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.

Lured (1947, Douglas Sirk)

If Lured had gone just a little bit differently, it could’ve kicked off a franchise for Lucille Ball and George Sanders. He’s the high society snob, she’s the New York girl in London, they solve mysteries. But Lured isn’t their detective story; it’s Charles Coburn’s detective story, they’re just the guest stars. Coburn’s a Scotland Yard inspector who has all the latest science—there’s a time-killing typewritten letter analysis sequence at beginning—but isn’t any closer to finding a probable serial killer. Even though the police haven’t found any bodies, they’ve gotten corresponding missing persons from right when they get these creepy poems sent into them.

Ball comes into the story because she’s friends with the latest victim. She and the friend were taxi dancers (Ball had come to London in a show, it closed almost immediately), but the friend was going off with some guy she met in the personals. Coburn—in an adorable and out-of-place (Lured’s got a certain light tone to the danger, but it’s not established by then) scene—recruits Ball to the police force to work undercover as bait. Because if you’re going to buy into Georgian Charles Coburn as a Scotland Yard inspector, you’re going to buy him recruiting Ball to be bait. And of course Ball is going to go for it because she’s scrappy.

So the movie’s gone from Coburn to Ball. Top-billed George Sanders has been introduced separately, as a nightclub owner and professional cad who’s taken a liking to scrappy Ball. Sight unseen. The scrappiness. Sanders has some truly adorable moments in the film, which unfortunately don’t last, but when he moons over Ball’s voice to business partner and best pal Cedric Hardwicke, it’s fantastic. Especially since when Ball and Sanders finally do get together, they’re great. They run out of moments way too quickly, as the film then shifts—middle of the second act—back to Coburn and the police investigation. Both Sanders and Ball almost entirely disappear from the action—even if it makes sense for Sanders, it makes zero sense for Ball (especially since the shift comes right after she’s ostensibly in grave danger)—and instead its cat and mouse between Coburn and his prime suspect. Lured has a protracted scene confirming the audience’s suspicions with Coburn’s. Even though Coburn’s always likable, he’s not really able to carry full scenes on his own. Having Ball come into the movie and give him someone to play off, then the scenes work, because there’s enough energy. But when he’s having wordy showdowns? Eh. It’s like Lured’s already forgotten its had Boris Karloff in a wonderfully goofy (but still dangerous) sequence. Like director Sirk and screenwriter Leo Rosten didn’t know how to pace out their action set pieces. They have all the energetic ones early, with the finales being a little too perfunctory.

It still works out pretty well because Ball’s great, Sanders is great, Coburn’s always likable, and Sirk and his crew do some fine work. The Michel Michelet score often tries to do a little too much, but it’s a fine score. It wouldn’t be doing too much if Sirk hadn’t left too much room. The storytelling is sporadic and needs a cohesive narrative tone to compensate, something to give the de facto vignettes… some, I don’t know, rhythm. Sirk doesn’t have any tonal rhythm. So the music fills in and sometimes a little too loudly.

Great photography from William H. Daniels.

Many of the performances are outstanding. Ball, Sanders, Karloff; George Zucco as Ball’s guardian angel and a recurring narrative element Sirk also doesn’t do quite right. Joseph Calleia, Alan Mowbray; they’re both good with potential for more (but not in it enough). Coburn’s good. Hardwicke’s all right but the part’s not great. With Coburn and Hardwicke, for different reasons, maybe the problem is the script. Or, just with Coburn, maybe the problem is he’s kind of stunt casting only without there being any followthrough. For Lured to excel, it either needed great performances in Coburn and Hardwicke’s parts or it needed to emphasize Ball and Sanders’s chemistry. It does neither.

Instead, it’s a near success, with some great acting and some excellent filmmaking.