Movie review - "Anna Lucasta" (1949) **

 Philip Yordan's play based on Anna Christie was about polish Americans then reworked to be about black Americans, became a hit, but this version is white. No one seems well cast though especially not Paulette Goddard. Actually John Ireland fits in - he's good - as Goddard's first boyfriend.

Goddard wasn't allowed to be a hooker in this screen versino, so she's a girl in a beret who hangs out at a bar. Her family asks her back. She has a romance with William Bishop, very dull and too handsome to be in need of a wife. 

It feels like a stage play with long scenes, and expositionary dialogue, and lacks the intensity that it would have had on stage. I can't see why this became a hit, even with a black cast - this might be why the piece is so rarely revived. 

Oscar Homolka lumbers around as Goddard's dad, dying off screen. Broderick Crawford booms around as a brother in law. It was hard to care. 

Movie review - "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941) ****

 This one starts very meta with Charles Boyer arriving at Paramount to talk to director "Mr Saxon" (played by Mitchell Leisen who directed this), who is directing I Wanted Wings (which was produced IRL by Arthur Hornblow who produced this) and we see Veronica Lake being filmed, and Brian Donlevy watching.

Full of memorable bits: one refugee hangs himself in a room (briefly glimpsed), de Havilland's kids in the bus. It is stately paced, clocks in at nearly two hours. But it's of very high quality. Wilder was driven to directing by "script tweaks" on this film, but it is very well directed. Superb line up of stars: Charles Boyer was born to play a gigolo, and frequently did, ditto Paulette Goddard as the cheerful gold digger who loves Boyer and wants to move to New York with him, and Olivia de Havilland is perfect as the "plain" school teacher who finds love, and then who Boyer gets the horn for watching her in the surf.

It combines cynicism, sex, genuine romance. Walter Abel is fine as the dogged immigration inspector. The support players get a chance to shine.

Movie review - "The Forest Rangers" (1942) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Paramount splashed a bit of cash with this - its got colour, extras, some forest fires. The film didn't quite work for me. The story is promising: Fred MacMurray is a forest ranger trying to figure out some arsonist, and also torn between two women, socialite Paulette Goddard and tomboy Susan Hayward.

But it didn't come together.

The arson mystery isn't much of a mystery: Albert Dekker is set up as the baddy and once Dekker is killed you know it's got to be Regis Toomey because Toomey is the only other character of substance. 

Also the romance isn't much because I never believed that Goddard was into Fred MacMurray or that MacMurray didn't notice Hayward wanted him or that Hayward was into MacMurray or Hayward's villanousness. Compare with Orchestra Wives another woman-marries-man-she-just-met story: I believed that because Ann Rutherford was a small town gal and George Montgomer was so glamorous. Here Goddard is glamorous and MacMurray a fire due. I mean, they could have made it work showing Goddard's life to be shallow and full of weak men so she likes he man MacMurray but we start off the story from MacMurray's point of view.

The clash between Hayward and Goddard felt contrived, in part because Hayward is so stunning, and shot stunningly, she never seems like a tomboy. I mean, that flowing hair, come on...

Maybe the real issue for me with this film is casting. Possibly these problems would have gone away with, I don't know, Sterling Hayden or John Wayne or Joel McCrea in the MacMurray role... I didn't buy Uncle Fred as a macho dude. Maybe it was needing to see more from Goddard's POV to make clear why she'd go for him. Maybe it needed Hayward to be the baddy and to have Goddard more active, to give an extra dimension to Hayward's hostility.

There is a catchy song and it's cool that it is in colour.

Movie review - "The Ghost Breakers" (1940) ****

 There's no hiding much of this humour is problematic -well, one aspect in particular, Willie Best, who plays Bob Hope's black servant. Best is very talented playing the role going and he is funny but it hasn't aged well.

Hope and Paulette Goddard have aged marvellously - a wonderful team in a comedy chiller, as Gene Wilder called them, she's pretty and game, he's cowardly but determined to pull through for her. They seem to genuinely enjoy each other's company.

Support includes Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn (in a double role) and Richard Carlson, all of whom could be baddies which adds to the fun as does the castle on a island, genuine voodoo types.

George Marshall directed, one of many superior movies he made in an under-rated career.

Movie review - "The Cat and the Canary" (1939) **** (re-watching)

 Great fun. Tight running time, beautiful photography, genuinely spooky, very meta (with Bob Hope commenting on the cliches of the genre) but also delivering on what it's satirising. Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope team marvellously - she's not energy, glamour and zest, he's got patter and cowardice. Fine support cast too including Gale Sondegaard.

Movie review - "Kitty" (1945) ***

I've got the sneaking suspicion Paramount made this to cash in on Forever Amber in the same way Warner Bros made Jezebel to cash in on Gone with the Wind. (The novel was bought for filming prior to Amber's publication though it must be said.)

Paulette Goddard isn't the first star you think of to be in a costume film but she's very well cast here as a pretty fortune hunter. Well she doesn't start off that way - she's just a starving guttersnipe whose looks get her some modelling work and a job in a rich man's house. Ray Milland then decides to turn her into a lady to further his own career.

So it's a rip off of Pygmalion crossed with Gainsborough movies that were popular in England... but the touch of this is lighter.

Goddard is super fun - cheerful, lively. She makes this fun. I really like her as an actor. I enjoyed how Milland's motive was selfish - to get back in the foreign office. Greed helps a piece age well. Goddard goes on and marries two guys - she sleeps with them.

It's not a perfect film. Milland is very uninterested in Goddard for the most part, which the story requires, but is hard to believe because Goddard is so vivacious. I think they should have had a female rival for him - a lady whose love he was seeking, a real bitch. It would have made Milland seem more straight.

Support cast don't get much of a chance to shine which is a shame. Cecil Kellaway is fun as Gainsborough but we don't see him again after the beginning. Patrick Knowles is stiff as always as someone who loves Kitty. There are various old actors playing wigs. You get the impression that Mitchell Leisen at times is more interested in the decor than the storyline but Goddard makes it worthwhile.

Movie review - "Modern Times" (1936) ***1/2

By 1936 sound in movies was completely entrenched but Charlie Chaplin still fought against it by making this mostly silent film (he does sing and there are some sound effects). The plot is mostly a series of comic set pieces, centering around the adventures of the Tramp in the modern world: working on the factory, arrested out of belief he is a communist, accidentally ingesting cocaine (this was a shock to see!), escaping from jail, working in a department store, etc etc.

Chaplin's physical prowess is a delight to watch but for mine he was outshone by Paulette Goddard, who is gorgeous and a lot of fun as the Gamin; other parts aren't that large. It's sweet, occasionally funny and felt long.

Book review - "The Man Who Seduced Hollywood: The Lives and Loves of Greg Bautzer" (2013) by James Goldstone

Greg Bautzer is one of those people forever popping up in books about classic era Hollywood, either having affairs with movie stars, hanging out with big wigs or being involved in high level industry machinations. He deserved a book and James Goldstone did him proud. There's plenty of sex and saliciousness but Goldstone is a lawyer and a diligent skilled writer, so the legal/business side of Bautzer's career is well covered.

Bautzer was one of those improbably successful people who are the ultimate cool kid in high school: good looking, smart, loyal, great dancer, an expert womaniser (his technique: listen, pay attention, send them red roses and take them on a trip beforehand... plus be handsome and all that), a brilliant lawyer especially in the courtroom, a skilled negotiator, and brave (sticking up Bugsy Siegel). All of his exes spoke of him with fondness, his friends adored him - he was Howard Hughes' lawyer during the crazy years, worked for Kirk Kekorian, helped in the establishment of modern Los Angeles, represented Ingrid Bergman during her divorce and custody cases (rare defeats for the lawyer but not really his fault), was crucial in getting Robert Evans appointed to run Paramount and James T Aubrey to run MGM...

It's almost a relief in a way to come across his flaws: an alcoholic who got violent after a few too many, war service that was fairly bludgy (never got in harm's way). Still, he held on to his health reasonably enough and died of a heart attack without losing his position in Hollywood or his faculties.

Bautzer was conscious of his sex appeal and used the starlets he dated to raise his profile and help get him work (he would leak to Hedda and Louella constantly and his stud reputation impressed nerds like Kekorian). But he certainly seemed to take pleasure in his conquests, which makes for a very impressive reading: Lana Turner (took her virginity), Joan Crawford (rough, violent sex), Dorothy Lamour, Jeanne Crain (didn't know she was such a saucy minx), Ginger Rogers, Dana Wynter (who he married), Jane Wyman (?), Paulette Goddard, many others. He packed an awful lot in, especially with all those nagging clients. Terrific book.

Movie review - "Northwest Mounted Police" (1940) **

Gary Cooper gave some irritating performances in his time but few that got on my nerves as much as his work here as Texan Ranger Dusty Rivers, who journeys north of the 49th parallel to capture a killer during Riel's Rebellion. He clashes with mountie Preston Foster (a dull actor who is particularly dull here), falls for Foster's woman Madeleine Carroll (equally dull), and helps the redcoats stop the local indians from rising up and keep the half-breeds in their place by destroying their gatling gun. In between that he does a lot of comic double takes, mugging and acting like a moron.

There's some great production design but too much of it is studio bound when you really want more location footage (there's some, just not enough). Some of the dialogue is truly atrocious, even by the standards of Cecil B de Mille films ("you're an angel in leather", "I'd look funny with leather wings"), and there's a racist subplot about poor mountie Robert Preston (Carroll's brother) being lured to treachery by temptress spitfire half-caste Paulette Goddard (over-acting madly). Those half-breed women, you just can't trust them. It also throws in a comic Scotsman got good measure (Joe Valli must have watched this with a pang in his heart.)

It does have interest because it's one of the few big budget Hollywood movies to look seriously at Canadian history (significantly, de Mille felt he still needed to have an American hero in it). I wonder what Canadians made of it... presumably they were flattered by the attention and annoyed at the excesses and inaccuracies.

This was listed by the Medved brothers in their book of the 50 worst movies of all time. Its not that bad - the production values are too high, too much is going on in the story (at least it's not boring), it's too unusual being about Canadian history. Francis McDonald offers an interesting cameo as Frances Riel, and if you're a big fan of Cooper, Carroll, Goddard, or Preston Foster (hey, you never know) you will enjoy it more than I did.

Movie review - "So Proudly We Hail" (1943) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Hollywood movies traditionally like to celebrate victories but for a period there in World War Two they were about defeat, because that's all America suffered during it's early days: Bataan, Cry Havoc, Wake Island, Corregidor. This is a very good movie, stylishly made, expertly created for the female audience: it has great roles for three female stars, who are three different archetypes (sensible Claudette Colbert, sassy and flirty Paulette Goddard, bitter Veronica Lake); it introduces two new hunks (both having their opening scenes with their shirts off and both who who had tragic lives off screen, interestingly enough - George Reeves and Sonny Tufts); it tells the story of war from the female point of view, deals with female-leaning struggles (e.g., a mother loses a son, career vs marriage, wanting to heal vs wanting to kill Japanese).

Colbert does her idealised nurse thing very well - sensible, always shot in one profile, not panicking as the Japanese come on in and her fellow nurses lose it. Goddard is enormous fun as a flirty nurse, keen to wear her negligee to keep up morale, with several men on the go, falling for Tufts (whose limitations work here as he plays a lummox) - she feels real, and works very well with the other actors. Lake isn't the greatest actor in the world (her break down scene shows her limitations) but its a marvellous part, she has that charisma and a terrific suicide bombing last scene (even if it is half way though the film).

It's an impressive script by Alan Scott which starts off with a bang (a plane load of nurse survivors arrive in Melbourne Australia, and are met by a British sounding officer - Colbert is traumatised), and juggles its several plots expertly; ditto the changes in tone (romance, comedy, flirting, seriousness, war action). The war experience thought female eyes - they're active, important, vital. No wonder if was a big hit.

Radio review - Lux - "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941) ****

Billy Wilder was a refugee and former gigolo so it's no surprise he penned this tale of a shifty European (Charles Boyer) living in Mexico and trying to marry his way into America - he sets his eye on a school teacher (Susan Hayward, stepping in for Olivia de Havilland). Paulette Goddard is a fellow European who has married and sets her cap at Boyer; there's further complications from an investigating US official. It's done with cynicism and intelligence, at least at first - of course he has to reform. That isn't done very believably but the rest is terrific. The tale is bookended with Boyer telling his story with Cecil B de Mille playing himself in order to make money before he is arrested (he needs to pay for Hayward's operation) - so ten years before Sunset Boulevard here is de Mille playing himself in a Wilder script.

Movie review – “Reap the Wild Wind” (1942) **** (warning: spoilers)

Cecil B de Mille must have looked longingly at the grosses for Gone with the Wind and thought “I want me some of that” so here’s Paulette Goddard, unsuccessful auditonee for Scarlett O’Hara, as a Southern minx getting up to period adventures in the old technicolour south, being lusted after by a rough neck (John Wayne) and a gentleman (Ray Milland). It’s set in 1840s Florida with Milland determined to stop a gang of wreckers from preying on ships they entice to their doom – Wayne starts off good but then turns bad (deliberately wrecking his ship) enabling Goddard to go off with rich Milland at the end.

 

This is enormous fun – I loved Goddard in this movie, she was full of energy and spunk and looked terrific. It’s less lively in the second half when Milland drives more of the action and she becomes more of a passenger. But there is gorgeous production value and photography, plenty of story, a strong support cast (also Raymond Massey, Robert Preston and Susan Hayward, who meets a movingly tragic fate, stowing away and drowning). 

 

It is racist  – the slaves are happy and wacky (Louise Beavers channels Hattie McDaniel, and there’s also the dreaded “comic negro" on board one of the ships), there’s no criticism of the Southern way of life, lots of sniffing magnolias and balls when action takes place on land – although the race issue isn’t central to the story (villain Massey is a slaver but mainly a wrecker). Oh and there's a bunch of storms and a fight with a squid.

Movie review – “Unconquered” (1947) **

I watched this after having so much fun seeing Reap the Wild Wind, but it’s not as good, despite being another period adventure in colour starring Paulette Goddard from Cecil B de Mille. By now Goddard was getting a tinsy-winsy bit old to play young hell cats by now – also her character here isn’t as active. She gets convicted of a crime and sent into basically slavery to North America, where she’s again pursued by two men. In Wild Wind both men were potential mates, but here it’s obvious that Gary Cooper is Good and Howard da Silva is Evil (da Silva is gives a strong performance as always but a more attractive, complex character played by a better-looking actor would have made more of the triangle). Cooper buys her to annoy da Silva but she gets sent back to da Silva- it got a bit complicated with all the chopping and changing but basically they all wind up in Fort Pitt in time for Pontiac’s Rebellion.

The studio jungle here is distracting (I didn’t mind the studio boats and sets in Reap the Wild Wind, but for some reason the falseness got on my nerves here). The action stuff seems muffed, and the story contrived (i.e. Cooper getting in trouble and people believing in da Silva when it doesn’t seem they would).

It is fun to see Boris Karloff as an Indian, Ward Bond as a farmer, and cameos from characters like George Washington and Mason and Dixon (the latter two aren’t very sympathetically portrayed)

The film is basically anti-slavery with lots of talk about how no one should own Goddard, although Cooper is Virginia planter (presumably a slave owner) and one character comments on how his wife and lots of friends are former indentured servants and the experience turned out good for them.

Movie review – “An Ideal Husband” (1947) **1/2

One of a series of underperforming films that helped drive Alex Korda back to the verge bankruptcy (eg Bonnie Prince Charlie). It looks sumptuous with colour photography and elaborate sets and costumes – needlessly so, really, they over did it. I didn’t mind the ball rooms and such but every drawing room and bedroom looks like a tacky museum – it’s ridiculous.

 

The other big debit are the characters of the politician and his wife – they’re prim on the page but the playing here (Hugh Williams and Diana Wynyard) is so humorless and dull; they’ve cast unattractive actors too - why not have a few spunks? Especially the priggish wife – why not make her beautiful? Because the point is that the playboy lord (Michael Wilding, excellent) loves her - but it doesn't really come across here. 

 

It's a shame because the rest of this is fine - Wilding tosses off the lines with aplomb, Glynis Johns is good ingenue value, Paulette Goddard wasn't the best actor in the world but could be engaging and is ideally cast. And the story and one liners are solid.

Radio review – TG – “At Mrs Beams” (1945) **

The real life romance of Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard gave inspiration to blokes everywhere who dreamed of punching above their weight (not only was she hot, she was also loaded). But then I guess Meredith had his own sort of charisma, and that reputation-as-a-great-actor thing going on. The duo play a pair of unmarried thieves who wind up at a boarding house; they set about trying to seduce third parties, but both get jealous of the other. The play was from the 1920s but surely this kind of story was old even back then? Not terribly funny or charming - it is fun to hear Meredith and Goddard play together, but I think for it to work you needed Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Radio review – Lux – “So Proudly We Hail” (1943) *** (warning: spoilers)

Sure, it’s a bit hokey and melodramatic, but this came out not long after the actual events happened, when there were veterans of Corregidor and Bataan still suffering and dying in POW camps. There’s an Aussie connection, too: some nurses arrive in Melbourne, having just escaped from Corregidor – we go into flashbacks courtesy of Paulette Goddard to find out why Claudette Colbert had a nervous breakdown. It’s her romance with a fella, of course – played by George Reeves in the film, but by some other guy here. Sonny Tufts reprises his film role as a loveable lunk, Kansas – but the best performance is actually from Veronica Lake. She plays a nurse who hates the Japs because the killed her fiancée at Pearl Harbour and is determined to knock off some POWs; she has a great hysterical breakdown and death scene, where she kills herself to take out some Jap soldiers so her friends can get away. This really gave me fresh appreciation for Lake’s talents.

As an aside, this film falls into two war sub-genres: the nurse picture, and the American defeat film. The latter were a group of movies made during the early days of America’s entry into World War Two, because the only true stories they could make were about defeats: Bataan, Wake Island, Corregidor, this; later on was They Were Expendable. (Was there ever a time when Hollywood made so many films about US defeats?). Nurse pictures have been made on and off over the years (although the British seem to have more enthusiasm for them than the Americans).

Radio review – Lux – “Northwest Frontier” (1942) *1/2

The Cecil B de Mille film was listed by Harry Medved as one of the 50th worst films of all time, which is a little harsh, but it wasn’t that good – nor is this radio version. The unusual setting gives it novelty – Riel’s Rebellion in 19th century Canada – but too much time is spent on Gary Cooper, in one of his most irritating aw-shucks performances, as a Texas Ranger pursuing a bandit. There are subplots involving his dopey romance with Madeleine Carroll (awful dialogue), Carrol’s cowardly boyfriend and his dodgy lover. The acting from the cast is either stiff or over the top and it’s fairly laughable. Poor Canada.

Radio review – CP#31 – “Algiers” (1939) **1/2

Orson Welles enjoyed success as a dashing mysterious lover in a number of productions, notably Jane Eyre and Rebecca – he no doubt would have played more on screen had he not gotten so fat. But here is it as a master criminal hiding out in the Casbah, and very effective he is too. 

 

Paulette Goddard isn’t quite so happily cast – she wasn’t the best actor, Goddard, but she was pretty… which doesn’t help a lot on radio. This is still pretty good silly fun and you can really imagination as to what the Casbah is like.

Radio review – Command Performance – “Superman with Bob Hope” (1946) **

The cast and idea would have made a great film – Bob Hope as Superman, Paulette Goddard as Lois Lane, and Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist bad guy. Although having said that they don’t use the Hope as Superman as much as they could have – maybe it needed something visual. He throws in some various contemporary ad libs. Lugosi does his regular stuff, and Goddard’s not-quite-right timing is more noticeable when you’re not distracted by her prettiness.

Movie review – “The Ghost Breakers” (1940) ***1/2

Following their success with The Cat and the Canary, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard were reunited for another spooky comedy where Paulette inherits an old dark house and has people try to kill her. The confidence of both players had increased markedly even in the short gap between the two films and they team even better this time around. Whereas Cat was more of an ensemble piece, this film is more geared to their individual talents (Goddard has two gratuitous scenes where she takes off her dress and is in a slip, plus spends some time in a swimsuit). It’s quite spooky too with an effective opening scene in a black out and a terrific haunted castle in Cuba. (Around the two thirds mark there is a bit too much poking around the castle – it goes on for a bit.) The supporting cast is strong: Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn, Willie Best (also known as Sleep’n’Eat – a talented performer who specialised in “dopey Negro” comedy NB many examples of which are around today but I guess it’s considered okay today because we have positive black characters to counter balance it). There’s also Richard Carlson who is memory serves featured in similar films starring Abbott and Costello.