NIGHT SONG

Dana Andrews and Merle Oberon

NIGHT SONG (1947). Director: John Cronwell.  

Now here's a strange one. Wealthy Catherine (Merle Oberon of A Song to Remember) goes slumming in a nightclub one evening with friends, and is attracted to, and fascinated by, a talented composer, Dan (Dana Andrews), who is also sort of slumming as a piano player. Cathy is initiially distressed to realize that Dan is blind, but decides he needs a patron -- but how to get past his depression and indifference. She hits upon the incredibly tasteless idea of pretending to be blind herself, assuming a new identity and even renting a different apartment from her fancier digs. She is able to inspire Dan to finish his concerto, and in her true identity sponsors him in a competition. Now he has the money to get his eyes operated on, but will he forget all about the blind gal who helped him once he can see the world in all its glory -- including the real Catherine? She wants him to love her as the comparatively drab but steadfast and loving blind girl, not as the glamorous doyenne of the social register. 

James Bond? Hoagy Carmichael

Night Song was made during a period when hopelessly contrived movies came out one after another trading on the romantic and emotional element and the acting of its lead players. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn't. Night Song is about half and half. On the plus side are the actors, with Oberon proving once again that she was not just a beautiful face, handling all the cliches and absurdities with aplomb. The same is true of Dana Andrews, who keeps a straight face throughout. Then there's the marvelous Hoagy Carmichael as Dan's friend and clarinetist Chick, who goes along with the deception despite his misgivings (this is another credulity-stretching aspect to the story). Carmichael is charming and makes the most of his thankless role of the best friend. Incidentally, James Bond creator Ian Fleming always thought of 007 as resembling Carmichael, although he never went so far, to my knowledge, as to suggest him for the role. Carmichael gets to warble the snappy number "Who Killed 'Er?" 

A resplendent Merle Oberon

Ethel Barrymore is also excellent as Cathy's Aunt, Miss Willey, who lives with her and acts as her secretary-companion. She is given some of the tartest lines, and the screenplay has some interesting dialogue. Walter Reed [Emergency Hospital] and Donald Curtis [I Love Trouble] have a few moments as two of Cathy's friends and suitors, and Eugene Ormandy and Artur Rubinstein play themselves, with the former conducting Dan's completed concerto and Rubinstein playing the piano. Lucian Ballard's cinematography is first-rate and in some shots Oberon is strikingly gorgeous. The score is by Leith Stevens, who wrote the concerto that the two aforementioned classical musicians supposedly admire. It is perfectly pleasant movie music. This is another movie in which the hero essentially treats his love interest like crap.   

Verdict: You either go with the flow or think "you've got to be kidding me!" **1/2.        

PINKY

Jeanne Crain, William Lundigan

PINKY (1949). Director: Elia Kazan,

"Of course I'm in pain! Do you think I'll die in ease and ecstasy? -- Miss Em

You can't live without pride." -- Pinky

Patricia (Jeanne Crain of In the Meantime, Darling), who has been affectionately known as "Pinky" all of her life, looks like a white woman but is actually a "Negro." After being educated, getting a nursing degree, and becoming engaged to the white Dr. Adams (William Lundigan), she has returned home to see her grandmother, Dicey (Ethel Waters).

Ethel Barrymore as ailing Miss Em

Dicey is good friends with Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), a once-wealthy woman who lives in a mansion not far from Dicey's much more humble dwelling. Pinky is resentful of Miss Em, and at first resists her grandmother's insistence that she temporarily become a nurse for the ailing old lady. But as the two women take measure of each other, they each earn the other one's respect. Pinky's fiancee shows up and learns the truth, and it all leads to a court battle over an estate that Pinky feels is rightfully hers. But will a "Negro" ever have the same rights accorded to a white person, and can Pinky and Dr. Adams have a real future together?

Ethel Waters, Frederick O'Neal, Crain

For 1949, Pinky was certainly ahead of its time. Although any other type of ending may well have been impossible given attitudes at the time toward interracial relationships, the movie takes a woman who tries to live as white and ultimately gives her true strength, pride and dignity. One could quibble about some aspects of the story and some of the negative if human black characters, but the fact that Pinky still manages to say what it does in the late forties is remarkable. There is also first-class cinematography from Joe MacDonald, and a nice score from Alfred Newman. And then there are the performances.

Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrymore were both nominated for a supporting actress Oscar and they deserved to be; they are both superb. Jeanne Crain was also nominated for Best Actress, but I found her performance to be uneven. She has some terrific moments, true, but in other sequences she just seems to be speaking lines with little true feeling behind them. Frederick O'Neal makes his mark as Jake, as does Nina Mae McKinney [Dark Waters] as his girlfriend, Rozelia. Evelyn Varden [Hilda Crane] is a stand-out as Melba, the nasty and racist cousin of Miss Em's, and there is notable work from Griff Barnett, Basil Ruysdael., and Kenny Washington in smaller but important roles. William Lundigan is fine in a thankless part that doesn't give him enough to do.

Pinky is a contrast to Band of Angels, which came out eight years later and also has a black heroine passing for white. Angels has an entirely different ending that is more "romantic" but also takes a giant step backwards when it comes to black pride.

Verdict: Superior drama with something to say. ***1/2. 

MOSS ROSE

Peggy Cummins

MOSS ROSE (1947). Director: Gregory Ratoff.

Belle (Peggy Cummins) is a dance hall girl in London who is good friends with a young woman, another entertainer, named Daisy (Margo Woode of Hell Bound). One day Belle discovers Daisy's dead body and sees a man, Michael Drego (Victor Mature), leaving Daisy's room in a hurry. Belle doesn't tell the police what she knows, and Michael assumes she is hoping to be paid blackmail money. But instead she shocks Micheal by asking him to bring her to his estate as a guest. It seems Belle has always wanted to be a "lady" ...

Victor Mature

You might imagine that nothing good can come of this situation -- one also has to keep in mind that heroine Belle becomes an unsympathetic figure in that she's covering up a murder -- but Moss Rose may not be quite as predictable as you might imagine. At the estate Belle interacts with Michael's strange if likable mother, Lady Margaret (Ethel Barrymore of None But the Lonely Heart), and his fiancee, Audrey (Patricia Medina), who is at first quite suspicious of Belle's motives in coming. George Zucco is wasted as the butler, who has but one brief exchange with Belle, and Vincent Price has a little more to do as Inspector Clinner, who is investigating Daisy's murder. Eventually the killer is revealed.

Ethel Barrymore

I believe Alfred Hitchcock had once expressed an interest in doing a film version of Moss Rose -- the title refers to a type of flower pressed in the victim's bible --  and undoubtedly it would have made a far better picture than what we've got here. Price's fans will be disappointed that he has a very subordinate role, although he does have scenes with all of the principals. Cummins makes a good heroine, Medina is fine, and Barrymore walks off with the movie. This is simply not the right kind of material for Mature, who mostly just seems to be reciting lines. The basic material is there for a superior suspense film, but while the picture is absorbing, it has no flair. David Buttolph's musical score helps a bit. Peggy Cummins later stared with Dana Andrews in the classic Night of the Demon.

Verdict: This forgotten movie has some points of interest. **1/2. 

NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART

NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART (1944). Director: Clifford Odets.

"Love's not for the poor, son. No time for it."

This is one of only two films directed by playwright/screenwriter Clifford Odets, and frankly you expect more from a man with his talent. The first problem is that Odets was adapting someone else's novel, and the second is that Odets the director wasn't a little tougher on Odets the screenwriter. To be blunt, despite a good idea and some nice moments, None But the Lonely Heart is a talky bore.

Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) wants to live free and independent, but when he learns that his Ma (Ethel Barrymore) is dying of cancer, he decides to stick around and help her run her shop. Although there's a nice, uncomplicated girl, Aggie (Jane Wyatt), who loves him unconditionally ("I wouldn't trade it for a box at the opera, the thing I feel for you," she tells him), Ernie gets involved with the much more complicated Ada (June Duprez). Ada is still very much connected to her brutal mobster ex-husband Jim (George Coulouris).

The problem with the plot is that the whole business of a basically nice guy getting involved

with a slick operator (in this case, Jim) to make money was pretty much old hat by 1944. In an earlier decade Mott would have been played by James Cagney and in a later decade Jim would have been enacted by Steve Cochran. In all the directions that the film could have gone, it chooses the most trite one.

The film is never convincing and is sentimental in the wrong way. Grant gives a very good performance, but he isn't exactly believable as a cockney or as someone from the lower classes; he's too old and too sophisticated by far. Barrymore is wonderful as Ma Mott, but even she is a touch too lady-like. Wyatt gives another lovely -- if brief -- performance as Aggie, and June Duprez does okay as Ada. Coulouris is on the money as Jim. An uncredited Queenie Vassar offers a vivid portrait of the larcenous Mrs. Snowden, and Konstantin Shayne and Barry Fitzgerald enact important supporting roles with aplomb.

Verdict: Disjointed disappointment, but with a great theme borrowed from Tchaikovsky. **.