OVP: Mister Roberts (1955)

Film: Mister Roberts (1955)

Stars: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon, Betsy Palmer, Ward Bond

Director: John Ford & Mervyn LeRoy

Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Supporting Actor-Jack Lemmon*, Sound Recording)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

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

Ward Bond is unusual, as we've mentioned throughout this month, because he was a true character actor, and someone who, unlike say Thelma Ritter or Walter Brennan, he didn't get semi-lead roles and never was nominated for an Academy Award.  This makes him unusual because Ward Bond holds the distinction of starring in the most Best Picture nominees of any credited actor in the history of the Academy, more than even Jack Nicholson or Robert de Niro or Meryl Streep, with thirteen nominees ranging from Arrowsmith all the way back in 1931-32 to today's film, Mister Roberts, which was the final Best Picture nominee that Bond would appear in in his career.  Mister Roberts was famously a troubled shoot (John Ford fought with both James Cagney & Henry Fonda), one that involved not just two credited directors (Ford & Mervyn LeRoy), but Joshua Logan was uncredited, making Mister Roberts one of the only movies (outside Gone with the Wind) to be helmed by three different Oscar nominees.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the waning days of World War II, with a bunch of sailors stuck aboard a cargo ship called the Reluctant, where they are under the tyrannical rule of Captain Morton (Cagney).  Morton is frequently at odds with Mr. Roberts (Fonda), a lieutenant on the ship who is desperate to get off this ship, which is safely in a harbor but is not going to see battle, and join the front.  Roberts is frequently fighting on behalf of the men, who are desperate to get shore leave after a year at sea, but Morton wants to keep Roberts under his thumb, primarily because he knows what a bad commanding officer he has been & he doesn't want him to leak that to the brass.  Joined by his pals Doc (Powell) & Pulver (Lemmon), Roberts continues to hatch plans to get under Morton's skin and specifically to get a letter requesting his transfer as well as to get the men shore leave.  He initially has to sacrifice the former to get the latter, but once the men hear about it, the men risk court martial to get Roberts transferred.  The film ends on a bitter note, with Roberts dying in action, and Pulver (until that point something of a coward) standing up to Morton and assuming the antagonistic role that Roberts had played in his life, defending the men.

The movie was an "ehh" for me.  I get what's happening here & I understand why this was a successful play given its mix of tone, but the stage is a different beast and you don't have to feed off of an audience's energy in the same way.  As a result, the mixture of slapstick farce alongside a very serious story feels very off, and the tenor of the picture doesn't quite work.  The cast is a mixed bag-Fonda is good as a revered rule-breaker, even if the script demands nothing from him, but Cagney is actively bad here, not knowing how to play his villain as anything but a hammy Mickey Rooney-level joke.  Jack Lemmon, of course, won an Oscar for this role (his first of eight nominations), and while I get it (seeing Lemmon's signature ability with comedy for the first time had to have been undeniable), it feels weird that he won for something so dismissible, as this is hardly what he'd end up being capable of as he moved to being a leading man.

Mister Roberts was a big film for most of the cast.  Henry Fonda hadn't made a movie in eight years before this (he'd been on stage), and was not favored by Warner Brothers.  This movie was a huge hit, though, and its success brought Fonda back to Hollywood, and two years later he'd be making one of the most important movies of his career, 12 Angry Men.  James Cagney would never make another movie for Warner after this (his home for almost three decades) and William Powell wouldn't make another movie, period, even though he'd live another thirty years.  Ward Bond, of course, would continue to make movies and we'll talk about the most important one of his as an actor next week, but this week I'll admit that I continue to strike out.  While Bond is in this movie, he has a very small part, and so it's hard to really assess his talents as an actor with such a small role.

OVP: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Film: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Stars: Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Rory Calhoun, William Powell
Director: Jean Negulesco
Oscar History: 1 nominaton (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Betty Grable-click here to learn more about Ms. Grable (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Despite having been a major star for over ten years, even in the early 1950's, Betty Grable's pictures were still hits.  She had been in the Top 10 biggest box office draws of every year since 1942, and in 1950, despite a relatively ripe age of 34 (which was a bigger deal in the '50's than it would be now), she was still the highest-grossing actress in America.  However, her star started to fall apart when she demanded that Fox acknowledge that she'd been a consistent draw by requesting more artistic freedom and a giant paycheck.  This led to Grable missing out on a big opportunity-Fox's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which was a huge hit and gave a boost to the woman that was expected to succeed Grable as the top actress on the Fox lot, Marilyn Monroe.  Grable eventually came back to Fox, but they had a bit of a punishment for her in their next picture-casting her as a gold-digger opposite Monroe and Lauren Bacall, both of whom were a decade younger than Grable.

(Spoilers Ahead) How to Marry a Millionaire is a pretty slight film, and one that focuses on three women looking to get rich husbands: scheming Schatze (Bacall), naive Loco (Grable), and ditzy Pola (Monroe).  The three find a posh Manhattan apartment, and start selling off furniture in the hopes of finding a rich husband, but one-by-one they fall not for the actual millionaires like William Powell's JD Hanley, but instead for lumberjacks or criminals, or in Schatze's (the character most determined to stick to the plan) case, Tom, a man she assumes to be a grocery store clerk but who is instead wealthier than any of the men they pursue.  All of the women end up marrying for love, and in Schatze's case, accidentally it comes along with $200 million.

The film is not, unfortunately, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a picture I adored.  It's considerably drier, with only the three leading ladies adding anything to these happenings (Powell is a bore, which is a damned shame coming from the guy who made The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey so bubbly).  It's still fun, of course.  Bacall is ballsy (and gets a great joke about the "old guy in The African Queen" at one point), and Monroe is always fun to watch, and even Grable gets to have some game moments with a man who is looking to have an affair, but there's not enough laughs here.  We don't really get a sense for who these women are other than cartoons, and there aren't memorable musical numbers or someone who is as willing as Jane Russell is to commit to the cartoons the women are asked to play.

Grable's month, as a result, ends with a movie with some promise but ultimately a picture that flirts with a 2-star rating even if it's more a questionable three.  I'll admit to not finding much in Grable's extensive filmography this month to lend to her, disappointing after the joys of Jean Harlow in January.  Grable's career quickly petered out after this, the last significant picture of her time in Hollywood.  After Millionaire she turned down another role that would go to Monroe (There's No Business Like Show Business), something she was fine with; despite press at the time, Monroe & Grable got along famously, to the point where Grable requested her for what would be her last film How to Be Very, Very Popular (the Monroe part would go to Sheree North).  Grable would be turned down for the lead role in 1956's Guys and Dolls, making her quit the industry, and then became a headliner in Vegas until her death in 1973 of lung cancer at the age of 56.  Next month, we will move to a different star of the 1940's who would also find herself in the 1950's looking to Las Vegas, but not before having one of the most eclectic (and unfair) careers of any star in Classic Hollywood.

OVP: Libeled Lady (1936)

Film: Libeled Lady (1936)
Stars: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Walter Connolly
Director: Jack Conway
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Picture)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Jean Harlow-click here to learn more about Ms. Harlow (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the mid-1930's, Jean Harlow was one of the biggest stars in America.  On the MGM lot, she was worth more to the studio by the time that Libeled Lady came out than Joan Crawford or Norma Shearer, the two women who had basically bankrolled the company for years.  She had managed to float her way through two husbands since the last time we had discussed her in Red Dust, and was at the time madly in love with William Powell, who would be her costar in the film.  The movie would be a gargantuan hit for MGM, making nearly $3 million at the Box Office during the height of the Depression, and further cementing Harlow as the most valuable asset on the MGM lot.  As we're about to see, though, that distinction would be (to pardon the expression) short-lived.  But first, Libeled Lady.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is basically one of those madcap screwball comedies that went extinct the second Cary Grant met Alfred Hitchcock, but it's a pip.  Jean Harlow plays Gladys, a frequently jilted bride whose fiancé Warren (Tracy) is constantly putting his newspaper's needs ahead of hers.  In the opening scenes, we find out that his paper has printed a libelous lawsuit about Connie Allenbury (Loy), the daughter of his rival newspaper's chief James Allenbury (Connolly).  Connie sues Warren's paper for $5 million, but he can't afford to pay this kind of money, so he enlists the help of famed lothario Bill Chandler (Powell) to woo Connie after marrying Gladys in a sham marriage, so it looks like Connie has been romancing another woman's husband.  The problems ensue when both Connie AND Gladys fall for Bill's line, while Bill only loves Connie.  The film's final moments are a series of coincidences and one ups-manship, with ultimately Gladys ending up back with Warren and Connie & Bill reunited despite their differences.

Libeled Lady is marvelous.  It's hard to judge because when you put Powell & Loy together you expect The Thin Man (though they actually made 14 movies together in their time in the spotlight), and this isn't quite as sparkling as that, but it's hard to compare any movie to The Thin Man.  The film is hilarious, with some great physical comedy and some ace comedic work.  It's a testament to Harlow that put against an acting titan like Tracy, and two Grade-A comedians such as Loy & Powell that she pretty much steals the picture as the "dumb blonde who isn't so dumb."  As a result, I kind of loved Libeled Lady in a way I wasn't expecting-this is the sort of film I'd probably give a 4.5 star rating to (but we don't do halves here), but as there are parts where the one-liners could have popped a little bit more, I'm going to lean to four stars, though I reserve the right to change my mind about that in the future.

The movie would, sadly, be one of the last high-water marks of Harlow's career.  She would make just two more pictures, Personal Property and Saratoga, both big hits, before she died in 1937 from kidney failure at the age of only 26.  Because of her youth and beauty, and how we never got to see her grow old, urban legends still persist about Harlow (chiefly that she died as a result of the hair dye that created the platinum blonde look she'd make iconic, though this has been proven to be false).  As we've found this month, though, there was a really good comedienne and actress beyond those famous locks, and it's a pity for us all that we didn't get to see what her growing power at MGM might have meant for her future career-perhaps some of the star turns that still awaited her fellow MGM players Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo could have been hers?  We will never know.  Next month, we'll spring ahead into the 1940's to take a look at a different starlet, one who was just as blonde as Harlow, but it was two other assets that insured her immortal status in Classical Hollywood.