The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) – S. Wood

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Jean Arthur starred in films for Capra, Hawks, and George Stevens, as well as Mitchell Leisen/Preston Sturges, and, for this film, Sam Wood. She’s always a delight.  Wood, however, was an ultra-right-winger who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 – which makes absolutely no sense when it comes to this film which strongly advocates for unions and the rights of workers – in a gentle comedic way.  So much for auteur theory (at least under the studio system).  Jean Arthur wasn’t the only reason we tuned into this one on TCM – it also stars Charles Coburn (who was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but didn’t win).  He’s the wealthiest man in America (or at least New York) who finds that he still owns a Manhattan department store and worse, that the workers are agitating for their rights, including by hanging a dummy of Coburn in effigy.  However, Coburn is a man who values his privacy, so no one really knows what he looks like.  This allows him to go undercover as a shoe salesman to try to identify the rabble rousers on his staff with the intention to fire them. Instead, he makes friends with Jean Arthur (also in the shoe department) and her boyfriend Robert Cummings (the main union organizer) and Spring Byington (who becomes his love interest).  Although not really laugh out-loud funny, Coburn’s reactions to the situations he finds himself in (while pretending not to be himself) are always amusing and the film has plenty of charm and a message we shouldn’t forget. Escapist fare for challenging times.

 

Ball of Fire (1941)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Ball of Fire (1941) – H. Hawks

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found Gary Cooper to be a bit stiff – he isn’t my favourite lead actor from the period.  But in this picture he plays a naïve and rather wooden English Professor, so perhaps he’s apt – but his portrayal does slow down the pace of what is designed to be a screwball comedy.  In contrast, Barbara Stanwyck is wondrous (she was nominated for an Oscar, as was Billy Wilder for writing the screenplay) as the trashy nightclub singer who Cooper wants to study to collect slang for the encyclopedia he is writing with seven other professors.  She comes to live with them (á la Snow White), mostly to hide from the cops who are seeking her to testify as a witness against her gangster boyfriend (Dana Andrews).  However, because wives can’t testify against their husbands, said boyfriend is suddenly ready for marriage – but, you know, in screwball comedy, you can’t quite predict who will marry who!  The seven character actors playing the professors are fun, but director Howard Hawks has produced other screwballs with more laughs (and chaos) than this one.

 

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941) – Y. Ozu

The surprising thing about “Toda Family” is just how much it foreshadows Ozu’s later themes and his greatest masterpieces.  For example, the plot here depicts how a grandmother and her youngest daughter are passed from the various households of her adult children when the patriarch/grandfather has died.  None of them treat their own mother/mother-in-law with respect and she ends up living in the family’s dilapidated villa near the seaside.  Shades of Tokyo Story, right?  But although the plot feels so Ozu-like, his style has not fully congealed into what we are familiar with in his classic films of the late forties and fifties.  Yes, the camera is often seated on the tatami mat with us and people speak directly into the camera in shot-countershot patterns.  Also, Ozu’s still life shots that punctuate scenes showing nearby vistas or that show a room or hallway before or after a character enters/departs are already here (and often beautiful).  But the settings and the milieu are the dwellings of the rich (not Ozu’s usual middle class group) and the camera occasionally presents things in un-Ozu-like fashion (it is hard to explain but you will know, if you know Ozu).  Moreover, as David Bordwell has pointed out, Ozu seems to have more patriotic fervour (this is 1941) than we expect of him – the “good son” (who first seems like a neglectful rogue), played by Shin Saburi, moves to China and declares how good it is and how you can do whatever you want.  He also scolds his bourgeois brothers and sisters for their failure to work and contribute to society.  Bordwell suggests that Ozu was just trying to get along in a film industry and society dominated by censorship at the time (much as Mizoguchi did with his jidai-geki films) but it feels a little unsettling.  Ozu would find his groove after the war and reach the highest echelons of film-making.

They Died With Their Boots On (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆

They Died With Their Boots On (1941) – R. Walsh

Errol Flynn stars as George Armstrong Custer.  The film depicts a highly fictionalised version of his life from his first days as a cadet at West Point, through his Civil War heroics (on the Union side), to his time at Fort Lincoln in the Dakota Country, and finally his death at the Battle of Little Big Horn.  Raoul Walsh directs the action sequences with a certain amount of panache (lots of extras on horseback) but the film feels overlong and Olivia De Havilland has little to do as Custer’s wife (this was her 8^th and last pairing with Flynn).  As you might expect for this era (1940s), the film has a definite racist streak, particularly when it comes to portraying Native Americans; Anthony Quinn plays Crazy Horse but there are some actual Sioux men who were brought out to Hollywood to serve as extras. Hattie McDaniel also plays a maid who is superstitious in a few scenes to offer some “comic relief”.  Interestingly, Flynn portrays Custer as a bit of a delinquent who nonetheless is able to lead men in battle; his casting doesn’t quite seem right (he belongs in less weighty swashbucklers).  Speaking of unusual casting, Sydney Greenstreet appears as a Union General, with only his mutton chops and uniform differentiating this performance from The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca.  Jarring.  Arthur Kennedy is solid as the main villain.  However, you really should look elsewhere if you want to see Flynn at his best (e.g., The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938).   

  

Hold That Ghost (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆

Hold That Ghost (1941) – A. Lubin

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are a pair of gas station attendants who accidentally find themselves the last people with a notorious gangster when he is killed in a shoot-out with the police and, surprisingly, become the beneficiaries of his will.  They inherit a seemingly haunted roadside tavern.  Trapped there with several other people (including comedienne Joan Davis) they find trouble and eventually treasure.  This story is book-ended by scenes in a nightclub with The Andrews Sisters (who also appeared in Abbott and Costello’s first film) and bandleader Ted Lewis.  These scenes seem tacked on to add a variety element to the picture, not all that uncommon during the forties. Bud and Lou are in fine form, hilariously and ridiculously bumbling through every scene and situation.  The plot is just an excuse for their routines and antics.  But this isn’t Bergman and it’s all easily forgotten a few hours later. 

  

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) – E. Cline

Is it funny?  Or is it just bizarre?  Or is it funny because it is just plain bizarre?  If you walked into this film without knowing anything about W. C. Fields, how would you make sense of it?  Here we find Fields on the “Esoteric Films” lot, playing himself and pitching his next film project to a producer (played by Franklin Pangborn, also playing a version of himself).  So, we see what Fields does in Hollywood (e.g., he stands under a billboard for “The Bank Dick” trying to attract compliments, he eats at a greasy spoon) and we get to see a re-enactment of the script that he describes (which finds him chaperoning his niece, Gloria Jean, to Mexico but falling out of a plane and landing on top of a mountain owned by Margaret Dumont).  There isn’t really a plot to speak of but instead a series of set-ups that allows Fields to mumble his usual snide asides under his breath, to sneak a few drinks, to try to achieve maximum advantage for himself with minimum effort, to drive like a maniac, and so on.  In other words, this is the same Fields that audiences had grown to know and love.  Pure ridiculousness and with some very odd musical numbers (by young teen Gloria Jean) thrown in.  In some ways, the film is all reaction shots – odd things happen and everyone reacts - -with the chief one being the final word from Gloria: “My Uncle Bill….But I Still Love Him!”  This turned out to be Fields’ final picture as a star and despite his cantankerous, subversive, persona (or because of it), he remains one.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) – A. Hall

Agreeable fantasy (later remade with Warren Beatty) that sees boxer Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth) mistakenly claimed for Heaven by Edward Everett Horton before his time.  So, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) promises to find him a replacement body and eventually deposits him inside a millionaire who has just been murdered by his wife and secretary.  Montgomery resists at first but when he sees the injustices fostered by the millionaire and falls in love with the daughter of one of his victims, he decides to stay in the body (despite wishing to fight for the world championship anyway).  Not exactly a laugh riot but genial and with some good performances (particularly by James Gleason as Montgomery’s manager in the ring).  Rains has not much to do but he is always a pleasure to watch.  Montgomery’s loutish New York mugging was a bit difficult for me to take but probably engaged the audiences of the time.  Also the idea that our fates are predestined didn’t quite jell with the notion that Montgomery has some control over the road he is on, but ah well.  Above average.

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

☆ ☆ ☆

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) – W. S. Van Dyke

Two years later, Nick and Nora Charles are back in the third sequel to The Thin Man (1934), originally based on stories by Dashiell Hammett (but no longer).  Their son, Nick Jr., is about 4 or 5 years old but fortunately he is restricted to the first few minutes of the film.  I must say that Myrna Loy really is proving to be William Powell’s equal in her sly bumbling way (helping to solve the crimes) and her way with a “knowing look” is superb. This time they are charged with breaking a gambling syndicate after a jockey’s death.  Powell really does round up the suspects and have them in Detective Sam Levene’s office at the end of the picture for the final “reveal” – which I didn’t see coming.  But should I have?   For those who wish to indulge in the lighter side of comedy-mystery.