old movies

Summer of Angela: Gaslight (1944)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

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

This week I watched Gaslight (1944), which was Angela’s first movie and also her first nomination for an Academy Award. I think I stated before that she won the Oscar, but she didn’t. Whoops!

She was 18 years old when she portrayed Nancy, the odd, boisterous and flirty housemaid of Ingrid Bergman’s character.

After I watched it, I knew this movie was going to be hard for me to write about without giving tons of spoilers and without expressing my strong desire for one particular character to die, or at least suffer greatly by the end of the film, but I am going to try not to in case any of you who haven’t watched it want to watch it later.

Ahem.

Sorry for being so blunt about wanting a character to die or suffer, but…. it is true.

This movie is about a woman who is made to believe she is insane.

That’s pretty much the description. Here is a little more from Google, though: “After the death of her famous opera-singing aunt, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to study in Italy to become a great opera singer as well. While there, she falls in love with the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, strange footsteps in the night and gaslights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, her new husband’s intentions come into question.”

It stars Ingrid Bergman as Paula Alquist, Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton, Angela Lansbury as Nancy Oliver, and Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron. 

When I asked my 80-year-old mom if she wanted to watch the movie with me this week, she said, “No! Oh no!” and looked horrified.

That didn’t make me feel excited to watch it until she explained it wasn’t a bad movie, just somewhat dark and creepy. I told her that her response reminded me of how she might react if I asked her if she wanted to watch The Birds with me. The Birds is my mom’s least favorite movie.

When I was a child, she once came rushing into the house from mowing the lawn.

“The birds!” she cried waving her arms over her head, brushing at her hair. “The birds! They were swooping! Swooping down at me like in that movie! Swarming me! The Birds!! The Biiiiirds!”

Needless to say, that was not a movie I ever watched with her and won’t ask her to watch again.

Anyhow, Gaslight is based on a UK version of the movie, which was based on a play called Gas Light (two words). As far as I know, the American version is considered the better version since it was nominated for seven Oscars, winning two, including one for best actress for Ingrid.

Joseph Cotten portrays a police inspector, whose interest in an decade-old murder case is piqued when he sees a woman who looks like the victim. It turns out the woman is the niece of the murdered woman.

Cameron wants to know more about what is going on and why the niece never leaves the house, or if she does it is for a very short time and never without her husband. He finally gets his chance when Paula stands up to the controlling Gregory and tells him she wants to leave the house for an event they were invited to by a woman she knew as a child.

Throughout the movie her husband has been accusing her of stealing or moving things, suggesting she doesn’t remember when she does the these things and hinting, more than once, that she might be insane. Even at the event she finally is able to go to he accuses her of stealing his watch, which leads her to having a near mental breakdown in public.

As the movie goes on, we begin to wonder who is actually crazy, but we do know that her husband seems pretty horrid and abusive. We also know that one reason Paula thinks she is crazy is because she notices the brightness of the gaslights decreasing and increasing throughout the evening, something no one else in the house seems to notice.

I don’t want to give too much away, but this movie did have me on edge throughout the entirety. I felt such anxiety for Ingrid’s character and a lot of anger toward her husband, though I wasn’t sure what was really going on.

Angela’s character was evil and selfish. That’s the only way I know how to describe her. She definitely was brilliant in her role because she made me so uncomfortable. If I could describe her even more succinctly, I would say “what a trashy little tart.”

What Angela said about the movie:

Angela was 17 when she auditioned for the movie.

“As far as I was concerned, I was very consciousness at the age,” Angela said in an interview with the SAG-AFRTA Foundation. “So I went about learning my lines and listening to George Cukor direction and he directed the test . . .I did it with an actor called Hugh Marlow who played the part of Charles Boyer’s role (for the test) and we did a very extensive test.  I’m glad we did. Cukor took great care because I think he really wanted me although the first decision was that I wouldn’t play it, you know, I was too young. But I signed a contract anyhow because Albie Mayer saw my test when he came back from a trip back east to see his horses … and he saw my test and said ‘sign that girl.’”

Angela said she had a lot of interaction with L.B. Mayer, who ran Metro-Golden-Mayer (MGM) studios and that she was very fond of him. Not only did he sign her but also her mother and wanted to sign her twin brothers, but they decided not to let the twin sign. Instead, they later became writers for the movie and television industry.

After being nominated for Oscars for both Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Angela says she was never considered a starlet, always an actress. That made her job a little easier.

Angela said that she was glad in many ways that she didn’t win the Oscars she was nominated for because in her view many people who win Oscars second guess what their next steps will be. They often overthink what roles they need to take next because they are always thinking about being as good as an Oscar winning role, she said. She thinks that for her she didn’t have that pressure. She just went with whatever she wanted to do next, though she was a little disappointed that MGM didn’t have anything lined up for her so she could use the momentum of the success from her first two movies.

She went on with laughter in the interview saying that she was nominated for her first two movies and “it all went downhill from there.”

Angela was  nominated again, however, for The Manchurian Candidate in 1963 where she played the role of a mother to an actor who was only three years younger than her. She told the interviewer that she felt the fact she was given roles where she was playing older women showed her that she was always a character actor.

In a 2000 interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, Angela recalled how the audition for Gaslight really came about.

“Well, I was introduced to the studio, which was MGM, by a young man who was being considered for the role of Dorian Gray. His name was Michael Dyne. And he arranged that the casting director would see me, this young English girl, who at that time was – I think I was 17. And I went to the studio with my mother and was interviewed for the part of Sibyl Vane in “Dorian Gray.” And the head of casting, a man called Billy Grady, came into the room while I was sitting there. He said, sort of whispered in the ear of Mr. Ballerino, the man I was seeing, you know, you should suggest that this young lady meets George Cukor, who’s trying to cast the role of the maid in “Gaslight.” And so right then and there, I was whipped off to meet George Cukor. And so, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”

The interviewer asked Angela if she was aware of some of the darker elements of the film, or was she a little naïve because she was so young at the time.

“I can’t honestly say, except by my on-set demeanor,” she responded. “I think my on-set demeanor was a very, very careful, covered, rather shy attitude about what I was doing. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I was aware of that, but I know from my own uncertainty about my personal – you see; I’ve always been a very private person. When it comes to the work, I’m on solid ground. When it comes to the – Angela Lansbury the young woman, I was on very uncertain ground.”

She continued: “So, I had to marry those two rather carefully. And that’s why, as I say, I always felt that I had to, shall we say, tread rather warily from a personal point of view. Just listen and hear and do what I was told and asked to do. I could discuss it, but I – in most instances, I was pretty quick to pick up directorial indications from somebody like George Cukor because he was extremely clear and funny and helpful. And what he said I understood. So you could say I was fortunate in that I could understand what he wanted and then deliver it. This is what I do, and this is what I always maintained throughout my career – was that I had that ability to take direction and also to understand what the – what was required of the character.”

Angela turned 18 on the set and had this to say about that time: “Oh, it was required that there was a social worker with me until my 18th birthday, which I celebrated on the set of “Gaslight,” actually. And I always remember it because Ingrid and Charles and George Cukor were so wonderfully kind. And Ingrid gave me lovely bottles of Strategy, which was a lovely, smelly cologne, which – I’d never had anything as lovely as that – and powder, you know, sort of talcum powder and things that, you know, set. I always remember that. It’s interesting, the things you do remember.”

This part made me laugh so I had to include it: “And we celebrated. And I was able to take a cigarette out of a packet in my purse and smoke it, which I hadn’t been able to let on, that I had been smoking from the time I was, really, about 14 years old. I say that without any sense of pride at all. And I stopped smoking 30 years ago. But nevertheless – I don’t know if you remember, but I do smoke a rather long Cigarettello in the movie. And that was part of the business in the movie of “Gaslight.” But they only let me puff it. And I wasn’t allowed to inhale, as Mr. Clinton would say.”

As Mr. Clinton might say. Wahahaha! I remember that interview with him. He didn’t inhale and he didn’t have sexual relations with that woman…well, we all know how that second one went.

Anyhow,

You can read and listen to the full interview with Angela here https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101435407/angela-lansbury-looks-back-on-her-great-performances-on-stage-and-screen

 It was fascinating to me.

A bit of trivia or facts:

  • According to TCM.com: “MGM head Louis B. Mayer, determined to eliminate the competition for what was expected to be one of the studio’s biggest hits of the year, ordered all prints of the 1939 British version purchased and destroyed. Prints, however, did survive, and the film turned up again in the 1950s, often under the title of the original 1938 stage production, Angel Street.”
  • MGM tried to sue Jack Benny in the 50s because he presented a spoof of the movie called Autolight. Benny played Charles Boyer’s character and Barbara Stanwyck performed as Bergman. The comedians lawyers argued the skit was in the realm of parody and therefore not a copyright violation and the suit was dropped.
  • Ingrid Bergman was filming The Bells of St. Mary’s when she won her Oscar for Gaslight. The star of the film, Bing Crosby, and the director, Leo McCarey, had previously won Oscars. In her acceptance speech Ingrid quipped: “I am particularly glad to get the Oscar this time because I’m working on a picture at the moment with Mr. Crosby and Mr. McCarey and I’m afraid if I went on the set tomorrow without an award, neither of them would speak to me.”
  • From TCM: “In the big confrontation scene between the chambermaid and the lady of the house, Lansbury was required to light a cigarette in defiance of her mistress’s orders. But because she was only 17, the social worker and teacher assigned to her would not allow her to smoke until she was a year older. When her 18th birthday arrived, Bergman and the cast threw her a party on the set, and the scene was done shortly after.”
  • Director George Cukor suggested that Ingrid Bergman study the patients at a mental hospital to learn about nervous breakdowns. She did, focusing on one woman in particular, whose habits and physical quirks became part of the character. (source IMdB)
  • The first time Ingrid Bergman encountered Charles Boyer was the day they shot the scene where they meet at a train station and kiss passionately. Boyer was the same height as Bergman, and in order for him to seem taller, he had to stand on a box, which she kept inadvertently kicking as she ran into the scene. Boyer also wore shoes and boots with two-inch heels throughout the movie. (source IMdB)
  • Charles Boyer‘s wife, Pat Paterson, was pregnant with what would be the couple’s only child. Boyer and Paterson had been trying to have a baby for many years, and Boyer was exceptionally nervous while making Gaslight. He rushed between takes to call and check on his wife’s health as the expected birth date grew nearer. The baby was expected to come after Boyer had finished working on this movie, but he arrived early. Boyer broke down in tears when he was notified, and he informed the rest of the cast and crew of his son’s birth. Production was halted for the day and the cast and crew opened up bottles of champagne to celebrate the birth. (source IMdB)
  • Angela had been working at Bullocks Department Store in L.A. before getting the part in Gaslight. When she told her boss that she was leaving, he offered to match the pay at her new job, expecting it to be in the region of her Bullocks salary of the equivalent of twenty-seven dollars a week. He was shocked to find out she’d be earning $500 a week. (source IMdB)

Cat from Cat’s Wire also watched the movie this week and you can read her thoughts here. She compared the British and American movie versions and a German televised version of the original play. I absolutely loved how she compared these three!

Here is my full schedule of movies I am watching for the Summer of Angela:

Blue Hawaii

The Manchurian Candidate

National Velvet

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

August 8 The Picture of Dorian Gray

August 15 – A Life At Stake

August 22 – All Fall Down

August 29 – Something for Everyone

Additional resources:

Angela Lansbury Looks Back on Her Great Performances on Stage and Screen:

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101435407/angela-lansbury-looks-back-on-her-great-performances-on-stage-and-screen

Gaslight Review: The Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/gaslight-review-1944-movie-999932/

From TCM: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/166/gaslight#articles-reviews?articleId=29976

The Essentials (Gaslight): https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/166/gaslight#articles-reviews?articleId=89327

In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, Gaslight: https://crystalkalyana.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/gaslight-1944/

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: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 19 Comments

This summer I am watching Angela Lansbury movies. This week — well, last week — I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

First, a movie description:

During the Battle of Britain, Miss Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury), a cunning witch-in-training, decides to use her supernatural powers to defeat the Nazi menace. She sets out to accomplish this task with the aid of three inventive children who have been evacuated from the London Blitz. Joined by Emelius Brown (David Tomlinson), the head of Miss Price’s witchcraft training correspondence school, the crew uses an enchanted bed to travel into a fantasy land and foil encroaching German troops.

The children come to live with Eglantine Price not because she wants them to, mind you. She is sort of cohersed into it by a lady from the community who ran out of room for the other children who came from London.

Once there the children decide they are going back to London. Miss Price doesn’t eat normal food (she doesn’t eat any sausages at all!). Miss Price can’t let them go back to London because the city is being bombed but..oddly enough…later in the movie she takes them all back to London via a magical bed. Yes, you read that right. A magical, flying bed.

The movie is based on two novels by Mary Norton, The Magic Bed-Knob (1945) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1957), about the adventures of an apprentice witch and the three children who come to stay with her to escape the bombing of London during World War II.

In some parts, the movie mixes live action and animation, similar to Mary Poppins.

Walt Disney (the man, not the company) purchased the rights to the first book the year it was published, but the movie wouldn’t be made until five years after his death, partially because of  Mary Poppins. It took Disney years and years to convince P.L. Travers to give the rights to Mary Poppins. Walt wanted to make a movie based on Bedknobs and Broomsticks but decided he’d hold on to that one if he couldn’t get Mary Poppins. Of course, he did get Mary Poppins so Bedknobs was pushed aside for a bit.

Walt said the stories were very similar, so he wanted to wait to make Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a title that combined both book titles, when the frenzy from Mary Poppins had died down a bit. In the end, Walt died before Bedknobs and Broomsticks was developed and released.

Observer.com says this about the movie: “Bedknobs and Broomsticks is just as unhinged as it sounds. The 1960s through the 1980s was a period of decline for Disney, and the internal drama at the studio plus the Mary Poppins-related delays are evident in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a film that’s all over the place (ironic, as Lansbury called her performance “acting by the numbers;” each scene was storyboarded ahead of time). At first, it strikes the same chord as Chitty Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), but then it veers into West Side Story (1961) territory with extended dance numbers (including dancers in brownface). The scenes where the group travels using Miss Price’s magical bed are bizarrely psychedelic à la the tunnel scene in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which premiered the same year. And the arcs featuring a mix of live action and animation, particularly the soccer scene on the cartoon island of Naboombu, feel like precursors to future hits like Space Jam (1996).”



Who is in it:

The movie stars Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson (the father in Mary Poppins, incidentally) and three wonderful child actors Ian Weighill, Roy Snart, and Cindy O’Callaghan.

Highlights for me:

The children in this movie were absolutely amazing. They were hilarious, quick-witted and delivered their lines perfectly.

In one scene, the oldest boy decides he’s going to blackmail Miss Price into giving them better food (not vegetarian food that she eats) by telling her that the kids know she’s a witch. They know this because when they were trying to sneak out of the house to go back to London, they saw her trying to ride a broom for the first time and falling off into a bush.

“What we have here is an opportunity,” he says when he sees her fall off her broom. “She don’t want us to tell anyone she’s a witch so….”

Oh gosh, the kid is so funny in his delivery. His sister isn’t very pleased with him trying to manipulate Miss Price, by the way, and Miss Price isn’t easily manipulated so it doesn’t really work.

Angela, of course, was very good in this movie. I have to agree with some reviews that said she wasn’t as animated in the movie as she could have been. However, later in life she talked about how technical these types of movies have to be, adding that it is hard to improvise or do anything that breaks too much from the script when the movie is storyboarded so exact for the technical aspects.

There was one song that sort of made my eyebrows raise: Portobello Road. Mainly because of the women who come up to the professor on Portobello Road and seem to be flirting with him. They are dressed in brightly colored dresses that have a certain “look” to them. These same women are in the background of the song flirting with the soldiers and even get their own break out dance moment. As my mom would say, “Oh. Oh my!”

I’m really surprised they put “those type of women” in the movie, which was, clearly, meant for children. I kept looking for any commentary online about this and did find some, but mainly from bloggers.

“I mean, it wasn’t until this viewing that I worked out that, yes, those are prostitutes attempting to pick up Professor Browne and not just friendly women,” Gillianred on The Solute.com wrote. “Which is . . . not something I expected from a Disney movie. But if you look at what they’re wearing and exactly how they size him up, it seems to me that, yup, they’re wondering if he’s got a few bob in his pocket to spare for a little bit of fun.”

I also enjoyed all the different cultures represented during the Portobello Road song. Soldiers who fought for the British during World War II were shown dancing in their own moments during the song, including Scottish, Indian, and  Jamaica.  Online there was at least one site that called this scene racist but I guess I didn’t see it that way. I just thought it was nice they were representing the other countries who fought with England.

 I also felt that the Jamaican section in particular was very respectful because they were dancing to traditional music, the Jamaican women had the best dresses of anyone else in the dance sequence and everyone around them was clapping and enjoying themselves.

The children were even enjoying watching the dances and weren’t making fun of them, but trying to mimic them and try to dance like the people. To me the sequence is a chance to talk to children about the differences between culture. While the depictions are not completely accurate, to me, they are an attempt to bring awareness to all of those different countries that fought with the British during that time.

Eglantine’s cat looked like it had died – so that was funny to see. It looked like the cat we had, who we loved dearly, but was 19 when she died and looked awful. She looked like an animatronic cat that had gone through a garbage disposal at that point.

What I thought overall:

I liked this movie a lot but I don’t know that I would watch it again and again. Maybe if I had watched it as a child and had a sentimental connection, I would have loved it. Instead, I only liked it.

I almost loved it, maybe that’s a better way to say it. This was a comfy, cozy movie for me, even if it wasn’t my favorite Disney film. Yes, I know comfy and cozy are essentially the same word. Just go with it.

I loved the humor of the children and how they made the movie. I loved the silliness and the absolute detachment from reality it had , something people in the 40s would have really needed. Since the movie was released in 1971 it would have provided some people a happier way to frame that period, which was so dark for the world, but especially British people.

I’m actually glad children back then couldn’t see movies like this or read books like the Narnia Chronicles. They might have thought they were all going to mansion with professors or witches where they would disappear into a magical land via a wardrobe or fly away to adventure on a bed.

Nazis showing up at the end of the film was awkward and I imagine would have been very scary for children who watched it when really young.

Mr. Brown dreaming of Angela in a revealing acrobat outfit was also…er…interesting.  Not inappropriate but a bit strange. In a funny way.

And, of course, the ending when — well, have you seen the film? I hate to give it away but I will say that a spell is cast and very exciting things happen to help make sure there is a happy ending.

If I were to boil down my overall opinion of the movie into one sentence I would say that it was a magical adventure for me that allowed me to escape life stresses and that is exactly what I think the makers of this movie wanted to do.

What Angela said about the movie:

I could not find the source for this again, but at some point, I was watching an interview with Angela and she said that what really made the movie was the children. Their acting was so good and, of course, children love to watch movies with other children in them.

In 1998 Disney released an extended version of the movie, adding in deleted scenes and musical numbers. Interviewed by Disney for the project, Angela said only those who acted in the movie knew what was missing all these years, but they were so glad to add those parts back.

“It was my passport to an entire generation of youngsters,” Angela said in the interview for Disney. “Now those children are all grown up and they are showing Bedknobs and Broomsticks to their kids.”

“To fly is everybody’s dream,” she continued in the interview. “And to have that experience of being suspended and moving freely through the air is a lovely feeling.”

Pullies and wires were used to help Angela and the other actors seem to fly but special effects also came into play.

“It has to do with make believe,” Angela said. “We had to understand that we were interacting with an animated creature, so your hand had to be in a certain position for  him to put his hand on yours in the final print.”

A bit of trivia or facts:

  • Julie Andrews was offered the role of Miss Price in the movie but declined. When she made up her mind she did want to do it, it was too late. Angela had been offered the role and had accepted.
  • The Beautiful Briny was actually written for Mary Poppins, but saved out and filmed for Bedknobs and Broomsticks instead.
  • The song A Step in the Right Direction was cut from the movie and the footage could never be found to restore it to the restored version of the movie. Disney did, however, clip together some images and present it on the Disney Channel before airing the movie with all the deleted scenes added back in. (https://youtu.be/J-VwRkQGkAw?si=QpQ0jjsfKoP5H9wa
  • In the establishing shot of the animated soccer game, a bear wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt can be spotted in the crowd on the right side of the picture.
  • There were differences between the books and the movie. For example, in the first book of the series, the warm is not explicitly mentioned and the children are not orphans but are instead sent to spend the summer with their aunt in the country. It’s heard they meet Eglantine Price, who gives them the magic bedknob in exchange for not revealing she is a witch. In the second book, set two years after the first, the children travel back in time to 1666 before the Great Fire of London and that’s where they meet Emelius Jones (not Brown) and bring him back with them to the future.
  • Another difference between the movie and book is that Eglantine ends up traveling back with him to his time and takes the bed with her, which means the children will not have any more adventures or trips.
  • From TCM.com: “In an interview filmed for the thirtieth anniversary of the film that was included as added content on the DVD release, Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, the brothers who were the film’s composer-lyricists, stated that they were given the task to write songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks while the studio awaited permission from author P. L. Travers to film Mary Poppins. In an interview reprinted in a modern source, the brothers reported that Disney assured them that he owned another story about magic for which their songs could be used if Mary Poppins was not produced. According to the Shermans, the song “The Beautiful Briny” actually was written for, but never used in, Mary Poppins.”
  • According to 1971 studio production notes, three blocks of Portobello Road as it looked in 1940 were reproduced on Disney Studio soundstages. Among the props used for this sequence were carts rented from A. Keehn, a company that had a monopoly on them, according to set decorator Emile Kuri, who stated that for over a hundred years the company had collected a shilling a day for each barrow rented by vendors on Portobello Road. (Source TCM.com).
  • All longer scenes with Roddy McDowall as the local pastor “Mr. Jelk,” were cut from the film and he ended up in only a three-minute clip in the original film.
  • The New York Times stated in their review that Angela projected a “healthy sensuality” in the movie. (*giggle*)
  • This was the last Disney movie released while Roy O. Disney was still alive. He died a week after its U.S. premiere.
  • The armor in the climactic battle with the Nazis was authentic medieval armor, previously used in Camelot (1967) and El Cid (1961). When any item of armor was to be destroyed, exact fiberglass replicas were created and used.
  • In this movie, the King of Naboombu’s name is Leo. In official merchandise guidebooks, his full name is King Leonidas, after the Spartan King who died at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
  • This was the last Disney-branded movie to receive an Academy Award until The Little Mermaid (1989). Others received nominations, and two Touchstone Pictures movies, The Color of Money (1986) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), received awards before that.

If you want to read a very fun review of this film, I enjoyed this one by Mutant Reviewers Movies: https://mutantreviewersmovies.com/2013/03/25/deneb-does-bedknobs-and-broomsticks/

Cat from Cat’s Wire also watched this one this week and you can find her thoughts here:

Up next in my Summer of Angela is Gaslight.

Here is my full schedule of movies I am watching:

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

August 8 The Picture of Dorian Gray

August 15 – A Life At Stake

August 22 – All Fall Down

August 29 – Something for Everyone

Additional resources:

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#notes

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#articles-reviews?articleId=188901

https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68329/bedknobs-and-broomsticks#photos-videos

https://www.the-solute.com/disney-byways-bedknobs-and-broomsticks/#:~:text=I%20mean%2C%20it%20wasn’t,a%20little%20bit%20of%20fun.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066817/trivia/

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: National Velvet (1944)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 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.

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

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 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.

Classic Movie Impressions: That Touch of Mink

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 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: Sinbad the Sailor. Not even my crush on Fairbanks Jr. could get me through this one.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

This week for Winter of Fairbanks Jr. I watched Sinbad the Sailor.

Oh my, readers.

I watched this one with a face you make after you’ve taken gross tasting medicine.

Not even my crush on Fairbanks Jr. could get me through this one.

What was I even thinking? I really should have read up on it more or watched a preview first.

Cheesy? Check.

Sort of disrespectful to other cultures? Check.

Horrid, garish colors and really bad makeup jobs complete with darkened skin and dark eyeliner? Check.

A red-haired Irish woman who is supposed to be a Middle Eastern princess? Check.

There were so many yikes with this one, I just couldn’t wait for it to end. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be in the adventure or slapstick comedy genre. I found myself singing “It’s Sinbad the Sailor man” to the tune of Popeye’s theme song throughout much of it.

We’re supposed to believe this American man wearing blue eye shadow and dark eyeliner is a Muslim from Baghdad? Oh be still my horrified heart.

There is nothing like hearing a thick Irish accent say, “I am Shireen, Princess of Baghdad” to really emerse you into a movie about a middle-eastern folklore hero. *facepalm*

That darkened skin? They apparently got bored of using it about 15 minutes in because everyone miraculously appeared white again for a scene or two. No idea what that was about because a few scenes later they were dark again. I think there might have been only two or three actors in this movie who were actually not white. Anthony Quinn was one of them but not even he was middle-eastern since he was born in Mexico.

*I just want to add a clarification here (that wasn’t in here when I originally posted this): I do not mean to imply that the people making this movie or starring in it were racist at all. I just mean that it jarred me out of the story to have them be so clearly pale, American, and Irish, or with horrible makeup. I don’t think any ill-will was meant toward any culture. It was common in the early days of movies just to want to make something fun and not really think about how they might be slighting cultures. I am not excusing that but I also don’t think that movie makers set out to be offensive.

Another thing that always puzzles me about these old movies — couples meeting each other one day and already kissing each other that same day.

What was with that anyhow?

I’ve done my share of ranting about the movie so far so how about a little plot for you as presented by an article on TCM.com:

“Surrounded by friends, charming storyteller and adventurer Sinbad (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) regales his audience with a tale of his derring-do in exotic lands. In this particular adventure, his ocean journey with sidekick Abbu (George Tobias) pauses in the remote Daibul where nefarious auctioneers commandeer his ship. A bidding war erupts between rightful owner Sinbad and the feisty Shireen (Maureen O’Hara), resolved only through a bit of Sinbadian sleight of hand.”

“Meanwhile the powerful Emir (Anthony Quinn) notices Sinbad’s attentions towards the headstrong Shireen, who saves the sailor’s life before being captured by the Emir. This time salvation arrives in the form of Eastern sailor Melik (Walter Slezak) who enlists the couple’s aid in tracking down the elusive treasure of Deryabar, located beneath the palace of Alexander the Great. Loyalties and vows shift as the trio races to the treasure with the furious Emir hot on their heels.”

The film was shot in Technicolor so it is way out there with crazy colors from the paint on the ship to Maureen’s gaudy dresses.

TCM says Douglas was “famously ignored by his father as a child” but still wanted to make the movie in honor of his father’s swashbuckling movies. It was the first movie that Douglas Jr. made after returning from voluntarily serving in the United States Navy during World War II.

The writer of the article on TCM, Nathaniel Thompson, did have an “obsession” (as I’m sure many did) with what he called Maureen’s “exquisitely endowed bosom.”

He wrote, “which she was wisely but discreetly at pains to exploit and which I, ever an untiring student of such anatomical addenda, discreetly admired.”

Writing in his autobiography, A Hell of A War, Fairbanks wrote that he knew no one in a lead in the movie was Arab at all.

“After all, I was not exactly a typical Arab any more than Walter Slezak was even remotely (with his taped-up blue eyes) Oriental.”

 And I guess none of them really saw a problem with that. Sigh.

Anyhow…if you want to watch this movie simply to see how much you can cringe in 1 hr and 57 min (I felt like this movie would never end and fast forwarded a couple of times to get there), I would recommend it.

Holy eyeliner, Batman!
Have you been playing with your mother’s curtains again, Douglas? Don’t lie…

I am hoping my next choice, The Rise of Catherine The Great (1934), is a bit better. It is streaming for free on YouTube. At least in the United States.

After that I am watching  The Sun Never Sets (1939). It is available for free on PBS and I also found it here: https://archive.org/details/sun.-never.-sets.-1939

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

Classic Movie Impressions: Winter of Fairbanks Jr., Angels Over Broadway

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

This winter I am watching movies starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

I had to switch movies for this week’s Winter of Fairbanks Jr. because I couldn’t find Chase a Crooked Shadow. Instead I chose Angels Over Broadway, which I found on YouTube.

It was a simple movie with a very sweet ending. It definitely had some plot holes and some vague back stories and some not great reviews online but I found it endearing.

Douglas (remember we are on a first-name basis now) plays a down-on-his-luck con man named Bill O’Brien who thinks he has found his way to fortune when he sees a man named Charles Engle (John Qualen) blowing cash left and right at a night club.

The issue is that Engle really isn’t loaded at all. He stole $3,000 from his business partner to make his wife happy and then his wife took the money to leave with another man.

Engle’s been confronted by his business partner and is ready to kill himself. Now he is spending one last night on the town before he ends it all.

Rita Hayworth is a lounge singer named Nina Barona who spots Engle and wonders if he might be a producer or director who can help her become famous.

O’Brien sees her and wonders if she might be someone that he can pull into one of his schemes. Also, you can tell he likes the look of her, if you know what I mean. *wink* *wink*

So, yes, we have a group of scammers ready to scam each other. O’Brien sees in Engle a quick buck because he’s going to talk him into going to an illegal poker game and throwing away some of his money and then getting a cut of whatever is taken from him. O’Brien’s main source of income is leading rich men to notorious gangster Dutch Enright (Ralph Theodore). Dutch then cheats them out of a fortune and gives Bill a cut of the profits for luring them in.

Thomas Mitchell portrays playwright Gene Gibbons (Thomas Mitchell….also known as Uncle Billy in It’s A Wonderful Life) whose last play fell on its face.

He’s intoxicated and handed the wrong coat when he goes to collect his. Its Engle’s coat and in the pocket is the suicide letter Engle has written for his partner and estranged wife to find after his death.

Gibbons reads the letter and asks who it belongs to. He doesn’t like the idea of someone killing themselves and tracks Engle down to try to talk him out of it.

Gibbons reveals himself to Engle to be a womanizer, adulterer, and a failure at success. He tells Engle he doesn’t want him to miss out on all the beautiful things in life so he decides to  help Engle get the $3,000 back. His plan to do that fails so in walks O’Brien, who learns Engle doesn’t actually have any money. Nina thinks this is hilarious and blurts out the scheme O’Brien tried to pull her into.

O’Brien is a bit ticked at her move to blather about the plan but Gibbons believes they can still pull the plan off by pretending Engle is rich.

Scam a gangster? Eek. O’Brien doesn’t like the idea but if Engle can win more than $3,000 in the game then O’Brien can take whatever is left.

The bulk of the movie is watching three people try to play each other or others to benefit themselves and then later having to decide if this is the person they really want to be.

Douglas is a bit of a jerk and a softy in this one. He does,  however, rescue Nina from a predatory man when she tries to use the man to get to an opportunity to make her famous. He also shows he’s not all about himself later in the movie.

I wasn’t sure what to make of his thick New York City accent in this one. All I know is that I kept talking like him for the rest of the night, including asking my kids, “Eh, you ready for dinner or what? You need me to wait to get dinner on the plates or do ya’ wants me to bring it to  you while it’s still warm?”

My children didn’t find any of this amusing, by the way.

Hayworth got the role after Jean Arthur turned it down and it was her first “A” list film. As we all know, she flew to fame after this by becoming a heartthrob of the 1940s and a pin-up girl during World War II.

Before this movie she was in 35 different movies starting in 1926, but in most of those movies she portrayed secondary characters.

Angels Over Broadway was directed by Ben Hecht and co-produced by Douglas, who convinced Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, to finance the rest.

“Cohn couldn’t figure out what the picture was about but neither could we,” Fairbanks was later quoted as saying about the film.

Samantha Richards from Musings of A Classic Film Addict writes on her blog, “The plot and theme are clear to audiences today, as the screenplay, which earned iconic screenwriter Ben Hecht an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for 1940, has since been regarded as far ahead of its time by critics. I find it difficult to understand why this film isn’t universally recognized that way that I see it: as a strong and riveting drama that blends the realism of New York City life, with a touch of fantasy and the idealism that maybe good guys can sometimes win in the end. To answer my own question, Rita Hayworth is miles apart from the calculated femme fatale image that she would later be known for, with a mousey voice and a doe-eyed look that would make even diehard fans of hers puzzled.”

Richardson continues, “Each performance in Angels Over Broadway (1940) is spot on and impeccably cast, made up of wildly underappreciated actors like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Thomas Mitchell, both of whom rank highly in my book. Jean Arthur could never have portrayed a role like Nina Barona, but I also doubt that even Rita herself could have pulled this part off after being transformed by the Hollywood machine after this film’s release.”

I feel Douglas was very good in this, but in some ways Mitchell stole the show as the intoxicated, and later repentant and sober, Gibbons. He seems to play drunk fellows well. I hope that wasn’t because he knew a lot about it in real life.

It did hit me as I was watching the movie that Douglas always has a small mustache, no matter what movie he is in — other than one of his first movies, The Power of the Press.

There isn’t a ton of information about this movie online, so you won’t have to read through paragraphs of history, behind the scenes stories, or trivia today.

I do have a couple tidbits of trivia I read on Imdb, including:

“The tagline on the original movie poster – “A HECTIC ROMANCE TO BLOW THE FUSES OUT ALONG MAZDA LANE” – refers to the Broadway theater district in New York City as “Mazda Lane.” Mazda was a brand of light bulbs common in the first half of the 20th century, with a name referencing an ancient Persian god of light and good. Broadway was and is known for its brightly lit marquees, and had many nicknames in its heyday.”

And:

“The working title for this film was Before I Die.”

So, there is one line from Douglas in this movie that made me swoon a bit. I’ve gone to the trouble of clipping it for you to share here and it was a bit of an ordeal to do so I hope you appreciate it. *wink* Let me know if you figure out what the line is.



I would guess that many of you have not seen this movie but if you have, what did you think?

I found this for free one on YouTube, by the way.

Up next for me in my Winter of Fairbanks Jr. marathon is Sinbad The Sailor (1947) and I did make sure this one is streaming somewhere.

After that I am watching The Rise of Catherine the Great and writing about it February 27. It is also streaming.

My last pick, The Sun Never Sets, 1939, is available for free on PBS and I also found it here: https://archive.org/details/sun.-never.-sets.-1939

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

Winter of Fairbanks Jr.: The Exile (1947)

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

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/

Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.: The Young In Heart

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

This winter I am watching Douglas Fairbanks Jr. movies for fun and this week I watched The Young in Heart. It was such a refreshing change after the disaster I felt Gunga Din was last week.



This movie was full of hilarious moments, charming characters, sweet transformations, and hopeful overtones.

I absolutely loved Douglas in this one. He played a more prominent role that 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.

You’ll have to watch the movie to know what I mean. I found this one for free on YouTube.

The Carlton family, of which Douglas is a part of in this movie, are not people 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 Riveria with Douglas’s character (Rick) ready to marry a young woman whose father is rich.

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.

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.

They take her up on the offer and an odd friendship begins to form between them all. Soon George-Anne begins to feel guilty about what they are doing so she 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, which has always cheated and stolen 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.

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 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 triumps 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,

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?

Up next for my Winter of Fairbanks Jr. is: Having Wonderful Time (February 6)

The rest of the movies I will be watching include:

Chase a Crooked Shadow (February 13)

Sinbad The Sailor (February 20)

The Rise of Catherine the Great (February 27)

The Sun Never Sets (March 6)

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

Thanks to Cat from Cat’s Wire watching along with me this week. She wrote about her impressions of the movie here: https://catswire.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-young-in-heart.html