Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Stage Door Canteen
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by Delmer Daves
1943/USA
Sol Lesser Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. — Marcus Aurelius [/box]

This is a review of the kind of acts that played, or might have played, at the Stage Door Canteen operated by the leading lights of the Broadway theater in New York during World War II.  It is an enjoyable way to see many well-known theatrical stars that are rarely glimpsed in movies of the period, as well as some big Hollywood stars with theatrical roots.

Yes, there is a bit of a plot.  A group of soldiers who are a short leave in New York before shipping out to the front find out there is free food at the Stage Door Canteen.  The girls there ask them to dance.  A youngster gets his first kiss and one of the other men falls in love with a girl who thought she was volunteering so she could meet a producer and get work.  It’s actually not too badly handled.

However, what we are really here for is the fantastic cast, some doing cameos and some doing specialty numbers.  Among those I had never seen elsewhere on film were Katherine Cornell, Lynn Fontaine, Gracie Fields, and Gypsy Rose Lee (doing a clean version of her burlesque act).  We also get some boffo numbers by Benny Goodman, Ethel Waters with the Count Basie Band, Ray Bolger, Ethel Merman, Yehudi Mehunin and more.  Katharine Hepburn, Merle Oberon, and Paul Muni have speaking parts and Harpo Marx does his thing.  There are many more I don’t have space for.

I liked this a whole lot for what it was.  It will all depend on how much you enjoy the acts.  It’s hard to believe anybody with an open mind wouldn’t find at least something to love here.  I hadn’t heard the Oscar-nominated song before and it and its melody had me misting up as it appeared and reappeared various times.

James V. Monaco and Al Dubin were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for “We Mustn’t Say Goodbye.  Freddie Rich was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Clip – Peggy Lee singing “Why Don’t You Do Right” with Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. – the picture quality isn’t much, but the audio, Wow!

The Gang’s All Here
Directed by Busby Berkeley
Written by Walter Bullock, Story by Nancy Wintner et al
1943/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] I wonder why does ev’rybody look at me/ And then begin to talk about a Christmas tree?/ I hope that means that ev’ryone is glad to see/ The lady in the tutti-frutti hat. — “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat”, lyrics by Leo Robin[/box]

Forget the plot, the production numbers in this film transcend high camp and move into the realm of the psychedelic!

Alice Faye plays Edie, a chorus girl in the world’s most elaborate nightclub show starring Carmen Miranda.  Andy Mason (James Ellison), son of millionaire Andrew Mason (Eugene Pallette) spots Edie in the line and chats her up at a canteen for servicemen next door to the club, where Benny Goodman and his Orchestra entertain.  They fall in love on the Staten Island ferry that night.  After their kiss on her doorstep, she promises to write him every single day overseas.  Unbeknownst to her, he is expected to marry his childhood sweetheart, the daughter of the Mason’s stockbroker next-door neighbor Peyton Potter (Edward Everett Horton) and his wife (Charlotte Greenwood).

Andy covers himself in glory in his three months in the South Pacific.  The Masons and Potters plan a huge benefit for War Bonds  on the Potters’ palatial estate to welcome him home.  This will be provided by the cast of the nightclub’s next extravaganza, in which Edie is a headliner.  Numerous hijinx and heartbreaks follow.  But they are mostly there to provide a backdrop for the amazing finale.

After the series of Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland musicals he helmed, Busby Berkeley is back in his most outrageous form for this one.  And he has glorious Technicolor on his side!  This really must be seen to be believed.  The girls, the costumes, the weirdness!  I had a hell of a good time. Recommended for its intended audience – you know who you are.

The Gang’s All Here was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color.

Clip – “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” – Enjoy!!!!

Lumiere d’ete
Directed by Jean Grémillion
Written by Pierre LaRoche and Jacques Prévert
1943/France
Films André Paulvé
First viewing/Hulu Plus

This love pentangle has some interesting social commentary between the lines.

The entire story is punctuated with blasting nearby for a new dam.  Michele has a long walk between the station and the mountain hotel where she is to rendezvous with her artist lover.  The aristocrat Patrice gives her a lift to the hotel.  The artist has not yet arrived and the hotel’s owner Cricri has lunch with her before she goes to her room to wait for him.  It develops that Michele is madly in love with her artist and Cricri is passionate for Patrice, for whom she moved to the country,.

In a case of mistaken identies, a young dam worker named Julien is sent up to Michele’s room. Before she is fully awake, she kisses him, thinking him to be her lover.  This one kiss is all it takes to hook Julien.  Michele must wait in the hotel for several days and Patrice falls for her too, making Cricri almost pathetically jealous.

When Roland (Pierre Brasseur – Children of Paradise), Michele’s artist, finally shows up, he proves to be much different than we could have imagined.  In fact, he is apparently in the last stages of alcoholism and has a really wicked tongue to boot.  He does everything in his power to hurt her, partly to get her to drop him.

Patrice, seeing an opportunity, lures the Roland to his chateau with Christine in tow.  He claims to be helping Roland to dry out but is actually practically forcing liquor upon him.  Cricri sends Julien to try to extricate Michele from the situation.  Julien fails and so does a visit from Cricri.  When Patrice finally makes his intentions clear, Michele decides to leave for Paris with a loan from CriCri.

Patrice’s last gambit is throwing a lavish costume party, a la The Rules of the Game.  There the lovers play a kind of romantic game of musical chairs, with tragic consequences to almost everybody concerned.

This is a beautifully staged film.  I particularly liked the dam construction sequences but it’s all handsome.  I think the background of explosions, so reminiscent of war time bombing, is no accident nor is the essential depravity of the monied characters.  The acting is all wonderful.  Brasseur might seem over the top if he were not so damn good.  The score and sound effects contribute a lot.

Clip – work on the dam

Action in the North Atlantic
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by John Howard Lawson; story by Guy Gilpatric
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video

[box] Lt. Joe Rossi: No matter how many tanks and planes and guns you pile up, no matter how many men you got, it doesn’t mean a thing unless the men get the stuff when they need it.[/box]

The great action sequences make this film.  Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey don’t hurt either.

The story is more or less a tribute to the merchant marine, which delivered the goods in WWII in constant danger of torpedo attack and air strikes.  It begins on an oil tanker.  Captain Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) and First Officer Lt. Joe Rossi banter on deck in a thick fog.  We meet the crew headed by Boatswain ‘Boats’ O’Hara (Alan Hale).  Before ten minutes are out, a submarine torpedoes the ship.  All on board are forced to abandon ship amid a terrible fire and take refuge on a raft.  To add insult to injury, the submarine rams the raft.  The men spend 11 days drifting at sea.

They are rescued and after a bit of shore leave are ready to take on a new assignment.  Most of our heroes end up on a new ‘Liberty Ship’.  This will travel in a huge convoy with naval escorts and navy gunners on board.  A bigger target only attracts more and better U-Boats.  With Ruth Gordon as Jarvis’s wife and Sam Levine and Dane Clark on the crew.

The action scenes in this had me on the edge of my seat.  I wonder if Raul Walsh, who is listed as an uncredited director, had anything to do with this.  The other scenes are filled with some pretty heavy-handed propaganda.  Nonetheless, the speeches are expertly delivered by Bogart and go down easily.  The other dialogue among the men is better written than in most of these pictures.  I liked the fact that there are several scenes inside the subs in which the Germans speak only German.  If this kind of thing appeals at all, I would recommend this one.

Action in the North Atlantic was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story. How it missed a nomination for Best Special Effects is beyond me.  Amazingly, the entire film was made on the Warner Brothers backlot and soundstages.  Everything looked real enough to make me jump.

Trailer

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Directed by Sam Wood
Written by Dudley Nichols based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway
1943/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Maria: I do not know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go?[/box]

This epic adaptation of the Hemingway novel has a lot to recommend it.

Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper), an American volunteer on the anti-Fascist Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, is tasked to blow up a bridge in the mountains at the moment when the Nationalists are set to attack.  He proceeds to the site and installs himself with a group of fellow rebels, mostly comprised of local gypsies led by Pablo (Akim Tamiroff). Pablo vehemently refuses to participate in blowing the bridge because he fears the group will be hunted down following the sabotage.  But Pablo’s “woman”, the fiery Pilar (Katina Paxinou) proves to be the one with the true confidence of the other men and they vote to help Robert.  Meanwhile, Maria (Ingrid Bergman), who has taken refuge with the group after her rape and the murder of her parents by the Nationalists, immediately becomes deeply smitten with Robert.

Pablo secretly lusts after Maria and is incensed and humiliated by his ouster as the group’s leader.  He buries himself in drink and plots to sabotage the mission.  Robert and Maria fall in love.  The rest of the film is taken up with skirmishes between the little band and Nationalist soldiers, an effort to get more horses for their eventual escape, and the mission itself.  With Vladimir Sokoloff, Alberto de Cordova, and Joseph Calleia as other rebels.

The biggest problem with this film is its great length, 170 minutes with an intermission.  The story does not strictly justify that length and the first time I watched the movie it lost me midway through.  This time however I was more in the mood to pay attention and I found my focus was rewarded by the outstanding performances and good action sequences.  Gary Cooper is perhaps too old for the role of Roberto but I thought the love affair was moving and he certainly had the chops for a strong, silent, but brave hero.

It is the supporting performances that shine, however.  Both Tamiroff and Paxinou are just wonderful.  Paxinou is magnificent in her film debut, charming and deadly serious by turns. It is a shame she didn’t work more.  I’ll bet she was a powerhouse on the stage doing classical Greek tragedy.  Tamiroff has you almost feeling sorry for him, traitor and coward as he is.  If you have the patience for something sweeping and rather grand, you could do far worse.

Katina Paxinou won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The film also received eight nominations:  Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actor (Tamiroff); Best Cinematography, Color (Roy Rennahan); Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Victor Young).

Trailer

Guadalcanal Diary
Directed by Lewis Seiler
Written by Lamar Trotti and Jerome Cady from a book by Richard Tregakis
1943/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Cpl. Aloysius T. ‘Taxi’ Potts: They’re throwing everything at us but the kitchen stove.

Gunnery Sgt. Hook Malone: [after an even louder explosion] That’s the stove now![/box]

If you are looking for a classic combat movie of the period, complete with every single cliche, look no further.

This story about Marine combat to take the Japanese-held island of Guadalcanal was released only 10 months after the campaign ended.  It is narrated by a man representing a journalist who was embedded with the Marines and wrote a bestseller about their experiences.  The narration, unfortunately, is very rah-rah and was a bit off-putting to me.

We meet a unit headed by Sgt. ‘Hook’ Malone (Lloyd Nolan) and comprising the usual collection of lovable GIs from every walk of life including William Bendix as the obligatory Brooklynite; Anthony Quinn as a stereotypical Mexican (Ah, Jesus!); Richard Jaeckel (in his debut) as a raw recruit still trying to grow his first whisker; Richard Conte (second outing and first under this name); etc.

These men joke around talking baseball and girls between battles.  They naturally have no use for the enemy and spend a lot of time ‘Jap’-bashing.  We get the “no athiests in foxholes” scene, heroic rescues, and deaths of particularly family-oriented Marines.

The men grow from green soldiers brimming with braggadocio to tough and seasoned combat veterans.  They fight on, taking their hits but giving it back to the enemy ten-fold, until the army finally arrives to mop up stragglers and convert the island to an American base.

The combat scenes are fairly effective and the performances were good.  The screenplay was just not for me.

Trailer

The Ghost Ship
Directed by Mark Robson
Written by Donald Henderson Clark from a story by Leo Mittler
1943/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Captain Will Stone: Well, I’ve never felt more sane in my life than I do at this moment… Who’s crazy? You, who defied me and are helpless? Or I, who control your destiny and the destiny of the ‘Altair’ and all the lives on board?[/box]

In this Val Lewton production, instead of ghosts, we get the Boss from Hell.  Being trapped with him turns out to be scarier than any ghost could ever be.

After graduating from the training academy, Tom Merriam ships out for the first time as third officer (Russell Wade) on a merchant ship.  Captain Will Stone (Richard Dix) welcomes Merriam with open arms and becomes almost a father figure for him.  He wants to teach Tom about how to run a ship.  The key lesson is the unquestionable authority of the captain.  It develops that Stone has a kind of mania for authority.  When Tom is forced to question the death of an outspoken shipmate under very suspicious circumstances, the die is cast.

I thought this was even scarier than The Leopard Man.  You never know what is going to happen next but can be sure it will be bad.  Not only is there the creepy paranoid captain but, after Merriam challenges him, the younger man cannot find a single friend on the crew.  I still think Richard Dix can’t act but his detachment from the material and false jocularity was just perfect for a paranoic.  A really lame ending comes out of nowhere in the last two or three minutes but by then we have had our thrills.  Recommended.

Montage of clips (spoilers)

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Münchhausen)
Directed by Josef von Báky
Written by Erich Kästner
1943/Germany
Universum Film (UFA)
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. — Jerome K. Jerome [/box]

Despite its provenance, this Agfacolor fantasy extravaganza is truly entertaining.

The story is framed by scenes set in the contemporary present in which Hans Albers, who also plays Munchhausen, relates the 18th Century adventures of the celebrated liar and adventurer to some dinner guests.

Baron Munchhausen is a hearty, adventurous type with quite a taste for the ladies and a ready wit.  His incredible adventures take him from the battlefields of Prussia, to the court of Catherine the Great where he conquers the Empress’s heart, via cannonball to a sultan’s palace in Turkey, thence to Venice and finally to the moon in a hot air balloon. Along the way, he is granted his wish to remain forever young until he decides he wants to die and a magic ring that allows him one hour of invisibility.  With a cast of thousands, including some very beautiful women.

Josef Goebbels actually believed that once the war was over and Germany ruled the world Berlin would be come the new Hollywood.  He decided to give UFA an unlimited budget to film the beloved Munchhausen story in celebration of its 25th Anniversary in December 1942.  This included granting permission to use a banned, but gifted writer.  The movie was also intended to showcase the German Agfacolor process.

The large budget certainly all ended up on the screen.  This film looks simply beautiful and has loads of impressive special effects for the time.  It is also supremely light and humorous, a piece of enjoyable fluff with very nice performances.

The film came in behind schedule and way over budget, largely due to technical glitches with the Agfa process.  UFA was concerned that the film would not recoup its investment but it needn’t have worried.  By Spring 1943 when the movie was finally released, the tide of the war had turned and the 6th Army had surrendered at Stalingrad.  German audiences attended in droves for some much needed escapism.  My information has been gleaned from an introduction by the head of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, which did the restoration that appears on the Kino DVD.

Clip

The Hard Way
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Ice Cream Parlor Waitress: [Love] Never hits you, does it?

Paul Collins: [Sarcastically] Every other Thursday, Baby.[/box]

This cliche-ridden picture about a woman who claws her sister’s way to the top features a steely performance by Ida Lupino and a touching dramatic turn by Jack Carson.

Helen Chernan (Ida Lupino) has raised her little sister Katherine Blaine (Joan Leslie) in the home she shares with her blue-collar husband in their grimy home town since the girls lost their parents.  Katherine is now about to graduate from high school and pining for a white dress.  But Mr. Chernan refuses to buy one for her despite the vehement protestations of Helen.

One night on a date, Katie goes to a vaudeville house where she is entranced by the act of comedy song-and-dance men Albert Runkel (Jack Carson) and Paul Collins (Dennis Morgan).  Afterwards, she does a little routine of her own for her friends at an ice cream parlor.  Albert spots her, tells her she is talented, and falls for her.  When she reports this back to Helen, Helen sees her opportunity to get out of hicksville.  With a little prodding, Katherine and Albert are married in no time and setting off on the road with the act.

Helen becomes a total “stage mother” type that will stop at nothing to make Katie a star.  She plays the men off against each other to get Katie a bigger part in the act.  After that, she manages to get Katie a solo spot of her own on Broadway and to separate her from Albert, breaking Albert’s heart in the process.  Paul sees through all this and compares Helen to Lady Macbeth.  But Helen is secretly in love with him any way.

The rest of the story takes the audience through the heartbreak of Katherine’s glowing success and a love triangle.

My biggest problem with this movie was that I thought both the vaudeville act and Joan Leslie’s singing and dancing were just terrible. This could have been intended I suppose but all indications are that we are meant to think that Katherine is very talented.  Dennis Morgan reveals his singing talent out of nowhere at the very end.  Otherwise, there are some strong performances in a rather cliched plot.  Jack Carson was the standout for me in an uncharacteristically dramatic and poignant role.

Clip – Katie’s big day on Broadway