THE BOY FROM INDIANA

Lon McCallister

THE BOY FROM INDIANA (1950). Director: John Rawlins.

Lon Decker (Lon McCallister) is a young man without a family who runs into an old reprobate named MacDougal (George Cleveland of Haunted House). The old scoundrel convinces Lon to become a jockey and ride MacDougal's horse, Jo Jo, in a race. Lon has no idea that MacDougal drugs horses and the like, nor that Jo Jo is actually a famous horse named Texas Dandy; eventually the two men develop a father-son relationship. Lon meets Betty (Lois Richards) who argues that quarter horses can become winning race horses just as much as thoroughbreds -- maybe Jo Jo can compete against the big boys?  Trouble ensues when Jo Jo is gored by a berserk bull (in an exciting and cinematic sequence) and also when Lon realizes how utterly larcenous his "Pa" can be. Nevertheless, Lon is determined to race Jo Jo, providing the horse's injuries can heal in time.

Lon McCallister and Lois Riuchards

The Boy from Indiana benefits from good performances from the charming, boyish McCallister and  a peppery Cleveland, with sweet Lois Richards and an equally peppery Billie Burke [Dinner at Eight] -- as MacDougal's nemesis Zelda Bagley -- thrown in for good measure. McCallister was a handsome and likable performer who appeared in a lot of "outdoors" movies and family films. Lois Butler had only a few credits, and appeared in just three films. On the other hand, Cleveland had nearly 200 credits over a very, very long career. The Boy from Indiana has some limited charm and several likable players. John Rawlins also directed Young Fugitives as well as a number of serials.

Verdict: Amiable movie for horse lovers and racing enthusiasts. **1/2. 

BECKY SHARP

Miriam Hopkins and Frances Dee

BECKY SHARP (1935). Director: Rouben Mamoulian.

Becky Sharp (Mariam Hopkins), a charity case in a finishing school, goes off with her wealthy friend Amelia (Frances Dee of I Walked with a Zombie) where she hopes to become affianced to Amelia's portly brother, Joseph (Nigel Bruce). Things don't go quite the way Becky expected, but she advances in society due to her looks, her aggressiveness, and many compliant men, including the Marquis of Sheyne (Cedric Hardwicke) and her husband, Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), whom she seems to love sincerely. But Becky's scheming may eventually undo her ...

Miriam Hopkins and Alan Mowbray

This version of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, filmed in early Technicolor, is amusing and engaging. Hopkins demonstrates true star quality, although her performance is at times overwrought and overly theatrical, yet she always plays with undeniable passion. It's hard to see Alan Mowbray [Dante], better known as a comic foil than anything else, as a romantic figure, but he is as good as ever, as is Hardwicke. Frances Dee is fine as Amelia, even though her character is allowed no real fireworks even when she thinks her husband is carrying on with Becky. Nigel Bruce offers one of his best portrayals as Joseph, and Alison Skipworth is a riot as Rawdon Crawley's peppery Aunt Julia. Billie Burke has a small role, and Mrs. Leslie Carter is lost in a crowd with no lines. (Five years later Hopkius would play Carter in Lady with Red Hair.) An exciting sequence takes place at a ball when Napoleon arrives at the nearby village of Waterloo.

Verdict: An arresting if uneven performance by Hopkins in an absorbing, fast-paced adaptation of a classic novel. ***. 

EVERYBODY SING

Judy Garland

EVERYBODY SING (1938). Director: Edwin L. Marin.

Judy Bellaire (Judy Garland of Presenting Lily Mars) belongs to a theatrical family, but she keeps getting thrown out of one school after another because she prefers swing music to classical and is therefore considered a "corrupting" influence. The rest of the household consists of her playwright father Hilary (Reginald Owen); her actress mother Diana (Billie Burke); the housekeeper Olga (Fanny Brice), who used to work in vaudeville; and the handsome cook, Ricky (Allan Jones of Reckless), who is moonlighting as a singer at a posh cafe. Judy also has a sister named Sylvia (Lynne  Carver), who is struck on Ricky and vice versa. Judy wants to help get needed money for the cash-poor family by singing at the same cafe, but has to resort to subterfuge when her parents deny her permission to do so. Meanwhile Hilary tries to mount his own show but objects to his wife's acting partner, Jerrold Hope (Reginald Gardiner).

Bus song: Garland, Carver, Jones and Gardiner

This aptly-titled MGM movie is a real charmer, thanks to the cast, some good song numbers, and an amiable disposition throughout, although Judy's attitude (as expressed in one of the song numbers) that classical music is passe is obnoxious. She gets to sing the snappy "Melody Fair," Jones warbles "The One I Love," much of the cast does an operatic pastiche -- based on Verdian melodies -- on a bus; and Fanny Brice [The Great Ziegfeld], who is wonderful, does "Dainty Me," as well as a Baby Schnooks number with Garland. Jones also reprises "Comsi Comsa" from A Night at the Opera. Monty Woolley shows up briefly as a producer and he adds to the fun as well. When they made dithery Bille Burke, they certainly broke the mold.

Verdict: Not just for Garland fans, but they will especially enjoy this. ***.

SMALL TOWN GIRL

Farley Granger and Jane Powell

SMALL TOWN GIRL (1953). Director: Leslie (Laszlo) Kardos.

Rich and patronizing playboy Richard Livingstone III (Farley Granger) speeds through the small town of Duck Creek, sasses Judge Kimbell (Robert Keith), and winds up thrown in jail for thirty days. Richard importunes the judge's daughter, Cindy (Jane Powell), to let him out one night for his "mother's" birthday. Richard has a jealous if unfaithful fiancee in Broadway star Lisa Bellmount (Ann Miller), but during a night in New York he and Cindy start to fall in love. How will the judge react when he is apprised of this situation?

Jane Powell

Small Town Girl is the perfect example of a well-turned out MGM musical. The players are fine and enthusiastic (Granger is much better than you might imagine); the TechniColor is vivid and beautiful; there are a couple of more than pleasant tunes ("Small Towns;" "The Fellow I Follow"); some excellent production numbers; and an essentially amiable if lightweight veneer that puts over the slight but entertaining storyline. Jane Powell [Seven Brides for Seven Brothers] again proves an adept leading lady with a lovely voice and good delivery. And besides Granger, Powell has a host of excellent supporting players and character actors to back her up.

Bobby Van 

First among these is Bobby Van [Lost Horizon], who plays Ludwig Schlemmer, the boy next door who has Broadway aspirations. Van is by no means handsome in Hollywood terms, but he is so irrepressible and talented that it doesn't matter; he has a kind of Al Jolson delight in performing. The most famous highlight of Small Town Girl is when Van literally hops his way across town in sheer spirited excitement, a well-choreographed (Busby Berkeley) sequence that was filmed with only a few cuts. When Ludwig meets Ann Miller and tells her his name, she says "Well, keep it quiet and no one will notice." Ludwig's father is played by "Cuddles" Sakall, whose character in this seems more grumpy and unpleasant than lovable.

Miller struts her stuff

Then there's Ann Miller [Carolina Blues]. There may well have been better female dancers in Hollywood musicals, but in this Miller stars in a zesty production number, "Feel That Beat," wherein the members of the band are hidden behind walls and under the floor, with only their arms and instruments protruding. As for the rest of the players, Robert Keith is fine as the judge, as is an uncredited Chill Wills as the friendly sheriff, Happy. Fay Wray is the judge's wife; Billie Burke is her dithery self as Richard's society mother; William Campbell is a reporter; Marie Blake is a shop customer; and Beverly Wills, the daughter of Joan Davis, plays Ludwig's sister, Deidre. Nat King Cole also sings a number, "Burn Low." Photographed by Joseph Ruttenberg.

Verdict: Delightful MGM musical. ***.   

THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY

Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant, Fred Astaire

THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949). Director: Charles Walters.

Josh and Dinah Barkley (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) have been a top team on Broadway for several years, but all is not rosy in their lives backstage. Secretly Dinah is a bit tired of her husband's Svengali-like attitude and his criticisms, as well as the feeling he has that he "made" her. When a very handsome playwright named Jacques Barredout (Jacques Francois) insists that Dinah has great and untapped dramatic talent, she decides to try her hand at playing Sarah Bernhardt in his new play. Will she fall on her face, and how will Josh feel if she does? Barkleys presents Astaire and Rogers in absolute top form, and this is one of their most winning movies. As their friend and collaborator, Oscar Levant [The Cobweb] offers one of his better performances, although the device of pairing him off with one beautiful woman after another becomes tiresome. Levant was an oddity -- he couldn't sing or dance, and certainly wasn't good-looking -- but his sardonic delivery often works, and he is allowed to play the piano on excerpts from two pieces, Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1." If Barkleys falls down in one respect it's that the new songs by Harry Warren and Ira Gershwin aren't up to the standard set by Ira and George Gershwin -- the only melodic bright spot is Gershwin's old tune "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Astaire's smooth elegant dancing is much on display, especially in a number when he trips the light fantastic with dozens of pairs of animated dancing shoes. The supporting cast includes Billie Burke [Three Husbands], who is wasted as a talkative patroness of the arts; Hans Conreid [Juke Box Rhythm] as an avant garde artist who draws Dinah as if she were a pancake (!); and George Zucco, who appears on stage during the Sarah Bernhardt sequence. Clinton Sundberg and Gale Robbins also appear, with Robbins playing Dinah's excitable Southern understudy; she's swell. Jacques Francois is now little-known except for this picture, but he amassed 150 credits, mostly in French productions, and he makes a good impression in this.

I believe this was the last time Astaire and Rogers were teamed in a movie, There was actually a ten year gap between Barkleys and their previous film, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. Lest one wonder if the real Rogers felt like Dinah does in this movie, we must remember that Rogers had already proven her dramatic acting chops in several previous films -- and she won the Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1941 -- so this was not a case of art imitating life.

Verdict: Delightful musical with the inimitable team of Rogers and Astaire. ***. 

AND ONE WAS BEAUTIFUL

Laraine Day and Jean Muir

AND ONE WAS BEAUTIFUL (1940). Director: Robert B. Sinclair.

"If ever I want to make anyone wretched, I'll call on you for advice."

Kate (Laraine Day of The Locket) is the shy, younger sister of Helen Lattimer (Jean Muir of Dr. Monica), who has strong feelings for "good catch" Ridley Crane (Robert Cummings).  When Kate goes to a party in place of Helen, she meets Ridley, who is charming to her, and becomes smitten with him as well. The sisters' feelings for Ridley and for each other become all entangled when Ridley gets drunk at a club, Helen briefly takes the wheel of his car, runs over and kills a man, and flees. She allows Ridley, who's already been in trouble for drunk driving, take the blame, but her sister suspects the truth ... And One Was Beautiful is a minor drama, but it holds the attention due to its interesting situation and some good acting, with Day and Muir in fine form. Billie Burke plays the mother and Esther Dale the dyspeptic maid in their usual professional style. Bob Cummings is perfectly okay for the lighter scenes, but less convincing when he has to get all dramatic. A curious aspect of the movie is that the family of the man who is killed seem much happier and better off after his death due to Ridley's giving them lots of cash (even without his being sued). With some good dialogue, this "B" movie is at times more knowing of human emotions than one might think. One assumes the title has to do with inner beauty because both sisters are physically attractive. Sinclair also directed Mr. and Mrs. North.

Verdict: Feuding sisters are always fun. ***.

ONLY YESTERDAY

ONLY YESTERDAY (1933). Director: John M. Stahl.

"This sort of thing is no longer a tragedy. It isn't even a melodrama. It's just ... something that happened."

A man receives a letter from a woman that he has completely forgotten, but who tells him that she has given him a son he has never known. No, it's not Letter from an Unknown Woman, but a variation that takes place in New York at the time of the stock market crash. Mary Lane (Margaret Sullavan) had shared a night of passion with Jim Emerson (John Boles) some years before, but when she goes to see him when he returns from WW1 he doesn't even remember her. She is determined to raise their son and stick it out until he does remember her, but instead Emerson marries another woman. Years go by, and Mary resists romantic overtures from others [reminding one of Back Street, which both Sullavan and Boles appeared in, albeit in different versions]. This was Sullavan's first movie and she delivers, and Boles is also fine as the object of her affections. Jimmy Butler scores as their young son, as does Billie Burke as Mary's sympathetic and up-to-date Aunt Julia, who sings "Tiptoe through the Tulips." Bramwell Fletcher and Reginald Denny are also in the cast. It all builds to an undeniably moving conclusion. Stahl also directed the Boles-Irene Dunne version of Back Street, as well as Leave Her to Heaven.

Verdict: Good acting helps put this over. ***.

CRAIG'S WIFE

John Boles and Rosalind Russell

CRAIG'S WIFE (1936). Director: Dorothy Arzner.

"If a wife is the right kind of woman, her destiny should be in her own hands, not her husband's."

In the second film version of George Kelly's Pulitzer prize-winning play (after the silent), Rosalind Russell stars as Harriet Craig, whose home and its furnishings are the most important things in her life, much more important than people. Harriet likes things just so, and isn't above running other people's lives when she feels the need to. When a friend of Walter, her husband's (John Boles), murders his wife and commits suicide, Harriet fears their involvement may cause an unwanted wrinkle in their pristine universe. In the meantime, Walter's beloved Aunt Ellen (Alma Kruger of Saboteur) objects to the way her niece-by-marriage keeps everyone out of her home, and is slowly but surely distancing Walter from all of his friends, and has it out with her. "It isn't an opinion I have of you, Harriet," she tells the younger woman. "It's you I have." Harriet's sister is sick, so she has her own niece, Ethel (Dorothy Wilson), stay with her and tries to run her life as well. Craig's Wife is pretty faithful to the play [unlike the remake with Joan Crawford] but the problem is that Kelly's play is rather dated, and by no means can be seen as having a truly feminist perspective despite some of Harriet's cold if sensible attitudes. The performances are all very good, including Billie Burke as the widowed neighbor, Mrs. Frasier, and Jane Darwell as the housekeeper, Mrs. Harold. Arzner also directed Merrily We Go to Hell.

Verdict: Intriguing at times despite its age, and well-acted by all. ***.

THREE HUSBANDS

THREE HUSBANDS (1951). Director: Irving Reis.

"Women are better wives if they are not dependent on the peccadilloes, insecurities, and whims and pretensions of their husbands."

Three men are given letters written by a deceased playboy, Max (Emlyn Williams), in which he tells each man that he and the fellow's wife were in love. What follows are a series of flashbacks in which each husband reviews his and his wife's relationship with the deceased, trying to determine if the letter could possibly be true. Arthur (Shepperd Strudwick) is married to Jane (Ruth Warrick) but is involved with a woman named Matilda (Louise Erickson). Ken (Robert Karnes) is married to Max's nurse, Mary (Vanessa Brown), and has an interfering mother (Billie Burke) who lives upstairs. Dan (Howard Da Silva) is married to Lucille (Eve Arden), and constantly nags her to act more upper crust than she is to help him gain entry to a higher social scale. While this light comedy-drama has its moments and good performances -- especially from Brown, Da Silva, and Arden -- any resemblance to the superior A Letter to Three Wives, which it tries to emulate, is strictly coincidental. Burke plays a more serious part, as she did in In This Our Life, but is given little to do. Strudwick made a fine impression in The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe in the title role, and also appeared in Psychomania/Violent Midnight. Whatever its inefficiencies, the picture does have a very cute ending.

Verdict: As usual, Eve Arden adds some snap. **.

DINNER AT EIGHT

DINNER AT EIGHT (1933). Director: George Cukor.

"You couldn't get into the men's room at the Astor!"

The only thing on the mind of airy Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) is the dinner party she's planning, so she doesn't realize that her husband Oliver (Lionel Barrymore) has serious business woes and even more serious health problems. But then most of the guests have their own preoccupations. Dr. Talbot (Edmund Lowe) is having an affair with an increasingly clingy Kitty Packard (Jean Harlow, pictured), whose grumpy, much older husband Dan (Wallace Beery) wants to take over Oliver's business. Faded actress Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler) has money troubles, but not as bad as has-been Larry Renault (John Barrymore), who can't pay his hotel bill and whose agent (Lee Tracy) has to deliver some devastating news. The Jordan's daughter Paula (Madge Evans) has fallen in love with Larry, even though she already has a fiance.

Although the pace sometimes drags, this is a brilliant comedy-drama that has many highly amusing lines and situations but can also slide effortlessly into tragedy as we witness the grim fate of Larry Renault. John Barrymore handles the horrifying situation with his usual aplomb. Harlow and Beery have a great scene battling together and telling each other off, and Marie Dressler is perfection (she has a funny scene with fawning Elizabeth Patterson -- Mrs. Trumble on I Love Lucy -- in a bit.) All the performances are excellent.

Verdict: They really don't make 'em like this anymore. ****.

TOPPER TAKES A TRIP

TOPPER TAKES A TRIP (1939) Director: Norman Z. McLeod.

The first sequel to Topper is a charming and amusing film in which Roland Young as the harried banker Topper discovers that lady ghost Constance Bennett is not quite through with him, taking him to the French Riviera to win back the delightfully befuddled Mrs. Topper (Billie Burke, pictured), who has decided to divorce her Cosmo. It seems that Mrs. Topper's “friend,” Mrs. Parkhurst (Verree Teasdale), is part of a group who match young gigolos with wealthy widows and divorcees, and there's a certain baron (Alexander D'arcy) who has his eye on Cosmo Topper's millions by way of his wife. [The baron asks Mrs. Parkhurst if Clara Topper is pretty. “Well, she has scads of money,” Parkhurst replies. “She's pretty,” says the baron.] Franklin Pangborn is his usual riot as the hotel manager who is an associate of the baron's and Teasdale's, and Alan Mowbray is as excellent as ever as the wise, long-suffering Topper butler. Burke, Young, and Bennett are all in top form as well. While the movie isn't full of belly-laughs as such, it is consistently entertaining and funny. The third and final movie in the series, Topper Returns, is also worthwhile and well-acted.

Verdict: Great fun! ***.

IN THIS OUR LIFE

IN THIS OUR LIFE (1942). Director: John Huston.

Due to the participation of a flamboyant Bette Davis, not to mention that it was said to bowdlerize the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel it was based on (by the now-forgotten Ellen Glascow), this film has always been seen as a soap opera when it is really an outstanding drama. On the surface it is a study of two sisters – one good, one bad – and how the bad sister's selfish actions impact upon everyone else around her. Below the surface it is a trenchant study of compassion and personal accountability versus utterly self-centered venality. Stanley (Davis) and Roy (Olivia de Havilland) are the masculine-named daughters of a sensitive man (Frank Craven) who has basically been thrown out of his own business and turned into a mere employee by his own brother-in-law (Charles Coburn). Stanley, who takes after her Uncle William (Coburn), runs off with her sister's husband (Dennis Morgan), practically destroying her sister's faith in love. Nevertheless, Roy tries to start anew with Stanley's cast-off fiancee, a lawyer played by George Brent. Later a tipsy Stanley runs over a mother and young daughter, killing the latter, and flees the scene. Instead of confessing, she blames the accident on Parry (Ernest Anderson), the son of the family housekeeper (Hattie McDaniel). It ends in a somewhat melodramatic but satisfying fashion, and along the way there are some very powerful and lovely sequences. Howard Koch's screenplay is quite good, with dialogue that shows much insight into the human condition. [After Stanley runs away, a distraught Uncle William cries “After all I've done for that girl – after all I've done!” to which her father replies “It doesn't make much difference when a person wants something else.”] The movie is always on the verge of exploding.

In This Our Life was the first major Hollywood film to present an upwardly-mobile and highly positive black character. Parry is studying to be a lawyer. He talks frankly of how there aren't many opportunities for a man of his race. The sad irony is that despite his excellent performance in In This Our Life, Anderson's subsequent film appearances had him playing bit parts as porters and servants. Many years later he appeared with Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? He plays the vendor who gives Baby Jane an ice cream cone on the beach near the end of the film. Both films were photographed by Ernest Haller. When the George Brent character neglects his legal practice due to being dumped by Davis, de Havilland reminds him that he already has everything that Parry is struggling for.

In This Our Life has slowly gained the admiration of modern-day critics who have finally seen that it is much more than just a “Bette Davis Melodrama.” Much of the screen time, of course, is thrown to Davis, who is occasionally much too overwrought and pop-eyed – but always riveting. She is at her best in her scenes with Charles Coburn, who clearly fancies her in a much more than Uncle-like fashion. There are two very memorable scenes between the two in Uncle William's parlor. First, she “flirts” with him as he confesses his loneliness and asks her to come and live with him; then she confronts him after fleeing from the police and he tells her that he's dying. “You've lived your life,” she tells him, “but what about me?”

Olivia de Havilland gives one of her nicest performances in this film. So does George Brent, who initially seems miscast. The scenes with these two wounded souls are enriched by a lovely waltz love theme courtesy of Max Steiner. There are times, however, when Steiner matches Davis' hysterical histrionics note for note, and these fortunately brief moments lower the whole tone of the picture (otherwise it's a fine score). Frank Craven is exceptional as the father, Asa, and Billie Burke gives a well-crafted dramatic performance as the hypochondriacal and foolish mother. Hattie McDaniel and Lee Patrick are also right on the money, as usual. The weakest performance comes from song-and-dance man Dennis Morgan, but he gets an A for effort. This was only John Huston's second film after The Maltese Falcon. He directs in the same very brisk style, which may not be appropriate for the subject matter but certainly keeps the picture humming.

Verdict: In This Our Life is a near-masterpiece. ***1/2.