A Stranger in My Arms (1959)

Film: A Stranger in My Arms (1959)

Stars: June Allyson, Jeff Chandler, Sandra Dee, Charles Coburn, Mary Astor, Peter Graves

Director: Helmut Kautner

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on June Allyson: click here to learn more about Ms. Allyson (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the late-1950's, June Allyson's once unimpeachable box office record was more miss than hit.  She appeared in a Douglas Sirk film called Interlude (which I am dying to see as I am fascinated by what Sirk would do with Allyson's girl scout persona) and a remake of My Man Godfrey with David Niven, both of which bombed.  Her last leading role in a movie was in 1959's A Stranger in My Arms from Universal Pictures.  At the time, Allyson was 42, an age at which most actresses, especially those who bear the title of "America's Sweetheart" tend to fade from the public.  But Allyson would live for almost 50 more years after A Stranger in My Arms, and have an unusual second chapter in her career that, while perhaps lucrative, would become an unorthodox part of her legacy as an actress.

(Spoilers Ahead) Before we get into that, though, let's talk about A Stranger in My Arms, which is our movie today.  The film is about Major Pike Yarnell (Chandler), who is tortured by memories of his time on a raft during the Korean War with Donald Beasley (Graves), his fellow soldier.  Beasley's widow Christina (Allyson) comes to find him, and wants to hear more about her husband's final days, as does his family, specifically his mother Virginie (Astor).  As we find out, Donald is not a hero, and was not as enamored with his wife & mother as they were with him, as he bad-mouthed them, saying he hated his mother and never truly loved his wife.  Virginie, though, is pressuring Major Yarnell to help get Donald the Medal of Honor, but he refuses, even as he begins to fall in love with Christina, as we soon learn that Donald killed himself on the raft, and Major Yarnell had lied and said he'd fallen off the raft in a storm.  The film ends with Christina, finally breaking free of her in-laws and the memory of a man who never truly loved her, leaving with Major Yarnell, hopefully for a happier second chapter to her life.

The film walks the line between delicious campy melodrama and over-serious bore, and man do I wish it'd had the gaul to go with the former.  This is one of only two films that Helmut Kautner (who made films in Germany during World War II, but largely avoided some of the propaganda films that would plague other Germans who made films during the reign of Adolf Hitler) made in the United States, and came just three years after his picture The Captain from Kopenick was nominated for an Oscar.  The movie needed to have more indulgence, either leaning in on Mary Astor's gorgon mother or Sandra Dee's salacious debutante.  These are the best parts, as Allyson & Chandler are a snooze in the lead-he's too dour to be a romantic lead, and she's too old to be this naive.  It's the sort of film that in 1952 would've starred Joan Crawford, Kirk Douglas, & Gloria Grahame and been much more interesting.

As I said, Allyson never was the lead in a major studio film again after this movie-after two decades in the spotlight, this was probably more than she could've asked for.  She quickly did an eponymous TV series that she (and critics) hated, and would work on-and-off in theater, television, and film in the years that followed.  She also did a series of commercials throughout the 1980's for Depend undergarments, which are essentially a well-known brand of adult diapers in the United States for people with incontinence issues.  This was actually pretty brave for Allyson to link herself to-before this, no celebrity had talked about issues like this, which is a common issue, particularly for women.  But it made her something of a punchline.  My first encounter to Allyson was not in one of her movies, but through a joke made about her by Dixie Carter on Designing Women, where in one episode she says to an older woman she's annoyed with "I don't appreciate you leaving your big old box of June Allyson bladder pads on my nightstand!"  Like Lauren Bacall over enunciating about High Point Coffee or Ann Miller tap-dancing for Heinz, this is further proof that, no matter how many movies you make or how long you reign as a leading lady, nothing lasts quite as long as a TV commercial.

Next month, we're going to fully move into the 1950's, and we're going to talk about the only woman this season who wore the crown of America's Sweetheart...even though she was not born in America.

OVP: Vivacious Lady (1938)

Film: Vivacious Lady (1938)

Stars: Ginger Rogers, James Stewart, James Ellison, Beulah Bondi, Charles Coburn, Frances Mercer, Hattie McDaniel

Director: George Stevens

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Cinematography, Sound)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Jimmy Stewart: click here to learn more about Mr. Stewart (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to start our look at Jimmy Stewart during the period in the 1930's when he was still starting to make his way up in Hollywood.  During the 1930's, really leading into Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stewart was not thought of as a leading man so much as an actor to put in to prop up more famous, bankable actresses on the lots of major studios (despite being an MGM star at the time, Stewart rarely actually worked for MGM during this time frame).  This included a number of hit movies, including Born to Dance (with Eleanor Powell), You Can't Take It With You (with Jean Arthur), and Destry Rides Again (with Marlene Dietrich), one of his first cowboy roles.  We're going to focus not on Destry today (despite our month-long theme), but instead on Vivacious Lady (don't worry, Jimmy will done a cowboy hat next week), perhaps the best encapsulation of Stewart's pattern at the time-get a big hit where your leading actress gets more of the credit than you do...and also bedding her.  Though he was married to his wife Gloria for 45 years starting in 1949, affable, stuttering Jimmy Stewart was a lothario in his day, dating a variety of actresses, including Ginger Rogers, with whom according to Hollywood legend (how could you ever prove such a thing, but it is apocryphal gossip), he reportedly lost his virginity.  Stewart & Rogers would both move on (with Marlene Dietrich & Howard Hughes, respectively), but we still have Vivacious Lady to judge them by.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Peter Morgan, Jr. (Stewart) a botany professor who is also the son of a prominent university president, Peter Morgan Sr. (Coburn), and thus comes from a "respectable" family who won't like that he's started a romance with a nightclub singer named Francey (Rogers).  This doesn't stop him from eloping with her, though, before she's had a chance to meet her parents or before he's had a chance to break off his engagement to Helen (Mercer).  As a result, they sneak her in as a new botany student he's clearly pursuing, but Peter Sr. doesn't like this, despite the fact that his wife Martha (Bondi) is a fan of the young woman.  Entanglements ensue, including a marvelous little face-off between America's Sweetheart Rogers getting into a hair-pulling fight with Helen, before both Peter Jr. & Sr. have to chase their brides on a train, and win them back (which, of course, they do).

The movie's plot is mildly ridiculous.  Martha likes her daughter-in-law right away, and while Peter Sr. doesn't approve of her, it's clear that he can be won over without much work.  The "family doesn't approve" is a common trope in romantic-comedies, but it's clear in this movie that there's not a lot standing in Peter's way when it comes to getting to marry Francey.  The main reason to watch this is for the cast, which is a delight, but you wish they were in a better movie.  Rogers is not one of my favorites from this era (and Stewart is), but she outdoes him at pretty much every turn.  Romantic comedies were a place that Stewart did well, but when paired with more natural performers in the genre (not just Rogers, but someone like Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story) he occasionally got upstaged.  One of my favorite moments was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from Hattie McDaniel one year out from her Oscar win for Gone with the Wind, here playing a maid who gets a pretty lascivious comment from Rogers that I'm honestly surprised got past the censors (essentially Rogers hints strongly that a man might be worth giving up smoking for if he's good enough in bed).

The film won two Oscar nominations, neither of which are standouts (and neither is the one night club song that Rogers sings, even though it's the rare song in this era that wasn't a cover in the movie). Cinematography is kind of fun in the close-up shots of Rogers & Stewart teaching, her looking radiant and him clearly smitten (on and off screen) with the actress, but making pretty movie stars look pretty is just as much on the makeup department (and genetics) as it is cinematography, and here there's hardly much else to crow about.  The sound nomination is also odd.  There's only one musical (the aforementioned forgettable tune from Rogers), and the rest of the movie feels like it's just standard-issue sound work.  I'm convinced at this point of profiling dozens of Sound nominations that something changed in the 1960's & later in how this department picked their nominations, as no other category of this era has so many blasé head-scratchers.

OVP: B.F.'s Daughter (1948)

Film: B.F.'s Daughter (1948)

Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Charles Coburn, Richard Hart, Spring Byington

Director: Robert Z. Leonard

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Spring Byington: click here to learn more about Ms. Byington (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked about Meet John Doe, which was indicative of Spring Byington's career and where it was heading out of the 1940's.  While in the 1930's, Byington had managed to land a role in a successful franchise and score her first Oscar nomination, Byington's career never really graduated to something similar to what, say, Marie Dressler achieved in the early 1930's.  The 1940's were not a time for unconventional female leads striking out on their own (indeed successes like Dressler's would struggle in every era...though you could argue that modern audiences allow women like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, & Helen Mirren to get the kinds of leading roles that Byington could have been allotted in the 1940's had Hollywood been more open).  Next week we're going to talk about Byington & how she eventually found true, leading lady stardom in television, but this week, we're going to kind of turn on an anti-spotlight, watching a film where Byington is almost completely sidelined, despite decent billing on the poster.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is an unusual marital drama, where the oddly-matched couple, Polly Fulton (Stanwyck), the conventional but lovelorn daughter of industrialist BF Fulton (Coburn) and his wife Gladys (Byington) and Tom Brett (Heflin), a man with progressive (read: socialist) ideals about the American capitalist system, fall in love & end up together.  But that falling in love happens in the first 15 minutes of the movie.  The rest of the film has Polly & Tom struggling with the concept of marital bliss with divergent politics, particularly when World War II comes around and Polly's old flame Bob (Hart) finds himself in harm's way while Tom is clearly pondering an affair.

BF's Daughter sounds better than it is.  The story is based on a rather controversial novel, but the Hays Code ensured that much of the sex, adultery, & political sharpness is erased from this, giving us a nationalistic, capitalist vision where Stanwyck remains subservient to her husband...when she isn't needed to point out all that is wrong with Heflin's progressive ideals.  There's certainly too much plot to the movie, and honestly you could have easily cut out the entire "BF" portion of the plot, and Byington with it.  Coburn gets a bigger role, but is unnecessary to the end resolution, mostly because he dies halfway through the film, but in the process setting off almost no story.  It's a badly-constructed movie, and Byington is underused.

The film got one Oscar nomination, and it's odd.  The film's costumes by legendary designer Irene aren't really that interesting...with one exception.  While Stanwyck is sharply dressed in pantsuits and skirts throughout, there's nothing fascinating about the movie's aesthetic, except about halfway through when the actress puts on this jaw-dropping white-and-gold evening gown that likely got the Oscar nomination straight up.  There aren't a lot of great images of it that aren't covered in "Getty Image" copyrights, but you'd be wise to google it as it's gorgeous.  I'm not a huge fan of giving nominations just for one costume, particularly one that isn't really character-building, but I forgive Oscar for indulging here as it's a beautiful frock.

HM Pulham Esq. (1941)

Film: HM Pulham, Esq. (1941)

Stars: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, Van Heflin, Bonita Granville

Director: King Vidor

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Robert Young: click here to learn more about Mr. Young (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked about how Robert Young's early work was largely unremarkable, and while he was a leading man for most of his career, he was oftentimes overshadowed by the women in his career.  Indeed, Young, in a similar vein to someone like Robert Taylor (who, it's worth noting was a MUCH bigger deal than Young in his day) was a star who coasted off of the considerable charms of his leading ladies for over twenty years.  Today we're going to find the rare movie that was the exception to that rule.  While if you look at the poster for HM Pulham, Esq, you'd find that Hedy Lamarr is the top-billed player in the movie, it's Young who is at the center of this film.  Directed by King Vidor, HM Pulham Esq. was arguably the best chance that Young would've had to actually distinguish himself and become like the other actors of his era (the Spencer Tracy's and Clark Gable's) who could genuinely command the screen without the assistance of a Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford.  Unfortunately for Young, he didn't have the charisma to pull off such a heavy lift.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Harry Moulton Pulham, Jr. (Young), who is a middle-aged businessman in a loveless marriage to his wife Kay (Hussey).  After being asked to organize his 25-year reunion from college, he begins to reminisce about his long lost love Marvin (Lamarr, and yes despite the name this is not to a queer love story though after writing that I really wish there was enough to the allegory to make that case as it'd be a far more interesting movie).  The two were from different castes, and while they love each other, it's clear that Harry is as much a product of his posh Boston upbringing as his seemingly stuffy parents are.  Marvin & Harry eventually reconnect, even sharing a passionate kiss, but they are both married & there's nothing there anymore-they made the right decision 25 years earlier when they decided to go separate ways.  In the end, Kay comes to Harry & seemingly acts differently, determined to have another go at the romance that has left their marriage, and the film ends with them hopefully getting a second chance at life.

HM Pulham Esq. reads as more interesting than it actually is when you look at that description, as well as what Vidor tried to do with the story structure.  Based on a novel by John P. Marquand, the book is told in the first person, and Vidor tries to emulate that by having everything in the movie from Harry's point of view.  Young is in every scene of the movie, and things like telephone calls you only hear what Harry hears (i.e. when Marvin calls her husband while Harry is in the room, we only hear her side of the conversation).  It's a neat trick, and combined with the sort of "lovers that couldn't make it work" trope that I love in this era's films (think Brief Encounter), this would normally be up my alley.

But it's not, and honestly it's mostly Young's fault.  I was worried when I picked Young for this series that I'd have to admit that I don't historically like Young as an actor, but I figured going through four of his undiscovered movies I'd find something to love...but so far I'm bankrupt.  Young doesn't have enough style or leading man flare to pull this off.  Someone like Robert Taylor whose insane handsomeness gave him a romanticism even when his acting didn't, would've been a better choice (or someone like Robert Montgomery, who frequently succeeded in the types of roles that Young couldn't, primarily because Montgomery was a significantly better actor, and would've given this part more callous regret).  But Young isn't capable of such things, and while Lamarr is better, her parts are usually so underwritten because the filmmakers are reliant on her otherworldly beauty, that she's unable to give Marvin (who doesn't even show up until a third of a way through the movie) much grounding.  The film flops with such underwhelming leads, and no amount of plot potential can get by a lack of chemistry.

OVP: George Washington Slept Here (1942)

Film: George Washington Slept Here (1942)

Stars: Jack Benny, Ann Sheridan, Charles Coburn, Percy Kilbride, Hattie McDaniel, William Tracy, Joyce Reynolds

Director: William Keighley

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Art Direction)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Jack Benny click here to learn more about Mr. Benny (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

1942 was an interesting year for Jack Benny as an actor, and certainly the height of his film career.  At the time, Benny was one of the most important names in radio, a major star who was coming into homes across America.  It made sense, therefore, that films would continue to invest in him as an actor because he was a known commodity.  During 1942, he made what many now consider to be his best film, To Be or Not to Be, a black comedy from Ernst Lubitsch starring Carole Lombard.  Though its initial reviews were tepid, and audiences were not comfortable with the American Benny sporting a Nazi uniform (even in jest) during the middle of World War II, it has later been saved by critics and is considered one of the greatest examples of the Lubitsch Touch (if you click on over to the review, I give the film & Benny a rave).  We only watch films that I've never seen before for this series, though, and so today we're going to be focusing on a different comedy hit that Benny made in 1942, one that didn't need time for critics to warm up to it, George Washington Slept Here.

(Spoilers Ahead) Connie (Sheridan) & Bill Fuller (Benny) are a normal American couple living in New York City, but Connie wants something more.  After they are evicted from their apartment (due to Connie's misbehaving dog), she buys a dilapidated old house that supposedly belonged to George Washington without Bill's knowledge.  With the help of local man Mr. Kimber (Kilbride) who seems to gouge the couple at every chance, they start to build up the place, but learn initially that it was Benedict Arnold, not George Washington, who had slept at the house (ruining its place as a spot of Americana).  Bill hates the house initially, but grows to like it as the film goes on, but there's a catch-they have overspent and will have to give the property to their cantankerous neighbor if they don't find the mortgage payment. While they initially try to get it from Connie's rich Uncle Stanley (Coburn), when it turns out he's broke they attempt increasingly far-fetched paths to the cash before finally realizing that, due to a letter their dog finds in an old boot in the yard, that the house did have connections to George Washington, and they can sell the letter to pay for their house.

The movie supposedly has some similarities to Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a movie I have always meant to see (I love Cary Grant, and this is maybe the biggest movie in his filmography that I've never caught before), but since I hadn't this was new to me, and I was delighted.  What initially felt like it was going to be a boring marital strife movie (Sheridan, whom I'm generally a fan of in comedies, doesn't hit her stride until the second half of the picture & never quite gels with Benny as a believable couple) is lifted in the second half by bravura performances from Kilbride & Coburn, both coming in to steal large swaths of the picture.  Benny is good too, even if, once again, he proves that it was more his casting director making him work in these films than his expansive acting talent (I have yet to see a film role where Benny wasn't just playing some version of his public persona, and this is the case here, even if it fits well).

The film won one Academy Award nomination, for Best Art Direction.  This is a knowing nod to the film itself, as the movie's entire point is to focus on this house and the way it's cleaned up.  It is, admittedly, a fun house for the camera to explore, but if we're being technical, it does also feel like there's not enough scenes before it becomes this glamorous little property in the middle-of-nowhere.  We essentially jump from shack to palace in far too quick of a fashion for a movie that's entirely focused on the house as a main character.  Still, it's a nice house-I get the urge from Oscar to go there with this movie.

OVP: Of Human Hearts (1938)

Picture: Of Human Hearts (1938)

Stars: Walter Huston, James Stewart, Beulah Bondi, Gene Reynolds, Charles Coburn, John Carradine

Director: Clarence Brown

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Beulah Bondi)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We are continuing our look at some of the films of 1938 today with Of Human Hearts, a Clarence Brown religious melodrama from the era.  This was still in the time period where Jimmy Stewart, who would become one of the most important figures in Hollywood for much of the next 25 years, was finding his footing, not getting top billing even in movies where arguably he was the most important figure, and where it's clear the studio didn't really understand what they had, giving him movies that, for my money, were totally below him.  Of Human Hearts is a movie that probably resonated at the time because it was serious & about serious, run-of-the-mill people, but in retrospect it totally reads differently, and is honestly a genuinely bad movie from my perspective because it has no concept of its characters.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Jason Wilkins (Reynolds as a boy, Stewart as an adult) who is raised by a stern preacher Rev. Ethan Wilkins (Huston), one who practices what we'd consider now to be child abuse but at the time was just considered "discipline."  Jason wants to be a medical doctor, one who isn't poor & suffering like his parents make him be, but when he becomes an adult he turns his backs on them, using them for money to some degree but never really caring what happens to them, which in the case of his mother is unfortunate as she has sacrificed repeatedly for him.  In the end, Jason does learn that his mother sacrificed for him, and after a weird turn during the Civil War (more on that in a second), Jason comes home to his mother, finally learning the cruelty of his ways and gets her forgiveness.

The film suffers almost throughout for being too melodramatic for its own good.  Stewart's Jason is a selfish asshole, and there's not really an indication as to why.  I get why they don't have him redeem his relationship with his father (who is also an asshole, and one whose redemption arch I didn't really need), but why does he treat his mother like dirt, particularly after the death of his father?  There's no logical explanation, and the film suffers as a result.  Bondi definitely plays the part we're meant for her (saintly martyr mother), but it's not an interesting role, and it's a sympathetic rather than a good performance.  Oscar had much better options in other roles where she played Stewart's mother (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life).

That being said, Of Human Hearts is noteworthy for one specific reason.  Character actor John Carradine shows up late in the film (no surprise there-he showed up in hundreds of movies), as Abraham Lincoln.  The Lincoln cameo initially feels like he's giving Jason an award for his stellar medical work on the field, but it turns out this is a guise, as Lincoln, in the middle of the freaking Civil War, is giving Jason a lecture about how "he needs to write to his mother."  It's bonkers-what the hell is this even about?!?  It's so weird I almost gave this two-stars for sheer wackiness, but honestly this bizarre left turn isn't enough for me to recommend it.

OVP: Louisa (1950)

Film: Louisa (1950)

Stars: Ronald Reagan, Charles Coburn, Ruth Hussey, Edmund Gwenn, Spring Byington, Piper Laurie

Director: Alexander Hall

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Sound Recording)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

An unexpected theme over the last month on this blog has been me revisiting the very strange Best Sound Recording nominations of the 1940's & 50's at the Oscars.  I've talked about this a few times, but sound nominations today seem to have a logic, even if it's not a solid one.  Musicals, action films, Best Picture nominees...it's pretty easy to understand the why behind each sound nomination that happens at the Oscars.  That wasn't the case in the 1950's, though, as we'll see once again today with Louisa, a romantic-comedy that has literally nothing special about its sound design, and at the time its sound designer (Leslie I. Carey) had only even been nominated once before.  As for the film itself?  Let's find out!

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the Norton family.  Hal (Reagan) has had his widowed mother Louisa (Byington) move into their home, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family.  Louisa frequently critiques his wife Meg (Hussey) as well as his two children, particularly daughter Cathy (Laurie, in her film debut), and is deeply opinionated about everything.  She eventually apologizes to a green grocer, Henry (Gwenn), she yelled at, seeing how persnickety she has become, and they start dating.  This makes Hal upset, not wanting to see his mother with a new man, but things take a turn when during a social event, Louisa meets Hal's boss Abel (Coburn), who also takes a fancy to Louisa, setting up a rivalry between Abel & Henry that ends with Henry ultimately winning Louisa's affections, and in the process also winning over Louisa's family.

The film is fun, especially in 1950's Hollywood, because the focus isn't really on the romantic adventures of the headliners.  In most movies it'd be Reagan & Hussey whose romance would take central stage, but instead we have Byington, Gwenn, & Coburn, scene-stealers all, get the central romance.  This works better in theory than execution though.  None of the actors seems to take advantage of this new centerstage the way you'd hope (Coburn comes across the best), and while Reagan, a generally limited actor, is better at comedy than he ever was at drama, he has little chemistry with either Hussey or Byington, and as a result the film drags as we hit the last 40 minutes or so.

The Sound recording nomination, as I said, is bizarre.  Nothing stands out from the sound work.  The score is minimal (and not memorable), and while there is a western-themed dance sequence, it's not outstanding & really just involves a couple cheating at the limbo.  Other than that...it's literally just talking.  Nothing noteworthy or technically challenging...I have no explanations as to how this got nominated, and shall stop ruminating on it as it's been driving me bonkers since I saw the film how the Academy even noticed it (it's the film's only nomination!)

OVP: The Green Years (1946)

Film: The Green Years (1946)

Stars: Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Hume Cronyn, Gladys Cooper, Dean Stockwell, Jessica Tandy

Director: Victor Saville

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Charles Coburn, Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I got asked recently whether it was hard to write reviews of bad movies, and I answered honestly that it wasn't.  Bad movies can be fascinating even if they're bad, because of the ways that they're bad.  A bad movie has a perspective, it has something to say & it just totally gets lost in saying it.  The harder reviews (for me) to write are movies that just sort of sit there.  These kinds of movies exist every year, but they do show up in a specific style in the 1940's, when the world had endured a difficult war & people wanted to see pleasant things with limited conflict.  The most famous examples of this type of film are Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's, which are not so much movies as a series of motifs that have very little conflict & clear answers to every problem that comes along.  I don't enjoy these types of movies because while I get why they exist, they are not compelling in retrospect, and unfortunately for me, The Green Years falls into this category.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is centered around Robert Shannon (Stockwell as a boy, Drake as an adult), an orphan who must live with relatives, and becomes attached to his great-grandfather Alexander Gow (Coburn), an unkempt fellow who serves as an unlikely role model for the straight-laced young lad.  The movie expands upon their relationship, and the complicated day-to-day life of this poor Scottish family as they enter the modern age & World War I, and shows how Robert becomes a doctor against the odds.

Like I said, the film doesn't really have much there-there's no proper conflict to the film.  Hume Cronyn is meant to play the villain, but really all he does is sit there hoarding nonexistent fortunes, and most of the plot is "we're poor, and who will get the money?"  There are major moments of pain (including two out-of-the-blue deaths, one a bit galling as a classmate of Robert's is run over by a train, thus giving Robert a scholarship opening to go to medical school), but they don't register & the film doesn't know how to capitalize on them.  It's not helped by the fact that Drake & Beverly Tyler's romance is a dud, and you don't want to spend any time with the main characters.  I'm going with the rare 1-star not exactly because it was bad, but because it has so little risk, and even that risk doesn't pay off.

The film won two Oscar nominations, for Best Supporting Actor & Cinematography.  Coburn could play this part in his sleep, and while it's fun, there's nothing much to it.  He's playing this role simply as a warm old man who is cantankerous...and yet is generous from the get-go with this orphaned boy.  He's supposed to be cantankerous, but they don't even bother to have him thaw to the boy as the film progresses.  The Cinematography is a nonstarter for me as well-nothing distinguishes the mostly interior scenes, and there's barely any closeup shots that work well.  Overall, it's the type of movie that you won't remember, which makes it an even greater sin than merely being bad.

OVP: The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

Film: The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
Stars: Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn, Spring Byington
Director: Sam Wood
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actor-Charles Coburn, Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

On Day 3 of our week devoted to the category of Best Supporting Actor, we're going to go way back, all the way to 1941, just six years into the category even existing.  This nomination happened during the peak of Jean Arthur's career, when she was practically printing money for the studio, and indeed, with The Devil and Miss Jones, Arthur was getting another hit.  I've always found Arthur's career to be kind of fascinating (she'd make an awesome "Saturdays with the Stars" figure in the future), considering her onscreen persona (bubbly, warm, the girl-next-door) was so different than what she was like in real-life (extremely private, bordering on the antisocial).  In many ways she was more comparable to Greta Garbo than Carole Lombard offscreen.  Her films oftentimes got nominated for major Oscars, though only once for her (1943's The More the Merrier), and that was the case for The Devil and Miss Jones, where Charles Coburn would get the first of his three Oscar nominations in the 1940's.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about John P. Merrick (Coburn), a tightfisted, cranky old millionaire who owns a string of department stores in New York.  He is trying to bust open a union that is forming in his store, which could deprive him of his profit margins, and so he goes undercover as a shoe clerk named Thomas.  There he finds out that the managers treat the employees very poorly, and his only friend is a woman named Mary (Arthur) whose boyfriend Joe (Cummings) is the union ringleader.  He also starts to fall in love with an elderly store clerk Elizabeth (Byington), and appreciate the travails of his employees.  However, when his identity is found out (and Mary & Elizabeth feel betrayed by his lying), he is forced by the board to choose between supporting his employees or continuing his lavish (lonely) lifestyle.

As you might imagine (this is a Classic Hollywood movie, after all), Merrick chooses to help his employees, marrying Elizabeth and living happily ever after (if a good deal less rich than before).  The movie is sweet, if totally predictable.  It's the kind of film where if you're open to a good time and something pleasant, it'll satisfy you, but if you can't take saccharine that day, I'd avoid.  The script is predictable but humorous (my favorite sight gag being when Merrick has to bribe a child to buy the most expensive shoes in the store...and she still doesn't want to wear them because they're so hideous), and the cast is charming.

The film has Arthur & Cummings as its leads, but they aren't really the central figures in the story.  Today Coburn's nomination would surely be accused of category fraud, as he's undoubtedly the film's central character and thus I'm going to take a point off for him being the lead as is my wont in these situations (though unlike, say, Brad Pitt, Coburn was in the category that most of his roles would end up being, just not this one).  Coburn is warm, curmudgeonly, and gives a full performance.  I feel like this is the type of performance he almost always ends up giving (he was definitely typecast), but that doesn't mean it's not effective within the script.  His cold thaw is the best part of the movie, and while this isn't legendary acting, it's sturdy character work that builds up a picture, which is what you'd hope for in a Supporting Actor.

OVP: Kings Row (1942)

Film: Kings Row (1942)
Stars: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, Maria Ouspenskaya, Harry Davenport
Director: Sam Wood
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Ann Sheridan-click here to learn more about Ms. Sheridan (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are only two films into the career of Ann Sheridan as our January star, and I'm already starting to note a really strange pattern-Ann Sheridan gets top billing when she probably shouldn't.  I'm hoping, since I'm trying to learn about her as a leading woman, that this doesn't continue for our final two pictures, but last week she received second billing for The Man Who Came to Dinner when really the star of the film was the then-unknown Monty Woolley.  This week, while she's again one of the leads, few would argue that she's actually the lead of this film where she receives top billing, instead the film focuses more on up-and-coming actors Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan.  Kings Row is the best-known Sheridan film we're going to profile this month (give or take Angels with Dirty Faces, it's her best-known film period but I couldn't easily get a copy of that 1938 film), so I was excited to investigate to learn more about Sheridan (as well as to take a look at what is widely considered to be Ronald Reagan's best performance), and left kind of floored-Kings Row is a pretty sordid melodrama, one based on an even more scandalous book, that for 1942 comes across as quite shocking.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a soap opera with a lot of plot, but here's the gist of it.  Essentially it's two alternating tragic love stories, both started in childhood and then continued into adulthood.  The first, that takes up the top half of the movie is between Cassie (Field) and Parris (Cummings), and the back half is dominated by the relationship between Drake (Reagan) and Randy (Sheridan).  Both have a lot of intrigue and mystery behind the relationship.  With Cassie & Parris, she is largely ostracized by her classmates for having a strange mother (who clearly suffers from some sort of dementia), and is pulled out of school/society as a young girl, though she never stopped thinking of Parris as her first love.  Parris, as an adult, tries to gain the respect of her father (Rains), and secretly starts to see Cassie, but she's now nervous, frail, and constantly paranoid about being found out and about seeing the world.  At the halfway point of the movie, she is killed by her father in a murder-suicide after she makes plans to run away with Parris.  At this point, Parris flees to Vienna to become a well-respected doctor, and the plot shifts to his lothario best friend Drake, who is engaged to the doctor's daughter (Nancy Coleman), but her parents (Coburn & Anderson) disapprove of such a man dating their daughter, and as a result he ends up in the arms of the (literally from the wrong side of the tracks) Randy.  After a freak accident, Drake's legs are amputated by the doctor, and he is forced to deal with being crippled & broke (oh, right, his money was stolen by a banker-forgot to mention that).  Eventually, now a psychiatrist, Parris finds out the doctor had been a Mengele of sorts and there was no need for Drake's legs to be amputated (he had done this to anyone in town he considered "dirty"), and he must tell Drake the truth.

Following so far?  If you are, you're doing better than I did.  Kings Row is, despite being just over 2 hours long, probably 2 hours too short to accomplish this level of plot.  For example, the film's most harrowing scene (Reagan screaming after seeing that his legs are gone "Where's the Rest of Me?!?", a line he would later title his 1965 memoir), pairs really poorly with the jolly-good moment where Drake finds out that his legs were not stolen by an accident, but by the father of a scorned daughter.  Looking to the book, we find that there's a lot seedier explanations for what in the movie comes across as intentionally veiled.  For example, it's pretty clear in the book that the relationship between Cassie and her father is incestuous, and that both Parris & Cassie and Randy & Drake consummated their relationships before marriage.  In the movie, they managed to slyly sneak in that Cassie is pregnant if you look below the surface, but in the book it's not entirely clear whether or not she's pregnant with Parris's baby or her father's.  They entire cut out a gay character from the novel who tries to put the moves on Parris, and it's pretty glossy over the sadistic surgeon, framing him more as a "father scorned" than as a true monster of the community.  Watching Kings Row, I realized it's that rare classic film that would be primed for a more modern telling that's loyal to the book-HBO, if you want me to get writing it, let me know.

The film received three Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Director, and Cinematography, none of which feels quite right but is understandable given the circumstances.  The movie isn't exactly good even if it's usually entertaining, throwing in too much plot and overstuffing with a lot of clutch-the-pearls moments to keep the audience entertained.  The cinematography feels relatively standard, though some of the closeup shots and especially the way that James Wong Howe frames Betty Field's face is intriguing.  Still, it doesn't feel like particularly inventive work, especially the year after Citizen Kane.

Sheridan, our star of the month, literally doesn't show up in the movie until we're 64 minutes into the picture.  I want to say Dev Patel probably takes that long to get into Lion (I haven't taken out a stop watch there, but it feels about right), but otherwise can you think of another film where the top-billed star doesn't show up until we're an hour into the movie?  Sheridan, for her part, is not as much fun as she was in last week's The Man Who Came to Dinner.  I liked her scenes where she tries to justify the casualness of her fling with Drake (it's pretty clear she doesn't consider him a potential-husband, but he's good in the sack so she's keeping him around), but once she becomes the doting girlfriend/wife, she loses all sense of personality with Drake and her performance suffers as a result.  Reagan (and I don't know that I'll ever say this again considering his abilities as an actor) is the best part of the film, particularly as a fun-loving rake in the first half of the movie, and it's easy to see how he became a star.  It's a pity he couldn't have translated this into some of his other performances, and we might have been spared his political career.

OVP: Princess O'Rourke (1943)

Film: Princess O'Rourke (1943)
Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman
Director: Norman Krasna
Oscar History: 1 nom/1 win (Best Original Screenplay*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Do you ever see really old movies and realize what masterpiece they clearly inspired?  Not just in terms of sequels and all of that, but in the sense that the film clearly inspired a much better movie down the road?  That was my feeling throughout the entirety of Princess O'Rourke, a comedy short on charms and laughs but thick on a really cute idea which would be used more elegantly and grandly in Roman Holiday a decade later.  But this is the film that I've been dealt next to review (with its Oscar-in-hand), and so I'll give it my best.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is one of those movies that you feel instantly like you've already seen and that you know will leave you pretty quickly after you're done with it, but it's not what you'd call a bad movie by any means.  The film follows Princess Maria (de Havilland) a princess exiled from her country during World War II who is living in a posh Manhattan hotel until the war is over, and during a case of being on sleeping pills while flying under an assumed identity (it makes sense in the movie) meets and falls for a commoner, an American pilot named Eddie O'Rourke (Cummings).  She likes the idea of being a normal person for a while, and eventually falls for Eddie, but cannot marry him because she's a princess.  The film takes a ridiculous turn in the final act, rather than the bittersweet direction Roman Holiday took, and actually has them get married by a Supreme Court judge with the aid of President Roosevelt's dog Fala (this makes less sense in the movie).

The movie is pretty dull and lifeless, though it does have the aid of Robert Cummings gamely playing the leading man.  Cummings, who is best known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboetur and Dial M for Murder, is wildly likable and pretty cute as Eddie, a man who has trouble understanding his new wife's many duties (and while this occasionally veers into sexism, it takes a LOT longer than you'd expect).  I also enjoyed the banter he achieved with Jane Wyman and Jack Carson who play his best friends.

De Havilland, on the other hand, is like cinematic Valium.  I love de Havilland in general, but this is easily the driest work I've ever seen from her, but there is a reason for that.  Princess O'Rourke is the famed film that created the de Havilland Law, which stipulated that an actor could only be under contract to a studio for seven years.  At the time, the very hard-working de Havilland was one of Warner Brothers biggest stars but she felt they were taking advantage of her in this way by giving her trifling scripts (seeing the movie, she had a point).  Therefore, she sued to get out of her contract and won.  This may sound antiquated today when actors rarely have devotion to a studio, but this is still a rule used today (Chris Evans, for example, could only be under contract to play Captain America for seven years before Disney would have to renegotiate).

Overall, though, this is a pretty unsatisfying nomination and win for the Oscars, and perhaps it was just a recognition for Norman Krasna, who had been nominated three times previously without a victory and also directed the film.  His competition, though, included Lillian Hellman and Noel Coward, neither of which ever won an Oscar (as well as Dudley Nichols, who famously was the first person to refuse his Oscar), so this doesn't seem particularly compelling reasoning in hindsight.  All-in-all I have trouble believing this is where the OVP will land even if I haven't seen any of the other nominees.

Those are my thoughts on Princess O'Rourke-how about yours?  Have you seen the movie?  If so, what'd you think?  And if not, weigh in on Olivia de Havilland and Robert Cummings and some of your favorite performances of theirs.

OVP: The Power and the Prize (1956)

Film: The Power and the Prize (1956)

Stars: Robert Taylor, Elisabeth Muller, Burl Ives, Mary Astor, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Coburn

Director: Henry Koster

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I frequently talk about how the worst movies are films that are clearly going to age poorly because of content.  Hairstyles and slang and visual effects will all shift and move, but the reality is that you can handle these changes because they come across as retro.  No, the bigger issue is when social mores and half-truths about human nature mar the film...that's when you get into trouble from an historical standpoint (it's why something like Boyhood will be seen decades from now as a triumph while The Imitation Game will be as relevant as a 1950's issue film).

(Spoilers Ahead) This is the case with Henry Koster's The Power and the Prize, one of the Oscar-nominated directors lesser-known works.  The film is about Cliff Barton (Taylor), a man up-and-coming in the world of business who goes to London to cook a crooked business deal to help out his future uncle-in-law (played with a frank villainy by Burl Ives).  While in London he manages to fall for a refugee named Miriam (Muller).

The film unfolds in an extremely traditional fashion, with people reacting poorly to Muller, who is essentially a madame (though the film goes to painstakingly clumsy lengths to try and prove her specific virtues), and many trying to break up their impending marriage, as well as watching as Burl Ives tries to throw Cliff under the bus in a mustache-twirling turn that eventually results in him nearly killing himself with stress (his wife, high-strung Mary Astor, may give the film's only decent performance, though I may have been distracted by the wonderfully haughty histrionics), and to Taylor and Muller getting their romantic moment-in-the-sun.

The film is bad on so many different levels, I don't really know where to begin, so let's start with the acting since I've already invited that into the picture.  Ives and Astor at least are overacting in their roles, which is less than I can say for Robert Taylor, who is about as bland as I've ever seen him (Taylor, for those who aren't super familiar, had screen charisma out the hilt with earlier roles in films like Johnny Eager and my beloved Waterloo Bridge).  Here it's almost like you're watching a different actor (his physical appearance did change pretty dramatically as he got older), as he's too staid and too unconvincing in his complete shift in adoration for Miriam.

Taylor's not the worst part of the film, though-that would be poor Elisabeth Muller.  I'll forgive her a bit for English not being her first language (she was Swiss-born), but my god this is terrible, terrible acting.  Really one of the worst performances I've seen in a while.  It's almost as if she read the script notes such as angrily and adoringly and had to remember to do them onscreen, with her shifts in speaking and personality so abrupt.  There's really no reason why she loves Cliff, and there's no reason other than her beauty that he loves her-this is partially due to Taylor's lack of interest in his performance, but it's also because Muller simply cannot convey any sort of strength or personality into her Miriam.

The script itself is appallingly simple and noble.  The movie has few shades of grey for a film that really is trying hard to give them to the audience.  We're treated to people stating that Miriam shouldn't be judged by her past, but then they go through arduous pages of script to try and make her look like a chaste prostitute, and we get no such consideration for Burl Ives, who may be a villain but he's a common-sense, practical villain that thirty years later would look more like the norm in films about business (hell, he might even be the hero in the age of Jordan Belfort as a leading man).

The movie's sole Oscar nomination was for Helen Rose's costume work, but I have to say I felt underwhelmed.  There's no real personality here, and it really just looks like she spent an afternoon shopping at Bloomingdale's rather than adding personality to go with the characters onscreen.  Rose was a costuming god at the Oscars (ten nominations and two wins), so this feels less like it was earned and more like a filler nomination (this is a warning as to why filler nominations are a terrible idea-it gives tripe like this the Oscar-nominated tag for no good reason).

Those are my thoughts on this dull, pointless movie-what are yours (if you're fool enough to have seen it)?  Are you as shocked as I that Robert Taylor lacks so much charisma?  How did Elisabeth Muller have a career as an actor?  And where do Helen Rose's designs stack against other films of this year?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Film: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Stars: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan
Director: Howard Hawks
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Silliness is something that we don’t have enough of in movies today.  When I say this, I’m not talking about the antics of a Johnny Knoxville in Bad Grandpa or the weight-and-fart humor of a Kevin James or Adam Sandler film.  I’m talking about smart, fluffy silly, the kind that makes Gentlemen Prefer Blondes so darned enjoyable and also very much a product of its time.  No one watches Gentlemen and thinks “this is Oscar-worthy,” even those of us who think the Oscars should spend a little more time getting behind comedy.  What this film is, though, is wildly entertaining and enjoyable, a romp that from start-to-finish you find yourself grinning through and hoping that it won’t end, even if you know every direction the film is going to take.

The film is about Lorelai Lee (Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Russell), two girls from Little Rock who are trying to make it big in show business and in love (I always say it’s a good sign if I don’t have to look up the names of the characters the next day when I’m writing the review, and I honestly remembered all of the characters in this film’s names, so bravo to all involved on that front).   Lorelai and Dorothy are best friends, but have different ideas of what they want out of a man.  Lorelai is hoping for financial security, riches, and all the fabulousness that comes with it.  Dorothy is interested in good-looking men, which is the 1950's way of saying that she's horny and cares less about the size of his pocketbook and more about the size of his...well, you know.

The girls end up on a cruise to Paris, and along the way they meet two men: Ernie Malone (Reid), an undercover detective who falls for Dorothy and Piggy (Coburn), a wealthy and randy diamond magnate, whom Lorelai charms and flirts with, to the chagrin of his wife.  The film follows a line of plot that you'd expect at this point-Lorelai is found out for her flirting by her naive fiance back home (and his disapproving father), Ernie eventually does what his job demands by telling the father of Lorelai's flirting but still gets his girl anyway, and everyone lives happily ever after.

With such a predictable plot, and quite frankly, some fairly ordinary musical numbers (excluding the legendary "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"), the film lives and dies off of the panache and luster of the two stars, and here the movie obtains a home run.  Jane Russell has a bawdiness that lends itself to every line, and manages to sell "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love" with the right amount of winking, considering it's the gayest scene I've ever seen in a movie (and that includes Corbin Fisher).  Monroe is also aces (she truly could act, or at least had the right sense to pursue roles tailor-made for her).  The film's big "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" number is a Technicolor marvel, with the red backdrop clashing splendidly with Monroe's iconic William Travilla shocking pink gown.

And while the film is a question mark on the Bechdel Test, it's wonderfully nice to see a film starring two female friends who genuinely like each other and not once end up in a love triangle quarrel with a man.  The thing I was most struck by when I took a step back was how unconventional this was-can you name another romantic comedy of this era where two women who are friends don't argue over who ends up with a specific guy?  It's refreshing, and it's also nice to see that they never really throw each other under the bus-there is no The Women-style quarreling here, just two women looking out for each other.  In an otherwise routine film (plot-wise), this was a lovely treat.

Those are my thoughts on the film, some sixty years after it was released-what were yours?  Did you enjoy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?  And what is your hair color preference (it's a cheeky movie, I'll ask a cheeky question)?