Gambling Lady (1934)

You've just gotta love Barbara Stanwyck!

So she's supposed to be a tough girl, but honest. Her father is a gambler who always plays it straight, even when his luck fails him.

Working for a gambling ring called "The Syndicate", he falls on hard times, and a bookie friend named Charlie looks out for them. (SIDE NOTE: The Syndicate is somewhat sinister and in an early seen is shown to be multi-racial. I think this was meant to be ominous at the time, but to a modern audience it looks like a meeting of the UN).

Later, she goes into business for herself as a gambler and does pretty well - but always honestly. When a nice young man from a rich family falls for her at first she thinks it will never work, but she won't take a bribe to jilt him.
Her sense of honesty, loyalty and honor ends up serving her well when someone close to her is framed for a crime and only her reputation can save her from ruin.

She's kind of like a Golden Age version of Goody Proctor, if you really think about it, only with a happy ending. Stanwyck is excellent.

Three stars, would definitely watch again (Margo wasn't as much of a fan).

The Lady Eve (1941)

I think Barbara Stanwyck is fantastic. She really makes this movie. Stanwyck plays Jean, a con artist who works with her father to woo men into losing lots of money to them at cards. On a cruise back to New York from South America, Jean and her father set their sights on the handsome yet bumbling herpetologist Charles (Henry Ford). I knew I was going to enjoy the movie, no matter how silly the plot, from the moment Jean started her narration of what all the other women she watched trying to pick up Charles must be saying. Jean, though, does not need a pick-up line. She very suavely trips Charles as he walks past her table, convinces him to walk her back to her cabin so she can change into new and undamaged shoes, and seduces him by suggesting he put the new shoes on her. From the moment Charles starts handling her feet, his eyes go all swimmy, and he is ready to follow her anywhere.

He follows her back to the dinner table, where Jean's father starts to set him up to lose a lot of money. And the courtship begins, with Charles bumbling over his words, and Jean delivering great lines like:

"I know what you meant, I was just flirting with you." and

"You're not going to faint, are you?"

The plot takes a quick turn when Jean announces that she is actually in love with Charles. She convinces her father not to take any of Charles's money, and she accepts Charles's marriage proposal. Unfortunately for Jean, though, the very morning after Charles proposes, someone tips Charles off to the scam. Charles won't believe that Jean is reformed or that she really does love him, and they part ways.

The rest of the movie involves a very complexly nutty scheme to get back at Charles. For as Jean says, "I need him like the axe needs the turkey." Jean goes to some pretty crazy lengths to get her revenge. I spent a lot of time wondering why she was bothering... and then everything made sense at the end of the movie. It will be a lot more fun if you don't try to predict what is going to happen!

Only two stars due to many tedious moments and the stupidity of the male lead (Barbara Stanwyck's great line delivery just isn't enough to make me believe that her character Jean actually cares anything for Charles), but I would see this again. It also really makes me want to investigate more Barbara Stanwyck movies.

Meet John Doe (1941)

One star.
I like Frank Capra. At least, I thought I did. This movie was SO sappy, that I found myself wondering what Capra's reputation was. I didn't have to look any further than IMDB:
"Critics dubbed his movies as "Capra-corn" for their simple and sappy storylines."
Yah.



This movie is about a spunky female reporter - so far so good - with a great wardrobe - right up my alley, right? - who makes up a letter from a "John Doe" to save her job. The ruse works well - so well that she has to produce the John Doe.

Enter Gary Cooper. (At this point I remembered that I still hate Gary Cooper for looking strikingly like the guy who broke my friend's heart but I decided to try to ignore that). Gary Cooper is a down-on-his luck guy who just wants to play baseball and he brings in tow a paranoid bum who just wants to play harmonica. Gary Cooper also enjoys playing harmonica. He agrees to play John Doe.

And, that's about it. I did watch most of this movie. I watched the beginning, most of the middle, and the end. The guy turns out to be inspiring to a lot of people, "little people" they keep calling them. Small-time people with sad stories who he then inspires to do good deeds rinse, repeat.

Then he realizes he's being manipulated for the benefit of people he doesn't like, then he becomes disillusioned, then, at the very end, he becomes illusioned again, miraculously. I'm sorry if I'm spoiling this for you but really, it's just awful.

Maybe Capra had to make this to figure out how much better it would be if, in a It's A Wonderful Life the disillusionment came at the start of the movie and then you looked back on the hopefulness and defeat and then you got right to the miraculous re-illusionment. If so, I'm glad he made this movie. But I never, ever plan to watch it again, spunky female reporter with great outfits notwithstanding.

The Miracle Woman (1931)

Here is a movie that is so simple but so good that it will make you regret the invention of color film processing.



Tivo said it was about "a faith-healer who is redeemed by her love for a blind pilot." Redeemed by love? Say no more!

Yes, it's a melodrama, but I couldn't hold that against it. There are moments so simple and sweet that it makes you forget the dramatic moments altogether.

Once again, there is that "and you thought this was modern" element. If you thought big, showy religious figures taking money from people and then being brought down in a scandal was new when Jim and Tammy Bakker were around, boy were you wrong.



I knew I would like this movie when they introduced the sweet young leading man. He's not a swashbuckler or a gangster, not a typical leading man at all, but I was taken in by him completely.

The shyster character is perfectly awful, too - calling the Miracle Woman "sister" and convincing her to use her abilities to get back at the hypocritical parishioners who didn't appreciate her preacher father.

Four stars, am watching again right now.

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Tivo suggested this for me - and how right you are, Tivo!



Barbara Stanwyck plays a magazine editor who pretends to have a Martha-Stewart-esque family life on a farm in Connecticut.

Unfortunately, she gets called on to bring a war hero home for Christmas and is forced to fake the life she has been writing about for real. Hilarity ensues.

I haven't watched it in ages, but apparently I missed the beginning, because I don't remember it at all.

Okay - she actually borrows a baby for the purpose of the charade. Awesome!

Four stars (the last is just for being a holiday movie, my favorites!)