Category Archives: Movie Reviews

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Münchhausen)
Directed by Josef von Báky
Written by Erich Kästner
1943/Germany
Universum Film (UFA)
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. — Jerome K. Jerome [/box]

Despite its provenance, this Agfacolor fantasy extravaganza is truly entertaining.

The story is framed by scenes set in the contemporary present in which Hans Albers, who also plays Munchhausen, relates the 18th Century adventures of the celebrated liar and adventurer to some dinner guests.

Baron Munchhausen is a hearty, adventurous type with quite a taste for the ladies and a ready wit.  His incredible adventures take him from the battlefields of Prussia, to the court of Catherine the Great where he conquers the Empress’s heart, via cannonball to a sultan’s palace in Turkey, thence to Venice and finally to the moon in a hot air balloon. Along the way, he is granted his wish to remain forever young until he decides he wants to die and a magic ring that allows him one hour of invisibility.  With a cast of thousands, including some very beautiful women.

Josef Goebbels actually believed that once the war was over and Germany ruled the world Berlin would be come the new Hollywood.  He decided to give UFA an unlimited budget to film the beloved Munchhausen story in celebration of its 25th Anniversary in December 1942.  This included granting permission to use a banned, but gifted writer.  The movie was also intended to showcase the German Agfacolor process.

The large budget certainly all ended up on the screen.  This film looks simply beautiful and has loads of impressive special effects for the time.  It is also supremely light and humorous, a piece of enjoyable fluff with very nice performances.

The film came in behind schedule and way over budget, largely due to technical glitches with the Agfa process.  UFA was concerned that the film would not recoup its investment but it needn’t have worried.  By Spring 1943 when the movie was finally released, the tide of the war had turned and the 6th Army had surrendered at Stalingrad.  German audiences attended in droves for some much needed escapism.  My information has been gleaned from an introduction by the head of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, which did the restoration that appears on the Kino DVD.

Clip

The Hard Way
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Ice Cream Parlor Waitress: [Love] Never hits you, does it?

Paul Collins: [Sarcastically] Every other Thursday, Baby.[/box]

This cliche-ridden picture about a woman who claws her sister’s way to the top features a steely performance by Ida Lupino and a touching dramatic turn by Jack Carson.

Helen Chernan (Ida Lupino) has raised her little sister Katherine Blaine (Joan Leslie) in the home she shares with her blue-collar husband in their grimy home town since the girls lost their parents.  Katherine is now about to graduate from high school and pining for a white dress.  But Mr. Chernan refuses to buy one for her despite the vehement protestations of Helen.

One night on a date, Katie goes to a vaudeville house where she is entranced by the act of comedy song-and-dance men Albert Runkel (Jack Carson) and Paul Collins (Dennis Morgan).  Afterwards, she does a little routine of her own for her friends at an ice cream parlor.  Albert spots her, tells her she is talented, and falls for her.  When she reports this back to Helen, Helen sees her opportunity to get out of hicksville.  With a little prodding, Katherine and Albert are married in no time and setting off on the road with the act.

Helen becomes a total “stage mother” type that will stop at nothing to make Katie a star.  She plays the men off against each other to get Katie a bigger part in the act.  After that, she manages to get Katie a solo spot of her own on Broadway and to separate her from Albert, breaking Albert’s heart in the process.  Paul sees through all this and compares Helen to Lady Macbeth.  But Helen is secretly in love with him any way.

The rest of the story takes the audience through the heartbreak of Katherine’s glowing success and a love triangle.

My biggest problem with this movie was that I thought both the vaudeville act and Joan Leslie’s singing and dancing were just terrible. This could have been intended I suppose but all indications are that we are meant to think that Katherine is very talented.  Dennis Morgan reveals his singing talent out of nowhere at the very end.  Otherwise, there are some strong performances in a rather cliched plot.  Jack Carson was the standout for me in an uncharacteristically dramatic and poignant role.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYx3p_u0LEs

Clip – Katie’s big day on Broadway

The Song of Bernadette
Directed by Henry King
Written by George Seaton based on the novel by Franz Werfel
1943/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Bernadette: The spring is not for me.[/box]

Jennifer Jones won the Academy Award but the tons of great character actors steal the show in this first-rate production.

This is a somewhat fictionalized account of the life of Bernadette Subirous, a poor and uneducated teenager whose visions of a “beautiful lady” near the village of Lourdes shook all of France.  Bernadette’s father (the excellent Roman Bohnen) is a complainer who barely supports his family on odd jobs and the money her mother (Ann Revere) brings in doing laundry.  The mother, in particular, is a God-fearing woman.  The sickly Bernadette is frequently absent from school and she considers herself to be “stupid”, an opinion which Sister Marie Therese (Gladys Cooper), the nun who is teaching her catechism, shares.

One day, she and two other girls go out to collect firewood.  Bernadette is left behind waiting on one side of the river near the city dump due to her asthma.  That is when a beautiful lady dressed in white, with a blue girdle, and golden roses on her feet appears to her.  Reports of this only cause her parents to forbid her to go back to the site.  But Bernadette’s distress finally causes her relatives to join and before long there is a crowd of peasants praying at the site.  The town fathers – Imperial Prosecutor Vital Detour (Vincent Price), the Mayor, the Chief of Police (Charles Dingle) and the local doctor (Lee J. Cobb) – and Father Peyramale (Charles Bickford), the dean of the local parish, all believe Bernadette is a fraud.  Wary of bad publicity, each man wants somebody else to close the site.  When Bernadette visits Father Peyramale to tell him the lady has asked that a chapel be built at the site and pilgrimages organized, he says that if the lady is real she should be able to prove it by making wild roses bloom in February.

The lady does something else.  She tells Bernadette to go and eat plants near a spring. But there is no spring.  Bernadette starts stuffing leaves into her mouth and washing her hands in the dirt.  All present now think she is insane.  But just as the crowd reaches the top of the hill, water springs from the ground.  The first miraculous healing follows immediately.

The authorities try everything in their power to get Bernadette to recant her story including threatening her with jail and commitment to an insane asylum.  Bernadette’s story is unshakeable.  Finally, she gains a champion in Father Peyramale.  Then the authorities decide the village can cash in on the hordes of people visiting the site.  Although Bernadette would like nothing better to marry and have children, she ends up having to go into a convent.  Unluckily, Sister Marie Therese is the supervisor of the novices and she is convinced that Bernadette is nothing more than a publicity hog who cannot possibly have seen the Virgin Mary because she “has not suffered”.  Bernadette had suffered though and would suffer far more before her life was through.  With Linda Darnell (!!) as “the lady”. (We see her only briefly and flooded with light.)

Jennifer Jones plays Bernadette with a simplicity and wide-eyed innocence that suits her character.  The real stars are in the outstanding supporting cast who each do themselves proud.  The film has an almost neo-realist feeling and is beautifully staged.  The filmmakers rather tip their hand on the side of Bernadette’s story but the movie is open enough to the possibility that she could have been deluded that it should be enjoyable even by non-believers.  The one weakness is that the film is 2 1/2 hours long.  It could have been trimmed by 30 minutes with no harm to the story.

The Song of Bernadette won Academy Awards in the categories of: Best Actress; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Arthur C. Miller); Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.  It was nominated for the following awards: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Bickford); Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Cooper); Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Revere); Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Film Editing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCd3rV6j0ks

Re-release trailer

So Proudly We Hail
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by Allan Scott
1943/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Kansas: I never get killed.[/box]

Uneven but ultimately powerful movie about the loves, work, and sacrifices of nurses near the front lines in the last days of Bataan and Corregidor.

As the movie begins, we see a group of nurses being unloaded from a plane in Australia. Looking tired and broken, they are one of the last groups of people to be evacuated by the military from Corregidor.  Among their number, Lt. Janet ‘Davy’ Davidson (Claudette Colbert) is carried out on a stretcher.  The group heads home by ship.  The rest of the nurses are soon fixed up with some food and rest but Davy remains essentially catatonic. The navy doctor asks the nurses to tell their story so he can get some insight into how to treat her.  Segue into flashback with voice over narration largely from Lt. Joan O’Doul (Paulette Godard).

The nurses were scheduled to go to Pearl Harbor by ship but the Japanese attacked midway en route so they got shipped to Bataan instead.  Davy was the senior officer of her group.  Nurse Olivia D’Arcy (Veronica Lake) is a sullen problem child whom no one likes. Davy finally gets her to open up and tell her story.  It turns out she witnessed her fiancé’s death at Pearl Harbor and now is going to the Philippines specifically to “kill Japs”.  She becomes much more friendly after her secret is out.

The nurses get down to long shifts of work at Bataan.  At first this is done at a hospital, but later they work right in the jungle or in makeshift quarters.  They struggle with short rations and dwindling medical supplies.  Then they are bombed and the U.S. is pushed off Bataan onto Corregidor.  The only reason the nurses manage to escape is due to the heroic act of one of them.

On Corregidor, the nurses are slightly safer due to the massive tunnels that the military previously constructed on the island base but the supply problem and overcrowding of the wards continues.  Finally they learn that no relief is coming and that MacArthur has left for Australia.  Our nurses are in the first, and almost the last, group to get evacuated amid horrific shelling.

The romances of Davy with a medical technician (George Reeves) and Joan with an enlisted marine (Sonny Tufts) are important running sub-plots.

Those that don’t like rather corny patriotic speeches should know going in that there are several of them, mostly coming in a religious context from the Chaplin.  The romances are rather routine stuff, though heightened by the dangerous situation.  The scenes showing the camaraderie and tireless work of the nurses and the combat scenes are really gripping, however. It’s like a window into another world and a beautiful tribute to some courageous women who face terrifying conditions, unarmed and with tremendous responsibility for the lives of other, largely helpless, people.  The acting is excellent across the board. Veronica Lake gives, by far, the standout performance of her career in this film.  Recommended.

So Proudly We Hail was nominated for Oscars in the following categories:  Best Supporting Actress (Goddard); Best Writing, Original Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Charles Lang); and Best Effects, Special Effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XmzggLzLTA

Trailer

Sahara
Directed by Zoltan Korda
Written by John Howard Lawson, Zoltan Korda, and James O’Hanlon based on an incident in the Soviet Photoplay, “The Thirteen”
1943/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Giuseppe: But are my eyes blind that I must fall to my knees to worship a maniac who has made of my country a concentration camp, who has made of my people slaves? Must I kiss the hand that beats me, lick the boot that kicks me, no! I rather spend my whole life living in this dirty hole than escape to fight again for things I do not believe against people I do not hate. As for your Hitler, it’s because of a man like him that God – my God – created hell![/box]

Made almost contemporaneous with the events surrounding it, this solid if unbelievable combat movie features some good performances only slightly marred by some heavy-handed speechmaking.

Career Army Sgt. Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) and his men are one of the few American outfits training with the British army in desert combat early in the North Africa campaign  The three survivors and their tank have been left behind by the retreating British army and are short on water.  They meet up with the survivors of a British unit, likewise out of water.  Later they pick up a Sudanese British army soldier (Rex Ingram) who is escorting his Italian prisoner (J. Carol Naish) through the desert.  The tank manages to shoot down a German plane and when the pilot parachutes out they take him prisoner and the party is complete.

The group slowly warms to the Italian, who is a simple family man, but the German is an unrepentant Nazi who is looking for every opportunity to make trouble.  The water situation gets more dire until the Sudanese finally leads them to an old fort with a well.  Although there is only a trickle left, this is barely sufficient to keep the group going.  Then the well runs dry.

An advance team from a battalion of Germans comes scouting for water.  Instead of taking these guys prisoner and hitting the road,  Sgt. Gunn asks his men to stay put and try to bog down the Germans to play for time for the British.  Despite the 100 to 1 odds, Joe sends the German scouts back to tell their leader that there is plenty of water and the men are willing to trade it for food.  When the Germans get there, Joe tells them he will only trade water for their guns and a ferocious battle ensues.  With Dan Duryea as a GI, Bruce Bennett as the ranking Brit and Lloyd Bridges as a British soldier who bites the dust shortly after he pulls out his sweetheart’s photo.

Humphrey Bogart is really good in this as a crusty cavalry veteran who treats his tank like he used to treat his horse, calling it Lulubelle and babying it constantly.  J. Carol Naish gives the Italian a warm and human portrayal in a role that could have been just a vehicle for some anti-Nazi speeches.  The filmmakers made the Sudanese human and heroic as well.  I didn’t believe the story for a minute but must admit that it was fairly thrilling anyway.  I’m just getting started seeing combat films but I can believe that this is one of the better ones.

Sahara received Academy Award nominations in the categories of: Best Supporting Actor (Naish); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Rudolph Maté); and Best Sound, Recording.

Clip

The Spoilers
Directed by Ray Enright
Written by Lawrence Hazard and Tom Reed from a novel by Rex Beach
1942/USA
Universal Pictures/Frank Lloyd Productions/Charles K. Feldman Group
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Cherry Malotte: What you win, you can keep.[/box]

This solid, entertaining Western was the most successful of the five movies adopting the novel about the Alaska Gold Rush.

The story is set in 1900 Nome, Alaska.  Cherry Malotte (Marlene Dietrich) runs the local saloon.  We learn early on that outsiders have started to make false claims on the informally organized mines.

Cherry is awaiting the return of her lover, miner Roy Glenniston (John Wayne),  from Seattle and is mightily displeased to see him on the arm of Helen Chester (Margaret Lindsay).  She sets out to make him jealous by cozying up to “Gold Commissioner” Alex McNamara (Randolph Scott).

Helen has been traveling with her uncle, a judge who has come to adjudicate the claims.  Roy’s partner (Harry Carey) wants to fight but the judge persuades Roy to let the law take its course.  But the law is being administered by a bunch of crooks and Roy is at last forced to save the day, helped in the end by Cherry. With Richard Barthelmess in one of his last appearances.

It’s not so much the story but the way it is told that makes this so enjoyable.  Dietrich keeps the exposition humming along with plenty of double entendres and it builds nicely to a well-choreographed fight sequence.  It’s interesting to see Randolph Scott as a villain, paving the way for the morally ambiguous Western protagonists he played later in his career.

The Spoilers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction – Interior Decoration, Black and White.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWxNvdZA5SE

Trailer

Desperate Journey
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Arthur T. Horman
1942/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Errol Flynn Adventures DVD

[box] Flying Officer Johnny Hammond: [has just double-talked, sucker punched and knocked out Baumeister] The iron fist has a glass jaw![/box]

What with the banter among the air crew and some incredibly stupid Nazis, this journey was less desperate than entertaining.

An RAF bomber crew led by Flight Lt. Terry Forbes (Errol Flynn) is sent on a mission over Germany to finish off a sabotage job done by a Polish guerilla on some rail lines.  After completing its run, the plane is shot down and the crew is captured.  American bombarder Johnny Hammond (Ronald Reagan) easily overpowers SS Major Otto Baumeister (Raymond Massey) while he is being politely interrogated for top secret info on the bomber.  The other members of the crew are allowed to stroll into Baumeister’s office and steal German secrets over the bodies of three vanquished Nazis before departing through the window.

The rest of the movie is devoted to the crew’s escape overland from the desperate Baumeister. Fortunately for them, Terry speaks fluent German (with a horrible Australian accent that however is the equal of the American-accented German spoken by the Nazis. Happily for the audience, Baumeister is constantly shouting to his underlings – SPEAK ENGLISH!) and the crew is able to travel disguised in German army uniforms acquired from the many guards they subdue.  Will they make it to safety in England with the plans?  Not before destroying an incendiary bomb factory that’s for sure.  With Alan Hale as an overage veteran of WWI and Arthur Kennedy as a practical former accountant who just wants to quickly elude the Nazis so he can resume winning the war and get back to his bookkeeping.

This movie is a hoot and, if approached in the right spirit, totally enjoyable.

Desperate Journey was Oscar Nominated for Best Effects, Special Effects.

Clip – Raymond Massey tries to “do business” with Ronald Reagan – this is a must see!