A Classic Movie Review and Appreciation Site

You Should Read the Book

2/28/2014

The Egg and I movie poster, Betty MacDonald, Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Marjorie Main

I love Fred's maniacal grin.

The Egg and I (1947)

Our great family friend, Leslie, introduced us to the marvelous Betty MacDonald when we were pre-teens, starting with The Egg and I and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and flourishing out from there. The Egg and I was so funny and so cherished that I was really reluctant to see the movie version (when I learned there was one), particularly since it had the guy from My Three Sons playing Bob, and that seemed wrong to me (forgive me; I was only 11-ish). This film was directly responsible for my enduring lack of enthusiasm for Claudette Colbert and was probably the first time I ever considered that a book may be better than the movie. Consider that I have always been a comparatively lazy reader (compared to my mother and sister, that is, but they were voracious and unnatural), so that is saying something.

Now every time I see this picture, I have to pretend I never read the book and I can enjoy it just fine. I was quite wrong about Fred MacMurray not being right for Bob. His clueless enthusiasm is delightful. Once you get past the first half hour of Betty's madcap adjustment to rural farm life, complete with stupidities like sawing herself off a tree limb, falling in the pig pen, fighting with the cookstove, hyuk hyuk hyuk, it gets into a very good rhythm.

The Story: Bob informs Betty on their wedding night that it has always been his dream to run a chicken farm and that he has bought them one (isn't that great?!) in the middle of nowhere on the Olympic Peninsula ("No running water, no Frigidaire, just plenty of elbow room!"). The farm is a wreck, the neighbors are wacky, and the animals uncooperative. The wackiest neighbors of all are the Kettles, sweet, workhorsey Ma (Marjorie Main) and shiftless Pa (Percy Kilbride), with their zillions of children and animals in the kitchen. A very young Richard Long plays the unlikely eldest son of the Kettles, a non-farming type who yearns to go to college.

There is a complication in the form of a beautiful, wealthy neighbor called Harriet (Louise Allbritton) who runs the fancy farm and who can converse with Bob about livestock and such (while giving him the once-over). What are you going to do: it's basically a farce.

It's a fine vehicle for Fred MacMurray and Marjorie Main, but Claudette Colbert is no Betty MacDonald.

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One-Percenter on the High Seas

2/27/2014

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Assamattafayou, Leetle Feesh?

Captains Courageous (1937)

Captains Courageous makes me cry like a little girl every time, and not just because of Spencer Tracy's accent*, but because Freddie Bartholomew is so very good. It's probably the only picture where Freddie gets to be unpleasant, which he is for the first half: a spoiled, braggart of a boy who thinks the only way to be popular is to throw around his father's (Melvyn Douglas) money and position at every opportunity. Harvey Cheyne (Bartholomew) comes by it honestly, as his widower father has spent very little time with him and shows his affection by giving the kid too much money and not enough guidance.

This is exactly what the headmaster and teachers of Harvey's school tell Mr. Cheyne when they temporarily expel the boy after his inability to take punishment gracefully. Everyone's awfully nice about it: the teachers believe there's good in Harvey beneath the bluster; the dad agrees that (1) Harvey deserved the biff on the snoot delivered by another boy and (2) he hasn't been much of a father. So Harvey and his dad set off on an ocean liner for a business/bonding trip and Harvey promptly falls overboard somewhere in the Grand Banks.

Luckily, Harvey is soon picked up by one of the many fisherman (Spencer Tracy) plying their trade in the area. Once aboard the main fishing vessel, Captain Disko (Lionel Barrymore) tells the boy they can't bring him to shore until the season is over, because all the men have families and this is how they make their living, but Harvey can work for those three months and make himself useful. After oomphing about it for awhile (a lot of "see hyeah"s and nary a "thank you") Harvey comes around, attaching himself to "Portuguese" Manuel, the guy who fished him out of the drink.

Manuel, which everyone except (barely) Spencer Tracy pronounces like a Chilton's Auto Repair guide, becomes a father figure to young Harvey, who learns about life and work and friendship while working alongside him.

I know Tracy won an Oscar for this and everything, but to me, this picture belongs to Freddie, the most natural cryer ever, and Melvyn Douglas. Douglas is so understated and wonderful as the father who learns how much his son has grown, knowing that he was not the one who helped him, but respecting that it happened. I defy anyone to get through the last 20 minutes of this film without at least tearing up.

Fun Fact: The title of the book on which this film is based comes from the opening lines of the English ballad, "Mary Ambree," a song about a female ship captain** who fought against Spain in 1584: "When captains courageous, whom death could not daunt." Rudyard Kipling meant it as a paean to businessmen, whom he saw as the new adventurers. The only hint of that sentiment in the picture I could tell was when the headmaster tells Mr. Cheyne, "You're rather a nice fellow for a tycoon."

* Seriously, he sounds like Chico Marx

**I'll give $13 (the exact contents of my wallet at the Mo) to the first person who finds me a copy of that ballad and gives me the poop on Mary Ambree.

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Birthday of the Week: Marjorie Main

2/24/2014

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Born Mary Tomlinson, Acton, IN, February 24, 1890

Biography

Marjorie Main: The Life and Films of Hollywood's "Ma Kettle"
By Michelle Vogel, McFarland, 2011

The Beautiful Foghorn

I am not a particular fan of the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series, or any of the "country folk are amusing idiots" genre of entertainment, but I do love Marjorie Main with all my heart. She called Ma Kettle "the grandest character role I ever played. She was frowzy, but not repulsive, tough, but never vicious, big-hearted, impulsive, maternal..." so perhaps I'll give more of the series a look.

Marjorie Main played dowagers, society matrons, maids, and slatterns, always with that raspy voice and, when called for, the bray of a fine mule. She was born on an Indiana farm in 1890 and attended drama school after a brief stint in college. Her father, a conservative minister, did not approve of drama, so out of respect to him, she used the stage name "Marjorie Main" lest someone link her vaudeville and Broadway work back to the name "Tomlinson."

She married Dr. Stanley Krebs (also a minister) in 1921, a man 25 years her senior, and briefly retired from the stage. Main took on character roles in film in the 1930s, then more visible, richer parts after her husband's death in 1935.

Main was a very private person and reportedly something of a germaphobe. I don't know if the latter is true, but I kind of hope it is. Another die hard Hollywood lore is that Marjorie Main and Spring Byington were long-time lovers, which would also be cool to confirm, because that partnership only makes sense the more you think about it; certainly not at first.

She must have been friendly with Dr. Krebs, though, as she was often "conversing" with him on movie sets, getting his opinion and so forth. Indeed, she had his remains moved to her adjacent burial plot at Forest Lawn Cemetery, saying "I've been lonely so much of my life, I'd like to be with him in death," which is terribly sweet and terribly sad.

I bet the book is a pretty good read, so I'm going to get right on that.

Marjorie Main died of lung cancer on April 10, 1975 at the age of 85, leaving behind a long list of excellent work in many classic motion pictures. Personally, I love her Lucy, the ranch owner in The Women most of all: "Dja ever see a horse laugh? Well, you're gonna."

Wonderful stuff.

Favorite Five

Dead End (1937)
The Women (1939)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
The Egg and I (1947)
Summer Stock (1950)

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Magnificence All Around

2/22/2014

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Renee Falconetti, Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer, National Cathedral

Renee Falconetti as St. Joan

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) at the National Cathedral

Just got back from seeing Carl Theodor Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc at the Washington National Cathedral with live choral and orchestral accompaniment (Voices of Light, by Richard Einhorn, performed by the Cathedral Choral Society). It was a breathtaking performance made richer by the setting and the score. And I'm happy to report that it was a packed house.

I last saw Passion almost 30 years ago and probably on a VHS tape and didn't remember how lyrical and expressive Renee Falconetti was in what is generally a pretty rough part. How does an actor avoid the beatified glow with eyes cast lovingly heavenward? Yet St. Joan was a terrified (teenaged) religious fanatic in a setting that would severely limit anyone's emotional range -- on trial and certainly destined for torture if not (and most likely) gruesome death. Falconetti conveys so much personality and intelligence (along with the crazy) that you forget it's a silent picture.

The film is beautiful, painful, and gorgeously shot. If you ever get the chance to see it with this music, you must.

I believe I will remember this experience for a very long time.

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Tickets Please: a Short Cinema Travelogue

2/22/2014

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Remember to unhook the speaker.

Movie Houses, Dumps, and Palaces I Have Loved

I went down a very deep rabbit hole of remembrance yesterday, wondering whatever happened to this theatre or that in this town and that one. Now that I'm approaching my Norma Desmond years, I suspect this will happen more than once.

For a big chunk of the 1980s, I spent a good deal of time shall we say, "between colleges" and moved around the country a bit. In every city at that time there were at least two rep cinemas, one that showed classics and cult pictures, and another that showed art and independent films. In more than one city, I made friends with one of the projectionists, so I got some free shows, a few posters, and one one occasion, about three feet of Vertigo from a print that broke mid-screening. When I lived and traveled overseas in the 1990s, I spent many hours staving off homesickness or enjoying local film tastes in (formerly) gorgeous remnants of British colonialism

I present a short history of my favorite haunts, many of which are gone, but not all. I thank the excellent website cinematreasures.org for helping me remember names and places, and for letting me know the fate of these fine (and not so fine) gems that were once my local movie houses.

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Wednesday's Child: Freddie Bartholomew

2/19/2014

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Frederick Cecil Bartholomew: March 28, 1924 - January 23, 1992

Biography

Freddie Bartholomew: Complete Biography of the 1930′s MGM Child Star

By Cliff Aliperti, 8/18/2012, immortalephemera.com

If Harry Potter Were a Hufflepuff

I mean no disrespect to Hufflepuff or Freddie Bartholomew, I just think the kid had more hard work, sweetness, and gardening in him than swashbuckling and rule-breaking.

Freddie Bartholomew was a natural actor, most often cast in period dramas that called for poised, articulate, polite, real boys. Rich boys, but real boys. He generally played the upper-class child who had fallen on hard times or bad circumstances who is tested and ultimately wins -- if not his rightful place, then a valuable life lesson. I loved his shock of thick curly hair, the way he looked bullies right in the eye while saying sissy things all Received-Pronunciation-y, like, "I'd like to get by, please." Like a slightly older, slightly butcher Roddy McDowall, he was always so enjoyable and interesting to watch.

This sweet boy's upbringing was troubled and, frankly, a little mysterious. His two older sisters stayed with his parents while Freddie was raised by his father's sister, Millicent, from the time he was a baby. As far as I can tell, his birth parents had very little to do with him until after the success of David Copperfield (1935), when they showed up in Hollywood to claim custody of him -- and his earnings. Much of those earnings were eaten up by the long, drawn out legal battle that ensued, then by the settlement, in which Freddie remained with his aunt, but his money went to his parents and siblings for their upkeep.

By the time the dust settled, Freddie had grown out of the youngster roles and tried to make the transition to more adult parts without much success. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1943 and served the war as a mechanic until a back injury forced him out of the service. He never regained a film career, but turned instead to advertising, eventually become a television producer and director through the agency Benton & Bowles.

Freddie Bartholomew died of emphysema and heart failure in Florida on January 23, 1992 at the age of 67.

Thankfully, his pictures are readily available in several formats. Little Lord Fauntleroy's copyright expired and is now in the public domain, so you can watch it right now if you like:

I'm going to make my kid start calling me "Dearest," but only when he wants something. Like an American.

Favorite Five

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Birthday of the Week: Marni Nixon

2/18/2014

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Margaret Nixon McEathron, February 22, 1930

Autobiography

I Could Have Sung All Night, Marni Nixon, biography

I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story
By Marni Nixon, Billboard Books, 2006

"The Ghostess with the Mostest"*

By the time Marni Nixon was 18, she had performed as a violinist, a child actress (The Bashful Bachelor, 1942), an opera singer, and a concert soloist. She began her film dubbing work as Ingrid Bergman's interior heavenly voices in Joan of Arc (1948) and as Margaret O'Brien singing in The Secret Garden (1949). Nixon went on to perform on Broadway, but "fixed" voices for Hollywood films for years -- most notably Marilyn Monroe's high notes on the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

But we know her best (if we know about her at all) as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr in The King and I and An Affair to Remember, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady -- work for which she received no credit until years after the fact.

Often the studios were so protective of their stars that Nixon had to sign agreements not to reveal her work behind the scenes. Natalie Wood didn't even know her voice was being as extensively dubbed as it was until West Side Story was finished. Nixon says that just the way it was for "playback singers" in Hollywood: every one of them knew they'd get no credit, but that was the job. Some of the stars she dubbed were oomphy about it (Wood) while others were decent and respectful of her talent (Hepburn and Kerr, no duh).

Marni Nixon did make one film appearance as a nun in The Sound of Music, but mostly she performed on stage, in cabarets, in opera -- even hosting a popular children's show in Seattle in the 70s and 80s, for which she won several Emmys. Not too shabby!

An amazing career and a remarkable talent. I should probably read the book.

Interview with Marni Nixon

* "Hollywood: Instant Voice", Time magazine, February 7, 1964

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Little Big Miracle Worker

2/17/2014

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Forrest Gump: 1876

The Miracle Worker, Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft

Who wouldn't see *this* movie?

My Sunday With Arthur Penn

Maybe it was all that laundry piled up in the kid's room. Or the several days of snow shoveling and school closings. But I just couldn't be bothered. Generally, when I feel overwhelmed by detail and small chores, I like to watch something about people with infinitely bigger problems and it motivates me to get over myself. After a few episodes of Hoarders, for instance, my house is so clean you can eat off the floor.

So yesterday I accidentally spent about four and a half hours with Arthur Penn, watching two films he directed long ago: Little Big Man (1970) and The Miracle Worker (1962). The former, because I happened upon it in full on YouTube while my son was watching his favorite cartoon (not mine) and the latter, because that same kid has to write a report on Helen Keller and hasn't finished the book yet.

Little Big Man

I can't have seen Little Big Man in the theater when it came out, probably. The reason I'm unclear is that I was taken to Ryan's Daughter that year by one of my parents (I was five), who probably thought I'd be bored and fall asleep, which I wasn't and didn't, so you never know. If I saw Little Big Man at the movies, then it must not have terrified me. I imagine, after watching it on an iPad, that it is spectacular on the big screen, since much of it was filmed on location in Montana. Even if I had seen it writ large, great cinematography clearly didn't register for me as much as, say, John Mills ripping off the claw of a live lobster.

Little Big Man is the story of Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), the last white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn and an impossibly old man, who, at the beginning of the film, is being interviewed by an annoying academic. The researcher assumes that since Crabb fought with Custer, he was a willing participant in the near-genocide of Native Americans, but Crabb's story turns out to be more complicated.

We learn that Pawnees killed Crabb's family, leaving 10-year-old Jack and his sister alive in the wreckage of their wagon train. A Cheyenne brave rescues them both and takes them back to his village to live. Crabb's sister runs off, while he is adopted by Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), the tribe's leader, learns their language and ways, eventually earning the name Little Big Man, because he's Dustin Hoffman and is pretty short. Crabb is recaptured by U.S. soldiers in his late teens and thus begins his long tale of straddling two worlds and being part of neither.

Along the way, he runs into all kinds of Western memes (snake-oil salesman Martin Balsam) and famous figures, like Wild Bill Hickok (Jeff Corey) and General George Armstrong Custer (a memorable Richard Mulligan; no Burt Campbell he). A lot happens to him and the people around him in two and a half hours. There is much to make you cry and a lot you want to look up after, like what did Native Americans think of this picture when it came out? and wasn't Wild Bill Hickok way younger than that guy?

Little Big Man is worth watching again if you haven't seen it since the Vietnam Era, of which it is a huge product. Forrest Gump, a picture about though not of the period -- and a movie I hated -- owes a lot to this film,

Make of that what you will.

Or this one...

The Miracle Worker

My son is not a guy who reads for pleasure. Granted, there are good reasons for this: he's autistic, kind of dyslexic, and has visual processing issues, but it still kind of confounds and saddens me that a kid who loves stories so much has so much trouble reading. I thought we'd watch The Miracle Worker together after getting halfway through his book (which is where the picture ends) to see if it would help him retain the main themes and all that. And it did, but in the exact opposite way it worked for me when I was his age.

When I was a girl, my mother used to suggest reading the book before seeing a movie based on the book, particularly if it was scary, like The Omen or Jaws, so "you'd know when to close your eyes." Now if you've read either of those books, you'll recall that there's so much violence and creepiness to chew on mentally, that seeing it on a screen is nothing compared to what you've already dreamed up.

What I forgot about The Miracle Worker, is how heartbreaking and dark it is, how much more I relate to the Kellers now (well, Mrs. Keller, anyway), because the last time I saw it I didn't have a child of my own, let alone one with special needs. And because Annie Sullivan's background is horrifyingly bleak, I had to do a lot of 'splainin' to my boy about orphans, insane asylums, scarlet fever, why all the black people in the movie were servants (my son is black; I'm not) and why I was crying the whole time --
all the stuff he needed to be shown by the movie, because he wasn't picking it up from the book.

Naturally, the part my kid liked the best was the breakfast table scene when Helen and Miss Sullivan are fighting. "Pinch her!" he'd suggest. I admit, it was kind of hard for me to resist doing a few Three Stooges whoops during some of it. Honestly, I don't know how Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft made it through that scene without killing each other. I suppose having done it every night for two years on stage was good practice.

But my kid softened up by the time Helen and Annie get to the gatehouse.
"Do blind people dream?" he asked. He even volunteered something from the book he remembered: "The final word she needs to know is water."

More tears.

There are parts of the movie that drag and are over-earnest and very Playhouse 90, which is fine on the whole. It does make you wonder why Inga Swenson didn't get to do a bit more drama than, say, Benson. And the guy I always think is Fritz Weaver turns out to be Victor Jory. Other than that, it's Patty Duke's picture and I'm very glad for her she made it.

In case you were wondering, I finished all the laundry.

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Birthday of the Week: Robert Wagner

2/11/2014

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Born Robert John Wagner, Jr., Detroit, MI, February 10, 1930

Autobiography

Pieces of My Heart: A Life
By Robert J. Wagner and Scott Eyman,
It Books, 2009

Class Act

Full disclosure: I wrote this in tribute to Robert Wagner several years ago, but the sentiment persists. Mr. Wagner was also a special guest on the TCM Classic Movie Cruise I went on with my sister a couple months ago, and thought, since he is a gracious, funny, lovely man, and the memory is fresh, I would run it again*.

Here we go:

Born on February 10, 1930, Robert Wagner is one of the few stars left who can claim a firm link to Hollywood's Golden Age. I first became aware of him in the mid 1970s as the ex-con-turned-P.I. in the series "Switch," with Eddie Albert and the lovely Sharon Gless, on whom I developed such an enduring attraction that I refuse to watch the show today in any available digital form, lest it ruin my memory forever.

In my late teens I saw Wagner in Titanic as the young college boy who develops a shipboard crush on Audrey Dalton, the daughter of Clifton Webb and my eternal mystery date, Barbara Stanwyck. He is dashing and sweet and believable and brave, and the film is better in many ways than its James Cameron mega-spectacularaganza remake whose only redeeming feature is Kate Winslet's fantastic (and rightly, effectively, and oft-highlighted) decolletage. Not only is the 1953 Titanic superior in storytelling and casting, it spawned a romance between Robert Wagner and Barbara Stanwyck that lasted several years until his marriage to Natalie Wood. And he had the class to wait 50 years to tell the tale.

The man has depth and humor and has carved out a long, profitable, and respectable career for himself and I salute him.

Observe his fine performance on "What's My Line" taped just a couple weeks after his 27th birthday on February 24, 1957. He does an admirable Clarke Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and James Cagney.

Happy Birthday, RJ.

Favorite Five

Titanic (1953)
Broken Lance (1954)
It Takes a Thief (TV Series, 1968-1970)
Switch (TV Series, 1975-1978)
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

* Originally ran February 11, 2011

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Orange Is the New Black: 1933

2/8/2014

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Barbara Stanwyck, Lyle Talbot, Ladies They Talk About

Stanwyck rocks the frock.

Ladies They Talk About (1933)
I get a special feeling when I see the early Warner Bros. opening credits with stars posed in character — chewin' gum, givin' a copper the hairy eyeball, lightin' a cheroot — and those are just the girls. It's a good feeling, make no mistake, and all the better when the picture involves women's prison.

That's where we find Barbara Stanwyck about 20 minutes into Ladies They Talk About, a great tale of two kids from the same hometown, one the deacon's daughter (Stanwyck), now a gun moll, and the other a populist running for district attorney, who was the son of the town drunk (Preston Foster). Nan Taylor is arrested for helping some of her thuggier friends (such as Lyle Talbot) rob a bank and is sent to prison, thanks to her hometown acquaintance, David Slade (Foster). In a weak moment (it was the smallest of moments) she had confessed her involvement in the robbery to Slade — just when he was about to get her released — so he wound up turning her in and testifying against her.

Slade loves Nan, but wants her to reform in prison. She does not quite feel the same way. In the slammer, though, she makes fast friends with Linda (Lillian Roth) who shows her the ropes; who to avoid and who's on the level. Nan settles in fine, but soon learns that the two goons who pulled the bank job have been arrested on a different charge and are now serving 20 years in the men's ward on the other side of the wall. She agrees, like an ass, to help the men escape in an absurd plan that could do nothing but fail, which it does. Nan is caught and gets an extra year added to her sentence. For pretty good reason, she blames the extra time on Slade.

When Nan gets out, she seeks revenge. That's where you'll have to pick it up.

It's classic pre-Code Warner Bros. excellence. Highly recommended.

Barbara Stanwyck, Ladies They Talk About

Ladies working it out amongst themselves.

Highlights

Weirdest, sweetest scene: Lillian Roth singing "If I Could Be With You" to a picture of Joe E. Brown, of all people.
Great line: Pointing out a mannish, cigar-smoking woman in the ladies room, "Watch out for her; she likes to wrestle."

Trailer

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<<Previous

You Should Read the Book

The Egg and I (1947)

One-Percenter on the High Seas

Captains Courageous (1937)

Birthday of the Week: Marjorie Main

Biography

The Beautiful Foghorn

Favorite Five

Magnificence All Around

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) at the National Cathedral

Tickets Please: a Short Cinema Travelogue

Movie Houses, Dumps, and Palaces I Have Loved

Wednesday's Child: Freddie Bartholomew

Biography

If Harry Potter Were a Hufflepuff

Favorite Five

Birthday of the Week: Marni Nixon

Autobiography

"The Ghostess with the Mostest"*

Interview with Marni Nixon

Little Big Miracle Worker

My Sunday With Arthur Penn

Little Big Man

The Miracle Worker

Birthday of the Week: Robert Wagner

Autobiography

Class Act

Favorite Five

Orange Is the New Black: 1933

Highlights

Trailer

About Mildred

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