Sailor Alex Winkler (Bill Williams) finds a large sum of money in his pocket. He tells dance-hall hostess June Goffe (Susan Hayward) that he must have taken it from Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane)after she got him drunk. They return to her apartment to return the money, and find her dead. June agrees to help Alex locate the murderer before Alex's Deadline at Dawn (1946). At first glance, this appears to be another "we only have six hours to find the murderer movie," but the plot has more twists and turns than a pretzel, making it an interesting ride. It gets a bit long-winded at times - there is perhaps a twist too many and the ending seems to come from nowhere, but this is an enjoyable picture that will keep you watching. Susan Hayward creates an interesting character in June. She's just on the border of jaded - tough, but still possessing enough faith in humanity that she is willing to come to the aid of this naive sailor. June hovers on the edge of acceptance - she wants to believe in Alex, but her experiences in the Big City have left her cynical. The audience spends the movie waiting for her to abandon Alex and is relieved when she doesn't. Ms. Hayward is a good choice for the part — her strength makes it acceptable as June takes on the more traditionally masculine role, while Williams is the "damsel" in distress. The film marks Ms. Hayward's return to the screen after giving birth to twin boys (AFI catalog).
Though Alex, as played by Bill Williams, is likeable, he can also seem dull and repetitive. Thankfully, as the film progresses, he becomes less childlike and more responsible. Mr. Williams is able to grow Alex - the film open with him recovering from the mickey that Edna gave him. As the movie goes on, we are aware that Alex's head is clearing, and while he is still a babe in the woods compared to June, he's far more intelligent than the early scenes led us to believe. Mr. Williams, who married Barbara Hale the year this film was released, maintained a friendship with Susan Hayward after the film - which apparently was not an easy task for a woman as guarded as she was (TCM article).
Paul Lukas (Gus Hoffman) rounds out the stars of the film as a cab driver who befriends the pair. Mr. Lukas makes Gus a cypher - why he would want to help the couple is mysterious, but, like June, he appears to believe sincerely in Alex's innocence and goes to drastic lengths to clear him of a potential murder charge. Gus gets the opportunity to orate on the more philosophical elements of the film that were inserted into the script by Clifford Odets.
There are a number of outstanding character performances, headed by Lola Lane as the thieving Edna. The opening sequence of the film (you can watch it below), shows a deep close up of her face, with a fly dancing around her - is she dead, you wonder. Her appearance in the film is brief, but pivotal. Ms. Lane is always a pleasure and sadly often under-utilized - she never got the screen time offered to sister Priscilla.
Marvin Miller (Sleepy Parsons), who would later gain fame as Michael Anthony in the TV show The Millionaire, is excellent as Edna's compatriot, a blind pianist. Osa Massen (Helen Robinson) is also convincing as a woman who is somehow tied into the crime. Jerome Cowan (Lester Brady) has a brief appearance as another suspect. The one character we could have done without was the creepy Edward Honig (played by Steven Geray). He was a bit too icky as a dance hall patron pursuing June, and didn’t seem relevant to the story.
The story was reprized by the Lux Radio Theatre in May 1946 with Mr. Lukas, Mr. Williams and Joan Blondell in the lead roles. The movie received a lukewarm review by Bosley Crowther in the New York Times.
And while we agreed with the Times that the ending came out of nowhere, a lot of things that throughout the film made no sense do coalesce. We will mention that that a couple of us needed to rewatch the ending to grasp all that was going on.
If not everything makes sense in the film, one can
assume, like Eddie Muller says in his introduction to the film, that it is "a dream." We'll leave you with that opening scene, which starts the twisty road.
I Found Stella Parish (1935) is the story of an actress, Stella Parish (Kay Francis) who is making her London stage debut. Her producer, Stephen Norman (Paul Lukas), eagerly anticipates her opening. He believes her performance will garner stellar reviews. He has also fallen in love with her and wants her to marry him. But Stella, who keeps a small London apartment, rarely ventures from her home for anything but work. She has a secret life - living in the country are her mother (Jessie Ralph as Nana) and her small daughter, Gloria (Sybil Jason), both of whom she carefully shields from the public eye. Stella has good reason to fear - she has a secret past, which catches up to her on her opening night. In terror, she snatches up her little family and runs, pursued, unbeknownst to her, by reporter Keith Lockridge (Ian Hunter). We were fortunate enough to see this with some commentary by Robert Osborne, who talked about Kay Francis as the star of melodramas that sometimes leave you with questions, but questions for which you don't really care about getting answers. So, while the plot doesn't ALWAYS make sense (for example, who IS the man who threatens Stella, and why do we never see him again), we really didn't care. The fun in this movie is just going with it and not worrying about the slight vagaries of plot. According to this TCM article, most of the reviews for this film were favorable (and the film made a quite hefty profit), though the New York Times reviewer Frank S. Nugent, no Kay Francis fan, was not impressed. He seems to find her lisp distracting (he comments that she could not be a success on the London stage with her lisp. I have two words for him. Claude Rains).
In the relatively small part of Stephen, Paul Lukas shines. Warren William was supposed to play Stephen (he had been considered for Lockridge, but was moved into the smaller role.) William was not pleased to be given such a minuscule part, so the studio let him out of it. Lukas appears only in the beginning and the end of the film, and is in the rather thankless position of a man in love with a woman who does not reciprocate (and who ultimately falls in love with someone else). Lukas plays his part with subtlety, and gains the affection of the audience by his generosity of spirit. He had already appeared with Kay Francis in three other films: Illusion (1929), Behind the Make-Up (1930), and The Vice Squad (1931). This would be their last one together. Probably his most notable role was in Watch on the Rhine (1943), as Kurt Muller, an anti-Nazi agent for which he won the Best Actor Oscar. He had segued into television by 1949, and continued working in both film, television and on Broadway until 1970. He died in 1971 at the age of 80.
Sybil Jason is quite adorable as little Gloria. We were very impressed with her scenes with Ian Hunter - he seems especially engaged when he is interacting with her, and those moments appear unforced and even spontaneous. Sybil Jason was born in South Africa in 1927, and had a very short career. Her first part was an uncredited appearance in 1934; her last was in 1940. She starred opposite Ms. Francis twice (our film, and Comet Over Broadway (1938), which also starred Ian Hunter). Her final two film appearance teamed her with Shirley Temple - The Blue Bird (1940) and the film that is probably her most famous one The Little Princess (1939) in which she played the scullery maid, Becky. Basically retired at 13, she would eventually marry (a marriage that lasted for 58 years) and have a child. Though she believed that Shirley Temple's mother requested most her of best scenes be excised from The Blue Bird, Ms. Jason and Ms. Temple-Black remained lifelong friends. Ms. Jason died in 2011 at age 83.
Several scenes in the film were quite interesting. In one, Lockridge meets Stella, who has disguised herself as an older woman. He takes her hand, and his eyes betray to the audience that he has notice her hand is not that of an old lady. Another is a scene in which reporters harass Stella for more information about her illicit past. That one in particular was quite reminiscent of the paparazzi of today. Ms. Francis again gets a wonderful array of lovely dresses designed by Orry-Kelly. I was particularly impressed with a Greek-key designed dress she wears onstage, as well as some amazing hats! We'll close with a trailer from the film. We highly recommend it!
Today we consider another Constance Bennett precode - Rockabye (1932). In it, Ms. Bennett is Judy Carroll, an actress who has become embroiled in a scandal. Her former lover, politician Al Howard (Walter Pidgeon) has been accused of being an embezzler. Judy testifies for him at his trial, but this creates huge problems for her, as she is adopting a child. As a result of the publicity, her adoption is revoked, and the baby, Lilybet (June Filmer) is taken from her. To help her recover, her manager Tony de Sola (played by Paul Lukas) sends her to Europe for a rest. When she returns, she comes back with a new play - and an interest in the playwright (Joel McCrea playing Jacobs Van Riker Pell). Our conversation went off in a number of directions. First, we again we dazzled by the spectacular costuming. No costumer was listed, but our hats are definitely off him or her. Ms Bennett never looked better. We also had a discussion about several of the characters. We wondered if we should assume that Lilybet is actually Judy's real daughter? We compared this to such films as To Each His Own, which we discussed some time ago. Probably not, the child is too
old since this little girl is nearly two, and her affair with Al ended the year before. We thought that Judy would have been more careful about where she placed the child
(so she could more easily adopt it) - probably giving the child directly to friends, rather than to an agency. The little girl who played Lilybet, June Filmer, was just delightful. She seems to have had a sister (Joy) who also made a few movies. Little June only made three movies, in 1932 and
1933.
Of course, we've discussed Joel McCrea before (and not always favorably - we like him as an actor, but some of his characters have been rather unpleasant). Jake, however, is a good guy. He is honest about his marriage, and is a responsible and loving man. He takes his responsibilities seriously, and, as a result, finds that his life will become one of pain. The commentary by Robert Osborne on the film also enhanced our experience. Mr. Osborne's mentioned that Constance Bennett was attracted to Joel McCrea, but he didn't want to be Mr. Constance Bennett. He married Frances Dee the following year, and they remained married until his death in 1990. He's an impressive actor, with a varied career: for example, he was the original Dr. Kildare (Internes Can't Take Money from 1937). Interestingly, he would never play a member of the military (see Robert Osborne's fascinating piece on him), because he himself was unable to serve during the war. We also enjoyed the performance of Paul Lukas, Judy's manager, and perhaps the man in the movie who loves her best. Without giving away the ending, we wished him his own happy ending. Here's a clip with Bennett and McCrea:
