Professor Henry Todhunter (Thomas Mitchell) has been diagnosed by his friend, Dr. Lawrence Stevens (James Stephenson) with severe coronary disease; he has, at most, six months to live. University Dean Somers (Thurston Hall) forces Todhunter’s retirement; with nothing better to do, Professor Todhunter spends his days developing new theories. He hypothetically asks his colleagues what they would do if they had only six months to live. Professor Peterson (John Eldredge) has a disturbing idea - murder someone who the law cannot touch but deserves to die. Our film this week is Flight from Destiny (1941).
This is a nicely paced mystery story that will keep you guessing through the entire film. The cast is led by Thomas Mitchell, who is wonderful as the dying man. Mr. Mitchell keeps the character just teetering on the edge of sanity - when he proposes his theory that, as he is neither living nor dead, he has the authority to judge the right of another being to live, you wonder if he is sincere. Discovering he is indeed deadly serious (no pun intended), one is chilled to the bone.
Without going into too much detail, some of the plot focuses on an art forging racket. This is worth noting, as Thomas Mitchell was himself and art collector, who it is believed, was the victim of a forger. He reportedly purchased a forged Rembrandt, that is currently in the Fogg Museum at Harvard. (Hollywood’s Original Rat Pack: The Bards of Bundy Drive by Stephen C. Jordan)
First billing in the film is given to Geraldine Fitzgerald (Betty Farroway), but don't expect to see her very much. Her character is crucial to the film, setting Professor Todhunter on his mission of "justice," but Ms. Fitzgerald has little to do but look pained. It's a shame really; she's a talented actress and uses what screen time she has well.
Jeffrey Lynn (Michael Farroway) is also convincing in the part of the erring husband. Mr. Lynn doesn't often get roles that allow him to do much more than be handsome, but this one gives him a part he can sink his teeth in, and we were impressed with is performance.
On the other hand Mona Maris (Ketti Moret) left something to be desired in the part of the thief and seductress. Ms. Marris is a striking woman, but but doesn't have all that much allure. The character was supposed to use her charms to win over her victims; while we only see her briefly with Michael, we do see her with Professor Todhunter at some length. She is just too cold to be convincing as a woman whose primary gift is allegedly her sexual appeal. She does get to show off some remarkable dresses by designer Damon Giffard (who worked in Hollywood for only one year).
Mary Gordon as Professor Todhunter's housekeeper, Martha is worth comment. Though a small part, it's a good character that is well acted by Ms. Gordon. And, if you are a fan of Alexis Smith, she appears in a small role. That same year, she'd appear in Dive Bomber with Errol Flynn (TCM article).
Based on the 1937 novel Trial and Error by Anthony Berkeley Cox, it had two working titles: that of the book and Invitation to a Murder (AFI Catalog). It garnered a very positive review from Thomas M. Pryor in the New York Times, saying that "it was most fortunate that an actor of Mr. Mitchell's ability was selected to interpret [Professor Todhunter].
All in all, this is a little-viewed film that deserves some attention. Do try to find it.
Victoria Stafford (Ginger Rogers) has had three trips to the altar, all unsuccessful - she bolts the minute she is asked to say "I Do". She's about to take a fourth trip, this time to Oliver H.P. Harrington (Ron Randall). However, fearing another botched ceremony, his father (Thurston Hall) suggests a cooling off period before the vows are exchanged. After a month in her sculpting studio, far from her family and fiance, Vicki decides she will marry Oliver. But when she arrives in New York City, she finds an American Indian (Cornell Wilde) in her upper berth, saying It Had to be You (1947).
This is a remarkably silly movie, with few redeeming values; with a cast headed by Ginger Rogers and Cornell Wilde, one expects better. Unfortunately, the script is weak (and at this point in history, rather offensive), and the acting is overdone.
When Ginger Rogers did Tom, Dick, and Harry (1941), she presented the character with a high-pitched voice; she would do something similar when she appeared in The Major and the Minor (1942). The little-girl voice was perfect (albeit a tad over-young) for the allegedly 12-year old Susu Applegate. She does it again here, and all it accomplishes is to let us know Vicki is a moron. She shouldn't be - she's a talented sculptress with confidence in her abilities. Her inability to commit to a man, except to someone she met when she was 10 is odd. But Ms. Rogers makes her into a nincompoop, who vibrates through the picture with no apparent focus, leaving the audience with no focal point as well. Ms. Rogers allegedly liked the role (TCM article), though one wonders why.
Cornel Wilde is usually an enjoyable actor, but he is out of his element in this movie. When he plays the native-garbed George McKesson, he is goggled-eyed and ridiculous - if his eyes got any wider, they would pop out of their sockets. When enacting fireman Johnny Blaine, he is the exact opposite - almost flat in his portrayal of a man allegedly in love.
Spring Byington only gets to flutter helplessly as Vicki's mother Mrs. Stafford. The events whirl around her and she is incapable of understanding ANYTHING about her daughter. It's a real shame to waste her in this piece of nonsense.
If there is one thing that is extraordinary about the film, it is the costuming. Jean Louis designs four spectacularly gorgeous wedding gowns, as well as dresses and suits for Ms. Rogers that would make any woman proud to wear them.
In her book A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960, Jeannine Basinger comments on the wedding dresses as means of demonstrating Victoria's emotions prior to each of her weddings. Yet, in each marriage, she bolts. Ms. Bassinger believes that the film is "a case of the audience having it all. They get to ogle three gorgeous wedding gowns for the price of one. They get to see three wimpy grooms rejected. And Ginger Rogers is still intact for further plot development, free and easy and not saddled with a dreary marriage." For a film aimed at a female audience, the story may have been aimed at the many unhappily married women among them.
In April 1948, Lucille Ball and Cornell Wilde starred in a Screen Guild Theater radio version of the story (AFI Catalog). A January 1950 Screen Directors' Playhouse show starred Joan Fontaine (subbing for an ill Ginger Rogers).
Bosley Crowther's New York Times review was scathing - he said that even his 8 year old son didn't like it. Unfortunately, we are forced to agree with him. It's not the worst film ever made, but it is a Ginger Rogers low point. If you are a completest of Ms. Rogers work, or in the mood to see great costumes, then see it (but have a remote in hand to fast forward through some of the silliness).
Retired Colonel William Seaborn Effingham (Charles Coburn) has returned to his hometown of Fredericksville, Georgia. He approaches the local newspaper editor, Earl Hoats (Allyn Joslyn) and offers his services as a military commentary columnist. Seeing a possible increase in advertisements, Hoats agrees, only to find that the Colonel's idea of a "military" column is not the same as the publisher. The Colonel is intent on using the column to undermine the efforts of the local government to raze the courthouse, and line their own pockets with the proceeds. Thus begins Colonel Effingham's Raid (1946).
The idea that a small town is willing to get together (at the urging of the dynamic Colonel Effingham) to save their 200 year old courthouse is an interesting premise. In an age where what was old should be destroyed to make way for the new, it is refreshing to see a film that is concerned with not only preserving the older structure, but spending the time and the funds required to make it a useful structure again. As people who watched beautiful structures (like Penn Station in New York City) demolished to make way for the new and supposedly better, only to have the change decried AFTER it was too late, we were sympathetic to the efforts to preserve an elegant 18th Century building.
Charles Coburn is compelling as the assertive Colonel Effingham. A military man, used to having his orders obeyed, he sees no difference in his duties in civilian life. His interactions with Ninety Eight (Nicodemus Stewart), who is apparently the only man of color in this southern berg, show Effingham training his "Orderly" to be a soldier. There is a rather odd fencing scene (in which it is clear that neither man knows how to fence), but by in large, the relationship between the two characters is good. At one point, Monty Woolley was considered for Colonel Effingham (perhaps because of his appearance as Retired Colonel Smollett in Since You Went Away two years earlier). Georgia-born Coburn was a far better fit.
William Eythe (Albert Marbury) is attractive in a Tyrone Power-type sort of way. In fact, he spent much of his career assigned to roles that Mr. Power turned down (TCM article). However, unlike Mr. Power, he's not a particularly powerful actor, and his character is easily overshadowed by the more commanding Mr. Coburn. Mr. Eythe's film career was short-lived - a scandal sheet outed his relationship with Lon McCallister, and Mr. Eythe eventually returned to work on stage (he appeared in four Broadway plays) and on television. He was with his partner, Mr. McCallister, when he died of hepatitis in 1957 at the age of 38.
Totally wasted in a part that was originally intended for Alabama-born Mary Anderson (Maybelle Merriweather, and screen-tested actress for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind) (AFI Catalog), is Joan Bennett (Ella Sue Dozier). Smart and gorgeous, we found it rather horrifying that Albert only notices her when a gust of wind blows up her skirt slightly. We also found the wolf whistle that the director used (much like a laugh track) offensive. Once was bad enough, but the whistle is repeated several times. Ella Sue and Ms. Bennett deserves better.
The film demonstrates the abilities - to a greater or lesser degree - of some outstanding character actors: Elizabeth Patterson has a small amount of screen time as Emma, cousin to Effingham. Donald Meek and Thurston Hall make a nice pair of charlatans as Doc Buden and Mayor Edgar. And Allyn Joslyn as the shady newspaper editor is also well-served.
One interesting side note - the film, though released in 1946 is actually set in 1941, just before the American entrance into World War II. That Albert joins (to impress Ella Sue) the Georgia National Guard becomes an issue as the film ends - the National Guard is mobilized, with Albert saying he would have been drafted soon anyway.
Based on the 1943 novel of the same name by Berry Fleming (which was based on an actual attempt to raze the Richmond County Courthouse in Augusta, Georgia). The film got decent reviews - Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review called it "pleasantly amusing". Charles Coburn would reprise the role in 1949 on the Hallmark Playhouse radio show.
It's a cute movie - not great. It hasn’t aged very well - it is sexist and borders on racist. The main selling point of the story is Charles Coburn in a lead role - he is always fun to watch.
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.
