Rollerball (1975)

What do you get when you combine roller derby, motocross, and basketball?  You get rollerball, and in the year 2018, it’s all the rage.  What Babe Ruth was to baseball, Jonathan E. (James Cann) is to rollerball.  It’s a brutal, often deadly, game that Jonathan has managed to be on top of for the past ten years.  To honor Jonathan’s achievements, Bartholomew (John Houseman), head of  the corporation that controls the rollerball team he plays on, announces there will be a television special dedicated to his outstanding career.  There’s just one catch — Bartholomew wants Jonathan to use the special to announce his retirement.

Jonathan has absolutely no intention of retiring and he can’t find out why they want him to retire so badly.  In this society, the whole world is run by corporations and the corporations want to manipulate everybody.  What Jonathan doesn’t know is that rollerball was created by these corporations as a way to show how futile individuality is and Jonathan’s continued success at the game completely defeats its intended purpose.

When Jonathan refuses to announce his retirement on the TV special, the corporations start changing the game to make it more and more dangerous, hoping he will either step down or be killed.  No matter what the corporations throw at him, Jonathan still won’t back down, even when the game becomes extremely deadly.

I didn’t think I would like Rollerball very much, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  It’s an intelligent science fiction/action film, very heavily influenced by George Orwell and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.  The use of music is quite haunting and the action scenes are excellent; James Caan was best in the game scenes.  It could have stood being a little bit shorter, but I’m very glad I decided to check this one out.

The Mind Reader (1933)

Chandra (Warren William) and his friend Frank (Allen Jenkins) have tried their hands at just about every carnival scam there is and haven’t had much luck with any of them.  But then they realize where the real money is — fortune telling.  Chandra becomes Chandra the Great, and while he’s performing, Frank hides under the stage and uses a secret microphone to feed questions from the audience to Chandra. Frank also uses the shows as a chance to steal purses from some of the audience members.

After a show one night, the owner of a stolen purse comes back with her niece Sylvia (Constance Cummings) to look for it.  Chandra is very attracted to Sylvia, so he tries to impress her by pretending to have a “vision” of exactly where the purse is.  Chandra and Sylvia start seeing each other and he swears up and down that he’s really in it to help other people.  Even when he hires her to be his secretary, he manages to keep his real motives hidden from her for a while.  Even when she does start to figure it out, he convinces her the act is really just an advertisement for his ability to help people.

Chandra and Sylvia get married, but he isn’t able to keep up his charade for much longer.  When a person commits suicide after getting some bad advice from Chandra, Sylvia begs him to give it  up and go straight.  He becomes a door-t0-door salesman and Frank becomes a chauffeur, but then the two of them come up with a new scheme.  Frank has the dirt on all the wealthy men in town and knows exactly when they’re cheating on their wives.  Chandra poses as a psychic again, Dr. Munro this time, and sells his services to their wives to tell them when their husbands are with their other women.  It doesn’t take long for the unfaithful husbands to start getting angry with Dr. Munro, and when one comes looking for revenge, Chandra shoots the man in self-defense and flees, inadvertently leaving Sylvia to take the fall for him.

The Mind Reader is a pretty enjoyable Warren William vehicle, but not one of his best from the pre-code era.  Warren William is very good in it and Chandra is very much the unethical heel he is best known for playing, but Chandra has more redeeming qualities than Williams’ characters in things like Employees’ Entrance or Skyscraper Souls.  It’s a rather unusual pre-code, which isn’t a bad thing, but I think I would have liked the movie more if the ending weren’t so forced.

I’ve got to hand it to The Mind Reader, though, for containing what has got to be the most canted angle shots I have ever seen in one movie.  The canted angles represent how crooked Chandra and Frank were, and this movie has more canted angles than an episode of Batman.

All in all, it isn’t a bad movie, but if you’re looking for a definitive pre-code Warren William movie, I’d definitely recommend Skyscraper Souls or Employees’ Entrance over The Mind Reader.

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.

Rose-Marie (1936)

Marie de Flor (Jeanette MacDonald) is one of the most renowned opera singers in the world.  She’s on top of the world, and although she has plenty of wealthy men throwing themselves at her, she doesn’t feel the need to accept any of their advances.  The only man she’s concerned with is her brother John (James Stewart), who is serving a prison sentence.  She’d been hoping he would get out on parole, so when she finds out his request was denied, she decides to wield her influence and hosts a dinner party for the Premier of Quebec.  But on the night of the party, Marie gets a message from Boniface (George Regas), informing her that her brother has escaped and killed a Mounty in the process.

Boniface knows where John is hiding, so he takes Marie out to Lake Shibuga so she can find him.  But once they get to town, Marie stops in the store to buy some clothes and she discovers Boniface has stolen her money.  The shopkeeper tells her to report it to Sergeant Bruce (Nelson Eddy), the new Mounty in town, but she doesn’t want to call attention to herself and decides to try earning some money singing at the local bar instead.  The local drunks just don’t appreciate her operatic style, but she does catch Sergeant Bruce’s attention, who just happened to be in the bar at the time.  He had heard all about her money being stolen, and even though she tries to downplay who she is, he’d recognize her voice anywhere.

Bruce takes Marie to a festival where he knows Boniface will be.  Marie gets her money back and forces Boniface to take her to her brother.  But by the time Bruce figures out that Marie and John must be related, she and Boniface are already on their way so he follows them.  Along the way, Boniface ditches Marie again and Bruce takes care of her.  Alone in the wilderness together, the two of them fall madly in love with each other.  Eventually, Marie makes her way to John, but she doesn’t realize that Bruce had followed her and he arrests John. Marie returns to the stage, absolutely devastated by Bruce’s betrayal.  Soon, the stress of performing becomes too much for her and she takes a vacation in the mountains, where she and Bruce are finally reunited.

Rose-Marie is the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy movie that I’ve seen and it definitely made me want to see some of the others they did together.  The operetta style isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I don’t mind it and I can see why Eddy and MacDonald were such a successful duo.  It’s lighthearted and predictable, but who cares? It’s entertainment for entertainment’s sake.  As long as that’s what you’re in the mood for, it’s a very enjoyable movie.

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.

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)

When their local newspaper begins running excerpts from Caroline Adams’ risqué book “The Sinner,” the town of Lynnfield, Connecticut is scandalized.  The paper’s editor gets lots of complaints from the town’s literary circle, particularly Theodora Lynn (Irene Dunn), her spinster aunts Mary and Elsie (Elizabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade, respectively), and Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington),  who get him to stop running the excerpts.  Theodora is an upstanding member of the community, but what nobody else knows is that Theodora is actually Caroline Adams.

Upset that her hometown paper was allowed to run those excerpts, Theodora takes a trip to New York to visit her publisher Arthur Stevenson (Thurston Hall).  Arthur really wants Theodora to do some publicity for her wildly successful book, but she doesn’t want to shame her family.  While in New York, Theodora is introduced to illustrator Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas), who designed the cover of her book.  Michael is immediately suspects Theodora isn’t the worldly woman you’d expect the author of “The Sinner” to be.  He calls her out on it and, determined to prove him wrong, she gets drunk with him that night.  But when he tries to seduce her, she ends up running from his apartment.

When Theodora heads back to Lynnfield, Michael follows her to see just how tame her life really is.  When her aunts ask who he is, he poses as an out-of-work gardener named Dubarry.  Theodora hires him to take care of their yard, despite her aunts’ objections, and Michael/Dubarry becomes the talk of the town. He and Theodora fall in love with each other, but Michael really believes in her and wants to help her break free of her repressed environment so she can reach her full potential.  Even though their relationship is completely innocent, it still shocks the entire town.  After a while, Michael returns to New York and Theodora follows him.  She finds out that Michael is also stuck in an unhappy situation and the best way she can think of to get him out of it is to let her hair down the way Michael has encouraged her to.

Even though I don’t think Melvyn Douglas was Irene Dunne’s best leading man, Theodora Goes Wild is a lot of fun.  The script is very witty and Dunne is a riot.  Melvyn is great in it, too, but it’s awfully hard to top Cary Grant as my favorite Irene Dunne co-star. I wouldn’t call it one of the all-time great screwball comedies, but it is very enjoyable nonetheless.

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.

Mister Roberts (1955)

Captain Morton (James Cagney) may officially be the captain of the USS Reluctant, but as far as the crew is concerned, Lieutenant Doug Roberts (Henry Fonda) is the man in charge.  Captain Morton is very strict and routinely denies the crew their small rewards over very minor infractions.  Doug, on the other hand, is much kinder and often ignores the Captain’s orders to make the crew’s life more bearable.  However, the USS Reluctant isn’t seeing any of the action of World War II and Doug would much rather be on active duty than be stuck on that boat.  His closest friend Doc (William Powell) tries to reassure him that his being on the ship means the world to the crew, but that doesn’t stop him from requesting a transfer.

In order for Doug to get a transfer, Captain Morton would have to agree to it and Morton knows that he would look bad if Doug were to leave so he refuses to sign his letters.  Captain Morton hasn’t even let the crew have leave in a very long time, so behind the Captain’s back, Doug bribes an official to get the crew granted one night of leave.  When the Captain finds out about it, he threatens to deny the whole crew their leave unless Doug promises to stop undermining him and to stop requesting transfers.  Doug reluctantly agrees, and the crew is mystified to see Doug suddenly playing into the Captain’s hand.

The crew thinks Doug is just gunning to get a promotion and starts giving him the cold shoulder.  But on the night of V-E Day, Doug listens to a speech on the radio that inspires him to stand up to the Captain.  While the Captain confronts Doug in his office, the intercom is accidentally left on and the whole crew finds out the price Doug paid for them to have their leave.  To show their gratitude, the crew decides to get Doug the transfer he wants so badly.  Before he leaves for Okinawa, the crew presents Doug with their own special award and he finally realizes just how much he really meant to everybody.

With Doug off in Okinawa, Frank Pulver (Jack Lemmon) takes over Doug’s old position on the ship. Frank is pretty intimidated by the Captain, so he can’t bring himself to go against the Captain the way Doug used to.  But when the crew gets word that Doug has been killed, Frank finally finds the nerve to stand up to the Captain.

Genre-wise, Mister Roberts is really in a league of its own.  It deals with World War II, but there aren’t any big battle scenes.  It’s got comedy, but it’s not a farce like Dr. Strangelove.  And for all its lighthearted moments, when it was serious, it was very heartfelt and touching.  It’s very hard to combine all of those genres and do all of them well, but Mister Roberts managed to pull it off.

The part of Doug Roberts is such a perfect Henry Fonda role.  He’s that “everyman fighting for what’s right” type of character that Fonda is best remembered for playing.  As good as Fonda is, Jack Lemmon really steals the show at the end of the movie.  His performance in the scene where he reads Doug’s letters aloud to the crew is so genuinely moving.  He’s great in the rest of the movie, too, but boy did he ever hit it out of the park in that scene.

I love everything about Mister Roberts.  I don’t know why on Earth I put off seeing it for such a long time.