Mary of Scotland

Mary of Scotland (John Ford, 1936) The film, written by Dudley Nichols from Maxwell Anderson's play, begins with an odd preamble, giving an overview of the whole Mary, Queen of Scots/Elizabeth R situation, and ending with the hopeful suggestion that they are "all equal now," buried close to each other in Westminster Abbey. Cheery thought, and, despite what the play and movie say, the only time that Elizabeth and Mary were in the same room together.*

It's a problematic film. betraying its stage roots (the speeches are very formal, stylized, and performed theatrically, with no overlap and AT THE TOP OF EVERYBODY'S LUNGS, as if trying to reach the last row of the balcony) although Ford works overtime to find interesting angles to shoot from. So much Hollywood gossip swirls around this film**—part of Hepburn's "box-office poison" cycle (she'd just bombed with Sylvia Scarlett and more were on the way)—that one is hesitant to bring it up as sources for the film's problems, which are many. 

But the main fault lies with Anderson's play, which lionizes Mary (Katherine Hepburn) while demonizing Elizabeth, and the production goes right along with it—Mary's first lines are a prayer to God for returning safely to Scottish shores, while Elizabeth's is ordering people around and played (by Florence Eldridge) as if she were Edward G. Robinson. It would have been nice if this subject were a little more nuanced, as it involves two strong women in positions of power with men as being subjective, if constant irritants. One wishes that the two could have gotten together and agreed that all the men surrounding them were jerks and done something about that, rather than engaging in power plays for England's throne.

But, that's not how history went, and the play plays fast and loose enough with the facts as it is. And this is Mary's movie, to the point where Hepburn is the only cast member with close-ups—jarring close-ups that have the feel of insert shots as the lighting changes dramatically from the establishing shots—Elizabeth is only seen in full shots that emphasize costume over performance.

There are joys to be had, though. Ford's penchant to use unruly horses is much in evidence, and the animals are particularly out of control on the sound-stages that dominate the film. And Frederic March is something of a revelation, boisterous and accented, his is the best performance in the film. And Ford's presentation is never less than spectacular, as has been mentioned, giving the film a scope that it wouldn't have had in other's hands. 

 

A not-altogether successful film, but interesting to see.

The Dawn Patrol (1938)

The Dawn Patrol (Edmund Goulding, 1938) Eight years after the pre-Code Howard Hawks hit starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the same studio released this remake, knowing that taking advantage of sound technology to enhance the story, not only in the roar of engines in combat (they even used the same planes from the Hawks version), but also the fellowship of song (a Hawks staple, by the way--I'm very curious to see how the first film got away without it, with no music and no use of the emblematic "Hurrah for the Next Man Who Dies.") This time, it's Errol Flynn as the pilot with the longest shelf-life, reporting to superior Basil Rathbone (who sits and waits, listening for the sound of each plane returning) aided and abetted by Donald Crisp, who does the paper-work, writing the letters home to bereaved families.

Headquarters is a slap-dash dormitory/strategy room with a 24 hour bar (tended by Barry Fitzgerald)/rumpus room, done in late German atrophy and a blackboard containing the names of the squadron on duty and the chalk-dust that is left of the honored dead. It's a rotating complement of young men dealing with the pressure cooker (with heavy seasoning) of combat and the existentialism of transitory bonhomie. Very quickly, rookies become veterans and the dreams of youth evaporate in the shots of whiskey and the oil grime that cakes their faces after every sortee.

They're all brothers in the air, dueling and jousting in the machines they pilot, and when they fall, there's enough honor to salute the plummeting. These pilots are so joined that when a captured German pilot is brought to the barracks, he's welcomed to the party, even though he's just shot down one of their comrades (David Niven) and if someone holds a grudge, well, that's just bad manners, what?

A little odd for a war film,* but an example of Hawksian work ethics—do your job, be a professional, even in war-time. It's just a grudge-match between nations, anyway, and once everyone's on equal footing—in this case, terra firma—you don't hold a grudge against professionals. One has to prove oneself worthy, of course, but the general rule is to keep the war in the skies, keep your chin up and your upper lip stiff.

It's not a Hawks film, understand, just an interpretation of Hawks material.  And Edmund Goulding is quite adept at making the material soar, both in the skies and on the ground. It's a British cast, so the bantering is quite formal with well-defined rules of engagement. Goulding doesn't match Hawks' trademark at-the-shoulders camera compositions, choosing, instead, a more versatile shooting scheme, which are, at times, artful. But, it is one odd war movie, removed from the geopolitics, insular and private. You get the impression that these guys might be doing this, anyway, if it wasn't for the damned turnaround. But, it is remarkably free of jingoism, glorification and other self-serving sentiments. War is a hell of job, even in the first light of mourning.

* Odd, yes, but not without precedent, especially given the odd episode of the Christmas truce during WWI (a variation of which Steven Spielberg used for an episode in his War Horse film). And, in these economic times, there are parallels: I have friends who work in a call center, who oft-times don't see the escorting off the premises of co-workers, while the "new recruits" keep revolving into the ranks to replace them. I've suggested more than once the idea of a tontine for the "last man standing" from the many cliques that form in such situations.

The Man from Laramie

The Man From Laramie (Anthony Mann, 1955) "Hate's not becoming on a man like you." Hmm. 

 

Then, they shouldn't have put this star and director together again, as hate, obsession and (sometimes) disfigurement were the order of the screenplay. The last of the James Stewart-Anthony Mann pairings (the others being Winchester 73, The Far Country, Bend of the River, and The Naked Spur, all superior disturbing Westerns), The Man from Laramie is a continuation of the director/star collaborations produced in the 1950's that pushed Stewart's psychological boundaries in the Old West by pushing the physical and story boundaries traditional in movies about the Old West, that tended to keep things "White Hat/Black Hat."* 

 

The work of Mann and Stewart tended to smudge the distinctions a bit, making the hats more of a dirty gray, not too far from the morality of men in a new territory, finding their ways and their fortunes.

Stewart's Will Lockhart rolls into the town of Coronado with his small transport business delivering merchandise to the general store.  Along the way, he stops from his day job to indulge in his hobby—seeking revenge for his younger brother whose cavalry unit was ambushed by Apaches who were brandishing repeating rifles, too many to be acquired on raids. The Apaches are another story. He's after the man who sold them those rifles.

Coronado, though, is hardly welcoming. He can't take a few steps into the street without being warned to leave the town the same way he went in—under his own power. That advice, with intentions good or bad, stems from the town's controlling interest, a cattle baron by the name of Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp), one of those autocratically protective father-figures who like things the way they are (once they have them), are suspicious of any changes, and is a bit blind to how others see it. They're NIMBY's with the biggest backyard in the frontier.

He's particularly near-sighted when it comes to his entitled son Dave (Alex Nicol, in a thankless performance, rather dimly performed), a bully who's next in line to run the ranch—probably into the ground given his business acumen—and (as John Wayne used to put it) "if he lives." To prevent those eventualities Waggoman has installed the only picket-wire he might approve of, his chief ranch-hand Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy, who often provides the counter-balance in the Mann-Stewart westerns) as a nanny to keep Dave under control.

But Vic, with so much responsibility to the Old Man, always seems to be a day late and a dollar short, unable to keep Dave from single-handedly destroying Lockhart's business, burning his wagons and killing his mules, a rather contrary manner of getting him to leave town, by destroying the means. And, of course, it just inspires Lockhart to get all-cussed and motivates him to stick his nose in everybody's business and his fists in Dave's mid-section. Things don't get any better when Lockhart decides to take a job ranching for Waggoman's rival Kate Canady (Aline McMahon), a crusty woman-rancher who won't give an inch on territory or principle, or one hoof of cattle to the larger concern.

From any angle Lockhart is caught in the middle, guaranteeing a rise in tensions and an escalation of grievances. And if the elder Waggoman wanted peace and quiet, he should have looked for the anarchy running wild in his own midst. So, there's that familial element running through it. And Mann and Stewart, through their collaborations, were exploring psychological depths that weren't mentioned between the gun-shots in the standard shoot-'em-up. 

All of their westerns involved Stewart's character going through a trial by fire—he's actually dragged through a campfire in this one—facing humiliation and crippling at the hands of the Waggoman's, the confrontations with the clan making up the best part of the film, with only Stewart's rather half-hearted interplay with Waggoman's niece (Cathy O'Donnell) seeming like time wasted, although it provides one more conflict for Lockhart to be distracted by. 

Mann's use of location shooting is always imaginative and compositionally interesting, and he uses the Vistavision format to get as much horizon into the frame as possible. Certainly worth a look-see, just don't go expecting Shakespeare.**

Maurice Thomas' Stewart portrait for some of the film's poster art.

* The two also worked on the non-westerns Strategic Air Command and The Glenn Miller Story.

** Curiously, Shakespeare is on a lot of people's mind when they see this film, comparing it to "King Lear."  Um, okay, not the "King Lear" I'm familiar with, although there's a thematic string in there (actually there's a Shakespearean string in just about everything, isn't there?).  Actually, there's more "King Lear" in "Bonanza" than here (except that everybody gets along).   And, of course,  the movie Legends of the Fall has more than a bit of both in it.

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (William Dieterle, 1940) Credit Adolph Hitler for inspiring this film after decreeing in 1938 that "scientific discoveries by Jews are worthless."  There are all manner of refutations to such drivel, but producer Hal Wallis chose to focus on Dr. Paul Ehrlich, who, mere decades previously in Der Fuehrer's domicile, managed to rise above the medical community's flirting with anti-semitism by the sheer brilliance—and obvious results—of his research with the body's own facilities for fighting infections by creating blood serums for diseases, starting, along with Emil Behring, with diptheria in 1894.

But, that was just the beginning for Ehrlich. He began research on immunizations, their techniques, and other types of basic forms of therapy—what he termed, for the laymen and the money-men, "magic bullets" that would target and kill the diseases without harming any of the blood-stream's useful cells. 

John Huston worked on the screenplay (which won an Oscar nomination, losing out to Preston Sturges' The Great McGinty) and one can see the same template he would use to tailor the screenplay for his later film of Freud. We start seeing Ehrlich (played by Edward G. Robinson, who was anxious to get away from his gangster/thug roles) as the medical school nerd, barely tolerated by the senior staff at the medical facility because 1) he's Jewish, 2) he's curious, more so than the other students and 3) he uses an extensive amount of lab time on his own research, which is dismissed as frivolous.

It's hardly frivolous, but it's a stepping stone for more accurate diagnoses than the circumstantial evidence favored and relied upon by the older doctors (and form the basis of their expertise...and seniority). Ehrlich is experimenting with various dyes to enhance the parts of cells so they can easily be discerned through the microscope. The research is championed by one of his classmates in favor with the older doctors, Emil von Behring (Otto Kruger), who sees the value of isolating the nuclei of cells for diagnostic purposes. 

Now, that there is a procedure, a test subject is needed. Ehrlich attends a lecture on tuberculosis, and is able to obtain a sample of the bacterium for study. After much experimentation, he is able to tailor his techniques to isolate and target those cells with his identifying techniques, but in the process, catches the disease himself.

For recuperation, he goes to warmer climates of Egypt with his wife (Ruth Gordon), and in discussions with the doctors there, learns of their studies of the body's immune system and with Behring's help, starts work on a diptheria vaccine for an epidemic that is raging through the country's children at the time. His work is hailed as a major break-through in the treatment of disease through anti-biotics and immunization, but his own country looks at the work with skeptical eyes.

There's an interesting parallel between the science and the political: just as Ehrlich makes his greatest strides, the resistance to his work becomes stronger, as a disease will grow in its own resistance against treatment. Ehrlich will suffer set-backs both in his work and in the arena in which he pursues it, equating professional jealousy and outright prejudice as diseases in their own right. Given the tenor and nature of the the times in which the film was made, it's a carefully embedded message to attack a problem that might be cured in the subconscious, making the film a "magic bullet" of its own.

Dr. Paul Ehrlich c. 1908

The Sea Hawk

The Sea Hawk (Michael Curtiz, 1940) Back in the day before Captain Phillips or Johnny Depp made them popular for Disney, there was a very romantic notion about the nautical mercenaries who had no loyalties to anything except themselves. But, there were also those who plundered for governments and they were called "privateers."  

Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) is the captain of The Albatross, part of the Sea Hawks, a private fleet of Queen Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), taking "reparations" from the Spanish fleet of King Phillip II (Montagu Love—my new favorite actor name), who has plans to (dare I say it?) rule the World.

Well, not if Thorpe (rather loosely based on Sir Francis Drake in the Howard Koch-Seton I. Miller screenplay that has nothing to do with the Rafael Sabatini novel) can fire across their bow. On a diplomatic mission to see the Queen, the ship carrying Don José Alvarez de Cordoba (Claude Rains) and his daughter Doña Maria (Brenda Marshall) is intercepted, fired upon and boarded by Thorpe and his all-too-eager crew. Once there, they see that the oarsmen for the Spanish are former English sailors, who are then freed and taken back to home and family. Don José is allowed to keep his meeting with the Queen, but all puffed up and protesting about it, and he and the Queen's adviser, Lord Wolfingham (Henry Darnell) demand that Thorpe be arrested and thrown in the dungeon, or the brig, or the tower, or whatever gray-bar hotel they had in 16th century England. The Queen puts on a stern public face, but is only too happy to let Thorpe command his ship to the isthmus of Panama to commandeer supplies from South America to the Spanish Armada.

But, the Queen's court has divided loyalties and Wolfingham is working with Don José to intercept Thorpe's plans, and the crew, once on land, and in a tinctured yellow setting, is trapped by Spanish forces and imprisoned as oarsmen on an enemy ship on its way back to Europe. Can Thorpe and his men escape their fate and warn the Queen about the oncoming attack by the Spanish Armada?

What do you think?

It's a grand epic, and director Curtiz, accustomed to filling the film-frame with detail, has a lot of scenery to use. The ships are big and impressive sets (especially when there are two next to each other), and the sea battles, some shots culled from Captain Blood (which is why this one is black and white and not Technicolor), are rousingly busy affairs starting with the chases, the cannon lobs, the swinging from ship to ship, then the sword-fights. They're frenetic and fun, the stuff of our pre-Johnny Depp cultural memories, and blood-shed is kept to a minimum. Curtiz and his designers also make the film feel a bit more gritty than one associates with a Hollywood studio film of the type (except of course in the Queen's court where everything is vast, spotless, and polished to the point of reflection). But compare Curtiz's slave galley to the one Charlton Heston occupied in Ben-Hur, and although the effort displayed by the rowers in the latter seem more strenuous, the conditions in the former are far more depressing. And Curtiz keeps it moving, no dawdling over the ironic dialogue or key sequences, as there's another just around the cut to get to. The cherry on top is one of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's greatest film-scores, which in itself has an awful lot of swash-buckling just in the playing.  

Try to see the longer version, though. For awhile, The Sea Hawk had its final scene plucked—The Queen's speech before the attack of the Spanish Armada, which may be the strangest speech a Queen has even been given: 

And now, my loyal subjects, a grave duty confronts us all: To prepare our nation for a war that none of us wants, least of all your queen. We have tried by all means in our power to avert this war. We have no quarrel with the people of Spain or of any other country; but when the ruthless ambition of a man threatens to engulf the world, it becomes the solemn obligation of all free men to affirm that the earth belongs not to any one man, but to all men, and that freedom is the deed and title to the soil on which we exist. Firm in this faith, we shall now make ready to meet the great armada that Philip sends against us. To this end, I pledge you ships - ships worthy of our seamen - a mighty fleet, hewn out of the forests of England; a navy foremost in the world - not only in our time, but for generations to come. 

"The earth belongs not to any one man, but to all men , and that freedom is the deed and title to the soil on which we exist." What do you  mean "we," Queen E? Fact is, Elizabeth didn't say this.* But, as this film was released in 1940, it serves as its own little shot across the bow to another "one man" who wanted the map, not to be of Spain, but of the Third Reich—Herr Hitler. The film, when first released, had that bit of rallying to it, in the days before The Blitz. After the war, prints had that speech removed as unnecessary (and probably anachronistic, and not in a Queen's spirit.   

"...vast, spotless and polished to the point of reflection."

* She ACTUALLY said this: "My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourself to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people ... I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm."  "My" realm.  See that?  "My".

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (Anatole Litvak, 1938) Warner Brothers programmer featuring Edward G. Robinson, allowing him to stretch his acting chops beyond his gangster type-casting while keeping him tied to the genre that made him a star with Little Caesar. It's a bit different than the play by Barré Lyndon (about a criminologist who invites a bunch of thugs to his house for research); adapted by John Wexley and John Huston, the Warners version is less talky and more action-oriented, with the doctor actively involved in the research.

Robinson plays a brilliant well-to-do physician who becomes fascinated with the criminal mind. Evidently mis-reading the dictum as "Physician, steal thyself," he starts to do some personal tests, committing actual robberies, to see how it affects his vitals. That gives him some information, but only about himself, and that hardly is enough to satisfy his curiosity. Interrupted from one attempted safe-grab at a high-society party by an actual criminal gang, led by one "Rocks" Valentine (Humphrey Bogart, who hated this movie), Clitterhouse, seeing an opportunity to increase his results, seeks an "in" with the crooks, asking to meet their "fence," reputed to be the best in the city. That contact turns out to be a woman (Claire Trevor), who is impressed with "The Professor" and invites him to join the Valentine gang.

"Ooops!"  You do NOT want to meet early Humphrey Bogart in a dark room.

Clitterhouse takes a six-week sabbatical, saying that he is going to vacation in Europe, when what he's really doing is merely going to the wrong side of the tracks...and the law.  As part of the Valentine gang, he sets up a series of robberies with ever-increasing stakes. Pretty soon, the dynamic of the group begins to change with "The Professor" becoming an increasingly more valuable member of the the Valentine gang, even supplanting "Rocks" himself (which the thug does not like in any way, even going so far as trying to kill the doctor in one of the heists). He has more than one reason to do that—Jo and the doctor's mutual respect is starting to turn to affection.

"The Professor" runs some tests—that's Ward Bond holding the lamp.

The six weeks fly by, and "The Professor" announces he's going to quit (it being time to go back to work and write his study), but that's not good enough for "Rocks" (who, if you'll remember, is the same guy that tried to knock off "The Professor" in the last paragraph—fickle). The hood learns the doctor's true identity, and shows up at his swanky Park Avenue office to blackmail him into planning more robberies by threatening to reveal his criminal past to the World, and worse (to Clitterhouse) threatening to keep Clitterhouse from publishing his research. Now, Clitterhouse is a smart man and just might realize that "Rocks" is hardly a credible (or consistent) source of information to The World or Academia. But, he doesn't. He takes "Rocks'" threat seriously. Seriously enough to commit one more crime...

Bogart looks deadly with a gun even lounging in a chair.

Up until that point, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is a pretty standard light drama veering on comedy, due to its central idea and the "lovable lug" nature of the hoods, which Warner did to keep their profitable gangster genre alive, appease the clergy, and keep the Hays Office at bay. But, at the blackmail juncture, Clitterhouse turns a bit perverse with a twist that strains credulity, but is amusing in a cynical kind of way. It's that unexpected final gambit that makes the movie a little more than run-of-the-Warner-mill.

That and the cast. Robinson could play class and squalor, refined or brutish and play it genuine either way. It was the public-at-large that favored him in gangster roles, but his potential was limitless (except maybe for playing basketball players). Bogart may have hated the movie, but he manages to keep "Rocks" a threat and remain true to the story and keep it credible. And Trevor plays her role with charm and a bit of bite, with no hint of the vulnerability that she would show the next year in John Ford's Stagecoach (which would win her a Best Actress Oscar.  Bogart, Robinson and Trevor would reunite ten years later with writer-now-director John Huston in Key Largo.

Bogart and Robinson greet Eleanor Roosevelt on the set of Clitterhouse.

The Navigator (1924)

The Navigator (Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton, 1924) Give Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton a prop and he would make full use of it.  In the case of The Navigator, the prop is a grand stage—a passenger/cargo ship called the USAT Buford that the comedian utilized stem to stern, with all hands (and tails and all body parts in-between) on deck.

Co-directed by actor Donald Crisp (who has a brief cameo as the portrait of the ship's captain—and, yes, it was used as a "bit"), who, it seemed, was determined to make the film dramatic, it's the story of an awkward young man, the well-to-do Rollo Treadway (Keaton, of course), who is determined to marry the girl of his dreams, the equally inept Betsy O'Brien (Kathryn McGuire), if only she wouldn't reject him as a bad prospect. 

Of course, she does.

To mend his broken heart, Rollo decides to go, by himself, on the honeymoon cruise to Hawaii he'd intended to take his bride.  Complications (as they are wont to do) arise and as Fate and luck would have it, both Betsy and Rollo are stranded on the same ship as it is set adrift by spies out to sea in the Pacific Ocean, carrying (what co-screenwriter Jean Havez called) "the most helpless people in the world" on a pilot-less ocean-going vessel.

It is always a personal joy to watch Buster Keaton and his films, especially when he is the captain of his fate (that is, behind the camera—his characters are usually victims of fate, despite their abilities, however clumsy or clever, to deal with it). With an entire ship as his stage, he can be depended to find a wealth of comedic possibilities throughout, whether it's set in the ship's galley, cockpit, fo'csle or funnel. Everything is fair game. Everything is a potential prop, and Keaton's ability to make the most of it...and display his amazing body of stunt-work...infuses his films with fun and not a little awe at what he can do, seemingly effortlessly.

Magic lantern presentation of secret desire—
a poignant visual joke that lasts all of two seconds

The fact is the ship is under its own power and Keaton and McGuire are merely passengers (although they could be considered cargo), irrelevant to the path it is taking, carried along aimlessly.  And so complete are the comedic opportunities aboard ship, it takes a considerable amount of screen-time to introduce an element not to be found on-board to complicate things.  That takes the form of an island inhabited by cannibals (near Catalina??) that provides a fourth quarter filled with threatening boarding parties, loose cannons on deck and a wild escape and rescue by a leaky dinghy.  Combatants on all sides end up being all wet.

A comment, ladies and gentlemen, of the profligacy and privilege
of the wealthy as it appeared in 1924.
It's also a funny joke.

There are wonderful sequences throughout, including a deep-sea diving adventure (that's less than water-tight), some sleepless episodes with a "ghost," a hapless cooking and dining sequence, and—my favorite—an extended (and increasingly paced) run around the ship where the two castaways—suspecting someone else is aboard—chase each other, missing seeing the other by split-seconds, between decks, through doorways, around the promenade; the choreography is precise and intricate with mounting tension as the search becomes faster and more desperate.  It only increases the comedy when the meeting happens and all that effort snaps.  That compounded escalation is only one of the reasons I enjoy every opportunity to watch one of the films of Buster Keaton.

Problem: how do you climb a ladder with one hand?
Or do you drop the girl?
Decisions, decisions...

If you have an hour, The Navigator is embedded below.