It’s amazing in retrospect just how long it took Humphrey Bogart Bogart’s career to launch.  Literally several years and a few dozen movies.  Our latest film is 1939’s You Can’t Get Away with Murder.  Here he is top billed but the movie sadly is a fairly pedestrian and typical gangster film which Warner Brothers was known for during the era.

What is exciting is to see Bogart on the cusp of stardom.  Some of his signature traits are in evidence and in retrospect one gets a sense of his future path, though thankfully he would depart from gangster films for the most part, though this aspect of his career surely climaxed in High Sierra.

Bogie is the leader of the gang if you will as Frank Wilson. His crew consists of many of the fine Warners stock company which comprised the Dead End Kids in other films with Bogart, most notably among these is Billy Halop, who plays the foil here.

Billy Halop himself is an interesting character who perhaps deserves more recognition today.   Sadly he never really got beyond some his rather juvenile early roles, but You Can’t Get Away with Murder shows a hint of what his career may have been if the wheels hadn’t come off.

As ringleader, Bogie sets up Billy (as Johnny Stone) when a murder-robbery goes bad, but they all end up in the joint, though for an earlier heist.  The only unique twist in this is that Bogie thought he was leaving Johnny’s gun behind.  In reality it belongs to policeman Fred Burke (played by Harvey Stephens).   Burke is soon rotting in the same prison as Bogie and Billy, though for murder.

In prison the film takes on a bit of a Shawshank Redemption aspect, especially with Pop, the prison librarian (Henry Travers).  There is the usual morale wrangling between the inmates, especially as Johnny slowly loses his sanity knowing that Burke is incarcerated for a crime he committed.

Hard to say this is a great picture given that it follows really for the most part as expected and is rather formulaic.  It has just come out in a remastered edition from the Warner Archives and if you are a big fan of Bogart or Halop probably well worth a look over at The WB Shop..

Review copy provided by Warner Bros. Thanks!

“The question is whether you were lying then or are you lying now, or whether, in fact, you are a chronic and habitual . . . LIAR!”— Sir Wilfrid to Christine Vole

Witness for the Prosecution is not the usual Agatha Christie mystery. Never introduced as a self-contained mystery like most of the author’s works, it first appeared as part of a short story collection in 1933, was made into a play in 1948 and, finally, adapted for the screen in 1957.

The film’s director and screenwriter, Billy Wilder, incorporated some highly beneficial changes—it might even be said, improvements. The major addition was a nagging nurse (Elsa Lanchester) for Sir Wilfrid (Charles Laughton) who has recently suffered a heart attack, it, too, a Wilder idea. The interplay between the two characters—they open the film leaving the hospital and she has the last line as they leave the courtroom—is, in some ways, the best part of the enterprise.

Witness features another departure from most Christie mysteries, that famous hallmark of the Hercule Poriot series, where the multitude of suspects are assembled at the climax for a dénouement. In Witness, there is only one suspect, the seemingly guileless Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), a home-grown inventor at loose ends. Whether he is guilty or not is the “mystery” of the movie, the extent of the suspense—up to a point.

His only alibi is provided by his wife, Christine (Marlene Dietrich), a cabaret singer from bombed-out Hamburg he had married after World War II. In her first meeting with Sir Wilfrid, she swears he was home with her when an elderly lady, Mrs. Emily French (Norma Varden), was murdered.

Leonard’s charm had pretty much seduced the lady when he advised her, just by nods and grimaces through a London shop window, on the purchase of a proper hat. They had become friends, Leonard often stopping by her flat for canasta, Gilbert and Sullivan recordings and stories about her late dentist husband’s adventures in Africa. Showing Vole a witch doctor’s mask, she laughs and says that he always wore it when pulling patients’ teeth, calling himself a “witch dentist.” “Herbert,” she adds, “was so witty.” Vole’s response is apathetic.

Janet (Una O’Connor), Mrs. French’s cook, has a low opinion of Leonard’s invention, a three-beater egg beater that separates the yolk from the white. Still, he is seeking financial help from Mrs. French, which seems to lower the possibility of him being her murderer. Or maybe not.

Even though Sir Wilfrid is warned by his doctor and manservant (Ian Wolfe), and badgered by his nurse Miss Plimsoll, that he must avoid all criminal cases, he takes on Leonard Vole’s—perhaps as a challenge and perhaps, too, because Vole apparently passes the “monocle test.” Putting the eye piece in his right eye, Sir Wilfrid catches the reflection of light and directs it into this suspect’s face, without any suspicious reaction. “Passed with flying colors,” he tells legal friend Mayhew (Henry Daniell). When the same test is applied to Christine, she immediately goes to a window and draws the shade, which may, or may not, reveal something about her veracity.

“I’m certainly surprised,” Sir Wilfrid says at one point in his usual droll manner, “that women’s hats do not provoke more murders.” As further evidence of the humor that shares an equal part with the murder mystery, there is Sir Wilfrid’s response to Vole’s lament about Mrs. French. “So weird,” Vole says, “to think of her now, lying in that living room, murdered.” “I assure you,” Sir Wildrid responds, “she’s been moved by now. To leave her around would be unfeeling, unlawful—and unsanitary.”

Leonard Vole, being an American and untutored in British legal ways, falsely believes he already has on his side two “lawyers,” Mayhew and Sir Wilfrid. Mayhew, however, sets him straight: “I am a solicitor. Sir Wilfrid is a barrister. Only a barrister can actually plead a case in court.”

Because photography is not allowed inside London’s Old Bailey, and because in 1957 much of Hollywood was still filming on sets, an accurate replica of the courtroom was constructed. All the filming, easily done on sets, was restricted to the courtroom, Sir Wilfrid’s townhouse, Vole’s Hamburg flashbacks and one somewhat critical excursion to a cockney pub in London’s East End. Like, say, Separate Tables, also mistaken for a British film, Witness was filmed entirely on Samuel Goldwyn sound stages.

There does appear an exterior view of the actual Old Bailey, with a camera-tilt down from its spire, with Lady Justice, her arms outstretched from her shoulders, and tiers of workmen’s ladders, perhaps a repairing underway of World War II damage.

As for most of the other supporting actors, they were recruited from the British colony in Hollywood. Besides the stars already mentioned, a few other Brits include John Williams, Torin Thatcher, Philip Tonge, Francis Compton, Patrick Aherne (brother of Brian) and Ben Wright.

It is always sad when art, and yes, that term is very subjective, is damaged or incomplete. Such is the case with Warner Brother’s latest WAC release, Thirteen Women. Made by RKO in 1932 it was originally released with a 70 minute plus run time. It was unique in that it starred two fairly new faces on the scene, Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne. Both ladies were on the cusp of stardom, though Loy was perhaps a bit further along.

Sadly, the film was such a disaster on hitting the box office that RKO immediately pulled it and edited it, cutting the run time to a mere 59 minutes, which is what we are left with today, the balance presumably lost. On watching Thirteen Women, I’m at a loss to figure why it suffered so on release, though perhaps the dour horror of the film didn’t play well with Depression era audiences.

The story is pure evil and is rather delightful in its own eerie way. Such a film could not have been made even a few years later once the Hayes code was introduced. Mryna Loy is the vamp, who slyly gets her revenge on her former sorority sisters who threw her out. After consulting with a swami of sorts, Loy has each one killed until the only living one is Irene Dunne.

Cinematography and pacing are quite atmospheric and very well done, but the impact of the missing footage surely is felt to the current versions detriment. Presumably, in the original there were actually thirteen women, though I could find only eleven. Presumably the others were left on the cutting room floor and some would say it was to make more screentime available for Irene Dunne, who’d just had a fairly good outing which RKO surely would have wanted to maximize.

The ending is dramatic but here as well it seems the editors scissors have left their mark. The end comes perhaps all too soon and we’ve barely heard Loy explain her motives before “The End” flashes on the screen.

Overall the end result is strong, but unfulfilled. Loy is wonderful in one of her more exotic roles, though thankfully she would soon move into more mainstream characters. Unbeknownst to me, the score is a wonderful little gem from one Max Steiner. Even more surprising is that it appears in such an early picture, before scores really came into vogue.

Peg Entwistle, who is best known today for killing herself by jumping off the “H” of the Hollywood sign, plays one of the girls. Sadly, she did herself in just two days after this film was released.

This one is rather hard to find, though it does see the light of day (again in only its truncated 59 minute form) on TCM from time to time.

WAC has just released this in a newly remastered edition, which is available as a MOD disc, or also available for rent or purchase download at wbshop.com.

Review copy provided by Warner Bros. Thanks!

Catch me if you can!

Director James Whale, like any number of movie personalities, lived his own variation of a distressed life.He started his career in his native Britain with a now obscure film, Journey’s End, what would later be termed, as time would prove, an atypical effort.  Two years and four films later Colin Clive, the star of Journey’s End, would resurface in what, indeed, would be a typical Whale film, Frankenstein, a masterpiece of its kind.It would launch the career of Boris Karloff as the monster.  In what would become a trademark, Whale treated the creature sympathetically and added humor to the plot.Stark and frightening at times, the film’s most serious shortcoming is the lack of a musical score.

Karloff continued as a Whale star in two subsequent films of like spirit. The Old Dark House (1932) is about a group of travelers isolated in a strange house during a thunderstorm.Besides Karloff, the stellar cast includes Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Ernest Thesiger, Charles Laughton and Raymond Massey.

In 1935, emerging from Whale’s macabre imagination, came The Bride of Frankenstein, with Clive and Thesiger returning, now aided by Elsa Lanchester, John Carradine, E. E. Clive and Whale favorite Una O’Connor.Here was even more humor, most famously in Doctor Pretorius’ “little people,” and any musical deficiencies were amended by Franz Waxman’s milestone score.

Not a horror film as such though with touches of one, The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) was Whale’s last film of any merit, although there would be three more. Bereft of the usual cast of Whale’s favorite actors, the film did have Peter Cushing in his film début in a small part and, despite his versatility, the typecast Dwight Frye continued in like vein after Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and The Vampire Bat.   There were also Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Warren William, Joseph Schildkraut and Alan Hale.

But—and here comes the beginning of Whale’s “distress”—when he lost control of film and script at Universal, he left the movies in 1949, beginning eight years of isolation and creative stagnation before his death.

Back in his glory days, however, when Whale had overnight become the master director of horror films, The Invisible Man (1933) was the third of his quartet of great horror films.  Although the least original of the four, the special effects are quite impressive for their time.  True, the sometimes visible wires that move objects and guide a bicycle over an obvious pre-arranged path are less remarkable, but what is impressive is the faceless Jack Griffin (Claude Rains in his sound film début) when he removes his bandages or sheds his clothes from an invisible body.

In the first shot of the film a man is trudging through the snow with a suitcase.  Dr. Griffin takes a room at the Lion’s Head and, right away, abuses the owners (Forrester Harvey and an hysterical Una O’Connor) when they interrupt his chemical experiments and the policeman (a mumbling E. E. Clive) when he tries to arrest the mysterious guest.

“A way back.  A way back to visibility.There must be a way back,” Griffin tells his girlfriend Flora (a demure Gloria Stuart prone to tears) and fellow scientist Kemp (a rather hammy William Harrigan) whom he recruits as his reluctant partner.  “We’ll begin with a reign of terror,” Griffin tells him, “—a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction.”

Flora’s father, Dr. Cranley (a steady rock in Henry Travers), warns her that Griffin has taken a drug that has driven him insane, that he must be rehabilitated.In one of Jack’s—and Rains’—best speeches, beginning quietly in rational tones and gradually building to hysterical madness, he cries, “Even the moon’s frightened of me, the whole world frightened to death.”

In phoning Flora and her father to come when Griffin has imprisoned him in his own house, Kemp has also alerted the police.  After vowing to murder Kemp the next night for his betrayal (why not then and now?), Griffin eludes the police and wreaks a small panic on the countryside—killing, robbing and derailing a train.  (The shots of moving, unmanned switch levers and a model train careening down a cliff and splashing into a river would be reused almost ten years later in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror.)

Skipping down a road, with only a pair of trousers and shirt visible, he laughs and sings,“Here we go gathering nuts in May,/Nuts in May, nuts in May,/Here we go gathering nuts in May,/On a cold and frosty morning.”

Warner Bros. thunderous story of the men of the merchant marine!

Many films highlight the efforts of the armed services, but few focus on the service upon which centers 1943’s Action in the North Atlantic. Rather, Action in the North Atlantic concentrates on perhaps the unarmed service, that of the merchant marine.

The resulting film is a pure propaganda piece with all the required moralistic speeches and stereotypical characterizations so as to touch all facets of American culture of the time. Taken for what it was intended to be, a morale boost for the home front and perhaps a recruitment tool as well, it is not only well done but also extremely effective.

Perhaps too this helped moviegoers of the time turn out or black out their lights after dark. This was made during the last period of heavy losses in the Battle of the Atlantic, most of which were happening along the American coast, where lone ships sailed back-lit by fully illuminated American cities. They made such easy targets that the Germans termed this “The Happy Time.” Towards the middle of 1943 this faded as America adopted many of the guidelines Britain had implemented in 1939-1940.

Taken as a picture overall, without the context of when it was made, it is a tight actioner, but no great classic. The lengthy (and sometimes slightly leftist) speeches scattered throughout detract from the reality and gravity of the drama and diminish the overall story. Ironically, these same things are exactly what makes Action in the North Atlantic an effective propaganda piece.

The plot is as expected, highlighting the epic struggles of the merchant marine against the sea and the Germans. Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey star, the latter in a rare “good guy” role, as officers on a freighter. They are joined by many of the stock Warner crew of supporting actors of the time, including Alan Hale, who add some comic relief.

The picture opens with Bogart and Massey’s freighter being torpedoed and sinking. They are ultimately rescued and have a shore time at home- which gives us and viewers of the time the chance to live vicariously though the on-screen action. Remember many were going through these same challenges of family members abroad with little or no communication. Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey ultimately take another ship on a run to Murmansk, but while in convoy are set upon by a German wolfpack.

What does make Action in the North Atlantic worth the price of admission are the action sequences, which are beyond spectacular. Especially note the dramatic footage during the sinking of Bogart’s original ship, as actors dance and dart around the flames. Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey ultimately did their own stunts for the film, so when you see their characters running for their lives, you’re watching the real McCoy. And there is a LOT of fire. Real fire- no CGI.

Beyond this the technical challenges of actually filming such a film in 1943 era America were daunting. The production was prohibited from actually filming at sea because of wartime restrictions so all of the footage was filmed on soundstages. Some actual combat footage was spliced in appropriately and can be easily identified today be the varying texture and quality of the footage.

The mock Liberty ships created on set were so large that technology of the day wasn’t able to rock them to simulate the motion of a ship at sea, so as an alternative approach the camera itself was rocked to compensate. Quite creative and unnoticeable.

Action in the North Atlantic is easy to locate if you’d like a viewing, but it has to be watched in the context of the time in which it was made. The sometimes heavy-handed propaganda seems overwhelming today but was needed then. And although the cast really makes average performances, they do convey strong vignettes of the challenges these seamen faced.

Well worth a look. That ship sinking alone is worth the price of admission.

This is not a history, but a tale of once upon a time.  It may have happened.  It may not have happened.  But it could have happened.—the foreword to the film

After the big success of 1936 with The Charge of the Light Brigade—a more than respectable follow-up to 1935’s Captain Blood—the following year didn’t begin too auspiciously for Warner Bros.’s newcomer Errol Flynn.  Green Light, with lackluster leading lady Anita Louise, was a saccharine overdose, and, at eighty-five minutes, grossly over-long, the actor struggling as best he could to be a noble surgeon.  Another Dawn was pretty much the same story, an implausible love story, now with a betrayed husband thrown in for good measure.  Kay Francis received top billing, and, at seventy-three minutes, it seemed even “longer” than Green Light.  If only a marginal improvement over the previous two films, The Perfect Specimen closed 1937 with the actor’s comedy début.  He did fairly well, nothing to brag about, though.

And, oh, yes, there was another film between Green Light and Another Dawn.  And it, the best by far of 1937, was The Prince and the Pauper.

While receiving top billing, Flynn does not appear for almost an hour, and, in fact, he has fewer lines than some of his co-stars, certainly fewer than the Mauch twins, Bobby and Billy, who play the prince and the pauper, respectively.  Just possibly, Montagu Love as Henry VIII, who is fifteenth in the cast listing, has the largest role in the film and, more likely, the biggest role of his sound era career, as he had been in the movies since 1914.

In one of Love’s best scenes, he gives his son Edward some kingly—hardly kindly—advise: “Never trust so much, love so much, or need any one so much, that you can’t betray them with a smile.”  Edward (later Edward VI) was one of the king’s two children; the other, a girl, would become Elizabeth I.

The Prince and the Pauper is based, of course, on the Mark Twain novel about two look-alike boys who, as a game, switch places.  Tom Canty, a boy from the London slums, is saved from a cruel Captain of the Guard (Alan Hale) by young Prince Edward.  The prince has no pretensions and makes friends immediately with the beggar boy.  They play games and exchange clothes, and when the prince goes outside Windsor Castle in his rags, he is mistaken by the captain for the beggar and chased into the streets.

The real pauper is trapped now in the castle, and with his pleadings that he is only a beggar boy, is taken to be mad.  When the ambitious Earl of Hertford (Claude Rains) discovers Tom’s true identity, he decides to use him toward his own ends and orders the Captain of the Guard to search for and kill the real future king.  No one will ever know.

Meanwhile Edward is introduced to the ways of the average English citizen.  He is abused by the father (Barton MacLane), and in Edward’s struggle for survival in this harsh new world, he learns the injustice of English Law.  He is surprised by the poverty and can’t believe that there’s a tax on windows.

The prince is rescued from a street brawl by a soldier of fortune, Miles Hendon (Flynn).  After some adjustments between the two, mainly on Hendon’s part, the two become friends.  Hendon, for instance, at first is not allowed to sit in the presence of the prince, then the boy relents and issues a decree that he and his heirs are forever allowed to sit in the presence of royalty.  Hendon attributes the boy’s claim of being Prince Edward to madness.

There are those actors which have faded and others who haven’t.  One who sadly has, is Anthony Perkins.  Stereotypically most think Perkins was typecast after 1960’s Psycho.  But actually that became true  only towards the end of his life, when the numerous Psycho sequels began coming out.

Prior to that, he maintained a fairly robust variety of work, with starring credits in quite a few light comedies to his name as well.  One of the earlier of these was Tall Story, also ironically enough from 1960 as was Psycho.

His co-star here is Jane Fonda, who even in her first starring role is a commanding presence, with her acting chops already for the most part in place.  However, she probably doesn’t look upon Tall Story as among her finest work, especially given her later activism.

For Tall Story is a rather shallow and at times downright silly comedy which is full of typical conceptions of women which, although accepted as gospel then, have thankfully faded from view- mostly.   Fonda is a young co-ed, June Ryder, who has picked her college not based on academic programs or the like, but because their strong basketball program would provide many tall men from which to choose her husband.  For you see, Ms. Ryder is after only one degree, the “Mrs” one.

For whatever reason, she picks from the entire team Anthony Perkins to set as the target of her amorous charms.  And yes, I don’t see Perkins as the athletic type either but, in his defense none of the other actors portraying players are either, so he fits in.  However, this does dampen the credibility of the ultimate goal, which is for Ray Blent (Perkins) to play in a big exhibition game against the Russian team.

By the end of the movie up is down and left is right as everyone character- and in more than one case- sense of ethics is trampled in order to get him into the game.

Tall Story isn’t a bad movie, though it is unbelievable at its core.  It is a fairly typical light comedy of the era, which today everyone has seen (the type) as numerous sitcoms on television.   It was a good easy entry for Fonda and director Joshua Logan does keep the entire thing running at a good clip.

WAC has just released this in a newly remastered edition, which is available as a MOD disc, or also available for rent or purchase download at wbshop.com.WAC’s remastering to me always seems done at a very high level and, although a definite help to the picture, should not be confused with a full scale restoration.  That being said, the print here is very watchable and enjoyable.

Review copy provided by Warner Bros. Thanks!

“You wanted an ornament, something nice looking to go with the rest of the furniture, brought up the river with great difficulty. Just keep it dusted and see that the termites don’t get at it.” -Joanna Leiningen on being a proxy bride

The Naked Jungle (1954) is many things. A love story, if a bit implausible at times. A jungle movie, trek included, with, if not the White Witch Doctor’s tarantula, then a host of ghastly sights for a sometimes bewildered heroine. And, in the climax, a horror flick, but long enough and effective enough to contain some of the film’s best moments. Working toward the semblance of a love story, there’s the initial animosity between Joanna (Eleanor Parker) and Christopher Leiningen (Charlton Heston), how their feelings grow, if not into affection at first, then clearly a mutual forbearance. Their caustic spats are sometimes cutting, sometimes humorous, often at the expense of Christopher, who, in most cases, has met his match.

As to the horror element, this was the 1950s, after all. It was the decade of deadly, mutant, always enormous insects, whether released from an arctic thaw or, as more often, stimulated by inordinate amounts of radiation from atom bomb tests—The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula, The Monster That Challenged the World (crustacean), The Black Scorpion, The Fly (technically a scientist’s mishap) and Them! The last has a direct relevance to The Naked Jungle—the terror of . . . well, what else—ants, in Them! oversized and stressed out, in The Naked Jungle one-inch soldier ants but deadly nonetheless.

The film begins innocently enough, but bits of unsettling dialogue suggest that all is not well, that perhaps herein is the making of a movie. A river boat is traversing the Rio Negro River in 1901. The boat captain (Romo Vincent) asks a lovely young woman (Parker) about her husband. She says she’s on the way to meet him for the first time. The Commissioner (William Conrad)—“commissioner of this area for my government” is the most information he provides—explains that Joanna was married by proxy to Christopher Leiningen, and that he stood in for her at the ceremony. He says her husband owns thousands of acres, a cocoa plantation, just around the river bend.

The captain mentions the strange behavior of the birds, and when Joanna asks the Commissioner—he is never given a name—if he plans to get off at Leiningen’s dock, his reply is hesitant and ominous. “No, I have . . . business further upriver.” At the dock Joanna is met by Incacha (Abraham Sofaer), and when he repeats that he is “Mr. Leiningen’s number one man,” she replies, “And I am Mr. Leiningen’s number one wife. I expected him to meet me here. Where is he?” A rather gritty young lady, this Joanna!

Soon after she settles in at Leiningen’s palatial hacienda, he arrives from the fields. He approaches across a wide walkway and through a long portico, his lowered face further concealed by a broad brimmed hat. Continuing the earlier mystery of his identity, his introduction is dramatically prolonged. The Heston trademarks, the lumbering gait and shoulders twisting puppet-like, befit his naive, defensive awkwardness in meeting Joanna. She suggests he is disappointed in his proxy bride; he replies that she’s . . . just more than he had expected.

The first dinner they share is stiff and antagonistic. Joanna tries small talk. His answers are in monosyllables. He does make an observation, in his own crude, rude way, that she is beautiful, sophisticated, speaks French and plays the piano. “I’m not that lucky,” he says, “to get a perfect woman, just like that, out of the grab bag. There must be something wrong with you.” She explains that she’s a widow, that her husband was killed during one of his drinking binges.

After playing the piano with its sour key, she concludes the evening with one of the best lines in the film: “If you knew more about music, you’d realize that a good piano is better when it’s played.” (The viewer can infer here a possible double entendre!) If this isn’t a good enough exit line for a scene, she has one more. As she is leaving the room, he says, “I’m not finished with you, madam”—it is always “madam.” She responds, “Yes you are!” (Like the added first word in “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” in Gone With the Wind, a drawn out “Oh-h-h-h—” in front of Joanna’s retort would have provided the rhythm, emphasis and balance to make the line perfect.)

Leiningen takes her on a horseback ride over his cocoa plantation, and says much toil and suffering is required “so your friends can drink chocolate with their breakfast in New Orleans.” She witnesses the ceremonial execution for adultery of one of his native workers and sees a shrunken head, proudly displayed by a native, a descendent of the Mayans, Leiningen says. “They stayed in the jungle too long.”

The plot changes pace and aspect. The love story intensifies but the jungle and horror elements come into play. When the Commissioner arrives at the hacienda from that “business” he had upriver, he reports that the siji birds and monkeys are mysteriously leaving the Rio Negro basin. Something is chasing them out. It seems that the dormant soldier ants are possibly on the move, for the first time in twenty-seven years—before Leiningen had arrived to clear the jungle and hire eight hundred local natives.

The robbery should have taken 10 minutes. 4 hours later, the bank was like a circus sideshow. 8 hours later, it was the hottest thing on live T.V. 12 hours later, it was all history. And it’s all true.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) doesn’t get mentioned much in Al Pacino’s pantheon of great films. (And yes, a 1975 film can be classic!) Perhaps it should be mentioned a bit more often. Directed by the recently passed Sidney Lumet Dog Day Afternoon tells the real story of a bank robbery gone a bit awry.

I always view Dog Day Afternoon as two films, one pure genius and the other merely good. The first half is spectacular and you really don’t know whether to laugh or cry as these three friends go to rob a bank for unknown reasons (they become clear later). Immediately things get out of hand as one of the three can’t go through with it and leaves, being begged “not to take the car,” to which his response is “but how am I going to get home?” Classic. And it goes downhill from there for the two remaining robbers, Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale).

After learning that there is little money in the bank, Sonny and Sal have a dozen or so hostages in the bank and are soon surrounded by NYPD’s finest, led by Detective Moretti, played by Charles Durning, another favorite of mine. You’d think the bank robbery motif had dried up by now but the interplay is so new and refreshing (mostly improvised around the basic script) that it is as if this is the only bank robbery movie ever made. This is the good part – the first half or so of the movie.

The second half drags as we get into the reason for the robbery, which is ultimately so Sonny can pay for a sex change operation for his gay lover Leon. Although the seriousness and open way in which the homosexuality is to be applauded, this part of the movie, though still moving, gets extremely talky and the banter loses its wit. But it does make you think, which is perhaps what it is intended to do.

The finale of the film regains some of its luster with a bang, which I won’t share here in the off chance you don’t know the ending.

What makes Dog Day Afternoon such a good film isn’t the storyline but how it is executed. It is completely real and natural, without all the histrionics or special effects such a film would require today. (Look at Heat, for example. Another wonderful film but in an entirely different way.) And nobody steals the show, even though it is Al Pacino’s movie.

Pacino’s mania is tangibly real as is his care for the hostages themselves. Sal’s worry about being labeled a homosexual, over even escaping the bank, is a hoot. And the dialogue results in some classic lines, my favorite of which is Sal’s response of “Wyoming” to Sonny’s question of “What country do you want to fly to [when we escape on this jet]?” However, most will remember Sonny’s bankfront chant of “Attica” which is great as well, just not the same for me.

Very well done, especially the first half and last few minutes. Even the second half isn’t bad, and even better in terms of social consciousness.

Available everywhere just about.

“Sometimes you can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself.” -Lucy Muir

In the first decade of his career, Rex Harrison had done right well for a young actor, assisted by a number of first-class British playwrights and novelists. In Blithe Spirit—by Noel Coward no less—he senses his dead wife is haunting him. As a somewhat stronger character, a professor, in George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, he woes a young girl who has joined the Salvation Army.

In A. J. Cronin’s The Citadel, Rex Harrison plays a doctor showing a fellow physician how to get the most money out of his hypochondriacal patients. As another doctor in Over the Moon, his participation is wasted, as the comedy is rather weak to say the least, despite the writing credentials of American Robert E. Sherwood—The Best Years of Our Lives, Rebecca, etc. And from a literary source further back than any mentioned—the eighteenth century and Richard Sheridan—Harrison has an uncredited bit part in the 1930 version of The School for Scandal.

Maybe those last two films shouldn’t count for anything, except to further illustrate the female company Rex Harrison keeps. If not always “opposite,” he is at least in these pictures, and others, with such ladies as Wendy Hiller, Rosalind Russell, Merle Oberon, Gertrude Lawrence, Madeleine Carroll, Margaret Lockwood and Vivien Leigh.

The literary source of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is, granted, less illustrious than the just-named mainstays of British and American literature. R. A. Dick is the pseudonym of Josephine Leslie, for only a woman, it seems, could have created the strong-willed, independent female character who, despite Harrison’s, is central to this little film. Leslie also penned The Devil and Mrs. Devine, an obscure gothic novel never lifted by Hollywood.

It’s perhaps Rex Harrison’s connection with Blithe Spirit, and that haunting by a dead wife, that is a link to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, where he plays . . . well, a bit later. Although he creates quite a fascinating character, he is surpassed by his “spiritual”—if that’s the proper word—love interest, Gene Tierney, who, for some reason, has never been a favorite actress. Here, however, she does herself and the film proud, in one of her best roles as this indomitable woman. The actress was on a definite roll, for within the previous three years she had had perhaps three of her finest roles—in Heaven Can Wait, Laura and The Razor’s Edge. And now, in 1947, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

The acting of the supporting cast, too, is first-rate. While no one is overtly dramatic, unless it’s Harrison on a few occasions—always three-dimensional while remaining laid-back—the possible quaintness of Robert Coote and Whitford Kane resembles Dickensian caricatures.

The black and white film is set in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. The period is obvious, for one thing, by that newfangled noise, the motor car. Lucy Muir (Tierney), recently widowed, is at odds with her mother-in-law (Isobel Elsom) and sister-in-law (Victoria Horne). So she decides to find a place of her own, accompanied by her young daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and maid Martha (Edna Best).

The real estate agent Mr. Coombe (Coote) attempts to downplay a certain seacoast cottage which, from its description on paper, immediately fascinates Lucy. After a tour of Gull Cottage, however, she concludes it isn’t right for her after all, but then, walking back to Mr. Coombe’s motor car, she abruptly changes her mind: she will buy the cottage.

It’s not long before she discovers why the cottage had been vacant for so long. Seems that a sea captain, Daniel Gregg (Harrison), who supposedly committed suicide, haunts the place. At first he only observes Lucy while she is asleep, and when she does see him, she is never frightened by the apparition. (No ghostly effects are used: Captain Gregg is simply there, and gone in the next cut.) Being a strong woman, Lucy at first treats the captain as an invasion of her space, a mere annoyance.

Their early relationship is a quiet tolerance of one another, then a growing affection. He even dubs her “Lucia,” and he becomes to her something of a counselor. Lucy learns that her late husband’s gold mine is no longer productive, and to acquire an income, Captain Gregg decides to dictate his memoirs to her for her to submit under her name to a London publisher.

When Lucy and Captain Gregg’s book is finished, she takes it to a publisher (Kane) who, impressed by the vividness of the memoir, agrees to print it. In these offices Lucy meets Miles Fairley (George Sanders in another of his charming cad roles) and, as their relationship develops, she considers marrying him.

With Lucy under the spell of Fairley, the captain accepts her preference for a flesh-and-blood man and so, when she is asleep, he tells her she will remember him only as a figment of her dreams, the book a creation of her own imagination. And he bids farewell.