Re: Track the Films You Watch (2009)
06/11/09Riptide (1934) Dir: Edmund Goulding
Production: MGM
Marital strife among high society types. On a visit to New York, Lord Philip Rexford (Herbert Marshall) meets a vivacious party girl named Mary (Norma Shearer). A whirlwind romance and marriage follows. After a few years settled into life on the Lord’s estate in England, Mary, perhaps weighted down by the differences in their background, begins to feel that she is not measuring up to her husband. When the Lord goes to America on a trip, Mary goes to Cannes for a release of her own. After some drunken, but mostly innocent, flirting with an old friend from New York, a playboy named Tommy Trent (Robert Montgomery), gets blown up into a scandal by some reporters, the Lord has trouble believing Mary’s explanation of innocence. He becomes cold and distant, setting the marriage on a course, perhaps inexorably, toward divorce.
Okay-done melodrama, but weak script relies too much on the mixed/crossed signals plot device. This is the kind of film where someone goes to confess something bad to another person, but that person cuts them off and says ‘wait, don’t say a word, let me say what I have to say first’, thus making the initial confession even more wrenching. The three leads are all decent, Shearer is at her best, even affecting, when desperately trying to convince her husband of her fidelity (this was her comeback role after 18 months following her husband Irving Thalberg’s illness--he produced the film). The script has some pre-code fun; allusions to Mary’s ‘history’ are suggested, but obvious, and there is clear adultery. Skeets Gallagher plays Tommy’s gay roommate, Erskine, for a few naughty laughs (Erskine to Man: “You have no romance.” Man: “No…Come.” Erskine (enthusiastically): “I’d love to.”). Legendary British stage actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell (the original ‘Eliza Doolittle’), stands out as Lord Rexford’s dotty Aunt Hetty. Walter Brennan of all people plays a chauffeur in an early scene. Weird opening scene--when Lord Rexford and Mary first meet, they are dressed in bizarre insect costumes for a ‘World of the Future’ costume party he is taking her to. Shearer is oddly enticing (I believe I have just invented a fetish--women dressed as giant bugs). Lazy ending resolves the story in about 30 seconds.
out of 4
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EDMUND GOULDING – “Lightly Likable”
Riptide (1934) John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade:
The Immortal Blacksmith (1944) (
short) Dir: Sammy Lee
Production: MGM
Tells the story of Tom Davenport (Chill Wills), a blacksmith in Vermont, circa 1833. An absent-minded but decent fellow, Tom is one day sent by his wife to travel into town and buy food, but instead he comes back with one of the few electro-magnets in existence. Tom starts tinkering with the magnet and invents a crude electric motor. At first the invention is lauded, but that glow soon fades away without any practical use for the motor and Tom dies, penniless and forgotten. But at least he got this short dedicated to him!
out of 4
Sweepings (1933) Dir: John Cromwell
Production: RKO Radio Pictures
A department store mogul hopes to interest his disappointing children in succeeding him. Daniel Pardway (Lionel Barrymore), along with his wife, Abigail (Ninetta Sunderland), steps off a train in fire-ravaged Chicago of 1871 and sees opportunity. He opens a small dry goods store called The Bazaar and it becomes a minor success. As the Pardway family grows, Daniel adds a wing to his store for each child. Soon The Bazaar, with the help of Daniel’s dedicated general manager, Abe Ullman (Gregory Ratoff), becomes the biggest business in Chicago. With his four children now grown, and his wife dead, Daniel tells them he expects them to carry on the business when he’s gone. To leave something substantial and have his children be people of substance, is all Daniel wants. But as each successive son reveals themselves as less than up to the task, Daniel’s dream seems less likely to come to fruition.
Sprawling and briskly paced (covering about 50 years in 80 minutes). One of the more convincing aspects of the production is the incredible make-up job in the aging of Barrymore and Ratoff. To compare Barrymore at the beginning of the film (when he’s supposed to be 25) and at the end is a small wonder. He was ill during shooting, appeared in the film against doctor’s orders, and was revealed to have had a high fever during many scenes. The performance is, of course, terrific. The kids are played by Eric Linden, William Gargan, George Meeker and Gloria Stuart. In one of the more amusing turns, as the sons are, one after the other, disappointing Daniel--one is a drunk and womanizer, another is involved in a shooting at a brothel--the third son’s deficiency is that he prefers to work on window dressing rather than running the store. The implication is hard to miss. Allan Dinehart plays Daniel’s brother, Thane, and his vocation, obviously shady, is referred to so vaguely I still don’t know what he did. Like another Cromwell film from the same year, DOUBLE HARNESS, SWEEPINGS has some impressive camera movement for the time.
out of 4
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JOHN CROMWELL – “Lightly Likable”
Sweepings (1933) , Double Harness (1933) , Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) , Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) , The Company She Keeps (1951) 06/13/09A Crime Does Not Pay Subject No. 41:
Easy Life (1944) (
short) Dir: Walter Hart
Production: MGM
Frank Davis is your typical high school boy. In fact he could be you or me. But he wants things, cars, clothes, and he wants them now. So he starts stealing things and selling them for spending money. Soon he gets a reputation for being able to handle himself, which attracts some big shots. Next thing you know, Frank finds himself in on a big time heist job, with the promise of a big payout. It comes off, but all is not as great as Frank thought it would be.
The sly link of consumerism as leading to a life of crime for otherwise normal young men lends some interest. Frank’s impossible naiveté is used to build up sympathy. “You mean I can’t talk to ordinary, decent people anymore?” a shocked, disillusioned Frank asks as the gang lays low. No, pal, you can’t, it defeats the purpose of ‘hiding out’. Of course, that’s the point--‘crime does not pay’ and these short subjects wear their schematization on their sleeve. Right up there in the title specifically. The lesson is, it always ends in a hail of bullets.
out of 4
Five Star Final (1931) Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Production: Warner Bros. (First National)
A cynical newspaper editor accedes to his bosses' demands to increase circulation via sensationalism, then comes to regret it. New York Evening Gazette (inspired by a real paper, the New York Graphic) managing editor Joseph Randall (Edward G. Robinson) has committed a cardinal sin in the tabloid newspaper business--he’s too high-minded, filling the paper with “politics and tariff stuff” (referring to the Hawley-Smoot Act, presumably) and the circulation is suffering for it. The paper’s publisher, Bernard Hinchecliffe (Oscar Apfel), gives Randall a directive to start playing up the ‘human interest’ angles, something that will hook the stenographers. The paper decides to dig up an old murder case and plan a serial around it. The case involves a murderess, Nancy Voorhees (Frances Starr), who shot and killed her unfaithful husband but was acquitted, the story goes, because she had a baby. Randall sends his operatives (Ona Munson and Boris Karloff) to get the dirt on Voorhees, now married and her past well buried, with a daughter, Jenny (Marian Marsh), who is about to get married herself. For the story to break now, after all these years, could be devastating.
First off, nice opening credit sequence. No music, no fanfare, just the background noise of a printing press running and cries of ‘Extra, Extra!’ Then to show what a bloodsport the newspaper game is, we see a couple of goons trash a newsstand for not displaying their paper prominently enough. Edward G. is quite good, much less of a cartoon than in LITTLE CAESAR (not that Rico isn’t wildly entertaining). Randall is a bit of a riddle, he willingly throws himself back into the slime game, yet we frequently see him washing his hands, literally, a sort of physical manifestation of his ambivalence. Karloff is a highlight as T. Vernon Isopod, a hatchet man with no conscience who worked with Randall in the past and whose talents are needed once again. His best scene is a slithery inquisition of an unsuspecting Nancy Voorhees--now Mrs. Townsend--and her husband Michael (H.B. Warner) while in the guise of a clergyman. Aline MacMahon is Randall’s long suffering secretary, secretly in love with him, who acts as his conscience. Marian Marsh has a good breakdown scene near the end, a bit showoff-y for sure, but at least there is some intensity to it. The newspaper stuff has an enjoyable energy to it, the rest can be overly melodramatic at times and spotted with the kind of theatrical acting often found in early sound productions (particularly Ms. Starr). At a pivotal late moment, there is a visually interesting shot with the screen split into a triptych; Nancy Voorhees is in the middle panel trying to get someone at The Gazette on the phone, and the outer panels are filled alternately with the people she is being bounced around to--no one will take her call. Finally, when she is disconnected, the outer panels go black. The last shot of the film, a copy of that evening’s Gazette in a gutter being swept away with the rest of the trash, makes certain you get the point. Yes, even in 1931 Hollywood had a specious superiority complex over other media.
out of 4
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MERVYN LEROY – “Lightly Likable”
Five Star Final (1931) , The House I Live In (1945) (short) , Latin Lovers (1953) 06/14/09A Pete Smith Specialty:
Weather Wizards (1939) (
short) Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Production: MGM
This short manages to make exciting the story of a cold front moving in to the citrus orchards of California. The action centers on the Morgan family and their small orange grove which must be protected at all costs from the frost. This means staying up around the clock and tending orchard heaters powered by fuel. To show just how much of a disaster it was for temps to hit freezing, something akin to an air raid siren goes off in the community to let the growers know that the heaters must be lit. But the longer the front hangs around, the more the danger of fuel running out becomes real. To make matters worse, a whole community of burning fuel creates huge black clouds of smoke that virtually stops traffic, and fuel reserves, from coming in. This leads to a shot of the younger Morgan hesitating and then feverishly hacking away at his go-kart in order to throw the wood on a fire.
out of 4
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FRED ZINNEMANN – “Less Than Meets The Eye”
A Pete Smith Specialty: Weather Wizards (1939) (short) , The Old South (1940) (short) , The Search (1948) A Crime Does Not Pay Subject No. 28:
Jack Pot (1940) (
short) Dir: Roy Rowland
Production: MGM
Examines the menace of the ‘harmless’ slot machine racket, made possible by YOU, the apathetic public, who fill it with the nearly $1 billion annually that funds all the syndicate’s crime operations. Tom Neal, who knew a little about crime not paying, plays one of the upright citizens, a man who runs his own cleaners. When he’s approached by one of the 'representatives' from the ‘Cleaners & Dyers Improvement Association’ and informed he
needs protection, he tells the guy to stick it. Bad things happen as a result. The point is that doing nothing in the face of criminal intimidation may be easier, but it makes you complicit, you cowards!
out of 4
Hide-Out (1934) Dir: W.S. Van Dyke
Production: MGM
A wanted gangster, shot and wounded, flees to the country and holes up with an unsuspecting family. ‘Broadway playboy’ Lucky Wilson (Robert Montgomery) does most of the legwork for mobster Tony Berrelli’s racket. Contracts for protection, that sort of thing. When one of Lucky’s ‘business partners’ finally squeals to the cops, a warrant is issued. Berrelli is tipped off that two of Lucky’s longtime nemeses, Lieutenant MacCarthy (Edward Arnold) and his partner, Britt (Edward Brophy), are coming to arrest Lucky. While trying to escape, shots are fired and Lucky takes one in the wing but manages to drive out of town. He eventually passes out on the side of a road somewhere in Connecticut and is taken in by the Miller family to recuperate at their farm. Lucky is desperate to get back to the city until he meets the Miller’s daughter, Pauline (Maureen O’Sullivan), who suddenly has him altering his plans.
Often charming, mostly thanks to the leads, but entirely predictable. Lucky works his way through a string of blondes at the beginning, hilariously establishing his character--this might have been an even better film if it just stayed with this likable scoundrel as he strolls through New York nightlife. Once we see Maureen O’Sullivan we know Lucky is going to fall for her (who wouldn’t, she’s adorable here). We know that love is going to redeem him. We know there’s going to be plenty of humor from the ‘fish out of water’ scenario (Lucky has trouble feeding the chickens, milking the cow, etc., never more than mildly amusing). We know Lucky is going to be struck by how kind and unprepossessing the Millers are and it’s going to help him develop a conscience. Despite that, it mostly works as entertainment. Montgomery and O’Sullivan are perfectly cast, they have great chemistry together. The other Millers are also well cast, particularly Elizabeth Patterson as ‘Ma’. Mickey Rooney plays the son, Willie. Good ending scene with MacCarthy and Britt going to the Miller farm to arrest Lucky while Lucky still tries to keep his identity secret from the Millers. Couple of songs by Freed and Brown, including an early use of ‘All I Do Is Dream of You’ better known from SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN.
out of 4
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W.S. VAN DYKE – “Miscellany”
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) , Hide-Out (1934) , Journey for Margaret (1942) James A. FitzPatrick’s Traveltalks:
Glimpses of New Brunswick (1938) (
short)
Production: MGM
Opens with a panoramic view of Saint John, “one of the Eastern gateways to Canada”, a city founded by English loyalists after the Revolutionary War. Saint John, apparently, had a reputation as one of the “healthiest cities in Canada”, although by the opening shot it looks like Allentown or some other dreary city. But finally we get to why we’re visiting Saint John--we see the school a young Louis B. Mayer attended. Ah ha! Suddenly I feel like I’m watching the news and some random story comes on about a movie, and you find out the movie is from Universal or Disney and the whole thing was just a commercial ordered by the network to cross-promote. Other attractions include the Hartland Bridge over the Saint John River, the longest covered bridge in the world, a resort in Bathurst, and a look at the sardine industry. Meh. There are better choices in Canada for Traveltalks to visit.
out of 4
