Having convinced a New York insurance firm to hire him, Roger Kingsley (Tom Conway) travels to Los Angeles and enlists the police department's help in trapping Confidence Girl (1952), Mary Webb (Hillary Brooke). Mary, he tells them, goes to high-end department stores and steals expensive furs. When the police consent to assist him in a sting operation, he waits with the store detective, Mr. Walsh (Roy Engel) for Mary to arrive and leave the store with a coat. However, it turns out that Roger is actually Mary's lover and accomplish - and he is trying to use police information to keep the larcenous pair one step ahead of being arrested. This B movie crime drama is an interesting film, that with only a few exceptions keeps your attention throughout. The narration mimics the Crime Does Not Pay series of shorts, with the LA Sheriff opening the film, and another narrative voice (supplied by Truman Bradley, NOT Robert Cummings as stated in the AFI Catalog) maintaining the "true crime" aspect of the film. Our major issue with the movie was that there is one too many cons going on - diffusing the effect of the major scheme - to set Mary Webb up as a psychic who will eventually be able to charge big bucks for her ability to read minds. With all these balls in the air, we wondered how Mary and Roger had time to engineer this complicated ruse.
Tom Conway is good as the suave investigator turned con man. Roger is a man who likes the action of the con - sure, the money is nice, but it's clear from Mr. Conway's performance that Roger's interest is in fleecing the mark. Mr. Conway looks a bit old to be romantically involved with the lovely Ms. Brooke; in actuality, there was only a ten-year age difference. Mr. Conway's alcoholism, however, was unfortunately beginning to show on his face.
Tom Conway changed his name after losing a coin toss with his brother, George Sanders (George Sanders, Zsa Zsa, and Me by David R. Slavitt). He assumed the role of the Falcon at his brother's suggestion (when Mr. Sanders was tired of the part); this gave his career the boost it needed. He's probably best remembered for that role, and for the part of Dr. Louis Judd in Cat People (1941). He worked in television and radio as well as films - in 1951, he assumed his brother's film role of The Saint in the radio show (The Saint.org). Married twice - both ended in divorce - his second marriage dissolved because of his drinking, which also caused his brother to cut ties. By 1965, newspapers reported that he was destitute (New York Times). Immediately prior to his death of cirrhosis of the liver in 1967 at the age of 62, he'd been hospitalized. His former sister-in-law, Zsa Zsa Gabor visited and gave him money to tip the nurses (so he would have better care, she said); instead, Mr. Conway left the hospital, retreated to his girlfriend's apartment, where he died.
Early in the film, Roger and Mary move into a house with a room designed for a child. Mary waxes poetic about her desire for a husband and children. Our immediate response was that the scene seemed out of place for the film - Mary is a thief, and it was odd to have her become momentarily sympathetic. However, Ms. Brooke is not playing a run-of-the-mill criminal. A failed violinist who is participating in the confidence racket to get enough money to live, Mary has a conscience - it's one thing to steal from a store, or bilk a man trying to cheat someone else. It's another to con simple people out of their life savings, or to ignore a potential act of violence. Ms. Brooke has shown before that she is able to make an unappealing character sympathetic (watch her as Beatrice Alexander in The Enchanted Cottage (1945). You don't really LIKE Beatrice, but you can sympathize with her distress). She again manages to take a problematic character, and give her some heart.
Jack Kruschen (Sgt. Quinn) appears in a relatively small part as a police sergeant trying to find dirt on Mary's mind-reading act. A staple on television from the 1950s through the 1990s, he was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Dr. Dreyfuss in The Apartment (1960). While this is no means a perfect film, it is influenced by earlier crime films (TCM article) that give it a certain verisimilitude. A bit long at times (as we said, there really is one con too many), Confidence Girl is an entertaining film, and worth the 81 minutes you would spend with it.
Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) has just graduated from the University of Chicago and is driving to New York to start her career as a journalist. Her friend Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) arranges for her boyfriend, Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) to share the driving, as he is moving to New York as well. But When Harry Met Sally (1989), they find that they have entirely different viewpoints on life. TCM Big Screen Classics featured this excellent film, now 30 years old. While When Harry Met Sally is a comedy, it is also a serious discussion of the relationships between men and women. Certainly, Sally is a bit obsessive (everything in her menu order must be "on the side"), while Harry is sexually casual, to the point of promiscuity. But what we begin to discover, as Harry and Sally reconnect, is that they are good for one another, each filling a void in their mutual lives. Meg Ryan brings a whimsy to Sally that makes her character charming. In lesser hands, Sally could become annoying to the point of frustration, but Ms. Ryan never crosses that line. Certainly, you shake your head when she begins ordering her food, but her point - that it's always better if you have your meal exactly as YOU want it - cannot be argued. It was Ms. Ryan's idea that Sally fake an orgasm in that now famous scene (TCM article), and Mr. Reiner's to put his mother, Estelle Reiner, into the scene to utter the most famous line in the film "I'll have what she's having." (#33 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Quotes)
The same can be said about Billy Crystal's Harry - Mr. Crystal is able to make him interesting and engaging. Harry's attitudes towards women are vaguely medieval - "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her," but because of his chemistry with Ms. Ryan and his sympathetic portrayal, you end up liking Harry (though there are times, you want to shake him!)
Carrie Fisher (Marie), Sally's best friend, is amazing as a woman who seems to fall for the wrong man constantly. Involved in a clandestine relationship with a married man, she is urged to break off the affair, but Marie keeps hoping that he will leave his wife, as he has long promised. Only when she finally meets Harry's best friend, Jess (Bruno Kirby), does she find a soul mate and long-term partner. Her plea to Jess "Tell me I'll never have to be out there again" resonates with anyone who's ever had to deal with the dating scene.
The only Oscar nomination that When Harry Met Sally received was Nora Ephron for Original Screenplay (she won the BAFTA award), and it's not surprising. Ms. Ephron has crafted a gloriously expressive script that merges comedy and drama in an effective and moving way. Though quotes abound from the script (EW.com, Tribeca News, Parade), the film is not a series of one-liners. It's a unique look at romantic love, and at the problems inherent in finding the one person who is right for you. As Marie so aptly puts it: "All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed
to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll
have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is
married to your husband."
The New York Timesreview was not especially enthusiastic, but a more recent Vanity Fairarticle points up the timelessness of the story. If you've never seen When Harry Met Sally, treat yourself and give it a viewing. In the meantime, here's a trailer to whet your appetite:
Dixon Harper (Robert Stanton/aka Bob Haymes), recently released from military service, teams up with Susan Parker (Lynn Merrick), a Blonde from Brooklyn (1945), to get work on a radio show with a Southern bent. They decide, with the assistance of "Colonel" Hubert Fransworth (Thurston Hall) to rename Suzie as Susanna Bellwithers, the daughter of an old Southern family. Problems ensue when a lawyer arrives to inform Suzie she is the heiress to the Bellwithers inheritance. There are A movies and B movies, but this one has to have been a C movie. It's a piece of light fluff with an amusing premise that goes to hell in a handcart by the end of the film, that's if you can stick with the movie TIL the end of the film. At 65 minutes, this should be a peppy little flick. It's not. Even the music in this erstatz musical, which should have brightened up the film, is on the boring side. Later on in his career, our leading man (by then using his real name Bob Haymes), who had just changed his name for this film (AFI Catalog), would go on to write hit music like "That's All" (sung by Nat King Cole) and "They Say It's Spring" (sung by Blossom Dearie). Maybe they should have asked him to write the music. It might have been memorable.
Neither Mr. Haymes nor his co-star, Lynn Merrick would have big film careers. Between 1940 and 1955, she made 46 films - primarily musical comedies and westerns - B films all. She's the most endearing of the characters in this film - Suzie is the only one with a moral compass, and the only character you end up liking (except perhaps for her roommate Diane Peabody, played by Mary Treen). After two unsuccessful marriages, she left films, and became an executive at the Barbizon School of Modeling. She died in 2007, at the age of 87.
The most problematic character is Colonel Fransworth - Thurston Hall plays him as bombastic and shady from the moment we meet him. If we are to believe that our hero and heroine are above-board, we should be able to believe the Colonel for at least a few minutes. Instead, he comes across as a greedy conman, and talks like Foghorn Leghorn.
A couple of supporting parts worth noting - Hugh Beaumont appears as an uncredited Army Lieutenant. He, of course, would later go on to fame as Beaver Cleaver's sympathetic father on Leave it to Beaver. Appearing in her first film role - and unfortunately not dancing - is Gwen Verdon. Also uncredited, she has two lines, and then sadly leaves. Ah, if they had only given her a song. (Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen by Peter Shelley).
We were intrigued by the remote jukebox where Suzie and Diane worked. I could find no mention of a service like that anywhere (sort of an on-request radio station), but it was an interesting idea. Sadly, that was the only appealing thing about the film. Should it come your way, I'd give it a pass and look for something better.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is having recurring visions of the night Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattison) was murdered by Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Then, one hot summer day, he and his cousin Dudley (Harry Melling) are attacked by Dementors. His patronus spell protects them, but almost immediately he receives an owl from the Ministry of Magic - he is being expelled from Hogwarts for use of magic in the presence of a Muggle. It seems like Harry's life as a wizard may be over. Today, we'll discuss Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) We attended another concert filming, this time featuring the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. The score for this film was written by Nicholas Hooper; appropriately, it reflects the ever darkening universe that is now Harry Potter's world.
This is the film that introduces one of my favorite characters - Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch). Though seemingly a bit vague and odd, Luna is one of the most sympathetic and insightful people at Hogwarts. Having experienced death, she shares with Harry the ability to see the Thestrals which pull the Hogwarts carriages. Endlessly teased by the other students, she shrugs it off saying "it's all in good fun," even though they've stolen all her shoes. Luna slowly becomes a key character, and is an willing and able member of Dumbledore's Army.
Another new character to the franchise is the odious Dolores Jane Umbridge (Imelda Staunton). Foisted by the Ministry of Magic on Hogwarts as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, her goal in life is to make the school a haven for bullies, she being the biggest bully of the bunch. With her penchant for anything pink and for plates with kitties, she is a vile woman who literally tortures her students in the guise of disciple. One of my favorite scenes is her attempt to undermine Professor Snape (Alan Rickman). His response to her questioning is so Snape and absolutely priceless:
She: You applied for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe? He: Yes She: But you were unsuccessful?. He: Obviously
You can see the inimitable Mr. Rickman in action in this scene. Not surprisingly, he got a huge ovation when his name appeared in the credits.
We don't see a lot of Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) in this film - he spends much of the time avoiding Harry (we don't find out why until the end). But the inimitable Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) is amazing as the one instructor willing to go toe-to-toe against Umbridge. It's hard to stop this monster, but Professor McGonnagall tries, even standing up for Professor Sybil Trelawney when Umbridge sets her sights on that harmless creature.
Our trio of Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) are growing and maturing, but the character who shows the greatest evolution is Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis). No longer a cowering misfit, Neville is beginning to understand his power, preparing himself (and us) for his important role in the books (and films) that follow.
We are hoping that we can catch the concert screenings for the next three films. I'll leave you with this bit of the score and a trailer from the film:
