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Post by topbilled on Aug 2, 2023 14:05:12 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
A most proper conwoman
In this precode comedy-drama from Paramount, Alison Skipworth plays a most proper con-woman who presides over tea parties with other female inmates in prison. When she gets released on parole, she continues to act 'properly' by setting out to fleece as many men as possible. Skipworth was primarily a character actress at Paramount in the 1930s, but in this film she is the star.
The actress is having a field day with the material. Her character gyps a warden on her way out of prison. Then she shakes down a former lover, before hopping a train to Wisconsin where she has unfinished business with another man (Richard Bennett). Nipping at her heels is a smart copper (J. Farrell MacDonald) who’s arrested her several times already, and before all is said and done, he will probably get the chance to slap the cuffs on her again.
Despite these criminal exploits, we get the sense that madame cares deeply about the man in Wisconsin and his two daughters (Evalyn Knapp and Gertrude Messinger)…since they are also her daughters, and she’s come to do right by them, The girls think their mother’s dead, but that doesn’t stop Skipworth who knows they need some maternal guidance.
What makes the film so enjoyable is the character study that Miss Skipworth renders. She plays the role in such a way that we ultimately pity and even daresay, admire her. We have in front of us a woman who’s made many mistakes in her life, but uses her ingenuity and skill at conning others to set things right for her daughters.
Without revealing her true identity to them, she nudges one towards a respectable marriage with a banker’s son; and nudges the other one away from a disastrous relationship with a hoodlum (George Raft).
Scenes between Skipworth and Raft are fun. They’re two grifters on the prowl, looking for an easy mark. But Raft doesn’t realize Skipworth is going to take him for a sucker…not once, but twice. This was Raft’s first picture at Paramount after already being typecast as a gangster in SCARFACE. He’d stay at the studio for the rest of the decade before moving over to Warner Brothers, where he’d play other shady dudes.
The end of the film has Skipworth trying to flee the law. While on the lam, she thwarts Raft’s scheme to run off with the youngest daughter. She fulfills her motherly duties, and after she’s been apprehended for fraud, she must return to prison since she’s violated the terms of her parole. The story ends where it began, with her back in the hoosegow serving more tea. We are left with a sense that things are now back to ‘normal’ for her.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 2, 2023 14:26:26 GMT
Madame Racketeer from 1932 with Alison Skipworth, J. Farrell MacDonald, Richard Bennett, Evalyn Knapp, Gertrude Messinger and George Raft
In the 1930s, mature, heavyset actresses Alison Skipworth and Marie Dressler had a vogue, leading to them starring in several B movies. These movies required some deft story telling, since the women usually played roguish characters with good souls down deep.
Skipworth is probably best known as W. C. Fields' partner, but in Madame Racketeer, we see once again, that this seventy-year-old actress can carry a movie by herself, here playing a confidence woman just out of prison.
Penniless, she goes to stay at the struggling-just-to-get-by inn owned by her ex-husband. He lives there with his and Skipworth's two, now young adult daughters, who do not know that Skipworth is their mother.
Skipworth, unreformed and presenting herself as "The Countess Von Claudwig," immediately starts working a scam on her husband, played by Richard Bennett, and a separate one on the local banker.
She also, though, sincerely wants to see and help her children who believe their "sainted" mother died when they were infants.
One daughter, played by Evalyn Knapp, wants to marry the son of the same banker Skipworth is setting up for a scam, but the banker wants his son to marry a rich girl.
The other daughter, played by Gertrude Messinger, is having an affair with a confidence man, played by a ridiculously young George Raft, presenting himself as a wealthy businessman.
Following Skipworth is a federal officer, played by J. Farrell MacDonald, who's been chasing and arresting Skipworth, off and on, for twenty years. They have a wonderful "adversaries who respect each other despite being on opposite sides of the law" relationship.
With all those pieces in place, the movie is really about Skipworth's brand of sarcastic, but also self-deprecating humor, which includes a lot of under-her-breath asides, jokes at her own expense and some physical / screwball comedy.
Much of the humor feels dated, but still, there are some funny lines even for modern audiences, plus Skipworth's abundant talent is obvious and engaging to this day. You have to marvel at the smooth transition this mature actress made from the stage to the screen.
Her scenes with "nemesis" Farrell are the entertaining antecedent to all the future cop-and-criminal buddy movies, like 48 Hrs., that never go out of style.
The story, itself, a wash-rinse-repeat one, has Skipworth working her scams as she secretly "mothers" her daughters by trying to steer their lives to good outcomes. It's her force-of-will personality that somehow makes everything work.
For some reason, in the 1930s, a couple of matronly looking actresses had, as we say today, "a moment." This produced a lot of small-budget, entertaining films where these unconventional heroines harmlessly scam their way through life, while often doing good deeds.
Madame Racketeer is just another by-the-numbers version of these simple stories. Yet it has a nice message about motherly love and sacrifice, put over by talented Alice Skipworth playing a character who remains unreformed, but lovable to the end. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 2, 2023 15:18:05 GMT
I like the fact that Skipworth's character in MADAME RACKETEER does not reform. She faces consequences for her actions, but is not made to do a 180 and change her ways, which I feel is realistic. Yet despite all her criminal activity, she's a decent mom...and her husband still loves her, which is a testament to the good in her. It's a well-written role and Skipworth is perfect in it.
I had read that several scenes were reshot. I think that is because the studio decided to enlarge the role played by Raft, which is essentially a supporting role. Raft was on the verge of becoming a breakout star at Paramount...so that makes sense.
I don't exactly compare Skipworth to Marie Dressler though I can see how some might. Skipworth always seems a lot more upper crust and dignified, not as working class as Dressler came across. Interestingly, Dressler's comedy partner at MGM-- Polly Moran-- would team up with Skipworth for two later comedies at Republic, after Dressler's death. So maybe we can equate Skipworth's box office power with Dressler's, but I don't think Skipworth ever set out to be a star. She was just an actress who excelled at playing memorable characters, and some of those parts were leads.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 10, 2023 14:04:56 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
Complicit in wartime horrors
This is a Hal Wallis production. His films tend to be meticulously crafted affairs, made with big budgets, and they feature extravagant sets and backdrops. Wallis and director William Dieterle are in no hurry to start the story. They want us to soak up the atmosphere and tease us about the tale to follow.
Characters refer to the past– and you just know a large flashback is going to follow, which it eventually does. But this is delayed in order to establish Wallis’ new discovery, Douglas Dick.
He plays Sam Hazen the young son of the lead characters. Sam’s situation is revealed in modern-day scenes that take place after the war– he came home a cripple; and he is withdrawn and angry. Wallis and Dieterle intend for us to become familiar with Douglas Dick and the character of Sam. This pushes the film’s running time to almost two hours, when it could easily have been told in ninety minutes.
Once the preamble is out of the way, and the flashback occurs– we get a very interesting story about Sam’s father Alex (Robert Young), an American diplomat who lives in Europe at the onset of war with Sam’s mother Emily (Ann Richards).
Because of an isolationist point of view, Alex turns a blind eye to the encroaching fascism in Italy and other neighboring countries.
THE SEARCHING WIND is based on Lillian Hellman’s award-winning stage play of the same name, and she wrote the screenplay. In her story, Miss Hellman is drawing attention to the ignorance of the bourgeoisie. But do not assume she’s writing only about war and government politics.
She is also presenting a woman’s melodrama. Early on we see that Emily Hazen is an artificial sort of wife whose main goal is to rub elbows with royalty and important heads of state to promote her husband’s career. But while she’s doing that, Alex is distracted by another woman named Cassie Bowman (Sylvia Sidney). Cassie is a political correspondent, and she just so happens to be Alex’s long-lost love.
They were once engaged to be married, but Cassie’s career took priority. As a result, Alex decided to move on and marry Emily. A short time later Sam was born. But despite having a trophy wife and an obedient son, Alex has never gotten over his feelings for Cassie. And Cassie hasn’t gotten over her feelings for him either.
The romantic triangle between these three takes center stage while various atrocities and betrayals occur in the background. Eventually Cassie comes to reject Alex, because as a journalist, her investigations have led her to realize his complicity in the on-going horrors of war in Europe. Her ultimate rejection of Alex sends him back into the arms of his wife, an individual who is much like himself.
In the present day, Alex learns a horrible truth about his son’s injuries in battle and how he may have been responsible. Hellman brings it all full-circle, and the pay-off is dramatically satisfying. But of course, Wallis and Dieterle have paced it so leisurely, especially the early scenes, that a tighter more economic brand of storytelling is out of the question.
There is another important character we meet during the course of Hellman’s story, and that is Moses (Dudley Digges, in his last screen role). Moses is a retired newspaper owner whose company employs Cassie. Complicating matters and increasing the soap opera value, is the fact that Moses is Emily’s father.
Moses is not quite comic relief, but he does bring an airy lightness to an otherwise somber motion picture. His moments on camera are usually quite entertaining. Moses is a bit more human than Alex and Emily, providing emotional support to Sam when Sam returns from battle as a cripple. Moses’ concern for his grandson causes Alex to redirect his focus and help Sam, too.
When THE SEARCHING WIND concludes you realize something. Not all films provide immediate gratification. Some of them take longer to play out on screen, and they might make viewers work a little harder. But if the audience’s thought process has gone in a slightly more profound direction– like Cassie Bowman’s does– then perhaps it’s all been worth it.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 19, 2023 15:02:01 GMT
This neglected film is from 1944.
Engaging romcom is sly anti-war film
PRACTICALLY YOURS was the fifth of seven collaborations for Claudette Colbert and frequent leading man Fred MacMurray. It was the last one they made together at Paramount; subsequent pairings were at Universal. Perhaps more importantly, this was Miss Colbert’s final film at Paramount Pictures, where she’d been under contract since 1929 and had appeared in 35 motion pictures…a long and successful run by anyone’s standards.
Not only did Colbert make 35 films at Paramount during a 15-year period, she appeared in ten loan outs. She averaged three films per year, nearly all of them hits. When she left Paramount in 1945, she freelanced at Universal, RKO, MGM and 20th Century Fox. She never played supporting roles in any of these productions. She didn’t have children, so without maternity leaves and without any breaks during the war years, she remained a busy and influential Hollywood star for several decades.
Because PRACTICALLY YOURS is Colbert’s swan song at her home studio, it’s a film worth examining. Contemporary critic James Agee was a huge fan of this unusual wartime love story. Like THE BRIDE CAME HOME, it’s somewhat experimental. Not only are the leads older than the typical twenty-somethings we might find in this type of situation, scenes contain absurd humor that is meant to keep us on our toes.
Indeed, much of it seems designed to have us consider the absurdity of war and how people soldier on at home and abroad during times of international uncertainty. It’s a subversive tale wrapped up in a wholesome Colbert-MacMurray package.
Particularly cheeky is the sardonic view that romance has gone to the dogs. Colbert’s character is mistaken for the canine companion of a heroic pilot (MacMurray). Their names are similar, and he calls out her name while crashing into a Japanese ship. Everyone back home thinks he’s dead at first. When he turns out to be very much alive a short time later, he is reunited with his beloved Peggy who functions as a stand-in for his beloved Piggy. It’s absurd, right? Even a name like Piggy for a dog is absurd.
Meanwhile, there is another fellow at the company where Colbert works who is called Beagell (Gil Lamb). Obviously, the name is a play on the word beagle. Colbert becomes “engaged” to that mutt, when she and MacMurray don’t seem to hit it off and she needs a convenient out.
Colbert underplays her role with a cool detachment. She and MacMurray have been thrown together by happenstance and a series of coincidences. A lovely sequence in which they provide comfort to a recent war widow (Rosemary DeCamp) in a time of grief, underscores how real the relationship can be if they work as a unit, not apart at cross-purposes.
MacMurray is a bit more subdued than usual. However, he is still playing another testosterone-fueled jerk, the kind of role that Paramount often assigned to him. His character reflects the male chauvinism of the era. He’s most effective, though, when he is allowed to be tender with his pooch Piggy, which is later repeated with Peggy.
I’m a fan of the character actors that appear in so many of these classic Paramount pictures. Here we have Cecil Kellaway as the benevolent employer, who offers our two main characters a place to stay while dealing with a media blitz and tremendous public attention.
Robert Benchley is also on hand as a relative of Kellaway’s. He has a very nice bedtime exchange with MacMurray about what it means to return stateside and be so highly esteemed by others.
Most wartime flicks are meant to help the audience appreciate the efforts of men who have been fighting overseas. Decades before Vietnam, this story subverts the standard trope of war hero worship. What we have is the use of romantic comedy elements in a sly anti-war film. Like Preston Sturges’ HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO, Mitch Leisen’s PRACTICALLY YOURS makes a mockery of the veterans’ homecoming.
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Post by NoShear on Aug 19, 2023 21:13:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1955.
S.A.C. -- Stewart Allyson Cinema
This Paramount aviation classic continued a winning streak at the box office for James Stewart, June Allyson and director Anthony Mann. The trio had previously collaborated on Universal’s musical biopic THE GLENN MILLER STORY. Stewart and Allyson had also worked together on another biopic at their home studio MGM, THE STRATTON STORY, back in 1949. By this point, Stewart was completely at ease with Allyson and Mann, so what they achieve on screen almost looks effortless.
Since Stewart was a real-life flyer who had served in the military during the war, he’s even more at ease in this story. He portrays a baseball player for the Cardinals, who is asked to return to the Air Force for 21 months. This puts a crimp in his professional sports career as well as the plans his wife (Allyson) has to settle into their ritzy new house. Of course, he reasons that his country needs him as part of the S.A.C., and he promises his wife that within two years they will resume the civilian lifestyle they enjoy.
Part of what makes the film work so well is that the conflicts are realistic. It’s totally plausible that a man who enjoyed serving his country would succeed in the military again. Despite the domestic adjustments to be made, this is the right thing to do. Allyson’s character soon learns she is pregnant, and she has to grapple with the amount of time her husband is away from her on missions. She gets increasingly frazzled as her due date approaches.
Her worries intensify when Stewart is said to be missing in a cold air test over Greenland around the time she goes into labor. The Greenland sequence is certainly the film’s highpoint, in terms of drama and special effects. We know Stewart will survive and be reunited with his wife and their newborn daughter.
I should point out that it’s not all gut-wrenching emotion here. There is some comic relief involving the anxieties Allyson’s character faces, particularly in how she doesn’t behave the way a military spouse is expected to…and when the baby is born, there is a funny bit regarding the naming of the child.
In addition to the thrilling aviation sequences and the domestic angst, there is commentary on the political side of duty. Stewart must report to several higher-ups, and he doesn’t get along with all of them. One of the superior officers is played by Frank Lovejoy who brings a fair amount of gravitas to his role. In fact, there’s a very good little confrontation between Allyson and Lovejoy, when Allyson learns Stewart decided to extend his stint in the Air Force due to Lovejoy’s political maneuvering.
Ultimately, Stewart does leave his work with the air command at the end of the movie, because of a recurring injury. Ironically, this issue, an arm and shoulder injury, will prevent him from being able to take up baseball again. We are left with the idea that Stewart will probably return to his former team, as a coach or manager in the minor leagues. Of course, Allyson is happy that he’s now out of the military, though she seems to have matured considerably.
A final point -- the film is sort of a valentine to flyers and the improved jet technologies in the ten years since WWII. We are shown a lot of aerial footage of the bombers soaring through the skies with majestic music on the soundtrack. But there is still an undercurrent of danger and a recognition that the U.S. is firmly entrenched in a cold war period of history against the Soviet Union, so the film emphasizes the need for a strong military defense system. I know its redundant on my part at this point, TopBilled, but I just can't get past being impressed by your knowledge of film - and the ability to convey it as well. Same goes for Fading Fast who I thought of with your historical ending here, now a lament to a time when the United States ruled the air and what, when juxtaposed against current Russian atrocities, might have been. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 26, 2023 16:37:57 GMT
This neglected film is from 1952.
A number of things going for it
CARIBBEAN is a 1952 Paramount production starring John Payne and Arlene Dahl. It is much better than any Technicolor swashbuckler melodrama has a right to be. The performances are very good. John Payne is a handsome, dependable lead across a variety of genres but we don’t usually think of him in the way that we think of Clark Gable or other much-lauded actors.
Payne does some of his best work here. He presents us with a very honest, sensitive and touching portrayal of a prisoner caught between two madmen waging war on an unnamed island. What makes the story even more interesting is that Payne’s character falls for a young woman who is the daughter of both men.
As for Miss Dahl, she gives what I think is her best performance in any film. She’s beautiful, feisty and vulnerable. At the end, she is caught in a scene of domestic violence and the story ends without her knowing the truth about her two fathers. Most actresses would have a tough time with this sort of story, but not Dahl…she excels.
Back to the two dads for a minute. One of them is played by Cedric Hardwicke. He did a variety of roles in his long stage and screen career. So he comes to CARIBBEAN with vast amounts of experience. He could chew the scenery with the part he’s playing, but he keeps it all very dignified. He takes what is basically a cold-blooded killer and makes us sympathize with him. I have never liked a villain so much in a movie as I did with him here. That’s a testament to Hardwicke’s gifts as a dramatic interpreter of this material.
The other paternal figure in the story is portrayed by robust Francis L. Sullivan. He could have turned his character into a total nincompoop, but he infuses just the right amount of edginess and civility. Even when he is ordering two prisoners to fight each other to the death with knives before a crowd of spectators, he behaves as if it were an everyday event (maybe it was for him).
The film has quite a number of things going for it. The direction is precise throughout, the Technicolor visuals are well photographed and there is a great subplot involving the slaves on the island that seems very much ahead of its time. But it’s the passion exhibited by its two stars that really makes CARIBBEAN a favorite cinematic destination.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 29, 2023 15:02:44 GMT
This neglected film is from 1944.
A sense of unity
Some of the most important films from the studio era have already slipped into obscurity. This is one of them. It occurs to me how much care is put into these productions, which makes it all the more lamentable that people no longer watch them.
Paulette Goddard is the lead, re-teamed with her director (Mark Sandrich) and costar (Sonny Tufts) from the previous year’s smash hit SO PROUDLY WE HAIL!. It is also from Paramount and also written by Sandrich’s frequent collaborator Allan Scott. Miss Goddard came to starring roles in Hollywood by way of her association with Charlie Chaplin– so there’s built-in prestige when she’s cast in a picture, even if she’s playing a working class nobody like she is here.
The character is not really a bad girl. She’s welding by day in a factory and entertaining soldiers by night. But she’s got issues, serious commitment issues. She also has earned a reputation as someone who is not altogether responsible, because of her unwillingness to settle down. This is not to say she doesn’t have a few respectable friends.
Her roommate (Ann Doran) is a well-regarded bride expecting a baby, whose husband is off in the war. And two other gals (Marie McDonald and Mary Treen) that live down the hall and work the same shift at the factory get on great with Goddard.
Treen, in particular, develops a close bond with Goddard when they become involved with two military pals (Tufts and Walter Sande), and things start to get serious.
Meanwhile, two other respectable people are added into the mix. They include Barry Fitzgerald as a kind-hearted cable car operator, providing some lighter moments…as well as Beulah Bondi as a lonely society woman whose nephew has been killed in action. She provides some of the more dramatic heartfelt moments.
One very good thing about Scott’s script is that all these characters– old/young; rich/poor; married/unmarried– come together like family. The war creates a sense of unity that cuts across socio economic lines. This community feeling is most evident during the church wedding sequence when Treen’s character is married…and during the part when Doran gives birth.
At the heart of the story, of course, is Goddard’s relationship with Tufts. Initially, she fights her attraction to him, but eventually gives in. Then pow! She finds out he has a wife back east. However, the wife is filing for divorce and has gone to Mexico to obtain her independence. This frees Tufts up to be with Goddard, but the war is still not over…he’s being shipped off to Asia.
There is a wonderful final sequence where Goddard is able to overcome her own personal issues and fully commit to Tufts the soldier she loves, despite any uncertainties about their future life.
At an hour and forty-six minutes, this is more than a standard romance comedy-drama. Scott’s script takes us deep into the war wounds and healings of the characters. We believe in them as real people from a distinct time and place.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 4, 2023 15:43:32 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
What Gatsby represents and who he actually is
There have been several movie versions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel. This 1949 production by Paramount Pictures was the second one. Star Alan Ladd was keen to appear in the adaptation, since he had worked his way up as a self-made success story; and no doubt, he related to some of the themes in the life of the title character. It’s not exactly a tale about putting material wealth first, and it’s not really about selling one’s soul on the way to the top, though those things do happen to Jay Gatsby.
It’s about achieving something and being worthy of someone’s love. But there is great irony in this basic premise. For as Gatsby does not originally think he’s worthy of Daisy Buchanan’s (Betty Field) love, when he hasn’t made his way in the world just yet…he learns through later experiences in the war and in business, as well as in the face of tragedy, that he has become worthy. However, it may be Daisy herself who is not worthy…of him.
Scholars have examined the social class commentary that Fitzgerald weaves into his writing, which is fully included in this motion picture. While the material trappings lend themselves to a gorgeous and opulent looking screen presentation, the viewer probably remains more interested in the character of Jay Gatsby, and how he is fleshed out as an individual.
In an early flashback sequence he is known as Jimmy Gats. The viewer glimpses his early connection to a tycoon (Henry Hull) who teaches him valuable life lessons. Then there’s his meteoric rise in society, after accumulating money as a bootlegger during Prohibition, though a lot of his criminal exploits occur off-screen. After his own status is assured, he renovates a large mansion on Long Island and makes it the most appealing place for movers and shakes of the day to visit and enjoy his lavish parties.
Ladd does an excellent job conveying the insecurities of the character, as well as his occasionally smarmy attitude which becomes charming in its own way. More importantly, the actor hits the right notes in demonstrating just how much Gatsby loves Daisy, despite her being such a flawed human being. There’s a beautiful scene in the middle of the film where they finally reconnect after eleven years, and you truly do feel it is a special moment.
I am not sure if we all have had a Jay Gatsby in our lives, but some of us have. As I watched Ladd’s portrayal, I was reminded of someone I have known for about fifteen years who is also like that.
As for myself, I relate more to Macdonald Carey’s role, the reluctant friend who stays loyal even when the chips are down…who turns against his haughty relatives…because he sees the value in what Gatsby represents and who he actually is. The character played by Carey is obviously a stand-in for Fitzgerald himself, whose writing of the story was something that had to be done to put into perspective this era, its people and their philosophies.
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 4, 2023 17:55:05 GMT
The Great Gatsby from 1949 with Alan Ladd, Betty Field, MacDonald Carey, Barry Sullivan, Ruth Hussey, Shelly Winters and Howard Da Silva
"They're a rotten crowd - you're worth more than the whole lot of them put together." - Nick Carraway to Jay Gatsby
The above quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the point of his famous novel, but Hollywood, by wont or to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code, turned the 1949 movie version of The Great Gatsby into another mid-century high-society melodrama.
Taking the movie on its own, it's not bad at all, but this is The Great Gatsby, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, so it's not easy to take the movie on its own.
If you do, though, you get a good story about a now-rich bootlegger who, as a young man, loved a pretty young socialite, played by Betty Field, whom he was too poor to marry.
It's about ten years later and Field is married to a man of her background, played by Barry Sullivan, who is wealthy but cheats on her - you make your choices in this world and then you live with them or not.
The rich bootlegger, Gatsby, played by Alan Ladd, pops up in an exclusive section of Long Island in an ostentatious mansion with plans to steal Field, who lives nearby, away from Sullivan.
He uses his connection to one of Field's friends, and the narrator and conscience of the story, played by MacDonald Carey, to gain entry to Field and Sullivan's "circle."
Also in the mix is another friend of Field's, Ruth Hussey as a cynical and unethical golf pro, a struggling local garage owner, played by Howard Da Silva, and his wife, played by Shelly Winters. Winters is having an affair with Sullivan.
Yes, it's a Peyton Place for the society set, a popular movie genre at the time. Joan Crawford who, had she been younger, could have played Field's role, churned out several of these rich-people-behaving-badly pictures during the late '40s/early '50s.
This 1949 movie version of Fitzgerald's story plays out like a Hollywood-of-the-era "reinterpretation" of The Great Gatsby, so bad acts are punished, marriage is ultimately respected, some people are redeemed and there is nothing to really offend the Motion Picture Production Code.
It's a good story with Ladd and Hussey, in particular, bringing an energy and affability to two not-really-likable characters that gives the movie its punch. If the story was just another one churned out by the Hollywood script mill, there'd be little more to say.
But it isn't just another movie. Instead, the movie The Great Gatsby disappoints as F. Scott Fitzgerald's carefully constructed story and nuanced characters are forced into mundane Hollywood boxes that undermines Fitzgerald's scathing denunciation of the rich and snooty.
In his life, Fitzgerald craved the lifestyle and acceptance of that society, but in his writing, he clearly saw it for what it was or what its worse elements were, which he beautifully limned with elegant prose and a meticulous plotting in a novel that deserved more Tinseltown respect.
The Great Gatsby would finally get that respect in the 1974 version of the movie, but that effort, while faithful to the novel, somehow drained the energy from the story, making one wonder if the novel can ever be successfully brought to the screen. The 2013 version is fun in a "spectacle" way, but it is not the book either.
The Great Gatsby from 1949 is fine as a run-of-the-mill Hollywood melodrama, with several notable performances and some "we tried hard" sets that don't really work, but it simply doesn't hold up to the expectations of its famous source material. |
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Post by topbilled on Sept 5, 2023 0:11:15 GMT
Fading Fast,
Have you seen the 1926 silent version of THE GREAT GATSBY? It aired once on TCM.
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 5, 2023 2:05:07 GMT
Fading Fast,
Have you seen the 1926 silent version of THE GREAT GATSBY? It aired once on TCM.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 5, 2023 2:13:14 GMT
Fading Fast,
Have you seen the 1926 silent version of THE GREAT GATSBY? It aired once on TCM.
I believe it's in the public domain, but there doesn't seem to be a copy of it online. Warner Baxter played Gatsby and William Powell had a supporting role.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(1926_film) |
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 5, 2023 2:40:54 GMT
I have not, have you? If so, what did you think of it?
I believe it's in the public domain, but there doesn't seem to be a copy of it online. Warner Baxter played Gatsby and William Powell had a supporting role.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(1926_film) |
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Post by topbilled on Sept 7, 2023 15:01:49 GMT
This neglected film is from 1957.
Comic think-piece
Some screen comedies amount to nothing more than fluff, and some of them stretch out a gag to the point that the film becomes tedious to watch. Fortunately, those situations do not apply to TEACHER’S PET. This is a product that has a lot going for it. It’s become a forgotten classic (because its stars made other more celebrated films), but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be rediscovered.
TEACHER’S PET espouses the idea that some people may value experience more than education; while others hold education in higher esteem. It is in many ways a think-piece, and as such, it is no surprise to learn the script started as a straight drama, before it was lightened around the edges. This said, the laughs are not fast and furious, and the comic bits result more in amusing chuckles than outright guffaws.
Since the basic idea is not sacrificed for cheap jokes, the film retains meaning. TEACHER’S PET, despite a cutesy-wootsy title, is something that explores a solid issue but doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is blessed with a strong cast. Doris Day plays a journalism instructor whose night class for adults is upended by the presence of Clark Gable, a wise city editor. Miss Day is her usual perky self, while Mr. Gable plays one of his more cynical characters.
To say they don’t get off to a good start is putting it mildly. This meet-cute is more meet-hostile at first. She has contacted his boss, the managing editor, to see if he might be a guest speaker one evening. Because he has neither the time nor the inclination to do any such thing, he fires off a scathing letter. However, his boss makes him attend anyway, and when he shows up in Day’s classroom, he hears her reading the letter to the other students, which they all mock.
His dander is now up, and he sticks around. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Day is an attractive woman and he’s quickly smitten with her, though their philosophies about life and the news business are worlds apart.
She remains in the dark about his identity, led to believe he’s just another adult student enrolled in the course she’s teaching. He comes back week after week, and they develop a relationship…especially when she realizes what a good writer he is. But they’re still at odds about the psychological underpinnings of tragic events that get reported in the news. Some of this dialogue in the movie, while a tad heavy-handed, is thought provoking.
Meanwhile, the romantic comedy elements get dialed up. The film is not actually a sex farce, but it lays the groundwork for Day’s subsequent farces with Rock Hudson. You know, where she often gets flustered battling an alpha male and tries to keep her cool.
There are clever lines in the film. One of the best is spoken by Gable’s character who comments that in these high-brow academic courses, it’s a lot of hooey and amateurs teaching amateurs how to be amateurs. But he’s not allowed to entirely dismiss Day’s notions, since he does find out later on that her father was a renowned journalist who’d been awarded a Nobel Prize.
There is also a good line where their fundamental conflict is characterized as a simple difference in whether journalism is a trade or a profession. Day’s character views it as a profession and wants to make it better. Plus we hear about how print journalism must compete with broadcast journalism on radio and TV.
A few subplots get screen time. The best one involves a young apprentice on staff, played by Nick Adams. His mother (Vivian Nathan) asks Gable to fire her son, so that he will go to college and get an education.
At first Gable is opposed to the suggestion, then ends up agreeing with the lady that her son would not be harmed by getting an education…and besides, he will still have his job waiting for him the day after graduation. Related to this is the repeated point that Gable never graduated from high school. Later in the film, he does get to wear a cap and gown.
Gable’s very good at comedy, and it’s nice to see him try this type of role and succeed at it. He has chemistry with Doris Day in spades, but I was surprised at how well he worked alongside Gig Young who plays the third part of a triangle that emerges when Day is revealed to have a close personal attachment to a university colleague. Young could rely on the stereotype of a stuffy know-it-all hiding in an ivory tower. Instead, he gives us a refreshingly disheveled character.
During his scenes, Young morphs from rival to pal for Gable. Not to mention, he becomes a drinking buddy, too!
Not all of the film is perfect. I didn’t think the office scenes where Gable was in charge were staged very realistically There should have been more noise and work activity occurring in the background. Perhaps I was expecting it to be like Lou Grant in that regard. They all seemed a bit too laidback without facing the pressures of deadlines or complaints from higher management or the reading public.
Also I didn’t think it was entirely believable that Day would have no idea what Gable looked like before she met him. After all, she had requested he be a guest speaker for her class…and wouldn’t he have had his picture appearing in the paper alongside some of the articles he had written, or the columns he had overseen? As an editor, he would surely have written editorials and those features usually have the photo of the editor included.
But I can overlook some of that. For the most part, this is a very engaging motion picture, and we get two spirited performances from the leads.
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