OUR VERY OWN

Ann Blyth and Joan Evans

OUR VERY OWN (1950). Director: David Miller.

Gail McCaulay (Ann Blyth) is just about to turn 18. Gail, who has two younger sisters, is practically engaged to her handsome beau, Chuck (Farley Granger). The elder of Gail's two siblings, Joan (Joan Evans of On the Loose), is attracted to Chuck and very jealous of their relationship, and during an argument she lets slip that Gail was adopted, something Joan only recently discovered by accident. Gail's world is upended by this revelation, and she decides to seek out her birth mother (Ann Dvorak), but will she be able to ultimately handle her feelings and accept that she is very much loved by her true and supportive family? And what will her "real" mother be like?

Ann Dvorak and Jane Wyatt

Our Very Own is an absorbing and pleasant movie with good performances from Blyth, Evans and Granger as well as from Jame Wyatt and Donald Cook as the girls' parents. Ann Dvorak also scores as the birth mother who is so afraid her husband will find out about her child, and you wish she was given  more screen time. Natalie Wood is adorable as the youngest of the three sisters, and she has a cute scene when she's driving a TV installer (Gus Schilling) to distraction with all of her questions. Phyllis Kirk also appears to advantage as Zaza, a very sympathetic friend of Gail's -- her wealthy father would rather go to a party than attend her graduation.  Martin Milner is Bert, who has a crush on Joan and is rather unkind to Gwen (Kipp Hamilton of The Unforgiven), a slightly chubby girl who has a crush on him. Those who hope the film might be a trash wallow along the lines of Three Bad Sisters will be disappointed, as there are no cat fights and no talk of genetic issues that may derail marriage plans and the like.

Verdict: Compelling romantic drama with a heartwarming conclusion. ***. 

LOST HORIZON (1937)

Jane Wyatt and Ronald Colman

LOST HORIZON (1937). Director: Frank Capra.

Author and foreign secretary Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) winds up shanghaied by plane with his brother, George (John Howard), and several other passengers: fussy paleontologist Lovett (Edward Everett Horton); possible embezzler Barnard (Thomas Mitchell); and a dying, hard-boiled young lady named Gloria (Isabel Jewell of She Had to Choose). The group winds up in the lost city of Shangri-La, which is run by a man named Chang (H. B. Warner of Kidnapped) and ruled by the supposedly wise and benevolent High Lama (Sam Jaffe of The Accused), a 200-year-old priest who discovered and founded the place. The High Lama tells Conway that the most important thing is to "be kind,' but it never occurs to him that it's not exactly "kind" to literally kidnap a bunch of innocents just because the lovely Sondra (Jane Wyatt) has seen Conway's books (and, presumably, his author photo) and developed a yen for him. Understandably, George wants to get back to his own life, while the others find happiness of a sort in Shangri-La. George doesn't believe the High Lama's story, and takes off with a "young" woman, Maria (Margo) in tow with unexpected -- or rather expected -- results. I haven't read James Hilton's novel in a while (I did review certain portions of it after watching the film) but it has to be better than this movie, which takes an interesting premise and dumbs it down to an incredibly superficial level (there are significant differences between the book and the film). Learning that the pilot is dead, the emissaries from Shangri-La -- the guy's own people -- have absolutely no reaction. Presumptuous Sondra has no guilt that her adored one's brother has been dragged along against his will -- after all, why would anyone want to live anywhere besides the rather dull Shangri-La? -- and Robert seems selfishly absorbed in his love for Sondra. The main problem with Lost Horizon isn't that the hypocritical High Lama preaches love and sanity (he also prophecies WW2 and the atom bomb!)  but it never occurs to anyone that running away from the world's problems is hardly the way to solve them -- an influential man like Robert simply wants to drop out! Portraying George as a hot-head, the movie tries its damnedest to strip the character of any dignity or sympathy, and of course Maria has the temerity to lie about her age. [The man who desperately wants to escape from a land that others worship was later borrowed for a plot point in Brigadoon.] The first half of Lost Horizon is quite entertaining, and there are some good adventure scenes in the snowy terrain surrounding Shangri-La, but the movie becomes irritatingly stupid in the second half, so anti-intellectual, in fact, as to be mind-numbing. As in most movies about lost cities, whether in Africa or Tibet, there's a scene when everyone has to walk along a narrow cliff with a mile-high drop inches away -- surely after centuries they would have found a safer way to travel? Capra's direction is swell, but the wrong-headed script ...! The cast, however, is uniformly good. NOTE: This review is of the restored, mostly complete version.

Verdict: Watch the first hour and then turn it off! **.

BAD BOY

Audie Murphy

BAD BOY (1949). Director: Kurt Neumann.

Danny Lester (Audie Murphy) is an incorrigible, nasty young man who beats, shoots and robs and is nearly sentenced to a reformatory or prison. However Marshall Brown (Lloyd Nolan) is convinced, without any real basis, that Danny's anti-social tendencies stem from something that happened in his youth. [Danny acts like a sociopathic creep, so it's a question if what happened in his youth even matters, but in movies like Bad Boy there has to be some dubious psychological explanation.] Brown importunes Judge Prentiss (Selena Royle) to take Danny under his wing and bring him to the Variety Clubs Boys Ranch in Texas, where he steals, acts all bitter, and has the boys so mad at him that they all give him the silent treatment. Can this boy be saved...? In his first starring role Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WW2, proves not to be a "great" actor, but is more than competent, displaying charisma and surliness in equal measure; he would develop in time. Jimmy Lydon of the Henry Aldrich series plays another student, Ted, and is excellent, as is James Gleason [The Girl Rush] as Brown's more cynical associate, "Chief." Jane Wyatt [The Man Who Cheated Himself] is Brown's wife; Martha Vickers is Danny's half sister; and Rhys Williams [The Corn is Green] is his step-father. There are some fairly interesting developments in this but the movie never really amounts to much. Murphy would go on to better things. Murphy single-handedly held off a squadron of German soldiers while standing atop a tank that could have exploded at any second -- it's safe to say Hollywood couldn't have scared him that much!

Verdict: Half-baked melodrama. **1/2.

PITFALL

Endangered family: Jane Wyatt, Dick Powell and Jimmy Hunt

PITFALL (1948). Director: Andre de Toth.

Insurance man John Forbes (Dick Powell) has a loving wife, Sue (Jane Wyatt) and an adorable little boy (Jimmy Hunt), but he's restless and bored, and feels he's in a rut. He goes to see Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) in hopes of getting back some of the gifts her embezzling boyfriend Bill (Byron Barr) bought her with stolen loot, and the two are attracted to one another. This infuriates the bulky private eye "Mac" (Raymond Burr), who has an unrequited -- and dangerous -- infatuation with Mona, leading to melodramatic complications. The acting from all is fine in the movie -- Raymond Burr pretty much walks off with the picture -- but the trouble is its completely unimaginative presentation. The only really memorable scene is when the menacing Mac comes to the dress shop where Mona is a model and forces her to show off some sexy numbers for him. Speaking of which, this is directed by the numbers. Barr had a supporting role in Double Indemnity and was also in Follow That Woman and others.

Verdict: Good performances but still kind of blah. **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. ***.

THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF

THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF (1950). Director: Felix E. Feist.

Wealthy Lois Frazer (Jane Wyatt) shoots the husband she's divorcing right in front of her boyfriend, Lt. Ed Cullen (Lee J. Cobb). She claims the dead man intended to kill her, and it was only self-defense, but even Cullen doesn't quite seem to buy it [the film sort of drops this angle early on]. Nevertheless, he helps Lois cover up the murder, dump the body, and then gets assigned to the case. Assisting him is his younger brother -- and new cop -- Andy, (John Dall of Atlantis, the Lost Continent), which turns out not to be good news for Cullen. Andy isn't as dumb as he looks. Well ... there are lost gems, and there are movies like The Man Who Cheated Himself, which is in no way a classic like D.O.A. The premise is swell, but the script is superficial, with one-dimensional characters, and the only tense sequence is at the climax. The acting is surprisingly mediocre. At first it's fun to watch Wyatt from Father Knows Best acting like a bitchy murderess, but her performance is ultimately odd. Lee J. Cobb walks through the movie with so little passion and nerves that it's as if his character were drugged with a dozen sedatives. Considering what's at stake -- his entire career and jail time --  his laid-back quality is bizarre to say the least. [If Cobb was hoping to suggest that Cullen was supremely confident and above it all, it just doesn't work -- he's simply unemotional.] Dall is such a laughing lightweight in the first half that it's completely unconvincing when he suddenly accuses his brother [on very little solid evidence] and turns all grim and serious. The movie is watchable but little else.

Verdict: This could have been a classic. **.

WEEKEND FOR THREE

WEEKEND FOR THREE (1941). Director: Irving Reis.

"Every married man ought to be a bachelor!"

One night when he's tight, Jim (Dennis O'Keefe, pictured) invites a friendly guy, Randy (Phillip Reed), in a club to come visit, and the guy shows up at his house -- and shows no signs of ever wanting to leave. Worse, he and Jim's wife Ellen (Jane Wyatt) are old friends and have great fun dancing all night together. Had this low-grade Man Who Came to Dinner been made in the 21st century, it probably would have had all sorts of psycho-sexual developments [Randy seems stereotypically gay for one thing] but for a screwball forties picture it certainly doesn't have enough laughs. O'Keefe and Wyatt are fine, but the picture is stolen by those old pros Zazu Pitts (as the maid), Edward Everett Horton (Jim's associate, who's had several bad marriages) and Franklin Pangborn (as a waiter in their favorite establishment). This is a picture you really want to like but it's very third-rate and never really erupts into the hoped-for hilarity. And this had a screenplay by Dorothy Parker -- I wonder how much of her original script actually made it into the movie. Not much, I bet.

Verdict: You'll have the feeling you've been this way once too often. *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. **.

BOOMERANG

BOOMERANG (1947). Director: Elia Kazan.

A minister in a small town in Connecticut is shot in the back of the head and killed in broad daylight. A lot of pressure is put on the police chief (Lee J. Cobb) to make an arrest, but suspects are in short supply until witnesses identify a serviceman named John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy). Complicating matters is the fact that there are unethical political forces in town, some of which need for Waldron to be convicted, and others who want him to get off even if he's guilty. Prosecuting attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) is prepared to try the case, but he has nagging doubts about the man's guilt. In a bizarre twist in the courtroom during a preliminary hearing, Harvey tears apart his own arguments and re-interviews the witnesses. But is Waldron really innocent?

Boomerang begins slowly, with the documentary approach being a mite talky and dull, but eventually it becomes quite absorbing. There are some highly interesting situations in the film, but it's probably the acting that puts it over. Under Kazan's guidance, Dana Andrews gives one of his best performances. Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy, Jane Wyatt, (as Mrs. Harvey) and Sam Levene, are all solid. Ed Begley nearly steals the picture as the chicanerous Paul Harris, and Cara Williams has a notable small role as a waitress who insists she saw Waldron not far from where the minister was murdered. George Petrie, who appeared with Jackie Gleason in many episodes of The Honeymooners, scores as the pubic defender, Harry O'Shea.

Verdict: Suspenseful and intriguing. ***.