We're coming to an interesting point of 1944. The most famous film of today's collection was made three years before its release, did OK at the box office, and received no Academy Award nominations. And yet! It has endured! That and more, just below...
Hail the Conquering Hero
release: September
nominations: Best Original Screenplay
dir/pr/scr: Preston Sturges
cin: John F. Seitz
The second Sturges film of the year, which resulted in him getting two nominations in the same category in the same year. Another war-comes-home comedy with a somewhat complicated setup: a young man, the son of a WWI hero killed in action, is working at the San Francisco shipyards while pretending to his family back East that he's in the Pacific Theater, having been medically discharged after only a month due to hay fever. He runs into a group of Marines who convince him to return home to his mother, even accompanying him to sell the charade of his wartime experience. They arrive in town to find him being feted as a hometown hero, which complicates matters for him familially, romantically, and politically! Only my sixth Sturges, I continue to be impressed by his ability to begin with and maintain a level of absurdity, down to the names, that builds its own world so completely that we can be so easily lulled into the more dramatic interludes that are really the heart of this thing. For here is where Sturges can get into a man's insecurities about how to be a Man in wartime: does he have to return a hero, is it worse to have barely served and seen no action than to have never served at all? It is not courage on the battlefield Sturges worries about, but the courage to call your mother, to face the truth of yourself. Tears of laughter, tears of recognition, tears of catharsis. What a picture.
Janie
release: September 2
nominations: Best Film Editing (Owen Marks)
dir: Michael Curtiz
pr: Alex Gottlieb
scr: Agnes Christine Johnston and Charles Hoffman, from the play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel V. Williams, Jr.
cin: Carl E. Guthrie
Young Janie is a typical teen who wants to neck and party, especially when a new army camp is established in her small town; naturally, this creates conflict between her and her upstanding, newspaper publisher father. A delightful generation gap comedy, one which hits many of the same beats as Since You Went Away, but without the self-seriousness. Hell, there's even a musical number at a teenage house party! People who want to insist that teens are different now than they were "then" ought to watch this movie: it's not as explicit as later teen sex comedies, of course, and Janie's a "good girl", but there is no doubt about the adolescent heat. The triangle that develops between Janie, her high school boyfriend, and a soldier in the nearby army base who joins his mother as boarders in Janie's own home is, to this 80-years-later audience member, a sharp reminder of just how young our boys Over There were and are. So many films and television programs indoctrinate us to believe otherwise, but the soldiers in this film, and most of the ones I've met in real life, can't even buy a drink. I know that's not Janie's main concern, it's adorable and lively and fun, but it struck me.
Casanova Brown
release: September 14
nominations: Best Score (Arthur Lange), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black-and-White (Perry Ferguson / Julia Heron), Best Sound (Thomas T. Moulton)
dir: Sam Wood
pr: Nunnally Johnson
scr: Nunnally Johnson, from a play by Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell
cin: John F. Seitz
Cas Brown is set for an annulment when he learns his ex-wife may have had their baby and is giving it up for adoption. I watched most of these movies last year, before Thanskgiving even, so there are a few I have no memory of - and that was on purpose, I wanted to see which movies actually had lasting power. What's funny is that I do not remember this movie at all, like at all, but I see the title and have that warm feeling: I liked it. Why did I like it? I don't know. But I did.
The Merry Monahans
release: September 15
nominations: Best Musical Score (Hans J. Salter)
dir: Charles Lamont
pr/scr: Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano
cin: Charles Van Enger
A vaudeville family begins to split when the father's alcoholism gets them blacklisted. The presence of Donald O'Connor reminds one of 1956's There's No Show Business Like Show Business, but that's only because I saw that one first. Takes a lot longer to get to the aforementioned plot than you'd expect, which I liked: I got to know and love this family, so that what seemed like boozy camaraderie only slowly reveals itself to be a genuine substance issue. Terrific performance from Jack Oakie as the patriarch; I'm reminded of Dan Dailey in When My Baby Smiles at Me, and I feel that, as much as I liked that performance, Oakie and The Merry Monahans understand that character and that kind of film much, much better.
Sweet and Low-down
release: September 21
nominations: Best Original Song ("I'm Making Believe")
dir: Archie Mayo
pr: William LeBaron
scr: Richard English, original story by Richard English and Edward Haldeman
cin: Lucien Ballard
Benny Goodman, as himself, hires an unknown to join his band; the kid gets too big for his britches while also navigating romance. A thin plot with fascinating wartime references to camp performances, children's military academies (the Goodman band plays for a bunch of generals and majors only to find that it's a bunch of 12-year-olds), and whatever Jack Oakie (hey, him again!) can quip. But it's Benny Goodman, so you know that you're here for the music and you know that the music is terrific.
The Pearl of Death
release: September 21
dir/pr: Roy William Neill
scr: Bertram Millhauser, from "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
cin: Virgil Miller
A series of murders, a strange coincidence between all of them, and Holmes (and Watson) is (are) on the case! Great lady villain played by Evelyn Ankers of The Wolf Man fame. I've not much to say, it's a solid Holmes flick of the era.
Arsenic and Old Lace
release: September 23
dir: Frank Capra
pr: Frank Capra / Jack L. Warner
scr: Julius J. Epstein, from the play by Joseph Kesselring
cin: Sol Polito
Well, here it is, the movie that barely got released and which everyone knows. The original play was a hit on Broadway, a dark comedy about a man who comes home to his spinster aunts to announce his engagement, only to learn that they are genteel serial killers who murder prospective lonely boarders. There are other turns, including a Boris Karloff lookalike and his accomplice: Peter Lorre giving the best performance in the film. Well, other than John Alexander as the Karloff lookalike's brother, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt. Because of a contractual agreement with the Broadway show, which was a huge hit, it was three and a half years between the filming (before Pearl Harbor) and the release (right after D-Day). Much of the original cast reprises their roles, with the exceptions of Raymond Massey as the Karloff lookalike (played by, hahaha, Boris Karloff onstage), and Cary Grant in the lead role of the favorite nephew who must decide between what's right and what's the law (played by Allyn Joslyn onstage). There's plenty of raucous laughter from the goings-on, thanks mostly to how straight everyone but Grant plays it. There's also plenty of, on my part, sighing and temple-rubbing due to Grant's unusually sweaty and shrill performance. I read they originally wanted Bob Hope, couldn't get him, and were bowled over when they realized they could get Cary Grant, but I can't help thinking Hope would have been better. It's a classic, in the Criterion Collection, in high school I read the play script because I had heard the title all my life and was, a year later, thrilled to finally see the film. And then it turned out to be just shy of perfect because of Grant. Ah, well, what do I know? I'll say this: any time the movie is on, I have to watch 'til the end, every other element is so perfectly in place. The best line reading, for me, is Priscilla Lsne moaning, "Oh, Mortimer....." at the very end.
Kismet
release: October
nominations: Best Score (Herbert Stothart), Best Cinematography - Color, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration - Color (Cedric Gibbons / Daniel B. Cathcart / Edwin B. Willis / Richard Pefferle), Best Sound (Douglas Shearer)
dir: William Dieterle
pr: Everett Riskin
scr: John Meehan, from the play by Edward Knoblock
cin: Charles Rosher
Yet another "WOW exotic ARABIA" flick where the British get spray tans and call it day. It would be objectionable, and I'm sure it is by many, but I am who I am and I loved it. Ronald Colman is the King of Beggars, Edward Arnold is the wicked Grand Vizier, Marlene Dietrich is the Queen (whatever, OK, sure) of the Grand Vizier's harem; together, they give a grand showcase of the subtle showmanship of old pros - yes, Arnold does his affable chuckle too loudly and often, but he still makes that part of the Grand Vizier's sinisterness clear and chilling. And meanwhile, we have fine costumes, great sets, beautiful matte work, and still-holds-up visual effects editing. Dietrich's the standout. I know, I know, I was skeptical of Dragin Seed, but that movie just wasn't as thoughtfully put together as this one! I suppose that's its own kind of sinisterness.
None But the Lonely Heart
release: October 17
wins: Best Supporting Actress (Ethel Barrymore)
nominations: Best Actor (Cary Grant), Best Score (Constantin Bakaleinikof / Hanns Eisler), Best Film Editing (Roland Gross)
dir: Clifford Odets
pr: David Hempstead
scr: Clifford Odets, from the novel by Richard Llewellyn
cin: George Barnes
A nomadic wrong'un returns home. Are there complications therein, of course, but that's rhe basic plot: Cary Grant comes home, Ethel Barrymore tells him to stay, gangsters and circumstances lean on them, respectively, to pursue dishonesty. Dark and foggy, a drama of the poor and desperate. Well, I liked it. There's one line that suggests Grant (40 at the time) is playing a 17-year-old, but I couldn't figure out if that was sincere or Cockney bullshitting - the rest of the film plays so perfectly for a frequent ne'erdowell "finally" coming home in near-middle age, and both Grant and Barrymore play their parts so perfectly as such, before and after this one scene, that the idea that he was supposed to be a teenager the whole time felt...obscene? Stupid? It's a weird thing to get stuck on, I suppose, but it is something that colors the rest of the film before and after, the difference between a little shit and a habitual one. Otherwise, I loved it. Loved it. Not a coddling flick.
The Climax
nominations: Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration - Color (John B. Goodman / Alexander Golitzen / Russell A. Gausman / Ira Webb)
release: October 20
dir/pr: George Waggner
scr: Curt Siodmak and Lynn Starling, adaptation by Curt Siodmak, librettos by George Waggner, from a play by Edward Locke
cin: W. Howard Grenne / Hal Mohr
The house doctor of an opera company becomes homicidally obsessed with its new ingenue. One is told, online, that it was originally conceived as a sequel to the remake of Phantom of the Opera, and one can easily see how such a thing could be executed. One is also sitting up during the songs and lying back down with eyes half-closed during supposed "thrills". And yet! I remember, distinctly, those velvet-looking sets, those contemporary-composed vintage operas, the menace on Karloff's face - it's no masterpiece, but whatever shortcomings it has were come by honestly.
The Conspirators
release: October 24
dir: Jean Negulesco
pr: Jack Chertok
scr: Vladimir Pozner and Leo Rosten, additional dialogue by Jack Moffitt, from the novel by Frederic Prokosch
cin: Arthur Edeson
Well, here we go - a technically neutral country, exit visas, a vital-to-the-plot cafe, and freedom fighters. And, yes, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre are all here, cementing the Casablanca connections. If you can imagine the sexual electricity between Henreid and leading lady Hedy Lamarr, you've a better imagination than I, and I watched the goddam movie!
Tomorrow, we finish the year (but not our coverage) with a Judy Garland classic...
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