The Bride Wore Red (1937)

Margo must have tivo'ed a whole Robert Young marathon at some point. Because here he is again.

This time with Joan Crawford. Margo and I were joking that this was when she got started stealing other women's husbands, warming up for The Women (two years later 1939). She plays a kind of Eliza Dolittle character: she is working as a cabaret girl when a rich Count pays her way to a fancy resort in Turano where she will trick his young friend into believing she is a Lady, thus proving the young man, who insists there is a difference between society ladies and cabaret girls, wrong.
The TWIST is that she is much better as a peasant than a lady, and she enjoys it more.

Look how much she is enjoying being a peasant!
There is an assumption the movie makes that a peasant and a cabaret girl are from equivalent social classes, but that's about as ridiculous as her authentic peasant costume. So the whole premise that you have a "place" and you just have to find it is kind of a way of saying stay in your own class, but not because we're making you, just because you'll be happier there!
Anyhow, all that aside, the movie has a lot to recommend it -
1. There are the costumes, which are awesome and a big part of the story.
2. Rags to riches, gotta love it.
3. Scam - gotta love her pulling off the act.
4. There's something very Maria Von Trapp about her love of the outdoors.
5. The old friend who just happens to turn up as a maid at the hotel, Maria, is just great.
The other thing is the love story - the peasant Postman that she falls for is actually so lovable I really got attached to him and was rooting for him whole-heartedly at the end when she had to choose - the life of a rich fraud or a simple, wholesome life in the country with her Postman lover. If you would have told me an hour and eighteen minutes ago that I would really enjoy a Postman as a romantic hero, I might have doubted you, but no longer. Giulio has won my heart.

Towards the beginning and the end, the script gets a little speechy with lots of dramatic monologues...therefore I conclude it must have been adapted from a successful stage play - and I just checked and yes, it was adapted from a play. You can just tell when someone has been trying to make Art. It's a shame because it messes with what is otherwise great entertainment (this is my problem with Holiday, too).

Still, for the costumes, the romance, the fun of the maid's lines - and for making a key dramatic line out of the truly prosaic "A well-organized telegraph office always keeps copies!" - I have to give this four stars.
I would totally watch it again.

The Marrying Kind (1952)

Q: What's not to love about Judy Holliday?
A: Nothing!
She's the best part of this picture, I'd say, and she gets to play a lighthearted but not lightheaded blonde. She's not too ambitious for herself, but she believes in things like her husband's crazy invention and radio contests and bright possibilities for her future.

Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray portray a couple who are divorcing. The story of their marriage told in flashbacks is comic and dramatic in turns and probably plays better with a married audience.
The voice over cleverly does not always match the story as the audience can see it so we're lead to understand how both husband and wife are distorting their side of the story as they are telling it to the judge.
It's reminiscent of the Crowd if anyone has seen that silent film - the young couple living the American dream in the city, trying to make ends meet, having a family, eventually encountering hardship.

Through it all there are glimmers of the couple being something a little bit better than they think they can be - enough to make you believe the judge's conclusion that they will not get a divorce after all.
Of course, she's right, they make up and stay together. It IS a romantic comedy after all.
Not a first date movie, though. One to rent to watch with your spouse during a difficult year.

Forsaking All Others (1934)

I have a confession to make: I mostly watch classic movies because I am so often disappointed by the lack of new movies that suit my taste. I seem to like a kind of movie that's no longer being made: witty, clever, fashionable, romantic, funny and with a good, believable happy ending. I faithfully trudge to the video store to pick up the latest releases (I'm too cheap to see them in the theater) and I'm constantly disappointed by the "Along Came Polly" and the "Failure to Launch" of this world. I find some small comfort in a movie like "Two Weeks' Notice" or "50 First Dates" which have a passable combination of humor and romance. But where is the wit? The costumes? The happy ending that doesn't seem glued on but results from the intrinsic natures of the characters themselves? I basically live for Jane Austen novels to be made and re-made as movies...and therefore I must go backward, into the archives, for my "new" movies.



That's why, when I discover a movie like "Forsaking All Others" I feel a sense of triumph equal to an archaeologist stumbling on a Mayan temple - I didn't create it - I didn't exactly "discover" it - I mean, it was there all along - but I have unearthed it again - brought it to light - and now I can share it. These are the moments I live for!

In Forsaking all others you have a classic, perfect love triangle. Mary, Jeff and Dill grew up together and for as long as they can remember, Mary has loved Dill and Jeff has loved Mary - only of course Mary doesn't know that Jeff loves her - and Dill seems to love Mary. Of course, Jeff has gone off to Spain to make his fortune so he can propose to Mary (he doesn't seem to be born to the purple like Mary and Dill seem to have been) - and he comes home, unfortunately for him, on Mary and Dill's wedding night.

Poor Jeffy - they all have nicknames - he takes the news of his beloved's impending marriage well and stands by while all kinds of OTHER hijinks mess it up. He patiently rescues Mary from one scrape after another, cheers her up, puts her back together, chides her - you begin to see how he got the nickname "Uncle Jeff" or why people are constantly referring to him as "like her big brother".

But an interesting thing happens - Jeff continually reveals himself to be competent and resourceful, while Dill just seems more and more childish. Eventually I was yelling at the screen "he's an IDIOT" - and then Kim agreed "yeah, you're right, she IS an idiot." I didn't quibble. You just can't see by the end how Mary ever missed the fact that Jeff has all the same cute punchy playfulness that she loves in Dill but without the helplessness and foolishness.

Okay, I can find no photos to represent this to you, but I MUST say a word about the costumes: there are no words to describe the costumes. I was on the phone with my friend Renea when I got home and I started playing the movie on mute while we were talking. "Oh I wish you could see this outfit," I said, "it's like she's wearing a wedding veil around her neck upside down..." and then I gave up...there just are no words for the wackiness that fashion would tolerate in the 1930s. It was like - hey, prohibition is over and the stock market crashed so we have no actual runway fashion - let's see if we can pull THIS off!

I found a photo, though it hardly does it justice:

It's wild and woolly and in some cases gorgeous - this this is this one weird dress that has all kinds of ropey loops on it that Joan Crawford wears under a sparkly Elvira-like wrap while carrying a similarly ropey evening bag - it's so strange but it's totally flattering - I couldn't take my eyes off it - I sort of missed the importance of the scene she played in it, really, until later.

Apart from the fashion, the entire script is just full of exchanges that boggle the mind, like this one:

(a word of explanation - Paula is some kind of slightly older friend who acts as a sort of mother to Mary - I wonder whether she is a step-mother and the father has passed away, but it's not clear)

Mary: All I know about Spain is that they have bull fights and eat red pepper. What else is there to know?
Jeff: Well that's about all.
[Paula rushes in]
Paula: What have you done with him? Let me look at him! That's what happens the minute you get out of my sight, eating all that native food! Did you wear your rubbers? I understand it rains for months at a time in Spain. And all those poisonous insects.
Jeff: Why darling, I lived in Madrid - it's like Paris.
Paula: Really? I understand it's quite savage. Jungles and things.
Mary: Paula's never read Ernest Hemingway.
Jeff: Evidently not.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mary: Say where IS dinner?
Paula: You'll make it yourself tonight, the only nail I've got left on either hand is on my right thumb and I need that to start with when I get back to town.
Mary: Isn't she difficult? You know, cooks get like that when you're too familiar with them.
Jeff: Yes, well, I have something to confess.
Mary: What?
Jeff: I, um, I'm a very fine cook.
Paula: What?
Mary: Wonderful!
Jeff: All I need's a frying pan, a piece of string and some tinfoil.
Shemp: I'd like to be excused from dinner, I don't feel very well tonight.
Mary: Imagine knowing a man who can cook!
Shemp: You should see some of his hem-stitching!

It doesn't all make a whole lot of sense, but it's awesome.

Also, I am really beginning to be sold on Clark Gable, who I never liked. He's so suave, and he just exudes a kind of easiness that's totally charming - plus he does great things with his eyes whenever Joan Crawford is in the room. You really feel he's pining for her, even though all he's doing is joking and chiding her.

This really is almost a humorous, short version of Gone with the Wind, only Mary does the right thing in the end, unlike Scarlett.

Now, Voyager (1942)

FOUR STARS!!!
First, there is the fact that the story opens with a heroic psychiatrist sympathetically coming to the aid of a grossly misunderstood woman.


I have to admit, I was a little terrified at this point that the entire movie was going to be told as one sad, doomed flashback of a woman driven insane by unhappiness. UGH. I was not interested in watching that movie. Luckily, this is not that movie!

The psychiatrist springs the woman from her oppressive home for a weekend in the country (which can fix anything, as we have already established in COUNTLESS other movies), and he quotes Walt Whitman to inspire her to start new life: "Untold want, by life and land ne'er granted, / Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."

And boy does she!



I liked this photo the best of the ones I could find - most of them show her looking aloof and glamorous, but Davis does such a great job of revealing Charlotte's anxiousness in every shot (Kim said "when she looks nervous, she makes me feel nervous") that I wanted a still that would show that nervousness. She is a girl's scared heart inside the body of an old maid...which of course is something just about every woman has felt at some point. Which is why this movie is perfect.

Yup, I said it, perfect - despite the untraditional ending (not happy or unhappy, but not disappointing, either) - this movie perfectly captures the sweetness and sadness of unfulfilled love. It's also a perfect little portrait of a woman's life before and after liberation - from forced and miserable self-sacrifice to independence, to a tentative peace with life, then to a voluntary and fulfilling self-sacrifice.

If this sounds like nonsense, you've got see it for yourself - I assure you there is a lot of fun stuff to look at while you're making up your mind about the moral of the story...there's the stiff and stern Boston Brahmin mother, the cheeky niece, the generous and glamorous sister-in-law, the awesome clothes, the grand house, the cruise and the scenery of Brasil, as seen on the back lots and California by-ways.

And need I remind you of Paul Henreid, aka Victor Laszlo (I was more than halfway through the movie before I could stop thinking of him as Victor Laszlo from Casablanca - it's a hard character to shake) and the over-enthusiastic tour director or the mysteriously Italian Portuguese cab driver? And of course there is always the wise, witty Dr. Jaquith - if only we could all have a psychiatrist like that!

It's pretty much all good here, will definitely watch again - although after I hoarded the DVD for six months without watching it, I'm sure I won't be able to borrow it from Anastasia ever again!

Dark Victory (1939)

Starring Bette Davis as a rich playgirl who is diagnosed with a fatal disease that will steal her sight and then her life. She is so interesting to watch - as a self-absorbed, proud, spoiled young woman,

as a brave patient, as a grateful survivor enjoying life,

a spiteful woman, wronged by love and betrayed by her best friend,

as a doomed woman living recklessly without regard for her safety or her reputation,

and as a woman resigned to her fate, determined to live out what is left of her life in dignity.

It's like a full palette of human emotion, and she does it so well!

And yes, there is a Dr. McDreamy, too, and he doesn't have a wife.

Four stars, would watch again now - and yes, I'm becoming a total Bette Davis fan!

When Ladies Meet (1941)

Whoah.



Great premise! Will definitely watch again, four stars.
I got this on Tivo when, after seeing The Women and then No More Ladies, I created a Joan Crawford wish list. This movie begs the question - are all Joan Crawford movies about infidelity and do they all have either the word "women" or "ladies" in the title? Can all problems be solved by inviting the key players to a weekend in the country? So far, the answer is yes!

An idealistic young novelist falls for her publisher, a married man. While writing a book about it, she theorizes what she would say to his wife if they met. Of course, in her book the two women speak to each other respectfully and with calm understanding of each other's position. Both her former boyfriend and the publisher try to tell her that in real life it would never be like that and try to convince her that her book has to be changed to make it more real (i.e. to make the women more selfish and more black and white - one evil and one good).

This movie also reminded me that when I was 19, I found myself canoodling with a guy one night and then the next day being introduced to his girlfriend. I was very proud of myself when I managed to get her alone and tell her the situation. She walked right back into the cafe (which he owned), slapped him in the face, and walked out again. She got in my car, and I drove her home - one of the single most gratifying evenings of my life. (But then again, I _am_ a lesbian, so I guess I'm _bound_ to pick loyalty to a girl over loyalty to some guy I didn't even like.) Anyhow, I was also young and idealistic enough to believe that there was good and there was evil and it was easy to tell the difference. Later, when I met my wife and she was in a relationship, I played the same tune that Crawford plays in this movie "if it's really the love of my life, it's all right" - and the truth is, it's not all right, it's terrible, but sometimes it happens. Very, very rarely do women stick together in this situation, but Joan Crawford and I can be forgiven for dreaming that it might be possible, I think.

But, I digress - back to the plot: in desperation, (desperation to win her back, not desperation to fix the book) the ex-boyfriend befriends the wife and brings about a meeting between her and the novelist in real life. We get to watch the scenario play out, and it's great!

At first, the two women don't know their relationship to each other, and they get along well. You find yourself cursing the evil ex-boyfriend. Then they begin to talk about the book and each woman makes her case for her own perspective...respectfully and with understanding of the other woman's position. You find yourself half rooting for them to be grown-ups and half wanting the other shoe to drop so that they can have their cat-fight.

Of course the truth comes out and then things get heated pretty quickly, but it's really interesting to see a movie that allows characters to have a certain degree of honesty about themselves...and yet each one has a blind spot. By meeting, they are able to point out each other's blind spots and there is a resolution, even if it's not a happy ending, per se.

On Tivo's LiveGuide this movie was billed as a romantic comedy, but the comedy is lightly sprinkled over the movie rather than really a part of it. However, there were some great comic moments, mostly derived from the interactions of the oblivious hostess with her weekend guests. I leave you with the words of the dotty hostess, Bridgie Drake:
"If a woman must make a fool of herself, the least a man can do is to let her be one in her own way."