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Reviews
The Chase (1946)
Just dropped by to say...
Just dropping in to answer a question that a number of reviewers have raised: why did Lorna want so badly to go to Havana? Castro & Co. Have run Cuba for so long that several generations have grown up knowing nothing else.
Before the Revolution, Havana was a popular playground for wealthy pleasure seekers. Strongly tied to the USA through business, financial, and criminal interests, Havana was a sort of pre-Vegas Vegas. It boasted casinos, night clubs, and luxury hotels. During Prohibition in the 1920s Havana became a go-to spot for celebrities and underworld figures to party. In the popular mind it was a glittering fantasy land of booze, music, and beautiful people. No wonder Sky Masterson took Sarah Brown there on their first date.
As for "The Chase," I come down solidly in the middle. Lots to like, lots to shake the head over. Worth watching, IMHO.
Corsair (1931)
Has Its Moments with a Screwed-Up Ending
I encountered this oldie while browsing for early Public Domain movies. Others have already covered the basics: aimless ex-football champ Johnny (Chester Morris) becomes entangled with selfish rich babe Alison (Thelma Todd). Alison talks her Wall Street bankster father Steve (Emmett Corrigan) into giving Johnny a job at his skeevy securities firm. Johnny refuses to sell bogus stock to a poor woman and Steve fires him for lacking what it takes to succeed. Johnny vows to show Steve a thing or two about success. Like any upright soul would, he decides to take up piracy. Johnny hits the high seas, hijacking rum-running boats so he can sell their illicit cargo himself.
This decision leads to a lot of entertaining action and drama. The problem is the basic logic of Johnny's character. Wall Street Steve, it seems, lost much of his fortune in the 1929 Crash. He's turned to bootlegging to raise money. Johnny chooses to hijack only shipments carried by overacting Big John (Fred Kohler), the rum-runner who supplies Steve with his illegal liquor. Johnny sells the booze back to Steve, who never suspects he's paying twice for his goods.
In this sense Johnny seems like a good-bad guy, a Robin Hood sort. However he keeps the money for himself and his accomplices while his pirate side comes to the fore. Things get messy when Big John strikes back. One of Johnny's allies is murdered with scarcely a nod from Johnny. This film was made before the Production Code, when morally-ambiguous heroes were more common. But even a morally-ambiguous hero should be self-consistent, and the script sells out its premise by trying to have it both ways.
In the end Johnny reveals his racket to Steve. He demands a huge payoff in exchange for not blowing the whistle on Steve's bootlegging. Steve caves, writes the check--and Johnny tears it up, claiming he did all this just to show Steve that he, Johnny, has what it takes to succeed in life! Greatly impressed, Steve offers Johnny a legit job running one of his companies. Then comes the real jaw-dropper: Steve demonstrates to Johnny that the bogus stock he refused to sell was in fact not bogus. Had Johnny sold it to the poor lady she'd have become rich. The entire justification for Johnny's escapade is turned on its head.
So Johnny's early nobility was all for naught, his later piracy is applauded, and presumably Steve goes on bootlegging while Johnny, now an upright citizen again, gets a cushy job. Oh, he also gets Alison, who does nothing throughout the movie but whine and/or chase after him. What's the point of all this? There may be some pretzel logic to justify these events. The only thing I can think of is the nihilistic lesson that if you're rich you can and should do anything you please, because the world is so messed up that nothing matters. Somehow I don't think that was the intended message. It seems pretty clear we're supposed to see Johnny as a good guy, not an amoral crook.
The movie is a bearable time-passer. Skip it if you want something with more meat on it. A lot of Thelma Todd fans watch the film to see her. Sadly she does nothing in this movie that will make fans love her more, and even less to make new fans.
Silk Stockings (1957)
A disappointment
The one time I saw this musical was on TV a thousand years ago. I was in middle school when one of The Three Big Networks aired it. I enjoyed it immensely. Lines from one of the songs, "Dear Siberia," stayed with me forever. When TCM broadcast the film recently I looked forward to a fun time.
What a disappointment! This time around I found "Silk Stockings" slow, bloated, and burdened with mediocre songs. Everything and everyone seems old and tired. Even Cyd Charisse, who is definitely not old. I like Fred Astaire, his singing and acting as well as his dancing. Pushing sixty his skills are still strong. Nevertheless he's too old for the role and his character is flat and generic.
Part of the problem is the script. (I've never seen "Ninotchka" or the stage version of "Silk Stockings," so I can't compare versions.) Most of the movie is poking fun at stereotypes about the Soviet Union. In 1957 the Cold War was going strong and these jokes may have been new. Since then we've seen them endlessly in movies, TV shows, and comic books. They may have been funny to 1957 audiences. Today they play like "Hogan's Heroes" with Reds instead of Nazis.
We all know the story. An uptight Party-line Soviet woman is seduced by Western culture, falls in love with a local hedonist, and breaks out of her shell to become a freedom-loving Parisienne. In practice we never get a sense of why she changes her mind. Hedonist Fred falls immediately falls for Ninotchka (Cyd Charisse) and goes to work on her. Other than swooning over shop window displays of beautiful clothes Cyd spends most of her time playing the Party apparatchik. There's never a key moment when she sees the light. When she pulls some silk stockings from hiding, dons them, and begins dancing, the scene comes out of left field.
While the oppressed Boris Badenov types back home have nothing to crow about, it's amusing that what they accuse the West of--mindless decadence--is the very thing Fred and company are selling. As exemplified by Cyd's sellout comrades (Jules Mushin, Joseph Buloff, Peter Lorre), western freedom doesn't mean individual choice or freedom from repression. It means getting drunk and womanizing. Or in Cyd's case, dressing up and being womanized.
The musical component can't save the movie. There's one good song, "All of You," though it comes off a bit creepy when Fred sings it to a woman with whom he's barely acquainted. My youthful favorite "Dear Siberia" is memorable mostly because I already remembered it. The rest of the songs are forgettable or worse. At the bottom of the heap is "I've Got The Red Blues," which consists of the chorus repeating the title endlessly while a roomful of dancers execute a chaotic dance routine. We're talking Cole Porter here, one of the giants of the Great American Songbook. This is definitely not Porter at the top of his game.
For me the hardest part of the movie is watching poor Peter Lorre. In 1957 he still had seven more years of life, yet he already looks so ill and infirm. He seems to give the part his best shot but it breaks my heart to see him like this.
Remington Steele: Illustrated Steele (1985)
When Art Fails to Imitate Life
Nice idea: murder in the comic strip world. The problem is that the central gimmick of this episode is completely bogus. The script is built around the eternal misconception that what a strip artist draws today will appear in the newspaper tomorrow.
It just ain't true! Newspaper strip art was produced from six to eight weeks in advance of publication to provide time to process the art, turn it into a form newspapers could print from (mats or proof sheets), and mail the result to subscribing papers. Shorter lead times were possible (usually when an artist was way behind on a deadline) but getting late material to the papers on time required expensive express shipping which came out of the creators' pay. Even then we're talking a couple of weeks between shipping the strip and its seeing publication.
It's just a TV show, I know, but when you set a mystery in a specialized industry you should at least get the basic facts straight. This would give the scriptwriter a real challenge: to work the two-month time lag into the crime, and come up with a clever way for Steele and Laura to use it to their advantage in solving the mystery.
Murder, She Wrote: Lovers and Other Killers (1984)
Interesting early episode
I only saw a few "Murder, She Wrote" episodes when the show was first run. Now that a nostalgia network is running weekly marathons I've been able to catch up on what I missed. I found this early episode interesting because of the way Jessica's character and the show's format haven't been fully formed. A notable example is the college "lecture" in which Jessica acts like a vaudeville comedian complete with exaggerated voices and a fake gun that pops out a "BANG" flag.
I liked the episode overall anyway--EXCEPT for one jaw-dropper. Jessica fields a call from an unknown person who claims to have important evidence. When Jessica agrees to a meeting, suggesting her hotel room, the caller replies, "No, I know this abandoned warehouse down by the waterfront..."
Jessica is a mystery writer, for Pete's sake! Are we really to believe she'd be stupid enough to meet a stranger in the middle of the night at an abandoned dockside warehouse? When she gets to the warehouse the only thing missing is a flashing neon sign pointing at the stair saying, "Get attacked here."
I don't think the character of David the secretary would have flown in later episodes, which preferred to tie up all the loose ends. He's genuinely creepy and we never know if he was a con man or a just a weird guy with a thing for older ladies. It was also odd that the opening murder is a red herring which is explained away in a couple of sentences.
Anyway this is a watchable early episode, and it's fun to see Peter Graves and Greg Morris among the guest stars.
Gypsy (1962)
Gypsy: an Outsider View
I read all the other reviews before I wrote this one, and I was surprised by the many glowing reviews. I wondered if we'd all seen the same movie.
I came to "Gypsy" as an outsider. It was on TCM yesterday and I thought, "This was supposed to be a good movie," so I watched it. I'd never seem the film before, never saw the play, never even heard the Broadway cast album. I was familiar with one song ("Everything Is Coming Up Roses" is overplayed every Rose Parade season). All I knew was that the story was about famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Consequently I can't judge the adaptation or the relative merits of the Broadway and Hollywood performers. I can only critique the movie itself. I did not like it.
The main reason was the central character, "Mama" Rose Hovick. Rosalind Russell plays her as a delusional narcissist obsessed with making her preteen daughter June into a vaudeville star, at the expense of her older daughter Louise (the future Gypsy Rose Lee). Rose tyrannizes her children and her ragtag acting troupe as they perform endless variations of the same lousy vaudeville act, year after year. She never understands that the act fails because it's lousy. She never recognizes her cruelty as she infantilizes June and neuters Louise. She just barrels on, yelling, finagling, bossing, and driving everyone away. Some reviewers suggest that in the Broadway/Ethel Merman production we caught glimpses of humanity in Mama Rose. Not here. Russell's Mama remains a cold, domineering psychopath throughout.
Rosalind Russell so overwhelms the movie that we're halfway in before we remember that it's supposed to be about Louise. Natalie Wood's Louise is so submissive that, like her mother, we hardly notice her standing on the sidelines, dressed in boys' clothes to play male parts opposite June. Her yearning to live her own life comes out in a few scenes. Then Mama commands. Louise bites her tongue and does as she's told.
The movie is VERY long and I was sorely tempted to turn it off. One reason I sat through it was to see whether Mama gets her comeuppance, or at least gains some self-awareness. She almost does. After driving away her beloved June and failing to browbeat Louise into being a substitute, Mama sees her ugly duckling daughter hit the big time--as stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, queen of burlesque-- Rose's idea of the ultimate degradation.
Free at last to be herself, Louise finds the courage to tell her mom to butt out of her life. This triggers Rose's frenzied meltdown on an empty stage. In a torrent of recrimination and self-pity we get our sole insight into Rose's deeper self. It confirms what we already knew: this was never about the kids or the show, this was all about Rose. Her failures weren't because of her own glaring faults, but because everyone else let her down. This should have been the end of the story, the Tragedy of Mama Rose, left alone after destroying all she (said that) she loved. A downer ending, but movies can have downer endings. However this was 1962 and this was Hollywood, so they tacked on a sudden reconciliation that torpedoes the movie's point.
"Gypsy" would have worked better as a drama. The musical numbers aren't all that great and the sporadic attempts at comedy are flattened by the Rosalind Russel steamroller. One last point: several people have criticized the overly-coy treatment of Louise's strip act. Again we have to remember this was 1962. Big-budget major-studio musicals were still wary of alienating mainstream audiences and censorious critics. Note how the script pussyfoots around the very notion that stripping involves the removal of clothing. We just have to chalk that one up to the attitudes of the time.
Phantom Lady (1944)
A letdown if you liked the novel
I decided to check out Robert Siodmak's adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's novel after having read the book for the first time and enjoying it immensely. What a disappointment!
I know, I know--screen adaptations of novels always change things to fit the new medium. The problem here is that after following Woolrich's intriguing setup fairly closely, the screenwriter tosses the book's entire concept out the window. The original story is built around a frantic effort to identify the title lady, the only witness who can save an innocent man from execution. In classic Woolrich fashion, every time the good guys seem about to solve the mystery the rug is pulled out from under them and things are even worse than before. Some of the story's situations are far-fetched, but the convoluted plotting and ticking clock keep us interested right up to the big last-minute reveal.
This is a very movie-friendly structure and would (I feel) have made an exciting film. For some reason the writer decided to reveal the murderer and and answer all the questions halfway through the film! Instead of a ticking-clock mystery it becomes a generic girl-in-peril story with no mystery and very little suspense. Worse, some of those far-fetched incidents in the book become just plain silly without Woolrich's interlocking narrative holding them together.
I might have liked the movie better if I hadn't read the novel first, but I'm not sure. The acting is okay, the direction has its moments. But without Woolrich's twisty plot the whole thing is hard to swallow and in places downright boring.
Design for Living (1933)
Should have been fun, but--
I'd heard about "Design for Living" for years. I've enjoyed Noel Coward's plays and Ben Hecht's scripts, so when I saw their names on a Lubitsch film with Gary Cooper, Frederic March, and Miriam Hopkins I thought this would be great fun. I tried hard to like it but it just never got to me.
I can imagine the folks at the Legion of Decency blowing a gasket over the plot. The idea of two men in an intimate relationship with one woman was racy stuff for movies even before the Production Code was tightened up. The setup had great potential for witty dialogue and sophisticated silliness. Unfortunately the whole film was flat, even dull in spots. There are many amusing lines and Cooper and March are good as two hopelessly naive starving creative types (one artist and one writer) scraping by in Paris and hoping for the Big Time. Miriam Hopkins blows hot and cold. She's convincing as a woman who likes sex as much as the boys and isn't ashamed to say it. On the other hand, though she's supposed to be genuinely in love with both men she often behaves as if she's just using them, playing them off against each other. We're never entirely convinced that she isn't the selfish, scheming tramp one of the other IMDB comments accuses her of being.
I understood a bit more about the film after reading some historical background. Hecht and Lubitsch basically chucked most of Coward's play. In the play the trio, all three of them cynical sophisticates, had a previous history. It was made clear that the men had an intimate relationship not only with Gilda but also with each other. This obviously didn't sit well with Hecht, who had already expressed his distaste for Coward's dialogue, finding it phony rather than clever. Apparently Hecht and Lubitsch butted heads frequently during the production. Lubitsch complained that Hecht's approach was too coarse while Hecht thought Lubitsch's approach too "pansy." Knowing this one can see Hecht striving mightily throughout the script to show that the men were NOT "that way." But the story makes more sense with that subtext. Gilda knows that she can't choose one over the other and she can't bear to break up their relationship. So she foolishly runs away and marries Edward Everett Horton in an attempt to cure herself of her attraction. The movie's ending is left ambiguous but it's suggested that the three will find a life together as a threesome, "gentlemen's agreement" or not.
Hecht, not Lubitsch's first choice as a writer, seems out of his element writing sophisticated, witty dialogue. After all, his gift was for fast-moving, sassy street talk like in "The Front Page." Perhaps that's why this "comedy" never rises above mildly amusing.
A lot has been said questioning the casting of Gary Cooper. Even Cooper thought Lubitsch was nuts to ask him to fill in for Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, who had to drop out because of pneumonia. I'm ambivalent. Cooper's exchanges with Frederic March, like when they're toasting a team of underwear makers, are some of the best scenes. I also like Coop's posturing as a tortured artist. He pushes it just far enough over the top, throwing his gangly body into a chair, dropping his chin on his fist and brooding darkly. Other times he seems too earnest for his sparkling dialogue to sparkle. March fits his role perfectly. Miriam Hopkins is also perfect for Gilda. It's the script, not her performance, that makes her character seem cold and abusive.
In conclusion, "Design for Living" is interesting rather than entertaining, with enough good spots to make it worth watching but falling short of what is should have been.
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Alternate History of Jerome Kern
It's supposed to be a biography of composer Jerome Kern, but this is really a musical revue. As such it's pretty good, but it's way too long. Kern wrote as LOT of music. Trying to sandwich in all the good tunes creates an endless succession of songs sung by an endless list of stars. Some of the performances are quite good, but the problem is the quantity, not the quality.
The movie starts with a baffling misstep. Before the story even begins we're dumped cold into a recreation of highlights from Kern's biggest stage hit, "Show Boat." Though it's well done, the sequence is so long (18 minutes, I'm told) that had I been watching in a theater I'd have wondered if the projectionist had accidentally switched reels.
When the story does get going it proves not worth waiting for. Having read a capsule review before seeing the film, I was prepared not to "take the biography too seriously." I wasn't prepared for a story that's 90% hogwash. The movie's central relationship, a lifelong friendship between Kern and mentor/arranger, James Hessler, is entirely fraudulent. The man never existed. Of course neither did Hessler's stagestruck daughter Sally, who grows up to feature in an annoying subplot. A few details are accidentally accurate. Mostly it's just a Hollywood screenplay, and not a very good one. The plot is hackneyed and choppy. The dialogue is often embarrassing.
Robert Walker and Van Heflin sink with the script. Neither shows his real talent. Both are awkward and stiff. Maybe that's why the characters seem have an intense bromance going. I think the intent was to present a close, lasting friendship. But despite marrying the "love of his life," the screen Kern devotes more time and genuine emotion to Hessler than he ever does to his wife. I confess I had a hard time judging Walker fairly. In my head I identify him so closely to Bruno Antony in "Strangers on a Train" that I kept waiting for Kern to ask Hessler to murder his wife for him.
The fact that both Walker and Heflin are young and handsome makes the going rough as the men age. The movie's old-age makeup comes straight from a high school play. In Heflin's case it consists mostly of covering his hair with increasingly thick applications of Christmas tree flocking. On his deathbed Heflin still looks young and hearty.
Granting this picture is all hokum, I'd have liked to have seen SOME attention paid to history. When Kern's early impresario Charles Frohman goes down on the Lusitania, it's presented as an isolated incident. World War One apparently never happened.
More significantly, Kern wrote melodies. He did not write lyrics. He enjoyed long working relationships with several major lyricists, and never claimed credit for their words. The movie suggests repeatedly that Kern wrote both words and music. In the movie Oscar Hammerstein, his most important collaborator, drops in to console a grieving Kern. He seems to be just another friend. No hint is given that this is the man who wrote the lyrics for "Show Boat," including the unforgettable "Old Man River." The omission may simplify the story, but it does a disservice to those whose lyrics played just as important a role as Kern's melodies in creating enduring songs.