Dick O'Clock

Casino manager Johnny O'Clock (1947) (Dick Powell) awakens to a mess of trouble. Nelle Marchettis (Ellen Drew), the wife of his business partner,a Pete (S. Thomas Gomez) has sent him an expensive watch with a tender endearment engraved on it. Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch), the hat check girl in his casino, is distraught -  her lover, police detective Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon) has tired of her. Add to this, Police Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) is nosing around his hotel lobby. Johnny's difficulties are just beginning.

This is a film that requires the kind of concentration that you have in a movie theatre, which makes watching it on a television a bit of a commitment. Several of us commented that we did appreciate the opportunity to run the film back and rewatch certain scenes to clarify our questions. But the plot is dense, and though it all ties together in the end, there are periods when you feel like something has been dropped from the action.

Dick Powell is excellent as the titular hero of the piece, a man with a heart who camouflages it with brusque repartee. This was his third appearance as a noir leading man, and he commands the screen. The introductory scenes to the film outline the complexity of the man who now calls himself Johnny O'Clock - there is a subtlety to this opening that negates the fact that these are the background aspects of of the film.

Evelyn Keyes  is also convincing as Nancy Hobson, the sister of the sad Harriet. We felt that during much of the film, Ms. Keyes was able to keep you in doubt as to her motives and next actions, which worked well for the character.  Her autobiography noted the constant changes that were being made to the script by first time director Robert Rossen (TCM article). We wondered if Mr. Rossen's neophyte status as a director (and the ongoing alterations) caused some of the density in the storyline (AFI catalog).

The film opens with Lee J. Cobb visiting the hotel residence of Johnny but it's really not clear WHY he is there. We learn that Johnny, though possessing a slew of aliases, has never had any real problems with the law; and the series of crimes that occur within the film have not yet happened. It's not clear if Inspector Koch is aware of Detective Blayden's side deals, but having Koch there does give us much of that background information that the director/screenwriter Rossen want to convey to the audience. Mr. Cobb is good in the part (though Ms. Keyes noted that he had a penchant for stealing scenes by chomping on his ever present cigar).

Several other actors deserve mention. Ellen Drew is fiendish as the straying wife who has her eye on Johnny; she reminds one of a wild cat - purring one minute and snarling the next. She's given excellent support by Thomas Gomez as her braggart husband - and Johnny's partner. His passion for his wife is evident - as is his jealousy for her obviously wandering eye.  

John Kellogg as Charlie, Johnny's friend and major domo is also worthy of a mention. Charlie seems on the up-and-up, and like Ms. Keyes, keeps his real motivations a secret until the end of the film.  Mr. Kellogg spent much of his movie career in small, often uncredited parts.  He moved easily into television in the 1950s, where he worked until 1990 (he'd started his film career in 1940, after doing some stage work) in shows such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Untouchables. He died of Alzheimer's Disease in 2000 at the age of 83.

Nina Foch has such a tiny part, but she is quite lovely as the sad-eyed Harriet. She'd made My Name is Julia Ross (a starring role) two years earlier, but that was a B movie, and Ms. Foch rarely got the opportunity to star in A movies. She makes the most of her small amount of screen time - you remember the character throughout the film, thanks to her excellent performance.

Bosley Crowther was unimpressed by the film in his New York Times review: "another of those smoldering exhibitions of gambling-joint jealousy and greed...", while a more recent review Richard Brody in The New Yorker called it "terse and taut film noir." Perhaps had director Rossen had a tad more experience, he would have been able to tighten the film a bit; the nearly two hour length leads to some redundancy that we found unnecessary. 

Lux Radio Theatre did an episode in May of 1947, with Dick Powell and Marguerite Chapman. In summary, we enjoyed the film, in spite of its faults; it's an opportunity to see some good actors, portraying very intriguing characters.  We'll leave you with a trailer:

Golden Boy and the Blacklist

Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou), a fight promoter, is eager to make enough money to buy off his estranged wife and finally marry his mistress, Lorna Moon (Barbara Stanwyck). When Joe Bonaparte (William Holden) enters their lives, they think they have found their Golden Boy (1939), but there are problems. Besides being a talented fighter, Joe is a gifted violinist, and his father (Lee J. Cobb) strongly objects to Joe relinquishing his potential career as a musician for a life in the boxing ring - the the potential destruction of his hands.

Perhaps it seems unusual to look at a 1939 film as part of the Banned and Blacklisted Blogathon, but this film featured a great deal of talent that was, in one way or another, affected by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC).  We'll take this opportunity to look at both the film, and the experiences of those involved in it during the period of the blacklist, in this year, the 70th anniversary of the beginning of this evil campaign.

My interest in the Blacklist really began in 1972, when Robert Vaughn (yes, THAT Robert Vaughn, the actor who appeared in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and had a PhD in Communications from University of Southern California) published Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting.  The book demonstrated that everyone involved in the process in Hollywood was victim - from those who supported the blacklist, to the actual victims. Dr. Vaughn's title was  taken from a quote by Dalton Trumbo: "it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims."

Barbara Stanwyck is, as always, excellent as Lorna Moon (interestingly, the play was purchased as a vehicle for Jean Arthur, with Frank Capra directing! (TCM article)). Ms. Stanwyck can take a scene, as she does when she is trying to convince Joe to continue fighting, and change her reaction on a dime.  Though filmed under the code, Lorna remains unpunished, despite the fact that she is clearly having an affair with the married Tom.  

Ms. Stanwyck was a staunch conservative - she objected to labor unions and only joined the Screen Actors' Guild when it became apparent that the new union would prevent her from working (A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True, 1907-1940). When the investigations of HUAC began, Stanwyck, like her husband Robert Taylor, became a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Whether she herself named names is information that is not recorded - Mr. Taylor certainly made a name for himself when he testified before HUAC on October 22nd, 1947, and named names (Howard Da Silva and Karen Morley, specifically). But Ms. Stanwyck was involved with a group that was busily hunting for Communists within the Hollywood rank-and-file.

So too was Adolphe Menjou a member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. His Tom Moody in our film is a rather banal man; it's hard to understand why Lorna would be interested in him, so it is easy to root for a relationship between Lorna and Joe. The day before Robert Taylor testified in front of the HUAC, Mr. Menjou testified. He fancied himself an expert on Communism, having read "over 150 books on the subject [of Russia]". He then accused John Cromwell of "acting an awful lot like a communist" (while acknowledging that he had no knowledge that Mr. Cromwell actually was a communist. He considered himself "a witch-hunter if the witches are Communists. . .a Red-baiter. I make no bones about it whatsoever. I would like to see them all back in Russia." Later, he would publicly attack many Hollywood liberals, including Katharine Heburn ("scratch a do-gooder, like Heburn, and they'll yell 'Pravda'."), infuriating Spencer Tracy and Ms. Hepburn who would only speak to Mr. Menjou onscreen when they filmed The State of the Union in 1948. (Katharine Hepburn: A Remarkable Woman by Anne Edwards)

William Holden is quite wonderful as Joe, a part for which John Garfield, Tyrone Power and Richard Carlson were all considered (AFI catalog).  This was his first real picture, and he almost got ousted from the film - only thanks to Barbara Stanwyck's intervention and coaching did he remain in the role that would effectively begin his career. When we discussed their only other film together, Executive Suite, we provided a clip of Ms. Stanwyck's tribute to Mr. Holden at the 1977 Oscars.  Though a participant in Hollywood Fights Back, a radio program hosted by the Committee on the First Amendment (the group protesting HUAC's activities), (J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood's Cold War by John Sbardellati) Mr. Holden, unlike many of the other committee members (Marsha Hunt and Jane Wyatt among them) seems to have escaped unscathed from the morass of the blacklist. He even rejected vehement anti-Communist Hedda Hopper's advice when he appeared in The Bridge on the River Kwai, co-scripted by HUAC refugee Carl Foreman (Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism by Jennifer Frost). Again, it did not affect his career.

Others in the cast were not as lucky. Lee J. Cobb (named by Larry Parks, himself a victim of the blacklist), and writer Clifford Odets (named by Leila Rogers, Ginger's mother) were blacklisted until they finally, in desperation, went before HUAC to name names (see this Study Guide from Lincoln Center, from a production of the play there). For more information on those affected by HUAC, visit this list.

Golden Boy had started as a Broadway play in 1937; many of those involved in that play were also targeted, including Mr. Cobb, Mr. Da Silva, Frances Farmer, Elia Kazan (who would become a symbol of the traitor when he named names to clear himself), Morris Carnovsky (named by Mr. Kazan) , Phoebe Brand (Mr. Carnovsky's wife; also named by Mr. Kazan), Luther Adler, and Roman Bohnen.  Jules Garfield, who would take Hollywood by storm under the name John Garfield was also in the Broadway play. He dearly wanted to play Joe Bonaparte, but was unable to get the needed studio loan-out to play Joe. Mr. Garfield, too, was targeted by HUAC, probably causing the heart attack that claimed his life at age 39.

These individuals, colleagues in 1939, would become adversaries for no real reason; yet the hatred that the Blacklist generated still remains.  In 2008, when Elia Kazan received a special Oscar, many in Hollywood either boycotted the award, or refused to applaud. (You can see the ceremony here). Was Mr. Kazan the only person who surrendered to HUAC? Are people like Lee J. Cobb and Clifford Odets evil because they caved into the pressure of not working in their chosen profession? And are we going to continue to punish the victims - because of their political beliefs, their race, creed, gender or sexual identity? That we can talk about the Blacklist in 2017 is a step in the right direction - let's keep the dialogue going, and remember it as a symbol of all the bias in our world.

We'll leave you of this scene featuring Ms. Stanwyck and Mr. Holden:

Eva Marie Loses a Glove

In my last post, I mentioned there would be a hiatus on the blog as one of the members was going on vacation.  That member was me, and I was thrilled to spend 5 days onboard the Disney Magic on this year's Turner Classic Movies Cruise.  Though I've cruised before, I'd never attended a themed event, nor have I had the opportunity to attend any of the TCM festivals.  So, it was with a mix of anticipation and excitement that we arrived at the cruise.  It was, I can honestly say, well beyond my wildest dreams.  We had a ball, and if I have one regret, it's that I didn't have a time turner, so I could do EVERYTHING.  The cruise is so chock-full of events, it's hard to pick just one in a given time period.

For the most part, I attended as many of the interviews as I could squeeze in; but there was still time for films, and over the next few weeks, I'll intersperse our group watching with some comments on films that I viewed during the cruise.  We'll start with our day one film - On the Waterfront (1954).  Eva Marie Saint, a guest on the cruise, provided some comments, along with the always knowledgeable Robert Osborne.

Watching a film in a public venue is always a more magical experience; but it can also be a problematic one.  One "viewer" of the film, we are sure, attended ONLY so he could issue a loud "BOO" when Elia Kazan's name appeared on the screen.  I'm aware that Kazan notoriously "named names" during his examination by the HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee), and while I deeply regret his actions, I also know I wasn't there (I wasn't even born yet), so I have no idea how I would have responded to the pressure placed on Mr. Kazan in 1952.  Other people "named names" - Budd Schulberg, Sterling Hayden, and Lee J. Cobb for example; yet they are not vilified the way Kazan is (It could be said that there was no need to condemn Sterling Hayden - he condemned - and punished - himself for years because he was "a stoolie").  But Kazan has become the poster boy for those who need to find someone to blame for this shameful period in America.  That someone would try to ruin this great film by "showing off" his superiority was the only down note to the screening.

One scene that was discussed during the comment section was the "Glove scene" (which I've attached below).  Asked if the scene was scripted or improvised, Ms. Saint talked about the rehearsals between herself and Mr. Brando.  In one of their sessions, she dropped the glove, and Mr. Brando began to play with it, much as he does here.  When Mr. Kazan arrived to discuss the rehearsal process with them, they showed him this little improvised bit, and he said to include it in the filmed version.  


Another scene discussed by Ms. Saint and Mr. Osborne was this, perhaps the most famous one from the film.  The scene was supposed to have a back projection as the cab sped through the City, however, it couldn't be arranged, so instead, Venetian blinds were installed to shut off the back from view.  Like Mr. Osborne, I've been looking for a cab with Venetian blinds my whole life (and never found one).  This TCM article also discusses that scene. You can also see a clip from it below.

Before we go, a few factoids about On the Waterfront.  In 1954, it won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor (Brando), Actress (Saint),  Director (Kazan, who also won the Director's Guild Award), Screenplay (Schulberg), Cinematography (Boris Kaufmann), Black and White Art-Set Direction, and Editing).  Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, AND Rod Steiger ALL received nominations for Best Supporting Actor (the award went to Edmond O'Brien for The Barefoot Contessa), and Leonard Bernstein was nominated for his score (with the award going to Dimitri Tiomkin for The High and the Mighty).  The New York Times review called it "moviemaking of a rare and high order".  It was #19 on the AFI's list of Greatest Films of All Time,  and #3 on the "100 Years, 100 Quotes" list (for You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.")  On the 25 Greatest Scores List, it placed #22, #23 on the list of the 50 Greatest Heroes, and #36 on the "Most Inspiring Films" list. In 1989, it was one of the first 25 films to be added to the National Film Registry.  

If you've not seen On the Waterfront, you should, if only to see the birth of a new form of film acting.  You'll also see performances that still shine, even after over 60 years.

We'll be back soon with more from the Cruise, and more from our weekly discussions.