THE VALIANT (1929)

William K. Howard, one of the most visually imaginative (now neglected) directors of the ‘30s, got off to a slow All-Talking Picture start with this Fox Movietone Feature from 1929. Like many Early Talkies, it takes some trouble to begin with a flashy mobile camera shot (very effectively roaming the streets of a bustling NYC set), before shutting down as if filming a stage play from a good seat in the orchestra. (And this was on B’way, barely, one performance in 1926; one more in 1928.) After murdering a bad guy who ‘deserved to die,’ our killer gives himself up to the police, but refuses to say why he did it or who he is. Meanwhile . . . out in the MidWest, a frail old mother sees his pic in the paper and wonders if this mystery man could be her long lost son. And while it’s easy to guess all the mother/son/sibling action, the script maintains absolute silence on the who, what, why of the murder. An unusually abstract tack, then or now. The other point of interest is recently renamed stage actor Muni Wisenfrend, now Paul Muni. Oscar nom’d for this debut, he’s strikingly more naturalistic, less elocutionarily careful than anyone else up there. Yards ahead of the curve; something of a reverse from later work when he’d become more self-consciously theatrical than his co-players, especially once he landed at streetwise home studio Warner Bros. Best for geeks of Early Talkie evolutionary trends.

DOUBLE-BILL: Howard would need another couple of steps before revealing his natural gifts in the new format. Next year’s SCOTLAND YARD manages to top-and–tail with imaginatively visualized scenes: a opening float down the river Thames; a climax rendered in a series of close-ups on inanimate details. His real technical breakthru came with TRANSATLANTIC/’31 which is really something to see.

ZU NEUEN UFERN / TO NEW SHORES (1937)

Before Douglas Sirk became Master of Hollywood melodrama, he was Detlef Sierck Master of Melodrama at UFA Germany. As per this typical example in the form, of particular interest for featuring glamorous Third Reich fave Zarah Leander (a sort of missing link between Clara Bow & Hedy Lamarr), already suffering beautifully in her studio debut . She’s Gloria Vane, popular, naughty 1860s English entertainer involved with titled debt-ridden Willy Birgel, and taking the fall on a forged check he’s altered to the tune of £600. Yikes! Sent to prison in Australia, she needs a proposal of marriage to get out and (wouldn’t you know it) her old lover is currently in Australia, but unwilling to destroy his social & military position for a convict (even one who's doing his jail time) when he's preparing to marry a wealthy young thing, the catch of the county. Meanwhile, a hearty local rancher is spouse hunting at the jail and . . . well, you get the idea. Will she be true to her dashing, but uncouth savior or run off for a never-can-be-reunion with old unreliable/Mister Unworthy. Sirk feels oddly jumpy in the very talky first half, but things eventually sort themselves out with the film paradoxically growing more effective even as it becomes progressively less credible. Though skimping on the romantic development between Leander & putative husband/nice guy farmer Viktor Staal keeps us from fully investing emotionally.

DOUBLE-BILL: Sirk’s follow-up with Leander, LA HABANERA/’37, even better. (see below)

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Philip Kerr’s THE LADY FROM ZAGREB, a late entry in his Bernie Gunther Berlin-based Nazi-Era detective series features an actress/femme fatale much like Zarah Leander.

MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)

Adapting Miguel de Cervantes’ DON QUIXOTE to film, long an impossible dream, with Orson Welles in the ‘50s & ‘60s and Terry Gilliam over the last two decades merely a sample of filmmakers who’ve come to grief in the pursuit. So, no surprise to find that squarest of safe Hollywood hacks, Arthur Hiller, a director with a knack for bad shots (even when Giuseppe Rotunno is lighting cameraman), flailing on the cursed project. (Development started & stopped numerous times as various creative types briefly took charge.) Surprisingly, the motley cast does pretty well, with everyone but Peter O’Toole’s doing their own spirited vocals. (O’Toole relatively well-dubbed, Sophia Loren quite the belter, plus a chance to check out Ian Richardson's pipes.) The real problem, along with Hiller’s flatfooted megging (that big donnybrook!), lies in the original stage property with Dale Wasserman’s confusing literary pretensions (arrested by the Inquisition during performance, Cervantes performs his play before a ‘court’ of scurvy inmates), and boasting a score with but a single good tune. No, not that baritone perennial, but the quasi-title tune: ‘I Am I, Don Quixote.’ (There’s a reason lyricist/composer Mitch Leigh/Joe Darion never had another success.) Elsewise, for those who appreciate dialogue like, ‘I charge you with being an idealist, a bad poet . . . and an honest man,’ this may be just the tripe for you.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Closer to the mark: G.W. Pabst’s DON QUICHOTTE/’33 with legendary bass Feodor Chaliapin, a born Quixote who premiered Jules Massenet’s minor, but pleasing DQ opera, here getting a few songs by Jacques Ibert to replace Maurice Ravel’s rejected ones. OR: From the old USSR, DON KIKHOT/’57, with director Grogori Kozintsev’s switching from Shakespeare adaptations to Cervantes, and Nikolay Cherkasov, Eisenstein’s Nevsky & Ivan, tilting at the windmill in a remarkable scene. Kozintsev’s direction goes dead on interiors, but is thrillingly alive outside.

DESIRE (1936)

After three underperforming films, and a split with director/mentor Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich needed course correction. A top priority for Ernst Lubitsch in 1935 when he spent a year as Paramount head of production and spearheaded DESIRE’s initial development. And while Frank Borzage wound up doing the physical direction, the end product is echt Lubitsch. (Even taking a rare producer’s credit on a film he didn’t helm.) As a glam jewel thief fleeing Paris, Dietrich finds a perfect pocket for hiding a stolen pearl necklace when she bumps into vacationing car engineer (from Detroit!) Gary Cooper. And oh, what these two beauties do for each other, Cooper keeping her grounded without clipping her wings in a plot that plays out like a series of meet-cutes over three acts. Originally planned with John Gilbert in mind as past lover/current third wheel, the part presumably adjusted when Gilbert died and John Halliday took over as faux Uncle/partner-in-crime instead of romantic rival/partner-in-crime. The change lowers the stakes, especially for Dietrich (the first idea might have come closer to a gender-swapped TROUBLE IN PARADISE; instead, it’s something of a precursor to THE LADY EVE), but there’s too much charm, elegance and delight to worry about what might have been. Plus one of Frederick Hollander’s most enchanting songs for Marlene, ‘Awake in a Dream.’

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above: Lubitsch’s TROUBLE IN PARADISE/’32; Preston Sturges’s THE LADY EVE/’41. OR: Lubitsch’s underappreciated Dietrich follow up, ANGEL/’37.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In spite of DESIRE, GARDEN OF ALLAH, KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR and ANGEL, Dietrich’s box-office clout remained depressed until she revived the brand getting down & dirty in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN/’39.

MOVIE MOVIE (1978)

Writer Larry Gelbart called his idea DOUBLE FEATURE, an affectionate pastiche/parody of ‘30s movie genres: Kid-to-Champ Boxing pic (think KID GALAHAD/’38); Girl-to-B’way-Star musical (think 42ND STREET/’33); bonus WWI-Daredevil-Flyboy trailer (DAWN PATROL/’30 meets CEILING ZERO/’36). With Stanley Donen as producer/director and actors (even sets) double-cast: boxing in b&w; musical in TechniColor. Good fun, though the boxing pic suffers, as do so many parodies, by delivering less drama and laughs than the real thing. Still, other than the pleasant, but derivative songs, pretty stylish doings. (Great line to his driver as the boxer is being taken home: ‘It’s the next slum.’) With George C. Scott going from cigar-chewing manager/trainer Eddie G. Robinson to brilliantined Warner Baxter’s worn out showman; Red Buttons doing double Frank McHugh sidemen; Trish Van Devere an excellent good girl, less so as B’way meanie (calling Madeline Kahn!); Eli Wallach as Barton MacLane². Plus Harry Hamlin debuting his fat, luscious lips as a John Garfield up-and-coming fighter (physically perfect, too bad they let him in on the joke). Even better, Barry Bostwick, a leggy, blue-eyed wonder doing eccentric dancing a la Hal Leroy (choreographed by Michael Kidd) in the Dick Powell male ingenue spot. Back-loaded with musical ‘numbos,’ the long finale really zings! Compare with Martin Scorsese trying one of these things in ‘Happy Endings,’ mercifully stricken from the originally cut of NEW YORK, NEW YORK/’77.*

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *While the film earned a mixed reception (not here!), NEW YORK, NEW YORK did have a mind-blowing trailer, capped with a classic Stanley Donen crane shot rising over Liza Minnelli on the title tune.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Look quick to catch Donen intro’ing Reinking at a nightclub and later as a cabbie. ALSO: Beware editions that have the boxing pic in color. (Or adjust color saturation to zero.)

THE STARS LOOK DOWN (1940)

With Alfred Hitchcock off to Hollywood*, Carol Reed became presumptive top Brit helmer. A position signified with a £100,000 budget on this downbeat prestige piece which hoped to repeat the success of King Vidor on THE CITADEL/’38, from A.J. Cronin’ second novel, with this adaptation of Cronin’s first. Both coal town stories, here the P.O.V. shifts from Robert Donat’s new doctor in town to Michael Redgrave’s miner’s son on university scholarship, his upward trajectory stopped when sex rears its lovely head in the form of conniving vixen Margaret Lockwood, latching on to Redgrave when first choice Emlyn Williams leaves her flat. Now back in his old mining town as a teacher, Redgrave is drawn into coal politics when mine owners, the union and the advisory council all give the go-ahead to reopen a shaft in spite of a weak retaining wall Redgrave and his dad have been warning about for years. Given his big opportunity, Reed handles everything they throw at him, with strong, realistic staging and few compromises in story, character or political alliances (eye-opening stuff with the union). What he can’t do is soften Cronin’s misogyny as another woman is used to push a husband against his best judgement/better angels. (Here, the wife; in CITADEL, the mistress; but each letting the guy off the hook.) Very impressive all the same.

DOUBLE-BILL: John Ford’s classic HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY/’41 makes for an obvious comparison (though what can compare with it?), but concentrates more on personal family issues rather than socio-economics. Instead, as mentioned, THE CITADEL, especially for its better first half, with Ralph Richardson wonderful as a doctor with anarchist tendencies.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Four leading players from Hitchcock’s LADY VANISHES/’38 in here: Redgrave, Lockwood, Cecil Parker & Linden Travers. Plus, Desmond Tester, the young brother Hitch blew up in SABOTAGE/’36.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: With Cronin hard to find, try the first chapters of George Orwell’s coal mining exposé THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER.

TOPSY-TURVY (1999)

Any doubts over Mike Leigh’s politically engaged left-leaning politics and improvisitory script development methods irreparably clashing with a bio-pic on librettist William Schwenck Gilbert & composer Arthur Sullivan, supremos of late-Victorian comic operetta, and how they came to write THE MIKADO, are joyously unwarranted in one of the best films ever made on the creative process. Everything turned out right on this one, from casting (special nods to Jim Broadbent’s Gilbert & Timothy Spall’s lead comedian), to sets & costumes (gorgeous attention to period detail, with fine captures of THE MIKADO premiere, tacitly acknowledging The Savoy Theatre's historic place as the world’s first electrically lit), and that rarest of assets, a factual theatrical story worth the telling. Gilbert, an eccentric terror (Broadbent merely sitting to read his script one of the great highlights) and Sullivan, nicest of musical geniuses, warring with his natural gift for light entertainment. Yet in the long view, it's undoubtedly Sullivan’s ability to give flesh & blood thru music to Gilbert’s puppet characters and tempered social satire that keep these wonderful pieces alive as great works of popular art. And Leigh structures it so brilliantly, not quite linear, with chinks in almost everyone’s armor (addiction and backstage feuds, fear of intimacy, physical decline & artistic stifling vanity), so that non-G&S enthusiasts can find a way in to the drama, laughs, triumphs & poignancy.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: An earlier attempt at a bio-pic, imaginatively entitled GILBERT AND SULLIVAN/’53 (not seen here), even with a perfectly cast Robert Morley as Schwenk, was a notorious commercial flop. While an official, slightly reconfigured, filmed version of THE MIKADO/’39, cast largely with company men & designs, is too reverent for its own good. (see below)

DOUBLE-BILL: One of the few films of note to bring off similar concerns on life/art/theater: Jean Renoir’s FRENCH CANCAN/’55, now out in a spectacular restoration.

TO EACH HIS OWN (1946)

Nearly all Hollywood Golden Age female stars played Unwed Mother sometime during their careers. (Loretta Young did it for real, going to Europe after an affair with Clark Gable on CALL OF THE WILD/’35, then returning with an ‘adopted’ girl.) This film, a superior example of the form, comes rather late in the cycle, but easily gets away with changing post-WWII mores by setting its instigating sin during WWI when glam flyboy John Lund (in an excellent debut he never quite lived up to), on a publicity swing, vamps hard-to-land local belle Olivia de Havilland only to find he’s suddenly gone serious on her . . . and vice versa. But since we all know the mortality rate for WWI flyers, and since the film is told as a WWII London-set flashback with de Havilland, now a tough-as-nails business mogul dashing off to meet the son she could never acknowledge (he’s a WWII flyboy much like Dad), the death is no big surprise. What does surprise is how intelligently it’s all laid out & played for us. By de Havilland, of course, Oscar’d for the role (note how smartly she plays middle-aged spinster, embittered rather than trembly white-haired & stooped), but also from Roland Culver as a titled, unlikely British suitor, along with a host of unsung Paramount contract players under unusually detailed, fluid period direction by the underrated Mitchell Leisen. Even the cute little boy who doesn’t know why ‘Aunt’ Olivia is so threatening, clinging and over-protective is better than you expect. Like the film as a whole.

DOUBLE-BILL: Mitchell Leisen also had John Lund in the far odder Unwed Mother film noir, NO MAN OF HER OWN/’50, from a Cornell Woolrich story, with pregnant Barbara Stanwyck taking advantage of a serendipitous train wreck to change her identify.

THE PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK (1935)

A stage hit in London & New York for matinee idol Johnston Forbes-Robertson (he filmed it in 1918), and you’ll see why. A fine piece of sentimental poetic realism (make that kitchen-sink poetic realism), its irresistible leading role, here Conrad Veidt, puts a mystery boarder at a lower middle-class rooming house in London, filled with interacting tenants, each on the verge of missing their chance at happiness. An unspoken crush between two lonely souls on the wrong side of thirty; a debt-plagued family whose lovely daughter (Anna Lee) is emotionally tied to a penniless artist upstairs, but bartered to a cut-throat businessman across the hall; a common scullery maid, a good girl with a dicey past, dreaming of a nice tenant while fending off unwanted advances by that same businessman. All these little dramas given a nudge in the ‘right’ direction by our elusive/other-worldly new resident. Neatly handled on a tight budget by German/Hollywood exile, director Berthold Viertel* and shot by another ex-UFA man, Curt Courant, just off THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH for Alfred Hitchcock whose wife, Alma Reville, shares script credit. Bumpy going here and there, and the concept has a fuzzy, metaphysical spin, but memorable just the same.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: *Donna Rifkind’s new bio on Berthold Viertel’s wife, THE SUN AND HER STARS: SALKA VIERTEL AND HITLER’S EXILES IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD, covers Berthold’s difficult career as well as the huge influence Salka had in Hollywood from best pal Greta Garbo on down as writer, literary salon keeper & warmhearted cook of German specialties.

DIE PUPPE / THE DOLL (1919)

Wildly prolific in his early German period (acting & directing), Ernst Lubitsch tossed off six feature films in the year between two of his signature international hits emphasizing the human foibles of historical figures: PASSION/MADAME DU BARRY/’19 and DECEPTION/ANNA BOLEYN/’20. And sometime during the making of those six films, dormant cinematic genes got activated, giving a striking leap in his filmmaking chops from DU BARRY to BOLEYN. Lubitsch is all but fully formed in the last of these six films, also his last acting gig, the comic Arabian Nights fable SUMURUN*, made directly before BOLEYN; but the others show gains and losses. (Three of the six seen here.) This one, a quirky stylized comedy, offers a good look at Lubitsch in chrysalis, with clever staging ideas and new compositional control alternating with flatly handled farce & chases. But an enjoyable one-hour watch, especially in the fine F.W. Murnau Foundation restoration out on KINO. Lubitsch personally opens the film, setting up a doll’s house acting space before giving up the stage to life-size actors who enter a whimsical full-scale set. In the story, a Baron’s nephew runs away from a duchy’s-worth of eager young brides to hide out in a monastery of well-fed monks before finding a ‘living doll’ to wed. What he doesn’t know is that the master dollmaker has failed with his animated mannequin and its his real life daughter who’s playing puppet. Much of this is just too silly or too frantic, but a lot holds up with a neat comic edge, though leading lady Ossi Oswalda is even more delightfully inventive in Lubitsch’s shrewd OYSTER PRINCESS made shortly before this. Neither perhaps essential viewing, but a real treat for Lubitsch mavens.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Lubitsch gives E.T.A. Hoffmann story credit. Does this come from the same mechanical doll story Jacques Offenbach used in his TALES OF HOFFMANN opera?

DOUBLE-BILL: *Before decent prints were discovered & restored, SUMURUN’s mad comic adventures, along with Lubitsch’s high relief perf, were wrongly written off. The film, as well as Lubitsch in action, a treat!

NOTHING BUT THE BEST (1964)

Posing above his class & in over his head, Alan Bates is both irresistible force & object of affection as a fast-rising, thick-necked scoundrel at a British investment house. Out to make some room at the top, he's learning how to succeed in business from wealthy wastrel Denholm Eliot, hiding in the flat below, and how to succeed at romance & social climbing from Millicent Martin, delaying consummation from her comfortable position as daughter to Bates’ banker boss Harry Andrews. Property is theft, property management murder in the facile politics of this early work from director Clive Donner (who never quite found his groove) and scripter Frederic Raphael (whose next three were DARLING/’65; TWO FOR THE ROAD/’67 and FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD/’67), given a posh glow from cinematographer Nicolas Roeg and tasty support from a cast of upper-crust Brit twits who make the easiest of marks. A real period curiosity, darkly comic and worth a look.

DOUBLE-BILL: Any of the Raphael titles listed above, especially TWO FOR THE ROAD. OR: See Bates’ spectacular range not only in MADDING CROWD, listed above, but also in his other film from ‘64, ZORBA THE GREEK/’64.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Listen up to hear an uncredited Eleanor Bron making her mark with a single line at a wild party scene. Who else makes that delicious sound?

THE CHANGELING (1980)

Just as Bette Davis & Joan Crawford’s WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE/’62 made Grand Guignol a commercial option for Oscar’d gals of a certain age; so too Gregory Peck in the posh schlock horror of THE OMEN/’76 for leading Oscar’d men. Hence George C. Scott making this slick, aimlessly structured Haunted House pic. Great to look at (Peter Medak’s smooth megging; John Coquillon rich saturated lensing), the story misses a unifying principle to embed a tragic prologue into the main Cold Case child swap/murder fable. (The idea that Scott’s open to believe in voices from the dead after losing his wife & child not much advanced.) A few nice frights from the usual creepy sound effects & ghostly chases, but the standout scares come from a seance with an alarmingly possessed medium and in some early scenes showing Scott displaying uncharacteristic hyper-charged bonhomie. Scott laying on the charm a truly frightening sight!* Scott’s real-life wife, Trish Van Devere, is fine as the real estate agent who gets involved in the mystery, but its old Melvyn Douglas who steals all his scenes as a powerful Senator trying to keep the past at bay. And if you thought the end would tie back in to the tragic loss of the prologue, think again. No wonder Russell Hunter who came up with the original story never earned another credit.

DOUBLE-BILL: Though missing the surprise element, DAMIEN: OMEN II did get William Holden as the Oscar’d guy to follow Greg Peck in the horror racket as well as slightly less faceless direction with journeyman Don Taylor taking over from journeyman Richard Donner.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Actually, Scott could do bonhomie on stage as seen in plays by Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, even Noël Coward in a well received PRESENT LAUGHTER.

MEN ARE NOT GODS (1936)

Prolific writer and occasional director Walter Reisch has a good idea here, but does himself no favors calling the shots. A backstage/life-mirrors-art drama about an OTHELLO who nearly strangles his Desdemona for real, the film is less about this married theatrical couple than about Miriam Hopkins, secretary to a newspaper critic, as she changes his pan to a rave, then becomes obsessed with the actor playing Othello. Choppy going right from the start, story & editing, with Reisch letting Hopkins chew the scenery to bits. Hopkins, a fine actress with a director who held her mannerisms and competitive nature down (as William Wyler just had in THESE THREE) is completely off the leash here. But what a surprise to see stage legend/screen disappointment Gertrude Lawrence showing a bit of her elusive magic as wife & acting partner to Sebastian Shaw’s Othello.* And there’s young Rex Harrison, all legs & canted posture, as Hopkins’ reporter pal, already flying off the screen just before his breakthru perf against Vivien Leigh in STORM IN A TEACUP/37.

DOUBLE-BILL: The film anticipates A DOUBLE LIFE/’47, where Ronald Colman’s has OTHELLO’s art/life mix up; and also nips the big auditorium scream climax from Hitchcock’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH/’34.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Note that in the excerpts, Shaw, a rather good, if traditional Othello, plays largely without the dark makeup you’d expect for the period. And that’s really Lawrence doing her own typically wayward singing in Desdemona’s Willow Song. Did any other celebrated singer (other than Madonna, another film underachiever) fall off the note so consistently? And yet the likes of Noël Coward, George Gershwin, Cole Porter & Richard Rodgers all wrote standards for 'Gertie' to introduce on the West End & B’way.

LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (1980)

For such a slight, sentimental tale, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story (New York kid leaves the tenements to go to England as the new Lord Fauntleroy, meet curmudgeonly Granddad and melt all hearts with a winning/can-do American spirit & street-bred egalitarianism) has proved remarkably sturdy & adaptable. More than a dozen iterations, straight & loose. (See Jody Foster in Disney’s modernized, gender-switched CANDLESHOE/’77 . . . better yet, don’t.) The three standouts are Mary Pickford in 1921 (at 29, she’s Fauntleroy in drag and Mom in petticoats); David O. Selznick in ‘36 with his DAVID COPPERFIELD discovery Freddie Bartholomew as a gentlemanly Fauntleroy backed by a host of Hollywood British Colony types; and this classy made-for-tv movie with Ricky Schroder (soon after his debut in THE CHAMP remake) and Alec Guinness as the crusty Earl who soon warms to the open-hearted, surprisingly sensible lad. (A false pretender brings a smidgen of much needed suspense to the third act.) Sweet without being saccharine, mostly thanks to Guinness who underplays to fine effect, it misses the weird Freudian aspects of Pickford playing mother & son and those unbeatable Golden Age Hollywood character actors in ‘36, including Mickey Rooney as a tenement pal. Pluses here: Schroder is an actual boy and more disruptively All-American. While Patrick Stewart, Colin Blakely & Eric Porter aren't to be sneezed at in support. And while director Jack Gold and lenser Arthur Ibbetson can’t hide a tight budget & bright tv lighting for the interiors, outdoor landscapes are splendid enough for Guinness to make a sweeping gesture before telling the boy without a trace of irony, ‘someday all this will be yours.’ It’s an awfully nice film.

DOUBLE-BILL: Good and bad prints of the Pickford & Bartholomew versions out there, so look around.

AH WILDERNESS (1935)

Smartly trimmed & ‘opened up’ by husband/wife writing team Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett, directed & shot (partly on location in Mass.) with honeyed beauty & affection by Clarence Brown & Clyde De Vinna, Eugene O’Neill’s rose-tinted pastorale on his small town coming-of-age summer before college in 1906 is one of those gentle, prestige stage works you don’t expect to offer more than modest chuckles of recognition. Surprise!, the play and sentiments hold up beautifully; real laughs in one hilarious set piece after another. (High School Commencement Exercises; a disastrous family dinner; a reluctant Birds & the Bees talk; et al.) Then infinitely touching at the end as patient Dad & rebellious son dig deep enough to uncover a bond of love they’d almost forgotten. O’Neill rarely works so well on screen. (Try John Ford’s THE LONG VOYAGE HOME/’40 for O’Neill’s favorite film adaptation.) Wallace Beery shambles a bit as bilious Uncle Sid, but gets his laughs and knows how to use his bulk to keep a bit of serious threat to the drinking. While father-of-the-family Lionel Barrymore (in a role spotted for Will Rogers before his death) keeps his grumpy mannerisms entirely in check, pitch-perfect throughout. So too the rest of the cast, particularly Aline MacMahon as Uncle Sid’s long-suffering intended. An O’Neill favorite from DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS and BEYOND THE HORIZON on stage, she seems to intuit the heartbreak & tragedy beneath the glad-wrappings that would surface twenty years on as LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.*

LINK: Orson Welles and the Mercury Players did a tab version for radio in 1939 with Welles playing teenage son Richard, much as he had when they did Booth Tarkinton’s PENROD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79dx1RQHwFI

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *The play acquires all sorts of undertones (and overtones) after seeing LONG DAYS JOURNEY. They’ve even been performed in alternating rep, but always with the parallel roles messed up. Only Dad and O’Neill alter ego Richard Miller stay the same. JOURNEY’s addicted mother lives inside Aunt Lily (here MacMahon) and O’Neill’s older brother isn’t the older brother seen here (a small role), but Uncle Sid.

DOUBLE-BILL: Twice musicalized: M-G-M flopped with SUMMER HOLIDAY/’48, brilliantly directed on a technical level by Rouben Mamoulian, but to little effect with an unmemorable score, and a miscast Mickey Rooney, bumped up from the kid brother he’s just right for here to the lead. Then a near miss on B’way as TAKE ME ALONG, with Robert Morse, Walter Pidgeon & Jackie Gleason’s Uncle Sid. A born O’Neill player, what a Hickey Gleason would have made in THE ICEMAN COMETH. For a tiny taste of what might have been, see Gleason in an odd little film called PAPA’S DELICATE CONDITION/’63 with him singing ‘Call Me Irresponsible.’

AND NOW TOMORROW (1944)

Well played Women’s Weepie: Incurable Disease division, loses altitude fast when a cure is miraculously found in the last reel. Loretta Young is a rich young thing left deaf after a bout of meningitis; Barry Sullivan the family vetted fiancé holding fast to his promise; Susan Hayward the selfish kid sister out to nab the groom for herself; Alan Ladd a principled doctor from the wrong side of the tracks with a major class-conscious chip on his shoulder and a sideline in experimental treatments for the deaf. Can this romantic quadrangle sort itself out before Young & Sullivan take their mismatched walk down the aisle? Gooey as this sounds, the emphasis on class & ethics lend tart appeal to the inevitable. With mutual sparks of attraction between Young & Ladd nicely caught by cinematographer Daniel Fapp. (Ladd especially dashing in white lab jacket.) Too bad no one saw the perfect resolution staring them right in the face: Loretta fakes recovery (with mirrors, lip-reading and Ladd’s help) to discover the truth of Sullivan’s wayward affections, leaving Ladd & Young to get together with hope of a cure . . . someday. Alas, the other intriguing element in the package is co-scripter Raymond Chandler. Yep, the L.A. noir P.I. master fresh from DOUBLE INDEMNITY and, presumably, finishing off his Paramount contract on this less than congenial material. Chandler not exactly known for pat romantic leanings or for cleaning up plot problems!

THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

Fifty+ years after a controversial release, the biggest surprise in THE WILD BUNCH is its lack of surprise. Jagged edits, slo-mo violence, squib-happy bloodletting, sullied protagonists; now standard issue for what remains of the Western genre. Not that stylistic absorption has lessened the quality or impact of Sam Peckinpah’s sweeping end-of-an-era South-of-the-Border Western. But the story now reads in an unexpectedly simpler manner, following a gang of aging outlaws on the run after a failed ambush interrupts their attempted robbery. Then ‘romancing’ what they half know will be the end of the line for them by ripping off a shipment of U.S. Army guns & ammo for a renegade Mexican ‘Generale’ and his militia of cutthroat revolutionaries. (Or are they anti-revolutionaries?) What stands out now are the character turns by a stellar cast of prematurely grizzled stars, many of them, like Peckinpah himself, offering a striking return to form: William Holden, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Ben Johnson, Ernest Borgnine. (Was the gay angle on Borgnine’s character as clear & straightforward at the time? His relief at seeing Holden come out of a bordello before the bloodbath climax like a suppressed reaction shot from BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN/’05.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Who but Peckinpah would open a film with a nod toward Shakespeare’s KING LEAR and Luis Buñuel, showing a group of sadistic kids torturing scorpions with attacking red ants before setting the whole mini-corral aflame.

DOUBLE-BILL/READ ALL ABOUT IT: W. K. Stratton probably goes into too much detail in his ‘making of’ book: THE WILD BUNCH, while Peckinpah masterworks like RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY/’62, BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE/’70, JUNIOR BONNER/’72 and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA/’74 go begging for attention.

THE TALL TARGET (1951)

Astonishingly fine in atmosphere, characterization & suspense; especially for a B+ budget pic @ M-G-M, where tight purse strings usually purchased anodyne timidity. And a period piece, at that, as Dick Powell uncovers an assassination plot to take out President-Elect Abraham Lincoln on his way to inauguration, but can’t get his superiors to believe him. Largely set on a much-delayed express train heading south from New York, director Anthony Mann (with cinematographer Paul Vogel matching regular lenser John Alton in glistening darkness), along with scripters George Worthing Yates & Art Cohn, tightens the screws in solidly escalating well-plotted  thrills & quick reverses. Capped with a late, gasp-worthy passenger reveal accomplished intuitively. A neat example of letting the audience join the dots for themselves. Paula Raymond makes a faceless female lead, but the rest of the cast quite exceptional for any budget; Adolphe Menjou, Will Geer, Marshall Thompson, Leif Erickson, Florence Bates and a standout perf from Ruby Dee. Ripe for remake, the film’s poor box-office may have put producers permanently off.

DOUBLE-BILL: More taut melodrama that barely leaves the train in next year's THE NARROW MARGIN/’52, a contempo film noir less daringly original than this.

GHOST STORY (1981)

Hard enough to pull off real Stephen King. Third acts and explanations almost always fall apart. And faux Stephen King, here a Peter Straub novel, is trouble from the start. Too bad, too, since the basic idea of four old men holding on to a guilty secret from their salad days, and the ghostly victim who returns to take revenge, is loaded with possibilities. Beginning with a Hollywood ancien régime in their last feature film: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas & Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. (Only fourth man, John Houseman would keep at it.) Hard to know where the blame goes on this one. Young leads Craig Wasson & Alice Krige are certainly creepy . . . just not scary creepy. Scripter Lawrence D. Cohen has real Stephen King credentials (CARRIE/’76*, two King tv mini-series), but never finds his way back from the flashback episodes, one modern, one 50 years ago. And director John Irwin, fresh off his superb TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY mini-series (the 1979 verison with Alec Guinness) hasn’t horror chops or a feel for ominous atmosphere. (Even with Jack Cardiff lensing.) A disappointment for the old troopers, still in there working and deserving a far better send off.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *It makes you wonder if Brian De Palma’s CARRIE (King’s debut novel; Cohen’s debut screenplay) holds up. Maybe best to just keep the memory.

INTERFERENCE (1928)

By the time Paramount joined the All-Talking Picture revolution, nearly a year had passed since Warners’ THE JAZZ SINGER opened. (LIGHTS OF NEW YORK and THE SINGING FOOL solidified the trend in July & September.) Yet, already something of a critical backlash was brewing against films with little to recommend them beyond synch-sound songs, bad dialogue & sound effects. (Sizzling bacon in a pan no longer earning spontaneous applause.) Hence the insistence on QUALITY seen on our poster. And in some ways, this little melodrama (letters of blackmail, a dying man’s noble gesture, justified poisoning, a fabulous early X-Ray metal contraption), taken from a modest B’way success, does offer a bit of dramatic structure, even a glimmer of editing rhythm. (Inter-cut with some slightly speedier footage taken from the alternate silent version.) But now, only of interest as historical curiosity: leading ladies flailing hopelessly (Evelyn Brent in two spectacular outfits has shed her mysterious silent allure; Doris Kenyon never had one to begin with); Clive Brook already showing implacable reserve & William Powell self-correcting his stagy elocution about halfway in. (Powell, appropriately grey & gaunt from the start, must have seen his ‘dailies.’) His quick improvement soon to be matched in all departments, and not only at Paramount.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: To see why people who cared about film were so critical of The Talkies, watch Brent & Powell earlier this year in von Sternberg’s late silent masterpiece THE LAST COMMAND. Regrettably, another von Sternberg silent from ‘28 with them, THE DRAGNET, now lost.

THE CHALK GARDEN (1964)

A family with child rearing troubles sees one governess after another fleeing the house. Then, out of the blue, an eccentric applicant; a take-charge disciplinarian who gets the job without a single reference. In 1964? MARY POPPINS, of course. Staying with 1964: chilly blonde with a secret past haunting her (a childhood murder). Alone, controlling, she fears her buried crime will catch up with her. It makes her prone to breakdowns: spilled wine on a tablecloth floods the screen in RED. Hitchcock’s MARNIE? (With the coiled hair bun from VERTIGO/’58 as bonus.) Meet THE CHALK GARDEN, John Michael Hayes’ adaptation of a well-received play by NATIONAL VELVET author Enid Bagnold, produced on B’way as a prestige piece by Irene Mayer Sleznick (daughter of Louis B./ex to David O.). A fascinating, uneven piece; too bad glitzy producer Ross Hunter made the film, glossing over and gussying up the material. Still, a very good cast sees Edith Evans as the confused, forgiving grandmother, unable to cope with her psychologically damaged granddaughter (absent/remarried mother; self-destructed father), John Mills as her independent houseman, and an indispensable Deborah Kerr as the new governess with as many issues to work thru as her teenage charge. That’d be Hayley Mills, not quite up to the dramatic demands of the part, too loaded down with ingratiating tics & tricks after four films for Disney. Director Ronald Neame isn't able to deglam the bright, tidy, ostentatious house style producer Ross Hunter imposes on everything, but does manage to make Bagnold’s italicized characterizations believable and get past some hard-to-swallow coincidences & dovetailing plot devices. All in all, more points for effort than execution, but consistently interesting.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: What a better film MARNIE might have been with a real actress like Ms. Kerr in the lead! At 43, she may have been thirteen years older than ‘Tippi’ Hedren, but looks, if anything, younger, and certainly more beautiful. With just the sort of warm mellow voice Hitchcock once preferred (think Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly compared to Hedren’s jarringly harsh tones). And note that MARNIE’s psychological issues get split here between Kerr & Hayley Mills, with kleptomania swapped out for pyromania.

I AM THE LAW (1938)

Enjoyable programmer from Columbia, with Edward G. Robinson on loan-out from Warners, leaves a lot of drama on the table, but still comes across. Eddie G., much loved law Prof., ditches his year-long sabbatical to take on warring Protection Rackets as special city prosecutor. Only problem, powerful local D.A. Otto Kruger, who tasked him with the assignment, is a major behind the scenes player and only hired the good Professor because he’s sure this naive university guy will fail.* But the joke’s on the crooked D.A., since Robinson turns out to be a pitbull as investigator and worse, has the D.A.’s son on board as top assistant. Well handled by journeyman director Alexander Hall (a faceless technician easy to mix up with the more interesting H. C. Potter), the film skims past inconsistencies & story gaps, stopping for a couple of nifty set pieces that find Eddie G. slugging it out with hired thugs twice his size and for a riotous ‘Big Apple’ turn on the dance floor. Eddie G. kicking up a rug . . . who knew? Fun.

DOUBLE-BILL/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Call it MR. UNDERESTIMATED; the guy who doesn’t realize he’s only been hired because his opponents are certain he’ll fail . . . then shows 'em up by beating them at their own game. A much favored Hollywood plot: see THE VERDICT/’82 (Paul Newman; dir. Sidney Lumet; script David Mamet) for a classy example of the form.

THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND (1960)

Tough & bluntly effective, director Budd Boetticher successfully pivoted from his series of unnervingly good Randolph Scott Westerns to tackle this 1920s mob story. Ray Danton is riveting, quite the sexy beast, as Jack Diamond, young thug in a hurry, giving up small-time grab-and-run jewel robberies to climb the mob ladder three rungs at a time. Learning the biz as he goes, Diamond hasn’t a sentimental bone in his body, tossing bosses, partners, lovers, even invalid brother Warren Oates under the bus on his rise to the top. Boetticher, with ace cinematographer Lucien Ballard, gives this an interesting, contrasty look, with some scenes looking as if they were still using orthochromatic b&w silent film stock. The script runs largely on incident, with a double-cross or two in the mix, losing any overarching thru-line. But sheer speed can carry its own intoxication even if rarely getting below the surface. With a strong cast (Karen Steele, Jesse White, Simon Oakland, Elaine Stewart in addition to Oates & Danton), the film may look better now than it did on release. (Even if some sets look almost comically underdressed.) It makes Boetticher’s fast decline after this even more of head-scratcher.

DOUBLE-BILL: Check out MURDER, INC. from the same year. A similar B-pic idea not nearly as well made. (Direction and cinematography making all the difference.) But with a standout perf that established Peter Falk.

52 PICKUP (1986)

A couple of years after barely touching on the plot of an Elmore Leonard novel they bought for THE AMBASSADOR/’84, schlock producers Yoram Globus & Menahem Golan tried again, initiated this time by director John Frankenheimer who brought in Elmore Leonard (of all people) as co-scripter. This made all the difference. A crackerjack L.A. Neo-Noir (location moved from the book's Detroit to help the budget), it’s a decidedly nasty piece of work as Roy Scheider’s high-tech industrialist is blackmailed for infidelity by a trio of amoral sadists just as his high-profile politico wife, Ann-Margaret, is gaining a spot on the election ballot. More violent than you expect, funnier, too, in a sick way, with an ‘80s porn-industry background to justify lots of ‘tittie’ action. No small thing for Globus/Golan International sales. With clever crisscross plotting as Scheider works fissures between blackmailers Robert Trebor (gay), Clarence Williams III (revolutionary black) & John Glover (going to town as a smooth sociopath). The compromises of working with Globus/Golan occasionally show (that score!), but Frankenheimer (not at a good place in his career) comes thru with what often feels like a proto-Quentin Tarantino vibe, largely from Elmore Leonard’s off-the-beat gags & threat.*

DOUBLE-BILL: *That Elmore Leonard/Tarantino connection made plain in JACKIE BROWN/’97.

MAN ON A TIGHTROPE (1953)

Tainted by rumors of communist sympathies even after ‘naming names’ for HUAC during the WitchHunt days of the Hollywood BlackList, director Elia Kazan was pressed by his boss at 20th/Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, into making this Soviet bashing True Tall Tale about a little Czech circus fleeing to freedom in the West. Started with misgivings, with its blunt characterizations & odd staccato rhythm, it certainly doesn’t feel like a Kazan pic. Shot in Germany with a local crew, it was largely set up and partially directed by producer Gerd Oswald. Yet Kazan found himself mentally liberated*, appreciating the experience even while noting uneven results. Fredric March as the level-headed circus owner and Adolphe Menjou as the Soviet rep who sees too clearly to pass ‘Party Line’ litmus tests, give the two standout perfs. Everyone else seems to be waiting around for a windy epiphany from prestige scripter Robert Sherwood, pretty worn out in one of his last credits. (Gloria Grahame & Terry Moore as March’s wife & daughter get the worst of it.) It’s one of those films that doesn’t quite work, perhaps because the story is too on the nose for its own good, but that you root for.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Kazan’s great film decade followed: ON THE WATERFRONT; EAST OF EDEN; BABY DOLL; FACE IN THE CROWD; WILD RIVER; AMERICA AMERICA . . . then total collapse.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Stanley Kubrick’s PATHS OF GLORY/’57 found cinematographer Georg Krause here (he works much better under Kubrick), as well as Adolphe Menjou who repeated his characterization (but works no better).

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Kazan’s auto-bio, modestly entitled A LIFE, is a bloated affair, but short & sharp on this film.

BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE / FLANDERSUI GAE (2000)

Bong Joon Ho (PARASITE/19) already has technique to spare in his debut pic. It’s content that’s lagging. Or maybe subject/attitude too Korea-specific to travel: Doggies as protein choice. One tough sale! (Don’t worry. No poochies hurt during filming.) The story, first of Bong’s class & privilege social critiques, follows the sleepless nights of a college lecturer up for the next permanent position. Good for him and his expectant wife. If only a series of yapping dogs in his sterile apartment complex weren’t ruining his sleep, and if he had the cash for the bribes he’ll have to pay. Lucky for him, evidence of his deadly dog deeds keep disappearing thanks to the culinary habits of a mysterious drifter squatting in the basement of the apartment complex. He may be crazy, but the guy can cook! But then his wife loses her job and uses her severance pay to buy a cute little dog. The Horror! The Horror! The comedy is black, blacker, blackest, often very funny, but plot & characterizations, to say nothing of consequences, don’t really add up. Watchable in its way. (Check out the Buster Keaton influence in how Bong uses apartment exterior hallways during chases.) But better things to come.*

DOUBLE-BILL: *And soon, Bong’s next, serial-killer procedural MEMORIES OF MURDER/’03, a giant step forward, a masterpiece balanced on a knife’s edge between the grim and the comic.

GALLANT LADY (1933)

Suicidal after seeing her aviator lover (and secret fiancé) crash & burn on takeoff, a pregnant & despairing Ann Harding is saved from a solicitation charge by park habitué Clive Brook, a dipsomaniac doctor who lost his license after a merciful bit of euthanasia. And before the first reel ends, Ann will have tearfully seen her baby adopted by a nice, wealthy couple. But when adoptive Mom dies, adoptive Dad (Otto Kruger) is so busy at work he doesn’t notice how much his chilly, new fiancée loathes the kid. Thank goodness Ann bumps into this long lost son on a business trip to Paris. (You see, Ann’s found success as an interior decorator thanks to an old connection from peripatetic Brook, now bumming around the world as a cattle doctor.) If only Ann can metaphorically push putative bride in front of a putative bus and convince Kruger she’s the gal for him. Only problem . . . she’s fallen for this nice guy for real and cannot tell him a lie . . . even to save her own child (adorably played by Dickie Moore). How screenwriters must miss the shame of unwed mothers as plot generator! Ridiculous as this all is, it plays like a dream under Gregory La Cava’s solid direction with Harding at her most glamorous & Brook at his most impenetrable/imperturbable. It’s all absurdly irresistible.

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Lovely and talented, Harding slipped off Hollywood’s radar toward the end of the ‘30s, returning after five years, no longer a leading lady, but a mature player. See her hold her own vis-à-vis Katharine Hepburn in an earlier version of HOLIDAY/’30 or it’s sort-of sequel THE ANIMAL KINGDOM/’32, both with Myrna Loy as fascinating adversary.

STATE FAIR (1945)

Pleasing, candy-colored musical remake of Henry King’s even better 1933 original, missing the emotional pull of the older film, but getting by on good will and a six-song half-score from Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein written between OKLAHOMA! and CAROUSEL. The little family dramas of two siblings and their folks having adventures over the three-day fair (romances for the kids; prizes in pig & pickles for the parents) now play out in quotation marks with Charles Winninger, Fay Bainter, Dana Andrews, Jeanne Crain & TechniColor not quite making up for the loss of Will Rogers, Louise Dresser, Lew Ayres & Janet Gaynor in bas relief monochrome. Same for director Walter Lang who hasn’t the confidence King shows in letting situations sneak up and grab you by the heart. Nothing in here to match the solemn strength of the Ayres/Gaynor romance, though they do manage to hint at the sexual frankness the Pre-Code pic was able to make plain. Crain gets the best tune, ‘It Might As Well Be Spring,’ and is well dubbed, while lovestruck brother Dick Haymes gets to flash his big teeth and wrap an impossibly smooth, if rather bland, baritone around the underrated ‘Isn‘t It Kind Of Fun.’ And keep a close eye on Winninger as he checks out a hootchy-kootchy show. Is that a triple or a quadruple ‘take.’

DOUBLE-BILL: Fox needs to restore the 1933 STATE FAIR. Such a beauty. OR: See Winninger again taking over for Will Rogers when John Ford found another story for JUDGE PRIEST/’34 in THE SUN SHINES BRIGHT/’53.

THE SECRET FURY (1950)

Who would want to ‘gaslight’ Claudette Colbert? And on her wedding day to Robert Ryan? Slightly older, much richer, she’s delighted by her groom, a straight-talking architect with rough edges, only to be blindsided at the ceremony by a mystery guest who rises to say he does knows a reason why they shouldn’t be married . . . she already is! And the more she investigates, the worse things look. Though not nearly as bad as they will after a confrontation with her supposed husband leaves the man dead and a smoking gun at her feet. It’s murder! And a trial with cast-off flame Paul Kelly as prosecuting attorney. Yikes! Good fun half of the way, the film overloads after Colbert has a courtroom breakdown, lands in the looney bin and Ryan has to take over to get to the bottom of things. Mel Ferrer in his second directing gig hasn’t developed the chops to turn the screws on action & suspense (note the blown ‘shock’ cut on Colbert’s unexpected return home), but fortunately, all the actors seem to be having such a jolly time it only matters a little. None more so than a decidedly venal Vivian Vance just a year away from becoming Ethel Mertz for I LOVE LUCY. But it’s mostly Claudette, tearing a passion to tatters in the witness box, and Ryan, loyally punching for info & the honor of his putative bride, who make this work.

DOUBLE-BILL: Colbert’s final scenes set up a nice compare & contrast with Ingrid Bergman’s great mad revenge against Charles Boyer in George Cukor’s GASLIGHT/’44.

MAGIC FIRE (1955)

Big, misguided composer bio-pic from fast-fading Republic Pictures (in their ‘perfected’ full-spectrum TruColor process) asks director William Dieterle to do for Richard Wagner what he’d done for various ‘great men’ (Zola; Juarez; Pasteur) at Warner Bros. in the ‘30s. Good luck with that! Justifying Wagner’s self-centered contempt for others by claiming his operatic genius demanded it only gets you so much audience sympathy. And with nearly an hour of the original running time lost over years of re-edits, the story is all abrupt transitions and not enough music to compensate for the man’s nastiness. (Arranged, if not conducted, by Erich Wolfgang Korngold who only ‘conducts’ on screen as Hans Richter.) And forget about even touching on Wagner's rife anti-Semitism. Real waxworks stuff here, not helped by Dieterle staging scene after scene in long-take ‘master’ shots; a common enough dodge in mid-‘50s CinemaScope films, except this film isn’t shot in WideScreen format! A clueless curiosity at best.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Should you watch, three standout moments: Leonie Rysanek dubbing a truly outstanding Senta in THE FLYING DUTCHMAN; a tiny moment (no more than seconds) with the churning opening of DIE WALKÜRE used to accompany Wagner when he learns of a new war, showing how music & biography might have merged dramatically; some fabulous old-fashioned painted flats used for the RING OF THE NIBELUNGEN montage.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: As great composer Hollywood pics go: less embarrassing than Charles Vidor’s A SONG TO REMEMBER/’45 (Chopin); less successful than Clarence Brown’s unexpectedly touching, not too ridiculous, SONG OF LOVE/’47 (the Schumanns & Brahms).