Daily Archives: June 11, 2014

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Posted on June 11, 2014 | 2 comments

Here Comes Mr. Jordan 
Directed by Alexander Hall
Written by Sidney Buichman and Seton I. Miller from the play “Heaven Can Wait” by Harry Seagall
1941/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Messenger 7013: I have an idea, Mr. Jordan, couldn’t we have him reborn?

Joe Pendleton: Nothing doing; I’m not gonna go through *that* again![/box]

This fantasy lacks a little in the internal logic department but is a fun film with nice performances by Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains.

Joe Pendleton (Montgomery) is a professional boxer who is looking at a fight that will give him a chance at the championship.  While flying his plane to the venue in New York, it crashes.  Messenger 7013 (Edward Everett Horton) plucks his soul from his body before the plane hits ground and takes him to a part of the after life that is administered by Mr. Jordan.  Problem is Joe was not meant to die in the crash or, indeed, for the next 50 years. Unfortunately Joe’s trainer (James Gleason) cremates the body before Joe’s soul can be restored to it.   Mr. Jordan scrambles to find Joe a new body.  Joe is pretty fussy as his old one was :”in the pink”.  Finally the two settle on the body of young millionaire Bruce Farnsworth who is about to be murdered by his wife and private secretary.

We see Joe’s body and hear his speech pattern but others see and hear Farnsworth.  Joe retains the memories of his former life and immediately starts training as he has been told by Jordan that he is destined to be champion.  He also becomes attracted to the pretty blonde daughter (Evelyn Keyes) of a bond salesman the real Farnsworth used as the fall guy in a fraud case and gets her father out of jail.  But the championship cannot be Joe’s before a number of comic complications set in.

One doesn’t expect realism from a picture like this one but every time I thought I had figured out the “rules” of the after life they seemed to change on me.  It didn’t mar my enjoyment of the film.  This is a lot of fun and I thought both Montgomery and Rains were terrific.  Here Comes Mr. Jordan won Academy Awards for Best Original Story and and Best Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Montgomery), Best Supporting Actor (Gleason), and Best Black-and-White Cinematography.

The story was remade in 1978 as Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty as Joe and James Mason as Mr. Jordan.  The 1943 classic Heaven Can Wait directed by Ernst Lubitsch is a different story, dealing more with the netherworld than Jordan’s domain.

Clip

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Posted in 1941, Movie Reviews

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941)

Posted on June 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (“Todake no kyodai”)Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family DVD cover
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Yasujirô Ozu and Tadao Ikeda
1941/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Streaming on Hulu Plus

 

Watching Fantasia (1940) I understood we could never win the war. “These people seem to like complications”, I thought to myself. — Yasujirô Ozu

War seems very far away in Ozu’s 1941 film that presages his treatment of similar themes in Tokyo Story.

The story begins on Mrs. Toda’s 61st birthday.  We learn that the 61st birthday begins a new “cycle” in Japanese tradition – the person begins again in this year.  Mr. Toda is 69 years old.  All the many sons and daughters come to the party.  Most of the children are married.  Grown son Shojiro and daughter Setsuko still live at home, though Setsuko is soon to be married.  Shojiro is by far the least filial of the children, having to be coaxed out of his room to sit for the family portrait.  The Toda’s are a wealthy and happy family.

brothers and sisters of the toda tamily 1

.Mrs.Toda’s “new beginning” takes place before the day is out.  Her husband is struck with chest pains that very evening.  He is dead by morning.  After his death, it is discovered that he was the guarantor on a large loan to a bankrupt company.  The house and all its contents will need to be sold to pay the debt.  All that is left is an uninhabitable country villa. Setsuko’s fiance bows out immediately.  Shojiro decides to leave for China to work in one of his father’s companies.

Mrs. Toda and Setsuko start be shuttled from one of the married children’s families to another.  They are not really welcomed anywhere.  The ladies of these houses, even blood daughters, find the soft-spoken Mrs. Toda a major inconvenience/embarrassment.  The two homeless ladies are miserable.   A solution to their problem comes from the most unlikely quarter.

brothers and sisters of the toda family 2

Although this story is set firmly in the context of Japanese culture (class issues prevent Setsuko from working), the problems it addresses are universal.  Having one’s relatives move in is challenging whatever the time and place and starting a new life is not easy.  Ozu makes the story so real and understated that it is very moving.  Needless to say, the composition of the frames is exquisite.

If it were not for the son’s work in China, there would no hint that this was filmed in the midst of the Great Pacific War.

The complete film is currently available on YouTube.

Clip

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Posted in 1941