MEMORABLE FILMS OF THE FORTIES
John Howard Reid
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Copyright (c) 2011 by John Howard
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copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid. All rights reserved.
Enquiries:
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HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS NUMBER FIVE
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Other Books in the “Hollywood Classics” series:
1. New Light on Movie Bests
2. “B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West
5. Memorable Films of the Forties
6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s
7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program
8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Movie Entertainment
9. Hollywood Gold: Famous Films of the Forties and Fifties
10. Hollywood “B” Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills
11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics
12. These Great Movies Won No Hollywood Awards
13. Movie Mystery & Suspense
14. Movies International: America’s Best, Britain’s Finest
15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic
16. Hollywood Movie Musicals
17. “Hollywood Classics” Index Books 1-16
18. More Movie Musicals
19. Success in the Cinema
20. Best Western Movies
21. Great Cinema Detectives
22. Great Hollywood Westerns
23. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Cinema
24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies
25. Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24
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CinemaScope
One: Stupendous in Scope
CinemaScope Two: 20th
Century-Fox
CinemaScope Three: Hollywood Takes the Plunge
CinemaScope Four: M-G-M Movies Light Up the Screen
Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD: A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills
WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD
British Movie Entertainments on VHS and DVD
Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD
Music, Thrills, Mystery, Comedy and Suspense on Video and DVD
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A
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Ghosts (see Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein)
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1943)
B
Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940)
C
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
D
Drums Along the Amazon (see Angel on the Amazon)
E
F
G
H
I
In the Meantime, Darling (1944)
J
Joan Medford Is Missing (see House of Horrors)
L
M
N
Now and Forever (see Forever Amber)
O
Once Upon a Thursday (see Affairs of Martha)
P
Panic in the Streets (1950)
Q
S
Secret Agent (see Enemy Agent)
T
a Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
To the Shores of Tripoli (1942)
U
W
Y
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Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Bud Abbott (Chick Young), Lou Costello (Wilbur Grey), Lon Chaney, Jr (Lawrence Talbot), Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Glenn Strange (Frankenstein’s monster), Lenore Aubert (Sandra Mornay), Jane Randolph (Joan Raymond), Frank Ferguson (McDougal), Charles Bradstreet (Dr Stevens), Howard Negley (Harris), Joe Kirk (man), Clarence Straight (man in armor), Harry Brown (photographer), Helen Spring (woman at baggage counter), Paul Stader (sergeant), Bobby Barber (waiter), George Barton, Carl Sklover, Joe Walls (men), and Vincent Price (voice of Invisible Man).
Director: CHARLES BARTON. Original screenplay: Frederic I. Rinaldo, Robert Lees and John Grant. Photography: Charles Van Enger. Film editor: Frank Gross. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun and Hilyard Brown. Set decorators: Russell A. Gausman and Oliver Emert. Costumes: Grace Houston. Music: Frank Skinner. Special photographic effects: David S. Horsley and Jerome H. Ash. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Make-up sculptor: Chris Mueller. Hair styles: Carmen Dirigo. Camera operator: Robert Pierce. Music orchestrations: David Tamkin. Script supervision: Bud Abbott. Assistant director: Joseph E. Kenny. Sound recording: Leslie I. Carey and Robert Pritchard. Producer: Robert Arthur.
Copyright 8 September 1949 (in notice: 1948) by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York release at Loew’s Criterion: 28 July 1948. U.S. release: July 1948. U.K. release (through J. Arthur Rank’s General Film Distributors): 7 November 1949. Australian release: 25 November 1948. U.S. length: 83 minutes. U.K. length: 79 minutes. Australian length: 5,642 feet. 63 minutes.
U.K. and Australian release title: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE GHOSTS.
SYNOPSIS: Two bungling shipping clerks (helped? by the Wolf Man) tangle with Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster.
NOTES: Some sources cite the U.S. running time as 92 minutes. This is incorrect. The TV print which seems in every way complete runs 83 minutes. The film was cut in both the U.K. and Australia by the Film Censors, both of whom also insisted on the title change. “Frankenstein” was a dirty word in Australia in 1948 as all so-called “Horror films” at that time were completely banned. Negative cost: $800,000.
COMMENT: It’s amazing how few contemporary critics appreciated Abbott and Costello. They were generally dismissed with a sneer. The fact that some of their films had quite novel plots (The Little Giant, The Time of Their Lives) as well as a high level of verbal and visual wit was usually overlooked or disregarded. Abbott and Costello were irredeemably “lowbrow”. Even at the conclusion of an otherwise favorable review of Meet Frankenstein, Lionel Collier can sum up that the comedians provide plenty of entertainment “if you are unsophisticated enough to enjoy them.”
Fortunately the public took very little notice of critics in the 40’s. Meet Frankenstein restored Abbott and Costello’s flagging careers, putting them right back with the top ten money-making stars.
Today Meet Frankenstein is justly regarded as one of their best films — if not their masterpiece. For once director Charles T. Barton (a longtime friend and former assistant of William A. Wellman) has really risen to the occasion handling both the comedy and the horror so effectively as to rouse the ire of both the U.K. and Australian censors. Exactly twenty minutes were lopped from Australian prints. Meet Frankenstein must hold the record for the most mutilated U.S. film ever put into Australian theatrical release.
As Jim Mulholland comments: “One of the film’s chief assets is that the horror sequences are played completely straight, leaving the comedy to the comedians… Meet Frankenstein is the best satire on horror movies ever made.”
Production values are absolutely first-class. It is not only Barton’s deft direction that keeps the laughs and the thrills coming at a marvelous pace, but the skilled film editing, atmospheric photography, creepy sets, and mood-enhancing music scored and directed by Frank Skinner; while even by 2004 standards, the make-up and special effects are often stunning.
For another fascinating Abbott and Costello offering, see Hold That Ghost.
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William Bendix (Biff Koraski), Helen Walker (Joyce Stuart), Dennis O’Keefe (Jeff Reardon), John Loder (Cyril North), George Cleveland (Roderick Stuart), Janet Lambert (Alice), James Flavin (Sergeant Wiggins), Arthur Hunnicutt (Arkie), Willard Jilson (Handsome), Herbert Evans (Michael), William Forrest (Colonel Hart), John Abbott (salesman), John Burch (Burch), Emmett Vogan (Dr French).
Director: ALLAN DWAN. Screenplay: Charles Rogers, Wilkie Mahoney and Ted Sills from an adaptation by Edward E. Seabrook and Tedwell Chapman of an original story by Fred Guiol. Photography: Charles Lawton Jr. Music director: Lud Gluskin. Film editor: Richard Heermance. Art director: Joseph Sternad. Costumes: Odette. Set decorations: Edward G. Boyle. Make-up: Ray Heinz. Assistant to the producer and supervising film editor: Grant Whytock. Assistant director: John Burch. Sound editor: Ted Bellinger. Sound: Frank Webster. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Edward Small.
Copyright 10 July 1944 by Edward Small Productions, Inc. Released through United Artists. U.S. release: 4 August 1944. New York release at the Globe: 25 October 1944. U.K. release: 6 November 1944. Australian release: 5 April 1945. Sydney release: 23 March 1945 (Plaza). Original running time: 86 minutes. Australian release length: 7,290 feet (81 minutes). U.S. running time: 80 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: War-time Sydney. Two marines on leave battle for the affections of Helen Walker (and who can blame them?)…
COMMENT: Though highly regarded in auteur circles, Allan Dwan has always impressed me as a Hollywood hack who churned out routine films by the score, with an occasional out-of-the-rut item like Driftwood and Silver Lode.
Abroad with Two Yanks is typical: Unamusing, elemental slapstick directed with professional smoothness but (outside of a single shot — Bendix and O’Keefe seen in a distorting mirror) a total lack of wit and sparkle. In fact the director’s touch throughout is relentlessly heavy-handed. Even his pacing is slow.
Admittedly, Dwan had little to work with. The script is a tired and dated affair with forced slapstick and timeworn gags which may have sporadically amused highly unsophisticated audiences in 1944, but which any kind of audience nowadays will find a painful experience.
The acting is as broad as the direction is over-emphatic, with O’Keefe and Bendix hamming it up for all they’re worth. The support cast — aside from the attractively costumed Helen Walker, who sparkles animatedly as the heroine — is nothing to write home about. In his early scenes, John Loder makes a game but unconvincing attempt at an Aussie accent, while George Cleveland makes an even more inept try at a Scotch. The only other role of any consequence is the sergeant, exaggeratedly played by James Flavin.
As for the other credits, someone should have told art director Joseph Sternad that Sydney’s streets are not adorned with above-ground fire hydrants. And as for the initial arrival in Sydney with the band playing a welcome medley of U.S. Marines and Waltzing Matilda — and a kangaroo conveniently on hand at the wharf — really, boys! And did no-one ever tell you that few if any Australian families have servants of any kind, let alone butlers in livery? The locale looks about as much like Sydney as Tipperary resembles Los Angeles.
Charles Lawton’s bright cinematography is wasted on a rubbishy vehicle like this. Other credits, however are appropriately undistinguished.
For an “A” feature, production values are rather moderate.
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Loretta Young (Dr Wilma Tuttle), Robert Cummings (Warren Ford), Wendell Corey (Lieutenant Ted Dorgan), Sam Jaffe (Dr Romley), Douglas Dick (Bill Perry), Suzanne Dalbert (Susan Duval), Sara Allgood (Mrs Conner), Mickey Knox (Jack Hunter), Francis Pierlot (Dr Vinson), Ann Doran (Miss Rice), Bill Mauch (Harry Brice), Carole Mathews (waitress), George Spaulding (Dean Rhodes), Eric Alden, John Bishop (detectives), Frank Darien (janitor), Bill Perrott (student), Frances Sandford (waitress), Jim Davies (deputy), Al Ferguson (judge), Bess Flowers (woman deputy), Charles Williams (Dorgan’s assistant), Henry Travers (Romley’s assistant).
Director: WILLIAM DIETERLE. Screenplay: Ketti Frings. Based on the 1947 novel Be Still My Love by June Truesdell. Photography: Milton Krasner. Film editor: Warren Low. Art directors: Hans Dreier and Earl Hedrick. Set decorators: Sam Comer and Grace Gregory. Costumes: Edith Head. Music score: Victor Young. Process photography: Farciot Edouart. Special photographic effects: Gordon Jennings. Make-up: Wally Westmore. Rats trained and supplied by Curly Twiford. Assistant director: Richard McWhorter. Sound recording: Don Mckay and Walter Oberst. Producer: Hal B. Wallis.
Copyright 14 January 1949 by Paramount Pictures Inc. New York release at the Paramount: 12 January 1949. U.S. release: 14 January 1949. U.K. release: March 1949. Australian release: 16 June 1949. Sydney release at the Victory: 27 May 1949. 9,243 feet. 103 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Woman college professor accidentally kills student on the make…
COMMENT: No producer in 40’s Hollywood guided such a formidable collection of permanent classics as Hal B. Wallis: All This and Heaven Too, The Sea Hawk, The Letter, The Sea Wolf, Sergeant York, The Maltese Falcon, High Sierra, The Strawberry Blonde, King’s Row, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Now, Voyager, Casablanca, Watch on the Rhine, Saratoga Trunk, Sorry Wrong Number…
One of Wallis’s talents was the ability to select the right director for the script — and then to get the most out of him! The Accused while it is not one of his major films, is an excellent example of this technique.
Ketti Frings at this stage was a writer with primarily a radio and stage background (though she had written the 1940 novel Hold Back the Dawn). This training shows in her screenplay for The Accused. If you close your eyes you can follow the story perfectly well, for it’s written like a radio serial — very skillfully written with essential facts put over with power and subtlety, but it’s purely verbal. The script has been wholly conceived in aural terms rather than visual.
With such a scenario on his hands, what does a producer do? 99% would call in another writer — but not Hal Wallis. He assigns the script to a director with a noted visual flair — William Dieterle — who has given the film such a wonderful sheen and style (aided by atmospheric photography and deft film editing). Notice how deep focus framings are inventively utilized for maximum dramatic impact, how the lighting appropriately changes from the chilling murky grey of the flashback sequences to the contrasting brightness of the campus episodes, how long takes are adroitly intercut with reaction shots. The director builds up what is essentially a synthetic Loretta Young vehicle into a psychological thriller of considerable suspense and class. Admittedly, too much footage is still taken up with the familiar Young heart-burnings and hysteria (she even has a pervading off-camera commentary as well), but many of the sequences (particularly those with Sam Jaffe and Wendell Corey) deliver a taut, tense, powerful impact.
While the conclusion is somewhat abrupt and predictable, it’s a movie that moves all the way thanks to Dieterle’s frequent changes of set, scene and camera set-ups, and his skilled use of tracking shots and similar fluid camera movements.
For all its aural orientation, the dialogue has a realistic edge to it which fine actors like Wendell Corey know how to deliver with the right amount of intensity. Corey has a tailor-made part, and receives excellent support from character players like Sam Jaffe, Sara Allgood, Bill Mauch (one of the Mauch twins from The Prince and the Pauper), Francis Pierlot, Al Ferguson, Charles Williams and Henry Travers (yes, Henry Travers making a surprise unbilled appearance as Jaffe’s assistant).
Wallis has dressed The Accused in great production values, including sets, locations, and a vast crowd of extra players, among whom Bess Flowers can be spotted as a wardress at court. She even has one word of dialogue — “Sure.”
“I wasn’t very happy with Wallis,” Dieterle told Tom Flinn. “He used me to try to make something out of very second-rate material.”
The Accused is an intriguing example of that fascinating and entertaining “something”.
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Ingrid Bergman (Emille Gallatin), Warner Baxter (Adam Stoddard), Susan Hayward (Hester), Fay Wray (Molly), Helen Westley (Cousin Philippa), June Lockhart (Vance), Pietro Sosso (Otto), and as older boys: Richard Denning (Jack), Johnny Downs (David), Robert Shaw (Chris), Charles Lind (Phillip); as younger boys: Billy Ray (Jack), Stephen Muller (David), Wallace Chadwell (Chris), Bobby Walberg (Phillip), Gilbert Emery (Dr Lane), Renie Riano (photographer), Clarence Muse (Sam).
Director: GREGORY RATOFF. Screenplay: William Hurlbut and Michael Blankfort. Based on the 1940 novel Legacy by Charles Bonner. Photography: J. Peverell Marley. Film editor: Francis D. Lyon. Production designer: David Hall. Art director: Rudolph Sternad. Set decorator: Robert Bristol. Costumes designed by David Kidd, executed by Cola. Music score composed by W. Frank Harling, directed by Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Assistant director: Norman Deming. Associate producer: Gordon S. Griffith. Producer: Robert Sherwood.
Copyright 18 February 1941 by Columbia Pictures Corp. New York release at the Radio City Music Hall: 27 March 1941 (ran one week). U.S. release: 18 February 1941. U.K. release: 4 August 1941. Sydney release at the State: 3 October 1941. Australian release: 9 October 1941. 9 reels. 7,215 feet. 80 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Couple hire French governess to look after their four sons. Wife dies…
COMMENT: A boring and screamingly dull women’s picture, enlivened only by the get-up-and-go of Susan Hayward’s incredible impersonation of a mindlessly evil vamp. Her tenth film appearance and her first characteristic role — she begged Ratoff for the part.
Mind you, her performance does not carry with it the smallest atom of conviction — and its realism is further vitiated by her ludicrous hair style and general gawkiness of figure. It’s obvious that photographer Peverell Marley has taken no great pains with her. (Marley’s particular forte was making plain girls look glamorous). Instead he has lavished all his attention on Miss Bergman, who is made to shine like a statue of modest and radiant womanhood.
Adam Had Four Sons, the second of Bergman’s U.S. films, re-enforced the screen image established by her first, Intermezzo, also directed by Ratoff. She followed with Rage in Heaven, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, Spellbound, Saratoga Trunk, The Bells of St Mary’s and Notorious — a remarkable succession of hit films — not a single boxoffice dud among the lot of them — until her luck changed completely with Arch of Triumph (1948), the even more disastrous Joan of Arc, the equally unpopular Under Capricorn (Hitchcock’s only boxoffice failure), and finally Stromboli and the affair Rossellini put paid to the first decade of her Hollywood career.
For Ingrid Bergman, Adam Had Four Sons was the stepping-stone to glory. For co-star Warner Baxter, it was almost the end. He made but one more “A” feature, Lady in the Dark. After playing Adam he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Thereafter he was signed by Columbia for the low-budget Crime Doctor series which he continued until his death in 1951. His performance as Adam is colorless, to say the least.
The other players are rather overshadowed by the three principals. Fay King Kong Wray has a particularly small and unimportant role, but Helen Westley is effective in her brief scenes as the matriarchal Philippa. Of the sons, Richard Denning and Johnny Downs come off the best. The others make little impression.
As in Intermezzo, Ratoff’s direction is slow, heavy-handed and ruthlessly routine. Ratoff is undoubtedly the most uneven director who ever handled a megaphone, his work varying from the heights of Rose of Washington Square, the style and flair of Irish Eyes Are Smiling, the inventively quirky Where Do We Go Form Here?, the suspenseful Moss Rose and the virtuoso brilliance of Black Magic, to the mediocre The Corsican Brothers; to the wasted opportunities of The Heat’s On and The Men in Her Life; to the downright crass and embarrassing Song of Russia. The remarkable thing is that Ratoff’s dizzying ups and downs follow no discernible pattern. All we can say with confidence is that Adam Had Four Sons is not one of his livelier efforts. In fact, he does nothing. He just plonks the camera down and lets the players give us full-blast all the patriotic platitudes (“It’s a great privilege to be living in America”) and sentimental clichés (“I am afraid I will have to let you go”) of a trite and familiar script.
Aside from Marley’s soft photography and some attractive sets, the other behind-the-camera credits are equally unimpressive. The film editor could certainly have trimmed a lot of the footage; the music score is pedestrian; the montages strictly routine.
The film was produced by Robert C. Sherwood (not the playwright Robert E. Sherwood) on a very modest budget.
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Marsha Hunt (Martha Lindstrom), Richard Carlson (Bill Sommerfield), Spring Byington (Mrs Sophie Sommerfield), Marjorie Main (Mrs McKissick — cook at Sommerfield’s), Virginia Weidler (Miranda Sommerfield), Allyn Joslyn (Joel Archer — publisher), Sara Haden (Mrs Peacock), Margaret Hamilton (Guinevere — maid), Melville Cooper (Dr Clarence Sommerfield), Frances Drake (Sylvia Norwood), Barry Nelson (Dannie O’Brien), Ernest Truex (Llewellyn Castle), Cecil Cunningham (Mrs Castle), William B. Davidson (Homer Jacell), Inez Cooper (Mrs Jacell), Aubrey Mather (Justin Peacock), Grady Sutton (Peacock, Junior), Jody Gilbert (Hedwig), Robin Raymond (Juanita), Gloria Gaye, Mae Roberts, Virginia Tallent (Castle’s daughters), Raymond Hatton (guard), Buddy Messinger (butcher boy), Ralph Volkie (garbage man), Ralph McCullough (postman), Edgar Dearing (motor cop), Dave Willock (milkman).
Director: JULES DASSIN. Original story and screenplay: Isobel Lennart and Lee Gold. Photography: Charles Lawton. Film editor: Ralph Winters. Supervising art director: Cedric Gibbons. Set decorator: Edwin B. Willis. Costumes: Howard Shoup. Music: Bronislau Kaper. Sound recording: Douglas Shearer. Producer: Irving Starr.
Copyright 7 July 1942 by Loew’s Inc. Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Australian release: 28 January 1943. Sydney release at the St James: 20 January 1943. 7 reels. 66 minutes. 5,984 feet.
Shooting title and U.K. release title: ONCE UPON A THURSDAY.
SYNOPSIS: Maid writes scandalous best-seller.
NOTES: Jules Dassin worked at MGM from 1941 to 1946 (see Reunion in France) before joining up with producer Mark Hellinger on Brute Force and The Naked City. He then made Thieves’ Highway at Fox — his last U.S. film before the blacklist forced him to Europe and eventual world-wide fame with Rififi.
COMMENT: The Affairs of Martha is hardly characteristic of Dassin’s work. Nevertheless, his direction is a great deal more assured than on his first feature Nazi Agent. In fact, for a second feature (in both senses of the adjective), his direction is quite polished. Admittedly he is helped by efforts of a large, hard-working and agreeable assembly of players, headed by the pleasantly unassuming, mildly vivacious Marsha Hunt and taking in some fine character people including the redoubtable wicked witch Margaret Hamilton and “Z”-western stalwart, Raymond Hatton. Even when the plot slows down occasionally and dialogue threatens to take over, the film is always attractive to look at. Unlike Nazi Agent it has been treated all over with MGM’s best production gloss — bright photography, attractive sets and costumes, smooth film editing — and Dassin’s deft, stylish direction. Only the ponderously Mickey Mouse music score strikes an off-note. On the whole, an entertaining, enjoyable domestic comedy which has dated surprisingly well.
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Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Maria Montez (Amara), Yvette Duguay (Amara, aged 10), Jon Hall (Ali Baba), Scotty Beckett (Ali, aged 12), Turhan Bey (Jamiel), Kurt Katch (Hulagu Khan), Andy Devine (Abdullah), Frank Puglia (Cassim), Moroni Olsen (Hassan), Fortunio Bonanova (Old Baba), Harry Cording (Mahmoud), Chris-Pin Martin (fat thief), Ramsay Ames (Nalu), Noel Cravat (Mongol captain), Jimmy Conlin (little thief), Pedro Regas (thief spy with V-shaped scar on left cheek), Betty Lorraine, Karen Knight (handmaidens), Robert Barron (Mongol captain), Ethan Laidlaw, Hans Herbert, Dick Dickinson, Joey Ray, John Calvert, David Heywood (thieves), Eric Braunsteiner, Jerome Andrews, Alex Goudovitch, Ed Brown, George Martin, Dick D’Arcy (dancers), Rex Evans (Arab major domo), Belle Mitchell (nursemaid), Harry Woods, Dick Alexander, Art Miles (Mongol guards), Alphonse Berge (tailor), Charles Wagenheim (barber), Wee Willie Davis (Arab giant), Norman Willis, Pierce Lyden, Don McGill (guards), James Khan (Persian prince), Theodore Patay (Arab priest), Angelo Rossitto (Arab dwarf), George Macready.
Directed by ARTHUR LUBIN from a screenplay by Edmund L. Hartmann, based upon the story in The Arabian Nights. Photographed in Technicolor by George Robinson. Music score composed by Edward Ward. Technicolor color consultants: Natalie Kalmus and William Fritzsche. Technicolor photographer: W. Howard Greene. Art directors: John B. Goodman and Richard H. Riedel. Set decorations: Russell A. Gausman and Ira S. Webb. Music director: Edward Ward. Song “Forty Thieves and One For All” by J. Kerin Brennan (lyrics) and Edward Ward (music). Costumes: Vera West. Make-up: Jack Pierce. Dances staged by Paul Oscard. Dialogue director: Stacy Keach. Special photographic effects: John P. Fulton. 1st Assistant director: Charles S. Gould. 2nd Assistant director: Judd Cox. Technical advisor: Jamiel Hasson. Sound recording: Bernard B. Brown. Sound technician: Robert Pritchard. Producer: Paul Malvern.
Copyright 31 December 1943 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York release at the Palace: 15 March 1944. U.S. release: 14 January 1944. U.K. release: 13 March 1944. Australian release: 14 August 1944. Sydney release at the State: 9 August 1944. 10 reels. 87 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: The patriots of old Bagdad, under the leadership of Ali Baba Junior, throw off the Mongol yoke.
COMMENT: Maria Montez was a unique personality. Fortunately, Universal soon realized this. For her 9th film, Arabian Nights, the studio opened its door to threestep Technicolor for the first time. The experiment was such a success there followed White Savage, Ali Baba, Cobra Woman, Gypsy Wildcat, Sudan and Pirates of Monterey in rapid succession. Ali Baba is one of the best of these — a carefully crafted, expansive production that does full justice to her talents and her appeal. Filmed on a fairly lavish scale, with vast sets and on-location lensing with lots of colorfully costumed extras milling around, plenty of action, directed at a nifty pace with agreeable camera angles and an occasionally (yet very effectively) fluid camera style, underscored by loads of Universal-type “B” music, the whole adds up to a movie buff’s — and especially a Maria Montez buff’s — delight. She is allowed to do her famous impersonating-her-servant-girl turn as well as her usual royal princess bit. Our one real criticism is that the plot prevents her making an early entrance. We have to wait almost two whole reels!
Quite apart from Miss Montez, the superb sets and superlative exquisite color photography make Ali Baba a visual delight. Oddly enough, the cave itself with its obviously paper-mâché opening rocks and its disappointing lack of all the interior opulence we might expect, is the one real let-down. All other sets are as richly dressed as the opulent costumes, while the attractive presence of Miss Montez herself is made even more entrancing by skilful make-up, costuming and hair styles. All are rapturously, ravishingly photographed in rich, pastel-toned colors.
The support players are not much — Mr Hall obviously too mature for his part, and a second-rate swashbuckler at that; Frank Puglia and Kurt Katch hardly the most crafty or charismatic pair of villains; Andy Devine a most unlikely thief (though at least we are spared his customary over-indulgence in low comedy relief); Turhan Bey a lackluster accomplice. At least they don’t detract attention from Miss Montez! (It is the juveniles who keep us waiting — though Master Beckett and Miss Duguay are presentable enough — their footage was re-used in its entirety in the 1965 remake.)
OTHER VIEWS: Stylishly directed by Universal contract director Arthur Lubin, this is an excellent kiddies’ matinee film — long on action, short on romance.
Edmund L. Hartmann’s script makes considerable changes in the original story, turning it into a routine desert adventure. Still, it is a spirited enough tale, directed with dash in vivid color against sumptuous sets, and zestfully played by a grand cast. Maria Montez makes a queenly heroine, Jon Hall a vigorous hero, Kurt Katch a wonderfully sinister villain, while Andy Devine and Chris-Pin Martin provide some mildly amusing comic relief.
The film was re-made, with only minor plot alterations, by director Virgil Vogel (significantly, a former film editor) in 1965, under the title, Sword of Ali Baba. Peter Mann had the title role, Jocelyn Lane was Amara, Gavin MacLeod was Hulagu Khan, while Frank Puglia repeated his role of Prince Cassim. The casting of Puglia was a masterstroke as it enabled Universal to use a vast amount of footage from the original Ali Baba.
Other films with a similar theme include The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951), Son of Ali Baba (1952). The 1918 silent version of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves directed by Sidney and Chester Franklin was a burlesque vehicle for the Fox Kiddies. There is also a French version, Ali Baba et les Quarante Voleurs, directed by Jacques Becker in 1954, with Fernandel in the title part. It was released in England by Republic in 1956, but never played Australia. It is significant that all versions have been filmed in color (the 1918 one was printed on tinted stock).
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Bette Davis (Margo Channing), Anne Baxter (Eve Harrington), George Sanders (Addison De Witt), Celeste Holm (Karen Richards), Gary Merrill (Bill Sampson), Hugh Marlowe (Lloyd Richards), Thelma Ritter (Birdie), Marilyn Monroe (Miss Caswell), Gregory Ratoff (Max Fabian), Barbara Bates (Phoebe), Walter Hampden (aged actor), Randy Stuart (girl), Craig Hill (leading man), Leland Harris (doorman), Barbara White (autograph seeker), Eddie Fisher (stage manager—deleted from the film), William Pullen (clerk), Claude Stroud (pianist), Eugene Borden (Frenchman), Helen Mowery (reporter), Steve Geray (captain of waiters), Bess Flowers (well-wisher) and Stanley Orr.
Narrated by George Sanders.
Written for the screen and directed by JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ. Based on an original story by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and a short story (later a radio play) by Mary Orr called The Wisdom of Eve. Photographed by Milton Krasner. Art directors: Lyle Wheeler and George W. Davis. Set decorations: Thomas Little and Walter M. Scott. Film editor: Barbara McLean. Wardrobe direction: Charles LeMaire. Costumes for Miss Davis designed by Edith Head. Music orchestrations: Edward Powell. Special effects: Fred Sersen. Make-up: Ben Nye and Frank Prehoda. Assistant director: Gaston Glass. Script supervisor: Wesley Jones. Hair stylists: Gladys Witten and Kay Reed. Camera operator: Dave Lockwood. Grip: James Lavin. Gaffer: Vaughn Ashen. Still photographer: Ray Nolan. Production manager: Robert Snody. Music scored and directed by Alfred Newman. Sound recording: W.D. Flick and Roger Heman. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck.
Copyright 13 October 1950 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York release at the Roxy: 13 October 1950. U.S. release: November 1950. U.K. release: 22 January 1951. Sydney release at the Regent: 12 July 1951 (ran 6 weeks). Australian release date: 12 July 1951. 12,423 feet. 138 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Aspiring actress schemes her way to the top.
NOTES: All About Eve held the record for the most award nominations from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, namely fourteen: Best Picture (won); Best Actress (2 nominations: Anne Baxter and Bette Davis. Both lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday); George Sanders (won) for Best Supporting Actor; Best Supporting Actress (2 nominations: Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter. Both lost to Josephine Hull in Harvey); Best Directing (won); Best Screenplay (won); Best Cinematography (lost to Robert Krasker for The Third Man); Best Art Direction (lost to Sunset Boulevard); Best Sound Recording (won); Best Film Editing (lost to King Solomon’s Mines); Best Music Scoring (lost to Sunset Boulevard); Best Costume Design (won).
Locations filmed at the Curran Theatre, San Francisco. “The Wisdom of Eve” was published in Cosmopolitan as a short story under the by-line “Anne Caswell” in 1946. Shooting from April 1950 to June 1950.
Bette Davis won the New York Film Critics Award and also the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Female Performance of 1951. Mankiewicz won the Directors Guild Award as well as the New York Film Critics Award who also voted All About Eve their 1950 Best Motion Picture. All About Eve was also the selection as Best Film of the year by the British Film Academy.
Mary Orr is a pseudonym for Anne Caswell. As Mary Orr she collaborated with Reginald Denham on the stage play Wallflower which was filmed in 1948. Following the success of the film All About Eve, she turned her radio play version into a three-act stage play (again in collaboration with Reginald Denham).
The film restored Bette Davis’ flagging career. Incredibly, she was third choice for the part. Gertrude Lawrence turned it down and Claudette Colbert injured her back just prior to shooting.
Having won two Awards in 1949 for Best Direction and Best Screenplay on A Letter to Three Wives, Joseph L. Mankiewicz followed up in 1950 by winning another two Awards, in exactly the same categories, for All About Eve.
COMMENT: All About Eve begins as it ends, with the end-of-season banquet honoring Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) as best actress of the year. Between the presentation by the dean of actors (Walter Hampden) and Eve’s gracious thank-you speech, is unfolded an incisive behind-the-scenes story that calls into play all those instrumental in Eve’s success: Margo Channing (Bette Davis), a famous but fading “first lady of the American stage” (roughly modeled on Tallulah Bankhead), who first takes the fledgling actress under wing; Addison De Witt, drama critic and career manipulator (a typical Mankiewicz character-narrator, beautifully played by George Sanders); Karen (Celeste Holm), the fashionable and schooled wife of noted playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe); Bill Sampson, a well-known director (Gary Merrill); and veteran producer, Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff). Also on hand are Margo’s wisecracking maid (Thelma Ritter), a novice (Barbara Bates), and a Copa girl trying to go straight (Marilyn Monroe).
Brilliantly acted and cleverly characterized, with sparkling dialogue that mercilessly parries the gloss from the New York theatre world’s highly sophisticated veneer, All About Eve is a scintillating comedy of manners that compels rapt attention for the whole of its 2¼ hours. We like George Sanders, pointing out Gregory Ratoff to his escort, Marilyn Monroe (whom the script describes as “a member of the Copacabana school of acting”), with the words: “There’s a real live producer, honey! Go and do yourself some good!” And the final scene, in which Sanders asks Barbara Bates, “Do you want some day to have an award like that of your own?” — “More than anything else in the world!” she answers. “Then you must ask Miss Harrington how to get one”, he replies. “Miss Harrington knows all about it!”
It is often complained of Mankiewicz’s work that it is too stagey and too talkative, that there is not sufficient movement. There is some justice in this charge in the consideration of such films as Five Fingers, The Quiet American, House of Strangers, and Dragonwyck; certainly Mankiewicz’s two spectacles, Guys and Dolls and Cleopatra, are much improved by sharp editing. But in his best films, The Late George Apley, A Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve, People Will Talk (which I regard as his masterpiece — it was too off-beat, unfortunately, for contemporary audiences or critics to appreciate), and The Barefoot Contessa, any trace of over-talkativeness is more than offset by the range and variety, the unusualness of the characters. Moreover, it is the characters themselves that determine the plot — not the fate or some external force.
Thus, in All About Eve, Margo Channing is the victim of her egocentricity, Sampson the victim of his own cynicism and Richards, the victim of his own ingenuousness. Eve Harrington is cunning and ruthless enough to exploit these traits in her climb to stardom.
Besides Mankiewicz’s two awards, All About Eve also won statuettes for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders), Best Costumes and Best Sound Recording. Also, producer Darryl Zanuck won the Thalberg Memorial Award for consistent high-quality production over the previous three years.
The film also won the New York Film Critics’ Citation for Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Actress (Bette Davis).
Actually, I thought that Miss Davis’ performance, fine as it was, was overshadowed by Anne Baxter’s interpretation of the scheming Eve. To cover with a winning veneer of innocence a character that would not stop at blackmail or adultery to win stardom, cannot have been an easy assignment for a young actress; yet Miss Baxter brought it off flawlessly.
— Adapted from “Cleo’s Joe”, Part 2 of a monograph on the work of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, by John Howard Reid published in Films and Filming, September 1963; and “An Index to the Films of Marilyn Monroe” by John Howard Reid.
ADDITIONAL COMMENT: I’d had the general idea for All About Eve in mind for a long time. But I never had a middle, a second act. Then our New York office submitted a short story by Mary Orr called “The Wisdom of Eve” — later a radio script — and I had my second act. Incidentally, Zanuck deserves some credit for what happened. He was the only studio head in town with the courage and intelligence to try new things. I don’t think I could have made this picture on any other lot but 20th Century-Fox.
— Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
OTHER VIEWS: Both Bette Davis and Anne Baxter were nominated for the prestigious peer-voted Best Actress award, but both lost out to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday.
Although set in New York’s theatre world, Mankiewicz didn’t venture further than the Curran Theatre in San Francisco for his location scenes… Bette Davis received her 8th Academy Award nomination for her portrayal in this film… Mankiewicz prefers a slow pace, tries to get a quality of tension into each scene, and stretches this tension about as far as it will go — sometimes a little farther. Almost everything depends on the dialogue. Mankiewicz was fortunate in his strong cast. The whole atmosphere is deliberately theatrical: the gestures a little too studied, the settings a little too opulent, the emotions not quite sincere: everyone is playing a part. Eve begins by turning the artificiality to her own ends, but finally succumbs to it herself. When the film was released, it was criticized in some quarters as being too wordy, stagey and superficial. What was not realized was that the film aimed at exposing a group of shallow, egocentric people. All About Eve is sharp, polished entertainment, directed with skill and produced with taste and acumen.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.
All About Eve has too much talk for its own good. Trimming would improve both pace and entertainment considerably. Prime target for scissoring is Gary Merrill. He is an able enough performer, but he lacks the charisma of the other players and he is saddled with too great a burden of the script’s straighter lines.
Davis, of course, is superb. Her Margo Channing is obviously modeled after modeled after Talullah Bankhead, but is all the bitchier for that rich impersonation. One’s only regret is that the role is not the film’s central part — this belongs to Baxter and she is nowhere near as creditable. She gives no hint she is acting a part. No matter how many times you see the film, it’s impossible to catch the slightest glint in her eyes, the slightest gesture or intimation that she is not the stage-struck innocent she pretends. A pity. An opportunity for a truly great performance missed. Maybe she wasn’t capable of it. Maybe Mankiewicz decided she was not to unsheath her claws earlier on.
Oddly enough the two most fascinating support performances come from the two players who, according to all reports, required the greatest amount of directorial coaxing and greatest number of takes — George Sanders and Marilyn Monroe. Sanders is right in his element with his witty servings of dialogue and narration and quite justifiably won his Academy Award. Monroe is great too. Notice how skillfully Mankiewicz frames her so that she is the actual center of attention when she first appears. Though she has only two scenes, she acquits herself most impressively in both. Her entrance is an image one always remembers.
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George Brent (Colonel Jim Warburton), Vera Ralston (Christine Ridgeway/Judy Ridgeway), Brian Aherne (Anthony Ridgeway), Constance Bennett (Dr Karen Lawrence), Fortunio Bonanova (Don Sebastian Ortega), Alfonso Bedoya (Paulo), Gus Schilling (Dean Hartley), Richard Crane (Johnny MacMahon), Walter Reed (Jerry Adams), Ross Elliott (Frank Lane), Konstantin Shayne (Dr Jungmeyer), Charles La Torre (waiter), Elizabeth Dunne (housekeeper), Alberto Morin (radio operator), Dick Jones (George), Alfredo DeSa (Brazilian reporter), Tony Martinez (bellhop), Gerardo Sei Groves (native), John Treback (waiter), Manuel Paris (night desk clerk).
Directed by JOHN H. AUER from a screenplay by Lawrence Kimble, based on an original story by Earl Felton. Photographed by Reggie Lanning. Special effects: Howard Lydecker, Theodore Lydecker. Camera operator: Herb Kirkpatrick. Art director: James Sullivan. Set decorators: John McCarthy, jr., George Milo. Music score: Nathan Scott (and Johann Strauss). Music director: Morton Scott. Film editor: Richard L. Van Enger. Script supervisor: Dorothy Yutzi. Production manager: Lew Rosso. Assistant director: Lee Lukather. Costume supervision: Adele Palmer. Hair styles: Peggy Gray. Make-up: Bob Mark. Grip: Nels Mathias. Still photographer: Don Keys. Optical effects: Consolidated Film Industries. Sound recording: Victor Appel, Howard Wilson. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: John H. Auer. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.
Copyright 8 December 1948 by Republic Pictures Corp. U.S. release date January 1949. U.K. release date: August 1949. New York release at the Gotham: 26 December 1948. Australian release (through British Empire Films): 9 February 1950. Sydney release at the Victory: 27 January 1950. (7,788 feet). (86 minutes).
Shooting title and U.K. and Australian release title: DRUMS ALONG THE AMAZON.
SYNOPSIS: A romantic adventure-fantasy, set in the Amazon, Rio and Pasadena. Accompanied by four friends, playboy/aviator Jim Warburton crash lands in the Amazon jungle where he and his party are rescued from headhunters by a mysterious and beautiful white woman. She repulses his advances but Jim meets up with her again at the Rio races. They fall in love but marriage is prevented by some traumatic experience in her past.
COMMENT: Of all Republic’s directors, John H. Auer was the most consistently stylish and imaginative. This is a good but by no means outstanding example of his work, exemplified by arresting camera movements (the swift tracking shots through the jungle after the rescue), sharp cutting, long takes, deep focus compositions and fast-paced dialogue. Where Auer fails in this film is with his cast. Admittedly Vera Ralston gives one of her best portrayals in a dramatic film. In addition, she is lovingly photographed and stunningly costumed. Certainly, she looks the part! Less at home is George Brent. He looks far too old for a romantic lead. He is often seen from unflattering camera angles, the photographer taking few pains to disguise his double chin, receding hair-line and wrinkled neck. What is worse, Mr Brent’s awkwardness in the role increases as the film progresses. In the climactic scenes, his performance is totally unconvincing. He even handles the off-screen narration with a lack of assurance that detracts from the effectiveness of the fade-out. True, the script is at its weakest in the final scenes — some might even describe it as absurd — and Auer has a habit of intercutting two tracking shots of people coming together, an otherwise fine idea which he turns into a distraction by filming the shots in the studio in front of an obvious process screen!
Brian Aherne is almost as uncomfortable in his role as Mr Brent. He too is reasonably convincing in his earlier scenes and an almost total failure later on. Despite his billing, his part is very small. This and the unsuitability of the role doubtless influenced his decision to leave Hollywood. He did not return for five years.
This was one of Constance Bennett’s last films (her fourth last actually). She too is unflatteringly photographed and though she is in the film quite a bit her part is unglamorous. Aside from Miss Ralston, Fortunio Bonanova has the film’s most dramatic piece. He handles it with some skill, the episode with the wounded panther owing as much to his chillingly delivered commentary as it does to Auer’s sharp cutting and deft camera (and Miss Ralston’s hair-raising screams)!
The other roles are small. Bedoya is along merely to feed information to the principals (and the audience). Gus Schilling was apparently cast to provide some comic relief, but he (and his two companions) drop out of the film altogether at an early stage.
A long-time associate of Republic boss Herbert J. Yates (who financed Auer’s The Crime of Dr Crespi back in 1935), Auer was associate producer on all his latter-day Republic assignments and his influence might justly be said to pervade every aspect of his films. He contributed to the script, closely supervised the art direction (his films usually have considerable location footage, but this one is an exception — aside from a few small shots, chiefly at the climax, it was lensed entirely in the studio, making use of stock material for the establishing shots of the jungle in the pre-credits sequence, the brief flashes of Rio, the races, etc.). In many respects, Auer is a sort of B-grade equivalent of Sir John Farrow. He too was particularly interested in the writing, camera movement, compositions and editing of his films. But whereas Farrow exercised enormous control over his players, Auer was limited by tight shooting schedules. Farrow was also able to surround himself with expert technicians, whereas Auer often had to make do with less than A-1 talent. On his thirties’ films Auer usually had the services of Republic’s ace cinematographer Jack Marta, but here he has Reggie Lanning, never a first-class photographer, whose indifferent day-for-night shooting in the car chase sequence and failure to dim his lighting on players who are heavily made up, destroys much of the film’s illusion.
Auer was more fortunate on other aspects of the film. The editing has already been commented upon, but I would also like to mention the thrilling sequence prior to the headhunters’ attack which is built up by increasing the tempo of the cutting and the rapid montage of Rio stock footage turned over like the pages in a book. Another editing highlight is at the very end when the whole film is reprised in less than 30 seconds!
Taking a cue from RKO producer Val Lewton, the headhunters are never actually shown. Rather we sense their presence through Auer’s expert handling of atmosphere and his brilliant use of sound effects — the drums rising to a crescendo, and then the stillness.
In the Lydeckers, Republic had the best special effects men in the business. There are two superlative examples of their work in this film: the plane crash which is utterly convincing thanks to their meticulous attention to the smallest details (notice the light moving down the length of the model plane, a realistic touch which ties in with the cut to the full-scale studio mock-up as Brent opens the door); and Judy’s car hurtling over the cliff with its brilliant use of a subjective camera.
Production values are always high in Vera Ralston’s vehicles (after all, she was the boss’ wife!). The sets are many and varied, large and lavishly appointed, and there is no stinting on dress extras. There is an apt music score with a Strauss waltz being used as a trigger mechanism for the heroine’s past.
Altogether, a flawed but interesting film. We shall be considering Mr Auer’s work again with The Avengers.
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John Carroll (Francisco Suarez alias Don Careless), Adela Mara (Maria Moreno), Mona Maris (Yvonne), Roberto Airaldi (Colonel Luis Corral), Jorge Villoldo (Don Rafael Moreno), Vivian Ray (Carmencita), Vincente Padula (El Mocho/Hernandez), Cecile Lezard (Pamela), Juan Olaguivel (Sancho), Eduardo Gardere and Angel M. Gordordo Palacios (fencing doubles), and introducing Fernando Lamas (Andre Leblanc).
Associate producer/director: JOHN H. AUER. Screenplay: Lawrence Kimble, Aeneas MacKenzie. Based on the 1930 novel Don Careless by Rex Beach. Photography: Pablo Tabernero. Film editor: Marvin J. Coil. Music: Nathan Scott. Art director: Saul Bennett. Costumes: Machado. Make-up: Felipe De Angelis. Hair styles: Alberto Delgado, Jose Fernandez. Assistant director: Saulo Benavente. Special effects: Howard Lydecker, Theodore Lydecker. Optical effects: Consolidated Film Industries. Sound recording: German Szulem. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.
Copyright 30 June 1950 by Republic Pictures Corp. U.S. release: 26 June 1950. Sydney release at the Civic: 20 April 1951 (1 week only). Australian release: 20 April 1951. 7,951 feet. 88 minutes.
COMMENT: This film was made in Argentina in both a Spanish and English-language version. It affords a rare opportunity to see the work of Pablo Tabernero, Argentina’s ace cinematographer. Unfortunately, the story is rather slow and sluggish in its development. But no-one could complain of the gorgeous photography of the fine sets and costumes. Also director Auer has contrived some attractive set-pieces including the blessing of the fishing fleet with the royal coach approaching across the top of a cliff, and the mob besieging the barricades suddenly silenced. The duel sequences are fair enough, though Carroll’s close-ups are very obviously cut in and the Colonel’s eventual demise is most disappointingly staged off-camera. The Spanish cast takes the acting honors, particularly Roberto Airaldi as the ambitious yet punctilious Colonel. It is hard to believe in Padula’s El Mocho, though this is due more to poor scripting than poor acting. Fernando Lamas figures in many scenes though he is given little to say because of his then-inadequate English. Some members of the cast are obviously dubbed.
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Robert Taylor (Sergeant Bill Dane), George Murphy (Lieutenant Steve Bentley), Thomas Mitchell (Corporal Jake Feingold), Lloyd Nolan (Corporal Barney Todd), Lee Bowman (Captain Lassiter), Robert Walker (Leonard Purckett), Desi Arnaz (Felix Ramirez), Barry Nelson (F. X. Matowski), Phillip Terry (Gilbert Hardy), Roque Espiritu (Corporal Juan Katigbay), Kenneth Spencer (Wesley Epps), J. Alex Havier (Yankee Salazar), Tom Dugan (Sam Malloy), Donald Curtis (lieutenant), Lynne Carver, Mary McLeod, Dorothy Morris (nurses), Bud Geary (infantry officer), Ernie Alexander (wounded soldier), Phil Schumacher (machine gunner), and the music of Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra.
Director: TAY GARNETT. Original screenplay: Robert D. Andrews. Based on John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934) which starred Victor McLaglen in the part now played by Robert Taylor. Based upon the 1928 novel Patrol by Philip MacDonald, the screenplay was written by Dudley Nichols and Garrett Fort. Photography: Sidney Wagner. Film editor: George White. Music score: Bronislau Kaper. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Lyle Wheeler. Set decorations: Edwin B. Willis, Glen Barner. Special photographic effects: Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Technical advisor: Captain L. S. Chappeler. Assistant director: William Lewis. Sound: Douglas Shearer. Producer: Irving Starr. Executive producer: Dore Schary.
Presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Copyright 25 May 1943 by Loew’s Inc. U.S. release: 28 May 1943. New York release at the Capitol: 3 June 1943. U.K. release: 12 August 1943. Sydney release: 10 July 1944. Australian release: 13 July 1944. U.S. length: 11 reels. 10,284 feet. 114 minutes. Australian length: 10,505 feet. 117 minutes.
Dedicated to the heroes of Bataan.
SYNOPSIS: 13 Allied servicemen hold up the advance of the Japanese army by blowing up a bridge across a ravine.
COMMENT: Although Tay Garnett’s present-day reputation rests mainly upon China Seas (which many regard as a fluke highpoint in an otherwise mediocre career), he is upon examination not so easily dismissed. Admittedly, his films are very uneven in quality, but some are worth seeing repeatedly (Stand In, Love Is News, Seven Sinners, The Postman Always Rings Twice).
Bataan stands in the second rank. The direction is faultless. Indeed it often skillfully manages to make a silk purse from a somewhat banal sow’s ear, as in the long, fascinating tracking shots right at the beginning where tedious, explanatory dialogue is virtually pushed right off the screen by fast, fluid camera movement through Lyle Wheeler’s splendid jungle sets. Not only are the dialogue scenes “lifted” by an exploratory camera and long takes, but the action scenes are staged with a vigor and a savagery unusual in the patriotic war film. Only a slight bit of speeded-up motion mars what is otherwise an all too horrifyingly realistic approach.
The script is less imaginative. The plot, compounded of elements from And Then There Were None, The Lost Patrol, For Whom the Bell Tolls and many others, assembles one of those half-familiar groups of semi-predictable stock characters. Mind you, most of the players serve up their character “types” with more realism and dramatic effectiveness than they deserve; though I was not so taken with Robert Walker’s eager-beaver garrulousness as were the MGM brass who signed him to a long-term contract on the strength of this film. (His only previous screen appearance was limited to an unbilled spot in Winter Carnival in 1939). Although also hampered by some banal dialogue, Robert Taylor is credibly effective as a loud-talking, efficient sergeant. George Murphy makes an apt contrast with his restrained portrayal, Thomas Mitchell looks suitably crusty, and Lee Bowman cleverly builds up a polished, likeable assurance that makes his sudden departure all the more dramatic. Tom Dugan has a major role as a filthy-habited cook. Desi Arnaz strikes the one jarring note by hammily overacting (some of his dialogue seems to be dubbed). Oddly enough, the film’s most impressive performance comes from Lloyd Nolan, a very uneven actor. On this occasion he has a meaty part which he plays with considerable skill and tension.
The film is a little overlong. Aside from a bit of obvious special effects work, production values are unstinting. The air raid sequence right at the beginning of the film is lavishly, horrifyingly destructive. The enormous studio sets look remarkably real.
This film was re-assessed in November 2003. I originally reviewed Bataan briefly in 1968 as follows:
“Much more imaginatively directed than the routine clichés of the script deserve: the long tracking shots; the remarkable sequence in which the camouflaged Japanese advance; the exciting action footage (not too well served by poor special effects). Acting is adequate within the very conventional limits of the script. Photography and art direction are outstanding.”
I largely stand by that original assessment.
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Estelita Rodriguez (Rosita), Robert Rockwell (Kip Armitage III), Dorothy Patrick (Deborah Chatfield), Thurston Hall (Horatio Huntington), Florence Bates (Nellie Chatfield), Dave Willock (Tommy Mayberry), Gordon Jones (Tex Barnett), Fritz Feld (Dr Quincy), Anne O’Neal (Mrs Ambercrombie), Claire Meade (Aunt Cornelia), Nacho Galindo (Pico), Edward Gargan (Sam), Chester Clute (steward), Dick Elliott (Chatfield), Joe Venuti (himself), Carlos Molina and Orchestra (themselves), Joe Carioca, Russo Pandeiro (vocalists).
Director: R. G. SPRINGSTEEN. Original screenplay: Bradford Ropes and Francis Swann. Photographed in Trucolor by Jack Marta. Film editor: Howard Minter. Music: Stanley Wilson. Art director: Frank Hotaling. Set decorators: John McCarthy, Jr and James Redd. Costumes: Adele Palmer. Make-up: Bob Mark. Make-up assistant: Steve Drumm. Hair stylist: Peggy Gray. Hairdresser: Della Barnes. Special effects: Howard Lydecker and Theodore Lydecker. Optical effects: Consolidated Film Industries. Camera operator: Joe Novak. Grip: Garry Lambrecht. Gaffer: Ozzie Herie. Still photographer: Mickey Marigold. Script supervisor: Joan Eremin. Assistant director: Arthur Vitarelli. Sound recording: Frank T. Dyke. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Edward J. White. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.
Songs: “Lost Now” (Rodriguez), “Making With the Conversation” (Rodriguez), — music and lyrics for both by Walter Kent and Walton Farrar; “I’ll Forget You” (Rodriguez), “Oh That Rhythm!” (Rodriguez), — music and lyrics for both by Walter Kent; “Yoyo Yaya” (Carioca and Pandeiro), music and lyrics by Antonio C. Martins.
Copyright 20 January 1950 (in notice: 1949) by Republic Pictures Corp. U.S. release: 1 March 1950. U.K. release: 1 March 1951. 70 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Wealthy playboy appoints himself guardian of wartime buddy’s “little sister”. However, it transpires girl is neither “little” nor “sisterly”.
COMMENT: Almost a lost film. Not even mentioned in The Hollywood Musical (though it certainly qualifies) and never theatrically released in Australia (though Estelita’s subsequent films were), it suddenly turned up on free-to-air television in 1986.
Not that it was actually worth discovery. Even avid Republic fans will be hard put to mine much entertainment gold from this collection of dross. It’s hard to tell which are the dullest — the musical numbers or the comedy stretches. After giving it some thought, I think I’ll plump for the “comedy”. Not only are these sequences longer than the songs — and thus more tedious by reason of length — but they are dominated by the extremely tiresome Dave Willock. Admittedly, Thurston Hall and Gordon Jones are just as irritatingly and overstrenuously jocose, but at least their roles are smaller. Only Florence Bates and Fritz Feld (giving vent to one of his amusing musical pop-pop perambulations) manage to partially overcome their pitiful material. As for Ms Rodriguez herself, not only is she a lackluster performer complete with silly accent, she’s not much of a singer and is most unflatteringly photographed too!
Yes, — attention all Republic fans! — better give this one a miss.
OTHER VIEWS: Although it makes no mention of the fact, this “B” musical comedy was very obviously suggested by the Sonia Henie vehicle Sun Valley Serenade. Unfortunately, Estelita Rodriguez’s talents are as remote from Miss Henie’s as Carlos Molindo’s from Glenn Miller’s.
Aside from a frantic chase sequence which is not unexcitingly staged, this is an undistinguished “B”-feature with dull direction and a particularly trite script (even if it does provide for the entrance of some of our favorite character players). The color photography is attractive, though Miss Rodriguez comes out second best to Miss Patrick. Other production credits are less satisfactory. The songs are unmemorable and are poorly staged, the sets are unimpressive and the male lead is wet.
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