columnist Jimmie Fidler plays himself. The best songs are "The Lady on the Two Cent Stamp" and "Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish" by Harry Warren, Al Dubin, and Johnny Mercer. Light and amusing, one of Berkeley's more satisfying movies as director. [TCM]

SO PROUDLY WE HAIL! (1943)

By coincidence, here's another Bataan movie, this one from a different point of view. Most WWII movies with female characters front and center are set on the homefront (MRS. MINIVER, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY). There are, however, a handful of films about women in the armed services and this is the best of the small bunch I've seen so far (including CRY HAVOC and KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY). It's based on the real story of eight Army nurses who were among the last to leave Corregidor after the fall of Bataan. We first see them after their evacuation, on a ship headed for San Francisco, and their story is told in flashback. Claudette Colbert is the head of a group of nurses on its way to Pearl Harbor in early December 1941. After the Japanese attack, they are routed to the Philippines and spend several grueling months tending to the wounded and dying soldiers as the Army retreats down the Bataan peninsula to a last stand on the small island of Corregidor. In addition to a surface portrayal of their medical duties, we see them bond as a group and we also get some standard Hollywood-style romance, with Colbert falling for medical technician George Reeves (quite handsome, and doing the best acting of his career, I think) and Paulette Goddard getting involved with soldier Sonny Tufts (who does a nice job with the "Kansas dumb lug" stereotype he's stuck with). Colbert and Goddard are the central characters and both are quite good, especially Goddard who was nominated for an Oscar for this role. Veronica Lake, with her long hair up and out of her eyes, has third billing but a fairly small role as a woman out for revenge against the Japanese because of her sweetheart's death at Pearl Harbor. The climax of her story, halfway through the movie, is effective and satisfying.

Critic James Agee, writing at the time of the film's release, said the movie was a good illustration of "what war looks like through the lenses of a housewives' magazine romance," and though that is somewhat true, especially during the first half, there is still some idea conveyed of what these non-combatants would have gone through during the early and very dark days of the Pacific war. There are several effective scenes, including a sentimental sermon that chaplain Walter Abel gives at Christmas. Reeves gives Colbert a "To His Coy Mistress" seduction speech, suggesting that since they don't know how much time they'll have together, they should make every minute count--it works, leading to Colbert and Reeves spending an unauthorized night together in a foxhole (later, against regulations, they get married, a sure sign that Reeves won't survive the retreat). Though we don't see the men in combat, there are a number of well-staged bombing scenes. Given the presence of the future TV Superman (Reeves), there is an ironic reference to the superhero in a scene in which Goddard tells a Superman story to some Filipino kids who then ask why Superman isn't there to help them. One of the best of the WWII movies made during the conflict, well worth seeking out. [TCM]

BATAAN (1943)

There is no critical consensus on this film; some critics call it the first gritty, realistic portrayal of American action in WWII, while others attack it for its staginess and stereotypes. It's probably fairer to approach it in terms of its cinematic pedigree since it is an unofficial remake of John Ford's classic 30's movie THE LOST PATROL about a small group of soldiers stuck in one location, getting picked off one by one by enemy snipers. In the Ford movie, there are twelve British men facing Arabs in the desert during WWI; here, we have thirteen American men facing Japanese in the jungles of Bataan during WWII. As a remake, it works quite well. The group of soldiers is the usual Hollywood mix of types: a Jew (Thomas Mitchell, who could play almost anything *except* a Jew), a Hispanic (Desi Arnaz), an African-American (Kenneth Spencer, who doesn't get to do much except be quiet and efficient), a naive Midwestern boy who becomes a man (Robert Walker), a grouser with a shady past (Lloyd Nolan), and a commanding officer (Lee Bowman) who gets killed off early so that our hero, handsome, non-ethnic Robert Taylor, can prove himself a leader of men. George Murphy, Barry Nelson and Philip Terry do nice jobs in smaller roles. In fact, except for the rather wooden Taylor and the miscast Mitchell, all of the performances are good, with Arnaz a standout as a jive-talking kid who loves Tommy Dorsey and gets a showy death scene--not once in the movie did I think of Ricky Ricardo. The men's mission is to blow up a bridge to slow the Japanese invaders, then stay behind and keep it secure, which means blowing it up a couple more times, most spectacularly when a mortally wounded Murphy does a kamikaze bit with his plane. Most of their losses are due to snipers, but there is a spectacular scene near the end of hand-to-hand combat, involving swords and bayonets, that is quite graphic for its time. Unlike LOST PATROL, in which the leader survives, here all the men die, with Taylor digging his own grave and firing his machine gun up to his last breath (which we don't see--instead, we get an inspiring message about the big-picture importance of sacrifice, a message which the government probably felt was very important at that low point in the war, but a message which is the polar opposite of the 30's film). The studio look of the jungle and the miniature work involved in some of the bridge scenes are obvious but do not detract from the overall feel of the movie. Recommended, but don't expect "Private Ryan"-type realism. [TCM]

THE SILK EXPRESS (1933)

A rather ho-hum thriller with a good setting (a cross-country train) and plot but lackluster acting. The fashion world is just agog for silk, and prices are being artificially driven up by a business consortium led by bad guy Arthur Hohl. To avoid middleman price gouging, good guy businessman Neil Hamilton arranges for a large shipment of silk directly from Japan to be sent by train from Seattle to New York, but Hohl and his men are determined to stop it, and may even resort to murder to do so. The bulk of the film takes place on the train, which Hamilton has managed to commandeer for his shipment because it must make it to his buyers in 72 hours. Complicating things are two passengers who Hamilton allows to remain on the train: an ailing professor (Dudley Digges) and his daughter (Sheila Terry); he is dying of some disease that is rapidly paralyzing him, bit by bit, and time is of the essence if he is to get to New York to see a specialist who can save him before he dies. Familiar supporting faces include Guy Kibbee and Robert Barrat; Allen Jenkins has a rare non-comic relief role as a mysterious figure who might be a deadly assassin working for Hohl; Jenkins is totally deadpan, perhaps for the only time in his career. Hamilton can't quite shoulder the burden of the heroic lead, which should have gone to someone spunkier, like James Cagney. It's short and energetic, and it's fun seeing Jenkins in a serious role. [TCM]

KNUTE ROCKNE, ALL AMERICAN (1940)

One of the most famous biopics of all time. Even movie fans who've never seen this know the quote, "Win just one for the Gipper." The movie doesn’t live up to its reputation but it is an almost archetypal example of the Hollywood biography, with all its strengths and weaknesses. Pat O'Brien is Rockne, the son of Norwegian immigrants, who saves his money and eventually goes off to college at Notre Dame. In his mid-20's, he's a little older than his classmates but he fits in well and shines in both athletics and academics. When he graduates, he takes a job at the school as a assistant to a chemistry professor and helps coach the football team, but coaching quickly becomes his career and he leads Notre Dame to historic greatness on the field. The movie does show us a bit of his family life, but it concentrates on his coaching: his introduction of the forward pass; his molding of George Gipp, a legendary halfback who died just days after his last football game (the movie is maddeningly unclear as to his ailment, but apparently he had a severe strain of strep throat that turned into pneumonia); his creation of the "Four Horsemen" and their backfield shift. Rockne keeps promising his wife and kids a Florida holiday, and when they finally do get away, he is called to California for some matter, takes a plane (against his wife's intuitional advice), and is killed when the small plane crashes in bad weather in Kansas.

O'Brien is heavily made up to resemble the real Rockne, and he comes off a bit like Van Johnson trying to look like Spencer Tracy. He's very good in the part, but in his early scenes, he looks way too old for a college freshman in his mid-20's, looking more like the father of his teammates than a slightly older contemporary. Ronald Reagan is Gipp, better known as the Gipper; he's only in the movie for about ten minutes, but he does show some star quality in his brief time on screen, and his deathbed scene, even though it’s a chiche by now, is effective. The only other actor to get much screen time is Donald Crisp who is fine as Father Callahan, president of Notre Dame. Gale Page, as Rockne's wife, doesn't get a chance to do much of anything; John Qualen, Hollywood's go-to man for Nordic types, is Rockne's dad; Albert Basserman, known best as the kidnapped diplomat at the center of Hitchcock's FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, is Rockne's chemistry professor. There is an interesting scene near the end in which Rockne testifies before a committee investigating some scandalous accusations against college football (imagine, a school giving a star athlete some breaks in the classroom!); he makes a speech defending sports as a justifiable collegiate activity, explaining it as a healthy way for young men to work out their natural urge for conflict. The movie's main weakness (and the weakness of most Hollywood biopics) is its rote recitation of the highlights of Rockne's life at the expense of deeper character development; its strength is that you find out just enough to make you want to look for more. [TCM]

FALLEN ANGEL (1945)

A so-so film noir that falls short if seen as a follow-up to the classic LAURA; this film came from the same studio (Twentieth Century Fox) and director (Otto Preminger), and has the same leading man (Dana Andrews) and cinematographer (Joseph LaShelle, who did even better work on HANGOVER SQUARE). Andrews is a drifter who winds up in a small California town. At Pop's Diner, he becomes obsessed with the town tramp (Linda Darnell) who is also being lusted after by many other men, even her fatherly boss (Percy Kilbride). To get a little money, Andrews helps phony spiritualist John Carradine get a big audience for his show and winds up involved with Alice Faye, a sheltered woman with a big sister (Anne Revere) who looks out for her, and an inheritance that Andrews would like to get his hands on so he can run away with Darnell. He marries Faye, but on their wedding night, goes out for an ill-fated rendezvous with Darnell, who winds up dead the next morning. Was Andrews the killer? Or was it Bruce Cabot, the guy she was meeting that night? Was it Revere, who followed Andrews to the meeting place? A detective (Charles Bickford) uses some rough tactics to get results, and in the end, there is an improbably happy ending for Andrews and Faye. Many critics contend that Faye was miscast as the innocent spinster, but I think she does fine, as do most of the other actors. Kilbride, mostly known as Pa Kettle, has a crucial role and shines in it, and Revere is wonderful, as usual, and not given enough to do (also as usual). The film has the archetypal noir look, most of it taking place at night or in shadowy rooms. The writing could have been stronger: Andrews' change of heart about Faye is unmotivated, except that he's the leading man. The Carradine subplot is fun while it lasts, but feels dropped in from another movie. [FMC]

OBLIGING YOUNG LADY (1942)

Screwball comedies on a "B" budget don't generally work since they need top-notch writing and acting to come off well, but this one from RKO is better than most; even if it doesn't quite hold together, individual moments are very funny. The parents of 10-year-old Joan Carroll are seeking a divorce (for the third time) and they're squabbling over custody; the judge decides she should be kept by a neutral party until the parents sort things out, so legal secretary Ruth Warrick gets the girl. The rich parents are adamant about keeping the issue from the press, who are snooping around the courtroom, so Warrick takes Carroll off to an isolated lakeside resort. However, a detective follows and starts to piece things together. Also complicating matters is Edmund O'Brien, a reporter who, with no encouragement, has fallen head over heels for Warrick at first sight (just as these things happen in these kinds of comedies). He figures out what's going on and heads out to the lodge to try to help, followed by Warrick's jealous boyfriend (Robert Smith). Disguises, mistaken identities, and car chases lead to the predictable happy ending. O'Brien and Warrick aren't exactly known for their comedy work, but they do alright. Carroll (Agnes in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS) is quite good, as is Eve Arden as a reporter who follows O'Brien out to the lodge and passes herself off as Warrick's Southern sister, Swannee Rivers. Smith, who has very few credited roles aside from this, comes off well as a handsomer Eddie Bracken. However, Franklin Pangborn and his birdwatching group almost steal the movie, especially in the scene where they perform a birdsong symphony for O'Brien, whom they believe is Dr. Stanley, the famous African explorer. There are a number of running gags, some better than others. The resort desk bell that doesn't ring (except when no one expects it to) is fun; Carroll's penchant for putting tacks on chairs wears less well; the movie opens and closes on a train where O'Brien irritates everyone by chanting the name of a famous baseball player over and over again in rhythm with the train (Heinie Menush, Heinie Menush, Heinie Menush...). Actors that will be recognized by classic movie buffs include Charles Lane, John Miljan, George Cleveland, George Chandler, and Almira Sessions, all of whom get at least one good bit of funny business. [TCM]

SPEED (1936)

Perhaps the worst movie James Stewart ever made. Actually, for a B-level second feature, I guess it's about average, but the presence of Stewart raises expectations, unrealistically as it turns out. Stewart works for Emery Motors as a mechanic and test driver who is also working, with his buddy Ted Healy, on a new-fangled carburetor. Wendy Barrie is a newly hired publicist whom Stewart takes a shine to as he shows her around the plant. Class conflicts arise when white collar engineer Weldon Heyburn whisks her away to his offices and Stewart is barred from following. Una Merkel plays against type as a smart female executive who is sweet on Heyburn but is concerned that her new status has damaged her relationship with him--she actually wonders out loud if women should be climbing so far up the business ladder! To complete the romantic shenanigans, Healy makes time with an addle-headed secretary (Patricia Wilder). When the first test of the carburetor (at the Indy 500) is ruined by an accident (which puts Healy in a wheelchair for the rest of the movie), Stewart is forced to work with Heyburn on getting the carburetor in shape for another test at the Utah salt flats. This time, it's Stewart who is put in mortal danger through an accident and Heyburn gets to show that he's an OK guy by getting Stewart to a hospital in the nick of time. All the romances work out in the end, with an added bonus when it’s revealed that Barrie is actually the niece of the car company's owner (Ralph Morgan). Silly, obvious, and badly edited to boot, with several awkward fade-out scenes. Some of the racing footage is quite good, especially the shots of the almost futuristic car as it zips through crowds of onlookers at the salt flats. [TCM]

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (1946)

Full disclosure: I loved Abbott & Costello movies when I was a kid; for the most part, I can't stand them now. I've tried re-watching some and usually wind up bailing out about 15 minutes in--particularly disappointing was JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, a horrible piece of junk which was one of my favorites when I was 9. This one, however, is one I had never seen before and I found it quite tolerable, perhaps because it's different from most of their films in a couple major ways: it is unusually plot-heavy and Abbott and Costello actually play relatively fleshed-out characters. In 1780, during a party at an estate, Costello (playing a tinker) and Marjorie Reynolds are mistakenly accused of being traitors, even though Costello has a letter from George Washington noting his loyalty and bravery. They are shot and killed and their bodies dumped down a well, and they are cursed to remain restless spirits unless their innocence is established. We see them return as ghosts who cannot leave the estate. In the present day, a group of folks come to stay at the restored house. The ghosts try their best to "haunt" the group in hopes that they will discover Washington's letter and allow them to get on to the afterlife. After some haunted house shenanigans, a seance, and a car chase with cops, the letter is found and the ghosts are freed.

Several sources claim that Abbott and Costello weren't on speaking terms during the making of this film, and it's true that the two have almost no scenes together as a team. Costello is clearly the main character; Abbott has a dual role, as a butler in the past, and as the butler's descendent, a psychiatrist, in the present, and he's surprisingly good in both parts, actually allowed to do a little acting rather than just reacting. Costello still mostly does his usual shtick, in slightly subdued form. Reynolds, Crosby's sidekick in HOLIDAY INN, is good, as is Gale Sondergaard as a psychic who presides at the seance. Also notable are Binnie Barnes and Donald MacBride. B-movie actor John Shelton, as a nervous man on the verge of a breakdown, shows why he never broke out of B-movies. The plot is interesting--one writer at IMDb notes that this is a ghost story told from the point of view of the ghosts rather than the haunted--and some fun is had with the attempted haunting (though the "rules" about what the ghosts can and can't do are inconsistent). The seance scene is effective, and the special effects in the last scene, as Costello and Reynolds go off to their heavenly rewards, are nice. Barnes gets one of the best lines, saying, upon meeting a severe Sondergaard, "Didn't I see you in Rebecca?" I can add this to the short list of A&C movies that I can, as an adult, make it all the way through, the others being HOLD THAT GHOST and A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN. [TCM]

My Year in Movies--2004 (Part 2)

The best "classic" movies that I saw for the first time and wrote up on my blog this year, in alphabetical order:

THE AMAZING MR. X (1948/June): A Poverty Row thriller that transcends its low budget with thick atmosphere and surprisingly good writing. Lynn Bari is a rich widow who meets up with exotic medium Turhan Bey; is he scamming her or befriending her? It turns out to be a little of both. On DVD.

BORN TO KILL (1947/Jan): A brutal film noir from Robert Wise with sharp performances by Lawrence Tierney as a psychopath and Claire Trevor as the woman who is both repelled and excited by him. Their seduction scene is truly something to see.

DAYS OF GLORY (1944/Jan): *This* is how to do a WWII pro-Russia propaganda movie: good direction (from Jacques Tourneur), good actors (including Gregory Peck in his screen debut), fleshed-out characters that we care about, and atmospheric sets (most of the movie is set in the basement of a bombed-out monastery, yet it never looks or feels stagy), and all done on a relatively low budget.

KONGO (1932/Nov): Wild jungle melodrama which could almost qualify as a horror movie. Walter Huston is great as a crippled hunter who rules a small African village and plots to wreck vengeance on people who he feels have wronged him. This has Virginia Bruce's best performance.

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY (1947/May): Amusing satire about a snobbish Boston blueblood (Ronald Colman) who has to adjust his attitudes a bit as the modern world encroaches on his home turf.

LILLY TURNER (1933/April): Good pre-Code weepie with Ruth Chatterton giving a very "modern" performance as the beleaguered title character searching and sacrificing for love. George Brent gives one of his best performances here, and the "threesome" ending is rather astonishing for its day.

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND (1936/Oct): Underrated British horror film with Boris Karloff in one of his first mad scientist roles as a man who can switch minds from one body to another. The romance that is shoehorned in is negligible, but the acting and atmosphere are strong. On DVD.

MIDNIGHT (1939/June): Screwball comedy with a light-as-a-feather touch, something that not all screwballs can sustain. Claudette Colbert is a poor chorus girl posing as rich to scam her way into luxury; John Barrymore (in one of his best performances) is the millionaire who uses her for his own scamming purposes; Don Ameche and Mary Astor also shine.

SON OF FURY (1942/March): Tyrone Power at his most dashing as the hero of this period melodrama. George Sanders is excellent as Power's cruel guardian. Also worth watching as it contains one of the few film performances by the near-legendary Frances Farmer.

STEEL AGAINST THE SKY (1941/Aug): No masterpiece, but a highly enjoyable Warners B-movie from their heyday. Two brothers (Lloyd Nolan and Craig Stevens) build bridges, brawl over a woman (Alexis Smith), and help each other out of rough spots. Lots of fun.

Other highlights of the year: DeMille's THE CRUSADES; Sternberg's SHANGHAI EXPRESS; Edna May Oliver in the Hildegarde Withers movies, especially PENGUIN POOL MURDER; John Barrymore in his prime in COUNSELLOR AT LAW; George Arliss in THE GREEN GODDESS; Kay Francis at her peak in MANDALAY; Wheeler and Woolsey in HIPS HIPS HOORAY; two nifty B-horror films, THE UNDYING MONSTER and DR. RENAULT'S SECRET; Fox's lovely Technicolor THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING.

As far as current movies, the highlights were few and far between: SHAUN OF THE DEAD, SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, The Coen Brothers' THE LADYKILLERS, and HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE. Though I'm glad that FAHRENHEIT 9/11 made headlines, I wish it had been a better movie. I'm one of the few people who actually liked the remake of THE STEPFORD WIVES. On DVD, I enjoyed DIE MOMMIE DIE, THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, and SHATTERED GLASS. I discovered French director Robert Bresson, but he'll have to wait til next year to get written up here.

My Year in Movies--2004 (Part 1)

Tomorrow, I'll list my favorites, but first, the most disappointing movies I saw this year. I think "disappointing" is a better word than "worst"; some of these *are* pretty bad, but more often, it's more precise to say that I felt let down by these:

FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE (1950/Jan): Lightweight fantasy with good actors (Clifton Webb and Edmund Gwenn) that is beat to death with a very heavy hand by all concerned--actors, writers, and director.

A ROYAL SCANDAL (1945/July): The concept of Tallulah Bankhead in a comic portrayal of Catherine the Great sounds fabulous, but very little in it works. A decent cast left at sea by dull dialogue and B-ish production values.

SONG OF RUSSIA (1943/July) and WE WHO ARE YOUNG (1940/Dec): Two Socialist propaganda pieces which forget to entertain while dishing out the dogma.

CORREGIDOR (1943/Nov): The problem with this WWII propaganda piece is the opposite of the above two movies: too much attention is paid to the dreary plot and characters and not enough to the wartime messages.

WEST OF SHANGHAI (1937/Apr): Boris Karloff is wasted in this "exotic" melodrama with a convoluted plot and mediocre cast.

Next are movies about which I feel conflicted. Most have one or two strong elements to recommend them, but don't quite come together as a satisfying whole:

UNDER CAPRICORN (1949/Mar): A Hitchcock period piece with very little suspense but with some nice use of color and interesting camerawork.

THE LAST FLIGHT (1931/July): A WWI "Lost Generation" story which is worth seeing for its Hemingwayish feel, although the actors, including Richard Barthelmess and Helen Chandler, aren't quite up to the job.

FIRST YANK INTO TOKYO (1945/Dec): Tom Neal is an American who has his physical features altered to make him look Japanese so he can sneak into Tokyo to free an atomic scientist needed to finish the A-bomb. Not a thing about the movie is believable, but it's so deliriously dumb that it's fun.

PRINCE OF FOXES (1949)

A period adventure piece with a split personality: half glossy action fluff and half art movie. In the 1500's, Tyrone Power (always good for some glossy action) is a peasant posing as a royal loner, in the employ of Cesare Borgia (Orson Welles), an Italian politician turned warlord bent on conquering much of Italy. Power, as a diplomat whose main skill is seducing women, helps Borgia with his land-grabbing aims until he loses his heart to Wanda Hendrix, whose elderly husband (Felix Aylmer) is head of a community that Welles is after. Power winds up on the side of Hendrix, helps to fight off Welles's army, is captured and tortured, escapes, and ultimately wins out over his former employer. Welles is excellent and seems to be playing in a whole different movie from the rest of the cast (except for Everett Sloane, who is quite good as a toady who may or may not be faithful to Power). Katrina Paxinou has a small role as Power's mother. The movie is in occasionally muddy black and white which is sometimes artily effective in conveying a mood, but with the period sets and exterior shots, I think the film would have been more interesting in color. The scene where Sloane appears to be gouging out Power's eyes is memorable. The movie is worth seeing, but viewers expecting a rousing swashbuckler treat like Power's earlier MARK OF ZORRO or SON OF FURY should beware. [FMC]

WE WHO ARE YOUNG (1940)

A sad little social drama which feels like a B-movie remake of the silent classic THE CROWD. John Shelton is a young man who works in an accounting department; he sees himself as a go-getter, anxious to "lick this city," and he has worked out a multi-page production plan that he thinks will get him somewhere, though his boss (Gene Lockhart) keeps putting off reading it. Shelton marries secretary Lana Turner even though there is a company rule against such marriages, and they manage to keep it secret for a while, but when Lockhart finds out, he fires Turner. She becomes pregnant, and Shelton gets behind in loan payments, leading to the repossession of all their furniture and the loss of his job (Lockhart's mantra is "A rule broken ceases to be a rule"). The rest of the film follows Shelton on a downward spiral: getting his CPA certification but not finding a job, going on relief (which hurts his self-esteem), and finally snapping and going violent at a construction site when he begs for a job but is ignored. However, the construction boss (Jonathan Hale), seeing a little of himself in Shelton, gives him a job. When Turner is about to give birth, Shelton steals a car to get her to the hospital. The car owner decides not to press charges, Turner delivers twins, and even Lockhart has a change of heart. Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood left-winger who was one was one of the more famous victims of the blacklist, wrote this and anyone looking for evidence of socialist messages would find plenty: the word "capitalist" is flung as an insult, and the main moral of the story's last 20 minutes is that "it takes help to make it." Shelton is colorless and unattractive, and at times hard to sympathize with; Turner is good, as is Lockhart. Familiar supporting faces include Grant Mitchell, Clarence Wilson, and Charles Lane. The happy ending feels fake as political propaganda trumps art. [TCM]

Made-for-TV Christmas 2004

In scanning the TV listings for new Christmas movies this year, two stood out to me as having some Yuletide cheer potential so I splurged and watched both. The first one, THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS EVE, has a clever premise, stolen from GROUNDHOG DAY: a man (Steven Weber), too busy on Christmas Eve attending to business to pay attention to those close to him, is hit by a giant finger (part of a store sign) and wakes up in a hospital. His nurse (Molly Shannon) tells him he has 12 chances to relive that Christmas Eve and get his priorities straight. He tries hard but keeps messing up one way or another and winds up back in his Cosmic Hospital bed with Shannon pressing him to get it right. Weber is OK, though his heart doesn't seem in it; Shannon is oddly subdued, which at first I thought might work, but by the end, I was missing her zany energy. Vincent Gale is a standout in the supporting cast as Weber's business underling. Weber's character is not especially Scroogish, which is a nice touch, but he's not developed well enough for us to see him as a person who is badly in need of ghostly rehabilitation. [USA Network]

KARROLL'S CHRISTMAS is the better film thanks to its star, Tom Everett Scott, and a great production design--lots of gauzy shots with bright colored Christmas lights galore. The plot is a nice twist on Dickens: spirits haunt a man on Christmas Eve in order to make him a better person, but they get the wrong guy. Scott, a writer of greeting cards, is having a bad holiday, mostly due to his neighbor, cranky old Wallace Shawn. The ghost of Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future mistakenly appear to Scott when they were meant for Shawn. In the process of the hauntings, both Scott's and Shawn's lives are examined and Scott finds out why Shawn (the former owner of the greeting card company) is so bitter, and on Christmas Day, Scott manages to "fix" his own life and Shawn's as well. The ghosts (Larry Miller, Alanna Ubach, and Verne Troyer) are all quite good and they have fun with the updating of several traditional "Christmas Carol" bits: Jacob Marley is a Rastafarian, two of the ghosts are Jewish, and a remote control zapper is used to get through time and space. This is the first time I've see Troyer, best known as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series, actually get much dialogue and he's good, even game enough to go along with a couple of references to his Mini-Me self. Deanna Milligan is lovely as Scott's girlfriend, and Shawn is his usual reliable self, but the handsome Scott carries the show with his essential sweetness coming through all the job, love-life, and yuletide frustrations. The last 20 minutes feel rushed, with some plot loopholes and unexplained actions, but this one might be worth having on DVD next year (Oy, those commercials!!) [A&E]

Some Unorthodox Christmas Viewing Choices

I'm a big Christmas movie fan and generally, I'm happy settling in with such obvious choices as MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, HOLIDAY INN, or one of the many versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL out there. But I've also kept track of films which have some tie to the holidays, even if Christmas themes are not central to the story. One of my favorite non-Christmas holiday movies is THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1941). Monty Woolley plays a famous radio commentator (based on the real Alexander Woollcott--imagine a Paul Harvey/Rush Limbaugh combo who is intellectual and sentimental on the air and a snarky snob off the air) who falls on ice while in a small town in Ohio and winds up stuck living with a family for three weeks around Christmas. He's nasty to everyone around him; Bette Davis is his secretary, who has to run interference for him. She falls in love with the local newspaper editor and wants to quit her job to stay in Ohio, but Woolley plots to keep her by getting sexy star Ann Sheridan to arrive on Christmas Eve to break up their love nest. Woolley is the whole show here, sneering and throwing tantrums and occasionally being surprisingly charming. Sheridan chews the scenery to wonderful effect, and Reginald Gardiner is nicely flamboyant as a fictionalized Noel Coward, leaving Davis to strike a balance by underacting. Some of the cultural references are dated now, but the humor is not. As many times as I've seen this (at least twice a year for the last 18 years), I still laugh out loud frequently. In addition to other fine films which are set wholly at Christmas, such as CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT and REMEMBER THE NIGHT, there are others in which some or much of the action is set during the holidays; the following are all ones I can recommend:

Two movies that are set mostly at Christmas but which are not necessarily programmed often during the holidays are BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (1958) with Kim Novak as a witch who snags James Stewart with a love spell (kind of a forerunner to the 60's TV show Bewitched) and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940), also with Stewart, this time doing the snagging, via secret pen-pal letters, of co-worker Margaret Sullavan. Both are wonderful movies with strong supporting casts and would make perfect Christmas Eve viewing.

Other comedies with holiday settings: TRADING PLACES (1983) is one of Eddie Murphy's funniest movies, with fine support from Dan Ackroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Denholm Elliot, Ralph Bellamy, and Don Ameche--it climaxes with a wild New Year's Eve train ride; THE THIN MAN (1934) is the first of the Nick and Nora Charles mysteries--in this one, William Powell manages to stay pretty much soused all though the holidays, and Myrna Loy is terribly tolerant; DESK SET (1957) is a late-period Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy with an amusing Christmas party scene; THE APARTMENT (1960) with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine is a more cynical office-romance comedy set at Christmas.

One of my favorite holiday scenes in a non-Christmas film is in AUNTIE MAME--the scene, set during the first holiday season of the Great Depression, is sad, funny, and romantic. GONE WITH THE WIND also has a brief scene at Christmas, when Ashley Wilkes gets a short holiday leave during the Civil War. Any version of LITTLE WOMEN will have a heartwarming Christmas scene, early in the film. My favorite version is the most recent one (1994, with Susan Sarandon), but the Hepburn one from 1933 is quite good as well. THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (1964) is a fully-sung musical, in French, about a star-crossed love affair, with the sad but not tragic ending occurring at Christmas.

There are several wartime films with Christmas scenes (they make for a good tearjerking atmosphere); some of the best are SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944, with Claudette Colbert), I'LL BE SEEING YOU (1945, with Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotton), THREE COMRADES (1938), THE WAR AGAINST MRS. HADLEY (1942), and THE STORY OF G.I. JOE (1945).

Some non-wartime tearjerkers: ALL MINE TO GIVE is about a family of orphans who have to split up on Christmas day; THREE GODFATHERS is a 30's Western that has Chester Morris saddled with an orphan (it was remade in the 40's with John Wayne); PEYTON PLACE (1957) has a Christmas Eve scene involving attempted rape and murder; there are sad holiday scenes in a couple of Douglas Sirk movies: IMITATION OF LIFE and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. There are short holiday scenes in movies as different as MY COUSIN RACHEL, NIGHT AND DAY, THE GODFATHER, and THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES. I may watch some of the above films in the next few days, but I'll also be re-watching the stories of Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bailey, and a reindeer named Rudolph.

FLYING TIGERS (1942)

One of a number of films released in the early years of WWII intended as a mix of action and propaganda. This one, from B-studio Republic, doesn't quite match up to similar films from larger studios, but it's fairly effective. Ostensibly, it tells the story of the Flying Tigers, a real-life volunteer squadron of American fliers who were helping the Chinese fight the Japanese just before America entered WWII, but it's really mostly a uncredited remake of two earlier films: the WWI story THE DAWN PATROL (filmed twice, in 1930 and 1939) and ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS. John Wayne is the commander of the Tigers, a small, ragtag group of fliers who are basically mercenaries, being paid by the Chinese for each Japanese plane and flier they bring down. Anna Lee is the nurse who loves Wayne (it's vaguely implied that they are as good as living together); Edmund McDonald is Blackie, a disgraced pilot who is given a second chance by Wayne; Paul Kelly is a seasoned pilot who gets grounded because of failing eyesight; John Carroll is Woody, a cocky friend of Wayne's who, tired of getting shot at as a commercial pilot for Rangoon Airlines, joins up with the Tigers and makes no bones that he's in it only for the money--he does a little flirting with Lee on the side, who comes to see that he's not really such a bad guy. However, through carelessness, Carroll winds up being indirectly responsible for the deaths of McDonald and Kelly and, of course, has to redeem himself in the eyes of both Wayne and Lee by sneaking on board with Wayne on a suicide mission, ensuring that the *real* good guy will live to see another day. The bulk of the narrative takes place in late 1941, with Pearl Harbor serving as the climactic turning point. Though there is much here that was certainly intended as wartime propaganda (particularly the remarks made about the Japanese, and the graphic shots of Japanese pilots getting shot in the face), this is mostly a male-bonding soap opera. Apparently, very little of the film reflects the reality of the Flying Tigers, although the Wayne character is nicknamed "Pappy," perhaps in tribute to the real Flying Tiger Pappy Boyington, of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" fame. Many scenes are clearly done with miniatures, but they work fine, and some of the dogfight scenes are quite good. Also with Jimmie Dodd (Jimmie of Disney's Mouseketeers) and Mae Clarke. John Wayne's first war movie. [DVD]

PARACHUTE JUMPER (1933)

A wild and wooly pre-Code action film with a bit of romance thrown in, almost as a second thought. The first five minutes feel like they belong to a whole different movie. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Frank McHugh are Marine pilots who are shot down in Nicaragua; as an extensive search goes on for them, they are living it up with women and alcohol in a small village. When they are found, they are discharged and wind up back in New York City scrounging for jobs. Fairbanks and Bette Davis (with a wildly overdone Southern accent) meet cute on a park bench; he thinks she's a hooker, but she's really an unemployed stenographer and she winds up living with our boys. Fairbanks does a brief stint as a parachute jumper, getting paid to jump out of planes for the enjoyment of paying audiences, then gets a job as chauffeur to rich sex kitten Claire Dodd. She comes onto him, and they're caught in a clinch by her gangster lover (Leo Carillo). Impressed by the way Fairbanks takes the situation, Carillo hires him as a bodyguard; coincidentally, Davis also lands a job with him, as a secretary. Carillo has Fairbanks and McHugh take on some shady flights; they think they're running booze, but when Fairbanks discovers they’re really carrying dope, and that some G-men are about to catch up with them, he makes a mid-air attempt to get rid of the cargo and get Carillo busted for good measure. I was pretty sure that either Davis or McHugh would have to be sacrificed, but there's a happy ending for everyone in the last minutes of the film. Fairbanks looks dashing and all, but it feels like he's sleepwalking through the part (not exactly a challenging one). He and McHugh work well together, except for a ridiculously overdone gay-camp bit. Davis doesn't have much to do except flounce around and work her bad accent. With Walter Brennan and George Chandler in small speaking roles. [TCM]

THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING (1955)

When I was a child, I read the TV Guide cover to cover every week and practically memorized the listings, so my mom and dad could ask, "Mike, what's on TV tonight?" and I could reply with show names, times, plot descriptions, and guest stars. This movie is one I remember seeing listed quite often back in the 60's and it sounded pretty cool to me (A red velvet swing! A scandalous murder!) but it seemed to vanish from TV by the 80's and has never been released on home video, so I was excited when I saw it recently on the Fox Movie Channel. It didn't quite live up to a lifetime of expectations, but it was worth seeing. The film is a fictionalization of the love triangle between famous New York architect Stanford White (Ray Milland), Pittsburgh millionaire Harry K. Thaw (Farley Granger), and lovely model and chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit (Joan Collins), which culminated in the killing of White by Thaw, in full view of the public on the rooftop nightclub of Madison Square Garden, a building White had designed. We first see Nesbit as a very young woman with an overbearing mother (Glenda Farrell); Nesbit models for famous artist Charles Gibson and works as a chorus girl when she is noticed by both Thaw and White. Thaw is a wild, uncontrollable man who is used to getting what he wants, if only because he throws public tantrums; White is older, rich, widely respected, and married. When White's wife goes overseas for her health, White begins to dote on Nesbit, calling on her, paying her medical bills, and eventually making her his mistress, though he does fight giving in to his attraction--it seems to be seeing her in the infamous red velvet swing in his private "playroom" that makes him give in to his passions. This goes on for a while until White decides to send her away to a "boarding school" so she's out of temptation's path. Her incisive comment is that, since he can't make her his wife, he's trying to make her his daughter.

Eventually, their affair ends and Thaw begins to press his hand, albeit in a way that makes it clear that he's a bit crazy. She finally gives in and marries him, but White soon tries to renew his relationship with Nesbit. Thaw, considering White a dangerous seducer who had abused Nesbit, shoots him in the face, stands trial, and is found not guilty by reason of insanity. It is largely Nesbit's ambigious testimony that frees Thaw, but then he and his family abandon her and in the last scene, we see her ekeing out a career in vaudeville, flying out over the audience on a red velvet swing. The cast is quite good all around. This may be Joan Collins's best performance (though, to be fair, I should note that I haven't seen her in many roles--I was never a Dynasty fan), Granger does a nice job as a neurotically unbalanced jerk with too much money, and Milland gives some nuance to an underwritten role. The story's sympathies are with Nesbit and White, and the real Nesbit was still alive in 1955 and served as a technical advisor. RAGTIME, in 1981, features the story in one of its many plot threads (with Elizabeth McGovern as Nesbit) and our sympathies there are with Thaw. The real stars of this movie, however, are the set design, costumes, and color. Every scene is gorgeous and the wide Cinemascope frame is filled with lovely details. This may not be a masterpiece, but it moves along well and would make a lovely DVD package with perhaps an extra documentary that examined the real people and events. [FMC]

DEAD RINGER (1964)

This was Bette Davis's last "old-fashioned" starring role, sandwiched between her "horror hag" films WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE and HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, and she makes the most of it in a melodrama that is very reminiscent of her 40's film A STOLEN LIFE. Davis plays twin sisters, Maggie and Edie, who meet up for the first time in 20 years at the funeral of Maggie's rich husband, Frank DeLorca. Edie, who owns a failing nightclub, had loved DeLorca but Maggie stole him away by claiming to be pregnant by him. The child supposedly died within a year, but Edie finds out that Maggie lied about the pregnancy. Tired of scraping by and about to lose her nightclub, Edie invites Maggie over to her apartment and kills her, then trades clothes and identities, leaving a signed suicide note to make it look like Edie killed herself over her financial worries. Of course, she soon realizes that stepping into the shoes of another person is a tricky business, and much suspense is generated as we watch her dealing with old friends of Maggie's. She gets by OK until she is surprised by meeting Maggie's lover (Peter Lawford), who, it turns out, killed DeLorca with Maggie's help. Lawford catches on to Edie's disguise and the last part of the film features blackmail, death, and ironic justice. The supporting cast includes Karl Malden (as Edie's boyfriend cop who almost catches on to the whole deal), Jean Hagen (as a dithery pal of Maggie's), Estelle Winwood, and George Chandler. Bert Remsen, who I'm used to seeing as a crusty old man in TV shows and Robert Altman movies, plays an almost-hunky bartender. However, the whole show here is Bette Davis, who is essentially playing herself playing the twin sisters. She does a great job using subtle differences in voice and manner to differentiate between the two sisters, also getting help from use of a double and very good split screen effects. The last half is a little sluggishly paced but Davis makes it worth staying til the end. The DVD has a decent commentary track that, like the movie, runs out of steam before the end. Directed by Paul Henreid, who was Victor Laszlo in CASABLANCA and played opposite Davis in NOW VOYAGER. [DVD]

BEAUTY FOR THE ASKING (1939)

This second feature romantic drama is notable more for its themes and its conclusion than for its mediocre execution. Lucille Ball works at a beauty parlor but has a plan to go into business for herself with her own revolutionary cold cream formula. She has been waiting years for her beau, Patric Knowles, a cosmetics salesman, to marry her, but as the movie opens, we see him accepting a marriage proposal from the wealthy but older Frieda Inescort. Of course, Ball is upset when Knowles breaks the news to her, but it gives her the impetus to finally get her business off the ground. With the help of ad man Donald Woods, she embarks on a clever PR campaign to get investors, and the primary one winds up being Inescort, who doesn’t know about Ball's previous relationship with her new husband. The company is a success and Ball gets rich; when Inescort tells Ball that she's afraid she’s losing her husband's affections, Ball oversees a strict regimen aimed at getting Inescort fit and lovely. This twist of the former mistress giving romantic advice to the wife seems straight out of Lubitsch's pre-Code comedy THE SMILING LIEUTENTANT. Eventually, Knowles decides he's still in love with Ball, but he balks when, to assuage her guilt, Ball offers to give all of his and her profits to Inescort. The rather surprising (for the 30's) ending has Knowles rejected by both Ball and Inescort, who become good friends and remain successful business partners.

The rather fuzzy portrayal of Knowles (he never seems fully sympathetic, but never completely unsympathetic either) seemed like a writing or acting flaw until the ending when I realized it was planned that way. (BTW, he winds up marrying a minor character named Eve Harrington!!) Ball is bland, though she looks ravishing in an early scene where she does a glamour pose for Woods--she looks a bit like a plainer, unfinished Jean Harlow. Olivia de Havilland or Myrna Loy would have been much better choices for the role. The feminist theme of women working together is interesting--supposedly the story is based on the life of beauty magnate Helena Rubenstein--as is the seed of an idea about the importance of PR in the success of a product; it's basically admitted that Ball's cream is a hit because of marketing (a fabulous container) and pricing (at one point, Ball says she doesn’t mind overcharging women for it, because otherwise it wouldn't sell). The re-igniting of sparks between Knowles and Ball is abrupt and unmotivated, a fault of the script. The direction is lackluster and the movie is too short to properly develop its ideas. It was still worth watching, if only for its modern ending. [TCM]

FIRST YANK INTO TOKYO (1945)

This war movie, released just a month after the bombing of Hiroshima, has, I believe, the distinction of being the first movie to use the A-bomb as a plot device. Otherwise, it's a fairly standard low budget film from the war era, mixing propaganda, romance, and sacrifice with a couple of interesting though outrageous plot twists. Tom Neal (of the great B-noir DETOUR) plays an American pilot who is asked to pull off a secret-agent stunt: infiltrate a Japanese POW camp to free an atomic scientist (Marc Cramer) who has information crucial to completing the atomic bomb. The Army knows that Neal was raised in Japan, speaks Japanese, and also knows something about the "Japanese" mindset, a "reverse, corkscrew way of thinking." The first bizarre plot twist: in order to get into Japan, Neal undergoes plastic surgery so he looks Japanese. He agrees to go through with the plan, feeling he has little to lose since the love of his life, an Army nurse (Barbara Hale), was killed at Bataan. But once he's at the POW camp, with fake identity papers provided by Chinese and Korean resistance members, he finds that Hale is alive. With the help of a Korean agent (Keye Luke), Neal arranges to get Cramer and Hale out via submarine. The second odd twist: the camp commander (Richard Loo) is Neal's old college roommate; despite Neal's new face, Loo keeps thinking that there's something oddly familiar about him. This builds up some suspense in the last 15 minutes of the film as Neal finally gives himself away with an unconscious tic that Loo recognizes. Feeling that Hale could never love him with "the face of a Jap" (even though Hale, once she knows who he is, insists she still loves him), Neal arranges to stay behind with Luke and the two of them face certain death fighting off dozens of Japanese soldiers, allowing the sub to escape and allowing the Americans to drop the bomb (shown in what must have been very fresh newsreel footage). Neal's make-up, derided by some critics, isn't bad, and the performances are adequate all around. The soap-operaish plot devices, though totally unbelievable, are sort of fun and make the otherwise bland goings-on quite bearable. [TCM]

Two Carl Theodor Dreyer silent films

MICHAEL (aka CHAINED--1924) is about an older artist (Benjamin Christensen) and his apparently platonic crush on Michael, his young model (Walter Slezak), whom he treats like a son. The boy languishes about the house, more or less happy to be the center of attention in the household until he falls for a down-on-her-luck countess who is having the artist paint her portrait. Slezak begins stealing things from the artist, including valuable artwork, to give the countess some money. It also turns out that Slezak has a bit of artistic talent himself, as only he is able to complete the countess' picture by painting her eyes, which supposedly suggests something about real love. In the end, the boy deserts Christensen and the artist pines for him for a while. On his deathbed, Christensen claims that he has known a "great love." If he means the boy, then he is as foolish as the dying Aschenbach in Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice." However, he might mean the boy's love for the countess, in which case I still think he's foolish, for I see little evidence that Slezak is capable of "great love" for anyone. But I'll admit I found the movie difficult to follow in places, mostly the long stretches in the middle where nothing much seemed to be happening, and I might have missed something. Slezak, familiar later in his Hollywood sound days for playing chubby villains or comic relief parts, is sleek and handsome as Michael. Christensen, mostly known for directing and appearing as the Devil in the silent movie HAXAN, is good as the artist. [TCM]

LEAVES FROM SATAN'S BOOK (1921) was directly inspired by Griffith's INTOLERANCE and tells four stories about the Devil's involvement in human affairs. The prologue states that Satan's punishment is to be forced to tempt humans to evil. For every person Satan is able to claim, God adds 100 years to Satan's exile, but for every person who resists, God commutes 1000 years. That's a twist on the Lucifer story that I'd never heard. The first story has Satan present during the events that lead to Christ's crucifixion; in human form, he is one of the high priests who argues for Christ's capture and he also tempts Judas into betrayal. In the next story, set during the Spanish Inquisition, a monk falls in love with a female student and Satan, as the Chief Inquisitor, tempts the monk into betraying the girl's father (who does horoscopes) and raping the daughter. The French Revolution is the setting for the third episode in which the devil takes the form of a Jacobin who tempts a servant to betray his royal family. The last, and the hardest one for me to follow, is set in 1918 during a war in Finland and also involves personal and political betrayal, with the devil as a monk urging a woman to betray her partisans; here, the human finally resists Satan's lure. Dreyer uses lots of iris-ins and iris-outs, and some tableau-type staging, but too much of the action of the narratives takes place off-screen or is told to us in the title cards, so this falls well short of the Griffith film. The print I saw on Turner Classic was tinted blue for night scenes, and during the third story, a shot of the guillotine is effectively tinted red. Helge Nissen is very good as all four Satanic incarnations. [TCM]

STATE FAIR (1933)

A basic plot description of this movie sounds unbearably corny: A rural family spends a week at the State Fair; Dad hopes his hog wins a prize, Mom hopes her pickles and mincemeat win prizes, and the son and daughter hope for some romance and excitement--and everyone gets pretty much exactly what he or she wants. In fact, the 1945 musical remake is too corny and glossy for its own good, but this version (based on a novel) works surprisingly well, largely due to fine acting all around. Will Rogers, a top box-office draw at the time, plays the father in his usual laconic fashion, with his cynical sarcasm almost totally (but not quite) absent. Louise Dresser (the crazy Duke's mother in THE SCARLET EMPRESS) plays the clucking mother at perfect pitch. Their son, Norman Foster, meets up with a sexy carnival dancer (Sally Eilers), has a brief affair, and is let down gently by the worldly but kindly woman. This being a pre-Code film, their affair is presented plainly and unapologetically as sexual in nature--it's refreshingly honest but not vulgar. The daughter, played by Janet Gaynor, another big star of the early 30's, has a boring boyfriend at home, but runs around at the fair with a dashing newspaperman (Lew Ayers). The only real suspense is generated by this pair: Will Ayers give up his freedom for a simple, down-home gal? The fair is presented as a kind of liminal place where anything can happen, and the kind of excitement that such a fair had for much of the population back then is palpable, another strength of the film, even though many scenes set at the fair are clearly shot against rear projection footage. Also with Victor Jory and Frank Craven. Norman Foster went on to direct several Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films and some episodes of the Batman and Green Hornet TV shows of the 60's. The food prize sequence could have benefited from more development, but is rushed through to give more time to Rogers' hog's shenanigans. Light and satisfying, much better than the later musical version, despite the presence in that film of some fine Rodgers and Hammerstein songs. [FMC]