I'll Never Forget You

I’m a sucker for time travel movies, so I was a little surprised that I didn’t enjoy “I’ll Never Forget You” (1951) more than I did. Oh I liked it well enough and it’s worth watching, but it just didn’t hook me. Part of it may be due to, for me, a curiously lackluster performance by star Tyrone Power.

But there’s much to enjoy here, especially if one is a fan of classic horror movies. The film’s source material is the play “Berkeley Square” by John L. Balderston. Balderston was a successful playwright who became a top Hollywood screenplay writer in the 1930s, enjoying spectacular success in horror movies, both as a screenplay writer and as an adaptor. His credits include: “Dracula” (1930), “Frankenstein” (1931), “The Mummy” (1932), “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), “Mad Love” (1935) and “Dracula’s Daughter” (1936), among others. Not too shabby a list.

The film’s director is Roy Ward Baker, well known for his British horror movies such as “The Vampire Lovers” (1970), “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde” (1971), a much better film than the title indicates, and the superior Amicus anthology film “Asylum” (1972). Baker also directed the best Titanic movie to date “A Night to Remember” (1958).

However, this was an early credit for Mr. Baker and I’m afraid his inexperience shows. Everyone is a little too passive, a little too subdued. It’s almost as if Baker and the cast were unwilling to completely wrap their arms around the film’s premise.

Tyrone Power plays an atomic scientist living in a beautiful old ancestral house in London. He’s also obsessed with the 18th century and thanks to his experiments, believes time travel is possible. He has memorized the history of his house and his relatives who resided there. One evening during a tremendous storm he’s struck by lightning and finds himself back in the 1780s as his ancestor. He knows far too much about everyone’s lives and is prone to making wild predictions about the future. Some fear he is in league with otherwordly forces, while others find him a rival. Helen (Ann Blyth) falls in love with him, despite Power’s character being engaged to her sister.

The film opens in black and white for the contemporary London scenes and then switches to Technicolor for the period scenes – a nice touch. But for someone who is obsessed with the past as much as Power’s character is, he doesn’t seem to relish being there. I like Power tremendously as an actor, but I think this is one of his weakest performances. However, he does register strongly in his love scenes with Blyth – those scenes are among the film’s best.

There’s an odd scene where Power invites Blyth to look deep into his eyes so she can see all the sights from his time. She breathlessly recites everything she sees – the tall buildings, automobiles, airplanes, etc. – and wonders why he would want to leave such a world. It’s a very well-written scene and I suspect it comes from the play. But none of these sights are shown. Likely effective on the stage, this is one scene where the medium of film could have been used to strengthen the scene.

Power does return to the present – back to black and white - and his visit to the graveyard to visit Helen’s grave is helped enormously by William Alwyn’s ethereal scoring and some evocative lighting effects. We also learn that Power has been acting very strangely the past month. Did the lightning strike really send him back 200 years? Or did it cause him to imagine the whole thing?

I applaud the ambiguity and have the feeling that Baker and company were trying very hard to do something different. They didn’t quite make it, but kudos to them for trying.

The film was originally made in 1933 under its original title “Berkeley Square.” Directed by Frank Lloyd, it starred Leslie Howard and Heather Angel and remains frustratingly elusive to see. I hope to see it some day.

The World In His Arms

“The World in His Arms” (1952) is a rousing adventure film, the type today’s Hollywood would be completely incapable of making. Oh, they could try to make it, but they would be so insistent on giving psychological shadings to the characters, or creating elaborate back stories as to why the characters behave the way they do, that the entire enterprise would become a turgid two-and-a-half-hour bore.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with back stories, but sometimes you just want to sit back with an adventure yarn lavishly told with a strong handsome hero, a beautiful strong-willed woman, colorful supporting characters, large-scale action scenes, elaborate costumes, fabulous production design capable of creating exotic backgrounds for the story, and a lush orchestral score with a big sweeping melody sure to get the heart pumping. These elements are all front and center in “The World in his Arms”, a full-blooded adventure yarn directed by the master Raoul Walsh that uses all of its 104-mintue running time to tell an exciting story.

In this case, that exotic background I mentioned earlier is San Francisco circa 1850 and a Russian-governed Alaska territory. Gregory Peck is Sea Captain John Clark, known to everyone as “The Boston Man”, a procurer and trader of seal pelts he brings back to San Francisco from the shores of Alaska. He hatches the idea of buying the Alaska territory with his riches; not only for the territory, but to help end the cruel Russian rule of the territory. Of course there’s the beautiful Czarist Countess Maria Selanova (Ann Blyth) who he falls in love with after she disguises herself as a Barbary Coast dancing girl. She’s engaged to Prince Semyon (Carl Esmond, not as forceful as I would like), a cruel member of the nobility who tends to chop off the hands of uncooperative Eskimos in his territory.

Good stuff here, and a marvelous supporting cast including Anthony Quinn as a sometimes rival, sometimes friend to Peck; John McIntire, Eugenie Leontovich, Hans Conreid, Rhys Williams, and the incomparable Sig Ruman. There’s not a movie made that isn’t immediately improved by Sig Ruman’s presence.

Walsh is one of the best action directors of all time, with most of his movies brimming with lusty action and broad comedy. There’s a marvelous sequence here where Peck and Quinn race their ships from San Francisco to Alaska. We become so caught up in the action of the tall ships racing through the crashing ocean waves that we barely notice the scenes of the crew on deck filmed in front of a process screen.

The climax is memorable too, and very reminiscent of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938). This time, Peck’s men disguise themselves as hooded monks to crash the wedding between the Countess and the Prince. Peck disrupts the wedding when he makes a spectacular crash through a plate glass window in the church balcony.

I’m sure the cast and crew had no illusions they were creating art here, and were satisfied at turning out nothing more than a rousing good time at the movies. There’s no skimping on production values here, and the score by the underrated Frank Skinner is top notch. There’s a little something for everyone. Men like the action and the women are sure to appreciate the final scene, with Captain Clark and the Countess together at the wheel of his ship, off to new adventures. As John McIntire’s character says, “He’s got the world in his arms.”