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Post by topbilled on Nov 26, 2023 17:49:38 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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Post by NoShear on Nov 26, 2023 18:01:25 GMT
Night World from 1932 with Mae Clarke, Lew Ayres, Boris Karloff, Clarence Muse and Hedda Hopper Fading Fast, the legs laden image here reminded me of a post that erupted into outpouring from leg worshippers on the old TCM Message Boards. It just went off the proverbial rails. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 6, 2023 15:47:05 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
In the great lachrymose tradition
A story like this, which will have us root for a couple carrying on an extramarital affair, would not get past the censors once the production code was fully enforced in 1934. Interestingly, Universal thought it struck gold with this formula and remade the tale two more times…in 1941 with Margaret Sullavan and in 1961 with Susan Hayward. In this first screen adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s novel, Irene Dunne plays the ‘back street’ gal and handsome John Boles is her paramour who’s marred to someone else.
I think part of the problem I had with the story is how transparent it was in manipulating the audience to feel sympathy for Dunne’s character. At one point, late in the film, Boles’ grown son (William Bakewell) confronts dear old dad’s mistress and gives her a tongue-lashing which a short time later causes him to feel remorse…well that and his father’s sudden death…so that he goes back to see the woman, makes amends with her and offers to support her financially for the rest of her life. Totally unbelievable.
Personally I felt that both Boles’ children would never accept this woman. Out of loyalty to their mother, they would barely tolerate the role Dunne played in their father’s life. They would never forgive her and certainly would not agree to give her money. They would have stuck to their resolve that the woman was no good, and if they did pay her anything, it would be through a lawyer, with a signed agreement that she’d never talk to anyone about the affair, in order to protect the family’s name.
Not only was the son’s quick reversal unbelievable, it was also quite implausible that Dunne would have stuck with such a man for over twenty years with hardly anything to show for it. Would she really have been so naive and stupid?
At nearly every turn, we see how grand this love affair is and how she is making a supposedly noble sacrifice choosing to be a woman on the side. But I think any self-respecting female would have decided at some point she needed to do much better for herself.
Another thing that disappointed me in watching BACK STREET was how the drama was so overly fixated on Dunne and Boles, we had very little development with the supporting characters. I wanted to know more about Boles’ wife (Doris Lloyd), and I wanted to see Dunne break things off with the automotive tycoon (George Meeker) who offered to marry her. All we know is that she is briefly engaged, but when Boles shows up to talk to her, she has abruptly ended the engagement and goes back to shacking up again with Boles. We really needed to see the consequences play out with the supporting characters.
Despite the flaws, it’s an engrossing melodrama. And Dunne certainly pulls out all the stops, especially in the picture’s final moments when her character must deal with Boles’ death and then soon experiences her own death. It feels a bit ambiguous how she dies. I guess in the great lachrymose tradition she dies of a broken heart, but it seems more logical that she would have committed suicide realizing how futile her life had been loving a man she could never fully have. The reality of her choices would have been devastating to her once the scales had fallen from her eyes.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 6, 2023 16:21:14 GMT
Back Street from 1932 with Irene Dunn and John Boles
Back Street, based on a popular novel, can be seen as an unconventional love story or a sad look at the lonely life of a mistress relegated to the "back streets" of a selfish man's world. The answer, as with most things, probably lies in an Aristotelian balance.
Back Street opens in early 1900s Cincinnati with a young pretty woman, played by Irene Dunn, unwilling to settle for any of the local boys, including the sincere one who proposes. Then an out-of-town businessman, played by John Boles, shows up.
Dunn and Boles connect immediately, but he soon tells her he's engaged to a local girl. Still, they date on the sly, but when a coincidence prevents Dunn from meeting Boles' mother, Boles marries the other girl.
We then fast forward five years to New York City where Boles and Dunn accidentally meet again. He's a wealthy young banker and up-and-coming influential man and she's living alone and working to support herself.
They begin an affair where he convinces her to quit her job so that she'll always be available for him when he has time to see her. He pays for her to live in a modest apartment.
Dunn is all in on the affair and Boles seems to truly love her. Yet Dunn's reality becomes always waiting to spend time with him in the "back streets" of his life, while for him, she's always there when he wants to step away from his regular world.
Later, when Dunn has a chance at a real marriage, Boles pulls her back to him and her marginalized life. He comes across as unawarely selfish, not overtly mean, but the result for Dunn is the same.
Boles' move is brutal, even if unintentional. He keeps his wife, family and public career, plus his mistress, while Dunn is left with no family, no career, no public life - no one to celebrate holidays with, no children to love. Hers is a lonely life.
Dunn, though, made her choices, even the choice not to marry, with her eyes wide open. It might have been kinder of Boles to have left her alone, but he didn't force her to stay with him. Perhaps pieces of true love were worth more to Dunn than a conventional life.
There are a few more plot twists left, but the outline of the story is set: Dunn lives for the windows of time she can spend with Boles. The climax, no spoilers coming, in which Boles' adult son learns a lesson about the complexities of life, is a curious touch at the end.
Dunn is outstanding here as she has to convey a lot of emotions with facial expressions, because she's almost always putting up a front, first for her family and later for Boles and the public. It's Dunn's talents that keeps her character from becoming pathetic.
Boles is good as he never comes across as cynical or mean, but slowly you realize how selfish his character is. His low-key acting style, though, leaves the field clear for this to be Dunn's movie. It would be a different picture with a strong leading man like Clark Gable.
Back Street is not the easiest book to bring to the screen as so much "action" happens in Dunn's head. Fortunately, Director John M. Stahl understood the material and his actors well, so he kept the focus on Dunn and her loneliness.
Back Street is a sad story even if you embrace the romantic angle. Since mistresses haven't disappeared, its story, while dated, still has something to say to us today, something that can be seen in the often lonely look in Irene Dunn's lovely eyes. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 6, 2023 16:33:37 GMT
I agree that Dunne's performance keeps the character from being too sappy or becoming too pathetic.
Not sure how it would have worked with a more romantic leading man like Gable in the role. One thing that Boles' low-key style provides us with is a form of cool detachment. Like he's willing to spend time with the mistress and professes to love her, but his life with his family is always slightly more important.
I haven't read the book and wondered if the dog was included in the book. After he bluntly tells her 'no we won't have a kid together' she's more alone than ever...but fortunately, as evidenced in a later scene, she has adopted a cute pooch.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Dec 6, 2023 17:20:19 GMT
Back Steet would be good to cover in the remake thread since there were 3 versions, the other two in 1941 with Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan, and 1961 with Susan Hayward, John Gavin and Vera Miles (shortly after Psycho)
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Post by topbilled on Dec 6, 2023 19:08:09 GMT
Back Steet would be good to cover in the remake thread since there were 3 versions, the other two in 1941 with Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan, and 1961 with Susan Hayward, John Gavin and Vera Miles (shortly after Psycho)
I told Fading Fast yesterday that the 1941 version is the one I prefer. I think the story is better when it's told within the confines of the production code...and I find the pairing of Margaret Sullavan and Charles Boyer most believable. |
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Post by sagebrush on Dec 7, 2023 12:16:37 GMT
TopBilled wrote: "...At nearly every turn, we see how grand this love affair is and how she is making a supposedly noble sacrifice choosing to be a woman on the side. But I think any self-respecting female would have decided at some point she needed to do much better for herself."
This is exactly why I don't really care for this story! |
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Post by kims on Dec 7, 2023 12:56:29 GMT
I have to agree with Sagebrush. There seems to be a genre of "the wife doesn't understand me/she's a shrew" and the lover is the noble loving soul. I wonder if the wife doesn't understand because hubby neglects her and/or she's a shrew because hubby goes after other women.
There is one film of this sort I like IN NAME ONLY. It is sappy, but I love Kay Francis' role. Writers Richard Sherman and Bessie Breuer captured perfectly the shrewd manipulative golddigger and Francis' performance makes you hate her.
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Dec 7, 2023 17:54:58 GMT
TopBilled wrote: "...At nearly every turn, we see how grand this love affair is and how she is making a supposedly noble sacrifice choosing to be a woman on the side. But I think any self-respecting female would have decided at some point she needed to do much better for herself."
This is exactly why I don't really care for this story! Do you feel similar when it comes to Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy? Today, Hepburn is viewed as one of the original self-respecting feminists but is that a sound portrayal? |
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Post by kims on Dec 7, 2023 18:41:14 GMT
I know you didn't direct your question at me JJGuitar, but I'll throw out a reference that the Tracy Hepburn relationship was half myth begun by Garson Kanin. The book is KATE by William J. Mann.
Personally, I like most of her work, but unimpressed by her interviews. I found her less a feminist and more like people who pride themselves on their honesty, which is an excuse to be rude, especially when no one asked their opinion.
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Post by sagebrush on Dec 8, 2023 0:09:22 GMT
TopBilled wrote: "...At nearly every turn, we see how grand this love affair is and how she is making a supposedly noble sacrifice choosing to be a woman on the side. But I think any self-respecting female would have decided at some point she needed to do much better for herself."
This is exactly why I don't really care for this story! Do you feel similar when it comes to Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy? Today, Hepburn is viewed as one of the original self-respecting feminists but is that a sound portrayal? That's a good question! I hadn't thought of that situation before as Kate being sacrificing because she seemed so independent in every other aspect of her life. It's almost as if she not only accepted the fact that she and Tracy would never marry, but that she actually preferred things the way they were. I think one difference is that Kate and Spencer did share a lot of their time together (didn't they have some kind of a home together?), whereas our heroine in BACK STREET was for most of her life receiving only hours at a time of significant other-time with selfish Walter. Kurt would have been a good husband, but I guess then our story would have been very interesting.  |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 18, 2023 14:24:32 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Based on Emmett Dalton’s autobiography
When an ex-outlaw writes a book about his criminal exploits, you have to wonder how much of what winds up on the printed page is fact and how much has been embellished for the reader. Then when said autobiography is adapted to the screen, there will, of course, be other fictional elements added. In this case, Universal’s screenwriters concoct a romantic subplot between a made-up friend of the Daltons (played by Randolph Scott in a role meant for Walter Pidgeon) and a pretty damsel (Kay Francis) who lives in the same town.
This was Miss Francis’ first and only western. Her role is a far cry from the more glamorous gals she portrayed a decade earlier in those sudsy melodramas at Warner Brothers. There are no Orry Kelly designs for her to wear in this production, but Vera West is credited as having supplied a few gowns. For the most part, Francis does well in a thankless role that is certainly not going to have much impact alongside a bunch of notorious men, though as always, she adds a note of grace and style.
As for Mr. Scott, his role also seems somewhat inconsequential at times. Yes, he’s there as a pal of the family to try to persuade the Dalton boys to turn from their life of crime. But Ma Dalton (Mary Gordon) basically serves the same function. Also, because we know the Daltons won’t stop until they are killed or captured during an ambush in Coffeyville, pleas to reform are futile.
The two older brothers, Grat (Brian Donlevy) and Bob (Broderick Crawford) are the most dangerous. Younger sibling Emmett (Frank Albertson) gets drawn into their daring robberies, and by the end of the tale, is the only one who survives.
The real life Emmett Dalton would be sentenced to prison for life in Kansas. Though by late 1907, at the age of 36, he was pardoned by the governor. He became a real estate developer and married. In fact, his widow served as a technical consultant on the film.
What’s also interesting is that Emmett had appeared as himself in an early silent movie made shortly after his release from prison. His autobiography would not be published until 1931. But for many years, he remained in the public eye.
Getting back to the film, this is an 80-minute ‘A’ western with a more than adequate budget. It was put into production right after STAGECOACH (1939) had become a runaway hit, and after JESSE JAMES (1939) had proven to be a box office favorite…prompting Hollywood studios to create more epic western fare alongside the modestly budgeted ‘B’ oaters they turned out so quickly.
The actors give strong performances. There’s some artful mise-en-scene; and director George Marshall is a pro at combining western action with humor. In 1945 the studio made a pseudo-sequel called THE DALTONS RIDE AGAIN. That time Alan Curtis played Emmett, and he was the main character.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 21, 2023 13:01:42 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
At a moment’s notice
Universal spared no expense when it made AWAY ALL BOATS, producing a lavish war film in Technicolor and VistaVision. These technologies were meant to help the film compete against television. In addition to this, many of the outdoor scenes were shot on location in Puerto Rico, which gives viewers a little something extra.
The main stars are contract players Jeff Chandler and George Nader. Usually these two box office draws competed for roles. This is the only time they were cast in the same picture.
Lex Barker, who is third-billed, recently signed with the studio after making a series of Tarzan pictures for RKO…so he was a familiar face to audiences. Interestingly, Barker leaves about two-thirds of the way into the story, when his character, a navy commander, is transferred out and given his own ship. It adds some realism, that not everyone will make it to the end of the movie, and not necessarily because they are to be killed off.
George Nader plays the lieutenant of the U.S.S. Belinda, and he receives the most screen time. We get his backstory…he’s married to a devoted wife (Julie Adams), and they have a little boy. Adams is shown briefly at the beginning, before the Belinda goes out to sea. She’s waving her husband (Nader) off at the dock. Then she appears again later in a flashback segment when we learn more about Nader’s home life. Their happiness was disrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and his being sent to Okinawa.
Adams has a total five minutes worth of screen time. But I can see why the studio wanted one of its leading ladies to do what is otherwise a thankless role, because there had to be a female presence in the film. And it had to be someone who looked glamorous and was worth Nader surviving and reaching home in one piece.
Midway through the story, there’s a baseball sequence that breaks up the monotony, getting us off the ship for awhile. When the men start quarreling during the game, we see how emotional they are underneath their usually cool exteriors. They are well trained, but vulnerable. At a moment’s notice, things can descend into chaos.
Nonetheless Chandler’s character runs the ship with a firm hand. He’s the captain, someone who barks orders and enjoys it. He’s kind of a loner in this movie, which gives this role more dimension that some of Chandler’s other parts in Universal pictures. He has no wife or girlfriend, and we are not told anything about loved ones back home. There is no flashback featuring parents or siblings, nor do we see him writing letters to any relatives. His closest companion is a monkey.
Despite the unusualness of the character, Chandler gives a fun performance, and he does well with his costars. He’s quite good with the comic relief scenes. Not just the stuff with the monkey, but also those moments where our captain must deal with the ship’s garbage man.
The garbage man takes particular pride in his job, but clashes with Chandler’s no-nonsense authority figure. They gradually forge a mutual respect for each other as the story moves towards its conclusion. These types of films are good at showing team work, and how everyone has a key role in the success of the whole unit. In this case, all the way down the chain of command to the garbage grinder.
At one point Chandler says he must be a common object of hatred, to unify the men and prevent infighting. Besides the monkey, Chandler’s prized possession is a makeshift sailboat that he has the men build, while they’re angry at him.
Everything sort of comes together in the last half hour of the movie. The final sequence involves great peril at sea, with the Belinda under fire. This is harrowing and realistically staged. In the most climactic scene, a kamikaze plane is overhead directly attacking the ship. Chandler looks up and yells: “Get your filthy plane away from my ship!” It’s a classic line.
At this point, he’s dying, and the ship’s falling apart. However, he’s not going to let the enemy win. These kinds of we can still kick butt scenes are what make a war movie popular with American audiences. Earlier in the film, we are told what the phrase ‘Away All Boats’ means and we see drills where the men learn how to cooperate with each other, in order to put the ship first. So I think it makes the ending more believable, that although Chandler’s character won’t survive, he has ensured the others will.
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Post by NoShear on Dec 21, 2023 14:59:17 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
At a moment’s notice
Universal spared no expense when it made AWAY ALL BOATS, producing a lavish war film in Technicolor and VistaVision. These technologies were meant to help the film compete against television. In addition to this, many of the outdoor scenes were shot on location in Puerto Rico, which gives viewers a little something extra.
The main stars are contract players Jeff Chandler and George Nader. Usually these two box office draws competed for roles. This is the only time they were cast in the same picture.
Lex Barker, who is third-billed, recently signed with the studio after making a series of Tarzan pictures for RKO…so he was a familiar face to audiences. Interestingly, Barker leaves about two-thirds of the way into the story, when his character, a navy commander, is transferred out and given his own ship. It adds some realism, that not everyone will make it to the end of the movie, and not necessarily because they are to be killed off.
George Nader plays the lieutenant of the U.S.S. Belinda, and he receives the most screen time. We get his backstory…he’s married to a devoted wife (Julie Adams), and they have a little boy. Adams is shown briefly at the beginning, before the Belinda goes out to sea. She’s waving her husband (Nader) off at the dock. Then she appears again later in a flashback segment when we learn more about Nader’s home life. Their happiness was disrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and his being sent to Okinawa.
Adams has a total five minutes worth of screen time. But I can see why the studio wanted one of its leading ladies to do what is otherwise a thankless role, because there had to be a female presence in the film. And it had to be someone who looked glamorous and was worth Nader surviving and reaching home in one piece.
Midway through the story, there’s a baseball sequence that breaks up the monotony, getting us off the ship for awhile. When the men start quarreling during the game, we see how emotional they are underneath their usually cool exteriors. They are well trained, but vulnerable. At a moment’s notice, things can descend into chaos.
Nonetheless Chandler’s character runs the ship with a firm hand. He’s the captain, someone who barks orders and enjoys it. He’s kind of a loner in this movie, which gives this role more dimension that some of Chandler’s other parts in Universal pictures. He has no wife or girlfriend, and we are not told anything about loved ones back home. There is no flashback featuring parents or siblings, nor do we see him writing letters to any relatives. His closest companion is a monkey.
Despite the unusualness of the character, Chandler gives a fun performance, and he does well with his costars. He’s quite good with the comic relief scenes. Not just the stuff with the monkey, but also those moments where our captain must deal with the ship’s garbage man.
The garbage man takes particular pride in his job, but clashes with Chandler’s no-nonsense authority figure. They gradually forge a mutual respect for each other as the story moves towards its conclusion. These types of films are good at showing team work, and how everyone has a key role in the success of the whole unit. In this case, all the way down the chain of command to the garbage grinder.
At one point Chandler says he must be a common object of hatred, to unify the men and prevent infighting. Besides the monkey, Chandler’s prized possession is a makeshift sailboat that he has the men build, while they’re angry at him.
Everything sort of comes together in the last half hour of the movie. The final sequence involves great peril at sea, with the Belinda under fire. This is harrowing and realistically staged. In the most climactic scene, a kamikaze plane is overhead directly attacking the ship. Chandler looks up and yells: “Get your filthy plane away from my ship!” It’s a classic line.
At this point, he’s dying, and the ship’s falling apart. However, he’s not going to let the enemy win. These kinds of we can still kick butt scenes are what make a war movie popular with American audiences. Earlier in the film, we are told what the phrase ‘Away All Boats’ means and we see drills where the men learn how to cooperate with each other, in order to put the ship first. So I think it makes the ending more believable, that although Chandler’s character won’t survive, he has ensured the others will.
I need to stop reading these neglected posts of yours, TopBilled: I almost invariably get the hankering to view which is usually followed by disappointment in T CM's schedule for the day. |
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