Dancing Pirate (1936, Lloyd Corrigan)

Dancing Pirate has multiple awkward points: the omnipresent brownface, the astounding action conclusion (not astounding in a good way), or just the charmless lead performances. The film tells the tale of Bostonian Charles Collins, who—on his way to visit a relation—gets kidnapped and taken aboard a pirate ship. Hence the title.

Collins is a superb dancer and a mediocre but not incompetent singer. Unfortunately, he’s also one of the least charismatic people ever to get a close-up, certainly in a classic Hollywood production. There’s a reason he didn’t become a movie star, and it’s patently obvious from the first shot in the movie. Collins is teaching the waltz to 1820’s Boston society, complete with the lead putting their hand on the follow’s waist, which causes quite a comical stir.

That scene succeeds thanks to the general comedic timing and uncredited Ellen Lowe, a dance student infatuated with Collins (for his dancing, not his acting), rather than her old man husband.

Then Collins has a well-choreographed and well-directed tap number, which gets him some goodwill. It’s like Pirate is saying at least he can dance.

Pretty soon, he’s kidnapped and aboard the pirate ship, which sails down under South America and up to California, which is still a Spanish colony. They couldn’t take the Panama Canal because too early for it too.

When the pirates go ashore for water, Collins sees his opportunity to escape.

Intercut with the pirates’ arrival is the reaction of the nearby residents. They’re freaking out because they have nowhere to go, and they’re assuming a full invasion. The film immediately introduces Luis Alberni as the “voice” of the people. He’s great. He sort of disappears in the second half, but he’s excellent when he’s around. He’s also from Catalonia, the closest the main cast is getting to Spanish.

Alberni leads people to the mayor’s house, where they have to wake him up. Frank Morgan plays the mayor. Frank Morgan is not Mexican or Spanish but doesn’t wear brownface, so it’s hard to fault him. He’s fun. While he’s not great, primarily because of the script, he’s often a lot of fun.

One thing leads to another and the only pirate coming to invade turns out to be Collins, who thinks he’s just escaping. Luckily for him, the mayor’s beautiful daughter (Hungarian Steffi Duna) wants dancing lessons, even if they’re from a pirate.

There’s a lot of action, a couple big synchronized dance numbers, and a fair amount of comedy. Collins will eventually end up in a love triangle with Duna and Victor Varconi (also Hungarian and wearing brownface). Varconi’s a military official out of Monterey who shows up unexpectedly and messes up Collins’s hopes for escape. Though the townsfolk aren’t too sure about Collins, Varconi’s presence may keep him alive depending on the circumstances.

Besides Collins being a charisma vacuum, Duna has a similar effect. She’s got more presence than Collins, but mostly in comparison. It’s also not a very good part. Pirate’s got a slight screenplay and a short runtime (eighty-ish minutes). The film constantly leverages the comedy, either with Morgan or Alberni, to move things along. And it almost always succeeds thanks to them.

The film’s early Technicolor—with gorgeous photography from William V. Skall—but director Corrigan stages the big dance numbers at night, shot day-for-night, and so all the costume colors are muted. They’re missed opportunities.

Corrigan’s not great with the actors. They do better when they don’t need direction, like Morgan, Alberni, and, to some extent, Varconi.

Technically, there’s not much notable other than Skall’s color photography. Archie Marshek’s editing is bad, but in a way to suggest there aren’t better shots, especially not for the Collins close-ups. The music—uncredited Alfred Newman—is also disappointing. He uses Yankee Doodle Dandy as Collins’s theme, which makes the cultural appropriation, brownface, white savior smorgasbord of an action finale even trippier—but it’s also just not a good theme. It doesn’t time well for how Collins moves.

Still, Pirate’s more successful than not; Collins isn’t unlikeable in his badness, while Duna’s certainly sympathetic. Then the supporting cast is all fine. It’s incredible how far a picture can get on great color, good dancing, and solid jokes.

The Great Ziegfeld (1936, Robert Z. Leonard)

Second-billed Myrna Loy shows up in The Great Ziegfeld at around the two-hour mark. The film runs three hours. The about a half-hour of it is musical numbers; they’re presumably recreations of the actual Ziegfeld stage productions, but even without having read the Wikipedia article first, it’s obvious Ziegfeld’s a glorifying tribute. Loy’s most significant scene is when she—playing stage, film, and radio star Billie Burke—tells husband Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (played by William Powell) she’s okay with him cheating on her to get his mojo back. The way Loy sees it, Powell needs to cat around with his showgirls to make a show a hit. Unlike Powell’s other ingenues in the film, he’s not trying to star-make Loy; she knows the showbiz score. At least when it comes to brilliant men.

Of course, even with Hayes Code constraints, Ziegfeld goes out of its way to show Powell as a better husband than his wives realize. First wife Luise Rainer is the protagonist in the first half of the picture and gets so shafted in the second we don’t even find out she died, spending her life after leaving Powell miserably pining for him. He was supposed to run back to her, and we see him start that process, then the film cuts ahead. The film successfully obfuscates the actual couple’s common-law marriage and then their common-law divorce. It also drops the most important mistress, instead turning Virginia Bruce’s pursuit of Powell into a drunken jealousy (of Rainer) arc for Bruce. Powell’s just a hapless victim; Bruce kisses him once, Rainer sees it, leaves him. In the dialogue, Powell explains he’s just got to keep the girls happy, and sometimes the only way is for them to drunkenly maul him.

He had been grooming Bruce earlier, but it could’ve very well just been for stardom.

Because for Powell to get really excited about a woman, he’s got to steal her from best friend, alter ego, and rival Frank Morgan. They start together at the Chicago’s World’s Fair, with Morgan hawking Egyptian bellydancers and Powell trying to play it straight with strongman Nat Pendleton. Once some horny bored housewife notices Pendleton’s pecs, however, Powell realizes he’s got some premium beefcake to sell, and he starts making it big.

Even though selling beef—literally what Powell’s disappointed musical teacher dad Joseph Cawthorn says to him—isn’t what Powell wants to do with his life long-term, he does realize if he sells cheesecake, he can make a fortune. Not just chorus girls, but glamorous chorus girls, ostensibly the average American girl (so many of them look exactly the same; it’s quickly uncanny). There are never any casting sessions—other than Powell proving his fidelity to the audience and resisting nubile Jean Chatburn–and there’s little insight into Ziegfeld’s actual creative process. Director Leonard only seems interested in the musical numbers, not even feigning interest in the characters.

Outside Rainer for the first half.

Heck, the movie even fudges the ending, even though the film came out only three years after the story ends. Nothing matters as much as the musical numbers.

There’s an impressively mounted one with a giant staircase. But it’s impressive as a technical feat, not because Leonard all of a sudden gets better at directing the numbers. Then there’s a great Harriet Hoctor ballet number. Oh, and Fanny Brice (as herself) is all right. Though it sort of douses her in misogyny. The film’s wading in it—and with a delayed bit of racism thrown in too—but Ziegfeld’s intentionally cruel to Brice and leans in on it. Everyone must suffer for the Ziegfeld genius.

Powell’s fine. It’s a very flat part, but he’s likable. Loy’s okay. It’s an extended cameo, and they should’ve created the unbilled major supporting role with Ziegfeld. Plus, she gets a crap part. Not crappier than Rainer, obviously, because Ziegfeld tosses Rainer for Bruce, but then it turns out it isn’t actually promoting Bruce. It’s just getting rid of Rainer.

Oh, the Ray Bolger number is good.

A.A. Trimble is a lousy Will Rogers.

Morgan’s easily the best performance, but it’s also the least complicated role.

Incredible photography from Oliver T. Marsh, George J. Folsey, Karl Freund, Merritt B. Gerstad, and Ray June. Sometimes bad editing from William S. Gray; some of it is lacking coverage or just weak direction from Leonard, but not all of it.

Subtracting out the musical numbers, Great Ziegfeld’s a middling, lengthy studio programmer with some good stars. With the musical numbers… it’s the same, just with unimaginatively presented, grandiose musical numbers. While they don’t add anything to the film, they would look great on the big screen.

The Emperor’s Candlesticks (1937, George Fitzmaurice)

The Emperor’s Candlesticks starts with an exceptional display of chemistry from Robert Young and Maureen O’Sullivan. They’re at the opera, it’s the late nineteenth century, it’s a masked costume ball, Young is a Grand Duke dressed as Romeo, and O’Sullivan is the sun.

Then it turns out O’Sullivan is working with a bunch of Polish nationalists who want to kidnap Young and ransom him for a political prisoner getting a pardon from the Czar (Young’s dad). Young and O’Sullivan aren’t the leads of the picture, the leads of the picture are William Powell and Luise Rainer. Powell’s an ostensibly apolitical Polish noble who’s more interested in philandering than revolting, Rainer’s a Russian noble who’s a professional spy. So Powell gets the mission to bring Young’s letter to the Czar and get the prisoner freed. Simultaneously, Rainer’s compatriots have discovered Powell’s actually a spy too. So she’s charged with bringing evidence of his treachery to St. Petersburg.

They both have a mutual acquaintance in Henry Stephenson, who wants Powell to take a pair of candlesticks to a Russian princess Stephenson is courting. The candlesticks have this awesome hidden compartment and Powell’s more than happy to do Stephenson the favor, since the hidden compartment is perfect for the letter he’s got to transport.

Powell gets ahead of himself and puts the note in before taking possession of the candlesticks, which Stephenson wants to have delivered to Powell at the train station. Seems like everything’s going to be fine, until—just missing Powell—Rainer pays Stephenson a visit and he can’t resist showing her the hidden compartment either. Powell’s worried about getting his document into Russia, Rainer’s worried about getting her documents out of Poland. It doesn’t take much for Rainer to charm Stephenson into letting her deliver the candlesticks to his lady friend. Rainer puts her documents in the other candlestick; they’re distinguished by some slight damage.

So there’s already the trouble—for Powell—of catching up to Rainer and getting at the candlesticks. But then there’s Bernadine Hayes, Rainer’s maid, who’s let thief Donald Kirke talk her into robbing her mistress of her jewelry… and her candlesticks. So then there’s going to be trouble for everyone, leading to a sometimes joint effort from Powell and Rainer, sometimes separate, across the continent. Powell’s mission has a timeline (the prisoner’s execution is set and, therefore, Young’s is as well).

Powell and Rainer falling in love doesn’t help things, especially for her, since she knows about her mission and its repercussions for Powell (he’ll be arrested, then shot by firing squad), while Powell is just trying to make sure neither the prisoner or the Grand Duke run out of time.

Powell and Rainer falling for each other pretty early, which works out well because they’ve got to bring enough chemistry to overshadow the memory of Young and O’Sullivan’s at the beginning. They do, with Rainer doing the heavier lifting as she’s falling for a man she’s condemning, but the film’s got to keep that angle pretty light—Powell’s whole persona in the picture is based on him not acting at all like a secret agent, but a playboy, including when he’s hustling to get the candlesticks. He’s doing it—he tells Rainer—because as a gentleman he should be aiding a lady in distress. Little does he know he’s causing Rainer a great deal more distress than she anticipated.

With the exception of Frank Morgan’s out-of-place introduction (he’s Young’s sidekick, in and out of captivity), Candlesticks is a joyous. Powell and Rainer are wonderful, O’Sullivan and Young are great, Stephenson’s fun. Morgan’s a little much but not enough to hurt the experience. And Morgan’s fine, he just takes up time Young could be spending with O’Sullivan.

Fitzmaurice’s direction is good. Every once in a while Candlesticks will go to second unit exteriors, which gives it a nice scale. With the exception of a (second unit-fueled) montage sequence, Conrad A. Nervig’s editing is poor. Lots of harsh cuts, a handful of severe jump cuts. Some of it is lack of coverage, but Nervig doesn’t have a good rhythm. Luckily the actors are so good and the Harold Goldman and Monckton Hoffe script is so strong, Nervig’s rough editing doesn’t do much damage. It’s occasionally grating.

Otherwise, the film’s technically solid.

Thanks to Powell and Rainer (and Young and O’Sullivan), The Emperor’s Candlesticks is a constant delight.

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.