Rob-120 Reviews

The Blue and the Gray (1982)

"The Blue and the Gray" vs. "North & South"

[9/10 · 15 March 2024]

The 1980s saw two TV mini-series that focused on the Civil War - "The Blue and the Gray" (TB&TG) and "North & South" (N&S). Of the two, TB&TG is clearly the better series. But N&S is an excellent series as well.

Why is TB&TG the better of the two series? It focused on the lives of the ordinary, everyday people who fought in and lived through the Civil War.

TB&TG focuses on two sides of a family that is torn apart by the war: The Geysers of Virginia and their cousins, the Hales of Pennsylvania. The Geysers own a small farm outside Charlottesville. The Hales operate a newspaper in Gettysburg.

Caught in the middle is the central character of the series, John Geyser (John Hammond), a talented sketch artist. He splits from his Virginia family after a black friend of his is lynched for harboring fugitive slaves. John will not fight for the Confederacy - but he won't join the Union army either, since he might be asked to bear arms against his three Virginia brothers.

On the advice of Abraham Lincoln (played in a magnificent performance by Gregory Peck), John chooses to stay neutral. He becomes an artist-correspondent for Harper's Weekly, reporting on the battles and sketching what he sees. We see the war primarily through John's story, and through the story of his friend, Jonas Steele (Stacy Keach), a dashing professional soldier who marries John's cousin, Mary Hale (Julia Duffy).

Another major character in TB&TG is Malachi Hale (Brian Kerwin), Mary's brother and John's cousin. Through Malachi, we get the story of an ordinary Civil War soldier. Malachi enlists in the Union Army, thinking it will be a grand adventure. But he is quickly introduced to the horrors of war at the Battle of Bull Run.

Only gradually will Malachi become a competent soldier. During a battle in the Peninsula Campaign, he runs away in fright. But later that day, he captures six surrendering Confederate soldiers with an unloaded rifle, more through luck than anything else. For his "heroic actions," Malachi is promoted to Corporal.

Later, Malachi tells another soldier, "They gave me a promotion, by mistake. After that, I was more scared of being scared than I was of being shot at." When his sergeant is killed during the Battle of the Wilderness, Malachi assumes command of his squad of soldiers, effectively becoming their leader.

TB&TG takes great pains to be historically accurate. In one scene, Union soldiers are swimming in the Chickahominy River, when they see a tiny wooden boat sailing into their midst. A Southern-accented voice calls from the opposite bank of the river. "Hey, Yank! That there's a trading boat! She's loaded with good chewing tobacco! Can you send us some coffee in return!" The Union soldiers load up the trading boat with a bag of coffee and send it back. This kind of trading between Union and Confederate soldiers actually took place during the war.

The battles are presented with historical accuracy. We see what really happened at Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and the Battle of the Wilderness. We also see how the war was made up of minor skirmishes. At the Battle of Geyser Hill, a group of Union soldiers attacks the Geyser Farm, and John is forced to choose between his vow to stay neutral and using violence to defend his home.

Also, TB&TG shows us the toll of the war on these two families. John's brothers, Matthew and Mark, are both killed in battle. Mary Hale is killed by a stray bullet at Gettysburg. Malachi's brother, James, dies of dysentery in a Union army hospital tent, before the war even begins. In a poignant scene at the end of the war, John, Malachi, Jonas, and others hold a torchlight parade in a Union army camp, singing "Tenting Tonight," in memory of the loved ones they have lost.

On the other hand, "North & South" was a soap opera - a well-done soap opera, yes, but still a soap opera. In a time when many of the top-rated TV shows were soap operas - "Dallas," "Dynasty," "Falcon Crest," "Knots Landing" - "North & South" took the soap opera elements of love, sex, money, power, and betrayal, and set them against the backdrop of the Civil War.

N&S was about the leaders of the Civil War. It was about the West Point graduates who became generals, and led the Union and Confederate armies into battle. It was also about the "American aristocracy" - the wealthy families of the North and South, and how their lives and loves were affected by the war.

N&S was about two wealthy families. The Hazards of Pennsylvania were iron makers, industrialists who manufactured cannons for the Civil War. The Mains of South Carolina owned a rice plantation, worked by slaves.

The scope of N&S was more epic. It took two (actually, three) mini-series to tell its tale. The first, "North & South," focused on the pre-war period, in the lead-up to the Civil War. The second series, "North & South Book II," focused on the Civil War years. The third, 1994's "Heaven & Hell: North & South Book III," focused on the Reconstruction period. (About "Heaven & Hell," the less said, the better. It should never have been made in the first place.)

The story of N&S opens in 1842, when Orry Main (Patrick Swayze) and George Hazard (James Read) become friends while they are students at West Point. Their classmates will be generals in the coming Civil War - Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, George Pickett, and Thomas (later "Stonewall") Jackson. Orry and George also meet Elkanah Bent (Philip Casnoff), who will be their lifelong enemy.

N&S follows Orry and George as they fight in the 1846 Mexican War, getting their first taste of the horrors of battle. After the war, the Hazards and Mains remain friends, often spending their summers together in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. But "Secession Fever," the Abolitionist movement, and the divisions between the two sides of the country threaten to tear this friendship apart as the Civil War approaches.

As with most soap operas, there is a lot of "conniving" in N&S. Orry Main must deal with his conniving sister, Ashton (played by Terri Garber as one of the all-time great soap opera "witches"), and with her conniving lovers, Forbes LaMotte and Elkanah Bent, who becomes a war profiteer. Orry also falls in love with Madeline LaMotte (Leslie-Ann Down), the wife of his brutish, abusive neighbor, plantation owner Justin LaMotte (David Carradine), and Orry and Madeline carry on a secret affair.

In the North, George Hazard must deal with his sister, Virgilia (Kirstie Alley), a fire-spitting Abolitionist, who almost betrays Orry to a lynch mob. Later, during the war, Virgilia becomes a Union army nurse, and must treat Orry after he is wounded in battle. George must also deal with his weak-willed brother, Stanley Hazard (Jonathan Frakes, and Stanley's conniving wife Isabel (who was played by three different actresses, in each of the three mini-series).

Unfortunately, the soap opera elements in N&S often overshadowed the Civil War itself. It was as if the war was a "setting" for the story of the Hazards and the Mains, in the same way that the city of Dallas was a "setting" for the story of the Ewings.

N&S very rarely looked at the lives of soldiers in the Civil War. None of the battle scenes - at Antietam, Gettysburg, etc. - was depicted with much historical accuracy. They mostly showed the soldiers running across the battlefield, shooting at each other, with the Hazards and Mains in the lead.

Also, N&S never examined the true cost of the war. Notice how the principal "soldier characters" - George and Billy Hazard, Orry and Charles Main - are all still alive at the end of "North & South Book II." None of them were killed in any of the Civil War battles they fought in.

In N&S, only the villains were killed - sort of. (Elkanah Bent is "killed off" in an explosion at the end of "North & South Book II," only to return in "Heaven & Hell," with no explanation given as to how he survived.)

Still, both "The Blue and the Gray" and "North & South" Books I and II are excellent mini-series, and it's well-worth your time to watch them all.

The Little Ark (1972)

The worst kind of 1970s "kids' movie"

[1/10 · 10 May 2023]

"The Little Ark" is what passed for a "kids' movie" back in the 1970s. Back then, filmmakers often assumed that kids were stupid, no matter what age they were. So when they made a "kids' movie," it was usually a condescending film that "talked down" to the kids who were watching it.

In the movie, Jan and Adinda are a boy and a girl who live in a modern-day village in Amsterdam. They have been adopted by the local parish priest. The kids are supposed to be Dutch, but they both speak English with American accents. Adinda is Asian, but at least they have the courtesy to explain this to the audience by having her talk about growing up in Java, where her parents were "deaded" by government soldiers.

A huge storm strikes the Amsterdam coast. The local dikes break and the town is flooded out. The two children survive by taking refuge inside a church steeple, along with a pet dog, a cat, a rabbit, and a rooster. When an abandoned houseboat floats by the church, the kids transfer the animals to the boat and set off on an adventure (hence the "ark" of the title).

The film makers treat the flooding of the Amsterdam coast as a casual event. The two kids don't seem to be the least bit traumatized by the destruction of their town. Occasionally, they come across the dead bodies of flood victims, and while they are momentarily shocked, they quickly forget about what they have seen. When Adinda sees the body of the priest's wife, their adopted mother, floating by, she is horrified. But they never liked her anyway, since she wouldn't let them keep their pet dog.

Then a fishing vessel finds the houseboat, and the children are rescued by its commander, a sea captain (Theodore Bikel). And it's here that the children show themselves to be "dumb movie kids," of the kind that you only find in bad movies, as opposed to the smart kids that you find in real life.

Jan, who is 11 years old, initially thinks the Sea Captain is a "Pirate." A real 11-year old boy would be smart enough to know the difference, and would be glad to be rescued. But because Jan is a "dumb movie kid," he genuinely believes he's been captured by a pirate! When they are taken on board the fishing vessel, he refers to the Sea Captain as a "pirate" over and over again ("Bad ol' pirate!" "Mean ol' pirate!"), until you want to shout at him, "He's NOT a pirate, you incredible nincompoop!"

The Sea Captain (whose name we never learn) sails around the Amsterdam coast, rescuing people from flooded houses. What's interesting is (1) all of the flooded houses look the same, as if they could only afford one "flooded house" set for this movie; and (2) the Sea Captain's fishing vessel seems to be the only rescue boat on the water. We occasionally see an airplane or a helicopter flying over, but there's no "massive response" of rescue boats, as there would be in a real-life coastal flood.

Occasionally, the fishing vessel picks up other flood survivors, who disappear and reappear on the boat decks between scenes, with the regularity of movie extras. We never get to know any of these refugees, and none of them seem to be traumatized by the fact that they have lost their homes and everything they own in the flood. The one important scene they have comes when the Sea Captain leads a Sunday morning service on the ship deck, and the refugees all cheerfully sing a hymn!

Jan and Adinda have more adventures. The Sea Captain drops them off in Amsterdam City, and the children are taken on board a hospital ship. The radio man tries to get them to undress and go to bed. The children refuse to obey him, but they don't mention the most obvious reason why this is a bad idea. It's still daylight outside! You can see it through the boat windows!

The animals in this movie behave like "trained movie animals," not like real animals. The dog faithfully follows the children everywhere. Whenever they have to go somewhere, the cat obediently jumps into a basket that Adinda carries around with her, and the cat never attacks the rabbit. Even the rooster behaves illogically, at one point crowing loudly in the evening, to give away the children's hiding place.

Eventually, the Sea Captain takes the children back to their village. And wouldn't you know it! They find their adoptive father, the parish priest, whom they've been searching for all this time, playing the organ in the same church where they took refuge from the flood! The entire trip was unnecessary! Jan and Adinda would have been better off if they had just stayed in the church, and waited for him to find them!

"The Little Ark" is an obscure movie. Many people are looking for it, because its song, "Come Follow, Follow Me," got an Oscar nomination. Unfortunately the song is the best thing in the movie. Overall, it's a long and dull film, with a story and characters that have been severely "dumbed down" for kids in the audience. In real life, kids are smart, and they deserve better movies than this.

The Bold and the Brave (1956)

"The Preposterous and the Predictable"

[2/10 · 15 June 2022]

In the 1950s, there were a number of movies that had "The This and the That" titles. These included "The Bad and the Beautiful," "The High and the Mighty," "The Power and the Prize," "The Proud and the Beautiful," "The Proud and the Profane," "The Prince and the Showgirl," and "The Old Man and the Sea."

"The Bold and the Brave" is something of a redundant title. "Bold" and "brave" are essentially the same thing.

But a better title for this movie might be, "The Preposterous and the Predictable."

It's a war movie, focusing on the lives of three foot soldiers in Italy, 1944: Dave Fairchild (Wendell Corey), Willie Dooley (Mickey Rooney), and Sgt. Ewald Wollaston (Don Taylor).

But these three don't really look like soldiers. They look like actors making a war movie!

Wendell Corey was 42 when he made this film. Mickey Rooney and Don Taylor were both 35. They're too old to be believable as foot soldiers. If anything, they should be playing officers. (At one point, Rooney takes off his cap, and we see that he's already starting to lose his hair.)

Also, they seem to pay little attention to rank insignia in this film. Don Taylor is supposed to be a Sergeant, but he's only wearing two stripes on his arm, indicating that he's a Corporal. Rooney and Corey are supposed to be Privates, but they're not even wearing stripes on their arms. These guys would have trouble passing the next inspection!

Don Taylor's character, Ewald Wollaston, is nicknamed "Preacher," because he's a religious zealot who is always talking about resisting temptation and fighting against "the Devil." He's so straight-laced that when he visits a local Italian village, he doesn't want a bottle of wine - he wants a glass of buttermilk! He doesn't want to visit the local bars - he wants to visit the local churches!

Wollaston falls in love with Fiamma (Nicole Maurey), a local Italian woman. He's so unbelievably naïve that it never even occurs to him that this woman might be a prostitute, even though she's wearing a loose-fitting dress that is cut down to Sicily!

Later, when they visit a cantina, a pair of G. I.s from another unit recognize Fiamma as the woman who's been a "friend" to all of them! Wollaston is shocked, shocked to discover that he's actually fallen in love with a "scarlet woman," even though Fiamma tearfully tells him that she only turned to prostitution to keep from starving to death. As Wollaston leaves the village, he mutters to himself, "I should have known better! I should have known better!"

I'm thinking, "Yes! A guy like you *should* know better! How can a *combat Sergeant* be so unknowledgeable about the world? You never encountered a prostitute in boot camp, let alone the rest of Italy? Give me a break!"

Wendell Corey plays Dave Fairchild, a soldier who freezes on the battlefield. He can't bring himself to shoot an enemy sniper, even when the sniper is taking aim at another American G. I. How Fairchild made it this far in the Italian campaign without getting himself killed is never explained.

Mickey Rooney earns his Oscar nomination as Willie Dooley, a chatterbox G. I. who is always on a lucky streak. His best scene, and the only really good scene in the movie, is when Dooley joins a wild G. I. craps game, part of which takes place underneath a blanket during an air raid on the camp.

An hour into the movie, they finally get around to giving us a combat scene. The soldiers are trapped in an abandoned Italian farmhouse, and have to fight their way out. The dialogue is overloaded with "combat cliché lines" (i.e. "Cover me!" "We'll fight to the last man!" "Don't leave me, Smitty!") Wendell Corey redeems himself by single-handedly taking down a German tank.

Near the end, there is an unintentionally hilarious moment. Throughout the movie, Mickey Rooney has occasionally referred to his wife back in the States. Her name is Jeannie. ("When the war's over, me and Jeannie are going to open a restaurant!")

In the final scene, Rooney is shot down by enemy machine gun fire. As he drops to his knees, he says his wife's name. "Jeannie!"

And what song does the background orchestra play on the soundtrack as Rooney falls to the ground? Just take a wild guess!

You Light Up My Life (1977)

I can't decide if this movie is awful or terrible!

[3/10 · 26 February 2022]

After I watched the movie "You Light Up My Life," I sort of have mixed feelings about it. I can't decide if it's awful or terrible. I'm leaning more towards "awful," but there are parts of the movie that are "terrible" as well.

In "You Light Up My Life," Didi Conn plays Laurie Robinson, a young woman trying to make it in show business. She spends her days driving around Los Angeles in a 1960s convertible, acting in various odd TV commercials, and appearing in her father's TV show for kids. Her father, Sy Robinson (Joe Silver), is a Z-grade borscht-belt comedian who is totally clueless about the fact that he just isn't funny!

At the beginning of the movie, we see Laurie as a child, doing a stage act where she sits on a stool, holding a ventriloquist dummy, making unfunny jokes to a barely-laughing audience. (It's NOT a ventriloquist act - Laurie isn't "throwing her voice." She's just sitting there HOLDING the ventriloquist dummy, for some unexplained reason!)

As an adult, Laurie is STILL doing this lame comedy act, except now she's doing it before an audience of little kids, who only sit and stare at her in total confusion, not laughing at all! (These scenes are painful to watch!) Laurie tries to tell her father that the act isn't funny, but he refuses to listen to her, stupidly insisting, "It's all about timing."

One night at a bar, Laurie is almost literally "picked up" by Chris Nolan (Michael Zaslow), a curly-haired Lothario in a loud 1970's shirt with a wide collar. (He puts his arm around her and refuses to let her go while he's talking on a pay phone. If you know the history of the director, Joseph Brooks, you know how creepy this is.)

Chris takes her back to his apartment. The next morning, when he asks her to stay, she tells him she has to go to a wedding rehearsal.

"Whose wedding is it?" Chris asks.

"Mine," says Laurie.

Yes, Laurie just had a one-night stand, right before her own wedding! This is a shock not only to Chris, but to the audience as well. At this point, we're 20 minutes into the movie, and this is the first time that Laurie has even mentioned that she's engaged!

We meet her fiancé, Ken Rothenberg (Stephen Nathan), a self-absorbed tennis pro, who doesn't support Laurie's show business dreams, and peppers her with put-downs. It's never made clear why Laurie hooked up with this jerk, or why she is marrying him.

The wedding rehearsal scene is one of the few good scenes in the movie. At the wedding chapel, an idiotic wedding planner has two rows of bridesmaids and groom attendants pull a giant white clam shell on wheels down the aisle. The giant clam shell opens up - and Laurie and Ken emerge from inside it. Ken is humiliated by the whole thing, but Laurie's father, Sy Robinson, insists that everything at the wedding is going to be great!

I thought the wedding rehearsal scene was funny - but it didn't go far enough! If Laurie and Ken had gotten STUCK inside the giant clam shell, now THAT would have been HILARIOUS! ("Press the button, Ken! It opens the clam shell." "I AM pressing it, Laurie, but it's not working! Somebody get us out of here!")

Another funny scene worth mentioning is when Laurie and two other actresses are filming a commercial for frozen waffles, dressed in old-fashioned "farm housewife" outfits. The three actresses are placed in front of an American flag, and told by an oafish director how to sing the waffles jingle. "Sing it down on your knees, like Al Jolson." (I've heard actors like Morgan Freeman complain that they actually had to do silly commercials like this one when they were just starting out!)

A few days later, Laurie goes to audition for a musical film - and wouldn't you know it, her one-night stand Chris Nolan is the director! (A director named Chris Nolan? Yeah, right! Like that would ever happen!)

Laurie decides to sing him a song that she's written, "You Light Up My Life." As soon as she starts to "sing," you know right away that Didi Conn is just lip-synching the words, and her singing voice is being dubbed. Laurie's "highly-trained Broadway-caliber singing voice" does not match with Didi Conn's mousy, barely-audible, Brooklyn-accented speaking voice. (Ukrainian singer Kasey Cisyk did the dubbing, and sued Joseph Brooks when she wasn't credited in the movie.)

Throughout the movie, Laurie is so shy and soft-spoken and apologetic that even when she's being handed her "Golden Opportunity on a Silver Platter," she's still begging off! At the audition where she sings her song, when Chris is insisting that she sing, she keeps telling the orchestra conductor, "Oh, we don't have to do this now, if you don't want to!" (I was almost shouting at her, "Shut up and SING, you idiot!")

Laurie is such a major wimpette that you get the feeling a girl like this would never make it in cut-throat Hollywood! And if she did make it, she wouldn't be very happy. She seems to stay in show business because it's the only life she's ever known.

In "Grease," Frankie Avalon told Didi Conn, "You've got the dream, but not the drive." In "You Light Up My Life," Laurie has the opposite problem. She's got the drive, but not the dream. And that makes this movie awful and terrible to sit through!

The Pied Piper (1942)

Monty Woolley to the rescue!

[8/10 · 26 April 2020]

In 1940, John Sidney Howard (Monty Woolley) is on a fishing trip in France when the Germans invade. He is asked by the Cavanaghs, an English diplomatic couple serving in nearby Switzerland, to take their two children, Ronnie and Sheila (Roddy McDowell and Peggy Ann Garner) back to England on his return trip.

Howard agrees, but the trip doesn't go as planned. Their train to Paris is stopped, they take a bus, but are strafed on the road by German fighters. Along the way, several more children join the group, including a French girl, a deaf boy, and a Dutch boy, and Howard finds himself serving as a "Pied Piper," leading these young refugees to safety.

Towards the end of the journey, they are captured by the Nazis, and imprisoned in a castle dungeon. Howard must deal with Major Diessen (Otto Preminger, in his premiere role as a film actor), a Nazi commander who suspects Howard of being an English spy. Fortunately - wouldn't you know it? - Diessen just happens to have a half-Jewish niece and needs Howard to smuggle her out of Germany.

This movie is slightly dated today, but still enjoyable. It's more of a fable than an actual wartime drama. (In real life, a Nazi commander like Major Diessen would have no hesitation about torturing the children to make Howard confess to spying.)

Still, the performances make the film work. Monty Woolley plays Howard as a grumpy old Englishman, and gives the film a lighthearted tone, which he keeps all the way to the end. Roddy McDowell and Peggy Ann Garner ("A Tree Grows In Brooklyn") do well in their roles. They are not bratty children, but well-defined characters.

Woolley and McDowell have an ongoing argument in the film over whether Rochester is a city or a state in America. Later on, Major Diessen asks Howard if he can arrange to have Diessen's half-Jewish niece sent to America, where she can live with Diessen's brother, who just happens to live in - guess where!

Anne Baxter appears as a young French woman who was the sweetheart of Howard's late son, an R.A.F. pilot recently killed in combat. Now, she helps Howard to smuggle the children across Nazi-occupied France. Baxter has scenes in this movie that show off her acting talent, which would bring her an Oscar in a few years.

Aside from the slightly trite story, the movie's only flaws are sins of omission. The characters in this film are good enough that we want *more* from them. For example, the grief that John Sidney Howard feels over his late son's death could have been better developed, and would have added more weight to his character.

Also, the two English children, Ronnie and Sheila, speak French and Dutch, and occasionally serve as interpreters for the other children in the group, but this "translating" relationship could have been developed even more. And never once does Howard say the one line that he *should* say in this movie: "With all these children, I feel like the Pied Piper!"

From what I can see, the only reason this movie hasn't yet been released on DVD is because Monty Woolley was never a big star, and is largely forgotten today. But he was a good actor.

Artist and Models (1937)

A 1930s Mash-Up Musical

[6/10 · 18 April 2017]

To call "Artists & Models" a musical would be a stretch. It's more like a mash-up of various odd musical numbers that occasionally stops for a plot.

The plot (what there is of it) involves Jack Benny as an advertising executive, trying to land a million-dollar ad buy with playboy millionaire Richard Arlen. Benny promises Arlen that the queen of the upcoming Artists & Models Ball – for which Benny is the chairman – will serve as the model in a magazine ad campaign for Arlen's silverware company. But Arlen insists his new model must be a high-society girl.

Ida Lupino, one of Benny's models, follows Arlen down to Miami, where she poses as a high-society girl, while wearing the fancy clothes borrowed from her modeling jobs. She tries to trick him into selecting her as the model for his silverware ad campaign – but of course, they end up falling in love. (There's a scene where Lupino and Arlen are standing together on the diving board of a hotel's indoor swimming pool. She's wearing a fancy dress, and he's wearing a tuxedo. Can you guess what happens next?)

The plot is a thin "clothesline" on which they've hung the most bizarre train-wreck of musical numbers ever jumbled together in a movie. We get "hillbilly" comedienne Judy Canova singing a bubble bath number. Later, she joins Ben Blue for a slip-sliding, "punch-your-sweetheart" song-&- dance. Still later, Judy joins her siblings, Anne and Zeke Canova, to sing a straight-faced version of "The Ballad of Jesse James," complete with yodeling, right in the middle of the high-society Artists & Models Ball.

There's a marionette number in which, for no discernible reason, Ben Blue dances on stage with marionette dancing girls, and a Big Band number featuring a pair of Art Deco swimmers doing a water ballet in a swimming pool. When things start getting dull, the Yacht Club Boys come charging in with a chaotic musical number, or a gypsy dance troupe, or a melee of circus performers.

The best musical number in the movie is also the most problematic. The finale, "Public Melody #1," features Martha Raye in bad blackface makeup, singing on a Harlem street with an all-black dance chorus, while Louis Armstrong plays his horn. The song itself is good, and Martha Raye's performance of it is great – but the staging of it by Vincente Minelli is dated and offensive by today's standards. (If they'd gotten somebody like Lena Horne to sing it, there wouldn't have been a problem.)

But who cares if the movie is just a mash-up? It's still fun to watch. It crams all these crappy musical numbers into 97 minutes, and keeps the numbers coming along quickly, without stopping too long for the plot. I actually enjoyed watching it, and I never found it boring or annoying, as I have with some other 1930s Hollywood musicals (i.e. the "Gold Digger" or "Big Broadcast" musicals).

Weary River (1929)

An Interesting Failed Experiment from the Silent-To-Sound Transition Period

[4/10 · 3 February 2017]

"Weary River" was made in 1929, during that period following the success of "The Jazz Singer," when the Hollywood studios were trying to figure out how to use the new medium of sound, and also trying to figure out what the heck audiences wanted – silents or sound pictures.

With "Weary River," director Frank Lloyd tried to combine the two, presumably to see if they would work together in the same film. The movie has a soundtrack with music and sound effects, but throughout the film, it switches back and forth between "silent movie" mode (with dialogue given in title cards) and "sound movie" mode (where we can hear the characters speaking to each other).

It's an interesting experiment, but it doesn't really work. The story is too melodramatic.

In "Weary River," Jerry Larrabee (Richard Barthelmess) is a gangster with a platinum blonde girlfriend, Alice Gray (Betty Compson). After he is framed by a rival gangster, Spadoni (Louis Natheaux), Jerry is sent to prison, where he is "turned from the Dark Side" by a fatherly, idealistic warden (played by the original William Holden).

Jerry forms a prison band made of convicts (who are so good, they sound like a Hollywood studio orchestra), and writes a song, "Weary River," which becomes a big hit when it is broadcast on the radio. After his release, Jerry tries to go straight, but finds that vaudeville theater audiences are unwilling to accept him as an ex-convict pianist. He returns to Alice, and then must decide whether to keep on the straight and narrow path, or return to the rackets and have it out with Spadoni.

If this story had been a "total silent movie" from beginning to end, it might have worked better. Silent movies could "get away" with more melodramatic stories like this. The problem in "Weary River" is that the "silent" scenes work better than the "sound" scenes.

In the "sound" scenes, the dialogue is so awful, it sounds as if the characters took their words out of a bad 1920s stage melodrama. For example, in a "sound" scene in the warden's prison office, the warden gives Jerry a speech: "You must turn from your evil ways, my son." It sounds very stilted and artificial. The warden does everything but say to Jerry, "Think of your poor mother, and the grief you're putting her through." (A later scene in the warden's office, in "silent" mode," works better because we can't hear the characters, and we get the dialogue in subtitles.)

Later in the movie, Jerry says to Alice, "Why, honey! You're crying!" – probably the ultimate cliché of movie dialogue. Of course, Hollywood writers had trouble with the scripts during this transition period. It took them a while to learn how to write good dialogue, instead of writing title cards. (1952's "Singin' in the Rain" illustrated this problem brilliantly.)

In "Weary River," Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson do okay as the leads, but still seem to be doing "silent movie acting." Whenever Jerry meets with his gangster friends, or gets a lecture from the warden, Barthelmess hunches his shoulders down and glowers at the other characters, as if to say, "Okay, I'm a gangster now." This kind of acting was necessary in the silent movies, where emotions were conveyed through facial expressions, not dialogue.

The problem with Jerry's character is that he's not really a "bad guy" or an evil man He's a gangster, but in his heart he'd really like to be a musician. He loves his girl too much to slap her with a grapefruit, or to seek out other women. He doesn't even fire a gun in the movie (although he comes close at the end). In the next few years after this film was made, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Paul Muni would do a better job of defining gangsters as irredeemable, violent criminals who took what they wanted when they wanted it.

The movie is well-directed, and it gives a good view of the Roaring Twenties, with "Jazz Age" nightclub scenes, speakeasy shootouts, and some good scenes in the prison. But watching "Weary River" today, it seems more like a movie that paved the way for other, better films.

College Swing (1938)

Fortunately, This Movie Has No Plot

[5/10 · 16 October 2016]

To say that "College Swing" is a movie with no plot is an understatement. It barely has a scenario. Most of it is built around a "story idea." But in this case, the fact that is has no plot is a good thing.

The "story" (what there is of it) focuses on Gracie Alden (Gracie Allen), who will inherit Alden College, which was founded by her ancestors, if she can pass an exam and graduate after nine years as a student there. Of course, Gracie's doing her classic dumb-as-rocks-girl comedy routine that she did so well.

When she passes the exam through sheer luck, Gracie sets about making "Gracie"-like changes at the college. ("I'm going to appoint myself as the new Dean of Boys." "But the Dean of Boys is someone who watches the boys at the school, and looks after them." "Exactly. I'm an expert at watching the boys.")

The movie is a rapid-fire mashup of comedy sketches, musical numbers, and Big Band "Swing" dances strung together over 86 minutes. It moves quickly from sketch to song to dance number, as if it's afraid the plot will catch up with it. But the lack of plot is an advantage with this type of movie. If they stopped the routines long enough to develop the plot, it would probably get boring.

As usual, George Burns is on hand to give Gracie her college exam, and to feed her the straight lines, and Bob Hope serves as Gracie's tutor. The cast also includes Edward Everett Horton as the college's stuffy benefactor; Martha Raye as a "love professor" who takes up with Hope; Ben Blue as an inept Phys. Ed. professor; Jerry Colonna as a music professor; John Payne ("Miracle on 34th Street") and opera singer Florence George as the "Young Lovers" stock characters; and the Slate Brothers (a "Three Stooges" comedy group) as a trio of bumbling waiters at the local college hangout (which is called, what else, "The Hangout"). Skinnay Ennis and his band provide the "Swing" music, and Betty Grable and Jackie Coogan (who were married at this time) do the "Swing" numbers. It's a pretty routine film, meant to capitalize on the "Swing" craze. It's not very memorable, but at least, it never gets boring.

"College Swing" was an attempt to capitalize on the "Swing" dance craze, which was popular with college kids in the late 1930s. (Hollywood is still doing this today, with movies like the "High School Musical," "Pitch Perfect," and "Step Up" series.) If you enjoy 1930s comedy and "Swing" music, you'll like this one. It's not a very good movie, but at least it's entertaining, and never dull.

Bad Girl (1931)

She's not a bad girl. Just dumb as rocks!

[3/10 · 17 March 2015]

If there was ever a movie with a misleading title, this one is it. With the title, "Bad Girl," the fact that it's Pre-Code, and the movie poster showing a scantily-clad woman lounging in a chair with her arms raised, while a man leers suggestively over her shoulder – you think this movie is going to be about a woman of loose morals, like Jean Harlow or Marlene Dietrich.

But it's not. Instead, it's a romantic melodrama that tells the story of a young married couple trying to make it through their first year of marriage during the Depression. Dorothy Haley (Sally Eiler) marries Eddie Collins (James Dunn), a tough talking "Noo Yawk" radio salesman, who is secretly a softie inside.

In the movie's opening scenes, Dorothy is a streetwise dress model who easily parries the advances of men who make passes at her. But after she marries Eddie, she turns into an emotional girl with an overactive imagination. (When Eddie is late on their wedding day, Dorothy bursts into tears because she assumes he has deserted her.)

Dorothy isn't really a "bad girl." She's just dumb as a box of rocks! Unfortunately, so is her husband. Eddie and Dorothy spend the movie trying to make each other happy, but they're both too stupid to realize they actually want the same things.

This leads to an extended version of what Roger Ebert called the "Idiot Plot," where there are lame misunderstandings and the characters keep secrets from each other for no reason except that the plot requires it. If they would just tell each other those secrets, it would solve all their problems, but it would spoil the plot. It's called an "Idiot Plot" because the characters have to be idiots for it to work.

Case in point. Soon after their marriage, Dorothy finds out she is pregnant. But Eddie has saved up $650 to open his own radio store. Not wanting him to spend his savings on her, Dorothy doesn't tell Eddie about the baby. Instead, she tells him she'd like to go back to work, to earn more money. From this, Eddie concludes she is unhappy living in their one-bedroom apartment. So he spends his $650 to buy them a big house and furniture, which Dorothy likes but didn't really want. Only then does she tell him she's pregnant.

Now, this could have been handled as a variation on "The Gift of the Magi." But in the "Magi" story, the husband and wife actually learned something from their experience. Eddie and Dorothy learn nothing, and keep making the same dumb mistakes.

Eddie and Dorothy each wrongly assume the other one doesn't want the baby, which results in more problems with their marriage. When Dorothy decides she needs an expensive doctor, Eddie tries to earn the money as a boxer. When he comes home with bandages on his face, Dorothy accuses him of going to a speakeasy and getting in a fight, instead of staying home with her. For some reason, Eddie doesn't tell her about the money he's won, or that he got her the doctor she wanted.

(On a side note, the movie's one great scene is when Eddie steps into the ring with the Champ. He gets beaten up pretty bad and is about to go down when he whispers to the Champ that he needs the money because his wife is having a baby. The Champ says, "Well, why didn't ya say so? I got kids of my own!" He then literally carries Eddie around the ring for a few more rounds, all the time talking about his own kids.)

If this story had been handled comically, it might have been a forerunner of "The Honeymooners" and "The Flintstones." (There were times when Eddie reminded me of Ralph Kramden.) Instead, we get a sappy romantic melodrama that is instantly forgettable.

It's surprising that Frank Borzage won an Oscar for directing this claptrap, and that the lame screenplay won an Oscar as well. Borzage made better films than this (see "Seventh Heaven" and "Street Angel"), and there were better directed films released in 1931-32 (such as Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights," James Whale's "Frankenstein," William Wellman's "The Public Enemy," and Edmund Goulding's "Grand Hotel"). But AMPAS was young then, and young organizations are bound to make mistakes.

The Great Waltz (1938)

This "Waltz" Isn't So Great

[4/10 · 19 January 2015]

"The Great Waltz" is a *very* loose adaption of the life of Johann Strauss II. It might be going too far to call it a "biopic," since most of it is made up. At best, you could call it a "musical soap opera," where one of the characters just happened to be a real person. (The opening credits include the disclaimer: "We have dramatized his spirit rather than the facts of his life, because it is his spirit that has lived – in his music." Riiiiiight.)

In 1844, Johann "Jonny" Strauss II (French actor Fernand Gravet) quits his job as a banker, and begins to write waltzes. He soon has all of Vienna twirling. Strauss marries Poldi Vogelhuber (Luise Rainer), the daughter of a Viennese baker, but falls in love with Carla Donner (Miliza Korjus), a flirtatious opera singer. Strauss must then choose between going back to Poldi, or sailing away with Carla down the Blue Danube.

The movie chucks the real details of Strauss's life out the window, in favor of a Hollywood drama. The real Strauss was married three times, but Poldi and Carla are both fictional characters. And the film makes no mention of the intense father/son rivalry that existed between Strauss I and II.

Overall, the plot is the standard "musical genius torn between two women" story that we've all seen before. Some scenes get ridiculous, i.e. the "musical inspiration" scene where Strauss is riding through the Vienna Woods in an open carriage. The birds singing in the trees are literally cheeping the tune from "Tales of Vienna Woods," giving him the music to write it, while the horse pulling the carriage is clip-clopping along in three-quarter time (which would be impossible, unless you have a three-legged horse).

One halfway-accurate scene shows Strauss leading protesters into the Emperor's palace during the 1848 Revolution. Although in real life, Strauss supported the revolution, he didn't march with the protesters. (Henry Hull, of "Werewolf of London" fame, plays the young Franz Joseph I.)

Fernand Gravat does okay in the main role as "Jonny" Strauss. But as usual with these "musical composer biopics," we get too many scenes of him conducting the orchestra, waving his baton wildly as the music soars.

Luise Rainer once again plays the jilted-but-loyal wife, all weepy and teary and doe-eyed, supporting her rotten husband, and thinking only of his happiness, even as he prepares to leave her for another woman. It's a role that Rainer had played (and won Oscars for) in "The Great Ziegfeld" and "The Good Earth." At this point, she was almost being typecast in these kinds of roles.

Although Rainer gets top billing, her "jilted wife" is really a supporting role. The main focus of the story is on the romance between Strauss and Carla. Rainer barely appears in the first hour of the movie; it's only in the second hour that her character has her moments. As usual, she handles the part well, but if these were the only kinds of roles that rat bastard Louis B. Mayer could give her, it's probably a good thing that she got out of Hollywood when she did.

Polish opera singer Miliza Korjus does well in her role as Carla Donner. The filmmakers hired Oscar Hammerstein II to write some dopey lyrics for Strauss's waltzes, so she would have something to sing. But her voice is magnificent, and she is very well trained as a singer. Korjus did the smart thing, and got out of Hollywood as well. (An auto accident prevented her from completing her next film, and after she recovered, she went on a South American singing tour and never looked back.)

The production values are all terrific. The Oscar-winning cinematography is innovative for its time, as is the quick-cut editing between teams of waltzing dancers. The art direction showing 19th century Vienna is magnificent. The costumes are great, especially Miliza Korjus' shimmering ball gown. The orchestrations of Strauss' music by Miklos Rozsa is handled with great panache, and the waltz dances are all expertly choreographed. Despite its flaws, the film does give some idea of the genius and impact of Strauss's waltzes.

The lack of bankable stars in this film made it one of MGM's biggest disappointments of 1938.

A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941)

A Jerk in the R.A.F.

[2/10 · 17 November 2014]

"A Yank in the R.A.F." is the first World War II movie I've ever seen where I was actually rooting for the Nazis to shoot down the hero's plane and kill him!

The story centers on Tim Baker (Tyrone Power), an arrogant hotshot American pilot who flies a fighter plane from Canada to Britain, as part of the Lend Lease Act, in the days before the London Blitz begins. Tim decides to stay in London and join the R.A.F. after he runs into an old flame, Carol Brown (Betty Grable), an American showgirl living in London.

Tim and Carol had a thing going back in Kansas City. She left him because he kept cheating on her with other girls. But now, Tim insists they should get back together, even though Carol tells him she wants nothing to do with him. Tim follows her around London, forces his way into her apartment, turns on his oily charm, kisses her, and suddenly she's all his again, even though she calls him a "worm."

The inevitable "love triangle" follows. Carol meets John Morley (John Sutton), an R.A.F. bomber pilot who turns out to be Tim's commanding officer. Morley is a true English gentleman, who falls in love with Carol, appreciates her for who she is, and could probably make her very happy. But Carol turns down his marriage proposal, even though she says she doesn't really love Tim.

Tim is a world-class a—hole! He treats Carol like dirt, and yet she seems to be putty in his hands. When he's not chasing Carol, Tim is chasing after every other pretty girl he sees. After being shot down in Holland, he escapes back to England and ends up in the hospital – and immediately propositions the pretty nurse by his bedside.

When they have a date, Tim stands Carol up to go drinking with his R.A.F. buddies, then gets mad when he comes to her apartment and finds she's gone out with Morley. Finally, Carol gets fed up with Tim and throws him out of her apartment. I was hoping she'd throw some things at him, or maybe kick him in the nuts, but I guess Daryl Zanuck thought that wouldn't be a good use of Betty Grable's famous legs.

Up until this point in the movie, I really hated Tim Baker. After what happens next, I started to loathe him. Tim goes to Carol's apartment, wearing his arm in a sling and walking on a cane, pretending he was injured when he crashed in Holland. Carol sees through his ruse ("I'm dumb, but I'm not THAT dumb.") and tells him to get out.

Instead, Tim pulls out an engagement ring, throws Carol down on the couch, jumps on top of her, and forces the ring onto her finger while kissing her face as she screams in protest. He tells her, "You're my girl, like it or not. And when I come back, I'll make it official and marry you."

Engagement by rape. How romantic! If I were Carol, I'd buy a gun.

The climax of the movie has Tim Baker in a British Spitfire, going "mano a mano" with a German fighter pilot during an air battle. Tim is wounded in the exchange. I was hoping his plane would burst into flames and kill him, but no such luck.

Instead, the move cuts back to England – and whaddaya know, Carol is worried sick about Tim, crying her eyes out, afraid he was killed because he hasn't returned from Dunkirk. It turns out she actually loves him! (Hey, guess what? She really IS "that dumb.")

Carol and Morley go to the London docks to meet the last hospital ship bringing home wounded soldiers from Dunkirk. Carol spots Tim on the gangplank, runs up to him, and kisses him! She happily shows him the engagement ring that he forced onto her finger, which she couldn't get off. Tim smiles at Carol – then immediately gives the "brush off" to the lovely nurse that he met on the hospital ship, whom he was about to go out on a date with. "Sorry, honey, I won't be needing you tonight."

What an incredible jerk! Tim and Carol head off together, and they are right back where they started. He will keep cheating on her, even after they're married; she will keep forgiving him. These two deserve each other!

The movie has a few good points. It features some actual footage shot in England by future director Ronald Neame ("The Poseidon Adventure") of R.A.F. fighters and bombers flying and taking off. There are some realistic depictions of R.A.F. bombings over Berlin, and some exciting aerial dogfights between English and German fighters, plus a good on- the-ground depiction of the evacuation at Dunkirk. The special effects in the movie are well done for their time.

"A Yank in the R.A.F." was made in 1941, before the U.S. entry into World War II. Had the picture been made a year later, it probably would have included a patriotic "Hooray for our English allies" theme, and more wartime propaganda speeches. As it is, it's a romantic melodrama with shallow, stupid characters that trivializes the war and is best forgotten.

Higher and Higher (1943)

"You're Frank Sinatra? What are YOU doing in this movie?!"

[2/10 · 13 October 2014]

Frank Sinatra's film debut is a ridiculous movie. As you watch it, you keep asking yourself, "What is Frank Sinatra doing in this movie?"

In the early 1940's, Sinatra was a singing phenomenon, the first "Teen Idol" of the 20th century! His Golden Voice was devastating, making teenage girls scream with hysteria, wet their pants, and faint in the aisles. Wherever Sinatra went, crowds of stampeding teen girls trampled each other and fought with policemen to see him! And of course, his records sold like hot cakes.

Hollywood smelled money. They knew they had to get "Skinny Boy" into the movies. So RKO brought Sinatra out to California, and signed him to a contract. Then they threw him into a movie to see if he could swim.

With "Higher and Higher," RKO borrowed the "plot" (note that I put the word in quotes) of a short-run Broadway musical by Gladys Hurlbut and Joshua Logan. They threw out most of the song score by Rodgers & Hart, and had their own songwriters write new songs for it (a common practice in Hollywood's Golden Age).

The "plot" (what there is of it) centers around the household staff of a New York City mansion, who discover their drunken employer, millionaire Cyrus Drake (Leon Errol), has gambled away his entire fortune. (The servants in the house include Paul & Grace Hartman, Marcy McGuire, Mel Tormé, and Paul "Casablanca Sam" Dooley. Also, Mary Wickes plays a woman who shows up at the back door, claiming Cyrus Drake offered her a job. But when she discovers Drake is now broke, instead of moving on to find other work, she stays around to be part of the plot, for some unknown reason.)

Then Mike O'Brien (Jack "Tin Man" Haley), who is Drake's valet and the head of the household, comes up with a scheme. They will turn Milly Pico (Michéle Morgan), the beautiful scullery maid, into a débutante, pass her off as Drake's daughter, and marry her off to a rich husband who will pay all their salaries. The servants are thrilled by this, and more than willing to participate in this fraud.

Milly the maid is not happy with the scheme, but she goes along with it because she's in love with Mike. (God knows why. He treats her like dirt, and is too stupid to notice her devotion to him.)

Then the doorbell rings. Marcy McGuire, playing the cook's teen daughter, answers it. And it's Frank Sinatra on the doorstep!

"Hi, I'm Frank Sinatra!" he literally says. "I thought I'd stop by and sing a few songs."

After Marcy faints into his arms (of course), Frank goes to the mansion's piano and begins to sing, "I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night." It's never made clear why he's there, except that he's a friend of Milly the maid.

The servants don't like this. They think Sinatra's in love with Milly. They say to each other, "Hey, we better keep an eye on this Sinatra guy. He could ruin our scheme to marry Milly off to a millionaire."

What's amazing, and totally unbelievable, is that none of the servants ever say to each other, "Hey, this Sinatra guy has sold millions of records. He's a millionaire. Let's try to marry Milly off to him, and get him to pay our salaries!"

For the rest of the movie, the servants keep hustling Milly around New York, trying to match her with some "High Society" millionaire. Sinatra is stumbling along through the plot, and often looks like he's not sure what he's supposed to be doing when he's not singing. He keeps looking off to the side, as if he's looking for another piano in the room, so he can sit down and sing.

Of course, the "Idiot Plot" goes nowhere (and very slowly, I might add). Victor Borge appears as the "millionaire" that Milly is almost forced to marry, but who of course turns out to be a fraud himself. Aside from one funny line, Borge is never given an opportunity to show us his musical comedy talents. His presence is wasted in this film!

Fortunately, Sinatra's career would survive this film, and he would go on to better musicals, and better roles in movies like "From Here To Eternity." Who knew that "Skinny Boy" with the Golden Voice could actually act?!

The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

These People are Making *Themselves* Miserable!

[2/10 · 25 March 2014]

"The Pumpkin Eater" is a depressing film. Like "Darling" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," it's one of those bleak, black & white 1960's dramas about self-absorbed "High Society" twits who are their own worst enemies.

Jo Armitage (Anne Bancroft) is an English housewife and mother. For her third marriage, Jo divorces her second husband and marries Jake Armitage (Peter Finch), a screenwriter. Jo and her four kids move into a house in London with Jake, and they have one or two more kids. (It's never made clear just how many children Jo has, but it's a lot.) Although Jake is a doting father to Jo's children, and seems to like kids, he makes Jo have an abortion when she becomes pregnant yet again.

Over time, Jo descends into depression, as her rotten, stinkin' husband has numerous extra-marital affairs. Jo suffers a nervous breakdown in Harrod's Department Store. She sees a psychiatrist for a time, then unreasonably dismisses him when he tells her he's taking a short vacation. She has an affair of her own with her ex-husband, and beats up Jake after he makes another girl pregnant. And they both keep smoking cigarettes -- and smoking, and smoking, and smoking.

These characters are making *themselves* miserable! It isn't simply that Jake is a rotten husband; Jo doesn't make it easy for him. She complains that he's ruining their marriage, but when Jake offers to take her along to Morocco, where one of his films is being shot, in hopes that they can save their marriage, Jo refuses to go with him. But she won't tell him *why* she refuses!

The movie is based on a novel by Patricia Mortimer, wife of John Mortimer (author of the "Rumpole" series). By all accounts, both Patricia and John had numerous affairs during their stormy marriage.

The screenplay is by Harold Pinter, himself a notorious womanizer. It features the usual "Pinter" touches – the hellish cocktail party, flashbacks, betrayals, cruelty, domination, an encounter with a caustic stranger (Jo meets a deranged woman at the beauty parlor who rips into her for having such a "perfect life"), and long slow passages of dialogue where people yammer on and on about nothing! Pinter was so good at this claptrap that they gave him the Nobel Prize for it.

James Mason plays a windbag movie director, whom Jake unwisely crosses by having an affair with his wife, and who then launches a vendetta against Jake. Maggie Smith makes an early appearance as a blabbering Cockney house guest who also has an affair with Jake. And Cedric Hardwicke (in his last role) plays Jo's father, who warns Jake and Jo that their marriage will be a disaster, but cheerfully pays for the wedding and gives them a house to live in anyway.

One element of the story that I found particularly unbelievable was Jake and Jo's children. They seem unnaturally happy, eternally pippy, always smiling and laughing. Jo's oldest daughter is a bubbly teen who cheerfully visits Jo in the hospital, and doesn't seem to realize her mother has just had an abortion. Even the two oldest sons, whom Jo ships off to boarding school, bear her no ill will, and smile when they are finally reunited, even though their mother has selfishly cast them aside.

Do these kids have *any idea* that their parents are at each other throats? Don't they hear the screaming and fighting that is coming from the bedroom down the hall? The kids seem blissfully unaware of the marital infidelities and emotional cruelty their parents inflict on each other! Real kids would be traumatized and upset by what is going on in this house (not to mention asthmatic, because of all the smoking their parents do)!

Yes, Anne Bancroft gives a good performance. But the movie is so dismal, it's no wonder Julie Andrews got the Oscar for "Mary Poppins." If you were an Academy voter, which would you choose? "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" or *this* depressing downer?

Faces (I) (1968)

Realistic? Maybe. Enjoyable? No. Nerve-grating? Yes!

[2/10 · 22 April 2013]

In John Cassavettes' "Faces," Richard Forst (John Marley), a successful L.A. businessman, asks his wife, Maria (Lynn Carlin), for a divorce. Forst leaves his house and goes to see his mistress, Jeannie Rapp (Gena Rowlands), a prostitute who is still entertaining a couple of business clients (Val Avery; Gene Darfler) when he gets there.

Meanwhile, Maria goes out with some friends to a nightclub (appropriately called "The Losers") that is filled with loud rock music. They meet Chet (Seymour Cassel), a young macho stud from Detroit, and bring him back home to Maria's house. After her friends go home sobbing over their lost youth, Maria goes to bed with Chet. The next morning, Maria attempts suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.

Watching "Faces" is like being locked in a room for two hours with a bunch of loud, obnoxious, drunken people that you don't really like. The characters alternate between telling stupid, childish jokes and laughing hysterically, then dancing around the room while singing annoying song lyrics over and over again (i.e. "I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair"), innately chanting nursery rhymes for no reason (i.e. "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"), then arguing with each other, being caustic and cruel to the point of physical violence.

Yes, I'm sure there are real people like this, but fortunately, I personally don't know any people who are like these characters. (At least, I *hope* I don't.) Much has been made of the movie's "realistic" style, with its hand-held camera and 16 mm black & white look. This style has influenced everyone from Woody Allen to Robert Altman to today's independent filmmakers. But the fact that the style is good doesn't mean the *movie* is good.

I know that some people (particularly film critics) enjoy this type of movie. Some people enjoy flagellation, but that doesn't mean you want to participate in it. This is one of those movies that you watch once, and then – if you're lucky – you forget about it.

One line from the movie did make me laugh out loud:

Maria: There's a Bergman film in the neighborhood.

Richard: I don't feel like getting depressed tonight.

Really! You could've fooled me!

Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)

There''s No Place Like Rome

[3/10 · 11 March 2013]

"Three Coins in the Fountain" is a typical 1950's "Women's Picture." Back then, Hollywood studio executives were sure that the only thing a woman ever wanted to do with her life was find a husband and get married.

Today, this film would be called a "chick flick." Modern feminists will probably hate it, because the three female leads seem to have marriage on their minds...and not much else.

In the movie, three secretaries share an apartment at the "Villa Eden" in Rome. It's one of those overly-spacious apartments that looks like it was decorated by a Hollywood set designer. How can they afford such a luxurious apartment? "Oh, the rate of exchange in Rome is very favorable for Americans." Uh huh.

Miss Frances (Dorothy McGuire) has been serving as secretary for John Frederick Shandwell (Clifton Webb), a snooty American writer, who has been living in Rome for the past 15 years. (As other reviewers have pointed out, this skips over the fact that they would have been living in Rome before and during World War II, an event that nobody ever mentions in the film.) He proposes marriage to her on the day before his doctor tells him he has only a year to live.

Frances' roommates, Anita Hutchins (Jean Peters) and Maria Willaims (Maggie McNamara), are working as secretaries at the United States Distribution Agency, one of those Hollywood "government agencies" with an eagle emblem on the door. Anita is about to return to America, because she can't find a man to marry in Rome. But then she finds love with Giorgio Binachi (Rossano Brassi), an Italian translator who works at the USDA. Unfortunately, Giorgio is immediately fired from his job for violating the USDA's policy against employees dating other employees, set in place by Mr. Burgoyne (Howard St. John), the doofus boss who runs the agency.

Meanwhile, Maria decides to ensnare Prince Dino di Cessi (Louis Jourdan), an Italian prince known as "the predatory prince." Maria pretends to like all the things the prince likes (Italian opera, playing the piccolo), to trick him into marrying her, but of course, she falls in love with him instead.

The movie's major strength is its outstanding cinematography, featuring beautiful views of Rome and Venice. But the story itself is dated and trite. The point of throwing "three coins in the fountain" is to ensure that you'll return to Rome. I don't think I'll return to *this* Rome.

Face to Face (1976)

You might as well Liv

[7/10 · 15 October 2012]

Dr. Jenny Isaakson (Liv Ullman) is a Swedish psychiatrist who specializes in treating the mentally ill. But Jenny finds her own sanity in question, as she starts to fall into a midlife depression. After a failed suicide attempt, Jenny has hallucinatory dreams where she is haunted by her psyche (her deceased parents, her loving grandparents, her patients, etc.) It's left in question whether or not she fully recovers from this. Ullman gives a powerful performance in a serious drama about mental illness. Bergman directs well, with long takes and occasional split-screen imagery. But this isn't a feel-good movie that you want to see more than once.

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

A Painful, Annoying Movie

[3/10 · 26 April 2011]

ACT ONE: In the town of Lynnfield, Connecticut, publisher Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell) causes a scandal when his newspaper publishes a serialization of "The Sinner," a risqué best-seller by Caroline Adams. The local Lynnfield Literary Society, a group of catty, gossiping ladies led by Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington), threatens to cancel their subscriptions unless the paper stops printing the novel. Waterbury is forced to concede.

The uproar is especially troubling for Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunne), a member of the town's founding family, who lives with her two uptight maiden aunts (Elisabeth Wisdon; Margaret McWade). In fact, Theodora IS Caroline Adams, author of "The Sinner," a secret she keeps from her aunts, and from the town.

ACT II: While in New York to meet with her publisher, Theodora meets Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas), an obnoxious artist who designed her book's cover.

Intrigued by the fact that "Caroline Adams" wants to keep her personal life a secret, Grant follows Theodora back to Lynnfield. He then woos her with that time-honored movie technique of behaving like an a--hole, a ploy that seems to work only in the movies.

Grant tells Theodora he's going to "help her break out of her circumstances," even though she repeatedly tells him she prefers to keep things as they are. Grant gets Theodora to hire him as a "family gardener" by blackmailing her, threatening to tell her aunts that she is Caroline Adams.

He takes up residence in the family's guest cottage, and drives the Lynn family (and the people watching the movie) crazy by his constant annoying whistling, and by setting his dog after the Lynn family's cat.

The second act of this movie was one of the most screechingly-painful things I've watched in movies in a long time. The filmmakers treat the cat with nothing short of animal cruelty. They would be ARRESTED today for what they do on film to the cat! And we're supposed to think this is funny?

But of course, Theodora falls in love with Grant. But when she finally stands up to her aunts and their gossipy, self-righteous lady friends, Grant leaves Theodora and flees back to New York.

ACT III: For some reason, Theodora follows Grant back to New York. There, she learns he has a wife (Leona Maricle) whom he does not love. But he can't divorce her because Grant's father (Henry Kolker) is Lt. Governor of New York, and it would cause a scandal.

Determined to "break Michael Grant out of his circumstances" (as he did for her, even though she didn't want him to), Theodora orders her publisher to publicize her as the scandalous author Caroline Adams (something she wouldn't let him do until now).

Theodora becomes a celebrity author. She moves in to Michael Grant's apartment, and entertains reporters there, hoping to cause a scandal that will force Grant's wife to sue for divorce, even though Grant himself moves out of the apartment when Theodora moves in.

(Side Note: The filmmakers had no respect for Asians. I really hated Toki, Grant's stereotypical Japanese manservant character, who is always going on about his "lemon pie.")

Of course, Theodora's actions scandalize the town of Lynnfield, and cause a lot of trouble for her aunts. But eventually Theodora is welcomed home by the town, despite the efforts of the hypocritical gossip Rebecca Perry to make her an outcast.

The Third Act of this movie ALMOST makes up for the horrible Second Act, because Theodora turns the tables on Grant, and drives him crazy by causing a scandal about him in the press, just as he did about her in her home town. It's a very sweet payback, and Irene Dunne has fun turning from a shy hometown girl into a wild celebrity author.

But Theodora just doesn't realize that Michael Grant isn't worth it. Do they end up together at the end? Do they "live happily ever after," even though he's the most obnoxious guy she's ever met?

This is a Hollywood movie. What do you think?

Wonder Man (1945)

The Cinematic Equivalent of Water Boarding

[1/10 · 15 February 2010]

I HATED this movie! It was one of the most painful, nerve-grating "comedies" I've ever watched. I normally like Danny Kaye, but this movie was like fingernails on a blackboard.

The story: Nightclub comedian Buzzy Bellew (Danny Kaye) is murdered by gangsters after witnessing a murder committed by their boss, Ten Grand Jackson (Steve Cochran). The spirit of Buzzy contacts his twin brother, Edwin Pringle (also played by Kaye), a stuffy bookworm, and asks him to testify before the D.A. in Buzzy's place. Buzzy can possess Edwin's body when he wants to, and make him act like an idiot. The situation causes all sorts of complications with Edwin's girlfriend (Virginia Mayo) and Buzzy's fiancé (Vera-Ellen).

The main problem is, Danny Kaye spends too much time trying to be funny by acting funny. Seeing someone act funny is not funny, unless the people around them are also funny. (This is why the Marx Brothers were funny. They were surrounded by stuffed shirts and pompous characters like Margaret Dumont. You could see who the Marx Brothers were skewering with their humor.)

Characters who act funny when normal characters are around are NOT FUNNY! They are just annoying!

Take the scene where the spirit of Buzzy possesses Edwin for the first time. They are in a park, and what does Buzzy immediately do? He makes Edwin jump around like a crazy man, in front of a cop! An interesting tactic, since Buzzy is supposedly counting on Edwin to avenge his murder by testifying against a gangster. You'd think the last thing he'd want Edwin to do is end up in jail!

Danny Kaye is not funny in this scene! He is trying to be funny by acting funny! But of course, that just ends up being annoying and painful to watch! (You wonder why the cop, who has a billy club, doesn't just whack Danny over the head and cart him off to the funny farm.)

From there on, Buzzy possesses Edwin only when he wants to -- not when Edwin needs him to. One of the most painful scenes in the movie comes when Edwin is called to testify in the D.A.'s office about the murder that Buzzy witnessed. Edwin sits there pleading out loud for Buzzy to possess him, so he can tell the D.A. about the murder, while the D.A. and his men look on, bewildered. Does Buzzy show up and possess Edwin? Of course not! And Edwin is humiliated.

Later, we find out the reason why Buzzy didn't show up. He had a hangover from drinking too much champagne in a nightclub the previous night, while he was possessing Edwin's body.

Would someone please explain this to me. HOW IN THE NAME OF JACOB MARLEY CAN A GHOST GET A HANGOVER, OR EVEN GET DRUNK, AS BUZZY DOES?

Kaye's character has a grating habit of only half-explaining things to people. There's a scene where Edwin, on the run from gangsters, ducks into a delicatessen owned by S.K. Sazall.

"The men in black are after me," Edwin tells Sazall. Of course, Sazall thinks he's crazy, and they go through this whole annoying scene of turning the lights in the deli shop on and off, which alerts the gangsters to their presence.

All Edwin has to say in this scene is "Gangsters with guns are after me. Be quiet and keep the lights out or we'll both get killed."

But that would be too easy, too logical a solution to the problem. Instead, they try to be funny, and end up being annoying again.

There are other annoying characters in the movie. There is a gangster who wears a hearing aid. He keeps asking people, "What'd you say?" Or "What did she say?" But according to his partner, the gangster is only pretending to be deaf and doesn't really need the hearing aid.

WHY? Why would a gangster pretend he needed a hearing aid? Answer: It is just another way that the movie tries to get cheap laughs but doesn't.

The Oscar-winning special effects are good for their time, but lend nothing to the story.

There is ONE good thing in this movie. Vera-Ellen does a tap dance number with the Goldwyn Girls that is AMAZING to watch. Vera-Ellen was an incredible dancer, and it's too bad she didn't achieve greater stardom in her career.

Except for the Vera-Ellen dance number, I would skip this movie, unless you like having your nerves twisted watching people who are not funny trying to be funny.

Shampoo (1975)

It's awful! Warren Beatty is a world-class jerk!

[1/10 · 1 February 2010]

The year 1975 was supposed to be a banner year in cinema, but I can't think of another year where I have more often said, "I just don't get it." There are so many films released in 1975 that are *supposed* to be classics of the '70's -- "Dog Day Afternoon," "Nashville," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The Sunshine Boys," "Three Days of the Condor" -- but I've watched all of those movies, and I can't understand WHY so many people think they are so good.

(I can think of only one movie released in 1975 that really deserves to be called a classic. You can guess what it is.) "Shampoo" is another example. I watched it and I couldn't understand why some people think it's a comedy classic, or why AFI chose it as #47 on their list of the funniest movies of all time.

In the movie, Warren Beatty plays George Roundy, a Hollywood hairdresser who REALLY needs a haircut. He is a skilled hairdresser, but when he gets done "trimmin' the women," he usually pops into bed with them. George dreams of opening his own beauty shop, but can't get financing for it. He schmoozes Lester Karpf (Jack Warden), a shady businessman, as a possible financier, but also carries on affairs with Lester's wife (Lee Grant), his daughter (Carrie Fisher), and his mistress (Julie Christie). In addition, George has his own girl (Goldie Hawn), a ditzy actress who for some reason thinks that she is the only woman in George's life.

The movie was a long slow wait for the inevitable moment when these women wake up and realize that George is a self-absorbed jerk who is never going to love any of them. I couldn't understand why any of them would find George so attractive to begin with.

The movie only has one really funny moment. The rest is just a long slow slog to nowhere. As Roundy runs around, his women meet each other and find out about his affairs, and do what they should have done in the first place -- drop him like a rock.

Yes, Lee Grant gives a good (if brief) performance, but the movie is about someone who is so self-absorbed that you can't help but hate him. By all accounts, Warren Beatty is playing himself in this movie. It's no wonder Carly Simon dedicated the song, "You're So Vain." to him.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

The Best...um..."James Bond" Film I've Seen in a Long Time

[8/10 · 28 December 2009]

I enjoyed "Sherlock Holmes," as much for its preposterous-ness as its visual style. I'm pleased that Guy Ritchie was able to make a halfway-decent movie.

As a fan of the Granada TV series, I know that no one will ever equal Jeremy Brett's performance as the greatest detective. But I wasn't expecting Robert Downey, Jr. to equal it, any more than I was expecting this movie to be the best "Sherlock" movie ever.

Downey is "Sherlock Holmes" in name only. He bears a few resemblances to Conan Doyle's eccentric detective (with emphasis on the "eccentric"). Like a hyperactive child, he prances around the streets of London, drunk on his own genius.

In truth, Downey's Holmes is more like a self-employed Victorian James Bond (the Roger Moore version). Like Bond, Downey's Holmes bungles his way through his adventures, fights the bad guys with martial arts, uncovers the secret plots, jumps out of windows, and escapes death traps usually by tripping over them and setting them off. His genius intellect and acute powers of observation sometimes get in the way of his solving the case.

And like Bond, he usually picks the "femme fatale" to romance (in this case, the jewel thief Irene Adler, played by Rachel Mc Adams). As with Bond, the "femme fatale" romance often gets Downey's Holmes into compromising positions and embarrassing situations. And of course, as with Bond, the "femme fatale" comes over to Holmes's side before the end of the movie.

This time around, however, it's the bad guys who have the Q devices. Holmes's nemesis is Lord Blackwell (Mark Strong), head of a SPECTRE-like society that plans to conquer the world using black magic (or something like it). And they have fiendish doomsday devices at their disposal to do so, devices that Holmes must dismantle and occasionally explain to the audience.

Another nemesis (I won't reveal who) seems to be lurking in the shadows, observing Holmes from a distance. We see only his hat and his long black coat, with his gloved hands resting on the head of a cane...We never see his face. All that's missing is a white Persian cat sitting on his lap.

(On a personal note, I should have known who this character would turn out to be. But based on the fact that you couldn't see his face, I almost thought it was Jack Griffin, the Invisible Man.) There are a few Bond-ian scenes, such as the confrontation of the villain in his secret hideout, where the villain reveals his dastardly plan to Holmes, rather than shooting him. And there is a scene late in the movie where Holmes and Watson must penetrate an impenetrable fortress to foil the villain's scheme.

And of course, there are the usual shaky-cam shots, hyper-cut editing, and fantastic CGI backgrounds and visual effects that are what passes for style in a modern action movie. How much do you want to bet that the climactic fight between Holmes and Blackwell will take place on top of a well-known London monument high in the air? James Bond would have approved.

Mention should be given to Jude Law as Dr. Watson, the man who most often gets Holmes out of trouble, and who is used to his eccentricities. They gave Watson a fiancé, of course, so that the Holmes/Watson relationship would not seem too "gay." But they had the sense to make Watson an intelligent man who can follow Holmes's observations and reasonings, and come to the same conclusions -- just not as fast as Holmes. The curse of the slow-witted Nigel Bruce Watson has been buried forever.

So that's it. Holmes as Bond. Ridiculous, but enjoyable. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. I'm looking forward to the next film in the franchise. Again, I'm glad Guy Ritchie had at least one good film in him. I hope he can make another.

Juarez (1939)

A fair biography...of Emperor Maximilian

[3/10 · 21 September 2009]

This movie is an unusual biopic. It is supposed to be about the great Mexican president Benito Juárez, but it ends up focusing more on the story of Emperor Maximilien.

The story: In the 1860's, the French Emperor Napoleon III (Claude Rains) sends French forces to occupy Mexico, on the pretext of establishing a North American regime of the French empire. Napoleon sends the Austrian Maximilian of Hapsburg (Brian Aherne) and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium (Bette Davis), to be his puppet Emperor and Empress of Mexico. But Benito Juárez (Paul Muni) organizes the Mexican peasantry to fight back against the French.

As usual with biopics, this is the American Hollywood version of Mexican history. As the ill-fated Maximilian, Brian Aherne actually has more screen time than the title character. He gives a good performance of a well-meaning but naive emperor who wants to rule the Mexican people justly, but can't understand the concepts of democracy. The American filmmakers obviously decided that it was better to focus on the romantic European characters than on the Mexicans.

Paul Muni, meanwhile, has little to do in his role as Juárez. Oh sure, he occasionally makes grim-faced, wise-and-meaningful speeches about democracy (with a portrait of Abraham Lincoln strategically placed on the wall behind Muni, just to make sure we get the point.) But most of the time, he just stands around dressed in black, looking stern and Lincoln-like. Muni has one great scene, where he walks fearlessly toward a firing squad of Mexican soldiers who have been ordered to shoot him. John Wayne should have had such a walk!

Bette Davis lends a fairly good (but not great) supporting performance as the troubled Empress Charlotte, who goes mad after Napoleon withdraws from Mexico and abandons her husband to his fate. John Garfield appears as Porfirio Diaz, and Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard have brief but well-done scenes as Napoleon and his smarmy French Empress. (This was their second film together, after "Anthony Adverse," where they played the villainous couple. They had it down pat by this time.) But the movie really belongs to Aherne, who dominates the screen with his portrait of a "lost emperor"...who is lost in more ways than one.

Nashville (1975)

This isn't Nashville...it's an insane asylum!

[1/10 · 22 August 2009]

"Nashville" is supposed to be Robert Altman's best movie. But I have to say, I just didn't get it! The movie is like some kind of surreal satire on the city of Nashville, and the state of America in the 1970's. It's Nashville...but it's like an alternate universe Nashville where the people talk endlessly, on and on, about nothing! It's like "Seinfeld" without the jokes or character development.

This Nashville is filled with people who are completely clueless about how superficial their lives are, who seem to have no idea how stupid they are. A key scene early on involves a multi-car pile-up on the interstate. But instead of running around from car to car asking "Is everyone all right? Is anyone hurt?", the people in the pile-up (who are all, by strange coincidence, characters in the movie) seem more annoyed that this accident will make them late for dinner, or to whatever they have to go to. They talk with each other, exchange phone numbers, buy and sell goods, eat popsicles bought from an ice cream. Nobody seems phased that they've just been through a massive near-death experience. These are not "people," they are "characters in a social commentary."

Altman's take on the country music industry is very strange. In this version of Nashville, there are a lot of country music singers who can't sing! I don't just mean the "wannabe singers" like Suleen Gay (Gwen Welles) who is too stupid to realize she doesn't have any talent. I mean established country stars like Tommy Brown (Timmy Brown), Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson), and Connie White (Karen Black), who are singing onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, but who have limited pitch ranges, and slide their notes up and down the scale as they sing. These "country stars" wouldn't last 30 seconds at an "American Idol" audition. Simon Cowell would eat them alive and spit them out!

Most of the songs in the movie seem to be country song pastiches. (One song includes the lyrics, "The pilot light of our love has gone out" and "If makin' love is margarine, then you're a slippery spread.") Only occasionally do we get a sincere, well-sung country song, like Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy." Ronnie Blakely has a good role as a Loretta Lynn-style country singer who has an onstage meltdown at Opryland. But even her onstage meltdown seems phony -- it is a caricature of an onstage meltdown written by a Hollywood screenwriter. (Did she really need to make chicken sounds onstage to make the point that she was cracking up?)

The city of Nashville seems to have gone insane, but nobody seems to notice. A sound truck drives around, blaring political arguments for a populist presidential candidate. A man (Jeff Goldblum) rides around on a three-wheel motorcycle, stopping occasionally to do magic tricks. An annoying British journalist (Geraldine Chapman) keeps showing up at parties and bars and sticking her microphone in people's faces, asking them questions and ignoring their answers.

And of course, people talk, non-stop, about nothing in particular, in Altman's trademark overlapping dialogue, for two hours and forty minutes. This form of movie dialogue may be considered realistic, but in this case, I found it very boring.

Yes, I know, Altman was making a comment on the times, and the 1970's were a very surreal and superficial time. But the fact that Altman captured the surreal, superficial qualities of the 70's doesn't necessarily mean it's an interesting movie. I found the characters dull, the dialogue boring, and the plot fairly nonsensical. If I ever pass through this Nashville, remind me to stay on the bus to Memphis.

She-Wolf of London (1946)

Owes More to "Gaslight" and Hitchcock than to "The Wolf Man"

[6/10 · 20 July 2009]

"She-Wolf of London" is an okay film for what it is. I imagine that horror fans were disappointed, asking "Where's the Werewolf?" (Why Jack Pierce is credited as the makeup man in the opening credits I don't know, since I can't see any place in the film where his special makeup talents were employed.) The story: In Victorian London, a series of murders takes place in a public park, where the survivors report being attacked by a female werewolf. A young woman, Phyllis Allenby (June Lockhart), suspects that she might be a werewolf in question. Supposedly, it is a family curse, "the curse of the Allenbys." Phyllis wakes up in the morning to find blood on her clothes and dirt tracks on the floor of her bedroom.

More, I won't say, since it will spoil the mystery for those who haven't seen the movie.

"She-Wolf" is more of a Gothic thriller than a monster movie. It has elements of George Cukor's "Gaslight," and Hitchcock's "Rebecca" and "Suspicion." If they had spent a bit more exposition time on the plot, it might have been a classic thriller. Nevertheless, it still does okay as a nice, eerie, foggy-gaslit melodrama.

Blithe Spirit (1945)

A "Spirit" Not So Blithe

[3/10 · 17 May 2009]

I recently saw the Broadway revival of "Blithe Spirit" starring Angela Lansbury, Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole, and Jayne Atkinson. It's a terrific production, and shows what good actors can do with a play that is less than perfect. Angela Lansbury is extremely funny as Madame Arcati.

It was probably a mistake, then, to check out the film version of the play starring Rex Harrison. The movie does not have the energy or the laughs of a good stage production.

"Blithe Spirit" is probably one of those plays that works better with a live cast, in an audience full of people who have come to laugh. The actors can improvise, give touches and nuances to their performance and delivery of the lines, and involve the audience on a personal level that you can't get in a movie house, or with a DVD showing, where the audience is separated from the story by the "Fourth Wall." The story: Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison), a successful writer, lives with his wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) in a house in the English countryside. Seeking information for his next book, a book dealing with the supernatural, Charles invites Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford, reprising her role from the original 1941 London production), a local spiritual medium, over to his house to conduct a séance. Charles believes that spiritism is a sham, but hopes to pick up "the tricks of the trade." But then Madame Arcati brings back the ghost of Elvira (Kaye Hammond), Charles's first wife, who died of pneumonia seven years ago. Elvira refuses to leave, and develops a spitting rivalry with Ruth over Charles (complicated by the fact that only Charles can see or hear Elvira).

On stage, the actors can give performances that invite laughs in this situation. But on the screen, the actors in "Blithe Spirit" tear through the lines as if they don't know that anyone is listening to them. They mumble lines that were designed to get laughs on the stage. The performances by Harrison, Cummings, and even Kaye Hammond are flat and lifeless. Only Margaret Rutherford seems to have retained her spark and humor as Madame Arcati.

The Oscar-winning visual effects in the film are unimpressive -- not just by today's standards, but by the standards of 1946! They consist mostly of Kaye Hammond walking around in fluorescent green outfits and makeup, being photographed in special lighting to make her look like a glowing ghost.

The cinematographer deserves some credit for creative lighting. But compare the dull visual effects of "Blithe Spirit" to the truly groundbreaking effects in Disney's "Song of the South" -- which was eligible for awards the same year. In "South," humans and animated characters share the screen seamlessly for minutes at a time. Compared to "South," the Oscar that "Blithe Spirit" received for special effects was completely undeserved.

At any rate, I can only encourage you to catch the Broadway revival of this play with Angela Lansbury before it closes. As for the movie with Rex Harrison, skip it.

That Darn Cat! (1965)

The Best Feline Performance in Movie History

[9/10 · 4 April 2009]

If you've ever had a Siamese cat, you will know that they are the wise guys of the cat world.

In the history of the movies, there haven't been too many significant cat performances. Cats do not take direction well. On the movie set, they probably spend a lot of time arguing with directors over how to play a scene. If the studio would let them, cats would probably want to direct the movie themselves.

"That Darn Cat!" features the best movie performance ever by a cat. The leading man -- or cat, in this case -- is a crafty Siamese named D.C. (Darn Cat). He is the star of the movie, the one who carries the story. And he does it with suave feline sophistication. (Never mind that several cats played the role of D.C. in making the film. They were *all* good.)

D.C. is a smooth operator. Like Bogart, he prowls the back streets of his suburban L.A. neighborhood, the king of his territory, his blue eyes observing everything, his nose to the wind, his mind working out all the angles.

Throughout the movie, D.C. is performing tricks and stunts that would make Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin envious. Take the movie's opening scene. D.C. hops up on a backyard fence, attracting the neighbor's dog, a Scottie, who jumps up and down at the fence, barking furiously, trying to get the cat. Then, D.C. hops down and slips into the yard through a crack in the fence. He strolls casually past the barking, leaping dog, and helps himself to the dog's supper dish. Eventually, the dog turns around. He does a double-take and runs at D.C., who calmly slips out through another crack in the fence.

It's a classic Siamese trick! I have *owned* Siamese cats who would pull tricks like that on the neighborhood dogs.

One night, when he is out for a stroll, D.C. stumbles into the hideout of two bumbling bank robbers (Frank Gorshin; Neville Brand) who took a female bank teller (Grayson Hall) as a hostage in their last robbery. The bank teller puts her wristwatch around D.C.'s neck with a message for "help" on the back, and tosses D.C. out the door.

When D.C. returns home, his young owner, Patti Randall (Hayley Mills), finds the watch and the message. Patti is smart enough to figure out what has happened, and contacts F.B.I. agent Zeke Kelso (Dean Jones). The following night, the F.B.I. sets up a unique operation to track D.C. through the neighborhood, hoping the cat will lead them back to the bank robbers' hideout.

The movie has a genuinely funny script, co-written by Bill Walsh (screenwriter on "Mary Poppins") and Gordon and Mildred Gordon, authors of the novel, "Undercover Cat," on which the movie was based. I've read the novel, and the Gordons really knew their cats, and how cats relate (or don't relate) to humans.

A lot of the humor in the movie comes from D.C. having to deal with "non-cat people," especially Agent Kelso, who is allergic to cats. One of the funniest scenes in the movie comes when Kelso has to take D.C.'s paw print, and can't figure out how to fit D.C.'s prints onto the standard FBI fingerprint card. Needless to say, D.C. does not like having his paw printed.

Hayley Mills does well in her last role for Disney. As Patti, she projects a kind of eager, Nancy Drew-like enthusiasm when she finds herself embroiled in a mystery. Even when the FBI starts to doubt her theory that D.C. has found the bank robbers, she still persists in her investigation. She knows she is right! Perhaps that's why she is the only human in the film that D.C. puts up with -- he finds her to be of equal intelligence to himself.

There are small but ingenious supporting performances in the movie, little gems of character acting. Dorothy Provine plays Patti's older sister, Ingrid, who can't believe the fuss that occurs. Roddy McDowell is Ingrid's snobbish boyfriend. Elsa Lanchester and William Demarest are a pair of squabbling neighbors who know that something is going on next door. And Tom Lowell plays Patti's dopey boyfriend, Canoe, who is obsessed with surfing movies.

(Some of the funniest gags in the movie occur late in the film, when Canoe accidentally gets involved in the FBI's trailing of D.C. through the neighborhood.)

There are some funny cameos. Ed Wynn plays a nervous shop owner that Patti cons into helping her with the investigation. Iris Adrian has a great scene as a landlady who bullies the two bank robbers. And Richard Deacon has a funny role as a drive-in manager.

But again, it is D.C. the cat who really carries the picture. It is the cat who outwits both the FBI and the bad guys, and saves the day at the end of the film. He probably wouldn't even care that Hayley Mills got star billing in the movie. For D.C., the greatest joy would be in the giving of his performance -- for what greater joy is there for a cat than simply the joy of...being a cat?

P.S. The sly opening song, written by the Sherman Brothers, and sung by Bobby Darin, sets the tone of D.C.'s character perfectly. It is the most accurate song ever written about the character of a cat.