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Post by topbilled on Jan 18, 2023 15:48:41 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
Wendell Corey is on the loose
One can see the influence of television on a production such as this. The sets are a bit chintzy, the lighting is not very evocative for something meant to convey noir, and the script feels like it might have been intended for a Hitchcock anthology hour. Of course, it’s all been padded to reach the required number of minutes for one half of a theatrical double bill.
These things aside, it is not a bad film overall. Its weak spots are more than balanced out by the smart acting of the leads.
Joseph Cotten plays an aging policeman whose local patrol includes a suburban community where things remain fairly uneventful. That is until Wendell Corey robs a bank one day, and this leads to Cotten accidentally killing Corey’s wife. Corey is convicted and sentenced, but he soon breaks out and hurries back with a score to settle.
It’s always interesting to see just how bland Mr. Corey’s roles can be. Usually producer Hal Wallis cast him opposite powerhouse actresses like Barbara Stanwyck and Lizabeth Scott. Or he was loaned out to studios where he was teamed with someone like Joan Crawford. In other words, they were the ones with the showy parts to play, and he was there to absorb the shocks of their electrifying performances.
So it’s a pleasant surprise that Wendell Corey gets the showier role here as a killer who’s on the loose. He pulls out all the stops playing an unhinged lunatic hellbent on vengeance against Cotten. Of course, Cotten and his men await Corey’s return, and we know there will be a big climactic standoff.
In the meanwhile, Cotten sends his pretty wife (Rhonda Fleming) away for safe keeping. But Fleming has her own ideas and decides to rejoin her husband, which may put her in harm’s way when the cops take Corey down. Interestingly Corey shows up outside their home the same time Fleming does, and he’s wearing a woman’s plaid raincoat as a disguise, just shy of dressing in drag.
The film’s last sequence is rather prolonged. How many steps must he take to reach the front lawn, it’s an awfully long street! Then up to the front door. It does feel like a TV drama, with suspense by the numbers. But Corey finally reaches the lawn and gets the bejeezus blown out of him.
Watching a perverse creature bite the dust is strangely entertaining. Though I wonder how this suburban revenge tale would have been handled by Douglas Sirk or even by Hitchcock.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 18, 2023 16:13:46 GMT
⇧ Agreed, it feels like a cross between a movie and TV crime-drama show and, you're also right, it's odd but enjoyable to see Corey get such a meaty role.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 23, 2023 15:33:11 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Bennett & Raft reunite for gangster drama
When Joan Bennett was still a blonde, she costarred with George Raft in a 1935 picture for Columbia called SHE COULDN’T TAKE IT. It was a modest hit, and they enjoyed working together. Five years later, they jumped at the chance to do another film, this time for Bennett’s husband, producer Walter Wanger.
In Wanger’s THE HOUSE ACROSS THE BAY, Raft is the owner of a popular casino. One night Joan Bennett turns up and starts to make trouble in his joint. Soon she makes a play for him, and he makes a play for her. The dialogue crackles, and in no time at all, it turns into “I do.” But there are complications.
We learn Raft has been muscling out competitors, and now his racket is under scrutiny by the feds. It doesn’t take long for the G-men to close in. In a swift turn of events, Raft is arrested, found guilty of tax evasion and given ten years in the slammer. This is just the end of the first part, and we haven’t gotten to the house in the title, or the bay.
The bay is in San Francisco, and Bennett goes there to live while Raft serves out his sentence at Alcatraz. It’s not clear if the house is hers on one side of the troubled waters that separate them, or the big house on the rock where he’s incarcerated. While living apart, she makes two friends– one is a tough cookie played by Gladys George, and the other a well-meaning man (Walter Pidgeon) who is the antithesis of Raft’s hoodlum character.
A relationship, at first platonic, grows between Bennett and Pidgeon. The middle stretch of the film still retains the charm established in the first part. But we’re doing time like Raft waiting for the explosive finale. And what a finale it is.
Raft has begun to feel betrayed by his wife (in reality the traitor is a lawyer played by Lloyd Nolan). He busts out to try and reclaim everything he had before. Wanger and director Archie Mayo stage an exciting sequence where Raft dodges bullets, while swimming across the bay. He eventually makes it to the shore then goes to a club where his wife is working. This is the first time the three main characters come together.
It’s obvious that Raft is a doomed man, and he will not ever be able to have the kind of marriage he should have had all along. The cops show up outside; he flees and is shot and killed. The film’s dual structure (the two romances Bennett experiences) leave us with a woman broken in half. One half is a woman who lived, and the other half is a woman who still has yet to live.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 29, 2023 15:42:00 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Trek across hostile territory
Jon Hall had played a minor part in a Republic B western with John Wayne, but this was his first starring role in an A-budget western after achieving success in John Ford’s THE HURRICANE. He is well suited to tales that take place outdoors, and he would make many more pictures in this genre during the years that followed. Though he was not producer Edward Small’s first choice to play KIT CARSON, he seems ideally cast.
When we first meet the handsome scout, he is riding the range with his buddy (Ward Bond) and dealing with Shoshones. They are surprised to see the natives have guns. After the brief skirmish ends, they head to a nearby fort where they meet a well-known army captain (Dana Andrews) and a man (Clayton Moore) leading a wagon train to California.
The people from the train are following the captain and his men. They have heard about Hall’s exploits and want to hire him to lead them safely across the desert to the promised land.
In some ways this is similar to the set-up in Paramount’s CALIFORNIA (1947) in which Ray Milland was asked to lead a group of pioneers to the coast. A key difference, however, is that the lead female character (Lynn Bari) is not a saloon girl; instead, she is the well-mannered daughter of a Monterey landowner. She is on her way to her father’s hacienda, and her feminine charms indirectly cause Hall to accept the assignment from Moore even though he initially turned it down.
As they make their trek across hostile territory, Hall and Andrews butt heads more than once about strategies on dealing with the natives. A significant contrast here is that Andrews must answer to government officials back east, while Hall and Bond are free to make decisions without much deliberation. Hall’s quick thinking is what keeps the travelers from harm when danger occurs.
And there is plenty of danger, when a rifle-wielding Shoshone attacks. The Shoshone warrior is captured and he admits that the guns were a gift from Mexican General Castro (C. Henry Gordon). Castro is using the natives to prevent white homesteaders from settling in California, since he wants the region to remain under his control. There is a gruesome death scene where Andrews orders his soldiers to execute the Shoshone warrior. The scene is meant to make Hall’s title character more likable than Andrews’ character, especially in Miss Bari’s eyes.
The triangle that plays out between the three leads does not take a lot of screen time because the filmmakers are more interested in the action sequences. So after the warrior dies by firing squad, Andrews and his men quickly head off on another trail where they are ambushed by more natives.
Hall heroically saves them, of course, but not before Moore’s character is sacrificed. Some of these outdoor battle scenes are spectacularly staged. You can imagine how much food must have been catered on this set so the main performers and hundreds of extras had plenty of energy to keep going!
After the big battle scene in the middle of the movie, we flash ahead to the wagon train arriving in California. Soon there is a festive party at the home of Bari’s father. But Hall and Bond duck out, because Hall is restless and does not intend to settle down. They go north to check on some traps, but then come across a general (Lew Merrill) that is willing to betray Castro. He fills the men in on another raid that is about to happen.
This sets us up for another huge action sequence, one depicting the fight for California’s independence from Mexico and the establishment of California as its own republic. During the scenes that unfold in this sequence, Bond’s character dies by blowing himself up with dynamite to ward off the Mexicans…allowing Andrews’ men and Hall to claim victory. Again the battle scenes are effectively staged. Bond’s death scene is shocking and perhaps the most memorable scene in the whole film.
Afterward, the survivors celebrate California’s freedom from Mexican tyranny. It seems like we are headed for a happy ending, but there is still the unresolved aspect of the main triangle. Bari is unable to marry Andrews whom she does not love, and Andrews convinces Hall to pursue his feelings with Bari.
Once this is settled, Hall and Andrews are off on another military adventure. What else would you expect?
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Post by topbilled on Feb 4, 2023 16:31:09 GMT
This neglected film is from 1951.
What an independently produced B western should be
FORT DEFIANCE is everything an independently produced B western should be. Peter Graves is fantastic as Ned Tallon, a sightless man who senses the dangers that go on around him. Ned is waiting for his brother Johnny (Dane Clark) to return home from the war. But Johnny doesn’t show up until the 34 minute mark. So the entire first act of the story involves Ned, their uncle Charlie (George Cleveland) and a drifter named Ben Shelby (Ben Johnson) who shows up to kill Johnny.
We gradually find out why Ben wants to kill Johnny, while Ned learns about Johnny’s desertion from the army and his life of crime as a bank robber. This shatters Ned’s perfect image of his wayward brother. All these men have emotional baggage they are carrying with them. At the same time there’s a relocating of natives by the cavalry at nearby Fort Defiance.
The natives fight back, steal cattle from the Tallons and make things difficult for the men. Also making things difficult is a rancher who thinks Johnny is responsible for his brothers’ deaths in the army, which is also why Ben is here. The rancher won’t wait for Johnny to get back and decides to kill Ned instead (an eye for an eye, or in this case a brother for a brother). But Ben takes Ned away while Uncle Charlie tries to hold the other men off with his rifle. Needless to say Uncle Charlie does not last long and ends up with a Christian burial.
This is when Johnny finally shows up. He’s on a mission and quickly kills Charlie’s assassins, then goes off in search of Ben and his brother Ned. Once he catches up to them, Johnny and Ben have a series of standoffs. The natives are still on the warpath and attack a stagecoach coming in through the canyon with a woman who was run out of another town. Another character with emotional baggage.
About eighty percent of the story is filmed outdoors on location so it feels very realistic, despite the melodramatic contrivances. There are a lot of great action scenes in this movie. The dialogue is hard-hitting, yet the men remain vulnerable.
There’s a scene where Ned turns from his loyalty for Johnny to form an even stronger bond with Ben. Johnny and Ben frequently quarrel about who will look after Ned. It’s like they both are fighting for the right to be the better “brother” to Ned.
Finally they make it to Fort Defiance with the help of military troops. But the rancher who wants the Tallons dead is also there. He and his men surround Johnny, Ned, Ben and the girl. Johnny decides to be heroic and go out in a blaze of glory. He wants to make sure Ned has a more decent life than he did.
It felt like most of the action had to be recorded on the first take because of the budget, so the energy seems very spontaneous. Any mistakes the actors make become part of the mistakes the characters are making. Dane Clark is obviously going off script in a few places, ad-libbing some of the dialogue. The other guys keep up with him and keep pushing forward. The great thing about Dane Clark is you never know just how he’s going to act when he opens the door to confront his character’s past.
This film was made in the Cinecolor process. So the canyon rock looks extremely red, and the land has hues of orange and sandy brown. The coats the men wear are greenish blue and stand out against the rocks and land. The cheap color process actually gives the film an artistic feel. People tend to write off B westerns but this one defies the odds.
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 4, 2023 16:55:29 GMT
... and a drifter named Ben Shelby (Ben Johnson) who shows up to kill Johnny.
I know Ben Johnson has his devotees but I don't get the appeal. The stoic strong man, I suppose. He said himself he didn't like speaking lines, he just liked riding horses. Points for knowing his limitations.
He wasn't horrible. He was alright in Shane and The Last Picture Show, which Bogdanovich had to talk him into. Still if I were casting, I'd have asked, "Who else is out there? Anybody?" And if the answer was Tim Holt, I'd ask which will work the cheapest. |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 4, 2023 16:58:01 GMT
... and a drifter named Ben Shelby (Ben Johnson) who shows up to kill Johnny.
I know Ben Johnson has his devotees but I don't get the appeal. The stoic strong man, I suppose. He said himself he didn't like speaking lines, he just liked riding horses. Points for knowing his limitations.
He wasn't horrible. He was alright in Shane and The Last Picture Show, which Bogdanovich had to talk him into. Still if I were casting, I'd have asked, "Who else is out there? Anybody?" And if the answer was Tim Holt, I'd ask which will work the cheapest. |
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 4, 2023 17:07:13 GMT
... if I were casting, I'd have asked, "Who else is out there? Anybody?" And if the answer was Tim Holt, I'd ask which will work the cheapest. . |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Feb 4, 2023 18:05:51 GMT
... and a drifter named Ben Shelby (Ben Johnson) who shows up to kill Johnny.
I know Ben Johnson has his devotees but I don't get the appeal. The stoic strong man, I suppose. He said himself he didn't like speaking lines, he just liked riding horses. Points for knowing his limitations.
He wasn't horrible. He was alright in Shane and The Last Picture Show, which Bogdanovich had to talk him into. Still if I were casting, I'd have asked, "Who else is out there? Anybody?" And if the answer was Tim Holt, I'd ask which will work the cheapest.Dane Clark tended to over-do-it, so maybe that had something to do with the casting of Ben Johnson? |
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Post by Lucky Dan on Feb 4, 2023 18:58:43 GMT
I know Ben Johnson has his devotees but I don't get the appeal. The stoic strong man, I suppose.
He wasn't horrible. Dane Clark tended to over-do-it, so maybe that had something to do with the casting of Ben Johnson? |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 11, 2023 14:04:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Simple and complicated
Made in 1946 and released a year later, THE RED HOUSE is a United Artists picture starring Edward G. Robinson as a man plagued by demons. On a good day he is able to maintain his peace of mind and run a small farm where he lives with his sister (Judith Anderson) and their adopted daughter (Allene Roberts in her movie debut). But on a bad day, he begins to unravel because he’s concealing a horrible secret. And that secret must come out.
The script is based on a novel by George Chamberlain which was adapted by director Delmer Daves with help from Albert Maltz who would soon be blacklisted. As scenes play out on screen, several key developments keep us engaged. We learn that Robinson is covering up a crime, one he committed years ago. But we do not know what it is exactly; most of this is backgrounded until the last act.
Instead, the younger characters are the focus in the first half of the film. In particular, we follow two high school aged couples, who are caught up in the moment living life as adolescents do. They are unaware of the hidden danger that is casting a shadow over them and could destroy their happiness.
The main teenaged couple is played by Roberts and wholesome Lon McCallister; they make a charming twosome. The other couple is played by vampish Julie London and attractive Rory Calhoun, both at the start of their long careers. We see these four spend time with each other, but we also sense their lives will go in very different directions…even if they remain unified by the evil that surrounds them.
With an overall running time of 100 minutes, the narrative is gradual and somewhat leisurely until the end. This allows Daves plenty of time to emphasize the bucolic countryside and its inhabitants, as well as to establish the more sinister elements that are only hinted at initially, but then intensify.
The final sequence shows Anderson opening a proverbial can of worms, venturing into the woods where the titular dwelling and its secret exist. It’s fairly obvious that she will not come back alive. When Robinson finds out what she’s been up to and where she’s gone, he snaps. Not since Little Caesar, has he been so utterly berserk. Of course his extreme actions will result in Anderson’s sudden, violent death…and it also sets up his own spectacular death scene, which Robinson plays to the hilt.
In fact this may very well be Edward G. Robinson’s finest movie performance. He expertly teeters on the brink of insanity for so long, that when he is finally able to break loose with the truth, he completely goes off the deep end…and it’s strangely entertaining to watch.
For what it’s worth, THE RED HOUSE is not only a showcase for him, but for all the performers who make the most of their roles. As for the film itself, it’s a glimpse into the post-war era. It tells us that even the so-called simpler times had people grappling with difficult situations and complex emotions.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 11, 2023 16:22:44 GMT
If you're only going to read one take on The Red House, read Topbilled's ⇧. His excellent review reminded me that I had written the movie up months ago when I saw it, but never posted my comments. There's about a seventy-five percent overlap in our reviews, but we saw the ending a bit differently.
The Red House from 1947 with Edward G. Robertson, Allene Roberts, Judith Anderson, Lon McCallister and Julie London
Many mystery-dramas, like The Red House, are good at building suspense, but then let you down a bit when the big reveal comes at the end. This doesn't make them bad movies, just not great ones.
In The Red House, Edward G. Robinson plays the head of a small, reasonably prosperous farming family that includes his sister, played by Judith Anderson, and the daughter he and Anderson adopted, now a teenager, played by Allene Roberts.
Robinson, who has a wooden leg and is getting older, hires a local boy and classmate of Roberts', played by Lon McCallister, to help on the farm after school.
Robinson, Anderson and Roberts are happy in their simple life, but once McCallister, a nice kid, starts asking questions about the surrounding woods, all owned by Robinson, as McCallister wants to cut through them to get home at night, Robinson gets uncharacteristically angry and tells him to stay out.
McAllister and daughter Roberts, though, whom Robertson also told to stay out of the woods, do, as kids will do when told not to do something, go into the woods. This gets Robinson angrier as his sister Anderson becomes agitated, especially when bad things, like minor injuries, start happening each time the kids go into the woods.
When alone, Robinson and Anderson hint to each other in hushed tones about some bad thing that happened many years ago in the woods at "the red house," which seems to be the reason Robinson lost his leg, Roberts was adopted and Robinson and Anderson never married. But it's all left vague and mysterious.
There's also normal teenage stuff going on as McAllister has a kinda girlfriend in the spoiled local hottie, Julie London, who makes Roberts, who now has a crush on McCallister, jealous. London, herself, is also flirting with a local "bad boy" who has been hired by Robinson to keep people out of his woods.
Most of the movie is Robinson's household's tranquility being disturbed as long-unanswered questions - what happened to Roberts' mother, why did neither Anderson nor Robinson ever marry and, the big one, why is it forbidden to go into the woods - keep bubbling to the surface as all seem, somehow, related to the bad thing that happened long ago in the red house in woods.
Director Delmer Daves smartly juxtaposes the bucolic setting of the farm with the dark and foreboding woods. As the picture progresses and the mystery and tension builds, the unknown malignancy of the woods begin to creep into the once-happy farmhouse.
It's an engaging story as the actors are all talented and appealing. You care about innocent Roberts who seems to be facing the first real crisis in her young life as she realizes her parents aren't quite who she thought they were.
You also wonder if Robinson and, even, Anderson are really the good people they first seemed to be as mystery builds around whatever happened long ago in the woods at the red house. McAllister is fine if a bit wooden at times as "the change agent" that forces the past secrets to the surface.
The payoff, though, as noted, doesn't really live up to the billing. You have to accept too many not-believable things at the end for the story to tie together - plus there's too-much forced action.
Like many mystery-dramas, The Red House builds its suspense well by drawing you in with engaging characters you care about - kudos to young Roberts for holding her own in scenes with acting giant Robinson - but its final reveal leaves you a bit let down.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 16, 2023 14:56:12 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
Gallant Ann Harding
Producer Darryl Zanuck made this film a short time after he left Warner Brothers to set up his own banner, 20th Century Pictures. Released thru United Artists, it stars Ann Harding who was borrowed from her home studio RKO as well as Clive Brook, who had previously costarred with Miss Harding in an earlier melodrama. To say their scenes in this picture come off effortlessly would be an understatement.
I think much credit should be given to director Gregory La Cava who keeps things moving along at a brisk pace. Of course, the plot has built-in pauses for introspection and character building, but it never bogs down in any mawkishness.
There is a very good scene at the beginning which sets up the main story. Miss Harding’s character is part of a crowd of spectators at an airfield. As she stands along the sidelines, she watches her aviator boyfriend crash his plane. He goes up in flames and so does their future.
A short time later she is wandering aimlessly through a park. She is still in shock about what happened earlier and is acting strangely. She is suspected by a police officer of being a prostitute, which of course she isn’t. Just as the cop is about to lead her off, she is “saved” by a man down on his luck (Brook) who pretends to be her friend. He walks her to his apartment and they get to know each other.
The relationship between Harding and Brook remains platonic throughout, but they develop deep personal feelings for each other. In some ways it feels like a story that would have worked best if Brook’s character had been gay, was very fond of her and did whatever he could to protect her…but it could never become more than them just being friends. During the friendship scenes that follow, they bare their souls to each other. She learns how he is a disgraced doctor who recently spent time in prison; and he learns that she is pregnant but won’t be able to marry the father who is now dead.
In the next sequence, Brook arranges for Harding to put the baby up for adoption, a child she has bonded with but must give away. Brook’s magnanimousness doesn’t end there, for he soon arranges for Harding to start work as an interior decorator for another female pal (Janet Beecher, in the film’s best supporting performance).
It all takes off from there, with a considerable amount of time passing. Then we have Harding reconnecting with her young son (Dickie Moore) a few years later in Europe, and insinuating herself into the life of his new family.
Zanuck would remake this story a few years later, after 20th Century Pictures merged with Fox. In the second version, ALWAYS GOODBYE, the main roles are played by Barbara Stanwyck and Herbert Marshall. As much as I adore Stanwyck in her films, she is not quite as good as Harding is in this picture. Harding seems to capture the role perfectly, balancing the angst with comic relief that keeps things from getting too heavy.
We can believe Harding’s sacrificial mother a bit more than Stanwyck’s because Harding is etching a real flesh and blood woman. She has occasional remorse and self-pity, but she is also resilient and we know that she will not be defeated.
As for the male leads, I would say that Herbert Marshall is probably a bit better than Clive Brook. And it’s a shame that there wasn’t a version of this story with Harding and Marshall who had acted together in other films.
It’s easy to get absorbed in these kinds of “chick flicks” from the 1930s when the performances are as sincere and genuine as the ones in GALLANT LADY.
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Post by Fading Fast on Feb 16, 2023 16:56:38 GMT
⇧ I really enjoyed this one too. It's a "chick flick," as you say, but one with much-more grit than most of today's "chick flicks." Plus, my brain goes into some sort of vapor lock whenever I see Ann Harding.
My comments from about a year ago:
Gallant Lady from 1933 with Ann Harding, Clive Brooks, Janet Beecher and Otto Kruger
Pre-code movies often rip through multiple plot twists and an eye-popping number of taboo subjects in their short runtimes. Unhindered by the modern need to make every picture a statement or art, or both, these early 1930s movies just tossed in their viewpoints, mashed the accelerator pedal down and tried to entertain.
Gallant Lady has its flaws, but shyness isn't one of them as it takes on a startling number of controversial subjects, while its story zigs and zags with lightning speed.
Ann Harding plays a woman engaged to a daredevil pilot who is killed on an attempted transatlantic record flight. Immediately afterwards, while wandering aimlessly in a park, Harding is about to be mistakenly arrested for prostitution by an aggressive policeman when a man, played by Clives Brooks, comes to her rescue by pretending to be her boyfriend.
Back at his apartment, Harding learns that Brooks is a physician who was just release from jail after having served time for euthanasia - he wanted to stop his terminal patient's suffering.
When Brooks learns Harding's dilemma - she's pregnant and can't bring the "shame" of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy down on her "nice" family - he arranges to have a kind and decent couple he knows adopt the child without ever meeting Harding.
Brooks also finds a job for Harding with a female friend of his, played by Janet Beecher, who owns an interior decorating business. Beecher is silently carrying a torch for Brooks.
With that top-heavy setup, we fast forward five or so years to see Brooks just coming home after spending those years working (implied) on tramp steamers and drinking a lot. He then opens up a rizty veterinary clinic.
Harding, now a partner in the interior decorating business, goes abroad on a business trip hoping Brooks, who has been carrying a torch for her, will become interested in Beecher, who is still carrying a torch for Brooks. Phew. We're no more than half way through and things are only going to heat up from here.
In Italy buying for her business, Harding meets an Italian count who spends the rest of the movie pursuing her. She also, accidentally, meets her now five-year-old son. While not revealing her identity to him or his father, she changes her plans to return to the States early to be on the same ship with her son.
Back in America, the movie amps up some more as Harding gets closer to her son and his dad, played by Otto Kruger (did this man ever look young?), whose wife passed away a few years ago. Kruger, though, is engaged to a gold digger and shrew of a woman who hires Harding's firm to decorate what will be her and Kruger's home.
While Harding was away, Brooks, who seems to have given up the veterinary clinic, but not his love for Harding, started hitting the bottle hard again. Beecher, undaunted, continues to carry a torch for him.
All these open threads - a couple of unrequited loves, a gold digger lying her way into marriage, a biological mother hiding her identity from her son, a doctor turned alcoholic and an Italian count awkwardly hanging around - mash together for a bit at the climax, but only the main thread about Harding and the boy she gave up for adoption has any closure.
Gallant Lady bit off more than it could really chew, but strong acting carries it through. Harding - blonde, beautiful and delivering another wonderfully understated performance - is captivating as the heartbroken mother; Brooks is engaging as the smashed-up doctor with a kind heart; Beecher is pitch perfect as the pragmatic middle-aged woman better at business than love and Kruger delivers a nuanced performance as the often-clueless father trying to do the right thing.
For the record, this 1932 pre-code comprises pre-marital sex, adoption, euthanasia, alcoholism, unrequited love, a successful woman-run business, police aggression and a conniving gold digger, most of which would be topics that would be lightly or completely untouched when the Motion Picture Production Code was more thoroughly enforced from 1935 on.
Gallant Lady is a good movie with a too-complicated plot that leaves too-many threads untied at the end. Yet its strong cast and solid directing from Gregory La Cava hold it all together. Today, it's equally valuable as a reminder that many challenges and human failings, which unfortunately would be whitewashed from the screen in only a few short years, have always been with us.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 16, 2023 19:53:10 GMT
GALLANT LADY was remade as ALWAYS GOODBYE (1938) with Barbara Stanwyck and Herbert Marshall. It's a great story.
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