HOLLYWOOD’S MIRACLES OF MOVIE ENTERTAINMENT:
Classic Films from a Golden Era
John Howard Reid
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John
Howard Reid at Smashwords
Copyright (c) 2011 by John Howard Reid
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Original text copyright
2011 by John Howard Reid. All rights reserved.
Enquiries:
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Barbara Stanwyck
Marlene Dietrich
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Hollywood Classics 8
2011
Other Books in the “Hollywood Classics” series:
1. New Light on Movie Bests
2. “B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West
5. Memorable Films of the Forties
6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s
7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Supporting Program
8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Movie Entertainment
9. Hollywood Gold: Films of the Forties and Fifties
10. Hollywood “B” Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills
11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics
12. These Great Movies Won No Hollywood Awards
13. Movie Mystery & Suspense
14. Movies International: America’s Best, Britain’s Finest
15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic
16. Hollywood Movie Musicals
17. “Hollywood Classics” Title Index Books 1-16
18. More Movie Musicals
19. Success in the Cinema
20. Best Western Movies
21. Great Cinema Detectives
22. Great Hollywood Westerns
23. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Cinema
24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies
25. Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24
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Additional Movie Books by John Howard Reid
CinemaScope
One: Stupendous in ’Scope
CinemaScope Two: 20th
Century-Fox
CinemaScope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge
Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD: A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills
Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD
WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD
British Movie Entertainments on VHS and DVD
MUSICALS on DVD
Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in the exotic Saigon, featured in Hollywood Classics 6.
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Table of Contents
American Guerrilla in the Philippines (see “I Shall Return”)
B
Big Heart (see “Miracle on 34th Street”)
Bureau of Missing Persons (1933)
C
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
Curse of the Cat People (1944)
D
Deadly Ray(s) from Mars (see “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe”)
E
F
Flash Gordon and the Deadly Rays from Mars (see “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe”)
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940)
G
Girl of the Golden West (1938)
H
History Is Made at Night (1937)
I
It Should Happen To You (1954)
It’s That Man Again (see “ITMA”)
J
K
L
M
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1951)
Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955)
Mad Doctor of Market Street (1941)
Man in Half-Moon Street (1944)
N
O
P
R
Reformer and the Redhead (1950)
S
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
So You Want To Be a Detective (1948)
Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe (see “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe”)
Star Said No (see “Callaway Went Thataway”)
T
U
Unholy Hour (see “Werewolf of London”)
V
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
W
Woman in Command (see “Soldiers of the King”)
Y
Years Without Days (see “Castle on the Hudson”)
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Articles
Director, Charles Vidor, and His Films (see “The Arizonian”)
Wolf Man series (see “Wolf Man”)
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Van Heflin (Frank R. Enley), Robert Ryan (Joe Parkson), Janet Leigh (Edith Enley), Mary Astor (Pat), Phyllis Thaxter (Ann Sturges), Berry Kroeger (Johnny), Nicholas Joy (Mr Gavery), Harry Antrim (Fred Finney), Connie Gilchrist (Martha Finney), Will Wright (Pop), Tom Hanlon (radio voice), Phil Tead (clerk), Eddie Waglin, Johnny Albright (bellboys), William Phillips, Dick Simmons (veterans), Larry and Leslie Holt (Georgie Enley), Garry Owen (attendant), Fred Santley (drunk), Dick Elliott (pompous man), Irene Seidner (old woman), Ralph Peters (Tim, bartender), Douglas Carter (heavy-jowled man), Frank Scannell (bell captain), Rocco Lanzo, Rex Downing, Mickey Martin (teenage boys), Bill Cartledge (newsboy), Don Haggerty, Paul Kruger, Wesley Hopper, Jim Drum, George Backus (policemen), Nolan Leary, Barbara Billingsley (voices), Harry Tenbrook (man), Everett Glass (night clerk), Phil Dunham, William Bailey, Wilbur Mack (ad lib drunks), Howard Mitchell (bartender), Ralph Montgomery, Cameron Grant, Walter Merrill (men), Roger Moore, Mahlon Hamilton (winos), Candy Toxton (veteran’s wife), Florita Romero (girl), George Ovey, Jimmie Kelly, David Newell, Fred Datig Jr, Margaret Bert, Mary Jo Ellis, Ann Lawrence (bystanders), André Pola, Rudolph Anders, Roland Varno (German voices), Robert Skelton (cab driver).
Director: FRED ZINNEMANN. Screenplay: Robert L. Richards; from an unpublished story by Collier Young. Director of photography: Robert Surtees. Sound: Douglas Shearer. Music score: Bronislau Kaper. Conductor: André Previn. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters. Set decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Henry W. Grace. Costumes: Helen Rose. Hair styles: Sydney Guilaroff. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Assistant director: Marvin Stuart. Film editor: Conrad A. Nervig. Producer: William H. Wright.
Copyright 8 December 1948 by Loew’s Inc. An M-G-M picture. New York opening at Loew’s Criterion: 22 January 1949. U.S. release: February 1949. U.K. release: 30 May 1949. Australian release: 2 June 1949. 7,477 feet. 83 minutes.
Do not read this SYNOPSIS if you have not seen the movie: A disabled war veteran, Joe Parkson, has travelled from the East to find a man named Frank Enley. Enley is a respected contractor and civic-minded man, but in a prison camp during the war he was responsible for the death of his men by revealing their plans for escape. Actually, Enley informed his captors of the plan believing that the plan would not succeed and his men would be spared if he interceded; but all of the men were massacred except Parkson. No one knows of the incident except Parkson and the guilt-ridden Enley; and, as Parkson begins to create terror in Enley’s mind, he first confesses to his wife and then flees into the night world of the city. Taking refuge with Pat, a woman of dubious reputation, Enley meets Johnny who offers to help by killing Parkson for money.
NOTES: Act of Violence was originally announced in 1947 as an independent production starring Howard Duff. Subsequently in 1948, Hellinger Productions-SRO Releasing announced the film was to star Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart. Locations were filmed at Big Bear Lake, California.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Van Heflin gives a good performance.
COMMENT: In Act of Violence, director Fred Zinnemann has arrestingly blended the varying styles of the semi-documentary and the psychological thriller. The bizarre prologue with its startling introduction of the limping man motif, is a masterful amalgam of outré Wilder (see the credits for Double Indemnity) and Fritz Lang. What greater contrast could possibly be offered to this than the scene with which the film proper commences? The setting is a small town in California, two years after the war. A young engineer, ex-G.I. Captain Van Heflin, is discovered with his wife, Janet Leigh, at the opening ceremony of a block of houses for which he has been mainly responsible. Notice how economically Zinnemann captures the atmosphere, the feeling of small town mores; how he has profited by his mistake on The Search by drawing upon the creative talents of his art director (Cedric Gibbons), his photographer (Robert L. Surtees, who later worked with him on Oklahoma), and his composer (Bronislau Kaper). The work of the costume department is especially noteworthy: Heflin, bare-headed, wearing an alpaca suit, Miss Leigh in a cloche hat and a drab suit with a wide collar, an official with a boater and a striped shirt, an elderly woman in a flowered print. One has the feeling that one really is in a small town, not on the sound stage of a Hollywood studio. That night, Miss Leigh is awakened by the sound of limping foot-falls prowling around the house. Heflin tells her that the stranger is Joe Parkson, who bears a grudge since they were in prison camp together. Parkson turns out to be Robert Ryan, who, despite the pleas of his fiancée, Phyllis Thaxter, persists in his vendetta. Heflin flees to an industrial convention, where he becomes involved with a prostitute (a wonderfully natural performance by Mary Astor) and a vicious thug (Berry Kroeger). At a lonely railway station the folly of both empty vengeance and moral cowardice is played out in a tragic climax.
The bizarre elements of the film are the more effective for being contrasted with the ordinary domesticity of Heflin’s home, and the melodrama of the screenplay Robert L. Richards (who was later to collaborate on Winchester ’73) worked up from a story by Collier Young, has been brilliantly channeled into a sensitive exposition of human conflict.
OTHER VIEWS: Despite some sterling efforts by director and photographer, it is hard to work up much interest in this psychological thriller. The characters are unconvincing — and the stars don’t help: Van Heflin goes through his usual motions (“Register shock, Van!”), Janet Leigh lays on the mousey housewife bit with a trowel, Phyllis Thaxter once again does her duty by the worried and sympathetic friend, and Robert Ryan is so hammily obvious a neurotic nut, it’s impossible to understand why he was not carted off to the psycho ward the minute he stuck his head out of doors. The supporting cast is better, with Mary Astor, Taylor Holmes and Berry Kroeger trying valiantly to give their roles depth and conviction — though they are largely defeated by the script. Still, at least they succeed in making their portrayals interesting — which is more than one can say for the star performers. The actual plot mechanics are dated and old-hat now, but the script could have succeeded — despite its unconvincing characters — had it made some efforts to preserve the dramatic unities. Here is a yarn that is a natural for a ten or twelve-hour time span and for confinement to the environs of a particular locale. Instead, the story meanders all over the place, introducing superfluous characters at every turn and having no sense of urgency. And then it tacks on a ridiculous, melodramatic climax that conveniently avoids having to deal with the moral or social issues raised!
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Against All Flags
Errol Flynn (Brian Hawke), Maureen O’Hara (Spitfire Stevens), Anthony Quinn (Captain Roc Brasiliano), Alice Kelley (Princess Patma), Mildred Natwick (Molvina MacGregor), Robert Warwick (Captain Kidd), Harry Cording (Gow), John Alderson (Harris), Phil Tully (Jones), Lester Matthews (Sir Cloudsley), Tudor Owen (William), Maurice Marsac (Captain Moisson), James Craven (Captain Hornsby), James Fairfax (barber), Bill Radovich (Hassan), Michael Ross (Swaine), Paul Newland (Crop-Ear), Lewis Russell (Oxford), Arthur Gould-Porter (Lord Portland), Olaf Hytten (King William), “Sailor” Vincent (crewman), Dave Kashner (flogger), Ethan Laidlaw (townsman), Chuck Hamilton, Carl Saxe (pirates), Michael Ferris, Keith McConnell (quartermasters), Charles Fitzsimons (flag lieutenant), Renee Beard (Archimedes), Maralou Gray (harem girl).
Director: GEORGE SHERMAN. Photographed by Russell Metty. Music: Hans J. Salter. Screenplay: Aeneas Mackenzie, Joseph Hoffman. Based on a story by Aeneas Mackenzie. Film editor: Frank Gross. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun and Alexander Golitzen. Set decorations: Russell A. Gausman and Oliver Emert. Costumes: Edward Stevenson. Hair stylist: Joan St Oegger. Dialogue director: Irwin Berwick. Assistant directors: John Sherwood, Phil Bowles and James Welch. Unit production manager: Percy Ikerd. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Color: Technicolor. Technicolor color consultant: William Fritzsche. Special photography: David S. Horsley. Producer: Howard Christie. Sound recording: Leslie I. Carey and Joe Lapis. Universal-International.
Copyright 2 November 1952 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. A Universal-International picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 24 December 1952. U.S. release: December 1952. U.K. release: 16 February 1953. Australian release: 23 July 1953. Sydney opening at the State. 7,513 feet. 83 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A British naval officer attempts to break the pirate hold on Madagascar.
NOTES: Errol Flynn’s Oz rehabilitation after the comparative failure of New Orleans Adventure was now complete. The Hoyts cinema chain (owned by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp.) had shunted Mara Maru into Sydney’s out-of-the-way grindhouse, the Park, but the film had gone on to earn top dollars around the neighborhoods. So Greater Union (owned by Lord Rank) slotted Against All Flags into the circuit’s flagship, the State. The movie repaid this trust in Flynn’s continuing Oz appeal by placing 32nd in the nation’s foremost box-office attractions of 1953.
Universal re-made this film in 1967 as King’s Pirate. Don Weis directed the re-make from a script refurbished with only minor changes by Paul Wayne. The leading roles were played by Doug McClure, Jill St John, Guy Stockwell and Mary Ann Mobley.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Errol can still swash with the best of them.
COMMENT: Against All Flags marks the end of Errol Flynn’s Hollywood career as a swashbuckler. (The three swashbuckling pictures he made after this were filmed in Europe, whereas Against All Flags was lensed mostly on the Universal sound stages and back lot, with some location work at Palos Verdes on the Californian sea-coast). To my mind, it is a fitting end to the career Warner Brothers launched so auspiciously 17 years before in Captain Blood. Universal made a brave attempt to recapture the scope and vigor of the Warner pictures and, while Against All Flags does not equal the best of them, it runs the second echelon pretty close.
Against all Flags has at least 4 major factors in its favor: (1) a fine cast. Miss O’Hara was never more attractive, or Quinn so delightfully villainous, and there’s a rib-tickling performance by Alice Kelley as a dumb princess. Flynn himself is at his most charming and, athletically, in top form. In fact, he applied himself so energetically to the action sequences, he broke his left ankle five days before the film was due for completion. It was five months before he could resume, during which time the ship (a standing set on Universal’s back lot) had been converted for use in Yankee Buccaneer (“setting sail” with Captain Jeff Chandler and much the same crew under Joseph Pevney’s direction) and had to be re-converted back again!; (2) a highly entertaining script, with plenty of scope for action, colorful characterisations, and some ingenious and original plotting; (3) zestful direction by George Sherman (no relation to Vincent Sherman who handled Flynn in The Adventures of Don Juan); (4) excellent production values, including Russell Metty’s Technicolor photography.
OTHER VIEWS: Good swashbuckling yarn, with plenty of action and nice color. The performances are spirited, and the direction smooth. Miss O’Hara looks very fetching in her pirate costume.
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Tony Randall (Hercule Poirot), Anita Ekberg (Amanda Beatrice Cross), Robert Morley (Hastings), Maurice Denham (Japp), Guy Rolfe (Duncan Doncaster), Sheila Allen (Lady Diane), Margaret Rutherford (Miss Marple), James Villiers (Franklin), Julian Glover (Don Fortune), Grazina Frame (Betty Barnard), Clive Morton (“X”), Cyril Luckham (Sir Carmichael Clarke), Richard Wattis (Wolf), David Lodge (sergeant), Patrick Newell (Cracknell), Austin Trevor (Judson), Alison Seebohn (Miss Sparks), Windsor Davies (Dragbot), Sheila Reid (Mrs Fortune), Stringer Davis (Mr Stringer).
Directed by FRANK TASHLIN. Screenplay by David Pursall and Jack Seddon. Based on the 1936 novel The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie. Music composed and conducted by Ron Goodwin. “Amanda” — music by Brian Fahey, lyric by Norman Newell, sung by Ray Peterson. Director of photography: Desmond Dickinson. Art director: Bill Andrews. Film editor: John Victor Smith. Mr Randall’s clothes by Hardy Amies. Production manager: Albert Becket. Unit manager: Jake Wright. Assistant director: David Tomblin. Camera operator: Harry Gillam. Recording supervisor: A. W. Watkins. Sound recordist: Sash Fisher. Dubbing mixer: Fred Turtle. Sound editor: Bill Creed. Westrex Sound System. Associate producer: Ben Arbeid. Producer: Lawrence P. Bachmann.
Copyright 21 December 1965 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. U.S. release: 2 March 1966. New York opening at the 68th Street Playhouse: 11 July 1966. U.K. release: 15 July 1966. 8,096 feet. 90 minutes. (Cut to 7,046 feet or 85 minutes in the U.K.).
SYNOPSIS: The plot opens when an aqua-clown is found dead in a swimming pool with a poisoned dart in the neck and with an ABC Street Guide to London floating at his side. Hercule Poirot happens to be in London and is determined to investigate the case.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Tony Randall as Poirot? Yet he does the Frenchman proud.
COMMENT: Originally to have been Seth Holt directing Zero Mostel, this Agatha Christie adaptation ends up as something of a comeback film for Tashlin after a run of inferior items, mainly in the Jerry Lewis cycle. The reverse of the Miss Marple films, the plot disappears into the background behind a welter of almost surreal images like bowler-hatted Hercule Poirot chasing Ekberg mounted on a white horse down Rotten Row; the close-up of the poison dart that becomes a shot of the clown taken between his feet as the body falls away; or the mirror-faces in the steam room; or agent Morley continually locked in closets and car-boots with drunken blondes, unable to explain to his wife who thinks he’s in Agriculture and Fisheries.
— B.P.
OTHER VIEWS: My favorite Tashlin movie, this is an amusing piece of whodunit spoofery, the satire and parody abetted by bizarre compositions plus Tony Randall’s delightfully outrageous portrayal of Poirot, and a bright and bouncy music score.
— G.A.
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Jean Simmons (Lavinia), Alan Young (Androcles), Victor Mature (captain), Robert Newton (Ferrovius), Maurice Evans (Caesar), Elsa Lanchester (Megaera), Reginald Gardiner (Lentulus), Gene Lockhart (menagerie keeper), Alan Mowbray (editor), Noel Willman (Spintho), John Hoyt (Cato), Jim Backus (centurion), Lowell Gilmore (Metellus).
Directed by CHESTER ERSKINE from a screenplay by Chester Erskine, Noel Langley and Ken Englund, based on the 1913 stage play by George Bernard Shaw. Photography: Harry Stradling. Production design: Harry Horner. Film editor: Roland Gross. Music composed by Frederick Hollander, directed by Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Art directors: Albert S. D’Agostino, Charles F. Pyke. Set decorations: Darrell Silvera, Al Orenbach. Special effects: Dick Henschel, Jack Lannon. Body make-up: Esther Berman. Other make-up: Mel Berns, Irving Berns and Ted Larson. Hair styles: Larry Germain, Gale McGarry. Woman’s wardrobe: Lillian Orr. Grips: Thurman Joiner, Ralph Wildman. Process work: Reggie Lyons. Sound recording: John Cass and Clem Portman. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Lewis J. Rachmil. Producer: Gabriel Pascal. Executive producer: Howard Hughes. A Gabriel Pascal Production, produced and released by RKO Radio. Animals supplied by Sid Fogel. Lion (Jackie II) trained by Mel Koontz.
Copyright 30 October 1952 by RKO Radio Pictures. New York opening at the Capitol: 14 January 1953. U.S. release: 9 January 1953. U.K. release: 8 March 1954 (sic). Australian release: 23 April 1953. Sydney opening at the Esquire. 98 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A henpecked tailor extracts a thorn from a lion’s paw. This good deed later proves to be his salvation when he meets up with the lion again in the Colosseum.
NOTES: Last of Gabriel Pascal’s four films, all adaptations of Shaw plays.
Originally, Harpo Marx was cast as Androcles, Rex Harrison as Caesar, Dana Andrews as the Captain and George Sanders as Lentulus. Pascal felt Harpo was “the perfect Androcles” and the rushes were said to have been brilliant. But after five weeks of shooting, Howard Hughes saw Alan Young on a TV show and insisted he be substituted for Harpo. By the time shooting got under way again, only Jean Simmons and Robert Newton were still available to continue in their original roles, so all the footage that had been shot was scrapped. Hughes’ decision helped to make Androcles one of Hollywood’s costliest failures.
— Bob Osborne.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Victor Mature enmeshed in Shaw.
COMMENT: Commences in sprightly fashion, but unfortunately, mingled with the excellent wit, satire and comedy is a banal little romance involving Jean Simmons and Victor Mature of all people who rattles off lines about his “dooty” as a soldier until we are blue in the face with boredom. But if Mature overacts, Robert Newton is even worse. Alan Young starts well, but he also plays his part too broadly, especially in the later, sentimental sequences. Fortunately, a brilliant performance by Maurice Evans as Caesar virtually saves the film, though Gene Lockhart and Reginald Gardiner also contribute some deftly-played scenes. Aside from the wit and the amusement offered by about half of the film’s episodes, there is a little spectacle for those whose eyes like to dwell on Harry Horner’s recreation of the architectural triumphs of ancient Rome. Also outstanding are Stradling’s photography and Hollander’s music score; but Erskine’s direction is strictly routine.
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Andy Griffith (Sam), Jerry Van Dyke (Bubba), Kay Medford (Racine), Lee Meriwether (Mary Elizabeth), Henry Jones (Will Sinclair), Edgar Buchanan (Axel Gresham), Gary Collins (Art Shields), Parker Fennelly (Calvin), Jack Dodson (Norman Gresham), Elena Verdugo (Lila Sinclair), Margaret Hamilton (Rhoda), Ruth McDevitt (Nadine), Richard Van Fleet (Harry Toback), Bob Hastings (Ted Palish), Jim Boles (Corby Gresham), Leonard Stone (Paul Gresham), Steve Franken (Zimmerman), Larry D. Mann (Bishop Morenschild), Al Checco (Byron), Margaret Ann Peterson (Mrs Toback), Peggy Mondo (Charlotte), Beverly Powers (Charlene De Gaulle), Joy Harmon (Miss Holland), Benny Rubin (Dad Schrader), Herbie Faye (Mr Welch), George Tapps (Ace Black), Eddie Quillan (Reverend Beckwith), Michael Barrier (Mr Grant), Buddy Foster (Sammy), Todd Starke (Dink), Amber Smale (Rachel), Susan Seaforth (Mrs Grant), Athena Lorde (Mrs Corby Gresham), Grace Albertson (Mrs Will Sinclair), Robert Lieb (Cyrus Sinclair), Claudia Bryar (Mrs Axel Gresham), Tani Phelps (Mrs Palish), Monty Margetts (Mrs Chase), Eve Bruce (Miss USA), Lynn Fields (Miss France), Gloria Mills (Miss Societ Union), Chela Bacigalupo (Miss South America), Anne Besant (Miss England), Linda Carol (Miss Egypt), Bonnie Sue Schwartz (majorette), Jesslyn Fax (Mrs Styles), Stuart Nisbet (sheriff), Ellen Corby (older woman), Kathryn Minner (Mrs Williams), Mary Gregory (secretary), Rufe Davis (older man).
Director: ALAN RAFKIN. Original screenplay: Jim Fritzell, Everett Greenbaum. Photographed in Techniscope and Technicolor by William Margulies. Film editor: Sam E. Waxman. Music composed by Lyn Murray, supervised by Joseph Gershenson. Song, “The Girls of All Nations”, by Jerry Keller and Dave Blume. Art directors: Russell Kimball, Alexander Golitzen. Set decorators: John McCarthy, John Sturtevant. Costumes: Grady Hunt. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Hair styles: Larry Germain. Production manager: Wes Thompson. Assistant to the producer: Billy Sands. Assistant director: Phil Bowles. Sound recording: Waldron O. Watson, Ed Somers. Producer: Edward J. Montagne.
Copyright 29 March 1969 by Universal Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 7 February 1969. No U.K. release. 105 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A Methodist minister unites opposing mayoral factions in the small town of Wood Falls, Kansas.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Andy Griffith almost succeeds in a big-screen comeback.
COMMENT: Andy Griffith is here making his first film in eight years, after a considerable success on television. Those two facts alone would stamp Angel in My Pocket firmly as a non-headline flick. But a “religious” picture to boot? Angel would be lucky to make the support slot at a midweek matinee.
Actually, despite its “G” rating, the movie falls between two stools. Whilst the theme itself would discourage the average picturegoer, its treatment would outrage all church people — particularly the reverend’s visit to a burlesque rehearsal with its scantily clad “Girls of All Nations.”
In point of fact Angel is a reasonably entertaining domestic comedy. Doesn’t tell you anything about Christianity of course, but it does take in some nice hymns, a short sermon or two, a lot of slapstick fighting, a bit of romance, a shot of spookiness, and a great deal of farcical shouting and screaming. Mr Griffith holds it all together amiably enough, occasionally drawing on the help of seasoned comedians like Kay Medford and Margaret Hamilton or less experienced but equally personable players like Gary Collins and Joy Harmon. A tendency by just about everybody to over-act, however, is prevalent throughout, a problem compounded by the director’s emphasis on close-ups. (But this said, it must be added that Rafkin often fills his wide screen with pleasing images).
Pleasantly superficial, reasonably well-produced, Angel will entertain most patrons. The only problem is how to sell them tickets. If the movie were cut to support length it would certainly help. Minus the burlesque scene, a couple of board meetings and the visit to the mayor’s office, perhaps. Not that any of these episodes are slack, it’s just that they could easily be removed without too much damage to continuity.
Angel comes to a cosily predictable, highly superficial conclusion, but one that will leave audiences happy.
OTHER VIEWS: Rank Film Distributors (who handled Universal product in the United Kingdom) rejected the movie and as a consequence it was never shown in Great Britain. Rank’s refusal was based on Griffith’s total lack of appeal to British cinemagoers and the proven fact that religious pictures — unless they happened to be based on best-sellers like A Man Called Peter and The Song of Bernadette — were box-office poison.
— G.A.
Despite the impediment of TV-style direction with its emphasis on unattractive and distractingly too-revealing close-ups, this is an enjoyable little comedy that not only moves at a reasonable pace but has a refreshing air of verisimilitude. Though some of the players seem determined to exaggerate their portraits way past the point of caricature, for the most part the movie is appealingly acted. Production values, including a bright music score, are otherwise fair.
— C.F.
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Dawn O’Day (Anne Shirley), Tom Brown (Gilbert Blythe), O.P. Heggie (Matthew Cuthbert), Helen Westley (Marilla Cuthbert), Sara Haden (Mrs Rachel Barry), Gertrude Messinger (Diana Barry), Hilda Vaughn (Mrs Blewett), June Preston (Mrs Blewett’s daughter), Murray Kinnell (Mr Phillips), Charley Grapewin (Dr Tatum).
Director: GEORGE NICHOLLS JR. Screenplay: Sam Mintz. Based on the 1908 novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Photography: Lucien Andriot. Film editor: Arthur Schmidt. Music director: Max Steiner. Art directors: Van Nest Polglase, Al Herman. Costumes: Walter Plunkett. Special photographic effects: Vernon L. Walker. Sound recording: George D. Ellis. RCA Sound System. Producer: Kenneth Macgowan.
Copyright 23 November 1934 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Roxy: 21 December 1934. Australian release: 30 January 1935. 79 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Orphan girl is adopted by crusty spinster and her farmer brother.
NOTES: Re-make of the 1919 version directed by the infamous William Desmond Taylor, and starring of course Mary Miles Minter, whose mother is alleged by some Hollywood insiders to have murdered the director on the night of 1 February 1922. The murder – second only to the Roscoe Arbuckle case as Hollywood’s most sensational true-life scandal – is officially listed as unsolved.
[Until quite recently, I’d never seen a film directed by William Desmond Taylor. You’d think his notoriety alone would guarantee frequent airings on TV. But Unknown Video have now come to the rescue with a fine Kodascope copy – condensed to 5 reels, of course, but tinted – of Tom Sawywer (1917) starring a too-old-for-the-role but otherwise highly plausible Jack Pickford].
Big box-office everywhere in 1935, the movie did particularly well in city and urban areas.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: After avoiding this movie for years, I found it quite charming.
COMMENT: Refreshing. One of the most remarkable things about the film is that it has dated very little. Montgomery’s central idea of making her orphan-sent-by-mistake a dreamy chatterbox, is a strong one. And when that little heroine is so winningly played by an accomplished actress who can manage the transition from girlhood to womanhood with such ease, this movie certainly starts with much in its favor.
Aside from Tom Brown who as usual is a bit of a pain, Miss Shirley receives solid support all the way down the line from the beautifully judged portraits delivered by Helen Westley and O.P. Heggie to Sara Haden’s irredeemably nosy Rachel and Charley Grapewin’s surprisingly brief cameo as a rustic physician.
For the most part, the obligatory sentimental scenes are both dramatically effective and commendably restrained.
Although production values are moderate, technical credits are extremely able. George Nicholls leads the way with his forceful but almost wholly unobtrusive direction, his skill revealed in such sequences as the introductory close-ups of the wagon wheel turning which serve to punctuate and break up Anne’s chattering, the long tracking shot with Anne and Tom, and a few crane shots above the stairs.
Deft film editing in which steady patterns of long shots, two-shots and close-ups are not allowed to grow monotonous, must also be commended. As must Lucien Andriot’s accomplished lighting which gives the photography such an attractive sheen. Max Steiner’s melodious score which the composer cleverly uses to underline selected scenes rather than to drown out the sound track at every opportunity, is yet another major asset of this restrained but movingly realistic play.
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Clark Gable (Charley Kyng), Alexis Smith (Mrs Kyng), Wendell Corey (Robbie Elcott), Audrey Totter (Alice Elcott), Frank Morgan (Jim Kurstyn), Mary Astor (Ada), Lewis Stone (Ben Snelerr), Barry Sullivan (tycoon), Marjorie Rambeau (Sarah), Edgar Buchanan (Ed), Leon Ames (Dr Palmer), Mickey Knox (Pete Senta), Richard Rober (Angie), William Conrad (Frank) Darryl Hickman (Paul Kyng), Caleb Peterson (Sleigh), Dorothy Comingore (Mrs Purcell), Art Baker (Reardon), Douglas Fowley (man who is fired), Ann Savage (gambler).
Director: MERVYN LeROY. Screenplay: Richard Brooks. Based on the novel by Edward Harris Heth. Photography: Harold Rosson. Camera operator: Robert Martin. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McLeary. Set decorations: Edwin B. Willis, Henry W. Grace. Film editor: Ralph E. Winters. Music score: Lennie Hayton. Script supervisor: Grace DuBray. Hair styles: Sydney Guilaroff. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Grip: Lloyd Isbell. Still cameraman: Edwin Hubbell. Assistant director: Sid Sidman. Production manager: Al Shenberg. Technical advisors: S.A. Landy, Louis W. Bianco. Dialogue director: W.R. Anderson. Songs: “You Are My Lucky Star” and “Should I”, both by Nacio Herb Brown (music) and Arthur Freed (lyrics). M-G-M Anniversary Fanfare #2 composed by Miklos Rozsa. Sound: Douglas Shearer, A. Norwood Fenton. Producer: Arthur Freed.
An M-G-M Picture copyright 25 May 1949 by Loew’s Inc. Released 15 July 1949 in U.S.A.; 5 December 1949 in U.K. New York opening at the Capitol: 30 June 1949. Australian release: 1 December 1949. 9,349 feet. 103 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A clean casino operator is beset by an ungrateful family and too-grateful friends.
NOTES: M-G-M production number: 1444.
Shooting commenced 4 January 1949 and wound up 26 April 1949 with a few re-takes on 5 May 1949.
Negative cost: $1,465,641 (including $50,000 to 20th Century-Fox who owned the screen rights to Heth’s 1945 novel; $29,167 in salary to screenwriter Richard Brooks; $68,100 in fees to director Mervyn LeRoy; and $241,250 contractual payments to Clark Gable).
Initial worldwide rentals gross: $3,205,000.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Gable disappoints.
COMMENT: An extremely popular film in foreign parts, where Gable still had a very large 1950 following. Mind you, I suspect many audiences found the movie disappointing. Too much talk and too little action. And a distinct lack of budget largesse. Just under $1½ million sounds more than adequate until you examine the details. Close to $1 million gone on payments to cast and crew, doesn’t leave much room for gloss after deducting studio overheads.
The film opens in an admirable fashion with a wide diversity of camera angles and camera set-ups edited at a smart pace. The screenplay very skilfully and subtly imparts needed information. Later on, the script bogs down in a few very tiresome domestic passages — and there is some unconvincing acting here from young Darryl Hickman. Against this, there are engrossing character portrayals by Stone, Morgan, Corey, Rober and Conrad, whom Brooks provides with some first-class dialogue. Gable’s acting is efficient, but he does not make as much of the role as he should.
Atmospheric photography and appropriately drab and realistic sets are major assets.
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Jack Holt (Rawhide Morgan), Tim Holt (Bob Morgan), Nan Leslie (Laura Butler), Steve Brodie (Quirt Butler), Richard Martin (Chito Rafferty), Paul Hurst (Ben Riddle), Jim Nolan (Nimino Welch), Robert Bray (Jasper Todd), Richard Benedict (Gills), William Phipps (Mac), Harry Harvey (the postman/stagecoach agent), Lane Chandler (Captain McNeil), Herman Hack (Herman, the stage driver), John Daheim (stunt double for Tim Holt).
Director: JOHN RAWLINS. Original screenplay: Norman Houston. Uncredited additional dialogue: Frances Kavanaugh. Photography: J. Roy Hunt. Film editor: Desmond Marquette. Art directors: Albert S. D'Agostino, Charles F. Pyke. Set decorators: Darrell Silvera and Jack Mills. Costumes designed by Adele Balkan. Hair styles: Maudlee McDougall. Make-up: W. Fieldz. Assistant director: John Pommer. Music composed by Paul Sawtell, directed by Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Camera operator: Willard Barth. Grips: Mike Graves, Karl Reed. Stills: Ollie Sigurdson. Script supervisor: Daniel B. Ullman. Sound recording: Garry Harris, Terry Kellum. RCA Sound System. Producer: Herman Schlom.
Copyright 4 April 1948 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 18 May 1948. Australian release: 26 May 1949 (sic). 5,773 feet. 64 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A gang of rustlers meet their match, despite the fact that their leader is married to the heroine.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: It’s not often that you get a star combination of father and son playing these roles in the same picture. The only other vintage movie I can remember offhand is Proud Rebel (1958), starring Alan Ladd and David Ladd. I know that Mickey Rooney’s dad appeared in many of his movies, but Joe Yule most certainly never had star status.
COMMENT: Oddly, it’s not the Holt-Holt confrontation that makes this entry so interesting, but the skilful performance of Nan Leslie who does wonders with an extremely difficult role, making her torn-between-two-evils-heroine both sympathetic yet understatedly expressive. Otherwise this is a technically competent but more or less routine RKO second feature, featuring the usual shoot-outs and fast riding against the usual scenically picturesque but dusty and cheerless western backgrounds.
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Richard Dix (Clay Tallant), Margot Grahame (Kitty Rivers), Preston Foster (Tex Randolph), Louis Calhern (Sheriff Jake Mannen), James Bush (Orin Tallant), Ray Mayer (MacCloskey), Willie Best (Pompey), Joe Sawyer (Keeler), Francis Ford (Comstock, the mayor), Etta McDaniel (Sarah), J. Farrell MacDonald (Marshal Jordan), Edward Van Sloan (Judge Cody), Hank Bell (fine payer), Mac Lawrence (pistol whipper), Russ Powell (Joe, the barman), Bob Kortman (Red), Glen Walters (tall woman at dance), William H. O’Brien (waiter), Ted Oliver, Ethan Laidlaw (Mannen men), Jim Farley (posse member), Edward Brady (reluctant wine customer), Dick Curtis (saloon patron), John Alexander (Billy), Tom Brower (betting townsman), D’Arcy Corrigan (Hamlet), Barney Furey (hotel clerk), Wilfred Lucas (townsman with mayor), Art Mix (small man in posse).
Director: CHARLES VIDOR. Original screenplay: Dudley Nichols. Photography: Harold Wenstrom. Film editor: Jack Hively. Music director: Roy Webb. Songs: “Roll Along, Covered Wagon” (Grahame), by Jimmy Kennedy; “Just a Song at Twilight” (Grahame) by J.L. Molloy (music) and J. Clifton Bingham (lyrics). Art directors: Van Nest Polglase and Perry Ferguson. Costumes designed by Walter Plunkett. Assistant director: Dewey Starkey. Sound recording: George D. Ellis. RCA Victor Sound System. Associate producer: Cliff Reid.
Copyright 28 June 1935 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Roxy: 26 July 1935. U.S. release: 27 July 1935. Australian release: 4 September 1935. 8 reels. 75 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A corrupt sheriff and his gang are cut down by an unlikely alliance between the town marshal and a bandit.
NOTES: One of the Ten Best Films of 1935, according to Frank S. Nugent in The New York Times.
PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Succeeds in recapturing the vigor of Cimarron (1930).
COMMENT: This obvious attempt by RKO to duplicate the success of Cimarron (1930) actually succeeds, despite all the odds against it. The budget is only half for a start (and so is the running time) but it's still very lavishly produced. Secondly, heroine Margot Grahame is certainly no Irene Dunne, but she's a very capable and highly sympathetic player nonetheless. Thirdly, the movie lacks an epic stampede but it still manages some really vigorous action sequences including a knock-out climax which has echoes of the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Actor Richard Dix's manly presence is just right for the Wyatt Earp character, while Louis Calhern plays the slimy villain with all the fascination of an utterly vicious yet superficially elegant snake. Preston Foster was always better at the badman-turned-goodie (or vice versa) type of role and is in his element here. The support players include such dyed-in-the-wool villains as Joe Sawyer and even Marc Lawrence, whilst that perennial soak, Francis Ford, is all nicely dressed up here and hardly recognizable as the well-groomed mayor. Etta McDaniel also gets a chance to shine. Director Vidor stylishly handles the film's large budget and many action scenes with a bold and vigorous hand that will have even the most jaded western fans cheering.
THE DIRECTOR: No relative of America’s King Vidor, Charles Vidor was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 27 July 1900. He gained his education at the University of Budapest and the University of Berlin, learning civil engineering and indulging his interest in music, writing and sculpture via a general arts course on the side. He served in the German army during the First World War, was wounded thrice and decorated on four occasions. After the armistice he tried first to use his engineering knowledge to earn a livelihood, then his singing voice. The first landed him only a chance to dig ditches, the second to sing in beer halls.
It was then that he turned to films. Commencing at the UFA studio in Berlin doing odd jobs, he in time graduated to the position of an assistant editor, then a chief editor, and finally an assistant director. After serving in this latter capacity on Fridercus Rex (’21), he left Berlin for New York.
America’s first response to his motion picture ambitions was such that he had to fall back on his singing voice, joining a Wagnerian opera company as a bass-baritone. His goal was still set on directing motion pictures, however, so that after three years of Wagner he headed for Hollywood. There he worked in various minor capacities at several studios, but never came within sight of realizing his ultimate ambition.
Then in 1930, on his own time and financed by his own savings, Charles Vidor directed a two-reel adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s celebrated short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. This film was originally called The Spy, but so as not to be confused with Berthold Viertel’s 1931 film of the same name, it was later retitled simply The Bridge.
The picture opens with the spy (Nicholas Bela) walking between the ranks of a firing squad. Everything seems quite casual, except for a slight tenseness in the face of the spy. We see the preparations for the hanging: A bayonet is driven into the masonry of the bridge, the rope is fastened, a command is given, the drums begin to roll, the commanding officer orders the drummer-boy to turn his face away from the scene, the noose is placed, the condemned man climbs up to the bridge parapet. Now the drum beats are intercut with the victim’s beating chest. Suddenly we see a close-up of a mother — all sweetness and light — and a child. At this point the unexpected occurs: The noose seems to break, the spy plunges into the river. He quickly recovers and begins to swim away in a bid to escape. The soldiers set after him, shooting but missing, pursuing him through the woods until it appears certain their prisoner has eluded them. At the moment of realisation that he is free, the film cuts back to the bridge. The spy is suspended from the parapet where he had been hanged. He is dead.
True to Bierce’s theme, the escape was only a flash-forward of a dying man’s last thoughts, a kind of wish fulfilment, presented in such a manner that the spectator was led to believe that what he saw was actually taking place in reality instead of only in the condemned man’s mind.
In style The Spy was highly realistic. There were no camera tricks, no effects. The actors, non-professional, used no make-up. Sets were not painted flats or studio backgrounds but actual locations. The impact depended entirely upon straightforward cutting and mounting.
This movie induced such widespread critical acclaim, Vidor was signed up by M-G-M. His first assignment was to assist Charles Brabin (The Beast of the City, Call of the Flesh, etc.) on The Mask of Fu Manchu (’32). The properties of this screen version of Sax Rohmer’s novel include Boris Karloff, one well-equipped dungeon, several hundred Chinamen, and the proper machinery for persuading a large cast to divulge the location of the mask and sword of the late Ghengis Khan.
After fifty minutes or so, the diligent Fu has rounded up the majority of the extant white actors, and the scene that now greets the harassed visitor, should he drop into the theatre, is about as follows: Lewis Stone is being lowered head first to a pack of rapacious crocodiles. Charles Starrett is manacled to an operating table for the purpose of having a poisonous serum introduced into his blood. Jean Hersholt is about to be impaled between two sliding walls bristling with daggers. Karen Morley is on the point of being hacked into small pieces by the restless Fu himself. Space limitations forbid an itemization of the minor casualties.
Vidor was now handed the full directorial reins on a Frances Marion piece called The Prizefighter and the Lady. The film’s gimmick was that it actually starred such personalities of the ring as Primo Carnera and Max Baer. Unfortunately they were both ham actors of the worst degree, never missing an opportunity to show off. Vidor had never come in contact with such people before and he found it absolutely impossible to restrain their exhibitionist tendencies. However, he had been shooting for a month and had about 2,000 feet of finished film in the can, when studio head Louis B. Mayer strolled into the projection room one day and saw some of the rushes. He literally fell out of his chair.
Louis B. Mayer was one of the best actors in the business. He would rant and rave and jump up and down and give vent to the most absurd fits of stage apoplexy. His specialty, however, was giving impromptu impersonations. On beholding the gauche acting of Baer and Carnera, he overcame his usual restraint and, having relieved himself of almost his entire repertoire, stalked from the room. Vidor had not witnessed a display of such magnitude before, and was so startled that he offered no reply. Then, feeling that Mayer had no adequate appreciation of the difficulties of the situation, he sent in his resignation.
The subsequent fate of Vidor’s footage from The Prizefighter and the Lady is rather interesting. I quote from Robert C. Cannom’s biography of the late W.S. Van Dyke II:
“There were several cans of film on a table in Mr Mayer’s office. Louis B. walked over to these and said, ‘Van Dyke, you’ve just got yourself another assignment. I’d like to have you doctor up this picture!’ Van Dyke said, ‘What is it?’ Mr Mayer explained that it was The Prizefighter and the Lady. The film was sent to a projection room and after looking at it, Van told Mayer he would fix it up. L.B. was delighted. Van Dyke picked up the several cans of film and left the chief executive’s office. In a few minutes, Mr Mayer heard someone calling him from outside his window. Surprised at this unusual occurrence, he went to the window to see who could possibly be so bold. It was Van Dyke. He had the lid off a large disposal can in his hand and called out, ‘I told you I’d fix it!’ Then he dumped the entire batch of film in the trash. Mr Mayer almost had palpitation of the heart. But Van smiled, as he continued, ‘It’ll be cheaper to start the whole picture over from scratch.’ ”
After leaving M-G-M, Vidor was out of work for a few months before he found a niche at Monogram where he directed Sensation Hunters (’33). Actually, the title has nothing to do with the story which is about a girl (Arline Judge) who is a member of a group of entertainers in a Panama café. Parted by one of those contrived misunderstandings from the man she loves (Preston Foster), she is befriended by another (Kenneth McKenna). Belated happiness and reunion comes with the return of her original lover after the usual quota of trials and tribulations. Vidor has directed this sudsy material with greater artistry than it warranted, — especially in the final sequence where he makes commendable use of the mirror motif.
Following a further brief spell of inactivity, Vidor found himself at Paramount on Double Door (’34). Adhering closely to the plot of the Elizabeth McFadden play (said to have been suggested by the Wendell family) and retaining most of its dialogue, the film emerges as an exciting and spine-chilling thriller designed to shock by its psychological implications rather than the crude devices of gun-shots and ghosts. Broadway’s super-celebrated Mary Morris (in her only movie appearance) is superb as the embittered old spinster who does all in her power to break up her brother’s marriage. Evelyn Venable (whose previous pictures were Cradle Song, David Harum and Death Takes a Holiday) was never more radiantly beautiful and she even manages to infuse vitality into some of her dated dialogue:— “I know I shouldn’t have come but I had to, or I should have gone mad. I know I can trust you.” Her confidant is Dr John Lucas, played by Colin Tapley with the usual mannerisms pertinent to a role of this type. As he listens to her, he rams tobacco into his pipe. “There’s only one thing to do, Anne,” he says at length. “You have got to break away.” That’s easy to say, but difficult to accomplish when your sister-in-law has other plans. And then there’s Sir Guy Standing, who plays the old family lawyer, but despite his charisma, the role is surprisingly small. Nonetheless, Double Door is a must-see movie. [VintageFilmBuff have an excellent DVD].
Entering into a contract with RKO, Vidor handled Strangers All (’35), a vintage tear-jerker about May Robson’s efforts to raise four young children; The Arizonian (’35), a wonderful Dudley Nichols western which has all the advantages of a rich production, a sense of humor, and a splendid cast including Preston Foster as the bad guy, Richard Dix and Margot Grahame as hero and heroine; His Family Tree (’35), a minor comedy about small-town politics and stage Irishmen; Muss ’Em Up (’36), which turns out to be a detective story with kidnappers. Preston Foster is the ingenious sleuth.
Deserting RKO for Paramount, Vidor was first assigned to A Doctor’s Diary (’37), a savagely derisive exposé of conventional medical ethics, fairly screaming the sort of hospital anecdotes upright members of the profession refrain even from mentioning. Producer B.P. Schulberg has staffed it almost entirely with unknown players: John Trent, a TWA transport pilot; Ruth Coleman, a commercial artists’ model; Helen Burgess, a stock player. Sidney Blackmer is the villain, and all ends happily, if somewhat unethically. Vidor’s direction is suitably ponderous.
Next was The Great Gambini (’37). At one point in this film the screen is occupied by a clock which records the passing of the minute allotted to the audience for the examination of the clues and the discovery of the murderer. Any guess might have been right, for the clues were rampant and all pointed in different directions. Indeed, it was not so much a mystery as an ill-constructed crossword puzzle. Gambini (Akim Tamiroff) can read minds, and it is he who in a nightclub foretells that Stephen Danby (Roland Drew) and Ann Randall (Marian Marsh) who are to be married on the next day, will not do so. And neither they do, — for the very good reason that Stephen is murdered. All the people who were dining with him on the previous night, his fiancée and her father, step-mother and ex-lover, happened to visit him afterwards in his flat in the early hours of the morning. All are slightly unbalanced, — or so it seemed from the audience’s point of view. On the morning after the murder, the mind-reader himself arrives and in a few minutes he puzzles detectives, William Demarest and Edward Brophy.
Occasionally there is a situation which promises to become exciting, but it is never more than a promise.
Vidor’s direction, however, is often very exciting: the opening credits fall into place through a magician’s sleight-of-hand; a flashback sequence is filmed in one long take, with a character walking into the camera, stopping in close-up, and then retreating; in the final flashback, the screen is completely blacked out and is opened from the center to reveal the eyes of the murderer, whose face then materialises in a mirror as his victim is adjusting his stage make-up. In bringing off these innovations, Vidor owed much to the skill of his photographer, Leon Shamroy.
The script of Vidor’s next film, She’s No Lady (’37), another detective yarn, was even worse. Charles rightly regarded it as the worst film he ever directed in his career, and after it was cut down to sixty-two minutes he left Paramount to try his luck elsewhere. His name does not appear again on the screen until 1939, when he directed Columbia’s Romance of the Redwoods, Blind Alley and Those High Grey Walls.
Warmth, simplicity and freshness are qualities so unusual in the prison film that their presence in Those High Grey Walls has all the surprise of a violet’s growing in a jail-yard. Manfully resisting most of the theme’s obvious lures, from clattering jute mills to chattering machine guns, the film has chosen to go its way as drama rather melodrama. And through the admirable performances of Walter Connolly, Onslow Stevens and a few others, it has gone that way with complete interest and plausibility.
It is the story of a small-town doctor whose wisdom, tolerance and gentleness have grown through a score of years in the service of life. His prison offence was part of that tolerance: he had tended and shielded an outlaw simply because he knew the boy and his mother. And in prison, although the young doctor there derided his philosophy and tried to cure him of it, he still insisted that men remained men, whether murderers and thieves, and stood in dignity in the old, old relationship between patient and doctor. In time his philosophy has won another convert, for the young physician is healed of his bitterness and prepares to start afresh.
Vidor has spun the plot smoothly, spotlighting the prison background in significant bits of action but never letting it overshadow its quiet central figure, the old country doctor. Mr Connolly has played him wisely and well, with a good trouper’s recognition of the faint line between mawkishness and sentiment. Mr Stevens’s portrayal of the tactiturn, memory-ridden prison doctor is properly reticent, grave and sincere, and there are well handled minor characterisations by Bernard Nedell and Paul Fix. The screenplay was written by Lewis Meltzer and Gladys Lehman from a story by William A. Ullman, Jr.
Edward Small now asked for Vidor’s services on My Son, My Son (’40), an adaptation of Howard Spring’s best-selling English novel about a best-selling English novelist, who does everything he can to spoil his son. Brian Aherne is the excessively fond father. Louis Hayward plays the wayward son who, after failing to seduce his future step-mother (Madeleine Carroll), succeeds in seducing the daughter (Laraine Day) of his father’s best friend (Henry Hull). In the book, the son dies by hanging; in the film, he dies a hero in World War I.
Without any preliminary fanfare, Columbia launched one of 1940’s most delightful entertainments. Once you overcame the manifold implications of a title like The Lady in Question, you were rewarded with an hour and twenty minutes of delectable domestic fare that was by turn droll, downright funny and slightly dramatic, but always irresistibly humorous. Vidor has managed to keep his characters in situations that are plausible and has imparted to the whole an infectious atmosphere of home and hearth. The screenplay by Lewis Meltzer represents an adroit translation of the French film by Marcel Achard which was released in New York in 1939 as Heart of Paris.
Not the least of the film’s virtues are its players. Brian Aherne contributes one of his finest impersonations as the blustering, good-natured owner of a Parisian bicycle shop who, upon being called as a juror, is so touched by the pathetic girl accused of murdering her lover that he holds out for her acquittal, then takes her into his family on the pretext that she is the daughter of an old classmate. His efforts to hide the girl’s true identity from his wife, and then to thwart the romance which develops between her and his son, lead to many amusing (and touching) domestic complications. To attempt to give further details of the plot would be to do the film an injustice, for it springs to life out of situations of a sort which invariably seem frightfully dull in print.
When director James Whale hit the bottle, Vidor finished They Dare Not Love. Then, on loan to Paramount in 1941, Vidor directed New York Town. This Jo Swerling story screenplayed by Lewis Meltzer has a sidewalk photographer (Fred MacMurray) and a refugee Polish painter (Akim Tamiroff) adopt a homeless waif (Mary Martin). The plot follows a routine pattern, although a few amusing scenes are introduced, — such as the episode on a radio quiz program.
Back at Columbia, Vidor chose to direct Ladies in Retirement (’41). Rather similar to Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace, except that here the horror is meant to be taken seriously, it deals with two mad sisters in a lonely house (Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett), for whom a foolish old woman (Isobel Elsom) is murdered. Admirably photographed by George Barnes, the picture has plenty of suspense, some eerie effects, and generates a pleasing chill; but perhaps it is chiefly notable for its odd conception of the Essex marshes, where tinglingly atmospheric fog resembling bales of cotton hangs perpetually in the air, and the general impression is one of a chillingly antediluvian swamp. Ida Lupino starred.
As the result of another exchange deal, Charles found himself working at RKO on the Lewis Meltzer-Robert Carson screenplay of James Hilton’s adaptation of Nordhoff and Hall’s novel, No More Gas, — a title which was changed to The Tuttles of Tahiti (’42).
For several generations, the Tuttles, once of New England, have been vegetating with a vengeance under softer skies. Impecunious, irresponsible and amazingly prolific, these quasi-Polynesians are a problem to the community, but a constant source of amusement to themselves. They also amused even a hardened critic like me. Sol Lesser’s production is a minor field day for Charles Laughton, who obviously enjoys disporting himself as the sloppy, whimsical Jonas Tuttle of this Tahitian Tobacco Road. His best scene: Bug-eyed over the neat, crisp 400,000-franc salvage cheque in his trembling hand, he asks huskily, “Do you think it would be all right if I fold it?”
There are some beautiful shots of a storm and a hilarious wedding party. But all in all, instead of a glamorous Hollywood Tahiti, Vidor shows us a cheap, realistic South Seas locale that would astound the grass-skirt hula school. Although fondly remembered as one of Laughton’s most beguiling characterizations, The Tuttles of Tahiti seems to have slipped off the planet.
Returning to Columbia, Vidor asked to direct a Randolph Scott western, The Desperadoes (’43). Photographed in brilliant Technicolor by George Meehan (who, because of the Pacific Coast dim-out regulations, had to attempt night effects by daylight shooting with the use of filters, special make-up preparations, and the tripling of background lighting), the Robert Carson screenplay sets the old, familiar characters of Western folk-lore through their cliché-ridden paces: There’s the bold and incipient young outlaw (Glenn Ford) who comes riding into a Utah town, ostensibly to commit a hold-up but actually to lose his heart to the local scoundrel’s (Edgar Buchanan’s) little girl-innocent (Evelyn Keyes). There’s the lean and soft-spoken sheriff who realizes the kid is good at heart, and so helps him to evade the villains who try to pin a robbery and a couple of murders on him. There’s also the local burlesque queen with a heart of the purest gold (Claire Trevor, naturally) and the inevitable crooked proprietor (Porter Hall). All this is enlivened by a couple of bar-room battles and a wonderful stampede. Another golden oldie that seems to have disappeared!