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Post by NoShear on Jul 19, 2024 17:40:38 GMT
I'm not too familiar with Carole Lombard, which seems shameful ignorance: The ill-fated actress strikes me a heavy talent - a beautiful blonde who could do drama and comedy.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 19, 2024 19:02:14 GMT
I'm not too familiar with Carole Lombard, which seems shameful ignorance: The ill-fated actress strikes me a heavy talent - a beautiful blonde who could do drama and comedy. |
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Post by topbilled on Jul 26, 2024 13:41:51 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Aspiring performers are trouble prone
In 1941 Columbia had a modest hit on its hands with a musical comedy programmer called TWO LATINS FROM MANHATTAN. It starred Joan Davis, who had just moved over to Columbia from Fox, along with Jinx Falkenburg. Davis was now headlining her own films, no longer relegated to supporting Fox stars like Alice Faye and Sonja Henie.
Because LATINS was a hit, Columbia decided to make a sequel, though this is more of a follow-up than a sequel, since the setting initially switches from Manhattan to Chicago and the main characters’ names are changed. Davis and Falkenburg are still in the thick of things, but now instead of impersonating Cuban songbirds in New York, they’re at a hotel in the midwest working as hotel maids with another gal (Ann Savage).
Davis’ character is keen on becoming a theatrical agent to help others realize their show biz dreams. While cleaning a room, she finds a discorded manuscript for a musical play and decides it’ll be her golden opportunity. She contacts an east coast agent who is interested in producing the property. But in order to pull off the ruse, she enlists the help of Falkenburg and Savage, since they both want to be Broadway stars. Naturally!
The three women travel to New York, and in the next part of the story, we see the play go into rehearsal. There is a funny subplot involving two other gals (Ramsay Ames & Leslie Brooks) who follow them east and threaten to expose their hoax, unless they also get parts in the play.
In addition to facing exposure, Davis’ character has to stay one step ahead of another production which seems to be very similar to her own— since it is the rewritten version of the tossed out script she found back in Chicago. The production code won’t allow Davis and her pals to get away with the deception, and they’re jailed.
But the version of the play they brought to Broadway is a hit, so at least their instincts were good. One thing I always admire about Joan Davis, which was very much in evidence during her self-titled TV sitcom a decade later, is how inventive she is with her line deliveries. It’s more than just deadpan; there’s usually a solid bit of mischief involved. And she’s always fun to watch.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 11, 2024 14:57:33 GMT
This neglected film is from 1952.
Investigating “voluntary” confessions
This Cold War noir from Columbia has above average production values as well as above average performances and direction. The script is based on Paul Gallico’s novel about a U.S. newsman who investigates confessions received by Communist leaders that wield considerable power behind the iron curtain.
Dana Andrews portrays the newspaper man working abroad determined to find out just how the Communists extort confessions out of citizens, journalists, and members of the diplomatic corps. Of course, there are myriad reasons these men and women fall into the trap; sometimes it is due to carelessness, other times it is due to these individuals’ own overzealousness, thinking they can outwit the Communists. Andrews’ character is certainly not careless, but he is brash and a tad overzealous. He ends up being held hostage and tortured.
One of the themes of the novel, and the movie, is that a terrible price is paid each time someone is nabbed and coerced into revealing important information about our government. There is a lowering of standards, which can be regarded as a victory for the other side. During the Cold War, Communist victories were the result of methods that broke a man like Andrews’ character. Not only his free will, but his personality and intelligence.
As Andrews’ boss (George Sanders) and a female reporter (Marta Toren, in her last Hollywood picture) try to obtain his release, we see what Andrews’ character experiences while imprisoned by the other side. He is harassed, manipulated, drugged and brainwashed. Statements he makes on tape are edited to make it seem like he’s a traitor. It’s interesting to see Andrews play this role, a man who goes from cocky and self-assured, to traumatized and shell-shocked by the Hungarian Communists.
Eventually his time as a spy ends when Sanders is able to arrange a trade for him with another person (Sandro Giglio) that the Communists want to reclaim. The exchange occurs along a neutral border during the film’s final sequence. These scenes are full of emotional tension and suspense.
When Columbia produced this espionage drama in 1952, Hungary was a Soviet satellite, with military police brainwashing occurring behind the iron curtain.The ending is slightly predictable, but we are left with some sobering realizations. After Andrews returns home, he will be in need of medical treatment and psychotherapy; he has undergone a harrowing transformation.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 11, 2024 15:17:51 GMT
⇧ While there are a lot of differences, you can't help seeing some parallels to the recent prisoner swap with Russia that freed the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 27, 2024 7:11:24 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Something to be proud of?
I guess the feather in a mother’s hat is a son, or more accurately, a son she can take pride in, no matter what fate hands out. In this story, based on a novel by writer I.A.R. Wylie, a hardworking woman (Pauline Lord) does all she can, including lying about her identity, to ensure her son (Louis Hayward) has the advantages in life to succeed. It’s a story with a simple premise that becomes more convoluted as it goes on. But these tales were effective with audiences.
This is a Columbia programmer that initially was to have starred Ruth Chatterton, who bowed out at the last minute. Miss Lord only made two motion pictures, this was her second and final appearance on celluloid, as she preferred roles on the stage.
As far as Rathbone is concerned, it’s a rare sympathetic role for him; he excels in playing his part in this rather tender story.
In addition to Rathbone and Hayward, who was just hitting his stride in Hollywood, the film features young David Niven, thirteenth billed in a minor part as a rival who complicates Hayward’s budding romance with a young debutante (Wendy Barrie). This was one of Niven’s very first Hollywood films.
The story begins in London in 1925. Lord is a widowed mother of an eleven year old boy, and she runs a shop in Hyde Park. She begins a relationship with a worldly captain (Rathbone) who takes an interest in her son. Rathbone takes the boy under his wing, teaching him things that will prove useful when he’s an adult.
When the boy turns 21 (and the role is now assumed on screen by Hayward), Lord lies and says she is not his real mother— yeah, that’s a bit extreme— so that he will turn his back on her and make something of himself in the world, beyond their impoverished neighborhood. Perhaps it was the sting of the Great Depression, but stories about mothers who made huge sacrifices were popular with moviegoers. I suppose it was the idea that no matter how bad everything was during these years, a family could always depend on its mother to see it through the hard times.
While this is no Madame X type story about maternal sacrifice, it still packs a punch and is loaded with irony. Part of the irony is that the mother is denying herself her rightful place in her son’s advancement and subsequent prosperity. We watch her toil, save money and invest in a theatrical show that will be a success for Hayward. Much of her support is ‘behind the scenes’ without him knowing.
There is a subplot involving another woman the same age (Billie Burke) who is a faded self-serving actress eager to make a comeback, for her own glory. The two women, as played by Lord and Burke, couldn’t be more unalike!
Only towards the end does Hayward find out his play has been produced on Broadway because of Lord’s tireless efforts on his behalf. He realizes on her deathbed all that she has done for him, as well as the fact that she really is his mother who only ever wanted what’s best for him. Of course, these scenes may seem a bit maudlin by today’s standards, but back in 1935, this type of drama reaffirmed one’s faith in family, and it comforted viewers.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 5, 2024 14:42:52 GMT
This neglected film is from 1931.
A marriage of inconvenience
There’s a memorable line in this Columbia precode that caught my attention. Robert Williams, playing a beleaguered newspaper man, tells his fellow reporter and close coworker Loretta Young: “You’re my pal, aren’t you? Then don’t turn female on me.” In other words, when she gets slightly jealous that he’s seeing a society chick (Jean Harlow), he doesn’t want Young to get all emotional on him. He wants her to remember she’s just a buddy, one of the boys from the newsroom.
I suppose we could argue that Loretta Young is slightly miscast as ‘one of the boys,’ since she still looks very feminine and lovely no matter how she is dressed in work clothes, and no matter what the script makes her do on camera. Of course, Young’s femininity plays to great advantage when her character pinch hits later as a fashion columnist and turns up at the home of Harlow’s family on the night of a great soiree. But she is not at the manse just to get a story, she is also there to see her pal Williams in his new surroundings as a Cinderella man who’s just wed Harlow.
Further, it could be argued that Harlow is also slightly miscast as a member of jet set high society, since she usually essays characters from tough backgrounds. But I think Harlow does an admirable job in her role as the mostly unsympathetic upper class wife of a newsman. And despite a nearly forty year age difference, her platinum blonde hairstyle and demeanor very much resembles that of Louise Closser Hale who plays her snobby mother.
The character actors nearly steal the picture away from the three engaging lead stars. In addition to Closser Hale, we have Halliwell Hobbes as a rather humorless put-upon butler; Claud Allister as a new overly efficient valet; and Reginald Owen as the family’s problem-solving attorney. In fact, the times I laughed out loud occurred because of Owen’s funny turn of a line or physical gestures.
Besides the well-defined characters at the mansion, there are vivid supporting characters in the news business. Some of these are played with superb skill, such as Edmund Breese as Williams’ editor/boss; and Walter Catlett as a reporter for a rival paper. There are a few fun run-ins between Williams and Catlett.
Anyone who watches the film knows that Williams will find out he’s a fish out of water marrying into Harlow’s crowd, and the union is doomed. One sign it is a precode is that a divorce from Harlow is championed at the end of the story, so Williams can express his dormant romantic feelings for Young who will obviously become his second wife. And since Young is top billed over Harlow, though Harlow is technically playing the title character, we know Young is the one we should root for when all’s said and done.
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 5, 2024 14:57:44 GMT
Platinum Blonde from 1931 with Robert Williams, Jean Harlow, Loretta Young and Louise Closser Hale
Platinum Blonde's story of a middle-class "nobody" marrying a socialite is an early version of a tale Hollywood told repeatedly in the 1930s because it contains one of Tinseltown's favorite tropes: "the rich" are stupid and mean, and "the poor" are smart and kind.
Robert Williams plays the cynical, whip-smart, and cocky reporter – a 1930s stock character, think Lee Tracy – who, while investigating a story, meets a wealthy and socially prominent family with a pretty young daughter, played by Jean Harlow.
Harlow is attracted to Williams because he isn't like her stuffy society boyfriends. They soon marry, despite the family's objections, especially the objections of Harlow's status-conscious mother, played with perfect superciliousness by Louise Closser Hale.
Once married, however, in another standard plot twist for this type of story, Harlow wants to change Williams into a society husband. He, though, wants them to live on his respectable middle-class salary in his modest apartment, but she won't.
The "second act" is all boilerplate stuff: Harlow pushes Williams to quit his job and "join society," but he tries to maintain his identity and independence, while somehow accommodating his wife. Meanwhile, her family tries to break up the marriage.
Rounding out the cast, Reginald Owen plays the exaggeratedly stuffy lawyer for the family who consistently gets outwitted by Williams, while lovely Loretta Young plays the innocent poor girl reporter who quietly pines away for her "old friend" and coworker Williams.
Williams, with Young's help, begins writing a play, which is just a roman à clef of his own marriage. The dream of every newspaperman of this era is to write a play or a novel, become rich and famous, and quit the business.
The climax is precipitated when Williams' "lowbrow" friends come over one night to the family mansion to party, while everyone but Williams is out. In another perennial Hollywood trope, they have genuine fun versus the family's "parties" which are stuffy and boring.
These stories have only two types of conclusions where, after the man declares his independence from his wife and family, the wife either now agrees to live in his world and on his salary or the man discovers he truly loves the poor girl (Young in this case).
This blunt and simple morality tale is right up director Frank Capra's alley as subtlety and nuance are not his metier. He loved a black-and-white world where the "downtrodden" are good and honest people and "the rich" are deceitful and selfish.
Once you become familiar with this standard Hollywood framework, you'll notice that it probably won't conform to your own experiences: Have you found all poor people to be kind and selfless souls and all wealthy people to be heartless and cruel?
For fans of 1997's Titanic movie, you can see that, channeling his inner Capra, all director James Cameron did was use the famous ocean liner's tragic journey as a construct to tell this hackneyed “the rich are bad and the poor are good" story anew.
Sadly, Robert Williams, who gives a spirited performance in this one, died from the effects of a burst appendix four days after the movie's release. As a result, his all of a sudden promising career was cut short.
Harlow, who would also die young in 1937, is miscast here. Nothing about the talented young actress says society girl. Harlow's charm is her commonness, her honest brassiness. Eventually, Hollywood would figure this out and her career would take off.
Platinum Blonde, with its talented cast and Capra's obvious but skilled approach to the story, rises a bit above its clichéd plot even with its early talkie clunkiness. Plus it's an opportunity to see Harlow early in her career and Robert Williams in one of his few talking pictures.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 17, 2024 15:08:19 GMT
This neglected film is from 1936.
Wild about Theodora
THEODORA GOES WILD does what any good screwball comedy should do. It takes two misfits with inner pain and shows how they connect through humor. In the process, they turn adversity into absurdity– which is a healthy thing, if you think about it.
Of course its success depends upon the skill of the stars assigned to the lead roles. In this case, those stars are Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas. After years of musical performances and dramatic parts, THEODORA was Dunne’s first comedy. She had the right instincts in front of the camera. You can almost catch her deciding how she’s going to deliver each line. The drunk scene at the restaurant is a good example. Each moment is carefully played, ensuring that the maximum entertainment value and emotion is attained.
The comic situations in THEODORA GOES WILD allow Dunne to create a whole new persona. It comes into focus when she sits at a piano, singing tenderly one second and then pounding the keys in frustration the next. She never even came close to that sort of characterization in her earlier films.
Leading man Melvyn Douglas is equally versatile. You can see the seeds of a future Oscar winner being sown in his performance. He is serious when the role calls for it. But then at the turn of a dime, he does an uproarious berry-eating scene. He seems to be saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to toss all caution to the wind for a laugh. Of course, it leads to a touching romantic interlude with Dunne.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 6, 2024 7:05:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1944.
Secret lineage
When you watch a film like this, a good deal of acceptance is needed. You must accept that this is a studio B film with a very modest budget. You must accept that this is a story with more talk than action. You must accept that it is harmless entertainment. If you are expecting more, there are other films that may be able to provide it for you. Look elsewhere.
When I watched CRY OF THE WEREWOLF, I was not expecting any earth shattering horror flick. I just wanted something that would be mildly diverting, which this picture is.
Nina Foch, at the beginning of her career at Columbia, assumes the title role. She spends half her time as a gypsy queen with secret, hushed up lineage. And she spends the other half of her time in animal form, having brought the secret to life, after she’s morphed into a wolf.
And she does violent evil things in wolf mode. She goes around killing people who know the secret, which her mother, also a wolf, took to the grave. Foch’s character will have to die by the end of the film, and she does. But before the final reel when she is hunted and shot dead, she creates considerable terror at a museum in New Orleans.
Why a museum? Because this is where a curator, played by Fritz Leiber, has been researching the supernatural phenomenon of her people, a tribe camped in the woods with strange powers. When Leiber gloms on to the connection that the tribe has with lycanthropy, he’s doomed.
Leiber’s sudden death coincides with the return of his absent son (Stephen Crane, husband of Lana Turner). The son is anxious to find out who killed dear old dad.
During this time, he romances two “sisters”— the gypsy queen/wolf (Foch) and his father’s assistant (Osa Massen). I say sisters, because at one point Foch casts a spell on Massen, to make her act like a sister who will go along with her and kill Crane when he gets too close to finding out the truth.
All of this is enacted in a totally straightforward style by the cast. Some of the dialogue is written in a stilted fashion so that when the performers recite their lines, it is as if they are spouting an academic philosophy.
In reality, it’s a lot of gibberish; most of the plot borders on the absurd and cannot be taken too seriously. But if you go into this not expecting too much, it’s enjoyable hokum. And I am sure a wartime audience in 1944 appreciated a bit of silliness to divert their attention from the real horror of war happening outside the theater.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Oct 6, 2024 18:44:33 GMT
Nice write-up for Cry of the Werewolf. As I posted before, I like the film mainly because it has a young Nina Foch and Osa Massen.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 19, 2024 14:40:43 GMT
This neglected film is from 1958.
The case against corruption
This Columbia crime flick, based on a true story, casts Darren McGavin in the lead role of a rookie cop in Brooklyn. His assignment, along with a few other newbies, is to ferret out corruption among the higher ups on the police force. That doesn’t sound too plausible, but we are told McGavin’s character had formerly been part of military intelligence overseas. I guess it is a bit logical he would have skills to conduct surveillance and investigatory techniques despite being a fresh-faced recruit.
The story is based on a series of articles that journalist Ed Reid had originally penned in the late 1940s. These muckraking pieces were serialized in True Magazine, which caught the eye of story editors at Columbia. Reid’s accounts of crime and corruption in New York City helped expose cops on the take, and these daring exploits were combined into a volume called The Shame of New York, which hit book stores in 1954.
Reid’s later books chronicled further mob activity on the east coast, as well as mob operations in Las Vegas. At one point, Reid published something that connected a mafia don to Republican politician Barry Goldwater, which led to Reid being fired from a newspaper job. Apparently, Goldwater or his allies had considerable pull with his employers and tried to ruin his career.
Because Reid’s write-ups are carefully researched examinations of lawlessness in urban America, there is an almost semi-documentary feel to this story. While Columbia doesn’t allocate a substantial budget, director Paul Wendkos is able to make the most of economy sets and studio locations. He elicits decent performances from a most capable cast. This was only the second feature film directed by Wendkos, his first effort was THE BURGLAR (1957). In the 1960s, he would become more associated with youth pictures. But here, he does a credible job with hard-hitting noir.
Lead star McGavin had just made THE DELICATE DELINQUENT at Paramount, in which he played an officer. That time, the story was comedic, since he was mentoring a bumbling recruit played by Jerry Lewis. Moviegoing audiences were already familiar with McGavin playing a law enforcer. Working with McGavin on screen is Brian Hutton as a doomed rookie; Warren Stevens as a slimy go-between to the mob; Maggie Hayes as a sexy widow who connects with McGavin while he is undercover as a “single man;’ and Peggy McCay as McGavin’s understanding wife.
The film’s best sequence comes late in the picture, where McGavin is closing in on the corrupt members of the department. His cover has been blown, so the mob places a bomb inside a telephone. Then they call McGavin’s apartment. When his wife (McCay) answers the phone, the whole place is blown to smithereens and she is instantly killed. This only fuels McGavin’s resolve to nail those responsible.
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Post by topbilled on Nov 14, 2024 8:11:34 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Club hostess
Ann Dvorak stars as the title character in this crime drama from Columbia. In some ways the story seems like a leftover from the precode days of Hollywood. It’s pretty obvious that Dvorak and pal Wynne Gibson are glorified prostitutes at a seedy dive along a rundown waterfront area. The men who come into the joint pay to have drinks with the gals and end up having their pockets picked clean before they leave.
Dvorak may be playing a somewhat unwholesome woman, but underneath the tough exterior beats a heart. And when a handsome sailor (Preston Foster) walks in one night, they hit it off and she falls hard. She then decides with his encouragement that she is better than her surroundings and deserves a proper life elsewhere.
Adding to the drama is the fact that Gibson’s character thought she deserved a better life too, but the club’s owner (Douglas Fowley) ruined her chances and she was forced to come back. If Fowley has his way, he will also wreck Dvorak’s chances of happiness with Foster. Part of this tale involves women being property of men, but also women trying to break free.
Dvorak’s performance should be studied by fledgling actresses. She gives a masterclass in portraying anguish but also hope. She takes very routine situations with cliched dialogue and elevates the material, because she believes in the pathos of the character. She knows she’s playing a bad girl struggling to go legit, and that the circumstances in which she lives are tragic. There is great poignancy in her acting, especially some nice moments in a park where her character, against the odds, becomes engaged to Foster.
The most stunning work on screen, though, is rendered by Gibson. She knows that Fowley is about to stop Dvorak from going off and enjoying a happily ever after. So, during a club brawl that brings the riot squad to the premises, Gibson as a protectress, gets Foster to take Dvorak off before it’s too late, while Gibson confronts Fowley. Not just with words, but with a knife. It’s a gruesome end for him.
When the police haul Gibson off to jail in the last scene, it’s shades of Norma Desmond to be sure. But she was willing to go crazy inside the club, if it meant she could save Dvorak and give Dvorak’s character the chance she never had. This is a great B-flick that gets a top score from me.
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