Category Archives: 1942

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Posted on August 19, 2014 | 5 comments

The Palm Beach Story 
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
1942/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#159 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Wienie King: I’m the Wienie King! Invented the Texas Wienie! Lay off ’em, you’ll live longer.[/box]

This may not be the best Preston Sturges but it is my favorite.  Of course that means I love it more than words can say.

Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) has invented a way to build airports downtown (that obviously will never work).  He spends all his time trying to get the $99,000 needed to build a model. Consequently, he and his wife Gerry (Claudet Colbert) are about to be evicted from their apartment.  In the first of a series of happy coincidences, the Wienie King, a prospective tenant, is taken with Gerry and gives her the money to pay the rent and more.  The chronically jealous Tom is not happy about this.

Gerry decides the best thing for both of them is to divorce.  This is easier said than done since they are clearly still gaga about each other after five years of marriage.  But Gerry musters up the will power to take off for the railway station with no money or ticket.  She believes, from experience, that with her looks she doesn’t need them.  Of course, the appearance of a bunch of crazy hunters in the Ale and Quail Club gets her on the train. Her goal is Palm Beach, Florida where she hopes to meet a rich bachelor.

She doesn’t have to go that far.  He appears on the train in the form of J.D. Hackensaker III (Rudy Vallee) who immediately starts buying her ruby bracelets and takes her the rest of the way to Palm Beach on his yacht.  Tom is on Gerry’s trail, courtesy of the Wienie King, and Gerry introduces him as her brother, Tom McGlue.  J.D.’s sister the wacky and man-hungry Princess Centimillia wants to make Tom the next of her serial marriages.  Will love conquer all?  With William Demerest as President of the Ale and Quail Club, Sig Arno as the Princess’s refugee protogee Toto, and the rest of Sturges’s stock company in small parts.

The fact that this is McCrea’s second sexiest performance (the first being in The More the Merrier) guarantees that I would love this movie but there is so much more!  It also contains my very favorite performance by Astor – she and Vallee are really wonderful.  And then there are all those great small parts,  Practically the whole screenplay is quotable.  The part when the Quail and Ale Club starts trap shooting inside the train is a little too much but otherwise this is practically perfect.  Highly recommended.

Clips from the movie set to “Isn’t It Romantic?” (I prefer this to the trailer)

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1942

Now, Voyager (1942)

Posted on August 18, 2014 | 3 comments

Now, Voyager
Directed by Irving Rapper
Written by Casey Robinson from the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty
1942/USA
Warner Bros
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#160 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die

[box] Dr. Jasquith: I thought you said you came here to have a nervous breakdown.

Charlotte: About that, I’ve decided not to have one.[/box]

If Bette Davis had only ended up with Claude Rains, I might have been able to get behind this picture.  Then again, maybe not …

Charlotte Vale (Davis) was a “late” and unwanted child.  She is totally dominated by her demanding mother (Gladys Cooper) who is driving the sensitive old maid straight into a nervous breakdown.  Charlotte’s kind sister-in-law brings in Dr. Jasquith (Rains) to the rescue.  In an uncharacteristic act of kindness, mother allows Charlotte to go with him to a sanitarium.

Jasquith is a miracle worker and the sister-in-law sends Charlotte off to stretch her wings on a South American cruise.  She gradually blossoms and falls in love with the unhappily married Jerry (Paul Heinreid).  Jerry cannot leave his invalid wife or his unhappy, unwanted younger daughter and they agree to part forever.  Jerry continues to torment Charlotte with camillia corsages however.

Jerry’s love (from afar) gives Charlotte the courage to stand up to her mother and to develop a social life of her own.  His unexpected reappearance causes her to break her engagement to a scion of Boston society greatly angering her mother.  But the glory of an impossible love will see dear Charlotte through.

I am immune to the charms of Paul Heinreid.  Added to that are strong elements of dubious Freudian psychology and womanly self-sacrifice that drive me crazy.  While I realize that it was demanded by the Hayes Code, the ending is the nail in the coffin for me. All the acting is rather good (my favorite by far is Rains) and the production values are top-notch. Steiner’s repetitively saccharine love theme does nothing for me.  Sorry to be a downer about this much-loved melodrama.

Now, Voyager won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Max Steiner).  Bette Davis and Gladys Cooper were nominated for their performances in the film.

Trailer – cinematography by Sol Polito

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1942

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Posted on August 18, 2014 | 4 comments

To Be or Not to Be
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Edwin Justus Mayer from an original story by Melchior Lengyel
1942/USA
Romaine Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Streaming on Hulu Plus
#161 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die

[box] Maria Tura: It’s becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. Whenever I start to tell a story, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I’m not so sure I’d be the mother.

Josef Tura: I’m satisfied to be the father.[/box]

This satire of the Nazi occupation of Poland has become much funnier with age.

Josef  (Jack Benny) and Maria (Carole Lombard) Tura star as Hamlet and Ophelia in a Warsaw production of Macbeth.  Their company is also preparing a play about Nazism.  A young Polish pilot (Robert Stack) has fallen hard for Maria.  They start having trysts in her dressing room nightly as Josef starts Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, causing the pilot to walk out on him each time he hears the words “to be or not to be”.  The final performance of the play is on the night the Nazis invade Poland.  The pilot escapes to England where he begins flying for the RAF.

Segue to 1941 and “Professor Siletski” visits Polish fliers and confesses that he is going to Warsaw on a secret mission for the British.  He collects the names and addresses of all of their friends and family at home.  When the pilot gives him Maria’s name, the professor has never heard of her.  He correctly guesses that Siletski is a Nazi spy.  He flies to Warsaw to try to stop Siletski before he gives the names to the Gestapo.

Siletski gets there first.  The rest of the movie is devoted to the hilarious efforts of the actors to fool the Nazis and save the day while posing in the costumes from their aborted play.  With Felix Bressart and Lionel Atwill as members of the troupe and Sig Ruman as a Gestapo colonel.

This film has definitely got the Lubitsch touch and a high percentage of great comic zingers.  There is some pathos, too.  Unfortunately, in the aftermath of Lombard’s tragic death (this was her last film) and American entry into the war in Europe, audiences didn’t find it too funny at the time.  Lombard and the supporting cast are always wonderful.  Jack Benny showed a surprising range as a comic actor.

To Be or Not to Be was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Werner R. Heymann).

Three Reasons to watch – Criterion Collection

 

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1942, Movie Reviews

Prelude to War (1942)

Posted on August 17, 2014 | 3 comments

Prelude to War
Directed by Frank Captra and Anatole Litvak (uncredited)
Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Robert Heller, etc. (all uncredited)
1942/USA
U.S. War Department with the cooperation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

[box] We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand, of overwhelming power on the other.

No compromise is possible and the victory of the democracies can only be complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan. — G.C. Marshall, Chief of Staff (title card)[/box]

 

Prelude to War is the first in the seven-part “Why We Fight” series, made under the direct supervision of General George Marshall to explain to U.S. servicemen what they were fighting for and against.  It is highly effective propaganda and goes down quite easily.

Utilizing footage from the enemy’s own propaganda films, director Frank Capra illustrates the outrages committed by Italy and Japan, saving most of Germany’s military action for the following film The Nazis Strike.  There is, however, plenty of coverage of Nazi thuggery and indoctrination of the German people.  The whole is narrated with fervor by Walter Huston.

 

I’ve been looking forward to the war years so I could revisit this film series.  The first one is gripping stuff and expertly made.  It begins with several giant explosions as the potential reasons to fight are listed – Pearl Harbor, Britain, China, France, etc., etc.  The ultimate reason for the American soldier to fight, however, is to  preserve freedom by foiling Axis plans to rule the world.  The consequences of defeat are illustrated graphically with footage of mass rallies, forced labor, youth training, harangues, etc.  This and the other films in the series are in the public domain and easily available online. Recommended.

Prelude to War won an Academy Award for Best Documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8toHv2_xxg

Clip – indoctrination of children in the Axis countries

 

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Posted in 1942, Movie Reviews