OBJECTIVE, BURMA (1945)

I'd avoided watching this WWII combat film because of its nearly 2-1/2 hour length, and though it would be a stronger movie if it were about 30 minutes leaner, it's still a must-see for fans of war films. It opens with a crawl which quotes General Stillwell about the humiliation of getting run out of Burma, the "back door" to China, and vowing like MacArthur to return. While Stillwell (Erville Alderson) prepares for this time, Errol Flynn and his paratroopers are dropped into a Burmese jungle in order to destroy a Japanese radar station. It should be a quick in-and-out operation, with the men heading to an abandoned airstrip afterwards to be picked up by American planes, and indeed the sabotage goes as planned, but just as the planes are about to land, the men on the ground discover that the Japanese have followed them and are closing in, so they send the planes away, split up into two groups, and plan to meet at a new pickup point a couple days later. However, all does not go well: one of the groups, led by Flynn's second in command, William Prince, gets tortured and mostly slaughtered, and the pickup points wind up serving as supply drop points as the pilots give the men orders to march further into enemy territory rather than toward camp. Though the men question these orders, Flynn keeps their spirits up as best he can. The climax is played out on a hill where the men wind up digging holes for themselves to hide from the Japanese while they keep an eye to the sky for rescue.

I like Flynn in his jaunty adventure mode (ROBIN HOOD, THE SEA HAWK), but I'm wary of him in his later more serious roles. This was perhaps the first film in which Flynn started to look older than his years, and I wasn't sure I'd like him here, but he's great as an inspiring leader to his men, easygoing but with the necessary gravitas, an officer who comes off as a regular Joe while still commanding respect. The action scenes are top notch, a sequence set at night is uncommonly well done for the era, and newsreel and stock footage are well integrated, especially in the parachuting scenes. Aside from bogging down a bit in the last hour, the film's only real flaw is that most of the supporting characters aren't differentiated enough for the audience to care much about. In addition to Prince, there's George Tobias as a "dumb lug" wisecracker, Warner Anderson as a colonel, and Henry Hull as an older war correspondent who's tagging along--and who gives a vicious speech about wiping the Japanese off the face of the earth after he sees some of the American soldiers who've been tortured and mutilated (we hear one man who is still alive but who begs to be killed, though we don't see him--today, we would see him in lengthy close-up, undoubtedly). The rest of the men don't get enough screen time to stand out, though I did recognize an unbilled Hugh Beaumont as one of the colonel's assistants. A superior WWII film. [DVD]

DOUBLE HARNESS (1933)

Another one of the lost RKO films that Turner Classic has revived. I was quite disappointed in this one, though based on viewer comments at IMDb, I'm in the minority. The film pretends to be a comedy, and the plot falls squarely in the traditional screwball "comedy of reconciliation" genre, but it isn't really very funny. Ann Harding and Lucille Browne are the daughters of the rich Henry Stephenson; Harding's casual lover is William Powell, debauched heir to a shipping company who is in the midst of running the company into the ground due to his neglect. Browne has just gotten married, and Harding, who believes that marriage is the "business" of women, sets out to trap Powell, who is also carrying on with a married woman (Lillian Bond). She imagines she'll be a savior to Powell, whom she thinks can be goaded into becoming a great man (though he says he much prefers considering the lilies of the field). Harding sets herself and Powell up to be caught by her father in a compromising position, so Powell does indeed do "the right thing" and marries her, but on their honeymoon, he proposes divorce in six months. Powell is soon working hard at his business, but Bond comes back into his life, and when Browne lets slip in an angry moment that Harding set Powell up, Powell leaves her immediately. The finale takes place at a dinner party at which Powell, who is planning to travel abroad with Bond, is supposed to sign an important shipping contract with the Postmaster General. There is a slapstick fight in the kitchen between the butler (Reginald Owen) and the chef, but the party itself is just gloomy, and though Powell does come home at the end, his return strikes me as completely unmotivated, just to give the film a happy ending. The light tone of the first half is undone in the second half, when both Powell and Harding are constantly dispirited, and the otherwise fine actors can't make those much of those moods. There are some amusing lines now and then. When Harding gasps after seeing a picture of a tarted-up Bond in the newspaper, her sister asks what's wrong and Harding replies, "I was reading a new recipe for tomato surprise." I also enjoyed Powell's appraisal early on of Harding as "coolly virginal but exquisitely inviting." The whole thing should have had a faster pace, and the climactic party scene falls totally flat. One of the few times I've been disappointed in a William Powell performance. [TCM]

RAFTER ROMANCE (1933)

A cute romantic comedy which has become the focus of some pop culture press recently because it's one of a handful of films that had been missing from the RKO library for over 50 years until a hunt by Turner Classic Movies found them. It's pleasant but quite average for its era, and bound to be a disappointment to anyone expecting that all "rediscovered" lost movies are classic gems. In a Greenwich Village apartment house, struggling artist Norman Foster, who lives in the attic loft, is three months behind in rent to landlord George Sidney (doing some rather heavy-handed Jewish shtick). Young working girl Ginger Rogers is similarly in arrears, and although the two have never met, Sidney forces them into an arrangement whereby Rogers moves into Foster's attic room; the two will share it in 12-hour blocks. Since he works as a night watchman, he lives there from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and she occupies the space at night. They never meet but still manage to get on each other's nerves, mostly due to misunderstandings which escalate into a war of nasty pranks. In the meantime, of course, in the outside world, the two meet cute outside a deli without knowing each other's identity and begin a romance. Rogers works as a telemarketer (even back in 1933, such pains-in-the-ass existed; who knew?) for an ice box company and has to fight off the awkward attentions of boss Robert Benchley. Foster has his own battle against a constantly drunken rich patroness of the arts (Laura Hope Crews) who keeps hoping to seduce him by offering him lots of money for his paintings. Eventually, Foster accompanies Rogers on a company picnic, leading to the finale which sorts everything out into a happy ending for the couple (with Sidney claiming he meant such matchmaking all along). Rogers is a perfect fit for her role; Foster is a whiny, uncharismatic slouch but he's not bad enough to ruin the film. Benchley and Crews are both lots of fun, and Guinn Williams has a small role as a cab driver who begins feeling protective of Rogers. There's an odd little scene in which Sidney yells at his teenage son (Sidney Miller) for doodling swastikas on the wall. The boy responds that they are for good luck, but Sidney erases them anyway. By 1933, they would have been associated with the Nazis, though the Nazis would not yet be associated with mass murder; it's a strange moment that resonates weirdly for today's audience. Although this is a pre-Code film, there's not much explicitly racy behavior, but there are some suggestive shots of Rogers stripping and showering, and we see a very amusing sketch that Foster draws of Rogers' smiling face surrounded by a ring of thick sausages (reminding him of their first meeting at the deli). [TCM]

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH (1936)

This is a wildly luscious Technicolor treat for the eyes; whether it has much to engage the mind is debatable. Domini (Marlene Dietrich) has devoted her life to nursing her sick father and when he dies, she returns to the convent where she grew up; she is unhappy and restless, and seeks guidance from the Mother Superior (Lucile Watson), who suggests she take a pilgrimage of the soul through the Sahara desert. Meanwhile, in a Trappist monastery in Northern Africa, a visiting Legionnaire (Alan Marshal) compliments the famous liqueur that is made there, but that very evening, it's discovered that the monk who makes the drink (Charles Boyer) has fled, though no one knows why. In the Algerian town of Beni-Mora, local opportunist Batouch (Joseph Schildkraut) gloms onto Dietrich, showing her the sights and such, and while in a club they watch a sexy dancer baiting a nervous looking Boyer, who is clearly untutored in the ways of the flesh (or even the ways of nightclubbing). When a knife fight breaks out, Dietrich and Boyer escape the melee, begin hanging out together, and soon fall in love, though he keeps his monastery background a secret. A seer who reads fortunes in the sand (John Carradine) tells Dietrich that her trip into the desert will bring her great joy but also warns her against some dark fate. She and Boyer marry, use their desert journey as a honeymoon, and are sexily, ecstatically happy for a time. One night, Legionnaire Marshal, lost with his small patrol in the desert, finds their camp and recognizes Boyer, and everything unravels for the duo. Boyer confesses that he turned his back on both God and the monastery (since now the famous liqueur can no longer be produced as only Boyer knows the formula) and Dietrich, with the "Ave Maria" playing in the background, insists he do the right thing and go back, even though it means their separation; she tearfully assures him that they will eventually be together in "the other world--the real and lasting world."

While watching the movie, I had this dual-reality thing going on: the plot and dialogue are not especially strong (though the actors try hard), but because everything looked so damned ravishing, I kept imagining I was watching a different film; I was almost in a "waking dream" state watching a phantom movie that was better than the one that was really playing out. The narrative is a cross between a lusty romance and a spiritual quest, and the colorful and occasionally outlandish visuals do a nice job of catching that tension. All the locations, especially the convent and the church in which the marriage takes place, are gorgeous, as are all of Dietrich's costumes--the standout for me was her metallic silver gown (which might not be the best choice for the Sahara Desert). The beginning of the end of the couple's happiness, when Marshal, the bad news messenger, arrives, takes place during a gloriously artificial nighttime scene, played against a midnight blue sky filled with sparkling stars. Actually, the color scheme of the film is relatively subdued (reminding me a bit of how color was used in Michael Powell's BLACK NARCISSUS) with blues, beiges, and oranges standing out. Some of the exteriors were shot in a real desert in Arizona, and for the most part, the real desert and the studio desert meld together well.

The dialogue is all just too melodramatic and obvious, as when Dietrich keeps repeating like a mantra, "No one but God and I know what is in my heart." (She may only say this twice, but it seems like it's uttered every 15 minutes or so.) The actors do the best they can, though Boyer always looks a bit *too* stoic, like he might have started chuckling at the improbability of it all as soon as the director yelled, "Cut!" Dietrich, as always, is fabulous, with great coloring and lighting. Schildkraut plays Batouch as one of those not-quite-gay but not-quite-straight companions like Erik Rhodes in GAY DIVORCEE or Ramon Navarro in THE BARBARIAN (though that character does "come out" as a heterosexual). Henry Brandon (the title villain in DRUMS OF FU MANCHU) plays his brother; C. Aubrey Smith is a priest who watches over Dietrich (his bushy eyebrows are less dramatic in Technicolor); Basil Rathbone plays a dashing count (frequently seen on horseback)--it feels like the character was written to be a major supporting part, but Rathbone ends up with little to do. I like this movie despite myself, and will certainly watch it again for its visual splendors, and because it makes Dietrich, who always looks good on screen, look great. [TCM]

POT O' GOLD (1941)

Jimmy Stewart is the star of this cheap-looking, non-studio quasi-musical based on a radio show). Stewart plays a man who runs a failing music store, following in the footsteps of his late father, giving poor children music lessons in exchange for goods and letting teenagers listen to records. His rich uncle (Charles Winninger) wants him to quit and join the family health food business. As it happens, Winninger hates music and has a particular grudge against the boarding house building next to his office, which is populated almost entirely by struggling musicians (played by real bandleader Hoarce Heidt and his band, the Musical Knights), cared for by landlady Mary Gordon, whose daughter, Paulette Goddard, sings with the band. As Stewart goes wandering through the neighborhood one day, on his way to tell his uncle that he's giving up the store, he gets involved in an incident in which Winninger has called the cops on the musicians, meets cute with Goddard, and winds up throwing a tomato at his uncle. Goddard, Heidt, and the gang take Stewart (who can play a mean harmonica) in, not knowing who he is. He gets initiated into the group, via song of course, winds up in jail briefly (as does Winninger), and helps the gang get onto his uncle's national radio show. Goddard, in a fit of anger at Stewart, announces that they'll give away a thousand dollars to a random person. They manage to turn this into a popular gimmick, using a stack of phone books and a "wheel of fortune" to give the money away, bringing fame to the radio show and a happy ending to all.

This movie falls pretty solidly into the B-production category, and I'm not sure why Stewart, an established star by this time, and an Oscar winner for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, got roped into it; perhaps the producer, James Roosevelt, son of FDR, made him an offer he couldn't refuse. The film has a certain scruffy charm, but Stewart isn't right in his role; it might have worked better as a vehicle for Kay Kyser or a B-lead like William Gargan. Some elements of the story (the failing family business, the wacky bonded "family" of musicians, and a courtroom scene with Stewart being arraigned for attacking Winninger with the tomato) remind me of other Stewart vehicles like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, but this isn't crafted nearly as artfully as a Frank Capra film. Stewart seems uncomfortable throughout, and Goddard doesn't seem much happier. The neighborhood number is fun but too short; there are a lot of songs woven throughout the film, and Stewart actually does his own singing at least once--later, Stewart sings with a professional voice, and there's a cute reveal scene showing that he's lip-synching. Also with Dick Hogan as Goddard's cute little brother and Art Carney in a small role as a band member. I'm glad to have seen it once, but it's not a keeper. [TCM]

STAIRCASE (1969)

Eleven years after LOOK BACK IN ANGER, Richard Burton gave a very different kind of performance in this odd little look at an aging gay couple, produced during the early days of Hollywood's freedom from the repressive Production Code. Burton and Rex Harrison are two middle-aged men who have lived together as a couple and run a barber shop for almost thirty years. What we see is a few days in their lives; Burton, who has gone bald and keeps his head wrapped in bandages and such to hide it, frets about his bedridden and severely arthritic mother (Cathleen Nesbitt) who lives with them, and about Harrison's fidelity; for his part, Harrison, a former music hall entertainer who still fancies himself a looker in his tight clothes and moderately painted face, is worried about a summons to appear before a magistrate over a charge of cross dressing in public (he did a quick, off-the-cuff drag bit in a bar). The narrative is not packed with incident: they go on a day trip to a park, and one night Harrison brings home a trick (younger but very unattractive), but mostly we just watch the two bicker. There is no real resolution to the narrative, such as it is, except for the message that, like many long-married heterosexual couples, they'll go on as they always have, whether it's love or just being accustomed to their situation. The film feels like a cross between WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and BOYS IN THE BAND, though it is not as funny, clever, or insightful as those films. The characters are full of self-loathing, or at least self-pity, and their bitchy, snippy, hurtful behavior may make today's audiences cringe, but it's instructive to know that homosexual behavior was still illegal in the U.K. until just two years before this film was made. Harrison almost sleepwalks through the role, relying on campy mannerisms at half-energy. Burton is much better, actually trying to inhabit a character. There are some funny moments: Burton, upset that sex organs are all messy and "tucked away," thinks they should be like antennae sprouting out of our heads; Harrison harps away at Burton's recurring behaviors, calling them "weeping stints" or "sulking stints," and I'm worrying that I may pick up one of his repeated lines, "God save us all and Oscar Wilde." It's watchable, mostly because of Burton, but it's not a film I'd recommend to everyone. [TCM]

LOOK BACK IN ANGER (1958)

This early film in what I think of as the British "neorealist" movement of the 1950's, which examined the lives of young working-class people, is based on an influential play by John Osborne. Richard Burton is a college graduate, simmering with frustration over his circumstances: he lives in a cramped flat, spends his days selling candy from a moveable street stall, spends his nights blowing a hot trumpet at jazz clubs, and feels trapped by his working-class background. He takes a certain sadistic delight in bullying his young wife (Mary Ure); he has a much better relationship with his more even-tempered buddy (Gary Raymond) who co-manages the shop and lives with them. In quick succession, a number of things happen to rock the volatile Burton's world: an actress friend of Ure's (Claire Bloom) comes to stay with them for a couple of weeks, his mentor, an older woman he calls Ma (Edith Evans) has a stroke, and his wife discovers she's pregnant--a fact she hides from him for a time. In a relationship that starts out a little like that of Stanley and Blanche's in "A Streetcar Named Desire," Burton holds Bloom in total contempt and does nothing to hide his feelings, but when Ure leaves to stay with her parents, the two begin a passionate affair. Before the end, another subplot comes into play, involving Burton's resentment of "official" civil prejudice against an immigrant shopkeeper. Ultimately, Raymond heads off for greener pastures, Ure has a miscarriage and comes back to Burton, and Bloom bows out gracefully.

The first scene in this movie is of Burton playing with a jazz band (shades of the Sultans of Swing) and, though he is obviously dubbed by a professional trumpet player, his performance has such energy and passion (and the scene is shot so well) that the rest of the movie suffers a bit. Burton's character is a brutish lout who lashes out at everything and everyone (except his friend Raymond; in fact, his most sensitive scene is near the end when he says goodbye to Raymond), so the opening is the last time we really empathize with him, except perhaps when he visits the dying Edith Evans. The overall mood is one of overwhelming anger and frustration, though there is some humor from time to time; I chuckled at Burton's quip, "She was only a monkey's daughter, but my, how she handled her nuts!" Ure (married at the time to Osborne, and later to the actor Robert Shaw) is beautiful and handles herself well against the powerhouse that Burton was. Raymond, also quite good, was a darkly handsome young man who may be best known in the States for his role on the 60's war series, "The Rat Patrol." Bloom doesn’t come off quite as well, but I think that's because her character is woefully underdeveloped. A good film (though I can see that Burton's overpowering unpleasantness might turn some viewers off); compare with similar films of the British realist era such as SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING and ROOM AT THE TOP. [DVD]

36 HOURS TO KILL (1936)

A peppy little B-movie of the "crime, reporters, and romance" type, set on a train (and just a bit reminiscent of BY WHOSE HAND?) and filled with familiar character actors. Douglas Fowley is a bank robber, hiding out with his wife (Isabel Jewell) in a quiet suburb. Just as playing the friendly neighbor is getting to him, he discovers that he has a winning sweepstakes ticket and, incognito with his buddy Warren Hymer, hops a train to Kansas City to claim it. Also on the train: reporter Brian Donlevy, who is trying to get an interview with a scientist (who keeps insisting that he's not the person Donlevy thinks he is), and cute blonde Gloria Stuart, who hops on the train to avoid being served a subpoena. Naturally, Donlevy and Stuart hit it off, and just as naturally, neither one is quite whom they appear to be. When Jewell shows up at the Albuquerque stop, she thinks Fowley is sweet on Stuart and gets jealous. In Topeka, Fowley discovers that his compartment has been bugged by the law and he escapes, taking Stuart as a hostage and hiding out at a sanitarium run by a friend (Julius Tannen). Fowley has one last plan to claim the winning ticket, which climaxes in Donlevy’s return and some gunplay before a happy ending for Donlevy and Stuart. The film moves briskly and benefits from good performances, especially from Stuart and Fowley, and from some nice plot twists, a couple of which I didn't see coming. You'll recognize Charles Lane, Jonathan Hale, and Stepin Fetchit, who does his slacker/porter thing to a tee; it seems offensive at first, but here I could see the subversion that Fetchit's defenders have said is often a part of his performance. The film is based on a novel by W. R. Burnett, the author of Scarface and High Sierra, and it is occasionally referred to as 36 HOURS TO LIVE, though that title doesn’t seem as appropriate. This must have been out of circulation for a while, as it's difficult to find any critical comment on it, and the print that Fox Movie Channel aired is pristine. [FMC]

CAVALCADE (1933)
THIS HAPPY BREED (1944)

These two movies are both based on plays by Noel Coward, both celebrate the British and their way of life, and both are structured in a very theatrical fashion, each as a parade of episodes spanning a number of years in the life of a family. CAVALCADE won the Best Picture Oscar, but has largely been forgotten, even dismissed by some critics as the worst movie to win the top prize. It is hardly that--BROADWAY MELODY is much harder to sit through, and for my money there are several later films that are less entertaining, such as LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA and CHARIOTS OF FIRE. It is, though, very much a product of its time. A concise plot summary is provided by a title card at the beginning: "This is the story of a home and a family--history as seen through the eyes of a wife and mother." An upper-class wife and mother (Diana Wynward), as it turns out, whom we first see toasting in the new century on New Year's Eve, 1899. She is nervous about her husband (Clive Brook) heading off to fight in the Boer War. Downstairs, the maid (Una O'Connor) is also upset about her husband, the butler (Herbert Mundin) doing the same thing. This theme of war worries remains a primary narrative thread, not a consistent pro or con view, but more an acknowledgment that war is a scourge of civilization that will never go away. The rest of the film consists of a series of short scenes that follow the fortunes of Wynward's family (and, when they overlap, the fortunes of O'Connor's as well) over the next 30 years. Both men return from war; Brook is knighted and Mundin buys a pub, taking O'Connor with him. The two women stay in touch for a while, as do the kids of the two families. By 1908, Mundin has let his regular customers get away with not paying, and turns to drink himself, coming to a tragic end. In 1912, Wynward's oldest son (John Warburton) goes off on his honeymoon which we discover at the end of the scene is on the Titanic. In 1914, her other son (Frank Lawton) goes off to WWI, but not before he falls in love with chorus girl Ursula Jeans who is O'Connor’s daughter. And so on, until the last scene, with an aged Wynward and Brook toasting in the year 1933. The stagy dialogue scenes are OK, though to today's viewers, they seem the epitome of the brittle British stiff-upper-lip stage melodramatics that have been so often parodied over the years. These sequences are interrupted by some fairly exciting montages, some created by renowned production designer William Cameron Menzies, mostly of the war and the Lost Generation era afterward. Wynward is a British Norma Shearer, or at least a version of Shearer's respectable wife persona of 1939's THE WOMEN; she's good, but sometimes a bit over-the-top in her suffering. The cast includes Bonita Granville (later to play Nancy Drew) and Margaret Lindsay. Almost every sequence has a musical number of one sort or another in the foreground or background, with the highlight coming late in the film when Jeans sings "20th Century Blues." [VHS]

Eleven years later, in the middle of WWII, David Lean directed an adaptation of Coward's THIS HAPPY BREED, basically a between-the-wars CAVALCADE which follows a middle-class family from the time they move into a suburban house in 1919 until they move out in 1939. The same structure is used, with a focus on Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons (Celia Johnson and Robert Newton) and their family and friends. A Christmas scene in 1925 sets up the primary relationships which are then tracked in a series of episodes that barrel through the 20's and 30's: one daughter (Kay Walsh) is in love with a neighboring sailor (John Mills) but also vaguely unhappy with her stifling middle-class life, and she runs away from home and takes up with a married man; another daughter (Eileen Erskine) falls for a political radical (Guy Verney) who softens into complacency over the years; the son (John Blythe), who falls under the influence of Verney early on, becomes a labor agitator and is in constant strife with his father until he too embraces middle-class values and gets married. We also get to know Mills' father (Stanley Holloway) who is an old friend and drinking buddy of Newton's, and a cranky spinster aunt who is constantly clashing with Johnson's cranky mother until she gets a vague form of religion. Despite having been made in the thick of WWII, war is not a theme here, though the march of time is marked by references to historical events (the death of King George) and pop culture (the Charleston, the rise of the talkies), and it winds up being lighter in tone than CAVALCADE, though the families still have occasional domestic tragedies. It's in color, and the acting is much less stagy than in the earlier film, but I still think CAVALCADE is a more entertaining film. The later breed may have been a bit happier, but the earlier breed was apparently more interesting. [TCM]

UNDER EIGHTEEN (1931)

Despite the rather salacious title, this is an average pre-Code melodrama about the romantic problems of working class girls. The film opens with the wedding of Anita Page and Norman Foster; he plans to hit the big time through his pool playing skills, but he doesn't have much else going for him and, sure enough a year later, the couple and their new baby have to move in with Page's widowed mother (Emma Dunn) and teenage sister (Marian Marsh of the title reference, though she actually seems much closer to 21 than 18). Marsh works as a seamstress and has a steady boyfriend, nice guy milkman Regis Toomey, but she's frustrated with her economic status and his lack of ambition. At the dress shop, Marsh sees rich, well dressed women every day and assumes they're happy--this theme of money and/or happiness is evoked frequently throughout the movie. Eventually, Toomey proposes, but by that time Marsh has attracted the attention of rich playboy Warren William and she begins imagining a life of ease with someone like him. When her sister's marriage collapses, Marsh asks Toomey for $200 to pay for Page to get a divorce. He hesitates and she angrily calls off the engagement, telling Toomey, "Any time I hand myself to a man for life, it's cash on delivery." At a party at William's swanky penthouse pad, complete with drunken rich folks leaping fully clothed into a pool to dive for jewels, he suggests she "take off [her] clothes and stay a while" (though he's actually suggesting that she change into a bathing suit) and she asks him for the $200. Toomey, who in the meantime has had a change of heart, arrives at the penthouse and has a scuffle with William which leads to a near tragedy, then a comically implausible happy ending for all, even for the troubled Page and Foster. Marsh, best known as Trilby opposite John Barrymore in SVENGALI, is beautiful and handles the role well, though as I noted earlier, she never seems to be under eighteen, and her age is never an issue anyway. William, as usual, is fine, but Toomey and Foster are even better in their quieter ways, though Foster's character, a passive loser who gives his wife a black eye, is a problematic one for today's viewers. The "decadent" pool party scene is the only thing that makes this stand out from the many other cautionary tales of the era. [TCM]

THE GAZEBO (1959)

This was an early entry in the "black comedy" genre, and though it may have seemed daring in its day, it feels rather dated now. The film starts with a murder, which we find out is actually part of a live TV drama being directed by a frantic Glenn Ford. His doctor tells him that stress is making him sick, but the doc doesn't know the half of it: Ford's about to take on the assignment of writing a movie for Alfred Hitchcock, and he's trying to figure out how to deal with a blackmailer who wants lots of money to turn over some old nudie shots of his wife (Debbie Reynolds) who has just become the toast of Broadway in a new musical. Ford thinks he'll have to sell their new, spacious suburban house (to which they are having a backyard gazebo added) to raise the money, and to get Reynolds (who is in the dark about the blackmail) to go along with his plan, he has started booby-trapping the house, mostly its plumbing system, so nothing is working like it should. When Ford asks friend (and district attorney) Carl Reiner, in the guise of needing to know for a script, how to deal with a blackmailer, Reiner suggests murder, and Ford decides to plot the perfect crime. He sets everything up one night, and does manage to shoot and kill a figure in the dark, though (in a genuinely funny sequence which includes a phone call from Hitchcock) most everything else goes wrong. He buries the body in the gazebo's foundation, then discovers the next day that the blackmailer was killed in his own apartment by someone else. Naturally, Ford wonders who the hell is buried in the gazebo, and soon, heavy rains and an eager construction crew threaten to bring evidence of Ford's crime to the surface. It's a comedy, so through some torturous, last-minute plot developments, it turns out that Ford didn't actually kill anyone, though there is indeed a dead body under the gazebo. Ford is front and center for almost every scene in the movie and he is mostly up to the task, though the writing sometimes lets him down, and the frantic pace of the film is a bit too much--it feels like Ford is working too hard at being "on" all the time, rather like James Cagney in his equally frantic turn in ONE TWO THREE. John McGiver is a construction worker who pronounces the title edifice, "gaze-bow," Martin Landau has a small role as a thug, and most amusing is Doro Merande as a shrieking maid. [TCM]

CHEERS FOR MISS BISHOP (1941)

I have a shocking lapse in my film buff background: I have yet to see all of GOODBYE MR. CHIPS; I've seen bits and pieces, maybe even an entire 20 minutes, but it's one of those movies I know so much about, I feel like I've seen it several times already so I never plunk myself down to watch the whole thing. However, I have now spent time with what is undoubtedly the female version of Mr. Chips in Miss Bishop and I feel even less inclined to view the original. This film covers fifty years in the life of the college English teacher of the title (Martha Scott) starting in the 1880's with Scott as a freshman at a newly established school, Midwestern University. Fired up by a speech given by college president Edmund Gwenn, Scott decides to become a teacher. Delivery boy William Gargan is sweet on her, but she puts him off to devote all her energy to her studies and then, after graduation, to her career teaching at Midwestern U. Her students, of course, all love her right away. One evening, while putting candy out on the roof to cool, she gets locked out and has to depend on the kindness of a passing stranger (Donald Douglas) to get back in. He's a lawyer, new in town, considered "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," but Scott falls for him anyway (much to Gargan's hidden dismay). Unfortunately, just before their marriage, he confesses that he's fallen in love with Scott's cousin (Mary Anderson) and he marries her instead. The humiliated Scott decides to leave town to take a job as a librarian, but when a pregnant Anderson returns home after her husband leaves her, then dies in childbirth, Scott stays to raise the child.

The movie skips the next 18 years, during which time I guess nothing at all happens to Scott (except the child grows up to become Marsha Hunt), and then she falls in love again, this time with new teacher Sidney Blackmer, who is in the midst of a divorce. However, that romance falls though as well. More years pass, Gwenn retires, Hunt marries and has a daughter (who goes to Midwestern U), and we're brought up to the present day at a surprise retirement dinner for Scott. Gargan has remained loyal to her even though it never seems like he gets much out their relationship, and the film ends (as it began before entering flashback mode) with Gargan and Scott going over old days. Scott is fine in what is basically a colorless role, as is Gargan, who despite co-star billing has little to do. Sterling Holloway plays the college gardener who is involved in a tedious running gag about his flower beds which keep getting trampled. Also with Dorothy Peterson, John Archer (father of actress Anne Archer), and Rosemary DeCamp in her first movie role. There are two quotes I enjoyed. One, which is the point of the movie, comes from a poem that Blackmer reads to Scott: "The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story and writes another." The other comes from Scott when being ushered out to her surprise dinner and told she looks "snappy"; her curt reply: "I must above all things be 'snappy.'" A little more of that kind of bite would have made this movie more interesting. [TCM]

LADIES IN RETIREMENT (1941)

Because every plot summary I've read of this movie mentions two "nutty" or "batty" or "crazy" sisters, I had it in my head that this was a dark comedy on the order of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. It's dark, but it's not a comedy; it's more like the ARSENIC situation done in the style of a Gothic thriller like NIGHT MUST FALL. Ida Lupino is the housekeeper for a retired actress (Isobel Elsom) who lives in a quaint old cottage out on the moors. They have a good relationship, with Elsom saying she thinks of Lupino almost like a daughter, until Lupino gets word from London that her two nutty/batty/crazy sisters are about to get thrown out by their landlady. She brings them (Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett) to the cottage for what Elsom thinks is just a short visit which stretches into six unbearable weeks. The sisters aren't exactly dangerous, but they are definitely eccentric what with Lanchester constantly "cleaning" the moor, bringing twigs, dirt, and dead birds into the cottage and the more whimsical but still annoying Barrett fluttering about. The old lady issues an ultimatum and when Lupino balks, not wanting to dump her sisters in an institution, Elsom kicks them all out. Lupino, at the end of her rope, kills the old lady; she tells the sisters that she's bought the house from Elsom, and she tells the neighbors that Elsom's gone on an extended vacation. Enter Lupino's charming but ne'er-do-well nephew (Louis Hayward) who has embezzled money from a bank and needs a place to hide out. Lupino has no choice but to let him stay for a while, but when he begins putting two and two together and realizes that Elsom must be dead, a war of nerves ensues.

The film is rarely truly tense, but it is well paced and occasionally creepy, though a scene that involves the possible appearance of a ghost could have been handled better. Lupino is excellent from first to last, underplaying her part and making it all the more effective, and Lanchester matches her in a role quite different from any other I've seen her in. Evelyn Keyes does good work as Elsom's maid who gets drawn into a flirtatious relationship with Hayward, and Emma Dunn has a small role as a nun who pops in every so often as a plot device to announce one thing or another. The sets are very stagy but spectacularly atmospheric; the foggy moors look weird even in daylight, and the cottage seems cozy, lived in, quite inviting, and spooky all at once. The script is also stagy; like the film versions of NIGHT MUST FALL and the later WAIT UNTIL DARK, it's clear that this hews closely to the original play, but that's not a liability. There seems to be an interesting element about the relationship between Lupino and Hayward--a past flirtation or some such weirdness--that is only hinted at. The ending is, in my eyes, both too pat and a bit too ambiguous, possibly in order to satisfy the Production Code, but it doesn't ruin the film. This is another of those gems from the Columbia Pictures vault which has been out of circulation for a while, so if it crops up on TCM again, see it while you can. [TCM]

THE SOUND AND THE FURY (1959)

I found the Faulkner novel this movie is based on to be willfully difficult to little purpose, but some of the characters are memorable. The movie has little to do with the book's non-linear narrative, and does lots of messing around with the characters, but taken on its own, this is one of the better sweaty Southern family melodramas that seemed so popular in the late 50's. The opening is marred by some clunky narrated exposition introducing Quentin Compson, a wild child (apparently high school-age but as played by Joanne Woodward, looking at least as old as a college graduate) who has been raised by her uncle Jason (Yul Brynner), or more precisely her vaguely European step-uncle Jason, as no effort is made to hide Brynner's thick Russian accent. Living with them in a dilapidated mansion are Quentin's retarded brother Benjy (Jack Warden), her alcoholic Uncle Howard (John Beal), and their maid Dilsey (Ethel Waters) and her young grandson Luster (Stephen Perry) who is Benjy's unofficial caretaker. Quentin's mother Caddy (Margaret Leighton), who had Quentin out of wedlock, left her the day after she was born and periodically sends her money, most of which is "stolen" by Jason (though we learn later for a benevolent reason). The restless Quentin flirts with a hunky shirtless carnival worker (Stuart Whitman) and decides to go on the road with him until Jason scotches that plan by showing that Whitman is only in it for the money he thinks she's got. Caddy shows up out of the blue, looking for a place to stay and for a relationship with her daughter. Benjy, riled up inarticulately about Quentin's naughty ways, attacks her and gets sent to an asylum. Jason and Quentin seem to come to a respectful understanding at the end, though the incestuous vibe between them may lead a viewer to wonder.

Brynner, though on the surface no one's idea of a Southern patriarch, is really quite good; he seems awkward and unmoored at the start, but his performance gains strength along the way. He does a nice job of keeping us at an arm's length from the character; in the first half, when we're mostly seeing him through Quentin's eyes, he comes off as cruel and unfeeling, but as we slowly get more insight, he becomes more sympathetic. And he has hair, which helps to distance him from his earlier royal roles as the King of Siam and Rameses. In general, he comes off as a sort of dissolutely attractive and conflicted bully. He's probably not a Faulkner scholar's idea of Jason, but he does help make the movie interesting. Woodward, whom I usually love, isn't at her best here and I can't pinpoint why--maybe she's just overshadowed by others, particularly Leighton as her mother, who comes off a lot like Vivien Leigh playing Blanche DuBois, but with a little more backbone. Though the maid plays an important role in the book, Waters is reduced to just a few lines here and there. Several of the novel's famous setpieces (Dilsey going to church, Quentin climbing the tree) are only glancingly referred to here, almost as in-jokes for fans of the book. Whatever profundity people find in Faulkner won't be found here, but as a potboiler melodrama, this is entertaining enough, and a must for fans of Brynner. [FMC]

ALL MY SONS (1948)

I tend to like movies based closely on plays, even when they're a bit stagy, so I was predisposed to like this one, based on Arthur Miller's first hit play. It's a powerful family melodrama, though not as powerful as the play since, as Robert Osborne noted on TCM, Hollywood took out any references to the possibility that greed and corruption are inherent in the capitalist system, making it instead a story of one man's greed and corruption. When the film opens, WWII has been over for a while, though not so long that missing-in-action soldiers might not plausibly show up alive. Edward G. Robinson is a manufacturer, a self-made success, who made airplane parts during the war. His partner (Frank Conroy) was found guilty of knowingly shipping defective parts which resulted in the deaths of 21 American pilots and is still in jail; Robinson was exonerated. One of Robinson's sons (Burt Lancaster) is ready to take his spot in the family business; Larry, the other son, is officially MIA, but his mother (Mady Christians) is certain that he will show up one of these days, and everyone else tiptoes around the issue when in her earshot. Lancaster has fallen in love with Larry's fiancee (Louisa Horton), who is also the daughter of Robinson's disgraced partner, but Mom assumes that Horton will wait for Larry, and Robinson asks Lancaster to cool his jets for a while. Though Robinson is generally liked and respected in town, we see that some folks believe that he was just as guilty as Conroy, but that he was clever enough to stay out of jail. Not long after Lancaster awkwardly proposes to Horton, her brother (Howard Duff), a lawyer who has been digging into his father's case, shows up in town, sullen and distrustful of Robinson's family. The matronly Christians softens him up a bit, but Lancaster begins to doubt his own father's story (Robinson was supposedly sick and off work the day that the defective parts were shipped), so he goes to visit Conroy in prison where we get a flashback view of what really happened. It's no spoiler to note that Robinson indeed bears some responsibility for the shipment, but I won't give away the machinations that lead to the tragic climax, which is played out very powerfully by Robinson in perhaps the strongest acting of his career. Even though I figured out what was coming, Robinson moved me to tears. The character is a bit like a Scrooge figure who figures out his lesson ("Mankind should have been my business!") too late for redemption. I enjoyed one throwaway line from a secondary character: "Sleep's a wonderful thing--best thing about living." A few years ago I would have laughed at that, but now I can appreciate it. The cast also includes Arlene Francis (the stalwart "What's My Line" panelist) and Harry Morgan as chatty neighbors who are mostly present to provide exposition. Lancaster, Christians, and Duff are fine, Horton a little less so, but it's Robinson's game all the way and he's reason enough to seek this gem out, which Universal issued on VHS but not yet on DVD. Now if only Columbia would unearth the rarely-seen 1951 film adaptation of Miller's "Death of a Salesman." [TCM]

TORTILLA FLAT (1942)

This relatively plotless, light-hearted drama is based on what I understand is a relatively plotless, light-hearted book by John Steinbeck, a collection of vignettes about the folks who live in an impoverished neighborhood in Monterey, California. In the movie, most of the characters are poor Mexican-Americans, played almost entirely by Anglo actors. John Garfield is a roughneck youth, led astray by the older Spencer Tracy who, in the opening, helps get Garfield out of jail but proceeds to basically ruin the lad's life, financially and romantically. Garfield inherits two houses on Tortilla Flat from a dead grandfather and due to Tracy, both wind up burned to the ground, events which are taken rather lightly by Tracy and his gang of ne'er-do-wells. Both actors are fine, though I found Tracy's character totally unlikeable (and I'm pretty sure he's not supposed to be). Most everyone seems like they belong in a Damon Runyon story, and your tolerance for Runyonesque atmosphere may well determine how much you like this film. Hedy Lamarr does what she can with the underwritten role of a sexy but sweet homegirl. Frank Morgan is fun, hiding behind a thick, fake-looking beard as a dog-loving, St. Francis-worshipping eccentric who winds up, at least briefly, in Tracy's orbit. There is solid support from Sheldon Leonard, Akim Tamiroff, Allen Jenkins, and Connie Gilchrist. The whole thing suffers from being a bit too studio-bound; it might work better today as an small indie effort, and in fact this film's atmosphere feels a lot like that of the 80's film version of Steinbeck's CANNERY ROW which, while not an indie effort, could pass for one. [TCM]

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955)

An uncharacteristically light Ingmar Bergman film, pretty much the polar opposite of one of his more typical "heavier" films (like WINTER LIGHT). This was turned into a Stephen Sondheim musical (A Little Night Music) and it served as a direct model for Woody Allen's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY. It's a frisky romantic roundabout in which all the mismatched partners eventually find happiness. Fredrik (Gunnar Bjornstrand) takes his very young wife Anna (Ulla Jacobsson) to the theater to see famed actress Desiree (Eva Dahlbeck), who also happens to be Fredrik's former mistress (and whose name he blurted out earlier during an unsuccessful bout of lovemaking with Anna, who is still a virgin after 2 years of marriage). Henrik, Fredrik's mopey son from a previous marriage (Bjorn Bjelvenstam) who is half-heartedly studying for the clergy, clearly has a thing for Anna but isn't above a little dallying with the maid (Harriet Andersson). Fredrik visits Desiree after the show and as they reminisce and bicker about old days (Fredrik discovers that Desiree's young son may be his), her current lover, the martinet Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) arrives and threatens to instigate a duel, no matter that Malcolm is himself married. Desiree gets her mother to invite the whole bunch to a weekend house party at which they are all served wine supposedly spiked with "breast milk and stallion seed" which apparently serves as a kind of honesty/love potion. Through the night, the unsettled couples go through a series of incidents which has the effect of getting everyone settled again, albeit in different combinations than those in which they arrived. The film is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and indeed touches on serious adult relationship issues, but it is amusing and even whimsical. There are some notable one-liners, or as close as Bergman gets to giving us one-liners. When Desiree is catching up with Fredrik, she tells him, "I’ve been 29 for three years which is nothing for a woman of my age." Irritated with Fredrik's apparent placidity, she yells, "I wish just once you'd shatter to the core, so much so that not a fart was left." Later, the pompous Count Malcolm announces to Fredrik, "I can tolerate my wife's infidelity, but if anyone touches my mistress, I become a tiger." The black and white cinematography is lovely, especially in depicting the long bright summer Swedish night which serves as the backdrop for the last half of the film. [DVD]

THE SOUTHERNER (1945)

Before I saw this film on Turner Classic Movie's schedule, I had never heard of it, or at least it had never made a blip on my movie radar. From the title and the presence of actor Zachary Scott, best known as an effete cad in films like MILDRED PIERCE and FLAMINGO ROAD, I was expecting a Southern Gothic campfest, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead, it's a beautifully filmed, well-acted drama which focuses on a poor sharecropping family--it's a less self-consciously artsy GRAPES OF WRATH. Scott and Betty Field play a couple with two kids who are barely eking out a living as migrant cotton pickers. When his uncle collapses in the field, his dying words are, "Grow your own crops," so Scott arranges with his boss to rent a patch of idle land to farm, though first they have to put all their time, effort, and what little money they have into rebuilding the rickety house. The film consists of short episodes following the family through their first year, autumn through summer. Things start out tough and get tougher; in addition to the hard labor, chilly weather, and insufficient food, they also have to contend with Scott's incredibly cranky grandmother (Beulah Bondi) who keeps needling him about not living up to his manly ancestors. In the winter, Bondi has to give up part of her blanket to make a coat for the little girl so she can go to school in the cold. In the spring, their boy develops a serious skin disorder due to a lack of fruits, vegetables, and milk in his diet. A neighbor (J. Carroll Naish) develops a confrontational relationship with the family, worried that their success will somehow diminish his long-fought-for status as top dog in the nearby community. When Naish's animals destroy Scott's vegetable garden, a near-fatal brawl ensues. At harvest time, things seem to be looking up for the family, and when Scott's mother (Blanche Yurka) marries the local grocer (Percy Kilbride, best known as Pa Kettle), the whole town celebrates, but that night a huge storm hits and floods out Scott's cotton (and his diary cow). Scott hits rock bottom and is ready to join a pal in turning to factory work, but his family inspires him to keep trying.

The main thing that makes this film stand out is the way it usually undercuts cliches or heavy-handed symbolism. You expect Scott to eventually smooth things over with Naish, and he does, but not until they've gone through hard-fought battles of both words and fists. I kept waiting for Naish's daughter (Noreen Nash) to seduce Scott (as happens in a similar film, OUR DAILY BREAD), but it never happens. I also kept waiting for Bondi to die, of age or illness or just plain meanness, especially after we see her talk about the future while using a hand fan imprinted with the logo of a local undertaker, but to the film's credit, that never happens, either. She does soften her stance a bit, but remains mostly a nasty ol' cuss right to the last shots of the film. Directed by Jean Renoir, much of the film has a documentary feel, occasionally reminding me of the look of THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS, which helps it retain a fairly gritty tone. Scott is a revelation here; he's quietly strong, a bit like Henry Fonda, but there are times when he seems just about beaten, or when we question his judgment; even in the end, we're not sure that his family will make it. Oddly, despite being grimy and dressed in mostly the same dirty dungarees all through the film, he's also sort of sexy, and in general he's a much more appealing figure than I've ever seen him be. It's a shame his career led him into a rut of slimy bad guys. Field, perhaps best known as the doomed sexpot of the 1939 OF MICE AND MEN, is fine and the two feel right together. Norman Lloyd (Dr. Auschlander on St. Elsewhere) has a small role as a somewhat feeble-minded nephew of Naish's. Bondi is practically the archetype of the shrill, shrewish granny, and her performance is all the more interesting when you realize that just one year later, she would embody the opposite archetype, the sweet, wise granny, as Mrs. Bailey in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. This may not be a great movie, but it deserves to be better known and more widely circulated. See it if you can. [TCM]

GOOD NEWS (1947)

The archetypal college musical (c.f. TOO MANY GIRLS and COLLEGE SWING): glossy, colorful, and filled with catchy songs. Fall semester 1927 is in full swing at Tait College. Peter Lawford, the football star, is hot for new transfer student Patricia Marshall, who is actually a gold digging socialite interested only in men who come from money. June Allyson, working her way through college as a librarian, is talked into helping Lawford learn French to impress Marshall so she'll go to the big dance with him, even though she's superficially smitten with the Rich Man on Campus, Robert Strickland. Along the way, Lawford and Allyson fall for each other and when he finally realizes that he has no chance with Marshall, he asks Allyson to the dance, but when Marshall thinks (erroneously) that Lawford is rich, she weasels her way in as his date, leaving Allyson dateless. When the unhappy Lawford flunks his French class, he can't play in the big game until he retakes the test, and once again Allyson is called upon to help tutor him for good old Tait. This time, things work out so there's a happy ending for Lawford and Allyson. There's also a romantic triangle subplot involving Allyson's best friend, Joan McCracken, the musclebound lug who has claimed her as his property (Loren Tindell), and the skinny but sweet football hero-wannabe (Ray McDonald) who McCracken actually wants.

The musical numbers are all fun, especially a cute novelty song called "The French Lesson" and the big finale, "The Varsity Drag," but the main reason for watching is the presence of Joan McCracken. She was a rising star on the Broadway musical stage in the 40's, but this is the only movie she made (aside from a cameo in BROADWAY CANTEEN) and she's delightful in her high energy role, particularly in her spotlight number, "Pass That Peace Pipe," in which she is paired up with McDonald (another fine dancer who never got the movie breaks he deserved). As I was watching the film this time, it amused me to view it as an Archie Comics story, with Lawford as Reggie, Allyson as Betty, Marshall as Veronica, Tindall as Moose, and McCracken as Midge, which I guess would make McDonald a cross between Archie and Jughead. The movie also features Mel Torme as a slightly dissipated student (maybe a slave to the reefer), Connie Gilchrist as a sorority house cook, and Donald MacBride and Tom Dugan as coaches. All the actors look too old to be college-age (except McDonald), especially Allyson, who looks like she could be McDonald's mother, but the movie is mostly fizzy colorful fun, and to be treasured for the rare McCracken appearance. There's a great biography out of McCracken, called "The Girl Who Fell Down" which I've just reviewed on my other blog. [DVD]

DETECTIVE KITTY O'DAY (1944)

Poverty Row mystery from Monogram with a pleasantly goofy leading man, hurt by a drab leading lady and weak comic timing. The title character (Jean Rogers) is not really a detective but a secretary to businessman Edward Earle. She has to deliver a train ticket to his home one night, and her slightly befuddled boyfriend (Peter Cookson) jokingly threatens to kill Earle for messing up their plans for the evening. Unfortunately, a taxi driver (Pat Gleason) overhears his threat and later that night, at Earle's house, Rogers discovers her boss dead. Both she and Cookson become suspects, as do Earle's widow (Veda Ann Borg), her lover (Douglas Fowley), and Earle's butler and lawyer. Inspector Tim Ryan (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and his sidekick Edward Gargan (who you'll recognize as a cop from dozens of 30's and 40's movies) provide the necessary comic police bungling while Rogers and Cookson race around trying to clear themselves and find the real killer. If you blur your eyes, you might imagine that the lead pair are Cary Grant and Claudette Colbert, and in fact Cookson does affect a Grant-ish accent. Cookson is nice looking and quite amusing. He made a handful of B-movies in the 40's and did some TV work before retiring, and was married to Beatrice Straight (later an Oscar-winner for NETWORK). Some of the comic situations have potential, but between the very low budget and the weak pacing, most of them don't come off. Still, I’m glad to have seen this if only to see one of Cookson's few leading roles. [TCM]