CHANGE OF HEART (1934)

This is only the second film I've seen that co-stars Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor (DELICIOUS, from two years earlier being the other). They were a very popular movie team in the early sound era, but I cannot fathom what their appeal was. They're both moderately attractive, but they're both also rather wooden. By the mid-30's, Farrell was getting a bit long in the tooth to be playing a callow youth (he was 33 here, and looks 33 although he's playing a college graduate at the start of the film) and their appeal to audiences may have been wearing thin as this was their last movie together. The plot focuses on four friends just out of college (Farrell, Gaynor, Ginger Rogers, and James Dunn) who head off to New York City to find their dreams. The city kicks their asses at first, though they slowly find their career paths, and as they do, their romantic paths criss-cross--Farrell thinks he loves the saucy Rogers; she loves Dunn, sort of, but will take Farrell whom Gaynor pines after. Rogers leaves the band of friends to go gold digging among the Fifth Avenue playboys, driving Farrell to poverty and illness, but Gaynor sticks by him and nurses him back to health. The two agree that they're in love and plan to wed, but Rogers soon returns to threaten their future happiness. There is virtually no suspense regarding who will wind up with whom, and the only real pleasures to be had waiting for the inevitable ending are in the supporting performances, not just of Rogers and Dunn, but also of Beryl Mercer as the head of a salvage store where Gaynor finds employment while wating for a job in journalism, and Gustav von Seyffertitz, playing against type as a nice guy doctor. Watch closely for Jane Darwell, Mischa Auer, and Shirley Temple (who, unless I missed something, has no dialogue and only appears on screen for a moment). [FMC]

William Lundigan Double Feature:
I'D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN (1951)
DOWN AMONG THE SHELTERING PALMS (1953)

Like a number of actors who never quite made it to the first rank of movie stars, William Lundigan is someone who I think was much better in supporting roles or as a B-movie lead. I prefer him in 40's films such as SUNDAY PUNCH or SANTA FE TRAIL (also the later INFERNO), but in the early 50's, Fox starred him in a handful of A-movies, two of which I'm writing up today. I'D CLIMB THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN is based on an autobiographical novel from 1910 about the life of a "circuit rider's" wife, that is, the wife of a minister who travels around a circuit of churches in a geographic area, in this case, the hills of Northern Georgia. Susan Hayward is the city girl who marries Lundigan, the country preacher. While the two actors make a believable and appealing match, it's never explained how they happened to pair up in the first place. Hayward quickly gets the hang of hill country life and the rest of the episodic film follows the various joys and sorrows of the pair and their flock. Gene Lockhart is a storekeeper whose daughter (Barbara Bates, Phoebe from the last scene of ALL ABOUT EVE) is dating mildly wild youth Rory Calhoun; Lockhart's not happy about it, but since Lundigan likes the boy, we know that by the end of the film, Dad will come around. Alexander Knox plays an outcast atheist who won't allow his kids to attend church, but a Christmas charity event opens his mind a bit. There are tragedies along the way: a boy drowns during a Sunday school picnic, one character loses a baby, and during a flu epidemic which takes several lives, Hayward has a crisis of faith and almost goes back to the big city. Lynn Bari has a small role as a big city gal who sets her cap for Lundigan by getting him to give her one-on-one bible lessons, until Hayward breaks it up and sends Bari packing. Veteran character actress Ruth Donnelly appears as a neighbor. Some of the lovely exterior scenes were shot on location in Georgia. Lundigan gives a solid and believable performance. [FMC]

DOWN AMONG THE SHELTERING PALMS doesn't fare as well; it comes off as a second-rate mix of elements of South Pacific and Teahouse of the August Moon. In the months after WWII, a group of GIs stationed in the Pacific are anxious to get home, but instead find themselves put in charge of occupying tiny Midi Island. The staggering number of attractive native women ("50 Dorothy Lamours!" yells one soldier when he arrives) puts the men in a good mood at first, but after strict non-fraternization rules come down, frustration sets in. Lundigan is the captain in charge, David Wayne is his sidekick, and Jane Greer is the lovely daughter of a missionary, who is given an office job and arouses the pent-up passions of the men. Early in the movie, Greer sings for the entertainment of the men, but later, it's startling when Lundigan and Wayne burst out in song in the middle of a conversation. There are a few other songs here and there, but the movie doesn't commit to being a musical. Mitzi Gaynor, a native woman who is given to Lundigan as a gift (by native chief Billy Gilbert) gets a couple of numbers, and Gloria DeHaven, as a conniving reporter, sings "All of Me." Gene Lockhart is fine as the missionary, famous talk show host Jack Paar has a small role as a GI, and Alvin Greenman (Alfred the janitor in Miracle on 34th Street) has a nice comic turn as a secretary. George Nader, who would briefly be a Hollywood glamour boy in the late 50's, and Lyle Talbot are credited with small roles, but I didn't notice either one, though I did see Lee Marvin in a one-line bit. Lundigan seems at sea here, like he's uncomfortable in the part, and though it's not a terrible movie, there's no real reason to search this one out. [FMC]

INFERNO (1953)

If there was a genre called "desert noir," this melodrama would be its crowning gem. As it is, many reviewers call this one of the best 3-D movies ever made. Unfortunately, I've only seen it in "flat" format, but it's still a good solid thriller. The movie begins smack in the middle of the action, with very little backstory presented: millionaire Robert Ryan has been left to die in the desert, with a broken leg and almost no food, by his wife, Rhonda Fleming, and her lover, William Lundigan. The first half of the film cuts back and forth between Ryan, as he hobbles through the desert looking for help, and the two lovers who bide their time as their plan to lead the police astray works for a while. Because Ryan, who is apparently an unlikable son-of-a-bitch, has a habit of vanishing for days at a time, no one misses him for several days; by the time his business partners get worried and Fleming misdirects the searchers, the two assume that Ryan will be long dead. However, the hubby proves to be quite resourceful, able to splint his leg, dig for water, and hunt small animals for food; these scenes are exciting at first, but get to be a bit tiring, as least partly because virtually all of Ryan's dialogue is delivered as voiceover interior monologue and lacks immediacy. The illicit lovers stay apart until the rains come, when they assume that any tracks they've left will be obliterated, then they fuck like bunnies (or so we are to assume given their hungry embrace as the storm arrives). Soon, Lundigan flies out to the scene of the crime, doesn't see a corpse, and realizes that Ryan may still be alive, leading to the tense finale with all three stuck in the desert and a doozy of a fistfight between Ryan and Lundigan in a burning cabin. Unlike in some 3-D films, the gimmicky technique isn't terribly obvious until the end, when a lit lantern is thrown at the camera, and the cabin's flaming ceiling collapses right in the viewer's face. Ryan is his usual rugged self; Fleming, whom I've not seen much of, is quite good as the sexy femme fatale; the blandly handsome Lundigan does a nice job in the thankless role of the vacant lover whom you know from the beginning will probably not get out of the triangle alive. The even more handsome Carl Betz, best known as Donna Reed's husband on her early 60s sitcom, has a small role as a sheriff, and Henry Hull plays a grizzled old prospector who plays an important role near the end. I would have liked a bit more background on all three characters; as it is, we have no idea whether the lovers planned Ryan's injury, or improvised and took advantage of an unplanned accident. We also never see evidence of Ryan's unpleasant personality, which I guess helps get us on his side fairly quickly. I had never heard of this film before I ran across its description on our onscreen cable guide, and given my anti-50s bias, I almost skipped it, but I'm glad I didn't. Now if Fox would put it out on DVD, in 3-D, with the cool glasses... [FMC]

SUNDAY PUNCH (1942)

Likeable second-feature starring my latest B-movie fave William Lundigan (see APACHE TRAIL). Set in Brooklyn ("the melting plot of the world," according to the opening narration), the predictable story centers on the denizens of a boarding house that caters strictly to boxers in training, and therefore, according to the rules set down by J. Carroll Naish, no dames allowed!--except for Ma (Connie Gilchrist) who runs the house and looks after the boys. The trouble starts when Gilchrist lets her visiting niece (Jean Rogers) sneak into the place; she's a chorus girl who hasn't had any real breaks yet and when Gilchrist decides the girl is getting a bit jaded, she insists that Rogers stay with her for a while. The boxers come to accept her, and one (Lundigan), who is considering entering medical school, falls for her. However, the young Swedish janitor (Dan Dailey) is also enamored of Rogers, and when it's discovered that the untutored Daily has some raw boxing talent (a "Sunday punch," which apparently is a wild knockout swing), he is taken up by aging manager Guy Kibbee. Dailey and Lundigan become relatively friendly rivals in and out of the ring, but when Rogers' career takes off, the rivalry heats up, leading to a climactic bout with Rogers in the audience. She's rooting for Dailey because she thinks that if Lundigan loses, he would go back to school and maybe settle down with her. There are few surprises in the storyline, but the colorful characters are engaging, as are the actors playing them. The two leading men are both quirkily handsome, and do OK in the ring, though both seem a little too lightweight to be playing scrappy boxers. Sam Levene is amusing as the chief trainer, and Leo Gorcey and Rags Ragland make for colorful support. Rogers is the weak link; she looks fine but is not convincing as a world-weary would-be gold digger. Dane Clark and Ava Gardner, in their pre-star days, have bit parts. I quite enjoyed this sweet-natured comedy. [TCM]

GAMBLING ON THE HIGH SEAS (1940)

Apparently, this is a remake of a 30's Bette Davis vehicle called SPECIAL AGENT which I have not seen. Taken on its own, it's a typically well-produced Warners B-movie, but not quite as enjoyable as others of its ilk; it stumbles in attempting to cram at least 90 minutes worth of plot into a movie that's only 54 minutes long, so while the narrative moves along at a fast clip, it winds up consisting mostly of short dialogue-heavy scenes of exposition with virtually no action until the last ten minutes. Because of a crackdown on gambling, mobster Gilbert Roland takes his operations to the sea on the SS Sylvania, just beyond the three-mile limit. When one of Roland's associates is caught embezzling, he winds up dead, triggering a desperate attempt by the law to get Roland any way they can. Although the gambling ship is beyond their grasp, if they can prove that the games are rigged, they can get him behind bars. Enterprising reporter Wayne Morris, who has a relatively friendly relationship with Roland, agrees to help the cops, and he gets his own help from Roland's secretary, Jane Wyman. He snaps pictures of the rigged games, but the case collapses when Roland's hired goons kidnap Wyman so she can't testify. Naturally, the good guys win out in the end. I like Wyman in her early spunky blond roles, and Morris always makes a solid, handsome B-movie hero, but the two don't get much of a chance to develop chemistry because so much focus is on the heavy plotting at the expense of characterization. Way too much information is conveyed through close-ups of newspaper headlines; this would be a good movie to show beginning writing students since it falters by telling rather than showing. Still, the hour passes quickly and Morris, Wyman, and Roland are all fine; Wyman even survives having to deliver the old cliche, "It looks like curtains!" Also in the cast are John Litel as the D.A., Roger Pryor as one of Roland's doomed associates, and George Reeves in a one-line part as a reporter calling in a scoop. [TCM]

BACK PAY (1930)

It's taken for granted today that the coming of sound films ruined many an actor's career. John Gilbert is the most notable example, though it has been argued in retrospect that the quality of his voice and his acting didn't have as much to do with his decline as a general desire on his studio's part to make a clean sweep of their starring slate. This movie, however, certainly serves as evidence that some actors were indeed unable to make the jump from silent style to sound style. Corrine Griffith made over 50 movies between 1916 and 1928, but her career faltered in sound movies; she only made a handful of them before retiring in 1932, and this was her next-to-last one. Her voice is OK (though unfortunately she is given one song at the very beginning of the film, and she performs it like it's sheer torture for her), but she gives a wooden and unappealing performance. She plays a small-town girl who, though still in love with her beau (unambitious department store accountant Grant Withers), is itching for something bigger, in part to get away from her frowzy, piggish relatives. When obnoxious salesman Hallam Cooley offers to take her off to the big city, she goes with him and soon moves through a string of men until she winds up comfortably kept by businessman Montagu Love. Years later, during a quick visit to her hometown, she runs into Withers again and they have a chat during which it becomes clear that there is still a spark between them. He goes off to war, gets gassed and goes blind, and returns home. Griffith, knowing Withers only has a few weeks to live, gets permission from her terribly understanding sugar daddy to marry him and take care of him during his last days. When he dies, he does it like Ali McGraw in LOVE STORY, looking quite healthy, as the Armistice is celebrated in the streets outside his window. Though the movie is bearable, it feels awfully long for its 55-minute running time. Griffith is only part of the problem; the narrative is not fleshed out very well. The most interesting scene in the movie juxtaposes Griffith and Love at a high society party with Withers suffering on the battlefield. The title comes from a line of hers at the party: "If the wages of sin is death, I've got a lot of back pay coming." The problem is that the movie never really shows her "sinning" or its consequences on her; she never looks dissolute or miserable, and when she marries Withers, it seems more like a slightly unpleasant job than a real sacrifice. No attempt is made at any kind of period atmosphere, so when WWI rolls around, it's startlingly out of the blue. Louise Beavers is quite chipper in a small role as Griffith's maid. [TCM]

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO (1938)

I'm on the fence about Gary Cooper. Generally, I think he's fine, but rarely do I find him to better than that. For me, he's at his best in lively adventure films, and he's pretty much the best thing about this adventure movie, which I assume is an almost totally fictional version of the life of the title explorer. In 13th century Venice, Marco (Cooper) is sent by his father to China to meet with warlord and emperor Kublai Kahn (George Barbier) in hopes of establishing safe trade routes. Along the way, he is introduced to pasta, which old sage H.B. Warner calls "spaghet," and fireworks. Once there, he ingratiates himself with Kahn and falls for his daughter, the Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie), much to the dismay of the slimy Ahmed (Basil Rathbone), who makes a point of showing Polo his torture room filled with hungry vultures kept chained to the wall until they're needed. Polo is sent by Kahn to be a spy in the camp of rebel leader Kaidu (Alan Hale) where he gets romantically entangled with Kaidu's wife (Binnie Barnes), an entanglement which Kaidu encourages as it keeps her occupied while he has his own affairs. Ultimately, Kahn is defeated in his attempt to invade Japan and on his return to court, discovers that Ahmed has engineered a coup which assures him the princess's hand. Not to worry, though, because Polo has gotten Kaidu and his army to carry off a revolt against Ahmed. Along the way, Polo is inspired to put the children's fireworks he'd seen earlier to good use as an explosive and Ahmed winds up falling to his death in his own torture room, in a pit of hungry panthers. Parts of this have the feel of a good light-hearted boy's adventure movie, and the role of hero fits Cooper well, but the supporting cast leaves something to be desired. Rathbone and Hale are fine, but Ernest Truex doesn't have the chops to play Polo's oafish sidekick, Gurie is an uninspiring heroine, and Barbier does not make a particularly powerful Kahn--despite his heavy make-up, I kept thinking of his persona as the bumbling doctor in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER. Robert Grieg is a chamberlain with extraordinarily long fingernails, and Lana Turner has a small role as Barnes's handmaiden. [TCM]

MY REPUTATION (1946)

A so-so soap opera with all concerned operating at about half-speed. Barbara Stanwyck, in a role that might have suited Bette Davis better, plays a woman with two sons who was recently widowed (although the movie is set in 1942, her husband's death is not war-related). Her meddling mother (Lucile Watson) who herself has more or less remained in mourning for years after the death of her own husband, is upset that Stanwyck wants to doff her black clothes so quickly. Stanwyck is clearly interested in having a romantic life again, though not with oafish family friend Jerome Cowan, who comes on to her in the car. Her buddy Eve Arden takes her on a skiing trip and, when she has a minor accident on the slopes, George Brent comes swooping in to help her. He's a homefront Army major on vacation and eventually the two hit it off; even though she's not quite ready to commit to a relationship, they do begin dating, which starts the winds of scandal brewing among her friends. When he is called up for overseas duty on New Year's Eve, she decides on the spur of the moment to go off to New York to spend his last couple of days with him (implying an intimate overnight stay), and this causes her sons to run away. Things are resolved with the unexpectedly compassionate help of Watson, though a 21st century audience might not be happy with the Production Code outcome. Stanwyck is OK, coming off best in her teary moments; Brent is as wooden as usual, though he has just enough surface charm so that we can believe that Stanwyck might fall for him, particularly over the slimy Cowan and the safe but boring lawyer, Warner Anderson. Bobby Cooper and Scotty Beckett are fine as the kids, and John Ridgely has a small role as Arden's husband. My favorite performances are from the two "dragon ladies" in the cast: Watson as the opinionated mother (who has a great Christmas Eve scene as she sneaks into Stanwyck's kitchen and discovers to her dismay that Brent has been accepted into the family circle) and, in a much smaller role, Cecil Cunningham as a gossipy friend. Sadly, Arden doesn't have nearly enough to do except to stand solidly by Stanwyck. [TCM]

APARTMENT FOR PEGGY (1948)

A charming domestic comedy involving two alumni from MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET: the director, George Seaton, and the star, Edmumd Gwenn. The humor is leavened a bit with some dark shades, which gives the movie a distinctive edge. It uses the post-WWII GI college boom and simultaneous housing shortage as plot points, which may confuse current viewers a bit. Gwenn plays a college professor who is contemplating suicide because he's being forced into retirement. On a chilly winter afternoon while feeding birds on a park bench, he meets up with chatty young Jeanne Crain, wife of GI student William Holden, who tells Gwenn how desperate they are for housing, especially with a baby on the way. Gwenn agrees to put in a good word for her with college administrator Gene Lockhart, and Lockhart decides to place the couple in Gwenn's attic, which Crain re-makes into a cozy little apartment. Of course, Gwenn is a bit cold about the whole thing at first, but eventually he warms to them, agreeing to teach an informal class for the GI wives who don't want to feel left behind by their husbands, and even giving up the idea of killing himself. There are complications: Crain suffers a miscarriage; Holden decides he doesn't want to wait for a degree and drops out to take a job at a used car dealership; Gwenn tries to talk him into coming back to school, and when he thinks he's failed, he returns to his suicidal ways, but all things are put right in the end. Much of the charm of the film is in its details: Crain is forever making up statistics to argue her side of any point; Gwenn cusses by reeling off the names of the books of the Bible; in the one moment that made me laugh out loud, Gwenn tells a bad joke to his class of housewives and Lockhart gives the camera a wonderful split-second reaction. I loved the use of the beautiful Irish song, "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls" in a couple of scenes. [FMC]

SON OF INDIA (1931)

Like DAYBREAK (see below), another Jacques Feyder romantic drama with Ramon Novarro as an exotic romancer. In this one, set in India, he's Karim, a young man traveling to Bombay with his father, an entourage, and some valuable jewels. Novarro sees a holy man meditating at the edge of a cliff and, thinking he's in danger of falling, grabs him to save his life. The holy man explains he was not in danger, but he still expesses gratitude to the lad, tells him that gratitude is the highest command, and says that their paths will cross again. Sure enough, when a gang of bandits ambush the travelers, the holy man reappears and saves Novarro's life by hiding him. Unfortunately, Novarro's father is killed, and the bandits get everything except one incredibly valuable diamond. Once in Bombay, the grimy and destitute Novarro tries to sell the gem, only to have the jewel dealer try to cheat him out of it by claiming that Novarro stole the diamond from him. A British man (Conrad Nagel) who witnessed the transaction shows up just in the nick of time and Novarro is freed. Remembering the words of the holy man, he declares himself forever in Nagel's debt. The story skips ahead many years as Novarro, now the wealthiest merchant in India, meets up with visiting Brit Madge Evans at a polo game. They are smitten with each other and, despite the protestations of her guardian (Marjorie Rambeau), she sneaks off with him on an illicit jungle trip. The aunt calls her brother in to deal with the situation, and of course he turns out to be Nagel, the man to whom Novarro remains in debt. Unlike DAYBREAK, the ending to this one is not so happy, though the sad outcome is redeemed somewhat by the return of the holy man who tells Novarro that earthly passions destroy love and the two are better off separated. Once again, Novarro makes an interesting "exotic other" romantic lead, and Feyder directs rather blandly. Also with C. Aubrey Smith and, in a tiny bit, Ray Milland. [TCM]

DAYBREAK (1931)

A romantic melodrama based on a novel by Arthur Schnitzler, who also wrote the novel on which Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT was based. The film begins with a young Austrian soldier being encouraged by his commander, C. Aubrey Smith, to commit suicide because he cannot meet a "debt of honor." He does indeed kill himself, in a rather startling scene showing his hand hanging limply out of a bathtub with a large puddle of blood forming beneath it. We then see Smith dealing more charitably with his nephew, the handsome and callow soldier Ramon Novarro (see right); Smith agrees to pay off the boy's debts but pressures him to marry the respectable but boring Karen Morley. At his engagement party, Novarro and his buddies sneak off to a fancy club (which seems to be the most sophisticated brothel in existence) and he meets the lovely but quiet Helen Chandler, a music teacher who is at the party only to deliver a manuscript to Jean Hersholt, an overbearing cad who tries to take advantage of Chandler. Novarro saves her from his attentions and the two go out for a romantic night on the town, ending at her place. The next morning, he leaves money for her and she suddenly realizes he has made a whore out of her. In anger, she goes back to the rich Hersholt and lets him have his way with her. When Novarro meets up with her some time later, she is an experienced mistress but is clearly unhappy with her position. At the gaming tables trying to win enough money to pay a debt, Novarro gambles with Hersholt and loses to him, but leaves with Chandler. Again, they spend the night and this time, she leaves *him* some money. Of course, he won't accept it and goes back to his barracks prepared to kill himself as the honorable way out. Will his uncle let him off the hook? And if he does, will Chandler take him back? Much of the story is indeed light in tone, but still the all-around happy ending rings false, especially the ludicrous finale with Novarro, having left the army, kissing the blissful Chandler who has returned to her Marian-the-librarian piano-teacher career. The casual sexual relationships are all treated openly in this pre-Code film, and there's a strange scene involving Novarro's manservant prancing about in Novarro's underwear. Chandler is convincing as the delicate innocent who grows up in a hurry; Novarro is equally good in his early scenes but his change is not played as effectively. Directed rather plainly by Jacques Feyder, known for his later French classic CARNIVAL IN FLANDERS. [TCM]

FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939)

I've killed two birds with one stone by watching this movie: 1) I now know a little something about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, at least the Hollywood version, and 2) I've finally seen a Randolph Scott western--something I've needed to do since I heard the hymn to Randolph Scott in BLAZING SADDLES. This was actually one of Scott's first westerns (they didn't become his bread and butter until the 50s), and probably a low-budgeted B-film at that, but it looks fine and Scott makes a good western hero. Here he plays Wyatt Earp, ex-Army Scout, who, after being shanghaied and beaten by a gang of bandits, becomes marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, a town of infamous lawlessness. Once he has his badge, Earp opens up his tin of whoop-ass and cleans up the town, earning the ire of John Carradine, saloon owner and head of the bandit group. When Doc Holliday (for some reason called Halliday in this film, played by Cesar Romero), an asthmatic loner and known ass-whooper, comes through town, he and Earp bond and together become targets for the bandits. It wouldn't be a real western without some women to cause trouble, and here there are two: Binnie Barnes as a whore with a hankering for Holliday, and Nancy Kelly as the nice girl from Holliday's past who poses a threat to Barnes. In this version of the O.K. Corral story, a bartender's boy is accidentally hit during a shootout, the Doc operates on him in the saloon and saves his life, then is killed, ambushed as he leaves the saloon; Earp single-handedly brings the rest of the gang to justice. In the last scene, Barnes, seeing her Palace of Pleasure turned into a bank as Tombstone goes legit, decides it's time to leave.

Scott and Kelly are good, but Romero is excellent as the gruff, sickly doctor; he does a nice job doing something different from his usual robust Latin lover. He looks a little too healthy for most of the film's running time, but he is convincing when he has his coughing fits. Barnes barely hides her British accent but is otherwise fine, and there are some familiar supporting faces in small roles, including Eddie Foy Jr. playing his own father, an entertainer who actually did play in Tombstone; Joe Sawyer and Lon Chaney Jr. as bandits; Ward Bond as the marshal in the beginning of the film who is too cowardly to do his job; and Charles Stevens as a crazed drunken Indian. Short and apparently (based on a quick Google search) not factual at all, but still a fun movie. It was based on a 1930s book about Earp and was remade later by John Ford as MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (which I'll watch if Fox shows it soon). [FCM]

QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933)

I've probably said this before, but I'm not a Greta Garbo fan. She always seems to be **Acting** and I rarely feel that she's playing a rounded character. This film, often mentioned as one of her best, didn't change my overall opinion of her, but it is a good film, and she gives a solid performance. In 1632, during the 30 Years War, Sweden's King Gustavus dies in battle and his five-year-old daughter is made queen. When she grows up (to be Garbo), she proves to be a strong and independent ruler looking to settle for peace rather than continue with war, but her Chancellor (Lewis Stone) feels that her ideas are too utopian. She refuses to marry her princely cousin (Reginald Owen) who has been chosen for her and she carries on an unsatisfying affair with the Lord Treasurer (Ian Keith). Beset by troubles, Garbo escapes by going forth amongst her people dressed like a man and on one such trip, she meets up at a roadside inn with a Spanish diplomat (John Gilbert) on his way to visit the Queen, whom he has never met. The two hit it off and wind up having to share a room overnight. Clearly, Gilbert feels an ambiguous tug of sexual desire (I was reminded of James Garner and Julie Andrews in VICTOR/VICTORIA but with a bit more heat), and when she has to undress to share his bed, the game is up and the two spend three snowbound days together in the room. This leads to a famous scene in which Garbo languidly walks about the room, touching and caressing the walls, the bed, the furniture, saying she's trying to memorize everything about their tryst. When Gilbert is brought before the queen a few days later, carrying a marriage proposal from the King of Spain, he is shocked to discover her identity, but they carry on their fling. Egged on by Keith, the people express irritation that Garbo refuses to make a politically expedient marriage and instead seems content dallying with her lover. Tired of being primarily a symbol to her people, she decides to send Gilbert away, give up the throne, and join him in exile, but the jealous Keith, after essentially kidnapping Gilbert, challenges him to a duel. Gilbert is mortally wounded and Garbo is present for his last breath. Despite his death, she sails on for Spain alone, leading to another famous moment, a long tracking shot in on Garbo's face as she stands nearly expressionless in the wind, like a human figurehead on the ship.

It took me a while to warm to Garbo; in the beginning, she plays the Queen with a slightly distracted air, like almost every other part she plays, but when Gilbert (an ex-lover of hers in real life) enters the scene, she more fully inhabits the character. Gilbert, on a downward career spiral after having been a big romantic star in the silents, is good here, if a bit lightweight at times, though I was very impressed with his initial scenes with Garbo at the inn when he's not sure what he's feeling for this interesting person. Elizabeth Young plays Garbo's favorite countess at court; they have a full-mouth kiss that some viewers have taken as code for an expression of bisexuality on the Queen's part, but in the absence of any other corroborating plot points, I'm not so sure. At any rate, the scene is a little startling. C. Aubrey Smith and David Torrence are in the supporting cast. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, the movie always looks great (sets, costumes, camerawork), though I can't help but wonder how over-the-top a version by SCARLET EMPRESS director Josef von Sternberg would have been. [TCM]

TEORAMA (1968)

This film by gay Marxist Pier Paolo Pasolini has been read as being about the rotting away of the bourgeois family, or about the connections between passion and religion, but I think it's really about Terence Stamp's crotch, which gets as much screen time, if not more, than any individual character. There are worse things to spend 90 minutes on than looking at the lovely young Mr. Stamp and his crotch, but I could have done with a little more fleshing out of characters in the narrative, and a little less deliberate obscurity in the allegorical structure. The plot outline, shared by the later Stephen Sondheim film SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, is solid: a middle-class family welcomes an outsider (Stamp) into their home; one by one, each member (mother, father, son, daughter, maid) is seduced by him, though it's more to the point to say that he is simply the passive object of desire and that each family member becomes consumed by desire for him and acts on that desire with very little actual prodding by Stamp. Suddenly, Stamp is called away by telegram, leaving each family member to deal with his absence. The son is driven to create his own style of art which involves urinating on his canvasses as he tries to recreate the precise shade of Stamp's glowing blue eyes. The mother (Silvana Mangano) has meaningless sex with anonymous partners who look like Stamp and the daughter goes catatonic. The maid (Laura Betti) becomes a odd sort of prophet, able to heal and levitate; when we last see her, she is being buried alive (by Pasolini's mother in a cameo role) with only her mouth visible. Finally, the father (Massimo Girotti, the lead stud twenty years earlier in Visconti's OSSESSIONE) gives his factory up to his workers and in the last shot of the film is wandering naked and screaming in the wilderness. The first half with Stamp languidly romping from bedroom to bedroom actually becomes rather boring; the second half, with the family members imploding, is more interesting, but would be even better if so many details of the narrative weren't so willfully obscure. The lack of specific character and narrative details allows wide-open interpretation but also lets a viewer off the hook by allowing him or her to claim that so much muddiness can only amount to nothing. (After I wrote the first draft of this review, I discovered that Slant Magazine's Dan Callahan has also noticed the focus on Stamp's private parts, and he attributes it to Pasolini's own desires and fetishes.) For what it's worth, the title is Italian for "theorem," which means a proposition which is demonstrated to be true. [DVD]

HELEN OF TROY (1956)

No one seems to like this forgotten Hollywood epic and it's certainly no DeMille film, but as a quick and dirty re-telling of the ancient myth of the Trojan War (based at least in part on Homer's Iliad), it suffices: it's fun, it has a lovely leading man, and from most accounts, it's more entertaining than the recent TROY. Priam, King of Troy (Cedric Hardwicke) is pleased that his city is now so well protected with its theoretically impenetrable wall and decides the time is right to send Paris (Jack Sernas) to Sparta for diplomatic talks. During a storm at sea, Paris's ship is destroyed and he is washed up on shore, to be found and cared for by Helen (Rossana Podesta). Though she is the Queen of Sparta, she pretends at first to be just a common slave girl and the two fall in love. When Paris presents himself at court, he learns Helen's real identity but he cannot prove his own identity because all of his credentials were lost at sea. When he kicks Ajax's ass during a staged fight, they believe him, however, Meneleus (Niall MacGinnis), husband of Helen, realizes that the two have hit it off so he imprisons Paris. Helen helps him escape to a waiting ship and winds up jumping into the sea with him. Her leaving is framed as an abduction and unites the various Greek rulers and warriors (including such familiar names as Achilles and Ulysses) against Troy, triggering a prolonged war, theoretically to get the Queen of Sparta back, but also to loot the city. After years of stalemate, the Greeks seem to retreat, leaving a giant wooden horse as a gift; as we all know, the horse is full of soldiers who bide their time while the Trojans hold a celebratory orgy. In the dark of night, the soldiers break out of the horse and whoop the Trojans but good. The sets, costumes, and use of extras are the best things about the movie, directed with a sure hand for the Cinemascope screen by Robert Wise. Podesta is attractive, but I never believed that her face would launch a thousand ships. Sernas (later in his career billed as Jacques rather than Jack) is quite beautiful, prettier than Podesta, which made the movie very watchable for me. The legendary Greeks, played by decent actors who look too old and/or out of shape, such as Stanley Baker and Torin Thatcher, were largely interchangeable (though, of course, we spend most of the movie waiting for the obligatory Achilles' heel moment). The Trojan Horse orgy reminded me of the Golden Calf sequence in TEN COMMANDMENTS, and Hardwicke's presence as a ruler with conflicting feelings about his son also provided an echo of the biblical epic. The DVD is great looking and even has a couple of short background featurettes. One of the better 50's epics, easier to sit though than others of the era (like THE ROBE). [DVD]

WIVES UNDER SUSPICION (1938)

This James Whale film, one of his last, is a remake of one of his earlier films, THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR, which I have not seen. This version, aside from some problems arising from a low production budget, is interesting and makes me want to see the original. Warren William is a bloodthirsty district attorney who keeps an abacus with little skulls on his desk to keep track of the number of people he's had sentenced to death. The opening sequence, nicely shot with lots of fluid camerawork, shows William in court at the top of his game, being threatened by the man he's just prosecuted (Matty Fain). William's wife (Gail Patrick) and secretary (Cecil Cunningham) want him to chill out and take some time off. He doesn't want to, but later, when he's shot at on the streets by Fain's cousin, he decides a nice family vacation might be in order. However, on the eve of his planned departure, a juicy murder case winds up in his lap: a rich college professor (Ralph Morgan) admits to killing his wife in a fit of jealousy, begun when he kissed his wife while she was in front of a mirror, and he caught a look in her eyes that told him she was cheating on him. William decides to stay and prosecute; he believes the man's confession but doesn't believe in crimes of passion, thinking them to be performed by weak, decadent men. Ironically, his own life begins to resemble that of Morgan: Patrick is growing upset with William's job obsession, rumors are published linking his wife to a young friend of the family (William Lundigan), and finally he sees the same "mirror" look in his wife's face that Morgan saw. William grabs a gun and seems headed down the same path as Morgan. Will he become aware of his behavior and will it give him empathy for Morgan, or will he wind up committing a crime of passion himself? The B-production values leave something to be desired, but there are several things here that make the picture worth seeing: William is good, as usual, and Morgan gives one of the best performances of his career, especially in the intense confession scene, shot mostly in one long take. Cunningham is fun, and the supporting cast includes Milburn Stone (looking a thousand years younger than he did as Doc on "Gunsmoke"), Samuel S. Hinds, and Lillian Yarbo. Whale's directorial touches are nice, with lots of shots looking down from on high. There is a dark noirish atmosphere which predates the establishment of the noir genre. Not as polished as it could be, but a rarity worth watching. [TCM]

THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929)

There is a small genre of German films from the late silent era called the mountain film. According to Wikipedia, these films focused on the adventures of mountaineers, and the overriding theme was man versus nature. A few years ago, I saw a movie called CAREFUL by art-house director Guy Maddin which was a parody of/homage to these films, but until now I'd never actually seen the real thing. This silent film, recently restored and supplied with a wonderful musical score, and co-directed by Arnold Fanck, one of the founders of the genre, is a truly beautiful and exciting film, shot on location in the Swiss Alps. In the opening segment, a honeymooning couple on Pitz Palu ("pale mountain") is caught in some nasty wind squalls and avalanches, and the woman falls to her death in a glacier crevice. The man, Dr. Krafft (Gustav Diessl), is bereft and spends all of his time on the mountain, earning the nickname "Ghost of the Mountain." Years later, an engaged couple, Hans and Maria (Ernst Petersen and Leni Riefenstahl--yes, the famous Nazi director), come to the mountain to spend some time at a cabin (where a friend flies over and drops them some champagne) and do some climbing. The two frolic in the warm sunshine but as darkness falls, Maria feels a sense of foreboding, which is heightened by the arrival of Krafft, who shares the night (and, platonically, the couple's bed). The next day, Krafft goes off to climb the north face of the mountain, with Hans and Maria joining him at the last minute. Also in the area is a group of students trying to beat Krafft. With warm winds setting up the danger of increased ice slides, a situation develops like the one on Mt. Everest that Jon Krakauer wrote about in "Into Thin Air," and sure enough, everyone (Krafft, the lovers, and the students) winds up trapped in the mountains. Most of the students are killed in an avalanche. Hans is injured when he slams into the side of the mountain and Krafft breaks his leg trying to help him; the three wind up, without suitable protection or food, stuck in a small ice cavern for three days, with Krafft standing watch, calling for help and swinging a lantern at night. The caretaker of the cabin calls on villagers to form a rescue party, but in the meantime Hans freaks out and has to be subdued, and it soon becomes clear that not all three will last until the rescue party arrives.

This was filmed on location in the Alps during an occasionally dangerous five-month shoot and the photography is indeed stunning, all the more impressive when you realize that every frame is real, with no digital effects, and not even any matte paintings in the background. I assume that the actors didn't do their own stunts, but clearly real people were clinging to ropes and getting banged around on the mountain. Riefenstahl is the most famous cast member, and gets top billing on the Kino DVD cover, but she doesn't have much to do. Far more impressive is Diessel, who, looking like a cross between Gary Cooper and John Wayne, is the very embodiment of ruggedness--he had a long film career, but died at 49. The restored DVD print is over two hours, and the middle section does feel a bit long, but mostly this film is gripping, well acted, and beautifully shot--and it doesn't hurt that both leading men are handsome! The score, written in the 90's, perfectly complements the onscreen action, and the ending is appropriately haunting. Highly recommended. [DVD]

CAFE METROPOLE (1937)

Light romantic trifle with good performances and atmosphere which can't quite overcome a weak script. Adolphe Menjou runs the title Parisian restaurant, and he's close to running it into the ground; it's successful, but he's been borrowing restaurant money to use (and lose) in gambling, and his accountant (Christian Rub) tells him that it's crucial to get the money back within 24 hours. Tyrone Power is a broke American (whom we first at the restaurant, at closing time, drunk and insisting that he be served roasted eagle) who gambles and loses to Menjou; when Power can't make good on his debt, Menjou forces him into a scheme to "make love," in disguise as a Russian prince, to a visiting American heiress (Loretta Young), in hopes of getting money out of her. Complicating the plan: 1) her family (Charles Winninger and Helen Westley) is keeping a close eye on her, 2) Young sees through his disguise early on (thanks to his on-again, off-again accent), and 3) the real Russian prince whose identity Power is using (Gregory Ratoff) is working as a waiter at the restaurant and finds out about the ruse. There is a very amusing scene in which Winninger is arrested under suspicion of being an American gangster named Smarty Pants, but generally there is far too much time spent on complicated plot machinations at the expense of characterization. We don't get a chance to see Power and Young actually fall in love, and Power's and Menjou's characters are both so lightly sketched that it's difficult to care much about what happens to them. Still, the actors are generally delightful and this movie is further evidence that Power really should have done more comedy (see my review of DAY-TIME WIFE, below). The sets for the restaurant, the hotel rooms, and a cozy little inn where Power and Young canoodle are quite nice. "Quite nice" is an appropriate phrase for this movie; not a must, but enjoyable for an undemanding audience. [FMC]

DAY-TIME WIFE (1939)

Tyrone Power never got much of a chance to do light romantic comedy, and based on the evidence of this movie, that's a shame because he does a fine job here. The film begins with Power, the president of a roofing company, and his wife, Linda Darnell, celebrating their second anniversary. Well, she's ready to celebrate, but he's forgotten all about it. She arranges a big party but when his secretary calls to say that Power has to work late, Darnell, with the egging-on of her friend Binnie Barnes, takes the party downtown to the office only to find the place empty except for a couple of cleaning ladies. It turns out that Power is seeing his secretary (Wendy Barrie) on the sly, so Darnell decides to find out for herself why men are so attracted to their hired help. She gets a job as secretary to a married architect (Warren William) who, sure enough, quickly puts the moves on her. Then, of course, there are some screwball touches: first, Darnell has to master the after-work quick change, from work clothes to home loungewear, so Power doesn't catch on to her secret life; later, she discovers that her boss and her husband are working together on a project so she has to do even more fancy footwork so she doesn't get caught. Eventually, of course, the bosses and the secretaries collide at a nightclub, and later that evening, at William's penthouse, his wife arrives to add to the comic confusion. The happy ending feels a little forced, not least because, thanks to the Production Code, it's never made clear how far along Power and Barrie's affair had gotten (a similar problem hampers the Cary Grant/Irene Dunne comedy THE AWFUL TRUTH), though it's clear that Darnell doesn't cheat with William. Power isn't in Grant's league as a comic actor, but very few actors are, and Power acquits himself nicely, remaining relatively sympathetic and never sliding into frantic shtick or taking attention away from the other actors. He and Darnell make a nice pair and everyone else is just fine. The sets, all huge white art deco-ish spaces, are fun and give the movie an expensive look. The best line comes from Darnell's maid (Mildred Gover): when Darnell complains about her quick changes between work and dinner and wonders how stage actresses deal with it, Gover replies, "They usually takes to drink." Fun and frothy. [FMC]

REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? (1935)

A movie in the short-lived genre of screwball mystery; it's nowhere near as good as THE THIN MAN, mostly because it lacks actors who can pull this sort of thing off effortlessly, but this lesser-known James Whale film is still worth seeing. Robert Young and Constance Cummings (both young, rich, and good-looking) are celebrating their 6-month wedding anniversary with a "progressive" party (or galloping party, as we called it in my youth) in which they go from mansion to mansion getting drunker and more debauched, smashing glasses and bowls, setting off a cannon, swimming after midnight, and at one point, dressing up in blackface masks. The next morning, not only do they all have hangovers, they also discover that one of their number (George Meeker) is dead. Even after Young calls in an old friend, detective Edward Arnold, to investigate, more murders (and a suicide) follow. Along the way, there are implications of romantic affairs and financial problems, and a hypnotist (Gustav von Seyffertitz) comes in to try to get people to recall helpful details from their alcoholic fogs. Ultimately, it was difficult for me to care much about the overly convoluted mystery, and the comedy elements are very scattershot--sometimes they work, sometimes they don't--so I was left with plenty of time to admire the elaborate sets and interesting camerawork. Young and Cummings come off as trying too hard, but Arnold is a delight especially when he gets a chance to do some deliberately over-the-top histrionics. I also quite liked Arthur Treacher as a butler who is constantly expressing outrage over the way these rich Americans behave and speak; some critics think his performance hurts the film, and it certainly is a one-note performance (in a one-note role), but I enjoyed him. Also in the cast: Sally Eliers as the dead man's wife, Robert Armstrong as the chauffeur who may be having an affair with Eilers, Monroe Owsley (who looks a bit like Paul Reubens) and Reginald Denny as other rich revelers, and Gregory Ratoff as someone named Faronea; I never did figure out what he had to do with the proceedings. E.E. Clive, Jack La Rue and Rafaela Ottiano have small but memorable bits. Watch for a couple of fun little references to "Dracula's Daughter" and Whale's own "Bride of Frankenstein." Thanks to Turner Classic Movies for rescuing this one from the deep but neglected Universal vaults. [TCM]

FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER (1938)

This is an overlooked little gem; a fairly traditional mystery plot in a "boy's adventure" setting. C. Aubrey Smith is a British Army officer who has been dismissed from his post in India for issuing orders that led to a massacre of dozens of men. His four sons return to England to give him moral support; he insists that he is innocent and that the orders were forged, and he claims to have evidence, but before he can share it, he is murdered in his own home (and it's made to look like a suicide). The sons drop everything and scatter across the globe on the track of a munitions company which has ties to insurgents in India. The two sons who go to India (barrister George Sanders and Oxford student William Henry) get some help from a man who served under Smith (Barry Fitzgerald). In Buenos Aries, the other sons (Richard Greene, a diplomat, and David Niven, an officer in the RAF) are accompanied by Loretta Young, who is tagging along because she has the hots for Greene (though Niven thinks he has a chance with her, too). They fall in with three men with ties to the company, Atlas Arms, and they discover that the company is selling guns to both the government and the rebels. A bloody skirmish leads to the death of one of the three men, but the brothers get clues from the other two (Alan Hale and Reginald Denny) that lead everyone to Egypt where it turns out that Young's father (Berton Churchill) might be the big man behind everything, even though he was not directly responsible for Smith's death. Could Young herself have had a hand in it? Things are resolved most satisfactorily in the end and Smith's name is officially cleared. Greene, Niven, and Young get the most screen time, but all the leads are fine, and they all look like they're having fun, especially Niven who gets most of the jokes, such as when he asks Greene to say something American, like, "OK, Toots!" or when he does a squeaky voice like "Donald Mouse." Greene is appropriately dashing, Smith is appropriately stiff-upper-lipped, and Hale and Denny are appropriately slimy. The Buenos Aries sequence is particularly well done, with Young getting hysterical when she witnesses an execution in the street. The ties between the characters were a little hard to follow, but it all becomes as clear as it needs to be. Also with John Carradine and Cecil Cunningham. This may not be filmmaking of the highest order, but it's competent, exciting, and fun. [FMC]

WAKE ISLAND (1942)

This was, according to the book "Star Spangled Screen," the first Hollywood movie made about American combat in WWII, and it was based on the actual battle for Wake Island, a small landing strip not far from Pearl Harbor. In fact, the script was begun before the battle ended and was changed to accommodate history (more or less--the movie ends with the Marines fighting the landing Japanese troops to the last man, but in reality, the few left surrendered). It must have been an effective piece of dramatic propaganda in its time, and it set up a model for later combat films such as BATAAN and CORREGIDOR, though the basic plot of a group of soldiers defending a post to the last man goes back at least as far as 1929's THE LOST PATROL. The movie begins in the weeks before Pearl Harbor as we meet two groups of men who have been sent to the island, a band of Marines and a construction crew who are building facilities for planes that land for refueling. The main conflict in this part of the movie has to do with the no-nonsense major in charge (Brian Donlevy) and the head of the civilian workers (Albert Dekker) who rebels against taking orders he thinks will impede the progress of his men. We also get to know a few of the Marines, primarily the hot-headed but good-hearted William Bendix (scheduled to go on furlough back to the States to get married) and his high-spirited buddy Robert Preston. There is also a brave pilot (Macdonald Carey) who is so zen in his attitude, you just know he'll come to no good end, and a corporal named Goebbels who is the brunt of lots of "Heil Hitler" jokes. Of course, as Bendix is ready to leave on the morning of December 7th, news of the attack on Pearl Harbor reaches Wake (foreshadowed by a visit on the island just days earlier by a Japanese diplomat). Though he has a chance to leave, Bendix stays with his buddies, and Donlevy and Dekker patch things up, and all of them gird their loins for the inevitable invasion. Carey gets the news that his wife was killed at Pearl Harbor and he takes on a suicidal one-man mission to bomb a Japanese carrier. Donlevy adopts a holding technique, inspired by the old saying, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes," that works for a time, but ultimately the film ends with a total slaughter of the Americans. The performances and writing are OK, but characterizations are on the slim side throughout, and the buddy-buddy hijinks between Bendix and Preston (almost unrecognizable with a buzz cut above a very young face) get a little tedious. Also in the cast are Walter Abel as a Marine commander, Damian O'Flynn as a pilot who is strafed by Japanese bullets as he parachutes from his damaged plane, Philip Terry, and Frank Albertson. Worth watching, especially as a look at the beginnings of the WWII combat propaganda film. [TCM]

BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945)

David Lean, usually known for his epics, directed this intimate little gem of romantic frustration played out between two ordinary middle-class people in England during WWII. Celia Johnson is a plain-looking suburban wife and mother who spends her Thursdays taking the train into town to do shopping and lunching. One day, while waiting for the train home, she has a chance encounter with a doctor, also plain-looking and married (Trevor Howard), who helps get an irritating speck of dirt out of her eye. She thinks nothing of it until, over the next few weeks, they run into each other again and are soon dining and going to movies together, and an attraction develops. Little actually happens between them, though both feel guilty as they begin planning their meetings each week. Eventually, they decide to stay in town one night to consummate their affair at the apartment of a friend of Howard's, but the friend arrives home before they've had a chance to do anything more than look guilty, and she runs away. At their next meeting, he tells her that he's leaving for a job in South Africa and they spend one final, torturous day together, their final moments at the train station spoiled by a gossipy friend of Johnson's. In a surprisingly intense moment, he touches her on the shoulder and leaves forever. She rushes out to the train tracks and briefly contemplates suicide, but in the end returns to her husband, who remains unaware of her passionate encounter.

The story is the stuff of countless romance novels, but the acting, music, and camerawork make it rise above its origins. Johnson and Howard are both perfect as ordinary people swept up in an unexpected passion that has the potential to change their routine lives forever. The entire film is told from Johnson's point of view (we never see Howard's home or work life) as a flashback while she's sitting with her husband on the night when Howard has left for good. In fact, the opening scene of their departure at the train station, which makes little sense to us, is replayed in its entirety at the end when we realize all the ramifications of each line of dialogue and each gesture. There is some critical debate as to how physical their relationship gets--we see them kiss at least once, and I assumed that they had sex during an afternoon ride in the country, but I might be bringing a more contemporary attitude to this than I should. At any rate, it is a heartbreaking and seemingly realistic look at two people trapped in a romantic fantasy which probably could not have had any happy ending at all. The film is carried by Johnson and Howard, though there are two important secondary characters, a barmaid at the train station (Joyce Carey) and the station guard (Stanley Holloway), who we see carry on a more casual flirtation. Nice use of trains, location shooting, spare sets, and the music of Rachmaninoff--being a child of the 70's, I was yanked out the film briefly when the melody that Eric Carmen used as the basis for his song "All By Myself" came roaring up on the soundtrack. [TCM]

YOU CAN'T FOOL YOUR WIFE (1940)

Though this film is available on VHS because it stars Lucille Ball, the reason to watch this second-feature romantic comedy is her co-star, James Ellison, a B-movie leading man, known mostly for his work in westerns. The two play a couple (an accountant and a housewife) stuck in a rut after a few years of marriage--in an amusing opening, we see their high school yearbook entries; his major is accounting, hers is home economics, and neither one lists any outside interests. Their rut is only heightened by her mother, Emma Dunn, a nagging busybody in-law who lives with them in their small apartment. One day, Ellison is drafted by his co-workers to meet and entertain the visiting big boss, an old fuddy-duddy whom no one likes, but instead the old codger's son (Robert Coote), a lively playboy type, shows up and Ellison finds himself drawn into a whirl of late-night "business" parties. This irritates Ball who, egged on by Dunn, throws him out. Coote feels responsible for Ellison's problems and tries to intercede; he gets Ball to come to a costume party dressed as a South American beauty named Mercedes, hoping the two will find a new spark meeting that way, but the plan backfires when the real Mercedes actually shows up at the party. A woman who's in on the plan tells Ellison that the masked Latina is his wife in disguise, but as he's flirting with her, his disguised wife walks in and a comedy of errors results. Of course, the two reconcile at the end (in a plot development out of the Lunt/Fontanne classic THE GUARDSMAN), with Ellison asserting himself by tossing his mother-in-law out. Ball is OK in her dual role, and in a situation that is similar to many she would encounter in "I Love Lucy," but she's a little low-energy for the role, especially during the film's later hi-jinks. Dunn is fun as the meddling bitch mother, and the handsome and charming Ellison does a very nice job with the lead; he's number-crunchingly bland in the beginning, but undergoes a believable change under Coote's influence. I know Ellison mostly as the bad brother in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE but now he's on my radar and I'll be looking for him in other films. One final note: when Ellison is decked out in a matador outfit at the party, he actually looks a bit like Desi Arnaz! [TCM]

FOUR SONS (1940)

This remake of a silent John Ford film is probably not as good as the original, but it's still an affecting family melodrama with good performances and some striking cinematography. In pre-WWII Czechoslovakia, in a village on the German border, we follow the story of a widowed woman (Eugenie Leontovich) and her four sons. Chris (Don Ameche) is the sensible, likeable one who the rest all lean on a bit; Joseph (Robert Lowery) is the sensitive artist; Karl (Alan Curtis) is handsome and a bit brooding; Fritz (George Ernest) is the innocent teenager who, if this were a musical, would be played by Mickey Rooney. They are a happy family--none of the brothers is even a wee bit jealous when Mama gives her savings to Joseph so he can go to America to fulfill his artistic ambitions, and Chris is quite understanding when his longtime girlfriend (Mary Beth Hughes) realizes she's actually in love with Karl. However, the political climate soon causes problems. Karl's membership in a German "social" club becomes threatening when Austria falls to the Germans and Karl starts wearing a swastika, which puts him at odds with Chris. War is declared then averted when Czechoslovakia agrees to give up the Sudatenland, but Joseph, who is doing anti-German editorial cartoons in the States and knows that the war cannot be held off indefinitely, tries to arrange to get his family passage to America. Unfortunately, their clearance comes too late to save everyone. I don't want to spoil the film by outlining all the characters' fates, but there are fistfights and gunfights and round-ups and battle casualties, climaxed by Hitler marching through the village at sunrise. The ending is on the grim side, and not all the people you expect to survive do. The film is hardly a noir, but much of it is set at night, and there is some very effective use of shadowy sets and evocative camera angles. One chase sequence, set at night in a swamp, reminded me of something out of a Universal horror film. The acting is fine; Leontovich, a renowned Russian stage actress, overdoes it a bit at times, but she is balanced by the sons generally underplaying their emotional scenes. An underrated film to catch if you can. [FMC]

HOOTENANNY HOOT (1963)

I always try to pay close attention when watching the movies that I review here, and with DVDs and our Tivo-like Digital Video Recorder, it's very easy to pause if I get interrupted or back up if I get distracted and miss something. However, with this movie, I got interrupted and distracted and never really had to pause to keep up with the film, and I think I can even give it a totally fair review even though only about two-thirds of it really registered on me. That's because it's not so much a theatrical feature as it is a variety show with elements of a sitcom sprinkled in. It comes off as a low-budget quickie made to cash in on the folk music fad that was big in America in the early 60's, just before the Beatles changed the face of popular culture. Though this was released in theaters, it feels much more like a TV show, both in terms of content and style. Even the actors are mostly known for their TV appearances. The minimal plot involves a spat between TV director Peter Breck (Nick on "The Big Valley") and his ex-girlfriend, network executive Ruta Lee (who has over 100 TV series guest appearances listed at IMDb). He winds up in a college town in Missouri, discovers a traveling "hootenanny" show, and gets the performers on a national TV special. Of course, he also gets back together with Lee, but honestly, after the set-up of that narrative in the first 15 minutes of the film, no one seems too concerned about the plot. Most of the movie is intended as a showcase for the musicians, and though there are some big names here like Johnny Cash (who does a silly, sanitized version of "Frankie and Johnny") and the Brothers Four (who sing a novelty number called "Frogg"), the more interesting performances come from less famous acts. The black duo Joe & Eddie do a rousing gospelish number, "There's a Meeting Here Tonight," and Judy Henske (who is still making music today) does a couple of compelling songs. Most notably, she combines folk, gospel, and a little bit of a beatnik vibe in a very intense version of "Wade in the Water." I used the rewind function of my DVR to go back and re-watch this song twice, once to make sure that I really saw what I saw, and the second time to enjoy the strange, almost creepy number. The catchiest tune is the title song, written and sung by Sheb Wooley, of "Purple People Eater" fame. Teen starlet Pamela Austin plays the hootenanny hostess, and cute Joby Baker (whom I remember as a DJ on the short-lived TV sitcom "Good Morning, World") is Breck's buddy who helps to reunite him with Lee at the end. Fun to have seen once, though certainly not a keeper (unless you've got a Joby Baker rarities collection going). [TCM]

BACHELOR APARTMENT (1931)

Pre-Code comedy which is probably an early example of what amounts to a sub-genre of romantic comedies in which a free-wheeling playboy finds true love and settles down with one good woman. Here, the playboy is Lowell Sherman, who was nearing 50 and looks every year of his age and more, so he truly looks like he's going to seed; I guess that may make the situation more realistic, but I had a difficult time buying Sherman as an active gold digger magnet. When an old flame of Sherman's (Mae Murray), who has since gotten married, shows up and wants to continue their arrangement, Sherman sends her away and vows to turn over a new leaf, but then a chance meeting with a young woman (via a fender-bender) sets him back on his philandering ways. Meanwhile, aspiring chorus girl Claudia Dell brags to her secretary sister Irene Dunne about having an assignation with Sherman. Dunne thinks it's a bad idea and heads over to Sherman's Park Avenue place to break it up, but it turns out that Dell is actually being wooed under false pretenses by Sherman's butler. However, Sherman is thoroughly charmed by Dunne and the rest of the film concerns his attempts to convince her that he can be a one-woman man, appearances to the contrary. The tone is light, with an occasional melodramatic flourish, as when Murray's husband comes gunning for Sherman; I suspect that in 1931, some of the material was laugh-out-loud funny, but I rarely did more than smile. One interesting shot has Murray dressed in a flimsy little thing that makes her look naked as a jaybird. Dunne is just OK in her third starring vehicle. Leading man Sherman directed the movie (and also directed Katharine Hepburn's breakthrough picture MORNING GLORY). The screenplay is by John Howard Lawson, later one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. [TCM]

WESTERN UNION (1941)

The critics tend to like this Western, maybe because it's in color, or maybe because it was directed by Fritz Lang. I thought it was about par for the course for a western of the era. Randolph Scott stars as a member of an outlaw gang which also includes his brutal brother (Barton MacLane). One day, while on the run from the law, Scott finds Dean Jagger, a surveyor for Western Union, injured in the desert. He picks Jagger up and drops him off safely in town. Months later, they meet up again: Scott has renounced his ways and Jagger is chief engineer for the telegraph company. Out of gratitude, Jagger gives Scott a job as head scout for a group of men setting out through Indian territory to string telegraph lines. Robert Young plays a tenderfoot dude from back East who has come out for some manly work. Despite his citified ways and overly spiffy clothes, he's basically a good egg and is eventually accepted by his fellow workers, but there's trouble when both he and Scott take a shine to Jagger's cute sister (Virgina Gilmore, who looks a bit like June Lockhart) who works in the main telegraph office. There's even bigger trouble ahead from a band of drunken Indians who raid the small camp of line workers. It turns out they did it because Scott's old gang, trying to sabotage the line in the name of the Confederacy, paid them to. Events come to a climax when MacLane and his men burn down the worker's campsite, leading to a confrontation between the brothers which plays out in town at a barber shop, more like in a gangster movie than a Western. The lead actors are all fine, and the color cinematography is lovely. John Carradine plays a doctor, and Chill Wills and Slim Summerville provide solid if predictable comic relief. [TCM]

HEIDI (1937)

As a child, I managed to miss out on all the forms of this classic story, though I remember my dad getting agitated during the infamous NBC incident in which a TV adaptation of "Heidi" bumped the exciting ending of a football game. I'd avoided this movie mostly due to its syrupy reputation as an archetypal Shirley Temple "orphan" story, but it wasn't as sappy as I'd feared, although I can see where young children might get upset near the end. Temple is the title orphan; her snippy aunt (Mady Christians) has apparently gotten tired of taking care of her and dumps her with her grandfather (Jean Hersholt), a man known in his Swiss mountain village as cranky and reclusive. Naturally, Temple thaws Hersholt out without breaking a sweat, but just when they seem to have established themselves as a loving family unit, fully accepted by the villagers, the wicked aunt returns and takes Temple away to Frankfurt. Her scheme essentially is to sell Temple to a rich family as a companion for their crippled daughter. The girl (Marcia Mae Jones) and her father (Sidney Blackmer) are perfectly nice but Temple wants to go back to Hersholt, who has traveled to Frankfurt to find her, and the last 20 minutes or so of the movie consist of the two looking for each other on the city streets on Christmas Day. After a few tears have been jerked, there is a happy if rather abrupt ending. All the actors mentioned above are good, especially Christans, although Arthur Treacher steals all of his scenes as the city family's butler. Also notable are Helen Westley as an old blind friend of Hersholt's, Mary Nash as Jones's wicked guardian, who is trying to hold onto Temple for mercenary reasons of her own, and Thomas Beck as the village pastor. I guess because of audience expectations, a musical number with Temple is shoehorned in as a fantasy sequence, but it's the weakest part of the film. Generally, quite bearable; given its Christmassy climax (including a lovely, long tracking shot to the tune of "Silent Night"), I'm surprised this hasn't become a holiday TV tradition--or maybe it has and I haven't noticed. [FMC]

THE HURRICANE (1937)

A grand old entertainment, combining a romance, an "exotic lifestyle" melodrama, and a disaster adventure. Set on the British-ruled South Seas island of Manikoora, the story revolves around a native couple, played by Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour, who have just gotten married. After a rapturous wedding night, Hall has to set off to Tahiti as first mate to ship captain Jerome Cowan; once he's there, Hall gets into a fist fight with a rich white man who has him thrown into jail for 90 days. The native people, we are told, don't take well to imprisonment (something about their natural freedom, though I can't really think of *any* people who enjoy losing their freedom) and Hall tries several times to escape, leading to many extensions of his sentence until he racks up over 15 years. Islanders try to talk the governor of Manikoora (Raymond Massey) into intervening to commute Hall's sentence, but Massey, out of his respect for the law, refuses, claiming that Hall is setting himself above the law. This causes strains in the relationships between Massey and virtually everyone else on the island, including his wife, Mary Astor. Somewhere around year 8, Hall finally makes good on an escape but accidentally kills a prison guard in the process. He swims 600 miles to the island and is reunited with his wife (and daughter, whom he's never seen); Massey finds out and vows to get him, but a killer hurricane comes blowing in, destroying the island and changing the lives of all the residents.

The storm sequence, basically the last 30 minutes or so of the film, is very well done, a mix of actual full-sized effects and miniatures, and it's this aspect of the movie that gets most of the critical attention, but the acting is quite good as well. Hall, though looking fine shirtless, is a bit lightweight and Lamour doesn't have much to do, but the rest of the cast is excellent: Massey as the stiff-backed martinet, Astor as his wife, torn between loyalty to him and sympathy for the island couple, Thomas Mitchell as the wise if occasionally drunken doctor, C. Aubrey Smith as the priest (the only character to have a truly tragic end), John Carradine as a sadistic prison warden, and Cowan in the relatively small role of the captain who, like Astor, is sympathetic to Hall but not in a position to help much. During the first half of the film, there are some nice, ominous scene endings in which the actors leave but the camera remains as we see and hear the wind pick up in strength. Highly recommended; hopefully it will someday be issued on DVD with appropriate extras. [TCM]

BIG BUSINESS GIRL (1931)

An OK pre-Code romantic comedy which ends too traditionally, with the independent woman giving things up for the insecure, passive male. We first meet Frank Albertson and Loretta Young as they graduate from college. Albertson is a bandleader who has a chance to take his band to Paris, but Young is determined to forge her own career so she stays behind and looks for a job in New York City. Eventually, she finds herself in the right place at the right time and becomes secretary to advertising executive Ricardo Cortez. Showing initiative, she starts writing copy on her own. Cortez gives her a job as an ad writer (admitting she's good but also noting to a fellow exec that she'd be worth the money just to have as an attractive office ornament) and also starts trying to woo her. Albertson, hearing of her success, comes back to New York and in a comedy of errors scene, we (and Cortez) find out that Albertson and Young have actually been married all along. Albertson wants Young to leave her position but she doesn't want to, so they split up. There is some more see-sawing between the two as he becomes successful in New York (thanks partly to Young, who had recommended his band to a radio sponsor) and Cortez continues to pursue Young. Finally, Cortez tries to engineer divorce proceedings by talking the couple into hiring a professional co-respondent (Joan Blondell) to be caught with Albertson, but at the last minute, the couple straighten everything out, with the implication that she will leave her job and live in wedded bliss with her passive, insecure man.

The short movie is mostly enjoyable (if you can overlook the muddled sexual politics), and all the actors are fine. Albertson is good in a rare leading role; he played best-friend juvenile parts for many years into his adulthood, and is probably best known as Sam Wainwright, George Bailey's romantic rival in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Cortez is as slimy as he should be, but we can also see his charm, and Young is spunky and gay (in the old-fashioned sense of the word). Blondell injects a nice blast of comic energy in her short scene near the end. A couple of good lines: Cortez to Young (whose character's name is Claire): "I was married once to a girl named Claire--that was one of my Follies of 1920." A frustrated Young to Albertson: "You're only good for two things: making music and making love." Cute, but no lost gem. [TCM]

DAISY KENYON (1947)

Enjoyable romantic soap opera with tons of noir atmosphere and Joan Crawford at nearly the peak of her high melodrama period. She plays the title character, a successful commercial illustrator who lives in Greenwich Village (she's not rich, but like TV's "Friends," she certainly lives comfortably) and is the mistress of married lawyer Dana Andrews. He's happy with the situation, but she's feeling ignored due to a string of broken dates. She begins a casual relationship with Henry Fonda, a slightly naive soldier and widower just home from the war; at the end of their first date, he tells her he loves her which freaks her out a little, but with Andrews' non-commital state bothering her more and more, they fall into a more serious relationship. They are aware that they are using each other to escape their respective romantic woes, but they get married anyway and move to a cottage on Cape Cod where Fonda works as a ship builder. Andrews goes out to do a case on the West Coast and when he loses, he returns and tries to start things up with Crawford, but she rejects him. Andrews' wife (Ruth Warrick) finds out about the affair and a nasty, very public divorce ensues. The wrap-up of the triangle plays out a bit like a 30's screwball comedy, except it's not comic. Aside from an overly pat ending, this is interesting viewing.

Crawford is very good, mostly underplaying a role that could have led to real scenery chewing. Andrews is her match as a basically nice guy who seems not to want to hurt anyone, but who hurts everyone, including himself. Fonda was an interesting choice--he's not sexy at all and he's a little too passive, which makes it unlikely that Crawford would settle for him (and it's clear that whatever choice she makes, she would indeed be simply settling), but I got used to him eventually, though he remains too lightweight to play a character with several personal demons--symbolized by crazy cacophonous music played on the soundtrack while he thrashes about in his bed. There's an odd little subplot which implies that Warrick physically abuses her younger daughter (Connie Marshall); though Andrews knows about this, he feels OK about agreeing to give Warrick full custody of her in order to get Crawford off the public hook during the trial, and that just seems wrong, even allowing for the era. There isn't much of a supporting cast; a starlet named Martha Stewart plays Crawford's roommate, Peggy Ann Garner is Andrews' other daughter, and Walter Winchell has a one-line cameo in a scene set at the Stork Club. Although the movie is not film noir, it has a very shadowy, noirish look--I kept wondering if Crawford just couldn't afford to turn on a few lights now and then--which is effective. I like that Andrews calls almost everyone he talks to, including Fonda, "Honeybunch," and I like that Fonda does it right back at him in a later scene. Good melodramatic fun. [FMC]

IVANHOE (1952)

I have an admitted prejudice against 50's movies in general, and 50's costume epics in particular, but I've been trying to expand my horizons lately, so I made a point of watching this, which crops up frequently on Turner Classic Movies. On the plus side, I was pleased and surprised, knowing almost nothing in advance about the original book, that this is a story which is contemporaneous with the events of the Robin Hood legend, and specifically with the wonderful Errol Flynn ROBIN HOOD film from 1938. Robin himself is a (very minor) character here, known as Robin of Locksley, and Sebastian Cabot has a small but noticeable role as one of Robin's men. That's about it for the plus side. Not that the movie is a total disaster, but because it's difficult not to compare it to the earlier Errol Flynn film, it winds up losing on every count. As in ROBIN HOOD, the action is set during the period of the Crusades when King Richard the Lionhearted is being held hostage in Austria and his villainous brother John (Guy Rolfe) has taken the throne. Chivalrous Saxon knight Wilfrid of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) vows to raise the money to free Richard and to fight John and his obnoxious Norman cohorts (led by George Sanders). After failing to reconcile with his estranged father (Finlay Currie), Ivanhoe finds help from Jewish community leader Isaac of York (Felix Aylmer), who raises funds for the ransom in exchange for promises of official tolerance. Robin and his men contribute some of the booty they steal from the rich to the ransom as well. Along the way, Ivanhoe fights and jousts and falls in love with two women: childhood friend Rowena (Joan Fontaine) and Isaac's daughter (Elizabeth Taylor, quite lovely at age 20). There is a castle siege sequence which was likely quite rousing in 1952, but which is difficult to take seriously now as it plays out too much like the parody siege in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. Robert Taylor is attractive but wooden, as usual. Fontaine is OK, but she loses out to her sister, Olivia de Havilland, who played a very similar role in the '38 ROBIN HOOD. Sanders does a nice job with his usual mustache-twirling villain part, and aside from Aylmer, the only other actor to make much of an impression is Emyln Williams as Ivanhoe's buffoonish squire. The sets and costumes are fine, but this would look more impressive if it had been shot in widescreen. [TCM]

THE OUTLAW (1943)
Or, Four Ways of Looking at The Outlaw.

1) Just the Facts, Ma'am: This film puts three historical figures from the Old West together in a western romance melodrama. Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell), sheriff of Lincoln, New Mexico, is happy to see his rowdy old buddy Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) who has come to town looking for the varmint who stole his strawberry roan horse. That person is young Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel), and Doc and Billy enter into a strange friendship, which Doc resents, centered on stealing the horse back from each other. Billy also meets Rio (Jane Russell), Doc's hot-blooded girlfriend, and after an initial (and quite literal) roll in the hay that plays out like a rape, the two take up together, and even get married in secret (surely a ploy to get around the censors of the era). After some spirited chases involving lawmen and Indians, the relationships between the four are sorted out via some gun play and a clever trick that contradicts the historical record (as though historical accuracy was on anyone's mind) but leaves Billy alive to ride off with Rio in the end.

2) All the Fuss: Supposedly Howard Hughes made this movie primarily to show off his discovery Jane Russell, and much has been made of the way her breasts are highlighted here. I must say that at least one shot of Russell walking across the screen startled me right off the couch, but for the most part, she comes off as almost demure compared to the way many a starlet is exposed these days--she's got nothin' on Lil' Kim, for example.

3) A Gay Man Watching The Outlaw; or "Brokeback Outlaw": [Spoilers follow!] Though there's no doubt that both Doc and Billy are full of lust for Rio, and that Billy and Rio do some intense grappling, I found the most compelling love relationship to be the triangle of Doc, Billy, and Sheriff Pat (well, there's also Doc's horse, which Doc seems to like better than Rio but not as good as Billy, but who want to go there?). Pat and Doc have been friends for years, but Billy replaces Pat in Doc's affections (and "affections" is definitely the right word, as Hughes wasn't afraid to have the characters express real affection for each other). When Pat realizes what's happened, he reacts like a scorned lover, breaking things off with Doc "for good and all." In the end, with passions high all around, Doc threatens to kill Billy but instead shoots his ears, then hugs him. Pat kills Doc, but Billy ties Pat up and buries Doc as himself, so he can leave with Rio and let folks think that Pat killed him. Another gayish point: the relationship between Rio and Doc's maid (Mimi Aguglia) is a lot like that of Karen and Rosario on "Will & Grace."

4) The Good, the Bad, and the Gorgeous: I'm willing to concede the title of worst movie ever to either Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos: The Hands of Fate, but this one is certainly in the running for Worst Movie Ever Made by Mainstream Filmmakers and Actors Who Should Have Known Better--though approached on a camp level, there are some perverse pleasures to be had. Hughes' direction is almost amateurish, the music (which loudly underlines every moment of excitement or humor) even worse. Even Mitchell and Huston, normally excellent actors, are at sea here. Buetel is, at times, absolutely beautiful, but as an actor, he's a glassy-eyed stick puppet. Published accounts have suggested that Hughes forced Buetel into a sexual relationship in exchange for a long-term contract, and for whatever reason, Hughes didn't let Buetel work for the next eight years. At any rate, his career never recovered from his association with Hughes. As far as the good, surprisingly enough, it's Jane Russell. She's sexy and is fine in her limited role; though she's theoretically the catalyst for most of the action, she has little to do in the last third of the film. I did have some fun watching this, but it really is a bad movie, and I'm astonished that some critics (including Maltin and Halliwell) cut it so much slack. Yes, it has its moments of campy fun, and the portrayal of the psychological aspects of the characters' relationships held some potential, but geez, is this ever a bad, bad movie. [TCM]

BOY MEETS GIRL (1938)

Basically, a screwball comedy without the central romantic element that's usually present. Your enjoyment of this will depend on your tolerance for the buddy comedy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, kicked here into ultra-high gear. The two play a screenwriting team who are getting tired of churning out formula pix ("boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl") for their studio boss (Ralph Bellamy). Nevertheless, they get assigned to a western which is supposed to save the fading reputation of cowboy star Dick Foran. Pregnant studio waitress Marie Wilson faints in Bellamy's office and the boys get the idea to write their movie around the newborn baby, named Happy. Happy's a hit but no one's happy, and the complications (including a case of measles that sidelines both the baby and the cowboy) pile on rather chaotically to the predictable "happy" ending. The whole thing has the rather forced frantic feel of Cagney's much later comedy, ONE TWO THREE, and I was exhausted by the end of the first hour of this 90 minute movie. There are several small joys to be had, including some jibes at studio thinking: for example, the studio seems proud of the fact that there are no English actors employed in the filming of "Young England"; the baby/cowboy movie is billed as being based on Shakespeare; the baby is billed as "the Crown Prince of Comedy, the King of Tragedy, and the Emperor of Emotion." The trumpeters that barge in at the end of each "act" (the movie is based on a play and it shows) are a hoot. Cagney and O'Brien do have comic chemistry with each other, even if Cagney is constantly in danger of going so far over the top that he'll exit the movie. The fine supporting cast includes Frank McHugh as Foran's agent and Bruce Lester as a British extra who falls for Wilson. Ronald Reagan has a small role as an MC at the premiere of the cowboy movie, and film buffs will recognize James Stephenson and Dennie Moore in bit roles. [TCM]

THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (1936)

This is the Hollywood version of the ordeal of Samuel Mudd, the doctor who unwittingly set the leg of the injured John Wilkes Booth and was found guilty of conspiracy in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. As in all historical films, the facts are played around with considerably in the service of entertainment, but this is a well-told tale. Warner Baxter is Mudd, presented here as a simple country doctor and slaveowner whose sympathies were with the Confederacy. The movie begins with an understated reenactment of Lincoln's murder followed by Booth's journey through pouring rain to Mudd's home where he asks for medical attention. After he peels off his boots, he tries to scratch his engraved name from the inside, but only partially succeeds. The next day, military police follow Booth's trail, find the boots, and arrest the doctor. A military court, the members of which have been instructed to ignore the legal principle of "reasonable doubt" in order to get guilty verdicts to avoid "the collapse of the Union," finds Mudd (and several others) guilty of conspiracy; most of the prisoners are executed by hanging, but Mudd is sentenced to a life of hard labor on a prison island in the Florida Keys. A sergeant on the island (John Carradine) takes particular delight in torturing this man he assumes had a direct hand in killing the president; back home, Mudd's wife (Gloria Stuart) tries every legal channel in attempts to free her husband. A daring escape attempt, in which Mudd is aided by a former slave of his (Ernest Whitman), is foiled and Mudd and Whitman are thrown into a deadly solitary cell, but when a yellow fever epidemic swamps the island and lays low prisoners and guards alike, Mudd is freed to help fight the disease. This eventually earns him the respect of all, even Carradine, and he is given a pardon and returns home to his loving wife.

In real life, Mudd spent four years on the island and was released after helping fight yellow fever, but he never regained his health or his livelihood. In the film, Mudd's innocence is never in doubt, but actually the case against him did have some merit, as he apparently lied to authorities about not knowing Booth--the two had met at least twice before the assassination, though Mudd insisted that he did not recognize Booth when he set his leg. Baxter is excellent, playing his part without the histrionics that must have been tempting. Standouts in the supporting cast include Harry Carey as the commandant of the island, Maurice Murphy as an orderly who helps Mudd during the epidemic, and Claude Gillingwater as Mudd's father-in-law, an inveterate Confederate (no poem intended). The prison island is referred to in the opening as an American Devil's Island, and indeed the 1939 B-movie DEVIL'S ISLAND stole its basic plot situation wholesale from this film, even though it is set in France and has nothing to do with the Civil War. Not reliable as a history lesson, perhaps, but a compelling movie. [FMC]

EXPERIMENT PERILOUS (1944)

[Spoilers included] A period melodrama which shows some potential in the beginning, but eventually bogs down with two colorless leads taking attention away from two more interesting characters. Doctor George Brent meets a quirky old woman (Olive Blakeney) on a train. She is heading home for a family reunion after several years in a sanitarium (due to a heart condition) and he hears just enough about her family to pique his interest. When she winds up dead a few days later, he gets involved with her brother (Paul Lukas) and his lovely wife (Hedy Lamarr). Lamarr is a docile and distracted person who, among other things, seems to be in the habit of sending herself bouquets of daisies and claiming that she didn't. Lukas fears that she may be mentally ill, so Brent agrees to help. However, when Brent realizes he has accidentally wound up with one of Blakeney's bags from the train, he finds out more information about her family's strange background and quickly realizes that Lukas is the one with the mental problem; he's deliberately trying to drive Lamarr insane, and is completely messing up their young son in the process. It's easy to see that this is a warmed-over take on GASLIGHT, even to being set in the past, with Lukas in the Boyer role, Lamarr as Bergman, and Brent as Joseph Cotten. As such, it mostly comes off as a second-rate gothic thriller, missing most of the thrills and atmosphere that helped make GASLIGHT fairly enjoyable. Lamarr is OK and Brent is his usual wooden self; someone younger and more energetic would have added some needed spark--because I just watched MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET again, I'm imagining someone like John Payne in the role, or even Robert Taylor. I wish more time had been given to the old woman--she's an interesting character, played well, and I wanted to know more about her. Likewise, Lukas's role could have used some enlarging; it never feels like all of his secrets have been revealed. Albert Dekker as a friend of Brent's who, by accident, spills too much info to Lukas and brings about the "perilous" climax, is OK. Jacques Tourneur directed and there are some nice stylistic touches here and there--good period sets, some nice photography--but unfortunately it will always wind up being compared to GASLIGHT, which, while not one of my very favorite movies, is still a better movie on all counts. [TCM]

BLOOD ON THE SUN (1945)

This is one of the first movies that James Cagney and his brother produced as independent filmmakers, trying to break away from the strictures of the studio system. It looks like it was made on the cheap, but after a while, it exerts a certain pull and the last 15 minutes or so are quite exciting. The plot, based very loosely on historical fact, is about an American journalist (Cagney) serving as editor of an English-language newspaper in Tokyo in the late 20's who breaks a story about a secret Japanese plan for world domination initiated by Premier Tanaka (John Emery). A fellow reporter (Wallace Ford) who comes into possession of a copy of the document winds up dead, but not until he has left the papers with Cagney. Sylvia Sidney, a Chinese temptress in league with Tanaka's men, is introduced to Cagney in order to seduce him so she can get hold of the plan, and she does, but after some manhandling by her colleagues, she goes over to Cagney's side and manages to smuggle the plans out of the country while Cagney faces off with a gang of violent goons, using judo to get the upper hand (although his formidable judo skills are of no help when the goons pull out guns in the last few minutes of the movie). As the fisticuffs fly, the plot loopholes grow--when the bad guys realize that Sidney is in league with Cagney, she is essentially put under house arrest in a hotel but we never see how she manages to escape, let alone get out with the plan intact. Frank Lloyd, the director, displays little in the way of interesting visual style, though there is an interestingly shot scene showing one of Sidney's Japanese handlers committing harakiri after he realizes she has escaped. In the Hollywood tradition of the era, most of the major Japanese characters are played by Caucasian actors (including Robert Montgomery and John Halloran) but it's pulled off well and it's not distracting. Rosemary DeCamp, who played Cagney's mother in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, is Ford's wife, who also meets a bad end, and Porter Hall is Cagney's nervous publisher. The slam-bang ending makes the movie worth watching. [TCM]

BRITISH AGENT (1934)

[Spoilers follow!!!] For its time, this must have been an interesting attempt to combine recent history with romance, but it doesn't really hold up now. I suppose one reason that I found it lacking was that it kept reminding me two much better films, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and REDS. Leslie Howard is a British diplomat who is on his way to Moscow in 1917 during the tumultuous days of the Russian Revolution. The main concern of the British is that the revolutionaries will pull the Russian troops out of the war against Germany. On a stopover in St. Petersburg, Howard attends a party at the British Embassy which is marred (in a scene echoed in ZHIVAGO) when troops and marching masses collide in the streets. Howard comes to the aid of Kay Francis, who is being hunted for shooting a soldier, and the two hit it off. Later, when Lenin is swept into power, the British close the embassy, leaving only Howard and a few diplomat buddies to sit around drinking and playing poker. Francis, now an important person with the Bolsheviks, returns and flirts with Howard, but when she overhears Howard decode a message that asks him to take on an unofficial "Mission: Impossible" task to influence the current government to stay in the war, she betrays him by telling her bosses. After Lenin is shot and falls into a coma and the government does indeed pull the troops, Howard goes underground to help rebuild the White Army. Francis finds out and is torn in her loyalties. Eventually, she rats on Howard, but when she learns his that the garret where he's hiding is marked for destruction, she goes to him to await certain death. At the last minute, they are saved when Lenin comes out of his coma and pardons all political enemies. The actors are fine; I think they are let down by the script which tries to cover too much in too short a time. The idea of mixing the tumult of the Revolution with personal romance worked better many years later in REDS. I especially liked William Gargan, Philip Reed, and Cesar Romero as the trio of diplomats who hang out with Howard. Ivan Simpson has a nice bit as a loyal butler at the British Embassy. The ending, in which a grim situation suddenly just vanishes and our couple is free to leave for England and a new life together, is a little hard to swallow. [TCM]