THE LAST FLIGHT (1931)

This WWI drama is interesting but not terribly compelling; it feels like warmed-over Hemingway, specifically "The Sun Also Rises." It probably felt fresh back then but the weak acting and underplotted script make it something of a chore to sit through now. There is an effective opening montage of WWI battle scenes, then we follow the post-war experiences of a group of American fliers, all damaged in some way by the war, as they decide after their discharge to stay in Paris and become members of the Lost Generation. They spend most of their time drowning their sorrows in a number of bars, and hanging out with odd rich girl Helen Chandler. It's not clear what her problem is--is she drug-addled? Slightly retarded? Inbred? Or just a darker version of the whimsical heiresses who would crop up so often a few years later in screwball comedies? It's also not clear why she is attracted to the group, but they all share their boozy misadventures until the outside world catches up and the group begins to fall apart. Richard Barthelmess, the most traditionally solid of the bunch, has injured hands; David Manners, a bit neurotic, has an uncontrollable eye twitch; Johnny Mack Brown and Elliot Nugent are the other buddies, and they are all trailed around by rich twit Walter Byron, who has a thing for Chandler. There are some neat transitional shots and fluid camera moves, but the delivery of dialogue is off, with lines that should be casually tossed off instead landing with a leaden thud. There is some pre-Code language and a shot of nose-thumbing, and Chandler uses a nifty line to excuse herself from the table: "I'm taking a Chinese singing lesson"; I assumed it just meant she was going to the bathroom, but at least one critic thinks it's a reference to opium use. Worth seeing for fans of 30's movies, but it doesn't have much else other than its unusual atmosphere to recommend it. [TCM]

CANDY (1968)

Slowly, I am catching up on movies from the mid-to-late 60's that I heard about when I was growing up; since I was only 13 in 1969, I was really too young to have seen most of them when they were new (though my liberal-minded mother *did* take me to see BONNIE AND CLYDE when I was 12). That odd burst of idiosyncratic, psychedelic, sexy, and often impenetrable Hollywood movies didn't last long, but there is still a cultural aura about those films that makes them interesting to watch in the same way I find it fun to watch even the most routine pre-Code films of the early 30's, largely in order to get a idea of how popular culture was reflecting and affecting the times. This one is loosely based on Voltaire's "Candide," and may have been an influence on THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN in that a central figure has a series of seemingly unrelated adventures which contribute to his or her education in the ways of the world.

In this film, Candy (Ewa Aulin), a young, blonde, and quite comely girl in her late teens, is thrust into the big bad world of older men who befriend and mistreat her. Her problems start with her befuddled father (John Astin) and her smoothly lecherous uncle (also played by Astin), and along the way she meets up with, among others, a lecherous poet (Richard Burton), a lecherous military man (Walter Matthau), a lecherous Mexican gardener (Ringo Starr, naturally!), and a lecherous guru (Marlon Brando). In all cases, she is used as an ego-boosting sex toy, though never in such a manner that you could really call it rape. Aulin's empty-headed expression rarely changes, so we never know what she's thinking about her own debasement. I have no idea what to make of the opening and closing segments, which seem to imply that Aulin may just be a bundle of cosmic energy which has taken shape temporarily on Earth. I suspect we're not meant to think too hard about any of it. The stars are mostly wasted, with the exception of Richard Burton, who does a wonderfully funny turn as a hippie Dylan Thomas-type; no matter where he is, inside or out, a breeze is always blowing on his long hair and flowing cape. The best acting really comes from Astin in his dual role, but it's a singularly thankless role. There is some music by Steppenwolf, and a catchy closing theme done by the Byrds. The sets, costumes, and colors are more fun to pay attention to than the action of the film. Recommended only for die-hard fans of the period. [DVD]

MURDER BY AN ARISTOCRAT (1936)

This pleasant B-thriller turned out to be sort of an unofficial entry in a series based on the character Nurse Sarah Keate, created by mystery writer Mignon Eberhart. She was played first in 1935 by Aline MacMahon in WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT and in 1938 by Ann Sheridan in THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18 . For this one, the character's name has been changed to Sally Keating and she's played by Marguerite Churchill, who bears a passing resemblance to Mia Farrow. I don't know for sure if Nurse Keating was the exact same literary character as Nurse Keate, but Eberhart gets screen credit for original story and the similarities between the character types and the set-up of the plots are strong. The 60-minute film is mostly enjoyable, though I didn't care much for Churchill who is by far the blandest of the three nurses. In the other films, her boyfriend is a cop but here he's a doctor, played by Lyle Talbot, who doesn't really have much to do. The plot is a standard one, with relatives (gathered in a big old house), blackmail, and murder. The black sheep of the Thatcher family (William Davidson) is blackmailing everyone else for a big sum of money. There's a strong willed matriarch figure (though here, she's a spinster, so technically not a matriarch, I guess), a weak-willed drug addict, and a few other relatives. An attempt is made on the blackmailer's life; he is wounded and Churchill is sent out to the house in the middle of the night to care for him. She suspects the tale that the family tells of a gun-cleaning accident is fishy and she sees and hears many strange things before the blackmailer is actually killed later the next day, while no one else is home. Of course, the nurse cracks the case, without a little help from the cops. There are not a lot of other recognizable names in the cast, except for Claire Dodd as one of the relatives, though IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE's Mary Treen has a small role as a maid. [TCM]

DANCING CO-ED (1939)

Cute little second-feature comedy with Lana Turner in her first starring role. The story begins in Hollywood, as dancing star Lee Bowman discovers that his movie partner is pregnant. A press agent (Roscoe Karns) talks the studio boss into running a national collegiate contest to find Bowman's next partner, for a movie called "Dancing Co-Ed." The trick is that Karns plants starlet wannabe Turner at a midwestern university (conveniently called Midwestern University) to be found by the studio judges. Karns' secretary (Ann Rutherford) goes along to help her with her school work. Richard Carlson is a student reporter who (in a far-fetched plot twist) suspects a studio plant and sets out to uncover her, never realizing that it's Turner, who deliberately gets to close to Carlson to throw him off her trail. Of course, the two start to fall in love for real and complications ensue. At 90 minutes, the movie is a little too long, with a middle section that feels padded, but the actors are all pleasant and the plot just twisty enough to keep your attention. Karns and Bowman are both particularly good, and Monty Woolley has a small role as a professor, but even better is Leon Errol, known mostly for his comedy shorts of the 30's and for the Mexican Spitfire movies of the 40's; here, he's Turner's loving father, a former vaudeville performer who has a very amusing scene pretending to be an actor who is pretending to be Turner's father (yes, I proofread that sentence--it's correct). Bandleader Artie Shaw, who would marry Turner in 1940, plays himself. Fun for Saturday morning viewing. [TCM]

HIPS, HIPS, HOORAY (1934)

The comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey was quite popular in the 30's, going strong right up to Woolsey's untimely death (of kidney disease) in 1938. Today, however, they've been mostly forgotten. Assuming from some of what I'd read that they were mostly a poor man's Marx Brothers, I avoided their movies on the rare occasions when one would crop up on Turner Classic Movies. Now that I've seen one, I must admit I'm sorry I've ignored them for so long. As is the case with most Marx Brothers movies, the plot isn't the most important element, but here it is anyway: Two con men who sell flavored lipsticks wind up working for a cosmetics company (Maiden America, which we see on an office door in the first shot of the movie and which gave me my first chuckle) and wooing two female employees, one an executive and one a model. The boys accidentally wind up with a briefcase filled with stocks and bonds and the cops think they stole it, so they go on the lam at the same time that a nationwide car race (in which the beauty company has a car) is going on. There is also an investment banker hanging around who's supposed to be working for Maiden America but is actually working for a rival company and scamming our heroines. The end of the race serves as a climax for the contest, the scam, the problem with the cops, and the romances.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey do remind me of the Marxes--there's a letter dictation scene right out of ANIMAL CRACKERS if Harpo talked and was medicated, and Groucho was less self-assured--but they also seem a bit like Abbott and Costello, two average guys trying to make a living, get through an adventure by dumb luck, and get a couple girls along the way. I liked the fact that both men were taken seriously as romancers; frequently, Abbott and Costello have girl friends, but I could never buy that any woman in her right mind would be carnally attracted to either one of them. The same goes for the Marxes (except Chico--Harpo always loved the chase, but I thought he wouldn't quite know what to do with the girl once he caught her; Chico definitely would). Wheeler and Woolsey aren't particularly good looking, but their banter and their physicality help to make their affairs believable. It's a pre-Code movie and there is a lot of lusty innuendo, including naked models with their breasts strategically covered by make-up bottles, and a fair amount of kissing and touching between the couples. There are even a couple of "accidental" kisses between the two men. A mildly randy song, "Just Keep on Doin' What You're Doin'," crops up a few times and is now stuck in my head. There is also some Freudian stuff with Wheeler's ever-present banana and Woolsey's cigar. Another plus is a lot of improbable special-effects humor, much of which (including a race car with helium wheels) comes off pretty well. There's even a Kansas twister five years before OZ. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee are the women. Ruth Etting (the singer Doris Day portrayed in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME) has what amounts to a cameo as herself singing a song in the opening scene; George Meeker makes a good slimy bad guy; Bobby Watson has a small bit as a flamboyant dance director. Perhaps the best thing is that the movie is short and the individual comic bits never go on so long that they drag (as a few of the later Marx Brothers bits did). Even if a particular joke wasn't working for me, I knew they'd move on quickly. I'll be watching the TCM schedule for more of this team. [TCM]

DELICIOUS (1932)

I read about this movie in "A Song in the Dark," a very good book by Richard Barrios on early Hollywood musicals, and then it cropped up on Fox Movie Channel. I was glad to be able to see it, even though it proved to be a disappointment, with a slow pace, indifferent acting, and, despite some songs by the Gershwins, unmemorable music. Janet Gaynor, one of the biggest box-office draws in the country at the time, is Scottish lass Heather who comes to the U.S. by ship to live with her uncle. Along the way, she bonds with a group of working-class immigrants (through music and dancing, just like DiCaprio does in TITANIC) including the handsome Russian Sascha (Raul Roulien). She also meets rich American Charles Farrell and his valet (El Brendel). Once she's landed, Gaynor is put back on the ship because her uncle can no longer afford to host her, but she manages to sneak off the ship and winds up living in Farrell's mansion, being taken care of by Brendel. Gaynor is sweet on Farrell, but he has a bitchy fiancee (Virginia Cherrill) so Gaynor considers marrying Roulien, but Hollywood cross-class romance wins out in the end.

Farrell's voice is oddly high and light and doesn't match his handsome looks; Gaynor projects an appealing winsomeness, but her Scottish accent is terrible. Brendel's appeal escapes me completely; despite a Spanish-sounding name, he was an American vaudevillian who acted with a heavy Swedish accent, and he ends up seeming like a dumbed-down Chaplin figure. There is a good dream sequence in which Gaynor imagines what it will be like to land at Ellis Island ("Welcome to the Melting Pot"), and Brendel's high point is with the amusing song "Blah Blah Blah" (and in fact, George Gershwin later turned the piece into his Second Rhapsody). The movie is tolerable, but mostly worth watching as a historical oddity, a movie musical done as Hollywood was, by trial and error, inventing the genre. [FMC]

SHADOW OF DOUBT (1935)

Careful, this isn't the Hitchcock classic about the "Black Widow" strangler--that's SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Instead, it's an MGM B-comedy/thriller that, though not as creepy or suspenseful as Hitchcock, is still quite entertaining. Ricardo Cortez is a wealthy advertising man with an even wealthier aunt (Constance Collier). He wants to marry Virginia Bruce, an actress, but she's gotten tired of waiting for him to make his move, so she's agreed to marry play producer Bradley Page, whom we know from the get-go is a no-good bastard. However, Betty Furness is also set to marry Page, and a lovely nightclub singer (Isabel Jewell) also slips in and out of the proceedings. Page winds up dead, and Bruce and Furness are the primary suspects. Collier, an eccentric woman who hasn't left her home in 20 years, doesn't initially approve of Cortez marrying Bruce, but soon Collier's on the girl's side and she gets involved (with Cortez and the police) in trying to clear Bruce's name by finding the real killer. Collier, in her late 50's, was making her sound film debut (many years later, she played the stuffy matron in Hitchcock's ROPE) and she's quite funny and energetic; she's mostly absent from the middle of the film, but she dominates the last half-hour. She's especially good bantering with the police inspector (Edward Brophy); their relationship is more interesting than that of Cortez and Bruce. Cortez is OK--he looks *weird*, more like Basil Rathbone than himself. Maybe it's just the haircut, but I'd swear that he's wearing a false nose! All the young women are fine, especially the lovely Bruce, whom I know mostly as the title star of that odd little 40's comedy THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Regis Toomey is a gossip hound who tags along with Cortez; Ivan Simpson has a couple of fun moments as Collier's butler. The stormy night finale is great fun, definitely worth sticking around for. [TCM]

BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES (1932)

I have not been a big fan of Marion Davies, perhaps partly because I haven't seen much of her. I didn't care for this Davies vehicle, but I must admit that Davies was good, the best thing in the film. She had spark and life (unlike in GOING HOLLYWOOD or PAGE MISS GLORY, the only other Davies sound films I've seen) and she sometimes looked and acted like Joan Crawford (with a hint of Bette Davis once or twice). The silly plot involves a dragged-out romantic triangle between two old friends (Davies and Billie Dove) and a rich playboy (Robert Montgomery). Davies and Dove grew up together in the tenements; Dove strikes out on her own and gets a lucrative job in the Follies, thanks to some "sugar daddy" contacts. Soon, Dove is happy as a featured chorus performer, being kept in fine style by Montgomery, and she renews her friendship with Davies, who herself winds up in the Follies and attracted to Montgomery. This leads to bad feelings all around (including a couple of rather fun "catfights") and a bizarre tragic on-stage accident which leaves one person crippled and the other two anxious to do the right thing.

Apparently both Davies and Dove were Ziegfeld Follies girls early in their careers, but the movie, despite having a theatrical setting, doesn't give anyone the chance to show off much in the way of singing or dancing talents. I do like the way that the Follies numbers are shown mostly from backstage or on-stage rather than from the audience, but don't watch expecting any Busby Berkeley flights of fancy. Montgomery is less irritating than usual in his role as obnoxious cad, but I was never convinced that he was in love with anyone--which might be the point, though the romantic angle is played so obliquely that I'm not sure. The best performance after Davies comes from James Gleason, as Davies' father, who looked incredibly young and got to show more range than his later parts usually called for. Zasu Pitts, as Davies' sister, was far less "ditzy" than usual; Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan) is fine in a small role as Pitts' husband and Sarah Padden nicely underplays the pathos-filled role of Davies' mother. One fun bit towards the end has Davies and Jimmy Durante (playing himself) doing a parody of Garbo and Barrymore in GRAND HOTEL (both films were directed by Edmund Goulding), but it's not fun enough to save the film. [TCM]

SONG OF RUSSIA (1943)

This is one of those government-encouraged propaganda movies of WWII that glorified Russia and its people when they were our allies; a few years later, when the Russians were our sworn enemy, films like this got their creators in trouble for being "reds." This one is mediocre at best--basically a lethargic romance with a little bit of wartime action thrown in at the end. Robert Taylor plays (unconvincingly) an American orchestra conductor who, while on tour in Russia just before the war, falls in love with a Russian girl (Susan Peters), essentially a peasant who can play classical piano like nobody's business. They marry but then war breaks out; he tries to arrange to stay with her, but others convince him that he can do more for the cause if he travels the globe. Peters stays on as a resistance fighter. Will they ever be reunited? The whole thing feels rather phony from start to finish, including the tepid romance. Robert Benchley is a brief bright spot in the proceedings as Taylor's manager. John Hodiak is a man named Boris (and believe it or not, there's also a character named Natasha!) and other familiar faces include Felix Bressart (Jimmy Stewart's buddy in SHOP AROUND THE CORNER), Michael Chekhov (the old doctor in SPELLBOUND), and a young Daryl Hickman (whose brother Dwayne was Dobie Gillis on TV). Pretty much worthwhile only as a historical oddity that helped get its screenwriters (Richard Collins, Guy Endore, and Paul Jarrico) blacklisted. [TCM]

THE JOLSON STORY (1946)

If NIGHT AND DAY was the bottom of the barrel as far as whitewashed showbiz bio musicals, THE JOLSON STORY is pretty close to the top. This has everything the Cole Porter film didn't have: a strong leading performance, good supporting players used well, and a string of fun production numbers. Larry Parks plays Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, the son of a cantor who decides he'd rather sing in burlesque houses than in synagogues. When he's young (and played by 17-year-old Scotty Beckett) he is befriended by vaudevillian William Demerest. They travel the country doing an act (part of which involves Jolson whistling instead of singing when his voice changes) and when Jolson grows up (Parks), he strikes out on his own as a blackface minstrel. He gets a part in a Broadway show but his natural talent (and hamminess) makes it hard for him to stay in the background and soon he is a breakout star, eventually becoming one of the biggest sensations in show business. He meets the star of the latest Ziegfeld protege (Evelyn Keyes, playing a fictionalized version of Ruby Keeler), marries her, and seems to have a happy family life. Later, they both retire to the country life but Jolson is clearly not happy doing nothing and when the opportunity presents itself to return to show biz, he does, though it means losing his wife (in an awkward, ambiguous closing scene).

Parks looks nothing like Jolson but has lots of energy and does a great job lip-synching to vocals which were newly recorded by the real Al Jolson. Demerest, who remains a business partner and friend to Jolson for life, gives a nicely fleshed-out performance; both actors were nominated for Oscars. Ludwig Donath and Tamara Shayne are very good as Jolson's parents. Beckett is also good, though he doesn't get to stick around for long. Many of the songs are ones that I heard my parents singing around the house when I was growing up: "After the Ball," "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," "You Made Me Love You," "Toot Toot Tootsie," "Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," and of course Jolson's signature song "Mammy." We see Parks recreate several blackface numbers--I wish I understood what the appeal of blackface minstrel music was--but we never see him as Jolson in his biggest hit, THE JAZZ SINGER. It's mentioned but not shown, perhaps because Jolson's original performance would still have been in the memories of most moviegoers in 1946. Dramatically lightweight but entertaining. The DVD print is nicely restored, with great color, though perhaps a bit heavy on the yellow-gold tones. [DVD]

NIGHT AND DAY (1946)

To prepare for the new Cole Porter biopic DE-LOVELY, with Kevin Kline as Porter, I watched this earlier version of his life starring Cary Grant. Many people criticize this movie for its almost total fictionalization of Porter's life, especially the ignoring of Porter's homosexuality, but that's a given for a Hollywood biography, especially back in the classic movie era. What's worse is that the movie is boring and indifferently acted, and even the production numbers that are usually the big draw in these show biz biographies are no fun. Grant plays Porter as a law student at Yale who has to break it to his grandfather (Henry Stephenson) that he's quitting the law to become a songwriter. Egged on by law professor Monty Woolley (played by himself) who has show biz ambitions of his own, Grant leaves Yale to chase his dream; he becomes a soldier in the war, is wounded, and marries a family friend (Alexis Smith) who just happened to have enlisted overseas as a nurse. He writes a couple of popular songs, then makes his name as a Broadway tunesmith. The demands of Grant's career alienate Smith, who leaves him. At the height of his fame, he has a riding accident which shatters his legs and, despite dozens of operations, he never fully recovers the use of his legs, but the accident does bring his wife back.

Grant seems very uncomfortable as Porter, in somewhat the same way he seemed uncomfortable as the angel in THE BISHOP'S WIFE, but in WIFE that discomfort worked for the part (an angel uncomfortable with his yearnings for a mortal woman). Here, we're left with a character who seems to be sleepwalking through his life, who expresses very little emotion about his music, about his wife and friends, even about his tragic accident. Smith and Woolley are fine, though underused, and Jane Wyman peps up the movie occasionally as a singer who helps popularize Grant's songs. Porter's great music is wasted in stultifying production numbers that never build up any energy. Mary Martin (also playing herself) has a nice bit singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and Woolley gives a droll rendition of "Miss Otis Regrets," but the movie totally wastes great songs like "Begin the Beguine," "In the Still of the Night," "Just One of Those Things," and most unforgivably, the title song. It feels like Warners was trying to compete with MGM in the glossy musical-bio field, but there really was no comparison. [TCM/DVD]

A ROYAL SCANDAL (1945)

To get through this, I had to imagine it as a remake of THE SCARLET EMPRESS done as a TV sitcom. Tallulah Bankhead plays Russian ruler Catherine the Great like a bored but horny CEO. Just as she has dismissed the current Commander of the Palace Guards due to a lover's spat, young and hunky William Eythe arrives, after riding three days, to warn her of a rumored coup. Bankhead is impressed and keeps him around, raising his rank every day or so until he is the new Commander. However, the Empress doesn't know that Eythe is engaged to Anne Baxter, a lady-in-waiting at the court; when Bankhead finds out, all hell breaks loose. Charles Coburn is Bankhead's faithful Chancellor; Vincent Price has a small role at the beginning and end as a French diplomat; Grady Sutton has a funny bit as a "hillboy" from the Urals. Also with Mischa Auer, Sig Ruman, and Eva Gabor (though I didn't notice her). Eythe is nicely packed into his uniform and Bankhead takes notice. Generally, the direction is lackluster and the humor bland, and all concerned seem a little embarrassed, but Price has a funny line about sneaking around in secret passages: "You meet the best people coming out of bookshelves." [FMC]

MOONTIDE (1942)

A character-driven melodrama which plays out like a noir version of Steinbeck's "Cannery Row." Jean Gabin is Bobo, a guy who lives on the waterfront doing odd jobs on boats that dock in the bay. He's likeable but he drinks too much, though we never know what brought him to his current state. He is shadowed by crusty old Thomas Mitchell; first we think Mitchell's a pal, but we soon see him in a different light as a potentially cruel leech. One night, Gabin stops Ida Lupino from committing suicide and the two develop a relationship, helping each other to stay propped up and on the straight and narrow. When harmless Pop Kelly is found murdered, clues point to Gabin as a suspect (he might have done it during a drunken blackout), and the situation threatens to derail the tentative happiness that Gabin and Lupino have found. It turns out that Mitchell has a couple of secrets that lead to a fairly exciting climax. Claude Rains is almost unrecognizable (looking a bit like Barry Fitzgerald) as a barroom philosopher; Jerome Cowan is a middle-class doctor with a mistress, though his storyline doesn't come to much. In fact, the real problem here is that all the plotlines and characters never really come together. It feels like we're supposed to buy into the idea of this nurturing waterfront community, but not enough is done with the supporting characters. There is some nice atmosphere, lots of fog, and a stagy set that manages to be nicely evocative. There are a couple of big names behind the scenes: author John O'Hara wrote the screenplay, and Fritz Lang directed (though he was replaced at some point by Archie Mayo). [FMC]

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (1962)

This is a trashy, overheated soup of a movie that had the potential to be fun, but thanks to some stupendously bad acting and underwritten characters, is mostly a tedious haul through faux-Tennessee Williams territory. Laurence Harvey is Dove Linkhorn (no, that's not a typo), a tall and apparently penniless Texan lad who hitchhikes his way to New Orleans to find his long-lost love (Capucine). She's a sculptor and supports herself by working in a brothel, the Doll House, run by tough-as-nails madam Barbara Stanwyck. Capucine is also Stanwyck's lover. Helped out by a kindly Mexican diner owner (Anne Baxter), Harvey finds Capucine and the two plan to leave New Orleans together to start a new life, but Stanwyck doesn't want to let go of her "girl toy." The wild card in all this is Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda), an ambitious and wildly sexy but nasty underage girl whom Dove finds along the road. She winds up working at the Doll House and helps set in motion a blackmail scheme against Harvey intended to get him out of town and away from Capucine. Harvey and Capucine seesaw back and forth about getting back together, and in the end, after Stanwyck's musclemen beat the living crap out of Harvey, a gun goes off, killing an important character and making sure that no one gets a happy ending out of any of this sordidness.

What's good here? Stanwyck, of course, is fine, giving us a little preview of her "Big Valley" melodramatics. Any fun the movie has is due to her. I liked Fonda in a total spitfire role. Baxter is also good; some critics have taken her to task for her bad Mexican accent, but I thought she was as believable as anyone else. Another plus is the camerawork, with lots of slithery movement around elaborate sets. The music, by Elmer Bernstein, was good, much of it being played by a jazz combo in the brothel. The biggest problem with the movie is Laurence Harvey, who is totally miscast. I've never liked Harvey—the best thing I can say for him in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is that he doesn't hurt the movie. But he definitely hurts this one. He's not a Texan, he has no passion and he is too old for the part. He is terrible. Capucine is not very good, either, though she certainly looks like she could make a good living as a hooker. The weak screenplay is another problem; the backstory of Harvey and Capucine's characters is almost non-existent. Stanwyck's character is married (to a legless man who has become her flunky) and certainly adores Capucine, but she also makes a strange anti-lust speech late in the movie, which makes me wonder exactly what she and Capucine did behind closed doors—lie around in their nightgowns and talk about sensible shoes? I'm quite surprised that they got away with such strong implications about prostitution and lesbianism with the Code still (barely) in force. The credit sequence by Saul Bass, with a black cat slinking around and getting into a fight, is famous and great looking, though the movie doesn't live up to it. But I've got to admit, any movie with a character called Kitty Twist can't be all bad. [TCM]

TIL WE MEET AGAIN (1940)

A totally unnecessary remake of the 1932 Warners melodrama ONE WAY PASSAGE. I suppose there's nothing wrong with this movie, especially if you haven't seen the original, but it adds no new insights in terms of plot or acting. George Brent is the escaped convict (played by William Powell in 1932) caught overseas and being transported back to San Quentin to await execution; Merle Oberon, dying of a heart condition, is the lonely woman he meets on board the ship (Kay Francis in the original). The two fall in love while keeping their dark secrets from each other, at least for a time. Frank McHugh reprises his role in the original as a con man friend of Brent's, and Binnie Barnes is the con woman, a role done much better in '32 by Aline MacMahon. More or less added to this version are Geraldine Fitzgerald as a friend and protector to Oberon, and Eric Blore as an English gentleman whom Barnes is scamming. None of the couplings have much chemistry; certainly Brent and Oberon can't touch Powell and Francis. This version is a little longer and glossier but still feels like a scene-by-scene B-level remake. Also with George Reeves, John Ridgely, and Regis Toomey. Stick to ONE WAY PASSAGE. [TCM]

MY DEAR MISS ALDRICH (1937)

Mildly amusing comedy. Maureen O'Sullivan is the title character, a teacher from Nebraska who inherits a New York City newspaper. She and her aunt (Edna May Oliver) go to the big city and deal with the male chauvinist editor (Walter Pidgeon) who refuses to hire female reporters. O'Sullivan decides to prove that she can be a good reporter and gets involved in a group of businesspeople dealing with an upcoming strike. The last half of the film becomes a long slapstick chase at a roadside inn. The funniest scene in the movie involves O'Sullivan's travails with a dumbwaiter. There's also a nice running gag in which Oliver tries to figure out why on earth a place called Locust Valley has no locusts. Also with Roger Converse, Leonid Kinsky, and Robert Greig. [TCM]

CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940)

Fast-paced, interesting urban drama with a great cast. James Cagney plays a guy from the tenements who boxes on occasion to raise money to help out his brother (Arthur Kennedy), a music teacher who has aspirations to write a great symphony about New York City. Cagney has faith in his brother and doesn't want him doing manual work or cheapening his talent by writing pop music. Ann Sheridan is Cagney's girl who wants to be a dancer; soon, she's partnered with Anthony Quinn, who traps her in a contract for ballroom and professional dancing. They make names for themselves on the club circuit but she's unhappy away from Cagney. Meanwhile, Cagney is "discovered" by boxing promoter Donald Crisp and has a rapid rise in the sport under the name Young Sampson (though, truth be told, Cagney, at 41, looks a bit long in the tooth to be billed as "young"). With Kennedy and Sheridan in mind, Cagney makes a lot of money at boxing, but ends up blinded when an unscrupulous opponent puts resin powder on his gloves. Will he reunite with Sheridan? Will his brother's symphony get heard by the public? A melodramatic but satisfying ending reveals all.

The plot sounds awfully cliche, but the film moves quickly (until a little bit of sagging at the end). The actors are all fun to watch, including the unusually large supporting cast: Frank McHugh is Cagney's buddy (as he was in real life); Lee Patrick is a dancer; Elia Kazan is a ghetto pal of Cagney's who makes it big but winds up bumped off; Blanche Yurka is Sheridan's mother; Jerome Cowan and Frank Faylen have small roles. There are a couple of boxing beefcake shots early on, and I chuckled at a line from Crisp to Cagney: "I had a hunch about you from the minute I saw you strip down." There's a tenement dance hall scene that is well shot and reminded me a bit of the way "America" is staged in WEST SIDE STORY. Snippets of "42nd Street" and "Lullaby of Broadway" can be heard in the background of a couple scenes. The symphony that Kennedy writes is a second-rate imitation of Gershwin, but that's the only complaint I have for this movie. [TCM]

YOUNG DR. KILDARE (1938)
CALLING DR. KILDARE (1939)

These are the first two films in the long Dr. Kildare series made by MGM, based on a character created by Western writer Max Brand. (There was an earlier film from Paramount with Joel McCrea, but the MGM series starts from scratch.) I remember my mother watching the Kildare TV show of the 60's (with Richard Chamberlain), but I don't think I ever saw an entire episode, so the characters, their backgrounds, and their interactions were all new to me. Both films feel more like mysteries or police stories dressed up with hospital trappings. I guess that makes some sense, since it's not very exciting just watching doctors diagnose and cure patients. In both movies, Kildare (Lew Ayers) is an intern who has a rough time of it at a big city hospital, largely due to his cranky, wheelchair-bound mentor, Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). Kildare gets into some trouble and Gillespie, who is usually part of the reason for the trouble, helps get him out. In the first one, the problem is a young woman who has tried to commit suicide; her family wants her declared insane but Kildare thinks she's sane and investigates to find out what her trouble is. Monty Woolley has a small role as the psychiatrist with whom Kildare disagrees. In CALLING, the problem is a gunshot victim Kildare tends to without informing the police. He gets wrapped up in the lives of the victim, a young man, and his sister (Lana Turner).

Lew Ayers is fine, as is Laraine Day who debuts in the second film as the character whom I assume winds up in later films as Kildare's love interest. I usually like Barrymore, but I found him irritating here, partly due to his overdone schtick as an irascible but ultimately good-hearted fogey, and partly to the way the character was written. Samuel S. Hinds, whom I know as George Bailey's father in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, is good as Kildare's father. Emma Dunn is the mother, and though she's OK, I kept thinking that Sara Allgood would have been better, if she could have done a Midwest American accent. The handsome Phillip Terry (one of Joan Crawford's husbands in real life) is a fellow intern. The backstory, set up in YOUNG, is that Ayres returns to his Midwest small town for a visit after graduating from medical school; his father, also a doctor, assumes that his son will go into practice with him, but Ayers opts for a internship at a New York hospital. There is also a small town girlfriend (Lynne Carver) who apparently drops out of the series after CALLING. These were both worth watching, but I think my curiosity about the series has been slaked and I don't need to see any more. [TCM]

CHARLEY'S AUNT (1930)

Charlie Ruggles is the main reason to watch this early talkie version of a famous play, later remade with Jack Benny. Charley (Hugh Williams) and Jack (Rod McLennan) are two Oxford students who scheme during an afternoon picnic to ask two girls to marry them. The stuffy uncle and guardian of the girls (Halliwell Hobbes) has decided not to consent to any marriage since he will lose the guaranteed income he has as guardian. The chaperone at the picnic is supposed to be Charley's aunt (Doris Lloyd), a rich widow who lives in Brazil ("...where the nuts come from" becomes a comic catchphrase), but she cancels her visit so the boys get Ruggles, an older student who just happens to be trying on drag for a part in a play, to impersonate the aunt so they can go ahead with the picnic. Hobbes takes a shine to Ruggles (or, more to the point, takes a shine to her supposed fortune), as does Jack's father. In the middle of the afternoon, the real aunt shows up, with a young lady who turns out to be a long lost love of Ruggles'. Farce ensues. Ruggles, in his mid-40's, is really too old to be playing a student, but once he's in full old-lady drag, he's very funny and holds the whole movie together. Zany wordplay and slapstick abound; one of the funniest repeating gags involves Ruggles throwing objects at Hobbes' hat (which he shouldn't be wearing indoors). It's stagy in looks and acting, but the material is funny and Charlie Ruggles is wonderful. For some reason, the Jack Benny version is hard to come by, so I can't compare the two versions. [AMC--years ago when they still showed classic movies]

THE SEA HAWK (1940)

Errol Flynn at the peak of his career. Although I liked him better in the earlier ROBIN HOOD and THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, he is in good form here. I don't know much about British history, so I may have some of the plot details muddled. The movie is set during the reign of Elizabeth I; Flynn plays a privateer, a pirate who works at least partly to protect British interests at sea, though he and his band of men still plunder the ships they board. They take over a Spanish ship carrying a diplomat (Claude Rains) and his niece (Brenda Marshall), free the ill-treated slaves who row the ship, and take Rains to the Queen. Flynn and Marshall fall in love, of course. Flynn and his men then undertake work for the Queen in Panama, but must do so without any offical recognition (like the Mission: Impossible team!). In Panama, they are captured by the Spanish and stumble upon news of the coming attack of the Spanish Armada against England. Flynn and his men, stuck in chains, manage to take over the ship and Flynn tries to make it to the Queen in time to warn her about the Armada.

Flynn is practically the whole show here, handsome, dashing, heroic, and cocky. He and Marshall make a nice couple, though they don't really share much screen time. Flora Robson is great as Queen Elizabeth; she almost steals the show from Flynn. Her final speech is a great example of the not-so-subtle pro-British propaganda that Warners was putting into their films during the early days of WWII while the US was still supposedly neutral. Rains is fine, as always, as are the usual Warners supporting players. Special mention should be made of Henry Daniell as the treacherous Lord Wolfingham, Una O'Connor as Marshall's companion, and Alan Hale as Flynn's trusty sidekick. The Panama scenes are all tinted in a yellow-sepia tone. Michael Curtiz directed, and I'm firmly convinced that he has not received the praise due to him. He wasn't a great stylist or maybe even a great artist, but he could entertain, and there are quite a few memorable scenes here, including the uprising of the enslaved crew and the climactic sword fight between Flynn and Daniell (though it's marred a bit by some awkward use of speeded-up footage). The print that Turner Classic Movies showed was not in very good shape, with some speckling and splices; I don't know if the VHS release is any better. [TCM]

WASHINGTON MELODRAMA (1941)

A surprisingly engrossing B-movie from MGM. It's a crime thriller, a political drama, and a romance, with a musical number and even a water ballet! Frank Morgan is an industrialist who is trying get a bill passed that would allow the U.S. to send money and food to suffering victims of Nazism in Europe (at a time when the government was supposed to be neutral). His future son-in-law, a journalist (Kent Taylor), is dead set against his policy. One night at a nightclub while his wife and daughter are on an extended visit overseas, Morgan hooks up with a chorus girl (Anne Gwynne) who keeps him company while he's lonely--as a sop for the Code, it's made clear that they aren't engaging in any hanky-panky, but I didn't believe it for a minute. The day after his wife returns, the girl is found murdered and some damaging clues that point to Morgan are presented to Taylor, who is torn between his duty as a reporter and some strained loyalty to his future father-in-law. Dan Dailey, the nightclub owner, is the real killer (not a spoiler, since we see him commit the murder), but will he be unmasked before scandalous headlines hurt Morgan and his political cause? Coherent, well acted, suspenseful, and fun. Ann Rutherford is Morgan's sympathetic daughter, Fay Holden is the somewhat less sympathetic wife, and Lee Bowman has a nice non-irritating comic relief role. Fans will recognize Sara Haden and Douglass Dumbrille in small roles. Dailey is quite good playing against type as a scoundrel. Morgan is even better, going for subtlety rather than bluster. The water ballet is quite bizarre, done to a song called "Fishing for Suckers," with chorus girls in bathing suits swimming about in a pool while the rich male clientele literally "fish" for the girls with fishing rods that can hook the girls suits. That's how Morgan reels in Gwynne. Why this trend didn't sweep the country's nightspots is beyond me. [TCM]