Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Foreign Correspondent
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison, et al
1939/USA
Walter Wanger Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Johnny Jones: All that noise you hear isn’t static – it’s death, coming to London. Yes, they’re coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don’t tune me out, hang on a while – this is a big story, and you’re part of it. It’s too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come… as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they’re the only lights left in the world![/box]

Hitchcock’s other 1940 Academy Award nominee couldn’t be more different than Rebecca or more Hitchcockian.

A newspaper editor is fed up with the analyses he is getting from his foreign correspondents in Europe on the likelihood of war.  So he decides to send a crime reporter (Joel McCrea) to get some facts.  Johnny Jones doesn’t even know there is a crisis in Europe and seemingly doesn’t care so he seems ideal for the job.  Johnny is rechristened Huntley Haverstock for his mission.

He is told to look up Mr. Van Meer (Albert Basserman), an elder statesman, on arrival.  Van Meer is slated to speak at a conference organized by the Universal Peace Party run by Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall).  When he gets to the conference, Van Meer has cancelled but he has the chance to meet and fall for Fisher’s daughter Carol (Laraine Day).  Johnny then sets off for Amsterdam to try to buttonhole Van Meer at another meeting only to witness his apparent assassination.

Johnny takes off, with Carol, on the trail of the assassin and catches up with the gang and the kidnapped real Van Meer hiding out in a windmill.  The remainder of the story follows Johnny’s attempts to escape the gang and rescue Van Meer, with the assistance of Carol and fellow reporter Scott ffolliott (George Sanders).  It also follows Johnny’s arc from cynic to patriot.  With Edmund Gwynn as a murderous “private detective”, Joseph Calleia as a thug, and Robert Benchley as the paper’s actual foreign correspondent.

I am a huge Joel McCrea fan and this is one of my favorite Hitchcock films.  It is the kind of episodic adventure and thriller that presages something like North by Northwest.  As such, it is made up of unforgettable set pieces like the assassination amid the crowd of umbrellas, the strangely behaving windmills, and a spectacular plane crash at sea.  The film was made at the same time that Hitler was marching through Europe and the message was updated constantly, through the time McCrea’s impassioned speech to America was tacked on at the end.  The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray that I rented contained a couple of interesting talks about World War II Hollywood propaganda and how the special effects were achieved.  Recommended.

Foreign Correspondent was nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories: Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor (Basserman); Best Writing (Original Screenplay); Best Black-and-White Cinematography; Best Black-and-White Art Direction; and Best Special Effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tFu0T19NYI

Trailer

Balalaika
Directed by Reinhold Schünzel
Written by Charles Bennet, Jacques Deval et al
1939/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Warner Archive Collection DVD

[box] Prince Peter Karagin, aka Peter Teranda: [singing] Blood and fire, not for me. / Blood and mire, not for me / Lovely ladies, six or seven / Luscious lips, I’m in heaven.[/box]

Well, I guess I needed to see this to find out that Ilona Massey is no Jeanette MacDonald. This musical is OK but not more.

Lydia Pavlova Marakova (Massey) is a radical and singer at a club for officers.  Prince Peter Karagin (Nelson Eddy), a Cossack officer and son of a hated general, spots her there.  It is love at first sight.  He finds out that she has a weakness for students and poses as one.  She falls for him and he gets her a singing gig with the Petrograd opera.  Then one night, Lydia is out at some kind of protest that gets charged by Cossacks and her brother is killed.  Peter, the leader of the Cossacks, is outed.  He apologizes and swears he will quit the army.  In the meantime, the radicals have plotted to assassinate Peter and his father at Lydia’s opera debut.  The father is killed, but not before he announces that Germany has declared war on Russia.  Broken-hearted, Peter heads off to WWI.

Segue to post-Revolution Paris where all the aristocrats we saw are now working at a night club called The Balalaika and Peter is employed as a singer.  How will Peter and Lydia be re-united?  Not terribly convincingly that’s for sure.  With Charlie Ruggles as Peter’s orderly turned nightclub owner, Frank Morgan as an opera impresario, and Lionel Atwill and C. Aubrey Smith as aristocrats.

I guess MGM was grooming the Hungarian Ilona Massey for stardom but the remainder of her screen career looks to have been spent largely in Universal horror films.  So I may not be alone in my failure to appreciate her singing voice or acting.  Nelson Eddy remains Nelson Eddie.  The story is all over the place and my beloved Charlie Ruggles overdid it in his part here.

Balalaika was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound Recording.

That does it for my 1939 viewing.  I’ve seen all the Oscar-nominated films I can get my hands on and, while there are maybe 30 more films I could catch on-line, it seems to be a matter of diminishing returns.  On to 1940!!!

Trailer

Swanee River 
Directed by Sidney Lanfield
Written by John Taintor Foote and Philip Dunne
1939/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/20th Century Fox Cinema Archives DVD

[box] Way down upon the Swanee River,/ Far, far away/ That’s where my heart is turning ever/ That’s where the old folks stay — Lyric by Stephen Foster[/box]

I didn’t have high expectations  but I ended up enjoying this rather sentimental biopic.

This is a highly fictionalized account of the composer Stephen Foster’s sad life — Foster only visited the South once, on his honeymoon, and his wife Jane was from Pittsburgh, PA as Foster himself was.  Anyway, the story opens in antebellum Kentucky, where Foster (Don Ameche) is courting sweetheart Jane.  Foster is a dreamer who gets completely caught up in his music when inspiration hits him and repeatedly stands Jane up during the course of the movie.  Jane’s father objects to her marriage to a composer who is unlikely to be able to support her.

Foster finally sells a song, “Oh, Susanna!”, to windbag self-promoter Edwin P. Christy (Al Jolson) of minstrel fame for $15. The song goes on to make Christy a mint and, disillusioned, Foster goes to work behind a desk.  But later the hard-drinking Christy seeks Foster out and proposes a partnership with him.  Foster, who enjoys a nip himself, uses this success to marry Jane.  But, especially after their first child is born, Jane cannot live with his growing alcoholism.

There is something about Don Ameche that I find very appealing and I enjoyed watching him in this.  I don’t know if it was really Ameche singing “My Old Kentucky Home”.  If so, he has a very pleasant baritone.  I’m not a Jolson fan but in this case the material suited his over-sized personality.  This is nothing great but you could certainly do worse.

Louis Silvers was nominated for a Best Scoring award for Swanee River. This was Al Jolson’s last credited screen performance.

Jolson performing “Oh, Susanna” and “Swanee River” in blackface

Juarez
Directed by William Dieterle
Written by John Huston, Aeneas MacKenzie, and Wolfgang Reinhardt
1939/USA
Warner Bros
First Viewing/Warner Archive Collection DVD

[box] Emperor Maximilian von Hapsburg: [as he is being led to his execution by firing squad] “Distribute this money among your men and tell them to aim for my heart.”[/box]

Ponderous is the adjective that first comes to mind when describing this movie.

This is a fictionalized account of the events that gave us Mexico’s National Day, Cinco de Mayo.  Benito Juarez (Paul Muni), a 100% Zopotec Indian and former shepherd, is President of Mexico and leads resistence to French occupation of the country.  Meanwhile, it looks certain that the Union will win the American Civil War and Emperor Napoleon III (Claude Rains) fears that the U.S. will soon be in a position to enforce the Monroe Doctrine to throw the French forces out.  Since the doctrine only applies to foreign incursion in the Western Hemisphere, Napoleon decides to rig a plebicite and have the Mexican people call for their own monarch.  He dupes the Archduke Maximilian von Habsburg (Brian Aherne) of Austria into assuming the crown, with the encouragement of his beloved wife Carlota (Bette Davis).

Maximilian tries to be a benevolent ruler and decries the plans of the Mexican elite to reclaim lands previously distributed to the peons by Juarez.  He appeals to Juarez for cooperation but Juarez resolutely resists and eventually Maximilian adopts brutal means to quell the rebellion against him.  Meanwhile, Carlota, who has been unable to bear a longed-for child, slowly descends into madness.  With Donald Crisp as Marechal Bazine, Gilbert Roland as Porfirio Diaz, Gale Sondergaard as the Empress Eugenie and many other great character actors of the period including Joseph Calleia, Louis Calhern and Harry Davenport.

In terms of screen time, this could better have been called “Maximilian” and Brian Aherne’s performance is the highlight of the film.  Paul Muni’s direction seems to have been to look expressionless yet noble, and while he complied beautifully this does not make for an engrossing experience.  Bette Davis’s mad scene did not convince this viewer.  I apparently differ from the average IMDb user (7.3/10) so your mileage may vary.

Brian Aherne was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his work on this picture and Tony Gaudio was nominated for his black and white cinematography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f2eJa8XOc4

Trailer

First Love
Directed by Henry Koster
Written by Bruce Manning and Lionel Hauser
1939/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack DVD

[box] Amapola, lindisima amapola, Será siempre mi alma tuya sola. Yo te quiero, amada niña mia, Iqual que ama la flor la luz del día. (“Amapola” lyrics by Garcia Josè Maria Lacalle)[/box]

I really enjoyed this modern take on the Cinderella fairy tale.

Orphan Connie (Deanna Durbin) graduates from boarding school, where she was supported by a wealthy uncle (Eugene Pallette).  She goes to live with the family and is met with indifference from most of the family and outright hostility from gossip column darling cousin Barbara.  The servants love the plucky, talented lass though. When Barbara conspires to keep Connie from attending a ball, the servants arrange a dress and transport for her.  They ask only that Connie leave by midnight because they have arranged to have the family waylaid until then. How will Cinderella be reunited with her handsome prince?  With a very young Robert Stack as the “prince” and Kathleen Howard as a crusty boarding school matron with a heart of gold (AKA “fairy godmother”).

Eugene Pallette reprises his role in My Man Godfrey as a pater familias driven mad by his family and his performance alone would have made the movie for me.  The script is witty and Durbin is in fine voice.  Someday I will understand why dieing babies do nothing for me but something like this turns on the tears at the happy ending. I can’t ask for more in a Sunday afternoon viewing than this.

Clip – Durbin sings “Amapola” – superb!

Made for Each Other
Directed by John Cromwell
Written by Jo Swerling suggested by a story by Rose Franken
1939/USA
Selznick International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Jane: Are you a man or a mouse?

John Horace ‘Johnny’ Mason: A mouse![/box]

This starts out well and the two stars are superb as always but unfortunately it descends into preposterous melodrama half way through.

Fledgling attorney John Mason (James Stewart) meets Jane (Carole Lombard) on a business trip and marries her before he returns to the office.  This does not sit well with his boss Judge Doolittle (Charles Coburn), whose daughter he has been dating, or his mother (Lucile Watson).  Mother comes to live with the young couple and family strife, career reversals, and a new baby mean married life is not a bed of roses.  Then the baby gets pneumonia and only a serum which must be flown cross country during a terrible storm can save him.

This movie was rescued for me by its outstanding cast, all of whom did well with the sometimes treacly material.  That said, I see no reason to revisit this.

Clip – credits and opening

Way Down South
Directed by Leslie Goodwins and Bernard Vorhaus
Written by Clarence Muse and Langston Hughes
1939/USA
Sol Lesser Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Tagline: HELP YOURSELF TO HAPPINESS! HERE’S A WHOLE SHOW-FULL! [/box]

This is primarily notable for its screenplay by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes and filmmaker/composer Clarence Muse (“When It’s Sleepytime Down South”).  It also introduced me to boy soprano child star Bobby Breen.

The story is set in the antebellum South.  Timothy Reid, Sr. is a benevolent slaveholder who treats his slaves humanely and has never sold one.  Timothy Jr. (Breen) feels that they are his friends.  Reid’s accountant, the corrupt Martin Dill, harangues Reid for not running his plantation as a business.  Then Reid dies and Dill is named executor.  He promptly decides to sell off most of the “excess” slaves.  Young Timothy escapes with his confidant Uncle Caton (Muse) to New Orleans where they take shelter at a hotel/restaurant run by Jacques Bouton (Alan Mowbray) and Timothy desperately tries to protect Uncle Caton and forestall the sale.

The story is just OK and Breen is none too convincing as an actor but the singing by him and by the Hall Johnson Choir (Green Pastures, Cabin in the Sky) is glorious.  I was kind of surprised that these screenwriters chose to depict contented slaves but I suppose the times may have demanded that tack.

Victor Young was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring for this film.

Songs from the film set so still photographs

Allegheny Uprising

Directed by William A. Seiter
Written by P.J. Wilson based on a factual story “The First Rebel” by Neil H. Swanson
1939/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] James ‘Jim’ Smith: Put that gun down!

Janie MacDougall: I won’t! I’m not going to be a widow before I’m even a wife.[/box]

I had hopes for this based on the cast but it only reached to “watchable” in my book.

The setting is the frontier in Pennsylvania a decade before the Revolutionary War.  The story begins with Capt. Swanson (George Sanders) arranging an exchange of British prisoners with the French.    Among the British prisoners is Jim Smith (John Wayne) and his buddy who have been held by Indians for the last three years.  After their release, they meet up with MacDougall (the deeply irritating Wilfred Lawson) who has been fighting with the British in Canada and repair to his tavern.  There Smith is reunited with tomboy sweetheart Janie (Claire Trevor), who is determined to let nothing else come between her and her man.

Smith becomes the leader of a militia of colonists called the “Black Boys” who specialize in defending their settlements from Indians.  They discover that a group of evil capitalists led by Callender (Brian Donlevy) is illegally selling trade goods, including alcohol and rifles, to the Indians.  When the Boys intercept a shipment, Callender et al decide to hide future shipments in convoys of military supplies travelling under military escort.  This leads to a head on collision between Capt. Swanson and Smith.

As should be well known by now, my least favorite character type in film is the “comic” drunk.  I have now discovered that even worse is the comic drunk Scotsman.  There is entirely too much of Wilfred Lawson in this film.  I was also let down by the usually reliable Claire Trevor who comes off as shrill and strident here.  All the other performances are fine.

Trailer