Flickers in Time

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Posted on August 20, 2014 | 6 comments

Yankee Doodle Dandy
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph
1942/USA
Warner Bros
Repeat viewing/Warner Home Video DVD
#163 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] George M. Cohan: It seems it always happens. Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we’re a push-over all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn’t long before we’re looking up, mighty anxiously, to be sure the flag’s still waving over us.[/box]

James Cagney richly deserved his Oscar for this flag-waving musical biography.

This is the Cohan-approved story of Cohan’s life. Cohan (Cagney) tells the tale to President Roosevelt in flashback when he is called into receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his songs “Grand Old Flag” and “Over There”. The film traces the showman’s story from his beginnings as part of his family’s vaudeville act, through the tough times trying to sell his first show, his courtship of his (fictional) wife Mary (Joan Leslie), to his overwhelming success on Broadway and on to old age. With Walter Huston as Cohan’s father, Rosemary DeCamp as his mother, and Richard Whorf as his partner Sam Harris.

This is a sentimental favorite from my youth when I watched it over and over on my parent’s TV. The production numbers are still fantastic as is Cagney’s performance. The story may stray over into sentimentality and morale-boosting patriotism but the times called for that, I think.

Yankee Doodle Dandy won three Academy Awards: Best Actor; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. It was nominated for an additional five awards: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (Huston); Best Writing, Original Story; and Best Film Editing.

Clip – “Yankee Doodle Boy”

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

Random Harvest (1942)

Posted on August 20, 2014 | 2 comments

Random Harvest
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis based on the novel by James Hilton
1942/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Paula: Oh Smithy, You’re ruining my makeup.[/box]

Some tearjerkers make me cry. Others do not. This one does.

Charles Ranier (Ronald Colman) is a shell-shocked WWI veteran who has lost his memory and has difficulty speaking. His identity is unknown so he is called “John Smith”. He has been placed in an asylum where he is gradually improving.

Attracted by noise coming from the local town on Armistice Day, he walks out of the asylum. Music hall singer Paula (Greer Garson) sees the dazed man and takes pity on him. Her pity grows to love and she nurses him back to health. They eventually marry and have a son. Charles becomes well enough to sell some articles to the Liverpool newspaper. When the paper offers him a job, he goes off for an interview in the city leaving Paula and their newborn son behind.

Charles is hit by a car in Liverpool. This knock on the head restores his memory of his life up to his trauma in WWI but erases his memory of the preceding three years. It turns out Charles is the son of an immensely wealthy family. He goes home and is soon put in charge of the family business. He becomes known as “The Prince of English Industry” and starts a courtship with his brother’s young stepdaughter (Susan Peters). All the while, he is nagged by brief glimmers of his lost memory.

After some time, Paula locates Charles and gets a job as his executive assistant. She becomes indispensable to him. On medical advice, she does not reveal her identity as his wife. Many years pass as things seem more and more hopeless for poor Paula. Until they get better, that is …. With Henry Travers, Reginald Owen, and Una O’Connor in small parts.

The story is transparently manipulative but it works a treat on me, thanks largely to the fantastic performances by Colman and Garson. Colman, in particular, is brilliant. The one distraction is that he seems to me much too old for the role. It doesn’t matter much once one is into the story. If you like this type of romance, the film should not be missed.

Random Harvest was nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actor; Best Supporting Actress (Peters); Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Herbert Stothart).

Clip – Smithy proposes

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Posted in 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

Casablanca (1942)

Posted on August 17, 2014 | 7 comments

Casablanca
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch from a play by Murrey Burnett and Joan Allison
1942/USA
Warner Bros
Repeat viewing/Warner Home Video DVD
#165 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Rick: Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.[/box]

Unless you have reached this blog by mistake, you undoubtedly know this film and exactly why it is a timeless classic.

You also know the story, but here goes. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical, heart-broken American who cannot return to his native land for some unspecified reason. He has retreated to Casablanca, now ruled by the Vichy French in the form of Prefect Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains). Casablanca has become a way station for a grab bag of European refugees hoping for escape to pre-War America. Rick entertains these at his Cafe Amercain and maintains a strict neutrality.

The excitement begins when we learn that two German couriers have been murdered for valuable letters of transit signed by General DeGaulle. (It is never explained why the Vichy Government or the Nazis would feel compelled to honor such letters of transit..) Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a black marketeer, has come into possession of them and hopes to sell them for a phenomenal price to resistance leader Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid) and his companion Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). Just prior to his arrest, Ugarte hides the letters with Rick.

We immediately learn that Ilsa is the woman that broke Rick’s heart in Paris. He remains very bitter and is unwilling to stick his neck out for her or Lazlo. Will he come around? With Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser, the Gestapo Officer on Lazlo’s trail, and Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, the corrupt owner of a rival night club.

When viewed for the twentieth time, one begins to see some pretty glaring plot holes in this movie and to be troubled by the astonishing civility of the Nazis it portrays. (Why does Strasser care a hoot about letters of transit?) But those just don’t matter and I spent the last half of the film, once again, with mist in my eyes. Everyone is just so beautiful and the dialogue so perfect. This is really one of the glories of the studio system and must-see viewing. My DVD has a couple of excellent commentaries. I can highly recommend the one by Roger Ebert.

Casablanca won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was nominated in the categories of: Best Actor (Bogart); Best Supporting Actor (Rains); Best Cinematography; Black-and-White, Best Film Editing; and Best Score (Max Steiner).

Clip – La Marseillaise – just one of the many great emotional moments in the film

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

Clip – indoctrination of children in the Axis countries

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Posted in 1942, Movie Reviews

Another Year, Another Movie – 1942

Posted on August 16, 2014 | 7 comments

American entry into World War II created a new breed of Hollywood movies with war themes. The first of these was Wake Island, which dramatized the unsuccessful defense of the U.S. garrison on that Pacific Island following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Many other war films and morale-boosters were to follow. The Office of War Information (OWI) stated that film makers should consider seven questions before producing a movie, including: “Will this picture help to win the war?” The War Production Board imposed a $5,000 limit on set construction. Wartime cloth restrictions were imposed, prohibiting cuffed trousers and pleats. Klieg-lit Hollywood premieres were prohibited. Disney’s wonderful send-up of Nazi Germany “Der Fuehrer’s Face” won the Academy Award for Best Short Feature, Cartoon.

I love this so much!

While numerous actors and directors enlisted those left State-side did their bit too. An early casualty was Carole Lombard, who was killed at age 33 with her mother and twenty others when the plane bringing them back from a defense bond campaign crashed outside of Las Vegas. The Hollywood Canteen was founded in 1942 (by Bette Davis, John Garfield, and others) to provide free entertainment (food, dancing, etc.) to servicemen by those in the film industry. It operated for just over three years as a morale booster.

In the U.S., mobilization for war converted most industry from consumer products to weapons manufacture. On February 2, President Roosevelt signed an executive order directing the internment of persons of Japanese descent, aliens and citizens alike. About 120,000 people were sent to “relocation camps”. It was not until 1988 that the U.S. Goverment apologized for this injustice and authorized (partial) reparations to camp survivors.

Japanese-Americans celebrating Memorial Day at Manzanar Camp

On May 6, the last American and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese on Corregidor. General Douglas MacArthur had escaped to Australia in March to become Supreme Commander of the war in the Southwest Pacific. On arrival, he said “I came through and I shall return.” In late 1942, Allies started to turn around the war in the Pacific with major offensives at Midway and the Coral Sea.

MacArthur arriving in Australia

In Germany, the Reichstag met for the last time, dissolving itself and proclaiming Adolf Hitler the “Supreme Judge of the German People”, granting him the power of life and death over every German citizen. Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decided that the “Final Solution (Endlösung) to the Jewish problem” was relocation, and later extermination. Anne Frank made the first entry in her diary on June 12, her 13th birthday. Her family went into hiding above her father’s office in Amsterdam on July 6.

The Battle of Stalingrad began in August. Marked by house-to-house combat, it was among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare with over 1 million civilian and military casualties.

Stalingrad, 1942

The 1942 Oscar winners set to “White Christmas”

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Posted in Movie Reviews

Home, unscathed

Posted on August 15, 2014 | 2 comments

We arrived in Maui on Tuesday afternoon only to find that Hurricanes Iselle and Julio were not far behind. We stocked up on supplies and waited out the storm/s in our rented condo. It turned out to be something of a non-event. Iselle lost steam as it passed over the Big Island of Hawaii and Julio took a track a couple of hundred miles to our north.

Iselle did some damage on the Big Island.

Hurricane winds, Hilo, Hawaii

The weather was mostly just wonderful. People kept complaining about the heat. They don’t know from heat …

The hurricane did have the side benefit of introducing me to this guy, which I spotted in a parking lot (not my picture). I think he must have been blown over from the Big Island, which is his usual home in Hawaii.

Back with some movies soon!