True Confession (1937)

For a lot of Hollywood actresses the policy of strictly enforcing the Production Code from mid-1934 onwards was a disaster, but not for everyone. For Carole Lombard it was an opportunity.

Lombard really found her niche in the screwball comedy. And the screwball comedy was a reaction to the Production Code. It was a way of making intelligent grown-up comedies whilst remaining within the Code guidelines, with zaniness replacing sexiness. And Lombard was ideally suited to this new genre.

Lombard is Helen Bartlett. Her husband Kenneth (Fred MacMurray) is struggling to make his mark as an attorney. Helen takes a job secretly but it turns out that when a job sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. Her boss, Otto Krayler, isn’t bothered by Helen’s lack of any typing or shorthand skills. He’s more interested in hanky-panky. Helen is shocked and after a scuffle she flees. But she has left her coat and her purse behind. She persuades her long-suffering best friend Daisy (Una Merkel who always seemed to play the heroine’s best friend) to company her on an expedition to retrieve these items.

While Helen looks for purse the police arrive and find something much more interesting. The find Otto Krayler’s corpse. And they find two promising suspects - Helen and Daisy. Daisy is soon ruled out, but Helen has a weakness that now gets her into big trouble. She is a congenital liar. Not in a malicious way but she is a would-be writer and her imagination gets away from her. The stories she tells the police are outlandish enough to get her charged with Otto’s murder.

It’s lucky her husband is an attorney. He defends her in court but the court case has unexpected outcomes. And there’s a wild card in this pack - a drunken criminologist named Charley Jasper (John Barrymore).

Lombard and MacMurray generate the same kind of romantic and comic chemistry that they generated in Hands Across the Table a couple of years earlier. MacMurray and Lombard had the perfect personas for screwball comedy and both had nice comic timing. John Barrymore demonstrates his comic skills, while Una Merkel turns in yet another funny, likeable, sexy performance. How was she never a bigger star?

Some American comedy of the 30s could get annoying but that’s never a problem here. Even with the minor characters.

There’s very little to dislike, and a great deal to love, in True Confession

Bird of Paradise (1932)

Bird of Paradise is an outrageous piece of pre-code nonsense about a girl, a sailor and a volcano. The idea is exceptionally silly and the script is, well really the less said about the script the better.

On the other hand director King Vidor and his two stars Dolores del Rio (as a quite remarkably un-Polynesian looking Polynesian princess) and Joel McCrea (as an American sailor who falls in love with her) do their best to inject some life the into proceedings. McCrea is actually surprisingly good. He’s very natural, and he makes a likeable character out of one who could so easily have been arrogant and obnoxious.

Of course in a Hollywood movie of this vintage dealing with a non-European culture you’re going to have a certain amount of racism, but the racism in Bird of Paradise is mostly on the unconscious variety, born out of ignorance rather than malice. And in any case this story is so preposterous you can’t really take anything about this movie seriously.

Bird of Paradise’s main claim to fame is of course Dolores del Rio’s celebrated nude scene. The producers figured that they might have problems getting away with a nude scene, but if the woman in question was a Dusky Island Maiden rather than a white woman that should be OK, shouldn’t it? After all, it seemed to work for National Geographic. Of course Dolores del Rio wasn’t actually a Dusky Island Maiden, but she could pretend to be, couldn’t she? I can’t even attempt to understand the sort of mindset that could consider that a naked woman was only a threat to the morals of healthy young Americans if the woman was white and Anglo-Saxon, but that seems to have been the way they thought in those far-off days. In any case they got away with it. The scene is extraordinarily daring for its time, but to his credit King Vidor shot it in a manner that was both erotic and rather innocent.

So, does Bird of Paradise have anything going for it apart from Dolores del Rio’s skinny-dipping scene? The answer to that really depends on how you approach this movie. It is fun in its own way, it has loads of pre-code moments, an ending you certainly wouldn’t have seen after 1934, and it’s nicely photographed. If you like the Tarzan-type of jungle adventure movie with some romance as well then it’s entertaining enough. More of a curiosity really, but if you’re a connoisseur of pre-code movies you probably need to see it. It was a move that definitely pushed the envelope of what you could do in a Hollywood movie in 1932.

It’s in the public domain and most versions floating about, the Alpha Video DVD release which is the one I have, are sadly in very poor shape.

The Falcon Out West (1944)

The 1940s was the great era for B-movie crime series, like The Saint and The Falcon movies. There were also the Boston Blackie movies, although I’ve never managed to track down any of them. The Falcon Out West was my first exposure to a Falcon movie, and it was a generally painless experience.

The Falcon series started out with George Sanders as the title character, but his brother Tom Conway later took over the role. Poor Tom Conway, who really never did escape his reputation as the poor man’s George Sanders.

The Falcon is, like The Saint, one of those mysterious amateur crime-fighters with an ambiguous relationship with the police. Not a private eye exactly, more of an amateur who solves crime as a sort of hobby.

In this case a wealthy Texan rancher (named Tex apparently on the assumption that all Texans are probably named Tex) is killed by a rattlesnake bite. Not overly surprising you might think, but dying of a rattlesnake bite in a swanky 1940s New York night-club is definitely unusual. Murder seems the obvious explanation. There are of course several obvious suspects. There’s Vanessa Drake, the young woman he was about to marry. He’d just signed most of his fortune over to her as a wedding present. And she does have a reputation as being a bit of a good-time gal.

There’s also the embittered ex-wife. And the equally bitter business partner, with whom Tex had been quarreling for years. And the former business partner’s beautiful daughter. So The Falcon, more at home in the bright lights of the big city, finds himself on a Texas ranch as he tries to unravel the mystery. There are various hazards - hostile Comanches (yes this is 1944 so hostile Comanches do seem a bit odd), angry cowboys, rattlesnake, wild horses, and of course no-good dames. This being a 1940s American crime movie we realise immediately that the no-good dames are going to be the biggest danger. Fortunately the Falcon has plenty of experience in this area.

The movie’s greatest strength is that it knows it’s a B-movie and has no pretensions whatsoever to being anything else. It has one goal, which is to provide just over an hour of reasonable entertainment. It does this pretty successfully, with the tried and tested formula of murder, complicated conspiracies involving inheritances, a bit of action, a hint of romance, and of course the aforementioned beautiful dangerous women. And this one has no less than three beautiful dangerous women!

Although comic relief is a inescapable but unpleasant fact of life in American genre movies of the 30s and 40s at least in this film it isn’t overdone and it isn’t too annoying.

Tom Conway is charming and debonair, makes the police look like fools, and of course solves the mystery. Its one departure from formula is that it throws in some western cliches as well as the standard crime movie cliches. Director William Clemens
isn't tempted to try anything fancy but he keeps things moving along at a good pace.

It’s harmless lightweight fun and as long as you’re not expecting anything ground-breaking or profound it should provide sufficient enjoyment to keep crime B-movie fans happy.

Man's Favourite Sport? (1964)

Man's Favourite Sport? was the last screwball comedy by one of the great masters, if not the great master of the genre, Howard Hawks.

By 1964 Hollywood was loosening up, the Production Code was clearly on the way out, and Hawks was struggling not to get left behind. In fact the movie feels more like a 50s movie than a 60s movie in some ways but that’s not entirely a bad thing. There’s lots of sex, but it’s all in the form of innuendo and sub-text. On the other hand this is something Hawks did supremely well.

Rock Hudson is Roger Willoughby, a fishing expert and the author of bestselling selling book on fishing, who gets roped into participating in an actual fishing tournament. The problem is, everything he knows about fishing had been cribbed from talking to actual fishermen, and from reading books on the subject. He’s never actually been fishing in his life. He hates fish, he hates the outdoors, he hates getting wet. But his job at a major sporting goods store depends in his reputation as a fishing expert, and of course there’s a feisty female mixed up in all this (it woudn’t be a Howard Hawks romantic comedy without a feisty female). In this case it’s Paula Prentiss, whose father owns the fishing lodge where the tournament is to be held.

Abigail Page (Prentiss) is a typical Hawks heroine. She’s way too smart to be taken in by Roger for even one minute. She knows he’s hiding something, and it doesn’t take her long to find out what it is. Roger may not be able to fish, but Abigail can, and she decides she can teach him enough in three days to at least get by. And being a Hawks heroine, Abigail can catch men as easily as she can catch fish. And Roger might be a phony, but he’s cute and once she has him nibbling on the end of her line she’s not going to let this one get way.

Man's Favourite Sport? doesn’t have quite the same level of inspiration as Hawks’ best efforts in this genre. But Hawks is still a thorough professional, and the screwball romantic comedy is one of his specialties. Hawks still knows what he’s doing. Whether he’s going to get away with it or not depends largely on his actors. By 1964 there wasn’t much doubt about Rock Hudson’s ability to do romantic comedy, and he does it both both skill and charm. Roger is a phony, but he’s likeable and funny.

The real trump card in this movie is Paul Prentiss as Abigail. If you thought the great age of the female screwball comedy star was past by 1964, you haven’t seen this movie. She’s an absolute delight. And remember, if you’re going to play the female lead in a Howard Hawks screwball comedy you’re going to be compared to people like Rosalind Russell and Katharine Hepburn. This may seem like a very rash statement, but Prentiss has no problems in this area. She plays screwball comedy like she was born to play screwball comedy.

The other thing that makes Hawks’ efforts in this genre so consistently enjoyable is that he clearly likes both his male and female characters. They may be battle of the sexes movies, but these are battles of the sexes in which the men and women respect each other. They battle it out both he believes she’s worth it, and she believes he’s worth it. And they both end up winning, because they’re both right.

OK, this is not Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. But it’s not one of those embarrassing late movies by a great director clearly past his prime. It’s a late movie by a great director who still retained much of his touch.

And it has Paula Prentiss, still fairly young and inexperienced but already at the peak of her powers, and it’s worth watching just for her performance. And it’s funny and charming and romantic.

Laura (1944)

While there is some doubt as to whether Laura really belongs in the film noir category, there can be very little debate as to its qualities as a film. It is quite simply one of the best American movies of the 40s. After Rouben Mamoulian’s imitial efforts failed to satisfy Daryl F. Zanuck producer Otto Preminger was asked to take over as director. It was an inspired move. Most of Preminger’s movies that have been labelled as film noir are more explorations of tangled and dangerous relationships than pure film noir.

Since this is a murder mystery one can’t say too much about the plot. Laura Hunt, a woman whose success in the world of advertising has brought her glamour and wealth, has been murdered. There are plenty of plausible suspects. There’s Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), the acid-tongued columnist who was responsible for Laura’s rise from obscurity to fame. There’s Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), a rather feckless and untrustworthy but undeniably charming gigolo, to whom Laura was engaged. And there’s Ann Treadwell. Shelby had been her boy toy, until Laura came along. Detective Mark McPherson’s task is difficult enough, but becomes even more difficult when he takes one look at Laura’s portrait in her apartment and falls hopelessly in love with her.

To me Laura is a movie about love. More specifically, it’s about unhealthy and doomed love, and the delusions and self-delusions that accompany it. There are many love relationships in this film, and all are unhealthy and all are based on delusions. Laura is so far out of Mark’s league that it’s absurd for him even to think about it. Laura is not the sort of woman who is going to marry a cop. Waldo Lydecker’s love for Laura is equally hopeless. As he himself points out, Laura likes her men to be muscular and handsome. And while Laura remains fond of Waldo, she no longer needs him. She is wealthy, successful and self-reliant. Ann’s love for Shelby is similarly hopeless. He’s not going to settle for a woman with money once he realises he can have a woman with youth and beauty as well as money. Laura’s love for Shelby is based on the delusion that he’s something more than a mere gigolo, but in fact that really is all that Shelby amounts to.

There are other self-delusions at work in Laura. Waldo Lydecker is clearly gay, so at first sight his desire to marry Laura seems rather improbable. This was the problem I had with this movie the first time I saw it, but now it seems more comprehensible. Waldo believes that Laura is his own creation, so it’s really a form of narcissistic love. And in the world of the 1940s it would certainly be advantageous for someone like Waldo to acquire a wife, to reduce his vulnerability to gossip about his sexuality. He is also clearly very sensitive about his physical inadequacies, so a young and beautiful wife would be exceptionally gratifying to his ego. And Laura is intelligent and cultured, so she would make a congenial companion. My assumption is that Waldo has other deluded himself into believing that Laura would accept a sexless marriage, or he’s convinced himself that he can overcome his natural inclinations to a sufficient degree to satisfy her sexually.

Laura is one of those movies that demonstrates that it was possible to make an intelligent grownup whilst still remaining technically within the confines of the Production Code. It has to be admitted that Laura does stretch the Code somewhat, but it is an Otto Preminger film and baiting the Production Code Administration was one of Otto’s favourite pastimes. It’s the mark of a great murder mystery (and one that transcends the limitations of the genre) that having seen the film before and knowing about the plot twists doesn’t diminish one’s enjoyment in the least, and that was my experience with Laura. If anything I liked it more the second time around. Dana Andrews gives one of his best performances as the detective, and although Gene Tierney apparently wasn’t happy with her own performance I think she was judging herself too harshly. I think she’s perfect, but then I’m an unashamed Gene Tierney fan. A truly great movie.

Niagara (1953)

Niagara, made in 1953, is filmed in Technicolor. There are no shadows. It’s all bright sunlight. And there is no trace of the mean streets of the big city - it all takes place at Niagara Falls! All of which would normally disqualify it from being film noir. But film noir is what it is.

A young honeymooning couple (the charming Jean Peters as Polly Cutler and the unbelievably annoying Max Showalter as her husband) arrive at their cabin at the Falls to find that the previous occupants have not yet checked out. They and the manager are met at the door by a half-dressed, rather disheveled and somewhat confused Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe). She begs them to just let her husband sleep. The kind-hearted Cutlers agree to take another cabin.

The mystery about the Loomises deepens. They seem a very mis-matched couple. Rose is young, very sexy and very flirtatious. George (Joseph Cotten) is middle-aged, bitter, withdrawn and bad-tempered. Trouble starts to brew at a barbecue when Rose shows up in a red dress. This is not just a red dress. This is the red dress to end all red dresses. This is the kind of red dress you wear when you expect that you’ll be wearing nothing but a smile long before the evening is out. And Marilyn fills this red dress very nicely indeed. She wears it like she’s the kind of girl who often wears dresses like this.

Pretty soon George is smashing up records and throwing things about and generally throwing the sort of tantrum you throw when you know your wife is wearing that dress for a man, but that man is not you.

Young Polly tries to befriend George. It seems he’s been in an army hospital, the sort of hospital they send combat fatigue cases to. There’s no doubt he’s suffering from combat fatigue, but you have to wonder if the combat in question has been on the battlefield or in the bedroom. And you have to wonder if maybe part of the problem is that the Loomis’s married life may be a little bit too quiet in the bedroom department, that maybe the last shots were fired there quite some time ago but that Rose is still ready, willing and able to report for duty in that area, and that if her husband can’t carry out out his duties in that area she’ll find some other man who can.

So far it looks like there are troubled waters ahead, and then George mysteriously disappears. A tearful Rose explains that he was very upset the night before, and she indicates that he may have done something foolish. There are still plenty of plot twists to go and I won’t spoil them for you.

The style of the film is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s 1950s Technicolor period, but the mood is pure film noir. There’s a femme fatale, although she’s not an entirely unsympathetic femme fatale - she’s obviously had a lot to put up with from the sort of man who back in the 50s would not have been likely to give an unhappy wife her freedom. There’s a tortured noir anti-hero, battling personal demons and being a very typical noir anti-hero - he just can’t see that he’s becoming the bad guy.

The use of the Niagara Falls locations is truly inspired. Maybe it’s not quite as clever a use of a location as Hitchcock’s more famous use of Mount Rushmore, but it’s pretty close. There are some exciting action sequences, there’s mystery and there’s suspense.

Jean Peters is very good in the main supporting role. She’s overwhelmed by the powerhouse performances from the two leads, but she still does a fine job.

Joseph Cotten does the man slowly unravelling thing exceptionally well. He never quite goes over the top. There’s always a sane part of him that knows that things are going out of control, and that just deepens the tragedy. And then there’s Marilyn Monroe. She’s quite superb. She’s frighteningly sexy, but it’s a nicely judged performance rather similar to the one she gave in the very underrated Don't Bother To Knock. She’s scary, but you want to save her.

This is a top-notch mystery thriller with a genuine film noir feel to it. Highly recommended. And it demonstrates that the Monroe mystique really was more than hype, that she really could act.

Pillow Talk (1959)

Molly Haskell’s comments on the television documentary From Weepies to Chick Flicks! persuaded me to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. To check oit the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies of the 50s. I decided that Pillow Talk would be as good a place as any to start.

And I have to admit Haskell is right again. Pillow Talk is absolutely delightful. She described it as pure sex, and that is indeed what it is. Yes it’s the 50s so the movie is careful to stay technically within the bounds of the Production Code. But it is in fact a sex comedy. And it’s surprisingly risque. I thought the British Carry On movies of the 60 had raised the double entendre to the status of an art form, but this movie has more double entendres than an of the Carry On films. It’s non-stop sexual innuendos.

Haskell also claimed that the most amusing way to view the film was by reversing the gender roles - seeing Doris Day as the butch one, and Rock Hudson as the femme one. And she’s right. What’s truly staggering is how much the movie plays on the sexual ambiguity of these two stars. Considering the efforts that Rock Hudson was making at the time to stay in the closet this was really quite a brave film for him to make. It even has him trying to entice Doris to seduce him by making her think he’s gay. And there’s nothing subtle about it - it’s difficult to believe that even the most innocent 1950s audience would have missed the gay jokes.Even more surprising is the fact that Doris Day is actually quite sexy in this movie. The fact that she’s playing on her wholesome as freshly baked white bread image just makes it more sexy. She’s driving off for a weekend in the country with her new boyfriend, and we hear her singing on the soundtrack about, “I’ll be yours tonight, my darling, possess me.” Not exactly subtle.

There’s also a very clever use of the Cinemascope screen. It allows lots of split screen sequences. They’re something I generally don't like, but in this case they're used as a very witty way of getting Rock Hudson and Doris Day into bed together without actually getting them into bed together. They even manage to use the technique to get them into the bathtub together!
Yet another surprise is that this is an extremely funny movie. Both Hudson and Day have exquisite comic timing, and they can deliver potentially very risque dialogue with an incredibly light touch, while still making sure we pick up the sexual references. Tony Randall gives some fine support.

I knew I was going to enjoy the visual style of the movie as soon as I saw the words, “produced by Ross Hunter” in the credits. I’m learning more and more to appreciate the distinctive sumptuous and subtly camp visual style that seems to be a trademark of any movie that Hunter produced in the 50s. And this is no exception. It looks glorious, in a wonderfully excessive 1950s way. Ross Hunter movies have a way of making pastels seem deliriously decadent.Pillow Talk is delightful naughty 1950s fun. It’s like 1950s cheesecake - it’s sexy but in an innocent kind of way that perversely makes it more sexy. It’s funny, it’s romantic, it’s over-the-top and I adored it.