The False Ducks Blahg

    This is not the blahg I was going to write but I hope it will be interesting nonetheless. I have some new records I’ve purchased and some Canadian music content I want to revisit but couldn’t get started on it.  I recently came off of holidays and some of the shopping I did inspired me to do a little write up on my purchases and one of my favourite pastimes, of watching classic movies. I know, I’m a lazy sort of cuss.  I can’t get inspired to write the music themed blahg and I’m substituting it with a lazy man’s hobby of vegging out to an old film.  Give this blahg a read before you judge me. 

   I once wrote a blahg titled HAVE YOU READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY? and I talked about some books I had read prior to writing that blahg.  This time it’s about movies.  I think I have posted in the past about the large DVD collection my friend Bryan and I share.  We both do the buying and the movies are eventually stored at my house.  We are both fans of classic movies so most of the official releases of classic films are somewhere in my home.  We have many boxed sets and single releases.  The problem is that most of what people deem as classics are the popular films from the 30s and 40s and 50s and there are lots of older films that never get to be seen.  Some have even had no DVD releases at all.  That’s where the Manufacture On Demand (MOD) programs through Warner Archives, Universal, Sony, and 20th Century Fox have released a number of films that I think fall in the “classic” genre simply because they’re from the golden age of Hollywood; even though some aren’t consider classic and the stories are a little weaker or less well known. 

   In the past, I have set out to collect the films of certain artists like Glenn Ford and Bette Davis and many of their early films have only had MOD releases.  There are at least a dozen or more films by both those artists, in my collection, that I’ve purchased through the MOD program.  The thing about these discs is that they are not readily available in stores and there was a time you couldn’t purchase them at all in Canada.  I recall with fondness the big Sunrise Records store in downtown Toronto.  In the back, they had several walls of Manufacture On Demand DVDS from the big four studios I mentioned earlier.  Unfortunately that store closed in 2014 and finding them new means ordering from Amazon or Ebay.  Some are even out of print and hard to find.  Used copies, up to now, have been difficult to come across.  I think my local used DVD store has only had a handful in the past ten years and I think there was only one I didn’t have.  I said “up to now.”  That’s where this blahg really begins. 

   My local used DVD store is called “Chumleighs” and there are branch locations in Kingston and Peterborough as the well as the one here in Belleville.  I should note that I have had success at a couple of BMV stores in Toronto (Books Music Video) but I don’t always get to Toronto.  As I said, the Belleville store hasn’t had any in a while. On some recent trips to the Kingston Chumleighs I started to see some MODs I wasn’t aware of.  Here are some photos of some of my purchased over the last little while:

To be fair, “So Goes My Love” and “Confidential Agent” were purchased from Amazon and of course I posted a picture of “The Scarlet Coat” twice.  Last week I got back to Chumleighs in Kingston and purchased a few more and found a couple at the Chumleighs on my visit to Peterborough and some others at two different BMVs in Toronto.  Here’s part of my score:

I mentioned a couple of DVDs I purchased on Amazon and then realized there were a few others I had purchased from Amazon over the past few months: 

Most of the MOD DVDs I posted above are from the Warner Archive Collection but I did pick up two Sony MODs: 

One from the Universal Vault Series: 

A handful from the Fox Cinema Archives: 

I also purchased the following four Sonja Henie films from the Fox Archives:

   So what about the title about watching good movies and the part about sitting on my butt?  I thought I’d post my reviews of the films I have watched from my pile but because I haven’t watched them all and I keep adding to them, the pile isn’t getting much shorter. 

   Let me start with the two Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields films, “Holy Matrimony” and “Molly And Me.”  I had seen “Holy Matrimony” years ago but could never remember the title of the film.  Of the two films, “Holy Matrimony” is mostly all Monty Woolley and “Molly And Me” is mostly all Gracie Fields.  They play off each other well.  In “Holy Matrimony” Woolley pretends to be his valet who died and gets buried with the public thinking that Woolley’s character is dead.  He then marries Gracie Fields who had been corresponding with Woolley’s valet for the purpose of marriage ever though she had never laid eyes on him.  Fun ensues because Woolley’s a renowned artist and some of his new paintings get out into the public…after he’s supposed to be dead.  With “Molly And Me”, Gracie Fields, an actress, needs work so she gets the job of managing the household of Monty Woolley’s character.  She soon has the entire household staff quit and she has to replace them with her actor friends.  A little weaker than “Holy Matrimony” but fun nonetheless. 

   Before writing about the Warner Archives I have watched, I’ll continue with the other Fox Cinema Archives that I have viewed.  Working backwards, I want to discuss the 1950 film “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” with Dorothy McGuire and William Lundigan.  The treat here is Dorothy McGuire.  I’ve always been a fan of her acting.  She was phenomenal in “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” and the movies “Claudia” and “The Spiral Staircase.”  I don’t think you can go wrong with a Dorothy McGuire movie. Her last film before “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” was in 1947 with “Gentleman’s Agreement” for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.  “Mother Didn’t Tell Me” is a delight after a three year film absence from Dorothy.  She plays an innocent woman who finds out the hard way what it’s like to be married to a Doctor who’s always on-call.  The movie would have been a second rate movie I think if Dorothy’s role was played by someone else.  Every scene she is in is a delight and the film is worth it if only for seeing an innocent and naive Dorthy learn to hold her own against some other jaded people. 

   The other two films I’ve viewed from the Fox Archives that I’ll quickly mention are “Hold That Co-Ed” and “Thanks A Million. Let’s start with “Hold That Co-Ed” from 1938.  The description for this film is “A sly Southern governor creates a winning state college football team in order to sway constituents to vote him into a higher office.”  It stars John Barrymore, George Murphy, Marjorie Weaver, and Joan Davis.  I don’t think I would have picked it up except the description was intriguing and I think John Barrymore is fun when he tries to play comedy.  Check out the screwball comedy film “True Confession” from 1937 with Barrymore.  He’s a hoot.  He’s also a hoot in “Hold That Co-Ed.”  I don’t remember any of the songs but Barrymore and Joan Davis have all the comic moments.  “Thanks A Million” from 1935 is the weaker of the two films.  Dick Powell is a vaudevillian who ends up giving a speech for an inebriated gubernatorial candidate and then gets backed for Governor himself by a crooked political machine.  The songs are not memorable in this one either and you’d think with talent like comics Fred Allen and Patsy Kelly that it would amount to something.  It doesn’t.  Raymond Walburn as the drunken candidate replaced by Powell steals every scene he’s in.  I think that’s the only saving grace about this film.  Even having Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra add nothing to this film.  The “Yacht Club Boys” are a musical quartet that add some other humour and their musical numbers are comedic and not so bad.  As for the other Fox Archives films, I have yet to watch any of the Sonja Henie films or “The Fan” with Jeanne Crain.  “Come To The Stable” I saw a long time ago so I won’t comment on it until I’ve seen it again.

   Where to being with the Warner Archives films?  I have not watched “There’s No Tomorrow” from the Universal Vault Series or either of the two Boston Blackie films from Sony.  Of the Warner Archive films shown earlier in this blahg, I have watched 24 of them.  This blahg would be extremely long if I chose to review all 24.  Let me pick and choose a few and then I’ll do a second blahg, maybe, highlighting some of the others. 

   I happen to like Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. A few years ago I found the two films “Girl of the Golden West” and “New Moon” starring both of MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.  It was on two separate occasions at the same thrift shop that I came across these films and only paid $2 each time.  Quite the bargain each time.  I’d always wanted to see “New Moon” because the great comic Buster Keaton had a role in the film but most of his scenes had been cut.  Still, you can catch him in the background or crowd scenes.  Both “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” are charming films.  Eddy and MacDonald made eight films together including these two and “Naughty Marietta”, “Rose Marie”, “Maytime”, “I Married An Angel”, “Sweethearts”, and “Bitter Sweet.”  I always wanted to own all of their films and Chumleighs from Kingston supplied me with the other six films with the exception of “Naughty Marietta” which I ordered from Amazon.  I haven’t watched them all and I won’t discuss “New Moon” and “The Girl of The Golden West” but for the purposes of this blahg, I will write about “Rose Marie” and “Bitter Sweet”. 

   “Rose Marie” was probably the first Eddy and MacDonald film I ever saw from years ago.  The plot is simple.  In rural Canada, Jeanette is trying to get to her brother who is on the run from the RCMP for murder and Nelson is the RCMP officer tracking her brother.  It is noteworthy that this 1936 film was one of James Stewart’s first roles as Jeanette’s brother.  The chemistry between MacDonald and Eddy is what makes this film work.  It’s a great story with great characters and beautiful singing.  It still remains my favourite film of this pair.  The 1940 film “Bitter Sweet”, I’ll be honest was not as good as “Rose Marie”.  It is based on the operetta “Bitter Sweet” by Noël Coward.  It tells the story of the romantic relationship between a music teacher and his prize pupil.  The chemistry is still there between the two leads but the story set in the late 19th century Vienna drags and by the end, I found myself dozing off.  Even Noël Coward didn’t like the film adaptation.  Oh well, I have four more of their films to watch so I’ll look forward to those. 

   One of my other favourite actors is Joel McCrea.  In my recent purchases were the two films “Primrose Path” from 1940 and “Stars In My Crown” from a decade later in 1950.  These two films couldn’t have been more widely different.  “Primrose Path” also has Ginger Rogers and she is a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who quickly marries McCrea’s character and then tries to keep him from finding out about her family.  There’s some great scenes between the two leads but other scenes are also stolen by other cast members like Henry Travers as Gramp, Queenie Vassar as the Grandmother, and a young Joan Carroll as Rogers’ baby sister Honeybell.  Just a very nice story with lots of humour. “Stars in My Crown” features McCrea again but this time as a preacher whose faith tames a rural town by inspiring the townspeople.  He also butts heads with the new Doctor in town who is also the son of the old Doctor who was well loved and respected but sadly passed on.  Watch for a young Dean Stockwell in this one.  McCrea’s style of quiet acting is powerful and this film reminded me of another Warner Archive McCrea film called “Wichita” where he plays Wyatt Earp as the new marshal of Wichita.  I can highly recommend other McCrea films “The More The Merrier”, “Foreign Correspondent” directed by Alfred Hitchock,  and “Sullivan’s Travels” directed by Preston Sturges. 

   There were also two Hedy Lamarr features in my recent haul.  These were “Crossroads” from 1942 and “Experiment Perilous” from 1944.  Hedy Lamar is very sultry in both films but I’ll give my credit in “Crossroads” to William Powell.  The description of this film from Wikipedia is “Powell plays a diplomat whose amnesia about his past subjects him to back-to-back blackmail schemes, which threaten his reputation, job, marriage, and future.  Basil Rathbone plays a sleazy blackmailer in this one and the story and acting are all good.  Hedy Lamarr plays Powell’s concerned wife.  “Experiment Perilous” is a gaslighting type film with Hedy Lamarr as the victim.  George Brent is a Doctor friend who is trying to unravel the relationship between Lamarr and her domineering husband played by Paul Lukas.  It was an interesting movie but I think there could have been more to it.  George Brent is an underrated actor but certainly does the best he can with the script. 

   I don’t want to keep going much further on this particular blahg and I’m certainly not at the point of writing up about all 24 of the Warner Archives I have seen.  I’ll pick out a couple more that I enjoyed and save the rest for next time.  “Hard To Get” from 1938 is a fun film with Olivia de Havilland and Dick Powell.  Dick Powell certainly fares better here than he did in “Thanks A Million.”  Powell’s the manager of a gas station who has to put up with the stuck up rich character played by de Havilland.  She sets out to get even with him but of course romance ensues.  I’d characterize it as a romantic comedy and  Charles Winninger, who plays de Havilland’s father, steals every scene he’s in.  The other film I really enjoyed was 1948’s “Night Song” with Merle Oberon and Dana Andrews.  She’s a wealthy woman who falls for a blind pianist but then she pretends to be blind so she can have a relationship with him.  Of course, he gets his sight back and she has to pretend to be someone else with a phony accent so she can interact with him.  The fun is, again, not the leads but the interaction between secondary characters Ethel Barrymore and Hoagy Carmichael.  Their interactions are worth the price of admission alone.  Without them, this might have been a heavy handed soap opera but they provide the comic relief to prevent the story from becoming too melodramatic.  Going back to Olivia de Havilland, I just want to mention a film of hers with Charles Boyer I watched recently called “Hold Back The Dawn” from 1941.  Fantastic movie.  Again, it comes down to the chemistry between the leads.  The only problem with the film is that it has not had a DVD or Blu-Ray release in North America.  There’s apparently a nice Blu-Ray release in the United Kingdom.  It needs to be released over here! 

   That’s it for now.  Obviously there’s more here I can review or comment on but I’ll save some of that for future blahgs.  These old movies have some great stories and great performers in them.  Sometimes it’s the supporting cast though that make a movie.  Of course some of the stories also have things that don’t hold up well.  There’s a scene in “Hard To Get” where Dick Powell dons blackface and it made me cringe.  There were also some films where Asian or African American actors had subordinate roles.  I won’t condone any of that but if you go into a movie knowing these things are wrong, it’s okay to enjoy the movie if it makes you laugh or cry.  I’m glad that Warner Achives, Fox, Universal, and Sony issued these movies.  I’m hoping that some of the others I’ve yet to view will entertain me as much as some of these I’ve written about.  Time will tell…but that’s another blahg and another day.