LADIES ON HIS MIND: FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE

Colman on his couch

FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE: Ladies on His Mind (1953). Directed by Robert Florey.

Four Star Playhouse, which aired from 1952 to 1956,  had a series of rotating hosts, four stars including David Niven, Charles Boyer, Dick Powell, and Ida Lupino. Either one of the aforementioned male stars was replaced by Ronald Colman, or other stars appeared in certain episodes when one of the hosts wasn't available. In any case Colman [The Prisoner of Zenda] is the star of this indifferent and forgettable half-hour segment, the 17th episode of the first season. In "Ladies On His Mind" Colman plays a happily-married psychiatrist whose wife (Benita Hume) doesn't seem to think too much of his profession. 

Ronald Colman consults

During the half hour Colman sees three female patients played by Patricia Morison (an actress who only hopes to find true love), Elisabeth Fraser (who fears her husband's best friend has fallen in love with her when it might be vice versa), and Hilary Brooke (an unhappy neglected wife whom Colman seems to think is a shrew worth poisoning without ever meeting her husband). As he listens to the ladies' woes, Colman fantasizes himself into a stark painting on the wall where sort of mini-ballets are played out, none of which are very interesting. Colman is as excellent as ever, Hume personifies middle-aged loveliness, Brooke is quite good as the neglected wife, and the others are fine. But the script for this lets everyone down. Gifted director Robert Florey [The Face Behind the Mask] does the best he can with the material. Alix Talton [Deadly Mantis] plays Colman's nurse. 

Verdict: Tries to be something different but just doesn't work. **.

TARZAN ESCAPES

Love story: Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan

TARZAN ESCAPES (1936). Director: Richard Thorpe.

Rita Parker (Benita Hume of Suzy) and her brother, Eric (William Henry of The Thin Man), come to Africa to see if they can importune their cousin, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan), to come back with them to London, citing a complicated will that needs her attention. Rita and Eric hire Captain Fry (John Buckler) to take them into the dangerous territory where Jane resides with Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller), but he turns out to be an evil character who has sinister ulterior motives. Warned to watch out for the tribe of Bogonis, the group discover that an even more savage tribe is intent on killing everyone. For much of its length Tarzan Escapes is more of a cuddly domestic romance detailing Jane's idyllic life with her lover, Tarzan, but in the final quarter there is plenty of action. Reportedly Tarzan Escapes was considered too gruesome in its original form to be released and there was lots of re-shooting. When Jane and Tarzan take a swim as they did in Tarzan and His Mate, Jane now wears clothing. Although some bat monsters have been edited out of the film, there is a disturbing scene when one poor native is tied to two trees and then drawn and quartered, which is made clear if not graphically depicted (which makes one wonder what the 1936 censors thought of as "gruesome.") Late in the picture the group must escape through a cave that is filled with lakes of lava and gator-sized lizard monsters. One of the most interesting characters is Rawlins (Herbert Mundin of Charlie Chan's Secret),  whose first sight of Tarzan has him falling in a faint, although the two eventually become buddies. Rawlins later shows his bravery in trying to save the Ape Man's life, and pays a sad price for it. Of course, all of the victims, black or white, are forgotten by the end of the movie. O'Sullivan and Weissmuller make the most of their rather sensual romantic sequences, which are quite well-acted, and the other performances are all adroit. A scene with Tarzan killing a giant crocodile is lifted almost entirely from Tarzan and His Mate. In this picture, our favorite chimp -- now spelled "Cheetah" -- is female. Cheetah mischievously -- or bitchily -- places a little doe on a log and sets the animal adrift, necessitating Tarzan's rescuing the deer from said crocodile.

I wondered why I wasn't more familiar with John Buckler, who is quite good as the nasty Captain Fry, and discovered -- as is, sadly, often the case -- that Buckler died at age thirty after finishing this picture. He and his father, Hugh Buckler, also an actor, were in a car that skidded into the water in Malibu Lake, CA. Both drowned.

Verdict: Absorbing Tarzan epic. ***.

SUZY

Jean Harlow and Cary Grant's hand

SUZY (1936). Director: George Fitzmaurice.

"I don't dance much and I don't sing so well, but I can be awful cute when I want to be." -- Suzy

Suzy (Jean Harlow), an American entertainer in London on the eve of WW1, eventually finds herself married to two men at the same time: Factory foreman Terry (Franchot Tone), who at one point gets shot by a spy; and wealthy French playboy and war hero, Andre (Cary Grant) who distinguishes himself as a flier -- and a heel. How this bizarre situation came about and how it is resolved is the stuff of Suzy, a wartime soap opera that mixes dogfights, Mata Hari-types, inadvertent bigamy, adultery, German spies, and music halls -- and it's still a meandering bore. Jean Harlow is delightful in the first half of the film but director Fitzmaurice is unable to get her to properly handle some of the tougher scenes in the second half, although she certainly had the ability to do so. Tone and Grant are both fine -- although Tone is as unconvincing as an Irishman as Grant is as a Frenchman! --  but Lewis Stone walks off with the movie as Grant's stern but loving father, who eventually comes to care very much for the showgirl he at first disapproves of. [The picture eliminates Stone from the finale and shouldn't have.] Inez Courtney [The Reckless Way], Una O'Connor [Stingaree], and Benita Hume are also notable as, respectively, Suzy's pal, landlady, and love rival. Fitzmaurice also directed Mata Hari with Greta Garbo. The most unforgivable thing about Suzy is that it tries to rip off the "I was reading a book" scene from Dinner at Eight!

Verdict: Melodramatic claptrap that seems cobbled together from scenes from better movies. **.