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Post by topbilled on Jul 27, 2023 14:33:01 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
An unusual courtship in Central America
I first saw this film over ten years ago and I had forgotten most of it. Except I remembered Charles Bickford’s standout performance. Nobody is as tough and gruff as him. I love his self-assuredness. One gets the impression that you do not mess with him on screen or off.
Mr. Bickford is third-billed but has the lead “romantic” role. RKO studio star Robert Armstrong is second-billed as the villain, selling poor Helen Twelvetrees a false bill of goods, more than once…which leads her to do a few desperate things. Miss Twelvetrees gets top billing and for all intents and purposes it is a vehicle designed to display her considerable dramatic talents. But again, Bickford is so good that they both dominate the picture in a highly unusual tug-of-war that leads to happily ever after, or so we can assume.
It starts in modern day New York City, with Bickford tracking Twelvetrees to a speakeasy. He wants to talk, and she’d rather he go away. He’s a rich oilman from Central America, and they have a volatile past. Over a few drinks– and there is a lot of drinking in this film– they reminisce about how they met in a Panama saloon and what happened afterward.
She was a chorus girl out of work and down to her last dime, when Bickford came into Sadie’s Place with a thick bankroll. The proprietress (Maude Eburne) and another gal (Marjorie Peterson) convince Twelvetrees to scam Bickford. Though she has never done such a thing before, she needs money to get back to the U.S., since her aerial photographer boyfriend (Armstrong) left her stranded.
The women conspire to get Bickford drunk and fleece him. These scenes are full of energy and highly amusing. Especially with the delightful Miss Eburne leading the pack…a great, underrated character actress.
Of course, things don’t go as planned. Bickford isn’t too drunk to realize he’s been scammed. He grabs Twelvetrees by the wrist, pulls her outside and forces her to take him to her flat where the other girl is supposed to waiting with the money. Only the other girl has run off with all the dough. To avoid jail, Twelvetress agrees to go with Bickford to his plantation and work off her debt as his housekeeper.
There is a lot of smoldering sexual tension at the plantation. In the best precode tradition, a lot is spelled out that while she insists on working off what she owes, remaining on her feet, he intends to take her to bed. This is pronounced in scenes where he’s drinking and making passes. She protects herself with a gun she stole from him, but a native female (Reina Velez) who was Bickford’s previous housekeeper– make of that what you will– steals back the gun for him.
Just when it looks like Bickford will have his way with Twelevetrees, they are interrupted by the arrival of a pilot. You guessed it– the dude who smooth-talked Twelvetrees earlier in the movie and ditched her.
The middle section of the film is a proper triangle, with Armstrong and Twelvetrees pretending they don’t know each other. Meanwhile, Bickford has to deal with local natives that have grown restless. Before Armstrong whisks Twelvetrees back to Panama, he intends to get his hands on maps that show where a hidden oilfield is located.
Of course, he needs Twelvetrees’ help and smooth talks her again. Only this time she realizes he is using her, that he doesn’t intend to really marry her, he’s a crook, and that Bickford for all his roughness, is actually the more honorable guy.
There is a shocking scene where Armstrong is killed. Bickford and Twelvetrees cover up the killing with Bickford making it look like Armstrong was shot down in his plane. Bickford then sends Twelvetrees back to the U.S., and that is how she wound up in New York at the beginning of the movie with him tracking her down to make a proper go of their relationship.
This is a film that works as a meditation on fate, and how two unlikely people are destined to be together. The situations in the film are incredibly dramatic. On the surface, most of the characters are crude and detestable. Still the viewer can’t help but root for Twelvetrees and Bickford to unite at the end.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jul 27, 2023 15:08:27 GMT
⇧ Great comments. This is a movie I really, really liked. I agree on Bickford as he's not a guy I'd mess with on or off the screen, but he is incredibly talented. His portrayal of a stern but thoughtful and intellectually honest priest in "The Song of Bernardette" is acting at its best. I wrote the below comments about a year ago.
Panama Flo from 1932 with Helen Twelvetrees, Charles Bickford and Richard Armstrong
Behold an early pulp-fiction-inspired pre-code. With all of a one-hour runtime, Panama Flo packs in half a season of a modern TV show's storyline. Also like today's TV shows, it pushes people to the extreme, bringing out raw and feral passions and emotions. But as opposed to modern shows, it isn't gratuitous, as it leaves something to the imagination.
Helen Twelvetrees (amazingly, she acquired that wonderful surname from marriage and not a studio's marketing department) plays a hoofer in a Panamanian nightclub who is let go when business drops off. Now she is stuck there, as the owner reneges on her promise of return fare to the States.
Cute, young, blonde, broke and stranded, Twelvetrees resists the pressure to turn to the oldest profession, in part, because she's waiting for her aviator boyfriend to come back and marry her as promised.
When he doesn't show for months, desperate for fare back to the States, Twelvetrees, with the help of the bar owner, tries to roll an oil-prospector flashing a wad of cash, played by Charles Bickford, but he catches her.
Threatened with jail - Panama City's jail looks like a scene out of Dante's Inferno - Twelvetrees agrees to go to Venezuela as Bickford's "housekeeper."
Bickford's "camp" is nothing more than a few-rooms shack deep in the jungle. Bickford, himself, comes across as possibly crazy telling Twelvetrees he's on the verge of a huge oil strike as he rifles through some disorganized looking notes, papers and maps.
At night, Bickford gets drunk and pushes Twelvetrees to a point, but no is still no for him, so they live with a hostile truce. The sexual tension mixed with the heat and fear of the jungle is palpable.
Then, like Indiana Jones, the aviator boyfriend, played by Robert Armstrong, lands his seaplane in the nearby river ostensibly to rescue Twelvetrees. He tells her not to say anything to suspicious Bickford about them knowing each other; instead, Armstrong wants Bickford to think he landed because of engine trouble.
The pressure quickly builds in the claustrophobic shack as Twelvetrees just wants to get out so that she and flyboy can be married, but smart Bickford is keeping close tabs on both of them. Flyboy, himself, is acting suspiciously by showing a surprising amount of interest in Bickford's papers.
The climax is a tightly packed pre-code blast of lies, betrayals, cover-ups, murder and rough justice that wouldn't fly once the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1935. For different reasons, it wouldn't fly today with TV and movie's confused moral code, which is enforced by political views, not a censorship board, but it is still very much enforced.
Panama Flo is bookended by a couple of scenes set several years later that tie up the loose ends of the conflict in a very Depression Era pulp-fiction way. For ten cents, movies provided incredible escapism, and maybe a chance to dream, at a time when there were few entertainment options for the average person.
The morality of Panama Flo's characters is modern, nuanced and real. Twelvetrees plays a, basically, good woman, but when pushed to the limit by poverty, she does a bad thing, yet you still believe she is, overall, a good person.
Bickford's character, too, is complicated: he's pushy, arrogant and selfish, but there are moral lines he won't cross and he not only acknowledges when someone helps him, he even tries to repay that person. He and Twelvetrees are complex humans, unlike typical cardboard movie heroes and villains that will populate the screen once the Code is enforced.
The talent, passion and star power of these two leads - Charles Bickford, who would have a long career in Hollywood, and Helen Twelvetree, whose career would, sadly, fade out by the second half of the 1930s - elevate Panama Flo above its good, but pulpy, storylines.
Despite both its clunky early talkie production quality and being desperately in need of restoration, Panama Flo is still entertaining today. There is so much raw human greed, failing, goodness and compassion on display in its story-packed sixty minutes, it leaves you almost breathless at times.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 31, 2023 14:27:36 GMT
This neglected film is from 1952.
Immediately afraid
Joan Crawford was one of the screen’s most versatile, durable stars. Maybe her success can be attributed to her real-life ambition, but I think it’s an indication of her talent. She specialized in risky parts that other actresses were afraid to take. She didn’t mind alienating the audience by playing against type and shattering everyone’s expectations of her. She was bold.
The performance she gives in SUDDEN FEAR is without question one of her boldest. There’s a sequence where she realizes her husband is a murderer and plans to make her his next victim. It’s a master class in on-screen emotion, and she uses all the tricks she learned during the early part of her career in silent films.
The casting of Jack Palance, who is not quite a conventional romantic lead, works to the film’s advantage. Originally Crawford wanted her old MGM pal Clark Gable for the lead, but he was deemed too old and she was talked out of that choice. She was persuaded to go with Palance, which she agreed to do after she screened his performance in PANIC IN THE STREETS. I think having the husband be a younger scheming man makes the story stronger.
A scene where Crawford goes to Palance’s place and tells him she needs him (right before they are married)– uses the same stairwell we’ve seen in CITIZEN KANE when Kane confronts Boss Jim Gettys about exposing his affair with Susan Alexander. SUDDEN FEAR was an independent production, distributed by RKO, and the producers used RKO’s facilities to film the interior scenes.
While Crawford had final casting approval on the picture, she was somewhat stuck with Gloria Grahame, who at that time worked under contract at RKO. She found Grahame to be rather unprofessional, so she had her banned from the set when they were shooting scenes in which Grahame was not appearing.
Grahame was having an off-camera affair with Palance, meaning Palance and Crawford did not sleep together (Crawford occasionally slept with her leading men). And perhaps that sort of tension– with him actually involved with Grahame, whom Crawford disliked– gives the film an extra dimension, especially in those later scenes where Crawford is supposed to be hurt and jealous, and she really has a reason to dislike Grahame on screen.
In my opinion, the best scene in the movie is the lengthy scene at the 43-minute mark where Crawford plays the recording and hears the two lovers conspiring against her. To me, this is the actress’s finest cinematic moment. Even more powerful than her work in MILDRED PIERCE or POSSESSION (1947) for which she was also nominated. She has no dialogue in this long extended scene, it’s just her listening and reacting.
It’s brilliantly performed and could only have been done by an actress who started her motion picture career in silent films. By this point, 1952, we get an accomplished actress, with years of experience under her belt. She gives a skilled performance all the way through– most especially in this sequence, where the plot takes a 180-degree turn and her character’s life is suddenly turned upside down.
We then see her put a plot in motion to outfox Palance and Grahame. Even if she has no guarantee that Palance will find a note she plants inside his pocket.
When she does the sprained ankle routine, and the others leave the house and she is all alone with Palance in the bedroom, he could just as easily kill her and then stage a burglary. He’s running out of time and needs to get rid of her, so she is taking a huge risk that he won’t just dispose of her right then and there. Of course, if he did that, we wouldn’t get the great climactic finale with her back at Grahame’s place.
The ending of the film is set up very smartly. We see Crawford making a timetable, detailing how she intends to get revenge on her husband and his mistress. She makes rather elaborate plans for Palance to die, and for Grahame to take the fall for his murder.
There is a very good shot of her after she makes the timetable…where she has a vision of how her plan will be carried out with Grahame being convicted. We see Crawford’s face, and we hear the pendulum of the clock swinging…then the camera moves in for an extreme close-up of her eyes. She blinks once then holds a very long, vengeful stare.
There is pure horror in that fixed expression– the horror of what’s being done to her, and the horror she intends to inflict on the others. It’s a truly intense performance…and the way she conveys fear, which is what this movie is about, puts her on a level that actresses seldom reach in the movies.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 6, 2023 14:09:47 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
Lili Damita as Goldie
Not long ago I watched a Paramount precode starring Lili Damita, and I was impressed with her performance. I realized that I didn’t know much about her, except for her being Errol Flynn’s first wife. As I read up on her background, I was intrigued and eager to find more of her film work…especially since not much of it ever airs on Turner Movie Classics.
One film that has aired a few times on TCM is a precode made by RKO that was released in early 1933. It was obviously made quickly and cheaply but it still contains a great central performance from this dynamic and talented actress. She is cast as a French girl who was adopted and brought over by a stern aunt (Jane Keckley) and uncle (Reginald Barlow). These relatives don’t really like young Goldie, viewing her as rebellious and irresponsible.
In fact during the first few scenes of the movie, the entire family gathers round Goldie and chastises her for not coming home last night. One member of the family calls her a hussy. The aunt and uncle feel Goldie should marry a respectable guy in town (Charles Morton) who has taken a shine to her. Goldie does love the lug, but also wants to play around and experience more of life while she can.
Soon Goldie’s impetuousness gets the better of her and she takes to the open road to explore life beyond their small-minded community. She has it in her head that she might be able to become a big movie star. She plans to travel cross country to Hollywood. Along the way, she will have many riotous adventures. Some that border on illegal.
Of course Morton chases after her. They meet up again when she has been pulled over by a motorcycle cop (Nat Pendleton). Never mind that Goldie was speeding, that’s the least of her worries. She has “borrowed” the car from an amorous driver she met earlier. Pendleton has no choice but to arrest the sexy motorist and haul her off to jail. Morton intends to speak to the mayor, the judge and anyone else who will listen– to get the charges dropped.
Goldie beats the charges. But while she appreciates the help, she is still not ready to go back and continues on her way to California. Next, she meets a scam artist (Sam Hardy) and teams up with him as he journeys west. He is running a phony beauty contest, and part of the racket involves Goldie cozying up to the bigwigs that will swing the contest in her favor. Every time she “wins” in one of these podunk towns, she takes the prize of going to Hollywood, instead of the money which Hardy pockets.
That is, until Goldie gets wise and decides to start pocketing some of the dough herself. The middle portion of the film is a lot of fun to watch. Seeing Goldie work her charms on corrupt officials provides us with some memorable scenes, particularly when the men realize they’ve been duped and Goldie’s skipped town with Hardy and the money. Miss Damita has a field day with this.
The last part of the story involves Goldie’s arrival in Tinseltown. She makes some important friends and works her wiles on a few producers and studio bosses, in the hopes of snagging a movie contract. Meanwhile, Morton’s character had gone ahead and is already there. He is still determined to get her to go back home with him and settle down.
I won’t spoil the ending here, but Goldie does receive a contract to appear in motion pictures. So she will have to make a choice. But will it be the right choice?
GOLDIE GETS ALONG is episodic in nature, and the episodes string together nicely. This is a character-driven road comedy. It is based on a 1931 book by Hawthorne Hurst, in which the title character’s name has undergone a slight name change.
Since I like the premise of a free spirit who wants to see what the world has to offer, I was curious as to what the author may also have written. It turns out this was one of only a small handful books that Hurst wrote…one was about a flapper, and another was a satire about Christopher Columbus that was turned into a Broadway play. Apparently, Hurst died at the age of 24. I guess that is why the author is not really known today.
But there is no reason for Goldie or Lili Damita to remain unknown. Watch the movie for yourself, and I’ll bet you’ll agree with me that this is great entertainment.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 6, 2023 14:47:04 GMT
Goldie Gets Along from 1933 with Lila Damita and Charles Morton
Goldie Gets Along is a story Hollywood knows well: a young, pretty, unhappy and starstruck girl runs away to Tinseltown with dreams of becoming a famous actress. Yet the movie's acting, directing and narrative are so bumpy that the elements never fully gel, resulting in an overall awkward picture, albeit with some engaging parts.
Lili Damita, better known as Errol Flynn's first wife, stars as the titular Goldie. We quickly learn that she was born and raised in France, but when her American mother, who was married to a French actor, died, the mother's family took the early teen Damita into their New Jersey home.
Five years later, Damita is now a wild teenager who likes movies, partying, boys and staying out late, which makes her a rebel in her strictly religious home. Damita's boyfriend, played by Charles Morton, is a local rich boy who wants to marry Damita and settle into suburban domesticity.
Damita is having none of it and hightails it out of the town with no money or plans other than to "get to Hollywood." With that quick early setup, the next part of Goldie Gets Along is a quirky road-trip movie as we see Damita hitchhike part of the way, steal a car at one point and, then, get involved in a beauty-pageant scheme that takes over a chunk of the movie.
In that scheme, she and a smarmy promoter go into small towns and convince the mayor to put up money for a local beauty pageant arguing it will attract business. Goldie then flirts with the judges, hinting she'll sleep with them if they vote for her. She wins and then she and the promoter skedaddle off to the next town to do it again.
All along, Damita is being pursued by the old boyfriend, Morton, who won't take no for an answer. Damita finally arrives in Hollywood where, what had been a campy road-trip movie, now becomes a "young girl struggles to make it in a tough picture town" movie.
It's a cynical look at early Hollywood with producers and studio executives coming off as insecure popinjays, while the casting departments are simply overwhelmed with wannabe actresses. Damita is down and out until a little chicanery on her part and a Hollywood connection from her still-following-after-her boyfriend combine to give her a break.
The climax is a clumsy attempt to tie all the threads together, especially, and most surprisingly, when this pre-code movie slaps on a very Motion Picture Production Code style ending. It undermines whatever small character and story consistency had been built up to this point.
It's hard to know what the production team of Goldie Gets Along was trying to do. It seems, in part, to be an attempt to build Damita up as the next Greta Garbo. It is Damita's energy and screen presence that drives (and saves) this sometimes wobbly effort - she has whatever it is that makes an actress a star.
As to being the next "I vant to be alone" megastar, she is pretty and has a heavy and husky foreign accent, but her obvious attempts, here and there, to mimic Garbo were her one false note.
Goldie Gets Along has the classic pieces of many movies: a Hollywood infatuated teenager (a real 1920s and 1930s cultural thing), a crazy road trip, a beauty-pageant scam, a contemptuous look at Tinseltown and a love-sick-boy-chasing-an-indifferent-to-him-girl tale. Yet it never commits to one style or message.
Equally damaging, it never decides on the real character of Damita as Goldie: is she a spoiled young dreamer, a focused-and-driven independent woman or a scammer and tease? She's definitely a pre-code woman, at least up until the end, but what kind?
With a choppy story, the movie needed to create a main character the viewer is vested in, but right through to its contradictory ending, we never really know what Damita as Goldie is about.
Goldie Gets Along offers a modern audience some fun pre-code romping and early Hollywood tidbits, but unfortunately, overall, it is an inconsistent and unfocused effort.
N.B. A couple of those Hollywood tidbits are getting to see - early in their careers - regular 1930s character actor Nat Pendleton as a motorcycle cop and Walter Brennan, one of Hollywood's legendary character actors, as a frustrated waiter. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 12, 2023 8:30:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
Psychological issues
This RKO precode was made when John Barrymore was still a well-known and respected actor. He hadn’t been totally defeated by alcohol at this point, so his performances are a bit more sober, you might say. Playing Barrymore’s daughter in the film is young Katharine Hepburn, making her motion picture debut.
Years later, in a sit-down chat with Dick Cavett, Miss Hepburn talked about how starstruck she was when she was first introduced to Mr. Barrymore. According to what she told Cavett, she had not met Barrymore until after she was hired and had taken a train west from New York to Los Angeles.
She said that while en route to L.A., she had gone out on the deck of the observation car and something sharp flew into her eye…a tiny sliver of metal from the train, or some such thing. It was successfully removed. But when she arrived at the studio the next morning, her eye was still red and swollen. Barrymore mistook this for drinking and instantly bonded with Hepburn, going so far as to recommend a certain kind of eye drop to clear up the redness!
The somewhat tragic story that plays out on screen, about an impressionable girl and her former mental patient father, requires that the actors be perfectly in sync. And fortunately for us, Barrymore and Hepburn are indeed perfectly synchronized, though their combined acting styles are somewhat theatrical. I must say that for Barrymore, he gives a rather subdued and tender portrayal of a vulnerable man.
A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT is based on a British play which had already been filmed in 1922 in England. Producer David Selznick secured the rights for the American version at RKO, and he hired George Cukor to direct. Cukor’s the one who discovered Hepburn by noting something unique in her screen test, though Selznick often took the credit for discovering her. Cukor and Hepburn formed a close friendship during the making of this film, and they would work together on many more productions, up through the late 1970s.
The main action is set outside London, in the countryside somewhere. But it feels very much like an Americanized treatment of the story. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just had it take place in New England. Given Hepburn’s east coast accent, that would have made a bit more sense. But I digress.
Cast as Hepburn’s mother is Billie Burke. This was Miss Burke’s first significant movie role in the sound era. She had made silent films in the ’10s and early 20s, but then focused on her marriage to Florenz Ziegfeld. (Ziegfeld died during the production of A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT.)
As the heroine’s mother, this is a “straight dramatic” part for her…so her usual scatterbrained comedy routines are absent from this picture. Burke was 47 when she made A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT and is technically old enough to play Hepburn’s mother (Hepburn was 24 at the time of filming). But Burke looks younger than her actual age.
Meanwhile Elizabeth Patterson plays the spinster aunt. She sort of disappears mid-way into the story but has considerable influence over family matters in the early part of our drama. There’s an amusing scene where aunty gives niece a proper Christian present for Christmas that is unwanted.
Taking the role of Hepburn’s dashing love interest is precode star David Manners whom RKO borrowed from Universal. Typically Mr. Manners appeared in horror films, so this was a change of pace for him. He and Hepburn would work together again in the period drama A WOMAN REBELS (1936). In this film, we have some nice romantic scenes between them. At one point there is a medium-length shot of Manners outside that has to be one of the most handsome images of a young leading man ever captured on film.
Part of the main conflict in the story is whether Hepburn’s character will ditch Manners to focus on her newfound relationship with her father, now that he’s come home from an institution. She doesn’t seem to be able to balance both men in her life. She feels she has to choose one over the other. So in order to let Manners down ‘gently,’ she mocks what he’s offering as not the kind of future she wants.
This is because she feels she has to look after Barrymore, and thinks she will inherit mental illness, which would not make her a suitable wife. Dialogue suggests how psychological issues run in families.
Interestingly, Burke’s character (the mother) is allowed to shirk her responsibilities while Hepburn (the daughter) steps in to look after Barrymore. The central relationship between father, mother and daughter takes place inside what feels like a real home.
The furnishings, clothing and tracking shots are devised by Selznick and Cukor to show off an elaborate and costly set. Plus there are some ornate knick knacks on the shelves, with photos turned not towards the camera, but towards the characters who would be looking at them.
By the time we reach the final scene, Hepburn has rejected Manners and made her choice to remain at Barrymore’s side. Even if she does not turn out to be insane later, she knows that she has to shield herself from people who have prejudices about mental illness. The movie has a “happy ending” but it is not a traditional happy ending, which I think makes it stand out from other Hollywood offerings.
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Post by Fading Fast on Aug 12, 2023 11:38:36 GMT
Bill of Divorcement from 1932 with John Barrymore, Billie Burke, Katherine Hepburn, David Manners and Henry Stephenson
"So, in our family, there's insanity."
- Katherine Hepburn's character to her aunt after discovering the family secret (Not a spoiler)
Bill of Divorcement is dated in its storytelling and acting style, as well as, in its views on mental illness, but if you can see past that, you'll enjoy a short and engaging early "talkie" that includes the screen debut of Katherine Hepburn.
Director George Cukor, who was Hepburn's advocate and film-making partner for years, fought to have Hepburn star in this one, thus launching one of Hollywood's most-notable careers.
The wealthy Fairchild family has a secret worse than the absent father, played by John Barrymore, who came back from WWI so shell shocked that he's spent the last fifteen years in an asylum.
Barrymore's wife, played with impressive restraint and nuance by Billie Burke, is about to remarry having obtained a divorce from her institutionalized husband. At the same time, Barrymore's daughter, played by Hepburn, has just become engaged to a young man played by one of the many generically handsome men that populated the screen in the early 1930s, David Manners.
Hepburn and Burke speak fondly of their missing father and former husband, respectively, but after so many years, he's like a ghost that the family, other than the crabby aunt, Barrymore's sister, wants to treat as if he's passed away. With both on the brink of marriage, Hepburn and Burke are ready to move on to their new lives, but it's not to be.
Enter Barrymore, who has come home from the asylum, proclaiming he is "better." Barrymore, playing a man just out of a mental institution and home for the first time in fifteen years, blasts through his dialogue while chewing up the scenery, as any stage actor who has yet to adjust to movie acting would. Yet, there is so much talent and presence in him that it kinda works, especially since he's playing an "off kilter" character anyway.
Barrymore is not alone, as Hepburn's performance, too, is pretty stagey and strident, as is the entire dialogue-heavy and action-light picture. Yet, today, there's a charm to it as you are seeing the transition from stage and silent to talking-picture acting taking place in real time and in the hands of incredibly talented professionals.
The movie, from here, is all guilt trip, sacrifice and a 1930's view of mental illness. Barrymore wants his life and wife back, but Burke wants to marry another man. Yet she knows, fair or not, she'd be abandoning her former husband when he desperately needs somebody to care for him.
Hepburn, putting a few pieces together with the help of the family doctor, played by Henry Stephenson (one of the 1930s go-to actor when a role called for a sincere and wise older father, doctor, lawyer, etc.) realizes that "insanity runs in her blood and might come out in her children."
Will Burke break her engagement to care for her former husband? Will Hepburn still marry and have children despite knowing "the risks?" Will Barrymore crack if his family moves on from him?
Today, we wince at that era's view of mental illness, but our "modern" view will probably be winced at by future generations. And that era's respect for self sacrifice is foreign to our "forgive and do your own thing" views today, but it was real back then, which left Burke and Hepburn facing difficult decisions.
It's impressive how much story and conflict Hollywood could squeeze into just over an hour of screen time in the early 1930s. Bill of Divorcement is clunky and stagey with uneven acting, but there is so much talent in the cast that it's still an engaging sixty-nine minutes of movie watching.
Plus, for film buffs, you not only see Hollywood trying to figure out the talkie, but one screen legend, John Barrymore, near the peak of his career and another, Katherine Hepburn, on the brink of what would become a legendary one. |
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Post by topbilled on Aug 20, 2023 14:19:02 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
The one where a group of men try to steal some money
With this effort RKO and director Richard Fleischer have turned out a very impressive B film. As far as heist movies go, it’s one of the best. Attention to detail as well as its nearly continuous action make it what I call a B+ or A- picture. Fleischer would go on to direct another classic crime flick at the studio, 1952’s NARROW MARGIN. But ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, despite the bland title, is much more compact and accomplishes its dramatic goals in a tidy 67 minutes.
Early on we learn that bad guy William Talman is plotting to intercept an armored car at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. He recruits an old pal (Douglas Fowley) whose wife Talman is shtupping on the side. The wife played by sultry Adele Jergens who looks every bit like Virginia Mayo in WHITE HEAT.
While Miss Jergens shimmies onstage as the main attraction in a burlesque show, the men finalize their plans. Two other men (Steve Brodie and Gene Evans) will join them.
On the day of the heist something goes wrong, as it always does in these stories. Fowley is shot by a cop as they attempt to get away. Back at the stadium, another cop has taken a bullet since Talman clipped him before speeding off. The cop dies a short time later at the hospital, and his partner (Charles McGraw) tells the guy’s widow he will nail the culprits if it’s the last thing he does.
Helping him will be a rookie (Don McGuire) now assigned to the case. The middle section of the film has McGraw and McGuire close in on the men. While waiting at a temporary hideout, Fowley is in desperate need of a doctor but dies before he can receive medical aid.
Talman, Brodie and Evans then try to evade justice by stealing a boat docked to a pier, but McGraw and McGuire show up and bullets are once again exchanged. This time Evans is dead; Brodie goes missing, and Talman flees with all the money.
There’s an intriguing sequence where Brodie’s apprehended, and McGuire decides to go undercover while McGraw does surveillance. While he’s undercover, McGuire introduces himself to Jergens and gets close to her.
It sets the stage for another shooting, this time at a lumber yard. Meanwhile Talman and Jergens have raced off to the airport to board a private jet. They are hoping to leave the country with all the dough. The final standoff, which occurs when McGraw and his officers surround Talman along the airstrip, is exciting stuff to watch. Especially when Talman tries to escape and runs into a landing plane.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 23, 2023 13:24:46 GMT
This neglected film is from 1937.
There goes his sanity
The situations are highly exaggerated in this tale of romance. The bride (Ann Sothern) comes from a madcap family which doesn’t help matters. Her relatives have been living high off the hog during the Depression and are down to their last maxed out charge account.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Sothern is the groom’s second choice. Her older sister (Louise Henry) is the one that Dickie boy (Burgess Meredith) really wanted to marry. But the sister went and got engaged to someone else. Since Sothern has always been smitten with Meredith, who the heck knows why, she is willing to be his Plan B.
However, the family is about to lose everything to its creditors. Mama played by Mary Boland, who else, wants this to be a wedding to remember and a wedding that will assure creditors they have come back into money since Meredith just struck gold in Alaska.
Soon everyone assembles to rehearse for the wedding at the manse. Uproarious scenes feature a flower girl from hell who throws roses as if they are stones. The groom decides to sneak out of the rehearsal with his buddy, through a window no less.
This leads to the most wild and exaggerated part of the movie. Meredith wants to break things off with Sothern and so he feigns a case of amnesia to do it. Probably because that’s the most logical way to jilt a girl.
Unfortunately, developing a case of memory loss causes the guy to be sent to a mental institution. While trying to sort out his problems, he participates in a strange game of football on the front lawn (see it to believe it)…it’s played as a combination of golf and boxing.
Farce is an understatement here. During these comic misadventures Burgess realizes he actually does love Sothern. Yes, really.
Is this a great movie? I don’t know. But it’s a fun one and it always makes me laugh. If you like screwy comedy and appreciate amusing performances, then you will like this movie too.
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Post by topbilled on Aug 30, 2023 10:33:07 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Compromising situations
Randolph Scott’s success in Hollywood was built on long-term relationships he had developed with studio execs, producers, directors and costars. He liked working for/with the same people, if these were folks he could trust. When he made TRAIL STREET, he was still making the occasional film in other genres, but from 1948 on, he concentrated specifically in western output. It was a style of storytelling that suited him well and allowed him to continue working with people like producer Nat Holt and director Ray Enright, who both oversee this RKO picture.
In this case Mr. Scott is playing a more historical character– Bat Masterson– even if some of the history lesson is consolidated to fit into an 84 minute running time. The setting is a Kansas town called Liberal, which in the opinion of some old biddy (Virginia Sale) is a little too liberal when it comes to letting drovers take over and roughhouse. One gets the impression that even Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates from Rawhide wouldn’t have been able to charm her.
The old gal and her cohort of respectable townsfolk want law and order restored. So a genial old coot (Gabby Hayes) sends for his pal Bat, which sets the stage/coach for Scott’s arrival. But before Scott hits Liberal, we are introduced to a good guy land agent (Robert Ryan), a powerful land baron (Steve Brodie, who is slightly miscast, since he lacks the gravitas for the role), and two women. One is pretty Madge Meredith whose affections are torn between Ryan and Brodie; and the other is a saloon gal (Anne Jeffreys) who is crushing on Brodie, lord knows why, and ends up shot for her trouble.
Most of the main cast members– Scott, Ryan, Brodie, Hayes and Jeffreys– will reunite for another RKO western a year later, also directed by Ray Enright, called RETURN OF THE BAD MEN.
As I said, Randolph Scott liked to team up again with people that he enjoyed working alongside. In fact, Hayes would costar with him the most during this period, moving with the lead actor over to Paramount to make ALBUQUERQUE, which was made in color.
Because this is an RKO “A” film, not a B western (those smaller budgeted lightweight dramas were typically assigned to the studio’s B cowboy star Tim Holt) we get some intricate camera set-ups with action set in a variety of high-end sets. Another reviewer has commented elsewhere on Enright’s use of fluid staging, where the main characters buoyantly flow in and out of the composed shots. This suggests that Enright was more interested in using the camera to create unique mise-en-scene that would take into account the more theatrical idea of a proscenium arch.
As for the story’s overall theme, we are meant to side with the farmers and the townsfolk, not the transient drovers who travel through like dirty tumbleweeds. This may be perhaps TRAIL STREET’s weakest aspect, since there doesn’t seem to be any real compromise between the competing groups. Especially when a land war breaks out, which of course it does in this picture or else we wouldn’t have a huge climactic ending, I would think that some people in this town would understand the value of farmers and drovers working in unison for the good of the local economy.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 11, 2023 14:03:45 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Con artists running scams
I find the post-1949 RKO films interesting, because they were produced after Howard Hughes took over RKO and began to run the studio into the ground. In this case we have one of his starlets, Joan Dixon, as the leading lady. Miss Dixon was usually assigned to “B” westerns with Tim Holt, but she is more than capable in this picture. She plays an actress who is dating a cop (Robert Sterling). Sterling is in charge of investigations concerning the bunco squad of a local police department.
Bunco squad investigations typically involve surveillance on con artists running scams, and some of these crooks commit various forms of fraud. The villain in the movie is the always-suave Ricardo Cortez, who has set up a group of occultists that are trying to bilk a kind elderly woman (Elisabeth Risdon) out of millions. Part of the scheme has them helping the old gal contact the spirit of her dead son who was killed in the war. Of course his “spirit” will direct her to change her will and leave her fortune to the cult.
There are some unique twists and turns in the story. Some of it is a bit far-fetched, but nonetheless I would say this is an entertaining way to spend an hour give or take a few minutes. Robert Sterling is above average as the detective, though one can’t help but think Jack Webb would have been ideal here.
As for Cortez, he only appeared in one more movie after this. And he only did two roles on television, so his career was certainly winding down. But this is a meaty part for him, and he makes the most of it.
While Dixon is beautiful, she doesn’t have a lot of screen time until two-thirds of the way into the drama when she agrees to use her acting skills to go undercover and help expose Cortez and his gang. The supporting player who comes across best is Risdon as the misguided but still respectable matriarch. She is playing the type of role that would have been cast with Ethel Barrymore if the picture had a bigger budget.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 14, 2023 15:13:01 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Noble sacrifice
In some regards this movie reminds me of NURSE EDITH CAVELL (1939) where we have a brave single woman doing her part to advance the side of the allies during a world war. Like Nurse Cavell, FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM’s Tonie Carter is engaged in an undercover mission to thwart the enemy. In this instance she is a flyer recruited to assist with U.S. Navy espionage against the Japanese before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Tonie Carter is more than a bit similar to Amelia Earhart, and the film is considered a not so veiled account of Earhart’s career as a world-renowned pilot. It goes into speculative territory in the last part, advancing a theory that Earhart ahem Tonie Carter went down in the Pacific because the Japanese planned to capture her. Whether this is a fully fictional account contrived by a Hollywood scenarist, I cannot say…but it does seem plausible and I would suspect there is some truth in it.
In the initial sequences of the film we watch Tonie, played by Rosalind Russell, proving herself as an ace aviatrix. Her destiny is to cross paths with two influential men who each become smitten with her and want to marry her.
One is her business partner (Herbert Marshall) and the other one is a cocky aeronaut (Fred MacMurray) that she feels the need to compete with at nearly every turn. Just when you think a real romance will occur, she takes off on another whirlwind flight. She breaks their hearts while breaking records, and her high-spirited adventures bring admiration from all sorts of people. One fan is a comical Italian restaurant owner (Eduardo Ciannelli) that allows her to sit in a men-only backroom in his establishment.
I found the aerial sequences, some of them shot with miniatures, to be quite convincing. But what put it across for me was the sincerity and focus that Miss Russell exhibits throughout the picture. She also seems more soft-spoken here and is minus her customary wisecracks, which helps to convey the gravity of the story.
I do think the filmmakers glossed over some things— like how does she stay awake for long periods in the air by herself? And how does she not have to go to the bathroom on a solo 12 hour flight?
Back on the ground she returns to a life of social get-togethers and those two men who are still clamoring for her attention. Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of the film is how perfect Miss Russell’s make-up remains throughout the proceedings; even the greasepaint dabbed on to her face seems perfectly applied.
It is like Russell is channeling Bette Davis in some scenes, due to her resolve to be her own woman no matter what the cost may be personally. This is a patriotic movie but it is also a movie made for women audience goers starring an actress who specialized in strong career-minded female characters.
As such it is one of her best performances. Russell does particularly well in those last shots of Tonie Carter on her suicide mission into the Pacific Ocean. She does not panic as she tries to evade the enemy and help the U.S. military towards a later victory, that was not yet assured in 1943 when FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM was released. She makes a supreme noble sacrifice.
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Post by sagebrush on Sept 14, 2023 23:01:06 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Noble sacrifice
...I do think the filmmakers glossed over some things— like how does stay awake for long periods in the air by herself? And how does she not have to go to the bathroom on a solo 12 hour flight?
This is funny; I'm ALWAYS asking the same questions during these types of films!
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Post by topbilled on Sept 19, 2023 15:06:19 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Green Gables follow-up
Dawn O’Day became a popular young actress in 1934 when she appeared in RKO’s adaptation of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. It has a big hit with audiences. As part of the studio’s marketing scheme, Miss O’Day took the name of the character she played in the film– Anne Shirley– as her new stage name, under which she would be billed for the rest of her career.
A short time later the studio was tasked with finding another project that could duplicate this success. They chose to adapt an old French novel from the 1880s called ‘Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard,’ which would feature the actress in another lead role. Again, she would be paired with her costars from the previous picture, O.P. Heggie and Helen Westley. They are a bit more dressed up in CHASING YESTERDAY.
This time, instead of farmers, Heggie is a linguist who collects rare books and Westley is his housekeeper. When Heggie’s character tries to hunt down a rare manuscript, he goes to a town where he is reminded of an old love affair. He learns that his deceased former girlfriend had a daughter (Shirley) and she is under the care of a stern guardian and headmistress.
The film deviates from the source material, because in the original novel, the girl is the granddaughter of his old flame which I think makes more sense. Especially since Mr. Heggie does seem old enough to be Miss Shirley’s grandfather. Also, the film suggests that Heggie becomes sort of “smitten” with the young girl because of her charms, which adds a peculiar dimension to the proceedings since she may well be his illegitimate daughter. Most of these implications are brushed aside, since the film was made after the production code had taken affect.
An interesting subplot occurs between Heggie and the headmistress who runs the girls’ school that Shirley attends. The headmistress is played by Elizabeth Patterson and she treats the young women under her supervision rather cruelly. In scenes that could have been written by Charles Dickens, the plot has Shirley longing to escape this bleak situation. When Heggie comes to visit her, she gets a brainstorm and suggests that the gentleman has feelings for Patterson, which is definitely not true.
Miss Patterson is a frustrated spinster longing for love, and she falls for this trick. She uses the girl as an excuse to visit Heggie’s home, and things get considerably more entertaining. However, the ruse backfires and it leads to harsher punishments for the girl…which only makes Heggie more determined to rescue and adopt her. There is an additional romantic subplot when a student of Heggie’s, played by Junior Durkin in his last screen role, also falls for Miss Shirley’s charms.
Of course we know a film like this is going to have a happy ending, but the fun is in how the various plot threads are gradually unspooled. The performances here from the three leads are just as good as they were in the Green Gables film. Though I think the best work is rendered by Elizabeth Patterson who is playing against type. Contemporary critics singled her out for praise. Watch her witch-like character fooled by someone who is obviously smarter than her!
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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 19, 2023 15:21:51 GMT
Chasing Yesterday from 1935 with O.P. Heggie, Anne Shirley and Elizabeth Patterson
Chasing Yesterday is somewhere between an adult fable and a childhood fairytale that only works if you're in the mood for a well-acted, slow, sweet movie that never really tries to challenge you.
A late-middle-aged professor, played by O.P. Heggie, accidentally, meets a young girl, played by Anne Shirley, who reminds him of the only woman he ever loved. When Heggie was a young man, he had a brief affair with a girl whose father did not approve of him and ended their relationship.
Heggie, a bachelor, lives with his books and his loyal but cranky housekeeper. When he discovers that Shirley is the orphaned daughter of his former lover and that her guardian, a greedy lawyer, has placed her in a strict and abusive girl school, he befriends Shirley.
Shirley is the spark in this movie as she's cute as heck and plays the Cinderella-like role with a fresh sweetness laced with just enough not-mean-spirited mischievousness to keep the movie from becoming cloying.
When Heggie invites Shirley to visit, Shirley convinces the school's cruel headmistress, played by Elizabeth Patterson, that Heggie is interested in her, the headmistress, romantically. Patterson respects Heggie because he's a professor at "The Institute."
Sure it's a lie, but Shirley's is all but a prisoner in her bleak and abusive school, so you forgive her this fib as visiting Heggie - who treats her nicely, shows her Paris and even invites a nice young man along to be company for her - is the only fun she's ever had in life.
With that set up, the rest of the movie is watching Shirley enjoy her time with Heggie, while Patterson, who until now was firmly entrenched in spinsterhood, convinces herself that Heggie is going to ask her to marry him. The charm here requires you to be in the mood for a slow-moving movie of niceness, which will only work if you enjoy Shirley's brand of adventurous innocence.
The climax comes when Patterson realizes she's been duped, so she takes it out on Shirley. This forces non-confrontational Heggie to match wits with Shirley's mean guardian in an attempt to free Shirley from the guardian's and Patterson's clutches.
As in many fables or fairy tales, kindness early is rewarded later as this is a world whose metaphysics places niceness above all else. Hence, we see a good deed that Heggie did at the beginning of the movie come back to help him as a deus ex machina.
Chasing Yesterday is an okay movie because it doesn't try to be more than it is: a sweet story about a lonely man who wants to help the daughter of his long-lost love. Heggie is engaging as the lonely man, but it's Anne Shirley's verve and cuteness that, just barely, carries this one-trick story over the finish line.
N.B. For fans of Classic Hollywood, look for John Qualen in a small but impactful role as a woebegone bookseller. You'll recognize him as Berger from Casablanca where he played the resistance fighter who approaches Paul Henreid in Rick's Cafe. |
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