Professor Beware.

Review #2529: Professor Beware.

Cast: 

Harold Lloyd (Professor Dean Lambert), Phyllis Welch MacDonald (Jane Van Buren), Raymond Walburn (Judge James G. Parkhouse Marshall), Lionel Stander (Jerry), William Frawley (Snoop Donlan), Thurston Hall (Mr. Van Buren), Cora Witherspoon (Mrs. Pitts), Sterling Holloway (The Groom), and Mary Lawrence (The Bride) Directed by Elliott Nugent.

Review: 

In the year that Professor Beware was released of 1938, Harold Lloyd turned 45 and had made nearly 200 films (shorts, features) for over two decades, all with the delight of having laughs at seeing a bespectacled glasses character. With that film, incidentally, Lloyd was no long producing his own films (as he had done since 1924, at least until he sold the land of his studio to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1937), as it was a production of Paramount Pictures with Lloyd as only a partial financier. The movie was directed by Elliott Nugent, who actually had done a handful of films as an actor before venturing into directing and being a playwright (most notably co-writing The Male Animal with James Thurber) for roughly two decades that saw him direct films with varying stars that ranged from Henry Fonda to Bob Hope. The screenplay was written by Delmer Daves, who was a few years away from being the director of such films as Destination Tokyo (1943) while Jack Cunningham and Clyde Bruckman were listed as doing an "adaptation" of a story as done by Crampton Harris, Francis M. Cockrell, and Marian B. Cockrell. The movie, made for roughly $800,000, was not a success with audiences at the time of release, and the fact that the film is the lone one not owned by the Lloyd estate meant that the movie lurked in the syndication circuit but hasn't really had much of a home media release (unless one likes, to, well, look for old movies on YouTube). Lloyd would produce a few films and do work in the radio before returning for one more starring role with The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947).

Okay, so what is the odd scenario encountered this time around: a professor is curious about the final missing fragment that tells the fate of an Egyptian from 3,000 years ago that had been buried alive for loving the daughter of the Pharoah...and the professor happens to look a bit like the Egyptian and believes that falling in love might make him go down the same path (in fairness, being buried alive does sound like a bummer). When the professor meets a girl through odd circumstances that result in him meeting public embarrassment, he sure believes he may be going the way of the Egyptian equivalent of the dodo. Lloyd and company wanted to fasten their machine of gags on the road to what they thought would be a good time. It is mildly successful in that regard...but it just seems tired, even with a runtime of 93 minutes, mainly because the gags only really get into gear for its climax, when the lead character corrals people to all follow him onto a boat by picking a fight. Lloyd aimed to get laughs from madcap situations but at a certain point watching him try to pull laughs from getting onto a rope from a moving train, it all seems that time is catching up to him. It may interest you to know this was the one and only movie appearance for Phyllis Welch MacDonald. She had made her debut on Broadway in 1935 with A Slight Case of Murder (coincidentally a play co-written by Runyon) and she moved to Hollywood after two years. Apparently, she signed a contract promising not to marry or be engaged for six months (otherwise pay $5,000) as part being in this film. The year after the film was released, she married and left acting to start a family while also being involved in children's theatre and even doing painted portraits on commission; she died in 2008 at the age of 95. Such a nice way to live life, as opposed to being stuck in further movies that may or may not have had better chances for her to actually do something besides be stuck with listless attempts at chemistry that remind you that movies on the road involving goofy encounters were just done better in It Happened One Night (1934). Stander and Frawley at least seem able to provide a chuckle. You might remember that previous sound efforts from Lloyd involved a would-be sleuth in Chinatown, a shoe salesman pretending to be successful, a movie-crazed wannabee, a mayor by accident that tries to reform a town, and a quick-paced comedy where a milkman goes to boxing contender. Some are better than others, most are at least semi-entertaining, but at least Lloyd had an idea of when it might just be time to go out on his terms.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*For those curious (in link form) about the pursuit of Lloyd's feature films in order up to Professor Beware:

A Sailor-Made Man, Grandma's Boy, Dr. Jack, Safety Last!, Why Worry?, Girl Shy, Hot Water, The Freshman, For Heaven's Sake, The Kid Brother, Speedy for the silent era

Welcome Danger, Feet First, Movie Crazy, The Cat's-Paw, The Milky Way for the sound

We will see The Sin of Harold Diddlebock in 2027.

Honor Among Lovers.

Review #2522: Honor Among Lovers.

Cast:

Claudette Colbert (Julia Traynor), Fredric March (Jerry Stafford), Monroe Owsley (Philip Craig), Charles Ruggles (Monty Dunn), Ginger Rogers (Doris Brown), Avonne Taylor (Maybelle Worthington), Pat J. O'Brien (Conroy), Janet McLeary (Margaret Newton), and Ralph Morgan (Riggs) Directed by Dorothy Arzner (#1648 - Sarah and Son, #1810 - Working Girls, #1992 - The Wild Party, #2187 - Christopher Strong, #2362 - Anybody's Woman)

I suppose the best way to start talking about the film is to let Arzner's words (conducted in the 1970s) about the movie: "I collaborated in the writing of Honor Among Lovers, which I made for Paramount in New York. As audiences were ready for more sophistication, it was considered the smartest high comedy at the time. No, there was no pressure regarding the script, I had very little interference with my pictures. Sometimes there were differences in casting, sets, or costumes, but usually I had my way. You see I was not dependent on the movies for my living, so I was always ready to give the picture over to some other director if I couldn’t make it the way I saw it. Right or wrong, I believe this was why I sustained so long––twenty years." This was the 8th credited feature film for Arzner as a director, right between Anybody's Woman (1930) and Working Girls (1931). There were apparently a few working titles with "Sex in Business", "Strictly Business", and "Another Man's Wife". This was the second pairing of Colbert and March, who first appeared together in Manslaughter (1930) (they appeared again with The Sign of the Cross [1932] and Tonight is Ours [1933]).

Okay, sure, an office triangle movie with a couple of future Academy Award winning actors involved*. It sounds like a pretty casual affair, particularly with a runtime of 75 minutes that basically coasts on just how much you yearn to see how one woman's choices create so many ripples for all involved. It's the type of movie that has its own little quirks for modern audiences, of course, mainly because the boss in the film is, well, a boss trying to strike up a romance with his secretary that decides that the best course of action after she gets married is to fire her. But at least he seems normal when compared to the other man in the triangle in Owsley, who was a stock theater troupe man before he got onto film (in the last days of silent film) that acted all the way until his death...at 36 in 1937 (from a heart attack, of all things). One can enjoy a little bit of ham-handedness (especially when representing the underrated aspect of a love triangle story: a guy who isn't actually that good at wooing). One thing comes to another and boom, suddenly you have folks trying to throw their significant other down the river for their foolishness. At least the movie isn't completely judgmental over the decisions made by its one key feminine presence (because if it was, the movie probably would hit the rails into melodrama to chuckle at). Colbert and March prove fairly dependable and have a bit of chemistry together to where it at least isn't too hard to see where they would actually grow up and want the other. As a whole, it's a decent movie that comes and goes with the relative craftsmanship that Arzner had honed down in less than five years as a director that just rolls with useful sophistication and perspective for human nature.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*March won his first Academy Award with his performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) while Colbert won her award with It Happened One Night (1934), and if you pay attention to the supporting roles, you'll see the future winner for Kitty Foyle (1940) in Ginger Rogers

Apologies, I forgot to include a song of the day for the previous review. So enjoy two: 

belated) Song of the day

and this song of the day!

A Night at the Opera.

Review #2497: A Night at the Opera.

Cast: 

Groucho Marx (Otis B. Driftwood), Chico Marx (Fiorello), Harpo Marx (Tomasso), Kitty Carlisle (Rosa Castaldi), Allan Jones (Ricardo Baroni), Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Claypool), Sig Ruman (Herman Gottlieb), Walter Woolf King (Rodolfo Lassparri), and Robert Emmet O'Connor (Sergeant Henderson) Directed by Sam Wood.

Review: 

In fairness, Sam Wood does sound like a name I've covered before. But so it goes. Wood actually was a real estate broker in his young years in California before the growing industry of film for the 1900s eventually became something worth investing time into, starting as a movie assistant and eventually assistant director, most notably with Paramount Pictures for a number of years. He became a director by the turn of the 1910s with Wallace Reid. His efficient nature in getting films done landed him several opportunities to direct for a variety of places over the next two decades, although his longest tenure ended up being with MGM, where he worked in both silent and sound productions starting in 1927. In the middle of his tenure there, Wood ended up as the one directing a key assignment with the Marx Brothers because Irving Thalberg needed a dependable guy to direct the group (now consisting of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico), who had recently departed Paramount Pictures after five features because of contractual disputes that boiled over with Duck Soup (1933). The resulting success led to Wood directing the next Marx movie with A Day at the Races (released in 1937 months after Thalberg's death). For the Marx Brothers, they worked with MGM further on with At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941). Wood moved on to a wavering list of noted work, most notably with Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) before he became a freelance director for the remainder of his career and life, which led to films such as Our Town (1940), Kitty Foyle (1940), and Kings Row (1942). During production of Ambush (1950), Wood died from a heart attack at the age of 66 in 1949. Incidentally, both of Wood's Marx movies served as loose inspiration for the 1992 movie Brain Donors.

With this film, certain parts of the routines were basically workshopped with live stage performances that the brothers did on the road that was performed around the country prior to filming, with Wood traveling with the group from city to city to watch the audience reaction to the gags. The writing credits went to James Kevin McGuinness for the story, George S. Kaufman & Morrie Ryskind for the screenplay while gagman Al Boasberg contributed uncredited dialogue. If Thalberg's idea that the brothers would be best served by having a solid framework to hold up a grab-bag of jokes, well, he probably had a point. Basically, you get a good chunk of Marx mayhem with a handful of gags that come and go with solid efficiency depending on just how much you love seeing a group of oddballs casually loop in and out of affairs that either come off as trivial or just about the right sort of absurd. Obviously, the stateroom sequence is a key highlight of the film in that high-desired quality of rhythm and setup, although I would say the scene with the group trying to evade trouble involving furniture-moving is a nice favorite. Admittedly, the aspects involving Carlisle and Jones is the weakest part of the film, particularly since Dumont is such a solid straight presence anyway. But Groucho is Groucho in terms of just slinging lines full of zip with efficient nature that manages to evoke the charm within conman routines. And of course, there is the usual bumbling from Chico and the not-exactly silent Harpo. As a whole, it isn't hard to see why the Marx Brothers thought A Night at the Opera was one of their favorite films, as it manages to zing on a consistent level with its humor and execution to where one is immediately chuckling with its trio of stars with warm familiarity regardless of how many Marx movies you've seen. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Pardon Us.

Review #2484: Pardon Us.

Cast: 

Stan Laurel (Stan), Oliver Hardy (Ollie), Wilfred Lucas (Warden), June Marlowe (Warden's Daughter), James Finlayson (Schoolteacher), Walter Long (The Tiger), Tiny Sandford (Shields, Prison Guard), Otto Fries (Dentist), and Charlie Hall (Dentist's Assistant) Directed by James Parrott.

Review: 

Admittedly, I plain forgot to really check out the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy. So, why not start with their first feature-length film?  British-born Stan Laurel had started on the stage at 16 and did work in music halls (Fred Karno was a particular influence on Laurel and the one he was an understudy to in Charlie Chaplin) and eventually ended up at the Roach studio as director/writer by the 1920s. As for Georgia-born Oliver Hardy, he was a stage singer-turned comedian that had thrived in Florida productions (such as playing second banana to Billy West [a Charlie Chaplin impersonator] shorts) before going to Hollywood to seek new chances. Officially, they became a team in 1927 with Putting Pants on Phillip; Leo McCarey is stated to have aided the duo in helping develop their format. Most of the work they did until 1950 on film was in shorts (totaling over 70, sound and silent), but they did do 23 feature films, mostly with Roach (who when he had a dispute with Laurel, he tried to pair Hardy with Harry Langdon with Zenobia) that went right down to their last in Atoll K (1951). The two even had time to appear on television before Hardy's health started to decline that saw him die in 1957 at the age of 65; Laurel did not appear on film or stage again. He was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1961, four years prior to his death at the age of 74.* There exist various versions of the film: a British cut (Jailbirds) lasts 41 minutes while the original release and reissue was 55 minutes, an extended cut lasted 64 minutes and the current DVD edition runs at 70. The funny thing is that there were also foreign-language editions of the film made with the same sets for Spanish, Italian, German, and French, although only the Spanish version survives (apparently, Boris Karloff appeared in the French version). 

Apparently, the 1930 film The Big House was a big enough hit that Roach wanted to a short film making fun of the prison drama and even wanted to use the same sets. MGM was fine with it...if the duo would do a feature for them. Roach decided instead to make a replica of the prison sets. The result was a film that went from a short to having enough material to just be a full-length film. Sure, it might be a bit dated, as evidenced by it being made when one could be arrested for selling beer (or the blackface bit, which happens midway through*). It's a pretty episodic (it was directed by James Parrott, one mostly versed in shorts, which included the future Academy Award-winning short The Music Box [1932]) and disjointed affair, but it can be enjoyable in parts for those in the mood for a bit of goofy fun. There's plenty to mine with a goofy tooth and a few silly scenarios involving the duo wandering through jail life. The duo basically glide through the film in setting up whatever gag is necessary that can be charming in its execution for mischief that basically comes and goes with timing you just don't see everyday. The jail sequences mostly come and go with a bit of chuckles, mostly with Long and his demeanor (Finlayson comes close, but there isn't anything that really just zings too highly or lowly for too long. In general, you have a movie that is fairly watchable and fairly on the level of having some goofs in a time where you could just roll with the gags and have a mostly pleasant experience seeing how it comes together with a game duo there to do it all.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Apparently, at the funeral, Buster Keaton stated that the funniest among them was not him or Chaplin but Laurel. Dick Van Dyke (December 13 will see him turn 100) even delivered a rendition of The Clown's Prayer.

*No, I did not intend to watch back-to-back movies where someone is in blackface. What the fuck?

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.

Review #2483: You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.

Cast: 

W. C. Fields (Larsen E. Whipsnade), Edgar Bergen (Himself and the characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd), Constance Moore (Vicky Whipsnade), John Arledge (Phineas Whipsnade), Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (Rochester), James Bush (Roger Bel-Goodie), Mary Forbes (Mrs. Bel-Goodie), Thurston Hall (Mr. Bel-Goodie), and Grady Sutton (Chester) Directed by George Marshall (#650 - The Ghost Breakers and #2228 - How the West Was Won) and Edward F. Cline (#877 - Three Ages and #1354 - The Bank Dick)

Review:

Sure, let's talk about W. C. Fields again. This was the first film Fields made away from Paramount Pictures, which he had made over a dozen movies with before troubles with The Big Broadcast of 1938 led to his departure from the studio. He had done work on radio, most notably having routines with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Bergen had been a ventriloquist since he was a teenager and had McCarthy as his sidekick created out of a broomstick, rubber bands and cords. In what you might as well call "it was the old times", despite a run from vaudeville to movie shorts, the best notable success for Bergen and McCarthy was on radio, which they did all the way from the late 1930s until 1956 (one suggestion is that is because audiences just believed in the character of McCarthy as a youth they could hear, which probably went just as well for the other dummy in Mortimer Snerd); at any rate, Bergen and company did do a few films together, starting with The Goldwyn Follies (1938)*. So here we are with a Universal Pictures effort that had the efforts of two directors: George Marshall did everything besides working with Fields due to an apparent dislike of him, while Edward F. Cline worked with Fields (incidentally, B. Reeves Eason was the second-unit director doing the chase sequences). Fields starred in three further films: My Little Chickadee, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break prior to his death in 1946.

Admittedly, this works for those who just want a hodgepodge of jokes rather than an involving plot. The screenplay was written by Everett Freeman, Richard Mack, and George Marion Jr, as based on a story written by W. C. Fields (for what totally sounds funny reasons, he was credited as "Charles Bogle"). Really the film just sails on how much you value the misanthropy and huckstering of Fields. It probably works out the best when he is doing an impression of performers by necessity, whether that involves taking on a beard or trying to play ventriloquist (at least when he plays the dummy, there's a mustache trying to hide the movement of one's mouth, unlike a certain person). The 79 minutes come and go with a good deal of amusement at the proceedings with Fields basically trying to play people to a fiddle (blood relation or not) because I'll be damned if Bergen can keep up with him. Sure, there are moments when he can be a decent straight man but he can't really sell anything when it comes to the idea of a love story between him and Moore and when you have two puppets that come and go in...being puppets, you have a film that only works on a basic level. One odd thing for the modern audience: No, I'm not sure exactly why blackface was thought to be so funny that it even creeps up for a sequence midway through where the dummy is shown in makeup. So it goes. The sequence where Fields intrudes on the proceedings of higher-class people is at least pretty funny in seeing the contrast and an elaborate game of ping-pong, particularly since the movie basically just ends with little to show for it (you've got a chase of a chariot and a bike that is closed out by a puppet in a balloon). As a whole, there are a few interesting moments within a film that creaks more than most of its age, which may or may not make for a fine time for those interested in Fields or comedies in general.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Right before Bergen died, he filmed a cameo scene for The Muppet Movie - Jim Henson stated that Bergen was his idol. One of the original dummies is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.

The Black Room (1935).

Review #2454: The Black Room (1935).

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (Baron Gregor de Berghmann / Anton de Berghmann), Marian Marsh (Thea Hassel), Robert Allen (Lt. Albert Lussan), Thurston Hall (Col. Paul Hassel), Katherine DeMille (Maska), John Buckler (Buran), Henry Kolker (Baron de Bergman), Colin Tapley (Lt. Paul Hassel), and Torben Meyer (Peter)

Directed by Roy William Neill (#846 - Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, #873 - Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, #925 - Sherlock Holmes in Washington, #936 - Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, #1021 - The Spider Woman, #1040 - The Scarlet Claw, #1056 - The Pearl of Death, #1161 - The House of Fear, #1216 - The Woman in Green, #1262 - Pursuit to Algiers, #1620 - Terror by Night, #1681 - Dressed to Kill)

Review: 

Sure, let's see someone play double for historical horror. This was made by Columbia Pictures with the original intent of being titled "The Black Room Mystery" that had Boris Karloff appear in a one-off from them, doing so in the year where you could see him in Bride of Frankenstein and The Raven but without being billed as just "KARLOFF" or with as much makeup this time around. The evident choice to direct was to go with Roy William Neill, a dependable vet for many movies (some for Columbia, as one does when directing since the 1910s) in one of his last films before moving to London for a five-year visit in 1935; for whatever reason, he is billed as "R. William Neill" in the movie. I assume from the varying levels of information one could find about the movie (i.e. one that had a story from Arthur Strawn, who was credited with writing the film with Henry Myers) that the movie has languished a bit in obscurity, but Karloff kept busy with performances at any rate.

It is a neat little movie, when you get down to it. The 68-minute runtime lends itself to a welcome surprise when you figure that Karloff really is playing three roles: a benevolent nice twin, his evil (and older) twin brother...and the impersonation of the former by the latter. You might wonder what the title is about, and, well, it refers to a room where apparently an older brother will be killed by his young brother in a certain room of the castle (yep, it's a baron who worries about his sons, particularly since he'll die before they get old). Why the room wasn't just sealed up way, way before is anybody's guess (of course it is sealed up early in the movie only to be revealed to be in use again). For a movie that has a good chunk spent in a castle setting to go along with the usual melodrama approach of its time (a bit of haughty stuff and stuff you hear about more than see, some for obvious reason). It is evident Karloff is pretty good in the movie, specifically when playing his dastardly evil twin that shows more malice in what he is shown to do more than if he was simply in an effects-laden role (or in a less subtle movie about someone throwing women in a pit). His impersonation of the good twin (remember he is meant to have a bad arm) is especially fascinating, one that we know has cracks in the foundation but is still amusing to see how long he could actually pull off the act of benevolence. The rest of the actors are fine, with Marsh pulling in a bit of despair to come from being the object of a supposed nice person that can't even write their own fate (spoiler, it is a dog who plays into the climax). At least the climax is a hoot, finding a way around the whole "wait, how does one die by someone's hand?" thing before swiftly ending. In a way, it is like a fairy tale (okay Joe Dante said that [in regard to the sets], but judge for yourself anyway) with a dash of macabre that is worth looking into more than just being for those who like Karloff. In general, you have a solidly fine movie, not a great one by any means beside possibly its set design and ways around having someone play two roles on the same screen, but it is still a neat one to go with for those who like a bit of Gothic melodrama.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

A Slight Case of Murder.

Review #2370: A Slight Case of Murder.

Cast: 

Edward G. Robinson (Remy Marco), Jane Bryan (Mary Marco), Allen Jenkins (Mike), Ruth Donnelly (Nora Marco), Willard Parker (Dick Whitewood), John Litel (Mr. Post, banker), Edward Brophy (Lefty), Harold Huber (Giuseppe 'Gip'), Eric Stanley (Mr. Ritter, banker), Paul Harvey (Mr. Whitewood), and Margaret Hamilton (Mrs. Cagle) Directed by Lloyd Bacon (#562 - It Happens Every Spring, #898 - Larceny, Inc, #1340 - 42nd Street)

Review: 

Edward G. Robinson doing comedy isn't too out of left field, really. Actually, Roy Del Ruth had directed him in 1933's The Little Giant (which dealt with a bootlegger trying to go into the legit business) and John Ford had directed him in a crime comedy with 1935's The Whole Town's Talking, which dealt with a lookalike killer. A Slight Case of Murder is based on the 1935 play of the same name, which had been created by Damon Runyon (the famed writer and his one attempt at making a play) and Howard Lindsay (who actually became noted for his work in Broadway plays and musicals with Russel Crouse beginning in 1935). Earl Baldwin and Joseph Schrank were credited for the script behind this movie. Incidentally, Bacon (a very busy director in the 1930s, he apparently made over three dozen movies in that decade)* and Robinson would team up again with a gangster-related comedies with Brother Orchid (1940, which had Baldwin as a writer) and Larceny, Inc (1942), which is probably the more famous Robinson movie about a convict trying to go straight. Incidentally, Roy Del Ruth would direct a remake of A Slight Case of Murder with Stop, You're Killing Me (1952), which starred Broderick Crawford.

With a plot involving a bunch of corpses turning up in the middle of foreclosure and a cop for a possible son-in-law, you've got plenty here for a neat little comedy, even with the apparent age on display in terms of its subject matter. Every so often, I have to remember that there was some pretty crappy beer people had to deal in the old days (as opposed to now, I suppose). To be honest, even with the amount of movies that I've seen with Robinson in the cast (ten, now), I sometimes think I haven't given him his proper due as an actor, and this is saying something for a guy who honed his talents for several years on Broadway and thrived when it came to dramas, particularly since he had the temperament to sell damn near anything, from the tough guy role to the biopic (sure, that doesn't include dancing, but who's asking?). He clearly seems to be having fun here, having the talent to make the hijinks bounce off him with useful timing without turning it into straight farce or just being the straight man to strange stuff, he just happens to be involved in a silly little dark comedy that won't have too much violence but will have enough silly shifty people for 85 minutes. Donnelly pops into the action with attempts at playing natural class that results in a few chuckles, although the cast of goons-turned-assistants such as Jenkins and Brophy are worth a few laughs as well. The buildup to resolve the dead body problem is pretty amusing if not a bit abrupt (seriously it goes from calling the cops to fainting like that). These are the kind of movies that could be stamped out a dime a dozen in the old days that will work exactly for those who like something that will deliver most of the time with colorful enough people and execution in a specific age and place (dated or not) that you could call the epitome of "quick yarn". Hit or miss, you won't have your time wasted here, suffice to say. As a whole, if you are in the mood for Edward G. Robinson and a bit of silly fun with a quick pace and resourceful company around him, you will find a neat little movie here to enjoy from the old years.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Welcome to the four-timer club, Lloyd Bacon.

The Milky Way (1936).

Review #2369: The Milky Way.

Cast: 

Harold Lloyd (Burleigh "Tiger" Sullivan), Adolphe Menjou (Gabby Sloan), Verree Teasdale (Ann Westley), Helen Mack (Mae Sullivan), William Gargan (Speed McFarland), George Barbier (Wilbur Austin), Dorothy Wilson (Polly Pringle), Lionel Stander (Spider Schultz), and Marjorie Gateson (Winthrop Lemoyne) Directed by Leo McCarey (#085 - Duck Soup, #1350 - Love Affair, #1394 - An Affair to Remember)

Review: 

It does hurt, in a sense, to reach the near end of the Harold Lloyd run. The Milky Way was the fifth sound movie that he starred in, which if you remember correctly, were not exactly comparable to his silent output in terms of audience appeal. By this point, he wasn't even the producer of his own movies and now he was 43 (to say nothing of the fact that every movie made after 1919 was done with a special glove to hide the fact that he had just eight fingers). The year after this movie was released, Lloyd sold the land of his studio to the Latter-day Saints, and the year after that saw him star in his last sound movie for nearly ten years. With this movie, it was based off Lynn Root & Harry Clork's 1934 play of the same name*, and three screenwriters are credited with this adaptation: Grover Jones, Frank Butler**, and Richard Connell. Evidently the movie was the byproduct of casting shuffles, as apparently it was originally developed in mind with Jack Oakie to star, and somehow Ida Lupino was in talks to play the role ultimately played by Dorothy Wilson before Lupino got sick and bowed out. This was the tenth of thirteen movies that McCarey made in the 1930s, one made in between Ruggles of Red Gap [1935] and Make Way for Tomorrow [1937] (incidentally, McCarey actually was the son of a fight promoter; the USC law school graduate even tried boxing before trying his hand at getting involved with film and went from gagman to director). A handful of cast mates and McCarey got sick during production and apparently it fell to Norman Z. McLeod and Ray McCarey to shoot a few sequences (uncredited). The play has been filmed one time since, with The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), as produced by Samuel Goldwyn with Danny Kaye in the lead role of a musical comedy (Lionel Stander happened to appear in both movies). As you might expect from the old days of trying to corner the market, Goldwyn had purchased the original negative of the 1936 movie, pulled them from circulation and nearly every print in order to destroy them. Of course, he didn't get all of them, and the best version of the movie actually is one that came from a print preserved by Lloyd himself. 

It does help to have some zip for a comedy, yes. The last of his sound movies with The Cat's Paw (1934) was relatively successful in having a pairing of Lloyd with an established supporting presence (George Barbier) that wasn't about just bumbling around with middle-ground romance, and even Movie Crazy (1932) had some promise too. The 88-minute runtime for this movie basically leaves the film with two distinct segments: Lloyd doing Lloyd elements (to a point) and the attempts at verbal jabs and occasional visual stuff. The movie does pretty well, for the most part, mostly because it has the composure of confidence for both filmmaker and in cast, mainly because it isn't just bumbling around with misunderstandings (it instead plays on one guy trying to hustle both the media and a fighter) that might be Lloyd's most accomplished movie since oh, probably Speedy (1928). You've got a guy being trained to fight by playing it tune to the waltz and antics with a horse to go with brief interludes in the ring (and a horse, I suppose). I like the distinct difference Lloyd gets to play before and after getting in the ring in terms of heightened confidence. Menjou and Stander makes their moments count with such worthy timing in terms of huckster pride (with the latter having a voice practically made for it) that keeps the movie fresh beyond just looking at Lloyd or the varying moments spent around Teasdale, Mack, or Wilson (who are equally fine). While you might know just what is coming around the corner for a chunk of its tenure, there is still enough interest generated by the energy that is present on screen, such as with its resourcefully quick ending to generate a worthwhile ending. As a whole, Lloyd's one play at the screwball movie with McCarey in tow is a fine one, having enough fun with antics and a game cast to make a worthwhile curiosity worth looking into.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*It's funny to be semi-reminded of Battling Butler (1926), which dealt with Buster Keaton playing a guy being involved with a deception involving boxing, although that was based on its own play and is clearly distinct from The Milky Way; by coincidence, Chaplin also did a boxing sequence with City Lights (1931). But hey, never hurts to name drop.

**That would future Academy Award-winning writer Frank Butler to go along with future Academy Award winning director/writer McCarey, as Butler's collaboration with Frank Cavett for the screenplay to McCarey's Going My Way [1944] won an Academy Award, although that was a weird year in general, because McCarey's story for the film also wound up getting him an Academy Award for "Best Story" which well, goes to show what awards come and go.

Anybody's Woman.

Review #2362: Anybody's Woman.

Cast: 

Ruth Chatterton (Pansy Gray), Clive Brook (Neil Dunlap), Paul Lukas (Gustave Saxon), Huntley Gordon (Grant Crosby), Virginia Hammond (Katherine Malcolm), Tom Patricola (Eddie Calcio), Juliette Compton (Ellen), and Cecil Cunningham (Dot) Directed by Dorothy Arzner (#1648 - Sarah and Son, #1810 - Working Girls, #1992 - The Wild Party, #2187 - Christopher Strong)

Review: 

Well, there are quite a few movies about drunken marriages, so it isn't too surprising to see it here with Dorothy Arzner's 7th credited feature film as a director. The movie is based on the short story "The Better Wife" that had been written by Gouverneur Morris (evidently, the movie was going to be released under that title but went with the other title instead); Zoe Akins and Doris Anderson wrote the screenplay adaptation. Admittedly, Chatterton probably has slipped under the radar as an actress. But hey, she had a busy life beyond the acting life, which apparently began when her friends challenged her to become a stage actress when she criticized the acting when seeing a play in Washington. After a decade-and-a-half of stage work (including Broadway), she scored a contract with Paramount in 1928. Her work in Madame X (1929) and Sarah and Son (1930, as directed by Arzner) got her Academy Award nominations. She stopped acting in films by 1938 at the age of 45, although she would appear from time to time in stage and later in television. She even wrote a handful of novels in the 1950s and did I mention the part where she was an aviator that flew solo across the States a few times? While this movie isn't particularly noted among audiences of the time, one can at least be satisfied with its restoration in recent times by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. This was the third film Arzner had released in 1930, having been involved (alongside ten other directors) in the all-star revue Paramount on Parade (1930), which was released in April of 1930 (the aforementioned Sarah film had come out first in March), with this movie coming out in August; Colbert (who also had been featured in the Parade film) returned to star in the next Arzner movie alongside Fredric March with Honor Among Lovers (1931).

To say that the film is fine is not a particularly hard thing to say. Its 80-minute runtime is pretty routine when it comes to, well a 95-year-old movie that comes and goes in the scenario and executing it. Some of that is more successful than other times, particularly since this is the kind of movie where it wraps up in a "tidy bow" in the last few minutes that you either will accept or just sigh down the road as you wonder what sounds best to watch next.* For Arzner, it is about as competent and involving as one already has seen in her earlier films in trying to depict the general challenge that comes with being a woman where everybody has some sort of opinion of "who they are to somebody". Sure, the outsider view is taken with the eventual realization that one does in fact need someone, particularly someone who at least looks like they understand who they are on the outside beyond just being a clinging post in the dark of night. In that sense, Chatterton does relatively fine in maneuvering the waters of perception and actual action that is snappy enough to elicit enough charm to at least give the movie the fighting chance it needs. Sure, Brook is not given too much to really do besides being the soused up one of the "odd couple", but he plays it with dogged interest to at least seem like he isn't totally on autopilot. Lukas was the dependable supporting presence that you could find for a variety of movies (big or small) in his time, so he plays the "man with foreign-sounding name" with serviceable commitment to at least make a capable triangle seem plausible. As a whole, the movie presents a capable woman trying to make the best of things of a life that has to adjust the upheaval in routines that is more than just being an anybody but instead being a somebody, one who can live within places rather than apart from it all. It might not be a great "Pre-Code" movie, but it might just prove worthwhile enough for those interested in a decent time with Arzner at the helm.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Sorry for the delay. On occasion, I find inspiration for a review is split over the course of several days because I somehow get distracted in the most absurd of ways, which either involves rest or searching up old sports stuff. I recently managed to score a free trial of a newspaper archive and on a lark looked up box-scores of the 1968 ABA Playoffs for fun. You would be surprised what gets covered and doesn't find its way into telling a sports story.

The Raven (1935).

Review #2293: The Raven.

Cast: 

Béla Lugosi (Dr. Richard Vollin), Boris Karloff (Edmond Bateman), Lester Matthews (Dr. Jerry Halden), Irene Ware (Jean Thatcher), Samuel S. Hinds (Judge Thatcher), Spencer Charters (Colonel Bertram Grant), Inez Courtney (Mary Burns), Ian Wolfe (Geoffrey "Pinky" Burns), and Maidel Turner (Harriet Grant) Directed by Lew Landers (#2260 - The Return of the Vampire)

Review: 

You might remember that Universal had done a few horror films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) and The Black Cat (1934) had each featured Lugosi, and just like the latter, he co-stars with Karloff for a "adaptation" of The Raven. Apparently, several writers were brought in to try and bring treatments for writing, but only David Boehm would be given credit. The movie isn't really an adaptation of the 1845 poem of the same name by Poe because, well, if you read it, you would know all it involves is a man who sees and hears of a raven that goes "Nevermore" among other various rhymes (interestingly, there was a 1915 film that went by the same name as the poem that merely was a biographical film about Poe himself). It merely is a film where a man really seems to like the works of Poe instead, complete with seeing a solo dance set to a recitation of the story and a torture device straight from "The Pit and the Pendulum". This was the third appearance of Karloff and Lugosi together (eight by the end of the 1940s) after the aforementioned Cat film and Gift of Gab, a musical comedy that probably nobody interested would care about unless they like bit parts; the next film with the two was The Invisible Ray (1936). This was the kind of movie that probably unsurprisingly led to people being weird about horror movies, with one British paper wondering what was behind the movie that was "of "horror" for "horror's" sake", accusing it as nonsense for trying to hide under the Poe inspiration while saying it has no indication of "imaginative control" in story or treatment. This was among the first films directed by Landers, who actually was born Louis Friedlander before he elected to go by Landers for directing later on. Nearly thirty years later, Karloff appeared in the next "adaptation" of the Raven story as part of the Corman-Poe cycle for AIP.

It actually is a pretty neat movie when you get down to it, mostly because its obsessive glee is pretty infectious for such a carefully curated runtime of just 61 minutes. Lugosi gets to eye-ball his way through a movie that is more his show than Karloff's show in the best of ways imaginable for cut-rate spooks. Lugosi gets to have some fun moments involving a considerable ego (he says at one point that he is "a law unto myself") and getting to play a game of cat-and-mouse with Karloff, who gets packed in with some makeup because of the nature of the plan drawn up of obsessive love by way of extortion; the theory of ugly folks going around doing crimes because of said ugly is amusing here, suffice to say. It's funny to compare it with say, Supernatural when it comes to saying just how clearly better one is in doing a movie with enjoyment within a limited body-count potential (this one has one, technically) because it actually feels like there is commitment with one's lead stars to go with a story that runs bold-faced into devotion with no hacky limitations. I like how one can have such a delusion of being a god can go hand in hand with basically being a fan of literary works, particularly one that likes scary moving doors to use on people. Sure, the others besides our duo are merely "fine", but you get madcap enjoyment seeing Lugosi, even with an obvious ending involving beasts liking the sight of happy normal folks. As a whole, it isn't a great Universal horror film, but it does fine with those other Poe films they made and has a worthwhile duo to make a neat curiosity anyway.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Supernatural (1933).

Review #2292: Supernatural.

Cast: 

Carole Lombard (Roma Courtney), Alan Dinehart (Paul Bavian), Vivienne Osborne (Ruth Rogen), Randolph Scott (Grant Wilson), H. B. Warner (Dr. Carl Houston), Beryl Mercer (Madam Gourjan), William Farnum (Nick "Nicky" Hammond), and Willard Robertson (Prison Warden) Directed by Victor Halperin (#274 - White Zombie)

Review: 

"I don't believe in fear, violence, and horror, so why traffic in them?"

Be honest: how many of you can name a horror film in the 1930s that wasn't made by Universal? Sure, there are a handful, such as Victor Halperin's attempts at horror filmmaking in the 1930s, starting with 1932's White Zombie, the cheapie movie that actually used Universal sets. It was Victor Halperin's ninth film as a feature director, having started in 1924 with a variety of dramas and some crime movies, with most of them being collaboration with his brother Edward. The result of the low-budget venture with Bela Lugosi scored him a deal with Paramount Pictures. The result was his second horror film here, as written by Brian Marlow and Harvey Thew as based on a story by Zombie writer Garnett Weston. Halperin directed just two further horror films with Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and Torture Ship (1939) before retiring in 1942; he died in 1983 and judging from the quote, wasn't exactly big on making horror movies (the irony is that they probably are the only reason anyone remembers Halperin).

Most films don't start with title cards of prominent names of Mohammed, Confucius, and Matthew 10:1, but here we are with a clunky suspense movie. It should be noted that Lombard absolutely did not want to do the film, apparently having a low view of horror. This is a movie involving theories about people's strong will even in death and body possession (with thicker makeup!) at the near end of a movie that isn't even 70 minutes long. The movie tries to present a female killer (strangles three men), body possession, fake mediums, spirits around the people, and oh my goodness, pick one idea! This is bottom-of-the-barrel mediocrity, one that only seems to fit the bill of being watched when you wonder just what else there can be for really old movies and "horror" when the word seemed to mean "oh, that one shot sure looked scary" more than anything. Lombard may have been a "swell" actress for timing, but she can only go so far for a movie that has her play puppet for a chunk of its time. Scott actually was a leading man in a variety of genres (including Murders in the Zoo that same year for horror), but one would be forgiven for just associating him as a Western guy, which is basically a way of saying his performance here inspires no notes of positivity. Osbourne is meant to inspire a bit of curiosity (playing the soon-to-be-dead killer) and the third word of that sentence is making a great deal of lifting. Dinehart at least as some huckster spirit in him, when compared to the astonishingly vacant Warner for a movie that begs to have something actually happen. This isn't a plea for a body-count (1 depicted is a count, I suppose?), this is just me stating that having a re-incarnated killer only really works when you have a whole film to make me care. Here, you have a film that only start to try and get interesting in the last 20 minutes, which manages to letdown the last remaining vestiges of hope for something less hammy. As a whole, the one-trick-pony status of Halperin and company in middle-of-the-road curiosity may not have been the biggest success at the time, but you can interpret for yourself what the fuss was about when it comes to the occasional scare (spiritual or not) that could occur for 1930s audiences.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Walking Dead (1936).

Review #2267: The Walking Dead.

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (John Elman), Ricardo Cortez (Nolan), Edmund Gwenn (Dr. Beaumont), Marguerite Churchill (Nancy), Warren Hull (Jimmy), Barton MacLane (Loder), Henry O'Neill (Werner), Joseph King (Judge Shaw), Addison Richards (Prison Warden), and Paul Harvey (Blackstone) Directed by Michael Curtiz (#125 - Casablanca, #416 - Yankee Doodle Dandy, #505 - The Adventures of Robin Hood, #529 - Mildred Pierce, #719 - Mystery of the Wax Museum, #1370 - Life with Father)

Review: 

Sure, of course Warner Bros. thought they could have some fun making a horror film. Sure, you can see the clear inspiration when it comes to having Boris Karloff star as a lumbering man back from the dead, particularly since this came out a year after Universal's Bride of Frankenstein (1935) ...but here it is arranged within the trappings of a gangster film. Of course, the obsession with trying to bring back people from a fate worse than a broken leg wasn't limited to the current day. The "perfusion pump", for example, is shown for a moment during the pivotal resurrection scene. This glass device was designed by Charles Lindbergh and Dr. Alexis Carrel to try and keep organs functioning outside of the body (the process can be explained better in articles such as this); Lindbergh wanted to find ways to help his sister-in-law, who had a bad heart. Labeled as a "mechanical heart" in some circles, Lindberg and Carrel were even featured on magazine covers for their invention (better ways of "organ perfusion" eventually came around in the next couple of years, naturally). In 1935, a film wad made called Life Returns, which featured the exploits of Dr. Robert E. Cornish, a biologist that had an interest in restoring life that tried using a teeterboard/see-saw to try and get the blood flowing of the dead...it technically worked, albeit not perfectly, on dogs (interestingly, the film didn't exactly get a great release). Incidentally, Karloff would star in two subsequent features in the following years dealing with resurrection with The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Man with Nine Lives (1940), which took inspiration from Cornish. Evidently with this film, Karloff was slated with little dialogue to speak before he raised issue with said matter. Five people were given credit for the writing: Ewart Adamson, Peter Milne, Robert Hardy Andrews and Lillie Hayward wrote the screenplay, while Adamson and Joseph Fields wrote the story. The movie was directed by Michael Curtiz, a particularly busy director in the 1930s that had some experience in horror (among others in the 30+ films he did in the decade) with Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933).

Okay, you're going to love the way the "resurrected" man decides to handle being framed for murder. After he is brought back from being electrocuted, he seems to have developed a certain type of clot in his brain that gives him a strange knowledge of just who had framed him. Oh, but it gets better, he actually gets his revenge, in perhaps the most curious way possible. Of course, the film is pretty fast and loose at getting there with a 66-minute runtime. Karloff proves a quality knowing presence to unnerve the soul when it comes to second sight with select times to speak or just stare. The funny thing about this horror/crime feature is that there isn't really much of a villainous presence or even a ham actor. Gwenn might be the lead scientist presence, but it ends up coming off as just warm curiosity that is fine for someone with as much experience on stage and film as you'd expect from him (one can take a guess what film you would recognize that voice from). Churchill and Hull are serviceable enough when you consider that the rest of the folks don't have much to do besides being casually terrorized after the execution. Okay, so the array of deaths that happen in the film are done not by any one man but are actually a string of accidents that just happen to involve our lead character because of his "sense" of knowing who led to his death. Probably the most amusing is a guy nervous about who just stumbled in to confront him that decides to run only to encounter a train. The movie has plenty of shadows and fog to keep things looking ideal rather than just being a Frankenstein cheapie. In general, the movie is a quietly solid one, not rocking the boat too much in unnerving horror (the resurrection scene might be the most involving for the sheer execution of it, although the last scene is interesting) but generally working well with one's expectations. This is the kind of movie you can sense was made in a few weeks by professionals that came and went to get things done without too much fuss (five writers, but still) that will prove up to code.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Cat's-Paw.

Review #2220: The Cat's-Paw.

Cast: 

Harold Lloyd (Ezekiel Cobb), Una Merkel (Petunia Pratt), George Barbier (Jake Mayo), Nat Pendleton (Strozzi), Grace Bradley (Dolores Doce), Alan Dinehart (Mayor Ed Morgan), Grant Mitchell (Silk Hat McGee), and E. Alyn Warren (Tien Wang) Directed by Sam Taylor (#667 - The Freshman, #727 - For Heaven's Sake, #758 - Safety Last!, #864 - Hot Water, #903 - Dr. Jack, #918 - Why Worry?, #938 - Girl Shy, #1331 - Coquette)

Review: 

Amusingly, this was the first film starring Harold Lloyd in which his character name was something other than "Harold" since Hot Water (1924; of course in that movie, that character was named "Hubby"). The movie was the eighth and final film collaboration between director Sam Taylor and star Harold Lloyd. You may remember that Taylor got his start as a director with Dr. Jack (1922) after a number of years as a writer. He directed Lloyd alongside Fred C. Newmeyer (back when co-directing was the rage) from that film all the way to For Heaven's Sake (1926) before going on to direct a variety of other stars such as Will Rogers and Mary Pickford. Taylor may not have been a distinct director of his time in say, personality, but he was a dedicated filmmaker regardless. This was near the end of Taylor's career as a director, where the release of his next film in Vagabond Lady (1935) was his penultimate feature before closing his career out with a Laurel and Hardy production in Nothing but Trouble (1944); Taylor died in 1958 at the age of 62. At any rate, the genesis for this film came from a novel that had been first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post by Clarence Budington Kelland (a prolific writer that had plenty of stories turned into films, such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936]) that Lloyd had liked enough to buy the rights to when only the first chapter had been out for the public. Taylor and an uncredited Clyde Bruckman did work for the script adaptation while Lloyd did a bit of uncredited directorial work (as one probably expects from someone producing his own film). The next feature film with Lloyd would come in 1936 with Leo McCarey's The Milky Way.

It's funny that a two-year gap between this and Movie Crazy was something critics of the time needed to point out with Lloyd, as if one was checking problems in an assembly line. To be fair, some of the films did fall along the same outline with Lloyd in bumbling nature. Admittedly, when one is considering the fact that Movie Crazy (1932) was the only good feature of Lloyd's first three sound efforts, it sort of seems easy to say that The Cat's Paw (the name refers to a guy being used as a dupe) ends up being just as decent (at least this time, the "well-meaning boy or fumbler type of character", as I said in my last Lloyd review, doesn't seem too much on the nose here). Sure, it is a bit weird (take a guess at the stereotypes and wonder where the line is drawn), but it is pretty efficient at 102 minutes in letting Lloyd grow up just a bit. Not packing as much slapstick but still pretty loaded in useful principles, he may be playing a "fish out of water", but it is a compelling one to watch that straddles the line between silly and the eventual figure of actual interest without needing a climax involving stunts (unlike a handful of previous Lloyd films). Making light of dirty politics is handled in a silly way that at least is funny for a little while Merkel and Lloyd make a pretty decent pairing to go with a worthwhile honest dishonest man in Barbier. So yes, the climax involves a bout of trickery that amuses me because well, who doesn't love a bit of stage magic. As a whole, Lloyd may have a strange time getting into the groove of making consistent sound features, but The Cat's-Paw is a worthwhile example of Lloyd still trying to make his style of comedy connect to the audiences at large. While not everything has probably aged well in the nine decades since its release, it will likely be worth one's time.

 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Free and Easy (1930).

Review #2219: Free and Easy.

Cast: 

Buster Keaton (Elmer), Anita Page (Elvira), Trixie Friganza (Ma Plunkett), Robert Montgomery (Larry Mitchell), and Lionel Barrymore (director) Directed by Edward Sedgwick (#774 - The Phantom of the Opera, #1774 - The Cameraman, #1937 - Spite Marriage)

Review: 

At last, it was time to hear the words of Buster Keaton in a film. This was the third feature film with Keaton at the hands of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which came after The Cameraman (1928) and Spite Marriage (1929). Followers of Keaton already know that his MGM tenure was the one he regretted the most, but at least those two films were actually liked by people even when it came to studio-maintained mayhem. With this film, one would get the weirdest of the two worlds: a movie where Keaton gets to talk and also gets to be in the foreground in favor of featuring cameo appearances from performers such as Willy Haynes, Jackie Coogan, Lionel Barrymore and, well, also Cecil B. DeMille and Fred Niblo. The film was shot in several languages such as Spanish (the latter was called Estrellados, which had Keaton play opposite a different lead actress) and French (mainly with intertitles, but still). There are three credited writers: Richard Schayer (a career guy behind co-work such as The Mummy) wrote the "scenario", while Paul Dickey did the "adaptation", and Al Boasberg (one of the co-writers of The General) was behind the dialogue. Made for roughly $500,000, the film was enough of a hit with audiences that Keaton would continue to do a few more films with MGM, such as his next sound feature with Doughboys (1930) and five further films until 1934.

Poor, poor, poor Keaton. There have been so many good Keaton movies in the previous decade that it becomes apparent not long into this one that he has become a puppet for mediocre setups. Sure, his accent when it comes to voicework is pretty earthy on the ears and he does have some interesting moments when it comes to antics within the backlot. But the romantic triangle is flabby and pathetic, and the overall execution is 92 painfully average minutes that cannot measure even with one of his weaker silent efforts such as say, The Saphead (1920). It is plain and all-around just not interesting to watch a movie dilly-dally on a set when you've seen better days for Keaton in mayhem. You've seen better movies when it comes to "inside a studio" in films such as Show People (1928), which incidentally was also an MGM film. The funny thing about Page was fresh off The Broadway Melody (1929), the original all-talking MGM musical (mediocre as hell to folks like me, but it was a really big thing back then). Her and Montgomery have about as much energy together as a sound test. Probably the one highlight is Keaton getting to audition as an actor and doing such things like bumbling a line about swooning queens. He may be playing a silly boob, but at least he at least is physical enough and committed enough to even try his hand at singing. God help us the film is one of those that thinks it is amusing to have a conversation where characters think they are talking about the same thing but actually are not. I don't even feel like thinking about the downbeat ending, because, well, it seems fitting to give an ending where our hero gets the shaft in a non-memorable movie. In the long run, going from any random silent Keaton feature to this film is practically like night and day. It is a movie that probably would've been better if done a few years earlier because, well, Keaton would've had the time and energy to really make it a worthwhile effort. Instead, it is just not worth the effort to call it a lame movie.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Christopher Strong.

Review #2187: Christopher Strong.

Cast: 

Katharine Hepburn (Lady Cynthia Darrington), Colin Clive (Sir Christopher Strong), Billie Burke (Lady Elaine Strong), Helen Chandler (Monica Strong), Ralph Forbes (Harry Rawlinson), Irene Browne (Carrie Valentine), Jack La Rue (Carlo), and Desmond Roberts (Bryce Mercer) Directed by Dorothy Arzner (#1648 - Sarah and Son, #1810 - Working Girls, #1992 - The Wild Party)

Review: 

Technically, the focus should be on Arzner, because she was the one key regular female director in the sound era (there were others too such as Dorothy Davenport, but I think you know what I mean). But 1933 was also the year of Katharine Hepburn, so why not a few words here. She had early ideas of being an actress, but it was not until she graduated Bryn Mawr College in 1928 that had her on the road to professional acting, which started in the theater. She appeared in a handful of roles that ranged from understudy to being let go, but her performance in 1932's The Warrior's Husband got her notice in Hollywood from a scout. George Cukor vouched for her in casting for what became A Bill of Divorcement, released in the fall of 1932. 1933 saw her star in three films: Christopher Strong, Morning Glory, and Little Women (it was for the middle film that saw her win her first Academy Award). Hepburn came into the picture after Ann Harding had contractual problems, with this being a production under David O. Selznick at RKO. Strong was based off the 1932 novel of the same name, as written by Gilbert Frankau (it only seems apt that he wrote a novel about a Member of Parliament, Frankau apparently had a desire to serve in politics but a conservative man with his history in divorces did not test well for the times). The screenplay was written by Zoe Akins (who had written for Arzner's Sarah and Son), a future Pulitzer Prize winner as a playwright; the profession was changed from the book, which was about a woman racecar driver. Tommy Atkins apparently served as an assistant director. Hepburn reflected on the film in her autobiography and said that she enjoyed her time making the film (along with noting that each wore pants). It was Arzner who apparently modeled Hepburn's character off Amy Johnson, the first woman pilot (well, the word is "aviatrix") to fly solo from England to Australia (there was a mix of newsreel footage for parades and flights included as well). 

It wasn't a huge success at the time, but it certainly stands as a curious film that happened to be made just a year before the enforcement of the Production Code. Of course, the film isn't really about the one in the title as it is about, well, the woman experiencing her first love affair and how it affects her when it comes to the clashes of caution and danger-seekers. Courage, death, love, well, it all comes together in a crash of emotion that really could only come in that Pre-Code era. Hepburn just has that straight-to-the-point personality that exudes confidence with a knowing aura that moves leaps and bounds over anyone she interacts with, which is curious when wrapped with the idea of being in love for the first time - to a stuffy one, no less. Clive is put in the interesting position of being the stodgiest person in a film where he is playing the title character that at one point gets to look upon a woman wearing an outfit that reminds one of a moth. It is a clammy tightrope to walk in terms of "dignity" (he's playing a character that did enough to be called "Sir", remember) when it comes to trying to maintain the idea of normalcy when facing someone with similar features in single-minded goals. All the while, one sees Burke and Chandler from time to time in that engagement of trying to cope with the predicament that comes in love for one with an "occupied" status. Apparently, Arzner paid significant attention to getting something out of Burke when it came to performance along with stating that her interest really fell to Clive's character, which she described as "a man on the cross". Interpret that any way you wish, but each of them do fairly well anyway. As a whole, the film rests on how much one will go with that ending, which, well, rather than face the prospect of an illegitimate child (as one reads between the lines) and wreak havoc on the lives of people she cares about, a decision is made to fly high into the sky with a plan to never see them again. At 78 minutes, it is a decent experience for the curiosity alone.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Emperor Jones.

Review #2177: The Emperor Jones.

Cast: 

Paul Robeson (Brutus Jones), Dudley Digges (Smithers), Frank H. Wilson (Jeff), Fredi Washington (Undine), Ruby Elzy (Dolly), George Haymid Stamper (Lem), Jackie "Moms" Mabley (Marcella), Blueboy O'Connor (Treasurer), Brandon Evans (Carrington), and Rex Ingram (Court Crier) Directed by Dudley Murphy.

Review: 

Paul Robeson was a talent among himself, but this film was a curious one to look through. In 1920, Eugene O'Neill's play of tragedy in The Emperor Jones premiered on the New York stage. The play was inspired by the occupation of Haiti by the United States (which happened from 1915 to 1934), which had resulted in bloodshed and discourse about its level of imperialism. It was the first successful play for O'Neill, who would win his first Pulitzer Prize for Drama (adding three more in the next number of years); the character of Jones when it came to certain aspect of personality was inspired by Adam Scott, a close friend of O'Neill. Charles Sidney Gilpin was the original actor to play the role of Jones on the stage, which he did for the original performances before disagreements with O'Neill (specifically with the use of a racial slur) led to changes. Robeson (who had studied law after a noted college career in football at Rutgers) was brought in for the revival a few years later, and he also did the play for a radio adaptation. This is the only film adaptation of the play, but there have been several other adaptations in various media, such as a 1933 opera (as done by Louis Gruenberg) along with several TV productions (with one starring Ossie Davis). Only in a certain era would people see rushes for a film and think that an actor (Washington) needs makeup in reshoots to make them darker so that they did not look light-skinned next to Robeson. It was the only film screenplay for author DuBose Heyward, best known for his work on the 1925 novel Porgy and his adaptation alongside his wife to a play in 1927 (years later it was adapted against into an opera in Porgy and Bess); he was recruited by director Dudley Murphy to do a screenplay with background applied to an adaptation after convincing O'Neill about getting a film project off the ground. Contentiously, it is stated that Murphy had a hand in the film Ballet Mécanique, a collaboration he worked with Fernand Léger as a "Dadaist post-Cubist art film" (in 1924) to go with two 1929 short films featuring music in St. Louis Blues (featuring Bessie Smith) and Black and Tan (featuring Duke Ellington and His Orchestra). William C. deMille apparently did un-credited work on the film in supervising direction. The film had John Krimsky and Gifford A. Cochran as producers, who had previously helped Madchen in Uniform (1932) reach American audiences.

The movie probably doesn't have the power that a long soliloquy has on the stage, but it is still pretty easy to see just how good Robeson can make a film work when it is his show to cut loose. He wouldn't have that many chances to do this in America, which led to him taking on roles abroad (such as King Solomon's Mines [1937]) prior to his final feature role in 1942, but he was quite busy in activism in a variety of fields. Studio sets doubling for the jungle work out pretty well in a tale of hubris and the ever-growing drumbeat of doom. This was a film shot by Ernest Haller, who you might recognize as the future cinematographer of Gone with the Wind (1939), which worked with the sets designed by art designer Herman Rosse. The film is in the public domain, although finding a good print would be ideal, since a restored print by Criterion was only done in 2006. It is a tale of exploitation in that rise to power that is shaped by a man's failure to run away fully from their past. Granted, it is a fairly dated film when it comes to overall execution, because the two halves of the film (rise and fall) don't exactly mesh as well as one might hope they would (of course there was a bit of censorship done depending on the audience, such as not including a certain slur when playing to black audiences to go with trimming a pivotal moment of rebellion). Robeson stands out the best, with Digges and his observations as a fellow exploiter being second among a general row of bluster impressing among ordinary observers (well, aside from the first segment that involves hucksters, buy you get the idea). As a whole, Robeson maneuvers the act of a man gripped with craving an image all for himself in better things that means greed and brutality before eventually moving to a conclusion of fear and, well, being swallowed whole. It isn't particularly great, but it generally works out in entertainment on the basis of one gripping performance and a bit of ingenuity in stretching a cheap production into something with enough curiosity to make it a worthwhile show. It may not have been a tremendous success at the time, but the decades have been more kind to it for pretty easy reasons.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.