Monthly Archives: November 2013

Vivacious Lady (1938)

Posted on November 22, 2013 | 2 comments

Vivacious Lady
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.

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG4IRC8MgiA

Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-I7DkDuiu0

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

 

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Posted in 1938, Movie Reviews

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Posted on November 21, 2013 | 11 comments

Lawrence of ArabiaLawrence of Arabia poster
Directed by David Lean
Written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson based on the writings of T.E. Lawrence
1962/UK/USA
Columbia Pictures/Horizon Pictures
Repeat viewing
#404 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMdB users say 8.4/10; I say 9/10

 

Jackson Bentley: What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?T.E. Lawrence: It’s clean.

Although epics are not my cup of tea, I make a giant exception for Lawrence of Arabia.

This is the dramatized story of T.E. Lawrence, who served in the British army as a liaison with the Arabs during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18.

Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) is an undisciplined and slightly off-kilter officer who is selected by Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains) of the Foreign Office to gather intelligence from Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) , the leader of a prominent Bedouin tribe, due to his prior travels in the Middle East and knowledge of Arabic.  He almost immediately goes native, advising Faisal contrary to the orders and conventional wisdom of his British military superiors. Through his understanding and love of the Arabs, Lawrence wins their trust despite some initial friction with Faisal’s son, Ali (Omar Sharif).

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Lawrence devises a daring plan to take the Turkish-held stronghold of Aqaba with a small contingent of Faisal’s men.  In the desert, he manages to attract the support of Auda abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) and his tribe against the Turks.  The victory at Aqaba makes Lawrence a hero to the Arabs.  Already almost mystically over-confident, Lawrence begins to believe his own P.R.  Then, he is forced to execute a man to mediate a dispute between tribes and returns to Cairo to inform the British of the victory.  On the way, one of his young servants dies horribly in quicksand.  Both these deaths are huge blows to Lawrence.

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In Cairo, Lawrence asks to be relieved of his role but General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) will have none of it.  Lawrence asks Allenby for assurance that the British have no imperial ambitions in Arabia and Allenby falsely gives them.  Lawrence returns to the desert to lead the Arab armies in support of British troops.  After a series of successful skirmishes with the Turks, Lawrence is captured in Daara and severely beaten.  He manages to disguise his identity so is eventually released.  The trauma of this encounter sends him right over the edge and from then on Arab battles with the Turks become increasingly savage.

Eventually, the Arabs manage to take Damascus before the British can and Lawrence helps them set up an Arab Council to rule the city.  This results in chaos, however, because the Arabs are ill-equipped to cope with the necessities of modern life such as electricity, water, telephones, etc.  The practical Prince Faisal arrives to take charge in cooperation with the British and Lawrence is sent packing.  (Faisal goes on to found the Hashemite dynasty, which still reigns in Jordan.)

Lawrence of Arabia 4

Lawrence of Arabia has all the splendor of an epic with its magnificent score, gorgeous desert vistas, and thousands of extras marching into battle.  It is much more than that because of the complex portrayal of Lawrence by the screenwriters, director, and newcomer Peter O’Toole.  Those hypnotic blue eyes perfectly capture the blend of messianic lunacy and steely determination that was Lawrence.  The rest of the distinguished British cast also excels.  This is genuinely a film that should not be missed.

The film is filled with second choices in the casting of the roles.  How lucky we are that Lean settled on the cast we see.  Lawrence of Arabia won seven Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Color Cinematography (Freddie Young), Best Color Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Score (Maurice Jarre).  It was nominated for an additional three Oscars: Best Actor (O’Toole), Best Supporting Actor (Sharif) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQA_ldX0VI0

Trailer

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1962

Boys Town (1938)

Posted on November 21, 2013 | 4 comments

Boys Town
Directed by Norman Taurog
Written by John Meehan and Dore Shary from a story by Shary and Eleanore Griffin
1938/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing

 

[box] Father Edward J. Flanagan: I know that a mother can take a whip to the toughest boy in the world, and he forgets it because he knows that she loves him.[/box]

More evidence of what a great screen actor Spencer Tracy was.

This is an MGM dramatization of the life and work of Father Flanagan, the priest who founded Boys Town, a community for underprivileged and delinquent boys in Nebraska.

Flanagan (Tracy) receives his calling to help boys when he counsels a convict just before his execution and learns of his childhood as a homeless orphan on the city streets.  The priest proves to be a mastermind at raising money from reluctant donors and goes from a small home for boys in the city to a large farm in the country.  There the boys have their own town government with a youth mayor, council, and court.   These prove to be at least as stringent as the priest would have been.

Flanagan faces his biggest challenge when a convict asks him to take charge of his younger brother, Whitey Moran (Mickey Rooney).  Whitey is cocky in the extreme and resists all efforts to civilize him.  Finally, Whitey’s behavior threatens to ruin Boys Town’s perfect record and turn the public and financiers against it.

The plot sounds a bit maudlin but Tracy invests Flanagan with so much humor and grace that the movie is irresistible.  To see him discourage the condemned man from taking a drink with just the slightest cock of his head was worth the price of admission to me. Tracy’s priest is light years away from Pat O’Brien’s pontificating prelate in Angels with Dirty Faces.  You can see why the boys would follow him anywhere.  This may also be Mickey Rooney’s best work.  It is too bad he did not do more drama in his youth.

One of my very earliest film-watching memories is sobbing near the end of this picture and my mother telling me that if I was going to get so upset I would have to stop watching movies.  Obviously, that didn’t happen!

Spencer Tracy won his second consecutive Best Actor Oscar for Boys Town and Griffin and Shary won an award for their original story.  The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing, Screenplay.

Trailer (spoilers)

 

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Posted in 1938, Movie Reviews

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Posted on November 20, 2013 | 2 comments

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Directed by Norman Taurog
Written by John V.A. Weaver based on the novel by Mark Twain
1938/USA
Selznick International Pictures
First viewing

 

[box] Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer[/box]

I had no idea what to expect from this and was very pleased with a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Twain’s novel.

Tom Sawyer (Tommy Kelly) is an imaginative scamp who lives in pre-Civil War Missouri with his perpetually exasperated Aunt Polly (May Robson) and his priggish half-brother Sid and sister Mary.  Tom gets into many scrapes with local pals Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper.  Finally, he has a scary time lost in a cave with “girlfriend” Becky Thatcher (the fantastic Ann Gillis).  With Victor Jory as Injun Joe, Walter Brennan as Muff Porter, and Margaret Hamilton as Mrs. Harper.

I thought everybody was right on the money in capturing the characters I had envisioned when reading the book.  The kids were all great!  I wonder if Taurog, who had been a child actor, had a special gift for working with them.  The color isn’t anything to write home about but the screenwriters adapted the novel wonderfully.  Recommended.

Lyle R. Wheeler was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  William Cameron Menzies designed the creepy cave.

Trailer

 

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Posted in 1938, Movie Reviews

Holiday (1938)

Posted on November 20, 2013 | 4 comments

Holiday
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.

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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You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Posted on November 19, 2013 | 5 comments

You Can’t Take It with You
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Robert Riskin based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
1938/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

[box] Tony Kirby: …It takes courage. You know everybody’s afraid to live.

Alice Sycamore: You ought to hear Grandpa on that subject. You know he says most people nowadays are run by fear. Fear of what they eat, fear of what they drink, fear of their jobs, their future, fear of their health. They’re scared to save money, and they’re scared to spend it. You know what his pet aversion is? The people who commercialize on fear, you know they scare you to death so they can sell you something you don’t need.[/box]

My usual technique of Capra watching – pretending the whole thing is a fairy tale – didn’t really work with this one.

A.P. Kirby (Edward Albert) is a munitions dealer who has grand plans to buy up all his rivals (with a little assistance from the U.S. Congress).  His plan depends on his ability to buy up all the property surrounding his chief rival’s factory for some reason.  Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore) stands in Kirby’s way since he cannot be persuaded to sell his house for any amount of money.  Vanderhof is a free spirit and prefers to live as a “lily of the field”.  He and his household are devoted to doing solely what they love to do, from ballet dancing to painting to illegal fireworks manufacture.

Vanderhof’s granddaughter Alice (Jean Arthur) is secretary to Kirby’s son Tony (James Stewart).  The two are madly in love and want to marry.  However, Tony’s parents look down on Alice and she won’t marry without their approval.  She invites the parents over for dinner to meet her family.  Every possible aspect of the event goes wrong.  With Spring Byington as Alice’s mother, Ann Miller as her sister and Mischa Auer as a Russian dancing instructor.

My high school’s theater arts class put on the Kauffman and Hart play and I am quite sure it was not so preachy as this movie is.  There is a strong anti-big business message and quite a bit of folksy home-spun philosophy coming out of the lips of Grandpa Vanderhof. It’s not that I disagree with any of it but it sure does weigh the comedy down.  The acting cannot be faulted, however.  I thought Edward Arnold was particularly good.

You Can’t Take It with You won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. It was Oscar-nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actress (Spring Byington); Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Film Editing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WY9RAroTS0

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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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The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Posted on November 17, 2013 | 6 comments

The Lady Vanishes
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder based on a story by Ethel Lina White
1938/UK
Gainsborough Pictures
Repeat viewing
#127 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Miss Froy: I never think you should judge any country by its politics. After all, we English are quite honest by nature, aren’t we?[/box]

I simply love this movie and would rank it in Hitchcock’s top five pictures.

The story opens at a mountain inn in 1938 Mandrika, a fictitious European country where a varied group of tourists is stranded following an avalanche.  Iris Henderson i(Margaret Lockwood) is a spoiled young woman who feels she has done everything and so might as well get married to a “blue-blooded check chaser” back home in England.  Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) is an itinerant musicologist who irritates Iris mightily by conducting loud folk music sessions directly overhead.

The elderly Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a governess and music teacher, is also returning to England.  Before the train departs the next day, Iris returns Miss Froy’s glasses to her and is struck on the head by a falling planter.  Dazed, Iris gets on the train assisted by the kindly old lady.  When she awakens from her sleep, Miss Froy is gone and no one will admit she was ever on the train.  Iris’s only ally is Gilbert, who is willing to play along even if he doesn’t believe her.  Before long, the two are enmeshed in a dangerous game of hide and seek.  With Naughton Wayne and Basil Radford as cricket enthusiasts, Cecil Parker and Linden Travers as an adulterous couple, and Paul Lukas as a sinister brain surgeon.

This film has a delightfully tight script that enchants me every time with its naughty humor and sly political commentary on the appeasement policies of the British government.  I also love Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood together.  They equal Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll (The 39 Steps) as playful antagonists.  The supporting cast is also great.  Hitchcock perfectly captures the setting of a moving train on a small budget.   Highly recommended.

The Criterion Collection DVD comes with an excellent commentary by film historian Bruce Eder.

Three Reasons to Watch – The Criterion Collection

 

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

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Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Posted on November 16, 2013 | 8 comments

Bringing Up Baby
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde
1938/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing
#124 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die

[box] David Huxley: Now it isn’t that I don’t like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I’m strangely drawn toward you, but – well, there haven’t been any quiet moments.[/box]

I enjoyed this quintessential screw-ball comedy even more than before.

David (Cary Grant), a very square paleontologist, is engaged to his assistant who is also all-dinosaur all the time.  While he is trying to get a donation for his museum, he runs into Susan (Katharine Hepburn), who is some kind of nut.  Susan falls head over heels in love with David and uses all her considerable powers to detour him from his wedding.  Her best ploy involves a prolonged chase after her missing pet leopard, Baby.  With May Robson as Susan’s aunt, Charlie Ruggles as a big-game hunter, Barry Fitzgerald as a dipsomaniac gardener, and Asta as George.

On previous viewings, I found Katharine Hepburn’s character manipulative and irritating. This time, however, I was able to relax and see Susan as David’s rescuer and accept all the scrapes she gets him into as part of the inspired silliness of the thing. Grant is just great. He is a master of prat-falls and so good at looking ridiculous in all his strange get-ups.  All the character actors are at their goofy best.  Truly a must-see.

The DVD I rented included a good commentary by Peter Bogdanovich.  One of the things I learned is that Hawks based his characterizations on Hepburn’s relationship with the bespectacled John Ford.  Hepburn was apparently the only person that could get away with ribbing Ford on the set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-EkAb1h2OM

Trailer

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