Actor Spotlight: Edward Arnold

(Note: This is my entry in the What a Character! Blogathon, hosted by Outspoken & Freckled, Paula's Cinema Club, and Once Upon A Screen.)

Nowadays, the Hollywood rule for greedy businessmen in movies is that be you tall or short, slim or round, redeemable or diabolic, you must be shouting into a cellphone. Hence will the moviegoers know you as the face of cold-hearted capitalism. But back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, Hollywood had a different shorthand for businessmen. You had to be fat.

To struggling audiences during the Depression, nothing said money like middle-aged men who seemed to be eating too well. Bankers, politicians, newspaper owners, and factory owners. They were all “fat cats” in the eyes of the public, men gorging themselves on the labor of others. In Hollywood, the portrayal of these men wasn’t always negative. On the contrary, the screwball comedies were full of bumbling, well-meaning businessmen, who could be rescued from their selfish existence. Generally, redemption would come in the blonde, husky-voiced form of Jean Arthur, who would arrive to provide daughterly support and some no-nonsense lecturing (Easy Living, The Devil and Miss Jones, The More the Merrier). Other times though, these men were surface-level sharks, insatiable villains out to grab everything in sight. Whether he leaned good or evil, the businessman archetype was ridiculously popular during those lean years, enough so that a whole class of talented character actors could make a living just from playing him. And of those character actors, for me, the most interesting and varied of the lot is Edward Arnold.

Within the ranks of Hollywood’s fat men, Walter Connolly was the cuddliest, Eugene Pallette was the grumpiest, and Charles Coburn the wiliest, but Edward Arnold always came off as the smartest. Many character actors gain success by having the biggest reactions, the most outsize expressions. And there’s nothing wrong with that, as any fan of Edward Everett Horton, Marie Dressler, Una O’Connor or Eric Blore will tell you. But Arnold’s special talent came from holding just a little back. When an Edward Arnold character gets bad news, he goes very still, with only his eyes giving away his despair. When the news is good, he responds with a boisterous laugh, but it never takes him long to get serious again. Arnold excelled in playing cool-headed businessmen and politicians, men who were cautious, controlled, and ambitious. A Coburn character could get away with playing dumb but Arnold couldn’t.

Even in the part of the bumbling millionaire in Easy Living, he’s sharp and snappy. Watching him spar with Jean Arthur over compound interest is like watching two trains collide at top speed and then miraculously keep right on going. “I pay eight dollars a month, there are four weeks in a month,” Arthur tells him. “I beg your pardon, madam, there are four and one third weeks in a month!” Arnold counters. “Otherwise we’d only have forty-eight weeks in a year!” “Oh,” Arthur says, her face brightening, “You mean leap year?” Arnold’s face instantly collapses like a sinking sponge cake. “No, NO, I don’t mean leap year!” he shouts, turning a howl of frustration into something that’s almost a sob.

But while Arnold could do comedy, his talents were more often put to use in drama. For Frank Capra, he was the face of ruthless opportunism and in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe, he plays essentially interchangeable villains. Capra could never muster up as much interest for his bad guys as his heroes so Arnold gets little to do. Still, he manages to convey the coiled-up cruelty of these men by keeping his body still and his movements subtle, with a predatory gaze from behind his glasses. It’s a rule in Edward Arnold movies that, unlike Clark Kent, Edward Arnold always gets ten times more dangerous whenever he has glasses on. 

Capra would also use Arnold as the greedy but ultimately goodhearted businessman in You Can’t Take It With You. This is a movie I find hard to stomach. It’s one of those leaden confections where obnoxious free spirits run around following their dreams and turning up their noses at people who try to do dull things like paying bills. But Arnold, who is the closest thing the movie has to a real person, managed to sneak one genuine laugh out of me. During a chaotic dinner party, Arnold’s wife gets jabbed over her spiritualism by a clueless Spring Byington. “Everyone knows spiritualism’s a fake!” Byington says. “Now, Penny, you’ve got hobbies of your own,” Lionel Barrymore reminds her. “Yes, but not silly ones!” Byington answers innocently. Arnold’s been looking like grim death the whole evening, but at this remark he lifts his eyes up and suddenly beams like a blissful baby. 

In repose, Edward Arnold’s face was ordinary, but watch him smile and the features turn into a sharply angled geometry problem. The nose is a positive beak; you could imagine Arnold elbowing aside Burgess Meredith to play the Penguin. The eyes squint into specks while the mouth curls up until it almost disappears under the nose. If he’d wanted, no doubt Arnold could have parlayed that expression into a character actor’s trademark, but his overall demeanor was too serious to caricature. 

The image of Arnold that’s been passed down to us is the stern businessman, but take a look at Edward Arnold when he was young. You could imagine that man playing Lorenzo in Merchant of Venice, which was actually Arnold’s debut role. The part must have made a great impression on him, because he titled his autobiography Lorenzo Goes to Hollywood. I’ve always loved that little detail, which gives you some insight into Arnold’s mind. No matter how many greedy fat cats he played, he still saw himself as the young man under the stars, whispering poetry into the ears of his beloved.

By far my favorite Edward Arnold role is his turn in The Devil and Daniel Webster, playing the courageous and eloquent Webster to Walter Huston’s Devil. Originally Thomas Mitchell was going to play Daniel Webster and while Mitchell was a superb performer, I can’t help but think his take on the part would have been much warmer and more approachable than Arnold’s. Arnold is certainly boisterous and fun-loving as the beer-swigging orator, but there’s a calculating glint in the eye that never goes away. When he says, “I’d fight ten thousand devils to save a New Hampshire man,” there’s nothing folksy about it. It’s cold and quiet and utterly resolute. Our first glimpse of Arnold is of a tired man scratching away with his quill in the dark, while the Devil’s voice whispers in his ear. Arnold’s face betrays how tempted he is to abandon principle for power. It’s a moment that adds a measure of depth to every scene afterwards. No matter how hail-fellow-well-met Webster acts, he is still fundamentally alone, trying to help people more inclined to worship him than treat him as an equal. 

Arnold had a gift for tackling long, weighty speeches and making it seem easy. The Devil and Daniel Webster shows him at the top of his form, but if you want to watch him in a game of serve-and-volley dialogue, look no further than Von Sternberg’s 1935 adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Next to a prickly, tormented Raskolnikov (played by Peter Lorre), Arnold is a smoothly confident Inspector Porfiry. Lorre speaks slowly, his eyes haunted, while Arnold plays the detective with an air of boundless good cheer, as if he’s genuinely enjoying his quarry’s company. The movie was disowned by Von Sternberg for being a routine assignment with little feel for the source material, but Lorre and Arnold are still a pleasure to watch.

In a long and prolific career, Arnold did get some interesting lead roles, although they were rarely in top-flight films. In Come and Get It, Edward Arnold plays the part of yet another greedy businessman, except this time we get to see his character develop. He goes from being a boisterous lumber man to a dissatisfied tycoon, hopelessly trying to recapture his youth. In the first half of the film (by far the better half) Arnold is overshadowed by Frances Farmer’s throaty, wistful bar singer. But an odd thing happens. When the movie gets duller and the pacing begins to lag, Arnold actually gets better. As his character tries vainly to recreate his lost love in the form of Frances Farmer’s identical daughter, Arnold manages to make a creepy, unpleasant man seem genuinely tragic. 

While Arnold could carry a film, I feel like his particular brand of underplayed scene-stealing is most interesting when it comes as a surprise. Take a run-of-the-mill assignment like 1941’s Johnny Eager. In Johnny Eager, Arnold nearly gets sidelined by all the compulsively watchable antics of his costars. When you’re in a movie with Lana Turner as a sociology student falling into madness, Van Heflin tossing out drunk Shakespeare quotes, and Robert Taylor telling all the ladies in the audience that he’s bad, oh yes, he’s never known love and no woman will ever find a way into his heart, you could be turning cartwheels in the background and still not get noticed. 

Arnold gets the unenviable role of the good-guy D.A., who tries to keep his stepdaughter Turner from falling into the clutches of Taylor’s womanizing gangster, only to end up blackmailed and broken. But he still manages to add a few interesting touches. In a scene with Taylor, Arnold snaps, “Remember what I told you, thief!” Arnold lingers on the word “thief” as if it’s the worst sobriquet known to man. “You mean ex-thief,” Taylor counters. “Get out, thief!” Arnold barks, more like a cashier brandishing a baseball bat than a dignified D.A. When he orders Taylor to stoop down and pick up a dollar bill, it’s no surprise that Taylor does it, after getting a glimpse of such primal hatred. The D.A. actually becomes more dignified when he becomes powerless and his final scene with the gangster is a flash of pure heartbreak. “My daughter always trusted me,” he says and Arnold pauses to swallow down his inconvenient emotions. “But she doesn’t anymore.” Taylor tersely tells him not to cry. “You’ll not have that pleasure,” Arnold responds, looking back with resigned misery.

If there’s one way to sum up an Edward Arnold character, it’s that he always has total conviction that what he’s doing is the only right thing to do, whether it’s arguing a man’s soul away from Hell or blasting boy scouts with hoses or trying to explain compound interest. I like to think that it was Arnold’s own conviction and determination that shone through in his roles, the conviction of a man who gave his best years to Hollywood and never lost that look of bright, watchful intelligence.

Happy Halloween, Guys!

Happy Halloween to all my readers! I hope it's been a good one, full of treats and fun and frights. I've been using the season to catch up on all those famous horror movies I'd never gotten around to see it and my favorite of the bunch was undoubtedly the 1958 Hammer version of Dracula. In fact, I even got to write that one up in an article for ClassicFlix!

For those who don't know, I'm now an official ClassicFlix contributor, which means I get a shiny new column all to myself, every month. I have the great privilege of joining a wonderful team of writers, including the inimitable Stacia Jones, the erudite Mythical Monkey, the scintillating Brandie Ashe, the prolific Laura Grieve, the tasteful Rick Brooks...have I pelted you with enough adjectives yet? And of course, there's the needs-no-introduction Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., who's taken on the responsibility of associate editor, which means he gets to gently beat the writers with old copies of Film Comment whenever they don't turn things in.

I'll be heading up the Colorama column, which means I get to find new ways to gush over beautiful Technicolor movies each month. Not sure quite how this particular assignment fell to me--I've never pretended to be an authority on cinematography or matte paintings (psst, for that, you should check out Matte Shot) or the inner workings of Natalie Kalmus. But anything that gives me an excuse to spend another two hours watching Black Narcissus makes me a happy camper so there you go. 

This month marks my third article for ClassicFlix. If you guys are interested, you can also find me talking up the color scheme in John Ford's Revolutionary epic Drums Along the Mohawk and daydreaming about Gene Tierney's eyes in Leave Her to Heaven. But I hope you will drop by the site to check out the all the writers who've chosen to make it their second home. As soon as you're finished pouring over the incredible classic film and television selection, of course. And picking your rental choices for the next four weeks. And making out your Christmas list. 

That's all for the moment, folks, but you will be hearing from me again very soon. Here's to all the people that make this season of spooks so damn fun!

Movie Review: Blues in the Night

Blues in the Night (1941)
directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Richard Whorf, Jack Carson, Betty Field, Priscilla Lane

Note: Review requested by W.B. Kelso, of the fabulous blog 3B Theater: Micro-Brewed Reviews

Jigger Pine (Richard Whorf) is a world-class pianist with only one dream in his heart. To start his own jazz band (or "unit" as he calls it). A group of guys that play the same, live the same, and think the same. All of them on a mission to find the music of the streets and give it back to the people. His friend, reluctant lawyer/aspiring clarinetist Nickie (Elia Kazan) believes in his vision and they recruit two of their friends: Pete the bassist (Peter Whitney) and Peppi the drummer (Billy Halop). It isn't long before their enthusiasm wins over more people, too. Scheming trumpeter Leo (Jack Carson) and his sweet, optimistic wife Character (Priscilla Lane). The quintet begin their ragged life on the road, hitching rides on boxcars and playing to whatever audience they can find.

It's a hard but happy life until one faithful day when they run across ex-con Del Davis (Lloyd Nolan). One careless act of generosity on their parts is enough to win the gangster's loyalty and he brings them to his roadhouse, the aptly-named jungle. The former members of Davis' gang, his old partner Sam (Howard Da Silva), his old flame Kay (Betty Field), and Kay's crippled ex-lover Brad (Wallace Ford), are running the joint and none of them are too happy that Davis has decided to adopt this group of stray musicians. It isn't long before Kay, still angling to win back Davis, takes up with Leo. When Leo gets wise, she sinks her hooks into Jigger. Her toxic demands turn Jigger from a confident musician into a hollow-eyed wreck, willing to tear down everything else to make her happy. Even if it means turning his back on the band and the music he loves.

Blues in the Night is a movie that seems specially ordered for a night of insomniac channel-surfing, the kind of movie you watch through bleary, dazzled eyes at 3:00 A.M. and then forget about until the next morning, when you try to summarize it to your friends. All goes normally at first ("There's these guys that want to start a jazz band"). But before long you start to stumble over the details ("So the baby's dead and the pianist goes on some insane acid trip on account of the gangster's ex-girlfriend and he starts hallucinating that he's an organ grinder's monkey, but the band convinces him to come back, but then the ex-girlfriend returns to plot more evil until her crippled sidekick decides to put a stop to her.."). And then you start to think, "Wait, what the hell was I watching?"

But Blues in the Night is more than the sum of its delirious plot points. It's an amazingly appealing genre mash-up, a film that starts out like any other light musical comedy of Hollywood's golden age and spirals into a proto-noir of backstabbing dames, mental breakdowns, and vengeful gangsters. Despite the descent into darkness, though, the movie remains innocent at the core, allowing its group of music-minded misfits to walk through Hell and emerge unscathed. I have a weakness for movies that can skip through multiple genres. Maybe it's because as movies get bigger, they also get safer. Scene after scene of well-made, polished sameness. Did Blues in the Night seem as messy to the theater audiences of 1941 as it does now? Probably. But I doubt those audiences could have predicted how exhilarating watching that kind of mess could be, seventy years later.

I can pinpoint the exact scene where I fell for this movie. We catch up with our band of musicians as they steal a ride on a boxcar. After raising each other's spirits with a round of "Hang on to Your Lids, Kids," our gang welcomes a fellow traveler aboard. Only this traveler is no ordinary bum; he's a hardened criminal, who immediately pulls a gun and demands money. They hand over all they have and the train travels on, into the night. The gangster, Del Davis huddles by himself in the corner while the gang falls asleep, clutching their instruments. When the train pulls into the station, a railway man opens the car and beams the flashlight into the faces of our heroes. Instead of getting mad, he greets them as old friends. "Last time I saw you was three months ago...still riding the boxcars?" He promises not to kick them off, leaving them with a warning not to play so loud. When he's gone, the gang promptly settles back down to sleep but Davis won't let them. 

"You could have turned me in," he snaps. 

"Why should we? We've been broke and hungry, too," says Jigger, the band leader. 

The band members lie back down, curled up together like kittens or a bunch of kids at a sleepover. They are total innocents, completely unafraid or resentful. A smile breaks out over Davis' face and you can see the lost humanity slowly return to his eyes. When this hardened gangster decides to take care of them, it plays out not just as some ridiculous plot twist, but a sweet fantasy. Nobody survives on luck and music alone but sometimes, it's nice to pretend we could.

Director Anatole Litvak doesn't give you any time to question the plot of Blue in the Night. He keeps it moving at a frantic pace; you can almost hear him snapping his fingers in the background of each scene, ordering each actor to pick up the tempo. These jazz musicians talk faster than Wall Street stockbrokers, trading quips and comments and insults at such a rate that one scene can shuffle through six different moods. I like the speed, though. It reminds me of His Girl Friday and Stage Door, other movies about people doing what they love, no matter what it costs them. If you love something so much you couldn't imagine doing anything else, then why wouldn't your brain zip along at the speed of twenty ideas per minute?

While Litvak's direction is smooth and confident throughout, the movie really turns on the heat with the montage sequences (credited to Don Siegel). The first one is a sharp evocation of what life on the road means for a penniless jazz band. We race through images of the band members playing, of maps, and outstretched thumbs and speeding cars. I especially like the way the film uses angles, swiping across the screen with a character's instrument when it cuts into the next scene, as if to show music itself as a physical force, propelling these people onward.

But the second montage is the crowning glory of the film, its most perfect, bizarre moment. Jigger Pine falls off the deep end after the femme fatale Kay leaves him. He can't even remember how to play the songs he wrote. Suddenly, after a disastrous reunion with his friends, Jigger falls unconscious and dives headfirst into a surreal hallucination. He sees his bandmates. Then they turn into the five fingers of a hand. He sees Kay, repeated over and over, until she becomes an entire orchestra, each of them playing a separate instrument. Giant hands wave in his face. He shrinks down into an organ grinder's monkey while his bandmates taunt him. And then, in an image that feels like it should have been storyboarded by Salvador Dali, Jigger finds himself at the piano, ready to play, only for the keys to melt into white goo, trapping his fingers completely. The imagery is so stark and arresting that the movie doesn't even try to follow up on it in any logical way. Jigger just wakes up from this crazy dream and that's it, he's ready to be cured. I'm sort of wondering if Kay herself is supposed to be a metaphor for drug or alcohol addiction, because it really does play out more like Ray Milland coming off the DTs in The Lost Weekend than anything else.

Richard Whorf plays the film's protagonist, Jigger Pine, as a man of almost unreal goodness and conviction. He's always smiling, always supportive. Litvak keeps Whorf as the focus of nearly every group shot, letting the other band members cluster around him like eager acolytes. Because the movie holds Jigger up to such a high standard, I found myself almost rooting for the femme fatale Kay to drag him off his mountaintop. And drag him she does, right into the mental ward. Whorf has a relaxed, friendly presence onscreen and he handles Jigger's descent into desperation without histrionics (except that loopy hallucination scene). The script doesn't give him much chance to add character depth. Jigger's downfall happens as simply and easily as if someone had just flipped a light switch. 

I'm really beginning to wonder what quirk of fate and casting kept landing dimpled, all-American Betty Field in the role of irresistible, untrustworthy female. Every time I see her, she's playing some kind of tramp, from low (Mae in Of Mice and Men) to high (Daisy in The Great Gatsby). Maybe it was that insinuating nasal whine she could put into her voice. Or maybe it was the go-for-broke energy she displays here as conniving Kay. Field's femme fatale is a jangling bunch of nerves and tinsel, a two-bit, no-talent floozy who chews through men like they were strips of gum. I've ripped into Field before on this blog, but she's much improved here, clearly relishing Kay's barbed-wire ambition more than Daisy's aristocratic charms. However, Field relishes it rather too much, playing up Kay's whiny, nagging side so much that it's difficult to understand how she ever manages to enslave men. Personally, I'd be hopping a boxcar just to escape the woman's awful vowel sounds. And when she calls down vengeance upon Jigger and Del and all the men who haven't given her what she wants, Field goes right for the rafters in a way that's madly enjoyable and downright silly. I mean, she doesn't shout, "And then I will build my race of atomic supermen!" but she comes close.

As Field's good-girl foil, Priscilla Lane manages the trick of being the squarest jazz musician ever seen, until Martin Milner stole her spot in Sweet Smell of Success. Okay, so that's rough on Lane. She does have a nice voice and if her sweet, blonde singer seems like she'd be more comfortable baking an apple pie than hitching it on boxcars, well, at least she provides the audience with a pleasant break from Field's nastiness. The script does add a bizarre touch by giving her character the name, "Character." Really? Maybe Ethel Waters could pull that off but Priscilla Lane?

 Blues in the Night benefits from a wealth of wonderful supporting actors. There's Jack Carson, playing a heel as only Jack Carson could. It's a typical Carson role, the guy who knows he's laying traps for suckers but is honestly hurt and confused that these suckers would expect any more or less of him. There's also Elia Kazan, turning in another enjoyable, fast-talking performance after City for Conquest. Seriously, guys, I never would have pegged Kazan as any kind of acting talent, but that's twice now I've found him pretty good. Lloyd Nolan, as the gangster Del Davis, manages to convey the perfect amount of affability and menace. 

But by far and away, my favorite supporting performer was Wallace Ford, who plays Brad, Kay's ex-lover and fumbling sidekick. At first, Brad seems like nothing more than a pathetic crony, a shuffling Igor too stupid to free himself from Kay and Davis. But in one key dialogue with Jigger, Ford slowly reveals the tragedy behind the man. Once he felt sorry for Kay. And then he fell in love with her, breaking his own body in a rodeo just to impress her. "I wasn't much good for anything after that except hanging around her." As Ford talks, you see Brad stand straight and tall for the first time, his voice free of self-pity, revealing a depth of experience that turns him from a cringing crony into a fallen hero.

Blues in the Night is a movie I'd be very happy to stumble across again. It's weird, it's sweet, it's got good Arlen and Mercer tunes, and it's entirely unique. I don't think I'd ever want to own it, though. It really belongs to that realm of happenstance movies. Too mixed-up for respectability, too cute for sophistication, and too enjoyable to resist.

Favorite Quote:

"You see, I'm a student of jazz. I know the anatomy of swing, not only musically but theoretically. I've heard everything from Le Jazz Hot to Downbeat. You'll find out for yourself. As the Latin say, res ipsa loquitur. On the side, I'm a student of the law."

Favorite Scene:

As I mentioned before, that crazy montage scene. Can't say it enough.

Final Six Words:

Exhilarating riff turns into fever dream

Movie Review: Scandal Sheet

Scandal Sheet (1952)
directed by Phil Karlson, starring Broderick Crawford, John Derek

Note: This is my entry in the Journalism in Classic Film Blogathon, hosted by Comet Over Hollywood and Lindsay's Movie Musings

Once upon a time, the Daily Express was a respectable newspaper. In the hands of the unscrupulous editor Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford), it's devolved into little more than a tabloid, with headlines like "Police Seek Gorilla Man-Slayer." Honor and prestige don't matter much to Chapman though, so long as circulation keeps rising. His star reporter Steve McCleary (John Derek) is a chip off the old block, resorting to tricks and lies to get the best headlines. Columnist Julie Allison (Donna Reed) is appalled at Chapman and McCleary's tactics but her objections are always steamrollered.

But Chapman's latest gag will wind up tying a noose around his neck. At a Lonelyhearts Ball sponsored by the Daily Express, a woman (Rosemary DeCamp) approaches Chapman with news that could break his career. She's the wife he abandoned twenty years ago and she's going to let the whole world know what a crook he is. They struggle and Chapman accidentally kills her. He covers up the crime, but he doesn't reckon on just how well he trained his protege McCleary. The young man is convinced that the Lonelyhearts Murder will be the story of his career and he's determined to sniff out every possible lead. Now Chapman is caught in a game of keeping McCleary off his trail without drawing suspicion. He's got to keep this story buried...no matter who he has to bury along with it.

One of my high school English teachers used to quote from a text that said detectives are the most natural heroes of a story because they want the same thing the reader wants: to know what's going on. The same thing could be said for fictional reporters with one crucial difference. It's the reporter's job to tell the truth, to broadcast it and sell it. A fictional detective can uncover the murderer and go home to tea and biscuits, satisfied that his work is done. The reporter always has to make a choice in how the information is used. It's a distinction that makes the reporter equally adept in the role of villain or hero. Things will never be clear-cut for them. There will always be consequences. There will always be one eye on the profit margin. No wonder reporters are always such cynics in the movies.

Scandal Sheet takes a basic but irresistible premise: what if the reporter was the one who committed the crime? And what if he had to make it look like he wanted to uncover the truth, even while doing everything possible to conceal it? The movie raises the stakes even further by pitting the villainous protagonist against his own protege, a man who'll do anything to get the story because that's what his boss taught him. The irony is that the investigation begins to turn the selfish younger reporter into a more principled man just as his mentor keeps sinking further into evil.

The movie was adapted from a novel by Samuel Fuller, the same Fuller that went on to direct Pickup on South Street and Shock Corridor. Before he went into movies, he was in journalism, starting work as a crime reporter at the age of 17. His experiences gave him a perfect insight into the workings of a journalist's world and he would return to the theme many times, from the obsessive, ambitious protagonist of Shock Corridor, convinced he'll win the Pulitzer to the dedicated, idealistic reporters of Park Row (Fuller's own favorite film). Fuller unfortunately did not adapt the screenplay for Scandal Sheet nor did he direct; it would have been a real pleasure to see Fuller's gritty, chaotic take on the misfits that live on the edges of scandal rags. Few noir directors had Fuller's affection for the sleazy and grimy back alleys of the city or his ability to characterize its twisted inhabitants without condescension. The only one I can compare him to is Jules Dassin but Dassin was always more elegant and broadly humanistic in his approach. Fuller is messy and eccentric and that's what makes his style so fun.

But if we can't have Fuller, director Phil Karlson is no slouch either. In fact, he's probably the film's biggest asset. Karlson's greatest gifts were pacing and control; his movies transition smoothly from scenes of talk to scenes of brutal shocking violence in a way that leaves you dizzy. His masterpiece The Phenix City Story is a prime example, slowly upping the ante with each killing and somehow managing to make each one a sadistic surprise. Here, he stages the initial killing with a striking shot of Chapman's wife moving around him, her voice rising to a shriek as she threatens him with the destruction of everything he's worked for. Karlson's camera follows her in a circle, as if the woman is literally walking in the shape of a noose. When she and Chapman begin to struggle, it feels truly violent, with the wife digging her nails into the man's hair. The fight ends with her cracking her head on a pipe and Karlson lingers on the agonized expression of her face.

Even better is Chapman's later killing of an innocent, alcoholic former reporter (Henry O'Neill). The man knows too much and can't be allowed to live. Another director might have framed the scene to allow Broderick Crawford's threatening bulk to overwhelm the older O'Neill. Karlson keeps them in a merciless extreme closeup, cutting between Crawford's shadowed face and O'Neill's immediate awareness of his own death. The faces tell the whole story.

Faces are a constant visual theme in Scandal Sheet. Karlson keeps returning to extreme closeups throughout the film, allowing scenes to play out through the changing expressions of the actors. He also collects interesting faces to populate the film, from the beaten-down but elaborately made-up former wife (Rosemary DeCamp) to the pop-eyed drunk that comes with information. One of the more striking shots of the movie is a scene where McCleary goes to question the local alcoholics and Karlson lets the camera travel slowly down the bar, letting us look closely at each man's face, seeing the wrinkles and shadows and disappointments that make up these men's lives. That single shot tells us so much about how society and the glib McCleary view these men, while letting us see the barhounds' grim humanity. The whole movie in fact, hinges on people's ability to remember faces. It's that which trips Chapman up and it's his fatal flaw. He's so focused on circulation numbers and suckers and slobs that he can never truly see the faces, only the figures.

I've had an allergy to Broderick Crawford since Born Yesterday. His one-note, blustery, growly performance and lack of comic timing just dragged scene after scene through the cement mixer. Thankfully, Scandal Sheet asks him to play it cool and contained so the shouting is kept to a minimum here. As the editor and unwilling murderer Mark Chapman, Crawford is gruff but professional, careful to keep his frustrations under wraps. He conveys the man's growing panic mostly through the eyes, his gaze shifting away just a little too fast when someone tries to bring up a new angle on the Lonelyhearts Murder. Chapman ends up as the embodiment of "win-at-all-costs" journalism, a man whose disregard for the human beings behind the circulation numbers will be his undoing. Complete scum but Crawford finds a note of pathos in the man's ultimate fate.

What Crawford can't convey, however, is the kind of sleazy charisma that elevated other "evil journalist" films like Sweet Smell of Success and Ace in the Hole. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas were black of heart but nobody could doubt their smarts, the pleasure they took in working over the masses. They were con man, but you couldn't help admiring their style. Broderick Crawford has bull-headed determination on his side, but no allure. This really deadens the impact of the film's central relationship; the one between Chapman and his slick, admiring protege McCleary. Crawford just doesn't seem believable as the object of someone's hero worship. Put someone like Robert Ryan in his place and it would make more sense.

John Derek's performance as Steve McCleary has the opposite problem. While Crawford's performance only really becomes great at the end, Derek's only really great in the beginning. He's perfectly suited as the callow reporter, so convinced of his charm and appeal that he can hustle Donna Reed into buying him dinner and dismiss her in the same breath. Derek's long lashes and skinny good looks seem bizarrely contemporary for a mid-century film; he's almost drowning in the heavy overcoats of the period. You could CGI him into any random CW show today and he'd fit right in. Still, the man carries off McCleary's fast-paced dialogue and smug reactions well; it's like watching a man bang around in a sports car, not even realizing how much he's scratching up the paint job. Derek's on shakier ground when McCleary has to discover sincerity. The movie doesn't set up any great chemistry between him and Crawford and Derek can't supply the emotional depth on his own. You imagine something like the relationship between Edward G. Robinson and Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity and Scandal Sheet could have been a great film.

But if I'm faulting the movie for not achieving greatness, that's only because it so often seems close to getting there. The screenplay crackles with the kind of sharp, zinging lines that's essential to any great newspaper movie. "Don't count your steaks before you hear the sizzle." "I always said you were born in a field of shamrocks." "You're still too big for Dead End Street." "Does the judge's needle sew anything up?" "Everything but knotting the thread at the end...I mean the noose." The movie is full of clever details that add greatly to the atmosphere and themes. For example, The Lonelyhearts Ball lures couples to the altar with the promise of a bed with a built-in television set (oh great shades of the reality shows to come). The newspaper office is overshadowed by a giant clock that marks the rising circulation numbers. The numbers grow with the Lonelyhearts Murder Coverage, just as Chapman's time starts to run out. There's a lot of creativity and a lot of intelligence at work here. Ultimately the movie ends up as a good, sharp noir that promises a little more than it can deliver. But then, every journalist knows that it's not just the story. It's how you tell it. And Scandal Sheet does a fine job at that.

Favorite Quote:

"We got a new man on this beat that's built like you between the ears. He saw a hole in the back of the dame's skull and figured she was slugged." 

Favorite Scene:

The final confrontation. Karlson manages to take a climax that would be disappointingly basic, a simple case of a man remembering one crucial detail while the murderer foolishly hangs around rather than making a break for it, and makes it completely riveting. Everything plays out in tight closeups, with Broderick Crawford sliding in and out of the shadows. You can see his last shreds of hope warring with his fear as he tries, futilely, to hide his too-famous face from view. All while his protege slowly comes to realize that the man he's idolized has been a stranger all along. It's slow and suspenseful and finishes on a wickedly smart final image, a fitting riposte to the career of Mark Chapman, the man who traded in scandal.

Final Six Words:

Gives new meaning to "screaming headlines"

Random Blogging News

As random as Clint Eastwood holding an armadillo...

Before I get down to my reader's choice reviews (let me just say, the final results were...interesting) I thought it was high time I did a news post. Summer may be over but the movie bloggers aren't going to let it get them down. Every time I turn around, someone's posting a new blogathon. And it's looking like a particularly good crop this autumn. I'm a huge admirer of all the hosting blogs listed here and I'm so glad that they've decided to celebrate their personal movie passions. Please note that these blogathons all have open participation, so anybody who's interested can sign up.

Breaking News: Journalism in Classic Films Blogathon (Sept 21st-22nd), Hosted by Comet Over Hollywood and Lindsay's Movie Musings

This weekend, we go to the presses. It's a celebration of those crazy, committed people that live to bring you the latest headlines. Jessica from Comet Over Hollywood and Lindsay from Lindsay's Movie Musings are holding a blogathon to celebrate journalists in the movies. From Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell battling their way through His Girl Friday to the scheming, ruthless Kirk Douglas in Ace in the Hole, journalists have always been a rich topic for movies. Whether they're trying to uncover the truth or twist it for their own purposes, the reporters know where the action is. And this Saturday and Sunday, it's all about them.

The Great Imaginary Film Blogathon (Oct 1st-3rd), Hosted by the Metzinger Sisters at Silver Scenes

The Metzinger Sisters have been gracious enough to comment several times on this blog and I'm so happy they've decided to host their first blogathon. The Great Imaginary Film Blogathon is all about letting your imagination run wild. As they put it, "Here's your chance to gush about all those wonderful movies you wish were made but never were." Maybe you always wanted to see Wuthering Heights with Vivien Leigh in the lead (if you're anything like me that is). Maybe you want a Pre-Code adaptation of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Maybe you just want to see William Powell play James Bond. In this blogathon, all these things can be yours. Follow the link to check out the possibilities.

The Hammer Halloween Blogathon (Oct 21st-25th), Hosted by the Classic Film and TV Cafe

Here, we take the opportunity to share Halloween with the people that made it the most stylish event of the year. The Classic Film and TV Cafe is hosting a celebration of classic Hammer Horror to usher in this year's Halloween festivities. That means Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. It means Oliver Reed, Ingrid Pitt, Michael Gough, and Caroline Munro. Heaving bosoms, staircases, capes, fangs, claws, unspeakable evil, all the good things that make up a proper Halloween party. See you there.

Hitchcock Halloween Blogathon (October 31st), Hosted by Backlots

Of course, if classic monsters aren't to your taste, you can always take a trip to Backlots and celebrate an Alfred Hitchcock-style Halloween.  You can never have too much Hitchcock in your life (says the woman who wrote her college entrance essay on how much she loved Hitchcock movies) and Halloween is an ideal time to celebrate him. Put on your blonde wigs, pin a stuffed bird to your shoulder, grab a suspiciously Freudian purse, and take a trip with the Master of Suspense.

What a Character! 2013 Blogathon (Nov 9th-11th), Hosted by Outspoken & Freckled, Paula's Cinema Club, and Once Upon a Screen 

With characters like these, one blogathon could never be enough. The delightful hostesses of last year's What a Character! Blogathon have returned, this time with a cast of committed bloggers just as wonderful as the actors they're celebrating. Think how much duller the Astaire and Rogers movies would be without Edward Everett Horton's double takes and Helen Broderick's perfectly timed reactions (she's so good, she even makes the disappearing sandwich gag work). Think of film noir without Elisha Cook Jr. or Preston Sturges films without William Demarest. Think of Thelma Ritter in just about anything. It's time to give thanks to the people that made the movies shine.

The Chaney Blogathon (November 15th-18th) Hosted by Movies, Silently and The Last Drive In 

I was all set to put the baby to bed, so to speak, when I got news over the wire that yet another blogathon had been announced. Two wonderful blogs, Movies, Silently, and The Last Drive In, are holding a blogathon in honor of the legendary Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney, Jr. The Unknown was the first silent movie I ever loved, so I'm tickled to death that the Chaney family is getting their own blogathon. Hurry and sign up for this one before all the slots are taken!

Well, that's all for now, folks! But stay tuned for more updates.

Reader's Choice: What Should I Review?

I think there is an old blogging rule, no doubt inscribed on a tablet by our ancestors and buried somewhere in the desert that says, "Never start a blog post with a reference to how long it's been since you've blogged." So I won't start this one that way. But I do feel like the blog has been collecting a layer of dust since my last blogathon. My movie-watching time has been intercepted lately by TV shows and re-watches of old favorites (My mother had never seen Roman Holiday--imagine!). This is nice, but I really want to get back to a proper schedule of movie reviewing. Thus, I've decided to try something a little different, to give the blog a good shot of adrenaline. I'm going to let my readers decide what I should review next.

Basically, what movies would you like to see me review in the month of September? What genres have I been avoiding, which stars have been ignored? Send me your movie requests and I will promise to randomly pick 3 movies to review here on the blog. Three movies chosen by you guys. No matter what they may be.

(And yes, I did steal this idea from the Siren.)

The Rules of the Game (for requesting movies)

1. The movie must have been released between 1930 and 1965. I love movies of all eras but when it comes to my blog, I like to stick to my mission statement. So any requests for The Matrix or Shoah will be politely but firmly ignored.

2. You can submit a movie from any genre, any country, any style. Horror, exploitation, documentary, foreign, animated, comedy, crime, science fiction, musical, surreal, anything goes.

3. You can submit up to 3 movie requests. That's 3 per person. It will all go in the hat and a trusted third party who doesn't know Scarlet Street from Scarlett O'Hara will get to choose the winners.

4. Please try to keep it to movies that are readily available, by Amazon, Netflix, Warner Archive, ClassicFlix, or on Youtube. I will do all in my power to obtain the movie in question but if it eludes my grasp, I will choose another movie in its place.

5. Repeats are okay. So if someone's requested a movie you'd like to see reviewed here, you can ask for the same movie.

6. Don't request a movie that's already been reviewed on this site.

7. With all that in mind, I promise to review the winning 3 movies, without question or complaint. So if one of you decides to request Casablanca, I will grit my teeth and move heaven and earth to find something new to say about Casablanca. The movie can be the highest of the high, the lowest of the low, and everything in between. That's the fun of it after all.

8. You can send me your movie requests either here in the comments section or at adams.are@gmail.com. You can also reach me on Twitter (link is on my sidebar).

9. I'm accepting requests until midnight, September 6th, Pacific Standard Time. That's so I'll have time to acquire the movies and get the reviews out in a timely fashion. I may extend the deadline if I don't get enough requests and if you send me a message say, a day or so late, I might sneak you in anyway.

So hit me with your best shot, guys! You've been the best readership a girl could ever want and I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Cheers!

(Top picture credited to the ever-awesome Dsata, at Pictures)