Follow the Fleet (1936)

Posted on August 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

Follow the FleetFollow the Fleet Poster
Directed by Mark Sandrich
Written by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott based on the play “Shore Leave” by Hubert Osborne
1936/USA
Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing

 

[box] There may be trouble ahead/But while there’s moonlight and music/And love and romance/Let’s face the music and dance. — “Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, lyrics by Irving Berlin[/box]

Another in the unbeatable series of Astaire/Rogers movies of the 1930’s

‘Bake’ Baker (Fred Astaire) joined the navy and went to sea after his dance partner Sherry Martin (Ginger Rogers) refused his proposal. On shore leave in San Francisco, Bake finds Sherry at a dance palace.  In the meantime, his friend ‘Bilge’ Smith (Randolph Scott) doesn’t look twice when Sherry’s Plain Jane sister Connie (Harriet Hilliard) comes on to him.  After Sherry fixes Connie up and puts her in one of her dresses, ‘Bilge” is overcome by her charms … but not so as to dissuade him from falling for a pass by a sexy divorcee. The rest of the movie follows the couples as Connie’s heart is broken and Bake messes up Sherry’s career repeatedly.  See if you can spot Lucille Ball as a chorus girl.

Follow the Fleet 1

This has wonderful routines to some classic Irving Berlin songs:  “Let Yourself Go”; “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket”; and “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” “Putting All My Eggs” is a great comedy number with Fred and Ginger pretending they are making it up as they go along and tripping each other up.  And both the song and the dance “Let’s Face the Music” sum up the Great Depression with its anxiety and romance.  It is simply beautiful.

The only thing that prevents this film from being in the first tier of Astaire/Rogers film is the amount of screen time devoted to the Scott/Hillard romance.  I might feel differently if Randolph Scott appealed to me in the slightest.  As it is, for a handsome guy he has remarkably little sex appeal.  Harriet Hilliard, who went on to become TV’s Harriet Nelson, is an odd selection of actress for someone who has to carry two solo songs.

Clip – “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” – this gives me the chills at the end

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The Green Pastures (1936)

Posted on August 8, 2013 | 2 comments

The Green PasturesGreen Pastures Poster
Directed by Marc Connelly and William Keighley
Written by Marc Connelly based on a play by Marc Connelly and a novel by Roark Bradford (“Ol’ Man Adam and His Chillun” )
1936/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing

Gabriel: Gangway for the lord god, Jehovah!

This white imagining of what African-Americans imagine the Old Testament bible stories to have been like couldn’t be more politically incorrect.  Nevertheless, it is quite enjoyable on all fronts and particularly for the choral singing.

The story begins in a country town as an African-American preacher conducts Sunday school and tells the bible stories to small children.  We segue to Da Lawd (Rex Ingram) and his angels in heaven where life is one perpetual fish fry.  When Da Lawd overdoes it in coming up with extra Firmament for the boiled custard, he creates the earth to hold the excess and Man to take care of the garden watered by the Firmament.  He is vastly displeased by the antics of his creation, however.  There follow folkloric low-brow presentations of the stories of Cain and Abel, Noah (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) and the Ark, the Exodus, and the exile in Babylon. The film ends with Da Lawd learning mercy through the suffering of an unseen man carrying a cross.

Green Pastures 1

I didn’t know what to expect here but this was very entertaining.  The spirituals sung by the heavenly choir are glorious and all the performances are solid and amusing.  I’m sure the portrayal of Da Lawd as a fallible, fickle God made many Black theologians wince and civil right activists protested the film at the time.  Nevertheless, it does stand out as one of only six all-Black feature films produced by the Hollywood studios during the classic era.   I prefer Hallelujah (1929) but this isn’t far behind.

The part of “De Lawd” was originally written to be played in blackface by Al Jolson. When that fell through, it was offered to Paul Robeson, who naturally refused it. It was eventually given to Rex Ingram.  We can all be very grateful that Jolson wasn’t in this.

Trailer

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Come and Get It (1936)

Posted on August 6, 2013 | 3 comments

Come and Get ItCome and Get It poster
Directed by Howard Hawks and William Wyler (logging scenes directed by Richard Rosson)
Written by Jane Murfin based on the novel by Edna Ferber
1936/USA
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
First viewing

 

“Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.” ― Edna Ferber

I had never seen 1936’s other mid-life crisis movie.  Come and Get It is a solid film with some excellent performances.  It is also the first 1930’s film I have seen with a strong environmental undercurrent.

It is 1880’s Wisconsin and Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) is the hard-hitting ambitious boss of a lumber operation that is clear-cutting huge swaths of forest.  He comes up with an idea for buying up even more land for clearing in connection with railroad right-of-ways and takes it to the owner with the proposition that he be made a partner.  His marriage to the owner’s daughter, the plain Emma Louise, is part of the deal.

After a record harvest, Barney treats all his hands to a blow-out at a saloon.  There, he and right-hand man Swan Bostrom (Walter Brennan) meet beautiful tender-hearted saloon singer Lotta Morgan (Frances Farmer).  Barney and Lotta fall deeply in love but Barney’s ambition trumps his heart and he leaves her to marry Emma Louise.  Swan soon marries Lotta instead.

Twenty years later, Barney is vaguely discontented with his life as a robber baron and his marriage to the straight-laced Emma Louise.  His son Richard (Joel McCrae), who has invented a new-fangled paper cup and supports the trust-busting campaign of Teddy Roosevelt, is also a thorn in his side.  Swan comes to the rescue when he invites Barney to come hunting at their old stomping grounds.  Lotta is dead and Swan lives with his beautiful daughter, also named Lotta (and played by Frances Farmer).

The remainder of the story is devoted to Barney’s attempts to recapture his lost youth by winning the love of Lotta and to his clash with Richard.

Come and Get It 2

I liked this a lot.  I had heard about Frances Farmer for years but had never seen her in anything until today.  She was very good.  Not a trace of her later troubles shows on her lovely face.  I think the acting honors go to Edward Arnold, though.  He is always good but here he had a multi-faceted character with a wide range of emotions and was sympathetic and ruthless at the same time.  Walter Brennan was almost unrecognizable under a thick pseudo-Swedish accent.  (He actually says “yumpin’ yimmeny”!)  And what can I say about Joel McCrea?  Just looking at him is enough for me.  The logging sequences are pretty darn awesome and convey the plunder of the wilderness well.

Soon after filming began, producer Samuel Goldwyn underwent two major surgeries. When Goldwyn viewed a rough cut of the film he was shocked to discover Hawks had strayed far from the tone and focus of the novel.  When the Hawks refused to comply with Goldwyn’s demands for major changes, the producer fired him from the project and ordered William Wyler to take over the production

Walter Brennan won the first of his three Best Supporting Actor Oscars for his role.  1936 was the first year that Supporting Acting Oscars were awarded by the Academy.

Clip – Frances Farmer sings “Aura Lee”

 

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Let’s Go with Pancho Villa (1936)

Posted on August 5, 2013 | 2 comments

Let’s Go with Pancho Villa (“Vámonos con Pancho Villa!)let's go with pancho villa
Directed by Fernando de Fuentes
Written by Fernando de Fuentes and Xavier Villaurrutia based on a novel by Rafael F. Muñoz
1936/Mexico
Cinematographia Latino Americana S. A.
First Viewing

 

Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something. [Last words] — Pancho Villa

I do not understand why this was selected as the best Mexican film of all time by a prestigious poll.  Perhaps if I had a better knowledge of Mexican history I would.

A group of comrades from the village of San Pablo decides to join up with Pancho Villa’s army during the Mexican Revolution.  They fight so valiantly they become known as “The Lions of San Pablo.”  However as the struggle goes on and one after another of their number is killed, they become disillusioned by the cruelty of war.

Let's Go with Pancho Villa 1

This is a kind of Mexican All Quiet on the Western Front or would be if it were not marred by constant comic relief.  The battle scenes are pretty good but there are a couple of puzzling sequences that I suppose are meant to show the meaninglessness of war.  In one, a group of thirteen soldiers sitting around a table decides that this is an evil omen portending death for one of them.  So they turn off the lights and shoot a gun in the air at midnight so that the most cowardly will die???  (See clip below.)  There’s also a weird scene where a soldier is asked to burn his friend alive (!) because he has smallpox. These things just do not compute for me and I could not get behind the film.

Clip

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Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Posted on August 4, 2013 | 2 comments

Bullets or Ballotsbullets-or-ballots-movie-poster-1936
Directed by William Keighley
Written by Seton I. Miller based on a story by Martin Mooney and Seton I. Miller
1936/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing

Mr. Thorndyke: Why did you try to take over the job?Johnny Blake: I didn’t try and take it over, I took it over.

I am basically enjoying the hell out of 1936.  This Warner Bros. gangster movie, in the tradition of G-Men, is a ton of fun with classic performances from two of my main men – Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart.

Gangland is turning into racketeering with corporate leadership.  Government has been able to do little to stop it due to corruption in its own ranks.  Finally, after the assassination of a muckraking journalist, a grand jury makes Capt. Dan McLaren police commissioner and gives him a mandate to crack down.  McLaren’s right-hand man Johnny Blake (Edward G. Robinson) is suddenly fired.  The next time we see Blake he is working for gang boss Al Kruger (Barton MacLane), who is facing rebellion in the ranks.  Blake makes a name for himself by building an organized numbers racket.  But Kruger’s second-in-command ‘Bugs’ Fenner (Humphrey Bogart) believes Blake is a double-crosser and is determined to bring him down.  With Joan Blondell and Louise Beavers as small-time numbers runners.

Bullets or Ballots 1

This movie was just a joy to watch.  Bogart and Robinson were at the top of their game.  I loved watching the fleeting smirks and other expressions light up their faces.  This is fast-paced action fare, with the emphasis on bullets, not ballots.  Recommended.

Trailer

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San Francisco (1936)

Posted on August 4, 2013 | 4 comments

San FranciscoSan Francisco poster
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
Written by Anita Loos from the story by Robert E. Hopkins
1936/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing

 

[box] Waiter at Chicken’s Ball: [referring to the earthquake] Well, we certainly don’t do things halfway in San Francisco.[/box]

The music is the best thing about this glossy but cliche-ridden dramatic musical/disaster flick.

Honorable but unbelieving Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) owns a saloon/cabaret/gambling hall called The Paradise on the wicked Barbary Coast of San Francisco.  His boyhood pal Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy) keeps trying to reform Blackie but is getting nowhere.  One day, starving young singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) comes into The Paradise looking for work.  Blackie is taken with Mary and gives her a job that shows off her legs and allows her to belt out “San Francisco” at his joint.  Soon an opera impresario notices that Mary has a beautiful trained soprano voice but Blackie balks at letting Mary out of her contract.  Mary has fallen in love with Blackie and is about to succumb to his advances when it is Father Mullen to the rescue.  When will Heavenly Vengeance rescue the modern-day Sodom from its sinful ways?  How about at 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906?

sanfrancisco 1

First I should say that I enjoyed the film quite a bit the first time I saw it and gave it a rating of 9/10.  On repeat viewing, I wondered what I was thinking.  While the acting and production are good, the story struck me as extremely hokey.  Basically, we are treated to an epic struggle for the Immortal Souls of Blackie and Mary.  Blackie’s soul can only be won by the mass destruction of the city he loves by earthquake.

I found the earthquake scenes clumsy although they were probably groundbreaking in 1936.  D.W. Griffith reportedly directed the sequence and it shows.  Jeanette MacDonald has some charming numbers including her first rendition of “San Francisco”, a tender version of “Would You?” and two operatic arias.  However, her final performance of “San Francisco” at a climatic point in the plot and right before the building starts shaking reminded me of nothing less than Al Jolson belting out “Swanee”.

San Francisco was the top-grossing film of 1936.  The city was in the news that year as the Golden Gate Bridge was under construction.  The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including for Best Production, and won the Oscar for Best Sound Recording.

Re-release trailer

 

 

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Sabotage (1936)

Posted on August 3, 2013 | 8 comments

Sabotage
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Charles Bennett from the novel “Secret Agent” by Joseph Conrad
1936/UK
Gaumont British Picture Corporation
Repeat viewing
#100 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Title Card: [camera zooms in on definition] sa-botage sà-bo-tarj. Wilful destruction of buildings or machinery with the object of alarming a group of persons or inspiring public uneasiness.

For some reason, this film fizzled for me on the second viewing despite excellent performances by some of the actors and a rather prescient treatment of urban terrorism.

Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolca), of Continental but undefined nationality, runs a cinema in London with his wife (Sylvia Sidney).  Mr. Verloc is considerably older than his wife who seems to have married him to provide security for her much younger brother Stevie (Desmond Tester).  The film opens with a general blackout that results from Mr. Verloc sabotaging a power station.  A friendly fruit seller (John Loden) keeps an eye on the cinema and befriends Mrs. Verloc and Stevie.  It turns out that he works for Scotland Yard.  Verloc’s employers are not happy with the blackout and instruct him to plant a bomb in an underground station.  Family happiness is threatened when the only person Verloc can think of to deliver the bomb is Stevie.

Sabotage 1

I remember loving this film the first time around but now the infamous “bomb on the bus” set piece seems uncharacteristically heavy-handed to me. The use of the montage of ticking clocks, etc. seems much too obvious.  I still adore Sylvia Sidney’s performance particularly in the “knife” scene and thereafter.  I think it is one of the best portrayals of grief on record.  Homolka, Loden and Tester are also very good.  The poor quality of the public domain print I watched didn’t help at all.

Hitchcock himself regretted the “bomb” sequence later in life as it violated his general method of suspense whereby tension eventually had to be relieved.

Clip – Alfred Hitchcock at the AFI on the difference between “mystery” and “suspense”

 

 

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Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

Posted on August 2, 2013 | 1 comment

Theodora Goes Wildtheodora-goes-wild poster
Directed by Richard Boleslawski
Written by Sidney Buchman from an original story by Mary McCarthy
1936/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

Michael Grant: I’ll be happy when I’m darn good and ready to be happy, and not a minute sooner.

Irene Dunne shows all the pizzaz that will make her such a standout in The Awful Truth in this wacky romantic comedy.

Theodora Lynn plays the church organ and lives in the tiny town of Lynnfield with her two maiden aunts. Under the pen name Caroline Adams, she has secretly written a best selling novel called “Sinner” that has scandalized the town.  When Theodora travels to New York to see her publisher, she continues to urge him that her identity be hidden.  But a pushy young illustrator (Melvyn Douglas) smells a rat and follows her back to Lynnfield where he embarrasses her mightily and finally causes her to rebel when she falls in love with him.  When she admits her love, he flees.

She follows him to New York where she finds out that he is trapped in a loveless marriage by convention and duty to his straightlaced politician father.  What’s good for the gander is good for the goose, and Theodora turns the tables on him with her newly wild ways.

Theodora Goes Wild 1

Irene Dunne is simply stunning here.  Her antics, including a great drunk scene, are a scream.  The script is not nearly as clever as in The Awful Truth but all the elements that make Dunne’s Lucy Warriner such a delight are already present in this, Dunne’s first comedy role.  One thing that didn’t work for me was Douglas’s character.  He struck me as too obnoxious to make Theodora go head over heals.  The character picks up in the second half when Theodora gets her own back.

Trailer – “in her heart she longed to be called “baby””!

 

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César (1936)

Posted on July 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

CesárCesar Poster
Directed by Marcel Pagnol
Written by Marcel Pagnol
1936/France
Les Films Marcel Pagnol
First viewing

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” ― Marcel Pagnol

I could have sworn I had seen the entire Fanny Trilogy before but it turns out I had only seen the first two installments.  This third installment cements the trilogy in my estimation as the best film cycle ever.  All three films go on my own personal “see before you die” recommendation list.

Twenty years have passed since the events that took place in Fanny (1932).  Fanny’s (Orane Demazis) much-older husband Honoré Panisse (Fernand Charpin) is on his deathbed making his last confession (a wonderfully amusing scene).  The priest tells him that he should tell the boy, Cesariot, whom he has raised as his son, that he is not the biological father.  Panisse cannot bring himself to do this but leaves it for Fanny to do after he dies.  Fanny obeys and tells the boy that César’s son Marius (Pierre Fresnay) is his father and about her passion for Marius.

Cesariot is initially appalled at the revelation and further disturbed when his grandfather César (Raimu) tells him about the rift which has caused father and son not to speak for 15 years.  Cesariot makes an incognito visit to Toulon where Marius owns a garage but more trash talk about his father sends him away.  All this paves the way to one of the most glorious endings in film history – all the more moving because it was so hard-won.

 

This is the only film in the trilogy that was directed by Pagnol himself.  Oddly, Pagnol, who wrote the stage plays, is the only director of the bunch to open up the action to exteriors. The dialogue, as always, is very literate yet unforced.  We really feel that we know these people well.  There are a number of classic comedy set pieces – Honorés confession, the discourse on aperetifs and the stone in the hat gag.  But it is the “confession” scene of Fanny and Marius’ confrontation with César that stand out as master classes in acting.

What prevents these films from being well-written melodramas is the fierce family love that pervades them.  The preservation of the extended family is the motivating force of all the characters and even when this requires sacrifice and tears the family will go on.  Highly recommended.

 

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Rose-Marie (1936)

Posted on July 29, 2013 | 5 comments

Rose-MarieRose-Marie Poster
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke
Written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Alice D.G. Miller
from a musical  by Otto A. Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II with music by Rudolf Friml
1936/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing

Marie de Flor: That’s the worst orchestra and the worst conductor I’ve ever sung with! [To the tenor] Marie de Flor: And what was the idea of holding every high A longer than I did?!?

This sentimental musical was the second starring the Jeannette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy pairing and became their best-known film.

MacDonald plays Marie de Flor, a temperamental operatic soprano.  When she discovers her brother (James Stewart) is in trouble with the law and needs money, she heads incognito off to the Canadian backwoods with an Indian guide.  There she meets Mountie Sgt. Bruce (Nelson Eddie), who is on the track of her brother.  He guesses her identity almost immediately but pretends not to know so that she will inadvertently guide him to his quarry.  Meanwhile, they fall in love.  With Allan Jones as the opera tenor and Una O’Connor as Marie’s maid.

rose-marie 1

This is not as sappy as it might appear from seeing the “Indian Love Call” clip out of context as it is often anthologized.  Nelson Eddy can’t help being wooden but Jeanette MacDonald is a natural comedienne and in splendid voice here.  The scenery (Lake Tahoe IRL) is magnificent and James Stewart makes quite a handsome and rakish outlaw in a small part.  Even the “Indian Love Call” is touching when seen in context and in its various reprises.

I wonder if a popular entertainment could be made today where the first five minutes or so was a unsubtitled excerpt from Guonod’s Romeo and Juliet and the conclusion featured a long extract from the conclusion of Tosca.  Somehow I doubt it.  Nelson Eddy was so jealous of Allan Jones’s performance that he persuaded the studio to cut Jones’s big aria. Jones did put Eddy to shame in the singing department.

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