Category: Nominees – 1930s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pygmalion – 1938

You know, I didn’t particularly care for this movie, as much as I would have liked to.  Maybe I’ve been spoiled by My Fair Lady, the 1964 musical, but Pygmalion seemed far too hurried to do the wonderful story justice.  But I don’t want this review to be a big complaint about how the popular Broadway show was far superior in just about every aspect, even though it was.  Instead, I’ll try to focus on Pygmalion for its own merits or lack thereof.

The movie starred Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle, a common, poor flower girl in London who has a chance encounter with an aristocrat who is a master of phonetics, Professor Henry Higgins, played by Leslie Howard.  Higgins publicly humiliates and berates the girl for her uncouth Cockney accent and boasts that he could teach her to speak more genteel so well that he could pass her off as a proper lady.

Eliza gets the idea to go to the Professor’s house and hire him to teach her to speak properly in order to get a job which might lift her out of her extreme poverty.  Staying with Higgins is a fellow phonetics scholar, Colonel Pickering, played by Scott Sunderland.  While Higgins continues to treat Eliza like a dirty commoner, Pickering treats her with kindness and gentleness.  Higgins decides to make good on his boast and agrees to teach the girl.

The performances from the actors were good enough, especially Hiller.  However, I got the general feeling that the entire story was being rushed.  Scenes and nuances that I felt could have been played slower for things like character development or plot believability were delivered quickly.  At times the dialogue seemed to be rapid-fire or throw-away.  Sometimes, the actors were delivering their lines so fast that I had a hard time understanding what they were saying.

For example, I think that the film needed to spend more time developing the relationship between Eliza and Higgins.  When the end of the film arrived, I didn’t understand why Eliza would ever go back to him.  The film never once portrayed him as being anything but abrupt, short-tempered, and often downright cruel to her.  He treated her as a living doll that he could, at any time, tire of and discard.  Had he shown her any modicum of kindness, then I could understand why she might return to him.

Also, the hardships of Eliza’s training were quickly thrown at the viewer with the use of a frantically quick montage.  There was only one tiny pause in the montage that showed the terrible strain Eliza was enduring under Higgins’s strict tutelage.  The film just made her forced training seem far too easy for her.  She was even described as a quick student that could learn anything.  And there was absolutely no portrayal of any strain to Higgins, himself.

Yet another example of how rushed the movie felt is in how the character of Alfred Doolittle, Eliza’s penniless drunk of a father, played by Wilfrid Lawson, was portrayed.  He shows up for his first scene with Higgins, in which he extorts 5 pounds from him.  Then he shows up at the end, dressed as a man of wealth.  Barely two or three sentences quickly explains where his money came from, and then he is gone again.  Never-mind the fact that the film never explained how he knew where Henry’s mother lived, or why he went to her house looking for Henry, or for that matter, why he would invite Colonel Pickering, a virtual stranger, to his impending wedding.  And while I’m on the subject, why would Pickering have accepted the invitation?

One interesting difference between George Bernard Shaw’s original script and this film was the character of Aristid Karpathy, played by Esme Percy.  The pompous phonetics expert, who was once Higgin’s pompous student, was written specifically for the film, though he was only mentioned in the play.  He was neither understated nor over the top.  I liked his character as an interesting plot device and comic relief at the same time.

But all that being said about the film, which would undoubtedly be credited to the directors, Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, I have to give special nod to Shaw’s wonderful and captivating script.  The things that the characters said were always meaningful and delivered in an interesting way.  Shaw sure had a talent for clever quips and witty dialogue.  However, I learned something interesting about Shaw, himself, that made me lose a little respect for him, as a person.  Apparently, when he received an Academy Award for his part in the writing the screenplay, he was quoted as saying, “It’s an insult for them to offer me any honor, as if they had never heard of me before – and it’s very likely they never have. They might as well send some honor to George for being King of England.”  What an egotistical jerk!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jezebel – 1938

Bette Davis was a pretty hot ticket in 1938.  She was a well-known and popular actress.  But the film Jezebel propelled her into super-stardom.  She won the Academy Award for Best Actress and I must say that she did a fantastic job in the role.  She played the character of Julie Marsden, a strong-willed young bell in 1852, living in the South.

The character was not a very likeable one.  She was selfish, spoiled, petulant, manipulative, and vindictive.  But she was also flawlessly beautiful, self-assured, confident, ambitious, and head-strong.  And as a side note, I know some people who would love her character, which is a little sad.  The problem with Julie was that, on the surface, she seemed to revel in the idea of having so little regard for anyone else that she rebelled against social customs, carelessly offending and hurting everyone who loved her.

Playing opposite her, however, was a good man.  He was handsome and level-headed.  Henry Fonda played Preston Dillard, a Southern Gentleman, at first engaged to Julie, but later separated from her after he finds out just how spoiled and childish she really is.

The best scene in the film is the Olympus Ball.  Apparently, in the setting of the South in the Antebellum Era, a very specific code of conduct was expected.  Any deviation from this code was enough to turn anyone into a social pariah.  As an act of revenge because Preston refused to leave an important meeting to shop for a ball gown with her, Julie decided to wear red to the Ball.

Unfortunately, an unmarried girl wasn’t supposed to wear anything but white.  Wearing a red dress would offend pretty much everyone.  Her mother warned her not to do it.  Her ex-boyfriend warned her not to do it.  Preston warned her not to do it, telling her that such a brazen act of rebellion would hurt her more than anyone else.  But Julie wanted to punish Preston for not bowing to her girlish whims, so she wore the red.

But Preston’s solution was a simple and appropriate one.  He allowed it.  He allowed her to ruin herself, socially.  Not only did he take her to the Ball, but he forced her to stay.  When the other offended girls actually cleared off the dance floor rather than dance on the same floor with her, she realized what an incredible blunder she had made.  She was near tears and asked to be taken home immediately.  But Preston was perfect as he refused to let her leave.  And then, after a miserable night, he left her and traveled north.  He left her as a social outcast, scandalized and alone.  Loved it!  And to be sure, the Olympus Ball was just the beginning of Julie’s horrible and self-serving actions.

Other actors in Jezebel who did a fantastic job were George Brent as Buck Cantrell, Julie’s ex-boyfriend, Fay Bainter as Julie’s Aunt Belle Massey, Donald Crisp as Dr. Livingstone, Preston’s colleague, and Margaret Lindsay as Amy, Preston’s wife, whom he marries after leaving Julie.  Also, Spring Byington had a small supporting role of the annoying mother of one of Julie’s Friends.  The cast really did a fine job, especially Fay Bainter.  She was lovely and showed a range of emotions and concern over Julie and her self-destructive behavior, though it was obvious that the familial love was always there.

But the film was an obvious vehicle for Davis, herself.  Apparently the director, William Wyler was known for doing as many takes as was necessary to get the shots and performances he wanted, which some say was why his films were so wonderful.  The range of raw and real emotions that he was able to get out of Davis was powerful.

And it was the combination of so many little things that made her performance so dramatic.  A slight tilt of the head, the expression on her face as the mind of the character twisted and turned, the perfectly timed pauses, the brilliant twinkle in her eyes, the highs and lows of her mental state, the way she was almost in touch with reality, but never quite.  Everything was played to perfection.  I may not have liked the character she played, but I love the way she played it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Illusion – 1938

Grand Illusion was a French film directed by acclaimed director Jean Renoir.  Many have called it one of the best film of all time.  Actor Orson Welles was quoted, saying that Grand Illusion was one of the films that he would take with him “on the ark.”  Its dialogue was mostly in French with English subtitles, but there were also smatterings of German and English.

At first, I settled in, ready for a war movie.  And there is no denying that it is one, of sorts.  But I think it was an unconventional war film.  There were no battle scenes, no chaotic sequences of death and destruction.  But it had great acts of heroism, World War I soldiers struggling against impossible odds, and a very anti-war sentiment.

And you might ask, “What was the grand illusion?”  The illusion was the idea that war is good for anything.  Having said that, I completely disagree with the sentiment.  I think that war, while it is a terrible thing, has a place in the world.  It can foster social and economic changes where no other means will work.  It can put an end to injustice and punish evil-doers.  It can do things that no other force on earth is capable of doing.  But Grand Illusion says that it can do none of these things.  All war can do is to ruin lives, hurt the nations that fight them, and kill men.

The main characters are Captain de Boldieu, a French aristocrat played by Pierre Fresnay, Lieutenant Marechal, a French officer who had been born to the lower class, played by Jean Gabin, and Lieutenant Rosenthall, a noveau riche man of Jewish ancestry.  The three men are captured by the Germans and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp.  While there, they meet the rest of the POWs and are welcomed into their ranks.

But here is where the main thrust of the film lies.  Boldieu makes a point of remaining aloof.  He sets himself apart from the rest of the men because he was born to the upper class.  So while the film takes place in World War I, it isn’t really about war.  It is about the differences between the classes and how the upper classes of both France and Germany dealt with the lower class men and with each other.  The commanding officers on both sides of the war had a certain kinship with each other, despite being on opposite sides.

The lower class officers, while in the same situation as their aristocratic prison-mates, still bonded with each other and kept to their own classes.  But another theme in the film was the idea that the time of the upper-class was ending.  It was being replaced by the working class, and those of the upper class had to either acknowledge the new order or be left behind in a world that no longer existed.

Playing opposite Boldieu was the German commanding officer, Captain von Rauffenstein, played by Erich von Stroheim.  The film spent considerable time following the discussions between the two men and pointing out their divergent opinions.  Von Rauffenstein sees the inevitability of the rise of the working class, though he is a man who will always fight against it.  He is depressed when he looks at his future, knowing that he will wither away and become a relic of the past.  Boldieu gracefully accepts how the world is changing, but knows he cannot live in such a world.  He has the courage to take what he calls “the better way out.”  He sacrifices his life to allow the working class men to escape.

Then the story shifts gears and focuses on the futility and life-ruining aspects of war.  As Marechal and Rosenthall flee across the German countryside toward Switzerland, they encounter a woman on a farm who is caring for her young daughter.  Her name is Elsa and she is played by Dita Parlo.  She shows the men how her husband and four brothers were all killed in the war.  Ironically, they each died at a battle that was a great victory for Germany, showing how war is ultimately meaningless.  Parlo did a fantastic job.

Of course, as the two soldiers stay with Elsa, she cares for them and they help her with the farm.  Marechal and Elsa fall in love and when it comes time for the men to go, Marechal has second thoughts about leaving her.  It was a touching and poignant romance that was handled very delicately.  Well done Renoir.  And well done on a very good movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Daughters – 1938

I actually liked this movie, despite the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about it before sitting down to watch it.  It had three names that I really recognized, and because this movie was an ensemble piece without a real lead, these actors were in supporting roles.  Claude Rains, John Garfield, and Frank McHugh have each stood out to me as good actors in other films.

The movie was about, you guessed it, four daughters.  Claude Rains played the father of the four gorgeous girls, Adam Lemp, a snooty old man who believes that classical music is the only real music.  He turns up his nose at anything else like jazz.  He had obviously never heard any Gershwin.  His sister Aunt Etta, played by May Robson, was a kindly old lady who mothered the house, since Adam’s wife was absent.  And come to think of it, nobody ever mentioned her, and no explanation was ever given for her absence.

Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola Lane played the first three daughters, Ann, Kay, and Thea.  The fourth, Emma, was played by Gale Page.  Now, Wikipedia describes the movie as a musical drama, but let me debunk that myth.  It was a romantic drama that had a few scenes in which there is classical music being played by the characters.  The music was secondary to the scenes and could have easily been taken out.  In other words, it was not an essential part of the plot, nor did it promote any character development.

And while I’m on the subject, I have to mention that I am a musician, myself.  For the most part, I know when I’m seeing someone actually play their instrument.  Claude Rains was not playing his flute, but Priscilla Land was most definitely playing her violin.  Kay was probably doing her own singing.  They never showed Thea’s hands on the keys of the piano, but I can assume she was really playing.  And Emma seemed to be playing her harp.

Now, based on the era and the story set-up, when the movie started, I assumed that each of the daughters was going to end up with a man, and this was almost true.  Kay seemed to value her career as a singing prodigy more than finding a husband, which was refreshing, because as we all know, a 1930s woman was nothing if she didn’t have a husband.  Although, I have to mention that there was a scene in which Ann and Emma dream fondly of becoming old maids together because the idea of a man coming between them was unimaginable.  But aside from Kay, I was right… sort of.

But the men came, seemingly all at once.  Dick Foran, played Ernest Talbot, ended up with Emma.  Frank McHugh played Ben Crowley, who married Thea.  Jeffrey Lynn played Felix Deitz, and though he proposed to Ann, she stood him up at the altar.  Why?  So she could marry Mickey Borden, played by John Garfield.  The intricacies of who loved who, who married who, and who was happy with who were what made the plot interesting.

Of all the daughters, the film seemed to focus on Ann, though they were pretty good about giving all four of the daughters their own threads in the tapestry of the plot.  And the ending had a little twist that was clever enough.  As it was an ensemble cast, I have to say that they all played their parts well, and it was a pretty popular movie in 1938.  It had to have been.  How else could it have spawned the two sequels, Four Wives in 1939, and Four Mothers in 1941.

But if an actor stood out to me as a step above the rest, had a hard time choosing between Rains and Garfield.  Rains created a very lovable character who tried to portray an air of being a grouchy old man, but who was clearly a lovable teddy bear at heart.  And Garfield’s Mickey was probably the most complex character in the movie.  He had a woe-is-me sense of doom that he did his best to overcome, and when he found that he could not, he surprised me by making a noble sacrifice.

All in all, the movie was a partly predictable piece of fluff that was so cleverly written that I didn’t mind its clichés.  This is a film that would probably do well if it were written into the form of a stage play.  The staging could be easily accomplished.  The characters are light and frothy, and the romances are, for the most part, easy and understandable.  I find myself mildly curious about the plots of the two sequels, but not enough to do anything more than wonder.

And I’m going to take an aside for a moment here, to mention the disappointing end to John Garfield’s career.  He really was a brilliant actor who could have had a long and prolific career in Hollywood.  Unfortunately, John was caught up in the Red Scare of the late 40s and early 50s.  He was blacklisted around 1952.  This caused his marriage to fall apart, and he never worked in Hollywood again.  Then, when Garfield was 39 years old, he died of a heart attack.  Just sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Citadel – 1938

This was a rather simple movie from a rather simpler time.  It was the kind of movie that was specifically designed to make a statement.  In this case, the statement was that the medical profession is a noble one as long as the practitioner’s motives remain pure.  If you want to be a doctor, make sure you are in it to help the sick and the needy, not to make money.  It is a great sentiment, but I just got beat over the head with it, and I don’t even want to be a doctor!

As such, the plot was shallow and uninspired, though I believe it’s heart was in the right place.  But there was just no subtlety about it.  It was not a scalpel.  It was a sledge hammer.  The plot was predictable in everything except the details.  The characters were two-dimensional and predictable.  The acting wasn’t bad, but the characters were simple and dull.  I wouldn’t call it a horrible movie, but I would call it nothing more than average, not worthy of a Best Picture nomination.

Robert Donat, who I have seen play more interesting parts in better films, played Andrew Mason, an idealistic young Scottish doctor who accepts a position treating coal miners in Wales.  Like many miners, a lot of them suffer from tuberculosis.  He develops a passion for finding a cure, but his new and progressive ideas impress neither his superiors, nor his patients.  They are only interested in sticking with the ineffective treatments that they know.

Undaunted, he begins doing research on his own with the help of his cookie-cutter and instant wife, Christine, played by Rosalind Russell.  After having a professional conflict with her, and meeting her a second time by chance, giving him the opportunity to apologizes to her for the argument, he, on their third meeting, asks her to marry him.  Of course, she accepts.  Soon after, she is helping her husband in his research and the couple is happy.

But then, disgruntled miners ransack his personal laboratory because they think he is torturing guinea pigs.  Andrew and Christine move to London where they live happily, but in poverty.  Then Andrew begins to exclusively treat wealthy patients for minor ailments and becomes wealthy as a result.  But as we all know, when a poor man becomes suddenly rich, he automatically becomes a jerk.  He becomes a snob, mistreats his loving and loyal wife, and refuses to help his best friend, Dr. Philip Denny, played by Ralph Richardson.

Well, to make a long story short, the only way to snap Dr. Manson back to his old self is for Dr. Denny to fall off the wagon, get so drunk he can barely stand, and walk in front of a moving vehicle.  Don’t worry, it happens off screen.  Dr. Denny is taken to a hospital and goes under the knife of an incompetent surgeon.  After he dies, Andrew instantly reverts to his old self.  He begins to notice poverty and people in need everywhere.  He is once again his former altruistic self and breaks the standard medical code of ethics to save the life of a friend’s daughter.  He is then put on trial by his peers who want to take away his license to practice.

And here we come to the climax of the film.  As with many films from this era, the climax comes very late in the game.  The trial filled up the last 4 minutes or so of the film.  During the last 3, Andrew goes into a speech about how important unconventional medical research is so important, citing scientists who were never officially doctors, like Louis Pasteur.  He calls his accusers lazy hypocrites whose small-minded and short-sighted attitudes are causing the medical profession to become stagnant and unproductive.

Once the speech is done, he takes his wife by the hand and walks out of the courtroom, a changed man.  We never get to see if the speech moved the men in the courtroom enough to save his career, though apparently the outcome didn’t seem to matter to the character.  It was very preachy speech, but I can only assume that it was this closing speech that got Donat his Best Actor Oscar nomination.  It was as if the entire film was just a set up for the speech.

There was another actor in the film who was so young that it took me a while to recognize him.  Rex Harrison played Dr. Fredrick Lawford, the naughty physician who got Dr. Manson to start treating rich people in the first place.  And while I’m at it, I have to give a special thumbs-up to Ralph Richardson for a job well done.  Dr. Denny was a memorable character, and Richards did a good job playing a believable drunk.

On the flip side, though, the most annoying character in the movie had to be Dr. Manson’s first wealthy patient, Toppy LeRoy, played by Penelope Dudley Ward.  The character was extremely one-note, but I don’t think it was her fault.  It was just dull and lifeless writing for a minor character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boys Town – 1938

Boys Town is the story of how a kindly priest named Father Flanagan, played by Spencer Tracy, had a dream of helping young homeless boys by creating a home for them.  He got them off the streets and taught them how to lead upstanding and productive lives, to become respectable members of society.

After hearing a criminal on death row say that he never would have turned to a life of crime if he’d had someone who had cared about him when he was a child, the idea for Boys Town began.  At first, I had a problem with the way Flanagan would take boys off the street, and as soon as they were within the walls of the home, the boys instantly became model citizens.  But there was a scene when the boys didn’t get something they wanted and their first idea was to go and steal it, showing that reform was not automatic.  I liked that.  Flanagan, of course, wouldn’t allow it.

When his home became too small for the number of young boys, they moved to a 200 acre stretch of land to start their own town which they, themselves, built from scratch.  Suddenly, the young hoodlums became a work force, several hundred boys strong.  The film showed them working and building, but let’s get real.  Most of the construction had to have been done by professionally skilled laborers.

This gets us about half the way through the movie.  It was good, despite the fact that I had a small problem with Flanagan’s character.  To get the money needed to build Boys Town, he was actually kind-of a bully.  He used the poor boys and their terrible situations and stories to manipulate donors, put pressure on them and lay incredible guilt trips on them to get them to pony up.

But apparently it worked. Sure, Boys Town was constantly in financial trouble, constantly in danger of closing, and constantly under public scrutiny, but somehow Flanagan made it work.  His biggest benefactor was Dan Frrow, played by Leslie Fenton.  He was a wealthy business owner who allows Flanagan to strong-arm him into donating vast amounts of money to the Boy’s Town project.

The second half of the film introduces Mickey Rooney.  It also breaks the cardinal sin of movie-making.  Rooney played a young hoodlum named Whitey Marsh.  He is the younger brother of federal criminal Joe Marsh, played by Edward Norris.  Whitey is taken to Boys Town against his will.  He tries to bully the rest of the boys into liking him, which, of course, doesn’t work.

He tries to run away several times but always ends up coming back.  Eventually the clean-cut and honest young men of Boys Town win him over and he becomes a respected member of the Boys Town community.  The end.

But the film went out of its way to have a sickeningly cute little boy who was only put there to pull at the heart strings of the viewers.  His name was Pee Wee, played by Bobs Watson.  He was small and very young.  His high-pitched voice was annoying and made my skin crawl.  His dialogue and his part in the overall plot of the film had that one singular purpose.  He oozed cute out of every orifice and I wanted to strangle him.  Cute for the sake of cute is never cute.  Never.

But after all my eye rolling was done, I found that it was all, at least the important parts of the film, quite true.  There was a real Father Flanagan who started a real organization called Boys Town to help boys who needed it.  More importantly, that organization is still alive and thriving today, though it is now called Boys and Girls Town.  After the film was over, the DVD had a bonus feature that was an infomercial about the organization.  It gave a website address and phone number for those in need to get in contact with someone who could offer help to young men and women and their families.

Tracy and Rooney Both did their jobs well.  Rooney was still 17 years old when filming took place and his skills as an actor were obvious.  Tracey did a fantastic job and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work on Boys Town.

And just as a parting note, I thought it amazing how the honest young boys of Boys Town formed an angry mob on a moment’s notice.  Really, how upstanding were they?  Vigilante justice?  Indeed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alexander’s Ragtime Band – 1938

I have to admit that this movie surprised me.  It was a fictionalized film about the beginnings of jazz music and its transition from ragtime into the swing movement of the late 1930s.  On the surface, it was a pretty standard film.  Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl both become successful, boy gets girl back.  The end.

But what surprised me was that despite its simple plot, I ended up caring about what happened to the characters.  I’m not exactly sure why, but at the film’s climax, I was worried that the star-crossed couple might not find their ways back to each other.  Director Henry King did a good job of weaving a fictional story around historical events.  The characters were a little larger than life, as is normal for a light drama, but they were not over the top.

The movie starred Tyrone Power as the fictional Alexander, the band leader who popularized the new sound the people couldn’t get enough of.  The woman who sang with him, by mistake at first, was Stella Kirby, played by Alice Faye.  Her character was very loosely based on real-life singer Emma Carus who originally made the film’s title song popular.

When the two first meet, it was hate at first sight.  But eventually, through the music of Alexander’s pianist, Charlie Dwyer, played by Don Ameche, the two realized that they were hopelessly in love and that they were destined to be together.

And there we had our three main characters.  Of course, there is a little plot device of a love triangle, where Charlie is in love with Stella.  They even go so far as to wed after Alexander and the singer separate because of a fight involving her blossoming career.  They concoct a scheme to get whole band noticed by a Broadway producer who, unfortunately, only notices Stella.

Powers was good in his role.  At times he was a good man while at others he was a real jerk.  Having both good and bad elements to his character made him believable and therefore, easier to empathize with.  Faye was also good, her character having the same light and dark qualities.

The one that really bothered me was Ameche.  First, I had a problem with his character, and second with his acting.  As to the character, he was too perfect a guy.  Charlie was in love with Stella but came to understand that she was in love with Alexander.  So what does he do?  He meekly steps out of the way and allows them to be together.  No jealously.  No hard feelings.  He even peacefully divorces her and helps her to be with her true love.

But the second problem was worse.  Ameche’s acting style didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the cast.  Everyone else acted like regular people, but Ameche acted like a creepy little crooner.  Every line of dialogue was said in a low, soft voice like he was trying really hard to seduce someone.  It was distracting and sometimes took me a little out of the story.

Another star in the film was Ethel Merman, playing the part of Jerry Allen.  She became the band’s main singer after Stella left.  Now, normally, I don’t really care for Merman, neither the characters she plays, nor her voice.  But she surprised me on both counts.  The character of Jerry Allen was a good natured and smart woman, especially in the scene where Alexander proposes to her.  She admits that she had once had hopes of receiving his affections, but she was wise enough to know that he was in still in love with Stella.  Not only does she refuse to marry him, she stays on as his singer and does a fantastic job.  Sure, her brash belt was still there, but it had moments of softness that sounded great.

And this brings us, finally, to the phenomenal music.  The score was written by Irving Berlin.  Not only was I already familiar with the title song, I also knew several other great tunes like Heat Wave, Blue Skies, Easter Parade and A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.  Of course, the film’s scoring was done by Alfred Newman, but the songs were all Berlin’s.  In fact, the story itself was written by Berlin as well.  And I loved how none of the music was gratuitous.  It was all part of the plot.  The songs didn’t tell the story, but they were all part of it.  All in all, this was a well-constructed movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Adventures of Robin Hood – 1938

This was a fun movie.  It had great characters, a great cast of actors, incredible and energetic action sequences and exciting music.  But all that being said, I can also say that the whole movie is pure camp.  It was utterly unrealistic and at times laughable.  It was outrageous and over-the-top.  And I loved every minute of it.

Errol Flynn led the cast as Sir Robin of Locksley.  He, like every other character in the film, was a total stereotype.  He was a flawless person and how could our hero be anything less?  He was handsome, clever, chivalrous, heroic, altruistic, steadfast, brave, an expert sword fighter, a master of archery and smooth with the ladies.  He was larger than life.  But for me, that was his downfall.  He was so utterly perfect, he was not a believable character.

And then there was the rest of the cast.  Robin’s main squeeze, Maid Marion, was played by Olivia DeHavilland.  She was beautiful, virtuous, smart, loyal, brave, daring and lovely beyond description.  Prince John, played by Claude Rains, was vain, demanding, treacherous, greedy, conniving, devious and spiteful.  Sir Guy of Gisbourne, played by Basil Rathbone, was short-tempered, vindictive, manipulative, self-serving and dangerous. Friar Tuck, played by Eugene Pallette, was generous, jolly, loyal, bold and true.  You start to get the picture.

People like that don’t exist in the real world.  Everyone has both good and bad qualities.  It is what makes us all human.  But I know why they did it.  The directors, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley were not trying to make a serious drama.  They were making a light-hearted adventure film, and the actors all did a fine job playing out their parts, such as they were.

But when I think about it, the biggest reason I have to call the movie campy was the costumes.  But again, I know why they did it.  This film was in Technicolor, and as the techniques of this new medium were being pioneered, filmmakers took every opportunity to show off what they could do.  And make no mistake, they used every color of the spectrum to miraculous effect.

The costumes were amazing, but again, unrealistic.  Everything was clean and bright.  The nobles each wore their own colors which were unique and dazzling.  The ladies dressed in opulent gowns made of expensive fabrics.  Even the attractive peasants were dressed in hand-crafted rags in brilliant colors.  But seriously, I doubt that anyone in 1191 dressed like these people did.  I imagine that clean, dyed fabrics were a luxury reserved for royalty.  And did they even have sequins and rhinestones back then?  I doubt it.

Mel Brooks had it right in his 1993 comedy, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.  That title is in direct homage to the 1938 Best Picture Nominee.  I think that every single man in the film, from Robin Hood to Prince John, wore bright spandex tights.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the evil Bishop of Black Cannons, played by Montague Love, was wearing tights under his priestly robes.

But all that being said, it was a true feast for the eyes.  The Technicolor brilliance of the film was amazing.  It really was amazing to see, though it was apparently a pretty expensive technology in the 1930s.  But that wasn’t all.  The action sequences were exciting to watch, especially the fast and furious sword-fighting between Robin Hood and Sir Guy, though again, you have to suspend believability at times.  When I watched men leaping through the forest and could actually see them bouncing off of springboards or trampolines, I had to roll my eyes a little.

And lest I forget, the thrilling music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold won the Academy award for Best Original Score.

And finally, I have to mention one last thing.  I think the filmmakers missed something in the scene in which Robin captures Sir Guy, though maybe they did it on purpose to show Robin’s care-free confidence.  As Robin leads his adversary’s horse through Sherwood Forest, he makes light-hearted jests at Sir Guy’s expense.  But he and his band of Merry Men made a fatal blunder.  They had not taken away Sir Guy’s weapons!!  As he was seated on his horse directly behind Robin Hood, one quick blow with his heavy mace would have ended the hero’s life and brought the film to a shocking and disastrous end.  Robin would have never seen it coming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Star is Born – 1937

Color!!  Yay Color!!  This is the first Best Picture Nominee that I have seen that was filmed in Technicolor.  It is a wonderful thing, but not as wonderful as it might sound.  Color films were still new and unperfected.  The colors were slightly off.  They had problems with lighting.  Shadows were difficult to work with.  But it was color!  True, the last few minutes of the 1934 Nominee, The House of Rothschild, was in color, but here we have the entire film!

The movie starred Janet Gaynor and Fredrick March as the two leads, Esther Blodgett and Norman Main.  She was a small town girl with dreams of becoming a big movie star.  He was a big movie star who had dreams of his next bottle of booze.  Together they had an epic romance that was complex and subtle, passionate and tragic.

The plot followed Esther’s rise to stardom and Norman’s descent into alcoholism.  The film was more dramatic than I had been expecting and the ending took me by surprise.  It was sad and yet completely appropriate at the same time.  The movie could not have ended any other way.

Ok, let me back up a bit.  The movie begins as Esther is at home with her family, her bitter old crone of an aunt, her unsupportive father, and her wise old grandmother.  Her aunt was played by Clara Blandick who, while I hated the character, I applaud the actress for making the character believable and effective.  We weren’t supposed to like her.  Blandick, of course was better known for her role of Aunt Em in The Wizard of Oz.

The kindly grandmother was played by May Robson.  She was the kind of grandmother anyone would love to have.  She was supportive, understanding, and full of good advice.  She even had a few precious dollars to spare.  When Esther tells the family about her dreams of stardom, grannie sends her on her way with her blessings.  Esther gets to Hollywood, California and has little success finding work as an actress.  She takes a job as a waitress at a studio executive party.  Unfortunately, the Hollywood big-shots don’t even seem to see her as she serves hors d’oeuvres.  But who is it that does notice her?  Fictional Hollywood star Norman Main.

He falls for Esther and gets her a screen test with his good friend and producer Oliver Niles, played by Adolphe Menjou.  The cameras love her and she becomes an over-night success.  As her star begins to rise, Norman’s begins to fall.

I though both Gaynor and March did very well and they had a good on-screen chemistry.  Gaynor was beautiful and was believable as a woman who sees her husband spiraling down into the depths of alcoholic depression.  And March played a good and believable drunk.  His performance was not too flamboyant or over the top.  It was appropriately pathetic.

I also really liked Menjou.  In fact, I like him in just about everything in which I see him.  He has a kindly face and a calm, gentle demeanor that just makes the characters he plays likeable.

But I think that the main thing that audiences of 1937 liked about the film was the romance.  It was a relationship in which each lover was willing to sacrifice themselves for the other.  In the end, Esther was ready to give up her career as a movie star to help him through his alcoholism.  When Norman learned of her decision to do so, he loved her so much, he gave up his life to ensure that she wouldn’t.  It was truly a romance worthy of a Best Picture Nominee.

And finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention another actor in the film.  He is an actor that I have never really cared for.  Every time I see him on the screen, see that slow and moronic look on his face, hear that ridiculous voice of his, I have the urge to cringe.  He is Andy Devine.  But I must admit, I liked him in this film.  He played Esther’s one and only friend Danny McGuire before she meets Norman.  He just played a nice guy who was there to help Esther when she needed it.  In my research, I learned that he was a very busy character actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1973.  I guess I’ll have to revise my opinion of him as an actor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stage Door – 1937

Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of this movie.  On the one hand, it had a really great cast with some good performances.  The sets and costumes were spot-on and believable.  The dialogue was quick and witty.  But on the other hand, the plot was a little one-note and uninteresting.  And finally, the climax of the film was not very realistic.  I’ll explain.

First, the good things.  How could you go wrong with a cast which included Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick and Andrea Leeds?  Not to mention Lucile Ball, Eve Arden and Ann Miller in smaller roles.  Hepburn played Terry Randall, a girl from a rich family who sets out on a mission to become a big Broadway star without the consent of her wealthy father.  Rogers played the cynical Jean Maitland, an out of work actress with similar dreams of stardom.  Menjou actually played a jerk for a change and did quite well.  He was Anthony Powell, Broadway producer and cheating womanizer.

Hepburn was simply marvelous, as usual.  She had such a unique look and attitude.  She really was a great actress.  The quick and catty dialogue reminded me of other films like All About Eve or The Women, except that Stage Door came first.  Hepburn had her share of it, but Rogers got most of the quick lines and really had to keep her wits about her.  She was gorgeous and talented, and a pleasure to watch.  Gail Patrick, playing her ex-roommate Linda Shaw, was her main sparring partner.

Then there was the film’s tragic character, Kay Hamilton, played by Leeds.  She had once been the toast of Broadway, but is now having just as much trouble finding work as the rest of the women.  Leeds was good.  She was depressing and difficult to watch, which was exactly what she was supposed to be.

As I mentioned earlier, Menjou’s character was unlike any other role I have seen him play.  He is usually a good guy, but here, his character of Anthony Powell had a habit of finding pretty young actresses and giving them work in exchange for sex.  He was appropriately slimy and detestable.  He would get them drunk and try to make his move.  But he would also leave himself an escape hatch.  He would tell them he was married so that he would never have to commit to anything, and so that he could conveniently drop any girl with whom he grew tired.  Ew!

So, here is the flip side.  The plot was, for the most part uninteresting.  There is a boarding house full of out of work actresses, though you rarely see any of them actually looking for work.  Terry actually makes a point of mentioning it.  All except for Kay.  She is studying and trying to get a part in a new play that Powell is producing.

But the plot puts more emphasis on Powel and how he basically treats his women like glorified whores.  And the girls are so desperate for a meal ticket that they allow it.  All except for Terry.  She refuses to drink his champagne, and rebuffs his advances.  Eventually, because of the interference of her rich father, she gets the part that Kay is desperate to get.  That’s about it until the end.

And then there was the climax of the film.  Terry, who turns out to be a bad actress, is saved when a delusional Kay commits suicide.  Suddenly, because she now has a touch of real grief in her life, she becomes such a great actress that blows away the critics.  She is an instant success.

And here, finally, is why I call the ending unrealistic.  A profound feeling of guilt and pain does not a great actress make, especially in less than five minutes.  A bad actress is a bad actress, whether she is happy or depressed.  Sure, Hepburn played the hell out of the part, but the fault was in the script writing.  Sudden sadness does not make you talented.

I guess that I didn’t really dislike the movie, but I didn’t find it especially meaningful or profound.  The acting was good, and I liked the quick witted dialogue, but the slow plot left me a little ambivalent.  Still, it was enjoyable enough to watch.  It just wasn’t one of my favorites.