Opinions on Classic Hollywood and "Not so classic' film plus related subjects by Canadian film guy TERRY SHERWOOD. (Every film mentioned on this site has been viewed)
These epic pictures like ITS A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1965) also a Stanley Kramer film along with HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962) all make for interesting watching. Many things happen in these pictures or should happen that make them special . While SHIP OF FOOLS (1965) has been called the GRAND HOTEL (1932) on a ship however I found it different in style and content.
SHIP OF FOOLS is a stark story dealing with people figuratively trapped on ship bound for the unknown of what was to become Nazi Germany. The story was adapted by Katherine Anne Porter’s voluminous novel was adapted to the screen by none other than Abby Mann. Mann was more suited to gritty investigative dramas usually and cracking dialogue involving the police or lawyers in some shape as JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961) and being the creator of TV series KOJACK with Telly Savalas are in his past and future.
The film is book ended by the character of Karl Glocken played by small actor Michael Dunn for which he received a Academy award nomination for best supporting actor. Glocken breaks the “fourth wall” setting the audience up with the mood onboard ship. Later in the picture Glocken discusses the ways of German music with fellow staunch yet funny Heinz Ruhman who has a snoring problem that completely irritates his forced bunk mate.
SHIP OF FOOLS use “fade to black” technique in between moments which gives an almost “French New wave” feel or late twenties to early thirties Hollywood when they didn’t have any other transition techniques or camera movement. This is enhanced by SHIP OF FOOLS being photographed in Black and White by Ernest Laszlo. Mr Laszlo was the cinematographer for JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961): BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL (1965) and Kramer’s ITS A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1965) among his large award winning credits.
What makes SHIP OF FOOLS so watchable is the cast as they all try to find Love in some form as they sail into the darkness of what was wartime Germany. You have Vivian Leigh her final on screen performance as Mary Treadwell.
Treadwell is older woman feeling that years and her torment of a life passing. She refused companionship offer Ltd Hubner played by Werner Klemperer
Klemperer would be sent his own “doom” playing Colonel Klink in TV series HOGAN’S HEROS.
Desperate to be loved again is some form as she paints her travesty of the makeup worn by the young Spanish women aboard ship only to have a surprise nocturnal visitor.
Simone Signoret as a drug addicted Cuban Countess Le Condesa being sent to prison in Spain.
Jose ferrer as a German Siegfred Rieber who spouts prejudicial remarks yet claims to pitifully ‘Need Love” while laying in a hammock with Lizzi (Christiana Schmidtmer).
Elizabeth Ashley as Jenny and George Segal as David; a couple also need a version of love that either of them seem capable of giving.
Many other performances stand out as each gets a moment such as Gila Golan as seventeen year old Elsa who is upset that no one wants to dancer with her because of how she looks much to the surprise of her parents.
Two performances for me steal the film and that is the interaction between Simone Signoret Countess La Condesa and Oskar Werner as Ship Doctor Schuman.
Werner’s Schuman is a married crusading medical person concerned with the oppression of people. He is the one who advocates turning hoses on the poor people in steerage to cool them during a heat wave.
He also falls in love with the Countess as is called to treat here which is doomed as both must part as they have duty and obligation to fulfill. Their relationship features some amazingly subtle moments of character and acting especially when they must part.
George Segal as David is an all consumed artist who demands from his girlfriend played by Elizabeth Ashley that his work be all important.
They reconcile on very treacherous grow but only after a moment of truth has both passed through them. Everyone wants love on this ship be it paid by money or by the heart.
Lee Marvin is a total slime ball American Bill Tenny who is out for anything he can get out of women yet as he said He can’t hit a baseball. Tenny is actually bested by Vivian Leigh as Mary Treadwell in a moment you will not soon forget.
SHIP OF FOOLS has compelling character if not slightly jaded outlook on Love as one floats voluntarily towards oblivion. Whether its Art, Music, carving of a figure, denied love because you cant pay or simply happiness it all has a price that is paid here. Each find a type of release, each loses something of themselves on the trip to a land that one would lose a lot more.
Humphrey Bogart once said that the problem with the world is that it is always “a few drinks behind”.
Vice has been an admirable subject of film. We all pay to see a downfall or a redemption of some style. Today that has changed for obvious shadowy reasons for the better. There are many destructive cases as we all know from Rosco “Fatty” Arbuckle trials of which he was acquitted yet the ‘taint” destroyed his career.
It is odd that a feeling can destroy a film actors career yet certain politicians can have their ‘indiscretions’ even when publicly stated be glossed over. One would think emphasis should be on the person in a responsible position not something as perhaps inconsequential as a film actor.
The studios has their ‘Fixers’ in the person of Eddie Mannix and company perhaps there are others in motion today? Countless events covered up from Stars to contract players going to hospitals or ‘away” due to exhaustion.
Actor Lionel Atwill known as ‘Pinky’ to his friends took the blame as a ‘gentleman” for an event at one of his parties so a ‘Well known’ persons would not be implicated. The result was a destroyed career very likely the admiration of the film Colony.
I do enjoy the ‘amber liquid’ in a proper glass often when viewing film at home. It sets the tone often as I slip into the world of Film Noir or other picture. The consuming of liquor has been a catalyst in Classic Hollywood since they were known as the “flickers.” W. C. Fields stealing a nip from a flask. You have Henry Fonda pouring a shot for Victor Mature, Tyrone Power slamming down gin from NIGHTMARE ALLEY, and James Dean drinking from a bottle of milk from REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE because both he and his character did not touch alcohol. The ‘color’ booze gives Bogart’s character of Charlie Alnutt in THE AFRICAN QUEEN
Booze has been the great trigger for stories of the gangster from silent film to today. Without drink you would not have the “hood” that rises to the top during prohibition. No Cagney, no Raft, no Muni, no Eddie G. laying on the pavement clutching his chest exclaiming, “Is this the end of Rico?” in LITTLE CAESAR.
Where would Rick’s Place in CASABLANCA (1942) be without drink? Ray Milland would not have had been on THE LOST WEEKEND (1945). Jack Lemon and Lee Remick would not have experienced THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962). Lee Marvin’s character Kid Shellen in CAT BALLOU (1965) would not have been as interesting.
Miriam would not have lost her mountain bar in the fire during the drinking contest in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). Where would James Bond be without his knowledge of wines and Scotch whiskey? Where would Nick, Nora and Asta (their dog) of the THIN MAN series be without potent potables? The list goes on and on with the same conclusion of not being as fun to watch. Society is against drinking to excess yet we do enjoy watching the train wreck of alcohol and people. Clark Gable’s legendary appetite for whiskey took away some of the inner pain
Actors on screen- whether we like it or not- have taught us how to drink. Some watch the elegance of John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, David Niven, Franchot Tone, William Powell, Clifton Webb . Women get their due with Joan Crawford in RAIN (1932) , Susan Hayward in SMASH UP THE STORY OF A WOMAN (1947) plus Anne Dvorak in THREE ON A MATCH (1932).
Women have been portrayed as fallen or evil when booze is involved which is a double standard; witness Dvorak’s portrayal of the doomed Vivian Revere. Women who drink and are not “good mothers” will suffer consequences from the Law or by God.
Just pick a year if you are lucky enough to attend and you see people at the TCM FILM FESTIVAL dressing the part of Hollywood Glamour which adds a nice touch to things. Yes, the materials to do this have changed, fabrics have changed, and knowledge to do this has changed. Some has been lost or adapted to today’s audience. Why try and recapture something as elusive as Hollywood Glamour when it means different things to different people? You can see it in different looks at the Academy Awards red carpet. We should move forward towards our own images of glamour be it in nightlife, eatery or stepping out in clothes. The classic clothes or look, the drinks, the manners, are sometimes neglected by people of both sexes as it’s not a thing to do. The audiences, the public is different now and so is society.
The Legendary watering holes of old Hollywood are gone replaced by newer places that seem slightly disposable or cookie cutter in approach. A club or an Eatery is just bricks, or in some cases prefab bits of wood it is the atmosphere and more importantly the people that make it different or unique. This not a lament for the old days more a “Things have changed” and that’s okay.
SOMETHING WILD (1961) Directed and co written by Jack Garfein is said to be ‘a lost indie film classic”. This picture lives up to that suggestion and more even if it is rarely seen today. A jarring piece of film making complete with strong performances by Carol Baker, Ralph Meeker and others.
Youth films flourished in the late fifties and sixties with the style of HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) and many others usually involving a leather glad delinquent that gets redeemed by ‘rock and roll ‘music or a winning a race in a hot rod. Such pictures were good fun to watch yet with some notable exceptions like Brando’s THE WILD ONE (1953) , REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) and the lesser known WILD SEED (1965) with Michael Parks took the theme of “Teenage trouble” and the accompanying society alienation seriously much less making the female the main story.
SOMETHING WILD (1961) takes it all a step forward with its almost “French New wave “cinematic title sequence by Saul Bass featuring, vehicles, painted road lines, time distortion all to a scored by a young Aaron Copeland.
The story of a young New York girl who is brutally raped in a park and her method of finding here own way after is heavy issue today even more so in 1961. Carol Baker in only her third role after BABY DOLL (1956) and a role in GIANT (1956) gives a defining performance as Mary Ann Robinson.
Actors studio trained Carol Baker would go on to a controversial career that somehow didn’t quite take off to the heights of when she was dubbed as another “Marilyn Monroe” Ralph Meeker best known for tough guy roles such as Mike Hammer in KISS ME DEADLY (1955) turns in multi leveled performance as the simple mechanic Mike that comes into Mary’s life. Meeker alternates between gentle, shy, bumbling person around Mary to obsessive drunken rage culminating in confinement. Mike does not know tenderness as he saves Mary in a moment of despair yet at the same time threatens her
The cast is filled out by early roles from two soon to be television legends in the person of Jean Stapleton who would go onto to immortality as “Edith Bunker” in ALL IN THE FAMILY. Stapleton takes her turn in two brief scenes as a sleazy boarder Shirley Johnson who lives next door to Mary. Doris Roberts as “Mary’s store coworker” who would become “Maria Barone” in EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND. The actor that steals the show in a small role is Martin Kosleck as slimy landlord of the house that Mary ends up living. Kosleck made a career of playing evil mostly Nazi like Conrad Veidt before him yet in this picture Kosleck is like a leering tattooed snake. Veidt and Kosleck both were born in Germany and fled the tide of Hitler to portray an aspect of their country that they both hated. A young Diana Ladd is listed as having a bit role.
SOMETHING WILD (1961) derives its power from its black and white stark images. Many of these styled in Noir lighting and German expressionism of the decent into Mary’s existence. We see crowds, and large spaces in the beginning of the film only later to be replaced by shadows, darkness and even the people become the enemy as Mary is trapped on subway.
The people fight and battle to get on an off the cars often looking to be within a moment of real violence to those around them. The real New York locations sure as the Bowery become even more foreboding as you see nothing but “lost people”.
The attack on Mary is particularly well handled for sixties as while its brutal in it intent The moment becomes singularly not comfortable sense wise when you see the simple shot of Mary’s garter and her bare skin pressing into a rock during the attack. That is all one needs to see to understand what this attack is unlike many of the film makers of today showing more images. One knows the room is vacant when you place one object in it.
SOMETHING WILD (1961) become Film Noir in its outlook on life in the pictures second half. The torture that both Mary and Mike feel and do to each other is the story. Classic Noir theme of being both are trapped in something be it the past or what they have been branded by society. Mary and Mike are locked physically together suffering like addicts by their situation only to find a type of redemption. Mildred Dunnock plays Mary’s mother Mrs Gates masterfully as she tries to make amends being oblivious to her concerns similar to Jim Backus as James Dean’s father in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955). Mrs Gates pleads with her daughter to come home and to restore the world as before but Mary know that it can never be the same.
SOMETHING WILD (1961) lives up to its billing as a lost classic. It features expert direction, acting and camera work worth of a small classic picture. In somewhat Hollywood tradition it was not well received by the public as it was often to intense and bleak. The picture was the last to be made by Director Jack Garfein which is a shame. See this hard to get film if you can.
I have a great affection for ‘B’ pictures of Hollywood since that is where you often find actors and Directors learning and taking chance. Even today the lower budget film often is more rewarding in story and style. The Lew Landers Directed MAN IN THE DARK (1953) for Columbia pictures is another example. This one has the added fun of being ‘police procedural” spiced up with some 3D moments in the theater.
MAN IN THE DARK stars Edmond O Brien doing what some might say a repeat of D.O. A. character from outstanding 1949 film. O Brien plays the tough then befuddled by memory loss gangster Steve Rawley who has undergone an operation to purge criminal tendencies. Rawley took a ‘stretch in prison’ for a year before the procedure/ The operation is a success and Rawley yearns for the happy life of the institution’s gardener. However his gang that he committed a robbery with wants the money he hid yet now Rawley can’t remember.
The gang with names, faces and personalities straight out the Pulp stories from which they came from those being Lefty (Ted De Corsia) , Arnie (Horace McMahon) and Cookie (Nick Dennis) are all wonderfully played The “Femme Fatale” is supplied by none other than Audrey Trotter. Trotter was looking a little older due perhaps to the role yet she is well versed in female Noir . Just to mention a few of her accomplishments: Trotter was at her best as the wife or variation of as she showed as Richard Basehart’s mate Claire Quimby in MGM’S TENSION (1949) or as Julie Thompson opposite Robert Ryan in the brilliant Noir boxing picture THE SETUP (1949).
The story flows at the gang try various means to get the money. Good solid action moments in the 1950’s of action with fights, car crashes, fairground exteriors some slightly over the top dialogue that made these films wonderful to watch. The 3D shots do stand out in the television version as you get guns aimed at the audience, a fist flies at your jaw and even a “Brain operation’ with four surgeons looking down at you.
Behind the camera you have Director Lew Landers who had prolific career in both film and later television. In 1935 under the name of “Louis Friedlander”: Landers Directed the seminal Classic horror film THE RAVEN with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. This picture often thought of as one of the best if not the best Lugosi/Karloff pairings and is greatly loved by fans. It also along with THE BLACK CAT (1934) is thought to be been so uneasy for the audience that the Universal stopped producing Horror films from 1936 to 1939 as a result of the ‘Horror Ban”.
The Editor was the very distinguished ‘First Lady Film Cutter’ Viola Lawrence. Lawrence was editor on such films as THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947), IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), HARRIET CRAIG (1950), HERE COMES MISTER JORDAN (1941), QUEEN KELLY (1929), TIGHTSPOT (1955) and so many others
Hans J. Salter who did the music for many of the later Universal Horror picture composed some of the incidental music.
MAN IN THE DARK (1953) is “B” film to entertainment with some added 3D elements. You get to watch Edmund O Brien be tough, be confused the be tough again as he romances and punches his way to the loot (Or does he?) and the love of Audrey Trotter. It a real roller coaster of entertainment 1950’s style.
It is not often I post about war pictures as Classic Film, so I thought I would put my boots in on the Otto Preminger directed picture IN HARM’S WAY (1965) with John Wayne and a host of others.
Wayne crossed many genres, yet he will be forever remembered as the gun totin,’ fist swingin,’ righteous cowboy. He can be accused of playing himself in his films – not a bad thing as audiences loved him in those roles. This makes his work in the role of Admiral Rockwell Torrie all the more interesting.
IN HARM’S WAY puts Wayne squarely where he has been before, fighting in the Pacific as he had done in FLYING TIGERS (1942) , THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945), OPERATION PACIFIC (1951), THE FIGHTING SEEBEES (1944), SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949), and BACK TO BATAAN (1945). Familiar territory for him yes, but the material is seldom told with such a gritty edge then in this picture, thanks mainly to producer/director Otto Preminger. The picture features an effective use of black and white photography in the age of exploding colors. Color television was out, but a lot of us still had black and white images of combat footage from the Vietnam War that had been broadcast into homes on a daily basis.
Stanley Kubrick’s black and white nuclear insanity picture DR STRANGE LOVE or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB was produced in 1964. The world was just a few years away from the Cuban Missile crisis. There was also the1962 Steve McQueen anti-war film, THE WAR LOVER, which featured black and white photography and an edgy screenplay by Howard Koch.
IN HARM’S WAY was not about that time, of course, yet it did has the sense of a ‘grown up’ war film in spite of the fabricated story. Grown up in the characters we see; some of these people have a dark side to them. The picture does teach what I would call ‘the sadness of war.’ The death of people in non- battle sequences is particularly jarring, showing how it is sometimes harder for us to justify the death of one then the death of many.
IN HARM’S WAY deals with the event of Pearl harbour and the battles of Guadalcanal. The location names are changed; not the most important lapse in the picture as it is a story about the people. It could be said it becomes a soap opera as it shows scenes of clubs and domestic life as relationships are formed. Today these moments are used to create sympathy for the characters as they will end up being killed later on. One difference is that IN HARM’S WAY does not feature the ‘training camp’ or ‘refit’ sections in which we are introduced to people in the film. You get right to the ‘boots on the ground’ feel of real Navy people and actual situations. The picture was shot aboard battleships, with real sailors doing what they do such as sounding general quarters with a bugle through an intercom.
Wayne was without some of his standard crew of film people such as Ward Bond and stunt man Yakima Canutt. The film features some tasty performances by people such as Franchot Tone as a commander resigned to his fate.
Tone was a handsome, golden voiced fellow who was once the husband of Joan Crawford. He was theatre trained and made a career of playing rich men, royals, inventors, spies, and society people opposite the likes of Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and Loretta Young. He is brilliant in his scenes as the Admiral who will get blamed for the “Pearl Harbour Disaster’ as it happened on his watch. Tone confidently strides through the opening attack, bullets flying, bombs exploding in his Navy white dress uniform, grim faced to his briefing on the situation.
Tom Tryon as Lieutenant Junior Grade, William McConnel and his wife Bev played by surprisingly vulnerable Paula Prentiss, whom we meet at a large party on the eve of the attack are also standouts. Tryon gives McConnel a resolute approach to duty as his character moves to having full command of a destroyer thrust upon him in the heat of battle. The men grow to love his character as is shown in a wonderful scene at a dock with his men after an ordeal lead by film personality Slim Pickens.
Paula Prentiss’s best moment is when John Wayne’s Rockwell Torry comes to tell her that her husband is reported missing in action. She is an aircraft observer required to report all flight activity from her check point on the radio. She bravely continues to do despite the tears: only to falter at the last moment and require help.
Kirk Douglas as maverick Commander Paul Eddington is continually given chances by Rockwell Torrey, whom he calls The ‘Rock of Ages.’ He runs a gambit of character texturing from cynical officer to drunk to widower to assaulter of women.
When he learns the girl he assaulted is a suicide victim, Eddington leads an unauthorised low level solo recon flight mission that uncovers the massing of enemy battleships in which he meets his end. In an interesting turn from the Hollywood cliché when asked whether Eddington should get the medal of honour for his bravery, Rockwell Torrey, his trusted friend who knew that he assaulted the Nurse responds, “No recommendation,” thus abruptly ending the scene.
Look especially to the chemistry between John Wayne and Patricia Neal as Nurse Lieutenant Maggie Hayes whom he meets while convalescing.
Brandon De wild (who is blessed with the most irritating voice for in film – he played the youngster who yells ‘SHANE’ in the film of the same name) plays the grown up estranged son Jeremiah to John Wayne’s character. When we first see them onscreen, it was a moment that mirrored Wayne’s real life relationship with his own son as he confronts the fact that his boy has been raised by his mother whom he has no part of in watching growing up. He didn’t even know he was in the Navy.
Burgess Meredith gets a turn as a Hollywood screen writer working in Operations who is forced into combat role. In a touching moment he admits to being scared and would rather,” be behind a type writer making this whole thing up than living it.”
Patrick O’ Neal as the smarmy Commander Neal Owynn was more interested in keeping the war clean and on the level for the public gets his comeuppance in a washroom.
Wayne is not the action hero as he was in so many of his films here but rather a father figure of sorts, letting the action unfold around him. Confidences abound as Wayne shares scenes with Henry Fonda and others. He gives a subtle performance, especially in moments when he lowers his voice and when he receives casualty reports involving his son. This was also the film that Wayne was doing when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and began his real life battle. It shows in his physicality mostly his face and his movements.
There are many such performances in this picture that I am going to leave out for the viewer to discover which deserves repeated viewings of all 165 minutes.
IN HARM’S WAY (1965) was ignored by most credits and awards, this does not necessarily mean it was a bad film. It has a jarring style of black and white photography along with abrupt scene endings as simple as fade to blacks followed by fade up to new scenes, different than the color washed, zoom in world of 60s cinema. It is filled with vulnerable characters in a world about to turn upside down. I also found the closing credits in the use of images that bring us to speed culminating in the mushroom cloud.
IN HARM’S WAY, similar to the fate that happened to another John Wayne film the Western ‘ THE BIG TRAIL’ (1930) director by Raoul Walsh. This picture was produced in black and white using some silent footage as sound was still in its infancy. Much of the silent footage was re-shot or dubbed later similar to IN HARM’S WAY having a throwback look to it as it was done in the 60s. THE BIG TRAIL featured several small performances that added texture to the story plus it was produced in wide screen format for select theatres. It is an early John Wayne Western that is often over shadowed by the worthwhile STAGE COACH (1939). Now it is getting a new look.
Here is hoping IN HARM’S WAYS get to be seen by more people with the same treatment.
It is not often I post about war pictures as Classic Film, so I thought I would put my boots in on the Otto Preminger directed picture IN HARM’S WAY (1965) with John Wayne and a host of others.
Wayne crossed many genres, yet he will be forever remembered as the gun totin,’ fist swingin,’ righteous cowboy. He can be accused of playing himself in his films – not a bad thing as audiences loved him in those roles. This makes his work in the role of Admiral Rockwell Torrie all the more interesting.
IN HARM’S WAY puts Wayne squarely where he has been before, fighting in the Pacific as he had done in FLYING TIGERS (1942) , THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945), OPERATION PACIFIC (1951), THE FIGHTING SEEBEES (1944), SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949), and BACK TO BATAAN (1945). Familiar territory for him yes, but the material is seldom told with such a gritty edge then in this picture, thanks mainly to producer/director Otto Preminger. The picture features an effective use of black and white photography in the age of exploding colors. Color television was out, but a lot of us still had black and white images of combat footage from the Vietnam War that had been broadcast into homes on a daily basis.
Stanley Kubrick’s black and white nuclear insanity picture DR STRANGE LOVE or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB was produced in 1964. The world was just a few years away from the Cuban Missile crisis. There was also the1962 Steve McQueen anti-war film, THE WAR LOVER, which featured black and white photography and an edgy screenplay by Howard Koch.
IN HARM’S WAY was not about that time, of course, yet it did has the sense of a ‘grown up’ war film in spite of the fabricated story. Grown up in the characters we see; some of these people have a dark side to them. The picture does teach what I would call ‘the sadness of war.’ The death of people in non- battle sequences is particularly jarring, showing how it is sometimes harder for us to justify the death of one then the death of many.
IN HARM’S WAY deals with the event of Pearl harbour and the battles of Guadalcanal. The location names are changed; not the most important lapse in the picture as it is a story about the people. It could be said it becomes a soap opera as it shows scenes of clubs and domestic life as relationships are formed. Today these moments are used to create sympathy for the characters as they will end up being killed later on. One difference is that IN HARM’S WAY does not feature the ‘training camp’ or ‘refit’ sections in which we are introduced to people in the film. You get right to the ‘boots on the ground’ feel of real Navy people and actual situations. The picture was shot aboard battleships, with real sailors doing what they do such as sounding general quarters with a bugle through an intercom.
Wayne was without some of his standard crew of film people such as Ward Bond and stunt man Yakima Canutt. The film features some tasty performances by people such as Franchot Tone as a commander resigned to his fate.
Tone was a handsome, golden voiced fellow who was once the husband of Joan Crawford. He was theatre trained and made a career of playing rich men, royals, inventors, spies, and society people opposite the likes of Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and Loretta Young. He is brilliant in his scenes as the Admiral who will get blamed for the “Pearl Harbour Disaster’ as it happened on his watch. Tone confidently strides through the opening attack, bullets flying, bombs exploding in his Navy white dress uniform, grim faced to his briefing on the situation.
Tom Tryon as Lieutenant Junior Grade, William McConnel and his wife Bev played by surprisingly vulnerable Paula Prentiss, whom we meet at a large party on the eve of the attack are also standouts. Tryon gives McConnel a resolute approach to duty as his character moves to having full command of a destroyer thrust upon him in the heat of battle. The men grow to love his character as is shown in a wonderful scene at a dock with his men after an ordeal lead by film personality Slim Pickens.
Paula Prentiss’s best moment is when John Wayne’s Rockwell Torry comes to tell her that her husband is reported missing in action. She is an aircraft observer required to report all flight activity from her check point on the radio. She bravely continues to do despite the tears: only to falter at the last moment and require help.
Kirk Douglas as maverick Commander Paul Eddington is continually given chances by Rockwell Torrey, whom he calls The ‘Rock of Ages.’ He runs a gambit of character texturing from cynical officer to drunk to widower to assaulter of women.
When he learns the girl he assaulted is a suicide victim, Eddington leads an unauthorised low level solo recon flight mission that uncovers the massing of enemy battleships in which he meets his end. In an interesting turn from the Hollywood cliché when asked whether Eddington should get the medal of honour for his bravery, Rockwell Torrey, his trusted friend who knew that he assaulted the Nurse responds, “No recommendation,” thus abruptly ending the scene.
Look especially to the chemistry between John Wayne and Patricia Neal as Nurse Lieutenant Maggie Hayes whom he meets while convalescing.
Brandon De wild (who is blessed with the most irritating voice for in film – he played the youngster who yells ‘SHANE’ in the film of the same name) plays the grown up estranged son Jeremiah to John Wayne’s character. When we first see them onscreen, it was a moment that mirrored Wayne’s real life relationship with his own son as he confronts the fact that his boy has been raised by his mother whom he has no part of in watching growing up. He didn’t even know he was in the Navy.
Burgess Meredith gets a turn as a Hollywood screen writer working in Operations who is forced into combat role. In a touching moment he admits to being scared and would rather,” be behind a type writer making this whole thing up than living it.”
Patrick O’ Neal as the smarmy Commander Neal Owynn was more interested in keeping the war clean and on the level for the public gets his comeuppance in a washroom.
Wayne is not the action hero as he was in so many of his films here but rather a father figure of sorts, letting the action unfold around him. Confidences abound as Wayne shares scenes with Henry Fonda and others. He gives a subtle performance, especially in moments when he lowers his voice and when he receives casualty reports involving his son. This was also the film that Wayne was doing when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and began his real life battle. It shows in his physicality mostly his face and his movements.
There are many such performances in this picture that I am going to leave out for the viewer to discover which deserves repeated viewings of all 165 minutes.
IN HARM’S WAY (1965) was ignored by most credits and awards, this does not necessarily mean it was a bad film. It has a jarring style of black and white photography along with abrupt scene endings as simple as fade to blacks followed by fade up to new scenes, different than the color washed, zoom in world of 60s cinema. It is filled with vulnerable characters in a world about to turn upside down. I also found the closing credits in the use of images that bring us to speed culminating in the mushroom cloud.
IN HARM’S WAY, similar to the fate that happened to another John Wayne film the Western ‘ THE BIG TRAIL’ (1930) director by Raoul Walsh. This picture was produced in black and white using some silent footage as sound was still in its infancy. Much of the silent footage was re-shot or dubbed later similar to IN HARM’S WAY having a throwback look to it as it was done in the 60s. THE BIG TRAIL featured several small performances that added texture to the story plus it was produced in wide screen format for select theatres. It is an early John Wayne Western that is often over shadowed by the worthwhile STAGE COACH (1939). Now it is getting a new look.
Here is hoping IN HARM’S WAYS get to be seen by more people with the same treatment.
Hollywood was and still is filled with types – be they on the screen or not. In fact, it was often remarked that you can expect anything to happen on Hollywood Blvd. I remember making an inquiry in a bookshop only to have a person dressed in a red wool suit with Elvis side burns and glasses standing to my left near the till in over 80 degree heat. There are those that have unmistakable quality of “it,” who can carry a film and enthrall the audience. Then there are those that, for some reason, are known only to a few. They somehow do not have that star quality, yet deliver performance after performance, never quite getting there. I speak of the Lyle Talbots of the world, or, in this case, Mr. Jeffery Lynn.
Jeffrey Lynn was born Ragnar Lynn in 1909 in Auburn, Massachusetts. He had a BA degree from Bates College in Maine. The stage beckoned. He toured in a stage stock company production of the military farce BROTHER RAT that, was a curious foreshadowing of what to come in his life of having stardom allude him. The play BROTHER RAT was brought to Hollywood to be filmed by Warner Brothers without Lynn who was given a role in another short film.
I first saw Jeffrey Lynn in the role of Lloyd Hart in the James Cagney gangster picture THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939). Lynn played the college man soon to be lawyer who eventually woos Jean Sherman played by blonde, smiley Priscilla Lane away from James Cagney’s character Eddie Barlett, who has been waiting for her to grow older than in the film’s beginning. Lynn’s role was good solid work for an actor who gets to play a younger version of himself as he grows from a soldier in the trenches to a polished man of the law.
The one that really showed his skill in my opinion was the 1939 Lloyd Bacon directed Warner Brothers picture ‘A CHILD IS BORN’. I have always enjoyed pictures about occupations such as the medical profession, MEN IN WHITE (1934), NIGHT NURSE (1931), steel workers, MEN OF IRON (1935), truck drivers, THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940) and THE VIOLENT ROAD (1958). Jeffrey Lynn’s role as Jed Sutton, the husband of convicted murderer Grace Sutton (Geraldine Fitzgerald), who is about to give birth is interesting to watch as he fights frustration of not being able to see his pregnant wife. It was a role that was similar of some early Clark Gable performances, particularly in MANHATTAN MELODRAMA (1934). While Lynn’s Jed Sutton is on the right side of the law and Gable’s Blackie Gallagher is a grinning rogue, both show texturing and humor in their brushes with the law with different resolutions. You could argue that it was a variation on the ‘good guy’ roles Lynn played so well and I would agree. Yet he carried it off so well. He was ably supported by Fitzgerald as his wife and the long neglected Gladys George as a show business dancer whose career in stalled because of a baby.
Lynn did go on to bigger roles in FOUR WIVES (1939) and FOUR MOTHERS (1941) which featured expanded part of Felix Dietz that he had done in the previous FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938). Lynn went on to a huge career ending in 1990 with an appearance on the TV show KNOTS LANDING. Lynn also has writing credits, music credits and hosting credits, just not the full stardom of having his name above the title which to me is a shame. The lucky actors who don’t mind playing typecast roles could make whole careers out of playing policemen, bankers, henchman, and doctors. There are those that dislike it, fight the system for what they think are different roles; unfortunately, most do not gain that all important public acceptance. Boris Karloff once remarked when asked later in his life if he ever tired of playing monsters and madmen to which he replied no that he was blessed to be an always working actor.
Such were the Lyle Talbots, Jeffrey Lynns and the David Manners the Golden Age. They had the looks, the voice, the stories, the directors and careers in supporting others. Some were happy about it. Others may have carried a secret bitterness that is forever silent. John Garfield’s cynical character of the chain smoking, unshaven piano playing Mickey Bordon articulated it so well in a towards the end of this clip from FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938); ironically with Jeffrey Lynn in the cast. He talks of God rolling the dice, life’s choice and in the best part not seen here remarks of “having just enough talent to make someone else look good but not yourself.”
Window dressing for people to play off of, perhaps yes, always capable of course. Whatever their feelings, we shall never know. It is still wonderful to see them on the screen. For that we thank them.
STARDUST AND SHADOWS is meandering down Pre code street Theater district as we cruise in with to look at First National film THEY CALL IT SIN (1932). Has to be one of the best lurid titles for a picture along with the Burt Lancaster 1948 Film Noir KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS outside of the Horror titles to come.
THEY CALL IT SIN (1932) was the original name for the picture also known by the tamer title of THE WAY OF LIFE was Directed by Thornton Freeland and produced by none other than Hal B. Wallis. Freeland was behind the camera for other dramas such as WORKING WIVES (1932), LOVE AFFAIR (1932), BREWSTER’S MILLIONS (1945) with Jack Buchanan and Lili Damita (Mrs Errol Flynn) even the musical Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Delores del Rio picture FLYING DOWN TO RIO from 1933.
THEY CALL IT SIN features so wonderful performances by Loretta Young, George Brent and Halifax Nova Scotia Canada born David Manners as three people caught up in the events of stolen musical scores spurned advances and eventually literally a fall by Louis Calhern
Marion Cullen (Loretta Young) is the pious, church organ playing, small town girl with hidden musical composing talent who falls under the spell of betrothed traveling sales man Jimmy Decker (David Manners) who is on a stop over. Jimmy Decker is a ‘Man of the world” to small town girls as professed by a female Soda Jerk played wonderfully by five foot tall Marion Byron in a delightfully desperate scene at the beginning of the picture. Marion and Jimmy are infatuated with each other even causing Decker to lie to his Fiance Enid Hollister (Helen Vinson) in telegrams as he prolongs his stay with Marion. Jimmy eventually leaves only to make a surprising second stop on the way back to see Marion where they spend a “Pre code” late evening together when finished she is observed by Marion’s parents from the porch window as she exits Decker’s car.
This sets up the key scene in the picture as Marion learns a stunning fact of her birth from her Mother (Elizabeth Patterson) and Father (Erville Alderson). This disclosure causes Marion to flee her small town life that she felt she did not fit into and follow Jimmy to New York to develop her music and be with Jimmy. In New York the adventures begin by attending auditions when she meets Dixie Dare (Una Merkel) in a potential picture stealing yet all to brief performance.
Marion and Dixie also meet Broadway musical producer Ford Humphries (Louis Calhern) who has designs on the wholesome Marion.
Small town girl now has her eyes opened to the party life yet its not all bad as she meets good guy Doctor Travers (George Brent) who is Humphries medical Doctor.
Will Marion become a gold digger like so many? The evils of spurred advances, the discovery of the betrothed Jimmy, stolen musical score and a fall from a balcony all round out this story.
Loretta Young replaced original star Bette Davis in the role of Marion Cullen which could have been turnabout. Young had the part of “Gallagher” shortened and Jean Harlow had her role of “Ann Schulyer” extended as Columbia re worked and re titled GALLAGHER’ to become PLATINUM BLONDE for 1931 to capitalize of Harlow’s rising popularity.
THEY CALL IT SIN (1932) packs at lot of sleaze and innuendo into its 69 minutes. Great fun, good performances as mentioned by the principals but also the all to brief characters such as the already mentioned Marion Byron female Soda Jerk to Roscoe Karns as the harried rehearsal Director Brandt. The writing, the look of the sets and clothes and the radiance of eighteen year old Loretta Young who was being slipped more and more into adult roles make this good part of any evenings double or triple bill.
These epic pictures like ITS A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1965) also a Stanley Kramer film along with HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962) all make for interesting watching. Many things happen in these pictures or should happen that make them special . While SHIP OF FOOLS (1965) has been called the GRAND HOTEL (1932) on a ship however I found it different in style and content.
