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: Black Legion (1937)

Film: Black Legion (1937)

Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore, Ann Sheridan

Director: Archie Mayo

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Motion Picture Story)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I'm still finishing up some of the 2020 reviews that I know are important for the Oscar conversation (which is hitting high-gear next week with the Globes & the SAG Awards being announced next week).  However, as we start to wind down 2020-21 Oscar season in terms of viewing (even if predictions are just getting started), we'll begin to move back into classic cinema at a bigger clip.  I was doing "theme weeks" throughout the entirety of 2020 as part of quarantine, but as I'm focusing on a few side projects that require more of my time (including one for the blog!), we'll be moving away from that even if I might bring it out of its dormancy on occasion.  Instead, we're going to go back to random (oftentimes) Oscar-cited works from across the cinematic spectrum, though in some cases random will read more as prescient, which is the case with today's film Black Legion, which was the film that was "supposed" to be Humphrey Bogart's big break, but didn't really come of that (more below).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a short message picture.  Bogart plays an affable, if unlucky guy named Frank Taylor who works at a factory and in the opening scenes seems like a surefire bet to become the plant foreman.  He & his wife Ruth (O'Brien-Moore) are ecstatic about this and what it may mean for their young family, but when they pick a different man for the job (one who has been studying the machinery rather than relying on gut instinct like Frank) who happens to be an immigrant, Frank becomes xenophobic & bitter.  This attracts the attention of a local secret organization called the Black Legion, who recruit Frank & with him start terrorizing local people who stand in Frank's way, with a particular focus on the immigrant community of the city.  Frank tries to escape the organization, but they threaten his wife & child, and he is eventually abandoned by his wife (ending up with a local "woman of ill repute").  His friend Ed (Foran) tries to save him, but is instead flogged, and while Ed is trying to escape, Frank kills him.  He realizes instantly his mistake, but still bows to the Black Legion until he takes the stand at a trial for Ed's murder, when he confesses everything and outs all of the Black Legion members in town.  The ending is a dour one for Bogart, with he & the rest of the men sentenced to life in prison.

Message pictures of this ilk were quite popular in the 1930's & 40's, and for the most part they've aged poorly.  The problem with issue pictures is frequently that they are no longer "hot button issues" years later, and thus it's hard to really comprehend what a movie would've meant in its time frame for a modern audience.  However, this is sadly not the case for Black Legion.  Just a few weeks after terrorists brandishing Confederate flags sieged the US Capitol, it's clear that racism & xenophobia are alive & well in the United States, and are in fact the platform of a major political party.  As a result, Black Legion is more relevant than ever.  The problem for the film is that it occasionally is so deliberate in telling its story, underlining who is "good" and who is "bad" (leaving only Frank in the middle), that it reads more like an after-school special than an organic film.

The movie is a noteworthy curiosity for two reasons (both of which are reason to check it out).  The first is that it's dark.  While the organization goes by "the Black Legion," it's clear to anyone (then & now) that the organization is meant to represent the KKK (so closely that the KKK sued Warner Brothers for using their patented logo, though the case was eventually dismissed).  I will admit on a random Wednesday night that I was not prepared to watch quintessential movie star Humphrey Bogart suckered into literally being a member of the KKK, and the initiation sequence (where Bogart basically signs a blood oath with the hate group at gun point) is shockingly raw.  

The second reason to like this is that Bogart is great.  The National Board of Review gave him the award for Best Actor at the time.  Though I didn't love his courtroom confession, the menacing hatred he feels combined with our natural instincts to trust Bogart (he's almost always the hero), make this is a chilling performance that plays off of his star persona.  This is likely giving the film too much credit (even if it works), because in 1937 Bogart wasn't a proper star yet.  Though he'd gained notice in movies like The Petrified Forest, this wasn't the big break many thought it'd be, and he'd wander the wilderness on the Warner Brothers lot until 1941's High Sierra, which transformed him into a legend.

Saturdays with the Stars: Season 1 Recap

Ida Lupino & Ann Sheridan, two of our
stars kicking their heels!

With yesterday's sojourn into the South Pacific, we have finished our first season of "Saturday with the Stars!"  I'm not much for naval-gazing (mostly because I am aware this blog is not read by swaths of people), but I am really, really proud of this past season.  When I came up with this idea, I mostly wanted to see if I could do it for a year, and with one exception (you won't be able to tell this unless you were paying really close attention because I pre-dated the article, but when I was suffering from a 103-fever & pneumonia, I published one article on a Sunday), I did!

This year has taught me about the careers of twelve amazing artists, and I hope you learned some things about them too.  I had never really done something like this with actors, focusing instead on genre or something arbitrary like Oscar nominations, but getting to see the progressions in these women's careers was eye-opening, noting the similarities as well as the differences in their journeys.  I am struck by how expansive the universe of classic film is still to me some 25 years after I first started to delve into it. This year we watched movies that I'd never even heard of until I included them in the project, and made a bunch of "deep cut" discoveries.

We'll begin our second season in a few days (click here if you want to learn more about it), but before we go I am a lover of lists, and wanted to rank a few of the movies we watched this year.  I'm appreciative to all of these actresses for the education & cinematic pleasure they gave me during this journey, so I'm only focusing on the positives (no "worst of" lists).  If you have enjoyed this series, please feel free to comment or tweet this post-I'd love to have more people joining us in Season 2.  And if you have opinions on these actresses (or further research I should do), share in the comments as well!

Favorite Performances from Each Star
January: Ann Sheridan-Woman on the Run
February: Virginia Mayo-Along the Great Divide
March: Cyd Charisse-The Band Wagon
April: Alice Faye-Hello Frisco Hello
May: Linda Darnell-A Letter to Three Wives
June: Lizabeth Scott-Too Late for Tears
July: Rhonda Fleming-While the City Sleeps
August: Ruth Roman-Lightning Strikes Twice
September: Esther Williams-Bathing Beauty
October: Hedy Lamarr-Ecstasy
November: Ida Lupino-The Hard Way
December: Mitzi Gaynor-Les Girls

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell
Alice Faye
Rhonda Fleming
Ida Lupino
Lizabeth Scott

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Linda Darnell, A Letter to Three Wives
Alice Faye, Hello Frisco Hello
Ida Lupino, The Bigamist
Ida Lupino, The Hard Way
Lizabeth Scott, Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

The Band Wagon
The Bigamist
Brigadoon
It's Always Fair Weather
Les Girls
A Letter to Three Wives
The Man Who Came to Dinner
My Darling Clementine
Strangers on a Train
Too Late for Tears

10 Favorite Performances of the Year in these Films (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra
Kirk Douglas, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Nanette Fabray, The Band Wagon
Patricia Hitchcock, Strangers on a Train
Van Johnson, Brigadoon
Kay Kendall, Les Girls
Janis Paige, Silk Stockings
Ann Sothern, A Letter to Three Wives
Robert Walker, Strangers on a Train
Monty Woolley, The Man Who Came to Dinner

They Drive By Night (1940)

Film: They Drive By Night (1940)
Stars: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Alan Hale Sr.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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 Ida Lupino-click here to learn more about Ms. Lupino (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We will start out our month-long look at Ida Lupino a few years into her career in Hollywood.  Lupino was an actress the movies always struggled to know what to do with-beautiful & talented, but not an actress that seemed to take off with critics at all, the closest she probably came to graduating from (to quote Lupino herself) "the poor man's Bette Davis" to a proper star was in 1940/1941, when she had back-to-back hits for Warner Brothers, both opposite someone who would graduate to Davis's level, Humphrey Bogart.  In what I believe is a first for this series, we'll be hearkening back to one of our former "Saturday Stars" today with the return of actress Ann Sheridan, whom we had as the very first star in our series in January, as she'll play opposite Lupino in this melodrama about truck drivers (no, that's not a typo).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on two brothers: Joe (Raft) and Paul (Bogart), both of whom are down-on-their-luck and always one day ahead of loan sharks.  Joe has big dreams for his trucking game, wanting to turn this into a major enterprise that'll show the guys who constantly put him down he is a big deal, while Paul seems to just want to get out of the business alive, and let his wife (Page) have the baby he claims they can't afford.  Joe meets a beautiful-but-sassy waitress named Cassie (Sheridan), and falls in love with her.  The only problem is his boss's (Hale) wife Lana (Lupino) is also madly in love with Joe, and doesn't understand why he doesn't return her advances.  After Paul is injured in a driving accident, losing his right arm, Joe is brought on to work in his office (at Lana's insistence) as she feels she can seduce him there.  When that doesn't work, Lana kills her husband, assuming that if she's not married Joe will fall for her, but it turns out he's just interested in working his way up in the business, and proposes to Cassie.  Afterwards, Lana claims Joe insisted that she kill her husband so that he could have the business (and her), but she breaks down and confesses on the stand, having gone mad, and claims an insanity defense.  As a result, Joe gets the business and Cassie, becoming the big shot he always dreamed of, while his brother Paul announces in the closing scene that his wife is pregnant, fulfilling his dreams.

The movie is odd-melodramas like this don't usually take place in such a hyper-masculine (particularly in the 1940's) industry as trucking but it totally works.  They Drive by Night is a well-written (four-time Oscar nominee Jerry Wald penned the script) and well-acted piece of dramatics, and proves a film's subject matter ultimately doesn't matter if the movie itself is strong (side note: I always get asked for my favorite genres or film subject matter-They Drive by Night is a good reason why I say "it doesn't matter as long as the movie is good").  It's a briskly-paced picture, and one that shows off in some ways why Bogart would be a future superstar, commanding the screen in every one he's in (he's decidedly a supporting player here, though, so don't be fooled).  Bogart would in the next year surpass Raft in the movie pantheon forever when Raft would turn down two of the biggest films of Bogart's career: High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, two decisions that would essentially cement his place in film lore as perhaps the actor with the worst taste in scripts (rumor has it that he also turned down Casablanca, another iconic Bogart role, but that feels more fanciful than the other two).

But what of our star, Ida Lupino?  She's awesome in this movie.  At first I was kind of curious if Sheridan would overpower her (Sheridan's also good...in fact other than Raft who feels a bit dry as the stoic lead, everyone is putting in a winner here), but Lupino steals the picture.  As a jealous, bored housewife she's frothy & campy, giving the best performance Joan Crawford never gave when she kills her husband and then has to confess in a manic fit of laughter on the stand that she did it.  The movie's ending is cute and sweet, but it hardly matters because at that point Lupino has committed grand theft robbery as our now-absent villain.  She's arguably third lead (I could see this going either direction), but in our modern, more "category fraud"-friendly era, she'd certainly be getting a Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars for this work, and it'd be well-earned, though it'd preclude her from this series (which only focuses on actresses Oscar forgot).  November is one of those months with five Saturday's, and if this is what Lupino can deliver, I'm excited I pencilled her in for the extra title.

Woman on the Run (1950)

Film: Woman on the Run (1950)
Stars: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, Ross Elliott
Director: Norman Foster
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 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 end our time with Ann Sheridan much where Ann Sheridan ended her film career, at Universal.  After a brief, successful time as a freelance actress, where she made I Was a Male War Bride, she was signed to Universal after making Woman on the Run for the studio, for which she was an uncredited producer.  Sheridan's time at Universal was relatively brief, and nothing compared to her work at Warner Brothers, starring in increasingly minor films before turning over to supporting roles as the decade progressed, and finally television (she had a recurring role on Another World) before dying at the young age of 51 from cancer.  While she did eventually shoot a Technicolor picture with Douglas Sirk (by my count her last proper leading role), I figured we'd end with Woman on the Run, where not only she enjoyed top billing, but she earned it with an atypical role as a woman increasingly desperate to find her husband.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Eleanor (Sheridan), a woman in a seemingly loveless marriage to her husband Frank (Elliott), who is currently on the run after seeing a mob hit on a witness.  Eleanor is being dogged by two men, a reporter named Danny (O'Keefe) and a police detective called Ferris (Keith) who are taking different tacts with Eleanor, Danny a softer touch (hoping to get an interview with Frank before he goes into witness protection) and Ferris trying to go after him, even if it risks his safety.  Eleanor appears jaded about her husband at first, but after tracking the clues down where his location is, we learn that he's still madly in love with her even though their marriage has grown stale, and she realizes that she wants to give life with him another chance.  Unfortunately, in a mid-film twist, we come to learn that Danny isn't a reporter, but in fact the murderer whose face Frank saw at the beginning of the picture, and in a climactic scene Sheridan is trapped on a roller coaster while her husband is being strangled by O'Keefe, trying to take advantage of Frank's heart problem.  It's a 1950's movie with a major star, so he lives, but it's gritty (and low-budget) enough that the suspense is there & works to make it the best moments of the film.

The movie is quite fun, and a great potboiler of a detective story.  The banter, especially between Sheridan and Keith, is sharp & brisk, and I adored the early scenes of the film where she is clearly a woman who doesn't give a crap about anything, least of all her husband.  The movie is brisk (the run time of 77 minutes feels just about right), and while there are occasionally some side stories that don't work (particularly the sequences at the Asian restaurant), it's a compelling mystery & one where you don't entirely see the twist coming until the music changes and you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The best part about this, for me, though, was Sheridan.  After spending a month with her, I'd been waiting for a proper lead role that would cement her for me as I quite liked her but never felt she properly fit as a leading woman, and Woman on the Run puts all of her gifts to use.  While The Man Who Came to Dinner is my favorite of all of the pictures I saw of hers this month, this is the one I loved because of Sheridan.  She plays Eleanor as witty, run-down, and desperate to find some sort of change in her life, and the film manages to actually care about her character's progression while never sacrificing her verve and comic timing.  Look at the way her eventual reunion with her husband plays here compared to the latter scenes of I Was a Male War Bride, where the glittery character we saw earlier becomes a doting wife.  Here, she's still snapping back at Frank, giving us great dialogue while also showing that she's progressed to loving him again. One of the reasons I came up with this series personally was so that I had a better understanding of what to expect in an Ann Sheridan picture, from a famous actress I knew nothing about; when I name-check her in the future, it will be Woman on the Run that will come to mind as a "perfect Ann Sheridan role," to recommend to anyone seeking her out.  And on Friday, we'll start a similar journey with a woman who enjoyed a similar run of success as Sheridan-stay tuned!

I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

Film: I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Stars: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan, Marion Marshall
Director: Howard Hawks
Oscar History: No nominations
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 continue on with Ann Sheridan's run as our Star of the Month with arguably her last major hit.  In 1949, Sheridan was 34, starting to approach a dangerous age for actresses, especially those who had been marketed for the bulk of their career based on their sex appeal (which was true of Sheridan), and she had just ended her long-running contract with Warner Brothers, becoming a freelance star.  Sheridan's period as a freelancer between her time at Warner and her shorter, less-successful run at Universal resulted in one of the biggest hits of her career, I Was a Male War Bride, with Cary Grant.  Sheridan & Grant had made a few films together in the early 1930's, but that was when Grant was a major leading man & Sheridan was a bit player, taking tiny parts before she'd become a proper star.  Male War Bride, despite a troubled shoot (both Sheridan & Grant had grave illnesses during the run of the film), became the highest-grossing film for FOX that year and served as something as a career-capper for Sheridan before she slid into smaller roles and television at the end of her career.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is pretty much entirely a duet between Sheridan as Catherine Gates, a lieutenant in the American army, and Grant as Henri Rochard, a French captain who is working with the Americans (no, there's no attempt by Grant to do a French accent...Grant, as ever, has the same affectation in his voice).  Initially the two despise each other, seemingly because Henri at one point had made a pass at Catherine in a previous mission (which he denies), but are forced to find a lens maker before he is recruited by the Nazis.  Along the way, they suffer a series of mishaps, including nearly going over a waterfall and Henri crashing into a haystack, before they inevitably fall in love and get married.

The first half of the film is a bit tedious, which is a bummer because there is a lot of conviction by Sheridan to make this work.  Both actors are at their best when given patter and snappy dialogue to exchange, but they are so instantly compatible it's hard to understand why they didn't like each other in the first place.  The plot of the entire film is pretty thin, and as a result it only really succeeds when they aren't relying on the plot to drive the dialogue between the two actors, which is sparkling if they get into a good flow.

Unfortunately, that charm wears off entirely once they actually get together, and Sheridan is relegated to just being a straight woman for Grant rather than a wiseacre star in her own right.  The second half of the film is dependent on you finding it funny that Grant is constantly treated like the woman in their relationship (yes, as pictured above, Grant wears a woman's army uniform and a feminine wig), and the script is so thin here that it's a struggle to find much humor, even dated humor, in this portion of the movie.  Grant, who even at his worst is eminently watchable, occasionally finds moments of hilarity (there's a great bit with a hotel clerk who needs Grant to help her with her knitting I quite enjoyed), but by-and-large when you eliminate the patter between Sheridan & Grant, and relegate her to doting wife rather than his equal, the film loses whatever panache the first half was (slowly) leading toward.  As a result, this is arguably one of the least impressive Hawks' films that I've seen and the first proper disappointment in our Saturdays with the Stars series, though considering the leading actors involved I'm not surprised this was a hit for FOX.  Next week we will close our discussion of Sheridan's career with one of her films at Universal, where she took a role not only in front of the camera, but behind the scenes as well.

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.

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

Film: The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
Stars: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley, Richard Travis, Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke
Director: William Keighley
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Reaction: 5/5 stars

We will start our "Saturdays with the Stars" series focusing on Ann Sheridan by looking at one of her better-remembered movies The Man Who Came to Dinner (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here & like Clarissa, I explain it all).  While they never seem to be as popular in modern cinemas (thanks to Hallmark & Lifetime, they've become hopelessly generic and almost comically interchangeable), a really strong holiday classic can have legs that most movies can only dream of, and while The Man Who Came to Dinner is hardly in the same pop culture class as It's a Wonderful Life or White Christmas, it still plays with regularity on TCM and is one of the few films of this era where Sheridan shares top-billing with a woman, not a man, as this is one of two Christmas classics starring Bette Davis (the other being Pocketful of Miracles).  Of course, for anyone familiar with the film, it is neither Davis nor Sheridan who deserve the top billing here, but instead the curmudgeonly (and until this point in his career almost completely-unknown) Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Woolley's Whiteside, a noted humorist and radio personality who is famous for his acid tongue & sharp impatience with anyone that isn't himself.  Whiteside is on a speaking tour much to his chagrin, and is forced to have lunch at the home of Mrs. Ernest Stanley (Burke), but when walking into the house, he slips and falls on the front steps.  The doctor orders him to stay in bed, and as a result both he and his secretary Maggie (Davis) have to stay in the small town, with Woolley barking orders at his hosts, their staff, and his poor beleaguered nurse (naturally played by character actor Mary Wickes, as this was the only part she ever seemed to play, but did it with aplomb).  Maggie quite likes the situation, though, as she falls for a young newspaper man named Bert (Travis), and decides to quit her post, which forces Whiteside to pretend he hasn't recovered, in hopes of scheming a way to keep her on as his secretary.  His plan involves recruiting gold-digging actress Lorraine Sheldon (Sheridan) to come and try and steal Bert away from Maggie, which she doesn't succeed in doing (during one of many comic set pieces in the film, she is trapped in a sarcophagus after a change-of-heart by Whiteside and Jimmy Durante, basically playing himself). The film ends in proper Christmas fashion with Bert & Maggie in love, and Whiteside finding some empathy for the world around him...which quickly disappears as he slips on the front steps again & as a result is forced to go back to staying at the house with the Stanleys.

The film is a riot, and one I wish more people had caught (it was an awesome way to start our new series).  Based on the play by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman, the movie is hilarious and wry, with Woolley, Davis, and Sheridan in sharp form (Travis is mostly there to be handsome, which he does exceedingly well).  I had never seen a film of Woolley's prior to this, and was surprised I knew so little about him.  The actor enjoyed a brief bit of fame after this picture, almost always playing snobs, and won two Oscar nominations before his cache wore off.  It's rare to find an actor starring opposite Bette Davis that can keep up with the bitchiness, but Woolley delivers, and I am excited to see more of him (one has to wonder if The Pied Piper nomination he won in 1942 was more a joint effort for his work here, as Whiteside is completely worthy of an Oscar nomination).

Our Star of the Month gets high billing, but is decidedly the third lead of the film (I picked the films based on billing, not actually knowing the content of the pictures).  Sheridan is sly fun as a broadly-played "glamour girl," and since I'm so unfamiliar with her (I've only seen one other movie she's made), I don't know if this is a departure for her or not (all of our other films with her this month will be dramas).  She has a great dynamic with Woolley & Davis, and while she isn't quite in their league, she rings out every joke with ace timing and I am already a bit of a fan-we'll see next week if she can succeed in arguably her most well-regarded film, but we're off to a good start with The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Each month, as part of our 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.

Saturdays with the Stars: Ann Sheridan

As I mentioned a little over a week ago, I will be doing a new series in 2019 called "Saturdays with the Stars" where I will be profiling the careers of 12 major headlining actresses from Classical Hollywood who were never nominated for an Academy Award.  I outline the reasons for this in the article linked above, but basically since we do an Oscar Viewing Project here, that is entirely focused on Oscar-nominated performances and films, if I was going to add a second filmic project to my dossier, I wanted it to focus on a different aspect of film history, hence these twelve women.  Today, we announce the first of these twelve women, an actress who kind of epitomizes this year's theme, Ann Sheridan.

Sheridan is an actress whose work I am only briefly familiar with-I have, to my knowledge, only seen one of her movies, The Opposite Sex, where the once major headlining performer had to take fourth-billing behind then brand-new star Joan Collins & stage icon (but hardly a cinematic one) Dolores Gray.  I know very little of Sheridan during her heyday, roughly from the late 1930's to the early 1950's, when she was sharing above-the-title credits with the likes of James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, and her most frequent costar, Ronald Reagan.

Sheridan is not well-remembered today, but that almost wasn't the case.  The thing I did know about Sheridan as an actress before choosing her to kick off this article is how close she came to immortality, which makes her a perfect fit for this series, since she was considered for three different iconic roles in movie history: Scarlett O'Hara, Ilsa Lund, and Mildred Pierce.  Her involvement with Casablanca is the stuff of legend now, though it's not entirely clear how serious the studio was about casting her as Ilsa Lund, opposite of Ronald Reagan.  While it's indisputable that Warner Brothers at one point put out a press release announcing Reagan and Sheridan would star in the all-time Hollywood classic, most film historians consider Humphrey Bogart, at least, to have been the only serious male lead for the film, and if it wasn't going to be Reagan, it was probably going to be George Raft.  Similarly, while Sheridan seems to to have been more seriously considered, she wasn't the only one who was an option before the studio finally decided on Ingrid Bergman; Hedy Lamarr and French actress Michele Morgan were both considered for the role as well.  Sheridan's involvement with Gone with the Wind feels tangential (virtually every actress of that era was thought to be a potential Scarlett, with even Lucille Ball auditioning for the part if you can believe it), though it does appear Mildred Pierce was a real option, enough so that it looks like Sheridan (along with Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck, director Michael Curtiz's choice) turned down the role that eventually won Joan Crawford an Oscar & a massive comeback in her career.

So Sheridan as a star is best-remembered as an also-ran, someone who could have been an immortal like Leigh or Crawford or Bergman, but instead is simply someone who was very famous for a while.  This month, we'll be exploring the actress's career that actually happened, the roles she did take.  We'll be starting with our first film this Saturday, but in the meantime, if you have a favorite Sheridan performance that you'd like to recommend (or are hoping I cover here), please share in the comments below!

The Opposite Sex (1956)

Film: The Opposite Sex (1956)
Stars: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Jeff Richards, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Agnes Moorehead, Joan Blondell, Carolyn Jones
Director: David Miller
Oscar History: None to speak of, but you just know they were close, considering the film received a Best Comedy/Musical Picture nomination from the Golden Globes and 10-time Oscar nominee Helen Rose did the costumes
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Do you ever have that moment when you're flipping through the channels, waiting for something to speak to you, and suddenly, there it is, a Turner Classic Movies commercial break?  My stomach lifts, and I don't dare hit the "Guide" button on the television, as I am so excited to see what film is about to grace my living room.  Maybe I'll watch it, maybe I won't, but I suddenly have the opportunity to watch a movie from start-to-finish as it airs live on television.  I found myself there this morning, and before I knew it, I had watched all of The Opposite Sex.

I am a little embarrassed to say how long it took me to realize that this was a musical-version of The Women, the classic 1939 tale of comedic bitchiness that you simply must investigate (it stars a Many Rantings favorite, Joan Crawford with one of her arch-rivals, Norma Shearer).  Let's just say it took until they went to Reno before it started to sink in, which is at least half of the movie.  This film doesn't boast quite that iconic talent, but it isn't missing star power when you have a cast list that features June Allyson and Joan Collins in the lead roles.  Unlike the 1939 original, Sex does in-fact have men featured onscreen, though they're more props (the hunktastic Richards) or dopes (the "I'll-go-where-you're-leading-me" Nielsen) than anything else.

For those not familiar with the original or the awful Meg Ryan-remake, the story is about a gaggle of women who gossip about their friends, and in particular, Allyson's Kay, whose husband (Nielsen) has cheated with Collins' Crystal.  Allyson is told of this news by her frenemy Sylvia (well-played by the glamorous Dolores Gray), and bitchy madness ensues as the women exchange men and barbs with a frenetic speed.  For any actressexual, it's a necessary viewing and you'l find yourself falling all over one character or another.  The ones that spoke most to me were Gray, the eternally pregnant Blondell, and in an extremely bit role Carolyn Jones (who, like she did in The Bachelor Party, makes the most of a small part).

I can't say that I loved either of the two leads, both ladies having names I'm more familiar with than their filmographies.  June Allyson is a star whose face I could have attributed to any number of other actors prior to this, and whose husky voice and onscreen demeanor are both traits to admire and pursue in other films, even if I thought her mousy character was a bit too wimpy for the lioness's den of women that she's dealing with; additionally, Collins, who has curves like the Indy Speedway, is fun to watch vamp it up, but also seems a bit out-of-her-element when she is trying to act sweet-it's hard to believe anyone couldn't see right through her.  And though this is a musical, it doesn't boast a lot of music-the only numbers come from Allyson (who is dubbed in one of her numbers despite her wheelhouse including an excellent singing voice) and two bizarre musical numbers from "guest stars" to the movie.  This is particularly upsetting when you consider that Ann Miller of all people is in this cast and never once taps, shakes, or croons, and that the musical is made from the greatest studio to ever churn out the song-and-dance routine, MGM.

There's more I could delve into (how much do you love Agnes Moorehead and how weird does Leslie Nielsen look before his prematurely grey/white hair set in?), but I want to hear from you.  What did you think of The Opposite Sex, and where does it rank in your personal rankings of the multiple Women films?  Did you have a best in show?  And with Allyson and Collins-what would you recommend I look into first to get the best showcase of their talents?