Category Archives: Movie Reviews

The Great McGinty
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
1940/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Skeeters: If it wasn’t for graft, you’d get a very low type of people in politics. Men without ambition. Jellyfish.

Catherine: Especially since you can’t rob the people anyway.

.Skeeters: Sure. How was that?

Catherine: What you rob, you spend, and what you spend goes back to the people. So, where’s the robbery? I read that in one of my father’s books.

Skeeters: That book should be in every home.[/box]

In his first effort as a writer-director, Preston Sturges shows all the elements of comedic brilliance that have endeared him to his fans to this day.

From exile in a banana republic, Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) tells the story of his rise from a bum to governor of a great state and subsequent fall due to “one crazy minute” of honesty.

Ward-heeler Skeeters (William Demerest) finds McGinty in a soup line and offers him $2 to vote for a mayoral candidate.  McGinty is so good at this kind of thing that he does it 37 times.  This brings him to the attention of the local Boss (Akim Tamiroff), who admires McGinty’s pugnacious spirit and makes him a collector for his protection racket.  He rapidly rises to alderman and proves good enough at dispensing graft that the Boss decides to make him the “reform” candidate for mayor.  Unfortunately for himself, the Boss thinks McGinty needs to marry to attract women voters and Dan’s adoring secretary (Muriel Angelus) is quickly chosen as the token bride.

But six months into the marriage, McGinty unexpectedly falls in love with his wife and her children and when he is elected governor, she inspires him to do “one crazy thing” against his better judgement.  With the Sturges stock company at their eccentric best.

What genius does it take to be able mix biting satire with some of the most over-the-top slapstick like Sturges can?  At his best, he has me grinning for minutes at a time when I am not laughing out loud.  This was a great start to a short but inspired directing career.

This has got it all.  It might just be Tamiroff’s best performance.  His many slug-fests with Donlevy are a highlight of the movie.  But the actors in the smallest parts, even those without dialogue, consistently make me smile.  It is a shame Angelus retired so early.  She is excellent here.

Sturges won the Academy Award for his Original Screenplay.

Clip – Tamiroff tries to get Donlevy to take the plunge

The Mark of Zorro
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Written by John Taintor Foote et al from a story by Johnston McCulley
1940/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Special Edition DVD

[box] Inez Quintero: Oh, Diego, when may we expect you and our dear little Lolita in Madrid?

Don Diego Vega: Not for some time I’m afraid. We’re going to follow the customs of California.

Inez Quintero: What do you mean?

Don Diego Vega: Well, we’re going to marry and raise fat children and watch our vineyards grow.[/box]

I thought this was everything a Zorro film should be.  It was a joy to see Basil Rathbone take up his sword again.

Don Diego Vega (Tyrone Power)is known in old Madrid as the “California Cockerel”, a master at fencing, womanizing, and carousing.  He is abruptly called home by his father, the alcalde (mayor) of Los Angeles (Montague Love).  When he arrives, he finds his kindly father has been deposed by the cruel and greedy Don Luis Quintero and power-behind-the-throne Capt. Esteban Pasquale (Rathbone), who have been abusing the peons with high taxes and brutal punishment for non-compliance.

Don Diego immediately determines to set things right.  His father is a strong believer in law and order, so Diego adopts the disguise of masked avenger Zorro.  His aim is to scare the cowardly Quintero to resigning and returning to Spain.  At the same time, in everyday life, he adopts the persona of an effeminate fop, much to the disgust of his father and former teacher Friar Felipe (Eugene Pallette).

Diego takes a two-pronged approach.  As Zorro, he becomes a Robin Hood, robbing the tax collections and returning them to the people and threatening to kill Quintero if he does not resign.  As the fop, he worms his way into the affections of Quintero’s wife Inez (Gale Sondergaard) promising to present her at court (and more) if she will return to Spain. Finally, Esteban comes up with the idea of marrying Diego and the Quintero’s daughter Lolita (the very young Linda Darnell) to forge an alliance between the government and the caballeros.  This Diego enthusiastically embraces as he has become enamored with the gorgeous Lolita in real life.

Naturally, Zorro must triumph.  Fortunately, this does not occur before a really splendid sword fight between Power and Rathbone.

I thought this was enormous fun.  My husband joined me half way through and loved it too. I had not known Power was so agile.  He does very well as a dancer and as a swordsman. Of course, it was hard to take my eyes off of Rathbone during the sword fight.

Alfred Newman was nominated for an Oscar for his rousing Original Score.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoNvIavMsc4

Trailer (in color)

Pride and Prejudice
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
Written by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin based on the novel by Jane Austin
1940/USA
Loew’s
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Mr. Darcy: You must allow me to tell you how much I admire and love you.[/box]

I have several quibbles with the adaptation with of one of my all-time favorite novels but, setting that aside, I found this a polished and enjoyable production.

Mr. (Edmund Gwenn) and Mrs. Bennett (Mary Boland) have five marriageable daughter sand no dowries in sight.  Mrs. Bennett is an annoying flibberty-gibbet whose match-making efforts are actually counter-productive.  The two eldest girls, Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan) and Elizabeth (Greer Garson) are appealing beauties but the three youngest take after their mother as “the silliest girls in England”.

Things start looking up when a wealthy bachelor, Mr. Bingley, rents a neighboring estate with an even wealthier friend, Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier), in tow.  Bingley and Jane hit it off immediately but Elizabeth takes an instantaneous dislike to the proud and reserved Darcy.  You are guaranteed a wedding or two at the end of all of Austen’s novels.  How she gets there is the delight.  With Ann Rutherford as the wayward Lydia, Melville Cooper as Mr. Collins, and Edna May Oliver as Darcy’s battleax aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

I find the novel endlessly re-readable and have watched most of the adaptations and it seems I have all of the plot and most of the dialogue memorized by now.  Some of the liberties taken with the story threw me for a loop.  The unctuous Mr. Collins has been transformed from a clergyman to a librarian, I suppose in deference to the Hayes Code. But the worst is the final transformation of Lady Catherine into a gruff but secret ally of Elizabeth!  The writers also manage to invent beaus for all the girls by the end, including the bookish and socially clueless Mary.

That said, Garson is one of the most charming of all Elizabeths and Olivier shines as the sophisticated Darcy only a year after he convinced us as the untamed Heathcliff.  The supporting cast is quite wonderful.  On balance, Austin lovers should check it out.

Cedric Gibbons won an Oscar for his Black-and-White Art Direction.

Clip – Lady Catherine confronts Elizabeth Bennet

The Westerner
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Jo Swerling and Nevin Busch from the story by Stuart N. Lake
1940/USA
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Judge Roy W. Bean: Mr. Harden, it’s my duty to inform you that the larceny of an equine is a capital offense punishable by death, but you can rest assured that in this court a horse thief always gets a fair trial before he’s hung.[/box]

I enjoyed this rather off-beat Western, chiefly due to its Oscar-winning performance by Walter Brennan.  Wyler’s direction and Gregg Toland’s lighting didn’t hurt either.

Roy Bean (Brennan) is a saloon keeper and self-appointed hanging judge with a worship of British beauty Lily Langtry, to whom his bar is a shrine.  His other allegiance is to the cattlemen of his part of Texas who are in a brutal range war with homesteaders in the area.  One day, stranger Cole Harden (Gary Cooper) is hauled in for riding a stolen horse. Though Cole claims he bought the nag, the “jury” is soon deliberating over a few drinks. Cole’s fortune changes when he begins admiring all the photos of Langtry and telling tales of how he met her and has a lock of her hair.  Bean immediately decides to delay execution so Harden can send away for the tresses.  Immediately thereafter, the man who sold Harden the horse is caught.

Bean and Harden form a bond over their mutual admiration of the actress but their ways part when Harden falls for a homesteader’s daughter and is sickened by the persecution of the farmers.  The rest of the story is devoted to Harden’s efforts to get real justice for these people.  With Fred Stone as a homesteader and Dana Andrews in a tiny role for one of his very first screen appearances

Brennan has as much, or more, screen time as Cooper.  This is classic Brennan, complete with all his tics, but is a joy to watch.  Somehow he manages to keep the character both endearing and despicable at the same time.  It’s a good looking film, too, with a wonderful score by Dmitri Tiomkin.  Recommended.

Walter Brennan won his third and final Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work on The Westerner.  The film was also nominated in the categories of Best Original Story and Best Black-and-White Art Direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sfFFNF2-iM

Clip

Christmas in July
Written and Directed by Preston Sturges
1940/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Jimmy MacDonald: If you can’t sleep, it isn’t the coffee. It’s the bunk.[/box]

Preston Sturges is a great favorite of mine but somehow this early effort leaves me less than wildly enthusiastic.

Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) and Betty Casey (Ellen Drew) are in love.  Jimmy doesn’t want to marry unless he can do so in style.  He has his hopes pinned on winning $25,000 in a coffee slogan contest.  In the meantime, the jury at the coffee company is deadlocked in choosing the winner due to a recalcitrant member (William Demerest). Jimmy’s office mates play a practical joke by sending him a telegram to say he won.  When he takes it in to the company president, he writes Jimmy a check and the hijinx begin.  With Franklin Pangborn and a host of character actors from Sturges’s stock company.

This just does not hit the heights of inspired lunacy I expect from Sturges.  That’s not to say that it isn’t a perfectly fine picture and very funny in places.  Something may be a little off about the pacing.  I like Dick Powell very much but I also think that he lacked the necessary edge to carry off the lead role here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPzSfSzRfW0

Clip

The Sea Hawk
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Howard Koch and Seton I. Miller
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing?/Netflix rental

[box] King Philip II: [anticipating the success of the Armada] With England conquered, nothing can stand in our way. Northern Africa… Europe as far east as the Urals… then the New World: to the north, to the south, west to the Pacific… over the Pacific to China and to the Indies will our empire spread. One day, before my death, we shall sit here and gaze at this map upon the wall. It will have ceased to be a map of the world. It will be Spain.[/box]

I thought this highly rated Errol Flynn adventure was only OK.  Then again, I was distracted.

In 15th Century England, dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) seizes Spanish ships and treasure for the crown.  He captures a galleon bearing the Spanish Ambassador (Claude Rains) and his daughter Maria (Brenda Marshall), sinks it, frees the English galley slaves (?!), and takes all passengers aboard.  The Ambassador complains loudly to Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) and she promises it won’t happen again while secretly welcoming her share of the treasure.  Her loyal counselor urges her to arm against a coming Armada but traitor Lord Wolfingham (Henry Daniell) argues against it and the Queen herself believes the country cannot afford this.

Thorpe comes up with a daring plan to seize Spanish gold at the source in Panama (?). The rest of the story follows his travails in the jungle, his escape from a Spanish galleon, and his romance with Maria.  With Alan Hale as Thorpe’s sidekick, Donald Crisp as a courtier, and Una O’Connor as Maria’s lady’s maid.

To be fair, I did not perhaps give this the attention it deserved amid my packing.  On the other hand, I had rated this movie before now and remember absolutely nothing about it.  Anyway, the performances are all fine although Brenda Marshall is no Olivia DeHavilland and Henry Daniell, snide as he is, is no Basil Rathbone particularly in the fencing department.  There is a definite patriotic flavor to the piece with Philip of Spain standing in for Hitler and Elizabeth for Winston Churchill.

The Sea Hawk was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Sound Recording, Best Special Effects and Best Score (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_XIJm0_Wgc

Trailer

The Thief of Bagdad
Directed by Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, and Tim Whelan
Screenplay by Miles Malleson, Scenario by Lajos Biró, Story by Miklos Rosca
1940/UK
London Film Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Genie: You’re a clever little man little master of the universe, but mortals are weak and frail. If their stomach speaks, they forget their brain. If their brain speaks, they forget their heart. And if their heart speaks [laughter]  … they forget everything.[/box]

Why this hugely influential Technicolor special effects extravaganza does not qualify as a “Movie You Must See Before You Die” is beyond my comprehension.

Ahmad (John Justin) is the young King of Bagdad.  His evil Grand Vizier Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) tricks him into going out among his people then having him arrested as a mad man.  Thrown into jail at the same time is a mischievous boy thief Abu (Sabu).  They escape together and head off for Basra.  There Ahmad is captivated by a Princess (June Duprez), daughter of the Sultan (Miles Malleson).  Unfortunately, Jaffar is also desperately in love with her and trades the toy-obsessed Sultan a mechanical flying horse for her hand.  He also blinds Ahmad and changes Abu into a dog until the day he can hold the Princess in his arms.

The rest of the story shows the adventures of the two friends on the way to reuniting Ahmad with the Princess and his throne.  These include Abu’s encounter with a Genii and his theft of an All-Seeing eye.  All the while, the two must stay one step ahead of the ruthless Jaffar.

This is a visual and aural feast and it is hard to imagine that anyone would not find some aspect of the production to love.  The colors are absolutely mind-blowing, particularly in the Blu-Ray edition that I watched. In addition, this is one of Conrad Veidt’s great performances.  Although many of the special effects appear clunky to our 21st Century eyes, this film influenced directors from Martin Scorsese to Stephen Spielberg.  In fact, the Blu-Ray Criterion Collection DVD has a commentary by Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola in which they recount their reactions as children and, in general, gush about the movie.  Heartily recommended.

The Thief of Bagdad won Academy Awards for its Color Cinematography, Color Art Direction. and Special Effects.  It was nominated for Miklos Rosca’s beautiful Original Score.

Trailer