William Wellman on War and Peace

 That biography of William Wellman I read contained an interesting nugget - he pitched a version of War and Peace, without Pierre, that focused on the love triangle between Natasha, Andre andAnatole. Something to think about!

Movie review - "Roxie Hart" (1942) ***

 I know I'm projecting but this film feels as though it wants to be a musical - everyone bursts into song in one scene, and in another Ginger Rogers does a dance, and it just always feels like people want to sing.

It's a fun tale, quite cynical. They added George Montgomery to be pure of heart, as a journalist who loves Roxie (Ginger) but he mostly just watches her, and narrates the story... he doesn't influence the narrative. The ending which reveals they got married and had six kids with another on the way is kind of depressing.

Ginger is having a great time. The perm isn't very attractive. I didn't mind the censor changes.

I'm not a massive fan of this story but it is fun and cynicism ages well.

Book review - "Wild Bill Wellman : Hollywood rebel" by William Wellman Jnr

 Not bad look at the life of the should-be-better-known director. I would've liked more personal insight and memoir of the writer's relationship him being his son. It waffles on a bit - for example there's a lot of plot recapping. The book could've done with a more vigorous edit.

Still, Wellman's an interesting guy - war service, great skill as a director. He seemed to make a classic every five films or so.

Movie review - "Track of the Cat" (1954) **1/2

 Disappointing! It starts so well, with this great melodramatic missed up family in the 1900s and a panther on the loose. Bob Mitchum is causing trouble amongst his family, there's two brothers, William Hopper and Tab Hunter, and Hunter wants to marry the older Diana Lynn, and mum Beulah Bondi is a crone and dad's a boozer and sister Teresa Wright is bitter and it's all very William Inge. 

But the problem is Hopper and Mitchum gohunting for the cat then come back home and we're stuck at home with Bondi, Hunter and the others. It's all stagnant and there's too much Acting and the scenes don't progress. They needed to be all out there hunting for the cat, Mitchum messing with Hunter's head and so on... it dissipates the drama. Philip Tonge as the dad has endless scenes boozing and prattling. There neeed to be a gal hot for Mitchum.

Interesting use of colour and it is unconvientional. Hunter works in these callow torn youth roles, Mitchum is ideal, Bondi is fun... I just wish they'd knocked the story into shape.

Movie review - "Lafayette Escadrille" (1958) **

 William Wellman's passion project, sometimes called his last movie even though he made Darby's Rangers after (it was released first because this was held up so Warners could launch a record label for Tab Hunter).

Hunter is fine in the lead. I know Wellman wanted James Dean and Paul Newman. Hunter isn't the issue. The female lead doesn't help but she isn't the issue either.

The problem is the story. I was confused why Wellman struggled to get this made til I saw it... it's about a man who goes to fly in France in World War One... then punches out a French officer and deserts and hangs out with his hooker girlfriend most of the time planning his escape. This, in a war film. Why would anyone want to go see that?

It's not the ending. (Changed from the original where Hunter was support to die. Or the title. Or the stars. It was making a flying film about a flyer who spends most of the film trying not to fly.

That story is only fine if it's a subplot. Tell the story of a heroic pilot and Hunter is the best friend. Or three guys - make it a three guy movie like three girl movies.

There's only one big flying /fighting sequence at the end. It needed more flying. That final battle is the best thing about it but it's too short.

The support cast includes people like David Janssen and Clint Eastwood but so do a lot of old movies, some starring Francis.

Movie review - "Stingaree" (1934) **

Not a very well known movie despite being directed by William Wellman and starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne... and being set in Australia. It's based on stories about a gentleman bushranger, which I'd never heard of - I'm actually surprised no one has ever had a crack at the Stingaree stories since.

Anyway the plot is about bushranger Dix becoming infatuated by colonial gal Dunne who is a singer - he pretends to be a gentleman of leisure to hang around her and encourages her to sing, and they fall in love, and she finds out he's a bushranger and is offended and she becomes a star but loves him.

The plot reminded me of 1940s Betty Grable musicals with their misunderstandings - only here with a bushranging element. There's a little bit of action but not much. Andy Devine is Dix's sidekick that's how authentically Australian it feels.

There's too much singing - not just Dunne but also her mother. The film feels darkly lit with low ceilings - I'm not sure Wellman was a great musicals director. There are rapey elements in Dunne's romance with Dix. Dix is too fat to be a scary bushranger though he has a little bit of charm.

John Ford apparently wanted to do the stories in the 1930s. That would have been interesting.

Movie review - "Beau Geste" (1939) *** (warning: spoilers)

The best known version of the most famous French Foreign Legion tale of them all. The scriptwriters have culled the best of Wren's tale - the opening image of the fort guarded by corpses, the mystery of the missing jewel, the brothers having a naval battle, the brotherly love, the complex sadistic sergeant (mean, greedy, but smart and not without sympathy), the final attack, the brothers' funeral.

Gary Cooper is awkwardly cast as an Englishman - they should have just made the brothers American. Robert Preston is touching as the devoted Digby and Ray Milland is well cast as John. All three men seem to genuinely like each other even though Beau is never that brave and the characters never that individual. Susan Hayward adds prettiness and there are some colourful legion types such as Sam Jaffe, but the film is stolen - as inevitably happens in every version of this tale - by Brian Donlevy as the sergeant.

Some pretty vistas of the desert, faceless Arabs. Best scene is Preston giving Cooper a viking funeral. His death always seems tacked on.

Movie review - "Call of the Wild" (1935) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Jack London's classic tale about Buck the wonder dog has been completely turned on its head and become a Clark Gable vehicle - and you know something? It actually works. Gable is completely at home playing Jack Thornton in the snowy north with Jack Oakie doing some amiable sidekick stuff and Loretta Young being beautiful in her fur. 

Gable and Young make a strong couple - him manly and she lady like - and of course there's the extra appeal knowing that in real life they did have an affair resulting in Young having a kid out of wedlock and covering it up as an "adopted" child. (Though apparently sexual assault was involved.)

I enjoyed Reginald Owen as the villain - a seemingly pompous English idiot who is actually quite scary - and the stuff from the novel that is used (eg Buck winning a dog sled competition) is effective. 

The movie does lose points by having Gable so passive at the end when the baddies come in and try to take his gold (they leave him and Young there and only get their just desserts by capsizing in the canoe and drowning... which feels like deux ex machina cheating). But I liked it that Young's husband turns up at the end meaning she and Gable can't be together, which gives the movie romantic poignancy. It's good solid Clarke Gable-William Wellman stuff that holds up well.

Movie review - "Wings" (1927) ****

The first winner for the Best Picture Oscar holds up really well today - it's hard to imagine them ever doing more exciting yet realistic World War One dog fight footage, since this had the benefit of plenty of war veterans on the crew and cast, 1927 OH & S and a big budget. It's very well directed by William Wellman full of tracking shots and interesting quirks, with a feeling of authenticity: the camaraderie amongst soldiers, the delights of leave, the drudgery of service, the randomness of death.

This was pre-Code and is surprisingly explicit - we see men shot and blood dribble from their mouth, Clara Bow shows some side boob and a bare back, backs are broken, two lesbians have a drink together at the Follies Berges, naked dudes get checked out for medical, tanks run over soldiers.

Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers are perfectly serviceable as the lead duo, two guys in love with the same girl (the wet Jobyna Ralston, in a very small role, and very uninteresting) - Rogers seems like a nice guy and Arlen was a pilot meaning he could take part in the flying sequences (I remember his head of hair being swept back by wind all the time).

However we see the real meaning of charisma when both are a scene with Gary Cooper - it's just one scene, Cooper goes off to die in an accident straight away, but you can tell that Cooper's just plain got magnetism whereas the others don't (and I don't think I'm being wise in hindsight here because I couldn't stand Cooper... besides, the fate of each actor's careers back me up).

Also providing star quality is Clara Bow, who's very good, full of life and spirit as the girl in love with Rogers - she never had a rep as a great actor, dear Clara, but watch how she conveys every emotion with her face... at every moment you know exactly what she's thinking. And I totally believed her as the sort of girl who would enlist as an ambulance driver, even if she does seem a little old in her girl next door outfits (she seems younger in her sexy Parisian number), and it felt like a cop out she resigned before the end of the war (there was no real reason for this story wise, either).

Good, solid story with a great melodramatic finale - Rogers chasing after Arlen thinking he's a German. At times the two lead actors did get a little lost in the story underneath their goggles.

Movie review - "The Ox Bow Incident" (1943) *****

A remarkable film whose power has not dimmed - although it may have been even more incredible to watch in 1943 when the Hays Code is at full flight. There have been plenty of films were someone is falsely accused of a crime and is about to be lynched - but not many where the innocent parties are actually lynched. It's emotionally devastating, powered by Dana Andrews' excellent performance as an intelligent, innocent man who is plucked from his sleep and told he's going to die - he pleads, barters, gets angry, reasons, all to no avail... it's heartbreaking. Anthony Quinn and Francis Ford are also superb as his friends - Quinn the dodgy Mexican who nonetheless doesn't deserve to die and Ford as a helpless old man.

A lot of the posse are actually reasonable - Henry Fonda (in a not very heroic role - good on him), Harry Davenport, the possibly gay cowboy, I-would-prefer-to-sit-on-fence Henry Morgan - but they are outnumbered by the all too believable posse. In particular there are two of the greatest villains in cinema: the pompous southern general who still wears his uniform (Frank Conroy) and fat cackling woman (Jane Darwell), with an honourable mention to ruthless Marc Lawrence.

It's a superb movie that spanks along and is a tribute to all who worked on it.

Movie review – “Safe in Hell” (1931) ***

Enjoyable pre Code melodrama about a New Orleans hooker (Dorothy Mackaill) who kills a man and flees with the help of her boyfriend to a Carribean Island. She’s lusted after by the population and the guy who she thinks she killed – who turns up there. Hard core finale where Mackaill agrees to be executed rather than have sex with someone (it would mean breaking a vow to her husband). And they said pre-Code films have no honour! It’s a grim, full on story – Mackaill clearly doesn’t deserve to die but she does. Black actors Nina Mae McKinney and Noble Johnson play the most normal, nice people in the film. Directed by William Wellman, this would be better remembered if Dorothy Mackaill was better known today.

Radio review – Suspense – “Track of the Cat” (1952) ***1/2

The novel was later adapted as a Robert Mitchum movie which I’ve never seen – presumably it was changed a lot because this is so internal. It mostly takes place in the paranoid mind of Richard Widmark as he sets off after a puma that is on the loose in the old west. He goes progressively mad, leading to his own death. Widmark is very good and internal tales adapt well to radio - I really liked it.

Movie review – “The Public Enemy” (1931) ***

The early 30s saw three gangster classics launch three new stars: Little Caesar (Edward G Robinson), Scarface (Paul Muni) and this one (James Cagney). Cagney was originally meant to play the support role to Edward Woods but director William Wellman made them swap several weeks into shooting and never lived to regret it. (It should be said that Woods wasn't a bad actor - he has a striking presence that reminds me of Billy Drago, who played Frank Nitti in The Untouchables). 

 

Woods hooks up with a young Joan Blondell; Cagney takes up with Mae Clarke, shoves a grapefruit in her face then drops her for Jean Harlow. (Blondell and Clarke’s performances are far better than Harlow’s.) But it’s a film of set pieces and scenes rather than an overall story: grape fruit in the face; a robbery in the shadows; assassinating a gangster while he plays the piano; buying a horse who has killed their boss and shooting it; Cagney slapping the face of a moll with whom he’s spent the night; a shoot out of screen in the rain; the delivery of a dead mummified Cagney to his mother. Beautiful photography.

Movie review – “The High and the Mighty” (1954) **

Lovers of bad exposition will rejoice in this airline-disaster flick, which features numerous scenes of supporting actors going “see that person over there? That’s Benny. His wife died two years ago in suspicious circumstances” etc. Ernest Gann adapted his own novel and perhaps wasn’t the best choice for screenwriter.
 John Wayne is in confident form – I love the way he walks into his films he’s like “right, I’m John Wayne who am I playing in this one?” There is a cross section of passengers on a plane (much of their background is provided by the booking clerk), none of whom are that interesting.
There are two good bits – one when Wayne has to prepare the passengers for crashing in the ocean, and when Robert Stack cracks up. And an interesting moment when a honeymooning couple have a “we’re going to die aren’t we” chat and start kissing – and then really start going for it, you wonder if they had sex!
But they never lick the problem of integrating all the plots in a visual way, as say Airport did. It was very popular though – watching it I could hear the chomp of pop corn and slurp of coke from war veterans and boomers gasping at the technicolor adventures on the big screen.

Movie review - "Battleground" (1949) ****

Excellent account of the Battle of the Bulge, far superior to the 1965 film of that name, mainly because it makes the sensible decision just to concentrate on one small group of men and tell the story through their eyes. Written by Robert Pirosh who was there and you can tell - it all seems remarkably authentic and free of cliché (even now): the dialogue, the atmosphere, the little details.

Van Johnson's in it but its not really a star role at all - he does get to make eyes at a girl in Bastogne (a well done way to incorporate female interest in the story) and be a bit of a hero, but no more than any one else - indeed, there's even a moment when you think he's a coward. (Actually he's brave - and I like how this is done - he runs off to be brave, then stands still as if to say "what am I doing?". It's a lovely moment and Johnson is very good, his ordinariness working well). John Hodiak was sort of well known at the time, but most of the cast is played by up and comers, such as Ricardo Montalban (a sympathetic Latino - this was a Dore Schary production after all), Don Taylor, James Whitmore and Richard Jaekel.

Sometimes it is hard to tell who is who and inevitably the actors don't have time to develop much of a character (an near-insurmountable problem in these sort of movies) but performances are very strong, and it adds to the tension because of the main cast you're only reasonably sure Johnson will survive. The portrayal of the GIs seems very realistic - constantly joking (there is a lot of humour), dreaming of leave and home, gossiping about ways to get discharged through sickness or injury, making fun of the top brass.

Tremendous scenes, particularly when the Germans infiltrate American lines as Americans; when Hodiak, Montalban and Johnson engage in hand to hand combat with Germans (we don't see a lot of it - just legs - and don't know who survives until a reveal); when Montalban is injured, and his mates have to leave him - then an artillery strike is called in on his location; when the men find Montalban; a soldier is shot trying to retrieve boots and his last words are "mama, mama"; the speech by a Lutheran priest (which could have clunked - like the bit where a journalist talks about writing a column and going into the war does - but is extremely well done); Johnson trying to cook eggs; the final march.

The visuals of the film are so strong - snow covered ground, mist, burnt out fox holes, making it seem like the battle is taking place on another planet - that it jars when real documentary footage is incorporated. Even though its meant to be an ordinary-GI's-POV of the film, they can't resist including the "nuts" exchange (we hear it second hand but it still feels shoe-horned in).

The film was a deserved box office and critical hit; it had the success of securing Dore Schary's position at MGM, and even though Schary is not remembered that fondly by history he really came through with this one - as did Pirosh and William Wellman of course.