Flickers in Time

Blondie
Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Written by Richard Flourney based on the comic strip by Chic Young
1938/US
Columbia Pictures
IMDb page
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“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.” ~ Dolly Parton

For some reason I had always assumed that these were just B movie filler.  Imagine my delight at how downright funny this was!

In this one, Dagwood (Arthur Lake) is in the hot water again when a loan he has foolishly co-signed comes due. Mr. Dithers (Jonathan Hale) gives him one day to win a large contract from cranky H. P. Hazlip (Gene Lockhart) or be fired. His furniture and marriage are on the line. As usual Blondie (Penny Singleton) saves the day, helped by Dagwood and H.P.’s mutual love of tinkering.

The plot isn’t important. It’s all the funny interactions of Blondie, Dagwood, Baby Dumpling, and Daisy the Dog whom the actors make leap out of the comic strip. Don’t wait as long as I did to find out what this series was about.

They Made Me a Criminal
Directed by Busby Berkeley
Written by Sig Herzig from a novel by Bertram Millhauser and Beulah Marie Dix
1939/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
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Speed: She took eight gallons. That’s a dollar twenty-eight.

Wow! Here I have been happily traversing through the 30’s and all of a sudden run into a movie that would have felt at home in 1946.

John Garfield plays Johnny Bradfield, your standard anti-hero champion boxer. He gets drunk at an after-bout party and reveals that the mother he is constantly sending greetings to does not exist. A reporter is eager to smear this all over the press. Johnny slugs him, the reporter slugs back and, while Johnny is unconscious, his manager beans the reporter with a bottle and kills him. The manager and Garfield’s girlfriend Goldie (Ann Sheridan) flee the scene leaving Johnny holding the bag. They both die in a fiery crash and the police believe the male victim was Garfield. That is all but Detective Monty Phelan (Claude Rains).

Bradfield’s lawyer steals all his money and he sets off with $250. Before long he is a tramp traveling under the name Jack Dolan. He finally settles on a date farm being run as a reform school for the Dead End Kids by pretty blonde Peggy {Gloria Dickson).  But can Jack maintain his disguise forever?  With May Robson as Peggy’s mother.

This isn’t among the best film noirs ever made but it is impressive for being so early in the cycle. Garfield looks so young! James Wong Howe’s cinematography certainly doesn’t hurt. Worth a watch.

The Shopworn Angel
Directed by H.C. Potter
Written by Waldo Salt based on a story by Dana Burnet
1938/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
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Pvt. William ‘Texas’ Pettigrew: Dying’s a lot like being in love. You can’t imagine it until it’s right on top of you.

The story is set in 1917 New York. Margaret Sullavan is a musical star on Broadway. She keeps company with rich, sophisticated Walter Pidgeon. James Stewart is a soldier on leave as he waits for orders to be shipped to the frontlines in France. He is as naive as they come, hailing from a horse ranch in Texas. James meets Margaret by chance and soon has a massive crush on her. She humors him out of sort of a sense of duty, though clearly a sort of affection develops. I will say no more but the plot and its resolution seemed very odd to me.

I think this was supposed to be a tearjerker but the way the love triangle was handled failed to move me. Anyway, the stars shone and it was an entertaining movie.

Major spoiler

Sidewalks of London (AKA “St. Martins Lane”)
Directed by Tim Whelan
Written by Clemence Dane
1938/UK
Mayflower Pictures Corporation
IMDb page
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Charles Staggers: There ain’t no answer. You’re after justice and logic. There ain’t no justice, and there ain’t no logic. The world ain’t made that way. Everything’s luck, see. And good temper. And if you can take a joke. The whole of life’s a joke.

I loved this movie so much!

Charles Staggers (Charles Laughton) is a street performer who does dramatic recitations in London’s theater district for tips. (One of the delights of this movie is how badly he acts while doing these recitations). One night gutter snipe Liberty (just the one name “like Garbo” (Vivien Leigh)) steals sixpence from him. Later he runs into her at a food stall where he catches her stealing high-society Harley Prentiss’s (Rex Harrison) gold cigarette case. Instead of reporting her to the cops, he takes her in hand. Then he discovers what an absolutely lovely singer and dancer she is. He puts together an new act featuring her dancing to the singing of himself and a couple of other buskers.

Starrett had turned the cigarette case over to the police in hopes of getting a reward. This reunites Liberty with Prentiss, who is a composer for the musical theater. Leigh’s star rises as Laughton slowly falls apart.

I thought this movie was an absolute delight. Leigh may never have been so downright adorable. She really dances beautifully. And it need hardly be said that Laughton is excellent both as a comedian and as a pathetic figure. There’s a part where he is reciting Kipling’s “If” where he shifts from bombast to emotion and back again that is a wonder. It’s a bittersweet story that grabbed me and didn’t let go. Highly recommended.

Anna Karenina
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Clemence Dance and Salka Viertel from the novel by Lev Tolstoy
1935/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
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“If you love me as you say you do,’ she whispered, ‘make it so that I am at peace.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

This is my favorite novel.  No film could match the images in my mind or do it justice, IMO.

Anna (Greta Garbo) is married to the much-older Count Alexis Karenin (Basil Rathbone), a pedantic bureaucrat.  They have a little son Sergei (Freddie Bartholomew) who is the light of Anna’s life.  Anna’s brother Stepan has been caught in an affair by his wife Dolly.  Anna travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow to make peace.  She shares a carriage on the train with the mother of Count Alexis Vronsky (Fredric March), a young soldier who has been courting Dolly’s younger sister, Kitty. (Maureen O’Sullivan).

Anna is successful in reconciling her brother and sister-in-law.  She goes to a ball where Kitty is expecting a proposal from Vronsky .  But Vronsky wants only to dance with Anna and the die is cast.  He follows her to St. Petersburg.  Kitty, who had the same night rejected a proposal from Count Levin, grows ill from humiliation and heartbreak. The Kitty-Levin story, which makes up about half of the novel and provides a needed counterpoint to the Anna-Vronsky affair, is dropped almost entirely by the movie at this point.

The lovers cannot resist temptation.  Karenin is remarkably tolerant, seeking only to avoid scandal.  But Anna reveals the depth of her feelings in public when Vronsky is thrown from his horse and Karenin seeks a divorce.  In revenge, he also asks for sole custody of the son.  Although extramarital affairs are common in St. Petersburg high society, they are strictly recreational.  By openly defying the rules, Anna becomes an outcast.  Things go downhill from there.  Then Vronsky announces that he is going to rejoin his regiment to fight the Turks, building to the well-known climax of the novel which I will not reveal here.

The chemistry between Garbo and March isn’t great and Garbo’s acting seems particularly like posing here. Of all the adaptations I have seen, I would suggest Anna Karenina (1948) with Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, and Kieron Moore. The Russian adaptation
Anna Karenina (1967) is lavish but I found it lackluster. This one has all those great MGM production values and Garbo would make any man lose his heart.

In Name Only
Directed by John Cromwell
Written by Richard Sherman from a novel by Bessie Breuer
1939/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
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Julie Eden: [Last lines] We were both dreaming, darling. But, now, it’s true.

John Cromwell delivers a solid “woman’s picture” with a fabulous cast.

Alec (Cary Grant) and Maida (Kay Francis) Walker have been an unhappily married couple ever since he found out she married him for his money. Kay has his parents conned into believing she is the perfect wife . One day, Cary meets Julie Eden and after that he only has eyes for her. She is a young widow with a little girl and is looking for a commitment.

Unfortunately, Maida could probably forego Alec but not the money and status that comes with him. She tries every low trick in the book to deny Alec his divorce. With Charles Coburn as Cary’s father and Helen Vinson in her usual role of catty troublemaker.

All the principals are in top form and Cromwell avoids overdoing any part of it. The story could have so easily drifted into melodrama.  Worth a watch.

The Hurricane
Directed by John Ford
Written by Dudley Nichols and Oliver H.P. Garrett from a novel by Charles Nordoff and James Norman Hall
1937/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

DeLaage: My dear doctor, I’m ready to give my wife and my friends anything I own in the world except my sense of honor and duty.
Dr. Kersaint: A sense of honor in the South Seas is about as useful and often as silly as a silk hat in a hurricane.

The best part of this solid John Ford entry is the hurricane. Second best is the stellar cast.

The story takes place in French Polynesia.  Terangi (Jon Hall) is the most well-loved man on his island. He has an idyllic romance with Marama (Dorothy Lamour) which leads to their marriage early in the film.

Jon is first mate on a clipper that sails between the islands. On shore leave in Tahiti, he breaks the jaw of white man who hit him first and was ejecting Polynesians from a saloon. This lands him in jail for a six month term. Due to his many escape attempts he is separated from Dorothy and the daughter he has never seen for eight years. Finally he makes an escape good only to have to fight a killer hurricane. With Raymond Massey as the inflexible governor of the island, Mary Astor as his compassionate wife, John Carradine as a sadistic jailer, Thomas Mitchell as a sympathetic doctor, and C. Aubrey Smith as a saintly priest.

Always good to catch up on my unseen John Ford filmography.  This has a fabulous cast and I enjoyed it greatly.

The film won the Oscar for Best Sound, Recording.  It was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Mitchell) and Best Music, Score.