SO ENDS OUR NIGHT (1941)

A gray-area WWII movie, made while America was still technically neutral. An opening title card tells us this is the story of "people without passports," specifically refugees from Germany and Nazi occupation in the late 30's. The narrative begins in Vienna in 1937; several refugees are sharing a flophouse hotel room, among them Fredric March, a German Aryan who despises Nazi ideology and is an escapee from a concentration camp, but is trying to get back to Germany to see his sick wife, and Glenn Ford, a young half-Jewish man new to the game of staying one step ahead of the police. March and Ford get some jail time and become friends before being released at the Czech border. Ford, in Prague, falls in love with Margaret Sullavan, a Jewish chemistry student who has to resort to subterfuge to continue her studies. Thinking she is hurting Ford's chances at a free life, she leaves him to go to Zurich, but he follows her. March, back in Vienna as a carnival mind reader, becomes a hunted man when the Nazis invade Austria, and the trio wind up together in France. Sullavan's professor suggests that she marry a Frenchman to get legitimate ID papers, but she's fallen in love with Ford. There are more journeys, entrapments, and escapes before March, held by Nazi officer Erich von Stroheim, agrees to betray resistance leaders if he is allowed to visit his dying wife (Frances Dee). Of course, he's Fredric March so instead of betrayal, he performs a heroic act of self-sacrifice which allows Ford and Sullavan to have a better shot at a happy life together. All three leads are fine, with Ford taking acting honors here (Sullavan seems a bit at sea, perhaps because of her underwritten character). Leonid Kinskey and Anna Sten are standouts in the supporting cast. The movie is directed by John Cromwell, but owes its effective, moody atmosphere to production designer William Cameron Menzies. Though not the first Hollywood movie to depict the plight of Nazi victims in Europe, it was apparently the first one to show that Jews were being singled out. This interesting film is only available on DVD from VCI in a print which leaves much to be desired, especially in its soundtrack which has a tinny, electronic echo from time to time. [DVD]

BOOM (1968)

Like THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT, this is one of my Holy Grails from the '60s, a notoriously bad movie I'd heard a lot about but thought I might never get to see; it's not on DVD but the Sundance Channel, bless its independent little heart, showed it in January. It has the reputation of being a camp classic, helped no doubt by the fact that it's John Waters' favorite movie, but while I did find some of it laughable, it never really rose to camp levels. I can't say it's a very good movie, but it's not as bad as its reputation would have it. Based on a Tennessee Williams play ("The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore") from the beginning of his declining years, the story concerns Sissy Goforth (Elizabeth Taylor), a monumentally rich woman, much married (and divorced), who is aging quite gracefully but also dying (of an unspecified illness, probably a kin to that infamous Fatal Cinematic Disease that allowed Ali McGraw to die so beautifully in LOVE STORY). She is spending what is likely to be her last summer on earth on an island that she owns, in a fabulous bone-white villa overlooking the Mediterranean. Her days (and sometimes the middle of her nights) are spent dictating her memoirs into any one of a vast network of tape recorders, to be transcribed by her long-suffering assistant (Joanna Shimkus), and bossing around her small army of servants, including security man Michael Dunn (Dr. Loveless from Wild Wild West) who has his own small army of slathering hounds at his beck and call. One day, dissolute poet Chris Flanders (Richard Burton) hitches a boat ride to the island, rising up out the surf and climbing a cliff to be attacked by Dunn's dogs. Taylor allows him to stay in a guest room to recover from his mostly superficial wounds, but otherwise pays little attention to him until her gossip buddy, nicknamed the Witch of Capri (Noel Coward), tells her that Burton is known in high society circles as the Angel of Death for his knack of being a sponging houseguest whose aging hosts often wind up dead just after he leaves. Taylor invites Burton to dine with her and most of the rest of the film consists of conversations between the two which play out like a less intimate, dumbed-down version of their classic rants in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

At first, the whole thing feels heavily symbolic, like a Twilight Zone episode without either horror or whimsy (and thanks to a Yahoo Groups friend who pointed out the film's similarity to a specific Zone show with Gladys Cooper as a dying old lady and Robert Redford as the handsome death figure). But we find out near the end that it's all too literal: Burton's character really is just a dissolute poet who believes he has a gift for helping dying people accept their death. The real problem here is the casting. Taylor is too young and healthy to be effective as an aging, dying woman--her way of showing pain is to moan a bit and shriek, "Pain!! Injections!!" into the house intercom. Burton, though by no means old or unattractive, is also not nearly beautiful or ethereal enough to be an angelic stud--Tab Hunter played the role on stage opposite Tallulah Bankhead, and while the staging was not a success, certainly the two were more appropriate for the roles than Taylor and Burton. While overall the movie doesn't work, there are pleasures to be had: Taylor's force-of-nature delivery is fun to watch, as is Coward's serious feyness. Almost every frame of the film looks gorgeous, thanks to director Joseph Losey and cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (credited oddly as "lighting cameraman"), the lovely seaside locations in Sardinia, and the stunning house, which is probably a combination of a real house and built sets. The music, which alternates between sitar music and a more conventional score, is very nice as well. The title refers to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, as explained by Burton, sounding like "the shock of each moment, of still being alive," a thought I rather like, and which is complemented by Taylor's complaint that "life is all memory except for each present moment which goes by so quickly you can hardly catch it." My favorite scene is the dinner between Coward and Taylor, with the grande dame dressed outrageously in a fabulous white Kabuki outfit with a huge, shiny Aztecy headdress. It is almost worth catching this film just to see Taylor in the outfit; she's probably the only actress ever who could get away with it, except maybe Divine. (Everything comes back to John Waters eventually...) [Sundance Channel]

GENTLE ANNIE (1944)

An odd little western, based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize winner MacKinlay Kantor; the plot shows potential, but full development of characterization is lacking, and I'm guessing that the Production Code may have hampered things a bit. Set in 1901, the story follows a U.S. Marshal (James Craig) who is sent to Oklahoma in disguise as a hobo to investigate a train robbery in which a load of federal money was stolen. Rumors and clues point to the Goss boys (Henry Morgan and Paul Langton), seemingly friendly guys who live with their loving mother (Marjorie Main). Craig is befriended by the family when he gets in trouble with the local sherrif (Barton MacLane), a nasty and corrupt man whom the boys believe is responsible for their father's death. Donna Reed, a new girl in town working as a waitress until she can raise money to head home for Missouri, also winds up staying with the Gosses; it turns out that Main herself is trying to raise money to move back there after her Confederate husband's death left her with no resources. We know from the beginning that the boys were indeed responsible for the robbery, which they pulled to get money to give Main, and they don't feel they did anything wrong because their Pa's philosophy was, "Anything anyone can get from a Northerner is fair and square." We eventually find out that Main knows what they did, though it's not completely clear how she feels about it--some critics refer to her character as an outlaw, and she certainly agrees with her husband's thoughts about Northerners, but she also does not seem to actively encourage her boys' banditry. Craig finds solid evidence against the boys, but when they invite him to join them in another robbery, he's conflicted about what to do. His duty wins out and he arrests the boys, but they get the upper hand on him until they all discover that MacLane has shot Main. Craig and the boys work out a deal to take care of MacLane and then give themselves up. Things don't quite work out so smoothly, although ultimately Production Code justice is served, and Craig and Reed go off in the sunset together. In a somewhat modern touch, the movie's tone changes from warmhearted and comic at the beginning (scenes of Main talking to herself while she makes breakfast, and she and the boys greeting a portrait of the father as though they were saying hello to a person) to serious and grim by the end (deaths of major characters and a climactic shoot-'em-up). I would have liked more fleshing out of the characters, especially Main and Reed. Some of the names in the movie are a little strange: one of the boys (Langton) is named Violet because Main wanted a girl so badly, and the boys call Main "Mud" and "Muddie." [TCM]

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1970)

Cult movie which, while interesting, seems a little overrated to me, worth watching mostly for its historical significance as a bridge between films like IN COLD BLOOD and HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, and for excellent performances by its leads, Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler. The narrative is based on a true story and apparently sticks pretty close to the facts. Stoler plays a mean, lonely, overweight nurse who lives with her senile mother. When her friend (a very young Doris Roberts) enters Stoler in a lonely hearts correspondence club, she's pissed off until she hits it off with Lo Bianco, a sexy but clearly low-rent guy who flirts with her and charms her mother. When he wheedles a little cash out of Stoler and leaves, she calls him and threatens suicide (though we know that she's faking it). It turns out that he makes his living by glomming onto lonely single women who have some cash saved up and romancing them just enough to get his hands on the money before he splits. Far from being shocked, Stoler falls right into the scam with him, posing as his sister as he continues making contact with lonely women ripe for the picking. Things work for a while so long as Stoler believes that Lo Bianco isn't falling for or having sex with any of the women. Eventually, he marries a woman who is already pregnant and the three, cramped together in a tiny hotel room, get on each other's nerves; Stoler's solution is to feed the woman an overdose of pills and dump her on a bus, where she is found later dead. It's not clear to me if Stoler actually intended to kill her, but murder soon becomes the default solution to any problem. They bilk an older woman (Mary Jane Higby) when they claim to be investing her money by opening a hat shop for her; Higby gets suspicious of Stoler and his "sister" spending too much time alone in the cellar, so in a startling scene, the couple kill her with a hammer, and with the body still warm, Lo Biano strips off his clothes to have sex with Stoler. The last murders, also disturbing, occur when the woman being conned, the mother of a young daughter, tells Stoler she's become pregnant by Lo Bianco--they wind up shooting her and drowning the little girl. Finally feeling resigned to the fact that she'll never be able to keep Lo Bianco for herself, she calls the police and turns them both in. Stoler is fearless playing an unattractive character, in both looks and personality. Similarly, Lo Bianco is great as a guy with just enough looks and surface charm to get away with the scams he does. Because the focus of the film is on Stoler (she is in almost every scene), Lo Bianco remains a bit of a cipher; I was never sure if he really was in love with Stoler, or had just come to rely on her as a helpmate and confidante. Nevertheless, the two both give fine performances, even if, in retrospect, it seems as if Stoler may have served as a template for the persona of Divine in the movies of John Waters. The stark black and white semi-documentary look of the film gives it an unsettling matter-of-fact tone. Written and directed by Leonard Kastle, who sadly never did another film. [TCM]

THE REAL GLORY (1939)

This adventure film feels like a recycling of ideas, characters, and elements from lots of other films in the Gunga Din/Beau Geste genre: stories of a gallant group of men fighting against the odds (and rebellious natives) in an exotic setting. GUNGA DIN is more "romplike" than this one, with some of the stars not surviving to the final fadeout. Based very loosely, I presume, on historical events, this is set in the Phillipines in 1906, as U.S. Army troops, left in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, are set to go home. A handful of men are being left behind to make sure that the native troops can handle the Moro terrorists living in the jungles just outside the village. The head of the Moros, Alipang, is an almost legendary figure who strikes fear in the hearts of the natives; his men are fanatic suicidal assassins who wield their machetes with the promise of heaven waiting (shades of present day terrorists). Getting the troops to get beyond their fear and to realize that Alipang and his men are only human and can be fought like any other enemy is the main chore of our ragtag band of heroes: soldiers David Niven and Broderick Crawford, who train the troops under the supervision of Reginald Owen, and doctor Gary Cooper. As in all these "boy's adventure" movies, there is a half-hearted romance (involving Andrea Leeds, Owen's headstrong daughter) and a non-military crisis (a cholera epidemic) that allows people to show their mettle. Alipang (Tetsu Komai) keeps trying to get the troops to come to him in the jungle where he has the advantage, and tension grows between Owen, slowly going blind, who wants to wait out the Moros, and Cooper, who is instrumental in inspiring the troops and is certain that they are ready to fight. Eventually, the Moros dam up a river crucial to the village and the ailing Owen has no choice but to essentially let Cooper take over on his terms. The final battle is a doozy, with machetes swinging, guns firing, and Moros catapulting themselves over the walls of the village. Supporting players include Henry Kolker as the general who is behind the initial troop withdrawal, Russell Hicks as a doomed captain, Kay Johnson as Hicks' wife, and Vladimir Sokoloff as a "good" Moro who may not be so good after all. Overall, the movie is fine, though I wish that Niven had more to do; I don't think it's a spoiler to note that when we hear Niven pining away for an island of his own to retire on, it's a sure sign that he's a goner. The doldrums of the middle of the movie (as all such movies are prey to) are overcome by the action of the last twenty minutes. A must for Cooper fans, though he comes off better in the same year's BEAU GESTE. [TCM]

The first two MR. MOTO movies

It's probably not politically correct to say so, but I do enjoy the Asian detective movies that came out of Hollywood in the '30s and '40s (to wit, the Messrs. Chan, Moto, and Wong) even if the actors who played these main roles were not Asian. The Japanese Mr. Moto was originally featured in a series of novels by John P. Marquand, and was not exactly an unambiguous "good guy"; usually, he was a secondary character looking our for Japanese interests who wound up helping the American hero out of a tough spot. Though I have reviewed Moto movies before, most of them were very hard to find until Fox released a boxed set of four of the films last year (with the remaining four coming out this month). These first two of the series (both from 1937), like the rest, star Peter Lorre as Kentaro Moto, who is not a detective but a kind of independent adventurer who gets involved in cases of espionage and winds up working with police or government agents. He is much more down and dirty than the more cerebral Chan, quicker with his fists than with his quips. The poster art of Lorre on the cover of the first DVD verges on the offensive, with horribly exaggerated buck teeth, but his actual appearance in the films is not quite so stereotyped.

THINK FAST, MR. MOTO opens quickly but confusingly with Moto, in disguise in a San Francisco curio shop, getting into fisticuffs and witnessing a murder. He books passage to Singapore on an ocean liner owned by the Hitchings company, and becomes friendly with the son of the line's owner (Thomas Beck) who has been a wastrel but is being given another chance at the business by his dad; we soon learn that Moto is on the trail of diamond smugglers who have been using the Hitchings line for their dastardly doings. Virginia Field is Beck's love interest, who may actually be one of the bad guys. Reliable villain Sig Ruman is present, as are J. Carroll Naish and Philip Ahn. The plotline takes a while to develop, but the film is paced well and Lorre makes a solid hero figure, involved in a fair amount of physical action. One scene in which he almost casually tosses a man out of ship porthole to his death is quite startling. THANK YOU, MR. MOTO begins in the Gobi desert as a group of travelers set up camp during a sandstorm and a man is killed trying to steal a scroll painting. Then, as in THINK FAST, we see Lorre in disguise, being held for suspicion of art smuggling, but actually he is, once again, on the trail of people trying to get their hands on a set of scrolls which, when put together, shows the location of the tomb of Genghis Kahn (shades of Fu Manchu!). Ruman is again the chief baddie, Beck is again the handsome Anglo lead (who romances the forgettable Jayne Regan), and John Carradine is a lesser baddie. The most interesting characters here are Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) and his mother (Pauline Frederick) who hold most of the Kahn scrolls. There is much skullduggery over the scrolls, ending in tragedy for some. These are both quite fun, and though B-films, never look cheap. [I've previously reviewed MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING and a longer review of THINK FAST appears here. [DVD]

BY WHOSE HAND? (1932)

Briskly paced and very enjoyable murder-on-a-train thriller which was considered lost for many years. The opening sequence, startling for an early 30's movie, shows a killer's-eye view of a murder in a train's sleeping compartment, then we flashback to the beginning of the train's journey in Los Angeles (to San Francisco) as we get a glimpse of each of the passengers as they arrive at the station. Jeweler Kenneth Thompson (the man who is murdered) says goodbye to his wife as he flirts with sexy Ethel Kenyon, who is clearly out to pull some kind of con on him. Ben Lyon, a wisecracking crime reporter who has just written a story about the escape of wanted killer Nat Pendleton, shows up because of reports that the killer is near the station; when the cops can't find him, Lyon decides on impulse to ride the train so he can follow Barbara Weeks, a total stranger from whom he accidentally gets a kiss. Also on the train: a crotchety old man (William V. Mong), a blonde widow (Helene Millard) traveling with her dead husband's body, a honeymooning couple who just want to get to some canoodling, and a drunk (Tom Dugan) who latches onto Lyon (and even at one point calls him his boyfriend). Finally, there's Dwight Frye, a crook who turned state's evidence against Pendleton and is now traveling in handcuffs under federal protection. Not to give anything away, but suffice to say that, after Thompson is found dead that night, we discover that not everyone is who he or she seems. The cops get involved (as does Pendleton, who springs out of a most unexpected place--I should have seen it coming, but I didn't), but it's Lyon who is most instrumental in wrapping things up. For a pre-Code film, it's not terribly racy (except for smirking references to the honeymooners), though a marijuana cigarette plays a crucial role in the proceedings. There's one scene that implies that Dugan isn't as drunk as he appears, but nothing is done with that--it's as if the writers couldn't decide what do with that character; if it's a deliberate red herring, it should have been developed a bit more. Lyon and Weeks are fine as the romantic leads; Frye is surprisingly laid back, playing yet another slimy type, but at least not a neurotic mess like he usually got stuck with. This is one of those movies from the Columbia vaults that's been rescued by Sony and Turner Classic Movies; the print was in great shape, and I highly recommend it for mystery fans. [TCM]

THE LIFE OF THE PARTY (1930)

In the early days of sound, Winnie Lightner was a popular comic actress and singer, and this film is one of her few starring vehicles which is still in circulation--though DANCING LADY, in which she has a supporting role, is readily available. Here, she's brassy and sarcastic, and while I enjoyed her performance, I can see why she may have been more palatable as a second fiddle. The movie fits squarely in the comic "Gold Digger" genre of the era, with Lightner and Irene Delroy playing two working-class gals tired of their jobs singing for patrons in a sheet music store (and tired of their boss, whom Lightner calls a "pansy"). After a flirtatious playboy lays slapstick waste to the store, the boss blames the girls and fires them. They get jobs at M. LeMaire's dress shop but then take their clothes allowance and run off to do some man hunting in Havana, sending LeMaire (Charles Judels) a farewell telegram signed, "The Gold Dust Twins." The two stay at a resort hotel and Delroy sets her sights on a Mr. Smith (Jack Whiting), an overnight millionaire success due to his invention of a popular soft drink (called Rush!). However, she accidentally winds up involved with a different Mr. Smith (John Davidson), an oily lothario pretending to be rich but actually looking for his own meal ticket. Delroy and Whiting meet accidentally and hit it off, but Lightner pushes her to keep persuing Davidson. Meanwhile, addled but wealthy Southern horseman Charles Butterworth chases after Lightner. In the midst of all this, Judels comes down to Havana in hot pursuit of his dresses. Things get set right for our heroines after the comic climax in which Judels completely trashes a hotel room. Much of the humor, both physical and verbal, still holds up. I very much enjoyed Butterworth's nervous deadpan shtick, fluttering around on his own little cloud, exclaiming things like, "My, I'm all atwitter" and "Oh, the pity of it!"--it's a variation on what Edward Everett Horton did in the later Astaire/Rogers movies. Each scene of slapstick destruction is very amusing. Whiting is boyish but bland; Davidson is more interesting but not as handsome. Lightner left movies just a few years later, and based on the evidence of this film, I'm sorry she did. She could have carved out a fine comic career along the lines of a Joan Blondell or a Zasu Pitts. Whom or what the title refers to, I'm not sure, as I only remember one party in the movie, and none of the main characters is present for it. "Get Happy," later a big hit for Judy Garland, is used as background music early in the movie. [TCM]

BORN TO SING (1942)

This pleasant B-musical seems to have been an attempt by MGM to jump-start the careers of Virginia Weidler and Ray McDonald as juvenile stars to replace the "aging" Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Neither one went on to bigger and better things in the movies (Weidler's peak was actually a couple of years earlier playing Katharine Hepburn's kid sister in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY), but both actors are fine and the movie is more fun than its critical rep as a one-star bomb would suggest. Weidler's father, Henry O'Neill, is a composer (and ex-con sent up for vehicular manslaughter) who has had an entire score stolen by an unscrupulous Broadway producer. O'Neill tries to kill himself and is saved by a band of boys (including McDonald and Leo Gorcey) who strike up a friendship with Weidler. When they find out that O'Neill's stolen score is set to open on Broadway, the kids decide, in tried and true MGM fashion, to put on their own show with his songs by using neighborhood talent and corralling the opening night Broadway audience in to see it instead of the rip-off version. A janitor (Ben Carter) lets the kids become squatters in an abandoned cafe which had served as a Nazi Bund meeting place, and they later get some help from soft-hearted gangster Sheldon Leonard who uses his fleet of taxis to "steal" the Broadway audience. The last half-hour consists of some decent musical numbers staged by Sammy Lee, including "I Hate the Conga," which really feels like a Garland/Rooney number, but the climax, a sprawling social-consciousness number called "Ballad for Americans" staged by Busby Berekely, falls flat. Other cast members include Richard Hall and Beverly Hudson (who either sounded a lot like Garland or was dubbed by someone who did) as a particularly cute brother and sister act, Darla Hood from "Our Gang," and Margaret Dumont. I've liked Ray McDonald in other MGM films of the time (including DOWN IN SAN DIEGO and PRESENTING LILY MARS); he had a kind of boyish Ray Bolger/Donald O'Connor appeal and I'm sorry his career in films didn't last longer. Weidler is OK, but she just didn't seem to have the charisma needed to break out of the supporting juvenile mold. [TCM]

RAW DEAL (1948)

Another excellent low-budget film noir from Anthony Mann. Dennis O'Keefe is stewing away in a San Francisco prison, sent there for his part in a robbery which was masterminded by Raymond Burr, who kept all the money and set O'Keefe up to take the fall. Burr sends O'Keefe's moll, Claire Trevor, to break O'Keefe out of jail; Burr assumes that they won't actually get past the guards or the cops, but they do, which makes Burr nervous enough to send thug John Ireland out after them. Meanwhile, O'Keefe has stopped by the home of his social worker, Marsha Hunt, with whom he's gotten friendly, to get some help so he can face off with Burr, claim the money owed to him, and escape to Panama. Hunt tries to turn him in but he ends up taking her with them, setting up an occasionally tense on-the-road triangle. There's an incident at a mountain cabin involving a wife killer that has little to do with the plot except to add tension and show us that, for a crook, O'Keefe is basically an OK guy. Ireland catches up to them one night at a beachfront fishing supply store (a nicely atmospheric building) and after O'Keefe is double crossed by the store owner, fierce fisticuffs and gunplay ensue and Hunt saves O'Keefe's life. He sends her away so she won't get in any more trouble, but Burr's men snag her and get the message to Trevor that they'll torture her if he doesn't come in from the cold, so to speak, on Burr's terms. Trevor is torn: she wants O'Keefe for herself, but also realizes that Hunt is in a jam not of her own making. The well played finale, on fog-shrouded Corkscrew Alley, has violent fighting, a dangerous fire and excellent cinematography. This movie is a keeper all around, from the solid acting, especially from O'Keefe, Trevor, and Burr, to its shadowy look (thanks largely to cinematographer John Alton), to the tense tone which is kept up throughout. The film includes a famous shot of Burr throwing a flaming dessert dish in the face of a young woman who accidentally splashed a drink on him. Well worth seeing, and a must for noir fans. [TCM]

T-MEN (1947)

So many of the best film noirs [yeah, it should be films noir, but to me, the phrase "film noir" is a singular noun] were B-films, and there must be a reason for that; maybe the fact that noirs, in both looks and tone, were pretty much the exact opposite of the kinds of movies mainstream Hollywood was producing, and that shadows and darkness could cover up cheap sets. At any rate, this movie from the Poverty Row unit Eagle-Lion is definitely among the top rank of noirs, though it's been largely unsung until its recent release on DVD. Directed by Anthony Mann just after RAILROADED, this documentary-style film (complete with voice-over narration) follows two Treasury agents (Dennis O'Keefe and Alfred Ryder) on assignment to crack a major West Coast counterfeiting ring. The two create personas as the last free members of a jailed Detroit gang and they spend some time setting up their backstories by getting in good with a slimy thug named Vantucci (Anton Kosta, doing a great job creating a memorable character in just a few scenes) before heading out to Los Angeles. Armed with almost perfect plates (the work of an arrested crook), they're looking to infiltrate the gang that is using almost perfect paper for their counterfeit cash. Their first contact is a mostly washed-up guy known as the Schemer (Wallace Ford, also giving an excellent, fleshed-out performance) who leads them to a bunch of middlemen (including one woman). The agents make some progress to a point, until their covers almost get blown and they must race against time when they realize that the gang's chief engraver can identify their plates. The acting here is quite good all around from leads to bits, including June Lockhart in a brief scene as Ryder's wife who, realizing that Ryder is incognito, tries to perform damage control when a family friend blithely chats him up in front of the thugs. Mann does wonders with the shadowy noir look, aided by cinematographer John Alton, using contrasting darkness and light, odd angles, and deep focus; one standout scene has a character facing death in a steamroom. Overall, this may be the least B-looking B-movie I've ever seen. Highly recommended. Though Mann was best known for noirs and westerns, he did a wide assortment of films (THE GLENN MILLER STORY, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE) later for bigger studios. [DVD]

BREAKFAST IN HOLLYWOOD (1946)

This second feature is worth seeing for its novelty, based as it is on a popular radio talk show of the 40's of the same name, hosted by Tom Breneman. The show itself, which I've never heard, seems to have been a lot like Art Linkletter's House Party on TV in the 50's, with music, interviews, and audience chat. The movie uses the show as a focal point for four narrative threads. The main story concerns a budding post-war romance between Minnesota girl Bonita Granville and Minnesota soldier Edward Ryan. They meet cute at the radio broadcast, done during breakfast at Breneman's restaurant and night club; she's been waiting since the end of the war to hear from her fiance, but Ryan happens to know that the cad is now married to someone else. The finale is all about Breneman getting the cops involved in a scheme to get the two together. The other plotlines also concern audience members at the show. Zasu Pitts has worn a crazy hat, because a regular part of the show has Breneman picking the craziest hat in the room and donning it, but gossip columnist Hedda Hopper upstages her, so much so that Spike Jones and his band perform a song about her hats. Beulah Bondi is an old lady who wins the "oldest audience member" award, gets involved in a car accident outside the restaurant, and seems to be on death's door until Breneman enlists her in his plan to get the lovebirds together. In the oddest plotline, Billie Burke is a housewife who goes to the show while her husband (Raymond Walburn) sets up a rendezvous with a couple of sweet young things. A comedy of errors ensues (Walburn is the one who almost hits Bondi) but by the time Burke and Walburn wind up together again, I didn't care about them at all. The radio show segment is the best part of the film; the rest, despite being comedic, all feels a bit gloomy, and the low budget is obvious, though the actors are all fine, especially Bondi. Nat King Cole's trio gets a couple of low-key numbers. [DVD]

ADVENTURE IN MANHATTAN (1935)

A cute romantic comedy/mystery, not as gloriously screwball as the early Thin Man movies, but fun, with an effective star pairing in Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur. McCrea is a well-known crime reporter, hired by editor Thomas Mitchell, who wants him to find a big story to sell lots of papers ("If you can involve a woman and a haunted castle...," says Mitchell). McCrea, who is sure that a supposedly dead jewel thief named Barlea is behind a recent rash of jewel thefts, sees himself as a dispassionate observer who never lets emotion get the better of him. One evening, Arthur, a down-on-her-luck woman, robs him in a desperate attempt to get a makeover so she'll look good when she meets her young daughter, whom she hasn't seen in years. McCrea's defenses are weakened and he not only helps her out, he accompanies her to the reunion. I won't say exactly what happens then, but most astute viewers will have guessed that things are not what they seem, and in fact Arthur is an actress who is helping a gang of reporters pull a prank on McCrea to burst his heartless rep. He's a good sport, however, and he hits it off with Arthur, and with the producer (Reginald Owen) of a play she's in, not realizing that Owen is actually Barlea and is using the production of the play (a WWI drama with lots of battlefield noise) as a cover to have his men tunnel into the bank next door to get away with a priceless diamond. McCrea makes a very precise and public prediction about when the bank will be robbed, and he's right, but Owen cancels the plan, leaving McCrea disgraced and jobless. The theft does eventually get pulled, and as this is a comedy, McCrea also gets the upper hand, in a somewhat roundabout way. There are some plot holes here and there, but the movie works remarkably well, with its fun twists and turns, and solid acting by all. Not to diminish the leads, who have good chemistry, but Owen steals the show with his sly performance. An entertaining find from the unplumbed depths of the Columbia Pictures catalog which Turner Classic Movies seems to have licensed (thank goodness!) at least temporarily. If they run it again, catch it! [TCM]

WHISPERING SMITH (1948)

An above-average western with a detective movie slant, given A-film treatment (including lovely Technicolor) by Paramount. Alan Ladd is the title character, a railroad cop who is back in his old frontier home town on the trail of the notorious Barton brothers. In a big shoot-'em-up, Ladd guns one down, but is seriously wounded by the surviving brother (Murvyn Vye), who escapes but remains in hiding nearby. Ladd is taken care of by his old friend, railroad worker Robert Preston, and his wife, Brenda Marshall, who was an old flame of Ladd's. On the surface, Ladd's homecoming is just peachy for all, but Marshall lets Ladd know that Preston has changed since he's been friendly with shady rancher Donald Crisp. Ladd wonders how Preston can afford the recent expansion of his ranch on a railroad worker's pay, and soon we find out that Preston and Crisp are in cahoots with Vye in carrying out train lootings. When Preston is caught by the railroad boss carting away too much undamaged booty from an accident scene, he's fired; he gets his revenge (with some help from Crisp's men) by embarking on a series of nighttime derailments and thefts. Ladd lets Preston know that he knows what's going on and gives him a chance to disentangle himself from Crisp's influence, but Preston doesn't take it, sealing his fate in a final showdown. The actors are all good here; Ladd makes for a particularly laconic gunslinger, reminding me a bit of Jack Beutel in THE OUTLAW (except Ladd has more talent and personality); Preston has energy to spare as a nice guy gone bad, who seems to still have a genuine affection for his old buddy; Marshall, in one of her last starring roles before retiring at the age of 35, is good if a bit underused. A strong supporting cast includes William Demerest and Fay Holden (Andy Hardy's mom) as wise old friends of Ladd's, Will Wright as an ineffective sheriff, John Eldredge as the unlikable railroad boss, and Frank Faylen, completely unrecognizable under a grotesque blond wig as Crisp's chief (and very creepy) gunman. [TCM]

SUMMER STOCK (1950)

Despite starring two of MGM's greatest musical stars, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, this is a generally underrated musical, perhaps because Garland was not at her energetic peak (this was her last film for the studio), perhaps because the "Hey, let's put on a show in the barn" storyline was pretty worn by 1950, perhaps because there are no really memorable melodies here (except, of course, for the tacked-on finale, "Get Happy," which is a prime Garland career highlight). Still, this movie is great fun, and as far as I'm concerned, it shows Gene Kelly at his sexiest. The movie begins with Garland looking frumpy as the keeper of a family farm which is falling on hard times; she hasn't been able to pay her workers, so they have all deserted her except longtime cook Marjorie Main. Garland has been promised in marriage to allergy-ridden doofus Eddie Bracken, son of the general store manager (Ray Collins), though clearly she does not love him. One of the reasons Garland stayed with the farm was to raise money to put her sister (Gloria DeHaven) through art school, but when Sis shows up, it turns out she's flunked out and joined up with a troupe of actors, led by Gene Kelly, who have shown up out of the blue to take over the farm for the summer as a rehearsal space for a prospective Broadway show. Garland is unhappy about hosting the large group of young people, but finally agrees as long as they all put in their share of work around the farm each day. Things start out well, and there's a lot of funny business involving the kids learning how to do things like milk the cows and collect the eggs, but soon Phil Silvers messes up by wrecking the brand new tractor that Garland had finagled out of Bracken's father. Garland is heartbroken and ready to kick everyone out, but Kelly sells his own station wagon to buy her a new tractor, and she lets them all stay. Slowly, Garland finds herself charmed by Kelly, and vice versa, and when DeHaven decides she's too good for the troupe and leaves for a better prospect, Kelly talks Garland into taking over her role. There are more complications, involving Bracken's jealousy and DeHaven's sudden return, but it all works out to our satisfaction, climaxing with Garland's great "Get Happy" number.

I'll get rid of the liabilities first, and there are really only two. The lesser one is that it is clear that Garland is not at the top of her game--she was going through a rough patch, physically and emotionally--but she still has plenty of charisma and voice, and is perfectly acceptable in the role of the pragmatic farmer who is converted to the more whimsical charms of the theatrical life. The real stinker here is Silvers, whose heavy-handed comic style sinks every scene he's in. Luckily, the film's strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The group dance numbers are well staged, and all of Kelly's dances are great fun, especially his athletic "Dig for Your Dinner" and the later dance he appears to improvise as inspired by a squeaky stage floorboard. Overall, Kelly was better in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, but here, he's as handsome and sexy as he gets; even in a song he does in a silly blond hillbilly wig and blacked-out teeth, he's hot. Garland's opening number, "Howdy Neighbor," sung as she's running errands on a tractor, is corny but has grown on me through repeated viewings. Bracken is fun, as always, and other support comes from Hans Conreid as the "name" star who has agreed to do the show and Carlton Carpenter as a gangly dancer. Lots of fun, though when they invent software that will allow us to replace performers in movies, I'll snuff out Silvers and replace him with, oh, Mickey Rooney or Donald O'Connor, or even Carlton Carpenter. [DVD]

RED HOT TIRES (1935)

Snappy little B-film from Warners, worth seeing for its interesting if not totally successful pairing of handsome tough guy Lyle Talbot, who pretty much remained a B-level star, and the somewhat classier Mary Astor who is more often associated with A-level work. The narrative breaks down into three acts. Talbot, a race car mechanic who aspires to be a champion driver, works for Henry Kolker and has the hots for his boss's daughter (Astor), a race car designer. Astor dates slimy driver Gavin Gordon, though she clearly has a hankering for Talbot, and after a confrontation in which Talbot is egged on to punch Gordon out, Kolker feels he has no choice but to fire him. In Act 2, Talbot, now a full-fledged driver, ends up in a race against Gordon, who along with his mechanic (Bradley Page), has rigged up a sharp spear-end bolt intended to slash the tires of any car that gets too close to him--thank you, Fisher L. Forrest on IMDb, for pointing out the "Ben-Hur" chariot race parallel! During the race, however, the use of the implement backfires and Gordon's car wipes out, resulting in his death. Page removes the incriminating evidence and Talbot, found guilty of setting out to kill Gordon, is sent to jail. Astor and some sidekicks find the missing evidence and get the governor to pardon Talbot, but the very moment that Astor delivers the pardon, Talbot breaks out of jail (with the help of his sidekick Roscoe Karns) and heads to Brazil to start a racing career under the name Bulldog Banks. In the bizarrely improbable Act 3, Astor recognizes his fake name (taken from a silly song he used to sing) and sends him a message asking him to come back to the States to drive her car in an important race. He does, flying a biplane right onto the racetrack grounds in order to drive Astor's car to victory. Of course, Page is arrested, Talbot is cleared, and Astor gets her guy, all in the last two minutes. There's not much chemistry between the leads, but since they don't have a lot of scenes together, that's OK; individually, they're fine. An odd running joke about Karns dating an imaginary woman named Maggie climaxes when he actually does meet cute with a lady named Maggie (Mary Treen). Juvenile star Frankie Darro had passed out of adolescence by this time and is starting to lose his spunky charm and youthful looks, but he does a nice job as a midget-car racer who idolizes Talbot and helps to clear his name. Black comic actor Clarence Muse has a very short bit as a sidekick to the sidekick (Karns), but the scene feels out of place, perhaps indicating that his role was shortened in editing (the same, perhaps, with Mary Treen). [TCM]

A CANTERBURY TALE (1944)

I admire the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, even though I haven't had the opportunity to write about many of their films on my blog (see I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING and THE 49TH PARALLEL). This film, inspired loosely by Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," was difficult to see until Criterion issued it on DVD this year. Like most of their films, it is hard to categorize, and it takes its own sweet time getting going, but it is well worth a little extra time and effort on the part of the viewer. The film opens with a little cinematic slight-of-hand: with a narrator talking about Chaucer's 14th century pilgrims, we see such a group on its merry way to the Canterbury Cathedral. Then, in a jump-cut which surely influenced Stanley Kubrick's similar shot in 2001, a soaring hawk, released by one of the pilgrims, becomes a bomber and suddenly we're in the present day, that is, the middle of WWII. The rest of the film covers a sort of pilgrimage taken by three people who are thrown together by circumstance in the small village of Chillingbourne, a few miles from Canterbury. One, an American sergeant (John Sweet) from a small town in Oregon, is heading to Canterbury at the end of his leave to meet up with a buddy and he mistakenly gets off the train one stop too early. A British sergeant (Dennis Price) is likewise on his way to Canterbury to be shipped out for a D-Day-like operation. A young woman from London (Sheila Sim) who has joined the Women's Land Army has been assigned to Chillingbourne to work for a local magistrate (Eric Portman). The three meet up late one night at the train station and as they head to Town Hall (to register and to find lodging) Sim is attacked in the dark by a figure who dumps glue in her hair. They discover that several women have been attacked by the Glue Man and when Sim suspects that the attacker may be her future employer, the two men agree to stay the weekend in the village and play detective with Sim.

The middle of the film, concerned with the "sleuthing," meanders quite a bit and is clearly more about development of characters and themes, primarily the ways in which the urban British woman and the hayseed American boy are like and unlike the villagers, but also about war and loss (Sim's soldier finace has been reported missing, and Sweet's girlfriend back home has quit sending him letters). Price's story is less melodramatic, but also tied up in loss: in his civilian life, he studied to be a church organist, but wound up playing organ in a movie theatre, and he expresses some frustration over that turn of events. Sim and Portman have a nice bonding moment in a field, and eventually, the three do put together enough evidence to confirm that Portman is indeed the Glue Man (his rationale is whimsical and a little sad). Finally, all four wind up on the train to Canterbury where all of them find redemption of sorts. It seems so little is at stake, but the finale is moving and effective. The film feels very modern with its rambling narrative, leisurely pace, and occasionally striking location phototography. And there is a startling line of dialogue late in the film in which Sweet and his buddy compare the British yen for tea to a habit for marijuana. Character actors Esmond Knight, Charles Hawtrey, and Freda Jackson have small roles. A delightful discovery, which TCM has scheduled this month. [DVD]

WAY DOWN SOUTH (1939)

This rare oddity was aired last year on Turner Classic as part of its "Race and Hollywood" series. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing about the movie is that it was written by famed poet Langston Hughes and politically active actor Clarence Muse, though as film critic Donald Bogle noted before TCM's showing, the script was most likely reworked by other hands before it was actually shot. The setting is a pre-Civil War plantation (owned by the kindly Ralph Morgan) where all the slaves are healthy and happy as they sing and dance their ways through their chores. Morgan's lawyer (Edwin Maxwell) tells him he's spending too much money on keeping the slave quarters comfortable, but Morgan ignores his advice. One day, while out with his young son (Bobby Breen) and house slave Uncle Caton (Muse) to watch the slaves dance and sing as they cut the last of the sugar cane, Morgan loses control of his horse and is killed. The wicked lawyer, as the executor of the estate, becomes a cruel master, whipping the slaves (as Morgan never did) and soon deciding to sell off most of them in order to finance his own travels. Breen talks Muse into running away with him to New Orleans in order to get Muse on a riverboat to escape being sold, and Breen has the bright idea of having Muse dress up as a deaf and dumb white woman (his face covered by a veil). The owner of a Cajun inn (Alan Mowbray) befriends Breen and winds up helping him expose Maxwell, and a judge (Robert Grieg) is called in to stop the slave auction in the nick of time. The movie, which was released by RKO, has the low budget look of a Poverty Row race movie, aimed at a black audience, but the black characters are slighted, and what little character development there is occurs only among the white characters. The selling point of the film was 12-year-old Breen, a moderately famous boy soprano, and he's not bad, though a scene in which he sings "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" at a slave meeting is awkward at best. Grieg makes the most of his few minutes as a gluttonous judge with gout. Not only do the sets look cheap, but despite the existence of at least two dance numbers, not much money could have been spent on choreography. Film buffs may recognize Lillian Yarbo, who played maids in some 40 movies during the 40's, and Charles Middleton, most famous as Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon movies. [TCM]

PANAMA FLO (1932)

A convoluted and generally unpleasant tropics melodrama. The story reminded me a bit of the 1931 film SAFE IN HELL, with its tarnished heroine having to undergo a lot of undeserved misery without much redemption, though this one has an absurdly sudden happy ending (albeit one that plays out off screen). Helen Twelvetrees is Flo, a chorus girl who has been working at a nightclub in Panama. Her boss (Maude Eburne, who is unfortunately made up to look a bit like a drag queen) needs to cut expenses and fires all the girls, most of whom are then stranded in Panama without the money to get back to New York. Twelvetrees hangs around the bar getting men to buy drinks, waiting for her boyfriend, aerial photographer Robert Armstrong, to come and take her away, but she gets caught trying to steal a big chunk of money from drunken rough and tumble engineer Charles Bickford. When her roomie runs off with the cash, Bickford demands that she accompany him back to his isolated home in the jungle where he's working on some new method for getting oil out of the jungle. He sets her up as his housekeeper to work off her debt, but one night, he drunkenly approaches her with rape in his eyes, and he's interrupted only by the arrival of Armstrong, who asks to spend the night so he can fix his disabled plane in the morning. It turns out that Armstrong has come searching for Twelvetrees and together they plot an escape, but not everything is as it seems: Armstrong has a hidden agenda and Bickford isn't quite as evil as we think he is. The happy ending is wildly unbelievable, and is hurt by the fact that none of the main characters is in the least likeable: Twelvetrees is a dispirited lump for the entire film, Bickford is a colorless thug (until the last five minutes), and Armstrong, who gives the best performance in the film, is a cipher. Eburne might have been fun, but she's not given much to do. There is some interesting cinematography now and then, but I can't really recommend this one. [TCM]

RAILROADED! (1947)

Solid film noir from Poverty Row studio PRC, directed by Anthony Mann early in his career. In the first few minutes, the sparseness of the sets betrays the ultra-low budget, but once the movie gets going, it winds up looking and feeling as good as any RKO or Warners B-film of the era. The set-up: bad girl Jane Randolph manages a beauty shop which has gambling going in the back room. One night, she surreptitiously lets in a couple of masked robbers (one of them being her boyfriend John Ireland) to pull off a heist, but another beautician (Peggy Converse) screams loud enough to attract a cop; the cop shoots the other robber (Keefe Brasselle), wounding him seriously, and Ireland kills the cop. Ireland gets Brasselle, with his dying breath, to implicate young Ed Kelly, whose laundry truck they stole for the heist, as the other gunman. Kelly's sister (Sheila Ryan) insists that her brother is innocent; at first, straight-arrow cop Hugh Beaumont doesn't believe her, but as he investigates, Ireland looks more and more suspicious, and soon Ryan is pulling off her own undercover investigation, cozying up to Ireland and his gang. Feeling the heat, Ireland starts bumping off those who he thinks might rat on him, and the fact that they're women doesn't bother him in the least. Naturally, Ryan winds up in hot water; will Beaumont be able to save her and clear the kid? Well, of course he will, but the predictability of the plotline isn't a liability here. Beaumont and Ryan make an OK couple, if a bit stiff, but the acting honors belong to the vicious Ireland and to Randolph, a B-movie actress best known as the mistress who's menaced by the unseen leopard in CAT PEOPLE. She's good in every scene, including a memorable, furniture-tumbling "catfight" with Ryan. The print which aired on Turner Classic is in remarkable shape considering it never belonged the library of a major studio; if only other PRC films (like DETOUR) would show up in such good shape. [TCM]

TURNABOUT (1940)

I was excited to finally see this rare comedy-fantasy, despite the fact that it has not been treated well by the few critics who bother to mention it--Leonard Maltin's guide gives it 2 stars but calls it an "incredibly bad comedy." I found it quite entertaining, despite its simplistic and retrograde view of gender politics, though I imagine in its day, it was considered rather risque. Based on a novel by Thorne Smith, who wrote some interesting contemporary fantasy in the 20's and 30's, including the novels that became the TOPPER movies, the high-concept plot is easy to summarize: a husband and wife switch bodies to learn the "grass is always greener" lesson. John Hubbard is an advertising executive who is also a physical fitness buff, making his staff engage in calisthenics with him every morning and getting tossed about in his office by a jujitsu instructor. Carole Landis is his wife who lives a seemingly pampered penthouse life filled with shopping and social engagements. The two bicker constantly, with the latest problem being Dopey, Hubbard's huge Doberman, which Landis wants out of the house. After an argument in which each expresses the wish to live the "easy" life of the other, a Hindu bust in their bedroom comes to life and grants them their wish. The next morning, Hubbard wakes up in his wife's body and Landis wakes up in his body--conveyed by having Hubbard's voice come out of Landis' body and vice versa. This means lots of cheap laughs watching Hubbard prance around, hand on hip, like the worst gay stereotype ever. Yes, it's potentially offensive, but I did find it funny for the most part, and at times, Hubbard generates a comic energy similar to that worked up by Steve Martin when he's channeling Lily Tomlin in ALL OF ME. Landis has a harder time acting butch, not having as many obvious mannerisms to work with. The plot turns into a "Bewitched" episode, with wife-as-husband messing up a major account and husband-as-wife making enemies out of the other executive's wives. When the characters learn that Landis is pregnant, all the mischief is explained away by that, and the executives and their wives learn lessons about their conduct of life just as Hubbard and Landis do. [SPOILER!!] The kicker in the end, when the bust switches them back to normal, is that Hubbard's body is apparently now carrying the baby.

Hubbard, a B-actor who looks a little like Ray Milland, is very good; Landis is less so, but she's still satisfactory. The real gem here is the strong supporting cast. The standouts are Adolphe Menjou and William Gargan as fellow ad execs. Menjou is confident and in control; Gargan, the silent partner, is a bit of a dolt (reminding me at times of Gene Wilder playing Will's boss on "Will & Grace"). Both display fine comic timing, especially in a downright surreal scene in which the two of them destroy a radio that won't stop broadcasting until the very last tube is smashed. Donald Meek is fun as the loyal butler who is left in a constant state of befuddlement by the switched pair; Marjorie Main is a maid, and Mary Astor and Joyce Compton are the executive wives. The scene that caused my jaw to drop the most was a Franklin Pangborn cameo in which he plays a client named Pingboom who comes to see Hubbard while his wife is inhabiting his body. When it seems like Hubbard is flirting with him, Pangborn doesn't seem startled and indeed welcomes it. The scene is fairly subtle but quite funny. Overall, a delightful movie which Turner Classic has rescued from obscurity. Now if only someone would give it a DVD release. [TCM]

MY YEAR IN CLASSIC MOVIES

I've gotten to the point, as I noted earlier this month, where I sometimes feel like I've seen everything worth seeing and there's nothing out there to surprise me in the realm of classic movies, but luckily I keep finding gems here and there, or I revisit a movie I've seen before and find new details or depths. I keep meaning to write up more of my "revisitings" here and with the increasing number of older films seeing the light of day on DVD (and the number of boxed sets I got for Christmas), that may be more likely to happen in '07. Below are my favorite discoveries of 2006:

BOSTON BLACKIE'S RENDEZVOUS (1945): One in a series of B-detective films featuring Chester Morris; this one has a fairly intense, modern feel to it, concerning a psycho serial killer, well played by Steve Cochran. I'm glad to see that TCM will be showing a few of these in January. (reviewed 6/06)

CHINA GIRL (1942): It sure ain't CASABLANCA but it is a lively B-variation on its plot, with a nice cast (George Montgomery, Gene Tierney, Lynn Bari). (8/06)

THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS (1976): great Kafkaesque fable about the military mindset and war (or the lack thereof); I'd never heard of the director, Valerio Zulini, but I will be searching out more films by him. (12/06)

FOUR SONS (1940): How the lives of a family in Czechoslovakia change when the Nazis take over. Formulaic and studio-bound, but compelling with an interesting cast of actors who, aside from Don Ameche, never made the big time. (3/06)

THE OUTLAW (1943): I can't believe I'm actually including this on my year-end list. No one can possibly think this campy western starring Jane Russell's breasts is a good movie, but damn, it's weird and fun, and Jack Buetel, the leading man whose career went nowhere, is mannered and strange and almost as sexy as Russell. (2/06)

SH! THE OCTOPUS (1937): This B-comedy/thriller gets no respect but I enjoyed it as much as any "old dark house" comedy I've ever seen. It's silly with an ending that's a letdown, but it has energy, some good spooky effects, and a particularly effective performance from Elspeth Dudgeon. (11/06)

A SUCCESSFUL CALAMITY (1932) & THE WORKING MAN (1933): Two delightful domestic comedies with George Arliss, not among his more important films, but fun, with solid supporting casts. (7/06)

SUNDAY PUNCH (1942): Unpretentious B-boxing movie with a charming cast (William Lundigan, Dan Dailey, Jean Rogers, and Sam Levene). (5/06)

WHITE CARGO (1942): One of the best examples of the tropical melodrama genre. The stiff Walter Pidgeon is a drag, but sweaty Richard Carlson and slinky Hedy Lamarr make this worth seeing, not to mention the humor, both intentional and not. (11/06)

THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929): A silent German film about people stuck on a mountain during a storm. Exciting and beautifully filmed, with an OK performance by infamous director Leni Riefenstahl. (4/06)

YOU'LL FIND OUT (1940): My favorite Kay Kyser movie, made even more fun by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre, and tons of spooky atmosphere. (10/06)

I also liked the desert noir INFERNO (5/06), the British war film WENT THE DAY WELL? (9/06), the colorful soap opera WRITTEN ON THE WIND (12/06), and THE FAN (7/06), a version of Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan." I enjoyed discovering that Tyrone Power could do romantic comedy (CAFE METROPOLE and DAY-TIME WIFE, both 4/06), I loved seeing more films with George Arliss (7/06), William Lundigan (5/06) and Kay Kyser (9/06), and I got guilty pleasure from Roger Corman's CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (10/06) and from finally seeing an uncut, non-MST3K version of THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (10/06). There were some great boxed sets at my birthday party and under my Christmas tree (Preston Sturges, Forbidden Hollywood, Boris Karloff, Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, Frank Capra, Astaire & Rogers). As far as my favorite TV network, Turner Classic Movies, I liked TCM Underground and the fact that they are showing more smaller gems from the Columbia library; I hope for even more in the new year (the presence of Boston Blackie films on the January schedule is a good sign).

Comments on THE BISHOP'S WIFE and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

One reason I avoid reviewing most of the more well-known classic films is because, if they are among my favorites, I have usually seen them over and over, and I find it difficult to judge them dispassionately. However, two recent articles, one about THE BISHOP'S WIFE (1947) on the New York Times Op/Ed page and one about THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) online in Slate, have nudged me into commenting on two of my favorite Christmas movies. My comments, however, have little to do with the holiday and more to do with a minor epiphany about why I like the movies I like: the supporting casts. So much depends on a strong bunch of interesting secondary characters and a strong cast of actors to play them, and both of these movies have such characters and actors. Of course, the stars and the stories of both films are quite wonderful. THE BISHOP'S WIFE concerns a bishop (David Niven) who, in using all his energy to raise money to build a multi-million dollar cathedral. has lost sight of several things that are more important in life, including his relationships with his wife (Loretta Young), child, and old friends, and his connection to the Biblical command of charity. When he prays for help to raise more funds, an angel named Dudley (Cary Grant) comes down at Christmas to guide him back toward the intangibles he has been neglecting (rather like John Payne and Edmund Gwenn do for Maureen O'Hara in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET). While the central trio of stars are excellent, especially Niven, it is the supporting cast that makes this film so special: Gladys Cooper as a rich old biddy who is withholding her crucial support until Niven agrees to build the church exactly as she wants it; James Gleason as a taxi driver who takes a shine to Grant and Young, whom he assumes are engaged to be married; and especially Monty Woolley as a retired history professor (forced out before his time, we are led to believe, because of his atheism). All three take relatively small roles and make them all feel central, at one time or another, to the narrative. Woolley's character is one of the few atheists I can remember in a major film, and though in the next to last scene, he finds that Grant's influence is pushing him into the church's doors on Christmas Eve, we're also left, largely due to Woolley's playing, unsure as to how deep his conversion will go. Elsa Lanchester, Sara Haden, and Regis Toomey are all fine in smaller roles. The film is sweet, yes, but also quirky enough that it doesn't become sappy. This is a Christmas movie I can watch all year around.

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER has James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as clerks in a leather goods store in Budapest who have been falling in love with each other via a pen-pal relationship, not realizing that they work together (and don't exactly get along). Of course, it's no surprise when things work out by the last scene, on Christmas Eve, and the two make a nice somewhat prickly pair of lovers, but the real surprise is a major subplot which involves the owner of the store (Frank Morgan) who suspects his wife of infidelity. When he finds out that his suspicions are correct, he attempts suicide (like the element of atheism in BISHOP'S WIFE, not a plot twist you find in the average romantic comedy). Morgan gives perhaps his greatest performance here, mostly free of his usual tics and mannerisms, and the rest of the shop's employees (primarily Felix Bressart, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, and William Tracy) are all fleshed out to one degree or another, especially the delightful Bressart. Like BISHOP'S WIFE, the potential for sappiness is held down by the subplots and the acting; Stewart and Sullavan are fine, but the rest of the cast all get chances to shine as well, and help make this another holiday film that shouldn't just be watched in December. In fact, I find myself far more moved by Morgan's touching last scene than by the wrap-up of the central romance. While I would never want to give up my "starwatching" (I can't imagine Hollywood movies without Grant and Stewart and Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart), I also like being reminded how much a subtle turn by a character actor (in a well-written role) can add to the magic of moviewatching, and these two films are top-notch examples of that magic.

THE LEMON DROP KID (1951)

Damon Runyon was a popular writer in the first half of the 20th century whose stories romanticized members of the New York City underclass: gangsters, bookies, gamblers, chorus girls, panhandlers, and assorted Broadway hangers-on. Even if you've never read him, you know his characters from movies like GUYS AND DOLLS and POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES. They're all scam artists but most of them are also at heart nice guys (and dolls), and they speak in a colorful style that uses slang, unusual phrasing, precise grammar, and long sentences, as in this line from GUYS AND DOLLS: "For two weeks I gambled in green pastures; the dice were my cousins and the dolls were agreeable with nice teeth and no last names." I find most of the Runyon movies a bit too precious, though they all have their moments of charm--I like POCKETFUL best, though most movie buffs prefer its original source, the 1933 LADY FOR A DAY. This one is better known as a Christmas movie as it takes place during the holidays and introduced the song, "Silver Bells," one of my very favorite modern carols, but overall it doesn't have a strong Christmas flavor. Bob Hope is the title character, an affable con man who we first see at a racetrack in Florida, running a touting scheme and scamming folks into thinking that he can talk to the horses. He cheats well-heeled mobster Fred Clark out of $10,000, and Clark gives him until Christmas to pay him back. Hope is sure he can raise the money back in New York (where Clark will be by the 25th , trying to sell an old casino of his) but his hoped-for backer, low-level racketeer and nightclub owner Lloyd Nolan, doesn't come through. Hope starts a charity scam, dressing as Santa Claus and raising money to use Clark's empty casino for a home for "Old Dolls" who are no longer able to make ends meet on the streets. He gets a bunch of street pals to dress as Santas and help collect funds, and he takes a group of old ladies in at the casino, but he plans to abscond with the money on Christmas Day to pay off Clark. Nolan gets wind of the plan and tires to muscle in, going so far as to kidnap the dolls. Naturally, this being Damon Runyon's world, Hope has a change of heart and manages to cross up both Clark and Nolan in the process. Marilyn Maxwell plays Hope's main squeeze, who (like Adelaide in GUYS AND DOLLS) has been trying to get her man to marry her for years. Jane Darwell is Nellie Thursday, the "old doll" who inspires Hope; Andrea King is Clark's gal; William Frawley, Jay C. Flippen, and Sid Melton are also in the cast. An early scene of Hope, dressed for Florida but arriving in New York during a snowstorm, is very funny, and when Hope and Maxwell sing "Silver Bells" while strolling along the city streets, it becomes a full-fledged production number, and one of the best Christmas moments in any Hollywood film. Hope doesn't try to build a character; he really only has a line or two of dialogue that sounds authentically Runyonesque, and it might have been better if he hadn't tired at all. Amusing, if not quite a timeless classic. [VHS]

A CHRISTMAS WEDDING (2006)

Each year at this time I watch at least one made-for-TV Christmas movie (usually on a cable channel like Lifetime or ABC Family) which stars a blandly handsome leading man (and they all do, which leaves me a big choice). This year's pickings, though plentiful, felt slim in terms of theme: they all were romances. I realize that holiday romance stories are nothing new, but most of the classic Christmas movies (WONDERFUL LIFE, CHRISTMAS CAROL, MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, THE BISHOP'S WIFE, etc.) put romance on a back burner or make the romance just one element of a larger, more general "miraculous" redemption. Until recently, even the TV movies were often versions of these stories, but now they all seem to be average love stories set almost at random during the Christmas holidays. This one in particular, despite the presence of a climactic snowstorm, really has almost nothing to do thematically with Christmas. Our couple consists of Eric Mabius, a mellow advertising guy who yearns to be a serious (as in magazine features) writer, and Sarah Paulson, a driven real estate agent. They meet cute while skating on Christmas Day; he proposes to her a year later and they set their wedding for next Christmas. At Thanksgiving, Paulson's boss (Dean Cain) calls her away on an extended trip to sell a major resort to some Japanese investors, but she's confident that all the wedding plans are in place and she'll be back in plenty of time. Of course, as soon as she leaves, things start falling apart (the organist cancels, the reception hall can't accommodate them), leaving a frazzled Mabius to pull things together. Cain talks Paulson into staying a few extra days by promising her a vice-presidency, and when she finally does get headed home, a couple of storms snarl her travel plans; as the hour of the wedding nears, she is stranded several miles from the church, so things look grim, but since this is a Lifetime movie, there's a happy if implausible ending (hint: pay close attention to the throwaway line early in the movie about a group of Vietnam vets that Mabius is writing about). I like Paulson on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," but she's nothing special here, and Mabius is on the low end of the "blandly handsome" continuum. Cain almost saves the show with his high-powered shtick. At first, I was glad that the writers resisted the urge to have Cain become a romantic rival, but later I was wishing they would have done anything to give him more screen time. No one in the supporting cast registers, due more to weak writing than to their performances. The plot is contrived and the weather disaster scenes (involving both rain and snow) are poorly done. I hope this is the only piece of coal I get for Christmas this year. [Lifetime]

LADY WITH A PAST (1932)

A fluffy pre-Code comedy about a wallflower who blossoms when men think that she has a "dangerous" past. Constance Bennett is a rich girl who is known as a drab bore. Indeed, though she is not unattractive, and upper-crust young men do occasionally approach her at parties, her posture is awkward and she gets nervous and starts talking about books, and the men wind up walking away while she begins mumbling to herself. One night at a party, Bennett is especially frustrated because the woman getting everyone's attention is a suspected murderess (Merna Kennedy). The hostess, Astrid Allwyn, asks her friend, David Manners, to spend some time with Bennett, but he remains more fascinated with Kennedy until Allwyn convinces him that Bennett has an equally mysterious past. At the end of the evening, drunk and rebuffed by Kennedy, Manners proposes to Bennett and asks her to sail with him to Europe. The next morning, however, he's patched things up with the murderess so Bennett sails alone. In Paris, she meets up with penniless charmer Ben Lyon and hires him as a "kind of gigolo" to take her around the town and show her how to become a fascinating woman. Naturally, in no time flat, Bennett is a hot commodity, sought after by many, including a count (Albert Conti) who commits suicide when she spurns him. She soon meets up with Manners who is quite taken with her new persona, but who can't get a moment alone with her. Though the plotline is predictable, I admit I wasn't sure whether she would wind up with Lyon or Manners, and I was a bit surprised at the outcome. There is a somewhat startling scene of physical danger that winds up being a dream--an early example perhaps of a comic dream sequence. A fairly enjoyable film with good performances by all. [TCM]

TANNED LEGS (1931)

An early sound musical with a romantic farce plot, but without the farcical timing. The whole thing takes place among the rich set who are vacationing at the Breakers Beach Club. Pretty, young June Clyde is being pursued by goofy, boyish Arthur Lake (later to play Dagwood in the 40's Blondie movie series), but she's more concerned with her family members' affairs: her mother, trying to live like a flapper, is flirting with a younger playboy; her father, yearning for his Romeo days, is flirting with a society woman (Dorothy Revier); her sister (Sally Blane) is ending an affair with the possibly sinister Edmund Burns and trying to retrieve some compromising love letters from him. It turns out that Burns and Revier are professional crooks in cahoots trying to fleece the family. There are indiscreet room entrances and exits, a fake hold-up, a real shootout, and a happy ending. There are also occasional musical numbers which occur during rehearsals for the annual Orphan's Benefit being held at the club. The songs, co-authored by Oscar Levant, have fairly catchy, Gershwin-lite melodies. I didn't recognize many of the actors except Lake, but it's all light fun fairly well played. I was charmed by the use of the slang phrase "cake eater" here, though Wikipedia classifies it as an "ethnic slur" against people of an "affluent background" (since when is wealth an ethnicity?) [TCM]

THE TARNISHED ANGELS (1958)

This film reunites director Douglas Sirk with three of the stars of his WRITTEN ON THE WIND though things are not nearly as much fun this time around. Based on an early novel by William Faulkner, this has something of the feel of one of those fast-paced films that Warner Brothers churned out in the 30's, with James Cagney and Joan Blondell. Like those, this one is in black and white (a strange choice for a director known for his stunning use of color); unlike those, it has a slow pace and a downbeat ending. Set in the 30's, it features Robert Stack as a WWI fighter pilot who works in a traveling airplane show with his wife (Dorothy Malone) who also does parachute stunts, and their young son Jack (Christopher Olsen, real-life brother to Susan Olsen, best known as Cindy on "The Brady Bunch"). Traveling with them is Stack's engineer Jack Carson, who has long harbored a crush on Malone and, according to rumor, may be the young boy's father. In New Orleans for a multi-day show, the group winds up taken under the wing of reporter Rock Hudson, who thinks he's onto a good human interest story and lets the four of them stay in his small apartment. However, the paper's editor doesn't agree and fires Hudson, who finds himself drawn into the melodramatic problems of the quartet (and, of course, finds himself falling for Malone). During a pylon race in which two pilots race in figure eights around two towers, Stack's plane crashes and a young hotshot pilot (Troy Donahue) is killed. Stack, not injured, wants to get his hands on Donahue's plane, which just needs some repairs, and he sends Malone to the plane's owner (Robert Middleton), pimping her to get what he wants. Hudson, sickened by Stack's attitude, talks Middleton into the deal without Malone having to hawk her favors, but the next day, another crash has a lasting effect on all the central characters. The pylon races and ensuing crashes are exciting and well-filmed, but the chemistry that worked well in WIND is missing here. Hudson's character is more an interested observer and therefore comes off as more passive than we're used to Hudson being. One of the most memorable scenes is heavy-handed but effective: when Hudson and Malone kiss, a Mardi Gras partygoer wearing a death mask bursts into the room. William Schallert plays a fellow reporter. [TCM]

WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956)

Great-looking Douglas Sirk melodrama, painted as usual in fall colors and highlighted with occasional over-the-top acting. I watched this on TCM with introductory commentary by Robert Osborne and Molly Haskell; Osborne was inclined to dismiss it as "kitsch," but Haskell treated it as high art. I'm somewhere in the middle: it is kitschy but involving, with good performances all around. The memorable opening, set on a blustery fall evening, has Robert Stack, drunk as a lord, peeling up in front of a mansion with a gun, ready to shoot someone. We then see, one by one, the house's occupants (Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Dorothy Malone) as they await Stack's arrival. A gun goes off but before we know the outcome, we flash back one year. Bacall is the new executive secretary at the Manhattan office of Hadley Oil. Hudson, a Hadley geologist and close friend of the founding family, finds her interesting but before he can sweep her off her feet, the headstrong, alcoholic Hadley heir (Stack) does it, and the two are married overnight. (I'm not the world's biggest Rock Hudson fan, but I must admit that the fact that she chooses the shambling weakling Stack over the solid, charming Hudson is, to me, one of the biggest unexplained mysteries of 50's cinema.) Meanwhile, the Hadley sister (Malone) has become a raging slut, hanging around dives, picking up working class men to help assuage the hurt she feels that Hudson, on whom she's had a lifelong crush, thinks of her like a kid sister. Stack and Hudson are used to being called out to the bars to break up her little affairs; at one point, we see them pay off horny pump jockey Grant Williams, whom Malone has tried to drag off to her bedroom.

A year later, Stack has become a good husband to Bacall, but when he finds out that he may be sterile, he sees himself as weak and starts falling off the wagon. Then the Hadley patriarch (Robert Keith), when confronted by evidence of Malone's promiscuity, goes upstairs to her room to confront her while she dances up a sexually frenzied storm, but has a fatal heart attack on the staircase. Then Bacall discovers she's pregnant, and Stack, egged on by Malone, decides that Hudson is the father (he isn't but the two are finding themselves attracted to each other), which leads to the confrontation we saw part of at the beginning of the film. Someone winds up dead, someone else winds up on trial for murder, and a courtroom confession provides the climax of the film. This, along with GIANT (also with Hudson) seems to have provided inspiration for the creators of those 80's TV soaps like Dynasty and Dallas. The lush, sexy, exaggerated hothouse atmosphere is fun, and Malone and Stack strike the right tone, going close to over the top with straight faces. Hudson is a strong anchor, and only Bacall seems a bit at sea, largely because her character is underwritten. The most famous scene, aside from the opening, is the death of Keith on the stairs, intercut with Malone's wild dance. Though she's unaware that he's on his way up (and out), the scene still feels a lot like the one in THE LITTLE FOXES in which Bette Davis lets her husband collapse on the stairs. The musical score is dramatic but absolutely fitting for the beautifully photographed action. Very enjoyable soapy drama. [TCM]

COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN (1943)

A story of the Norwegian resistance during WWII which is lacking in the excitement that its title and DVD cover seem to promise. Set in a seaside village, the story begins in 1939 during a wedding at which we meet the main characters: salt-of-the-earth widowed fisherman Paul Muni, visiting British admiral Cedric Hardwicke, and his son (Robert Coote) and daughter (Anna Lee). Muni and Lee are clearly sweet on each other, but the Brits head home and soon the Germans invade, despite Norway's official neutrality. Muni and his fellow villagers remain fairly passive in the face of the occupation, but after the Nazis burn books, confiscate radios, shoot people for curfew violations, and start teaching race hatred in the schools, Muni calls a meeting to form a resistance group, to change themselves, in his words, "from murdered Norwegians to murdering Norwegians." Muni discovers that the Gemans are building a secret air strip, most likely to widen their invasion plans, and he and a small group of men make a desperate attempt to escape across the sea to England to get help. Even though it turns out that one of the men on the boat has turned informer (and is dealt with harshly), they make it to England where Muni meets up with his old friends, and rekindles his would-be romance with Lee. In an unrealistic finale, Muni leads a group of British soldiers back to Norway to destroy the airstrip and, in a last-minute detour, return to the village to bring back his little daughter. Most of this is accomplished, but of course, someone will have to be sacrificed. The brief commando battle is fairly well staged, but only occupies a few minutes of screen time. Like a lot of other movies of the era, this feels more like a Hollywood screenwriter's idea of the war rather than what was actually happening. That's not always a bad thing (see the Errol Flynn/Ronald Reagan DESPERATE JOURNEY), but unfortunately this movie has to compete directly against the much more interesting and seemingly more realistic Norwegian underground film EDGE OF DARKNESS (also with Flynn). Muni's not bad, especially early in the film, but he doesn't make a particularly striking action hero. Strong support is offered by Alexander Knox as a Nazi, Louis Jean Heydt as the informer, Rosemary DeCamp as Heydt's wife who must decide whether or not to betray him, and Ray Collins as one of the town's first victims of Nazi torture. Silent film superstar Lillian Gish, in her first film in almost 10 years, is wasted in the small role of Collins' wife. The movie is worth seeing for fans of the genre, but missing it wouldn't be a crime. [DVD]

THE MAN WHO TALKED TOO MUCH (1940)

This entertaining legal melodrama is based on a play, "The Mouthpiece," which was made into a movie in the 30's, but even if you haven't seen that film (and I have not), the plot will still seem familiar--it has echoes of a 1933 William Powell film called LAWYER MAN. George Brent is a district attorney who has just won a case which sends a young man (David Bruce) to the electric chair. Bruce continues to proclaim his innocence, and, moments before his scheduled execution, another man, a star witness for the prosecution, confesses to the murder. Brent tries to get word to the prison but it arrives too late to save the boy. Devastated by the mistake, Brent resigns his post and becomes a defense lawyer. At first, apparently out of a need for redemption, he barely scrapes by taking on cases for indigent clients, but soon gets wrapped up in the affairs of a gangland tough (Richard Barthelmess) and winds up making good money working for racketeers. His loyal secretary (Virginia Bruce) goes along with him but is ambivalent about his new career direction, and things come to a head when Brent's kid brother (William Lundigan) arrives fresh out of law school to intern with Brent. When Lundigan finds out that Brent is helping Barthelmess out of tax evasion charges, he steals some incriminating papers and gives them to the feds. The thugs, of course, don't take kindly to this and they kill one of their own (Marc Lawrence) in order to frame Lundigan for murder. Brent defends his brother in court, but he's found guilty and put on death row and Brent has to race against time to get the evidence that will clear Lundigan. This is a better than average second feature; it's paced well and has a cast stuffed with some of the great Warners B-movie regulars: Lundigan, Lawrence, Virginia Bruce, Brenda Marshall (as a secretary who falls for Lundigan, though that promising plotline leads nowhere), Alan Baxter (as a particularly slimy thug), John Litel, George Tobias, Louis Jean Heydt, John Ridgely, and William Hopper. Brent has a couple of nice trick scenes, one in which he drinks from a vial of poison to prove that his client couldn't be guilty of murder, and another in which he uses a planted newspaper story to get a confession out of someone. Lots of fun. [TCM]

THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS (1976)

Sometimes I feel like a fairly jaded movie buff, in the sense that I know all the big names and all the big movies and there's nothing out there in left field to surprise me anymore. So when I do get surprised, I'm all the more ecstatic, but then I fear I'll risk making too much out of my discovery. I read about this film in the New York Times earlier this year on the occasion of its release on DVD. I'd never heard of the film or the director (Valerio Zurlini) but the review piqued my interest and I rented the disc from Netflix. It's turned out to be my favorite film of the year so far. Based on a well-known Italian novel, it's an almost Kafkaesque story about war and the military mindset which I would think still has relevance today. Jacques Perrin, newly graduated from military school, is gung ho about his appointment to the exotic outpost of Bastiano, but when he gets there, he finds an odd group of enervated officers and stoic soldiers who have nothing to do but watch the wasteland around them, in case of an invasion from the North Kingdom. The large, ruined battlements, as big as a small city, and the bleak, chilly surroundings (a windswept desert with snowy mountains in the distance) are lovely in an almost surreal way, but one can see how such isolation and inactivity would have a negative effect on the men. Everyone goes through the motions of military drills and secret passwords and ritualized dinners and some almost thrive in the atmosphere, but most of the men wind up slowly dispirited. Perrin is told by officer Max von Sydow that years ago, he had an almost mystical sighting of a Tartar rider on a white horse; it turned out to be a false alarm, but we spend the rest of the film waiting to see a white horse, and we're not disappointed. Perrin's enthusiasm wears out and the post doctor (Jean-Louis Trintignant) offers to get him a medical transfer, but Perrin decides not to use it--later, this becomes the basis for a Catch-22 plot twist when Perrin actually does become sick, and even though the troop force is being reduced, he can't get the transfer because he didn't use his previous one (and this is, of course, not the only darkly ironic twist the film takes). Some viewers might complain that this is one of those long foreign-language films in which nothing happens, but it's an episodic film in which lots of things happen, just not the kinds of things we expect in a war movie. The narrative covers many years, ending with Perrin as a sick old man, old before his time, perhaps, since we get no objective sense of how many years have passed. The ending is a bit predictable but still quite effective. Members of the fine cast include Helmut Griem (the decadent Baron from CABARET), Vittorio Gassman, Francisco Rabal, and Fernando Rey. The film was shot in a deserted town in Iran; I never figured out if the film's locale was supposed to be real or not, but given the almost allegorical tone, it doesn't matter. At the risk of sounding overly enthusiastic, I strongly suggest this gem to anyone looking for something a little challenging. A memorable line: when Perrin says he's sure he's at Bastiano by mistake, he is told, "We're all somewhere by mistake." [DVD]

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966)

This is probably Robert Bresson's most well-known and accessible film, but I found it rather slow going, filled with characters I couldn't care about one way or another, and that's a problem in a movie that seems to be about empathy. The movie spans the lifetime of a donkey in and around a village in France. As a "child," the donkey is a favorite of three children on a farm who give it a baptism and name it Balthazar. Over time, the donkey is bought by or traded between various people, sometimes treated with care and sometimes abused, and as he is passed back and forth, we see episodes in the lives of the various townspeople. Primary to the narrative is Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), who is present as a child at Balthazar's baptism. Years later, she falls in with a rough young lad named Gerard (Francois Lafarge) who uses the donkey to deliver bread; the boy mistreats both her and Balthazar. Worn down by years of work and abuse, the donkey lies down one day and seems ready to give up the ghost, but the town bum takes the animal and gives him a new career in a circus, tapping out the answers to math problems with his hooves. He seems happy or at least content here (to Bresson's credit, there are very few "Disney moments" in the movie in which we are called upon to interpret the animal's feelings), but eventually he winds up with Gerard again, being used in a smuggling ring. In the midst of one such operation, the gang is shot at by customs officers and Balthazar is wounded. In the movie's most memorable scene, the donkey wanders into a large open field and settles down to die as a flock of sheep move in to surround him in his last moments. It's a touching scene, but it does not spill over into sentimentality and it serves as a lovely ending.

My problem with the film is that I didn't care about any of the human characters. Marie is a sulky creature; granted, her options are limited (her only other romantic suitor is a friendly but rather passive childhood friend whom she rejects), but I still found it difficult to whip up much empathy for her. Gerard is a jerk who might well pass for sleazily charming in a small French village, but he's not really evil, or even very interesting, just a jerk. It's even stretching things to say that I cared much about Balthazar, and I'm someone who's too often a sucker for animals in a movie--I avoided this film for a long time because I was afraid it would be too manipulative. There are some very nice moments here, especially one in the circus where Bresson shows the various caged animals, including a tiger and a monkey, staring at Balthazar. Despite the possibility for a prime Disney moment here, it's not played for easy emotional interpretation, i.e., "Oh, how sad for these animals all penned up," or, "Oh, how happy for Balthazar to be among other animals now." I realize as I write this that I'm being contradictory: I like the lack of an easy empathetic response in this scene, but I am bothered by the lack of an easy empathetic response to the human characters. I guess I'm reacting positively to the fact the Bresson resists sloppy anthropomorphizing. It's a movie worth watching (especially the lovely print on the Criterion DVD) but I can't rate it as highly as the other Bressons I've enjoyed. [DVD]

THIS IS THE ARMY (1943)

In the genre of wartime musical extravaganza, this film is both like and unlike its brethren. Like STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM and THOUSANDS CHEER, its main narrative thrust involves the putting together of an Army-related variety show. Unlike those films, it's not a star-driven spectacle; based on an actual Broadway revue with music by Irving Berlin, most of the performers in the variety show are real soldiers. There is a fictional framework, but most of the last third of the movie consists of songs and comedy bits featuring the GIs who appeared in the show on Broadway. The film begins during WWI, with dancer George Murphy (along with his buddies George Tobias and Charles Butterworth) putting on a soldier show, "Yip Yip Yaphank" (an actual Irving Berlin show from that era). The show's a hit, but the men are called overseas at the end of its first performance; Murphy and his friends survive the war, but Murphy gets a leg injury which leaves him with a permanent limp and ends his career as a dancer. Flash forward to the beginning of WWII and Murphy, now a theatrical producer, decides to put on another soldier show, with the assistance of Tobias, Butterworth, and his own son (Ronald Reagan) who's a lieutenant in the Army. What little dramatic tension there is comes from a subplot which has Reagan refusing to marry his girlfriend, Butterworth's daughter (Joan Leslie), until after the war; she decides this is weak reasoning and breaks off their engagement; will these cute kids get back together by the end of the film, when, almost certainly, Reagan will be sent overseas just like his father was? Otherwise, the rest of the movie consists of the plans to mount the show in New York, the successful premiere, and the national tour. The two most famous songs are "God Bless America" sung by Kate Smith herself, and "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" performed by Irving Berlin. Alan Hale is Murphy's commanding officer in WWI, who, despite his advanced age, is back in active duty for WWII and winds up in drag for "Ladies of the Chorus," Una Merkel is Butterworth's wife, and boxer (and Army volunteer) Joe Louis appears as himself. There are some fun numbers including "This is the Army, Mr. Jones" and "That's What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear." The comedy skits don't translate too well today, and part of the problem is that, although they are supposedly being performed in front of a live audience, there is no laughter or audience reaction of any kind, which throws off the performers' timing. One bit that was still funny to me involved GIs doing impressions of Lynn Fontanne, Charles Boyer, and other stars. There is a long, tedious section that amounts to a roll call of most of the soldiers who are called to New York to participate in the show, but otherwise, the movie moves along at a nice clip. The Warner Brothers film is apparently in the public domain and the disc I saw, from Delta, is in particularly bad shape, with faded colors and several splices. [DVD]

ON YOUR TOES (1939)

An amusing show-biz comedy based on a Rodgers & Hart musical; virtually all the songs were jettisoned for this film version, so it's not really a musical, but it does have two elaborate dance/ballet sequences, one of which, the famous "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," clearly seems to have been an inspiration for the "Broadway Rhythm" number in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN several years later. The film opens in the 1920's as we meet the Dancing Dolans, a family vaudeville act, consisting of Dad (James Gleason), Mom (Queenie Smith), and our hero Phil (played as a youngster by Donald O'Connor), who has a crush on Vera, a Russian child dancer. One night, Little Phil accidentally takes his curtain call with his pants down around his feet and the audience loves it so much, they keep it in the act. Vera goes on to bigger and better things and years later, the adult Phil (Eddie Albert), tired of still dropping his trousers onstage, leaves vaudeville for "serious" music. He winds up collaborating with a down-and-out Russian composer (Leonid Kinskey) working with a struggling ballet company (headed by Alan Hale) which happens to include the grown-up Vera (Vera Zorina). Hale takes an instant dislike to Albert, and when an under-rehearsed Albert subs for a dancer during a ballet number called "Princess Zenobia," he completely fouls up the dance. The audience, thinking it was an intended burlesque, loves it and the number is a hit. Against his will, Hale is forced by his chief backer (Gloria Dickson) to put on an original ballet of Albert's (the abovementioned "Slaughter"), but he engineers a "hit" on Albert to be carried out by two gangsters during the climactic moment of the dance at the same moment that Albert's character shoots himself. This being a comedy, the killing is thwarted, the show is a success, and Albert and Zorina wind up happy together. Even though fans of the original show have every right to be disgruntled about the disemboweling of the score, this is still a clever and witty comedy with several one-liners that made me laugh out loud, such as Kinskey, after dispensing several nonsensical proverbs from the Old Country, admitting to Albert, "Sometimes I don't understand Russian proverbs myself." Zorina is a fine dancer (choreographed here by the great George Balanchine) though a little light in the acting department, but the rest of the cast is delightful, especially the charming Albert and the blustery Hale. Kinskey does a nice job with a somewhat larger than usual role, and other standouts include Frank McHugh as a stage manager, Berton Churchill as the hotel manager who threatens the troupe with eviction, and the always funny Erik Rhodes as a tempermental dancer. The atmospheric "Slaughter" number is tarnished a bit by a slapsticky ending, but overall this movie is a winner. [TCM]