It never ceases to amaze me that in the decades when women* had fewer rights or career options than we do today, female characters in the movies had more to do, say, and feel than they seem to do in modern pictures. This is certainly the case for the women nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1942 in parts that were assuredly "types": two ingénues, a spinster, and a couple of old ladies -- yet each of these characters was complicated, well-written, and beautifully acted.

The winner, Teresa Wright, played a young war bride in Mrs. Miniver a girl who must balance the fears for her newly-enlisted husband with hope for their future. In the same film, (Dame) May Whitty also earned a nomination as Wright’s grandmother, a local noblewomen who must come to terms with the fact that class distinctions and privilege will be forever changed by the war. Susan Peters played the impossibly young and equally impossible parallel love interest to Ronald Coleman's memory-challenged veteran in Random Harvest, and Gladys Cooper turned in a chilling performance as the the cruel, domineering mother of unhappy spinster Bette Davis in Now, Voyager.

But it was the other unhappy spinster of the year who, in my opinion, should have taken home the trophy: Agnes Moorehead as Fanny Minafer, the maiden aunt whose narrow circumstances grow ever bleaker in Orson Welles’s (and her) second picture ever, The Magnificent Ambersons.
 
The Magnificent Ambersons is the story of a well-to-do Midwestern family whose wealth and position afford them near-royalty status in their sleepy late-19th century town. Major Amberson, the source of that wealth, is the patriarch who has raised his son, Jack (Ray Collins) and daughter Isabel (Dolores Costello) in the grand manner in a grand mansion. When Isabel’s beau, Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten), has a bit too much to drink one night, he tries to serenade her under her window and steps clean through his bass viol. Isabel is so horrified by the spectacle that, in spite of truly loving Gene, she breaks up with him and decides to marry quiet little unromantic Wilbur Minafer instead. Isabel, Wilbur, and Wilbur’s sister Fanny (Moorehead) take up residence in Amberson mansion. Isabel and Wilbur have just one child, George Amberson Minafer, who turns out to be The Worst Little Brat Ever. There isn't a soul in town who can wait for the day little Georgie gets his “come-uppance.”

Georgie (Tim Holt) grows up to be a horrible, egotistical snob. His mother still spoils him, his grandfather indulges him, his Uncle Jack ignores him, and Aunt Fanny alternately fights with and looks after him. It's been about 20 years since the bass viol incident, and Morgan comes back to town, a non-drinking, successful inventor now in the horseless carriage business. Morgan also has a beautiful, self-sufficient daughter called Lucy (Anne Baxter), who captivates Georgie when the Morgans come to one of the grand balls at Amberson mansion.

Aunt Fanny sets her cap for Morgan, but it is soon clear that he only has eyes for Isabel. When Fanny's brother (Isabel's husband) dies, Morgan and Lucy become more of a regular fixture at the Ambersons. Fanny becomes jealous and insinuates to George that Isabel only ever really loved Morgan (not his father), and that everyone in town knows about it. This sends Georgie into an irrational tizzy over his mother's reputation and he refuses to allow Morgan in the home. Morgan begs Isabel to put her own (and his happiness) first and marry him, but she is unable to hurt her son's delicate feelings, let alone tell him to mind his own business. So Isabel and George go off to Europe leaving Morgan heartbroken and Lucy furious on her father's behalf.

Isabel grows gravely ill while they're abroad and the two come home just in time for Isabel to die without seeing Eugene one last time. Shortly thereafter, Major Amberson dies, shell-shocked at the rapid changes in his community and in his family. He leaves no inheritance. Wilbur Minafer left a small bit of insurance for his sister, but she invested it all in a business scheme that went belly up and she is broke. Georgie never worked a day in his life, so he is broke. Any money Isabel had was spent in Europe or otherwise on her child; now the richest family in town find themselves in a modern world with absolutely nothing.

Forced into sudden straits, George pulls himself together for the sake of his Aunt Fanny, for whom it turns out he cares a great deal. He is miserable over how he treated his mother...and Eugene...and takes a high-paying dangerous job to make sure his Aunt, at least, can enjoy some comfort. One day, he is struck down by a car -- the machine he once scoffed at as a ludicrous fad that is now the source of Morgan's great fortune -- which breaks both his legs. This means certain destitution for him and his Aunt.

Orson Welles would have left it at that, had he not been called away to do war work on another film before his final edits were made. The studio snipped almost an hour from The Magnificent Ambersons and reshot Welles's intended grim ending for one that was truer to Booth Tarkington's novel: Lucy and Morgan visit George in the hospital and all is forgiven. Even Fanny is reconciled to eternal spinsterhood.

Had it not been so early in the war for the United States, the role of beleaguered, fretful Aunt Fanny might have earned more popular acclaim. As it was, audiences were more inclined to favor uplifting stories of noble sacrifice, escapism, or silliness. Welles’s retelling of the Tarkington bestseller, was dark, sad, and completely antithetical to the American Dream for which so many were fighting.  Moorehead's performance was intentionally (and effectively) highly strung and sometimes shrill. Indeed, moviegoers laughed at some of Aunt Fanny's breakdowns in early previews, forcing some of the famous edits the studio forced on Mr. Welles. Her sadness, her sudden, instantly regretted moments of spite and frustration are lyric. At least the New York Film Critics Circle thought so and gave Agnes Moorehead the award for Best Actress for 1942.

There is something beautiful in Agnes Moorehead's quavering voice, sharp features, and utter vulnerability in this picture. But it was, indeed, a tough year. In fact, I'm still scared of Gladys Cooper from Now, Voyager (so MEAN!). But if ever there were a performance worthy of an Academy Award among Agnes Moorehead's many, many pictures, this was it.

* I mean white women, of course. Women of color had far fewer options socially and even less opportunity to be seen as anything other than a servant or a pauper in those days, a fact that sadly, has not changed all that much.

This post is my contribution to The Oscars Snubs Blogathon, hosted by The Midnite Drive-In and Silver Scenes.

Please take some time to read the excellent entries in this blogathon. So many people were robbed so thoroughly over the years. 

Well, it's an Elvis movie.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that this isn't one of the better ones: the story slogs, the songs are (mostly) forgettable, the dialog's predictable, and "cynical drifter" is kind of a stretch for Elvis, artistically. He has the sneer already, but it's cute on his face, not in his voice.

Nevertheless, Charlie Rogers (Elvis) starts out as a lone wolf singer in a groovy teahouse, run by Jack Albertson. One night, a bunch of frat boys come in with their girlfriends (two of whom are uncredited ​Teri Garr and Raquel Welch) for beer and cokes. Charlie don't truck with no snobs, so he sings a song ("Poison Ivy League") to make his point, then loses his job for brawling with the boys out back.

After his waitress girlfriend bails him out of jail (like, right after), Charlie blows town on his comparatively wee motorcycle and heads for parts unknown. Somewhere in cow country, he sees a pretty girl, a crabby, hungover old man, and a stunningly beautiful woman in her late 50s riding in a Jeep. Charlie would like to pass this Jeep and flirt with the girl along the way, but the driver (the girl's father), refuses to let him pass, because you can't let hooligans take over the world or something. Eventually, Charlie is run off the road, his motorcycle wrecked and his guitar shattered. 

The Jeep people turn out to be carnival folk: Joe Lean (Leif Erickson), his daughter Cathy (Joan Freeman), and the owner of the carnival, Maggie Morgan (​Barbara Stanwyck). Maggie offers Charlie a job as a roustabout while he waits for his bike to get fixed, and he accepts, with every intention of hitting the road as soon as possible. If he can kiss a few girls along the way (Cathy in particular), all the better.

One afternoon, Charlie sings a song on the midway (as you do) and people start buying three throws for a dollar and candy apples and oh, just everything. Maggie decides to hire him as the opening act for the girlie show (it's called "Girlie Show" and one of the girls is uncredited Teri Garr...again) and Charlie becomes a local sensation. This is lucky, because Maggie's carnival is in a lot of financial trouble, thanks to an accident caused by Joe's drinking.

Joe doesn't like Charlie sniffing around Cathy, who in turn doesn't like Charlie sniffing around the fortune teller, Madame Mijanou (Sue Ane Langdon). The owner of a more profitable carnival (Pat Buttram) has also been sniffing around to see why Maggie's carnival has gotten so successful all of a sudden. He sees. 

Just as Charlie starts to feel almost at home, a huge misunderstanding takes place involving a jackass patron, a missing wallet, and a mean drunk (Joe) that prompts Charlie to leave Maggie's show and join the humungous, Vegas-like carnival of her principal rival.

Obviously, everything works out: Charlie quits the bigger show that pays more and offers tons more exposure to help his friend Maggie and her crummy show that has the girl of his dreams and her mean, drunk father.

In other words: not Barbara Stanwyck's best vehicle, but if ever there were proof needed of her consummate professionalism, Roustabout is it. The part is dull and thankless, but she does it great. Behind the scenes, Elvis was properly deferential and sweet to her, taking Miss Stanwyck for a ride on his motorbike and listening to everything she said with the respect due an actor of her caliber.

It might be worth it to see 18-year-old Teri Garr do some high kicks in the Girlie Show...that's pretty cool; otherwise, you can watch the best number in the show right here, right now:

This post is my contribution to the Remembering Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon, hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood.

​You gotta read the other entries. You just gotta.

Good gracious, I forgot how much I like this movie. The songs! The dancing! The random projectiles thrown at the audience! Kiss Me Kate is great, silly, three-dimensional fun from beginning to end.

Musicals of this period are tricky to revisit -- even when they aren't based on the least appealing of Shakespeare's plays for a human female, The Taming of the Shrew. You never know when some rapey* or racist** theme you completely overlooked in your youth will catch you right between the eyes. For instance, I took my son to see Oklahoma!  on the big screen recently, and he wanted to know why no one went looking for Laurie when she didn't show up at the barn-raising after getting in the buggy with creepy old Jed.*** "It's a musical, honey. Nothing makes sense in musicals." 

But to be honest, it was the specter of Kathryn Grayson, a woman whose talent I recognize, but do not appreciate, and not the fear of tarnishing a happy memory that kept me from seeing this picture for so long. I was wrong to be thus deterred. For one thing, Grayson is truly good in the part of Lilli Vanessi, pampered soprano. For another, the story works: narcissist leading man, Fred Graham (Howard Keel), is producing and directing a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew and wants his ex-wife AND his girlfriend, Lois Lane (Ann Miller) to star in it. Lois is really in love with Bill (Tommy Rall), a great dancer but the kind of boyfriend who borrows money and runs up gambling debts. 

Fred and Lilli are still harboring romantic feelings for one another, even though Fred is with Lois (not knowing Lois is with Bill) and Lilli is about to marry a guy named Tex. Bill, p.s., has signed Fred's name to a hefty IOU, payable to a gangster whose henchmen, Lippy (Keenan Wynn) and Slug (James Whitmore), have come round to collect on.

Right before curtain goes up, Lilli mistakenly receives flowers from Fred that were meant for Lois and she believes there may be some spark left between them. She does not read the card, however, until just before the end of the first act. Realizing they were for Lois, Lilli lashes out at Fred -- on stage, in character -- and threatens to quit during intermission -- backstage, as herself. Fred must get Lilli back in line...but how?

For those of you who don't know the knee-slapper that is Shakespeare's original play, the shrew that must be tamed is Katherine, elder daughter of a Paduan merchant called Baptista. By all accounts, Kate is a mean-tempered scold, while her younger sister, Bianca, is sweet as pie and has a number of suitors lined up to marry her as soon as Baptista gets Katherine off his hands. Enter Petruchio, whatever the male equivalent of a gold digger is, who agrees to marry Kate for a small fortune then proceeds to gaslight his new wife into submission through playful starvation and Skinnerian mind games. By the end of the play, Kate winds up walking around Padua babbling about how women should be obedient to their husbands no matter what and Bianca marries a guy named Lucentio.

Meanwhile, back in 1953, Lilli is Kate, who is hostile to Fred/Petruchio until won over by her true feelings; Lois is Bianca, who has many suitors and a roving eye, until she finally picks Bill/Lucentio. All's well that ends well, you might say, with words and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Now add spectacular music, fantastic choreography, and this, the best dance number of the decade, featuring Bob Fosse and Carol Haney, the greatest dancer you hardly ever saw on camera.

I've never seen Kiss Me Kate on stage, despite its perennial revivals and local productions. Honest to god, I could have seen it any number of times during the past two months at the Shakespeare Theatre Company until last weekend in a venue that literally shares a wall with the building I work in. But no, and you know why? Ann Miller wasn't going to be in it, that's why.

Ann Miller is an enthusiastic, underrated bucket of joy to behold. She can act better than posterity has given her credit for, can tap dance like there's no tomorrow, and she can Sell It, because she Owns It, and "Selling It" usually annoys the pants off me (I'm talking to you, Betty Hutton). Ann Miller had to do a kind of tap dance strip tease in 3-D for this picture and she knocked it out of the park.

Respect.

​Please do see this musical if it should come your way on any size screen. I'm sorry to say that Kiss Me Kate isn't available streaming for some reason, but you can get it on DVD. It's worth it.

This post is my contribution to the Backstage Blogathon, sponsored by Movies Silently and Sister Celluloid.

Lots to read! Please check out the excellent entries all about films that are all about the show business.

You might think that an 85-year-old, half-silent subtitled picture wouldn't be the most enticing morsel to dangle in front of the crime-drama-loving friend you want to introduce to classic movies, but you would be mistaken. M is a crisp, creepy police procedural about the hunt for a child murderer set and shot in Berlin in 1931 -- no Nazis in it, but there are Nazis around the edges. What's not to love?

The story is set in a Berlin that has been plagued for the past eight months by a psychopath who targets and murders children. The citizens are in a heightened state of anxiety and are starting to suspect friends and neighbors and pick fights with strangers. The police have had no leads apart from the thousands of worthless tips from the frightened citizenry, who nevertheless continue to let their kids walk home from school unaccompanied. The children seem not to be much fazed by the threat and continue to walk around town by themselves and accept candy from strangers.

The one stranger they should be on the lookout for is Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre in his first major film role), a quiet loner who likes to whistle Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" when he's out on the prowl. We witness him befriend a little girl on her way home for lunch and lure her to her death. We don't see the actual murder, but director Fritz Lang sets things up so that we can imagine the worst.

All the law can do is increase surveillance and bear down on known criminals. Business has become so bad for the underworld because of this crackdown, that the pickpockets, thieves, and beggars decide to take matters in their own hands. The prostitutes in particular, being very sentimental, have been upset about the children. The remainder of the film is a race between the police and the criminals to see who can identify and catch the killer first.

Semi-spoiler: it's not the cops.

I hadn't seen M for some years before choosing it for this blogathon and I had forgotten that its primary theme was law and order, not how a psychotic works.The movie is equal parts police drama and caper film, with both gorgeous expressionist tableaux and gritty, noir-like sequences, punctuated by riveting periods of silence.

As long as horrible people continue to do horrible things, this semi-silent, foreign, black & white picture will be moving, relatable, and sadly, timely. 

This post is my contribution to the "Try It, You'll Like It!" Blogathon, hosted by Movies Silently.

Visit the blogathon page to find out what other movies make great introductions to classic films.

Memory is a peculiar thing. I could have sworn I was a littler kid when I first saw Watership Down in the theaters, because I remember being frightened and disturbed by its violence. It turns out, however, that I was closer to 14 when the film came out in November 1978 and had already seen the arguably more discomfiting films Coma, Dawn of the Dead, Damien: Omen II, and Eyes of Laura Mars*  earlier that year -- at adult prices, I might add -- with The Deer Hunter and Invasion of the Body Snatchers just around the corner.**

Not until I saw the film on the Criterion Collection list did I even consider watching it again on account of the bloody bunnies and everything, but no, I thought, it's on the list for a reason.*** My biggest fear was that Watership Down wouldn't be upsetting at all. Happily, it was, but not terribly and not in a way that would keep me from letting my own nearly-14-year-old see it (with adequate preparation; he's sensitive).

The film begins with the rabbits' cave-painting-like origin myth, in which their god, Frith (the sun), makes all the animals and gives them grass to eat. They live together in peace until the rabbits reproduce so much that there is no longer enough grass for everybody. Frith tells the prince of rabbits to knock it off, but he doesn't, so the god decides to differentiate the creatures by making some animals eat other animals instead of grass. Rabbits get to be most hunted, but they will be faster and smarter: "All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you, they will kill you...but first they must catch you." When a rabbit dies, his spirit is taken by the Black Rabbit of Inle.

Keep that in mind.

Watership Down follows a group of displaced wild rabbits on their quest to find a safe place to start a new warren after theirs is destroyed by humans. The hero, Hazel (John Hurt) is an ordinary rabbit with an extraordinary brother, Fiver (Richard Briers, whom I miss dearly) the runt of their litter. Fiver can see the future and it is he who predicts the coming destruction of the warren. Hazel tries to warn the leader, but he and the Owsla (bunny cops) think he and his weird little brother are nuts and send them away.

The brothers and few others escape only to be joined later be a couple of former Owsla after the warren is indeed destroyed. Eight rabbits in all -- er, seven, after a hawk immediately makes off with the only female -- wind up on the quest to find a new home, also predicted by Fiver, in what will eventually be Watership Down, an actual hill in Hampshire County. 

Along the way, they meet up with a lost Russian seagull named Kehaar (Zero Mostel), a bunch of mean rabbits, some different meaner rabbits, dogs, humans, and other obstacles. Hazel proves to be a capable leader, but the adventurers run into a lot of realistic dangers and not all of them fare well. It ends well... just not for everybody.

Watership Down is a beautifully animated picture featuring great performances from the likes of Roy Kinnear, Nigel Hawthorne, and Michael Graham Cox. Be advised that the soundtrack is a little Spielbergian at times (feel THIS way, now THIS way), but it isn't always thus and there are some poignant, well-placed moments of silence. I believe it's permissible in 2015 to turn the sound all the way down during Art Garfunkel's solo hit "Bright Eyes," but don't miss the scene it scores.

If you do plan to watch this movie with kids, be prepared to answer questions about why people lay traps and why dogs kills things the way they do. I understand now why I thought I was younger the first time I saw it: watching an animal get hurt or killed in a film can make you feel emotionally vulnerable in a way that zombies, hellspawn, and serial killers can't. Even a child knows that the less realistic something is, the more entertaining it is to destroy -- and when all the world's its enemy, even an animated rabbit seems awfully real.

This post is one of my contributions to the Criterion Blogathon, hosted by Criterion Blues, Speakeasy, and Silver Screenings.

There are so many excellent entries and themes in this ginormous blogathon. Please take a day or two to read and enjoy!

Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) is an ambitious reporter preparing to infiltrate an insane asylum so that he can solve the murder of one of its inmates. He has been training under a reputable psychiatrist for months to learn the kinds of believable things to say that will get himself committed. This involves pretending that his stripper girlfriend, Cathy (Constance Towers), is really his sister and that Barrett has developed incestuous fantasies about her. Cathy wants nothing to do with this, thinking (rightly) that Barrett is only in it for the glory and that it's both a creepy and risky scheme.* 

Barrett's hard work and bullying pay off and he gets himself thrown in the loony bin, with Cathy reluctantly playing along. Once in the asylum, he goes about making friends with three witnesses to the murder. Each of these inmates is able to suspend his disorder long enough to explain lucidly and exactly what drove him to his current state, only to relapse after giving Barrett one teeny piece of the puzzle.

The first witness is a southerner named Stuart (James Best) who joined the army during the Koren War to escape the bigotry of his upbringing only to get captured and brainwashed by communists. After a dishonorable discharge and public shaming, he became delusional and now thinks he is Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart. Obviously. He goes around singing Dixie rather too emphatically and sweats a lot.

Trent (Hari Rhodes) also saw the murder. His improbable psychosis involves the stealing of pillowcases to dress as a Klansman, preach against integration, and incite violence against black inmates, even though Trent himself is black. He went off the deep-end under the pressure of being the only African American at an all-white southern college and was so traumatized by the experience that now he can only spew white-supremacist hate. Because that happens.

Then there's this guy, ​Boden (Gene Evans), a prominent nuclear physicist, who has reverted to a childlike state to escape the horror of the atomic age, which he and the science helped bring about. His problem made the most sense to me.

By the time we get to Boden and his important clue, Johnny Barrett has been through a riot, an accidental trip to the Nympho Ward** where he is nearly (literally) devoured, and some gratuitous electro-shock therapy. He starts to think that Cathy truly is his sister and begins pulling away from her when she visits. He's also getting a little wild in the eyes and has begun repeating himself. Eventually, he exposes the murderer in a shocking bit of violence, writes his prize-winning story, then loses his mind. After a spectacular psychotic break involving indoor rain and a waterfall from a completely different film (in color), Johnny Barrett falls into a catatonic state.

The end.

Now I'm no psychiatrist, but I'm pretty sure that if a schizophrenic person sneezes on you one day, you don't wake up hearing voices the next. The patients in Shock Corridor read like pages out of an edition of the DSM the Flintstones might have used. Not just for the wildly primitive notions about mental illness, but because the crazy depicted here has only ever worked successfully in cartoons. Same with the treatment. Think you're a rabbit? Repeat after me: "I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht." Because that kind of therapy even works on an actual rabbit.

I didn't have huge expectations of subtlety from a Sam Fuller film set in a mental institution, but there isn't one restful moment in Shock Corridor. It's a strain on one's ears, eyes, and credulity. Maybe Fuller was deliberately creating a discomfiting assault on the nerves to situate his audience in a world of madness to expose the insanity of the modern experience, but maybe he just wanted to see how long and how hard a person could roll her eyes in one sitting.

And the screaming. There is a lot of screaming. Someone must have told Sam Fuller that madness is extra loud. This could explain the overwrought, angry banging of the score, which was surely composed in whatever the musical equivalent is of all caps.

Characters, plot, score, and sledgehammering, simplistic social commentary notwithstanding, Stanley Cortez's cinematography is terrific and may make the picture worth seeing. 

Don't say I didn't warn you.

​This post is one of my contributions to the Criterion Blogathon, hosted by Criterion Blues, Speakeasy, and Silver Screenings.

There are so many excellent entries and themes in this ginormous blogathon. Please take a day or two to read and enjoy!

Andre-Louis Moreau (Ramon Novarro), a young law student of uncertain parentage, is in love with Aline (Alice Terry), the niece of country gentleman, Quintin de Kercadiou (​Lloyd Ingraham), in whose home he was raised. Aline loves Andre, but her uncle is pushing her into the arms of the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr (​Lewis Stone), a high-ranking nobleman and a first-class jerk.

The Marquis is the kind of guy who kills poor people for poaching, gets girls in trouble, and makes duel-able mountains out of molehills with other gentry. In other words, just your average late 18th-century French aristocrat. All of these virtues are revealed in a beautifully crafted early scene in Rex Ingram's production: the corpse of some poor schmo is carried into a village barn, a victim of the Marquis's harsh poaching policies. A young divinity student, Andre's great friend, Philippe, prays over the body, outraged at the injustice. Just as he gets to the part about how greedy and immoral de la Tour is, the Marquis himself walks in and challenges the kid to a duel. On his way to kill Philippe (which he does, promptly), the Marquis stops to flirt with a pretty girl who looks familiar. She recognizes him too, bouncing her newborn baby up a little higher for him to see. (Lack of) Character established.

After witnessing the death of his friend, Andre vows to pick up where the pre-Revolutionary left off: seeking justice and equality for all. He tries the proper channels at first by petitioning the king's representative to prosecute Philippe's murderer, but once the magistrate learns the murderer is a nobleman, he calls for Andre's arrest.

This further injustice only deepens Andre's commitment to the cause. Well, that, and the milling thousands of angry non-noble French people gathered outside to listen to revolutionary speeches until one of the speakers is shot dead. Andre leaps up to address the crowd in his place. Riot ensues and Andre is officially on the lam.

Aline, ignorant of all the rotten things the Marquis has been up to, has decided to let him court and eventually marry her. She still loves Andre, but now that he's gone all Political and is on the run from the cops, she figures he's no longer much of a prospect.

Meanwhile, Andre (literally) falls in with a mediocre traveling theater company run by Challefau Binet and his hot daughter, Climene. Andre becomes part of the troupe and even helps elevate their status by writing plays and performing as the clown, Scaramouche. After a year, the company is playing Paris, where Aline happens to be staying with her friend, the Countess de Plougastel. Eventually, the Marquis, Aline, and Andre run into each other at a performance. Aline is engaged to the Marquis; Andre is engaged to Climene; the Marquis and Climene engage in some hanky panky on the sly. It comes to no good.

Meanwhile (again), in the National Assembly, the People are having their Paris Beaux handed to them by the Nobility and it isn't going well. The Marquis and his pals have started picking fights with the revolutionary representatives so that they can kill them off in legal duels, thereby chipping away at the opposition. When it is discovered that Andre is a master swordsman, he becomes the Assembly's best fighter and the tide turns.

Eventually, Andre and the Marquis get to fight it out, the outcome and consequences of which I will not spoil. Since the French Revolution is no secret, that happens, but there is a lot going on with our main characters in the midst of the upheaval that is better to see for yourselves.

Scaramouche  (1923) is a pretty terrific historical drama. It's less swashbuckley and Freudian than its 1952 remake, but the costumes, set design, and cinematography are outstanding. The villagers are properly filthy, the mob scenes are terrifying, and the contrast between the classes starkly drawn.  Ramon Novarro, Lewis Stone, and Alice Terry are compelling, natural actors -- you really want things to work out.

If you've seen the Technicolor Scaramouche, be advised that this version is a tonal 180. The French Revolution was no picnic, and Rex Ingram got the memo.

This post is my contribution to the Swashathon! A blogathon of swashbuckling adventure, hosted by Movies Silently.

The reason I love Warner Bros. cartoons above all others -- apart from the writing, direction, acting, and score -- is their attitude toward cats. They like cats. Even when Tweetie is clobbering Sylvester or that obnoxious puppy is scaring the pants off Claude, Warner Bros. animators use actual cat qualities (skittishness, spectacular attack failures, and highly conditional love) to make us care; in other words, they clobber with love.

Unlike Disney, who demonstrably hates cats (and mothers, whatever that's about), Warner Bros. operates from the position that there are reasons to love cats, even if you aren't the type. Like if you're a ferocious bulldog, for instance. In Feed the Kitty, Marc Anthony (Mel Blanc) is one such dog: fierce, snarling, and looking for a fight. At the cartoon's open, Marc Anthony spies a wee kitten in an alley and charges in, teeth bared, with intent to scare the little thing blind. Unfazed by this display, the kitten mews a greeting, crawls up the dog through his open jaws, plucks out a bed on his brawny back, and falls fast asleep.

Marc Anthony is in love.

He is also far from the rough street dog he pretends to be. Still carrying the sleeping kitten on his back, Marc Anthony walks into his suburban home just in time to get a lecture from his frustrated owner (Bea Benaderet), who is standing in the living room in a sea of chewed up dog toys. She forbids him to bring one more thing into the house: Not ONE MORE THING. The rest of the cartoon, therefore, is how one spoiled dog tries to keep his curious kitten a secret from his owner through some of the best cartoon choreography you'll ever see.

After disguising the cat as a windup toy and a powder puff, Marc Anthony is forced to hide it in the flour bin just as his owner is getting ready to bake cookies. Thinking the kitten is in the batter (it's not), a distraught Marc Anthony watches from exile outside as the dough is mixed, rolled, cut, and baked. When he's allowed back in the house, grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Marc Anthony accepts a cat-shaped cookie from his consoling owner, shaking in ironic misery. It's a genius performance, tear-inducingly funny and unforgettable. So unforgettable in fact, that Pixar paid loving tribute to the scene by recreating it in Monsters, Inc., when Sully feared Boo had been mangled in a trash compacter. A fitting homage well done. 

I am not one of those people who wax hagiographic about Chuck Jones as a director -- I'm more of a Clampett/McKimson girl -- but it's hard to argue with Feed the Kitty as one of the most deftly composed and executed shorts going.

​Written by Michael Maltese, directed by Charles M. Jones (my favorite Jones), Feed the Kitty is seven minutes you'll never forget or regret. Watch it now:

This post is my contribution to the ONE of My All-Time Favorite Cartoons Blogathon, hosted by Movie Movie Blog Blog.

​Everyone should read everything right now.

Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
Mama Bear, 1944

Little Red Riding Rabbit
​Little Red Riding Hood, 1944

A Hare Grows in Manhattan
Lola Beverly, 1947

​Nov 2015

Dec 2015

Ear-Way In-nay the UNNY-May 
​(Gold Diggers of 1933)​

​Mr. Smith Goes to Washington​ (1939)

Dr. Strangelove (1964) & Fail Safe ​(1965)

The women behind the senate in the 1930s

Washington's underground tunnels

Before Fox Films finds out it's there.

A film like this makes you wonder how commercial air travel ever got off the ground, so to speak. I mean, it was nice that you could smoke (or second-hand smoke anyway) the entire trip to stave off nerves, but in those early days the bus may have been a surer thing. Greyhound certainly seems to have been the service model for the air carrier in this picture.

Phone Call from a Stranger begins with attorney David Trask (Gary Merrill) in the process of leaving the wife who cheated on him. She regrets the affair, but he can't move past it, so he decides to hop a plane and start fresh in Los Angeles -- kids, schmids. At the airport Trask meets up with three other people with big problems: alcoholic doctor, Robert Fortness (Michael Rennie), would-be musical actress, Binky Gay (Shelley Winters); and Eddie Hoke (Keenan Wynn), obnoxious traveling novelties salesmen.
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The plane, however, is a local (which I guess was a Thing in those early days) and keeps running into delays. Trask and his new acquaintances get to talking and we get some juicy backstory on each, which comes in handy later. Binky latches onto Trask because it's her first flight ever and she tells her story out of sheer nervousness: that she is going home to her husband after trying and failing to make it on Broadway, but is afraid her battle-ax of a mother-in-law, a former Vaudeville star (Evelyn Varden), is going to be horrible and make her life miserable. She is not wrong to be concerned.

Upon finding out Trask is a lawyer, Dr. Fortness seeks advice on how to turn himself in to the District Attorney on account of five years before, he drove drunk and caused an accident that killed his colleague (uncredited Hugh Beaumont) then pinned the blame on his dead friend. Fortness's wife (Beatrice Straight) lied to protect him, but their marriage has suffered ever since and he now wants to put things right.

Eddie is just a pain in the ass, what with the nose-glasses, joy-buzzer, and cheesecake picture of Bette Davis c. 1932 that he keeps showing around and claiming is his wife (as IF). But he is the one who insists that the four of them (whom he nicknames The Four Musketeers) exchange contact information so they can get together in years to come and recall this crazy, mixed-up trip.

This is why, when the plane crashes and kills three of the Four Musketeers, David Trask is able to contact each of his traveling companions' survivors to share something important with each of them. The exercise is cathartic for him, particularly after talking with Hoke's wife, who turns out to be actual Better Davis, c. 1952 though, and paralyzed from the waist down. It should be noted that Bette Davis was married to Gary Merrill at the time this picture was made and their scene together is breathtakingly uninteresting.

Nutshell: I don't consider this to be a particularly memorable movie, but three performances make it worth seeing:

• Shelley Winters, who is engaging, natural, and funny throughout. Yeah, she dies, but that was kind of Shelley Winters's thing: at least she didn't drown in this one.
• Keenan Wynn is great, but his character is so irritating you kind of wish you could like him better.
• Evelyn Varden (who was in another movie Shelley died in) rocks the awful mother-in-law.

Sadly, the remaining characters and portrayals are less sympathetic. Michael Rennie is wooden and forgettable, as per yoozh, and I'm sorry, but I've never cared for Gary Merrill at all. Who knows what Bette Davis was trying to do with that wise invalid schtick, and I found the eternally regretful sob in Mrs. Trask's voice enough to hop on a doomed plane myself. There is a surprise in Beatrice Straight, but only because I'd forgotten she was in the picture and otherwise think she's wonderful. She did what she could.
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That said, you may as well give Phone Call from a Stranger a whirl since it's available in its entirety on YouTube. Click while you can!

This post is my contribution to the CMBA Fall Blogathon: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, sponsored by the Classic Movie Blog Association. 

So many great entries on this fun theme, but don't take my word for it: Go read and enjoy!