Monthly Archives: February 2015

Life with Father
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Donald Ogden Stewart from the play Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse based on a memoir by Clarence Day
1947/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Miss Wiggins: Sir, before I can let any girl go from this establishment, I must know the character of the home in which she will be employed.

Father: Madam, *I* am the character of my home.[/box]

Dated sexual politics aside, this is an endearing domestic comedy with one of William Powell’s best performances.

Clarence Day Sr. (Powell) is a wealthy stockbroker.  The man is all bluster, insisting on running every aspect of his household on a business basis and terrorizing the staff.  His wife Vinnie (Irene Dunne) spends much of her time trying to smooth things for him.  But she definitely has figured out how to get her own way.  One of her methods to avoid arguments over her expenditures is through a kind of arithmetic that defies logic and leaves her husband helpless.  Others stratagems nclude tears and a kind of charming passive aggression.

The Days have four sons.  One day, Vinnie’s cousin (Zasu Pitts) comes to visit with a teenage protege Mary (Elizabeth Taylor).  Clarence Jr. (Jimmy Lydon) is knocked for a loop by the young beauty.  She likes him too but they soon discover that they go to different churches.  Mary is Methodist and the Days are Episcopalians.  Well, Vinnie and the children are faithful but Clarence is a very reluctant churchgoer who refuses to kneel.  It soon develops that Clarence Sr. has never been baptized.  Vinnie is horrified.  Much of the story is devoted to her plots to get the situation rectified.

Other episodes include Clarence Jr.’s inability to court Mary in his father’s old suit and the boys’ money making scheme to sell a rather dodgy patent medicine door-to-door.  With Edmund Gwenn as the local Episcopal priest.

My description does not make the movie sound as frothy and funny as it is.  The Life with Father plot is the prototype for several TV sitcoms of the 50’s and 60’s but the original far surpasses any of its successors in its execution.  Powell was never better than in this role, which is as far as could be imagined from the suave Nick Charles.  He and Dunne have fantastic chemistry.

The film is in the public domain and I have only ever seen in it in a faded print with iffy sound quality.  This deserves a restoration on a proper DVD.

Life with Father was nominated for Academy Awards in following categories:  Best Actor; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

The October Man
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Written by Eric Ambler based on a novel by Ambler
1947/UK
Two Cities Films
First viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

[box] People get really irritated by mental illness. — Maria Bamford [/box]

I’m glad I made the acquaintance of this unsung British film noir.

Jim Ackland (John Mills) is riding on a bus one rainy night entertaining the child (Juliet Mills) sitting next to him.  There is a horrific accident.  The girl is killed and Jim is left with a fractured skull and brain damage.  Jim spends a year in the hospital, recovering.  He has been unstable, even suicidal, and still blames himself for the death of his friends’ daughter. When he is released, the doctor warns him against making any major decisions or changes since there is still the chance of a relapse.

Jim goes back to work as a chemist.  His employer puts him up in a truly awful boarding house.  At first Jim keeps strictly to himself, which does not endear him to his fellow lodgers.  Molly (Kay Walsh), an outgoing young woman who is having an affair with a married man, is trying mightily to avoid the advances of creepy Mr. Peachy in the flat below.  She asks Jim into her room for a drink after he helps her mend a fuse.  Molly is a fan of astrology and dubs him the “October Man” on account of his birthday.

After several months of relative isolation, Jim finally accepts the invitation of a work colleague to go to a company dance and meet his sister Jenny (Joan Greenwood).  The attraction is immediate and they become an item.  Finally, Jim is out in the world with Jenny every night.

Then one night Molly comes into Jim’s room begging him for a loan of 30 pounds.  He writes her a check.  The next thing we know, she is lying strangled in the street with Jim’s check beside her.  Jim has no alibi for the time of the murder, having taken a walk after a date with Jenny. He was observed on the couple of occasions he and Molly were behind closed doors.  The other lodgers put that together with Jim’s mental and medical history and are soon blabbing all their speculations to the police.  Jim becomes the prime suspect.  Before long, he is wondering whether he could have actually committed the crime.  The rest of the film follows his efforts to find the killer and, more difficult, convince anybody to believe a thing he says.

This is well acted and beautifully shot.  The suspense comes less from the mystery than from concern for Jim’s fragile mental state.  I was engrossed throughout.  Recommended and currently available on YouTube or for free to Amazon Prime members.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVyOb-4zGA

Clip – first ten minutes

Dark Passage
Directed by Delmer Daves
Written by Delmer Daves from a novel by David Goodis
1947/USA
Warner Brothers
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box]Vincent Parry: You know, it’s wonderful when guys like you lose out. Makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world.[/box]

My reaction to this one was colored by my dislike of the “I am a camera” gimmick.  Once Humphrey Bogart shows his face things pick up.

Vincent Parry (Bogart) escapes San Quentin, where he has been incarcerated since being wrongfully convicted for murdering his wife.  He has to deck a guy who offers him a lift after the man asks too many questions.  Then Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) picks him up, having learned of his escape.  She followed his trial closely because the case reminded her of the wrongful conviction of her father.

A kindly taxi driver alerts Parry to a cut-rate plastic surgeon who gives people new faces on an outpatient basis (!!?).  The new face is to make Parry look significantly older than he is. Irene cares for him during his week-long recuperation.

Parry soon has to worry not only about finding his wife’s murderer but tracking down the killer of his closest friend while simultaneously fighting off the blackmailing driver he decked during his escape.  With Agnes Moorhead as a friend of the family.

The movie is shot from the Bogart character’s point of view for about the first third.  Then his face is covered in bandages for another good stretch.  Some might find the POV camerawork intriguing.  I find it extremely jarring and unconvincing.  I also had serious problems buying into most of the plot points.  But Bogart and Bacall’s chemistry is totally convincing and the movie might be worth seeing just to look at his face when he gazes at her.  My husband liked this movie much more than I did.

Trailer

Good News
Directed by Charles Walters
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from a play by Buddy G. DeSylva et al
1947/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] The moon belongs to everyone/ The best things in life are free/ The stars belong to everyone/ They gleam there for you and for me – “The Best Things in Life Are Free”, lyrics by Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva [/box]

This college musical has the highest IMDb user rating of any movie released in 1947. The reason why will forever be a mystery to me.

Tommy Marlow (Peter Lawford?!) is captain of Tait College’s football team and Big Man on Campus.  Not knowing that he is also heir to a pickle fortune, new girl in town Pat McClellan, a self-styled diva, spurns him for a wealthy drip.  Not used to being rejected, Tommy is naturally fixated on Pat.  Meanwhile plucky sorority sister Connie Lane (June Allyson), who is working her way through school,  is secretly in love with Tommy.  Tommy wants to improve his French to impress Pat so Connie tutors him.  Tommy slowly begins to see the light and asks Connie to the prom.

But the mischievous Babe alerts Pat to Tommy’s wealth and Tommy foolishly throws off Connie for Pat.  You can bet Tommy and Connie will be dancing together in the closing number.  With Mel Torme as one of the gang.

As far as I am concerned, the most interesting thing about this movie is Peter Lawford’s impeccable French accent.  He certainly doesn’t convince as a football player!  Otherwise, this just strikes me as completely sophomoric.  I don’t even like the songs that much. There are a few OK dance numbers.  I’ve seen this before and my reaction was exactly the same.  But there is no accounting for tastes….

Good News received an Oscar Nomination for Best Music, Original Song for “Pass That Peace Pipe” by Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, and Roger Edens.

Trailer – If this appeals, you might love this movie

Born to Kill
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Eva Greene and Richard Macaulay based on the novel by James Gunn
1947/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marty Waterman: You can’t just go around killing people when the notion strikes you. It’s just not feasible.[/box]

Born to Kill is a real noir lovers noir. Everyone in it is either bad to the bone or a complete chump. A ton of fun.

The movie begins on the day Helen’s (Claire Trevor) Reno divorce comes through.  She has been living in a Reno boarding house run by boozy ex-glamor girl Mrs. Kraft (the fantastic Esther Howard).  The other tenant is Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell).  The three ladies sit around and bitch about men.  That night Laury plans to step out on her new boyfriend, Sam, with her ex-boyfriend in order to make Sam jealous.  It turns out that Sam is Lawrence Tierney and this is a bad, bad move.

Helen is the one that discovers the bodies.  She thinks better of calling the police and immediately takes off for San Francisco by train.  Sam is leaving on the same train and it is lust at first sight.  In San Francisco, they talk about getting together later.

Helen is coming home  to the mansion in which she lives with her wealthy foster sister Georgia (Audrey Long).  She reunites with wealthy but square fiance Fred.  Before long, Sam comes calling and hears the wedding plans.  He sets about wooing Georgia in revenge.  The gullible heiress is swept off her feet.

In the meantime, Mrs. Kraft hires sleazy private detective Arnett (Walter Slezak) to track down Laury’s killer.  This is a bible-quoting cynic who runs his office from the borrowed phone of a diner and will do anything to make a buck.  He gets his lead by observing Sam’s best, possibly only, friend Marty (Elisha Cook, Jr.) hanging around key locations to make sure there is nothing to tie Sam to the crime.  Arnett sets off for San Francisco and starts asking questions while working as a dishwasher during Georgia’s wedding.

The wedding vows are still warming the lips of the happy couple when Sam walks in on Helen drowning her sorrows in champagne and after some snappy sparring they are kissing.  I will not spoil the trail of delicious double crosses, vengeance, and dirty fighting that make up the rest of the film

When one of the most sympathetic characters in the film is somebody that goes after an old lady with a knife, you know you are watching film noir.  I don’t know which is better, the dialogue or the acting.  Most of these folks are giving career best performances.  A real treat and recommended.

I watched both this and Kiss of Death with my husband.  He liked Kiss of Death better, saying it was more human.  He’s right, but I’d probably go with this one.  I don’t know what that says about me!

The DVD has a commentary by Eddie Muller and Robert Wise. Noir guru Muller ended up kind of baby sitting Tierney at screenings when the latter was in his 80’s. He had many priceless anecdotes.  My favorite was when he was at a screening where Wise was doing a Q&A and answering a bunch of auteur type questions about why he decided to this and that. Tierney kept muttering “It was all in the script.” Finally, he stands up and says “Who wrote the f%*#! script Bob?”  The actor was a piece of work and not too far from the tough guys he played, even at an advanced age.

Clip