Category: Movie Impresssions

Summer of Angela: National Velvet (1944)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Movie Impresssions, Summer of Angela17 Comments

This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

Up this week I watched National Velvet, which Angela only has a very small part in. It was  her third movie and she was 19-years old.

This was after she had won an Oscar in her first movie, Gaslight. This was certainly not a film I would expect an Oscar-winning actress in, but it was a sweet, cozy, and wholesome film.

I find it funny that Angela was playing a character who was supposed to be younger than she actually was in real life.

Her character, Edwina Brown, was supposed to be 14 in the movie. She was the most mature 14-year-old I ever saw.

But let’s get back to what National Velvet is about.

Movie description:

When Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), an equine-loving 12-year-old living in rural Sussex, becomes the owner of a rambunctious horse, she decides to train it for England’s Grand National race. Aided by former jockey Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) and encouraged by her family, the determined Velvet gets her steed, affectionately called “The Pie,” ready for the big day. However, a last-minute problem arises with the jockey and an unexpected rider must step in as a replacement.


The movie, released in 1945 was based on the 1935 book, National Velvet, by Enid Bagnold. It was directed by Clarence Leon Brown.

It begins with Velvet Brown and her sisters at school. Her older sister is daydreaming about boys while Velvet is daydreaming about horses.

She wants to ride horses all of the time and on her way home from school she sees a horse after meeting wandering jockey Mi Taylor, who is actually on his way to see her mother. She doesn’t know Mi is a former jockey, but she thinks he is fascinating anyhow. The horse Velvet sees is called The Pie, or at least that is what she calls him. He’s wild and crazy and escapes the paddock where he is kept, leading an absolutely huge stone wall.

Mi is excited when he sees the jump but it isn’t until later that we will learn why.

Velvet stops The Pie from running and the owner says she should be more careful because he is wild. Velvet takes Mi home to her parents and he presents an autograph book to her mother. The book has her name in it and he wants to know how she knew his father.

She doesn’t tell him that night but we learn later in the movie how they knew each other. After some humorous moments, Mi is invited to stay with the family and later in the movie The Pie, a troublemaker horse, is auctioned off and the Brown family buys a ticket, hoping to win him for Velvet.

Highlights for me:

This movie had beautiful scenery.

It was supposed to take place in England but was actually filmed primarily in California and very few of the actors used British accents, other than a couple of actual English actors, including Angela.

I love watching The Pie race across the gorgeous hills with the backdrop of the ocean.

Angela wasn’t in the movie very long at all but when she was, she had some fun moments, and it was really fun to see her so young. I’m really looking forward to watching her in Gaslight, when she was even younger.

I loved Velvet’s mother. The actress (Anne Revere, who won an Oscar for her performance) pulled her off perfectly. She seemed stern at first, but she was truly the glue that held the family together and the motivation for Velvet to reach for her dreams.

Velvet’s mother crossed the channel when she was young, something no other woman had done before. When Velvet wants to race her horse in England’s Grand National, her mother wanted her daughter to have the same excitement she had with her accomplishment.

“We’re alike,” Mrs. Brown tells her. “I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You’re twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early; but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life.”

Mrs. Brown had quite a few good quotes in the movie actually. Here is another one:

“What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to overcome?”

She was my favorite character.

What I thought of Angela in the movie

As I’ve mentioned above, Angela was in this movie very little. In the parts she was in she was very good and provided humor or sweet moments.

Here character, Edwina, was starting to get interested in boys and Velvet was excited to tell their teacher about Edwina meeting a boy later that night after the last day of school. Of course, when Edwina walks past the boy she intends to meet later she ignores him.

Velvet says she doesn’t understand why she did that and Edwina responds with, “Velvet, you’re too young to understand some things.”

The sisters, their arms around each other as they walk, talk about growing up.

“Haven’t you really felt keen about anything?” Edwina asks.

“Oh yes!” Velvet says looking at a horse as they pass.

“Horses!” Edwina says with an eyeroll. “What’s it feel like to be in love with a horse?”

“I lose my lunch,” Velvet says.

“Oh no,” Edwina says with a dramatic flourish, touching her hand to her throat and upper chest. “It’s here where you feel it. It skips a beat.”

And off she wanders to follow Teddy who has just ridden by on his bike.

Later, when Mr. Brown is tucking the three girls in at night, Edwina has just come in from seeing Teddy a bit earlier and is now in bed with the covers up to her chin. She’s “fast asleep” and her father is amazed she can sleep through all the noise.

Before he leaves the room he tells Edwina she’d better change into her nightclothes and Edwina is furious he found her out.

I’m guessing that she intended to sneak out that night.

Later in the movie she shows her true teenage self when she yells that she’s sick of hearing about Velvet’s horse and hopes he dies.

She apologizes for this outburst before Velvet leaves to go the Grand National, hugging her sister and telling her she should have never said it.

What I thought overall:

I didn’t expect to like this movie. Elizabeth Taylor’s little child voice was a bit annoying to me at first because it was almost as if it was overdone.

I just decided that was her voice and got used to it finally. Then I really enjoyed the movie, especially the humorous moments among the family members, including Velvet’s little brother Donald. He was hilarious and reminded me of kids I’ve met before.

This exchange was so cute:

Donald Brown: I was sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: Donald, you told a story, didn’t you?

Donald Brown: Yes, sir, it was a story.

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, you know what to do.

Donald Brown: What?

Mr. Herbert Brown: You say you’re sorry.

[Donald puts his head on his hand]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well?

Mrs. Brown: He’s thinking.

Mr. Herbert Brown: [to Donald] Well, make up your mind.

Donald Brown: Alright, I’m sorry.

[continues eating his dinner]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, go on. Sorry for what?

Donald Brown: For being sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: That boy will make a lawyer.

What Angela said about the movie:

At a Lifetime Achievement award ceremony for Elizabeth Taylor, Angela talked about meeting Elizabeth and how she (Angela) felt like she was superior to Elizabeth who was seven years younger.

“I had already done Gaslight and I was playing a 14-year-old, your sister and I thought I was really beyond that, you know, I was all of 18 and smoked cigarettes with Charles Boyer and worked with Ingred Bergman,” she said with a laugh.

In an interview with Studio 10 shortly before she died, Angela said she and Elizabeth remained friends from the time they met on National Velvet until Elizabeth died in 2011. Angela presented Elizabeth with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993 and talked about Elizabeth’s impact on the industry and said when she first met her on the set of National Velvet she knew there was something special about her.

I couldn’t find many other interviews where Angela talked about National Velvet, but I am sure they are out there.

A bit of trivia or facts:


  • Elizabeth, 11 when filming started, did most of her own riding and stunts, bonding with the horse for months leading up to the film.
  • The Pie, real name King Charles, was gifted to Elizabeth Taylor for her birthday when filming was over.
  • Andy Rooney’s scenes had to be filmed first and in one month because he had been drafted by the Army and was expected to show up for duty June of 1944.
  • The movie was released during World War II, during a time when a wholesome story was really needed.
  • The equine star, The Pie, was played by a 7-year-old Thoroughbred called King Charles. A grandson of the legendary Man o’ War, King Charles was reportedly purchased by MGM for $800. 
  • Elizabeth was originally told she couldn’t have the role because she didn’t yet have boobs. Over the next few months Elizabeth, who loved the National Velvet book, started a special diet full of high protein, trained heavily, exercised and grew three inches from October to December. She returned to tell the producer who said she needed boobs that she had come back with boobs!
  • National Velvet won a total of five Academy Award nominations, including one for Brown as Best Director; and two Oscars — for Anne Revere as Best Supporting Actress as Velvet’s understanding mother and Robert Kern for Film Editing.
  • After the winners of the Oscars had been announced, an Academy spokesman said that Taylor had narrowly missed winning a special Oscar for best juvenile performance — an award that went instead to Peggy Ann Garner for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1944).
  • Anne Revere’s performance as Mrs. Brown was so entrancing that neither audiences nor critics pointed out that it was rendered with a pronounced New York accent.
  • King Charles, playing The Pie, was first-cousin of champion thoroughbred Seabiscuit, subject of two biopics. Both had Man o’ War as grand-sire.
  • From IMDb: “The story that Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) tells Donald Brown (Jackie ‘Butch’ Jenkins) about a shipwrecked horse is a legend based on fact. In 1904, a New Zealand-bred thoroughbred named “Moiffa” won the Grand National race. It was reported at the time that Moiffa had survived being shipwrecked on a deserted island. However, according to the Grand National’s web site, another horse named “Kiora,” who also ran in the Grand National that same year, was the shipwreck survivor. In January, 1901, a steamship bearing Kiora had gone down in a storm in the Cape of Good Hope. Kiora escaped the shipwreck, and swam to Mouille Point, a beach in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was rescued by local fishermen. In 1904, the newspaper reporters simply assumed that Moiffa, the Grand National winner, was also the shipwrecked horse. In 1979, Mickey Rooney starred in The Black Stallion (1979), which was about a shipwrecked horse that goes on to win a major race.”

Next week I will be writing Bedknobs & Broomsticks.

Other movies I will be watching (the dates are the day I will be writing about them):

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

Additional Resources:

National Velvet Movie Facts: https://www.willowbrookridingcentre.co.uk/national-velvet-movie-facts/

National Velvet Trivia IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037120/trivia/

National Velvet article on TCM.com: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/84601/national-velvet#articles-reviews?articleId=12668

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Summer of Angela: The Manchurian Candidate

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Movie Impresssions, Summer of Angela25 Comments

This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

This week I watched The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

 Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw and, wow, did she deserve that nomination.

First, a description of the movie from Google:

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.

Highlights for me:

The opening scenes are completely mental and crazy. Scary too. I don’t want to give too much away in case you’ve never seen this. So I won’t. All I can say is seeing one of the Baldwin sisters from the Waltons ask a man in her sing-song voice if he’s ever killed anyone messed me up just a bit.

An interesting cinematography tactic used a few times in this movie is to make the character closest to the camera blurred out and the person in back in focus. This is something photographers sometimes do, commonly by using the rule of thirds, but it is more common to have the forward subject in focus and the person in back blurred out. I find this director’s decision to film scenes this way very interesting and visually interesting.

Frank Sinatra’s acting is superb in this. I have never seen him in a serious role, so it threw me a bit, but he was so good.

I can’t recall if I have ever seen Laurence Harvey in a movie before, but he was very compelling as Raymond Shaw.

What I thought of Angela:

Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw, the mother of Raymond Shaw.

Nothing about the character in this movie reminds me of the Angela who is in Murder She Wrote. Now, of course the woman played many roles, but I am most familiar with her on Murder She Wrote so I had to prepare myself for seeing someone completely different and that is exactly what I got. Eleanor Shaw is absolutely not Jessica Fletcher.

Eleanor Shaw is vindictive, mean, and hungry for money and power.

“It’s a horrible thing to hate your mother,” Raymond tells Bennett at one point. “I didn’t always hate her. As a child I just sort of disliked her.”

That was before she did something he could not forgive.

Eleanor is completely domineering with her second husband, Raymond’s stepfather, and a senator.

She tells him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

“I keep telling you not to think.” She tells him at one point in the movie. “You are very, very great at a great number of things, but thinking isn’t one of them, hon’.”

Eeek.

She gave me chills.

(photo)

Here is a clip of Angela as Eleanor.

What I thought overall:

I was so nervous during this movie. I was nervous they wouldn’t believe Frank’s character about the dreams he was having and that the movie would just keep going on this nightmare path of him trying to prove he wasn’t crazy.

It was just a total mind trip all the way through, and I kept wondering who was a spy or sleeper agent and who wasn’t.

I figured out the ending before it happened and I was certain what one of the final scenes would be but I was still biting my nails.

I was actually very excited when part of the ending I thought would happen did happen. I was a little sad at the part of the ending that I didn’t expect.

The acting in the movie was outstanding across the board. Of course the messaging was a bit too timely for today and that was unnerving.

A bit of trivia:

There was a rumor that this movie was pulled from ever being shown on TV because of how it featured similarities to the assassination of Kennedy and speculation by some that the idea for his assassination came from the movie. Some say that Frank Sinatra locked the movie up in his vault because he controlled the rights to it. Another movie he starred in that involved assassination, Suddenly (1954) also disappeared for years after the Kennedy assassination.

According to an article on TCM.com, “. . . Sinatra’s control only extended to the film’s rights after seven years. There is, however, apparently some truth to the story that after JFK was murdered a year after the picture was released, some exhibitors requested it be given another run to capitalize on the event but that United Artists refused.”

Another disputed theory involved  a financial and legal disagreement between United Artists and Sinatra but that was later said to not be true. Some even said Sinatra simply neglected to keep the movie in distribution. (Guess he was too busy with the mob, etc. *wink*). To this day there isn’t really a definitive answer on why the movie fell out of existence for so many years but I lean toward all of the fall out from Kennedy’s assassination.

“What is certain is that during its “lost years,” the film built up a great reputation,” the TCM article states. “’The movie went from failure to classic without passing through success,” noted its screenwriter, George Axelrod. When it was finally re-released in 1988, it was a big box office hit (as well as a success on its subsequent video/DVD release) and earned even more rave reviews as one of the best pictures of that year.”

I thought it was so odd that Kennedy was given a copy of the film to preview in 1962.

A few more trivia tidbits (some of these may not be totally accurate but I don’t have time to vet each one):

  • Frank Sinatra reputedly had a swimming pool designed with a large painting on the bottom of the Queen of Hearts playing cards  … I won’t say why in case you haven’t seen the movie.
  • Director John Frankenheimer once claimed The Manchurian Candidate didn’t do well financially because the studio chose to promote another Sinatra picture, The Pride and the Passion (1957), but that film had actually been released five years earlier.
  • Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life.
  • The movie was filmed in only 39 days (!!)
  • According to executive producer Howard W. Koch, the budget was $2.2 million. Of that amount, $1 million went for Frank Sinatra‘s salary, with another $200,000 for Laurence Harvey, leaving only $1 million for everything else.
  • The topic of this movie was considered politically so highly sensitive that it was censored and prohibited just before its theatrical release in many of the former “Iron Curtain” countries, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria – and even in neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden. The theatrical premiere for most of those countries was held after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993.
  • By his own admission, Frank Sinatra‘s best work always came in the first take. Writer, producer, and director John Frankenheimer always liked the idea of using the freshness of a first take – so nearly all of the key scenes featuring Sinatra are first takes, unless a technical problem prevented them from being used.
    (Sources, Imbd and TCM.com).

What Angela said about the movie:

Frank Sinatra actually wanted Lucille Ball for the roll of Eleanor Shaw.

“That would have been fascinating,” Angela said. “You wouldn’t believe that she could be this devil incarnate though.”

As for how she got the part she said, “I think Frankenheimer (the director) just put his foot down.”

“I had just finished working with John on We All Fall Down and he came into the room where we were looping some lines and he slapped this very heavy book on the table and he said to me, ‘There’s your next role.’”

He told her what the book was, who wrote it, who was going to write the screenplay and added, “You’ll be fabulous as the mother.”

Angela was actually only three years older than the man who played her son. Say what??!

To become an older woman she simply acted as she felt the character would act, without worrying about age, she said.

In an interview she said many people asked her what it was like to work with Frank Sinatra and she always tells them she doesn’t know because they didn’t have any scenes together other than a quick one where they were getting their coats on.

It wasn’t until later she learned that Frank Sinatra was an integral part of making sure the movie was made.

“I know that Frank wasn’t the easiest person for John to work with,” she said. “But they seemed to have an alliance. I think Frank understood what a tremendous opportunity it was for him to play this role. He knew that his friend (President) John Kennedy adored the book. Frank talked to JFK about the role and one of his questions oddly enough was ‘who’s playing the mother?’”

Of the suspense of the movie, Angela said, “You really didn’t know who anybody was.”

Of the movie overall she said, “I think we all knew we were in rather racy territory. We were doing something pretty unique and different. This is going to turn a few heads you know.”

“It was out of circulation for many, many years,” she said. “It came back in 1988 as a revelation to be had. The whole generation saw it, who recognized it for what it was and they absolutely took it to their hearts and it became the most important piece of work any of us had ever done. Suddenly John Frankenheimer was recognized, Frank Sinatra was recognized as an actor. I was recognized as an actress who played one of the most evil women in human history. I had a whole new acceptance from an audience who didn’t know who the devil I was. So I have great feelings of fondness for The Manchurian Candidate for that reason.”

Have you seen this movie?

I rented it on Amazon, but it is also streaming on Google Play, Pluto TV, Apple TV and Fandango. Or your local library might have it.

Later this week I will be writing about a totally different movie than The Manchurian Candidate, National Velvet.

Other movies I will be watching for this Summer of Angela are:

June 27 – Bedknobs & Broomsticks

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

The Manchurian Candidate trailer:

____
Additional sources:

Trivia & Fun Facts About THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (TCM) with spoilers!! :https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/19293/the-manchurian-candidate#articles-reviews?articleId=136794

Angela Lansbury talks to Alec Baldwin about The Making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/Sjqs66SoTXQ?si=MeU5SbwFRMBnlRhP

Angela Lansbury looks back at the making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/kLwO-2_GIbM?si=cWQoMwa1ARwzzAX6

Join me for a Summer of Angela (Lansbury that is)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Summer of Angela8 Comments

For fun I decided I am going to watch Angela Lansbury movies this summer.

This is the list I’ve come up with. It’s subject to change, of course.

You can join along and watch the movies or just read the blog posts about them. I won’t be offering spoilers for the movies. The dates are the dates I will be writing about the movie.

June 13th – Manchurian Candidate

June 20 – National Velvet

June 27 – Bedknobs & Broomsticks

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

To kick off my Summer of Angela, here is a link to my impressions of Blue Hawaii, which she played Elvis’s mother in. I’ve updated it a bit with a little more information about Angela’s role in the film and what she thought of Elvis.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Springtime in Paris: Charade

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Movie Impresssions5 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching movies that take place in Paris for the last couple of months.

For our last week, we watched Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Directed by Stanley Donen this movie was released in 1996 and tells the story of Reggie Lambert (Hepburn) and Peter Joshua (Grant) who meet briefly on vacation in the Alps. When Reggie returns home, she finds that the husband she’d planned to divorce has been murdered, but before he was murdered, he sold the contents of their apartment, including all of her possessions.

A mystery ensues and what follows is a movie that was good but was very confused about which genre it should be in.

When Reggie returns to Paris and her empty apartment, a police officer approaches her and tells her that her husband was found in his pajamas dead by the train tracks and that he was apparently trying to leave Paris quickly.

While Reggie was discussing her husband at the beginning of the movie with a friend, and we learned he was wealthy, we learned very little about him and now it is clear that Reggie also learned very little about him. As the police show her several different passports from different countries with his face on them, she begins to realize she didn’t know the man at all.

Reggie is bewildered later when Peter Joshua shows up to her empty apartment and says he read about the murder in the newspaper and wanted to check on her.

She believes the police think she murdered him.

Peter offers to find her a hotel room until she can find a new job and apartment.

Peter asks what she’s going to do now that her husband has been murdered and she says she’s going to try to get her old job as a translator back.

At his funeral, Reggie is even more bewildered, because there aren’t any guests other than her and her friend. Three American men (James Coburn, George Kennedy, and Ned Glass) show up and either spit on him, poke his body, hold a mirror to his nose, to make sure he is dead, or say something inappropriate. James Coburn approaches her and doesn’t offer condolences. He just says, “Charlie had no reason of doing it thatta way. No siree.” and walks away.

Um..okay…poor Reggie is even more bewildered.

A large man then approaches, handing her a letter requesting she visit the American embassy the next day to discuss the death of her husband.

She shows up to meet with Walter Matthau who seems to know her husband. He informs her that her husband was wanted by the CIA and his real name was Charles Voss. He also tells her that her life might be in danger.

He suggests that she somehow has the money her husband earned from selling all their possessions. That money is the same amount he stole from the United States government during World War II, he says. He instructs Reggie that she needs to find the money and return it to him before the other, dangerous men find her.  Looking for help and someone to talk to, Reggie contacts Peter, who decides one way to help is take her out for a night on the town to cheer her up. What results is a very strange game where people have to pass an apple down a line of people only using their chins and necks.

So..yeah..that was strange and uncomfortable to watch. *laugh* I am not sure how the actors did the scene without totally falling apart in laughter or embarrassment.

It was nice to see Cary’s familiar goofy expressions in this scene. I’ve noticed watching his later movies that he doesn’t loosen up the same way he did when he was younger which is natural, but also hard to watch sometimes.

The game leads Reggie and Peter in some compromising positions where they pause to look at each other for a long time and you can tell in that moment that Peter is thinking about what it would be like to kiss her and vice versa.

It’s all fun and games until all three men track Reggie down at the club and begin to threaten her for the money they think she has.

This movie is categorized as a comedy/thriller which makes it a little hard to figure out at times. I sometimes wondered if I was supposed to laugh or feel dread during certain scenes. There is a terrifying scene where one of the men (Coburn as Tex) keeps lighting matches and dropping them on her lap while she screams and cries and I couldn’t laugh at that scene so I don’t know what the director and writers were going for – maybe that was it — to have the viewer not sure what to think.

When Peter convinces Reggie to tell him what he is going on, he decides he will help her find out why she is being pursued and tells her that he will keep the men from hurting her. Now we viewers have to  decide with Reggie who Peter is and if he is really a good guy or not.

I read that Cary actually didn’t want this role at first because he said he felt like a predator, going after the younger Audrey.

That’s funny since he was in many movies in his older years where he was “going after” younger women and he married a woman much younger than him, but I digress….

Cary turned 59 during filming and it was this movie that made him decide it was time to stop playing the romantic lead. The reviews focusing on the 26 year age difference between him and Audrey was one big driving factor in this decision, he later said.

He was so uncomfortable with the idea of their age gap he asked for the script to be changed so screenwriter Peter Stone made Audrey the aggressor and Cary the man trying to fight her off.

Stone said he wrote things like “Can’t you just think of me as a woman?” and have Cary say, “I’m already about to get into trouble for transporting a minor above the first floor.”

He then says, “Come on, child, let’s go.”

Stone said, “Cary made me change the dynamic of the characters and make Audrey the aggressor. She chased him, and he tried to dissuade her. She pursued him and sat in his lap. She found him irresistible, and ultimately he was worn down by her. I gave him lines like “I’m too old for you, get away from me, little girl.’ And ‘I’m old enough to be your father.’ And in the elevator: ‘I could be in trouble transporting you beyond the first floor. A minor!’ This way Cary couldn’t get in any trouble. What could he do! She was chasing him.”

When I first started the movie, I was afraid I wasn’t going to like this film at all. Cary’s acting was stilted and “off” for me right from the start.

I found some parts of the movie confusing and odd because of its identity crisis, or inability to choose between being a comedy or a thriller, but I don’t want to spoil too much of the movie by commenting on which parts.

What I will say is that it was just weird to that Audrey’s character continued to throw herself at Cary’s character even when she isn’t sure who he really was. And this is just after her husband has been murdered and she is being pursued by people who want money her husband stole.

I enjoyed the action and the movie overall but really would have liked it the movie had picked a lane and stayed in it.

This was Cary’s chance to finally work with Audrey, by the way, after turning down leading roles in at least four movies she’d been in — Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). He’d turned them all down because of the quarter-century age difference between them, according to TCM.com.

The rumor at the time was that he’d also turned down the role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady because he didn’t want to work with Audrey. This wasn’t true, but instead was a decision made out of respect of Rex Harrison who had created the role on Broadway.

The article on TCM.com reads: “In the Barry Paris biography, Donen recalled that “Cary thought he was going to do a picture with Howard Hawks called Man’s Favorite Sport? [so he] said no to Charade. Columbia said get Paul Newman. Newman said yes, but Columbia wouldn’t pay his going rate. Then they said get Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. So I got them and Columbia decided they couldn’t afford them or the picture. So I sold Charade to Universal. In the meantime, Cary had read Hawks’s script and didn’t like it. So he called me and said he would like to do Charade.”

I want to share another quote from the TCM article because it is such a funny story: “ In Audrey Hepburn: A Biography by Warren G. Harris, the director recalled: “I arranged a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Paris. Audrey and I arrived first. Cary came in, and Audrey stood up and said, ‘I’m so nervous.’ He said, ‘Why?’ And she said, ‘Meeting you, working with you – I’m so nervous.’ And he said, ‘Don’t be nervous, for goodness’ sake. I’m thrilled to know you. Here, sit down at the table. Put your hands on the table, palms up, put your head down and take a few deep breaths.’ We all sat down, and Audrey put her hands on the table. I had ordered a bottle of red wine. When she put her head down, she hit the bottle, and the wine went all over Cary’s cream-colored suit. Audrey was humiliated. People at other tables were looking, and everybody was buzzing. It was a horrendous moment. Cary was a half hour from his hotel, so he took off his coat and comfortably sat through the whole meal like that.”

Despite that awkward first meeting, the pair apparently hit it off very well, even ad-libbing some of their lines.

Do you ever look up trivia like this for movies when you watch them or am I just the weirdo in the group?

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

You can read Erin’s thoughts here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2025/05/08/springtime-in-paris-charade/

If you wrote about today’s movie, or any of the movies we watched during this movie event, you can post your links below.

Also, thank you so much for participating and I hope you all had fun taking part! Do you have an idea for a themed movie event? Let us know in the comments!

I hope you will join us for the next one, though I am not sure when we will do it. Erin and I both have a lot going on in our personal lives with family health situations so we might not hold one until autumn. Not sure yet. We will have a meeting of the minds on it at some point.

We are, however, holding Drop In Crafternoons where we meet on Zoom and do crafts of any kind while chatting.

I had planned to try one this weekend but things are a bit up in the air right now with my parents’ health and the fact my whole family came down with a cold/virus and I am waiting to see if I am next, so we are sticking with one on May 24th for now.

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Springtime in Paris: Hugo

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings, Movie Impresssions10 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I have been watching movies that take place in Paris this spring.

Up this week was the movie Hugo.

I had vaguely heard of this one before, but really didn’t know what it was about until Erin suggested it. I don’t know how I didn’t know more about it since it was nominated for eleven Oscars, including best director and best picture, in 2012. It won five for things like cinematography and design. (Thanks to Cat from Cat’s Wire for letting me know I looked at the nomination list instead of the win list when I originally posted this. ooops! hahaha!)

This was a magical children’s movie with beautiful imagery and cinematography. It was much different than I expected based on the movie poster and trailer. I watched it before I read any descriptions. I often don’t read detailed descriptions of movies or books before I jump into them. It can make it either a pleasant or a disturbing surprise. Ha! This was a pleasant one.

First, a quick Google description of the movie: Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo’s job is to oil and maintain the station’s clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father (Jude Law). Accompanied by the goddaughter (Chloë Grace Moretz) of an embittered toy merchant (Ben Kingsley), Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

This is one of those ensemble casts with several well-known actors including Ben Kingsley, Sascha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Jude Law, Helen McCroy, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Emily Mortimer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Richard Griffiths.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie was released in 2011 and was based on the 2007 book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The book sounds like a visual marvel. It has 284 illustrations mixed in 500 pages of a story.

Selznick once described the book “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

Though I’ve never seen the book, I did see some photos online (such as those pictured above) and Scorsese seems to have captured the magic of the illustrations almost exactly as they are in the book.

The cinematography, the costumes, and the sets in Hugo are gorgeous and magical. There are a variety of unique camera angles and filming techniques that give much of the film a soft and dreamlike feel. It is what some might call a visual smorgasbord.

Close-ups on Hugo’s (Asa Butterfield) big blue eyes are frequent, and draw the viewer into his world, making them wonder what he is thinking behind those eyes.

When the movie starts, Hugo is spying on the activity in the train station through the numbers in the clocks high up in the walls and a tower in the middle of the station.

We see that he seems to live in the walls behind these clocks, getting  food from vendors he steals from throughout the day to survive.

Eventually, we learn that he’s been living in these makeshift spaces since his father died and his alcoholic uncle took him in. It appears, though, that the uncle is no longer around, and it isn’t until later in the movie, we learn why. Hugo is continuing to keep the clocks running so a new clock repairer isn’t hired and he is discovered.

Towards the beginning of the film, we meet the toy maker who accuses Hugo of stealing from his booth. Hugo is indeed stealing small pieces of machinery from the toy maker’s booth. When the toymaker catches him, he makes Hugo empty his pockets and one of those pockets includes a small notebook with drawings inside about how to repair the automaton that his father found at the museum he was working at before he died.

The drawings trigger something in the toy maker, and he takes the notebook and refuses to give it back to Hugo. This leads to Hugo chasing the toy maker home to try to convince him to give the notebook back. The toy maker refuses but Hugo sees who he thinks is the toymaker’s granddaughter and begs her to ask her grandfather for the book back. He learns that the girl is not the man’s granddaughter, but his goddaughter who was taken in after her parents died.

We are never really told what actually happened to her parents. The girl’s name is Isabelle and she and Hugo become friends. She goes to work with her godfather and encourages Hugo to stand up to him to get his notebook back. Hugo does and the godfather tells him that if he will work for him in his shop then he will give him his notebook back.

Isabelle and Hugo become friends, and eventually Hugo will tell her about the automaton and how he needs a special key to turn it on.

Isabelle takes him to the library, where the librarian gives her books. Hugo looks bewildered as she talks about books, which prompts Isabella to ask Hugo, “Don’t you like books?”

He assures her he definitely does.

Books, movies, and art in general are very important to Hugo because they were things he and his father did together before his father passed away. His father was a clockmaker and repairer and also worked at a museum and was well educated. We learn toward the beginning of the film through flashbacks that Hugo has not only lost his father, but years before he had also lost his mother.

When Hugo isn’t working at the toy shop, he is avoiding the station master (Baren Cohen) who enjoys capturing orphans he catches in the station and then sending them back to the orphanage. At first glance the station master seems like a very angry bitter person but we will later learn there is a lot more to him than we realize.

This movie could be a real downer if it weren’t for the quirky characters and the constant striving of the movie (and the viewer) to get to an ending we hope will be full of some happiness for Hugo. Had this been any other Scorsese film, we might not have gotten that (like Hugo might have ended up at the bottom of the river. Ya’ know what I’m sayin’?), but without offering too many spoilers I can assure you there is a happy ending.

I loved the scenes where Isabelle and Hugo were walking around the old library, by the way. Oh, to walk in a library with books piled up high like that.

There are several little storylines going on throughout this movie. The big one we have is with Hugo, of course, as he tries to figure out how to get the automaton to work again and then find out what message it might be sending when it does work.

(He hopes it is a message from his father or from anyone to help him not feel so alone.)

Then we have the friendship between him and Isabelle and the antagonistic relationship Hugo has with her godfather. Then there is the godfather’s story and the story of the godmother. Then there are the characters who work inside the station and their relationships.

The story from the book and the movie does feature real life characters including the real life filmmaker named Georges Méliès. To avoid spoilers, I won’t share which character portrays Georges.

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

You can find Erin’s thoughts on it here.

You can learn more about Georges Melies on Cat’s blog here.

I can’t believe we are winding down with our Springtime in Paris feature!

Next week we are writing about The Intouchables, a French film with subtitles. It is rated-R for language and sexual discussions (but no on screen sex or violence…I previewed it *wink* Right now it is streaming for free if you have an Amazon Prime membership. You can also find it on DisneyPlus, Fandango, Plex, YouTubeTV, Google Play, AppleTV, and Hulu

The week after, on May 4, we are having a group watch of Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant via Zoom, and then we will share our thoughts on the movie on our blogs May 8.

If you watch any of the movies on our list for this feature at any point before May 10th, you can find the link on this post below or at the link up in the menu at the top of the page. You don’t have to watch the movies the same weeks we do to write about them.

Other resources:

Wikipedia Georges Melies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s

Wikipedia The Invention of Hugo Cabret book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret

More about Melies from Cat’s Wire: https://catswire.blogspot.com/2025/04/silent-movies-trip-to-moon.html

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Springtime in Paris: How To Steal A Million

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, everyday musings, Movie Impresssions11 Comments

For the months of April and May, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching movies set in Paris and rambling about them on our blog.

This week we watched How to Steal A Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole.

I actually think I watched this movie or part of it at some point over the last 20-some years but I couldn’t remember most of it, other than a few scenes.

The movie is about a con-man, Charles Bonnett (Hugh Griffith), who sells fake recreations of famous artist that he has painted. It isn’t something his daughter approves of so when he loans out a fake  “Cellini” Venus statue to a museum in Paris she is horrified and panicked. Her father assures her that because the item is only being loaned out and not purchased, no one will inspect it and actually find out it is a fake. Unfortunately, Charles signs a loan agreement with the museum without reading it and later learns it includes an inspection clause.

On the same night the statuette goes on display, a burglar named Simon Dermott (O’Toole), breaks into their house to try to steal Charle’s recreation of a Van Gogh painting.

Terrified, Nicole sneaks downstairs and grabs a collector gun off the wall to confront whoever is in the house. After some bantering back and forth, and knowing calling the police would lead to an investigation of all her father’s paintings, Nicole agrees to let him go. When she lays the gun down, though, it fires and grazes Simon’s arm.

This leads to an entertaining exchange where he makes her drive him home using his car and then she discovers she has no way to get home. He calls her a taxi, but not before he asks her to wipe his fingerprints off the painting he tried to steal so he won’t get caught.

She asks him what else she should do for him. Did he want to kiss her goodnight?

He lets her know that he’d rather like to do that and the bold fellow kisses her passionately right there by the taxi.

Nicole is, of course, a bit enamored with him, especially after that kiss, which is clear when she later tells  her father about what happened.

After she and Charles find out about the inspector who will come to look at the statuette at the museum so it can be insured for a million dollars, she worries that the inspection of the item — which her look alike grandmother posed for by the way — will lead to all of her father’s work being exposed as fakes and send him to jail. She tracks Simon down and asks him to help her steal the statuette, even though it is under very heavy security at the museum.

Much jocularity ensues.

Yes, I did just write that sentence.

But, a lot of fun does unfold at this point and the viewer already knows a bit about Simon and that he isn’t what  he seems but now we want to know what else we, and Nicole, will find out. As if things couldn’t get any crazier, we also have an American dealer Davis Leland (Eli Wallach) who is trying to buy the statuette and wants to marry Nicole.

I won’t provide any other spoilers in case you haven’t seen this one and want to.

This one was a fun one for me. Lots of funny, quirky moments and beautiful views of Paris. Of course, these actors were all supposed to be in Paris but sounded British, other than Audrey.

Audrey has never been my favorite actress but I enjoyed her more in this one than I thought I would.  I thought Peter O’Toole was a delight all around. He was…sigh….dreamy. Those impulsive kisses…whew!

I loved the ins and outs of the movie, the misdirection, etc.

Toward the beginning of the movie, Nicole is reading Hitchcock Magazine which made me wonder if she’d ever been in one of his films. After a quick search online, I learned that the answer is no. However, in her Oscar-winning performance as the princess in the 1953 movie Roman Holiday, Audrey is in bed reading a book about Hitchcock.

My husband says he never wanted Audrey in his movies because he liked actresses with talent. Ouch. It’s clear my husband is not an Audrey fan. He added that Hitchcock had a “type” and Audrey wasn’t it. Most of the actresses in his movies were blond. There you go.

There were rumors when the movie was made that Peter and Audrey had an affair during the filming but those were later squashed by the pair who said while that wasn’t true, it was true they became close friends after the movie.

Some trivia about the movie that I read about during my research:

After Nicole dresses up as a cleaning lady at one point in the movie, Simon Dermott says, “That does it. For one thing, it gives Givenchy a night off.” Hubert de Givenchy was Audrey Hepburn’s costume designer.

When Peter O’Toole first sets off the museum alarm, he says, “Ring out, wild bells.” This is the title of a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson published in 1850, which was part of his work entitled “In Memoriam”. It was an elegy to his sister’s fiancé, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at the age of 22.

The film was directed by William Wyler.

Have you ever seen this movie? What did you think of it?
If you wrote a blog post about it or choose to do so later, you can link up below anytime from today until May.

To read Erin’s thoughts on the movie, visit her blog here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2025/04/10/springtime-in-paris-how-to-steal-a-million/

Up next in our Springtime in Paris movie feature is Paris Blues, which you can find for free on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm8bCTSPD6U

Following that we will have:

Hugo (April 24)

The Intouchables (May 1)

Charade Group Zoom on May 4 – this is where you can all join us for a watch party! (writing about it May 8).

If you’re wondering where to find the movies streaming, for anyone who is participating in the event on where you can find the movies streaming:

Hugo: Amazon, Fandango at Home, Pluto TV, AppleTV

The Intouchables (warning that this is an R movie due to language): DisneyPlus, Amazon, Fandango, Plex, YouTubeTV, Google Play, AppleTV, and Hulu

Charade (pretty much everywhere): Crackle, Tubi, Plex, Amazon, AppleTV, GooglePlay, YouTube, YouTubeTV, The Roku Channel, Fubo.

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Classic Movie Impressions: That Touch of Mink

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions7 Comments

I needed something to distract me from every day life last week so I watched That Touch of Mink with Doris Day and Cary Grant. I am very certain I’ve watched either all or part of this movie before but it has been years so I didn’t remember much about it.

This is quite a modern movie for 1962.

Cary Grant is a no nonsense, yet still kind and understanding, businessman and Doris Day is a young woman from a small town living in a big city and trying to find a job.

This movie was meant to be a comedy, so I tried not to be too uptight about how Cary Grant was essentially trying to get into Doris Day’s pants without actually committing to a relationship for the entire movie.

I have to say that I didn’t really like Cary for most of this movie and my husband said it is probably because of the fact Cary really didn’t want to make the movie, according to articles he has read about it. While I didn’t find articles online specifically saying he didn’t like the film, I did find information that Doris Day wrote in her autobiography that Cary was polite and professional on set but that there was really no “give and take” between them.

First a little summary:

This movie takes place in 1962 starts with Doris Day walking down the street and getting splashed by a car that Cary’s character (Philip Shayne) is riding in. He feels bad but he can’t stop because he is on his way to a very important meeting. We find out later that Doris’s character (Cathy Timberlake) is looking for a job and Philip is a shrewd but also generous businessman with a friend, Roger, (played by Gig Young) who is a bit of a leach. Philip does actually feel awful about splashing Cathy and tells Roger he’d love to find the woman and apologize.

Luckily they are looking out the office window not long afterward and see Cathy walking into a diner across the street.

He orders Roger to take her some money to apologize. Roger is hoping the woman will want to tell Phillip off. He’s sick of Phillip getting all the women despite his flippant attitude. Cathy does want to tell Phillip off so Roger takes her to Phillip immediately.

Unfortunately for Roger, Cathy falls for Phillip immediately. Phillip sees this as a chance to sweep another woman off her feet by taking her on trips around the world.

He starts to do just that and Cathy wants him to like her so she goes along with him — flying to Baltimore for a speech he’s giving, then to Philadelphia for a quick dinner. One night he even takes  her to a New York Yankees game, into the dugout where we meet the real Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra.

Soon though, Phillip wants her to go on vacation with him to Bermuda and she’s not sure if she means he wants her to stay in the same room with him or if they will have separate rooms. He definitely wants her to stay in the room with him, which causes her to breakout in a full body rash and skuttles his plans.

She’s a good girl from Sandusky, Ohio after all. Girls from Sandusky don’t go running off with men on vacation and sleep with them unless they have a ring on their finger and have said “I do” to marriage vows.

Cathy returns home disappointed in herself because she didn’t sleep with Phillip but also fairly annoyed at him for thinking she would after they’ve known each other for only a short time.

She wants to break out of her boring girl mold, though, and decides to try again — telling Phillip she’ll go with him again to Bermuda and she will give him what he wants. She doesn’t say exactly that but the viewer gets her drift.

Sadly, things don’t work out this time either but you will have to watch the movie to find out why.

The movie is a series of miscommunications, silly tropes, and goofy interactions. One of those miscommunications is between Roger and his therapist. Roger is sharing the story about Cathy and Phillip but the therapist walks out of the room and only hears part of the story, leading him to believe that Roger is becoming involved with another man, which I thought was a very progressive (for lack of a better word) joke for the early 1960s. That joke carries on throughout the movie with Roger continually trying to update the therapist on Phillip and Cathy but the therapist instead believing that Phillip has been trying to woo Roger instead.

I found it interesting that this movie was one of the last ones where Cary was a leading man.

It was his 69th movie and he was in his 50s. An article on TCM.com states that he must have known his time for playing leading men was waning.

“He made one more picture in which he was the dashing leading man, Charade (1963), opposite Audrey Hepburn,” the article reads. “After that, he appeared as a grizzled old beachcomber in Father Goose (1964), then as a British gentleman who plays Cupid for the young romantic leads in Walk Don’t Run (1966), his last film before retiring from the screen.

The article goes on: “Doris Day’s string of box office hits continued though with somewhat diminishing returns over the next six years in ten more films. After With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), the actress retired from the big screen. Her hit TV sitcom, The Doris Day Show, ran from 1968 to 1973, changing formats and storylines almost very season.”

As for my feelings on the film, I liked it overall but didn’t like the message that women should just go sleep with men they are not married to. The end of the movie would have feminists of today growling in anger but it was most likely what made most every day movie goers happy at the time.

I couldn’t figure out while I watched it if Cary was bored during the movie or if it was how he was playing Phillip Shayne. Maybe he wanted Phillip to have no real personality beyond seeming bored and like he expected women to fall in bed with him. The man didn’t even seem excited by the prospect of sex. He just seemed to expect that it would happen, and he would move on to the next woman.

Years ago, I was reading about Cary and his use of LSD as an attempt to help him with his depression and other mental issues. Many psychiatrists at the time prescribed LSD as part of psychological therapy. It wasn’t yet a recreational drug.

Both Gig Young and Cary used the therapy and as I researched for this film I read that Gig sadly killed his 31-year-old wife and then himself in 1978 when  he was 64. I wonder how much the drug affected his brain at the time and left him worse off than he had been. He was also an alcoholic, though, so that most likely played an even larger role than the LSD. Either way it is sad.

 I also sometimes wonder if the drug was why Cary seemed so blasé and uninterested in his movies during this particular time period.

I don’t think this is a movie I would watch again but it was a fun escape.

I should also  mention the other star of the movie: The Automat.

The Automat was an automatic-type diner where restaurant goers could go in and choose what they wanted by pushing a button on what looked like post office boxes and then could open a door and the food would be slid to them through the tiny hole. I had never seen anything like it before this movie. Cathy’s friend Connie worked at one and delivered the food. That’s where Cathy would go to talk to her. It seemed like a very busy job since Connie and only one or two other co-workers would have to slide the food into the little box for the people to retrieve.

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

Winter of Fairbanks Jr.: The Sun Never Sets (1939)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, everyday musings, Movie Impresssions, Winter of Fairbanks Jr.5 Comments

This winter I watched Douglas Fairbanks Jr. movies for fun.

This week for the last movie of the series,  I watched The Sun Never Sets (1939) starring Douglas, Basil Rathbone, Barbara O’Neil and Virginia Fields.

It was directed by Rowland Lee.

Before I launch into my feelings about the movie, here is the plot, without spoilers, copied from Google:

Two British brothers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Basil Rathbone) squelch a radio-made dictator on the Gold Coast of Africa.

Oh. Well, that wasn’t much of a description.

A little more for you: This movie is about a brother (Douglas) who doesn’t want to go into the miliary like the rest of his family but is shamed into it by his grandfather who says what an honor it is to fight for the empire and by his brother who says there is no greater love than to leave ones family to fight for the empire.

Even his fiancé (Virginia Fields) begins to feel like her future brother and sister-in-law’s love is enviable because their relationship was strengthened during their time together on the Gold Coast.

So poor John Randolph (Douglas) is broken down and signs up for the military to take his brother, Clive Randolph’s (Basil Rathbone) place in Africa, which Clive’s wife hated. Once John agrees to capitulate and follow in the footsteps of all his family members, risking himself for the Empire, Clive is then called up for a secret mission and also has to return to the Golf Coast. He tells his wife she can’t come because she’s pregnant but she loves him and is determined to be with him.

Her pregnancy becomes a source of stress for poor ole Clive who must choose between being there for his wife when she gets sick from walking in the rain (because everyone knows that walking in the rain automatically means you get sick) and capturing a bad guy who wants to (I kid you not) take over the world.

For me this is a British propaganda movie similar to the American propaganda movies that actors like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart were in around World War II.

My overall view on the movie: It is about restoring ones reputation for the sake of the Empire when you choose to help your family instead of completing your mission for the British Army and furthering their take over of African nations.

The movie does touch on the difficulties of serving one’s country while also being there for their family but by the end we are reminded how important it is for a British man to have a reputation as a fine soldier even more so than having a reputation as a weak man who cares about his pregnant wife.

There is forgiveness between the brothers for the failings of one brother that cost Clive being able to capture a criminal and that was nice. Not sure if the forgiveness had been there if he had failed yet again though.

 “Failing the empire twice?! My God, John! Once I can understand but twice! You’ll have to work as a dirty businessman and get rich and stand on the heads of poor people in another way now!”

One review online said this movie was more focused on family relationships than anything else and I suppose that is true. But it was also wrapped up in making sure the men were loyal to the Empire, the King, etc. while also having a family.

I was absolutely baffled by the one part where a brother chooses to bring the other brother back from a mission because his wife is dying and then the first brother is ostracized by the sister-in-law he saves. Apparently, she’d rather be dead than go back to England with a husband shamed for failing his military assignment. Just … what?!

So, this movie really wasn’t my favorite of those I have watched as part of the Fairbanks Jr. marathon, though I didn’t hate it as much as I hated Gunga Din. This movie still made sure to remind us that the British were all-knowing and that the natives of the land wouldn’t have survived without them (har. Har.) but at least refrained from calling them all savages like they did in Gunga Din.

There are a couple of movies of Douglas’s that I wish I had chosen instead of this one but I’ve seen Rathbone in Sherlock Holmes movies so figured it wouldn’t hurt to see him in something else. He is a very good actor so saying I don’t like this movie is not a slight on him or any of the actors. They did a nice job. I just didn’t enjoy the movie overall. It was somewhat like an infomercial for British military recruitment.

The author of Basilrathbone.net enjoyed the movie and was able to overlook the flaws.

“While I can point out several flaws with the film, the fine performances by the cast brought the characters to life, making them very real. I really cared about what happened to the characters and I was so caught up in the drama, that I hardly noticed or cared that the plot was rather contrived. Rathbone and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. have some great scenes together.”

This was essentially a military recruitment film, though, the writer admits.

“Universal had high hopes for this story of the British Colonial Service. In 1939, when this film was made, the British civil services administered to more than 500 million people over territory that covered 13 million square miles all over the world.”

Time Magazine did not like the film at all based on this review:

“Only slightly more agonizing than young Mr. Fairbanks’ throes in putting this subversive two & two together is the sight of middle-aged Mr. Rathbone, as a sort of Imperial Rover Boy, lashing about the jungle in bush jacket and shorts, caught barekneed between Love & Duty.” —Time magazine, June 19, 1939

Ouch.

They weren’t alone in their dislike of the film based on the reviews posted on this article on Basilrathbone.net.

By the way, I enjoyed reading the article about this movie on this site. There is a ton of information about Basil and his other movies there as well so I will be exploring it more.

This ends my Douglas Fairbanks Jr. marathon. If you want to read my impressions of the other movies I watched you can find them here:

https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

Up next in April, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I will be watching movies set in Paris. We will be announcing our movie list at a later date. Stay tuned!

Winter of Fairbanks Jr.: The Rise of Catherine The Great (1934)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions4 Comments

This winter I am watching movies starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

This week I watched The Rise of Catherine The Great from 1934. The movie was also just called Catherine The Great at one point.

I watched it on YouTube and the reproduction of it wasn’t really very good at some points.

This movie, which takes place in 1745, was not a happy one for sure. I mean how could it be when it was about Catherine The Great Empress of all of Russia.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was definitely not a nice man in this movie. He portrayed  Peter III or Duke Peter, who Catherine the Great historically overthrew to become queen. This movie, like most history books, portrays Peter III as a bad guy, but in the 1990s questions about him really being that bad were raised, especially considering he attempted to make peace with many countries Russia was once at war with.

From what I have learned about royals over the years and during this marathon, many are degenerates who thrive on doing what they want no matter who it hurts, sleeping around, and having power, fame, and riches. This movie further sealed that opinion for me as I felt like I couldn’t sympathize with any of the characters.

They were all simply awful or broken people.

In this movie we are given the popular idea that Peter is the bad guy, and Catherine is the poor misunderstood young queen who feels she has to take over the kingdom after repeatedly being rejected by a mentally ill Peter. Peter  has mistresses and loves to flaunt them in front of his wife and anyone else who will listen.

At the beginning of the movie we have a young German princess named Princess Sophie Auguste Frederika (portrayed by Elisabeth Bergner), arriving at the castle as the woman who will marry Grand Duke Peter, at the order of Peter’s aunt, Empress Elizabeth (Flora Robson).

Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth

The Grand Duke throws a fit about marrying her because he doesn’t want to be told what to do. The Empress wants him to marry her so the family line will continue since she didn’t have any children herself, or even a husband. Instead, she has many lovers.

Princess Frederika, soon to be Catherine (a name given to her by Empress Elizabeth who doesn’t like the name Frederika) is crushed by the Duke’s rejections and tries to flee the palace but gets lost and ends up telling who she thinks is a guard about her displeasure at being rejected by the Duke.

She says she has loved the Duke for years since she was told about him when she was a child. The man is, of course, actually the Duke and her saying she has loved him for years, even though they never met, impresses him and he decides to marry her.

Right before the wedding, though, a servant suggests that the future queen simply said she wanted to love him and not to have power over Russia, Peter’s heart hardens again, and he spends their wedding night with a mistress. What a catch. Har. Har.

Having mistresses and lovers one isn’t married to isn’t unusual in the family since his aunt has had many lovers over the years. In fact, when she demands Peter marry Catherine  she says if he won’t marry and father an heir then she will have to have a child. He laughs and asks which lover she’s going to make “an honest man.”

This movie shows Catherine doing all she can possibly do to win the love of Peter, even pretending she has many lovers after they are married to attempt to make him jealous, but later telling him she really had none. He apologizes for all the lovers he’s had, they fall into each other’s arms, and the camera pans away to an empty bed being prepared by the footman.

Hubba. Hubba.

This is a movie where there are all kinds of innuendo and hints toward what people are doing in their bedrooms.

It’s like, “Tell me you’re talking about sex the whole time without telling me you’re talking about sex.”

At one point Peter asks Catherine what she and her lover did together and she says they went for walks and then curled up in front of a fire to read together.

“Then what?” Peter asks.

Catherine giggles and says, “Well, eventually one does get bored of reading.”

At this point she’s making it all up, but it infuriates Peter. It’s fine for him to have lovers, but not for his wife to have them and make him look less of a man, I guess.

The acting in this movie was really well done.

Flora Robson’s portrayal of the self-focused, master manipulator Empress Elizabeth was chilling and unnerving. I’m not sure how this queen really was in real life but how she is portrayed here is absolutely psychotic.

Bergner, as Catherine was the perfect mix of sweet, broken, and conniving. I was never sure what was real and what wasn’t about her.

Douglas pulled off his role as Peter brilliantly and I honestly think it was one of his better performances of the movies I watched so far.

This movie was banned in Germany when it was released because the director Paul Czinner and Bergner, who was also his wife, had Jewish backgrounds.

This ban prompted a discussion in the House of Parliament in Britain during which it was asked, “Is it to be understood that no British film in which there is a Jewish actor or actress will be permitted to be shown in Germany in future?”

I’m going to guess the answer to that was an emphatic yes.

Reminds me of things happening these days.

According to TCM, this movie was unfortunately released the same year a much more famous movie —  Josef von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress — was released.

“Consequently, Catherine has become somewhat lost to film history,” the article on TCM.com states.

Marlene Deitrich was in The Scarlet Empress, a very dazzling movie, so her performance pushed Bergner’s out of the limelight, but article writer Jeremy Arnold says Bergner’s performance was still very good.

I think I may have to find this The Scarlet Empress and check it out to compare the two.’

The Rise of Catherine the Great was adapted from a 1912 play, The Czarina, by Lajos Biro and Melchior Lengyel. 

Douglas was 24 and virtually unknown when he landed the part.

“Now I would have a chance to show Hollywood’s producers what I could do with a real character-lead,” he later said in an autobiography. “No longer would I have to play nice young light comedies or listen to offers to ape my father’s swashbuckling fantasies.”

Although he would try his hand at swashbuckling fantasies later as we saw with The Exile and Sinbad the Sailor.

Douglas almost didn’t get the part, though. He had double pneumonia and had been forced to drop out of another movie before being offered the part. He was determined to be in the movie, even though his doctor warned he could develop tuberculosis if he took the part instead of resting.

Arnold writes in his article: “Fairbanks later wrote that the real Peter III “was stubby with a puffy, pockmarked face” and “I looked nothing at all like [him]. I wanted to create a real character in the part, but [director Paul] Czinner and Korda insisted our story was essentially romantic.” Camera tests followed with Fairbanks donning a wig, satin suits and knee britches, and wearing white makeup, lipstick and even beauty marks. “Had I not been so in love with my part and delighted with my good fortune in landing it, I might have been more stubborn, but I was afraid I would be paid off and replaced…. When Korda saw the tests, he said I looked all right, though ‘far too young and pretty.'” Fairbanks grew a mustache to counter this effect. “The result,” he wrote, “was inauthentic but apparently satisfactory.’”

There was plenty of praise for Douglas’s performance too.

“His definition of the fuming Peter is one of the best he has ever done,” Variety wrote in their review. “His appearance does much to help the authors mold the character away from repugnant and to make Catherine’s devotion to him reasonable.”

This was an interesting bit of trivia from the TCM article:  Sir Gerald du Maurier, father of novelist Daphne du Maurier and a giant on the British stage, had a small part in the movie.

Douglas was reportedly so thrilled to have a chance to work with du Maurier that when he found out that the man had only been given a small dressing room he removed his name tag off his door and switched it with du Maurier’s so he would have one of the larger rooms. Du Maurier never found out and he and Douglas remained good friends until the man passed.

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

Next week I’ll be writing about my last Douglas movie for the winter as we move toward Spring: The Sun Never Sets. I have no idea what to expect from this one which I could only find on an obscure website.