One of the Great Three-Year Spans of American Films, 1939-1941 is Here Explored

Foreign Correspondent 

I’ve gone on long and loud about how I believe the 1970s were the best decade in movie-making.  Recently I wrote a post naming my ten favorite years in films. Six of those years were in the seventies, including the top three. Based on the list it’s easy to surmise that my favorite three-year stretch of films was from 1973-1975. But what about outside of the seventies? Was there a three-year span of motions pictures that approaches what came out is the seventies? 

Yes.

The period immediately before U.S. entry into World War II, 1939-1941. I came up with thirty films that I love from those three years including some of my all-time favorites such as His Girl Friday, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Grapes of Wrath, Sullivans Travels and Foreign Correspondent. Of the thirty films, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock directed four and Preston Sturges three,  two apiece were by Howard Hawks, Frank Capra and Ernest Lubitsch. Among lead actors Jimmy Stewart led the way appearing in four of the films. Cary Grant was in three, as were Barbara Stanwyck  and Henry Fonda. Supporting player Thomas Mitchell was also in three and Ward Bond in four (Bond, Mitchell, William Demarest Pat Flaherty and John Qualen between them showed up in pretty much every movie made between 1932 and 1958, more on them and other frequent supporting players in a future post). So some of Hollywood's great directors and stars were then at their peak. Indeed there were some sparkling performances such as Stewart in MSGTW, Bette Davis in The Letter, Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Meet John Doe, Fonda and Jane Darwell in Grapes of Wrath, James Cagney in the Roaring Twenties, Mitchell in Stagecoach and Grant in Suspicion. 

It was also a revolutionary time for camera positioning, shooting angles and lighting. Stagecoach really set the tone and Welles really ran with it in Citizen Kane. But Capra did some nice work with Meet John Doe as did Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent and Suspicion and Ford again in Grapes of Wrath. They were directors ahead of there times.

Twelve of the films were comedies, many of the screwball variety. Those three years saw the end of peak screwball era. Even one of Hitchcock's entries (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) was a screwball comedy -- the only one he made. It was also the rebirth of the western with Ford's Stagecoach. There were powerful statement/political films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane and Meet John Doe. The coming war and the horrors of Nazism were touched upon in The Long Voyage Home, Foreign Correspondent, and with a light touch in The Great Dictator but none of them were out and out war pictures. Those came in spades during and immediately after the war. There was a hint of film noir from The Maltese Falcon, a genre which would see its heyday following the war. For better or worse The Roaring Twenties is the only gangster picture in the lot.

If it not for Hitler and Tojo perhaps that amazing run would have continued. While Hollywood still churned out some excellent films during the war, many of the best directors were off making propaganda films for the government (and some damn good ones at that). Ford, Capra, John Huston, William Wyler and George Stevens most prominent among them. (The five and their war work are subjects of an excellent book by Mark Harris called Five Came Back which I’m just now reading.) The twenty or so years after the war ended saw nothing to compare what was produced between '39 and '41, at least not out of Hollywood.

That same time period saw a proliferation of great foreign films from the likes of Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Rossellini, De Sica, Kalatozov, Ichikawa, Buñuel and Ray but from the U.S. not so much.

Here are my top ten films from 1939-1941 followed by other great films from those years.

MY TOP TEN FILMS FROM 1939-1941

His Girl Friday (1940) Hawks

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Capra

The Grapes of Wrath  (1940) Ford

Foreign Correspondent (1940) Hitchcock 

Sullivan’s Travels (1941) Sturges

Stagecoach (1939) Ford

Citizen Kane (1941) Welles

The Lady Eve (1941) Sturges

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Huston

The Long Voyage Home (1940) Ford

OTHER FAVORITES SORTED BY YEAR

Also from 1939: The Roaring Twenties (Walsh), The Great Man Votes (Kanin), Midnight (Leisen), Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford), Ninotchka (Lubitsch), Destry Rides Again (Marshall).

Also from 1940: The Philadelphia Story (Cukor), The Great Dictator (Chaplin), The Great McGinty (Sturges), The Letter (Wyler), Rebecca (Hitchcock), The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch).

Also From 1941: Meet John Doe (Capra), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Hall), Suspicion (Hitchcock), Ball of Fire (Hawks), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock).

Some of the Films I've Watched Lately a Few of Which I Enjoyed Greatly

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Anderson. I unreservedly love this movie. And I loved it all the more with this latest viewing. Dysfunctionality has never been funnier. Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum steals the show with lines like these:

“Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?” 

“I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.” 

“I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me.”

“Chas has those boys cooped up like a pair of jackrabbits, Ethel.”

“Hell of a damn grave. Wish it were mine.”

“You wanna talk some jive? I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you never heard!”

“Hey, lay it on me, man.” This said when meeting a distinguished African American man. 

Royal, as should be obvious from the above, has a propensity for being totally inappropriate. But it’s not as though he’s surrounded by sanity. His family is a wacky crew. His sons (Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson) are, to put it charitably, eccentric (albeit successful) and his daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) — who he introduces as his “adopted daughter” — is so far out there you couldn’t find her with a telescope. Attached to the family is more madness such as Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and Eli Cash (Owen Wilson). Only his ex-wife (Angelica Huston) seems at all normal and only just. This and Rushmore are peak Wes Anderson, for my money only Moonrise Kingdom has matched these two.

The File on Thelma Jordan (1949) Siodmak. Barbara Stanwyck stars opposite Wendell Corey. Wait, what? Wendell Corey the leading man? That can’t be right. He was always the protagonist’s buddy -- notably in Rear Window -- never the main man. Actually Corey  was fine in this picture though it would have been better served with someone else in the lead. Like a leading man. William Holden? Melvyn Douglass? Dana Andrews? Maybe they and others all turned it down. TFTJ is being shown on Criterion Channel as part of their "1950 the Peak Year of Noir" series. There’s always one basic problem with noir: you know the “bad guys” aren’t going to get away with it. The mystery, such as it is, is what is going to trip them up. The plot here is not worth detailing but suffice to say Stanwyck is the villainess though not half as interesting as she is in Double Indemnity. Of course this one wasn’t written and directed by Billy Wilder. TFTJ is a solidly mediocre picture, certainly no waste of time but nothing you’re going to much remember after watching it — unless you blog about it.

The Immigrant (2013) Gray. Simply a terrible movie. The first really bad one I’ve sat through in a long time. Marion Cotillard stars, or rather she goes through the motions. The brilliant Joaquin Phoenix similarly reads his lines and hits his marks. Jeremy Renner plays a thoroughly uninteresting character with little evident enthusiasm. The film starts off dark in confined spaces and one imagines we’re being set up for wide open vistas and large spaces with brilliant light much as John Ford would do. Nope. It stays that way through the entire running time. There is nothing interesting about the film except to imagine why some critics liked it. Cotillard plays an immigrant from Poland in 1921 coming to New York with her ailing sister. It’s a great set up but the rest of the film is a complete disappointment.

The Passenger (1975) Antonioni. Sometimes I amaze myself. Prior to my latest viewing I’d watched The Passenger once before many years ago and didn’t like it. In the intervening years I’ve read and heard so many good things about it that I decided it deserved a second chance. After all, I’d disliked another Antonioni film the first time I saw it (L’Aventurra) and thought it masterpiece after a second viewing. Guess what? Same thing happened with The Passenger. Who was that person who didn’t like it? What a great film! Jack Nicholson stars as a disaffected journalist in North Africa who assumes a dead man's identity. Turns out the recently deceased was running guns for rebels and had some serious enemies. As was his custom, Antonioni took his sweet time in telling the story with long lingering shots that allow the viewer to breathe and think and take in any of the various locales that the protagonist travels through. Maria Schneider co-stars. The Passenger ranks up there with Antonioni's best. The closing scene has got to rank with one of the best endings in cinema.

The Lady Eve (1941) Sturges. One of the ten greatest screwball comedies of all time for me and countless others. Hell, it's one of the great films of all time, period. In Barbara Stanwyck’s great career she was never better. Certainly never funnier nor sexier. Henry Fonda proved here that a great actor can play in any genre as this was a rare foray into comedy for him. A supporting crew of Eugene Palette, Charles Coburn, William Demarest and Eric Blore round out a picture worth seeing again and again. And again.

Prizii’s Honor. (1985) Huston. Such was the state of American cinema in the eighties that this was not only a very popular film but a highly acclaimed one. Honestly it’s not bad but sure ain’t great either. Jack Nicholson shines as always, Kathleen Turner is sultry, as always. Angelica Huston (directed by her Dad) turns in a nice performance (it won an Oscar?) the supporting players are just fine. But Huston who directed some of Hollywood’s great films (Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the African Queen, The Man Who Would Be King, Key Largo) was not in great form in this his penultimate directoral effort and more importantly the script was not up to the actors. The line “do I ice her or do I kill her” is memorable but not much else is in this in one ear and out the other film.

Mirror (1975) Tarkovsky. Critic Antti Alanen called the film a "space odyssey into the interior of the psyche.” That’s as good a description as any. This was my fifth or sixth viewing and I found it just as mysterious, enigmatic and enthralling. It’s like free form jazz on film, hopping from one scene to the next, cutting in actual footage of the Spanish Civil War or a bullfight. A woman floats in mid air. A woman we haven’t seen before upbraids a main character. A barn burns. It’s a puzzle why we’re watching certain things but they are compelling and it makes sense just as it doesn’t. I love this film.

Yuletide Fun on Film, Another Edition of My Favorite Christmas Films

Fanny and Alexander

Welcome to the 1,000th iteration (he’s exaggerating) of my favorite Christmas films. If you go to the Christmas label on the side of the blog you can find hundreds (again, he’s exaggerating) of other such posts. I believe the exercise worth repeating as tastes change, new movies are seen and changing perspectives worth adding. 

We live in an age in which there is a proliferation of really lame Christmas movies. The Hallmark channel has been cranking them out for about ten years now and Netflix has gotten into the act. They feature sappy story lines, d list actors and shoot-the-script directors. I happily ignore those. Fortunately there are the tried and true with occasional new additions. Many of my favorite are older films, as you’ll note, from the time when story was king. In a lot of these pictures Christmas scenes are tangental. Most have big stars and some are from really good directors. Some try to capture something of whatever the Christmas spirit is. While for others Christmas provides an interesting backdrop or is like one of the characters. 

I’ll not be detailing plot points, instead focusing on the many great performances that highlight these films as well as the picture's relation to the holiday season.

(The following are offered in no particular order.)

Fanny Alexander (1982) Bergman. We start off with the question of what constitutes a Christmas movie. I’ve wrestled with this question before. Here is my latest answer: a movie that centers around Christmas, is set around Christmas or has a significant Christmas scene. Fanny begins with a very long scene on Christmas Eve and then ignores the holiday completely for the rest of its several hours running time (I only consider the extended TV version worth watching). But what a glorious Christmas scene it is with all the pageantry, fun, food, gifts and family (seen through the eyes of a child) that can make the holiday seem magical. It is some of the best stuff on celluloid. The great Ingmar Bergman directed.

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) Capra. It’s a wonderful film. Like F&A one of the greats of all time. It begins and ends on Christmas Eve with the vast middle exploring other times of year. It is sentimental (but not overly) with a simple but profound message. The fact that many people such as myself never tire after repeat viewings is a clear indication of its power. Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore and Thomas Mitchell lead a fantastic cast featuring many of Hollywood’s Golden Age’s top supporting players (such as Ward Bond, H.B. Warner, Frank Faylen and Beluah Bondi).

Christmas in Connecticut (1945) Godfrey. Another picture I watch every year and never tire of. The first “pure Christmas” movie on the list it all takes place during the Christmas season, mostly on December 24 and 25. Barbara Stanwyck is radiant, Dennis Morgan is charming, Sidney Greenstreet, Una O’Connor, Reginald Gardner and S.Z. (Cuddles) Sakall round out a top notch cast. It’s a classic romantic comedy with a tight script more than ably directed by Peter Godfrey who, lamentably, never did anything nearly as good. 

Mon Oncle Antoine (1971) Jutra. A criminally underrated and under-appreciated movie (probably because it’s over 50 years old and French Canadian — you know how people are). The film is set entirely during Christmas in a rural Quebec mining town in 1949. It’s a coming of age story but a damn good one. Moving, beautifully shot. Realism tinged by the fantasy that is Christmas and being young. Thankfully TCM shows it every year.

The Shop Around the Corner

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Lubitsch. It’s as close to perfect a film as has ever been made. Ernst Lubitsch directed. He was constitutionally incapable of making a bad picture. Jimmy Stewart is wonderful as are Frank Morgan and the rest of the cast — special shout out to Felix Bressart. Touching, warm, romantic and the story concludes most satisfactorily on a snowy Christmas Eve.

Rare Exports (2010) Helander. Finland’s (Hyvä Suomi!) contribution to the list. Most definitely a Christmas movie through and through centering as it does on the true story and secrets of Santa Claus. It’s an action/horror/fantasy comedy Christmas story all in 82 wild wonderful minutes. A different take on the typical holiday film, to be sure but one that is thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) Sturges. Another film that begins and ends and ends at Christmas with a vast middle that has nothing to do with the holiday. Indeed there’s very little reference to Christmas at all but it’s still a holiday favorite for me and countless others. Plus it’s a Preston Sturges film so you know it manages to be wild, whacky AND intelligent fun. Those Sturges comedies of the early/mid forties never disappointed and all stand up after repeat viewings. The real miracle of the Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is that they got this story of pregnant young girl (who doesn’t know who the father is) past the censors. Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton star but William Demarest steals every scene he’s in.

Happiest Season (2020) DuVall. A fairly new addition to the list. Just had my second ever viewing of it and consider it now to be worthy of regular viewings. One of two LGBTQ friendly Christmas stories on my list, this a more modern take about coming out. It is largely predictable but great fun in getting to the inevitable and somewhat sappy conclusion. Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis co-star but supporting players Daniel Levy and Aubrey Plaza are scene stealers.

Carol (2015) Haynes. Fully the first half is during the Christmas season and then we’re off into other times of the year. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara co-star in my favorite movie of 2015. Our second LGBTQ friendly film, this one set in a time when “no one” came out (the fifties). It’s heart-wrenching, heart-warming and moving and has more than enough Christmas in it to justify inclusion on this list. Todd Haynes’ direction, the set designs and costuming are significant co-stars. 

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) Koster. It stars Cary Grant as an angel, what more could you want? That Loretta Young and David Niven co-star (and James Gleason and Monty Woolley are supporting players) clinches the deal. If you’re curious about the word charming just watch Grant in this picture. He manages to be an angel without being preachy about it and rattling on about Jesus and God (who needs that?). Set entirely within the Christmas season ending on the day itself.

Home Alone (1990) Columbus and Home Alone 2 (1992) Columbus. Two more films that I find it impossible to tire of. You know the stories, you know the stars. Macaulay Caulkin was the precious Kevin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were the cartoonishly evil bandits, Catherine O’Hara (the brilliant comic actress) was the frazzled mother. A cameo by the late great John Candy was a highlight of the original and a cameo by the detestable DJ Trumpy is the blight on the second.

Elf (2003) Favreau. Pure Christmas. Pure fun. It’s unimaginable with anyone but Will Ferrell as the oversized titular character. Bob Newhart plays his dad and Ed Asner is Santa. James Caan features as well. It’s a silly movie but the good kind that makes you smile and delight in child-like hi-jinks. For the kind of movie it is it’s excellent. A seasonal staple.

Alistair Sim in A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol (1951) Hurst. Except no substitute. This is the best (my humble opinion) cinematic rendering of Charles Dickens’ classic tale of the redemption of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Alistair Sim stars in a remarkable performance. He’s on the verge of chomping on the scenery but has just enough restraint to make his performance perfect. 

The Holdovers (2023) Payne. Still in theaters. Obviously the latest addition to the list, I believe it will become a seasonal regular. The missus and I saw it last month and enjoyed it a lot and I wrote a little about it on this blog. Excepting the very end it is set entirely around the Christmas season. Paul Giamatti shines as do co-stars Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

The Thin Man (1934) Van Dyke. Okay not a very Christmasy movie but it does have scenes on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Anyway it is the first of the delightful Thin Man series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy and if there’s a better regular screen pairing in cinema history I haven’t heard of it. Nick and Nora Charles (and their dog Asta) tipple their way through life wise-cracking all the way. They also solve murders. This is the best of the series.

Trading Places (1983) Landis. Somewhat of a hybrid Christmas and New Year’s Eve movie. SNL alums Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy co-star along with Jamie Lee Curtis in one of the few really good comedies to come out of the Eighties. It constantly edges towards poor taste but stops short enough for me and is damn funny fun along the way. Begins during the Christmas season and continues just past the new year.

Others to consider: Meet John Doe, It Happened on Fifth Avenue, Remember the Night, A Christmas Tale, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Carol (1938), The Muppets Christmas Carol, The Man Who Came to Dinner, A Boy Named Christmas, Klaus.

The Easy Answer to the Question: Who is My Favorite Actress?

On Monday I addressed the question: who is my favorite actor. Today I will determine who my favorite actress is.

Barbara Stanwyck.

That was easy.

Stanwyck was a great actress who excelled at both comedy (The Lady Eve) and drama (Double Indemnity). She could be sexy and she could be tough and she could be vulnerable and she could be sassy. She also showed up in a lot of my favorite all-time films. In addition to the two already mentioned there was Christmas in Connecticut, Meet John Doe, Baby Face, Ball of Fire, Night Nurse, and Remember the Night. She also featured in a slew of other good films such as Clash by Night, Sorry Wrong Number, The Furies, Lady of Burlesque and Stella Dallas. 

That was too easy. Let’s look at other favorite actresses. 

I love Myrna Loy who more than held her own in over a dozen films with William Powell. She always came off as smart as hell, sexy and a real wit — likely because she was. I’m also second to no one in my admiration for Carole Lombard who in her short life made such classics as My Man Godfrey, Twentieth Century, To Be or Not to Be, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Nothing Sacred. She may have been the greatest comic actress of her generation. No, she was — definitely. 

I’m also a Bette Davis fan (what cinephile isn’t?). She had a prolific career highlighted by her work from the late thirties through the mid forties: Petrified Forest, Marked Woman, Jezebel, The Letter, The Great Lie, The Little Foxes, the Man Who Came to Dinner, Now Voyager, Watch on the Rhine.

Jean Arthur showed up in a lot of terrific pictures such as Talk of the Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Easy Living, specializing in comedy. 

Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Loretta Young, Joan Crawford were all terrific. But I have to give a shoutout to Joan Blondell. Though she rarely had starring roles and was in only a handful of outstanding films, she’s a personal favorite. She was absolutely adorable AND sexy at the same time. 

I also feel compelled to single out Marlene Dietrich. Her films with director Josef von Sternberg from the early ‘30s are among the best vehicles for an actress ever made (see especially, Blonde Venus, Morocco and the Shanghai Express). Dietrich had a long brilliant career.

Ingrid Bergman has to rank high. Casablanca, Notorious, Stromboli, Voyage to Italy, Gaslight, Spellbound, Cactus Flower, and Autumn Sonata.

So far I’ve only looked at actresses from Hollywood’s golden age. Let’s look at more recent stars.

Faye Dunaway is the first name that comes to mind. From 1967 through 1976 she was in Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, Little Big Man, Chinatown, Three Days of the Condor and Network appearing opposite, Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford and William Holden. Not a bad run.

Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Julie Christie were all fine actresses whose work I always enjoyed. However of them only Christie was the only who appeared in more than a couple of my favorite films (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait).

Then there’s Diane Keaton. She was in the first two Godfather films, Manhattan, Annie Hall, Love and Death, Manhattan Murder Mystery and Reds, all beloved films. Keaton didn’t just stumble into great films, she was always a part of what made them great. And look at her range, The Godfather and Annie Hall are VERY different films, only similar in that they’re great.

Among foreign actresses I love Monica Vitti, Jeanne Moreau, Liv Ullman, Bibi Andersson, Lea Seydoux, Claudia Cardinale and Kati Outinen. Vitti had the good fortune to appear in Michelangelo Antonio's best films (La Notte, L'Aventurra, L'Eclise and Red Desert) while Ullman and Andersson featured in a lot of Ingmar Bergman's best work. Ullman was also in the two great films from another Swedish director, Jan Troell (The Emigrants and A New Land). Outinen has been a regular in Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki's pictures. 

There are many really good actresses working now who I always enjoy such as Kristen Stewart, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Penelope Cruz and Frances McDormand. Of them I think Blanchett is the best actress but they all are brilliant. 

For favorite actors I had one from the first half  of cinema history (Cary Grant) one from the second half (Al Pacino) and one from foreign language films (Marcello Mastrioni). Among actresses in the same categories (drum roll please) the winners are Barbara Stanwyck, Diane Keaton and Liv Ullman. 

My Long Novel is Getting Trimmed, A Casting Change for a Classic Film, What's Trending and Oscar Nonsense

It Happened One Night

Done. Finished. Completed. Novel number three ready to go. After two years and three months I've finished it. But hold on a second, what’s the word count? 195,997 words!!! Oh my, that’s long. That’s longer than Sense and Sensibility (119,394), A Tale of Two Cities (135,420), One Hundred Years of Solitude (144,523), Cold Mountain (165,511), The Grapes of Wrath (169,481), Catch-22 (174,269) and Jane Eyre (183,858). This is not good for someone trying to peddle a novel to picky literary agents and publishers. They like books from first timers to be not much more than 100,000 words, preferably less. (The fact that I’ve self-published two novels does not enter the equation.)

Quite frankly the book could have done with a little bit of trimming anyway. Okay, a lot of trimming. I was unsparing in putting everything into it. Plenty of minor characters and story digressions. Vignettes that didn’t move the story further. A lot that was interesting but that wouldn’t be missed and slowed the proceedings down.

So I went through the book with an aim to cutting. Shouldn't be too hard. Extra sentence here. Wordiness there. An unnecessary paragraph there. Great, finished. How did I do? I reduced it by a whopping 708 words. Funny, eh? I realized I was going to have to get serious about the business. Entire characters would need to be excised, a whole chapter axed, several storylines eliminated. I am now about halfway through my second round of trimming and am being more unforgiving. About 13,000 words into the ether. That puts me at 182,00 and at a pace for in the neighborhood of 170,000. My goal is to get down to at least 125,000. Goodness me. How can I? Been hard enough so far. Cutting scenes that I put so much time and effort into is bloody painful. I want people to read them. The ruthlessness required is not something I’m good at. I suppose it’s a skill I’ll have to develop. More to be revealed. 

After that comes an even more difficult task, indeed a distasteful one: writing the query letter and synopsis and doing all the other nonsense necessary to “sell” a book to a prospective agent or publisher. The process serves to drum home the point that you are one of many currently doing the same thing and the competition is fierce. If only I were already well-known I’d have a huge edge. Book publishing often being a case of the rich getting richer. Maybe I should change my name to Tom Hanks. Well, I aim to give it my best effort, not to give up. I believe in the book, albeit there’s increasingly less of it to believe in.

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The missus and I watched the wonderful It Happened One Night (1934) Capra on Friday evening. We’d both seen the film many times though not in the past few years. Always worth a re-visit. It’s well-known for sweeping the big four awards at the Oscars (best picture, best director, best actor and best actress). It’s also credited with being the first screwball comedy and a precursor of the road picture. With Clark Gable as a reporter and Claudette Colbert as an heiress in the leads and Frank Capra directing it has a definite edge over your run-of-the-mill picture. It also boasts a solid supporting cast as good films from Hollywood’s Golden Age did. Film buffs are well-acquainted with the likes of Walter Connolly, Ward Bond, Alan Hale, Irving Bacon and Roscoe Karns. 

In reading about It Happened One Night I noted that Colbert wasn’t the first choice for the role of Ellie Andrews. This got me thinking, in the roundabout way my brain often works, about if Barbara Stanwyck had been cast, not as Andrews, but as the reporter portrayed by Gable. Stanwyck was brilliant in Meet John Doe as the journalist, Ann Mitchell. Of course the love story between the heiress and reporter would be slightly different in that they would be a lesbian couple but that would have added another element to the story. (I here acknowledge that Hollywood would never have released such a picture in 1934, I’m just having a flight of fancy here). A Stanwyck-Colbert romance would have been great fun to watch and for all we know they might have had better unscreen chemistry that Gable-Colbert. 

Many years ago a friend suggested something similar with Sunset Blvd. (1950) Wilder saying that if it was Norman Desmond rather than Norma Desmond this classic film might have been even better, Maybe. I don’t countenance remakes of great films but if one simply must then that would be the way to do it.

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You notice how streaming services tell you what’s hot or popular or — better yet -- trending? Evidently a lot of people put great stock into this. If something is popular, they reason, then it must be good. But more than that they take comfort in watching what “everyone else” is watching. It’s part of fitting in, being part of the crowd, part of the conversation. At work or school you’re going to feel left out if all your friends are talking about a show and you haven’t seen it. Better catch up. I guess it’ll come as no surprise that I never pay attention to what’s hot. Too often it’s cookie cutter type of action or rom com stuff that doesn’t interest me. When Bergman or Fellini are trending, let me know. I suppose I come off as something of a snob at times. If the shoe fits…. I’m neither ashamed nor proud of being a cultural snob — especially when it comes to cinema — it’s just the way it is. We like labels, don’t we?

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Excited or upset about the Oscar nominations? Looking forward to the ceremony? Not me. It's all a bunch of hokum. Let me illustrate that point. Here’s a sampling of Best Picture winners none of which are ever in the conversation when great movies are discussed and none of which got a shout in the prestigious Sight and Sound Poll Greatest Pictures Poll: Cavalcade, The Life of Emile Zola, Going My Way, The Greatest Show on Earth, Marty, Around the World in 80 Days, Tom Jones, Oliver!, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Out of Africa, Driving Miss Daisy, Braveheart, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, Crash, Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, Argo, Spotlight, Green Book and CODA. You want a list of great films that DIDN’T win Best Picture Oscars? There’s not enough room.

Also, remember this, Oscars are campaigned for. There’s nothing to add to that sentence. 

"Don't forget, every Cinderella has her midnight." Midnight -- A Classic and Under Appreciated Screwball Comedy

Midnight (1939) Liesen is among the better screwball comedies from the 1930s and certainly among the most under-appreciated. Claudette Colbert stars and evidenced by her work here and in such films as Palm Beach Story (1942) Sturges and It Happened One Night (1934) Capra, she was a natural comic actress. Colbert plays Eve Peabody who we meet at the beginning of the movie arriving in Paris by train on a rainy night. She just lost everything at a casino in Monte Carlo and has nothing beyond the elegant evening dress she’s wearing and a purse with pawn ticket in it.

Enter Don Ameche as Tibor, a Hungarian-born cabdriver. He takes pity on Eve and drives her gratis to various nightclubs where she unsuccessfully auditions for singing gigs. Tibor is both a world weary cynic and devil-may-care free spirit who's clearly taken a shine to our heroine. When Tibor suggests Eve use his apartment for a good night's sleep (while he works) she feels that her new acquaintance is getting too attached so makes her escape. It won’t be the last they see of one another. 

Eve stumbles into a swanky party where she meets the extremely wealthy Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore in a typically brilliant performance) and his wife (the always delightful Mary Astor). This is where the story begins to, shall we say, get really screwball. No spoilers from me but I will say that Eve has a second suitor as she finds herself hobnobbing with the upper crust of pre war Parisian society who believe that she is a baroness. 

The movie ends pretty much as one would expect (comedies, screwball and otherwise, will do that) but the surprising twists and turns it takes getting there are great fun.

The brilliant team of Billy Wilder (in his pre-directing days) and Charles Brackett wrote the screenplay which explains why it’s so bloody good. Legend has it that the studio wanted re-writes to their original script and uknowingly gave it to the original authors to polish. They did nothing, handed it back and studio heads were reportedly well pleased with the "changes."

Mitchell Leisen directed Midnight. Little remembered today he directed other crackerjack films including Easy Living (1937) (another brilliant and underrated screwball comedy) Death Takes a Holiday (1934) and Remember the Night (1940). Leisen was one of three gay men involved in the film. Monty Woolley (best known for The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) Keighley) appears as an irascible judge and Rex O’Malley plays an effeminate male friend of the Flammarions. I must say that Rex O’Malley is hardly the name one would associate with a gay man — he looks more like a Lawrence Chitwell or Gregory Vandover. According to the website, Queerplaces, O’Malley was “an effeminate stage actor known for playing parts of 'the suave, sophisticated Noel Coward type.'"

More from Queerplaces: "Leisen remembered: 'I made him play his part in Midnight as straight as he could; it's about the straightest part he ever did.' But his queerness came through nonetheless. When Leisen attempted to use O'Malley as a model for other players, one actor balked because 'he didn't want to get established as that kind of faggoty character.'

Playing a smaller role in the film was Elaine Barrie. I found her IMDb biography fascinating. Her it is in toto: 

Elaine Jacobs was a 16-year-old high school student in New York in 1931 when she went to see the John Barrymore film Svengali (1931). From that moment, she later said, she fell in love with Barrymore and vowed that one day she would marry him, even going so far as to change her name to Elaine Barrie. A few years later she read in the newspaper that Barrymore was in a New York hospital due to an "illness" (he was actually undergoing one of his periodic "cures" for his severe alcoholism). She sent him an adoring fan letter asking for an interview, and Barrymore wrote back and granted her one. After that first interview she returned to see him every day for more "interviews", and when Barrymore was finally discharged from the hospital he moved into the Jacobs' family apartment in New York City. Barrymore's divorce from actress Dolores Costello was still not final, and Elaine was 30 years younger than Barrymore, and when the press discovered the situation, they had a field day. Barrymore took Elaine and her mother out to nightclubs, parties and theaters all over the city, with reporters and photographers in hot pursuit. The coverage of the pair was so extensive that in 1935 the Associated Press named Elaine (along with presidential candidate Alf Landon) as one of the people who made that year most interesting.

Barrie and Barrymore were finally married in 1936, and it turned out to be a stormy one. She appeared in one of his films and made two shorts (one of which, How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (1937), was made by low-rent exploitation legend Dwain Esper) capitalizing on her status as Barrymore's wife. She also co-starred with him on Broadway and in several radio dramas. However, Barrymore's heavy drinking and serial infidelity resulted in several trial separations, and they finally divorced in 1940.

After the divorce Barrie wrote a book about her life with Barrymore, "All My Sins Remembered", and took a job at a New York brokerage firm. In the early 1950s she and her mother went to Haiti for a vacation, and they wound up staying there for nine years, developing a successful business exporting straw hats and handbags to high-end retail stores in the US. However, the worsening and dangerous political climate in Haiti resulted in their returning to New York in 1963. A few years later she and her mother moved the business and their residence to Trinidad. After her mother died, Elaine returned to the US.

Midnight has everything going for it: screenplay, direction, cast, art direction and editing. It might be selling the film short to call it a terrific screwball comedy, it’s a terrific film, period.

Could it have been better? 

Perhaps.

Originally cast to play Eve was Barbara Stanwyck who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Make no mistake about it, Colbert was excellent but Stanwyck was in another league (for more on her comedy bona fides see The Lady Eve (1941) Sturges, Ball of Fire (1941) Hawks and Christmas in Connecticut (1945) Godfrey, to name a few). 

But Midnight it too good to indulge in what-might-have-beens. In the tradition of the best screwballs it manages to be both smart and silly with a surprisingly sophisticated screenplay and a wonderful cast that can demonstrate acting chops while being a little bit wacky. A redoubtable supporting cast also features.

Barrymore steals every scene he’s in, but then he is Barrymore so what do you expect? Colbert is no Stanwyck but then who is and she is after all, not exactly chopped liver. Ameche proves to be charming, handsome and possessive of deft comic timing.

The city of Paris is also a co-star and here is further evidence of the magic of Hollywood for, of course Midnight was filmed at Paramount Studios though some actual (and occasionally delicious) shots of the real city of light are interspersed. 

Midnight was released in the United States in March, 1939. Tensions were raising in Europe but there were faint hopes that war could be avoided, and a strong belief that the U.S. would stay out of the next conflagration. Midnight thus very much captures the late period between the wars when one could still try to convince oneself that all the nastiness would remain confined to Germany and even there might soon die out.

Midnight was a film of its time but one that is just as funny today. Damn good fun.

Christmas Films Have Been on my Menu of Late, With More to Come

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The Happiest Season joins other Christmas classics.

Tis the season for holiday films. They are plentiful these days with Hallmark, Netflix and other stations and streaming services cranking them out by the dozen with increasing frequency. Most are sappy, facile and overly sentimental. If you want to watch a good Christmas-themed movie it’s better to stick with the classics as I’ve been doing this past week (with a notable exception). Here’s a brief look at what I’ve been watching and what’s still on tap.

Meet John Doe (1941) Capra, one of director Frank Capra’s trinity of great films (along with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life) though it barely qualifies as holiday fare. The final fifteen minutes take place on Christmas Eve. There’s passing reference to the birth of Jesus, but nary a word about Santa or gift-giving. Not a carol is heard. But I still wait until December before watching it. Doe is the story of a hobo (Gary Cooper) who is used by a columnist (Barbara Stanwyck) to act as a non-existent person who claims that he’ll jump off city hall on Christmas Eve to protest social injustice. As a result her paper's circulation goes through the roof. More that that an entire social movement about truly loving thy neighbor is inspired which an unscrupulous businessman (Edward Arnold) tries to exploit to begin a fascist regime with him as führer. For me it’s Cooper’s best role and another in a career of gems by Stanwyck. The supporting cast, led by James Gleason, is superb.

Happiest Season (2020) DuVall. What have we here? A recently made Christmas film that’s actually quite good? It is in many ways typical of the new formulaic Christmas film but unlike the others it has a smart screenplay, good direction and an excellent cast. It’s a good movie but for it’s genre it’s an absolute gem. Kristen Stewart (as Abby) and Mackenzie Davis (as Harper) play lesbian lovers who go to spend Christmas with Davis’ family. Ahh but Harper hasn’t come out to her folks yet and with her father (Vincent Garber) set to launch a mayoral campaign this is going to be awkward. Mary Holland (who also wrote the screenplay) as the wacky younger sister and Dan Levy as Abby’s best friend are scene stealers. The cast also includes Aubrey Plaza, Mary Steenburgen, Alison Brie and Ana Gasteyer. Despite a one-dimensional character, a plot contrivance and an over-the-top scene, Happiest Season is a success and belongs with the best of holiday fare.

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) Sturges. It begins and ends on Christmas Eve but it also has barely anything to do with the holiday. Creek is part of the incredible run of films that Preston Sturges wrote and directed from 1940-1944. How he slipped it by the censors is still a mystery to many. The nebbish Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) is madly in love with the young and vivcasiou Trudy Kockenlocker. One night she goes to a dance with soldiers who will the next day depart for the front. In the process she hits her head and thus doesn’t remember getting married or impregnated. Absent any clue who the new hubby is, Norval does the honorable thing, but complications aplenty ensue as does hilarity. Diana Lynn as Trudy’s wisecracking sister and William Demarest as her irascible father are both scene stealers.

Remember the Night (1940) Leisen is another vehicle for Stanwyck, this time co-starring  Fred MacMurray as John Sargent. The latter is a prosecuting attorney who’s bent on seeing Stanwyck’s character, Lee Leander, in the hoosegow for shoplifting. But a holiday recess is called and events lead to Sargent taking Leander home to Indiana for a cozy country Christmas with his mom, maiden aunt and a cousin. It’s all sweet, innocent fun with an inevitable love story in the middle. A real charmer.

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) Koster. By rights this movie is too religious for my tastes but it’s such a beguiling tale that I find it irresistible. How do you not like a picture in which Cary Grant plays an angel? Dudley (Grant) is an angel sent to help a bishop (David Niven) who is wrestling with materialism and the desire to have an ostentatious cathedral (is there any other kind?) built for his flock. Loretta Young is the titular wife and she’s as lovely as ever. Dudley — hardly a surprise — falls for her. But there are rules in heaven…. Monty Wooley as a sherry-loving professor adds to the film’s delights, as does our old friend James Gleason.

Tonight I’ll be watching A Christmas Carol (1951) Hurst. This is my favorite cinematic version of the story, in large part due to Alistar Sim’s performance as Ebenezeer Scrooge. He is the perfect miser and later the perfect repentant. It's an economic telling of the story but nothing crucial is omitted.

Tomorrow will be my almost annual (have missed it a few times) viewing of It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) Capra. I can practically recite the movie from memory. Suffice to say I recommend it highly to anyone who hasn’t yet seen it.

Friday I’ll be enjoying a double feature leading off with A Christmas Tale (2008) Desplechin which I haven’t seen since it’s initial theatrical run. I thus can’t say too much about it now other than I wrote about it at the time and am looking forward to revisiting it. In the evening I’ll be watching Christmas in Connecticut (1945) Godfrey for at least the 16th year in a row (it may be as many as twenty). I have yet to tire of it. The cast is lead by Stanwyck in yet another Christmas film. This may be one of her better roles (which is really saying something given her impressive filmography). She plays a writer for a magazine who extolls the country life and raising a family (despite living in the city and being single). Her boss (Sidney Greenstreet) insists she host a navy hero (Dennis Morgan) -- who survived weeks at sea after a submarine attack -- for Christmas at her country home. What a pickle! She navigates in and out of trouble as laughs and romance ensue.

Christmas Eve day I’ll finish my Yuletide film marathon with The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) Keighley. This used to be a Christmas staple for me but I finally grew weary of it. After a few years hiatus it’s back on the menu. Bette Davis co-stars along with Monty Wooley with appearances by Jimmy Durante and the deliciously lovely Ann Sheridan. It’s a familiar story to most having been done on the stage repeatedly for decades. It’s also jolly good fun.