THE SHAGGY DOG (1959)

THE SHAGGY DOG (1959). Director: Charles Barton. 

Fred MacMurray's career was given a new lease on life when he signed to do this silly comedy for Disney Studios and it became a tremendous hit. Wilson Daniels (MacMurray) is a mailman who hates dogs. A magic spell turns his older son Wilby (Tommy Kirk) into a sheepdog -- or rather he takes over the body of a neighbor's sheepdog -- and he turns back at awkward moments. This charming and amusing comedy for children is a bit dragged out by a heavy-handed spy plot that develops late in the picture -- it also has a rather slow pace -- but it has enough laughs to keep you interested if you're game and MacMurray is splendid. There are also good performances from Kirk; Kevin Corcoran as his brother, Moochie; Tim Considine as his girl-crazy pal, Buzz; Jean Hagen as his mother; Cecil Kellaway as a professor; and especially that amazing dog who plays Chiffon. (Watching the animal go through its paces, you sometimes have to remind yourself that it hasn't a human brain but is just a dog.) Annette Funicello and Roberta Shore are the young ladies; Alexander Scourby is head of the spies. NOTE: To read about a fine biography of Fred MacMurray, click here. 

Verdict: Watch Chiffon go for a drive! ***.

AND THE ANGELS SING

AND THE ANGELS SING (1944). Director: George Marshall.

Pop Angel (Raymond Walburn) lives with his four daughters and tries to encourage them in a musical career, but only one of them, Bobby (Betty Hutton), has singing aspirations. Forcing her sisters to accompany her on a club date, they meet bandleader Happy Morgan (Fred MacMurray), a heel with a conscience. He promises Bobby a job in New York and takes money she won gambling, which sister Nancy (Dorothy Lamour) is determined to get back. To Manhattan the four gals go. Happy finds himself romancing both sisters to keep them at bay, although he's only in love with one of them. Can true love find a way through this mess...? And the Angels Sing is pleasant and the performances are good. The other two Angel sisters are played by Diana Lynn [Ruthless] and Mimi Chandler. MacMurray sings, but not that well, and Hutton [The Betty Hutton Show] "overacts" her supposedly comedic song numbers to the point where they're hard to take. A subdued Frank Albertson [Psycho] plays Nancy's easily discarded boyfriend, Oliver, and Eddie Foy Jr. is cast as MacMurray's bandmate, Fuzzy. There are a couple of saucy song numbers.

Verdict: Amiable tomfoolery. **1/2.

A MILLIONAIRE FOR CHRISTY

Fred MacMurray

A MILLIONAIRE FOR CHRISTY (1951). Director: George Marshall.

Lawyer J. C. Thompson (Douglass Dumbrille) dispatches his secretary, Christy (Eleanor Parker) to tell radio personality Peter Lockwood (Fred MacMurray) that he's inherited two million dollars, but not before she's importuned by Patsy (Una Merkle) to go after the guy and get herself a wealthy husband. The trouble is that Peter is just about to get married to fiancee June (Kay Buckley), and neither he nor anyone else believes Christy about the money. Peter's rival, Dr. Roland Cook (Richard Carlson of All I Desire) thinks Christy is a mental case who needs his help -- and so on. A Millionaire for Christy is frenetic but absolutely and completely laughless -- you sit there and watch this, utterly stupefied, helplessly observing McMurray and Parker [Lizzie] struggling to bring life to an utterly hopeless script. Dumbrille [Alimony] is completely wasted. Nestor Paiva has a small role.

Verdict: Not even Fred can save this one. Atrocious. *.

DON'T TRUST YOUR HUSBAND aka AN INNOCENT AFFAIR

Madelaine Carroll and Fred MacMurray

DON'T TRUST YOUR HUSBAND (aka An Innocent Affair/1948). Director: Lloyd Bacon.

Advertising man Vincent Doane (Fred MacMurray) is trying to land an account which happens to be controlled by his still-amorous ex-fiancee, Margot Fraser (Louise Allbritton of Fired Wife). Vincent's wife, Paula (Madeleine Carroll), thinks he's spending all his evenings with a Mr. Fraser, but she suspects something's up. Vincent's sister, Eve (Rita Johnson of The Naughty Nineties), comes up with the dubious idea of testing her brother's love for her sister-in-law by seeing how jealous he gets if a paid actor pays too much attention to Paula on their anniversary. Clued in to the scheme, Vincent invites the man into his home and even asks him to take out his wife the next night! What nobody realizes is that the man in question is not the paid actor, but rather wealthy cigarette man Claude Kimball (Charles "Buddy" Rogers), who thinks the Doanes have a wonderfully carefree attitude. This all sounds rather cute, but it's almost by the numbers, with not enough real laughs -- although there are certainly amusing bits -- to make it stand out from the crowd. MacMurray is terrific, as you would expect, and the ladies are all good if not on his level. Alan Mowbray offers his customary fine performance as a man who pretends to be Margot's husband, and Anne Nagel has a small role as a receptionist. Rogers gets by on charm. Bacon also directed Crooner and many others.

Verdict: Cute, if formula, comedy. **1/2. 

THE EGG AND I

Colbert can do without MacMurray's attention to Allbritton

THE EGG AND I (1947). Director: Chester Erskine.

Bob MacDonald (Fred MacMurray), a selfish and inconsiderate husband, buys a farm without even consulting his wife, Betty (Claudette Colbert) -- which alone would be a reason for divorce for some women --   and the two set off for the country to raise chickens and sell eggs. While having assorted misadventures, the couple meet the odd Pa Kettle (Percy Kilbride), his big-hearted wife, Ma (Marjorie Main), and their huge brood, as well as the predatory Harriet (Louise Allbritton), who doesn't seem to care that Bob has a wife. The Egg and I is consistently amusing, has a nice scene when all the neighbors show up to help the MacDonald's after a fire, and boasts some very good performances; Colbert, in particular, is excellent, and her expressions throughout the movie are priceless. There are guest appearances by the likes of Donald MacBride, Elisabeth Risdon [from the "Mexican Spitfire" films], and Esther Dale, and there's even a pig named Cleopatra! Ida Moore shows up late in the film as a somewhat dotty old lady who has a tale of a giant chicken. While there are some fairly foolish marital developments at the end of the movie that make Betty seem like a dope, The Egg and I is still a very funny and entertaining picture. The characters of Ma and Pa Kettle soon got their own feature as well as several sequels.

Verdict: Colbert is a riot! ***.

BON VOYAGE!

MacMurray gets lost in the sewers of Paris!

BON VOYAGE! (1962). Director: James Neilson.

Indiana native Harry Willard (Fred MacMurray), his wife, Katie (Jane Wyman), his teenage son, Elliott (Tommy Kirk), and daughter, Amy (Deborah Walley), plus youngest son, Skipper (Kevin Corcoran), travel by boat to Paris and the Riviera and have a series of misadventures. It's a question why the Disney studio often took light fare for the whole family and made such films over two hours long [at least In Search of the Castaways, which was loaded with incident, was under two hours]. In any case the movie does have some surprises even though much of it is predictable: Harry and Elliott both encounter the same French hooker [in a sixties Disney movie!], and Harry gets good and drunk at a party. Amy has an on-again/off-again romance with a wealthy young man named Nick (Michael Callan of Mysterious Island) but it's a question what such a sophisticated fellow with gorgeous French girlfriends would see in a sweet but virginal "drip" like her. When Katie tells hubby that "it's important Amy find out she's a vital, warm-blooded young woman" due to her hormonal reaction to Nick, it's almost as if she were afraid her daughter was gay. Many of the sequences go on for too long, and some discussions about the children are repeated too often, but at least there are some genuinely funny moments, especially a sequence at a casino. Katie is pursued by a middle-aged Lothario; Elliott pursues various young females [the mother of one of whom wants to extort money from Harry]; and Harry gets lost in the sewers of Paris during a tour [during which young Skipper has to take a pee -- at least an appropriate place!]. MacMurray and Wyman are old pros who know just now to handle this material, and the others, particularly Callan, are all on the mark. One admirable thing about the movie is that it doesn't knock Europe or make traveling to other countries out to be some terrible, dull thing; the Willards appreciate the art, culture, and beauty of Paris.

Verdict: Amiable if distinctly minor comedy with some funny sequences. **1/2.

THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE

A striking shot from "Happiest Millionaire"

 THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE (1967). Director: Norman Tokar.

Walt Disney decided to try and get another blockbuster musical like The Sound of Music or its own Mary Poppins by adapting a play about the real-life Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Sr. of Philadelphia. Frankly, Biddle seems an unlikely subject for a light-hearted musical, as he sounds like a rather grim, conservative soul -- despite his eccentricities, which sound more like childish curmudgeonliness -- who started an athletic-religious movement and probably never had to work a day in his life. As embodied by the ever-likable Fred MacMurray, Biddle is made more palatable in this screen treatment, which could have used a little more of a story. The chief plot has to do with the 1916 courtship and ensuing marriage of Biddle's daughter Cordy (Lesley Ann Warren) and Angier (John Davidson) of a prominent New York family. Biddle has two sons but they seem to disappear early in the picture, and even the maid, played very well by Hemione Baddeley, takes a hike after the intermission [the film is nearly three hours long!]. On the other hand, Tommy Steele's winning personality as the butler is on display throughout the film. Greer Garson is cast as Biddle's wife, and while she adds a bit of class to the film, she doesn't really seem to be in the same movie -- you just can't see her as thinking anything but that Biddle is utterly declasse. Garson doesn't make any attempt to be funny, which may have been wise of her. Speaking of class, Gladys Cooper as Aunt Mary and Geraldine Page as Angier's mother nearly steal the picture, especially in the parlor scene when they have a sophisticated verbal cat-fight. An unexpected cast member is Joan Marshall [who starred in Homicidal as Jean Arless] playing a maid who is terrified of Biddle's collection of pet alligators. [More than once we see Tommy Steele pulling one of the larger gators by the tail.] The songs by the Sherman Brothers are vaguely pleasant at times, but not very memorable.This was the first film for both Warren and Davidson, both of whom are excellent. The Disney studio later teamed them in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. MacMurray is fine.NOTE: The restored, expanded DVD of this movie actually has a kind of vague double-image on the picture and is certainly not as crisp and clear as it should be.

Verdict: The movie is not terrible, it's just too long and aimless and needs a stronger story. **1/2.

THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck

THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW (1956). Director: Douglas Sirk. Produced by Ross Hunter.

Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) is a toymaker with a wife (Joan Bennett) and children, but he also has a nagging sense of a lack of fulfillment. He runs into an old employee, Norma (Barbara Stanwyck) and the old feelings they used to have for one another begin to rekindle. Clifford's son Vinnie (William Reynolds) is convinced his dad is up to no good, while his girlfriend, Ann (Pat Crowley) reminds him that men and women can be friends and have innocent encounters. But are Clifford's feelings for Norma quite so innocent ... ? There have been lots of movies about [supposedly] "neglected" wives, but few about neglected husbands. Clifford seems a little unfair and unrealistic in getting jealous of his wife's understandable and necessary attention to the children. Still, MacMurray etches a poignant portrait of a man suffering a mid-life crisis and crying out for passion and romance. In the meantime, Norma gives a rather simplistic speech to the concerned children. The three leads all give fine performances, and Reynolds, Crowley and Gigi Perreau as the young daughter are all notable as well. The ending is not exactly a happy one although audiences were probably expected to be pleased with the resolution.

Verdict: Not exactly Brief Encounter, but not without merit. ***.

SON OF FLUBBER

SON OF FLUBBER (1963). Director: Robert Stevenson. 

Fred MacMurray's career was revitalized by his assignments with the Disney studios, such as this sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor, and indeed many baby boomers who grew up with the comical, slightly dithering MacMurray incarnation were surprised to learn he was once a romantic leading man in such excellent films as Double Indemnity. Son of Flubber is a far cry from that movie. Ned (MacMurray) gives his formula to the government and learns he'll have to wait many a moon to receive any remuneration, so he tries to invent something else that may make money for him. MacMurray is fine, as are Ed Wynn and Leon Ames, and we've also got Charlie Ruggles, Paul Lynde, Tommy Kirk and William Demarest [who would eventually appear with MacMurray on My Three Sons] in the cast. There are dumb developments with Ned's wife (Nancy Olson) becoming jealous of an old girlfriend. The climactic football game is more tedious than funny. Joan Davis's daughter Beverly Wills appears as a woman in a commercial. 

Verdict: Good-natured but stupid. **.

WOMAN'S WORLD

WOMAN'S WORLD (1954). Director: Jean Negulesco.

"New York is the most fabulous, exciting, thrilling city in the world!"

This is a very entertaining, handsomely produced comedy-drama with a simple premise. Ernest Gifford (Clifton Webb), the President of Gifford Motors, needs a new general manager after the man in that position dies. He calls three district managers and their wives to New York so he and his sister can look them over. Gifford knows that the man who gets the job will need to have a wife who can also do her part on the social end, and who will understand that the job might have to come first. Katie and Bill Baxter (June Allyson; Cornel Wilde) are small-towners and the wife wants to keep it that way. Liz and Sid Burns (Lauren Bacall; Fred MacMurray) are actually in the midst of a marriage crisis, with the wife already thinking that the business has taken her husband away from her and given him an ulcer. When it comes to third couple Carol and Jerry Talbot (Arlene Dahl; Van Heflin), the wife has fallen in love with the city and all it offers while the husband fears he's too frank to be given the job. The picture works up some nice suspense as to who will be offered the position while offering serio-comic vignettes about each marriage and how each wife sees her position in it. Director Negulesco has gotten fine performances from the entire cast, with Webb his usual superb self, and especially nice work from MacMurray. Dahl is sexy and zesty as the slightly amoral Carol; one of her better performances. Allyson and Wilde make the Baxters a very appealing couple. [No mean feat, as this writer generally can't stomach June Allyson.]

Verdict: It ain't Shakespeare, but it's fun! ***.

THE APARTMENT

THE APARTMENT (1960) Director: Billy Wilder.

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) hopes to advance in his insurance company by letting many of the married male executives use his apartment for illicit trysts. He has a crush on the pretty elevator operator Fran (Shirley MacLaine), who, unbeknownst to him, is involved with his boss, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). Lemmon muggs a bit too much, MacMurray is fine as a slick aging Lothario, MacLaine is effective as the young lady, and there are some small flavorful character performances. Some good dialogue, although the film leans towards the superficial and its characters lack dimension. Although the film won awards and certainly has its admirers, the general effect is one of tedium. It's not funny enough to be a strong comedy, and the dramatic possibilities of a woman involved with a married man have been milked for better results in countless other movies. We won't even get into the illogical moments, or the fact that the film misses real opportunities for both laughs and poignancy. It's also hard to like a movie with a lead character who for most of the film's running time is a complete door mat. Composer Adolph Deutsch's theme music is memorable, although some might say it rips off Rachmaninoff, whose music was used for Brief Encounter. Billy Wilder was inspired by a scene from that movie to make The Apartment. Incredibly this won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. This is a perfect example of a mediocre movie that makes a lot of money (due to its frank subject matter and the publicity it engenders), wins awards because of the publicity and money, and decades later becomes a supposed "classic."

Verdict: Watch Brief Encounter instead. Phony and predictable, this is not in its league. *1/2.

FRED MACMURRAY: A BIOGRAPHY

FRED MACMURRAY: A BIOGRAPHY. Charles Tranberg. 2007. Bear Manor Media.

The under-rated MacMurray at last gets the major bio treatment in this fine work by Charles Tranberg. Although MacMurray, whose life and career avoided scandal and the sensational for the most part, might stymie most biographers, Tranberg has managed to come up with an interesting book that goes behind the scenes of MacMurray's many movies, such as Double Indemnity, and his long-running TV series My Three Sons. (The show was filmed out of sequence, with MacMurray coming in only for a few days to shoot his sequences with the rest of the cast.) MacMurray had his flaws -- he refused to hire director Mitchell Leisen for My Three Sons because he didn't want the homosexual director around young boys (the old gay man as molester stereotype) but at least this happened way back in the sixties. The book is filled with many friends and co-workers' impressions of the actor. MacMurray himself might have been a bit on the dull side, but this book about him is not.

Verdict: Good show. ***.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944). Director: Billy Wilder. Co-screenplay by Raymond Chandler. From a novel by James M. Cain.

Although the voice-over narration is overdone and annoying (as in Sunset Boulevard), you eventually get used to it, caught up in the mesmerizing spell of this great motion picture. Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray, in a very good performance) meets unhappy wife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and before long they're conspiring to murder her husband and make it look like an accident that will pay double from Neff's insurance company because of a "double indemnity" clause. Stanwyck, in the archetypal portrait of a sultry sociopathic siren, is simply magnificent. Edward G. Robinson is also superb as Barton Keyes, the older man who works with Neff, and who investigates the death of Dietrichson. But Wilder also made smart casting decisions with the supporting cast, such as Tom Powers as the victim, Jean Heather as his daughter, and Byron Barr as her unpleasant boyfriend, Nino.

The scene when Keyes nearly sees Phyllis hiding in the corridor outside of Neff''s apartment is marvelous, although Hitchcock probably would have done more with it. And frankly it makes little sense that Neff would go into Keyes' office instead of bolting away when he sees a man outside who could identify him and blow his whole scheme to smithereens. Of course, it does lead into a suspenseful scene in Keye's office later when you wonder if the witness will recognize Neff.

The ending to the film is strangely moving. Robinson/Keyes seems coldly disgusted with Neff's actions, not willing to give him any out. Then Neff suggests that Keyes couldn't see the solution because he was too close to the perpetrator, who was, as Neff says, right across the desk. "Closer than that," says Robinson. And you realize how much Robinson loved Neff in his own way and how utterly disappointed he is in him.

Although it may or may not have been an Oscar-worthy performance, one has to say that the casting of MacMurray goes a long, long way to enabling you to feel some slight sympathy for the character he plays (although he certainly showed no pity for Dietrichson).

Verdict: A classic in every sense of the word. ****.

PARDON MY PAST

PARDON MY PAST (1945). Director: Leslie Fenton.

Just out of the Army, Eddie York (Fred MacMurray, pictured) just wants to open a mink farm with his pal Chuck (William Demarest), but he's mistaken for the wealthy Francis Pemberton, whom he resembles, by a bookie (Akim Tamiroff), whom the latter owes $12,000. This leads to Eddie winding up at Pemberton's estate, where he's mistaken for his lookalike and learns that the real man is pretty much a stinker. In the meantime, Joan (Marguerite Chapman), who looks after Pemberton's little girl, finds herself drawn to a man who seems strangely different -- and much improved -- from the way he was before (Eddie also falls for Joan). Rita Johnson shows up as Pemberton's ex-wife Mary, and Harry Davenport is fun as always as wily Grandpa Pemberton. MacMurray is as amiable and adept as ever in this picture but while there's some fun in wondering what will happen when Eddie and Francis finally meet, the sad truth is that Pardon My Past isn't especially funny, and the sentimental moments don't make up for it. NOTE: The film takes place in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, MacMurray's beloved hometown (although he was actually born in Illinois).

Verdict: Not bad, just blah. **.

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (1941). Directors: William Witney; John English.

Noticing and envying the success of Superman, in the 1940's Fawcett Comics came out with their own super-strong guy and named him Captain Marvel. This character's tremendous success made DC Comics (publisher of Superman, Batman etc.) nervous, so they initiated a law suit, which was initially dismissed. Eventually it was Fawcett's lack of faith in the continuing viability of super-hero comic books – and the enormous court costs -- that wiped the good captain and his “marvelous” associates off the newsstands. Fawcett settled out of court and discontinued its entire comic book line. But not before Republic pictures made a serial based on the comic book. [Ironically, decades later DC Comics acquired the rights to all the Fawcett Comics' characters, including Captain Marvel, and began publishing new adventures of the character, making it clear once and for all that they should never have won that law suit.] In the comic books the facial features of Captain Marvel were based on Fred MacMurray's, but MacMurray was too big a star at the time to appear in a Republic serial so “B” western player Tom Tyler got the job while Frank “Junior” Coghlan got the plum assignment of the captain's young alter ego Billy Batson.

Adventures of Captain Marvel, despite the usual assortment of dumb moments and lapses in logic, is a stupendously entertaining chapter play that moves quickly and features some outstanding sequences (the best of which has Captain Marvel about to be sizzled in a flash flood of molten lava at the end of the fifth chapter out of twelve). The identity of the villain, The Scorpion, isn't telegraphed, and some suspense is worked up over his unmasking. The stunts, fisticuffs, and other action scenes (courtesy of co-director William Witney) are all first-rate. Now available in a crisp DVD print, this is highly recommended for super-hero and action fans, and kids of all ages.

NOTE: If you love classic cliffhanger serials, go directly to the cliffhanger page of Quirk's Reviews Online by clicking here.

Verdict: One of the great classic cliffhangers! ***1/2.