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Post by Fading Fast on Sept 8, 2023 15:08:31 GMT
And for a different take. I didn't note it in my comments below, but I agree, this is one of Oakie's better performances.
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Once in a Lifetime from 1932 with Aline MacMahon, Jack Oakie, Russell Hopton, George Ratoff, Zasu Pitts and Sidney Fox
Based on a George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart Broadway play that poked fun at Hollywood during its transition from silent to talking pictures, there is every reason to believe this farcical effort with a talented cast would be witty and entertaining, but it didn't gel.
Once in a Lifetime's mocking of Hollywood has too much talent on the screen for there not to be some good scenes and funny lines, but director Russell Mack didn't know how and when to pull back the crazy and ridiculousness to make the story engaging.
Aline MacMahon, Jack Oakie and Russell Hopton play a Vaudeville troupe put out of work by the talking pictures. So they go to Hollywood to open an elocution school, trying to mimic the success businesses had selling mining supplies during the gold rush.
Once there, they see that Hollywood is an absurd fantasy land run by egomaniacal studio executives who make decisions based on hackneyed ideas supported by yes men.
Much time is spent mocking the executive offices of a fictional studio where uniformed boys walk around with signs noting which VIP is in conference. The secretary, played by Zasu Pitts, wearily dismisses all visitors to the executive floor except the chosen few.
It's also a place where a successful playwright, played by Onslow Stephens, is hired to come to Hollywood, given an office and a large salary, but then is assigned nothing to do. He spends his days waiting in the outer office trying to get in to see the man who hired him.
MacMahon, the brains of the old Vaudeville trio, is less valuable in this nutty environment than simple-minded Oakie who is lauded for his inane observations, picked up from the trade magazines he skims, and made while he annoyingly chews on Indian nuts.
His trite utterances impress the studio president, played by George Ratoff, who hires Oakie to be his new head of production. It is all silly, including Oakie giving an inexperienced actress, played by Sidney Fox, a starring role because he's smitten with her.
The rest of the plot, for what it is worth, has Oakie's star rising and falling a few times as his insane decisions somehow, mainly, work out. Meanwhile, MacMahon and Hopton struggle to find a place for their more-thoughtful approach to the business.
None of this is taken seriously. It plays more like a Saturday Night Live skit stretched into an hour-and-half movie, but that's also the problem. Camp is funny in small bites, but ninety minutes of it, without a story or characters you really care about, is too much.
MacMahon, a true pro, tries her best to bring some sanity and continuity to all the craziness going on around her, but an actress can't fix a picture whose writers and director didn't care enough to create a compelling narrative.
Once in a Lifetime wanted to mock Hollywood's egoes, foibles, excesses and its insecurities over the coming of sound. It did that reasonably successfully, but without an even somewhat-believable story holding it together, the effort overall falls flat.
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Post by topbilled on Sept 25, 2023 15:15:49 GMT
This neglected film is from 1946.
Olivia de Havilland gives two standout performances
In this film Robert Siodmak directs Olivia de Havilland as a pair of twins who foul up a murder investigation. The murder takes place in the opening shots, and it’s shocking. Siodmak’s use of unlit stage areas deliberately keeps us at a disadvantage and increases the mystery. We know the assailant is in the room, having just stabbed a doctor with a sharp object, but we cannot see her face.
A veteran homicide detective (Thomas Mitchell) is determined to solve the case as quickly as possible. But just when it looks like he is about to nail Terry Collins (de Havilland), his investigation hits a snag. Eyewitness accounts that place her at the scene of the crime are contradicted by several other people who can vouch for Terry’s whereabouts when the murder was committed. Of course, none of the witnesses know Terry has a twin; and neither does the detective until he stops by Terry’s apartment.
The women are coy with him. They admit nobody at the high rise building where they work know they are twins. This includes the elevator boy Rusty (Richard Long) who has a crush on Terry; as well as Dr. Scott Elliott (Lew Ayres), a psychiatrist with an office in the building who also has romantic feelings for Terry. Both Scott and Rusty become confused when they learn the truth and realize they actually might have had feelings for Ruth, the sister.
Soon the ladies are arrested on suspicion of murder. But the witnesses still can’t positively identify one sister over the other. There is a lineup, and more interrogation. But they cover for each other. Their game prevents the police and prosecutors from successfully charging either one of them with murder. Though it is obvious they are obstructing justice, they are allowed to leave the station. But as luck would have it, there might be a way to pin the killing on the correct culprit after all.
It seems Scott Elliott has written a book about twins. He convinces the women to be part of his ongoing research. Scott is in love with Terry, and he is anxious to prove she is innocent and that Ruth belongs in the electric chair. The script, written by Nunnally Johnson, gets a bit technical in spots with its share of psychological mumbo jumbo. But mostly Johnson and Siodmak keep it simple enough for viewers to understand. And Siodmak’s staging and camerawork assist the story at every turn.
There are some neat twists in the second half of the story. It veers into melodrama when it is revealed that Ruth loves Scott, and she’s jealous of Terry. This reflects her motive for killing, since the other doctor had also loved Terry, and not Ruth. In a jealous rage she stabbed the doc, and now she is going to set Terry up to take the fall so she can swoop in and win Scott, by posing as the more innocent Terry.
The acting is uniformly good, and Olivia De Havilland gives a standout performance (two standout performances). She has a field day with the ‘which one is she’ set-up, and the scenes where the twins undergo ink blot tests and lie detector tests are expertly played. Given what we know about her real-life conflicts with sister Joan Fontaine, I couldn’t help but think Olivia was deftly spoofing Joan.
Ayres is also effective, showing the quiet desperation of a man eager to help the woman he loves. This was Ayres’ first picture since the war. A few years earlier he was unceremoniously dropped by MGM after claiming he was a conscientious objector. It would have been objectionable if Ayres’ career had not been allowed to continue. Just as it is objectionable for one sister to steal the happiness of another sister who has so much to give.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 8, 2023 16:23:15 GMT
This neglected film is from 1954.
Audie anti-war
Audie Murphy’s motion picture career peaked in the 1950s, when he was cast in a series of westerns at Universal. As a war hero whose military achievements were well-known to Americans, he was a natural choice for these types of movies. He was not a theatrically trained actor, but he seems to learn as he goes, giving stronger performances in each subsequent picture.
In DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER, he works nicely alongside Walter Brennan who plays his dad. Their performance styles are different, which adds to the dimension of their scenes together. In the movie, they are a father-son team that runs a freight business. While hauling cargo, they have to contend with others who stand in the way of their success. Some serious obstacles must be overcome.
One obstacle involves a slick operator (Lyle Bettger) who aims to stir up trouble with a nearby native tribe. Bettger’s goal is to embroil the local settlers in a war with the natives, so that they will be too busy fighting…and this will make it easier for his men to steal gold and transport it out of the region.
Because Murphy’s character has already forged a truce with the native leader (Jay Silverheels) and is keeping an eye on any potential trouble, this causes problems for Bettger. As a result, Bettger puts a new plan in motion. He brings an outlaw (Hugh O’Brian) to town who will force Murphy to cooperate with them.
It’s interesting to see Mr. O’Brian play such a baddie, just a short time before playing heroic Wyatt Earp on television. O’Brian and the rest of the gang cause a lot of chaos. They kidnap Brennan, frame Murphy and kill innocent people. Despite the fact that his father is still in danger, Murphy realizes he has no choice but to strike back. The movie features many fist fights. There seems to be one every ten minutes!
While he has his hands full with O’Brian and Bettger, the Cavalry is dispatched to deal with the natives. It seems the tribe has grown restless because of skirmishes threatening the peace that had been brokered earlier with Murphy.
Related to this is a backstory which relates to the death of Brennan’s late wife. We are told how a native warrior had killed the woman, and that the chief (Morris Ankrum) had the warrior dragged by horses to his death. This was done because the murder of a white woman had jeopardized peace which the natives were seeking with the settlers. The warrior that the chief had to kill, to set an example to the other tribesmen, was one of his own sons.
So we have more than just a standard tale of gold, greed, kidnapping and murder. We have groups of people trying to bring law and order to the west, to make the region habitable. At the same time they’re involved in a series of disputes, (re)negotiations and military actions that require them all to get along.
At one point Murphy’s character ends up in jail, when it looks like Bettger has succeeded in framing him. He is visited by a girl he’s been dating (Lisa Gaye), and she knows that he won’t rest until he is able to save his father and ensure there’s no more warring. It is noteworthy that our star, who had killed so many in real-life battles just a decade earlier in Europe, is being used for opposite purposes in this western anti-war film.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Oct 8, 2023 19:02:28 GMT
I'm a fan of Drums Across the River since it has some supporting actors that I like in Lyle Bettger and Lisa Gaye. Both can be found in many 50s and 60s westerns (which I'm been watching a lot of lately), so I either one of them at least once a week on INSP or Gritt.
Bettger had also had a fairly solid film career, starting off in the Stanwyck film No Man of Her Own, and with her again in All I Desire.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 8, 2023 21:25:53 GMT
I'm a fan of Drums Across the River since it has some supporting actors that I like in Lyle Bettger and Lisa Gaye. Both can be found in many 50s and 60s westerns (which I'm been watching a lot of lately), so I either one of them at least once a week on INSP or Gritt. Bettger had also had a fairly solid film career, starting off in the Stanwyck film No Man of Her Own, and with her again in All I Desire.
He semi-retired from Hollywood in the late 60s and moved to Hawaii with his wife. As a result of relocating there, he turns up about a dozen times on episodes of Hawaii Five-0 in the 1970s. He sometimes played the villain, and sometimes the government or military official that Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) consulted on cases. You never knew if he was going to be a good guy or a bad guy, but you always knew it would be a worthwhile performance regardless of how much screen time he received. |
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Post by topbilled on Oct 14, 2023 7:08:45 GMT
This neglected film is from 1933.
Mirror reflects a broken marriage
The Kino Lorber company issued a restored print of this Universal precode directed by James Whale. Mr. Whale, known more for horror classics, not only directed this adaptation of the stage play, he also remade it a few years later as WIVES UNDER SUSPICION (1938). In the remake, a lot of the salacious dialogue was softened and the immoral tendencies of the main characters were corrected. At its core Ladislas Fodor’s tale is a commentary on the brokenness of a marriage, and a justice system, once whole but now in pieces.
We start with attractive Gloria Stuart as a married woman on the prowl. She meets up for a tryst with her handsome lover (young Walter Pidgeon against type). There is plenty of sexy banter, with the lustful lady heading into the bedroom. But before she can finish disrobing, her cuckolded husband (Paul Lukas) shows up. In a moment of rage, he shoots and kills her.
Miss Stuart’s character dies at the eight minute mark, though she is seen in a brief flashback later when Lukas mentions to his lawyer (Frank Morgan) how he first realized his wife was a cheat.
The rest of the drama that unfolds concerns itself with Morgan’s character realizing that he’s in an unhappy marriage. Lukas describes a kiss he had with his wife in front of a fancy bedroom mirror. Lukas says he realized Stuart was getting dolled up not for him but for a lover. It made him insane with jealousy.
This is partially repeated with Morgan and wife Nancy Carroll, in a scene that takes place in the bedroom of their home. One marital situation about infidelity begins to mirror the other, pun intended.
There are a few nicely presented supporting characters. One is a female office manager (Jean Dixon) with a law degree, working alongside Morgan as he prepares to defend Lukas in court. She is said to be single and on the prowl herself. The other notable supporting figure is an older law clerk, wonderfully played by Charley Grapewin, billed as Charles Grapewin. He gets some of the best lines and reactions.
I wasn’t entirely sold on Nancy Carroll’s performance as the second cheating spouse until near the end of the film. She waits until a dramatic courtroom scene to convey her most potent acting. In that moment her character realizes Morgan has discerned her own adultery and that he feels akin to Lukas, wanting to kill her the same way Lukas had killed Stuart.
A very strange bit of dialogue occurs in this film. Morgan says to Lukas during private counsel: “Let’s confess the truth to each other. You are a murderer, and I am a murderer.” Director James Whale was gay, and this line kind of feels like one man admitting his homosexuality to another. Despite the oddness of that declaration in the middle of a film about justice, this is still a fairly logical drama. THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR is about how one couple’s failings affect the wellbeing of another couple.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 14, 2023 15:55:56 GMT
The Kiss Before the Mirror form 1933 with Frank Morgan, Nancy Carrol, Paul Lukas, Gloria Stuart and Jean Dixon
A noted physician kills his beloved wife at her paramour's bedside and then immediately calls the police to confess. A prominent attorney takes the doctor's case planning to use a temporary insanity defense for his client.
As the attorney is preparing his case, he discovers that his own beloved wife is cheating on him. He now views his current case as a test of the defense he would use if he murders his unfaithful wife.
Clearly, the plot in The Kiss Before the Mirror requires some suspension of disbelief. One comes to appreciate that director James Whale intended to show a Greek Tragedy view of the mad jealousy which infidelity can arouse and not a twentieth-century rational view.
Whale, most famous for his work in the formative years of the horror genre, anticipates the coming of film noir, here, with his use of highly stylized shots, shadows, stark black-and-white images, mirror reflections and shattered glass.
Film noir, with its passions and grey morality, but also often with a demand that a man or woman should suffer for his or her sins, can often be seen as a modern take on Greek Tragedy.
The movie's opening sequence of the physician discovering his adulterous wife primping for her lover at her dressing mirror and, then, following her to her lover's chic home where he commits the murder, with only a few tweaks, could have been the opening to a 1940s noir.
With Paul Lukas playing the husband on trial, Frank Morgan playing Lukas' attorney, Gloria Stuart playing Lukas' wife, Nancy Carrol playing Morgan's wife and Jean Dixon in a supporting role, Whale has a talented cast to carry out his arch presentation of infidelity.
The performances and the writing are exaggerated in a, as noted, Greek Tragedy way where the characters see these events - their love affairs or the lover's infidelity - as prostration-worthy life-defining moments where nothing and no one else matters.
It's also a very nineteenth century Romantic Era view of love and loss, versus our "just get a divorce, update your wardrobe, move into a new house and try again" modern approach to a failed marriage.
Stripped of all the highfalutin style and Eros view of love, The Kiss Before the Mirror is simply a murder trial that uses the "temporary insanity" defense as a stalking horse for the "unwritten law" that avers a spouse has the right to kill a cheating husband or wife.
We all know it's wrong, but to this day, juries sometimes acquit based on a version of that defense. Human nature, despite great efforts expended by our cultural and social elites to adjust it to their personal dictates, has a timeless, unchanging bedrock.
The Kiss Before the Mirror takes too much of a nineteenth century Romantic Era view of love and marriage to be fully relatable for a modern audience. Still, it's an impressively stylized look at the eternal passions of love and hate that surround infidelity. |
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Post by topbilled on Oct 23, 2023 15:52:10 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Claude Rains as the Phantom
In the early 1940s, Universal decided to remake Gaston Leroux’s classic horror story, which had been filmed earlier with Lon Chaney Sr. in 1925. Originally Henry Koster was assigned to direct, but his ideas about the relationship between the phantom and Christine, the story’s delicate heroine, were rejected by studio bosses.
Koster had wanted to up the stakes between the main characters by making Christine the daughter of the phantom. Perhaps an unusual way to look at it, though it might better explain why he’s obsessed and so determined to make her music career successful. Of course, there would be no “romance” that way.
Universal did not wish to incur the wrath of the production code office, or alienate audiences, with any hints of an incestuous relationship. So the original story was kept intact, where the phantom is merely someone from the girl’s village who always admired her. After his face is burned when acid is thrown on to his face, he becomes even more appreciative of her beauty.
The studio sought Boris Karloff to play the phantom, but he was unavailable so Claude Rains was borrowed from Warner Brothers. Mr. Rains had previously appeared in horror films at Universal– such as THE INVISIBLE MAN and THE WOLF MAN. He was a bankable name in the genre.
For the role of Christine, young soprano Susanna Foster was cast. She became very popular with moviegoers as a result of her appearance in this picture, and she was immediately put in several follow-ups.
One of those was THE CLIMAX, conceived as a sequel to PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which wound up starring Karloff. How’s that for casting irony!
For the part of love struck baritone Anatole Garron, Universal hired Nelson Eddy. The singing star had just finished a long-term contract at MGM. Given Mr. Eddy’s popularity in films with Jeanette MacDonald, his presence helped ensure the success of this remake.
The studio pulled out all the stops. In addition to top-notch stars and skilled character actors, the film benefits from exquisite set design, stunning Technicolor; and of course, a splendid soundtrack that is its greatest attribute.
Not surprisingly PHANTOM OF THE OPERA became a smash hit for Universal when released in August 1943, and it went on to earn two Oscars. It also gave cinema a phantom as only Claude Rains could play him.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 28, 2023 13:41:20 GMT
This neglected film is from 1947.
Superb atmosphere, story and performances
Walter Wanger produced this chilling horror thriller that seems to fly under the radar these days. Hopefully a new review will bring it some attention and renewed focus.
Much has been documented about the incredible transformation Agnes Moorehead undergoes in order to convincingly portray a 105 year old Italian woman. She spent many hours in the make-up chair each morning, before she was ready to go in front of the camera. Of course, the team at Universal was quite skilled at creating fiendish characters for the studio’s horror flicks.
And while Miss Moorehead certainly captures our attention with a memorable role, it’s the film’s younger characters, played by Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward, whose unconventional relationship draws us into the story.
Miss Hayward has a particularly challenging assignment, portraying a woman with multiple identities, but she does it masterfully. She is especially good opposite Moorehead in their scenes together.
Mr. Cummings, who is often not given enough credit for his work on screen, has an equally vulnerable and complex character to play. In a way this film presents three very unusual people whose fates are interwoven. Some of what they learn about each other, and about themselves looking into the mirror, is terrifying.
I won’t spend a lot of time covering the plot, but much of what transpires is dramatically satisfying. The film is helped considerably by its soundtrack. During the story, we are treated to all kinds of eerie voices and sinister noises. These “tones” build to a strange rhythm and fill in the spaces of a carefully designed gothic set.
There is one scene where Cummings has to run through a courtyard and up a winding staircase. He reaches the landing above, and dashes over to a door. The door is bolted shut, and when he quickly looks up– we look up with him– a frightened bird swoops down at him.
The sound of the bird’s flapping wings combine with the wide-eyed expressions conveyed by Mr. Cummings, who is out of breath from ascending the steps so rapidly. It’s a frightening moment, both disorienting and richly symbolic.
It is perhaps the final scene that deserves special mention. Miss Moorehead’s character senses the futility of holding on to love letters from the ancient past. She resolves to free herself of the pain and burden…
In a scene reminiscent of REBECCA she starts a fire that not only burns her treasured correspondence but her entire home as well. Watch this film and get caught up in it– but only watch it when you have time to appreciate it. Wanger and his technicians try to accomplish a superb cinematic adaptation of Henry James’ The Aspern Papers, and for the most part, they succeed.
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Post by topbilled on Nov 6, 2023 16:16:22 GMT
This neglected film is from 1949.
Inspired by ’30s gangster pictures
There are a few things I love about CRISS CROSS. First, I enjoy watching actor Percy Helton as Frank the bartender; he always creates a nice characterization with limited screen time. Second, there’s a sweet relationship between Richard Long and Meg Randall; they were paired in several Universal films and always project a wholesome quality. And then we have the two main stars, Yvonne De Carlo and Burt Lancaster, who are at their peak physically; they’re gorgeous and photograph flawlessly.
In addition to this there’s some great on-location filming. Key scenes have been shot by director Robert Siodmak and cinematographer Franz Planer in several old Los Angeles neighborhoods, as well as at Union Station.
Plus it looks like the robbery sequence was filmed in Long Beach. So there is a lot of historical footage in this picture. But while these pluses make a strong case that CRISS CROSS is a film noir classic, there are some things about the picture that do not work for me.
I think the ending is a bit overrated. It’s effective. But Dan Duryea is not doing anything different here than he’s done with his other villain roles before or after. It’s one of those everyone-must-die endings, and all he has to do after the fatal bullets are fired is to turn around and look into the headlights. Sirens blare in the background. Camera moves in and pictures fades out.
One sequence, however, that does not seem clichéd is the robbery. But while it does contain a lot of action, it’s staged in an uninspiring way (corny theatrics, with way too-obvious fake jabs and punches). A bright haze engulfs them from the explosion, but the director does not take advantage of the visual possibilities here.
I can almost imagine what Orson Welles would have done. Welles would have had running shadows cutting through the bright cloud. And he would have done something to illuminate Lancaster’s face in this sequence. Or at least with his hand holding the gun. Visually speaking, Lancaster’s flesh is too pale and it blends in with the bright cloud of smoke to the point that we can barely see him.
Overall, this film is a hodgepodge of ideas from '30s gangster pictures. It steals heavily from Warner Brothers crime flicks– the entire last sequence, where Lancaster gets kidnapped from the hospital is ripped off from THE PUBLIC ENEMY. Even the ending, where he dies is copied. The only new angle is that the girl dies alongside him.
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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 6, 2023 16:48:22 GMT
I wrote the below comments about three years ago.
Criss Cross from 1949 with Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea
Burt Lancaster might get top billing and the most screen time, but the heart and soul (or really, the heartlessness and soullessness) of this movie is femme fatal par excellence Yvonne De Carlo (the future Lillian Monster not Batgirl; Batgirl was Yvonne Craig - I always confuse those names).
Some femme fatals take pleasure in their evilness; some would almost choose being evil over getting whatever they want - money, power or some man - because their raison d’être is evil. But De Carlo is all business in this one; being evil is just a means to an end.
She's indifferent to it, which is almost more frightening than the sociopath who enjoys being evil. With the sociopath, you know she's broken; with De Carlo, you almost think she's not.
We come into this story as De Carlo's former husband, Lancaster, returns from a few years of traveling the country hopping from job to job to, as we'll learn, get over his divorce from De Carlo (fat chance). Once back in town, he goes looking for her in their old haunt despite everyone in town sensing the pending doom of these two reuniting.
While Lancaster was away licking his wounds, De Carlo, clad in tight dresses, jangling jewelry and bad-girl sunglasses, moved on to local gangster Duryea, equally dressed for his part in gangster noir-cliched dark shirts and suits with light ties and suspenders. De Carlo, a bit bored (one senses she's always a bit bored), starts sniffing around Lancaster while Duryea immediately senses the threat from her ex-husband.
De Carlo, the lynchpin of it all, who clearly has a physical attraction to Lancaster, plays her boy toys against each other. But Lancaster is an honest guy with a regular job as an armored-car driver who can't give her the things a prosperous gangster can (gun-hung-wall).
So, after much angst, sex we know is happening but the movie code palliates and Lancaster and Duryea at each others' throats a few times, seemingly out of nowhere, Lancaster offers up the idea of leading an inside job to rob the armored-car company.
This solves two problems for Lancaster as it would stop Duryea from killing him (Lancaster's the irreplaceable inside guy after all) and would produce the funds for him to run away with De Carlo afterwards (the plan those two have).
Okay, with that horrible plan in place, the rest of the movie is a pretty good heist story from planning to, as always, bungled execution and, then, the denouement. Leaving out the spoilers, the thing to look for is De Carlo, the catalyst for almost every single bad thing that has happened to everyone in this story, explaining her philosophy on life, which boils down to I want expensive things and an easy life and don't really care who provides that or how, but that's what I want.
Heck, had she met a rich, honest guy, she'd have probably led a rich, honest life. Her game isn't evil; her game is me-first with no rules - a frightening amorality scarier than most off-the-shelf femme fatales. She lifts Criss Cross several notches above your average-good film noir.
This is a femme fatale par excellence ⇩
N.B. The location shots of late '40s Los Angeles are time-travel and noir perfect.
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Post by topbilled on Nov 9, 2023 14:54:24 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
Nocturnal life
In this 58 minute precode from Universal, we get a slice of nocturnal life. Most of the action occurs at a popular nightclub called Happy’s Place, which is owned by a charming bootlegger (Boris Karloff). We’re told patrons are starving not only for food, but also for attention. This is the hottest spot in town to see and be seen.
The somber attitude of a wealthy patron (Lew Ayres) is at odds with the festive goings on. His mother (Hedda Hopper) shot and killed his father a short time earlier, and everyone’s talking about the sensational murder case. Ayres is trying not to listen, and he’s drinking like a fish to deaden the pain of his fractured family life.
While Ayres consumes a large quantity of booze to forget his father’s death, he meets his father’s female friend (Dorothy Peterson). She insists it was just friendship, but she loved his father and will never forget how his mother took all that away.
Meanwhile another patron (George Raft) shows up. He’s a crooked gambler who likes to ogle chorus girls. He snags a date with one of them (Mae Clarke). But she is more drawn to Ayres and his emotional problems.
Though there is some heavy drama, the mood is also light…thanks in large part to the music and dancing scenes. Floor show numbers come to life under the choreography of Busby Berkeley, whose style is unmistakable. The routines show off the ladies’ anatomies, particularly their legs.
There aren’t many sets used here, since most of the main action is inside Karloff’s club. However, a fluid camera often pans from one end of the floor to the other, then cuts to the dressing room and office. Like GRAND HOTEL, we follow all the different subplots that play out simultaneously and anticipate various outcomes.
The characters’ lives are entwined with one another, as if it is a big soap opera. Karloff’s wife (Dorothy Revier) is cheating on the side, while he wages war with a rival gangster. A kind doorman (Clarence Muse) has a wife dying in a nearby hospital but cannot leave work. And of course, Clarke is torn between two men who both want her…they square off to decide which one will emerge victorious.
Several situations at the club go too far, and not everyone will live to see the morning light.
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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 9, 2023 15:28:25 GMT
Night World from 1932 with Mae Clarke, Lew Ayres, Boris Karloff, Clarence Muse and Hedda Hopper
"Will you have a little drink?"
"No thanks, I'm trying to live long enough to see good liquor come back."
- A smart Mae Clarke responding to a drunk Lew Ayres' proffer of always-questionable bootleg booze during Prohibition
Night World's myriad stories rip through bootlegging, infidelity, alcoholism, a mob war, murder, a budding love affair, a mother-son rift, a Busby Berkeley number and the death of a loving husband's wife all in fifty-seven minutes and pretty much all on one set. It's amazingly organized and entertaining without any time spent on the artsy pretensions that obsess modern filmmakers.
Oddly cast quasi-gangster Boris Karloff runs an upscale New York City nightclub, which other mobsters are trying to muscle in on. He's dictatorial to his staff and obsequious to his good customers, which include out of towners and society locals like the son, played by Lew Ayres, of a notorious Wall Street tycoon who was shot and killed by his wife when she caught her husband cheating.
Drunk-all-the-time and woeful-looking Ayres is befriended by one of the dancers at the club, played with irresistible charm by Mae Clarke. She sees Ayres is in need of rescue, but her attempts are interrupted by bullying tough guy George Raft, who's trying to score with Clarke.
Part of the fun is just seeing the nightclub in full swing: everybody is drinking from flasks or buying the club's illegal booze; the dancers perform a Busby Berkeley number with his de rigueur between-the-dancer's-legs camera angle and customers fight with their spouses or try to make time with potential lovers, while Karloff tries to keep it all working.
The stories zip by as you become vested in Clarke's genuine attempt to help disaffected Ayres. In one of the movie's most poignant scenes, Ayer’s has a brutal face off with his mother, played with surprising nuance by Hedda Hopper, as he disowns her for, basically, being the world's worst mother and wife.
Tucked in amidst all this society and gangster argot, backstabbing and canoodling is a sensitive and, for the time, subversive story about the club's black doorman, played by Clarence Muse. His wife is in the hospital, but boss Karloff won't give him time off to go see her.
Early on, Muse comments to his friend, the local cop who opines that the club's patrons are lucky to be rich, that he, Muse, thinks most of the people in the club aren't really happy or having fun, but just use the club to briefly escape their hardships and disappointments.
The deepest insight in the movie, which is also its theme, comes from Muse who talks in the era's stereotypical fashion and who can't even get time off to see his sick wife. Something like that doesn't make it into a movie by accident. Even in 1932, there were voices in opposition to the period's social injustices.
The movie's climax, like many from that early talking-picture era, jams in an amazing amount of action and reveals to tie up several storylines. Yet the conclusion to several of the threads is messy in a real life way.
A few years later, with the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code, resolutions would mostly be nice, neat or, at least, morally clear, but in pre-code land, rough justice and muddy morality rule.
Night World is a gem of a short movie with several good stories and engaging characters that still works as entertainment today. And it's a heck of a time capsule for New York City (even though the City shots are stock footage) toward the end of Prohibition.
It's also a treat to see so many stars early in their careers. The most enjoyable of those being Mae Clarke, of The Public Enemy "grapefruit in the face" fame, whose performance is so engaging, you wonder why she didn't go on to bigger stardom. |
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Post by topbilled on Nov 25, 2023 14:57:37 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
Unique western showdown
The showdown in this movie doesn’t occur until the last five minutes. We spend the first 70 minutes or so building up to the fatal confrontation, and there are some interesting twists and turns. Mostly, though, this is a character-driven western that spends time telling us about the people in this town and what makes them tick. In the case of Jock Mahoney’s character, it’s more about what haunts him.
He is returning from the Confederate army, without a gun. The war is now over, and he meets up with a pal (Grant Williams) from the same hometown, Abilene, who had fought for the north. They dispense with their respective blue and gray uniforms then ride to their old stomping grounds. Quite a lot has changed in the four years they were away.
During their absence, Abilene has evolved from a simple farming community to an important railroad hub. Trains running in and out of Abilene transport meat. Cattle are now the main industry, and butchered beeves get shipped out on the rails to other parts of the country.
Since the economic climate has changed, one man (Lyle Bettger) has made a fortune by turning farm land into grazing land. He’s become a greedy land baron, though, and he’s made enemies of most of the locals. He keeps them in line with his own appointed sheriff (Ted de Corsia), who is as corrupt as they come.
Bettger’s backstory involves losing one of his hands in an accident that was caused by Mahoney’s character ten years earlier. When Mahoney returns to Abilene and learns that Bettger is now engaged to his former sweetheart (Martha Hyer). Mahoney feels he owes Bettger and is willing to step aside and relinquish the girl, even though he and Hyer still love each other.
In the next part of the story Bettger offers Mahohey the sheriff’s job…and this results in de Corsia resigning and now being put in charge of Bettger’s ongoing land disputes with the farmers. Meanwhile, Mahoney’s pal from the war (Williams) is now a farmer. He ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, during a fracas with the cattlemen. For his trouble, he is whipped by de Corsia for trespassing!
The scenes where Williams is whipped while tied to the back of a buggy are harrowing to watch. The wounds inflicted on him seem real. He lapses into a state of unconsciousness and is put on a horse which takes him to Mahoney and Mahoney’s deputy (David Janssen). Mahoney summons medical help for his friend, and there are some nice moments where he keeps vigil at Williams’ bedside.
However, Williams dies a short time later. This angers the local farmers who blame Bettger and de Corsia for the death. Soon they are out for blood. They form their own posse, while Mahoney has gone off to Bettger’s ranch to talk about what’s been happening. In town Janssen is not able to control the lynch mob, no surprise there.
It wouldn’t be a big western drama if things didn’t escalate. At Bettger’s ranch, the love triangle comes to a head when Hyer breaks things off to be with Mahoney, which sends Bettger over the edge. Lyle Bettger is a great actor and he plays the devastation of losing Hyer in a very dramatic away. There’s a lot of raw emotion and wounded pride in this motion picture. It’s more than just a standard range war story.
Mixed into all this is the fact that Mahoney does not use a gun, because of his guilt for the lives he took during the war. But after de Corsia kills Bettger in a dirty double cross, Mahoney is forced to use a gun to get rid of de Corsia. There’s a thoughtful line where Mahoney realizes that sometimes you must fight for peace. He gets nicked in the shoulder during his duel with de Corsia. But he emerges victorious and will be looked after by lovely Miss Hyer.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Nov 26, 2023 17:26:13 GMT
Next Week's Noir Alley film is Black Angel (1946): Since TCM tends to neglect Universal films, this one may just be a TCM premier.
I don't recall ever seeing it on TCM and it has been on my must-see Dan Duryea noir bucket list.
Also looking forward to Eddie's comments.
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