NOT AS A STRANGER

Olivia de Havilland

NOT AS A STRANGER (1955). Producer/director: Stanley Kramer.

"Chris, help me, for God's sake, help me." --Lucas Marsh.

Lucas Marsh (Robert Mitchum) is determined to be a doctor but hasn't got the financial backing he needs to continue his internship. To get the money he romances the adoring Swedish nurse, Kristina (Olivia de Havilland), who has saved up quite a bit of money. The two get married, Lucas is able to complete his studies, and the couple relocate to a small town where Lucas becomes assistant to the aging family doctor, Dave Runkleman (Charles Bickford). Then there's the complication of the seductive Widow Lang (Gloria Grahame). Will Lucas ever be able to feel an honest and profound love for his wife? Not as a Stranger is a nice picture with winning performances, with Mitchum [Angel Face] doing some of the best work of his career. De Havilland [The Dark Mirror] is on the mark as Kris, as is Grahame, but she is given so little to do that it's a wonder her character was even included. It's also a mystery why Frank Sinatra [The Kissing Bandit] took the role of Al, Lucas' intern-buddy, as it's really a relatively minor supporting part. When Sinatra and Mitchum are on screen together, Frank looks unbelievably scrawny in contrast, which the crooner must have hated, but his performance is fine. Lon Chaney Jr. is not memorable as Lucas' drunken father, playing it in too obvious and phony a fashion, but Gertrude Hoffman has a nice bit as an old woman who tells the doctor that she has nowhere to go. The film introduces some weighty matters -- is the doctor's job just to keep people alive no matter what even when they're ready to let go? -- but never quite gets a grip on them. People in the doctor's office  include everyone from Nancy Kulp to Alfalfa! Lee Marvin and Mae Clarke have smaller roles as nurse and intern. Broderick Crawford offers a gruff but interesting performance as Lucas' and Al's teacher in the early hospital scenes. Franz Planer's photography is excellent, and it could be said that George Antheil's score is more than partly responsible for the whole success of the movie.

Verdict: Some moving moments and an interesting story, with a very well-cast and effective Mitchum. ***.

LADY KILLER

Cagney

LADY KILLER (1933). Director: Roy Del Ruth.

Fired from his job as usher, Dan Quigley (James Cagney) falls in with a gang of con artists who later take to robbing houses. Although Dan doesn't want anybody to get killed, the worst happens, and everyone takes it on the lam to California. There Dan becomes a movie extra, and then a star, until his old gang members show up to cause trouble. Lady Killer is another of those cheerfully amoral comedy-dramas with Cagney -- who is excellent -- playing another of his unpleasant if charismatic characters. The two ladies in his life are gang member Myra (Mae Clarke) and actress Lois (Margaret Lindsay of Dangerous); both women give very good performances, and Douglass.Dumbrille [A Life at Stake] is another cast stand-out as the leader of the gang. A repulsive scene has a bullying Cagney cornering a movie critic in a rest room and forcing him to literally eat his review. Cagney would probably have wanted it to be believed that Lady Killer is more or less his life story, but of course most of this is pure fiction, including the bit with the studio wanting to dump Quigley when news of his past leaks out (the studios tended to cover up for their assets). Dan doesn't turn on the gang because they're bad guys but because they threaten his livelihood, but the picture makes him out to be some kind of hero (not to mention he'd be in serious hot water even if he didn't kill anyone because he helped plan and execute the robberies). Still, this is fast, snappy and for the most part, fun, if morally questionable. One highlight is when the director insists Dan eat garlic before his love scene with poor Lois. Leslie Fenton is also in the cast. Clarke and Cagney were famously teamed in The Public Enemy two years earlier.

Verdict: Cagney is on top of his game even if the script is (literally) all over the lot. **1/2.

VOICE IN THE MIRROR

Bar mates: Richard Egan and Arthur O'Connell

VOICE IN THE MIRROR (1958). Director: Harry Keller.

"We're all in the same boat, none of us more than one drink away from the gutter for the rest of our lives."

"I spilled more whiskey than you ever drank."

Commercial artist Jim Burton (Richard Egan) claims to have started drinking since the death of his little girl, but his doctor, Leon (Walter Matthau), reminds him that he was drinking before that and would probably have used any excuse. Jim's patient wife, Ellen (Julie London of The Helicopter Spies), is forced to put up with broken promises and wondering if and when he'll come home and what condition he'll be in. Now Leon tells him that his alcoholism may have created serious nerve damage. A fellow drunk named Harry (Harry Bartell) tells him that he thinks the solution to their problem may be through spiritualism, but Jim discovers that the secret may be to help other drunks --  alcoholics can help other alcoholics stay sober. Although set twenty years later, Voice in the Mirror basically appears to be the story of the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous (although the term is never used and there's not as much emphasis on religiosity; AA's famous slogan is used at the end, however.) In any case, the picture is absorbing and generally well-acted, with a moving conclusion. Egan and London are not exactly perfect casting for this film (stolid Egan never quite seems desperate enough for one thing), but both of them have their moments; oddly, London is better in her more emotional and difficult scenes than in her quieter ones. Harry Bartell and Doris Singleton, who plays Jim's sympathetic co-worker, have nice bits; both of them appeared several times on I Love Lucy. Arthur O'Connell nearly steals the picture as one of Jim's sad friends, and Matthau, in an unexpected role as the no-nonsense doctor, is also excellent. Ann Doran and Peggy Converse make their marks, respectively, as a landlady and the mother of a suicidal young drunk played by Troy Donahue. Eleanor Audley [Sleeping Beauty] is fine as a woman at a soup kitchen, and I believe that's Mae Clarke [Frankenstein] playing the first woman member of Jim's group. One of the best scenes depicts Jim's frightening nightmare in which he is caught in a train tunnel as a rushing train threatens to run him down.

Verdict: Imperfect but interesting and affecting drama. ***.

HATS OFF

John Payne

HATS OFF (1936). Director: Boris Petroff.

"Why don't you give yourself up to Ripley?"

Twin cities are having competing centennial exhibitions and both hire press agents to make theirs the biggest event ever. Jimmy Maxwell (John Payne) finds himself in competition with "Joe Allen," unaware that the pretty lady he's squiring around is actually Mary Jo Allen (Mae Clarke), the rival press agent. Both of them are hot to have wealthy Tex Connelly (Robert Middlemass) pay to bring impresario Caesar Rosero (Luis Alberni) to town to put on one spectacular show complete with dancing girls. Will duplicity smash this budding romance, or will true love win out in the end?.Hats Off is a release from Grand National, so there's no MGM gloss, although the production values are better than Republic's. Clarke and Payne [The Boss] are both fine, Alberni [The Mad Genius] is amusing, Skeets Gallagher makes a pleasant Buzz, Helen Lynd seems to be doing a Gracie Allen impersonation as his girlfriend, Ginger, and Franklin Pangborn [Reveille With Beverly] pretty much steals the show as Churchill, who is hired to pretend to be "Joe Allen." There are some okay songs by Oakland and Magidson, and the production number, "Little Odd Rhythm," is snappy.

Verdict: Amiable if second-rate musical. **1/2.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY

James Cagney and Jean Harlow

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). Director: William A. Wellman.

Tom Powers (James Cagney) and his pal, Matt (Edward Woods), grow up in a tough part of the city, and get in with a bad crowd. Tom becomes a gangster and killer during prohibition, earning the enmity of his brother, Mike (Donald Cook), who has little but contempt for him. Tom is such a creep that at one point he even shoots a horse! Tom and Matt work for Nails Nathan (Leslie Fenton) and Paddy Ryan (Robert Emmett O'Connor), and get involved with such "broads" as Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow), Mamie (Joan Blondell), Kitty (Mae Clarke), who gets a grapefruit in the face, and Nail's unnamed girlfriend (Dorothy Gee), who earns Tom's scorn by getting him drunk and going to bed with him. The Public Enemy is refreshingly frank and well-acted, with Cagney getting high marks, along with Fenton [The House of Secrets], O'Connor, and Beryl Mercer [Jane Eyre] as Ma Powers. Harlow was still considered a lousy actress this early in her career, but she's actually competent, if unexceptional, and her performance is satisfactory. Frankie Darro and "Junior" Coghlan (Frank Coghlan, Jr.) play Matt and Tom as boys and are both good. One of the best scenes is a dinner at the Powers house where ex-soldier Mike can no longer control his anger at his brother and bootleg beer goes flying, and the death of Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell of Charlie Chan in Paris) is also well-handled. That said, The Public Enemy has not really worn well with time -- especially when you take into account the many superior gangster films that came later --   but it still remains an interesting picture. The great final scene of the movie almost makes the whole movie! Handsome Edward Woods was supposed to play Tom Powers, the lead role, but it was given to Cagney instead,; he became a star and Wood's career eventually faded out after only 13 credits.

Verdict: Cagney holds the attention. *** out of 4.

A LIFE OF BARBARA STANWYCK: STEEL-TRUE 1907 - 1940 Victoria Wilson

A LIFE OF BARBARA STANWYCK: STEEL-TRUE 1907 - 1940. Victoria Wilson. Simon and Schuster; 2013.

Wilson's twenty-years-in-the-making 1000 pp biography of Stanwyck covers the first half of her life and career in great detail. Wilson covers her first marriage to Frank Fay with more thoroughness than previous biographers, and works hard to give the readers a sense of the various time periods and their cultural and political influences throughout the decades covered. Wilson is clearly a fan of Stanwyck's, but she doesn't admire every film or performance, and often offers astute analysis of her pictures and acting techniques. There are no great revelations in the book, however, and anecdotes are often lifted from other books [some of which are mentioned in the notes but, oddly, not in the bibliography]. Unlike some Out biographers like William Mann, Wilson is fairly coy when it comes to sexuality [with more insinuations in the captions than in the text]. Still, the book is well-written and pulls the reader along, even if some of the copious detail -- particularly when it doesn't necessarily pertain to Stanwyck -- can become wearisome at times. The five pound book is just too long.

Wilson has been an editor at Knopf for years, but apparently resisted any and all attempts at editing her own book. For instance, she gives us a mini-bio of Bette Davis for a couple of pages simply because she appeared with Stanwyck in So Big, but neglects to inform us if the two women even got along or not. Why give us a history of all of the Marx Brothers simply because Zeppo becomes her friend and manager? She continues to follow the life and career of Barbara's old friend Mae Clarke [without discussing her performance in Waterloo Bridge] long after the two women have stopped being part of one another's lives. It makes sense to give background info on some of the other people in the Stanwyck life, but not virtually everyone she encountered. Some of this is excusable for the ardent film buff, among which I'm sure Wilson can be counted. Wilson is correct in discussing the original silent Stella Dallas at the point where Stanwyck does the remake, but throughout the book one gets the sense that there was a battle between author and editor and the author won every time. [Wilson makes the mistake many beginners do -- she puts all of her research into the book.] There is also a certain choppiness to some sections as well, with paragraphs that inexplicably run only one sentence when they could easily have been added to the paragraph above, and the like. Steel-True badly needs a stronger editorial hand. It is also disappointing that some material, such as the fate of Stanwyck's adopted son Dion, will have to wait for a second volume when most of us will have forgotten what was in the first!

Verdict: Strictly for die-hard Stanwyck fans who will enjoy it; others beware. ***.

TURN BACK THE CLOCK

Impossibly young Three Stooges in a party scene

TURN BACK THE CLOCK (1933). Director: Edgar Selwyn.

Joe Gimlet (Lee Tracy of Dinner at Eight) owns a drug store with his wife, Mary (Mae Clarke of Waterloo Bridge), and the two are getting by, but Joe reviews his status in life when he meets up with old friend, Ted (Otto Kruger), who married wealthy Elvina (Peggy Shannon). Ted wants to invest the Gimlets' life savings for them, but Mary is understandably wary. Getting drunk, Joe wanders off, gets hit by a car, and wakes up twenty years in the past. Now he can do his life over and marry Elvina instead of Mary, giving him all of Ted's wealth and power. Nice guy, huh? The fact that Joe is a jerk (although he does do some nice things) is one of the movie's main problems, as is the fact that Joe is played by borderline shrill Lee Tracy, who gives a good performance but is also as slick and somehow irritating as ever. Turn Back the Clock has a great idea but it becomes increasingly ridiculous, with a predictable wind-up. The Three Stooges appear as wedding singers in one scene and almost look like children. Clarke, Shannon and Kruger give very good performances, and the film is fast-paced and has a few directorial flourishes as well. Because of a similar time travel element, Repeat Performance has always been seen as a remake of this picture, but the plots are so different that that really isn't the case. Oddly, when Turn Back the Clock was remade as a telefilm with Connie Selleca, it used the plot of Repeat Performance instead.

Verdict: Nice idea; mediocre execution. **1/2.

WATERLOO BRIDGE (1931)

Kent Douglass (Douglass Montgomery) and Mae Clarke

WATERLOO BRIDGE (1931). Director: James Whale.

"You don't stay boyish very long in this war."

During an air raid by German zeppelins in London during WW 1 a prostitute, Myra (Mae Clarke) meets a soldier, Roy (Kent Douglass), home on leave and realizes somewhat to her dismay that this inexperienced 19-year-old is falling in love with her and has no idea of what or who she really is. This first film version of Robert E. Sherwood's play -- it was remade in 1940 -- is a very affecting and well-acted drama with well-drawn characters. Although it betrays its stage origins in many stage bound sequences, there are also successful attempts at "opening up" the story and the outdoor scenes are well-handled. Douglass, who later changed his name to "Douglass Montgomery," gives a natural, charming, completely convincing and sincere performance as the smitten, sensitive young soldier, and while Clarke is a little less natural, she is also excellent. The supporting cast includes Doris Lloyd as an older friend of Myra's; a snappy Ethel Griffies as her landlady; Frederic Kerr as Roy's father, the major; Enid Bennett as Roy's mother; and even Bette Davis in the small role of Roy's sister, Janet. [Davis is winning, although you wouldn't have imagined she'd become such a big star.] The uncompromising ending packs a wallop and is quite moving.

Verdict: Simply heart-breaking. ***1/2.

KING OF THE ROCKET MEN

KING OF THE ROCKET MEN (1949). 12 chapter Republic serial. Director: Fred C. Brannon.

Attention! New York City must be evacuated immediately! Proceed in an orderly fashion. [Yeah, right!]

Okay serial lovers, dig in: Jeff King (Tristram Coffin) is the director of security of Science Associates, whose members are being killed off one by one by a sinister fellow known only as "Dr. Vulcan." King eventually realizes that Vulcan has to be one of the remaining board members, but which one is it? Battling the henchmen of the evil doctor, King dons a helmet and jet pack, flies through the air with the greatest of ease, and is christened "Rocket Man" by the newspapers. (No one wonders how he manages to fly without burning off his derriere, but it's possible the jet pack is actually an anti-gravity device.). Glenda Thomas (Mae Clarke) is a reporter who gets involved in the action, which includes Vulcan turning a "decimator" upon New York City in an extortion attempt and causing a tidal wave to engulf most of Manhattan (apparently some striking footage from the 1933 Deluge. Our hero doesn't quite manage to save the city.) There is a good cliffhanger involving a cave and a river of molten lava, and the usual sloppiness, such as one character being able to drive a car under the remote control of Vulcan when nobody has ever been able to do it before. The colorfully named Tristram (with an "m" and extra "r," not an "n" as in Tristan and Isolde) Coffin makes a somewhat colorless lead, although he does play with the requisite authority and has always been a likable and attractive performer. 18 years earlier heroine Mae Clarke had a grapefruit thrust in her face by James Cagney in The Public Enemy; in this she's more than professional. Tom Steele of The Masked Marvel also plays a supporting role.

Verdict: More fun than it has any right to be! ***.

FRANKENSTEIN

FRANKENSTEIN (1931). Director: James Whale.

Made the same year as Dracula, this is a much more successful and entertaining film, although, like Dracula, it takes great liberties with its source material. The performances are all good, with Colin Clive properly manic and intense as the obsessed Henry Frankenstein, and Mae Clarke appealing as his troubled fiancee. Although his performance mostly consists of pantomime, Boris Karloff is superb as the monster. Dwight Frye is perhaps more effective as the helpful if psychotic hunchback Fritz than he was as Renfield in Dracula. John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, and Frederick Kerr are all good as, respectively, family friend Victor Moritz, Dr. Waldman, and Baron Frankenstein, who serves as a bit of comedy relief (mercifully there isn't too much of it in the film).The scenic design is excellent and atmospheric, and the movie is very fast-paced. Bernhard Kaun's music for the opening and closing credits is good; one wishes there had been music all through the film, which cries out for it. An interesting aspect of the picture is that Henry Frankenstein goes completely unpunished for his grave-robbing and assorted malfeasances as well as the deaths caused by his rampaging monster! Followed by Bride of Frankenstein.

Verdict: Classic Universal horror. ***.