Flickers in Time

My Friend Flicka
Directed by Harold D. Schuster
Written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Lillie Hayward from a novel by Mary O’Hara
1943/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “In riding a horse, we borrow freedom” ― Helen Thompson[/box]

This is an excellent family film about a boy’s love for his horse.

Ken McCauley (Roddy McDowall) is the kind of well-meaning but dreamy kid who never seems to do anything right.  His rancher father (Preston Foster) is disgusted and wants to punish him.  But Ken’s mother convinces him that it would be better to give him the colt he has been begging for non-stop.

To his father’s dismay, the colt of Ken’s dreams is the filly of the mating of a prized stallion and a “loco” unbreakable mare.  Ken calls the horse Flicka and begins to learn responsibility by nursing her wounds after she runs into barbed wire in a panic.  The boy and his animal develop a deep bond.

It’s a simple story but put together quite well.  I really believed in the family dynamic and, of course, McDowall is superb.  The ending kind of sneaks up on you.  I had expected there to be more in the way of horse-breaking and riding but no.  Maybe that would have been superfluous as this is really the story of the boy’s own growth.

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The Constant Nymph
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Written by Kathryn Scola from a novel and play by Margaret Kennedy and Basil Dean
1943/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video

[box] “Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it’s more like love’s shady second cousin who’s always borrowing money and can’t hold down a job.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage[/box]

Despite Joan Fontaine’s excellent performance, the overwrought melodrama lost me by the end.

The premier of the last opus of composer Lewis Dodd (Charles Boyer) was a big flop.  It seems critics just don’t appreciate his dissonance.  He is only really happy in the home of oft-married fellow composer Albert Sanger.  Albert informs Lewis that he will not be great until he has been able to cry.  Albert’s fourteen-year-old daughter Tessa (Joan Fontaine) inspires Albert to write a piece with melody and even provides the words.  The ethereal girl is also madly in love with the composer.

When Tessa’s father dies, Albert calls on her immensely wealthy Uncle Charles (Charles Coburn) to come and rescue Tessa and the other children from London.  During the uncle’s visit, Albert falls in love with Charles’s daughter Florence (Alexis Smith). After they marry, Florence can’t wait to pack the children off to boarding school.

Some time passes and Albert and Florence are constantly bickering.  He refuses to live up to her high-society expectations.  The free-spirited girls run away from boarding school and show up at the house.  Charles is delighted to see them but Florence is intensely jealous of Tessa, with whom Charles clearly has a special bond.  Finally, Charles realizes that this bond is romantic love for his muse.  Will he and Tessa find happiness?  Not while the Hayes Code is in effect.  With Peter Lorre and Dame May Whitty as friends of the family.

I’m just not crazy about the whole premise that if we have an adult playing a young teenager it is some how OK to explore these March-September romances.  Joan Fontaine gives the part just the right other-worldly quality to make this work, however.  Her Tessa’s fundamental innocence keeps the ick factor down to a minimum.  The biggest problem I have with the film is Alexis Smith’s overacting.  She ramps up the jealousy and drama up past the point of endurance.  Her self-realization is unbelievable as well.  I saw the ending coming.

Joan Fontaine was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Constant Nymph.

Trailer

Princess O’Rourke
Directed by Norman Krasna
Written by Norman Krasna
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Eddie O’Rourke: [the princess is asleep in his arms] Boy, are you lucky I was raised right. Or was I? Yeah, I guess I was.[/box]

Princess O’Rourke is an entertaining light romantic comedy.

Princess Maria (Oliva De Havilland) is a member of the royal family of an unnamed European country, now in exile due to Nazi occupation.  The monarch is in London but Maria has taken up quarters in New York.  The fondest desire of her uncle Holman (Charles Coburn) is to marry her off so she can produce lots of male heirs.  But Maria is holding out for love or at least attraction.

Holman sends her off on a trip to San Francisco under the pseudonym “Mary Williams”in hopes that the rest will do her good.  She is afraid of flying and is told to take a sleeping pill to make the hours pass by.  She gets into bed in her private berth (!) on the commercial flight but still can’t sleep.  Various attendants pass out sleeping pills like candy (!), each not knowing the total. The plane is unable to take off because of weather but Maria is too zonked out to move without help.  So pilot Eddie O’Rourke (Robert Cummings) takes pity on her and puts her up at his place. When she comes to, she tells him she is a political refugee.  His heart goes out to her and before we know it he falls in love.  The fact that he is about to be inducted into the Air Force as a combat pilot hurries things along.  Maria loves him too but knows an alliance could never be.

When Holman finds out that Eddie comes from a family of nine sons, he is not exactly opposed to the match.  But could Eddie ever resign himself to the job of Prince Consort? With Jack Carson, fine as usual as Eddie’s co-pilot and buddy and Jane Wyman as his wife.

This has some obvious parallels to Roman Holiday (1953) and I must say that De Havilland gives Audrey Hepburn a run for her money in charm and allure.  She is very funny here. There’s a lot of silliness as well but, within the fairy tale world Krasna has created, it seems delicious rather than ridiculous.  If you like this kind of thing, go for it.

Princess O’Rourke won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Clip – Olivia De Havilland and Charles Coburn

The Human Comedy
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Howard Eastabrook from the story by William Saroyan
1943/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video

Mr. Macauley: I am Matthew Macauley. I have been dead for two years. So much of me is still living that I know now the end is only the beginning. As I look down on my homeland of Ithaca, California, with its cactus, vineyards and orchards, I see that so much of me is still living there – in the places I’ve been, in the fields and streets and church and most of all in my home, where my hopes, my dreams, my ambitions still live in the daily life of my loved ones.

MGM’s faith-based, patriotic take on small-town America during World War II was not for me.

The people of Icatha, California are the kind that burst out into hymns at random intervals just to cheer themselves up.  The story is narrated from the grave by the deceased father (Ray Collins) who watches over one such family.  Homer McCauley (Mickey Rooney) is the man of the house since his father died and elder brother Marcus (Van Johnson) went off to the army.  He supports his mother (Faye Bainter), sister (Donna Reed) and little brother Ulysses by delivering telegrams.  Mrs. McCauley is handy with poetic wisdom and calls to faith at all times.  She plays the harp.

Homer idolizes his boss at the office (James Craig) and befriends the kindly old drunkard telegraph operator (Frank Morgan).  Homer witnesses much heartache and happiness delivering telegrams.

Marcus befriends fellow-soldier Tobey, an orphan.  He makes Icatha and his family sound so appealing that Tobey decides to adopt them as his own.  The story continues on, mixing triumph and tragedy.  With Robert Mitchum in a very early uncredited role as a soldier.

There is nothing really wrong with this Oscar-nominated picture.  It just has not aged at all well.  MGM decided to do Our Town one better and this was the result.  It is a motherhood and apple pie kind of movie and probably resonated with war-time audiences, although I suspect that it was old-fashioned even at the time.  Rooney does quite well. We have seen this performance before, but he plays it with some subtlety and does not succumb to the mugging which characterizes his work in comedies.

I get that this is a fable and idealized version of a small-town (witness all the references to The Odyssey) but it was all much too much for me.

William Saroyan won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story.  The Human Comedy was also nominated in the following categories:  Best Picture; Best Actor (Rooney); Best Director; and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Harry Stradling, Jr.)

Collection of scenes featuring the uncredited Robert Mitchum as a GI.

Stage Door Canteen
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by Delmer Daves
1943/USA
Sol Lesser Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. — Marcus Aurelius [/box]

This is a review of the kind of acts that played, or might have played, at the Stage Door Canteen operated by the leading lights of the Broadway theater in New York during World War II.  It is an enjoyable way to see many well-known theatrical stars that are rarely glimpsed in movies of the period, as well as some big Hollywood stars with theatrical roots.

Yes, there is a bit of a plot.  A group of soldiers who are a short leave in New York before shipping out to the front find out there is free food at the Stage Door Canteen.  The girls there ask them to dance.  A youngster gets his first kiss and one of the other men falls in love with a girl who thought she was volunteering so she could meet a producer and get work.  It’s actually not too badly handled.

However, what we are really here for is the fantastic cast, some doing cameos and some doing specialty numbers.  Among those I had never seen elsewhere on film were Katherine Cornell, Lynn Fontaine, Gracie Fields, and Gypsy Rose Lee (doing a clean version of her burlesque act).  We also get some boffo numbers by Benny Goodman, Ethel Waters with the Count Basie Band, Ray Bolger, Ethel Merman, Yehudi Mehunin and more.  Katharine Hepburn, Merle Oberon, and Paul Muni have speaking parts and Harpo Marx does his thing.  There are many more I don’t have space for.

I liked this a whole lot for what it was.  It will all depend on how much you enjoy the acts.  It’s hard to believe anybody with an open mind wouldn’t find at least something to love here.  I hadn’t heard the Oscar-nominated song before and it and its melody had me misting up as it appeared and reappeared various times.

James V. Monaco and Al Dubin were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for “We Mustn’t Say Goodbye.  Freddie Rich was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Clip – Peggy Lee singing “Why Don’t You Do Right” with Benny Goodman and His Orchestra. – the picture quality isn’t much, but the audio, Wow!