Movie review – “The Private Life of Don Juan” (1934) **

The Private Life of Henry VIII team – Alex Korda, Vincent Korda, Lasjos Biro, Arthur Wimpres (credited for writing “lyrics”), Merle Oberon, Binnie Barnes – reunited in another “private life”, with Douglas Fairbanks joining the gang in the title role. But like The Rise of Catherine the Great, it doesn’t make the grade, despite some fine work in other departments. We knew who Henry VIII was, and were very familiar with his history, so they could have a lot of fun with a particular take on him. Don Juan is fictional, and his adventures aren’t that well known apart from being a great lover.

The basic plot has people think Don Juan’s dead after an imposter is killed so he decides to keep up it to take a holiday. He sees his reputation soar but when he comes back and tries his old schtick it doesn’t work. That’s not really much of a premise – the film badly lacks a baddy or more conflict. Or even decent gags – it’s kind of a one-note samba: Don Juan has this big reputation but is actually getting old. It needed more sex, humour and life. (Did the censor cut it’s balls off?)

It looks gorgeous, though – the sets and costumes are stunning, and there are some really good looking women, such as Oberon and Benita Hume (Mrs Ronald Colman and George Sanders, who plays Mrs Don Juan). Fairbanks is pretty good in the lead; he was apparently afraid of aging in real life so this gives his casting some poignancy.

Movie review – “The Sheik” (1921) **1/2

Old-fashioned, racist, romantic schlock which remains Rudolph Valentino’s best known role and one of the best remembered silent films of them all. Audiences made fun of it even at the time but they also turned up in large numbers. It has a simple, solid story which must have ticked wish fulfilment boxes for many women in the audience; there’s also lots of action, strong production design (palm trees, oasis, dunes, horses galloping over dunes, tents, belly dancing), and a charismatic performance from Valentino, who is very effective.

The heroine is a modern flapper, Diana (Agnes Ayres) who says things like, “Marriage is captivity – the end of independence. I’m content with my life as it is.” On a lark, she goes on a one-month trek through the desert and is kidnapped by Valentino. “I am not accustomed to having my orders disobeyed,” he says. “I am not accustomed to obeying orders,” she says. “That will change”. Etc. etc.

He doesn’t rape her, but he looks as though he wants to and is going to until he sees her praying for it not to happen. Adolphe Menjou rocks up as an old friend of Rudy’s (did Menjou ever look young?) – he persuades the Sheik to let the woman go back to her people. While she’s writing “Ahmed I Love You” in the sand (I’m not kidding) some bad Arabs attack – Menjou and Diana blow some away with their pistols but run out of ammo. She asks Menjou to shoot her so she won’t fall into their hands but before he can he’s shot. She’s taken away to Bad Arab land and the Bad Arab wants to rape her but Rudy saves the day. And the eleventh hour twist… he’s European, not Arab after all, so they can get married! Hooray!

Codswallop, but not un-entertaining. Definitely fascinating.

Movie review – “Freedom Ride” (1956) **

Odd film – a drama paid for by Greyhound Buses in order to promote coach travel. In under an hour it tells the stories of a couple of people travelling across the country: a woman (Angie Dickinson!) is on her way to New York to visit her fiancée but falls in love rather quickly with a meant-to-be-charming-but-actually-sleazy former football player; a young boy (Tommy Kirk, the perfect Eisenhower adolescent) is on his way to a Scout Jamborree; a grumpy old man is on his way to get the medal of honor for his dead son – he’s bitter about it, so there’s this sort of ghost character who appears to convert him to the importance of sacrifice. He also helps Dickinson to dump her fiancée. Nice guy!

As they travel, there are cutaways to historical events that happened where they’re driving past – fighting off Indians, the fire of Michigan, pirates in Key West (they actually don’t drive through Key West, just talk about it), the signing of the declaration of independence, the Gettysburg address. It’s all very sober, industrious and crew cut – when the grumpy old guy criticises war, the football player asks him if he loves his country. But the old guy comes around at the end. Dickinson and Kirk look so young; Kirk is really good, fresh faced and believably aw-gee-whiz-look-at-the-Golden-Gate-bridge - you can see why he got so much work.

Movie review – “The Caddy” (1953) **1/2

There were no bigger stars in the early 50s than Martin and Lewis – they dominated film, TV, nightclubs and radio, prompting mass crowds when they appeared. This film has footage of some hysteria that took place when they stayed at a hotel, early Beatlemania (Martinlewismania?). It stars Martin and Lewis as versions of Martin and Lewis and we flash back to how these two met – Lewis was the son of a golfer, Martin a fisherman. Lewis becomes Martin’s caddy and Martin becomes a champion golfer… so they wind up in show business.

 

Yep, it’s not much of a story, really: Martin sort-of gets a big head but not for long; Lewis encounters some snobbery but not much; Martin romances Donna Reed (very fetching in some low-cut lingere-type tops), and for about two seconds she thinks Martin has a wife (when actually it’s his sister, Lewis’ fiancé). 

Most of the running time consists of set comedy pieces (normally Lewis pretending to be someone) and nightclub act performances. 

 

Some highlights: Martin (who looks terrific here) sings “That’s Amore’, Martin and Lewis appear as themselves at the end, Ben Hogan makes a cameo, a very strong support cast including Fred Clark, and Joseph Calleia.

Radio review – TG – “Allegro” (1951) **1/2

Oscar and Hammerstein’s follow up to Oklahoma and Carousel was, if not a flop, then an under-performer at the box office. It’s not hard to see why – the book is very dull and the songs are unmemorable. It’s about a young doctor who is torn between wanting to do decent work and making lots of money. There’s a woman he marries who wants him to make money rather than Do the Right Thing. Didn’t Sidney Howard write this as Men in White? (Isn't every soapy treatment of doctors about this?) Apparently Oscar Hammerstein was inspired by his town torment as an artist – gee, poor Oscar. 

 

There’s some good moments, like when the doctor reads a file and finds out his wife has been cheating on him, and one good song. The rest was either boring and/or unmemorable. John Lund and Jane Powell play lead roles.

Movie review – “The Rise of Catherine the Great” (1934) **

Following the success of The Private Life of Henry VIII, it’s no surprise Alex Korda tried to make lightning strike twice, so we had private lives of Don Juan, Catherine the Great and Rembrant – but none of these matched the success of the earlier film. Catherine, like Henry, was as famous for her personal life as anything else she did but this film lacks Henry VIII’s vision. Henry VIII was an irreverent, lively film that centered around his different wives (ambitious, stupid, ugly, pretty and stupid, nagging). This doesn’t have a similar focus.

Elisabeth Berger’s Catherine starts as a shy noblewoman who marries the womanising wastrel Peter (Douglas Fairbanks Jnr). She tries to arouse his interest by dressing up in male drag and saying she’s had lots of lovers – but she’s only pretending to get his interest, which is cheating. For a moment they get along, but he goes progressively insane and eventually he’s overthrown – although Elizabeth hangs back for a lot of it, which makes her passive.

Why make a film about Catherine the Great if you didn’t want to tackle her having lovers? Or make fun of the sexual peccadilloes of the Russian aristocracy? What’s the point? Certainly I don't think audiences have the same affection for her they did for Henry VIII. (Why didn't Korda do The Private Life of Charles II?) So for most of the time this is flat, even if the sets and costumes are impressive, and Fairbanks delivers a strong performance. Berger’s Catherine isn’t for all tastes – certainly not mine. Flora Robson is terrific as Empress Elisabeth, though.

Script review – “Major League” by David Ward

Sweet, fun movie (if a little sexist) which has remained enormously popular over the years – just as girls like to re-watch Sex and the City and Clueless, and kids like to re-watch Lion King, guys like to re-watch this. It’s almost the perfect inspirational sports movie comedy: the basic plot involves the showgirl widow of a millionaire who inherits the Cleveland Indians; she’s determined to make her team lose so she can move to Miami so deliberately starves the team of funds and hires crappy players. They include a washed up veteran, a high-priced show pony, a flashy smooth-talking black dude, a prisoner.

In the script it’s later revealed the woman is a goodie who only pretended to be a bitch in order to inspire the team – but this reads untrue and doesn’t make any sense; they shot the scenes as written but test screenings found they preferred the woman as a villain so some reshoots were done. This was the right move. Why have her turn out to be nice?

There’s plenty of subplots: the flashy black dude tries to prove himself, the washed up veteran tries for a comeback and to reunite with his ex wife (only if he cheated before he’s going to cheat again), a rivalry between the gaolbird and the high flyer. And it leads up to a fun, inspiring climax. Not original by any means but this sort of film is hard to pull off, as imitators have found.