Watch List for 3/3/2025

 

Overlook Veronica if You Will, But Know She is Great in This

Watched: So Proudly We Hail, Mystery Street, Reckless, and Gideon's Day

SO PROUDLY WE HAIL (1943) --- Most striking character of this is gone after a first half. Veronica Lake has been called an expressionless player, and worse. She was said to be difficult. There is evidence she was mentally ill. Her finish was grisly. Lake got revived when glamour portraits of old stars became a thing, as in gallery-hung and collectible. Lush and hung down hair was her ticket early on, but where she swept back, as was case later, people wondered what had made her special to begin with. What for me makes Lake unique is intense work she gives So Proudly We Hail, so intense in fact that I suspect she channeled what was troubled self to be doomed character “Lt. Olivia D’Arcy.” Beside her, Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, the rest, seem artificial and actorly as in this studio-set depiction with no war happening beyond walls. From Lake it emerges true to fusion between herself and tortured Olivia, and I for one was sorry when she cashed in for sake of nurse colleagues (and what an exit). Seems I read Lake was a pill during Proudly and that may have just been her as early and unaware applicator of technique later celebrated as Method. Actors did pay a price for living parts too deeply, considering not a few were unstable to begin with. Colbert as den mother is more typecast, as is Goddard on glam duty, and I understand these two clashed if mildly as to how and where cameras were pointed. Was Paulette really born in 1910? I sort of suspect it was earlier and maybe she hid that. So Proudly We Hail is where we get Sonny Tufts first as a star, much by way of mannerisms that he’d adjust later as noir dweller and make scarily effective. George Reeves looked like a next very big thing and director Mark Sandrich promised him a bright postwar future, but then Sandrich died with George mustered out to do small parts, even bits, then serials, then Superman. Was this very capable actor robbed? So Proudly We Hail has some of most terrifying siege stuff put to film during wartime. We feel vividly horrors awaiting troops and nurses left on islands taken by the enemy. I was wrung out after these two hours and can only imagine what it did to crowds in 1943.

Future Wrath-ful Khan Gets Tips from Tarzan

MYSTERY STREET (1950) --- Somewhere it was forum-claimed that a thing called “DVD rot” is wrecking our discs, so I got out alleged victim Mystery Street from WB to see if fears have basis. Mine played OK, at least the feature did, but extras got pixilated and wouldn’t access, so should we worry over past purchases? Checking each start to finish would take longer than I’ll live and who’d really want to watch some of these titles again? Mystery Street however is a jewel among smaller noirs, a nervous A for $729K Metro spent, but splendidly made as expected from the Lion. As police procedural it is keen and even novel, for here was forensic explore of evidence fairly new to movies and not before dealt with in such detail. We’re since sick of saturation, as in how many years has CSI lasted?, but Mystery Street serving fresh and relative first had not just novelty in its kit, but fascination for forensics circa 1950 where investigations were hands-on and ultra analog. Pleasing is Bruce Bennett as a Harvard lab rat digging among bleached bones and figuring murder behind them, Ricardo Montalban the detective in charge. We know the killer early, but how will they unmask him? Mystery Street’s 93 minutes captivated me as much for on-screen suspense as that arising from whether the disc would finish OK. John Sturges directed, an early and expected good job, atmosphere stoked further by John Alton behind cameras. Frustrating was tepid money Mystery Street earned, $429K in domestic rentals, $353K foreign (loss: $277K), proof again that making a good picture was not enough what with theatres closing, families doing elsewhere things, and television siphoning off attendance. Racket Squad began the same year on tubes, so why go out and spend to watch Mystery Street when so far as most were concerned, it was a same experience?

RECKLESS (1935) --- Nothing odder or more unexpected than a Classic Era star vehicle that simply does not work, Reckless as instance of gilt-edge casting and lavisher-than-lavish appointments that no one (at least of my acquaintance) seems to enjoy. What might have gone wrong was humor in back seat to melodrama, a too distant back, but how’s that possible with William Powell, Harlow, Ted Healy, more among mirth-makers less than funny here. Story was evidently Selznick’s, augmented by numerous others, Reckless factory-made with no pretense otherwise. Too many cooks can and will spoil broth. Trouble is disagreeable device of dipso Franchot Tone buying Harlow’s starring play and then her, Powell lovelorn and left behind, anything but desirable positioning for him. The trio is cast to disadvantage, each seem aware of same, yet stay adrift as narrative lurches toward suicide solution , no satisfactory resolve there, and sour ending to make one regret time entrusted to what seemed foolproof. Selznick was on record as wanting this to match his Dancing Lady of several seasons before, Reckless failing to capture spirit and fun of that backstage frolic. The studio system was a delicate instrument, noways to be taken for granted. Where a picture was made badly, they’d simply remake it, but where the concept is fundamentally wrong, where is ground upon which to repair? Reckless lost money, a shock considering cast alone, so let’s assume word got out-and-loud as to what a cluck it was, or worse, how unpleasant was the get-through. Thrust of narrative is the Libby Holman/Smith Reynolds tragedy, bitter tea for an audience there to be amused by Powell-Harlow who had done so reliably before. TCM runs Reckless in HD, but I’ll be surprised if they offer it on Blu-Ray.

My Man Ford with Anna Massey and Jack Hawkins

GIDEON’S DAY (1959) --- Jack Sprat might have directed this rather than John Ford and we’d get approximate same sort of Brit police procedural starring Jack Hawkins, but note how efficient Ford did this “job of work” against theme and background untypical of the great director, being proof if any were needed that he could rise to occasion of any studio assignment and make magic of material less promising on a surface perhaps, but plenty so where he is at helm. Gideon’s Day pleases the more on repeat mode, as so much goes on that I tend to forget between always pleasurable screenings. A day in busy life that is Gideon's, he deals with thefts, murder, humor back at the Yard (never time enough to eat or pick up groceries for an evening meal he’ll miss), this is Ford at quick tempo I’d expect more from early, even starting days, so don’t mistake this for old man effort at twilight juncture. Serve Gideon’s Day to civilian diners and hear them exalt Ford for level of energy not expected perhaps, colonies the poorer for Columbia distributing black-and-white prints in 1959 (retitled Gideon of Scotland Yard), this a show particularly striking in color which was intended and carefully designed for. Was Ford aware how compromised Gideon’s Day was on domestic screens? Maybe he wasn’t told, or cared less if he was. Filmmakers grew alligator hide for vandalism inflicted on output, being John Ford with mantle-full of awards no assurance you’ll not be next to the chipper. Stock folk are here if in lesser number, Anna Lee the wife to Hawkins, sense made for her being Brit and a veteran of UK features before she became acquainted with Ford. It’s said Ford staged a lifelong Irish rebellion vs. the Isles, yet there’s no taking to task of English habits or lifestyle here. Gideon’s Day is genre pure/simple and thrives at it … makes me wish Ford had done a series of Gideon thrillers. Indicator has a lovely Blu-Ray (region free) as part of a Ford box, and there are nice extras.