What kind of faithful blogging correspondent would I be if I didn't bring you the latest news? Here I was, thinking that I was finished posting about blogathons and here it turns out that two more are on the horizon! And I suggest you guys check them out, whether or not you want to submit something, because they're both being headed up by bloggers I adore and respect.
The Terrorthon (April 20th-24th), Hosted by Page at My Love of Old Hollywood and Rich at Wide Screen World
And you thought Halloween was over! Well, it's only just beginning...or returning...or whatever it is, let's just celebrate scary movies. In Page's words, this is a blogathon to dedicate to "that one film that stood out for all of you as never wanting to see again
unless you watch it with all of the lights on and someone holding your
hand." She and Rich are throwing upon the doors for reviews on whatever scary movie you want to write about. The only request is that people try to keep it a classic affair, nothing beyond 1980. Still, that leaves you Val Lewton, Mario Bava, Hammer Studios, Universal Horror, James Whale, Robert Aldrich, Alfred Hitchcock, and so much more. Not to mention all the great films that aren't in the horror or thriller category and still manage to haunt you (Picnic at Hanging Rock chilled me to the bone when I first saw it). With so many possibilities here, you'd be as silly as the blonde going into the basement alone if you didn't at least give this one a look.
Participation: Open
The Mary Astor Blogathon (May 3rd-10th), Hosted by Dorian at Tales of the Easily Distracted and R.A. Kerr at Silver Screenings
Even in a crowd of talented stars, this woman stands out. She's always someone to watch, always witty and smart no matter what the subject. Her lines linger even if the movie itself is forgotten. I'm talking about the beautiful and brilliant Mary Astor of course, but I'm also talking about the equally lovely Dorian, from Tales of the Easily Distracted. She and R.A. Kerr from Silver Screenings have decided to bring us a Mary Astor Blogathon, in honor of the actress' 107th birthday. For eight days, movie fans will celebrate Astor and the movies she made. If you don't have much knowledge about the shining, underrated career of Mary Astor, I suggest you start with these two great essays. And then go sign up for a place in the blogathon.
Participation: Open
Cheers, everyone! And if blogathons aren't your cup of tea, might I suggest Miss Jean Brodie's Movie Quiz, courtesy of Dennis Cozzalio? Not for the faint of heart or for the casual moviegoer.
Nobody Lives Forever (1946)
directed by Jean Negulesco, starring John Garfield
(Note: This is my entry in the John Garfield Blogathon, hosted by Patti at They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To, in honor of the actor's 100th birthday.)
Like so many other returning soldiers, Nick Blake (John Garfield) just wants to come home to his girl. Unfortunately for Nick, his girl Toni (Faye Emerson) isn't the kind of woman that waits at home for her man. She's more the kind of woman that runs around with other guys and loses all of her boyfriend's money. But Nick isn't your normal ex-G.I. either. He's a conman, able to twist people around his finger with just a few words. Wanting to get away from Toni and the New York confidence racket, Nick heads to L.A. with his loyal friend Al (George Tobias). Maybe a rest in the California sunshine will clear his head.
However, Nick won't be able to resist the allure of the con game for long. He's soon roped into another scheme, masterminded by his rival Doc Ganson (George Coulouris). There's a rich, young widow in town (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and a ladies' man like Nick could easily talk her into sinking money in a phony business. In order to get Nick on his side, Doc teams up with an old friend of Nick's, Pop Gruber (Walter Brennan), an old hand at the con game who's since fallen on hard times. By playing on Nick's vanity and restlessness, the con artists rope the young man into their scheme.
To his own amazement, Nick slowly finds himself falling for the beautiful, yearning woman he's supposed to swindle. But what hope could he have for a life with her now, when all of his allies and enemies are circling round them? Like sharks scenting blood in the water, they won't leave until they get their take. No matter who gets hurt along the way...
A troubled hero, a pile of cash, scheming side characters, and the faintest possibility for redemption. Nobody Lives Forever has everything it takes to make a great film noir except the killer instinct. Despite the cold futility of its title, it's an oddly gentle film. It focuses on the clash of two very different ways of living. On the one hand we have New York, personified by the restless, cynical con artist Nick Blake and his cohorts. On the other hand we have Los Angeles, portrayed as a land of dreamy sunshine and relaxation, ripe with suckers like the lonely widow Gladys Halvovsen. The surprise is that the film doesn't automatically assume that this will all end in disaster. Instead, it's more a story of romance, as the troubled Nick begins to realize that he belongs more with Gladys than he does with his old crowd. Nobody Lives Forever is more of a meander through darkness than a blind alley. The fact that it works as well as it does rests largely on the strength of its performances.
John Garfield is given one of the oldest plots in the book, the criminal that falls in love with his prey. Somehow, he makes it not only believable but utterly moving and real. Nick begins the film as a supposedly great con man, a plot contrivance that's hard to buy when your main character entrusts 50,000 dollars to the vampish arms of Faye Emerson. But Garfield sells it, conveying Nick's intelligence through his constant movement and searching gaze. His response to Emerson's betrayal is only a quick slap, but it makes you wonder how Garfield would have handled the grapefruit scene in The Public Enemy. Later, as he slowly opens up to Geraldine Fitzgerald, Garfield's eyes light up with boyish wonder, marveling at the sensation of being sincere for the first time.
John Garfield was one of those actors that could simultaneously convince you of his toughness and his deep emotional need. The part of Nick Blake was originally meant for Humphrey Bogart but watching the film, it's hard to want anyone but Garfield in the role. Bogart is a little too smart for all this, a little too closed-off. He had the dark, calculating intelligence of the true noir hero but Garfield had the battered, bruised heart. His characters might fall to the dark side but they always yearn to go back, to return to innocence and comfort.
Aside from Garfield, we have a wealth of entertaining side characters. George Coulouris isn't the most menacing of film hoodlums but what can you expect from the actor most famous for getting beaten up by a kid with a sled? However, his brand of reserved, pop-eyed resentment is exactly right for the character of Doc, a semi-comic thug fighting to conceal how much he hates relying on the younger, more attractive Nick. Coulouris' best moment is undoubtedly the scene where Doc tries to protest to his gang that he could just as easily seduce the mark as Nick could. For a man that never once looks comfortable anywhere, you have to admire his faith in his own sexiness.
Walter Brennan gives a fine, subtle performance here as the old timer Pop, now reduced to selling looks through a telescope and picking his customers' pockets. I've never cared much for Brennan and I never could understand why Ford and Hawks loved his overdone comic relief so much. But I've decided the man was much better when he could play it simple and straight. Pop knows his time as a big shot will never come back; when he calls to people to "see the moon and stars all for a dime," it feels like a sadly poetic way to sum up the con artist's existence.
Like so many other Warners films, Nobody Lives Forever always has one eye on the side characters, giving little curlicues of personality to even the most throw-away parts. So we have a business manager that can't talk about anything but golf, a cafe owner that gets agitated by the word "java," and a wisecracking bellhop that used to be a jockey. The only character that falls flat is Toni, Nick's ex-girlfriend.
Normally in film noir, you'd expect the bad girl to steal the show. But Nick's treacherous old flame Toni is nothing more than a grade-A, lemon-sucking pill, the kind of woman that double-crosses a man and gets mad when he returns the favor. Faye Emerson, with her sunken cheeks and big dark eyes, looks the part well enough. But when John Garfield follows up a tender kiss with a contemptuous slap, Emerson just looks annoyed. A true femme fatale would look back at him with pure, lustful vengeance. The script uses Toni mainly as a plot device, plunking her down in the story only long enough to scatter the chess pieces.
This leaves the stage wide open for Geraldine Fitzgerald to capture attention as the elegant but naive prey, Gladys Halvorsen. Fitzgerald was a stunning Irish redhead, best known for the role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights. Onscreen she had an air of respectability masking inner smolder. The character of Gladys is maybe a little too innocent to be believed, but Fitzgerald adds a lot of dignity to the role, making Garfield's attraction to her wholly believable. The chemistry between them is all the stronger for their differences; it's the street kid wooing the princess. Fitzgerald has one of the more unusual Irish accents I've heard. Not a lilt or a brogue but a few exotic intonations here and there that make her sound positively Hedy Lamarr-ish at times.
Director Jean Negulesco has perhaps a little too light of a touch for the material here and the film doesn't have the rat-a-tat energy of the typical Warners crime film. On the other hand, the leisurely pace does give time for little vignettes. Negulesco perfectly illustrates the culture gap between his romantic leads by showing a scene of Gladys flinching at a prizefight, followed by Nick at the symphony, folding his concert program into a paper airplane. It's hard not to like these people.
As a true noir aficionado, I can't recommend Nobody Lives Forever as a pure example of the genre but on its own merits, it's a fine film to spend a few hours on. It has enjoyable characters, a straightforward plot, and a strong lead performance by John Garfield. Nobody lives forever but good films live long in the memory. And this one does.
Favorite Quote:
"Now look here, fellas, I hate the word 'java' and I hate to be called 'buddy' and 'pal,' I just can't stand it."
Favorite Scene:
There's a kind of poignancy and nervous ardor to the relationship between Nick and Gladys. Like all characters in film noir, they know how fragile happiness can be (he's a soldier, she's a widow) and it gives their scenes together an extra jolt of romance that offsets the movie's cynical humor. For the moment where they confess their love, Negulesco pulls out all the stops. The lovers take a side trip to the Mission Church of San Juan Capistrano, wandering around crumbling pillars and waving trees. As Gladys walks down the path, a flock of white birds fly in front of her, their bodies blending into the pattern of her beautiful dress. The mood is hushed and peaceful. Gladys looks at Nick with unease, sensing that this is not a guy that chooses to visit old churches. "Maybe we should have gone to the beach." Nick assures her that "this is swell" but his gaze flickers around. You can see that he's not uncomfortable here and the very fact of this surprises him. They go into the chapel, talk to the priest, and walk some more.
All the while, you can feel Nick's tension; he knows something new is happening to him and he can't understand it. Garfield's performance is pitched so perfectly that all the character's repressed feelings come through in his eyes and his voice and the way he shoves his hands in his pockets. All of a sudden, he begins to tell Gladys about how it reminds him of the churches he saw in Italy as a soldier. "All wrecked...statues all over the place, paintings ripped to pieces, everything smashed." He admits he'd forgotten it until now and it makes him wonder why people can't get along in the world, just be happy. "Are you happy?" Gladys asks. "I wasn't," Nick whispers, realizing everything in that instant. "Until I met you." Their lips meet.
Final Six Words:
Shady dealings can promise sunny futures
The Devil and Daniel Webster/All That Money Can Buy* (1941)
directed by William Dieterle, starring James Craig, Walter Huston, Edward Arnold
*The Devil and Daniel Webster is the original title of this movie; it was changed to All That Money Can Buy for its first release. Later releases of the film would revert back to the former title and that's the one I will use for this review.
(Note: This film review is my entry for the Fabulous Films of the 1940s Blogathon, hosted by The Classic Movie Blog Association.)
Nothing seems to go right for Jabez Stone (James Craig). His farm is failing, he's in debt to a greedy moneylender, and no matter what he does, he'll always be poor. In a fit of anger, he vows he'd sell his soul to the devil for two cents. Well, quick as a wink, a silver-tongued gentleman appears with a contract all ready and waiting. The Devil (Walter Huston) assures Jabez that for seven years, he can have "all that money can buy" and then his soul will belong to Hell. Tempted by the sight of gold coins pouring out of the earth, Jabez accepts. With the help of the gold, he suddenly find himself able to do everything he ever wanted. He can loan money to his needy friends, buy his wife Mary (Anne Shirley) a new bonnet, and treat himself to the best of everything. But his mother (Jane Darwell) is suspicious of his miraculous wealth: "When a man gets his money in a bad way...the Devil's in his heart."
As time passes, Jabez goes from being a simple, honest man into a greedy, arrogant bully, egged on by the Devil's kindly advice. His moral dissolution is also hastened by the arrival of the mysterious Belle Dee (Simone Simon), sent to be his child's nursemaid. With soft words and seductive smiles, Belle soon ousts the goodhearted Mary from her husband's life. But Mary, driven to desperation, enlists the help of Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold), the politician that everyone respects for his oratory and loyalty to the working man. Webster vows he'd "fight ten thousand devils to save a New Hampshire man." But it will take all of Webster's eloquence and all of Jabez's desperate, sincere repentance to win the trial for a man's soul. And when you're going up against the Devil, don't expect it to be a fair fight...
This simple morality tale, adapted from Stephen Vincent Benét's short story, is yet another superb movie from 1941. Yes, there were a lot of them that year, weren't there? Directed by the underrated William Dieterle, with cinematography by Joseph H. August and musical scoring by Bernard Herrmann, The Devil and Daniel Webster is one of those rare films that's a perfect example of classic Hollywood filmmaking and yet doesn't really feel like any other movie. The filmmakers take Benét's relatively simple narrative and expand it with humor, depth, and an imaginative perspective on eternal damnation. Believe me when I say that after watching this, you will never look at moths, recruitment posters, or "Pop Goes the Weasel" the same way again. But more than that, The Devil and Daniel Webster is a movie that can turn the old tale of good versus evil into something truly fascinating.
Something about tales of the fantastic and otherworldly seemed to strike a chord with director William Dieterle since his other great film of the 40s, Portrait of Jennie, was also about the arrival of the uncanny into ordinary life. Also made with the help of August and Herrmann and damn, why didn't those three collaborate more often? But while Jennie was lushly romantic, Devil is archly funny and straight-faced, lulling the audience in with its portrait of bygone America before it takes you by surprise. The visuals here are some of the most striking I've ever seen in a film. Like the first entrance of Satan, backlit and glowing more like an angel than the Prince of Darkness. Or the way Dieterle and August show the final temptation of Jabez, with the man caught in a crowd of whirling dancers, the play of light and shadow on their bodies slowly morphing into the image of hellfire. Even a relatively simple romantic moment between Jabez and his wife becomes something more, with the already-corrupted Jabez leaning over Mary in dark silence and her looking back with an expression that hints both at fright and sensual surrender. It's like the Tippi Hedren close-up from Marnie, twenty years before Hitchcock ever thought of it.
If Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it," then it's just as fair to say that this movie is very much of the Devil's party and is fully aware of that fact. Oh sure, we're rooting for Jabez to free his soul, but who could begrudge Walter Huston's incredibly charismatic Devil the chance to make some mischief? Like Ray Milland would find out in Alias Nick Beal (another great Faustian film), playing the Devil is just about as much fun as an actor can have. Huston's grin is so wide it doesn't quite seem attached to his face. He's a joking, courteous Devil ("I won't come to the christening...it would be in wretched bad taste"), running rings around Jabez with ease. The sinister aspect comes not so much from Huston trying to project real menace but from the good-natured satisfaction he has when explaining his position. Huston's performance as the unhappily married millionaire in Dodsworth is one of my personal favorites but this film shows he's just as wonderful when he plays it broad as when he plays it subtle. He was nominated for Best Actor (losing to Gary Cooper), but I wish it had been in the supporting category where he might have had a better chance.
Have I mentioned how much I love Edward Arnold? He was the consummate character actor, a man who could play outsized comic parts or dead-eyed villains with equal mastery. But he shone brightest when he could play it smart. He had a way of sizing someone up with one quick, shrewd glance, saying nothing but letting his presence speak for him. In von Sternberg's adaptation of Crime and Punishment, Arnold was a surprisingly effective Inspector Porfiry, smilingly working at poor Peter Lorre's nerves the way an old woman would wind up a ball of yarn. Here he has the immense task of creating a Daniel Webster that lives up to all the hype. The Webster in this tale is a noble and courageous politician, a man whose fiery rhetoric is in service to the people, not his own ambition. In short, he's the kind of man we dream of, not the man we ever meet.
In Arnold's hands however, Daniel Webster is a very enjoyable hero, clever and funny but with an air of real experience that makes his nobility seem hard-earned. Part of it can be attributed to the script, which allows Webster to be a little less than perfect. He's an overly enthusiastic drinker and smoker. He allows himself to get carried away by arrogance at times. And we can see that he too has to live with the Devil at his elbow, always tempting him with promises of the Presidency. Thomas Mitchell was slated for the role of Webster before breaking his leg. He would have been superb, but Arnold's performance is there already. When he makes his speech at Jabez's trial, we can see both the very real fear of a man facing the Devil himself and the deeper courage and fire that all of us would want to see raised in our defense.
There's a surplus of other great supporting perfomances in The Devil and Daniel Webster, from Jane Darwell's no-nonsense Ma Stone to John Qualen's hauntingly frightened Miser Stevens, the last man to make a bargain with the Devil. But by far the one you can't take your eyes from is Simone Simon as Belle Dee. She's ravishingly sexy here, so much so that it's no surprise that poor, simple Jabez falls for her charms in the space of about five seconds. Simon's French accent gives a strange, sing-song quality to her lines that's totally appropriate to a character that's meant to be otherworldly. "I'm from over the mountain," Belle says, in lieu of any other explanation. As attractive as Belle is, she's also quite creepy, with her constant smiles and ability to insinuate herself completely into the Stone household, replacing Mary entirely. It's hard to look at Simon's performance here and not imagine that Val Lewton was thinking of it when she was cast as the equally sexy and supernatural Irena in Cat People.
With Huston and Arnold holding up the smart, comic side of things and Simon handily taking care of the sex, there isn't much left over for our simple lead couple, James Craig and Anne Shirley. They represent the good American Everyman and his wife; two people that were meant to lead ordinary, uneventful lives. Craig gets the potentially interesting challenge of depicting Jabez's disintegration from true-hearted farmer into greedy, immoral layabout. But Craig doesn't have the ability to give any kind of complexity to the part. He's not bad, but he can only feel one thing at a time. Whether he's beaten down with remorse or trembling with greed, well that's all he feels. I feel that an actor like Joel McCrea or James Stewart could have made Jabez seem less like a pantomime character and more like a tormented, recognizable human being.
Anne Shirley is even less interesting than Craig and no wonder, she gets the worst part in the movie. The fact is that Mary Stone is such a monument of patience and sincerity that I doubt even Teresa Wright could make her credible. She waits in hopeless obedience for her husband to return to the path of goodness for seven years. She bows her head even when he forbids her from disciplining their son. She loves him even when he kicks her out of the new house so he can live there with his mistress. The only direct action she can take is to implore Daniel Webster to help her, crying that her lousy husband's behavior must be her fault somehow. Shirley does what she can (she tended to get stuck with these winsome ingenues time after time) and you can believe that she's a devout, loving woman and all that. But after all she endures, it's close to impossible to believe that she could ever trust and respect her husband again. There's too much poison between them.
In the end, we know that good will triumph and villainy will slink away unrewarded. Still this film is all about the journey we take to get there and it's a fun, fantastic trip all the way. It has rich performances, witty lines, and an imaginative use of sound and shadow that will linger in your memory. It deserves to be classed as one of the great films of the 1940s. And I suggest you spread the word about it right now, before Walter Huston makes you his next victim.
Favorite Quote:
"Oh, come, come now. Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler."
Favorite Scene:
The party at Jabez Stone's new mansion. While spoilers don't really apply to a straightforward plot like The Devil and Daniel Webster, I think it's best when Dieterle and August's uncanny visuals are left as a surprise. So I won't give too much away about what happens at the party and what we see. Suffice to say that it's one of the most memorable parties in cinema, one to put alongside The Masque of the Red Death. We get to see the final sum of all that Jabez has hoped for, along with his well-deserved comeuppance. We get to see the Devil's sharp assessment of the man he has caught: "I could fit your soul in my vest pocket." We see Belle's true nature revealed as she leads the revelry of the damned. And we're left with the haunting image of what happens when the Devil chooses to bring you into the dance.
Final Six Words:
Bewitching tale of dark fantasies fulfilled
