Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Reviews of movies I have seen.

Jezebel (1938)

Posted on November 23, 2013 | 9 comments

Jezebel
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel and John Huston from the play by Owen Davis
1938/USA
Warner Bros
Repeat viewing
#120 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Aunt Belle: Child, you’re out of your mind. You know you can’t wear red to the Olympus Ball.
Julie Marsden: Can’t I? I’m goin’ to. This is 1852, dumplin’. 1852, not the Dark Ages.

William Wyler was some director and this is a polished well-acted drama.

Neither her aunt (Faye Bainter) nor her guardian can make headstrong Julie Marsden (Bette Davis) behave according to the rules of antebellum New Orleans society.  Julie is determined to win the same battle with her fiance Pres Dillard..  In a fit of pique after Pres refuses to leave an important business meeting to go to a fitting with her, Julie decides to wear a red dress to a ball.  This is simply something not done by unmarried girls, who traditionally dress in virginal white.  Julie loses the battle of the sexes and the story follows the many bad consequences of her stubbornness.  With George Brent as a rival beau, Donald Crisp as a doctor, and Spring Byington as a society matron.

Jezebel 1

This role suited Bette Davis perfectly.  She is magnificent as the haughty, catty Julie. William Wyler, with whom she was having an affair at the time, made her look radiantly lovely as well.  The rest of the cast is excellent, with the possible exception of Margaret Lindsay who gets on my nerves for some reason.  The production was lavish and expensive and Wyler sets off the beautiful surroundings with a fluid moving camera.  The ball scene is particularly notable.

I never can make sense of the ending.  Why would anyone trust Julie to return her husband?  I certainly wouldn’t.

Bette Davis and Faye Bainter were awarded with Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars.  Jezebel was nominated in the categories of Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Music (Scoring).

Trailer

 

 

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Vivacious Lady (1938)

Posted on November 22, 2013 | 2 comments

Vivacious Ladyvivacious_lady poster
Directed by George Stevens
Written by P.J. Wolfson and Ernest Pagano based on a story by I.A.R. Wylie
1938/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing

[box] Helen: I’m going to give you a piece of my mind…

Francey: Oh, I couldn’t take the last piece![/box]

If it weren’t for the preposterous story, this could have been one of the most delightful romantic comedies of the 1930’s.  It has everything else going for it.

Professor Peter Morgan (James Stewart) travels to New York to bring his cousin Keith back to the university town they live in.  He finds Keith waiting in the nightclub for a girl he lusts after to come out.  Peter waits while Keith gets his coat and, when he spots nightclub singer Francey (Ginger Rogers), it is love at first sight.  Sans Keith, he takes Francey on the town and they are married by the time the train leaves the next day.

Peter plans to introduce Francey to his parents right away but his father, the stuffy president of the university (Charles Coburn), meets them at the station with Peter’s fiancée in tow.  Dad assumes Francey is Keith’s girl and immediately labels her a hussy. For various reasons – his mother (Beulah Bondi) has a weak heart, Francey slugs the father accidentally during a cat fight with the fiancée – Peter delays revealing his marriage.

Vivacious_Lady 1

Ginger Rogers is adorable and Jimmy Stewart is almost sexy in this movie.  My favorite from the film was Beulah Bondi, who is very funny as the seemingly frail mother with a wicked streak.  This was one of Charles Coburn’s earliest films after a very successful stage career and he is good as always.  As always, George Stevens gets the best out of his actors and the story.  Even the dialogue has its high points.  But it is one of the stories that would have been over in a minute if anyone acted like an ordinary person and my eye-rolling got in the way a bit.

Vivacious Lady was nominated for Oscars for its cinematography and sound recording.

Trailer

Teaching Beulah Bondi “The Big Apple” — love this!

 

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Posted in 1938, Movie Reviews

Holiday (1938)

Posted on November 20, 2013 | 4 comments

HolidayHoliday_poster
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman from the play by Philip Barry
1938/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing

 

[box]Linda Seton: For the love of Pete… it’s the witch and Dopey![/box]

The other Grant/Hepburn pairing for 1938 is another comedy, but in a more sophisticated vein.

Johnny Case (Cary Grant) is a fun-loving sort who has worked all his life.  His plan is to save enough money to take a long holiday from working to figure who he is and what he wants from life.  While on a skiing trip, he meets beautiful Julia Seton and they fall in love. When they return to New York, he discovers that Julia comes from one of the wealthiest families in the city.  Her father places a large stock in breeding, money, and decorum. Julia can wrap dad around her little finger but her sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn) is miserable in the stuffy atmosphere of their mansion and her brother Ned (Lew Ayres) has taken to drink as a way out.

Mr. Seton finally gives his approval to an alliance with the working class Case when he finds that he has been doing well at a financial firm.  Seton plans to announce the engagement at a huge fancy New Years Eve party.  At the same time, Linda is hosting a party for one in the “playroom” of the mansion.  Gradually, Johnny’s old friends Professor Nick Potter (Edward Everett Horton) and his wife Susan (Jean Dixon) join her, along with her brother Ned.  Things come to a head when Case discovers his deal at the firm has made a killing on the stock market and he can at last afford to take his holiday.

Holiday 1

This is a really entertaining film.  All the acting is quite wonderful.  Both Grant and Horton excel in nuanced, serious parts.  The standout for me, however, is Ayres.  I always lament that we don’t see enough of him in major Hollywood movies.   The plot moves much too fast with respect to the shifting relationships but who expected reality in the movies? The dialogue sparkles.  Recommended.

Holiday was nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction.  That mansion is quite something.

Clip

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Child Bride (1938)

Posted on November 19, 2013 | 4 comments

Child Bride Child Bride Poster
Directed by Harry Revier
Written by Harry Revier
1938/USA
Produced by Lloyd and Ralph Friedgen
First viewing

[box] Tagline: A THROBBING DRAMA OF SHACKLED YOUTH![/box]

This exploitation film is not a barrel of laughs.  In fact, it’s sort of icky.

Billed as an anti-child marriage message film, this is the sad story of little Jennie, played by 12-year-old Shirley Mills.  She loves to go to school where her teacher crusades against the underage marriages so prevalent in her backwoods community.  Jennie has an innocent friendship with young Freddie but has been cautioned by teacher that she should no longer skinny-dip with him.  (So Freddie turns his head during the creepy skinny dipping scene.)

Jennie’s father is a drunk and her mother had been having an affair with her father’s partner Jake.  While Ira is beating his wife for her infidelity, Jake seizes the opportunity to murder Ira and threaten the mother with pinning the blame on her.  Jake uses this leverage to force mom to consent to his marriage to poor Jennie.  Will teacher’s DA boyfriend persuade the government to change the marriage age laws before Jennie is deflowered? With little person Angelo Rositto (Freaks, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) as the instrument of vegence.

Child-Bride-Still

 

The trailer for this movie, which I will not embed here, makes it pretty clear that the main draw was the skinny dipping and a few topless scenes with Shirley Mills.  The trailer has a couple of clips of women being whipped which do not appear in the film as well, just to make it abundantly clear what kind of audience it was trying to attract.  While the content is pretty tame by today’s standards, that doesn’t make the movie any less vile.

 

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Posted in 1938, Movie Reviews

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Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Posted on November 18, 2013 | 4 comments

Angels with Dirty FacesAngels with Dirty Faces Poster
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by John Wexley and Warren Duff from a story by Rowland Brown
1938/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing
#122 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Rocky Sullivan: ‘Morning, gentlemen. Nice day for a murder.

James Cagney is charismatic as a tough career criminal with a tiny spark of humanity deep within.

Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) and Jerry Connelly (Pat O’Brien) grew up together on the mean streets of New York.  When they are caught in a petty theft, Jerry escapes and Rocky goes to the reformatory where he learns the ropes.  Finally, Rocky takes the rap for a crime committed by lawyer Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart) on the condition that Frazier will hold the $100,000 proceeds and hand it over when he gets out of jail.

Angels With Dirty Faces 2

Rocky goes back to his old neighborhood when he gets out of jail and looks up his old buddy Jerry, who is now a priest.  Jerry has been trying to straighten out a gang of teenagers (the Dead End Kids).  Rocky can get through to the kids but this unfortunately causes them to idolize him and his gangster ways.

When Rocky looks up Frazier to try to get his money back, Frazier is none too pleased to see him. As a consequence, many people end up dead.  Jerry gives Rocky a last chance to do the right thing.  With Ann Sheridan as Rocky’s girl and George Bancroft as a gang boss.

Angels With Dirty Faces 1

This film is worth seeing for Cagney’s exceptional performance.  He is a bundle of energy and makes Rocky a multi-dimensional character.  He is so good and basically likeable that the rest of the movie suffers by comparison.  Father Jerry is supposed to be the good guy here but Pat O’Brien takes a preachy tone that wouldn’t make anyone try to emulate him. Bogart is great but doesn’t have much of a part and the Dead End Kids have less to do and with less effect than in Dead End.  I had been looking forward to seeing this for quite a while and was somewhat disappointed.  Cagney’s performance is unmissable, however.

Cagney, Curtiz, and story writer Rowland Brown all received Oscar nominations for their work in Angels with Dirty Faces.

Trailer

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1938, Movie Reviews

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Programmers of 1938

Posted on November 15, 2013 | 2 comments

While I was away I caught three pretty mindless “B” detective movies.  They were all OK for what they were.  For entertainment value, I would give Bulldog Drummond in Africa the edge over the other two — some witty repartee and a very young Anthony Quinn in that one.  Even Boris Karloff could not liven up Mr. Wong, Detective.

 Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938)
Directed by Louis King
Written by Garnett Weston from a novel by Herman C. McNeile (“Sapper”)
1938/USA
Paramount Pictures

First viewing

[box] Tagline: TRAILING A TRAITOR on DANGEROUS PATHS THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT! [/box]

Phyllis figures the only way to get Drummond to the altar is by taking away his pants

Trailer

Bulldog Drummond’s Peril  
Directed by James P. Hogan
Written by Stuart Palmer from a novel by Herman C. McNeile (Sapper)
1938/US
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

[box] Phyllis Clavering: And this was supposed to be our wedding day.

Capt. Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond: Oh, I’m sorry, darling, but if there’s a registery office still open…

Col. Neilson: And if there isn’t, you’ll probably break into one![/box]

Another wedding cancelled at the last minute

 

Clip – Credits

Mr. Wong, Detective
Directed by William Nigh
Written by Houston Branch based on a series by Hugh Wiley in Collier’s magazine
1938/USA
Monogram Pictures
First viewing

[box] [first lines] Anton Mohl, aka Baron Von Krantz: You’re going to get killed doing that, one of these days, Lescardi![/box]

 

Clip – opening

 

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews

For the birds …

Posted on November 15, 2013 | 4 comments

The Rio Grande Valley is the place to be!  I hadn’t realized it would be quite so tropical.  It was a trip full of “firsts”.  My favorite was this little guy, which lays perfectly motionless on the ground during the day blending in with the leaf cover

Common Parauque

But the highlight for everyone there came when somebody spotted this seriously lost bird. Only the second recorded sighting in the United States.

Amazon Kingfisher

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Posted in Movie Reviews

On Vacation

Posted on November 3, 2013 | 2 comments

I’m off to Lone Star territory to attend the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.  With luck, I will get a look at this guy –

Buff-Bellied Hummingbird

 

I’ll be back on November 15 to start my journey through 1938.

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Posted in Movie Reviews

Désiré (1937)

Posted on November 3, 2013 | 1 comment

Désiré
Directed by Sacha Guitry
Written by Sacha Guitry
1937/France
Cinéas
First viewing

 

[box] “The best way to turn a woman’s head is to tell her she has a beautiful profile” — Sacha Guitry[/box]

This French drawing-room farce did not make me laugh much.

Odette (Sacha Guitry’s then wife Jacqueline Delubac) is a former actress and the mistress of Felix, a French Minister.  The couple want to spend the summer at her home in Deauville but they are short one valet.  Désiré (Guitry) arrives at the last minute to save the day.  Odette hires him despite learning that he was fired for making advances to his former employer.  He fits in well with Madeleine, the lady’s maid (Arletty), and the cook. When the household arrives in Deauville, however, Odette and Désire are overheard to talk in their sleep … about each other.

This is witty I suppose but it did not tickle my funny bone.  There is a dinner scene poking fun at a hard-of-hearing woman that goes on way too long.  I like Arletty and she is fine here.

This concludes my viewing for 1937.

Credit sequence – no subtitles

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Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

Posted on November 2, 2013 | 2 comments

Nosferatu the Vampyre (“Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht”)
Directed by Werner Herzog
Written by Werner Herzog
1979/West Germany
Werner Herzog Filmproduktion/Gaumont/Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
First viewing
#668 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 7.5/10; I say 8/10

 

[box] Count Dracula: [Hearing howling] Listen… [More howling] Listen. The children of the night make their music.[/box]

Werner Herzog’s homage to Murnau is a visual feast.

Renfield sends Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) on a dangerous but potentially lucrative journey to Transylvania to try to sell a house to Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski).  Harker’s wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) has a bad feeling about the trip and urges him not to go. When Harker returns, he is gravely ill and demented.  Dracula arrives to occupy his new house and brings with him a ship full of rats and an epidemic of plague.  Doctor Van Helsing does not believe in the occult or vampires so it is up to Lucy to slay the fiend.

I love Werner Herzog’s sense of lighting and framing so from the opening, in which a shot of books, fruit, and kittens looked to me like an Old Master, I was hooked.  In addition, Klaus Kinski may make the very best Dracula ever.  He actually looked like a bat to me and was scary and pathetic at the same time.  I had not known that Bruno Ganz was in this film.  He is one of my very favorite actors and he is wonderful, as always, here, especially as he transitions from before his encounter with Dracula to after.  The score, done by frequent collaborators Florian Fricke and Popul Vuh, adds to the atmosphere.

That said, the story started losing me about the time Dracula arrived with those rats.  Oh, how I hate the creatures!  I don’t know how Isabelle Adjani could stand to walk through them.  But it wasn’t just the rats.  The film starts getting more and more surreal to the point where it lost some of its earlier appeal.  Nevertheless, I could have looked at the pictures for another hour.

BFI Trailer

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Movie Reviews