STRIKE UP THE BAND

Mickey!

STRIKE UP THE BAND (1940). Director: Busby Berkeley.

High school student Jimmy Connors (Mickey Rooney) has one passion: playing the drums in a band. Mary Holden (Judy Garland) has just one passion: Jimmy Connors. Mary can also sing quite well. Jimmy wants to take his band to Chicago to play on Paul Whiteman's radio show in a band competition, but where oh where can  he get the money for traveling expenses. Just when the money is raised, a dear friend, Willie (Larry Nunn), becomes seriously ill and needs an operation ... The sentiment is thick  but somehow never overbearing in this charming musical which boasts the talents of Rooney and Garland, both of whom are typically superb. Larry Nunn offers a highly appealing and sympathetic portrait of Willie, who has a hopeless crush on Mary and proposes -- at thirteen! William Tracy [Terry and the Pirates] and June Preisser [Judge Hardy and Son] play two more of the kids, most of whom look like they've been out of high school for quite a few years. The title tune was composed by Gershwin, but the other songs are by Freed and Edens, including the memorable "Our Love Affair," expertly warbled by Garland, and "I Ain't Got Nobody." (Garland's torch song, "The Curse of an Aching Heart," was cut.) Ann Shoemaker [Seventeen] plays Jimmy's mother, who has always wanted him to be a doctor. While Shoemaker is always good, in this she just seems to come on too strong and smothering.  Nunn was a very talented child actor but his film career only lasted eight years.

Verdict: Rooney and Garland in top form! ***.

THE WOMAN IN RED

Barbara Stanwyck and Gene Reynolds

THE WOMAN IN RED (1935). Director: Robert Florey.

Shelby Wyatt (Barbara Stanwyck) works for the wealthy "Nicko" Nicholas (Genevieve Tobin), riding her show horses, but her job comes to an end when she falls for Johnny (Gene Raymond of The Locket), who also works for Nicko, riding her polo ponies -- seems Nicko has a yen for Johnny herself. Soon the couple are out of work and struggling to survive as young marrieds. There are other complications, such as Shelby's snobbish in-laws and efforts by Nicko to get Johnny back. The cast helps keep the mediocre film reasonably entertaining, with Stanwyck as excellent as ever, and Tobin, Dorothy Tree [The Family Secret], Ann Shoemaker [House by the River], and especially John Eldredge (as another man in love with Shelby) offering up fine support. One big disappointment is that Shelby never gives Nicko the big whack she deserves.

Verdict: Another Stanwyck film in which she's much better than the material. **1/2.

HOUSE BY THE RIVER

HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1950). Director: Fritz Lang.

"You are a swine, Stephen."

Struggling writer Stephen Byrne (Louis Hayward) makes a pass at a pretty maid, Emily (Dorothy Patrick), and winds up accidentally killing her, then gets his lame, bookkeeper brother, John (Lee Bowman), to help him cover up the crime and put her body in the river beside his house. Meanwhile the mystery over the disappearing maid provides enough publicity for Stephen to capitalize on for his writing career, but his wife, Marjorie (Jane Wyatt), finds his new success a little ghoulish. Then Emily's body is found and one of the brothers is arrested .,.  With moody, beautiful photography from Edward Cronjager, a fine score by George Antheil, and a memorable lead performance by Hayward, House By the River is one of Lang's best pictures. Wyatt is quite good, Bowman also good [if not on Hayward's level], and we even get Ann Shoemaker as a friendly neighbor and Kathleen Freeman as a party guest. Jody Gilbert also scores as John's housekeeper, Flora. In the Lang canon, this falls somewhere between the awful Secret Beyond the Door ...  and the excellent Clash By Night.

Verdict: Brooding, well-done suspense film that just misses being a real classic. ***.

SEVENTEEN (1940)

SEVENTEEN  (1940). Director: Louis King.

Based on Booth Tarkington's novel, albeit very loosely I imagine, this is the story of one Willy or William Baxter (Jackie Cooper), who is nearly 18 and wants his family and friends to treat him like a man. He tells everyone he hasn't got time for girls, as he has too much studying to do for his future, but his attitude changes when he meets a supposedly sophisticated young lady from Chicago named Lola (Betty Field). Before long his whole life centers around this spoiled, silly creature, and his future doesn't matter half as much as having proper clothing for a swank night club and the right car to take his girl out for a spin in. In some ways this slight film seems modeled more on the Andy Hardy or Henry Aldrich series than on Booth Tarkington. [The Hardy series began in 1937, while Cooper starred in what would turn out to be the first of the Henry Aldrich films, What a Life, in 1939.] But as easy as it would be to dismiss Seventeen, it's so well-acted by Cooper, as well as Ann Shoemaker and Otto Kruger as his parents, that they help the film's sentimental charm come through; Cooper is really excellent as the young, proud sap who gets his first taste of heart break. Betty Field affects a strange irritating voice and makes much less of an impression as Lola. Peter Lind Hayes plays George, a rival for Lola's affections, and "Snowflake" Toones is cast as Genesis, the likable handyman.

Verdict: Good-natured, with a winning Cooper. ***.

WHAT A WOMAN

WHAT A WOMAN (1943). Director: Irving Cummings.

"The merriest man-hunt in kisstory" -- advertising tag line.

Carol Ainsley (Rosalind Russell) is handling the film rights for a novel by one "Anthony Street" and for completely inexplicable reasons thinks that the author -- a college professor named Michael Cobb (Willard Parker) could play the lead in the movie -- without even setting eyes on him! Fortunately he turns out to be a good-looking guy who has no acting experience or ability whatsoever. In the meantime a magazine writer named Henry Pepper (Brian Aherne) keeps trying to do an interview with Carol, and there's the usual dated stuff about successful career women being "frigid" and so on [obviously that particular term is not used]. The leads are okay but this is a predictable and formulaic comedy that has hardly any laughs. Ann Savage, Grady Sutton and Ann Shoemaker all have small roles, and Gertrude Hoffmann plays the maid, Hattie.

Verdict: What a movie -- not! **.

STELLA DALLAS

Anne Shirley and Barbara Stanwyck

STELLA DALLAS (1937). Director: King Vidor.

Stella is a young woman in a family of mill hands who wants a better life for herself and gets it when she contrives to meet an executive at the mill, Stephen Dallas (John Boles). But although she lands the guy, Stella is a vulgar and unsympathetic person in many ways, and the two soon separate. However, Stella is redeemed by the sincere love she feels for her daughter, Laurel (Anne Shirley). But as the girl grows and bonds with her father and the new lady in his life, the widow Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil), Stella comes to realize that her rather declasse status may do her daughter more harm than good. Some aspects of Stella Dallas have to be taken with a grain of salt. It's one of those movies where people are terrible to other people that they love because they think they need "to be cruel to be kind" [along the lines of the guy who discovers he's going to be permanently crippled telling the woman who adores him that he hates her so she can be "free."] Once you accept that somewhat dated convention, it is easy to focus on the film's major strengths, which include Stanwyck's utterly superb performance [one of her finest in a career of excellent performances], as well as sterling work by Shirley, John Boles, boisterous Alan Hale as a friend of Stella's, O'Neill, Ann Shoemaker, Marjorie Main, and others. [Even Olin  Howlin/Howland from The Blob --years in his future -- shows up!] One of the best scenes is a very moving encounter between Stella and Helen, and the ending -- if slightly contrived and "dramatic" -- is lovely and poignant. Hattie McDaniel, Jimmy Butler, and Tim Holt also have small roles. All this and an excellent score by Alfred Newman as well.

Verdict: Stanwyck and a general air of classiness lift this out of the soap opera level, but it's definitely a classic tearjerker. ****.

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO

SUNRISE AT CAMPOBELLO (1960). Director: Vincent J. Donehue.

Based on the play by Dore Schary, Sunrise at Campobello takes place in the 1920's in the days when future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) was stricken with polio. With the help of his wife Eleanor (Greer Garson), his mother (Ann Shoemaker), children and close friends, Roosevelt not only comes to terms with his affliction, but rises ever higher in the political arena. Bellamy first played the role on the stage, and he's fine, if a bit artificial at times. Garson is quite good as Eleanor, although at first her prominent buck teeth are a distraction. But as good as the leads are, the film is practically stolen by Ann Shoemaker, superb as Roosevelt's concerned if somewhat domineering mother, and Hume Cronyn as Roosevelt's friend and associate Louis Howe. These two fine actors play characters who don't especially like each other [at least Mrs. Roosevelt finds Howe vulgar], and their crackling scenes together are the highlights of the movie. Serial king Lyle Talbot shows up briefly as another politician. Sunrise at Campobello is overlong, but it's moving and generally effective.

Verdict: Worth seeing for Shoemaker if nothing else. ***1/2.