Tag: Alan Hale

The Scarlet Letter (1934, Robert G. Vignola)

The Scarlet Letter’s opening title card explains while the Puritan customs might be atrocious to modern eyes, “they were a necessity of the times and helped shape the destiny of a nation.” Not on board with the former, but it’s definitely accurate for the latter. Especially since this version of Letter is about a white man avoiding taking any responsibility for himself until the last possible moment and being a martyr. However, given the third act positions Hardie Albright’s reverend as the protagonist—how could it be about anyone but him, after all, certainly not the woman he canoodled with (Colleen Moore) or their child, born out of wedlock (Cora Sue Collins).

But then the first couple acts were basically all about Henry B. Walthall coming back after two years of being presumed dead to find his wife, Moore, a recent mother. Walthall shows up with a Native American guide (Iron Eyes Cody, but don’t think it’s woke; he was Italian and changed his name) and quickly discovers Moore’s story. It’s the first or second thing everyone’s talking about. They’re going to watch Moore get her scarlet letter while holding her newborn as everyone—including Albright—begs her to reveal the father’s identity. Walthall watches, now significantly invested himself, but Moore refuses. She’s going to carry the burden for both of them.

Moore has subsequent scenes with Albright—confirming he’s the daddy—and Walthall, who reveals his return to life to Moore and pledges vengeance against this unknown baby daddy. He makes her promise not to tell anyone he’s really her husband (he’s taken on a silly name new identity).

Jump ahead five years, and now the baby is Collins, who’s just the age she’s starting to notice the other kids are shitty to her. Meanwhile, the other adults are shitty to Moore. Much of the second act consists of the village ladies shit-talking her, which may pass Bechdel at times (though their God is definitely a dude, so maybe not). That material’s no good. What’s good is Walthall.

Despite Cody—nope, sorry, despite Espera DeCorti—apparently sticking with Walthall the entire time, we don’t get to see him again until the end of the movie for the big finale. He’s just a face in the crowd. Now, Letter’s very low budget—the production design is an incredible mishmash of styles and time periods—so they likely just filmed their crowd scenes together. But still. I spent most of the movie just waiting for the awful way DeCorti would return.

Anyway.

Walthall.

Walthall has become the beloved town doctor and Albright’s best friend. He’s in Moore’s orbit because Moore is a saint who cares for the sick women who’d previously been cursing her. Moore’s got no character arc. She exists to serve Walthall or Albright, but most of her scenes are with Collins for a while, and very little comes from them. Even when Moore’s fighting the town bullies—intellectually—the movie’s careful never to lionize her. Scarlet Letter is a bewildering story to try to tell under the new-at-the-time Hayes Code, and the result is about what one would expect.

Though not Walthall’s Machiavellian plan to ferret out his cuckolder and ruin the man’s life. If he’s got to kill some kids along the way….

Walthall gives a malevolent, deeply disturbing, cruel performance. He’s awesome.

Albright’s not good. He’s also not sympathetic. He needed to be one of them.

Moore’s pretty good, considering, but rarely unqualified. It’s a poorly written part, and director Vignola has no time (or ability) for directing actors.

So then the better performances come from the film’s only running subplot—buddies Alan Hale and William Kent. Hale’s the handyman; Kent’s a… something or other. Doesn’t matter. Kent’s courting Virginia Howell, who’s Moore’s primary detractor, and Albright and Walthall’s landlady, except Kent’s a nebbish and Hale’s a whole lot of man. So Hale and Kent have this series of comedy sequences involving it. Hale’s really good. Kent’s funny. Howell’s a lot better in those parts than when she’s slinging shit at Moore.

Technically, nothing stands out. Leonard Fields and David Silverstein’s script does have some occasionally impressive olde time dialogue—usually for Hale and Kent—where they get to flex for entertainment purposes and not so Moore can wax on about how hard it must be for someone else to have to know she’s in this position and occasionally see her on the street.

But, given the numerous, significant constraints, it could’ve been a whole lot worse. And the scene where Collins tells someone on their planet, Moore’s “A” might be a letter, but on her planet, it stands for “Mommy’s the Best,” is pretty awesome and gives a peek into a better version of the film.

The Last Days of Pompeii (1935, Ernest B. Schoedsack)

The Last Days of Pompeii opens with a disclaimer. Despite sharing a title, it is not based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1834 novel. That disclaimer should be read as a warning.

The film runs ninety-six minutes. The last days of Pompeii are the third act; the first two acts… wait, no. The timeline doesn’t even work internally. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, but when lead Preston Foster doesn’t give his life trying to free Jesus from the cross on the way to Golgotha, it’s 33 AD. Oh, sorry, spoiler. Last Days of Pompeii is not an exciting disaster movie; it’s a jejune Christian movie about how selfish dipshit jock Foster finds Jesus but not really.

Anyway.

In 33 AD, Foster’s got a nine-year-old adopted son—played by David Holt. It’s Foster’s second try at fatherhood; the first time, his selfishness and stupidity got his wife and baby son killed. After their deaths, he became a gladiator, eventually killing Holt’s dad in the ring. So Foster adopts him and strives to provide him with all the money in the world, including taking him to Jerusalem on a business trip. An old lady fortune teller tells Foster to take Holt to see the greatest man in Judea, so he takes Holt to meet Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone).

When the action gets to the Last Days, Holt’s character has grown into John Wood, who’s eighteen years older. Wood’s probably supposed to be playing a teenager, so screenwriter Ruth Rose’s taking the timeline even less seriously than she could.

Wood’s grown to resent his adoptive father’s greed and is trying to help escaped slaves get away from Pompeii. The slaves are headed to the gladiator games, dad Foster runs the games, but Wood knows he can’t tell his dad to stop being terrible. Even though they both met Jesus once, Foster has been trying to gaslight Wood into forgetting ever since.

The scary part of Foster’s performance is his angry old man, complete with makeup, is his best work in the movie. He’s lousy when he’s the greasy stud in the first act. He’s not the worst, but he’s bad. He slightly improves in the second act, when Pompeii introduces the real master of Judea, wink wink (not on screen, rather the Marsellus Wallace suitcase device), but only barely. Maybe the improvement is the lack of a greased-up chest.

Along the way, Foster buys a family slave, Wyrley Birch, who’s supposed to be a tutor but never tutors. Instead, Birch plays butler for Foster and sounding board for Wood. Birch seems like he’s always going to be better, but the movie never gives him anything to do.

Besides Rathbone alternating between sincere in his Christian movie performance and visibly restraining himself from chewing up the scenery, the most amusing thing about the film is spotting the character actors in the supporting cast. What other movie’s got Ward Bond as a gladiator (uncredited, which is weird because it’s a reasonably prominent role), Edward Van Sloan, Louis Calhern, Frank Conroy, and Jason Robards Sr. hacking it up in a costume drama. Plus a cameo from Jim Thorpe — All-American!

Unfortunately, the occasional appearance of a familiar character actor isn’t enough to keep the film going. Especially since none of them recur enough to matter. Alan Hale, but he’s second-billed and just not bad like Foster. Hale and some of the character actors can overcome the script, Foster cannot. Neither can Wood, unfortunately. Though he does better than his love interest, Dorothy Wilson. Pompeii’s got no time for ladies; they’re one kind of fodder or another, chariot or class.

Obviously, if the script were better, who knows. Director Schoedsack’s similarly unenthused, going from one rote setup to the next. He doesn’t even put any energy into the early gladiator fights, instead waiting for the finale when there’s much less time–though for a while, I wondered if they were going to skip the eruption altogether. The amphitheater in the finale’s much more elaborate than in the first act; maybe they weren’t done building it.

Most of Pompeii is just backlot street shots with questionable architecture. There’s not much special effects work outside some composite establishing shots. Unfortunately, the finale’s nowhere near enough to make up for it.

There’s more to say about Pompeii, especially the film’s presentation of slavery, but there’s not much reason to say it. It’s atrocious from the start, with some good but not good enough special effects at the very end.

Presumably, the Bulwer-Lytton novel has to have a better story, but I’ve got no inclination to find out.

This post is part of the Second “Disaster” Blog-A-Thon hosted by J-Dub of Dubsism and Gabriela of Pale Writer.

Of Human Bondage (1934, John Cromwell)

The best performance in Of Human Bondage is Frances Dee; despite doing a lot of close-up one-shots with the actors staring directly into the camera, the only time director Cromwell ever gives one anything to do is Dee. She’s mooning over Leslie Howard, which just draws attention to how little Howard mooned over anyone in his previous close-up one-shots. And since Bondage is all about how Howard’s “bound” to Bette Davis, it’d have helped if he’d done some mooning. Instead, at best, he seethes in his close-ups, jealous Davis is giving all the other fellows the attention he apparently craves.

“Apparently” because his attraction to Davis never makes any sense, other than wanting to force her into social situations where she’s subservient to him. The film opens with Howard in Paris, having studied for years to be a painter only to turn out to not be a great one, just a mediocre one. So instead he goes to medical school. Presumably even as a mediocre painter he’s got the fine motor required for surgery.

Other than his professor making Howard exhibit his club-foot for the class, he seems to be doing all right until he meets Davis. “Seems” because there’s nothing the film avoids like providing any character development for Howard outside his pursuing Davis’s affections.

Howard’s got two pals in medical school—Reginald Denny, the class Casanova, and Reginald Sheffield, the filler first act sidekick. Sheffield’s got a crush on Davis and brings Howard along to tell her jokes. All of Howard’s jokes are at Davis’s expense, which shockingly doesn’t endear the two men to her. She’s far more comfortable with flirtatious businessman Alan Hale.

The film soon establishes a pattern, which it’ll keep going through the entire (quite lengthy) eighty minute runtime. Howard will be jealous of Davis and some other dude, Howard will go on a date with Davis, Davis will throw him over for the other dude, Howard will vow never to see her again, Davis will return to Howard once the other dude throws her over. The movie goes out of its way to call it “human bondage,” this relationship between the two, but since Howard’s so stone-faced and the script’s so muted, we never get much insight into his actual feelings. In the salad days we do get some misguided dream sequences, which also reveal Howard wishes he didn’t have the club-foot.

There are some pseudo-character developing romantic misadventures with other women for Howard. Kay Johnson gets a crap part as his first rebound and then Dee. There’s very little development with Dee, who’s mostly in the film as at home waitress to father Reginald Owen. Owen’s one of the patients on Howard’s rounds and they take a liking to one another; Owen’s an old fashioned, fallen on hard times blue blood, who lives in squalor with his family—nine children and counting. Owen’s old fashioned values extend to keeping women barefoot and pregnant, promising Howard that kind of service if he’ll marry Dee away. Only Dee’s too young for Howard. Presumably. There’s a line about it, but given Howard’s got no chemistry with Dee past their flirtatious first scene, it seems like a throwaway not a major plot thread running through the montage heavy third act. The third act takes place over years, with maybe four full scenes and everything else in montage. Director Cromwell’s got some great techniques, which don’t accomplish very much, but he and editor William Morgan’s montage work is not one of those great techniques. They’re tiresome admissions the film has become too tiresome to sustain actual scenes.

It’s a surrender.

Davis is all right. It’s a crappy part, with her character intentionally portrayed in the worst possible light—she’s full caricature in Lester Cohen’s screenplay, every time, even in Howard’s dreams. Howard is barely middling. He’s more vapid than bland—at one point Davis asks him for medical advice and it seems unlikely anyone should trust his doctoring. Dee’s fine. She also doesn’t get a good part. Denny’s good, Hale’s good, Johnson’s fine (and deserves better from the film); Owen’s blah, so it’s good he’s barely in the thing.

For the first third of the film, it seems like Cromwell’s directing might carry the thing, but Bondage never adds up. The messy third act failure seems more inevitable the longer it plays.

The Strawberry Blonde (1941, Raoul Walsh)

The Strawberry Blonde is a period piece within a period piece. It opens in the past, then there’s a flashback to the further past. It recalls a time when WASPs couldn’t figure out how to eat spaghetti and the political corruption machine was easier to crack. Director Walsh is very enthusiastic about the time period and setting (turn of the century New York); almost distractingly so.

The film opens with working men James Cagney and George Tobias hanging out on a Sunday, getting into a tiff with some lounging college folks across the fence, while Cagney tries to put off having to take wife Olivia de Havilland for their weekly walk. There’s a lengthy exposition dump about how Cagney’s ended up in his current situation and how it’s the fault of someone they used to know.

And just who should call for an emergency Sunday dental appointment (Cagney’s a dentist, Blonde is set in the mail correspondence course era of dental schools) but that someone (Jack Carson, but we haven’t met him yet).

While the script—Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein—is very snappy with the dialogue, including bringing up the coincidental nature of it all, it doesn’t bother trying to get around Cagney telling the story to someone who already knows it; we’ll find out Tobias was there for all of it. So then, the film drops into a further flashback, ten years before.

And it opens on Cagney’s dad, Alan Hale, having adventures without Cagney witnessing them. Hale sees himself as the neighborhood Casanova, romancing the housewives while the husbands are out. Strawberry Blonde makes sure everyone gets at least one really good, really solid scene—they rarely overlap between actors—but pretty much everything Hale gets is gold. When Hale disappears in the second act so Cagney can get into his perceived love triangle, the film feels the loss—and it’s on the film; Walsh’s showcasing of Hale’s comedic abilities doesn’t affect the narrative at all, it’s just because Hale’s great at the physical comedy.

All the guys in the neighborhood have a crush on Rita Hayworth, but none of them have the courage to talk to her… not until Carson has the excuse of selling charity tickets. Of course, the tickets are a scam but it doesn’t matter (there’s a dropped subplot about Cagney selling tickets for Carson, which gives them an excuse to hang out together but doesn’t factor in otherwise). Hayworth takes to Carson, dropping a hint about where he can meet her without a formal introduction, only they’re going to have to bring friends to keep it proper. He brings Cagney, she brings de Havilland.

There’s an obvious age difference between Cagney and de Havilland, which ends up really helping the relationship, even though a lot of his problem is he’s just a cocky jerk. He’s got a good heart in there somewhere, which de Havilland recognizes right away, when she’s busy trying to convince him she’s wise beyond her years and a suffragette activist to boot. Cagney doesn’t go in for that kind of progress and would prefer a girl like Hayworth. Specifically Hayworth.

The second act is Cagney’s pursuing Hayworth while de Havilland and Carson hang around on the sidelines. While most of the film is Cagney against type—he’s always getting beat up—the plot eventually does at least appear like a more predicted Cagney one; the third act introduces and resolves that drama, then there’s the return to the (still period) present for the wrap-up. There are additional flashback tiers; there’s a skip ahead a couple years from the earliest flashback, then another five years (so the final flashback scene is three-ish years before the present).

Walsh and the Brothers Epstein do a fantastic job keeping the plot moving, which isn’t always easy since Cagney’s frequently making a fool of himself.

Performance-wise, de Havilland is the obvious winner. She only gets a couple big scenes and she’s magnificent; from the start, the film’s got a sort of peculiar relationship with the comedy because Cagney can’t do it as well as Hale or Tobias. When Cagney’s watching Hale, waiting for his line, you can see the excitement on his face, getting to work opposite the more comically inclined Hale. But when de Havilland shows up, she immediately gets how to do the comedy. In a few minutes she’s able to elevate the entire project.

Cagney’s good. There’s not really the opportunity for anything great and he doesn’t create one, but he’s good. After all the work he does for comedy’s sake, when he finally does get his spotlight scenes, they’re just riffs on gangster melodrama.

Hayworth gets a phenomenal scene and the biggest character arc, but she seems underutilized. Though it wouldn’t be Cagney’s movie if it were actually about The Strawberry Blonde. It also wouldn’t be a comedy.

Carson’s good; kind of broad, but he makes it work.

Hale’s great.

Excellent use of songs, great sets and costumes, good or great direction from Walsh—there do seem to be some strange film stock issues going on, where cinematographer James Wong Howe just isn’t able to match lighting between shots, but it seems like it’s got to be something other than him.

The Strawberry Blonde’s a fun vehicle for Cagney and an exquisite showcase for de Havilland’s comedic chops (when she gets to show them). It’s forties studio comedy done right.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley)

The Adventures of Robin Hood gets by on a lot of charm. Charm and costuming (good and bad). The film opens with title cards setting the scene. Sherwood Forest, evil King’s brother, righteous nobel, beautiful damsel, insidious villain, and Technicolor tights–Claude Rains looking like a Little Lord Fauntleroy grew up and broke bad.

Rains, with sidekicks Basil Rathbone, Melville Cooper, and Montagu Love, isn’t a terrible villain. When there’s first act banter between Rains and Flynn, it seems like Rains is going to be a great one. It’s like Rains is buying into the pomposity of the production. Maybe it’s when Keighley is still directing the film, maybe it’s Curtiz. They didn’t work together; the studio canned Keighley for weak action scenes.

And action scenes are Robin Hood’s weakness. Neither Curtiz or Keighley has much of a handle on them. There’s almost a discomfort around the castle sets, like neither director knows how he wants to shoot the exteriors. There are some decent moments on the outdoor castle and village set, but not many. Robin Hood’s best directorial moments are indoors. Even the problematic ones; one of the directors has some real issues with framing the grandiose castle interiors, like he’s going for something and it just doesn’t translate.

Olivia de Havilland’s condemned Maid Marian, tinily waiting her sentence, is a somewhat effective moment, but it’s not a style the directors use in the rest of the film. Just for inside the castle for a bit in the second half of the film, specifically as the second act winds down. de Havilland’s gowns are always exquisite–quite the opposite of the men in tights–and the shots sort of showcase them, but her performance during her bigger character moments could’ve been shot a lot better.

There’s also Ralph Dawson’s editing.

But the problem is the script more than anything else. Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller string together some introductions to familiar Robin Hood supporting cast through the first act–while setting up Rains’s villainry–and that first act is pretty much the most Flynn gets to do in the film actingwise. He and de Havilland flirt wonderfully through the rest of the film, but it’s all easy stuff. And then in the second act, de Havilland gets a lot more to do, only to lose it all for the third act. Third act is a mostly even split between Flynn and Rains, along with the deus ex machina sauntering around, but it’s not a return to the first act.

Robin Hood has a lot of (tighted) buts to it. Basil Rathbone’s an effective strong man villain, but he has no character and Rathbone doesn’t bring one to it. He just sweats well during the sword fights. Same goes for the Merry Men. Patric Knowles gets top billing despite having nothing to do. He’s purely functional. At least Eugene Pallette and Alan Hale eventually bicker, though it comes out of nowhere.

The best parts of the supporting cast are this underdeveloped, but frequently utilized, romance between Flynn’s “squire” Herbert Mundin and de Havilland’s lady-in-waiting Una O’Connor. And Melville Cooper’s cowardly Nottingham Sheriff is eventually funny, just because the script doesn’t forget about the joke. Cooper’s character gets a singular consistency and he does well with it.

Shame Rains doesn’t have a similar success.

Beautiful Technicolor cinematography from Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito. Omnipresent and overbearing, but still good in parts, score from Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

The Adventures of Robin Hood ought to be better, even though some of the cast does all right.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley; screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller; directors of photography, Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito; edited by Ralph Dawson; music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold; produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Errol Flynn (Robin Hood), Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian), Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy of Gisbourne), Claude Rains (Prince John), Patric Knowles (Will Scarlett), Eugene Pallette (Friar Tuck), Alan Hale (Little John), Melville Cooper (High Sheriff of Nottingham), Una O’Connor (Bess), Herbert Mundin (Much), and Montagu Love (Bishop of the Black Canons).

THIS POST IS PART OF THE SECOND ANNUAL OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND + ERROL FLYNN BLOGATHON HOSTED BY LAURA OF PHYLLIS LOVES CLASSIC MOVIES and CRYSTAL OF IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD.

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It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)

There’s something particularly tragic about It Happened One Night: somehow, Capra and Riskin let it get away from them. It’s possible–likely even–the awkward conclusion was a result of not having access to the stars (Gable and Colbert were both on loan to Columbia), but it doesn’t really matter. Riskin went from a deliberate pace–the majority of the film takes place over three or four nights, these days and nights being the film’s content for the first ninety minutes (I suppose the opening scene is an indeterminate period of time before these days begin, but probably not more than seven hours)–to a rushed one… the third act takes place over a week and takes up about fifteen minutes of time. However, were it not for Riskin’s change in point of view, futzing with the pace wouldn’t matter. The point of view change, combined with the pace (and the lack of the main characters) kneecap It Happened One Night when it needs to be its best.

The point of view in the film is, for the majority of it, excessively brilliant. Capra and Riskin create a masterpiece of realism and humanism, while still making a romantic comedy. The viewer is with Gable and Colbert on the road and Capra films it on location a lot (I think except some interiors) and Riskin writes it real. Watching Gable, who I really love as movie star, actually have such a great script to act–he’s fantastic. His performance is incredibly rich and deep and different from anything else I’ve ever seen him do. Colbert’s great too, with her character forming throughout. Riskin just does an excellent job and Capra knows how to direct the script and then loses itself. It doesn’t even lose the realism as much as it loses the humanism. It loses the realism a bit… Walter Connelly, also great, plays Colbert’s father and he’s a little too Hollywood perfect for the film, especially since he becomes the main character for the last fifteen minutes. I understand why–to create a sense of suspense (It Happened One Night, for worse, seemingly created the romantic comedy model still used today)–but it’s totally inappropriate. When the film loses Gable as the protagonist, it’s essentially lost (never to find itself).

Capra does a great job–his composition is particularly exciting, as he plays with tight spaces and open ones. There’s barely any score and it’s all “natural” sounds, which works beautifully. He creates this usually quiet place for the story to unfold. Again, goes towards the realism.

I’ve only seen the film once before and had the same reaction, due to the misfire of an ending, so I wasn’t enraged (because I knew it was inevitable). But I imagine I’d be livid if it were my first viewing.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Frank Capra; screenplay by Robert Riskin, based on a story by Samuel Hopkins Adams; director of photography, Joseph Walker; edited by Gene Havlick; music by Howard Jackson and Louis Silvers; produced by Capra and Harry Cohn; released by Columbia Picutres.

Starring Clark Gable (Peter Warne), Claudette Colbert (Ellie Andrews), Walter Connolly (Alexander Andrews), Roscoe Karns (Oscar Shapeley), Jameson Thomas (King Westley), Alan Hale (Danker), Arthur Hoyt (Zeke), Blanche Friderici (Zeke’s wife) and Charles C. Wilson (Joe Gordon).

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