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Post by topbilled on May 14, 2024 14:54:33 GMT
This neglected film is from 1934.
No more rat race
Mervyn LeRoy has directed a compelling drama for Warner Brothers. Two things come to mind when watching this film. First, its use of exteriors is so well done, you cannot tell what was filmed on location and what was done on the studio. backlot. Related to that is its outdoor lighting, especially during scenes where heat lightning occurs. This creates a glowing sort of ambience, at odds with the dark natures and internal struggles of the characters.
Though the story is based on a Broadway play, it feels very much opened-up and not at all stagey the way THE PETRIFIED FOREST does, which is also set in a southwestern desert region. Also, there are realistic touches in the dialogue where we hear about the extreme heat and how these people try to take refuge in the shade.
The second thing that comes to mind is the fact that as one of the last real precodes, its content is quite shocking. HEAT LIGHTNING was condemned by the Catholic church. There is a murder at the end, where a crook on the run (Preston Foster) is shot down by the heroine (Aline MacMahon). She compares getting rid of him like one would get rid of an unwanted rat. Her declaration of homicide is touted as part of the movie’s advertising. It wasn’t exactly justifiable homicide, and she does get away with it.
Besides the killing she has slept with the cad without benefit of marriage. At the same time, her kid sister (Ann Dvorak) has lost her virginity to another cad that carted her off to a local dance.
These gals are literally screwed over and have nothing good to show for their trouble. Running their roadside gas station, lunch counter and motor court is what keeps them going in the middle of nowhere. It’s all they have, besides each other.
Meanwhile there are two other gals in the story (Glenda Farrell and Ruth Donnelly) with issues of their own. They are recent divorcees fresh from a stay in Reno, who are spending the night with all their money and jewels. Farrell and Donnelly play their roles to the hilt, bordering on camp.
A strange triangle involves them and their somewhat henpecked chauffeur (Frank McHugh). The bickering and jealous banter between them provides some comic relief. Though you do have to wonder why McHugh hasn’t disappeared into the sunset since they make him wait on them hand and foot, at all hours, and the poor sap doesn’t get a break!
In addition to the these travelers, there are locals who stop by…such as the sheriff, who is looking for Foster the bank robber and his accomplice (Lyle Talbot). And we also see that there is a guy from a nearby village (Williard Robertson) who is sweet on MacMahon and will remain by her side, even after she’s killed Foster.
The film ends with MacMahon returning to turn life as normal. She and her sister will continue to occupy themselves by providing service to those who need it. In this desolate setting, amid the Joshua trees, happiness can be found where there isn’t any trace of the rat race.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 14, 2024 15:11:29 GMT
⇧ I love this movie. My comments on it from about three years ago ⇩.
Heat Lightning from 1934 with Aline MacMahon, Preston Foster, Ann Dvorak and Lyle Talbot
This gem of a pre-code B Movie should be better known, but perhaps it has been eclipsed by its subsequently famous cognate, The Petrified Forest. All of the latter's themes are here in Heat Lightning and explored in rawer form with a feminist angle as was often the wont of the pre-code era.
Two sisters, a still-young, but world-weary older one, Aline MacMahon, and the younger one, Ann Dvorak, run an isolated motor court (gas station, diner and spartan lodge) in the Mojave desert.
MacMahon was a party girl in a big city who was played hard and tossed aside by a former boyfriend, so she's retreated into her role as an asexual auto mechanic/motor-court owner in greasy overalls. MacMahon tries to prevent her cute sister, Dvorak, from repeating her mistakes with men.
The younger sister is a good kid, but like any late teen, she wants to go out and have fun, in this case, with a local bad boy, which has Dvorak seeing a dangerous echo of her own failed youthful romance.
Into this family drama, coincidentally, drives MacMahon's old boyfriend, Preston Foster, and his buddy, Lyle Talbot. We quickly learn they are on the lam from a jewelry-store holdup and murder, the latter, which only Foster committed.
You can feel the physical heat between MacMahon and her old boyfriend as it's clear that sexual passion was a big part of their former relationship. Foster's sudden appearance shatters MacMahon's desert armor of sexual abstinence, which has her now scrambling to rebalance herself.
Driving right into the middle of this passion storm are two bejewelled Reno divorcees who, like the ex-boyfriend and his buddy, are stuck spending the night. Upping the drama, Foster, now that he's seen the women's jewelry, plots to steal it.
What follows is a defining evening as young-sister Dvorak sneaks out to be with her bad-boy date. Meanwhile, Foster flirts MacMahon into bed, but as she learns later, only to distract her so he and his partner can steal the jewels the divorcees have stored in the diner's safe.
We're now fifty minutes into this sixty-minute movie and everyone's world has been rocked as the young daughter (we think) slept with the bad boy who is now cold to her when he drops her back at the diner (cow, milk, free - lesson learned). Hurt and tearful, she walks in to see Foster leaving her big sister's bed - yup.
But there's more (spoiler alerts from here on out), MacMahon, still freshly glowing, dreamily walks into the diner only to learn she's been played by Foster again as he's forcing his partner to break into the diner's safe. In a girl-power moment, 1934 style, MacMahon gets a gun and shoots Foster dead in cold blood. That's one way to handle it.
She then lets the partner get away because he wasn't trying to break into her safe. She now, also, shows empathy to her younger sister as she gets that you can't just lock your passions and urges away and call it a life.
Marvel at the pre code. In an hour, we watched a world-weary woman get sexually played by the same man who played her in the past, so she shoots him dead. At the same time, her late-teen sister appears to have slept with a guy for the first time who proceeds to all but ignores her as he dumps her back at the diner and drives off.
The cold-blooded shooting will be dismissed legally since the dead man was stealing from MacMahon's safe at the time, but the message is clear: he was shot for manipulating this woman emotionally and sexually one too many times. Pre-code justice was also okay with letting the partner escape as he had only held up a jewelry store, but didn't kill the guard or emotionally abuse a woman.
None of this would be allowed a year later when the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced and a year after that when Heat Lightning's same themes were explored in a similar construct in 1936's The Petrified Forest.
In that code-handcuffed, but still outstanding effort, the sex has been reduced to kisses and the criminals are all either killed or arrested. It's a powerful movie for other reasons, but it lacks the raw carnal passion and realpolitik justice of Heat Lightning.
N.B. Amidst all the other things going on, it's still worth noting the "girl power" meme in Heat Lightning of two women running a successful motor court with one of them doubling as the gas station's mechanic. History is rarely as black and white as it's often portrayed.
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Post by topbilled on May 21, 2024 8:51:54 GMT
This film is from 1947.
Till the next masterpiece is finished do us part
Barbara Stanwyck had a unique motion picture career, especially during the 1940s and 1950s. Most box office names of that era were locked into long-term studio contracts and would occasionally, just occasionally, be loaned out. That was the case with her costars in this film, Humphrey Bogart & Alexis Smith. Bogart and Smith were under the thumb of Jack Warner and often not able to expand their range in genres at other studios.
However, in Stanwyck’s case, she was one of the rare freelancers during these years…I say rare, because if there were freelancers in the studio system they tended to be men, not women. Yet Stanwyck bucked the trend and she was able to move from studio to studio, selecting the scripts she was most interested in doing. Also, because she was not limited by one particular studio’s style, she’s able to effortlessly segue from a role as a femme fatale killer at Paramount (in DOUBLE INDEMNITY) to a wacky homemaking guru at Warner Brothers (in CHRISTMAS AT CONNECTICUT) to a tragic tuberculosis patient at United Artists (in THE OTHER LOVE) to…well, you get the idea.
With THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS she was back at Warner Brothers, this time playing an imperiled socialite whose artist husband (Bogart) has sinister plans to do away with her once he’s completed painting her latest portrait, an Angel of Death type masterpiece. We know after the first ten minutes of the film the same fate befell his first wife, the original Mrs. Carroll, off-screen.
One too many glasses of poisoned warm milk led to the initial instance of uxoricide. Soon it will be time for Stanwyck’s character to get her dose of calcium and follow suit if outside forces don’t intervene.
One person who may be able to save Stanwyck is a dapper ex-beau (Patrick O’Moore) who is still holding a torch for her. He’s been a most gracious loser and stepped aside when she impulsively wed widower Bogart, but O’Moore likes visiting and hanging around the manse as a friend.
There is also a middle-aged doctor named Tuttle (Nigel Bruce in delightful scene stealing mode) who shows up on house calls. But his predilection for booze prevents him from properly diagnosing Stanwyck’s mysterious ailments.
Indeed, Bruce has a habit of treating her and other such women for their nerves, instead of what really might be wrong with them. Then, there’s the police who get involved at the end when Bogart is dangerously close to offing Stanwyck.
By that point, Bogart has killed a pesky chemist (Barry Bernard) who won’t stop blackmailing him. It seems the chemist knows Bogart murdered the first Mrs. Carroll and has proof that the coppers may find interesting.
A wonderfully acted scene by Bogart two-thirds of the way into the picture has his character visit the chemist one last time and snap, killing him on the spot. The desperation and determination to end such a threat is palpable.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Anita Sharp-Bolster as a no-nonsense majordomo employed by Stanwyck; as well as Isobel Elsom as a guest who’s arrived with her predatory daughter (Alexis Smith).
Smith is pretty much a second lead, and as a Warner Brothers contractee, she is given third billing. But her character only forms one of two different triangles in the movie. And she disappears before the last act in which Bogart and Stanwyck finally square off.
The showdown at the end is very suspenseful. We’ve had Stanwyck reach a terrible realization that the man she married is mentally ill; and her perfect marriage has all been an illusion. He’s going to get rid of her, just as he did her predecessor.
It has all been confirmed by harrowing truths told to her by a wise young stepdaughter (Ann Carter), not to mention Stanwyck’s gone into her husband’s studio and glimpsed the Angel of Death portrait of herself. If that doesn’t say ‘your next,’ nothing does!
After Bogart sends his daughter and housekeeper off, he intends to do away with Stanwyck. Conveniently for her, she has a gun given to her by O’Moore. You see, a burglar’s on the loose, and there is danger in the area. Of course, the greatest threat to Stanwyck’s ability to go on living is right under her own roof.
The moment when Bogart breaks into her bedroom as some sort of pseudo-vampire, takes the film from bubbling psychological thriller to full-bodied horror potboiler. It is the story’s dramatic highpoint and certainly the most memorable scene. Stanwyck was a good screamer in some of her movies (see her last feature William Castle’s THE NIGHT WALKER for verification of this fact); and she definitely knows how to convey terror (see SORRY WRONG NUMBER and WITNESS TO MURDER for additional proof).
But this is not just a Barbara Stanwyck movie. It’s also a Humphrey Bogart movie. We have a perfect collaboration of two stars of equal standing, at the peak of their respective careers. We don’t necessarily believe in them as a couple who need a happily ever after; but we do believe in them as a couple who can scale the emotional heights of an ill-fated union and make us appreciate the calmness of our comparatively uneventful affairs.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 21, 2024 9:32:04 GMT
The Two Mrs. Carrolls from 1947 with Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Ann Carter
The Two Mrs. Carrolls is a good movie whose whole is worth less than the sum of its parts. With Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart and Alexis Smith starring and a script from a hit Broadway play, this should be a better move than it is.
Part of the problem is that most of the surprise in this murder mystery story is drained right out of it as we learn early on that an artist, played by Bogart, is a killer. We see him poison his first wife to marry a wealthy woman, played by Stanwyck, whom he just met.
Along for the wife-swap ride is Ann Carter playing Bogart's preternaturally mature pre-teen daughter. She's not the most-realistic character, few adults are as poised as she is, but movies have a certain latitude and, here, The Two Mrs. Carrolls uses its latitude well.
Probably to protect her own sanity, this highly intelligent and thoughtful child doesn't see that her father is a murderer. She, instead, indulges her father. It's an engaging performance from a child performer.
For a time, Bogart and Stanwyck's marriage seems to be going well, still, there are signs of Bogart's insanity that kind wife Stanwyck passes off as a temperamental-artist thing. But when a pretty neighbor woman starts scratching at the back door, things heat up.
Alexis Smith, the pretty, tall and door-scratching neighbor who looks like she could eat peanuts off the top of Bogart's head, makes a hard run at Bogart seemingly because she likes stealing other women's husbands.
Bogart, not for the reason you think - the real reason is the "surprise reveal" in the mystery - likes to be stolen away. So once again, out comes the poison. But there are a couple of problems.
The British government isn't stupid and requires a signature to be obtained whenever poison is sold. This gives scheming, immoral "chemists," pharmacists to us today, like the one played here by Barry Bernard, an opportunity to commit blackmail.
Bernard is outstanding as the blackmailer you love to hate. Even though Bogart is a murderer, Bernard is such a greedy low life - he's willing to let Bogart go on killing as long as Bogart pays him off - you hate him more than Bogie. Bogie, afterall, is insane.
Bogart's other problem is that Stanwyck and Stanwyck's friend, played by Patrick O'Moore, aren't going to let her go gently into that good night. It's helpful to have an ex-lover still pining for you when your husband is a psychotic killer.
The climatic scene, no spoilers coming, is dragged out and exaggerated a bit to create drama. Still, it's pretty well done by director Peter Godfrey as rain and crashing thunder outside set a Gothic-like atmosphere for a struggle to death in Stanwyck's bedroom.
Stanwyck is the standout performer in this one. The woman is so talented you forget she is acting as she just becomes her character. While the script drifts now and then into implausibility, Stanwyck's realistic portrayal is always there to give it credibility.
Bogart is a professional who doesn't give a poor performance. Still, his ideal role is playing the antihero, not the psychotic killer. Here he is natural when playing the kind husband and father, but you feel him "acting" when his insanity shows through.
Smith's character is written as two dimensional, so she can only do so much. You don't like her, which is what the script called for, so mission accomplished. Had she had a bit more Hollywood luck, the tall and talented Ms. Smith could have had a bigger career.
Nigel Bruce turns the ham factor up just a bit too high on his country doctor schtick in this one. Conversely, Anita Sharp-Bolster is spot on in her spirited portrayal of Stanwyck's sarcastic housekeeper who doesn't take BS from anyone.
Many pieces of this movie are good, some are even very good, but the story lacks the full punch it needed, in part, because too much is revealed early on putting too much pressure on the disappointing "big reveal" later.
The Two Mrs. Carrolls has enough talent and pedigree to have been a great movie. Yet In the busy Hollywood subgenre of psychotic-murderous-spouse movies, it's just a good one. Maybe the twist that spurs Bogie to murder will make it a great one for you. |
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Post by topbilled on May 25, 2024 15:44:00 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
The “failed” mission of a Confederate patrol
Though the patrol that Errol Flynn leads west during the Civil War fails to take a region in the southwest, along the border of California, we are meant to sympathize with them and even admire their valiant heroism. These types of films were popular with American movie audiences, especially audiences in the south who still wanted to believe that the Confederate cause was a valid one, eighty-five years after the end of the U.S. Civil War.
Some movies are not only about the men who fought and lost such a war, these movies are also about place. Specifically, the places where they come from; as well as the place where they are all now assembled— in this case, atop a Rocky Mountain, which Flynn affectionately calls The Rock.
We are not told much about Flynn’s background except that he lost a woman he loved; but we do learn bits and pieces about the ragtag soldiers under his command. Some grew up on steamboats; some were ex-cons; some were tough plainsmen; some were heirs of powerful plantation families; some were from Louisiana where English was not their first language; etc.
One of the soldiers in this group is a young sixteen year old named Jimmy (Dick Jones). I suppose he is meant to remind us of the kid in Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, played on screen by Audie Murphy a year later.
Jimmy’s already seen battle for over two years, having enlisted at age fourteen. Flynn comments that Jimmy quickly went from innocent boy to full-fledged man, implying there were many such Jimmys on both sides. Jimmy has a dog, Spot, who is probably the most endearing character in the story. Unlike these Confederate men who are killed by warring natives at the end, Spot manages to survive— a poignant touch in a grim western tale.
Another character who survives is a woman traveler played by Patrice Wymore. Wymore was a last-minute fill-in for Lauren Bacall who refused the role and soon broke ties with the studio. It’s a shame that Bacall did not do the role, since one does feel that the part was written for her, and while Wymore in her first leading role is a pleasant enough figure, she is not quite as good an actress as Bacall. Some of her scenes do not convey the fortitude and strength required.
Wymore’s character is nearly killed in the beginning when her stagecoach is ambushed by natives and she’s left for dead. Flynn and his patrol rescue her, and she joins them on top of The Rock, while they wait for other men to arrive and form a larger army that will storm into California and supposedly claim that land for the South. At the same time, we learn Wymore is a Yankee and is engaged to a Union officer (Scott Forbes) who comes to find her, since her stagecoach did not make it to the fort where they were to have been reunited.
During the middle section of the film, Forbes and his men have been overtaken by Flynn and his men. So we have both sides at cross-purposes, co-existing, then confronted with a deadly attack by the Shoshone. How the men work together and overcome some, if not all their differences, is a key message of the film. There is a shocking scene near the conclusion where Flynn’s character is brought down by arrows, and he experiences a most surprising on-screen death.
I was glad that Wymore, whose character had been developing feelings for Flynn, still ended up with Forbes (and the dog) in the last scene. Yet, Flynn was still regarded to be a man worth admiring on some level. In real life, Flynn who had recently been divorced and was engaged to someone else, fell for Wymore and married her a few months after the picture wrapped.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 2, 2024 15:23:52 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Great B-film from Warners
I love this one– it’s the little film that could. It is easily my most favorite B-film. It has some great Irish music, some fast-paced action scenes (especially at the end), and appealing lead performers like Dennis Morgan, John Payne & Gloria Dickson to sustain our interest.
But what impresses me most is the way this story deftly combines several different genres– it’s a police procedural, gangster drama, romance, mystery, musical and family drama all rolled into one.
It tries to be all things to all viewers, and since the cast is so versatile, it succeeds. And to think they packed it all into a film that doesn’t even run a full hour! Great entertainment.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 10, 2024 15:21:56 GMT
This neglected film is from 1938.
An Oscar worthy performance
Fay Bainter plays the main character in this feel-good melodrama from Warner Brothers. She is surrounded by a great cast that includes Jackie Cooper, Kay Johnson, Bonita Granville and Claude Rains.
It’s another one of those stories like STELLA DALLAS and TO EACH HIS OWN about a mother who gave up a baby years earlier, due to a set of difficult circumstances. In this case, she was separated from her young son (Cooper), since she was unwed and felt the boy would have a better life with a married couple raising him.
It is now fifteen years, when later she comes back into her son’s life, by taking a job as a housekeeper to a neighbor family (headed by Rains). Bainter does an extraordinarily good job as the indispensable majordomo of the household. She cares about each person’s wellbeing, and puts everyone else’s life ahead of her own. Especially Cooper’s life.
There’s a poignant scene later in the film when she finally admits to being Cooper’s mother. Bainter received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her work in this picture. Interestingly, she also had a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in JEZEBEL the same year.
Bainter won in the supporting category, probably because Warner Brothers was pushing Bette Davis as the lead in JEZEBEL and it would be some sort of consolation for Bainter to not go home empty-handed. However, I think her performance in WHITE BANNERS deserved the Oscar over Davis. She renders a pitch perfect characterization that wisely avoids scenery chewing and over the top histrionics.
Fay Bainter and Claude Rains would be paired up again a year later in DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS. They play opposite each other very well.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 10, 2024 16:00:26 GMT
White Banners from 1938 with Fay Bainter, Claude Rains, Bonita Granville, Jackie Cooper and Kay Johnson
White Banners is a charming movie with a fairytale quality whose strong writing and talented acting prevent it from becoming cloying. It's easy to understand why this uplifting story and the novel it is based on were well-received in the challenging 1930s.
Fay Bainter plays a drifter in the Depression who shows up one day at the back door of a middle-class family comprising a mother played by Kay Johnson, a father played by Claude Rains, a teenage daughter played by Bonita Granville and a baby.
Johnson hasn't fully recovered from the birth of her new child, plus she's stressed because money is tight mainly for the reason that her husband, highschool teacher Rains, spends all their excess funds on his, so far, unsuccessful inventions.
Daughter Granville, as cute a teenage girl as was ever made, has a crush on the son of the town's wealthy banker, played by famous child actor Jackie Cooper. He likes her, but he's also a bit of a spoiled troublemaker who acts up in Rains' classroom at school.
As only happens in a movie, Bainter stays with the family as a kindly housekeeper working for a pittance. Her presence immediately changes the atmosphere of the household for the better.
She smartly stretches the family's modest food budget, allows the mother, Johnson, to get some much-needed rest, sets up a laboratory for Rains' inventions in the basement and helps sooth Granville's crazy-normal teenage mood swings.
Cooper, steered by Bainter, and, initially, as punishment for misbehaving in Rains' class, starts helping Rains with his first invention that shows promise, a refrigeration system to replace the icebox.
From here, the story is one of a kid, Cooper, a natural at science, maturing as he sees the value of hard work and honesty, while Rains' family go through some more ups and downs as his invention succeeds, but the patent is potentially stolen.
That off-the-shelf-story, which could be the plot of a Hallmark movie today, is almost unimportant as the magic in this movie is Bainter's calming influence and turn-the-other-cheek philosophy that changes everyone's outlook and fortune.
When crises hit, Bainter keeps morale up. When Rains or Cooper want to fight an injustice, she encourages them to move on to positive work and not burn energy fighting. You might not agree with her passive philosophy, but it helps the family.
Bainter, playing a modest-looking middle-aged woman, gives an inspiring performance as a Christlike figure dropped into this struggling family to improve everyone's life with kindness, decency, charity and a preternaturally forgiving outlook.
Rains, too, is pitch perfect as the somewhat bumbling, but kind titular head of the household who needs Bainter guidance. Granville and Cooper are wonderful as "typical" teenagers who bloom under Bainter's calming influence.
Johnson shines in the small but impactful role of the weary mother and wife trying to hold her family together under the strains of the Depression. Her situation had to be very relatable to 1930 audiences facing the exact same challenges.
There's a well-telegraphed twist revealed later on (no spoilers coming) that explains Bainter's presence in this particular family, at this particular time, but it's almost unimportant as this is a story of hope and faith, not facts and logic.
The special ingredient in White Banners, the reason the movie works, is the exalting feeling of joy you get seeing Bainter's uplifting spirituality and innate serenity revitalize a family in peril. It's fantasy, but it's wonderful fantasy.
White Banners could have easily failed as adult fairytales are hard to pull off. But smart writing, thoughtful directing by Edmund Goulding and incredibly talented acting created a magical movie that uplifted Depression-era audiences, something it still has the power to do today. |
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Post by topbilled on Jun 10, 2024 18:27:48 GMT
What a great review, Fading Fast.
I hope more people take a look at WHITE BANNERS. Such a wonderful film.
ok.ru/video/2083162163868
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Post by topbilled on Jun 16, 2024 14:24:48 GMT
This film is from 1933.
The sum and its parts
There are some great sequences in this memorable precode from Warner Brothers, but I am not sure if the sum of its parts ultimately makes a whole lot of sense. At times it’s a story about postwar adjustment and morphine addiction. Then it’s a story about economic prosperity and depression. Then it’s a doomed love story, two doomed love stories in fact, since one woman (Loretta Young) is killed loving a man (Richard Barthelmess) in an impossible situation; while another woman (Aline MacMahon) pines for him and her efforts remain unrequited.
I suppose it’s meant to be a chronicle of a fifteen year period from the first World War up to the height of the Great Depression. Interestingly, this timeline mirrors the motion picture career of the film’s star, since Barthelmess first broke through in movies in 1916, during the war, and he achieved much success in the 1920s.
By the time this picture was in production, Barthelmess was aging out of the youthful roles that made him popular with audiences and his career would quickly go into decline. His last starring role was three years later. There was a short break, then he returned at the end of the decade to begin character parts, but retired in 1942. Ironically, Barthelmess went off to serve in WWII. Then he spent the rest of his life living off the savings of his Hollywood career, money he had invested in real estate.
In the film, Barthelmess’s character is selfless. He takes the profits he earns from an invention and gives the money to the poor. There is considerable talk about his decision to devote his income to charity.
The final stages of the film have him suspected of being a communist and forced on the road like a hobo. Personally, I felt the subplot involving the Reds a bit over-the-top, and I was never sure who to root for in the sequence where there is a labor riot which leads to the tragic death of our hero’s wife (Young).
Her death scene is one that stays with the viewer long after the film ends, but what’s the point of it all? To show that this man, like America had been beaten and lost everything, but would continue to move forward? We are told he has a young son who’s proud of him. But proud of what?
Mixed into his economic philosophical mishmash are some anti-war sentiments about how medals and ribbons are not important if a man cannot feed himself after a war. At the same time, we see the corruption of banking institutions and large scale businesses, so are we ultimately supposed to be sympathetic towards communism? Despite the bravura performances of the two lead actresses, plus Barthelmess who liked to pick scripts with edgy socially conscious messages, I still wasn’t sure if I was meant to like the story, and if I was even meant to like America.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 16, 2024 14:44:26 GMT
Heroes for Sale from 1933 with Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon and Loretta Young
"Smash the machines!"
Director William A. Wellman and Warner Bros. let their inner communist rip in Heroes for Sale, a precode Depression-era tale of cardboard-hero communists/socialists and cardboard-villain capitalists and police.
Richard Barthelmess plays a soldier in WWI who, owing to a fluke occurrence on the battlefield, has his heroic deeds effectively stolen by another soldier, the son of a banker - the Depression's number one capitalist villain.
After the war, Barthelmess ends up working for that banker, but owing to a morphine addiction he acquired recovering from his war injuries, he is unjustly fired. After rehab in a clinic - a surprisingly frank look at drug addiction for the time - he tries his luck in another city.
There he gets a job in a commercial laundry, moves up, marries a pretty co-worker, played by Loretta Young, and they have a boy. He even invests in a labor-saving machine, but only on the condition that nobody will lose their job if it's installed - good grief.
When the owner of the laundry dies, the new owner breaks the agreement and fires many of the workers. The men, now unemployed in the Depression and in a Luddite moment, attack the factory to "destroy the machines that took their jobs."
Barthelmess, a sort of communist Jesus here, is mistakenly arrested for inciting that riot even though he tried to stop it. Worse, his wife, Young, is killed in the riot. So it's off to jail for Barthelmess, while his son stays with his disciple, uh, friend, played by Aline MacMahon.
Five years later Barthelmess is out and rich from the profits from the laundry machine he invested in, but seeing the hardship around him, he gives all the money to MacMahon, who runs a soup kitchen, to help feed the hungry.
The red squads - quasi-official gangs of men hired by local businesses to get rid of the "agitators" - then chase Barthelmess out of town, forcing him to join the unemployed masses of men roaming the country looking for work.
That's most of it, and if you put the lens exactly where you want it, as Wellman and Warner Bros. do, it's all true, but shift the lens around and there are other interpretations of the causes and effects. Shift it some more and heroes and villains appear on both sides.
Heroes For Sale isn't interested in any of that as its purpose is to be a communist/socialist fairytale. To that end, it's mildly effective agitprop. It helps that Barthelmess' low-key acting style fits his saintly role in this one as his calm-in-crisis vibe feels savoir-like.
MacMahon, a reasonably big star and even bigger talent from that era who's been all but forgotten today, is equally good as a Barthelmess/Lenon follower.
The Depression's suffering was on a massive scale leading to many interpretations with an equal number of social and political movements and ideologues proffering solutions. The capitalists have their take and the socialists/communists - as shown here - have theirs.
Part of precode Hollywood's value is that blatant propaganda pictures like Heroes for Sale could be made. While most are not great movies, today they remain as historic curios revealing how some artists tried to promote their prefered ideology through early cinema. |
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Post by topbilled on Jun 28, 2024 14:21:46 GMT
This film is from 1935.
Their noble suffering
For anyone who doesn’t know what the title means, it’s certainly spelled out in the picture’s story. I won’t give the whole thing away but I did find it interesting the way George Brent’s character transfers his ideas of living on velvet on to his wife, played by Kay Francis.
They both suffer a lot in this film, but since this is a melodrama geared for female audiences, her torment is designed to be a lot more noble than his. Warren William, billed over Brent, appears as the couple’s best friend. He appears in more of a supporting role. He probably suffers too but his reduced screen time doesn’t allow us to glimpse his particular turmoil and neurosis.
Tearjerking aside, I found the performances credible. All the roles are sincerely played, and the woman (Helen Lowell) cast as Francis’s aunt was particularly good. She made the most of her limited screen time.
Some of the denouement didn’t make sense in the last few minutes, because a character who was supposed to die was suddenly allowed to live (per Jack Warner’s wishes). Even if said character had died, I am not too sure how it would have reinforced a point the writers were trying to make.
Maybe it was all supposed to lead to a realization that pain and suffering can be erased somehow, once you stop living on velvet.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 1, 2024 12:56:29 GMT
This neglected film is from 1936.
Let it ride
George Abbott’s Broadway play, upon which this film is based, was a smash hit, running two years for over 800 performances. In fact, it was still being staged in the fall of 1936 when Warner Brothers premiered this screen version. Two of the stars from the Broadway cast went to Hollywood to recreate their roles— Sam Levene as a mug with more than a few gambling issues; and Terry Hart (younger brother of Lorenz Hart) as a sidekick.
For the rest of the roles the studio cast its own contract players, including Allen Jenkins as Levene’s other sidekick; as well as Joan Blondell as Levene’s saucy girlfriend. Blondell is actually playing a supporting character, but gets second billing. Her role had been done in New York by Shirley Booth. The top-billed player is Frank McHugh, usually seen as support to bigger male stars like James Cagney and Pat O’Brien, either one of whom would have done a swell job in Levene’s place.
Incidentally Levene was so associated with this play, he repeated his part in a touring USO production in the mid-1940s. And in 1961, when Abbott and company revived the property as a musical with songs by Jay Livingston & Ray Evans, Levene was once again cast as Patsy the mug. He got a lot of mileage from it, and as a result of his excellent performance in this WB adaptation, he found work in many other motion pictures.
One thing that helps this adaptation is how closely it adheres to the Broadway version. Studio sets have been modeled after the original stage sets, and to be honest, except for a later sequence that was filmed outside at an actual race track, much of what we glimpse is limited to interiors. Some adaptations are not cinematic enough, but in this case, not opening up the play too much ensures the characters’ close knit relationships remain intact.
McHugh is playing a guy lucky at picking winning horses that is kept slightly hostage by Levene and Levene’s pals; so, there is a bit of claustrophobia and containment that gives McHugh something to rebel against.
At the beginning of the story, McHugh is basically henpecked by his wife (Carol Hughes) and her brother (Paul Harvey). But he grows a pair of you know whats during this ordeal, and it’s fun to see his transformation. McHugh’s a gifted comedian, and he does a superb job portraying a man who’s been a bit too reined in, but now finally coming into his own power.
Another one who does a superb job is Guy Kibbee. We watch Kibbee in a scene stealing role as McHugh’s blustery boss who barks orders left, right and center. He gradually learns to appreciate McHugh and gives our hapless hero a promotion at the end. It’s always a treat to see performers like Kibbee, McHugh and Blondell hit their marks with memorable characterizations. Though we cannot go back in time and see the original Broadway play, we have this excellent filmed version which gives us a sense of why ‘Three Men on a Horse’ was so popular with audiences for so long.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 12, 2024 15:17:54 GMT
This film is from 1953.
Even mangy groundhogs will love it
CALAMITY JANE was Doris Day’s favorite of all the movies she made, and it’s easy to see why. There are so many things going for it…First, there’s an Oscar nominated score. One of the songs (‘Secret Love’) received the Oscar for song of the year– it was a hit song on the Billboard charts for Doris Day.
Second, the casting is perfect. Howard Keel plays the main love interest, fresh off his success in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. We also have handsome Phil Carey as the military man Day’s character thinks she loves. Meanwhile Dick Wesson turns up in a great comic relief supporting part; and Allyn Ann McLerie plays a dance hall girl wannabe (why didn’t she have a greater career in movies?). Not to mention Doris Day herself who is having fun with the role of a lifetime.
And I want to speak for a moment about our star’s’ acting. If you ask me, Doris Day is more focused in this film than in any other one I’ve seen her do (except maybe LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME). There is not one false note in her performance. Even when she has the most over-the-top dialogue (sputtering words or phrases like varmint, mangy groundhog and nekked heathens), she doesn’t step out of character and wink once at the audience.
She knows Calamity Jane’s mannerisms and speech are supposed to be animated, but she plays it straight and that helps us develop sympathy for the character. It also helps us get caught up in what will happen to Calamity, as far-fetched as the situations may be. And around the 65-minute mark (more than halfway into the story), her transformation from a tomboy to a softer more feminine western gal is handled very nicely.
To sum it up, CALAMITY JANE is a solid piece of musical comedy entertainment. The preposterousness and historical inaccuracies the script conjures up can be forgiven. Any shortcomings are more than made up for by the abounding charm of the players and overall ambience of the picture.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 16, 2024 7:30:51 GMT
This neglected film is from 1937.
When racketeers terrorize a city
Warner Brothers specialized in stories about racketeers in the 1930s. Some of these were more important ‘A’ films of the period; some were less prestigious ‘B’ dramas. MISSING WITNESSES, which is a loose reworking of BUREAU OF MISSING PERSONS (1933), was made by the studio’s B unit. It still packs a lot of action and provides decent enough performances as well as quality production values to make it seem like a B-plus or A-minus effort.
Dick Purcell who starred in many ‘B’ pics at Warners and at poverty row studios after he began to freelance does an adequate job as the lead. He is playing a seasoned copper who likes to rough up suspects, particularly ones accused of racketeering. He rushes them off to jail and testifies against these dudes in court. However, a recent arrestee (Raymond Hatton) is a little too slick and due to coercive methods, gets off, when a witness (Michael Mark) backtracks on the true version of events.
Since Mark’s testimony has been compromised, he is the one who goes to prison, for perjury, while Hatton and Hatton’s cronies get off scot free. This doesn’t sit well with Purcell, of course.
The story’s next part involves Purcell being transferred to a more genteel investigations department headed up by John Litel. In no uncertain terms Litel informs Purcell that there will be no more rough stuff, they are here to serve and to protect, and they will use their brains to bring down Hatton and the mystery man behind Hatton’s graft.
This leads into some scenes with a shop owner (played by Ben Welden) and his wife (Sheila Bromley) who are tired of having to pay protection money to Hatton and the thugs. They agree to testify. But once again in the courtroom, things take a turn for the worse when Welden clams up on the stand, because Hatton is threatening to kill Welden’s wife if Welden talks. However, Litel outfoxes the defense since he had Welden’s earlier statements identifying Hatton’s criminal actions recorded on film.
After Hatton is sent to prison, things are far from over. As I said, a lot of action is packed into the film’s 61 minute run time. Hatton is killed in prison when it looks like he will cooperate with Litel and Purcell to name his mystery boss (Harland Tucker).
On the outside, Purcell has been cozying up to Tucker’s secretary (Jean Dale), in the hopes this will bust the case wide open. There are some cute “love” scenes between alpha male Purcell and strong willed Dale who eventually succumbs to his charms.
One aspect that works in this film’s favor is that while the love story is playing out, Dale is sort of presented as a femme fatale. There’s a sequence when Tucker seems to have been murdered, and Dale seems to have done it and that she hasn’t been telling Purcell everything she knows about the rackets. Then Dale’s character goes missing, which reinforces the title/main theme.
Naturally, the writers don’t want to spoil a happy romantic ending. Meaning Dale is found and eventually cleared of any wrongdoing; she will become Purcell’s wife. Despite the hard-edged criminal activities that are presented earlier in the story, the whole thing reaches a standard and fairly subdued conclusion. Ultimately, what we have is just another romance drama with the gangster rackets as a dangerous backdrop.
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