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Post by topbilled on Apr 17, 2023 2:45:14 GMT
Coming up:
Americans in Europe
Presented by TopBilled
July 1
THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946)
July 8
TOMORROW IS FOREVER (1946)
July 15
THE SEARCHING WIND (1946)
July 22
O.S.S. (1946)
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Post by topbilled on Jul 1, 2023 12:27:08 GMT
Essential: THE RAZOR'S EDGE (1946) I’ve always felt Somerset Maugham’s stories were so full of finely detailed situations, involving the most complex characters, that it’s almost impossible to do justice to his writing on screen. However, I think 20th Century Fox’s superb cinematic adaptation of ‘The Razor’s Edge’ does a remarkably decent job.It helps that producer Darryl Zanuck has hired director Edmund Goulding to helm the project, since Goulding is an old pro at classy melodramas. It also helps that some of the studio’s very best, most attractive young actors are cast in the four main roles: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne and Anne Baxter. Plus we have skilled character actors in the supporting roles: Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, Lucile Watson and Elsa Lanchester. Everyone is more than up to the task of putting the material across in the most accessible way possible…keeping it understandable for the masses while ensuring none of Maugham’s intelligent ideas are lost.A few scenes are a tad too lengthy. Editing could have trimmed a few minutes from the nearly two and a half hour running time, without sacrificing any of the drama’s essence or impact. The first half spends a little too much time focusing on the relationship between the characters played by Power and Tierney. This means the rest of the ensemble, except for Webb, don’t really get a chance to shine until the story expands in the second half. These are minor quibbles.The best performances are the two Oscar nominated ones. Webb is pitch perfect as a sissified society snob who wants to bring glory to his friends, in the hopes that it will bring glory to himself. He plays a boffo deathbed scene near the end with the right combination of tragedy and redemption. The other Oscar caliber performance is the one rendered by Anne Baxter, who took home the best supporting actress trophy, as well as a Golden Globe award. She projects her character’s fragility and depravity in several stunning scenes. The most noteworthy moment occurs inside an opium den. What I love about this film, what’s at the heart of Maughaum’s writing, is how interconnected everyone’s lives are, including their spiritual salvation. Yet things still divide people like money, social standing and careers. At the end, we must ask ourselves, what is it all for?
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Post by topbilled on Jul 8, 2023 14:40:31 GMT
Essential: TOMORROW IS FOREVER (1946)
 This picture has many Wellesian touches, meaning he probably provided director Irving Pichel with suggestions, as was his custom on sets where he was not technically in charge. But even with Orson Welles at the center of what can be termed a bittersweet wartime melodrama, this picture is a team effort, and it boasts a remarkable cast.TOMORROW IS FOREVER was made shortly after Claudette Colbert had left her home studio Paramount to freelance. At this point, she was taking on more maternal roles, and in this story she portrays the mother of wholesome teenager Richard Long. (The pair would also appear together in THE EGG AND I a year later.) Joining them is costar George Brent, who had recently parted company with his home studio (Warner Brothers); he was eager to stretch himself in more substantial dramatic parts. (Though he’d return to lighter fluff with Colbert in 1949’s BRIDE FOR SALE.) TOMORROW IS FOREVER is one of the rare times when George Brent played a father on screen, and added to that is the fact he’s playing a middle-aged character, with slightly graying hair.Oh, and we mustn’t overlook the contributions of veteran character actress Lucile Watson who plays the family's socially proper aunt. Or child star Natalie Wood, cast as a war orphan in one of her very first movies. The plot, which seems to mirror war-time anxieties, functions like a version of Enoch Arden. For those not familiar with the Enoch Arden theme, it’s a contemporary reworking of Homer’s Ulysses, where a man comes home from the war to learn his wife has believed him to be dead. In this case, Colbert is the spouse who has moved on with a new husband (Brent). Of course, Welles’ character did not really die…he has been living in Europe under an assumed identity. He returns to the U.S. and shows up in his old hometown in disguise. While it seems gimmicky in spots, the dramatic intensity and heartbreak with which Welles and Colbert infuse their scenes makes this picture riveting and must-see.In particular, there is a point in the narrative where Colbert is beginning to put the pieces together that Welles might be her long-dead husband, and they share a very intriguing and poignant exchange at the house they lived in as a newlywed couple. These emotions are revisited again when their son (Long) is going off to war, and Welles all but confirms his true identity to her. Of course, because this is a story about sacrifice and moving forward (directly relating to what moviegoers were dealing with at the close of the Second World War), we do not get the requisite happy ending. Instead, we get an ending filled with hope and new possibilities. We are able to realize these people have changed because of the war, and in so many ways now the home front is not what it once was. As the picture comes to its mostly satisfying conclusion, we walk away from it wiser and a bit more in touch with our own strengths as human beings.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 15, 2023 13:24:26 GMT
Essential: THE SEARCHING WIND (1946)
 This is a Hal Wallis production. His films tend to be meticulously crafted affairs, made with big budgets, and they feature extravagant sets and backdrops. Wallis and director William Dieterle are in no hurry to start the story. They want us to soak up the atmosphere and tease us about the tale to follow.Characters refer to the past– and you just know a large flashback is going to follow, which it eventually does. But this is delayed in order to establish Wallis’ new discovery, Douglas Dick. He plays Sam Hazen the young son of the lead characters. Sam’s situation is revealed in modern-day scenes that take place after the war– he came home a cripple; and he is withdrawn and angry. Wallis and Dieterle intend for us to become familiar with Douglas Dick and the character of Sam. This pushes the film’s running time to almost two hours, when it could easily have been told in ninety minutes.Once the preamble is out of the way, and the flashback occurs– we get a very interesting story about Sam’s father Alex (Robert Young), an American diplomat who lives in Europe at the onset of war with Sam’s mother Emily (Ann Richards). Because of an isolationist point of view, Alex turns a blind eye to the encroaching fascism in Italy and other neighboring countries.THE SEARCHING WIND is based on Lillian Hellman’s award-winning stage play of the same name, and she wrote the screenplay. In her story, Miss Hellman is drawing attention to the ignorance of the bourgeoisie. But do not assume she’s writing only about war and government politics.
 She is also presenting a woman’s melodrama. Early on we see that Emily Hazen is an artificial sort of wife whose main goal is to rub elbows with royalty and important heads of state to promote her husband’s career. But while she’s doing that, Alex is distracted by another woman named Cassie Bowman (Sylvia Sidney). Cassie is a political correspondent, and she just so happens to be Alex’s long-lost love. They were once engaged to be married, but Cassie’s career took priority. As a result, Alex decided to move on and marry Emily. A short time later Sam was born. But despite having a trophy wife and an obedient son, Alex has never gotten over his feelings for Cassie. And Cassie hasn’t gotten over her feelings for him either. The romantic triangle between these three takes center stage while various atrocities and betrayals occur in the background. Eventually Cassie comes to reject Alex, because as a journalist, her investigations have led her to realize his complicity in the on-going horrors of war in Europe. Her ultimate rejection of Alex sends him back into the arms of his wife, an individual who is much like himself. In the present day, Alex learns a horrible truth about his son’s injuries in battle and how he may have been responsible. Hellman brings it all full-circle, and the pay-off is dramatically satisfying. But of course, Wallis and Dieterle have paced it so leisurely, especially the early scenes, that a tighter more economic brand of storytelling is out of the question.There is another important character we meet during the course of Hellman’s story, and that is Moses (Dudley Digges, in his last screen role). Moses is a retired newspaper owner whose company employs Cassie. Complicating matters and increasing the soap opera value, is the fact that Moses is Emily’s father. Moses is not quite comic relief, but he does bring an airy lightness to an otherwise somber motion picture. His moments on camera are usually quite entertaining. Moses is a bit more human than Alex and Emily, providing emotional support to Sam when Sam returns from battle as a cripple. Moses’ concern for his grandson causes Alex to redirect his focus and help Sam, too.When THE SEARCHING WIND concludes you realize something. Not all films provide immediate gratification. Some of them take longer to play out on screen, and they might make viewers work a little harder. But if the audience’s thought process has gone in a slightly more profound direction– like Cassie Bowman’s does– then perhaps it’s all been worth it.
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Post by topbilled on Jul 22, 2023 23:54:25 GMT
Essential: O.S.S. (1946) There is so much right with this film…where to start. I suppose I could start with the strong central performances by Alan Ladd and Geraldine Fitzgerald as Americans working undercover in France to thwart the Nazis. Or I could start with Paramount’s fine production values, giving this political thriller the right amount of light and shade with plenty of thought-provoking music on the soundtrack.Or maybe I could start with Richard Maibum’s highly intelligent script which underscores at every turn the sacrifices individuals make to ensure that freedom is not obliterated. Maibum would go on to write quite a few screenplays in the James Bond franchise. While Alan Ladd’s character is not quite a forerunner to 007, the general feel of danger and excitement does suggest later Bond elements. It’s interesting to see Ladd play a crook that is so clever, he’s sought by the U.S. government to play spy games in Europe. For her part, Miss Fitzgerald is no Veronica Lake, which might actually give her an edge, since she’s a lot less glamorous than Lake, but exudes the right amount of braininess and class to get the job done alongside Ladd. The best performance, though, may be from John Hoyt, in his screen debut as a twisted Gestapo officer who develops an unhealthy crush on Fitzgerald. He manipulates her into a romantic relationship then takes her on a fateful train trip where she gets back at him by attempting to blow him up. Maibum’s script establishes Fitzgerald in France posing as a sculptress. So when she gets involved with Hoyt, she makes a bust of his head… But little does Hoyt know, Ladd has helped stuff explosives into the sculpture. Unfortunately, Hoyt survives and when Fitzgerald runs off with Ladd’s help, they become wanted by the Gestapo. From here there are an assortment of subplots as we see other characters working in tandem with our leads, trying to stymie the Gestapo and prevent the German occupation of France.One very moving subplot involves an O.S.S. agent (Richard Webb) sending coded messages to an office in Britain that are received and decoded by an operative (Gloria Saunders) who falls in love with him while exchanging messages. The scene where the Gestapo catch Webb in the act of transmitting his last communication, assassinating him on the spot, while the gal in Britain realizes there will be no more messages…is heartbreaking.This review wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t give a quick history of the real-life O.S.S. The acronym stands for the Office of Strategic Services, and much of their activity involved wartime espionage against the Axis powers. The O.S.S. functioned from June 1942 through September 1945 and was reorganized after the war. O.S.S. activities led to the development of the Central Intelligence Agency.When Paramount execs decided to green light this project, the O.S.S. was in the process of being reorganized. Several Hollywood studios were anxious to do a postwar pic about O.S.S. maneuvers. Paramount was the first studio to get its story on to the screen. If you enjoy this film as much as I do, check out these similarly themed pictures: Warner Brothers’ CLOAK AND DAGGER, released later in ’46 with Gary Cooper in the starring role; and 20th Century Fox’s 13 RUE MADELEINE, released in early ’47 with James Cagney as an O.S.S. agent.
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