MR. WONG, DETECTIVE (1938)

It’s all downhill from that juicy poster with Monogram Pictures trying for a Charlie Chan knock-off series with Boris Karloff (speaking a very proper King’s English) as Detective Wong, called in to stop a murder before it happens. By the time the mystery is unraveled, three will have died, an impossible suspect will be found guilty, and everyone watching will have nodded off. It’s one sleepy affair! William Nigh directs without getting much of the simple story across, and the dowdy print quality hardly helps. No doubt, the title & Karloff’s name recognition brought in a reasonable return, he’d go on to make a handful of WONGs, but by the time CHARLIE CHAN ended its 20th/Fox run and started up @ Monogram, it was so long Wong.

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: You do get a chance to see the great late silent star Evelyn Brent, a pre-Dietrich favorite of Josef von Sternberg, keeping up the semblance of a working career. See her at her impassively smoldering best in his great late-silent THE LAST COMMAND/’28.

BORN YESTERDAY (1950)

PYGMALION/’38 meets MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON in Garson Kanin’s winning play about an unlikely conscience awakening in politically corrupt D.C. Add in lead couple ‘Junk’ metal tycoon Broderick Crawford & chorine Judy Holliday (lifted from Wallace Beery & Jean Harlow in DINNER AT EIGHT/’33) and a square reporter/instructor hired to wise-up the floozy . . . only to do the job too well. 3½ years on B’way, originally with Judy Holliday playing against Paul Douglas & Gary Merrill. Opened up to reasonable effect, with Frank Capra notes of patriotic pride in some city tours, director George Cukor got Kanin to come in (no fee/no credit) to fix the adaptation. It’s all well thought out; tidy; swell; and yet the film, for all its pleasures, never delivers the character frisson that bumped the play up to classic status. Holliday, looking like Harpo Marx’s sister when things start, hits her marks too strongly at first, though soon warms up with miraculously funny vocal pointing. William Holden, in the Merrill spot, the complete team-player, smoothly charming & able to tame Kanin’s occasional speechifying. The real problem is Crawford, awarded the role fresh off his ALL THE KING’S MEN Oscar®, he’s too brusque & realistic, all menacing instead of half-bluster (and ultimately sad).* It still works well enough, but it could have been wonderful.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Six years on, Kanin directed a tv version to give Paul Douglas his shot at the role.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, DINNER AT EIGHT, also directed by Cukor, with Harlow & Beery, prototypes for Holliday & Crawford. A BORN remake with Melanie Griffith & John Goodman (plus Don Johnson) went nowhere in 1993. But if you went just around the corner to the next theater, you might have seen much better casting in Holly Hunter & Gary Busey doing support in THE FIRM/’93. They're perfect! Of course, you have to watch THE FIRM to see it.

THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957)

A high-profile flop in its day (even Jack Warner, a mogul who never took blame for these things, conceded surprise, if not fault), the story of Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 New York to Paris flight, fleshed out with bio-flashbacks during the prep & flight, was an odd assignment for writer/director Billy Wilder. Wilder, who served on a post-war DeNazification Panel and lost much of his extended family to the Holocaust, must have compartmentalized Lindbergh the Heroic Icon, remembered from his time in Berlin, against the latter-day America Firster who gave cover to pro-Nazi/Anti-Semitic sentiments in mainstream America. The non-linear story structure mostly hangs together, and features a few stellar set pieces (Takeoff from New York; Landing in Paris). But it badly misses the youth, glamour & MidWest reticence that caused such a sensation as a miscast James Stewart comes in a couple of decades older than the real article, unglam & spouting so much narration he seems anything but laconic. Fortunately, it’s also one of those films that looks and plays better on the small screen than it did in the theater. And, every now & then, when lenser Robert Burks nails lighting & camera angle for a youthful money shot of Stewart, you can see how this might have worked.

DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Wilder could be oddly insensitive on the age issue. His next, LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON/’57, uncomfortably paired a rapidly aging Gary Cooper against Audrey Hepburn (though there, the strain deepens the film); or in his all-geriatric FRONT PAGE/’74 remake. As for Stewart, five years on in John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE/’62, he’s nearly thirty years too old for his fresh-faced lawyer. But, of course, that’s much the point with practically the whole cast decades off in that remarkable memory film.

PORCO ROSSO (1992)

Lesser-known, fabulously entertaining Hayao Miyazaki anime channels the spirit of late ‘30s Howard Hawks (especially ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS/’39) to fine effect. Porco, lone surviving pilot of a spectacular WWI dogfight, has become a famous pig-faced independent seaplane operator, tracking down pirates & rescuing hostages. Right now, he needs to sneak into Italy, where’s he’s a wanted man (er . . . pig) for a big repair job. And the crack engineer on hand is a 17-yr-old girl. No romance, though, Porco still pines for the widow of a lost flying bud who runs a café on a secluded island (where morals are duty-free). There’s unexpected emotional pull in Miyazaki’s original story (something about the pig’s solitary life, more Humphrey Bogart than Cary Grant), and the film still boasts the clean narrative lines of early Studio Ghibli while hitting new technical peaks. (What a palette!) Exciting, gorgeous, unafraid to take a breather when needed, and a big plus in its English-language cast, starting with Michael Keaton’s pitch-perfect Porco.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS; with Hawk’s TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT/’44 or Michael Curtiz’s CASABLANCA for the Bogie angle.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)

A perennial on lists of Oscar’s® ‘worst’ Best Picture; and why not with films like THE QUIET MAN, HIGH NOON, SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL and MEMBER OF THE WEDDING out that year. Compared to those, this Big Top meller is pure hokum. But isn’t that the point? And it’s masterful hokum. Cecil B. DeMille had been putting on circus acts disguised as historical dramas for decades, and this one, taken on its own terms (loud, obvious, corny, vividly TechniColored), is more or less irresistible. (Plus, now doing double-duty as historical marker of a lost tradition, much of it frankly non-PC. All those elephants! At least they avoid lion-tamers.) Charlton Heston, improbably young and (perhaps, unknowingly) charming is the tough manager with sawdust in his veins; Betty Hutton a center-ring act pushed to the side when hard-to-handle trapeze artiste Cornel Wilde joins up. Add in loads of stars from Paramount and Ringling Bros., romance, jealousy, a model train disaster (they’re BIG model trains), competitor Lawrence Tierney in an alarming suit and James Stewart as a clown on the lam whose sole gag is always keeping his makeup on. Like circus shows of old, there are longueurs in musical spectacles & parades, but before long some reaction shot of various stunned, still little boys gazing in a mixture of terror, puzzlement or wonder show up to make you grin.

DOUBLE-BILL: Nothing tops Disney’s DUMBO/’41 at capturing the look of old-time circus.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Just before the hour & a half mark, during a montage of lesser acts, look quick for a young man working a ‘slack wire.’ This is nearly the same routine that was being done in Ring Three at the Detroit State Fair Coliseum just as The Flying Wallendas fell from their famous High Wire Pyramid Act, killing two, in 1962. (Picture of the new generation of Wallendas doing the stunt, but without a chair on top, and with a net.)

FLAMINGO ROAD (1949)

Five films & five years after her comeback @ Warners in MILDRED PIERCE, Joan Crawford got solo top-billing in what was effectively her last ‘A’ pic as a glamor queen . . . to decidedly mixed results. She’s an eager young thing from the wrong side of the tracks (a ‘Carny’ dancer!) who rises from waitress to society lady with help from sympathetic, but weak-willed, assistant sheriff Zachary Scott (excellent); then with political boss/shady contractor David Brian (thick & dull). It’s the very paradigm she thought she left behind @ M-G-M. Alas, the fancy life on Flamingo Road is more rocky than smooth as the entire political apparatus is controlled by fat, corrupt Sydney Greenstreet. And he’s nursing a grudge against Crawford, convinced she’s out to wreck his State Capital takeover . . . and all those kickbacks! Produced & directed by PIERCE alumni Jerry Wald & Michael Curtiz, the film has lots of momentum (too much for the shortchanged last act) and great noir atmosphere from lenser Ted McCord. But the story never recovers after Scott drinks his way out of romance and debuting David Brian takes over.* Naturally, the studio reteamed her & Brian on two more contract pics . . . to diminishing results.

DOUBLE-BILL: Just before this, Crawford was lent to 20th/Fox for the excellent, under-valued DAISY KENYON/’47, with Henry Fonda & Dana Andrews; Otto Preminger directing. OR: *To see David Brian in a more suitable role, try Clarence Brown’s Faulkner adaptation INTRUDER IN THE DUST/’49.

THE BIG SICK (2017)

Engaging romantic comedy (promising Pakistani-American comedian hides a very MidWestern girlfriend from his ultra-traditional parents) which morphs into a medical drama (with warm, fuzzy edges) when a tough to diagnose/life-threatening infection places the undeclared girlfriend in a medically-induced coma. Lots of laughs, confessional tears, many gaffes from (future) in-laws . . . the works. With Kumail Nanjiani, playing a rather refined version of himself, as the faint-hearted boyfriend who learns to speak up; standard-issue perfs from his stern parents; and more originally drawn roles for an excellent Ray Romano & Holly Hunter as the girl’s parents. Yet the film doesn’t land with the emotional charge it should have. Instead, ducking in & out of plot beats, as if constantly jostled by Post-It notes left on script pages by exec producer Judd Apatow, determined to fill his usual boy-grows-up–by-finding-partner playbook. It doesn’t spoil the film, but it does make it feel like secondhand goods. So too remarkably awful direction (at least on the technical side) by Michael Showalter, with some of the cruddiest looking cinematography & destructive editing choices seen in a commercial Hollywood film in decades.

SCREWY THOUGH OF THE DAY: Hard to believe the basic ABIE’S IRISH ROSE premise (5-yrs on B’way in the ‘20s) still pays off. Just add baby or health crisis & watch feuding ethnic clans come together.

MISS PINKERTON (1932)

Antique programmer, a ‘late’ Early Talkie, and on the stiff side for 1932, but not without its amusing angles. From mystery novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart*, one of her once highly popular ‘Old Dark House’ comic thrillers, here with Joan Blondell’s overworked hospital nurse assigned to a murder scene to assist police detective George Brent working a young man’s suicide which may really be murder! And with a houseful of well-motivated suspects. Lloyd Bacon megs around the confusion with a little bit of style (for a change), setting up some neat angles that use natural framing devices found in the house (hall landings; doorways) to allow for all sorts of eavesdropping & ominous shadows. And someone (lenser Barney McGill?) cooked up a great farewell death shot as Elizabeth Patterson goes out for the long count, popping her eyes and then seeing Brent & Blondell do a fast fadeout into the nether region. Quite spooky! For the rest, it’s pretty silly stuff, with many a limp wisecrack. But the leads seem quite taken with each other, and it all wraps in about an hour.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Was this meant as a pilot for a Blondell series? It would explain much.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Rinehart’s best remembered title was filmed as THE BAT/’26, a late silent, and then as a very stiff Early Talkie (in 70mm) as THE BAT WHISPERS/’30. While over @ Universal, James Whale’s ‘old, dark house’ chiller came out as . . . THE OLD DARK HOUSE/’32. Best of the field, and with multiple filmings, goes to THE CAT AND THE CANARY, now out in a fine new restoration on KINO of Paul Leni’s 1927 silent version.

NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (1946)

Tough-guy specialist W. R. Burnett’s original screenplay is all over the place in this East Coast/West Coast con man redemption story. More than director Jean Negulesco can handle on only his second feature.  (His debut pic, THREE STRANGERS/’46, with its tighter focus, is far more assured.)  Even so, this one comes together by the last act for some neatly played suspense melodrama, so help yourself. Just recovered from war injuries, smooth operator John Garfield finds he’s been screwed ‘over the duration’ by erstwhile nightclub gal Faye Emerson and her new ‘manager.’ Reclaiming his ‘investment’ by force, Garfield heads to sunny California and takes over from George Coulouris on a plan to fleece millionaire widow Geraldine Fitzgerald; then falls for the dame. Structure & characterizations drift as needed to keep the plot moving, but Garfield & Fitzgerald are at their most attractive and there’s the usual excellent support from Warners’ contract crew along with Walter Brennan dropping his crotchety routine as a smart old confederate of Garfield’s. (He also proves handy as foil to get around Production Code rules at the climax.)

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Male stars @ Warners were more likely to be ‘Mutts’ than ‘BeefCake.’ But somebody at the studio must have been keeping tabs on the fan mail and made sure Garfield stripped down for a swim in almost every pic.