A Matter of Life and Death (1945, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

A Matter of Life and Death suffers the unusual condition of being too good for its own good. Writing, directing, and producing team Powell and Pressburger (The Archers), along with their crew and much of their cast, do singular work on Matter. Jack Cardiff’s Technicolor is so breathtaking a character can get away with commenting on it. Marius Goring plays that character, a pleasant French aristocrat who’s gone on to work as a grim reaper. Goring’s one of the phenom performances. The others are Roger Livesey, Robert Coote, and Raymond Massey. None of the performances slack, of course, they just aren’t exceptional creations.

Unfortunately, leads David Niven and Kim Hunter aren’t on that list. Matter is ostensibly the story of Niven and Hunter’s great love overcoming death (hence the title). The film opens with a rending sequence where British bomber captain Niven calls in and gives his final report to American Hunter; they have an awkward, deep flirtation—see, Niven’s about to jump without a parachute because it beats burning alive in his doomed plane. He and Hunter have a quick get-to-know-you talk, then forecast an impossible future before Niven’s got to go.

This entire sequence is peerless. Cardiff’s photography, Reginald Mills’s cutting, Niven, Hunter. It’s movie magic.

It’s also Hunter and Niven’s biggest scene together. Alone, anyway. Matter’s not very long, given the eventual scale, just 104 minutes. And it makes that time by not spending much of it on Hunter and Niven’s romance. Instead, the movie races to bring in Livesey, which is great because Livesey’s great, and he gives one of the all-time heroic everyman lead performances.

Except, Niven’s the lead. He’s just nowhere near as fun to watch. Especially not once he starts napping most of the time. While Niven’s convinced he’s got to defend his right to stay alive to Goring and an otherworldly tribunal of some sort, doctor Livesey’s sure he’s got a very specific kind of brain tumor. Hunter then spends most of her time with Livesey until the third act because they’re caring for Niven. Livesey’s also a badass Brit biker, so there are a few motorcycle sequences ranging from harrowing to charming. Despite the wartime context, the Archers find the little joys in the characters’ lives.

Which makes it all the stranger when Massey—the prosecuting attorney, a Revolutionary War veteran who still hates the colonizing British—brings up how wartime romances are just a little bump and grind, and they don’t lead to anyone putting a ring on it. The most dramatic rising action is all about this big trial, and then it’s just a couple talking heads. Niven’s not even in the scene because the Archers know he’d only distract from Massey, who’s… well, divine.

But the movie still rests it all on Hunter and Niven’s romance being deeper. Sure, Hunter dotes on him, but Niven’s basically in a medical crisis through their entire courtship–and we don’t even get to see the most relevant parts of it because it’d have delayed Livesey showing up. Matter’s fine with holding its reveals once Livesey’s arrived, but until then, it’s racing to get to him. Hunter and Niven’s romance plot gets an incomplete, even though Matter acts like dropping literally every other character and subplot can make the movie about the couple.

Unfortunately, not.

A Matter of Life and Death is a masterful, technical, creative marvel. It’s got rich, thoughtful performances in insightfully written roles. It’s also just a little bit too thin once it gets to the finish. But, damn, is it beautiful. The afterlife is black and white, and 1945 Earth is color. Glorious Technicolor. There are these transition shots between the two, where there’s a move from color and not, and they’re always exquisite. So a mixed bag, but wondrously so.

This post is part of the 10th Annual Rule, Britannia Blogathon hosted by Terence Towles Canote of A Shroud of Thoughts.

The Killer Shrews (1959, Ray Kellogg)

I’m not sure The Killer Shrews is the best movie with a protagonist with the first name Thorne, but it’s got to be very high on the list. James Best plays that lead—Captain Thorne Sherman of the S.S. Minnow, and he and first mate Judge Henry Dupree are on a three-hour tour… okay, no, but only because the script doesn’t put any thought into the setup.

Sherman’s delivering supplies to a remote island. It’s his first time doing the run; the other guy is sick. There’s a hurricane due in, so Sherman and Dupree are racing it to the island. They’re planning on holing up onshore until it’s done, then heading back. When they arrive on the island, they discover a peculiar setup.

Swedish mad scientist Baruch Lumet is trying to shrink human beings so we use fewer resources. Except they’ve been testing on shrews—oh, there’s an opening monologue about how shrews need to eat three times their body weight in a day, or they’re going to eat people (basically)—and one of their treatments turned the shrews into twenty-pound beasts. The shrews run the island, except they’re nocturnal (basically evil moles), so the movie’s first act is Lumet’s daughter, Ingrid Goude, trying to convince Best to stay in the house.

Most of the film takes place in the living room of the house. It’s an unconventional lab, but they’re an unconventional team. There’s Gordon McLendon as the brain, Lumet as the visionary, and Ken Curtis as the drunken screw-up whom Lumet’s paired off with daughter Goude. The general assistant, Alfredo de Soto, gets stuck making drinks and doing security rounds.

Everyone on the island is a big lush because they spend all their time waiting for the shrews to eat each other, except before then, the shrews will try to break into the house and eat the people. The people also don’t have radio, so they’re unprepared for the hurricane.

The movie is Best unraveling the initial mystery, falling for Goude, and fighting back 800 giant Killer Shrews. It’s a mix of labored exposition, dogs dressed up as shrews (badly; very badly), adorable, cheap rodent puppets (a quick FYI: shrews aren’t rodents; I was serious before: they’re really mole cousins), and violent love triangle stuff. See, Curtis isn’t ready to give Goude up to some flyboy skipper like Best.

Best, bless him, is a thirty-year-old man dressed up in a captain’s outfit like a five-year-old getting his picture taken. He deserves an award for keeping that hat on. While the special effects have considerable ambition, which they fail to deliver on spectacularly, Best’s hair is always great. Must have used so much product.

Best does not make the material good. But he manages not to embarrass himself too much in the film, which seems impossible thanks to director Kellogg’s failings as well as the supporting cast.

Lumet’s quite bad as the mad scientist. Goude may be worse as the daughter. Curtis isn’t good—though he does have a couple good scenes—and he sometimes does particularly poorly, but he’s nothing compared to Lumet and Goude. They’re atrocious.

Curtis also produced, which is funny since his character’s a complete shitheel.

Dupree and de Soto do all right considering they’re the two people of color in the film, and Shrews is definitely a horror movie if you’re wondering how to figure out who will get it first.

There’s some good photography from Wilfrid M. Cline and some bland photography from him. The house isn’t a great set, and Cline can’t make it not look like a cheap set. Certainly not with Kellogg’s tedious direction. Shrews is either talking, action, or waiting for action. Kellogg directs the talking and waiting exactly the same, leaving all the suspense for the action. Except Jay Simms’s script is all about the tension breaking people down. It’s practically a Southern Gothic, and Kellogg totally misses it.

Simms’s script deserves better, even with its not inconsiderable problems.

But, all things considered, Shrews isn’t bad for a no-budget fifties atomic-age sci-fi monster movie.

The Giant Gila Monster (1959, Ray Kellogg)

I thought this one was called The Great Gila Monster, not The Giant Gila Monster. During the first act, I kept thinking how Great was one heck of a flex given the content, but it’s not Great; it’s Giant, which is technically correct. The film is about a giant Gila monster terrorizing a bunch of hot-rodding Christian high school post-grads as they try not to go too fast, either with their cars or their girlfriends.

The film never identifies the location beyond “The Southwest,” with an opening narration about the vast empty plains (they’d be perfect for high-speed rail, don’t you think), in what turns out to be an homage to one of the Citizen Kane newsreels.

In this no-budget regional indie giant monster movie. It’s a cool enough way to start, and while the film never reaches those heights again (knowing Citizen Kane exists), it’s reasonably good, all things considered. The leads are Don Sullivan and Fred Graham. Sullivan’s the leader of the hot-rodders; the film opens with their richest kid member getting eaten by the Gila monster, which leads to the kid’s obnoxious father, poorly played by Bob Thompson, getting sheriff Graham to start an investigation. Thompson’s kid was with his girlfriend, but besides acknowledging she has a family, the film completely forgets about them.

What’s interesting about Gila is how long it takes everyone to find out about the monster. They don’t have the budget for much in the way of special effects—the Gila is an uncredited Mexican beaded lizard who only gets to crawl around the model train set when there’s an effects sequence. There aren’t even miniature cars until the finale. For a movie without Matchbox money, Gila does all right.

There are some obvious problems. Texas explains the casual, low-key racist slang and Christianity (Sullivan’s also a singer-songwriter who’s got a doozy about Adam and Eve, apparently because he doesn’t know the end of the story). Kellogg’s a lousy director for most of the material; everything’s a medium two-shot, which is fine with Sullivan and Graham; they’ve got personality and charisma. Everyone else is an energy vampire, starting with Thompson. Oh, wait, I’m forgetting about town drunk Shug Fisher. He hates his wife and drives drunk everywhere and gets away with it. He’s not good, but he’s not an energy vampire.

But Sullivan’s got a little sister—Janice Stone—who just got her leg braces, so she’s learning to walk again; their dad recently died (which is apparently when Graham took an interest). Thompson hates Sullivan, whose father died working for Thompson, and Sullivan’s dating Thompson’s French maid, Lisa Simone.

It’s all very convoluted, and only in Gila to get the run time past sixty minutes. Without the character drama and musical numbers, Gila would struggle to crack an hour.

Surprisingly good photography from Wilfrid M. Cline—his black and white day-for-night is noteworthy—and maybe an actually great score from Jack Marshall. Maybe some of it on a Theremin. It’s weird but also way more imaginative than the film needs.

Sullivan’s not exactly good, but he’s got a decent screen presence. Though once you realize he looks like a young Robert Taylor doing a James Stewart impression, you can’t unsee it. Graham’s just full-stop good. It’s a bewildering, welcome performance.

Giant Gila monster isn’t great (or really giant), but it’s engaging and successful as a “Giant” monster picture, at least a close to no-budget one.

Saratoga Trunk (1945, Sam Wood)

I cannot, in any conscience, recommend Saratoga Trunk. The list of caveats to work through is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” of racism, ableism, and low-key misogyny (though less of the third, what with the first two). If you’re a Flora Robson completist, you presumably know about the time she was Oscar-nominated for playing Blackface, and so you’ve already made your peace with Trunk. For Gary Cooper completists, there are undoubtedly less shockingly exploitative lousy historical soap melodramas in his filmography.

So then Ingrid Bergman presents the most compelling reason to watch Trunk; she’s in quarter-Blackface (she powders a lot is the film’s excuse) as the illegitimate daughter of a New Orleans blue blood. After her mother “killed” her father–the film skirts around it, presumably for Code reasons (the Code memos must be a sight), but probably Dad killed himself, and Mom found the body. But after the father’s death (after he’d left Bergman’s mother to marry a fellow, white, blue blood), his family paid the mom off, and she took baby Bergman to Paris.

Now Mom has died, and Bergman is back in New Orleans to exact revenge on family matriarch Adrienne D'Ambricourt. In tow, Bergman has family servant Robson and valet Jerry Austin. Austin’s a little person. Trunk plays him for adorable comedy every time. With music. It’s a lot.

Bergman’s got a simple plan—she’s going to blackmail D'Ambricourt, possibly into ruin, as payback for Mama, and then she’s going to marry a rich guy, pass as white, and live a life of luxury. Unfortunately, Bergman almost immediately meets Texan Cooper, and he’s such a tall drink of water in his ten-gallon hat and legs for days, she immediately puts off the marriage pursuit to enjoy some Texas.

The movie initially can’t decide if Cooper’s a mark or an accomplice. Once he and Bergman get canoodling and fading to black together, he’s at least aware Bergman’s a scam artist, and she’s out to fleece D'Ambricourt (deservedly or not). The first act takes a lot of time establishing Cooper as Bergman’s love interest, including having him bond with Robson, which features Robson demanding Cooper respect her.

As a Black woman.

I’ll just give everyone the opportunity to google Flora Robson.

Yikes.

That scene ends with the fastest fade out in the film like the Hays Office told them they could do it because having a white woman say she deserves respect as a Black woman is at least better than a Black woman saying it? Again, the memos must be a treasure trove of racism, misogyny, and misogynoir. But, really, just yikes.

The movie’s first half, with Bergman hanging out in New Orleans with Cooper on her arm (and vice versa), giving the blue bloods heart palpitations, is bad. The second half of the movie (less than half, unfortunately) has Bergman on the prowl in Saratoga, her eyes set on marrying would-be railroad tycoon John Warburton. The Trunk in the title refers to a railroad’s main line.

Bergman and Cooper have to keep their hands off one another long enough for Bergman to marry rich. She’ll get help from busybody Florence Bates and have all sorts of awkward interactions around the grand hotel where they’re staying in Saratoga Springs. Saratoga’s about how New Orleans is crappy, and the most beautiful place on the planet is in upstate New York.

Sure, Jan.

After a brief rally in the late second act—Bates gives Trunk some unproblematic gas, arguably the first player to do so—things fall apart for the finale. The Trunk finally becomes important, only it’s dramatically inert. I’m curious if Edna Ferber’s source novel is a spoof of objectivism or if it’s sincere. The movie doesn’t really have time for it—the capitalist philosophy is Cooper’s story, and the movie does Cooper’s scenes away from Bergman in quick exposition dumps. He’s just around for beefcake. Or the early-to-mid-forties version of Gary Cooper beefcake.

Cooper’s never good, but—when he’s not being racist or ableist to the sympathetic supporting players—he’s likable. Bergman’s either great or terrible. She’s doing high melodrama. I mean, she’s not great, but she’s (problematically) compelling. And they do have lots of chemistry together.

Director Wood and photographer Ernest Haller deserve kudos for the ways they find to squeeze all of Cooper’s limbs into the frames. The movie makes lots of hash about him being so tall, and Wood does his damnedest to make Cooper seem too tall for the screen.

Technically, Trunk’s a solid studio melodrama. Wood’s direction is fine. He likes implying sexy time more than he likes doing action scenes, which is a problem. Max Steiner’s score would be excellent if it weren’t for his comedy themes for when Austin walks, talks, or exists.

Fabulous gowns for Bergman from Leah Rhodes.

Saratoga Trunk is in the “needs to be seen to be believed” camp (or is it “needs to be seen to be believed camp”), but not in a good way. Beware.

This post is part of the 6th Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon hosted by Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, Alfred Hitchcock)

The Man Who Knew Too Much is an action thriller. It doesn’t start as an action thriller—it begins with an English family (dad Leslie Banks, mom Edna Best, daughter Nova Pilbeam) vacationing in Switzerland. Their vacation has almost come to an end, and they’re saying goodbye to some of their trip friends. Their good trip friend is flirty Frenchman Pierre Fresnay, but they’re also friendly with Peter Lorre and Frank Vosper. Lorre’s just another guest, while Vosper competes with Best in a shooting competition.

Then everyone gets together for dinner and dancing, while Best and Fresnay flirt in front of Banks—just for laughs—and so on. Except then Fresnay gets shot and drops dead, but not before he passes a message for Banks on to Best. Best relays the dying request to Banks, who has an intrigue scene before discovering someone has kidnapped daughter Pilbeam and, unless Best and Banks behave, they’ll never see her again.

At this point, the film moves back to England—the British agents know Banks knows something about Fresnay’s death, in addition to realizing the daughter’s been kidnapped and the parents aren’t participating. Slightly less obtuse agent George Curzon tries getting through to Banks but still gets the stonewall. Best and Banks have family friend Hugh Wakefield around to help with moral and adventuring support.

Curzon will only be significant in the film because it forgets about him. The film also forgets about Wakefield, but he does get to participate in some of the eventual action set pieces—always as comic relief. The film can function without Wakefield; he leaves just as Lorre takes over. But the Curzon situation’s more interesting. If the film didn’t forget about Curzon, it wouldn’t have a third act. See, Curzon knows Banks knows something. No one else in the movie will ever think Banks knows anything. He’s the Man Who Knew Too Much and all… but Too Much is a very relative term.

When Banks and Wakefield go investigating, trying to beat Curzon to the punch (silly, since his arc isn’t a thing), they discover a strange church of sun-worshippers who have something to do with Fresnay’s death and maybe Pilbeam’s kidnapping.

At this point, just over halfway through, the film becomes an action thriller with continuous action. It’s one set piece after another, including a hypnotizing scene, a brawl scene, a big shootout, and a complicated assassination scene. The film’s just a series of action set pieces, barely taped together with the characters and their respective plights. By the third act, almost all the heroes are in eminent danger—whether they know it or not—and the bad guys are getting desperate.

As an action thriller, Knew is superb–great direction from Hitchcock, who keeps the film and its proceedings incredibly quiet. There are no slam-bang sound effects during the fight scenes or the pile-ups, and Arthur Benjamin’s music always falls silent when it’s time for someone to do something dastardly. Or to fight back against dastardly doings. The film’s distinct and confident. Great photography from Curt Courant too. And Hugh Stewart’s editing is superb.

Unfortunately, there’s almost no story once the consecutive plotting takes over. There’s no character development; there’s no drama outside what will be solved through action violence. The film’s screenplay involved many hands–and five credited writers in one capacity or another (Charles Bennett, D.B. Wyndham-Lewis, Edwin Greenwood, A.R. Rawlinson, and Emlyn Williams). Not one of them gave it a story, which would be more impressive if the first act didn’t promise there was some grand conspiracy to unravel. Worse, we don’t know there wasn’t some grand conspiracy; we just know the writers and Hitchcock didn’t think it was worth delivering on that early promise at all. Or to even acknowledge it.

Luckily, there’s some outstanding acting to carry things along. Banks and Best are both excellent, though they never get to be excellent together. Instead, Banks gets his showcase in one location, and Best gets hers in another. Lorre’s spellbinding. Once he gets going, he sets the entire tone of the film. Hitchcock waits a while to hand it over, instead starting with Cicely Oates as his ominous companion. There are hints at Lorre, implications he’s going to be worth the wait, then he’s quadruple any of those promises. He’s exceptional.

Wakefield is good as the sidekick. Oates is good. Pilbeam’s fine. She’s a teenager in peril. She’s fine. She plays it really scared, though, which ends up making Knew seem insensitive to her. She’s British; she can’t experience trauma. Vosper’s barely okay, which is a bummer. He seems like he’ll have some depth, then doesn’t. Since the script’s not giving it to anyone, all dimension is thanks to the actors. Just not Vosper. He’s more than happy to play it flat.

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a tight, taut seventy-six minutes. Great production, great performances, great pacing… lukewarm plotting.

A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941, Henry King)

Betty Grable has a rough time in A Yank in the R.A.F. through no fault of her own. Her love triangle arc is the only thing going on for long stretches of the film. Despite being about brash narcissist Tyrone Power (the Yank) going over to England and joining the R.A.F.—while the U.S. was still operating under the Congressional Neutrality Acts (so pre-pre-Pearl Harbor)—Power doesn’t really have much of an arc. He’s eventually got the war story love triangle arc, as he and his commanding officer (the objectively less handsome and charming John Sutton) compete for Grable’s attentions. Power has a leg up (no pun) since he and Grable were together a year before when he ditched her for a long weekend to cat around with someone else.

Whenever Power has a scene where the story’s not following him, the introduction involves him trying to pick up on some lady. Nurses, mostly, but also British housewives. Given Grable’s working nights singing and dancing in a night club and doing Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) work during the day, she’s got dancing friends around, but they’re the only women Power doesn’t pick up on. The script feigns he’s a hopeless flirt—I mean, he’s Tyrone Power, after all, is he going to waste those gifts on one woman—but then he’s very intentional about catting around. It’s shitty.

Of course, all the dudes feel pretty entitled when it comes to Grable. Not dudes who know her, either. While she does meet Sutton at the airbase, he goes to call on her after drooling over her night-club performance. The recurring gag is fellow airman Reginald Gardiner is Grable’s biggest fan and, despite working with both Power and Sutton (even before Power and Sutton work together), he can’t get an introduction. In a better movie, Grable and Gardiner end up together, mostly because he’s got nothing insincere to woo her with. Power woos her with him being Tyrone Power and their physical chemistry—making things awkwarder is how well Power and Grable play together (at least at the beginning), but then he’s just a manipulative, sometimes way too physical prick–while Sutton’s a rich British gentleman. He can marry her and turn her into… well, if not a capital l lady, at least a lowercase l one. The film skirts around the respectability angle a few times, but it’s still there.

And still problematic.

In addition to having the most sympathetic characters, Grable and Gardiner easily gives the film’s best performances. Sutton and Power are both too shallow, albeit on opposite ends of the pond (pun). Sutton’s performance doesn’t have any passion or implication of it. As a result, when he courts Grable, she’s left mooning over someone who does nothing but try to negotiate a marriage contract with her. But he and Power also don’t bicker about R.A.F. business. The title’s A Yank in the R.A.F. and all, but Power’s experiences don’t matter until the third act when he gets to show those Germans what an American can do.

Another strange, timely aspect–Yank is all about showcasing the British war effort (with some phenomenal aerial photography), but it’s also about how they’re a bunch of wimps who will need the U.S. to save them one of these days. Sadly Power never reminds anyone he’s why they’re not speaking German from last time (also, the way the opening narration says “current war” is chilling).

But Power doesn’t have an arc, either. Yes, he gets more serious about his duties. But immediately. He’s supposedly the best flier the R.A.F. has got if they’d only give him a chance. It doesn’t go anywhere. He and Sutton go through a whole crash-landing arc, and it doesn’t go anywhere. At best, Power’s arc is meandering. More often, it’s either entirely stalled or entirely beside the point, so the film can focus on Grable having to choose between the dreamboat who mistreats her and the stiff upper lip who can buy her all the ponies she’ll ever want. Or something.

Grable does admirably well—she even keeps it together for the finale’s multiple big disses–and Yank’s often a great-looking film. Not sure why director King decides, somewhere in the second act, to try for moody lighting, though. Cinematographer Leon Shamroy ably pulls it off, but it just distracts. Though it’s distracting from Sutton and Power being dramatically inert, so… success?

But the version where Grable and Gardiner–Showgirl in the W.A.A.F.—is probably much better.

This post is part of the Betty Grable Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Big News (1929, Gregory La Cava)

Big News is a successful talking picture, meaning they do a good job recording the synchronized vocals. It’s not successful at really anything else, but the sound’s decent. Someone had the idea of keeping the number of actors low in most scenes, which helps with vocal clarity. Possibly too much because editor Doane Harrison and director La Cava hang on every spoken sentence. It’s peculiar—though not uncommon for the era—but News is early enough even the actors don’t know to mug around yet. They stand static, waiting for whatever’s supposed to happen next. It makes every conversation take twice as long as it should, and Big News is all conversation.

The film’s a stage adaptation—and a stagy one at that—about newspaper reporter Robert Armstrong going up against speakeasy owner and heroin peddler Sam Hardy. Despite not hiding the speakeasy part of his business from anyone, the advertising editor at the paper—Louis Payne—thinks Hardy is entirely aboveboard. Armstrong’s just an angry drunk out to persecute the American entrepreneur—Hardy’s speakeasy is run out of his… restaurant, which advertises in the newspaper. The long pauses in News would be perfect spots for the actors to turn to the cameras and ask the audience if they’re buying this shit.

But it’s Pre-Code, so you get to hear people say the word narcotics (and heroin, too; I’m nearly positive). Armstrong bickers with Hardy’s thugs about who’s got the more problematic profession, the newspaperman trying to report on thugs selling drugs to kids or the thug selling drugs to kids who has to be derided in the press. Though the cops aren’t happy with the newspapers either, since the newspapers don’t care about using any old surname for the Irish coppers.

Surely second-billed Carole Lombard, Armstrong’s estranged wife and professional competitor, will come in and offer some life to the movie.

Nope.

Lombard’s just around to whine about Armstrong. She’s the better reporter, and she’s able to get home on time (even when they’re talking about her scooping Armstrong on an overnight story where she was reporting, and he was sleeping off another bender). There are shockingly honest scenes with Lombard and Armstrong’s news editor, Wade Boteler, about how she should divorce him because he’s a useless drunk. He just happens to be a worthless drunk who can get a great scoop now and again, making it up as he goes sometimes, so it’s lucky Hardy’s a hilariously bad Mr. Big. Not bad as in acting—Armstrong, Hardy, and maybe Boteler are the only ones who seem to get the acting bit of voice acting, though incredibly problematic (though potentially progressive) Ms. Lonely Hearts Helen Ainsworth is okay too. But Hardy’s an inept criminal mastermind who lets his ego destroy him.

The bad performances are Charles Sellon as the newspaper owner, who protects Armstrong but not too far, and Warner Richmond as the assistant district attorney, who seemingly learned he was expected to speak about a minute before La Cava called “action.”

La Cava’s direction’s a series of medium shots. I think only Armstrong and Hardy ever get close-ups. Lombard definitely doesn’t get any; the movie has no idea what to do with a lady in the picture, much less Lombard. I’m curious if the original play gave the character something to do.

Oh, and then there’s James Donlan as Armstrong’s drunk reporter pal. It’s unclear whether Donlan has a job other than being drunk all the time and a bad influence on Armstrong. It’s an early enough talkie they haven’t figured out Donlan ought to be a great supporting performance. He’s not.

Big News is only seventy-five minutes and somewhat worth the curiosity peek—Armstrong and Hardy would much more memorably team (for a scene) in King Kong; it’s an early misuse of Lombard, and there are some recognizable faces. Clarence Wilson plays the coroner; apparently, Lew Ayres is around somewhere. But it’s still really long for seventy-five minutes. That time can be better spent on the cast and crew’s other pictures.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)

About halfway through City Lights, I realized most of the gags repeat. Especially when it’s Chaplin and his de facto sidekick, Harry Myers. But instead of making the bits seem rote, the repeat value just makes them funnier. There are some differences in how the jokes work, but not very much; Chaplin also lays into the repeat imagery. In the third act, it all makes sense when there’s finally a different reaction to a repeated narrative bit. The way Chaplin brings it all together is sublimely delightful.

The film opens with the most outdoor sequence in the film, with Chaplin—playing the Tramp—interfering with some city occasion. What sets it apart—besides people having audible (but distorted) voices in an otherwise silent picture. There’s diegetic sound and a musical score (by Chaplin), but all the dialogue’s in intertitles. Immediately after the opening scene, Chaplin meets beautiful blind girl flower seller Virginia Cherrill. He’s smitten with her and buys a flower—she doesn’t realize he’s a tramp; she thinks he’s a rich guy.

Luckily for the Tramp, he almost immediately makes the acquaintance of actual rich guy Myers. Well, luckily, in the big picture sense. In the immediate picture sense, Chaplin and Myers have a very disconcerting friendship (from Chaplin’s perspective, anyway). Myers is a drunk; his wife has run off to Europe and isn’t coming back. He’s a wild man when drunk, but when he sobers up, he can’t remember he’s made a new pal in Chaplin. So Chaplin keeps getting the boot.

But whenever he’s got Myers’s inebriated support, Chaplin thinks about how he can help Cherrill, which cements the idea he’s wealthy (he’s driving Myers’s Rolls Royce). Just as someone in Switzerland (maybe Fredonia) develops a cure for blindness, Cherill’s grandmother (Florence Lee) gets a letter from the landlord. Pay up or get kicked out. Tomorrow.

Will Chaplin be able to keep Myers drunk enough, long enough, to be able to hit him up for some cash? Cherill and Lee owe twenty-two dollars; Myers carries thousand dollar bills (and some hundreds, I think). So it’s not like it’d be a problem. Except whenever Myers gets the slightest bit sober, he completely forgets bestie Chaplin.

Myers’s unreliablity leads to some occasionally drastic measures for Chaplin, such as a fantastic boxing match. Chaplin fights badass Hank Mann, whose slightest slap can knock out a real boxer—so, Chaplin’s in real danger. And the third act’s pretty dark. City Lights isn’t a tragedy overall, but it’s mostly a tragedy. The opening bit doesn’t have much tragic subtext, but pretty much everything else is soaked in it. There’s a suicide attempt—with nooses around the neck are one of Chaplin’s repeat sight “gags”—there’s destructive drinking, which the Tramp pretty early on acknowledges is way too much. But he’s got to get drunk to get to be friends with Myers.

Most of the comedy set pieces in the first half involve their drunken carousing. They’re hilarious together too. Chaplin and Myers have great timing together; Myers’s performance as constantly stupefied drunk is superlative. A lot of it is Chaplin’s direction. He’s got just the right pacing for Myers to slowly realized what’s going on in the scene and then rush to get involved (making things worse). Except the Tramp’s rarely asking him for help in these scenes. It’s usually just Myers barging in. It’s always very funny.

Then the third act’s emotionally rending, as the Tramp finally seems to be on the way to a win—or at least not a loss—only to fail thanks to cruel people. It’s a lot, especially since Chaplin also breaks one of his repeat cycles to make the narrative change happen. Even with the finale involving another repeat cycle, the only way to know if the move will work is to do it. And they work beautifully both times. So good.

Chaplin’s performance is exquisite. The Tramp’s navigating hostile, turbulent waters in hanging out with Myers. Then he’s basically got a courtship arc with Cherrill, with her blindness being integral to Chaplin being able to pull off the ending.

Myers is also great. Not so much when he’s sober. He’s fine when he’s sober—like he’s doing the part, and it’s good—but when he’s drunk, he really gets to have some fun. Cherrill doesn’t get any fun. She gets small joys, usually with caveats related to her blindness (and poverty—if Cherrill had any money, the blindness wouldn’t be such a detriment to her success). But she does get a full character arc, something no one else in the film besides the Tramp is even in the picture long enough to attempt. Myers doesn’t get a character arc, for instance.

City Lights is a fantastic mix of slapstick and sincerity. Chaplin finds the heart in every situation—Myers’s alcoholism is a reaction to intense depression—without ignoring the various unjustifiable cruelties people inflict on one another.

It’s a lovely, singular motion picture.

One Touch of Venus (1948, William A. Seiter)

While One Touch of Venus only runs eighty-two minutes, it manages to do three sets of romantic arcs. It’s able to fit them all because lukewarm towel and ostensible lead Robert Walker disappears for long stretches of the movie. Sometimes Walker goes so Dick Haymes can serenade Olga San Juan; sometimes he goes so the actual A plot involving department store owner Tim Conway can take precedence. But he’s gone enough Venus shows it functions better without him, specifically when it’s focused on Ava Gardner. It takes Gardner a while to show some agency in the film—and she’s only really utilizing it to save (or seduce) Walker—but once she gets the chance, she doesn’t stop until the ship has righted for everyone involved.

Well, righted well enough for her and Walker, and San Juan disappears, which isn’t great, but Conway and Arden finish superbly.

The film begins with department store window dresser Walker setting up a Roman ruins diorama. It’s unclear it’s a diorama during the titles, which works out really well. It’s a good start. Then the film immediately sputters, introducing San Juan. She’s Walker’s girlfriend. She wants to get married. Isn’t she the absolute worst? You know who doesn’t think she’s the worst, though? Haymes. He thinks she’s great. But Walker thinks she’s the worst, but he’s on his way up to see department store owner Conway for a special assignment, so he doesn’t have time to dawdle.

Walker asks Haymes to babysit San Juan. It eventually includes San Juan and Haymes making soup in Walker’s apartment because the film—if it addressed the living situation—wasn’t forceful enough about Haymes and Walker being roommates. Also, everyone lives within two blocks of the department store.

I’m getting distracted with the more interesting second act, sorry.

Walker goes up to the boss’s, only to discover Conway just needs him to fix a pulley to smoothly reveal his latest purchase—a statue of Venus. The movie mentions some backstory to the statue, but it’s never important. It’s just to give Conway and Eve Arden something to talk about besides bickering about him being a womanizer and her being unappreciated for doing all the actual work of running his business. It’s the forties, after all. Conway and Arden are great together. They start with Conway relying on Arden, then the bickering, so it’s clear when it counts, Conway shuts up and listens.

After some middling physical comedy work, Walker kisses a statue, turning it into Gardner. She’s the actual Venus, somehow freed from the statue by her father, Jupiter. If the curse is only lifted when some guy gets too frisky with her saucy statue, I feel like it’d have been a franchise. Walker ostensibly has had a glass of champagne, and it’s gone to his head, but he and Haymes are lushes, so, no. We never find out the rules of Gardner’s human form. Walker can’t do the scenes with her. He’s initially freaked out by the transformation, then Conway sics the cops on Walker for stealing the statue, so there’s an additional layer to everything. Suffering detective James Flavin investigates.

The first act is trying to be screwball, except Walker’s an ass. It’s also a musical. Haymes and San Juan frequently go from musical interlude to musical interlude, and Gardner’s (dubbed) singing affects the libidos of all the lovers in the city. Sounds like it’d make a great montage, except we only find out about it in a dialogue aside. The film’s entirely focused on the department store and the handful of people involved, even though they have the perfect opportunity to mention it when there’s a mass making out in the park scene. The movie doesn’t establish it’s not the norm.

It’s also where director Seiter shows off his proficiency at directing the musical number. Venus is always fine. Walker’s not good at the slapstick and cruel in the screwball, but he’s not bad. He’s a twerp. And then he’s a twerp with Gardner, except she loves him unconditionally for smooching the marble. And he’s not interested in Gardner because he’s got a girl already—San Juan, who he doesn’t want anything to do with when they’re in scenes together. Until—about halfway through the second act—he just falls for Gardner, even though she’s been super seductive, even though Conway’s met her for a minute and is also pursuing her. Walker’s characterization—script and performance—fizzle their potential—and necessary–chemistry.

So it’s a good thing once Gardner gets going on her own, everyone gets along beautifully. It even works in musical numbers (where Gardner’s not actually singing). She has one with San Juan and Arden—it’s a trio number about looking good for your man or something while making him dinner—and (again, thanks to the musical staging) it kind of just works. There ought to be a bunch of subtexts, except the movie can’t get too into the details of San Juan and Walker’s relationship (or he and Gardner’s).

Everyone, even Walker, to some degree, is appealing. By the end of the picture, his pursuit of Gardner in their romantic comedy is enthusiastic enough—and there’s enough distance between them—it’s compelling. But Gardner’s best with Conway and Arden. Arden gets fourth billing (presumably below Haymes because he’s singing more), but she walks off with the movie in the first act. In the second act, she makes a bunch of jokes at the expense of her own appearance (what with a goddess like Gardner around), and it’s not great, but the film then gives Arden a great third act. Based on her girl powering with Gardner. So it all works out.

Much of the tepid romantic subplot elements could be a result of the Code; Venus is a Broadway adaptation; they could get away with more on stage than they could on screen.

Conway’s awesome. He’s sixth billed, but since Walker disappears, Conway’s the de facto main love interest for the third act. It’s a brisk, assured transition; once Gardner’s in charge, Venus finds the confidence it’d been missing from the start.

Lovely photography from Franz Planer, okay enough songs—the singing’s better than the songs but okay enough—competent, assured, meat and potatoes direction from Seiter. Fabulous gowns for Gardner by Orry-Kelly—it’s glamorous without being too glamorous, with a bit of Code-acceptable and barely problematic cheesecake thrown in. Arden image-shaming herself is much worse stuff.

Gardner saves Venus from a mediocre start. Conway and Arden make a big difference too, but it’s all about Gardner.

This post is part of the Sixth Broadway Bound Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Room Service (1938, William A. Seiter)

Room Service appears—well, sounds like—it sounds like it ends with Groucho Marx singing along to a spiritual in a stage play and breaking into occasional mimicry of a Black woman singing. For no reason. Like there was a subplot about a racist parrot they cut from the movie (it runs seventy-eight minutes, so it’s not impossible). But, no. It’s just this weird, shitty moment, which kicks Service square in the nuts.

Without that moment, I’d describe Room Service as middling, but—wait for it—inoffensive Marx Brothers. We’re in the era where Zeppo’s retired, Groucho’s checked out, Chico’s fifty-fifty, and Harpo’s seventy-thirty, but the direction’s bringing him down. Visibly.

The Brothers will get into a bit throughout the film, and director Seiter won’t showcase it. It’s like he’s resentful at his stars… all of them. I’m not sure Lucille Ball gets more than one close-up. She just sort of walks in and out of scenes, providing cleric support and reminding everyone Groucho’s dating a hottie. It’s too bad because she and Groucho have enough chemistry; it’d have been fun to see her around more. Room Service did not start its life as a Marx Brothers play, so the archetypes are a little off. Screenwriter Morrie Ryskind is more successful with some adaptations than others. Groucho’s the least successful.

Anyway.

The bad guy in the movie is Donald MacBride. He’s the company man from corporate (hotel corporate) who’s in town to throw the Marx Brothers out for being deadbeats. MacBride originated the role on Broadway, which is kind of a surprise since MacBride’s the one who knows where the camera’s supposed to be, and Seiter doesn’t. MacBride does whole scenes acting in a non-existent covering shot. Or maybe all that footage got lost. Maybe it had the racist parrot on the same reel, and someone smart burned it before it got to the editing room.

It’s not in the IMDb trivia.

The direction’s never good; about a fourth of the jokes land, though there are eventually excellent jokes (thanks to Harpo). Chico gets less and less enthusiastic throughout; he’s playing Groucho’s sidekick, only Lucy really ought to be Groucho’s sidekick, but then there’s Cliff Dunstan as Groucho’s suffering brother-in-law. Dunstan’s great. He also originated on Broadway. And Room Service is actually about putting on a Broadway play. Groucho’s the broke producer. Obviously.

Just as Dunstan has to throw Groucho out, playwright Frank Albertson comes to town to see how things are going. See, he’s broke too. He’s also the most obvious Zeppo part. It’s just so frustratingly a Zeppo part.

Albertson’s okay. He’s fine. He doesn’t have to sing or dance, he just has to moon over Ann Miller, which is weird because of a significant age difference. It also complicates Miller being good. Like, she’s good, but it’s just… no. IMDb trivia page has the details.

The opening credits are cute, which shouldn’t be as memorable as one of the film’s standouts. There are some good sequences, but they’re obvious set pieces and never as good as they should be. Some of it’s the production. The sets are just a little small, especially since Seiter’s composition is so bad. That composition—and the lack of coverage—hurts the editing. George Crone’s a little slow with the cuts, even when it’s not to compensate for Seiter, but if Crone paced it better, the movie would probably only be too short to be played as the feature. Room Service’s plot is skin and bones, and they still pad reaction shots.

The third act’s a boon. Basically, once a turkey flies, it’s on an uptick until the end.

Then wham goes the WWTF of Groucho’s singing voice.

What and why.