At the Circus

At the Circus
October 20, 1939
MGM
Comedy, Musical
VHS
C+

A decade into their film career, the Marx Brothers had clearly passed their peak, but this is at least better than Room Service, which had no memorable moments, while this has several, most to do with Groucho: his singing Harburg-Arlen's delightful "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," which just barely squeaked by the censors; his mention of the Hays Code when wondering how to retrieve money from Eve Arden's skimpy costume; and his continued romancing of Dumont, who makes a welcome return late in the movie.  Also worth watching are the Brothers' investigations in the henchmen's bedrooms, one of the baddies, "Little Professor Atom," played by Jerry Maren, the center Lollipop Guild member in The Wizard of Oz.  (Screenwriter Irving Brecher was one of the many contributors to that classic, and, yes, Buster Keaton again gave then uncredited writing support to the Marxes.)  As others have pointed out, a circus isn't much of an environment for the Brothers to rebel against, but it does fit the theme of so many of my 1939 movies.  (Even in Vernon and Irene Castle, Ginger does a number in a clown suit.)

The negatives are many, including the tepid romance between Baker and Rice, with the two of them singing "Two Blind Loves" to each other twice, and her singing "Step up and Take a Bow" to her horse, and Baker singing it to her.  It's hard to care about the "save the circus" plot, while I did care about Judy's sanitarium in A Day at the Races.  As in Races, Harpo frolicks with shucking-and-jiving "coloreds," this group thinking he's Svengali rather than Gabriel.  At least Lillian Randolph would have a more memorable role, as "Annie" in It's a Wonderful Life.  Willie Best has a smaller role than in Thank You, Jeeves!, as a redcap, so he suffers fewer indignities.  The pace is faster than in Room Service, although sometimes overly frantic.  Edward Buzzell would also direct Go West, which also is not the Marxes' worst.  Yes, I'd put this on a level with Races and The Cocoanuts, far from a classic but not pitiful.

The nearly ubiquitous Edmund Mortimer is the Governor here.  Forbes Murray would go on to Turnabout, Irving Bacon to His Girl Friday, Buck Mack to Citizen Kane, and Emory Parnell to Miracle of Morgan's Creek.  And, yes, we're done with the '30s now.

The Women

The Women
September 1, 1939
MGM
Drama, Comedy
DVD
C+

This movie has an all-female cast, many of them stars, so it's worth watching for that, but I can't say I actually like the movie.  Even the "sympathetic" characters aren't ones I care about.  The tag-line for this movie was "It's all about men."  More specifically, it's about how women deal with the "fact" that "all" husbands commit adultery.  The message, as expressed by the heroine's "wise" mother and the street-wise but classy Paulette Goddard, is that pride is "a luxury a woman in love can't afford."  Better to either say nothing, or fight for your husband.  Not only is this dubious, but because we don't see the husbands (or any men), it's difficult to say whether any of the men are worth it.  I think even more than the main story of the Haineses, I was bothered by the arc for the young newlywed Peggy Day, who gets upset with her husband for "things he said," but reconciles with him when she finds out she's pregnant.  It's impossible to tell whether she overreacted in the first place, or if she was right to seek a divorce, but I definitely don't like that she decides she'll do whatever he says from now on.  And wonderful as it is to see Marjorie Main, the future Ma Kettle, I was bothered by her saying of her husband beating her that there are women there (at her Reno ranch) who deserve beating more.  Also, there's that weird fashion show in color in the middle of the movie, which Cukor reportedly didn't like.  Still, the movie is worth seeing at least once, if only to watch all the different personalities interact.

Main would shortly be in Turnabout.  Rosalind Russell, who transitioned to comedy with her scene-stealing role as gossipy Sylvia, would go on to much better things, including the next year's His Girl Friday.  Cora Witherspoon would be in The Bank Dick, Joan Blair in Citizen Kane, Mary Dees in A Night in Casablanca.  Mabel Colcord was Hannah in Cukor's Little Women.  Josephine Whittell was in It's a Gift, while Beryl Wallace was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man.  And, yes, that's none other than "Toto,"AKA Terry, early on in the movie.  Amusingly, Margaret Dumont was in deleted scenes, playing a character named Mrs. Wagstaff!  (The last name of Groucho's professor character in the Dumont-less Horse Feathers.)

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz
August 25, 1939
MGM
Children's, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
A-

Ah, where to begin?  This movie was such a part of my childhood, of so many childhoods, it's hard to be objective about it.  It's both a classic film and a cult film, with special appeal to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.  ("Of course, some people do go both ways.")  It's also a movie about the importance of family, both biological and chosen.  It's warm, sweet, funny, scary, and catchy.  (Try not reciting the lines or singing the songs, at least in your head.)  It also has a marvelous early use of color film, and the special effects are well beyond anything else of the time.  The acting is generally solid to wonderful, with Garland touchingly sincere, and many in the cast, from Scarecrow Ray Bolger (Dorothy's and my favorite) to Clara Blandick and Charley Grapewin, as Dorothy's aunt and uncle, seeming irreplaceable.  Margaret Hamilton, as not only the two wicked witches but Miss Gulch (admittedly overlapping characterizations), remains one of the great screen villainesses.  There's not a clinker among the songs, and the dance steps, even the little skips, add to the fun.  Also, the movie is endlessly quotable.

But it is not a perfect film.  Sometimes the direction (by no less than five men, including future Elvis helmsman Norman Taurog) is a little sloppy, with the camera sometimes not clear where it should go.  And, after all the drafts, including assists from witty lyricist Yip Harburg, the writing still needs work, particularly with Glinda's dialogue and characterization.  Now, in a way I've accepted Billie Burke's, shall we say, airier interpretation of Glinda, who is always dignified and sensible in the Oz books.  (Except for the ones John R. Neill wrote, but he was off-base in other ways, although an excellent illustrator.)  However, since childhood Burke's reading of "But I am a witch" has bothered me, when it obviously should be "But I am a witch."  Also, her "You wouldn't have believed me" to Dorothy, late in the film, is stupid on many levels, including that she let Dorothy and friends put themselves repeatedly in danger.  Other than that, my least favorite exchange is when Dorothy asks for the witch's broom (to bring back to the Wizard as proof of the Witch's death) and a Winkie says, "Yes, and bring it with you."  What, did he think Dorothy wanted to sweep up?  Is the "Witches Castle" sign a deliberate error?  What about the brain-enhanced Scarecrow's misinformation about triangles?

Still, these are quibbles.  The film is still a delight.  And it has what may well be the most awesome dog in screen history, Toto.  He's not only adorable but he repeatedly moves the plot along.  (The threat of Miss Gulch to take him away remains unresolved after Dorothy's "dream," two flaws really, the dream and the threat.)  He's the one who gets Dorothy's friends to rescue her and he's the one who leads to the Wizard flying off in his balloon without her.  And along the way, he's a quiet little scene-stealer.  "He" was played by a female dog, Terry, who would soon appear as "Fighting Dog at Beauty Shop" in the all-female The Women.  Margaret Hamilton would appear in My Little Chickadee the next year.  My next Judy Garland movie will be Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, also from 1940.

Rolfe Sedan had just appeared in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.  Lorraine Bridges (who does a Lullaby League member's singing voice) was in A Night at the Opera.  One of the Winged Monkeys, Lee Murray, was in A Day at the Races, while another, George Noisom, would go on to both Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life.  One of the Winkies, Harry Wilson, would be a henchman in Some Like It Hot.  Jerry Maren, one of the most prominent Munchkins then and now (he's still alive in his 90s), would shortly do At the Circus.  Emerald City manicurist Ethelreda Leopold had just done You Can't Cheat an Honest Man and would go on to Meets Debutante.  Jimmy the Crow (I am not making that up) would appear as the bank's crow in It's a Wonderful Life.  That movie also has Adriana Caselotti (Juliet's voice here), and it's probably a bit of an in-joke that she was the voice of Snow White in the previous year's hit movie that helped get the ball rolling for Wizard.

I watched Wizard on a tape of the 50th anniversary airing on CBS, with such random celebrities as Tony Danza and Lindsay Wagner voicing their appreciation.  The quality of an almost-twenty-five-year-old VHS tape is not of the best, but the colors are still vibrant.  I will of course get the 75th anniversary DVD when it's released, and I may venture on the Rifftrax commentary.

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
March 29, 1939
RKO
Historical, Musical, Drama
DVD
C

Slow, corny, somewhat depressing movie that somehow ends up being proto-propaganda for U.S. involvement in World War II.  It's set 1911 to 1918 and patriotic Brit Vernon joins up when World War I breaks out.  (Astaire shows no trace of a British accent, although Vernon was nineteen when he emigrated to New York.  No New York accent either, for that matter.)  Before that, it's mostly a tale of the real-life celebrity dancers' rise and success.  Around the midpoint, when Edna May Oliver (Aunt March in Little Women) shows up, the movie sort of springs to life, and the montage sequence seems to have a better, livelier director.  Mostly though, Fred and more particularly Ginger are hamstrung by playing real roles, and ones they're not suited for.  (I really missed the sassy, brassy Ginger of Flying Down to Rio, as she played insecure, innocent Irene.)  I was getting so antsy that I started speculating on Walter Brennan as "Walter" having a threesome with the Castles.  (He does seem very taken with Vernon.)  Some of the dancing's pretty good of course, but you're not missing much if you skip this one.

William Worthington was in Duck Soup, Jean Stevens in Room Service, and Esther Muir was "Flo" in A Day at the Races, which also featured Max Lucke.  Leonid Kinskey, who plays the "bohemian" painter, was in Duck Soup as the agitator and would be in Casablanca as Sascha.  Kay Sutton appeared in Roberta, Brooks Benedict in Follow the Fleet.  Tiny Jones, who'd just done You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, shows how she got her nickname, here appearing as the small woman who goes through a revolving door.  Leyland Hodgson was also in Honest Man.  Donald "Jumping Butterballs" MacBride has a more leering, less angry role than in Room Service.  Douglas Walton was in Thank You, Jeeves!, and incidentally was Percy Bysshe Shelley in The Bride of Frankenstein.

Edmund Mortimer, George Irving, and Frank O'Connor were in previous movies of mine, and Mortimer would soon appear in At the Circus.  Rolfe Sedan would shortly be in The Wizard of Oz.  Jack Gargan would go on to The Bank Dick, Adrienne D'Ambricourt to Casablanca.  Eugene Borden plays a Frenchman in All About Eve as well as here.  Frank Faylen, who's an uncredited Adjutant here, would be much more memorable as not only Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life, but as Dobie Gillis's TV father.

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
February 18, 1939
Universal
Comedy
DVD
B

While this movie has some definite faults, including that it bears more than a passing resemblance to The Old Fashioned Way and Poppy, I had a good time watching it, finding it superior to Fields's Paramount movies.  It helps that I not only thought Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were funny (Mortimer Snerd, not so much), but I thought that Bergen made a surprisingly sweet romantic lead, speed-courting Fields's loyal-nineteenish-daughter-du-jour, here played by Constance Moore, who does a fine job.  (Why her brother has a Southern accent was beyond me though.)  And seeing Charlie and Fields go head to head in their insults was fun.  Fields himself, here as Larson E. Whipsnade, is funnier than in the previous movies I've viewed, whether making a rich woman faint at the mere mention of snakes, startling spinsters at the circus when he seems to be nude, or dealing with people (kids included) who seem to be more dishonest than he is!  There isn't any completely honest man in the movie, but there is a title-drop early on, one that also includes the phrase "Never give a sucker an even break."  Since this is at least the second mention in his movies, its eventually becoming a title feels inevitable.

There's also Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, whom I always felt was the best thing about The Jack Benny Show.  He has a certain dignity, even when dealing with annoying bosses, as here.  I will admit that I wasn't sure how to take the racism of Whipsnade, as when he refers to a group of blacks as "Ubangis," which Anderson corrects to "coloreds."  And there's a scene where Charlie does black-face!  I do give the writers points for the "Bella Schicklgruber" joke, on the eve of World War II.

Edward F. Cline, who is uncredited (except at IMDB) for codirecting, also directed The Bank Dick, which features Evelyn Del Rio, Edward Thomas, Bill Wolfe, and that minor gem Jan Duggan (Cleopatra Pepperday in The Old Fashioned Way, the ping-pong-loving Mrs. Sludge here).  It also offers Grady Sutton, who has a much smaller role here than as Fields's brother-in-law in Man on the Flying Trapeze.

Tiny Jones was in Double Wedding.  Edmund Mortimer and Frank O'Connor were in previous films and would shortly be in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and At the Circus respectively.  Leyland Hodgson also appears in Castle.  Grace Goodall and Beryl Wallace would go on to The Women, Delmar Watson and Frank Jenks to His Girl Friday, Si Jenks and Otto Hoffman to My Little Chickadee, Sam Harris and Arthur Yeoman to Citizen Kane.  Florence Wix, who was a party guest in Day at the Races and would be one again in High Society, is a wedding guest here.  Another party guest, Russell Wade, would be a party guest again in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.  Ethelreda Leopold (as Blonde at Party) would soon be a manicurist in The Wizard of Oz.  And Bergen & McCarthy's last appearance would be in The Muppet Movie, which is dedicated to them.

Room Service

Room Service
September 30, 1938
RKO
Comedy
VHS
C

It's not a good sign that William Seiter also directed Roberta, although of course the main problem here is that Morrie Ryskind had to tailor a successful non-Marx play to the Marxes.  Unlike the whimsically titled Paramount movies, this is even more literally titled than the MGM movies, with at least two title-drops in the mostly hotel-set story.  You can make an entertaining movie set in a hotel, but there have got to be more interesting events than here.  (Same Time Next Year succeeds partly by not just saying the word "sex," as Groucho does here, and by covering a much longer span of time.)  Yes, there's a flying turkey and fake suicides and one of the fastest courtships ever (five days, although admittedly Ann Miller is pretty cute).  And, yes, it's nice to see Lucy, no longer blonde, with a more substantial role.  But she and the Marxes seem restrained most of the time.  (Chico hardly seems Italian, or awake.)

I kept thinking the movie might make it to sort of funny, as with the topical references to Gypsy Rose Lee and FDR.  As it is, the frequent exclamation of "JUMPING BUTTERBALLS!!" is unintentionally more amusing than any of the intended gags.  This may well be the Marx movie I own that I've seen the least, and when I got a phone call about half an hour before the ending, I forgot that I hadn't finished watching, until I went through the living room again.  Furthermore, while the music in their MGM movies hasn't been anything amazing so far, it beats two renditions of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."  This film's only for the Marx completist.

Donald MacBride (the "butterballs" shouter) and Bruce Mitchell would go on to The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Phoebe Campbell and Cliff Herd to Citizen Kane.  Charles Halton, who's "Dr. Glass" here, would appear twenty years later, in his 80s, as the school principal of High School Confidential!, with a pivotal role as the bank examiner of It's a Wonderful Life along the way.

Funnier than the actual movie.

Double Wedding

Double Wedding
October 15, 1937
MGM
Comedy, Romance
VHS
B-

An uneven but funny screwball comedy that gets so wacky that there's no completed wedding ceremony, despite the two mix-and-match couples.  Instead, there's a party in a trailer where the main couple, William Powell and Myrna Loy, as Charlie and Margit respectively, get knocked out, as drunks sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."  Meanwhile, the secondary male character has taken Charlie's dubious romantic advice and carried off Margit's sister Irene, to Irene's delight, and it's unclear if they'll actually get married, after Margit has managed their romance and lives for so long.  I want to say that the film works despite itself, but I'm not sure that it does.  I just know that I was entertained for the most part.  Loy and Powell of course had already proven their chemistry in the Thin Man series, but they play off, and with, the other performers equally well.  Some of the lines will surprise you, like when Margit asks Charlie if he's on dope!  And the movie is surprisingly casual about divorce.  I like that while the film is definitely not feminist, there's no suggestion that Margit give up her career as a dress designer.

Edgar Kennedy, who was the rival street vendor in Duck Soup, here plays Spike, the "ape" who runs Spike's Bar.  Gwen Lee, who was Groucho's unnamed dinner companion at the beginning of A Night at the Opera, has a small role here.  Fields veteran Jack Baxley appears.  Florence Rice, who plays Irene, would have the female romantic lead in At the Circus, which Barnett Parker would also appear in.  Priscilla Lawson, who plays the assistant Felice here, has a small role in The Women.  Tiny Jones would go on to The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, Frank McClure to His Girl Friday.  Roger Moore, the one born in 1900, last appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

A Day at the Races

A Day at the Races
June 11, 1937
MGM
Comedy, Musical
VHS
C+

Once again, as in A Night at the Opera, Sam Wood directs, Allan Jones is the male romantic lead, Sig Ruman and his beard are mocked by Groucho, and Kaufman, Pirosh, Seaton, and Boasberg worked on the script.  This time, Maureen O'Sullivan is the female romantic lead, and she's more appealing than anyone since Lillian Roth.  Also, the movie doesn't suffer the over-inflated reputation of its immediate predecessor.  So in a way, I have a softer spot for it than I do for Night, but I will admit that it's just not as good a movie.

It starts out all right, and for awhile I was thinking of giving it a B-, like Night.  The brothers all have their moments, Chico especially in the "tootsie-frootsing" of Groucho and in his Jew-does-Italian-does-Irish house detective disguise, Harpo during his medical exam (I like how he "shouts" aah), and of course Groucho, especially when he's dancing.  Margaret Dumont actually shows a range of emotion (from A to C) for a change, although she's not given enough to do with Groucho.  Yes, the Water Carnival sequence is far too long (the entire movie is about double the length of Thank You, Jeeves!), but Chico and Harpo again have some nice musical moments.

Then around the 80- or 90-minute mark (I wasn't watching the clock, and my VCR doesn't have the time points), things start to sour.  We get another down-on-their-luck sequence, this time with the Brothers and the romantic couple picking up their spirits by hanging out in Shantytown, where the local Negroes salute a flute-playing Harpo as Gabriel, as in the angel.  (It might make sense if he were playing a horn.)  It is the best musical sequence but is marred by disjointedness (it can't decide if it's a medley or a jam session) and of course racism.  While the singers and dancers are undeniably talented-- one of them, Etta Moten, also sang in Flying Down to Rio-- their exaggerated facial expressions, especially eye-rolling, will probably have you rolling your own eyes, in disbelief or disgust.  And then the whole undercutting of the big horse race near the end goes on far too long, paling in comparison to the football sequence in Horse Feathers, which was itself far from their best filmic climax.  The very ending of this film, with the characters singing bits of songs (including one of Groucho's that was foolishly edited out) and Groucho actually sounding sincere as he proposes to Dumont, isn't bad but it's too little too late.  Results, the Brothers' worst movie since The Cocoanuts, although still watchable in bits and pieces.

Frankie Darro, "Frankie" from Phantom Empire, appears as the rival jockey.  Marx and/or Fields regulars Edith Kingdon, Edward LeSaint, Edmund Mortimer, Frank O'Connor, and Cyril Ring have small roles.  Esther Muir, who appears as "Flo," would have a small part in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, as would musician Jack George and doctor Max Lucke.  Billy Dooley would go on to The Double Wedding, Lee Murray to The Wizard of Oz, Jack Kenny to You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, Vangie Beilby to The Bank Dick, Ray Flynn and Field Norton to Citizen Kane, Robert Middlemass and Buck Woods to The Road to Zanzibar, Victor Potel to Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Helen Dickson and Arthur Stuart Hull to It's a Wonderful Life, Florence Wix to High Society, and Harry Wilson to Some Like It Hot.  Furthermore, Kenny Baker, who would be Jones's counterpart in At the Circus, pops up here as a party guest, as does Carl M. Leviness, who has a much smaller role than Baker's in Circus.

Thank You, Jeeves!

Thank You, Jeeves!
January 1, 1937
Twentieth-Century Fox
Comedy, Mystery
VHS
C+

The only things that this movie has in common with the Wodehouse 1934 novel of the same name are the main characters, the situation of Bertie Wooster playing a musical instrument and annoying the neighbors (thus planning a visit to the country), and unfortunately racism.  (http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/05/1934-1989-harper-row-edition-p.html)  This time Bertie has a rather elaborate drum-set, but before he can leave town, a mysterious blonde arrives on his doorstep, pretending to know him.  (I don't know if the writers get any points for being canonically compliant that Bertie doesn't have a brother.)  Soon he's tangled in a tedious mystery that not only is very un-Wodehouse but doesn't even work on its own terms.  (Why, if Marjorie is on the run, would she trust a stranger she meets at a inn?  Why are there torture devices in the basement?  Why are we misled into thinking that her cousin is her boyfriend, when there's no pay-off to this?)  The movie is not quite an hour long but still drags.

Along the way to the inn, shortly before a not bad chase scene, Bertie and Jeeves pick up a "colored" Dixieland saxophonist played by poor Willie Best, who in his earliest film roles was known as "Sleep 'n' Eat." (http://celluloidslammer.blogspot.com/2009/02/willie-best-life-remembered.html)  Here his character is "Drowsy," which isn't much better.  It's a very stereotypical part and adds nothing to either the plot or the humor of the movie.  (However, the scene of Jeeves conducting him in a rendition of "The March of the Hussars" almost works.)  Arthur Treacher, who would go on to the Wooster-less Step Lively, Jeeves and similar valet-or-butler roles, is somewhat well-cast, in that he's got Jeeves's dignity, but he's a much more peppery and brawny Jeeves than in the books.  David Niven is, as he almost always is, charming in his first major role, although he's too bright for Bertie, and the print-Jeeves would never stand for that mustache.  Niven and Treacher have a nice rapport, as when they sing together in the car, and I wish there had been more of them together.  The film doesn't hold a candle to the 1990s British television series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, but it's not without interest, for the casting and other reasons.

The American boy who annoys Jeeves is played by Gene Reynolds (looking much younger than his thirteen years), and he went on to be a writer for My Three Sons, M*A*S*H, and other TV shows.  Joseph North, who plays a butler here, would be another butler in The Bank Dick.

Poppy

Poppy
June 19, 1936
Paramount
Historical, Romance
DVD
C+

An odd sort of movie in that Fields, despite top billing, isn't in it much, due to illness.  Also, it's based on a silent film, in turn based on a stage play, both of which Fields starred in.  It's set in 1883, but that's not the only reason it feels very dated, with its hokey plot.  And once again, Fields has an eighteenish daughter who's loyal to him, this time the title character Poppy, although she turns out to be adopted.  Still, it's not without interest.  As he often does, Fields slips things past the censors, not just "Nuts!" for walnuts again, but calling Madame de Puizzi "Madame de Pussy."  And there's a prescient line when he advises Poppy to "never give a sucker an even break."  

Tom Kennedy was in Monkey Business.  Bill Wolfe would go on to The Bank Dick.

Follow the Fleet

Follow the Fleet
February 20, 1936
RKO
Musical, Romance, Comedy
DVD
B+

Although Fred & Ginger are again sharing the bill and the screen with another couple, and the other man is played by Randolph Scott, this is far superior to 1935's Roberta.  It helps that the other woman, as Ginger's mouse-turned-knockout sister is Harriet Hilliard, AKA Ozzie Nelson's wife, and she sings in a likable, realistic way, unlike Irene Dunne.  True, she doesn't look all that much different after Lucille Ball gives her a makeover, but this isn't the most realistic movie.  (Lavish stage sets on a boat?  Which never rocks?)  Yes, Lucy has more to do here than in Roberta, and as "the tall blonde angel" puts a sailor in his place with a memorable putdown.  As for Scott, he's playing a bit of a heel here (as he admits), but he's not beyond redemption.  He has a fling with a rich divorcee, who's not presented as a bad girl, although a bit of a dumb blonde.  Also surprising, Ginger and Fred slip some naughtiness past the Code, as when Ginger, who sings in a dime-a-dance club, says she convoyed a fleet of sailors on the dance floor, "on my feet."  Fred even leads an all-male-couples dance lesson!

Mostly though, he's dancing on his own or with Ginger, and she gets a solo turn as well.  In their dance contest number in particular, they're remarkably fluid, helped by the bellbottoms they both wear, although it's back to gown and tux for the final production number, which is about renouncing suicide!  And there's a monkey in a sailor suit.  Maybe Flying Down to Rio isn't their most surreal film.  In any case, this has their best chemistry so far, and I loved how they banter about who's going to propose to whom.  They also work well with their best friends in the movie, she with Hilliard of course, and he with Scott.  While this is much less of a drama than Roberta, the emotions feel more genuine.  Plus the Irving Berlin et al. score is great, although there are probably too many reprises of "We Joined the Navy."  Overall, this film is a delight!

Mary Stewart and Eddie Tamblyn were in Flying Down to Rio.  Jane Hamilton, Maxine Jennings, and Kay Sutton were in Roberta.  James Pierce was in Horse Feathers as one of the "attempted kidnap victims" of Harpo and Chico.  Harry Beresford was the doctor in Little Women.  Allen Wood later appeared in Fred & Ginger's The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.  Billy Dooley would go on to A Day at the Races,  Lita Chevret to The Women, Frank Jenks to His Girl Friday, Tony Martin to The Big Store, and Russell Hicks and Dick Purcell to The Bank Dick.  I can't tag everyone, and most of these are minor roles, here and elsewhere, although Martin gets far too much screen time in Store.

A Night at the Opera

A Night at the Opera
November 15, 1935
MGM
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B-

Today's tale:  So the Marx Brothers went to MGM, and "genius" Irving Thalberg said, "Women don't like your movies.  You need more sappy romance, boring songs, and, oh yeah, temporary defeat."  They listened to him and had a hit movie again.  The End.

OK, there's a bit more to it than that, but that's basically the story on how this film came to be, and how, after Thalberg's death, the formula was beat into the ground until we got, well, The Big Store (1941).  At least here they had good writers, not just Marx veterans Kaufman and Riskind, Kalmar and Ruby, but newcomers Robert Pirosh, George Seaton, and Al Boasberg, who would return for A Day at the Races.  I'm not tagging the newbies, because I reached the label limit for this post.  But, yes, Buster Keaton, then down on his luck, also contributed.  The writing, especially Groucho's wisecracks, is amusing some of the time, without the highs or lows of Monkey Business (its nearest equal so far).  Despite the Code, Groucho still gets some suggestive lines, not just the censored-by-individual-states reply to "Otis, do you have everything?" ("I haven't had any complaints yet"), but one about Mrs. Claypool (good ol' Dumont) not yet having  experienced his "services."  There is too much of Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones as the romantic couple, but, hey, they're much better than the pair in The Cocoanuts.  (Or the one in Roberta for that matter.)  And, yes, the songs, not just the opera, are boring, but I like Chico at the piano (an instrumental of the "All I Do Is Dream of You" song Debbie Reynolds sings in Singing in the Rain) and Harpo at the, yeah, harp (sounding a bit proto-Pet Sounds, believe it or not).

Alex Chivra and Frances Maran were in Flying Down to Rio.  Stanley Blystone, the television operator in Phantom Empire, is a ship's officer here.  A couple of the Fields folk appear, George Irving and Jerry Mandy.  Mario Dominici and Leo Sulky were in Duck Soup.  Edmund Mortimer was in both FDtR and Soup.  Allan Jones, Sig Ruman, and extras Edna Bennett, Ruth Cherrington, Field Norton, and Phillips Smalley would be back in A Day at the Races, while villain Walter King would return in Go West.  Lorraine Bridges would be in Wizard of Oz, Bruce Sidney in Citizen Kane, and Al Bridge in Miracle in Morgan's Creek.  Art Howard and Edward Keane went on to It's a Wonderful Life.  Kitty Carlisle would appear as a singer more than fifty years later in Radio Days.

Man on the Flying Trapeze

Man on the Flying Trapeze
August 3, 1935
Paramount
Comedy
DVD
B-

Well, this movie surprised me.  My expectations were low when I saw that Kathleen Howard again plays Fields's nagging wife, but there's more to her character here, although she's not given as much screen time.  The second half of the movie, with all the complications of Fields's job as a memory expert, his desire to see a wrestling match, and his family troubles (as usual, only the roughly 20-year-old daughter, here named Hope, is loyal to him), is much better than the first, although I can see how that first half sets things up.  The direction, by Fields himself, has much more energy than anything since International House, which admittedly was not just a Fields movie.  There are some nice comic touches, like the way his boss Peabody pronounces "decades" like "decayeds" and "condolences" like you've never heard it before.  Fields even gets a few lines past the censors, like "Nuts!" while stepping on walnuts, and calling a nosegay "nose candy."

Carlotta Monti, Fields's real-life live-in lover, does a fine job playing his secretary, even telling off Peabody, and she would play a receptionist in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.  Lew Kelly and Billy Bletcher were both in The Old Fashioned Way.  Jack Baxley would go on to Double Wedding, both Helen Dickson and Sarah Edwards to It's a Wonderful Life.  And one of the wrestlers is none other than future "star" of Plan Nine from Outer Space Tor Johnson!

Since it's a Paramount comedy, what does the title mean?  I thought that the classic song would be one that the burglars (one played by Walter Brennan, the other of course Tammany Young), the one friendly cop Fields meets, and Fields would sing in their basement quartet, but they don't.  I think the title is meant to be an ironic comment on how Fields's Ambrose Wolfinger isn't daring or young, nor does he float through the air (or life) with the greatest of ease, but there's something quietly heroic about him.  I think this is the first of his movies where I actually cared about his character.

Roberta

Roberta
March 8, 1935
RKO
Romance, Musical
DVD
C+

As with the W. C. Fields films, I got a package of four Fred & Ginger movies, in this case just for Flying Down to Rio.  This film is disappointing, considering one, it's based on a book by Alice Duer Miller (whose Come out of the Kitchen is a fun read:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/03/come-out-of-kitchen.html); two, it has some good songs, including the Oscar-nominated "Lovely to Look at"; and three, Fred & Ginger aren't as peripheral as they are in FDtR.  Unfortunately, they're still playing the supporting couple, and this time the main pair are both charm-free: Randolph Scott, coming across as a killjoy Joel McCrea, and Irene Dunne, who ruins "Lovely" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by singing in that horrific mid-'30s to early-'40s pseudo-operatic style that too many female singers used in the movies.  Watch this one with your hand on the remote, fast-forwarding till you get to any scene with Fred in it, and even then be prepared for too much Scott and Dunne.  (Ginger has much less to do than Fred.)

OK, and you can keep an eye out for various cameos.   Not only is one of the fashion models Lucille Ball, but William "Fred Mertz" Frawley plays a bartender!  And another fashion model, Wanda Perry, would have a small role in Ball's Mame.  Model Donna Mae Roberts would appear in 1943's The Gang's All Here.  Of the Wabash Indianians, Hal Borne was in Flying Down to Rio, while "tricky-voiced" Candy Candido would do a memorable voiceover as an apple tree in Wizard of Oz.  Rita Gould would appear in The Women.  No one plays Roberta; it's just the name of the design studio Scott's aunt owns.  The fashions range from forgettable to regrettable to acceptable.

The Phantom Empire

The Phantom Empire (AKA Radio Ranch)
February 23, 1935
Mascot Pictures
Western, Sci-Fi, Musical
VHS
C+

Low-budget serial edited into a feature, yes, covering all of the above genres.  Gene Autry, sort of playing himself, is a radio singer who, with his teen sidekicks Frankie and Betsy, battles evil scientists and evil Muranians.  The movie is never as much fun as all the elements would suggest, even if it does have such futuristic Muranian devices like gingerbread-men-like robots, a television device, and "wireless telephone," combined with horses, an airplane, and corny Country songs.  Still worth a look, if only as one of the stranger movies to be influenced by The Birth of a Nation.

It's a Gift

It's a Gift
November 30, 1934
Paramount
Comedy
DVD
C

Despite McLeod as director, this is even more slow-moving, and less funny, than the other two Fields movies I have from '34.  It comes close to being amusing in the "picnic on private property" scene, but nothing builds.  Baby LeRoy is given less to work with than in Old Fashioned Way, and even a very talented toddler can't do much with molasses in two movies.  Kathleen Howard, who was in OLW, plays Fields's nagging wife and gets far too much screen time.  And it feels unbalanced that so much of the film is set before they actually get to the "orange ranch" in California, and then the day is saved with much less set-up than when Fields's invention sells in You're Telling Me!  It's hard to believe that this is considered one of Fields's best.

Fields regulars include Eddie Baker, Del Henderson, and Josephine Whittell.  Some of the cast would go on to appear in Marx Brothers movies:  Jerry Mandy in A Night at the Opera, Edith Kingdon in A Day at the Races, and Diana Lewis in Go West.

The Old Fashioned Way

The Old Fashioned Way
July 13, 1934
Paramount
Comedy, Historical
DVD
C+

This as slow as You're Telling Me!, but it does have the bonus of Jan Duggan as song-butcher Cleopatra Pepperday.  Luckily, she would return in later Fields movies.  So would Florence Lawrence, who three decades earlier was the first movie actress to have her name used in promotion.  Tammany Young, who was the unfunny caddy in You're Telling Me!, plays Fields's assistant Gump.  Nora Cecil, who had a small role in YTM, has more to do here as the boarding-house mistress, Mrs. Wendelschaffer.  Dorothy Bay, Del Henderson, James B. "Pop" Kenton, Edward LeSaint (again playing a train conductor), and Robert McKenzie also return.  Furthermore, Davison Clark, who was the second Minister of Finance in Duck Soup, is the train passenger whose lost ticket Fields uses.

The title this time seems to refer to the setting ca. 1900, with everyone excited when a "horseless carriage" drives by.  It's probably a pun as well, since "old fashioned" is a drink.

Ignore the hyphen in the title on the poster.

You're Telling Me!

You're Telling Me!
May 18, 1934
Paramount
Comedy
DVD
C+

Slow and meandering though this movie is, it did make me chuckle a couple times.  I was more interested in the characters besides the W.C. Fields "hero" Sam Bisbee, particularly Joan Marsh as Sam's daughter Pauline and Adrienne Ames as the Princess.  I also liked seeing the small-town gossip, although there's no real pay-off.  I definitely could've done without the tedious golf game, which goes on for several minutes but never gets beyond the first swing.

I'm limited in the number of tags I can put on a post, so here are some people who would go on to appear in other Fields films:  Eddie Baker, Dorothy Bay, Nora Cecil, Dell Henderson (as Del), James B. "Pop" Kenton, Edward LeSaint, Robert McKenzie, and Josephine Whittell.

Also, Frank O'Connor had already appeared in International House.  Florence Enright, who plays Mrs. Kelly here, was the seamstress in Little Women.  George McQuarrie was the first judge, Frederick Sullivan the second judge, in Duck Soup.  Edmund Mortimer was in Design for Living and Flying Down to Rio.  And, yes, that's a pre-Flash-Gordon Buster Crabbe as Pauline's boyfriend.

Although this isn't a Marx Brothers movie, it is a Paramount '30s comedy, so I should explain the title.  Bisbee doesn't realize that his friend is a real princess, and he says they really put one over on his town.  She replies, "You're telling me!"

Flying Down to Rio

Flying Down to Rio
Dec. 29, 1933
RKO
Musical, Comedy
DVD
B-

Released the same day as Design for Living, this is less obviously a pre-Code movie in its situation, but there is a lot of raciness in the dialogue, dancing, and costumes.  As for the dialogue, the line "What have these South Americans got below the equator that we haven't" is a good sample, and most of Ginger Roger's lines are suggestive, as is her song "Music Makes Me." She and Fred dance a less dirty-dancing version of the Carioca than the "Brazilians" do but it's still a very flirty number for them, and, yes, this is the movie that made them stars.  Unfortunately, we have to spend too much time on a love triangle that is "won" by the very unlikable Gene Raymond, when Raul Roulien's character Julio (pronounced by everybody with an American J) is much cuter, nicer, smarter, and nobler.  Oh well, Dolores del Rio is OK.  Pangborn once again works for a hotel, but only in the Miami scenes.

Watch this one not only for Fred & Ginger but for the chorus-girls-strapped-to-airplane-wings finale.  It's not only incredibly campy but the outfits are very scanty.  You're not hallucinating if you think you see nipples!  Also, the film is notable for mocking racism, when black "savages" turn out to be civilized hotel staff.

Design for Living

Design for Living
Dec. 29, 1933
Paramount
Comedy, Romance
DVD
B

"Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day."  So says stodgy Max Plunkett, played by the incomparable Edward Everett Horton.  But the threesome of Miriam Hopkins as Gilda (soft G), Fredric March as Tom, and, yes, Gary Cooper as George would disagree.  Something happens to Gilda that "usually happens to men."  She's fallen in love with more than one man.  She's a "nice" girl but she doesn't want to have to choose between them.  So they make a "gentleman's agreement" to swear off sex.  (This isn't quite the first movie I own to mention the word "sex," since there's a line in an International House song with "sex appeal," but the word and the idea are definitely more central here.)  Unfortunately, Gilda is no gentleman.  She becomes involved with first George and then Tom, and when forced to choose, ends up marrying Max.  She now has her feet on the ground, but she's bored out of her mind.  Until her two exes return for a surprisingly happy ending.

This is very much a pre-Code movie.  In fact, its certificate of approval was withdrawn the next year.  There's nothing crude or smutty about the film, but it has the Lubitsch touch of suggestiveness, mixed with the Ben Hecht sharp wit.  (All they took from Noel Coward was the general situation and one line.)  In the first scene, we're on a French train, and it seems the three passengers are French, until Gilda breaks into a very American "Oh, nuts!" of frustration at trying to communicate.  She's a commercial artist, while George is a fine artist, and Tom a playwright.  She's a very modern woman, and I don't entirely mind when she says that their work is more important than hers, because she's a very opinionated Muse and manager.  She may or may not be a virgin when she meets them, but when Max later "forgives" her for her past, she thinks there's nothing to forgive.  And she's right.

Hopkins has wonderful chemistry with both March and Cooper,who are great together as well.  (In the play, it was clear the men were bisexual, while here they've been best friends and roommates for eleven years.)  It is funny to see "bohemians" in suits and ties, but their tuxes when they're successful make the class differences clearer.  And Hopkins moves from businesswoman frocks to elegant gowns, particularly when she's a bored rich wife.

Edward Everett Horton might have been gay in real life, and he tends to play asexual characters.  Pangborn, in a briefer role than in International House, comes across as more obviously effeminate than Horton, underscored when Gilda tells him he'll like Goodnight, Bassington by Tom, because "it's a woman's play."  William Worthington, who plays a Theatre Patron here, was the Minister of Finance in Duck Soup.

I was tempted to give this movie a B+, but it is a bit slow-moving, which I attribute more to Lubitsch than Hecht, considering how fast-paced His Girl Friday (1940) is.  It's well worth your patience though, with its fine performances, writing, and direction.

Little Women (1933)

Little Women
Nov. 24, 1933
RKO
Drama, Comedy, Historical
VHS
B-

While this is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the classic children's novel (http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/02/little-women.html), I have to say that having watched it twice in the last couple months, it feels incomplete.  The problem is that it's too much of a Katharine Hepburn vehicle.  Yes, she's well cast as Jo and does a great job, and yes, the book is more about Jo than the other three sisters.  Nonetheless, I think there should've been more about the other sisters, especially Amy.  Ironically, when we don't see more sides of her, Beth, and Meg, it actually shortchanges Jo's characterization, because we don't get as much of a sense of what her sisters mean to her.  I was surprised though on this viewing how good Paul Lukas is as Prof. Bhaer, giving what's the most natural performance in the film.

You may wonder why I didn't tag any of the performers besides Nydia Westman, who has a small comic role as a maid.  Well, she's actually the only one I know for a fact I have in another of my movies.  I like Hepburn, but not enough to collect her films.

I'll probably say more about this version of the story when I get up to the Winona Ryder version in 1994.

Duck Soup

Duck Soup
Nov. 17, 1933
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B+

I recently saw this in a crowd of all ages and they laughed uproariously, the kids included.  I've seen it so many times, I think more than Horse Feathers, that I can't rate it higher, but it is still a near-great musical comedy.  Once again, Kalmar & Ruby did the music, and they also wrote the screenplay.  (Sheekman and Perrin did additional dialogue.)  The musical numbers-- "His Excellency Is Due," "The Freedonian National Anthem," "These Are the Laws of My Administration," and of course the war medley-- are fantastic, and the dialogue is generally sharp.  Some of the corniest jokes ("Dollars, Taxes") and some of the cleverest ("I'll hold your seat till you get there.  After you get there, you're on your own") have been quoted for decades, probably not always by people who know the source.  (The line about shorter hours, starting with the lunch hour, has popped up a whole bunch of places.)

The weakest parts are probably those with Edgar Kennedy as the lemonade seller, although I do like the hat mix-up and the way that Chico tells Kennedy that he and Harpo are spies.  It's partly my bias against silent-movie-style humor, but on the other hand, I still delight in the Groucho & Harpo mirror scene.  It seems like they have more to do with each other than usual in this movie, especially with Harpo (who as in Horse Feathers plays a character named Pinky, I think because of his "red" hair) as Groucho's chauffeur, although the tattoo sequence is good, too.

That scene shows how censorship was enforced, but not strictly.  Harpo's doghouse would've been an outhouse, but they couldn't get away with that.  On the other hand, when Groucho wants to see a tattoo of his grandfather, it's pretty clear that Harpo is going to take down his trousers.  Also, later Harpo seems to be about to go to bed with a woman (and the "Wu-Hu!" sound effect from International House seems particularly appropriate to any Sims player), but instead beds down with, of course, a horse.

Oh, and there is a duck in this movie, a duck-shaped music box that Harpo sets off.  Duck Soup means "an easy task," which I guess running the country is for Groucho, and spying is for Harpo and Chico.  Everyone else in the movie, including Zeppo, seems to find their patience tried.  ("You must come over some time and try my patience.")

This is the movie where Groucho references the song "That's Why Darkies Were Born," whose title out of context sounds more racist than it is.  (The Paul Robeson version makes the irony of the lyrics clear.)  I suppose objections could be raised to "All God's Chillun Got Guns" in the war medley, but I take it as cheerful parody of both spirituals and the hypocritical reasons offered for wars fought for "faith."

I do have a problem with the scene where Harpo breaks into the apartment where the woman's about to take a bath.  Usually, when he's chasing women, it seems less menacing than this.  That said, the pay-off, with the woman's husband (the lemonade seller) finding Harpo in his bath is good.

In contrast, this is probably my favorite movie for the Groucho/Dumont relationship.  Yes, he still insults her, but he's actually kind of sweet to her at different points.  I wish that there had been a Marx Brothers movie with both Dumont and Todd, but Raquel Torres does a nice job as Vera Marcal.

Poor Zeppo is back to playing Groucho's secretary.  (Insert the dictator/dictation joke.)  He was happy to retire from acting after this movie, but his elder brothers were far from through.  Except at Paramount.  This movie did poorly at the box office, the Depression audiences looking for something more optimistic in this first year of FDR.  So it was over to MGM, where they'd listen to "genius" Irving Thalberg.  But that tale must wait till 1935....

As easy as duck soup.

International House

International House
May 27, 1933
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B-

Uneven sort-of-parody of Grand Hotel (1932), this has a large cast gathering in Wu-Hu, China, a town so named only so that it can constantly be punned on in dialogue and sound effects.  (I think Paramount recycled this sound in Duck Soup.)  At one point, the "sissy" hotel manager played by Franklin Pangborn yells "Wu-Hu!" at W. C. Fields, who says, "Don't let the posy [in his boutonniere] fool you."  This is a very Pre-Code movie, with Fields's lines in particular impossible to imagine a year or two later.  "Nuts" was specifically mentioned in the Code, yet Fields repeats it at least a half dozen times, meaning "nuts and bolts," and even if "pussy" wasn't officially banned, he refers to a cat as such with great relish.  Peggy Hopkins Joyce (as her then infamous millionaire-marrying self) sits on the cat but doesn't know what she's sitting on.  When she tells Fields she's sitting on something, he replies, "I lost mine in the Stock Market."

And earlier, Gracie Allen sits on a stethoscope and listens to her "heartbeat."  She and George Burns are probably the best thing about this movie, even if they are doing old vaudeville routines, like the one about her father bringing home the wrong baby carriage.  The movie also has Cab Calloway singing "Reefer Man"!  And a bluesy Baby Rose Marie belting one out.  (She was then 9 and is still alive at 90.  Yes, Dick Van Dyke's Rose Marie.)  And Rudy Vallee singing a love song to his megaphone.  And Sterling Holloway dancing.  And Bela Lugosi, a couple years after Dracula, as Joyce's ex-husband.  Plus many people you've never heard of, although I'm tagging Edmund Breese, who plays Dr. Wong, the inventor of a "television device," because he has a small role in Duck Soup.

While I wouldn't describe the movie as non-racist, it is for its time refreshingly not-very-racist, with the Chinese actually coming off better than the Americans and Europeans.  I think the setting was only chosen to lead to that "Wu-Hu" pun.  And, yes, the movie is of scientific interest, with not only a television that can transmit from anywhere in the world, but also Fields's autogyro.

I'm not a big Fields fan, although I do like how he wreaks more havoc in this hotel in his first five minutes than Harpo and Chico did in an hour of The Cocoanuts.  I ended up buying a very cheap DVD package of ten Fields movies, just so I could own this oddity of a film.  So, although in general I'm going to be blogging about movies I've seen at least a few times, I won't swear to it that I'll have seen all of the other nine Fields films before.  But I do own them, so why not blog?

Horse Feathers

Horse Feathers
August 19, 1932
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B+

Why is this so much better than Monkey Business?  After all, it's got the same director, stars, leading lady, and some of the same writers.  (Johnstone, Perelman, and Sheekman, the last appearing uncredited as Typing Sportswriter.)  Yes, it helps that Kalmar & Ruby are doing the music, as they did for Animal Crackers.  We again have a great Groucho-introduction song, this time "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It."  And the song repeated this time, with every Brother giving it at least one rendition, is the marvelous "Everyone Says I Love You."  But the writing is overall stronger, perhaps because the setting of a college is the best yet.

I'm sure this wasn't the first, and it definitely wouldn't be the last, movie to feature college students who look far too old for college.  At least thirty-one-year-old Zeppo has an excuse, since his character has been in one college for twelve years.  Groucho was then forty-one and he's playing Zeppo's father!  Some of the best moments in the movie are Groucho insulting his son, who's "a disgrace to the name of Wagstaff, if such a thing is possible."  At one point, Groucho points to a picture of a horse (guess what part) and is reminded of Zeppo!

Yes, we're still happily living in pre-Code times, most notably with anything to do with Thelma Todd's character of the "college widow."  All the Brothers and the villain flirt (or more) with her, and the movie actually ends with Groucho, Chico, and Harpo pushing the groom, presumably Zeppo, out of the way so they can all marry her!  She's gorgeous in this movie (in one slinky outfit after another) and seems to be having a better time than in Monkey B, especially during Chico's "music lesson," which Groucho tells us we can go to the lobby to avoid.  The bedroom-farcical scene that this is part of is my favorite, although the opening is a close second.  I love how eventually Harpo just walks along the top of the couch and throws ice out the window, as Groucho and Chico put the moves on Thelma.  This scene is choppy, due to age and later censorship (there's a butchered exchange where Thelma says, "Baravelli, you overcome me," and Chico says, "All right, but remember, it was your idea," which you can still catch with the subtitles on), but it's still hilarious.

Meanwhile, there's a class with Professor Robert Greig, a speakeasy, and a whole lot of nonsense, or horse feathers.  That's what the title means, although Zeppo's portrait is part of it, as is Harpo's abiding love for horses (he had a picture of one as his true love in Animal Crackers), and of course the chariot-riding towards the end.

The whole thing of the importance of football on campus would insure that this movie will probably never become fully dated, bootlegging and college widow notwithstanding.  It is very '30s of course, with a "bum" telling Harpo he wants a cup of coffee.  Guess what Harpo pulls out of his magical coat?  And guess what Groucho throws to Thelma when she's drowning?