THE DUCHESS OF BUFFALO. First National Pictures, 1926. Constance Talmadge, Tullio Carminati, Edward Martindale, Rose Dione, Chester Conklin. Screenplay by Hans Kraly based on the play Sybil by Max Bordy and Franz Martos. Director: Sidney Franklin. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   The beautiful Constance Talmadge plays Marian Duncan, an American dancer who’s touring Russia and leaving broken hearts in her wake. She’s fallen in love with a young lieutenant (Tullio Carminati) but she’s caught the attention of an aging roué (Edward Martindale), a Grand Duke who’s also the commanding officer of the hapless lieutenant.

   This is a tightly constructed romantic comedy, highlighted by a lengthy climax in which the lieutenant, Marion, the Grand Duke, and the Grand Duchess play an elaborate game of musical chairs in a hotel suite, a classic drawing room comedy situation that brings this witty play to a resolution that pleases everyone except, perhaps, the Grand Duke.

TALL, DARK AND HANDSOME. 20th Century Fox, 1941. Cesar Romero, Virginia Gilmore, Charlotte Greenwood, Milton Berle, Sheldon Leonard, Stanley Clements, Marc Lawrence, Addison Richards, Vicki Lester, Nestor Paiva, Marion Martin. Dances staged by Nick Castle; music and lyrics by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger. Director: H. Bruce Humberstone. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   I’ve included one acting credit more for its incidental interest than as a record of a significant performance in the film. Vicki Lester was, of course, the name of the lead female character in A Star Is Born (played by Janet Gaynor in 1937, and by Judy Garland in 1954). The actress Vicki/Vickie Lester (her real name was “Vickie,” with “Vicki” adopted for the screen) appears to have played her first role (unbilled) in The Vogues of 1938, with her last credit given for 1943.

   Also, my wife reminds me that we saw Cesar Romero in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood in 1991. I recall that he had a glamourous lady on either arm, and was flashing his patented smile. It was not uncommon to spot stars at the Roosevelt, usually there as guests for the Saturday night banquet.

   Anyhow, Romero was in his prime when this film was released in 1941, giving a stellar performance as a Chicago gangster, known for his ruthlessness in handling threats to his power. His bumbling sidekick is played by Milton Berle, his equally ruthless rival by Sheldon Leonard, his female associate by Charlotte Greenwood, and the pretty young thing who causes his best-laid plans to go awry, by Virginia Gilmore.

   This is a comedy, with some music (Greenwood has one number in which she recalls some of the glories of her high-kicking days on the dance floor), and highly entertaining. It was remade in 1950 as Love That Brute, with Romero in Leonard’s role, and Paul Douglas as the lead.

Editorial Comment:   There’s a long series of clips from this film (23 minutes) here on YouTube.

LADIES SHOULD LISTEN. Paramount, 1934. Cary Grant, Frances Drake, Edward Everett Horton, Nydia Westman, Rafael Corio, Rosita Moreno, George Barbier, Charles Ray. Frank Tuttle, director; screenplay by Claude Binyon and Frank Butler based on Guy Bolton’s play of the same name, as adapted from the French play La Demoiselle de Passy by Alfred Savoir. Director: Frank Tuttle. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   The ’30s Paramount features are always eagerly awaited, since many of the them are still buried in the vaults of private collections, but in spite of the fine cast, this romantic comedy never really took off.

   Grant, on the verge of major stardom, either had not yet found the style that would characterize his prime years or was uncomfortable with the material, and even dependable Edward Everett Horton was unable to pull this from its frequent doldrums.

   Grant was pursued by Nydia Westman while hotel telephone operator Frances Drake, clearly destined to land Grant at the finale, wandered in and out of the meandering plot, attractive but with little comic spark.

KID MILLIONS. United Artists, 1934. Eddie Cantor, Ann Sothern, Ethel Merman, George Murphy, Berton Churchill, Warren Hymer, Paul Harvey, Jesse Block, Eve Sully, Stanley Fields, Edgar Kennedy, The Nicholas Brothers, Noble Johnson, Clarence Muse. Original screenplay and story by Arthur Sheeman, Nat Perrin, and Nunnally Johnson; photography by Ray June; color photography by Ray Rennahan; music by Alfred Newman; musical numbers directed by Seymour Felix; “Mandy” music and lyrics by Irving Berlin; additional music and lyrics by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, Burton Lane and Harold Adamson. Director: Roy Del Ruth, with the Technicolor sequence directed by William (“Willy”) Pogany. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   I had already seen most of the Cantor Goldwyn musicals (of which Roman Scandals has long been one of my favorite ’30s musicals), but Kid Millions, the last of the films under Cantor’s contract with Goldwyn, had eluded me and I was determined to watch it, even if it was shown last on the program at the end of a long day.

   The film was probably not the best of the Cantor musicals, but it was certainly the feature-length film that I enjoyed the most. Busby Berkeley’s inventive staging of the musical numbers, a highlight of the earlier Cantor films, was sorely missed (Seymour Felix was a workmanlike but uninspired replacement), but apart from the major production number (which featured “I Want To Be a Minstrel Man,” “My Head on Your Shoulder,” and “Mandy” and was only rescued from mediocrity by the sensational dancing of the Nicholas Brothers), the songs, mostly integrated into the plot, were effectively performed by Cantor, Merman, Sothern, and Murphy.

   The opening number sung by Ethel Merman (“An Earful of Music”) and an ensemble comic number (“Let My People Go”) were probably the musical highlights. And then there was the technicolor finale, designed by the enormously talented book and magazine illustrator, as well as film production designer, Willy Pogany.

   This was a riot of color, a fantasy in which Cantor, finally coming into the fortune left to him by his father, presides over an ice cream feast for a horde of children, in a factory setting that is as much a feast for the eye as the ice cream is for the children. It should be noted that this sequence precedes the first all Technicolor film Becky Sharp that was released some months after the Cantor film, in 1935, and for sheer opulence surpasses the use of color in the prints I have seen of Becky Sharp. The sequence may not be tasteful but it’s eye-popping gorgeous.

   I bought a copy of a laser disc of the film in the dealers’ room on Sunday and copied it to DVD. Now you can all wait for the commercial release on DVD to see if you can experience the rush that I did at the late evening screening.

Editorial Comment: Kid Millions was released on VHS and can be obtained without much difficulty, but the only DVD release seems to be out of print and hard to find. In the meantime, perhaps this color clip on YouTube will suffice, the last seven minutes of the film.

CURTAIN CALL AT CACTUS CREEK. Universal, 1950. Donald O’Connor, Gale Storm, Walter Brennan, Vincent Price, Eve Arden, Chick Chandler, Rex Lease, I. Stanford Jolley. Director: Charles Lamont.

   As I have noted before, Universal was best-known for its horror films — not all of them classics — and their comedies tended toward dire efforts with the likes of Francis the Talking Mule. But now and again, quite unexpectedly (perhaps unintentionally) they came out with an off-beat and lightly enjoyable piece like Curtain Call at Cactus Creek, written and directed by the folks who usually worked on Abbott & Costello comedies. This hasn’t aired on TV in a generation, but I found it on DVD recently and fell in love.

   Curtain / Creek offers Donald O’Connor as the one-man stage crew of a threadbare theatrical troupe, shooting off amusing stunts and sight gags as he juggles props and struggles for stardom, worshiping ingénue Gale Storm from anear while handling deadly desperadoes and discontented customers with gawky aplomb.

   It’s the kind of part Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton made their own in the silent movies, and O’Connor wears their mantle quite capably, jumping about at the least excuse and generally making the film fun to look at. Gale Storm is also rather nice as the romantic interest, projecting a predatory vitality that has its moments, but the movie really belongs to its supporting players, Eve Arden, Walter Brennan and Vincent Price.

   Brennan here plays an aging bank robber who years ago fell in love with a picture of stage sensation Lily Martin (echoing his role in The Westerner a decade earlier) and delighted now to meet her in the impoverished person of Eve Arden.

   As the story jumps along, Brennan hides out with the acting troupe and takes an avuncular interest in O’Connor’s struggle to make himself worthy of Gale Storm, softening his (Brennan’s) crusty exterior — another familiar theme of the silent days, and the source of some fun here.

   Then there’s Vincent Price, strutting about as the Leading Man, dressed in elaborate-looking but rather tawdry outfits, looking aristocratically down his nose at the world in general (and O’Connor in particular) and dumping spectacularly eloquent abuse on Walter Brennan. It’s the kind of part Price was born for, and he’s consistently funny here, constantly quoting Shakespeare, but usually from the lesser plays — a nice touch that, and one you don’t expect in a Universal comedy.

   Chief delight, however, is Eve Arden as the sadder-but-still-arch faded star, ruefully accepting the worship of Brennan’s grimy outlaw and taking the world with that weary-but-game humor that she made her own. Tossing off her reaction to a near-sighted admirer (“That explains a lot!”) or trying to cheer up Donald O’Connor as he faces twenty years in jail with “See you (pause) later,” Arden adds a layer of thoughtfulness to a film that already has plenty of charm.

COCKEYED CAVALIERS. RKO, 1934. Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Thelma Todd, Dorothy Lee, Noah Beery Sr., Robert Greig, Henry Sedley, Billy Gilbert, Franklin Pangborn, Alfred James, Jack Norton, Snub Pollard. Director: Mark Sandrich. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   Wheeler and Woolsey were a very popular comedy team in the 1930s, turning out some 19 comedies for RKO from 1929-1937, with the team’s career cut short by a serious illness that forced Woolsey’s retirement.

   Jim Goodrich was a great fan of the pair, but I’ve never been able to sit through all of one of their features. However, encouraged by the favorable write-up in the program-notes, I agreed to make another stab at appreciating their work.

   I am happy to report that Cockeyed Cavaliers, in which the boys, decked out in period garb but losing none of their contemporary edge, play con men who are taken to be the king’s physicians, dispatched to cure the ills of the Baron (Noah Beery), is a delightful musical, with director Mark Sandrich also responsible for several of the Astaire-Rogers musicals.

   His sure touch keeps the film consistently afloat, aided and abetted by a talented cast headed by gorgeous Thelma Todd and lovely and delightful Dorothy Lee, with veteran film villain Noah Beery blustering through his role as Todd’s lecherous husband and displaying an impressive bass in a couple of the songs.

   The score may not be memorable, but it’s melodious, and if I hadn’t seen parts of a number of Wheeler and Woolsey comedies that I didn’t care for, I would have been convinced that the team was very much to my liking, with their other films worth tracking down.

FRIENDS OF MR. SWEENEY. Warner Brothers, 1934. Charlie Ruggles, Ann Dvorak, Eugene Pallette, Robert Barrat, Berton Churchill, Dorothy Burgess, Dorothy Tree, Harry Tyler. Based on a novel by Elmer Davis. Director: Edward Ludwig.

   Charlie Ruggles is the true star of this one, even though Friends of Mr. Sweeney was recently shown as part of a day-long salute on TCM to Ann Dvorak (pronounced with a silent D). As an editorial writer, over the years, he’s become hidebound and downtrodden, and totally subservient to his boss at the weekly magazine where he plies his trade, even to the point where he’s resigned to composing a favorable piece on a politician he knows is crooked.

   As his trusty assistant, Ann Dvorak can only look on sadly, and with unrequited fondness (which she obvious wishes could be more). Enter Eugene Pallette, Charlie’s old buddy at college, where they were on the football team together, and a couple of more high-spirited and fun-loving buddies you would be hard-pressed to find.

   Maybe you can take it from here. First a badly interrupted dinner date with his secretary, then out on the town as a foursome, posing as a friend of a fictitious Mr. Sweeney to enter one of the poshiest casinos in town, where all hilarity breaks out, then back to office while the building is being robbed (all part of the story line).

   The fussy Charlie Ruggles I always find amusing, especially in situations where he finds himself enjoying becoming a wildcat again. I often need only a small dose of Eugene Pallette to get me through the week, however, and unfortunately this is more than a small dose. (No offense intended.)

   Ann Dvorak, only 22 when this movie was made, was destined to have a career consisting only small parts or larger roles in minor movies like this one, but like this one, her beauty and engaging personality wins me over every time. (One scene is which she is wearing nothing but lingerie is rather revealing for a movie made with the Code in effect.)

Note:   You can see what I mean by that last parenthetical statement — as well as everything else I’ve said — by checking out the original trailer that’s available on the TCM website.

THE MEANEST GAL IN TOWN. RKO, 1934. ZaSu Pitts. Pert Kelton, El Brendel, James Gleason, “Skeets” Gallagher. Director: Russell Mack. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   ZaSu Pitts hadn’t yet reduced her acting to the fluttering “dear me” mannerisms that most people associate with her, and she does a decent job of playing a small-town shop owner who’s getting tired of waiting for long-time beau Chris (El Brendel), the local barber who won’t ask Tillie to marry him until he’s successful enough to afford a second chair.

   Tired of waiting, Tillie buys the chair for him, but her plan is railroaded by the arrival of out-of-work actress Lulu White (Pert Kelton), who promotes herself into a job as manicurist at Chris’s shop. Other complications follow, just enough of them to stretch the film to a thin 62 minutes, with an improbable ending that keeps Pitts off-screen for much of the last section of the film.

   Comedian El Brendel was less irritating than in other films in which I’ve seen him, but the paring of Pitts and Brendel was not a match made in cinematic heaven. Jim Goodrich, who attended this showing with me, was not happy that ZaSu Pitts was wasted in an unpleasant role.

GOOD GIRLS GO TO PARIS. Columbia Pictures, 1939. Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Walter Connolly, Alan Curtis, Joan Perry, Isabel Jeans. Director: Alexander Hall.

   A decent screwball type of comedy, one with a complicated plot, relatively speaking, and one that’s actually quite funny. Not of the side-splitting slapstick variety, but one that’s amusing all the way through.

   Melvyn Douglas plays a tweedy sort of visiting professor from England who befriends a waitress (Joan Blondell) who works at a hamburger joint close to campus.

   Her goal in life: to coerce a male student with a rich father who objects to their friendship to pay up with a trip to Paris. Blackmail? Yes, and Professor Brooke (that’s Douglas) tries his best to make her see the error of her ways.

   But here’s where a “flutter” somewhere inside her helps. That’s her conscience talking.

   And here’s where it gets complicated. Brooke’s future brother-in-law is Jenny Swanson’s next target, and somehow she works her way into his home (and Brooke’s fiancée) before Brooke himself gets there before the wedding – mostly by ingratiating herself with the patriarch of the upscale Brand family, played with the utmost gusto by Walter Connolly, who’d rather be back home in Minnesota than in New York City and having to deal with the pair of spoiled socialites he has as children.

   It is difficult to say exactly how this not very unique storyline leads itself to humor, but it does. Both Melvyn Douglas and especially Joan Blondell lend their physical talents to the proceedings as well as using their lines to good advantage, acting and reacting.

   That Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell end up with other may come as a surprise to perhaps one or two viewers of this film, but it will be obvious to everyone else within the first five minutes. Nonetheless it is touch and go for them for a good long time.

[UPDATE]   Later the same day.   As perhaps even intermittent readers of this blog will recall, Douglas and Blondell also appeared together in There’s Always a Woman. It came out the year before (1938), and I reviewed it here.

   But I watched this one first, wrote this review, and forgot to post it until now. (This was back in April when I was having problems with my hip.) I thought the earlier film was a little too mean-spirited, but it was obviously the story and not the two co-stars, since (as you’ve just read) I found this one to be exactly what screwball comedies are supposed to be: a little wacky and fun to watch.

   Having also now read the comments on both movies posted on IMDB, there is also the possibility that I am out of step with (almost) everyone else. As the old saying goes, “Humor is a funny thing.”

   And, for whatever it’s worth, a note on IMDB says “Originally titled Good Girls Go To Paris, Too, but the censors objected.” Hmm. You’ll have to think about that one — but not too long.

CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR. United Artists, 1950. Ronald Colman, Vincent Price, Celeste Holm, Barbara Brittton, Art Linkletter, Byron Foulger, Ellye Marshall, LyleTalbot, John Eldridge, Vicki Raaf, Bess Flowers; Gabriel Heatter and George Fisher as themselves. Screenplay by Hans Jacoby and Fred Brady; music by Dimitri Tiomkin. Director: Richard Whorf. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   Finally, an authentic star was showcased, the elegant Celeste Holm, playing a vamp (“Flame O’Neill”) who’s hired to distract genius TV quiz contestant Ronald Colman (“Beauregard Bottomley”) so that he will flub the answer to the final multi-million question that will bring down the skin lotion empire of a nutty magnate, played with hilarious and movie-stealing effect by the incomparable Vincent Price.

   This the kind of film you don’t see much of anymore, a comedy for adults, and one whose subjects are still relevant, corporate greed and inane TV shows. Art Linkletter is perfectly cast as the TV show host (in an engaging and sympathetic performance), and every performer is pitch-perfect, down to Beauregard’s pet parrot, voiced by the great Mel Blanc.

   After the screening, Holm arrived in a wheelchair, and was interviewed, with her much younger husband (maybe 40 years younger) in close attendance. She seemed frail but occasionally her voice became stronger, although she had to be constantly prompted by her husband, who filled in the details she was unable to remember.

   Later, my brother and I, having lunch next door at a restaurant, saw her wheeled in and she passed by our table, impeccably made up, her skin extraordinary youthful looking.