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Post by topbilled on Feb 3, 2023 0:15:45 GMT
This neglected film is from 1938.
Meet the Higgins family
The Higgins Family movies were produced at Republic from 1938 to 1941. They were the studio’s answer to MGM’s successful Hardy Family series. Paramount would follow suit with the Aldrich Family, and 20th Century Fox had the Jones Family. Moviegoing audiences enjoyed watching the foibles of the middle class,. Along with radio comedies of the era, these productions were forerunners of the modern sitcom.
In the case of the Higgins movies, Republic cast real-life couple James Gleason and his wife Lucile to play the lead roles. The Gleasons had appeared in other films and on Broadway before that. They were wed in 1905. When the first picture in the series was made they had been married for over 30 years– in the movie their characters Joe and Lil Higgins are said to be nearing a 27th anniversary.
The Gleasons appeared in the initial seven installments, which were quite popular. They were joined by their actor son Russell Gleason, who plays the Higgins’ son Sidney. Rounding out the cast is Harry Davenport as scene stealing Grandpa, as well as Lynne Roberts as the lovestruck daughter with plans to be a star.
In the eighth and ninth movies the Gleasons were replaced by Roscoe Karns, Ruth Donnelly and George Ernest. Davenport was replaced by Spencer Charters. And the daughter was played by Lois Ranson. All nine movies are quite funny, though the seven with the Gleasons and Davenport are best…especially since they’re all helmed by Gus Meins who had honed his comedy directing skills under Hal Roach with the OUR GANG series.
There is just something so cheerful and silly about these movies that cause the viewer to feel a sense of warmth and happiness. There are running gags like Grandpa speaking his mind, son Sidney adjusting the wiring and making things short-circuit, daughter Marian dreaming of Hollywood stardom, mom Lil getting involved in community affairs where she is in over her head, and pop Joe struggling to hold on to his job at an ad agency while dealing with his eccentric family.
In the first movie Grandpa is upset when Lil’s new job on a radio program threatens Joe’s employment at the agency. Considerable bickering has occurred, and the couple ends up in divorce court. During the hearing Grandpa isn’t afraid to let the judge know what he thinks on the witness stand, and he even attacks the lawyers whom he blames for all their problems.
Meanwhile Lil has to swallow her pride and admit she doesn’t want to end her marriage. As the judge and lawyers haggle over details, Lil and Joe learn that their daughter has run off to Hollywood with some man, and they need to stop her. They hurry out of the courtroom, “borrow” a truck and speed off after a departing train. The film ends after they realize they cannot interfere with their daughter’s future plans, and they reconcile because they cannot envision their own future without each other.
Yes, things at the Higgins home will go back to normal, whatever that is for this crazy clan. And Lil will ponder her next move to bring more respectability to the family.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 8, 2023 15:27:12 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Western family conflicts
This satisfying western from the folks at Republic Pictures hinges on Walter Brennan’s central performance. He plays the title character, old Brimstone Courteen, known affectionately as Pop. Well, okay, that’s a lie, because very few people regard him with any real affection…they live mostly in fear of him.
Brennan is third-billed, but it’s a star turn. In all respects this is a continuation of his bad father role in MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (where he played the dangerous Clanton patriarch).
Pop has three sons (Jim Davis, Jack Lambert & James Brown)…grown boys that he physically and verbally abuses. He draws them into rustling schemes and stagecoach robberies as if these criminal acts are rites of passage. He justifies each crime by claiming he’s lost land to settlers who are trying to crowd him off the range. The way he sees it, these squatters owe him.
There’s an additional thorn in Pop’s side that occurs when youngest son Bud (Brown) refuses to stick to the game plan. Bud chooses to follow his heart and marry the daughter of a neighboring homesteader.
Pop doesn’t approve of Molly (lovely Adrian Booth). When he learns the couple have eloped, his response is to go after Bud and kill him! Yeah, he’s not going to win any Father of the Year award.
The over-arching story gives us an epic western with plenty of family conflicts, shoot-’em-up action and shocking betrayals. There are also subplots that involve a marshal (Jack Holt) who is shot in the line of duty, a crooked sheriff (Forest Tucker) mixed up in the Courteens’ misdeeds; plus an undercover federal agent (Rod Cameron who receives top billing) with a scheme of his own to bring down Pop and the boys.
Much of the drama takes place outdoors in glorious Trucolor, Republic’s answer to Technicolor. With Trucolor the viewer can glimpse stretches of clear blue sky with considerable clarity; dark red rocks; bright green foliage; and miles of dusty brown earth that seem like something you would actually find across a western landscape.
The riding scenes and chase scenes are nicely presented by director Joe Kane, who helmed many westerns at the studio. He has a good feel for the individual horseman against outdoor elements. But it’s the unfolding family drama that most holds our attention.
There isn’t one moment of wasted screen time. And despite the epic scope of the story, Mr. Kane finds time for a few John Ford-like moments of introspection and humor. The funniest scene involves a saloon owner’s gorgeous new chandelier.
The moral here is that parents are ultimately responsible for what they say and do, including all the mistakes they make with their children. In this film, the mistakes lead up to and include murder. A second lesson is that grown children have the ability to make their own way in the world. They can choose to break the cycles of abuse and violence.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 14, 2023 16:23:36 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
Love and war
If TCM’s programming department was familiar with this title from Republic Pictures, it would make an interesting double feature one evening with Paramount’s HOLD BACK THE DAWN (1941). It is sort of a female version of the earlier film. In this immigration love story, we have a British woman (Anna Lee) who gains entrance into the United States illegally, in the hopes of marrying an American.
Miss Lee is supposed to marry a soldier she became engaged to back in her native England. She doesn’t have passage across the Atlantic, so she stows away on an ocean liner. Then she assumes the identity of a war bride (Carol Savage) who has gotten cold feet and hopped off the boat.
As far as these things go, it’s a rather clever premise for a film. There are scenes with our heroine incognito pretending to be a woman she’s not. She is trying to fool a reporter (Robert Armstrong) as well as the other wives on board.
This is followed by her eventual arrival in New York City and a cross-country train trip to Los Angeles to meet her “husband.” Of course, she needs to break the news gently to the waiting bridegroom (James Ellison) that his actual wife has dumped him. As soon as she’s taken care of this matter, she intends to locate her fiance (Bill Henry) and tie the knot. But there’s a hitch– her guy has also gotten cold feet!
We now have two jilted souls, who are both free to fall in love and get married to each other. The sequence where they become better acquainted is nicely done. An unexpected courtship includes time along the beach, lunch in Chinatown, and a visit to Grauman’s theater where Miss Lee amusingly places her hands over Greer Garson’s cemented hand prints.
At one point Ellison takes her home to meet his family. He’s from a clan that includes a wise old grandpa (Harry Davenport). Since there are no rooms at a nearby hotel, she is allowed to spend the night. But this causes a slight complication, since they cannot really share the same bed together if they are not actually married. Ellison’s teenage sister (Helen Gerald) is suspicious about what’s really going on.
Meanwhile, the reporter from the ship has been following the “newlywed” couple around. There will be trouble with the immigration office.
This is a romance drama designed to have a pleasant ending, so we know that it will all be resolved satisfactorily. Lee’s character will not be sent back to Europe.
G.I. WAR BRIDES is a very engaging film with sincere performances. It gives us a look into the particular realities of Anglo-American marriages and how the war changed the course of many lives…some for the better.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 20, 2023 15:42:17 GMT
This neglected film is from 1944.
Dazzling spectacle
Vera Ralston was an Olympic ice skater from Czechoslovakia who caught the attention of Republic talent scouts in 1940 when she was on tour with an ice show in the United States. She would also catch the attention of studio boss Herbert Yates, but that’s a story for another time.
She was signed with other performers from the Ice Capades show. They made a picture called ICE-CAPADES, which had a sequel. These productions were inspired by the popular ice skating musicals at 20th Century Fox that starred Sonja Henie.
Vera was featured in group numbers in her early Republic films, skating her heart out, and she did not have many lines. She was just there with the other skaters to provide glittery entertainment while established Hollywood stars took the main acting duties.
A screen test convinced Mr. Yates that Vera could become a star, and he quickly gave her an image make-over. Her hairstyle was changed, her name was changed (from Hruba to Ralston), and she was given acting lessons. In the 1940s she did not always play the lead female character in her movies. Sometimes she was featured in support of bigger stars. But with LAKE PLACID SERENADE, Yates handed the neophyte actress her first leading role.
While her ethnicity is referenced in these early films, it is not mentioned at all in the films she made during the 50s. After she married Yates, she became Americanized. Gradually she was featured in dramatic “A” pictures opposite the studio’s top leading men. But when she made LAKE PLACID SERENADE, the idea was to give the wartime public something fun, something to make them forget about the fighting overseas.
I expected LAKE PLACID SERENADE to be more than a bit derivative of Sonja Henie’s vehicles, and it certainly is. That is to its advantage because these types of movies are always enjoyable.
I especially like the way the screenplay alludes to Cinderella and has Vera losing one of her ice skates. Because she winds up with the guy at the end, and comic sidekick Barbara Jo Allen also lands a man, I suppose we can assume the two evil sisters (played by Stephanie Bachelor and Ruth Terry) remain unlucky in love. Considering how ruthless Stephanie Bachelor’s character is, it might be poetic justice.
A major highlight of the picture is a guest appearance by Roy Rogers and his rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland.’ The production notes for the film on the TCM database indicate he and Vera Ralston made a special appearance together in Lake Placid, New York where the film premiered in December 1944.
Another thing I like is the way the scenes are lit. John Alton was one of the better cinematographers of the 40s and 50s, and Republic had Alton work on several pictures, including LAKE PLACID SERENADE. His skilled use of lighting creates a sense of warmth which nicely complements the dreamy music on the soundtrack during the skating sequences.
The warm lighting and use of steam (which seems to be a recurring motif), enhance the exterior scenes. This creates a luminous effect amid snowy landscapes and ice. Put a wintertime ballerina in the middle of it, and the audience is sure to be dazzled.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 20, 2023 16:28:01 GMT
That's great background on Vera Ralston nee Hruba (good move).
Her leg muscles in the shot below tell you she was a real skater/athlete and not an actor playing a skater.
There is, though, the question of which was colder, the ice or her personality. 
Kidding aside, I enjoy, more than I should, the Heine skating pics, so I'll keep an eye out for this one.
I've only seen Ralston in a couple of movies, but she does have something, maybe not tremendous acting talent, but something that makes you engage with her on screen.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 2, 2023 14:05:20 GMT
This neglected film is from 1945.
Cashing in their chips
As the advertising indicates, it was Republic Pictures’ “biggest entertainment thrill of the year,” meant to celebrate the studio’s tenth anniversary. A decade earlier, Herbert Yates had purchased several small independent producing units and consolidated them into a larger entity, which he hoped would rival the larger movie outfits in Hollywood.
Under Mr. Yates’ leadership, Republic did become quite successful. In the early years, most of its product was of the “B” film bread-and-butter variety. But by the mid-1940s, Republic had graduated to more deluxe fare, and FLAME OF BARBARY COAST was one of ten hugely budgeted pictures that Yates had green-lit to commemorate the special milestone anniversary.
Of course, if this film had come along a few years later to celebrate Republic’s fifteenth or twentieth anniversary, the lead role would undoubtedly have been given to Yates’ wife, Vera Ralston. But in 1945, Miss Ralston was just starting to make a name for herself and was not yet ready for a role of this caliber.
So Yates looked elsewhere and signed Ann Dvorak. Miss Dvorak had a proven track record in motion pictures.
When Ann Dvorak rode on to the set to begin working on this film, it marked her Hollywood comeback. No, she had not disappeared from the screen. But she had stopped appearing in American films. Dvorak was married to a British actor, and in 1940, she went with her husband to London where they remained for most of the war years. During that period, she was cast in a series of British propaganda pictures, some of them financed by the British arm of her old home studio, Warner Brothers.
At this point, the war was nearly over, and so was Dvorak’s marriage. She came back to California and started freelancing. Her first assignment after her return to Hollywood was the role of Flaxen Tarry in FLAME OF BARBARY COAST, a San Francisco dance hall queen. Though John Wayne is top-billed, Miss Dvorak is of course, playing the title character. She’s the flame that sets Wayne’s heart afire, and these two share considerable chemistry on screen.
While this is a somewhat mild period romance drama, plenty of angst occurs. Wayne is typecast as a western cowboy who comes to the bay area for adventure and fun. He is soon smitten with Dvorak. However, she is unavailable to reciprocate his affections, because she is employed by casino owner Joseph Schildkraut who has taken her as his lover and regards her as his property.
Initially, Wayne loses a lot of money in Schildkraut’s casino, but then he devises a plan to get even with Schildkraut and win Dvorak. An old pal (William Frawley) teaches him how to gamble successfully, and a while later, Wayne has amassed a fortune…enough to build his own rival casino.
He is still focused on a life with Dvorak and wants her to leave Schildkraut and come work for him. Eventually, she does.
Just as things seem to get on track, they experience a major jolt. The big San Francisco earthquake of 1906 takes place.
Yes, we’ve seen this depicted in other films, like MGM’s SAN FRANCISCO (1936) and Warner Brothers’ THE SISTERS (1938). But every studio was eager to dramatize this important historical event, so we can cut Republic a bit of slack regarding the unoriginality of this plot.
The quake sequence is expertly presented and totally gripping. And while he’s no Clark Gable or Errol Flynn, John Wayne delivers some of his more memorable acting here. We truly feel for him, as he struggles with almost losing Dvorak in the ensuing chaos. Her character remains critically injured for awhile, and Duke helps nurse her back to health.
Sure, we know these two will end up married once she’s fully recovered. And she will undoubtedly give up her career, and they will probably leave the coast and return to his family’s ranch in Montana for their happily ever after. That’s not what matters. Instead, what matters is how these two gamble on love and are able to cash in their chips for something good.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 2, 2023 14:31:52 GMT
⇧ I'm a big Ann Dvorak fan, but haven't seen this one yet. From the pictures, it took me several seconds to really recognize her. Whether it is the hair, makeup or period costume, her distinctive look didn't pop out at me.
I enjoyed your review, especially the Republic Pictures history and discussion of earthquake movies.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 15, 2023 15:41:58 GMT
This neglected film is from 1948.
Father's sins and son's sins
MOONRISE was produced by Republic Pictures after the studio bought the rights from Paramount. Director Frank Borzage had a multi-picture deal with the studio at this time, and this is probably the most well-known of the three ‘A’ budget films he made for Republic after the war. In addition to a top director and quality production values, the film benefits from a strong cast.
Gail Russell has been borrowed from Paramount as the girl that is caught between two men– played by Dane Clark and Lloyd Bridges. Clark’s character is wrestling with personal demons when he meets up with Bridges in the woods. They have an altercation and Bridges is killed accidentally.
Where it all gets a bit melodramatic is that Russell was to have married Bridges, whom she doesn’t realize at first has been killed. Thinking Bridges just upped and left her, she finds comfort in Clark’s arms, unaware that he’s the man who killed her fiancé.
Making matters even more complicated is the fact that Clark is haunted by a crime his father had committed years ago. In fact, the atmospheric story begins on that somber note. The first few moments of the drama show Clark’s character as a young child, while his father has been apprehended and lynched. This is a traumatic experience that he can never fully put behind him.
The ‘beauty’ of the story, if you will, is that the sins of the father are revisited upon the son. Not only does Clark grow up being bullied and abused by others who taunt him for his dad’s misdeeds, the cycle is seemingly repeated when Clark kills Bridges. He will have to face the consequences of what has happened.
But before Bridges’ body is found and the sheriff (Allyn Joslyn) realizes who was responsible for the killing, we have plenty of scenes of Clark interacting with Russell. It’s a doomed romance, unless Clark comes clean and breaks the cycle. In the meantime there is a mute (Harry Morgan) who has found a pocketknife belonging to Clark that will implicate him, and Morgan’s presence unnerves Clark.
There is a lot of high tension in the film, augmented by dark and brooding images which Borzage and cinematographer John Russell capture well. Increasing the tension and giving the images emotional resonance is a fine performance by Mr. Clark, who seems to be in John Garfield mode as the fugitive from the law.
Rounding out the cast are Rex Ingram, who plays a wise country soul that counsels Clark in his time of trouble. Also, Ethel Barrymore who is billed third, has what amounts to an extended cameo at the end of the film with about six minutes of screen time. In her role as Clark’s grandmother, Miss Barrymore still makes a grand impression despite limited time on camera.
MOONRISE was not a hit with contemporary audiences, but in the years since its release, it has become a cult favorite and received a restoration from the folks at Criterion. It’s a thought-provoking treatise about fathers, sons, violence and the past repeating itself.
However, I feel the story might have been told better if it had been about a young black man (as opposed to a young white man) whose father had been lynched years earlier. For that matter, a modern remake could very easily apply the concept to migrant Mexican laborers who are denied justice due to illegal status and community suspicion.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 25, 2023 9:07:36 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Highly engaging with excellent pacing
This Republic Pictures entry is one of the earliest adaptations of an Ellery Queen mystery. The Spanish Cape Mystery was the ninth book in the EQ series. It was published in April 1935, and the film hit theaters in October of the same year…a very quick transfer from novel to screen.
Donald Cook is cast as the well-known mystery writer. He is a refined upperclass gent who resides in a comfortable penthouse apartment and spends his leisure time at a nearby men’s club. The story begins when he receives a call from his police inspector father (Guy Usher) who needs help pinning the theft of a valuable Queen Anne necklace on a suave criminal (Jack LaRue).
Of course it doesn’t take long before a confession is coaxed out of the suspect with a bit of sophisticated trickery. After the case is solved, it’s time to catch a plane to the Spanish Cape where young Queen will vacation with a friend (Berton Churchill) of the family.
The cape is where a glamorous woman (Helen Twelvetrees) lives. She is the daughter of a wealthy man whose estate is overrun with fortune hunters and other parasites.
Miss Twelvetrees is being pushed into marriage by her mother, but she has no intention of settling down just yet. During a party, she takes a walk on a terrace with her uncle. This leads to a surprise encounter with a gunman who mistakes the uncle for one of the other guests. During the encounter Twelvetrees tries to remain calm and collected.
Twelvetrees is taken to a nearby cottage, where she’s held hostage while the gunman disappears with her uncle. It happens to be the same place that Ellery Queen and his pal are renting. The next morning, they discover Twelvetrees and untie her. As she is freed and properly makes Queen’s acquaintance, a strong bond develops between them. It is obvious they will get to know each other better.
The next part of the film involves the couple trying to figure out where her uncle has been taken, and who’s responsible. Soon another strange event occurs, when a different guest, the one that the uncle has been mistaken for, ends up dead. The murder victim is wearing a cape, stooped over at an oceanside pavilion. In the book, the victim is nude under the cape, but there’s no mention of nudity in the film, since the production code is in full force.
It is learned the victim blackmailed many guests staying at the estate, so nearly all of them have a motive for murder. So much for Ellery Queen’s vacation; the locals are putting on a crime wave for his benefit, and he’s right in his element.
This is a highly engaging motion picture with excellent pacing. The mystery is not too taxing or contrived, and there are plenty of twists and turns that keep things moving along nicely. Cook and Twelvetrees are well-matched. Miss Twelvetrees in particular captivates us with her considerable style. Her trademark melancholy eyes underscore the tragedy of murder.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 7, 2023 13:34:26 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
Danger and excitement on the way to Laramie
A poster for this Republic western plays up the fact that the main characters are passionate, and I suppose to some extent they are. Not necessarily passion in the romantic sense, though there is some of that, but maybe it’s a passion or outright desire to survive. All the people in this story are plunged into a very challenging situation in the middle of nowhere on their way to Laramie.
Frederick Louis Fox wrote the screenplay for this engaging horse opera, and it certainly is full of tension and exciting sequences. Fox was a noted writer in the western genre, though after this feature, he turned his talents to writing hit TV shows of the day, including The Rebel for which he penned seven scripts. Fox had an innate understanding of what drives men and women in the bleakest of circumstances. And yeah, things get bleak in DAKOTA INCIDENT.
The story begins in an out of the way town called Christian Flats, where we are introduced to a group of individuals with assorted issues. Most of them are trying to get to Laramie for one reason or another and have come into Christian Flats to get the next outbound stagecoach.
However, when the stage arrives, the driver has an arrow struck through him; and the passengers riding inside are dead, having just been killed outside town by warring natives.
Right from the start, we sense the danger. But we also sense how determined this group of people are to get out on the trail and make the journey to Wyoming no matter what sort of trouble might be in store with the natives.
One of the characters is a liberal senator played by Ward Bond who is most sympathetic to the natives’ cause, providing explanations about why they behave as they do. He believes that the whites and the Indians will be able to reach a peaceful sort of coexisting, even if that is not in the immediate future.
Besides the senator, the trip includes an aging saloon gal (Linda Darnell). She is accompanied by a business manager (Regis Toomey). Also along for adventure is a handsome bank clerk (John Lund) as well as a prospector (Whit Bissell) with only a bag of pyrite to show for his labors. They all have different reasons for traveling on the stage, and as the story gains traction, we learn more about what motivates each one.
Republic put a lot of money into this feature, filming it in Trucolor and taking the cast and crew out on location. The exterior scenes were done in Red Rock Canyon State Park. The park is located in Cantil, California and is a popular tourist attraction today.
While the drama that unfolds is a bit preachy and moralistic in spots, something that may comfort many of today’s conservative viewers, I think it’s a good example of how people can overcome a rough set of circumstances with determination. The natives are not necessarily the villains, despite the skirmishes and killings that occur.
An additional plot involves the character played by Dale Robertson, who takes over driving the stage and falls for Darnell en route. It is revealed that Robertson’s kid brother (Skip Homeier) had betrayed him after a bank robbery with another partner (John Doucette). Robertson spares his brother’s life, though the brother is later killed by a tribe of Cheyenne.
This plot point is revisited later, when the stage breaks down in the middle of a dry gulch. Robertson leads the others to defend themselves against attack by the enclosing natives. However, he ends up sparing the life of an Indian who eventually brings a horse and water to him and Darnell, thus facilitating their escape from near death. I guess the moral is that anything good you do for others may come back to save you later on, when you most need saving.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 20, 2023 14:11:18 GMT
This neglected film is from 1954.
Crawford stars in classic western
Nicholas Ray’s cult western is in a category by itself. Leading lady Joan Crawford is a force of nature, and you don’t want to mess with her. Imposing characters, towering sets and Trucolor photography are put in the hands of a master director. His cinematic goals are carried out by the main diva and a competent group of Republic Pictures stock players.
What’s interesting is how perfectly Crawford fits into the western mold. She hadn’t made a film in this genre since 1930, when in her early starlet days at MGM she was teamed with Johnny Mack Brown. But MONTANA MOON was more of a western musical– filmed mostly on the studio soundstage with very little outdoor realism. Johnny Mack Brown would later make a name for himself at Universal and Monogram, turning out ‘B’ oaters…but Crawford’s career would remain in full swing for the next few decades; she did not have to make anything low budget.
She worked best in stories where she was playing strong women teamed alongside strong male costars. After 1952 she was freelancing, and probably because she now had more control over the types of scripts she could choose, her on-screen persona changed slightly. In films like SUDDEN FEAR, JOHNNY GUITAR and QUEEN BEE, she essays more complex females with overt touches of neuroticism. These traits would increase in the roles she played in the 1960s.
Because Crawford is still the star in these vehicles, she has to retain a fair amount of sympathy. Otherwise, the audience will not find her likable. This is especially true in JOHNNY GUITAR where she goes up against an entire town, led by Mercedes McCambridge and Ward Bond, who want her out.
We are meant to feel sorry for Vienna, the saloon owner she plays, because she only wants the chance to operate her legal business without interference. However, McCambridge and Bond organize other so-called respectable folks against her, and things lead to a standoff.
It doesn’t help that Crawford’s gotten tangled up with a criminal (Scott Brady) and his gang. Or that a man with a mysterious past (Sterling Hayden as the title strummer) is complicating matters for her.
Perhaps the best scenes in the movie are when Crawford and McCambridge go toe to toe, which some viewers feel is rife with homoerotic elements. I don’t know about all that, but I do know that I am rooting for Crawford in this picture, like I am supposed to root for her.
Crawford would not take another western role until 1970, when she appeared on the long-running Universal television series The Virginian. That time she was paired with James Drury and guest-star Michael Conrad. Again she played a somewhat troubled woman in the episode ‘Nightmare’ where she is involved in a series of murders.
Previously, Crawford had turned up on Route 66 where she was also a woman in the throes of neuroses. However, in all of these acting assignments, Crawford still manages to retain viewer sympathy, since the actual bad guy is usually someone else.
Back to JOHNNY GUITAR…the character of Vienna does manage to get a happy ending, after her business has been burned to the ground and she’s nearly hanged. The final shots show her embracing Sterling Hayden near a waterfall as Peggy Lee sings the title tune. For some reason, we can believe that she doesn’t need anything else…she’s already seen and done it all.
Play the guitar, play it again, my Johnny
Maybe you’re cold but you’re so warm inside
I was always a fool for my Johnny
For the one they call Johnny Guitar
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Apr 20, 2023 18:57:11 GMT
Based on the former TCM website, Johnny Guitar has to be one of the most polarizing films from the studio-era.
The first time I started watching it I turned to something else. The movie was just too "out-there" for me.
Later I read comments from those that enjoy the film, so I gave it another viewing. Now I'm a fan.
While there are various traditional western themes being covered (e.g., how railroad services can change a community and the associated taming of the wind west, the gunfighter tried of his way of life, et...), these are all very secondary to the film, since what is primary is the relationship and interactions between the 3 leads, and what motivates each of them.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2023 0:10:28 GMT
I never considered JOHNNY GUITAR as a polarizing film, but yes, I guess it's something that people either really love or else they don't appreciate it.
The first time I watched it, I was gripped by those scenes with Crawford at the piano, while Ward Bond, Mercedes McCambridge and the other townsfolk came into the saloon to drive her out. I really thought Crawford was fierce and a force to be reckoned with...it's such an intense performance, and it only increases in intensity as the story goes along. I rank it up there with POSSESSED and SUDDEN FEAR as among her more delirious performances.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 29, 2023 12:52:09 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Thee living end
ANGEL AND THE BADMAN is in the public domain and it’s easy to find online. The original black-and-white print is available as well as a colorized version. I took some time recently to rewatch it, and ended up having mixed feelings. To be honest, I did not enjoy it as much the second time around. It’s not that the picture doesn’t still entertain…it’s just that it doesn’t seem to hold up well.
The main issue I had is its presentation of good and evil. It is too simplistic, way too naive. As a result, a lot of what the good folks do to help the titular badman (John Wayne) reform doesn’t come across very believable. For one thing, the decent Quakers and their daughter (Gail Russell) are extremely wholesome, so sickeningly sweet you might get diabetes watching them. No family of religious people I have ever met are this pure, this perfect.
Mother (Irene Rich) is the greatest cook for miles around. Father (John Halloran) is the most honest farmer for miles around. Daughter is the most unblemished girl for miles around. And son (Stephen Grant) is the most obedient child for miles around.
The members of this clan are stereotypes of goodness, they are not flesh and flood with discernible inner conflicts or realistic human struggles. Only the daughter gets to do any particular emoting, but that is rather cliched and occurs because she turns to mush when John Wayne’s character loves her, leaves and then comes back.
The story excels when it goes all John Ford on us and plays up the lighter everyday moments…and when it depicts the humorous foibles of others. Like the miserly neighbor (Paul Hurst) who has a change of heart due to the threat of violence, and starts to share his water with nearby farmers who need it to irrigate their crops.
Also, we see some humor in how Wayne’s pal (Lee Dixon) gets a copy of a bible and starts reading it as if it were a pulp novel.
Plus there is a bedraggled lawman (Harry Carey Sr.) who seems to be a forerunner to Jackie Gleason’s Buford T. Justice chasing the badman around the countryside, trying to nail him for his alleged crimes.
The best part of the film is the undeniable chemistry on display between Mr. Wayne and Miss Russell, rumored to have been an item off-camera. They would go on to make another film at Republic Pictures– WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1948).
In addition to the romantic elements, we have some nice on-location shooting in Sedona, Arizona. And of course, I must mention a few rip-roaring stunt sequences from Yakima Canutt’s skilled second unit team. Notably a saloon brawl where a man falls off a second floor landing directly on to a gaming table below in one continuous take…as well as a death-defying plunge that the two main characters experience when their runaway buggy careens off the side of a mountain into a river below.
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Post by topbilled on May 12, 2023 7:13:54 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
Melodrama for Mother's Day
Republic Pictures turned out this touching tearjerker that begins on Mother’s Day 1946 (the film was released later in the same year, around Christmastime). We start with a young woman, played by Mona Freeman, who has now become a mother herself. Things haven’t gone smoothly for her, and that’s an understatement.
Stopping outside a florist’s shop, she looks through the window at an arrangement of flowers. Then she flashes back to another Mother’s Day eight years earlier in 1938, when she took a flower home to her own mother (June Duprez). We quickly see that the girl’s selfless act of showing appreciation for her mother was a wasted effort. In order to escape the poverty in their rundown tenement apartment building, Duprez basically prostitutes herself and passes her then-12 year old daughter off as a kid sister. So when Freeman brings a rose to her to commemorate Mother’s Day, it nearly spoils the ruse of them being sisters.
It’s an interesting way to start the movie, because we already have learned some home truths about the girl Freeman is portraying…important things like what type of background she’s from, what a poor role model her own mother is, and how this will undoubtedly affect Freeman’s ability to be a decent mom herself.
Adele Rogers St. Johns’ story adds in some fascinating peripheral characters, nearly all of them with their own sort of con in motion. Freeman aids Duprez in various schemes to fleece stupid men, so they can get ahead. It’s a bit alarming to see a young preteen girl smoking and drinking in some of the early scenes. Supposedly, the production code office had many objections to the script and forced a few rewrites, so one can only imagine what the initial drafts contained.
Into the mix we meet the main con artist, played by recent Oscar winner James Dunn. He picks up on the phony “sister” act, deducing that Duprez and Freeman are really mother and daughter. But he’s not going to get in the way of their grifting. In fact, he is running his own racket involving stolen furniture, and he offers Freeman a side job helping him and his gang with those endeavors.
Most of the casting, in terms of the actors’ real life ages, is perfect for this story. Mona Freeman was 20 when the film was made, and she gets to age from 12 to 20. During those early scenes she does look extremely young.
It’s somewhat jarring to see her do such bad things while “12” and yet when her character grows up in the subsequent sequences, the slight changes in makeup and hairstyle plus her own subtle performance in suggesting the maturing of the character, well it is all rather convincing.
June Duprez was only 28, but she passes for mid-30s. She doesn’t exactly conceal her British accent, and there is no dialogue to indicate she’s playing a British American woman, but that’s a minor quibble. As for Jimmy Dunn, he was actually 44 during production, and he does look 44. But his wise-to-the-world approach works for the character, plus Dunn is of Irish heritage, and he works beautifully with Dorothy Vaughan, who plays his kind-hearted Catholic Irish ma.
The other main performer I should mention is William Marshall, a singer who became an film actor at Warner Brothers and Republic. Like Miss Duprez, he is also 28, but unlike Duprez, he looks younger. So it is believable for him to be paired with Freeman, playing a military man on temporary leave. His role is that of a handsome and wholesome contrast to Dunn, and it makes sense that Freeman’s character gravitates to him. Mostly because she needs some goodness in her life. They quickly marry, but then he is killed overseas in the war. She soon discovers she’s pregnant.
I won’t spoil all the plot, but suffice it to say that the middle section of the picture has Freeman adjusting to widowhood and single parenthood. She strives to be better at raising a child than her own mother was, and it’s a huge struggle for her. Meanwhile, Dunn has been apprehended for his crimes and spends time in prison. When he gets out and looks up Freeman, he is surprised to learn all that’s happened to her while he was incarcerated.
The narrative stops short of having Dunn and Freeman end up together, though it is heavily implied in the final scene. I think it is to the filmmakers’ credit that we don’t get a predictable ending. The story’s resolution is more concerned with showing how Freeman has evolved, and that she has survived the hard knocks. She will now enjoy a stable life.
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