1934 - BRITISH AGENT - confused romance/thriller

Leslie Howard is the very British agent working to undermine the Russian Revolution.  He hopes to bring a more sympathetic government into power that will support the British during World War I.  Kay Johnson is a Russian revolutionary who Howard falls in love with.  Unbeknown to Howard, Johnson is a double agent who will betray Howard in order to advance the cause of the Communist Revolution.

This is one confusing mess of a film.  The screenplay is so convoluted it's impossible to tell if this film is pro Russian Revolution or anti Russian Revolution.

Kay Francis the love interest for Leslie Howard playing the Russian agent is an interesting choice.  She might have been a little miscast. Francis was from Oklahoma and she didn't even attempt a European accent.  Future "Joker" villain Caesar Romero from the original Adam West version of Batman is a diplomat working with Howard.  The rest of the cast is made up of  the usual Warner Brothers stock company.

The film was directed by filmmaker pro Michael Curtiz but even he couldn't do much with this confusing mess of story elements and mismatched actors to make it coherent.

The film was written by Laird Houston Doyle and Roland Pertwee, the running time is a short 81 minutes.

1934 - SIX OF A KIND, a comedy apparently.

 The same year as he directed the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup, Leo McCarey also directed this so called comedy.  Six of a  Kind was a box office success and apparently recieved good reviews from the film critics at the time.  Viewed today the film is a chore to sit through and the comedy situations don't strike me as particularly funny.

Well lets get on with the plot.  Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland are going on a second honeymoon to California.  In order to share expenses on the road trip, they team up with George Burns and Gracie Allen.  Somehow they also end up with money stolen from a bank which brings the last couple into the mix, "The Duchess" played by Alison Skipworth and "Sheriff Honest John Hoxley" who is none other that the legendary W.C. Fields.

Well time for the comedy bits.  Burns and Allen do their vaudeville act with Gracie Allen playing her usual idiot character to George Burns straight man.  Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland were kind of reliable 1930's comedians but the comedy situations they go through don't seem particularly funny especially one long sequence at The Grand Canyon.

 

Finally there is W.C. Fields as Sheriff Honest John Hoxley. You have to sit through almost the entire picture until he does his pool table shtick, a sketch he performed when he toured in vaudeville.  The routine is only about five minutes long but it is funny.  

 

The obvious lesson learned watching this film is that times have really changed when it comes to comedy.  

The film was written by Keene Thompson, Douglas MacLean, Walter DeLeon and Harry Ruskin.  A lot of writers for such a trifle of a film.  The running time is 62 minutes but seems like 620 minutes.

1934 - CRIME WITHOUT PASSION, a real weirdo of a film.

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur are chiefly remembered as the authors of The Front Page. However they were top writers in Hollywood and on Broadway.  For a while they co-directed and wrote a series of offbeat films.  Crime Without Passion was their first film and apparently they weren't that well versed in film making technique.  To the rescue came their cinematographer Lee Garmes who not only photographed the film but is listed as "associate director" in the credits

The film is full of wild editing and montage effects as well as some pretty over the top dialog. The story has velvet voiced Claude Rains as a sleezy attorney involved with two women.  Rains wants to get rid of one of his mistresses so he can take off to Europe with the other one.  This snowballs into a whole lot of craziness.

I guess as a mainstream commerical film, this film doesn't really come off but it is so off beat and original it's a lot of fun to watch.  Hecht and MacArthur apparently had enough sense not to push their story too much the film is a brisk 70 minutes.

70 minutes.

1934 - MAMA'S LITTLE PIRATE, an Our Gang short.

Championed by Leonard Maltin as the inspiration for The Goonies.  Mama's Little Pirate is just another version of Jack and the Beanstock. About the only thing these two films have in common is the search for treasure.  Sorry Leonard I think you might have got it wrong this time. 





18 minutes.

1934 - LILIOM, Fritz Lang fantasy film

If the plot of Liliom seems familiar it's because the story of an irredeemable wife beater (based on a play by Molnar) was also the same source material for Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Carousel.  Guess which version is better.

The director Fritz Lang who specialized in thrillers about criminal masterminds would have seemed the wrong choice for a film like this but he had experience with fantasy subjects with films like Die Nibelungen and The Weary Death.

 

 

Charles Boyer who usually played some sort of continental playboy is the low life carnival barker and he has to make a completely unsympathetic character interesting.  Even when he dies and goes to heaven he still doesn't seem much interested in reforming faced with the prospect of eternal damnation.

The film's best sequence,  Liliom's ascension to heaven was apparently singled out as a distraction from the plot because of the elaborate special effects that Lang used.  Watching it now this seems like an almost ridiculous criticism, the sequence is well done and actually quite restrained.

A good film and not a boring butt busting musical number to be found during the running time.

119 minutes, written by Robert Liebmann and Bernard Zimmer.

1934 - THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET, two poets fall in love

Be warned this drama is a love story between two poets. 

Incredibly the story of the romance between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett in this film seems mostly true.  Barrett was an invalid who began a correspondence with Robert Browning.  When they finally meet it was apparently love at first sight.  Barrett's father Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett forbid any of his 12 children to marry.  Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning secretly married and lived in Italy.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a very stodgy film from MGM.  It was based on a popular play so there is not a whole lot of camera movement in the film.  Everything is shot in Elizabeth Barrett's sitting room with her laying on a sofa for most of the running time not exactly exciting stuff.

What the film has going for it a very high level of acting from Norma Shearer, Frederic March and particularly Charles Laughton. 

Laughton is particular is fascinating to watch he makes it pretty clear that he has more than a fatherly interest in his daughter's love life, very creepy stuff.

110 minutes.

1934 - THE OLD FASHIONED WAY, starring Mr. Anti Everything, W.C. Fields

Probably the real auteur of most of the films he appeared in, W.C. Fields appears to be paying tribute to the traveling vaudeville and acting companies he started touring with when he was a teenager.  The Old Fashioned Way is a series of sketches about the theater with Fields playing himself as usual.

The Old Fashioned Way is based on a story by W.C, Fields who is in a nostalgic mood about small time acting and show business.  He lampoons actors staying at a boarding house and sticks it to small town stage struck citizens.  One woman in particular, attempts to break into show business performing "Gathering Up The Shells At The Seashore."  Overall though the film is a lot more gentle with these hicks than in some of the other Field's films.

Beside the usual Fields antics, the high points of The Old Fashioned Way are a performance of The Drunkard, an actual play about the evils of alcohol that was presented during the great temperance crusade in the United States.  The other highlight is Fields performing his juggling act (and he's pretty good) from his vaudeville touring days.

The Old Fashioned Way isn't really one of W.C. Fields comic masterpieces like The Bank Dick and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break,  but it's short and is worth a look especially for the excerpts from The Drunkard which was apparently a very popular play (the United States has had it's deep preachy righteous streak for a long time) and the juggling act.

71 minute.

1934 - THE BLACK CAT, strange and incoherent horror film

The Black Cat is another Universal horror film from the 1930's that is fairly well regarded for a film in that genre.  It has two of Universal's greatest horror stars.   Boris Karloff as Hjalmar Poelzig, the leader or a cult of devil worshipers  and Bela Lugosi as Dr. Vitus Werdegas,  Poelzig's nemesis.

Edgar G. Ulmer wrote and directed The Black Cat and to say it is a confusing film is an understatement.  The film has something to do with Lugosi trying to find out what happened to his wife and how Karloff is involved with her disappearance.  The film really seems to be about Ulmer indulging himself in filming lots of strange scenes but not really figuring out how to tie them all together with a story that makes sense.

The Black Cat is also an interesting study in the acting abilities of Bela  Lugosi and Boris Karloff.  Lugosi was primarily known for his interpretation of Dracula.  He certainly had the look down for that character. But as an actor he left a lot to be desired.  His Hungarian accent is as thick as mud and his acting is not so hot.  He borders on campy eye rolling hysteria throughout most of the film.   His limited range as an actor was a problem for him throughout his career.

Boris Karloff on the other hand, gives a very smooth and subtle performance as the cultivated sadist Poelzig.  His underplaying is very effective compared to Lugosi.  Like Lugosi, Karloff was stuck in the horror genre his entire career, but he always brought authority and conviction to his roles. 

If The Black Cat is a confusing mess of a film it's certainly a fascinating mess.  The sets are very cool and Karloff makes an interesting villain, whether he is mummifying his old girlfriends, torturing his wife or leading his devil cult in some kind of satanic mass.  Lugosi was not much of an actor but he certainly has a commanding presence.  Ulmer also has one amazing scene of a subjective camera wandering around Karloff's dungeon which is I hate to use the word but will is,  "poetic."

65 minutes.

1934 - THE THIN MAN, the not so classic 1930's comedy mystery

While drinking as much alcohol as humanly possible Nick and Nora Charles solve the murder mystery of The Thin Man.

This 1930's film mystery/comedy is looking mighty creaky now.  The women with their extremely platinum blond hair and eyebrows plucked to the point of almost nothingness, the art deco sets and the 1930's film technique make this film look pretty dated. The viewer has to sit through a lot of plot and character introduction as the film lays out all of the suspects before the actually solving of the mystery begins, and it's a chore. 

Finally the good stuff,  we arrive at a nightclub and William Powell as Nick Charles is demonstrating how to make the perfect martini to the bartender as his wife Nora Charles, played by Myrna Loy shows up.  Powell announces that he is on martini number 6 at which point she proceeds to catch up with him.  Powell attempts to solve the murder mystery, but the film is from this point on basically a collection of jokes about excessive drinking. 

The ever silly production code in action.

William Powell is very good as Nick Charles and he does have great screen chemistry with Myrna Loy, they made a number of films together along with this series, but that's about it for The Thin Man. 

Some fondly remembered classic films just don't hold up anymore, The Thin Man may be one of them.

93 minutes, written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich.

1934 - HOLLYWOOD PARTY, bizarre mess of a comedy and musical

No director has screen credit and the actual film credits are at the end not the beginning of the picture which must mean something about this thing.

The film is loaded with character actors and comedians, but the essential story is about the actor Jimmy Durante currently starring in a series of Tarzan like films, who needs to start wrestling real lions in his films for more realism.  Durante decides to throw a big Hollywood type party in order to impress a man who owns real African lions.  Kind of an amazing plot even for a comedy.

Well anyway all of these people show up for Durante's big party which involves elaborate musical numbers and some mediocre and very strange songs.  The Three Stooges have a small part, along with a host of other comics.  MGM hired Walt Disney to contribute a color cartoon and have Mickey Mouse appear for a few minutes.  The whole thing is really a surreal hodgepodge of stuff.  

The film is really about Jimmy Durante a vaudeville comedian who always made jokes about his large nose and  had a really overbearing personality, the guy was always on and never seemed to know how and when to restrain himself. 

Durante is an interesting contrast to Laurel and Hardy who also appear in a short comic sketch involving cracking raw eggs.  The sketch isn't particularly funny, but Laurel and Hardy know when to shut up and use their body movements and faces to make this situation seem funnier than it is. 

The film lost money when it was released, it was just to weird for an audience, watching it today I can certainly say that it is very weird all right,  76 minutes of weirdness.

1934 - EARL CARROLL'S MURDER AT THE VANITIES, asks the question, who the hell is Earl Carroll?

OK, Earl Carroll was a Broadway songwriter and producer who staged musical revues in New York and Los Angeles.  Apparently he was known for hiring lots of pretty chorus girls and dressing than in costumes that showed as much skin as possible.  Carroll was known for forcing women to audition for parts in his revues in the nude. Apparently a real classy guy.

Since having near naked women wasn't going to be enough to sell the film to the public,  Paramount decided to make a film of Earl Carroll's Vanities but must have realized that they needed to actually have a plot in the film.    Exactly why Paramount decided on a musical murder mystery will in itself probably always remain a mystery.

The director who had to deal with this mess was a studio guy names Mitchell Leisen.  He does a good job orchestrating the rather ridiculous musical numbers with the murder mystery.  Leisen also had to cope with some strange casting choices.  Jackie Oakie is the stage manager who is in a friendly rivalry with Victor McLaglen as the cop trying to solve the murders.  McLaglen usually played dumb Irish soldiers for John Ford, but in this picture he looks rather dapper in his tux and bowler hat.  Oakie was always an actor who didn't know how to keep himself under control, but he's not to bad in this film.

The main lead in the film is some Danish crooner named Carl Brisson who struggles to act about as much as he struggles to sing.  Brisson actually worked with Hitchcock on a couple of his silent films.

Probably what the film is known for today if it's known at all are a couple of the musical numbers.

The first "Sweet Marijuana" is kind of a ridiculous song with stereotypical dancers in flamenco costumes singing about how marijuana puts them to sleep!

The other number is some bizarre version of the Hungarian Rhapsody.  The number starts out with Liszt singing about how he would someday like to see his composition performed properly.

It then turns into an orchestral performance of the rhapsody, which then turns into Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing a swing version of it.

All of this foolishness ends with a Liszt lookalike coming out with a machine gun killing everyone.

 

When all is said and done and the murder mystery is solved and the chorus girls have put their clothes on.   Murder At The Vanities is pretty stupid stuff even for 1934.

Written by Carey Wilson, Joseph Gollomb, Sam Hellman and Jack Cunningham.  The running time is 89 minutes.

1934 - MAN OF ARAN, Flaherty's classic if suspect documentary

An acknowledged film classic, whatever that is.  Robert Flaherty lived and shot a lot of film for 2 1/2 years on the Aran Islands.  Considered a documentary at the time, the film was about people surviving in a very harsh north sea island environment off the coast of England.

As reviewers and film scholars looked into the film, it was apparent that Flaherty had recreated many of the scenes in the film.  The shark hunting sequence on the Atlantic Ocean had been completely staged. The growing food with seaweed scenes were apparently something that the islanders had abandoned years ago.  Even the family was phony, the husband, wife and son were not even related, they had been hand picked by Flaherty to play a "typical" Aran family unit.

 

What wasn't faked was the amount of danger Flaherty put the Aran islanders through while filming.  The scenes at sea are still amazing to watch and seeing people out rowing in boats with a hull that looks like it was made out of paper mache is an unnerving sight.

Flaherty's film making technique was to shoot lots of film and then watch it over and over looking for a story to emerge.  Slowly he would eliminate film footage as the basic story revealed itself to him during the editing process.  Unsurprisingly, the editor John Goldman got an additional credit on the film as a story consultant.   Goldman's editing used a lot of the techniques that Eisenstein and the Russians had pioneered with fast moving montages. 

The film had a lot of inaccuracies but Flaherty had a deeper purpose in mind.  Robert Flaherty was  a romantic.  He distrusted modern civilization and found it a corrupting influence on the human race.  Flaherty liked a more simpler, world where people lived and tested themselves against nature.  If he couldn't find sequences in his films to fit into his theme while filming, he ended up faking them.

Man of Aran is pretty spectacular to watch,  with amazing photography, incredible scenery and very exciting sequences, definitely on the required viewing list.

 76 minutes.

1934 - Sequel to "The Crowd" Vidor's OUR DAILY BREAD is a bunch of commie crap

During the Depression of the 1930's filmmaker King Vidor became interested in the supposed collective farm movement going on in the United States. He wrote a story about a group of people attempting to make a go of it on an abandoned farm.

 

Vidor took the story to MGM for financing and was rejected by that studio. This should hardly have been a surprise to him, since conservative MGM was not exactly receptive to Roosevelt's New Deal program
 

  

Raising money and investing some of his own, King Vidor filmed his story on a modest budget. He brought back his everyman characters from The Crowd, John and Mary Sims. He hired some top professionals like composer Alfred Newman to score the film and Joseph Mankiewicz to write the screenplay. The result was a disappointment, a poorly acted and written film with lame story telling and underdeveloped characters mouthing vaguely socialist sentiments.

Vidor seemed to be in love with the ideas of the farm collective. Unfortunately he failed to make the story interesting to the viewer. It's all here, the evil bankers the mean sheriff, the ridiculous good ethnic stereotypes, a man being pursued by an unfeeling legal system etc. The viewer also gets lots of scenes with the members of the commune tilling the fields which doesn't make for exciting cinema. Vidor even put in an "oh come on" blond bombshell character as a temptation to our socialist hero John Sims to leave the commune. Even with a short running time the film was an effort to sit through.

Only towards the end of the film does King Vidor the filmmaker finally show up. He stages an exciting scene where the commune must save the crops by putting in an irrigation system. What was so irritating about this film was the failure of the talent involved in to make an interesting film with some emotional content to involve the audience. Instead what we got was a bunch of mealy mouthed socialist garbage.

Written by King Vidor,  Elizabeth Hill and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the running time is 80 minutes.

1934 - The good old days in the South, John Ford's JUDGE PRIEST

Tough film to watch. The old south after the Civil War is a wonderful place where happy black people sit around sing spirituals and cook fried chicken for their white employers. Will Rodgers, the Garrison Keillor of his day plays folksy wise Judge Billy Priest. Sitting in his courtroom dishing out justice, Judge Priest solves the problems of a young southern couple thwarted in love because she comes from the "wrong side of the tracks." He also saves a wrongly convicted man from going to jail when he reveals that man to be a hero of the Confederacy.





The whole idea of a film celebrating the idealized southern lifestyle where blacks and whites know their place in a southern community is laughable. Towards the end of the film the town celebrates the southern Confederacy with a parade of waving Confederate flags thus entering a special fantasy world that ignores the whole reason the Civil War was ever fought.

John Ford was a director who usually needed to be kept somewhat under control or he would tend to run amok with lots of corny jokes and sentimental slop running throughout his films. Ford's famous visual style is not present in this film.