Monthly Archives: May 2014

Comrade X
Directed by King Vidor
Written by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and Walter Reisch
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Vanya: Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Last week all the towels were stolen. But on the other hand the water wasn’t running so nobody needed the towels. Everything balances.[/box]

This is a pretty good screwball rip-off of Ninotchka though it bogs down a bit toward the end.

McKinley B. Thomson (Clark Gable) is Comrade X, an American reporter who has been smuggling coded stories past the censors in Moscow.  His valet Vanya (Felix Bessart) is determined to get his daughter Theodore (Hedy Lamarr) out to America because he fears that she is too opinionated for the powers that be.  He blackmails Thomson into doing this by threatening to reveal his identity.  The idealistic Theodore is a committed communist but consents to accompany Thomson as his wife because he convinces her he is also a true believer and they are going to enlighten the masses.  But the authorities are on Thomson’s trail and father, daughter, and Thomson end up in a jail cell.  How will they escape?  With Oscar Homolka as a Commissar and Eve Arden as a wise-cracking reporter.

This starts out well with good chemistry between Gable and Lamarr and some snappy dialogue satirizing the USSR.  The whole farce ends in a massive tank chase, which goes on way too long for my taste and weakens the film.  Lamarr looks even more beautiful here than she did in Algiers.

Comrade X was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story.

Trailer

 Santa Fe Trail
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Robert Buckner
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Caption: Leavenworth, Kansas: Where the railroad and civilization ended, the Santa Fe Trail began. The old Spanish road from Mexico, now lusty with new life and a new motto – “God gets off at Leavenworth and Cyrus Holliday drives you from there to the Devil.”[/box]

This is an OK Western with an excellent supporting performance by Raymond Massey.

The main setting for the story is in “Bloody” Kansas just prior to the Civil War when settlers were fighting about whether the territory would enter the Union as a Slave or Free State.  We begin at West Point where J.E.B. Stuart (Errol Flynn), George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan), James Longstreet and other officers that would be prominent on both sides of the Civil War are cadets under Superintendent Robert E. Lee.  Stuart and a cadet named Rader (Van Heflin) get into a violent argument over abolition. Politics have no place in the Army and Lee punishes Stuart and Custer by sending them to the 2nd Cavalry, the “Suicide Regiment” trying to keep order in Kansas.  Rader, on the other hand, is booted out of the service.

When our heroes arrive in Kansas they soon meet pretty Kit Carson Holliday (Olivia de Havilland), daughter of a local freight handler and prospective railroad mogul..  Both fall for her but her heart soon belongs to Stuart.  There is little peace before the regiment is called on to combat abolitionist fanatic John Brown (Raymond Massey) and his followers, which now include Rader, who are rampaging through the countryside.  With Alan Hale and Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams as comic relief.

This is a perfectly satisfactory action-filled Western/Civil War drama.  I thought Raymond Massey was wonderful as the fiery, half-mad John Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlGLD95V64c

Trailer

Young People
Directed by Allan Dwan
Written by Edwin Blum and Don Ettlinger
1940/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Tagline: FUN and songs! Fun AND songs! Fun and SONGS! …DANCES TOO![/box]

Jack Oakie and Charlotte Greenwood make this a better than average Shirley Temple movie.

Vaudeville troopers Joe and Kit Ballentine (Oakie and Greenwood) get a baby delivered to them during the show.  They decide to keep little Wendy (Temple) and she later becomes the centerpiece of their act.  Along with Wendy, they inherit a little farm, complete with mortgage, in New England.  They decide they will work for five years and make payments and then retire to the country with Wendy.  Their dream comes true but they soon find that the people of their chosen community are anything but welcoming.  They do have some allies in the form of the younger generation in the town.

The first 20 minutes of this comprising the vaudeville act are great fun.  The filmmakers have spliced some footage of the six-year-old Temple with Oakie and Greenwood in a delightful way.  “Baby Take a Bow” is adorable.  I enjoyed seeing Jack Oakie doing some tap dancing.  Even though she is older and less “cute”, the rest of the film is standard fare with Temple eventually winning over all who know her.

This was Temple’s last film on her 20th Century Fox contract.  She was 12 years old.

Clip – Shirley Temple sings “I Wouldn’t Take a Million”

Too Many Husbands
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Written by Claude Binyon based on the play by W. Somerset Maugham
1940/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. — Oscar Wilde [/box]

This unsung screwball comedy started off so well …

Bill Cardew (Fred MacMurray) and Henry Lowndes (Melvin Douglas) were best friends and partners.  Bill had been married to Vicky (Jean Arthur).  She loved him dearly but he was a bit of an adventurer, taking off to exotic locations on his boat until finally he was declared drowned.  Henry helped ease the widow’s grief and they soon married.  Naturally, six months later Bill shows up very much alive and Vicky must choose between them.  With Harry Davenport as Vicky’s father.

Fifteen minutes into this I was thinking “Why isn’t this better known?” The dialogue sparkled and everyone involved handled the comedy very well.  Jean Arthur is uncharacteristically glamorous in this one and quite appealing.  The movie consists of the men fighting and playing various dirty tricks to win Vicky over. Unfortunately, it’s a one-joke movie and that joke got tired by the end.  Still, I’m glad I saw it.

Too Many Husbands received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Recording.

For a clip posted by TCM see:  http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/205932/Too-Many-Husbands-Movie-Clip-Bill-Vicky-Hank.html

Down Argentine Way
Directed by Irving Cummings
Written by Darrell Ware, Karl Tunberg et al
1940/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Glenda Crawford, aka Glenda Cunningham: Excuse me, I’ve got to go see a man about a horse.[/box]

This is strictly for old-time musical comedy lovers but I’m one and I liked it a lot in spite of, or maybe because of, all its basic silliness.

Ricardo Quintana (Don Ameche) is sent to America by his father Don Diego (Henry Stephenson) to sell several horses.  He is warned not to sell any to Don Diego’s long-time enemy or any of the Crawford family.  Naturally, Ricardo immediately meets and falls in love with Crawford’s daughter Glenda (Betty Grable).  After wooing her he has to welsh on a horse sale when he discovers her identity, making her furious.

She is so mad at him that she, of course, needs to head straight to Buenos Aires with her Aunt Binnie (Charlotte Greenwood).  There the couple reunites and patches up the romance in about five minutes.  They decide the best way to win the father over is to defy him by training his prize jumper to be a race horse and entering it in the big race. Meanwhile there are plenty of songs and rather goofy comedy.  With J. Carrol Niaish as an old horse trainer, Leonid Kinskey as a guide/gigolo, and Carmen Miranda and the Nicholas Brothers performing specialty numbers.

This film got points right off the bat for all the location shots of Buenos Aires, a city I know well and love.  And then I’m a Don Ameche fan and he is unusually appealing right down to his pretty good Latin accent. The rest of the cast is very good and all the production numbers are light and fun.  I love the Academy-Award nominated title tune.

Down Argentine Way received Academy Award nominations for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, and Best Original Song (“Down Argentine Way”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Uq0it1x9g

Trailer

Spring Parade
Directed by Henry Koster
Screenplay by Bruce Manning and Felix Jackson; Original story by Ernst Marischka
1940/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Tagline: LIVE, LAUGH and LOVE! With a Dancing, Romancing Deanna![/box]

I’ve seen better Deanna Durbin movies but this is OK, too.

Ilonka (Durbin) is a peasant from a market village who comes into town to sell a goat.  She buys a fortune from a gypsy.  The fortune predicts that she will find love in Vienna, her future husband will be an artist, she will get help from a great and good person and love will hit her with a stick.  Starting with her unconscious trip to Vienna on the back of a hay cart on which she has fallen asleep the whole fortune eventually comes true but not without the full quota of misunderstandings.  With Robert Cummings as her true love, Mischa Auer as a prospective customer, Henry Stephenson as the Emperor Franz Josef, and S. Z. Sakall as Ilonka’s baker/benefactor.

I’m not a huge Robert Cummings fan and I found him particularly grating in this movie. The songs are also nothing to write home about.  Everything else is fine – Durban is in good form and much of the comedy works.

Spring Parade was nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories:  Best Black-and-White Cinematography; Best Sound Recording; Best Original Song (“Waltzing in the Clouds”) and Best Score.

Robert Cummings and Deanna Durbin singing “Waltzing in the Clouds”

The Proud Valley (AKA “The Tunnel”)
Directed by Pen Tennyson
Written by Alfredda Brilliant, Louis Golding et al
1940/UK
CAPAD/Ealing Studios
First viewing/Streaming on Hulu Plus

[box] I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of fear. My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained. The song of freedom must prevail. – – Paul Robeson[/box]

The story is only OK but the singing is glorious.

David Goliath (Paul Robeson) was a merchant seaman but is now wandering through the Welsh countryside in search of work.  He takes to singing door to door with a itinerant beggar for awhile.  While in town, he wanders by a choir rehearsal and takes the solo part of the missing bass.  The conductor has found the key to winning the upcoming choir competition and gets David a job working in the local coal mine.  But the mine is soon closed because of safety issues.  The conductor’s son comes up with an idea for reopening the mine, which is the lifeblood of the town.  So a group of miners set off for London to petition the owner.  Their petition has surprisingly good results because the Nazis have just invaded Poland and Britain needs all the coal it can get.  Unfortunately, the plan proves to have some unexpected glitches when executed …

This would make a good double feature with How Green Is My Valley.  Like that film, The Proud Valley is jam-packed with fantastic Welsh choral singing.  In my opinion, it is worth seeing just to hear Paul Robeson sing “Deep River”” (see clip).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE4z9J3diiA

Paul Robeson and choir singing “Deep River”

The Fight for Life
Directed by Pare Lorentz
Written by Pare Lorentz based on work by Paul de Kruif
1940/USA
United States Film Service
First viewing/YouTube

[box] “Men die in battle; women die in childbirth.” ― Philippa Gregory, The Red Queen[/box]

I learned a lot from this docudrama about the battle to improve survival of women in childbirth in the 40’s but the music drove me nuts.

This follows a young doctor who starts working at an urban maternity center to learn obstetrics.  The story is heavily didactic.  I was amazed to learn that at the time of the making of this film 40% of births still took place at home, usually with no doctor in attendance.  Infant and maternal death in childbirth was the second highest cause of death in America after heart disease.  We see these doctors making house calls to deliver babies. Newspapers are the most sterile things on hand for the OB’s to lay out their instruments on.  There is an unbelievable part when a mother starts hemorrhaging and one of the doctors collects the blood in a bottle and rushes off in a car to the blood bank. Makes me wonder whether they had ambulances in those days.

So this was fascinating, if dry, and I’m still thinking about it.  How blessed we are with the improvements in medical care.  But I could not stand the music which was the obtrusive dramatic kind which tells you what to feel at every moment. I could not remember why I picked this to watch and it turned out that it was Academy-Award nominated for Best Original Score!

The full film is available on YouTube at the moment.

Wolf of New York
Directed by William G. McGann
Written by Gordon Kahn and Lionel Hauser; story by Leslie T. White and Arnold Belgard
1940/USA
Republic Pictures
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

[box] A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe. — Le Corbusier[/box]

This is an entertaining “B” picture with some “A” list actors.

Chris Faulker (Edmund Lowe) is a clever defense attorney, sometimes known as “The Wolf of New York” for his prowess.  One of his clients is Hiram Rogers (James Stephenson – The Letter), a financier, though it was unclear to me in what context he represented Rogers.  We learn early on that Rogers is behind a series of robberies of financial institutions.  When the Police Inspector gets too close to the case he is murdered and Rogers’ assistant, a young man with a criminal record, gets the blame.  Faulkner defends the assistant but a critical alibi witness is also murdered before he can testify.  The assistant is convicted and Faulkner is so demoralized by the loss that he accepts a job as District Attorney so he can find the real killer.  With William Demerest as Faulkner’s wise-cracking factotum.

This is generally about on the level of a very good episode of Perry Mason.  James Stephenson makes a fascinating villain.  It’s such a shame that his film career ended before it had fairly begun with his death in 1941.

I couldn’t find a bit of media on this movie so readers will have to settle for generic material on 1940s New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLoEdxwo0w

“New York: Vacation City” short circa 1940

I am reaching the tail end of 1940 and had a mini-marathon to work through some of the Academy-nominated Short Subjects.  All these films were first viewings and seen on YouTube, where the complete shorts can easily be found by searching for the titles. These are less than –  some well less than – 30 minutes long.

Eyes of the Navy
Written by Herbert Hoffman
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/YouTube

Nominated for Best Two-Reel Short Subject.

This is basically a recruiting film for Navy pilots, largely showing the cadets’ idyllic life – long weekends! short days! – at the Pensacola Naval Air Station.  One scene shows them practicing for landing on aircraft carriers, something these men would be risking their lives doing soon enough. It’s routine stuff..

Service with the Colors
Directed by B. Reeves Eason
Written by Owen Crump
Warner Bros.
First viewing/YouTube

Nominated for Best Two-Reel Short Subject.

This is an Army recruiting film.  This time though it is a drama.  Robert Armstrong plays a tough but fair drill sergeant and William T. Orr is a wiseguy slacker recruit something along the lines of James Cagney in The Fighting 69th.  After Orr attempts to desert, the wise old Colonel straightens him out by ordering him to carry the regimental colors in parade.  Nothing great but more interesting than “Eyes on the Navy”.

Quicker’n a Wink
Directed by George Sidney
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/You Tube

Won  Best One-Reel Short Subject.

This film demonstrates stroboscopic photography which “freezes” fast moving machinery and other action.  Some of the shots are interesting – I particularly liked the cat lapping up milk (did you know they did this with the bottoms of their tongues?)  – but the narration is cheesy.

London Can Take It!
Directed by Humphrey Jennings and Harry Watt (both uncredited)
Written by Quentin Reynolds (uncredited)
GPO Film Unit/Ministry of Information

Nominated for Best One-Reel Short Subject

This has some moving footage of London during the Blitz and is a testimonial to the indomitable courage and resilience of Londoners.  Worth seeing if you have an interest in the period.

Siege
Directed by Julien Bryan
RKO Radio Pictures

Nominated for Best One-Reel Short-Subject

American journalist Julien Bryan stayed behind after most foreigners fled and somehow managed to film the heartrending human and material wreckage of Warsaw in the three weeks immediately following the 1939 Nazi invasion.  Sad, sad, sad but worthwhile.

The Milky Way
Directed by Rudolph Ising
Written by Maurice Day (uncredited)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Rudolph Ising Productions

Won  Best Cartoon Short Subject

The three little kittens who lost their mittens are sent to bed without supper for their carelessness.  They rig up a basket and balloons which carry them to the Milky Way where they drink their fill.  Gentle humor aimed at the younger set.

Puss Gets the Boot
Directed by Joseph Berra, William Hanna, and Rudolph Ising
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Rudolph Ising Productions

Nominated for Best Cartoon Short Subject

This was the first “Tom and Jerry” cartoon made back when they were known as “Jasper and Jinx”.  The housemaid (?) threatens to throw Jasper the cat out of the house if he breaks just one more thing.  Jinx the mouse uses this to his advantage during Jasper’s daily attempt on his life.  Funny.

A Wild Hare
Directed by Tex Avery
Written by Rich Hogan
Leon Schlesinger Studios

Nominated for Best Cartoon Short Subject

This was the first cartoon with Bugs Bunny in his final redesign and the first real teaming of Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny.  It also introduced both Bugs’ and Elmer’s catchphrases – “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Be vewy quiet…I’m hunting wabbits” respectively.  And so began Elmer’s ritual humiliation at the hands of the wascally wiseguy wabbit.  If I had been a voter,  this is the cartoon I would have gone for the year 1940.