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Post by topbilled on Mar 18, 2023 15:25:32 GMT
This neglected film is from 1936.
Next time we part and reunite
This classic melodrama from Universal is a real tearjerker. Maybe it’s just me, but this studio seemed to do these kinds of pictures best in the 1930s…the original BACK STREET with Irene Dunne; the original IMITATION OF LIFE with Claudette Colbert; don’t forget the original MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION again with Irene Dunne…you get the idea. A stone would cry watching these pictures.
NEXT TIME WE LOVE is based on a story called Next Time We Live. I guess the central idea here is that if you’re going to live, you’re going to have to love, as painful as it might be. It all starts rather simply and sweet. Margaret Sullavan is in love with James Stewart. She attends college with dreams of being an actress; he’s a budding reporter.
They soon marry, and he gets sent off by his boss (Robert McWade) to a post as a foreign correspondent in Europe. Of course, this means a separation as she will remain behind to pursue her goal of becoming a legitimate stage actress.
Oh, there’s another guy in the picture, their mutual pal (Ray Milland) who is able to pull some strings which helps Sullavan get her big break while Stewart’s chasing down scoops halfway around the world. Of course Milland is also smitten with Sullavan, and he’s more than willing to be a support for her when it turns out she’s pregnant.
It’s a woman’s picture, or at least predominately marketed towards female movie patrons. So the focus is on Sullavan balancing career and motherhood. Stewart finds out about the birth, gets drunk, misses a big story and loses his job. He returns to the nest but is unable to financially provide for wife and baby. Sullavan heads back to her work in the theater and her increasing success makes her more important than her husband.
Most of these stories are about the woman in question being made to feel as if her life outside the home is a threat to domestic tranquility and marital bliss. As a result, she does the right thing and helps Stewart get another newspaper job. He then leaves again, and she’s once again consoled by Milland.
Years go by, and we see that while Sullavan and Stewart love each other very much they are basically stuck in a holding pattern, living their lives apart more than living together. These two performers work so well with each other, they are perfectly in sync in all their scenes, that every bit of emotion they register in the given scenario resonates strongly with us.
If this had been a film made at Columbia, Stewart would have been paired with Jean Arthur. If it had been made at his home studio, the bosses at MGM would have probably cast him alongside Jean Harlow. Interestingly, when Sullavan’s contract ended with Universal she moved to Metro and appeared in three more pictures with Stewart. They obviously enjoyed collaborating, and audiences adored them.
Sullavan repeated this particular role twice on radio, while Stewart also did a radio remake of the story with another actress. They knew they had a hit with the material and kept going back to the well. And audiences kept welling up with tears. Next time we watch, let’s make sure to have some tissues handy.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 18, 2023 15:39:25 GMT
Wonderful review. I'd add the original Love Affair from1939, remade as An Affair to Remember in 1957 (and as Love Affair again in 1994), as a classic tearjerker done best in the 1930s.
"A stone would cry watching these pictures." LOL, excellent line.
Next Time We Love from 1936 with Margaret Sullavan, Jimmy Stewart and Ray Milland
Ursula Parrott wrote popular romantic novels in the 1920s and 1930s, many of which were made into successful movies. The novels were a bit formulaic, but with strong female characters, they were ahead of their time and frequently risque, covering topics like divorce, extra-marital affairs and children born out of wedlock.
In pre-code Hollywood (1930-1934), the movies made from her novels hewed to the books' stories as those topics had yet to be deemed out of bounds by the Motion Picture Production Code. Unfortunately, movies made later, such as Next Time We Love (a title awkwardly changed from the book's Next Time We Live), were so altered to fit the Code's standards that the point of the story was often lost by the time Hollywood was done with it.
Next Time We Love suffers this fate as Tinseltown's Code-forced rewrite undid the core of the story and the motivation of the characters. It left us with a broken tale of young love that's confusing as heck as we don't really understand why it's broken.
Jimmy Stewart plays a young newspaper man who meets a college student / actress wannabe played by Margaret Sullavan. They fall deeply in love, get married and, initially, struggle to pay the bills after he loses his job as a foreign correspondent that he, effectively, quits in order to be with her when their first child is born.
Up to now, the story is working, but then it all gets messed up in a way that any normal couple would have worked out with a few heart-to-heart conversations. Instead, Stewart's best friend, played by young and handsome Ray Milland, helps Sullavan restart her acting career (she stopped when she was pregnant). She quickly becomes successful.
With Sullavan now the primary earner in the family, Stewart's ego is bruised, so she, unbeknownst to him, gets him his foreign correspondent's job back. The rest of the movie is these two putatively deeply in love people being too proud to admit they want to be together, so they pursue their careers which take them further and farther (he goes overseas, she to Hollywood) apart.
The climax, a few years later, has more Code-driven nonsense leading to a marriage-is-a-wonderful-institution ending that made the entire movie silly unless you believe an articulate newspaper man and intelligent actress were incapable of having one real conversation over several years. There's also a side story about Milland's character, a successful actor himself, pinning away for Sullavan that was denuded of all the grit it had in the book by the Motion Picture Code.
Jimmy Stewart, Ray Milland and Margaret Sullavan, all talented actors, are at the peak of their youthful pulchritude in this one, so the movie is worth one watch just to enjoy their performances. There's also some fun time travel to the mid 1930s, especially to that era's incredibly energized newspaper industry.
Unfortunately, though, the Motion Picture Production Code so mangled Ursula Parrot's light but enjoyable page-turner story that by the time it made it to the screen under the tortured title Next Time We Love, it made almost no sense. Sometimes you could read between the lines in a movie to get to the real story, but not in this one. Instead, you really do have to read the book.
Somehow, the arbiters of 1930s morality had decided Americans could handle reading about the messiness of real life in books, but they were not mature enough to see that same messiness portrayed on screen.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 2, 2023 15:49:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1951.
Insight and sensitivity
Baynard Kendrick was an American writer known for works in the mystery genre. His most celebrated creation was the character of Duncan Maclain, a blind detective who solved murders with the help of a dog. Kendrick wrote several novels about Maclain’s adventures as a sleuth. Some of these novels were adapted for the big screen, notably with Edward Arnold in the main role for two programmers at MGM.
I mention Kendrick’s stories about Duncan Maclain, because one of Kendrick’s main interests was in writing about people who were sightless. However, Kendrick himself was not sightless in real life, which makes his dedication to these issues all the more remarkable. Some of Kendrick’s reason for this is because he had a friend in the first World War that he served alongside, who had lost his eyesight in battle. Later, when Kendrick was older, he helped blind veterans during WWII, who needed assistance adjusting when they were returning to civilian life.
BRIGHT VICTORY is based on a 1945 novel that Kendrick penned, which is inspired by some of what the author had witnessed. Arthur Kennedy, in an Oscar nominated performance, plays a U.S. sergeant who’s become visually impaired by a German sniper. He convalesces at a stateside hospital in Pennsylvania, before he is granted a furlough to visit his friends and family down in Florida. Before Kennedy’s furlough begins, he needs to deal with his new disability. His life will never be the same again.
During his stay at the hospital, he meets a lovely volunteer (Peggy Dow) whom he forms an emotional attachment with…and to be fair, she develops feelings for him as well. In the beginning they are just very good friends, though we sense there is more developing underneath the surface. Meanwhile, there is an interesting subplot during the hospital scenes, where Kennedy befriends another blind veteran (James Edwards), not realizing his new pal is an African American.
After he’s cleared for furlough, Kennedy returns to his hometown in Florida. Despite the recent tenderness he’s shared with Dow, we learn that he already is engaged to a girl he grew up with, played by Julie Adams. However, Adams’ character is a bit of a snob and is not able to deal with issues of disability, and her folks are on her side.
At the same time, Kennedy’s own parents have difficulty accepting their son now being handicapped, though they still support him. Kennedy’s mom is played by Nana Bryant, and his dad is played by Will Geer; both these character actors do a fine job.
This is not a fast moving motion picture, which is to its credit. Robert Buckner’s screenplay takes its time to explore complex postwar issues, and director Mark Robson gives the scenes enough breathing room for the actors to hit the right marks and allow viewers to contemplate what’s going on.
In some ways, the personal journey that Kennedy’s character undergoes in BRIGHT VICTORY is reminiscent of Harold Russell’s struggles to readjust in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, or what Marlon Brando experiences as a crippled vet in THE MEN. I highly recommend all three of these excellent films, though I think BRIGHT VICTORY covers this emotional territory with a bit more insight and sensitivity.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 8, 2023 8:01:27 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Believing in it
French director Julien Duvivier was working in Hollywood, when he made FLESH AND FANTASY at Universal. The picture presents three supernatural stories (a fourth one was cut by studio executives who turned it into its own standalone picture, DESTINY). A body dies in a storm at the end of the Destiny segment, then washes up on shore at the beginning of the segment starring Betty Field, which becomes the first story we see due to the editing that happened in post-production.
There is a framing device, where Robert Benchley is seen at a men’s club reading a book with tales of the occult, which I guess is included to introduce us to the themes, though his role is hardly necessary. Later, a linking device is employed, when Edward G. Robinson’s segment overlaps with Charles Boyer’s segment…we see Robinson’s story still in the process of finishing when Boyer’s story begins.
***
Segment #1
This segment is the shortest and runs about 20 minutes. It could easily have been extended, but nonetheless is quite effective. Miss Field plays an ugly young woman, who like Cinderella, gets a chance to go to a dance. The dance takes place during a Mardi Gras celebration, and she spends time with a prince charming (Robert Cummings) she’s been admiring from afar.
She is only able to attend, after she is given a mask to wear that will cover her physical deficiencies. As the story progresses, we learn her greatest ugliness is her sour disposition and negative attitude about life. Once that has been resolved, she becomes a truly beautiful person.
What makes this segment work so well is the way Field must rely on her eyes to do the bulk of her acting, since the mask covers most of her face. Field and Cummings previously appeared as love interests in KINGS ROW, and they perform so well, it’s a shame they didn’t make more movies together. There’s a clever twist at the end, involving the identity of the “fairy godfather” (Edgar Barrier) who gave Field the mask.
***
Segment #2
Most reviewers consider this the best story in the film, due to Edward G. Robinson’s magnificent performance. He previously appeared in Duvivier’s TALES OF MANHATTAN, and here he gets to play another unique character. He’s an American lawyer who’s been invited to a soiree at the London home of an elderly aristocrat (May Whitty). During Witty’s party, he meets a palmist (Thomas Mitchell) who predicts things that come true. Robinson poo-poohs some of this, citing coincidence, but he becomes particularly disturbed when he learns there is more the palmist has to say about his future.
One of the predictions is that he’ll kill someone. Of course, Robinson believes in free will and says he won’t kill anyone. But several sleepless nights later, he is now consumed with dread that the horrifying prediction will come true. He starts having conversations with himself, looking at his reflection in windows and mirrors.
Robinson decides that he will kill someone to get it over with, and he will make sure it’s someone whose death will benefit him and the rest of society. Since his client Dame Whitty is wealthy and old, and will leave her money in good hands after she’s gone, he chooses to kill her. However, she dies of natural causes before his murder plot is carried out. This forces him to alter his plans. His next target is a distinguished dean (C. Aubrey Smith).
It doesn’t take long for the dean to figure out something is off. There’s a great scene where Robinson follows Smith into a wine cellar to knock him over the head. Before he can administer the fatal blow, Smith informs Robinson that he knows what’s going through his mind and he should just give up now, before it’s too late.
Having failed at both murder attempts, an even more disturbed Robinson walks to a bridge. Who does he meet there? Why, it’s the palmist. In complete rage over his inability to successfully deal with recent events, he strangles Mitchell and so his murder has now just happened!
***
Segment #3
While the police are apprehending Robinson for murder, we see a circus live wire act about to be performed by Charles Boyer. Boyer had also appeared in TALES OF MANHATTAN, was a friend of Duvivier, and he served as a producer on FLESH AND FANTASY. He and leading lady Barbara Stanwyck are top-billed over the rest of the cast, and their segment is saved till the end. It is probably supposed to be the most important story, but some of it falls a bit flat.
One of the issues I had with this segment is that while Stanwyck is perfectly cast as a chick running from the law, trying to make things right before it’s too late, I don’t quite buy Boyer as a circus performer. He doesn’t project a working class vibe. If he had been the circus owner, maybe it would have been more believable. But even so, I don’t think the writers needed him to be involved with a circus. His character could have had a different background and occupation.
At any rate, Boyer meets Stanwyck on a ship, after he’s seen her and some notable earrings she wears in a dream. At first, she is taken aback by his forward approach as well as his talk of dreams and his already ‘knowing’ her. But she softens and they become romantic with each other. By the time their ship reaches port, they are in love and she’s decided to go see him perform.
While all of this is happening, Boyer’s been developing stage fright which he must overcome. At the same time, Stanwyck, who has been one step ahead of the police, decides to turn herself into the authorities. Her arrest is about to occur as Boyer carries out his routine under the bit top before a crowd of spectators. As he makes his way across the tightrope, we wonder whether he will fall or make it safely across the wire to the other side. This segment concludes on an ambiguous note.
***
The main idea behind FLESH AND FANTASY is that dreams and fortune telling intersect with reality. During the movie, one character utters the line “you created belief in me.” I think the line could apply to viewers who believe in what they see on screen. That is the magical quality of cinema.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 14, 2023 13:34:28 GMT
This neglected film is from 1938.
Between romantic interludes and comic antics, there is music
This is one of Deanna Durbin’s lesser known vehicles at Universal from the late 1930s. It’s a harmless feel-good production. As in all the other films she made at the studio that were produced by Joe Pasternak, she is surrounded by an accomplished supporting cast. True to form(ula), there is a nice boy her own age (Jackie Cooper), a group of wholesome teenaged pals that could be mistaken for friends of Andy Hardy’s, and in this case, we get the added bonus of a refined older gent (Melvyn Douglas) that Durbin crushes on, lest the film get a bit too boring.
In between the romantic interludes and comic antics, there is music. No Deanna Durbin movie would be complete without music, usually of the operatic variety in which our lovely adolescent star hits all the right high notes. Often this seems like an adult’s version of how a teen should behave, with all the proper enculturation. But as 95 minutes of pure hokum, it’s not too bad.
This frothy concoction is not meant to be taken too seriously, though Durbin’s fans (then and now) probably do take it all to heart. Instead, this is a film the studio made to entertain and uphold certain values. And if you peel some of the layers back, you will see underneath the lighter elements, there’s some sexism and propaganda.
The film starts with a boys scouts rally, led by Cooper and his buddies. He mentions an upcoming camp event that some of the lads cannot afford. However, there’s good news: Deanna Durbin’s rich family will provide the use of a guest house to practice an act for the camp show the kids will be putting on. Also, one might guess that the families of other girls will help cover costs for boys who can’t afford the camp. So the idea here is that Durbin, her onscreen cronies, and the girls in the audience must do their part to help the boys, whatever the price.
The boys in this environment don’t ever rally to help the girls. In addition to this, there is some not so subtle propaganda extolling the virtues of patriotism in advance of the war. Female folk will have to make the necessary sacrifices to support the male folk.
Into this mix we have Melvyn Douglas as a successful journalist who works for Durbin’s dad (John Halliday). He is battling some illness after having been on assignment in a foreign country. His ailment is not identified specifically by the script, but one assumes it is probably malaria. He is invited by Halliday to move into the family guest house, to finish recovering and complete some articles. Of course, the peace and quiet Douglas expects to find will be upset by Durbin and her pals who will also be there making noise.
At first Durbin is unhappy that her father promised the guest house to Douglas, and she tries to drive Douglas out. But then she learns he’s ill, starts crushing on him big time, and his welfare takes priority. Predictably, this causes Cooper to get jealous, since he sort of considers Durbin his sweetheart.
Melvyn Douglas appears in this film on loan from MGM and Columbia, which shared his contract. Because he was usually so busy at those other studios, he seldom made pictures at Universal. His role in THAT CERTAIN AGE, the handsome older guy, was the type that would’ve been played by Franchot Tone or Edmond O’Brien in the 1940s, when they were under contract at Universal.
As for Cooper, he’d just finished a long run at MGM as a child star. Now he was signed to Universal where he’d do a series of juvenile parts. There are scenes in this movie where Cooper’s character is directing the musical show, which is interesting, because years later Cooper would direct many episodes of television.
Originally, the story was going to have Durbin’s character get married at the end. But when publicity materials relayed this to the public (spoilers 1938 style), Durbin’s fans protested…so the marriage bit was nixed. The studio could apparently suggest a happy ending for her, but they couldn’t exactly provide one.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 25, 2023 14:15:34 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
A brilliant performance by Claude Rains
The original source material for this film comes from Charles Dickens’ last work which was incomplete at the time of his death. There is much speculation regarding how the author would have finished the story, which was one of his darkest and most nihilistic works of fiction. Universal played up the novel’s non-ending when advertising the film which arrives at its own conclusion.
Claude Rains was not the first choice to play the opium addicted choir master who becomes obsessed with a young woman. The studio initially wanted Boris Karloff who was not available. Interestingly Karloff was also the first choice when the studio was casting THE INVISIBLE MAN two years earlier. But a falling out between Karloff and director James Whale prevented that. So on two separate occasions Rains stepped in for Karloff. Karloff would return the favor when Rains was unable to appear in Universal’s proposed sequel for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA which became known as THE CLIMAX (1944).
Back to Edwin Drood. David Manners portrays the title character. Though some articles online claim this was Manners’ last film, that is not true; he would appear in five more pictures.
Manners has substantially less screen time than everyone else since Drood vanishes in the second half, which gives us our mystery. Where has he gone, what has happened to him, was he murdered?, etc. These are the questions left dangling by Dickens’ unfinished manuscript.
In addition to Rains and Manners, there are other distinguished members in the cast. Drood’s girl is played by Heather Angel, and Douglass Montgomery is cast as a rival for her affections.
British actress Valerie Hobson is also on hand as another young lass. The performers are assisted by ornate sets that provide a melodramatic, gothic quality. The studio allocated a sizable budget for this production, and it shows.
When Rains suggests that Manners has been murdered by Montgomery’s character, Montgomery also disappears— but then returns in a disguised form to investigate what really happened.
The choir master is the culprit in this version, but of course, Dickens may have intended for him to be “innocent” after all…if Drood was meant to turn up alive and well at the end. We’ll never know. But we do know that in this version, making Rains the villain is a laudable choice…he’s an expert at playing deranged behavior with a flair. His performance in THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD is absolutely brilliant.
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Post by topbilled on May 1, 2023 14:07:17 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
Magnificent Ginger Rogers
Recently I moved and as I was doing so, I threw some films into a bin I wanted to watch but never got around to looking at for one reason or another. After I settled in at the new place, I came across the bin– and inside was MAGNIFICENT DOLL.
I had purchased a copy of MAGNIFICENT DOLL and was saving it– who knows why. But what a treat to save. Ginger Rogers plays the title character, one of our country’s early first ladies, Dolley Madison. She costars alongside David Niven as Aaron Burr and Burgess Meredith as James Madison.
Ginger Rogers had worked with both leading men before at her old stomping grounds RKO. She was in the romcom BACHELOR MOTHER (1939) with David Niven, and in the romcom TOM DICK AND HARRY (1941) with Burgess Meredith.
MAGNIFICENT DOLL was Rogers’ first real attempt at doing historical drama. During her tenure at RKO, she sought the role of MARY OF SCOTLAND which went to her STAGE DOOR pal Katharine Hepburn. Studio bosses rejected Rogers for that part, despite doing a screen test, because they felt her playing any sort of historical figure was at odds with the persona that had been cultivated for her in musicals and romantic comedies.
By the mid-1940s, the actress was freelancing. She already had an Oscar to her credit, and had continued her winning streak at the box office. So when there was an opportunity to finally play a historical character in this Universal production, she leapt at it.
Unfortunately, MAGNIFICENT DOLL was a flop, probably for several reasons. First, I don’t think Universal really knew how to market it…and second, audiences were probably not ready to see Ginger Rogers do anything but escapist entertainment. MAGNIFICENT DOLL has a serious message, which after four years of war, may not have been something her fans were interested in.
Watching the film convinces me that she was at her best when she was working in other genres, pushing herself as an actress. The set decoration is top-notch; and she gets to wear gowns by Vera West and hats by Lilly Dache. So it’s a high class affair all the way.
It’s the second time Burgess Meredith gets the girl in a Ginger Rogers movie. Though David Niven is higher billed, Niven is essentially playing a supporting role, because Meredith is the one holding Rogers in his arms as the final fade-out occurs.
Frank Borzage has handled the picture’s direction with ease and sensitivity. Rabbi turned Hollywood executive Jack Skirball, who serves as the producer, ensures that the more melodramatic aspect of the main characters’ relationship is depicted with dignity. A beautifully restored print of the film is currently available on home video…check it out and form your own opinion.
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Post by Fading Fast on May 1, 2023 14:36:43 GMT
You had me at Ginger Rogers, but your color and insights on Ms. Rogers really sold me on seeing the picture as, sometimes, I shy away from '30s/'40s historical dramas.
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Post by topbilled on May 1, 2023 14:41:48 GMT
You had me at Ginger Rogers, but your color and insights on Ms. Rogers really sold me on seeing the picture as, sometimes, I shy away from '30s/'40s historical dramas.
She would work with Niven again in the 20th Century Fox ensemble comedy OH MEN! OH WOMEN! in 1957.
Incidentally James Madison was one of our shortest presidents...he was only 5'4 and Burgess Meredith was 5'6 so this is believable casting.
A restored print of MAGNIFICENT DOLL is currently on YouTube. Watch it while you can! |
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Post by topbilled on May 13, 2023 7:27:56 GMT
This neglected film is from 1948.
Lady looking for respect
RIVER LADY is a rousing western with music. It’s about a community populated by two different crowds of people. The first group is a bunch of lumberjacks led by independent-minded Rod Cameron. He and a pal (Lloyd Gough) have been chopping down trees with their buddies. It’s payday, and they head into a nearby town to blow off some steam. Of course, a saloon owner (Florence Bates) knows these guys are rough and tumble, but likable.
The second group involves the more refined folks in town. They’re led by mill owner John McIntire, whose business could use an infusion of capital. McIntire’s daughter (Helena Carter) has lived a sheltered life, and she’s just returned from a finishing school back east. She’s intrigued by the rugged lumberjacks invading their community, especially Mr. Cameron who catches her eye.
Unfortunately for Miss Carter, the guy’s heart seems to already be taken. Cameron is romantically involved with a riverboat queen named Sequin, who is played by the film’s star Yvonne De Carlo. Miss DeCarlo has brought her boat with its marked cards and crooked roulette wheel up the Mississippi to provide some flashy entertainment. She intends to fleece the men of their hard-earned cash.
She also intends to turn Cameron into her husband. Part of this involves a plan to encourage him to do business with McIntire, as that will bring them both some much-needed respectability. She tells Cameron she wants to own the biggest house on the highest hill so she can look down on the snobs that avoid her on the street and act like she’s the dirt under their feet. To further her social climbing ambitions she takes money that she makes from her shady riverboat enterprise to secretly invest in McIntire’s mill.
Complicating matters is a wily syndicate boss (Dan Duryea) who has designs on DeCarlo and wants to remove Cameron from the equation. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and I do mean nothing. Mr. Duryea has a field day with this role.
Both Duryea and Cameron had worked with DeCarlo on previous Universal pictures. DeCarlo’s breakthrough at the studio, SALOME WHERE SHE DANCED, was her first pairing with Cameron; they also made FRONTIER GAL together. And before production began on this film, she’d just finished BLACK BART with Duryea; they would also costar in CRISS CROSS. Duryea brings out the femme fatale in the actress; and Cameron brings out the softer side in her.
Universal lavished a lot of attention and expenditure on RIVER LADY. It is presented in sumptuous Technicolor, the costumes are exquisite, and there’s plenty of on-location shooting with scenes that depict how timber makes its way to the mill. A spectacular sequence involves a huge logjam and dynamite.
The barge that Miss DeCarlo commandeers has been reused from SHOW BOAT (both the 1929 and 1936 versions). But it is not the main attraction of this film. The main attraction is the lady herself…Yvonne DeCarlo.
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Post by topbilled on May 19, 2023 14:13:28 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
A pacifist walks proud
This Universal picture made money at the box office, but not enough money to be profitable for the studio. It was an “A” budget production with an expensive star, Audie Murphy, who had proven himself in a slew of other westerns and action adventure yarns that appealed to conservative audiences. Why they decided to put him into a biographical role as an Indian agent who sympathized with the Apaches is somewhat baffling.
Murphy’s fans were accustomed to him playing white-centric roles, where he usually went up against the natives who were on the other side of civilization and the law. In these pictures, Murphy’s characters were meant to uphold the ideologies of European Americans in the west, not to make concessions to Indians, least of all warring Apaches. WALK THE PROUD LAND is a story which seems the antithesis of all that.
Adapting the real-life story of government agent John Clum, this is undoubtedly a more ‘enlightened’ look at the relationships between whites and native people during a contentious time in U.S. history. But Murphy doesn’t fit the part, given the persona that was associated with him in his previous films, not to mention his status as a hero during World War II.
Indeed, the role of a pacifist would have worked better with a liberal actor like Henry Fonda or Burt Lancaster. Perhaps Murphy was anxious to spread his wings and show people what he could do with a different sort of heroic character, but contemporary audiences did not buy it.
Another problem is the casting of the two lead actresses. Piper Laurie was intended to play Murphy’s wife on screen in this effort, but she decided to cancel her contract with Universal and study method acting in New York. That would turn out to be a good decision for her, as she would bounce back later in THE HUSTLER alongside Paul Newman.
With Piper Laurie suddenly not available, the role of Murphy’s wife was given to Patricia Crowley who was more identified with romantic comedies at her home studio Paramount. Unfortunately, Crowley doesn’t register much in the story and she is not given anything significant to do in her limited scenes.
The other main female presence is Anne Bancroft, miscast as a native girl who has designs on Murphy and wants to take the place of his wife. Interestingly, Miss Bancroft would also study method acting in the late 50s and refine her performance techniques like Miss Laurie did.
I am not saying Bancroft is an amateur in WALK THE PROUD LAND; on the contrary, she provides a very engaging performance. But I still found her attempt to play an Indian problematic, and she is not portraying a sympathetic character, which seems at odds with the story’s thesis, that we are supposed to give Apaches a chance.
In the hands of other performers, the story might have come across better. Also, if it had been filmed as an independent production that was allowed to take a few substantial risks, they might have been able to overcome the studio formula and turn out an insightful motion picture.
As it stands, the whole thing feels like experimental play-acting and experimental storytelling by a company that usually gave audiences conservative western fare…fare that didn’t make too much of a difference or try to masquerade as a think-piece. Ultimately, this is hollow piece of entertainment which despite its good intentions, fails to connect with viewers on a meaningful level.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 2, 2023 13:19:03 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Hatched nine more movies
Claudette Colbert, who gets top billing on her own separate screen, and costar Fred MacMurray had already been paired in a series of romcoms at their old home studio Paramount. Most of those pictures were hits with moviegoers and this effort continued their winning streak together at the box office. In fact, THE EGG AND I would be the second highest grossing picture of 1947.
It spawned, or should I say hatched, nine follow-up movies featuring the supporting characters, the Kettles, and there was also a short-lived TV series in the 1950s.
The original story was based on a memoir by a woman from Washington state, the real-life Betty MacDonald, who was the Erma Bombeck of her day. This particular tale was semi autobiographical and detailed adventures she had with her husband when they left the city, bought a farm in the country and raised chickens, as well as countless other animals.
The animals in this movie are scene stealers. Besides the adorable baby chicks, there is a lazy dog named Sport who is not really vicious and not really a hunter, much to husband Bob’s dismay. There is also a cow…oh, and a pig called Cleopatra, possibly an inside joke, since Miss Colbert had famously portrayed the queen of Egypt back in 1934.
There is something quite amusing about the stars’ interactions with the animals, as well as their interactions with the Kettles who live up the road. While this is undoubtedly a movie that belongs to the two stars, Colbert and MacMurray are gracious enough in their scenes with the Kettles, to let Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride shine in memorable supporting roles.
The scene where Colbert first ventures up the road to meet Ma Kettle is certainly classic. She gets a ride from a prune-faced busybody (Esther Dale) who warns her that the Kettles are shifty, lazy, good-for-nothings and it would be best if the Kettles were run out of the county. The dialogue uttered by Dale’s character leaves no question about how our storytellers thought of the Kettles, as rural stereotypes.
The Kettles were based on the MacDonalds’ neighbors the Bishop family, though Betty MacDonald exaggerated some of their traits for comedic purposes. The Bishops sued, since they objected to how they were depicted in the book, as well as on screen by Main, Kilbride and the child actors playing their kids. The Bishops were paid an undisclosed sum to settle the case, and Universal proceeded with a series of popular Kettle films that were released between 1949 to 1957.
Despite the caricature type presentation of the Kettles, we do find them sympathetic. Oldest son Tom (Richard Long) is smart and college-bound one, not at all like his father Pa. Maybe when he was born, the stork brought the wrong baby to Ma? It’s interesting to see Long interact with Main and with Colbert, whom he more naturally resembles. Long had previously played Colbert’s son in the romance drama TOMORROW IS FOREVER.
Tom Kettle spends time at the MacDonalds’ farm, helping them get started. Of course, Betty and Bob are undergoing huge adjustments living in the country trying to make a success of their new chicken farming venture.
Besides interacting with the Kettles, there are a few additional subplots tossed in for good measure that help flesh out the conflicts of the central couple. In some scenes, Colbert gets jealous when MacMurray helps a pretty dairy farmer (Louise Albritton) who has troubles with her machinery.
I have to give both Colbert and MacMurray credit for not being afraid to get ‘down and dirty’ in this motion picture. They must deal with all sorts of calamities, for laughs naturally…and despite Colbert’s chic hairstyle and nice clothes, she isn’t afraid to get wet or muddy, or to get up close and personal with smelly livestock and creaky equipment.
My only quibble about the film is that the first half is too reliant on farcical episodes. Sometimes we don’t get enough meaningful interaction between the lead characters, because writer-director Chester Erskine is too busy setting up and playing out the next gag. But the film finds its heart midway, when the MacDonalds’ farm is nearly destroyed by a fire and the locals show up to help them rebuild. In no time at all, they’re back in business.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 5, 2023 16:44:13 GMT
Tomorrow I am going to post a review I wrote awhile back for TEMPTATION (1946). I will post it in this thread. TEMPTATION was technically an indy film produced by International Pictures, but around the time of its release, Universal merged with International Pictures, becoming Universal International. So Universal did handle its distribution.
When I first published my review back in late September or early October, the rarely seen title had just been uploaded on YouTube (a beautifully restored print). By the end of its first week on YT, the film already had 100,000 views. Now eight months later, it is nearing 700,000 views.
At the end of every month, WordPress sends me a report about my blog. The report includes stats about which posts of mine receive the most "visits" from online traffic. And almost every month, my review for TEMPTATION gets the most visits. Why? What is it about this film that has people so interested?
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Post by Fading Fast on Jun 5, 2023 18:01:19 GMT
Tomorrow I am going to post a review I wrote awhile back for TEMPTATION (1946). I will post it in this thread. TEMPTATION was technically an indy film produced by International Pictures, but around the time of its release, Universal merged with International Pictures, becoming Universal International. So Universal did handle its distribution.
When I first published my review back in late September or early October, the rarely seen title had just been uploaded on YouTube (a beautifully restored print). By the end of its first week on YT, the film already had 100,000 views. Now eight months later, it is nearing 700,000 views.
At the end of every month, WordPress sends me a report about my blog. The report includes stats about which posts of mine receive the most "visits" from online traffic. And almost every month, my review for TEMPTATION gets the most visits. Why? What is it about this film that has people so interested?
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Post by topbilled on Jun 5, 2023 19:14:19 GMT
Tomorrow I am going to post a review I wrote awhile back for TEMPTATION (1946). I will post it in this thread. TEMPTATION was technically an indy film produced by International Pictures, but around the time of its release, Universal merged with International Pictures, becoming Universal International. So Universal did handle its distribution.
When I first published my review back in late September or early October, the rarely seen title had just been uploaded on YouTube (a beautifully restored print). By the end of its first week on YT, the film already had 100,000 views. Now eight months later, it is nearing 700,000 views.
At the end of every month, WordPress sends me a report about my blog. The report includes stats about which posts of mine receive the most "visits" from online traffic. And almost every month, my review for TEMPTATION gets the most visits. Why? What is it about this film that has people so interested?
Incidentally, my TV show reviews that get the most traffic on WordPress are my reviews for Rawhide which also surprised me a little bit. |
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