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Post by topbilled on Jan 26, 2024 15:09:19 GMT
I do see why they did the ending the way they did it, but it would have been such a powerful way to end the movie with his finger undecidedly on the trigger.
I agree, the Parisian hotel scene was the money moment. So true to life.
Incidentally, Dix and Allan had also costarred in RKO's NO MARRIAGE TIES (1933) which I plan to get to at some point. She's a wonderful actress, and I want to see more with her. |
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jan 26, 2024 15:29:43 GMT
This film is from 1942.
Bambi and subsequent generations
But when it comes to this film, what I objected to most was the girl bunny's constant, insistent vamping. We have names for gals like that. This turned me off the most about the film; I thought it was way too obvious for a children's film.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 8, 2024 10:29:10 GMT
This neglected film is from 1941.
If the shoe fits
Sometimes critics say ‘this film has a great cast’ or ‘the performances in this film couldn’t be better.’ The phrases have become clichés. But in this case, THE DEVIL (Charles Coburn) AND MISS JONES (Jean Arthur) are so brilliantly performed, and surrounded by such skilled supporting players who bring their own idiosyncrasies to the mix, that the old clichés are true. It’s a gem of a farce.
I’ve watched the film over a dozen times and this latest re-watch had me concentrating on the little things the actors do to keep it fresh and fun with each viewing. When Coburn’s irascible tycoon goes “undercover” as a slipper salesman, to find out which employees in his department store have been opposed to his practices, he becomes one of them to find out how they operate. Ironically, he starts to think and act like them, almost against his own will. The expression ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!’ takes on a whole new meaning.
There is one scene when he attends a makeshift union meeting after hours, on his first day no less, and he is presented by Arthur to the crowd as a poor soul she had to give fifty cents for lunch. The reactions are priceless; Coburn seems revolted at them classifying him among the impoverished and downtrodden of the working class.
He goes home and tells his butler (S.Z. Sakall) that he’s dealing with a bunch of crackpots. But they are sincere crackpots, and they will slowly win him over. Especially a gal (Spring Byington) who works in the same department, since she becomes very fond of Coburn, shares home baked tuna popovers with him and captures his heart without even trying.
Of course, there are complications. The department manager (Edmund Gwenn) is a proverbial thorn in Coburn’s side. Amusingly, Gwenn’s character doesn’t know Coburn is really the boss over him and could have him fired at a moment’s notice. The appearance of “power” and real power are two very different things in this story.
While trying to make good as an average employee, Coburn decides a way to boost sales and get Gwenn off his case, is to have Sakall and a maid’s daughter (Ilene Brewer) come into the store one day, posing as customers. He instructs Sakall to buy a half dozen pair of children’s shoes. The part where Coburn tries to cram shoes on the bratty girl’s foot is totally uproarious, and the antithesis of a Cinderella moment.
Of course, the real Cinderella character is Arthur, who’s fallen for princely but ultra radical Robert Cummings. He’s a fellow employee whose politics are a problem with the higher-ups and causes his job to be in jeopardy. Cummings aims to organize a series of protests against unfair labor conditions. The burgeoning romance that develops between Cummings and Arthur plays out at the same time that Coburn and Byington pair up.
The film is a statement on multigenerational friendships and inter business relationships. It is also a sharp commentary on the dealings of management and common workplace personnel. Surprisingly, it doesn’t get too communistic, since it does suggest in spots that people need to earn their advancement and material wealth. Because the story is carried out by such a capable cast, it all comes off so smoothly that there isn’t a sense of one’s having been entertained in order to receive a lecture.
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RKO
Feb 8, 2024 11:55:22 GMT
Post by marysara1 on Feb 8, 2024 11:55:22 GMT
I couldn't understand why my dad took us to see Bambi because he was a deer hunter.
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RKO
Feb 8, 2024 14:20:01 GMT
Post by sagebrush on Feb 8, 2024 14:20:01 GMT
This neglected film is from 1941.
If the shoe fits
To this day, I have never seen this film! Bad film fan!
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Post by topbilled on Feb 8, 2024 14:21:10 GMT
You're missing a great film, sagebrush!
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Feb 8, 2024 19:59:03 GMT
This neglected film is from 1941.
If the shoe fits
To this day, I have never seen this film! Bad film fan!
Hopefully soon, you will be able to see this film. It is my favorite Jean Arthur film and one of my favorite comedies. An A+ production on all levels. |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 14, 2024 14:39:32 GMT
This neglected film is from 1939.
Nicely made B western
I’ll admit my expectations were low when starting to watch this routine B western from RKO. But I will just as freely admit I was pleasantly surprised how good it is. What helps this production, indeed any production with George O’Brien in the main role, is that we have a dependable lead who is no stranger to the genre.
He’s perfectly at ease in the saddle and even more at ease with his costars. I’m sure it was a very enjoyable experience to show up for work each day on the set of a George O’Brien picture.
Mr. O’Brien made 17 of these modestly budgeted oaters at RKO between 1938 and 1940. He only stopped making them because he had re-enlisted in the navy and served in WWII. He had already been a decorated veteran in WWI. So he was a real hero, relatable to people.
O’Brien still has his boyish looks at age 40, is still in shape (he takes his shirt off in one scene) and it’s believable that leading lady Marjorie Reynolds’ character would find him attractive. The kiss they share at the end is very passionate as far as screen smooches go.
As for the plot, it’s a routine drama about cattle rustling. The standard western conflict here is aided by the introduction of several gangster type villains. You might call this a western crime flick, where O’Brien and Reynolds must stop racketeers in their tracks.
There’s an impressive rustling scene that occurs at night, followed by a climactic sequence involving cattle on a train where good guys battle thieves. In one extended shot, O’Brien— a former movie stuntman— rides alongside the speeding locomotive and hops on to the side of one of the cars. In the next continuous shot, he climbs up to the top of the car, where he begins firing his gun. This is not done in a studio with a fake backdrop. And it is not filmed at a long angle with someone else performing the stunt work.
In addition to the action and romance, none of which seems cliched, we have some very nice musical numbers by sidekick Chill Wills and musician Ray Whitley. One ditty infuses a country western melody with a bit of swing. It’s a lot of fun. Every minute of this production is a lot of fun to watch.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 21, 2024 12:28:45 GMT
This neglected film is from 1945.
George Raft solves a mystery
I had a pleasurable time watching this mid-40s mystery noir that was produced by RKO. George Raft stars as a man who learns his father’s sea vessel was hijacked, and that dear old dad is dead. Raft’s father was an expert seaman who should not have lost control of his ship. Since his father is posthumously blamed for what happened, and since Raft knows it can’t be true, he sets out to investigate and set the record straight.
This was one of Raft’s first productions at RKO. He had left Warner Brothers in 1943, after having become increasingly dissatisfied with the roles that were coming his way. He turned down several projects at Warners that went to Humphrey Bogart and made Bogart a star. Personally, I don’t think this bothered Raft too much. The reason he was turning down those scripts is because he realized he had become typecast in crime flicks, usually as a bad guy.
Raft saw himself in more valiant terms and he wanted his film choices to start reflecting this. With a script like JOHNNY ANGEL, he was able to play a more heroic postwar character…a man who knew the difference between right and wrong, who was choosing to be on the right side of the law. In JOHNNY ANGEL, he has the chance to extend this belief about himself to his belief about his character’s father; that he comes from a decent and respectable family. Nobody is going to tarnish their name.
Another thing that happened to Raft after he went to RKO, besides finding the types of stories he wanted to cast himself in, is that he not only had approval over his costars, but he also was able to choose the directors he worked with on these projects. One of Raft’s favorite directors was Edwin Marin. Between 1945 and 1948, he made six motion pictures with Marin across a variety of genres. However, Raft was always more in his element appearing in mysteries and films where he had to prove something.
In this film, as he seeks to clear his late father’s name, he obtains help from the sole survivor of the shipwreck, a pretty European woman played by Signe Hasso. Hasso had originally been an RKO contractee, but she never made any films at the studio, and they sold her contract to MGM. When Raft asked for Hasso to be his leading lady, RKO had to request Hasso back from MGM on a loan out.
Hasso is intriguing when she’s playing women embroiled in dubious circumstances. Some of the plot has Raft questioning Hasso, wondering how much of what she’s telling him is true. At the same time, he deals with an assortment of shady characters played Margaret Wycherley, Marvin Miller and Claire Trevor.
Trevor was just coming off a successful performance in the classic noir MURDER MY SWEET in which she had worked with Dick Powell. She is once again in femme fatale mode, and it is her, not Hasso, who will put Raft most in danger in this tale of treachery and betrayal.
Trevor is always good entertainment value. So is Wycherley who is underused until the final standoff which brings the film to an exciting close.
JOHNNY ANGEL was a huge hit for RKO, and Raft went on to make several more crowd pleasers at the studio during the next five years. He proved that he didn’t really need Warner Brothers to keep his career going and maintain stardom. All he needed was a chance to take control over the sort of material he felt was best for him in movies.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Feb 21, 2024 19:17:04 GMT
Johnny Angel is one of my favorite George Raft films. As noted, Claire Trevor just completed Murder, My Sweet (1944) and this is a start of a solid noir set of films for the actress I view as the most iconic in noir films. After Johnny Angel (1945), Trevor was in Crack-Up (1946), Born to Kill (1947), Raw Deal and Key Largo (1948), and Borderline (1950). (Trevor was also a supporting actor in The Velvet Touch (1948), but this is much more of a drama with Rosalind Russell than a hardboiled noir).
PS: I'm Movies-TV and today is all-day-Thursday-noir and they are showing Murder, My Sweet, Borderline, and then Raw Deal.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 26, 2024 7:00:08 GMT
This film is from 1934.
Hepburn coveted the title role
In 1934 RKO produced the first sound version of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel. The novel had initially been published in 1908 and was intended for all audiences (not just children). There had previously been a silent version made by Paramount in 1919 which Miss Montgomery felt was too ‘Yankee’– i.e., not Canadian enough.
In the silent film the title character was portrayed by Mary Miles Minter, acting opposite a very young Paul Kelly as her love interest Gilbert Blythe.
Between 1908 and 1919, Montgomery wrote three sequels. The reading public couldn’t get enough of these adventures, featuring mischievous Anne with an ‘E.’ After RKO’s release, which the author liked, she wrote another sequel in 1936, Anne of Windy Poplars, which served as the basis for the studio’s cinematic follow-up in 1940. The same lead actress appeared in both films.
Katharine Hepburn was under contract at RKO during the mid-30s and had just scored a triumph in another popular literary adaptation, LITTLE WOMEN. She coveted the role of Anne. But the part went instead to Dawn O’Day, born Dawn Paris, who in some form of press agentry, changed her stage name to Anne Shirley, the character she was portraying on screen. She would keep the name for the rest of her career.
Dawn O’Day as Anne Shirley was put in other coming-of-age stories by RKO. In most of these crowd-pleasing programmers, she would play a variation of Montgomery’s character, just with different names and addresses. These included CHASING YESTERDAY (1935) and M’LISS (1936)– a remake of a Mary Pickford hit– as well as CHATTERBOX (1936), all directed by George Nicholls Jr.
In CHASING YESTERDAY, our plucky star was rejoined by Helen Westley and O.P. Heggie who had played Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, Anne’s middle-aged guardians. The premise of CHASING YESTERDAY had Heggie’s character meeting a teen girl, who was the daughter of an old flame and might be his biological child. But in Montgomery’s tale, the girl had no blood connection to her elders.
The 1934 production of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES is relatively short, clocking in at 78 minutes. It occasionally omits key episodes found in the novel. Most of the amusing vignettes are fleshed out in greater detail in a 1985 miniseries by writer-producer Kevin Sullivan.
Sullivan’s miniseries earned an Emmy and was a lot more faithful to the original source material. It featured Canadian actress Megan Follows with Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth as the Cuthberts.
However, there’s something bucolic and charming about RKO’s Depression era offering. It should be admired for its simplicity, ironic grace and charm.
Montgomery’s novel depicts harsh realities of life at the turn of the 20th century. For example, in later sections of the book, old Matthew dies and Marilla goes blind. Anne must sacrifice personal goals to help out on the farm, after being away at college. Also, Anne’s relationship with Gilbert causes considerable angst for Marilla. This is because Gilbert has a fairly improper backstory, which is only hinted at in the 1934 film due to the production code.
While Dawn O’Day makes a memorable Anne Shirley, one can’t help but wonder how Katharine Hepburn would have done in the role. Would she have repeated her Oscar victory from MORNING GLORY? Oh, I should mention that in the 1985 miniseries, Anne’s bosom friend Diana is played by the grand-niece of…you guessed it…Katharine Hepburn.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 26, 2024 10:57:44 GMT
Anne of Green Gables from 1934 with Anne Shirley, Helen Westley and O. P. Heggie
Anne: "Don't you ever imagine things differently from what they really are?"
Marilla: "No, I never imagine things differently from what they really are."
Anne: "Oh, Marilla, how much you miss."
This short and small-budget production of Anne of Green Gables is charming and whimsical without being cloying as it keeps its bite and its characters real.
An older brother and sister, played by O. P. Heggie and Helen Westley, who live alone on their modest farm, agree to adopt a young teenage boy from an orphanage mainly to have him help with the farm work.
When a girl shows up by accident, Westley is miffed, but Heggie immediately takes to the spirited and talkative young teenager played by Anne Shirley (who, according to one story, in real life, because she liked her character's name so much, had her name changed to Anne Shirley after playing the part - you can't make this stuff up).
Westley, taciturn and pragmatic, takes steps to return Shirley to the orphanage, while even less-talkative but romantic Heggie wants to keep her. Some of the fun in this movie is watching Shirley's innocent, animated and disjointed monologues win over Westley, something Westley won't admit at first, as Heggie happily and silently watches events unfold in his favor.
From here the arc of the movie is Shirley growing up and growing closer to her new parents. She gets into some normal (for early 1900s, when the story takes place) kid trouble and has her heart broken, as almost all kids do, but Shirley thrives under her adoptive parents and their lives become fuller because of her.
There is a thin plot about Shirley falling for a boy whose father, decades ago, stole Heggie's one true love - its Romeo and Juliet light (something well-read and overly dramatic Shirley exaggerates), but the magic of Anne of Green Gables is watching three lives that were a bit damaged heal by becoming a family.
There's, thankfully, no "cathartic" moment where, in present fashion, after a big heart to heart, everyone "understands" everyone else better. Instead, this family finds its harmony the way many families do, through quiet acceptance.
Shirley is a bit of an annoying kid as her spiritedness and daydreaming rub up against Westley's pragmatism, as displayed in the quoted passage at the top (Westley plays Marilla). But that's also what works as they resolve their differences by an unspoken passive truce because each comes to see the deeper good in the other.
Each also becomes a little bit like the other as we see Shirley mature into a more pragmatic young woman, while Westley lightens up a bit as she comes to see the value of imagination and spontaneous enthusiasm.
Shirley (the actress) as the too-spirited kid, Westley as the no-nonsense mother and Heggie as the patient father bring their characters to life in memorable ways. With little in the way of sets or budget, it's up to the actors to carry the drama and they more than deliver.
The climax, revolving around sacrifice, sickness and forgiveness, is rushed and forced, but it doesn't matter as Anne of Green Gables is about the journey of three people who enrich each other's lives. It's a short and charming movie that has just enough grit and rub to keep it from becoming overly sentimental. |
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Post by topbilled on Mar 3, 2024 16:24:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
Harding’s fine performance enhances this RKO melodrama
Ann Harding plays a plastic surgeon in this precode classic from RKO. The subject matter may have been fairly new to movie audiences at the time. To some extent, the information presented about cosmetic procedures seems a bit superficial...it is suggested that such surgery can solve all of a woman’s insecurities about her appearance.
Of course, Harding’s clients are wealthy, and none are men. A few of them have been in an accident, and again, it is suggested plastic surgery can fix all damaged facial tissue and prevent scarring. I found it naive to promote this type of operating as a one-shot fix-all. The truth is some people who have been badly disfigured in accidents require more than one surgery.
All that aside we are meant to view Harding’s character as a godlike doctor whose services are sought for miles around. She is so popular in her chosen profession that she barely has time for herself. In the world of precodes, it means she barely has time to be a woman and enjoy some of the pleasures in life a woman should enjoy— like handsome young men. That’s where Robert Young’s character enters the picture.
Though a lot isn’t made of the age difference between Harding and Young in the story, it’s clear she’s older, and definitely more mature. She carries herself with honor and possesses a self-deprecating sense of humor.
He, on the other hand, is still a shallow playboy, happiest cavorting with women up in his plane (shades of Howard Hughes?). When Young meets Harding in the hospital one day after his mother’s surgery, he notices Harding. Later, when she finally takes a vacation and heads out west, they reconnect in California. At this point, Young pursues her openly.
There are complications galore. Young had previously been seeing a society deb (Sari Maritza) closer to his own age and station in life. While he casts Maritza aside, he doesn’t quite get over her. At the same time, Harding has a medical colleague back east (played by Nils Asther in a role intended for Paul Lukas) who is sweet on her. Harding doesn’t take Asther’s affections seriously until it’s almost too late. By then her impulsive marriage to Young is falling apart.
There’s a great twist near the end, in which Young and Maritza are in a plane crash. It’s clear to Harding that her new husband and the other gal have been carrying on romantically. Young will survive, he’s mostly just in shock. But Maritza’s face has been damaged, so you can see where this is going. Will Harding operate on this other woman and restore her to her beautiful self? We know Harding will, since she is an honorable and noble person. If this were a Universal horror film, she’d probably be selfish and allow Maritza to live with the damage, then Maritza would want revenge.
The best parts of the film, in my opinion, are the west coast scenes. It is fun to see Harding relax and have fun, to watch her experience a fling. A humorous montage has her and Young enjoy a series of outdoor adventures together, never quite doing what they set out to do.
A few areas might have been improved. I felt the subplot with Asther was somewhat predictable, and overly sentimental with the inclusion of a crippled boy that bonded them together. And there was too much organ music in the initial scenes, to play up the discontent and melancholy Harding’s character suffered before she went on vacation. Early radio soap operas would perfect the use of organ music to accent a long-suffering heroine’s woes. But these are minor quibbles. For the most part, it’s a dandy precode, and Harding as always, delivers the goods.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 3, 2024 17:35:06 GMT
The Right to Romance from 1933 with Ann Harding, Robert Young and Nils Asther
The Right to Romance doesn't waste one of its sixty-seven minutes while telling the story of an attractive, in-her-early-thirties female plastic surgeon who realizes that, because of her dedication to her profession, she's missed out on the romantic side of life.
Ann Harding, today a forgotten actress who was a big star in the early 1930s, plays the dedicated surgeon who specializes in restoring wealthy accident victims' faces. She also does charity surgery (Hollywood always knew how to make a character sympathetic).
In a wonderful early scene, a fresh-from-surgery Harding, meets a handsome young man. When he wonders where the strong smell of ether is coming from, Harding, immediately intrigued with the man, realizes to her great embarrassment, it's coming from her.
This sets off a midlife crisis as Harding confides to her friend and fellow surgeon, played by Nils Asther, that she regrets not having a personal life. Harding then goes on a vacation at a fashionable resort where she, by chance, meets the same young man from the hospital.
The man, played by Robert Young, is a wealthy playboy who has a serious girlfriend. Yet he pursues Harding who, after years of ascetic doctoring, loves the attention and libido kick. Still, she returns to work single, until impulsive Young shows up with a proposal of marriage.
After the initial rush of being newlyweds, the two get down to the hard work of making a marriage work, which is clearly not carefree and immature Young's forte as his eye is already wandering back to his pre-Harding girlfriend.
No spoilers coming, but other than a little Hollywood drama thrown in, you'll probably be able to guess the ending pretty early on. Still it's a fun precode that whips through a lot of plot and social issues in a short time.
After the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1935, movies like The Right to Romance would, pretty much, not get made as women like Harding would rarely be allowed to have careers and marriages at the same time in movies.
Harding here, though, is a brilliant surgeon treated with deference by her male peers. It shows that gender roles weren't as set in stone back then as many believe today. That false impression is owed in part to decades of Code-era movies not reflecting the complexity of real life.
One has to read the newspapers and the fiction and non-fiction books from the period, not today's biased "studies" and period novels, to better understand that career opportunities and marital arrangements for women were much more varied than were presented on screen.
Away from all that sociology stuff, The Right to Romance is also 1930s eye candy for us today, as it was for a Depression Era audience back then. The expensive cars, clothes, hotels and Young's personal airplane are all fun-to-see period luxuries.
Even in the 1930s, the spotless, not-hurried and well-staffed (seems like there were two doctors for every patient) hospital - a hospital that has private rooms for its charity patients - was more fantasy than anything else.
The Right to Romance reminds us that precodes weren't only about naughty slap-and-tickle, but also tackled social issues like the challenges women faced trying to balance a career and a personal life. Plus, it's always fun to see quietly and serenely beautiful Ann Harding. |
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Post by topbilled on Mar 3, 2024 17:41:42 GMT
One thing that occurred to me as I watched THE RIGHT TO ROMANCE was how there were very few woman doctors in films after the code took affect. I don't think there are any female surgeons or even female medical consultants in the Dr. Kildare films. The women are either nurses (stereotypes) or hysterical patients (worse stereotypes).
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