ONE MILLION B.C. (1940)

The granddaddy of caveman movies, and perhaps the uncle of dinosaur movies, since KING KONG came first. The film begins in the present time with a small band of mountaineers (including Tyrone Power and Carole Landis) seeking shelter in a cave during a storm. Already in the cave is a strange old man (Conrad Nagel) who proceeds to tell his captive audience a story of early humans, gleaned from ancient paintings on the cave walls. Once the flashback starts, there's a bit of narration by Nagel to set the scene, but after that there's no more dialogue (except some caveman grunts) and we never return to the frame story. Since Nagel encourages his listeners to identify with his tale, we see Power and Landis as the two chief protagonists. The main narrative is a kind of primitive "Romeo and Juliet" concerning a romance between members of two different caveman tribes: Power from the brutal Rock People and Landis from the more passive Shell People. Power kills a boar and gets into a clash with his group's leader (Lon Chaney Jr., almost unrecognizable to me at first in a beard and wild hairdo). He winds up kicked out of the clan and, injured and drifting down a river, is discovered by Landis who nurtures him back to health and, as a romance develops, also becomes a civilizing influence. The two have run-ins with dinosaurs, mostly real alligators and armadillos and photographically blown-up lizards with fins stuck on their backs. Eventually, a volcano erupts, sending thick flows of lava down to swallow up animals and people alike, but Power and Landis survive and wind up like Adam and Eve figures. The special effects are OK for the time (stop-motion animation may have been beyond the movie's budget) and some of the scenes have wound up in later caveman movies. The volcano sequence remains particularly impressive. Some have made animal cruelty charges against the film, especially in regards to a violent and bloody tussle between two lizards, but to me the fight looks mostly faked or enhanced by off-screen means. Produced and directed by Hal Roach, also known for the Topper movies and Laurel & Hardy comedies. John Hubbard, who appeared the same year in TURNABOUT with Landis (a fantasy/comedy I'll review next month), is the only supporting player I recognized. I'm happy to have finally seen this, but I'd recommend it only to genre buffs. Others might prefer the 1960's remake with Raquel Welch which I assume has better effects. [TCM]

BARON BLOOD (1972)

I like Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY and think it deserves its reputation as one of the most influential horror movies of the 1960's, but I'm not sure that Bava deserves his rep as a genius director. BARON BLOOD is the sixth Bava film I've seen and though each film does have some bright spots, usually in the area of visual style, acting and narrative are not his strong points and overall I haven't been terribly impressed with his output. In this one, handsome young Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) arrives in Austria to search out information on his ancestor, the infamous Baron Otto Von Kleist, a kind of Vlad the Impaler figure from the distant past who had a full-fledged torture chamber set up in the basement of his castle. As it happens, the castle is undergoing restoration for possible use as a luxury hotel and Peter strikes up a friendship with sexy architect Eva (Elke Sommer). They hear rumors of ghosts and curses, and together, in a half-prankish, half-serious way, they read out an ancient incantation designed to bring the Baron back to life. They don't realize that their magic works and the Baron returns as a slouching, gory-faced, Phantom of the Opera-type killer who stalks the castle grounds. He later manages to disguise himself as a distinguished older gentleman in a wheelchair (Joseph Cotton) and is determined to reclaim his land. Peter and Eva figure things out and contact a medium (Rada Rassimov) in an attempt to send him back to oblivion. There is blood and death and, of course, since there's a nice torture chamber around, some scenes of torture before the undead Baron is taken care of. Cotton looks and sounds quite frail, although he wasn't yet 70, and would in fact live another 22 years (and make around 30 more movie and TV appearances before his death). Cantafora and Sommer are both easy on the eyes and act as well as they need to. Well known Italian actor Massimo Girotti (OSSESSIONE, LAST TANGO IN PARIS) is wasted in the role of Peter's uncle. There's an odd scene, in which the Baron kills someone in front of a huge Coke machine, which feels like awkward product placement. The castle sets are impressive, and a nighttime chase through interestingly-lit fog comes off quite well, but overall a slow-moving, disappointing affair. [DVD]

BRIDE OF THE GORILLA (1951)

I think this was an attempt at making a Val Lewton-type of psychological thriller, but sadly, a low budget and the presence in a supporting role of an actor (Tom Conway) who had appeared in several of Lewton's minor masterpieces are clearly not guarantees that an interesting film will result. Conway and the exotic setting bring to mind I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, but this movie loses in any kind of comparison to that more interesting and atmospheric film. At Van Gelder Manor in the middle a jungle plantation, passions run high, so we are told, because of a love triangle between the plantation owner (Paul Cavanagh), his young wife (Barbara Payton), and the main overseer (Raymond Burr, looking about as young and thin as he ever would). The two men wind up in a fist fight and Cavanagh is bitten by a deadly snake which kills him. An old native woman (Gisela Werbisek) finds the body and puts a curse on the killer, saying "The jungle will hunt him until he's dead." In what could have been an interesting idea (albeit a cop from Lewton's CAT PEOPLE), it turns out that it's not the jungle hunting him down so much as himself; Burr, after marrying the widow, begins to think that he's transforming into a gorilla. He's drawn into the jungle at night, to do what, we're never sure, and the only time we see him in gorilla form is when we're looking through his eyes, or when he's looking in a reflective surface. After long segments of Burr stumbling deliriously around a cheap jungle set, alternating with obvious stock footage from other jungle movies, Burr gets justice at the hands of police commissioner Lon Chaney (yes, Chaney's the good guy!). This winds up being a psychological thriller being sold to viewers as a monster movie, and everyone will be disappointed. Sadly, it's not quite bad enough to be a "so bad it's good" treat, though the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys might have been able to make it watchable. [DVD]

HORROR CASTLE (1963)

[Spoilers follow!] The original title of this Italian horror film is THE VIRGIN OF NUREMBERG. That's a more interesting title, but either way, the film itself is a mediocre product, which is a bit frustrating because the plot has potential. The opening sequence is well done: a woman (Roseanna Podesta) wakes up during a thunderstorm, finds her husband gone, and while looking for him, hears faraway moaning. She investigates and finds a room filled with torture chamber paraphernalia, including an imposing iron maiden (The "Virgin" of the Italian title) with blood dripping from it. When she opens it, she finds a dead woman, her empty eye sockets oozing gore. After the credits, we find out that Podesta has just come to live in a German castle with her new husband (George Riviere); the basement of the castle is a torture chamber museum, and there are rumors that a mad torturer from 300 years ago, known as "The Punisher," still haunts the place. For the next hour, we get a lot of tedious scenes of Podesta wandering around the atmospheric halls and grounds of the castle, dodging a few sinister-seeming folks: the scarred museum assistant Erich (Christopher Lee), the creepy housekeeper, a tourist who is apparently a police officer, and a masked figure who may or may not be just a display mannequin that keeps getting moved around. After another out-of-the-blue murder and a scene of torture involving a rat starting to gnaw through a woman's face, we discover that the real killer is no ghost but Riviere's father (Mirko Valentin), a Nazi who was part of the failed scheme to kill Hitler. He was caught and tortured mercilessly--his face now looks like a skinned skull, and he bears a passing resemblance to Ralph Finnes as Voldemort in last year's Harry Potter movie--and he has himself become a mad torturer. The finale is OK, but doesn't quite make the earlier 70 minutes worth sitting through. Because everyone is rather poorly dubbed, even the English-speaking Lee, it's difficult to judge the acting. The musical score is weak throughout; sometimes it's got a weird jazzy/noir feel which is out of sync with the film's tone, and other times it's wildly overdone shock music, which seems intended to make up for the film's overall lack of shocks. [TCM]

YOU'LL FIND OUT (1940)

Today I begin my annual month of horror movie reviews with the last of my Kay Kyser films. Some critics lambaste this movie, which features Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre, as a missed opportunity, and it's true that none of the three are used to their full spooky potential. But once you accept that, and quit wishing the movie was something other than what it is, I think you'll find it a fine comedy-thriller, atmospheric enough for Halloween viewing. Kyser and his band are playing a 21st birthday party gig for an heiress (Helen Parrish) who is also the girlfriend of Kyser's manager (Dennis O'Keefe). The site of the party is a mansion which just happens to be on a small island connected to the mainland only by a small bridge, and once the band and guests arrive, the bridge collapses in the middle of a nasty storm, leaving all stranded for the night. Parrish's slightly loony aunt (Alma Kruger) has arranged to hold a seance with her favorite medium (a turbaned Lugosi) in order to contact her dead husband, and Parrish has arranged to have famed skeptic Lorre there to expose Lugosi's trickery. Also present is Karloff, a respected judge and the family's legal advisor. The seance is played well for both creepiness and hilarity, and it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to kill Parrish, probably for her inheritance. Lugosi is the obvious villain, but are there others in cahoots with him? Kyser, O'Keefe, and Kyser's resident funny man Ish Kabibble trip over themselves trying to solve the mystery. There are secret panels, a falling chandelier, electric shock machines, and a dog whose tail glows in the dark, among other "old dark house" hijinks. One odd but effective gimmick is an electronic voice-distortion device called the Sonovox which produces an unearthly effect and is used both in the climax and the closing musical number. Speaking of music, the songs this time around are all fairly catchy, especially "Like the Fella Once Said," which is made up of bad puns, and "The Bad Humor Man." My favorite Kyser movie; I hope Warner puts out a DVD set of his, though I won't be holding my breath. [TCM]

SWING FEVER (1943)

After making several comedies for RKO, such as AROUND THE WORLD, band leader Kay Kyser went up in the movie world for this one, made at MGM, but unfortunately, it's not quite as funny as his previous films (and despite its title, it has little to do with swing). This is the only one of Kyser's vehicles in which he doesn't play himself, although his character, a musician named Lowell Blackford, isn't terribly far removed from the familiar Kyser persona. When we first see Blackford, he's trying to sell his ambitious "symphonetta" to New Swing Music Publishers. Although swing singer Marilyn Maxwell takes a liking to him, he doesn't have much luck selling his music until Maxwell's boyfriend, boxing promoter William Gargan, discovers that Kyser has the "evil eye," a way of squinching his eye at someone that causes the person to lose consciousness. Gargan plots to have Kyser use his talent to ensure that his loser client (Nat Pendleton) wins an important match. Maxwell rearranges Kyser's tone poem in swing time and he becomes a big success (backed, of course, by the Kyser band). Kyser falls for her (and eventually she for him) and he agrees to use his evil eye, but a variety of complications ensue, winding up with Kyser trying to escape from kidnappers so he can get to the arena in time to work his magic. There are many songs here, but aside from a bluesy, artily-shot number by Lena Horne, none of the music is memorable--though there is a fun cameo early on with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Pendleton, a former wrestler, has an amusing scene with former boxer Max Rosenbloom and there seems to be great comic potential there, but it's not followed up on. Maxwell and Gargan make a nice couple, and Pamela Blake has a brief but memorable moment as Lois, the secretary. Ish Kabibble gets in a funny rhyme, which he also uses in at least one other Kyser movie: "Mary has a little lamb; she also has a bear. Everybody's seen her lamb, but no one's seen her bear." [TCM]

AROUND THE WORLD (1943)

This is perhaps the most interesting of the movies which starred band leader Kay Kyser (see my review of MY FAVORITE SPY) mostly because it sticks closely to the world of showbiz and feels like it could have been a documentary of a real wartime tour by a dance band of the era, except for the Nazi spy subplot. The film follows the band on a worldwide tour to entertain Allied troops; they begin in Australia and have stopovers in India, China, Egypt, and Liberia. Much of the film consists of songs and comedic bits performed onstage by the band and guest celebrities Joan Davis and Mischa Auer, playing themselves. Davis is amusing, but the dour-looking Auer, a decent comic actor in films such as MY MAN GODFREY and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, seems uncomfortable doing stand-up type routines. Between the band's appearances in front of soldiers, a couple of threadbare plots unfold. One centers on a young actress, Marcy McGuire, playing what I assume is a fictionalized version of herself, who stows away with the band when they leave Australia. She eventually gets to perform onstage, her highlight being a cute patter song, "The Moke from Shomokin" (which she sings looking a bit bug-eyed), but soon tragedy strikes her family and she has to learn the lesson that, in her chosen profession, the show must go on. The other plot has Kyser and Auer getting involved with an exotic Countess (Joan Valerie), not realizing that she's a spy who's trying to pass on secret plans hidden in a flashy ring. There is a particularly cute song, "Roodle-ee-doo," which consists of a string of then-current slang phrases, and an "inspiring" song, "Great News Is in the Making," which is sung at the end of each of their shows. Robert Armstrong plays the general who has to break bad news to McGuire, and Kyser regular Ish Kibble does his usual corny jokes. [TCM]

MY FAVORITE SPY (1942)

Bandleader Kay Kyser was quite popular in the 1940's, largely due to his radio show "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge" which featured music, comedy, and music trivia quizzes. His band featured singers Harry Babbitt and Ginny Simms, and the chief comic relief, aside from Kyser himself, was cornet player Ish Kabibble (his real name was the just as unlikely Merwyn Bogue) who came off as a mellow dimwit--his stage name is apparently based on a Yiddish expression that has been translated as, "What, me worry?" Kyser and the band made a number of comedies in the 40's, mostly playing themselves. Though none of them come anywhere the heights of the Marx Brothers or Crosby and Hope, they are all entertaining, and to my mind, some of them are as good as and even better than the average Abbott and Costello movie. I've already reviewed THAT'S RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG and I've caught up with most of the rest of them recently and will write them up this week. In this one, Kyser, playing himself, gets a draft notice on his wedding day. It turns out to have been a case of mistaken identity, but he's enlisted by the government to do some spy work because the Orchid Club, where he and his band are playing, may be a hotbed of espionage. His partner in spying, blonde looker Jane Wyman, makes Kyser's new wife (Ellen Drew) jealous, but he can't tell his wife or his band what's going on, leading to lots of comic misunderstandings. Robert Armstrong (Carl Denham in the original KING KONG), the owner of the club, is the Nazi spy, and in an nifty twist, he's getting messages out to his fellow Nazis through Morse code worked into the musical arrangements of the songs. Things drag a bit in the middle, but the ending, with everyone racing around an abandoned theater, is fun. There are only a couple of songs, but Ish Kabibble gets to do some of his deadpan shtick, and familiar supporting cast faces include Una O'Connor, William Demerest, and Helen Westley. (Talk show host Mike Douglas was a singer with the band, but doesn't have a featured role in any of the movies.) Generally good fun. [TCM]

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (1965)

As widescreen 60's historical epics go, this is about average: there is some beautiful cinematography and the sets are impressive, but the drama can't quite live up to all those trappings. In fact, in some ways, this material might have worked better as a two-person play since, even though there appear to be thousands of extras milling about, essentially there are only two important speaking roles, the great sculptor and painter Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and his patron Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison). The movie, like the recent CAPOTE, doesn't try to encapsulate Michelangelo's entire life but instead covers one crucial period of time: his work on the Sistine Chapel from 1508 to 1513. Julius, known as the Warrior Pope, is at war with France trying to recover the Papal States under the banner of the Vatican, and the film includes a couple of lackluster battle sequences, but mostly we see Julius warring with Michelangelo over the painting of the Chapel. Michelangelo sees himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, and when the film opens, he has been spending years on a series of statues for the future tomb of the Pope and resents it when Julius pulls him away to work on the chapel ceiling. Once Michelangelo does throw himself into the painting, he has conflicts with Julius about time, cost, and style, specifically the scandalous nudity of some of his figures. The cardinals find the nudes to be obscene, but the artist's response is, "God created man with pride--it was left to the priests to create shame." Whenever Michelangelo seems ready to give up, the Pope goads him into continuing, and later when Julius is on what all assume to be his deathbed, about to succumb to battle injuries, the artist goads him back to health.

There is a woman, a Medici countess (Diane Cilento), who loves Michelangelo and nurses him back to health after he reaches total exhaustion while working on the ceiling, but he is unwilling to take energy away from his art to put into a relationship. In fact, although the movie ignores long-standing theories that Michangelo had love affairs with men, the film does treat Michelangelo, Julius, and the countess almost as a love triangle. It's worth noting that the movie is at least twice removed from history, as it is based on a novel by Irving Stone, and the countess is apparently a totally fictional character. There isn't much humor, except for a kind of running gag involving Michelangelo accidentally dropping things from the scaffolding onto the priests during mass. The only other actors with much dialogue are Harry Andrews as a papal architect and supervisor of the chapel painting, and Thomas Milian as Raphael, an artist whom the Pope considers using at one point to replace Michelangelo. The cinematography is quite good, and a scene in which Michelangelo is inspired by a view of clouds from a mountaintop to shape his God and Adam comes off nicely, although it could easily have been dreadful kitsch. The reconstructions of the in-progress ceiling are impressive, but the shot near the end of the completed art made me a little dizzy. Heston is at the peak of his looks, though Harrison nearly acts him right off the screen. [FMC]

A STUDY IN SCARLET (1933)

I don't know if it's really fair to review a movie during which I fell asleep, not once but twice, but here goes. I'm a odd Sherlock Holmes fan: I've probably only read four or five of the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, but I'm a big fan of the Rathbone movies and I enjoy reading the Holmes pastiches and tributes written by other writers. Though this film's title is also the title of the first published Sherlock Holmes story, the movie's plot has nothing to do with it. Given that, the story isn't a bad one, but if you've ever read or seen an adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians," you'll know what to expect. Reginald Owen, a fine supporting actor of the 30's and 40's, perhaps best known as Scrooge in the 1938 CHRISTMAS CAROL, does a nice job as Holmes, who is called upon by a widow (Doris Lloyd) whose husband's inheritance is going not to her, but to a small "secret" group called the Scarlet Ring, whose members split up the inheritance money of the others--an arrangement called a tontine, also used as a plot device in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Wrong Box." When other members of the group begin dying mysteriously, Holmes suspects that one member is getting greedy and tries to track him or her down. Warburton Gamble makes a particularly colorless Watson, though Alan Mowbray as Lastrade and Alan Dinehart as the chief suspect are both good, and Anna May Wong has a small but important role. The movie has a cheap Poverty-Row look, but delivers some atmosphere toward the end. My falling asleep had more to do with me than with the movie, although it's not exactly a nail-biter. [DVD]

ALWAYS A BRIDE (1940)

This appears to be George Reeves' 21st century cultural moment: Ben Affleck plays him in a current big-budget film (Hollywoodland) and seasons of the Superman TV show are being released on DVD. I got the season one boxed set for my birthday and, coincidentally as we're making our way through the shows, TCM aired this little-seen B-film which features Reeves in one of his few leading roles. Contrary to what you might think from his Superman persona, he's charming and frothy and does as good a job at romantic second-feature lead as any other B-leading man of the time. Though the movie itself (a small town romantic triangle) isn't that good, it's because of the writing, not because of Reeves. The real problem with the short film is that it feels like two different movies, or more to the point, like the pilot of a so-so TV show, followed by an early episode. In the first half, Rosemary Lane is engaged to the colorless but socially connected John Eldredge, but she obviously prefers the handsomer, hunkier George Reeves, even though he's a glib tongued flatterer for whom a career is not a high priority. His rich uncle (Oscar O'Shea) is tired of supporting him and Lane's folks are in Eldredge's corner, but still Reeves manages to win Lane's hand, partly by fast talking Eldredge out of the very idea of marriage. In the second half, Reeves is still out of a job and O'Shea refuses to foot any more of their bills; Reeves goes to the mayor hoping for an appointive position, but the mayor and his cronies, thinking Reeves is a simpleton, agree to pay his bills if he'll run against the mayor in the forthcoming election, providing what they hope will be an easy win for the mayor. Instead, Reeves decides to take politics seriously and launches a real run, using his rhetorical gifts to run on a platform of "Here's why you shouldn't vote for me." The outcome is predictable. Reeves is quite good, the only real reason to see the movie. He's funny and completely believable as a fast talking but well intentioned bumpkin who isn't really a bumpkin. Lane is so-so, running at fairly low energy, and the plotting and dialogue could be stronger--the last five minutes or so are particularly weak. But I'm glad to have seen this other side of George Reeves, and I'd definitely recommend this to Reeves fans. Heaven knows where they got the title from. [TCM]

WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942)

A very entertaining "what if" story which was undoubtedly produced as wartime propaganda to prepare the British people in case of German invasion, which was much feared at the time. The film, set in the cozy village of Bramley End, begins with an "Our Town" feel, as a narrator talks directly to the camera and relates the events of the wartime story from a vantage point several years after the war, claiming that government had kept the story under wraps on purpose. We are introduced to the villagers as they go about their lives, with preparations for a weekend wedding taking up most everyone's time. When a group of Army engineers comes rolling into town for maneuvers and requisitions temporary housing, the villagers are only too happy to accommodate them, and the vicar offers up the church for the bulk of the men. We find out that the men are actually Germans preparing for to receive a parachute invasion; in a long sequence which is not quite Hitchcockian but still quite tense, we wait for the Germans to slip up or for a nosy villager to stumble onto the truth. When their cover is blown, the Nazis round up most of the villagers in the church, letting a few back to their homes, accompanied by soldiers, so the illusion of everyday life can be sustained in case outsiders might breeze into town. The rest of the film follows the resourceful men and women of Bramley End as they attempt to get word to the outside world and fight back against their occupiers. 

The most remarkable thing about the film is the sudden violence that crops up, and the fact that none of the characters (even the children) is exempt from the possibility of injury or death. An old woman who has been something like comic relief suddenly attacks a soldier with an axe and kills him, and just as suddenly, another soldier enters, sees the dead body, and shoots the woman dead. The violence is not gory, but it is sudden, frequent, and fairly graphic for its time, though all the more effective for not being rendered in close-up in Dolby 5.1 surround sound. This is mostly an ensemble piece, with the only standout (in terms of narrative focus) being Leslie Banks (the crazy hunter in THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME) as a distinguished village squire who is actually a collaborationist. Other familiar faces in the cast include C.V. France as the aged vicar, Basil Sydney as the Nazi in command, David Farrar (the hunk who gets the nuns hot and bothered in BLACK NARCISSUS) as another Nazi, and Mervyn Jones (Bob Cratchit in the Alastair Sim CHRISTMAS CAROL) and Elizabeth Allan (leading lady in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE) as villagers. The film is more artful than much propaganda of the time and remains well worth watching for its low-key documentary-like style, its tension, and its portrayal of everyday people in extraordinary circumstances. [DVD]

BEHIND OFFICE DOORS (1931)

Fairly lame pre-Code office romance melodrama, worth catching only for Mary Astor. She plays a secretary at a paper company who is secretly holding a torch for traveling salesman Robert Ames. She helps further his career by feeding him tips, and when the big boss retires, Astor not only talks a banker into selling the company to the employees, she also gets a big raise for Ames. Six months later, Ames is president, but we see that Astor, as his secretary, is really the driving force behind the company, though certainly underappreciated by the rather slimy Ames, who is either willfully unaware of her romantic interest or just doesn't care. In the meantime, Astor has been pursued by wealthy but married Ricardo Cortez; they meet cute playing Blindman's Bluff and Truth or Dare at a party and, though he says he's separated, she still avoids getting in too deep. Ames has a trampy mistress (Edna Murphy) whom he hires as a secretary, even though she's incompetent, but eventually he gets engaged to the ritzy Catherine Dale Owen, leaving both Astor and Murphy behind. In the rather frustrating but predictable finale, Astor winds up with Ames, though he still doesn't really seem to appreciate her. Astor is fine, as is Cortez who gives his playboy character a sheen of genuine charm which helps make him a bit more sympathetic than the average "rich guy who loses the girl" in movies of the era. The real problem with the movie is leading man Ames, who when he filmed this was just about a year away from an untimely death at the age of 42 from alcoholism. It is difficult to see anything redeeming about his character--he's not handsome, he's not charming, and he really never fully appreciates Astor--and I was rooting for Cortez to win out. [TCM]

SHAFT (1971)

One of the triad of seminal 70's "blaxploitation" films (which, oddly enough, all begin with the letter "S"), the other two being SUPERFLY and SWEET SWEETBACK'S BADASSSSS SONG. Of the three, SHAFT comes the closest to having a traditional Hollywood narrative, with a good-guy hero (not an unorthodox anti-hero as in the other two films) and a fairly straightforward private-eye plotline. In fact, what surprised me most about this film was how similar it was to an old-fashioned Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe movie, set in New York City rather than California. John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is the black private investigator who manages to work with "the man" (the white cops) and still keep his street cred with friends, clients, and informers. Bumpy, a powerful Harlem gangster (Moses Gunn) strongarms Shaft into trying to find his kidnapped daughter, the one who's going to go to college and get a better life. At first, Bumpy claims the culprit must be Ben Buford (Christopher St. John), the leader of a black radical group, but when Shaft contacts him, a bunch of Buford's men get slaughtered and Buford joins up with Shaft to go after the real villains, some Mafia hoods new to town who want to muscle in on Bumpy's trade. Shaft, who feels he's been used by Bumpy, is reluctant to continue, but a cop friend of Shaft's (Charles Cioffi) is afraid that the gang activity could be mistaken for a "race" war, so Shaft follows the case to its bloody climax. A long and excessively violent sequence at the beginning involving a man falling to his death from Shaft's office window makes little narrative sense, and the final battle, which involves lots of men and guns and a high powered water hose, is ludicrous, but both scenes work in that 70's "ultraviolence" way. The film was obviously shot on a B-movie budget, but most of it seems to have been done on the streets of NYC and it makes for an interesting window into that specific time and place. The opening, with Shaft strutting through Times Square, shows him pass 7 or 8 movie marquees, with films ranging from big Hollywood hits of the day to more squalid action thrillers to porn; it seems to be self-conscious announcement that this movie will fit right in with the grand Times Square tradition. Shaft gets to tell off Whitey a few times (and bed and dump a trampy white girl whom a flamingly gay bartender fixes him up with) and throw attitude everywhere, and Roundtree is very good as an updated Chandleresque "private dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks"--did you really think I'd write this review without quoting a line from that fabulous theme song by Isaac Hayes? Despite all the violence (and the two short sex scenes), what really got my blood racing was when the opening riff of the theme song kicks in at the very end. Not as raw and subversive as SUPERFLY, but more fun. [TCM]

ROAD TO PARADISE (1930)

[Spoiler included!!] Very odd early talkie with Loretta Young in a dual role, and not one but two (or even three) wildly implausible plot twists--major suspension of disbelief is needed to make it through this one. In the first few minutes of the film, we meet a non-traditional little family composed of two small-time crooks (the dapper George Barraud and the sickly Raymond Hatton) and Mary, the young woman (Loretta Young) whom they raised. Weird Plot Twist One: We find out that she's an honest-to-God mind reader and not just a trick entertainer; if she concentrates hard enough, she can actually read people's minds. You'd think that with a talent like that, she'd be in great demand, but she's out of work (due to a harassing boss) and agrees to pull a jewelry heist with her "fathers." Weird Plot Twist Two: while the three are having dinner at a Chinese restaurant frequented by underworld figures, a group of idle rich "slummers" comes waltzing in, and one of the group (Margaret, also played by Young) is a dead ringer for Mary. Our family targets them for the robbery, but things don't go smoothly and Margaret is shot, falling into a mini-coma. While the two guys run, Mary stays with Margaret and swaps clothes and identities with her. Thanks to Mary's ability to read the mind of the unconscious Margaret, the cops fall for her ruse, as do the maid, the butler, and even Margaret's boyfriend (Jack Mulhall). The next morning, when the real Margaret awakens, the jig seems to be up, but in Plot Twist Three (contrived and predictable, but not necessarily weird), the women discover that they are long-separated twin sisters. Turner Classic Movies got the running time wrong (as has been happening too often lately) so my DVR cut off the last 3 or 4 minutes, but a happy ending was clearly in store for all (except perhaps for Mary's fathers). Young is lovely and quite good in the two roles; the special effect used to have the two Youngs interact seems not to be split screen, but rear projection, and it is indeed effective, especially in the restaurant scene in which Mary is right behind Margaret, listening to her conversation. [TCM]

FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933)

The release of a 6-disc Busby Berkeley DVD set has provided a good excuse for me to revisit some of these fun movies which helped to define the classic Hollywood musical genre. Though Berkeley did direct some films, his most famous ones, including most of the films in the set, are ones for which he did only choreography and direction of musical segments, but these films are remembered today almost solely due to his contributions. Most of these 30's films involve a traditional show biz plot, usually following the travails of a group of people struggling against odds to put on a show. The cast of characters almost always involves a beleaguered director, cost-cutting producers, a charming young leading man, and a chorus girl who gets a big break at a starring role. Here, James Cagney is the director whose shady producers (one of whom is Guy Kibbee) tell him they don't want to back a new Broadway show because movies are killing the stage musical. Cagney's response is to start a whole new business creating live traveling "prologue" shows, essentially free-standing production numbers, to accompany hit movies. Just as he gets his business off the ground, he runs into trouble when a rival company starts copying his show ideas. Suspecting there's a spy in the woodwork (and there is), Cagney locks his cast and crew in the theater while they finish rehearsing three new prologues. The film climaxes with the three numbers, all Busby Berkeley spectaculars. Dick Powell, as usual, is the juvenile lead and Ruby Keeler, as usual, is the chorus girl/breakout star (though her personality is so drab and her talent so average that I have a hard time buying her sudden stardom). Joan Blondell, usually a brassy second-string dancer in the chorus, plays Cagney's secretary and love interest, though she has to battle a couple of rivals (Blondell's trampy roommate Claire Dodd and greedy ex-wife Renee Whitney) along the way. The overstuffed plot also involves the producers cheating Cagney out of money and a backstage censor (Hugh Herbert) who tries to clean up a number involving dancing cats in heat. Also in the cast is Frank McHugh as a choreographer and Ruth Donnelley as Kibbee's conniving wife. Of the three main numbers, "By a Waterfall" is the most spectacular, a kind of forerunner of the Esther Williams aquashow numbers of the 40's; "Honeymoon Hotel" is the sexy one, with lots of married men using the name Smith spending the night with their mistresses; "Shanghai Lil," which features Cagney, is a narrative number of the kind done to perfection years later by Gene Kelly. The dance numbers defy description; just see them. My favorite line: Blondell to Dodd: "As long as they have sidewalks, you'll have a job!" [DVD]

GIDGET (1959)

I am not a big fan of beach movies, despite the potential for studying undraped male pulchritude. Usually, when people talk about such films, they are referencing the series done in the mid-60's by American International, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, but I think that many of the widespread beach movie cliches actually came from this film, which was the inspiration for two later movies and two TV series. Sandra Dee plays Frances, a high school girl who finds herself and her hormones running a little behind her boy-crazy pals. While they are looking forward to a summer of flirting with college-age boys, Dee, a little gawkier and less developed than her friends, doesn't understand what the fuss is about. Instead of flirting, she winds up hanging out on the beach with some surf bums who adopt her as a mascot. The leader of the gang is known as the Big Kanuha (Cliff Robertson), a Korean War vetern who has decided to drop out of society and follow the sun. Dee, nicknamed Gidget for "girl midget," admires him but soon falls in love with the handsome, younger Moondoggie (James Darren), son of a rich father, who wants to follow in the Kahuna's footsteps. However, she always seems to get on Moondoggie's nerves, so when the big summer-ending luau rolls around, she sets in action a silly screwball-comedy plan to make Moondoggie jealous by going after Kahuna. Naturally, things don't quite go as planned, lessons are learned by everyone, including Kahuna (who, just a few years before the hippie movment, goes the opposite route and drops back into the rat race), and Gidget and Moondoggie wind up together (at least temporarily) at the end. There is some surprisingly blunt sex talk, or what passed for such in a late-50's movie made for teenagers, but Gidget remains, despite her best efforts, "pure as the driven snow." Dee is likeable, and the surf bum gang (including Joby Baker, Doug McClure, and future Billy Jack actor Tom Laughlin) start out as an interesting bunch, but their characters aren't allowed to develop and they get pushed into the background by the final third. Arthur O'Connell as Dee's dad seems a little too old for the part (he was 50 but looks older). Mary LaRoche is fine as the mother, though she was better a few years later as Ann-Margaret's mom in BYE BYE BIRDIE (and her best role might be as Telly Savalas's passive, cringing wife in the creepy Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll" with the murderous Talking Tina doll). The beach location shooting is nice, although most of the stars do their surfing in front of a rear-projection screen. It's not a musical, but at one point, just as he's getting snuggly with Dee, Darren breaks out unexpectedly in song. I saw this letterboxed on Turner Classic, and I hear the Columbia DVD, which is pan-and-scanned, is practically unwatchable. [TCM]

HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951)

A decent Gothic-type melodrama with a topical twist (the lead character is a post-war refugee from Belsen); Fox Video is marketing this on DVD in their "film noir" line, but it's really not--a little more than shadows and the occasional city street scene is needed to make a noir--and I think die-hard noir fans will be disappointed. It's much more like REBECCA or GASLIGHT than DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Valentina Cortese is a Polish widow who has been thrown into a concentration camp. She befriends a woman named Karin who clearly does not have the resources for survival that Cortese does; despite Cortese's best efforts, Karin dies. Cortese, knowing that the dead woman had shipped her son off to live with wealthy relatives in San Francisco, impulsively takes her identity papers and, when the camp is liberated just a few days later, she passes herself off to the American solider in charge of repatriation (William Lundigan) as Karin. She finds out that the rich aunt is dead and, knowing that the son was just a baby when he was sent away and wouldn't recognize her, she decides to head to the States and make a home with the child. The issue of her motives is a little murky; after the kind of suffering she went through, and knowing she had no home or family left in Europe, it's hard to fault her for wanting a better life, but she is still guilty of working her way into money and motherhood under false pretenses. A more interesting movie might have examined this moral quandary a bit, but that doesn't happen here. At any rate, Cortese gets to the U.S. and meets up with the child's guardian (Richard Basehart), a distant relative of the dead aunt. They hit it off and by the time they get to the West Coast, they're married. The child takes to her and she to him, but the housekeeper (Fay Baker) is standoffish and a little creepy, and soon we suspect that there is more to Basehart than meets the eye. Coincidentally, Lundigan shows up again, as a lawyer friend of Basehart's, and when Cortese suspects that Basehart and Baker are in league against her, she turns to him for help, not knowing that Basehart has told Lundigan that she's going nuts. There is a suspicious car accident, a near-fatality in a mysterious playhouse, and some possibly poisoned drinks on a tray (a la Hitchcock's SUSPICION) before all is resolved. Basehart, who I only really know from his starring role in the 60's TV show "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," is quite good at maintaining moral ambiguity (is he good or is he bad?) for most of the movie, better than Cary Grant was in SUSPICION--though I suspect that was more the fault of the script than the actor. Baker, who went on to do mostly supporting TV parts, is also very good, nicely understated in the Mrs. Danvers-like role. Though shot mostly in a studio, there is some nice location footage of San Francisco. I can't recommend this as a film noir, but for a Friday night Gothic thriller, it will fit the bill. [DVD]

LAUGHING BOY (1934)

Awkward adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a romance between two Navajo Indians. It's not so much a problem of "political correctness" that makes the movie hard to watch, but a weak script and plain old bad acting. Ramon Novarro (as the title character) is excited to be attending his first Great Sing Dance. He's clearly meant to be a youthful innocent, but he's not dumb, as we see in the movie's best scene which involves him dealing with a couple of pushy tourists from Cleveland. He meets up with Slim Girl (Lupe Valez), a Navajo who was raised and schooled by whites and now uses the name Lily. She's a bit of a slut (mostly with white men--the Navajo men won't touch her), and she comes on strong with naive Novarro. He knows she has a bad reputation, but he says she's just "different" and decides rather quickly that they need to get married before they have sex. She has other ideas and seduces him with whisky to get him into the sack (in the great outdoors). The next morning, apparently mortified at his behavior, he has run off, so Velez goes back to her brutal white lover (William B. Davidson). Time passes and they meet again; this time they marry, but she proves no good at doing "women's work" and the two aren't very happy so back she goes to Davidson. Novarro goes after them with a bow and arrow, and tragedy ensues. Much of the supporting cast is made up of Native Americans, but the star-crossed couple is played by Mexican actors Novarro and Velez; they don't feel out of place, but they seem to be overacting while the rest of the largely non-professional cast are barely acting at all, and the clash of styles is occasionally excruciating. [TCM]

PRINCE VALIANT (1954)

I haven't seen many King Arthur movies; offhand I can only recall EXCALIBUR, LANCELOT OF THE LAKE, and MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. This one, from early in the widescreen era, seems to have inspired at least a couple of moments of satire in the Python film. It suffers today from some slow stretches, but it is colorful with good sets and costumes and a couple of fine swashbuckling scenes (though it certainly is nowhere near Errol Flynn's ROBIN HOOD for total adventure enjoyment). It also might be one of the first comic book movies, based as it is on a long-running comic strip created by Hal Foster which began in 1937 and is still running in many Sunday papers today. A very youthful Robert Wagner plays Valiant, a Christian Viking prince who, as the film opens, is in exile at an isolated abbey in England with his family, including his father, the rightful king of Scandia, hiding from the pagan King Sligon. Loyal Viking warrior Boltar (Victor McLaglen) warns the family that a traitor may have let Sligon and his troops know where they are hiding, so Valiant heads to Camelot to become a knight in order to gain the experience needed to take his father back to Scandia to reclaim his throne. On his way, he has a run-in with the Black Knight, who is in the process of massing Viking troops on his side for some wickedness. After King Arthur (Brian Aherne) and the Knights of the Round Table agree to help Valiant, he is mentored by Sir Gawain (Sterling Hayden) and also catches the eye of Sir Brack (James Mason), Arthur's bastard brother, who may know more about the Black Knight than he's telling. The lovely Princess Aleta (Janet Leigh) falls for Valiant, and her sister (Debra Paget) falls for Gawain, but Gawain gets the signals crossed, which provides a little romantic tension before Valiant's father is kidnapped, the Black Knight is unmasked, battles are fought, and buckles are swashed. The climactic swordfight between Valiant and the Black Knight is well done. Wagner looks a little silly at first in his page boy hairdo, but it grows on you, and otherwise, he's good in a role that mostly just calls for youth and energy. Hayden is a little wooden in his line readings, but Mason and Leigh are fine. [FMC]

EAST OF THE RIVER (1940)

A bit of a rant first: In the last few days, I saw two recent movies that I despised: A SCANNER DARKLY and THE BROTHERS GRIMM. Both were decently-budgeted fantasy/sf films with talented people in front of and behind the camera, and lots of attention to style, but seemingly no attention to telling a good story. I can appreciate movies with elliptical narratives (2001, L'AVVENTURA), but SCANNER and GRIMM present themselves as fairly traditional narrative-driven films, and they utterly fail to tell their stories coherently or otherwise give audience members any reason to stick around once the stylistic shenanigans have gotten old, which for me was about 45 minutes in for both films. I got much more pleasure out of this minor Warners B-film with a hackneyed, time-worn plot but with strong performances, solid production values, and a satisfying narrative.

The plot is a variation on the good brother/bad brother theme which so many movies of the classic era used. The film focuses on Mrs. Lorenzo (Marjorie Rambeau), owner of an Italian restaurant called Mama Ravioli's, and her two sons. John Garfield, her blood son, does poorly in school and winds up in prison in California, though he tells his mom he's working on a ranch and he makes sure that he can keep funneling money to mama with some help from his hard-as-nails gal, Brenda Marshall. Blond-haired William Lundigan, whom Rambaeu adopted when he was a homeless lad, is a hard worker and graduates from college with honors. Garfield gets out of prison just in time to come home for Nick's graduation. He passes Marshall off as his finacee and at first, she gives everyone the cold shoulder, but soon Rambeau and Lundigan thaw her out and she winds up helping out in the kitchen. Garfield finds the two rats who set him up to take the fall back in California and he sets them up to be caught during a robbery. One kills a cop, is arrested, and sentenced to death; the other (Douglas Fowley) escapes and vows to get Garfield, who takes it on the lam to Mexico. In the meantime, Marshall starts hanging out with Lundigan and one thing leads to another until they're engaged and set a wedding date. When Garfield rather improbably hears about it, he comes back determined to expose Marshall's sordid past. For the good of the family, Marshall agrees, on the eve of the wedding, to leave, which breaks Lundigan's heart. It turns out that Rambeau had long ago figured out that Garfield was a common crook, and she has a great scene in which she denounces him to his face, saying she should have killed him when he was a child. This gets to Garfield, who is moved to find a way to square things, even if it means risking getting gunned down by Fowley. Garfield and Marshall are great; Lundigan, whom I like a great deal, doesn't really have much to do besides react rather passively to what happens around him. Rambeau wildly overdoes her Italian mama bit, as does George Tobias as her Italian co-worker, but I enjoyed her anyway, and her disowning scene with Garfield is riveting. Frank Faylen and Paul Guilfoyle have small supporting roles. Garfield kisses his mom on the mouth a few too many times for comfort, but the film doesn't have time to explore any psychological depths. I don't mean to make any great claims for this average B-melodrama, but by gosh, for what it was, I enjoyed it, and had lots more fun with it than with the bloated and self-important epics of '06 that I saw the same week. [TCM]

BLACKMAIL (1939)

An average crime melodrama from MGM, the middle portion of which comes off like a B-movie remake of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. Edward G. Robinson has a small but thriving business fighting oil-well fires; the opening segment showing him and his assistant (Guinn Williams) on the scene of a particularly dangerous fire is just about the best part of the movie. One day, out of the blue, a shadowy figure from Robinson's past (Gene Lockhart) shows up. He knows that years ago, Robinson, wrongly accused of embezzlement, escaped from a chain gang, and he tries to blackmail him to keep his secret. (And as if that's not enough villainy, we come to find out that Lockhart was responsible for the crime of which Robinson was accused.) After various maneuvers and double-crosses, Robinson is sent back to the chain gang and Lockhart winds up with Robinson's lucrative business. When Robinson finds out, he escapes yet again and has a final confrontation with Lockhart. Robinson, as always, is good, but Lockhart, in an unusual bad guy role as the slimy blackmailer, is the reason to watch the picture; it's fun to watch him shift personalities depending on how he thinks he can best get sympathy. Ruth Hussey has the relatively thankless role of Robinson's wife, and child actor Bobs Watson works up a few tears now and then as their son. The chain gang scenes in the middle bog the proceedings down a bit, but the opening and closing are exciting. [TCM]

OUR DAILY BREAD (1934)
THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS (1936)

Both of these movies are on a disc from Image called "Our Daily Bread and Other Films of the Great Depression." The first is a Depression-era propaganda film which makes a case for a kind of back-to-the-earth socialism as an answer to the woes of underemployed city folk. Supposedly, this was intended as a sequel to King Vidor's silent classic THE CROWD and it begins with the same young married couple, John and Mary Sims, from that film, though played here by different actors (Tom Keene and Karen Morley). In the big city, owing rent but holding no jobs, they hit up Morley's uncle for a loan which he, due to the stock market crash, is unable to give them, but he does offer them use of an old farm which he owns. Despite having no farming experience, they move out there (where there is plenty of farm equipment but no furniture) and are lucky enough to cross paths with a Swede (John Qualen) whose car breaks down in front their property. Keene hires him to work the land, then gets the idea to set up a co-op farm, putting up signs looking for people who will be willing to live on the land, help out with the farming, and share in the take. Some of the men who show up have experience with their hands, but they even accept a violinist and an undertaker into the group and for a while, things go well. When, unexpectedly, the land is put up for public auction, the farmers intimidate folks into not bidding, then bid $1.85, which by law has to be accepted, and buy the land for themselves--a trick which was actually used by farmers in the Plains. There is great joy when the crops begin to come up, but of course, other problems ensue, some personal (a wild city woman, Barbara Pepper, tempts Keene into an affair and almost gets him to leave the farm) and some natural (a drought). The climax of the film involves a desperate against-the-clock attempt to construct an irrigation system to save the crops. The sequence is a bit long, but it is edited well and does make an exciting finale. Many critics have noted that the acting is not up to par, perhaps because Vidor was working on his labor of love outside the studio system and couldn't afford big names, but overall the cast isn't bad. Keene is a bit wooden, but so, as I recall, was James Murray in THE CROWD. Morley is fine, as is Qualen; Addison Richards is rather stiff as the mysterious Louie, a strong but quiet type who acts as a one-man police force but who has a secret which makes for a compelling subplot.

The reason I rented this disc from Netflix is because it contains the half-hour Dust Bowl documentary THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS. Until recently, all I knew about the Dust Bowl era was what I gleaned from John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," but I just finished a great book about the Dust Bowl called "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan which piqued my interest in finding out more. As far as I know, the horrors of the Dust Bowl have never been used for a major fiction film. This explicit piece of propaganda was directed by Pare Lorentz and made for the U.S. Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency whose aim was to help the farmers leave the Great Plains, which had been made increasingly desolate by years of drought and dust storms. Back in the teens, the government had actively encouraged settlement and farming in the Plains, which led to boom years during WWI followed by over-farming of the land, soil erosion, and the terrible dust storms which killed animals and people and drove thousands out of the Plains. This interesting film is billed on its title card as a "picturization" of history, which means that, strictly speaking, it's not a traditional documentary, as most of the footage does not actually document historical events; it's more an impressionistic look at the period, using film shot at the time, often specifically staged by the director, to stand in for history with dramatic narration read over the otherwise silent footage, and accompanied by a wonderful score by Virgil Thompson. Most of the film is composed of sweeping shots of the land or of people working the land, with occasional close-ups of weathered farmer faces. The narration does indicate the government is largely responsible for what happened, but it also posits the government as the farmers' saving grace (through its resettlement activities). The combination of well-edited montage sequences, swelling music, and an authoritative-sounding, if sometimes melodramatic narrator, add up to an fairly effective film, though ultimately, in this post-cinema-verite age, it feels a little amorphous. [DVD]

THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS (1970)

A beautifully made film, directed by Vittorio De Sica, that approaches the subject of the Holocaust almost obliquely through the experience of one Jewish family in a town in Italy in the late 30's. As anti-Semitism is becoming not just socially acceptable but creeping into the laws of the land, we see the aristocratic Finzi-Contini family try to ignore what's happening by maintaining their own world inside their large urban estate. When the local tennis club bans Jews, the beautiful Micol (Dominique Sanda) and her handsome but frail brother Alberto (Helmut Berger) invite a group of friends to play (and socialize) in their gardens. Most of the story is told from the point of view of one of those tennis players, Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), a middle-class university student who has been harboring a crush on the aloof Micol for years. When the school library is declared off-limits to Jewish students, the Finzi-Continis encourage Giorgio to use their private library, and he finds himself growing close to the siblings, especially Micol. Giorgio believes that Micol has romantic feelings for him, but a direct attempt at seduction fails when she tells him that she thinks of him more like a brother (though there is a strong element of "come here/go away" ambiguity in her manner with him). The situation for the Jews keeps getting worse, but the family, who once held some power and influence in the town, keeps thinking that they can ride out this temporary problem, though they do send a younger brother out of the country for schooling. Giorgio's father (Romolo Valli), a member of the ruling Fascist party, also holds to the fatal belief that things can't keep getting worse. The other major character is Malnate (Fabio Testi), a dark hunk of a guy who is not Jewish but is Giorgio's best friend, and who winds up sleeping with Micol, despite her earlier insistence that he is "too hairy" for her tastes. There is a nice irony here in that Testi resembles the stereotype of the dark Jew, and virtually all the major Jewish characters are actually blond and lithe, like the Aryan stereotype (and Testi winds up with a fate as uncertain as any of the Jewish characters when he is conscripted into the Army). Most everyone ignores all signs of the gathering darkness until it's too late. The sickly Alberto dies at home, and Giorgio manages to get out of the country, but most of the rest of the characters are snared in the inevitable roundup of Jews to the camps.

The film, photographed by Ennio Guarnieri, is beautiful to look at, and generally I like the movie quite a bit, but I do agree with the critics who feel that are some problems with the depth of characterization. Some blame the actors, but I think it's more in the writing. We see most of the events of the film through Giorgio's eyes, and he, like the Michael York character in CABARET, is more a passive observer than anything else. The one time he does act decisively, putting the moves on Micol, it's a mistake. Capolicchio, like Michael York, does a good job with a tricky role. Micol is a cold cipher; I never felt like I understood anything she did, but I think Sanda is fine in the part. The biggest problem with the film is Alberto, who is the ultimate passive character--for most of the film, he really does almost nothing. Perhaps he is meant to be a symbol for the passive populace (Jewish and otherwise) who did nothing to stop the terror that would engulf them all, but that would seem to be superfluous symbolism here. Some critics read an incestuous tension between Micol and Alberto, and I can see that, though I think their relationship is more about a general decadence, that of beautiful, powerful people unmoored, with nothing to do and no resources of strength to resist when the times grow dark, only an ability to live in the past; surely it's not an accident that both Micol and Alberto play "Sentimental Journey" on their phonograph. Despite its flaws, this is well worth seeing. There is very little violence in the film, but the brutality of the times is still conveyed effectively. [DVD]

BEYOND THE ROCKS (1922)

This long-lost film, which re-surfaced in 2003, co-stars two of the biggest silent movie stars, Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson. Unfortunately, it's no classic, though it's also not an embarrassment. Swanson is the youngest daughter of an old sea captain; her older sisters are pressuring her into making a good (financially good, that is) marriage to Robert Bolder, a self-made millionaire who is boring, unattractive, and many years too old for her. When Swanson's canoe tips over during an outing, the Earl of Bracondale (Valentino) saves her. There are sparks between the two, but nothing happens. Swanson gets married and while honeymooning in the Alps, has a climbing accident. Guess who just happens to be on the same mountain and comes to her rescue? Yep, Valentino, this time accompanied by his mother (Edythe Chapman) and a young woman Chapman hopes he will marry (Gertrude Astor). This time, the sparks are harder to deny. Valentino follows Swanson to Paris where Bolder is in the process of providing backing for an African expedition. Bolder is tempted to go along to Africa, but Valentino tells him it would be too dangerous. Swanson, torn between Bolder and Valentino, finally decides to break it off with Valentino, but letters that she sends to the two are switched by the jealous Astor, and when Bolder realizes that she loves Valentino but is still planning to stay in her marriage for his sake, he decides to go to Africa after all. Swanson and Valentino run after him and the triangle is resolved in the desert during an attack of marauding bandits. The material strikes me as about average for a romantic melodrama of the time, as does the acting. Neither of the stars do too much of the overacting (or what seems to us like overacting) that is common to early silent films, and Swanson is even a bit too low-key at times. She also seems too strong and earthy to be fully believable in the role of a passive pawn. The location scenes (certainly shot outdoors, but just as certainly not shot in the Alps or Africa) are effective. The score, written for the restoration, is terrible, way too modern-jazzy, but I did like the sound effects that crop up frequently. This is the first Valentino movie I've seen, and I don't know that I need to see any others, though it might be fun to see one of his Sheik movies for the heck of it. [TCM]

CHINA GIRL (1942)

Just as it's difficult for me to put into words why CASABLANCA, on the surface a fairly ordinary WWII thriller, is such a great movie, it's difficult to say why CHINA GIRL isn't. I enjoyed watching it, but for the most part, it leaves the memory quickly despite having a wonderful visual style and an exciting plot not that different from CASABLANCA's. Set mostly in the city of Mandalay in Burma during November 1941, just before the United States officially went to war, the movie begins in a Chinese village where invading Japanese forces have arrested newsreel photographer George Montgomery as a spy. He escapes with some help from fellow prisoner Victor McLaglen (which involves a brief but very grim sequence in a pit of dead bodies) and the two are then spirited to safety by McLaglen's girlfriend, Lynn Bari. At a hotel in Mandalay, Montgomery meets the lovely Gene Tierney, who is selling some valuables to raise money for her father's work with orphans. When he starts flirting with her, he doesn't realize that she's Chinese; when he finds out, he hesitates for a moment but then kisses her roughly, as though he has something to prove. This turns her off at first, and Montgomery turns his attentions to Bari, but Tierney soon comes around to his charms and also lets him know that Bari and McLaglen are spies for the Japanese. The rest of the film covers several plot strands that come together at the end: 1) will Montgomery be able to bribe a pilot friend to let him hop a ride on his plane to get exclusive footage of the embattled Burma Road?; 2) how much of a pain in the ass will McLaglen and Bari be?; and 3) will Montgomery put personal concerns behind him and take the moral high ground in helping Tierney's father? There is a great fisticuffs scene with Montgomery, stripped to the waist, getting knocked around by McLaglen, and a flag-waving, propagandistic finale in which we see Montgomery transformed into a real hero. Also in the cast are Robert Blake, at the tender age of 9 playing a character a lot like Short Round in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, Philip Ahn as Tierney's dignified father, and Sig Ruman as Jarubi, the antiques dealer who may or may not have sinister motives. Performances are solid all around. At times, McLaglen sounds disconcertingly like an evil Cary Grant; Bari almost steals the show as the femme fatale who wavers between good and bad; Montgomery, looking and sounding like fellow B-stalwart James Craig, is very good (and very good looking) but still short of coming off as an A-grade hero like Bogart, Cagney, or Flynn. The best thing about the movie is its look--good use of shadows and lights through blinds, slightly askew camera angles, atmospheric sets. Not a classic, perhaps, but a solid, light-on-its-feet romantic spy thrillers that I'm glad I saw. [FMC]

BEAU IDEAL (1931)

A rather drab desert melodrama that is technically a sequel to the silent BEAU GESTE (better known by classic movie buffs from the 1939 remake), carrying over a couple of major characters from the original story about a group of brothers and their adventures in the Foreign Legion. In this, one of the brothers (John, played by Ralph Forbes who played the same role in the silent film) is accused of insubordination and given 10 years of hard labor in the Legion's penal battalion. Back in England, Forbes' American childhood buddy (Lester Vail) finds out from Forbes' fiancee (Loretta Young) about his predicament. Though (or perhaps because) Vail also loves Young, he decides to join the Legion to find Forbes. He tries to provoke his commander into throwing him into the prisoner detail, but his heart isn't really into being subordinate. Nevertheless, during a long desert march gone wrong, Vail is accused (wrongly) of mutiny and ends up in the penal detail. He is put into a deep underground cell with a handful of other men, one of whom is Forbes, and they all wind up being left to starve when a native uprising leaves everyone above ground dead. Just as Forbes and Vail, the last two left alive, are about to expire, the arrival of an Arabian emir saves them. There is more plot surrounding the central narrative, mostly involving the tricky relationship between Vail and an Arabian princess (Leni Stengel), known as the Angel of Death, and the film ends with Vail leaving Stengel, whom Forbes refers to as a "half-caste dancing girl," to head back to England with Forbes. The movie is fairly well made and moves along at a decent pace. The plot does not unfold in chronological order, which gives the movie an effective and intense opening scene involving the dying Legionnaires in the pit. The main weakness is the acting, very much of the old-fashioned melodramatic declaiming style. Vail is OK, but not memorable, and Young has only a very small role. [DVD]

MY PAST (1931)

Pre-Code romantic melodrama without a lot to recommend it aside from a chance to see the husband/wife team of Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels together on the screen. She plays an actress who has been engaged in a long-term, on-and-off mistress relationship with middle-aged steel magnate Lewis Stone. While she's in town for a show, they meet up again and during a yacht party, she gets interested in Lyon, Stone's younger business partner. He's all work and no play, even at the party, but the next day, she goes skinny-dipping in the ocean, he jumps in after her, and a torrid affair begins. Lyon is married but eases Daniels' mind by telling her that they have an arrangement and are soon to be separated when she gets back from an overseas trip, but when the wife (Natalie Moorhead) shows up, it turns out that Lyon was exaggerating the separation news. An upset Daniels leaves Lyon and goes back to Stone, who wants to marry her. But wait! Moorhead realizes that there's no heat left in their relationship (and, by the way, she's met someone in Paris) so she suggests a divorce. Lyon, knowing that Stone is serious about Daniels, leaves for an extended European vacation. After some more melodrama involving Daniels almost dying (wasting away from malnutrition, I think), Stone gallantly steps out of the picture, literally delivering Daniels to Lyon and sailing off into the sunset. The principals are all fine, and Joan Blondell is even better in one of her usual brassy blonde supporting parts. There is a funny little moment when Daniels inscribes a copy of "The Maltese Falcon" for Lyon; that was the next movie for both Daniels and the director, Roy Del Ruth. The background music is frequently irritating, sounding like it was being played live just off-camera (which might have been the case). [TCM]

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956)

This fact-based drama about a World War II espionage operation is more interesting than compelling, and its quasi-documentary style will probably seem almost quaint in the post-James Bond era, but it's worth seeing. In the spring of 1943, the British are planning an invasion of Sicily; the Germans suspect as much and British Intelligence needs to come up with a plan to divert German forces away from the invasion site. Clifton Webb comes up with an ingenious idea: plant false plans on a dead body, indicating that the Allies plan to attack Greece, and have the corpse wash up where it would come to the attention of high-ranking Nazis. We watch Webb and his associates plan out every detail of the plot, called Operation Mincemeat. They find a young man in a hospital freshly dead of pneumonia, get his father's permission to use the body in the service of the war effort (though they can't tell him how his son is being used), and put the corpse in a dry ice container. Next they create an identity, naming him William Martin and planting personal effects on the body including a love letter written by Webb's secretary (Josephine Griffin) in addition to official letters indicating Greece as the invasion spot. The cat-and-mouse game begins when a submarine crew lets the container go in the sea off of Spain. The Germans' attention is indeed drawn by the discovery; after the body is buried and the British consulate asks for the belongings, the orders are returned, seemingly unopened, which could mean the Germans didn't take the bait, but scientific examination shows that the envelope was opened at the German consulate. However, the real suspense is just beginning: the Germans, suspecting something may be up, send a spy (Stephen Boyd) to England to dig up info about Martin, leading to some very tense scenes involving Gloria Grahame, Griffin's roommate, who has just lost a boyfriend in the war and winds up being instrumental to the fate of the plan. Webb is OK though he never feels very military, or even clever enough to mastermind the tricky plot. Most of the other actors (including Robert Flemyng, Cyril Cusack, and Michael Hordern) are very cut-and-dried in manner, appropriate to the "docudrama" feel of the film, but Boyd and Grahame are quite good at generating tension in the last 15 minutes. Apparently, most, if not all, of the last part of the film is fiction, but it really makes the movie work. [FMC]

SKY GIANT (1938)

This is an RKO B-movie version of the kind of aviation male-buddy movie that Warners and MGM did better, so instead of actors like James Cagney or Spencer Tracy, we have fading silent star Richard Dix and B stalwart Chester Morris. The flying footage, like the stars, is passable but not terribly exciting, and the plot is strictly routine. Harry Carey is a crusty old retired army colonel who starts a flight school for commercial pilots and runs it in strict military fashion. Dix, who had been a captain under Carey, is railroaded into working for him and, though there is some tension between the two, there is also respect. Morris is Carey's cocky son, a former diplomat, who comes to the school not knowing that his father is in charge. Of course, Dix and Morris become friendly antagonists, first in the air, and then in competing for the attentions of Joan Fontaine, the cousin of another pilot (Paul Guilfoyle). Fontaine settles on Morris, assuming he'll give up flying, but when he winds up joining Dix and Guilfoyle on a project to map Arctic flight routes, she breaks it off and accepts Dix, on the condition that he make this his last air job. They get a marriage license, but on the test flight, the men crash land over the Yukon. Guilfoyle winds up with two broken legs and wants Dix and Morris to leave him behind. When they refuse, Guilfoyle crawls out at night into the elements to sacrifice himself so Dix and Morris can make it more quickly to safety. In the end, they still have to sort out the romantic triangle, and though there is a traditional resolution, the last shot seems to suggest the uneasy threeway relationship may continue. Fontaine doesn't have a lot to do, but she's lovely (and quite young, only 21, in comparison to Morris's 37 and Dix's 45, though I have to say that neither man looks quite as old as he really was so the triangle isn't too creepy). The pilot school is identified as TWA's, an interesting bit of early product placement, perhaps. [TCM]

BETRAYAL FROM THE EAST (1945)

I don't like Lee Tracy. In fact, I avoid Lee Tracy movies. Part of it, I admit, is the kind of role that he specialized in, the snarky, wisecracking smartass who rubs everyone the wrong way. I think audiences were supposed to like Tracy's characters either because of or in spite of his personality, but I guess he succeeds too well because I can't stand him. I watched this movie because of my interest in WWII propaganda films and found Tracy to be a little toned down here, maybe because of his age (nearing 50). He doesn't hurt the movie, but his relatively low-key performance also doesn't help it much. The film begins with real-life journalist Drew Pearson assuring us that what we are going to see is based on truth (even though the credits call the book the film was based on a novel). The narrative is set in the weeks before America entered the war. There's a short sequence in which an American diplomat (Louis Jean Heydt) and a news bureau chief (Jason Robards Sr.) are both bumped off for knowing too much about a ring of Japanese spies operating along the West Coast, then the story focuses on Tracy, an aging, disgruntled carnival barker who is approached by an old acquaintance (Philip Ahn) to do some work in Panama. It turns out that Ahn, a member of a Japanese spy ring who believes that ex-soldier Tracy still has contacts in Panama, is trying to recruit Tracy to get hold of defense plans for the Panama Canal. A suspicious Tracy contacts Army Intelligence and he becomes a counterspy, who will pass along false information in order to capture the ring. Complicating matters is Nancy Kelly, an aspiring fashion designer who turns out to be an Army spy out to keep an eye on Tracy. When she is killed in a car accident before Tracy's eyes halfway though the movie, it doesn't take a genius to know that she's not really dead and will return soon enough, which she does, having cozied up to a big shot Nazi (Roland Varno) who is in league with Ahn's spies. Most of the good guys wind up sacrificing themselves for the cause, but the big shots in the spy ring also wind up dead. The most startling scene is the torture of Kelly in an overheated steam room. Other cast members include Regis Toomey as a solider who pretends to give Tracy the Canal plans, and Richard Loo (who later played Master Sun on the "Kung Fu" TV show) as the leader of the Japanese spies. The B-production values show through a bit too much at times, and according to sources I've read, the kind of sprawling West Coast spy ring posited in this film simply didn't exist, but that doesn't stop the film from being an acceptable wartime spy thriller. [TCM]

I COVER THE WATERFRONT (1933)

A solid pre-Code melodrama, and a 30's version of an "indie" film made by the small-scale Reliance Pictures. I'm not sure what Claudette Colbert is doing here, given that she was in the middle of becoming a big star at mainstream Paramount, but she's very good, mostly making up for the shortcomings of her leading man, Ben Lyon, who plays the "I" of the title, a reporter who is trying to prove that grizzled old fisherman Ernest Torrence is the brains behind a ring of men who are smuggling desperate Chinese immigrants into the U.S. We know that Torrence is indeed the chief bad guy, and we see him callously dump a tied-up Chinese man overboard when a Coast Guard ship heads over to investigate. When Lyon sees the lovely Colbert skinny-dipping, he thinks she's just another quickie novelty headline, but when he finds out she's Torrence's daughter, he decides to cultivate a friendship with her in order to dig up some incriminating dirt, but then he finds himself falling for her. There's a bizarre seduction scene set in a prison ship museum in which Lyon straps Colbert into an arcane torture device and kisses her. There's also a shark hunting scene that wouldn't seem out of place in JAWS, and another scene with smuggled immigrants tumbling out of a dead shark's belly that is startling. The climactic action plays out well, though the very end feels rushed. Lots of little racy pre-Code touches add pizzazz; in addition to Colbert's dip in the ocean, there's a nudie girl painting in the boat, and Colbert and Lyon talk openly about moving in together. Torrence is very good as the villain, who is nevertheless a caring father. Lyon is the only weak link, and he's not really bad, just out of his league opposite Colbert. [DVD]

NO OTHER WOMAN (1933)

I enjoyed this predictable soap opera for the chance to see two supporting players of the 30's whose careers petered out by the end of the decade: Eric Linden and Gwili Andre. The stars of this undistinguished, melodramatic twaddle are Charles Bickford and Irene Dunne. He is a hard-working but unambitious and uncouth steelworker who is happy bringing home just enough money to live on; she is his wife who runs a boarding house and has dreams of making it big, or more precisely, of her husband making it big. When a boarder (Eric Linden) who likes to mess around with chemistry comes up a new dye formula, Dunne sees its potential and talks Bickford into investing their life savings in a company designed to exploit the new discovery. The one surprise in the plot happens here: I was sure that Bickford would lose his shirt and resent Dunne and Linden, discover they're having an affair, and maybe even plot to kill them, but instead, the company becomes a wild success, and Linden and Dunne remain platonic friends. Bickford winds up buying out a competing company and building a huge industrial complex. In addition to taking on the nice manners of the upper classes, he also takes on their morality and has a torrid affair with big city sexpot Gwili Andre. Dunne catches him and Andre insists that he divorce Dunne to marry her. He tries to, but Dunne fights it, so he bribes a host of family friends and workers to testify that Dunne is an adulteress so he can get his divorce and get custody of their child. The climax is a nasty courtroom battle in which Dunne calls Bickford's bluff in a dramatic fashion.

Dunne is fine, but Bickford is colorless, even when he gets a potentially juicy drunk scene early in the film. Linden's character is ill-defined; I thought in the beginning that he was Bickford's kid brother, but he's not. Maybe he winds up gay, or a chemistry geek, or both. A character (Lelia Bennett) who helps out at Dunne's boarding house seems downright mentally handicapped, but there's no clear sign that this is an intended interpretation. The biggest problem in terms of plot is the lawyer, played by J. Carroll Naish; apparently, he was Andre's lover before Bickford came along, and perhaps after as well, though that is not make clear. He's the one who represents Bickford in court, but to no apparent larger purpose. The movie is not quite an hour long, and perhaps some of these plot points were left on the cutting room floor (perhaps by producer David O. Selznick back in his early RKO days). It's not a terrible movie, but it could have been better with sharper writing and someone like Joel McCrea in the male lead. [TCM]

THE FAN (1949)

Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan" is the basis for this amusing comedy of manners. I haven't seen or read the play, and predictably most critics don't like the liberties the movie takes with the original material, but on its own merits, I found this to be a pleasant enough diversion. The frame story, set in post-WWII London, has the ancient Mrs. Erlynne (Madeleine Carroll) claiming to be the owner of a fan being sold at an auction; she contacts her old friend Lord Darlington (George Sanders) so he can prove her identity, but his memory needs some prodding, so the rest of the film is a series of flashbacks to a time when Carroll, a middle-aged "adventuress," as she calls herself, is rebuilding her life (for reasons which remain hidden from us until much later in the film) and attempting to make a place for herself in London high society. She charms a trio of moneyed men (Sanders, John Sutton, and the young and handsome Richard Greene) and sets out to marry the boring but rich Lord Augustus (Hugh Dempster). Lord Windermere (Greene) helps her out socially and financially, and rumors of an affair between the two eventually reach Lady Windermere (Jeanne Crain) thanks to gossipy duchess Martita Hunt. It turns out that Greene has good reasons for helping her out, though the secret is a good one so I won't give it away here. Suffice to say that things climax in a semi-farcical drawing room scene of mistaken identity (and mistaken intentions), and though the movie is a comedy, there is a mood of sad resignation in the way matters ultimately play out. Widean one-liners abound--at least I assume that most of them are drawn from Wilde, even though famed wit Dorothy Parker had a hand in the screenplay. One of my favorites here has Dempster saying, "Sometimes I think I'm married to Mrs. Erlynne, she treats me with such damned indifference!" All the actors are fine, especially Sanders and Hunt, and the relatively lightweight Greene and Crain hold their own nicely. Richard Ney (the soldier son in Mrs. Miniver) and Terry Kilburn (Tiny Tim in the 1938 Christmas Carol) make brief appearances. Wilde purists may quibble (as Noel Coward purists rightfully complain about the bowdlerization of most of his works by Hollywood), but I thought the film was fun. [FMC]

OPEN CITY (1945)

This film by Roberto Rossellini is perhaps the earliest example of Neorealism in film, using a documentary style to tell a fictional story, often about ordinary citizens and sometimes using non-professional actors. Filmed on the streets of Rome not long after the liberation of the city from the Germans, the narrative follows a loosely-knit group of resistance fighters during the height of the war. The stage is set with images of starving people buying food on the black market and breaking into shops. The main character is engineer Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero), who is being chased down by Nazis; he leaves his apartment building and goes to his friend Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet), who lives next door to his finacee Pina (Anna Magnani), a war widow with one child and another on the way. She fetches the priest Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi), who agrees to help Manfredi smuggle money to other resistance fighters. Unfortunately, Manfredi also contacts his lover, Marina (Maria Michi), an aspiring actress (who is also, if I'm reading things correctly, a bisexual and a dope addict) who later, in a fit of anger, informs on Manfredi to icy blond Nazi Ingrid (Giovanna Galetti). On the day of his wedding, Francesco is rounded up by the Gestapo. He eventually escapes, but not before Pina is shot and killed running after him.

Manfredi is captured and tortured by the cruel (and somewhat femme) Major Bergmann (Harry Feist), and it turns out that Manfredi has a secret past: he was an escaped Communist prisoner who had been hiding in plain sight for years. Bergmann is especially anxious to make Manfredi talk because his theory is that the Italians are a slave race and therefore their will should be easy to break, but Manfredi, as most of the captured patriots, is not so easy to crack. A more interesting bad guy is Captain Hartmann (Joop van Hulzen), a self-hating Nazi who thinks that the Germans are sowing death and hatred, and holds out no hope for a bright future for anyone. As you can probably tell, it's not a spoiler to say that almost all the major resistance fighters meet unhappy ends, although the last shot of the film can be interpreted as a hopeful one: a group of children we have seen pulling off minor resistance vandalism throughout the film witness the death of the priest by firing squad, and they walk away, not in resignation but in what seems more like dogged determination to continue their efforts. The acting all around, by pros and amateurs, is solid, with Magnani and Fabrizi standouts. The "realistic" filming style adds immeasurably to the gritty atmosphere of the film, though that style is much more common now. The version I saw on cable clearly wasn't "restored," and there were large chunks of dialogue that went untranslated. This film cries out for a fully loaded Criterion edition. (Sundance)

CARDINAL RICHELIEU (1935)

I end my week of George Arliss films with this somewhat routine period picture that Arliss makes worth catching. I know little about the period or the personalities involved, but that didn't hamper my ability to follow a narrative that was certainly highly fictionalized. In 17th century France, King Louis XIII (Edward Arnold) is butting heads with the feudal lords of France over the consolidation of royal power. Arliss is Richelieu, chief minister of the King's Royal Council (apparently a forerunner to the modern post of Prime Minister), and he gets a good entrance scene: the Queen (Katharine Alexander), certain that Richelieu is far away, locks herself in the King's chamber and tries to convince him that the Cardinal is hungry for power and property and should be dismissed; Richelieu arrives and, despite being barred from the main entrance, uses a secret passageway into the chamber and spoils the Queen's plan. The rest of the film concerns various cat-and-mouse games between the Cardinal and the Queen, the Cardinal and the nobility, the Cardinal and the Pope (who is angry that Richelieu has drafted Protestant soldiers from Sweden to fight against German Catholics), and even the Cardinal and the King. One of the things I ended up liking about the movie is that I was never quite certain who the "good guy" was supposed to be. We are trained by the movies (not to mention by our history) to treat most royals with suspicion, and Arnold plays the king as pompous (though not stupid or evil), but Richelieu, with his army, his lavish personal palace, and the kickbacks he gets from some of the nobles, does not seem to be much more sympathetic. However, Arliss gives a grand performance, especially in a famous scene in which he melodramatically claims the sanctuary of the Church against attackers. There is a light romantic subplot that feels a little out of place involving a ward of the Cardinal's (Maureen O'Sullivan) and one of the angry Lords (Cesar Romero), but it does give Richelieu a more human touch. Douglass Dumbrille plays a chief conspirator, and John Carradine and Arthur Treacher have one-line bits as street agitators. Some fun intrigue between the Cardinal and the King ends the film nicely, but the main reason for seeking this out is to see Arliss. [FMC]

THE WORKING MAN (1933)

Another delightful George Arliss picture, like A SUCCESSFUL CALAMITY, in which he plays a sort of "foxy grandpa" type, a gruff-seeming older man who has charm and prankish energy beneath his facade, who usually winds up teaching some young whippersnappers a lesson. In this one, he's the founder of Reeves Shoes, the country's leading shoe company. He is particularly proud of staying ahead of his chief competitor, Hartland Shoes, run by an old friend of his who married the woman that they both loved. Arliss's company is in such good shape that his nephew (Hardie Albright) tries to talk Arliss into retiring and living out the rest of his days fishing in Maine. When Hartland dies and his company falls into the hands of his fast-living son and daughter (Theodore Newton and Bette Davis), who are on the verge of running the company into bankruptcy, Arliss decides to go undercover and try to save the company, out of a sense of loyalty to Hartland and his kids. He puts in a secret bid to buy the company, works his way in as a trustee, and (rather improbably) is also named a quasi-legal guardian to Newton and Davis. In the beginning they like Arliss because he seems easygoing and harmless, but he quickly lays down the laws, cutting out their hard partying and their unrestrained spending, and soon he has them working hard to turn the company around, despite the machinations of the crooked manager (Gordon Westcott). In fact, Davis decides to do some undercover work of her own and, under an assumed name, gets a job at Reeves Shoes in order to learn some skills she can bring back to Hartland. A romance develops between Davis and Albright, which is threatened when Arliss fires Westcott and he comes to Albright to get a job and recognizes Davis. Being a comedy, there are happy endings all around for all who deserve them, though the climax plays out in a hurry. Arliss is great fun in a role he could probably have done in his sleep. Davis is OK, though Albright as an uptight blond boy, and Newton as a mellow blond boy, are a little too low-energy. Westcott makes a fine and slimy villain, J. Farrell MacDonald has a nice scene or two as Arliss' fishing buddy, and Edward Van Sloan shows up as Arliss's assistant. Quite fun all around. [TCM]

THE MAN WHO PLAYED GOD (1932)

A fine old-fashioned (and here I mean that in the best possible way) melodrama which gave Bette Davis her first substantial lead, with George Arliss, who would become her mentor. He plays a renowned concert pianist at the peak of his career who feels his life is ruined when he goes deaf; it's explained that deafness runs in his family, but it seems to come on all at once when an anarchist's bomb explodes right outside his window while he's playing the "Moonlight Sonata" for a European king (whom the anarchists are chasing--don't ask, it's just a creaky plot device). After months of feeling sorry for himself (and keeping most of his friends at a distance) because the joy of his piano has been taken away from him, he is finally persuaded to learn to read lips. He discovers that, with the help of a pair of binoculars, he can read the lips of passers-by outside his window who stroll through Central Park and he takes to "playing God" with them, secretly sending financial help to people who need it. Davis plays a much younger woman, a close friend of Arliss' who was infatuated with him and proposed to him before his deafness occurred. Though she still loves him and seems more than willing to go through with the planned marriage, she has fallen in love with Donald Cook, a man much closer to her own age. By coincidence (!!!), Davis and Cook discuss their situation in the park. Guess who eavesdrops? Guess who winds up stepping gracefully out of the picture so Davis can be happy? Arliss was 65, playing a 50-year-old, and the makeup to make him look younger than his years is obvious, but aside from that, he is quite fine in a part that calls for some over-the-top emoting from time to time. His best scene is when he rages against God for taking away his life's joy, the ability to hear music. Davis is good, although Ivan Simpson, who plays Arliss' stiff but faithful butler, steals most of his scenes; he is especially good when he saves Arliss from an attempted suicide. Cook is the first of a series of actors throughout the next several years who appear opposite Davis and who wind up wiped off the screen, or at best, come off as mannequins (see also George Brent, Richard Barthelmess, Franchot Tone, and Paul Henried). Louise Closser Hale is fine as Arliss' sister and secretary, as is Violet Heming as another admirer of Arliss'. Hedda Hopper and Ray Milland have small roles. Solid melodrama that is a little dated but nonetheless still worth seeing. [TCM]

A SUCCESSFUL CALAMITY (1932)

George Arliss seems to have had two primary movie modes: serious historical figure and sly old father (and even his serious roles had a bit of the sly dad in them). This is a delightful comedy with Arliss as the second type; it's a lighter-than-air role, a little like the one he played in THE MILLIONAIRE but even fluffier. He's a rich banker who returns from a year-long stint in Europe, anxious to be fussed over by his loving family. The problem is that they seem to have gotten along quite well without him. His wife (Mary Astor) has completely redone his old and comfortable sitting room in blinding art nouveau and she's so booked up with social obligations, she barely has any time to spend with him. His frivolous children (William Janney and Evalyn Knapp) obviously have affection for their dad, but also have little time for him: idle Janney is always on the polo field and Knapp is preoccupied with her upcoming marriage to clueless fussy pinhead Hardie Albright. To simplify his family life, Arliss pretends that the family fortune has come to ruin, hoping that they'll all have to spend time together (inspired by his butler's remark that "the poor don't get to go out very often"). His plan works; not only do they start spending evenings together, but Janney gets a job and Knapp dumps Albright for hunky polo-player Randolph Scott. Only Astor causes concern when she seems to run out on Arliss with her Italian piano prodigy Fortunio Bonanova, but things aren't always what they seem and a happy ending is in store for all. The most amazing thing about this movie is the comic timing, which seems almost contemporary. I think of Arliss even at the top of his game as a somewhat stagy, old-fashioned actor, but he seems quite modern here, while still having the gravity necessary for the role. Astor, as usual, is good, and Grant Mitchell gets to shine as Arliss's butler; in a nice bit, Arliss winds up spending his free time in his butler's room in his old comfy chair, which Mitchell rescued when Astor threw it in the trash. There's a nice subplot involving a double-crossing businessman (David Torrence) to whom Arliss manages to put the screws. Leon Ames has a small role as an assistant to Arliss. Good fun all around. [TCM]

THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD (1934)

One reason to love the current era of classic movies on cable: the chance to see the work of actors who were well known and well liked in their era but whose popularity hasn't extended to the present day. This week, I'm going to devote some blog posts to the films of George Arliss, a British stage actor who had a short but successful film career in the 1930's. His main claim to fame was playing historical figures--he won one of the first Best Actor Oscars back in 1930 for DISRAELI, a movie I haven't been able to see yet. Arliss' films are unlikely to wind up released in DVD boxed sets, like the movies of Bogart or Astaire or Bette Davis, but they do show up occasionally on Turner Classic and Fox Movie Channel. Leonard Maltin says that Arliss is a fine actor "in sore need of rediscovery," and I agree. In the past, I've reviewed THE MILLIONAIRE and THE GREEN GODDESS, both good movies, and this week, I'll review a few more I've been lucky enough to see.

In this historical family story, Arliss plays the dual role of Mayer Rothschild, founder in the 1790's of the famous banking house, and Nathan, his son. Though much of the narrative is concerned with the pervasive anti-Semitism of the time and place, the movie also traffics in some unfortunate Jewish stereotypes which may undercut that theme with today's viewers. In the short, atmospheric opening section of the film, we see Meyer, a coin dealer and money lender living in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt, hiding caches of money from the tax collector. He tells his children that, because money lending is one of the only occupations open to Jews, money is the only defense against the combative Gentile society (the Jews are forced to live on one street and are locked in their homes at night). He starts his sons in banking and tells them to spread out to various cities to stop the loss of money transfers through war and banditry. Thirty years later, the story is picked up with Arliss as Nathan, the eldest son, who is established in London and makes important loans to the British and their allies in their wars against Napoleon. After Wellington (C. Aubrey Smith) defeats Napoleon, Arliss suggests loaning money to France to rebuild. His suggestion is approved, but his bid for making the loan is rejected due to the anti-Semitic Count Ledrantz (Boris Karloff, miles away from his Frankenstein monster and quite good as the outwardly civilized villain). Arliss gets his revenge by driving down the price of the bonds, and he finally gets the bid, but Karloff gets his own revenge by inciting a series of pogroms in Prussia. When Napoleon escapes from exile, the advantage goes back to Arliss when the allies need his money again. Despite an offer from Napoleon asking for money in exchange for freedom for the Jews, Arliss goes with the allies and the film ends with the defeats of both Napoleon and Karloff. Despite the historical sweep of the narrative, the film is fairly stagy with lots of talky scenes (we see no war action and never meet Napoleon), though thanks to good acting and pacing, it rarely feels static. There is a more or less unnecessary romantic subplot with Arliss' daughter, Loretta Young, in love with a Gentile soldier (Robert Young). The two Youngs are bland and unwelcome as they take screen time away from Karloff and the wonderful Arliss. Also notable are Helen Westley (as Meyer's wife), Reginald Owen, and Arthur Byron. Arliss' real-life wife Florence plays Nathan's wife, though she doesn't have much to do. The film plays fast and loose with history, but that's a given with Hollywood. Quite enjoyable, and Arliss commands the screen as usual. [FMC]