Sleep My Love (1948)

Posted on September 6, 2018 by 4 Star Films

It’s an alarming cold open. Allison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes up on a train to Boston with a gun in her purse and no recollection of how she got there. It drives her into a fit of hysterics that riles up the whole train, though a fellow passenger (Queenie Smith) attempts to steady her nerves. We can’t blame her much since she’s been through quite the ordeal. Still, Courtland spends the entire picture trying to figure out what’s happening as does the audience.

Her concerned husband is played by Don Ameche that suave and charismatic heartthrob. It’s easy to see how he could be absolutely charming in comedy fare (ie. Midnight). Here he’s not so enjoyable. Perhaps in attempting drama, he comes off as too flat. There’s not enough definition there to be compelling. He’s just another handsome face.

Meanwhile, Allison’s evenings are haunted by a specter of a man (George Colouris) who keeps her under psychological duress with broader implications that tie him to a sultry and sulking siren and an entire plot to discredit Allison’s sanity through hypnosis and mind games. If it sounds ludicrous it is but Hollywood was mesmerized by the powers of such forces in the post-war years.

Because you see, she conveniently is the holder of a large inheritance and it seems like a lot of people want a piece of the pie and they’ve gone to great lengths to get it. Hazel Brooks continues in the same mode as Body and Soul (1947) providing the film’s femme fatale, Daphne, sizzling with avarice.

Most people are probably not accustomed to Douglas Sirk and film noir together but this movie proves it to be so, unfolding as an eery paranoia-filled drama that is very much brethren with Hitchcock thrillers like Suspicion (1941) or even Notorious (1946) along with George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944). And some of the broad aspects of psychological conspiracy are akin to I am Julia Ross (1945). However, Sleep My Love does enough to carve out its own unique path even if it’s not as prominent as these earlier titles.

Because Claudette Colbert far from going it alone finds a formidable ally in Bruce Elcott (Robert Cummings), a friend of one of Courtland’s old acquaintances the bubbly Barby (Rita Johnson). Elcott becomes quite the sleuth and a character of tremendous integrity who seems a far better fit for our leading lady than her actual husband. He’s also falling for her.

A high water mark of the film is an extended wedding sequence that is surprisingly fascinating. First off, it’s rather remarkable because it shows a wedding between a Chinese-American couple (Keye Luke and Marya Marco) and it plays it straight and true without any stereotypical sentiment. It feels like a real wedding and an authentic portrayal of this union without the necessity of needless bigotry to sully the moment.

The evening festivities prove equally joyous for our stars who form a quality bond and what feels like it could have been an unfortunate aside becomes one of the film’s most diverting sequences choosing to forego dime a dozen drama for a bit of depth.

In subsequent scenes, Keye Luke, Bruce’s “brother” from his extended time in China becomes his right-hand man as he tries to get to the bottom of Mrs. Courtland’s curious situation that turns perilous very, very quickly. It blows up in the end with a domino effect of dramatic trip wires that set off all sorts of outcomes that came hurtling to their conclusions as quickly as they began. It’s over the top certainly but no less a gripping finale if the film is given leeway in the areas of realism.

If this film is not what we would come to think of in Douglas Sirk there’s no doubt that it feels less dated than most, anthropologically speaking, coming from an intellectual man who seems to carry an open-minded and forward-thinking approach.

Likewise, the intense interest in the human psyche might have matured in the years since, but there’s little doubt that it still holds a prominent place in our modern world with its ceaseless intricacies. One could say psychological complexity is one of the reasons movies still get made today. That and a craving for romance.

3.5/5 Stars

Kings Row (1942)

Posted on September 4, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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Kings Row is apparently a good place to live. The billboard in town says as much. It’s the goings-on in the community that tells a different story — providing a conflicting more subversive view of small-town America.

The story starts out with 5 children. It feels like we hardly get to know them before they are already grown. For some, it feels like we hardly get to know them, period. Robert Cummings is Parris, a fresh-faced polite young man who still exudes a naive innocence and he manages it at 31 years of age. He certainly doesn’t look it.

Those qualities are precisely what is called for in Kings Row, a film directed by Sam Wood (The Devil and Miss Jones) that feels like an enigma — a sprawling coming-of-age drama that dares to show the dark underbelly of society in a very patriotic time.

Despite being hampered by the Hays Codes and its gatekeeper Joseph Breen, Casey Robinson’s script is still a fairly adequate adaption. It comes off surprisingly frank for a mainstream success during the war years even if it can’t quite cover all the vast territory the book undoubtedly expounded upon. But it was a notable forerunner of such pictures as Peyton Place (1957) or even Blue Velvet (1986) years later. It does not shy away from cancer, death, suicide, psychological duress, and all sorts of malice.

Cummings is joined by Ronald Reagan playing his best buddy Drake McHugh, an affable straight shooter with that winning Reagan charisma. Reagan and Ann Sheridan prove to be a great delight with undeniable chemistry if not for the fact that they don’t actually share a scene until well into the picture. In normal circumstances, you would say they’d make a happy couple.

Meanwhile, Cassandra Towers (Betty Field) and Lousie Gordon (Nancy Coleman) seem at the fringes of the narrative if not all but forgotten. Cassandra was formerly Parrises sweetheart when they were kids. But her family is ostracized in town because her unseen mother has mental problems and her father (Claude Rains) pulls his daughter out of school. Parris doesn’t get to see her until years later when he’s under the doctor’s tutelage. He learns to admire the man but that doesn’t make the family dynamic any less disconcerting.

Likewise, before setting his sights on Randy Monaghan (Sheridan) from the other side of the railroad tracks, Drake had his eye on Louise but her parents, Dr. Gordon (Charles Coburn) and his wife (Judith Anderson), were vehemently against such a union. They believe Drake to be unscrupulous, fearing what others will say about his nighttime buggy rides.

Not to be outdone, Drake gets over his first love and moves on with his life. It’s one of the most satisfying parts of the picture. He seems genuinely content. Though he is miles away in Vienna, Parris is continuing his aspirations of becoming the first psychiatrist in his hometown.

But Kings Row remains a coiled spring of melodrama quickly catapulting from romance to drama back to passion then darkness and romance again. Drake’s life back home turns morosely tragic giving rise to the line that would define Reagan’s career, “Where’s the rest of me!”

James Wong Howes’ photography is A-grade as per usual. The shades of melodrama are his to dictate and he does it exquisitely suggesting tonalities with every composition. The well-remembered score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold has an undisputed majesty which seems to be echoed in some of John Williams most resplendent works from Superman to Star Wars.

There is so much that goes as unspoken subtext in the movie, simultaneously helping and hindering the final outcome. Easily forgotten are the troubling parent-daughter relationships with brokenness at the seams. Claude Rains appears in a very severe role as Dr. Towers who seems like a good man but in the same breath, he still has some lifelong demons he cannot contend with.

Charles Coburn is positively acerbic, channeling every bit of malevolence he can muster. It’s another small but markedly different role than his usual cantankerous or avuncular comics. The trifecta of supporting talent is rounded out by Judith Anderson who only has a couple scenes but they paint a picture of yet another strained mother-daughter dynamic. These issues provide an alternative unnerving layer to the drama but there are so many other subjects to be broached so these feel muddled.

Kings Row barrels towards a lightning fast conclusion that looks to resolve the film’s entire length in a matter of a few moments and that proves to be a heady proposition. An almost unnaturally joyous ending cannot quite tie up all the loose ends and the questions we may still have as outsiders trying to come to grips with this world. But there is one that does become evident and one thread of morality that shows itself.

Humanity was not made to live paralyzed by gossip, hearsay, and secrets that can never be completely rectified. Instead, what we can do is bring all that is in the darkness into the light and do our best to hold on dearly to our relationships.

Because strains of hypocrisy, sickness, and pernicious intent will look to undermine our happiness until the end of time. One of the keys is striving for a life that takes the hardship and comes out of it with a continued zeal for life. Battling all that is depressed and despondent with a spirit of pure integrity.

So while there’s still something unspeakably unsatisfying about Kings Row that’s not to take away from its positive outcomes. Just seeing a smile cross Ronald Reagan’s face once more almost feels like it’s enough. I still remember going to the Reagan Library and watching some clips from Kings Row, a film he likened to his best work. Now many years later I can finally say I’ve seen it for myself.

3.5/5 Stars

It Started With Eve (1941)

Posted on August 30, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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We enter a newsroom that feels like it could be ripped out of His Girl Friday (1940). The editor is lining up his copy for the following day with a big front-page spread on the renowned millionaire Jonathan Reynolds (Charles Laughton). They just need him to die and they can print it.

Of course, at this point, it looks like it’s all but in the books. He’s a very sick man, on his deathbed, straining at what look to be his final gasps of air. His son (Robert Cummings) is rushing away from his vacation to be at his father’s side before it’s too late. The doctor fears the worst but his son makes it back from Mexico City in time to catch his father.

They share some tearful exchanges. Then, comes the fateful moment where his dad asks to meet his new fiancee. Wanting to honor his father’s last wish, Johnny goes pell-mell to his fiancee’s hotel but she can’t be found anywhere and he tries everything.

In a frantic moment of duress, the man makes a decision that will forever alter the course of his life. A hatcheck girl at the hotel (Deanna Durbin) becomes the perfect stand-in for his fiancee on a dime.

Frantic, he promises her 50 bucks and takes her to his father’s bedside. They share a poignant exchange and Johnny thanks her for her services and thinks that is the end of it — of his father and his relationship with this woman — but he’s terribly mistaken on both accounts.

Against all medical opinions of the family doctor (Walter Catlett), Mr. Reynolds makes a miraculous recovery and is back to his old ways craving cigars and steak for breakfast. It’s joyous news until he wants to have breakfast with Gloria Pennington whose actual name is Anne Terry.

Now his son is in a jam and he pulls Anne away from her train to Ohio to keep his father happy by maintaining the charade. Now he’s in deeper than he wants with one “fiancee” hitting it off with his father and the other with her mother waiting to be introduced to Mr. Reynolds. Needless to say, the local bishop (Guy Kibbee) gets the wrong idea about the boy he has known from youth who has become a degenerate philanderer supposedly keeping company with two different women.

Johnny could care less. He’s still in a bind and his main goal is to get everything patched up by paying off this girl again and enlisting the help of the doctor to introduce his fiancee into their home very naturally before the big party his father is throwing. It’s easy enough to tell his father that they have a lover’s quarrel and the “engagement” is off.

And yet, Anne doesn’t let it go that easily and she returns to profess the error in her ways and make up. Because now she has a larger stake in this new relationship. She’s a struggling musician who has heaps of talent. It’s just that she’s never gotten a chance to share it with someone important. This is her one shot at a big break. But far from being an opportunistic girl, she also adores this man and to some extent likes his son for a certain amount of sensitivity that he has.

Durbin and Laughton are brilliant fun together because he remains the crazy glue that holds this “romance” together. While things look like they have run their course and Johnny has salvaged everything the way they were originally meant to be, Mr. Reynolds goes off script and does the unanticipated, he drops everything at his gathering to see Ms. Terry.

But of course, we already know they aren’t a real couple and so it makes for an initially awkward and then a surprisingly jovial evening, finished off with a lively round of the conga. Mr. Reynolds succeeds in almost giving his good doctor a heart attack and sends his son for a real loop. In another fit of Deja Vu, Johnny races after Anne’s departing train to catch up with her once more. This time for good.

Charles Laughton is undoubtedly the M.V.P. of the picture providing a delightfully grouchy yet lovable turn hidden behind a mustache and a happy old boy persona which channels a bit of a naughty schoolboy at that.

Cummings has a knack for the clumsy, flustered comedy that comes as a result of his initial bumblings. He and Durbin work through the hilarious miscommunications that ensue beautifully as standard procedure in such a screwball musical. Instead of kissing like normal people they giggle, cackle, pinch, bite and do about everything else including play fight around the interior study. But if that isn’t love then I don’t know what is.

4/5 Stars

Saboteur (1942)

Posted on May 2, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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“It’s my duty as an American citizen to believe a man innocent until he is proven guilty.”

I stand corrected. Maybe Foreign Correspondent (1940) is not Alfred Hitchcock’s most patriotic movie. Maybe it’s Saboteur, made two years later. Or maybe they are both made by the fact that they are more than mere propaganda and that’s what makes them still worthwhile today. This is, above all, another thriller by the same man who continually tinkered with the genre in the subsequent years.

The narrative starts with wartime industry which has hit its boon since there are Nazis and Japanese to fight. Defense Plants have become a crucial part of the war and also part of everyday life for the average American. Robert Cummings is the epitome of one, a fresh-faced lad who all of the sudden finds himself wanted for the murder of his best friend which happened after a ruthless act of sabotage. In this respect, Saboteur is a more elegant version of Hitchcock’s predecessor Sabotage (1936).

There’s a wonderful sequence where our protagonist has hitched a ride with a gabby truck driver who consequently looks a bit like James Cagney. Every subsequent thread of conversation and even the passing billboard, all points back to everything that’s gone down so far. The man’s trying to run away but he can’t. Fugitives never have been able to as far back as Jonah. They always have to face the music.

Barry Kane follows the one wild lead he has involving a man played by Norman Lloyd (a future Hitchcock partner in Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and it lands him at a stately ranch that feels like quintessential Americana — it’s a luscious slice of West Coast leisure. But it’s another delicious instance where Hitchcock allows villains to live lives not unlike our own with families, babies toddling around, and swimming pools. Except these people also happen to be involved with conspiracies threatening national security in the wake of WWII.

After, a harrowing escape from the police with a swan dive off a bridge, Kane continues his journey. Saboteur quickly becomes another entry in Hitchcock’s innocent man-on-the-run canon and while not the tip of the spear, it’s thoroughly entertaining for the very fact that it remains on the move as it jumps from place to place. In fact, there are obvious shades of 39 Steps (1935) and North by Northwest (1959) in place as it goes literally from coast (California) to coast (New York).

And in each location, we meet a row of interesting side characters whether a trucker or the sagely blind man and a band of eclectic circus vagabonds. But the most important is the stalwart Patricia Martin (Priscilla Lane), initially looking to turn in this traitorous criminal with his hands cuffed together until she realizes that’s not who he is.

The director and his writers use the whole film to tell tiny parables about America where the circus can function like our democracy or a decision to not turn in a man can merely be an exercise in basic human rights. In these moments the film evokes the kind of patriotic messages that feel unconvincing when viewed now. Even Cummings brief stint on the soapbox facing off against his sophisticated foe is an obvious call-to-action.

But for 1942 it makes complete sense and that hardly takes away from the thriller that Hitchcock still manages to spin because though war might be afoot and Film serves different purposes on the Homefront, it can still function as entertainment. Hitchcock was one of the greats in that capacity. A murderer is set loose in a movie theater during a crime picture and the action leads us most iconically atop the standard bearer of American freedom and equality, Lady Liberty herself. Once again, it’s the perfect Hitchcock ending even if that’s more in going with the style of the entire picture thus far rather than pure execution.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: Dial M for Murder (1954)

Posted on April 6, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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Dial M for Murder is talky and more dialogue-driven than a great many Hitchcock films but that’s partly because the environment is more conducive to that kind of storytelling as much as the fact that this murder story is adapted from a popular British stage production.

Like Rope (1948) or even Lifeboat (1944) before it, Dial M for Murder is for all intent and purposes a chamber piece that essentially takes place on one set: the drawing room of Tony and Margo Wendice.

But quite similar to its predecessors you also get the sense that Hitch approached this picture with a certain perspective and turned it into a technical puzzle to be solved. In typical Hitchcock fashion, he underlies even scenes that are seemingly stagnant with interesting accents. His frame is constantly filled in the foreground lending a certain depth to the picture that we can easily imagine as utilizing cutting-edge 3D technology.

Aside from his work with his frequent director of photography Robert Burks, he also put some obvious restrictions on himself in terms of location. Several of his decisions are fairly daring. Instead of having a whole courtroom sequence he elects to shoot it in a highly stylized fashion that while far from realism, still gets the essence of the story across in a matter of a few minutes.

However, he also has a sequence where two men are talking and the frame is broken up by a lamp and it takes the typical shot-reverse-shot paradigm and makes it more interesting. The same goes for the disconcerting high angles that he uses in multiple instances to depict the action unfolding as first the two accomplices plan out the ensuing events and then the police come onto the scene to investigate.

His preoccupation with the “Perfect Murder” crops up once more as a retired tennis player living off the fortunes of his beautiful young wife decides to murder her to maintain his lavish lifestyle. Her infidelities with an American mystery novelist and minor acquaintance are the pretenses for his actions — a perfect way to get all her money for himself.

But this isn’t a picture working on a moral level. As is often the case, Hitchcock seems far more invested in the mechanics of the actual murder and whether or not it can actually be pulled off and what it would all look like.

Tony (Ray Milland) soon has an old college chum embroiled in his plot with a healthy bit of blackmail and he has everything set up perfectly to get Margot (Grace Kelly) to stay at home while this phantom man will sneak into their flat and murder her. But it will come off as a freak accident and that will be the end of it. However, being a fighter, Grace Kelly doesn’t give up without a struggle and her husband now must cover all his tracks and events unfold much differently than he was expecting.

Milland plays the typically witty and rather sophisticated Hitchcock villain who is in one sense charming and extremely prone to moral turpitude. Grace Kelly is stunning as always and a sympathetic figure as the wife who finds herself the victim of a grisly attack and subsequently accused of a murder no thanks to her husband helping to dig her grave. Though it’s not her best performance next to such startling revelations as Rear Window (1954) and To Catch a Thief (1955), there’s no question that it helps to solidify her incomparable partnership with Alfred Hitchcock.

Robert Cummings role as a crime author is a necessity because it makes his spot-on guesswork certainly not plausible but more interesting. Because he’s simultaneously dreaming up a scenario and ironically convicting Milland with his cockamamie stories which are surprisingly close to the truth.

John Williams reprises his stage role and turns Dial M for Murder into a bit of a Columbo episode of ‘how is he going to catch him’ because this works best to Hitchcock’s advantage since he’s not necessarily interested in the shock but introducing the audience into the entire plot so they become invested and stringing them along with all the proceedings. In such a way, the suspense and the subsequent payoff can be as memorable as possible.

When Milland walks through the door at the end of the picture, it’s an unextraordinary, even everyday action, but Hitchcock has imbued that single event with so much meaning. As an audience, we are sitting with baited breath waiting to see if the key will turn in the lock. This is a film that ultimately is indebted to the rotary phone if only for its title. But it’s hard to beat Hitchcock and the future Princess Grace of Monaco.

4/5 Stars

Reign of Terror/The Black Book (1949)

Posted on November 17, 2017 by 4 Star Films

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Depending on where you look Anthony Mann’s 1949 film comes under two different titles that are both equally apt. Reign of Terror denotes its roots in the French Revolution of the 1790s that saw the ousting of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette while putting Maximilien Robespierre at the helm of one of the most ghastly mobs known to man.

Any lover of history can call most everything in this picture into question but that’s almost beyond the point. This is not a tale that claims historical accuracy but a story of claustrophobic intensity that takes an era and builds an intriguing and gritty little drama out of all the sordid, twisted details. Perhaps more importantly than that it begins to draw parallels to the contemporary moment and that’s where the second title comes in.

The black book is the object that causes men to kill and lie and deceive one another because within its pages dwells great power to dictate the outcome of this kingdom on the precipice of something new. Whether or not that proves to be an optimistic direction very much depends on who gains access to said book. Robespierre (Richard Basehart) has lost it, the chief of the secret police Fouche (Arnold Moss) is intent on acquiring it for his own, as is a ring of staunch patriots looking to pilot their beloved nation back toward stability. That is only the main narrative thread. It seems like little coincidence that a black book shares great similarity to a blacklist.

In the 1950s, whether a concrete document existed hardly mattered because having your name added to this industry list was enough. Though not the same as being sent to the guillotine, for an actor or director it was tantamount to the death of a career as many found themselves out of work for years afterward.

While High Noon is often noted as one of the most high-profile blacklist allegories, The Black Book might be one of the most striking since it dares to find a point of reference between volatile and bloody history many years prior and the current reality. There’s nothing subtle about it.

Thus, whatever you want to label it, Reign of Terror or The Black Book, it proves to be a fascinating amalgamation of historical drama, film noir, and political allegory. Somehow it manages to be a low budget epic combining some wonderful talents that go beyond just Anthony Mann but to producer Walter Wanger, legendary cinematographer John Alton, and set designer William Cameron Menzies.

On the whole, it’s an unsentimental portrait comprised of severe low angle close-ups and shadows that spell film noir forwards and backward. It’s deliciously atmospheric, brooding with darkness and matched by ferocious stylized violence that sizzles in every moment of conflict. The sequences in front of the guillotine against the backdrop of the masses even conjure up the frames of Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc and it’s true that this picture ironically recycled sets from Joan of Arc from the year prior.

Looking at film from the perspective of a historian, one of the greatest enjoyments comes when I am able to view content that has a similar theme running through it whether a specific director, actor, genre, or subject. In a flurry of activity, I’ve been able to derive a greater appreciation for the talents of Robert Cummings in particular.

Though this might sound reductive, much in the way that Joel McCrea is called the poor man’s Gary Cooper, Cummings just might be the poor man’s Jimmy Stewart and I say that because he has the same type of everyman quality that’s easy to latch onto.

Although I could never see Stewart pulling off a period role like this and though not entirely authentic, Cummings is a fine protagonist navigating the back alleyways and roads of deception and treachery that dictate the life of a citizen of the New Republic. Even when he does something that might be suspect there’s inherent trust the audience attributes to him.

Meanwhile, stunning Arlene Dahl looks ravishing in period costume but she also becomes a multifaceted companion of Charles D’Aubigny (Cummings) and one of his only points of contact who proves reliable and resourceful. Otherwise, the picture is crammed full of all sorts of characters with varying allegiances and intentions, not to mention cameos from such figures as the Marquis de Lafayette and Napoleon.

If it’s not quite like the blacklist then you figure out how very easily it could be. The film takes so many about faces and turns by the denouement it’s hard to know who is in the right or wrong or more important yet who ended up on the right side of history — the ones who wrote the victor’s narrative — because oftentimes they are the ones who go down as the heroes. Whether that is true or not is up for considerable debate.

4/5 Stars

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

Posted on August 4, 2017 by 4 Star Films

the-devil-and-ms-jones-1 Its title suggests that this film might be something like Lubitsch’s Heaven can Wait but The Devil and Miss Jones could easily hold the title as the original version of Undercover Boss. Although its main function is on the romantic and comic planes, it also has a bit of a social message behind it that signals for change.

Setting the stage, the wonderfully memorable Charles Coburn is none other than the 6th richest man in the world and he is also a hopelessly cranky curmudgeon. A comic Mr. Potter if you will. He’s also a finicky eater only indulging in graham crackers and constantly calling upon his longsuffering servant (S.Z. Sakall). He’s always got something to gripe about.

At the moment, the workers at the department store franchise he holds ownership of are decrying his policies and the benefits he gives workers. They’re pretty bad but he really doesn’t care. All he cares about is that his name is being slandered and he’s looking to hire a detective to find the conspirators. However, not finding a suitable candidate, he resolves to join the floor staff in the shoe department himself so he can act as a mole and undermine any plans they have against him. He’ll beat them out his own game. He’s “a real Benedict Arnold in Sheep’s Clothing” as they say.

Soon he is befriended by the kindly Ms. Ellis who swears by her tuna fish popovers and it takes a moment but he is disarmed by her generosity. The plucky Ms. Mary Jones (Jean Arthur) also takes him under her wing in a way, looking out for him amidst the cruel world of customer service. He isn’t much good at it anyway — selling slippers that is. Edmund Gwenn in a rather subdued role as the snooty store manager tells him as much.

And it’s Mary who unwittingly introduces him to the inner workings of all things store-related. Including the fact that her beau is the infamous Joe O’Brien (Robert Cummings) a recently fired store employee who is working his hardest to rage against the accepted order by organizing a labor union to protect his fellow working class friends.

But it’s not all serious, hardly. Among other things, the foursome takes a lively day trip. One can only imagine Coney Island or some such hot spot with crowded beaches that look more like sardine tins and bustling avenues with kids running hither and thither. In these moments it becomes obvious that there’s a bit of a comical culture war being waged, perfectly summated by the moment some of his new colleagues dilute his fine wine with soda pop to kill the peculiar taste. And despite, their simple ways, they grow on Mr. Merrick, while at the same time his naivete about real life, gains their sympathy. He seems fairly helpless without them. A rambunctious trip to the police station ensues because he gets lost like a little kid.

Of course, there’s the expected turn of events. It must happen. Mr. Merrick is slowly becoming redeemed, falling for Ms. Ellis and gaining the trust of both Mary and Joe. But Mary happens across something that puts everything in jeopardy. And it could be melodramatic but Arthur knows how to adeptly play the comedy even in these moments. Most notably, when she’s summing up the courage to clock her deceptive colleague over the head with a hay maker courtesy of the season’s latest model of footwear.

The final crusade for unionization leads to utter bedlam with the higher ups and it has a trickle-down effect on everyone else. Mary and Joe lead the charge emphatically but with this inside look at the corrupt inner workings of his leadership, Mr. Merrick is aghast and willfully joins the rebellion. It’s comic absurdity and all the main players do the film justice making their happy ending all the more deserved. Sam Wood might not be noted as a director of raging comedies (true, he worked with the Marx Brothers) but he does well enough with The Devil and Ms. Jones to make it a delightful trifle even now. Thanks be that Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn were paired once more in More the Merrier. They’re gold together.

4/5 Stars

Dial M for Murder (1954) – Alfred Hitchcock

Posted on November 12, 2013 by 4 Star Films

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, and Robert Cummings, this film tells the story of a married woman who has fallen for another man. However, her suspicious husband finds out and decides to have her murdered. Through a series of events he finds his murderer and sets everything up for the following evening. His plan goes awry and his wife lives so he must rush to cover up all his involvement. In the ensuing days Kelly’s character is accused of murder even though she was simply defending herself. She finds herself facing death and yet the clever police detective figures everything out. He realizes her innocence and traps Milland in his own plan. With the typical Hitchcock style and solid acting, this movie is full of many suspenseful moments and it became an early example of film making for 3D.