Category: 1940

Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)

Rebecca opens with protagonist Joan Fontaine narrating, establishing the present action as a flashback—which is kind of important considering how much danger Fontaine will be in throughout. She’s got to make it since there’s the narration. Some of that danger is in Fontaine’s head. Or, at least, she sometimes apprehensive of the wrong person. Sort of.

Rebecca is a passionate romance, a suspenseful thriller, and a reluctant character study. Fontaine’s nameless protagonist isn’t the one being studied, but rather her new husband, played by Laurence Olivier. Olivier’s a little older and a lot richer. He’s a relatively recent widower (Rebecca is the first wife), and he sweeps naive Fontaine off her feet.

The narration establishes the eventual setting—Olivier’s seaside estate—before heading to Fontaine and Olivier’s version of a meet-cute. They’re in Monte Carlo; she’s out sketching and comes across him on a cliff. She’s sure he’s going to jump. So, technically, maybe not a meet cute.

They soon meet again under formal circumstances. Fontaine is a paid companion to obnoxious rich lady Florence Bates. Bates knows Olivier socially, but he can’t stand her. However, once Bates gets a bug, Olivier and Fontaine become vacation buddies. Fontaine’s performance during these sequences is fantastic; the various emotions play out on her face as she observes Olivier, trying to figure out what’s happening.

What’s happening is a whirlwind romance; they leave Monte married. They’ll go on a honeymoon, which we see later on in home movies, but the action cuts from vacation to the estate. In the opening, director Hitchcock does what he can to make it not look too much like a miniature, but… it looks like a miniature. When Fontaine and Olivier arrive home, however, there’s this great composite shot of them driving up. The estate is a miniature, we won’t get any significant, closer exterior shots, but with that composite shot, Hitchcock makes sure the audience knows not to hold that kind of status against the film.

The film quickly introduces the new supporting cast—Judith Anderson as the imposing housekeeper who loved Rebecca, Reginald Denny as the estate manager, Gladys Cooper as Olivier’s sister, and Nigel Bruce as her comic relief husband. Olivier looses Fontaine to figure out how to run the house with Anderson’s help.

At this point, Olivier will orbit further and further away from Fontaine until they have their big second-act blowout. He’s busy being back but also actively neglecting to tell Fontaine anything about the house itself and how Rebecca liked it to be run. Much of the film during the second act is just Fontaine finding out more and more details Olivier really should’ve told her about. Why did he ever bring her there if Rebecca was so amazing? Since Olivier doesn’t confide in anyone, all the characters have a different impression of how Fontaine is supposed to function as the new lady of the estate. And since they all assume Olivier’s told Fontaine, no one gives her any context, with that lack knocking her between bewildered, overwhelmed, and frightened without any rest.

Hitchcock mounts whole set pieces just to showcase Fontaine’s discomfort and possible danger. There’s lots of beautiful work from Hitchcock, photographer George Barnes, and editor W. Donn Hayes. Fontaine acts the heck out of the scenes—and she’s the one who continues the character arc after the scenes forebodingly fade to black—but they’re technical marvels. Rebecca’s a great-looking (and sounding) film.

Just as Fontaine starts feeling like she should exert some agency, she tries to bond with Anderson over a favor—George Sanders, Rebecca’s favorite cousin, visits one day when OIivier’s out of town, and Fontaine promises to keep it a secret. Assuming she and Anderson share any kind of bond will be one of Fontaine’s worst mistakes.

Sanders is an abject delight. Rebecca’s got lots of great performances—while Fontaine gets a great showcase for the first three-quarters, Olivier then gets to play leading man for a bit and overshadows her—but Sanders is always a reliable scene stealer. He appears, takes over, then returns control on exit. It’s a fabulous balance. The three share a particularly great scene together.

The film has two major plot reveals to answer all the questions, tie up all the loose ends—one comes before the third act, one finishes off the film. In between those two reveals, Rebecca metamorphizes.

What follows is a very different film—still a romance and thriller, but with a different pace and narrative distance. Hitchcock changes things up for the finish, turning it into a race against time, then another, then another, all while bounding along the razor’s edge of melodrama. It’s a phenomenal success, delivering on many last-minute promises and giving the cast even further ranges to essay.

Hitchcock relies on a special effects set piece to close things out (did we forget there’s a narration safety net?), which has the added benefit of calling a draw on the performances. Fontaine has the most character development, while Olivier gets to do a great reveal and then excel further. Sanders and Anderson also have their singular qualities. Maybe it’s right no one can overshadow anyone else… they (and we) are all trapped in Rebeccas magnificent grasp.

This post is part of the Second Master Of Suspense Blogathon hosted by Maddy of Classic Film and TV Corner.

The Invisible Woman (1940, A. Edward Sutherland)

It’s entirely possible The Invisible Woman’s concept is a good one—instead of a horror movie, doing a screwball comedy where the female lead is invisible most of the time. Woman is—at best—indifferently acted, poorly directed, atrociously written, without even reasonable special effects. But the idea itself isn’t necessarily bad.

The film opens with suffering butler Charles Ruggles—he gets lots of jokes, they’re always terrible, he’s always bad. His bits are so universally bad, it seems like it has to be director Sutherland. Even Shemp Howard is occasionally amusing. He’s mostly godawful, but every once in a while, some gag won’t completely fail. Everything with Ruggles is a fail. Every single joke. And there are probably four Ruggles jokes every twelve minutes, if not more. The movie runs seventy-two minutes total. So thirty-some lousy Ruggles gags.

Ruggles works for John Howard. Howard is the romance lead, a playboy who funds lovable mad scientist John Barrymore’s projects. Only Howard never asks to see results—not until the movie starts, when Barrymore needs to turn someone invisible. It needs to be a person; Howard apparently won’t believe it if Barrymore turns the cat invisible. The human subject is going to be Virginia Bruce. She initially wants to get invisible to seemingly erase herself from reality. Bruce isn’t good in the scenes where she’s getting philosophical about woman’s place in the universe and so on but at least it’s character.

When she does get invisible and gets to do whatever she wants, it’s just messing with crappy boss Charles Lane. When Lane’s bad, it’s a sign Invisible Woman is never going to be good or even okay. Even with Ruggles, even with Howard, even with Barrymore basically letting his elaborate make-up do all the acting, if the movie were at least funny with its big supporting cast of comedy regulars… it’d have a chance.

But no.

Because Sutherland’s direction is terrible.

And the script—from Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, and Gertrude Purcell (from a story by horror guys Curt Siodmak and Joe May)—is terrible. So the movie doesn’t have a chance. Ever.

The best part of the movie is Margaret Hamilton, who plays Barrymore’s assistant and her dismissive, impatient attitude is perfect for the part and movie. She doesn’t camp it up, but she seems to be acknowledging the quality constraints and so on and excels—reasonably—within them. The movie sort of trades her screen time for Oscar Homolka, which is appropriate for Invisible Woman. Hamilton’s the best, Homolka’s the worst. Now, obviously, dramatically speaking, Howard’s the worst. But for the comedy—and Woman’s a comedy–Homolka’s an endless pit of bad comedy.

Invisible Woman gets so painfully bad in the last third—it’s also a slog of seventy-two minutes, probably because there’s not a good “Invisible Woman” set piece. Sutherland is clearly inept at the special effects sequences but the movie needs them. There’s not even a big screwball number, just more plot, as Homolka’s gang goes after Barrymore and friends.

Howard—Shemp—is in the gang. Donald MacBride is in the gang. Edward Brophy is in the gang. Invisible Woman wastes Edward Brophy. Wastes him in a way you think they’d never seen an Edward Brophy performance before. Including the one he’s giving here.

Terrible editing from Frank Gross doesn’t help things either. Occasionally the cuts make it seem like they’re doing a lot of work—revised audio looped in to dialogue-free visuals, jokes muted and faded out on—and maybe Gross was doing the best he could with Sutherland’s footage. It’s sadly immaterial, other than to correctly portion the blame.

The Invisible Woman’s laugh-less and charmless, only impressive because they can never find a good joke, not even on accident.

The Invisible Man Returns (1940, Joe May)

The best thing about The Invisible Man Returns is quite obviously Cecil Kellaway. He’s a Scotland Yard inspector who’s spent the eight years since the last movie preparing for another invisible man attack, making sure the Yard’s ready to go technologically.

Worst thing about The Invisible Man Returns? It’s a little long? There’s nothing really too bad about it. There’s just nothing too good about it either. John Sutton’s not bad. He’s just not good. Ditto female lead Nan Grey, who somehow manages to remain unaware of dirty old man Cedric Hardwicke’s lusty devotion to her. Hardwicke’s real obvious. He’s not ineffective either.

Okay, actually—worst thing about Invisible Man Returns? New Invisible Man Vincent Price. Despite being set in England, Price does this blandly gruff, very American voice. I was hoping he’d start, you know, using a Vincent Price voice once he got invisible but no. Sticks with the gruff thing the whole time. I can’t imagine it helped his performance anyway—scary thought, maybe it did.

With a better “monster,” the movie would be better. Especially given the contortions the script makes to get through the Code. Lester Cole and Curt Siodmak’s script, in that context, is easily the most impressive thing about the film. Otherwise, it’d be the effects, which aren’t every fantastic or narratively ambitious—the biggest effects set piece is a snorer with Price messing with Alan Napier. But the contortions….

Returns opens with an exposition dump in the kitchen of Hardwicke’s manor. None of the downstairs staff are important, it’s just for the exposition, which should be a better move than it turns out to be because there’s not much narrative efficiency later on.

Grey’s boyfriend (Price) is on death row—or whatever the English equivalent at the time—for killing his brother. Since going to prison, Hardwicke has taken over the brothers’ family mine business. From the first shot of Hardwicke it’s clear he’s madly in love with Grey and she doesn’t notice because he’s an old man with a terrible mustache.

Though maybe she doesn’t mind the mustache. Every guy in Returns except Kellaway and maybe Napier has a terrible mustache. You can’t tell with Napier because he’s covered in grime. Kellaway just doesn’t have one.

It’s the day before Price is going to be hanged so Grey finally has to plead with Hardwicke to call his friends in the government, which neither of them thought of doing until this moment, apparently. But, no, the Home Secretary is in Scotland so Price is going to die.

Or would die if it weren’t for Sutton, who just happens to be the brother of the original Invisible Man, something Kellaway figures out right away but apparently Hardwicke didn’t know about despite working with Sutton for a substantial time.

Sutton gives Price the serum, Price escapes, movie starts (after at least ten minutes of increasingly tedious exposition). Price has to figure out who killed his brother while Sutton has to figure out how to turn Price back to visible before Price goes criminally insane and starts murdering people.

The original Invisible Man, Kellaway tells us, murdered hundreds in the original movie, which doesn’t seem right but Kellaway would’ve exaggerated to get funding for his anti-Invisible Man task force. The task force turns out to be a red herring as the latter half of the film doesn’t have any big set pieces.

If the cast were better or showed signs of being better, their mediocre turns would be more disappointing. Any of them—Price, Grey, Sutton, Hardwicke—should’ve been able to walk away with the movie. Instead, they just manage to keep stride with it.

May’s direction is fine. Not at all distinctive, but fine. Frank Gross’s editing is probably the worst technical feature and, again, it’s not really bad, it’s just never, ever good.

The Great McGinty (1940, Preston Sturges)

The Great McGinty has a gentle surprise ending. Not a twist. More a reveal, which then recasts the previous ninety minutes and change in a slightly different light. Because McGinty has a very deliberate bookending—there’s even a title card to explain the setting. An unnamed banana republic, two American ex-pats on the run from bad decisions, though one is a wrong guy who made a right choice and the other is a right guy who made the wrong choice. Louis Jean Heydt is, presumably, the right guy. He’s drinking himself to death and getting sympathy from good girl bar dancer Steffi Duna, who’s really just looking out for him in one of the film’s many nice humanity observations. Eventually they end up at the bar, where bartender Brian Donlevy (sporting an amazing blond dye-job) tells them if they want to hear a sad story, just listen up.

Donlevy doesn’t narrate the flashbacks; there are occasional mid-shelf bookends where the film checks back in on Donlevy, Duna, and Heydt, but they don’t have any presence during the flashbacks. They’re passively present, which is kind of important for Donlevy’s character arc and the final reveal. Sturges has a gentle touch with the narrative; he never gives too much the impression of guiding the narrative, just as comfortable with slowing down the present action as speeding it up and skipping ahead in time. Donlevy’s story starts on an election night; he’s in a soup line, one of the forgotten men of the Great Depression. If he goes to vote for the mayor, he can make a couple bucks. All he’s got to do is vote. Though not under his own name. William Demarest explains the whole scheme to Donlevy (and the audience), establishing that gentle touch of Sturges’s what will be the film’s many information dumps. Donlevy ends up Great because he’s a success in a city’s political Machine. Sturges has to explain a lot about that Machine’s procedures. And he’s got to make them palatable. So he gives them to Demarest, who’s cranky and hilarious about the whole thing, and to Akim Tamiroff, who’s explosive and hilarious about the whole thing. Tamiroff’s the big boss. Donlevy goes from paid voter to protection collector to alderman to whatever he wants in record time. He makes it because Tamiroff likes Donlevy’s initiative and lack of fear.

Even though there’s constant danger, Sturges makes it feel entirely immaterial to the plot (even though the audience knows Donlevy at least doesn’t die thanks to the bookend). But Sturges doesn’t leverage having those bookends to keep Donlevy safe, he puts it into the script, gets it out of Donlevy’s performance—Tamiroff walks away with every scene he’s in, he’s awesome; Demarest doesn’t walk away with his scenes (except when they’re just his scenes) but he definitely distracts from the action; female lead Muriel Angelus does walk off with the scene, but usually without having to move. More on her soon. But Donlevy doesn’t get to be flashy, he doesn’t get to be outrageous. He gets to show excitement, he gets to show outrage, he gets to show love. But all at very human levels. Angelus’s human, but the way Sturges composes her shots, she’s angelically functional. It’s like Sturges sketches a caricature in the script and, with his actors’ performances, together they make it into a full character. But Donlevy doesn’t get that synthesis, not the same way. There’s no compensating for his performance. Donlevy’s always got to be the straight man, which makes for an interesting character arc. He never gets a dramatic character move. His character development has to lead the narrative, but it also doesn’t get to be directly addressed.

One result of that approach is the ending reveal working so well. Sturges sets up the narrative distance in the opening bookend and never changes it too much. There’s always a definite distance between the film and Donlevy’s protagonist and narrator, making enough room for Tamiroff to live large in the first half, then Angelus in the second. But when Tamiroff’s big, it’s still Donlevy’s movie. When Angelus’s big, it’s kind of more her movie. Because she’s getting to see behind Donlevy’s scrappy, functional exterior. And sometimes the interior is just as scrappy and functional, which then leads to more context for Donlevy’s character and more potential for Donlevy and Angelus’s relationship. She’s the single mom, Machine secretary who sees his potential for greatness, even before she realizes she sees it. She and Donlevy have this quiet relationship in the middle of all this noise and Sturges focuses more on Angelus in those scenes, leading to some awesome little moments in both her performance and the film. Sturges’s direction of the cast on the film is spectacular.

There’s a lot of nice echoing in Sturges’s script. Gentle but deliberate, like everything else. He’s also able to get a lot of laughs out of not necessarily humorous situations. It’s a great script.

The whole thing’s great. So great I wish I’d been making Great puns right from the start. And don’t let the last paragraph of them dissuade you on The Great McGinty—Sturges, Donlevy, Angelus, and Tamiroff do some… exceptional work on it.

The Great McGinty. It’s terrific.

This post is part of the 2019 TCM Summer Under the Stars hosted by Kristen of Journeys in Classic Film and Samantha of Musings of a Classic Film Addict.

Miss Grant Goes to the Door (1940, Brian Desmond Hurst)

Miss Grant Goes to the Door is a rather well-executed propaganda short. There’s an air raid and two British sisters prepare to go to the shelter. Mary Clare is the noncommittal one, who wants to go back to bed, who needs to get her sewing before she can go to the basement. She even turns on the light to find it. Meanwhile, Martita Hunt is the serious, level-headed one. Can’t have the lights on, can’t ignore the sirens, must do our part because we’re relying on others to do their parts, after all, and so we must do ours.

Door wouldn’t work if it weren’t British. Anyone not British coming across like Hunt does would be obnoxious. Instead, she comes off as utterly badass.

The very quick action has the sisters realize German paratroopers are coming down and it certainly seems like they’re about to be invaded. Hunt has to keep her cool while trying to get Clare to get her upper lip stiff enough to be useful. After the quick setup, the rest of the short is full of explosions, spies, paratroopers, bicycles, cigarettes, and hunky home guard officer Ivan Brandt. And it all moves beautifully, thanks to director Hurst.

Good photography from Bernard Browne (especially the night exteriors) and capable editing from Ralph Kemplen—right up until the last shot, everything in Door operates at peak efficiency.

Hunt is awesome. Clare’s… not but more than passable thanks to Hunt overachieving on her end the scene. Clare’s nowhere near as committed to her role as Hunt seems to hers.

Hurst’s excellent direction, even more than Hunt’s performance, gets Door across the finish line. It’s a strong seven minutes of filmmaking, propaganda or not.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst; screenplay by Rodney Ackland, based on a story by Donald Bull and Thorold Dickinson; director of photography, Bernard Browne; edited by Ralph Kemplen; released by the Ministry of Information..

Starring Martita Hunt (Edith Grant), Mary Clare (Caroline Grant), Ivan Brandt (The Local Defence Volunteer), and Manning Whiley (The Officer).

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Primrose Path (1940, Gregory La Cava)

Primrose Path gets fun fast. Given the film opens with nine year-old Joan Carroll stealing a neighbor’s tamales (instead of buying them) for her and her grandmother, Queenie Vassar, it sort of needs to be fun. Vassar’s the maternal grandmother, not related to despondently alcoholic dad Miles Mander. Ginger Rogers is the older daughter, who we soon find out has forced herself into a kind of functional naïveté about her family’s situation. See, Mander’s a drunk because wife Marjorie Rambeau is out as a professional mistress. But he can’t work because he’s a complete drunk. Vassar trying to break the two up doesn’t do any good for their relationship either. Meanwhile Rambeau lives in a somewhat forced naïveté of her own, at least as far as Mander’s concerned.

Path opens about this family barely surviving—with Carroll apparently already lost, Vassar poisoning all the fresh water—and then there’s Rogers, who’s figured out a way to navigate herself through it. Until she takes a ride from kindly and silly old man Henry Travers when she’s on her way down to the beach. Path takes place in a small city (or large town) on the California coast. Closer to San Francisco than L.A. The contrast between Travers’s beachfront hamburger diner and Rogers’s regular life is striking inside and out. But definitely out. Path’s first half is full of fantastic location shooting, with director La Cava and cinematographer Joseph H. August delivering some fantastic scenes.

So once Travers and Rogers start bantering and she realizes he’s not an old pervert, she agrees to let him forward her a lunch. Once in the diner, she meets banter-master Joel McCrea, who works the counter. Except Rogers doesn’t like McCrea’s banter so he tries to get a rise out of her, which continues for a sequence of scenes, culminating in McCrea kissing Rogers. Well, once he’s kissed her, she’s smitten, leading to her telling a few small lies to get out of her life and into his.

For a while Rogers is able to avoid her past, but it’s not too far away, just on the “other side of town.” There’s never a “wrong side of the tracks” remark, but there are a couple audible train whistles. La Cava can be subtle and La Cava can be obvious. He can also be subtly obvious. He saves the straight obvious for the romance between McCrea and Rogers. It doesn’t take long for him to get just as smitten.

Unfortunately, neither character is being entirely honest. While Rogers’s lies don’t have any further repercussions after she and McCrea are joined at the hip, McCrea’s kind of been on holiday. Path gets away with a lot during the Production Code—there’s adultery, there’s sex work, there’s drunken Mander, there’s the thieving kid, whatever—but it’s most impressive moves are with Rogers and McCrea. They never get their big blowout scene, which is simultaneously disappointing and understandable–Path has got to keep light on its feet before the realness can grab it. Vassar’s downright evil at times and McCrea’s got a hideous mean streak. The film plays the former almost for laughs (as well as keeping Vassar’s understandable despondence and her unforgivable cruelty separate) while the latter just sets up La Cava’s third act commentary on people. The film’s very focused on the family. Rogers shares time with McCrea more than he gets the time to himself. Same goes for Travers. It’s a long time before he gets anything to do separate from Rogers (and then it’s just to talk about her with McCrea). It’s Rogers’s movie. Then Rambeau’s. Then Vassar’s. Then McCrea’s. McCrea still gets a full character arc, he just doesn’t get it on screen. So when La Cava opens things up—pretty much for the first time (the diner scenes are all about Rogers and McCrea’s salad days)—it’s for the finale. And the finale is really subtle and amusing, but it also informs some earlier plot points. Allan Scott and La Cava’s script is incredibly patient. The film’s a stage adaptation but never feels stagy; quite the opposite. It’s hard to imagine the story told any other way.

The music from Werner R. Heymann’s excellent. Sound is important in Primrose Path and La Cava and editor William Hamilton are careful how they reinforce the narrative with it. The film’s full of echoed moments, with only one of them being at all obvious. La Cava keeps the rest of them submerged and they more reverberate than sound off. So Heymann’s music has to fit perfectly and it always does, not just the scenes content but in place among the echoes. Path runs just over ninety minutes but it never skimps, never rushes. La Cava, in direction and script, is casually deliberate. He does excellent work here.

Great performances from Rogers and McCrea. He doesn’t get the lead role but he does have some breakout moments. For a while it seems like he’s going to be most successful for his toxic male behavior stuff but it turns out there’s going to be more to his character arc and McCrea keeps excelling. Meanwhile Rogers has to keep a lot mildly submerged too and she gets to go full bloom at finish to great success as well. The parts are good. Better than than the showier ones like Mander or Vassar. Vassar’s character is just a little too hurtful for the performance, but she’s still good. Mander is great. Rambeau is great. Rambeau’s part is far less showy as the film progresses.

Primrose Path is an outstandingly nimble romantic drama. La Cava, Rogers, and McCrea can keep it loose enough for sincere and affable romance, while still getting into the hard family drama stuff. It can’t go either way fully because, well, it wouldn’t be a vehicle for Rogers and McCrea then, but La Cava finds an ideal balance.

This post is part of the First Annual Valentine’s Day “Meet-Cute” Blogathon hosted by Phyllis of Phyllis Loves Classic Movies.

Puss Gets the Boot (1940, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera)

Until the exceptionally racist caricature of “Mammy Two-Shoes” arrives, the most distinguishing thing about Puss Gets the Boot is the exceptional cruelty of the cat. Puss is the first Tom and Jerry cartoon, before Tom is named Tom (he’s Jasper here) and Jerry doesn’t get an onscreen name.

For the first two minutes, it’s just Jasper–sorry, no, it’s just easier to call him Tom–it’s just Tom tormenting Jerry. Jerry can’t run away faster enough or smart enough; the awkwardly cruelest moment is when Tom revives Jerry with some water after knocking him unconscious. I’m sure cats can be this evil playing with their prey but… not sure I have any interest in seeing it.

And it doesn’t really play for slapstick laughs because, until this point, it’s just the cat beating up on the mouse.

Then Mammy shows up and Puss gets gross and then grosser. It’s not just how the cartoon portrays the character, voiced by Lillian Randolph, it’s how Joseph Barbara writes the dialogue. He goes out of his way to be more racist about it all.

At that point, there’s no real way for Puss to save itself–later versions of the cartoon lightened Mammy’s skin and redubbed her–but, even so, the cartoon doesn’t do anything special or even interesting. Randolph tells Tom he’s out on his furry behind if he breaks anything else in the house. Jerry tries to get Tom break stuff. On and on it goes. There’s some amusement when Tom turns the tables on Jerry for a moment, but it’s far from significant.

The animation is fine, though it dips in quality as the cartoon progresses. Tom gets too loose. The direction’s all right too. Nothing special. Just racist.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Written and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera; animated by Carl Urbano, Tony Pabian, Jack Zander, Pete Burness, and Robert Allen; edited by Fred McAlpin; music by Scott Bradley; produced by Rudolf Ising, Jack Petrik, and Bill Schultz; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Lillian Randolph (Mammy Two-Shoes).

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Vigil in the Night (1940, George Stevens)

Vigil in the Night is supreme melodrama. I mean, in its first ten minutes, the film manages to establish a small English town’s hospital, introduce stoic nurse Carole Lombard and her flighty sister Anne Shirley, throw them into tragedy and crisis, and kick Lombard into an entirely new setting. Vigil in the Night is an interesting melodrama in how Lombard’s not a suffering martyr, she’s a rejoicing one. It’s kind of iffy as far as character development goes, but Lombard plays saint perfectly.

She has a lot of help from director Stevens, who starts the film showing off a combination of miniature and ornate set. The camera just moves too. Robert De Grasse’s photography is effortlessly smooth. The camera moves around that small town hospital so much and so fluidly, it’s impossible to believe the film’s ever going to leave. When it does, it creates a fine jarring effect to accompany Lombard’s new position.

Steven’s style changes a little. He’s much gentler. He and De Grasse concentrate on holding shots, making Henry Berman’s editing do some of the work. Alfred Newman’s music gets more annoying–he has this one theme he uses over and over again and it sounds like a theme from Franz Waxman’s Bride of Frankenstein, which made it disconcerting for me, but also overbearing for the film. Stevens pushes on the melodrama boundaries and nearly breaks through in the second half, but he always relieves the genre pressure–read: retreats into genre–and he relies on Newman’s music to pull things back. Newman’s music blows the potential of some great shots, some great moments in performances.

Because, in melodrama, Stevens and his screenwriters and the film in general can get away with making Lombard the martyr. She doesn’t need to have a character as much as reject having one. She can become holy without too much trouble. Making her an actual character–she has less personality than everyone in the film–in a film about nurses suffering through terrible conditions for their patients, horny rich men after them, mercenary wealthy women exploiting them, the concepts of sibling responsibility and accountability, guilt, regret, loneliness, sacrifice. Well, it’d be a lot to do in ninety-six minutes and you’re not going to get the right tears or comeuppance. Stevens isn’t reinventing the wheel, he’s delivering an excellent melodrama.

Lombard’s good in the lead. She doesn’t actually have to do much. Anytime some earthly tragedy befalls her, just before she has to actually react, the film turns her into an angel. Stevens and De Grasse’s evolution of Lombard’s close-ups in Vigil probably warrant some better attention, just in terms of how subtly and gradually Stevens changes the viewer’s understanding of the character. Somewhere in the third act, I realized Lombard wasn’t the protagonist anymore–she was the film’s grounded center, while things ran wild around her.

Anne Shirley’s the most significant wild running thing. She’s the troublesome, callow, well-meaning sister. She’s Lombard’s sacrifice, but she’s actually got the film’s most developed character. It’s melodrama. The more drama a character has, the more development they have too. She’s good. She gets better as the film goes along and she succeeds in the role. It’s an unlikable part and Vigil has a somewhat peculiar structure. Stevens doesn’t worry about narrative transition, so Shirley will drop out of the film then have to come back and play catch up.

Brian Aherne’s solid as Lombard’s love interest. Ethel Griffies is awesome as the matron. Julien Mitchell’s a suitable toad of a horny rich man. Brenda Forbes and Rita Page are fun as Lombard’s sidekicks. Peter Cushing’s kind of disappointing.

Vigil in the Night does a bunch in ninety-six minutes. Stevens’s pacing of the film is exceptional. Lombard’s an awesome lead. The Newman music does hurt it. A better score might’ve done wonders. It’s an ideal melodrama.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by George Stevens; screenplay by Fred Guiol, P.J. Wolfson, and Rowland Leigh, based on the novel by A.J. Cronin; director of photography, Robert De Grasse; edited by Henry Berman; music by Alfred Newman; released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Starring Carole Lombard (Anne Lee), Brian Aherne (Dr. Robert S. Prescott), Anne Shirley (Lucy Lee), Julien Mitchell (Matthew Bowley), Brenda Forbes (Nora Dunn), Rita Page (Glennie), Peter Cushing (Joe Shand), Doris Lloyd (Mrs. Martha Bowley), Emily Fitzroy (Sister Gilson), Helena Grant (Nurse Gregg), and Ethel Griffies (Matron East).

THIS POST IS PART OF THE CAROLE LOMBARD: THE PROFANE ANGEL BLOGATHON HOSTED BY CRYSTAL OF IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD and PHYL OF PHYLLIS LOVES CLASSIC MOVIES.

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The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)

The Grapes of Wrath starts in a darkened neverland. Director Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland create a realer than real Oklahoma for protagonist Henry Fonda to journey across. The locations and sets aren’t as important as how Fonda (and the audience) experience it. It’s actually rather hostile for this beginning. It’s all about Fonda getting settled, not the viewer.

Even though Fonda is the protagonist throughout and the whole show for the first twenty minutes–with John Carradine along to keep him company–Grapes is about Fonda’s family, specifically his relationship with his parents–Jane Darwell’s mom, Russell Simpson is dad.

Slowly–after Fonda does find his family–director Ford broadens the film’s focus. There’re just too many people to stick with him and get the story right. Later, as the third act approaches then arrives, Ford and screenwriter Nunnally Johnson bring the spotlight back to Fonda but gradually fill out even more of the surrounding situations. It’s a wonderful balance.

Fonda and Darwell get the showiest parts–well, except for Carradine who gets even showier–and all three do great work. Ford knows how to shoot them too, with he and Toland going almost for scares at times. For Darwell, Ford occasionally shoots the film like a silent. He’s carefully, brilliantly, all over the place.

Everything about Grapes–directing, photography, editing, writing, acting–is a singular achievement on its own. Each vingette-like scene works perfectly. Put them all together and Grapes of Wrath is a relentless, devastating odyssey.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by John Ford; screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, based on the novel by John Steinbeck; director of photography, Gregg Toland; edited by Robert L. Simpson; music by Alfred Newman; produced by Darryl F. Zanuck; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Henry Fonda (Tom Joad), Jane Darwell (Ma Joad), Charley Grapewin (Grandpa), Dorris Bowdon (Rosasharn), John Carradine (Jim Casy), Russell Simpson (Pa Joad), O.Z. Whitehead (Al), John Qualen (Muley Bates), Eddie Quillan (Connie) and Zeffie Tilbury (Grandma).

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The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)

The Shop Around the Corner has a lot going on in a limited space. It’s not particularly long–under 100 minutes–and it mostly takes place in (or outside) the titular shop. And, while the present action is about six and a half months (there’s a big jump), the back story defines a lot of the characters and backstory.

It also requires the viewer pay a lot of attention to the details in dialogue. Samson Raphaelson’s script–adapted from a play, which accounts for the big jump in time (director Lubitsch beautifully turns act breaks and scene breaks into gentle resets for the viewer with fade outs)–always has a lot of talking and many of the details become important. It’s all so well-written and so well-performed, you get the important details because you don’t want to miss even disposable dialogue.

The film has two leads–James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. They start out equal, but Stewart gets more to do in the second half as his professional story arc (involving their boss, Frank Morgan) becomes very important. The Shop Around the Corner is a romantic comedy, but it’s also a film with a lot of seriousness. Not even the romantic stuff is always happy–or always hopeful. Lubitsch goes out of his way to create a world where dramatic turns can be negative (and inevitable).

The supporting performances are outstanding; Morgan, Felix Bressart and William Tracy are standouts.

Shop is simultaneously quietly and noisily brilliant. It’s wonderful.