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

OVP: Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

Film: Million Dollar Mermaid
Stars: Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon, David Brian, Jesse White, (and a cameo by prima ballerina Maria Tallchief)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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 Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Esther Williams would continue on past 1952 in the movies, and might be the first actress in this series whose career ended up having too many chapters for us to investigate them properly in just one month.  MGM kept putting her in movies until the mid-50's, even though her aquacade musicals were no longer the guaranteed blockbusters they were in the 1940's, until she refused to take the June Allyson role in The Opposite Sex, and as a result she left the studio.  Williams would go on to make a few more films after 1956, though her husband Lorenzo Lamas preferred she stay home and be a homemaker.  Though she'd flirt with returning to movie stardom (she was wanted for the Shelley Winters role in The Poseidon Adventure, a role that won Winters an Oscar nomination, a distinction that Williams never achieved), she'd have a more successful second act to her career as a businesswoman, selling swimwear & swimming pools, and even served as a commentator as the 1984 Olympics.  As you can tell, there's more to talk about with Esther Williams, but we're going to end our monthlong look at her with what would become her most iconic role, and one that she had wanted to do in Hollywood since the moment she signed with MGM: Annette Kellerman, famed swimmer & actress, in Million Dollar Mermaid.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those unfamiliar, Annette Kellerman (Williams) was a star of the Hippodrome in the early-1910's, having come over from Australia.  In the film, we see her start as a young girl who has weak legs, but uses swimming to strengthen them and in the process becomes a champion swimmer.  However, she and her father (Pidgeon) fall on hard times, and have to sell her trophies just to make rent.  Kellerman meets Jimmy Sullivan (Mature) and his assistant Doc (White), who are relatively successful grifters who have a kangaroo-boxing act, but think that Kellerman could be a major attraction.  They first have her swim 26-miles through the Thames river, and then in Boston they have her wear a one-piece bathing suit to great scandal (and in the process, huge publicity).  Eventually Kellerman becomes a superstar, sharing the stage with prima ballerina Anna Pavlova (played in the film by the first American prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, who is mesmerizing in a grandiose performance as "the dying swan").  However, she longs for Jimmy, who left her when she joined the Hippodrome, and is participating in a series of crazy stunts.  After a freak accident with a giant glass tank (while she was filming a movie), Kellerman is hospitalized, though those that love her predict she'll walk again (real-life spoiler alert since it's not in the movie-she did, and had a very long life), and reunites with Jimmy, a happy ending on the film.

The movie is, well, glossy is about the best adjective I could come up with.  The film is billed as a musical, but it's really more a biopic with a few musical sequences, and unlike some of the sprier investments we had from Williams this month, it tends to drag.  Mature & Williams were having an on-set affair at the time (if you believe her memoirs, which are famously juicy but likely a bit exaggerated), but that charisma isn't really there onscreen.  Esther does her best here, but Mature is such an indulgent actor that he doesn't pair with the subtle Williams, and the supporting cast isn't game enough (or given enough to do) to really warrant much credit.

But it's the musical numbers that are the reason to see this film.  Williams does a gorgeous underwater ballet with a clam shell and a gigantic & fantastic number where she's in a long one-piece metallic gold swimsuit among a cascade of streaming water jets where she does a mesmerizing high-dive.  Best of all is this number with Williams surrounded by pillars of red & yellow smoke and a couple of dozen synchronized swimmers literally diving from swings into a pool, with Williams hanging on for dear life on a ring suspended above them in a circle.  Williams was injured badly in one of these stunts (in the books/articles I read prepping for this month's star, it's hard to tell which of the three numbers it was in), but you can see why this is the film that was synonymous with her legend-these rank among the most impressive sequences that MGM ever put into a musical (and that's saying a lot).  The film's sole nomination for Best Cinematography is no accident-shooting these difficult stunts in such glorious Technicolor must have been a challenge.  As a result, I'm going to give this three-stars, even if the story that tags along with it is middling & doesn't deserve such an endorsement, as you simply have to see these musical numbers.

Williams has been a bit of a conundrum for me this month.  It's clear that she usually played the same role, and wasn't as great of an actress as someone like Linda Darnell or Ann Sheridan, other women we've profiled in this series.  However, she's emerged as one of my favorites, if only because her movies are so distinctive & fun, and she has an effortless grace in her aquatic performances.  Williams was the rare movie star of Classical Hollywood who was genuinely respected for their offscreen talents, not asked to leave them at the studio gate, and it showed onscreen.  Next month we'll take a look at a woman whom the studio simply wanted to be a pretty face, but she (and history) had different plans entirely.

OVP: Neptune's Daughter (1949)

Film: Neptune's Daughter (1949)
Stars: Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalban, Red Skelton, Betty Garrett, Keenan Wynn, Mel Blanc
Director: Edward Buzzell
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Original Song-"Baby It's Cold Outside"*)
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 Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

One of the more striking aspects of Esther Williams' career is that her films, while formulaic, never really feel repetitive.  We're on our third musical (while Williams would make other genres, such as the bull-fighting epic Fiesta and the film noir The Unguarded Moment, these were outliers and we unfortunately won't have time to get to one of these pictures this go-around with Williams), and once again the focus is on getting our Star of the Month into a swimsuit at all costs, but it still doesn't feel like a drag to see so many similarly-styled films.  This is perhaps because the movies that made Esther Williams a star were so frothy & light it's hard to complain about something so shallow, but also because no one else ever made movies like this.  While musicals were the highlight of MGM at this time, no one before or since has quite made aquacade musicals in such a fashion, and so even a few dips in the pool with Esther Williams don't get tired.

(Spoilers Ahead) Neptune's Daughter has Williams playing Eve Barrett, a former champion swimmer who goes into business with Joe (Wynn) to design chic bathing suits for women (much like Williams herself would do in real-life).  They gain huge success, but Joe continues to want more, and when a South American polo team is in-town, Joe insists that Eve put on a swimming spectacular to gain publicity for their company.  Eve reluctantly agrees, and her man-crazed sister Betty (Garrett) figures this is her opportunity to score a husband.  Unfortunately, she doesn't fall for one of the players, but instead a masseuse impersonating one of the players Jack Spratt (yes, that's really the name they give Skelton's character, who is definitely second fiddle here despite being our leading man just two weeks ago in Bathing Beauty) tricks Betty into thinking he's a South American polo player named Jose O'Rourke.  Madcap trouble ensues when the real O'Rourke (Montalban) shows up and tries to woo Eve, who thinks he's just a player trying to pit sister-against-sister.  The film unfolds with a lot of love triangles (Wynn even gets in on the business by claiming he loves Eve too), but has the good sense to have Jose & Eve and Jack & Betty all end up together, with a water ballet to send us out with our happy ending.

The film is most famous today for being the first place most people heard the classic "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which has become a (controversial) Christmas staple in the years since.  The song wasn't written for the movie (Oscar is occasionally picky about this, but apparently wasn't in 1949 when they gave the film their Best Original Song statue), and was instead something composer Frank Loesser used to sing with his wife, but it fits well into the film.  The song has come under intense scrutiny in modern times for its "date rape-y" attitudes toward a woman saying "no" and a man insisting that she stay with him instead of leaving, but it plays better in the film than it does in future radio edits.  This is because while the duet starts between Williams & Montalban, it eventually translates to Garrett & Skelton, with Garrett taking the lines typically sung by the male performer.  As a result it feels a bit more innocent & sweet, and is the highlight of the film.

The film has less aquatic ballets than some of the other movies we'll profile from Williams, and as a result it isn't quite as joyous as Bathing Beauty (spoiler alert-our first outing is my favorite movie we'll profile for Williams this month, though next week's will have the best musical sequences).  Williams teamed with Montalban quite often, but I don't get a lot of chemistry between the two.  His acting is so stylized and focused on seduction, and her characters are spunky-and-innocent, so their personas don't feel in sync.  As a result, this might be my least favorite of the movies we'll see from Williams, but there's still a pleasantness that makes this an easy one to watch if you ever see it on at Christmas due to the award-winning ballad.  It's just that Esther Williams could do better.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)

Film: Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
Stars: Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, Edward Arnold
Director: Busby Berkeley
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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 Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We continue on a few years into Williams' career.  Throughout the late 1940's, Williams was perhaps the most important star on the MGM lot, at least in terms of keeping the lights on.  She had a Top 20 movie every year between Bathing Beauty and her double-feature victories of 1949 (the second of which we'll discuss next week).  MGM, famous for its high quality and cavalcade of stars, desperately needed an actress that could consistently churn out hits, as many of its stars were aging, and so Williams was put into near constant production during the era.  This film is one of the few she made with Arthur Freed, legendary musical producer who would make some of the best movies the studio ever made, and teamed her with Gene Kelly & Fred Astaire, obviously big stars in their own right, but having all of that stardom might have helped at the box office, but behind-the-scenes Williams was in hell.

(Spoilers Ahead) Before we talk about Williams life (and work in the picture), let's get to the story, written by Kelly himself (and frequent collaborator Stanley Donen).  The movie is about Dennis Ryan (Sinatra) and Eddie O'Brien (Kelly) who in 1908 are both baseball players who in the off-season have a successful stint as vaudeville performers.  They goofily enjoy their time on the fictional team the Wolves, but the team's new owner KC Higgins (Williams) turns out to be a female, and one with a knowledge of baseball & who is no-nonsense when it comes to her new players.  Both Dennis & Eddie try to woo her, but she ultimately falls for Eddie, who is kind of a louse but she has chemistry with him (Dennis is consoled by Betty Garrett's thirsty Shirley Delwyn, a fan-in-the-stands whom he falls for), but not before Eddie nearly screws up their shot at the pennant by taking a contract with Joe Lorgan (Arnold), a rich hood who has bet on the game & is trying to sabotage its players.  The film ends with a meta-musical number where the four actors are costumed as their characters, but singing as the actual actors (if you don't care too much about spoilers, it's kind of unusual & worth checking out here).

The film itself is fine.  The meta ending number was so odd that it was probably my favorite part (name-checking the actual actors in the film by name, as well as other leading performers of their day), but the musical numbers in the film are largely forgettable.  Kelly dances, Sinatra croons, Garrett & Munshin steal scenes, and Williams (briefly) swims, so everyone is doing what you'd expect, but the flimsy plot and lack of a major, memorable ballad or number causes it to be ill-compared to something of the era like Meet Me in St. Louis or On the Town, which features all but Williams from those name-checked actors.  That said, it's still lovely & fun-this is an Arthur Freed musical during MGM's heyday starring some of the razzle dazzliest stars in Hollywood-you'd have to be pretty cynical to dislike the picture.

It's interesting to approach the film from the perspective of Esther Williams, though, so I'm excited to have watched this in the context of her month as the star rather than if we did Sinatra or Kelly in a future season.  Williams's character is fun, and she gets some sassy lines & moments; it's hard to be the female lead in a movie where Betty Garrett is also on-deck (Garrett is one of the quintessential Golden Age scene-stealers, ranking up there with Thelma Ritter & Ann Miller), and she isn't quite as flashy as Garrett, but Williams is memorable & aces her scenes taking down Kelly's chauvinistic Eddie.

However, I was curious as to why MGM cast Williams in such a role, particularly when they were making so much money with her work in aquatic musicals.  Turns out, she wasn't even remotely their top choice; June Allyson, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland & Kathryn Grayson (the latter two are name-checked in the "Strictly USA" final number) were all favored for the role before circumstance caused all four to skip out, and Kelly in particular did not want to cast Williams in the part.  Berkeley was technically the director of the picture, but apparently was absent for much of the shoot due to his issues with alcoholism, so Kelly & Donen had a very heavy hand in the making the film, and (according to her memoirs) treated Williams like garbage on the set.  Berkeley even had an idea for a Williams' musical number in the water, potentially helping the film's box office, but Kelly refused and it was cut (as was a duet between Kelly-and-Williams, a rare circumstance for a classic age musical where the main romantic leads don't have a love ballad).  Williams would continue to slam Kelly in interviews sixty years after the film she hated making the movie so much (she apparently liked Sinatra), but it was another money-maker for the star, though thankfully for Williams' sense-of-self, they never again teamed her with Kelly.

Bathing Beauty (1944)

Film: Bathing Beauty (1944)
Stars: Red Skelton, Esther Williams, Basil Rathbone, Bill Goodwin
Director: George Sidney
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 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 Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I may have literally worked a 12-hour day non-stop yesterday, but that isn't going to stop me from continuing my nearly nine-month long streak of hitting a "Saturday with the Stars" every Saturday, even though this is a bit later in the day than we're used to seeing.  This week, we have our first dive (I swear, I'll limit myself on the aquatic puns, but I've gotta have some) into the career of Esther Williams.  In 1944, after an impressive stint as a professional swimmer (which surely would have resulted in Olympic medals had it not been for World War II) she'd had a couple of small parts opposite Mickey Rooney & Van Johnson, but hadn't really been given the star treatment she'd hoped for when she made it to Hollywood.  Bathing Beauty changed all of that.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's plot, like most MGM musicals save for Singin' in the Rain, is of little consequence to why you're actually watching, but let's at least acknowledge the writers.  The movie is about Steve Elliot (Skelton), who is in love with a ravishing teacher Caroline Brooks (Williams), and is about to marry her.  However, he's threatening to quit writing songs and musical numbers if he does so, so in order to end the marriage his boss George (Rathbone) has a woman pretend to be Steve's first wife, making him a bigamist.  Caroline runs back to her school, being romanced in some parts by a stuffy professor Willis Evans (Goodwin).  In order to win her back Steve enrolls in the all girl's school, giving him opportunities to be lusted after by some of the co-eds, as well as be put in ridiculous situations (including two opportunities for Skelton to dress in drag).  The film ends with Caroline eventually getting a part in the new musical that Steve is writing for George, and they end up happily ever after.

The film itself is quite silly-the plot seems to be ancillary, and just an excuse to have Skelton do his comedy & Williams do her swimming.  I will admit to knowing very little about Skelton's filmography (this might be the first of his movies I've ever seen, though I'm familiar with him from his long-running eponymous television program), and I left not being super impressed, despite my fondness for men with red hair.  His comedy bits aren't as wry or witty as some of the other men of the Classical Hollywood era (I prefer Jack Benny or Groucho Marx), and the parts with the girls feels a bit phoned in, as they all sort of meld together rather than Steve distinguishing the women who are helping him win back his girl.  All-in-all, he left something to be desired, though we'll get a second chance with Skelton later this month as I have another one of his frequent outings with Williams in store for a future "Saturdays with..." article.

Williams, though, is really fun.  Her acting takes a back seat to Skelton (she's not a natural ham like he is in front of the camera, and doesn't steal focus), but she makes up for it during the gigantic water numbers, particularly the iconic final water ballet that's been parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to the Muppets.  It's rare to see an MGM musical this impressive without the guiding hand of Arthur Freed (he'd soon be the producer on a number of Williams pictures, one of which we'll also get to later this month), but I found her charming & acrobatic, and the water numbers are magical.  It's hard to assess her as a talent because Skelton so often hogs the spotlight, but I'm hopeful for her in a way I wasn't last month, particularly since she became SUCH a big star after this (as a result, it's doubtful that she'll be a supporting part masquerading like a league like so many of our outings with Ruth Roman & Rhonda Fleming).  At the time, she was granted top billing after the first cut of the film was made, she made such an impression on MGM executives, and they were right-Bathing Beauty became the biggest hit for the studio since Gone with the Wind.

Saturdays with the Stars: Esther Williams

Each month of 2019 we will be looking at the careers of leading ladies of Classical Hollywood who were never nominated for an Academy Award as part of our "Saturdays with the Stars" series.  Last month, our focus was on Ruth Roman, a forgotten Warner Brothers starlet most famous for her work in Strangers on a Train.  This month we turn to one of the oddest stars of Hollywood's Golden Age.  And I say odd not because she wasn't beautiful (she was) or talented (we'll find out), but because the sorts of films that Esther Williams made during her time as one of the principle stars at MGM didn't really exist before she came along, and certainly don't exist today.

Esther Williams likely never intended to be a film star.  She began her career not as an actress, but as a competitive swimmer, showing an aptitude for the sport at an early age.  While pondering a career as a gym teacher, she joined the Aquacade with Johnny Weismuller, who at that point was a major film star who had been playing Tarzan at MGM for almost a decade.  Williams had intended to compete at the Olympics, but World War II cancelled the event, and as a result she was free to sign her own contract with MGM, though she stipulated in her contract that she wanted 9 months before filming started to take acting and singing lessons, as the ambitious Williams didn't want to look a fool in front of the camera.  Louis B. Mayer, desperate to duplicate the success Fox had seen with Sonja Henie (a gold medalist figure skater turned Tinseltown leading woman), obliged and signed her.

Williams stayed in bit parts for a while (almost getting Lana Turner's role in Somewhere I'll Find You before Turner returned from her impromptu marriage to Artie Shaw to reclaim it), until she lucked into a part opposite Red Skelton in Bathing Beauty, a technicolor musical featuring Williams in a musical number in a pool.  The film was a HUGE hit, making Williams one of MGM's biggest stars overnight, and if anyone knew what to do when he'd stumbled upon an unlikely star, it was Louis B. Mayer.  Bathing Beauty would serve as a template for a number of future "swimming musicals," including Neptune's Daughter, Million Dollar Mermaid, and Dangerous When Wet, where Williams starred opposite her future-husband Fernando Lamas.  During this time she starred not only with Lamas, but also Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, William Powell, and (most frequently) Ricardo Montalban in a variety of musicals, dramas, and comedies.

Williams left MGM when she refused to take the lead role in The Opposite Sex (which eventually went to June Allyson), but it's likely her time in the sun had passed.  Her movies still made money, but her husband Fernando Lamas didn't like his wife working (he apparently was a very controlling husband, though they stayed together until his death).  She turned down the Shelley Winters role in The Poseidon Adventure (a role that would win Winters an Academy Award nomination, an honor that eluded Williams her entire career), but she didn't shy away from her history.  She continued to endorse swim-related equipment, and was (along with her Neptune's Daughter costar Betty Garrett) one of the first people to attend the annual TCM Classic Film Festival.  This month, we'll take a look at her successful (but unusual) path to stardom.

OVP: A Guy Named Joe (1943)

Film: A Guy Named Joe (1943)
Stars: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Ward Bond, James Gleason, Lionel Barrymore, Esther Williams
Director: Victor Fleming
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Sometimes a film is more about the backstory, at least a classic one is, for me.  While A Guy Named Joe made it onto my viewing docket mostly because it was nominated for an Academy Award, my familiarity with it was not in regard to it randomly losing a trophy to Going My Way, but instead due to some of the behind-the-scenes tension that it elicited, particularly the famed car accident involving Van Johnson that caused a delay in the film's production (a delay which helped launch Van Johnson's career as he was a newbie at the time and the studio wanted to replace him-when Spencer Tracy said no, Johnson got to keep the part and became a headliner as a result of this film) and the famed feud between Spencer Tracy and Irene Dunne (who adamantly disliked each other).  The actual film itself isn't nearly as interesting as the stories behind it, in fact, though it does keep an air of mystery that's rare in a romantic drama over what direction the ending will head.

(Spoilers Ahead) I think what made me dislike the film is that the movie is predicated in large part on who "owns" Irene Dunne's heart, and while this is true of a lot of romantic triangles (in fact, it's the basis of all of them), I really didn't like Tracy or Johnson's characters, and that's crucial to the plot of the film as you're meant to like them both.  Johnson's ace pilot is a little too green to believably fall for the more world-weary Dunne, a woman who has already had her heart broken and is clearly much older than Johnson (she was actually 18 years his senior in real life, and it shows in the way that she practically looks like his mother onscreen).  Tracy's Pete is a much better match, age-wise (he was two years younger than Dunne, for the record), but his personality and the way that he's meant to be a type of guardian angel and yet hasn't gained much perspective (frequently sabotaging Dunne's Dorinda in her quest to get over him and find happiness) is off-putting.  The film's focus would more smartly be on him trying to convince her to move on, but the fact that the basis of the movie is on him ruining her relationship with Johnson's Ted made me like him a lot less.

Still, there are occasionally scenes that make it worth the wait for this picture (particularly the climactic scene where Dunne herself is forced to go up into the cockpit and flies the plane), but they're few-and-far between and at two hours it pushes its luck, patience wise, by a solid thirty minutes.  I wish they would have pursued a little bit more the odd conundrum of the movie, particularly since Pete exists in heaven, and perhaps that should be his end goal-to get Dorinda to stay with him in spirit until they can meet up for the eternity.  This feels like A) a solid question for a movie of that time and B) actually a genuinely interesting idea for a movie in general, as I don't know that I've seen it and kind of wish Golden Age Hollywood would have done it as it would be relegated to a Christian-only studio somewhere at this rate.  As it stands now, the movie is pretty dull, and I find it odd that it made it into the writing category for the Oscar nomination and not something like sound (considering the persistent airplanes overhead) as its story is only interesting in a two-sentence description and not in actual execution.

Those are all of my thoughts on the film (it's pretty straight-forward, and not even the three movie star leads add much in terms of great panache), but hopefully you can spur some conversation in the comments.  Have you seen A Guy Named Joe, and if so weigh in on the love triangle, the behind-the-scenes drama, and whether or not this deserved an Oscar nomination.  And if not, at least let's hear about a favorite performance you have of Tracy, Dunne, or Johnson!