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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 25, 2022 15:34:48 GMT
Lady on a Train from 1945 with Deanna Durbin, David Bruce, Ralph Bellamy, Dan Duryea and Edward Everett Horton
Lady on a Train is part mystery (of the Nancy Drew kind), part romcom, very little part noir and very little part Christmas movie laced with a shot of screwball comedy. But none of that really matters as this is a Deanna Durbin vehicle that only works if you like Deanna Durbin.
If you do, though, it's a fun romp from beginning to end as long as you don't take any of it seriously. Durbin plays a San Francisco debutante who, just as her train is about to enter Grand Central, sees, out of her compartment window, a possible murder.
With no murder having been reported that evening, Durbin is dismissed by the police (in particular, by desk sergeant William Frawley, playing yet another put-upon character) as a "silly girl" who's read to many murder mystery books - which she has.
Frustrated, Durbin then attempts to solve the mystery herself, which requires her to elude her family-provided New York chaperone, the nervous Nellie, Edward Everett Horton. She, then, recruits, for her quest, her favorite mystery writer, the reluctant-to-get-involved David Bruce, while also getting herself entangled with the dead man's wealthy family who mistakes her for his nightclub-singer girlfriend.
If it sounds confusing and silly that's because it is confusing and silly, but in a the-plot-doesn't-really-matter way. Lady on a Train is all about watching pretty and perky Durbin, oftentimes with more guts than sense, stumble her way forward as a combination of intuition and intelligence keeps her somehow on the right path.
The stumbling takes her to the nightclub of the dead man's former girlfriend where Durbin is chased by the "bad guys" (the real murderer's henchmen), while she, again, gets mistaken for a singer. This gives singer Durbin an opportunity to perform a number. After that, it's more running, chasing, finding and losing clues, flirting with the mystery writer and, eventually, after a "close call," (spoiler alert, I guess) solving the crime and marrying the mystery writer.
Lady on a Train is a light and entertaining Durbin effort. Her expressions are her go-to move as she can convey almost any emotion or thought with a flash of her eyes, a wiggle of her nose or a furrowing of her brow. With one of Hollywood's best voices at that time, Durbin was a heck of a double threat. Enough of one to make even movie fluff like Lady on a Train an enjoyable romp.
N.B. Durbin is a talented actress and singer, but she also has a surprising talent for being able to look good wearing absolutely ridiculous hats.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 25, 2022 15:37:40 GMT
Love those hats!
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 25, 2022 15:38:31 GMT
They are insanely awesome in a completely over-the-top way.
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Post by sagebrush on Dec 26, 2022 1:21:41 GMT
Lady on a Train is part mystery (of the Nancy Drew kind), part romcom, very little part noir and very little part Christmas movie laced with a shot of screwball comedy. But none of that really matters as this is a Deanna Durbin vehicle that only works if you like Deanna Durbin.
I do, I do, I do like Deanna Durbin!  |
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Dec 26, 2022 2:04:36 GMT
Lady on a Train is part mystery (of the Nancy Drew kind), part romcom, very little part noir and very little part Christmas movie laced with a shot of screwball comedy. But none of that really matters as this is a Deanna Durbin vehicle that only works if you like Deanna Durbin.
I do, I do, I do like Deanna Durbin!  |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 2, 2023 15:02:09 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
The sea at her command
Yvonne De Carlo said she made this film after recovering from an operation, and she has six knockdown drag-out fights to perform. The best of these is a catfight she has with rival Andrea King midway through the picture, which the two women rehearsed at length before production began. In some ways their skirmish is reminiscent of the one between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel in the studio’s 1939 version of DESTRY RIDES AGAIN.
In addition to fighting with King, Miss De Carlo gets to engage in sword fighting and fist fighting on board a ship taken over by a pirate named Baptiste (British import Philip Friend). They first meet when De Carlo is a stowaway on this vessel, which Baptiste and his men hijack. The ship is owned by the wealthiest man in New Orleans (Robert Douglas).
De Carlo later arrives on land in the fair city, and she is taken under the wing of a Madame Brizar (Elsa Lanchester in a scene stealing role). Though the production code prevents explicit references, it is obvious that Mme. Brizar is running a brothel of “genteel” women. She regularly sends her employees out to entertain at parties given by the upper class.
During the sequence where De Carlo is working for Lanchester, she sheds her tomboy image and wears some of the finest costumes imaginable. She is every inch the lady. But during one of her musical performances, she draws the ire of King who is seething with jealousy. King is engaged to Friend, but the women both know that Friend has had adventures at sea with De Carlo.
To spite Friend, King marries Douglas, his archenemy. This sets in motion a series of betrayals, where Friend is exposed as a thieving pirate. We are not meant to dislike Friend, since he is depicted as a Robin Hood of the seven seas. Basically he is robbing Douglas to give money back to the men of New Orleans who had been cheated by Douglas’ seafaring business.
In a way this light hearted romp has a serious dramatic undercurrent, telling a tale about unionized labor and profit sharing. I am sure most of that went unnoticed by moviegoers in 1950, but it’s interesting this sort of dramatic text with a liberal political agenda hit screens when Senator McCarthy’s conservative witch hunts were occurring in Hollywood.
The most captivating part of the film, of course, is Yvonne De Carlo’s central performance as Deborah McCoy our plucky heroine. She has a rousing number at the end of the picture that is a lot of fun to watch. De Carlo later said the film was a “dilly” and it certainly is. She gets the guy before the final fadeout, and the whole sea is at her command. Of course, there was never any doubt it would end any other way.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 5, 2023 3:25:53 GMT
This neglected film is from 1944.
Trials and tribulations of a henpecked husband
Robert Siodmak had a significant career in Europe before coming to Hollywood in the 1940s. The darker themes of his work make the stylish director stand out from others. He signed with Universal in 1943 where he was allowed to be creative and where his background in German expressionism influenced his output.
At first Siodmak directed some B horror entries, then he was handed important A-picture assignments. PHANTOM LADY was his first noir at Universal. It was a murder mystery which featured Ella Raines. Siodmak would direct Raines several more times, mostly notably in THE SUSPECT alongside Charles Laughton.
Laughton was a close friend of the director’s, and under Siodmak, he gives a carefully understated yet poignant performance. He portrays a henpecked husband driven to murder his overbearing wife (Rosalind Ivan). Miss Raines plays a sweet young woman that Laughton befriends. She becomes a very necessary diversion, as well as a catalyst when Laughton decides to break free from his unhappy marriage.
The film is set in early 20th century London, and the period touches are expertly handled. Everything from costumes and hairstyles to set design seem authentic. The performances convey an understanding of how people acted at the time, especially when community busybodies suspect an upstanding neighbor might be seeing someone else on the side. The wife manipulates the local gossips to subject her husband to humiliation so he won’t stray.
Henry Daniell plays a blackmailer. He figures out Laughton got rid of the nasty old battle axe, but silence comes at a price. Laughton tries to keep Daniell quiet, but the greedy parasite wants more money, and Laughton refuses to keep paying him. So Laughton kills again, and there’s a truly suspenseful scene when he doesn’t have enough time to dispose of Daniell’s body. Laughton hides it behind a sofa just as his son and the son’s girlfriend arrive home.
While they are chatting, the girlfriend feels something under the sofa and puts her hand down there. It turns out a cat is playing with the dead body. But until she pulls the cat out from under the piece of furniture, we are led to believe, as Laughton does, that his crime is about to be discovered. It’s straight out of Edgar Allen Poe. Laughton’s reactions are outstanding. The camera work Siodmak uses is able to keep us unnerved and in as much suspense as possible.
Of course our sympathetic antagonist will be found out before the end of the story. In the last sequence Laughton has married Raines, and they are going to Canada to start a new life. But the police have been nipping at Laughton’s heels. There is a nice cat-and-mouse moment between Laughton and an investigator just as the ship is about to sail. There is no such thing as a perfect crime, but there is such a thing as a perfectly directed performance. I suspect that anyone who watches the film will find it just as enjoyable as an episode of Columbo.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 5, 2023 17:08:17 GMT
The Suspect from 1944 with Charles Laughton, Ella Raines, Rosalind Ivan and Stanley Ridges
The Suspect feels like another wonderful, modest English movie about desperation over an ugly marriage driving a good person to do bad things, but surprisingly, this one was made by Universal Studios in California.
Perhaps The Suspect gets its international feel from German-born director Robert Siodmak directing English-born actor Charles Laughton in a not-big-budget effort, but whatever the reason, it is a movie, like many English movies of that era, driven by story and character, not special effects of histrionics.
Set in England in the early 1900s, Charles Laughton plays a man unhappily married to a shrew of a wife, played with over-the-top maliciousness by Rosalind Ivan. Ivan, clearly enjoying her role here, is so awful that their adult son, played by Dean Harens, moves out after she burns some of his work papers in a fit of rage.
Laughton, a successful mid-level manager of a retail establishment, now in late middle-age, and after his latest effort at making peace with his wife is rebuffed, begins an innocent friendship with a young, pretty and lonely typist played by Ella Raines.
Laughton's acting here is exquisite as ever, but the man can't help capturing your attention (think, a male Bette Davis). He's that physically imposing, that talented and that much of a screen presence.
Raines, either by instinct or smart strategy, plays her character softly, which avoids competing with Laughton (a nearly impossible effort), but instead lets her carve out a quiet complimentary niche. It's a wonderfully understated performance.
When Laughton's wife learns of her husband's relationship with a young woman - a character like Ivan always does learn these things, it's in their DNA - and despite it being innocent, she threatens to expose it as an affair.
At that time in England, this type of scandal would ruin both Laughton and Raines as they would be fired and unable to find another position, plus they'd be ostracised from their society.
Laughton, a placid, moral and respectable man then does what a few men will do when pushed to a breaking point: he takes action dramatically out of character and kills his wife.
The police declare it an accidental death, which allows Laughton and Raines, after a respectable amount of time, to resume their relationship, but now in the open.
All is going well until that quintessential British character - the pleasant but persistent Scotland Yard investigator, played by Stanley Ridges - shows up, "just to ask a few questions."
Ridges has no proof, but he has that one thing that all good investigators have, a suspicion he won't let rest. Ridges is adequate in the role, but others who have played the perennial Scotland Yard investigator, like English actor John Williams, have brought an extra verve to this stock character.
From here, the movie is Laughton moving on with his happy new life - he marries Raines - while he and Ridges engage in a discrete chess match as Ridges looks for incriminated clues while also trying to break Laughton psychologically.
There's a good side story about Laughton's neighbors - a pleasant woman, played by Molly Lamont, married to a physically and mentally abusive man, played with a low-key sinisterness by Henry Daniell - that gets woven into the main plot in a slowly devastating way.
All of this "action" takes place on a few sets that say "pleasant English village in the early 1900s." Universal spent the money necessary on the sets and costumes to create a believable period look. Yet the movie has so little action and so much dialogue, it feels, in a good way, like many "small" English pictures of this era, more like a filmed theater production than a movie.
You won't be proud of yourself as you know it's wrong, but at least a part of you is hoping Laughton won't get caught. His wife was evil and vile; his new life is happy and fun and what purpose is really served by convicting Laughton? Oh, yeah, it's that darn justice thing.
The Suspect's ending, no spoilers coming, is so English and so Laughton that you'll want to watch the movie again just to enjoy the ending's understated elegance. Kudos is owed to Universal Studios for making a very English movie in the best sense of the phrase.
N.B. Everything written above needs to be taken with a grain of salt as my brain goes into vapor lock anytime the quietly beautiful Ella Raines is on screen.
N.B.#2 A big hat tip is owed to Topbilled for this outstanding recommendation. |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 13, 2023 15:45:44 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Something fun to watch
SOMETHING IN THE WIND features a grown-up Deanna Durbin, paired with Universal’s equally popular Donald O’Connor. It was Mr. O’Connor’s first film in two years, as he had been drafted into the military. He gets to do an athletic song-and-dance number, which provides one of the film’s highlights. Of course most of the tunes are handled by Miss Durbin whose voice never sounded better.
Durbin plays a disc jockey with her own radio show, and she’s looking for a sponsor. When a rich guy (John Dall) comes to the station, she thinks he’s interested in supporting her musical program. But there has been some sort of mix-up; he is under the impression she had a baby with his late departed grandfather. Yes, only in a Deanna Durbin flick. The zany premise allows for her to be “kidnapped” by Dall and his cousin (O’Connor) who take her to meet the rest of the family.
At their palatial estate she meets a stern aunt (Margaret Wycherly) whose main concern is keeping the scandal out of the papers. Auntie attempts to buy off the pretty interloper with a million dollar check. Durbin goes along with the situation to teach them all a lesson. There is a nutty uncle played by Charles Winninger, who previously appeared as the father in the Three Smart Girls series. Also, Dall’s snooty fiancee (Helena Carter) shows up to complicate things. This occurs during an eventful weekend while the family waits for an attorney to arrive to make the payoff legal.
In the meantime our heroine finds herself falling for Dall, with O’Connor offering to help. There’s something in it for him (he wants his cousin’s fiancee). We don’t have to worry how things will turn out, since everything gets properly sorted in these kinds of pictures. Hijinks, complete with a wacky operatic jailhouse number, give way to romantic tenderness. Plus the family’s begun to change for the better. And that’s what always happens in a Deanna Durbin picture. Life always seem better by the final fadeout. Probably because she holds the key to everyone’s heart.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 13, 2023 16:18:25 GMT
⇧ She really had a personal brand. In the end, it bothered her so much that she left the business as who'd want to make the same basic picture over and over again, but it is impressive that it was that successful a formula. It would have been neat to see what she'd have done had her talents been tested in different genres.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 13, 2023 16:40:40 GMT
⇧ She really had a personal brand. In the end, it bothered her so much that she left the business as who'd want to make the same basic picture over and over again, but it is impressive that it was that successful a formula. It would have been neat to see what she'd have done had her talents been tested in different genres.
SOMETHING IN THE WIND is not her best picture, but it includes a strong supporting cast...and while the formula is obvious and the gimmicks are wearing a bit thin at the end, this is still a crowd pleaser. |
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Post by sagebrush on Jan 14, 2023 0:25:13 GMT
I've never seen SOMETHING IN THE WIND, but I've yet to come across a Deanna Durbin flick which I didn't like.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 20, 2023 16:13:04 GMT
This neglected film is from 1957.
Stay awhile Joe
At times thoughtful and humorous, this western from the folks at Universal deserves to have more of a following. It’s always a good thing when stuntman-turned-actor Jock Mahoney is cast in a lead role. He has just the right amount of ruggedness and charm about him.
And when he delivers a threat directly at an enemy, you can believe he means business and will resort whatever means necessary to back it up. He does not intimate easily, which is what is required for an anti-hero in this particular genre.
Cast as the leading lady is former Disney child star Luanna Patten. She’s certainly younger than Mr. Mahoney, which helps the story since she needs an older brother-type figure to protect her from the corruption of her town. He can help her make sense of what happened to her one fateful night.
We learn she was attacked in the dark a few weeks earlier. This occurred while she was visiting the shack of an old native man. The man was accused of sexually assaulting her and hanged the following day. But she had blacked out during the attack, and because her memory of events was sketchy, she misidentified him as her assailant. Instead, it was another man (Charles McGraw) who was on the property at the same time and tried to rape her.
Mahoney is able to get her to realize her mistake– not all claims of rape are accurately reported– and McGraw is revealed as having a motive to set the native up for the crime. Since the native man’s land had oil on it, McGraw can now swoop in and take it, with the native dead and out of the way.
Meanwhile, Mahoney has arrived in the community to find out about the native man, because they were friends. There’s a good backstory– Mahoney was an army captain in the war, and the native was his trusted scout. He knows his friend was falsely accused of rape and unjustly hanged.
Part of the film has Mahoney acting as the town’s conscience to get them to own their miscarriage of justice. This includes two brothers played by Lee Van Cleef and Claude Akins in early roles.
Mahoney wants the people to stand up to McGraw, so they’ll stop being manipulated. There are several conflicts among the locals, which means Mahoney’s work is cut out for him.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 27, 2023 3:12:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1937.
Necessary sacrifices
A copy of the film exists online and my guess is that it’s an old syndicated print. Fortunately, it is in fairly good viewing condition. It occurred to me watching it that it must have been considered more than just a routine programmer in its day because Lewis Stone was borrowed from MGM. Stone was one of L.B. Mayer’s buddies, and he was rarely loaned out. So Mayer must have thought this was a good opportunity for his pal Stone to show off his acting chops.
The story is sort of a Stella Dallas type drama. Only in this case, the young adult son (Tom Brown) has been separated from his father, played by Stone, and brought up by another man who had married his mother. Stone never planted roots, moving from town to town, as a much in demand stage actor. Ironically, he comes to a town years later where his son lives. The son is a fan and wants to join the ranks of esteemed thespians. Stone pulls a few strings to get him a featured part in a play that his troupe is performing.
Meanwhile, Stone has been wanting revenge on a man who had betrayed him years earlier. He has carefully concocted a plan to create a perfect alibi and murder his enemy. The plan involves his confessing to two other murders, which he could not have possibly done. This causes the local police chief to think he’s a crackpot actor trying to gain publicity. The cop warns Stone to refrain from any more false confessions since he could be arrested for perverting the course of justice.
We then get to the part where Stone kills his intended target, He goes to the police station, and he turns himself in for murder. Of course the chief thinks this is another phony confession, which it isn’t, and dismisses him. Now this is where we get to the good part…because Stone’s son then becomes the main suspect. Knowing his son is innocent of a crime that he (Stone) actually committed, he has to work hard to prove to the authorities he really did do the deed.
This is an interesting riff on the old boy crying wolf tale, and it’s fun to see Stone enact the predicament that comes from not being believed but needing very much to be believed. Especially when it becomes a matter of exonerating someone who could get the electric chair. At the end of the story, when Stone is finally believed, we get some very bittersweet moments between father and son. This is a rewarding film to watch, because it brings home the whole idea of what parents will do to protect their children and what sacrifices are sometimes necessary.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 1, 2023 14:53:52 GMT
This neglected film is from 1938.
All the rage
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is an expert at light-hearted material. His style seems best suited to cheeky action yarns and romantic comedies.
The actress who plays opposite him in THE RAGE OF PARIS is French starlet Danielle Darrieux. Miss Darrieux enjoyed a long and varied screen career. In 1938, she had already scored hits in her native country and was eager to try her luck in Hollywood. This was her first American film.
What’s great about THE RAGE OF PARIS is how effortlessly the two leads play off each other. In their first scene together, she takes off her blouse (yes, it’s that kind of classic film)– she’s a model and thinks he might be interested in using her for a photo shoot.
He has no intention of hiring her, but since she’s begun to expose herself to him, he allows her to continue. And he lets a few other men in the office look on. It’s not as sexist as it may seem. It’s all done very tastefully, and the point is that she’s charming and naive in a world of wolves, I mean men.
Of course, we know these two characters are fated to fall in love with each other. But complications that get in the way of their blossoming relationship. Since she does not get hired to model, she must try to find another way to pay her rent and survive.
Two older friends, played by Helen Broderick and Mischa Auer, help her snare a rich husband in the form of Louis Hayward. And the scheme seems to be succeeding, until Fairbanks re-enters her life and decides to sabotage her gold digging. Is it because he wants to help Hayward, or is it because he wants the girl for himself?
Hollywood doesn’t make these kinds of movies anymore. Absent from screens are stories that present the lighter side of romance and uplift us as we watch them. It occurs to me how much skill goes into crafting a motion picture that is so airy and delectable. Other films are like heavy entrees. But this is a low-calorie confection, and sometimes we need these cinematic snacks to get us through the day.
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