Joan Crawford and Frank Borzage Films: Sadie McKee (1934), Mannequin (1937), Strange Cargo (1940)

Posted on August 3, 2026 by 4 Star Films

I’ve been dipping back into the work of Joan Crawford and director Frank Borzage, so here are some capsule reviews of some of their films:

Sadie McKee (1934) – Dir. Clarence Brown

Sadie returns home to the playful shenanigans of her former compatriot (Franchot Tone). Her mother is the long-time cook of a well-to-do family, and he is the privileged son. But class need not be a dividing line, at least initially.

There are so many wonderful evolving supporting players in Sadie McKee, with Crawford, the effervescent working girl with a chip on her shoulder, remaining the constant focal point.

She leaves behind her mother to chase after her crush (Gene Raymond) even as (Tone) openly criticizes his instability. She doesn’t care. It’s all the more reason to prove him wrong. On her journey, she’s befriended by the worldly-wise Opal (Jean Dixon). Meanwhile, Akim Tamiroff and Leo G. Carroll show up in adroit side parts as a giddy waiter and a stuffy valet. The movie is stuffed full of such roles.

Edward Arnold might actually be the most delightful of the litter as a gregarious millionaire. It’s a far cry from the corrupt business tycoons he was often remembered for, and he proves himself more than game for a little comedy. He and Crawford have a grand ol’ time playing drunk together as Tone looks on with a level of disdain.

Because his boss takes a shine to Crawford, and why not? But surely she only gravitates toward him for his money? It’s a great convenience after a lifetime where she’s had to scrimp and save every day.

Between moments verging on the social strata absurdity of screwball comedy blended with a couple of show tunes like “All I Do Is Dream of You” and “Old Pal,” there’s a lot of good fun to be had to stave off the Depression blues.

To its credit, the story fits the schema of a conniving melodrama about a gold digger, only to break out on its own. If memory serves, Crawford knew how to play such characters. And yet here, despite what circumstances might suggest, she’s a more complex, even sincere individual. She falls into things and can’t help feeling what she does, regardless of what others say, namely (Tone)

Crawford forcefully tears through the formalities of the upstairs-downstairs drama. She has the upbringing and the gumption to push through the door to the kitchen. What first looks to be a standoff, even an insurrection from the bottom up (led by the manservant Leo G. Carroll), becomes a meeting of the minds and a pact to keep their boozy proprietor alive. She doesn’t want to keep her job as a wife, so she doesn’t look like the vamp, and the backroom staff want to keep their jobs as well.

The resolution is conventional stuff, but then again, the road to get there is quite charming. An added undercurrent is the real-life relationship between Crawford and Tone at the time. It can’t help but color the entire storyline from front to back.

3.5/5 Stars

Mannequin (1937) – Dir. Frank Borzage

Once again, Joan Crawford is the quintessential working-class hero, doing anything she can to beat the dregs of a life she has. By day, Jessie’s working in a factory. By night, she’s helping her mother with dinner as they dote over a deadbeat Irish father and an ungrateful kid brother (Leo Gorcey). Her only solace comes with escaping to spend time with her boyfriend, Eddie (Alan Curtis).

She wants him to marry her and take her away from the dead-end life in the family’s abode on the Lower East Side. And with some further cajoling, he does, and they prepare for a delirious life together as newlyweds.

If you know the names on the marquee, you know Spencer Tracy must show up eventually, and he does as shipping magnate John L. Hennessey.

He’s a self-made man who’s worked hard for every penny he has, and his workers respect him for his candor. He spies the new husband and wife celebrating their matrimony. Obviously, Crawford is radiant and eye-catching, but he seems genuinely happy for them, having the waiter bring them champagne and his compliments.

Although it’s not quite as good as Tracy and Young in Borzage’s Man’s Castle, there’s still something electric in seeing two stars together at an early juncture in their career ascendancy as studio contractors.

At first, there was something uneven about Curtis being placed onscreen between them, and how are they ever to get together? It becomes apparent in due time. He’s an idea man, always coming up with something new and never following through on any of it. His wife constantly bails him out. But it’s a thankless place to be in, and the promise of marriage continues to sour.

The final scene is an impeccable bit of dramatic irony — embodying the conceit underpinning the whole story. Because Eddie sees how smitten John is with his wife. He’s not above suggesting they get divorced so she can marry the other man and give Eddie a cut of her newfound wealth. It’s a horrible suggestion. Her eyes are finally opened, and she leaves.

The fates develop the story exactly as Eddie might have orchestrated it, but the motives are important. Jessie winds up marrying John because something real blooms between them. He’s deliriously happy until doubt creeps in.

In the end, his business ventures are sunk, but it means nothing to him compared to potentially getting stabbed in the back by Jessie. He doesn’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. And here they reunite in his office.

He’s got no money, but she doesn’t know that. She vows to leave him nobly so her ex can’t gouge him further. They both have the wrong idea about the other, and somehow it all turns into a right. Love covers a multitude, and so it is here again. It’s romance in the Borzage mode.

3.5/5 Stars

Strange Cargo (1940) – Dir. Frank Borzage

“So God created man in his own image…Look at me. Do I look like a God to you?”

I have to admit I do miss adventure pictures like these. They take place in a vaguely distant place conjured up on the Hollywood movie screen courtesy of a studio lot. It feels like we don’t have a license to make pictures like this anymore for various reasons. Some understandable and a few regrettable.

Right now, Clark Gable is still an MGM stalwart. Joan Crawford really has some feisty barb to her. You have to be tough in an environment like this. I lost track of what number this is in their ongoing onscreen partnership. All you need to know is he’s a prisoner in an island penal colony, and she’s a local dance hall girl trying to pay her way to the mainland. Her animosity and his cocksure attitude are the perfect tinder to set their chemistry ablaze yet again.

You know he’s going to take it upon himself to escape, and she’s going to get caught up in it. Given the amalgamation of all the different genre elements, it’s difficult to categorize Strange Cargo, although it was adapted from the debut novel of author Richard Sale.

Among the contingent of fugitives is the Christ-like Cambreau, who plays almost like a precursor to the remake of Magnificent Obsession with its brand of cinematic mysticism. He rises up as a quietly providential force among the worldly cynics, the bible-thumpers spewing fire and brimstone, and the He-Man self-assurance of Gable.

The clash of tonalities is perfectly embodied by the Red Dust energy as Crawford goes trampling through the jungle in her high heels with Gable yanking her along. Then, in another moment, they’re warming themselves by the fire as he reads her some love poetry out of Song of Solomon. Look in her eyes, and it would seem like no one ever shared such affirmations, even if it’s done facetiously.

For such a glamour queen at MGM, Crawford shows a willingness to go unadorned as much as the studio system allowed. It’s easy to gain a new kind of respect for her because it feels like new terrain as she’s left adrift with the rest of the men and identifies with this man fighting for her companionship under the bleak circumstances.

The other difficult balance is indeed the spiritual timbre of the film with the very physical nature of Gable, the generation’s idea of a Greek Adonis with his big, broad shoulders functioning as his temple. In many ways, the movie pits the movie star as this kind of temporal image-god against the transcendent message of this Messianic figure.

Borzage’s Catholic sympathies are overt in this one, and it makes for a fascinating exploration. The fact that it was based on a contemporary piece of fiction seems to suggest an openness to these spiritual, albeit unorthodox themes.

However, in some ways, I was intrigued to read that the Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a “condemned” rating. It does feel like a potential precursor to the criticisms aimed at Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. In personalizing the God-Man, they almost made him too human for the audience.

One could see how the church gatekeepers were left queasy by a film that’s hardly a hallowed depiction of conventional saints. However, any complaints about the depiction of lust feel slightly ironic given the inclusion of Song of Songs love poetry directly from the Biblical text. Still, Gable and Crawford are fiery enough to make the remonstrations understandable, given social mores at the time.

3.5/5 Stars

Man’s Castle (1933)

Posted on July 28, 2026 by 4 Star Films

“God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame those that are wise. And He chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame those that are strong” – Ira quoting 1 Corinthians 1:27

Man’s Castle has a wonderful set-up for a beautiful gag, although we have to come face to face with the throes of the Depression to truly appreciate it. A man (Spencer Tracy) in a top hat and tails is feeding the pigeons on a park bench. He spies a hesitant young ingenue (Loretta Young) watching nearby. He gives her a smart remark, and she almost cries. She’s soft-hearted and hungry. She just wants to eat the crumbs he’s tossing to the birds.

He’s not a complete curmudgeon and has a change of heart. Blink, and they’re in a fine restaurant. He’s chomping on a cigar, a look of satisfaction on his face, watching her put away a whole plate of food. She may be all skin and bones, but she eats ravenously. This is how we meet Bill and Trina.

But we have yet to mention the punchline. Bill calls on the manager of the establishment casually, then he proceeds to tell the preening man that he’s dead broke…He doesn’t have any money to pay for the food, and yet in a world littered with wealth, what’s one gift of charity? They end up walking out with full bellies without greater implications.

It’s an upside-down world they live in. This is what Frank Borzage gives us. We get down to the humble roots of the temporal world of shantytowns and impoverished working stiffs only for the director to bring his quintessential transcendence to the proceedings. It may come off as high-minded talk for such a meek picture, and yet with Borzage, romanticism can break into any environment within any strata of society.

In such a space, Bill and Trina become an unlikely couple. Bill’s always looking to make a casual buck to maintain his unattached lifestyle. It means light-up signs on his chest, stilt walking, and serving summons to one dancehall starlet, Fay La Rue (Glenda Farrell). The lady is visibly impressed, watching his self-confident shrewdness in getting to her. He’s a man with ingenuity.

Loretta Young has the most voluminous eyes in cinema, and with the fresh-faced garb of youth and what butterfly lighting can do, she fills up the screen with radiance. Trina contents herself with keeping a home for Bill. She takes his demeanor in stride, knowing full well it obscures an affable heart. All she knows is that she’s deliriously happy with their meager slice of paradise.

When you’re dead, you get a hunk of dirt, and while he’s alive, Bill wants to hang on to the hunk of blue up above him in the sky. He could do a lot worse. He is a character of paradox. At his best, he’s like a grown-up kid who hasn’t lost his impishness. He has a buddy in Hollywood lifer Dickie Moore and even finds time to get booted off the stickball team by the local kids.

He’s founded on a gruff, insult-laden shtick, and then he comes right around and pulls out the new stove his girl’s been eyeing. Actions speak in ways belying his words. It’s how he shows his affection. In another scene, he swipes a zinnia when his neighbor (Walter Connally) isn’t looking and drops it in the soup Trina has lovingly prepared.

He makes a whole stink about it, grousing, then half-heartedly belittling while he half-smiles through the other side of his face. He does a little playacting before both Trina and Ira, before slipping the man a dime in the moment. It’s such a wonderful encapsulation of who this man is in a single crystallized moment. Like Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.”

But this is part of what made Borzage such a preeminent filmmaker because his stories can be distilled down to these remarkable moments showing off the acumen of someone well-versed in the syntax of visual storytelling carried over from the silent days. Where the images seem to evoke more than the mere sum of their parts. There is a depth and pregnant meaning to some of the more somber, starry-eyed sequences.

Bill is a kind of begrudging Joseph with Trina, his pure Madonna keeping all these things in her heart. Eventually, they get a common-law marriage presided over by Ira. In the ’30s, it might seem scandalous, but watching it play out is nothing of the sort. There’s not a lot of fanfare, and it means something deeply profound. Bill makes a vow to be with his “Whosit” for life, and whatever he might say to the contrary, there’s a sense he’ll make it stick.

Even when he half-heartedly robs a safe for some quick cash to leave his bride, he’s more concerned with the view outside the window and the wind-up doodad he’s going to take home to his girl. This is what his life revolves around, even as the world can be harsh, disrupting his reverie with a cruel twist of fate.

If you let it, Man’s Castle is the kind of unassuming film with the capacity to break into your own existence and remind you in all humility what it means to live radically in the mundane rythyms of life. It’s not about religious zealots or powerful leaders, but the kind of folk who have much to teach us about what’s actually important. If we look down at them or disregard what they have to teach us, we miss the whole point. Just as seeing this as a little film with a short running time is a grave mistake. This might be one of the biggest, grandest films you have the chance of experiencing.

The final images almost feel like a sculpted piece of marble or an illumination by one of the greats. Bill and Trina are in repose in a cattle car, glowing like saints, lowborn royalty. It’s not so much a gospel movie, even as Borzage is not an overtly Christian filmmaker, and yet the imagery and language of the beatitudes are hard to miss.

It’s an upside-down world where the last will be first. The meek shall inherit the earth, and the passionate forces to save the world can be found in the most common places, be it a manger or a cattle car.

4/5 Stars

Bad Girl (1931)

Posted on July 22, 2026 by 4 Star Films

“Nobody knows if a person’s good or bad except the person themselves, and they won’t tell.”

Pre-Code has garnered a salacious reputation for the titillating nature of its content and themes, which all but fly in the face of what contemporary society perceives to be Classical Hollywood morality as imposed by Joseph Breen and his minions.

Frank Borzage is a director who was held in high regard throughout the ’20s and ’30s as a popular success and a maker of star-crossed, transcendent romances. For whatever reason, he is very rarely canonized as a great filmmaker. That’s a conversation for another day, but given his penchant for heartfelt romance, there’s an initial inclination to see his sensibilities fitting like oil and water with the uninhibited 1930s.

However, this proves far from the truth. Bad Girl is hardly neutered. It’s drenched in this newfound freedom of the 1930s. The opening shot is a bit of ironic trickery as we watch a wedding procession unfold. This is traditional matrimony playing out in front of us until we realize we’re actually in the middle of a high-end establishment, and these women march forward (without Spencer Tracy’s father of the bride to be seen) for the clientele looking on. Everything falls into place.

Girls dress in scanty clothes to pick up men right off the modeling floor. The men try their best lines only to be rebuffed with a foolproof excuse. The girls are streetwise enough to judge their intentions. Always ready and willing to shoot down a pickup line that’s getting too fresh. Still, relations between men and women are stripped down to their bare essentials with an almost primordial sense of mating and love.

Dorothy (Sally Eilers) and Eddie Collins (James Dunn) fit into this testy Depression-era ecosystem. In fact, she’s aghast when she learns there’s a man who won’t give her girlfriend the time of day. Everything she’s learned about men tells her this can’t be true, and so she takes a friendly bet from her pal Edna (Minna Gobell) that says she can’t get a sourpuss on deck to flirt.

She turns on the charm and whips out her ukulele only to meet with a hard-edged cynic (“Listen, sister, if you don’t want a guy to salute you, take down your flag.”). But pretty soon, it becomes apparent that Eddie’s caustic sarcasm and prevailing meanness are a kind of defense mechanism.

Somehow, it’s this very friction leading to sparks, and some kind of mutual inertia develops between them. Here, already, we have entered the solar system of Borzage, as he draws his two improbable lovers together into the throes of romance. Eddie sees her home one evening to her tenement and subsequently leaves her out in the rain, missing their next date because he’s too preoccupied with his work at a radio shop. Dorothy gives him a mouthful. It stings.

The beauty of their courtship is how the acerbic nature is never fully lost, but they shed some of their claws and fangs in isolated moments, only to be vulnerable with one another. Her demonstrative brother all but disowns her for being a harlot. Eddie proposes marriage, effectively making a fight out of popping the question as he does with everything in his life. That’s just his way as he fumbles clumsily at earnestness.

While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend such a belligerent and bickering foundation for marriage, it lends the movie its get-up-and-go as they look to carve out a humble life together. Because even if we don’t want them to fail, there’s a sense that such a tenuous foundation surely will not last. So many Hollywood melodramas have been cast this way to a maudlin effect.

There’s further drama in their young marital life with a baby on the way and Eddie trying to ensure they have ample money and shelter to make ends meet. Even as their context evolves, the prevailing mood is all Borzage. Love conquers all yet again. It’s spectacular and sprinkled with bits of goodness and human decency.

I’m reminded of fathers of various temperaments pacing the floors of the hospital waiting room. Eddie spends nights out boxing to make extra dough, and not knowing where he’s going makes her teary-eyed. His wife feels abandoned on the eve of her due date. Meanwhile, he’s taking a beating, and in the clinch, he confesses to his rival in the ring that he needs to make it a few rounds more. The other man obliges by helping to prop him up.

This is not the obvious reaction in an arena of brutality, nor in a Pre-Code film. But again, it gets its fire from other places and surreptitiously sheds its spikes in the most propitious moments. They somehow ambush you and maintain this paradox of cynical reality with a heart of gold. Obviously, the title Bad Girl is sensationalized because it’s the height of irony in the hands of Borzage. He takes what looks slightly risque on the outside and imbues it with such a wealth of sensitive affection.

He was a filmmaker made in the silent era, and yet he proves himself to be evergreen because Bad Girl could not be anything other than a talkie. It’s a film about communication, even the lack thereof. Because that still counts. People like to talk. Gleeful. Angry. Belligerent. Soppy. And by the end, they’ve fired shots, professed love, shared hopes and dreams, and fallen more in love.

I’m still incredulous that Dorothy and Eddie are together at the end of the picture, but I am willing to accede to their conventional Hollywood ending because all roads seem to lead somewhere else. Given the circumstances, it feels like a greater narrative statement to keep them together. Is it unbelievable? Perhaps, but then again, love is an unbelievable force.

4/5 Stars

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

Posted on April 23, 2026 by 4 Star Films

Some Kind of Wonderful announces itself in all its ’80s glory with a montage of drums, synths, working-class grease monkeys tinkering on cars, and a pair of teens making out. There’s no doubt it’s a John Hughes movie, and though Howard Deutch was called back after Pretty in Pink to helm this one, the script has many of the same tenets of the earlier picture, albeit gender-flipped.

Keith (Eric Stolz) is a teen from the poor side of town, and if he weren’t so reticent, the way he watches Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson) and her boyfriend from a wistful distance would be creepy. Actually, it is creepy, but we’re supposed to empathize with him.

The other parts of his life are more relatable. He’s the eldest of three siblings. There’s the young brainiac, the annoying middle child, and he’s the moody older brother. His father keeps on hassling him about the college question; it’s well-meaning because his dad doesn’t want him to wind up selling tires like his old man.

Although he doesn’t have many friends, Keith’s closest companion is drumming tomboy Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), who eschews high school convention, wearing her hair in a bleached pixie cut. Hughes is also having a gleeful time with the Rolling Stones in-jokes.

All around them, the halls are spilling over with eightiness — the hair, the clothes, and the prototypical tough guy scuzzballs. Every school needs at least one. This one (Elias Koteas) looks like a buff Danny DeVito in his Cuckoo’s Nest era.

We soon learn he’s not half bad. It’s the prima donna preps with their coiffed hair, smooth talk, and pretentious narcissism who are really the dregs. What makes it worse is that people like Hardy (Craig Sheffer) have all the toys and the girls — namely, Amanda Jones. Keith will always be subservient to these jerks in the social hierarchy, left to fill up their gas tanks.

And yet his daydreams about Amanda won’t abate. He fantasizes about being with her and uses any excuse just to be close to her. It backfires when he willfully finds himself in detention, although Hughes sidesteps a mini Breakfast Club set-up when she skips out after cajoling her teacher.

Keith is left doing time with the bruisers and weirdos, but it’s a strange camaraderie that builds within their ranks. The trash have to stick together, and it’s a delightful if mostly unforeseen development.

The other crucial relationship is between Keith and Watts because it’s painfully apparent that there is a sexual tension between them. This girl is devoted to him, and yet she allows her feelings to be stepped over as he seeks her advice in pursuing the object of his desire.

They undergo a practice kiss, complete with embrace and all the trimmings, played against Stephen Duffy’s “She Loves Me.” It’s both uncomfortable and a strange portent. We question him for being so asinine. Surely a real person would recognize this is a bit more than friendship.

If you start poking holes around, you find the problems and some of Hughes usual shortcomings. Keith exists as a fairly blasé male protagonist who represents the writer’s limitations. The female characters feel like they could have been even more intriguing if the story were from their POV.

Watts is all twisted up inside with unrequited feelings and wounded to boot. Amanda is perceived as a preppy person, and yet she’s dealing with an unfaithful boyfriend and petty friends. And it can’t come down to Stoltz because if he was ditched from Back to The Future, he also gave a stellar performance as Rocky in Mask.

But for a film of his that’s very rarely talked about, Some Kind of Wonderful might be my underrated pick of the lot. It has to do with specific moments. The whole trajectory of the movie is building to a party at Hardy’s place.

Keith knows full well that it’s meant to be a set-up to humiliate him in front of Amanda as payback, but he wants to go anyway. He also spends all his college funds on a lavish gift for this girl. It sounds extravagant and crazy, and yet he does it with a clear-eyed lucidity. Nothing else matters, and this girl feels the weight of it all. She wasn’t able to bring herself to dump him, and now she’s swept up by his candor.

They have an uptight dinner date over caviar at an uber-fancy restaurant, and then he lines up some entertainment after hours at a local museum. It’s closed, but he has some connections and gets a little help on the inside. It’s a bit peculiar and pure Hughes romanticism as the two teens walk through the exhibition rooms in an echo of the tranquility of The Art Institute of Chicago in Ferris Bueller. Keith tells her, “This place is my church.”

I’m not sure what to make of these more ethereal interludes. Although by the time we get to Hardy’s party, we’re ready for a showdown. The most uncomfortable detail is how they refurbish Watts’s ride, and she becomes their chauffeur for the evening. Keith shows his obliviousness by effectively taking two girls out for the evening.

Hardy has his own fall from grace as Hughes goes away from a prototypical roughing-up in favor of something more symbolic. Keith wins the competition because he maintains his reputation and calls the other boy’s bluff. He feels as feeble and phony as all the rest. What’s more, Keith’s detention buddies show up and have his back, staking their flag with the indelible line, “This party is about to become a historical fact!”

The movie’s coasting down the mountain. Keith heads out the door with Amanda on his arm after she gives Hardy a couple of cathartic and well-deserved slaps. However, Keith’s so thick in the head he needs her to tell him that Watts loves him…

It’s a bit frantic as Hughes tries to right the wrong from his earlier picture. The movie’s recognition is the open secret of the whole story, and sure, it’s what we want as an audience, but it feels a bit rushed as Keith chases after the girl who always had feelings for him.

Ask me if it all fits together, and I’d say “No,” and yet as a casual watch, it does seem like Some Kind of Wonderful delivers on the ’80s teen movie experience with a few caveats. It makes me want to go out and watch more Mary Stuart Masterson because this is her movie. She stakes her claim to it through a persona brimming with pathos and charm.

3/5 Stars

The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)

Posted on March 25, 2026 by 4 Star Films

The Barkleys of Broadway was initially conceived as a reunion. It was meant to star Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, capitalizing on their successful partnership with Easter Parade.

Taking nothing away from Judy, it does feel like there’s something propitious about Astaire and Rogers getting back together one last time. Because Easter Parade is such a delight, it also makes what we missed out on a little less painful, and what we got in its place all the more enjoyable.

It’s been a decade, the studio changed, and the aesthetics are different in Technicolor, but it’s still an immeasurable pleasure seeing one of the movies’ most transcendent screen couples in yet another picture together. She was always a supernal star in black & white, but Ginger Rogers is a great beauty in Technicolor, too.

The movie opens with the credits as our stars stand on stage doing their routine as it should be. It’s just like old times. Josh and Dinah Barkley sing each other’s praises awkwardly, and their friend Ezra Millar pries them offstage before they compliment each other to death.

When the performance is over, they walk the gauntlet of all their well-wishers and admirers, signing autographs. I imagine I’ve seen this sequence countless times from All About Eve, Opening Night, and The King of Comedy. It’s like a rite of passage for the entertainment superstar.

They cuddle up in the cab full of lovey-dovey affection and effusive praise until a note of criticism creeps in and all sides blow up; it’s nothing if not a mercurial relationship. Oscar Levant is the peacekeeper and his usual mix of goofball and piano man extraordinaire, with an endless array of wry wisecracks.

His persona on film is such that it almost obfuscates the heights of his talents. The rapid-fire runs of “Saber Dance” are a tour de force compressed into a few minutes. A personal pet peeve involves actors who sit with their hands hidden behind the piano, and everyone knows they aren’t actually playing. It breaks the illusion. However, Levant, like Astaire, is so prodigious that the camera sits close by, unbroken as it admires the mastery of two artists.

Whether planned or partially happenstance, it’s difficult not to read into the meta qualities of the story, both real and imagined. The movie has a laugh playing up the tiffs between Astaire and Rogers as portrayed by the contemporary media. Whereas in reality, they seemed like two very driven people with a singular focus to do their work to the best of their abilities. They were generally well-liked and had nothing but high praise for one another. It’s gratifying to hear, though it hardly sells newspapers.

Billie Burke appears as a tittering patron of the arts who throws them a party, though they try to avoid their congenial hostess like the plague, sneaking out to the patio. Dinah meets a French playwright and admirer, Jacques Pierre Barredout (Jacques François), on her way out.

The young man strokes her ego, telling Dinah she’s wasted in musical comedy. ” You could be a great tragic actress,” he says. Her husband is distrustful of his fawning, and besides, he sees his wife as a “song and dance girl.”

He’s like the Svengali who molded her, and that image doesn’t go over well with her. She’s ready to get out from under her husband’s influence; she’s no Pygmalion creation or shrinking violet. The rest of the movie is built out of this seemingly trivial tension in the rom-com mode.

Of course, none of this conforms to reality, as Rogers had won adulation and an Oscar for her work in Kitty Foyle at the beginning of the decade, and she was largely the bigger star before they were ever teamed up. She maintained a fairly impressive film career throughout the ’40s and early ’50s. Reading into these tenuous parallels too much becomes laughable, but it is also part of the enjoyment.

The behind-the-scenes rehearsal environs do yeoman’s work in making this feel like the quintessential MGM: the studio of Freed, Gene Kelly, writers Adolph Green & Betty Comden, and all those wonderful collaborations like Singin’ in the Rain and The Band Wagon.

It highlights the love of performance and the sensation of catching this brand of tap dancing like lightning in a bottle, as if we’re on the ground floor and privy to something only a select few get to see. That’s part of the magic of how they created these worlds for their characters to inhabit, where the backstage and everything in between is blurred, and the camera’s right in the thick of it to capture it all.

The couple agrees to go out for some fresh air in the country, much to Ezra’s chagrin. While Josh plays golf, Dinah agrees to become Jacques’s muse. Thereafter, the Barkleys have a photoshoot with Look magazine right at the precise moment Josh realizes his wife has the script for the Frenchman’s play.

It becomes a send-up of the perfectly quaint and manicured All-American Person to Person fireside chat as the married couple go ballistic once again, this time tearing through their house in a rage in between camera setups. These are mostly vapid bits of fun.

The true high points come when the stars are given these incubated moments to flash their inspiration in front of the camera. “Shoes With Wings On” conjures up a storefront milieu reminiscent of the toy shop in Easter Parade. Astaire puts on a pair of possessed dancing shoes and lets them carry him away. It leads into a magical interlude where he’s joined with an army of ghost taps all stepping in time, almost ready to run him off the stage until he takes arms in a surrealist defense involving a broom and toy guns.

Ezra tries to trick his friends into a reunion, and they stand backstage at a benefit while he conducts a performance of Tchaikovsky. The man really has range, but then again, he was a compatriot of the Gershwins who famously cut so lithely between popular, classical, and jazz composition. From my understanding, they made them one and the same with no delineation between high and low art.

The Barkleys, or rather Fred and Ginger, are paired one last time with the Gershwin tune “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” If it’s not immediately apparent, there’s actually a bit of poeticism to its inclusion. So many years ago — in 1937, in fact — Astaire sang the song to his costar in Shall We Dance.

This time around, they turned it into a dance with their typical elegance and joie de vivre. The Barkleys of Broadway is unreserved proof that they’re back, and they never lost it.

It’s so good to see them together; it’s also exactly what our hearts yearn for, especially those who have lived vicariously through them for many years. Somehow, they embodied us and still reached for heights we could only dream of, and they did it with pure class.

3.5/5 Stars

Follow The Fleet (1936)

Posted on March 18, 2026 by 4 Star Films

Taken in the lineage of movie musicals, Follow The Fleet feels like a prototype for On The Town, or maybe there were just more movies focusing on sailors on leave back in the day. It’s like romances set on ocean liners. With the proliferation of commercial air travel, it’s possible a whole subgenre went kaput. For now, it’s safe, and the boys descend on Frisco.

Fred Astaire stars as a gum-smacking sailor, Blake Baker. He wears the abrasiveness lightly because he was always an appealing personality beyond his graceful taps. Randolph Scott takes on the role of the best bud, Bilge Smith, as they continue their pairing from Roberta. Astaire similarly has a girl he wants to check in on…They had a falling out, and you can just about imagine who might be playing her.

As the sailors roll into the city, it has the distinct stench of a pile of pesky high schoolers infecting the place. They sneak into a local joint on one ticket, and Bilge hooks them up with a couple of paper bags of beer from the outside. All they require is the establishment’s table, and they do the rest themselves.

Connie Martin (Harriet Hilliard) plays a homely, bespectacled brunette girl who makes Randolph’s acquaintance; she needs a man to get inside, and he obliges, though he’s quick to brush her off and forget about it. Connie also just happens to be the sister of Sherry (Ginger Rogers), who’s the floor show at Paradise.

It’s the old trope we’ve known since the dawn of time. Ginger Rogers hails from the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes school. As she points out, men like blondes because they look dumb. The operative word is “look” since you would never believe someone pulling one over on Ginger Rogers. “It takes a lot of brains to be dumb.”

Lucille Ball enlisted to make Connie look presentable. The ugly duckling arc feels dead on arrival. This movie just needed another plot to bide its time. Her new look makes a startling impression on Bilge, and we know she has feelings for him already. His problem is living a transient life; he’s also easily swayed by shinier, more affluent objects in the form of divorced socialites.

Rather like Roberta, the sluggish romance all but writes itself, making Astaire and Rogers the primary reason to stay with the picture and see it through. There’s the fun pretense of a dance-off with another couple, and then Astaire and Rogers go nuclear into another stratosphere. The scene becomes there’s, and there’s alone. The movie almost seems to forget there were ever any other dances spliced into the scene, and we do too.

The sailors are whisked away on a moment’s notice, and the women — as the title implies — must take up pursuit! The movie requires it. Connie vows to get a boat so the man that she loves can captain it.

It’s rather hypnotic seeing Astaire tapping on deck with a whole host of sailors keeping time behind him; there’s a military cadence to it with a certain added level of artfulness. It’s like the maritime context creates a playground for him to then work within and offer us some novel hoofing.

There’s also a cruel comic irony watching him return to town trying to nab his girl an audition and derailing a “sure thing’s” chances by spiking her drink with bicarbonate of soda. His wires get horribly crossed. You can fill in the rest because Ginger’s the poor woman who suffers at his hands. Being pretty plucky herself, she’s more than equipped for some brutal payback.

These moments of “plot” are the movie’s saving grace because at least A & R’s romantic entanglements are mostly comedic. Rogers has the feistiness to make them a joy, and Astaire doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body, so the comedy comes off mostly affable and light.

The final act is comprised of putting on a show to keep Connie from losing the refurbished ship she sunk her savings into — she did it for Scott, but you hardly need to know this. Nor the fact that Blake has to go AWOL to get to the benefit in time. It doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that Fred is there to dance with Ginger, and everything else falls away. The apex of the movie is “Let’s Face The Music and Dance,” which feels like a quintessential American Songbook number that I’ve been sleeping on. My sincerest apologies to Irving Berlin.

It’s classic Astaire and Rogers at their classy best, dancing on the deck of the ship and making us forget the sitcom fluff for something transcendent like they gave us so often. It’s a worthy place to end.

I said my apologies to Berlin, and now I owe one to Ms. Hiliard. I didn’t realize she was thee Harriet of Ozzie and Harriet fame until I was practically finished with this review. The longevity of her career in itself is quite remarkable.

3.5/5 Stars

Roberta (1935)

Posted on March 16, 2026 by 4 Star Films

Roberta opens with a troupe of musicians known as the Wabash Indianans who perform a wonderfully kooky organ routine in the middle of a train depot. It’s so inventive in fact, including the verbal gymnastics of Candy Candido, that they get sacked before they can even begin their gig in France. The proprietor was looking for some more exotic entertainment.

The boys need a fallback plan fast. Huck Haines (Fred Astaire) vaguely knows a girl named Lizzie, and John Kent (Randolph Scott), well, his aunt just happens to be the most famous dressmaker in the city. Only in the movies…

Time is of the essence, and so he pays the famed monoymous Roberta (Helen Westley) a visit. Scott gets stuck in the gilded elevator and has his meet-cute with Irene Dunne. It took a moment to recognize her because she addressed him in French. Stephanie (Dunne) is Roberta’s designer and most faithful staff member.

Scott is instantly smitten and goes leaping up and racing across the room just to have the chance to open the door for her. He rumbles around with the giddy energy of a colt; his aunt likens him to her favorite Newfoundland puppy.

If you’re keeping score, there’s one name that hasn’t cropped up yet. Ginger Rogers shows up as a feisty countess; her accent is worse than Dunne’s, but it doesn’t matter. She’s got the spunk to make it count. She stands at the balcony listening to the band do their performance, and when she actually gets face-to-face with Astaire, there’s really some fun to be had.

Flying Down to Rio found them coming into their own; they were sidekicks who caught the eyes of the audience with their craze-creating “Carioca” routine. With Roberta, they had already hit it big with The Gay Divorcee, and now they get to have a good time with the material without the onus of the story being on them.

They seem to relish this kind of sidekick role; it’s almost like they’re playing a level of meta comedy here because they know all the beats of the story and what it takes to have the commensurate repartee. After all, outside the film, they’ve already built up a cache of goodwill.

We really begin to understand it when they both drop the act. Because she’s not a countess but the same fast-talking dame named Lizzie he knew in a former life. Now their familiarity makes sense for the sake of the story.

In “I’ll Be Hard to Handle,” they get reacquainted with some flirtatious dancing as they reminisce about old times. This devolves into a dance-off with a slap for good measure, all captured in a rush of an unbroken take between two consummate performers loving what they do in front of us.

It feels like things are humming along. The demonstrative nightclub owner Alexander Petrovich Moskovitch Voyda, who communicates only in raised octaves, is coaxed by Lizzie into offering the boys a job this time around. Things are looking up.

There’s even a French lesson with Randolph Scott and Fred Astaire, which so obviously lays the groundwork for “Moses Supposes” in Singin in the Rain. It’s impossible to see it any other way.

Admittedly, Scott and Dunne have a rapport I like, though I’m equally tempted to say I want to see the movie with Astaire and Rogers at the reins. They almost need two separate movies because the story’s not big enough for all they have to offer. The script goes tugging and seesawing good-naturedly enough between the players, but the story almost doesn’t know how to handle it all.

It’s an embarrassment of riches, and it’s not even named for any of them. This distinction goes to Helen Westley. Then, Auntie Auntie dies peacefully — Scott and Dunne have a pact to run her fashion empire together, and John’s old flame Sophie comes from America for the obligatory complication.

She and Astaire don’t mask their mutual disdain for each other, and her entrance is great for the sake of comedy if little else. The fact that they have a bet over how her dress will be received by John pays dividends simply with the opportunity of watching Astaire’s smug face as he struts off and palms her dough.

Roberta could be a stolid affair straight through, and it is from time to time. No disservice to the lovely Irene, but her style of singing went out about 80 years ago, and I will always be enraptured by the Platters’ cut of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”

I realized what made the Astaire and Rogers formula work was that they cut out the middle man: they were the floor show, the romance, and comedy all wrapped up into one. Roberta almost has too many parts.

Irene Dunne’s a star deserving top billing to be sure, but it’s easy to say the same about her costars even if it’s in retrospect. Still, there are enough delights in this one to look kindly on it.

3.5/5 Stars

Claudia Cardinale: The Facts of Murder (1959) and Bell’Antonio (1960)

Posted on January 22, 2026 by 4 Star Films

With the passing of Claudia Cardinale in 2025, I took it upon myself to watch some of her movies that I had not seen before. Below, I included capsule reviews of two of her earlier performances:

The Facts of Life (1959)

At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the picture. I thought it might be a comedia italiana or maybe a crime picture, but one in the vein of Big Deal on Madonna Street (Claudia Cardinale turned up in that one as well). However, the Facts of Murder feels like a more traditional police procedural, mystery story, albeit told in the Italian milieu.

Two events become crucial to the plot. First, a burglary in broad daylight where the culprit manages to flee the crowded scene without being apprehended. The police are called to investigate

In the midst of their investigation, a body is found, a person now dead next door. As the detective notes, lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, and yet in this case it has. There’s something rather intriguing about the lead investigator being played by director Pietro Germi (Divorced Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned).

It took me some time to catch on, but even though it’s not a flashy part, the role does hold the picture together because he must drive the story forward, interacting with all sorts of folks and beginning to decipher what actually occurred.

There are a number of possible suspects, including a doctor cousin (Franco Fabrizi) who, at the very least, is a selfish opportunist. Then there is the spouse of the deceased, who is understandably shaken up and initially sympathetic, though he has the most to gain. There’s also something he’s keeping hidden from the authorities.

Eventually, the police round up the hands that had a part in the theft, but they still have to solve the second part that has eluded them thus far. A film such as this can so often be dominated by the men, and yet there are three performances from the actresses worthy of note

Claudia Cardinale has a fairly small but crucial role as a faithful maid to Eleonora Rossi Drago’s character. And Cristina Gajoni shows up at the end of the picture in a notable part that holds a lot of sway over the story. However, it is the indelible image of Cardinale sprinting down the dirt road after the receding car with tears in her eyes that stays with me.

If her career weren’t so ripe with many memorable films, it could just have easily been a moment she was remembered for. As is, The Facts of Murder was just the beginning of an illustrious career.

4/5 Stars

Bell’Antonio (1960)

My first inclination is that Marcello Mastroianni is technically too old for a role such as this (he purportedly joined mere days before the production started as a favor to the director). Yet, there’s also really no one else to play this role, as it stands as a romantic ideal. Antonio, the title character, is almost a mythic figure in his local community. He comes back to his parents’ home from Rome.

His reputation precedes him with stories of women throwing themselves at him and wives of government ministers left smitten. Whether it’s blown out of proportion or not, we certainly see some evidence of his romantic sway. It’s almost like everyone else wants to prove for themselves if the stories are true, and so they build and play up the mystique. You would think Antonio is the one cultivating his image, but it feels like he wants to be rid of it.

There are these social layers to the movie, also. We witness men in power, and they have a desire for women who know how to trade in their feminine wiles. The film is transposed from a novel set in fascist Italy, and these scenes bear this out the most obviously (it felt reminiscent of scenes in a later picture like The Cremator).

There is the brokering of social transactions even between families like crusty barons or haughty royalty of generations gone by. Initially, Antonio is vehemently opposed to the union, only to receive a picture of the woman his parents have orchestrated for him to marry. He can’t stop looking at it. She’s remarkable!

In her own way, an aura is built around Barbara as well, just like with Antonio. Thankfully, for the sake of the movie, she is portrayed by none other than Claudia Cardinale. They are eventually wed as the social script suggests. However, status and social economy are, again, predicated on virility or at least the projection of it.

The society seems to idolize womanizers even as much as they condone a narrative of men sowing their wild oats. This includes Antonio’s father. And sadly, we see the hypocrisy of the church within these same power structures invested in the letter of the law and not the heart or posture behind it.

The punchline of the movie is the fact that the church will annul the marriage because they haven’t consummated it and gotten pregnant within 12 months. It’s a catastrophe on all fronts! Compared to how they treat infidelity and affairs, it makes one queasy.

Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the architects of the script, and if it’s not too presumptuous, it’s easy to see him bleed through. The movie feels like a bleak precursor to the likes of Divorce Italian Style and Seduced in Abandoned because there’s no hint of comedy in the same way as those subsequent satires. Everything is done with the sincerest of straight faces. And yet the way it burns is an indictment against the backward mores of the society we see before us.

3.5/5 Stars

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)

Posted on December 19, 2025 by 4 Star Films

Dan Dailey has the Texas charm played up a bit as he walks into the Sands Hotel on a first-name basis with everyone. He’s invested heavily in the place — meaning he’s lost a lot of money there.

There’s a blatant absurdity in the premise of Meet Me in Las Vegas. Sitting on the casino floor, Chuck Rodwell grabs hold of a passing woman for good luck (This would not fly today). However, this particular lady is the management’s new floor show, and she’s prepared to walk out if she has to perform in front of a bunch of grubby socialites having a good time and clinking their glasses and silverware. Cyd Charisse foreshadows her turn in the Ninotchka remake Silk Stockings by playing a surly, put-upon entertainer who castigates her indulgent employer (Jim Bachus).

In their subsequent meet-cute, she’s prepared to dress down the audacious Texan because she’s already in a foul mood, and what he does is uncalled for. And yet she just happens to have the magic touch! He literally can’t miss when he keeps her company and keeps hold of her hand like a rabbit’s foot. The hokey metaphor of the movie is clear: When they hold hands, something magical happens, just not romance, not yet, that is.

They both have someone in their corner. For Dan, it’s the dealer Lotzi (Oskar Karlweis) who always offers encouragement. For Cyd, it’s Sari (Lili Darvas) who has an impish sense of humor when it comes to men and her employer’s uptight attitude around them. They’re a couple of veterans with a genial old European charm.

Cara Williams shows up as an old confederate of Chuck’s. I’m sure she sees the opportunity for them to get together, rekindle flames, and maybe have a few laughs. She has a confident air about her.

Her presence turns Maria Corvier (Charisse) off completely. The contentious threesome shares a table during an evening floorshow, and Maria becomes more inebriated and uninhibited as the night goes on with the ambition to take back what’s hers (if it ever was hers). She hops up on the stage in her stupor and hams it up much to Chuck’s embarrassment. Perhaps it’s the first time she realizes she’s jealous for the affections of this man.

What makes the film a true delight is how the world is stuffed full of in-jokes and cameos. It’s not quite the Rat Pack and Ocean’s Eleven, but there’s a sense of this kind of ubiquitous celebrity. We see Debbie Reynolds and Vic Damone, performers who are familiar from director Roy Rowland’s earliest assignments, including Two Weeks with Love and Hit The Deck.

There’s a sweltering song from the always exquisite Lena Horne and a comic number very on brand with Jerry Colonia, primping his mustache surrounded by a stage of bodacious beauties.

Frank Sinatra getting lucky at the slot machine is a blink-and-you-miss-it gag, followed by Peter Lorre looking visibly demoralized, slowly being bled dry at the blackjack tables. Even Charisse’s husband, Tony Martin, shows up in a cameo that I didn’t catch immediately. Of everyone, it feels most unnatural to see George Chakiris as a young newlywed with his wife (Betty Lynn) out on the casino floor instead of the dance floor (Apparently, he had a number that was cut).

Cyd doing a volleyball ballet is something I never thought I’d see. It seems as unprecedented as it is bizarre, though she also manages to give it her usual stylized class. Forgotten Japanese star Mitsuko Sawamura does a charming duet with Dan Dailey of “Lucky Star,” which is decidedly absent of any cultural condescension.

For the story’s sake, Chuck finally takes Maria out to his ranch to introduce her to his irascible but loving mother (Agnes Moorehead) and his way of life. The upbeat rural charm of “The Gal with the Yaller Shoes” gets the point across, and Charisse is more than game to go along.

However, the real showstopper is a reworking of “Frankie and Johnny” back in Vegas, starring Cyd Charisse with John Brascia (of White Christmas fame) and the vocals of none other than Sammy Davis Jr. Yes, please.

If you look up “svelte” in the dictionary, it must be an entry on Cyd Charisse. Her numbers usually balance between two poles. There’s something so sophisticated about them, and yet they can be equally provocative. It’s all in the manner she pirouettes, slides, slinks, and slithers with her body. It defies banal description. It’s better witnessed.

How do you even begin to categorize something like this glitzy confection of a movie? The plot makes no rational sense, and there’s no reason to even try to justify it. People don’t act like this, but what do I know? I’m a Vegas novice. It’s also almost two hours long and probably could have used some trimming.

But the operative word is entertainment. Vegas is on full display, and it’s packed with all sorts of decadent delights. Every scene we get Cyd Charisse doing what Cyd Charisse does best draws us back into her inertia. It’s impossible to look away. In the end, it’s almost an afterthought to forgive the ludicrous script because it’s a blast, and Charisse does some more first-rate work.

3.5/5 Stars

Lili (1953)

Posted on December 15, 2025 by 4 Star Films

“She’s like a little bell who gives off a pure sound.”

Leslie Caron always cast an image of a sweet young gamine presaging Audrey Hepburn, and thus, early in her career, it’s a masterstroke to cast her in the role of a destitute orphan with nowhere to go.

Set in provincial Hollywood — somewhere vague and still distinctly French, Lili (Caron) shows up in a small town with an address and a name. Her father is dead, she has no relatives, and the acquaintance she meant to inquire about has since moved away. She has no leads, no food, no shelter.

A shopkeeper next door hears her sad story and is prepared to take advantage of her. She flees his abode and follows a troupe of performers like a little lost puppy. They feel sorry for her, and so they try and do her a favor.

Their world is a cornucopia of colors. The story itself is a trifle. Magician Marc is such a charismatic fellow. Lili is quickly devoted to him and taken by his lifestyle, mesmerizing people with his illusions. She, too, falls under his spell, smitten with her first crush. She’s so taken in fact she quickly gets fired from a temp job as a waitress. She was too invested in the floor show to keep up with her work.

While Ferrer is the biggest name, he somehow flies under the radar until we become aware he’s in love with this girl. He cuts a gaunt figure, mostly agitated and repressed as he nurses his wounds and bruised ego since he can no longer dance after being maimed in the war. He masks his feelings by treating Lili gruffly and pushing her away.

However, because he and his compatriot are puppeteers, Ferrer uses his alter ego to form a bond with her. There’s a fine line here for them to walk, and somehow it comes off because of Caron’s clear-eyed belief. Each interaction feels real and genuine. I liken it to the authenticity I always felt in the human-to-puppet interactions in childhood episodes of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood of Make-Believe. There’s no condescension, and everything seems to be taken with true sincerity.

Lili expands on their performance because she imbues the puppets with meaning and attributes personality to them just with her gaze and a total commitment to their words. She believes they are real, and it becomes one of the enchanted conceits of the movie.

Otherwise, it would fall apart and feel disingenuous. Within the story itself, her interplay draws in an audience and helps their little trio grow a following. She, in turn, is given a stake in their profits and a small place to stay. For the time being, she has a home.

The meta conversations with the puppets become more pointed when they ask her, under the veil of performance, what she wants in life and how she feels about her love potentially leaving her. What’s special about her is that there is no compartmentalizing of fantasy and reality; she keeps them both together so they remain one and the same. The curtain between Lili and Paul makes it all the more intriguing. Because there is some kind of shroud mediating them.

Although Audrey Hepburn has already been mentioned, there is also a shared affinity between Lili’s performance on the green and the Punch and Judy Show in Charade. It might feel like reaching, but because of the connection between Hepburn and Mel Ferrer, it’s difficult not to intertwine them in my mind.

A turning point in Lili’s maturity is not so much one of passion or romance, but recognizing there is cruelty in the world, and it is something to buttress yourself against. We see Marc in a different light. He’s a married man and free spirit who plays up his bachelorhood for the sake of their show and perhaps his own desire to live the life of an uninhibited bon vivant. Fidelity is not one of his highest priorities.

Zsa Zsa Gabor is poised as the blonde “other woman” or rival for Marc’s affections, and yet she is given a more sympathetic position once we realize Marc is actually her husband. She has every right to be protective of him.

It occurs to me, just like how Lili says she was living in a dream like a little girl, this movie is like a fairy tale. As C.S. Lewis pointed out in close conjunction with his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, these tales can be a kind of safe space to explore topics of evil and suffering while eliciting responses like wonder and joy.

When Mel Ferrer pulls back the curtains and makes his pronouncements about his character, a bit of something is lost, but not enough to look down upon the movie. Lili had me charmed, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. It’s slight and enchanting in a way children can appreciate, and adults so often dismiss. You must come to it with a childlike heart.

It’s possible to be prejudiced against musicals that only have songs. Dance is something that taps into the visual medium in other ways. No pun intended. Caron, of course, made a name for herself as a ballerina, and although her opportunities here are minor, there’s a lithe elegance with which she carries herself that serves her well.

The ending evokes Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road with all her friends. And yet, for her, as the puppets become living, breathing beings in her dreams, it signals the end of something, not the beginning of the journey.

With each representing some part of Paul, their absence is too much for her to bear. Like all the great musical interludes, it’s almost wordless, but the confluence of movement and melody conjures up all the emotions we require between Caron and Ferrer to make their parting and reunification mean something.

Because of the child-like outlook of the movie, it brings to mind the words written by journalist Francis Church to a young girl named Virginia. He said:

“You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.”

The magic of Lili is how its own veil is torn in two, and still the movie maintains the semblance of a fairy tale. When the divide is breached, it brings more supernal beauty and not less. Again, it’s a lovely paradox wrapped up in an often overshadowed MGM musical. Perhaps this is the eucatastrophe Tolkien talked about.

3.5/5 Stars