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The 20 Most Memorable Films I Experienced in 2017
The 20 Most Memorable Films I Experienced in 2019
Reviews
Dr. Monica (1934)
Watch for Kay's Dinstinctive Way of Rising Above It All--in Glorious Fashion Statements!
If approached with a certain attitude about Kay Francis soaps, this can be great fun--who, in the year 2024, could possibly take this film seriously? Instead, enjoy the ways Kay and Warren attempt to skirt around the real issue of the film, i.e. A philandering husband and a pregnancy presenting itself from someone other than his wife! No one in films can suffer quite as easily and nobly as Our Kay, and when she gets that certain look, you know she accepts her fate with perfect equanimity. And if you don't like the plot, count the number of outrageously stylish outfits Our Star Parades with perfect assurance and her distinctive brand of Warner's charm.
Mother! (2017)
Is Darren Attempting To Outgross Quentin?
The ability to make a compelling film is not questioned with this director, but increasingly, a completely unnecessary reliance on violence and vile behavior and grossness for it's own sake have come to dominate the narrative. In Tarantino's Hollywood film, I thought that at last he was going to strengthen his adult capability but avoiding the gross cop-out--but to the detriment of all that had gone before, we had folks in the swimming pool done in by a blow-torch--often and in detail, and that was that.
In Mother! The point has been clearly made (even in an appropriately confusing narrative) that heroine Jennifer has become ensnared in a net woven perhaps unintentionally by her writer husband, but in the last 30 minute, Aronofsky immerses the viewer in grossness for it's own sake...and without dropping plot points, what happen's to Mother's hope--and to Mother herself--is way beyond logic of any kind, and outside common decency for any sensitive viewer. There are some viewers, that, as Shakespeare said, "meditate on blood and savagery," but to what purpose--but to gross out? It's a brilliant film for such shenanigans.
Elf (2003)
A Children's Movie for Children! How Refreshing!
Too many of today's kiddie movies opt for adult jokes, and "slip in' offer-color humor that they think the kids won't get--too often we get kid's movies about pee, poo, farts and anything some overgrown adult-child in Hollywood will get a laugh.
This film demonstrates how innocent childlike behavior that is silly can be fun, about how misplaced priorities by adults can be redirected when they tune into what the child professes and, more importantly, loves.
The relationship beetween Elf Will and James Cann his father provides a perfect example---adults will appreciate that Caan is remembered for several violent Hollywood classics, but kids don't care, and completely understand when Will is shunned by his Dad--who does come around.
Casting Asner as Santa is genius, and the redecoration of Gimbel's classic hilarity--
And--this is really important--the film is EXCITING!
Great Performances: Suddenly, Last Summer (1993)
After all, it IS about cannibalism.....
I remember seeing the original Suddenly, Last Summer when it was playing in movie theatres (remember those?) in 1959; at the time, people barely mentioned "homosexuals" in polite society, and thus a good part of the audience hadn't a clue why young Sebastian was setting out luxuriously beautiful Elizabeth Taylor in skimpy bathing togs on a sunny beach to attract young boys. And Kathryn Hepburn's perfectly neurotic domineering mother seemed to be a little excessive when attempting to relate her version of what happened on the beach. The film was as hysterical and over-the-top as Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal could get away with, and despite some shockingly strong performances, it died at the box office; it looks much better, if dated, today.
Which is to say the Maggie Smith version takes an entirely different tack, not adding any location shots, but setting the entire drama, as the playwright did, in a lush greenhouse jungle crawling with carnivorous plants, and limiting the action to the time it takes for the revelations to unspool. This version, while complete, lacks the edge of not always muted hysteria that the original exudes, never makes us feel quite how around the bend Violet Venable is when it comes to defending her son's reputation from the truth--i.e., he's gay. And that's perhaps this play has become a wee bit dated, and unlike Streetcar or Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, it's a curio of a time of social repression rather than a living document which can be restaged, remade with new power as seen by a different cast and director.
The Old Curiosity Shop (2007)
The Essence of Character
Dickens at his most compelling is about plot and character, and few films can capture both with any complexity. What is most effective in this 90 minute adaptation is the essence of the three leading characters--too often Grandfather is played as a senile bumbler, lost in his surroundings, losing his mind, feeble and thus not compelling; That reliable stalwart Derek Jacobi makes of him a man gripped by a compulsion--certainly smart enough to function but unable to control a nefarious habit. At the other end of humanity is one of the author's nastiest and most vulgar money-grubber, Daniel Quilt, who threatens to bite his wife and who eats hard-boiled eggs shell and all--with icky relish. One often wonders, too, at the gullibility and illness of Little Nell, played here a bit older than usual, a clever young woman trapped by circumstance but with an inherited inner will to survive. Much that is in the novel is omitted, 90 minutes hardly allowing all the detail for which the Victorian novelist is famous, but there is ample breathing room given many of one's favorites--Mrs. Jarley of the Waxworks, for example, or the innocent family that practically adopts Nell. An hour and a half with these splendid sets immersed in this dense Victorian period is well spent!
Loving Vincent: The Impossible Dream (2019)
Dazzling Immersion Into Van Gogh's Country Village
There has been nothing quite like this film's impact, one based on thousands of brush strokes as Van Gogh's life in a French village is recounted by those he painted. Though the film sounds like a gimmick similar to those giant recreations of his paintings people paid to sit in, it is much more a reflection of both the man's style and his art.
There are many excellent biopics about Vincent and a few letter-perfect performances, among those by William Defoe and Kirk Douglas, but no films attempting to get into the minds of those with whom he shared time during his last years in the country--this is animation as I have never seen it, and each stroke altered a little bit with each frame of film gives the characters an electric charge, almost as if they were unknowingly inhabited for a while by the spirit of the Father of Modern Art.
So many of the portraits that most of us are familiar with come to life in movement similar to that we experience when viewing an authentic Van Gogh in a museum, and if the viewer has not had that experience, this might be the next best thing. It is a remarkable achievement, an entertaining mystery combined with some serious reflection on the last days of a landmark artist.
The Gorgeous Hussy (1936)
All The King's Horses....
In the heyday of MGM's Dream Machine, seldom do the machinations of Louis B. Mayer go wrong--but in this case, an entire raft of possibilities goes adrift, mainly the lead listed as the Leading Man, who disappears after a few reels, and is replaced in Joan Crawford's affections by Melvyn Douglas, usually an underrated actor, but the man who not only made Garbo laugh, but set Hud straight--for a while. Until a rather stilted final appearance, Douglas provides an anchor for the largely trivial concerns of The Hussy, essayed by Joan in some of Adrian's most lavish period costumes--but somehow Joan just isn't fit for curls and crinolines, anymore than Jimmy Stewart rings true as a dopey friend whose gawky attempts at romance are just silly.
The Wedding Cake treatment works beautifully for the lavish MGM Marie Antoinette, but here the cake falls flat, the focus teetering between various failed romances spoiled by town gossip, and Barrymore's effective turn as Andrew Jackson--and how can anyone not love Beulah Bondi as his wife, sensitive to the Washington gossip mill. A personal high point was the slightly zany appearance of Zeffie Tilbury, who, like Marjorie Rambeau or Eve Arden, can always enliven the dullest proceedings.
Temptation (1946)
Kay Francis Has Some Competition!
Sometimes one can endure the barest of plots in a Warner Brothers Kay Francis melodrama merely to enjoy the parade of Orry-Kelly creations that Kay wore so perfectly. So it is in this dark melodrama, as semi-glacial Merle Oberon parades across lush sets in an amazing assemblage of distinctive, detailed costumes that put to shame the average melodrama. Oberon marries Egyptologist Brent not for adventure or to help him dig up a legendary mummy, but to be able to have riches for life, to be able to mingle with the well-do-to without apology and it isn't long before she falls afoul of someone not unlike her, an alluring lothario with looks and cunning; as their lusts cool, it doesn't take long for them to start plotting nasty deeds.
But it isn't really the plot that moves this fascinating story along--it's a sense of lush studio style at it's richest, peopled with largely unfamiliar but compelling character actors that provide the sense of a larger world outside. Strong soundtrack, impressive set decor and above all, one magnificent fashion creation after another provide fascination for the viewer who can deal with the melodrama.
The Secret Ways (1961)
A Triumph of Style Over Substance
There of so many echoes of The Third Man in this film, but the essential plot lacks narrative cohesion--the dazzling atmospherics of decadent Europe after WWII, like Reed's film, are rich in dark shadows, fogs and dripping walls, dizzying stairwells and dismal foggy streets--but the plot, unfortunately, is a little foggy to begin with, and although the viewer slowly comes some comprehension concerning Widmark's task to finesse the escape of an anti-communist leader from behind the iron curtain, there are numerous lures that sidetrack him, most of them of the female. Widmark's performance is characteristically compelling, and there are some new faces on the screen deservedly demanding attention. Another positive aspect of this studio film is that most of the faces are new ones to American viewers, and Widmark's relationships to each are complex although, like the plot, sometimes confusing.
If the viewer doesn't expect constant clarity and a direct Indiana Jones narrative, this film is fascinating for it's location shooting, evoking a more direct sense of hopelessness than even The Spy Who Came in From The Cold, and it's all highlighted by a persuasive music score (one of the first powerful backups by John Williams), as well as the adventurous attempts to escape the constant threat of permanent imprisonment--the sympathetic hero combines with a growing sense of suspense can add up to an entertaining two hours: I found the atmospherics even more fascinating that the labyrinthine plot.
Leonera (2008)
The Development of Love In Unlikely Places
If you awoke, dazed and addled, covered in blood, with an unconscious lover near by and what appeared to be a corpse even closer--what would happen next?
It's the incarceration of the main character convincingly and powerfully plated by Martina Guzman that is the heart of the film, as she finds herself not only pregnant, but in a special ward for such victims of violence; it doesn't take long for a family of sorts of emerge among these women without hope, a strange compound of vibrant personalities tempered by the presence of children.
As her children grows up, Leonora is visited by her reptilitan ex-husband and by the mother with ulterior motives, but what I found most fascinating was the relationships that evolve in the prison with both guards and charges, and as the film develops, a strong suspenseful finish. It is an impressive and colorful story about the importance of love and places where it develops as truth.
A Bedtime Story (1933)
Pre-Code Fun With Chevalier and Baby LeRoy
Baby LeRoy gets more close-ups than anybody in this sentimental romance, but he has plenty of competition in hogging the camera from Maurice Chevalier, though oddly limited to only a few songs and those mainly forgettable.
The film's plot revolves around an abandoned child found in the back of a playboy's limo, soon becoming the center of attention as the kid charms Maurice, who attempts to explain away his sudden appearance to several irate sweethearts.
There's a funny and even slightly suspenseful scene as manservant Edward Everett Horton attempts to shave his master, discovering as he does so that Chevalier has unknowingly "dated" his wife--Horton delivers a very close and nervously fingered shave!
The Ever-Winsome Helen Twelvetrees, dazzlingly blond, first hired as a temporary nurse for the tot, names him Robin and then falls for the boss, who is already promised to another. Complications ensue, along with the kind of suggestive mating humor that would come to a halt one year later with code enforcement.
Not a great comic masterpiece, but easy-going. And a rather sweet little fable if one can deal with an over-abundance of Baby Leroy shots--grinning, making faces, sleeping, but not yet old enough to be obnoxious--that happened a year later with W. C. Fields in The Old Fashioned Way, a rural delight not to be missed!
Cut Bank (2014)
Quality Small Town Noir Fully Loaded
There are all kinds of comparisons one can make with this little gem, but it's particulars make it well worth 93 rather delightful and occasionally suspenseful minutes. Cut Bank, an actual tiny town in Montana, inspires the quiet lunacy that might fester behind closed doors, and although the film is loaded with scene-stealers like Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Dern, it is a less-known character actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who consistently steals the show essaying a genuinely creepy menace with an unexpected physical prowess and secrets in his basement.
There seems to be a club of Liam Hemsworth haters concerning this film, as he plays a largely inarticulate hero with dreams of instant riches, of a strong desire to leave the strictures of small town heritage, lots of reviewers claiming the man can't act; perhaps his is a perfect performance, setting apart his role as "hero" from the eccentricities as the local sheriff, hilariously and convincingly played by John Malkovich, who channels his nuttiness with a genuine personal integrity. Throw in female lead, Teresa Palmer (who desperately wants to win the annual contest for Miss Cut Bank, and Oliver Platt as an unctuous, insensitive government agent, and if nothing else, a viewer has a chance to see all these actors clearly enjoy their camera time in service of the offbeat, chilly noir, Cut Bank.
Víctimas del pecado (1951)
An Unexpected Pleasure, Crammed with Surprises
For people raised primarily on Hollywood films, particularly those from the 1950's on, this dazzling immersion in sin of all sorts may come as a surprise--in how many films, for instance, is a baby left unceremoniously in a garbage can on the street? And only Hitchcock, in Shadow of A Doubt, can created an ominous creepy feeling when a train chugging into the Santa Rose depot spreads an ominous black cloud over a group of relatives waiting for a beloved uncle? It happens here, with dazzling results during a shootout next to a cabaret on the fringes of town; all through the film the camera creates seedy worlds almost surreal, and places in them the lead, Ninon Sevilla, with even more energy to spare than Ann Miller, an actress whose life is a constant battle of survival for herself and an adopted son.
No use to relate the plot, the joys of revelation, and the heavy melodrama enriched with often shocking complexity. This film is great fun for the viewer interested in a special change in cinematic exposures.
Cette sacrée gamine (1956)
Nutty Farce Can Be Good Fun: Bardot In Command
When she's on the screen, Brigette commands your attention just by being there, mock-pouting, prancing about in revealing drapery, merely pouting or casting knowing glances at whoever needs to be trapped by her charms.
The plot was the sort of thing that Doris Day films were based around, but here mixed with more farce, more energy, and less coy dialogue; there are farcical situations galore, and common sense does not apply--the viewer is either in the mood for amiable poses from a self-aware sex kitten, or not afraid of a rather convoluted plot that involves gangsters, a butler with a Buster Keaton attitude, a woman professor that claims the straying lead, or totally impromptu musical numbers that owe a good deal of filching from MGM in it's Minnelli years of glorified technicolor.
All of which to summarize: good fun with some hearty laughs and a major bonus in a young star just beginning to realize her considerable impact on viewers, a musical farce with a little romance twisted into a somewhat feeble plot.
Baarìa (2009)
Incredibly Rich and Lush: This Is Not The Sound of Music
This heady complexity of images that hurtle past the willing view allowing for a complex immersion in another time and place is not a conventional story. In reflection following the film, the viewer might be surprised to discover most of the conventional bases in most films have been covered--from the birth of a child to the tragic death of a father, from a young man committed mainly committed to the pleasures of the flesh to one pledged to the betterment of his fellow citizens, many human threads tie together to piece a vibrant canvas of humanity derived from a close examination of a small Sicilian village that grows into a city perhaps too large for itself. I would watch this film merely to immerse myself in the profusion of lush images that constantly unfold, some of them initially confusing, some of them dreamlike, and all of them ultimately adding up to a true cinematic experience that can only be had at the movies.
If you want a tidy movie that doesn't challenge your expectations, that consistently follows a narrative thread and offers a snappy finale, this ain't it--Director Tornatore has provided an immersion in human life with all its conflict and confusion, its tragedies and humanity.
George White's Scandals (1934)
A New Star Is Born: Alice Sings "You Nasty Man!"
There's nothing dull about this film; One could cite it as frequently tasteless, sometimes outrageous, often silly--but there's no moments when you want to flip through a magazine until the next musical number--this one crams all kinds of colorful costumes and genuinely wacky ideas into 80 fun-packed minutes--I can't think of another music so full of action and song--not all of them memorable, but each highly individual, and one so hideously tasteless it puts Jolson's "Goin To Heaven On a Mule" to shame.
Unfortunately, Alice Faye's best number is also her only solo number, but it's the vibrant "Oh You Nasty Man." completely with plenty of lively lassies in lush flashy satins, and even features one miniaturized sweetie who perches on the edge of a cocktail glass, ready to dive in.
For those of us used to Dick Powell as a 30's musical lead, Rudy Vallee is a bit of a stick, but he has several duets, and in a trio with Jimmy Durante and Cliff Edwards and three helpless babies, seems to be having a good time. And it's got a final line spoken by George White himself that's pure naughty pre-code.
And that's the spirit of this offbeat, nutty musical--it isn't always good in the vein of the best musical of the period, Love Me Tonight, and it doesn't always leave you humming in the manner those Dubin-Warren Golddigger Movies, but it's a lovely, wacky, funny and even charming 80 minutes of gossamer Show Biz. That's worth 8 stars to me!
Stage Mother (1933)
Zippy Little Precode Moves Along With Style
There are older films one sits through to see a specific star, or because there is a legendary scene as highlight, but frequently when stories of this period so close to the silents or snatched from the theatre move into explication, they drag, are full of static scenes or wooden performances. Stage Mother is no such case--powered by the energetic, electric "on" personality of Alice Brady in most of the film, a high interest in plot development ensues, and the expected conflict between mother and daughter similar to what Merman and company essayed in Gypsy some 25 years later keeps the narrative moving right along--it doesn't hurt that peppy Franchot Tone pops in for an early film appearance as a wealthy suitor, or that Maureen O'Sullivan can hold her own with Brady. Some folks complain about the final melodrama, but given the period when audiences expected to be send home feeling good, and given that this is an MGM studio product, it doesn't matter one way or another. It's a fun film to watch! Singing! Dancing! Jokes Aplenty!
Broadway Rhythm (1944)
The Color Alone Is Worth The Time Spent
Of course some folks want everything in a musical, and there are very few musicals that offer everything. What this one has in profusion is brilliant color, the MGM Technicolor that infuses almost every frame and dazzles in a nice variety of musical numbers.
While the viewer is stuck with the singularly charmless George Murphy, he is surrounded with folks that offer everything from a strange, unforgettable contortionist act, the Ross Sisters in polka dots to a double dose of Lena Horne at her best, singing some Gershwin with her usual sophisticated aplomb.
Character actor Charles Winninger is at his best here, and turns on an authentic folksiness, even getting to do some vaudeville dancing with a knowledge born of past triumphs. One of the musical highlights, and good fun it is, is watching Winninger and orchestra leader Tommy Dorsey in a friendly trombone duet, instruments gleaming as gold as MGM could make it!
The plot really doesn't matter much, as it's the old saw "Hey Kids--Let's Put On A Show," but if you just want some dazzling escapism and can immerse yourself in some MGM musical cotten candy, this fills the bill.
Hot Blood (1956)
With A Title like HOT BLOOD One Expects Some Sizzle!
The problem with the film is that it is a mess. Some excellent preparations have been made to effect some drama--Luther Adler, one of the giants in method acting, has been hired as the brother of the local hothead, played by Cornel Wilde, who, during the early moments of the film, is swindled into latching up with Jane Russell--no doubt remembering the ads for her in The Outlaw--"How would you like to tussle with Russell?" For reasons largely inexplicable, Cornell would rather pout than pounce, and even through there are some ravishing colors splashed across the screen, and some attempt at capturing ersatz Gypsy life, the plot is a muddle and most importantly, there seems to be no sizzle at all between the leads. If you recall Russell with Robert Mitchum in Macao--well, that's sizzle.
This one's a cold poker in the ice bucket; it's as if the director left the building, and the actors, cast adrift in bangles and beads, attempts vainly to inject some life into a haphazard script.
Only Yesterday (1933)
The Ultimate "Women's Weeper"--and yet.....
Unlike so many matinee weepers that were churned out during the depression about women brought to ruin through their attachment to handsome cads, this beautifully calibrated film offers so many treats in addition to a saccharine plot that it moves beyond matinee fluff; simply the opening scenes establishing the damage done to human lives in the 1929 are handling with persuasive dispatch, drawing the viewer into the shattered world of the wealthy and to the insensitivity that some show to others, setting the stage for the young woman who is drawn into a tragic life-changing romance. So many familiar faces grace the screen, from Franklin Pangborn as a few art dealer to Jane Darwell as the mother who keeps a good table; a pleasant surprise is the romance between Billie Burke, for once not merely an addleheaded silly, but an older woman in love with a younger man who annoys her when he whistles. And while John Bowles may strike some as a bit wooden, star Margaret Sullavan in her first major role lights up the screen with genuine warmth and humanity, making her tragedy all the more touching. Some keepers of the current film archives need to get ahold of a pristine print and share it with the public--perhaps it could be the next addition to the Criterion Closet!
International Settlement (1938)
What's Dolores Del Rio Doing In This Mess?
Del Rio was such an exotic and classically elegant actress that it's a pity when she gets stuck donating blood to a man who just tried to strangle her, stuck with a entire stock of absurd situations with bombs bursting in air during the Sino-Japanese war. It is unsettling to see the actual bombing and destruction of a major city used as a backdrop for "B" movie melodrama, even if George Sanders does get to wear a mustache and affect something other than world-weary attitude; the "B" film had great possibilities, but too much footage is given over to a pair of silly romantic magpies, one a Sacramento reporter trying to snag an important story but getting hung up on a budding romance. There are plenty of incidental pleasures, of course: the appearance of John Carradine doing his Irish best, Harold Huber and Leon Ames as greedy baddies, and a short running time. But I'd rather see Del Rio as Madame Dubarry any day!
A Man Named Pearl (2006)
A Community of Sharing Inspired By Artistic Obsession
So often films about eccentrics have a darker agenda, pointing up human oddities for the amusement of the masses; this film is direct and honest and means to showcase an individual who devotes his life and time to a private garden he enthusiastically to the public. In a tiny South Carolina town on the decline from an agricultural past, Pearl buys a home with some acreage and makes the decision not only have a neat and tidy yard, but, as the trees and bushes he plants grows, to sculpture them. He works in the yard every day, quietly but with purpose, and after several years, there are topiary abstracts wherever one looks, and if there is a visitor, the self-effacing man is pleased to chat with them, spending extra time with young people brought by elders who know Pearl is a dedicated, if self-effacing role model. Without being corny or hammering the viewer over the head, the film showcases a good man who freely shares a beneficial obsession.
Three Godfathers (1936)
Forgotten 1930's Classic Western With Gripping Central Performance
In 1929 actor Chester Morris was nominated for an Oscar for his strong performance as an ex-con in Alibi; he spent a good deal of his life playing tough-guy roles, too often typecast in second-tier "B" roles; here, some six years later, he gives a dynamic, believable turn as the bad boy of the town, the man in black who revels in his nastiness, unredeemed by the love of a good woman or anyone else.
He and two others pal up together to rob a bank during a church social, and run for the hills, there discovering a dying woman with a child; this could be a really silly melodramatic set-up, but director Richard Boleslawski knows what he is doing, knows how much melodrama to inject into a situation, is able to focus two of the best scene stealers in the business, Walter Brennan and Lewis Stone into producing distinctively compelling characters.
This film is a remake of several silent versions, the most notable starring Charles Bickford in the Chester Morris role (and later, more sentimentally, by John Wayne in a color version from John Ford), but the sense of authenticity in the town scenes and the visually arresting desert scenery give the actors a canvas which they do not fail to brilliantly fill in.
How often does a character in a Western film recite Macbeth's "Tomorrow" soliloquy from memory, or discuss the intricacies of Schopenhauer with a friendly but uncomprehending cowpoke? Lewis Stone manages a nice turn in his interchanges with Walter Brennan, himself putting the brakes on his usual cornball rustic.
The transformation for Chester Morris from unregenerate bum to something admirable is powerfully done, and the intrusion of some 1930's sentiment not entirely unwelcome.
In 1936, the Best Oscar nominees were Paul Muni, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, William Powell and Walter Huston; with a better agent, Chester Morris might have been among them.
Holiday in Mexico (1946)
Ilona Massey, A Talking Chihuahua and Plenty of Technicolor!
Imagine a mainstream contemporary film that features a pianist playing Rachmaninoff and Chopin; imagine that same film featuring a Mariachi Band that can play Hungarian folk melodies at the snap of a finger. The same film even features a talking Chihuahua (long before Taco Bell). Now toss in a tale centering on a love-sick teenage soprano who falls in love with a man old enough to be her grandfather-and add another lovesick girl, just for fun, that does exactly the same, only with the first girl's father. It sounds a bit incestuous, but with MGM it's all good, clean, if occasionally draggy, fun.
Unlikely fare for the 2020's, but a huge hit for MGM in postwar America, 1946, Holiday in Mexico is set in several mythical South of the Border homes, brilliantly unreal but presented in irresistible Technicolor (with lots of those wonderful period lime-green pastels and electric pinks).
If you are in the mood for absolute escapism and willing to suspect disbelief entirely, this immersion in teen angst features the first MGM appearance of young absolutely ravishing blue-eyed Jane Powell warbling a little bit of everything from opera to Ave Maria, sometimes accompanying her love object, Jose Iturbi, a popular semi-classical pianist, whose truncated version of Rachmaninoff's Concerto #3 may put your teeth on edge. But the man does have incredible power and technique, and like Liberace, it's up the keyboard, down the keyboard, bang, bang, bang! And Jose's actual grandchildren appear in the movie and hide under his piano in mouse masks!
This all hints at only a few treats available to those able to cheerfully immerse themselves in another fairly empty-headed but richly lavish presentation from MGM. Jane's Dad is played by a suave Walter Pidgeon, who gives some fatherly advice to Jane's awkward thwarted swain, Roddy McDowell, a few years removed from his superb sentimental triumphs in Lassie and How Green Was My Valley, here having some post-pubescent problem. Contributing to the Mexican Atmosphere is a glorious glittering production number with Xavier Cugat and as a guest star from Hungary (interesting how the script digs her into the plot) the radiantly glowing Ilona Massey (rhymes with "Lassie"), who only is allowed to radiate her continental charm with a single song.
In short, 127 minutes of teen angst alleviated with ample music and the riches of MGM at its peak is on offer here; Singin' In The Rain it ain't, but what else is?
Five and Ten (1931)
Potential Fun Turns Turgid, Tiresome
A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to see Marion Davies in The Floradora Girl, a precode delight made a year before Five and Ten, a film full of zippy verve and romance, the kind of thing that Marion was really good at, getting into scrapes and hobnobbing with fellow chorus girls to figure out how to land a man.
This film also deals with how to land a man, but the man in this film is Leslie Howard, who seems ill-matched for the puckish quality of fun and frolic that shows Marion at her best; the pair comes close a few times to becoming more than puppets dealing with a slow-paced script, but the seems to be little real passion or give and take between them, instead a sort of scripted mooning that often brings the thing to a halt.
Among other things, the script deals with the problems of the nouveau-riche attempting to establish themselves into established society, and as a sidelight, the insensitivity of Marion's father, one of the most successful businessmen in New York, (played by Richard Bennet, so memorable some ten years later in Orson Welles' Magnificent Ambersons) losing his wife from inattention as well as alienating a son by insisting the kid become part of the new family empire, regardless of interest. Douglass Montgomery, listed in the film as "Kent Douglas," moons and mopes through most of the picture as an unmoored zombie, with a final scene that is ultimately just the opposite of its intention.
Five and Ten is not a bona-fide stinker, but much of it is a chore, and though it's always fascinating to watch Marion Davies try various character hats on, somebody forgot to give her a script not so gloomy and stage-bound and one more suited to her considerable skills as a comedienne.