Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) **

I expect the reason director Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) made it into the 1001 Book is it is considered by many film critics as an early example of feminist cinema.  That said, I must say that it was a bit lackluster for my taste.  Yes, it was mildly entertaining to see a 20-year old Maureen O’Hara be upstaged by the Queen “B” actress of Hollywood, Lucile Ball, but that’s pretty much the most entertaining thing about it. 

Judy O’Brien (O’Hara) is supposed to be a classically trained ballerina—by a former Bolshoi ballerina (Maria Ouspenskaya) nonetheless.  Of course, this premise is ridiculous as O’Hara was far from a ballerina, although she had taken dance lessons at school and had danced in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).  Reflecting on the film, O’Hara admitted that she struggled mightily to get the ballet sequences down. Admittedly, the best dancer in the picture was Ball, who’d been both a Ziegfeld and Goldwyn girl.  Yet, O’Hara was cast as the classy but innocent Judy and Ball got the part of the floozy Burlesque queen, Bubbles (aka Tiger Lily White).  The characters suited both women—even if the ballet didn’t suit O’Hara.

The crux of the film hinges on one thing: sex. Bubbles has sex appeal and knows how to use it to get ahead, while Judy’s pristine innocence blocks her path to success and love at every turn.  Bubbles is the sort of woman that millionaires like Jimmy Harris (Louis Hayward) use to get over their wives (Virginia Field). She’s also the type that men will pay money to come see dance (be it the hula or a comedic striptease). Poor Judy, all she’s good for is to get boos from the pervs who want to see Bubbles shake her ass instead of Judy’s would-be ballet routine and to make men realize they still love their wives.  It’s a comedy (sort of), so I know it’s supposed to be amusing that Bubbles always seems to thwart Judy’s dreams, but there’s an added element of amusement knowing that O’Hara would go on to be a highly regarded film actress and Ball would find herself the queen of television. 

Once you get over the fact that a respected ballet producer (Ralph Bellamy) would track Judy down at a burlesque hall to give her a shot at stardom without having ever seen her dance, you can enjoy Ball’s comedic abilities and every now and again catch a glimpse of O’Hara’s noted fieriness. Ball wears the character of Bubbles as if she were born to play the part.  Sassy, spunky, and funny are the adjectives that best describe Bubbles.  She knows how to use what the good lord gave her to make her way in a man’s world.  Her rendition of “Mother, What Do I Do Now?” is worth the price of admission—especially if you’ve seen Marilyn Monroe’s famous blowing dress scene in The Seven Year Itch (1955)—who knew Lucy could teach Marilyn a trick or two about sex appeal?  Probably the best line of the film is when a stage hand tells Bubbles to give the audience all that she’s got and she quips, “They couldn’t handle it.”

Of course, O’Hara’s impassioned dressing down of the burlesque audience and her somewhat impudent behavior in night court after walloping Ball show glimmers of what made O’Hara such a likable actress.  Anyone familiar with that little spark that burns in her eyes when she is about to go off (just about the entirety of The Quiet Man) will recognize it when it finally shows itself right before the Irish comes out:

“Go on, laugh, get your money's worth. No-one's going to hurt you. I know you want me to tear my clothes off so you can look your fifty cents' worth. Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wives won't let you. What do you suppose we think of you up here with your silly smirks your mothers would be ashamed of? We know it'd the thing of the moment for the dress suits to come and laugh at us too. We'd laugh right back at the lot of you, only we're paid to let you sit there and roll your eyes and make your screamingly clever remarks. What's it for? So you can go home when the show's over, strut before your wives and sweethearts and play at being the stronger sex for a minute? I'm sure they see through you. I'm sure they see through you just like we do!”

Yep, that’s the Maureen O’Hara I know…not a fake ballerina who would allow herself to be upstaged by Lucille Ball. 

Overall, Dance, Girl, Dance is a rather forgettable picture. However, this was probably the best film performance of Ball’s career.  I’m sure there’s loads of fodder for feminist theorists to discuss about Dance, Girl, Dance, but, for me, at least, it’s a minor element which I‘m not that interested in. 

 

 

 

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The Philadelphia Story (1940) ****

The Philadelphia Story (1940) is a remarkable film for several reasons.  First, the small but stellar cast was comprised of three Hollywood stalwarts—Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Katharine Hepburn.  Second, Donald Ogden Stewart’s expertly adapted Oscar-winning screenplay was engagingly witty and humanized Hepburn. Which brings me to the most remarkable thing about the movie—it probably saved Hepburn’s film career.  For all of those reasons, and many more, The Philadelphia Story is a classic Hollywood gem.

For any actor or actress, even Hepburn, being labeled “Box Office Poison” could be damaging.  After several of her films bombed at the box office, Hepburn had to face the fact that moviegoers just weren’t that into her.  To some she seemed hard, aloof, stilted, and affected.  Maybe it was her upper-class Northeastern upbringing or her Bryn Mawr education, but she just wasn’t that likable to many American movie ticket buyers.  Still, Hepburn could always fall back to the one audience that seemed to adore her—Broadway.  So when Philip Barry wrote the stage play of The Philadelphia Story specifically for Hepburn, she was more than happy to finance and star in it. Even before the play was a huge success on Broadway, Howard Hughes bought the film rights for his then-girlfriend, Hepburn, because he believed it was just the vehicle to restart her film career.  He was right, of course, and the rest is Hollywood history.

While the story is somehow labeled a screwball comedy, for me The Philadelphia Story is more of a sophisticated comedy.  The premise, of course, is a bit screwy, but it certainly is not in the screwball realm of The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), or probably the greatest screwball comedy of all time, Easy Living (1937). Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a socialite on the verge of marrying a complete bore, George Kittredge (John Howard), when her ex-husband, Dexter (Grant), shows up with two reporters in tow to cover the nuptials.  To avoid a family scandal involving her father (John Halliday) and a chorus girl, Tracy agrees to allow the reporters, Mike (Stewart) and Liz (Ruth Hussey), to take pictures and write an article for Spy magazine. Of course, this isn’t the only reason Dexter has crashed his ex’s wedding—the flame of love still burns bright for his rigid, unforgiving ex-wife.  And, this is what the story hinges on—Tracy’s inability to accept anyone’s human weakness, even her own.  In between exchanging sharps quips with Dexter, her father, and her beyond hilarious mother (Mary Nash) and sister (Virginia Weidler) and soulfully philosophizing with Mike, Tracy somehow grows up before the audience’s eyes and becomes, dare I say it, human.

Interestingly enough, while Grant and Hepburn had undeniable chemistry, as previously shown in Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Holiday (1938) and Bringing Up Baby (1938), most of the film focuses on a budding romantic relationship between Tracy and Mike.  Hepburn had wanted Spencer Tracy to play the part of Mike (this was two years prior to her having ever met Tracy) but he was unavailable, which probably was a blessing, because when you think about it who could have better humanized Hepburn than Mr. Likable himself, Jimmy Stewart?  He, along with director George Cukor, did such a good job of bringing out Hepburn’s vulnerable side that Stewart won his only Oscar (besides his honorary one).  Strangely enough, Stewart and Hepburn never did another film together, and this was also her last pairing with Grant as well. Oh well, both Grant and Stewart moved onto the world of Hitchcock and Hepburn, well, she finally got to work with Spencer Tracy, so I guess things worked out for everyone in the end.

Overall, The Philadelphia Story is a highly enjoyable film.  The story is witty and the cast is engaging.  It also serves as a historical footprint in the film career of Hepburn, because without it things may have turned out very differently for the woman who would go on to be recognized as one of the greatest film actresses ever. 

 

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The Mortal Storm (1940) ***

Released more than one year before Pearl Harbor, director Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm (1940) was a Hollywood rarity—it openly criticized the Nazi Party.  Even though Hitler’s reign of terror in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe went unchecked for over six years before the start of WWII, Hollywood, for the most part, stayed quiet on the subject until the U.S. entered into war with Japan, and then Germany, in 1941. So, when MGM distributed The Mortal Storm in June of 1940 it caused a slight buzz—especially in Nazi Germany, which not only banned the movie but all MGM films in the fatherland. This fact alone makes the movie special, but the story and acting also make this one of the most important pre-WWII anti-Nazi films ever made in Hollywood.

Based on the 1938 Phyllis Bottom novel of the same name, The Mortal Storm takes place in Bavaria (Germany).  The story begins on January 30, 1933. This date is important to the plot for two reasons: 1) Professor Viktor Roth (Frank Morgan) is celebrating his 60th birthday and 2) Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany.  Professor Roth has a beautiful family and is a distinguished scientific university professor on this date. The film sets out to show that the extremism of Nazism can destroy anything in a very short amount of time. You see, Professor Roth is non-Aryan (for some reason the story doesn’t come right out and say Jewish, even though we do see Professor Roth wearing an armband in a detention center which has a letter “J” on it) and believes in free thought and scientific evidence. These things don’t play well with the Nazis—the movie seems to indicate that they dislike Professor Roth’s science more than his religion, yet somehow they tie both together, as he refuses to denounce his belief that there is no difference between the blood of one human being to another, so I can somehow overlook the side-stepping of the Jewish question.

What makes the story compelling, however, is how Nazism can irreparably fracture relationships.  While I can’t completely wrap my mind around why Professor’s Roth’s two stepsons, Otto (Robert Stack) and Erich (William T. Orr), would join the Nazi Party in the first place (although they are von Rohns, which indicates that they are of noble descent, so that could be why), I think Borzage does a good job of showing their confliction between family and Party loyalty. For them, I think, it’s not the anti-Semitism that appeals to them but the idea of Germany regaining its status in the world.  Still, the closing scene of the film, which finds Otto walking silently through his empty family home, which has been destroyed by the philosophy his Nazi armband represents, is quite moving.

Of course, it is the complicated love-triangle between Professor Roth’s daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan) and Fritz (Robert Young) and Martin (James Stewart) that is at the center of the movie.  In the beginning, Freya and Fritz are happily in love and become engaged. While Martin is disappointed by this, he’s more concerned with the Nazis taking over Germany.  He’s a lot like Professor Roth—he thinks people should be allowed to think for themselves and not be forced to join political parties they don’t agree with.  Fritz, on the other hand, is a follower—he thinks the Nazis can rebuild the glory of the German Reich.  This, of course, puts Martin at odds with his childhood friends, Fritz and the two von Rohns, as well as what seems like their entire village.  His audacity of standing up for a non-Aryan school teacher, Professor Berg (Granville Bates), and his refusal to join the local Nazi party puts a target on his back.  And, Fritz’s hardline stance destroys his relationship with Freya, who gravitates toward Martin as a result.  The pivotal scene of the film, which I won’t completely disclose, spotlights how destructive Nazism can actually be for lifelong friends.

For me, the standouts in the film are Stewart, Sullavan, and Maria Ouspenskaya (who plays Martin’s soft but steely mother).  Other than Gregory Peck, I don’t know of any other actor who could so expertly play the moral center of a film like Jimmy Stewart. The Mortal Storm is probably one of Stewart’s most nuanced good guy portrayals ever—there are no railings against wrong or manic cries for justice. Instead, he simply and soft-spokenly explains how he feels about Nazism.  And, while I’m not a huge fan of Sullavan, she is markedly compelling as Freya.  Her conversations with Fritz regarding the end of their relationship and her inquiries about the whereabouts of her father show that given the right material that she could pull off depth of character.  Finally, while she only had a few scenes, Ouspenskaya made the most of them.  You can see where Martin got his wisdom and countenance from, as Mrs. Breitner is not afraid to stand up to injustice.  The scene where she has Martin and Freya drink from the bridal glass is heartbreakingly stellar.

Overall, I think The Mortal Storm is a historically important Hollywood film. While it is practically forgotten today, it was an extremely important movie in 1940.  Yes, it was, by all accounts, a box office failure and critics thought it was dated, but it did something that most Hollywood films didn’t—it exposed the destructive nature of the Nazi Party in Germany—not as a war movie with soldiers and tanks, but as a film about the destruction of a family.

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His Girl Friday (1940) **1/2

There’s something unusual about director Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy, His Girl Friday—it’s not all screwy. In fact, there are quite a few dark moments in it that are not standard fare for the genre.  This unusual quirk and the witty, rapid-fire repartee makes for an interesting viewing experience.  Of course, it helps that Hawks coaxed out two great performances from his principal leads, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.

Adapted from the heralded Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play, The Front Page, His Girl Friday flips the script, so to speak, by making Hildy Johnson (Russell) a female reporter on her way out of the slimy bullpen and into respectable matrimony.  Unfortunately for Hildy she has two things standing in her way: her ex-husband and soon-to-be ex-editor, Walter Burns (Grant), and her own professional ambition.  Of course, this doesn’t bode well for her fiancee Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy).  It also doesn’t help that she delivers the news of her impending marriage to Walter on the eve of an execution that has political implications.  Walter needs his best reporter for the biggest story in town and he stops at nothing to ensure that Hildy writes it.  As the story grows bigger by the minute so does Hildy’s love of the newspaper game.

Sure, His Girl Friday is a screwball comedy.  Spit-fire dialogue infused with sexual innuendo and inside jokes abound throughout the movie.  Of course, Hildy and Walter are the two smartest people in any room and seem to relish jockeying between themselves to determine who is actually the smartest between them.  Alas, this means that others have to play the one-upped or, worse, the dumb sap, like Bruce.  But who cares, it’s all in the name of good, rollicking fun!  But is it… There’s a strangely dark side to this film that is quite unusual for the typical screwball comedy. 

For one, the big news story revolves around the impending execution of Earl Williams (John Qualen), a man who killed a black police officer.  We hear and see the police practicing for his hanging. And, when Hildy goes to interview him in jail there aren’t any hijinks—it’s a serious conversation about what led Walter to the gallows.  There’s also a few dramatic scenes that revolve around Walter’s friend Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack) and the callous way that the press treats their subject matter.  For me, this is one of the reasons that I don’t love His Girl Friday.  If you’ve seen it then you know that there’s a pretty horrific event that takes place near the end of the film and that almost without a beat the story moves back into screwball land—this is jarring, even if Hawks’ is trying to portray just how jaded the journalistic world is.

Still, who can resist the battle of the sexes between Grant and Russell.  He’s a reprehensible opportunist who knows how to use words to his advantage and she’s a fast-talking broad with an interesting fashion sense who knows all of Walter’s tricks.  They are a match made in matrimonial hell—but they are fun to watch.  Interestingly enough, Russell was far, far, far from the first choice for the role of Hildy, but after a slew of actresses (Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur, Ginger Rogers, etc.) either turned down the role or were deemed too expensive by Columbia Pictures, Russell was given the role she is probably best known for (even though Auntie Mame is well-remembered, too).  And while Grant got top-billing, Russell obviously was the star and heart of His Girl Friday—funny how things work out sometimes. 

Overall, the inside jokes alone make His Girl Friday worth watching.  For example, when Walter is asked to describe what Bruce looks like he answers, “He looks like that fellow in the movies—Ralph Bellamy.”  And, then there’s the classic line Bruce quips when the Mayor (Clarence Kolb) says Bruce is through, “Listen, the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat.”  I could go on and on about how hilariously the dialogue is delivered.  Needless to say, His Girl Friday is a fast-paced, antic-filled screwball comedy—with a few odd somber moments. 

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Pinocchio (1940) **

When your favorite character in a film doesn’t have one line then you know you just weren’t that enthralled.  Such was the case with Walt Disney Pinocchio (1940), where I much preferred Figaro the cat to every other animated being in it.  Plus, the story, by today’s standards, is just too pedophilic for me: single, old man builds a boy puppet and wishes that it were a real boy and then a fairy grants his wish.  I’ve obviously been irrevocably scarred by the times in which we live, but did they really have to call the amusement park where the stupid, bad boys are taken Pleasure Island? 

Walt Disney’ second foray into fairy-tale themed feature-length animation was based on Carlo Collodi’s 1880s novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio.  Gepppetto (Christian Rub) is a lonely wood carver who lives alone with his cat, Figaro, and his goldfish, Cleo. One night after putting the finishing touches on a puppet he makes a wish upon a star that the puppet become a real boy.  After Geppetto falls off to sleep a fairy (Evelyn Venable) visits the cottage and partially grants his wish. From the fairy dust emerges Pinocchio (Dickie Jones), a living puppet who must earn human status by being “brave, truthful and unselfish and able to tell right from wrong”. He is assigned a conscience—a cricket named Jiminy Cricket (Cliff Edwards), who sounds and looks like Fred Astaire.  His Odyssian (my word!) quest for boyhood and knowing the difference between right or wrong finds him: duped by a fox named Honest John (Walter Catlett); kidnapped by a money-hungry marionette manipulator (Charles Judels); taken to a den of childhood sin by a man who wants to turn him into a jackass for the salt mines; and, swallowed in the belly of a sperm whale appropriately named Monstro. In the words of Dorothy Gale, “"Oh! Oh! Jiminy Crickets!"

Let’s get the important things out of the way—the animation (for 1940) is spectacular.  From the intricacies of the cuckoo clocks to the ethereal quality of the Blue Fairy, the animation set the bar quite high for future films.  Compared to what we see today it might seem a bit crude, but effects animation (focused on movement, not on character) was a burgeoning art form and abstract animators like Oskar Fischinger did some amazing work in Pinocchio: the rainstorm, the fairy’s dust from the wand, and the entire sea/whale sequence are standouts in effects animation.

Now, I’m not a psychologist and/or a Freudian, but I wonder what Freud would have made of Pinocchio had he lived long enough to see it.  Let’s get past the Geppetto issue and look at some other elements that make the film suspect.  Pinocchio is made of wood. When he gets excited his nose grows and it looks like a phallus. Honest John looks and sounds like a pimp. Pinocchio is locked in a cage by Stromboli until he needs to use him again.  At Pleasure Island they ply the boys with candy, cigarettes/cigars, and booze.  The whale that he must enter to save Geppetto is a sperm whale. Do you see where I’m going here?  Ah, if only I were still an innocent child I might be capable of not reading too much into such things! 

Overall, Pinocchio should be recognized for its revolutionary animation contributions. Figaro is adorable and Jiminy Cricket’s “When You Wish Upon a Star” is memorable. Personally, the story does nothing for me other than creep the hell out of me.  Having reviewed three Disney films now (Fantasia and Dumbo are the others) I’ve come to the uncomfortable conclusion that adults should not revisit the beloved films of their childhood. 

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Fantasia: Not Your Child’s Disney (1940) **1/2

Mushrooms, fairy dust, nudity, intoxication, murder, witchcraft, and satanism are not words that pop to mind when someone mentions Walt Disney.  Yet, all of these elements appear in Disney’s Fantasia (1940). Ah, but there’s more—it’s an experimental, stereophonic movie, too.  I can’t imagine that many children (then and now) are pleased to learn that Mickey Mouse is only in the film for a few minutes and then the rest is music, music, music—and, worse yet, classical music!  Thankfully, I am not a child, and so I have a slight fondness for this revolutionary piece of cinema.

Ben Sharpsteen was the supervising director of this massive project. He worked with ten others directors and over sixty animators, not to mention conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, to create a film so unlike anything the movie-going public had ever seen that some didn’t know how to react.  Pauline Kael called it “grotesquely kitschy”, while Bosley Crowther observed that “Fantasia dumps conventional formulas overboard and reveals the scope of films for imaginative excursion”. I can see both Kael and Crowther’s points, but I tend to side more with Crowther.  For me, Fantasia is an artistic visual interpretation of the power of classical music.

The film is broken into eight segments, each set to a specific classical music piece.  While I could have done without Deems Taylor as the master of ceremonies, I know that some viewers needed his introductory comments.  Plus, some of the background information he provided was somewhat interesting.

The first section of the film is set to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and is perhaps the most abstract of the eight segments.  I don’t know if I would have started off like this, as it might have been too disorienting for some. Still, I love this piece of music and I enjoyed it being used in such an unusual way.  The second part is a reinterpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, with an emphasis on the changing of the seasons. On display are such things as fairy dust and dancing mushrooms—friends of hallucinogens rejoice!  I find these two sections delightful and a nice way to begin the program.

And, then comes Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in the third act.  This is probably the most famous part of the film, but in reality it is the least imaginative.  Somehow composer Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice doesn’t have the same power as the works of the other composers featured. The final section before the intermission is my least favorite. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is used to exhibit the earth’s creation and the early life forms that evolved from it.  I expect this was the most controversial part of the movie—saying the earth was billions of years old and that something crawled up out of the sea could be a problem for Bible literalists.  What I don’t particularly like about it is I don’t think the music fits the images presented.  For me, these are the two weakest sections of Fantasia.

The intermission serves as the fifth segment, but it really isn’t anything more than a quick music tutorial about what instrument sounds like what.  The sixth section is usually the most divisive.  Set to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, it takes place on Mount Olympus and we see colorful mythological creatures cavorting with one another.  I expect this is where Kael found the adjective ‘kitschy’, and, it is, but it is also a fun interpretation of Beethoven’s work.  I am especially fond of the Iris section and the covering of night section.  Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours is perhaps the most well regarded part of Fantasia. Hippos in tutus paired with vampire-esque alligators are inspired choices for a retelling of an Inquisition-based ballet.

Yet, of all of the sections of the film, the last is my favorite.  I love dark Russian composers and I think Modest Mussorgsky is one of the best. His Night on Bald Mountain is both hypnotically eerie and thrillingly exciting, and when paired with Schubert’s Ave Marie, a wonderful dichotomy of the sacred and the profane is expressed. Many viewers have said this part of the film is the one that stays with them the longest—some because it gave them nightmares! For me, I always play Night on Bald Mountain at my Halloween celebration because it is the perfect choice for the night of lost souls.  The animation fits splendidly with Mussorgsky’s music.

Overall, I enjoy watching Fantasia. The film is uneven at times, but that is to be expected when so many directors are involved.  What makes this movie special is its artistry and  innovation.  However, this is not a film that everyone will enjoy—most notably children and adults with short attention spans.

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The Grapes of Wrath (1940) **1/2

You don’t get more of a Depression-era film than director John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, the story follows the displaced Joad family from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to the sunny orchards of California.  Darryl Zanuck took a chance when he bought the film rights for 20th Century Fox, but in the end it paid off with seven Oscar nominations—two of which earned Oscars for Best Director John Ford and Best Supporting Actress Jane Darwell.  While it isn’t surprising that the film was nominated for Best Picture; it is a tad shocking that renowned cinematographer Gregg Toland’s striking images were overlooked by the Academy. You see, the story is gripping and the acting is mesmerizing, but the visuals are what make this film a treasure. 

When I read Steinbeck’s 600+ page novel in college I found myself admiring preacher Casy (John Carradine) and rooting for poor Rose-of-Sharon (Dorris Bowden).  I also didn’t really like Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) and I could have done without the intercalary chapters. Thankfully, the intercalary sections were left out of the film and what remains is a story that rips your heart out, chops it up, and then feeds it to the pigs.  Here you have a poor Oklahoma family thrown off the land their family has worked for generations by both mechanization and the banks.  No one seems to care that they have nothing but an old rickety truck loaded to the brim with a few pieces of furniture and articles of clothing.  They search out a new life in California, only to find that they are not needed or wanted.  Along the way they meet mostly scorn and mistreatment (mostly by land owners and law enforcement), but they do meet a few compassionate people.  The most memorable being the diner waitress who sells two peppermint sticks to the children for a penny, when they really cost a dime. 

While red-baiting was taking a coffee break in 1940 America, it was still risky to include Steinbeck’s rather socialistic themes. In one memorable scene Tom asks, “What is these 'Reds' anyway? Every time ya turn around, somebody callin' somebody else a Red. What is these 'Reds' anyway?” Steinbeck, and even Ford to a degree, are making the point that anyone who asks to be treated like a human being and be paid a fair wage is viewed as a “red” agitator. 

Henry Fonda does a good job of conveying Tom Joad’s underlying seething rage. Rewarded with a Best Actor nomination by the Academy, Fonda plays the embittered Tom as a man who could (and often does) explode at any moment. You can see the resentment Tom feels in the way Fonda moves, looks, and delivers his lines. 

In addition to Fonda’s fine acting, Jane Darwell delivers the performance of her life as Ma Joad.  It is the simple and quiet way that she goes about building her character into the backbone of the Joad family that I think most people admire. It would have been easy to play up the stereotypical hysterical hillbilly matriarch that some actresses went for, but Darwell is calm, resigned, and resilient in her role. 

The other standout performance is John Carradine’s (one of Ford’s favorite character actors) as Casy.  He adds an almost spiritual element to the film—and not because his character is a fallen preacher, either. He just seems to have a very reverent screen presence, and he delivers his lines in a prayer-like fashion.  Casy was my favorite character in the book, and while he doesn’t get as much screen time as one might like, I think Carradine uses what time he gets to make his Casy one of the most memorable things about the film.

While Carradine’s Casy is memorable, it is Gregg Toland’s cinematography that steals the entire production. Employing  the purity of black and white film, Toland used wide-angle lenses to capture the parched desolation of the Oklahoma plains and the deserted isolation of the desert.  How small is man compared to such images? When dealing with capturing the human element, Toland used deep focus so savagely that you feel uncomfortable looking at the ragged and malnourished people he sets his sights on.  He also uses shadows in a very clever way to literally illustrate when someone has something hanging over their head or breathing down their neck.  His images are stark, realistic, and uncomfortable—just what the film and the book were trying to convey about the plight of the Joads and thousands others like them. 

Now, some might be disappointed that I haven’t discussed the biblical references in the film. It’s there—Casy’s murder is like the crucifixion of Christ and the whole trip is like Exodus—but I find this element severally lacking from that of the book (much was cut), so I don’t find it to be that important.  What I think makes The Grapes of Wrath an enduring picture is the stunning photography and the nuanced presentation of one of the best examples of Americana during the Great Depression.

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The Bank Dick (1940) **

 

W.C. Fields isn’t as timeless as one would like.  Overall, vaudeville humor hasn’t aged well, either.  Still, Fields was a devilishly delicious deadpan comic who knew how to keep a gag running. He was greatly aided in this endeavor by his own clever writing.  Who better to convincingly deliver funny lines than the person who wrote them—I’m sure Woody Allen would attest to this.  The Bank Dick (1940) is a product of Fields’ comedic wit (director Edward F. Cline was just along for the ride). Oh, pay no attention to the name listed in the writing credit either, Mahatma Kane Jeeves--it was one of Fields’ many pseudonyms (evidently Gandhi was on his mind).  The story follows the Fields’ blueprint: an easy-going, imbibing man just wants to be left alone but finds himself hampered by domestic disturbances and inconvenient chance meetings.  What follows is a 74-minute study in Fields’ own unique brand of comedy.

Usually the best parts of Fields’ films deal with his character being mistreated by his ungrateful family—which is mostly filled with women: wife, daughters and an occasional cranky mother-in-law.  However, this theme isn’t really the crux of The Bank Dick. Yes, his aptly named character, Egbert Sousè, has a nagging wife (Cora Witherspoon as Agatha), an unpleasant mother-in-law (Jessie Ralph as Mrs. Brunch), and two daughters, one being a terror (Evelyn Del Rio as Elsie Mae) and one being stupid (Una Merkel as Myrtle).  Yet, unlike some of his other films, the family doesn’t figure heavily in the story.  They are used intermittently to show how unappreciated Mr. Sousè is, but otherwise they don’t really bring much to the table.  I personally would have liked to have seen more of Jessie Ralph’s belittling mother-in-law. She had some of the best lines in the entire film.  Here are two of my favorites:

Myrtle: I'll bet that's Og!
Mrs.Bruch: Mmm, he's got her bettin' now. She never gambled 'fore she met him.

Myrtle:What's a six-letter word meaning "embezzlement"?
Mrs.Brunch: Prison.

I definitely think they should have used her acerbic tongue more and less of Una Merkel'’s Myrtle, who is engaged to Og Oggilby (Grady Sutton), one of her father’s unfortunate co-workers and co-conspirators. Still, stupid characters often play the much needed role of straight man (or woman, let’s be PC!), so I suppose she serves her purpose.

There are a few random gags in the film, another trait of a Fields’ production, that I could have done without.  His stumbling into the role of film director after the actual director goes on a bender wasn’t very funny to me.  Perhaps he was trying to make a inside dig at someone (perhaps himself, LOL!), but I just found it completely useless to the story.  Another thing I could have missed was a few of his sojourns into the local watering hole.  Yet, I must admit that the name of the establishment, the Black Pussy Cat Café, is pure Fields gold.  Who else in 1940s Hollywood would have dreamed up such a name and got away with it?

All of the best things about this movie revolve around his work as an unqualified bank dick. What security guard in his right mind would tackle a small child holding a toy gun?  Sousè does, though I doubt he was in his right mind, and the result is laugh-out-loud funny.  When he asks the child’s mother if the gun is loaded, she replies, “No, but I think you are!” Who would think it was a good idea to buy $500 in bonds from a slickster (who says: “I want to show you I'm honest in the worst way”) he met at the Black Pussy and then convince his soon-to-be son-in-law to “borrow” money from the bank to buy them?  Sousè would—and he’d do it with a big grin on his face and rye on his breath.  Who would try to postpone the bank’s books from being examined by the wonderfully named J. Pinkerton Snoopington (Franklin Pangborn) by using food (or, in this case, liquid) poisoning?  Sousè would, and then he’d have another drink! 

What most people remember about this film is the extended road chase scene at the end of the film, where Sousè has to drive the getaway car for a bank robber.  The scene is reminiscent of the old silent chase scenes from the likes of the Keystone Cops. I’m not a big fan of slapstick chase scenes, but Fields gets off some great lines as the car slowly falls apart. A particular favorite barb is: “The resale value of this car is going to be nil after this trip.” I also got a hearty chuckle out of him handing the wheel to the robber when he was told to let the robber have the wheel.  It’s silly humor, but it’s smart silly humor.

While this isn’t my favorite Fields’ film (I prefer It's a Gift (1934), The Bank Dick has many enjoyable moments in it.  It is also a showcase for Fields’ comedic genius. 

 

 

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Rebecca ( 1940) **1/2

(This article is from guest contributor The Lady Eve and first appeared at http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/.  The rating in the title is my own.)

By the late 1930's, Hitchcock's reputation was riding high based on several suspense films he'd made in Britain. He came to Hollywood under contract to producer David O. Selznick. Selznick intended Rebecca to rival his previous film, the award-laden Gone With the Wind (1939). The two men had a contentious collaboration on Rebecca but ultimately produced a critical and commercial success that was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It won two: Best Picture and Best B&W Cinematography.

Rebecca is a favorite of mine, and here are a few reasons why...

A strong sense of atmosphere that underscores the story's gothic quality and mood of vague but insistent foreboding. Manderley, where much of the action occurs, conveys a cavernous and chilly ambiance of inhospitable elegance.

Multi-layered characters, evocative performances. Joan Fontaine is palpably anxious and apprehensive as the second Mrs. de Winter. She doesn't miss a beat and, late in the film, smoothly portrays the young woman's transition as she gains poise and confidence. Laurence Olivier's Maxim de Winter is guilt-riddled, highly strung and volatile...with aristocratic charm. Judith Anderson creates one of Hitchcock's and the screen's great villains as the unbalanced and eventually dangerous Mrs. Danvers. George Sanders as Jack Favell and Florence Bates as Mrs. Van Hopper both play unsavory types, but with comic overtones. Favell is an oily bounder, but a witty one. Van Hopper is insufferably demanding and grandiose - and more than slightly ridiculous.

A final note...Hitchcock reportedly edited "in camera" to prevent Selznick from re-editing his work. Rebecca strikes me as classic Hitchcock with the Selznick treatment: top-notch cast, the finest writers and technicians - and a big budget that shows.

Those are some of my thoughts...but what do you think? What are your opinions, observations and comments...and, if you've read Daphne du Maurier's novel, how would you compare the film to the book?

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