CHANGE OF HEART (1934)

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

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

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

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

INFERNO (1953)

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

SUNDAY PUNCH (1942)

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

GAMBLING ON THE HIGH SEAS (1940)

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

BACK PAY (1930)

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

THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO (1938)

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

MY REPUTATION (1946)

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

APARTMENT FOR PEGGY (1948)

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

SON OF INDIA (1931)

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

DAYBREAK (1931)

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

FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939)

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

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

QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933)

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

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

TEORAMA (1968)

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

HELEN OF TROY (1956)

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

WIVES UNDER SUSPICION (1938)

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

THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU (1929)

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

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

CAFE METROPOLE (1937)

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

DAY-TIME WIFE (1939)

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

REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? (1935)

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