Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: You Can’t Take It With You (dir by Frank Capra)

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(With the Oscars scheduled to be awarded on March 4th, I have decided to review at least one Oscar-nominated film a day. These films could be nominees or they could be winners. They could be from this year’s Oscars or they could be a previous year’s nominee! We’ll see how things play out. Today, I take a look at the 1938 best picture winner, You Can’t Take It With You!)

“You can’t take it with you.”

If there’s any one belief that defines the worldview of Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), it’s this. It doesn’t matter how much money you make in your life. It doesn’t matter how successful you are at business or anything else. The fact of the matter is that, when your time is up, you won’t be able to take any of that stuff with you. Instead, Grandpa Vanderhof (as he’s called by his large family) believes that the most important thing to do during your lifetime is to make friends and pursue what you’re truly interested in.

Vanderhof has another belief, one that particularly appealed to be me. He has never paid income tax. He doesn’t see the point of giving money to the government when he doesn’t feel that they’ll make good use of it. When an outraged IRS agent (Charles Lane) stops by Vanderhof’s sprawling house and demands that Vanderhof pay his taxes, Vanderhof refuses. When the IRS man argues that the income tax is necessary to pay for the Presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, Vanderhof offers to give him five dollars. “Hell yeah!” I shouted at the TV. With an attitude like that, Vanderhof should have moved down here to Texas. We would have elected him governor.

Grandpa Vanderhof is the head of a large and cheerfully eccentric family, all of whom live together under the same roof. Penny (Spring Byington) writes novels because, years ago, a typewriter was accidentally delivered to the house. Her husband, Paul (Samuel S. Hinds), has a basement full of fireworks. Essie (Ann Miller) loves to dance and spends almost the entire movie twirling from room to room. Her husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), is a xylophone player.

Of course, it’s not just family living in the Vanderhof House. There’s also Potap Kolenkhov (Mischa Auer), a Russian who is “teaching” Essie how to dance. There’s Rheba the maid (Lillian Yarbo) and Donald (Eddie Anderson) the handyman. Actually, the house appears to be open to just about anyone who wants to stay.

And then there’s Penny’s daughter, Alice (Jean Arthur). Alice is the most “normal” member of the family. She has just become engaged to Tony Kirby (James Stewart) and she is still trying to figure out how to introduce Tony’s stuffy parents (Edward Arnold and Mary Forbes) to her eccentric family. What she and Tony don’t know is that Mr. Kirby is currently trying to buy up all the houses that are near a competitor’s factory. Only one homeowner has refused to sell. The name of that homeowner? Martin “Grandpa” Vanderhof.

It all leads, of course, to one chaotic dinner party, one lively night in jail, and a huge fireworks display. It also leads to true love, which is nice. Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur are even more adorable here than they were in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

Based on a Pulitzer-winning play by George S. Kaufman, You Can’t Take It With You was the second comedy to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The first comedy to win was 1934’s It Happened One Night. It’s probably not coincidence that both of these films were directed by Frank Capra.

Seen today, You Can’t Take It With You seems a bit slight for an Oscar winner. Grandpa Vanerhof is a lovable eccentric. Tony’s father is a stuffy businessman. Hmmm … I wonder whose philosophy is going to be victorious at the end of the movie? Still, predictability aside, it’s a delightfully enjoyable film. While it never quite escape its stage origins, it features wonderful performances from all the usual members of the Capra stock company. James Stewart and Jean Arthur are a charming couple while Lionel Barrymore gives a performance that is so warmly likable that it’s hard to imagine that, just 9 years later, he would be so perfectly cast as the heartless Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life. Of course, my favorite member of the member was Essie, mostly because I also like to dance from room to room. While it’s hard to justify awarding it Best Picture over The Adventures of Robin Hood and Grand Illusion, You Can’t Take It With You is still a wonderfully fun movie.

It’ll make you smile and laugh. Who can’t appreciate that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WY9RAroTS0

Horror Film Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray (dir by Albert Lewin)

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hello and welcome to the start of TSL’s annual October horrorthon! All through the month of October, our focus will be on horror. We will be sharing reviews and thoughts on some of the best (and worst) horror films ever made! I have to admit that this is my favorite time of the year. I love horror … like all good people!

I want to start things off by taking a look at a film from 1945. The Picture of Dorian Gray is based on the famous novel by Oscar Wilde (a novel that some people think was inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders). Dorian Gray (played by Hurd Hatfield) is a young and handsome aristocrat who lives in 19th century London. When we first meet him, Dorian is intelligent, kind and virtuous. He’s also more than a little boring. He is the bland face of the establishment, a man destined to be celebrated for his position in society and largely forgotten after his death.

Dorian is posing for a painting that’s being done by his friend, an artist named Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore). One day, Lord Henry Wotton (George Sanders) stops by the studio while Basil is painting Dorian. Lord Henry is everything that Dorian Gray is not. He’s a worldly and cynical man and he is very proud to live a life devoted to complete and total hedonistic pleasure. He immediately sets out to corrupt Dorian and it turns out to be a lot easier than he was expecting. Henry convinces Dorian that he can have everything that he wants as long as he’s young and handsome. Dorian announces that he wishes the painting could age instead of him…

Now, here’s where the film takes a huge departure from Wilde’s novel. In the novel, the painting ages while Dorian stay young. No specific reason is given. Instead, it’s just something that happens. In the film, it turns out that Basil owns an ancient Egyptian statue and that the statue has mystical powers. Dorian makes his wish in front of the statue and that’s why the painting starts to age. Personally, I think the bit with the Egyptian statue is unnecessary and a little bit silly. To me, the story is a lot more effective if the painting starts to age without an explanation. The filmmakers obviously disagreed.

But no matter! In the end, the Egyptian statue isn’t that important. What is important that, freed from getting old or physically suffering for his actions, Dorian transforms into a different person. Soon, he’s even more hedonistic than Lord Henry. When he breaks the heart of a tragic singer named Sybil Vane (Angela Lansbury, in a poignant and Oscar-nominated performance), Dorian sees that the painting is now cruelly smirking while his own face remains innocent and untouched. When Dorian eventually commits a murder to keep his secret from getting out, the blood appears on the painting’s hands while his own remain clean.

And the years pass. Dorian finds himself both being hunted by Sybil’s brother (Richard Fraser) and falling in love with the niece (Donna Reed) of a man that he earlier murdered. Dorian never ages but his portrait becomes more and more twisted. What’s particularly interesting is that we see little of Dorian’s evil actions. Instead, we watch and listen as other characters whisper about the horrific things that he’s done. Physically, Dorian remains an innocent and young aristocrat. But all we have to do is look at the picture and we can see what a monster Dorian has become…

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an absolutely gorgeous film, one that is full of elaborate sets that are often cast in shadow. (It’s interesting to note that the more corrupt Dorian becomes, the darker and more shadowy his estate becomes.) The film is in black-and-white, with the exception of three scenes in which the portrait is revealed in all of its Technicolor glory. If that sounds like a gimmick … well, it is. But it’s an amazingly effective gimmick.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic exercise in psychological horror. See it the next chance you get!

Cleaning Out The DVR #19: The Awful Truth (dir by Leo McCarey)

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday. Will she make it? Keep following the site to find out!)

First released way back in 1937, The Awful Truth is one of the most delightful comedies that I’ve ever seen. In fact, if I could recommend one movie for you to make an effort to see, it would be The Awful Truth. This is definitely the best film to ever have the word “awful” in the title.

(Speaking of being the best, The Awful Truth is also the rare screwball comedy to receive a nomination for best picture. However, it lost to the far more serious The Life of Emile Zola.)

Jerry (Cary Grant) and Lucy Warner (Irene Dunne) are young, married, stylish, and rich. They seem to have it all but, as the result of Jerry’s lies and a misunderstanding concerning Lucy and her music teacher (Alexander D’Arcy), they end up getting a divorce. Fortunately, they still share a common bond. They both love their dog, Mr. Smith (played by Skippy, the same adorable and incredibly talented dog who played Asta in The Thin Man). Lucy wins custody of Mr. Smith and takes him with her when she moves in with her eccentric Aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham).

(It’s not a screwball comedy without an eccentric aunt.)

Jerry, however, has weekly visitation rights with Mr. Smith. It’s during once such visit that Jerry discovers that, with only two months to go before the final divorce decree, Lucy has become engaged to her next door neighbor, Dan (Ralph Bellamy). Dan is from Oklahoma and spends most of his time wistfully talking about tumbleweed, oil, and cattle. He also can’t wait to marry Lucy so that they can both move back to Oklahoma City. Dan is a nice guy but he’s no Cary Grant. (He’s also dominated by his judgmental mother.) Realizing that he still loves Lucy, Jerry wants to reconcile with her but complications and misunderstandings ensue.

(It’s not a screwball comedy without complications and misunderstandings.)

Eventually, in order to prove that he is over Lucy, Jerry starts to date a vacuous heiress, Barbara Vance (a hilariously shallow performance from Molly Lamont). Suddenly, Lucy finds herself in the same situation that Jerry was in with her and Dan. Now, it’s her turn to try to break up Barbara and Jerry…

Meanwhile, the day of the final divorce decree approaches…

There’s a lot of reasons to love The Awful Truth. There’s the snappy dialogue, the physical comedy (at one point, three different men are scurrying around Aunt Patsy’s apartment, two trying to hide from each other and one totally oblivious to everything going on around him), and Leo McCarey’s fast paced direction. There’s Mr. Smith, a dog so talented that even a confirmed cat person like me loved watching his performance. There’s the wonderful supporting turns of Ralph Bellamy and Molly Lamont.

But the main reason to see the film is because of the wonderful chemistry between Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Grant is so smooth and effortless in his charm that it’s a lot of fun to watch him having to deal with the progressively strange world that he finds himself living in. The Awful Truth works best when Grant simply reacts to all the craziness around him. Grant could do more with one look than most actors could do with a Shakespearean monologue. Meanwhile, Irene Dunne … well, who wouldn’t want to get in a time machine, go back to 1937, and be Irene Dunne for a day? She’s lively, she’s beautiful, she’s witty, she’s classy, and she’s just neurotic enough to be relatable.

The Awful Truth is pure joy. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. If you have seen it, watch it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-euBr_vRU

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: A Farewell to Arms (dir by Frank Borzage)

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway hated the 1932 film adaptation of his great novel, A Farewell To Arms. The novel, of course, tells the story of ambulance driver Frederic Henry (played in the film by Gary Cooper), his service in World War I, and his doomed love affair with an English nurse named Catherine (played by the very American Helen Hayes). The novel was acclaimed for being tough and unsentimental. The film is the exact opposite, revealing itself to be more typical of the work of director Frank Borzage than Ernest Hemingway.

How romantic was Borzage’s adaptation of A Farewell to Arms? It was so romantic that it even changed the novel’s famous ending. The novel ended with Catherine dying and Frederic Henry walking away, alone and in the rain. The film, however, ended with Catherine miraculously recovering. Never mind, of course, that having Catherine survive pretty much defeated the entire purpose of the story. What was important was to give American audiences a happy ending!

However, European audiences got a more downbeat ending. In the European version, Catherine does die. After she dies, Frederic picks up her body and looks up into heaven, which is certainly far more dramatic (and, in its way, sentimentally spiritual) than anything to be found in Hemingway’s novel. If, like me, you see A Farewell To Arms on TCM, you’ll see the European ending.

So, yes, I can understand why Hemingway would have hated this film. But I have to admit that I rather enjoyed it. The film adaptation makes for terrible Hemingway but it’s great Borzage. Borzage specialized in making grand, lyrical, and sweeping romantic melodramas and that’s what his version of A Farewell To Arms truly is. Helen Hayes may not be convincingly English and Gary Cooper may be a bit overly earnest for a Hemingway hero but they both look good together and they have great chemistry. (Plus, Adolphe Menjou gives a good supporting performance as Frederic’s best friend.) As a director, Borzage keeps the story moving at a steady pace and plays up the romance in every single scene. There’s a great sequence that’s filmed entirely from the wounded Frederic’s point-of-view as he’s brought into a hospital and looked over by a series of officious nurses. We see everything through Frederic’s eyes until Catherine finally enters the room and kisses him. Only then do we see Frederic and Catherine together, leaving us with no doubt that these two belong together. A Farewell To Arms may not be a great literary adaptation but it is a great cinematic romance.

A Farewell To Arms was nominated for best picture but it won to a largely forgotten film called Cavalcade.