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 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.

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.