old movies

Winter of Cagney: Mister Roberts

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

This winter I am watching James Cagney movies for a “Winter of Cagney” marathon through the months of January and February.

Up this week is Mister Roberts, a 1955 film that couldn’t see to figure out its’ identity. I was told it was supposed to be a comedy/drama ,but I felt a lot of it was more of a drama with a few comedic moments tossed in.

I also wasn’t bowled  over by Cagney’s presence in this one. He seemed more like a caricature of himself or his previous characters and that may be because of the fraught relationship he and much of the cast had with the director, John Ford. More on that later.

Just because I wasn’t overly impressed with the movie, doesn’t mean I hated it or it was all bad. Not at all. In fact, it had some nice messages along the way and it was mildly entertaining. It simply wasn’t my favorite Cagney movie of the few I have watched so far.

The movie was based on the Broadway play which was based on a novel by Thomas Heggen.

Heggen and Joshua Logan wrote the stage play, which debuted in 1948 and was very successful with Henry Fonda in the role of Mister Roberts, which he also played in the movie.

This was a movie where Cagney was a secondary character with Fonda as the main star.

William Powell and Jack Lemon rounded out the cast.

This movie takes place toward the end of World War II on a United States Navy cargo ship called the Reluctant that is stationed in the backwater areas of the Pacific Ocean. The ship is affectionately and not-so-affectionately also called The Bucket by the crew.

The ship has not seen any military or war action and this is infuriating to the executive officer/cargo chief, Lieutenant (junior grade) Douglas A. “Doug” Roberts (Henry Fonda).

He spends most of his time trying to shield the depressed crew from the unpopular and task master captain, Lieutenant Commander Morton, played by Cagney while also filing transfers to get him off the ship and into the war.

He hates the idea that he and the men of the ship are sitting in the middle of the ocean, not seeing any action while Morton simply shouts orders and waters his ridiculous palm tree that he keeps in a small pot on a balcony near his office. Morton refers the transfers to higher ups because regulations require him to but he always advises the transfer requests to be ignored so they are.

Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver spends most of his time on ship hiding in his bunk to avoid the captain but repeatedly says he will one day light a fire cracker “under the old man’s bunk” to get back at him for always being mean to the crew. Instead of ever doing anything bold, though, Pulver wilts under Morton’s shouts.

William Powell appears in his last feature film as the doctor on board the ship and spends much of his time dealing with crew members who make up illnesses so they don’t have to keep working under Morton’s rule.

Roberts feels the men need some rest and relaxation and leave but Morton always refuses to give it to them.

Roberts finally finds a way to get orders for some R&R time behind Morton’s back, but when Morton finds out what’s going on he’s furious and tells Roberts the only way they can have the leave is if Roberts agrees to stop filing transfer requests and starts doing everything Morton tells him to.

The idea behind this one is a good one, but I wasn’t really feeling Cagney in the role. It almost felt like he was relegated to this secondary part, even though some critics praised his portrayal of the mentally-off captain.

One thing that probably didn’t help this movie was the fact that the director, John Ford, started the filming out with aggression and was replaced halfway through due to an argument with Fonda where Ford punched Fonda in the face, as well as emergency gallbladder surgery for Ford.

Ford’s tension with the actors may be why there was so much underlying tension throughout the movie.

Ford couldn’t even get along with Cagney, and let him know they probably wouldn’t get along right from the beginning.

Director John Ford

When Ford met Cagney at the airport, the director told the actor they would probably “tangle asses.” Cagney said he was shocked by the comment.

“I would have kicked his brains out,” Cagney said later. “He was so g******* mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man.”

The next day, Cagney was slightly late on set, and Ford was furious. Cagney allegedly interrupted Ford’s ranting by saying, “When I started this picture, you said that we would tangle asses before this was over. I’m ready now – are you?”

Ford reportedly walked away and he and Cagney had no further issues. Good thing too since Cagney had once been a champion boxer in the Bronx before becoming an actor.

Ford was replaced by Mervyn Leroy.

Joshua Logan also helped to direct, bringing his experience of having directed the original production on Broadway, but was uncredited in the film.


I was not overly impressed with Lemmon in this movie, so I was really shocked to read that he won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role.

According to the Warner Bros Fandom site, Lemmon and Cagney became close friends during filming.

“During the production of the film, Lemmon began a long-term friendship with Cagney which continued until Cagney’s death in 1986,” an article on the site reads. “Prior to his appearance in his first film, years before Mister Roberts, he started in live television. In one particular performance, Lemmon decided to play his character differently. He decided to play the character left-handed, which was opposite to his own way of movement. With much practice, he pulled off the performance without anyone noticing the change. This change even fooled Lemmon’s wife at the time. A few years went by and Lemmon met Cagney on their way to Midway Island to film Mister Roberts. They introduced themselves, and Cagney chimed in, “Are you still fooling people into believing you’re left handed?” They had a great laugh and a strong friendship was born.”

I wouldn’t really say I would skip this movie when watching Cagney movies, but, for me, I’ve seen better.

This was his last movie with Warner Bros, which is the studio where he’d spent most of his career.

A bit of trivia or facts about the film:

  • Henry Fonda was not the first choice for the role of Mister Roberts, even though he had played the role on Broadway. The producers felt that  he had been away from film for too long (eight years) and wouldn’t be a box office draw, but also that he was too old for the role. The character was supposed to be in his 20s but Fonda was 55 at the time of the film.
  • Spencer Tracy turned down the role of Morton.
  • Ford used his Navy connections to find one of the old cargo scows to use for the story’s setting and boat; cast and crew were all sent to Midway Island for exterior shooting. 
  • Though Ford apologized to Fonda for swinging at him, Fonda never looked at his former friend the same way again and they never worked together again.
  • The movie was 1955’s third highest box office hit.
  • The next year Ford made what many consider his greatest movie, The Searchers.
  • The movie was remade for TV in 1984 with Kevin Bacon as Mister Roberts

Up next week I am watching Angels With Dirty Faces, one of Cagney’s early movies with Humphrey Bogart.

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






Sources:

Website: https://warnerbros.fandom.com/wiki/Mister_Roberts_(1955_film)

Website: https://www.tcm.com/articles/72472/mister-roberts-1955

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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: Taxi (1931)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

This winter I’m watching movies with James Cagney.

This week I was supposed to watch Man of Many Faces but, but unfortunately, I didn’t check to see if it was streaming anywhere before I decided to watch it (at my husband’s suggestion) and I couldn’t order a Blu-Ray, which seems to be the only format available to watch it on, before this week.

I am hoping to get a copy of it before the end of this feature so I can watch it and write about it.

What I ended up doing was just moving up my movies I had scheduled and placing Man of Many Faces at the end of the list.

Taxi was one of Cagney’s first breakout films, right after his actual breakout film, The Public Enemy.

This is the movie where he almost says the words everyone has always tried to say he said: “You dirty rat.”

What he actually says in the movie is, “”Come out and take it, you yellow-bellied rat! Or I’ll make you take it through the door!”

If you want to know why he said those words, you’ll have to watch the movie.

This is also the first time Cagney showed us he can dance as he participates in a dance competition during the movie.

According to TCM.com, “To play his competition on the dance floor, Cagney recommended his pal, fellow tough-guy-dancer George Raft. The scene culminates in Raft winning the contest and getting slugged by Cagney for his trouble. Within a year or so, Raft — uncredited here — would emerge as a Warner Bros. star in his own right.”

The story of this hour-and-nine-minute-long movie is pretty simple.

Cagney plays Matt Nolan, an employee of an independent cab company in New York  City during a time when a large cab corporation was trying to push independent cab companies out of business.

Matt wants to date Sue Riley (Loretta Young), the daughter of his boss who gets sent to jail after he shoots the man who trashed his cab in the cab war.

Nolan is a complex man with a temper but also a deep love for those who mean the most to him. A lot of the movie is him courting Sue and her telling him that he needs to get his temper in check.

I spent a lot of the movie telling Matt to chill out and telling Sue to dump Matt.

I won’t go into too much detail about the plot, but something tragic does happen part way through the movie, which will make Matt have to decide if he will let his temper rule him or not. You’ll have to watch to see what happens.

This movie was made before the Hays Code came into play. What is the Hays Code, you may ask?

Let Wikipedia explain: “The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays’s leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.”

Loretta Young later confessed to having a crush on Cagney.

“I admired him so much, though I could never tell him so,” she revealed. “I remember having this romantic dream about him…in which I was drowning and he rescued me.”

She recalled that Cagney had “complete control over expressing the whole gamut of emotions with his eyes. He could accomplish with a glance what other actors need a whole bag of tricks to put over.”

I found this tidbit of information in the TCM article shocking: “As in The Public Enemy, several scenes in Taxi! involved the use of live machine-gun bullets. After a few of the slugs narrowly missed Cagney’s head, he outlawed the practice on future films.”

Have you ever seen this one?

What did you think of it?

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

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

Favorite movies I watched in 2025

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

This past year I watched 84 movies, some long and some short, the majority of them made before 1960.

At the end of this post, I’ll list them all, but for now, here are my favorites from the bunch. I did not include any movies that were rewatches for me in my favorites list, but I did include rewatches in the overall list.

  • Without Reservations
  • KPop Demon Hunters

  • It Happened One Night
  • Superman (2025 version)
  •  Take Me Out to the Ballgame
  •  They Got Me Covered
  • The Strawberry Blonde
  • Another Man’s Poison

The movies I watched in 2025:

  • Morning Glory
  • The Stranger
  • Gunga Din
  • The Power of the Press
  • The Prisoner of Zenda
  • The Young in Heart
  • The Exile
  • Angles Over Broadway
  • Sinbad The Sailor
  • The Rise of Catherine The Great
  • The Sun Never Sets
  • Almost Heroes
  • The Quiet Man
  • The Barkleys of Broadway
  • Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
  • How to Steal A Million
  • The Intouchables
  • Paris Blues
  • Hugo
  • Charade
  • Paddington in Peru
  • The Assassination Bureau
  • The Honey Pot
  • The Manchurian Candidate (original)
  • Herbie Goes to Morocco
  • National Velvet
  • The Rains Came
  • Gaslight
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks
  • Abbott and Costello: Jack and The Beanstalk
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel
  • The Pirates of Penzance
  • Take Me Out to the Ballgame
  • A Hole in the Head
  • The Canary Murder
  • Please Murder Me
  • Without Reservations
  • Death on the Nile
  • The Court Jester
  • They Got Me Covered
  • Raffles
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • A Life At Stake
  • The Long, Hot Summer
  • Find Me Falling
  • KPop Demon Hunters
  • The Celtic Riddle
  • Nonnas
  • Benny and Joon
  • The Talk of the Town
  • The Bishop Murder Case
  • Autumn Harvest
  • It Happened One Night
  • What’s One More?
  • Pennie’s From Heaven
  • A Green Journey
  • Superman (2025)
  • Topper
  • Pfffft!
  • The Mummy
  • Iron Man
  • Iron Man 2
  • Thor
  • Storm in A Teacup
  • The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down A Mountain
  • The Storied Life of AJ Fickery
  • Iron Man 3
  • The Avengers
  • I’ll Take Sweden
  • Another Man’s Poison
  • The Strawberry Blonde
  • Meet Me In St. Louis
  • Condemned to Devil’s Island
  • Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Winter Soldier
  • Ball of Fire
  • It Happened on Fifth Avenue
  • A Christmas Story
  • The Falcon Takes Over
  • Tenth Avenue Angel
  • The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
  • The Thin Man
  • The Bishop’s Wife
  • The Benson Murder Case
  • Yankee Doodle Dandy

Have you seen any of these movies? Which ones did you enjoy?

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.

Classic Movie Impression: It Happened On Fifth Avenue

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I’ve been watching less popular Christmas-themed movies around Christmas for the last couple of years. One of those movies was It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947).

I truly thought I’d written about this movie in previous years, but I can’t find it when I search so I am writing about it now.

The movie is about a group of people who are sort of thrown together but it starts with a man named Alyosius T. McKeever (Victor Moore) who sneaks in the mansion of businessman Michael O’Connor (Charlie Ruggles) in New York City early in November when O’Connor goes to his home in Virginia for the winter.

McKeever is a “vagabond” or homeless man.

He lives in the home, wearing O’Connor’s clothes, and eating any food left at the house in the pantry.

The movie opens with him sneaking inside through the back fence and will later learn that he’s been doing this for some twenty years.

I, of course, am surprised that no one has ever seen him or seen the lights on in the house but, it’s a movie. Let’s suspend belief.

There are police who patrol the grounds, but McKeever has a system where he hides in the icebox (or a room they call the icebox) until the police have passed by. He also has the lights hooked up so they will shut off as soon as someone opens the front door.

One day McKeever meets Jim Bullock played by Don DeFore, sleeping on a park bench. Jim, a veteran, has been evicted from his apartment building because it is being torn down. Michael O’Connor is putting up an 80-story building in its place.

When Jim gets to the mansion and is settling in, he sees an award shaped like a boat with the name Michael O’Connor on it and accuses McKeever of taking over homes of people who can’t afford to live in family homes like his.

McKeever tells Jim he’s not really O’Connor, but a friend of his. Jim accepts this explanation easily

Jim isn’t sure what to think of this arrangement, but he needs a place to stay so he accepts it.

Soon we see Michael O’Connor, who is in Virgina having a board meeting. During the board meeting he gets a call from his daughter Trudy’s school and been told that it’s possible she’s run away.

Michael looks at a photo of two women and asks his assistant if he thinks that she has run off to her mother in Florida.

The man doesn’t know so Michael orders him to hire a private investigator and find his daughter (played by … get this name…Gale Storm).

His daughter, though, is already found for us viewers. She is at her father’s mansion looking for her clothes when Jim finds her. He demands to know what she’s doing there and suggests she is stealing from the mansion. He threatens to call the police.

Trudy, apparently smitten with Jim merely based on his appearance, decides not to tell him who she really is and tells him to go ahead and call the police.

McKeever pulls Jim aside and confesses all. He is not a friend of O’Connor, but is, instead, simply someone who takes advantage of the home being empty for a few months out of the year. When O’Connor leaves, he moves in and when O’Connor leaves Virginia, McKeever hitches his way to Virginia and moves in that house until it’s time to come back to New York.

(Again…suspend belief).

Jim isn’t sure what to make of the arrangement, but is amused and impressed that McKeever hasn’t been caught yet.

Trudy listens in and overhears what McKeever has been doing and smiles in an amused way. She decides she will find a way to stay on with the men since it will be a way to hide from her father for a while. She tells the men the truth, which is that she’s going to get a job at a music store so she can get back on her feet again. She then says she only broke into the house because she was hungry and desperate and then does a lovely fake faint to add to her story.

The men agree that she can stay. From here the movie will start to get a bit more complicated as more people are invited to stay at the mansion, including a family with small children. What could make all of this even more chaotic? Add in Michael O’Connor returning to New York to try to find his daughter and planning to return to the mansion.

One little thing that bothered me about this movie was how young Gale Storm looked and was supposed to be. She was supposed to be 18 but a romance develops between her and Jim and he seems considerably older than her. That was…awkward at times. However, I’m not sure how old Jim is actually supposed to be so maybe it isn’t so awkward. Gale was 22 at the time the film was made.

The screenplay for this movie was written by Everett Freeman. The original story was created by Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani.

Harry Revel wrote the songs “It’s A Wonderful, Wonderful Feeling.” “That’s What Christmas Means to Me” and “Speak My Heart” for the movie, according to the opening credits, but I wouldn’t call this movie a musical. One of the main characters simply sings a bit.

Gale Storm thought she’d be singing the parts in the film, but, unfortunately, she was told her voice would be dubbed over.

She later wrote in her memoir: “I couldn’t believe it. I thought that maybe the director didn’t know I’d been singing and dancing in films, and that if I spoke to him he’d let me do my own numbers. Well, I asked him, and he said no. I asked him to look at some of my musicals, and he said no. I asked him if I could sing for him, and he said no. His theory was that if you were a dancer, you didn’t sing; if you were a singer, you didn’t dance; and if you were an actor, you didn’t sing or dance. It was humiliating.”

Another song in the movie is “You’re Everywhere” sung by The King’s Men at 1930s/1940s barbershop quartet.

According to TCM.com, Frank Capra originally acquired the rights to the movie but passed it on to Allied Artists, a new subsidiary of Monogram Pictures, which used to develop B movies. It Happened on Fifth Avenue was the companies first major motion picture and was developed by Roy Del Ruth.

Not only was Gale upset about not being able to sing in the film, but she also was disappointed Capra didn’t direct it, according to the TCM.com article. She felt the movie was decidedly “Capra-esque” — “a warmhearted human story about the little guy with underlying social and political commetary. She said that she felt Del Ruth didn’t make the most of the story’s potential, but she may have been holding a grudge since he didn’t let her do her own singing.

Gale said Del Ruth wasn’t easy on anyone.

“I wasn’t the only one Del Ruth humiliated,” continued Storm in her biography. “Victor Moore was a dear, sweet old man who was kind to everyone; we all loved him. Except Del Ruth. Whatever Victor did, the director made him redo it — again and again. And Del Ruth never told the old man what he might have been doing wrong.”

Despite these complaints from Gale, the movie did well when it was released, with the actors receiving praise by reviewers and critics. It has now become a beloved classic as well.

Is this one you’ve ever seen? What did you think about it?

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.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

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!