Other Men’s Women (1931): Moving Pictures are Alive

Posted on January 4, 2022 by 4 Star Films

mary astor grant withers

There’s an underlying sense that The Other Men’s Women was a primitive picture and yet it has a plucky energy as if it doesn’t know any better. Warner Bros. was at the cutting edge of talking pictures and Vitaphone wasn’t exactly old hat. The medium was still in its relatively latent stages.

Given this backdrop, William Wellman seems to take to the amount of freedom he has with a maximum amount of relish. The camera already feels slightly more versatile. With the shackles gone and a new amount of mobility, he moves his camera all over the place conducting dialogue scenes in any manner of places we would normally take for granted.

But he also slices the conventional 180-degree line to smithereens. It’s off-putting given our filmgoing sensibilities, and yet there’s something equally raw and frenetic about it that gives it a very appealing flavor. His camera is atop trains or out in the garden by the sweet peas. Moving pictures are alive!

Part of this may have been out of necessity because in 1931 alone Wild Bill churned out 6 movies for Warner Bros! That’s an insane amount of output. But this same rapid-fire outpouring of movies included the likes of Public Enemy, Night Nurse, and Safe in Hell, just for starters.

If we were to scour this movie for a conventional throughline, it would start with our protagonist, a cheeky railroad hand (Grant Withers), bright-eyed and generally contented with the life he leads. His best friend in the engine room is Jack (Regis Toomey), and they have an inseparable camaraderie together. In what world is Toomey lifted out of the periphery and promoted to a primary role? Here he is as living proof.

He brings his good friend home to his wife Lily (Mary Astor). She’s playful and warm. There’s a lovely affability filling up the spaces and planted in the gardens with the flowers. Their next-door neighbor is a kindly man with a peg leg, and they have built for themselves a fine slice of tranquility. It’s innocent until it’s not. In the kitchen Withers and Astor alone. And they don’t realize it until it’s too late.

They look and they kiss — almost on accident it seems — but they love each other. It’s irrevocable. There’s no taking it back, and it pains them both. If this is the film’s menage a trois, it’s the most devastating of outcomes. They never meant to hurt anyone. But then nobody ever does.

The two friends wind up slugging it out on their locomotive overturning their friendship and livelihood in one fell swoop. A stake is forever driven between them. But there’s more. Jack’s life is beset with personal tragedy. Bill is ridden with the ensuing guilt. He never wants to see either of them ever again. It’s too much to take, looking them in the face — especially knowing he can never have Lily.

Whereas the amended title looks to capitalize on the more scandalous element, the original title: The Steel Highway might fit the picture equally well. These are before the days of Le Bete Humaine or Human Desire, but there’s something elemental about a man and the railroad. Like the western, there’s a mythos attached — a historical shorthand — evoking something of expansion and progress.

As such it flits back and forth between its two spheres. That of the man’s working world out on the rails where life feels itinerant. There’s a danger but also a freedom and a mystique about it. The home life is sweet and domestic until it’s not.

The picture also boasts some of the best rain sequences I remember in recent memory. They are worth mentioning in how they augment Wellman’s film in its latter stages. It becomes expressionistic not merely through the illusions of light and dark, smoke and shadow, but the sheets of raindrops showering down. It adds yet another contour, another layer of emotional atmosphere to this film’s final act.

Jack sloshes around in the downpour helplessly as Bill hurtles toward his resolved conclusion. The climax is fated and fittingly catastrophic. Then, days later, he’s back in the old haunts, sitting at the same cafe pit stop, with a different waitress behind the counter, only to cross paths with an old friend…They share a smile, a few words. Does it really matter for us to have this? I don’t think so. It’s spelled out on their eyes.

Then, Jack does something unexpected. He hops back on his train and begins sprinting over the top. Where is he going? He’s got to get to the engine room — to bring it to a halt. We never see it, but we know he’s staying put. My thoughts linger on Wellman again with his camera perched in such a place where he captures his hero sprinting off into the distance. Yes, movies are alive thanks to people like him.

What a curious wrinkle it is to have James Cagney and Joan Blondell off-center with supporting assignments. That very same year they would be spotted together as leads but such is the studio system they could pull duties in a 70-minute railroad thriller like this. Cagney showing off his dancing and that swell-guy charisma of his. Blondell’s got that spark and spunk in spades. They’re equally delightful, and this isn’t even their movie. They provide yet another reason to enjoy the fundamental pleasures of Other Men’s Women.

3.5/5 Stars

Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) Starring Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss

Posted on August 8, 2019 by 4 Star Films

Mansfavoritesportposter Man’s Favorite Sport was meant to be a Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn reunion that never materialized. Because, of course, put together with Howard Hawks that only means one film — the most outrageous, cockamamie, frenzied escapade ever captured on celluloid — Bringing up Baby (1938).

Rock Hudson and Maria Perschy (I still don’t understand the necessity of her character) even do a reenactment of the famous restaurant wardrobe malfunction scene. The whole thing is unfair really. It’s not so much that Hudson’s not capable in his own right but Cary came first and so we’ll ever be comparing him. It’s best to drop that right from the beginning.

Obviously, the Grant-Hepburn movie never came into being as Hepburn never got involved and Grant, now at the tail-end of his career was hesitant about such a youthful leading lady. He chose to do a rom-com thriller called Charade (1963) instead and faced similar concerns opposite the other famous Hepburn, Audrey that is.

But back to Rock Hudson and what we got instead. When put toe-to-toe with the Doris Day comedies, it mostly holds its own given Howard Hawks’ own long affiliation with the screwiest brand of romantic comedies. From Twentieth Century (1934) all the down to I Was a Male War Bride (1949), Monkey Business (1952), and of course, Man’s Favorite Sport.

Paula Prentiss, husky-voiced and armed with rapid-fire ammunition of the Katharine Hepburn persuasion, does a fine job riddling Rock Hudson with her incessant craziness. So much so that her male counterpart can’t get anything in edgewise, constantly harried and exasperated in every conceivable way. It all signals an imminent love story in their future.

Whereas Day was usually dismayed by some aspect of Hudson’s behavior, it’s Prentiss who holds the prodding role and therefore the most license to cause chaos. She had recently graduated from a plethora of pictures pairing her with Jim Hutton, including such enjoyable trifles as Where The Boys Are (1960) and The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962).

As far as their support, John McGiver has a thatched roof that’s constantly shifting tectonically. It’s gotten to the point that he doesn’t care much. He’s the one who decides his ace employee, Roger Willoughby (Hudson) of Abercrombie and Fitch will join a fishing competition for positive publicity.

It was all dreamed up by a dynamo of a public relations lady Abigail Page (Prentiss). But the catch is the famed fishing expert has never been in a lake before, much less touched a fish in his life. He can’t fish. He can’t even swim. So when Abigail finds out she has even more leverage and agrees to teach him everything he needs to know. We already foresee that turning out just marvelously.

Then, there are two quibbling old-timers who are also contending for the laurels of the fishing tournament. After all these years, it’s a joy to see Roscoe Karns and Regis Toomey still have it like the old days. Even if they’re probably a little slower and grayer around the edges, the charming witticisms are still there. Best remembered for Hawk’s El Dorado (1966), Charlene Holt has a small part as the put-upon girlfriend who constantly has the utter misfortune of seeing her man in the most compromising situations with other women.

Because in some form Man’s Favorite Sport? is a rom-com of emasculation as Willoughby is constantly overwhelmed by Ms. Page from the very first beat. Even unwittingly, she holds the power in the dynamic as he’s plagued by her craziness and inadvertently comically harrassed around each turn. Every moment, from her initial stealing of his parking spot to criticizing his kisses, sends him reeling.

Although overlong, the picture continually saunters along, highlighted time and again by a substantial number of splashes and pratfalls. Mirroring William Powell’s fishing escapades in Libeled Lady (1936), Hudson finds his line and himself dragged along by a major catch. In another instance, he’s falling out of a tree only to land a whopper. We have black bears on road bikes, inflatable dungarees, and water-bed hijinks. In fact, he’s unwittingly leading the competition, exceeding his own expectations, though, he still has Abigail Page to contend with.

It’s like two locomotives colliding head-on — as much as a neo-screwball romantic comedy about a fishing expert who knows nothing about fishing and must learn from a woman who constantly antagonizes him can possibly be. That’s exactly what it is. At least if the locomotives can kiss and make up in the end. Man’s Favorite Sport? Sure. Rock Hudson’s not any good at fishing anyway so it suits him just fine.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: His Girl Friday (1940)

Posted on September 10, 2014 by 4 Star Films

It all happened in the “Dark Ages” of the newspaper game — When to a reporter “Getting that story” justified anything short of murder. Incidentally you will see in this picture no resemblance to the men and women of the press of today.”

Hildy Johnson (aka His Girl Friday) is making her return to the Morning Post but not to get her old job back. She came to pay a visit to her former husband (and paper editor) who she divorced because she is newly engaged and wants to break everything off for good. It means she can go off into the sunset with her new beau, but it also means no more paper. She drops the news and it turns out the wedding is set for the next day so Walter has very little time to go to work. He soon begins a sly barrage of subtle and not so subtle jabs, ridicules, and put downs aimed at the easy target Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Walter cuts him off, plays dumb, and is in general condescending and conniving. Hildy sees it all unfolding and half watches with bemusement, while also trying to stop Walter from causing any major trouble.

You see he’s a wonderful fellow in a loathsome sort of way, but you cannot help but like him. Because as Hildy notes he comes by charm naturally since “his grandfather was a snake.” These are the kinds of barbs and witty put downs we deal with the entire film. Besides being good fun, it also is quite extraordinary, since they never stop coming. It’s also fascinating to simply watch the many expressions of Cary Grant, whether it is a smirk or straight face, it always has a tinge of mischief which suits his character just fine. He seems more like a little boy at times, trying to win back his girl, and in many ways, that’s what he’s trying to do. But back to the action.

Hildy unwittingly falls into Walter’s trap, and from that point on there’s no stopping her, or Walter’s scheme for that matter. When the wheels of journalism start turning there’s no stopping someone like Hildy with newsprint in her blood. Walter lets her catch wind of a man who pleads innocence though he is to be hung for shooting a black policeman. Hildy puts up a fight, but she doesn’t last very long.

Soon she’s gotten into talk to the nervous prisoner Earl and gets his point of view on the whole messy ordeal. The other newsboys are callous to the world, and as the gallows goes up outside their window, all they can do is play cards and think about the best scoop. Hildy is a little different but she’s still leaving…or is she?

Next, Williams escapes and the mad search for the fugitive is on as the newsroom goes into an uproar. The mayor and sheriff are in a tizzy and then a reprieve for Williams comes, but they ignore it because they need this hanging in order to get re-elected. By a stroke of luck, Hildy finds Williams and stashes him away in a desk. Now she is hooked, and when Walter hears about her stroke of luck, everything begins again like old times. Bruce and his mother are soon disregarded as Hildy types feverishly, and Walter wheels and deals on the telephone. Then, the sheriff and mayor burst in with the rest of the boys. Williams’ hiding place is uncovered and the two reconciled lovebirds look like they might wind up with a jail sentence. But the honorable air-head Mr. Pettibone saves the day. All that’s left to do is depart on a two-week honeymoon to Niagara Falls or maybe a workers riot in Albany. All is right with the world again. Walter’s got His Girl Friday, and she’s got her lovable wiseguy husband back.

I’m not quite sure why I am so often drawn to this movie because it is more than it being readily available in the public domain. The dynamic of Grant and Russell is certainly superb. Walter can be an absolute cad, but Grant’s charm makes him bearable to the end. Russell is the true star of this film and she deals the punches with the rest of the boys. It really is the perfect role for her. The film is blessed with the great supporting cast including Porter Hall, Roscoe Karns, Gene Lockhart, Billy Gilbert and a host of others who populate the film with colorful faces and voices.

After seeing Nothing Sacred (1937) it was also interesting to see another script from Ben Hecht about journalism. Again, it might be a screwball comedy but there are also political undertones. Most blatantly about journalism itself, but also about corrupt leaders (like the mayor and sheriff), the Red Scare, gender roles, capital punishment, and even WWII.

Of course, it must also be noted that this is a film directed by the great Howard Hawks. I have always had difficulty pinpointing his trademarks, because the reality is, he was so versatile, trying his hand at so many different genres. All I know is that I more often than not enjoy his work behind the camera because it is seamless and it feels quintessentially American. His Girl Friday is no different. Although, this one is just a tad faster than most. It’s sure to raise your blood pressure so be warned.

5/5 Stars