|
|
Post by topbilled on Dec 14, 2023 14:15:20 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Ford and Keyes have the right touch
Columbia’s MR. SOFT TOUCH pairs Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes for the sixth and final time. It is probably their best film together. A bit hard to describe, the story combines different elements. It’s a comedy, a romance, a gangster picture, and it’s a holiday drama. While it will please fans of each specific genre, there is no schmaltzy ending, which makes it more unique.
MR. SOFT TOUCH comes across as thoughtful entertainment. It is scripted in a way that makes us eager to learn more about the people on screen. We are told Keyes’ character was beaten as a child, but her father said he loved her. Ford’s character is said to be a patriot who served in the war. He’s mistaken for a man who beats his wife, which resonates with Keyes. Fortunately, Ford is not actually married, did not beat anyone, and is available for romance.
These two help each other during a fateful 36-hour period. Keyes sponsors Ford’s attempts to reform, and he helps her at a settlement house where she works. He is not above blackmailing neighborhood crooks to pitch in. Also, he buy things that are needed for the kids, with cash he took back from the mob.
One of the kids is a teenage gambler (Stanley Clements) who is taught an expensive lesson by Ford who’s better at dice. Off to the side, we see a talkative carpenter (Percy Kilbride) who has politically-informed opinions about everything. Then there are two busybodies (Clara Blandick & Beulah Bondi) who work with Keyes. Plus a mob boss (Roman Bohnen) who wants his money back. Oh, and there’s a reporter (John Ireland) who functions as a Greek chorus.
What I love about MR. SOFT TOUCH is how nobody is completely right, and nobody is completely wrong. There are no easy answers for any of them. Ford’s past catches up to him in what is probably the most classic ending of all time. Yet he manages to do considerable good in the hours leading up to his last few moments.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Dec 14, 2023 16:11:27 GMT
Mr. Soft Touch from 1949 with Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes and John Ireland
(Note, there are spoilers sprinkled throughout, so please pass if you don't like to read reviews with spoilers.)
Mr. Soft Touch is an offbeat mashup of a Christmas movie and a mobster noir that leans heavily to the Christmas side of the tale. Ninety-nine percent of the way through, I was thinking, why is this a not-better-known Christmas movie, and then I understood why when I saw the ending.
A Christmas movie needs one critical thing - it's essential - it needs a happy ending, but Mr. Soft Touch ends on a down note, which is why you'll rarely see this one atop anyone's favorite Christmas movie list.
Glenn Ford is a returning WWII vet whom the mob squeezed out of his ownership share in a nightclub while he was away at war. To get even, Ford steals $100,000 from the club.
With the mob and police now looking for him, he hides out in a settlement house for a few days just before Christmas, as he's waiting to make his escape on a ship bound for Hong Kong.
At the settlement house, Ford meets social worker Evelyn Keyes who, only slowly, learns who Ford really is. At the same time, they begin to fall in love. Ford is, yes a gangster with a good heart (otherwise there's no movie), but he is a also a real gangster who mocks Keyes' do-good-ism:
"I believe in hope." - Evelyn Keyes
"That's a poor person's disease." - Glenn Ford
Ford grew up poor in a tough neighborhood. He's willing to help the settlement house out a bit, but isn't going to give away a lot of his money. Keyes, whom we learn had a tough upbringing - she's no dilettante social worker - persistently challenges Ford to be a better person, but the gap between these two is huge.
The fun in this one is Ford as a fish out of water in the settlement house. He takes the older kids' money in a game of craps the kids suggested thinking Ford would be the sucker, and then he anonymously donates his winnings back to the house. After breaking the settlement house's dilapidated piano, he hussles a brand-spanking-new one out of a local piano store that's really a front for bookmaking and numbers running.
While all the Christmas joy is here, the movie oddly has a real mobster edge as we see Ford viciously beat up the nightclub's new owner and several mobsters get killed in a gunbattle. Also, Ford's responses are pretty brutal to Keyes' constant pleas for charity and he outright mocks her assertion that if they love each other, whether he has money or not won't matter.
At the end (big spoiler alert), even when he finally gives all his money to the settlement house, it's a nice gesture, you only believe he made it because he knew he was going to be killed. And, yes, in the final scene, with Keyes running after him, he is killed.
There's no natural audience for Mr. Soft Touch. It's got too much violent-gangster stuff to be a kid-approved Christmas movie; it's got too much Christmas whimsy to be a mobster noir movie and its touching but sad ending knocks it out of even the adult Christmas movie box.
Mr. Soft Touch is an excellent movie without a target audience. It's well worth the watch, but you might wish the writers and directors had committed to making it more of a complete Christmas movie.
N.B. Living in New York City where, to this day, housing projects are horrible gang, drug and violence hellholes and where it seems no amount of money, policing or "new" ideas can ever change them, it's sad to see housing projects sincerely touted, as the are in Mr. Soft Touch, as society's coming answer to housing for the poor. |
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Dec 17, 2023 7:30:17 GMT
This neglected film is from 1930.
Stanwyck’s breakthrough
This Columbia precode is notable for accomplishing a few things. First, it paved the way for director Frank Capra to win the Oscar a few years later for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. When LADIES OF LEISURE failed to snag any nominations, both Capra and studio boss Harry Cohn became so enraged that Capra pushed to become a more active member of the Academy board. And with his increasing clout in the industry, as well as Cohn’s increasing clout, their later effort received plenty of accolades.
The second thing that this earlier picture accomplished was probably more important than Capra and Cohn winning Oscar awards. It had to do with the fact that its leading lady, Barbara Stanwyck, finally broke through and became a bonafide star.
Up to this point, Stanwyck had been in three pictures, one a silent film, but all three were flops. She was so discouraged she was ready to give up on Hollywood and return to New York. But fortunately for us, it didn’t happen. Capra cast her and the rest as they say is movie history.
In the drama that unfolds, Stanwyck plays a self-professed party girl, more a euphemism for prostitute. She never seems to “date” the same man twice, and then it’s on to the next party and the next batch of fun. One evening, as she is heading home, she crosses paths with a rich young man (Ralph Graves) who is leaving a different party and also heading home. It’s not the ordinary meet-cute, but they connect when he gives her a lift home. He’s taken by her beauty when she dozes off in the passenger seat and decides that since he’s an artist, he will pay to paint her.
The scenes that follow have Stanwyck posing for him at all hours. But she becomes frustrated because as she tells her roommate (Marie Prevost, in scene stealing support mode) ‘this guy looks through me, not at me.’ After she becomes more stymied in trying to cozy up to Graves, she decides to quit. But then he convinces her to keep modeling for him. And she starts to realize in small ways that he has feelings for her, even if he’s not outwardly demonstrative.
During the modeling sessions, he is very critical of how much makeup she uses, how she dresses, how she holds herself. Modern day feminists would probably not appreciate some of the dialogue. But underneath all the so-called constructive criticism, he cares…and she starts to reflect on how she comes across and her life choices thus far. In a way, it’s a serious and very slow type of Pygmalion tale. In fact, the story is so slowly plotted, that they do not have their first kiss until the 64-minute mark. But we do get a good sense of the characters as their love story gradually unspools.
Complicating matters is Graves’ frequently intoxicated chum (Lowell Sherman) and a gal (Juliette Compton) Graves is supposedly engaged to…though, he barely sees her and spends more time with Stanwyck. His folks enter the fray when his father (George Fawcett) has Stanwyck investigated and decides she’s not right for his son to associate with anymore. When Graves won’t give up Stanwyck, mother dear (Nance O’Neil) visits Stanwyck’s apartment and begs her to give Graves up and do what’s right.
This leads to a dramatic final sequence, where Stanwyck has jilted Graves and gone off to Havana with Sherman. But on the boat, she has increasing thoughts of suicide and jumps overboard. She is rescued and reunited with Graves in the last scene to assure the necessary happy ending.
Though the film has some strong emotional scenes with Stanwyck acting her guts out, it is also notable for a lot of amusing dialogue. In one scene Prevost tells Stanwyck “I’ve got one of those hysterical husbands here tonight” as she is pinched on the bottom. There is also a line earlier where one of the men comments that Stanwyck may be wearing specific clothes, but underneath she’s got something else on.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Dec 17, 2023 11:58:26 GMT
Ladies of Leisure from 1930 with Barbara Stanwyck, Ralph Graves, Marie Prevost, Nance O'Neil, Lowell Sherman and George Fawcett
Many women turned to prostitution in the Depression to get by. The pretty and personable ones, like the characters played by Barbara Stanwyck and Marie Prevost in Ladies of Leisure, serviced the carriage trade. Occasionally, love would blossom across the class divide.
Even in precode Hollywood, because there were local censorship boards, church groups, etc., and theaters worried about public opinion (their customers), moviemakers still abided by certain moral standards, so the plot of Ladies of Leisure was tweaked for acceptability.
The male lead, played by Ralph Graves, is the son of a railroad tycoon and an artist wannabe. Graves, unaware of Stanwyck's profession," hires her to model. The story director Frank Capra wanted to tell had Graves being Stanwyck's client, but that was a moral bridge too far.
With that forced setup, the movie tells the common precode tale of a man, Graves, falling in love with a prostitute, Stanwyck. Then he, she or his family have trouble with what her past will mean to their future.
Capra and the writers make this one interesting by avoiding a lot of cliches. Graves doesn't go through the usual and stupid moment of being angry at Stanwyck when he discovers she's a whore.
Stanwyck, to her character's credit, understands the problem she'd present as a wife to a socially prominent man. She doesn't want to wreck kind and affable Graves' social standing, friendships and, most importantly, his relationship with his parents.
Graves' parents, too, aren't cliches as his dad, played by George Fawcett, is pretty understanding for the day and not the usually imperious captain-of-industry father. But it's the mother, played by Nance O'Neil, who shows incredible thoughtfulness and sensitivity.
The scene when she comes to talk to Stanwyck is the movie's real highlight despite the climax coming later. She doesn't talk down to Stanwyck or bully or threaten, but just lays out the facts of what a marriage to someone like Stanwyck would mean for her son.
The climax, no spoilers coming, will not surprise fans of this type of precode, but the real value in the movie is not its forced dramatic-for-a-second ending, but its journey through class and family conflict.
Today, a time when we at least profess to not care about these things, it's easy to denounce the class prejudices of the past, but they were real back then and would have meant exile for Graves from the only world he knew.
It's a good story, which is why it was told so often in that era and still resonates in some ways today. It only works if the female lead convinces you she is a hard-boiled prostitute with a heart of gold buried underneath.
Barbara Stanwyck was born to play such a role. She has the ability to show the grit of being a prostitute, but can then soften into a woman in love with a good man. We feel for her as she so wants to erase her past, but knows that she can't.
Graves is more than adequate as the gentle and a bit unaware man having to choose between his family, friends and social position on one side and Stanwyck on the other. But this is a woman's picture with Stanwyck, O'Neil and Prevost driving the action and emotion.
Prevost is wonderful as the friend and fellow prostitute who laughs off the mild fat-shaming Stanwyck light-heartedly throws her way. When called upon, Prevost steps up for her friend.
Tossed into the mix is Lowell Sherman playing, as he would quite often, the affable drunk friend who hits on every woman. He's here mainly to offer Stanwyck a way back to her old world, but he manages to work in some feeling and humanity to his stock character.
Ladies of Leisure is the first of five Capra-Stanwyck efforts, which culminated in the classic Meet John Doe. Fans of Capra's later fairytale pictures might find these precodes, like Ladies of Leisure, less uplifting, but they are also more realistic movies.
Being a 1930 picture, there are, of course, some clunky early talkie production qualities and the lack of a soundtrack might turn some off, but here, it also makes the story more intimate.
Once the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1935, women's pictures like Ladies of Leisure, with a prostitute as the heroine, would disappear from the screen for decades, making these precodes all the more valuable today as a truer window into the past. |
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Dec 17, 2023 13:00:04 GMT
Nice review. I'm glad you mentioned the lack of soundtrack in LADIES OF LEISURE. Yes, I agree that without intrusive music in the background, we are able to become me attuned to the rhythms of everyday speech and as a result, the characters become more intimate on screen.
As I mentioned in a personal message, I think Stanwyck is fantastic in these early precodes she made with Frank Capra at Columbia. THE MIRACLE WOMAN is a favorite and I also find THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN quite fascinating.
A scene I didn't cover in my review is the one where Prevost's character attempts to climb 20 floors on the stairway of the building where Graves lives, to tell Graves that Stanwyck's gone off on the boat. We get some light comedy as she thinks this will slim down her figure, some pathos as she struggles to make it to the top in time, and some genuine female friendship, because it takes a real caring gal to go out of her way to help a pal in need.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Jan 14, 2024 13:58:00 GMT
This neglected film is from 1938.
Neighborhood girl needs a home
The story isn’t so much about the city or its streets, though we do see a bunch of poor children playing baseball on a busy street in the beginning. They run off after one of them hits a ball through the window of a beloved grocer (Leo Carrillo). A crippled girl in a wheelchair (Edith Fellows) has been watching and knows who the culprit (Tommy Bond) is.
Since the girl has a special bond with the grocer and a local police officer, she tells the truth and gets the boy to take responsibility. However, the grocer, a stereotypical Italian who is kind to all his neighbors, overlooks the incident and everything is back to normal…except everything won’t stay normal very long.
I say this because when Carrillo closes his shop and takes Fellows home, they discover her sick mother has just died in bed. There is no father in the picture, so Carrillo feels as if he should look after the girl. Another tenant (Mary Gordon) in the same building, who happens to be the mother of the boy who broke the window, will help.
From here the story develops into them all doing what is best for Fellows, while a welfare lady (Helen Jerome Eddy) starts nosing around. Columbia’s efficient and highly melodramatic programmer is based on an earlier version called NO GREATER LOVE from 1932. Miss Eddy was in the original, though she played a different character. In that first version, the adoptive father figure was not an Italian grocer but a Jewish deli owner. In both films, the girl is Irish-American.
Since there was less censorship the first time, the story was able to play up ethnic prejudices in the neighborhood, and how certain folks objected to a Jewish man adopting an Irish orphan. But by 1938, with the production code in full force, these details are toned down, Carrillo is portraying a lovable Italian that everyone adores. Nobody, except for the child welfare worker, objects to his wanting to give Fellows a decent life.
The remake focuses instead on the economic troubles that plague Carrillo, since he sells his store to pay for an operation to help Fellows walk again. She has the surgery, but there is no instant cure. Thinking the surgery failed, Carrillo and Gordon try to lift the girl’s spirits with a special birthday party. But even that happiness is short-lived when the welfare lady comes back to take Fellows to an orphans’ asylum. Talk about drama!
The next part has Carrillo attempting to reverse the court order, by going before a judge. However, the magistrate will need time to consider all the facts before a decision can be rendered.
Despite the more histrionic moments of the narrative, there are plenty of pleasing moments. Carrillo is wonderful as a man who puts the concerns of a child above his own needs. There’s a swell scene where he goes to visit Fellows at the asylum and entertains all the parentless kids. But, this joy and merriment is punctuated by a solemn turn of events, when Carrillo insists Fellows try to forget him, so she can be adopted by wealthier people who might provide what he cannot give her at this time.
Of course, the drama isn’t over yet. When Carrillo returns home, he becomes sick after being caught in a storm. It is suggested he has pneumonia and is now dying. With the help of a priest (Frank Sheridan), Fellows is allowed to leave the asylum and visit Carrillo one last time. A wave of emotion overcomes her as she sees him suffering in bed. Without thinking, she gets up out of her wheelchair and walks over to him. Carrillo then rallies and decides he wants to live again.
I won’t comment on the cornier aspects of this miracle scene, but it is a good way to facilitate a happy ending. The audience wouldn’t want the old man to die, or the girl to be miserable and disabled the rest of her life. In some ways her suddenly walking again seems as if it was borrowed from POLLYANNA. But that’s okay. Carrillo and Fellows do such a nice job with the material, it’s still enjoyable to watch.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Jan 19, 2024 14:07:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1953.
A coverup leads to conflicting accounts
This is such a thoughtful western programmer from the folks at Columbia, it feels wrong to call it a B-picture. It’s at least a B-plus, and upon further reflection, an A-minus. It should be graded highly, because it takes standard conventions of the genre, adds some creativity and gives the two main performers a chance to offer inspired performances.
The two leads are a casting office dream. On one side we have Charles Bickford as a ruthless land baron (is there any other kind in these types of movies?) who not only stole property and cattle from countless individuals, he also shot a man fifteen years earlier in cold blood, then took that man’s son (John Derek) and raised him as his own.
Yes, Mr. Bickford is not playing a saint; and only a tough-minded actor like this can take such a gritty role and still manage to make us watch him in awe.
The other lead role is assigned to Broderick Crawford. He’s the opposite of Bickford, a man of integrity, who has upheld the law for years as a once-respected sheriff. However, his inability to arrest Bickford for murder years ago has haunted him. He knows he has let Derek down, and in weakness, he turns to the bottle. In real life, Crawford was an incorrigible alcoholic; so, he’s right at home playing this type of character…a good guy with plenty of demons.
The story begins with a posse returning to the town of Roswell, New Mexico. The men haven’t come back with any prisoners or some loot that was stolen, over $100,000. Instead, they tell the townspeople that Bickford, who was out in the desert with them, is now dead; and the sheriff’s been shot and is dying. Of course, this leads to a flashback. But unlike most films, there are several flashbacks told from conflicting viewpoints about what really happened.
In some ways this is a western noir, since there are so many criminal elements competing against each other. And you could even say that it uses an experimental story structure to some degree, taking its cue from RASHOMON, where we aren’t sure whose view is most truthful. We are meant to sympathize with John Derek’s character, who was raised by a corrupt man…but when we learn at the end, he gunned down Bickford to grab the money and all the land, we realize he isn’t much better.
What makes this western picture stand out is the nuanced dialogue in the most important scenes. Bickford, to cover up his own corrupt activities, cites Crawford’s weakness for drink as the reason the town has criminal elements. He goads Crawford in front of Derek. Bickford says things mockingly, like: “We haven’t had a sheriff around here in years.” Later, when money’s been stolen by men that Bickford wronged, Bickford uses the situation as an excuse to get in another dig: “Tell him after he swears in the posse, he can go back to bed.”
Crawford fights to stay sober and joins the posse. At a campsite, he talks about the old days. Bickford is annoyed: “Why don’t you forget about the old days. This is today.” These lines are delivered matter of fact, yet humorously. Of course, the two actors were friendly when the camera wasn’t rolling.
Incidentally, the script for THE LAST POSSE was written by Seymour & Connie Lee Bennett, a husband and wife team, who unfortunately were blacklisted the same year this film was made. What we have here is their last contribution, before two excellent Hollywood careers were cut short.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Feb 1, 2024 12:27:48 GMT
This neglected film is from 1936.
Lady with problems
Ruth Chatterton had finished her contract with Warner Brothers in 1934. She had also divorced former costar George Brent. And after a period of down-time, she was ready to return to the movies. At 43, she was the perfect age for her role in this Columbia melodrama. Playing a society woman plagued by problems would be a cinch for her, since she’d specialized in these types of roles at Paramount early in her film career.
This time, she was playing a woman of mental incapacity, or so her scheming father (Lionel Atwill) would have others believe. The truth is that her character had fallen in love with a man of a lower class (Lloyd Nolan), daddy dearest objected, and after the boyfriend died, that was meant to be the end of it. But unfortunately for Atwill and his wife (Elisabeth Risdon), there was a baby on the way.
The scenes where we see in extended flashback a younger looking Chatterton being romanced by Nolan are a bit of a stretch. Yet this sequence does explain how Chatterton’s character might have had a happy life, if not for her father’s interference and some very bad luck. It may not be quite believable seeing the actress play a 20 year old version of herself in the past, but she does pull off the necessary emotional aspects of the situation.
Out of the flashback, we learn that now in her early 40s. Chatterton has spent the last two decades pretending to be her young daughter’s older sister. This is because after Nolan’s death, Atwill and Risdon took responsibility for raising their granddaughter as their own child. Risdon is no longer around, so Atwill has been making all the decisions. Chatterton has never been allowed to live her own life freely or do do what’s best for her sister/daughter.
Any opportunity of going off on her own, and Atwill threatens to put Chatterton in a mental institution. In fact, he does end up doing so, when Chatterton decides it’s time to tell her “kid sister” (Marian Marsh) the truth about how they’re really related. Atwill doesn’t want a scandal so he takes preemptive measures to have Chatterton committed, as if that wouldn’t cause more tongues to wag in their tight knit community. In a way, the relationship between Atwill and Chatterton in this film reminds me of the one between Charles Laughton and Norma Shearer in THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET, without incestuous vibes.
Much of the melodrama that plays out is Chatterton breaking free of her father’s obsessive control. Also, she avails herself to ensure Marsh has a real future, which includes Marsh marrying a man (Robert Allen) for love not money. Helping Chatterton liberate herself is a kind gentleman (Otto Kruger) about the same age as her, who had previously become engaged to Marsh. Yes, this is a soap opera!
The various story threads resolve as one would expect, with Atwill eventually put in his place. Both Chatterton and Marsh find happiness. However, the writers do not give the two gals conventional closure. Chatterton recants on her earlier statement about being Marsh’s mom, since she realizes the young girl cannot handle the truth. So she goes back to playing big sis and walks Marsh down the aisle to her waiting fiancé.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Feb 19, 2024 14:53:07 GMT
This film is from 1958.
Witch human do you love?
There are some interesting, daresay clever, ideas in this story. I think the main takeaway for me is that some can lure others into relationships, though it has to be questioned if such arrangements are based on love. Women, as well as men, can charm the opposite sex (and I suppose they can charm the same sex too). Other words might be mesmerize, beguile or even fool the other person into a relationship.
Another takeaway for me watching the film— what is the definition of free will? In this case, you have to ask whether James Stewart’s character Shep has much free will, if he is so easily manipulated by Kim Novak’s Gillian and her cat Pi.
If the individual willingly discards his free will and gives into love, that is still a sort of free will, because they are making a conscious choice to take their live in that direction. But Stewart’s character is often left without any choice.
There is a sequence later in the story where he goes to see an older sorceress named Bianca (Hermione Gingold ). Her features look somewhat grotesque thanks to studio makeup and lighting tricks.
She fixes a bowl of green slop that seems to look like pea soup and has the consistency of porridge. He must eat the whole bowl, and this will cure him; will free him of the spell that Novak’s cast on him. It’s a mighty ridiculous scene, but at least he’s getting his mojo back.
The other male characters in the story have their own afflictions. Ernie Kovacs plays a novelist who writes about the occult but is struggling with his latest book. He’s been brought to New York by Novak as a favor to Stewart who’s a publisher. Kovacs’ role is not fully fleshed out, but he appears to be okay with the idea of being drawn into Greenwich village life, despite how quirky or unorthodox it may be. Near the end, he finds enchantment with Gingold’s character, without any foreshadowing whatsoever that he ever had the slightest interest in her.
Then we have Jack Lemmon in a supporting role as a warlock relative of Novak’s who enjoys causing mischief. Though Lemmon’s character is also not fully fleshed out and he does not have any girlfriend or other love interest, he does make the most of his limited scenes. Lemmon seems to understand the satiric edge of the piece and what it means to not be fully human. He lights up the screen, even when he’s turning out street lamps.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Elsa Lanchester, another scene stealer, who plays Queenie the aunt. Though Lanchester often specializes in off-the-wall absurdity in many of her more outrageous character parts, she does manage to bring a kind and wistful nature to the Queenie character. When she realizes Novak’s truly in love with Stewart, she almost wishes it were happening to her, which I found rather endearing.
As for Novak and Stewart, they had worked together in Hitchcock’s VERTIGO, released the same year by a different studio. They seem to get along well and their interactions are mostly genuine. However, I did feel Stewart was too old for this role. In VERTIGO, he’s a bit more desperate for the love of a young gal, which works for that story. But here, it’s a bit hard to believe that he would not have already married his long-time girlfriend (Janice Rule) or been married to someone else.
He doesn’t seem to have any real hang-ups, like Novak’s character does, preventing him from already finding a successful long-term relationship. I guess I can overlook some of Stewart’s unnaturalness in the role, but would Novak really desire him as much as she does? After all, he’s no aging Clark Gable. He’s not even a cool cat, to borrow the lingo, like Pi is.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Feb 19, 2024 16:04:40 GMT
![]() 
Bell Book and Candle from 1958 with Kim Novak, James Stewart, Jack Lemmon and Janice Rule
And I wish I been out in California
When the lights on all the Christmas trees went out
But I been burnin' my bell, book and candle
And the restoration plays have all gone 'round
- From the Rolling Stones song "Winter."
Some movies get better after you've seen them a few times as the plot is almost a distraction to the movie's more enjoyable style and verve, as in Bell Book and Candle. I've always liked this one, but now in my third or fourth viewing in, well, three or four decades, I found I really enjoyed it because I took it in more as a stylized 1950s experience, than a plot-driven story.
Sure, there's a plot: a comely, cat-like witch, Kim Novak, bored with living amongst, but culturally separate from, humans, wants to fall in love with a human, which will cost her, her sorceress powers. Her amorous target is her upstairs neighbor, successful and conservative book publisher James Stewart, who is a bit too old for the role of a middle-aged bachelor.
All the stuff you expect to happen in this normal witch-human love story (see I Married a Witch and most episodes of Bewitched) happens: she initially casts a spell on Stewart to win his affections; his life gets turned upside down; her witch and warlock friends warn her to not give up her powers and try to sabotage her efforts at love; he discovers (after haughtily dismissing the idea of witches) what happened and angrily leaves her, but things work out in the end as he, ultimately, falls in love with her of his own free will.
Okay, that's a good story, which is why Hollywood keeps telling it, but the fun and frolic in Bell Book and Candle is the stylized look into a witchy world acting as a surrogate for 1950s' Beatnik culture centered around New York's Greenwich Village.
Here, women wear pants and men turtlenecks (except some of the jazz musicians who wear Ivy-league suits as that was a thing then) while the witches' potions and herbs are, one assumes, a stand-in for drugs and weed. Basically, it's witches and warlocks as a proxy for mid-twentieth-century Village bohemians.
Hence, where Stewart's society fiance, Janice Rule, is fussily dressed, bejeweled, status conscious and uptight, Novak is cool, aloof, casually (but highly witchily) styled and overtly sexual. Coincidentally, Novak and Rule were rivals when they both attended Radcliffe years ago. Adding to the present day frisson and friction, Stewart, under Novak's spell, dumps Rule, on the day of Stewart and Rule's wedding - ouch.
Sure, witch Novak is weird as heck, but Stewart - under a spell or not - could sense the difference between a passionate female and a calculating woman. And that's just one contrast in this movie of contrasts as Stewart's upscale and conservative apartment and office looks worlds apart from Novak's coven-like flat and the dark and smokey underground clubs and stores she frequents.
And nothing contrasts more than publisher Stewart, in his tailored suits, running around Greenwich Village with clad-in-body-hugging-black-slacks-and-top Novak. But that is also part of the charm as it's enjoyable seeing fish-out-of-water Stewart go from skeptic dismissing witchcraft to believer as his love for Novak evolves from spell driven to heartfelt, despite having his world turned topsy turvy.
While not a Hitchcock effort, director Richard Quine produced a somewhat Hitchcock-like movie where the style is so visually captivating and the people so engaging, that the story fades as you just enjoy the ride.
And no one is more engaging in this one than Novak channeling her inner witch to be both mysterious and vulnerable as she finds love more fulfilling than power. When she runs out barefoot into the snow to find her lost partner in witchcraft, her cat Pywacket, as she simply can't stand losing both him and Stewart (they're on the outs at this moment) at the same time, your heart aches for her.
There's more going on in this one - Ernie Kovaks in the role of an offbeat writer of witch stories and Jack Lemmon as Novak's warlock and mischievous bongo-playing brother - but it's Novak as the witch in search of love who centers and drives the story. A highly stylized movie about a witch falling in love with a human is a tightrope effort, but Bell Book and Candle pulls it off with an enthusiastic confidence that only makes repeated viewings more enjoyable.
 |
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Mar 23, 2024 13:23:59 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
El Rey and Duke
In 1945 a movie critic called Jerome Courtland a most capable adolescent actor when he appeared alongside Shirley Temple in KISS AND TELL. The film was a hit for Columbia Pictures, but Courtland would not be able to capitalize on its success right away. In fact he did not make his next film at the studio until three years later. This is because he’d been drafted into the military at the end of the war. But Courtland’s winning personality, sensible acting style and athleticism would not be forgotten.
When Courtland finished his military service in 1948 and went back to Hollywood, boss Harry Cohn handed him a series of assignments. Initially Courtland was cast as a second lead in B films or as support in A films. However, he was soon promoted to starring roles in B films; THE PALOMINO is one such example.
Typically Courtland favored musicals or comedies. He was the son of a professional singer and had decent vocal ability himself. Yet for an occasional change of pace, he’d turn up in a war flick or a western. THE PALOMINO is a modern day western in which Courtland is a young businessman who arrives in a California valley to buy cattle. However, he becomes involved with a female horse rancher (Beverly Tyler) and several men in the region.
Much of the film’s action is given over to Courtland and Tyler fighting their attraction through a series of arguments. Tyler’s dad recently died, and a crook in the area (Roy Roberts) and his henchman (Gordon Jones) are stealing her blind. Some of the theft is very cleverly done and has Roberts and Jones taking prized palominos from Tyler’s stock and hiding them up in the mountains. One of the most valuable horses is a champion known as El Rey whose offspring fetch good prices.
Tyler has managed to keep one of the offspring, a young palomino named Duke, on her property. But naturally, Roberts and Jones covet that animal too and will do whatever it takes to get him. Courtland gets wise to their nefarious schemes with the help of Tyler’s ranch hand. The ranch hand is an amusing Mexican fellow who likes to imbibe— played with considerable charm and flair by Joseph Calleia.
Though the plot is fairly routine and there are no huge surprises in terms of the outcome, the characters are so well-defined and so well portrayed by the cast, one can’t help but be won over by what’s on screen. In addition, there are some wonderful shots of the horses outdoors roaming free. And a big brawl at the end between Courtland and Roberts.
Harry Cohn’s nephew Robert Cohn served as producer. Maybe due to nepotism, the younger Cohn was given a bit more budget for his project than most B westerns received. Instead of using the cheaper Cinecolor process, this picture is made in Technicolor and there are several sequences that show off the beauty of the Santa Susana Mountains.
One thing I especially enjoy about this film is that there are no interiors. The whole thing has been photographed outdoors during days with the cast (and the animals) basking in the warm sun and gentle winds. This is what I call a ‘comfort movie.’ Not every motion picture needs to contain shocking artistic compositions or Academy Award winning performances. Sometimes all a viewer needs is the presence of something good and familiar.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Mar 28, 2024 7:14:07 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
All aboard for mischief
Perhaps Columbia’s Harry Cohn and his associates anticipated trouble with its hottest star Larry Parks, the ultra leftwing actor who was already under the watchful eye of the House Committee of UnAmerican Activities. And that is why they started giving rising star Willard Parker roles that ordinarily would have gone to Parks during this period. Parker had begun at Warner Brothers in the late 1930s and went over to Columbia just before the war. He was away for military service, but during the postwar period he was back in Hollywood making movies.
The result of the studio’s push to make Parker their next big commodity means that someone like Chester Morris, whose screen career was on the downswing, gets placed in the cleanup position with third billing though Morris is definitely the better actor and drives the farce that plays out. At this time Morris was headlining a series of Boston Blackie B-crime thrillers at Columbia, but he was still used to prop up the studio’s A pictures.
ONE WAY TO LOVE is a remake of TWENTIETH CENTURY (1935) which when it was originally released was not a hit for Columbia, though it starred heavyweights John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. It was the last film both those stars made at Columbia. Morris is handed Barrymore’s old role, and to be honest, I much prefer Morris in this. He has a cheekier way of playing screwball comedy and refrains from the over-the-top scenery chewing that Barrymore was prone to doing.
The female lead is essayed by Columbia’s mature starlet Marguerite Chapman who was typically assigned to westerns and musical comedies. In the role originated by Lombard, Chapman is the new wife of a writer (Parker) who wants to steer her husband down a different career path.
But her hubby’s ex-partner (Morris) is determined to foil those plans, to break up the marriage if necessary and pull Parker back into his clutches, as it would help his own faltering career.
Radio was still very popular in the mid-1940s, so it makes sense that the two writers in this story work for a radio program. But if Columbia had remade this in the 1950s, no doubt the guys would have been television scribes. We know that on some level Morris will succeed in dragging Parker back to their former line of work, but there will be complications and compromises to be made with Parker’s wife. Adding to the hijinks is Janis Carter as Morris’ girlfriend who aids with his schemes.
The original film and the 1932 play upon which it is all based, was titled Twentieth Century as that was the name of a high speed locomotive Morris’ character takes to California for his next gig. Here the remake uses a more generic title, probably since the first version was not a box office hit, and while the storyline may have been familiar to movie patrons, there would be less reminder and less chance of comparing ONE WAY TO LOVE to the 1935 offering. With the added benefit of character actors Hugh Herbert and Jerome Cowan, this is a decent enough time passer.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Apr 12, 2024 14:58:48 GMT
This neglected film is from 1948.
Getting in and out of trouble
Franchot Tone’s movie career was in decline when he agreed to do this programmer at Columbia. He no longer could rely on scripts based on hit plays as he had done at MGM a decade earlier. He was no longer as youthful as he had been. And he no longer was appearing in films with big budgets and polished production values. Indeed, this noir offering seems like it was made quickly and economically; many scenes feel like they were the first and only take.
But one thing Tone does still have is style, a way to turn a phrase with charm and the requisite sarcasm. Oh, and he has some very beautiful lady costars in this picture. The gals include Janis Carter who a year earlier appeared in FRAMED with Glenn Ford; Janet Blair, who’d played Rosalind Russell’s sister in the original version of MY SISTER EILEEN; and Adele Jergens who’d been in DOWN TO EARTH with Rita Hayworth, and oozes plenty of sensuality in a second lead role.
Also playing a second lead role is former Warner Brothers contract player Glenda Farrell. Nobody could crack wise like Farrell, except for maybe Eve Arden. Farrell is brilliant in a thankless role as Tone’s ever faithful and totally under appreciated secretary.
Sometimes I found myself more focused on her acting than watching Tone and the other players, whenever she was in a scene. She is that good. The whole movie should have been built around her, with Tone supporting her!
The script is by Roy Huggins who also penned the classic noir TOO LATE FOR TEARS. Huggins has a knack for creating tense situations that don’t become too overwrought, since he likes to toss in plenty of humorous lines. As a result, we never take the plot too seriously and can just go along with it, even when some of the story details don’t make a whole lot of sense.
I did get the feeling that Huggins was inspired by THE BIG SLEEP, since it has that same convoluted feel to it, where the male detective is being lied to and used by two sisters. He must read between the lines and figure out what’s really going on. It also reminded me of MURDER MY SWEET, since like Dick Powell’s character in that picture, Tone gets knocked out a few times and drugged. The camera work in the scenes where he is drugged is done in almost the same exact disorientating style that we see in MURDER MY SWEET.
Despite that fact that some of what we glimpse on screen is hardly original, it’s all presented in a mostly tongue-in-cheek fashion, with plenty of eccentric characters and double crosses to keep us entertained. I guess these kinds of films were popular in the postwar era, because they were about a guy trying to make sense of everything in a world where a lot of things were no longer as cut-and-dried as they had been before the war.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fading Fast on Apr 12, 2024 16:27:56 GMT
My comments below, from two-and-a-half-years ago, on I Love Trouble. I'm only sorry - and a bit surprised - that I didn't discuss one of my favorites, Glenda Farrell, in my review.
I Love Trouble from 1947 with Franchot Tone, Janet Blair and Glenda Farrell
After Humphrey Bogart helped to define the noir private-investigator role in 1941's hit The Maltese Falcon, Hollywood did its Hollywood thing of spitting out copycat versions for years. Some were quite impressive, as when Dick Powell transformed his entire career by playing Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, but many were simply serviceable B-movie efforts like I Love Trouble.
Even in a B movie, Franchot Tone is an odd choice - weak chin, reedy voice, receding hairline - for a hard-boiled detective lead, but he has enough acting chops to do an okay job in the role. Probably realizing that Tone wasn't the ideal male lead, the studio added several very attractive women to the cast. Yet, two good B-movie stars do not equal one Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon) or Veronica Lake (The Glass Key) - actresses aren't arithmetic.
Tone, though, gives it his all as the weary private investigator who is willing to get beat up a few times and risk going to jail to solve the case, the minimum requirements for a film-noir private investigator. Yet, when one pretty woman after another immediately falls for him, credibility is getting stretched a bit thin. Still, you kinda root for him to win, but what does that mean here?
Once you get past the only okay cast, you are left with an only okay story. As in many of these '40s noir-detective movies, the plot is too confusing to truly follow (an approach that reached its apotheosis in The Big Sleep).
In I Love Trouble, a wealthy (and cranky) husband hires Tone to dig into his missing, younger and pretty wife's past, which seems to be a bunch of changed identities as she moved through nightclub jobs in a few different states. There also is a stolen $40,000 in his wife's muddled history.
Thrown into this mix is a sister also looking for the absent wife as well as a former showgirl friend. At least, I think that's who they are, as I never fully sorted out everyone's connection. So, yes, you root for Tone, kinda, as you're never really certain who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this one.
All the required noirish elements are here, though, including dark streets, Art Deco architecture, a blonde siren, cigarette smoke, thugs, heavies, truncheons, guns, cops who like and cops who don't like Tone, a couple of car chases and several dead bodies.
(Spoiler alert) It's not really a spoiler alert to reveal the climax, since many noir private-investigator movies end the same way. Tone assembles most of the suspects in his apartment to convince the always-a-step-or-two-behind police that he's innocent of all the murders while he exposes the real killer.
That's pretty much it. Cornell Pictures studio wanted to cash in on the noir private-investigator wave, so it brought together all the pieces of the popular sub-genre as best as its humble budget would allow. That resulted in an okay movie you should only watch if it happens to be on when you have an hour and a half to spare.
Eventually, Hollywood uses repetition to kill every goose that lays a golden egg (and then revives it later). It didn't do this to the noir private-investigator movie with I Love Trouble, but you could tell Hollywood was starting to get there.
|
|
|
|
Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2024 13:04:15 GMT
This neglected film is from 1942.
Women supporting the war effort
I had never heard of this Columbia programmer until just a few days ago. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been restored, because I think it provides a unique window into the war effort during the time it was made and how Hollywood propaganda films were used to encourage enlistments as well as entertain, and on some level, start training. In this case the enlistees would have been women watching in the audience.
PARACHUTE NURSE has a story that was written by a female writer, and a real life aviatrix who helped establish the Aerial Nurse Corps of America— Lauretta Schimmoler— as one of the picture’s stars.
Schimmoler does not play herself, because while she was a pilot and well-versed in flight, she was not a nurse. Instead, she is cast in a slightly fictional role as a captain who leads a squad of new recruits. Miss Schimmoler is no Greta Garbo in the glamour department and she is no Bette Davis in the acting department, but she brings with her credibility and an air of authenticity.
A bunch of the studio’s prettiest starlets portray the recruits, headed by Marguerite Chapman who was very popular at Columbia in the 1940s. The less attractive female members of the cast are on board to provide some comic relief. But all these gals are sincere and show that team work is key. One of the women joining the squad gets drummed out by Schimmoler because she’s a troublemaker— actress Louise Allbritton has a field day vamping it up before she’s thrown out.
It’s true there are some basic stock characters as all war films have them, but I would say in this case, it’s more about how they band together for Uncle Sam that keeps us interested in them. Their efforts are jingoistic; we want them to succeed. Of course, some of their success is not just learning to keep their cots tidy or learning to parachute from a plane. Some of it involves their getting along with the men who help train them, and in a few instances, as with Chapman’s character, there’s romance with a handsome guy (William Wright).
One thing I appreciated about the film, despite its modest budget and standard performances, was how it relied on cliches but still managed to connect with me. It should be noted that I was watching it in 2024; so if it affected me this positively, imagine the impact it had on viewers in 1942 who left the movie theater and went off to get an application and sign up.
|
|
