Daily Archives: June 12, 2014

The 49th Parallel (AKA “The Invaders”)
Directed by Michael Powell
Written by Emeric Pressburger and Rodney Ackland
1941/UK
Ortus Films
Repeat viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

[box] Philip Armstrong Scott: Nazis? That explains your arrogance, stupidity, and bad manners.[/box]

The stars took a cut in pay to appear in this exciting, if a bit heavy handed, anti-isolationist propaganda film

A German u-boat enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence and torpedoes a Canadian merchant vessel.  It escapes to the Hudson Bay where it is stalled for lack of sufficient food or fuel. The captain sends a group of six men to a nearby small trading post to plant the Nazi flag and take over it and its supplies.  Just as the men are setting out, the Canadian Air Force sinks the sub.  The men and their leader, fanatical Nazi Lieutenant Hirth (Eric Portman) set out to complete the mission and try to work their way to the neutral United States.  They leave death and destruction everywhere they stop but the “decadent democracy” of Canada proves to be too much for them in the end.  With Laurence Olivier has a French-Canadian trapper at the trading post; Anton Walbrook as the leader of a Christian religious commune; Leslie Howard as an effete student of Native Canadian culture in the woods; and Raymond Massey as a friendly Canadian soldier hitching a ride in a freight car headed across the border.

he pedigree of this film includes just about every important British film artist of the next couple of decades: Powell; Pressburger; editor David Lean; cinematographer Freddie Jones; and composer Ralph Vaughn Williams.  The vignettes are all outstanding but I especially love the majestic scenic photography of Canada whose entire breadth is spanned by the Germans during the course of the film.  Just the opening strains of the music to this gives me goose bumps.  The Germans continually mistake the open-hearted good nature of Canadians for weakness and are just as continually proved wrong.  This testament to the essential strength of democracy and freedom is more effective than the overtly patriotic speeches.  Recommended.

Emeric Pressburger won the Academy Award for Best Original Story.  The 49th Parallel was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcZOJ60WQKs

Clip – Anton Walbrook – “We are not your brothers.”

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Directed by Edward Cline
Written by John T. Neville and Prescott Chaplin; original story by “Otis Criblecoblis” (W.C. Fields)
1941/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] His Niece: [Last Lines] My Uncle Bill. But I still love him.[/box]

I don’t know why I continue to watch these things and I don’t have it in me to say a bad word against Fields’s last hurrah.

The Great Man (Fields as himself) has a loving niece (Gloria Jean) who is a singer trying to break into the movies.  Fields shops a fantastical script to a movie studio executive (Franklin Pangborn) with a part for her in it.  We see the script played out.  It’s centerpiece has Fields falling from the veranda (!) of an airplane into a hidden land populated by a mother (Margaret Dumont) and her daughter, who has been raised in the absence of men.

Poor Fields looks tired and ill in this one.  He’s still game though.

This was the last movie to star Fields; his remaining film work had him in supporting roles or cameos, as his health began to decline.

Clip -scene with waitress