FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
An aspiring actress (Janet Gaynor) falls in love with a famous but alcoholic actor (Fredric March), and soon their fates begin to shift.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Adolph Menjou Films
• Alcoholism and Drug Addiction
• Aspiring Stars
• Fredric March Films
• Hollywood
• Janet Gaynor Films
• Rise-and-Fall
• Romance
• Star-Crossed Lovers
• William Wellman Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that this “William Wellman classic” — an earlier version of George Cukor’s celebrated 1954 musical starring James Mason and Judy Garland — is a “rare case” when the original “stands up to the remake”. It’s been well-noted that both versions ironically feature a reversal of stances, with Gaynor and Garland actually near the end of their real-life careers, and March and Mason near the peak of theirs. To that end, Peary writes that this film “appropriately capped Gaynor’s brief but impressive career”, and that “because Gaynor’s playing her, we can believe the sweetness, selflessness, and inner strength that characterize Esther/Vicki”. He adds that “March is surprisingly and effectively subdued in a role in which other actors (i.e., John Barrymore) might have chewed up the scenery”.

I’m in agreement with Peary’s review. While the remake is undeniably more masterful on every level — with Mason and Garland giving Oscar-worthy, gut-wrenching performances — this earlier version is enjoyable, well-acted, and affecting. In his Alternate Oscars, Peary writes that while “we are told Janet Gaynor’s Esther-Vicki has talent in the 1937 film, Garland proves her star talent” — and yes, it’s less obvious that Gaynor’s Esther/Vicki “deserves” the fame she wins through her lucky break. But this is essentially a melodramatic fable, so the reversal of fortunes experienced by March and Gaynor comes across as almost archetypal in its swiftness and simplicity. The star-crossed lovers’ romance feels both genuine and doomed.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Fredric March as Norman Maine
  
• Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester (nominated as one of the Best Actresses of the Year in Alternate Oscars)
  
• Fine Technicolor cinematography
  

Must See?
Yes, as a classic melodrama, and for its status as an Oscar winner (for original story, with script written in part by Dorothy Parker). Nominated as one of the Best Pictures of the Year by Peary in his Alternate Oscars.

Categories

• Genuine Classic
• Oscar Winner or Nominee

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• DVD Talk Review
• DVD Savant Review
• TCM Article
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
In the New York tenements, a woman (Sylvia Sidney) secretly in love with her childhood friend (Joel McCrea) — who in turn pines for the beautiful mistress (Wendy Barrie) of a rich man — tries to protect her brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from being arrested after he injures the father (Minor Watson) of a snobby rich kid (Charles Peck). But the arrival of on-the-lam gangster Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) — in town to visit his mother (Marjorie Main) and former-girlfriend-turned-prostitute (Claire Trevor) — causes Halop and his friends Dippy (Huntz Hall), Angel (Bobby Jordan), Spit (Leo Gorcey), T.B. (Gabriel Dell), and Milty (Bernard Punsly) to view a life of crime as a lucrative ticket out of poverty.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Claire Trevor
• Class Relations
• Fugitives
• Humphrey Bogart Films
• Joel McCrea Films
• Juvenile Delinquents
• Play Adaptations
• Sylvia Sidney Films
• William Wyler Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary points out that this “successful adaptation of Sidney Kingsley’s play” — featuring a “tough script by Lillian Hellman and strong yet sympathetic direction by William Wyler” — led “to a wave of juvenile-delinquent dramas”; indeed, it’s perhaps best known for kicking off a series of films featuring “The Dead End Kids”.

Because producer “Sam Goldwyn wouldn’t let Wyler film on location”, we “don’t get a sense of the grit, grime, claustrophobia, and heat of the slums” — but Peary argues that “the clean studio sets with their painted backdrops act much like a Brechtian alienation device that forces us to realize that this story isn’t self-contained but rather is representative of many tragic real-life stories of the urban poor”.

These days, Dead End comes across as an undeniably stage-bound but still compelling drama featuring fine cinematography and potent direction: each scene is expertly crafted, with dramatic black-and-white shadows metaphorically highlighting the abject distance between the river-bound slum and the wealthy tenants who literally look down on its residents. Bogart is well-cast in a role he first inhabited on Broadway:

and Sidney is appropriately doe-eyed yet stoic:

But the best performance is by Oscar-nominated Claire Trevor, who only appears onscreen for about five minutes yet packs a quietly devastating wallop.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• William Wyler’s direction
  
  
• Gregg Toland’s cinematography
  
  
  
• Claire Trevor as Francie
  

Must See?
Yes, as a strong outing by a master filmmaker and for its historical relevance in introducing the “Dead End Kids” to the silver screen.

Categories

• Historically Relevant
• Important Director

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
When a team of anthropologists led by Dr. Mathew Roney (James Donald) and his assistant (Barbara Shelley) discover a cylindrical object and primate bones in an underground construction site, rocket scientist Dr. Quatermass (Andrew Keir) is brought to the scene. He eventually determines the object is a spaceship rather than a bomb, and that the bones are evidence of an ancient Martian race that landed on Earth five million years ago.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Aliens
• Horror
• Roy Ward Baker Films
• Science Fiction
• Scientists

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary argues that this “exceptional, extremely intelligent, thematically controversial science-fiction film” — the third of screenwriter Nigel Kneale’s “BBC-TV serials to be filmed” — “still hasn’t received due recognition in America”. He notes that while the “film is complicated”, it’s “always fascinating and exciting”, and is “skillfully directed by Roy Ward Baker”. While I agree with Peary that Five Million Years… is provocative and well-made, I disagree with his assertion that it’s “Hammer Studios’ best film”, and will actually admit to preferring its less colorful and less flashy predecessor, The Quatermass Experiment (1956). Five Million Years… is often compared to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 (1968), given that both explore “the intriguing theme of ‘race memory'”, with the distinction that “whereas Kubrick’s humans retain memories of ‘God’ from their ape ancestors who had contact with extra-terrestrials”, the “Martian insect-creatures” in this film apparently had contact “with the devil” — thus lending it a different type of horror vibe than Dave’s interactions with H.A.L. This finely produced cult flick is certainly worth a look by all film fanatics, but I’m going to go against the grain in not considering it must-see.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Fine cinematography
  
  
  

Must See?
No, though it’s certainly worth a look as a cult favorite. Discussed at length in Peary’s Cult Movies 3 book.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• Spinning Image Review
• DVD Savant Review
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
A German-born nightclub singer (Marlene Dietrich) takes money from a wealthy admirer (Cary Grant) so her husband (Herbert Marshall) can receive a life-saving cure from radiation poisoning — but when Marshall finds out that she had an affair with Grant, she goes on the run with her son (Dickie Moore), trying to eke out a shadowy existence while eluding capture.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Cary Grant Films
• Herbert Marshall Films
• Infidelity
• Josef von Sternberg Films
• Marlene Dietrich Films
• Single Mothers

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary refers to this pre-Code melodrama as “the most underrated of the seven Josef von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich collaborations” (all of which are included in his GFTFF). He focuses his review on Dietrich’s performance, noting that she’s “one of the sexiest mothers in the history of the cinema” and “gives one of her finest stiff-upper-lip performances” (he nominates her as one of the best actresses of the year in his Alternate Oscars).

Dietrich’s unusual character — a “strong, selfless woman who is willing to sacrifice herself for others’ happiness (even if it means giving her body) and to face the consequences for her sins” — “sees no need to apologize or defend herself to Marshall for what she did on his behalf,” yet also doesn’t “expect him to understand or forgive her”.

She’s a highly complex woman, and yet a bit of a feminist cipher: we’re not sure why she falls in love with Marshall and comes with him to America, nor why she so easily commits infidelity while her husband may be on his deathbed. Ultimately, the storyline itself — including a “descent into hell” as Dietrich “winds up sleeping in some bizarre dives, including one place in which hens and chickens run free”:

— simply emerges as pure melodrama peppered by two highly memorable nightclub performances, one in which Dietrich dons a blonde frizzy wig as “Blonde Venus” while emerging out of a gorilla suit:

and a later scene in which she famously wears a white top hat and tails while ogling chorus girls.

It’s no wonder this film is a favorite with gay and camp-loving audiences!

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Memorable direction and imagery
  
  
  
• Bert Glennon’s cinematography
  
  

Must See?
Yes, simply for its cult status.

Categories

• Cult Movie

Links:

• IMDb entry
• NY Times Original Review
• DVD Savant Review (scroll down to second review)
• Time Out Capsule Review

Synopsis:
As a rash of murders occurs across Paris, an investigator (Nils Asther) interrogates an art dealer (Ludwig Stossel) who seems to have some connection to the case, and a puppeteer (John Carradine) becomes enamored with a costume designer (Jean Parker) who eventually realizes he is the murderer known as “Bluebeard”.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Artists
• Edgar G. Ulmer Films
• Historical Drama
• Jean Parker Films
• John Carradine Films
• Mistaken or Hidden Identities
• Serial Killers

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary is clearly a big fan of Edgar G. Ulmer’s low-budget PRC production (based on the enduring French folktale of Bluebeard), given that he refers to it as “a real sleeper”. He writes that the “Expressionistic” film — which has a “European look to it” — is “strikingly directed” and features a “great use of close-ups, shadows, and bizarre camera angles”.

He notes that it provides John Carradine “his best lead performance and one of the few in which he doesn’t succumb to hamminess”; indeed, in his Alternate Oscars book Peary nominates Carradine as one of the Best Actors of the Year for this role.

While I find the film visually impressive, I’m much less taken with its rather insipid storyline, which doesn’t reveal Bluebeard’s motivations until close to the end, and thus leaves us puzzled about why a seemingly likable puppeteer turns randomly into a murderer whenever he paints a beautiful woman.

It’s nice to see Carradine given a leading role, and he’s suitably nuanced, but I much prefer him in his more memorable supporting roles — like Preacher Casy in The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

• Atmospheric cinematography
  
  
• John Carradine as “Bluebeard”
  

Must See?
No, though it’s recommended for one-time viewing.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Savant Review (scroll down)
• Digitally Obsessed Review
• TCM Article
• Time Out Capsule Review