Category Archives: Movie Reviews

The Suspect
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Bertram Millhauser; adaptation by Arthur T. Horman from a novel by James Roland
1944/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Cora Marshall: I’d like to know what goes on in your head.

Philip Marshall:  It’s much better that you shouldn’t, Cora. It might frighten you.[/box]

Director Robert Siodmak is batting 1000 in my book.  This film, which features one of Charles Laughton’s better performances, really deserves a proper restoration and release.

The place is Victorian London.  Philip (Laughton) and Cora (Rosalind Ivan) Morrison are a very unhappily married couple.  The story begins as Cora forces their grown son out of the house for failing to help her fix the kitchen sink.  Turns out that the shrewish Cora threw a week’s worth of the son’s work into the fire in revenge first.  Philip, without much fanfare, moves into the son’s bedroom.  But it is impossible to avoid an argument with Cora.

Soon thereafter, Mary (Ella Raines) comes to the tobacco shop that Philip manages to ask for work as a stenographer and typist.  They have none to offer.  When Philip finds Mary crying in a park later that evening, he comforts her and asks her to join him for dinner.  He says he has no one to go home to.  Thereafter, they meet frequently and develop a deep friendship.  Mary sees beyond the unlikely exterior of the much older Philip and begins to fall in love with him.

Philip asks Cora for a divorce which she refuses, threatening to ruin Philip with his employer if he goes through with it.  Philip says goodbye to Mary but it doesn’t last.  Cora starts tracking his steps and discovers the affair.  After she threatens to ruin Mary’s life as well, Philip can take no more and kills her.  Things are looking up after the coroner’s inquest finds death by accident.  Then a man from Scotland Yard appears and an intricate game of cat and mouse begins, with the unflappable Philip more than holding his own. With Henry Daniell in a wonderful performance as Phillip and Cora’s next door neighbor, an alcoholic “gentleman” rotter.

Despite seeing it on YouTube in parts in a rather dodgy print, I just loved this one. Laughton is so great.  He is very, very restrained but conveys such emotion in the subtlest of ways.  He easily convinces you that this is the kind of man that a young and beautiful woman, with the requisite sensitivity, could fall in love with.  The story is interesting with some nice twists and turns.  I’m sure that Paul Ivano’s cinematography would look beautiful in a restored version.  Recommended.

Opening ten minutes

Cover Girl
Directed by Charles Vidor
Written by Virginia Van Upp, Marion Parsonnet, and Paul Gangelin from a story by Erwin S. Gelsey
1944/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Genius: [From the song “Who’s Complaining?” which dealt with food rationing during World War Two] “Because of Axis trickery, my coffee now is chicory, and I can rarely purloin a sirloin… No complaining, through the campaigning. Who cares if the carrots are few? I’ll feed myself on artichokes, until that Nazi party chokes, so long as they don’t ration, my passion, for you!”[/box]

With this cast, Cover Girl should have been a much better musical.

Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) is dancing in the chorus in a show at the nightclub owned by Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly).  Rusty and Danny are in love.  Editor John Coudair (Otto Krueger) and assistant Cornelia Jackson (Eve Arden) are searching for a “new face” to be the cover girl for a special wedding edition of Vogue magazine.  One of the girls who dances on the line with Rusty decides to try out and Rusty tags along.  The girl manages to sabotage Rusty’s interview.

But when Coudair goes to the nightclub to see the other girl at work, he spots Rusty and she reminds him so much of his lost love, her grandmother, that he is hooked.  Danny is none too happy at the prospect of Rusty’s opportunity but puts a good face on it.  Then, when Broadway beckons, we get the inevitable conflict over Rusty’s new found fame and her love for Danny.  No fear that love will not win out.  With Phil Silvers as a comedian at the club and pal of Danny and Rusty.

I love musicals but not this one.  Something seemed so overdone and hokey about all of it. Even the musical numbers didn’t send me.  Kelly can dance, obviously, but the choreography did not capture his magic.  Eve Arden is wonderful as always.  Phil Silvers should stick to his Sgt. Bilko persona and avoid singing.  The one special part was Hayworth and Kelly’s duet to the Oscar-nominated song “Long Ago and Far Away”.  Even these filmmakers could not mess up a Jerome Kern tune.

Cover Girl won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Music, Original Song (“Long Ago and Far Away”, music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Ira Gershwin).

Clip – Kelly, Hayworth and Silvers sing and dance to “Make Way for Tomorrow”

National Velvet
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Theodore Reeves and Helen Deutsch from a novel by Enid Bagnold
1944/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Mrs. Brown: We’re alike. I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You’re twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early; but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life.[/box]

A quite enjoyable family entertainment about a girl who loves horses and a boy who helps make her dreams come true.  Even a brace on her teeth could not mar the 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor’s classic beauty.

Velvet Brown (Taylor) is the youngest daughter in an English farm family.  Her father (Donald Crisp) is a butcher with a gruff manner but a soft heart.  Her mother (Anne Revere) quietly wears the pants in the household however.  Velvet is crazy about horses.  She spots a spirited one and names him Pie.  At about the same time, she meets Mi Taylor who seems to know a lot about horses but is now on the open road, the only inheritance left him by his father.  Coincidentally, he is also in possession of his father’s address book which has the name of Velvet’s mother inside.  Velvet brings him home for a meal and the father, while not quite trusting Mi, gives him a job as an assistant and a place to sleep.

Pie’s owner is unable to control the horse, which frequently escapes, leaping over any obstacles in his way.  The owner raffles Pie off and after some suspense Velvet wins.  She gets her heart set on entering Pie in the Grand National steeplechase race.  Velvet’s mother, who swam the English Channel in her youth, encourages Velvet’s dreams.  Mi helps Velvet to train Pie for the race.  When they cannot find a jockey, Velvet takes matters in her own hands.  With Angela Lansbury as Velvet’s boy-crazy older sister.

MGM makes a family movie with almost no schmalz!  This is quite a down to earth bunch and the parents aren’t too prone to issuing forth homilies to their off-spring.  Mickey Rooney is also at his best in a dramatic and conflicted part.  Anne Revere is great as the mother that has more in common with her fanciful daughter than anyone would guess. Also, the ending is more interesting what one ordinarily would expect out of MGM.  I had fond memories of when I saw it long ago on my family’s black-and-white TV set.  It’s beautiful in color as well.

Anne Revere won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in National Velvet, which also won for Best Film Editing.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Director; Best Cinematography Color; and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color.

Trailer

Ivan the Terrible, Part I (Ivan Groznyy)
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Written by Sergei Eisenstein
1944/USSR
Mosfilm/TsOKS
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#171 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Ivan: Two Romes have fallen. A third stands. There shall not be a fourth.[/box]

I have never quite been able to warm up to this gloriously shot but eccentrically acted classic.

The story starts with Ivan’s (Nikolai Cherkasov) coronation as Tsar of Moscovy.  After the ceremony, Ivan announces his intention to rule Russia with an iron hand and to unify her under his leadership.  To do this, will require taking power away from the many boyars who currently rule locally.  Needless to say, this is not a popular idea with the boyars at court.  They immediately begin plotting against him.  Chief among the plotters is his ghastly aunt Efrosinia (Serafima Birman) who hopes to put her half-witted son Vladimir on the throne.

The coronation is followed by the wedding of Ivan and the steadfast Anastasia.  One of Efrosinia’s main ploys is to get Ivan’s friend Kurbsky, who is in love with Anastasia, to put in for Vladimir.  Kurbsky vacilates throughout the film.

At the coronation, emissaries from Kazan to the east arrive.  They tell Ivan that he might just as well commit suicide as they are soon going to conquer Moscovy.  Ivan decides the better course is to attack Kazan himself.  Kurbsky proves to be an able general in this battle despite his continuing inclination to treachery.  Ivan becomes ill on the road home and is near death at one point.  His destiny saves him.

Ivan sets his sights west to the Baltics.  He sees Russia as having a manifest destiny to govern lands that will give the country access to the Baltic Sea.  He sends off Kurbsky to lead the war effort there.  Efrosinia takes matters into her own hands by poisoning Anastasia.  His wife’s death brings Ivan to his lowest ebb of all.  As he is prostrate by her coffin, one of his loyal commoner supporters, acting as a kind of Greek chorus, starts rattling off the desertion and betrayal of one boyar after another.  Ivan rallies.  Instead of immediately waging war against the boyars however, Ivan decides to leave Moscow for a small village until Muscovites beg him to return.  This they do in a glorious, singing mass procession over the snow.

I have seen this several times over the years and many of the shots remain etched in my memory.  The settings are magnificent as is the Prokoviev score.  The acting, on the other hand, is full of the kind of broad, overstated emotions reminiscent of the acting style used in silent films, but still more exaggerated.  I find the style tremendously distancing.  The action also drags at only a little over 90 minutes.  Stalin was a huge fan of Ivan and of this particular film, which he commissioned, and Eisenstein received the Stalin Prize.  Ivan the Terrible, Part II, featuring a mad Tsar Ivan, received a very different reception and was suppressed

Montage of scenes with religious music

The Fighting Sullivans (“The Sullivans”)
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Mary C. McCall Jr.; story by Edward Doherty and Jules Schermer
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Naval Officer at Boat Launching: Today, as we launch the destroyer, U.S.S. The Sullivans, the parents of the five Sullivan boys are here to share in the tribute to their sons, even as they shared their fighting spirit. As this ship slides down the ways, it carries with it a special armor all its own: The flaming and undaunted spirit that is the heritage of its name. The five Sullivan boys are gone; the U.S.S. The Sullivans carries on. May God bless and protect this ship. May her destiny be as glorious as the name she bears.[/box]

I liked this story of five brothers and their short lives far better than I expected to.  Could Thomas Mitchell ever be bad?  Not here, that’s for sure.

This is based on the true story of the Sullivan boys, all five of whom were famously killed  when their cruiser sank during the naval battle of Guadalcanal.  But that is only a tiny part of their story, which sees them growing up in a large Irish Catholic working-class family in Iowa.

The family is characterized by a lot of love and a Catholic value system. The pater familias is Thomas (Mitchell), a freight train router who lends a firm but humorous presence to their lives.  Mother Alleta is more tender-hearted.  The boys are best friends who tease one another relentlessly but always stick together in their adventures and in taking on anybody who wants to fight one of them.  We follow lives from boyhood on.

Al is the youngest but the first to have a sweetheart, Mary Catherine (Anne Baxter) whom he meets in high school.  After some missteps, they marry and have a baby.  When Pearl Harbor is attacked, the unmarried brothers decide to enlist in the Navy.  Al feels he must stay at home but Mary Catherine urges him to go and not separate the fighting team.  The boys refuse to sign up unless they can serve together.  The local draft board will not agree but a letter to the Navy Department sees that they are all assigned to the same ship.

The ending is of course heartrending, but perhaps even more so for the affection that has been built up for the entire family through the antics of the boys.  This is actually a fun film to watch and not mawkish in the least.  There is also very little to no speechifying until the very, very end when a cruiser is christened The Sullivans by the Navy.  Recommended for those who like family stories.

The Sullivans was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story.

Clip

The Woman in the Window
Directed by Fritz Lang
Written by Nunnally Johnson from a novel by J.H. Wallis
1944/USA
Christie Corporation/International Pictures
Repeat viewing/TGG Direct DVD

[box] Richard Wanley: The streets were dark with something more than night.[/box]

What idiot decided to colorize a great film noir?

Stuffy, mild-mannered psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) sees his wife and children off for a long summer holiday in the country while he remains in the city to work.  His attention is suddenly struck by the portrait of a beautiful brunette in a gallery window.  His buddies, including D.A. Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey), comment that she is their dream girl.

After one drink too many, Wanley leaves his club and takes another look at the nearby portrait.  A face remarkably resembling the girl in the picture appears in the glass.  It is Alice Reed (Joan Bennett) who says she was the model.  She is clearly no better than she should be and basically asks him to take her for a drink and then up to her apartment “to see other paintings by the same artist.” There, the pair’s friendly chat over more drinks is interrupted by a gentleman caller.  He is enraged by jealousy and attempts to strangle Wanley with his bare hands.  Alice hands Wanley a knife to defend himself with.  They are left with a corpse on their hands.

Neither Wanley or Alice wants to go to the police so they take some mighty ill-advised measures to try to cover their tracks.  Then a blackmailer (Dan Duryea) comes along to muddy the waters.

I couldn’t easily find this film from my usual sources so when I saw a double-feature DVD (with The Stranger) on sale at Amazon for $5.38 I jumped at it.  I should have looked before I leapt.  I could hardly stand to keep my eyes on the screen of this colorized nightmare.  Of course Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea can’t help but be good in any color. The only downside to this film is the terrible Hayes-code inspired ending, which I will not spoil here except to say that the ending makes this film work best on its first viewing.

The Woman in the Window was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Score.

trailer

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Dalton Trumbo based on the book by Ted W. Lawson and Robert Consodine
1944/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Lt. Ted Lawson: And out there is Japan. My mother had a Jap gardener once. He seemed like a nice little guy.

Lt. Bob Gray: You know I don’t hate Japs yet. It’s a funny thing. I don’t like them, but I don’t hate them.

Lt. Ted Lawson: I guess, I don’t either. You get kind of mixed up.[/box]

This story of the 1942 Doolittle Raid bombing over Tokyo made for appropriate Veteran’s Day viewing but is hardly distinguishable from other combat pictures of the war years.  It doesn’t help that Air Force (1943) covered the same ground.

The plot is drawn from the factual account of the mission by one of its pilots.  Lt. Col. James Doolittle (Spencer Tracy) advocates bombing the Japanese home islands early in 1942, long before an invasion could even be contemplated, in order to bolster U.S. morale and divert Japanese fighters back to Japan.  He calls for volunteers for the ultrasecret mission.  Among these is newlywed pilot Ted Lawson (Van Johnson).  His faithful, adoring wife Ellen (Phyllis Thaxter) is expecting their first baby.  The first part of the story details the rigorous training of the crews Stateside for the specialized flying required by the dodgy logistics for the raid.

We get some pretty spectacular but brief footage of the raid.  The story then continues in China where Lawson and his crew are severely injured when their bomber crashes on the coast en route to safe haven in the interior.  Kindly Chinese attempt to care for the men with the few resources at their disposal.  With Robert Walker as the bombardier on Lawson’s crew and Robert Mitchum in a small role as another flyer.

The scenario has become routine to me by now.  At least they didn’t kill off Walker shortly after he pulled out his sweetheart’s picture!  Thaxter’s acting talents are wasted in the vapid romance during the first half of the film.  I thought part in China was more interesting.  Don’t watch this just to see Tracy as he has a relatively small role.  The protagonist is definitely Johnson.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo won the Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects.  It was also nominated for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Robert Surtees and Harold Rossen).

Trailer

Arsenic and Old Lace
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein from the play by Joseph Kesselring
1944/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Abby Brewster: Now, Mortimer, you know all about it and just forget about it. I do think that Aunt Martha and I have the right to our own little secrets.[/box]

I hate to say it but Cary Grant is way too frenetic for my tastes in this wacky comedy.  The supporting players are superb, however, and all in all its a good time.

Mortimer Brewster (Grant) is a drama critic and has also written a couple of books ranting against marriage.  So it’s slightly embarrassing when he falls in love with the girl (Priscilla Lane) who lives next door to the two maiden aunts who raised him, Martha (Jean Adair) and Abby (Josephine Hull).  His Uncle Teddy (John Alexander) lives with the sisters and believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt, frequently charging up “San Juan Hill” (the stairs), trumpet in hand, yelling “Charge!”  It’s a kooky family, but harmless, except for the insane psychopath Jonathan who left home years before.  Martha and Abby are sweet old ladies, known for their good works, and the favorites of the cops who walk the beat in their neighborhood.

Mortimer gets married on Halloween and returns home for a brief celebration.  Then all hell breaks loose.  He discovers a body in the window seat and learns that his aunts have been providing a service to elderly lonely hearts, a sort of mercy killing without any premonitions of death to mar the proceedings.  While Mortimer is coping with this new information, brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) suddenly reappears with a body of his own to dispose of.  He also plans to use the basement for some repair work by drunken plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre), who botched his previous effort at disguising Jonathan’s face by making him look quite a lot like Frankenstein’s monster.  It gets zanier and zanier after that.  With Jack Carson as a policeman who writes bad plays on the side and Edward Everett Horton as the owner of an asylum.

Many in the cast were veterans of the long-running Broadway play and have their parts down cold.  I particularly like Massey and Lorre.  Lorre should have done more comedy.  His timing is great.  Grant overdoes it quite a lot I think, to an almost hysterical level.  I wonder that Capra didn’t calm him down but maybe this was what the director was looking for.

The movie was actually shot in late 1941 and early 1942 before Capra started his work with the Signal Corps.  Warners was contractually obligated to withhold release until the Broadway plan ended its run.  The producers of the play also refused to release Boris Karloff, who played Jonathan on stage, to work on the film.  I would have given anything to see Karloff in the part.

Trailer