Monthly Archives: April 2014

Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

Posted on April 12, 2014 | 1 comment

Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Directed by John Cromwell
Written by Robert E. Sherwood based on his play
1940/USA
Max Gordon Plays & Pictures Corporation/RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

 

[box] Aide to Stephen Douglas: You don’t mean to say you’re afraid of Abe Lincoln. Why, the country doesn’t know him! Stephen Douglas: Maybe the country doesn’t… but I do.[/box]

I love Raymond Massey’s portrayal of Lincoln.  But does it make up for all the overacting by the other players?

The story covers Abraham Lincoln’s life from his arrival in New Salem, Illinois and ill-starred romance with Ann Rutledge, through his time as a lawyer, local politician and legislator, ending with the night he is elected President.  Some special emphasis is given to his tortured courtship and married life with Mary Todd (Ruth Gordon in her screen debut).  With Gene Lockhart as Stephen Douglas.

I found Massey 100% believable as Lincoln.  When he is not making a speech he is perfectly natural and so likable.  When he is orating, he is a bit overblown and larger than life but I thought this is just how Lincoln himself would have been on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, a biography of Lincoln is always in danger of tipping over into hagiography and this movie succumbs to that fate.  All the other players are way too earnest for words. I had been looking forward to seeing a young Ruth Gordon but sadly I found her very stiff. Of course, her character is written as very stiff and unlikable.  I don’t know enough about the truth to know whether the film was unfair to Todd.  Certainly, she had a tough life.

Raymond Massey was nominated by the Academy as Best Actor as was James Wong Howe for his Black and White Cinematography.

Trailer

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Posted in 1940, Movie Reviews

Fantasia (1940)

Posted on April 12, 2014 | 2 comments

Fantasiafantasia poster 3
Directed by Norman Ferguson et al
Written by Joe Grant, Dick Huemer et al
1940/USA
Walt Disney Pictures
Repeat viewing/Disney DVD
#142 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Narrator: You know, it’s funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. The one composition of Tchaikovsky’s that he really detested was his “Nutcracker Suite”, which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote. It’s a series of dances taken out of a full-length ballet called “The Nutcracker” that he once composed for the St. Petersburg Opera House. It wasn’t much of a success and nobody performs it nowadays, but I’m pretty sure you’ll recognize the music of the suite when you hear it. Incidentally, you won’t see any nutcracker on the screen; there’s nothing left of him but the title.  (poor unloved ballet … now performed everywhere with a suitable stage and dancers each Christmas.)

I think I love this movie more every time I see it.

The film consists of a number of animated segments set to classical music.  They are:

Tocata and Fugue in D Minor (orchestrated) (J.S. Bach) – images abstracted from musical instruments

Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky) – seasons of the year with sprites animating plants and flowers in a garden

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Dukas) – Mickey Mouse as the title character putting on his master’s hat and losing control over some brooms toting water for him

Rite of Spring (Stravinski) – Evolution of life on earth ending with the dinosaurs

Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”) (Beethoven) – Mythical creatures on Mount Olympus enjoying a day in the country

Dance of the Hours (Ponchielli) – comic take on the  ballet from “La Gioconda” with ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators subbing for the dancers

A Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorsky)/Ave Maria (Schubert) – Revels of demons and ghosts on Walpurgis night end in the triumph of good over evil.

fantasia 1

 

I think I first saw this in my late teens in a somewhat “altered” state, as was fashionable at that time.  It certainly wasn’t necessary as this movie is mind-blowing when one is perfectly sober.  I love every single segment but of course I gravitate to the one that makes me smile.  I adore those crazy ostriches!

Leopold Stokowski (and his associates) won an Honorary Oscar for “their unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music in Walt Disney’s production Fantasia, thereby widening the scope of the motion picture as entertainment and as an art form”.   Walt Disney, William E. Garity, J.N.A. Hawkins (RCA Manufacturing Co.) won an honorary award for “their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia”.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMlIpQ5pbCk

Original theatrical trailer

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1940

City for Conquest (1940)

Posted on April 11, 2014 | 1 comment

City for Conquest
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by John Wexley from the novel by Aben Kandel
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Danny Kenny: [Started, after getting bussd on the cheek from Eddie] Say, what am I… a French general getting a message or somethin’?[/box]

This is an OK Warner Brothers urban social drama with an outstanding cast.

The city is New York and the whole story is framed by a narrator, a la Our Town.  Danny Kenny (James Cagney) is a regular guy whose aim in life is to marry his sweetheart Peggy (Ann Sheridan) and hold down a steady job as a truck driver.  But Danny is also a talented amateur boxer and feels forced into the professional ring to help his brother Eddie (Arthur Kennedy in his screen debut), a budding composer, get through music school and finish his symphony.  Peggy has ambitions as a dancer and puts her love for Danny on hold to try to make the big time with sleezeball partner Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn).  It takes a tragedy to set her straight.  With Frank McHugh as Danny’s sidekick, Donald Crisp as his manager, and Elia Kazan in one of his two screen appearances as an actor as his gangster pal.

Everybody in this movie is just great but the plot takes itself a little too seriously for me to come back a second time.  Worth seeing once, though, if just to see Quinn, Kazan, and Kennedy as young men.  It goes without saying that Cagney and Sheridan are top-notch.

Trailer

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews

Night Train to Munich (1940)

Posted on April 10, 2014 | 2 comments

Night Train to Munich
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder from a story by Gordon Wellesley
1940/UK
Twentieth Century Productions Ltd.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Charters: I bought a copy of Mein Kampf. Occurred to me it might shed a spot of light on all this… how d’ye do. Ever read it?

Caldicott: Never had the time.

Charters: I understand they give a copy to all the bridal couples over here.

Caldicott: Oh, I don’t think it’s that sort of book, old man.[/box]

This was written by the screenwriters on The Lady Vanishes and is in the same vein with comedy-tinged suspense, mainly on a train.  I liked it.

The story takes place during the year prior to the outbreak of WWII and on the day Britain declared war on Germany.  Axel Bomasch is a Czech scientist who has invented a superior form of armor-plating.  The authorities are determined to keep this out of the hands of the Germans and arrange to spirit him away to England on the day Czechoslovakia is invaded.  His daughter Anna (Margaret Lockwood) is arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp before she can join her father.  She escapes the camp with Karl Marsen (Paul Heinreid) and the two proceed to England and begin to search for him.

The search takes Anna to a seaside resort where she meets secret agent Gus Bennett (Rex Harrison) and is reunited with her father.  But the Nazis are in hot pursuit and spirit father and daughter back to Germany.  Bennett, in the disguise of an SS officer, makes a desperate last minute bid at rescuing them and saving the formula for the good guys. With Basil Radford and Naughton Wayne as the prototypical British cricket fans and clueless tourists Chalders and Caldicott.

This is good fun and well worth seeing.  It has some of the most obvious matte paintings ever but this only added to the atmosphere in my opinion.

Clip

 

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Posted in 1940, Movie Reviews

All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

Posted on April 9, 2014 | 2 comments

All This, and Heaven Too
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by Casey Robinson based on a story by Rachel Field
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Happiness isn’t a little cake which we can cut up to fill our appetites.[/box]

Warner Brother’s polished and well-acted answer to Gone with the Wind was not really for me.

Some cruel girls find out their new French teacher’s secret and she sets them straight by telling the sad story of her past.  Segue to extended flashback.  The teacher, Henriette Deluzy-Desportes (Bette Davis), returned to her native France from England and despite being warned off by the old gardener (Harry Davenport) seeks employment as governess to the four children of a Duke (Charles Boyer) and his wife (Barbara O’Neill).

The children immediately fall in love with Henriette.  However, it soon becomes clear that the wife is hysterical, unbalanced, and pathologically jealous.  Her clinging ways have alienated the Duke who becomes attracted to Henriette.  Henriette, while lonely and attracted herself, will have none of it however.  The wife begins to persecute the governess and eventually pushes the Duke right over the edge.    With Motagu Love as the Duchess’s father and June Lockhart and Virginia Weidler as two of her daughters.

This is based on a scandal that rocked France in the 1840’s and is the true story of the novelist’s aunt.  I unfortunately found it overly long and not too gripping.  It does give Bette Davis the opportunity to show her softer side and Barbara O’Neill really earned her Oscar nomination as the harridan of a Duchess.  You could see how such a woman could drive her husband to desperation!  The production is lavish.  If this kind of romance appeals, do not let my comments dissuade you.  I am apparently in the minority.  The IMDb user rating is 7.7/10.

All This, and Heaven Too was nominated for Academy Awards in the catagories of Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (O’Niell), and Best Black and White Cinematography (Ernest Haller).

Trailer

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Posted in 1940, Movie Reviews

Contraband (1940)

Posted on April 9, 2014 | 2 comments

Contraband (AKA “Blackout”)
Directed by Michael Powell
Written by Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, and Brock Williams
1940/UK
British National Films
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

[box] Captain Anderson: The bigger the ship, the smaller the adventure. The smaller the ship, the bigger the adventure. But you wouldn’t understand that. Because you have childish ideas about life. Because like so many women you live only for little excitements like, er…[/box]

For a change Conrad Veidt gets the girl!  I liked this Hitchcockian comedic thriller a lot.

Capt. Andersen (Veidt) helms a Danish freighter.  His ship is stopped by the British to be inspected for contraband that could be destined for Germany.  One of the passengers, a “Mrs. Sorensen” (Valerie Hobson), a Brit who is married to a Dane, is a bit unruly.  Another is an American “sheet music salesman”.  When the ship is held overnight in port, the two steal Capt. Andersen’s shore passes and abscond with his motor boat.  Andersen, who is responsible for his passengers, is on their trail immediately.  After he catches up with Mrs. Sorensen, he sticks to her like glue and eventually when he learns her true identity the two become a team.

As I have come to expect, Veidt is just excellent as the resourceful captain and is quite sympathetic and a bit sexy in this part.  There is a lot of nifty noir-esque cinematography. The dialogue pops and the story moves right along.  Recommended.

They kept referring to Denmark as “neutral” in the war but I was under the impression the country was occupied by the Nazis.  Can anyone straighten me out?

Clip

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews

I Love You Again (1940)

Posted on April 8, 2014 | 2 comments

I Love You Again
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke
Written by Charles Lederer et al based on the novel by Octavus Roy Cohen
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] George Carey: [reacting to Kay’s beauty] Boy! Eighteen days alone on a boat is certainly a long time to be alone on a boat for eighteen days![/box]

William Powell and Myrna Loy are as captivating as ever and Powell has the opportunity to do some fairly amusing physical comedy.

Larry Wilson (Powell) is a tee-totaling stuffed shirt and civic booster who bores the pants off everyone including his wife Kay (Loy), who wants divorce.  He gets a knock on the head while rescuing a drunk Doc Ryan (Frank McHugh) from falling overboard.  The blow cures the amnesia Wilson has been experiencing for nine years.  It turns out he is really high-living con artist George Cary and he has no memory of his life as Wilson.  He discovers Wilson has a large bank account and beautiful wife and that the people of Wilson’s home town are greedy and gullible and heads there to work a con.  While he is at it, he tries to win back Kay with his new-found personality.  With Edmund Lowe as another con artist.

This was a clever, if somewhat confusing, premise.  Although it isn’t where I would turn first for a dose of Powell and Loy, there are some pretty funny bits.

Trailer

 

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Posted in 1940, Movie Reviews

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940)

Posted on April 8, 2014 | 1 comment

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante
Directed by George B. Seitz
Written by Aurania Rouverol, Tom Seller, and Annalee Whitmore
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

 

[box] Andrew ‘Andy’ Hardy: [In reference to Ulysses S. Grant] He didn’t have trouble like I got, all he had on his hands was a civil war.[/box]

I took this one out of sequence in memory of Mickey Rooney who died on April 6.  It had everything one would expect from an Andy Hardy movie with an extra dose of patriotism thrown in to reflect the war in Europe.

Andy (Rooney) has a crush on a photogenic young debutante, clipping all her photos from the gossip magazines.  He boasts to Polly that he has met her.  Then Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) decides to take his family to New York where he is going to defend the local orphanage.  Polly calls his bluff threatening to humiliate Andy in the school paper if he does not produce a picture of himself with the celebrity.  All of Andy’s efforts to actually meet the girl get him in hot water.  But Betsy Blair (Judy Garland) comes to the rescue and gets an early screen kiss.  With all the Andy Hardy regulars.

Rooney is his peppy self in this movie, lording it over others when he is not bemoaning his fate.  His complaints about lacking “class” and money earn him a long talking to from his father extolling the American Way.  The sub-plot about the orphans involves their trustee trading in U.S. bonds for European ones and then losing his shirt on them when the war starts, with resultant commentary by the Judge on the folly of deserting ones country. We get a couple of songs from Garland, neither too memorable.

Trailer

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews

They Drive by Night (1940)

Posted on April 7, 2014 | 1 comment

They Drive by Night 
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Screenplay by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay from a novel by A.I. Bezzerides
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Joe Fabrini: Do you believe in love at first sight?

Cassie Hartley: It saves a lot of time.[/box]

I enjoyed this for its razor-sharp dialogue and outstanding cast, though I thought it fell apart a bit in the second half.

Wildcat truck-driver brothers Joe (George Raft) and Paul (Humphrey Bogart) Fabrini are struggling to make ends meet.  They spend days at a stretch on the road getting little if any sleep.  Paul also longs for his wife who would love to see him get an eight-to-five job even if it was digging ditches.  On one of their runs, Joe meets sassy waitress Cassie (and when the boys give her a lift, the two fall in love.

When it looks like the brothers have finally caught a break, tragedy strikes and their rig is totaled.  Then old friend Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale) offers Joe a job in the garage of his trucking firm.  Carlsen is a likable but garrulous drunk whose wife, Lana (Ida Lupino), clearly despises him and keeps making increasingly desperate plays for Joe.  But Joe is having none of it, citing his loyalty to Ed, and Lana begins to think that the only way to get “her” man is to get Ed out of the way.  With Roscoe Karns as a fellow truck driver.

The repartee between Ann Sheridan and the guys at the truck stop is just super and the first half or two-thirds of this film is a wonderful slice of working-class life in Depression-era America. The tone changes in the Third Act as the story becomes a love-triangle melodrama.  Ida Lupino is good as always but the plot just about forces her to go completely over the top and she starts chewing the scenery with a vengeance.  On balance, though, this is a solid film and well worth seeing.

Trailer

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Posted in Movie Reviews

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Posted on April 7, 2014 | 1 comment

My Favorite Wife
Directed by Garson Kanin
Written by Bella Spewak, Sam Spewak, and Leo McCarey
1940/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Nick Arden: Something’s come up. My wife.[/box]

If William Powell and Myrna Loy had the best chemistry in classic Hollywood, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne were not far behind.  This screwball comedy produced by Leo McCarey who directed 1937’s sublime The Awful Truth delivers the laughs beautifully.

As the story begins lawyer Nick (Grant) seeks to have a judge (Granville Bates) declare his wife – who has been missing, presumed drowned for seven years – declared legally dead so that he can marry Bianca (Gail Patrick).  Naturally, immediately after the wedding long-lost Ellen (Dunne) shows up at home to introduce herself to the children.  When her mother-in-law tells her about the wedding, Ellen rushes to the honeymoon hotel.  Nick is thrilled to see her but afraid to tell his new wife the news.  Misunderstandings and hilarity abound.  With Randolph Scott as the Adonis who was stranded on the desert island with Ellen.

This is a ton of fun and not to be missed by anyone who loved this couple in The Awful Truth.  The scenes with the judge are genius.

Trailer

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Posted in 1940, Movie Reviews