Through the looking glass...

Brave, brave Beatrice Lillie

Charles Boyer

Deanna Durbin

Robert Taylor and Greta Garbo in Camille

Edward Arnold in a movie I have seen but cannot recall. Anyone? 

Henry Fonda in Grapes of Wrath

Ina Claire in The Quaker Girl

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Spend an evening with Esther Williams. Things are sure to go swimmingly!

Tuesdays with The Screen Guild Magazine

I PREFER THE SCREEN TO THE STAGE

By Edward Arnold

[Reprinted from The Screen Guilds’ Magazine 1935]

One great reason why I prefer picture work better than the stage is that after thirty years of trouping, I can live in my own home.

The house we have now in Beverly Hills is the first real home I’ve ever had. For thirty years I moved from hotel to hotel, from town to town—the uncertain, hazardous life of a trouper.

Cooking is one of my hobbies, and I can remember trying to prepare dinners over a single gas flame in those days—inviting other members of the company to eat with us, to give them a touch of home.

Bringing up my children properly, worried me too, because I realized how important security is to growing children how they need to feel that some definite place in the world is theirs.

I’ve always been a family man at heart. With my wife and youngsters—that’s where my chief interests are. We’re a close little family circle, sufficient unto ourselves. And Hollywood has given us our first chance to be together, as a real family should be.

My daughter acts as my secretary and answers my fan mail. My son is now beginning on a career of his own in pictures, and I believe he will have success. I enjoy the Sundays we spend together—days when I indulge in my hobby and prepare the meal, whether it’s the cook’s day out or not.

I can spend nights at home now, too. Hollywood has given me that. I usually quit work around six, and I have my evenings to myself. And when I go for a trip with Mrs. Arnold, it’s a real vacation—not just another tour.

So far as the mechanics of acting are concerned, I like the screen better too. I’ve never changed my methods of acting for pictures. Some of the things other stage actors complain about in picture work have never bothered me. The business of breaking up a dramatic part into several scenes, for instance. I like it. You have a chance to do a scene over if you’re not so good the first time. On the stage if you pull a bloomer, it remains just that, beyond hope of recall!

Also, I like knowing that my work reaches millions of people. On the stage you can only hope to be known by those who live in or near large cities. I’m proud and pleased to know that I have fans all over the world. I get a kick out of watching my kids bask in my reflected glory—stangers speaking to me when we are out in public, people asking for my autograph.

On my recent trip to Honolulu, I was really astonished at the number of invitations Mrs. Arnold and I received—at the hundreds of people who wanted to show us a good time. It brought home to me literally how many fans a Hollywood star has, and how much pleasure he brings to millions of people.

When I returned home, my children had a home-made “Welcome” banner hung across the front door. Mrs. Arnold’s birthday had occurred while we were away, and they chose the night we returned to celebrate. They had prepared a birthday cake for her, turkey and champagne… Is it any wonder I prefer motion pictures, when Hollywood had brought me all this?

Then there’s the money. Perhaps I should write that in italics. For the first time I can do the things I want. For the first time I can have the home I’ve always dreamed about. I am providing for my family’s security for the future. And I feel that in pictures I have a future, myself. I want nothing more. 

I have said on here before that I am unsure as to whether I like Edward Arnold. I know that a lot of hesitation stems from the fact that he has played some pretty mean and petty characters. However, that being said, I should just give over and recognize that he was not only a good character actor, but a damned convincing one too! Debuting on stage in 1907, Arnold was, as his article states, just as much a stage performer as a screen star. He made his screen debut in 1916, participated in several films, mainly shorts, until the 20's which he spent dedicated to the stage. Reappearing onscreen again in 1932, Arnold had no trouble adjusting to talkies and and remained in front of the camera for another 22 years. However, he never gave up the stage and participated in plays right up to his death. 

Double Dose of Cary Grant

I finally had a chance to sit down and watch two films Cary Grant made in 1934 and of course, prior to his bigger successes in the film business. I began with Thirty Day Princess. While visiting Taronia, Richard Gresham (Edward Arnold) runs into King Anatol XII (Henry Stephenson), who laments that he does not have the funds to provide his peasants a better way of life, like in America. Seeing an opportunity to get back on his feet during the Depression, Gresham offers King Anatol a loan for the amount of fifty million. All he needs to do is come to America to perform the much needed public relations. However, King Anatol cannot leave the country so, it’s decided that his daughter Princess "Zizzi" Catterina (Sylvia Sydney) will go in his stead. Unfortunately Zizzi comes down with the mumps upon her arrival and must be quarantined for a month. Rather than risk losing the loan, Gresham hires an out-of-work actress Nancy Lane also played by Sydney to impersonate the Princess. Complications arise when she falls in love with Porter Madison, owner of the city paper and the man Gresham is paying her extra to divert from investigating the legitimacy of the loans.

Very little of Cary’s natural charm shows in Thirty Day Princess and the end result is a rather dull movie with some comic relief provided by Vince Barnett who plays Count Nicholeus. However, it should be noted that despite suspending your imagination on how easy it was to find a Princess Zizzi’s lookalike, the viewer is treated to a much overlooked detail in earlier American cinema (or any current film involving Tom Cruise)- the accent. Sydney rarely slips out of it and does a great job being both a princess and a regular American girl.

In Kiss and Make Up, a pseudo musical about a doctor devoted to women’s beauty, we see the stirrings of what will soon be a charmingly hilarious actor who will provide viewers with his great comedic timing and distinct deliverance of dialogue.

Dr. Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant) believes that all women have a right to beauty and has built an entire empire in Paris around it. When he creates his most perfect piece in Eve Caron (Genevieve Tobin), he does so at the expense of her marriage. Marcel Caron (Edward Everett Horton) used to love his wife when she was just pretty enough, and plump. Now he has to deal with men ogling and wooing his wife as well as her strict regiment (courtesy of Dr. Lamar) in order to keep herself slim and beautiful. When Eve and Marcel divorce she immediately marries Lamar much to Anne’s (Helen Mack) dismay. Anne has been Lamar’s devoted secretary for years. She doesn’t go in for all the beauty mumbo jumbo and encourages Lamar to use his education for something more beneficial. However, she needn’t worry, soon Lamar sees the monster he has created in Eve and decides to quit the beauty business altogether. Thinking to find solace in Anne, Lamar learns that she is now engaged to Marcel (so convenient) and a hilarious chase ensues.
The most interesting aspect about this film is Grant singing. He wasn’t too shabby but it seemed out of place and unnecessary to have him or the other characters singing at all. However, I loved “Corn Beef and Cabbage I Love You”.

Side Note: Excerpt from Marlene Dietrich by Maria Riva

Speaking about a party she went to hosted by Carole Lombard at a fun house on the Venice pier in California: "...Who wants to look at themselves fat? I can have that right here in my bathroom and not look like I have been at war! Remember our shirts salesman? He got in all the pictures next to Lombard. He must have spent the whole evening watching where the photographers were going, and managed to get there before them. 'Ready and handsome,' in position!"

The "shirt salesman" she was referring to was Cary Grant whom she stated that on the set of Blonde Venus he would sell shirts to make more money and that he was so charming that people came from all over to buy them.

He must have been one of the few (and I mean few) men that came withing her sphere and escaped her... charms... as this was the worst she would say of him (she didn't have a lot of nice things to say about anyone according to her daughter). Also, in a conversation with Peter Bogdanovich later in life, Grant stated he saw what was going on between von Sternberg and Dietrich and he didn't want any part of that situation.

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Something called Doctor Zhivago??? I guess maybe it was some sort of big deal at some point in time? ;)

Meet John Doe (1941)

When Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) gets fired from her newspaper job at The Bullet by new editor Henry Connell (James Gleason), she fires back with one last article about a man called John Doe who has been unemployed for months and is tired of being pushed around and held back, she claims in the article that John Doe will commit suicide on Christmas Eve by jumping off the roof of city hall. When the public reacts to the article, Mitchell is hunted down and brought back to work after she convinces Connell that though the article was false, the reaction from the public is real and profitable. Together they plan to turn a real unemployed man into John Doe for continued circulation.
In comes Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), the ideal John Doe. He’s an ex minor league pitcher who is down on his luck and short of the cash he needs to get his arm fixed in order to continue playing ball. Using her late father’s diary as inspiration for the John Doe speeches, together Willoughby and Mitchell unwittingly make John Doe into a champion of the people. John Doe clubs are formed everywhere, regular citizens reach out to get to know one another and to make change for the better. D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), owner of The Bullet and financial backer for the John Doe movement uses this opportunity to position himself as a candidate for the presidency, feeling that America should be ruled with a firmer hand. When Willoughby, now a firm believer in what he has been preaching, finds out how he is being used, he tries to stop Norton but is called out as a fraud instead. Totally disillusioned by what has happened, Willoughby decides it would be best to jump off the city hall roof, if only to prove to everyone who believed in the John Doe movement, that they should go on believing because despite the messenger's flaws, the message itself is important.

Once again Capra portrays the many guises of the human spirit with poignancy. I think Stanwyck is at her very best at the end of this film, Meet John Doe is one of my favorites of her work simply because of the ending. As always, Cooper displays equal amounts of sympathy and bravery which easily makes the viewer empathetic to his plight. Edward Arnold too plays the unsavory character I’m used to seeing and disliking. Add in Walter Brennan for a little down-home common sense and you have a wonderful message movie.

Side note:

Capra had filmed five different ending for Meet John Doe and had them audience-tested. The fifth and final version of the end was actually suggeted by an anonymous letter that was signed "John Doe," which read: "...I have seen your film with many different endings...all bad, I thought...The only thing that can keep John Doe from jumping are the John Does themselves...if they ask him."

Tonight on TCM!
Big Clock, The (1948)A corrupt publisher tries to frame a career-driven editor for murder.Cast: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready Dir: John Farrow

Idiot's Delight (1939)

Harry Van (Clark Gable) has returned from WWI to find his career as an entertainer on the skids. While working as an assistant to an alchoholic mind reader in Omaha, Harry meets Irene (Norma Shearer), an over imaginative acrobat, who tries to convince him that they should form their own telepathy act. After a brief romance, they part at the end of their bookings, but not before Harry buys Irene a souvenir, the only souvenir he has ever bought a girl. They part after he tells her he is sure they will meet again one day.

Several years later, Harry is touring Europe with his act, Les Blondes, a six-girl song and dance troupe when, en route to Geneva, the border is closed and they are forced to stay at a hotel near an aviation field that sounds off air raids and leads to trouble later in the film when the planes there are used for bombing missions.

Another guest at the hotel is a Russian with blonde hair and a serious resemblance to Irene. She is traveling with munitioneer Achille Weber (Edward Arnold). Harry recognizes her, but she laughs at any mention of him knowing her in Omaha. As the airbase near the hotel awaits retaliation from their air raid, the borders are reopened for the guests to leave. However, Weber, angry with Irene because she scorned him for being the cause of so many deaths, leaves her behind with a faulty passport. As she bids Harry goodbye, she reveals she did know him in Omaha, citing the room number he stayed in and later producing the souvenir he gave her. After seeing the Les Blondes to safety, Harry returns to the hotel and admist a bomb attack, he and Irene fall in love all over again.

I think it's safe to say that this was one the worst Gable movies I have ever seen. I think it's safe to say that I think it's the worst film I have ever seen him in because of Norma Shearer's character. She's simply too much. Her Russian accent is overdone, her gestures are overdone, even her hair is overdone. It was hard to sit through this film and watch her strut around the hotel spouting off about her adventures and drinking vodka. Despite all this, I still kinda like Norma Shearer. I just need to take her in small doses.


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Summer Under the Stars: John Wayne!!!!! The Duke!!!

The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941)

New Hampshire farmer, Jabez Stone (James Craig), knows the meaning of bad luck. So much so, he swears that "it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!" Enter the devil, better yet, enter Walter Huston as the devil. Calling himself Mr. Scratch, he offers Stone a deal too good to pass up- seven years of prosperity, money enough to save his farm, keep himself, his wife and his mother in luxury, all for the very low price of one soul. "A soul? A soul is nothing. Can you see it, smell it, touch it? No. This soul, your soul, are nothing against seven years of good luck." Note: there is no mention of happiness, just luck.

When Jabez's seven years are up and his only option for renewal comes at the price of his son's soul, Jabez turns to the all powerful and respected lawyer and orator Daniel Webster to argue his case with the Devil. "I'd fight ten thousand devils to save a New Hampshire man."

At midnight of the appointed date, Mr. Scratch arrives and Daniel Webster Edward Arnold) presents himself as Stone's attorney. Mr. Scratch provides a jury of other damned souls and the debate begins. Will Webster win or lose his soul trying to save Jabez Stone?

The inconsistancy is Jabez's luck compared to Miser Stevens, Mrs. Stone's (Ann Shirley) milksop performance, and Daniel Webster's easy confidence over fighting the devil convert a moral tale into a sappy B-movie. Clearly a message film, four things made it bearable- Walter Huston, my odd attraction to Qualen Stevens (there will probably be a blog on him soon), the special effects that must have tripped out kids in the 40's, and James Craig's over-acting. Consarnit! And is it just me or is James Craig the rich man's Nat Pendleton?

I'm still up in the air on whether or not I like Edward Arnold. There's something about him that just puts me off, or maybe I still have lingering dislike after seeing him in Come and Get It, featuring another wonderful Walter, Walter Brennan. As for Walter Huston, I'm a goner. Apparently a wonderful character actor (I've only seen him in bit/uncredited parts in The Maltese Falcon and In This Our Life), he is also the father of director John Huston and grandfather to Angelica Huston. I cannot wait to check out his other films. I was attracted mostly to his facial expressions and the soft, lyrical cadence of his voice even as he was speaking of undelightful things.

Tonight on TCM!

Summer Under the Stars: Deborah Kerr