MARGIE (1946)

Margie (Jeannie Crain) and her teenage daughter are cleaning out the attic and come upon some artifacts of Margie's own teen years during the late 1920s, leading Mom to tell the story of her senior year in high school. Back then, Margie was lovely but a little awkward socially—at least 3 times during the movie, she loses her bloomers because she's negligent about attending to the elastic. She begins dating the nerdy but nice Roy (Alan Young), but quickly falls for the new handsome and sophisticated French teacher, Mr. Fontayne (Glenn Langan). Actually, most of the girls in school are gaga for him, though he seems interested in Miss Palmer, the librarian (Lynn Bari). When Roy falls ill and can't take Margie to the prom, she gets the impression that Mr. Fontayne is going to step in and take her, which is what she tells her best friend, but instead he's taking Miss Palmer. How will Margie ever save face?

It feels like this cutesy nostalgia piece was conceived to cash in the popularity of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. It’s light, fluffy and likeable but can't compete with the Judy Garland classic. For starters, the plot is satisfyingly thin, rarely straying from Margie and Mr. Fontayne’s "will they or won’t they get together" storyline. There is a sideplot involving Margie's widowed undertaker father of whom she sees very little, which gets folded into the prom plot. There is also a nice comic scene of Margie participating in a debate club event. However, both Alan Young and Lynn Bari are wasted in trifling roles, the bloomers gag gets old fast, and though the movie is in color, it's not very colorful. There are a few pluses: Crain is lovely and generally charming and Langan pulls off the good-looking, older man role well, without ever seeming creepy (it's dropped at one point that he's really not that much older than Crain, just in case the audience is a little queasy). Period music is used to good effect. The best scenes in the film are stolen by Barbara Lawrence as Marybelle, Crain's sexy blonde best friend, and Conrad Janis as her hunky jock boyfriend "Johnnykins"; the two have chemistry and when they're on screen, they can’t stop moving, always dancing together even when there's no music. The movie's worth watching for those two alone. [TCM]

WOMAN'S WORLD (1954)

Clifton Webb, the head of an automobile company, needs to fill the position of general manager at his New York City office and brings three managers and their wives in from other cities to interview for the job: 1) Fred MacMurray has developed an ulcer and his wife Lauren Bacall is ready to leave him over his obsession with work, but he's the only one of the three who seems to desperately want the job; 2) Cornel Wilde is critical of modern business methods and his wife, June Allyson, is reluctant to give up their wholesome Midwestern family life; 3) Van Heflin is competent but not terribly ambitious, though his wife, Arlene Dahl (pictured with Webb), is plenty ambitious for both of them and loves the idea of moving to the Big Apple. Though Webb interviews all the men, it's his theory that paying attention to the wives is equally important if not more so, so he arranges a series of social situations in which they can all interact. Bacall, despite her problems with MacMurray, works at making a good impression; sweet Allyson keeps saying the wrong thing, especially one night when she gets a little drunk; sexy Dahl tries using her seductive wiles on Webb. Ultimately, it's the behavior of the wives and how their husbands react that determines who Webb chooses for the job.

This is one of those 50s movies with a wide screen filled with attractive sets and mannered performances covering up a fairly shallow story that might work better on television. The idea here, that the wives are better indicators of the men's suitability for the job then the men themselves, is clever, and Webb's final decision may surprise some viewers, but the characters are all surface with little depth. Still, this generally held my interest. Allyson and Dahl play their parts rather broadly, but the other actors are fine, with Heflin and Bacall standouts. Elliot Reid and Margalo Gillmore as relatives of Webb's are also fine. Webb is his usual brittle self; predictable but fun to watch. I particularly like Webb actually saying the clichéd line, "I like your spunk" to Wilde. [FMC]

OEDIPUS THE KING (1968)
OEDIPUS REX (1967)

Two film adaptations of the Sophocles play "Oedipus the King" were done within a year of each other, both taking very different approaches to the material. The 1968 British film follows the play's action and dialogue closely. It's stagy even though it's filmed on outdoor locations in Greece, but it records a very theatrical and effective performance by Christopher Plummer in the title role. The film begins with Thebes in the throes of a plague that is killing off people, crops and animals. Oedipus, who arrived in town years ago not long after the unsolved murder of King Laius and became King (and husband to Queen Jocasta) thanks to his defeat of the monstrous Sphinx, has sent his brother-in-law Creon to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi to get advice from the gods. Creon (Richard Johnson) returns around the same time as the blind prophet Tiresias (Orson Welles) shows up and both have essentially the same message: the killer of Laius is still in Thebes and must be exposed. The story that eventually comes out is that Oedipus himself is the killer of Laius; in trying to escape a foretold fate that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he left Corinth so as not to hurt his parents and wound up in Thebes. What he didn’t know is that Laius and Jocasta were actually his parents; when Laius was told that his child would kill him, he tied the baby's ankles together and left him in the wilderness to die. Little Oedipus was found by a shepherd, taken to Corinth, and adopted by the King and Queen. So in trying to escape his fate by leaving his adopted parents (thinking they were his real parents), he actually sealed his fate: he killed Laius in self-defense and married his real mother, Queen Jocasta. When all is made clear, Jocasta (Lilli Palmer) hangs herself and Oedipus blinds himself by thrusting her hair pins in his eyes.

This version was certainly not produced with the intention of being a commercial blockbuster, but a movie tie-in edition of the play was published in 1968 with photographs from the Plummer film—and I owned a copy at the tender age of 12. As it follows the play very closely, and is well acted, even if it never quite achieves the tragic power the material calls for, this would be a good teaching tool, but the film is very difficult to find today. After over 40 years of trying to see it, I finally found it posted in several parts on YouTube. It’s not the ideal venue but it’s better than not seeing the film at all. Plummer is excellent, the other lead actors are fine, and the device of having various men speak the lines of the chorus works nicely. Less effective is when all the townsmen say some lines in unison, but it’s not done too often. The suicide and blinding are powerful without being unduly graphic. Indeed if this were on DVD, I imagine it would be being viewed in classrooms all over the country. [YouTube]

A year before, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini adapted the same material in a very different style, with the title OEDIPUS REX. The biggest change is that Oedipus’s story is told chronologically, beginning with his birth, so that the first half of the movie is material that, in the ’68 version, is not presented onscreen. The first few minutes are set in modern dress and setting (as is the last scene); Laius seems to simply sense that his child will kill him (the information is conveyed on a title card) so ties the kid’s ankles, hangs him upside down like a pig, and has him taken to the desert. The rest of the story (Oedipus going to the oracle, heading to Thebes, killing Laius, and bedding his mother) is acted out in a desert-like surrounding, in more or less period dress. The sexy Jocasta (Silvana Mangano) doesn’t seem to be that much older than Oedipus (Franco Citti, pictured), and their sex scenes, while not graphic, do generate some heat. The defeat of the Sphinx, which in tradition occurs by Oedipus answering a riddle, is presented here as a physical battle. When the truth of his fate begins to dawn on Oedipus, the story bogs down as he keeps denying the truth of what he has done. Citti is not a Shakespearean actor like Plummer, and tends to bounce between sullenness and hysteria, but he does have a certain physical power. Like many Pasolini films, this occasionally feels like an amateur or avant-garde production—shots held too long, use of non-pro actors (though Living Theater co-founder Julian Beck plays Tiresias)—but it’s interesting for its presentation of the entire narrative as drama rather than half of it being told as exposition. If you’re a Pasolini fan, this film will seem very familiar to you. If not, you might to stick to the British film. [DVD]

PANIC ON THE AIR (1936)

Lew Ayres is a New York radio personality, broadcasting sports during the day and hot city news at night. During a World Series game which Detroit loses to New York, Ayres wonders why Lefty, Detroit's well-known pitcher, didn't play. It turns out that Lefty wound up in possession of a screwy five dollar bill—the picture of Lincoln had a mustache drawn on it and a code in numbers was highlighted—and even though he spent the bill, a hard-faced blonde and a ruffian were after him to get the bill back. Ayers, whose sponsor, Mr. Gordon of Gordon's Garters, thinks his ratings need a boost, takes off with his sidekick Benny Baker to crack the case before the police, which they do. This hour-long B-mystery from Columbia is about par for the course. It winds up involving a decade-old kidnapping, a criminal's widow, and $200,000 hidden somewhere in the city. Ayers, a couple of years before he started his Dr. Kildare series, makes an appealing hero, though his sidekick (pictured above on the left with Ayres on the right) is a bit too laconic and his leading lady, Florence Rice, rather bland. Lack of background music and, more importantly, lack of action, hurts the film, though one scene set in the darkened office of a cryptologist is nicely atmospheric. There's not much humor, and no real chemistry between any of the leading players, but I did like the running gag of the Chinese houseboy named McNulty. [TCM]

GIRLS ON THE LOOSE (1958)

This fairly standard B-crime movie starts cold with the robbery of a company's payroll of $200,000 by masked figures; later, it's revealed that the culprits are all sexy young women who bury the money for two years, then intend to split it five ways. The mastermind is nightclub owner Vera (Mara Corday); her younger sister Helen (Barbara Bostock), a singer at the club, is the getaway car driver who didn't realize until the next morning what she was involved in. There's also Agnes, the insider who knew how to time the robbery; Marie, a French hairdresser; and Joyce, a blond masseuse. Of course, as anyone who has seen TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE knows, things start to fall apart before the riches can be claimed. Agnes, certain that her bosses will find out about her part in the crime, gets a little hysterical, so Vera (in a meticulously planned scene) gasses her and makes it look like a suicide… and then there were four. A cop (Peter Mark Richman), knowing Vera and Agnes were friends, comes to the club asking questions and falls for Helen, though Vera does everything in her power to keep them apart. Meanwhile, more tensions arise between the four: Marie wants to claim her share now and Joyce is afraid that Helen will squawk to the cop, so mayhem ensues until it's just Vera and Helen… and the cop.

This isn’t exactly a good movie, but the plot and characters kept my interest. The acting is on a typical B-level, with Corday, a minor B-movie queen in the 50's, great fun. My favorite scene in the movie involves her flirtation with a new grocery delivery boy (Ronald Green, above with Corday). The boy is handsome but terribly wooden; when she asks him if he's as dependable as her previous delivery boy, he looks straight ahead and says, in a monotone, "I'm very dependable, you'll see." They grab each other around the waist and the scene fades out, though he crops up in a couple more scenes (with no lines) as her kept boy. Abby Dalton, who became a substantial TV star (Falcon Crest) is good as Agnes. The movie was directed in a drab TV-movie style by Paul Henreid (Victor Laszlo in CASABLANCA). This was fun to run across on TCM's Underground. [TCM]

SHADOW IN THE SKY (1952)

Ralph Meeker and James Whitmore (pictured) were Army buddies in WWII and during a battle in the rain-drenched South Pacific, Meeker saved Whitmore's life. A few years later, Whitmore, a mechanic, is married to Meeker's sister (Nancy Davis) but Meeker is institutionalized, a victim of shellshock. He's progressed over time, but whenever it rains, Meeker goes into a hysterical panic. A nurse who has fallen for Meeker (Jean Hagen) comes to Whitmore's home and tells them that Meeker is desperate to get out of the hospital; Whitmore and Davis visit him frequently but aren't sure they’re ready to take him in, especially with two children in the house. Eventually they do and things are fine for a while, but soon tensions develop: Hagen wants Meeker to come to Oregon and work on her family's farm, but Whitmore wants him to help out at the garage, and Meeker just wants to be left alone to renovate an old boat he's bought. And there's always the worry over what will happen when it rains. Of course, things come to a climax during a nighttime storm.

This is one of those serious, earnest psychological melodramas which were popular in the 50s but which haven't worn well over the years. Whitmore and Davis are OK, but they're just so anguished, and that anguish becomes each one's sole character trait. Meeker, on the other hand, gets a decent range of emotions—he's often anguished but he's also nervous and touchy and angry and sometimes funny—and he makes the movie worth seeing (and his appealing physical presence is a plus). Hagen, just before her breakout role as Lina Lamont in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, is fresh-faced and threatens to be a lively presence (she tools around in a truck and has a tomboyish appeal) but in the last third of the film, her character is reduced to little more than a footnote. The "mystery" of the rain is solved in a satisfying manner, but why no one figured it out long before is a mystery of its own. [TCM]

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE (1967)

In the 60s, thanks to James Bond, secret agents were all the rage in the movies, and studios were searching for actors and characters who could fuel film franchises--Dean Martin as Matt Helm, James Coburn as Derek Flint, Monica Vitti as Modesty Blaise. This film drags the British character of Bulldog Drummond into the psychedelic era. In a series of movies that extended from the late 20s into the early 50s, he was a former military man turned amateur detective, usually with a fiancée and a comic relief sidekick. Here, played by Richard Johnson, he's an insurance investigator; there's no steady girlfriend but there is a bumbling sidekick, a cute blond nephew (Steve Carlson, pictured with Johnson) who's back from an extended stay in the States, and it's Carlson who gets into trouble with the females--including one scene of tied-up shirtless torture. Of course, as the title warns, all women are potentially dangerous here, and the two chief baddies are Elke Sommer and Sylvia Koscina, emissaries of an evil corporation (headed by Nigel Green) which sells its services, no questions asked, to companies who are having trouble getting megadeals sealed; their solution usually involves Sommer and Koscina assassinating someone. For a relatively low-budget film, this is surprisingly enjoyable. Johnson, who was on the short list to play Bond before Sean Connery got the part, is good, the women are sexy, and there are a few cool setpieces: a cigar that, when lit, fires a spear backward through the smoker's head; Sommer and Koscina, in bikinis, wielding harpoons; and a climactic battle on a life-sized chess set. Scott Walker sings the very Bondian theme. The widescreen print on the DVD is quite nice. [DVD]

YELLOW CANARY (1943)

In the fall of 1940, socialite Anna Neagle has become persona non grata in wartime England because she's a Nazi sympathizer (and, it's implied in the opening scene, actively engaging in espionage by signaling to German warplanes), so she heads off to Canada on the S.S. Carina where she is roundly ignored except by polish refugee Albert Lieven who takes pity on her, and by Richard Greene, a Navy commander who is traveling incognito and who keeps a close eye on her. A German ship stops the liner, apparently tipped off by Neagle, and demands Greene be surrendered to them, but a planted spy is given up instead—and a feisty old passenger (Margaret Rutherford) trips the Nazi captain on his way off the ship. In Halifax, Lieven takes Neagle in and she ingratiates herself with Lieven's elderly mother and her circle of friends, despite her toasting to the "new order" when everyone else toasts to "old freedoms." Big surprise #1: Lieven is actually a Nazi spy who is in on a plan to blow up Halifax Harbor. Big surprises # 2 & 3: Neagle is actually a spy for the British who is trying to infiltrate Lieven's ring, and Greene is her contact. Big surprise #4: Guess who's the head of the Nazi spy ring?

This WWII spy thriller has a great storyline and two very good performances by Neagle and Lieven, but it's almost sunk by a generally drab treatment and a slow pace, with the film's style alternating between traditional thriller and faux-documentary, and because of that, some of the key suspense scenes are bungled. Of course, those big surprises above will not really be surprises to anyone who's seen even a couple of spy movies, but it's fun to see all the elements fall into place. Neagle does a nice job keeping her cool and acting like she's really a traitor, even after we know she's not, and Lieven conveys his character’s slippery nature quite well. Greene (pictured above with Neagle) is handsome and suitably heroic, though overshadowed by Neagle. Rutherford has an amusing moment or two. There seems to be a huge plothole near the end when Greene arrives to save Neagle mere moments after she had called him at headquarters. Unless HQ was next right next door, I have no idea how he got there so fast. The title refers (I think) to Neagle's Nazi spy code name. [TCM]

THE GODDESS (1958)

Maryland, 1930. When Southern belle Laureen's husband kills himself, Laureen and her 4-year-old daughter Emily go to live with her brother and his wife, a stable and sober couple. Laureen, still young, wants to have fun, but is burdened by everyone around her. One night, she has a mini-breakdown, begging her brother to take her daughter, whom she loudly declares she never wanted. Sadly, little Emily hears every word. By 1942, Laureen is a pious churchgoer who spends her evenings praying out loud in the kitchen. Emily is a high school girl with a reputation, though she insists when a gawky lad takes her out that she doesn't go all the way. (She does eventually let the lad make out with her, though how far they go is up to the viewer's imagination.) One night on the town, she runs across a drunken soldier passed out on the street; when she finds out that he's the son of a famous movie star, she helps get him to his apartment. They're both rather messed up—he's tried to kill himself more than once—and they wind up married and unhappy. When he gets assigned to a combat unit, he says he hopes he gets killed, and she says she hopes so, too. She has a baby she is ill equipped to take care of and begs her mother to take the child, repeating Laureen's tirade about unwanted children word for word (she eventually palms the child off on her ex-husband). By 1947, she's changed her name to Rita and is a starlet in Hollywood; the rest of the movie chronicles her rise in the business as a sex bomb (married to and soon divorced from a former boxing champion), and her accompanying collapse into drinking, pills, nervous breakdowns, and suicide attempts. The final scene, set in 1957, shows her having yet another breakdown at her mother's funeral. We're told that the doctors have said that she'll keep making movies, but she's beyond therapy; she'll never be happy or "normal."

Though the screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky, denied it, this story seems clearly based on the life of Marilyn Monroe (unhappy childhood, early unhappy marriage, suicide attempts, marriage to a sports figure, sex bombness, etc., not to mention the specific years of birth, first marriage, and first movie). This could have been an interesting film, and indeed the first half up to the Hollywood years is compelling. But even though the movie is not physically stagy, it has a claustrophobic feel, in that virtually everything connected with her movie career happens offscreen, and we wind up getting a series of dialogue-heavy scenes in bedrooms and living rooms with two or three people screaming at each other. Kim Stanley, a highly acclaimed stage actress, is fine but she's way too old to be playing a teenager in the middle of the film, and she's never believable as a blonde bombshell, though she might have been if we'd seen her working in front of the camera, or even among her fans. The first part of the film, which has a strong Tennessee Williams vibe, belongs to Betty Lou Holland, who is remarkable as the mother; even near the end of the film, when she comes to L.A. to help Emily out after her breakdown, she almost steals a dramatic religious conversion scene by underplaying as Stanley is overplaying. Steven Hill, who spent many years on Law & Order, is good as her first husband, as is Lloyd Bridges as the boxer (pictured above). Patty Duke has a small role as the very young Emily, and a pre-Col. Klink Werner Klemperer plays a Hollywood producer. Burt Brinckerhoff, who became an esteemed TV director, is the gawky lad, and Louise Beavers can be glimpsed in the background of a scene as a maid—apparently, several scenes were taken out of the final cut by Chayefsky (even though it was directed by John Cromwell) and I'm guessing hers was one. Overall, I'd have to rank this an interesting failure; a different lead actress and more scenes to establish Emily/Rita's talent, or lack thereof, would have helped. [TCM]

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY (1938)

Bob Hope is a struggling writer, newly married to former model Shirley Ross. They are living in a nice Manhattan apartment in relative bliss except they're behind on the rent. Publisher Otto Kruger (a former boyfriend of Ross's) has read some chapters of Hope's book and says they show promise, but that Hope needs to concentrate more on the book and less on his work and social life. He quits his job and his wife goes back to work as a model, but it's harder to drop their fun-loving friends, including boozehound couple Charles Butterworth and Hedda Hopper, and Roscoe Karns, who has just married an older woman (Laura Hope Crews) for her money. Soon, Hope is upset over his stay-at-home house-husband role, and he's not terribly happy when Ross and Kruger seem to be getting quite friendly. When the pretty Southern belle next door starts hanging around, the stage is set for comic misunderstandings. As is often the case in romantic comedies of the era, a pregnancy solves everything.

Hope and Ross had sung "Thanks for the Memory" earlier in the year in THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1938 and it became his signature song so it seems likely that this movie was rushed through to capitalize on the song. The script, based on a play, is OK but nothing special. What makes this worth watching are a good supporting cast and Hope's effortless comic style. Butterworth is especially good; he's usually fun to see, but here his delivery is drier and less emphatic than in his earlier films. Karns is good, too, and his early scene with Crews is a highlight of the film. Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson gets a couple good lines as the building janitor. Light comedy was not Kruger's forte, but his role is small enough that he can be ignored. In addition to the title song, Hope and Ross also sing a cute song called "Two Sleepy People." [DVD]

ACTION IN ARABIA (1944)

Damascus during WWII is, we are told, "a breeding place of espionage and intrigue." When reporter George Sanders and his young sidekick Robert Andersen (both pictured at left) get off the plane, Andersen asks, "What is this, the Middle Ages?" and Sanders replies, "No, the Middle East, but it sometimes comes to the same thing." When they witness a lovely young woman meet an older man who had been on the plane under an assumed name, they smell a story and Andersen decides to follow up. Sanders goes on to the hotel where he meets up with Robert Armstrong, an American diplomat, and Alan Napier, the British owner of the hotel and a Nazi sympathizer. Both men, for different reasons, warn Sanders to leave, but when Andersen is found dead, knifed on the street, Sanders stays to get to the bottom of things. He has an encounter with Gene Lockhart, a spy with news about Nazi relationships with Arabs, and gets friendly with Virginia Bruce, who claims to be in the Free French movement; she is supposedly stuck in Damascus with a sickly aunt, but Sanders suspects she has other reasons for hanging around, and he’s right. It turns out that the Arab tribes are meeting to determine which side they will back; the head sheik (H.B. Warner) is throwing his support to the Allies, but the Nazis are out to subvert that, and will stop at nothing to get their way.

I suspect that this was intended as a poor man's Casablanca—Nazis in the desert, a hero in a white suit, a gambling room, and even Marcel Dalio, Rick’s croupier, crops up—but George Sanders, fine actor that he is, is no Bogart, or Errol Flynn, or even George Montgomery (who made an OK B-film Bogart-type in CHINA GIRL).  He strikes no sparks with Bruce and never comes off as heroic even when he is. Still, for fans of B-wartime spy films, this has some pleasures. The elaborate hotel lobby set is atmospheric and the supporting cast is strong, particularly Armstrong and Lockhart, who both get to be ambiguous figures who could swing either way (by which I mean Allies or Nazis). Of course, none of the major Arab roles are played by Arab actors, except for Kareem, a tribal leader, played by Syrian actor Jamiel Hasson. The impressive scenes of the Arab tribes coming together in the desert in the latter half of the film are composed of bits of footage shot in the late 30s for a movie about T.E. Lawrence which was never made. [TCM]

THE GREAT GATSBY (1949)

For my money, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the Great American Novel, at least of the 20th century. The 1974 film version with Robert Redford looked good but was long and draggy and hollow, and teaches us that actors who might look right for their roles (Redford and Mia Farrow) are sometimes not right at all. The 1949 version was my own little Holy Grail; long unavailable for viewing, it was supposed to be released on DVD a few years back but was withdrawn before it ever saw the light of day. I was finally able to see it on YouTube, not exactly the best way to view a movie, but until Universal (which owns the older Paramount film library) decides to issue it legally, it's the only to go, and it's definitely worth seeing. In the 1920s, young Nick Carraway becomes friends with Jay Gatsby, an impossibly rich and handsome man who gives elaborate Jazz Age parties but whom no one really knows. Nick finds out that Gatsby has amassed his wealth in order to win back his old flame Daisy Buchanan, who is now unhappily married to a cheating brute, and Nick becomes an accomplice in Gatsby's plots to get Daisy to run off with him, with tragic results.

In the book, the source of Gatsby's wealth is ambiguous; here it's blatantly presented that he has built a "dark empire" as a rum runner, but generally as far as plot, this film is fairly faithful to the book. Alan Ladd was never an actor of great depth, but being that Gatsby is mostly a man of surfaces, he's almost exactly right for the part, and certainly embodies the character more satisfyingly than Redford did. Macdonald Carey as Nick comes off as a moralistic prig, the exact opposite of the hero-worshiping Nick of the novel. Betty Field is serviceable as Daisy, nothing more. Same for Ruth Hussey as Jordan, the cheating golfer who flirts with Nick—in this film, they wind up married (!); the entire film is Nick's flashback as he and Jordan visit Gatsby's grave many years later. Barry Sullivan is OK as Daisy's husband. Elisha Cook Jr. is an itinerant pianist who lives in Gatsby’s house and who served with him during WWI. Henry Hull plays Gatsby's mentor in a plotline that has been considerably fleshed out from what's in the book. The best acting comes from Howard Da Silva and Shelley Winters as the Wilsons, a sad couple who are the catalyst for the tragic ending. Though the first big party at Gatsby's is well staged, the movie does not have a strong 20s feel to it. But this version's biggest minus is the lack of poetry and ambiguity that make the novel such a wonderful reading experience; gone is any sense of "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." There is one line I enjoyed that I suspect is not Fitzgerald’s: Nick: “I’d like to take you over my knee”; Jordan: “Any time, any place!” For all its faults, this is the best film version of the book yet produced. [YouTube]

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950)

Dana Andrews is a tough cop, a little too tough for his superiors; he has a reputation for acts of what today would be police brutality, and after his latest scuffle, he's knocked down a rank to second grade detective. His latest case involves a Texas oil man (Harry von Zell) who was brought into a crap game by lovely Gene Tierney, doing a favor for her thug husband Craig Stevens. The oil man loses a lot of money, then starts winning. When he decides to leave the game, Stevens' boss (Gary Merrill) isn’t happy. Stevens slaps Tierney around, blaming her for not getting the oil man to stay. When von Zell steps in to be a gentleman, he and Stevens get into a fight. Fade out to next morning when von Zell is found dead. Andrews fingers Stevens and winds up slugging him a bit too hard, killing Stevens. Andrews panics and tries to make it look like Stevens left town, then when his body is found, tries to frame Merrill, but circumstances lead to Tierney's father being arrested for the murder. To make matters stickier, Andrews has started dating Tierney.

This is a nice little film noir that in the wrap-up lets everyone off a little too easily. There is a deep dark psychological reason given eventually for Andrews' problems, in particular his desire to see Merrill fry, but after spending two-thirds of the film painting Andrews as a dark anti-hero, things lighten up a little too much and some of the impact of the first half of the film is lost. Still, Andrews (pictured) is fine as the good cop/bad cop, Merrill does a nice job as the cocky hood, and Karl Malden, in an early featured role, plays Andrews' newly promoted boss. Tierney isn't given a lot to do besides look lovely, which she does. Ruth Donnelly has a nice bit (in a Thelma Ritter mold) as a café owner who dotes on Andrews and tries her best to advance his romance with Tierney. Neville Brand stands out as a creepy little crook. A solid noir melodrama with the right look and, for at least half its running time, the right feel. [FMC]

A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS (1955)

In a bustling market neighborhood in London, young Joe and his mother Joanna live with a kindly tailor, Mr. Kandinsky, while waiting for Joe's dad to come back from South Africa on a (seemingly desperate) business deal. Joe flits around on the streets, making friends with everyone, chasing pigeons, and mourning his pet chicks who never live very long. While keeping Joe entertained, Kandinsky tells him about the magic of unicorns who can grant wishes, and soon Joe finds a young, sickly one-horned goat at the market and buys it from its owner. Convinced that the "unicorn" is real, he begins making wishes for his friends and relatives that eventually come true.

That summary makes this film sound like a sweet whimsical fantasy, but it's actually a non-whimsical slice-of-life comedy-drama, albeit in a mood of poetic realism. Much of it was filmed on location in Petticoat Lane in London, which looks like the Lower East Side of New York always used to look in movies. Because the setting grounds the film in realism, some touches of whimsy would be welcome, but aside from the first sighting of the unicorn, there just isn't enough magic in this movie. Seven-year-old Jonathan Ashmore (in his only acting credit) does a nice job as Joe; Celia Johnson (of BRIEF ENCOUNTER) is fine as his mother. Too much of the film is given over to a subplot involving a "dumb lug" boxer (the beefy but wooden Joe Robinson) and his sexpot girlfriend (Diana Dors, often called the British Marilyn Monroe); neither the actors nor the characters are particularly interesting. Best is David Kossoff as the tailor who seems to truly be looking out for Johnson and her son. Nice use of color is a plus; length of the film (at least 15 minutes too long) is a minus. The goat is cute, and I wound up caring more about its fate than the fates of any of the humans. Some critics have said that the film leaves it up in the air as to whether or not the goat is magical, but I saw absolutely no evidence of such an interpretation: it's a poor little one-horned goat and the outcomes for the humans don't need magic to explain them. [TCM]

REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940)

A sentimental Christmas romantic comedy with a bit of an edge, written by Preston Sturges. A couple of days before Christmas, snappily dressed looker Barbara Stanwyck is on trial for shoplifting a bracelet. She's a career crook and DA Fred MacMurray knows it, but he also knows that at the holidays, a jury will always sympathize with a woman, so he gets a continuance until after the first of the year. She can't make bail so MacMurray arranges for it. She thinks he did it because he expects something in return, but he's just a nice guy about to head out to Indiana to visit his mom; when she frets that she has no place to go for Christmas and he finds out she's also from Indiana, he suggests she tag along. However, when her cruel mother turns her away, she goes with him and experiences an old-fashioned, totally functional, rural family Christmas; she begins to lose some of her hardness and falls for MacMurray. His big-hearted mother (Beulah Bondi) takes good care of Stanwyck, but is also smart enough to know that she could be bad news to her straight-shooting son, who worked hard to get where he is and might get derailed by a "bad girl," even one who is ready to reform. On the way back to the big city, he encourages her to skip bail in Canada, but she decides to keep her court date and face the music.

This is a movie full of tonal shifts. It starts with comical big-city courtroom shenanigans as a lawyer (Willard Robertson) gives an over-the-top speech to the jury claiming Stanwyck was hypnotized by the jewels and therefore not responsible. The trip to Indiana has some road-trip comedy I could do without, but it leads to an intense, almost noirish scene with the uncaring mother (think Beulah Bondi as the bad Pottersville Ma Bailey in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE). The Christmas sequence is touching without passing into sticky-sweetness, but the last 20 minutes turn a little too melodramatic for my taste. Of course, Bondi is fine, as are Elizabeth Patterson as MacMurray's spinster aunt and Sterling Holloway as the sweetly dopey farmhand (all pictured above with Stanwyck and MacMurray). I like MacMurray mocking Robertson's theatrical delivery to the jury with the line, "Quick, Watson, the needle!" I don't so much like Snowflake Toones' drawling valet stereotype. The first time I saw this film (when I was much younger) I was really pushing for Stanwyck to skip bail and resented what felt like a Code-imposed ending, but now it feels more organic to the story. A lovely Christmas movie and one which hasn’t become the victim of over-exposure (yet). [VHS; available on DVD]

STEPPING OUT (1931)

Two married couples, Tom & Eve Martin and Tubby & Sally Smith, are enjoying an evening together at the Martin's Hollywood home. Eve made Tom promise that they’d make a short night of it as she seems ready for some bedroom time with him, but Tom and Tubby have something else in mind: meeting and greeting a couple of would-be starlets whom they have in mind for a movie they’re backing. When the guys say they have to head to the studio for some unfinished work, the gals decide to hoof it to Mexico for a little vacation. After they leave, Tom and Tubby invite the starlets over for a late-night swim, but of course, the wives return and catch them. Thanks to a silly plot point (the men have been advised to put all their money and property in their wives' names so they won't lose everything if the movie flops), the wives head to Mexico prepared to gamble everything away. The men follow, hoping to make amends, but the starlets also follow. Complicating things, a couple of gigolos posing as Spanish waiters flirt with the wives. Naturally, this being a comedy, things work out in the end.

This mild pre-Code romantic farce is watchable but never rises above that. Charlotte Greenwood (Sally), known for her long legs and crazy kicks, is usually someone I like, but here her character is such a braying bitch that I was tired of her in the first 20 minutes. Lelia Hyams (Eve) and Harry Stubbs (Tubby) are lackluster but acceptable. I enjoyed seeing Reginald Denny (pictured), usually given comic relief sidekick parts, getting a starring role as Tom and doing well with it—of the four leads, he's the only one who really seemed at all sympathetic. Cliff Edwards gets a few good moments in as one of the gigolos (he's supposed to be a college student, but looks every bit his 35 years of age); Kane Richmond is younger and better looking as his buddy, a football star, but doesn't get to do much. Greenwood and Edwards sing a cute number, "Just Like Frankie and Johnny." Apparently, some of the exteriors were shot at the homes of Denny, Buster Keaton, and John Gilbert. [TCM]

MY SON JOHN (1952)

An interesting entry in the string of anti-Communist propaganda films of the early 50's; the commie plot is secondary at times to the dysfunctional family plot which seems lifted from the works of Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, All My Sons). Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger say farewell to two of their sons as they head off to the Korean War. Their third son, Robert Walker, who works in Washington for the government, misses the farewell dinner but shows up a week later and we immediately see tensions between the three: Mom and Dad are old-fashioned, God-fearing, hard-working, middle-class citizens (Dad is running for head of the local American Legion unit); Walker is an effete college-educated liberal who does soft office work and seems to be an atheist to boot. Father and son are constantly at odds--during an argument, Jagger literally thumps Walker with a Bible--though Mom seems just a little too adoring of her little boy. Soon, Van Heflin shows up, a Fed who suspects that Walker is a Communist and is giving state secrets to the Russians through a woman who is eventually arrested for treason. Of course, he is, and of course, eventually, he sees the error of his ways and wants to spill everything to the FBI, but will his fellow travelers let him go that easily?

One problem with the film is the acting. Hayes gives an out-and-out bad performance, jittery, wide-eyed and mannered, like she's on a TV soap opera (except she doesn't keep looking at cue cards). Jagger's a bit better; he goes over-the-top frequently, but he does have a certain nervous chemistry with Walker, like a father might have with a son he felt he didn’t really know. Heflin has nothing substantive to do. Walker is the saving grace; as in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, he's playing a gay character but can't really let on that he is (godless commie + academic + mama's boy = light in his loafers). He does a great job balancing the character's conflicting emotions: genuine love for a family from which he's grown away, genuine belief in Communism as a panacea for the world's ills, and an apparently genuine desire to "reform." Sadly, Walker died halfway through filming, and the climactic action had to be completely rewritten in a way that largely dispenses with Walker's character; some footage of Walker from STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is incorporated and a climactic speech which was supposed to be delivered by Walker at a college graduation is instead presented on tape in an interesting looking but dramatically inert scene. For an actor who always seemed a bit high-strung, he gives a remarkably natural performance. At two hours, it's too long, but worth seeing for Walker. [TCM]

THE CONSTANT NYMPH (1943)

Charles Boyer is a struggling composer living in a boarding house; when his latest dissonant concert music is played to negative reviews in London, he has a big hissy fit leading to him smash his piano, so he heads off to the Swiss chalet of old friend Montagu Love to recover. He basks in the adoration of Love’s daughters, especially bubbly teenager Joan Fontaine (at right with Boyer). Love sympathizes with Boyer, but chastises him, telling him he’s "ashamed of melody," and encourages him to work on one of his short, lovely throwaway tunes which has caught Fontaine's attention. Boyer is also told that he will learn to write truly great music only after he learns to cry. Fontaine, who has a heart condition, clearly has a crush on Boyer, and they spend some idyllic times together in the mountains, but after Love dies, the girls are put in the care of their uncle (Charles Coburn).

Time passes; the girls are taken to England for schooling and Boyer marries Alexis Smith, Coburn’s daughter. Up to this point, the film has played out like a romantic comedy, but things take a melodramatic turn here and we get a series of emotionally charged conversations between Boyer and Fontaine (who is completely in love with him), between Boyer and Smith (who are having marital problems), between Smith and Coburn (he knows she's not happy), and between Fontaine and Smith (she knows Fontaine's in love with her husband). Boyer finally has an emotional breakthrough when he realizes he's in love with Fontaine, cries, and is able to flesh out his throwaway melody into a symphonic "tone poem" which becomes a huge success when it is played in concert. Fontaine, whose heart weakness spells are increasing, listens to the piece over the radio in ecstasy, but…, well, heart conditions being what they are in movies, the ecstasy is short-lived.

This movie had been out of circulation due to copyright problems for over 50 years and had become something of a Holy Grail for classic movie buffs, so inevitably it's a bit disappointing to finally see it and realize it's just an average romantic melodrama, on the order of other such films set in the world of classical music (INTERMEZZO, HUMORESQUE). Fontaine gives a good performance; she never seems as young as she's supposed to be, but that's a good thing because it would be a bit too creepy to have a real 14-year-old be the romantic object of the mid-40s Boyer. I'm not a big fan of Boyer but he's quite good here, with just the right doses of egocentrism and tenderness. There are some fine supporting players, but their plotlines aren't given enough attention for them to shine: in addition to Smith (pictured at left with Fontaine) and Coburn, there's Brenda Marshall as the oldest daughter who, because she dates around, has the reputation of having "gone bad"; Peter Lorre as her off-and-on lover; Dame May Whitty as a high society lady; and Eduardo Ciannelli as a family servant. The tone poem "Tomorrow" was written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and has taken on a life of its own outside the film. My favorite line, delivered by Coburn to Smith: "Stop moaning about like a woman in a novel." This film was in fact based on a novel. Better than INTERMEZZO, but nowhere as good as HUMORESQUE. [TCM]

THE MAN WITH TWO FACES (1934)

Mary Astor is making a return to the stage after suffering a nervous breakdown when her husband (Louis Calhern) was reported killed in San Francisco—he was a rotten bastard but he had some kind of strange, almost hypnotic, power over her. Now she's healthy and happy and has the lead in a play that's a hit in its out-of-town tryout; she's acting with her famous brother (Edward G. Robinson), she's friendly with the author (John Eldredge), she's dating the producer (Ricardo Cortez), and she's living in her rich aunt’s mansion. Suddenly, on the night they decide to take the play to Broadway, Calhern shows up, alive and as much of a bastard as ever. Astor immediately falls under his power again and plans for the show appear to be scotched until a French investor arrives wanting to buy Calhern's half of the show from him—ideally, this would give him enough money to clear out of Astor's life and let her get back to acting. But after a meeting with the investor, Calhern is found dead. Everyone in Astor's life is happy but the police still want to find out who did it, and they think it's fishy that the French investor has simply vanished. Who else might be involved?

This old-fashioned melodrama is based on a hit play by George S. Kaufman & Alexander Woollcott called The Dark Tower (which is the name given to the play-within-the-movie) and, though the film adaptation is not especially stagy, the impact of the climax of the play is, I would think, dependent upon a theater audience not being able to see everything up close, and of course, movies tend to be dependent on the opposite: clarity and close-ups. I won't give any spoilers, but a good bit of tension is dissipated here because film audiences will know what’s happening long before a play audience would (the trick involves a character in disguise). Still, it is fun to see things play out to an ending which is clear-cut but with an ambiguous shading or two—the Production Code wouldn't allow the killer to get away without punishment, unlike in the original play. All the actors are fine, particularly Louis Calhern who seems to relish playing an out-and-villain who would certainly be twirling his mustache if he had one. The one weak link is Mary Astor; she's fine as the carefree actress, but as soon as she falls under Calhern's power, she's basically playing a zombie. Also of note: Mae Clarke as a bad actress and David Landau as a cop who ends up wishing he didn't have to make the arrest he will after the fadeout. (Pictured above are Cortez, Robinson, Astor and Calhern) [TCM]

STRANGE BARGAIN (1949)

This short B-film feels like a cross between a TV show and a movie, specifically Father Knows Best crossed with Double Indemnity. It begins in sit-com land around the suburban breakfast table with Dad (Jeffrey Lynn), Mom (Martha Scott), and the two kids. When the kids go off to school, conversation gets around to the problems the couple is having making ends meet. She talks him into asking his boss (Richard Gaines) for a raise, but as it happens, Gaines tells Lynn that he's about to be let go—the company is in dire financial straits. Over drinks that evening, Gaines makes Lynn a proposition: Gaines plans to kill himself so his family can get his life insurance money, but he asks Lynn to come to the house that night after the fact to shoot a gun through the window to make it look like murder and robbery so the insurance company will pay out. Gaines offers Lynn $10,000 so Lynn reluctantly agrees. The plan goes off alright, but when the police start suspecting Gaines' business partner (Henry O'Neill), who had been arguing with Gaines recently, Lynn doesn't know what to do: if he clears O'Neill, he could be arrested on a felony charge and Gaines's family will be destitute; if he remains silent, an innocent man might be charged with murder. But as the cops keep investigating, it starts to look like it might not have been suicide after all.

Though blandly directed, the plot is compelling enough to keep your attention for 70 minutes. Lynn, typically a supporting actor, is a big zero in the lead role, and Scott's character is underdeveloped, so that I ended up not caring what happened to the two of them, but Gaines (who had a small role in DOUBLE INDEMNITY as the clueless head honcho at the insurance company) is good, and even better is Harry Morgan (pictured above, on the left with Lynn in the back seat) who enters halfway through as the police inspector who solves the case (he's given a limp and a cane, though they serve no plot purpose). Katherine Emery is fine as the widow, and Michael Chapin, who plays Lynn's son, is the real-life brother of Lauren Chapin, who played "Kitten" on, to bring this review full circle, Father Knows Best. [TCM] (Note: Tomorrow, I'm off for the Turner Classic Movie cruise, so there'll no reviews for a week or so.)