The Private Life of Don Juan (1934)

Film: The Private Life of Don Juan (1934)

Stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon, Gina Malo, Benita Hume

Director: Alexander Korda

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.: click here to learn more about Mr. Fairbanks (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. is a major star of his era that was not a timeless star.  As we talked about last week, Douglas Fairbanks wasn't really an actor that couldn't make it work in the Sound Era (there was nothing wrong with his voice, and as we'll talk about today, he still has a presence with sound movies that felt at-home with the screwball pictures that succeeded here), but he didn't pair well with the 1930's.  This was partially because he was older than actors like Gary Cooper & Clark Gable, both of whom were big names at the time who were a couple of decades the junior of Fairbanks, so there was very much a ticking clock on how long he could be the suave leading man.  And it was also in part because his movies went out of fashion.  For Depression Era audiences, they wanted escapism, but they wanted it with a modern flare, things like Dinner at Eight or Grand Hotel, movies that were how they wished they could live their lives, glamorously spending money vicariously through Joan Crawford or Jean Harlow.  They didn't want period dramas, which had been Fairbanks' bread-and-butter.  And so today we get to not just discuss our final film of the month, but also the last movie of Fairbanks' career as a leading man: the surprisingly witty & introspective The Private Life of Don Juan.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film tackles Don Juan's (Fairbanks) life after he's already become a Lothario-like legend.  Here, he is so famous that men actually impersonate him, and get away with it because they are what Don Juan was 10 years ago-sexier, younger, more virile.  This causes a huge problem for the actual Don Juan, who at one point in the film shows his seduction techniques on Antonita (Oberon) a beautiful young dancer, but at the same time an imposter is seducing a woman across town with a jealous husband...who kills him.  She assumes this is the real Don Juan (because that's what she told him, and that's the fantasy both she & her husband enjoy), and there is a giant funeral for Don Juan, including women mourning him who have not even met him before (they just have fantasized about it).  The actual Don Juan takes this as an opportunity to move on from his life (and the problems his life has caused), but soon learns that the myth he has cultivated is essential to picking up women.  They now see him for what he is: a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a paunch, and not the fantasy that they have come to expect from legends and fictional stories about him.  Even when he comes back, women don't recognize him, not even Antonita.  He eventually falls for the woman who has been pretending to be his widow, who is happy with the (aged) version of him as long as she gets him all to herself.

I'll be honest-I did not expect this movie to be as funny as it is, nor did I expect it to be as genuinely thought-provoking.  The script is a riot, and you see pretty quickly why Fairbanks' original fame as an actor was in comedy, not in action-adventure.  He is a gas as he fights with his manservant over eating too much, and there's a terrific bit where his doctor tries to trick him into admitting his age that feels almost like a Laurel & Hardy gag.  This is also surprising because it is downright impossible to find movies in Classical Hollywood where leading actors admit that they are getting older and less desirable.  Think of, say, Joan Crawford even in the 1960's attempting to play glamour girl roles in movies like Berserk!, or John Wayne inexplicably trying to get audiences to believe he can drive a young Angie Dickinson into fits of passion.  Yes, Fairbanks seduces Merle Oberon in this (an actress more beautiful than him, even when he was in his prime, and also 30 years younger than him), but the movie goes to great pains to make sure you know she's sleeping with Don Juan the Myth...not the man in front of her, even to the point of embarrassing him later in the movie when she can't recognize him.  Essentially, she was doing the modern equivalent of picturing your hot gym trainer while you were getting laid instead of the person actually on top of you (don't give me that look...we've all done it).

The film was good, and it's a sad final chapter for Fairbanks, particularly given that his career after this isn't all that interesting.  Fairbanks would divorce Mary Pickford in 1936, ending Hollywood's first storybook marriage, and though he was unique amongst stars of his era in that he was sober (something his ex-wife sadly could not boast), he was a habitual chain smoker, which caused severe heart problems for him.  He would work at he & Pickford's cofounded United Artists, but by the late 1930's he was unable to do most of the things that had once made him a star (i.e. giant action movies), so a comeback wasn't in the cards even if he wanted to have one.  In 1939, Fairbanks would die of a heart attack, at the age of only 56.  He was buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where almost 70 years later his namesake son would be buried next to him.  Mary Pickford, who outlived her ex-husband by nearly 40 years, would eventually become a savvy businesswoman, and would be given accolades like two Academy Awards and a spot on the AFI's list of greatest stars (while Fairbanks would forever remain in her shadow, their marriage the most-known thing about his time as one of Tinseltown's biggest names).

Next month, we're going to talk about a star who would become the successor of Fairbanks in the Sound Era, taking on the swashbuckling roles in a way no other actor would in Classical Hollywood (to the point where the word "swashbuckling" basically conjures up images of him).  He would also have perhaps the most controversial off-screen life of any actor of Hollywood's Golden Age, in many ways dwarfing his onscreen persona, which we will inevitably also discuss.

Bright Eyes (1934)

Film: Bright Eyes (1934)

Stars: Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Lois Wilson, Judith Allen, Charles Sellon, Jane Withers, Jane Darwell

Director: David Butler

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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 Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Temple (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Shirley Temple wasn't a star from birth, but she comes closer than anyone we've profiled in six seasons of this series.  Basically considered to be the prototypical (and biggest) child star in the history of the movies, Temple was working in film as early as the age of four in comedy shorts for Educational Pictures where children pretended to be adults.  This eventually led to Temple being signed to a contract at Fox, where she began being paired with actor James Dunn, including in today's film Bright Eyes, which was the first film specifically written for Temple to see if she had what it took to stand on her own after successful co-lead roles earlier that year.  The film was Bright Eyes, and it was a big hit, the first of many that she would have with Fox over the next few years.  At the height of the depression, the Number One box office draw in America was about to become a 6-year-old girl.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Shirley Blake (Temple), a maid's daughter who is raised by her working mother (since her father died in a plane crash), and her godfather Loop (Dunn), a fellow pilot who was best friend's with her dad.  Her mother is about to be fired, just after Christmas (Bright Eyes is tangentially a Christmas movie in the same way that something like Die Hard is), but before that happens she dies in a mid-movie twist, getting hit by a car while her daughter is off entertaining the pilots with a song-and-dance routine.  This leaves her in the care, for a moment, with the snobbish rich family her mother had worked for thanks to the wealthy uncle of the group (played by Charles Sellon) being soft on Shirley.  But Loop also wants to take care of her, and this sets off a legal battle, with Loop, Uncle Ned, and Loop's former romantic flame Adele (Allen) all fighting for who gets to take care of her.  In the end, they all do-they form a sort of makeshift family of people who love Shirley, and Uncle Ned's money-hungry relatives are left with nothing.

The movie reads as a comedy, and it is, though it's weirdly serious.  There's a scene where Dunn takes Temple up into an airplane, and has to tell her that her mother has joined her father in heaven, and it's very moving, but also bizarre because the film isn't really prepared to handle the grief of a little girl losing her parents at such a young age.  They basically treat her faith as something akin to her belief in Santa earlier in the film, something that will need to be addressed at a later date, but we are just going to ignore the fact that Shirley has had an awful life, and maybe it's okay to let her be sad for a little while.  As I've seen no other of Temple's films as a child actor, I'm intrigued to see if this is a common refrain or if this is exclusive to Bright Eyes.

It's easy to see, though, why America fell in love with Temple-she has oodles of charisma, is adorable, and is a born star.  This film is most famous for her rendition of "On the Good Ship Lollipop" which she performs to a group of military pilots to rapturous applause, and she's adorable during it.  You understand why later films would capitalize on her talents as a singer, putting centerpiece musical numbers at the heart of the film.  She's matched in terms of star quality by Jane Withers as the bratty Joy.  Withers would also become a star during the era, one of several stars at the time (Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, & Deanna Durbin were others) who would become major box office draws as a teenager or younger, largely due to the studio wanting to try this approach thanks to the massive success Temple received from films like Bright Eyes.  Withers & Temple hide the fact that the rest of the cast (save maybe Oscar-winner Dunn) is not good in this movie, and the adult women are somewhat identical & interchangeable.  But you don't go to a Shirley Temple movie for the adults-you go for Shirley, and this is a good start to our month-long tribute to her.

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Film: The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Stars: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser, C. Aubrey Smith

Director: Josef Von Sternberg

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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 Marlene Dietrich: click here to learn more about Ms. Dietrich (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

When Marlene Dietrich came to Hollywood, she did so for Paramount under the assumption that she would be a counter to Greta Garbo (who was making bank over at MGM), and she was partnered with Von Sternberg, the director on her breakout hit The Blue Angel for her first picture.  We could honestly do an entire month just on their relationship, which was unhealthily codependent, and basically involved Dietrich "giving herself" in terms of artistic creativity to Von Sternberg.  It's not clear that Dietrich's impressive list of lovers included Von Sternberg (though his wife sued her during divorce proceedings for "alienation of affection," but they were reliant upon each other in a way that is virtually unmatched in Hollywood history.  I'd seen Shanghai Express but had not seen the remaining five classics (though I own them all from Criterion) between the two, and I settled on The Scarlet Empress, largely because film historian Karina Longworth once referred to it as "one of the most beautiful movies ever made," and if Karina tells me to do something, I do it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the rise of Catherine the Great (Dietrich) from an obscure German princess to be the most powerful empress in Russian history.  The film shows her first as a young princess, brought to Russia and disgusted by her husband Grand Duke Peter (Jaffe) who wants nothing to do with her, and chastised by her mother-in-law Empress Elizabeth (Dresser).  Catherine is chaste and confused by the world at first, but slowly finds herself seduced by lures of the flesh (and Marlene goes full sex goddess, even though we're technically post-Code by this time), and falls in love with handsome Count Alexey (Lodge), amongst other men, including a guard who likely sires her son (not her husband).  When Empress Elizabeth dies, it seems like the new Emperor Peter III will kill Catherine & wed his mistress (which his mother forbade in life), but Catherine successfully murders him, and takes the throne in a coup as the film ends.

The most distinctive thing about Von Sternberg's films in general, but especially with Dietrich, is his lighting.  Years before Gregg Toland was revolutionizing the concept of lighting onscreen, Von Sternberg used light & shadow to harrowing effect.  I said after seeing Shanghai Express for the first time that I've never wanted to smoke more he makes Dietrich with a cigarette look so intoxicating.  Here, there's less smoke but he fills the sets with gorgeous, fantastic costumes & lush royal quarters so that everything looks scrumptious.  At the center is Dietrich, looking magnificent in every regal pose, and lit in a way that it honestly feels like she ages as the film goes without ever once diminishing her beauty.  It's a gloriously-shot movie, and a well-constructed one.

The acting is also good.  Dietrich, at this point, it's hard to tell if she can actually make a mistake onscreen I love her so much, but she's wonderful here.  I don't know if I always buy her in the "clueless princess" mode but once she starts getting laid, nothing can stop her-Dietrich is on fire, lustily commanding every inch of the movie.  Jaffe & Dresser are both playing their characters cartoonishly, but honestly, it works for me-there's something impressive in the way that Jaffe makes his madness & frustration feel less like an oaf and more like a despot (which works better as he becomes a more plausible threat for Catherine then), and Dresser's Elizabeth is smartly constructed enough that you almost pity her she's been given such a ridiculous son and complicated daughter-in-law, even though she's ostensibly one of the movie's villains.

OVP: The House of Rothschild (1934)

Film: The House of Rothschild (1934)

Stars: George Arliss, Loretta Young, Boris Karloff, Robert Young

Director: Alfred L. Werker

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Picture)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 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.

Robert Young is an odd actor to pick for a series like this not because he doesn't fit the bill (in many ways he's the very definition of an actor who "made it big in TV after never landing in film" but because much of his film career doesn't have a lot of differentiation.  Unlike some stars we've profiled this year like Ann Sothern or Lucille Ball, his career doesn't have a lot of chapters.  Young began his career at the beginning of the Sound Era, initially working much of the first 15 years of his career at MGM, playing opposite big stars on the lot like Norma Shearer & Joan Crawford.  Young graduated from supporting work to love interest or third lead work rather quickly, and stayed there.  As a result, it's harder to fit a narrative around Young's work early in his career, but suffice it to say in 1934 he was clearly relegated to B movies on the MGM lot, working in a half dozen pictures a year at the time, and didn't appear to create much fuss over this.  One exception in his early career was when he was loaned to United Artists for a prestige biopic starring George Arliss, which was a big hit for the studio and won a Best Picture nomination: The House of Rothschild.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about the famed banking family the Rothschilds and their humble beginnings in a Jewish ghetto in Prussia which would, throughout the film graduate to them becoming the wealthiest family in Europe, helping to fund the Napoleonic wars (this film is not historically accurate, so I'm summarizing the plot, not the actual history).  The movie focuses first on the banking family's patriarch Mayer Rothschild (Arliss), who on his deathbed makes his five sons promise they'll always pursue wealth over all else.  As grown men, the smartest of the five Nathan (also Arliss) begins to grow his banking capital, frequently with the hurdle of anti-semitism, as some of the nobility refuses to interact with Nathan because he's Jewish, principally Count Ledrantz (Karloff, startlingly young without his typical Universal Monster movie makeup).  This causes Nathan to forbid his daughter Julie (Loretta Young) to see Captain Fitzroy (Robert Young), who is not Jewish.  By the end of the movie, though, money ends up being the true unifier, and Nathan is not only accepted into society but becomes a Baron, one who can condone Fitzroy & Julie's relationship.

It's always important to remember context when it comes to older movies.  In 1934, a film about anti-semitism was noteworthy, and it was particularly noteworthy given the parallels to what was going on in Europe at the time, with Hitler's rise to power on the backs of anti-Jewish rhetoric.  As a result, you'd almost be forgiven for thinking that this film being dated but still a hit was worth it; after all, who can argue against a movie, even a bad one, if it is espousing tolerance?

But The House of Rothschild to a modern audience reads as deeply antisemitic, showing the Jewish characters as money-loving & duplicitous.  Yes, they frequently get the upper-hand in arguments & overt antisemitism in the film (like when Count Ledrantz won't allow Rothschild to have a contract because of his ethnicity) is never rewarded, but the film plays into ugly Jewish stereotypes, and feels like the rare film about tolerance that reads as unflinchingly problematic and honestly, quite hateful.

On top of that, the movie is terrible.  It weirdly reads as a Big Short of its era, with Rothschild using difficult-to-understand stock market & loan maneuvering to ruin his opponents, and so you'd be forgiven if you didn't understand some of the more technical aspects of the film.  But Arliss (who, it should be noted, is not Jewish despite his most iconic parts being that of Jewish protagonists), is dreadful, every bit as bad as his Oscar-winning role as Benjamin Disraeli, and particularly bad as the Rothschild patriarch.  No one is good in this, not even Karloff (who is usually excellent even with bad material).  Our star is relegated to only a couple of scenes, and is largely window-dressing...he doesn't do much other than make out with Loretta Young (not a bad gig if you can get it, but still).  While this was a hit, it's easy to see why Young wasn't suddenly on critics' radars after a movie this banal.

Twentieth Century (1934)

Film: Twentieth Century (1934)

Stars: John Barrymore, Carole Lombard, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns

Director: Howard Hawks

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Carole Lombard-click here to learn more about Ms. Lombard (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we discussed the earliest stages of Carole Lombard's career, when she was being romanced on (but not yet off) screen by Clark Gable, and was still married to William Powell, which brought her an amount of celebrity that she wasn't really earning onscreen.  In 1934, though, she made what seemed immediately after as a mistake-she turned down the lead role in It Happened One Night, which would eventually go to Claudette Colbert, and win her an Oscar (to be fair to Lombard here, Loretta Young also turned down the part & Clark Gable wasn't thrilled about doing it either...no one knew they were headed to immortality on that film's set).  Instead, she made a couple of modest hits (Bolero, We're Not Dressing), and then was put in Twentieth Century.  This movie would not be a hit-it was a bit of a flop with audiences...but it would completely change the course of Carole Lombard's career.

(Spoilers Ahead) Twentieth Century is about a cruel, bombastic (but genius) director named Oscar Jaffe (Barrymore), who has been tasked with making a lingerie model named Mildred Plotka (renamed Lily Garland, and played by Lombard) into a stage star.  Though he basically tortures her (this movie rings a lot differently in the #MeToo era, though in the film his treatment of Lily is played for laughs), it works.  Lily is splendid in the show, with a knack for the stage, and they continue working together in a series of huge hits.  Lily, though, dumps Oscar once she's outgrown him personally & professionally, and moves to Hollywood achieving stardom.  Oscar, though, can't live without his muse, and produces a string of flops, and at one point to stave off his collectors, disguises himself aboard the Twentieth Century Limited, a train headed from Chicago to NYC (and back again).  Lily is on the train, and though she pities Oscar to a degree, she doesn't want to work with him again, and is going to make a play with his rival.  Oscar, though, tricks Lily in the closing scenes of the play into thinking he's dying, and making her sign a contract with him while she's overcome with emotion...and then he uncovers his charade, but she's already under contract.  The film ends with the two of them reunited, in their own version of tortured codependence.

Twentieth Century sounds meaner than it is (that description makes it sound like Lily is a constant victim, which while she is certainly the injured of the two, the movie doesn't really come across that way).  The film is such fun (though it's worth noting, it's not It Happened One Night).  Most of the joy from the film doesn't come from the script (which is wry, but not breaking a lot of ground), but from the two leads.  Barrymore, in particular, is sensational as Oscar Jaffe.  He plays him with comic genius, overacting (blissfully) and riding this character til dawn.  If you've read this blog for a while you know I have a fondness for John Barrymore (I also thought he was marvelous in Dinner at Eight), though Twentieth Century was the end-of-the-road for the troubled actor as a regular leading man.  Due to his alcoholism, he'd basically be unemployable soon, playing bit parts in film until his death from cirrhosis at the age of 60 in 1942 (despite his vast age difference & poor health even when they were filming he would outlive his Twentieth Century leading lady by a few months).  But more on that in a few weeks.

While Barrymore is the revelation in this cast, Lombard is nearly his equal.  To this point in her career she'd never shown the incredible knack for screwball comedy she displays here, not just eating into the one-liners, but also the physical comedy bits in the film as well.  While audiences didn't warm to this movie, critics did, and noted how Lombard seemed at-ease in a part like this, and was soon being cast in similar films.  Just two years later, she'd be an Oscar nominee & have graduated from leading lady to one of the most famous women in America...a status she almost certainly wouldn't have reached without this gem.

OVP: The Richest Girl in the World (1934)

Film: The Richest Girl in the World (1934)

Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Henry Stephenson

Director: William A. Seiter

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Story)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I've always found the concept of the "Poor Little Rich Girl" fascinating, and so has the public.  Young women like Barbara Hutton, Brenda Frazier, Doris Duke, Gloria Vanderbilt, & Christina Onassis have long been the subject of endless speculation from the press, oftentimes more to their detriment than their gain, as the world watches as these women, whose wealth we can only dream of, endure legal hardship & failed romances, proving that even the super-rich aren't immune from pain.  The movies, of course, are a mirror of our pop culture obsessions, and the "Poor Little Rich Girl" concept is no exception.  One of the earliest examples of this is the 1934 film The Richest Girl in the World, starring Joel McCrea & Miriam Hopkins, which was cited for a writing Oscar that year.

(Spoilers Ahead) Left an orphan after the sinking of the Titanic, Dorothy Hunter (Hopkins) has known only obscene wealth her whole life.  Oftentimes trying to stay away from the prying eyes of the press, she sends her secretary Sylvia (Wray) in her place so as not to be seen by the public.  After a failed engagement, she realizes that the only way to know if a man will truly love her for her (and not her money, as she's the "richest girl in the world") is to trick him.  When she meets Tony (McCrea), she pretends to be her secretary Sylvia, and Sylvia pretends to be Dorothy.  The real-Dorothy tries to encourage Tony to date the pretend one, to see if he ultimately will choose her, setting up a classic series of mishaps, particularly one late game-changer when Sylvia's real-life husband is spotted by Tony (who at this point has failed the test & proposed to the pretend Dorothy) going into his "fiancee's" room at night.  In the end, of course, Tony realizes that he loves the actual Dorothy not for her money, but for herself, and they run off together.

The movie is not treading ground by today's standards, but was surely more original at the time than it would be now.  The 1930's had a lot of films that featured glamorous figures like Hopkins with exorbitant amounts of wealth, a sharp contrast to the everyday troubles of people dealing with the Depression.  The film, though, spends much of its runtime downplaying Dorothy's material needs, frequently making her seem like a girl-next-door who would happily trade in the fortune if she could, making the money that the audience desperately needed feel like something they shouldn't care about (in an era where we've reevaluated the debts of the "have's" to the "have not's" I'm curious how a modern-day filmmaker would tactfully approach a tale like this).

That said, it's a bit of a trial, and while it's fun (I gave it three stars for a reason), Hopkins' motives remain so murky throughout the film (and the movie's sexual politics read so outdated that the late act move of Tony having to love Dorothy not just in spite of her money, but also in spite of her fidelity is mildly confusing) that it doesn't always make sense the further it gets into the picture.  The story itself is strong enough, though, to keep you entertained & Hopkins' moments of game competitiveness (I loved the scene where she runs Fay Wray's canoe over with a boat) will keep you hooked for the run time, even if it won't stay with you much after that.

OVP: Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Film: Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Stars: Delores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire

Director: Thornton Freeland

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Carioca)...I listed 1933 for this because it came out in 1933, but it's worth remembering that since it came out on December 29th it was eligible at the 1934 Oscars, and that's what the label below is indicating since those are based on Oscar ceremonies more than the actual calendar years.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few cinematic pairings are linked together in the same way as Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers.  Like Abbott & Costello or Bogart & Bacall, the two are synonymous, and their films are the stuff of legend at this point.  I have seen a chunk (though not a majority of their films), but what I didn't realize when I started watching Flying Down to Rio the other day was that their first film didn't have them in the leads.  Flying Down to Rio is the premiere movie of their ten-picture pairings, and it's also a movie that does feature the two dancing, but they aren't the stars, and their love story (if you can call it that) is ancillary to the plot.

(Spoilers Ahead) While they aren't the leads, this film follows the path of most Astaire/Rogers pictures in that the plot is unneeded at best & mostly a vehicle for singing & dancing, but we'll still give it its paragraph.  Roger Bond (Raymond) is a composer who tours with a band that includes vocalist Honey (Rogers) & assistant band leader Fred (Astaire).  Roger is in love with one of the women in the audience at a show, Belinha (del Rio), who is heavily chaperoned & he's unable to make a play for her.  He finally finds a way by flying her to Rio, and getting to a deserted island when they have to make an emergency landing.  It's clear the two love each other, but Belinha confesses she's engaged.  When they make it to Rio, it turns out that Belinha is engaged to Roger's buddy Julio (Roulien), and a love triangle emerges between the three, which Julio concedes after realizing that Belinha is in love with Fred and not him.

The main plot is blasé, and not worth our time.  Del Rio would be a big star in her era, but neither she nor Raymond have the same level of ubiquity that Rogers & Astaire do because they aren't that good-the chemistry between the two is middling, while the latter's is dynamic (there's a reason that they were given movies together after this...it's like watching lightning-in-a-bottle when they're onscreen together for the first time).  If you're someone who is solely interested in scripts or plot, this is not a good fit for you.

That being said, Flying Down to Rio is fun.  The repartee between Astaire & Rogers is delicious (and sometimes a bit salacious...this is pre-Code, after all), and their dancing is dynamite.  It's easy to see why "Carioca," an otherwise bland & ineffectual song, got nominated for an Oscar, and it's because they were basically just nominating the Astaire/Rogers dance routine.  Del Rio's famous bikini scene is played without too much notice (she was the first actress to appear in a bikini in a major studio film)-no wolf whistles or bug eyes, but the movie's other major calling card, the incredible trick photography that made it seem like a bunch of chorus girls are dancing on the wings of a plane is awe-inspiring.  Linwood Dunn (the genius behind the visual trickery of King Kong, Citizen Kane, and the original Star Trek TV series) was behind this, and it's amazing.  Obviously a modern audience can see the way he did this, but compared to other films of its era it's extraordinary, and clearly influential.  Astaire/Rogers and Dunn's "aerial ballet" are worth the price of admission even if you might not be vested in del Rio & Raymond's listless affair.

The World Moves On (1934)

Film: The World Moves On (1934)

Stars: Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone, Reginald Denny, Louise Dresser, Stepin Fetchit

Director: John Ford

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Madeleine Carroll-click here to learn more about Ms. Carroll (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

All right, we start out our third season of Saturdays with the Stars with Madeleine Carroll, an actress many probably don't know, despite the fact that she starred in two Alfred Hitchcock films.  We're going to continue doing these chronologically in 2021 (so, as a result, we will hit the Hitchcock films over the next two weeks rather than starting there), and instead go to the movies of a different icon, John Ford.  We'll talk about Carroll's career at this point in a second, but Ford was not yet "John Ford, Screen Icon" but was getting close to it.  Earlier in 1934, he had made The Lost Patrol, which would be a big hit (and critically-acclaimed), and the following year he'd make one of his important movies, The Informer, which would win him his first Oscar for Best Director.

(Spoilers Ahead) The World Moves On is an oddly-plotted movie, but I'll give it a shot here.  Essentially it takes place almost 200 years apart, with the opening scenes being a will reading of a man who gives his empire to his sons, and ensure that each will represent a different country as part of the business.  This works, but 185 years afterward, they run into a situation with World War I, where these men's businesses are at odds with each other.  Two of the family members, Richard from America (Tone) and Mary Warburton (Carroll) play lovers both 185 years later, and as distant cousins, in the 20th Century.  They end up together, but they have to do so through decades of strife, and largely losing the business as the war progresses.

The movie is deeply anti-war from my perspective, and that's its most notable trait other than the meandering (and frequently perplexing) plot.  I was shocked even in 1934 to see a post-Code Hollywood so fervently against World War I in the actions of the family, seeing our main characters like Richard & Mary suffer so much at the hands of a war that few can explain the cause of (this isn't incorrect, it's just surprising coming from John Ford & the studio system).  The movie is also heinously racist, having Stepin Fetchit (then the most famous black man in the movies), playing a bumbling, foolish African-American servant who is constantly procreating.  Fetchit's Dixie is not a large character, but it borders into the obscene how he's treated onscreen, and I would be remiss if I didn't point it out.

As for our star, she's gorgeous, but kind of bland.  Franchot Tone is kind of the textbook definition of "gorgeous but bland" during this era, and he & Carroll make an attractive couple, but they don't bring any fire to these creations.  This did, however, cement her stardom at the time, as this was her first major American film & within two years she'd be the first British leading lady to have a major star contract in Hollywood, and likely draw the attention of a specific director.  After all, her Mary is a tortured woman, icy & beautiful & very, very blonde, something a certain director would make a trademark in his career...

The Black Cat (1934)

Film: The Black Cat (1934)
Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year.  If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.

Throughout their careers, Bela Lugosi & Boris Karloff appeared in eight films together, the size and scale of which changed dramatically depending on the movie.  There are a lot of old-school Hollywood rumors about Lugosi & Karloff's relationship, ranging from them being friends to being mortal enemies, and the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle.  Lugosi clearly resented Karloff's success (once Frankenstein was released, there was never really a point in Karloff's career where Lugosi was close to usurping it, even if in Son of Frankenstein Lugosi got the better reviews), but they worked together regularly.  Part of Lugosi's problem was that he never really translated into non-horror films in the way that Karloff did, and also because he never played Dracula again after 1931 until Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.  In 1934, though, they would have been at least somewhat in the same vicinity of stardom, and so getting them in a movie like The Black Cat is a bit of a coup, and shows both actors toward the peak of their horror powers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Black Cat cites the Edgar Allen Poe short story as inspiration, but it has nothing to do with that tale (and as that might be my favorite Poe story other than "The Tell-Tale Heart," I have read it many times) other than both featuring a black cat .  The movie is instead about Peter (Manners) and Joan Alison (Bishop), a handsome young newlywed couple who are on a train, and share a cabin with a psychiatrist named Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi), who has just left a prison camp in Siberia after 15 years (super common, obviously-this always happens to me on public transit too).  He is set to visit his "old friend" Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) and when the bus that is carrying all three breaks down, the couple have to visit him too.  Once there, Werdegast confronts Poelzig over his treachery during WWI, and of killing his wife.  It turns out he didn't kill her, at least not at first, but married her, and then after she died, married Werdegast's daughter, who is still alive.  As the film continues, we find out that Poelzig is a member of a satanic cult, and wants to sacrifice Joan to Lucifer.  In the end, Joan & Peter escape, but Werdegast is not able to save his daughter, who is murdered by Poelzig, whom Werdegast then skins alive, and eventually blows up the building they're in (when Joan & Peter have fled), killing all of Poelzig's satanic cult along with Poelzig& Werdegast themselves.

That's a lot of plot for what is a 70-minute movie (plot is never in short supply in old-school Hollywood horror).  Yet it works really well-there were only a couple of moments in the script where I was a bit lost (specifically around the daughter-it wasn't clear initially who she was, though you figure out after a second).  As a result, this is a brisk, really well-kept horror film, and one that's genuinely creepy (if not downright scary).  Poelzig is a disgusting, tortured man, and Werdegast is played with enough malice that his true intentions are not always known (this is a weird comparison, but I kept thinking he had a similar morality to Sweeney Todd in that he's fine with people dying to get an answer to what happened to his wife-and-daughter).  And this film, while obviously not showing some of the scenes (you did not see Karloff skinned alive, obviously), it finds a way to throw incest, necrophilia, and torture all into one little pre-Code movie.

As for the two leading men, I have to say Karloff's better, and not necessarily because he gets the better part.  Lugosi's final scene is really good, some of his better acting outside of Igor (for my money, his best character even if it isn't his most iconic), but Karloff just nails this devious man.  The best scene of the movie is him playing chess with Lugosi, whose Werdegast is trying to win Joan & Peter's freedom from Poelzig.  The way that Karloff says "even the phone is dead" is dripping with terror & camp, and it's marvelous (hopefully this link is still valid when you read this review).  All-in-all, a great outing between the two actors/rivals.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The House of Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Masque of the Red Death

OVP: Of Human Bondage (1934)

Film: Of Human Bondage (1934)
Stars: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson
Director: John Cromwell
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Bette Davis...well, kind of-we'll get into it)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We continue on our week-long look at nominees in the Best Actress category with someone who, well, wasn't actually an Oscar nominee for Best Actress.  We don't think about this today, because the rule has been dormant for so long, but between 1934 and 1935, write-ins were allowed at the Oscars, and as a result, we have a situation where someone definitely beat one of the nominees (in this case, Davis got more votes for Of Human Bondage than actress Grace Moore for One Night of Love, which was an official nomination), so for the sake of the Oscar Viewing Project, I'm going to count this as a nomination and when we eventually get to it, this performance will be eligible to win the OVP Official Ballot from that year.  This will be true of the nominations the following year for A Midsummer Night's Dream, Captain Blood, G-Men, and Black Fury, all of which got write-in nominations.  I won't include, however, films that didn't beat any of the actual nominees but we know received write-in support; this is basically only one person (Myrna Loy was fifth place in 1934 for The Thin Man, but this was a year where there were only three nominated Best Actresses).  So, in keeping both with the theme and establishing that rule for the Oscar Viewing Project, let's get into Of Human Bondage.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, is about Philip Carey (Howard), a club-footed painter who after being told that he has no talent, decides to become a medical doctor.  He falls madly in love with Mildred (Davis), a foul-mouthed, cruel waitress who treats him like garbage and makes fun of his club foot, but he doesn't see any self-worth in himself (and he loves her, inexplicably), so he lets her treat him like garbage, until she dumps him for another man, and then he falls for a more respectable girl...only to be pulled back into Mildred's lure when another guy dumps her & she needs money or assurance of her worth, and he goes back to her.

This happens a couple of times in the movie.  The strange thing about this movie is that it's based on a truly classic novel (one I haven't read, as Maugham's novels are always a bit of a headache to get through considering he frequently puts himself in the book), but it's not all that original in its execution.  We never entirely get the idea of why Carey is obsessed with Mildred.  Davis, though attractive, is not glamorous or traditionally beautiful like the women who are cast as her "competition" in this film, and she treats Carey poorly.  One might assume in a different era that she had manipulated him through sex (so he was willing to put up with the mistreatment), but in 1934 that's not going to find its way into the plot, so we're left with a perplexing central question here.  We know what Mildred gets out of this (reassurance, food, cash), but not Philip.  This lack of a central question, the repetitive nature of the plot, and Howard's milquetoast performance all add up to kind of a rudimentary movie.

The one thing worth noting in the film is Davis, who finally gets to show off the range that she'd eventually exhibit in movies like Now, Voyager and All About Eve.  It's easy to see why audiences at the time were mesmerized-this is Davis showing what she's capable of, and she's playing a character unlike any other of the era.  She's cruel, loose, indifferent, and horny-it's hard to imagine any other actress of the 1930's even being able to play such a woman.  It does feel, sometimes, like they are awarding the role with this "nomination" more than Davis, or giving it to Davis' potential-she doesn't offer much insight into Mildred's world, and is more at home with the shocking comebacks than she is with trying to make Mildred feel authentic, but it's showy and delicious.  This isn't Davis' best performance, but if I'd seen it in 1934 it would have felt like something seismic; the world was about to recognize one of the great stars of all time, and thus it's not surprising that Oscar felt they needed to bend the rules once she didn't make it into the nominations.

It's a Gift (1934)

Film: It's a Gift (1934)
Stars: WC Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Tom Bupp, Baby LeRoy
Director: Norman Z. McLeod
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

What a joy to see a movie in theaters that you normally never would.  I recently had a delightful evening at the Heights Theater, an historic movie house in Minnesota that was built in 1926.  The theater plays first-run pictures, but seems to specialize in retro screenings, and added a bit of pomp to my festivities by not only having a local film fan talk about his personal experiences meeting the family of WC Fields, but also having a Wurlitzer Pipe organ playing before the commencement of the film, and featuring three WC Fields juggling shorts prior to the main curtain rising on It's a Gift, one of the most important classic films I'd never seen before.  I had, in fact, never seen WC Fields in anything despite countless parodies and visages of him in cartoons I've spotted, so it was a fine evening to be introduced to such an important early cinematic comedian.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features Fields as Harold Bissonette, a curmudgeonly grocery store owner whose wife Amelia (Howard) has visions of grandeur for their lives (where they live in near-poverty) after Harold's uncle dies, leaving him his money.  Harold, though, wants to pursue his dream of owning an orange ranch, which he buys sight-unseen, only learning later that the land that they've bought is basically worthless with a dilapidated shack on the property.  Harold lucks out in the final moments of the film, though, when he sells the worthless land for a fortune to a developer who needs the property "at any price."  Shot at the depths of the Depression, this had to have been the fantasy of every "Harold Bissonette" in the country at the time, trying desperately to make their lives happy for their family in the worst of conditions.

The movie is less a story and more a series of comic shorts strung together with a flimsy plot.  The movie has multiple set pieces used as excuses for Fields to do some of his best mumbling bits.  The best of these is the one where Harold, cast outside to sleep on his porch swing, is tormented by the neighbors, including Baby Dunk (LeRoy) who is throwing grapes at the man.  Fields famously hated Baby LeRoy in real life, and begrudged the young actor stealing laughs from him on films like It's a Gift (if you look at vintage posters of the movie, LeRoy shares top billing with Fields on the film), but you don't see that in his performance, where he does quite well opposite the child star.

The problem for me is it's hard to grade such a film since on-its-merits its not a great movie, and the reasons that make it a classic are hard to praise eight decades after-the-fact.  Fields' comedy was revolutionary, and it's still funny, but the movie itself is only the sum of these physical slapstick pieces, and in many ways it sort of feels like if Adam Sandler had been a comedic genius...but still chose to focus on low-grade films.  I'm going to go with, therefore 3-stars as I understand the history of this and there are genuinely amusing bits, particularly the ones surrounding Fields & Baby LeRoy, but by-and-large this is the sort of movie that was a classic, but now just needs to be respected rather than enjoyed.  The Heights Theater, however, puts on a fine show & you should make sure to patronize it in the future (I know I will).