They Shall Have Music

“They Shall Have Music” (1939) is an odd but endearing mixture of juvenile delinquency drama and classical music. It’s a Samuel Goldwyn production and watching it, one can see the footprints of two 1937 films, his own production of “Dead End” and Universal’s monster hit “100 Men and a Girl.”

“Dead End” had been a huge hit for Goldwyn, and he was eager to replicate its success.  Ever since his big budget musical smorgasbord “The Goldwyn Follies” (1938), Goldwyn had wanted to put the violinist Jascha Heifetz, considered one of the century’s finest musicians, in the movies, but couldn’t find the right project.

I’m just surmising here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Goldwyn examined the grosses of “100 Men and a Girl”, which deals with Deanna Durbin and her ceaseless attempts to have Leopold Stokowski conduct an orchestra of musicians put out of work by the Depression. What could work for Stokowski could easily work for Heifetz.

Put Heifetz in a slum setting with underprivileged youth, include lots of classical music and watch the profits roll in.

Alas, “They Shall Have Music” was roasted by the critics and proved one of Goldwyn’s biggest bombs. It’s schmaltz, to be sure, but the music is wonderful and like so many movies of the era, it moves along and there’s lots of memorable sequences to make this well worth watching.

The film is centered on a music school for slum children, run by Professor Lawson (Walter Brennan) and his daughter Ann (Andrea Leeds, one year before her self-imposed retirement from films). The school is constantly scraping for money, and is continually one step ahead of the creditors, especially Mr. Flowers (Porter Hall, at his most obnoxious).

 

Frankie (Gene Reynolds) is basically a good kid who discovers the power of music when he finds some discarded tickets to a Heifetz concert. Thinking Heifetz is some sort of magician, instead he’s transfixed by the sight and sound of Heifetz performing the “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” by Saint-Saens. For those of us who are film music fans, we get the added pleasure of seeing Alfred Newman play the conductor in this piece, and he looks very natty in his white-trousered conductor threads.

 

Frankie finds a violin in his basement and takes lesson at the Lawson’s school. But the school is on the brink of foreclosure, and Frankie hatches the idea of having Heifetz perform at the school’s concert. With the determination of Deanna Durbin stalking Stokowski, Frankie, through a series of adventures, attracts the attention of Heifetz to the concert.

Playing a similar idealistic role in “Dead End” Joel McCrea is back as the love interest to Ann. I’m very fond of Joel McCrea, but this may be one of his most colorless roles. He can’t do a thing with it, and it’s not his fault.

Marjorie Main plays Frankie’s mom, and she’s a far different mother than her shattering scene in “Dead End.” Frankie runs away from his abusive father, but his mom is very supportive of her son.

 

Porter Hall is at his most despicable here, even more so than shooting Gary Cooper’s Wild Bill Hickok in the back in “The Plainsman” (1936). In “They Shall Have Music” Hall tries to take back the kid’s instruments, even as they are onstage for the concert! He doesn’t even wait for the concert to be over. The scenes leading up to the concert are very entertaining, as the neighborhood mothers stand firm in front of the school’s entrance, blocking the police and re-possessors from entering the building.

For Heifetz fans, the film is a joy. He gets five solos in the film, and it’s a pleasure to watch a film like this with minimal cutting so we can concentrate on the music. The finale finds him performing the final movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto accompanied by the school orchestra. Said orchestra members are played by The Pete Meremblum California Junior Symphony Orchestra, a group made up of young musicians. I have a dim memory of reading somewhere that, outside of his film duties, Alfred Newman was one of the orchestra’s conductors, but I can’t find the citation in any of my books. .

 

 Heifetz was no stranger to Hollywood. An earlier Hollywood connection was his 1928 marriage to actress Florence Vidor, ex-wife of the director King Vidor. Later, on he would commission glorious violin concertos from Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklos Rozsa.

Alfred Newman was nominated for his music director duties here in the Best Score category. It was one of Newman’s four nominations that year. His other nomination in the Best Score category was for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and in the Best Original Score category he was nominated for “The Rains Came” and “Wuthering Heights.”

I think the Best Score category was for scores that were adaptations of pre-existing music, but that doesn’t explain the nomination for the Hunchback or Korngold’s nomination for “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex”, both of which are substantially original scores. To further muddy the waters, Aaron Copland’s score for “Of Mice and Men” was nominated twice, once in both categories. Strange are the ways of the Academy Awards. (Newman lost that year to “Stagecoach” in the Best Score category).

I watched “They Shall Have Music” on a VHS tape, and with the news that the Samuel Goldwyn film catalog will be released on DVD and Blu Ray next year, this film may be one I would gladly update for. It’s corny, to be sure, but its heart is in the right place and the music can’t be beat. Just lower your expectations if you’re a Joel McCrea fan.

Ride the High Country

“Ride the High Country” (1962) is one of the greatest westerns ever made, which means it’s also one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s a glorious film that works on many levels, and is arguably director Sam Peckinpah’s best film.

Peckinpah is one of those directors I’ve always admired more than liked. “The Wild Bunch” (1969) is an undoubted masterpiece, but it’s not an easy film to sit though. “Major Dundee” (1965) has some marvelous visuals, but a disjointed narrative, even in the restored version which recently came out on DVD.

A maverick personality, in the best and worst senses, Peckinpah was in many ways his own worst enemy. But that was the future.

“Ride the High Country” is a beautifully elegiac film, teaming two legendary stars, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott for the first and only time. This film gives Scott a wonderful final screen appearance that ranks up there with the final films of John Wayne in “The Shootist” (1976) and Humphrey Bogart in “The Harder They Fall” (1956) as worthy screen goodbyes.

Joel McCrea plays Steve Judd, an ex-lawman who is hired to transport gold from the mines. Needing help, he runs into his old partner Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) to help him. Gil brings along his partner Heck (Ron Starr, don’t know what ever happened to him) to help. It’s established early on that while Gil and Steve are friends, there’s some tenseness there. Judd is a straight shooter, interested in living a dignified, honest life while Gil has more than a touch of larceny in him. Indeed, he and Heck plan to steal the gold for themselves and make off with it.

On their way to the mines they stop off at a ranch owned by a fundamentalist, Bible thumping rancher (R.G. Armstrong) whose daughter Elsa (Mariette Hartley, in her film debut) is itching to get clear of the ranch. She leaves the ranch and asks the three to escort her to the gold camp where her fiancé Billy Hammond (James Drury) is mining with his brothers.

The Hammond brothers are pure Peckinpah, dirty and grimy and with the morals of alley cats. They’re played by later Peckinpah favorites Warren Oates and L.Q. Jones. The mining camp is a dinghy, depressing place, but a touch of beauty and grace emerges during Billy and Elsa’s wedding. On their wedding night, Billy gets drunk and passes out and the Hammond brothers decide to take his place in the wedding bed. Her screams bring Steve, Gil and Heck to her rescue, and after a tense stand-off they elect to bring her back with them, along with the latest gold shipment.

The next day the Hammond brothers take after them to bring Elsa back. Gil and Heck steal the gold but Judd stops them, and ties them up. He tries to make his way back through the high country with prisoners in tow and the Hammond brothers right on his trail, with blood lust in their hearts and guns drawn ready to kill.

Like “The Wild Bunch,” “Ride the High Country” deals with western men whose time has passed. The west they’ve known is gone, replaced by a town teeming with automobiles, a Chinese restaurant, and a carnival featuring a race between a camel and a horse. Judd is ordered to clear the streets by the local police, who are dressed like the Keystone Cops.

Judd’s time is over but he’s determined to live the rest of his life with the dignity he’s always possessed. As such, Steve Judd is the perfect role for Joel McCrea.

McCrea was a Hollywood anomaly, a good, decent man. Married to actress Frances Dee for more than 50 years, he lived a quiet life with his family entirely devoid of scandal or rumor. He starred in all kinds of movies in the 1930s and 1940s, including some of Preston Sturges’ best-loved films, but after World War II he made almost exclusively westerns. When not making movies, he was a working rancher, and, as such, was an authentic cowboy.

His career paralleled co-star Randolph Scott’s in a few ways. Like McCrea, Scott appeared in everything from comedies to musicals, to westerns to melodramas in the 1930 and 1940s but after World War II he made nothing but westerns. They both liked making westerns, they knew their fans liked them in westerns, and since both actors were consistent money makers, why rock the boat?

Beginning in 1955 with “Seven Men From Now”, Randolph Scott made a series of tight, B westerns directed by Budd Boetticher that are marvels of tightness, speed, action and Freudian overtones. Check out “The Tall T” (1957) sometime if you ever get the chance.

“Ride the High Country” is the perfect screen coda for them. Their time has come but Steve and Gil, like McCrea and Scott, are going to go out in a blaze of glory. Composer George Bassman contributes a lovely theme which is a perfect complement to the autumnal aspects of the story.

There’s a terrific shoot out scene in the rocks where no music is played, but the lonely sound of the wind makes for an equally effective soundtrack. The final shoot out at the ranch is one of the most melancholy, yet satisfying, in all westerns. Steve’s final words with Gil are poetic in their simplicity and are matched by the haunting final image.

McCrea made three or four cameo in later films and one final film “Mustang Country” (1976). Scott decided to call it quits. A shrewd businessman, he invested wisely and retired a wealthy man. But their films still play and connect with audiences who respond to the values their characters espoused. We will never see their likes again.

Rating for “Ride the High Country”: Four stars.

The Great Moment

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a movie about pretty much every topic.

Interested in the creation of the first news wire service, Reuters? Check out “A Dispatch from Reuters” (1940) starring Edward G. Robinson in a wonderful performance and a terrific Max Steiner score. I hope that title is part of the rumored Edward G. Robinson DVD box set from Warner Home Video.

Interested in the man who found a cure for syphilis? Check out “Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet” (1940) starring Edward G. Robinson in a wonderful performance and a terrific Max Steiner score. I hope that title is part of the rumored Edward G. Robinson DVD box set from Warner Home Video.

But I’m repeating myself.

Those interested in the early days of dentistry and the story of the man who created a working anesthesia for dental surgery will likely enjoy “The Great Moment” (1944). For the rest of us it’s pretty rough going, despite a strong cast and the writing/directing of the usually reliable Preston Sturges. It’s a rare misfire for Sturges, though it may not have been entirely his fault.

Sturges’ favorite leading man Joel McCrea stars as WTG Morton, a dentist experimenting with different types of ethers in hopes of finding one that will knock the person out so surgery can commence without pain. Pretty serious stuff here, though Sturges manages to include some comedy sequences here, mainly Morton’s first unsuccessful attempts at applying the ether or accidentally inhaling too much ether, which causes his wife (Betty Field) to think he’s been drinking too much.

Sturges claimed the film was taken out of his hands and re-cut, which makes sense because some scenes fade away into nothingness and there’s an odd flashback structure which is never resolved. Sturges was coming off an amazing, unbroken stream of hits which made him the darling of audiences and critics everywhere, but he’s on shaky ground here. Maybe he was reined in by the historical aspects of the story?

Highlights include William Demarest, who is on hand as Morton’s first successful ether-induced patient, and what would a Preston Sturges film be without his presence? Grady Sutton (the immortal Ogg Oggilby from “The Bank Dick”) has a hilarious scene when he goes into fits of uncontrollable laughter during a medical experiment.

All in all though, “The Great Moment” is an odd film, not particularly dramatic when it needs to be and not wholly funny in its comedy scenes.

One oddball aspect of “The Great Moment” is that it contains what I think is the only film representation of our 14th president, Franklin Pierce. Even odder is that he’s portrayed by Porter Hall. I’ve always pictured Pierce as tall and lanky but Hall is short and stubby. Hall was a well-known character actor but was best known for causing boos and hisses across the countryside in 1936 when he played Jack McCall, who shot Wild Bill Hickock (Gary Cooper) in the back in the enormously successful western “The Plainsman” (1936).

How many actors can claim to play one of the greatest cowards in western history and one of our worst presidents?

Rating for “The Great Moment”: Two stars.

The Palm Beach Story

“The Palm Beach Story” (1942) is another delightful piece of cinema courtesy of the great writer/director Preston Sturges. Eccentricity is the norm here, and the film boasts so many delightful sequences, actors and quotable lines that I barely know where to begin. (Word of caution: I’ll be using the word eccentric a lot in this review.)

Geraldine Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) is love with her inventor husband Tom (Joel McCrea), but he cant’ find financing for his inventions, they are behind in their rent, and she yearns for the finer things in life. Showing up to look at their apartment is a bizarre little man with a big hat and a walking stick who calls himself The Wienie King (Robert Dudley, pictured), an eccentric millionaire who takes a great liking to Geraldine and pays off their back rent and gives her some money to get them back on their feet.

Tom is suspicious of their unforeseen windfall and fights with Geraldine. Even though they are still very much in love, they decide to divorce. Geraldine takes off for Palm Beach by train where she is made mascot of a group of eccentric men called the Ale and Quail Club, who think nothing of using their private railroad car as target practice. Ale and Quail Club members include many familiar faces including William Demarest, Jack Norton, Robert Greig, Roscoe Ates, Dewey Robinson and Chester Conklin (contemporary audiences know him as the old-time fire chief who refuses to give up his horse-drawn fire wagons in the Three Stooges short “Flat Foot Stooges” (1938).

Escaping the insanity of the Ale and Quail Club, she meets John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), one of the world’s richest men, when she breaks his glasses (twice) after stepping on his face to climb into an upper berth of the railroad car.

Vallee is hilarious as Hackensacker and it ushered in a whole new career for him after his popularity waned from strong popularity in the early 1930s. (He initiated the singing into the megaphone gimmick). Seemingly oblivious to the insanity around him, he takes Geraldine to Palm Beach where he introduces her to his sister, the five-times divorced Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor) and her latest conquest Toto (Sig Arno), who doesn’t speak a word of English.

Even though Geraldine is seeking a divorce, she still believes in Tom and his inventions and seeks to have Hackensacker loan her $99,000 for his inventions.

In the meantime, Tom has met the Wienie King who convinces him he is still in love with his wife and gives him the funds to fly down to Palm Beach and bring her back. He meets her in Palm Beach while she is with Hackensacker and Centimillia, and shocked to see him, introduces him to them as her brother. Of course Centimillia is smitten with Tom and more complications until the most satisfying, and clever wrap-up.

“The Palm Beach Story” is one of the great pieces of screwball comedy. The opening sequence, which I won’t go into, is very clever, and the Wienie King is a classic character. The Ale and Quail Club sequence is comedy gold.

For me, the one drawback is McCrea. I like McCrea in westerns and even in other dramas, but here he’s Mr. Glum and Gloomy to the point where I never understood what Geraldine saw in Tom. McCrea and Sturges had enjoyed a big success a year earlier with “Sullivan’s Travels” and Sturges liked to work with people he liked, but I’ve always felt McCrea was miscast here.

I can see why he was hired, as both he and Colbert are the models of normalcy while all the insanity ranges about him, but he’s too grouchy. Perhaps Fred MacMurray would have been a better choice here.

“The Palm Beach Story” would normally rate four stars, but because of McCrea’s portrayal, it only gets a still more than respectable three and a half stars.