The Cobalt Screening Room Balcony

Post #517: Here's another long distance dedication, to brothers, Jack Howell​ and Jerry Howell​ who are both twins, living in Alton, Illinois (that's near Elgin); their letter reads, "Dear Casey, we've been playing baseball since the time we shot out of the womb, and for the past fifty years we've seen great heights and low troughs (we work in the leaf gutter business). But for us America's pastime is never far from our hearts. This past year has been a rough one as we've both separately engendered some health challenges that slowed down our actual playing, but we still persevere in spite of our bouts with crippling dandruff and injuries tied to shingles (the last roof job gave us serious dutch rubs due to the pebbled asbestos). So in the spirit of Abner Doubleday's contribution to the American spirit, would you play "Where Do The Children Play?" by Cat Stevens. Thanks so much."

Well, guys, I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, but no. I don't like Cat Stevens, so I'm going to play "Smokey Mountain Rain" by Ronnie Milsap instead. I think you'll find it superior to anything in Yusuf's catalog. So here we are, counting down the hits on American! Top! Fourteen!"

All right, if Casey won't accommodate the Twinsters, I will with today's feature, *Elmer The Great* (1933) starring the big mouthed Joe E. Brown in one of his "Baseball Trilogy" films in Pre-Code Hollywood. Adapted from a Ring Lardner and George M. Cohan play, and directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film uses footage from the 1932 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. According to 1959 autobiography *Laughter Is a Wonderful Thing*, the huge baseball maven Brown acknowledged Chicago White Sox pitcher Ed Walsh as having inspired Lardner's Elmer, and declared that he drew his own characterization from Philadelphia Phillies hurler Harry Coveleskie. 'Coveleskie came from some mining town in Pennsylvania and he was what you might call unlettered," the baseball enthusiast said. "He was a pretty good pitcher. He had a lunk walk and was funny to watch."

Our story takes us to Gentryville, Indiana, where Elmer Kane (Joe E. Brown) stubbornly digs in his heels, sleeps until two in the afternoon, and eats voraciously in spite of the desperate entreaties of Bull Wade (Charles C. Wilson), representative of the Chicago Cubs, to come pitch for them. But Elmer, fully aware and prideful of his abilities, staunchly refuses to leave town--he's in love with his "boss" Nellie Poole (Patricia Ellis, who at 17 was twenty-seven years Brown's junior) and doesn't want to be apart from her. "Imagine a cross-roads apple knocker high hattin' the Chicago Cubs!" one character moans. Learning why he's turning down the offer and determining she can't stand in his way of success, Nellie rebuffs him, sadly, and Elmer is on his way to the big leagues. Spring training immediately sets him apart from everyone else on the team, as Elmer arrogantly knows he can hit home runs every time he's at bat. Still, despite the ribbing he takes from his teammates, he leads the Cubs with a 67 home run record leading them to the pennant.

Yet, being a novice in the big city, one night while out of the town with his buddy Healy High-Hips (Frank McHugh) Elmer naively believes the gambling chips at a local club are free and quickly finds himself owing $5,000 to gambler Johnny Abbott (Charles Delaney). It's a convenient arrangement as the gangsters now enleague Elmer to throw the World Series , absolving him of the debt. This enrages Elmer who lands in jail and is bailed out by Nellie who discovers Elmer's "affair" with Cubs follower Evelyn Corey (Claire Dodd) is nothing, and Nellie confesses her love for him. The final game pulls a narrative switch-up I won't disclose here, but the film more than amply displays the fantastic physical condition of the 40-year-old Brown in the game.

It's logical that Brown played this role as he was a huge baseball enthusiast, who in 1953 was a a television and radio broadcaster for the New York Yankees. Also in that year he became the first president of PONY Baseball and Softball when it was incorporated, and he stayed at that post until 1964 at the time of his retirement. He also spent Ty Cobb's last days with him, discussing his life. His son Joe L. Brown shared his father's love of baseball, serving as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1976, and briefly in 1985, also building the 1960 and 1971 World Series champions. Brown's '71 Pirates featured baseball's first all-black starting nine.

*Elmer The Great* was the middle entry in his baseball trilogy, which also included *Fireman, Save My Child* (1932) and Alibi Ike (1935), on which I'll be commenting in future posts. In this one the supporting cast is wonderful: Sterling Holloway (the original voice of Winnie The Pooh, and always one of my favorite character actors) plays Elmer's enthusiastic baseball fanatic brother Nick, Preston Foster plays Dave Walker, Berton Churchill plays blustery Cubs owner Colonel Moffitt, J. Carrol Naish is gangster Jerry, and in an uncredited role as baseball play-by-play broadcaster is Gale Gordon (*The Lucy Show*, *Our Miss Brooks*, et al.).

It's a great deal of fun if you can get past Elmer's brashness and glimpse his more human frailties beneath his swagger. And even though it's Pre-Code Hollywood, you'll be hard pressed to find anything but good natured silliness in the film, though I was taken aback at one point when Elmer "swears"--"Warm up? Hell, I ain't been cool since February!" It flew past my wife, but I had to run the film back to make sure I heard correctly. "Hell" in 1933. Wow.

Covid may have stolen our season from us, but at least we still have some vintage Wrigley Field footage on the DVD player. Ad a few good natured laughs and we can start looking forward to the Spring. Or you can just wait for the novel Jack and Jerry and I are pitching to the publisher as soon as we make it to home plate.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #518:  Ready for a snappy little game of Mind Boggle? Boy, have I got the movie for you.  In its own unique way, today’s feature *This Is The Night* (1932) is one of the strangest, loveliest, funniest head scratchers I’ve seen in a very long time.  How do we classify it exactly?  Musical? Not really. Pre-Code stimulator? Yup, it’s got enough innuendo and surprise to tide you over for a while. Romantic triangle? No, more like double helix, five-point star or trapezoid of entanglements. Sexual farce verging on screwball comedy?  Sure, why not. How about enjoyable fluff with some head twisting moments? Oh yeah, by golly, you betcha, yeah.

And should I mention it’s 27-year-old Cary Grant’s starring film debut? That would be worth noting, even though his personal assessment was enough to make him want to quit the business altogether (his friend talked him out of it) due to the plot’s First Class Top Drawer Rubber Band stretching of credibility.  But personally I don’t care; you either buy the premise and just go along for the dizzying ride or disdain the unlikeliness of the proceedings and go home with popcorn stuck in your gullet. These days I’ll take Watching Wealthy People Making Boobs Of Themselves for a true Daily Double, Alex.

But I would maintain that anyone not falling immediately in love (or giddy acceptance) with star Lili Damita has no heart or appreciation of the finer elements of life.  As Germaine (or Chou Chou, as she is mistakenly referred to) Lili throws herself with a contagious joie de vivre of a young woman infatuated with the prospect of love.  Though she is young and respectable, and starving, she easily vamps into a precious and playful seductress in her first “audition” for the role of “wife” for Gerald Grey (a wonderfully off-center 45-year-old Roland Young).  I’ve never seen anyone wear a curtain with more stunning appeal than Lili Damita, and that includes both Vivian Leigh in *GWTW* (1939) and Janet Leigh in *Psycho* (1960). If Gerald is looking for a woman “with a torso that talks,” he’s found her.

Immediately *This Is The Night* sets us off balance with a musical treatment of the titular theme, fading to Paris and some syncopated dialogue revolving around the ice blonde Claire Mathewson (Thelma Todd) drenched in long furs and losing her dress as it is caught in the door of her limousine. Director Frank Tuttle turns this embarrassment into a strange production number with obtuse camera angles of the various social classes laughing it up as Claire displays her legs.  Her protégé for the evening, Gerald Grey shuffles her back into the limo and as the music dissipates in the night air, we learn that Claire is actively cheating on her husband with Gerald, who learns his competition throws javelins in Olympic competition.  Spotlight on Triangle #1.

Meanwhile, Stephen Mathewson (Cary Grant), arriving home early with a quiver of heavy javelins in tow, catches Bunny West (Charlie Ruggles) slipping tickets to Venice under their door.  Amiably inviting Bunny in to their spacious and elegant apartment, unaware that Claire has ordered the tickets for a Venetian rendezvous with Gerald during his absence in Los Angeles, Stephen watches Bunny hem, haw and stammer a cover story concerning the tickets. It doesn’t get any easier when Claire and Gerald burst in, Claire in her slip, tossing her torn dress in a corner. [Here, of course, is one of the first questions a logician would face: Why would Thelma Todd toss over Cary Grant for Roland Young?  Don’t ask. It must be boredom.]

Conversation between Bunny and Gerald is as smooth as two dithering nervous Nellies playing badminton with a live hand grenade.  No master of improvisation, especially when burdened by moral guilt, the two nonetheless create a fiction that Bunny brought the wrong tickets, confusing the male and female fares for those he meant to deliver to Gerald and his wife—he must have left the single female ticket with Gerald’s spouse by mistake, ha ha ha ha, yes, that’s it.  Of course Stephen is too savvy to buy this ad lib, and so decides that Gerald and his wife must join Claire and himself on the trip; Bunny can merely drop off another ticket for Stephen.

All well and good, but Gerald is not married, and as such needs to drum one up quickly.  [Husbands who suspect or know their wives are stepping out in these films seldom settle for simple confrontation.  Let her stew in her uncomfortable juices for a bit while the band plays on.] When the hired Chou-Chou (Claire Dodd) turns down the lucrative offer to play house, the hungry waif Germaine (Lili Damita) jumps at the chance.

Enter Triangles #2 and #3 as Germaine immediately entrances Bunny and Stephen while posing as Gerald’s wife.  Gerald, seeking any opportunity to sneak in a little time with Claire, steadfastly rebuffs any sign of affection from Germaine unless they are in public, even though she starts to fall in love with him.

Try drawing a Venn diagram with the complications of these relationships: Germaine falls for Gerald, Gerald is in lust with Claire, Stephen and Bunny pursue Germaine, Claire though married to Stephen grows jealous of Germaine because she’s so darned vivacious and cute with Gerald, and Claire immediately wants Stephen back now that he’s entranced by Germaine, and the green grass grew all around all around, and the green grass grew all around.

Farce, for some reason, tends to be difficult for American audiences. Played with frenetic energy and twisting affections and acted with speed and dexterity, farce entangles people in knots and at times will not allow easy morality tales, especially in Pre-Code Hollywood.  But *This Is The Night* is deliriously fun armed with terrific talent that keeps the narrative moving with an occasional romantic interlude in the canals of Venice.

But the Hays Office had a field day with this film. In a letter to Paramount’s Chief Executive B. P. Schulberg, Colonel Jason S. Joy, the Director of the Studio Relations Office of the AMPP, stated: "Not only does Claire lose the dress, but she reveals a vista of legs and thighs about the knees. When Claire's coat flies open and Gerald looks down on a ‘vista’ afforded by the open coat, he gasps--with a great intake of breath. The supposition is that he has seen a great deal."

And we have Irving Bacon as Sparks, Gerald’s butler and chauffeur, for keeping Thelma Todd in torn clothing as he consistently catches her gown in doors or underfoot.  Sure, for 1932 standards it’s pretty racy stuff (When Germaine does her deep breathing exercises in the morning, Gerald admonishes her to stop it, it sounds immoral.  Maybe, but it looks great).  But there’s a brimming sense of innocence in all the sexual parrying that turns the story into a very sweet tempered affair.

During the romantic interludes scenes in the moonlight are shot through a blue tint, bathing the entire screen in a dreamline aura.  Juxtaposed against regular black and white film when indoor shots are called for, the blue exterior shots draw you back to adjust your vision.

For many folks who grew up loving Cary Grant, you might dismiss his hatred for this film, as any time he’s on screen he commands attention—simply by being Cary Grant, almost fully formed in the persona he honed through the years. His strange warbling of dialogue in his opening shot alone is worth a viewing, and his bemusement with Thelma Todd’s infidelities is terrific fun as we know he knows everything is hinky here.

But for me, as I’ve stated and will again, Lili Damita is a fresh and sexy actress who would retire from films in another three years when she married Errol Flynn and remained married to him for seven years, giving birth to her only son, Sean. Previously carrying on a lengthy affair with classic director Michael Curtiz (*Casablanca* 1943) from 1925 to 1926, she was a fiercely sexual young woman whom Flynn regarded in more stark terms than I will use here, one of the best lovers he every knew.  And coming from Flynn, that is saying something.

Robert Matzen, Flynn’s biographer, said of their marriage,  “The work was drying up, her accent was too thick, and she didn’t have much range. She threw in the towel, and she saw Flynn as a way to keep a presence around the studios and keep working. And she hung around hoping something would happen. She wasn’t close to his friends. He tended to hang with stuntmen and she had no use for them at all. She wanted his attention and he wouldn’t give it to her, and it became an endless struggle.”

Once, in a fit of pique, she broke a bottle of champagne over Flynn’s head, and he responded by knocking her out cold. “They had that intense love/hate thing,” Matzen said. “Whatever he did to her - whether it was the philandering or something else - it hurt her so badly that she spent the rest of her life trying to get even. They had that chemical thing, and after it went bad, it was still a chemical thing.”

But in *This Is The Night* we get to see her in her glory, easily bantering with Roland Young and Charlie Ruggles in smoothly happy comic relief.  Unlike anything I’ve seen before, this is a movie that I will return to in all its quirky charm and sentimental sweetness.  So put your logic on hold and bask in the blue, and , and possibly this will be the night for you.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #519: Even though it's pouring and cold today, our feature is never called on account of rain, and that's good news for us. For running the bases for the Cubs in today's feature is *Alibi Ike* (1935), deemed by critics to be the best of Joe E. Brown's baseball trilogy. Once again based on a short story by the great Ring Lardner, today's feature also packs in a roster of professional ball players to augment the rubbery limbed Brown, including Herman Bell, Ray French, Wally Hebert, Wes Kingdon, Jim Levy, Frank Shellenback, Guy Cantrell, Dick Cox, Cedric Durst, Mike Gazella, Wally Hood, Don Hurst, Smead Jolley, Lou Koupal, Ed Wells, Bob Meusel, Wally Rehg, and Jim Thorpe. And if that's not enough to pull you into the ballpark, let's announce a film debut of nineteen-year-old Olivia De Havilland as Ike's girlfriend Dolly Stevens.

This time around Joe's hero, Francis X. Farrell, is less arrogant, though still confident of his pitching skills even as he fabricates excuses for everything in his life with relative ease, hence his nickname Alibi Ike. Trying out and achieving pitching duties for the Chicago Cubs, Ike draws the continuous practical joking of the team (Notably Roscoe Karns and Eddie Schubert), ribbed mercilessly for falling in love with Cap (William Frawley) the manager's sister-in-law Dolly (De Havilland). But his constant penchant for "alibis" grows thin for Dolly, and even though she loves him, she leaves him, dropping him into a slump which might ruin the chances of the Cubs' winning the pennant. Mix in some gangsters led by Lefty Crawford (Paul Harvey) ready to capitalize on Ike's unpredictable pitching streak, and you've got a fast-paced classic that for me even throws out more laughs than *Elmer The Great* (1933).

This is the sort of story that really appealed to Brown, who was nearly recruited by the New York Yankees in the mid-1920s, and he throws himself fully into the fun. While working for Warner Brothers, he also added a clause in his contract to form the Joe E. Brown All-Stars from the stable of Warner's battery. Also part owner of the Kansas City Blues, Brown's athleticism served him well in this film especially as he performed all his own stunts, including a wild flying leap over a player to touch home plate.

Director Ray Enright came from the right stock to film these comedies, having paid his dues as assistant editor for Charlie Chaplin, Thomas Ince and then moving over to work with Mack Sennett, for whom he wrote gags and cut film. A prolific director of over seventy films, he ran the gamut from comedy to musicals and made his directorial debut with Rin Tin Tin in *Tracked By The Police* (1927).

And for Olivia De Havilland 1935 was a special year: She had already completed two movies before filming on *Alibi Ike* began, *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* (1935) and *The Irish in Us* (1935), but they were both released after *Alibi Ike*. (*A Midsummer Night’s Dream* required extensive post-production work.) But that same year she would star alongside Errol Flynn in the Michael Curtiz classic *Captain Blood*, which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Starring with Flynn in nine films, one of only thirteen actresses to win more than one Best Actress Oscar, one of the last surviving cast members of 1939’s *Gone With The Wind*, Olivia de Havilland is only the third Oscar-winning actor to celebrate a 100th birthday.

So no matter how you want to play it, *Alibi Ike* boasts some formidable talent. Plop it in your DVD player or watch it online for some clever, goofy, touching and manic 72 minutes which will fly by like a line drive. Except it's funnier.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Ya had me at Olivia. The rest is just bonus material.

Post #520: “This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, This ain't no fooling around, No time for dancing, or lovey dovey, I ain't got time for that now.”  That’s right, because it’s life during wartime in today’s feature, *Blondes At Work* (1938), the fourth of nine Torchy Blane stories with Glenda Farrell.  But in this ultra-lightweight crime comedy Torchy’s journalistic ties to Lieutenant Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) have been severed by Captain MacTavish (Frank Shannon) who thinks her exclusives make the police department look like club-footed boobs, which they are largely. (He’s also secretly working with the editor of rival paper *The Daily Express*.)

TORCHY ALERT: She gets a steak in this entry in the series, but she has to order it herself, though she pertly hands the bill to Steve before he grumbles back to work.  Trying to talk and charm her way out of a parking ticket with rookie cop Officer Regan (John Ridgely), she sees Bon Ton Department Store owner Martin Spencer (Kenneth Harlan) leaving a theater in a state of gastronomic pain on the arm of his friend Maitland Greer (Donald Briggs).  The next day headlines scream that he’s gone missing, but Torchy cleverly deduces how to find him, and she does—as a dead body in a hotel under an assumed name.

While the police want to keep the murder under wraps, to flush out a suspect, Torchy moves full speed ahead and leaks the story, drawing the wrath of MacBride’s boss who forbids the lieutenant from any contact with Torchy. So she’s literally on her own, cribbing notes from good old Gahagan’s diary locked in his glove compartment, chronicling every turn in the case. (She takes a wax imprint of his key and steals in to read the latest development when the big lug is diverted by his writing of poetry.)

And so it goes for another quick Frank MacDonald 63 minute epic. Here, though, the emphasis is not on the crime—it’s on the interplay between Torchy and Steve; the murder is really incidental to the investigation itself.  For the record Louisa Revelle (Rosella Towne) was one of the last people to see the victim the night he was stabbed with a paper knife (also useful for frosting a cake), though she remains tight lipped. In the meantime Torchy continues to beat police to the clues and smatter them all over the headlines until Maitland Greer is arrested for the crime, even though Torchy believes he’s innocent.
If you’ve seen any of the previous commented upon Torchy films, you know the drill: Fast talking Glenda Farrell insinuates herself into situations with near-psychic hunches, makes the police look dumb and gets herself into hot water while doing so—this time she ends up in jail.  But in my experience you don’t watch a Torchy Blane film for mind-blowing, labyrinthine plots that surprise and entertain; you watch for the sheer joy of Farrell and MacLane fighting and sparring while Tom Kennedy waxes poetical about the moon and the night.

This one is no different, though perhaps my favorite of the four I’ve seen thus far. Actively not giving a rodent’s hinder for the murder (which appears off screen and becomes incidental) seems to liberate the film from the trials of suspense, surrendering to its comic potential.  Seeing Torchy and Steve avoiding one another flips the bill and succeeds in promoting their individual talents (or lack thereof) without trying to wedge a whodunnit into their attempts to get married.

There’s not a lot to say about this film beyond recognizing how well all the principals have worn into their roles.  It’s comfortable, zippy and briskly paced, and as such almost completely forgettable in a kind and delightful way.  To quote the Guy Pierce’s last line in *Memento* (2000), “Now—where was I?”
Enjoy.
Jeff

A series of movies, which are like a comfortable beat up old favorite jacket. We keep coming back to them, not for the art or message. But for the joy of the comfort.

Post #521: Elyot (Robert Montgomery) and Amanda (Norma Shearer) are getting married and cozying up to their honeymoon on the French Riviera in today's feature, Noel Coward's *Private Lives* (1931). Unfortunately, they are both marrying other people--Sybil Chase (Una Merkel) and Victor Prynne (Reginald Denny)--since their first marriage to one another was tempestuous, explosive, violent and as heated as the boiler in *The Shining* (1980). So dynamic was the interplay between Norma Shearer and her choice of co-stars Robert Montgomery that Montgomery was accidentally knocked unconscious during one of their fights. Luckily, we in the audience never suffer a similar fate but remain fully alert during the entire 84-minute run of the picture.

Noel Coward was not one to admire his own craft on film, finding most of the cinematic adaptations insufferable, but he did call this version "passable," which might be some faint praise. According to Coward's biographer, he was quietly pleased with the outcome and described the leading performers as "perfectly charming." Irving Thalberg saw the original 1930 Broadway production with Gertrude Lawrence and immediately saw it as a vehicle for his wife Norma Shearer who was interested in expanding the "scandalous" woman roles during Pre-Hollywood days, finding more literary scripts to her liking. In an amazing arrangement with the theater, MGM allowed a camera crew to film the entire production so Norma could study Lawrence's timing and pauses for laughter; the print of that film has long since been destroyed or has disappeared, but its existence helps to define the utter perfectionism Norma Shearer insisted on in herself.

Thalberg ran the film for director Sidney Franklin, advising him not to fool with Coward's directorial perfection with the theatrical cadences established on stage by Lawrence, Laurence Olivier and Jill Esmond as well as Coward himself. The result is a hitched-up speed with rapid-fire, occasionally overlapping dialogue and some inspired long uninterrupted takes during the slapstick but completely believable domestic brawl in the second half of the film, most assuredly the highlight of the film. The script is witty and urbane, sprinkled with sharp comebacks, verbal thrusts and parries that make domestic violence more fun than it has a right to be.

We meet the principals in juxtaposed wedding ceremonies--Elyot and Sybil's being a grand affair with a sold-out ceremony in a lavish cathedral, Victor and Amanda's in a claustrophobic hovel with a long-suffering justice of the peace. Both Sybil and Victor persist in reminding their mates of their first marriage, begging comparisons of reassurance that that union is safely tucked in the past. But when the two couples honeymoon in the same hotel with adjoining balconies, the farce speeds into high gear, proving Elyot and Amanda's extreme displeasure and animosity at having to be within the same continent at the same time. But their hot-and-cold passions make for some splendid comedy when they discover each other anew.

*Private Lives* is a delightful early talkie that balances acerbic dialogue with histrionics that allow both our main stars with high-spirited physical hijinks. Robert Montgomery is especially elastic in his crashing into furniture while spouting Coward's highly literate dialogue. Norma Shearer flits and flutters and throws herself into the role, providing us with one of the best hissy fits I've seen in film, as she buries her head in a couch pillow, scrunches her knees up into her bodice and peppers the cushions with pistoning feet. For me Una Merkel is lovely as Sybil, though her powerful wailing and grasping need for attention help explain why Elyot can't bring himself to state the "I love you" litany enough to suit her. Reginald Denny is similarly cast in shadow though his stiff British demeanor and propriety are easy targets for punchlines.

Initially Coward was unsure Norma Shearer could do his play justice, but she responded, "I don't care what he thinks - he thinks in theater terms - I think in film terms. It doesn't seem to occur to Mr. Coward that we both may turn out to be right!" According to the *New York Times* at the time of its release, "Sidney Franklin's direction is excellent and Norma Shearer as Amanda Prynne gives an alert, sharp portrayal. She appears to have been inspired by the scintillating dialogue, and, taking all things into consideration, it is her outstanding performance in talking pictures. Robert Montgomery struggles with matters at the outset, but he soon succeeds in doing well enough with his rôle, that of Elyot Chase. The other couple are portrayed by Una Merkel and Reginald Denny, who both deserve a great deal of credit for their work. Although some of the scenes are rambunctious, particularly those in the Alpine chalet, there is always the bright talk. . . . The bickering between Amanda and Elyot has its moments of truce, when one or the other ejaculates, "Solomon Isaacs," which because it is found to be too long is eventually abbreviated to 'Sollocks,' which in the film chances to be the name of the nearest railroad station to the Swiss chalet. After the steam of a final quarrel between Victor and Sibyl, things calm down for a few moments and a fresh outburst from Elyot and Amanda is halted by the conductor on the train which they have just boarded, announcing 'Sollocks.'"

This is bright, crisp and airy material, perfect for a day like today when the temperatures are struggling to reach fifty and the rain is constant. For a replenishment of your favorite double entrendres and a fresh battery of arguing points for your next domestic squabble, give *Private Lives* a chance; it was Noel Coward's favorite play and it might become a perennial favorite for you as well.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #522: Raymond Chandler has been one of the top authors in my reading list for decades. Basking in his core works, his lesser notions, his screenplays, numerous biographies and countless knock-offs, I taught *The Big Sleep* every semester the course called for literature. Even my wife walked down its moody, rain-slick streets with me just to shut me up about how well crafted and atmospheric Chandler's vision of California. In short, few authors have so captivated my sense of literate, wise cracking noir. So when Bogart and Bacall deviated from the original novel with a screenplay by William Faulkner and direction from John Huston, in spite of its glory I was irked by its "Hollywood-ization." On its own it's a classic among classics; as an adaptation for me it always falls short in fidelity.

Which brings me to today's feature, *The Big Sleep* (1978) starring Robert Mitchum, James Stewart (only 69 but recovering from an illness during the filming), Oliver Reed, Sarah Miles, Joan Collins, Richard Boone, Colin Blakely, John Mills and Candy Clark (from *American Graffiti* 1973). An amazing cast, really. And the screenplay by director Michael Winner cribs actual dialogue from the source novel, following the basic plotline more faithfully than the 1946 version. James Stewart, about whom Mitchum said, "The picture was all about corpses, but Jimmy looked deader than any of them," is delightful even though his age and infirmity caused him to forget lines easily. And Richard Boone casts a terrific menacing shadow as torpedo Lance Canino (his limp in the movie was written into the script when Boone broke his foot before filming). Other than that, this incarnation of Chandler's classic is a pure, unmitigated abomination to the author's memory. (Just in case I'm being too subtle, I abhor ninety percent of this movie.)

Oh, where do I begin? Oh yes, Sir Lew Grade, who was responsible for another Philip Marlowe mystery, *Farewell, My Lovely* (1974) also with Mitchum as Marlowe, banked on the success of his previous Chandler film, based on Chandler's second novel. For whatever reason, he moved full tilt into producing this epic fail. First he relocated Chandler's private investigator to London, unearthing him from his gritty Los Angeles, thus causing me--in the theater during its original release--to stifle a disguntled "WTF? You can't take Marlowe out of LA--that would be like plopping Moses into a luxurious water park. LA is a breathing character in the novel, part of what makes Marlowe the man he is!" (I carry on conversations like this with myself at regular intervals; after so many years of teaching I can rest assured this way someone is listening to me.)

So we're in London, driving a Mercedes 220 S ponton cabriolet convertible. Sure, why not. It sure beats that old Plymouth Deluxe he used to tool around town. But wait--there's more: Let's also drag Marlowe out of 1939 when the book was published and update it to the 1970s. Yeah, that's the ticket: Mods and odds and sods and mini skirts. Nothing says Marlowe more than that.

Next: Let's ensure that Marlowe is not kept at a trim but solid thirty-three years old, let's make him world weary and sleepy-seed eyed, bedraggled and paunchy sixty with Robert Mitchum, who actually died one day before James Stewart, who was only nine years older than Mitchum and played General Sternwood. And for Vivian Regan, the more level-headed of the General's daughters, let's bestow upon her a new name--Charlotte--and exchange a sultry Lauren Bacall with a sleek peek-a-boo hair style that smolders like charcoal and sterno with Sarah Miles whose coiffure is a cross between a runaway-70s afro and an unconditioned Bozo the Clown style as teased out by Larry Fine of the Three Stooges. Bride of Frankenstein, anyone? Setting her up with Marlowe as a temptress is another epic fail as Marlowe would have to use a hedge clipper to extract his fingers through her hair in a love scene. Kinky, but not in a good way.

Of course, now that we're in the 1970s and no longer hamstrung by the Hays Code, we can explore the gritty subtext of the novel more openly, rather than being forced to find fresh, innovative and creative inferential ways to portray nymphomania, pornography, homosexuality and seduction. Metaphor be damned! Show us some skin, some unsavory photographs produced explicitly for the film in order to avoid copyright infringements, and by all means show Candy Clark completely starkers to up the ante. Why waste time generating mood and angst the old fashioned way--through lighting, veiled ambiguity and provocative hints of sexuality that can conjure powerful images in the mind when you can just set up a camera and *show* the audience unequivocally what they're supposed to consume, totally bypassing the burden of imagination and nuance?

And so it is with this film. The actors fall conveniently into one of two camps: blind boredom and sleep walking in order to pick up a cheque (British spelling), or so completely OVERacting to ensure the audience understands I AM BEING TOUGH HERE, FILLED WITH MENACE AND FOREBODING, THAT'S WHY I'M SCREAMING--ARE YOU SCARED YET BECAUSE I HAVE A GUN DAMMIT! Foremost among the egregious overplaying is Candy Clark, as the renamed Camilla (what was wrong with "Carmen" in the original? Oh, that's right, Michael Winner wants to put his own brand on the film). Her first scene alone with Marlowe gives away the whole mystery as there is no question that "Camilla" is seven tacos short of a specialty plate. The way she flounces around, dancing to non-existent music from a runaway carousel, and exhibiting half the gravitas of a Pillsbury Flaky Pie Crust telegraphs the audience that she's integral to the plot with the subtlety of a ball peen hammer to the forehead. Her portrayal is not just flighty--it's from another dimension altogether, betraying any shard of sexy danger.

Counterpoint to that extravagant display of other worldliness are Joan Collins, Oliver Reed (who shades gangster Eddie Mars with slimy homosexual energy that was not imbued in the original character) and Robert Mitchum himself, who impressed Reed with his ability to polish off an entire bottle of gin on the set in 55 minutes. The air on the set of the final confrontation between Richard Boone's Canino and Mitchum's Marlowe was so saturated with booze that the two stars could have placed wicks in their mouths and lit the scene like alcohol lamps, leading director/screenwriter Winner to call it "Gunfight at Alcoholics Anonymous."

The story is well known and labyrinthine, but for the uninitiated: Philip Marlowe, working for fifty pounds sterling in this incarnation, is a private investigator hired by General Sternwood (Stewart) to take care of men who are blackmailing him, Arthur Gwynn Geiger (John Justin) and Joe Brody (Edward Fox), with "gambling debts" incurred by his daughter, Camilla (Candy Clark) who is wildly uninhibited. Marlowe uncovers Geiger's pornographic bookstore and lending library for the rich, stumbles upon a murder involving Camilla, finds another murder of the Sternwoods' chauffer, is tempted by a second Sternwood daughter, Charlotte, as well as Geiger's shill for his rare book emporium (a bored Joan Collins as Agnes Lozell), and keeps running into people who wonder if the General hired him to find Rusty Regan, Charlotte's husband who has disappeared. Bodies pile up, turns are taken, and Mitchum looks put upon to be asked to work.

With good reason critics were not kind to *The Big Sleep* (1978). Arguably the kindest review went to John Pym of *The Monthly Film Bulletin* who wrote that the location and time change had "destroyed the crucial geographical and temporal context of Chandler's novel; almost every aspect of the narrative now seems ludicrously out of place. . . .[Director Winner] ploughs step by step through the complicated plot with a curious lack of interest in, among other things, the nature of his hero's character." Personally I rank this one two steps below Ted Turner trying to colorize *Citizen Kane* (1941), which just for the record he never attempted but would have been equally unforgivable.

*The Big Sleep* (1978) offers a few nice moments, but overall suffers the same fate from many "revivals" or "remakes" of classic film--they become a flagrant cash grab that makes audience members squirm in their seats and argue incessantly. But hey, let's remain philosophical about this: Remakes are inevitable as long as movie makers sniff the fetching ambrosia of a buck to be made. After all, we have suffered through live-action versions of *The Flintstones* and *Speed Racer*, not to mention *He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe*, countless reboots of *Charlie's Angels* and *Dennis The Menace*--so we must have strong constitutions. Personally when they release a reimagining of *Pulp Fiction* as a musical with Kevin Hart and Pee-Wee Herman in the Sam Jackson and John Travolta roles of Jules and Vince, and Pee-Wee dances with Amy Schumer instead of Uma Thurman to *Tequila*, I will complete the fallout shelter I've begun constructing as a hedge against the outcome of the election next month and move into it never to surface again.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #523: Like any middle class parent with children who have long shed the label "kids," as they are now fully grown adult people, Joyce and I have a huge backlog of VHS movies that we have committed to memory after sitting through them like Alex in Stanley Kubrick's *A Clockwork Orange* (1971), although we never had our eyes propped open with surgical clamps while being bound in a straitjacket. Most of these movies remain hermetically sealed in their eggshell cases, but a few have made the leap to DVDs in our collection because there's something nostalgic and comforting in their content. Today's feature, *Houseguest* (1995) with Sinbad and Phil Hartman, is one of those holdovers.

Exhaustingly frenetic, complete with a record number of fast-motion interludes, *Houseguest* premiered in 1995 at Number 3 at the box office, taking in a cumulative $26 million (more than one-and-a-half times its budget) while critics gnashed their teeth and squirmed in their seats. Holding the distinction as arguably Sinbad's "best" movie, it still manages to draw some laughs from the product placement of McDonald's at its epicenter, the demolishing of conventional middle upper class staidness, the warm embracing of family values in economic hard times, a few dated references (Pearl Jam concert tickets that set an auditorium into a frenzy), and even some decidedly un-PC flavored lines while Sinbad confronts bigotry. It's a whirling dervish comedy you should never try to follow logically or cross-examine for plot holes--*Houseguest* just drives over those divots like a runaway golf cart or suburban sedan driven by an eleven-year-old.

Careless abandon is the film's gift to the audience. Orphaned man-child and conman Kevin Franklin (Sinbad) lives from moment to moment in pursuit of a get-rich-quick scheme, his most recent being baseball cards as a hedge against his scrappy lifestyle in Pittsburgh. But life grows complicated when he finds himself in debt to the mob (represented by dim bulbs Tony Longo and Paul Ben-Victor) over a handshake loan of $5,000 which has now ballooned up ten times that. Driving his decrepit MG Midget to the airport, panicked into leaving town, he overhears a family headed by lawyer Gary Young (Phil Hartman) and his children, waiting for the arrival of an old summer camp buddy Gary hasn't seen in twenty-five years and wonders what he looks like now. Intercepting the real houseguest Derek Bond (Ron Harris from *Barney Miller*) who is a stiff and stodgy vegetarian dentist and prima donna, Kevin gives him his cap and informs him the Youngs have had a change of plan, no longer requiring Derek to present the address he's come to town to deliver.

And so Kevin masquerades as Derek to avoid capture by the mob, welcomed into Gary's plush home and family in his upscale neighborhood. The usual complications ensue, as Kevin knows nothing about dentistry but must pass muster of "fellow" DDSs who look to Derek as a master of the profession. Toss in some familial conflicts to spice things up: Emily, Gary's wife (Kim Griest) is struggling to get her frozen yogurt business up and running, Gary is too pre-occupied to notice his son's fervent attempts to make Dad proud of his (lack of) basketball skills, and his elder daughter feels neglected and misunderstood in her adoption of Baudelaire's poetry, black wardrobe and lugubrious Gothic demeanor while her boyfriend, an unfaithful painfully caucasian kid, goes overboard in his hip-hop patois thinking he's a playa.

Bonding with the Young's youngest, but coyly wise daughter, Kevin continues his charade with looseness and spontaneity that comes easily from a life of running cons. It appears director Randall Miller encouraged Sinbad to riff mercilessly throughout the production, using some of his best quips when confronting the fawning, aristocratic vacuity of the supporting cast, which gives the film an untethered sensibility (which is meant as a compliment since Phil Hartman easily conforms to such a structure) as we careen from one set piece to the next. Outside of a brief scene between Sinbad and the typecast smarmy Jeffrey Jones as a golf partner and "fellow dentist" Ron Timmerman discussing why he washes his golf balls, the humor is family friendly, geared to the younger crowd with more manic perpetual motion than you'll find in most dumbed-down kids' movies; this one will keep pummeling you until you decide to just give up and laugh at the absurdity while trying not to feel guilty about enjoying it.

The world lost a great understated talent when Phil Hartman was murdered by his drug addicted wife (who then committed suicide) in 1998. As a witty and talented mimic, he co-wrote *Pee-Wee's Big Adventure* (1985) and helped Paul Reubens develop his Pee-Wee persona for the stage and TV, he starred for eight seasons on *Saturday Night Live* while earning the respect and title "The Glue" from cast members and a Prime Time Emmy, he appeared regularly on *The Simpsons* (most notably as newscaster Troy McClure) and co-starred in the ensemble group of *Newsradio*. His camaraderie with Sinbad in *Houseguest* is evident in every shared scene, and especially in their parody of Christmas caroles during the end credits. This is a nice way to remember him.

No, *Houseguest* never won any prestigious awards, but then it probably didn't aspire to any. It just provided (and still provides) a knowing smile from any parent who basks in the memory of watching the kids in delirious laughter over the principals' hijinks. And for Joyce and me, that's worth more than the $26 million it took in at the box office.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #524: Word to the wise: Whenever a movie trailer tugs you in by proclaiming "From the studio that brought you. . .[fill in the blank with a majestic, sweeping sensational hit]," you can bet the movie they're hitching to that star is not nearly in the same league. Sometimes not even in the same universe. Similarly I make it a practice never to see any movie that "interviews" people coming out of the theater: "Oh, it changed my life," "I've never been fulfilled as a woman before seeing this film," and "Now I can die happily knowing I've seen the best motion picture ever made. I'm going back in right now to see it again--for the forty-second time!"

Luckily, even though today's feature, "Her Cardboard Lover" (1942), is guilty of the "same studio" campaign, this time linking it with *A Philadelphia Story* (1940), it's not nearly as unendurable as many cheaper hangers-on. In fact, in a silly way (or a "cute" way, if you ask my wife) it's actually a fairly fluffy, unassuming comedy with moments of screwball slapstick. It's also Norma Shearer's last movie, as she fought back demons of doubt possessing her at the behest of her mother, who warned her early on in her career that she should never make a movie after turning thirty-five. Not good advice in Norma's case, but vanity does take its toll, especially on a wonderful actress who was known for perfectionism, requesting up to twenty takes in her films and perpetually checking her key lighting herself to ensure she would photograph well.

Robert Taylor is her co-star here, who in my mind nearly steals the show with a terrific comic flair and a loose-limbed spontaneity that bounces playfully off Norma's obsessive, sometimes haughty demeanor as wealthy Consuelo Croyden. Terry Trindale (Taylor) is a composer who's come to Monte Carlo with his co-writing partner Chappie Champagne (Frank McHugh) for inspiration, and boy, has he found it, falling hopelessly, emphatically in love with the affected Consuelo (Shearer) from afar, so entranced he cannot even shore up enough nerve to utter a word to her. At Chappie's urging he approaches her, blurting out the first words he can set his tongue to--"I love you." Taken aback yet unable to avoid his ardor she continually avoids him, as she waits for her elusive lover Tony Barling (George Sanders) at the casino.

Struck dumb by her beauty at the Baccarat table and seeing no one will accept her bet of $32,000, Terry breathlessly whispers "Banco," losing to the house with a three card. Being penniless, he throws himself on Consuelo's mercy, and when her lover Tony, a womanizing cad, reneges on a date with her, crushed she arranges for Terry to stand in as her "cardboard lover" for ten weeks, hoping to enliven Tony's jealousy, keep him at bay and protect her against her best interests to return to him at any cost . In exchange Terry will be her secretary at her side whenever she needs him to play the romantic *within reason* and never attempt any advances toward her seriously; thus will his debt be canceled. This is business, after all.

After four weeks under Terry's vigilant guard, successfully upsetting her repeated desperate attempts to join Tony on his yacht, Consuelo grows increasingly restless and manipulative in her escape attempts, even wiping out Terry's debt completely if he will just let her go to her non-cardboard lover. For his part Tony outlines a jealousy-inspired marriage for Consuelo in which she will relax at home in pure luxury, her every need met, while he continues to go out on the town whenever he pleases, with whomever he pleases, however long as he pleases, doing whatever he is moved to do at the time. What woman wouldn't leap at a chance like that, keeping the home fires burning while Nero fiddles consumptively.

Both Hedy LeMarr and Joan Crawford turned down the role of Consuelo, and Norma's husband Irving Thalberg originally planned the film as a musical with Maurice Chevalier and Grace Moore, which didn't transpire since Chevalier didn't want to take second billing to Moore. With Norma's clout she received top billing over Robert Taylor, even though at the time Taylor was a much bigger box office draw. And basically by accepting this role, Norma made a couple huge missteps career wise as she turned down both *Now Voyager* and *Mrs. Miniver*, both 1942 films which became classic hits launching into stardom Bette Davis and Greer Garson respectively. *Her Cardboard Lover*, however, took a $348,000 loss and was considered a box office flop, which became director George Cukor's second film to end an MGM career for his female lead, the first being *Two-Faced Woman* (1941) with an estimated $62,000 loss. *The New York Times* critic Bosley Crowther named *Her Cardboard Lover* one of the worst films of 1942.

Is it really that bad? Not to me. True, Norma favors her over-theatrical gesturing and initially reflects a rather unlikable heroine inexplicably ready to be treated as a doormat, but she warms up somewhat as the film progresses. George Sanders keeps us wondering why such am independent, headstrong woman like Consuelo would so eagerly give up her entire sense of identity and dignity just to be used and discarded with such obvious disdain. And Robert Taylor fairly glides through his role as the lovesick Terry, making easy elegance look natural while engaging in a smooth gift for comedy in broad strokes. The supporting cast of Chills Wills as a much-put-upon judge, Frank McHugh as Taylor's flustered partner, and Elizabeth Patterson as Consuelo's maid Eva are splendid grace notes that anchor the free-wheeling antics of the stars.

While it's not on a par with *Philadelphia Story* and should not be used for comparison in that pantheon, *Her Cardboard Lover* remains a non abrasive, relatively "safe" comedy for rainy afternoon watching. You might find a few chuckles and some smiles amidst the chaos, even as it says goodbye to The Queen Of The MGM lot in a vehicle not quite up to her traditional standards. Norma, we hardly knew ye.

Post #525 (A classic TV Game Show Palindrome Production): On July 19, 1955, twenty-three years after today's feature, *Fireman, Save My Child* (1932), Joe E. Brown guest starred on a short-lived TV program called "The Name's the Same," with Clifton Fadiman as host. That short clip takes the place of our trailer for the film, as very little material is available on it. But in this clip we can see Joe has not aged precipitously, still retaining his exuberance and joy over baseball. It's a nice time capsule as you can see.

*Fireman, Save My Child* was Joe's first in his Baseball Trilogy, which we've now commented on with this inclusion. Three other films with that title were made, one of them starring Harold Lloyd in the same year, one as a remake with Buddy Hackett (?). In this one, Joe plays Smokey Joe Grant, a small town inventor and steadfast fireman who also throws a mean pitch on the baseball diamond. His heart belongs to fighting fires, innovating new techniques to extinguish conflagrations, and pitching woo to his girlfriend Sally Toby (Evalyn Knapp). Scouted by the St. Louis Cardinals who offer him a lucrative contract--enough money so he can finally marry Sally--Smokey Joe reluctantly leaves town to play big league ball, for his heart just isn't in the national pastime.

Onboard the train a couple of the team's players finagle him into spending time with June Farnum (Lilian Bond), a gold digging blonde who sticks like velcro to the rookie phenomenon, insinuating herself into his life. Being such a kind and innocent dupe Smokey Joe is too much of a gentleman to rebuff her obvious monetary interest in him, and soon she maneuvers him into an engagement without fully realizing he's proposed. In the meantime his funds set aside to marry Sally dwindle while his pitching launches the Cardinals into the World Series.

The comedy of this 67-minute Pre-Code Hollywood film comes fairly regularly, with Smokey Joe working hard on his fire extinguishing bombs the size of baseballs and attempting to gain support from the foremost fire extinguishing company in the country. Guy Kibbee plays the Cards' irascible manager Pop Devlin, and sharp eyed viewers will find Dickie Moore (from the *Our Gang* comedies well remembered as Spanky's older brother) tossing in some enthusiastic fandom. The supporting cast is relatively invisible, bowing to Joe E. Brown's athleticism, and director Lloyd Bacon, who would go on to greater heights for Warner Brothers in helming pictures from Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney in grittier roles, still maintains a nice comic flow.

There's little else to discuss with this film, with the possible exception of Smokey Joe being based on southpaw pitcher George Edward "Rube" Waddell, whose eccentric behavior and interest in fire stations set the tone for Brown's portrayal. Like Smokey Joe, Waddell held an unflagging mania for fire engines, leaving in mid-game to chase them; at the end of the 1897 season he was traded to the Detroit Tigers to gain professional experience, later that year going to Canada and finally returning to Pittsburgh to play in the Western league for Columbus/Grand Rapids, then continued an upward mobility despite his unpredictable behavior (wrestling alligators in a circus during the off season, and sleeping in fire stations) and encroaching alcoholism.

*Fireman, Save My Child* is a low-key comedy with plenty to smile after, with Joe E. Brown turning in another nearly patented roles as an "Aw Shucks" good guy. It's fun, featherweight and fulfilling if you're a baseball fanatic.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #526: Boy, is today's feature, *Goldie Gets Along* (1933) starring Lili Damita, obscure. (How obscure is it?) It's so obscure even the actors in it don't know they're in it. It's so obscure that a cameo with Walter Brennan as a stuttering waiter steals the picture as he's the biggest star outside of Lili, who gained more notoriety as Errol Flynn's wife than she did in all her 33 movies. It's so obscure IMDB and Wikipedia seem hard pressed to say anything about it but just shrug and offer technical data like who appears on screen. It's so obscure I couldn't find a trailer for it or much more than a snippet called "Bathing Beauties" which was cribbed from the movie but excised all the dialogue in favor of an instrumental tune. So we have to content ourselves with the attached retrospective powerpoint of some stills from her career.

So do I mean to suggest to the suggestible that *Goldie Gets Along* is a bad movie? No. It's just not very good, clocking in at 68 minutes with a pure cow flop of an ending that makes no sense if you've been following the plot--and you'd have to be zoned on methadone not to see where the narrative was taking you until it unceremoniously undoes everything it just did for the past 67 minutes. It offers moments of diversion, and overall it's a "cute" toothless and harmless Pre-Code Hollywood comedy, but it dissolves like a Fizzie in a glass a water.

We first meet Goldie LeFarge (Lili Damita) as she sashays into her foster family's home in time for breakfast after a night of moon watching on a boat with some friends. Such scandalous behavior will never be tolerated by the comically prudish aunt and uncle at home who took her in after her mother passed away in Paris and charged themselves with her moral rearmament. Repressed by their small town morality, Goldie leaves the New Jersey digs in pursuit of a career in Hollywood, much to the dismay of her exceedingly bland fiance Bill Tobin (Charles Morton who by comparison makes fried bread look as exciting as a triple overtime Super Bowl).

Hitchhiking she is picked up by a schmoozer in a stolen car and taken to jail by nice guy cop motorcycle cop Cassidy (Nat Pendleton), she charms the wowsers out of the owner of the car, Mayor Silas C. Simms (Arthur Hoyt) who gives her a train ticket to help her reach her destiny via Chicago, and she falls in with a crooked beauty pageant promoter Sam Muldoon (Sam Harvey) with whom she wins seven contests, while he pockets the prize money. Exposing Sam and whisking away the $1,000 winnings, she finally makes it to Hollywood, where she finagles a meeting with influential director Frank Hawthorne, who is also fiance Bill's fraternity brother. Like most Pre-Code Hollywood epics, Bill the determinedly infatuated beau with the charisma of a paper bag full of sawdust follows Goldie to Hollywood and is immediately targeted as the Big Screen's next heartthrob, though all he's interested in is Goldie--forget fame, fortune and faceless boredom.

Director Malcolm St. Clair flirted with greatness as he collaborated with and directed stars from the Hal Roach studios, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd. So his touch is light here with Lili Damita playing at her spunky vivacious persona with coy temptation--she is a "good" girl in this picture despite her manipulative charm. The story bounces from town to town with a couple nice montage sequences and huge block letters spelling out each new destination on the road to California. But the ending fails miserably as Goldie is suckered in by Bill, and all her aspirations toward stardom smash the brake through the floorboard of the vehicle, leaving my wife and me to stare at each other in disbelief with the pronouncement, "What, that's it?" Sloppy writing, laser-fast turnaround and an unbelievable attraction to block of wood Bill sink the last five minutes of this film like an Acme anchor.

I guess there's a reason *Goldie Gets Along* is obscure, even though Lili Damita seems to have a lot of fun. Described as "sexually fluid," "fiery" and "tempestuous," Lili was fluent in six languages in addition to English--French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Hungarian, and Italian. Her marriage to Errol Flynn, whom she called in her divorce filing "a cross between Marco Polo and Greta Garbo," lasted from 1935 to 1942 and was her second marriage after a very short union with Michael Curtiz in 1925. She once said, "My ambition is not to become the greatest actress in the world but to have the handsomest son in the world," and that young man was Sean Flynn, a photo journalist for *Time* magazine, who was last seen on a road near Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on a motorbike heading toward the front lines of the fight; he and traveling companion and photographer Dana Stone were never seen or heard from again. Lili spent countless hours and money to find out what happened to her son, but to no avail. Sadly, in 1984, he was legally declared dead.

Good luck finding this film, though conventional wisdom would suggest you'll not go into mourning if you don't find it. It's a nice romantic comedy, but its mixed message about dream fulfillment may make you wonder why you didn't just go take a nap and dream on your own instead.
Enjoy.
Jeff

OOOOOO!!! Now I have a quest.

Post #527 (5+2=7): Do you remember a few days ago I posted a commentary on *Her Cardboard Lover* (1942) with Norma Shearer? No? Well, I don't either because I rarely read these commentaries, but the title perfectly exemplifies today's feature, *The Woman Between* (1931) with Lili Damita (bringing our Damitathon to its conclusion). Mother Mary and Joseph, this is a stiff one with the acting range of Mustard-Parmesan Whole Roasted Cauliflower. I realize it's a very early talkie and directors were not fully aware of the potential of integrating sound and image, but in the name of all that's holy couldn't they have done *something* to make this 73-minute epic yawn-fest come alive? I mean, just set Lili Damita before the camera in a shimmering lame' and have her emote something other than silent suffering, and I'd watch it. Unfortunately, that's about all we get here, and I never thought I'd end up saying this in a commentary, but Cheese Louise, Mr. Director Victor Schertzinger, it's Pre-Code Hollywood, so sex it up, why don't you?

The premise is ripe for some good, saucy interplay: Sexy Julie Whitcomb (Lili Damita), a successful entrepreneur with her own fashionable boutique, has just returned from a trip to Paris, presumably looking for new styles but finding a torrid affair with Paul Niles (Lester Vail) who has followed her on the same ship. Back at home Julie's daughter-in-law [yes, she's married. . . to widower John Whitcomb (O. P. Heggie, the hermit in *Bride Of Frankenstein* 1935), several years (decades) her senior] Doris Whitcomb (Miriam Seegar) grouses about her father's remarriage to the French tart whom she sees as a gold digger. Doris is a whiny little snot whose exposition in the first ten minutes of the film just about brings the movie to a standstill before it even gets out the gate.

Wayward son Victor Whitcomb, we are told, is coming home after an extended absence, ready to mend a rift between himself and his father. Oh yippee whippy dip, Doris has missed her brother, and she's already fixed him up with her friend Helen Weston (Anita Louise), a childhood friend who has blossomed into a clingy but pretty society girl. Julie is plagued by guilt for her illicit affair, while yearning for Paul's touch but informing him she cannot see him any more (or any less, as it turns out). Because life gets complicated (Couldn't you tell by the name of the film?) when Victor returns home and meets his old codger father's new bride, Julie. . . and Julie discovers "Paul" is actually Victor under an assumed name. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.

See? It COULD be a real barn burner here, while the two lovers gaze across the room at one another while the rest of the family giddily celebrate Victor's homecoming, Doris throws javelins of contempt at Julie, Helen tries to wrap herself around Victor like unwatered ivy, and old John dances around as if cooties are in his drawers because he's married to a little hottie.

But it doesn't smolder at all. It just lies there like a pile of damp leaves that can't catch a spark. You know that earthy, moldy near-fertilized scent you smell in the fall after a cold rain when neighbors betray local ordinances and try lighting brush in their backyards? That's what we have here. All smoke, a gray pyre of stinky splendor. Doris suspects something is wrong between Victor and Julie--and it's Julie's fault, even though she's gone out of her way to dispel perceptions that she's after John's sizable estate (she's not, she's successful on her own, she just wants to be loved and hear the words). John is completely oblivious to the strain in the house as he's too busy making amends with Victor and salivating over his new wife, and Victor wants to say "Hang it all" and just drape himself over Julie, whatever the fallout. And Julie, our cardboard lover, is content to stare into the distance like a dog hearing Shakespeare for the first time.

To call this a soap opera is to insult soap operas. Between the lack of momentum, very limited camera movement, a stagey yet opulent production, and an undercurrent of listless sexual attraction, *The Woman Between* should have been titled *A Woman Plowed Under*. By this time if you've followed either or both of my commentaries on Lili Damita's films, you might realize I find her fascinating--no, scratch that, *used* to find her fascinating--and sexy as all get-out. But here, outside of the aforementioned slinky black lame' gown that was spray painted on her and reminded me that ruffles have ridges, in this role she is a recent graduate from the Mannequin Modeling School of Emotion. When she finally dissolves in a grateful puddle when John says, probably for the first time, "I love you," hugging him so hard she nearly passes through him, I thought, Lord, what a waste rather than Oh, how touching and sweet.

For his part O. P. Heggie truly acts; he's a hapless puppy finally being loosed from the house and taken for a walk. He does everything but jump up and down or turn cartwheels (which is understandable given what we know about Lili Damita in her private life). So he's the one redeeming grace in the film even though he overplays his giddiness a bit, but it's 1931, for Pete's sake, so cut him some slack. Speaking of slack, Lester Vail goes from lovesick lovestruck to glowering jealous in a snap, hurrying his stepmother away to niches in the mansion to discuss what they're going to do with this wrinkle in the narrative. Vail is like one of those blank slate Disney princes who can't share the screen with the heroine princess without being shown to all how colorless they are: Think John Smith in *Pocahontas* (1995), Prince Philip in *Sleeping Beauty* (1950) or the poor schmuck in *Snow White* (1937) who is so blando he doesn't even merit a name. That's Lester Vail, on loan to RKO from MGM--I think he was traded for a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

So if you're interested in Pre-Code Hollywood films that in no way, shape or form shake, stir, rattle or roll you but merely demonstrate how well women snipe at each other, throw hissy fits of moral indignation, throw themselves like Jell-O at a wall in the general direction of indifferent men, or collapse at the first hint of the word "Love," then in this case, look to RKO Pictures. You too can come to realize in this instance, RKO stands for Really Krapped Out. (That's a snide veiled reference to Samuel Beckett, box three, spool five.)
Enjoy.
Jeff

I woulda kept the PB&B sammich.

Post #528:  There is no good reason on the surface to go on a grand expedition to find a movie called *Rain Or Shine* (1930) outside of knowing it's a very early Frank Capra film.  I like to think I'm fairly (moderately) knowledgeable about film, but bless my soul if I'd never heard of Joe Cook before--and he's the first billed star of this curiosity.  His co-star Tom Howard I immediately recognized by his voice as a regular on *It Pays To Be Ignorant*, but few other people made a splash in my memory pool.  But after watching today's feature *Rain Or Shine*, I feel it's my duty to encourage you to track this down.  It is so much manic fun (evidenced by the accompanying clip with Cook and Howard) that, when encountering the keeper of the Bridge of Death asking what's your name, what's your quest, you should answer "To seek *Rain Or Shine*."

Okay, well, maybe that's overstating it.  But I was so totally caught off guard by this strange little film that I was shocked it was made one year before yesterday's film *The Woman Between*.  Holy Like For Contrast, Batman!  I chalked up a lot of the misstepping of yesterday's soap opera to the time frame in which it was made. Hey, I thought, it's a really early talkie and directors weren't that sophisticated with mobile cameras yet, so naturally it's going to be like a stage play with a few close ups thrown in.  But in *Rain Or Shine* Capra's fluid movement of the camera, spectacular and unique points of view (overhead shots, acrobats sliding into focus from the top of the big top, etc.), and skillful tracking scenes reminded me of Scorsese's camera magic--a good forty years before Scorsese hit stride.  It's involving, quick witted, and at its climax exciting.  It makes me dislike *The Woman Between* even more than I did initially because in the hands of a  master like Capra, film can take a non-existent story (like this one) and make it a joy.

Mary Rainey (a sympathetic Joan Peers), doubling as a bareback rider, has taken over her deceased father's circus and finds herself well over her head, beset by huge stacks of unpaid bills, a wacky motor-mouthed manager, Smiley Johnson (Joe Cook) who talks himself out of every bind, and a crew of performers who have not been paid in four weeks.  In addition to those woes she is also going to face the finagling of Ringmaster Dalton (Alan Roscoe) who is scheming to take over the circus himself by undercutting Mary at every turn.  And what would a Pre-Code Hollywood film be without a blandly attractive beau, Bud Conway (William Collier, Jr.), who is new to the circus but comes from a family endowed with more money than God, who might back the dwindling profits of Mary's circus, and keep dear old Dad's dream alive.

Ba-dee, ba-dee, ba-dee that's all, folks, when it comes to plot.  Yes, flimsy as a burnoose. But the 1928 Broadway play on which this film was based also starred Joe Cook, Tom Howard and Dave Chasen (the founder of Chasen's famous restaurant with chili so wonderful Elizabeth Taylor had it flown in to Rome during the filming of *Cleopatra* (1963)). To convince producer Harry Cohn it was worth a shot, even though Cohn wanted to pass on it because it was a musical and therefore expensive, Capra said he'd excise all the songs and concentrate on Joe Cook.  "He's mad, Harry. He's unique - the darling of the literati, of the Algonquin Round Table! Percy Hammond calls Cook 'the funniest man in America'; Brooks Atkinson says he's 'one of the greatest comedians of our times!' And we're buying two other great comedians in *Rain or Shine* - Tom Howard and Dave Chasen. *Rain or Shine* will cost us peanuts, Harry. I'll shoot it all in a small two-ring circus tent. No other sets. No music, no chorus dames, no Busby Berkeley, no nothing. Just wild comedy."

And what a wild comedy it is. Joe Cook, famous for his vaudevillian act which also involved some wonderful acrobatics, dominates the film as he helps Mary put out all the little fires (and a more than engulfing one at the climax) with the polish of a first-rate con man. First he swindles store owner Amos K. Shrewsberry (Tom Howard) out of a little quick cash, then "sells" him a stake in the circus, then he destroys the decorum of a swanky dinner party at Bud's parents' home with antics that come so fast and furiously that you'll swear you're watching a Marx Brothers film, and finally he scales an incendiary big top to save Mary who's trapped, hanging upside down within.  Cook's Smiley is a wheeler dealer whose double talk and verbal calisthenics are pure anarchic comedy, his schemes falling off his tongue like mercurial honey. (Blech, what an image)

Tom Howard is easily duped but an equal to Cook in the verbal sparring department, looking lost and totally out of place most of the time, which adds to the zaniness of their scenes together.  Dave Chasen is a Harpo stand-in with a delirious happiness and doofus personality who takes pratfalls with ease, ending with a grinning hand pass hello that establishes a rhythm and motif throughout the film.  Most of the other characters are incidental, fodder to fill up the 90-minute running time or service an advancing of the "plot" such as it is.  This isn't a film you sit down with to find a chastening message or a searing commentary on the times; it's largely escapist fun. (And if you watch carefully, you just may catch a surprising shot of Dave Chasen extending half the peace sign with a finger covered in ketchup during a hot dog gag. I had to watch it twice to ensure he was in fact flipping off his customer, but there it was. . .)

But for those who track the Capra canon and scrutinize it as an auteur study, Capra biographer Joseph MacBride does offer some perspective: "*Rain or Shine* gives mixed political signals, probably because of the clash of Capra's fundamentally conservative attitudes with more liberal ideas that were in the air at the time. The precarious financial state of the circus echoes the state of the country, and Cook's Smiley, the indefatigable optimist, can be seen as a Franklin Roosevelt precursor, galvanizing the demoralized troupe with his energy and courage. His black organist, Nero (Clarence Muse), plays an instrumental version of 'Happy Days Are Here Again,' the Broadway show's pep tune that FDR would adopt as his theme song in the 1932 presidential campaign."

Some viewers don't care for Cook since he is so centered on scamming people, but I'd counter perhaps these same folks wouldn't like Amos 'N' Andy's Kingfish or Fred Sanford or even Ralph Kramden for the same reason.  I'd also point out that at the heart of Cook's Smiley is a genuine caring individual who always works in Mary's best interests and even puts his own life on the line to do the right thing when he's called upon.  And Cook deserves a lot of credit for doing his own stunts, including wire-dancing, juggling, tumbling and scaling the conflagration that closes the film.  In that climactic sequence when Rainey's circus is reduced to smoldering embers--filmed only once with multiple cameras to catch the spectacle--sound man Edward Bernds said, "Working with Frank Capra, I soon realized what a wealth of guts and daring he had! In *Rain or Shine*, for instance, he very casually burned down an entire circus! It was a one-shot thing. He just put enough cameras on to cover everything he wanted and he burned the whole thing down. He shot it with, as I recall, about a dozen cameras. He had guts and originality!"  Scenes for the film were shot at the Burbank, CA ranch of former world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries, who appears as an extra in the film.

Another Capra biographer, Raymond Carney, said of Cook, “Joe Cook’s performance in *Rain or Shine* is the most extreme demonstration of Capra’s willingness in this case completely to destroy his narrative in order to be faithful to the eccentricity, extravagance, and pointlessness of certain kinds of imaginative energies. With his overblown, overlong, over-inventive vaudeville routines, Cook explodes the film he is in. Seldom has a viewer more powerfully been shown both the incredible regressiveness of narrative form and the nightmarish dangers of attempting to leave it behind: dangers to art, personality, and human relationships. Though it is a very unsatisfactory film, the questions it raises about the problematic representation of the self and its free imaginative energies in social and narrative forms are the same as those explored more complexly in the great trilogy of Capra’s later work: *Mr. Smith Goes To Washington* (1939), *Meet John Doe* (1941), and *It’s a Wonderful Life* (1946).”

What fun it is to share a family friendly film with you that you might otherwise have never bothered to spot on a super-trained radar.  It just goes to show you that films made in Pre-Code Hollywood really run the gamut from soppy to splendid. I also watched the International Version of the film, which was made for audiences whose theaters had not yet been converted to sound. Largely silent with a few sound effects and title cards, it also adds a few scenes to flesh out the ringmaster's ploy and augment the stunts, but it is shorter also, coming in at 68 minutes; an interesting juxtaposition for film fanatics like me.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Not as good as "I got ketchup on my pants" but still a good film...

Post #529: Today's feature, *The Cat And The Canary* (1939), was released as a film no less than six times, its humble origins grounded in a 1922 play by John Willard. The famous 1927 silent version brought to the screen by Universal president Carl Laemmle was an experiment in German Expressionism, while today's focus was turned into a comedy-horror film (one of the first in an enduring genre) with the aid of Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, who married Charlie Chaplin in the same year. As an early Bob Hope vehicle released one year before he'd hit the Road with Bing Crosby in one of the best series around, *The Cat And The Canary* stands on its own as tailor made for Bob's wisecracks; his character was in fact created to augment the existing play.

It's one of those Scary Old House mysteries complete with secret passages, an escaped mental patient, a creepy Louisiana bayou setting, and murders around every dusty corner. Into this moss-dripping manse come the relatives of Old Cyrus Norman, now ten years dead, to attend to the reading of his will. A hermetic millionaire kept company only by his lugubrious Gothic mistress Miss Lu (Gale Sondergaard). he has instructed his executor Mr. Crosby (George Zucco) to divulge his wishes at the stroke of midnight ten years after his death. Now they all assemble in fretful anticipation of who will win the day: Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard), who becomes the object of desire of every man in attendance; Fred Blythe (John Beal), a cranky relative who grouses over everything; Charles Wilder (Douglass Montgomery), the relative who moderates all tempers; Cicily Young (Nydia Westman), a fluttery relative who admires Wally; Aunt Susan Tilbury (Elizabeth Patterson), who was once close to the deceased; and Wally Campbell (Bob Hope), a distant cousin who is also an actor.

It's no spoiler to reveal that Joyce is the inheritor, but two caveats to the will place her squarely in danger: Since the Norman family has suffered a strain of insanity in the bloodline, the heirs must remain sane for the following thirty days; if she succumbs to madness or is killed (what kind of family member sets up his descendants this way?), the estate will go to the heir mentioned in a second letter to be opened only if Joyce becomes incapacitated. So, of course, that's the starting gun for insidious doings since everyone has to stay the night in the creepy old mansion.

Of course we've seen this scenario before--it's now a Halloween tradition--but let's keep in mind this and other films like it are the reason we are so acquainted with the plot. Yet this one allows Bob Hope to be Paulette Goddard's bodyguard (an estimable job, if you ask me) while finely honing his skills as a cowardly do-gooder and smart-mouthed wise cracker. For Paulette Goddard 1939 was a very profitable year, working with Chaplin on *The Great Dictator* (1940), co-starring with Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell in *The Women* (1939), being a forerunner for the coveted role of Scarlet O'Hara and as such being the first actress to be given a Technicolor screen test, and marrying Charlie Chaplin. She would star again with Bob Hope seven months later in *The Ghost Breakers* (1940) since they gelled so well in *The Cat And The Canary*.

It's fun and funny and spooky all at once, and for nostalgia merchants there are some nice jokes regarding Jack Benny and a tooth gag that will go over every youngster's head because they won't know Pepsodent toothpaste was Bob's sponsor on radio. He even gets in a dig at Republicans ("Do you believe in reincarnation? You know... that dead people come back?" to which Wally responds, "You mean like the Republicans?"). And according to *The New York Times*, "Amazingly, during the 1940s Hope appeared in 20 feature films while maintaining a top-rated weekly radio show and a grueling schedule of personal appearances, including his extensive travel for the U.S.O. during World War II."

Director Elliot Nugent, who worked with Hope in several other pictures and directed Danny Kaye in *Up In Arms* (1944), keeps the balance right while allowing cinematographer Charles B. Lang, winner of 18 Oscar nominations through the years including *Some Like It Hot* (1959) and *The Ghost And Mrs. Muir* (1947), the exquisite pleasure of bringing texture and mood to the forefront. In all then, *The Cat And The Canary* is 72 minutes of mirth, murder and madness perfect for the little monsters who may be stopping by on a rainy evening at the end of the month.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #530: Now here's something to get really excited about, what with Halloween fast approaching. It reminds me of many moons ago when Kris was just a little nipper and we were driving home with a fresh pumpkin. Around our house everything had a voice--cushions would huff "Ooomph!" if Kris bounded into them, stuffed animals had very real personalities, and I like to think growing up in our house was a constant amusement, an anthropomorphic living cartoon. So as we were driving home, I turned to Kris and asked, "So, what's the name of your pumpkin?" Without pausing he said, "Bill." Then he turned around and addressed the pumpkin bouncing in the backseat--"We're gonna take you home and poke a smile into you, Bill."

I still smile every time I remember that. So in that spirit, today's feature will poke a smile into you. Newly remastered after a fifty-year absence, filmed in glorious two-color Technicolor Process-3, the last film to do so, *Mystery Of The Wax Museum* (1931) is Michael Curtiz (!) tightening the screws of suspense and comedy in masterful fashion, even though Fay Wray complained about his controlling demeanor on the set. The Blu-Ray restored production was drawn from several different prints, including French sources and a master copy in Jack Warner's personal collection. It is pristeen gorgeous and saturated with warm colors, even though audiences at the time absolutely hated the color processing, and it was abandoned after this film. But for us today the result is a nostalgic set of fireworks in a reduced spectrum of red and green dyes.

Starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell and Frank McHugh, the story moves from 1921 London to 1933 New Yorkas Ivan Igor, a master sculptor, fashions wax figures that are indistinguishable from living people (with good reason, as his models in the film ARE actors versed in long periods of immobility; studio lights caused wax figures to melt under their heat). When his partner Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell) proposes to burn the museum down for the £10,000 insurance money, Igor cannot entertain sacrificing his "children" for money and puts up a fruitless fight. The money-grubbing partner who has no interest in art knocks Igor senseless and torches the entire establishment, leaving Igor to burn in the conflagration.

Twelve years later, now wheelchair bound and incapable of sculpting with his claw like hands consumed by the fire, Igor enlists the help of drug-addicted Professor Darcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe), the deaf mute Hugo (Matthew Betz), and young sculptor Ralph Burton (Allen Vincent), who work to recreate Igor's prized historical tableaux. Meanwhile, Ralph's fiancee Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray) shares an apartment with speed-talking reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell), who is being pressured by her editor Jim (Frank McHugh) to uncover some news about the apparent suicide of a young society girl Joan Gale (Monica Bannister). Mysteriously Joan's body has been stolen from the morgue, and accusations of murder are flying in the direction of her millionaire boyfriend George Winton (Gavin Gordon). Florence digs in, thinking the jailed Winton is innocent.

Of course he is. We can't have Glenda "Torchy Blane* Farrell being wrong about things like these. Besides, a ghoulish monster has been prowling around the morgue lately, stealing bodies for an insidious purpose. And so the narrative goes, moving spritely from haunted shadows and German Expressionistic angles and sets to some of the snappiest dialogue Farrell and McHugh can spit at each other, leavening the dark secrets that lie in the renovated Wax Museum, whose Joan of Arc bears a remarkable resemblance to Joan Gale (and even though Monica Bannister appears only as a corpse and wax representation, she is stunning to behold). So too is Fay Wray, who becomes Igor's obsession as she embodies his vision of Marie Antoinette.

The visuals are great here, making the film a nostalgic funhouse even though most people are conversant with the 1953 remake *House Of Wax* directed by Andre De Toth with Vincent Price in the lead. Essentially the same story, the 1953 version focuses more on horror than mystery but still stands as a classic in its own right. Let's not even consider the 2005 re-remake with Elisha Cuthbert (from TV's *24*), Paris Hilton (who won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress) and Jared Padalecki (*Supernatural*), a film that was nominated for Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Remake Or Sequel. Of the three, *Mystery Of The Wax Museum* for my money gets the vigorous nod as the most well balanced blending of lightness and darkness.

According to IMDB, "In an interview about the film, Fay Wray recalled how the scene where Lionel Atwill is unmasked was poorly rehearsed. After hitting the prop mask a couple of times, it failed to come off. In the finished film, Fay Wray pulls off what remains of the mask as it was the only way to make the scene work." Atwill, Wray, Arthur Edmund Carewe and Thomas Jackson, director Michael Curtiz, art director Anton Grot, and cameraman Ray Rennahan had all previously worked together on another Warners Technicolor Process-3 film the year before, *Doctor X* (1932), a Pre-Code Hollywood feature whose themes included murder, rape, cannibalism, and prostitution woven into the story. According to Warner Bros *Mystery* earned $325,000 domestically and $781,000 internationally, while *Doctor X* earned $405,000 domestically and $189,000 internationally.

By today's horror film criteria (Go to the slaughterhouse and get as many gallons of blood as you can, and if you can lift a few pails of entrails, even better; do your best to gross out the audience with grisly impalements and squishy abominations, the more convoluted the better), *Mystery* is Captain Kangaroo with a Silly Putty face. But for some carefully crafted creeps that suggest rather than openly display the hideous, and some of the best 1930s put-downs on record ("Ahh, ya soap bubble"), you can't beat this one. I enjoyed every frame of the film, and by the end of its tight 77-minute running time, it had successfully poked one heck of a smile into me.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #531: We’re back in Pre-Code Hollywood Land with today’s feature which must have been pretty incendiary upon its release because it starts with a caveat: “*The Miracle Woman* is offered as a rebuke to anyone who, under the cloak of Religion, seeks to sell for gold, God’s choicest gift to Humanity—Faith.” And if that doesn’t capture your attention, the opening scene will as Barbara Stanwyck as Florence Fallon, daughter of an elderly minister who has been asked to step down after twenty years of faithful service, castigates his parishioners and drives them from the Church after his death in preparation for his final sermon. “You killed him!” she shrieks from the pulpit. “Hypocrites!” It’s enough to curl your hair, toes, and teeth as her fury is unleashed.

You betchum, Red Ryder, we’re in Frank Capra Territory with his second film with Barbara Stanwyck, today’s feature *The Miracle Woman* (1931). The duo would go to film three more collaborations, with Stanwyck taking only one day off after finishing this one before she returned to film *Night Nurse* (1931). Once again aided by a blistering script by Jo Swerling (a Capra favorite who penned 64 films and whose son was a moving force on *The A-Team*, *The Rockford Files* and *The Great American Hero* as well as an underrated and underseen *Profit* all on TV).

Disillusioned by the flagrant disregard for her father’s legacy and Biblical guidance, Florence’s outrage is witnessed by Bob Hornsby (Sam Hardy), a promotions manager with a streak of larceny, who just happened to be passing through town and attending the service which was the recipient of Florence’s vitriol. Immediately he sees an opportunity to cast her in the spotlight at revival meetings as an impassioned evangelistic orator—for profit, of course. While it’s abundantly clear that Bob is a dyed-in-the-sheeps-wool manipulator whose sole concern is ripping off the rubes by selling salvation by the bankroll, Capra remains ambiguous about Florence, stating that neither he nor Stanwyck nor the audience can be sure of her coercion and credibility. And *that* makes this a fabulous tale.

The money pours in, with the plan of “building a tabernacle” (yeah, right, probably on the French Riviera) as Florence becomes a force of nature, if not the Lord, producing lavish shows with expansive, choreographed choirs, cages of lions which she will enter armed only with her faith as Daniel, and a sprinkling of shills strategically placed throughout the audience who will be “healed” by the Power of God channeled through our dear sister. She’s on the radio, she’s renown from town to town, and yet Bob keeps her secreted away from crowds until showtime to stoke the holy fires.
But one of her radio broadcasts makes its way to the ears of blind former aviator John Carson (David Manners) just as he’s about to fling himself to his death in despair over his failing career as song writer. Sister Florence’s words and stirring entreaties break the spell of despondency, urging him to persevere and find hope in life again. When the two meet in person, Florence re-discovers her zeal for life and faith in God’s Vision through John’s sightlessness. Through covert meetings after her sermons late into the evenings, they fall in love—while Bob grows jealous and obsessive, finally blackmailing Florence into taking it on the lam with him on a “tour of the Holy Land” which for Bob is in Monte Carlo.

Stanwyck as always is a glowing beauty and a spirited professional as she investigates the fire and fury, the repentance and resolve, and the outrage she encounters at every step of the narrative. She is indeed a powerhouse with moments of such unaffected joy and love that I could not take my eyes from her. Capra draws from Stanwyck’s inestimable pool of emotion a complex figure who will not be comfortable presenting a shallow stereotype, but a living conflict in a world of strict hypocrisy. Inspired by the life Amy Semple McPherson, visited again in *Elmer Gantry* (1960) with Jean Simmons and in *Leap Of Faith* (1992) a rare serious Steve Martin role, *The Miracle Woman* draws us in and will not let go until its apocryphal finale which, contrary to many Pre-Code Hollywood films, actually satisfies as an ending rather than merely truncating the whole affair.

Since these are the days before process shots, *The Miracle Woman* earns another boost in spirit when we realize Barbara Stanwyck was in fact in a real lion’s cage separated from the animals by only the thinnest plastic barrier which is invisible on the screen. According to TCM, “In a testament to the actors' bravery and dedication to their craft, David Manners recalled that he and Barbara Stanwyck had to work near live lions, separated only by invisible netting. The actor said: ‘I could smell their breath. Barbara's cool made me brave!’ Capra added, however, that it was all acting on Stanwyck's part; underneath her bravado, ‘she was scared to death.’ Similarly, during the climactic fire scene, Stanwyck had to stand amid real blazing fires, swirling smoke, and falling timbers. Capra remembered that, when he reached Stanwyck to carry her out of the inferno, her heart was pounding. He was sure, however, that her dedication was such that she would have stayed until the scene was completed no matter what.”
And its controversial nature caused some rifts internationally. Capra stated in his autobiography *The Name Above The Title*, the film was not released in Great Britain because British Board of Film Censors "rejected" the film on October 26, 1931. The tabernacle that was burned seated 25,000 people and had to be built outside Hollywood city limits for safety reasons, and its destruction can easily remind us of Capra’s consumptive fire in *Rain Or Shine* the year before. And once again Capra used multiple cameras to capture Stanwyck’s performance on the first take, since she believed she gave her all, and most spontaneously, in that first run.

A small shock which surely would have been edited had the Hays Code been implemented at the time of shooting shows Sister Fallon’s chauffeur, the sympathetic Lew (Frank Holliday), give Bob Horsby the finger after a heated reminder that Lew must stay on Bob’s good side to keep his job. Wow, what a surprise that is.
I wholeheartedly recommend this film for your viewing pleasure. Outstanding performances, strong drama, sweet comedy and the wonderful populist Capra spirit imbue *The Miracle Woman*’s 90 minutes with more passion and drive than you’ll find in most movies today. Truly it’s a blessing.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #532: Well, it's about time I dove into my old movie bag (the bag is old, the movies not always) to dredge up a golden chestnut since our trees are just about leafless. This one is something of a weird guilty pleasure that inspired me to gently chin-bump the woman who is now my wife when we were a'courtin' with the words, "You're a brick." More intimate words of affection were never spoken in the movies, and this is the film that started it. Yes, I'm afraid today's feature is the 1975 camp classic, *Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze* starring Ron Ely who may best be remembered as Tarzan.

With his 72-inch chiseled granite chest and the animated glint in his eye, Clark "Doc" Savage (Ron Ely) returns to his native New York after a time in his Fortress of Solitude (right next door to Superman's in the Arctic; come to think of it, I've never seen the two of them together in the same room--and their first names are both Clark! The American Mystery deepens!) to find his father has been assassinated in a plot traced to the Central American Republic of Hidalgo. Doc himself is under fire, as well, by native Americans painted with elaborate runes of the ancient Mayan god Kukulkan, and someone has destroyed all his father's papers. So enleagued by The Fabulous Five--Major Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts (Paul Gleason), Colonel John "Renny" Renwick (William Lucking), Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair (Michael Miller), Professor William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn (Eldon Quick) and Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks (Darrell Zwerling), his trusty band of experts in diverse fields.

Years ago Savage Sr. received a vast land grant in the unexplored interior of Hidalgo from the Quetzamal, a Mayan tribe that disappeared 500 years ago. But now all records of the land transaction have shown up missing, and government official Don Rubio Gorro (Bob Corso) dispatches his assistant Mona Flores (Pamela Hensley) to lead Doc and his men deep into the jungle, where the Quetzamal race set up their dwelling places. Unfortunately, the master planner and international smuggler Captain Seas (Paul Wexler) continues his crusade to kill Doc and his troupe before he can upset Seas' plans to strip mine the expansive gold deposits from the mountains.

Ensuring they are all dedicated to the same cause, Doc recites his code of honor: "Before we go... let us remember our code. Let us strive every moment of our lives to make ourselves better and better to the best of our ability so that all may profit by it. Let us think of the right and lend our assistance to all who may need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let us take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let us be considerate of our country, our fellow citizens, and our associates in everything we say and do. Let us do right to all - and wrong no man." Upon hearing Ely orate such lofty goals, the widow of Doc Savage's creator Lester Dent was heard to say, " "... I thought my heart would burst with pride. I saw the movie three times that day. I cried when I heard Ron Ely deliver the Doc Savage code - he said it as he meant every word of it. It was wonderful."

Make no bones about it, *Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze* is pure escapist camp rather than straight action powerhouse. During the final quarter of the Twentieth Century, Hollywood tried desperately to cash in on the pulp and nostalgia craze with films like *The Phantom* (1996), *The Shadow* (1994), Disney's *The Rocketeer* (1991) and George Lucas's *Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow* (2004)--all set in the 1930s and at the time of their release all box office duds or graciously put, underachievers. But today all of them are resurging on disc and Blu Rays as new generations and millennials are re-assessing their tolerance for swashbuckling while the Marvel and DC universes are imploding with the snap of a finger.

*Doc* seldom takes itself seriously, often a tongue soldered solidly in the cheek. As a planned movie franchise produced by the great George Pal, his last film, (who died several years after its release, disenheartened by its poor opening--not totally his fault as it went up against an upstart director with a movie about sharks called *Jaws*), a sequel was in its early stages with some publicity photos taken in Lake Tahoe, the film to be titled *Doc Savage: The Arch Enemy Of Evil*. Pal also proposed that the characters be available for a television series that never materialized.

Clearly a paean to patriotism, however ironically presented, the soundtrack boasts the marches of John Philip Sousa (whose last name embodies USA in bold red, white and blue in the credits), some goofy sound effects and asides to the audience, and even dubbed in applause to promote those thrilling days of yesteryear. The campy direction of the film turned away steadfast fans of the pulp, though the script by Pal and Joe Morhaim were largely faithful to the original Doc Savage origin story as well as *The Green Death* and *The Mystic Mullah* from 1938 and 1935 respectively. All the action is there, as well as gadgets, vintage cars (a rare Cord Model 810 convertible coupe, license number NY 36 486-539), and a vintage Lockheed L-12A Electra aircraft, serial number 1203, original tail number NC16077, first registered to Continental Oil in 1936. It's lovely to look at, and if you turn off your critical brain, fun to experience.

Critics savaged *Doc* to complicate his staggered jump to the screen. As far back as the 1930s and '40s directors and producers saw terrific potential in Lester Dent's stories, but Dent's attempt to write a screenplay rather his customary indefatigable novel output fell flat. In the 1960s Doug Wildey, the creator of *Jonny Quest*, attempted to turn Doc into an animated series. “I hired a young guy named Dave Stevens,” Wildey said. “At the time, he was a Doc Savage freak. I had never personally read Doc Savage. Dave explained who the characters were and what they did. I felt that Doc Savage had enough strength and I went ahead and did it in my off hours. I brought it in to Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera Studio, the producers of *Jonny Quest*) and said, ‘What do you think?’ But he wanted to update it. The charm was gone.”

Perhaps, like another of my favorites which was ripe for a sequel, *The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension* (1984), audiences have to be in a certain frame of mind to appreciate *Doc Savage*: a simple, throw up your hands and go with it attitude, accompanied by perpetual eye rolling at some of the over-the-top silliness of the acting and sound effects. No, he doesn't have the rugged grunge of Indiana Jones; his ripping shirts look too exquisitely shorn with scissors and he can take a roundhouse punch without bruising. But his team are basically good comic relief and Doc himself is never going to fall into temptation.

And maybe that's why he's less fun than Indy. He's almost above human endeavor--is he smart enough, is he rough enough, is he rich enough, he ain't too blind to see, and he needs no fussing, he needs no nursing, so he'll never be a beast of burden. Except those who want their Doc to be like he is in the pulps. . . . But for 112 minutes, you could be in worse company.
Enjoy.
Jeff

I'd love to see Doc, The Shadow and The Phantom given a serious attempt, while staying true to the characters.

What the hell happened to the new Doc Savage movie? I thought we were supposed to get a new one.

Post #533: "All right, you primitive screwheads--listen up!" No, I'm not insulting you, just quoting from one of my all time favorite films with no feelings of guilt whatsoever. This is a film I have owned variously through the years on VHS, DVD (three different versions) and Blu-Ray, and I seldom get tired of it. Along with *The Big Lebowski* (1998), today's feature has more quotable lines per moment than any seven randomly chosen movies you can find. It is unabashedly corny, hilarious (to me) and filled with action while fusing its horror credentials with a hero who is largely a braggart and a coward but who rises to his challenges to save (and get) the girl. Of course, we're talking about *Army Of Darkness* (1992) written, produced, edited and directed by Sam Raimi as the third in his *Evil Dead* trilogy.

Royal Oak native Sam Raimi (but growing up in Franklin, MI) first hit the big time after leaving MSU after three semesters studying English Literature to make *The Evil Dead* (1981) with his buddies Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert. First experimenting with Super 8 but switching to 16mm, Raimi and his team scratched together a budget of $350,000 with the help of investor Andy Grainger, who told them, "Fellas, no matter what, just keep the blood running." Filming in Tennessee and Marshall, Michigan, Raimi and company kept things moving by taking out high interest bank loans, borrowing money from friends and family and even making cold calls to businesses around their hometown state of Michigan. The cold calls worked to get catering, gasoline and other necessities that the cast and crew needed. *The Evil Dead* went on to become a cult classic, banned in Germany and remade with director Fede Álvarez in 2013 and Tapert, Raimi and Campbell as executive producers. A TV series extending *The Evil Dead* trilogy ran for three seasons on Starz (*Ash Vs. The Evil Dead*), extending the legacy.

Though *Army Of Darkness* follows its tertiary status in the franchise, it also lags behind the first one financially at the box office: *The Evil Dead* pulled in $29,400,000 worldwide, the sequel *The Evil Dead II* (1987) fell in line with $10.9 worldwide, and *Army Of Darkness* (1992) topped out at $21,502,976 worldwide. The much-anticipated remake made $97,402,049. In cinematic terms, *II* added more comedy in deference or homage to the Three Stooges, and *Army* is nearly flat out comedy with far less blood and gross-out scenery. Taken together, the three films can easily be edited together seamlessly to make one grand long evening if you can tolerate the bloodletting of the first two. Personally I have never been one to relish blood and gore in my films, though if it's somewhat tempered I can work with it, so my personal ranking is 3-2-1 in preference; the comedy in *II* takes some of the edge off the gruesome hard knocks of *I*, but the humor in *Army* makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

The scope of the story goes like this (for the uninitiated): Ashley Joanna ("Ash") Williams and four of his friends spend some time in an isolated cabin the woods when they find an old tape recorder and a reel of ominous findings of the cabin's owner, an archeologist Raymond Knowby. When played the audio tape releases demons from The Book Of The Dead, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, an ancient Sumerian text, who possess four of the five inhabitants of the cabin. Only Ash survives as he fights the "Deadites," or possessed friends. *The Evil Dead II* came about as a continuation of the original story, admired and promoted by Stephen King so much he introduced it to producer Dino De Laurentiis with a vigorous new budget of $3.5 million (sections of which were filmed in Detroit). In *II* Knowby's daughter Annie, her research partner, Ed Getley, and two locals return from the dig with the missing pages of the Necronomicon in tow. They find a severely hurt Ash and thinking he's Knowby's killer lock him in the cellar and off we go again when the Necronomicon works its magic. At the end of *II* and leading into *Army*, Ash and his precious Oldsmobile Delta 88 are sucked into a whirling vortex and transported back to 1300 where he faces knights who believe him to be a Deadite until he joins them in fighting demons in a fantastic medieval war.

All right, sure, it sounds cheesy. But take any horror movie's description and it sounds like so much hooey. But hooey cares? We rejoice as Ash moves from deadly afraid survivor to a craven goofball and smarmy braggart to nearly fearless leader against the Dead. Bruce Campbell is the sole cast member in all three, and his swaggering confidence (when he has a gun--"This is my boomstick") with an egoist's bad memory makes him a living cartoon with a chin on which he could balance a piano. He's every hero's antihero who knows how to schmooze the ladies ("Aww, come on, baby, that was just pillow talk") and back talk a demon ("Yo, she-bitch, come get some").

For my and mine *Army Of Darkness* is a Halloween staple which has given my sons and me a thick tablet of non sequiturs we can hurl at one another without context--and still communicate uproariously. It's an In Joke for us, a shorthand of affection we can enlist at the drop of a body. "How about some hot chocolate--hah?" we can snarl at each other and then laugh while still asking a legitimate question in winter. It's the only movie I know that can take a word like "Groovy!" and not sound completely dorkish.

When I saw the new reiteration of *The Evil Dead* (2013) with my "posse," three dear friends who had not seen the original, I knew what to expect, and while it was very faithful to the original film, it didn't give me the same visceral jolt, but all four of us laughed about the delicious black humor that the series touted. It was okay, I told them, but nothing will ever beat the original trilogy. For those who want to go the tamer route and just watch *Army* without experiencing the horror of its predecessors, you do not need to feel at sea, as both *II* and *Army* catch you up perfectly smoothly with introductions to the story thus far (without all the Karo syrup and red food coloring).

Like many women who never "get" The Three Stooges, my wife is no particular fan of *Army Of Darkness* which overflows with parodies of Larry, Moe and Curly, as well as *The Day The Earth Stood Still* (1951), George Pal animations, *Jason And The Argonauts* (1963), *Terminator 2* (1991) and others. Maybe it's a male thing, but at least she never crosses her arms and frowns intoning, "Do we HAVE to watch this?" when I'm on a roll with it. Shoot, one of the Deadites even paraphrases Shakespeare's *Julius Caesar*--"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." What more do you want?

But then she sometimes responds the same way to Coen Brothers films, which link to Raimi in several significant ways: Raimi co-wrote *The Hudsucker Proxy* (1994), Joel Coen was one of the film editors for *The Evil Dead*, Raimi appeared onscreen in *Miller's Crossing* (1990), *Hudsucker* and *Spies Like Us* (1985) which Joel wrote. The Brothers also gave him tips on how to film in snow after *Fargo* (1996) when he directed *A Simple Plan* (1998). The Coen Brothers also co-wrote Raimi's *Crimewave* (1985). Raimi is presently slated to return to the Marvel Universe after helming three *Spider-Man* movies, directing Marvel's *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness* to be released in 2022.

On top of everything else, if you watch the theatrical cut of *Army of Darkness* you'll get to see Bridget Fonda as Ash's love interest ("Hail to the King, Baby") in the coda, reshot because the original ending catapulted Ash into a bleak post-apocalyptic future after ingesting too much of a sleep potion from the King's alchemist, and it was deemed too pessimistic for audiences by the studio. The theatrical version still has Ash dispatching Deadites in a wonderfully slapstick sequence (no spoilers). *Army of Darkness 2*? According to Bruce Campbell, "It's all internet b.s. There's no reality whatsoever. These random comments slip out of either my mouth, or Sam Raimi's mouth, next thing you know, we're making a sequel." Besides, the TV series *Ash vs Evil Dead* (2015) continues the story of the theatrical version, which is therefore considered the canon version.

Considering the whole movie was based on a 43-page script with references to a Mexican supermarket (S-Mart), it's rather impressive that the film is available in four versions: US theatrical, European, Director's and US TV). Each includes deleted/extended scenes as well as scenes that were re-edited in a different order, depending on what version you watch. (I probably have all of them). And even though, according to IMDB, "Embeth Davidtz (Sheila) had such a rough time shooting the fight scenes, filming at night and wearing heavy prosthetics, that she contemplated quitting acting," she has since been buoyed by the fans' ravenous appreciation of the film's esthetic.

I still won't apologize for loving this film. It's not for everyone, but for a good time, just remember the words of Ash after fighting with himself: "Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun."
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #534: Quite a little oddity here today--Humphrey Bogart's only horror film, complete with a silver streak cleaving his dark, slicked back hair and very pasty skin tones. It's also director Vincent Sherman's first leap to the big screen for Warner Brothers. And it's so early in Bogart's career that he was taking any film that came his way, as he said, "This is one of the pictures that made me march in to [Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner] and ask for more money again. You can't believe what this one was like. I had a part that somebody like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff should have played. I was this doctor, brought back to life, and the only thing that nourished this poor bastard was blood. If it had been Jack Warner's blood or [Harry Warner's] or [Sam Warner's] maybe I wouldn't have minded as much. The trouble was, they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie." Welcome to another Halloween-friendly film as we dip into today's feature, *The Return Of Doctor X* (1939).

For the record, Bogart was not Warner's first choice for the titular Doctor--it *was* Boris Karloff, with Bela Lugosi playing Dr. Frances Flegg (which went to John Litel, a perfectly suited choice), according to Vincent Sherman who unlike Doctor X lived unimpeded to celebrate his one hundredth birthday. And on the DVD copy I have, he speaks on a commentary track with vigor, clarity and good humor, quite the animated gentleman. Bogart, on the other hand, furious at having been assigned this film, is less so, though he plays his part with stoic professionalism.

What separates this film from the standard classic Universal Monsters cadre is its sense of lightness and humor, largely thanks to Wayne Morris's slightly off-kilter news reporter Walter Garrett. Not above taking a pratfall with ease, Walter can't seem to catch a break after he's extended an interview with sultry film star Angela Morrova (Lya Lys), whom he finds murdered in her lush apartment, cut just below her breast bone like a spring chicken. Since he's first on the scene he gets his byline and a huge story and is the darling of town--until the body mysteriously disappears and Morrova shows up at the newspaper offices with the threat of a lawsuit for false reportage.

Enlisting the help of his buddy Dr. Mike Rhodes, Walter seeks to clear his name and reinstate his sanity, while investigating the real reason Morrova appears pale as porcelain and cold to the touch. Rhodes' mentor Dr. Frances Flegg, a hematologist who says insightful lines like "Interesting stuff, blood," seems circumspect during their questioning, and Walter is unnerved by Flegg's colleague, Marshall Quesne (Humphrey Bogart), who upon investigation in the newspaper morgue discovers an amazing resemblance to the late Dr. Maurice Xavier in old press cuttings. But he was electrocuted years ago! And so, with Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane), a nurse, Rhodes' sweetheart and bearer of a rare blood type, in tow, the mystery reveals itself in a compact 62 minutes.

Evenly distributed comic moments take the edge off the science fiction and horror aspects of the film, making it easily accessible for kids, for whom director Sherman insists it was made. Many critics of the time called it "quirky," which is an accurate description, but it's fun to see Bogart between noteworthy performances as Duke Mantee in *The Petrified Forest* (1936) and Sam Spade in *The Maltese Falcon* (1940). Considering it was one of seven movies Bogie made in 1939, you could go into far worse territory for a good old fashioned spooking though this one is pretty short on actual horror.

For Vincent Sherman *The Return of Doctor X* presented many fresh challenges. Though he had been around studios and filmmaking for years, having scripted two of Bogart's earlier films *Crime School* (1938) and *King Of The Underworld* (1939), he admits to not knowing the technical aspects of directing, like camera placement and lens types, relying on B movie veterans like producer Bryan Foy and cameraman Sid Hickox. In his novice effort, he was fastidious, preparing shots and doing ten takes for a 45-second scene as he were an A-list director. At one point, fearing cost and time overruns, Jack Warner sent Foy a memo threatening, "If he does this again he won't be on the picture any longer."
Nevertheless, the final product turned out to be a money maker at the box office, establishing Sherman as one of Warner's long list of choices for films.

Ed Geara of *Celluloid Club* says of the film: "Over the years it’s been said that *The Return of Doctor X* was a punishment film for Bogart; that it was Jack Warner’s way of getting back at him for all the complaining Bogart did about the sorts of movies he was in over the years. And there may be some truth to that. Bogart was under contract, and to those under contract it’s either ‘my way or the highway,’ the highway being a suspension without pay and the added suspension time added to the end of the actor’s contract."

For the sheer silly fun of it (my wife even admitted she enjoyed its weirdness), give *The Return Of Doctor X* a try. It is not a sequel to *Doctor X* (1932), the first film to employ the two color Technicolor process, even though some insignificant similarities exist; the "Return" here refers more to Bogart's resurrection as Doctor Xavier than a continuation of the Lionel Atwill film. But this is crazy goofiness played straight by Bogart and John Litel which hitches up the camp level, especially when Bogart (decades before 007's Blofeld) enjoys stroking a white bunny who's been brought back from the brink. Camp? You bet, but only through the ravages of time. Is this a great film? No, of course not, but it does deliver loads of peculiar charm, and Rosemary Lane looks positively smashing in wide eyed terror as she prepares herself for a monstrous transfusion. You may even feel the urge to spout, like Walter "Wichita" Garrett, "I won't believe she's dead 'til I see it with my own eyes. Even then I won't believe it!"
Enjoy.
Jeff