black and white movies

This winter I am watching movies starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

I had planned to watch Having Wonderful Time, this week but I couldn’t find it streaming anywhere. Instead, I watched The Exile from 1947 after I found it streaming on YouTube. It wasn’t great quality, but it was good enough that I could make out what was going on.

The movie tells the story of King Charles of England who was exiled to Holland in 1690 by Oliver Cromwell and The Roundheads. Douglas plays King Charle who stayed in Holland for years with a small band of supporters. Cromwell and The Roundheads find out where he is and his advisor, chief advisor, Sir Edward Hyde (Nigel Bruce), suggests he hide out somewhere where he can get information but where Cromwell’s assassins can’t get to him.

Charles decides to hide out on the small farm of a flower girl he met in the market square.

The flower girl, Katie, is played by Rita Corday, who was billed as Paule Croset in later films (I have no idea why but I suppose I will have to look that up one day. There wasn’t a lot of information about her online.)

Charles begins to help on the farm and the two fall in love. While working there a man arrives who says he is King Charles, which of course Douglas’s character knows is untrue, but he lets him continue the ruse as he stays at the inn on the farm.

The next visitor to arrive at the farm is Countess Anabella de Courteuil (María Montez), an old lover of Charles’s and an emissary from King Louis of France. This totally threw me off because I can not figure out how she found the king. Like did everyone know where this dude was hiding out?

Anyhoooo…Anabella gives Charles a music box from the king of France, talks to him while sitting naked in a enclosed bathtub or sauna that looked like a spaceship to me, and sort of suggests they renew their past relationship.

*The promo photos for this film were a bit crazy.*

Charles, however, is focused on the music box because he wants to sell it and give the money to Katie to pay off her abusive cousin so she can own the farm and inn free and clear. Annabelle overhears his plan, which will come in handy later when Katie thinks Charles loves Annabell instead. Charles is also discovered by one of Cromwell’s men and ….

And……well, I will leave you to find out the rest if you watch the movie.

I will tell you that there is at least one intense sword fight scene, which I think was always required in these type of adventure films. I do have to say, though, that it always cracks me up how these movies and books portray these kings as swashbuckling heroes who can wield swords and charm the pants (literally) off any woman.

In reality, they were probably overweight, out of shape, pampered and had no idea how to fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone fight against attackers or would-be-kidnappers.

Maria Montez is a secondary character in the movie and only appears in it about 15 minutes but she received top billing because she had in her contracts with Universal that she would receive top billing no matter what movie she was in.

The film is based on the 1926 novel His Majesty, the King: A Romantic Love Chase of the Seventeenth Century by Cosmo Hamilton, which Douglas bought the rights to so he could make a movie similar to the movies his father, Douglas Fairbanks, used to make. His father’s movies were classic swashbuckler films and Douglas Jr. said he wanted this film to honor his father’s memory. He also planned to produce two other similar films but those other movies were never made.

“When people ask me if I’m following in my father’s footsteps, I tell them his footsteps were so light they didn’t leave a trace”, Douglas said when he announced in 1946 he would be producing and starring in the film. “The proof of it is that his pictures were so carefully tailored to him that no remakes by others have ever been entirely successful. Still I find myself drifting back to the kind of roles he played – by public demand, as it were… However my stunting is more of a piece de resistance than the thing itself, if you get what I mean. Now that I have my own company I’ll probably go in for the swashbuckling type of thing. I’m not necessarily wedded to it; our stories will be of varied dramatic content, but I find that I can whip up more enthusiasm for those of a romantic and slightly fantastic nature, like The Exile.”

Douglas purchased the rights to the book in 1941 but then went off to fight in World War II, where he became a very decorated soldier. This, of course, delayed the movie being made.

This movie was made under Douglas’s own production company, the Fairbanks Company.

It was directed by Max Ophuls and was his first Hollywood film. He was set to direct Vendetta with Howard Hughes but the two didn’t get along.

The original plan was to make the movie in technicolor, which would have been beautiful, but Douglas ran out of money for the production, and it was shot in black and white instead.

Overall, I enjoyed the film but it wasn’t as captivating as The Prisoner of Zenda or as engaging as The Young In Heart.

Have you ever seen this one? If so, what did you think?

Up next for me in my marathon of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. movies is Chase a Crooked Shadow.

After that I will be watching (in parentheses are the dates I’ll write about them):

Sinbad The Sailor (February 20)

The Rise of Catherine the Great (February 27)

The Sun Never Sets (March 6)

You can find my impressions of previous movies in the series, as well as other classic movies here: https://lisahoweler.com/movie-reviews-impressions/

“What wives don’t know won’t hurt them.” That’s what Cary Grant as Jerry Warriner says in the beginning of The Awful Truth, the second movie that Erin of Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching for our Spring of Cary.

Now, last week I was a bit of a downer when I shared some of Cary’s personal life and the tension while filming Houseboat because of his affair with Sofia Loren. I will do my best this week to not be a downer! Ha!

This is a fun, silly movie so I will be able to keep things pretty light in this post. Lucky for all of you. *wink*

So, back to the storyline of the movie, which was released in 1937.

Here is a description on IMBd: Before their divorce becomes final, Jerry and Lucy Warriner both do their best to ruin each other’s plans for remarriage, Jerry to haughty socialite Barbara Vance, she to oil-rich bumpkin Daniel Leeson. Among their strategies: Jerry’s court-decreed visitation rights with Mr. Smith, their pet fox terrier, and Lucy doing her most flamboyant Dixie Belle Lee impersonation as Jerry’s brassy “sister” before his prospective bride’s scandalized family.

We start the movie out with Jerry trying to find a way to look tan so Lucy believes he was really in Florida. Not sure where he was for two weeks, but it apparently was not in Florida. We never really find the truth about that particular story.

Jerry goes home to his wife and finds out she isn’t home either. So, where has she been?

Jerry’s wife, portrayed by Irene Dunn, has secrets of her own, though they may not be quite as nefarious as Jerry’s – or are they? It’s never completely clear who is sneaking around on who in the beginning of the movie.

Eventually, it is clear that both of them are somewhat running around on their spouses, though maybe not full-blown affairs. They are, however, hanging around the opposite sex who are not their spouse.

In fact, both spouses are trying to pull the wool over each other’s eyes.

They’ve grown apart in a way and maybe have grown bored with each other so they are both living their own lives in a way and just when they decide they should officially live their lives apart by filing for divorce, they find there is still something between them they’re not ready to let go of just yet.

All it takes is a bit of jealousy to be stirred up when Lucy starts seeing another man, even before the divorce is final (gasp). From there the misunderstandings, mix-ups, and silliness kicks off and never slows down.

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments. One that stands out for me is Lucy’s call with her lawyer who is trying to talk to her about the beauty of marriage while his wife nags him in the background and he says to her, “Please shut your mouth” and then progresses to, “You shut your mouth! I’ll eat dinner when I want to!”

Irene and Cary are great together – tossing barbs back and forth fast and furious like the ball in a tennis match at Wimbleton.

They made three movies together: this one, Penny Serenade, and My Favorite Wife.

I have My Favorite Wife on our list to watch next week.

According to articles online, there were many parts of the movie that were adlibbed, which added even more to the charm of the movie for me.

The film was directed by Leo McCarey and you can read more about him HERE

According to an article on Criterion.com: (McCarey’s) claims to greatness, reaching far back into silent film, include Laurel and Hardy two-reelers; the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup (1933); a beloved melodrama that, astonishingly, he wrote and directed twice—as Love Affair in 1939 and, in 1957, as An Affair to Remember; and two surprise blockbusters, Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), gentle Catholic comedies starring Bing Crosby that reflect McCarey’s own devout Catholicism and feeling for the workings of divine providence.”

I have An Affair to Remember on our list for April 27^th and I just added The Bells of St. Mary’s to my personal list to watch.

According to Wikipedia, the movie is based on a play of the same name written by Arthur Richman. It was also made into a radio theater program with Lux Radio Theater with Cary and Claudette Colbert in 1939. I’ve listened to the Lux Radio productions before and really enjoyed them. There was one of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House with Cary and Myrna Lloyd, who were the leads in the movie version as well and that one was superb.

The same article details that the actors at first struggled immensely with McCarey’s freestyle method of directing. They were not provided with a script or much direction, which infuriated Cary who was used to having set scripts and assembly-line type movies with Paramount. He tried to get out of the movie several times, which irked McCarey and he allegedly held a grudge against the actor for decades over that move.

Despite the rocky start, though, the actors eventually determined that McCarey was a comic genius and looked back on the experience fondly, remembering how hard they laughed each day.

The whole article, which details the process of filming and the improvisation on the set is very interesting. If you want to read more of it, you can do so here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Awful_Truth

To read Erin’s impressions of The Awful Truth, well…she doesn’t have one this week so check out her blog next week. *ahahaaaaha* She told me she didn’t have one after I put mine up.

Our remaining schedule for the Spring of Cary:

My Favorite Wife (April 20^th)

An Affair To Remember (April 27)

Holiday (May 4)

Operation Petticoat (May 11)

Suspicion (May 18)

Notorious (May 25)