1942 - YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, Cagney brillantly plays George M. Cohan

James Cagney usually remembered for gangster roles had been a "song and dance" man in his early days in show business.  He can be seen in the Busby Berkley film Footlight Parade performing with lead footed Ruby Keeler.  Yankee Doodle Dandy is the high point in the dancing part of his career.  This film is very loosely based story on the legendary Broadway performer George M. Cohan with Cohan's best songs integrated into the plot.

Made during World War II, Yankee Doodle Dandy is an extremely patriotic film with the emphasis on extremely.  As much as it spotlights Cagney's musical numbers there is an awful lot of cornball flag waving throughout the film which you kind of have to roll with.  Still Cagney dominates the film with his great performance and that kind of weird stiff dance style he had.

 

The film was directed by ace studio director Michael Curtiz. At his peak Curtiz could make a film in about every film genre be it swashbucklers, horror films, gangster films and in this case musicals.  Curtiz was aided by a superb production crew.  James Wong was a legendary cinematographer especially when working in black and white film.  The film was edited by George Amy.  Editors never get enough credit for pulling a film together.  But above all Michael Curtiz really moved this film along.  Each scene is very well paced.  It's nice to see a filmmaker who actually knows how to make a film.

 

The cast is from the familiar Warner Brother's stock company.  Walter Huston is Cagney's father, Joan Leslie (age 17) plays Cagney's wife, Rosemary DeCamp, George Tobias, S. Z. Sakall (aka Cuddles Sakall) and film director Richard Worfe as Cohen's business partner all show up.  This bunch was in a lot of Warner Brothers films in the 1930's and 40'a.  Yankee Doodle Dandy is certainly a high point in professional Hollywood film making.

The film was written by Robert Busckner and Edmund Joseph, the running time is 126 minutes.    

1943 - MY FAVORITE BLONDE, amusing Bob Hope comedy

Along with being one of Paramount's top comedy stars of the 1940's, Bob Hope had an equally successful career as a radio personality.  While on the radio show he apparently rhapsodized about classy and glamorous English actress Madeleine Carroll week after week. Sort of a pretend infatuation I guess.  Well maybe?

Someone got the bright idea to put Carroll and Hope together in a comedy.  The end result was one of Paramount's most successful films when it released.  Surprisingly Hope's comedic persona played off extremely well with the elegant Carroll.

 

The 1940's is kind of Bob Hope at the peak his career.  His comedic timing is so good that he can even play off scenes with a penguin and still get the laughs.  Madeleine Carroll is usually considered the first of Alfred Hitchcock's "cool blonde actresses."  She personified his idea of the sexy heroine.  The surprise in this film is that she is also very funny.

 

The plot which has British secret agent Carroll fighting off a German spy cell with the help of Bob Hope playing a vaudeville performer whose partner  just happens to be a penguin.  This is just an excuse to watch these two performers deliver the comedic goods.  The film isn't rolling down bust your gut funny but it is amusing.  Frankly they could have used more scenes with Hope and the penguin.

The film had comedy writers who were associated with Bob Hope on and off throughout his career, Don Hartman, Frank Butler, Melvin Frank and Norman Panama.  The running time is 78 minutes.

1942 - HOLIDAY INN, a good musical.

 A fairly good 1940's musical from Paramount which features two big stars, Bing Crosby who was one of the kings of the Paramount lot in the 1940's and Fred Astaire.  The film's female leads are okay but really didn't have what you would call a breakout career.  Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale are decent dancers but they don'ty measure up to Astaire's former partner Ginger Rogers.

Holiday Inn is such a light piece of fluff that the plot is practically nonexistent.  Bing wants to get out of the show business rat race, he proposes to Virginia Dale but she's in love with Fred and wants to continue with her career.  They break up and Bing buys an Inn which will only be open on holidays.  Bing meets Marjorie Reynolds who has one of those big Hollywood smiles and they sort of have a romance.  Re-enter Fred Astaire who has been dumped by Virginia Dale and is looking for a new dancing partner, he sets his sights on Marjorie Reynolds.  Will Bing win Marjorie back?

 

What this film really has going for it are the songs by Irving Berlin and the musical numbers under the direction of Mark Sandrich who had worked with Astaire during his famous RKO period with Ginger Rogers.  With the exception of a tasteless and cringe inducing black face number the film is for the most part an entertaining time.

 

 The film was written by Claude Binyon and Elmer Rice, the running time is 100 minutes.

1942 - ORCHESTRA WIVES, entertaining musical drama

Naive groupie Ann Rutherford falls for the rather dense trumpet player George Montgomery a member of the Glenn Miller Band which in this film is for some reason is called the Gene Morrison Band.  Instead of just sleeping with the guy and getting him out of her system she ends up marrying him instead.  This brings her into conflict with the other wives of the band who turn out to be a bunch of back stabbing women.  And so it goes with the plot of this film.

Ann Rutherford played Scarlett O'Hara's sister in Gone With The Wind and was in the popular Andy Hardy series as Mickey Rooney's girlfriend.  George Montgomery the trumpet player was never a big star but had a long career in B-movies.  The rest of the cast is interesting, glamour girl Carole Landis, Cesar Romero probably best remembered as The Joker in the Batman TV series, Jackie Gleason and especially the very talented Nicholas Brothers who dance up a storm in the final number.

Frankly, if it wasn't for the interesting cast and the great Glenn Miller music this film would probably be something of an ordeal to sit through.  The private lives of a touring big band musicians aren't that interesting or I should say as presented in this story not interesting at all.

 

Still the music is great.

Written by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware, the running time 98 minutes.

1942 - TORPEDO SQUADRON 8, 1958 - THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, two short films from famous directors

The stuff that shows up on YouTube never ceases to amaze.  Here are a couple of short films from John Ford and Orson Welles that finally saw the light of day for a general public.  

Torpedo Squadron 8 was filmed before The Battle of Midway.  The squadron was completely wiped out with the exception of one survivor.  Ford had the footage edited and personally presented to the families of the dead men by members of his photographic outfit.  The eight minute film is very John Ford mourning the loss of the men while celebrating the success of the Midway battle.  The film was shot on color 16mm film.

Probably one of the more fascinating finds is this television film The Fountain of Youth written and directed by Orson Welles.  As usual with Welles he takes a small budget and pulls off some interesting visual effects with it.  Welles narrates and appears throughout the film.  In many ways this short film is as interesting and innovative as any film he directed.  This was the pilot for a proposed television series that unfortunately never came together.

Torpedo Squadron 8, 7:46 minutes.

The Fountain of Youth, 28:38 minutes.

1942 - CASABLANCA, looking a little less this viewing.

Still a lot to enjoy about Casablanca but the film is an extremely slick piece of Hollywood story making during the golden age of studio production when everything was shot on a sound stage where everything could be completely controlled.

Considering this was originally an unproduced stage play, what Warner Brother's studios did with it is pretty amazing.  The is a product of a system that when it wanted to could bring first class artistic talent to a production.

The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson who had filmed The Maltese Falcon, The Invisible Man and Sergent York to name a few films.  Edeson was a guy skilled in black and white photography.  Ingrid Bergman was a beautiful woman but Edeson's photography makes her face glow with soft focus and shadow effects. 

The director was Michael Curtiz, one of the most talented film makers in Hollywood.  Curtiz was a skilled craftsman who understood how to get the most out of a film visually.  By the time Curtiz filmed Casablanca he had a stong understanding of how to tell a story with a camera.

Casablanca is also know for it's impressive cast.  Besides the three leads, the stock company of actors that Warner's assembled for the film was one of the best, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt and most importantly Claude Rains.

So what's the problem here?  Well the World War II propaganda stuff of the love story really date this film.  The viewer has to have a pretty decent understanding of some of the political aspects of that conflict.  References to Vichy France and Marshall Petain will probably go over almost every viewer's head today.  Also, the incessant propaganda that runs through out the film is as major a plot point as is the love story.

102 minutes.

1942 - ONE OF AIRCRAFT IS MISSING, very boring World War II film from the Archers

I like Powell and Pressburger as much as the next film nut, but this boring adventure film about a British bomber crew trapped in the occupied Netherlands is just a bunch of talk and inaction.

The film starts out good enough with the British Bomber "B" for Bertie flying into England and crashing into a tower.  It turns out that the crew had bailed out over the Netherlands and now has to find a way back to England.  That's about it for action after 10 minutes into this film.

The rest of the film has the bomber crew being hid by the brave Neherlandians (?) from the Germans.  The crew rides around on bikes, they go to church, the have a couple of good meals, they wear clogs and they talk and talk and talk and talk.

I doubt Powell and Pressburger fan Marty Scorsese will be showing up on a Criterion commentary track for this film anytime soon but you never know.

102 minutes.

1942 - ACROSS THE PACIFIC, the cast of The Maltese Falcon is reunited.

Humphrey Bogart is an undercover army officer on a slow boat to China Japan.  Also on board are Mary Astor and Sidney Greenstreet.  John Huston is the director and Arthur Edeson is the cinematographer which makes Across the Pacific a reunion of some of the major principals of The Maltese Falcon but this film is far below the class and quality of that one.

This is just another cookie cutter World War II film classed up with a good cast and director.  The first part of the film isn't that bad, with Bogart basically playing Sam Spade as he attempts to figure out what the  crew and passengers of a Japanese freighter are up to.  The last part of the film involves a plot to blow up the Panama Canal by some sneaky Japanese that is about as ridiculous as can be possible.

The film is full of racial stereotypes with buck toothed Japanese and Panamanian banana planters.  Greenstreet is the usual cultured slime ball working for the Japanese government and the whole thing was clearly filmed on fake jungle sets on the Warner Brother's lot. 

The film's high points are the romance between Astor and Bogart who are very good together, the photography of Arthur Edeson and some cool montage pieces from future director Don Siegel.  Other than that, Across the Pacific is really not deserving of much respect. 

97 minutes, screenplay by Richard Macaulay.

1942 - WENT THE DAY WELL? extremely fascinating British war propgranda film

British paratroopers arrive in a small English town during World War II, they are actually German saboteurs who are a vanguard for the Nazi invasion of Britain.

What we have here in Went The Day Well?  is nothing less than the plot to Die Hard which came out  46 years later.   This film sets up a nightmarish situation for ordinary small town British citizens and spins it into a very effective thriller. 

The film was produced by Ealing Studios who built their reputation on gentle comedies about English life like, The Lavender Hill Mob or The Man in the White Suit.  This film is extremely well directed by Alberto Cavalcanti and has some very clever Hitchcock like suspense situations as the British hostages try to escape from the Nazi saboteurs.

The film takes the traditional British stereotype of the lovable eccentric small town population and proceeds to really twist it around. An impressive film in the war propaganda genre.

92 minutes.

1942 - SABOTEUR, very good 40's Hitchcock spy thriller.

Hitchcock revisits some of the same plot situations and themes from his British classic The 39 Steps.

Hitchcock was unhappy with Saboteur.  He felt that he didn't work out the story and the film turned into a bunch of set pieces.  Hitchcock was also disappointed with the main leads of the films, Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, two actors who he thought weren't sufficiently charismatic enough to carry his film. 

60 years later Saboteur looks pretty damn good as a film.  This is an extremely well made and acted film and has lots of Hitchcock's humor and his very clever way setting up a suspense sequence. 

If the film lacks a strong story line and is mostly a lot of elaborate set pieces, these set pieces are excellent pieces of filmmaking, combining Hithcock's skill directing them, along with the technical  ability and expertise that Hollywood crews could bring to a production.

I would certainly not rate this as a lesser effort on Hitchcock's part, it's a much better film than Rebecca, Spellbound or Suspicion.

108 minutes, written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison and Dorothy Parker.

1942 - SEX HYGIENE, directed by John Ford

It's pretty easy to take cheap shots at the military's legendary VD film directed by John Ford, here it goes. 

The symbolism of the pool balls.

The film is presented as a lecture film being given to the troops so it has kind of surrealist approach using film within film to fracture the traditional narrative style.  There is a scene where our boys are in the mess hall shooting pool when one of them announces that he wants to have more fun than just sitting around shooting pool, Ford cuts to a closeup of the pool ball rolling ominously down the table.
Later we see the soldier stumbling out of what is obviously a "den of prostitution" as they used to say.  He picks up his already lit cigar that has been placed near a statue of a naked woman.

Future 1st TV Superman, George Reeves.

Cutting back to the film within a film, the narrator is a very solemn doctor who speaks in a very grave tone about VD, the doctor is actually played by the actor who would appear in They Were Expendable as the general giving John Wayne and Robert Montgomery their fighting orders.

There are lots of shots of medical personnel handling a diseased penis which are kind of gross and strangely homoerotic at times and they go on and on.

John Ford, hopefully not directing Sex Hygiene.

Clearly the point of Sex Hygiene was to scare the hell of soldiers about STD's.  The film does seem to recognize that soldiers do have sex, so it spends a lot of time reinforcing the necessity of getting treatment if something is wrong "down there."

It's very easy to be smug about a film over 60 years old, but the military was faced with the difficult task of somehow communicating about sexual diseases with the soldiers.  Obviously the fascination today is the involvement of the 5 time Academy Award winning director John Ford filming this.

30 minutes

1942 - THE DOVER BOYS AT PIMENTO UNIVERSITY OR THE RIVALS OF ROQUEFORT HALL & 1944 - HELL-BENT FOR ELECTION two short films by Chuck Jones

Two of animator Chuck Jones more interesting cartoons that are unlike anything he did for Warner Brothers. 

The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall is one of his funniest cartoons.  A spoof of The Rover Boys series of books about some morally upright young lads whose fiancee Dainty Dora Standpipe is kidnapped by the evil Dan Blackslide.

The animation is more stylized than usual for a Warner's cartoon.  This is a spoof of a boys own adventure series like The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew.  Very different from the typical Merrie Melodie cartoons that Warners was producing.  What really counts is that The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall is hilarious.

9 minutes.

. 

Hell Bent for Election is a campaign film that Jones made for the presidential campaign of 1944.  It's amazing how much of the same liberal vs conservative stuff is still being argued about even today.  The film was made at the early incarnation of the UPA group, the animation studio that specialized in stylized and minimalist backgrounds.  This is an excellent example of using film as a piece of propaganda.

Hell Bent for Election lays out its point of view very effectively using the metaphor of the modern democratic and rickety republican trains in a race to see who will win the presidential election. 

13 minutes