LIFE BEGINS AT FORTY. Fox, 1934. Will Rogers, Rochelle Hudson, George Barbier, Richard Cromwell, Jane Darwell, Slim Summerville, Sterling Holloway. Screenplay by Lamar Trotti, adapted from the novel by Walter B. Pitkin. Director: George Marshall. Shown at Cinecon 40, Hollywood CA, September 2004.

   Rogers was probably closer to 50 than 40 when he played Kenesaw H. Clark, a small-town newspaperman who loses his paper to banker George Barbier who calls in a loan after Rogers hires recently released convict Richard Cromwell, who had been convicted of stealing funds from Barbier’s bank.

   This is one of Rogers’ patented do-good roles as his rehabilitation of Cromwell includes proving he was framed for the theft and putting up lazy Slim Summville as an opposition candidate to Barbier in the upcoming school board election.

   Sterling Holloway plays dangerously close to a dead-on Caucasian Stepin Fetchit impersonation, with Hudson the schoolteacher who falls for Cromwell, and Darwell, greatness still ahead of her, doing her folksy (and very effective) maiden lady who may have an eye for perennial bachelor Rogers.

   The film’s portrayal of small-town America introduces some elements that almost veer into crime drama and an attempted lynching of Cromwell that casts an ugly shadow on this family comedy/drama.

   Rogers propelled these evocations of period America into box-office successes that may seem liked faded snapshots to some, but their genuine humor, warmth, and basic dramatic conflicts still have the power to engage and entertain.

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS. Orion Pictures, 1986. Patsy Kensit, Eddie O’Connell, David Bowie, James Fox, Ray Davies, Mandy Rice-Davies, Sade Adu. Based on the novel by Colin MacInnes. Original music: Gil Evans; cinematography by Oliver Stapleton. Director: Julien Temple.

   For me, this knockout of a movie musical was an absolute eye-opener. A veritable feast for the eyes and ears throughout, beginning with the opening narration by Colin (Eddie O’Connell):

   It is as if the war and the postwar recovery were over at last, and the world changed in a magical instant from black-and-white to vivid color. It is the summer of the teen-ager, brought to life and personified by Colin the photographer, and Suzette (Patsy Kensit) the model. Youth and young love and … money. Bright lights and glitter are always followed by trouble. No roads are ever easy, and there are always obstacles along the way.

   Success comes to Suzette first, and boy loses girl. Does that sum it up? Does boy win girl back? Don’t always be so sure.

   Beautifully photographed throughout, with the best of late 50s London pop and rock, as seen through the visual lens of 1986. If David Bowie and Ray Davies (of The Kinks) do not play your kind of music, as they do mine, this may not be the movie for you, but the flash and brilliant color may win you back.

   From the first sequence on, a melange of activity in a busy, thriving section of streets in a boisterous entertainment area in London, over two minutes long in one continuing shot filled with what looks like hundreds of musicians and dancers, I was caught up immediately. This is my kind of musical.

   Colin again:   “For the first time ever, kids were teenagers. They had loot, however come by and loot’s for spending. Where there’s loot, trouble follows.”

   Can you say “sell out”?

   And worse. The ending, incorporating as it does hints of class warfare (well, more than hints) and a well-choreographed racial riot that I’d have made several minutes shorter, but it is one of the four crucial parts of the book this film was based on, the events of which take place on four days in London — one a month — over an 18-year-old boy’s last summer as a teenager.

   Even so, some reviewers have said that this movie misses the whole point of the book, which I haven’t read, but I have a feeling they may be right, that any message the film may have intended is lost among the magnificent colors, vivid imagery, and above all, the music. An overload, in fact, but truthfully? I didn’t mind it for a second.

THREE GIRLS ABOUT TOWN. Columbia, 1941. Joan Blondell, Robert Benchley,, Binnie Barnes, Janet Blair, John Howard, Hugh O’Connell, Frank McGlynn Sr., Eric Blore. Director: Leigh Jason.

    What this movie is, if I may be allowed to say so, is a screwball comedy that is not only not screwball, but for the most of its 75 minutes of running length, not even funny.

    Robert Benchley always cracks me up, though, no matter what movie he’s in, and as Wilburforce Puddle, the manager of the hotel for which Joan Blondell and Binnie Barnes work, he’s no exception here. Even his name is funny.

    Joan Blondell and Binnie Barnes (as Faith and Hope Banner) are hostesses for the hotel, which caters to conventions, but the wholesome kind. One wonders, though, what the local women’s civic league thinks they have been doing, marching in on the manager to deliver their complaints in person.

    Puddle has other problems. There is a magicians’ convention that is just closing, and a morticians’ convention that is coming in, and never the co-mingling should meet. Not to mention the upstairs ballroom where a defense-oriented corporation and an angry employees union are waiting for a government mediator to arrive, and worst of all, a dead man in the room next to our two ladies.

    Whose sister has just arrived, naturally named Charity (Janet Blair, in her debut film), who’s delinquent from the school where they’re sending her and a delinquent in more ways than that, the way she has eyes for Faith’s fiancé, who’s in the hotel covering the labor battle but who discovers that he has another story on his hands, if the body would ever stay in one place long enough for the police to do anything about it. (Charity also gets what’s coming to her at the end of the movie. Rather remarkably, too, that’s all I can say.)

    Getting back to the main proceedings, also worth mentioning is the wandering Charlemagne, a drunken magician (Eric Blore) who interrupts the proceedings looking for his good friend Charlie wherever the laughs seem to be dying out — which is something like every five minutes.

    It is hard to say what exactly goes wrong, that this movie isn’t more fun than it should be. Everyone tries hard, but it’s tough slogging when the jokes just aren’t as funny as whoever thought them up thought they were. Either that, or my taste in humor and theirs just don’t jibe.

NIGHT LIFE OF THE GODS. Universal, 1935. Alan Mowbray, Florine McKinney, Peggy Shannon, Richard Carle, Theresa Maxwell Conover, Phillips Smalley , Wesley Barry. Based on the novel by Thorne Smith. Director: Lowell Sherman.

   Speaking of the Obscure and Bizarre, I had the good fortune to run across a tape of Night Life of the Gods, a long-lost comedy based on a book by Thorne Smith, from a studio that was never much good at comedy.

   Despite the typical Universal clumsiness — or maybe because of it — Night Life captures the flavor of Smith’s unique style quite nicely. The plot (something about a scientist who can turn people into statues and statues into people) lurches forward in typical Smith fashion towards nowhere in particular as our hero-scientist (Alan Mowbray) contends with insipid relatives, a loving secretary, a host of soliloquizing drop-ins and amorous women, all of whom, in typical Smith-fashion, seem to be pursuing plots in books of their own.

   The result is hardly Great Comedy (Thorne Smith was always more whimsical than humorous), but it’s an effective translation of Smith’s peculiar ethos from page to film.

   As for the actor playing the lead — in a flattering wig with his chins taped up — Alan Mowbray was always one of my favorite Unknowns. He generally played pompous, rather dull Englishmen (no one who sees him in THE KING AND I will ever remember him), and if you recall him at all, it’s probably as the Shakespearean ham in a couple of John Ford Westerns, but he was by all accounts a witty and charming man off-screen — he was one of the loyal coterie of friends who looked after John Barrymore in his later years — and his film career included highlights like the rakehell Cpt. Crawley in Becky Sharp, a bizarre Butler in the Topper films, The Devil once and George Washington twice.

WALTZ OF THE TOREADORS. Independent Artists, 1962. Peter Sellers, Dany Robin, Margaret Leighton, John Fraser, Cyril Cusack. Based on the play The Waltz of the Toreadors by Jean Anouilh. Director: John Guillermin.

   I don’t know if I’m alone in the US in this regard or not, but looking back through the IMDB credits for Peter Sellers, the first movie that he was in that I remember seeing was The Pink Panther, which came out in 1963. (I’ve never seen Lolita, which was also a 1962 release, so it looks as though I’m wrong. It’s a certainty that there were a few people who came in ahead of me.)

   Then came Dr. Strangelove (1964), which I loved with a passion and could not figure out why none of my college housemates agreed with me. Sellers had been around a while before Waltz of the Toreadors, of course, but I seldom watched British films back then, mostly because I needed subtitles to understand them.

   And yes, of course I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean. They recently had an all-day extravaganza of Peter Sellers movies on Turner Classic Movies, and I taped most of them, telling myself that I couldn’t go wrong. Since I don’t lie to myself — well, hardly ever — I was right.

   In Waltz of the Toreadors he plays a retired British officer around the end of the 19th century who has a problem. His wife being a nagging invalid, he has nothing to look forward to in that regard, but even worse, the true love of his life (the beautiful Dany Robin), with whom he has had an unconsummated love affair for 17 years, is coming from France, where he first met her, to take, she believes, her rightful place in his life.

   The first half of this movie is then a comedy, with much mugging and horseplay and missed connections, male-female wise, or maybe that should be the first two-thirds. But quietly, it seems, and without much fanfare, the tone of the tale becomes more and more serious, and anyone who expected a happy (or happier) Hollywood ending in which all sides reconcile and make up and find true love — I think they’re going to be disappointed. Unmet expectations, and all that.

   Given that the ending is at least somewhat more serious than the rest of the movie, then I think that there at least two problems. Why on earth, one might ask, does Ghislaine (Dany Robin) waste 17 years of her life pining for this general who is hardly worth crossing the street for, one realizes in retrospect, that retrospect being confirmed by the second problem, that General Leo Fitzjohn (that’s Sellers) has no intention of changing his view of the world (and his place in it, including his incredibly womanizing ways), will not change and does not change? Not a budge, not an inch, even when given a truckload of opportunities to do so.

   English 101. How did this person’s character change during the course of this book? (Answer. Not at all. He’s as solid as brick.) I hated English 101, so maybe (an understatement) I’m still exaggerating.

   On the other hand — and of course, there always is one — that’s the point, I believe, right there in the nut of the shell. What could be sadder than someone who doesn’t change? Or maybe the key word here is “can’t.”

  HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO. 20th Century Fox, 1943, Alice Faye, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Lynn Bari, Laird Cregar, June Havoc, Ward Bond. Dances staged by Val Raset and Hermes Pan; musical sequences supervised by Fanchon. “You’ll Never Know,” music and lyrics by Mack Gordon & Harry Warren. Director: H. Bruce Humberstone. Shown at Cinevent 41, Columbus OH, May 2009.

    “You’ll Never Know” won the Oscar for best song and the movie was Fox’s biggest hit of 1943. John Payne is Johnny Cornell, hot-shot small-time musical promoter, whose greatest asset is his long-suffering girlfriend and talented performer Trudy Evans (Alice Faye), with Dan Daley (Jack Oakie) and Beulah Clancy (June Havoc) filling out the quartet of long-time friends and fellow vaudevillians whose stories are the core of this sumptuous, plushy musical.

    Lynn Bari is the society dame who can offer Johnny everything he’s always wanted, wealth and position, everything but love, and without giving away any more of the plot, I’m sure you can tell how the film will end.

    I always liked Alice Faye, but I was never a great fan of the Fox musicals, which failed to satisfy me in the way the Astaire-Rogers and MGM musicals did.

    The movie made me wish that I had not missed the screening earlier that day of Nice Girl? (Universal, 1941), with a cast that included Deanna Durbin, Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Stack, Robert Benchley, and Helen Broderick, a comedy with music that, by all the accounts I heard of it, had the charm and light touch that Hello, Frisco, Hello, for all its top-flight production values and talented cast, showed no trace of.

    And if you say that I’m comparing apples and oranges, you’re probably right. Let’s just say that I prefer the pungent taste of apples to the pulpy texture of oranges.

THE DIVORCE OF LADY X. United Artists (UK/US), 1938. Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Binnie Barnes, Morton Selten. Director: Tim Whelan.

   The print of this film I recently watched on TCM must be a new one, or that is to say, one that’s been remastered, cleaned up and refreshed, since the colors in this early Technicolor comedy romance are vivid and bright — they’re really quite spectacular if not dazzling — while many of the comments that have been left on IMDB are complaints about the poor quality of the color, pale and not only faded, but fading in and out.

   They all seemed to like the movie itself, however, and so did I, up to a point, and I’ll get back to that in a paragraph or so. It all begins in a London pea soup of a fog, and the crowd who’ve been attending a masquerade ball at a hotel are forced to stay there all night — without rooms for everyone, amusingly enough.

   The amusement grows even more so when a young minx of a lady (not a contradiction) inveigles her way into the suite that a barrister named Everard Logan (Laurence Olivier) had claimed for himself earlier in the evening and is unwilling to share it with any of the others who have found themselves fogged in.

   Not only that, but Leslie Steele (that’s her name), played by Merle Oberon, as you must have guessed, takes over Logan’s bed as well. Since this movie was made in 1938, you needn’t even begin to worry that something untoward happens. Logan sleeps on a mattress on the floor outside the bedroom in the suite, and one can easily imagine that the door between was locked.

   Any other imagining would be left to the viewer, but those would be thoughts of what might have been only — you can take it from me: there is no hanky-panky that goes on in this film.

   The cinema was different in 1938 than it is today, and it is all very amusing how cleverly Leslie Steele outwits her slow-witted male counterpart in this movie to take over his bed so neatly and slyly (and so innocently) as this.

   The second half of the movie, while still amusing, is an anti-climax from here on, at least in comparison. Logan, as it so happens, is a divorce attorney … Wait, wait. I forgot to tell you this. In the morning, Logan discovers that he has fallen in love with the mischievous young lady who took over his accommodations, but she skips out without even telling him her name.

   To get back to the divorce proceedings, Logan’s very next client is a gentleman (Ralph Richardson) who wants a divorce from his wife because — you’re ready for this, aren’t you? — she stayed overnight in that same hotel the exact night before in the rooms of another man.

   Logan, of course, jumps to the immediate conclusion that the other man is none other than himself.

   A merry mixup up like this in Part Two could have as amusing as the clever shenanigans in Part One, but dragging the charade out for far too long, as it’s done here, eventually begins to feel cruel and mean-spirited.

   This is only one person’s point of view, you understand — mine, that is — and I seem to be in the minority on this, so by all means, if you’d like to see two great stars in fine action, romantic comedy style, even if it turns into a frothy mess — relatively speaking — then by all means, put this one on your list of movies to see as soon as you can.

   Be sure to watch the restored print, though. It really is an eye-catcher.

   And do you know what? I’m even willing to bet that I’ll like the entire movie more myself, the next time I watch it!

LOVE IS A BALL. United Artists, 1963. Released in the UK as All This and Money Too. Glenn Ford, Hope Lange, Charles Boyer, Ricardo Montalban, Telly Savalas, Ruth McDevitt, Ulla Jacobsson, Laurence Hardy. Based on the novel The Grand Duke and Mr. Pimm by Lindsay Hardy. Directed by David Swift.

   This handsome little romantic comedy is beautifully shot on the Riviera in gorgeous color and Cinemascope, with a professional cast all elevating the slight story with good performances.

   John Lathrop Davis (Ford) is a Riviera boat bum, or he would be if he could get his boat in the water. He used to drive Formula One race cars, but now his only ambition is to raise enough money to get his boat afloat and eat regularly, which is where M. Etienne Pimm (Boyer) comes in.

   The ensuing light-hearted con game squeaks it by on Mystery*File — but only just.

   Mr. Pimm is a matchmaker. He marries minor European royalty to well-to-do Americans taking the tour and doing the Riviera for the summer.

   His latest target is one Millicent (Millie) Mehaffey (Lange, and why the name in the film is changed from the books Anabell “Madcap” Mahaffey is one of those mysteries that will never be solved), very rich and very American and very much under the watchful eye of uncle Telly Savalas. The minor nobleman in question is Duke Gaspard Ducluzeau (Montalban).

   And the duke — Grand Duke no less — has almost everything but money. He’s handsome and gentle, and a complete and utter klutz.

   Ford is hired to turn the clueless duke into the suave gentleman he is supposed to be, along with a team of experts. Ford is to teach him to ride, drive, and behave as a sportsman. No easy job. The duke is an accident waiting to occur.

   And then the worst happens. Their in-man at the Mehaffeys gets hurt, and they need a man on the inside if Pimm’s plans are to work. So Davis is voted in to do the job as the new chauffeur — which throws him head long into the arms of Millie, who is as much of a write-off as the Duke, a tomboy fascinated by racing cars and engines and about as demure as a long distance trucker — something her uncle (Savalas) is trying to do something about — like marrying his very rich niece to a Grand Duke.

   If you can’t guess where this is going you have never seen a movie, much less a romantic comedy.

   There is nothing special here. It looks wonderful, and if the great cast tries a bit too hard once in a while, the movie still has sparkle and wit. Montalban is fine in the comedy role, a reminder that he was always at ease and personable in this kind of froth, and Ford’s world weary frustration is perfect for the bemused Davis. No one but Cary Grant did frustration as well on screen. Boyer is his charming self, and Savalas was always at his best in comedy, where his overplaying is usually a plus and not a minus.

   Lindsay Hardy, who wrote the book, might be better known to readers here for two good thrillers he penned about Major Gregory George Athelston Keen (of the Special Service of Home Security, aka MI5), Requiem for a Redhead and The Nightshade Ring. The two books were well done, and it is a shame there aren’t more.

   But this is a charming little film, nothing major, but an easy time passer, and beautiful eye candy.

Note: I don’t know if Laurence Hardy is any relation to Lindsay Hardy. He plays the role of Priory, one of the team hired by Pimm to educate the duke.

TCM Alert: Scheduled to be shown next on Monday, September 14, at 4:15 AM. Set your timers now!

THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS. 1936. Carol Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Douglas Dumbrille, Alison Skipworth, William Frawley, Sig Ruman, Porter Hall, Misha Auer. Screen story: Philip MacDonald, based on the novel The Duchess by Louis Lucien Rogger. (The latter may not exist in book form.) Director: William K. Howard.

   Why they insisted on putting Carol Lombard in dramas is one of the great unexplained mysteries of Hollywood. She was born for screwball comedy, and graces some of the highpoints of the genre from Hawks’ Twentieth Century to Wellman’s Nothing Sacred, to the divine Lubitsch’s To Be Or Not To Be.

   The Princess Comes Across isn’t quite in that illustrious company, but it’s close. The title alone is worth the price of admission.

   Lombard is a would-be actress, Wanda Nash of Brooklyn, who went to Europe and got nowhere. She plans to cash in and hit New York big, though, by pretending to be a mysterious princess, Olga of Sweden, a Garbo-like figure sure to have the press in a frenzy by the time she hits New York.

   What she hadn’t counted on was a romantic bandleader in the person of Fred MacMurray as King Mantell, and murder on the ship home. The result is a delightful comedy-mystery that sometimes gets lost among the surfeit of films in that genre from the same era.

   Lombard made several films with MacMurray, and allegedly complained she wasn’t getting bigger stars as leading men, but the two are a good team, and if Fred was still a fairly minor leading man at this time, he wasn’t that far off from the films that would propel his career to major star status.

   He has an easy-to-take quality that made him ideal for these roles that could have been either dull or strident in lesser hands. MacMurray manages to hit all the right notes, and compliments Lombard as well as bigger name leads like Cary Grant, John Barrymore, or her husband Clark Gable. He was one if the stalwarts of the screwball comedy genre in his own light.

   The voyage is a hardly a vacation for anyone. There’s a blackmailer on board targeting Wanda and others, a killer who has taken the identity of one of the other passengers, and to add insult to injury, a convention of international detectives headed for New York.

   Poor Wanda couldn’t have picked a worst boat for her trip. Then too she is falling for bandleader MacMurray, the last thing she needs in her life — a musician.

   Of course with a mix like that, it’s only a matter of time until a body shows up and sets those nosy professional sleuths to sleuthing, and when their attention turns to Princess Wanda and King Mantell, they have no choice but to turn detective themselves to unveil the real blackmailer and killer.

   Dumbrille and Ruman are among the police officers, Inspector Lorel and Steindorf. The set-up reminded me a little of C. Daly King’s novel Obelists at Sea, in which a convention of psychiatrists on a cruise all play detective while New York police Captain Michael Lord keeps his silence and tracks down the killer.

   Like all good screwball comedies, the lines flow fast and furious, and the mystery is played for laughs, but with some genuinely spooky moments at night in the inevitable fog as Lombard tries to elude the killer.

   Everyone is at the top of their form, and despite all a list of six screenwriters (four credited, two not, including J. B. Priestley), the script holds together extremely well, thanks to Philip MacDonald’s succinct adaptation of Rogger’s novel. (If you ever wondered exactly what the screen story was in relation to the screenplay, this is a good example where a strong story holds together all the disparate contributions of an army of screenwriters.)

   We can be fairy certain it is MacDonald who keeps the mystery element in focus, while the comedy spins off of it. That said, I’d love to know what British novelist J. B. Priestley’s contribution was. He was no stranger to mystery and suspense or comedy in books or plays.

   The comedy mystery was a specialty of this era: The Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, The Mad Miss Manton, Arsenic and Old Lace, Whistling in the Dark, Slightly Larcenous, Grand Central Murder to name just a few, and it mixes well with the screwball school.

   The high point was likely W. S. Van Dyke’s It’s A Wonderful World and George Marshall’s antic Murder, He Says, but Princess is no slouch, and Lombard and MacMurray are both genuinely attractive and believable.

   Somehow this one has been neglected, but it doesn’t deserve that fate. It’s one of the brightest moments of the comedy mystery film at a time when these were being made with all the skills the studio system could bring to bear. The Princess Comes Across, and delivers, a jewel of a comedy mystery.

      

SKINNER’S DRESS SUIT. Universal, 1926; Reginald Denny, Laura La Plante, Ben Hendricks, Jr., E. J. Ratcliffe, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper. Director: William A. Seiter. Shown at Cinevent 41, Columbus OH, May 2009.

   Skinner and Honey (Denny and La Plante) are a young married couple, with Skinner’s office job bringing in a salary that’s not up to Honey’s expectations of her husband’s worth. Egged on by his ambitious wife, Skinner finally works himself up to asking his boss for a raise.

   Although the request is refused, Skinner finds himself incapable of confessing the failure to his wife, who immediately assumes he has the raise and starts spending down their savings on the expectation of the increased income.

   Denny and La Plante gave such charming performances that it was difficult for me to find his wimpiness and her pushy nature distasteful. As their financial difficulties mount, an invitation to a fancy party proves to be their salvation, a plot turn fueled by their skill at the Charleston that leads to a dancing sequence that lifts this expertly directed and played comedy to new levels of effervescence.