1940's Hall Of Fame Part I

In the last couple years, I have become a sucker for sad love stories. This movie will end up being one of my favorites of this Hall of Fame, despite the fact that I felt that it was lacking in some areas.

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD*
I thought the first half of this movie was the best, as I completely bought into the romance. I loved the twists that came, but I am unsure of how well done they were. The very beginning of the film, with Robert Taylor's character looking back would seem to be a major spoiler. However, with the way the story is told, I think him coming back into the film would have been predictable anyway. I don't think there would have been any point in setting up a surprise that wouldn't have surprised the viewer. Besides that, Myra's descent into the underworld makes you feel she is making more of a mistake, knowing that Roy is coming back, rather than just seeing it happen later on. From the time that Myra reads the newspaper to the time that she runs back into Roy is only 10 minutes of screentime. That felt a little rushed to me. It turns into such a dramatic film, but the biggest dramatic moments did not give me maximum impact for whatever reason. I think of other 40's movies like Letter from an Unknown Woman and Brief Encounter, movies that blew me away. The material of this movie was just as powerful, but I didn't think the execution was as effective. Even though I loved the story, I wasn't as emotionally affected as I could have been. It may seem that I have a lot of problems with the film, but I'm just holding it to a very high standard because it suits my taste so well.

I thought Vivien Leigh was very good, but there's something about her that keeps her from being a favorite of mine that I just can't pinpoint. On the other hand, I liked Robert Taylor a lot. I thought he was perfect for the role, even though I didn't think it was a special performance. As Myra's best friend, Kitty, Virginia Field stole every scene she was in. I was not fond at all of the actresses who played Myra's boss or Roy's mom. I thought the movie was elegant, very nice to look at, and had a good musical score. One thing I thought was missing was any memorable dialogue. All in all, this is my type of movie and one that I enjoyed a lot. It fell a little short of a personal favorite.

Glad you liked it. We agree on Myras boss who i thought was terrible and Kitty being very good who i forgot to mention.

'She loves him, she really loves him, she hates him, really hates him, she marries him, she wants to kill him, wait a second...she loves him again!'

Poor Thor, she can't seem to make up her mind in this soap styled western. It's not Teresa Wright's fault, she actually turns in a good performance. The fault lies with an inept script that has the characters changing their mindsets as quickly as blowing sand.

Pursued seems like a movie that was rushed into production without a well fleshed out script. Missing is the little details that fills in the back story and gives the characters motivational credibility.

Point in case: Grant Callum (Dean Jagger), the one arm man who vows to kill all of the Rand family, thus prompting Mrs. Callum (Judith Anderson) to save the young boy and raise him as her own. OK so far so good. It even works when the one arm guy spots a 10 year old Rand and takes a pot shot at him. The confrontation that follows in the hotel room between Mrs Callum and Grant promises to be an emotional high light, instead it's played so low key that the film starts to lose credibility. Even worse is Grant, who's blood thirsty to kill Rand, has like another 15 years to do it, but can't seem to find the time! Grant has got to be the most unmotivated killer in any film.

At the end of the story it's funny when Grant and his gang of killers have Rand and Thor surrounded and are ready to lynch Rand. But wait, once Mrs Callum shoots Grant dead, the entire lynching is forgotten about. I guess the lynching mob didn't have any motivation either.

Robert Mitchum who's usually good, sleep walks his performance. I've never seen him look so bored. I don't know what the director Raul Walsh was thinking, but whatever he tried to achieve by having the actors act so deadpan, it didn't work.

James Wong Howe's cinematography and Max Steiner's music score are the films highlights. I'm glad this was nominated as I had not seen it and I'm glad I watched it too.

Fair enough Citizen, i disagree with you on most of that particularly Mitchums performance but i've made my feelings clear in previous posts. Just a few points though:

Please explain why that promises to be "the emotional highlight"? I never got any indication that that was supposed to be emotional. It was supposed to further the mystery and give basis for Jebs future conflicts with the Callums.

Uh.. Grant agreed not to harm him to Mrs Callum in the very scene you were just talking about which explains that. The reason given is that Mrs Callum will need to live with the fear of what Jeb does when he finds out. Obviously after Adams death the promise no longer mattered because Mrs Callum hated him for it.

Why would they? There's no indications that they are family members or are directly involved in this, all they are are goons who work for Grant; maybe even just hired by Grant since Jeb is a miliitary man so he wouldn't want to take the risk alone. Their motivation was most likely money which was gone when Grant was dead.

The Little Foxes

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It took me a while to get into this. During the first twenty minutes or so i honestly didn't really know what was going on because i was so bored i was barely taking anything in, i was considering turning it off until later because i felt i might just not be in the mood for it; thankfully it picked up when Regina started blackmailing her brothers. From then on the story had me, i liked how there were so many different things going on in this house and that just about every character had a decent role; obviously this means some were better than others but overall it was very well done.

God Bette Davis is a great actress, the more i see from her the more i understand why my mum loves her so much. Funny thing is she plays very similar characters in the movies of hers i've seen. Really bitchy, vindictive character were her forte from what i can tell and i'm not complaining. Her scheming in this was brilliant, man was she cold; she had a plan and she was going to do whatever to make it happen at no time did she show any care about anyone except herself. The main difference between her here and those other roles was that in the others there was either comedy or sympathy for her but here she was just straight up horrible, loved it. One of her best characters. Teresa Wright was pretty much the same for me as she was in Shadow of a Doubt and Pursued, overall good, great at times, but also bad at times. Inconsistent with flashes of brilliance is how i've found her in everything so far, don't know what it is. The only performance i straight up didn't like was Dan Duryea as Leo, more than anything i hated his voice; he basically hummed everything or i was imagining it either way i wasn't a fan of him in this.

It was well shot and had a good script too. The only thing that really baffled me was during the scene were Birdie is telling the story of how she met Oscar; she randomly blurts out that she doesn't like her son Leo then she starts saying "i've never had a headache". Don't know, weird, otherwise i thought it was very well written.

Thanks for nominating this Cricket, it was a very good film that i may even watch again with my mum. Just The Suspect and How Green Was My Valley left for me.

Robert Mitchum is one of my favorite actors. I've seen him in a number of films and he always makes an impact. The last movie I seen him in was a rewatch of Night of the Hunter, where he was powerful. It seems likely the director told him and the other actors to play it somber. Somber, sounds good, but somber often comes across on the screen as bored. Alan Hale seemed bored too and in all of his bit roles, he adds some needed levity. I've never seen him be so subdued.

Tension builds as the boy is shot at, the tension continues to build as he gets into a fight with his brother, more tension as mom breaks up the fight and finds out who really shot at her son...so she grabs her gun and heads off for a confrontation which should be a secondary crescendo in the story. What mother protecting her son from a killer would be so casual about it?

Right, I know that. But Grant wants to kill Rand all along anyway, that never changes, we see that when he wants him to go off to war to be killed, and he finally tries to kill him at the end. The Grant character is one dimensional, that might be the worst part of the script.


There was no mention that the men were paid money or hired goons. At any rate, there should have been some brief dialogue that gave them motivation to stop the lynching, anything other than just walking away.

Example: the camera shows a close up of Mrs Callum angrily pointing her rifle at the men and she says,


That's pretty good if I do say so myself...and that would have fixed the scene and gave it some punch, while showing Mrs Callum rebonding with her son adding more emotion.

OK you can have the last word as I need to do some chores today and I must have spent an hour writing two post this morning

There's no need to get the last two words. I disagree with all of that but there's no point in going over it all again like i did with gbg. I just think people wanted the story explained to them more than i did which is the main difference of opinion.

I think the Birdie has a headache thing stems from her husband always wanting her to keep her mouth shut, as if that's an excuse he uses for her.

Birdie says she has headaches to cover the fact that she feels so miserably trapped, and that's why she's a closet alcoholic. I think she was exceptional, really a heart felt actresses.

Glad you liked Bette Davis, Camo. We need more of her in the Hofs!

Right, makes sense. Birdie was all over the place that scene going through about five different emotions that i couldn't really tell what was going on haha.

Anyway so Destiny is definitely out now, right? Neiba is still in i'm sure, he'll just be busy right now same thing happened in the 11th HOF and he finished with plenty of time to spare.

The Suspect (1944)


SPOILERS

Going from family feud with deadly outcome, to homocidal aunts, to post WWII seeking justice for mass murder and on to a good man driven to murder, I guess this HoF is developing a theme. Too bad I'm ruining it with devil-worship and dancing hippos.

Anyway...

Declining to hire a young woman at his establishment, Philip Marshall just so happens to run into her again. Finding her sobbing, he starts up a conversation that marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship. His wife isn't of the same opinion, though, threatening to disgrace Philip and Mary both. Out of concern for his friend, Philip takes drastic measures.

It's a tricky thing, shining a favourable light on a murderer. Making his victims out to be utterly unlikable is the easiest way, but more important is making the murderer likable. Laughton portrays Philip as a kind and gentle man, supportive of his son and lenient towards his employees. When confronted with a young woman seeking employment at his establishment (never really understood what he did for a living. Selling cigarrs or something?), he tells her no, but tries to help by assuring her that he'll inquire throughout his associates for one who needs a young lady capable of operating "those machanical writing machines". He genuinely seem like a very nice man, burdend by a unhappy marrige he can't escape. As to that, the actress playing his wife does do a great job as a woman seeming to only care for the appearance of a happy marrige, rather than actually working on their relationship. Think what could have been averted if she only tried to talk to him about it, like he tried to do, rather than threaten him and his new friend, a ray of light in an otherwise kind of dark situation for him.

Ella Raines, for her part, portrays Mary as an intelligent woman with a dry sense of humor. The scene where she gossips with her friend, spinning a yarn about her fantasy paramour could easily gone the route of keeping up the lie, which would have ended when one of her friends spotted her with Philip and drama would ensue. Instead, she's actually interesting, comes clean alomst instantly with her joke and tries to explain why she finds Philip likable despite his apparent lack of good looks, youth and fit physique. She can talk to him, finds him interesting and comes to love him, even if he doesn't seem to reciprocate her feelings at first. Unfortunatley, she becomes a background character after they get married, and she's never as much a part of the story as she was in the beginning. That part of the movie's focused entierly on Philip and the investigation into his wife's death.

After his alcoholic neigbour tries to blackmail him, Philip kills him as well, and then proceeds to put on the best performance of "nothing is wrong, everything's normal" a movie character has ever done.

Hearing his wife returning home with some friends, he hides the body behind a sofa, and proceeds to pour drinks, have smalltalk and even pockets the deceased man's watch as a guest finds it, without batting an eye. This man can remain calm under pressure.

All in all, a good movie. It's a bitter-sweet ending, and I wish that Ella Rains could've gotten to be as interesting in the second half as she was in the first, though how that would've played out, I've no idea. The supporting characters were a bit thin, excluding the inspector who I found to be quite entertaining, and he gave us a much needed run-down of how the first murder took place. Also, the comment about how he knew Philip to be a good man, that only a extreme situation could drive him to kill. It's nothing personal, but he must do his job, and capturing Philip just so happens to be it. In the end, it that exact thing that assures him that Philip will confess: because he's a good man, incapable of letting another get blamed for something he did.

A good nomination, a good movie. I'm glad I got the chance to see it. Good job Ed!

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That just made me crack up!

great write up and truly happy you enjoyed it, clazor.
For the life of me I can't remember what he did for a living, will have to pay attention when I do my rewatch for my review.

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Hey everyone, sorry I've been away from this! I'm still in and I'll start watching everything really really soon!

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I only have Shadow of a Doubt left that I really need to watch since it's been so many years. I think I'm going to watch Pursued again too. I saw it about a month ago but there's been so much discussion about it and my ballot is going to be tight.

thanks CR!

and no worries, neiba

Awesome. Hope you like it a bit more than last time, i know you didn't dislike it though.

Just The Suspect and How Green Was My Valley left for me, the former tomorrow. Looks like this will be the earliest i've finished one of these

At the start, the film was starting to lose my attention a bit – that is until Cary Grant opened the window seat. I loved his over-the-top reactions, and started to find everything more amusing because of his performance. His was occasionally a little too campy for the tone of the film, but I laughed every time, so I'm not going to complain. The supporting cast were all great, particularly the aunts, but while Raymond Massey did a good job, it would've been funnier if Boris Karloff reprised his role from the stage play, because the self-referential aspect of the humour is lost in the film version.

It seemed that the more ridiculous the plot became, the more entertained I was. Many of the obstacles could've been avoided (or easily overcome) if Mortimer had just remained calm, but his frantic descent into near madness was what made the film interesting, so I was rather forgiving of plot elements that would normally irritate me. It did seem to go on for a little too long though, with a runtime significantly longer than I was expecting, but overall I enjoyed it very much and am surprised that I hadn't come across this film sooner.

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I love Cary Grant's over-the-top reactions, and I think it's kind of sad that he thought of Arsenic and Old Lace as one of his least favorite of his performances.

Just to let you know, Boris Karloff couldn't reprise his role from the stage play for the movie because he was still in the play while the movie was filming.

I'm glad you liked it.

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Yeah, I had seen some comments here about that before watching the film. I can understand why he'd say that though. It certainly was a campy, overly exaggerated performance, and unlike anything else of his I've seen. But that's what makes it so fun and entertaining. It might not have been one of his favourites, but it's probably one of mine haha.

Oh, I didn't know when the play ran. That certainly makes sense. Massey did look quite a bit like Karloff, so the joke still worked. It just could've been funnier.