Tag: Richard Haydn

Ball of Fire (1941, Howard Hawks)

Ball of Fire is a rare delight. It’s got an enormous cast of scene-stealers who all work in unison, thanks to Hawks’s direction but also Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder’s screenplay being so well-balanced.

For most of the picture. The third act has two choices, and it chooses poorly but still successfully; I’ll get to it later. First the rundown.

Fire is the story of eight encyclopedia authors who have been living in seclusion for nine years (in New York City). They’ve got three more years (at least) on the encyclopedia, but they’ve found their rhythm. Right up until garbage man Allen Jenkins lets himself into their house—they’re right off Central Park on 83rd, with a ginormous work area on the first floor and their living quarters on the second floor; Jenkins has some questions about a trivia sweepstakes and figured, based on the books he’s seen through the windows, they’d have answers.

However, Jenkins’s slang makes English content expert Gary Cooper realize he’s using twenty-year-old books and nine-years removed personal experience. If he doesn’t go out into the world and listen to some slang, the encyclopedia’s entry will be at best dated, at worst incorrect.

Cooper’s the youngest of the eight authors. The rest are mostly familiar character actors of a certain age: (in alphabetical order) Richard Haydn, Oskar Homolka, Leonid Kinskey, Tully Marshall, Aubrey Mather, S.Z. Sakall, and Henry Travers. All of them are splendid; Homolka and Haydn are probably the best. They’re also the two with the most to do, though Travers gets a bit. Or his smaller part just stands out more because it’s Clarence. Mather, Kinskey, and Marshall probably get the least to do, meaning they deliver punchlines. Haydn gets the most to do because he’s the only one of the men who’s ever been married. They’re all bachelors, all utterly perplexed to do around the ladies, including Cooper, who we discover Doogie Howsered instead of chasing girls.

However, the older men do know Cooper’s at least potentially a hit with the ladies; he’s in charge of flirting with their reluctant benefactor, Mary Field, whose dead father had the encyclopedia project in his will. Field’s only got a little to do, but like everyone else, she’s great. Charles Lane plays her attorney because Ball’s a who’s who of recognizable Classic Hollywood supporting players.

Anyway.

On his expedition to find the newest slang, Cooper finds his way into a nightclub, where Barbara Stanwyck is performing. He finds her vocabulary fascinating and even more enthralling than revealing outfits. Turns out Stanwyck’s a gangster’s moll; in this case, the gangster’s Dana Andrews, who probably gives the film’s most energetic performance. Andrews can’t quite steal the scenes, not opposite such strong actors, but he makes sure to stand out. He’s a hoot, especially once he starts mixing charm with menace.

The D.A. has got the goods on Andrews, but only if Stanwyck can give evidence against him. The case they’ve got Andrews dead to rights on is slightly absurdist, with various sight gags and one-liners, and no one ever just gets the idea to have Stanwyck lie. Though maybe they’ve got a witness placing her somewhere. It’s a very thoughtful, intentionally convoluted setup, with Brackett and Wilder enjoying the excuse to spin great expository yarns.

Andrews’s solution is to have Stanwyck temporarily go on the lamb, with a fantastic Dan Duryea as her bodyguard. Ralph Peters is also there to help, but the movie knows to give Duryea more material. He’s so good.

Luckily, Cooper’s arranging a slang symposium and gives Stanwyck an invite; she figures he won’t mind if she shows up early and needs to crash there for the night. While it turns out Cooper does mind, his seven roommates are ecstatic at the idea of Stanwyck bunking with them for the evening.

An evening turns into a few days, during which Stanwyck teaches the old boys the latest dances while helping Cooper pick up—and study—the latest lingo. Stanwyck’s presence annoys housekeeper Kathleen Howard to no end, and when Howard finally puts her foot down, Stanwyck’s got to take drastic measures. In doing so, she discovers Cooper’s got a crush on her and, unlike his colleagues, still wants to do something about it. So Stanwyck makes it work in her favor while starting to get dreamy-eyed when looking at Cooper.

While Cooper’s got some excellent comedy moments in Ball and he’s earnest in his romantic scenes, he’s still playing an elevated rube. Sure, his character’s in charge of supervising the project, but he’s only the protagonist of the bunch because he’s Gary Cooper. Stanwyck, however, gets to take this trope-ready part and turn it into something incredible. The romance subplot comes from her performance; otherwise, it’s just a cruel joke at Cooper’s expense. The nasty subterfuge thing also never works too much against her character being sympathetic because Stanwyck’s tortured with regret about the plan.

Things perturb to get all the parties together for the finish; only comedic happenstance throws things off course so the second act can end where you’d think they’d be ending the third.

Now for that third act.

It’s longer than it needs to be, especially since they never get the film entirely back on track—they spent too much time at the station to keep the unrelated metaphor going (there’s a lot of car and truck humor, actually). The actual pacing issues aside, the material’s all well-written because it’s Brackett and Wilder, and the cast is, as usual, delightful; it just isn’t where the film had been headed. It’s hectic, with lots of great moments for the actors, but it’s reductive.

The filmmakers seem to know it too. Whenever the distraction starts dragging, one of the cast will have some great moment and reset the timer. The movie’s frittering and knows it. Once they’ve gotten it all together (again), adding four more characters to the mix (at least sixteen characters in play), the ending’s strong and fun. It can’t entirely make up for the lost time but knowingly wasted it well.

Ball of Fire’s mostly a phenomenal comedy. Stanwyck’s great, Cooper’s real good, Andrews, Duryea, Homolka, they’re all real good. Haydn gets a particularly devastating scene all to himself. The only character who doesn’t get a good arc is Howard as the justifiably judgey housekeeper, which hurts the performance.

In addition to all the character actors in major supporting roles, there’s also a young Elisha Cook. It’s just packed with great performances, big and small.

Like I said before, a rare delight.

This post is part of the Caftan Woman Blogathon – Honoring Patricia Nolan-Hall hosted by Patty of Lady Eve’s Reel Life and Jacqueline of Another Old Movie Blog.

The Sound of Music (1965, Robert Wise)

So much of The Sound of Music is exquisite, the film’s got enough momentum to get over the rough spots. The film has three and a half distinct sections. There’s the first, introducing Julie Andrews to the audience, then introducing Christopher Plummer and family to the Andrews and the audience, which then becomes about Andrews and the kids. The second part has Plummer returning after an absence, with Eleanor Parker and Richard Haydn along with him to give him something to do. Then there’s the strange part following the intermission, which probably played better theatrically when one really did get up and leave the film for a period. When it returns–and Plummer and Andrews’s romance takes off (at the expense of almost everything else)–the film is different.

Then the final part, with the Nazis out to capture Plummer, is entirely different. Unfortunately, director Wise is most ambitious in the setup of the film. He knows if he gets all the establishing stuff right–with Andrews, with Plummer and the kids–everything else will work out. The final part of the film with the family on the run is strong, but it’s action. Wise is doing this action thriller. It works because his direction is good, Ted D. McCord’s photography is glorious throughout, ditto William Reynolds’s editing, and there are some amazing sets. And some good humor in Ernest Lehman’s screenplay to lighten things appropriately.

This dramatic conclusion overshadows how briskly the film has changed itself. Andrews and Plummer are wonderful arguing and flirting, but their romance itself is tepid. Both of them get better scenes regarding it with Parker than they do with one another. And Wise doesn’t take the time to progress that part of the narrative organically when it comes to the kids, who are actual characters in the first hour of the film only to become likable accessories in the last hour.

The Sound of Music has a lot of things Wise has to get right in the first hour and he gets them, lots of things he has to establish so he can lean upon them later. It’s fine, but it’s never as good later on, whether with returning characters or song encores. The handling of the songs in the first hour and a half are glorious. Once intermission hits, Wise is in a rush and the film suffers. There’s so many great stagings in the first part–down to using an adorable puppet show to get in another song–the remainder, with far fewer group songs and instead questionable duets, can’t measure up.

Still, Wise has got all the right pieces. Plummer and Andrews, even when they don’t have much to do, are great doing it. There’s also Ben Wright’s odious villain, who Wise and Lehman had been foreshadowing (but not enough). The Sound of Music gets through the choppy waters to succeed. It just could’ve been better.

Thunder Birds (1942, William A. Wellman)

Thunder Birds runs just under eighty minutes and if one were to subtract the propaganda, both narrated and in lengthy monologues–not to mention the flashback to the stoic Brits–he or she would have a fifty-five minute love triangle set at an Army flight training base. The whole reason one leg of the triangle is British (John Sutton) is to rouse up support for the British.

Luckily, the movie’s love triangle is mildly effective, which makes the propaganda digressions tolerable. All of the credit for that success is surprisingly not Gene Tierney. Tierney’s great in the movie, bringing a combination of playfulness and maturity to the role. What’s surprising about the movie’s treatment of her is the constant sexism. There’s a terrible sequence at a Red Cross training with all the volunteers–all female–coming off as man-crazy and incompetent. Worse is Tierney’s grandfather, George Barbier, frequently deriding her (she’s “still a woman,” after all).

But that paragraph was supposed to be positive. Sutton’s quite good in the film, bringing a thoughtful sense to his role (an acrophobic doctor turned RAF cadet). He and Tierney have excellent chemistry; big surprise. Leading man Preston Foster is the last leg of the triangle and he and Tierney too have good chemistry. But when Foster’s with Sutton, the scenes are just bad. Foster’s very Hollywood acting doesn’t mix well with Sutton’s subdued, introspective performance. Either Tierney just worked well with Foster–her performance is a mix of charm and intelligence–or she manages to get good scenes out of anyone.

Since there really is less than an hour of story, there’s not much time for a supporting cast. Barbier’s good as the chauvinist pig (what makes it so disturbing is how he’s siding against his granddaughter’s wishes, which is a bit surprising in a Lamar Trotti script, but I guess Trotti is a servant to his source material). Richard Haydn’s great as Sutton’s friend who disappears way too fast. But Dame May Whitty’s brief, flashback role is a waste of time both for her and the film.

Where Thunder Birds really excels is in the Technicolor cinematography and the action sequence at the end. Ernest Palmer’s cinematography is great and the aerial photography is fantastic. But Wellman is just churning it out during these scenes. It’s all fine, but it’s never particularly significant. The end sequence, featuring Sutton (in a plane) saving Foster from a sandstorm is amazing. Great stuff, with some fine editing from Walter Thompson.

The story–the standard Fox war movie love triangle–does take an unexpected turn at the end. Wellman successfully milks the anticipation for the last five minutes, but then gets stuck with that narrated propaganda for a close. In the last ten minutes, I’m not sure Sutton even has a line–odd for the protagonist. The Fox propaganda movies were always decent and Thunder Birds is fine enough as one; it’s just a little emptier of actual content than I would have guessed.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by William A. Wellman; screenplay by Lamar Trotti, based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck; director of photography, Ernest Palmer; edited by Walter Thompson; music by David Buttolph; produced by Trotti; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Gene Tierney (Kay Saunders), Preston Foster (Steve Britt), John Sutton (Peter Stackhouse), Jack Holt (Colonel MacDonald), May Whitty (Lady Jane Stackhouse), George Barbier (Gramps), Richard Haydn (George Lockwood), Reginald Denny (Barrett) and Ted North (Cadet Hackzell).

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