Holiday Inn (1942)

Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby) and Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), along with Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale), are a successful song-and-dance act, but Jim has had just about enough of the showbiz lifestyle.  He plans to do one last performance on Christmas Eve, then marry Lila, move to a farm in Connecticut, and enjoy a more leisurely life.  However, Lila has other plans.  She’s fallen in love with Ted and wants to keep performing with him, so Jim retires to that Connecticut farm by himself.  But Jim quickly realizes that living on a farm takes a lot more work than he anticipated and Jim winds up having to spend some time resting in a sanitarium.

Going to a sanitarium wasn’t all bad, though.  Being there gave Jim time to think and he came up with the idea of turning his farm into an inn that is only open on holidays.  Ted and Danny (Walter Abel), Jim’s manager, aren’t too keen on the idea, but when Danny runs into aspiring dancer Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), he tells her to get in touch with Jim.  When she arrives at Jim’s farm on Christmas day, she and Jim have an instant rapport and he hires her to perform at the inn’s opening night on New Year’s Eve.

Opening night is a big success, but just before the stroke of midnight, an unexpected guest arrives — Ted.  Lila had just left Ted and now Ted’s very drunk and looking to talk to Jim.  But before he can find Jim, he winds up dancing with Linda and the two of them are the hit of the night.  The next morning, Jim can’t remember who he danced with, but he knows that she’s his dream dance partner and sets out on a mission to find her again.  Not wanting Linda to run off with Ted the way Lila had, Jim proposes to Linda and tries anything to stop Ted from finding her.  But Ted finally figures out the truth on Valentine’s Day and wants to start performing with her at the inn.

Ted continues trying to woo Linda, but Linda stays faithful to Jim.  But when Jim finds out that some Hollywood agents will be coming to the inn to see Jim and Linda perform, Jim fixes it so that she misses the performance and Ted has to perform alone.  After Linda finally does make it to the inn, she finds out what Jim has done and is hurt that Jim doesn’t trust her.  She heads off to Hollywood with Ted to star in a movie based on the story of the Holiday Inn while Jim stays in Connecticut, following their romance through movie fan magazines.  Ted is completely lost without Linda, and with some encouragement from his housekeeper Mamie (Louise Beavers), flies to Hollywood on Christmas Eve to make one last attempt to win Linda back.

Holiday Inn is definitely one of my essential Christmastime movies.  I love Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby together and all those wonderful Irving Berlin songs are the icing on the cake.  Even though I think the character of Ted is a bit of a jerk, leave it to Fred Astaire to play him with enough charm to still be likeable.  Of course, Holiday Inn is best remembered for introducing the song “White Christmas,” which went on to become one of the most successful singles of all time.  As memorable as Bing’s songs are, I absolutely adore some of Fred’s dance numbers such as the firecracker dance and the drunken New Years Eve dance.

Even though Holiday Inn is generally thought of as being a Christmas movie, it covers so many different holidays that you could probably watch it any time of year and not feel completely out of season.  It’s an absolutely delightful movie.  The only thing stopping me from saying, “What’s not to like?” about it is that unfortunate “Abraham” musical number featuring Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds in blackface.

Adam Had Four Sons (1941)

Things couldn’t be better for Adam (Warner Baxter) and Molly (Fay Wray) Stoddard at the turn of the 20th century.  Adam’s business is doing well, they have a beautiful home, and they have four wonderful sons: Jack (Richard Denning), David (Johnny Downs), Chris (Robert Shaw), and Phillip (Charles Lind).  They hire Emilie Gallatin (Ingrid Bergman) to be the boys’ governess and she quickly becomes one of the family.  Times get tough for the Stoddards, though, after Molly dies and Adam loses all his money in a stock market crash.  Unable to keep the family home, he has to send Emilie back home to France, but promises to send for her as soon as he gets the house back.

Seven years later, Adam’s luck has finally turned around and he buys the house back and sends for Emilie.  When Emilie returns, she comes back to find all four boys are now grown up and have all gone into the military and David has some news that surprises the entire family — he’s gotten married.  His new bride Hester (Susan Hayward) puts up a front of being a nice woman, but she really has her sights set on the Stoddard’s fortune and isn’t happy to have Emilie standing in her way.

David gets called to fight in World War I, and while he’s gone, Hester lives with Adam and Emilie.  When Jack comes home for a while, Hester seduces him.  Adam nearly catches them together, but Emilie knows whats happening, so she pretends it was her with Jack.  Adam is shocked and Jack doesn’t want Emilie to be stuck in that awful position, but she knows the truth would only hurt Adam.  But as Hester’s actions continue to tear the family apart, Jack realizes he must tell the truth.

Adam Had Four Sons is an enjoyable, but not great, little drama.  However, if you’re a big fan of Ingrid Bergman or Susan Hayward, this is one you’d definitely be interested in seeing.  Warner Baxter and Fay Wray were no strangers to film audiences in 1941, but Ingrid and Susan were very new to the game at the time.  Adam was only Ingrid Bergman’s second American film and Susan Hayward only had a few credited roles under her belt, but both of them show serious star quality here.  The two of them absolutely steal the movie and are far more memorable than their more experienced co-stars.

East Side, West Side (1949)

Brandon (James Mason) and Jessie Bourne (Barbara Stanwyck) are a very happily married couple and part of Manhattan’s elite.  Things weren’t always so happy for them, though.  Brandon has a history of infidelity, but Jessie is the only woman he loves and he’s determined to leave the past behind.  All is going well for them until one night, he visits a nightclub and finds out Isabel Lorrison (Ava Gardner), his former girlfriend, is back in town.  She wants to pick things up with him again and Brandon fights hard to resist her advances.

While at the club, Brandon ends up getting into a fight with Isabel’s date for the night.  Rosa Senta (Cyd Charisse) witnesses the fight and tries to help Brandon since she respects Jessie and doesn’t want to see the incident splashed across the society page.  Sure enough, though, the story makes the paper and some of Jessie’s friends are worried about what Isabel’s return could mean for their marriage.  Jessie goes to meet Rosa to thank her for helping Brandon and gives her a ride to the airport so she can pick up her boyfriend Mark Dwyer (Van Heflin).

It just so happens that Mark is the guest of honor at a party being thrown by some of Jessie and Brandon’s friends.  But just before the party, Isabel convinces Brandon to come see her at her apartment.  Although he has every intention of ending things with her once and for all, he ends up staying so long that Jessie has to go to the party alone.  But while at the party, she gets to know Mark some more and he begins to fall in love with her.

The next day, Jessie gets a call from Isabel and goes to her apartment to confront her.  Isabel swears up and down that she’s the one he really wants, and Jessie begins to worry she might be right, but then she gets a call from Brandon telling her that Isabel has been murdered.  Naturally, Brandon gets brought in for questioning, and even though he’s cleared in the matter, the incident forces Jessie to make up her mind whether or not she wants to stay with Brandon.

I was surprised that East Side, West Side got pretty mediocre reviews on my cable guide and the TCM website, because I really enjoyed it.  If it had been made with a lesser cast, I don’t think I would have been nearly as good, but everybody was completely on point here it absolutely made the movie.  I loved Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin together.  Ava Gardner was one deliciously conniving other woman; she truly revels in making you hate Isabel.  Even Cyd Charisse was good, which might be surprising to a lot of people since this isn’t a musical.

My only complaint was that I was getting bored during the scenes where Van Heflin puts on his detective hat to figure out who killed Isabel.  Those scenes didn’t seem to fit in very well with the rest of the movie.  It was almost like they came out of some other movie.  First it was a drama about marriage, then all of a sudden it turned into a murder mystery, and then it went right back to being a drama again.

But that issue aside, I was very surprised by just how good East Side, West Side was.  Definitely keep an eye out for this one, I don’t think it really gets the credit it deserves.

Along Came Jones (1945)

When Melody Jones (Gary Cooper) and his friend George Fury (William Demarest) ride into the town of Payneville, Melody is confused and kind of amused when everyone in town seems to be afraid of him.  Melody’s a completely harmless guy, so imagine his surprise when Cherry de Longpre (Loretta Young) informs him there’s a gun pointed at him.  She takes Melody and George back to her ranch and along the way, she explains that everyone Payneville thinks Melody is notorious outlaw Monte Jarrad (Dan Duryea).  Melody and Monte really don’t look alike, but they do have the same initials and share some of the vague characteristics listed on Motne’s wanted poster.

Cherry urges Melody and George to get out of Payneville right away, and naturally, they take her advice.  But once they get a little bit out of town, they realize their departure would be a perfect diversion for the real criminal to escape, so they go back to Cherry’s ranch to see what’s going on.  It turns out Cherry and Monte had been friends when they were children, and even though she doesn’t like what he’s turned into, she still feels obligated to take care of him and has been hiding him in her barn.  To protect Melody, Cherry lets him stay at her ranch for the night.

The next day, Cherry convinces Melody to take Monte’s saddle so he can distract the posse chasing Monte and Monte can get away.  But when Melody goes to town posing as Monte, Melody gets into some trouble and has to be saved by Cherry.  But there’s one thing that Monte left behind and that’s some of the money he stole.  Even more problems arise for Melody and Cherry when other people come to claim it — including Monte himself.

I really wasn’t a big fan of Along Came Jones.  It was nice to see Gary Cooper having some fun with the Western genre, but it isn’t a particularly well written movie.  The basic premise of the movie had potential, but it wasn’t executed as well as it could have been.  If you’re looking for a fun Western, definitely go with something like Destry Rides Again or Cat Ballou instead.

Johnny Apollo (1940)

Bob Cain (Tyrone Power) and his father Robert Cain, Sr. (Edward Arnold) had been very close for a long time, but when Robert is sent to jail for embezzlement, Bob is very deeply hurt.  Not so much by the jail sentence, but because he thought his father was above doing such things.  Not wanting to be an outcast at school, Bob drops out and starts looking for a job.  But being the son of a notorious embezzler makes it impossible for Bob to find work.  When Bob finds out that Mickey Dwyer (Lloyd Nolan), a far more dangerous criminal than his father, is granted parole, Bob has a change of heart and wants to get Robert out on parole.

Bob tries talking to Robert’s former attorney, but he isn’t willing to help get Robert out of jail.  He then goes to see Dwyer’s attorney Emmet T. Brennan (Charley Grapewin), who tells him he could get Robert paroled, but it would be expensive.  To get the money he needs, Bob does a little work for Dwyer.  Dwyer likes Bob and decides to have him join his gang.  Bob adopts the name Johnny Apollo and becomes Dwyer’s right hand man.  Meanwhile, Robert is taking his prison sentence very well and has become a model prisoner.  When Robert finds out Bob has been working with Dwyer, he denies even having a son.

Before too long, the law catches up with Bob and Dwyer and money isn’t going to get them out of it.  Although she’s Dwyer’s girlfriend, “Lucky” Dubarry (Dorothy Lamour) likes Bob more and convinces Brennan to come up with a plan to send Dwyer up the river while getting Bob off the hook. When Dwyer finds out what’s going on, he kills Brennan and both he and Bob wind up with prison sentences.  The two of them have an escape plan in mind before they even get to their cells, but Lucky doesn’t want to see Bob throw his life away by sticking with Dwyer.  She goes to see Robert and tells him about their escape plan, hoping Robert can talk some sense into his son.

If you’re looking for a good gangster movie but maybe want something different from The Public Enemy or Little Caesar,  Johnny Apollo might be just what you’re looking for.  Tyrone Power doesn’t have the menacing presence of James Cagney, but he was good at playing the young, disillusioned type.  Until now, I only knew Dorothy Lamour from the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” movies, but I think I like her more as a hardened gangsters moll than I did in the “Road” movies.  Edward Arnold and Lloyd Nolan bring a lot of life to the supporting cast.  Johnny Apollo doesn’t have the grit and action of the 1930s Warner Brothers gangster movies, it’s much more polished than those, but I do think it’s a rather underrated gangster flick.

Cover Girl (1944)

While working as a dancer in a nightclub, Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) hears about a contest being run by Vanity magazine to find a new face for their big fiftieth anniversary issue.  She goes to audition for Cornelia Jackson (Eve Arden), who isn’t impressed by her, but she does catch the eye of publisher John Coudair (Otto Kruger).  Cordelia doesn’t know what he sees in her, but it turns out Rusty is a dead ringer for a woman he had been in love with forty years earlier named Maribelle Hicks. When he finds out that Rusty is Mirabelle’s granddaughter, she wins the magazine cover.

When her magazine cover hits the newsstands, Rusty becomes a local celebrity.  Her boyfriend Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly), who also owns the nightclub she dances at, is glad to see Rusty’s dreams coming true, but he wishes she were becoming famous as a dancer instead of being just a pretty face.  He’s also afraid her newfound success will drive her away from him.  Thanks to Rusty, Danny’s nightclub suddenly becomes the hot place to be and one person who comes to see her is Noel Wheaton (Lee Bowman), the owner of a theater on Broadway.  He wants to put her in a show, but she doesn’t want to leave Danny’s club.

Noel and Coudair won’t to take “no” for an answer and keep trying to get Rusty to come to Broadway, which continues to drive a wedge between Rusty and Danny.  Eventually, Danny decides the best thing he can do for Rusty is let her go.  She finally goes off to Broadway and becomes a big star while Danny and his best friend Genius (Phil Silvers) close up the nightclub and head off to entertain the troops.  Before too long, Noel proposes to Rusty and although she doesn’t love him, she reluctantly accepts since Danny is gone.  When Danny hears about her engagement, he decides to make one last attempt to win her back.

Cover Girl is the best musical MGM never made.  It’s got Gene Kelly, great Gershwin songs, nice bright Technicolor, and is just pure, exuberant fun.  This is one of those movies I can put on when I’m having a bad day and it will never fail to cheer me up.

Cover Girl came pretty early in Gene Kelly’s career and I think it’s one of his more underrated films.  I’ve always been a huge fan of the “Alter Ego” dance scene where Gene dances with himself.  It’s too bad this was the only movie Gene made with Rita Hayworth; I really would have liked to have seen them together again.  What’s really remarkable about Cover Girl is that even though Gene had been only been making movies for two years, he was given a lot of creative control over it.  Maybe that’s part of the reason why I have a tendency to forget it was made at Columbia, not MGM.

City for Conquest (1940)

Danny Kenny (James Cagney) isn’t a man with big dreams.  He likes working as a truck driver, he’s got his girlfriend Peggy (Ann Sheridan), he’s got a roof over his head, what more could he want?  Well, he could use some extra cash so that he can send his musician brother Eddie (Arthur Kennedy) to music school.  To get the money he needs, he starts participating in boxing matches.  He’s a great boxer, but he doesn’t want to make a career out of it.

Peggy, on the other hand, has loftier ambitions.  She loves to dance, and when she meets fellow dancer Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn), it’s immediately clear that they make great dancing partners.  They keep entering and winning dance contests around New York, and when they have the chance to get into the vaudeville circuit, she can’t resist the opportunity and leaves Danny behind.  Danny decides to make something of his life and starts pursuing boxing more seriously in the hopes of winning Peggy back.

Danny fights his way to the top, and when he’s in the same town for a fight as Peggy is for a show, he goes to see her.  She still loves him and they decide to get married as soon as her tour is over.  But when she gets another big opportunity, she’s in a position where she just can’t say no.  Danny becomes even more determined to win her back, and when he’s fighting for a championship title, he refuses to give up, even when his opponent puts rosin on his boxing gloves and blinds Danny by rubbing the rosin in his eyes.

City for Conquest is exactly the type of movie you think of when you think of Warner Brothers.  It’s tough and gritty, it’s got James Cagney in top form, and it’s even got some songs you’ll recognize from other classic Warner Brothers hits such as 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933.  Anthony Quinn was perfectly slimy as Murray and it was really interesting to see Elia Kazan in one of his few acting roles.  It’s not the same caliber as The Public Enemy or Angels With Dirty Faces, but it is pretty enjoyable.

For my money though, Ann Sheridan was a big scene stealer.  She did such a good job as Peggy, especially in the scene where she comes back to her hotel room and finds Murray and their manager waiting to tell her about their new big deal.  It’s easy to see Peggy as nothing more than an ambitious woman, but I think she’s more complex than that.  Peggy’s got a dream and when she and Murray started to make it, of course she got stars in her eyes and gladly said yes to anything that she thought would make it happen.  But then she found out the man she trusted to help her is a controlling, abusive monster.  She wanted to get away from him but was deeply conflicted between wanting to leave him and not wanting to give up on her dream.  And then when she finally does get away from him, she ends up broke because she made the mistake of letting Murray control all the money.  They could have done an alternate version of this movie told from Peggy’s perspective and it could have been pretty interesting.

The Hucksters (1947)

After coming home from World War II, Vic Norman (Clark Gable) wants to get back into the advertising business.  When he lands an interview with Mr. Kimberly (Adolphe Menjou) at Kimberly Advertising Agency, their meeting is interrupted by Evan Llewellyn Evans (Sidney Greenstreet), the very demanding head of Beautee Soap, their biggest client.  Evans wants them to get socialite Kay Dorrance (Deborah Kerr) for a new ad campaign and Vic volunteers to talk to her into it.  When he arrives at her apartment, the two of them hit it off and he has no problem getting her to agree.  On the day of the photo shoot, Kay is unhappy with the negligee she is asked to wear and Vic stands up for her and gets them to photograph her with her children wearing a respectable evening gown. Evans isn’t happy when he finds out Vic disregarded their idea, but when he hears a radio spot produced by Vic, he’s won over.

Vic continues to see Kay and he wants to take her to The Blue Penguin Inn, a place in Connecticut he liked to visit before going to fight in the war.  But when he gets there, he finds out the place has gone downhill while he was away.  When Kay arrives, she doesn’t see Vic, but she finds out they would be staying in adjoining rooms and gets the wrong idea and leaves.  Vic is heartbroken, but his weekend is soon interrupted when Evans wants to have a Sunday meeting.  He wants Beautee Soap to have a radio show starring comedian Buddy Hare (Keenan Wynn), so he sends Vic out on the next train to Hollywood to sign a deal with him and get started working on the show.

On the train, Vic runs into his former girlfriend Jean Ogilvie (Ava Gardner).  It’s a good thing they’re still friendly with each other, because Jean is able to help Vic talk to Buddy’s agent David Lash (Edward Arnold) and he gets Buddy to do the show for a good price.  While working on the show in Hollywood, Vic and Jean rekindle their relationship, but Jean can see that Vic still loves Kay.  By then, Kay has come around and Vic finds her waiting for him one night.  Vic proposes and he becomes focused on being the best provider he can be.

Vic is determined to be the best provider he can be for Kay and her children, so when it turns out there’s a problem with Buddy’s contract, he resorts to doing some pretty awful things to get Lash to fix it.  But Vic honestly likes Lash and immediately feels awful about it.  He hates what the advertising business has done to him and decides to tell Evans off and leave while he still has his dignity.

The Hucksters has a lot going for it, but it could have been a stronger movie overall.  Clark Gable was very good in it and Deborah Kerr wasn’t bad, either.  This was Kerr’s first American film, so it’s too bad she didn’t really have very much to do in it.  Even though I liked them both separately, I wasn’t really sold on Gable and Kerr together.  I thought he had much more chemistry with Ava Gardner.  The supporting cast was excellent, particularly Sidney Greenstreet (who was so perfect for that role), Adolphe Menjou, and Keenan Wynn.

The Hucksters is just under two hours long, but I felt like it could have been a little bit shorter.  It also seemed like it should have packed more of a punch, but it didn’t quite get there.  The Hucksters was based on a 1946 novel by Frederic Wakeman, which from what I’ve heard, was pretty scandalous.  Clark Gable himself called the book filthy, so I can imagine the movie was a pretty heavily sanitized adaptation.  Maybe the novel has more of the impact I felt like the movie should have had.

Primrose Path (1940)

Ellie May Adams (Ginger Rogers) is hardly living the high life.  She lives in a run-down house with her prostitute mother Mamie (Marjorie Rambeau), her former-prostitute grandmother (Queenie Vassar), her alcoholic scholar father Homer (Miles Mander), and her younger sister Honeybell (Joan Carroll).  Her father can’t hold a job so it’s up to her mother to support the family.  It’s not the best situation, but her parents love her very much and her father wants her to have something better out of life.

While on the way to the beach one day, Ellie May gets a ride with Gramp (Henry Travers), who runs a gas station and restaurant.  Ellie doesn’t have any money for lunch, so Gramp lets her have a sandwich.  While at the restaurant, Ellie meets Ed Wallace (Joel McCrea), a quick-witted waiter.  Sparks begin to fly when Ed realizes  that Ellie has no problem keeping up with his wisecracks.  Ed offers Ellie a ride home and kisses her along the way.  After that, Ellie can’t get Ed out of her head.  She goes out to see him one night, and to avoid bringing him home to meet her family, she tells him that her parents threw her out for being in love with him.

Ellie and Ed get married and wait tables in Gramp’s restaurant together.  All is going well until Mamie comes by the gas station one day with one of her “dates.”  When she gets upset over a customer’s comment about her mother, she doesn’t give the Ed the real story about why she’s upset.  Ed decides he’d like to finally meet her family, but when she takes him to their house, he quickly realizes just how many lies Ellie has told him and leaves her.  Things get even worse later that night when Homer shoots Mamie by mistake.  She doesn’t survive, leaving Ellie to support the family.  Unable to get a job on her own, she has to take her grandmother’s advice and turn to prostitution.  While out on a “date” with “Mr. Smith” (Charles Lane, uncredited), she not-so-accidentally runs into Ed to confront him.  After she leaves, “Mr. Smith” has a few words with Ed and lets him in on what’s really going on with her.

Primrose Path was a pretty darn good drama.  The writing is good, the direction by Gregory La Cava is good, and Ginger Rogers and Joel McCrea are both excellent in it.  It was definitely interesting to see Rogers in such an un-glamorous role for a change.  The supporting cast is wonderful, Marjorie Rambeau absolutely deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

The most surprising thing about Primrose Path is that it somehow got made with the production codes being enforced at the time.  The word “prostitute” is never actually used, but the movie isn’t subtle at all about it.  Not only is prostitution central to the storyline, but Mamie is a very sympathetic character.

All in all, it’s a very enjoyable movie.  Definitely keep an eye out for this one.

Thunder Rock (1942)

When his employer realizes that lighthouse keeper David Charleston (Michael Redgrave) hasn’t been cashing his paychecks, an inspector and David’s friend Streeter (James Mason) take a trip out to Thunder Rock on Lake Michigan to check on him.  Living and working on Thunder Rock is not easy; it’s a very lonely job.  David seems to like the isolation, though.  He has no need for money, he doesn’t read books to keep himself busy like other lighthouse keepers do, and he doesn’t even want to take his mandatory leave.  Streeter worries about David spending so much time alone, especially after David tells him he’s been seeing ghosts.

Ninety years earlier, there had been a shipwreck that claimed the lives of several immigrants from Europe.  When David read about it in the lighthouse records, he became haunted by these people.  He sees their ghosts, but the only one that realizes he is dead is Captain Joshua Stuart (Finlay Currie).  As he learns more about the pasts of these people, he realizes that each of them had come to America to run away from something.

David himself was running away from something when he came to Thunder Rock.  He had been a journalist in Europe, but after being censored for writing against fascism, he left his newspaper job to give lectures and write books to warn everyone about the rise of fascism.  But after being worn down by an apathetic public, he decides to get away from it all, leaves Europe, and becomes a lighthouse keeper.  When David tries to tell the ghosts that they shouldn’t have given up their fights so soon, even they see the hypocrisy of that sentiment.  But with their help, David realizes he needs to get back out into the world and keep spreading his message.

I’d say Thunder Rock was good, but not great.  Michael Redgrave was excellent and I loved the atmosphere of the movie, but I was a little disappointed by how little James Mason was in it.  In fact, if I had known how little James Mason was in it, I probably would have chosen another movie to write about for today.  When I read the synopsis, I was expecting something along the lines of The Uninvited or The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, but Thunder Rock isn’t as strong as either of those.  Some might find the anti-fascism message pretty heavy-handed, but you have to keep in mind that it was made in England in 1942, so it is very much a product of its time.   Although not a great movie, it would be a good one to watch on a rainy day.