Tag: Una O’Connor

The Strawberry Blonde (1941, Raoul Walsh)

The Strawberry Blonde is a period piece within a period piece. It opens in the past, then there’s a flashback to the further past. It recalls a time when WASPs couldn’t figure out how to eat spaghetti and the political corruption machine was easier to crack. Director Walsh is very enthusiastic about the time period and setting (turn of the century New York); almost distractingly so.

The film opens with working men James Cagney and George Tobias hanging out on a Sunday, getting into a tiff with some lounging college folks across the fence, while Cagney tries to put off having to take wife Olivia de Havilland for their weekly walk. There’s a lengthy exposition dump about how Cagney’s ended up in his current situation and how it’s the fault of someone they used to know.

And just who should call for an emergency Sunday dental appointment (Cagney’s a dentist, Blonde is set in the mail correspondence course era of dental schools) but that someone (Jack Carson, but we haven’t met him yet).

While the script—Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein—is very snappy with the dialogue, including bringing up the coincidental nature of it all, it doesn’t bother trying to get around Cagney telling the story to someone who already knows it; we’ll find out Tobias was there for all of it. So then, the film drops into a further flashback, ten years before.

And it opens on Cagney’s dad, Alan Hale, having adventures without Cagney witnessing them. Hale sees himself as the neighborhood Casanova, romancing the housewives while the husbands are out. Strawberry Blonde makes sure everyone gets at least one really good, really solid scene—they rarely overlap between actors—but pretty much everything Hale gets is gold. When Hale disappears in the second act so Cagney can get into his perceived love triangle, the film feels the loss—and it’s on the film; Walsh’s showcasing of Hale’s comedic abilities doesn’t affect the narrative at all, it’s just because Hale’s great at the physical comedy.

All the guys in the neighborhood have a crush on Rita Hayworth, but none of them have the courage to talk to her… not until Carson has the excuse of selling charity tickets. Of course, the tickets are a scam but it doesn’t matter (there’s a dropped subplot about Cagney selling tickets for Carson, which gives them an excuse to hang out together but doesn’t factor in otherwise). Hayworth takes to Carson, dropping a hint about where he can meet her without a formal introduction, only they’re going to have to bring friends to keep it proper. He brings Cagney, she brings de Havilland.

There’s an obvious age difference between Cagney and de Havilland, which ends up really helping the relationship, even though a lot of his problem is he’s just a cocky jerk. He’s got a good heart in there somewhere, which de Havilland recognizes right away, when she’s busy trying to convince him she’s wise beyond her years and a suffragette activist to boot. Cagney doesn’t go in for that kind of progress and would prefer a girl like Hayworth. Specifically Hayworth.

The second act is Cagney’s pursuing Hayworth while de Havilland and Carson hang around on the sidelines. While most of the film is Cagney against type—he’s always getting beat up—the plot eventually does at least appear like a more predicted Cagney one; the third act introduces and resolves that drama, then there’s the return to the (still period) present for the wrap-up. There are additional flashback tiers; there’s a skip ahead a couple years from the earliest flashback, then another five years (so the final flashback scene is three-ish years before the present).

Walsh and the Brothers Epstein do a fantastic job keeping the plot moving, which isn’t always easy since Cagney’s frequently making a fool of himself.

Performance-wise, de Havilland is the obvious winner. She only gets a couple big scenes and she’s magnificent; from the start, the film’s got a sort of peculiar relationship with the comedy because Cagney can’t do it as well as Hale or Tobias. When Cagney’s watching Hale, waiting for his line, you can see the excitement on his face, getting to work opposite the more comically inclined Hale. But when de Havilland shows up, she immediately gets how to do the comedy. In a few minutes she’s able to elevate the entire project.

Cagney’s good. There’s not really the opportunity for anything great and he doesn’t create one, but he’s good. After all the work he does for comedy’s sake, when he finally does get his spotlight scenes, they’re just riffs on gangster melodrama.

Hayworth gets a phenomenal scene and the biggest character arc, but she seems underutilized. Though it wouldn’t be Cagney’s movie if it were actually about The Strawberry Blonde. It also wouldn’t be a comedy.

Carson’s good; kind of broad, but he makes it work.

Hale’s great.

Excellent use of songs, great sets and costumes, good or great direction from Walsh—there do seem to be some strange film stock issues going on, where cinematographer James Wong Howe just isn’t able to match lighting between shots, but it seems like it’s got to be something other than him.

The Strawberry Blonde’s a fun vehicle for Cagney and an exquisite showcase for de Havilland’s comedic chops (when she gets to show them). It’s forties studio comedy done right.

The Informer (1935, John Ford)

Smack-dab in the middle of The Informer is a romance between IRA commander Preston Foster and his gal, Heather Angel, sister to an IRA man (Wallace Ford). Foster and Angel steal moments together on one fateful night, tragic circumstances giving them unexpected time with one another, but those same circumstances sort of foreshadowing their very sad future together.

The Informer is Victor McLaglen’s movie. The whole thing is about his performance. Everything is about supporting his performance, even this subplot because it’s going to get into the ground situation of the supporting cast—see, McLaglen is the titular Informer and Ford is his victim.

The film opens with a title card setting the time and place—a particular night in Dublin in 1922. The entire film takes place over twelve to fourteen hours, at night, with fog covering the city. The fog’s so dense, it encourages Ford out of hiding in the hills so he can visit with sister Angel and mom Una O'Connor. The fog’s so cold, it sends McLaglen’s girl (Margot Grahame) out onto the street looking to make some money for food and rent. When McLaglen interrupts Grahame’s potential customer’s approach, they get into a fight about money. The film’s already established Ford’s wanted by the Black and Tans (the cops, working for the British against the IRA) and there’s a reward too. Just enough to cover passage to America for McLaglen and Grahame.

Once he gets to town, the first person Ford looks up is McLaglen—they’re besties, Ford the brains of the operation, McLaglen the brawn; all McLaglen’s recent troubles started after Ford had to lamb it. After a brief expository catch-up to lay out McLaglen’s ground situation, Ford’s off to visit his family. It’s okay, McLaglen tells him, the cops aren’t surveilling anymore.

We then get to watch McLaglen crack with desperation—not greed—and inform on Ford.

Until this point in the film—now, hopefully the Fords won’t get confusing—director Ford has been keeping a tight focus on McLaglen’s performance in close-up. High contrast black and white photography from Joseph H. August, every line and thought visible on McLaglen’s face. The first act of The Informer is mostly dialogue-free, relying on McLaglen and the exceptional diegetic sound use.

Until McLaglen informs, the cast is him, Ford, and Grahame. There are background players but as they’re the only three who matter, which separates it a little from the second and third acts; after McLaglen goes to the cops—and after the cops raid Ford and family’s home—the cast gets very big, very fast.

Foster has head sidekick Joe Sawyer bring McLaglen in for a meeting—McLaglen’s been booted from the IRA, which is why he’s broke and starving—because Foster assumes McLaglen will know who informed on his best pal. McLaglen’s already had about half a bottle of whiskey and he finishes another while bullshitting Foster and Sawyer. Foster buys it, Sawyer doesn’t; they’re meeting at 1:30 a.m. to figure it out.

McLaglen’s going to spend that time getting drunker and drunker, picking up a repulsive little sidekick in J.M. Kerrigan, who thinks McLaglen’s got money but doesn’t realize he’s got money. During their drinking and carousing, much of McLaglen’s early sympathy gets burned off. He’s not too bright—hence needing Ford’s brains and Kerrigan’s ability to sway him—plus he’s exceptionally drunk. Sawyer’s trailing him, counting the money he spends, but it’s more impressive how much whiskey McLaglen consumes.

He’s 6’3”, towering over everyone else in the film, and the drunker he gets, the more uncontrollable he gets. He’s a floundering bull, lashing out all around.

The film culminates in a trial, where McLaglen confronts the man he’s accused in his place—Donald Meek in an incredible performance; his accent is Irish-y McIrish-y but still deep and earnest—as everyone starts to realize maybe McLaglen’s got more going on than just being dim and drunk. The conclusion is very, very good and very, very Catholic. Director Ford goes all out.

In addition to McLaglen, fantastic performances from Ford, O’Connor, Sawyer, Meek, and Kerrigan. Kerrigan’s so loathsome you don’t want to give him any credit but he’s also really good at it. Angel and Grahame are fine plus; when they have their big scene together, they’re both better than when playing off the boys (sort of amusingly—it’s 1935 after all—every syllable seems to fail Bechdel, yet the whole film hinges on it). Foster’s… maybe the only part to recast. He’s fine too, he’s just a little too stoic. While Foster gets to show his humanity in the romance with Angel, Sawyer gets to show it in his bloodthirstiness, which is far more striking.

The film’s impeccably directed by Ford. Wonderful use of sound, composition, music—Max Steiner—August’s photography, George Hively’s editing, the sets—it’s all outstanding. And all of it is to showcase McLaglen’s exceptional turn as a tragic, dumb lug. In the end, the only one who can almost compare is O’Connor, but she only has to be exceptional for three minutes, McLaglen’s onscreen most of the ninety minute runtime.

The Informer’s great.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley)

The Adventures of Robin Hood gets by on a lot of charm. Charm and costuming (good and bad). The film opens with title cards setting the scene. Sherwood Forest, evil King’s brother, righteous nobel, beautiful damsel, insidious villain, and Technicolor tights–Claude Rains looking like a Little Lord Fauntleroy grew up and broke bad.

Rains, with sidekicks Basil Rathbone, Melville Cooper, and Montagu Love, isn’t a terrible villain. When there’s first act banter between Rains and Flynn, it seems like Rains is going to be a great one. It’s like Rains is buying into the pomposity of the production. Maybe it’s when Keighley is still directing the film, maybe it’s Curtiz. They didn’t work together; the studio canned Keighley for weak action scenes.

And action scenes are Robin Hood’s weakness. Neither Curtiz or Keighley has much of a handle on them. There’s almost a discomfort around the castle sets, like neither director knows how he wants to shoot the exteriors. There are some decent moments on the outdoor castle and village set, but not many. Robin Hood’s best directorial moments are indoors. Even the problematic ones; one of the directors has some real issues with framing the grandiose castle interiors, like he’s going for something and it just doesn’t translate.

Olivia de Havilland’s condemned Maid Marian, tinily waiting her sentence, is a somewhat effective moment, but it’s not a style the directors use in the rest of the film. Just for inside the castle for a bit in the second half of the film, specifically as the second act winds down. de Havilland’s gowns are always exquisite–quite the opposite of the men in tights–and the shots sort of showcase them, but her performance during her bigger character moments could’ve been shot a lot better.

There’s also Ralph Dawson’s editing.

But the problem is the script more than anything else. Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller string together some introductions to familiar Robin Hood supporting cast through the first act–while setting up Rains’s villainry–and that first act is pretty much the most Flynn gets to do in the film actingwise. He and de Havilland flirt wonderfully through the rest of the film, but it’s all easy stuff. And then in the second act, de Havilland gets a lot more to do, only to lose it all for the third act. Third act is a mostly even split between Flynn and Rains, along with the deus ex machina sauntering around, but it’s not a return to the first act.

Robin Hood has a lot of (tighted) buts to it. Basil Rathbone’s an effective strong man villain, but he has no character and Rathbone doesn’t bring one to it. He just sweats well during the sword fights. Same goes for the Merry Men. Patric Knowles gets top billing despite having nothing to do. He’s purely functional. At least Eugene Pallette and Alan Hale eventually bicker, though it comes out of nowhere.

The best parts of the supporting cast are this underdeveloped, but frequently utilized, romance between Flynn’s “squire” Herbert Mundin and de Havilland’s lady-in-waiting Una O’Connor. And Melville Cooper’s cowardly Nottingham Sheriff is eventually funny, just because the script doesn’t forget about the joke. Cooper’s character gets a singular consistency and he does well with it.

Shame Rains doesn’t have a similar success.

Beautiful Technicolor cinematography from Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito. Omnipresent and overbearing, but still good in parts, score from Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

The Adventures of Robin Hood ought to be better, even though some of the cast does all right.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley; screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine and Seton I. Miller; directors of photography, Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito; edited by Ralph Dawson; music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold; produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Errol Flynn (Robin Hood), Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian), Basil Rathbone (Sir Guy of Gisbourne), Claude Rains (Prince John), Patric Knowles (Will Scarlett), Eugene Pallette (Friar Tuck), Alan Hale (Little John), Melville Cooper (High Sheriff of Nottingham), Una O’Connor (Bess), Herbert Mundin (Much), and Montagu Love (Bishop of the Black Canons).

THIS POST IS PART OF THE SECOND ANNUAL OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND + ERROL FLYNN BLOGATHON HOSTED BY LAURA OF PHYLLIS LOVES CLASSIC MOVIES and CRYSTAL OF IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD.

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The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)

For The Bride of Frankenstein, director Whale takes a contradictory approach. It's either more is more, or less is less. More music, all the time. Franz Waxman's frequently playful music rarely fits its scenes, unless Whale is going for a melodramatic farce, which he really doesn't seem to be doing. I kept hoping he would be, because it might make the film more compelling.

More Monster–Boris Karloff is nonsensically running around the countryside, finding someone to accidentally kill or not. William Hurlbut's screenplay contrives connections between loose, if memorable, scenes and never pauses to explain why the Monster kills another little girl. Maybe he really liked doing it from the first one.

Of course, the Monster could explain since Karloff now has lines to deliver. But all of his lines are lame.

Poor Colin Clive has almost nothing to do. None of the characters in Bride have arcs running the whole film–not even the Monster–but Clive pops in at the beginning and then at the end. In one of Hurlbut's weaker moments, Clive goes from pro-mad scientist to anti-mad scientist at the snap of the fingers. It's ludicrous.

Ernest Thesiger's good as the villain. Valerie Hobson not as Clive's wife.

Whale doesn't have enough coverage so Ted J. Kent's editing is usually bad. Except the finale, which is wondrous and is so tightly edited, one has to wonder why the rest of the film is so loose. Probably because there has to be a story.

It's a trying seventy-five minutes.

The Invisible Man (1933, James Whale)

The Invisible Man is a filmmaking marvel. First off, R.C. Sherriff’s screenplay sets things up speedily and without much exposition. The film introduces Claude Rains’s character through everyone else’s point of view–first the strangers he meets, then his familiars–all while Rains is front and center in the film. Even though he is, after all, invisible.

Rains is another marvel. The script is excellent, Whale does a peerless job directing (more on his contributions in a bit), but Rains makes the whole thing possible. With him, Invisible isn’t some horror picture or a sci-fi one, it’s a very simple, very tragic story of a man going mad. It doesn’t need the special effects, it just needs Rains. Everything else is a bonus. It’s an outstanding performance.

The whole cast is great–Gloria Stuart has to sell the idea Rains was once a lovable guy, so goes Henry Travers for instance. William Harrigan gets to be a sleaze bag but a decent enough minded one.

Now for Whale. Many of the special effects in The Invisible Man are unbelievable. Even the ones where they obviously used some kind of matte decades are sort of unbelievable, but the practical effects–where the bandages must have been suspended by wire–those are astonishing. And Whale knows, early on, to wow the audience. But he never lets up with it; it’s one wow after another.

The Invisible Man gets better on every viewing. The work from Whale, Rains and Sherriff is singular.

Suzy (1936, George Fitzmaurice)

The war story love triangle: girl mets boy, girl marries boy, girl thinks boy dies, girl meets second boy, girl marries second boy, first boy returns, one of the boys dies. Suzy isn’t even an interesting spin on it. The film throws in a relationship between lower class Jean Harlow with her upper class father-in-law Lewis Stone in an attempt to make the story poignant, to give her character some depth, but it fails miserably. Watching the scenes with the two of them, the attempted manipulation reeks. The two aren’t bad together, but Suzy works at its best during moments of high charisma. Cary Grant (as the second boy) has a lot of it, but Franchot Tone’s actually got more in his scenes. Tone’s doing an Irish accent for most of the film (it appears after his first or second scene) and it’s mildly grating, but he’s still good. Harlow ranges, when the character makes sense, she’s good. When it doesn’t, she’s only okay. Unfortunately, the script rarely bothers making sense.

The film does succeed on a few levels, mostly due to George Fitzmaurice’s direction. It has two definite periods–England before the war and France during–and Fitzmaurice gives each part of the film an atmosphere. These distinctions don’t help the film much, but it’s good work and it makes the film a more pleasant experience. His direction of dramatic scenes is pat–a lengthy long shot followed by some close-ups and then a medium shot–but the sets are at least nice. The supporting cast helps a lot in Suzy–Una O’Connor’s got a great scene and there are some others… The film’s quality isn’t particularly bumpy. It does get better after awhile and might actually approach getting good, but it betrays the story in the end. I timed the last act, trying to guess the resolution to the love triangle and figured for a couple scenes–one between Harlow and the winner and another with Lewis Stone, since the film hung everything on he and Harlow’s friendship. Following a couple great action scenes–one of them was just flying footage from Hell’s Angels, but the other one must have been Fitzmaurice unless Suzy was written to match Hell’s Angels leftover shots–the film stops. The love triangle’s resolved, but there’s nothing else. It becomes a war picture for the first time. Instead of finishing the characters’ stories, the audience gets a bit about valor and distinction and then a “The End.”

Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell wrote (some of) Suzy and, according to IMDb, they were a highly paid screenwriting team. They were a waste of money.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by George Fitzmaurice; screenplay by Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell, Horace Jackson and Lenore J. Coffee, based on the novel by Herbert Gorman; director of photography, Ray June; edited by George Boemler; music by William Axt; produced by Maurice Revnes; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Jean Harlow (Suzy), Franchot Tone (Terry), Cary Grant (Andre), Lewis Stone (Baron), Benita Hume (Madame Eyrelle), Reginald Mason (Captain Barsanges), Inez Courtney (Maisie), Greta Meyer (Mrs. Schmidt), David Clyde (‘Knobby’), Christian Rub (‘Pop’ Gaspard), George Spelvin (Gaston) and Una O’Connor (Landlady).

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