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Post by topbilled on Jan 22, 2023 5:13:45 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Postwar struggle to get on with their lives
The picture is notable in that it is only one of two films that Hedy Lamarr made in Technicolor. The other one was her previous effort at Paramount, SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949). She was in the middle of a three-picture deal with the studio. After her enormous success with DeMille, she was placed into this interesting “A” budget western directed by John Farrow. There would be a spy comedy in black-and-white with Bob Hope after this.
John Farrow (father of Mia Farrow and husband of Maureen O’Sullivan) is an underrated director who helmed a bunch of action flicks at Paramount and RKO. His focus is typically on the outdoor sequences but there is plenty of good stuff going on inside Lamarr’s saloon. Of course, she is more than just a pretty woman presiding over a houseful of foolish gamblers and hardened drinkers.
We find out that she is working in tandem with the local sheriff (Macdonald Carey). Mr. Carey gives a sublime performance as an untrustworthy lawman who aims to thwart a group of locals from the south.
It is revealed that after the war, some men who had served in the Confederate Army made their way west to try their luck in copper mining. They wound up in the appropriately named Coppertown and its outlying area. But they are facing discrimination from the town’s powerful and “respectable” citizenry who are from the north and want these rebels gone.
While the southern miners are attempting to get ore across a canyon, they must deal with sabotage at every turn. Skirmishes in the picturesque mountains become violent– resulting in injury and the deaths of men who resist the sheriff and his deputies. There are shocking scenes where the sheriff and his posse shoot the Rebs without hesitation, usually in the back.
The only hope for the Rebs seems to be a trick-shot artist (Ray Milland) who has found his way to the area as part of a troupe of entertainers. The entertainers are hired by a cigar-smoking woman (Hope Emerson) who runs part of the saloon with Lamarr. The Rebs believe Milland, now going by a different name, is a former colonel in their dixie army. As such, they appeal to him to lead them to victory.
What we have here is a thoughtful drama about adversity and the ability to overcome obstacles that are seemingly insurmountable. I am sure it appealed to postwar viewers who were still struggling to get on with their lives.
I rather enjoyed the mystery of Milland’s character— is he or isn’t he the man they think he is? If he is a fellow southerner, why is he pretending to cozy up to the northerners in town? Milland is good at the not-so-straightforward caginess that envelopes his character. We wait to see what what decision he will make when open warfare occurs in the canyon.
There is a nice scene that references a post-Civil War speech that Lincoln made about the two sides coming together again, and being re-united after much fighting. In our current political climate (in 2022) where there is much polarity and divisiveness in America, it’s not a bad idea to listen to Lincoln’s words. To reflect on what he said, and take his advice to heart.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 28, 2023 2:19:42 GMT
This neglected film is from 1934.
A house of death
Stage actress Mary Morris gives what can be called a tour-de-force performance in Paramount’s precode thriller DOUBLE DOOR. Since the filmed play lends itself to histrionics, it is remarkable that Miss Morris is able to etch such a vivid character without resorting to the scenery chewing one might expect.
She conveys just the right amount of menace without being too severe. At the heart of this twisted tale is a strong woman who protects her family despite the ways in which she runs the household. She manipulates them to ensure unity in the face of outside interference and opposition.
Her main obstacle comes in the form of a lower class gal (Evelyn Venable) marrying into the Van Brett fortune. Of course, she cannot go so far as prevent her younger half-brother (Kent Taylor) from wedding the unsuitable creature, but she can sure as heck do her best to run the woman off!
Aiding in these efforts is a mousy sister (Anne Revere), afraid of her own shadow, who will help in these dastardly schemes…or else. We learn that the younger sister has been locked inside an airtight room when she became defiant. So she will cooperate or risk being locked up again.
It is explained that the enclosed room, a vault, was built by the family’s long-deceased patriarch. He often went in there to sleep, away from all the noise outside their Fifth Avenue home. He died inside the vault.
Morris and Revere have great rapport in their scenes together. Both actresses had been in the hit Broadway production. The rest of the movie’s cast consists of Paramount contractees who are all quite effective. Miss Venable does nicely as the outsider who marries into the fold. Her character morphs from vulnerable in the beginning to more determined later on, especially when she decides she must get her husband out of this place.
There is an engrossing final sequence where the women go toe to toe. Venable is held hostage in the vault by Morris. Since it is airtight and thus soundproof, nobody can hear her cries for help. The groom thinks his bride left with another man (Colin Tapley) which isn’t true.
Supposedly the two sisters in the story are based on the real-life Wendel sisters of Manhattan. The Wendel family was known for its money and its frugality. Despite their enormous wealth, the Wendel sisters spent their final years living in a way that suggested squalor. Reminiscent of GREY GARDENS. The last surviving sister had no heirs and left what would be worth $1 billion in assets today to charity. She had a French poodle that continued to make headlines after she died.
There is a scene in the film where Morris tries to hide the fact that she’s concealed Venable inside the makeshift tomb. A pudgy white poodle runs into the room and scratches on a panel to alert the others about what is really going on.
I won’t reveal the ending. But it is a house of death and someone does lose their life in the last scene. The death is cleverly foreshadowed in the very first shot of the film.
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Post by sagebrush on Jan 28, 2023 13:17:25 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
A house of death
This film sounds like a gem. I had never heard of it before. These type of films, which contain psychological abuse, are always more uncomfortable for me to watch than watching physical abuse (which in the classic film era was usually shot in short sequences when it was a woman being targeted.) |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 28, 2023 13:21:51 GMT
Yeah, DOUBLE DOOR has a GASLIGHT feel to it...but it's arguably spookier. The lead actress does a sensational job.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 2, 2023 7:08:29 GMT
This neglected film is from 1955.
Western morality tale
This outdoor yarn was James Cagney’s first western since he made THE OKLAHOMA KID in 1939. The story is different from what we typically see in 50s frontier sagas, with its heightened melodrama and slightly ambiguous morality.
The moral center is compromised by a young wanderer played by John Derek. Cagney meets him in the opening sequence, and they bond quickly when they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and get blamed for a train robbery. After they’ve been arrested, Cagney clears up the confusion at a local sheriff’s office which prevents a mob from lynching them.
We learn two things right up front. First, the sheriff is woefully inadequate and about to be fired by the leading townsfolk. And second, Derek would have preferred to rob the locomotive and run off with the loot. He has no definition of right and wrong, or any qualms about getting what he can for himself. The only thing that humbles him, partially, is a leg that gets crippled in a shooting.
Of course, Cagney decides to intervene. As a good Samaritan, he will mentor and guide the young man; to turn him into a respectable law abiding citizen if he can. But there is some foreshadowing which suggests Derek’s good side may not win out. So it becomes a case of how much Cagney tries to do, while dealing with the reality that Derek is probably a bad seed who cannot be reformed.
Meanwhile Cagney becomes the new sheriff and falls in love with the daughter (Viveca Lindfors) of a Scandinavian farmer. As he settles down and establishes roots in the community, Cagney continues to be drawn to Derek and remains focused on straightening out the boy.
The final sequence of the film is the best. Out on a manhunt to bring some killers to justice, Cagney realizes his protege is also involved. He has to face the situation head on in a violent confrontation.
In the last scene, he rides back into town with the dead body of his young pal. He tells his girl and the others how the boy died a hero. He doesn’t want to admit what has really happened.
Cagney gives a powerful performance, and this is director Nicholas Ray’s most overlooked classic. If John Derek’s role had been played by James Dean, it’s a picture everyone would be familiar with…I encourage you to watch it and form your own conclusions.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 7, 2023 16:03:21 GMT
This neglected film is from 1930.
Reckless behavior and what is best for her
In THE VIRTUOUS SIN Kay Francis has a lot of chemistry with Walter Huston. (It was the second of four films they made together.) She also has a great deal of chemistry with second lead Kenneth MacKenna, whom she would marry off screen a year later. The story relies on her having rapport with Huston, more than she is supposed to have with MacKenna. But because she’s involved with MacKenna in real life, she can’t turn off her feelings for him.
There are lines of dialogue at the end where her character is supposed to tell MacKenna that she never really loved him, which doesn’t ring true. Then, ironically, he tells her that he will give her a divorce…and in 1934, they did divorce, and she never remarried.
This precode gem is artistic yet commercially viable. There is a splendid segment midway through the picture where Francis and Huston walk through a wooded area and have fun on a makeshift seesaw. I’ve really never seen anything like that before– a distinguished looking couple, playing outdoors like children.
There is also a segment earlier in the movie when Francis joins a group of prostitutes. She thinks that if she can entertain with them and meet the general (Huston), she will be able to obtain a pardon for her husband (MacKenna) who is facing death by a firing squad.
The proprietress revels in how her girls’ naughty reputations bring military men into her establishment, which means a lot of cash for her. Jobyna Howland, who plays the morally challenged madame, is deliciously over-the-top in all her scenes.
THE VIRTUOUS SIN is a polished adaptation of a Hungarian stage play, done with a Hollywood studio budget, that has an eye towards box office returns. So even though Miss Francis plays a woman who makes promises and breaks them, her heart is still reformed in the end.
Most of the reckless behavior that occurs during the movie can be blamed on the war…the characters are simply not in their right minds given the circumstances. But when the war comes to an end, and the soldiers go back to their lives in industry, most of the pieces can be picked up again and even rearranged in a way they should have been arranged before.
While this is for all intents and purposes a Kay Francis picture geared for a female audience, there is plenty of war-related action that focuses on the men. In particular, there is a sequence near the end that involves bombs blasting and guns blazing, where it looks like both men may die. Of course, they live and this leads into how our heroine obtains her happy ever after…which does not come because of any man’s death, but because both the men in her life do the right thing and agree on what is best for her.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 13, 2023 16:06:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1957.
Juvenile Jerry
In some respects this doesn’t feel your usual Hollywood movie. One gets the feeling that Jerry Lewis, now on his own without longtime partner Dean Martin, is drawing inspiration from foreign comics in how non-sequitur parts of the narrative seem. However, he is definitely influenced by American filmmaking, since he is spoofing the trend of juvenile delinquent flicks that were popular at the time.
Of course Lewis is no rebel without a cause, and he’s not stuck inside a blackboard jungle. But he lives on a street that looks like it is situated in a rough section of town. And when he is accidentally picked up by the cops with some gang members his age, he inadvertently becomes part of a police lineup.
In typical Lewis style we have a bumbling and socially inept character who is not like the other boys. And his sensitivity or should I say delicate nature, attracts the attention of an experienced copper (Darren McGavin) who tells his boss (Horace McMahon) that he’d like to take the kid under his wing.
Some of the buddy bonding that occurs between Lewis and McGavin has slightly homoerotic vibes at first. That is until a sexy female lawyer (Martha Hyer) enters the picture. She and McGavin quarrel about what’s best for Lewis. While sparring, the two somehow fall in love. The pair ultimately become surrogate “parents” to Lewis.
Meanwhile Lewis has decided he’d also like to be a cop, presumably to take the story in more outlandish directions. The police academy sequence is certainly humorous, and as expected, he fouls things up. More than once he hijacks the training with his screwy antics…like the humorous fingerprinting scene where he gets ink all over one of the instructors.
Plus there is an amusing bit where Lewis tangles with a Japanese wrestler as part of a self-defense course. Ouch, that looks painful!
I have to admit that some of the hijinks feel a bit forced and some of the comic routines are a bit too stretched out to sustain laughs. But comedy is about taking risks, and Lewis is to be commended for trying, even for scenes that are not altogether very funny.
What I like most about the film is how character-driven it is. We want this nut to succeed and make something of himself. And that is exactly what happens in the end. After he graduates from the academy and becomes a full-fledged officer of the law, he attempts to help his neighborhood pals. There is also a girl (Mary Webster) that’s been sweet on him, whom he now feels comfortable dating.
THE DELICATE DELINQUENT was a huge hit with audiences and proved that Lewis could carry a movie on his own, without help from Dean Martin. He would be one of Paramount’s top moneymakers until 1965. In this picture, he forges ahead with the help of a good support system. Even if he doesn’t seem grateful at first.
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 13, 2023 16:59:45 GMT
Some of the buddy bonding that occurs between Lewis and McGavin has slightly homoerotic vibes at first.
I haven't seen it since I was a kid but I doubt very seriously that Jerry Lewis - or Pythagoras - had homosexual subtext in mind. Sometimes two men can just be good friends. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 13, 2023 19:24:19 GMT
Some of the buddy bonding that occurs between Lewis and McGavin has slightly homoerotic vibes at first.
I haven't seen it since I was a kid but I doubt very seriously that Jerry Lewis - or Pythagoras - had homosexual subtext in mind. Sometimes two men can just be good friends. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. |
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Post by Newbie on Feb 13, 2023 19:37:40 GMT
Some of the buddy bonding that occurs between Lewis and McGavin has slightly homoerotic vibes at first.
I haven't seen it since I was a kid but I doubt very seriously that Jerry Lewis - or Pythagoras - had homosexual subtext in mind. Sometimes two men can just be good friends. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.Well, there is that photo of them that surfaced on eBay a few years ago. 😲. I found a thread from the old TCM forum: forums.tcm.com/topic/267306-martin-and-lewis-naked/But I tend to agree with you, LuckyDan. No disrespect to TopBilled but sometimes people may read into things with a modern eye that weren't necessarily there way back when. |
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 13, 2023 19:44:35 GMT
Please. I remember when Jerry Falwell would say stuff like this and people would go ape fecal. Now these implications are tossed around freely whenever two men smile at each other.
I haven't seen it since I was a kid but I doubt very seriously that Jerry Lewis - or Pythagoras - had homosexual subtext in mind. Sometimes two men can just be good friends. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I noticed you attached four qualifiers to it, too. "Some of the buddy bonding ...slightly ... vibes" and "at first" so I wonder how real even you think it is. I get the feeling you were reading into the relationship your own prejuduces, just as you're reading an attack into my having noticed it.
And it wasn't the only thing in the review I disagree with, I just felt it was the most significant and I didn't want to come off as, ironically, combative.
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Post by Newbie on Feb 13, 2023 19:57:50 GMT
I always found the Martin and Lewis characters to be more fraternal rather than any relationship with gay subtext. Martin as the exasperated older brother and Lewis as the goofy, annoying younger brother.
Now, Rope. There's a movie with subtext!
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 13, 2023 19:58:14 GMT
I doubt very seriously that Jerry Lewis - or Pythagoras - had homosexual subtext in mind. Well, there is that photo of them that surfaced on eBay a few years ago. 😲. I found a thread from the old TCM forum: forums.tcm.com/topic/267306-martin-and-lewis-naked/ |
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Post by Newbie on Feb 13, 2023 20:04:39 GMT
Dino and Frank took steam baths together, too. Starkers. After the game last night all the players showered, probably side by side. My guess is no sex was involved in either case. 😆😂 I agree!! The conversation just brought to mind that photo and of course, rampant speculation, at the time, of the "significance." |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 13, 2023 21:12:41 GMT
I find it a bit curious that this is the sentence you would zero in on, as if nothing else in the review mattered to you. LOL But we will leave it there, though I will tell you-- as a writer I will not be pushed back into the literary closet and be made to feel as if I should not bring up homosexual themes or possible queer subtexts. Those stone age days are long over.
I noticed you attached four qualifiers to it, too. "Some of the buddy bonding ...slightly ... vibes" and "at first" so I wonder how real even you think it is. I get the feeling you were reading into the relationship your own prejuduces, just as you're reading an attack into my having noticed it.
And it wasn't the only thing in the review I disagree with, I just felt it was the most significant and I didn't want to come off as, ironically, combative.
In another thread I said that Bette Davis seemed like she was in love with one of her costars. And FadingFast said next time he would look at the film again to see if he agreed with my reading of it. He was very respectful even if he didn't share my initial interpretation.
Nowhere in your comment did you suggest you were willing to re-watch THE DELICATE DELINQUENT to see if there could be a queer subtext, which indicates your possible ignorance and your unwillingness to look at films in a way that doesn't support your heteronormal viewpoint, which would seem very narrow to me.
I want the reviews we post to encourage people to seek out the films and (re)watch them for different reasons. No form of homophobia is acceptable. And I am strongly opposed to prejudicial conservative viewpoints that seek to eradicate other viable viewpoints. |
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