Deadline at Dawn

Deadline At Dawn (Harold Clurman, William Cameron Menzies , 1946) One of those movies that, I'm sure, grows on you over time, once all the shocks have worn off.

 

But, if you're peeping at it in for the first time...well, all I can say, pally, is it's a lot to take in. Oh, it's got a lot of familiar tropes of the noir-type: everything takes place at night, shadows seem to be the popular decor, there's good people and bad people, good people get accused of doing bad things, there are a couple of desperate chases between desperate people, and it's entirely black-and-white, the only color being the complications along the way which are, more times than not, red herrings. And if you can't follow it too well, that's understandable because it starts getting confusing with in the first ten minutes. Watching it drunk or sober won't help you with the film's terrain—you're going to be bumping into walls either way. Oh, and don't get attached to characters because most of them will disappear before the sun comes up. It's not that they die or anything, it's just that they have their fifteen seconds in what passes for a spotlight in a film-noir and then they just go away, never to be seen again. That's life in the big city.

Enough with the opening narration (there isn't any, that would be too helpful). A sailor-boy (Bill Williams) is gonna be shipped off to his next hell-hole and he spends the eve of it getting black-out drunk. He wakes up at a newsie's where he's been sleeping it off with no idea where he's been or what he's been doing. All he knows is that he's got $1400 bucks he didn't know he had. "Found money" is always a nice surprise, but not when there's four hours to kill and you're a possiible target. What better thing to do than hide in the arms of a frail (you could always use her for cover!), so he goes to a dance club and ends up with a handful of a hostess named June Goffe (Susan Hayward) who's dead-on-her-feet and doesn't get interested until sailor-boy shows her his $1400 wad. Naturally, she invites him over to her place for a sobering sandwich and the story of how he got it...if he can remember.

Pretty soon, things start going "Hayward". The sailor isn't as much of a shoe-cruncher as she thought he was but insists on thinking of him as "a baby." But, he had managed to crawl to a drinks-provided poker game (not sure if that's a euphemism or not) at the apartment of Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane), who, with her brother (Joseph Calleia) regularly ran a scam of luring rubes off the street and then robbing them of their wits and their bankroll. Somehow, he'd gotten the better end of the deal with more money than he could spend in four hours. But, he's "a baby" and he wants to return the money because it's the right thing to do (even to people who'd rolled you) and he doesn't want to spend his last four hours of furlough looking over his duffel bag to see if the cops are looking to pick him up for theft. He is in uniform, after all.

Yeah, well, no good deed goes unpunished and sometimes you get exactly what you're trying to avoid, especially in noir movies. June and Alex ('the baby") go over to the address and instead of finding the woman dead-drunk (like he left her), they find her just plain old dead. Like he left her? Well, that's the question. Either June's running around with a killer or there's a killer somewhere else running around after them. That's the question. And they only have a shrinking four hours before Alex gets deployed.

"I hear a whistle blowing" says June, metaphorically

...or is that "Odetically"?

It has the simple par-boiled "jeopardy" plot one comes to associate with its original author Cornell Woolrich (he wrote the original stories for Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Window, Mississippi Mermaid and Phantom Lady) where "trust" (or lack of it) is the one thing drum-soloing through the characters' minds as they try to unravel the plot. But, Deadline at Dawn doesn't so much provoke a sense of associative paranoia as "what in the black-and-blue-blazes are you talking about?" It's scripted by Clifford Odets, who wrote it as a favor to his old Group Theater pal, director Harold Clurman, and it is Odets at his Fink-iest, feeding lines to the cast that are all starch and pepper. Odets took theater out of the drawing-room and into the tenements—and a lot of Deadline at Dawn takes place on the streets and back-alleys of early-hours New York.

Oh, it begins interestingly enough, as we watch a blind ex-husband (Marvin Miller) of future murder-victim Edna Bartelli hammer on her door to collect the $1400 she promised she had for him (the very money the sailor-boy had made off with)—and our introduction to her is properly sordid for the "Code" days where she's so stinking drunk that a fly is pirouetting around on her face. The ex is blind-mad: "You'll never change, Edna. You're bad. I loved you very much. But you're bad." 

But, once we leave the place for the murder to happen, "Golly, the misery that walks around in this pretty, quiet night." Everybody's kvetching, philosophizing, giving you their dime's worth when all you wanted was a nickel. And complaining about the heat even though nobody's sweating much. Everybody's an overripe wise-guy even the cabbie (Paul Lukas) who hears June's "misery" comment replies with "the logic you are looking for... the logic is that there is no logic. The horror and terror you feel, my dear, comes from being alive. Die, and there is no trouble. Live, and you struggle." I don't know that she was searching for any "logic" there, just making idle conversation. But, everybody's over-explaining in Odets-burg, like when another cabbie bleats "Listen, I don't wanna get in no trouble. I work. I'm just a parasite on parasites." TMI, buddy! Especially with a paying customer in your hack.

Deadline at Dawn is filled with such distractions and so many blind-alleys that you can get lost very easily, but despite the density of the population on display, the solution returns you to the same bubble-world that feels a little too neat for all the obfuscation of the community-building going on. Maybe that was to enrich the plot, but it does nothing to ramp up the tension or unease one usually finds from Woolrich. One shouldn't substitute "overwritten" for "overwrought."

Little Women (1933)

Little Women (George Cukor, 1933) Pre-code version of Louisa May Allcott's much-beloved novel of the March family struggling with life in mid-Civil War America. "Pre-code," but we're talking Louisa May Allcott here, so don't expect anything surprising eyebrow raising, other than director Cukor's penchant for laying the iron on stuffed shirts and exposing society's pretensions and hypocrisies.

 

No, this is Little Women, so there is warm homespunnery, with an encouragement towards spunkiness of the actresses—much too old for the parts (but, jeez, Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett, who's going to complain?)—playing the March sisters, consigned to different fates for womanhood in the 19th century: home and hearth, marrying rich, seeking a risky independence (for awhile, anyway) or early death. The story is multi-faceted with the emphasis on self-improvement, charity towards others, positive attitudes in times of strife, and the spark of imagination.

 

Oh, and family values. Ambition is good, but when kept in small orbits...like, within horse-cart distance. Family is all.

Cukor directing Kate Hepburn directing

 

Cukor wanted to work less on the star-crossing and budding relationships and concentrate on the charity, selflessness and bonding in what would become the blueprint for all subsequent versions of Allcott's Women (there had been two previous silent versions), and although times and tastes have changed, one can't quibble too much with the acting, everything is done with such brio and conviction that, even if something questionable does come up, there will be something that punches you in the gut within a minute. Hepburn, of course, shines, but everyone else is good, too, particularly Henry Stephenson as the somewhat reticent Mr. Laurence.

And now, something a little personal: while watching the film, a flash of memory happened as one of the March sisters admonishes the others for quarreling. "Birds in their little nests agree" in a lilting sing-song. I remember as a child (3? 4?) my grandmother saying the exact same words with just the same inflection. The source of the phrase is from "Divine and Moral Songs for Children"* published in 1715 by Isaac Watts. Now, Watts was a prolific hymn-writer, but he was a Protestant (where my family was traditionally Catholic), so I'm not sure where my grandmother picked it up, but it probably was this version of Little Women. 

At the time of its release, RKO's version of Little Women was seen as wholesome entertainment (back in Hollywood's salacious "pre-code era") with an emphasis on "making do" and charity for the less fortunate. 1933 was, after all, deep into The Great Depression and that lilt and those circumstances make me certain my grandmother saw it. My mother certainly did at the age of 22. She was always an admirer of Katherine Hepburn and when the star toured Seattle in 1981 with "The West Side Waltz" (at the 5th Avenue Theater), I made sure to get tickets for her. And me, too.

It's funny how movies can reach back in time and space and link generations together over a shared memory. Small orbits...

 

* Song 17 goes like this:

1. Whatever brawls disturb the street,
There should be peace at home;
Where sisters dwell, and brothers meet,
Quarrels should never come.

2. Birds in their little nests agree;
And ’tis a shameful sight,
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight.

3. Hard names at first, and threatening
They are but noisy breath,
May grow to clubs and naked swords,
To murder and to death.

4. The devil tempts one mother’s son,
To rage against another;
So wicked Cain was hurried on
‘Till he had kill’d his brother.

5. The wise will let their anger cool,
At least before ’tis night;
But in the bosom of a fool,
It burns till morning light.

6. Pardon, O Lord, our childish rage,
Our little brawls remove;
That, as we grow of riper age,
Our hearts may all be love.

 

Lord Jim (1965)

Lord Jim (Richard Brooks, 1965) Orson Welles wanted to make this Joseph Conrad story about a disgraced seaman out to prove his worth to himself and the world, and he wanted to do it with Charlton Heston—they'd talked about it while making Touch of Evil together and Welles was particularly taken with Heston's vouching for him during the turbulent making of that picture. That sort of loyalty is unusual in Hollywood and Welles must have thought Heston a good match...and good box-office. 

Conrad's novel had been adapted once before—by Victor Fleming in 1925—and Brooks optioned it in 1957. His clout with such classics as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, and Sweet Bird of Youth allowed him to make this one, which required extensive location shooting. Acquiring Peter O'Toole, hot after Lawrence of Arabia and Becket, allowed Brooks to acquire a $9 million budget, which ballooned the scope, and Lord Jim was designed as a "roadshow attraction," complete with Overture, Intermission, and Exit Music.

The story is narrated by Marlow (Jack Hawkins)—the same Marlow of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"—as he relates the tale of young James Burke (Peter O'Toole) merchant seaman, young, enthusiastic, obedient, resourceful, who becomes Marlow's first officer before becoming injured and left to be treated in Java. 

His next assignment is less fortuitous: he's hired as first mate on board the rickety S.S. Patna, transporting—as the novel puts it—800 "pilgrims of an exacting belief," Muslims, to Mecca, when the ship hits a storm and has a collision on the Red Sea. Checking for damage, Jim sees that they're taking on water, and, telling the captain that they should get the passengers to the lifeboats, is surprised when the captain and other crewmen are more intent on saving themselves. The film makes it debatable whether Jim jumps in with them, or is washed onto the lifeboat is a squall, but the result is Jim is on the lifeboat, the Patna and its passengers, abandoned to their fate.

Making port, they find that the Patna, having survived the journey with the help of a French ship, has arrived before them. The Captain and the other crew disappear to escape the infamy for their actions, which, by now, has gotten around throughout the port, but Jim insists on a trial to atone for his abandoning ship, and he is roundly condemned, stripped of his sailing papers, the chief judge telling him that, instead of an inquiry, he should have just buried "himself 20 feet deep."

Jim does the next best thing, becoming a drifter from port to port, losing himself and running away from his shame in anonymity. An incident where he saves a skiff loaded with beer and gunpowder from exploding in the harbor attracts the attention of a Mr. Stein (Paul Lukas), who just happened to be receiving that gun-powder. It's destined to be shipped to Patusan where the people, led by Stein's friend Du-Ramin (Tatsuo Saitō) are trying to defend themselves from a warlord, "The General" (Eli Wallach), and Stein hires Jim to accompany the shipment to make sure it reaches its destination, there having been some sabotage in the past.

There are attempts made on the journey, as the weaselly Cornelius (Curt Jurgens)—who used to work for Stein as his representative before he was caught skimming supplies—now is aiding "The General" in his attempts to overthrow the natives. Jim hides the cargo, but is captured, and although tortured for the information, does not reveal where it's hidden.

Jim is rescued by "The Girl" (Daliah Lavi)—in the book, her name is Jewell, but the movie doesn't even give her character a name!—and Jim leads the Patusans to the supplies and launch an attack on The General, killing everyone but Cornelius. Jim is welcomed by his fellow combatants and given the title "tuan" by the Chief, which means "Lord."

Intermission.

If you want a happy ending that would be where you ended it. If you wanted a happy audience you might have ended it there, as well. Reportedly (and this may be apocryphal) it was at this point at the London premier that James Mason's parents were so bored by the picture, they left, completely missing their son's performance in Part II. Maybe a bit impatient, but one does get the impression that Lord Jim will never end, so elongated and detailed is the film, with sequences running a trifle indulgently, and every line of dialogue treated as if it were precious. This becomes readily apparent after the Intermission.

Jim stays in Patusan, beloved by the people and The Girl. Unbeknownst to him, Cornelius and Schomberg have brought in the cut-throat pirate "Gentleman" Duncan Brown (James Mason)—"he's given more business to Death than the Bubonic Plague"—to raid the village of its treasures, and although their attempts fail, Jim negotiates with the blackguards that they may leave if they never return again. The villagers and Du-Ramin argue for attacking the pirates, but Jim wants no conflict and vows to the chief that if anyone dies because of his mercy, that he will sacrifice his own life in forfeit.

So, Jim trusts the pirates to just go away, huh? He also sets up contingency plans that, should the pirates attack, the natives can fight them back. Meanwhile, Jim looks moony and talks about the position he is in, given his second chance: "I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all." But, there is a great deal of difference between a romantic idealist and a conscienceless pragmatist, and Jim frustratingly never finds a middle ground. If you wanted a happy ending, you should have taken a cue from James Mason's parents and left at intermission.

It is a long tedious slog to come to that conclusion and although some of the dialog in the second part crackles with cynical brio and Mason's performance is worth watching, one has to spend so much time with O'Toole's doubting Jim—trying ever-so-hard to bring some internal depth to this character that you get stymied by the dependence on the fragile blue eyes shining out of the screen without any of the nuance or creativity the actor brought to his previous performances—that, ultimately, you lose faith in Jim, O'Toole, and the movie.

Brooks is no help here. His staging is perfunctory, whether in Cambodia or Shepperton Studios in Surrey and the one interesting shot is in the beginning with a weirdly evocative shot of a "lost soul"—which Jim could have become—walking like a zombie along a Malaysian pier. One wishes that same sort of frisson could have shown up a bit more...or ever...but it's just a tantalizing moment in a film so confident in its ambitions that it never tries to achieve them.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard Fleischer, 1954) One of those movies so popular and so much of "the culture" when I was growing up, that I'm surprised I've never watched it before except in clips and bits and pieces through the years.

This steam-punk version of the classic Jules Verne novel was a "big" film for Walt Disney Studios, its most expensive live action film to date, boasting "A"-list stars and wide screen(Techniscope, borrowed from 20th Century Fox) Technicolor. It had to be spectacular; Disney was moving into television, and if Uncle Walt was going to compete with himself for an audience's attention, he had to put into theaters something bigger and grander than what could glow in grays on convenient living room sets. It was also the first Disney film not to be released by RKO, but by Disney's own distribution arm, Buena Vista.

And Jules Verne's fantastical stories were just the fodder for Disney's live-action fare—at least until he could figure out how to let P.L.Travers let him make "Mary Poppins" (Verne's work, being in the public domain, allowed Disney to do what he wanted with the property).

It is 1868 and the world is in fear of rumors of a sea monster sinking trading ships in the Pacific. In San Francisco, the U.S. government entreats a recently stranded Professor Louis Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre) to join an expedition to track down the monster. Along with them, is harpoonist Ned Land (Kirk Douglas), who's more interested in stopping the beast than studying it, but after months of fruitless search, even Ned is starting to tire of the hunt.

He needn't have worried; he's in a movie, after all. The point being made that the monster is elusive and challenging, the scientists find the monster and an attempt is made to kill it, but before firing the killing shot, the monster turns tail and rams the ship, scuttling it, and sending Arronax, Land and Conseil into a lifeboat to drift in a mysterious fog. In that fog, they see a strange vessel and, boarding it, they find it's a submersible craft, and through a window, they notice a strange ritual—an undersea funeral.

That is never good, and rather than being the next ones so honored, they try to make their escape, but are apprehended by the crew and their strange captain, Nemo (James Mason), who would just as soon drown them, except for his interest in Arronax, whose scientific research he respects. For the sake of Arronax, the three cast-offs are allowed to stay.

Mason is such a good actor that he can provide the inevitable
"You just don't get it, do you?" with just a look.

But Nemo doesn't make it easy. He uses the opportunity of his colleagues presence to explain: a tour of the ship shows off the Nautillus' unique propulsion system, which from its glow must be nuclear—no coal-fueled furnace ever glowed so hot; dinner is a culinary sampling of the sea, even the after-dinner cigars are stuffed with dried seaweed; a visit to the Rura Penthe penal colony explains Nemo's history and his hatred for the British trading ships he regularly attacks. Of most interest to Ned is the huge treasure of recovered riches from the oceans' floors, obtained from explorations of sunken vessels throughout time; Nemo he doesn't trust, perhaps in sympathy with the dead sailors that Nemo has left in his wake, maybe due to his antipathy to Nemo's crusade for vengeance. The two are mutually distrustful. And Ned is looking for any opportunity to leave Nemo's gilded prison.

But life on a submarine is life under pressure. For all the wonders the windows of the Nautilus offers, there are also dangers that Nemo is determined to power through unafraid. But, the addition of the men of science (and Ned) creates a dynamic of tension; his authoritarian genius was good enough for his crew of fellow prisoners, but Arronax is a man of pure science, who may admire Nemo's achievements, but not the manner with which he uses them. Between the military hunting him, his passengers questioning him, and his conflicts with his own demons, Nemo begins to become erratic.

One of matte artist Peter Ellenshaw's amazing blends of live action and artwork.

Nemo's goals are undefined; he has all this amazing technology and the power it can yield, and he has already suffered mightily with the death of his family and his imprisonment to keep it out of the hands of world governments. His solution is to isolate himself from the world's powers, taking his revenge where he can, and living below the waves, out of their clutches. Ned's goals are more myopic—his freedom at all costs, despite the plans and schemes of more far-thinking men. They're id and ego and they're warring in the Nautillus-brain. And as we all know, there are never enough couches on submarines.

Something's got to give. Maybe, deep in our sub-consciousness, that's why the most memorable sequence in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is the primeval battle with the giant squid in the midst of a storm-tossed nighttime sea. Nemo's electrified craft can't kill it (and electricity has fried all sorts of movie monsters). So Nemo (being Nemo) decides to be the point-man and take on the thing with his crew. The battle does not go well,* and it is only the intervention of the least likely person who saves the day and the good/bad ship Neurotic...er.. Nautillus.

We'll leave Freud behind for awhile (or this will get really creepy...besides, sometimes a squid is just a squid), but the conflict between Ned and Nemo creates real disquiet in a viewer. Nemo may be murderous; but Ned is a man-child with impulse issues, greedy, a quisling—it's his actions that ultimately cause an organized attack that leads to the destruction of Nemo's island, Volcanis, and his life's work—and a streak of undependability. He is Peck's Bad Boy, Huckleberry Finn without the charm, a dimpled exemplar of America's rebellious streak...at its worst. It's hard to peg Disney on how they feel about the military, too. Are they the Cavalry come to the rescue or the bushwhackers setting a trap. One is given the impression that their invasion lays waste to a dream, the result of the actions of the one character kids might relate to in a film filled with "old guys." Old guys who do a lot of talking. At least, Ned gets to play with a seal.

So, 20,000 Leagues ends on a decidedly melancholy note, an interesting end to what most folks consider the usual Disney happy ending (Mary Poppins ends in much the same way, actually). What is the film actually saying: "Dreams die and we should mourn the loss of vision?" "Beware of those with short-term selfish goals?" Given the photo-evidence of natural splendor over riches, 20,000 Leagues might, in some way, be a poetic environmental film disguised as a "Boys' Own" adventure story. Maybe that's what Uncle Walt envisioned all along.

Visionary, maybe. Poetic and entertaining, absolutely. Cautionary in the way the best science-fiction films can be, certainly. But, political? I would hazard a guess "yes." In which case, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea may be the most complex and greatest film the studio has ever produced.

* It didn't go well on-set, either. The film version is the second version of the squid attack. The first one, filmed simulating daylight, looked bad, the squid "fake" and just was deemed an unconvincing sequence. Director Fleischer and Disney screened the sequence that they'd put so much time and money in, and Fleischer said "I hate to say it, Walt, but it doesn't work." "You're right," agreed Disney and ordered re-shoots for a stormy night-time sequence that drove the film wildly over-budget, but made a scene that everyone remembers the movie for.