Doctor X (1932, Michael Curtiz)

Doctor X has pretty much the wrong prescription for everything. After a genuinely creepy first act, which has police autopsy consultant Lionel Atwill telling the cops the only place a monthly serial killer could get a particular scalpel is at Atwill’s school and then giving them a tour and everyone there being in some way familiar with cannibalism, the movie becomes an old dark house picture before going off the rails with its finale reveals. But it’s also a lousy gag comedy, with reporter Lee Tracy bumbling around—a lot of bumbling—and then a weird romance with Tracy unintentionally wooing Atwill’s daughter, Fay Wray. Sometimes it seems like the wooing is intentional, but then it’s the opposite during other scenes.

Robert Warwick plays the police commissioner who’s investigating the case. Atwill takes back to his medical school to introduce all the suspects, but then Warwick disappears from the main plot. It’s a real bummer because, without Warwick, there’s room for so much bad acting. Bad acting and weird decisions from the screenwriters and director Curtiz.

The most annoying weird bit is George Rosener as Atwill’s creepy butler. Roesner spends the first quarter of the movie just looking suspicious—according to a witness, the murderer’s really ugly, and Roesner’s creepy dude fits the bill. For the audience, anyway. See, when Atwill takes all the suspects out to his Long Island house to hook them up to blood pressure monitors and try to get them worked up watching murder reenactments, it’s pretty clear Atwill’s not good at his job and isn’t going to be able to catch the killer. Especially not since, based on the nonsensical resolution (which turns movie-long clues into plot holes), none of his ideas about catching the killer would’ve worked. There’s a lengthy fight scene at the end, and as it drags on, one has time to reflect on how little the bad science makes sense given the reveal.

So it would help if Doctor X had a bunch of good acting to make up for the script.

It does not.

Best is Warwick, then Atwill (after a lackluster first half, he recovers well in the second), then Wray. And Wray’s not particularly good; she’s got a terrible, silly part and no chemistry with Tracy because he’s a pest. But she’s not bad. And there’s a lot of bad. The worst is Preston Foster. He’s atrocious.

Oh, wait, I got sidetracked talking about Roesner. Who’s also got a terrible part because he’s not actually a creepy butler; he’s just a regular dude who no one in the movie knows is a creep. There’s a whole scene where he teases maid Leila Bennett (who’s good, but barely in it), and you think he’s intentionally being mean, but then he’s weirded to Wray later, and she’s okay with it, taking it as concern. Who knows how it’d play if director Curtiz weren’t entirely checked out regarding his cast’s performances.

The color photography from Ray Rennahan is just okay but charming. He’s trying harder than almost everyone else, who’s not trying at all. And why would you with the script? But, still, someone had to realize Tracy shouldn’t be just bumbling for long scenes, all by himself.

It’s not the worst, but it’s still a reasonably comprehensive fail.

Sullivan’s Travels (1941, Preston Sturges)

Sullivan’s Travels is almost impossibly well-constructed. Director Sturges, editor Stuart Gilmore and photographer John F. Seitz go through various, entirely different narrative devices and do them all perfectly. Whether it’s a high speed chase, Veronica Lake having a screwball comedy sequence on the studio backlot, Lake and lead Joel McCrea having soul-searching conversations, McCrea and Lake in a lengthy sequence without dialogue, nighttime suspense sequences, over and over, Sturges, Gilmore and Seitz create these masterful scenes. Every time it seems like Sturges’s direction can’t get better, it does, like Gilmore’s cuts can get better, they do, Seitz’s photography always one ups itself. Sullivan’s Travels is a very serious film about learning why laughing is so important. It’s amazing, start to finish.

McCrea and Lake are both essential to the picture’s success. There are some great supporting performances, but it’s all about Lake and McCrea. He starts the film without her (and goes into the third act minus her as well); once she arrives though, Sturges is able to move the story–and McCrea’s character–along their trajectory. Even though before Lake, Travels is excellent (that fantastic chase sequence is pre-Lake), once she shows up it becomes clear Sturges is going to go all over with the film. He’s already got a phenomenal pace set up and then he just keeps going with it. There’s a delineated structure to the film–McCrea’s always telling people the plan and how the film’s going to progress (at least geographically)–and Sturges sticks to it just long enough to get to the next reveal, the next approach. Only McCrea and Lake, who have a lot of searching conversations (he’s the Hollywood success story, she’s the Hollywood failure story and Travels is very much a film about Hollywood), get some repetition. And some of the supporting cast gets similar scenes. But once things are well enough underway, Sturges has nothing but surprises for Lake and McCrea (and the audience).

Sturges gives McCrea and Lake this awesome dialogue and then directs them in a way as to lean on their performances. For an auteur, Sturges knows he needs his stars. Lake’s a little more impressive because she doesn’t get the protagonist part and she does have to immediately challenge McCrea. She stakes out her part in the film and never lets it go, which Sturges utilizes to get effect out of Lake’s presence, whether she gets lines in a scene or not. It’s a comedy trick applied to drama, but he also uses it for comedy in Sullivan’s Travels. There’s so many different styles, especially since large portions of the film are shot outside. When Lake gets her screwball race through the backlot, it’s another commentary on the reality of Hollywood.

Excellent score from Charles Bradshaw and Leo Shuken.

It’s mind-boggling how many great things going on and how those things interact with each other. Sturges bites off a lot, chews it, bites off even more–writing about the film is frustrating. There’s always something else to be said about it, always something else deserving of mention or exploration–Lake as “The Tramp” and how that disguise comments on Hollywood’s portrayal of poverty. Sullivan’s Travels is a masterpiece.

The Twilight Zone (1959) s01e18 – The Last Flight

The Last Flight has some fantastic sound design. Especially at the beginning when Kenneth Haigh’s plane lands. He’s a World War I flier who journeys through time to the late fifties, landing on an American airbase. The sound for the base and the planes is just phenomenal. And the episode hasn’t even really started yet.

Richard Matheson’s script doesn’t concern itself too much with the time travel. Well, wait, it does. But more accurately, it concerns itself with the consequences of the time travel. Haigh figures the whole thing out in a rather long scene. He talks Simon Scott–as a modern Air Force major–into it. A little, anyway. He raises the question.

Great performances from Haigh, Scott and Alexander Scourby as the bewildered commanding officer.

There’s some decent shots from Claxton, but Last Flight succeeds because of Matheson’s script–which winds and unwinds–and the actors performing it.

I Married a Witch (1942, René Clair)

I Married a Witch often seems too short. Director Clair rightly focuses the picture around leading lady Veronica Lake, with Frederic March getting a fair amount of attention too, but the narrative outside them blurs. And it shouldn’t blur, given the high stakes election backdrop.

Clair’s focus also extends to troublesome plot points. Witch goes back on plot decisions just because there’s a good scene if a decision here or there is forgotten. The picture feels willfully constructed (as opposed to sublimely). Of course, this artificiality doesn’t much matter; Clair makes a fine film of Witch.

Lake’s the film’s essential element. She’s appealing whether she’s a good witch or a bad witch, whether she’s physically present or voicing a wisp of smoke. Witch isn’t about March overcoming his family’s curse, it’s about seeing what Lake is going to do to him next. Around halfway, the narrative veers in a new direction, giving both actors much different things to do. They both excel. March might not have as much to do, but it’s impossible to imagine Witch without him.

The two stars get fine support from Robert Benchley (as March’s best friend) and Cecil Kellaway (Lake’s warlock father). Susan Hayward’s around a bit as March’s loathsome fiancée–his family’s been cursed to marry poorly. Hayward doesn’t make much impression beyond the loathsome though.

Ted Tetzlaff’s photography is wondrous, ably handling some of Clair’s more ambitious flourishes. The finale has some fine effects work.

Witch is delightful thanks to Lake and March.