Monthly Archives: June 2014

Blues in the Night
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by Robert Rossen from the play Hot Nocturne by Edwin Gilbert
1941/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] My mama done told me when I was in knee-pants/
My mama done told me, she said Son/
A woman will sweet-talk ya, she’ll give you the big eye/
But when that sweet talkin’ is done/
A woman’s a two-face, a worrisome thing/
Who’ll leave ya to sing the blues in the night — “Blues in the Night”, lyrics by Johnny Mercer
[/box]

A musical film noir?  And in 1941 already?  A white band playing blues? Well, partly.

“Jigger” Pine (Richard Whorf) is playing honky-tonk piano in a dive.  His buddy clarinetist Nicky Haroyen (Elia Kazan, in his final screen performance as an actor) keeps after him to start his own band.  But Jigger doesn’t want to do this unless it is a small “unit” that thinks as one man (i.e., him) and plays “real” music.  He punches a customer out for wanting him to play “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”, starts a brawl, and he and his buddies wind up in jail where they hear the stuff they are after — the blues sung by one of the black inmates. (Well, blues as imagined by Tin Pan Alley).  After they get out, they meet up with braggart trumpeter Leo Powell (Jack Carson) and his wife vocalist “Character” Powell (Priscilla Lane) and the “unit” is complete.

The band starts out at the bottom of the rung, hopping box cars looking for gigs.  Escaped convict Del Davis (Lloyd Nolan)  holds them up for their last $5 then takes a liking to the group and their music.  He gets them a gig at a roadhouse run by his “friend” Sam where his ex-girlfriend Kay (Betty Field) and her accompanist rummy cripple Brad (Wallace Ford) perform.   The band is a big hit.

The tale soon turns much darker.  Turns out Sam and Kay set up Del as the fall guy from a job they pulled and Del is out for revenge.  Kay still has a yen for Del and uses the married Leo to make him jealous.  When Jigger puts a stop to this she turns her attention to him.  Jigger falls for this no-good dame and soon she breaks up the band and almost destroys Jigger’s musical career, mind, and life.

So clearly this movie is all over the place.  The tone varies from light and comedic to pitch black.  The band is the squarest jive-talking “unit” on record.  Some of the resolutions come out of nowhere Still, the noir parts are beautifully shot and pack a punch.  There is a madness montage (directed by newcomer Don Siegel) that is years ahead of its time.  I have never really seen anything like it.  Recommended for those interested in the roots of film noir.

Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer were nominated for an Academy Award for their song “Blues in the Night”.  What a year for great Original Song nominees 1941 was!

Trailer

Ladies in Retirement
Directed by Charles Vidor
Written by Garrett Fort and Reginald Denham based on a play by Denham and Edward Percy
1941/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD

[box] Ellen Creed: Hell is like the kingdom of Heaven. It’s within.[/box]

This is a nice creepy story with some excellent female character performances.

Ellen Creed (Ida Lupino) works as a housekeeper/companion for retired actress Leonora Fisk.  Ellen has been responsible all her life for her two dotty sisters, Emily (Elsa Lanchester) and Louisa.  Emily, in particular, is out of control.  She collects trash to “tidy up the moors” and deposits it all over the house.  She also does not like anyone to tell her what to do.  Louisa is more gentle and sweet in her madness.

Emily gets a letter from London saying that if she does not remove her sisters from the home where they are staying the landlady will call the police.  She asks Leonora to let them visit for a few days but tells her sisters they will stay there always.  Leonora rapidly gets fed up and Emily, supposedly the “sane” one, takes drastic action to protect them.

Then distant relative Albert Feather (Louis Hayward) comes to get bailed out of an embezzling offense.  After seducing the housemaid (Evelyn Keyes), he rapidly figures out a way to wrap Ellen around his little finger.

This thriller had me on the edge of my seat by the end.  Louis Hayward is so deliciously vile that the viewer doesn’t know just what he will resort to.  Ida Lupino is quite understated in comparison.  Elsa Lanchester is, as always, a standout.  Recommended for those in the mood for a rather dark period piece, with a little comedy from the mad sisters.

Ladies in Retirement was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White and for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture.

For clips on TCM go here:  http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/480270/Ladies-In-Retirement-Movie-Clip-My-Treasures.html

The Shanghai Gesture
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Written by Josef von Sternberg, Jules Furthman, and Geza Herczeg based on a play by John Colton
1941/USA
Arnold Pressburger Films
First viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

[box] Poppy: The other places are like kindergardens compared with this. It smells so incredibly evil! I didn’t think such a place existed except in my own imagination. It has a ghastly familiarity like a half-remembered dream. *Anything* could happen here… any moment…[/box]

I thought I had seen Josef von Sternberg’s weirdest film when I saw The Scarlet Empress. And then came The Shanghai Gesture.

The plot is convoluted and I think is missing big chunks due to censorship problems.  The setting is Shanghai.  The opening title makes clear that this is not meant to be contemporary Shanghai or even a real place.

“Mother” Gin Sling (Ona Munson) runs a gamling house and den of (unspecified) iniquity in the foreign section of the City.  City officials have ordered her to shut down to please mogul Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston) who wants to do something or other with the land.  Gin Sling’s ears perk up at the name and she begins to scheme how she will defy the order.

Meanwhile, beautiful and elegant young “Poppy Smith” (Gene Tierney) drops into Gin Sling’s with a friend. She tries her hand at gambling and wins, announcing that she will never return.  But, for Poppy, Gin Sling’s is like the Hotel California.  She is unable to free herself from its grip due to her lust for pretty boy wastrel Dr. Omar (Victor Mature), her gambling addiction, and some unstated alcohol or substance abuse problem.  The poised Poppy rapidly racks up a huge debt to “Mother” and degenerates into a slovenly harridan.

We gradually learn that “Mother” has something quite specific against Sir Guy and that “Poppy” has become the key part of a revenge plot.  The entire affair climaxes at
“Mother’s” New Years Eve dinner, to which all her many enemies have been invited.  With a cast of thousands including Maria Ouspenskaya, Albert Basserman, Eric Blore, and Mike Mazurki (as a sinister rickshaw driver!) and Marcel Dalio as a croupier.

The whole thing plays out like a fever dream, including one memorable moment when half-dressed white girls are displayed in hanging baskets and offered for sale to Chinese sailors (just fooling says “Mother”).  The entire picture seems crowded with thousands of extras in every corner of the city streets and the casino, so much so that von Sternberg specifically honors them with a title card.  The art direction and costumes are lavish and bizarre.

The cast of pros in general is pretty good but poor Gene Tierney could have done with several more years of acting lessons.  She looks gorgeous but does not make a convincing degenerate or handle her many, many crying scenes in a believable way.

In short, this is one glorious mess and should be approached with a sense of humor and high camp detectors at the ready.

Clip

Major Barbara
Directed by Gabriel Pascal
Written by George Bernard Shaw
1941/UK
Gabriel Pascal Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good.”  — Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw[/box]

Rex Harrison and Wendy Hiller were born to play Shaw.

Agnostic socialist Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison), a Greek scholar, is a flop at public speaking.  He goes to see how Salvation Army Major Barbara Undershaft (Wendy Hiller) draws in the crowds and promptly falls in love with her.  She takes him home to meet her family, which lives in a palatial mansion thanks to her estranged father’s (Robert Morley) money.  Papa is a munitions manufacturer

Major Barbara is shown slowly converting hard case Bill Walker (Robert Newton). Although the Army is very hard up for cash, she refuses to take even a pound from him until he is saved.  Then Papa shows up at the mission and begins corrupting it with a much bigger offer.  With Deborah Kerr in her very first credited movie role as a Salvation Army worker.

I can’t exactly love this very talky and intellectual film.  Director Pascal worked hard at opening up the stage play but didn’t fully succeed.  Nonetheless, the cast is fabulous and the argument about jobs versus religious cant is interesting.

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