Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

 

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

 

Gun Crazy (1949)

 

Adam’s Rib (1949)

 

White Heat (1949) **1/2

Before Al Pacino and Robert De Niro made playing gangsters their main source of income, James Cagney owned that particular character type.  In films like The Public Enemy (1931),  Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), White Heat (1951), and Love Me or Leave Me (1955), Cagney wrote the book on playing tough-talking, psychotic hoods.  Of all of these performances, his turn as Cody Jarrett in director Raoul Walsh’s White Heat is probably his most riveting.  Perhaps after being typecast as the quintessential gangster so many times Cagney had perfected the role.  Everything that is good about White Heat is due to his performance, as well as Walsh’s focused storytelling style.

Cody is the leader of a California-based crew who hold up a U.S. mail train carrying over $350,000.  This act sets U.S. Treasury investigators on his tail and eventually leads to him confessing to a lesser crime that lands him in the clink for 1 to 3 years.  It is here that he meets an undercover cop named Pardo/Fallon (Edmond O"’Brien) who ingratiates himself to Cody after saving him from an assassination attempt organized by his second in command, Big Ed (Steve Cochran), and his two-timing wife, Verna (Virginia Mayo).  After escaping from prison with a new crew, Cody sets out to even the score with Big Ed and plans a payroll heist at a chemical plant.  All the while, the man who Cody thinks is his new partner, Pardo/Fallon, is setting a trap for him.

What’s interesting about Cody Jarrett, and Cagney’s performance, is that Cody is a complete psychopath, albeit a charming one.  Insanity runs in his family, as both his father and brother totally cracked up and died in asylums, and Cody is no exception.  He has absolutely no problem killing witnesses, strangers, and even members of his gang when they get in his way.  The only person he would think twice about killing is his mother (Margaret Wycherly).  Ma Jarrett and her son have some sort of strange symbiotic relationship that had it existed in the real world (though the movie may have been inspired by the Barkers) would have given psychiatrists loads to ponder.  It also sets up one of the best scenes in the film, when Cody learns that Ma has been killed.  The sounds that come out of Cagney after learning of her death echo what one would hear when an animal is being slaughtered. Cody goes totally berserk. The raw, ferocious intensity that Cagney displays in this scene looks and sounds completely real. 

Virginia Kellogg’s Oscar-nominated motion picture story, which was turned into a screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, is tightly-wound together by Walsh’s straight-forward directing style.  Known for his ability to trim the fat off of movies, Walsh uses every scene to keep the plot moving forward to its explosive (literally) ending.  This, of course, is what White Heat is most famous for: its ending. From the famous lines Cody says to Pardo/Fallon after he realizes he’s been duped:

A copper, a copper, how do you like that boys? A copper and his name is Fallon. And we went for it, I went for it. Treated him like a kid brother. And I was gonna split fifty-fifty with a copper!

to Cody’s maniacal laughter after being shot by the police atop a gas storage tank, oodles and oodles of gold nuggets escaped to be used as future popular culture references.  And, what better way to go out than with a bang—literally—and in the words of Cody himself, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Virginia Mayo’s performance as the sultry, manipulative Mrs. Cody Jarrett.  Certainly anyone who’d marry Cody in the first place must have had a screw loose, but Verna is a strange concoction of amusing crazy.  Her back-talk to Cody is both smart and child-like, but it emerges from the body of a woman who has no problem using her looks to get from Point A to Point B.  Mayo plays well against Cagney.  While her best scenes with him are the ones where she gives as good as she gets, she also has the ability to play a woman truly afraid of her menacing husband.  This, of course, was due to the fact that Mayo was completely frightened by Cagney because she found his performance so realistic.

Overall, White Heat is a tightly constructed crime drama that benefits from the good acting of Cagney and Mayo, as well as from a focused, linear plot.

 

On the Town (1949) **

I’m a sucker for a good musical, but there’s one particular aspect of a Gene Kelly musical that I rather don’t like: the soliloquy dance number.  I can forgive the “Singin’ in the Rain” soliloquy because it’s absolutely breathtaking to watch, but the soliloquies in his two other notable musicals, An American in Paris (1951) and On the Town (1949),  really rankle me.  Kelly was an amazing dancer and choreographer, and so I understand that he wanted to show off his immense skills, but these interludes in the action come off, at least to me, as vanity projects that don’t always mesh with the overall productions in which they appear.  This is one of the reasons that I’m not more of a fan of On the Town—the other reason is that other than Betty Garrett’s hilarious turn as Hildy and Ann Miller’s fantastic song-and-dance number, “Prehistoric Man”, I wasn’t overly impressed by anything else. In my opinion, Leonard Bernstein’s music and Roger Edens, Adolph Green, and Betty Comden’s lyrics are rather pedestrian.  Perhaps this is musical heresy, but after Miller finishes her awesome tap dance at the end of “Prehistoric Man” I could have happily stopped watching the movie and been quite happy.

Kelly co-directed On the Town with Stanley Donen, whom he would go on to make probably the greatest musical ever, Singin’ in the Rain (1952). While they are regaled for the their innovative dance numbers, they should also be remembered as the first directors to shoot a musical number on location.  As On the Town is about three sailors who go on shore leave for one day in New York City, Kelly thought it only right that the film be shot on location.  Of course, this was not a cost-effective way to shoot a musical (or any film for that matter), especially when MGM had an entire lot of studios that had been good enough for countless other musicals, most notably, The Wizard of Oz (1939).  Yet, Kelly persisted and eventually got the green light to shoot nine days’ worth of footage of the sailors visiting various landmarks in NYC, as well as the opening (and closing) number, “New York, New York”.  Most of the sight-seeing scenes were captured by a camera mounted on the back of a station wagon, while “New York, New York” required a bit more traditional way of filming. 

On premise, On the Town is based on Leonard Bernstein’s 1944 Broadway musical of the same name, but Roger Edens changed or omitted several of Bernstein’s songs to appeal to a larger audience—namely he got rid of any hint of opera.  Since I have never seen Bernstein’s original vision of On the Town I cannot say which version is better, but hopefully the Broadway edition had more entertaining and engaging songs.  Still, Edens did create the most memorable number in the film, “Prehistoric Man”, so for that he should be applauded. Maybe I like risqué songs, because there’s a whole heaping load of “oomph” and “ooh la la” in the lyrics of “Prehistoric Man” and Miller sings them with such vim and vigor that you can’t help but be amused.  You add the dazzling tap dance number that she performs while singing this song (with a little help from her backup singers and dancers Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, and Betty Garrett), which has a tremendous ending to it, and you easily have the best musical number in the movie.

Still, Kelly had to have his moment to shine, too, and so we get to watch him dance, for what seems like forever, the soliloquy ballet number, “A Day in New York”.  Let’s forget that it’s completely useless to the continuity of the musical—although that is also exceedingly annoying to me.  What is most irritating is that the only person, other than himself, from the starring cast who performs the number is Vera-Ellen (who, I must admit, I don’t like), even though part of the sequence includes two male and two female dancers who accompany Kelly.  To me, that’s like saying, “Hey, Frank, Jules, Betty, and Ann, sorry, but you ain’t good enough to do this routine.” And, maybe they weren’t, but that’s beside the point. By making the decision to use other dancers in that scene, Donen and Kelly purposefully chose to disrupt the overall continuity of the film. 

If I had to pick one shining bright spot, other than the “Prehistoric Man” number, in On the Town, it would have to be watching Betty Garrett’s feisty performance as Hildy. Garrett was no Ava Gardner in the looks department, but her Hildy comes across as a wanton woman nonetheless. Her unsubtle sexual innuendo toward Sinatra’s character, Chip, is undeniably worth the price of admission.  Probably the best description of Garrett’s brassy talents came from New York Times columnist Bosley Crowther, who once wrote that Garrett’s “way with a line is homicidal. What’s more she can dance and sing.” 

Overall, On the Town is, for me, a one trick pony.  When I watch a musical I want to be wowed by several great song and dance numbers. Here I only got one: “Prehistoric Man”.  This spirited routine coupled with Betty Garrett’s spunky performance is not enough to overcome what I find to be a set of lackluster musical numbers.

The Third Man (1949) ***

(There possibly could be spoilers contained within this post.)

If anyone ever deserved an Oscar for Best Cinematography it was Robert Krasker for his outstanding work on The Third Man (1949). Yes, the story is intriguing and the actors are engaging, but it’s the cinematogrphy that makes this film the preeminent film noir. 

Director Carol Reed was a visual genius and a great handler of enormous egos.  His bold use of off-angle shots and keen understanding of lighting are two of the features that make The Third Man such an original movie. His ability to ‘handle’ the likes of Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Trevor Howard, and Alida Valli is what brings the whole production into one cohesive visual masterpiece.  Oh, and he did it primarily on location in a rubble covered Vienna.

The story, penned by Graham Greene, finds American Holly Martins (Cotton) arriving in Vienna to meet his childhood friend Harry Lime (Welles), who has promised him a job. Unfortunately for Martins, Lime has just been killed and is being buried.  A writer of pulp Westerns, Martins finds the story behind Lime’s death suspicious and starts his own investigation.  He meets an eccentric cast of characters as he searches for the truth.  First, there is Major Calloway (Howard), a British officer who claims that Lime was a no-good black marketer who sold tainted penicillin to hospitals which killed and/or maimed hundreds of people.  Then there’s Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch), a friend of Lime’s who carries a small dog around and attempts to convince Martins that Lime’s death was a freak accident.  The problem is that there are conflicting reports about who saw what and when.  The big point of contention is whether two or three men carried Lime’s body out of the street after it was struck by a truck.  Kurtz is accounted for and so is Popescu (Siegfried Breuer), but who was the third man (hence the title)?  It obviously wasn’t Anna Schmidt (Valli), Lime’s actress girlfriend who Martins soon falls for.  It takes a dangerous ride on a Ferris Wheel to reveal the truth, and a claustrophobic manhunt through the Vienna sewers to bring the third man to justice.

Krasker was highly influenced by German Expressionism and it shows.  When Reed decided that they would use off-angle shots throughout most of the movie I expect Krasker brushed up on the work of Robert Wiene (most notably The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and Fritz Lang (probably his Dr. Mabuse). When asked about the off-angle shots Reed replied that he “shot most of the film with a wide-angle lens that distorted the buildings and emphasized the wet cobblestone streets. But the angle of vision was just to suggest that something crooked was going on.” Oddly enough he also said he decided this device wasn’t a good idea and that he pretty much abandoned it for the remainder of his career.  Of course, he may have been influenced by William Wyler’s spirit level gift, which Reed was given after Wyler viewed the picture. I, for one, think it was a brilliant idea and adds a visual uniqueness to the film.

The German Expressionists also knew how to use light and shadow, and what noir worth it’s salt wouldn’t employ the manipulation of light to create lasting images?  There are several scenes in The Third Man that I could point to to illustrate my point, but I’ll just discuss my two favorite ones.  The first is when the third man is revealed standing in the shadows of a doorway by a beaming light.  His face is fittingly half-lit with a wonderful smirk.  The second is when what seems like the entire police force is staked out to capture the third man and a larger than life shadow emerges at the top of a dark street and slowly becomes smaller as it comes closer to them to reveal that it is a balloon vendor. 

All of these wonderful shots are set to Anton Karas’ memorable “Third Man Theme”. The story behind this could have also been made into a film. Karas was discovered by Reed after the director heard him playing a zither in a Vienna beer garden while Reed was location scouting. Thinking the zither sound an apt representation of Vienna, Reed asked Karas to write and record the film’s score. When the song was released in the United States it topped the charts for eleven weeks—really.

The acting in The Third Man is top-notch, too. Cotton plays disillusioned well and Valli is convincing as a somber, realistic woman of the world.  Howard’s Calloway is the quintessential British officer and Deutsch is exceptionally smarmy as a dilettante manipulator. But the standout performance belongs to Welles, who had the audacity to make his vile character one of the most likable villains to grace the silver screen. There’s pep in his step and a wicked gleam in his eye in his few scenes, but they are so freaking memorable.

But, Welles does not have the honor of being in THE most memorable scene in The Third Man—and THE most memorable closing shot in all of film.  That honor belongs to Cotton and Valli—and a tree-lined street adjacent to the Friedhof Cemetery.  It is a 65-second stagnant long-shot of “Martins leaning against a wagon in the left foreground as Anna approaches from a great distance, getting progressively closer, and - without so much as a glance in his direction - finally walking past him and out of frame. Martins then lights a cigarette and in exasperation, throws the match to the ground, after which the picture fades to black. The strains of Karas's zither music are heard throughout the shot,” (from Richard Raskin’s Closure in The Third Man: On the Dynamics of an Unhappy Ending). Quite simply, it is an unforgettable way to end a movie.

Overall, I adore the visual elements of The Third Man. The acting is good, as well. Yet, what prevents me from pushing this film into four-star status is that it does drag at points.  I don’t know if this is because there are so many awesome shots without dialogue, which seems to make me wish the characters would stop talking so I can concentrate on the visuals or what.  Yes, I know that sounds strange (or perhaps stupid), but there must be something lacking in a film if what I remember most are the shots without any dialogue. 

The Reckless Moment (1949) **

Who knew a 1949 film starring James Mason and Joan Bennett would be so obscure? It took me years to finally see this, and this would not have happened if TCM hadn’t finally premiered it this past January.  TCM has been on the air for almost thirty years, you would think The Reckless Moment might have found its way to the airwaves before now.  Yet, sometimes there are reasons a film doesn’t show up on TCM very often: it’s not popular, contract rights, lost prints, etc. Or, in the case of this film, it’s just not that good and not many people are clamoring to see it.  I suppose if the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book hadn’t listed it in its first edition many people wouldn’t have requested that TCM show it.  Ah, so much anticipation but so much disappointment—it reminds me of my first (and only) encounter with caviar.  For years I’d seen rich people on TV and in movies praise the glory of this delicacy, so imagine my disappointment when I tasted what amounted to salty Pop Rocks (without the sugar) in my mouth at a college luncheon.  How can you tactfully spit out such swill when you are surrounded by inquisitive academics who have a really bad habit of invading your personal space?  Perhaps my experience with The Reckless Moment wasn’t as bad as the one with caviar, but it was such a letdown.

The great Max Ophuls only directed four Hollywood films: The Exile (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Caught (1949), and this less than stellar endeavor. Of the four, only Letter from an Unknown Woman showcases his true brilliance. Many critics would disagree with my assessment of The Reckless Moment, as one has went so far as to call it a masterpiece on par with Ophuls’ French marvels The Earrings of Madame de…(1953), Lola Montes (1955), and La Ronde (1950). I can’t bring myself to say this for many reasons—the most important being I can’t decide what type of film it is.  Is it a film noir or a melodrama?  Personally, it feels like a combination of both, and I don’t like to mix oil and water together. 

Joan Bennett plays Lucia Harper, mother of two and fixer of all.  When her incessantly annoying teenage daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks) gets involved with an unsavory older man named Darby (Shepperd Strudwick), she pays the man a visit and threatens him.  After an unfortunate accident involving her daughter, in which Darby falls from the Harper’s pier and unto an anchor, Lucia must drag the body out to sea and dispose of it.  Not long after this unusual chore, a very calm Irish thug named Martin Donnelly (James Mason) shows up and demands $5,000 for some letters Bea wrote to Darby.

Donnelly’s interactions with the entire Harper family can only be described as bizarre.  I think this is what I most dislike about the film.  There are few would-be movie gangsters that I recall being polite and friendly to those from whom they are extorting money.  He gives horseracing tips to the father-in-law (Henry O’Neill) and helps Lucia’s son (David Bair)fix something on his car.  Oh, and then there is his quick infatuation with Lucia herself. Mind you, an infatuation he knows can’t go anywhere since she thinks he’s scum.  Perhaps it was the short running time (a brisk 82 minutes) or the Hollywood constraints Ophuls found himself working under, but I couldn’t believe the sacrifices that Donnelly makes for Lucia.  While unfulfilled love is a consistent Ophuls’ theme, it does not work here.

The acting is not the issue, as both Mason and Bennett give good performances. He is quietly menacing and she is confidently controlled.  Mason comes off as his usually does—as though he isn’t trying.  To me, Bennett’s character is the more interesting of the two.  No matter what comes her way, Lucia always seems to steady herself and continue on with a cigarette in one hand and a plan in the other.  Thrown into a world so unlike her own she never seems to change—it’s perfectly natural that a blackmailer is in her living room and that her father-in-law wants to invite him to dinner. Perhaps if Ophuls had had more time to develop the story, or if the writers had written a better adaptation of Elizabeth Sanxay Holding’s “The Blank Wall”, Bennett’s strange performance could have saved this picture.  Who knows?

One thing, on a sort of side note, that we do know is that Bennett would personally find herself in a somewhat similar situation in 1951 when her husband, Walter Wanger (who produced this film), shot Bennett’s agent, Jennings Lang, because he was having an affair with Bennett.  Wanger’s sensational attempted-murder trial rocked Hollywood. Wanger pleaded temporary insanity (the crime of passion defense) and served four months.  Oddly enough, Bennett and Wanger remained married until 1965.  It is said that the clandestine meetings between Bennett and Lang were an inspiration for Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960).  The event effectively ended Bennett’s film career, she would only make a handful of movies following the incident.