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Post by topbilled on May 5, 2024 14:04:56 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
Behind the eight ball…or out in front?
More than once Mae Clarke’s character, a kept woman, bemoans the fact that as a married man’s girlfriend she has ended up behind the eight ball. She warns a friend from back home (Jean Harlow) who’s recently arrived in the big city not to end up in the same position. But that is just what happens when Harlow also falls for a man whose society wife won’t give him a divorce.
What to do…should Harlow dump the dude (Walter Byron) or just muddle along and make the best of it? After all, he drives a fancy car, could set her up in a swanky apartment like Clarke’s, and she’d have all the clothes she wants, not to mention fine dining at the Ritz every night. Yet Harlow needs something more than the material trappings in life; she needs a relationship where she can maintain her self-respect. Clarke’s character has zero self-respect, and eventually takes her own life at the end of the picture.
To balance out the heavier themes in this romantic melodrama about the dangers of urban life, there are a few wisecracks and laughs. Harlow lives with a daffy roommate (played by Marie Prevost, who would costar with Clarke a year later in PAROLE GIRL). Prevost is a work-from-home typist in the days before remote office employment was the norm; she’d also like a man but doesn’t set her sets as high as the other two girls. Instincts tells her she’d be happy with Byron’s chauffeur (thin young Andy Devine).
All three actresses certainly hold their own in this story which is based on a popular novel and has dialogue written by Robert Riskin. Harlow receives top billing— it’s her first top-billed assignment— and the most screen time. But it’s Clarke who arguably has the showier role, with Prevost’s amusing line deliveries stealing just as many scenes. Supposedly Harlow was anxious to play a good-girl after she’d recently vamped it up in HELL’S ANGELS and THE PUBLIC ENEMY.
Contemporary critics didn’t quite buy Harlow as the virtuous femme. Some felt her figure lent itself more to playing vamps. In fact, her attractive shape is photographed to considerable advantage during scenes in which her character models lingerie.
But I don’t think the sexiness of a woman automatically has to make her bad, even in the world of precode cinema. I do give Harlow credit for trying to extend her dramatic range, though she does have a door-slamming outburst that reminds me of her later exasperated character in MGM’s BOMBSHELL.
For the most part this is a well-conceived motion picture. The idea is that the main characters (Harlow & Byron) can be in a difficult situation but still want to do the right thing and actually end up doing the right thing. Meanwhile, the tragedy of Clarke’s character and her sad demise tells us that some of it comes at a terrible price.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 5, 2024 14:31:24 GMT
⇧ I agree. It's not Harlow's shape/sexiness to me that says "bad girl," but the obvious platinum-blonde dye job and her brassy voice are what make it easier to see her as, well, easier. Of course, not all platinum blondes nor brassy-speaking women are easy.
Three Wise Girls from 1931 with Jean Harlow, Mae Clarke, Marie Prevost, James Thomas and Walter Byron
Precode Hollywood churned out so many "a young and innocent small-town girl moves to New York City'' movies that they can be hard to keep straight, especially good but generic ones like Three Wise Girls.
Jean Harlow plays the good girl in this one who moves to New York City to help support her mother. She goes after seeing that her childhood friend, played by Mae Clarke, now in New York, is sending large checks back to her own mom.
Once there, Harlow learns that it's hard to keep a good job if she won't canoodle with the boss. Things get better when Clarke, a model, gets Harlow a modeling job too. But Clarke's money home doesn't come from the okay-paying modeling job, but from her boyfriend.
Clarke is dating a wealthy married man who "keeps" her in a fancy Park Avenue apartment. Clark asserts that she truly loves her boyfriend, played by James Thomas, and therefore, can't give him up, but hates being a kept woman.
True or not, precode movies made it seem like half the apartments on New York City's famed Park Avenue were populated by married men's girlfriends. One comes to believe that the luxury apartment rental market would collapse if men all of a sudden became faithful.
When Harlow starts dating a handsome, wealthy man, played by Walter Byron, she soon learns that he's married too. But Harlow's not up for compromise, so she and Byron fight and split a few times as he says his wife won't give him a divorce.
As were many precode, this is a women-centric movie. The guys are more archetypes than real-world men with Thomas playing an off-the-shelf womanizer, while Byron is, maybe, a good guy. To his credit, Byron squeezes a little personality out of his cardboard character.
The third titular wise girl is played by Marie Prevost who, as opposed to Clarke and Harlow and in more of a supporting role, has an itch for working-class guys as she eyes every good-looking chauffeur and doorman that passes by.
With that set up, and being a short precode, the climax, no spoilers coming, smashes the stories together in a hurry. Effectively, Harlow and Clarke have the same problem with their boyfriends, but they take very different approaches with dramatically different outcomes.
Precodes have a reputation for sexual indulgence, but many just show life as it was, while having a traditional message wrapped inside an air of understanding. Clarke's affair is not held against her, but the movie's morality still says to women, "hold out for marriage."
The movie's morality also shows Prevost as, probably, the happiest of the three as she just wants to love and be loved by a "regular guy." Her happiness with a chauffeur seems the most genuine and joyous relationship in the movie.
Harlow was already the biggest of the three stars and went on to greater heights, while Clarke and Prevost faded away for various reasons. But here, Clarke gives the most nuanced and moving performance of the three. Stardom and talent are not the same thing.
Three Wise Girls is just another wash-rinse-repeat precode about young women coming to New York City and being tempted by "sin." It's quick and entertaining with, for the time, an honest but traditional message.
The world has changed an incredible amount in the past ninety years, but New York City is still a magnet for kids from all over the country with dreams. Just as in Three Wise Girls, some still make it; some return home not too beat up and some get knocked around pretty hard.
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Post by topbilled on May 5, 2024 14:51:39 GMT
I love this paragraph:
True or not, precode movies made it seem like half the apartments on New York City's famed Park Avenue were populated by married men's girlfriends. One comes to believe that the luxury apartment rental market would collapse if men all of a sudden became faithful.
As for Harlow's appearance, I don't think it helps that the makeup department put some garish looking lipstick on her after the character becomes a model. Some of the makeup screams 'cheap floozy,' which is at odds with how the character is written and meant to be played.
I read that the production code office forced some significant changes to the script. In the original drafts, Byron's character was an adulterer...but to make him more sympathetic and worthy of Harlow's love, his storyline was revised to show he had long separated from his wife and theirs was a marriage in name only. Thus, we could root for him to get out of a bad marriage and end up with Harlow in the final scene.
This is a case where the production code people became "writers/auteurs" of the film to ensure a certain morality was conveyed on screen. Even though THREE WISE GIRLS was made in late 1931, two and a half years before the code was fully and strictly enforced, you can see the power that the production code people were already wielding in Hollywood.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 9, 2024 16:54:39 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.
Nice to see two films that featured Janis Carter. As noted, Carter has a highly sexual edge to her and that always keeps one guessing what is going on in that head of hers. PS: after I initially posted this, I looked up what MOVIES was showing on Noir Thursday: Framed with Glenn Ford and Janis Carter. Thus, I decided to watch it until the NBA playoff games started. Carter is one deadly femme fatale in this one. |
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Post by topbilled on May 23, 2024 9:57:12 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Could she take everything he had to offer?
Joan Bennett was still a blonde at this point in her Hollywood career. In fact, she wouldn’t switch from brunette to light-shaded tresses until 1938. This was the second of four films she made with leading man George Raft. Their first outing was earlier in the decade when Bennett was under contract at Fox. Now, she was working for Walter Wanger, who had a production unit at Paramount. But for this project, Wanger made a deal with Columbia and brought his most important leading lady with him.
As for Raft, he was a Paramount contractee and had already made a name for himself playing tough guy hoods. Many of his characters had a soft spot, especially where the ladies were concerned. He’d play another gangster in their next picture together, THE HOUSE ACROSS THE BAY; then a more reformed type in NOB HILL. The two performers liked working alongside each other, and it’s obvious they shared chemistry on screen.
In this story, Bennett is in screwball mode as the daughter of a wealthy businessman (Walter Connolly). The first sequence of the film sets up Bennett, her irresponsible brother (James Blakely) and their bubble-headed mother (Billie Burke) as major pains in the backside for Connolly. He’s trying to steer Bennett away from a penniless count, he’s getting Blakely out of jams with the law; and he’s paying off bills Burke has run up purchasing pearls on a trip abroad.
We immediately feel sorry for Connolly, who has his work out for himself with this family. Of course, they are all exaggerated types for comedic effect. But there’s a layer of truth, that a man who indulges his wife and children without teaching the value of taking responsibility for their own actions, is doing them no real favors. An ironic twist occurs when Connolly is arrested for income tax evasion. He agrees to plead guilty and takes a five year sentence, because it will get him away from his crazy clan!
In prison Connolly meets Raft one day in the library. Raft is also serving a term for tax law violations, plus Raft was a bootlegger whose criminal activities indirectly led to the deaths of several people. He has now reformed and is about to be released on parole. There are some nice scenes between the two men, and they get to know each other better when Raft becomes Connolly’s cellmate. Raft has plenty of advice for how Connolly can tame his wild family after getting out, and Connolly likes Raft’s ideas.
There’s another twist when Connolly suffers a heart attack and is rushed to the infirmary. He dies a short time later, but not before he makes Raft the executor of his estate. This means that when Raft gets out, he now has a legitimate job as a trustee of Connolly’s fortune, and will make financial decisions that affect Connolly’s relatives.
This is where the film finds its mojo, because naturally, there will be plenty of humorous opposition to Raft by Bennett and the others. Particularly when he cuts them from thirty grand allowances on jewelry to just one hundred dollars a week– divided among them! Not sure if we’re meant to pity the poor rich in this scenario, but I am sure Depression era audiences got a huge kick out of it!
We can be sure Bennett and Raft will fall for each other, despite their best intentions not to…but before Raft went to prison, he made a lot of enemies. And some of those people come gunning for him now that he’s out. This affects his blossoming relationship with Bennett, as well as the safety of her mother and brother. There’s a very zany chase sequence at the end involving them and Raft’s former cronies. The film deftly moves from one sequence to another with considerable flair. However, the real reason to watch is to see how well Raft and Bennett spar then smooch then spar and smooch again.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 8, 2024 14:26:43 GMT
This neglected film is from 1942.
Not every woman will surrender
This wartime comedy was produced by Columbia Pictures in mid-1942. Lead actress Joan Crawford was a replacement for Carole Lombard who died in January while the script was being readied for production. Lombard had been freelancing, though she had made several hit comedies for Columbia in the 1930s.
Her most recent picture, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, was a success at United Artists; and this was to be her follow-up. Lombard was also being lined up for a comedy at her old stomping grounds, Paramount, which would have teamed her with former costar John Barrymore. But Barrymore also died, so that story was sold to Republic Pictures and became THE CHEATERS (1945) with Ona Munson taking Lombard’s part.
THEY ALL KISSED THE BRIDE had initially been titled HE KISSED THE BRIDE. Columbia borrowed Crawford from her home studio MGM. This was the first time in ten years that Crawford’s services had been loaned out— the last time had been RAIN (1932) for UA, which was a flop. In the intervening period, Crawford had made 19 features at Metro…some of them huge successes like THE WOMEN and others dismal failures like THE GORGEOUS HUSSY and THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939. But she was still an important star, and she could handle the paces of a romcom, despite being assigned to the role on such short notice.
Crawford would only make two more films at MGM after this, before she left and moved over to Warner Brothers. This project probably gave her a nice break from the politics back at MGM. She donated her salary to the Red Cross in Lombard’s memory; and with her casting approval, Melvyn Douglas was chosen as her costar. Douglas’ contract was split between Columbia and MGM, and he had previously collaborated with Crawford on two earlier pictures, THE SHINING HOUR (1938) and A WOMAN’S FACE (1941), both melodramas.
In this particular story, Crawford is portraying a shrewd lady executive who runs a trucking company. For every success she enjoys in the business world, she seems to experience setbacks in love. The idea for the screenplay is that a woman cannot really be happy unless she gives up a career outside the home and settles down. Of course, today, most consider that a lot of nonsense.
Incidentally, feminist film scholar Molly Haskell presented a double feature on TCM about ten years ago that included this picture. The other title was FEMALE (1933) starring Ruth Chatterton, a Warner Brothers precode with a similar theme. At the end of both movies, the lady exec gives up her lucrative business career and is inexplicably content to become a stay-at-home wife.
In real life, Joan Crawford would continue to star in movies and on television for many years. In 1955 she married PepsiCo executive Alfred Steele. When Al Steele died in 1959, he bequeathed his stock in Pepsi to his widow; and until the early 1970s, Crawford served on the company’s board of directors. She was a woman who could have it all.
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Post by NoShear on Jun 8, 2024 16:57:31 GMT
This neglected film is from 1942.
Not every woman will surrender
This wartime comedy was produced by Columbia Pictures in mid-1942. Lead actress Joan Crawford was a replacement for Carole Lombard who died in January while the script was being readied for production. Lombard had been freelancing, though she had made several hit comedies for Columbia in the 1930s.
Her most recent picture, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, was a success at United Artists; and this was to be her follow-up. Lombard was also being lined up for a comedy at her old stomping grounds, Paramount, which would have teamed her with former costar John Barrymore. But Barrymore also died, so that story was sold to Republic Pictures and became THE CHEATERS (1945) with Ona Munson taking Lombard’s part.
THEY ALL KISSED THE BRIDE had initially been titled HE KISSED THE BRIDE. Columbia borrowed Crawford from her home studio MGM. This was the first time in ten years that Crawford’s services had been loaned out— the last time had been RAIN (1932) for UA, which was a flop. In the intervening period, Crawford had made 19 features at Metro…some of them huge successes like THE WOMEN and others dismal failures like THE GORGEOUS HUSSY and THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939. But she was still an important star, and she could handle the paces of a romcom, despite being assigned to the role on such short notice.
Crawford would only make two more films at MGM after this, before she left and moved over to Warner Brothers. This project probably gave her a nice break from the politics back at MGM. She donated her salary to the Red Cross in Lombard’s memory; and with her casting approval, Melvyn Douglas was chosen as her costar. Douglas’ contract was split between Columbia and MGM, and he had previously collaborated with Crawford on two earlier pictures, THE SHINING HOUR (1938) and A WOMAN’S FACE (1941), both melodramas.
In this particular story, Crawford is portraying a shrewd lady executive who runs a trucking company. For every success she enjoys in the business world, she seems to experience setbacks in love. The idea for the screenplay is that a woman cannot really be happy unless she gives up a career outside the home and settles down. Of course, today, most consider that a lot of nonsense.
Incidentally, feminist film scholar Molly Haskell presented a double feature on TCM about ten years ago that included this picture. The other title was FEMALE (1933) starring Ruth Chatterton, a Warner Brothers precode with a similar theme. At the end of both movies, the lady exec gives up her lucrative business career and is inexplicably content to become a stay-at-home wife.
In real life, Joan Crawford would continue to star in movies and on television for many years. In 1955 she married PepsiCo executive Alfred Steele. When Al Steele died in 1959, he bequeathed his stock in Pepsi to his widow; and until the early 1970s, Crawford served on the company’s board of directors. She was a woman who could have it all. Obviously, the focus was on Carole Lombard and her replacement, TopBilled, but I reread to see if I'd missed anything about Melvyn Douglas: Though not without cinematic charm, Melvyn Douglas seems less leading man looks to me, so I wonder about this actor who was paired with the likes of Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer... |
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Post by topbilled on Jun 8, 2024 17:03:42 GMT
I think Melvyn Douglas, like Robert Young and George Brent, were favorites among leading actresses. They were easy to work with, could somewhat convincingly play romantic figures, and they didn't try to steal the spotlight away from the women.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jun 8, 2024 18:26:50 GMT
I think Melvyn Douglas, like Robert Young and George Brent, were favorites among leading actresses. They were easy to work with, could somewhat convincingly play romantic figures, and they didn't try to steal the spotlight away from the women. Well said. As you well know, Douglas, after taking a 9 year break, became a first rate supporting actor, starting with Billy Budd, in 62, winning an supporting Oscar with Hud, in 63, fine performances in The Americanization of Emily in 64, and Hotel in 67, nominated for Best Actor in I Never Sang for My Father, then on to One in a Loney Number and The Candidate in 72, another supporting Oscar for Being There in 79, and ending his career with other studio-era legends, in his final film Ghost Story in 81. I can't think of another American actor that had such a career: leading man, secondary leading man, then supporting actor over 5 decades. ] Robert Young's final film was in 1954 but he would go on to have a very successful career in T.V. with two, 6-year series, in Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby M.D. I know a lot of people my age, while unaware of many films made before they were born, are aware of both Douglas and Young due to their post studio-era work. |
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Post by topbilled on Jun 17, 2024 15:20:34 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Ann Dvorak hits the road
We are told after a brief montage at the beginning that there are 1146 homeless girls serving vagrancy sentences in an unnamed state. The matter is being brought to the attention of a concerned governor. Some female hobos haven’t yet been picked up by police; they are killed in accidents or become victims of random acts of violence perpetrated against them by sleazy opportunists and abusers.
These are harrowing statistics, which the governor’s secretary (Ann Dvorak) writes down. She learns most of the girls on the road are ones who ran away from broken homes, and she’s compelled to do something about it.
The movie is part social message drama, and part exploitation tale. While details are not exactly lurid, what we hear about and view on screen is not quite wholesome either. In some ways, Ann Dvorak, known for her early precode work at Warner Brothers, is perfect for this type of film. It does seem to mirror plot points that were presented in WB’s WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD (1933). Only here the focus is on transient females.
For a Columbia Pictures programmer that clocks in at around 68 minutes, we’re not going to get SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS or any sort of expansive travelogue. But we do get plenty of outdoor action filmed on location in southern California. Per the AFI database, studio publicity materials emphasized the fact that Dvorak was nearly arrested while certain scenes were filmed. Her character hits the road to fully understand the plight of the girls she aims to help, and while ‘dressed down’ as a hobo, a real-life police officer thought Dvorak was actually a vagrant!
Dvorak’s costars include a group of starlets, some known to classic movie fans; some not so familiar. The supporting cast is not exactly the same caliber here as MGM’s THE WOMEN, but these are are still decent enough actresses who can put the drama across— among them: Helen Mack, Marjorie Cooley and Lola Lane.
Lane is particularly impressive as a masculine type wanderer, who’s probably meant to represent homeless lesbians that had been forced out of their homes. Not every chick is in this situation due to financial reasons.
One thing that stayed with me after watching the film was the bonding that occurs between Dvorak and the other gals. During this process they learn things about themselves. They are not going to solve every single problem they encounter, as they commiserate in front of a campfire. But they know how to cooperate and work together to make an honest appraisal of their collective situation, and maybe just maybe they can find some answers.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 23, 2024 14:54:38 GMT
This neglected film is from 1948.
Psychological western detailing one man’s illness
Sunday April 9, 1865. “I killed a hundred men to-day. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t help myself. What’s wrong with me? I’m afraid…afraid I’m going crazy. No. It was the war, that’s all. But the war’s over now. I can stop. I’m safe. God helping me.”
So go the words written in the diary of a Union Colonel (played by Glenn Ford) in this Technicolor western produced by Columbia Pictures. Of course, we already know Ford’s character is a bit insane during the opening sequence when he corners a group of Confederate soldiers in a Colorado gorge. Instead of recognizing a white flag of surrender which he clearly sees through binoculars, he signals his men to advance and massacre the Rebs. It’s a dramatic way to start the film.
The colonel’s best friend is another officer (played by William Holden) caught up in the final moments of battle. But unlike Ford, Holden has a firm grip on reality and would not have ordered the slaughter of men who’d surrendered. However, Holden is initially unable to recognize the mental illness plaguing Ford, and he tries to rationalize his buddy’s actions.
Incidentally, the two actors had previously teamed up in another Columbia western, 1941’s TEXAS with Claire Trevor. Though they retained a lifelong friendship, they wouldn’t make any more motion pictures together after this. Probably because Ford has top billing here, and he would not have wanted to take second billing after Holden in the decades that followed…Holden’s career would eclipse Ford’s. A shame, since they seem to enjoy their scenes in this production, and it’s always fun to see actual friends play friends on camera. (Between takes they spent time playing cards.)
Costarring in the film are some of the studio’s other contract players from this period. Leading lady duties are given to Ellen Drew whose auburn hair looks splendid in Technicolor. She becomes involved with the two men and marries Ford. Given the ongoing psychological torment experienced by his character, it seems fairly obvious she picked the wrong guy.
Besides Drew, we have Jerome Courtland as a young soldier now adapting to life during peacetime. And Edgar Buchanan is on hand as a genial doc who provides some humor and compassion. Incidentally, Buchanan was a doctor (dentist) before becoming a Hollywood actor. He would turn up in several more Glenn Ford movies, and he costarred with Ford in an early '70s TV series Cade’s County.
One thing that does make THE MAN FROM COLORADO stand out from other films made after WWII is the fact that the military veteran (Ford) is depicted as dealing with neuroses. His ailment may have been triggered by the war, or else was an existing mental condition exacerbated by what happened to him in battle. After the war, he still is in fight mode, ready to gun down anyone who gets in his way.
Typically, studios shied away from telling these types of stories. In Paramount’s noir drama THE BLUE DAHLIA (1946) William Bendix is a returning vet who’s gone a bit haywire; in the original screenplay, he kills a woman after he’s been mustered out of the service. But the production code office objected and the murder was rewritten and pinned on a non-veteran. Here, Ford’s character is similarly unbalanced and is shown to be struggling with what happened to him and unable to fully readjust. He’s sick and unable to stop killing.
Perhaps it’s a bit ‘easier’ to tell this type of story by setting it in the 1800s, since placing these issues in the distant past may not seem as connected to what some contemporary vets were dealing with in the late 1940s. But that doesn’t make what we see in the story any less disturbing or thought-provoking.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 10, 2024 14:51:23 GMT
This film is from 1938.
Meet the Bumsteads
Chic Young’s enormously popular comic strip ‘Blondie’ began appearing in newspapers in 1930. Eight years later, it seemed logical that a Hollywood studio would want to cash in on Young’s success. As a result, we have this splendid cinematic version of Blondie and her hapless husband Dagwood along with their son Baby Dumpling and dog Daisy.
Columbia Pictures successfully bid for the rights to produce this motion picture, in affiliation with King Features. And despite a few early problems with casting, the studio settled on comedic actors Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake as the Bumsteads. Both stars would appear in the 27 other sequels that followed— an incredible testament to their success; they’d also do a weekly series on radio as these characters from 1939 to 1950. It was their bread and butter, and the studio’s bread and better, too.
In this initial installment, considered by many to be one of the funniest comedies from the golden age of Hollywood, we are introduced to the Bumsteads. They live in a quiet suburban neighborhood; Blondie is the quintessential well-meaning wife and mother; and Dagwood is her somewhat childlike spouse who is struggling to prove himself at a firm headed by his no-nonsense boss J.C. Dithers (played by Jonathan Hale who reprised his role in many of the sequels).
We’re supposed to see the Bumsteads as a typical American household, whatever that is, and how they are struggling to get ahead. Or in most cases, stay even. Blondie wants new furniture, but this requires a raise. And Dagwood needs to earn the respect and appreciation of his boss and coworkers. There are also interactions with neighbors, relatives and various business associates, including one played to a tee by Gene Lockhart.
Lockhart is an entrepreneur that is dodging salesmen like Dagwood who are trying to sign him to a development deal. While hiding in plain sight at a local hotel, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Dagwood whom he affectionately calls Dag. The men bond over the repair of a vacuum cleaner, indicating they are boys at heart who enjoying tinkering and fixing things.
Meanwhile there is a subplot involving an old beau of Blondie’s (Gordon Oliver) who makes Dagwood jealous. At the same time Blondie becomes jealous of Lockhart’s daughter (Ann Doran) who spends time with Dag at the hotel. It turns into a rather chaotic jumble of competing agendas and miscommunications. Into all this we have the arrival of Blondie’s sister (Dorothy Moore) and mother (Kathleen Lockhart). When mother’s car is “stolen”– actually borrowed by Dagwood– they wind up in court.
The funniest bits involve the successive gags and clever dialogue that often has more than one meaning. Some of the humor is surprisingly adult for a film from 1938 made at the height of the production code. We know things will turn out fine in the end, but we don’t want any tidy resolutions until we’ve given the muscles in our stomachs a good work out from all the laughter that occurs watching this hilarity.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 19, 2024 14:39:11 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
“If they don’t like you, it’s because you’re too good for them.”
Gene Raymond plays a wealthy playboy whose aimless lifestyle has suddenly been turned upside down when he meets an attractive nightclub singer (Carole Lombard in a dramatic role). Raymond is so enamored with Lombard, he takes her to meet his snobby family. But of course, the family looks down their noses at her; and she’s smart enough to realize that if she marries Raymond, she’ll never be more than an outsider. Raymond insists on being wed, and he will do whatever it takes to make the union stick.
Of course, there will be obstacles greater than just her getting his clan’s approval. Part of the problem is that he’s never worked a day in his life and has no real sense of personal responsibility or direction. After they’re wed, Lombard convinces Raymond to take a job working for his father (Reginald Mason), which should earn her a few points in the family’s good book.
But while his taking a job may make his wife happy, Raymond’s bored stiff with the nine-to-five routine. He stops going into the office and starts spending time at the racetrack gambling and drinking. When Lombard finds out what her hubby’s been up to, she’s naturally upset.
She realizes they’re from two different worlds, with completely different approaches to solving problems, and that it was a mistake plunging into this marriage. She leaves, which gives him the impetus to change course, as well as his name to make good on his own terms. As that happens, we can be assured of the couple’s happy reunion.
These types of movie plots were already routine by the 1930s. But in this case, the stars’ considerable chemistry wins us over and keeps us involved.
The film’s script was based on a Broadway play of the same name that had a decent run in late 1931 and early 1932. On stage, Raymond’s part was played by British actor Robert Douglas who would not make his Hollywood motion picture debut until 1948. Louis Calhern was also featured in the Broadway production, in a supporting role.
A bit more about the two stars: Lombard and Raymond had been popular contract players at Paramount. Lombard was increasingly unhappy with the roles Paramount bosses were handing her, so she struck up a friendship with Harry Cohn to get him to borrow her services, knowing Cohn would give her the best scripts since he was eager to push his then minor studio into the major leagues, and she could help achieve that. Lombard would make several hit films at Columbia during this time; though she technically remained on contact to Paramount.
As for Raymond, he had become dissatisfied with the way his career was progressing at Paramount. But unlike Lombard, he alienated the bigwigs at their home studio and broke his contract. He was now freelancing at smaller companies like Columbia, before signing a favorable long-term contract at RKO where he’d have his greatest successes during the 1930s. Lombard and Raymond may have had a brief moment together on screen, but they made a lasting impact on audiences, then and now.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jul 19, 2024 15:05:17 GMT
Brief Moment from 1933 with Carole Lombard and Gene Raymond
Hollywood, in the early 1930s, spat out a lot of short morality tales about the classes knocking into each other. In Brief Moment, society playboy Gene Raymond marries lounge singer Carole Lombard, but things eventually go wrong for a surprising reason.
Raymond's "proper" banker family treats Lombard like something the cat dragged in, but Dad keeps sending Raymond his huge monthly allowance check, so he and Lombard have plenty of money.
At first, their marriage goes well as they are in love, live in a fancy apartment and go out playing and partying with Raymond's rich friends every night and day. But Lombard's made of sturdier stuff, so after a few months of "fun," she's had enough and wants to start living a normal life.
As she explains to a pleasantly bemused Raymond, who thinks their life is fine as it is, she wants him to go to work so that he has some purpose in life - so that he has goals and accomplishments that are his own.
The writers and Raymond understand the material and avoid the trap of having Raymond starting out as a completely dissolute and rowdy playboy.
While he has lived the easy life of a rich man's son, all along there is a quiet and thoughtful element to Raymond where you feel even he sees there's something off in his lifestyle. It's just been too easy for him to bother to think about it.
With Lombard pushing him, Raymond asks his dad for a job, but in a moment of bravado, Raymond tells dad he wants to start at the bottom and work his way up.
For a guy who's never done anything harder than lift a cocktail glass, the drudgery of long hours, day after day, of ledger checking is too much for him, so he quits, lies to Lombard and goes to the racetrack when he's supposed to be at work.
When it inevitably all comes out, Lombard leaves him in disgust and disappointment, allowing Raymond to slip comfortably back into his old lifestyle. But after a little time, and missing Lombard, Raymond finally sees what she had been saying. Now he's ready to really look for honest work.
Will he find work not using his family's name? Will he be able to stick it out? Will Lombard care as she's returned to her old job?
Brief Moment rises above its humble B movie status because of the nuance of the story. The family initially thinks Lombard is a golddigger after their son's money, but she really wants to turn him into the decent young man they all want him to be.
Lombard, despite being rejected by his family, sees the family honestly and without rancor for the decent rich people, with some class prejudice, but no evil intent, that they are.
She understands that a proud banking family wouldn't immediately embrace a lounge singer as a daughter-in-law. That's so much better than her shrieking in anger at every slight.
She also sees that their good intentions toward her husband have damaged him, but she understands that his very busy dad thought, as long as he was sending his son money, everything was alright. You can see there being a day when Lombard and the family embrace each other.
Raymond too, as noted, doesn't play the spoiled rich kid as an obnoxious stereotype, but instead, as a passive guy who took the easy way when it was handed to him. It makes his late-in-the-movie attempted transition believable because you felt it lurking there all along.
Depression Era America must have loved these stories about the rich and not-rich marrying as Hollywood churned a ton of them out. Brief Moment is a bit better than average because of the acting talents of Lombard and Raymond and because the story chooses complex characters and nuance over easy stereotypes and simplistic good-versus-evil morality. |
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Post by topbilled on Jul 19, 2024 15:44:16 GMT
What a great review of BRIEF MOMENT, Fading Fast.
For anyone who hasn't seen this wonderful precode, there's a beautifully restored print currently available to watch on YouTube.
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