So You Want to Start Watching Screwball Comedies, An Introduction

So You Want to Start Watching _______is an occasional feature here at Riku Writes. It is a guide to anyone unfamiliar with a particular star, director, genre, or time period in films. After a brief introduction, I will provide a sampling of films to watch. Although I will always strive to include the best possible films for each chapter in the series, I will also look to present representative work. I'll say a little bit about each film, all of which will be provided in chronological order. This is the second of the series. in the first I provided an introduction to the films of Humphrey Bogart.


One of the surest cures for the blahs is to settle down on the sofa and pop a screwball comedy into your DVD player. These are films that, by definition, are designed to tickle the funny bone. As the name suggests, a "screwball" comedy is one that features oddball characters engaging in what has come to be known as "madcap antics." That is, you should expect the unexpected and all in the name of laughs. 

The heyday of the screwball comedy was the from the mid 1930's to mid '40s. American audiences needed a diversion from the Great Depression and ominous events unfolding in Europe, then the war itself. They were given a rich supply of musicals, from the likes of Busby Berkeley and Astaire and Rogers and screwball comedies. Perfect diversions.


If there was a king of screwball comedy it was Cary Grant. His good lucks, charm, physicality and timing made him perfect for any type of comedy, but he excelled in those films in which he could cut loose by executing a pratfall or playing the straight man for a dizzy broad. Screwball comedies always have a wacky woman at the heart of the story. While Grant would bear the mantle of patriarch to the genre, female counterparts abounded. Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne and even Katharine Hepburn excelled.


Screwball comedies usually were farcical and included a romance and, oh yes, a happy ending. I've been using the past tense because...well they just don't make 'em like they used to. I could have easily provided a list of well over a dozen rib tickling screwball comedies from the 1930's and 40's alone. However though the genre faded considerably in the years after WWII it did not die entirely. I've thus included a few films from later years. The consequence is that there's only a small sample of the classics from the prime years. There's many many more and I listed some at the end. Enjoy. (Warning: watching these films can result in severe self knee mutilation from excess slapping.)

My Man Godfrey (1936) In my humble opinion Carole Lombard was the best of the Screwball actresses and she positively shines here opposite William Powell. The latter is a hobo (or is he?) taken in as a butler by a wealthy family. The wealthy were invariably at the heart of the genre. One of the troublesome daughters (Lombard) in the household falls madly in love with him. This is a screwball with a social conscience, but all the requisite zaniness.


Topper (1937) The first of three consecutive Grant films that I'll mention, he stars here with Constance Bennett as a very very happily go lucky rich couple who die in a car crash early in the film. Sounds rather grim, I know, but it is their ghosts who provide the fun. They try to loosen up the title character (Roland Young) who's the only person who can see or hear them.


The Awful Truth (1937) Some will argue this is the best of the bunch. Grant and Dunne were an excellent team. Here they play an estranged married couple who can't seem to realize they're still very much in love. Both go to hilarious lengths to woo back the other. Asta, of Thin Man fame, co-stars.


Bringing Up Baby (1938) Here's another that many claim is the best of the lot. The madcap and the wacky are the order of the day as Grant teams with Ms. Hepburn who plays the dizziest dame you'll ever want to meet. The supporting cast includes a leopard. The action features a case of mistaken leopard identity, piecing together a dinosaur, Grant in a woman's night gown and society swells in lock up. You know, the usual.


Midnight (1939) In addition to the leads, Ms. Colbert and Don Ameche, the cast includes Mary Astor (a frequent co star in screwballs) and the great John Barrymoore who's resume, for my money, could have included more screwballs. The setting is Paris, the uber rich are again involved. But this time the love is between a cab driver and penniless ex dancer. Or is it? Some of the funniest scenes in filmdom are featured.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) Talk about something screwy, this is a comedy directed by none other than the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. When it came to directing screwballs he's one-for-one with a resounding hit. It helped that he had Ms. Lombard as the female lead and Robert Montgomery as her on again off again husband. The plot of a happily married couple discovering they were never legally married has since been done to death in sitcoms. This is the original and it's hilarious.


Monkey Business (1952) Not to be confused with the Marx Brothers film of the same name which was made 20 years previous. Grant again, this time with Ginger Rogers, Marylin Monroe, Charles Coburn, a chimp and a potion that makes the older set young again. Howard Hawks directed. All the classic elements of a screwball this time in a post War setting.


What's Up Doc (1972) From director Peter Bogdanovich starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal. Let's see there's competition for a musicology grant, rare igneous rocks, government spies, mistaken luggage and a most wacky dame head over heels for a straight-laced and engaged fella. Bogdanovich mixed all the disparate elements together for a classic screwball brew. San Francisco's makes for a perfect back drop.

Arthur (1981) In my mind the very best screwball comedy of the last 60 years. Dudley Moore had a short career as an A list star and this film was the pinnacle. Liza Minelli played the love interest and John Gieguld won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as his valet. Moore plays a filthy rich and stinking drunk playboy who falls for commoner, the family has other plans for him. Will true love win out? Suffice to say that much laughter ensues.


Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) Maybe there's something about the surname Grant, but Hugh, though no Cary, was made for screwballs. Shame he wasn't around in the 1930's because he's not seen a script this good since. 4WAAF was actually a Best Picture contender. It's got all the screwball elements: a romance, quirky supporting players and slapstick silliness. Rowan Atkinson's brief scene as a minister is a highlight.


Others to consider: My Favorite Wife (1940), It Happened One Night (1934), The Lady Eve (1941), Easy Living (1937), To Be or Not to Be (1942), The Major and the Minor (1942), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), His Girl Friday (1940), Some Like it Hot (1959), There's Something About Mary (1998), Palm Beach Story (1942).

Ahoy Movie! 10 Seafaring Film Adventures For Old Salts and Landlubbers Alike

Among the growing list of film types in the they-don't-make-em-like-they-used-to category is the seafaring adventure story. Over the last half century adventure stories have been mostly set in outer space or featured other worldly magic. Far as I'm concerned you can't get much more magical than men at sea in often flimsy vessel  in close quarters. Add other people with fearsome weapons and you've got yourself some rip roaring adventures. Magic wands and space aliens not required. The ship is its own universe with the captain as God. Sometimes he is a harsh and capricious master, on other occasions he is wise, benevolent and reliable. Sea life is one of extremes. Weather can range from freezing, to sultry with gale force winds or not a wisp of  breeze at all (a dreaded state for sailing ships). There are also extremes in routine with day after day of tedium interrupted by terrifying peril. Shipmates may be the best of friends or sworn enemies. Ports of call can be exotic, offering gorgeous beaches and flora with exciting nightlife and women aplenty. Or they can be rife with enemies or hostile natives. In other words sea voyages are ideally suited for movies and Hollywood used to take full advantage. Used to. I offer a list of ten outstanding films set at sea with only one from the past 50 years.

"We joined the navy to see the world

And what'd we see?

We saw the sea

We saw the Pacific and the Atlantic

But the Atlantic isn't romantic

And the Pacific isn't what it's cracked up to be."

        From the song 'We Saw the Sea' by Irving Berlin.

The Long Voyage Home (1940). This is a recent discovery of mine and it was a case of love at first sight. From the standpoint of depicting life at sea it may be unparalleled. Okay John Wayne as a Swede is a little odd but the rest of the cast is near perfect. Forget plot points, this is a story of men at sea, their bonds, their conflicts, their fates. Director John Ford focused on the faces. The first five minutes of the film has no dialogue, just the visages of the crew, some busy and expressive,others blank and apprehensive. The cast features Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen,Ward Bond, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields and Ian Hunter. There is boozing, fist fights, enemy planes, heart breaking loss and surprising truths revealed. It's a story rich in metaphor and life lessons.

Master and Commander (2003). The only film from the past 50 years to make this list. It recalls much of the best of efforts from Hollywood's Golden Age. There is a bit of swash in the buckle. Disparate personalities pitted against one another, opposing forces and Ma Nature. Russell Crowe is tailor made to take the helm of the ship and the movie. The action (and there's plenty of it) is aboard a British naval vessel during the Napoleonic wars. One heart breaking scene of men lost at sea is particularly memorable capturing as it does the cruelty of the briny mass.

Action in the North Atlantic (1943). One reason I really appreciate this film is that it's an ode to the allied merchant marines of World War II. My dear old dad was one such hero (my older brother was also a mariner though in considerably more peaceful times). Any discussion of merchant marines during the war must be accompanied by the word unsung. Their contribution to defeating the Axis was inestimable and they made their contribution at great risk and gained little glory. This film, from director Lloyd Bacon, has a stellar cast led by Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey and Alan Hale. It was clearly war time propaganda, but like a lot of such films it not only served its purpose but was a good yarn in the bargain.

In Which We Serve (1942). This is rather an odd duck. Imagine a film co-directed by David Lean and Noel Coward. Now further imagine Coward as a ship's captain (no cocktail hour for witty repartee) in war time. Also ponder that this is a tribute as much to a ship itself as it is to those who serve on it. But peculiarities aside this is a cracking good film about men at war on ship, in the water. We know from the outset that the ship does not survive the war. We can guess that neither do all the men. It all adds up to a surprisingly effective look at the war at sea, especially considering that is was made while that very war raged on.

The Sea Wolf (1941). Edward G. Robinson is fantastic as the biggest stinker to ever captain a ship. The time is 1900, the port of call San Francisco. The crew includes a nasty Barry Fitzgerald, a drunken and pitiful Gene Lockhart and a brusque Howard DaSilva. But this is a Edward G vehicle all the way. He's a martinet and a sadist and surprisingly complex one at that. Based on a Jack London story, The Sea Wolf is utterly uncompromising and unsentimental in its portrayal of ship board life.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Based on the true story of an 18th century mutiny aboard a British ship in the South Pacific. In addition to powerful performances from its stars, Charles Laughton as the notorious Captain Bligh and Clark Gable as Mr. Christian, MOTB is a veritable primer on ship board life 200 years ago.

Follow the Fleet (1936). Why not include some dancing, music and light romance at sea? Especially when the the dancing is being done by the likes of  Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. While not a particularly revealing look at naval voyages it's good clean fun and a refreshing change of pace from grim tales of cruel captains and ship board mishaps.

The Sea Hawk (1940). Mr. Swashbuckle himself, Errol Flynn stars as a pirate who takes to practicing  his craft on behalf of the British crown against the hated Spanish enemy. And who better to play the villain than Claude Rains? Flora Robson is Queen Elizabeth (the first,silly). It's lightweight stuff but great fun. The quintessential Golden Age pirate flick.

Lifeboat (1944). Okay it's true this story does not take place aboard a ship.  The entire setting is a boat and a lifeboat at that. The characters spend the entire running time at sea in one of the most precarious and frightening states imaginable. People on lifeboats could well imagine death by any number of means including starvation, thirst, shark attack, drowning, disease or by their own hand. Succumbing to madness was also a danger. Once dead a person might be cannibalized. At the same time rescue at any moment was always an ever present hope. Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat captures this with the added dimension of the story being set during World War II. Thus there is the added worry of being rescued by the enemy (still, it beats being shark meat). The passengers on this particular boat are from an allied ship but lo and behold they've got a Nazi aboard. What fun.

Moby Dick (1956). It's a whale of a movie (pause while readers enjoy a hearty laugh at my delightful pun). But seriously folks...considering that director John Huston had the weighty task of taking a celebrated and weighty novel and trying to spin cinematic magic out of it, this is a fine film. It doesn't hurt when you have an actor of the stature of Gregory Peck to play Captain Ahab.

From My Angst to Casablanca Appreciation in the Course of a Few Paragrpahs

I think if I could write I'd feel better. So write I must. There's a certain addictive quality to writing and I am after all an addict. I'm hooked on creating sentences and paragraphs just as I am to working out. So maybe that explains this case of the blahs. Haven't penned a word in days. Trouble is the old muse is shut down.

Just forge ahead then, when you can't write, write anything. It's the process that's going to count anyway, the product? Not so much.  Look, how many people see or care what I write anyway? Just check out the comments section. No, I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I never intended this blog to be for anyone but me. Making it public and writing in such a way that is meant to be interesting to people is just a device to create structure.

The most selfish thing we can do is act on behalf of others. It makes us feel good to aid those in need. As well it should. I flatter myself that sometimes a person out there in cyber space reads one of my posts and is amused or edified or decides to watch a film or re-visit one (maybe it's you, Celeste K. In Akron). Not as altruistic as aiding earthquake victims but we all do what we can when we can.

As a first step toward chasing away the mulligrubs I watched Casablanca (1942), a film I've probably viewed more than any other save Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

Casablanca deserves to be loved. It's got one of the tightest scripts in film history. It's not just all the great lines but how there's not a wasted word of dialogue. So many memorable lines and no unnecessary ones. I reviewed the DVD for Amazon and noted there that the unsung hero of the film was director Michael Curtiz. Casablanca has the feeling of an epic yet clocks in at around one and three quarter hours. So not only is there no wasted chit chat there are no wasted shots. But here's the trick, Curtiz didn't rush anything either. There are several occasions when the camera lingers on Rick (Humphrey Bogart) or Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and always to great effect.

Curtiz was a fairly straight forward story teller but was not afraid to employ a zoom or use perspective or create shadows ala John Huston. While Curtiz made many other excellent films, this was far and away his masterpiece and its a bloody shame his inestimable contribution to Casablanca has been too little appreciated.

Then again when you're slapping together a classic there's plenty of credit to be divvied up. While Bogie and Bergman get the lion's share, Casablanca boasts an amazing supporting cast. Paul Henried (Victor Lazlo), Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser), Claude Rains (Renault) and Dooley Wilson (Sam) are well known for their respective roles and Peter Lorre is rightly lauded for his small but crucial contribution as the slimy Ugarte. But it's hard to imagine Casablanca without S.Z Sakall as Carl, or Marcel Dalio as Emil, the croupier. Remarkably, Dalio was uncredited for his performance. He had previously worked in France appearing in three of the great French films of all time, Pepe Le Moko (1937), Grand Illusion (1937) and Rules of the Game (1939) (hell, those are three of the great films from anywhere of all time) and he had significant quite credited roles in each. Dalio barely escaped France as the Germans invaded in 1940. His getaway, which included bribing a corrupt immigration officer in Lisbon, is worthy of a Hollywood rendering. Sakall and Veidt also came to Hollywood after fleeing the Nazis.

Casablanca is clearly a case of everything coming together magically and perfectly. Sure the story resonated with audiences in the midst of World War II for its patriotic and anti Nazi messages, but it has continued to capture imagination for decades after. There is romance, the tortured, jilted, confused and unrequited kind that doesn't just tug but yanks at our heart strings. There is also one man's redemption. Initially Rick will "stick his neck out for no one," than risks prison to see a freedom fighter leave with the woman of his dreams. So we witness this man's rise from unabashed selfishness to the ultimate noble gesture.

There is a familiarity to Casablanca that can be comforting. We know snatches of dialogue by heart. In college, (this before the time of VHS and DVD) a roommate had recorded much of the film's audio on his eight track (you're old if you remember those) and we used to listen to it along with or instead of studying. A particularly favorite line of ours was "put down that phone, put it down!" (I dunno, you tell me why).

While Casablanca is rich in snippets that have become part of our culture (round up the usual suspects, here's looking at you kid, play it again, Sam) it is best enjoyed from start to finish as the embodiment of the classic that it is.

I suppose then that Casablanca is a comfort film. Great art is supposed to challenge us but it can also soothe. Moreover we find new things to appreciate within every time. Casablanca is a film that keeps on giving.

(So what did I learn from writing my blues away? Well, I'm no good at being noble but it doesn't take much to see that the problem of one little person doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday, reader, you'll understand. Here's looking at you....)

Clark Gable in Up in the Air, James Cagney in Inglourious Basterds and Other Actors of the Past in Modern Day Roles

You ever hear or read something like this: "if they re-made Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), the Bogart role should go to..." Stop right there, fella. I'll not entertain such blasphemers. No one will ever be able to play Fred C. Dobbs again, just like Cagney's performance as in White Heat (1949) can't be replicated, nor Cary Grant's in His Girl Friday (1940) nor Barbara Stanwyck's in The Lady Eve (1941). Full stop.

We've had enough re-makes of beloved classics with consistently awful results (think Greg Kinnear playing William Holden's role in Sabrina -- insanity!). What I'd like to do is flip the discussion. What if actors from the past could have be transported to recent times (via time machines -- duh!) and take over certain parts. It might initially be difficult to envision stars of the Thirties and Forties in color, playing opposite special effects, free to curse, and engage in realistic violence and sex, but it is by no means impossible. Yes they were stars in their time but they were actors first and I'm certain they could be just as good today. If someone could get cracking on a time machine I'd prove it.

Here now is a look at what stars from the past could have easily slipped into roles played by the likes of Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt. This will require a bit of imagination on the part of readers. I may have gotten some all wrong but I've tried to fit past actors into roles they'd be well suited for. I'm not offering any explanations or elaboration for my selections. Either they are self evident, become clear once imaginations are activated or I'm all wet. I'm also not suggesting that the past actor would be an improvement but they would always be worthy replacements. I invite you to offer your own suggestions in the comments section.

In all cases the now deceased actor would, in addition to being very much alive, would be the same age as the actor he or she is replacing.

Clark Gable (pictured above) taking over George Clooney in Up in the Air (2009).

Humphrey Bogart replacing Viggo Mortensen in The Road (2009).

Bette Davis instead of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

Ginger Rogers substituting for Charlize Theron in North Country (2005).

James Cagney taking over Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds (2009).

Henry Fonda replacing Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Ann Sheridan and William Bendix taking over for Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen in Knocked Up (2007).

Robert Montgomery instead of Sean Penn in Milk. (2008).

Judy Garland for Renee Zellweger in Chicago (2002).

Walter Huston replacing Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton (2007).

Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant filling in for Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road (2008).

Errol Flynn replacing Tom Cruise in Minority Report (2002).

Lana Turner and William Powell in for Scarlett Johansson and Billy Murray in Lost in Translation (2003).

Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck subbing for Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening in American Beauty (1999).

Claudette Colbert for Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich (2000).

Vivian Leigh and Dame May Whitty instead of Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal (2006).

Jimmy Stewart for Jake Gllyenhaal in Zodiac (2007).

It's 'Easy Living' with Jean Arthur Characters

It's hard to know what to make of Jean Arthur.

One assertion I feel comfortable in making is that she tended to wind up in a lot of really good movies and indeed was part of what made them enjoyable.

I wouldn't use the word "beautiful" to describe her and certainly would abstain from referring to her as at all sexy. Then again she was quite attractive. And I know this sounds strange, but she was more the marrying type then the kind you fooled around with. You either fell all the way or hoped she met someone nice and if it was a friend or relative that was just jake.

In other words, Jean Arthur was just flat out adorable. More so than just about anyone at anytime in anyplace.

Unlike say Lombard, Loy or Shearer she could not play the wealthy heiress or society dame. But she did the just-getting-by roles or working girls with the best of em. Hell, maybe she was the best of them.

First of all there was that voice. The glamor set does not have squeaky, rapid fire voices with working class accents. But that hard working dame you see on the way to way every morning? The one with the nice enough gams and the sweet disposition? That screwy voice works on her just fine, thank you very much. That talking mouse voice coming out of her puss was initially tolerable. As you got to know her, it was downright endearing.

Ms. Arthur was all silly smirks, scowls, funny frowns and wide eyed wonder. She was great at being put upon, annoyed and positively delighted. Jean had her own range of emotions that fit nicely with any character she took on.

Maybe it wasn't her best work but in many ways the ultimate Jean Arthur character was Mary Smith (dig that craaa-zee name!) in Easy Living (1937). (And then again maybe it was her best work.) Mary was a working girl just getting by, though the loss of that work would put her on the streets. Fate intercedes (as it so often does in films) and a mink coat falls on her from the heavens during the morning commute. Long story short, she loses the job but quickly gains a fortune and a new beau. Along the way much slapstick hilarity ensues. It sounds remarkably like a Preston Sturges which is funny cause he didn't direct it but he did write the screenplay, if you must know.

But this is about Jean....

Let's try this one on her for size: plucky. She's that in spades. In Easy Living, Mary Smith rides out the earthquakes of life and forges ahead through all the temblors. It's not what happens to you that's important, but how you react to what happens to you that is important. Mary Smith, like other Jean Arthur characters, is nonplussed by most anything. Oh sure she may bash an ex boss over the head with a painting (he was framed!) but she don't cry over the spilt milk. And when fortune shines and through no machinations of her own that fallen fur can be parlayed into other riches, who is she to say no?

How could the young Ray Milland of Easy Living not fall for? Him and the mink both dropped in her lap from the sky and she wore them both with equal joy. Milland's John Ball Jr. would be a sap of the first order not to accept fate's mandate that he and Smith, as they say in modern parlance, hook up.

In other films it was Joel McCrea, James Stewart, Robert Cummings, Gary Cooper or Cary Grant who went daffy for this sometimes dizzy dame. Those of us in the audience always bought it. The chemistry was there because Ms. Arthur was an alchemist cooking up her own love potion. Men fall for her because she was pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough and she's way way more good-hearted and sweet than any of the male gender deserve. This is not to be resisted. It can't be.

So if you've read this far and yet are unfamiliar with Jean Arthur the best way to get acquainted would be to start with Easy Living. You've got more treats ahead such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The More the Merrier (1943), Talk of the Town (1942), The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936). You're gonna love getting to know her.

Easy Living also features a perfectly wonderful performance by Edward Arnold. Often the prosperous villain conniving against regular folk, here is a far more nuanced financier who manages to blend a soft heart into that whole rich and powerful mix.

You may come for Milland, Arnold or Sturges but you'll stay for Ms. Arthur. This is her picture more so than perhaps any other. And that's a good thing.

I Want to Shout From the Rooftops of my Undying Love for Ann Dvorak (I Just Hope the Wife Doesn't Find Out)

As the old song goes: "I fall in love too easily. I fall in love too fast." In my case these massive crushes are safely confined to female film stars, most of whom enjoyed their halcyon days some 75 years ago or so.

My crush on Ann Dvorak was re-ignited this weekend when I watched a flamingly mediocre film called Dr. Socrates (1935) which starred Paul Muni. Dvorak, and those eyes, oh my God she's looking right at me from three quarters of a century ago, quite naturally stole every scene she was in. Hell, she stole some she wasn't in cause you're thinking about her, wondering when she'll be on camera again.

Dvorak was one of the countless actresses who suffered from the enforcement of the production code. She still got roles, they all did. But it was pretty tame stuff. For Dvorak cutting loose, getting to be a full fledged woman in every sense, would have been great stuff. One could argue that Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck could be stars in any circumstances, but that someone like Ms. Dvorak suffered more for having to squelch her evocative nature.

As it was she was sexy but not in an inaccessible way. You watch someone like Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner and think, "well, she's out of my league. You've got to be a Sinatra or Orson Welles to have a chance." But Dvorak is sexy and the girl next door.

I know how guys think, both from being one and spending time with them. There a lot of us who really go for the Dvorak type. We think that Ann would actually give regular blokes like us the time of day, maybe even give me us tumble. Anyway those Hayworth, Gardner types are too high maintenance.

There was a unique combination of strength and vulnerability to her. You can be a partner with someone like that. Ann Dvorak characters were smart, self assured but at some point they were going to need you. In Dr. Socrates she had set out to hitchhike across country to California where there was promise of a job -- and she a single young woman. You believed it though. She was all guile and moxie and uncalculated risks. She ran afoul of some gangsters (it happens) and was going to need the help of kindly doctor Paul Muni. That's my Ann. (If only I could have been her rescuer.)

Dvorak is best remembered for Scarface (1932), Three on a Match (1932) and there's a few other good films like The Crowd Roars (1932) and G Men (1935). Really not a whole lot to speak of. She was the featured player in none. Hollywood really screwed the pooch. Dvorak had too much talent and "it" quality to be a second banana in a handful of good movies and many mediocre ones. Maybe Hollywood didn't know what to do with her. Was she a nice girl led astray? Was she a naughty girl? If the latter the production code really hemmed her in. True, her contract hassles didn't help. But you'd have thought someone would have developed a star vehicle for her.

Maybe the raw deal she got (and say, she took it on the chin in a number of her films too) just makes her all the more endearing to guys like me. She was Muni's hard luck kid sister in Scarface so she could play the victim too. But there's not much of a career in that.

Whatever kept her from bigger and better roles, Ann Dvoark is one of my lost loves. Unless, of course, I can start making progress on that time machine....

Liking the Actor While Loathing the Man, John Wayne and Me

"I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility." - John Wayne, 1971.

My first recollection of John Wayne is as Davy Crockett in The Alamo (1960). He was a heroic fighter for his country, gallantly going down to defeat against overwhelming odds. Though I can't recall specific films, I'm quite certain that as a young lad I saw Wayne in many other movies, always wearing the proverbial white hat, standing up for justice and waging the good fight. He was no hero to me like Steve McQueen ( I was into "cool" early on) but he appealed to a young boy's sense of morality, confirmed by the principle of might makes right.

Then I became politically aware. Growing up as I did in the Sixties and Seventies in the People's Republic of Berkeley, it is not surprising that I was influenced by leftist politics (I'm a confirmed lefty to this day). We had heroes aplenty in popular culture, notably in rock 'n roll. Most villains were politicians, many conveniently placed in the White House or other seats of power. But there was also Mr. Wayne.

Other conservatives stars were benign like Bob Hope. People so embedded in the establishment that we could only strongly suspect their political leanings. We interpreted their silence on the Vietnam War or Civil Rights as tacit approval and disinterest, respectively. But Wayne opened his big yap, and promptly stuck his foot in it.

Wayne was the poster boy for the conservative backlash against the emerging counter culture. In that tough guy drawl he would issue homilies that evoked mom's apple pie. To wit: "Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be." Love it or leave it. My country right or wrong. United we stand.

But the man born as Marion Morrison was not just going to talk the talk. He walked the walk. His response to dissent over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War included making a film in support of that war, The Green Berets (1968). It's tagline: "They had to be the toughest fighting force on earth - and the men who led them had to be just a little bit tougher!" It's one of those taglines that actually says a lot about film. It was a pro war propaganda plain and simple in which a cynical reporter is shown the light about the virtues and necessity of US actions in Nam. Americans were the heroes rescuing women and children from the evil Viet Cong. Forget what you heard about the Mai Lai massacre.

The film was widely panned, perhaps in part for its message but mostly because it was a lousy movie. Conservatives rallied to it and to Wayne.

A year later Wayne won a gratuitous Oscar for the schlocky True Grit. This in a year that Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were nominated for Midnight Cowboy along with Richard Burton for Anne of a Thousand Day. It not only was a horrible choice, but it ticked a lot of us for political reasons. It also further demonstrated how silly claims of Hollywood's liberal bias can sometimes look.

It was two years after that career high point that Wayne's infamous Playboy magazine interview hit the stands. As the quote at the the top of this post indicates, Wayne managed to insult every African American in the country. He also took pot shots at Native Americans, ones more lethal than those imaginary one fired by his many Injun-killing characters: "I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.... I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation... seems to be what the socialists are working for now — to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave.... But you can't whine and bellyache 'cause somebody else got a break and you didn't, like those Indians are." Take that you whiny Indians!

So now the bete noir of the left had lost a lot of mainstream love. He still made another eight films before succumbing to cancer in 1979 and his box office numbers remained credible. He was, after all, a star and the public will forgive much greater transgressions from its film icons than a few ill timed, albeit racist, remarks.

For what it was worth I completely turned my back in the man. Not that it made any difference to anyone. Anyway I had already refused to watch anything featuring Wayne for several years. The grudge was to last couple of decades more decades.

But to stay away from Wayne is to stay away from the great director, John Ford as Wayne featured in many of Ford's best films. That is to say it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

John Wayne was never a great actor. He was a great star. One of the best. He had a presence that helped make some good films masterpieces. The classic Ford Western, Stagecoach (1939) is immeasurably enhanced by Wayne as the Ringo Kid. Indeed his screen entrance in it is one of the greats of all time (pictured above). Ringo Kid is a few shades different than the characters that Wayne came to be mistakenly identified with. For one he's wanted by the law and he's got vengeance on his mind. This is a younger, hipper Wayne who of all things falls in love with a hooker (one with a heart of gold, of course).

Wayne is also a dark character in Ford's greatest film The Searchers (1956). Again he's seeking vengeance. There's something shady about his Ethan Edwards, namely how he came to have so much money. Then there are the looks he exchanges with his brother's wife. He's also plainly a bigot and this is portrayed as a no- question-about detriment to his character. This is surely Wayne's best performance.

Wayne featured in a few films by another great American director, Howard Hawks. Most notable of these is Red River (1948). Here again there is nuance to a Wayne character: obstinacy, temper and (here it is again) vengefulness. His adopted son is played by Montgomery Clift and its hard to imagine two more different actors working closely together. Part of the reason they succeeded was an agreement not to talk politics.

Ford's last great film was The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). The film would beembodies. He is the unbeatable force of good. No liberal milquetoast, but a man willing to throw a punch, issue a threat or shoot his gun to make things right. Talk is cheap. He's everything appealing about John Wayne, even to a repeal-the-second-amendment radical such as myself. The fact is that American films need an occasional brutish gun toting fighter, even if he's ham fisted and intellectually derelict. Inglourious Basterds wouldn't have been nearly so good if Brad Pitt and his men had gone into Germany to rehabilitate Nazis.

So Wayne didn't just happen to show up in some pretty good films. He played a type of role that is central to American mythology. That he bought into it as real life philosophy was to his detriment as a human being and should be irrelevant to our film going pleasure. Wayne, in fact, reflects the macho American style that emphasizes brawn over brain. They're the type of people we want taking the orders of cooler heads. They thus develop a resentment at having to follow orders and only being able to exercise the power of their fists or guns and not of their intellect. It is a type of rage evident today among conservative Americans who bristle at another intellectual liberal in office seemingly entrenching power in Washington and away from them (never mind that this fear is poppycock). Americans don't want to just kick ass, they want to dictate the terms. Wayne's characters often did both. It's also no accident that he was often settling scores. Americans like to see the tit for tat. Our very un Western support of capital punishment is a reflection of a basic eye-for-eye philosophy at the heart of the American ethos. Many Americans also find their feathers ruffled over such niceties as due process, preferring a simple sock in the jaw. Wayne did not play lawyers or professors. He was never loquacious. He was all about taking action. Seriously, who'd want a Wayne soliloquy? We want him meting out justice from the barrel of a gun. Ford had the good sense to give Wayne as few lines as possible. Interestingly, Wayne is perhaps most thought of us as a plain old fashioned good guy in Westerns and war films. In truth Wayne's more memorable characters had some moral complexity to them. Even Doniphon was a tortured soul who suffered greatly at the loss of his one great love. Wayne's greatest attribute as an actor was always surprising us with the different shades to his character, just as often revealed with silence as words.

Ironically in another Ford classic, Fort Apache (1948), Wayne's character is the one who cautions restraint and urges negotiations with nearby tribes while the real life liberal Henry Fonda plays a Custer-like officer who wants to charge in and fight. Today the movie can and has been seen as a metaphor for U.S. adventures in Vietnam and Iraq. Or any place where American forces have ignored local custom and policy at their own peril.

John Wayne is a seminal character in my film watching experience and a supporting player in my political development. Thankfully I've matured enough, at long last, that I can separate the two.

The Audacity of A Streetcar Named Desire

Some movies create worlds with completely different realities. Dogs talk or monsters breath fire or cars levitate. That's okay.

Other movies try to replicate reality. People go about doing and saying things that are quite typical of the sorts of things people say and do. Situations depicted are not only possible but probable. That's okay.

Still other movies stylize reality. Take the ordinary and stretch it. A motorcyclist fleeing an assailant manages a fantastic leap over a chasm. A hero miraculously fends off a pack of armed enemies single handedly. That's okay.

Finally there are those movies that stylize the ordinary. Example: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). There is nothing that happens in the course of the movie's two hours that is at all extraordinary. A woman might come stay with her sister. Men work, and bowl and play poker. People argue loudly, forgive readily. Men court women. Women get pregnant. There are plenty of instances of insanity. Garden variety stuff.

Oh but to watch these people talk!

Vivian Leigh as Blanche DuBois and Marlin Brando as Stanley Kowalski in particular among the stellar cast are not just acting, they are not just becoming, they are not just interpreting, they are total living, breathing affectations of characters. As such they are utterly mesmerizing.

Indeed there is a hypnotic quality to director Elia Kazan's film. Yes its mostly Brando, Leigh and company, but Streetcar had to be black and white. It had to feel increasingly cramped. You had to feel the humidity. How did Kazan make the movie seem so hot? Somehow you watch the movie and you sweat. The "action" is so often set in one place at a time (not surprising given the film's origins as a play) but there's such a sense of movement. It's a whirling dervish of a film.

It's a lot of talking. But the way they talk is so damn compelling. You don't hear every word. You'll even miss a snatch of dialogue here or there because you're so taken in by the sheer bravado of the performances. Anyway, many of the words are just props. It's the way they are spoken that's important. Watching Streetcar is like listening to a great singer. The lyrics can be secondary at times to the manner in which they are conveyed.

Brando embodies masculinity and sexuality. It's not just the torn shirts, the muscles or the bluster. It's the delicacy too. The tilt of the head, the gestures, the softness and even tenderness of his movements. Imagine a man at once macho and delicate. The template for thousands of actors since. Anyone who has contemplated losing his temper on stage or screen would be wise to watch him. But don't miss his contrition either. The bully whose conscience always shows up too late.

Leigh gets away with murder. She positively devours the scenery. It is a highly affected performance. I mean the woman's crazy, right, what do you expect? But watch her for awhile with the volume off. Is she trying to be 12 or 72? Coquettish one second, dismissive the next. Flitting about then contracting into herself. Look at her eyes. They look everywhere but at nothing. Dull while always moving. No more under control than her brain. Leigh tapped into her own experiences being bi-polar to play Blanche. Scary too watch her get lost in the part. But exhilarating too. The whole movie is that way. A term the kids used to use "a rush." And again it's not just that is such a good film but -- here it is -- the way it's a good movie. There was a real commitment but all involved to story telling to a different level. They bust loose, couldn't be contained like Brando's muscles refusing to stay within the confines of a shirt.

It's one hell of a risky movie to make. Who would be audacious enough to go so broad? Well, evidently Brando, Leigh and Kazan. They took reality and teased it from straight, limp roots into a while afro and dreadlocks and my God it's something to behold.

You May Be in a Movie Made 75 Years ago But...Oh Can't You See What I'm Trying to Say? I Love You!

If you have outrageous luck in life like I have, the one time you really fall deeply in love it ends up being for keeps. I had crushes that ranged from microscopic to titanic. But the real thing only hit me once and I've been married to the woman for many happy years since. (At least they've been happy for me.)

For some there's a downside to finding your one true love -- never experiencing the dizzy elation of losing your heart to another person ever again. But that's not a problem for those of who us also find passion and enchantment in movies.

I fall head over heals regularly while watching films. Often with the same dame over and over, sometimes in the same film.

We experience a lot vicariously through movies. Action, horror, space travel and of course romance. How often do even the most jaded and cynical of us go gaga over someone on screen? Yes, maybe it's the actor or actress we love, but real movie love is when we fall for the character. It's a delicious kind of fantasy that we can indulge in at any age and without regard to our "real life" romantic status.

Yes, I know you imagine me a hard bitten old cynic but I'm a soft touch for a pretty face, especially a good looking dame in a movie and most especially when the movie is from Hollywood's Golden Age. The movies were classier and the women appearing in them were too. They knew how to craft roles for leading ladies back in the 1930' and 40's. Female stars were cultivated and given roles just as substantial as the ones for men.

Below are ten screen sirens I've fallen for. In every case its happened more than once, I've just picked one particularly memorable role for each actress. I've swooned over so many actresses of yore that in narrowing this list to a manageable number I left off such personal favorites as Ginger Rogers, Myrna Loy, Alexis Smith, Joan Blondell, Jean Arthur, Veronica Lake, Thelma Todd and Priscilla Lane. Sorry girls.

Barbara Stanwyck as Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve (1941). Truth be told I've fallen for more of Ms. Stanwycks's characters than any other actress'. It's an odd thing considering that she's far from the most beautiful. But just watching her seduce lucky Henry Fonda in this film makes me rue the day I wasn't born in her era (if such a thing is possible to rue). Ms. Stanwyck was that unbeatable combination of smart and sexy. You could imagine being physically intimate with her (to be ridiculously euphemistic), talking politics with her or just gazing at the stars together. *Sigh*

Loretta Young as Gallagher in Platinum Blonde (1931). We're supposed to be watching Jean Harlow here. She's the star, she's the one the leading man marries. But Ms. Young steals every scene she's in. There are those eyes as big and beautiful as twin full moons. She's young, vulnerable, but capable and I want to skip merrily through a meadow with her. Impossibly beautiful.

Joan Fontaine as Lisa Berndle in Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948). Too pretty for words she is. The face of an angel and not a fallen one either. She looks at the man she loves as if he's the most wonderful creature on Earth. Just as in Rebecca (1940), Ms. Fontaine's idyllic love for her co star is the stuff of every man's dreams.

Ann Sheridan as Goldie West in They Made Me a Criminal (1939). In some respects the actress most similar to my own bride. Totally self assured, bordering on tough, but beautiful and loving and soft. Barring the invention of a time machine I'll never have Ms. Sheridan circa 1940, thank God I've got my own missus.

Paulette Goddard as A Gamin in Modern Times (1936). When I'm looking at Paulette Goddard I'm always afraid that I'll melt into puddle. She cavorts happily with co star Charlie Chaplin, the picture of innocence yet clearly a dame who knows her way on the round block. I wish she'd take me for a spin.

Lana Turner as Elizabeth Cotton in Honky Tonk (1941). It's one of those deals where you say, if you look up such and such a word in the dictionary there's a picture of so and so. You look up gorgeous in the dictionary and there's Lana Turner, from pretty much any movie she made. She's impossibly beautiful with a voice you could bask in. But there's also a bit of guile and attitude. In other words, more than just a pretty face.

Jean Harlow as Vantine in Red Dust (1932). This is a tough one to write about on a family blog. Gentleman, I think you know what I'm talking about, especially during the washtub scene. Talk about a woman who looked like a lot of fun! This is my favorite Harlow picture in large part because she's so damn sexy. But don't mess with her. Ya gotta like a woman who can fend for herself.

Marlene Dietrich as Shanghai Lily in Shanghai Express (1932). Okay I'm going to admit right off that in a one-on-one situation with Ms. Dietrich I'd be a bit intimidated, that's how seductive she is. Fine, I'd submit to her will and take my chances. I like the odds. Ms. Dietrich played a number of uber sexy women and you could have a fun argument about which role was best. I'll go with Shanghai lily. Hardly a politically correct moniker these days but a sexually correct woman in any day and age. (Yahvol, Fraulein Dietrich.)

Carole Lombard as Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey (1936). You know what makes beautiful and sexy into totally irresistible? When you add funny. Ms. Lombard is a crack up whether here or in Mr. and Mrs Smith (1941) or To Be or Not To Be (1942). And if you're funny you're smart. She's got all that and a body that just don't quit.

Olivia DeHaviland as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935). Ms. DeHavilland was a still a teenager when she played Hermia so I'll extricate myself from an awkward situation by saying it's the teenager in me who's got a massive crush on this version of Hermia. Indeed I get a crush on Ms. D pretty much any time I see her. There's so much verve and happiness to her that a pretty face becomes a complete knockout.

A Tale of Two Movies

Do you remember last week's post about how movies are like dating in that sometimes there's just no connection? If you forgot or missed it just click on this sentence.

I had a date today with Fashions of 1934 (1934). I'd heard good things. We seemed to be match for a variety of reasons: 1) It was a pre code film, 2) William Powell and Bette Davis starred, 3) The co stars included Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh and Reginald Owen, 4) It boasted musical numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley, 5) William Dieterle directed.

Sounds great.

Wasn't.

How bad was it? Ten minutes into the film I was working on the crossword puzzle from the morning paper. Half hour into it I was scanning the local weekly paper. An hour gone I realized I'd seen the damn thing before. That's pretty bad when you don't remember having seen a film before and fail to recognize it for a full damn 60 minutes.

In other words, this was a second date and I hadn't remembered the first. Yikes!

So what went wrong ?

No chemistry, for one. I mean between Davis and Powell, something that at least Davis readily admitted after the fact. Powell and Myrna Loy clicked together like rice and beans. Powell and Davis were two attractive stars occupying space together on screen. It happens, there's nothing that can be done about it once the cameras roll.

Dieterle and this story were a bad fit. Give him something for his German expressionist sensibilities to run with and he's dynamite. And about this story...it jumped all over the damn place. How they could have tossed so much into an under 80 minute film is a feat -- but not one to be admired.

The Berkeley numbers were tagged on towards the end and they were good enough. But really, the very definition of a Berkeley musical is the spectacular, not the satisfactory. Plus with this story line about shysters in the fashion industry, it wasn't a comfortable fit.

And oh by the way, where were the chuckles, guffaws and hardy har hars? Fashions was totally yuckless.

So I'm not blaming myself so much for this lousy date. It's no surprise that this turkey was not included in the Busby Berkeley DVD set released a few years back or that Fashions of 1934 has not had any DVD release at all. I should have had a clue when TCM host Robert Osborne's introduction for the film highlighted the fact that it was worth watching just to imagine Davis' displeasure at having to wear Orry-Kelly gowns throughout. Call me picky but I look for more than that when selecting a film to watch. I suppose that might have been the real message of Osborne's tepid intro -- viewer beware.

I was surprised to see that Fashions has a viewer rating of 7.2 on IMDb. Then again only 473 people have voted for it, an insignificant sample size. The 77 people who gave it a ten must have been experimenting with some pretty potent drug when they watched it.

As for me, at least Fashions was a loss of only 80 minutes of my life. Moreover the experience will be more than negated later this evening by my third date with Midnight (1939) directed by Mitchell Leisen. Leisen directed only two movies that I have both seen and enjoyed and they're both doozies, this one and Easy Living (1937).

Midnight succeeds in many of the same ways that Fashions of 1934 fails. Some chap named Wilder, Billy wrote the screenplay in conjuction with his frequent partner Charles Brackett. That should tell you that it's witty, unexpected and clever. And it is.

Claudette Colbert stars. She's simply one of the best screwball comedy actresses ever. Like the aforementioned Ms. Loy, the fact that she's both sophisticated and easy on the eyes makes her perfect for the genre. Dumb people doing comedy is stupid (look for that one in Bartlett's). Smart and sexy doing comedy is funny. When they're following a Wilder/Brackett script, they're a scream.

Colbert does have chemistry with her co-stars, Don Ameche and John Barrymore. Midnight also gives you a nice dose of Mary Astor. She's another one of those good looking dames with class that does comedy so well (see her in Palm Beach Story (1942)). Just to top things off you've got Monty Wolley who makes every film he's in better. And that Barrymore fellow, he provides more laughs with his eyes and facial expressions in half a minute than was elicited in Fashion's 80 minutes. Barrymore was great at comedy, and for that matter, tragedy, melodrama and...say what other genres ya got?

If you haven't seen Midnight (get with it and I mean pronto!) giving you plot points could prove distracting. If you've seen it, well then what the hell do you need me to recap it for? Let's just say Colbert is a penniless gold digger in Paris who finds herself posing as a baroness. Ameche is a salt of the earth but bon vivant cab driver. Are they destined to be together? We'll see and laugh while we find out. Midnight also features the fabulously wealthy, philanderers and schemers. Confusion reigns, though often of the premeditated variety. The usual screwball stuff done, as they say in the restaurant biz, to perfection.

So I'm getting ready for this date now and I absolutely know I'll get lucky. Wait, no, that's not luck it's kismet. Yowzah!

That's the Same Dude as From That Other Movie? No Way!

Some actors are instantly recognizable every time you see them on screen. There's no disguising Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart or Robert DeNiro and that's okay. Many of their roles are playing similar characters and that's okay too. These are stars and we enjoy how each manifestation of their essential personification is developed in their films. And it is a mistake to claim that they were not good actors. Bogart, for instance, went beyond the usual tough guy he played in such films as The African Queen and Caine Mutiny.

Some film stars take on very different roles, that require lots of make up, weight changes, accents or elaborate costumes. But that's really just the window dressing. The real difference comes from within. Great actors assume different personas for different roles. They become their character and the results are transformative and exciting. Sometimes they are barely recognizable.

Below I've got an even eleven (really, you got a problem with the number 11?) actors who convincingly became two different people for two different films. The two performances must be within 20 years of one another so that the person aging isn't too much of a factor. No performances as children included and no performances in super intense make up (sorry Roddy McDowall in Planet of the Apes (1968)).

I'll be the first two admit two things: 1) It's possible to come up with dozens and dozens more actors and 2) In many cases the actors I cite are indeed physically recognizable from one role to the next. But in all cases they are different people beating no resemblance other than the man playing them.

(I guess I'm going to have to come up with a similar list for women now. A film blogger's work is never done.)

Ben Kingsley as Mohandas Gandhi in Gandhi (1982) and as Don Logan in Sexy Beast (2000). This list is not in order except for Kingsley who must come first. I defy anyone to come up with two more different characters portrayed by the same actor. One is the great pacifist leader of India the other a manic English gangster whose way tougher than nails. Sir Ben is one of our greatest living actors and all you have to do is watch these two movies back-to-back for irrefutable proof.

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Milk (2008) and as David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way (1993). As Milk, Penn was a middle aged gay man who was the first openly homosexual activist to be elected to public office in the United States. It was a performance that garnered him Oscar number two. Prior to that Penn had appeared as all variety of characters bearing no resemblance to Harvey Milk, none more different than a drug addicted, paranoid, young Jewish lawyer in Carlito's Way. With two Oscars to his credit Penn will no doubt go down in history as one of our greatest actors.

Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007) and as Juan Antonio Gonzalo in Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008). Any role is a departure from Anton Chigurh. There's never been anything quite like him and the debate as to what he represented will go on. Much of the fascination with the character is based on Bardem's Oscar winning performance. A year later Bardem appeared in VCB as a Spanish painter and prolific cocksman. His lovers included Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall (sounds like one of my weekends). Bardem featured in my favorite films of both of the last two years and his contributions were inestimable to both -- and as two very different men.

Walter Huston as Howard in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and as Sam Dodsworth in Dodsworth (1936). He was the quintessential old prospector in Sierra Madre. Wise in the ways of the hills and its occupants, both animal and mineral. Perhaps a little touched (check out his dance moves) but plenty savvy. As the title character in Dodsworth he was in another world. A retired automobile magnate who set off to tour Europe with his wife. Huston is wise here too but with altogether different sensibilities and life experience. Couldn't look a lot different either.

Paul Muni as Tony Camonte in Scarface (1932) and as Emile Zola in The Life of Emile Zola (1937). As Camonte, Muni was one of the forerunners of all film gangsters to follow, especially Italian-Americans. You might even say he was a bit over the top. But as the real life Zola he was the understated muckraking French writer of fin de siecle France. Muni had an abbreviated career -- partially by choice -- but made the most of the roles he did tackle.

Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter in It's A Wonderful Life (1946) and as Otto Kringelein in Grand Hotel (1932). They look alike but can't possibly be the same guy. One of them must be another member of the acting Barrymore family. Nope. Same guy. Potter is the meanest man in town and likely would be in most any town you dropped him in. Kringelein, meanwhile is as nice an old bloke as you'd want to meet. He's a bookkeeper who's as far from the wealthy Potter as you can get.

Dustin Hoffman as Ben Braddock in The Graduate (1967) and as Ratso in Midnight Cowboy (1969). So one year he makes his film debut as a recent and highly honored college graduate living and loving in Southern Calfiornia. Two years alter he's playing...hmmm, why not just say the polar opposite. Ratso is everything Ben is not. New Yorker, sickly, repulsive and a hustler. After these two roles Hoffman wasn't just a star but a recognized great actor. Still is.

Laurence Olivier as Marcus Licinius Crassus in Spartacus (1960) and Szell in Marathon Man (1976). Both were bad guys. But one was a slave holding Roman Dictator and the other was a former Nazi concentration camp doctor. Olivier looked and sounded quite different in both roles (remember, this is the guy who starred as a wealthy Brit in Rebecca (1940) ). Olivier's ability to assume varying roles bordered on magic.

Walter Brennan as Old Man Clanton in My Darling Clementine (1946) and Professor Novotny in Hangmen Also Die (1943). Brennan was one of the top five character actors of the the first half of the 20th century. Yes, he usually played comical second bananas in cowboy films. But he shone in those roles and everything else he took on. See him in Ford's My Darling Clementine as the oneriest Papa you'll ever meet. See him in Lang's Hangmen Also Die as a loving father and doctor in Nazi occupied Europe. You might check him out too as the drunkard in To Have and Have Not (1944).

Daniel Day Lewis as Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989) and as Bill The Butcher in Gangs of New York (2002). Another possessor of two Oscars, the first as a man with Cerebral Palsy who paints using his left foot, the only limb he can control. He's in control of one helluva lot more in Gangs, where he is the ultimate sadistic gang leader. Day-Lewis doesn't take on many roles but the ones he does....

Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941) and as Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil (1958). To begin with the two fellas couldn't look a whole lot different. One is a super wealthy publisher and collector of most everything. The other is a corrupt border town cop who's as mean and ugly as a rattler. One of the world's most revered directors, Welles could act too. These films are but two examples.

Film Gangsters, They Do Indeed Pre Date the 1970's

Yesterday I wrote a post (more went off on a tangent) after reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle's entertainment section that claimed to list the top ten gangster performances in film. Ever. None of the roles mentioned was from a film made before 1972. I was understandably outraged.

During my tirade I said that I could easily come up with a top ten made up solely of performance before the 1970's. Always one to put my money where my mouth is (never mind that it's quite unsanitary). Here it is.

10. Clark Gable as Blackie Gallagher In Manhattan Melodrama (1934). Known as being the film John Dillinger had just seen when shot down outside of Chicago’s Biograph theater, Manhattan Melodrama features a strong performance by Gable as a powerful gangland boss. The performance suggests that Gable could have had a fine career playing heavies.

9. Robert Taylor as Johnny Eager in Johnny Eager (1942). Johnny is so slick he’s got the authorities fooled. They’ve bought his line about going straight and being a cab driver. Suckers. Eager’s back in the rackets after a stretch in the pen and the D.A.s daughter has fallen for him. Taylor too could have played the bad guy a few more times to good effect.

8. Edward G. Robinson as Rico in Little Caesar (1931). Robinson couldn’t have imagined what he’d started with his bravura performance. He not only spawned countless imitators but locked himself into a lifetime of similar roles. Its a rags to riches story gangster style, which means a return to rags and “the end for Rico.”

7. Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly In On the Waterfront (1954). Technically he’s a union boss but we know better. Friendly lives up to his name if you play ball. If not this is one tough S.O.B. who can be as loud as he his mean.

6. Alan Ladd as Philip Raven in This Gun For Hire (1942). So what is this guy, friend to kitties and children or cold blooded killer? How about both. Raven was cooler than a cucumber. The trench coat and hat inspired legendary French director Jean-Pierre Melville.

5. James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931). This was the quintessential sociopath. Likable, even lovable to some. A momma’s boy who stood for nothin from nobody. His hubris caught up with him in the end but what a show he put on en route.

4. Paul Muni as Tony Camonte in Scarface (1932). This is not the over top Tony of the re-make but he’s no shrinking violet either. A man who wouldn’t hesitate to dispense with those in his way. And don’t mess with his sister!

3. Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee (1936) in Petrified Forest. This was a more studied, mannered gangster than the ones Bogie usually played. Fatalistic, not unreasonable, but deadly.

2. Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948). We meet him while he’s soaking in a tub, all big belly and bigger cigar. He’s not only a heartless gangster but he whispers what are obvious obscenities into Lauren Bacall’s ears. What a rat! Robinson could have played this one on his reputation but he gave Rocco a little something extra.

1. James Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949). Makes Pacino’s Tony Montana of the second Scarface look like a choirboy. Shoots people in trunks, kicks others downstairs, but he too loves his ma and she’s no Little Miss Muffet either. For her he makes it to “the top of the world.” Never mind the cost to others or even himself.

Runners Up: Bogart as Roy Earle in High Sierra (1941), Kirk Douglas as Whit Sterling in Out of the Past (1947), Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti in The Untouchables TV Series (1959-1962), Vic Morrow as Dutch Schultz in Portrait of a Mobster (1961), George Raft as Hood Stacey in Each Dawn I Die (1939), Ricardo Cortez as Leo Darcy in Midnight Mary (1933).

How About a Little Perspective - Or - The Subversive Message of Holiday

So Holiday is a comedy, right?

The 1938 film with Hepburn and Grant?

Yeah that's the one.

Well there are certainly comic elements in it....

It's a romance too.

So you’re saying it's a romantic comedy?

Of course, what else?

What else indeed. It's a movie with a very strong anti business, anti greed message.

Huh?

In Holiday (1938) Cary Grant stars as Johnny Case a man of 30 who's worked his way from the bottom rung of society to the verge of greatness in the business world. However instead of pushing on and amassing a great fortune, Johnny wants to find himself.

He tells his future sister-in-law, Linda Seton (Kate Hepburn): "As soon as I get enough money I'm going to knock off for awhile. The world's changing there's a lot of new exciting ideas... I want to know where I stand, how I fit into the picture, what it's going to mean to me. I can't find that out sitting behind some desk in an office. (I'll) come back and work when I know what it is I'm working for."

Obviously impressed Linda replies, "you haven't been caught by it yet you haven't bit bitten by it.... The reverence for riches."

While on his first ever Holiday taken at Lake Placid, Johnny has just met Julia Seton (Doris Nolan) and they've fallen instantly in love an mean to marry. Unbeknownst to Johnny, Linda comes from an extremely wealthy family. Johnny's plans to to make some quick dough and go find himself will not sit well with Julia's father, the stuffy widower, Edward Seton. Nor for that matter will they meet with the unsuspecting Julia's approval. She tells Johnny, "there's no such thrill in the world as making money."

The free spirited Linda however is entranced by Johnny. Her besotted and philosophical brother, Ned (Lew Ayres) also takes to him.

Johnny and Julia's engagement is to be announced at the the Seton's New York mansion during a New Year's Eve party which will be attended by all the best people. That is, those of good breeding and huge bank accounts.

At the party we meet a cousin, Seton Cram (Harry Daniell) and his wife Laura (Binnie Barnes). They talk and walk as the very embodiment of cultured conservative society. Each word they utter sounds coated in brie. Since their cousin's intended is an unknown they hypothesize that he is "a common climber who nobody knows." And Seton scoffs that this Case fellow "doesn't even belong to the Harvard Club."

Also among the cast are two old friends of Johnny's, Professor Nick Potter (Edward Everett Horton) and his wife Susan Elliot Potter (Jean Dixon). We meet them at the beginning of the movie sitting in front of their fireplace reading. We find them to be convivial, intelligent fun loving sorts. The Potters represent the sort of intellectuals that conservatives abhor.

These same Potters are at the party and feeling quite out of place until they come across "the playroom" and meet Linda who wants nothing to do with the big shindig going on downstairs. Of course they form an instant bond and are later joined by Ned then Johnny, who's sent to coax Linda into joining the other revelers (though their form of revelry is as raucous as a spelling bee). The playrrom assemblage form "the 5th avenue anti stuffed shirt club and flying trapeze club." When Seton and Laura enter the room, our friends not so subtly give them the fascist salute.

Ignoring this, Seton congratulates Johnny on his business venture which he has just learned is going to bring instant riches. Johnny's delighted as it will mean he can follow his heart, quit business for awhile and go into the business of figuring out the world and his place in it.

There's a joke about making million at which point Seton says, "mark my words with the help of the right sort of people you'll make more than that within two years. It wouldn't take that long if we had the right kind of government."

"Like which country for example Mr. Cram?" asks Mrs. Potter.

Keep in mind that Holiday was released early in Franklin Roosevelt's second term. He had won re-election by a landslide but was still reviled by many of the wealthiest Americans who considered him a "traitor to his class." while he was helping millions out of the Depression, tens of Americans were whining about losing a few cents of their profits and having to lay off a chauffeur.

In the penultimate conversation with his prospective father-in-law who's anxious to set Johnny up in banking, our protagonist says, "I'm afraid I'm not quite as anxious as I might be for the things most people work towards. I don't want too much money."

"Too much money?" the shocked multi-millionaire responds.

"More than I need to live by. You see its always been my idea to make a few thousand early in the game and then quit for at long as it lasts and try to find out who I am and what goes on and what about it while I'm young and feel good all the time."

Shocking!

Meanwhile it has become increasingly obvious to us and to the Potters and Ned, that Linda and Johnny are a much better fit than Julia and Johnny.

How does it all end? Likely you've seen Holiday and know, but on the off chance you haven't I'll not spoil the ending -- just promise you'll rent it post haste.

Holiday was based on a Phillip Barry play and no, Barry was not a radical, he was in fact a member of the upper crust which made him all the more qualified to comment on them.

So as you can see Holiday may have some romance and a few yucks in it but it's clearly a film that carries a very strong message.

You know I never really noticed it but you're right.

I know the first few times I saw it I was more taken in by watching Grant and Hepburn.

And Lew Ayers, God he was terrific.

Yes George Cukor directed and he brought all the elements together.

But you're right it really is a powerful indictment of the monied class.

And a call to arms to explore the world before getting bogged down by possessions.

Great film. Thanks for helping me see it it in a whole new way.

You're welcome!