Monthly Archives: January 2015

Back to Bataan
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Written by Ben Barzman and Richard H. Landau; Original Story by Aeneas MacKenzie and William Gordon
1945/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Maximo Cuenca: [a poor student dying in his teacher’s arms after heroic action] Miss Barnes, I’m sorry I never learned how to spell “liberty”. [dies]

Bertha Barnes: [tearfully] No one ever learned it so well.[/box]

For propaganda-combat, this takes the cake.

Col. Joseph Madden (John Wayne) is an old-time Philippine hand.  At the moment, he has his hands full staving off hordes of Japanese invaders on Bataan.  One of his officers, Captain Andrés Bonifácio (Anthony Quinn), is the grandson of a great Filipino freedom fighter.  Bonifácio is in turmoil because his girlfriend Dalisay Delgado has become something like the Tokyo Rose of the Philippines, broadcasting daily to get the Filipinos to give up.  Col. Madden is called back to Corregidor to get new orders.

General MacArthur has just received orders to leave for Australia and it looks like Bataan will fall any day.  Madden is told to organize the Filipino guerrilla resistance.  He returns to the island in time for the fall of the village that is the cradle of Filipino independence.  There we see Japanese atrocities against the principal of the local school, etc.  The schoolteacher (Beulah Bondi) joins the rebels in the mountains.  She wants Madden to go back to the village and avenge the life of the principal on the Japanese.  Madden has orders to blow up a Japanese gas dump and refuses.  The ragtag band of untrained guerillas is surprisingly effective in its mission and also manages to rescue Captain Bonifácio from the Bataan Death March.

I could go on but it is unnecessary.  Suffice it to say that MacArthur makes good on his promise to return.

Take a look at the quote up top and you will get a good idea of what is wrong with this movie.  In fact, the whole reason for Beulah Bondi’s character seems to be to spout off platitudes such as this.  The entire movie is first a tribute to Filipino resistance and only secondarily a story, much of which does not make much sense.  We keep getting big potential payoffs, such as the real identity of Quinn’s girlfriend, that are then more or less thrown away.  Speaking of Quinn, he looks just ludicrous as a Filipino.  Especially so when seen with dozens of actual Filipinos in this film.

Trailer

The Seventh Veil
Directed by Compton Bennett
Written by Muriel and Sydney Box
1945/UK
Ortus Films/Sydney Box Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] The attraction of the virtuoso for the audience is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous will happen. — Claude Debussy[/box]

I hate when a man’s cruelty and abuse is portrayed as disguising untold love in movies. Despite this, and my general distaste for psychoanalytic stories, I found myself absorbed in this film.  James Mason and Ann Todd were the principal reasons.

The film is told in flashback after a young woman’s suicide attempt and subsequent catatonia.  We learn that she was a famous concert pianist before her hospitalization.  Psychiatrist Dr. Larsen (Herbert Lom) gets her talking through hypnosis.

Francesca (Todd) was fourteen and living at boarding school when she applied for a scholarship to a music conservatory.  Unfortunately, she had just been caned on the hands for disobedience and failed the audition.  Her parents die shortly thereafter and she is sent to live with her only living relative, second-cousin Nicholas (Mason).  Nicholas is a confirmed bachelor and is none to happy to have Francesca around.  Then Francesca plays the piano for him and he has a new passion – making her a virtuoso.  He sends her to music college.

At college, Francesca falls in love with a swing band leader and wants to marry him.  But Nicholas snatches her off to Paris where he completes her training, makes her a star, and controls every aspect of her existence.  Finally, after seven years, they return to London. There, he hires a painter to paint Francesca’s portrait.  When the painter and Francesca fall in love, Nicholas, no longer able to force Francesca to his will as her guardian, goes off the deep end.  As a result, so does Francesca.  It is up to Dr. Larsen to save the day.

My plot summary does not do justice to how really cruel Nicholas is to Francesca.  The resolution of this film just drove me nuts.  Ditto for how two sessions of hypnosis and listening to a couple of records are just the cure for suicidal depression and anxiety amounting almost to phobia.  Nonetheless, Mason is mesmerizing and Todd is very, very good (although I kept imagining Joan Fontaine in the part).  It kept my attention throughout.  Recommended if the story appeals at all.

The Seventh Veil won the Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Trailer

Vacation from Marriage (AKA “Perfect Strangers”)
Directed by Alexander Korda
Written by Clemence Dane and Anthony Pelissier
1945/UK
London Film Productions/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video

[box] Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind. — Leo Rosten[/box]

Just when I think that a year has no more treasures to offer along comes a hidden gem that makes it all worthwhile.

Robert Wilson (Robert Donat) is a mild-mannered clerk in The City of London who runs his life on a strict timetable.  Wife Cathy (Deborah Kerr) has a perpetual cold and fusses over him constantly.  Then, Robert is called up to the British Navy.  After a few initial rough spots, he finds he likes it.  The exercise and shaving off his mustache make him look years younger.  He even asks a nurse out dancing.

Robert has long forbidden Cathy to work.  With him gone, she decides to join the Womens Royal Naval Service (WRENS).  A kindly fellow WREN (Glynis Johns) takes her under her wing and gets her to start wearing make-up, also forbidden by Robert.  She starts falling for an officer.  One thing and another prevents Robert and Cathy from sharing a leave for three years.

When a meeting can finally be arranged, both are filled with trepidation.  Neither wants to go back to the life they had, yet expects the other to demand nothing less.  Their reunion reveals a lot – not only about who they are now but who they actually were to begin with.

I thought this was pretty great.  The dialogue sparkles, but in a most convincing way, and Donat and Kerr are magnificent.  I don’t know how they did it but Donat’s change in appearance was amazing.  This has one of the best ending lines ever, too.  The whole thing is set to a background of variations on “These Foolish Things”, which only makes it more romantic.  I imagine that the story resonated with a lot of couples at the end of the war.  Recommended.

Vacation from Marriage won the Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story.

Trailer

Anchors Aweigh
Directed by George Sidney
Written by Isobel Lennart suggested by a story by Natalie Marchin
1945/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Anchors Aweigh, my boys,/ Anchors Aweigh. Farewell to foreign shores,/ We sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay./ Through our last night ashore,/ Drink to the foam,/ Until we meet once more./ Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home.[/box]

Take out Gene Kelly’s dancing, and there’s not a whole lot left.  But what dancing!

Joe (Gene Kelly) and Clarence (Frank Sinatra) are awarded the Silver Star and four days leave in Los Angeles as the movie starts.  Seems that Joe rescued Clarence after a firefight in which both displayed conspicuous bravery.  Joe is the kind of sailor with a girl in every port and is anxious to hook up with his LA lady Lola.  Clarence, on the other hand, is shy around women and is looking for Joe to provide him with some leads and tips.  He figures that, since Joe saved his life Joe is responsible for him.

Joe can’t shake Clarence.  Then the two sailors get stuck seeing home a lost little boy (Dean Stockwell) who wants to join the navy.  The boy’s Aunt Susie turns out to be the girl of Clarence’s dreams.  She aspires to be a professional singer and Joe gets Clarence to promise her an audition for Jose Iturbe.  Complications ensue.

This is one of those musicals that feels more like a contrived way to showcase various talents than an integrated story.  Even if the plot did matter, though, it is fairly trite.  Kelly has three boffo numbers, Sinatra sings the Original Song nominee, Grayson trills through two, and Iturbi leads the orchestra in the title tune.    It all doesn’t add up to much in my opinion.

George Stoll won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  Anchors Away was nominated for Oscars in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Kelly); Best Cinematography, Color; and Best Music, Original Song (“I Fall in Love Too Easily” by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn).

Trailer

Objective, Burma!
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Ranald MacDougall and Lester Cole; original story by Alvah Bessie
1945/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Errol Flynn Adventures DVD

[box] Pvt. Nebraska Hooper: It’s sure peaceful so far.
Cpl. Gabby Gordon: That’s the way I like it… peaceful. I already said when I starved to death, I want it to be peaceful.[/box]

Raoul Walsh puts together some unusual and effective combat set pieces.  Otherwise, it’s routine Warner wartime material, including the ever-present George Tobias as the token Brooklynite.

Captain Nelson (Errol Flynn) is selected to head a force of paratroopers on an important mission into Japanese-held Burma to knock out a radar station.  Journalist Mark Williams (Henry Hull) insists on tagging along even though he is well along in middle age and inexperienced in such matters.  The affable Nelson agrees.

Things go swimmingly at first.  The men parachute in undetected and wipe out 30 Japanese and the radar station with no loss of life to themselves.  This looks like it will be a cakewalk.  The plane sent to retrieve them is getting ready to land when they detect a Japanese patrol looking for them.  The plane drops some supplies and returns to base.

The men struggle to reach the next rendezvous point.  But by then the brass has decided that it is too dangerous to for a plane to land anywhere and orders the men to walk out through about 150 miles of jungle.  Finally, the orders are changed again and the men have to change direction away from the base and simply wait.  Then the radio is lost, supplies are exhausted, and Nelson and his men must get through on pure guts.

The sequences with the dozens parachutes are beautiful and there is an ambush at night that is really striking.  Otherwise, I’ve seen a few too many combat movies now and this one was nothing special.  I always like Flynn but he seemed a little tired here.  On the other hand, my husband stayed awake throughout the entire thing, a rare tribute, and enjoyed it.

Objective, Burma! was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of:  Best Writing, Original Story; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Franz Waxman).

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