Tag: Jack Oakie

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933, Stuart Walker)

The Eagle and the Hawk starts light and ends very heavy. Astoundingly—and appropriately—heavy. Eagle is a WWI flying ace picture, all about a group of British fliers who go to France only to discover war isn’t like playing polo actually.

Right after an inventive segue from opening titles to the present action, the film has a very lumpy first act. Cary Grant has just landed he and Fredric March’s plane upside because he’s a bad pilot and then Jack Oakie comes along to make some jokes. Bogart Rogers and Seton I. Miller’s script is particularly rough in this section, ditto Walker’s direction. There’s also the problem Grant’s not very good and March’s character is real shallow. Oakie’s around with a shallower character, so it works out a little, but not well.

Soon enough, March and Oakie are in France—March having left Grant grounded in England—and they quickly find out people you meet die in war too, not just faceless Germans. Walker is bad at the first act comedy and noticeably better (if still not great) at the drama. A lot of the problem is the script, but then there’s also James Smith’s (uncredited) editing. Sure, Walker probably didn’t give Smith enough coverage–Eagle always feels frustratingly rushed and slightly on the cheap, particularly with the supporting cast—but there are some profoundly bad cuts in the film. It gets to the point you have to predict the jump cuts so you can follow where the actors have moved while still in the middle of the same continuous scene.

March goes through numerous observers—which ought to be a great montage sequence but Walker screws it up in an obvious way (the film ends up implying only March ever loses any observers in combat and yet gets all the medals for them dying)—until there’s no one left in France so they bring in Grant. They’ve got some unresolved hostility to work through, in addition to Grant being a sociopathic bully, but eventually March’s functional alcoholism starts getting dysfunctional and commanding officer Guy Standing has to do something about it.

That something ends up involving a Carole Lombard cameo—the public’s got to have a pretty face—and she’s great but it’s complete filler. Though it does give March another good couple scenes, including meeting bloodthirsty little ghoul kid Douglas Scott and his mother, Virginia Hammond, seemingly realizing toxic masculinity is probably bad.

At its best, Eagle and the Hawk gives March the material he needs to give an exquisite performance. It’s never quite up to snuff—the final monologue needs to be better, even if March knocks it out of the park—thanks to the script and the direction. Walker (or possibly “associate” director Mitchell Leisen) have some occasional great instincts and the sound design is always right and Harry Fischbeck comes through on the photography when tasked… but there’s only so high Eagle can fly with its various albatrosses.

Grant in particular doesn’t help. Even as he improves throughout, it’s a combination of his acting being a tad too inconsistent and Walker not knowing how to direct the film.

And Standing needs to be better if he’s going to be so earnest in his indifference to the loss of human life.

Oh, and Kenneth Howell. Howell’s the new kid whose supposed to be angelic and it’s a fail for multiple reasons, including Howell not being very good. Again, Walker’s no doubt responsible for a lot of it.

But March is good enough alone he almost makes Eagle and the Hawk worth it.

It Happened Tomorrow (1944, René Clair)

At first blush—with the way too obvious exception of Jack Oakie—It Happened Tomorrow seemingly has all the parts needed for success. Seemingly. Dick Powell’s an affable lead; only the role requires no heavy-lifting, which is problematic considering he spends much of the film in one mortal danger or another. Linda Darnell’s an appealing love interest; only she gets less than squat to do in the film. Director Clair does really well with some of the sequences; only other ones he doesn’t. Powell and Darnell are at least consistent—he’s consistently affable and his role consistently requires very little, she’s consistently appealing and she consistently gets treated like scenery. Sometimes inanimate scenery. Clair’s frustratingly back and forth.

Tomorrow has some really saccharine bookends, which Clair and co-screenwriter Dudley Nichols sort of bungle. It goes on way too long, it’s never as cute as Clair seems to think, and it’s just there to manipulate audience expectation. The film then settles into the flashback setting—the late nineteenth century (as embodied by studio backlot) newspaperman Powell has just gotten his big promotion to reporter. He’s written his requisite 500 obituaries, it’s time for the front page. Only he’s nervous about it (and completely blotto); kindly newspaper archivist John Philliber talks fancifully about how if only Powell had tomorrow’s paper, he’d know what he was going to do. Powell doesn’t think much of it and goes out for more drinking, ending up at Oakie and Darnell’s magic show.

It’s love at first sight for Powell and Darnell (well, Powell anyway). Oakie’s her protective uncle, who starts the film with a bad Italian accent, which later disappears without any comment because apparently he’s not actually Italian. It never gets mentioned but it’s also not like you could tell if Oakie was doing a bad sincere Italian accent or a bad insincere one. His performance is abysmal. It must have played different in 1944 because Clair lets him crowd everyone out of his scenes with these protracted deliveries. They never amount to anything. The main plot is Powell and the future newspapers Philliber (who’s not good) ends up giving him, but the ostensible main subplot about Powell and Darnell becomes Powell and Oakie. Once Darnell gets some potential, the film dumps her back into the set dressing category.

At least guys aren’t just ogling her then.

Everyone’s ignoring her. I’m not even sure she’s in some of the shots she’s supposedly in. At one point she doesn’t get to participate in Powell trying to get rich quick because nineteenth century sexism but it’s a movie about magical newspapers so why can’t Clair and Nichols let her into the betting room?

Because there’s not enough room. Because Oakie’s already pushing Powell out.

The first half or so Tomorrow is okay build-up; the second half is constant disappointment.

Edward Brophy has a small part as the betting guy and you wish you could hug him. The film doesn’t have very many wholly successful performances, big parts or small. For example, Edgar Kennedy ought to be great as the police inspector who knows something’s up with Powell and his fortuneteller reporting-style, but it’s—again—a lousy part.

There are a couple great moments in the film. Powell and Darnell’s first date, where they get distracted by their chemistry. And when Darnell’s got to wear one of Powell’s suits. There’s some promise in that scene. Shame Darnell gets downgraded right after it.

The scene where she protests she won’t be treated like anyone’s property then somehow gets treated even worse is foreboding, but even it doesn’t foretell the excessive use of Oakie in the second half.

This post is part of the Made in 1944 Blogathon hosted by Robin of Pop Culture Reverie.

Million Dollar Legs (1932, Edward F. Cline)

Million Dollar Legs is, production-wise, about a year early. It came out in 1932. A year later, another comedy about a goofy European nation, also from Paramount (from the same producer), came out. Duck Soup was a bomb at the time and appreciated later. Million Dollar Legs has a great reputation–apparently did so at the time too; I really can’t understand it.

The film appears to be from the awkward silent-to-sound transition period, but it’s kind of late. There are the title cards, which are supposed to be funny and are not. There’s the lack of an original score, which really hurts it. The lead actors, Jack Oakie and Susan Fleming, are both poor. So poor, I figured they were silent stars who just couldn’t vocally emote, but the years don’t match (at least not for Fleming, but the majority of Oakie’s career was in sound pictures). W.C. Fields does a little bit better, but not much. The script’s just way too stupid.

Even discounting the script’s brevity–Oakie and Fleming fall in love at first sight just to establish them as a couple, instead of having to bother with any character development–the joke’s are just stupid. They’re also sexist and racist. There’s a lot of examples of such humor at the time, but here it’s mean-spirited, instead of just ignorant. But the jokes being unfunny due to intent isn’t even the extent (hey, I rhymed).

No, a major comedic moment relies on the humor of a kid driving a locomotive. Another one is all about arm wrestling. Or the guy who can’t stop sneezing. Or Fields referring to Oakie as “Sweetheart” for the whole thing.

Legs‘s script is a mess–for the first three quarters there’s a cross-eyed spy (get it, he’s cross-eyed, funny, right?) who’s just around. It’s a sight gag, repeated over and over. In a silent, it would probably work. Here it just gets repetitive.

But the movie’s not all bad. It’s mostly bad and then the end comes around and just gets lazy.

Cline’s a bad director, both in terms of composition and how he directs the actors. There’s an absolute lack of scope here (possibly budgetary), but the budget doesn’t account for why Cline’s scenes with actors don’t work. Something about the composition, the actors’ positions, make the whole thing fall flat.

I almost forgot to mention Lyda Roberti. I spent a lot of Million Dollar Legs wishing it was silent. At those times, I was thinking how much better the film would be. When Roberti’s on screen, however, I just figured without hearing her “act,” her performance would only be half as bad… which would still be appalling.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Edward F. Cline; screenplay by Nicholas T. Brown and Henry Myers, based on a story by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; director of photography, Arthur L. Todd; music by Rudolph G. Kopp and John Leipold; produced by Herman J. Mankiewicz; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Jack Oakie (Migg Tweeny), W.C. Fields (The President), Andy Clyde (The Major-Domo), Lyda Roberti (Mata Machree), Susan Fleming (Angela), Ben Turpin (Mysterious Man), Hugh Herbert (Secretary of the Treasury), George Barbier (Mr. Baldwin) and Dickie Moore (Willie).

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