Son of Dracula Directed by Robert Siodmak Written by Eric Taylor from a story by Curt Siodmak 1943/USA Universal Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Count Dracula: [as his coffin is burning] Put it out! Put it out, I tell ya’![/box]
First we get Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein’s Monster. Now it’s Lon Chaney, Jr. as Dracula. What were they thinking?
Katherine Caldwell (Louise Albritton) is a “morbid” believer in the occult. She is eagerly expecting a visit from Count Alucard (Chaney) to her Southern plantation home. Everybody associated with her, including fiance Frank, takes an instant disliking to him. Katherine marries him any way. Her family hires vampire expert Prof. Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg) to help out. Double crosses and mild horror ensue With Evelyn Ankers as Katherine’s sister.
The highlight of this film is some excellent low-key shots by future film noir master Siodmak. Otherwise, it is pretty lame. Chaney is even more unlikely as Hungarian count that he was a the son of an English lord.
Thank Your Lucky Stars Directed by David Butler Written by Norman Panama, Melvin Frank and James V. Kern from an original story by Everett Freeman and Arthur Schwartz 1943/USA Warner Bros.
First viewing/Warner Bros. Homefront Collection DVD
[box] I’m either their first breath of spring/ Or else, I’m their last little fling/ I either get a fossil or an adolescent pup/ I either have to hold him off/ Or have to hold him up/ The battle is on, but the fortress will hold/ They’re either too young or too old – “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old,” lyrics by Frank Leosser [/box]
Yet another all-star variety show from 1943. It’s a mixed bag, with a bit too much framing story, but some of the numbers are unmissable.
Producer/MC Farnsworth (Edward Everett Horton) and composer/conductor Dr. Schlenna (S.Z. Sakall) are putting on the “Cavalcade of Stars” as a benefit for the war effort. Dr. Schlenna is desperate to get Dinah Shore in the show. Unfortunately, she is managed by Eddie Cantor and he won’t let her participate unless he does. Very reluctantly, the two allow Cantor to be Honorary Chairman of their Committee. He immediately makes a complete nuisance of himself. (Cantor makes himself the butt of every joke throughout.)
In the meantime, Pat Dixon (Joan Leslie) is looking for someone to perform the very bad song she wrote called “Moon Dust”. She chances upon aspiring singer Tommy Randolph (Dennis Morgan) who is trying, without success, to get a contract to sing on Cantor’s radio show. He makes such a bad impression on Cantor that the two resort to kidnapping the star and substituting him for a look-alike Hollywood tour bus driver (also Cantor) who saves the day.
George Tobias with Olivia De Havilland and Ida Lupino
Other than the Leslie-Morgan songs in the framing story (which are pretty bad), the bulk of the film is devoted to numbers from famous Warner Bros. movie stars in either the dress rehearsal or the benefit gala. Among them are John Garfield, Ann Sheridan, Alan Hale, Jack Carson, Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Errol Flynn, Hattie McDaniel, Willie Best, Ida Lupino, Spike Jones and His City Slickers, and Humphrey Bogart.
John Garfield and some of the others demonstrate why they didn’t make it as musical comedy stars but some of the acts are surprisingly good. Bette Davis has trouble carrying a tune as well but she has so much screen presence that her song ends up being really enjoyable. Hattie McDaniel, Willie Best, and many more sing and dance delightfully to “Ice Cold Katy”. (I always love it whenever Hattie McDaniel is allowed to sing.) I think my favorite act was Errol Flynn sending up his heroic image in the British music hall style number “That’s What You Jolly Well Get”. The man seemingly could do anything. I haven’t had much exposure to Cantor before but I thought he did quite well.
Arthur Schwartz and Frank Loesser were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for their song “They’re Either Too Old or Too Young”
Errol Flynn sings “That’s What You Jolly Well Get”
L’éternel retour (“Love Eternal”) Directed by Jean Delannoy Written by Jean Cocteau 1943/France Films André Paulvé
First viewing/Hulu Plus
[box] Tristram: Soft – who is that, stands by the dying fire?
The Page: Iseult.
Tristram: Ah! not the Iseult I desire. — Matthew Arnold, Tristram and Iseult[/box]
Jean Cocteau was at his best in getting at the mythic beating heart of fairy tales and legends, here a modern version of the ancient story about the adulterous love between Tristan and Isolde.
Patrice (Cocteau’s partner and muse Jean Marais) is visiting his wealthy uncle Marc. The chateau is also occupied by Gertrude, the sister of Marc’s deceased wife, her husband, and their son Achille. The entire Frossin clan is the stuff of nightmares but Achille, a grown-up dwarf whom his mother treats as a young child, is particularly evil. They are all obsessed with jealousy of Patrice.
Patrice takes them in his stride. He decides what Marc needs is a wife. He finds an ideal candidate on an island in the form of the young, very blonde Nathalie (Madeleine Solonge), who is being terrorized by her drunken boyfriend. Nathalie agrees to leave with Patrice. Her protector Anne provides a bottle of love potion marked “Poison” for Nathalie to use if she cannot work up enthusiasm for the middle-aged Marc.
Marc likes Nathalie at once and a wedding quickly follows. He encourages the teasing friendship between Nathalie and Patrice. One night when they are back from one of their athletic endeavors, Patrice suggests that they get drunk. Achille secretly dumps the contents of the bottle in their glasses.
The two are now overtaken by a passion that remains unconsummated. The Frossins make sure Marc finds out about this and Patrice is exiled. He steals Nathalie away but she is found out and meekly returns to the chateau. Patrice takes up with a brunette, also named Nathalie. But nothing can prevent the lovers’ tragic reunion.
The filmmakers managed to come up with the blondest and most square-jawed actors in all of France for this. It is astounding how Teutonic they look. The villains are all brunettes. Perhaps no deeper meaning should be read into all this. At any rate, it is a visually beautiful telling of the story, with less flourishes than La belle et la bête but some of the same fairly tale feeling. The characters were a bit too symbolic to be fully engaging.
Montage of clips – no subtitles but little dialogue
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Directed by Roy William Neill
Written by Curt Siodmak
1943/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video
[box] Maleva: He is not insane. He simply wants to die.[/box]
Bela Lugosi looks positively geriatric as Frankenstein’s monster in this Universal horror not-so-classic.
Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is still trying to find a way to die and escape the monthly nightmare of his transformation into the Wolf Man. He locates gypsy woman Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya). She says Dr. Frankenstein had the secrets of both life and death. He awakens the monster (Legosi) from its entombment in an ice block while trying to find the scientist’s records.
In the meantime, the Wolf Man has already killed. Dr. Frank Mannering is on his trail. He locates Talbot in the quaint Tyrolean village near the castle, where Frankenstein’s grandniece Elsa (Ilona Massey) is enjoying some folk dancing. The monster makes an appearance. Mannering and Elsa agree to help Talbot. They find Frankenstein’s diary which explains how the undead can be made to die. But the villagers aren’t waiting for science to take a hand in destroying the monster and there is something about that laboratory that drives men mad … With Lionel Atwill as the mayor and Dwight Frye as a villager.
This has all the great production values of the classic Universal horror films of the ’30’s. Chaney Jr. is actually better in this than he was in The Wolf Man, probably because we are not asked to believe that he is the son of an English lord. Poor Lugosi totters around pathetically and the climactic fight is necessarily truncated by another disaster, bringing the movie to an abrupt halt.
Flesh and Fantasy Directed by Julien Duvivier Written by Ernest Pascal, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Ellis St. Joseph from stories by Ellis St. Joseph, Oscar Wilde, and Laslo Vádnáy 1943/USA Universal Pictures
First viewing/Universal Vault Series DVD
[box] “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” ― Edgar Allan Poe[/box]
Edward G. Robinson is the standout in this anthology of three supernatural tales from French exile Julian Duvivier.
In the framing sequence, a man (Robert Benchley) appears to be shook up about something. He tells his friend that a fortune-teller told him something would happen. Then he had a dream in which the event did not happen. Since he doesn’t believe in either dreams or fortune teller, and one of the two must be true, he is scared. The friend proceeds to read him three tales which will clear things up. (How, I never understood.)
The first of the stories concerns an ugly, bitter woman (Betty Field) who has been yearning after a handsome law student (Robert Cummings). It is Mardi Gras and the owner of a mask shop gives her a mask that will allow her to be a beauty for the evening.
The best of the bunch stars Edward G. Robinson as a none-too-ethical lawyer. He attends a party where a mysterious man (Thomas Mitchell) is telling fortunes. At this affair, the lawyer’s lady finally agrees to marry him. But the fortune teller has seen something amiss with his palm. He finally drags out of him that he is destined to commit murder. The evil little man encourages him to pick someone who will never be missed to get the crime out of the way before the wedding. The lawyer is willing but the intended victims prove to be surprisingly hard to kill. With Dame May Whitty and C. Aubrey Smith as the elect.
In the final tale, Charles Boyer is a circus tightrope walker. He has a dream in which he falls to his death, while a woman wearing odd earrings screams. He is so disturbed he can no longer do his act. The management takes the troupe back to New York where he suggests the acrobat resume a less dangerous trick. En route in the ocean liner, he meets the woman of his dreams (Barbara Stanwyck).
All of the stories have twists, something like an early “Twilight Zone”. Unfortunately, there is also quite a bit of fairly rote romance in the first and the last episodes. The middle tale has some mild thrills and some excellent acting by Robinson and Mitchell.
Trailer – also includes at the end the trailer to the “B” feature Destiny which was a fourth episode split off from Flesh and Fantasy
My Friend Flicka Directed by Harold D. Schuster Written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Lillie Hayward from a novel by Mary O’Hara 1943/USA Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] “In riding a horse, we borrow freedom” ― Helen Thompson[/box]
This is an excellent family film about a boy’s love for his horse.
Ken McCauley (Roddy McDowall) is the kind of well-meaning but dreamy kid who never seems to do anything right. His rancher father (Preston Foster) is disgusted and wants to punish him. But Ken’s mother convinces him that it would be better to give him the colt he has been begging for non-stop.
To his father’s dismay, the colt of Ken’s dreams is the filly of the mating of a prized stallion and a “loco” unbreakable mare. Ken calls the horse Flicka and begins to learn responsibility by nursing her wounds after she runs into barbed wire in a panic. The boy and his animal develop a deep bond.
It’s a simple story but put together quite well. I really believed in the family dynamic and, of course, McDowall is superb. The ending kind of sneaks up on you. I had expected there to be more in the way of horse-breaking and riding but no. Maybe that would have been superfluous as this is really the story of the boy’s own growth.
The Constant Nymph Directed by Edmund Goulding Written by Kathryn Scola from a novel and play by Margaret Kennedy and Basil Dean 1943/USA Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video
[box] “Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it’s more like love’s shady second cousin who’s always borrowing money and can’t hold down a job.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage[/box]
Despite Joan Fontaine’s excellent performance, the overwrought melodrama lost me by the end.
The premier of the last opus of composer Lewis Dodd (Charles Boyer) was a big flop. It seems critics just don’t appreciate his dissonance. He is only really happy in the home of oft-married fellow composer Albert Sanger. Albert informs Lewis that he will not be great until he has been able to cry. Albert’s fourteen-year-old daughter Tessa (Joan Fontaine) inspires Albert to write a piece with melody and even provides the words. The ethereal girl is also madly in love with the composer.
When Tessa’s father dies, Albert calls on her immensely wealthy Uncle Charles (Charles Coburn) to come and rescue Tessa and the other children from London. During the uncle’s visit, Albert falls in love with Charles’s daughter Florence (Alexis Smith). After they marry, Florence can’t wait to pack the children off to boarding school.
Some time passes and Albert and Florence are constantly bickering. He refuses to live up to her high-society expectations. The free-spirited girls run away from boarding school and show up at the house. Charles is delighted to see them but Florence is intensely jealous of Tessa, with whom Charles clearly has a special bond. Finally, Charles realizes that this bond is romantic love for his muse. Will he and Tessa find happiness? Not while the Hayes Code is in effect. With Peter Lorre and Dame May Whitty as friends of the family.
I’m just not crazy about the whole premise that if we have an adult playing a young teenager it is some how OK to explore these March-September romances. Joan Fontaine gives the part just the right other-worldly quality to make this work, however. Her Tessa’s fundamental innocence keeps the ick factor down to a minimum. The biggest problem I have with the film is Alexis Smith’s overacting. She ramps up the jealousy and drama up past the point of endurance. Her self-realization is unbelievable as well. I saw the ending coming.
Joan Fontaine was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Constant Nymph.
Princess O’Rourke Directed by Norman Krasna Written by Norman Krasna 1943/USA Warner Bros
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD
[box] Eddie O’Rourke: [the princess is asleep in his arms] Boy, are you lucky I was raised right. Or was I? Yeah, I guess I was.[/box]
Princess O’Rourke is an entertaining light romantic comedy.
Princess Maria (Oliva De Havilland) is a member of the royal family of an unnamed European country, now in exile due to Nazi occupation. The monarch is in London but Maria has taken up quarters in New York. The fondest desire of her uncle Holman (Charles Coburn) is to marry her off so she can produce lots of male heirs. But Maria is holding out for love or at least attraction.
Holman sends her off on a trip to San Francisco under the pseudonym “Mary Williams”in hopes that the rest will do her good. She is afraid of flying and is told to take a sleeping pill to make the hours pass by. She gets into bed in her private berth (!) on the commercial flight but still can’t sleep. Various attendants pass out sleeping pills like candy (!), each not knowing the total. The plane is unable to take off because of weather but Maria is too zonked out to move without help. So pilot Eddie O’Rourke (Robert Cummings) takes pity on her and puts her up at his place. When she comes to, she tells him she is a political refugee. His heart goes out to her and before we know it he falls in love. The fact that he is about to be inducted into the Air Force as a combat pilot hurries things along. Maria loves him too but knows an alliance could never be.
When Holman finds out that Eddie comes from a family of nine sons, he is not exactly opposed to the match. But could Eddie ever resign himself to the job of Prince Consort? With Jack Carson, fine as usual as Eddie’s co-pilot and buddy and Jane Wyman as his wife.
This has some obvious parallels to Roman Holiday (1953) and I must say that De Havilland gives Audrey Hepburn a run for her money in charm and allure. She is very funny here. There’s a lot of silliness as well but, within the fairy tale world Krasna has created, it seems delicious rather than ridiculous. If you like this kind of thing, go for it.
Princess O’Rourke won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
The Human Comedy Directed by Clarence Brown Written by Howard Eastabrook from the story by William Saroyan 1943/USA Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video
Mr. Macauley: I am Matthew Macauley. I have been dead for two years. So much of me is still living that I know now the end is only the beginning. As I look down on my homeland of Ithaca, California, with its cactus, vineyards and orchards, I see that so much of me is still living there – in the places I’ve been, in the fields and streets and church and most of all in my home, where my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions still live in the daily life of my loved ones.
MGM’s faith-based, patriotic take on small-town America during World War II was not for me.
The people of Icatha, California are the kind that burst out into hymns at random intervals just to cheer themselves up. The story is narrated from the grave by the deceased father (Ray Collins) who watches over one such family. Homer McCauley (Mickey Rooney) is the man of the house since his father died and elder brother Marcus (Van Johnson) went off to the army. He supports his mother (Faye Bainter), sister (Donna Reed) and little brother Ulysses by delivering telegrams. Mrs. McCauley is handy with poetic wisdom and calls to faith at all times. She plays the harp.
Homer idolizes his boss at the office (James Craig) and befriends the kindly old drunkard telegraph operator (Frank Morgan). Homer witnesses much heartache and happiness delivering telegrams.
Marcus befriends fellow-soldier Tobey, an orphan. He makes Icatha and his family sound so appealing that Tobey decides to adopt them as his own. The story continues on, mixing triumph and tragedy. With Robert Mitchum in a very early uncredited role as a soldier.
There is nothing really wrong with this Oscar-nominated picture. It just has not aged at all well. MGM decided to do Our Town one better and this was the result. It is a motherhood and apple pie kind of movie and probably resonated with war-time audiences, although I suspect that it was old-fashioned even at the time. Rooney does quite well. We have seen this performance before, but he plays it with some subtlety and does not succumb to the mugging which characterizes his work in comedies.
I get that this is a fable and idealized version of a small-town (witness all the references to The Odyssey) but it was all much too much for me.
William Saroyan won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story. The Human Comedy was also nominated in the following categories: Best Picture; Best Actor (Rooney); Best Director; and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Harry Stradling, Jr.)
Collection of scenes featuring the uncredited Robert Mitchum as a GI.
The Living Magoroku (“Ikite iru Magoroku”) Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita 1943/Japan
Shochiku Company
First viewing/Hulu Plus
[box] “It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result.” – Hideki Tojo [/box]
[box] During this period, Japan’s peaceful commercial relations were successively obstructed, primarily by the American rupture of commercial relations, and this was a grave threat to the survival of Japan. — Hideki Tojo[/box]
A propaganda film, and uneven, but with several glimpses of good things to come from this director.
The film begins in the 16th Century with a battle between samurais of Lord Onagi and an invading force in a field of tall grass. Fast forward to 1942 and a teacher is training his students in the art of war on that same field in that same grass. He berates them for showing insufficient zeal and for not knowing enough about their ancestors. The teacher, who can’t wait to go into combat, tells the class that he honors his ancestors and prizes his Magoroku sword that has been handed down to him through the centuries.
A blacksmith has found one of the students’ dropped swords and returns it. When he hears the story about the Magoroku sword, he laughs and assures the teacher it is a fake. The teacher is irate and promises him to show him the sword. We move to the blacksmith’s shop where we meet the current head of the Onagi clan, a whining young man with a cough. A villager approaches him and says that his family’s fallow field (the same one the samurai fought on) should be plowed and planted for the good of the nation. The boy refuses, citing a curse that has condemned all the men in his family to an early death after someone set a hoe to the “sacred field”.
The Onagis also own a Magoroku sword. A young doctor comes to them begging to buy it to honor his father who lost one. The rest of the movie ties up the sword question, the field question, and a Romeo and Juliet type love subplot, to the greater glory of Japan.
The film underlines the prevailing philosophy that the most glorious thing that a man can do is to die honorably on the field of battle. Those left behind need to work non-stop for the greater good of Japan. There are also a couple of comments about using the sword to cut down 10 or 15 American weaklings, etc.
Despite all that, and despite the really ham-handed opening samurai battle and its awful narration, I ended up rather liking this film. The story is actually fairly interesting once you get into it. The acting was first-rate, with some Ozu regulars on for the ride, and some of the shots were quite beautiful. Kinoshita is dynamite on fields of grass, for example. I’m looking forward to seeing how his work develops over the years. This was his first film. He is perhaps most famous for The Battle of Narayama (1958), which I have not yet seen.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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