The Devil's Disciple (1959)

I have a fascination with Revolutionary American history (especially Thomas Jefferson), so I got very excited when one of the blogs I occasionally read (http://boston1775.blogspot.com/ or http://americanrevolutionblog.blogspot.com/...sadly I can't find the post again) mentioned a movie set in 1777 in New England. Not only did it have a revolutionary theme, but it starred Burt Lancaster (known to me as an acrobatic pirate), Kirk Douglas, and Laurence Olivier. No Thomas Jefferson in this movie, but it seemed like it might be entertaining. It was, but possibly not in the way intended by the director. It contains lines like, "Stop howling woman!"

The movie is actually based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. Burt Lancaster (the man in the center who looks as though he would be comfortable swinging from mast) plays a minister, Anthony Anderson. Kirk Douglas plays Richard Dudgeon, "the devil's disciple," a man who left town long ago because he was tired of the religious ways of his family. Laurence Olivier is a relatively kindly British officer. Who is that woman under Kirk Douglas's arm? Why, it is Judith Anderson, the wife of the minister... This picture seems to hint at the odd love triangle that makes up part of the movie. Anderson and his wife are dragged into rebellion when the Laurence Olivier character hangs Dudgeon's father and leaves the body on display as a warning to all would-be rebels. Dudgeon returns to town to cut down his father's body and bring it to Anderson for a burial. When the British soldiers eventually realize that there is a new gravestone in the graveyard with the name of the man who was supposed to be hanging on display, they went to the Anderson home to arrest Anderson, whom they believed must have been behind cutting the man down.

Side note: I thought that Kirk Douglas's character was reminiscent of Beetlejuice and other Michael Keaton characters. Barbara felt that he reminded her of Matthew McConaughey.

In any case, when the British soldiers arrive at Anderson's house, Anderson is not home. He has gone to talk with a sick neighbor. Who is home? Dudgeon and Judith Anderson. Anderson thought that Dudgeon would be safe in his house, and instructed Judith to serve Dudgeon tea while he was gone, despite the fact that Judith claims to find him slimy and creepy. Dudgeon pretends to be Anderson and is arrested. It remains unclear throughout the rest of the movie whether Dudgeon has done this to get closer to Judith (about whom he makes many remarks throughout the film) or because he cannot help himself from protecting the life of another man. Long story short, Judith of course becomes infatuated with Dudgeon for what he has done, and Anderson goes into hiding and becomes a rebel, finally becoming the pirate Burt Lancaster that I know and love. But will Dudgeon hang? And will Judith ever love her husband again? Since I am only giving this movie one star and am not recommending it for viewing, I'll tell you. No and yes. All ends well in Revolutionary America.

(The star is for the best part of the movie...little paper action figures that act out marching and battles on top of a map during narrated portions between scenes.)

In This Our LIfe (1942)

The commentary tells me that Bette Davis referred to this movie as being one of the worst movies ever made. The commentator, however, seems to believe it was one of the most wonderful movies ever made. I only made it through about ten minutes of commentary, but she was full of praise for cinematography, characters, and the ways the plot is set up. Watch and decide.

The melodrama is summed up for me by the exchange below:

Stanley (Bette Davis) has just thrown a fit about not wanting to leave a restaurant yet, even though her new husband Peter needs to get home and to bed for work the next day. Peter leaves miserable and without her. When he gets home, however, he finds that she has jumped into her car and sped home to beat him there...
Peter: You ought to be spanked.
Stanley: For being a good wife?
Peter: For making me love you so much.

In this film, Stanley cheats on her fiance and runs off with the husband of her sister Roy (Olivia deHavilland). Roy is heartbroken, and takes solace in the arms of Stanley's ex-fiance when what starts out as a comforting friendship between the two of them turns into a romance. Stanley, meanwhile, cannot settle down... she burns through her marriage (see the labels for a spoiler), and returns home to wreak more havoc. Stanley may or may not want her old fiance back, may never learn to drive safely, and may never learn to be ethical. By the end of this movie, Stanley's behavior threatens not only the happiness of her own family, but the future of a family (mother=Hattie McDaniel) which has worked for Stanley's family Stanley's whole life and adding a theme of societal racism to the film. Much drama.


Two stars, because the actors were good. But really, too melodramatic for me. I don't think I'll be seeing this again.

Other memorable quotes:

"[Stanley needs] someone to boss her."
"She'll have a husband soon."

"You little minx." (said to Stanley by her uncle)

"You little flirt." (and again, the uncle)

In response to why Stanley's mom (Billie Burke) is so calm about Stanley having run off with her sister's husband: "We've got her on the drugs."

A Bill of Divorcement (1932)

My Tivo picked this up for me under my Katharine Hepburn wishlist (I have three wishlists: for KH, Cary Grant and Sandra Dee) on TCM. It's a drama, which normally I don't like (prefer, in this order: romantic comedy, comedy, musical, western - I generally skip horror and drama).



In fact, I was set to watch Little Women, which I've seen before and don't like that much (because I always think Jo should end up with Laurie but that's another post). However, in the introduction to Little Women Robert Osbourne (the TCM host and my TV movie buddy) said that A Bill of Divorcement was KH's first movie, so I thought I ought to at least give it a chance.

Katharine Hepburn plays a young woman whose father is in a mental institution and has been for as long as she can remember. She is recently engaged and very much in love. Her mother has divorced the mental patient and is about to remarry a guy who can buy her a mink (which is supposed to be proof that he's the one who can really make her happy) when suddenly the father arrives at the house.

This is the point where you know it's based on a play because the only setting they ever appear in is this house. There might be several rooms, I'm not really sure because I was baking pies, but it's all in the house. The father has "come to his senses" all of a sudden and walked right out of the mental institution and home - this is strange because he doesn't recognize the house and makes some reference to how it's bigger than the old place - meaning presumably this is a house he's never been to before.

Anyhow, the mother gets married but can't bear to tell the father the truth and KH is caught in the middle of the drama trying to protect both parents. She's supposed to be somewhat temperamental and prone to outbursts - inclined towards insanity, we assume. So right away she takes her father's side, but she still sympathizes with her mother.

In the end, she breaks off her engagement because she's afraid of having crazy babies and sacrifices herself to live with her father so her mother can go, guilt-free, to live with the mink-buying man of her dreams. The ending is really unsatisfactory and strange - it just kind of trails off with a father-daughter piano-playing scene.

At first I was just completely struck by how KH was made up in the 20s style. Her mouth is dark and precise and her face pale and her eyes very dramatic and dark and pointy with slender eyebrows.

This plays her up in a such a different way than in her later movies when she was all mouth and cheekbones and eyebrows with very natural eyes. I was totally fascinated with this for the whole first act.

The whole movie was melodramatic in the extreme and I was left with mixed feelings about the way mental illness was portrayed. (My dad's a psychotherapist and I have several mentally ill family members so I'm fairly sensitive to portrayals of "crazy" people in movies).

The mentally ill father is played by John Barrymore (grandpa of Drew) melodramatically as a weepy, sentimental mess with a temper. Since all the characters are over-played that wasn't really troubling - almost every character was an offensive stereotype so, really, this guy gets fair treatment.

There were two theories advanced in the movie: that the mentally ill father was inherently insane because it was "in his blood" and that he came home from the war with shell-shock. JB makes a great speech about fighting to protect people who then marry other people and all he got was shell-shock - that will make the top ten list of guilt-trip monologues, for sure.

It's not that different from today, really - the causes of mental illness are still linked to both trauma and genetics. But the idea that you would not marry because you couldn't have children (no way!) and not have children because they might possibly have mental illness (huh?) seem completely dated.

Also, since these days we wouldn't put the guy away for what seems like a mild case of depression or PTSD, she'd never have got the Bill of Divorcement in the first place, and the whole movie would be blown.

Would NOT watch again. Definitely wouldn't have finished if I wasn't baking pie.

Two stars.