Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

The 1940s
War Films

     Back to the forties and iconic war films that you should know. Strictly speaking, I am confining this to films concerning World War II, acknowledging that it might exclude fine films about conflicts from other eras.  But during the forties, the preoccupation was obviously with the current war and Hollywood produced many films about the actual fighting and the effects on the home front.  So I have divided the category into War Drama and War Action films.

War Action

1. Bataan (1943)

Directed by Tay Garnett, Robert Taylor and Lloyd Nolan lead a dependable cast in the story of heroic efforts during the last days of the evacuation from the Philippines.  The audience who first watched it already knew the fate of American forces after the surrender.

2. Battleground (1949)

Directed by William Wellman, a squad of GIs during the Battle of the Bulge is realistically depicted. Starring Van Johnson and John Hodiak.

3 Command Decision (1948)

Directed by Sam Wood and starring Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon, who portray the stress of the air war for the generals who must send young men to their deaths.

4. Cry Havoc (MGM,1943)

Directed by Richard Thorpe, starring Margaret Sullavan, Joan Blondell, Ann Sothern, or

  


So Proudly We Hail (Paramount,1943)

Directed by Mark Sandrich, starring Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake.

Amid all the war films are these two which recognize the contribution of women in the fields of battle -- nurses on Corregidor and the Bataan Peninsula in the weeks before surrender. The only difference is the Paramount film weaves in the story of the men in the lives of the women, whereas the MGM film, which is based on a stage play, concentrates on the women.

5. Destination Tokyo (1943)

Directed by Delmer Daves. Exciting story of Cary Grant and John Garfield on a submarine mission.

6. Pride of the Marines (1945)
Also directed by Delmer Daves, John Garfield gives a great performance as a blinded Marine returning home.  One of the first films to deal with the soldier's readjustment.

7. The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
Directed by William Wellman, correspondent Ernie Pyle is portrayed in this story of infantry, starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum.  I read somewhere that Eisenhower thought it was the greatest war movie ever made.

8. They Were Expendable (1945)
Directed by John Ford, starring Robert Montgomery and John Wayne in the story of the PT boats in the Pacific.

9. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.  A secret bombing mission over Japan stars Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson and Robert Walker.

10. Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
Directed by Henry King. Gregory Peck stars as the general in charge of whipping into shape a bomber squadron flying from England to Germany.

War DRAMA

1. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Joel McCrea as a journalist who gets caught up with enemy agents in London before the outbreak of war. With Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall and George Sanders.

2.The Great Dictator (1940)
Starring and directed by Charles Chaplin, the classic satire of the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy was the first to take a stand on the evils of Nazism and Anti-Semitism. Co-starring Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie.


3. Journey for Margaret (1942)
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the 3-hanky story of Robert Young and Laraine Day encountering British war orphans, Margaret O'Brien and William Severn.






                                        

4. Lifeboat (1944)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a war drama only in the setting, a group of survivors of a German u-boat attack try to stay alive with a German in the boat. Starring Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak.


                                       
5. The Mortal Storm (1940)
Directed by Frank Borzage, starring James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Robert Young, Robert Stack as villagers in a German mountain town reacting to the Nazi regime.



6. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Director William Wyler's picture of life in an English village at the outbreak of WWII. Released a few months after Pearl Harbor, this patriotic propaganda  for the war effort won Academy Awards all around (Best Picture, Best Actress in a leading role -- Greer Garson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Teresa Wright, Best Director, Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, Arthur Wimperis, Best Cinematography, Black and White --Joseph Ruttenberg. Also starring Walter Pidgeon.




7. Notorious (1946)
Another Alfred Hitchcock classic, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains, as American agents trying to thwart Nazis in South America. One of the best.

8. Saboteur (1942)
Alfred Hitchcock again. This time Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane, Norman Lloyd on a cross-country pursuit of enemy agents ending at the Statue of Liberty.

9. Since You Went Away (1944)
Directed by John Cromwell, the story of one family trying to be strong for the loved ones who are gone to war. Starring Claudette Colbert, with Jennifer Jones and Shirley Temple as her daughters. Also starring Robert Walker and Joseph Cotten.


10. Watch on the Rhine 
(1943)
Directed by Herman Shumlin.  Political refugees from Germany visit American relatives before US entry into WWII and clue them in about Nazi regime. Starring Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Lucille Watson.

    These works, made by contemporaries of the war years, are a window into this eventful decade, as the generation of eye witnesses disappears.

Watchingwell   

             Curated classic films

This,and Not That

     There are a few films that are on everyone's "best" list that I've never been as enthusiastic about.  Some I don't like very much, some I like, but would not put on the greatest-ever list.  I've been thinking about some films like this and as I examine them and my recommended alternatives, a pattern is beginning to emerge.  See if you can detect it.

     Not

 Vertigo (1958)

     What can I say about Vertigo?  As with the other Hitchcock films, there is something to be admired. The score, by constant collaborator, Bernard Herrman, is as vital to the overall feel of the production as the script. The plot is intricate, but because of Hitchcock's belief that it is more suspenseful when the audience knows what's happening and the protagonist does not, we are not fooled for a moment that the red-haired Kim Novak is a different person than the blonde Kim Novak. And because of this, the film is achingly slow and un-suspenseful most of the time as James Stewart walks us through his obsession with the blonde Kim Novak, whose life he thinks he has failed to save.

     The biggest mystery associated with this film, IMHO, is why it is the recipient of such reverential status. Unless we break it down like this -- most of the devotion comes from the men who make up the disproportionate number of critics (as an example, only 7 of the 102 external reviews of this film on IMDB have female names), filmmakers, film historians, etc. And maybe men just find the "idea" of a woman, that is, the grey-suited Kim Novak who is so lacking in personality as to be practically transparent, intriguing. A grey suit in a technicolor film!  She is supposed to be a blank, a myth, not real -- nothing that you'd actually have to interact with. When the James Stewart character finds the flesh-and-blood look-alike, he labors to remove any trace of her individuality and personality and turn her into the blank version, right down to the grey suit (somehow he manages to purchase the exact suit -- oh, suspend your disbelief!) Maybe he represents men who prefer android blondes in grey suits to real life women. This is a film for them.  For this is a film about control.  One way to maintain control of a relationship is to never actually take part in it, with all its imperfections, to be satisfied with just watching.  Which is what critics do, what directors do, and what the James Stewart character does. 

This

Rear Window (1954)

    On the other hand, Rear Window is one of Hitchcock's finest, tightly-scripted suspense dramas. There are no slow spots, because, cleverly, when the principals aren't talking, Hitchcock has us watch the residents of the building across from the title rear window.

    The principals are James Stewart, again, as a world-traveling photojournalist with a broken leg, confined to a wheelchair, Grace Kelly, as his designer/model, woman friend, and Thelma Ritter, as the visiting nurse who becomes his confederate in spying on the neighbors.  

    The Grace Kelly character, Lisa, is a very real woman who seems to be actively pursuing the James Stewart character, Jeff, for a commitment.  It's not totally clear why -- perhaps, he is more interesting when he can walk around, but he resists Lisa, -- Grace Kelly, in the prime of her beauty, dressed in a scintillating wardrobe, designed by Edith Head, who coincidentally did the costumes in Vertigo (Hitchcock liked to work with the same people).   The reason Jeff gives is that their lifestyles don't mesh  -- she could never follow him into the wild and rough it, although she says she's up for it and can be handy to have around.  She tries to prove this by being up for the adventure of the murder mystery that Jeff has concocted from the observations of one of his neighbors in particular, played by Raymond Burr (pre Perry Mason). She is so spunky that she becomes the active agent of the stationary Jeff, foolheartedly venturing into the apartment across the way and into real danger.

     The irony here is obvious:  he is the adventurer, going to photograph in danger zones, but now the roles are reversed, and completely.  She is the daring one, and in one of the great, suspenseful screen moments, he can only watch the danger unfold through his telephoto lens, while Hitchcock captures the helpless fear and anguish on his face.

     We can speculate on the psychological symbolism that is presented here:  a man's fear of being trapped, of being impotent, of not being man enough for an assertive woman with desires, and choosing a profession that precludes any such relationship.  We don't know what happens to Lisa and Jeff after the excitement with the police is done and the mystery is solved, but I hope that when the cast comes off the leg, Jeff goes back to work, globe-trotting, and leaves Lisa to someone who would consider her an asset.


   Not

The Apartment (1960)

     

     I understand a lot of people love The Apartment.  I have never warmed to it. Perhaps, because I have never warmed to Shirley MacLaine or understood her ascent to stardom.  And what was with that hair? How many times can you wear the same pixie bob? Actually, I found the mature Shirley MacLaine to be a reliably, intelligent actress starting with about 1977's Turning Point. But I digress.

     Though, frankly, there have been times when Jack Lemmon's persona of the slightly neurotic, Everyman has been slightly annoying. Mr. Everyman was part of the story in Prisoner of Second Avenue, a particular favorite of mine, and The Odd Couple, but tiresome in The Out of Towners and How to Murder Your Wife.  So for me, this was a film of two  people acting stupidly.  I really hate it when characters in a drama allow themselves to be taken advantage of beyond the point of credulity.  I realize this is done to make it funnier or to give it more intensity, but it's a weaker drama, in my opinion.  But, everybody loves everything Billy Wilder does, because a lot of the time he is really good.

     In 1960, I guess it was quite bold to make a film about the casual infidelity in the corporate world.  I guess. Although when I saw it back then, I didn't think it was particularly bold.  It wasn't like a big exposé.

This

Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)

     But, oh boy, if you want to see what can change in the world of "bold" in four years, even Billy Wilder couldn't sell Kiss Me, Stupid in 1964, which I recommend.  That's because it was banned by the Catholic Legion of Decency and others, requiring some cuts that were not necessary for the European release, because of it's shocking portrayal of -- yes, infidelity! But it was not casual, it was purposeful.  I suppose that was what crossed the line.

     Ray Walston plays a music teacher and long-aspiring composer in a very small town in Nevada.  He and his writing partner, played by Cliff Osmond, have never sold a song. So when the Las Vegas star, playboy crooner, Dino, played by Dean Martin, playing himself, or the self he portrayed on stage, passes through town on his way to somewhere else, they sabotage his car so that they can get a chance to play some songs for him.

     At some desperate point, the Cliff Osmond character suggests that Dino, the over-sexed playboy, could be made amenable through the efforts of an attractive woman.  But Ray Walston is insanely jealous of his beautiful wife, played by Felicia Farr.  So the partners hire someone to play his wife, an employee of 'The Belly Button', the town's sleazy entertainment venue.  The employee, played by Kim Novak, sporting what she believes to be a New Jersey accent, accepts the job and throws herself into the role, enjoying the chance to play a housewife.  The real wife is sent home to mother after her husband picks a fight to get her out of the house.  What could possibly go wrong?

     Well, the wife tires of listening to her mother's marathon nagging and goes home.  She gets as far as the front porch when she sees an intimate moment between her husband and Kim Novak through the window.  She leaves in a huff with a mind to get drunk.  Where?  At 'The Belly Button', where some caring townsfolk eventually tell Farr who has become worse for the alcohol to lie down and sleep it off in Kim Novak's trailer out back.

     Kim Novak, meanwhile, has done her part and Dino is ready to buy a song. So Walston leaves them together at the urging of his partner, who has been waiting outside. But then he has second thoughts about the whole thing.  He works himself up into a rage against Dino for coming into a man's home and expecting that his wife would be offered as part of the hospitality.  So he charges back inside and kicks Dino out, much to the chagrin of everyone, including Novak, who tells him he is a fool.  But that act of almost-chivalry has created a bond between them and so after they clean away the dinner dishes, they -- oh, wait, you'll have to see the film.

     And you'll have to see the film to find out what happens when Dino leaves Ray's house in a huff and ends up in Kim's trailer with you-know-who. It's all very neatly scripted, funny lines and no two-dimensional characters in the bunch, with a rather sweet regard for the females that is often absent in Billy Wilder/I.A.L. Diamond scripts.  This underrated film suffers from an unfortunately, hum-drum title that doesn't offer much of a hint of the kind of unusual, little film this is.

 Not

You Can't Take it With You (1938)

     You Can't Take it With You won the Academy Award for the best picture of 1938. Many rank it right up there with other Capra classics like It Happened One Night and It's a Wonderful Life.  They think it's riotously funny, mainly because of Jean Arthur's family of eccentrics, like her ever-twirling sister, Ann Miller, Miller's xylophone-playing husband, played by Dub Taylor, her folk artist mother played by Spring Byington, the firecracker factory in the basement run by her father, played by Samuel S. Hinds, the skeptical servants, and assorted loose humans, all presided over by Grandpa Lionel Barrymore, who thinks people should follow their bliss instead of dollars. Jean Arthur seems to be the only one who earns a regular paycheck.

     But Jean is in love with her boss, James Stewart, who is from a family, headed by parents, Edward Arnold and Mary Forbes, who are more interested in money and position than bliss.  Jean's family is happy, generous, and loved by their community.  James Stewart's family is cold, selfish and miserable.  Get the message? Rich people may own skyscrapers, but they're not happy.  Poor people can be in danger of foreclosure, but they're the lucky ones. So there is no point in wishing that you were rich because you'd be happier if you stay in your place.  Based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, You Can't Take it With You is Hollywood trying to charm away uneasy yearnings during the Great Depression.

This

 Easy Living (1937)

    The year before, Jean Arthur made a better match. This time the rich man's son is Ray Milland, but the father is played by none other than Edward Arnold. The tycoon he plays this time is idiosyncratic, humorous, and unpredictable. He has a great time playing with the character. See him trying to explain compound interest to working girl, Arthur.


       The difference here is the script by Preston Sturges, whose characters were edgier, funnier, and more fully-dimensional. Although it was said that he was not that happy with the direction of Mitchell Leisen -- in particular, the addition of the slapstick automat scene, Leisen adds some signature glamour to the look of the film, and directs the players with a sure hand.
     The plot reveals typical class fault lines, but no one is demonized.  A sable coat drops  from the sky and falls on Jean Arthur's head as she commutes to work on a bus. Her hat is ruined. The coat dropper, Edward Arnold, who has tossed it off his penthouse terrace in a fit of temper at his wife's extravagance, tells her to keep the coat and insists on replacing the hat at a salon as he drives her to work in his limo.  The proprietor of the salon then spreads the news that the tycoon, J.B. Ball, has a girlfriend on the side.
     This makes  Jean Arthur a celebrity because to have J.B. Ball's girlfriend endorse your product could make you a fortune. Consequently, the hotelier offers her the 'Imperial Suite' for nothing, the salon sends her clothes, car salesmen want her driving their cars, and Wall Street types want the inside info on steel. Jean Arthur doesn't know this is why she is suddenly so lucky and she doesn't know that the young man she has befriended after he was fired from his job at the automat is really J.B. Ball's son.  
     J.B.'s son doesn't want to be a banker; he wants to make it on his own, but he's not doing very well at it.  Even the spendthrift wife, played by Mary Boles, turns out to be decent sort when a joke about steel has put J.B. in a precarious financial situation. This is a witty script played by actors who having played these sorts before, seem happy to extend themselves to make their characters a little zanier, a little less predictable, and a little more human. And in the effort, it made me laugh out loud at several points even after the third or fourth viewing.
Not      The Women (1939)
     I may have already expressed a negative opinion of the extremely, well-regarded comedy/drama, The Women, directed by George Cukor, and written by Anita Loos based on the play by Claire Booth. Starring only women -- Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and others,it has many flaws, in my opinion. But the gist of it is that a woman feels pressured to divorce her husband because he has formed a relationship with another woman and then comes to her senses at the end and runs to him with arms outstretched, repudiating her silly moral standards.  Well, that's my interpretation. But, basically, it's an accurate synopsis.  What bothers me the most, though, is that the film is promoted as a "cat fight" because all the women friends of Mary (Norma Shearer) are portrayed as being insincere, back-stabbing, shallow, gossips who are incapable of forming and maintaining real friendships. This, to me, is women-bashing propaganda.
This
Cry Havoc (1943)
     So I started thinking about films from the same era that I could recommend that portrayed women friends in a better light. Not only was it hard to find one -- there were sooo many about women rivals that I wondered if I'd have to expand  my search up to 1990 and Thelma and Louise to find women portrayed as supportive friends on film.  Then I remembered a film I saw when I was a child that had a big influence on me.  The film was Cry Havoc, also with a cast of only women, Margaret Sullavan, Ella Raines, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Joan Blondell, and Ann Sothern. The story was about nurses on Bataan, doing their jobs while dodging bombs and suffering the same deprivations as the men. Taking place in the days before the surrender to the Japanese, it impressed me as it was the only film I had seen out of the many about World War II that gave me someone heroic with whom I could identify . (There actually were two other films, Three Came Home, and So Proudly We Hail, that were about women in war, but I didn't see them until much later.) But, today, I could see that it might be a downer and not much of a substitute for a comedy/drama.

     So, then I remembered the tough-talking, smart women in Gold Diggers of 1937. These women moved the plot, but were not rivals. Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell were particularly funny and wise -- who can forget Glenda's line, "It's so hard to be good in a capitalist system", but they had been perfecting this partnership in several films in the thirties -- Miss Pacific Fleet, Traveling Saleslady, We're in the Money, and Kansas City Princess.
     Oh, and about The Women, I have reconsidered a bit on that one when I started to think about the second half of the film when Mary goes to Reno and meets other women in the same betrayed boat.  From this point on, the women actually do support each other, at least in opposition to the home-wrecker, Joan Crawford. But, even then, it starts to feel more like class struggle.  But that's another topic.

      

Watchingwell   

              Curated classic films

    

The 1940s
The Comedies

     Back to the film literacy department, here is my list of iconic comedies of the 1940s. A slight change of format here -- instead of the usual list of the most important 20, I am taking the liberty of selecting my favorite five of the list to discuss in more detail. Again, I remind you that these 20, including my favorite five, are not necessarily the funniest, but rather, the ones you should know about if you want to know Hollywood comedy in the 40s.

      If I had to choose one film, to take to the desert island (thank goodness, I don't), maybe I would choose His Girl Friday, a film from 1940 directed by Howard Hawks.  An earlier version of the Charles MacArthur-Ben Hecht 1928 play was made into a film in 1931 with Adolph Menjou and Pat O'Brien. (There were later film versions made as well, but this one from 1940 is the best.)  Howard Hawks changed the Pat O'Brien role of Hildy Johnson into a woman, played by Rosalind Russell, adding a new dimension to the plot. Cary Grant plays Walter Burns, the newspaper editor who would go to any length to beat the competition to a story. 

     The dialogue is fast and overlapping, a specialty of Hawks direction.  In one scene that illustrates this and one that you'd have to see more than once to notice all the nuances of the performances, Rosalind Russell is typing the breaking story, while Walter (Cary Grant) is helping her with background and at the same time, speaking on the phone with his editor. Ralph Bellamy as Bruce, who is engaged to Hildy, is hovering over her trying to get her away and on the train to Albany.  So we have Bruce talking to Hildy, Hildy answering him and asking Walter questions and typing while reading out loud what she is typing. Walter is talking to Hildy, to his editor on the phone and also to Bruce, accusing him of distracting Hildy, and Bruce is also answering him. While all this is going on, someone mentions Bruce's money that Hildy was holding for him which Walter knows has been exchanged for counterfeit, and he inspects the money to check whether it is real or not. The scene runs seamlessly and is a master class in filmmaking.

     There is another scene where Abner Biberman, who plays Walter's devoted and slightly crooked fixer, has returned to the courthouse to report that his car was in a crash with a police car and implies that Hildy's future mother-in-law might have been killed. While he is recounting the events to Walter, Hildy is on the phone to the hospitals, asking if an old woman has been brought in. I have seen this film a dozen times and this scene never fails to make me laugh.

     Cary Grant does not always play himself, as some may think.  His Walter Burns is a newspaper man and con artist, a businessman who knows what sells, with very little in the way of scruples.  His speech patterns reflect that -- hard edged, slightly insincere, and so do his clothes, well-dressed but a little flashy, with a flower in his lapel. Rosalind Russell is an able match as Hildy, the ultimate career woman, an attractive woman, yet clearly respected and admired by the newspapermen on the beat. You don't find too many career woman stories from those days that didn't end with a subtle message to girls that a professional life was not for them. This one was unique because since Hildy was originally written as a man, the role still required that she was a great reporter in order for the plot to work. In the end, when she goes off with Walter, resigned to his faults as a partner, it is obvious she is not leaving her career. They go off together to cover a strike in Albany, with Hildy carrying her own suitcases and Walter musing aloud that perhaps Bruce, the jilted fiance, will put them up.

*****

     Preston Sturges has the deserved reputation for original, sophisticated comedy writing and direction. Of the three Sturges films included in my top 20, The Palm Beach Story from 1942 is my favorite.

     As I have previously written, I have watched old films since childhood, so it was with pleasant surprise that I found this film for the first time not so many years ago. The plot is ridiculous -- I mean, really ridiculous. Claudette Colbert is in love with her husband, Joel McCrea, but since they are without enough capital to bankroll his canopy airport idea, she decides to divorce him so he can work without worrying about her, and she can find some man to supply the cash in return for her favors.  Did you notice three or four ridiculous items here? Wait, there's more.

     There is a rich businessman from the Midwest who gives her enough to pay the unpaid bills, a hunting club who buys her a ticket on the train car they have booked for their trip to Florida, and a Rockefeller-type, played by Rudy Vallee, who takes her the rest of the way on his yacht after the hunters' car is uncoupled from the train, but not before he buys her a complete designer wardrobe, with jewels.

     When they get to Florida, they are met by Vallee's sister, played by Mary Astor, and also, Joel McCrea, who has followed his wife to Palm Beach, but whom she introduces as her brother.  But as we are refusing to suspend our disbelief with this insanity, we are also laughing at the script anyway, and this is the essence of Preston Sturges comedy -- a ridiculous premise that plays out with such convincing wit that we accept the ridiculous as normal.  My favorite line comes when Vallee shows his sister a Hope-diamond-size ring he has bought for Colbert. He asks her what she thinks and Astor replies, "I think she'll know what you mean."

*****

     Another film that I discovered quite recently was the William Powell and Myrna Loy gem, Love Crazy from 1941. These two have made many films together that are always on my fave lists in other categories.  This one, however, made me laugh out loud at several scenes, both because of the script and the physical comedy which is smartly directed by Jack Conway.  There is a scene on the grounds of the mental hospital to which the Powell character finds himself committed that produces an involuntary laugh in spite of the fact that the action is almost completely anticipated.  There is another scene involving a scalding hot shower that is a masterpiece of timing. Both scenes really illustrate the comic range of William Powell, who can handle the most sophisticated dialogue and the silliest, physical antics, all done with his trademark, plastic facial expressions.

     The plot is the typical misunderstanding and lack of trust in a marriage and the machinations of one of the partners, in this case, William Powell, to fix it. Myrna Loy is, as usual, a steady contrast to Powell as his almost ex-wife. Jack Carson adds to the comedy as Loy's unwanted defender, with Gail Patrick as an old flame, and Florence Bates as the obnoxious mother-in-law.

   

     Yet another comedy that knowledgeable classic film fans knew long before me was the 1943 film, The More the Merrier, directed by George Stevens and starring Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea. It was nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Actress, and won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Charles Coburn.

     Well, actually I knew about it, but I really didn't take the time to watch it and get to appreciate what a lovely comedy Hollywood had turned out. The setting is Washington D.C. in war time.  There is a major shortage of living quarters so career woman, Jean Arthur, patriotically decides to do her part for the war effort by renting out half of her apartment. She is conned  into renting to Charles Coburn when she really had a woman in mind. While she is at work, Coburn rents half of his space to Joel McCrea, who has come to D.C. on a hush-hush project. Arthur finds this out accidentally after a morning ballet of precision timing in which they are almost never in the same room at the same time.  Further comic complications come from her fiancé, a proper sort who works in some government department and is kept in the dark about the living arrangements.  

     As you might imagine, McCrea and Arthur are attracted to each other and Coburn promotes their romance like a guardian angel.  McCrea and Arthur have real chemistry as demonstrated by the following clip that I put in a previous post, where they realize the situation.

     This was remade in 1964 as Walk Don't Run, a film with the distinction of being Cary Grant's last. But the the kind of situations that were romantic and charming in 1943 were less so in 1964 and just seemed mildly annoying.

*****

       Three major film stars are at their most comfortably likeable in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House from 1948.  Directed by H.C. Potter, it features Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas.  Most people who know this film have an affection for it because it is so easy to relate to the trauma of buying a house: the expense that always exceeds the expectations, the disruption, the delays, the inconvenience, the unexpected problems, and the way that it crowds out everything else in your life.

     This is illustrated so charmingly by the cast of players that the simplest things like a door that sticks and then comes unstuck by itself, having no clue of what the carpenter is talking about but being unwilling to acknowledge it, a husband and wife trying to use the only bathroom at the same time are so humanly funny that we relate to it all.  My particular favorite, as someone who has dealt with a patronizing contractor or two in my time, is when Myrna Loy goes into extreme detail to describe her color scheme only to have it reduced to "red, green, blue, yellow, white" when the little woman is gone.

     This film is also further evidence of how easy Cary Grant made it look. When you consider him as Walter Burns in His Girl Friday and watch him as Jim Blandings, the advertising exec and harried family man, you get a better appreciation of his art, and how he is always Cary Grant, but not the same Cary Grant.

*****

     And the other fifteen?  From 1940, The Bank Dick, is a short and hilarious romp starring W.C. Fields.

The Road to Singapore, also from 1940, is the first Bing Crosby and Bob Hope road picture. With Dorothy Lamour.

One more from 1940, My Favorite Wife, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.  She comes back after 7 years, he's just remarried to Gail Patrick.  Remade a bunch of times.

Five comedies from 1941.  First, Sullivan's

Travels.  Preston Sturges writes and directs Joel McCrea as a movie director who tries to live among the poor as 'research'. With Veronica Lake. Second, the other Preston Sturges film is The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck trying to outsmart Henry Fonda. With Sturges

regular, William Demarest. 

              Another film with Barbara Stanwyck as a gangster's moll and Gary Cooper as an innocent professor in Ball of Fire, directed by Howard Hawks. 

Here Comes Mr. Jordan stars Robert Montgomery who dies too soon so 'officials' give him another body.  Directed by Alexander Hall.

 Another with Robert Montgomery, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, co-starring Carole Lombard, about a couple who find they are technically not really married. Alfred Hitchcock's only comedy and pretty funny.



Three from 1942.  To Be or Not to Be, starring

Carole Lombard again and Jack Benny as Polish actors outsmarting Nazis, directed by Ernst Lubitsch. (Remade in 1983 by Mel Brooks.)

The Man Who Came to Dinner, directed by William Keighly, starring Bette Davis and Monte Woolley as the most insufferable guest of all time, with Ann Sheridan.

Larceny, Inc. -- Edward G. Robinson as a crook who succeeds in business without really trying. Directed by Lloyd Bacon.





From 1944, Arsenic and Old Lace, starring Cary Grant who discovers his aunts are bonkers. With Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre.

Miracle on 34th Street from 1947.  Little Natalie Wood doesn't believe in Santa Claus.  With Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, and Edmund Gwenn.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein from 1948. The title tells you everything.



Number 15, from 1949, is Adam's Rib, written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as lawyers facing each other at a trial. Directed by George Cukor. Not exactly one of my favorites, but iconic.   

Go have some laughs.