The Watch List For 2/28/13

STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND (1955) --- Long-awaited in HD on a wide screen, this was streaming on Amazon Prime and did not disappoint. I don't know many service pics that convey so well addictive properties of military hardware, especially jet bombers with destructive force to made WWII combat look like Sunday picnic. That's the firepower that makes James Stewart give up career and health to serve, then re-up to wife June Allyson's despair. Meant (naturally) to boost the Air Force, this is no rah-rah otherwise, as Jim pays dear for devotion to duty, though we readily grasp siren call of those B-47's. When Stewart gets a first glimpse of same, it's like a religious epiphany. Flight scenes are impeccably done, a result of much military cooperation, and I'm sure real-life veteran Stewart helped grease that. This must have been a wow in VistaVision, being among few that were actually exhibited horizontally in a few spots. We're not at war here, but vigilance, if not outright preparedness, is emphasized throughout. A Cold War chill pervades as JS stays in uniform to fulfill what he calls grave responsibility. You get a feeling these guys were expecting all-out war any minute, red alert lights always burning. We almost wish clingy wife June Allyson would get out of the way so Jim can easier protect us. Paramount gave SAC top priority, among other things premiering it at an Air Force base, with Stewart in attendance. There's a recent CD out of Victor Young's stunner score. Sure hope this is one of those Olive has contracted with Para to release on Blu-Ray.

COPS IS ALWAYS RIGHT (1938) --- Bluto and spinach on sabbatical as Popeye faces police brutality and a strident, even for her, Olive Oyl, who answers his dogged devotion with heaps of abuse beyond customary levels. Was this an unhealthy relationship the sailor should have long ago got out of? He's there to help with housework and she continually snipes him. Maybe Popeye needed spinach to put down Olive oppression. The surly cop is a partial Bluto stand-in, but Popeye won't fight him back as that might be bad example for his Saturday club members in then-cross-country attendance, the sailor after all a role model to 30's moppetry. As usual miraculous animating is in play, Fleischer artists staging furniture ballet we see from overhead long shot (Popeye's room redecorations). Just moments like this make a whole cartoon worth treasuring. There's also dash up/down endless flights of stairs, a reality of urban apartment dwelling before elevators were commonplace (reminded me too of Buster Keaton's similar exertions in The Cameraman --- comedy and cartoon folk obviously watched each other closely).

THREE SECRETS (1950) --- Plane crash and a child survivor bestirs Eleanor Parker, Patricia Neal, and Ruth Roman to notion that said tot might be one each bore illigit, then gave up to adoption, but which wins final reveal lottery? A very definition of "woman's picture" in late flowering, after Davis/Crawford et al had ceded this field to younger, less histrionically driven, contractees Parker, Neal, Roman, all given chance to demo abilities WB westerns, formula stuff obscured. I suspect Three Secrets was a script the trio revelled in, as it sure (to them, if not us) beat saddling up again with Dennis Morgan or Randy Scott. Babies born on wrong side of blankets were meller-natural to pix where mothers could take Code-prescribed licks for moral lapsing. When such is done well as here, it can still engage, despite societal change to make much of Three Secrets seem other-worldly.

Flashbacks for the erring trio go to respective wartime conceptions when gals presumably had a tougher time saying "no," WWII urgency being what it was. No telling how many femmes among 1950 patronage experienced a same thing, but wouldn't/couldn't tell hubby/dates about it. Did Three Secrets bring about real-life confessions at home? Oldies that seem soapy to us may well have hit nerves at time of newness that we'll not appreciate for missing upheavals a '50 public could recall and still be emotional over. It wasn't just combat re-visits like Battleground that moved them. Warner polish is evident, and as always, sustaining to ones of us able to enjoy most anything bearing that shield, director Robert Wise expert as ever at handling yet another genre of many he mastered. Three Secrets surely resonated, as $799K spent on the negative was rewarded by $2.1 million coming back. Milton Sperling produced via his United States Productions, so this is another one that reverted to him and eventually made way to Paramount ownership and lease to Olive Films for Blu-Ray release. Looking good as it now does adds that much gravy.

MICKEY (1918) --- Backwoods sprite Mabel Normand transplanted to city relatives who oppress her, all the while she being heiress to millions in mined gold. Precious ore in this case was taken by sock reception to Mickey, and for-while possibility that Mabel might nibble at Mary Pickford primacy. Mickey borrowed what worked for Pickford and broadens comedy to Normand's measure, she and producing Mack Sennett committed to less fall-downs and more situation, including romantic-centered ones. Mickey picks up when she leaves the sticks, rural backdrop another word for drab in much of Sennett. Mabel gets our sympathy as she did in shorts, Mickey playing to considerable strengths of this madcap who might have passed Pickford had fate been kinder. As it is, Mickey presents her at what I'd call a peak. Two versions are extant, both expected on DVD from CineMuseum, whose fine restoration of Sennett subjects was an especial TCM treat a few months back.

The Watch List For 2/26/13

THE LIQUIDATOR (1965) --- A James Bond copy if you were standing outside the theatre (and looking at the one-sheet shown here), but something very different once you paid admission and got in. 007 imitators tried too often to undercut their model by making secret agents buffoonish or ineffective. Others were plain cheap looking. I remember walking out on a Matt Helm at one saturation point (of many). The Liquidator has wit, a pretty good concept, but we're there to see Rod Taylor do actionful things, not be a counterfeit agent buffeted by heavies till almost an end. You can watch and wonder how Taylor might have been as Bond himself ... very good, I'd propose. The Liquidator was the kind we'd go see during waits for a next 007 fix. I well remember ad art that equated Taylor here with JB in all particulars, so imagine letdown when he turned out to be more comic than cunning. Maybe adults had fun seeing espionage formulas up-ended, but were they attending The Liquidator or staying home with teevee?, leaving us kids to contribute the paltry $1.5 million in domestic rentals to MGM coffers.

AFFECTIONATELY YOURS (1941) --- Warner comedy rendered by heaviest hands. This company's efforts at laugh-making could be that way, and often were, thanks to factory application of bumps that had played funnier via more expert and elsewhere hands. There is borrowing from betters throughout. Whatever doesn't amuse can at least be louder. People fall down lots, and slapstick at times reaches violence of Three Stooge level. I kept expecting Jack Carson to walk in any minute, but others of Warner stabling are reliably there. Domestics Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen are larded with the stalest of shtick as Ralph Bellamy does a photo-finish on parts he had in The Awful Truth and His Girl Friday. The trio at romantic odds are Merle Oberon, Dennis Morgan, and Rita Hayworth, none with a gift at farce, so they tend toward excess effort. Affectionately Yours was Mark Hellinger-produced, with Hal Wallis supervising. I understand they hated each other. Could that be part of problem here? I'll confess to hitting the 2x button for quicker exit from set-pieces that seemed to have no end otherwise. Say what we will, but I still bet Affectionately Yours raised roofs in crowded enough houses, but to a lone sitter, can be plain murder.

THREE BAD MEN (1926) ---  John Ford directs a super-western going several which (narrative) ways, but resolves to one of three bad men righting a wrong done his sister by a villain who mostly emerges as such during the second half. Ford said he was interfered with, thus a story and characters cast over too wide a landscape, especially as this had not epic potential to begin with. Still enough action and good performing though, to assure ninety minutes pleasingly spent, and there's a whopping land rush saved for a final third. George O'Brien is the star, but disappears for long stretches, and a pair of leading ladies seem at odds as to which will dominate. Watching this made me wish again that John Ford had done westerns exclusive from The Iron Horse on, instead of this being the only one between that 1924 hit and Stagecoach in 1939. Three Bad Men looks OK on Fox's DVD, but aren't there better elements for it somewhere?

Monty Banks, Second From Right, Among UK Director Colleagues, Including First at Left Alfred Hitchcock 

PAY OR MOVE (1924) --- Monty Banks was the comic mid-point between Keystone grotesque and dapper fit of Charley Chase, Raymond Griffith, and other progressives. In other words, you'll almost believe he could get the girl. Gags are elaborate and must have been a labor to put over. Banks was another of those who struggled to remain on second tier, chances pretty remote he'd vault to a first, despite outstanding work here and there (see Play Safe, aka Chasing Choo Choos). A garden party and mistaken identity is Pay Or Move's familiar device. There's another of those "secret societies" that menaced silent comics and seem to have disappeared after talkers came. Banks was creative enough to stay gainful in the biz, his credits extending well into the 40's and association with funnymen who could rely on his plentiful expertise (directing Laurel and Hardy in Great Guns, among others). He'd also helm UK shorts/features, an obviously capable guy. Pay Or Move was a bonus on Grapevine's DVD with The Night Cry.

BULLETS FOR O' HARA (1941) --- If a humble B tells its story in 50 minutes, why extend length further? Bullets was filmed but five years before as Public Enemy's Wife, which causes me to figure audiences then for shorter memories, or perhaps just inundated with so many pics that they couldn't keep account of yarns already seen. Bullets is fast here, foolish there, as with so many from its basement level, being the improbable story of a nice girl married a year before discovering her husband's a gangster (that all the more incredulous when he's patent-leather malefactor Anthony Quinn). Warners did such as this by the yards. Once during a WB tour in the 70's, I pointed out that stages once used for classics like Jezebel and The Maltese Falcon were now host to lowly TV shoots, to which the girl guide properly put me in place by pointing out that likes of Jezebel and the Falcon were way outnumbered during the Gold Age by humble B's Warner made. So right she was!

The Real To Reel Variety Girl --- Part Two

Even those normally behind cameras joined in Variety Girl cameo-ing. Being Hollywood-set, the musical comedy went for authenticity of life on the lot, thus directors Mitchell Leisen, George Marshall, and Cecil B. DeMille joining fun. Leisen plays himself as a droll observer of filmland foolishness, he and scribe Frank Butler, who'd just written Golden Earrings for Mitch, sitting still for slapstick at the Brown Derby. Sport coat-clad and trading seen-it-all winks, the two neatly sum up how creative hands guiding star talent liked to see themselves. DeMille, of course, is something else, a colossus bestriding the lot that not even its leadership can fire, tossing studio head "R.J. O'Connell" (actually the name of Variety International's chief at the time) off Unconquered's set where the great outdoors amounts to process mock-up, itself a by-then DeMille signature. The gag of CB being all-powerful was used before in 1942's Star-Spangled Rhythm and numerous shorts, conviction helped by fact these DeMille cameos pretty much reflected the truth of his awesome authority.

George Marshall is the joshing antidote, and of guest directors, the one likeliest to be congenial if actually met (GM is also Variety Girl's credited helmsman). He enters the studio spa in a baseball cap and casual zip-up jacket, executes a deft towel-snap at John Lund, then does a comic fall in a best tradition of staging such over laff-years at Fox (two-reelers) and later with Hal Roach. Marshall has a get-it-done attitude I'd say reflects career-long smooth direction of numerous and expert entertainments. Guys like him were the real beating pulse of the biz, taking jobs assigned and always turning in competent result. Marshall could have been a more than successful actor given the inclination: check out his menacing army cook in Laurel and Hardy's Pack Up Your Troubles.

Variety Girl's story is admittedly dumb and sometimes irritating. I began fast-forwarding to the cameos after Olga San Juan got on my last nerve. This might have been a really good backstage comedy, like WB's It's A Great Feeling, without her. San Juan ("The Puerto Rican Pepper Pot") gives it the Betty Hutton try in Variety Girl; all parts featuring her drown under bombast and too much-ness. When a whole movie turns on a simple misunderstanding, it's time to blow the whistle. Variety Girl has Olga mistaken for likeable and Kathryn Grayson-like Mary Hatcher; we wait the show's entire length for that snafu to sort out.

Some guest stars are in for a pound, others for a penny. There are short bits with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard, he in a clever Lost Weekend-inspired gag, she in accustomed bubble bath (a stealth reminder of Unconquered). Gail Russell is seated on a set and surrounded, if not suffocated, by execs, a fragile pose and portent of how she'd turn out. Burt Lancaster and Lizabeth Scott, both in Desert Fury attire, do a woefully unfunny routine. Whatever star objections there were to bad material in Variety Girl was put down by reminder that it was all toward a worthy charity, so good sporting this time trumped egos. As to what's good, there is Hope and Crosby golfing on Para's manicured lawn and swapping digs at peak of precision for both. They're also in for a song and japery at the curtain, the two by far a best guest thing in Variety Girl.

Alan Ladd hijacks a plane, it seems, but what he's after is chance to sing (well) and dance with stewardess Dorothy Lamour, theirs a delightful sidebar. Frank Ferguson as fictional studio head is ridiculed by non-stop immersion in water, a routine quickly gone tedious, plus ribbing from Barry Fitzgerald and Robert Preston, all this to demonstrate how democratic studio lots were and that even big shots were subject to occasional jest. One thing trades complemented was freshness of a segment that showed voice and effects recording for a George Pal Puppetoon, a Technicolor highlight of an otherwise B/W Variety Girl. Mores the pity, then, that present day versions do not include it in original multi-hues. Lead lady Mary Hatcher was obviously poised for bigger things beyond Variety Girl (she'd been in Broadway's Oklahoma), this a glitter showcase for her modest talent, but star-making at Paramount was by '47 juncture a thatched roof, and she'd soon be gone to B's.

 

Variety Girl's Poison Pill: Olga San Juan

 

Variety Girl served its function and would be forgotten, syndication a next stop from 1958 and Paramount's sale of the pre-49 library to MCA. What did persist was interest in Catherine Variety Sheridan. Turns out she'd gone to nursing school, then joined the Navy, with service from 1951 in Korea, later Saigon, and eventually twenty years living in the Orient. Catherine/Joan had four children. Her married name was Joan Mrlik. She never tried to locate her birth mother. Following the death of C/J's two primary benefactors at Variety International, no one was left within the organization who knew her whereabouts. A search finally made contact through intermediaries, and ongoing persuasion finally induced the first Variety girl to attend the group's 1980 convention in Los Angeles, where she was an honored (and surprise) guest. Joan Mrlik, nee Catherine Variety Sheridan, died in Charleston, SC in 1994. Variety Girl, meanwhile, is newly released on Region 2 from the UK. Quality is OK, but could use a fresh transfer, preferably one with the color sequence restored (Note to archives: does it still exist?).

The Watch List For 2/21/13

THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940) --- Vincent Price lacks flair of Claude Rains as the transparent one, and novelty of 1933's great trick show was spent by now, so this sequel could only repeat bumps that worked before. It all comes down to unmasking of a guilty party for whom Price takes a murder blame, trivial pursuit considering worldwide domination Rains had in mind. What were any Universal monsters but exploitable elements ground to powder by lessening encores? TIMR has solid production more typical of 30's effort than B treatment accorded the genre as 40's ennui took hold. Fun aspects of invisibility are but briefly enjoyed by Price before he gets to serious business of proving innocence. We're not accustomed to Uni goblins redeemed for a happy finish, so cheery end here is both novel and welcome. Special effects too are in ways an advance on '33 application, but directing Joe May is no James Whale. Universal's DVD, by the way, looks fantastic.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1937) --- How to do an African location adventure without taking your cast there. A second unit instead hauled doubles to the Dark Continent for stirring footage that director Robert Stevenson could match later with Anna Lee, Cedric Hardwicke (as Quatermain), John Loder, and Roland Young. The star presence is Paul Robeson, not there to let down an expectant public, so he sings at what would seem inopportune moments, making it work by sheer force of voice and personality. MGM's 1950 remake would smooth edges of Rider Haggard's story, though aspects of this original would not be surpassed by slicker (and Technicolor'ed) treatment. The treasure cave and its collapse are charmingly faked and manage to thrill despite limit on what Gaumont-British could spend. The company was out to crack US markets with Hollywood imitations like this, King Solomon deserving of warm reception it got on our shores. Present owner MGM has a nice DVD available.

CARTOON FACTORY (1924) --- Another of amazing Inkwell cartoons done by seeming hundreds (just how many survive?) by genius-before-Walt Max Fleischer, who still awaits proper credit for animation more innovative from a start than Disney's early work. Fleischer was as much inventor as artist, patents in his name revealing a first use of rotoscope and Multiplane photography. Had Max kept control of a library, we'd maybe have Fleischer Treasure volumes and his name enshrined among immortals. A life's effort is instead scattered to PD and indifferent ownership winds --- you must go five or six places to sample properly --- and even these are thickets of adequate at best quality (with happy exception of Popeye from Warners). Cartoon Factory was made silent, but so entertaining as to rate soundtrack addition for a 30's reissue, joined by a number of Fleischers making that grade. Max got infinite variation from Ko-Ko's emerge from an inkwell as Popeye later would from a spinach can. The clown that ran smooth thanks to rotoscope did battle with easel-sat Fleischer for a decade in which Max tormented his creation and got same in return. There were no cartoons from the silent era so imaginative as these. Cartoon Factory is available in beaut preservation from Flicker Alley's Saved From The Flames DVD box, a three-disc collection of filmic rarities.

SOUTHSIDE 1-1000 (1950) --- Allied Artists enters the lion's den of film noir and throws lower-cost gauntlet at Eagle-Lion sleepers like Raw Deal and T-Men, these having clicked enough to earn "A" dates and boff receipts. Southside's challenge is for undercover man Don DeFore to get goods on a funny money ring and retrieve plates enabling it. How he'll prevail makes for white-knuckling shot amidst odd LA environs, with story/dialogue an equal to what big studios served with their crime-thrilling. I'll bet hopes were high for Southside 1-1000. Would this one propel the former Monogram Studio to major status? Alas, not quite, but rebirth as Allied Artists was in progress, and good ones bearing that logo were more and more in evidence. A problem any movie about counterfeiters had was government ban of real money shown on screen, thus bills under examination are patently phony and undercut what's otherwise believable (a few scenes do use real currency, but never seen close up). Warner Archives offers an excellent DVD of this rare title.

EYES IN THE NIGHT (1942) --- Mystery's novelty here is blind detective Edward Arnold and crime-busting canine companion pitted against Germanic spy ring in pursuit of secret codes. This was a Metro B, which means anyone else's A, and directed by fledgling, but much talented, Fred Zinnemann. Arnold does martial arts and other tricks that belie his handicap, plus use of other senses at enhanced level. The pooch performs remarkable feats as well that hark back to a silent-era's wealth of wonder dogs. So many detectives worked out of 40's soundstages as to make a novel one refreshing. Edward Arnold might have made greater capital of these had MGM been more disposed toward series sleuthing. As it is, he only did one more, The Hidden Eye, and that was no improvement on this first. Eyes In The Night was/is something different in detection, and well worth a look.

The Watch List For 2/19/13

THE CRADLE OF COURAGE (1920) --- Bill Hart always went for great character names: he's "Square" Kelly here, a thief and crook operative who comes back from Great War trenches ready to turn over an honest leaf. Gangdom in silents was strictly bush-league, scruffy barflys casual burgling upscale houses on nearby blocks. The Cradle Of Courage presages mischief engaged by starting-out Veto Corleone in The Godfather: Part Two, only Cradle's got Bill to don copper blues and put rout to miscreant pals he once led. Frisco locations enhance Courage as Hart takes bracing walks up/down steep hills not many years after the '06 Quake leveled them. Bill in civvies is not startling remove from his frontier dress, as 1920 life is sufficiently old west to ease transition. Action's at minimum, though by then it mattered less for Hart's glare being threat enough to bad men. He does all he did best here --- Bill in a moral dilemma was surest thing to please fans of this greatest man of the plains. The Cradle Of Courage was but mildest tweak at the formula, and works. What's better still is an excellent transfer Grapevine Video supplies in their DVD release.

LIBERTY (1929) --- It's by nature funnier to watch convicts escape in striped uniforms that orange jumpsuits they'd wear today. Liberty has Laurel and Hardy skipping gaol for virtual tour of simpler times Culver City and breathtaking view of greater Los Angeles from highness of a skyscraper in progress, this faked to heart-stop conviction. If ever a short stayed in its makers memory, Liberty was one; twenty-five years later on This Is You Life, the team would reminisce with guest Leo McCarey about risks they took. Liberty was released January 1929, had a music/effects score (essential for fullest enjoyment) made up of pop tunes hummed widely then (and since by me). It's a polished subject befitting Roach's release arrangement with MGM and that company's resource to put L&H before widest-ever patronage.

Some of the Culver filming sites are still there, fans having made pilgrimage and matched brick-for-brick where Stan and Babe tried changing pants in avoidance of shocked onlookers. That's the trick of a first half ... the boys in their breaking out rush are in one another's trousers and there's no retreat to which they can right themselves. Observers happening by think there's something quite different (and unwholesome) afoot. Could Laurel and Hardy have gotten away with this five years later under Code watchfulness? Not likely. I wonder frankly how subsequent owner Library Films, Inc. managed a Liberty reissue, which apparently they did, without difficulty getting a Seal. Did PCA monitors sign their pass without looking?

Interesting too is Stan pants nearly fitting Babe --- well, at least they'll button in front. Hardy was less fat than robust in '29. A fitter word might be stout. Further Liberty bonus is Jean Harlow briefly glimpsed, not close-up unfortunately, but recognizable and at stardom's cusp. You could argue that Liberty is two one-reelers pasted in the middle, with pants-switch an initial concern and getting L/H off their high hurdle the next. Home movie moochers were later able to split it thus, piratical distribs circulating Liberty bits as dizzy-titled Skywalking, High Jinx, Crab Bait, among others (read fascinating detail of this in Scott MacGillivray's Laurel and Hardy: From The Forties Forward). Mile-up comedy wasn't typical of L&H, but Liberty hazard was real enough according to later account --- a fall, despite platforms installed below them, might well have been injurious. It's in part that, plus otherwise excellence, that puts Liberty among best Stan/Babe silents.

NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (1940) --- You forget how fine a thing is for letting years pass since viewing. This is a British Hitchcock with all but Hitchcock to assure crackling good times and wit to rank high as when the Master made his lady vanish two years before. Well, why shouldn't staff remaining re-use what worked so beautifully for AH? Carol Reed directs after light-touch fashion of Hitchcock, his Nazis kidded as they'd not be again till Ernst Lubitsch did To Be Or Not To Be. You'd think Night Train was an outright sequel to The Lady Vanishes for drollsters Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne) back aboard and befuddled as ever by sinister goings-on. The danger is real, however, and suspense easily maintains over a ninety-minute ride. I sat wondering how many more are as good as this, concluding that yes, most Hitchcocks, but also others written by inspired team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, who also penned The Lady Vanishes. These two would write and/or direct a brace of thrillers near or altogether the equal of Hitchcock at full steam (Green For Danger a classic I'll soon revisit). Night Train To Munich gets a full marks transfer from Criterion.