Spellbound (1945)

The surprisingly young psychologist (Gregory Peck) arrives to be the new director of a sanitarium, but his troubling behavior leads to suspicion that he is not who he says he is. Will love bloom?

Ingrid Bergman plays the psychologist with the heart of gold and Leo G. Carroll is the kindly outgoing Dr. Murchison. Also here is old friend Norman Lloyd as an inmate and Wallace Ford (Freaks) as a creep in a hotel lobby. There are a few interesting background characters that could have had more screen time, something screenwriter Ben Hecht was adept at creating.

The psychobabble, and there is a lot of it, doesn’t distract much from the story. Peck’s Ballantyne is in serious trouble and on the run, and Bergman’s Dr. Petersen believes in him despite having no reason to. Grant’s understated performance, while disappointing Hitch, was eerily appropriate for the amnesiac.

Spellbound takes some unexpected turns and features a pretty trippy dream sequence. This is classic Hitchcock. Maybe not a top five Hitch, but definitely top ten. AMRU 4.

Design for Living (1933)

Two friends, an artist (Gary Cooper) and a playwright (Frederic March), meet a pretty woman (Miriam Hopkins) on a train and proceed to fall in love. Unable to choose between them, she decides they should all live together. Only no sex.

Pre-code films can be, in addition to other things, pretty risque. And when it comes to risque dialog, Design for Living just may be the pre-codiest. It begins with Hopkins' Gilda (pronounced Jilda) suggestively placing her legs between those of the sleeping men, and it escalates from there. Many times pre-code films will gratuitously show the lead actress undress down to a fairly unrevealing nightgown or make a sly comment about sex, and it wouldn't even hit my radar. But the dialog in Design for Living was downright scandalous.

Based on a Noel Coward play, it was reportedly rewritten by Ben Hecht, retaining only one line. But the sharp dialog is the highlight here. Several changes were made to get it past the Hays office, but it would be denied a certificate for re-release in subsequent years.

Playing Gilda's boss is distinctive character actor Edward Everett Horton. He has shown up in a variety of 1930's films. Frequently an unlikable if not villainous character, he is always memorable. The bulk of his film roles were prior to 1950 but he continued to work until his death in 1970.

Design for Living is a surprisingly entertaining watch and perhaps my favorite Gary Cooper performance. Miriam Hopkins was deviously adorable and I loved every minute of it. AMRU 4.5.

"For the good of our immortal souls!"

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Obsessed with putting the pinch on a big time hood, Detective Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews) sometimes steps over the line. When investigating the murder of a whale, he accidentally bumps off the suspect. He covers up his mistake and becomes infatuated with a witness (Gene Tierney).

Based on the novel Cry Night and not the Shel Silverstein poem, we are treated to a dangerously unstable protagonist. Demoted for shaking down suspects, he seethes with anger and daddy issues. Tierney’s Morgan is the sweet girl with a taste for bad men. Both starred in 1944’s Laura and their characters share some similarities.

Gary Merrill is our decongestant-addicted mister big. He played a very different character this same year in All About Eve. There he got his comeuppance when he decided to marry Bette Davis. In real life, that is. What was he thinking? Smooth, smart, and ruthless, he makes for an excellent villain. Karl Malden is the straight-laced detective, but let’s talk about screenwriter Ben Hecht.

Hecht has writing credits on 135 films (according to IMDb) ranging from Hitchcock to horror, Marx Brothers to Gone With the Wind. He had his hands on so many films, so many great films (and some stinkers too) that he deserves his own keyword. I’ll need to find a bio of him someplace. His characters are rich and the dialog rings true. He has two academy awards and four other nominations.

With attitude and atmosphere, Where the Sidewalk Ends is an excellent film. Again, well written background characters leave an impact. The diner owner almost deserves a film of her own. Not often recognized in the top of the genre, it deserves to be in the conversation. It is better than some that are. AMRU 4.

“Look at ya! You're all bunged up like a barrelhouse vag!”

The Front Page (1931)

A newspaper reporter is quitting the business to marry his sweetheart, but his editor (Adolphe Menjou) isn’t giving up so easy. As a big story unfolds around them, the editor connives to keep Hildy in the game.

Filled with sharp dialog and quick wit, this stage adaptation was remade nine years later as His Girl Friday with Cary Grant in the lead. The story is principally the same except Hildy was gender bent to be Grant’s ex-wife, a fairly clever twist if you think about it. What Girl Friday had in marquee stars and Hollywood polish, The Front Page matched with a darker tone and pre-code edginess. The internet strongly prefers the Grant version but I liked it only a bit more. Billy Wilder directed another version in 1974 with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon which has to be pretty good. Additionally there are four TV versions and a Burt Reynolds vehicle.

Let’s talk about Adolphe Menjou. I just recently saw him in A Star is Born (1937) in which I barely remember him and also in A Farewell to Arms (1932) which I don’t remember him at all. To be fair, that was a while ago. Those were character roles but he is front and center in The Front Page. His career went from silent film villain, to ladies man, to background character. A healthy career filled with ‘A’ pictures. His roles diminished as things went on but when you spend your life crusading against Hollywood Commies and other phantoms, people don’t offer you the juiciest roles.

There was a surprising amount of casual racism. Reporters call in stories into their news desk that don’t pertain to the story at hand but provide atmosphere to the environment. Sometimes those stories involve language surprising to my puritanical ears. Equal parts hate and quaint. When Hildy tells the guys he’s getting married they ask if she is white. When the editor talks about a wife he loved, he says he “treated her white”. What does that even mean? The message I took was that while the reporters were hand-to-mouth working stiffs, society afforded an even lower caste for them to look down upon.

Another interesting pre-code remnant are pictures of topless women seen around the newsroom, particularly near the door. A fussy newsman orders a sandwich using “gluten bread”, comedically emphasizing the ‘gluten’, so I was curious what that could mean in 1931. Was there non-gluten bread back then? Googling gluten bread here in the 21st doesn’t produce useful results, so my question was left unanswered.

Other than the fact that audio equipment of the day required the actors to shout their lines, the movie plays very well. It was clever, charming, and surprisingly well shot. Oh, and the racism. AMRU 3.5.

“Williams is a poor bird who had the tough luck to kill a colored policeman in a town where the colored vote counts!"

Monkey Business (1952)

Absent minded professor Barnaby (Cary Grant) is working on an elixir of youth. He thinks he solves the problem but in reality a chimp (or “monkey”) had escaped its cage, mixed up the concoction, and put it into the water cooler. Hilarity ensues.

I have to give him credit. The 48 year old Grant was more believable as the college aged wildling than as the stodgy old scientist. But screen wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) was downright convincing (and charming) in both roles. Hugh Marlowe of All About Eve and Day the Earth Stood Still fame gets another paycheck. Marilyn Monroe played the Marilyn Monroe character.

Don’t confuse this with 1931 Marx Brothers vehicle. I liked this one slightly better probably because it's a more conventional screwball comedy but fans of the Bros will disagree. It was pointlessly zany and holds your interest, but don’t look for any classic bits. It is what it is and that’s fine. AMRU 3.5.

Notorious (1946)

A federal agent (Cary Grant) enlists the help of the daughter (Ingrid Bergman) of a convicted German "worker". They fly to Rio de Janeiro for her to cozy up to daddy's former associate (Claude Rains) who had a thing for her. Spy and Nazi get quite cozy but this begins to interfere with her relationship with the federal agent.

This movie appears to be about Nazis, conspiracies, and weapons, but really it's about a troubled romance that this stuff gets in the way of. Hitchcock crafts a taught story around this MacGuffin. Grant is moody rather than quick witted, Bergman is Bergmanesque, and Rains is excellent as always. Not much mystery in the story, but the elements all work well.

Well made but I had issues with the on-screen chemistry. I had trouble with the spy-agent relationship. Claude Rains was awesome as usual, but maybe I just wanted Grant to play the same Cary Grant character he usually does. Still, a good, complex film. AMRU 3.5.

"Alexander Sebastian: I'm not afraid to die.
Devlin: You've got your chance, here and now"

Scarface (1932)

Tony Comonte (Paul Muni), alias Scarface, is a two bit hood on the rise. George Raft is his buddy, Guino, and Ann Dvorak is his creepy looking sister. He murders and back-stabs his way to taking over the south side crime syndicate. Now the north side boss (Boris Karloff) is in his sights.

The movie opens with a disclaimer. They make it clear that the violence depicted is not to glorify gang rule, but as an indictment of it. Porn movies should open with similar words as an indictment of the objectification of women. Yea, that should cover it. The movie is fairly violent, definitely by 1930's standards. They edited it down several times to pass pre-code muster. I'd love to see a director's cut.

Here are a few neat things: the movie had the first ever film depiction of the Tommy Gun. Al Capone, who is intentionally confused the the titular character, loved the movie. He owned a copy. Betamax, I think. Tony and the gang see a play, which I slowly recognize as the source for the mediocre Crawford flick Rain, which came out the same year and by the same studio. Hmmmm.

Well, not much else to say. It kept my interest. Some funny parts, and certainly some historical importance. I pushed it to the top of my list because Netflix said they were taking it away from streaming, but they never did. Whatever. They've been having a lot of PR issues lately. Far be it for me to pile on. Anyhow, I enjoyed it. The best part might have been the look on my wife's face when I told her that I let the kids watch Scarface. AMRU 3.5.

His Girl Friday (1940)

His Girl Friday is a creative version of the play "The Front Page" that was made into movies in 1931 and 1974, as well as several times for television. In the play and other version, Hildy is a man, quitting the newspaper business to get married, while Walter is his boss trying to trick him into staying with the newspaper. In this Howard Hawks version, Hildy is a woman and Walter's ex-wife, and he tries to break up her pending marriage.

Cary Grant is Walter, Rosalind Russell is Hildy, and Ralph Bellamy plays Hildy's bland, insurance selling fiancee. It starts with Hildy visiting Walter to convince him to stop contacting her. When he learns of the marriage, he concocts a plan to keep her around. He coerces her to cover the story of the execution of a convicted murderer. Craziness ensues.

Quick talking and sharp dialog, His Girl Friday is a pleasure to watch. I haven't seen the other versions, but they are on my list now. A lot of the dialog overlapped, Robert Altman style. This was very unorthodox back in the day. I liked it and may watch again sometime. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about it. Funny, well acted, well made, and had great pacing. It also was chuck full of inside jokes. AMRU 3.5.

"Listen, the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat." "He looks like that fellow in the movies, Ralph Bellamy"

By the way, Hildy/Rosalind looked nothing like the picture in the poster.

Nothing Sacred (1937)

Fredric March is Wally Cook, a newspaper man who needs to redeem his reputation after promoting a man claiming to be a sultan who turns out to be a lowly janitor (why, that uppity ...). He takes on the story of a poor, hot Vermont woman (Carole Lombard) dying of radium poisoning.

Here's the deal, though. It turns out that she isn't REALLY dying. Seems o'll Doc Enoch screwed up the diagnosis. Apparently the only thing worse than a slow painful death is living a long life in Vermont, so Hazel Flagg (that's the character name) decides to play along in hopes of getting an all expense paid trip to New York.

Hazel becomes the toast of the town while Wally slowly falls in love with her. Will her secret come out? Will Wally's reputation be totally ruined? Will their love triumph? Well, this is a screwball comedy, so you figure it out.

I've mentioned before that I long believed The Wizard of Oz was the first color movie, but two years before Oz we have here a Technicolor film. Margaret Hamilton plays a Vermont drug store patron, so it wasn't even HER first color movie. Technicolor meaning, of course, technically color.

Here's something weird. In the 1974 animated feature Journey Back to Oz, Hamilton lends her voice as ... Aunt Em? I suppose the witch was dead. Liza Minnelli (Judy Garland's daughter, people) plays Dorothy. For the youngsters in the audience, back in the day, Liza was ... well ... ok looking.

Fun, entertaining, predictable. AMRU 3.