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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 30, 2022 14:40:26 GMT
⇧ Couldn't agree more, it's so much fun to see future stars like Rita Hayworth in roles before they became famous.
She didn't make a lot of western films...the only ones that come to mind are THEY CAME TO CORDURA (1959) which paired her with Gary Cooper and THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) her last film which was more of a Mexican western in which she costarred with Robert Mitchum. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 9, 2022 14:45:44 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
Precode western presents interesting ideas
Richard Dix, hot off his success in RKO’s Oscar winner CIMARRON (1931), is cast as the lead in this precode western, which was the studio’s follow-up to the earlier film. His costar is Ann Harding who seems to be a substitute for Irene Dunne. Miss Dunne had been in CIMARRON, and the character that Harding plays is shown singing at the piano. Miss Harding is not very musically inclined like Dunne.
The director has Harding speak in high pitched coquettish tones during the opening sequence, which seems odd since Harding’s voice naturally has a lower register. Later in the film when Harding plays the character in advanced age, she is required to affect her voice again.
The drama takes a while to get going. Harding’s wealthy bank president father (Walter Walker) disapproves of his clerk Dix romancing his daughter. He fires Dix but then loses his standing when the bank goes under. In a state of disgrace, the old man dies and all the family assets must be auctioned off to pay outstanding debts. Harding is now penniless but free to marry Dix. They soon leave New York and head west to start a new life together.
Things take an interesting turn when they get to Nebraska. As they sail down a river barge, they’re robbed by some outlaws, and Dix is shot. This prevents the newlyweds from venturing further west, since Dix is in need of medical attention. In a nearby town, a hotel owner (Edna May Oliver) knows of a man who can treat Dix’s injuries– a drunken doctor, who happens to be her husband (Guy Kibbee).
The scenes where Kibbee performs surgery while intoxicated are “fun” to watch. Kibbee and Oliver are wonderful, not just colorful support, more like second leads. The two couples become close friends. When Dix recovers and decides to open a bank in the small midwestern town, his wife and new friends help him succeed.
The next part of the story continues the saga a short time later. The town and bank have been prospering. Dix and Harding have twins, a boy and a girl. But on the day that a train comes into the new station, their son is killed and so is Kibbee while trying to save the boy. The accident is impressively staged, and this is one of the most powerful moments in the film. Pictures like this are made to be epic in scope, with equal measures of triumph and tragedy.
Years pass, and the daughter (Julie Haydon) is now grown and married to one of her father’s employees (Donald Cook). Mirroring the opening sequence, there’s another economic downturn, and the bank’s future is in jeopardy. The daughter’s husband commits suicide, leaving her a widow like Oliver.
THE CONQUERORS then skips ahead to WWI, followed by the 1920s and the stock market crash of 1929. Harding’s character dies one day while watching a parade. A portrait of her hangs in her husband’s office, indicating her continued presence in his thoughts and actions.
In the final section of the film, Dix is also cast as his older character’s grandson, basically playing a dual role.
There are a lot of good and interesting ideas presented on screen. THE CONQUERORS is a David Selznick production covering the years 1873 to 1931, and it is rich in period detail. I found this to be a very fine movie worth watching. The dialogue is a bit simplistic in spots, but the performances are grand, and they will captivate any viewer.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 9, 2022 15:21:57 GMT
 The Conquerors from 1932 with Ann Harding, Richard Dix, Edna Mae Oliver and Guy Kibbee
The Conquerors bit off a lot of history and big themes to chew through in eighty-six minutes and while it's clunky and uneven at times, it still ably reflects the westward march and growing economic might of the country from the 1870s to the 1930s.
Told through the story of one banking family, which over the years, goes bust like the country's economy a few times, we see, at the open, the family's younger generation move west when their old-line eastcoast bank fails in the panic of 1873.
Richard Dix, playing a poor bank clerk, and Ann Harding, playing the now-broke daughter of a once-rich banker, are the newlyweds who fight the terrain and criminal gangs to start a bank in a growing town in Nebraska; a town about to grow more with the coming of the railroad.
Along for the ride are character actors Edna Mae Oliver and Guy Kibbee who, as owners of a small hotel (plus he's the area's doctor), help the young couple get a start in the rough town. Kibbee and Oliver play their roles as exaggerated "characters" who add "comic relief" in several slapstick and screwball routines.
These two outstanding veterans lift every scene they are in, but at times, they are so comedic they detract from the seriousness of the picture. That contrast was clearly what director William A. Wellman wanted as "slapstick and screwball" was what movie-going audiences of that era often expected and liked.
As the years and decades pass, the family experiences successes and tragedies like all families and, thematically, like the country itself: children are born and one dies later in an accident, the bank grows and then is nearly lost in another panic, a grandson goes off to fight in WWI and members of the older generation pass away as the now-adult children take over.
Director Wellman intersperses montage scenes of generic economic and financial advancements and setbacks for the country - large factories producing goods, people buying homes and bags of money piling up, followed by factories going idle, people desperate for food and the bags of money gone - to show the ups and downs of the economy paralleling the ups and downs of Harding and Dix' family.
With a typical Max Steiner not-shy score, the movie has an epic quality as those ups and downs are dramatically felt through the music.
Wellman also touches on themes of capitalism and socialism as during each depression he shows crowd scenes of "radicals" claiming the country is "finished," only to show it coming back bigger and stronger in the next expansion. It's an oddly pro-free-market movie from usually left-leaning Hollywood.
The always wonderful Harding is excellent playing the "pioneer" wife as her low-key style and simple beauty fits the image of an intrepid, no-nonsense, but still feminine American woman of the frontier.
Dix, in one of his better performances, is convincing as a square-jawed "builder of a country" who, like that country he represents, gets knocked down a bunch of times, but after licking his wounds and with Harding's help, gets back up to rebuild even bigger and better.
Only two years into the "talkie" era, The Conquerors is an ambitious and impressive effort at portraying what was, at the time, the prior sixty-year history of the country with a focus on its westward expansion and growing economic might.
It's uneven in its style and will feel dated to modern audiences, but strong acting, a good script and a ripping pace, makes The Conquerors an entertaining picture with some modest historical value.
N.B. Several runs on banks are shown in The Conquerors. Bank runs are fascinating because even the strongest, most-honestly run and most-heavily-regulated bank will fail in a run as no bank has ever been structured to have all of its depositors' money on site daily. An institution that did that would be called a vault, not a bank.
Hence, even the "safest" bank relies on the confidence of its depositors. Today, we have, hopefully, solved this confidence problem with government deposit insurance negating the runs and panics as depositors trust that the government will make them whole even if the bank fails. But before deposit insurance, and as seen in The Conquerors, and other movies of the era, runs were common and, sadly, self-fulfilling events. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 9, 2022 15:33:50 GMT
I'm so glad Topbilled noted the accident scene as it was incredibly well filmed and impactful. I am remiss for not having mentioned it in my comments.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 9, 2022 15:34:32 GMT
The Conquerors from 1932 with Ann Harding, Richard Dix, Edna Mae Oliver and Guy Kibbee
The Conquerors bit off a lot of history and big themes to chew through in eighty-six minutes and while it's clunky and uneven at times, it still ably reflects the westward march and growing economic might of the country from the 1870s to the 1930s.
Told through the story of one banking family, which over the years, goes bust like the country's economy a few times, we see, at the open, the family's younger generation move west when their old-line eastcoast bank fails in the panic of 1873.
Richard Dix, playing a poor bank clerk, and Ann Harding, playing the now-broke daughter of a once-rich banker, are the newlyweds who fight the terrain and criminal gangs to start a bank in a growing town in Nebraska; a town about to grow more with the coming of the railroad.
Along for the ride are character actors Edna Mae Oliver and Guy Kibbee who, as owners of a small hotel (plus he's the area's doctor), help the young couple get a start in the rough town. Kibbee and Oliver play their roles as exaggerated "characters" who add "comic relief" in several slapstick and screwball routines.
These two outstanding veterans lift every scene they are in, but at times, they are so comedic they detract from the seriousness of the picture. That contrast was clearly what director William A. Wellman wanted as "slapstick and screwball" was what movie-going audiences of that era often expected and liked.
As the years and decades pass, the family experiences successes and tragedies like all families and, thematically, like the country itself: children are born and one dies later in an accident, the bank grows and then is nearly lost in another panic, a grandson goes off to fight in WWI and members of the older generation pass away as the now-adult children take over.
Director Wellman intersperses montage scenes of generic economic and financial advancements and setbacks for the country - large factories producing goods, people buying homes and bags of money piling up, followed by factories going idle, people desperate for food and the bags of money gone - to show the ups and downs of the economy paralleling the ups and downs of Harding and Dix' family.
With a typical Max Steiner not-shy score, the movie has an epic quality as those ups and downs are dramatically felt through the music.
Wellman also touches on themes of capitalism and socialism as during each depression he shows crowd scenes of "radicals" claiming the country is "finished," only to show it coming back bigger and stronger in the next expansion. It's an oddly pro-free-market movie from usually left-leaning Hollywood.
The always wonderful Harding is excellent playing the "pioneer" wife as her low-key style and simple beauty fits the image of an intrepid, no-nonsense, but still feminine American woman of the frontier.
Dix, in one of his better performances, is convincing as a square-jawed "builder of a country" who, like that country he represents, gets knocked down a bunch of times, but after licking his wounds and with Harding's help, gets back up to rebuild even bigger and better.
Only two years into the "talkie" era, The Conquerors is an ambitious and impressive effort at portraying what was, at the time, the prior sixty-year history of the country with a focus on its westward expansion and growing economic might.
It's uneven in its style and will feel dated to modern audiences, but strong acting, a good script and a ripping pace, makes The Conquerors an entertaining picture with some modest historical value.
N.B. Several runs on banks are shown in The Conquerors. Bank runs are fascinating because even the strongest, most-honestly run and most-heavily-regulated bank will fail in a run as no bank has ever been structured to have all of its depositors' money on site daily. An institution that did that would be called a vault, not a bank.
Hence, even the "safest" bank relies on the confidence of its depositors. Today, we have, hopefully, solved this confidence problem with government deposit insurance negating the runs and panics as depositors trust that the government will make them whole even if the bank fails. But before deposit insurance, and as seen in The Conquerors, and other movies of the era, runs were common and, sadly, self-fulfilling events.
I really love that scene where the horse and buggy topple over on the tracks with the train heading towards them at full speed, trying to hit the brakes in time. Then we cut to that shot of Dix, Harding and Oliver in the crowd watching the accident happen. The camera work is exceptional and all of them do such a fantastic job conveying the horror that is unfolding.
While this is a highly ambitious film that as you say, bites off a bit more than it can chew, there are some truly wonderful cinematic sequences here. THE CONQUERORS is a neglected film that deserves a new audience and modern reappraisal. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 17, 2022 15:15:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Marie Windsor makes a deal
After Howard Hughes took over the studio in 1948, RKO’s product significantly declined. Hughes was too busy ferreting out suspected and known communists in Hollywood to focus on quality storytelling. Occasionally, an independently made gem like this film would come along.
DOUBLE DEAL was shot at RKO and exhibited by the studio, but it was made by a fledgling outfit called Bel-Air. From 1950 to 1957, Bel-Air Productions turned out about thirty B films, usually action dramas.
Marie Windsor is cast in the lead, in what would be her first starring role. Typically she played femme fatales in noir or outlaw women in westerns for which she developed a cult following. Here she’s assigned a more sympathetic character, a secretary who realizes her boss is a shady dealer. She quits her job and realigns her loyalties with a man (Carleton Young) who is sweet on her. He needs her help in getting a well to come in on time, before his lease expires.
At the same time Windsor meets Richard Denning, a handsome drifter who arrives in her sleepy Oklahoma oil town. Denning loses money gambling and needs to find work. He hits it off with Windsor, and she secures employment for him with Young.
Meanwhile Young’s bad girl sister (Fay Baker in scene-stealing mode) covets the well and angles to get her hands on the land. We are told that brother and sister had a falling out after their rich father died.
An argument led to Young accidentally killing Baker’s boyfriend. She’s never gotten over it and is unable to forgive him for what happened. Instead, her cold heart is set on vengeance.
Though this is just a 65-minute potboiler with a modest budget, the story is quite ambitious. It is a tale of epic greed, Shakespearean style, and could easily have been expanded into a two-hour A-budget offering.
Windsor, Denning and Baker all shine in their respective roles. But the picture probably belongs to character actor Taylor Holmes who appears as a drunken old lawyer. As the tale unfolds, Windsor and Denning toil to bring in a gusher, while a series of murders occur. First, Young is bumped off then Baker. Another minor character also meets up with the grim reaper.
In a surprise twist, the lawyer is unmasked as the killer, and we learn he originally held the leases to the oil wells in Richfield. As soon as he gets rid of everyone else, it will all revert back to him. However, a gambling man would be smart to place a bet on Windsor to foil those plans.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 21, 2022 14:54:56 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Not short on imagination or gimmicks
George Stevens had previously directed RKO’s top comedy duo a year earlier in KENTUCKY KERNELS. This time the boys are thrown into a corporate setting, playing cigar stand owners in a building where a music company does business. One of them (Bert Wheeler) is in love with a pretty secretary (Betty Grable), while the other (Robert Woolsey) is focused on perfecting his latest screwy invention.
The invention, a truth telling apparatus, is glimpsed briefly at the beginning of the movie. But it plays an important role later when a killer’s identity is made known. Leave it to Wheeler & Woolsey to help police solve a whodunit in the zaniest way possible. Most of what occurs on screen is a bit surreal, but that’s what makes these comedy features from the 1930s so much fun.
At one point, Woolsey is afraid that his pal may be the killer, so he tries to throw the cops off the track by nearly confessing to the crime himself. During these scenes there’s a good gag involving some handcuffs and a fly-away hat. Later, we have a goofy reenactment of the murder where Woolsey plays the victim. While not every bit works, these pictures are never short on imagination or gimmicks.
Perhaps the highlight of the film is a wonderful sight gag where the boys walk on stilts down a darkened street and around a corner. They want to be tall enough to speak to Grable, who’s just been arrested and is looking out a jail cell window several stories up. As they talk to her, a crook who is down below on another floor starts sawing their wooden stilt’s legs. It’s an amusing scene, especially when the stilts give way and they are scrambling off in trousers that are now much too long for them!
Adding to the overall merriment of the proceedings are a few catchy tunes. After all, Grable’s character is employed by a music publishing firm. So of course, she’d have to sing a number or two. She’s great, and her performance hints of bigger things to come for her in the musical comedy genre.
One other thing worth mentioning is the actor who plays the murderer. He is quite convincing, meaning he plays some of his scenes so smoothly that it doesn’t seem obvious he’s the bad guy until the end. He wears an interesting costume in the final climactic sequence, something that seems straight out of Halloween.
THE NITWITS was a big hit for the studio. So it is not surprising that RKO execs saw fit to remake the story eleven years later. That time GENIUS AT WORK featured Alan Carney and Wally Brown. And lovely Anne Jeffreys took the part played by Grable.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 28, 2022 16:00:14 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Adventure in feminism
This film did not do well with audiences in its day, and I think part of the reason is that it was a little too progressive for mainstream movie watchers in 1949. Another picture, 20th Century Fox’s THE SHOCKING MISS PILGRIM, in which Betty Grable had played a suffragette, also didn’t fare too well. These films lost money, because the lead female character did not conform to conservative ideals about the place of a woman inside the home and in society at large.
A bit of background…the story was devised by Christopher Isherwood, a British writer, though screenwriting duties were handled by someone else. The film itself was produced by Dore Schary, who was embroiled in a huge struggle with RKO’s new owner Howard Hughes about the sort of subject matter that should be presented in the studio’s stories. Schary would abruptly resign and move to MGM, making this one of the very last RKO titles he helmed in mid-’48.
As for the cast, Robert Young had a multi-picture deal with RKO. Typically, he was featured in a variety of genres but seemed to do best in wholesome family comedies, which explains his taking a paternal role. It’s a good warm-up for Father Knows Best. Young had previously collaborated with Shirley Temple in Fox’s STOWAWAY thirteen years earlier, so they had a familiarity with each other and that adds to the believability of their father-daughter relationship on screen.
Miss Temple was now 21, though playing a bit younger than her actual age, as a trouble-prone adolescent prone. Her character feels confined by the norms of a rigid community.
In the role of the boyfriend, we have Temple’s then-husband John Agar, with whom she had already costarred in John Ford’s FORT APACHE. Temple and Agar were both under contract to David Selznick, and their rocky marriage would come to an end a year later. This was their last movie together. Temple would only appear in two more feature films, before transitioning to television followed by a career in politics.
It is sort of interesting that Shirley Temple-Black, as she became known after her second marriage, would become an important political figure. Especially since the political arena in America and abroad was dominated by men. Even more interesting is the fact she ascended the ranks this way not as a liberal Democrat, but as a conservative Republican. I don’t know if it was her own emancipation that I find fascinating, but maybe it’s more how she was able to self-actualize in segments of society that were sometimes closed off to women.
Playing Temple’s mother in the movie is Josephine Hutchinson, an actress who had been a star at Warner Brothers in the 1930s but was now reduced to supporting roles of the maternal type. Hutchinson does well alongside Young, most convincing as a pastor’s wife who has serious concerns about the ‘wayward’ attitudes of their daughter.
Temple’s character is shown as rebelling against norms in several ways. There is an altercation with the police in which her arrest will cause embarrassment for her father who is looking to be promoted to a bishop’s post. She writes speeches about what women can do and should do. She paints a portrait of her boyfriend, who poses partially in the nude and her artwork becomes a point of gossip in their small town. As if all of this were not enough, she gets involved in a protest where women are being harassed during a public event.
Somehow, despite all the drama and her efforts to prove herself, she manages to snag the boy (Agar) after considerable ups and downs. I am not sure how realistic this particular happy ending is…and it seems obvious that even if female moviegoers secretly wished to have the kind of life this girl has on screen, they would probably have been too petrified to pursue the same goals. At least until Betty Friedan’s 'The Feminine Mystique' gave them the courage to rethink their positions.
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Post by marysara1 on Dec 28, 2022 16:14:59 GMT
Woman in politics learned to be discreet. I saw a movie about Elinor Roosevelt with Jean Stapleton. The women were having tea and discussing politics.
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RKO
Jan 9, 2023 2:02:06 GMT
Post by topbilled on Jan 9, 2023 2:02:06 GMT
Woman in politics learned to be discreet. I saw a movie about Elinor Roosevelt with Jean Stapleton. The women were having tea and discussing politics. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 9, 2023 2:10:59 GMT
This neglected film is from 1951.
Company time
In a video interview that Lizabeth Scott did in the late 1990s, she talked about the pictures she made at RKO. Miss Scott was under contract to producer Hal Wallis at Paramount during the first part of her motion picture career. During this time Howard Hughes who had bought RKO, admired her acting and would often borrow her from Wallis. She said she really didn’t get to know Hughes and barely interacted with him while working at the studio, but she knew he was a fan of hers.
In THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS, she’s cast as a tough but compassionate parole officer in charge of female parolees that are given a chance to prove themselves on the outside. One of her new parolees is a con played by Jane Greer. Greer’s character has been in the slammer for nearly two years due to a forgery conviction. She’s not a hard criminal, but she has a big chip on her shoulder and is unable to trust people.
The screenplay makes a point of telling us that parolees are technically still serving out the rest of their sentences. While they are released from prison during this period, they have no basic human rights until the sentence is completed. Greer still has three more years to go. However, this may be waived if she marries an upstanding man that the parole board deems suitable (and in essence would transfer the female parolee into the man’s care).
But for now Greer rents a room at a boarding house. She has a job as a nursing assistant and must report in to Scott.
Some expected developments occur, as well as some unexpected ones. First, the expected stuff– our parolee has trouble readjusting to society. She experiences temptations that may lead her back into a life of crime, and she has to prove herself on a new job where she doesn’t have much say. Also, she has a few ongoing issues with authority which is represented by her relationship with the parole officer.
Now for the unexpected stuff– here’s where the melodrama comes in– Greer falls for a journalist (Dennis O’Keefe) who just so happens to be dating Scott. An unconventional love triangle to say the least! After a whirlwind courtship, O’Keefe wants to marry Greer, but he has to let Scott down gently. Creating additional drama is the fact that O’Keefe does not initially know Greer is a parolee and that she answers to Scott.
Scott has to set her personal feelings aside if she is going to do right by Greer and recommend the proposed marriage to the parole board. There is an interesting scene where Scott appears before the board and admits that a complicated romantic relationship has occurred. Meanwhile, Greer has wound up back in jail when she is suspected of participating in a theft where she is in fact innocent.
Scott’s work is cut out for her, going to bat for Greer who may end up being wronged by the system. Fortunately for everyone’s sake, it all does work out in the end. Greer’s legal troubles are dismissed by a judge (John Hoyt) and she is finally free to marry O’Keefe. I did find it a bit contrived that O’Keefe would still be so willing to wed a jailbird, especially when he learns what all her past offenses were. But hey, the guy’s smitten so he’s going to overlook all that!
It’s still a well-played and emotionally satisfying film. I should mention that THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS is directed by John Cromwell, who also helmed the women-in-prison flick CAGED, which was released a year earlier. CAGED seems to suggest some cons cannot be rehabilitated. But this film suggests the opposite, particularly where love is involved.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 9, 2023 11:13:46 GMT
The Company She Keeps from 1951 with Jane Greer, Lizabeth Scott and Dennis O'Keefe
This short, minor picture is either a soft-hearted paean to the system of parole and second chances for prisoners or a slyly subversive movie mocking the parole system and its bleeding-heart advocates who believe all criminals are good people who just haven't found themselves yet.
In The Company She Keeps, a social worker, played by Lizabeth Scott, after fighting hard to get a convict, played by Jane Greer, out on parole, does everything humanly possible to give Greer a chance to succeed.
Greer, who knows how to play the game, can be sweet and contrite when necessary, like she is in front of the parole board, yet she also shows us her bitter, spiteful, selfish and, yes, criminal side when faced with the hard and humbling day-to-day work of reintegrating into society.
Scott gets Greer a job as a nurse's aide, a place to live and, in general, tries to help Greer over and above what Scott's job calls for. Greer, tries a bit, but seems to have an inner anger that flares at real and perceived slights.
Into this unstable situation walks Scott's boyfriend, played by Dennis O'Keefe, whom Greer quickly sets her sights on, seemingly and without cause, to spite Scott. Not knowing that Greer is a parolee and that Scott is her case worker, O'Keefe begins dating Greer.
With that setup, the movie is driven by the now insanely uncomfortable love triangle and Greer's continued efforts to undermine her own freedom, leaving Scott constantly trying to clean up or cover up for Greer's recalcitrance.
Matching Scott's bleeding heart, corpuscle for corpuscle, O'Keefe, suffering from a bad case of wounded-bird syndrome, dismisses Greer insolence, time and again, as he believes it's because Greer has had a tough life.
That's it other than a climax which brings the love triangle and Greer's status as a parolee to a head as Scott and O'Keefe take do-goodness to an angelic level, while Greer has her come-to-Jesus moment.
Greer does a good job as the angry parolee as does Scott as the understanding social worker, but had their roles been switched, the movie might have had more bite as Scott is more natural as a bad girl, just like Greer is as a good one.
Maybe director John Cromwell wanted to make a softer movie after his hard-edged female-prison movie Caged. Or perhaps he was punking us by making an ostensibly pro-parole movie that leaves us laughing at the unnatural saintliness of Scott and O'Keefe, while we wonder if society wouldn't be better off with the Greers of the world behind bars.
The Company She Keeps has some good prison argot early on and some time-travel-perfect location shots of LA, but it is too much of an obvious message movie to be anything but a short piece of fluff, unless you believe it's really a meta work intended to undermine its own message. That possibility makes it a more-interesting movie. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 9, 2023 13:48:57 GMT
The Company She Keeps from 1951 with Jane Greer, Lizabeth Scott and Dennis O'Keefe
This short, minor picture is either a soft-hearted paean to the system of parole and second chances for prisoners or a slyly subversive movie mocking the parole system and its bleeding-heart advocates who believe all criminals are good people who just haven't found themselves yet.
In The Company She Keeps, a social worker, played by Lizabeth Scott, after fighting hard to get a convict, played by Jane Greer, out on parole, does everything humanly possible to give Greer a chance to succeed.
Greer, who knows how to play the game, can be sweet and contrite when necessary, like she is in front of the parole board, yet she also shows us her bitter, spiteful, selfish and, yes, criminal side when faced with the hard and humbling day-to-day work of reintegrating into society.
Scott gets Greer a job as a nurse's aide, a place to live and, in general, tries to help Greer over and above what Scott's job calls for. Greer, tries a bit, but seems to have an inner anger that flares at real and perceived slights.
Into this unstable situation walks Scott's boyfriend, played by Dennis O'Keefe, whom Greer quickly sets her sights on, seemingly and without cause, to spite Scott. Not knowing that Greer is a parolee and that Scott is her case worker, O'Keefe begins dating Greer.
With that setup, the movie is driven by the now insanely uncomfortable love triangle and Greer's continued efforts to undermine her own freedom, leaving Scott constantly trying to clean up or cover up for Greer's recalcitrance.
Matching Scott's bleeding heart, corpuscle for corpuscle, O'Keefe, suffering from a bad case of wounded-bird syndrome, dismisses Greer insolence, time and again, as he believes it's because Greer has had a tough life.
That's it other than a climax which brings the love triangle and Greer's status as a parolee to a head as Scott and O'Keefe take do-goodness to an angelic level, while Greer has her come-to-Jesus moment.
Greer does a good job as the angry parolee as does Scott as the understanding social worker, but had their roles been switched, the movie might have had more bite as Scott is more natural as a bad girl, just like Greer is as a good one.
Maybe director John Cromwell wanted to make a softer movie after his hard-edged female-prison movie Caged. Or perhaps he was punking us by making an ostensibly pro-parole movie that leaves us laughing at the unnatural saintliness of Scott and O'Keefe, while we wonder if society wouldn't be better off with the Greers of the world behind bars.
The Company She Keeps has some good prison argot early on and some time-travel-perfect location shots of LA, but it is too much of an obvious message movie to be anything but a short piece of fluff, unless you believe it's really a meta work intended to undermine its own message. That possibility makes it a more-interesting movie.
In a way THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS seems like the type of fodder Warner Brothers would have turned out in the mid-30s, with either Joan Blondell in the lead if it was a B-crime pic, or Barbara Stanwyck, if they had an A-budget. It's highly formulaic with all the stereotypes and tropes about hardened women. Though in this film, the lead characters are allowed to demonstrate softer edges.
You are right, that considering the director, it's a fascinating counterpoint to CAGED. |
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Post by marysara1 on Jan 10, 2023 13:59:32 GMT
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 12, 2023 1:42:19 GMT
Of course fans of noir have to take a peak at any film that has 2 iconic noir actors (Scott and O'Keefe), and Jane Greer from Out of the Past (who I don't view as iconic since Out of the Past was her only noir): so I admit part of my left down was that the film wasn't gritty enough. I.e. I expected one thing and I didn't get it.
The question about "if the roles were changed" for Scott and Greer: yea, I mulled that over for decades, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference. Now someone like Eleanor Parker in the role Greer had would have made a difference (but of course Parker was the lead in Caged).
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