Ghosts on the Loose

Ghosts on the Loose, starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bela Lugosi, and Ava Gardner in her first credited role, is a fun and flippant way to start our month of scare-mare. There is nothing serious at all about this film. Not in the least. It is just some simple, ridiculous fun, and what is more ridiculous than hearing Leo Gorcey stumble over those big words and pretend to understand the notations on a music score? And Bela Lugosi (AKA Dracula) asking why he is always surrounded by idiots? Priceless. What about the East Side Kids getting "German measles" after a close call with that gang of Nazis? Corny. 


But hey, it's the first of the month. We want to ease into this fest - no point in scaring ourselves silly on the first day.  


Here's the trailer.

And the stars of the show dressed up in Octoberfest finery:

Bela Lugosi, immortalized by his performance as Dracula, here a Nazi.

Ava Gardner, here in a crystal ball.

Leo Gorcey, tough-talking leader of the East Side Kids.

Huntz Hall, Leo's simple-minded side-kick.

If you watched, be sure to comment on this post and let me know what you thought.


Coming up tomorrow:  Ministry of Fear...

The Princess and the Pirate

In a word, this movie is silly.  For me that translates into "potential masterpiece."  Growing up I never thought that anyone had grounds for calling me Silly Cilla.  Now I begin to wonder....


The Princess and the Pirate is wonderful in its silliness because it's very busy making fun of itself  for the duration of its running time.  It is also wonderful because it has made the best of cliché: cliché princess, cliché pirates, anything but cliché ending, however.  I promise the ending will take you off guard.  Let me know if you feel as indignant as I did!


The Basics:
The stars make this film.  It is chock full of people who never had the problem of taking themselves too seriously: Bob Hope, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan, Walter Slezak, Victor McLaglen, and a special surprise guest (I won't tell you who).  Filmed in Technicolor, released in 1944, directed by David Butler (Calamity Jane), with a run time of 94 minutes, and nominated for two Oscars in 1945, The Princess and the Pirate is a delightful way to lighten up any day!  


[It is also surprisingly cheap through Amazon, less than $4.00 here]


The Plot:
Sylvester the Great (Hope) is a traveling actor and quick change artist, wandering the high seas in search of places where they haven't heard of him yet (his reputation is not exactly stellar).  In the belly of the Mary Ann, the ship in which he travels, he rehearses his acts much to the annoyance and chagrin of the Princess Margaret (Mayo), traveling in an adjacent cabin.  


The Princess has run away from home to escape a royal marriage that she doesn't want.  She and Sylvester become acquainted when she bursts into his cabin to command him to stop shrieking, as he does when he "rehearses." Sylvester doesn't know that she is a princess, but the treacherous Captain Barrett, also known as The Hook (McLaglen), does know, and he means to kidnap her and use her ransom to add to his ponderous fortune.  Pirates attack the Mary Ann; Margaret and the other young women are taken and all others are killed, except for Sylvester, who has disguised himself as an old gypsy woman.  Aboard the pirate ship, Sylvester (still disguised as the Gypsy) is singled out for his ugliness and made to walk the plank.  But the old, toothless idiot named Featherhead (Brennan) begs to keep the "gypsy" as his own wench.  


The "idiot's" request is granted, and Sylvester is saved.  He and Margaret then escape the ship, with the help of Featherhead, who also gives them The Hook's treasure map.  They arrive in a cutthroat town in search of Featherhead's cousin, but find trouble in the Bucket O' Blood with the unconscionable Governor La Roche (Slezak).  


Margaret is kidnapped and taken to La Roche's castle, where Sylvester, a self-proclaimed coward, shows up to complain to the governor about the fat guy who took his girl.  So both Margaret and Sylvester are in captivity yet again, but it is not the last time they will see The Hook.  A whirlwind of chases, plottings, escapes, disguises, and twists ensues.  

Highlights:

• Because this is a Bob Hope film, the gags come a mile a minute, so you have to listen-up and pay attention to what he is saying.  There are probably a good thousand jokes packed into these 94 minutes.  
• Hope's physical comedy was also impeccable and it shines in this movie.  
• Virginia Mayo was a spunky actress, and I always like her in these flicks, where she gets to show personality.  Don't be fooled, though, that's not her voice you're hearing during her performance of "Kiss Me in the Moonlight."
• The supporting cast is really top-notch, especially Slezak and Brennan.   
• The scenes that take place in the Bucket O' Blood, the local tavern that as many patrons leave dead as alive, are side-stitching hilarious, especially when Sylvester has to sit down for "two short beers" on pain of his life.  It's even funnier when The Hook drops in for some refreshment.  

Conclusion:

This is a good movie, though little known.  It is probably little known because it is impossible to take seriously, but that's what we all need every now and then.   I hope you will check it out, and enjoy!

Be sure to comment below and let me know if you agree with my review!

The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator is one of my Grandmother's favorite movies.  It is also one of mine.  She loves the scene where Charlie Chaplin, as Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania, dances with a globe.  I like the scene where he gets into a foood fight with Napaloni, dictator of Bacteria, to whom he refers as  "de grosse peanut, de cheesy ravioli."  The whole film is really superb, and if you have not yet seen it, you should run, not walk, to nearest copy.  For some reason it is monstrously expensive on Amazon (unless you want it used) so I won't recommend that here, but you should be able to find it at your local library.  


The Background:
There was something in Chaplin's character that allowed him to see, before most other people, that Adolf Hitler really was evil and had all the worst intentions for the world.  It was before the United States had even entered the war that he undertook to make a very funny film - also very poignant - exposing and humiliating the Fuhrer.  Chaplin worked so meticulously (his perfectionism still holds the record for most takes of one scene, 324) that the film was not released until the world had begun to catch on to Hitler's act.  It notably features scenes depicting concentration camps and conversations between characters making a little light of them.  Chaplin expressed regret for them later, when the true horrors of the camps were revealed.  


The Basics:
Released in 1941, starring Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Billy Gilbert, and Paulette Goddard. Directed by Chaplin, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, though it won none of them.  Tagged as "The Comedy Masterpiece," the film runs 125 excellent minutes.  


The Plot:
World War I rages on, and a timid Jewish barber (Chaplin) does his bumbling best to fight the good fight for Tomania.  He's not very good at that, but he is good at helping people in need, so he ends up saving the life of a downed pilot (Gardiner).  In the process he suffers an injury which robs him of his short term memory and keeps him believing that he has only been away from his barber shop for a few weeks. He is ignorant of the changes that have occurred in the intervening time at home: the ghetto, the persecution, the camps.  When he escapes from the military hospital he returns to a cobwebbed shop that he can't understand, a lovely neighbor he doesn't recognize (Goddard), and a gang of storm troopers he doesn't know he should fear.  


His experiences in the ghetto are contrasted with the life, personality, and experiences of the Phooey (rather than Fuhrer), a sniveling little man who barks out orations in gibberish (he is also played by Chaplin). The Phooey is flanked by the flat-toned Garbitsch (played by Daniell, who always reminds me of the Six-Fingered Man in The Princess Bride) and the buffoonish Herring (Glibert): delightfully incapable henchmen.  


The barber quickly runs into trouble with the storm troopers, and they have him hanging from a lamp post when Commander Schultz, the airman he saved during the war, recognizes him and grants him immunity.  When Schultz is condemned by the Phooey and sent to a camp, however, all bets are off.  


The riotous comedy of the proceedings will have you roaring, and the poignant, serious moments will stop you in your tracks.  


Highs:
There are many, many, so I'll have to give you the highest of the highs.  

• Chaplin's performance of gibberish that sounds amazingly like German.  
• The Phooey's ballet with the balloon globe is classic. Watch below.
• The interaction between Hynkel and Napaloni, the Dictator of Bacteria.
• Chaplin's touching, sensitive, and entertaining portrayal of the barber.
• The performances of the supporting cast, particularly Oakie.

Lows:

There really aren't any lows in this film, other than what I mentioned before - that the portrayals of Jewish suffering were so far understated as to be insulting.  Of course, this is due the vast superiority of hindsight rather than the spirit in which the film was made.  If you are going to watch this with children, and I don't see why not, use it as an opportunity to talk with them about the Holocaust and the ignorance of the rest of the world to the true horrors that were occurring at the time.

Fun Facts:

• This is the first film in which Chaplin spoke - having made his stardom in the silent era.
• Paulette Goddard spoke in this film as well, though I think she should have stuck to silent films.   

Footsteps in the Dark

Apart from establishing that we should vary genres, I haven't established any rules regarding our movie choices.  When you have four crates of VHS tapes to choose from, it's not very hard to make a decision.  My husband, who has seen a scarce few of these films, pulls out a tape.  "Footsteps in the Dark?"  "Oh, that's a good one.  That has... ah..." I take the tape out of its sleeve.  "Yeah, that has Errol Flynn in it.  I was going to say that but it sounded ridiculous.  Oh, Kisses for Breakfast and Whistling in Dixie, too." (Most tapes have three or four movies on them.)  "That's a really good one."

Footsteps is the first one on the tape, so Footsteps it is.  And the remarkable thing (that had me confused) is that this isn't a swashbuckling adventure, no frigates or sword fights here.  That kind of thing is what we expect from Errol Flynn, and it is what he is most famous for.  Rather, Footsteps in the Dark is one of those mystery/comedies that were so popular in the 30s and early 40s.  The most memorable among those were the Thin Man series, of course.  No film of the kind ever stood up to the sheer radiance that William Powell and Myrna Loy produced in those movies.  But we'll get to them later.  And while Errol Flynn's Francis Warren is no Nick Charles, Footsteps has, like a fingerprint, a charm particular to itself.

The Basics:
Released in March of 1941, Footsteps featured a cast of familiars directed by Lloyd Bacon, if you can believe the name.  Brenda Marshall, only featured in 19 films (some of which were Flynn vehicles), is Warren's wife, Rita.  Alan Hale and William Frawley gallivant as misguided policemen, Ralph Bellamy is a soft-spoken dentist, Lee Patrick is an untalented burlesque dancer, and Roscoe Karns, Allen Jenkins, Lucille Watson, and Grant Mitchell (unfamiliar names with familiar faces) round up the cast of characters quite nicely.  The film runs a short 96 minutes long.

The Plot:
[As it turns out, I remembered almost nothing about the movie correctly.  That makes one feel a little foolish when one has began by saying, "Oh, that's a good one."]

Society gent Francis Warren (Flynn) leads a double life.  Holding down a reputable, boring life as the financial manager of the best portfolios in town by day, Warren entertains his whims by night as F.X. Pettijohn, the amateur sleuth who pesters the police and writes shockingly skewering novels about the high society ladies' clubs to which his wife belongs.  This isn't giving away too much, mind you; the picture opens with Warren entering his own home through via the upstairs bedroom window at 3 o'clock in the morning (this does not wake his wife).

When a jewel smuggler who has knowledge of this double life attempts to blackmail Warren into laundering money and then turns up dead, Warren is drawn into a murder mystery so dramatic it outclasses his penmanship.  The police, as they were often portrayed in film at this time, are inept and stupid, though comically so thanks to Frawley (you may recognize him from I Love Lucy).  Warren and his chauffeur relieve the police of their responsibility and save the day on their own, and Warren almost ends up in divorce court because of it.

Pros and Cons (not Con men):
Pros

• Flynn, a smooth operator as always, is pleasant to watch as he juggles two complicated lives.
• Frawley is enjoyable as the tough-talking, pudding-brained cop.
• There funny moments throughout, many coming from unexpectedly amusing dialogue.
• The film was shot in black and white, which always adds richness to any type of murder mystery caper.

Cons

• The police may have been a little too stupid this time around. (This gets frustrating at the end.)
• Warren poses as a Texan to gain the affection of the burlesque dancer, Blondie White, pursuant to solving the case.  Now, this in itself is not necessarily a con, but is a gag that was done to much better effect in several other films, notably Pillow Talk and The Awful Truth.  Depending on your mood, Flynn's version of The Texan could try your patience.  If you are a Texan you might be offended.
• I got confused sometimes.  Granted, that is bound to happen every now and then.  
• Blondie White frightened me a bit.  I don't know if it's Lee Patrick's fault or the character's.  This could be a pro if you are prepared to laugh about it, and I suppose you would understand the sense in which I use the word "frightened" if you checked it out. 

As I mentioned, many of these cons could turn out to be pros for you depending on how you approach the viewing experience.  If your sense of humor has a hankering for the ridiculous, this could be your summer runaway sensation!

Conclusion:
That said, your viewing experience could be totally different from mine.  I think this film is fun and worth the watch.  Like I said above, it does have a charm of its own, which may be due to seeing Flynn do something a little different.  If you've got the time, why not give it the old college try?

Note: I don't have a clip to share with you this time because YouTube doesn't have anything in the way of "Footsteps in the Dark" that comes without electric guitars. Electric guitars are cool, but they're just not relevant right now.

Lullaby of Broadway

I know of no better way to start out on this adventure than with a Doris Day film, and this is one of her most delightful.  So let's get one thing straight right away: I am a Doris Day fan.  I love Doris Day.  She is my favorite.  My absolute favorite.  If you hang with me through my future posts, I guarantee that you will see this enthusiasm coming through on a regular basis.

For our honeymoon my husband and I traveled to Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, where Doris Day resides with her beloved pets.  We lodged in the Cypress Inn, co-owned by Doris and home to a good deal of memorabilia from her days in Hollywood.

It was a beautiful time in a beautiful place, and when you've grown up admiring Doris Day, there's no better place to be.

And if you're not familiar with America's Sweetheart, Lullaby of Broadway is a good place to jump in.

Made in 1951, Lullaby was a Warner Brothers Technicolor spectacular, and a beautiful one at that.  Starring Gene Nelson alongside Doris Day, with S.Z. Sakall, Billy De Wolfe, Gladys George, and Florence Bates, this film is like a ride on a cloud. It's just that smooth, fluffy, and relaxing.

The Plot:
Silly and oh so fun.  Melinda Howard (Day) is a small-time theatrical performer who has been living overseas.  She is returning to the States to see her mother, Jessica Howard (George), when she meets dancing star Tom Farnham (Nelson) on the boat.  Melinda believes that her mother is a successful Broadway star, the toast-of-the-town, like she was in the old days.  She is unaware that Jessica has fallen onto bad times, hit the bottle, and is now performing at third-rate joints in-between drinks.  This is because Jessica has falsified her correspondence to Melinda, using the address of the finest house in town as her mailing address  because she is in cahoots with the down-and-out acting pair Lefty and Gloria (De Wolfe and Triola) who work there as the butler and maid.  Melinda arrives at the home expecting to be welcomed with open arms by her mother.  Lefty and Gloria hide her in the servant quarters, where she takes up residence unbeknownst to the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Hubbell (Sakall and Bates).  When Melinda and Adolph collide late that night as Melinda explores the house, Mr. Hubbell is brought into Lefty's confidence and mixed up in the scheme of trying to hide from Melinda her mother's condition and hide Melinda from Mrs. Hubbell.

What follows is zany, if predictable, with Melinda breaking out into show business and landing the leading role in a musical opposite Tom Farnham, with whom she has fallen in love.  Mixed up in the action are allegations of an affair between Melinda and Mr. Hubbell, the comical antics of Lefty and Gloria, and a sweet reunion between Melinda and her mother.  

Highlights:
Two words: music and dancing.  Doris is dancing straight out of the gate, with a top hat and tails version of "Just One of Those Things."  From there the songs keep coming and don't stop 'till end credits:

• "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me"
• "Somebody Loves Me"
• "I Love the Way You Say Goodnight"
• "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"
• "In a Shanty in Old Shanty Town"
• "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart"
• "You're Dependable"
• "We'd Like to Go on a Trip"
• and of course, "Lullaby of Broadway"

But the dancing is really what sets this film apart.  It is one of the few in which Doris got to exhibit her truly, especially fantastic dancing talent.  For a sample, try this clip of her twitching toes with the enormously skilled Gene Nelson.  The dancing is out of this world.  And those are some great voices, too!


Another huge plus is the supporting cast.  Sakall added a gloriously delightful kick to everything he appeared in, and his mannerisms will have you laughing as he seeks refuge from his battleax wife, the ever-reliable Florence Bates.  Billy De Wolfe also puts in another great performance as a scheming shirker and wins favor through his tender care of Jessica throughout her time of trouble.  Anne Triola is fun as Gloria as well.


Conclusion:
"Such a great movie," my husband said.  He doesn't know he's being quoted, so I'll tell you what else he said.  "I haven't seen a Doris Day movie I didn't like. Or a Cuddles [Sakall] movie."  Check this one out and you'll quickly understand why.  


Enjoy!