Tag Archives: 1930s

Stage Door (1937)

Posted on September 15, 2013 | 4 comments

Stage Door
Directed by Gregory La Cava
Written by Morry Ryskind and Anthony Veiller from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman
1937/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing

 

[box] Jean Maitland: [to Linda Shaw as she is leaving for a dinner date] Don’t chew the bones and give yourself away![/box]

I love me some snappy one liners and this movie about the residents at a women’s theatrical boarding house is full of them.  And what a cast!

Stage Door is not an extremely plot-driven movie but the central story concerns wealthy cultured newcomer Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn) who moves into the Footlight Club where she is surrounded by hardened, struggling Broadway performers.  She shares a room with  wise-cracking Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers).    Among the many colorful characters at the boarding house is serious actress Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) who hasn’t worked in a year and is now going hungry while dreaming of being cast in a new play. There is a subplot about various girls’ adventures with womanizing producer Anthony Powell (Adolphe Menjou).  With Gail Patrick, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Constance Collier, and Ann Miller.

The plot summary above doesn’t sound too scintillating and it sort of descends into predictable melodrama at the end.  The interplay of the catty female characters is simply priceless, however.  These ladies were firing on all cylinders and apparently having a marvelous time.  I had a big smile on my face for most of the running time.  Warmly recommended.

Stage Door was nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Andrea Leeds), and Best Writing (Screenplay).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-adzytXoVY

Clip – Hepburn and Rogers – new roommate

 

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Posted on September 15, 2013 | 5 comments

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Directed by David Hand et al
Written by Ted Sears et al based on a story collected by the Brothers Grimm
1936/USA
Walt Disney Productions
Repeat viewing
#110 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Doc: Why, the whole place is clean.

Grumpy: There’s dirty work afoot.[/box]

Disney spent an unheard of $1.8 million dollars on his first animated feature and every penny of it shows on the screen.

Everyone should know the fairy tale about the evil queen who tries to kill the beautiful little princess because she is the fairest in the land and how the princess escapes to live with some kindly dwarfs in the woods.

My affection for this film is unbounded.  This time I noticed all the little details – the faces in the furniture, for example.  One can see the overflowing creativity and joy with which this project was approached.  I also loved the cinematic thinking behind the film – all  those close-ups, tracking shots, and interesting angles.  It may just be my favorite of the Disney cartoons, though Fantasia is way up there.

Does Dopey remind anybody else of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman?

Clip – “Heigh-Ho”

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Show Boat (1936)

Posted on September 13, 2013 | 5 comments

Show Boat
Directed by James Whale
Written by Oscar Hammerstein II based on the novel by Edna Ferber
1936/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing

[box] Joe: [singing] I gits weary / An’ sick o’ tryin’ / I’m tired o’ livin’ / An’ scared o’ dyin’ / But Ol’ Man River / He jes’ keeps rollin’ along![/box]

Oh, how I loved, loved, loved this screen adaptation of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein 1927 Broadway musical!

Captain Andy Hawks (Charles Winniger) runs a show boat on the Mississippi River.  His leading lady Julie (Helen Morgan) and leading man Steve are married.  A jealous boat hand reveals that Julie has negro blood and she and Steve leave the boat under charges of miscegenation.  Captain Andy’s daughter Magnolia (Irene Dunne) takes over for Julie.  Riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal needs to get out of town and hitches a ride on the show boat, taking over from Steve as leading man.  He and Magnolia fall in love and marry but things take a turn for the worse when Gay tries to support her with his gambling winnings.  With Paul Robeson as Joe and Hattie McDaniel as Queenie.

I love this film so much that I sat rapt through a 16-part YouTube viewing of the movie, the only means that was available to me.  The story gets pretty melodramatic by the end but the musical numbers are just perfect.  Three of them gave me chills:  Robeson’s rendition of “Ol’ Man River”; the ensemble “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”; and Helen Morgan’s “Bill”.

This was James Whale’s favorite of all his pictures and I think he was right.  It is certainly beautifully staged.  The casting is wonderful.  I like Irene Dunne better every time I see her. In fact the only thing I can find fault with was the decision to cut several of the stage show’s songs in favor of original numbers.   I could gush on and on.

It is criminal that there has never been a DVD of this film.  It is vastly superior to the 1951 version, which is readily available.

Clip – “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (gives me the chills! — when Robeson joins in behind the women)

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Osaka Elegy (1936)

Posted on September 11, 2013 | 2 comments

Osaka Elegy (“Naniwa erejî”)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Kenji Mizoguchi, Yoshikata Yoda and Tadashi Fujiwara
1936/Japan
Daiichi Eiga
First viewing

 

It’s not easy to “like” this thoroughly depressing film.  Nonetheless, it is darkly magnificent.

Mr. Asai is a whiny, complaining old man who gives his servant girls nothing but grief and is picked on by his wealthy wife.  Ayako (Isuzu Yamada) is a telephone operator who works for him.  Mr. Asai constantly propositions Ayako but she is in love with a co-worker.

Ayako’s spineless father has embezzled 300 yen from his company.  The company is threatening to prosecute unless he repays the money.  Although Ayako berates him mercilessly, she also desperately wants to get the money to save him from jail.  Her boyfriend cannot help her so she finally gives Mr. Asai what he wants.  She repays the company and Mr. Asai gives her father a job.  The affair is quickly discovered by Asai’s wife.

Later, Ayako gets money to help her brother with his tuition at university by promising her favors to another executive.  When she refuses to follow through, the executive gets her arrested.  Her boyfriend leaves her.  Her family disowns her and calls her an “ingrate”, not even acknowledging her help.  With Takashi Shimura (Ikuru, Seven Samurai) in a small role as a police inspector.

Mizoguchi was the champion of suffering women throughout his career and Osaka Elegy is an early example of this trend.  The problem for me is that Ayako, though strong, is not particularly sympathetic.  While secretly planning to help, she is always very caustic to her family members.  She is mean to the executive.  So I had a nagging feeling the whole time that she brought a lot of this on herself.   On the other hand, I’m not Japanese and don’t know whether filial piety almost required Ayako to avoid shame on her family at all costs.  If so, her body was all she had to bargain with.  This might make anybody hard to get along with.

Whatever reservations I might have about the plot, the film itself cannot be faulted.  Ayako and her boss watch a wonderful Kabuki puppet performance with thematic ties to her plight that I really, really loved.

Lead actress Isuzu Yamada may be most famous for her chilling performance as Lady Asaji Washizu, the Lady Macbeth role in Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957).

Clip – ending

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Fury (1936)

Posted on August 29, 2013 | 4 comments

Fury
Directed by Fritz Lang
Written by Bartlett Corbett and Fritz Lang based on a story by Norman Krasna
1936/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing

 

[box] Joe Wilson: I’ll give them a chance that they didn’t give me. They will get a legal trial in a legal courtroom. They will have a legal judge and a legal defense. They will get a legal sentence and a legal death.[/box]

Fritz Lang remained a very powerful director after he emigrated to the United States.  This, his first film after he left Germany, hits on all cylinders and addresses some of the same themes explored in M.

Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy) is an ordinary decent working stiff who is saving up to marry his fiancée Katherine (Sylvia Spencer).  Katherine finds a better job in Washington State and the two part until they are more financially secure.  Joe cautions his younger brothers to respect the law and ends up opening a gas station with them.

After a year of separation, Joe happily sets off to Washington in his car to marry Katherine. On the way, he is stopped by a deputy sheriff (Walter Brennan) on the lookout for a gang of child kidnappers.  He is taken into the small town’s sheriff’s station where he is found to have peanuts in his pockets (peanut debris was found in the kidnappers’ abandoned car) and a five dollar bill that matches the serial number of the ransom money.  The sheriff holds Joe in jail while he investigates further.  In the meantime, the rumor mill manufactures a case against him that whips locals into an angry mob.

Fritz Lang delivered with a dark and cynical film that once again explores mob violence, this time from the perspective of an innocent man.  Fury also warns Americans how easily the Constitution and system of justice can be ignored or perverted when faced by the raw emotion of the crowd.  In fact, law enforcement and the courts are shown to be weak safeguards.  At one point, a character remarks that  foreigners are more familiar with the Constitution than native-born Americans because immigrants must study it to become citizens.

I just love the way the film builds from the initial romance to a gradual game of “telephone” like rumor mongering to explosive action and then to cold vengeance.  All these aspects are captured with Lang’s expressionist eye.  I think this is one of Spencer Tracy’s greatest performances and the rest of the cast does a good job.  The score by Franz Waxman helps to heighten the drama.  Highly recommended.

I cannot understand why  Fury is not currently available on DVD — I watched it on Amazon’s streaming service.

Trailer

 

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Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

Posted on August 9, 2013 | 2 comments

Dracula’s Daughter
Directed by Lambert Hillyer
Written by Garrett Fort et al
1936/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing

 

[box] Countess Marya Zaleska: Possibly there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your psychiatry, Mr. Garth.[/box]

I cannot recommend this sequel to 1931’s Dracula.

The story begins with Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) standing over the body of Renfield after he drove the stake into Dracula’s heart.  Van Helsing is promptly arrested for murder, Scotland Yard having no sympathy for his vampire defense.  Van Helsing calls on his former student psychiatrist Jeffrey Garth as the only man who can defend him.  (It is totally unclear why this should be so.)  Meanwhile, Dracula’s body has been spirited away. Garth meets strikingly beautiful Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden) at a party.  When he talks of curing obsessions, the Countess becomes convinced that Garth is the only person who can release her from Dracula’s control.  In the meantime, the number of bodies found mysteriously drained of blood mounts.  Yada yada yada.

For horror films to work, they need to be either scary or so bad they are funny.  This one is blandly mediocre.  The main problem is Gloria Holden’s vampire who looks the part with her dark, statuesque beauty but loses all credibility when she opens her mouth.  She is not assisted by the story which gives her very little to do.  Kruger is grimly wooden and the ingenue cannot act at all.  The castle set is left over from Dracula and looks very good but it does not come into play until about 5 minutes before the end.  The camera work is nice as well.

Re-release trailer

 

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Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)

Posted on August 8, 2013 | 1 comment

Little Lord Fauntleroy
Directed by John Cromwell
Written by Hugh Walpole based on the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett
1936/USA
Selznick International Pictures
First viewing

 

[box] Earl of Dorincourt: If any one had told me I could be fond of a child, I should not have believed them. I always detested children – my own more than the rest. I am fond of this one and he is fond of me. I am not popular; I never was. But he is fond of me. He was never afraid of me – he always trusted me. He would have filled my place better than I have filled it. I know that. He would have been an honor to the name.[/box]

This one is basically very competently made treacle.  There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

The story is based on a novel but is also the basic plot of many, many Shirley Temple movies with a sex change.  Adorable Ceddie (Freddie Bartholomew) is the light of his widowed mother’s life and delights all the adults and some of the children that encounter him.  One day, a lawyer arrives from England to say that he is now the heir to the title of the Earl of Dorincourt and bears the title of Lord Fauntleroy.  The Earl (C. Aubrey Smith), Ceddie’s grandfather, wants him to stay in the family castle in England with the proviso that his mother (Dolores Costello), whom he calls “Dearest”, cannot join him.  Dearest magnanimously grants the Earl his wish and goes off to live in a nearby cottage.  The Little Lord manages to melt the Earl’s heart and improve the lives of all he encounters.  With Micky Rooney as a Brooklyn shoeshine boy, Jessie Ralph as an apple seller, and Guy Kibee as an aristocracy hating grocer.

Freddie Bartholomew is undeniably cute, even if too good to be true.  It was a pleasure to see all the fine character actors in this movie.  If you can put up with some melodrama and tweeness, it’s not so bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy6UXIdQqiY

Trailer

 

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Follow the Fleet (1936)

Posted on August 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

Follow the Fleet
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott based on the play “Shore Leave” by Hubert Osborne
1936/USA
Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing

 

[box] There may be trouble ahead/But while there’s moonlight and music/And love and romance/Let’s face the music and dance. — “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, lyrics by Irving Berlin[/box]

Another in the unbeatable series of Astaire/Rogers movies of the 1930’s

‘Bake’ Baker (Fred Astaire) joined the navy and went to sea after his dance partner Sherry Martin (Ginger Rogers) refused his proposal. On shore leave in San Francisco, Bake finds Sherry at a dance palace.  In the meantime, his friend ‘Bilge’ Smith (Randolph Scott) doesn’t look twice when Sherry’s Plain Jane sister Connie (Harriet Hilliard) comes on to him.  After Sherry fixes Connie up and puts her in one of her dresses, ‘Bilge” is overcome by her charms … but not so as to dissuade him from falling for a pass by a sexy divorcee. The rest of the movie follows the couples as Connie’s heart is broken and Bake messes up Sherry’s career repeatedly.  See if you can spot Lucille Ball as a chorus girl.

This has wonderful routines to some classic Irving Berlin songs:  “Let Yourself Go”; “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket”; and “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” “Putting All My Eggs” is a great comedy number with Fred and Ginger pretending they are making it up as they go along and tripping each other up.  And both the song and the dance “Let’s Face the Music” sum up the Great Depression with its anxiety and romance.  It is simply beautiful.

The only thing that prevents this film from being in the first tier of Astaire/Rogers film is the amount of screen time devoted to the Scott/Hilliard romance.  I might feel differently if Randolph Scott appealed to me in the slightest.  As it is, for a handsome guy he has remarkably little sex appeal.  Harriet Hilliard, who went on to become TV’s Harriet Nelson, is an odd selection of actress for someone who has to carry two solo songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVoIirmCWPs

Clip – “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” – this gives me the chills at the end

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Rose-Marie (1936)

Posted on July 29, 2013 | 5 comments

Rose-MarieRose-Marie Poster
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Alice D.G. Miller
from a musical  by Otto A. Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II with music by Rudolf Friml
1936/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing

Marie de Flor: That’s the worst orchestra and the worst conductor I’ve ever sung with! [To the tenor] Marie de Flor: And what was the idea of holding every high A longer than I did?!?

This sentimental musical was the second starring the Jeannette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy pairing and became their best-known film.

MacDonald plays Marie de Flor, a temperamental operatic soprano.  When she discovers her brother (James Stewart) is in trouble with the law and needs money, she heads incognito off to the Canadian backwoods with an Indian guide.  There she meets Mountie Sgt. Bruce (Nelson Eddie), who is on the track of her brother.  He guesses her identity almost immediately but pretends not to know so that she will inadvertently guide him to his quarry.  Meanwhile, they fall in love.  With Allan Jones as the opera tenor and Una O’Connor as Marie’s maid.

rose-marie 1

This is not as sappy as it might appear from seeing the “Indian Love Call” clip out of context as it is often anthologized.  Nelson Eddy can’t help being wooden but Jeanette MacDonald is a natural comedienne and in splendid voice here.  The scenery (Lake Tahoe IRL) is magnificent and James Stewart makes quite a handsome and rakish outlaw in a small part.  Even the “Indian Love Call” is touching when seen in context and in its various reprises.

I wonder if a popular entertainment could be made today where the first five minutes or so was a unsubtitled excerpt from Guonod’s Romeo and Juliet and the conclusion featured a long extract from the conclusion of Tosca.  Somehow I doubt it.  Nelson Eddy was so jealous of Allan Jones’s performance that he persuaded the studio to cut Jones’s big aria. Jones did put Eddy to shame in the singing department.

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Wings in the Dark (1935)

Posted on June 4, 2013 | 2 comments

Wings in the Dark
Directed by James Flood
1935/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

 

[box] Sheila Mason: What are you thinking about?

Ken Gordon: I was just thinking how crazy I was not to take a good look at you when I had the chance.[/box]

This improbable aviation romance is bolstered by the charisma of its stars.  Sheila Mason (Myrna Loy) is a daring barnstorming pilot.  She has a yen for fellow aviator Ken Gordon (Cary Grant), who is developing a plane that will be capable of flying “blind” without instruments.  Ken is too busy to notice.  When Ken is about to demonstrate his plane with a transatlantic flight, he is (temporarily?) blinded in a gas stove explosion.  Ken overcomes his bitterness with the encouragement and help of Sheila and they fall in love.  Can Ken realize his dreams of flying blind??

A picture with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant automatically has a lot going for it as far as I am concerned.  They bring a lot of charm to a frankly melodramatic and utterly unlikely story.  Roscoe Karns is good too as Sheila’s promoter.

 

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