Neglected film: BIG LEAGUER (1953)

Robinson’s great in this one

Edward G. Robinson always gives an exceptional performance, even in a routine programmer like this one. He has a certain way of spinning a line without overdoing things, which puts his character across with flair without detracting from the overall aim of the story. In this case he’s playing Hans Lobert, a real-life ex-third baseman turned scout for the New York Giants.

Robinson does well bonding with younger cast members. We see this in his work with Allene Roberts in THE RED HOUSE and in how he collaborates with Burt Lancaster in ALL MY SONS. He establishes a paternal connection to these newer stars and seems to be offering guidance to them on screen, both in character and as a fellow actor.

That sort of mentoring is advantageous in this type of film. Mostly because he’s supposed to function as a surrogate father figure, encouraging these hopefuls towards their goal of becoming good professional ball players. Not all of them will make the cut at a training camp in Florida, but they will try hard with Robinson pushing them every step of the way.

Some of the supporting cast fare better than others. Richard Jaeckel is wonderful as a brash pitcher. Robinson drops him from the roster then regrets it– especially when Jaeckel joins a rival team and goes up against them in a playoff. It’s easy to see why Jaeckel had a long career in Hollywood.

Meanwhile Jeff Richards, whom MGM was grooming for big things, is just mediocre and somewhat bland…unfortunate, since he’d been a minor league ball player before getting into the movie business.

In addition to Jaeckel and Richards, there are lesser known faces that reflect casting diversity. One is a hick farm boy handed standard comic relief duties. One is a hood from a rough neighborhood who listens to tunes on the jukebox. And one represents Latino athletes– specifically Cubans in the world of baseball. Much is made about his learning English. The cast is all male except for one person.

MGM star Vera-Ellen appears as Robinson’s niece. We are told she knows quite a lot about the sport, though she never really demonstrates this with her actions. I guess she’s too busy falling for Richards. To my knowledge this was Vera-Ellen’s only non-musical role.

The final sequence of the film is particularly good. It’s a playoff game, before Robinson and his bosses announce which guys are being offered contracts with the Giants’ organization. It’s nearly as fun as watching a World Series game, because each one has a lot to prove knowing it’s their last chance to make a solid impression.

When they get on the bus to go home, I admit I was a bit teary-eyed. Their time with Robinson meant a lot to them, because they learned so much from him.

Neglected film: ENCHANTMENT (1948)

Memories of how it will be again

Producer Samuel Goldwyn purchased the rights to British author Rumer Godden’s novel ‘A Fugue in Time’ which served as the basis for this film. For those who don’t know a fugue is defined as something introduced by one part, then successively taken up by others who develop the interweaving parts. This might apply to a musical composition or in this case a written work.

Godden has structured the story in parts, so that what we see introduced at the beginning is developed by other characters in subsequent parts. The structure is actually not as complex as it may sound. If you think about it, most daytime soap operas operate this way where semi-connected characters develop similar themes in separate arcs that refer back to each other. Here Godden separates some of the arcs by the passage of time.

The main character is the one played by Goldwyn contract player David Niven. This would be Niven’s last Goldwyn film, having been under contract to the producer since the mid-1930s. It is not an ideal role for Niven, since he has to wear plenty of old-age makeup in the sequences set in the contemporary era of WWII; and he does not get the girl (played by Teresa Wright, another Goldwyn contractee). 

Interestingly, Wright tangled with Goldwyn behind the scenes and refused to promote the picture when it was released in late 1948, so in early 1949, Goldwyn terminated her employment, which forced her to freelance with other companies.

Perhaps the reason Wright didn’t feel so enthused about the project is because while she is second-billed and plays the romantic scenes set in the past with Niven, she is overshadowed by two female costars. One of them is Jayne Meadows who does a superb job playing Niven’s controlling sister, scheming to keep him and Wright apart at every turn. Meadows gives such a convincing performance as a shrew one wonders why she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.

The other female star of the picture is Evelyn Keyes, on loan from Columbia. Keyes plays a grand niece of Niven in the modern-day scenes. She’s an American relative of the family who’s in England to help with the war effort, driving an ambulance. She’s a porto-feminist, dedicated to her duties on the front lines, not interested in romantic nonsense with a man.

But despite her best efforts at resisting, she falls for a handsome soldier (Farley Granger) and is encouraged by Niven not to let love slip away. Like Meadows, Keyes gets several profound dramatic moments to play, especially at the end when she chases off after Granger during a catastrophic air raid. She finds him near a bridge just as it’s bombed. What a memorable scene.

By comparison, Wright has no real powerful moments to play, since the romantic storyline involving her and Niven is fairly by the numbers. And after she thinks she has lost Niven, she just disappears.

Overall the film is a tad too long, at 100 minutes, when it easily could have been told in 85 to 90 minutes. But in this case, the slowness of the piece is helped by the striking cinematographic images provided by Gregg Toland (it was his last film, he died before it was released into theaters). Toland’s chiaroscuro images are worth lingering on, so even if the plot isn’t moving along as briskly as it might have, we are still rewarded for our patience.

Incidentally, the novel suggests that Wright’s character is the illegitimate daughter of Nivens’ and Meadows’ father. In the film, she is an orphan ward taken into the family, and thus an adopted sister. But the novel implies she is a blood relative, which means her relationship with her ‘brother’ would be incestuous.

In that regard, we would have to root for the controlling sister (Meadows) who succeeds in breaking them up. But in the movie, we are supposed to root for the would-be lovers and feel hopeful that when Niven dies during the air raid at the end, perhaps he has been reunited in the afterlife with Wright and they’re starting a new fugue.

Neglected film: THREE WISE GIRLS (1932)

More than once Mae Clarke’s character, a kept woman, bemoans the fact that as a married man’s girlfriend she has ended up behind the eight ball. She warns a friend from back home (Jean Harlow) who’s recently arrived in the big city not to end up in the same position. But that is just what happens when Harlow also falls for a man whose society wife won’t give him a divorce.

What to do…should Harlow dump the dude (Walter Byron) or just muddle along and make the best of it? After all, he drives a fancy car, could set her up in a swanky apartment like Clarke’s, and she’d have all the clothes she wants, not to mention fine dining at the Ritz every night. Yet Harlow needs something more than the material trappings in life; she needs a relationship where she can maintain her self-respect. Clarke’s character has zero self-respect, and eventually takes her own life at the end of the picture.

To balance out the heavier themes in this romantic melodrama about the dangers of urban life, there are a few wisecracks and laughs. Harlow lives with a daffy roommate (played by Marie Prevost, who would costar with Clarke a year later in PAROLE GIRL). Prevost is a work-from-home typist in the days before remote office employment was the norm; she’d also like a man but doesn’t set her sets as high as the other two girls. Instincts tells her she’d be happy with Byron’s chauffeur (thin young Andy Devine).

All three actresses certainly hold their own in this story which is based on a popular novel and has dialogue written by Robert Riskin. Harlow receives top billing— it’s her first top-billed assignment— and the most screen time. But it’s Clarke who arguably has the showier role, with Prevost’s amusing line deliveries stealing just as many scenes. Supposedly Harlow was anxious to play a good-girl after she’d recently vamped it up in HELL’S ANGELS and THE PUBLIC ENEMY.

Contemporary critics didn’t quite buy Harlow as the virtuous femme. Some felt her figure lent itself more to playing vamps. In fact, her attractive shape is photographed to considerable advantage during scenes in which her character models lingerie.

But I don’t think the sexiness of a woman automatically has to make her bad, even in the world of precode cinema. I do give Harlow credit for trying to extend her dramatic range, though she does have a door-slamming outburst that reminds me of her later exasperated character in MGM’s BOMBSHELL.

For the most part this is a well-conceived motion picture. The idea is that the main characters (Harlow & Byron) can be in a difficult situation but still want to do the right thing and actually end up doing the right thing. Meanwhile, the tragedy of Clarke’s character and her sad demise tells us that some of it comes at a terrible price.

Neglected film: FORTY GUNS (1957)

Intriguing western from flamboyant storyteller

This is a 1957 entry that teams actress Barbara Stanwyck with writer-director Sam Fuller and leading man Barry Sullivan with whom Stanwyck had previously worked in two other films. A lot of thoughts crossed my mind as I watched FORTY GUNS. First, I want to point out that Leonard Maltin seems to think the story is a bit too over-the-top. Actually, it’s one of the things I like about the movie, that it is camp and it is over-the-top, as this makes the story much more entertaining than it probably has a right to be.Still it’s a competently made product. It starts with an exciting on-location sequence featuring Stanwyck and her men on horseback.

A few things prevent FORTY GUNS from achieving its full potential. I think the biggest fault with the movie is that it’s too ambitious a story for a modestly budgeted production. This is where 20th Century Fox should have stepped in to increase the cash flow. You can tell it does not have an adequate budget when an actor accidentally stumbles going up some steps, as Gene Barry does in one scene; and when Dean Jagger fumbles a line but quickly recovers the rest of his character’s speech in a dramatic confrontation with Stanwyck; and these flubs remain in the movie. Obviously, Fuller couldn’t afford to do many retakes, if any at all. And he didn’t have the time or money to fix these goofs in post-production by editing them out with cutaways to other shots.

The lack of retakes also causes Fuller to rely too much on long tracking shots. After that exciting sequence at the beginning, we quickly grow weary of Fuller’s repeated use of tracking shots. Also, we get too many long scenes where the characters move around and recite all their dialogue without any cutting to their faces for close-up reactions. As a result of the sloppiness of some of the staging, we have a somewhat uneven film. However, the maverick direction lends itself to Fuller’s “vision,” and does work to the story’s advantage. But it still seems amateurish in spots when it shouldn’t. And I think that if more money had been allocated for retakes and a chance to record more reaction shots, we would have had a more compelling narrative.

Don’t get me wrong it is still compelling. But I think its dynamism comes from the performances and from Fuller’s script, which is certainly high concept. However, Fuller’s dialogue is downright silly in places which gives it those campy vibes, especially when we have Sullivan ask Stanwyck if she wants to spank one of her men. Like that would really be said by an investigator to a powerful woman he just barely met.

Aside from Stanwyck and Sullivan, the performance that really stood out for me was Dean Jagger’s work as the corrupt sheriff. Jagger imbues him with slimy but still “heroic” traits. The sheriff knows that Stanwyck’s character has been corrupt and could be brought down by a former ranch hand, so he takes matters into his own hands and kills the dude in a prison holding area, so she doesn’t have to worry.

Of course, she insists she didn’t want the guy murdered. But the sheriff seems to believe it was necessary, and he certainly enjoys doing the dirty work. Particularly if it endears him to her for a favor or two. Jagger’s sheriff has sort of his own code when it comes to protecting people, and to his way of thinking, this is what a man does for the woman he loves.

Jagger has an interesting death scene a bit later, when all his efforts to hold on to the woman he loves have failed. He hangs himself in her home. This is an unexpected development, but in retrospect it’s certainly something we should expect from Fuller the flamboyant storyteller. It’s a totally over-the-top death.

Also worth mentioning is John Ericson’s performance, playing kid brother to Stanwyck. In fact, he’s probably young enough to be her son. She has always bailed out her little bro, but he goes too far at the end and pays for his transgressions with his life.

Supposedly Fuller wanted Stanwyck’s character to die in the climactic scene where Sullivan shoots her so that she will fall and he can get a clean shot at Ericson. But the studio insisted Fuller make her character live so she could have a happy ending. I think the movie probably would have been more powerful if she had died. Sullivan’s real love is the law, and his career certainly would have come ahead of sparing her and making her his wife. It’s sort of like expecting Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke to put the sister of one of targets ahead of everything else, including the law, which of course he would never do.

As for the title, the forty men or forty guns that Stanwyck keeps employed, is mostly just a gimmick. Not many of them are fleshed out and we don’t know them as individual characters.

Fuller’s thesis is that life and death exist side by side. In the blink of an eye, roles can reverse so that the living are now suddenly dead, and the seemingly dead might spring back to life. In many ways, this would be a great companion piece to Peckinpah’s RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY. Especially since both films have violent wedding scenes in them. I would suspect Peckinpah was influenced by Fuller even if that has never been corroborated anywhere. I would additionally suspect that many makers of spaghetti westerns ten to fifteen years afterward, were inspired by what Fuller accomplishes here. Again it’s a picture I enjoyed very much. Though I don’t think it’s exactly the masterpiece it could have been or should have been.

Essential: WALKING ON AIR (1936)

TopBilled:

Delightful musical romcom

Ann Sothern made a name for herself touring as a singer with Roger Pryor’s band in the 1930s. Her success as a vocalist led to a contract with Columbia Pictures in Hollywood where she appeared in a series of B comedies (some of them contained songs that she sang). By 1936 she finished at Columbia and moved over to RKO. There would be a series of hit films during the next three years for Sothern at RKO, many of them costarring Gene Raymond.

Raymond had a flair for comedy, he was musically inclined and more importantly, he had oodles of chemistry with Sothern. It was a no-brainer for RKO execs to keep casting them in these films, all crowd pleasers of the highest order. In WALKING ON AIR, one of the earliest collaborations between Sothern & Raymond, we see their dynamic blend of professionalism and light-hearted fun really gel.

Sothern plays a somewhat screwball heiress, but one with a bit of a bite. She is at odds with her wealthy father (Henry Stephenson) who disapproves of her choice to marry a fortune hunter (Alan Curtis). A well-meaning aunt (Jessie Ralph) and a few servants try to run interference.

Annoyed by her father’s unwillingness to bend, Sothern decides to put an ad in the paper for a man to play a new suitor in her life. She still intends to marry Curtis, but if she can bring an even more disagreeable fellow to the family manse then maybe daddy won’t think her original choice is so bad. As a set-up for a romcom, it’s quite clever. Raymond answers the ad. He gets a little too ‘method’ with the part and insults everyone, while posing as a French count.

When Stephenson and Ralph get wise to the ruse, they play along…none of them really expects Sothern to fall madly head over heels for Raymond which is exactly what happens. There are some very nice scenes in which the two leads sing romantic love songs to each other (tunes by Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby). You’d have to be a stone not to be affected by how nicely it all plays on screen.

Of course, Sothern is still engaged to Curtis, and a mix-up causes Sothern to believe Raymond is already married. Eventually, it all gets sorted out as one would expect it to in this type of farce requiring a happy ending. But through the laughs and the music, we actually have a fairly deep story about a young woman determined to be with a man who makes her happy. If he happens to gain her father’s approval, that is just an added bonus.

***

Jlewis:

I had not seen any of the Gene Raymond/Ann Sothern pairings before, not realizing they appeared frequently together. Surprised at how well they work on screen and did some homework, learning that they weren’t all that gaga with each other off-screen although rumors of specific spats were exaggerated since she happily attended his wedding and they socialized often enough. Both came from similar backgrounds and were billed at RKO as a secondary Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of sorts.

In fact, it should be noted that these two were quite talented musically with Raymond often writing material for his wife Jeanette MacDonald and Sothern working with her husband’s swing band for a time. We do get the occasional songs in these films, “Cabin on the Hilltop” being your typically sweet “My Blue Heaven” knock-off (a.k.a. the kind of material that Baby Boomers rejected as “square” in the sixties, being the music their parents preferred). Bubbles and clouds open our main titles, suggesting light…very light…entertainment that fits the title.

Recognized Jessie Ralph right away as aunt to niece Kit (Sothern), being a major character actress of the era in such blockbusters as MGM’s SAN FRANCISCO. These are the well-to-dos, complete with servants, but the grown offspring feel stifled. Daddy Horace (Henry Stephenson) is trying to get the daughters married off the suitors only he approves of. Kit puts up a fierce fight not to kow-tow to parental authority.

She wants a man who has been divorced a few too many times (Alan Curtis as Fred Randolph here, one of his exes played by Anita Colby) and Daddy can see that he isn’t stable husband material. She decides to fool him by hiring a struggling radio crooner named Pete Quinlan (Raymond) to pose as a “Count” and act obnoxious so that Daddy likes her favored choice better. Of course, plans don’t work accordingly.

Daddy is eventually OK with whomever his daughter decides on and Kit realizes later that she no longer loves her first choice. In short, Raymond and Sothern’s characters are destined to be together in the final reel.

Joseph Santley directed three of the titles we are covering this month and does a pretty good job, being a veteran of a number of comedy shorts shot on the quick at Paramount’s Astoria facilities in New York, often with (then) pop stars like Ruth Etting. As far as romantic material, it is only so-so by modern tastes and the jokes are only mildly funny.

Yet there is an engaging scene with Raymond’s Pete forced to run back and forth on a long staircase in between Kit and her parents’ verbal battles and a dramatic radio broadcast that is abruptly halted as our hero tries to get back with the heroine before she makes a lofty mistake she regrets. Also you must admire Sothern as the strongly independent woman ahead of her time who gets her way regardless of the various men telling her what to do.

Neglected film: IN WHICH WE SERVE (1942)

Celia Johnson’s character realizes at one point that Great Britain is headed for a showdown with Nazi Germany. She asks her captain husband (Noel Coward) if he thinks there’s going to be a war. The answer seems rather self-evident. But I suppose we need to see how naive some people were at the start of it all, just how unfathomable a second world war was to them. A subsequent scene in which we hear Churchill telling them over the radio that indeed there is another war provides us with some chilling realism.

Though Johnson and the other wives don’t exactly dominate the film, since their scenes are far and few between and mostly seen in flashback, they do manage to make an impact. For it is because of their safety and the future that may be had with these women that the men have gone off to battle and intend to defeat the Germans. Much of it is fairly standard propaganda; except for the sinking of the ship in the beginning and a home being blasted by a bomb during a blitz scene, none of it seems as dark or frightening as it might have been.

We know that Coward’s screenplay is only working towards one end, and that is the depiction of brave British men and women. The one who is shown to be a coward (Richard Attenborough) quickly comes to his senses and regains his valiant Britishness.

None of the men are shown to be morally compromised; they’re all almost perfect, led by a nearly perfect officer (Coward). So there is no real dimension to them as human beings, and several of the actors give very wooden performances. 

The best one in the cast, or at least the one who gives the most well-rounded performance, is John Mills. We see his earnest devotional qualities, but we also see some of his silly immaturity. When his character is married and he goes off on a honeymoon, he allows us to glimpse the newness of the situation through his eyes. His character grows as a result, because Mills as an actor is committed to having his character evolve, even if the script doesn’t always lend itself in that direction.

In addition to Mills’ performance, the film benefits from some fine action sequences directed by David Lean. However, I did feel as if the picture had two distinct personalities…the tense, moving action scenes on one hand; and talky stage bound scenes on the other hand. It felt as if Lean was giving us a story for the screen, while Coward was giving us a story for the theater. If the viewer can reconcile these key differences, then it is not a terrible experience watching the whole thing unfold.

But at nearly two hours with so many flashbacks that do not seem to advance the story forward, but instead take the characters backward, it can be a bit frustrating to watch. While I appreciated the sincerity of the piece, I found that many parts of it tested my patience. A good half hour could have been trimmed.

Another thing I want to mention is that I didn’t feel Coward knew the full backgrounds of these characters; they didn’t seem conceived as complete personages; just fragments of lives during a specific period in war. I think Coward did a much better job with CAVALCADE a decade earlier, which was anti-war.

Neglected film: HOTEL FOR WOMEN (1939)

This is a glorified B film from the folks at 20th Century Fox. It contains elements of romance and comedy, but is more known for its ensemble cast of Fox starlets, several of them going on to long and distinguished Hollywood careers. Among the women who check into the titular dwelling are Ann Sothern. Jean Rogers, Lynn Bari and Linda Darnell in her motion picture debut.

Darnell has the most screen time though she is billed after Sothern. Behind-the-scenes drama played out when Sothern, who’d just finished a contract at RKO, decided not to sign a long-term deal with Fox. She instead chose to sign with MGM, where a few scripts meant for the late Jean Harlow would be given to her. As a result of bailing on Fox, Sothern still retained top billing but her part was drastically cut in the editing room.

In lieu of Sothern’s decreased prominence, Darnell’s part was beefed up. Sothern & Darnell would reunite on screen ten years later as two of the wronged wives in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES, also for Fox. Apparently Sothern was able to mend fences with studio execs, and she had remained friendly with Darnell. The later film is more well-known, while HOTEL FOR WOMEN has slipped into obscurity.

Darnell was only 15 years old when she stepped before the cameras to shoot her first scenes in HOTEL FOR WOMEN. Publicists lied about her age and initially made her seem older than she actually was. After all, she was supposed to be playing a woman, not a teen girl in this film. The basic scenario was embellished by society maven Elsa Maxwell who was hired to add ‘realistic’ touches about young gals staying at a posh New York hotel.

Maxwell was a closeted lesbian who had a long-time female partner but never acknowledged their relationship in public. Despite being from a poor midwestern background, she had become a cosmopolitan sensation. She wielded great influence because of her powerful connections, often hobnobbing with prominent politicians and royalty. She was known for throwing lavish parties and writing a gossip column. In the 1940s she had her own radio show.

In order to give this picture increased value with contemporary audiences, Fox developed a supporting role for the doyenne and renamed it ELSA MAXWELL’S HOTEL FOR WOMEN. This was also a ploy to prevent a New York-based actress and part-time playwright known as Louise Howard from winning a suit against the studio for plagiarism. Miss Howard, who’d worked in burlesque as Halo Meadows, had authored a play called Women’s Hotel which the court ruled had been pilfered for this production. What ended up on screen wasn’t half as interesting as what went on behind the scenes.

Neglected film: KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (1950)

I suppose with a title like this, we know going into the story, there won’t be any future for the main characters. They will all wind up in prison, the ones that aren’t already dead. They’ll be forced to kiss everything goodbye.

James Cagney, hot on the heels of his success in WHITE HEAT, plays another sadistic thug. Since Cody Jarrett died in a blaze of glory at the end of HEAT, they couldn’t very well make a sequel, so this was the next best thing…create a new character very much in the Jarrett mold, but make him even more corrupt, more vicious and load the scenes with plenty of violent action.

At this point, Cagney and his brother were making their own productions filmed in rented studios. Given his recent box office success, old home studio Warner Brothers agreed to distribute the picture. It has the WB logo at the beginning, though is not technically part of the Warners archive of classic films. Due to its status as an indy film KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE fell out of the public eye for many years until the folks at UCLA finally restored it in the early 2010s which led to a home video release.

Perhaps those waiting for a chance to see the film were disappointed. It is never going to measure up to WHITE HEAT, which at its core, is about the tragic relationship between a mother and son (Cagney and Margaret Wycherly). Here, the criminal is more of a loner, though he tries to find love with women who cross his path. One is the attractive sister (Barbara Payton) of a guy who helped him escape prison but died in the process. Payton resembles Cagney’s previous costar Virginia Mayo.

Part of the story involves Payton remaining clueless about Cagney’s killing of her brother, while she gets more romantically involved with him. As the story unspools, we learn she is just as twisted as he is. There is a shocking scene in which she is towel whipped by Cagney then falls into his arms all hot and bothered. Not your typical love story! Of course Payton will never be enough for Cagney.

He is too busy pulling scams and going up against two crooked cops (Ward Bond & Barton MacLane). Then he meets a society chick (Helena Carter). He decides to ditch Payton for Carter, and that doesn’t go over well with Payton at all. This, combined with her learning the truth about how her brother died, sends Payton into a murderous rage. She becomes a second mad dog killer, eliminating Cagney.

Audiences didn’t respond too favorably to the gruesome acts of violence depicted on screen. It all seemed a bit excessive, as if the Cagney brothers lost good sense and went over the top in this follow-up of WHITE HEAT. It’s competently acted and directed; there are some very nicely staged scenes, especially during the courtroom sequences in which Payton and the rest of the gang are on trial. As the court proceedings occur we flashback over their various crimes and the death of Cagney’s character. But it all leaves a viewer feeling a bit cold. Yes, justice will be doled out in the end, but it doesn’t quite seem enough.

Neglected film: THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946)

It starts with atmospheric opening credits. A young woman (Dorothy McGuire) is on the long winding staircase of the mansion where she is employed as a servant. At one point she hears the wind howling outside and covers her ears. This is ironic since she’s mute and unable to make sounds of her own. Later when she’s targeted by a serial killer, she will struggle to cry out for help.

The first murder takes place in town. Siodmak presents a group of locals watching a silent movie. The camera tilts up to the ceiling, and we see a woman about to change her clothes in the room above the theater. A man is hiding in the closet. We just glimpse his eye. Then there is a shot of her outstretched arms putting on a dress, caught off guard by the killer.

A physician (Kent Smith) is summoned, but there’s nothing he can do for the woman who’s pronounced dead. He notices McGuire and offers to take her home. They travel by horse and buggy to the remote country estate where she lives and works for an invalid (Ethel Barrymore). Also staying at the mansion with the old woman are her stepson (George Brent) and her son (Gordon Oliver). One of these men is the killer. Not the good doctor.

As they ride towards the estate, it is clear he is smitten with her. In their relationship he does all the talking, but not all the communicating since she is still able to express her feelings. He drops her a short distance from her employer’s home. As she approaches the front gate, a storm comes up.

What makes this so interesting is how Siodmak skillfully weaves the more idyllic aspects of life in 1916 Vermont with danger that seems to exist in hidden places. Close-ups linger on McGuire’s delicate features, and her mannerisms indicate a fragile quality.

Other characters at the house are depicted in sharp contrast. Besides Barrymore, there’s a clumsy housekeeper (Elsa Lanchester) and a strict nurse (Sara Allgood). We also meet a young secretary (Rhonda Fleming) who is romantically involved with the old gal’s son. When she becomes the killer’s next victim, McGuire believes the son might be responsible. She enlists the stepson’s help, not realizing that he is the actual culprit.

There are effective camera set-ups inside the mansion. Especially when Siodmak and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca zoom in on Brent’s eye watching McGuire. There is a shot where they show McGuire who symbolically has the mouth area of her face blurred. These are stylized images of activity in the house, mostly from the point of view of a homicidal voyeur.

The last sequence is the most spectacular part of the movie. McGuire realizes Brent is the killer, and she tries to get away from him. Upstairs Barrymore realizes what extreme danger they are all in now. She has been bedridden for most of the story.

She is able to summon her strength and carefully lifts herself out of bed. Then she gets a gun. As Barrymore reaches the top landing, McGuire is rapidly ascending the stairs in an attempt to get away from Brent. Barrymore observes what is happening. She is very sick and about to die, but she manages to successfully aim and fire the gun.

Brent is shot in the chest and spirals all the way down to the bottom of the staircase. The son suddenly shows up and Barrymore dies in his arms. Meanwhile McGuire has screamed in horror, suddenly reclaiming her voice. She makes her way to the phone to call the doctor. Never before has anyone been so happy to hear from her.

Neglected film: NEW ADVENTURES OF GET RICH QUICK WALLINGFORD (1931)

The best farces, on stage and on film, are the ones where most of the characters exist in a state of hilarious confusion. Typically the audience is in on the jokes with the main character who is a trickster of some sort. In this 1931 comedy from Metro Goldwyn Mayer based on George Randolph Chester’s Wallingford stories, studio contractee William Haines plays the trickster. Haines is continuing his successful transition from the silent era as a man who travels the country, pulling cons before moving on to the next location where the next bunch of unsuspecting suckers await him.

Aiding and abetting his crimes is a pal portrayed by Jimmy Durante, named Schnozzle— appropriate given the nature of Durante’s proboscis. Durante sniffs out trouble, as in cops or marks that have gotten wise to them, and he helps Haines finish executing a scam before hopping the train and hightailing it elsewhere. Usually the authorities and victims are so mixed up about what’s happened, the duo make a clean and easy getaway.

Adding to the confusion are crimes that Durante commits as a long-time kleptomaniac. For you see, he has a penchant for stealing automobiles, thinking that if anything with four wheels and a set of keys in the ignition is parked nearby, it must be there for him to use. Of course, these types of gags work better in an era before car alarms.

In one hysterical scene Durante takes off with a car he finds at a train station and quickly crashes it; the reaction of the vehicle’s owners watching this is perhaps the funniest bit in the movie. If this film were remade today, writers would probably suggest Durante’s character has dementia, because there is no other way to explain the innocence of such grand theft auto.

Usually during this period of his career, Durante was paired with Buster Keaton in high energy comedies. So it’s kind of interesting to see his shtick alongside Haines who has a completely different style than Keaton.

Haines does not get upstaged by Durante, despite the zanier moments involving Durante’s character. Instead, Haines’ own schemes are much smoother and more complex; and while he’s bilking prey, he is falling for a pretty young thing (Leila Hyams). Of course we know that if Haines is going to somewhat reform, he will change because of her.

There are no real surprises, except that when Haines does decide to go straight because of Hyams, he seems willing to take the consequences and has surrendered himself over to the police, along with Durante. But we can never be sure if this will lead to another ruse, as it is awfully hard for such a guy to refrain from pulling more tricks. 

Ultimately, Haines and Durante do manage to evade the law because of another mixup that happens on their way to prison. It’s a precode, so they don’t have to actually pay for their misdeeds (and if Durante does have a form of dementia, he’d hardly be held responsible for what he’s done). The filmmakers’ main point in redeeming Haines is to have him settle down with Hyams.

Legal issues have prevented this film from being made available on any home video format. It has only aired once on TCM, back in the 1990s when the channel first began broadcasting. It won’t be long before WALLINGFORD is in the public domain, then plenty of people will be able to view this enjoyable farce.