Transatlantic is a pre-code Modern Marvels Melodrama. Set in some fascinating technological, man-made invention or creation, a varied group of characters get together and have some drama. Sometimes there’s a murder, sometimes there’s not. Transatlantic has a murder. Unfortunately, it takes its sweet time getting there too, which gets frustrating; the film doesn’t even run eighty minutes, and it’s got at least fourteen minutes of artistically null montage padding.
I need to specify that montage padding is artistically null because the film’s third act has artistically potent montage padding. Transatlantic’s editing is fascinating; for most of the film’s runtime, it seems like editor Jack Murray and director Howard are doing a lousy job filming the script. Howard can’t direct the script, and Murray can’t cut the dialogue. It’s real obvious; lead Edmund Lowe has a bunch of desperate one-liners to close scenes, and no one can get them right. They’re painful.
Thankfully, even Transatlantic knows not to overuse (too much) a device.
The film’s got exquisite Art Deco production design, and even when Murray’s cuts are obviously between location second unit footage and the sound stage, the film’s visually impressive. Howard never goes too wild with the action set on deck; Transatlantic takes advantage of it only looking like an ocean from the water. Set most of your action in dining halls and staterooms; it’s like you don’t have to be on an ocean liner at all.
After an eight-minute opening boarding montage, the film quickly establishes its cast and their situations. First, there’s kindly old lens grinder Jean Hersholt. He’s European; he came to the United States, worked for years, saving his money, and now he’s taking daughter Lois Moran back to see the Old Countries. He invested his money with banker John Halliday, who’s also on board. Halliday’s traveling with his wife, Myrna Loy (who isn’t, it turns out, young enough to be his granddaughter), but wants to cat around with Swedish dancer Greta Nissen.
Loy knows about Nissen, causing her distress, but she’s also the money in the marriage, so Halliday doesn’t want her going too far.
Finally, there’s Lowe. He’s the Gentleman Thief skipping the States, so he doesn’t have to testify against a pal. He’s not working this trip—when fellow criminal-type Earle Foxe offers him in on a score, Lowe turns him down flat. Lowe takes an interest in Loy’s martial distress (they once knew each other, all very obscure) while also befriending Moran and Hersholt. Especially Moran.
Lowe’s medium charming. If he could deliver his zingers, if Howard could shoot them, if Murray could cut them, he’d be high charming. A compelling performance in Lowe’s part would entirely change Transatlantic, which usually suffers from a lack of performance personality.
Luckily, around the halfway point (in the film, not the voyage), Howard, Murray, and cinematographer James Wong Howe start showing off. There are two Nissen dance performances; the first isn’t any good, the second’s got dynamite shots and cuts. It’s a precursor to the superior third-act action sequence, which has Lowe tracking the bad guy through the ship’s bowels. Gunfights, fisticuffs, chases, all sorts of things. It’s a movie-saving finish.
Lowe’s okay, Loy’s not good, but she’s sympathetic, and Halliday manages to be an effective creep while also not giving a good performance. It’s inconceivable he and Loy are married, but he also can’t sell his hard-partying grandpapa behavior. Moran’s middling, ditto Nissen. Though Moran’s at least got some moments. Nissen does get that good dance scene. Hersholt’s bad.
Billy Bevan plays Lowe’s steward, who can’t stop repeating the same description of ocean liner life. The film hangs on to the bit so long, and through so many unfunny uses, it finally works in the end.
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 most frustrating thing about Lonelyhearts is Donehue’s direction. While not a television production, Donehue directs it like one. He’ll have these shots of star Montgomery Clift baring his soul to girlfriend Dolores Hart and Donehue will stick with Clift, no reaction shot on Hart much less letting her hear the whole thing. Of course, less reaction shots in Lonelyhearts isn’t a bad thing. Donehue shoots them terribly. The first scene has one, while Clift is sitting in a booth with Myrna Loy and Robert Ryan and cuts from the three shot to a medium shot of Clift in his seat… obviously alone at the table. Coverage isn’t Donehue’s strong suit. Nothing is Donehue’s strong suit.
Lonelyhearts is based on a novel and a play, but producer and writer Dore Schary’s screenplay seems to favor the play. Unless the Robert Ryan character spoke in incessant monologue in the novel too. Not to complain about Ryan, who kind of gives the film’s best performance as a cruel newspaper editor who enjoys torturing his discontented staff almost as much as he likes torturing suffering wife Loy. She cheated on him once ten years ago, as a response to his multiple affairs, and has been waiting for him to forgive her since.
Yeah, Lonelyhearts has a lot of misogyny issues, even when it tries not to have them. While Ryan’s not a good guy because his cruelty, Loy’s only sympathetic because so she’s so contrite (and has been for so long).
Ryan gives the best performance throughout–he’s incredibly believable in his cynicism and loathing and self-loathing–and occasionally steals scenes from Clift. Only Ryan and Clift are guaranteed close-ups. They’re not the two top-billed for nothing. But once Clift’s story gets going and he starts collapsing in on himself, once he gets to make that self-loathing Ryan wants to engender in him physical, Clift’s got some great scenes. But he’s also got a somewhat crappy part.
Clift’s a young man with gumption (clearly not playing his thirty-eight years) who gets stuck writing the advice column because Ryan thinks he’s an idealist and Ryan likes breaking idealists. Clift’s also attractive and nice to Loy, so it gives Ryan a chance to be cruel to her about something else. Hart–Clift’s girlfriend and de facto fiancée–is twenty. Clift looks too old for her as the movie starts and he always looks older than her, but once he starts getting broken down, it’s like it takes the years off him.
The first half of the movie is everyone telling Clift he cares too much about the people writing to the advice column. It’s most effective when it’s Hart telling him he’s too empathetic because it just seems like Clift’s life is lose-lose. Then we find out he’s an orphan, then we find out he’s not really an orphan, his dad (Onslow Stevens) is just in jail for killing his mom for she cheating on him. The scene with Clift and Stevens facing off ought to be a lot better. It’s poorly directed and paced, but at that moment Clift looks way too old for the scene, even though Stevens actually is old enough to be his father.
Lonelyhearts has some terribly bland lighting from John Alton. It’s visually tedious, with these occasional moments when–somehow–Donehue manages to hold the shot on Clift or Ryan and get something good. Then it’ll cut away and Alton won’t match the lighting. But still, the actors are there to work. So it’s really unfortunate Loy gets squat and poorly directed squat at that. And it’s even more unfortunate Hart gets the “faithful girlfriend” role, only for Donehue to avoid her during her character development scenes, and her most frequent costars–Frank Overton (two years Clift’s senior) as her dad, Don and Johnny Washbrook as her brothers–give shockingly inept performances. Particularly bad writing for them as well. Schary’s not comfortable with silences, but he also doesn’t write background chatter well.
And the film’s use of sound effects to suggest they’re not shooting on a sound stage or an empty bar set? Inept. If Lonelyhearts were a television production upgraded to feature, it’d have some excuses. But as a feature made with television production standards? It’s got none.
The real drama in the film involves Maureen Stapleton and Frnak Maxwell. She writes to the column, devastated about the state of her marriage to handicapped Maxwell. Clift feels sympathy for her. Ryan says she’s a tramp wife on the make and demands he meet her in person. Things get complicated.
All Lonelyhearts needs is better direction. The script, albeit problematic, is more than passable–it doesn’t seem likely a film of its era would be able to get rid of the undercurrent of passive misogyny, given the subject matter–maybe some awareness of it would be nice. Though Hart getting a reasonable character arc and Clift or Ryan showing some real self-awareness instead of just implied future self-awareness would do a lot too. But Donehue’s direction sinks it.
The film starts low and claws its way up through its stagy production, poor technical efforts, wonky screenplay, all thanks to the cast. Ryan’s outstanding, Clift’s is occasionally but usually excellent. Both Stapleton and Maxwell have great moments; it’s unfortunate higher billed Hart and Loy don’t get the same courtesy.
A real musical score might’ve helped too. Conrad Salinger’s credited with one but it’s beyond sparse.
For having so many problems, Lonelyhearts is a kind of achievement. Acting-wise, anyway.
★★
CREDITS
Directed by Vincent J. Donehue; screenplay by Dore Schary, based on a play by Howard Teichmann and a novel by Nathanael West; director of photography, John Alton; edited by John Faure and Aaron Stell; music by Conrad Salinger; produced by Schary; released by United Artists.
Starring Montgomery Clift (Adam White), Robert Ryan (William Shrike), Myrna Loy (Florence Shrike), Dolores Hart (Justy Sargeant), Maureen Stapleton (Fay Doyle), Frank Maxwell (Pat Doyle), Frank Overton (Mr. Sargeant), Jackie Coogan (Ned Gates), Mike Kellin (Frank Goldsmith), and Onslow Stevens (Mr. Lassiter).
For most of its eighty minute runtime, Petticoat Fever operates entirely on charm and technical competence. The charm of its cast, not the charm of Harold Goodman’s screenplay (from Mark Reed’s play). Robert Montgomery is the sole operator of a wireless station in arctic Canada (save Otto Yamaoka as his Inuit servant; the film’s moderately gross on Yamaoka’s treatment, though that grossness is front-loaded) who unexpectedly has Myrna Loy dropped in his proverbial lap. She’s fiancée to a jackass, adventuring British lord, Reginald Owen, whose plane runs out of fuel near the wireless station. They need to bunk up with Montgomery, who takes one look at Loy and decides his guests can’t leave and that he’s got to seduce Loy.
Of course, Montgomery’s form of seducing is this amiable, infectous goofiness, which Loy can’t help but find endearing. Meanwhile Owen’s oblivious to the depth of Montgomery’s intentions and his determination to see them through; Owen’s also oblivious to Loy’s reception of said intentions, which isn’t a surprise. Owen’s a complete jackass. Though there is a bit of a first act faux pas when Loy, who’s cynical in her reasons for marrying Owen but not hostilely so, initiates some physical affection, which serves to inform the viewer of their relationship status. Despite the script’s mediocrity, it’s one of Goldman’s only actual obvious narrative missteps. It sets Loy’s character development back five or ten minutes; the movie’s eighty, she doesn’t show up until ten plus in; the time can’t be wasted.
Of course, the audience already knows Montgomery also has a fiancée, he just doesn’t know she (Winifred Shotter) still considers him her fiancé. The film opens with Shotter iced in on a ship on her way to finally join Montgomery, two years later than she’d promised him. That opening bookend, which also has this great playing checkers via wireless transition from ship to Montgomery’s station, is Shotter’s only scene until the end of the first hour. She comes back at the worse possible time, when the film’s finally got Montgomery and Loy on the same page and Owen a fantastic foil. All that setup and character positioning gets flushed for Shotter, who’s not worth it. Not in terms of performance (she’s fine, but utterly disposable) or narrative.
Because Petticoat is about its stars’ charm, not the supporting cast. Except Owen. It needs Owen. He’s utterly believable as a titled jackass.
With a handful of excursions outdoors to the frozen, snowy landscape–including a cute polar bear–the film takes place in the station. Mostly in the large, open living room. A couple other locations inside the station get introduced in the last twenty-five minutes and it’s sort of a shock. Director Fitzmaurice isn’t interested in showcasing the sets, interior or exterior (the snowy exteriors–but soundstage–look great, Fitzmaurice just doesn’t care); he’s all about the actors. Not directing their performances or figuring out interesting ways to support them through composition, just shooting them delivering their lines and relying on them to convey all the emotion and subtext the film needs to succeed.
And, of course, Montgomery, Loy, and Owen can do it. It just would’ve been nice if Fitzmaurice cared enough to ask more from them.
Montgomery’s immediately likable; no small feat as his first full scene–which is very long–involves being a dipshit to Yamaoka specifically and about Inuit people in general. Once Owen arrives–who’s immediately an amusing jackass–Goldman no longer has to leverage entirely on racist jokes to fill minutes. There are still a few, but nothing like that opening scene. Not even when the two girls Yamaoka affably kidnaps–Bo Ching and Iris Yamaoka (Otto’s sister and, no one caught it apparently, love interest)–show up.
And Loy’s Loy. She’s charming, graceful, and affable. The script gives her almost nothing to do for the first fifty minutes of the film; once it does, Loy handles it beautifully. Then it seems like the movie’s going one way and it’ll give her something to do. Then it doesn’t–the aforementioned failed plot foil–but sort of promises to give Loy an even better thing to do. Then it doesn’t. Despite her being essential to the film’s success, Petticoat Fever dreadfully underutilizes Loy. It’s like it knows Montgomery can carry it, so it doesn’t even try sharing that responsibility.
Basically, the film’s charm sustains it until things start getting better, when that elevation suddenly drops, the charm’s still there for Fever to fall back on. In the last half hour, the film all of a sudden gets potentially better only to end up disappointing, which didn’t seem possible for the first fifty minutes. Fever pretends it’s going to get (very measuredly) ambitious, then doesn’t.
It’d help a lot if Shotter were better. Between Fitzmaurice’s flat direction and Goldman’s flatter script, just being fine isn’t good enough given how important Shotter is to the third act.
Rather nice photography from Ernest Haller. Fredrick Y. Smith’s editing could be a lot better; he doesn’t seem to know how to cut for the comedy. Maybe he was having trouble finding it too. Fitzmaurice tends to mute it.
Petticoat Fever is an entirely affable, entertaining, competently executed comedy. It could’ve been more. And should’ve been, given the principal cast.
★★½
CREDITS
Directed by George Fitzmaurice; screenplay by Harold Goldman, based on the play by Mark Reed; director of photography, Ernest Haller; edited by Fredrick Y. Smith; music by William Axt; produced by Frank Davis; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Starring Robert Montgomery (Dascom Dinsmore), Myrna Loy (Irene Campton), Reginald Owen (Sir James Felton), Otto Yamaoka (Kimo), Winifred Shotter (Clara Wilson), Bo Ching (Big Seal), Iris Yamaoka (Little Seal), and George Hassell (Captain Landry).
If it weren’t for the first half of the film, The Best Years of Our Lives would be a series of vingettes. The film runs almost three hours. Almost exactly the first half is set over two days. The remainder is set over a couple months. Director Wyler and screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood don’t really do much summary in the second half. Subplots run through a series of the vingettes, never all of them–the film’s unequally but definitely split between its three male leads. Wyler and Sherwood reveal develops through attitude and dialogue. Time passes through Dana Andrews’s gradual resignation. Through Harold Russell’s depression. Alternately, I suppose, it also passes through Fredric March and Myrna Loy’s re-familiarization.
The film opens with Andrews, Russell, and March returning from World War II. Dashing Andrews was an Air Force captain, sailor Russell has lost his hands, older guy March was just an Army sergeant. The first ten minutes sets up the characters, their hometown (the fictional, vaguely midwestern Boone City), and the people waiting for them.
The first ten minutes establishes how much of the film is going to be on the actors’ faces. Watching real-life amputee Russell contend with the polite and not polite–among fellow servicemen–dominates. Whatever nervousness Andrews and March are experiencing, they’re always aware of what’s going on with Russell. And they aren’t comfortable. The bond between the three builds with that comfort, which Russell (and Sherwood and Wyler) determinedly demand. Much of the first half of the film is spent examining the three men; both for character development and just plain characters looking at each other. The men are strangers when the film begins, polite ones, but strangers.
Once they arrive home, it gets more complicated. Sure, the trio aren’t looking at each other, but they’re discovering the ground situation. Wyler and Sherwood lay it out for the audience and the characters. All the characters. Best Years focuses on the three men’s return home, but their supporting cast gets a lot of establishing and developing. March’s homecoming to wife Loy and children Teresa Wright and Michael Hall sets up two big subplots and sort of Loy’s character arc. Russell’s return suggests something similiar–he’s got a literal girl next door fiancée (Cathy O’Donnell) waiting for him–but it doesn’t end up being as big. Russell gets less screentime in the second half. The film always returns to him at just the right moment, when he’s been away too long.
He’s got the “simpliest” subplot–his depression and how it affects his relationship with O’Donnell. Andrews has got PTSD a rocky wartime marriage (to Virginia Mayo), and a flirtation with someone he shouldn’t be flirting with. March has got a drinking problem, a work problem (back banking for chickenhawk Ray Collins), as well as feeling uncomfortable at home.
Most of these details get introduced in the first half. Mayo shows up just at the end with some foreshadowing for turmoil, but nothing onscreen. Same goes for March’s work problems. Andrews and March get these subplots second half; Russell doesn’t.
It’s unfortunate but the film’s so good, it gets a pass on that one.
The first half also brings the characters back together. March drags Loy and Wright out on the town, running into Andrews and then Russell. They’re all at Hoagy Carmichael’s bar. Carmichael is great as Russell’s wise, piano-playing uncle. He defuses situations, which Andrews, March, and Russell frequently need.
Even if it’s just making Loy and Wright less annoyed. They–and the audience–don’t really understand the extent of March’s drinking at the start. Because Best Years is slow to reveal its subplots, slow to foreshadow. One of the reasons it can get away with giving Russell so much less (though his eighth billing isn’t okay) is because what it does give him is so good. Because Russell’s so good. Best Years of Our Lives is, spared down, about a bunch of people who really want to cry and never let themselves. Russell’s the only one who gets to go through that on screen.
Meanwhile, Andrews has to combat his stoicism. His arc is this complicated ego one, with the PTSD an undercurrent; along with the romantic troubles.
So Andrews and Russell have the toxic masculinity arcs. March doesn’t. His resignation and rediscovery arc is much quieter, far less dramatic, and awesome.
Because the film’s so long and goes into vignette, the actor giving the best performance isn’t always consistent. Overall, it’s probably March. But Russell. But Andrews. Supporting it’s easily Loy… though Wright and O’Donnell are both outstanding. Loy’s just got the least screentime for her own arc. She’s always supporting someone else’s. So watching her character develop, rarely in close-up, is special.
Because Sherwood and Wyler are great at maintaining and building on details through the subplots. Andrews and Russell, independently and then together, deal with some real homecoming nastiness (as well as general disinterest), but it’s in the March subplot where it dramatically culminates.
Such a good script. Sherwood’s pacing is phenomenal. Even when, for example, Russell’s subplot is almost overdue, the film hasn’t been dragging. Best Years of Our Lives never drags.
Wyler’s direction is precise, deliberate, patient. He’ll have silences–either filled with mundanely urban background or Hugo Friedhofer’s excellent score. He’ll have noisy–almost anywhere outside Carmichael’s bar and March’s apartment is packed with people. He’s nimble too. He’s got this over the shoulder shot he repeats a few times in the third act, with the divine Gregg Toland photography (there’s no other word). He doesn’t use the shot earlier. He does some similar things, at least with how he places the actors, but it’s this distinct stylistic thing he’s moving towards throughout.
The Toland photography is perfect.
It’d be the most jaw-dropping technical feature–and I suppose, really, it is because it’s the photography–but Daniel Mandell’s editing is a masterpiece of smooth, fluid, and emotively considerate cutting. The editing is exquisite, simultaneously bold and subtle.
The Best Years of Our Lives is a remarkable motion picture.
Since its first installment in 1934 and in the eighty years since, The Thin Man series has stood apart from other film series and franchises. Its six films always delivered a “twist” mystery and the wonderful chemistry between stars William Powell and Myrna Loy.
Much of the series’s most memorable features came straight from the Dashiell Hammett source novel. Nick and Nora Charles were rich and glamorous during the Depression, though extremely grounded thanks to Nick being a former private detective. Asta the dog, the New York setting, the martinis, the Thin Man mystery itself–they were all from the novel. Powell and Loy just brought it all to life.
Although MGM budgeted and produced the first entry more like a B picture, by the time of its release, the studio knew they had something special with The Thin Man and, in particular, its stars: William Powell and Myrna Loy. The two were recent MGM contract additions; both had been bouncing around Hollywood since the mid-twenties and had come to MGM after unfulfilling Warner contracts. They weren’t big time movie stars yet, but Loy and Powell had become familiar faces to moviegoers. And then The Thin Man turned them into mega-stars, both individually and as a pair. Loy and Powell appeared in fourteen movies altogether, almost always playing a couple. The Thin Man isn’t even their first film together. That first film, Manhattan Melodrama, opened a few weeks before The Thin Man. It too was directed by W.S. Van Dyke, who would frequently work with Loy and Powell–as a pair–after The Thin Man, including the first three Thin Man sequels. Van Dyke had directed Loy (alone) in a number of reasonably successful films the year before, also in collaboration with Thin Man producer Hunt Stromberg.
In the first THIN MAN, Nora (Myrna Loy) still has to encourage Nick (William Powell) to take cases.
So, the first Thin Man wasn’t so much a happy accident as every right piece coming into the right place at just the right time.
The Thin Man is the second-shortest picture in the series, running ninety-three minutes. There won’t be a Thin Man picture running under that time until the last one. Director Van Dyke has to convey a lot of information in very little time. Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich’s dialogue needs to be expository–it’s a mystery after all–so they weave it though conversation and characters’ personalities.
The Thin Man (1934). ★★★★. 2014 review
Nat Pendleton and Maureen O’Sullivan lead the supporting cast. Pendleton is an intrusive but competent copper and O’Sullivan is Nick’s “client.” Quotation marks because Nick never works for money; he’s just a big softy. The supporting cast is great. A good supporting cast can make or break a Thin Man movie.
Powell impresses Loy and perplexes Nat Pendleton.
Since its theatrical release, The Thin Man has enjoyed continuous popularity; eighty plus years without losing its appeal. The Thin Man has been available on every home video format–VHS, LaserDisc, DVD–never going out of print. And now it’s always available streaming.
The sequel came out two years later, on Christmas Day 1936. After the Thin Man closed one of the busiest years of Powell, Loy, and Van Dyke’s careers. They had all become MGM A-listers, though Loy was a tad beyond Powell and Van Dyke. In fact, she was actually just about to be voted the studio’s “Queen of Hollywood.”
Ace assistant detective Asta eats a clue in AFTER THE THIN MAN.
MGM spared no expense on After the Thin Man. It’s the longest film in the series–twenty minutes longer than the first entry–with a lot of time and money spent setting up Nick and Nora as a couple in their natural habitat, ritzy San Francisco. There’s location shooting (a big deal for the sequel to a B picture) and a first-rate supporting cast. James Stewart in it–After the Thin Man is also known as “The One With Young Jimmy Stewart”–Joseph Calleia, Sam Levene, George Zucco, Paul Fix. Asta the dog even gets his own a subplot. It’s a big deal sequel.
After the Thin Man (1936). ★★★½. 2014 review
And it’s a good one. After the Thin Man has another great script from Hackett and Goodrich–with Hammett contributing a short story to base it on. It’s a cross of hardboiled gum shoe and sublime screwball. Lots of smart, funny scenes for Powell and Loy–and Asta too–all alongside the doozy of a mystery. Awesome supporting cast. It’s nearly as perfect as the original.
After the Thin Man was another hit and one with some very confident sequel building. The film ends with a big reveal setting up the next outing to leave everyone wanting to know what’s next for Nick and Nora. Serial cliffhanger adapted for A list picture. After the Thin Man being excellent locks it in. More than the first film, After the Thin Man proves the cast, the filmmakers, the studio, can do these big and on purpose and on a regular basis. It’s a little showy in its confidence.
Sam Levene, Powell, and Loy inspect.
When Warner released the first Thin Man on DVD, they didn’t put out any of the sequels. They the first one was bait and didn’t sell well enough. After the Thin Man–and the rest of the sequels–had been VHS mainstays. MGM/UA had put out a great LaserDisc box set too. Their DVD absence was conspicuous. It took five years before Warner got After the Thin Man out and then it was in a box set. The eventual collection was success. So successful Warner split the series for budget catalog release. And now, of course, the entire series is available streaming.
The third film, Another Thin Man, was not just a special event as a Thin Man sequel but also because it put William Powell and Myrna Loy back on screen in grand fashion. Powell had been engaged to Jean Harlow, another MGM star; she died of kidney failure in 1937. Powell, understandably devastated, then found out he had cancer. So he took a big break for treatment. Loy had slowed down too, doing half as many pictures a year as she had pre-“royalty.” Her interests were changing from Hollywood stardom; in fact, she was newly home from England when shooting started.
Screenwriters Hackett and Goodrich were also changing their pace. They had almost stopped working in Hollywood entirely. Another Thin Man would be their last Thin Man and their last screenplay for five years. It’s also Hammett’s last work on the series.
Van Dyke and Stromberg had been staying busy, however.
The happy parents and Nicky Jr. in ANOTHER THIN MAN.
Another Thin Man fulfills the previous entry’s cliffhanger–Nick and (mostly) Nora make baby, Nicky Jr. An apparently divorced Asta is back too. The action takes the Charles family to New York, where they happen into another mystery to solve.
It’s an ostensibly less mysterious one–there’s a supernatural angle instead. It’s Nick and Nora vs. evil mentalist Sheldon Leonard. Well, for some of it, anyway. Leonard’s making threats to rich old guy C. Aubrey Smith, who knows the Charleses and so they get involved. Smith’s got a daughter (Virginia Grey) with multiple suitors (Patric Knowles and Tom Neal), there’s a Long Island DA–Otto Kurger, and Nat Pendleton is back as the New York detective.
Another Thin Man (1939). ★★★. 2014 review
Much more than the first sequel–or the original–Another Thin Man relies on William Powell and Myrna Loy; in the script, in Van Dyke’s direction, in their performances. New mom Loy sits out a lot of the mystery so she and Powell’s scenes have the majority of the film’s personality, just not the mystery. It results in the film lacking any standouts in the supporting cast. The script just doesn’t have parts for them. For example, Pendleton’s character is now played for laughs, instead of having some ability. But it’s an excellent production. Van Dyke has definitely got Thin Man movies down now–it’s all about Powell and Loy.
Powell and Loy brief returning copper Pendleton and DA Otto Kruger.
As far the Thin Man sequels go, Another Thin Man enjoys a fine enough reputation. I mean, it’s got the first appearance of Nicky Jr., how can it not enjoy a fine enough reputation. Still, the baby is the thing, not the supporting cast, not the mystery itself. It’s also the point where Loy starts teetotaling big time.
Presenting the Charles family, 1941 edition, in SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN.
Now back to a two year schedule, Powell, Loy, Van Dyke, and Stromberg returned in 1941 with the fourth film in the series, Shadow of the Thin Man. Instead of Hackett and Goodrich writing, the film has Irving Brecher and Harry Kurnitz on the script. Kurnitz worked on the screenplay for the previous year’s I Love You Again, a non-Thin Man screwball outing from Powell, Loy, and Van Dyke.
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941). ★★★. 2014 review
Shadow focuses on bringing Nicky Jr. into the comedy dynamic. It goes so far as to age him an extra four or five years. He’s now played by seven-year-old Dickie Hall. Sure, there’s a race track murder mystery, with Sam Levene returning as the San Francisco detective, but the most memorable moments involve Hall and Loy domesticating Powell. They’ve got him off the martinis and on to the milk. Yuck. But Powell leads Hall around on a shared leash with Asta and sneaks gin. It’s amazing comedy.
Barry Nelson and Donna Reed are desperate young lovers who need help from Powell and Loy. Another Thin Man skipped the young lovers in need characters, but the first two films hinged on them. The screenwriters try really hard to do a Thin Man movie with all the familiar trappings, but also moving things forward.
Apropos of nothing, it’s also the only Thin Man to end in a police station.
Powell explains, Levene and company listen.
Powell, Loy, and Hall are all delightful together. The emphasis on “Great Detective as parent” works out. Van Dyke directs it well, smoothing the occasional script bump; he also helps imply depth for the thin supporting characters. Shadow of the Thin Man is a successful application of talent and chemistry to a mediocre script.
And Shadow was another hit, another good Thin Man sequel. It’s maybe a footnote in Donna Reed’s career too, though her performance doesn’t stand out .
Big events and small changed the series’s trajectory. Shadow of the Thin Man came out just before Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. Loy immediately took leave from her contract at MGM to join the war effort. While Powell continued to work, he still mostly kept to a movie a year. Van Dyke died of cancer in 1943. Stromberg left MGM soon after Shadow‘s release, breaking his contract under cloudy, unpleasant circumstances. The Thin Man series made Powell and Loy movie stars, it had been a big hit for Van Dyke and Stromberg, for Hackett and Goodrich. The series kept going through a lot changes in the principals’ lives, but Loy leaving Hollywood had to mean no more Nick and Nora.
Or so one would have thought, but then MGM tried replacing Loy with Irene Dunne for the next sequel. Turns out no one–not the fans, not Powell–wanted anyone but Loy playing Nora. It’s unclear how far along that attempt got, but when Powell and Loy did return to the series in 1945, it was a far different kind of Thin Man.
The Great Detective at rest in THE THIN MAN GOES HOME.
The Thin Man Goes Home opens by putting Powell and Loy on a train out of an unseen New York City to visit Powell’s upstate hometown. Totally new production team, different crew too; David Snell is the only holdover. He composed the scores for the final three films. Richard Thorpe directed, Robert Riskin and Dwight Taylor wrote the screenplay. Recent MGM addition, Everett Riskin–Robert’s brother–produced.
Starting on with that train ride, Thin Man Goes Home sets out to immediately establish some wholesome, patriotic credentials. Rationing was going on, after all. It’s not just no more hotel suites, it’s no more drinking for Nick and Nora. Nicky Jr. is off at boarding school and they’re staying with Nick’s parents–Lucile Watson and Harry Davenport–in a regular house, not a fancy hotel.
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945). ★★. 2014 review
Riskin and Taylor’s script meanders through the mystery–though it does give Loy a lot more to do on her own than she usually gets in a Thin Man movie. Director Thorpe keeps it all together. The Thin Man Goes Home is well-produced and fairly well-acted. Then the third act is a mess and the final joke is bizarrely goofy.
Asta, with Loy and Powell, travel by rail.
The Thin Man Goes Home is perfectly titled (if canonically inaccurate) and fun–Nick and Nora in a small town, Nick’s parents, Donald Meek in the supporting cast, foreign espionage. Director Thorpe, producer Riskin, and the screenwriters deserve some credit for maintaining its accessibility. They were taking over an existing and beloved franchise without much help. It’s not like composer Snell had a “Thin Man” theme to tie the films together. The filmmakers’ safe, unambitious moves make Thin Man Goes Home an extremely affable entry. It plays rather well, though it’s generally agreed to be one of the lesser entries.
Loy and Asta get an earful from Powell and Dean Stockwell in SONG OF THE THIN MAN
In fall 1947, MGM released the final Thin Man film, Song of the Thin Man. With the exception of composer Snell, it’s again an all-new the entire production team and crew. Edward Buzzell directs from a Steve Fisher and Nat Perrin script. Perrin also produced.
Powell and Loy are back in New York, living glamorously but a little more like restrained. They’ve got Nick Jr., after all, this time played by eleven year-old Dean Stockwell. The mystery involves missing jazz wunderkind Don Taylor and his stable of femme fatales. Keenan Wynn is third lead–a sidekick to show the now square Powell and Loy around the New York City jazz spots.
Song of the Thin Man (1947). ★★½. 2014 review
Song is a little cheap, but Powell and Loy get along fine integrating Stockwell into the family dynamic. And Wynn’s cravenly functional character works great; Powell and Loy (and Nick and Nora) have never had a similar sidekick.
Unfortunately, not being a bad go at a disinterested Thin Man sequel doesn’t make Song a hidden gem. Buzzell’s an okay enough director, he just doesn’t have any personality. Without a big gimmick like Goes Home used, Song needs all the personality it can get. It gets a long way on goodwill and general competence. But it’s Powell and Loy who hold this one together.
It’s up to Keenan Wynn to get Loy and Powell hep.
And, thanks to them, Song of the Thin Man is far from an inglorious end to the series. In addition to inherently hilarious idea of Dean Stockwell once being eleven, much less Nick Charles Jr., the film has early performances from noir fatales Gloria Grahame and Marie Windsor. It’s a distinctive footnote, if a generally dismissed sequel. It’s readily availability probably hasn’t helped its reputation; Song of the Thin Man gets a lot more goodwill when you’re just happy to have found a Thin Man movie playing on TV.
Because for a long time, people only discovered The Thin Man and its sequels playing on TV. And they they discovered them on VHS, AMC, TCM, DVD, streaming. People have been discovering these films for eighty years and there’s never been a better time to do so than right now.
The Thin Man series was a rarity on release and is still one. There aren’t any other six picture franchises with big-time classic movie stars like Loy and Powell, they’ve also remained popular since their original release, most of the entries are good. Not many eighty year old film series have that pedigree, certainly not to six films.
There’s nothing else like The Thin Man and it’s all because of Powell and Loy and Van Dyke and Hammett and Stromberg and Goodrich and Hackett. And Asta too, of course.
A Connecticut Yankee fumbles on pretty much every level, including wasting lead Will Rogers. The big problem is the script, from William M. Conselman. It doesn’t help any director Butler can’t mount an action or comedy sequences, because there’s nothing else in the picture. It doesn’t even work as a Rogers vehicle because his character’s so poorly written.
The film opens in the present, with vaguely dopey electronics repairman slash radio station announcer Rogers going to an old dark house to deliver a battery. He meets the house’s strange inhabitants and then gets knocked unconscious by a falling suit of armor. When he wakes up, he’s in sixth century England. Has Rogers mystically travelled back in time or is he unconscious on a floor? Oh, the drama.
Regardless of inventiveness, the device should give the film a chance to reset. The film sets Rogers up as slightly lazy, mostly stupid. No doubt once he gets back to olden times he’ll make a change for the better. Not really, though. He’s still just a bit of a moron. Conselman’s script makes cracks about him being a Democrat–which is on brand for Rogers, but one would think he’d want better material than one-liners.
Rogers meets King Arthur (William Farnum) and Merlin (Brandon Hurst). Both Farnum and Hurst are bad, but it’s hard to blame them. Their writing is terrible and Butler’s direction of actors is somewhat worse than his direction of action. At least with the action, there’s the castle set. It’s fine. Not so much once Rogers modernizes Camelot. Right after he proves himself worthy, the film cuts to a Camelot with telephones, roller-skates, machine guns, tanks, cars, whatever else.
Because Rogers might be a questionably talented electrician and radio announcer, but he’s a king of all industry. Connecticut Yankee would probably be able to get away with it if there was any direction. Conselman’s script is too inept for comedy or commentary, as is Butler’s direction.
There’s an almost amusing knight vs. cowboy joust. Butler can’t direct it, unfortunately. Then Farnum and Rogers go adventuring; they need to rescue princess Maureen O’Sullivan from evil queen Myrna Loy.
Rogers gets sympathy, but he’s not good. Farnum’s not good. O’Sullivan is appealing but she has a handful of scenes and nothing to do. Same with Frank Albertson as Rogers’s pointless sidekick. Hurst is awful in a fun way as Merlin though. He’s always sprinkling dust on things. Because magic.
Loy’s probably the best? It’s hard to say, as Conselman’s script is so wretched; Loy at least gets to have some fantastic gowns.
The big action finale with knights with tommy-guns ought to be a lot better. Everything about Connecticut Yankee ought to be better. Conselman and Butler never have a handle on the film. They’re fumbling from scene one.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄ
CREDITS
Directed by David Butler; screenplay by William M. Conselman, based on a novel by Mark Twain; director of photography, Ernest Palmer; edited by Irene Morra; released by Fox Film Corporation.
Starring Will Rogers (Hank Martin), William Farnum (Arthur), Frank Albertson (Clarence), Brandon Hurst (Merlin), Maureen O’Sullivan (Alisande), Mitchell Harris (Sagramor), and Myrna Loy (Morgan le Fay).
Thirteen Women runs just under an hour. A minute under an hour. There was pre-release cutting on the studio’s part. But with those fifty-nine minutes, director Archainbaud is still able to create one heck of a creepy film. The film’s not a mystery. It’s not even a thriller. It’s all gimmick, but it’s suspenseful all gimmick.
The story’s simple–Myrna Loy is an Anglo-Indian woman whose plans to assimilate into white culture were once dashed. To get her revenge, she enlists C. Henry Gordon’s questionably insightful mystic to terrorize her victims and to push them into suicide and worse.
The film opens with a couple of the victims, using their plight for exposition. Not the Loy backstory, which comes in later. It’s relevant throughout, however, because the most peculiar thing about Thirteen Women is how reasonable Loy’s villain comes across. When Irene Dunne, who’s one of the intended victims, argues with Loy about motivation… well, it’s a little strange to hear the two talking around white privilege back in a pre-code RKO thriller. It makes me interested in the source novel. Loy and Dunne basically split the runtime, but Loy’s got a far more dynamic character and part in the story. Dunne just has an annoying kid–Wally Albright, who looks at the camera way too much–and a fetching police detective, Ricardo Cortez.
Of course, Cortez describes Loy in slurs. It’s pre-code, sure, but it’s very weird. Cortez and Dunne’s bigotry doesn’t get heroic presentation. It doesn’t get negative, not until Dunne has to acknowledge her responsibility for it. Thirteen Women knows exactly what it’s doing, at least in terms of Loy’s story. Who knows if it’s from the studio cuts or just Bartlett Cormack and Samuel Ornitz’s screenplay, but the Dunne sections plod along. Dunne’s fine, but she has nothing to do. Everyone who acts opposite her gets more material. But then those characters just disappear because Thirteen Women does only run fifty-nine minutes and it features multiple action set pieces. It’s sensational and not just in its raciness. Archainbaud goes all out with the film.
Good performances from Loy and Dunne. Pretty good from Cortez. He’s lazy, but his scenes are pretty lazy too. He basically calls out for all the story’s actual detective work to be done; he’s fine at the exposition, but it’s all he’s got. Gordon’s awesome as the mystic. Jill Esmond’s fine as Dunne’s sidekick who disappears.
The film doesn’t have a natural narrative flow, except for Loy. It’s jerky with everything else. Archainbaud holds it together admirably, with nice technical support from cinematographer Leo Tover and editor Charles L. Kimball. Max Steiner’s score is outstanding.
So Thirteen Women has its problems, but it’s well-made, well-acted, reasonably charming and only fifty-nine minutes. It’s all right.
Penthouse is a lean mystery masquerading as a class melodrama. Most of that class melodrama stuff comes at the front–and is only really ever alluded to later–making the film front-heavy. Unfortunately, so much time goes towards the melodrama, the mystery suffers. Luckily, there’s a whole bunch of charm–from the cast, from the script, from director Van Dyke–and it makes up for the uneasy narrative.
Warner Baxter is a blue blood lawyer who discovers his passion is for helping the unjustly accused professional criminal. The criminal can’t be guilty of the crime he’s charged with. The film opens with Baxter successfully defending Nat Pendleton’s mob boss. Pendleton’s fantastic. He’s part of the film’s comic relief, but he’s also conveys danger.
Penthouse doesn’t seem to have much of a budget–it’s that lean mystery, after all–so there aren’t a lot of big set pieces. Danger and drama usually play out in conversation. It’s a talky lean mystery, so it’s good screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett do so well with the dialogue.
Baxter can make any line engaging. He easily breezes through most of the mystery stuff at the end as he distracts from the film’s lack of a big third act finish, but when his material’s good, he’s outstanding. There’s not a lot of time in the script to establish Baxter. His girl (Martha Sleeper) breaks his heart and the film follows her instead of him–because the melodrama. Baxter’s just getting hammered, much to the chagrin of both Pendleton (in addition to being a client, he’s a pal) and Charles Butterworth (as Baxter’s suffering butler).
Only then the film doesn’t stick with Sleeper, but follows Phillips Holmes as her other suitor, then shifts to Mae Clarke as Holmes’s illicit lover. By the time C. Henry Gordon shows up–as Clarke’s ex and Pendleton’s criminal rival–one might forget there was someone else in the opening titles, second-billed, in fact. Myrna Loy. She doesn’t even show up until the second act, which isn’t ideal because there’s only an hour left.
Loy’s sort of a mob moll, sort of not. It’s unclear; Goodrich and Hackett get a lot of amazing innuendo into the script but barely any details. Penthouse isn’t supposed to make sense, it’s supposed to entertain. When it’s too busy trying to build to entertaining points–Loy and Baxter flirt wonderfully but when it comes time for them to make actual sweet talk, it’s all off. Goodrich and Hackett awkwardly combine their romantic melodrama into mystery deduction scenes. It never gels. Maybe because Baxter treating Loy as disposable doesn’t make any sense.
But they’re still great together in most of their scenes and both of them generate a bunch of goodwill on their own. Loy and Butterworth are wonderful together, for example.
Van Dyke’s got some good direction in the film, usually involving Clarke or Loy. He doesn’t try as much in the other scenes, just keeps it brisk. He does seem to get bored occasionally. There’s one fifteen minute stretch in the second act it feels like nothing but two shots between different characters sitting (or walking to some other place to sit).
Penthouse is an uneven, but still successful outing. Another thirty minutes or so, a little more of a budget, a little better editing from Robert Kern (though maybe Van Dyke didn’t have the time for more coverage), it probably would’ve been better. With Loy, Baxter and Pendleton (and Butterworth)–and Van Dyke’s able direction–it works pretty well.
★★★
CREDITS
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke; screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on a story by Arthur Somers Roche; directors of photography, Lucien N. Andriot and Harold Rosson; edited by Robert Kern; music by William Axt; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Starring Warner Baxter (Jackson Durant), Myrna Loy (Gertie Waxted), Nat Pendleton (Tony Gazotti), C. Henry Gordon (Jim Crelliman), Martha Sleeper (Sue Leonard), Charles Butterworth (Layton), Phillips Holmes (Tom Siddall) and Mae Clarke (Mimi Montagne).
Song of the Thin Man has a lot of strong sequences and the many screenwriters sting them together well enough, but can’t figure out a pay-off. Some of the problem seems to be the brevity–while director Buzzell does an adequate job and Charles Rosher’s cinematography is good, none of the scenes end up having much weight.
The film does give William Powell and Myrna Loy more to do in regards to their parenting–with Dean Stockwell as their son–they have less to do as far as investigating. Song runs less than ninety minutes and even another ten of a good mystery would help immensely. All of those really good sequences are either comedic parenting ones or a single “race the clock” one. Loy excels in the latter.
There are just too many suspects and not enough time spent on them. The script sets up the suspects in the first few scenes and it plays efficiently enough, but then keeps everyone too suspicious to be sympathetic. The script works against itself and Buzzell isn’t at all the director to bring it together.
Of the supporting cast members, Keenan Wynn and Jayne Meadows have the most to do and are the best. Wynn is Powell and Loy’s guide through the nightlife, with the script cutting a lot of corners as to how that tour progresses. It’s either lazy writing or lazy producing. Either way, it hurts the film.
But Song is still entertaining, it just easily could’ve been better.
★★
