Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

  

            Greetings!

Dear Readers,

      In the spirit of the season, instead of suggestions about classic holiday films, which you can still read if you scroll back in time, I offer presents for your viewing enjoyment.

Happy Holidays!

Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

 William Powell

Suave, debonair, funny, elegant, sophisticated, polished, urbane, witty, distinguished...OK, I am a big fan of William Powell.  Many people who know only a few classic films are aware of The Thin Man series (1934-1947) where he played Nick Charles, and the great partnership that he had with Myrna Loy as Nora Charles.  But there are some less well-known films that these two made together that exhibit the same wonderful chemistry.

Libeled Lady (1936) directed by Jack Conway, is a gem of a comedy that also includes Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow in the cast.  Tracy is an editor who enlists Powell to romance socialite, Loy, so she will drop her suit for libel against the newspaper.  Jean Harlow, in a role that shows her talent for comedy, plays his fiancée who suspects that he has really fallen in love with Loy.

Jack Conway also directed the pair in Love Crazy (1941).  Through an annoyingly-contrived misunderstanding, Loy is divorcing Powell, to which he is desperately opposed.  So desperate is he that he agrees to fake insanity to put the divorce on hold.  He doesn't realize that he will be confined in an asylum so he makes an escape through some nimbly-timed and hilarious scenes.

I Love You Again (1940) directed by W.S. Van Dyke, stars Myrna as the disillusioned wife of a man who is replaced by a con artist who looks just like him, when the husband is actually killed on an ocean liner. Powell as the con artist feels that he has landed in a cozy spot where he can hide out from his enemies, but doesn't count on falling for Loy for real.

In Double Wedding from 1937, directed by Richard Thorpe, Myrna Loy is a controlling, career woman who plans her sister's life and that of her fiancé to such an extent that her sister pretends to fall in love with an artist to rebel against the life Loy has mapped out for her.  The artist, William Powell, finds that he has a better idea: that he and Loy should marry. (A similar dynamic is the plot in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) where Loy plays against Cary Grant.)  

Powell and Loy made fourteen films together and they always seemed to enjoy each other's company.  But, perhaps, this is the mark of the professional, because both actors have great screen rapport with other stars.

A particular favorite is My Man Godfrey (1936) directed by Gregory La Cava, with Powell opposite Carole Lombard.  Powell plays the 'forgotten man' Lombard brings home and turns into the family butler.  Of course, he is really well-to-do and of course, she falls in love with him, and of course, it all ends happily.

A more obscure classic is The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936) directed by Stephen Roberts, where Powell's character is drawn into a murder mystery by his ex-wife, played by Jean Arthur, who is a successful mystery novelist. The sets and costumes are glamorous and the mystery is unremarkable, but enough of an excuse for Arthur and Powell to interact.  Naturally, romance is inevitable.

Powell is an astronomer married to Hedy Lamarr in The Heavenly Body (1944) directed by Alexander Hall.  He is so absorbed in his work that Hedy is excited about meeting a 'dream man', an event predicted by her astrologer, played by Spring Byington. Silly plot (what man would be that absorbed in his work with Hedy Lamarr at home?) but an enjoyable comedy, even so, with the two stars being so easy to watch.

In Star of Midnight (1935) directed by Stephen Roberts, we get luscious art deco sets (take a look at Powell's bathroom ) and costumes surrounding a stylish, but hard-to-follow, murder mystery. An actress has disappeared, the star of a play called, "Midnight".  Powell is a rich lawyer and Ginger Rogers tags along, all the while setting her sights on Powell with a view to marriage. Not Myrna Loy level, but, definitely good chemistry.




If you're curious, the fourteen films Powell made with Myrna Loy are the four mentioned above, the six Thin Man films, Manhattan Melodrama, The Great Ziegfeld, Evelyn Prentice, and The Senator Was Indiscreet, in which Loy appeared in a cameo.

Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

SCARY MOVIES

      

      Why do we (I mean you) like to scare ourselves at the movies? Is it the ability to trap our fears and anxieties in the rectangle of the screen?  Is it our insatiable appetite for cheap thrills? Whatever.  I have never had the problem. Never voluntarily watched horror or slasher films unless out of boredom when they appeared on TV, and then, I thought them predictable and not scary. I think most would agree that an essential element of scary is surprise, so it can only happen, if it happens at all, in the first viewing.  For example, a rather successful use of surprise to send hearts into arrhythmia, Halloween (1978), a film I saw when it was

old enough to be shown on TV, and I still can’t imagine what kind of suspension of my identity made me watch it, was the first and the best of the deranged-killer-stalking-teenyboppers- slasher genre.  Director, John Carpenter, was astute in his understanding that the anticipation of something terrible holds more terror than the actual event.  With admirable restraint, he shows the killer, Michael Myers, in shadow or in grainy glimpses, but more in the eyes of his victims.  No streams of gore or digitalized special effects, just an ordinary neighborhood, which makes the deranged killer lurking around even more terrifying, juxtaposed against this most normal of settings. For most of the film, I halfway looked away at times, so as not to be jolted when the music tipped me off, but I will admit there was one scene, -- I won’t give it away for those who have yet to see it, but I will say only that I have never again looked at knitting needles without thinking of it.  

    George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)

was a genuinely creepy film that was ultra-economical in every way, including its actual mayhem, concentrating on the terror of the characters trying to stay alive. What was going to happen inside the house, among the humans added as much to the tension as the zombies outside. For me, it was a film so unlike any horror formula that I didn’t really know what was coming next, or how it would end, and that made it genuinely suspenseful.  It was a groundbreaking film that spawned a whole genre of low-budget, documentary-style horror films.  But there is no suspense in the second viewing, once you know how it ends.

     For similar reasons, Kubrick’s film, The Shining (1980) was so unlike any other that it got pretty scary as it went along, without a clue to the audience as to whether the protagonists would survive.  The location in the snowbound hotel in the Rockies, the interior sets, the score, and the photography conspired brilliantly to create an atmosphere of menace.  As I have written here before (1/4/16 post), the camera leading us down deserted hotel corridors, not knowing what was around each corner, made me afraid. Loosely based

(according to King) on a Steven King story, this Kubrick masterpiece is a beautiful film that challenges our sensibilities to attach beauty to evil. This, you could watch more than once and still be mesmerized.

     The first time I saw the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi, I think I was afraid.  I was a child and director, Tod Browning created an atmosphere of  creepiness with Dwight Frye doing that weird laugh and the ever-elegant Lugosi leaving us with no doubt that he had powers stronger than his adversaries.  But, I’ll share with you the only time I ever really felt uneasy watching a film was when I first saw the German silent vampire classic of F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu (1922). The first screen contains a warning that even to utter the name, N o s f e r a t u, is to be doomed.  I am not susceptible to suggestions of the supernatural, but this gave me a shiver.

     Although this blog is devoted to American classic cinema, a discussion of scary movies for me has to mention German Expressionist Films and the early work of Fritz Lang. His science fiction classic, Metropolis (1927), gave us many ominous special effects, and the original mad scientist.  Lang’s first talking picture, M (1931), is a chilling picture of the worst criminal, a child killer, but we see no violence – only the absence of a child that was there a moment ago.  Peter Lorre stars as the hunted killer and Lang presents him

as so desperate that we feel his terror at the same time we wish for his capture.  

     In 1933, he made The Testament of Dr Mabuse, the evil mastermind who is seemingly able to control his empire after death.  It has some rather remarkable special effects, for its day, and is spookier than many of the modern, evil mastermind films. 

    

    

      For those of you who would never watch a silent film, I urge you to try to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a masterpiece by Robert Wiene.  Its angular, distorted sets reflecting the distorted minds of the characters, the hypnotist and the somnambulist, are disturbing. Murders are committed, but plot twists make us unsure about the ending.  A true work of art.  Also creepy.

Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

The 1940s

Westerns 

    I might have mentioned that I’m not a big fan of Westerns (see blog post of 6/12/16) and I think probably the best of the genre were made in the 1950s. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t iconic ones from the 40s. So here are my twenty picks in no particular order.

First, some Henry Fonda films:

My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford)

Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, Victor Mature as Doc Holliday in the best film realization of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral.

Ox-Bow Incident (1943, William A. Wellman)

With Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, Harry Morgan.  Is this really a Western?  Haunting, tragic morality tale with moving performances especially from Dana Andrews.

Some John Wayne films:

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949, John Ford)

John Wayne  plays an aging cavalry captain in what is many people's favorite John Ford film. Winton C. Hoch won an Oscar for his Technicolor photography around Ford's favorite Monument Valley location.

Angel and the Badman (1947, James Edward

Grant)

John Wayne is the badman. Gail Russell is the good woman and nurses his wounds. Guess what happens?

Red River (1948, Howard Hawks)

With John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Joanne Dru. I've written about this film before, that I admire Hawks' work, but that I find the generational conflict here contrived and Wayne's character unpleasant, but what do I know?

Tall in the Saddle (1944, Edward L. Marin)

With John Wayne, Ella Raines, Audrey Long.

More interesting than the usual Western plot, enlivened by good chemistry between Wayne and Raines as a tough rancher.  Audrey Long plays a rival love interest.

Three Godfathers (1948, John Ford)

With John Wayne, Pedro Armendarez, Harry Carey, Jr.

The Christmas parable in New Jerusalem, Arizona, as the three men devote themselves to a baby's survival.

And a Henry Fonda and John Wayne film:

Fort Apache (1948, John Ford)

Fonda playing against type as a glory seeking commander and John Wayne as the honorable veteran who opposes his betrayal of an agreement with an Indian tribe.

Two Gary Cooper films:

Unconquered (1947, Cecil B. DeMille)

With Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, in technicolor.

She is a bondservant. He rescues her from Da Silva while fighting Indians in pre-Revolutionary America.

The Westerner (1940, William Wyler)

With Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Forrest Tucker.

Top-notch Western with Brennan as Judge Roy Bean, and one of Cooper's best performances.

Two Gregory Pecks:

Duel in the Sun (1946, King Vidor)

With Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones.

David O. Selznick tried to make a Western as big as Gone With the Wind.  So this is big -- visually, musically, and dramatically, way over the top.

Yellow Sky (1948, William Wellman)

With Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark.

Greed for gold divides a gang of outlaws in a tale elevated by strong performances by all.

One with Robert Mitchum:

Pursued (1947, Raoul Walsh)

Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright, and Dean Jagger.

The hero deals with childhood trauma and real enemies in a beautifully photographed, noir Western.

One with William Holden:

The Streets of Laredo (1949, Leslie Fenton)

William Holden, William Bendix, MacDonald Carey.

The lives of three bandits evolve onto different paths when one goes straight.

One with Robert Mitchum and William Holden:

Rachel and the Stranger (1948, Norman Foster)

William Holden, Robert Mitchum, and Loretta Young.

Widower, Holden, buys Young, a  bondservant, to help on his farm.  Then old friend, Mitchum, turns up.

The Mark of Zorro (1940,  Rouben Mamoulian)

With Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone.

Young aristocrat in 19th century Spanish California fights injustice behind a mask and the sign of the "Z". Good swashbuckler.

Northwest Passage  (1940, King Vidor)

With Spencer Tracy, Robert Young.

Rogers' Rangers fighting Indians in the French and Indian War.  Based on the novel by Kenneth Roberts, good-looking production filmed on location in actual forests.

  

They Died with Their Boots On (1941,  Raoul Walsh)

With Errol Flynn, Olivia deHaviland.

There was a General George Custer and there was a Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Otherwise almost everything else in this account of the General's career is wildly inaccurate, but entertaining.

Colorado Territory  (1949, Raoul Walsh)

With Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo.

A loose reworking of Walsh's earlier High Sierra.  The result being a kind of noir western with good performances by McCrea and Mayo.

The Outlaw (1943, Howard Hughes)

With Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell. Jack Buetel, and John Huston.

Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday are in the story that is an excuse for Howard Hughes to show off Jane Russell. A film made to be mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Jane Russell's poses make this awfully (and I do mean awfully) iconic.