classic movie impressions

Classic Movie Impression: The Thin Man (1934)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

For the next month or so I will be sharing posts here and there about The Thin Man movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

The series is my favorite movie series of all time. The six movies kick off with The Thin Man (1934).

The Thin Man will be 91 years old this year and, to me and many others, it still holds up.

This cozy mystery masterpiece has hit the Top 100 movies list from a variety of film organizations and critics over the years and for good reason. My family owns the DVD set of all six movies so we can watch any of the movies any time we want.

If you haven’t seen this movie or the five sequels involving witty, often intoxicated, private detective, Nick Charles (William Powell), and his equally witty and mouthy wife, Nora Charles (Myrna Loy), then you’re missing out.

Each of the six movies is full of mystery, zaniness, misunderstandings, mishaps, and hilarious interactions between Nick and Nora and everyone else. Oh and a crime or two is mixed in too.

The crimes themselves, and how they were committed, are a bit dark at times, but never graphic or gruesome and the darkness is always overshadowed by the Charles’ antics.

The pairing of Powell and Loy was the ticket for success in the 1930s as they were in a number of movies together and are still considered one of the best movie couples of all time.

Their first film was Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and directed by the same director of The Thin Man, W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke.

The Thin Man is based on a book by Dashiell Hammet and as the movie starts, we find Nick has retired from being a Private Investigator in New York City to help oversee Nora’s wealth as an heiress in San Francisco. This leaves Nick with a lot of time on his hand to go drinking, goof off and do some general carousing, though never with women because he is completely and utterly devoted to Nora.

Nora would like him to get back to work, though, so when they go back to New York for a visit and Nick’s former client, Clyde Wynant (who is later described as simply a thin man — hence the name of the book/movie), goes missing. His daughter Dorothy comes to Nick for help, Nora gently, and later not-so-gently, suggests he help.

What makes this movie such a fun one that might bring an occasional gasp from viewers is that it is a pre-Hays Code movie. That means it was filmed before a bunch of rules went into affect about what can and cannot be shown or said in movies. That’s why there were a couple comments from some of the characters in this that had me gasping and then laughing.

For example:


Nick: I’m a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune.

Nora: I read where you were shot 5 times in the tabloids.

Nick: It’s not true. He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.

Before I forget, what makes these movies even more fun is the addition of Asta, the couple’s wife-fox terrier, who also acted in Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn and The Awful Truth with Irene Dunn and Cary. He’s a fun addition who always adds  to a scene.  At one point Nick tells a  criminal, (Summarizing here): Stay right there or my dog will get you. He’s vicious.”

All the while Asta is finding a place to hide under a table.

Asta’s real name was Skippy, by the way, and there are some fun stories about him, but I will share more about Asta/Skippy in future posts about the series.

So back in the beginning of the movie, before we even see Nick  and Nora, Dorothy Wynant goes to her inventor father to tell him she’s getting married.

During that conversation we learn that Clyde cheated on Dorothy’s mother years ago with his secretary and they are now divorced. Later we will see that divorce really wasn’t such a bad thing because the ex-wife is absolutely batty.

Anyhow, shortly after Dorothy told her father she was getting married, we learn that Clyde Wynant’s former secretary and mistress, Julia Wolf, has stolen $50,000 worth of bonds from his safe. Those were going to go to Dorothy for her wedding gift. Clyde immediately suspects Julia, goes to her apartment, and finds her with a man named Joe Morelli.

Julia confesses she took the bonds, but she can’t give them back. She already spent $25,000 of them.

Clyde isn’t a very nice man and tells her she better get the $25,000 back or she’ll pay. He then leaves for a business trip and presumably never returns because three months later, Nick is out at a bar back in NYC for a visit when he runs into Dorothy who tells him her father is missing. She asks if Nick will help find him but Nick brushes her off by saying he’s sure her father will show up.

Things change later while Nick and Nora are throwing a party and Dorothy shows up to say Julia has been murdered and she truly feels her father is in danger. Now Nora pushes Nick to help out.

“You know, that sounds like an interesting case,” she says to Nick. “Why don’t you take it?”

Nick chuckles. “I haven’t the time. I’m much too busy seeing that you don’t lose any of the money I married you for.”

The really quirky and memorable characters show up when Dorothy goes to visit her mother, Mimi, who — like I said above — is crazy, but also is married to a loser, jobless husband named Chris. Living with her mother is her  Mama’s Boy macabre-obsessed brother  Gilbert.

Gilbert is a bit of a nerd who walks around with a book and shows everyone how spart he is by using very big words and even bigger theories about things. He’s also a smart mouth.

At one point he asks one of the cops: “Could I come down and see the body? I’ve never seen a dead body.”

The cop asks why he’d want to and he says, “Well, I’ve been studying psychopathic criminology and I have a theory. Perhaps this was the work of a sadist or a paranoiac. If I saw it, I might be able to tell.”

Dorothy’s mother,  Mimi, is self-focused and selfish and though she was cheated on and might have been a victim in any other movie, she’s a total mess in this movie. Her biggest worry is losing access to her ex-husband’s money, which she has been able to hold on to through alimony. When Julia is murdered, she sees an opportunity to get even more of her ex-husband’s money.

Going back to Nick and Nora … What makes them so memorable, beyond their amazing banter, is how they show that adventure, sex, and adoration doesn’t end after the wedding bells ring. I love how affectionate and playful they are throughout the series.

The writing for them is absolutely outstanding, which is probably because the screenwriters (Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett) were told to focus less on Hammet’s story and more on the banter between the couple.

Some of my favorite exchanges:

Nora Charles: How many drinks have you had?

Nick Charles: This will make six Martinis.

Nora Charles: [to the waiter] All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here.

——————

Nick Charles: Oh, it’s all right, Joe. It’s all right. It’s my dog. And, uh, my wife.

Nora Charles: Well you might have mentioned me first on the billing.

______________

Lieutenant John Guild: You got a pistol permit?

Nick Charles: No.

Lieutenant John Guild: Ever heard of the Sullivan Act?

Nora Charles: Oh, that’s all right, we’re married.

______________

Nora Charles: Pretty girl (about Dorothy Wynant)

Nick Charles: Yes. She’s a very nice type.

Nora Charles: You got types?

Nick Charles: Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws.

_______________

Nora Charles: All right! Go ahead! Go on! See if I care! But I think it’s a dirty trick to bring me all the way to New York just to make a widow of me.

Nick Charles: You wouldn’t be a widow long.

Nora Charles: You bet I wouldn’t!

Nick Charles: Not with all your money…

According to information online, Hammett based Nick and Nora’s banter upon his rocky on-again, off-again relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman and the book itself on his experience as a union-busting Pinkerton.

MGM tried to prevent Myrna Loy from being cast in The Thin Man by telling director Van Dyke that he could have her “only if she was finished in three weeks to begin shooting Stamboul Quest (1934),” according to TCM. Van Dyke not only completed Loy’s scenes but all of the production somewhere between 12 and 18 days.

“Known as “One-Take Woody,” Van Dyke often did not bother with cover shots if he felt the scene was right on the first take, reasoning that actors “lose their fire” if they have to do something over and over,” Rob Nixon wrote for TCM. “It was a lot of pressure on the actors, who often had to learn new lines and business immediately before shooting, without the luxury of retakes, but Loy credited much of the appeal of The Thin Man to Van Dyke’s pacing and spontaneity.”

It was Van Dyke, with that whole desire of his to create natural reactions, who worked out Loy’s classic entrance into the bar and restaurant at the beginning of the movie — all her packages spilling on to the floor as Asta pulls her down the hall toward Powell.

Loy was told about the scene right before they shot it.

Van Dyke took a similar approach with Powell by telling him to take the cocktail shaker, go behind the bar, and walk through one of the early scenes while the crew checked lights and sound.

Powell did so and ad-libbed some comments to the crew as he worked out the scene. Before he knew it VanDyke yelled “That’s it! Print it!”

The director had had the cameras rolling the whole time.

He liked his actors as relaxed and natural as possible which is why a scene of Nick shooting the ornaments off the tree was added into the movie because “Powell playfully picked up an air gun and started shooting ornaments that the art department was putting up.”

I couldn’t find quotes from Powell about working with Van Dyke but there are quotes about working with Powell because he loved working with her.

“When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles, and microphones. We weren’t acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony,” he said. “Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and take of acting that brings out the best.”

You can find plenty of opinions and articles about this movie online, most of them positive.

The Blonde at the Film wrote on her blog in 2014, “The Thin Man (1934) is a truly delightful mystery-comedy chock full of snappy dialogue, fantastic stars, art deco sets, magnificent costumes, enough mystery to make it suspenseful, and enough alcohol to give you a sympathy hangover.”

Christopher Orr wrote for The Atlantic: “As Nick and Nora, Powell and Loy subverted the classic detective film with comic aplomb and presented an impressively modern vision of marriage as an association of equals. They were also cinema’s most glamorous dipsomaniacs, a reminder of a bygone era when Hollywood could still imagine that charm, taste, and good humor might go hand-in-hand with the copious consumption of distilled spirits.”

His opinion of the mysteries in this movie and the others is fairly accurate, even though not altogether positive: “The mysteries themselves tend to be somewhat disappointing–needlessly convoluted, with solutions that often hinge on a last minute revelation or “clue” of dubious import (for example, whether or not someone announced themselves before opening a door). Rather, the chief pleasure of the films is in spending time with Nick and Nora as they tease, cajole, and romance their way toward the conclusion.”

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote of The Thin Man, “William Powell is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he’s saying.”

He continued: “Powell plays the character with a lyrical alcoholic slur that waxes and wanes but never topples either way into inebriation or sobriety. The drinks are the lubricant for dialogue of elegant wit and wicked timing, used by a character who is decadent on the surface but fundamentally brave and brilliant.”

Have you seen The Thin Man? What did you think of it?

Up next (at some point)  I will be writing about the next movie in the series, After The Thin Man.

__________

Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/08/the-movie-review-the-thin-man/69449/

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/08/the-movie-review-the-thin-man/69449/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Man_(film)

https://www.tcm.com/articles/behind-the-classics/133583/behind-the-classics-the-thin-man-1934

https://www.goldderby.com/film/2024/the-thin-man-william-powell-myrna-loy/

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

Winter of Cagney: Strawberry Blonde

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

I am watching James Cagney movies this winter.

This week I’m writing about Strawberry Blonde (1941). Some listings add a “The” to the name, but the original title was just Strawberry Blonde.

Here we have another Cagney film (like Yankee Doodle Dandy) that isn’t a gangster film but does show him as a bit of a rough guy. Rough, but ultimately good.

This movie, told in one long flashback, shows a slow transformation of Cagney’s character and leaves you wondering throughout the first part of the movie whether you like him or not.

By the end, you’re rooting for him and maybe for him to get a bit of revenge on some people too.

James’ character is Biff Grimes, a young and scrappy dental student with a good heart who lives in New York City. He’s obsessed with a strawberry blonde named Virginia Brush played by Rita Hayworth, who likes to walk past the barber shop each day and rile up all the men.  I’m going to say upfront that I didn’t recognize Rita in this movie at all. First, I’m used to her as a brunette, second, I actually haven’t seen her in that many movies. (Summer of Rita? Hmmm….good idea! Spring has been reserved for Bette Davis.)

The only problem with this obsession is that his friend Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson) is also interested in Virginia.

Hugo and Virginia work to push Virginia’s friend, Amy, a nurse and women’s rights activist played by Olivia de Havilland, on to Biff, especially after Hugo promises Virginia a wealthy life if she elopes with him.

Biff has no interest in Amy, who annoys him and says solicitous and suggestive things to him to show him that women are just as good as men. We get the impression, however, that Amy doesn’t believe everything she’s saying. She simply likes to shock people.

Eventually, though, love blooms in a very authentic way between Biff and Amy, but not without some mix-ups, difficulties, and trials along the way, culminating when Hugo reveals even more of his crooked ways after he hires Biff.

You’ll have to watch the movie to see what happens.

I love Olivia de Havilland’s character in this. She wants to be bold at the same time she doesn’t want to be. It’s like how James’ character wants to be a tough guy but yet doesn’t.

The movie is ahead of its’ time in my opinion, with so many suggestive (yet not crude) subjects raised, and witty banter exchanged back and forth between James and Olivia. I was very charmed by this movie, which I watched before I officially decided I was going to do a marathon of Cagney movies.

Each time I watch one of his movies I fall more in love with him as an actor. He was witty, charming, and that grin was so infectious.  

The movie is based on a Broadway play called One Sunday Afternoon by James Hagan. It’s a bit of a musical, comedy, and drama, but not a super, super heavy drama. It was first made into a non-musical film by the same name as the play in 1933. That movie was directed by Stephen Roberts and starred Gary Cooper. Unlike the earlier picture,  Strawberry Blonde was a hit.

Director Raoul Walsh remade the film again as a full musical in 1948, according to TCM.com, changing the name back to One Sunday Afternoon, but Strawberry Blonde still remained the more popular version.

The part of Viriginia was originally supposed to be played by Ann Sheridan, the Oomph Girl from Warner Pictures, (No, I have no idea what or who that is!) but instead Rita was loaned to Warners by Columbia for the role. Sheridan was in a contract dispute with Warner at the time and refused to do it.

All the better for Rita.


Felicia Feaster wrote for TCM.com, that Hayworth “brought her typical enigmatic, frosty perfection to the role. Her fortuitous securing of the role in The Strawberry Blonde helped establish her sex queen status as the “Love Goddess.” Though a confident mantrap on camera, Hayworth was just a shy, reserved girl off, causing Cagney to marvel at how, after her scenes, she would just “go back to her chair and sit there and not communicate.’”

Olivia was also praised for her role in the film.

Many critics commented on her gift for comedy and said it matched Cagney’s perfectly in this movie and I have to agree.

A bit of trivia about the movie:

  • Hayworth received $450 per week for the film
  • She also dyed her hair for the movie to fit the title name.
  • This film marked the first time Hayworth was seen as a redhead and the only time that audiences heard her real singing voice.
  • When Warner Bros. released Strawberry Blonde on February 21, 1941, “the studio knew it had a hit on its hands.” Walsh considered it his most successful picture to date, and he called it his favorite film.
  • Cagney looked at the movie as a way to break out of playing tough guys  and it was his brother William Cagney who suggested he take the project on as a gift to their mother Carrie, “who would only live a few more years.”
  • Jack Warner (of Warner Bros) screened the 1933 film and wrote a memo to his production head Hal B. Wallis telling him to watch it also: “It will be hard to stay through the entire running of the picture, but do this so you will know what not to do.”
  • James Cagney was past forty at the time of filming but was playing much younger, and was in fact only seven years younger than his on-screen father Alan Hale.
  • The TCM print ran 99 minutes; the extra two minutes was due to a ‘follow-the-bouncing-ball’ sing-along after “The End”, to the main song “The Band Played On.”
  • In March 1941, Warner Brothers distributed this film on a double bill with another comedy, Honeymoon for Three (1941) starring Ann Sheridan and George Brent.
  • Even though IMDb and some other websites use the title “The Strawberry Blonde,” the Warner Bros. collateral at the time of release and the Warner Archives DVD do not include “The,” leaving the title as simply “Strawberry Blonde.”
  • James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland previously co-starred in The Irish in Us (1935). They both also appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935).

So, have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

If you haven’t seen it, I really would recommend it for a fun, lighthearted (for the most part) watch.

Next week I am watching Mister Roberts.

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

 Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Man of A Thousand Faces

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys


Additional sources:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034236/trivia/
https://www.tcm.com/articles/25791/the-strawberry-blonde
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strawberry_Blonde

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

Winter of Cagney: Yankee Doodle Dandy

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

For winter this year, I am watching James Cagney movies.

First up is Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) which Cagney won an Oscar for.

This is a biopic about the entertainer George Cohan. Actually, though, he was more than just an entertainer. Under that umbrella, he was a playwright, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and theatrical producer.

Don’t think you know who Cohan is?

Well, if you’ve ever heard the songs “You’re A Grand Old Flag”, “Over There”, “Yankee Doodle Dandy Boy,” or “Give My Regards to Broadway,” then you have heard some of George’s work.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is his story, but . . . with some poetic license from what I’ve been reading. Cohan comes out looking a bit better than he might have been in real life, considering his first wife divorced him for adultery and that mysteriously didn’t make the movie. The movie did portray him as a bit of an arrogant kid who pushed his way to stardom, so he wasn’t portrayed as totally perfect, however. Plus, Cohan had the final say on the movie so maybe that’s why he looked a bit better in the movie. *wink*

Cohan was born July 3, 1878 according to baptismal records but according to him and his parents, he was born on the Fourth of July. This “fact” would be used throughout his career as he asserted his bold patriotism for the United States of America.

“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I’ve got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She’s my Yankee Doodle joy”

  • From the musical Little Johnny Jones

Cohan’s was an Irish immigrant named Jeremiah (Keohane) Cohan. His mother was Helen “Nellie” Costigan Cohan, and his sister was Josephine “Josie” Cohan Niblo (1876–1916). Together the four of them would form a Vaudeville act called The Four Cohans.

George began singing and playing the violin at the age of 8 and toured with his family from 1890 to 1901.

During these years, he made famous a speech at the end of their show that you might have heard over the years, or even said yourself as a joke: “My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you.”

The Four Cohans with George on the left.

He and his sister made their Broadway debuts in 1893 in a sketch called The Lively Bootblack.

I won’t give you his entire biography here, so if you want to know even more about his life, the movie will fill you in or there is a ton of information about him online.

Many people think of James Cagney with a New York accident asking questions like, “You talking to me?” because of the many mobster-themed movies he appeared in in the 1930s. (I don’t think he actually ever said that line, though. Much like he never actually said, ‘You dirty rat! The quote was actually longer and included the words “You yellow-bellied dirty rat” in the movie Taxi, 1931.)

“There is a story that James Cagney stood on his toes while acting, believing he would project more energy that way,” Roger Ebert wrote. That sounds like a press release, but whatever he did, Cagney came across as one of the most dynamic performers in movie history–a short man with ordinary looks whose coiled tension made him the focus of every scene.”

Yankee Doodle Dandee showed there was lot more to Cagney than many moviegoers realized.

For one, Cagney could dance, which he had showcased in other movies but really was able to showcase in this movie.

Cagney could also be funny and charming — which moviegoers had seen in other movies but really saw in Yankee Doodle Dandy.  

Cagney almost didn’t get the role that he would later call his favorite, according to an article on TCM.com.

Originally Cohan and MGM had combined to make a film that would cover when Cohan had toured with his family. It would have starred Mickey Rooney. The deal collapsed because the studio head, Louis B. Mayer, refused to let Cohan have the final cut on the film.

Samuel Goldwyn then expressed an interest in making a movie with Cohan and planned on giving the role of Cohan to Fred Astaire.

Astaire turned it down, and Warner Bros. picked up the rights and cast Cagney, who at the time was being suspected of being a communist sympathizer due to being president of the Screen Actors’ Guild a — gasp! — union!

“He wanted to show his patriotism on screen,” the TCM article reads. “And the George M. Cohan story was the perfect vehicle to do that.”

Cagney broke into infamy with this movie. I am sure many of you have seen one of his most famous scenes — when he tap dances down a long flight of stairs while leaving the white house after talking to President Franklin Roosevelt. This scene, like many others in his career, was improvised by Cagney, who called it his favorite moment in the movie.

“I didn’t think of it till five minutes before I went on,” Cagney later recalled. “And I didn’t check with the director or anything; I just did it.”

Yankee Doodle Dandy was directed by Michael Curtiz (most well-known for directing Casablanca).

According to TCM and other sources online, Curtiz letting Cagney have free rein in the role is what made it such a success and made him so enamored with Cagney as an actor.

“The ordinarily hard-boiled Curtiz was so moved by the scene in which Cohan bids farewell to his dying father (Walter Huston) that he reportedly ruined a take with his loud sobs,” reads the article on TCM.com. “According to Cagney biographer Michael Freedland, tears streamed down Curtiz’s face as he stumbled away to find a handkerchief and exclaimed to Cagney, “Gott, Jeemy, that was marvelous!’”

I can speak from the experience of seeing the movie that that scene was heartbreakingly marvelous. I wasn’t super emotionally invested in the movie as I watched it, but during that scene, I teared up and failed to hold back a small sob. Maybe it’s because my parents are older, so I could relate to that scene more than I might have been able to if I had watched this when I was younger.

Critic Brenden Gill said of Cagney’s role in the film: “George M. Cohan was by all accounts something of a scoundrel. He was an impossible human being, but he was a tremendous actor, comedian, showman, and he wrote great popular songs. He exists in our memories now not as George M. Cohan but as James Cagney in the movie.”

“Cagney managed to capture this persona that Cohan created,” another critic I heard (but couldn’t find the name of) said. “It was brash. It was pushy. It was aggressive. It was funny. Very American. Very New York. And Cohan created this character as his own persona on stage, but it really became the emblem of Broadway itself.”

Cagney, according to TCM.com writer Jeremy Arnold, wanted to portray Cohan correctly, not only because Cohan — 63 at the time the movie was made —had final approval over the film, but for accuracy.

“To perfect Cohan’s distinctive, strutting style of dance,” Arnold writes. “Cagney rehearsed with choreographer John Boyle, who had worked with Cohan extensively in the 1920s. Cagney also channeled Cohan’s singing voice, which was more like rhythmic speaking, and brought his own charismatic talent to the romantic, comedic, and dramatic scenes.”

There were liberties taken with Cohan’s life, as I mentioned above. For instance, his two wives were combined into a single character. Also, the chronology and order of his parents’ death was also switched around (probably to make that death bed scene even more emotional). Additionally, in one scene when he suffers a flop with a non-musical drama called Popularity, a newspaper seller announces the torpedoing of the Lusitania. The play flopped in 1906, but the Lusitania sunk in 1915, according to TCM.

Despite these changes, most critics agree that the movie captured Cohan’s life and music perfectly.

 “Yankee Doodle Dandy, with its many flag-waving musical numbers, proved just the ticket for World War II-era audiences and became the top-grossing movie of its year, as well as Warner Bros.’ top-grossing movie to that time,” Jeremy Arnold wrote for TCM.com.

In addition to Cagney, the movie also starred Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Worf, Irene Manning, Rosemary Decamp, Jeanne Cagney (Cagney’s sister who played his sister Josie in the movie), and Eddie Foy Jr as Eddie Foy Sr.

So, a pause here. Eddie Foy Sr. was another entertainer of a similar style and also performed vaudeville with his family, The Seven Foys.

There is a movie called The Seven Little Foys (1955) starring Bob Hope as Eddie Foy Sr. and in it there is a cameo by Cagney, who portrays George M. Cohan, reprising his role from Yankee Doodle Dandy.

The two dancers face off in a very fun tap-dancing routine on a boardroom table. You can catch that here:

As for what movie watchers or critics now think of Yankee Doodle Dandy, you can find a variety of opinions online — some calling it satire to make fun of capitalism and nationalism while others say it is a disgusting display of support for capitalism and nationalism.

Some love the over-the-top patriotism and some absolutely hate it.

I guess you’ll have to make up your own mind what it promotes or represents and what it doesn’t, but what many can’t deny is the talent Cagney displays in the movie.

I definitely enjoyed seeing Cagney’s talent, but at first glance didn’t enjoy his dancing style. It was floppy and lanky instead of smooth and debonair like Gene Kelley or Fred Astaire, who I am more used to, but after seeing footage of Cohan, I now get that Cagney was imitating Cohan’s dancing style.

After hearing and seeing recordings of Cohan this week, I realized how perfectly Cagney nailed Cohan in the movie. No wonder he won the Oscar for best actor that year. It was also his only Oscar, incidentally.

Cagney pulled the role off even though “he (couldn’t) really dance or sing,” observed critic Edwin Jahiel, “but he acts so vigorously that it creates an illusion, and for dance-steps he substitutes a patented brand of robust, jerky walks, runs and other motions.”

 Ebert wrote in his review of the film : “Unlike Astaire, whose entire body was involved in every movement, Cagney was a dancer who seemed to call on body parts in rotation. When he struts across the stage in the “Yankee Doodle Dandy” number, his legs are rubber but his spine is steel, and his torso is slanted forward so steeply we’re reminded of Groucho Marx.”

 I’ll have to check out Cagney’s dancing in other movies to really get an idea of his actual style.

Cohan saw the picture shortly before he died in November 1942, by the way, and reportedly said afterward, “My God, what an act to follow.” The next morning, he sent Cagney a congratulatory telegram. And then he died. Ha! Kidding. I have no idea when he actually died but I do know he was only 64 so it was shortly after the movie was released.

I was amazed by the amazing sets for the incredible musical scenes in this movie. The scenes — which included moving sets and fireworks, and a floor like a conveyor belt that made the actors seem like they were continuously marching toward the audience — were way ahead of moviemaking at that time

Maybe that is why the movie cost so much to make, which was $1.5 million and well above the standard for the time.

Luckily, it grossed $6 million.

You can catch some of that movie/Broadway magic here:

As for Cagney’s acting in the movie, I thought it was great and engaging. Even parts that could have been a bit cheesy were enhanced by Cagney’s performance.

I loved the dancing and singing sequences throughout the movie. Those snippets were perfect introductions to the style of musicals and Broadway at the time, though that style became the style of Broadway in the future as well, thanks to Cohan.

Have you seen this one?

You can learn a bit more about Cohan in this clip:

If you want to see Cohan himself perform “Over There,” you can see that here:

And for a sneak peek of the movie, here is the trailer from when it was released:

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/)

If you would like to follow along with my Winter of Cagney and watch some of the movies yourself, here is my schedule for the winter:

 Yankee Doodle Dandy

The Man of A Thousand Faces

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

Angels With Dirty Faces

Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

White Heat

Bonus: The Seven Little Foys

Additional Resources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/24022/yankee-doodle-dandy-1942

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-yankee-doodle-dandy-1942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle_Dandy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Little_Foys

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

Comfy, Cozy Christmas: Meet Me In St. Louis and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

A vlogger I watch recently suggested watching Meet Me In St. Louis as a Christmas movie, mainly because of the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, which is sung toward the end of the movie.

I had never watched the movie because I’ve never felt like I was a big fan of Judy Garland, even though I haven’t seen her in much other than The Wizard of Oz.

I decided to give the movie a try a couple of weeks ago, though, and it turns out I don’t mind Judy as much as I thought and the movie does have a few Christmas-themed scenes (including a Christas Eve dance at the end), but it is much more than a Christmas movie.

The movie is funny, fun, warmhearted, and full of really sweet or fun songs. The dresses worn by the young women are gorgeous and it was shot in technicolor which makes all the beautiful dresses even more captivating.

The movie is a musical, which I didn’t know when I started it. I didn’t even know that this is where the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came from. I also didn’t know this is where The Trolly Song (which I thought was just called Clang, Clang, Clang Goes the Trolly) came from. (That’s the song my husband always sings when he pretends he’s looped out from a knock on the head or when he is super tired. I’d say when he is drinking, but he doesn’t drink enough to get that drunk. I told him this movie is where the song he sings is from and he said he thought it was from The Simpsons. Ha! I think Homer does sing part of it in an episode.)

Yes, I have been living under a rock for my entire life.

If you’ve seen this movie you can skip over the next paragraph where I share what the movie is about.

The movie follows the Smith family, primarily Esther Smith (Judy) and her siblings as they grow up in St. Louis. The movie shows a year in the life of the family and there isn’t really a deep plot to the movie other than Judy trying to catch the eye of the college boy next door — John Pruitt — and her sister trying to get married. I don’t find the lack of a plot a detriment of the movie, by the way. The majority of the movie follows the different situations the youngest girls get themselves in, as well as the love life of Esther and her sister, and it is a fun journey.

The movie takes place in 1903.

The parents, grandfather, and housemaid are really all secondary characters but still very fun additions.

The youngest sisters, played by Margaret O’Brien (Tootie) and Joan Carroll (Agnes), are absolutely hilarious. The scenes with them are the funniest scenes in the movie. There is one that takes place on Halloween that is so insanely crazy I found myself gasping at the verbal “brutality” of these kids. (Written with a laugh, just to explain.)



If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll need to watch and find out.

In addition to Judy, the movie also stars Lucille Bremmer, Mary Astor, Leon Ames, and Harry Davenport.

The musical was released in 1944 and based on a series of short stories by Sally Benson.

Her stories story first appeared in the New Yorker magazine between June 21, 1941 and May 23, 1942. The twelve installments were published under at The Kensington Stories with Kensington referring to the fictional street address of the “Smiths’s” house.

Benson sold the rights to MGM in 1942 and was hired to work on the screenplay, which was ultimately written by Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe with her help.

Benson published the stories as a novel of the same name with each chapter covering one month of the year the same year the movie came out.

According to AFI.com, Benson’s story was based on her own experiences growing up in St. Louis. “Tootie” was based on Benson, while “Esther” was inspired by her older sister.

The movie, incidentally, was directed by Vincent Morelli, who married Judy a year later. That marriage is a whole crazy story for another day.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane who originally wrote it to be about celebrating Christmas during wartime. At the request of Judy, though, the lyrics were tweaked and the mood of the song was uplifted a bit. Judy, who was supposed to be 17 in the movie, is singing the song to her younger (5-year-old sister) in the movie and didn’t feel it was appropriate to sing a sad song at Christmastime to a little girl.

Meet Me In St. Louis was the second-highest grossing film that year behind the Bing Crosby movie Going My Way (the prequel to The Bells of St. Mary).

The movie produced three “standards” or songs that became very popular and well-known even years later: “The Trolley Song“, “The Boy Next Door” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas“, all written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane for the film.

According to TCM.com, Meet Me in St. Louis received a very large amount of awards in 1944 and beyond. Here are some of those:

  • It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Original Song (for “The Trolley Song”), Best Musical Score and Best Writing, Screenplay.


  • In 1989 it won an ASCAP Award for the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” which they named the Most Performed Feature Film Standard.
  • The National Board of Review named it one of the top ten films of 1944.


  • In 1945 the Library of Congress selected it as one of 7 films to be the first inclusions in the library’s film collection.


  • In 2005 the American Film Institute ranked it the 10th Greatest Movie Musical of All Time.


  • In 2004 the American Film Institute ranked “The Trolley Song” from it as the 26th Greatest Movie Song of All Time.
  • In 2005 Time Magazine named it as one of the Top 100 All-Time Movies.

An interesting story I read while researching this movie was that Margaret O’Brien’s juvenile Oscar was stolen by a former maid of her family’s. The Academy gave her a replacement Oscar, but she still hoped to one day have her original Oscar returned to her. She used to search flea markets and collector auctions for it.

The story is a bit long, but the Oscar was eventually found and returned to her during a special ceremony held by the Academy.

At the time she said, “For all those people who have lost or misplaced something that was dear to them, as I have, never give up the dream of searching—never let go of the hope that you’ll find it because after all these many years, at last, my Oscar has been returned to me.”

There is plenty more information about the movie online, including on the TCM.com website: https://www.tcm.com/articles/musical/18523/meet-me-in-st-louis-1944

Have you ever seen this one?

______

Resources:

American Film Institute: https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/24066

TCM.com: https://www.tcm.com/articles/musical/18523/meet-me-in-st-louis-1944

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 12 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting the Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year.

Our movie this week was The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain.

There are three things to know about this movie: It is based on a Welsh legend (but not actually true), it a romantic comedy, and it has the longest title of any movie I have ever watched.

First, let’s have a little description from online:

During the days of World War I, a small Welsh town relies on its local mountain as a source of pride. When two English cartographers, Reginald Anson (Hugh Grant) and George Garrad (Ian McNeice), arrive to measure the mountain, they discover the landmark is 16 feet short of achieving the official mountain classification. Disheartened that their mountain has been deemed a hill, the townsfolk devise a plan to make up those 16 feet. Meanwhile, Anson falls for a local woman (Tara Fitzgerald).

This movie has all the things I like — Quirky characters and story, beautiful views, dry British humor, and a bit of romance.

 Hugh Grant is adorable in it and Colm Meany ads a bit of humor (even if he is a dirty scoundrel).

It is free of bad language, sex, or violence.

Well, let’s talk about the sex a bit. There are suggestions of it being engaged in, but none is shown.

The movie starts with the narrator explaining that a lot of people in Wales, where the movie takes place, have the same last name so people began to attach their occupation to their name. This is why a little boy wants to know why one man had a very long occupation attached to his name. He asks his grandfather and the grandfather begins to tell the story.

We then switch to Hugh Grant’s character, Reginald Anson (there is no way to say that name without using a British accent by the way. Try it. I dare you. It doesn’t sound right in an American accent) riding into a small village with another man, George Garrad, portrayed by Ian McNeice.

They pull up to a barn and inn, looking for a place to stay. The bar is owned by Colm Meany’s character.

Colm Meany is called Morgan the Goat. Why is he called this? Well, Morgan is taking advantage of the fact that man of the men of this village are in France fighting in the war. He’s keeping the wives of these men company, shall we say. This is why the church is full of babies that look a lot like Morgan, which absolutely infuriates the minister, Rev. Jones, portrayed by Kenneth Griffith.

So, Reginald and George explain to Morgan that they are there to conduct some surveys to record the topography of the area for the war effort because it is important to know the lay of the land in case the enemy invades.

If they are going to be checking out the local topography, Morgan suggests they check out the only mountain in Wales —  Ffynnon Garw.

George a bit of a laugh but eventually they agree they will check the “mountain” out as part of their effort. The only problem is that they don’t really think it is a mountain. See, to be considered a mountain in the UK, the elevation has to be at least 1,000 feet. The cartagrophes don’t think that will be the case when they measure. This upsets the people of the town who have pride in the fact they have the only mountain in their country.

The reverend is especially riled up at the prospect of the mountain being classified as a hill.

When it is discovered that Ffynnon Garw isn’t a mountain, well, all hell breaks loose and many touching, ridiculous, and heartbreaking moments unfold as Morgan decides to delay Reginald and George from leaving while the town’s people find a way to make the hill a mountain.

The reverend and Morgan don’t get along at all but the reverend agrees that it is important to make the hill a mountain to boost morale of the village during the war.

Some of the fun or interesting characters in this movie are the twins with the same name, Johnny Shellshocked (who suffered PTSD in the war), William the Petroleum Man, and Davies the School.

One con of this movie, for me, though, I loved it, was the romance. It was late in the movie, no time for development and I felt like it was just thrown in as a last-minute idea. The posters for this movie with the actress and Hugh Grant on the front are baffling to me because she really wasn’t that important of a part of the movie for me.

Some trivia/facts about the movie:

  • This movie was written by  Ifor David Monger, the grandfather of the director Christopher Monger who told his son about the real village of Taff’s Well, in the old county of Glamorgan, and its neighboring Garth Hill.
  • Due to 20th century urbanisation of the area, it was filmed in the more rural Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin in Powys.
  • The narrator begins by remarking that “For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there’s an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales.” Actually there is a known reason: as part of their increased domination of Wales in the 16th century, the English abolished the Welsh system of patronymics and introduced surnames arbitrarily. (source IMbd)
  • “Despite the implication in the film, and the real-life local legend, the story is fiction. Historians have determined that the mound at the summit of Garth Mountain (the inspiration for the movie) is a Bronze Age burial mound. In 1999, local officials and the History Society placed a sign on the mountain, telling the many climbers who’ve been coming there because of the movie’s popularity of the site’s real significance – and warning that they face two years in prison if they disturb the burial mound.” (source IMbd)
  • When Williams the Petroleum breaks a piece of the Englishmen’s car and pretends to discover it, he says he doesn’t know the English name for it, but in Welsh it’s called a “beth-yn-galw.” “Beth-yn-galw” translates more or less to “whatchamacallit”. (source IMbd)

To read what Erin thought about the movie, visit her blog:

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think of it?

You can see the rest of the list of movies in this cool graphic that Erin made:

Comfy, Cozy Cinema: The Young In Heart

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Young In Heart.

And, yes, that title is the actual title: The Young IN Heart.

I feel like I cheated a little bit this week because not only have I watched this movie, but I also wrote about it when I watched it for the Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. That means   I had an advantage to Erin when it came to writing this week’s post because I am going to quote a lot of my original post.

 This is part of what I wrote in that post: “I absolutely loved Douglas in this one. He played a more prominent role than in Gunga Din and was simply … shall I sound completely cheesy? Yes, I shall. He was completely delightful.

At one point, I texted my friend Erin that a drunk Douglas is adorable.”

Yes, I did text Erin this past January to tell her he was adorable. Yes, I am weird.

Before I forget, I found this one for free on YouTube.

So, let’s get to the movie.

The Carlton family, of which Douglas is a part of in this movie, are not a family you would want to know in real life. They are swindlers and grifters. They mooch off and manipulate people to scrape by in life.

We open the movie in the French Riviera with Douglas’s character (Rick) ready to marry a young woman whose father is rich.

Everything falls apart, though, when the police find out about the family and reveal their conniving ways to the family of Rick’s future wife. The family is told to get out of France and end up on a train where they meet a ridiculously sweet woman (Minnie Dupree) who has only recently come into a great sum of money.

Ironically, her last name is Fortune. George-Anne sets out to swindle the woman out of paying for their lunch, but the plan expands as the woman explains she lives alone in a big mansion left to her by a former suitor. She is saying how lovely it would be if all of them came to stay with her when there is a train derailment. Their car tips and at first Rick and George-Anne believe the old woman has died. She’s still breathing so the siblings carry her from the car and George-Anne covers her with her own coat.

We begin to wonder if the family is rotten through and through and are still playing things up as the woman later recovers and invites the family to come live with her.

George-Anne suggests to the family that if Miss Fortune believes they are a respectable family she will be more willing to let them live there and maybe even leave them money when she leaves. To play up this ruse she suggests the men get actual jobs and she and her mother act like caretakers and women who don’t swindle people out of money.

This is all very baffling to the family who has always cheated and stole for a living. When the men decide George-Anne’s plan might work and go to look for jobs, the scenes that follow are some of the most hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments I’ve seen in a movie.

Spinning around in the background of the family’s drama is the romance between George-Anne and Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson), who she originally considered marrying when she thought he was rich. Duncan learned she was a con-artist along with everyone else and was shattered but still ends up chasing her down on the train back to London to tell her he still loves her.

The rest of Rick’s family — father, Col. Anthony “Sahib” Carleton (Roland Young), mother Marmey Carlton (Billie Burke), and daughter George-Anne (Janet Gaynor) — are thrilled with this plan because they know it will also set them all up for a rich life. George Anne might be even more thrilled because then she can marry a poor Scottish man who she’s fallen in love with, and the rest of her family will support her financially.

She tells him to get lost, believing he’s much too good for her and . . . well, you’ll have to see where all that ends up.

Rick is also having his own romance with Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard), a secretary and the engineering business he applies at for a job.

This is the second – or shall I say third – movie I’ve watched in recent months with Billie Burke and there is no mistaking that voice if you have seen The Wizard of Oz.

Yes, she is Glenda the Good Witch.

The screenplay for this movie was written by Paul Osborn and adapted by Charles Bennett from the serialized novel, The Gay Banditti by I. A. R. Wylie. That title certainly would have had a different connotation in the modern day, eh?

Anyhow, the novel appeared in parts in The Saturday Evening Post from February 26 to March 26, 1938.

The movie was released in November of the same year. They certainly worked fast back then.

I found it interesting when I read that Broadway actresses Maude Adams and Laurette Taylor screen-tested for the role of Miss Fortune and that the footage is the only audio-visual samples that existed of both of them.

The movie was produced by – can you guess? Because it feels like every movie I write about lately is produced by him.

Yes. David Selznick. The man who produced what is considered one of the biggest movie triumphs in the world — Gone with the Wind.

This movie was one of many he produced leading up to Gone With The Wind. The Prisoner of Zenda, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, was another. Goddard was actually rumored to be being considered to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, which later, of course, went to Vivien Leigh.

While I was watching the part of the movie where Mr. Carleton goes to apply for a job, I was fascinated by the fancy car they showed. It was spinning like a pig on a spit at the front of the building and it was a very modern looking car and a very modern looking set up altogether.

According to Ultimate Car Page and Wikipedia,  https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/1905/Phantom-Corsair.html

The six-passenger 2-door sedan Flying Wombat featured in that scene was actually the one-of-a-kind prototype Phantom Corsair. The Phantom Corsair concept car was built in 1938 and designed by Rust Heinz of the H. J. Heinz family and Maurice Schwartz of the Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company in Pasadena, California.”

I also found it interesting that this was Gaynor’s last movie before retiring while she was at the top of her career. She made one last movie in 1957 called Bernardine.

Like I said above, I loved this movie. It was just what I needed to watch this week with so much sadness going on in the world. There was a lot of humor from all the cast, but Douglas really had me smiling throughout. Not only because he is my latest old Hollywood star crush (watch out Paul Newman!).

Have you seen this one? What did you think of it?

You can read Erin’s impression of the movie on her blog.

Next week we will move into a bit of spooky with Coraline.

The rest of our movie list can be found on this graphic:

10 Classic Movies You Can Watch for Free on Tubi

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 14 Comments

I was surprised this past weekend to find a ton of classic movies for free on Tubi so I thought I’d share some of the better classic (before 1970) movies with my blog readers today. I have watched these and really enjoyed them! I’ll have a part two for this one down the road sometime.

Talk of the Town

Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant), who was wrongfully convicted of arson, manages to escape from prison. While on the lam, he finds the home of Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur), an old friend from school for whom he harbors a secret affection. Nora believes in Dilg’s innocence and lets him pose as her landscaper; meanwhile, Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman), a legal expert, has just begun renting a room in Nora’s home. Lightcap, like Dilg, also has eyes for Nora, leading to a series of comic misadventures.

My Man Godfrey

Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a forgotten man to win a scavenger hunt, and no one fits that description more than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.

The Philadelphia Story

This classic romantic comedy focuses on Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), a Philadelphia socialite who has split from her husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), due both to his drinking and to her overly demanding nature. As Tracy prepares to wed the wealthy George Kittredge (John Howard), she crosses paths with both Dexter and prying reporter Macaulay Connor (James Stewart). Unclear about her feelings for all three men, Tracy must decide whom she truly loves.

The Third Man

Set in postwar Vienna, Austria, “The Third Man” stars Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, who arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to find him dead. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, running into interference from British officer Maj. Calloway (Trevor Howard) and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover, Anna (Alida Valli).



The Manchurian Candidate

 Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.

Merrily We Live

The wealthy Kilbourne family is tired of Mrs. Kilbourne (Billie Burke) hiring ex-convicts as servants. After a servant steals the family’s silver, Mrs. Kilbourne agrees to never hire another drifter for help. But when a rough-looking man named Rawlins (Brian Aherne) arrives at her doorstep, she cannot help but hire him as the new chauffeur. As Rawlins catches the eye of their oldest daughter, Jerry (Constance Bennett), the Kilbournes realize that he may not be the vagrant he claims to be.

Bringing Up Baby

Harried paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant) has to make a good impression on society matron Mrs. Random (May Robson), who is considering donating one million dollars to his museum. On the day before his wedding, Huxley meets Mrs. Random’s high-spirited young niece, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a madcap adventuress who immediately falls for the straitlaced scientist. The ever-growing chaos — including a missing dinosaur bone and a pet leopard — threatens to swallow him whole.

Without Reservations

Famous author “Kit” Masterson (Claudette Colbert) needs an actor to portray the lead character, a soldier, in the upcoming movie version of her book. While on a train to California, she meets Marine Rusty Thomas (John Wayne) and his friend, Dink (Don DeFore). She begins to imagine the macho Rusty as the lead, and attempts to stay in his company. However, since Rusty did not like her book, Kit must conceal her identity, all the while growing more attracted to her potential actor.

It Happened One Night

In Frank Capra’s acclaimed romantic comedy, spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) impetuously marries the scheming King Westley, leading her tycoon father (Walter Connolly) to spirit her away on his yacht. After jumping ship, Ellie falls in with cynical newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who offers to help her reunite with her new husband in exchange for an exclusive story. But during their travels, the reporter finds himself falling for the feisty young heiress.

A Woman of Distinction

Reserved college dean Susan Middlecott (Rosalind Russell) is all business and can’t be bothered with love. However, when Susan meets charming British astronomy professor Alec Stevenson (Ray Milland), it seems that romance could be in the air. Though she resists being paired with Alec, things don’t go as planned — particularly when a publicity agent and even Susan’s amiable father (Edmund Gwenn) get involved. Soon, Susan may just be in love, whether she likes it or not.

Let me know if you check any of these out!

Classic Movie Impressions: The Talk of the Town (1942)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

This past weekend I watched the movie The Talk of the Town with Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman. I found this movie, among many other good ones, free on Tubi. It is also currently free on YouTube.

I had seen it before as a suggested move but ignored it, thinking it was a drama. After watching it, I asked myself, “What took me so long to watch this one?!”

I loved this movie and while I always love Cary Grant, I once again loved Ronald Colman who I first saw in The Prisoner of Zenda earlier this year.

This movie starts with a fire at a factory where a man dies. Cary, portraying Leopold Dilg, is arrested for arson and murder.

Soon he’s breaking out of jail and escaping through the woods on a rainy night. He makes his way in the dark toward a small house while dogs hunt him down. The name of the house is Sweetbrook and there is a woman inside getting it ready — maybe for a guest.

Leopold breaks in the door, startling the woman.

“Miss Shelley,” he says. “Please…let me…” And then he faints and falls down the stairs.

Miss Shelley wakes him up with a bucket full of water and he asks if she can stay at the house, which he knows is a rental. She tells him he can’t stay because she knows he has escaped jail. There is a knock on the door before she can finish explaining and she tells him to run upstairs and hide.

There is a Professor Michael Lightcap at the door and he’s standing in the rain. He reminds her that he’s rented the house out and he’s here to stay. Miss Shelley, whose first name is Nora, panics because Leopold is hiding upstairs and she doesn’t want the professor to find him.

Things will get more complicated as she makes up an excuse to stay in the house overnight to make sure the professor doesn’t find Leopold.

Complications just keep arising as Nora offers to become the professor’s secretary and housekeeper during his stay, a senator arrives to tell Professor Lightcap he’s up for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, and Leopold walks down one morning to argue about the role of the law in society and Nora has to introduce him as the gardener.

This is a non-stop movie full of hilarious mix-ups, near misses, and a love-triangle that won’t be resolved until the very last minute, literally, of the movie.

As I said above, I loved this movie.

It was engaging, funny, witty, and captivating. Mixed in all the lighthearted moments were a few philosophical moments about law and justice.

Jean Arthur was delightful as Nora Shelley, always quickly rescuing the day just at the last moment, taking care of both Leopold and the professor.

Ronald Colman pulled off the staunch, uptight professor well and it was fun to see him “let down  his hair” a bit later in the film. He didn’t let down his hair. It’s just a saying, of course.

Cary walked the line between an aggressive rebel and a falsely accused victim, putting his usual romantic charm on the backburner for most of the film and bringing it out in more subtle moments. This was a movie where he wasn’t a pursuing a woman as much as he was his own freedom and justice.

I spent much of the last half of the movie wondering which one of the men Nora was actually falling for and I think she was doing the same thing. She’d gathered affection for both of them but wasn’t sure if either of them had for her.

This movie was nominated for seven Oscars but it was about the same time that America started the war so more “patriotic” movies got the nod that year. Ironically the best picture went to Mrs. Minier, which was set in England, however.

According to TCM, even without the wins, The Talk of the Town “still marked an important moment in the careers of its stars Cary Grant and Ronald Colman.”

For Cary, it was a new movie after not working for a year and he was nominated for an Oscar as well. He didn’t win the Oscar but he did have his name legally changed  his name from Archibald Alexander Leach, became an American citizen and married heiress Barbara Hutton.

Colman was 51 at the time and needed a spark to reinvent his career. The Talk of the Town worked and he went on to star in Random Harvest, which earned him another Oscar nomination. He lost that to James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, but still kept him at a high point in his career. Films such as Kismet (1944) and Champagne for Caesar (1950).  He also finally earned his Oscar for portraying the delusional Shakespearean actor in A Double Life (1947).

I found it interesting to read that there was tension between Grant and Colman since both were used to being the lead actor and that tension was written into the script as they aggressively bantered back and forth with each other.

I also was fascinated to learn that two endings were filmed — one with Jean Arthur choosing Cary and the other with Colman. The director allowed the preview audiences to choose who she ended up with.

Trivia:

  • filming was to begin on January 17, 1942, the day Hollywood learned the sad news of Carole Lombard’s death in a plane crash. Stevens halted work on the set and sent both cast and crew home.
  •  
  • Screenwriter Sidney Buchman (who co-wrote the script with Irwin Shaw) was blacklisted in the 1950s. Consequently, Buchman, one of the men who penned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), left the U.S. and began working in Fox’s European division. Buchman would remain in France until his death in 1975.

When the professor is unconscious on the floor, Tilney (Rex Ingram) asks Sam if he is a doctor. Ironically, Rex Ingram was himself a trained physician in real life.

Cary Grant and Ronald Colman were both paid at least $100,000 for their work in the film. Jean Arthur, who was in Harry Cohn’s doghouse and just coming off suspension, was only paid $50,000.


Whilst many characters find Leopold Dilg’s penchant for adding an egg to his borscht unique (so much so that it becomes a means of determining his whereabouts), it was not an uncommon practice to add an egg to borscht in Poland and in Mennonite communities in Eastern Europe.

A radio theatre presentation of The Talk of the Town (1942) was broadcast on CBS radio on the Lux Radio Theatre on 5/17/1943 with Cary Grant, Ronald Colman, and Jean Arthur recreating their roles from the movie. It’s a 60-minute adaptation of the movie.

Nora tells the professor that he is, “as whiskered as the Smith Brothers.” This refers to a brand of cough drops with an illustration of the Smith Brothers on the front, both of whom have a beard. First introduced in 1852, they remained the most popular brand for a century.


Memorable quotes:

Well, it’s a form of self-expression. Some people write books. Some people write music. I make speeches on street corners.

– Leopold Dilg

What is the law? It’s a gun pointed at somebody’s head. All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not.

– Leopold Dilg

Stop saying “Leopold” like that, tenderly. It sounds funny. You can’t do it with a name like Leopold.

– Leopold Dilg

This is your law and your finest possession – it makes you free men in a free country. Why have you come here to destroy it? If you know what’s good for you, take those weapons home and burn them! And then think… think of this country and of the law that makes it what it is. Think of a world crying for this very law! And maybe you’ll understand why you ought to guard it.  – Michael Lightcap

He’s the only honest man I’ve come across in this town in 20 years. Naturally, they want to hang him. – Sam Yates

Sources:

TCM.com https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/92288/the-talk-of-the-town#articles-reviews?articleId=187407

Summer of Angela: A Life At Stake (1954) with minor spoilers

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies for the Summer of Angela.

Up this week was A Life At Stake, another crime noir “B-movie” and another chance for Angela to show her evil side. Honestly, she’s been evil in a lot of the movies I watched with her throughout this summer, which cracks me up since a lot of people associate her with being sweet in kind from things like Murder She Wrote and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

This movie was not the best I’ve ever seen plot-wise but the dialogue was actually very well written and the sexual tension was something I didn’t expect for a 1954 movie.

The movie is essentially about a man who is very paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him. Or, as Google describes it: “After an out of work architect accepts a business proposition from a married woman, he soon begins to suspect her motives, and fear for his life.”

Edward Shaw, portrayed by Keith Andes had a business failing and now he’s been approached by a lawyer with the prospect of a new business.

Edward tells the lawyer he really doesn’t really want to get involved. He keeps a $1000 bill framed on his wall to remind him of his failures and encourage him to try again. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a $1,000 bill by the way.

Anyhow, I digress, the lawyer puts him in contact with Doris Hillman (Angela), wife of Gus Hillman (Douglass Dumbrille). Edward goes to Doris’s home and the housekeeper says he needs to call out before he goes to the pool because Doris has been known to swim in the nude. Edward quips back, “That’s okay. I’ve been known to swim in the nude too.”

Doris isn’t naked but she does tell Edward he should have called out. From their first meeting the flirting begins in earnest. Doris even covers herself with a towel but removes the top of her swim suit underneath it because she says it’s uncomfortable.

Eventually they get to business talks and Doris says Gus wants Edward to run the company, buying up property with money Gus will give him and for Doris to sell the property using her past real estate experience.

Edward is agreeable but feels suspicious about it all, especially when Doris says they will need to take an insurance policy out on him for half a mil. He doesn’t, however, seem to feel suspicious about Doris and later that night at home when he gets a call, he asks his land lady if it is a woman calling. It is clear he’s hopeful Doris will be calling soon and about a lot more than business.

Doris does call another day and asks him to meet her a hotel room. From there he’s laying it on heavy, flirting all over the place, but she lets him know she’s not interested. She’s only interested in business. Edward (sort of a  horny jerk if you ask me) leaves but later that night Doris pulls up outside his apartment.

She says something flirty and then before we know it, he’s in the car practically shoving his tongue own her throat.

All is going well with their little liaisons and business dealings until Edward meets Doris’s sister, Madge (Claudia Barrett). Madge thinks he’s just lovely and starts hitting on him. She invites him to dinner in front of Doris and Gus and because he doesn’t want Gus to know about his affair with Doris, he agrees.

During dinner Madge drops a bombshell and says that Gus is Doris’s second husband because her first husband died a few years ago in an accident. What’s weird is that Doris and Gus were in a business with him too and when he died Gus and Doris got the insurance money since they’d taken out a policy on each of them for the business.

Edward is incensed. He had a feeling Doris and Gus were up to something and now he knows what it is. They really do want to kill him and get the money for the insurance policy they took out in his name.

He’s still thinking about this when Doris calls and says she wants to show him something.

He reluctantly agrees and she drives him up on a hill. She shows him some property she says will be great for development but when she goes to park, the brake slips and the car keeps rolling. She gets it in park and says she’s going to go get the property owner because he said he would show them around.

After she leaves, though, with Edward sitting in the passenger side, the car starts to roll toward a bank with a long drop and Edward just barely stops it.

That cinches it for him. Doris and Gus are in on this together and they are going to kill him.

I won’t give away the ending but most of the rest of the 70 minute movie (yes, it’s that short) will be Edward waffling back and forth between suspecting the couple and being in love with Doris while Madge is in love with Edward and knows all about the affair. Later she also knows about Edward’s suspicions.

This is a dark movie and it took the path I thought it might but I did think there might be more of a plot twist toward the end. Actually, there did seem to be a bit of a plot twist based on something said by a character right at the end but I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it or not.

I will share that I did read Cat’s review (found on her blog Cat’s Wire)   before finishing this post up and I have to agree that I did not really connect with or like the main character.

I don’t think I would have cried much if he had been murdered (okay, so I gave a little away here…..he isn’t murdered). He was very unlikable and rude. He wanted to have his little fling with Doris but also keep her and her husband from killing him. He was sort of ruled by his privates to me and it severely affected his judgment. And though there were some good lines in this one – the writing overall was just not very strong.

I’m sure this is just motion blur in the image, but all I can think of when I see Angela’s hand in this photo is that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry dates a woman with “man hands.”

I liked Angela’s performance and thought she succeeded once again in pulling off playing someone evil and making it hard for the viewer to figure out if she was really in love with Edward or not.

I listened to an interview with Angela last week when writing about The Picture of Dorian Gray, and she said she made a lot of not-so-great movies over the years. This may be one of them she was referring to.

The movie was directed by Paul Guilfoyle, for those who care about such things. The film was restored in 2021 and resulted in a few noir crime movie buffs blogging about it.

One of those, Michael Barrett from the site Pop Matters, wrote: “You’d have to know me to understand how unlikely it is that I’d never heard of this picture, but the commentary by scholar Jason A. Ney points out that this film is so obscure, it’s not listed in most noir references, despite the presence of a major star. So this might count as more of a rediscovery than restoration.”

About the acting and plot he writes, “The film runs only 76 minutes, but a bunch of stuff happens at a nice clip, sometimes too quickly for us to analyze how much adds up, with some elements more obvious than others. In a sense, everyone is clumsy and transparent, and that feels reasonably credible. The story mixes common sense (e.g., going to the cops and the insurance company) with devious cupidity and lust amongst tawdry, small-minded people.”

Glenn Erickson on Trailers from Hell wrote: “Filmed in 1954, producer Hank McCune’s A Life at Stake is notable for its fairly competent production and a decent if somewhat thrill-challenged screenplay — and the fact that it stars an actress one wouldn’t think would be associated with an 11-day cheapie thriller. The great Angela Lansbury is the odd star out on a list of creatives that reads like a call sheet for ambitious Hollywood underachievers, all thirsting for the right show to get their career in motion.”

I have to agree with Erickson when he writes: “The movie generates some tension but can’t quite convince us that Ed Shaw is as helpless as presented.”

I enjoyed Erickson’s entire review and background so if you would like to know even more about the film and Angela’s role in it, please check it out.

Some facts and trivia:

  • “The unusual convertible Doris Hillman (Dame Angela Lansbury) drove was a Kaiser Darrin. Only 435 production Darrins and six prototypes were built. Its entry doors slid on tracks into the front fender wells behind the front wheels, which was patented in 1946, had no side windows and a three-position Landau top. The car’s only criticism by enthusiasts was the front grill, which looked like it “wanted to give you a kiss.” (Source: imdb)
  • This was an independent feature produced by Hank McCune, who briefly starred in his own free-wheeling TV sitcom, The Hank McCune Show.  (source: Pop Matters)
  • McCune created the story and hired people from his television series, including writer Russ Bender and supporting actor Frank Maxwell. (source: Pop Matters)
  • The director’s wife, Kathleen Mulqueen, plays Shaw’s mom-like secretary. (source: Pop Matters)
  • Directly from imbd.com: “In the first scene, Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) roams about his room in the boarding house wearing only form-fitting pajama bottoms and stripped to the waist, giving audiences ample chance to view his impressive musculature from every conceivable angle. In a comic twist, an attorney enters the room, and one of his first lines of dialogue to Edward is “Come now, you’re not the first man to lose his shirt!””
  • In order to please the Italian music unions, an agreed number of American films had to be re-scored by Italian composers for release in Italy. A bit of irony is that Les Baxter had his original music replaced by Costantino Ferri, Baxter himself would later join AIP and re-score over a dozen movies previously done by Italian composers. (Source: imbd)
  • When Edward Shaw (Keith Andes) gets into a taxi after leaving his office, in the background, the old Sunset Theatre is seen, which was located on Western Avenue just north of Sunset Boulevard; the double feature shown on the marquee is Da Vinci also Julius Caesar (with Marlon Brando) , which dates the shot as May 1954. The theatre no longer exists. The intersection has been redeveloped.

Left on my Summer of Angela list for August are:

August 22 – I’ve decided to substitute A Long Hot Summer for All Fall Down for a couple reasons — I’ve watched A Long Hot Summer before and it will allow me to admire Paul (Newman) again and I watched a preview for the film and this annoying kid kept calling the main character Barry-Barry and that just seemed super, super annoying. Plus, I’ve heard it is a dark film. I originally wanted to watch it because I’ve never seen a Warren Beatty film (don’t you dare ever remind me of Dick Tracy! Never! Ever! I would like to burn that memory out of my brain with the end of a cigarette! My brother and I walked out of that film and I have never attempted to watch it again and I still have PTSD!). I can always watch another Warren Beatty film instead.

August 29 – Something for Everyone

If you want to read about some of the other movies I watched, you can find them here:

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The Manchurian Candidate

National Velvet

The Pirates of Penzance

Gaslight

The Pirates of Penzance

Gaslight

Please Murder Me

Death on The Nile

The Court Jester

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sources:

https://www.popmatters.com/paul-guilfoyle-life-at-stake

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047178/trivia/

https://trailersfromhell.com/a-life-at-stake/