Pilgrim? Duuuuude!

Last night I watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which I think has become my new favorite Western (a close second behind Dodge City). I'm going through a John Wayne phase right now, and Jimmy Stewart is always a winner in my book, so I decided to give this one a viewing. Rounding out the cast are Vera Miles, Andy Devine, and the uber-macho Lee Marvin (who, I was interested to discover, was a Marine and is buried at Arlington). When I saw the Netflix sleeve, I thought, "oh, geez, two hours," but the time flew by with this one.

I didn't realize this was the movie that started a million John Wayne imitations with "howdy, pilgrim." That's his nickname for Jimmy Stewart, and it sticks all through the movie; I couldn't help but giggle every time he said it, because it has become such a staple of the John Wayne persona. Also sort of darkly amusing yet also menacing is Lee Marvin's nickname for Jimmy, "dude," which he bullfrogs in a suitably sinister way. There was a decent amount of action and suspense; although I figured out right away who shot Liberty Valance, and not too long after realized how the rest of the plot would unfold, I did find myself tensing up in a few of the most dramatic scenes. When John Wayne goes home and throws the lamp into the half-finished addition to his house, it's such a painful moment, emotionally. You don't think of Duke as going to piece over a woman, but he does it here; knowing from the start of the movie how he ended up makes it even more difficult to watch, because you know this is the beginning of his downward spiral in that moment.

One thing that stuck in my mind, because I am obsessed by these kind of small details: the hairstyles. Duke looked all right, but Jimmy's hairpiece looked like a dead badger with an Elvis curl over the forehead. And Vera Miles, with her 60's bouffant with two braids clipped to the ends...not very frontier. Yes, I am insane.

Another movie, which I ended up spacing out over the course of the entire week, was one of my favorite Joan Crawford/Clark Gable pairings, Possessed. I'm a sucker for a good romance story where one person does something noble for the benefit of the other; here Joan pretends to be bored and sick of her lover Clark so she won't ruin his reputation when he runs for governor in the near future. The look on her face, which we see over his shoulder as he embraces her and proposes marriage (which she has long waited for) goes through so many emotions so beautifully, from a flash of joy to regret to steeling herself to hurt him so he'll let her go. And Clark's face, as he goes from laughter to disbelief to an angry resignation that Joan has made a fool of him...you can almost feel the ice hardening around his heart. Oh, I know I'm talking like a bad romance novelist, but I do love those two, best of all when they act together.

In the Christmas Mood

The title has nothing really to do with the movie I watched today, The Glenn Miller Story. It's just that now I'm mini-obsessed with Miller, and I'm listening to In the Christmas Mood, Vol. 1 while I type this. And I've added a book about him to my Amazon wish list, which I'll delete in a week when my interest wanes back to normal levels (I've loved Miller's brand of big band music for awhile now).

So, the movie. I liked it. I love Jimmy Stewart in pretty much everything I've ever seen him do, even the cheese (read: Airport '77). Bonus points for appearances by George Tobias and Harry "Col. Potter" Morgan. I didn't recognize him until I heard him talk. Coincidentally, I had seen another minor player, Sig Ruman, in another film this weekend, To Be or Not To Be, which we'll get to in a minute. Now, back to Glenn...

I don't know anything about Glenn Miller's life, so I can't say how much is fictionalized or prettied up, but I still enjoyed the film. I read on IMDB that he never actually saw his adopted daughter; she was adopted while he was overseas, and he died only days afterwards, never having seen her. In the film, she's adopted as an infant while he's still in the States, and is about 2-3 when he leaves on his band tour; there's a sweet little scene where he sees her for the first time and gives her a bottle. The music, of course, was a delight -- I enjoyed the way they portrayed him composing his best known pieces (especially "Moonlight Serenade"); although I realize that may not be how it happened at all, the music wove its way into the movie very nicely.

As I mentioned, I also watched To Be Or Not To Be this weekend. Carole Lombard and Jack Benny: now that's an interesting combination. The movie is ostensibly about a group of Polish actors rebelling against the Germans, but of course the cast couldn't be more American. Robert Stack as a character named Stanislav Sobinski? Yeah, don't expect to be dazzled by that performance. I mean, he was good; everyone was. Carole was a delight, as always, and Benny was a big ham, again as always. The plot reminded me a bit of the Joan Crawford movie Reunion in France, which is even more ridiculous, plot-wise. Having glamorous Hollywood starlets, dressed to the nines, playing Europeans oppressed by the Nazis just never flies, at least not in any of the movies I've seen. Now, let one of them strip off the make-up and dress down like Norma Shearer did at the end of Marie Antoinette, and I'll be more inclined to suspend my disbelief. But you don't look terribly downtrodden when your lashes are three inches long. I'm just saying.

As you can see...

...I have been shamefully lax about updating this blog. Part of the reason is that I took a vacation from classic movies to watch most of the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was recently released on DVD. I also plowed my way through all six seasons of Sex and the City, which I became addicted to instantly once I started watching. I also rented a few SNL "Best of" discs, namely John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Dan Aykroyd ("You're spending the night with Fred Garvin, male prostitute!"). I will also admit, with much shame, that I rented Batman & Robin. Okay, don't judge me! I was curious to see the crazy villains. I didn't know the whole movie was going to be a big ball of cheese!

There have been a few classic movies scattered in there, though. (I had to stop taping them from Comcast for awhile as I was gathering more than I could possibly watch, and using up all the space on my dad's DVR.) As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I did rent Airport '77, if only to see how aging Hollywood legends would survive trapped in a plane at the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle. Dun dun dun! I'm happy to report that Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotton and Jimmy Stewart all survived (well, especially Jimmy, since he wasn't even on the plane). Sadly, Christopher Lee did not make it, but he sacrificed his life for the greater good.

Back in October I watched Kim, mostly because it had Errol Flynn in it. Not as much Flynn as I was expecting, though, and I've never been a huge fan of curly-headed moppets, although Dean Stockwell did a fine job.

After that came Sin Takes a Holiday, which lasted only about five minutes, as it was a very poor transfer to DVD. I'm beginning to realize a lot of these old, old movies are in the public domain, which allows any rinky-dink production company (Macady, I'm looking in your direction) to slap them onto to a DVD. Which is a shame, because I think there should be some kind of studio control over how their movies are released. Then again, they probably wouldn't put the effort into restoring and/or releasing copies of every old movie they find in the vaults, so maybe it's a draw.

January 21, 2006 will be my third anniversary with Netflix. In honor of that, I'd mention every movie I've rented, but the list is so long it would bore you to tears. One early rental I will mention is The Cat's Meow, about the mysterious death of Thomas Ince on William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924. Because if there's anything that fascinates me more than classic films, it's modern movies about classic film stars.

Jean Harlow double feature

It's cute, my dad has developed kind of a liking for Jean Harlow after we watched the new DVD releases of Libeled Lady and Dinner at Eight a few weeks ago. "I wouldn't mind seeing more of her movies, if you have them," he said, "Do you have Red Dust"? Well, no I didn't, so we watched Bombshell (as previously mentioned) a few weeks ago, and for Easter this past Sunday we had another JH double feature: Hold Your Man and Wife vs. Secretary. I think they're my two favorite Harlow movies, although I probably would be in the minority about that.

Hold Your Man starts out with a lot of funny and snappy dialogue between Ruby Adams and Eddie Hall (Clark Gable) as two con artists who meet when Eddie runs into Ruby's apartment, on the run from the police. Flirtation ensues, and the romance heats up pretty quickly (Ruby and Eddie obviously spend the night together after their second meeting -- it's only implied, of course, since this was 1933, but unmistakable). Eddie goes to jail for 90 days for trying to use a stolen car in a heist, and Ruby has moved into his flat by the time he gets out at Christmas. Eddie accidentally kills a drunk (whom he, Ruby, and his friend Slim were planning to blackmail) on his way out get a marriage license for himself and Ruby. She gets arrested when they come back, but Eddie gets away. While in the reformatory (and here's where most people think the movies goes wrong) Ruby discovers she's pregnant (it's remarkable how many ways they convey this without ever actually saying the word); Eddie hears about this and comes out of hiding to not only go see Ruby to tell her he loves her, but to hide out in the chapel and marry her (thanks to a handy parson) so their child won't be illegitimate. The wedding takes place with a flood of cops trying to break down the door, and ends with Eddie getting hauled off in cuffs. In the end, Eddie, Ruby and their son are reunited after Eddie serves his sentence for the accidental killing.

Most reviews I've read of the movie think it turns much too sappy and maudlin after Ruby is arrested; the site of Gable crying and begging the preacher to marry them, one person wrote, is almost too silly to bear. Yet I love the movie as a whole, even the mushy parts. The beginning is in fact a lot of fun; Gable and Harlow as a team are at their most enjoyable when they're kidding around. I'll admit that the mush has on occasion brought a little tear to my eye; when Ruby clings to Eddie, sobbing, after they're married and the cops are starting to drag him away, I find myself moved. Perhaps it is the power or Harlow's acting that manages to raise what most people call "sappy" to a level for me that I don't find it so. Plus, I'm a sucker for a happy ending, even if you do have to put up with a little mush to get there.

What I also found interesting were the scenes in the reformatory. Ruby's "cellmates" are sympathetic, believable and even entertaining characters, from Bertha, who gives Ruby her mother's ring for the wedding, to Sadie, who will start trumpeting her socialist beliefs at the drop of a hat. During a scene in the chapel, the movies attempts to show the diversity (for lack of a better word) of the inmates by showing a woman who is obviously Jewish, and one who is Asian. An unusual move at the time, when most minorities played maids (such as Louise Beavers does in this film) or other such characters. I've heard some praise for the movie's (mostly) realistic portrayal of reformatory life. Also interetsing is one of Sadie's diatribes about the class differences of the time: society debutantes aren't put in jail for the offenses that lower-class women such as themselves have committed, she says, yet there they are, serving time for public drunkenness, cavorting with sailors, and other "crimes" that are laughed off when committed by the wealthy. Sadly, not much has changed since 1933 in that regard.

Well, I went on longer about that movie than I intended. Moving on...

We also watched Wife vs. Secretary, which is probably the first JH movie I ever saw, and I bought it because of Myrna Loy and Clark Gable; I'm not sure I was much familiar with Harlow at the time. It's a movie I enjoy because it has a little bit of everything: comedy, romance, drama, and so on.

Jimmy Stewart plays Jean's boyfriend Dave, who gets fed up by her attention to her job and her crush on Gable, her boss. Myrna also gets jealous (goaded on by her mother-in-law, May Robson) and leaves Gable when she suspects that Jean has flown down to Havana to join Gable on a trip for romantic purposes. As matter of fact, it is for legitimate business reasons, and all above board, something which Jean eventually convinces Myrna of by using a little reverse psychology: Jean urges Myrna not to go back to Gable, because if his wife leaves him, he'll turn to her, his secretary, for comfort, and she won't turn away. Myrna says at first that she's still going; Jean responds, "You're a fool, for which I'm grateful," which I think is a great line, especially the way Jean says it. She's not gloating that she'll get Gable, she's merely stating the fact, and also mentions that of course he won't be as happy with her as he would with Myrna, but she doesn't mind taking him second-best. A very well done scene, by both actresses.

Naturally, Myrna comes back, the husband and wife are happily reunited (with a big smooch) and Jean walks out alone, in a scene that is rather poignant; Jimmy is waiting outside, and he tells her he loves her, and he's learned not to look for trouble, "because if you don't find it, you'll make it." Presumably engaged once again, they drive off into the night. Fade to black.

On a final note, Myrna said in her autobiography that the role of Helen "Whitey" Wilson in Wvs.S was the role of Jean's that was most like her in real life: a modest and decent person with a good heart, who didn't speak in a squawk or wear dresses cut down to her navel.