I Married a Witch (1942)

Posted on October 31, 2015 by 4 Star Films

Directed by French emigre Rene Clair, I Married a Witch is a surprisingly cheeky comedy for the 1940s. The plot opens up with the Salem Witch Trials where a male and female witch are both to be burnt at the stake. However, before dying they cast a curse on the lineage of one Jonathan Wooley (played in Puritan garb by Fredric March), and so going forth all his ancestors are doomed to accursed marriages.

Now in the present (1942), the current ancestor Wallace Wooley (March) prepares for a run at the governorship as he also prepares to marry his disagreeable fiancee (Susan Hayward) to bolster his appeal on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the spirits of Jennifer (Veronica Lake) and Daniel (Cecil Hathaway) are finally released from their prison and they head out ready to cause all sorts of mischief. At first, they travel as smoke floating through the air and residing inside bottles. However, Jennifer has the brilliant idea of taking on human form so she can torment Wooley even more.

They follow to burn down the Pilgrim Hotel and then Jennifer gets Wooley to unwittingly rescue her from the burning remains, a hero. Little does he know what’s he’s done. She pulls all sorts of pranks on him that leave a bad impression on his housekeeper and are bound to get him in the doghouse with his fiancee. Veronica Lake is very alluring in a sing-song sort of way as her character tries to playfully seduce Wooley. She even crafts a love potion, but plans go awry when she actually ingests it. Now she’s hopelessly in love and she must try and crash Wallace’s wedding to win him back.

Joined by her father in physical form, they put the proceedings to a halt with a gust of wind and then Daniel tries to impede Jennifer by turning her into a frog, but he ends up drunk instead. Of course, Wallace is caught in yet another awkward spot with the witch. The wedding is off (along with the dreadful song “I Love You Truly”) and the campaign is done for…or is it?

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In the end, it looks like Wallace might lose his new found love, but she comes back to him, the moral of the story being, “love is stronger than witchcraft. It conjures up a Frank Sinatra song right about now.

This film has a whimsically absurd scenario bolstered by simple special effects that allow buildings to burst into flame, Jennifer to slide up the banister, and Daniel makes the car levitate. This is an obvious precursor to a pair of 1960s sitcoms. Veronica Lake’s performance is very reminiscent of Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie and the plot feels like a plot line out of Bewitched since our heroine is also a witch. Too bad Robert Montgomery was not in this film. His daughter was a witch after all.

3.5/5

Review: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Posted on May 18, 2015 by 4 Star Films

The first time I saw this gripping noir, my least favorite part of the film probably was the title, and it still is. That’s saying a lot, and the film is adapted from the James M. Cain crime novel anyways, with the title included free of charge. Otherwise, Postman is a wonderful example of the film noir canon, and yet it lacks the elements of your more typical private eye mystery.

It trades dark streets of crime for a small roadside burger joint owned by a shrewd man and his noticeably younger wife. Bring a drifter searching for a quick buck and you have everything set for the deadliest of love triangles. At the tips are John Garfield as the rambling man Frank who initially couldn’t care less for his boss’s pretty wife. Then there’s Cora, the alluring girl who seems out of place in her life. Then you have the money-grubbing Nick (Cecil Kellaway) who seems naively oblivious to the whole situation.

At first, nothing seems to be afoot, and Cora is adamant about not getting involved with the new hand. However, ultimately things evolve. That’s not necessarily the exciting part. We expect the rapid and lurid love affair that soon besets Frank and Cora. We expect, more likely than not, that Nick will either catch them or they will knock him off first. They choose the latter and its far from preferable. Soon the district attorney is down their throats with his own suspicions about the forbidden couple. He’s pretty smart too.

Sackett plays Frank and Cora off of each other. They’re both scared. Neither one wants jail or worst the gas chamber. Nora ends up being the only one prosecuted, but her sly lawyer (Hume Cronyn) is able to call his opponents bluff and get Cora off with hardly a hitch. The only problem is that Frank and Cora hate each other guts now. They are positively poisoned to each other.

The story could end there and it would be ironic enough, but it doesn’t. It has yet another act where Frank and Cora make up following the illness of her mother, the flourishing of her establishment after the trial, and a bout with blackmail. All seems to be better than it ever was, but fate can have a cruel sense of humor.

On one out of the ordinary car ride, Frank crashes and in the aftermath, Cora is left dead with Frank on the fast track to the gas chamber. And that’s where the title comes in. The Postman Always Rings Twice. In other words, if you don’t pay for your crimes the first time around, you always end paying up one way or another. Cora was killed and Frank faced execution. Neither one got off in the end.

Putting aside the Hay’s Codes need for justice to be dealt, this is a wonderfully sardonic tale and ultimately sensual noir for the 1940s. Lana Turner was never better dancing with relative ease between amorous sweetness and acidic intentions. And the moment she first shows up on the screen is one of the most eye-catching entrances by a femme fatale period. Although not the greatest of leading men, John Garfield is surprisingly credible opposite, Turner. He plays the hard-working everyman incredibly well. Hume Cronyn, for his part, plays his wily prosecutor wonderfully with a sly smile all the while. I cannot quite put a finger on it, but I like him.

4.5/5 Stars

Review: Harvey (1950)

Posted on August 5, 2014 by 4 Star Films

Why am I so infatuated by Harvey you ask? Let me clarify that. I’m not talking about the title rabbit. Why am I so enamored by this fantastical film from 1950? It all stems from Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd, which was undoubtedly one of the most unique and remarkable performances in his storied film career.

Elwood is often quotable (Here, let me give you one of my cards, What did you have in mind, etc.). However, I think his innocence and perpetually pleasant demeanor is what makes him so wonderful to moviegoers, like myself, and to many of the characters in this story. He has his oddities, to be sure, but a little common courtesy and thoughtfulness is something that is often lacking in this world. Elwood is the complete epitome of that kind of individual. He always has an open invitation, he constantly insists that others enter before him, he has a penchant for giving flowers, he is the king of compliments, and he can put a positive spin on most anything (I Plan to leave. You want me to stay. Well, an element of conflict in any discussion’s a very good thing. It means everybody is taking part and nobody is left out).
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Sure, his friend is a giant invisible rabbit named Harvey. So what? By the end of this film, I might be a little bit of a lunatic too, but after all, that’s being human for you. What makes us who we are, are those quirks that populate our persons. For Elwood it’s his pal Harvey, for others, it might be something more mundane than a giant invisible pal.
However, I will undoubtedly keep returning to Harvey, because it is a thoroughly enjoyable film that gives us a little lesson in life, and it certainly does not hurt that it is quite funny, in a whimsical sort of way.

As I noted already Stewart is wonderful, playing Mr. Dowd straight, but he is surrounded by an eclectic group including Josephine Hull, Cecil Kellaway, and Jesse White. They are necessary foils for his character to bump up against. Although Charles Drake and Peggy Dow are somewhat flat at times, both of them fit the sentimentality of the film just right. It’s a pity Dow was not in more films because she seems like such a lovely person on the screen. But why focus on the negative, because after all Elwood P. Dowd never would.

4/5 Stars

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – Film-Noir

Posted on July 2, 2013 by 4 Star Films

Starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, the film begins with a drifter taking a job at a roadside diner for a jolly older man with a beautiful young wife (Turner). After initial conflict, Frank and Cora fall passionately in love. They try one disastrous attempt to take the husband’s life, and in desperation they try again, this time succeeding in getting rid of him. Soon they are in court fighting the murder rap. Miraculously the two of them get out of it but ironically by the time the trial is over they hate each others guts. They live in constant loathing of each other but after thwarting a blackmail scheme their wild love is rekindled. In an equally cruel twist of fate, they both end up paying for their actions the second time around. With the voice-over, femme fatale, cinematography, and twisting plot, this is a quintessential film-noir that I really enjoyed. I would consider it the landmark performance for Lana Turner and maybe John Garfield as well. They learn the hard way that the postman does always ring twice and there is nothing you can do about it.