The Fabulous Forties #35: That Uncertain Feeling (dir by Ernst Lubitsch)

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 35th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was — wait a minute? I’m on my 35th Fabulous Forties review? Let’s see — there’s 50 films in the box set so that means that I only have 15 more of these to write and I’ll be done! And then I can move onto the Nifty Fifties, the Sensation Sixties, the Swinging Seventies, and the Excellent Eighties! YAY!

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, the 35th film.

First released in 1941, That Uncertain Feeling is a movie about sophisticated people doing silly things. Socialite Jill Baker (Merle Oberon) gets the hiccups whenever she gets nervous or irritated. Her trendy friends suggest that she try the new big thing: seeing a psychoanalyst! At first, Jill is reluctant but eventually, she gives in to the pressures of high society and she goes to visit Dr. Vengard (Alan Mowbray). Dr. Vengard tells her that her hiccups are a result of her marriage to Larry (Melvyn Douglas) and suggests that the best way to cure them would be to get a divorce.

At first, Jill is horrified at the suggestion. Whatever will people think if she gets a divorce!? However, Larry is kind of a condescending jerk. (Or, at least, he comes across as being a jerk when viewed by 2016 standards. By 1941 standards, I imagine he’s supposed to be quite reasonable.) And Jill happens to meet another one of Vengard’s patients, an outspoken pianist named Alexander Sebastian (Burgess Meredith).

Soon, Jill is not only contemplating getting a divorce from Larry but perhaps marrying the eccentric Sebastian as well! When Larry realizes that Jill is dissatisfied with their marriage and that she is attracted to Sebastian, he gives her a divorce. He even pretends to be an abusive husband so that she can file for divorce on grounds of cruelty. (It’s funnier than it sounds.) Jill and Sebastian get engaged but, once Larry starts to date again, Jill realizes that she’s not quite over her ex…

I was really excited when I saw that The Uncertain Feeling was an Ernst Lubitsch film. Lubitsch directed some of my favorite Golden Age comedies, films like Ninotchka and Heaven Can Wait. But That Uncertain Feeling is not quite up to the standard of the other Lubitsch films that I’ve seen. As played by Burgess Meredith, Sebastian never comes across as being a realistic rival to Larry. The character is so cartoonishly eccentric that it becomes impossible to see what Jill sees in him. At the same time, Larry comes across as being such a chauvinist that it’s far easier to understand why Jill would divorce him than why she would ever want to take him back. The end result is a rare Lubitsch misfire.

However, as long as we’re talking about Lubitsch, make sure to see The Smiling Lieutenant if you get the chance. Now, that’s a good Lubitsch film…

(And be sure to follow it up with The Love Parade...)

The Fabulous Forties #34: This Is The Army (dir by Michael Curtiz)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 34th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set is the 1943 musical, This is The Army.

This Is The Army is based on a Broadway musical that was specifically conceived and written by Irving Berlin as a way to boost wartime morale. The show, which was a collection of patriotic songs and comedic skits, was performed by members of the U.S. Army. The film version starts with dancer Jerry Jones (George Murphy) being drafted at the start of World War I and putting together an all-army revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. (Interestingly enough, this was also the name of a real-life show that Irving Berlin put together during World War I.) The show is a big hit and, when the soldiers in the cast receive their orders to head to France, they literally march off the stage and out the theater. It’s actually a pretty rousing scene but it’s almost immediately followed by a very sad one, in which we learn that only three members of the cast survived the war. Jerry Jones is shot in the leg and when he returns home, the former dancer now walks with a cane.

Twenty-five years later, another world war has broken out. Jerry’s son, Johnny (Ronald Reagan), has joined the army. Johnny is ordered to put together another revue, in the style of Yip Yip Yaphank. At first, Johnny is reluctant but orders are orders. Soon, Johnny and the cast of This Is The Army are touring the U.S. and even performing in front of President Roosevelt (played by Jack Young, though, from a historical perspective, wouldn’t it be neat if President Roosevelt had appeared as himself in a film with Ronald Reagan?). Along the way, Eileen (Joan Leslie) tries to convince Johnny to marry her even though Johnny wants to wait until the war is over.

It’s really not much of a plot but then again, the film is about showcasing the musical performances. The soldiers sing. The soldiers dance. The soldiers tell jokes and imitate people who were famous in 1943. There are several scenes that attempt to wring laughs from soldiers dressed up like women. What’s interesting is that, at a time when the army was still segregated, the performances in This Is The Army feature both white and black soldiers. Irving Berlin apparently demanded that black soldiers be allowed to appear in both the stage show and the film and, as a result, the unit that performed This Is The Army was, for a time, the only integrated unit in the U.S. Army.

Of course, that makes it even odder that there’s an extended sequence in which white soldiers perform while wearing blackface and standing on a set that’s been designed to resemble a pre-Civil War plantation. It’s a scene that pops out of nowhere and then it keeps going and going and going and I could only stare at the screen in shocked horror as it played out. It’s an odd contradiction that the same Irving Berlin who demanded that black soldiers be honored on stage and screen was also apparently the same Irving Berlin was put a minstrel show sketch into the middle of This Is The Army.

Interestingly enough, George Murphy later retired from acting and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964. Murphy’s success inspired his co-star, Ronald Reagan, to run for governor. If Murphy had never been a senator, Reagan would probably never have been a president. Both Reagan and Murphy give likable performances in This Is The Army and it’s easy to see how that likability, while it may not have often translated into great acting, did eventually lead to political success.

This Is The Army is a time capsule film, one that is mostly interesting as a view into the psyche of 1940s America. The humor is often corny and the storyline is predictable but there’s also a very sad subtext to the film. Since both the film and the stage show were performed by actual enlisted men, you watch with the knowledge that some of the men singing and joking on stage won’t return from the war. Often times, during the performances, we see random people in the audience crying as they realize the same thing. Even in an otherwise light-hearted film, the sobering realities of life during wartime are right beneath the surface.

The Fabulous Forties #33: Boys of the City (dir by Joseph H. Lewis)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 33rd film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1940’s Boys of the City.

As a classic film lover, I have to admit that I groaned a bit when the opening credits announced that Boys of the City starred “East Side Kids.” The East Side Kids were a group of actors who appeared in a number of B-movies from the 1930s through the 50s. Many of the actors started out as members of the Dead End Kids and a few more were members of a group known as The Little Tough Guys. In the 40s, they merged to become the East Side Kids and then eventually, once the East Side Kids started to hit their 30s, they became known as the Bowery Boys. Their movies started out as tough and gritty melodramas but, by the time they were known as the Bowery Boys, they were making cartoonish comedies. Occasionally, one of their films will show up on TCM. Their early serious films (Dead End, Angels With Dirty Faces) remain watchable but, from what little I’ve seen of them, their later comedies appear to be damn near unbearable.

Boys of the City finds the East Side Kids in transition. The kids still have an edge to them. They are definitely portrayed as being juvenile delinquents who are walking a thin line between either a short life of crime or a long life of poverty. But them film itself, while it may not be as cartoonish as the films that were to come in the future, is definitely a comedy.

Basically, the East Side Kids (Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Hal E. Chester, Frankie Burke, Sunshine Sammy, Donald Haines, David Gorcey, and Algy Williams) have been arrested for vandalism and are given a choice. They can either go to juvenile hall or they can spend the summer at a camp in upstate New York. Somewhat reluctantly (and hopefully remembering the unlucky fates of Humphrey Bogart in Dead End and James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces), the kids agree to go to the camp.

However, on the way to the camp, their car breaks down and they are forced to stay at the nearby home of a crooked judge (Forrest Taylor) until they can get the car repaired. The judge, however, is killed and it’s up to the East Side Kids to solve the murder! Was the judge killed by the gangsters that he was set to testify against? Was he killed by his niece (Inna Gest)? Or maybe it was his housekeeper, Agnes (Minerva Urecal, who appears to be parodying Judith Anderson’s performance in Rebecca)? Or was he murdered by Knuckles (Dave O’Brien), who the judge wrongly sentenced to die and who, following his vindication and release from prison, has become a guardian to the East Side Kids?

Who knows? Who cares? I certainly didn’t.

Clocking in at 68 minutes, Boys of the City is a typical 1940s second feature. Designed to keep audiences entertained without requiring them to think, Boys of the City moves quickly and adds up to nothing. I know that there are some classic film lovers who can tell the difference between the various East Side Kids (or Dead End Kids or Bowery Boys or whatever you want to call them) but they all pretty much blended together for me.

Not surprisingly for a film made in 1940, Boys of the City is full of casual racism. Sunshine Sammy plays an East Side Kid named Scruno. As soon as Scruno sees the cemetery next to the house, his eyes go wide and he says, “G-g-g-ghosts!” Apparently, that was very popular in the 40s but today, it’s impossible to watch without cringing.

Boys of the City has some interest as a time capsule but otherwise, it’s a film that is easily and happily forgotten about.

Fabulous Forties #32: Outpost in Morocco (dir by Robert Florey)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching the excellent The Last Chance, I was really hoping that the 32nd film in the Fabulous Forties box set would turn out be a classic as well. Sadly, that was not the case. 1949’s Outpost in Morocco is a generally forgettable adventure film about the French Foreign Legion.

George Raft plays Capt. Paul Gerard, a captain in the French Foreign Legion. Now, I happen to like George Raft. He may not have been the greatest actor of Hollywood’s Golden Age but he did have a roguish charm and he was a great dancer. Unfortunately, while the role of Paul Gerard did call for a bit of charm, it didn’t call for much dancing. Instead, Paul Gerard is rather stolid and dependable and a little bit boring. Needless to say, George Raft was more than a little miscast in the role.

Speaking of miscast, the beautiful but very American Marie Windsor plays Cara, the daughter of the Emir of the Moroccan city of Bel-Rashad. The French are not allowed to enter the city and there are rumors that the Emir has been using this situation as an opportunity to plot against France. Since Cara has spent the last few years studying in France, she is willing to go into Bel-Rashad and report on whether or not the rumors are true. Gerard is assigned to escort her to the city. Gerard’s superiors suspect that Cara might even fall in love with Gerard and, as a result, will be willing to turn against her father.

And that’s exactly what happens! It takes exactly 10 days for Cara and Gerard to fall in love. (We know this because the film is full of excerpts from a journal that Gerard keeps as he escorts Cara across the desert.) However, once they reach Bel-Rashad, Cara does discover that her father is indeed conspiring against the French. It is up to Gerard to put down the revolution and defeat the Emir, even if it means potentially sacrificing his love for Cara.

It’s interesting to note that there’s a few scenes where Raft sounds like he’s trying to imitate Humphrey Bogart, which immediately reminded me of how so many of Bogart’s great roles were initially offered to Raft. I found myself wondering if Raft agreed to do Outpost in Morocco to make up for refusing Bogart’s role in a certain other film that was set in Morocco.

Unfortunately, Outpost in Morocco is no Casablanca. Whereas Casablanca is a classic that holds up to this day, Outpost in Morocco is best described as being … well, dull.

How boring in Outpost in Morocco? George Raft looks bored. Marie Windsor looks bored. Even the great character actor Akim Tamiroff looks bored! Portions of the film were shot on location in Morocco so there are a few nice shots of the desert (if that’s your thing) and the ending is a bit darker than you might normally expect for a 1949 adventure film but otherwise, Outpost in Morocco is a fairly forgettable film.

The Fabulous Forties #31: The Last Chance (dir by Leopold Lindtberg)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 31st film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was a 1945 film called The Last Chance.

I have to admit that one reason why I’ve been struggling to finish up the relatively simple task of watching all 50 of the films included in this box set is that a lot of the films just aren’t very good. Along with suffering from the typically poor Mill Creek transfer, quite a few of the movies are forgettable filler. You can only watch so many movies like Freckles Comes Home before you start to lose your enthusiasm.

Fortunately, even if most of the films are forgettable, there are still a handful of outstanding productions to be found in the Fabulous Forties. You just have to have a lot of patience and you have to be willing to look for them. For instance, if I had given up on the Fabulous Forties after sitting through Drums of Africa, I would never have discovered The Last Chance.

And that would have been a shame because The Last Chance is an excellent film! It’s certainly the best of the 31 Fabulous Forties films that I’ve watched so far.

Directed by Leopold Lindtberg, an Austrian who fled to Switzerland shortly after the Nazis came to power, The Last Chance tells a deceptively simple story. Two POWs — an American named Braddock (Ray Reagan) and a British soldier name Halliday (John Hoy) — are being transported across Italy via train. When the train crashes, Braddock and Halliday escape. They spend the rest of the film trying to reach Switzerland. Along the way, they struggle to avoid Nazis, deal with civilians who mostly just want the war to be over, and eventually meet and hook up with the Italian resistance. (The resistance here is represented by a self-sacrificing priest, who was well-played by real-life refugee named Romano Calo.) Eventually, the two soldiers meet up with another escaped POW (Ewart G. Morrison) and the three of them lead a group of refugees to the Swiss border.

What distinguishes The Last Chance is its authenticity. Reagan, Hoy, and Morrison were not professional actors. Instead, they were real-life soldiers, all of whom had once been POWs and all of whom managed to escape to Switzerland. What these three actors lacked in polish, they made up for in reality. When they talked about the risks of trying to reach the Swiss border and the ruthless barbarity of the Axis regime, they knew what they were talking about. As well, the film was actually shot in Europe during the war. When we see the three soldiers leading the band of refugees through bombed out villages, we’re not just seeing a bunch of actors on a safe Hollywood sound stage. Instead, we are watching real-life refugees walking through the ruins of their former home. Though the story may be fictionalized, Leopold Lindtberg directed the film as if it were a documentary and the result is both a passionate condemnation of fascism and an emotional anti-war piece that remains powerful to this day.

I don’t care how many bad films that I had to sit through (and have left to sit through) as a result of my decision to review all of the movies inside the Fabulous Forties box set. Discovering a film like The Last Chance makes it all worth it.

The Fabulous Forties #30: Cheers for Miss Bishop (dir by Tay Garnett)

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 30th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set is the 1941 melodrama, Cheers For Miss Bishop. Cheers For Miss Bishop is a bit like an Americanized version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The story of Cheers For Miss Bishop, largely told via flashback, deals with a retired teacher who never quite got what she wanted out of life but still had a profound impact on all of her students.

The film opens with elderly Miss Bishop (played by Martha Scott) alone in her house. The time is the 1930s and Miss Bishop is nearing retirement and somewhat bitter over ending her years having never married. Prominent businessman Sam Peters (William Gargan) comes to the house and they start to recollect. We flashback to the 1880s, when Miss Bishop was preparing to go to college and Sam was just the local grocery boy. Sam was in love with Miss Bishop and, it’s suggested, that she loved him as well. But she was determined to go to college whereas Sam was determined to go straight into business.

With the support of the kindly Prof. Corcoran (Edmund Gwenn, giving a performance that pretty much epitomizes what we mean when we call someone a kindly professor), Miss Bishop got a job teaching English at Midwestern College. She was a popular teacher, one who not only inspired her students but who was also willing to stand up for them. Eventually she met and became engaged to a local lawyer, Delbert Thompson (Don Douglas). However, her heart was broken when Delbert ran off with another woman. Years later, she fell in love with another professor (Sidney Blackmer), with the only problem being that he happened to be married.

But that’s not all that Miss Bishop had to deal with. She also ended up adopting and raising Hope (Marsha Hunt) after Hope’s mother died in childbirth. As she got older, she became frustrated when the younger college administrators demanded that she adapt with the times. Miss Bishop also had to deal with her frequent romantic rival and cousin, the impulsive Amy (Mary Anderson).

Amy, I should mention, was my favorite character in Cheers For Miss Bishop, even though I don’t think that was the film’s intention. Some of that is because Mary Anderson totally embraced the melodramatic potential of her character, often going totally over-the-top in a way that still seemed perfectly natural. But there’s also the fact that Amy, as opposed to the often painfully inhibited Miss Bishop, had no boundaries. She knew what she wanted and she went for it, without apology. Amy may not have been a big role but she still dominated every scene that she appeared in. Amy demanded attention and good for her!

That said, the title of the film is Cheers For Miss Bishop and not Cheers For Amy. Ultimately, it’s a tribute to Miss Bishop and to teachers everywhere. It’s an extremely predictable and sentimental film but it does what it does fairly well. Occasionally, I got frustrated with Miss Bishop as a character (she was always so prim, proper, and respectable! Plus, there’s a scene where she gives a student from North Carolina some trouble about his accent, saying that he needs to take her English class and, if you know how I feel about actors from up north trying too hard to sound like they’re from the South, you can imagine how I felt about that scene) but Martha Scott gave a good performance. In the end, it’s a sweet little movie. And you can watch it below!

The Fabulous Forties #29: Li’l Abner (dir by Albert S. Rogell)

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 29th film in the Fabulous Forties box set is a “comedy” from 1940, called Li’l Abner.

Li’l Abner takes place in rural America, which this film portrays as being the type of place where cousins get married and have children that end up raising pigs and marrying each other. Everyone in the small town of Dogpatch is kind of an idiot but they appear to mean well. There’s a huge amount of single, young women in town but apparently, there’s only one single, young man. His name is Abner (Jeff York) and he’s called Little Abner because the people in town have a taste for irony and he’s not little at all. In fact, he’s really tall and he’s also handsome and likable in a dumb sort of way. Every woman in town wants to marry Abner but Abner has no desire to ever get married. As Abner sees it, getting married means getting old and eventually dying. He wants to have adventures in the real world as opposed to just staying in Dogpatch and doing nothing…

But then Clarence is sent down to Earth and shows Abner what life would be like if he had never been born … oh wait, sorry. Wrong 1940s film.

Instead of being visited by guardian angel, Abner is misdiagnosed with a fake illness and he becomes convinced that he only has 24 hours to live. How does he become convinced of this? Do you really want to know? Even more importantly, do I really want to tell you? Seriously, this is really stupid. Okay, Abner goes to see a barber but he thinks the barber is a doctor and the barber, as a joke, tells Abner that he’s going to die of a fake disease. When Abner tells his parents that he’s going to die, his parents immediately realize what has happened but they decided to let Abner believe that he’s going to die because they really want him to get married and, if Abner’s on the verge of death, he’s more likely to propose to one of the many local girls who is pursuing him.

(Ladies, the lesson here is simple: If you want your commitment-phobic man to pop the big question, convince him that he’s got less than a day to live.)

Anyway, two different girls ask Abner to marry them and, since Abner thinks he’s going to be dead by morning, he says yes to both of them. However, Abner then wakes up the next morning and, for a few brief moments, is convinced that he is dead and the heaven looks just like the Ozarks. But then he realizes that no, he’s still alive. And he’s engaged to two women!

AGCK! Bigamy much?

Luckily, all of this happens on Sadie Hawkins Day. On Sadie Hawkins Day, any single woman can marry any single man that she chooses. So, Abner figures that he just has to wait around see which one of his two fiancées finds him first…

Or something like that.

To be honest, the plot of this one made absolutely no sense to me and I wasn’t shocked to discover that it was based on a comic strip. Li’l Abner is only 72 minutes long but it still has more plot than the last few seasons of The Walking Dead. (BAM! Take that, quality television!) Anyway, this movie was light-hearted and good intentioned but way too stupid for its own good. Jeff York was likable in the role of Abner and silent film fans might want to watch it just because Buster Keaton shows up in a small role, playing a moonshine drinking Native American named Lonesome Polecat.

Otherwise, Li’l Abner is one of the more forgettable films in the Fabulous Forties box set.

The Fabulous Forties #28: Jack London (dir by Alfred Santell)

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 28th Film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was a 1943 biopic about the writer, Jack London. Not surprisingly, the title of the film was Jack London.

Now, I should start this review off by mentioning that I know very little about Jack London. I don’t think that I have ever read any of his short stories or his novels. I know that he wrote a novel called White Fang but that’s largely because there’s been so many different film versions of the book. (Long before directing Zombi 2, even Lucio Fulci made a version of White Fang.) Here’s what I do know about Jack London:

He was a prominent writer at the turn of the century.
He was reportedly an alcoholic.
He was a Socialist who even ran for mayor of Oakland, California on the party’s ticket.
He was an atheist.
In 1916, depending on the source, he either committed suicide, died of alcohol poisoning, or simply passed away as the result of 40 years of hard living.

Of those 5 facts, 4 are totally ignored in Jack London. The film does acknowledge that Jack London eventually became a prominent writer, even going so far as to open with stock footage of a U.S. warship being named after him.

As for his alcoholism, we never see London drunk. Indeed, the film’s version of Jack London is so earnest that it’s hard to believe he’s ever had a drink in his life.

As for his Socialism, we are shown that London grew up in a poor family. When, after serving at sea, he takes a writing class, he argues with a professor over London’s desire to write about the poor. However, we never hear London express any specific ideology. We certainly don’t see him running for mayor of Oakland.

As for his atheism — yeah right. This film was made in 1943! There’s no way that Jack London was going to be portrayed as talking about why he didn’t believe in God.

As for his death — well, Jack London ends with the writer very much alive. There’s not even a title card informing us that London eventually died.

Instead, Jack London is much more concerned with Jack (played by Michael O’Shea) dealing with the Japanese. Oh sure, we get some scenes of Jack London watching a shootout and breaking up a bar fight in Alaska. And Susan Hayward shows up as Jack London’s always supportive wife. (For that matter, Louise Beavers also shows up as Jack London’s always supportive house keeper.)

But, in the end, the majority of the film features Jack London as a war correspondent covering the turn of the 20th century war between Russia and Japan. When he’s captured by the Japanese, he observes the harsh way they treat prisoners and is shocked when he witnesses several prisoners being ruthlessly executed. When he talks to a Japanese commandant, he’s outraged as the commandant explains how the Empire of Japan is planning to take over the world. When Jack finally gets back to America, he’s less concerned with writing White Fang and more concerned with warning the American people to remain vigilant…

Jack London is basically wartime propaganda disguised as a biopic. The entire point of the film seems to be that if Jack London was still alive, he would want the men in the audience to enlist and the women to buy war bonds. None of it is subtle and, beyond its value as a time capsule of how Americans viewed the Japanese in 1943, none of it is particularly interesting as well.

In the end, Jack London plays out like one of those earnest but dull educational films that tend to show up on PBS when no one’s watching.

The Fabulous Forties #27: Sundown (dir by Henry Hathaway)

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You may remember how, back in April, I started on a mission to review all 50 of the films included in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set. I actually got off to a pretty good start and, by the end of the month, I was about halfway through. Yay me!

However, then the month of May began. And May turned out to be a very, very busy month. As I sit here writing this, it’s been 27 days since I last posted a Fabulous Forties review. That review was …. well, I can’t even remember what it was. After I post this, I’ll click on this link to find out.

However, things have calmed down a bit and now I can go ahead and finish up the Fabulous Forties box set. And that’s a good thing because, between me and you, I am more than ready to move on to the Nifty Fifties box set!

Anyway, without further ado, let’s consider the 27th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties, 1941’s Sundown!

Sundown was released by United Artists in 1941. It’s a propaganda film, telling the story of British soldiers in North Africa and their attempts to both maintain the peace among the natives and to keep the Axis powers from arming the local rebels. Bruce Cabot is the experienced soldier who knows how things work in Africa. George Sanders is the new commander who is a bit more by-the-book. At first, you think that the film is going to be dominated by the rivalry between Sanders and Cabot but actually it’s not much of a rivalry. For the most part, they get along just fine and I guess that’s to be expected considering that the film was made at a time when the emphasis was on everyone remaining unified against the Nazis.

Speaking of the Axis powers, they’re always in hovering in the shadows of the film but it’s rare that we actually see any enemy soldiers. Perhaps this is because the film was made at a time when the United States was technically neutral. Joseph Calleia plays a prisoner of war who has rejected fascism and instead just wants to sing opera and cook for Sanders and Cabot. Calleia’s character is specifically identified as being an Italian. If not for that (and the fact that the film was made in 1941), it would be just as easy to assume that Sanders and Cabot were fighting the French or maybe the Russians.

There’s an enemy agent in one of the tribes and it’s up to Sanders and Cabot to figure out who. Helping them out is the local big game hunter, played by Harry Carey. And, on top of that, there’s also a mysterious native woman played by Gene Tierney. Gene Tierney is totally miscast but that adds to this film’s odd charm.

And, for modern viewers, it definitely is an odd charm. I watched Sundown twice and I’m still not sure exactly what happened in the film. Sundown is one of those films that doesn’t so much have a plot as it just has a lot of scenes that kind of tell a story, assuming that you have the patience and concentration to figure out how they all link together. Between Cabot’s roguish smile, Sanders’s stiff upper lip performance, Calleia’s enjoyable overacting, and Gene Tierney’s otherworldly beauty, Sundown is unexpectedly dream-like. The film even features a sudden sermon in which a clergyman (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) exhorts everyone to fight. The clergyman is never seen again.

Sundown was a strange movie, one that I often found myself struggling to follow. It was also apparently a box office bomb, though it did receive 3 Oscar nominations. One of those nominations was for Charles Lang’s cinematography and it was definitely deserved. Even the version I saw (which suffered from a typically poor Mill Creek transfer) was still impressive to look at.

Insomnia File No. 15: George Wallace (dir by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If, after watching Promise last night, you discovered that you were still suffering from insomnia, you could have watched the very next film that premiered on TCM. That film was the 1997 biopic, George Wallace.

Like Promise, George Wallace was originally made for television. Also, much like Promise, George Wallace is a character study of a conflicted man who makes many people uncomfortable and it’s also well-acted by a cast of veteran performers. That, however, is where the similarities end. Whereas Promise was ultimately a rather low-key and human drama, George Wallace is an epic. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours and telling a story that spans decades, George Wallace attempts to use one man’s life story as a way to tell the entire story of the civil rights movement.

That’s a tremendously ambitious undertaking, especially for a film that had to conform to the demands of 1990s television. Therefore, it’s probably not surprising that the movie, as a whole, is uneven. It’s not a bad movie but, at the same time, it doesn’t quite work.

First off, we need to talk about who the historical George Wallace was.

(Here’s where I get to show off my amazing history nerd powers. Yay!)

George Wallace served a total of four terms as governor of Alabama. A protegé of a populist known as “Big Jim” Folsom, Wallace first ran for governor in 1958. He campaigned as a moderate who supported integration and, as a result, he was defeated by the KKK’s endorsed candidate, John Patterson. (Oddly enough, a fictionalized version of Patterson was the hero of the classic and racially progressive 1955 film, The Phenix City Story.) When Wallace ran again in 1962, he ran as an outspoken segregationist and defeated his former mentor, Jim Folsom. Infamously, Wallace is the governor who stood in the schoolhouse door and announced that Alabama would never accept integration. Unable to succeed himself, Wallace arranged for his wife, Lurleen, to be elected as governor. Lurleen subsequently died in office, succumbing to cancer while Wallace was running for President as the candidate of the American Independent Party. (As of this writing, Wallace is the last third party presidential candidate to carry any states.) Reelected governor in 1970, Wallace married Folsom’s niece and made another presidential run. However, after a string of primary victories, that campaign was cut short when Wallace was shot and crippled by Arthur Bremer. (Bremer would serve as the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.) Confined to a wheelchair, Wallace served as governor until 1978 and, in 1976, ran for President one final time. After being out of office for four years, he was elected Governor for one final term in 1982. Late in life (and, it should be pointed out, long after integration had been generally accepted as the law of the land), Wallace renounced his segregationist past and publicly apologized for standing in the schoolhouse door. During his final campaign for governor, he won a majority of the black vote and he proceeded to appoint more blacks to state positions than any governor before him.

George Wallace lived a long, dramatic, and interesting life and he’s still a very controversial figure. Who was the real George Wallace? Was he a political opportunist who used racism to further his career? Was he truly a racist who saw the error of his ways and repented or did he only pretend to renounce his former beliefs once they were no longer popular? And, even if Wallace was sincere in his regret, did he deserve to be forgiven or should he always be remembered as the villainous caricature that Tim Roth portrayed in Selma? If we forgive or make excuses for the actions of a George Wallace, do we run the risk of diminishing the success and importance of the civil rights movement?

And I, honestly, have no answers to those questions. Unfortunately, neither does George Wallace. But before we get into that, let’s consider what does work about this film.

George Wallace opens in 1972 with Wallace campaigning in Maryland. Wallace is played by Gary Sinise and his second wife, Cornelia, is played by a very young Angelina Jolie. Sinise and Jolie both give brilliant performances, perhaps the best of their respective careers. Sinise plays Wallace as a calculating and charismatic politician who is also a very angry man. Throughout every second of his performance, we are aware of Wallace’s resentment that his political success in Alabama has potentially made him unelectable in the rest of the country. Watching Sinise as Wallace, you see a man who believes in himself but doesn’t necessarily like the person that he’s become. Meanwhile, Jolie plays Cornelia like a Southern Lady MacBeth and watching her, I remembered how, at one time, Angelina Jolie really did seem like a force of nature. The Angelina Jolie of George Wallace is the wild and uninhibited Jolie of the past (the one who once said, “You’re in bed, you’ve got a knife, shit happens.”), as opposed to the safe and conventional Jolie of the present, the one who is currently directing rather stodgy movies like Unbroken and By The Sea.

After Wallace is shot, the film goes into flashback mode. We watch as Wallace goes from being a liberal judge to being the segregationist governor of Alabama. Mare Winningham plays Lurleen Wallace while Joe Don Baker plays Big Jim Folsom. They all do a pretty good job but the flashback structure is so conventional (and so typical of a made-for-tv biopic) that it makes the film a bit less interesting.

There’s also a character named Archie. Played by Clarence Williams III, Archie is literally the only major black character in the entire film. He is portrayed as being a former convict who has been hired to serve as Wallace’s valet. While Wallace plots to thwart the civil rights movement, Archie stands in the background glowering. At one point, he’s even tempted to kill Wallace. However, after Wallace is shot, Archie helps to take care of him. The film suggests that being shot and subsequently cared for by Archie is what led to Wallace renouncing his racist views. (The film also suggests that Wallace was never that much of a racist to begin with and, instead, was just so seduced by power that he would say whatever he had to say to win an election in Alabama.)

At the end of the film, we’re informed that almost everyone in the film was real but that Archie was fictional. The problem, of course, is that the film is suggesting that the fictional Archie is responsible for the real-life Wallace both rejecting racism and apologizing for the all-too real consequences of racism. The film ends with the realization that the filmmakers were so convinced that audiences would not be able to accept an ambiguous portrait of a public figure that they created a fictional character so that Wallace could have a moment of redemption.

(It also doesn’t help that a film about civil rights only features one major black character and that character is a fictional valet who doesn’t get to say much.)

In the end, the film doesn’t seem to be certain what it’s trying to say about Wallace and the meaning of his dramatic life. That said, I enjoyed watching George Wallace because of the acting and because, as a history nerd, I always enjoy seeing historical figures portrayed on-screen, even if the filmmakers don’t seem to be quite sure what they’re tying to say about them.

George Wallace was directed by John Frankenheimer, a good director who, it appears, was constrained by the demands of 1990s television. If George Wallace were made today, it would probably air on HBO and would probably be allowed to take more of a firm stand one way or the other on Wallace’s character. That said, it would probably also be directed by Jay Roach who, to put it lightly, is no John Frankenheimer.

Anyway, George Wallace doesn’t quite work but it’s definitely interesting. Watch it for Gary and Angelina!

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