A Favorite Film: CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA (1936) starring Warner Oland and Boris Karloff

In my probably biased opinion, there are maybe four or five really terrific Charlie Chan movies - this is one of them. I am a big fan of Charlie's, so if one of the early movies is on, I'm likely to watch it regardless. Though I like Warner Oland as Chan, better than Sidney Toler, I admit that Toler grew on me and did go on to make several favorites. But once Mantan Moreland got involved in the films and the budgets went down to zero, I stopped watching. There's a nice envelope of time - 1930's - mid 40's, when the films were still reasonably good. Most especially if you didn't care if the plots made any sense. Because, honestly, the scriptwriters/film-makers apparently didn't care either. If you break down the nuts and bolts of the mysteries, you get to the end and go, huh? But, so what. Logic is not why anyone watches Charlie Chan movies - at least I don't think so.

CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OPERA takes place in NYC, always a good town for a mystery involving an escaped maniac - or so Boris Karloff is referred to in the film. Karloff plays Gravelle (he only has one name), a former opera star who, since a horrific backstage fire, has suffered from amnesia and general looniness. He has been, as the film begins, a resident in an asylum, watched over by not-very-smart guards. The film has an absolutely perfect beginning on a rainy, windswept night at the loony bin with Gravelle sitting at the piano singing away in an agitated baritone voice. (Dubbed, I'm sure.)

When the guard brings in a newspaper, Gravelle spots a headline featuring a woman's name - that of soprano Lily Rochelle who is returning to star in the opera CARNIVAL. (It was the opera in which Gravelle had also starred years before.) Lily's name sparks Gravelle's memory, he assaults the guard and escapes from the asylum. The hunt is then on (with moody music to match) for what the newspapers colorfully refer to as 'the escaped maniac'.

In the meantime, Lily Rochelle, played with exaggerated (and charmless) diva mannerisms by Margaret Irving, goes to the police (Inspector Regan played by Guy Usher), escorted by her current paramour, tenor Enrico Borelli (played by Gregory Gaye). She's received some threatening letters and wants police protection. The cops haven't yet linked Gravelle to Lily.


In Inspector Regan's office at that moment is Charlie Chan who has dropped in to say goodbye, on his way home to Honolulu after solving a race track mystery which had baffled the cops. He is sailing later that evening.

Chan makes some astute deductions which makes Regan think that the threats to Lily Rochelle come from the escaped lunatic everyone's been searching for. He orders the opera house surrounded by cops for the opening night's performance, (This is in the old days when the cops had enough manpower to do this sort of thing, I suppose.)

When Gravelle makes his presence known at the Opera House, he scares the mezzo soprano, Lucretia Borelli (wife of the philandering tenor - who recognizes Gravelle) into cooperating with him and not letting on she knows he's hiding somewhere in the opera house. Singing the part of Mephistopheles in the opera, CARNIVAL, that night, is Enrico Borelli.His wife Lucretia knows he's been cheating on her with Lily Rochelle, as does Rochelle's husband - so there's all sorts of backstage jealousy and intrigue going on before the curtain rises.

In the meantime, the cops - including Charlie Chan - arrive at the opera and are soon made aware by a frightened seamstress that Gravelle is in the house, lurking about backstage. When Borelli finishes getting into costume (in a ridiculous Mephistopelian outfit with glitter and a mask), he is assaulted in his dressing room by Gravelle who pops in from a ceiling trapdoor. Gravelle then assumes the costume and goes forth to sing the role before anyone is the wiser.

In the first act scene, however, Mephistopheles is supposed to stab Lily (who is a little old to be playing an innocent village maiden, but what the heck) and the cops are uneasy as they watch the scene develop. Lily, herself, is aware that something is wrong since the man singing Mephistopheles doesn't sound so much like Borelli, but like the man who was once her husband and fellow opera star - a man who supposedly died in a fire. Lily is so frightened that as the act finishes, she faints and must be carried to her dressing room. Gravelle escapes from the cops who chase him backstage.

When both Borelli AND Lily Rochelle are killed - stabbed to death. The obvious culprit is the handy escaped maniac.

Oh, meant to mention, in the middle of all this, there's a young couple wandering around backstage looking for Lily and we're not supposed to know why. Turns out the young woman is Lily's unacknowledged daughter trying to get her mother's permission to marry. (One of the main reasons why the events in the script make no sense is because of this girl's supposed age coupled with the year that the fatal fire took place. Also, why would the soprano be killed off in the first act of the opera? But maybe I pay too much attention to details.)

So, Charlie Chan - with the help of his number one son, played by the wonderful Keye Luke - must solve the mystery in time to board their boat back home late that night. How he does it is to stage the first act of the opera once again with all suspects involved. So we get to hear the catchy aria that Mephistopheles sings to Lily yet again - Lily played this time by the mezzo soprano, wife of the dead Borelli.

I can't count how many times I've seen this film and yet I still enjoy watching the whole preposterous thing whenever I get a chance. It is just a great deal of fun. Maybe because it's so familiar, but I think it has to do with the whole backstage-at-the-theater thing and watching Boris Karloff play an opera singer. Also Charlie Chan has never been better. Will he and number one son make it back to Honolulu on schedule? What do you think?

One further note: CARNIVAL, far as I know. is not based on an 'actual' opera except that in the end credits you see the name of Oscar Levant listed as composer for the opera used in the film. Levant is known to us from all those MGM musicals where he generally added his sour-faced, off-key voice and personality playing side-kick to Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire but who, in reality, was actually a brilliant pianist and composer. I've always wondered too if the opera CARNIVAL by Oscar Levant, was ever finished and if so, what it sounds like.

I thought I'd add this link to my own review of: CHARLIE CHAN The Untold Story of The Honorable Detective and His Rendevouz with American History by Yunte Huang. This is a terrific non-fiction book by a Chinese American Professor which gives the background and explains the era, the when and where of the Chan character and how he was formed and based on a real Hawaiian detective. If you're interested at all in how Charlie Chan came to be and the society from which his creation sprang - then this is the book for you.

A Favorite Film: MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949) starring Terry Moore, Robert Armstrong and Ben Johnson

Okay, no laughing. Confession: MIGHTY JOE YOUNG is one of my all time favorite films EVER! I love it to pieces. Not only because it has the happy ending that KING KONG lacked (and boy I can NEVER watch the ending of KING KONG. I'll watch the film halfway through and once they get Kong on the ship, I stop the film.), but because it has a charm to it that I absolutely love. It may have something to do with Joe's facial expressions which are absolutely perfect as he tries to comprehend what it is that's wanted from him.

The film also stars the same dude from KING KONG, Robert Armstrong - someone I happen to have developed a crush on once upon a time. (Call me crazy - I know...) This is such a fun film that you don't even mind that Terry Moore - the worst actress ever to come out of Hollywood - plays the ingenue, Jill Young, and Ben Johnson, a guy who later went on to win an Oscar, but who, in this film, doesn't seem to know what to do in front of a camera. None of this matters. It's Mr. Joseph Young's film. Or at least, the wonderful giant gorilla (in stop-motion photography)created by the genius of Ray Harryhausen and Fitch Fulton and a whole staff of movie-magic makers. The film is directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and written by Merrian C. Cooper who also helped write and create KING KONG - uncredited.

Robert Armstrong plays Max O'Hara, brash Hollywood impresario (he practically invented the role) on the look-out for a hot new act for his new nightclub. He decides on an African jungle theme and so off to Africa with a bunch of cowboys he goes. The cowboys are to lasso lions and bring 'em back alive to showcase at the club.

In the meantime, we know, because of the film's charming little prologue, that there's a young girl in Africa with a pet gorilla. We're shown how she traded her father's flashlight for the animal when she was a little girl. We assume the gorilla and the girl are all grown up by the time Max O'Hara and his cowboys head for the dark continent.

Sure enough, once the band of Broadway types and the accommodating cowboys - head honcho played by Ben Johnson (a real life cowboy) - show up in the vicinity of the young girl's (now played by Terry Moore) farm, they meet Joe Young in some delightful scenes in which Joe gets the better of the cowboys and their horses and scares the bejesus out of Max O'Hara. When Terry Moore's character, Jill, shows up and makes Joe put down the cowboy he'd been holding over his head, Max instantly sees star potential in the making.

Using his considerable wiles, he convinces Jill (despite her misgivings) to bring Joe to America and star in his nightclub act. It doesn't hurt that Jill likes the soft-spoken Gregg (Ben Johnson) and that she's led a lonely life since her dad's death. She's also rather naive and putty in the hands of a smart operator like Max who convinces her that it's all going to be some grand extravagant adventure.
Okay, so they arrive back in Hollywood and it's full speed ahead to get the nightclub ready and Joe's act together. Unfortunately, Joe has to be kept in a jail-like enclosure in the basement of the club - something Jill didn't foresee. She begins to have qualms almost before the show begins. The existence of Joe and who or what he might be is being kept a major secret to pump up the publicity for the club's opening night.

Once the club opens, Mr. Joseph Young from Africa is a HUGE hit in more ways than one. The club is full every night and Max couldn't be happier. But as time goes by, the audience begins to expect more and more, the acts get riskier and the potential for drunks to make mischief can't be completely kept under control. After all it's a night club - liquor is their chief commodity.

One night, while Terry Moore is dishing misery and misgivings with Ben Johnson at a Chinese restaurant - she wants to break the contract and take Joe back to Africa where he belongs - three drunks sneak down into the basement where Joe is sitting in his jail cell sunk in his own misery. One by one they give Joe their bottles of liquor and laugh when Joe appears to get drunk. When one of the men burns Joe's hand when he tries to take the remaining liquor, Joe becomes incensed. And who can blame him? Joe breaks through the iron bars and makes his way up the stairs to the main nightclub floor. Enough is enough.

The destruction of the large nightclub's jungle interior (including the very clever orchestra perch and the lions behind their own glass enclosures) are some of the best scenes in the film. This is Joe on a rampage which had been building since he was brought out of his element and forced to perform nightly, uncomprehending, for an increasingly unappreciative audience full of drunks and loudmouths. No wonder Jill is disillusioned. When she and Gregg hear the police cars outside, they run back to the club and manage to get Joe under control.

When Joe is ordered shot by the court after he is judged to be a danger to the public, Max O'Hara, admitting it's all his fault - hatches a plan to help Joe escape. Next comes my favorite scenes in the film as Jill and Gregg must get Joe out of the basement while the cops with rifles are at the front door of the now closed club, trying to get in and carry out the court order. Somehow, with Max's help, Jill and Gregg manage to trick everyone, and off they go into the night with a giant gorilla in the back of a truck.

The next few hours are spent in a mad chase, eluding the cops, stealing another truck, then detouring off onto a country road where, are you ready? - they come upon an orphanage on fire. Okay, you guessed it. In a harrowing sequence, Joe saves a bunch of orphans from the flames and is himself hurt as a huge tree falls on him.

In the end, Joe is spared - after all, he's a hero then - and sent back to Africa to live out his life with Jill and Gregg on the farm. The last shot of Joe waving at the camera ALWAYS makes me cry. Don't ask. As I said before, I love this film. I can't help it that it's corny and sentimental, I love it.

A Favorite Movie: SO LONG AT THE FAIR (1950) starring Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde

I admit I haven't seen this film in years - since it's not shown much and is not available on Netflix. (It's funny how so few Jean Simmons films ARE available.) But I have wonderful memories of SO LONG AT THE FAIR. It was one of the first films I ever saw on our brand new Admiral television way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Million Dollar Movie - anyone remember that? On local NYC Channel 11.

Then, of course, whenever it came on afterwards, I made sure to see it again and again. It's one of my all time favorite movies. But why am I talking about it when it's so hard to find? Well, it does occasionally show up on Turner Classic Movies and I think it will do so this June, if I'm not mistaken. (June 14th - 9:45 p.m.) So check the TCM website to make sure and note the date on your calendars if I intrigue you enough with this review. It's SUCH a wonderful film.

Jean Simmons was a young, incomparable beauty when she made this, one of her first films, starring opposite the equally young and incomparable Dirk Bogarde. The film takes place during the 1889 French Exposition (Fair) as tourists from all over descended on Paris. Simmons plays Vicky Barton, an Englishwoman just arrived in Paris to see the sights with her brother Johnny. That same night she and Johnny go out to dinner and to the Moulin Rouge, he is tired but game.

Later, while her brother stays at the hotel bar for a drink, Vicky calls it a night and goes up to her room. When English painter George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde) drops off his friend Honor Blackman (young and beautiful, but already possessed of a knowing sophistication that Simmons did not) and her mother at the hotel, he happens to ask Johnny for change of a 100 franc note. Johnny doesn't have exact change but lends him the money for the cab fair and gives George his name and room number so he can repay the loan the next day.

In the morning when Vicky wakes up and goes next door to see her brother, his door is gone, the wall is papered and the next door over is a broom closet - if I'm remembering correctly. From that moment on, Vicky's life becomes a nightmare. No one she talks to in the hotel will admit having seen her brother. The hotel manager Madame Herve (an implacable Cathleen Nesbitt) insists that Vicky checked in by herself - there was no one with her. The day porter backs up her story.

When Vicky remembers that the hotel maid helped both she and her brother, she waits to talk to her but to no avail - the maid is killed in a ballooning accident at the Fairgrounds. Vicky goes to the police, but they are of no help since the hotel is crowded and no one will admit having noticed Johnny. Since her brother held the money, Vicky is told she must leave the hotel when their two-day reservation expires. Madame Herve gives her a ticket home to England as a 'kindly' gesture.

In the meantime, George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde) has asked his friend Rhoda (Honor Blackman) who is staying at the hotel to deliver an envelope. She slips it under Vicky's door not being able to find Johnny's room number. When Vicky sees the envelope with George's name and address on it, she goes to see him.

When George admits having actually seen and spoken to Johnny, Vicky bursts into tears of relief. From then on, once she explains the situation, George is on board to help try and find out what's happened to her brother. After all, who can resist a beautiful damsel in such obvious distress? The film is a suspenseful mystery, but also a gentle romance as Vicky and George work together to find out the truth. The story is told in a very straight forward narrative style which I like. It stays with the points of view of Vicky and George (except for one ominously ringing hotel bell) and doesn't wander all over the place trying to 'broaden' things. Though the surprising denouement does have 'broad' implications, the story is really rather a simple one. It is a purely wonderful movie of the kind that they, unfortunately, don't make anymore. God only knows what they'd do to this if they were to re-make it today.

A Favorite Film: THE COURT JESTER (1955) starring Danny Kaye and Glynis Johns

It's time for another dose of the inimitable Danny Kaye. I've already talked about Walter Mitty and now it's THE COURT JESTER'S turn. What a delightful movie. What a funny movie. What a terrific cast! Listen to this: Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury, Mildred Natwick, Cecil Parker and John Carradine!

Remember this? ...the vessel with the pestle is the brew that is true...! I smile just thinking about the hilarious scene in which Mildred Natwick playing Griselda, a kind of witch, tries to explain to Danny Kaye playing Hubert Hawkins (mistaken for an assassin), which of the cups at the banquet holds the poison. It's all in rhyme and Hawkins is as confused as we are. Danny Kaye is a joy to watch in this as well as the other scenes in which he must assume the guise of a super confident, suave and practised assassin. SO funny. (As I've said a million times before: nobody does 'suave' like Danny Kaye.)

Back to the beginning: Hubert Hawkins is a carnival performer with a travelling band of acrobats and jugglers who are really part of a group of revolutionaries (of the Robin Hood variety) hanging out in the forest. They are led by a stalwart type known as The Black Arrow. Their aim is to overthrow the corrupt King Roderick I (Cecil Parker), by putting the rightful king - who happens to be an infant - on the throne.

To that end, Hawkins travels - disguised as Giacomo, a Court Jester (King of Jesters and Jester of Kings) - to the King's castle with Maid Jean (Glynis Johns), on an errand to pick up the baby (with the mark of the Purple Pimpernel) who is being hidden by loyalists within the castle's walls. On the short trip, Jean and Hawkins grow closer, though she is leery of his bumbling. Of course, this being a Danny Kaye film, nothing goes right in this great script written by the fabulous Norman Panama and Melvin Frank who also directed. The tongue-trippingly, saucy songs are once again written by Danny Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine, and once again they require the dexterity of a genius to perform. Luckily, Kaye is one.

Once Hawkins and Maid Jean make their way by wagon into the grounds of the castle, Hawkins is mistaken not only for the Court Jester who is to perform at the night's banquet but also for a hired assassin in the employ of Sir Ravenhurst (Basil Rathbone). The assassin's job is to kill three knights who stand in the way of Rathbone's plans.

The plot is further complicated when the Princess Gwendolyn (the King's daughter, played by Angela Lansbury) falls for Hawkins almost immediately despite the fact that she is already betrothed to the odious Sir Griswold (Robert Middleton). In the meantime, her maid Griselda (Mildred Natwick) who is also a part time witch and hypnotist, overhears Ravenhurst and his two cohorts John Carradine and Michael Pate conspiring to use the Court Jester/Assassin to further their ends. Griselda then hypnotizes Hawkins into believing he is the assassin once she snaps her fingers. Unfortunately the same thing happens when anyone snaps their fingers. One snap: he's the assassin. Two snap: he's the timid Hawkins once again.

The results, especially when Hawkins has to meet with the co-conspirators after just having had an assignation with the Princess is laugh-out-loud funny and so beautifully done by Danny Kaye. He is brilliant in these scenes. Snapping fingers have never been responsible for so much confusion.

"Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good."

Okay, so the princess thinks she's eloping with Hawkins at midnight and the evil Ravenhurst thinks the three knights will be dead at the stroke of midnight and Hawkins is unaware of any of this since it all occurred while he was under hypnosis.

But later that night, Ravenhurst is convinced Hawkins is an assassin par excellence when the poison brews find their marks (thanks to Griselda) despite the Court Jester's ineptitude.

As part of his 'jesting' duties, Hawkins must sing a song for the King and his court. He performs a song about his 'work' as a jester, the last line of which is unforgettable: "...for a jester without employment is NOBODY'S FOOL...!!!" Sylvia Fine's lyrics have never been funnier or wittier.

In the meantime, Sir Griswold, the Princess's original betrothed, can't challenge Hawkins to a duel over the Princess' hand because Hawkins is a commoner. So the Princess cajoles the King into inducting Hawkins into the knighthood in one of the funniest and fastest knight rituals you will ever see. Caught up in the hands of a band of syncronized marching knights Hawkins is passed around like a bag of potatoes until he is finally made a gentleman and knight and must fight Sir Griswold to the death on the morrow.

Also in the meantime, The Black Arrow and his band of merry men plan to attack the castle once the baby is smuggled out.

Lots of hoopla in the end, mix-ups, romance (with Glynis Johns of course) and Hawkins proves the hero, The Black Arrow wins the day, the King is knocked from the throne and all's well that ends well.

If you're not familiar with this film or with Danny Kaye, I say: make yourself familiar asap. THE COURT JESTER is Danny Kaye at his riotous best.

A Favorite Film: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (1944) starring John Garfield, Sidney Greenstreet and Eleanor Parker

Okay, the truth is that one of my least favorite actors also stars in this one: Paul Henreid. How did this happen? Well you may ask. The answer is: I don't know. Coincidence!

I love this film directed by Edward Blatt from a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs. Though I haven't seen it in ages and I am writing most of this from memory with the help of internet movie database and wikipedia for character names and such. This is the sort of movie they don't make anymore or if they did they'd schmaltz it up with computer gimmickry when, after all, it is a fairly simple story.

It is WWII. A ship is leaving war-torn London for the United States. Various Americans have booked passage. But on their way to the docks, their car is blown up by an aerial bomb. Also in London, eager to get away, are Paul Henreid and his wife Eleanor Parker. (She has witnessed the passengers' car blown up.) She comes home to discover that Henreid is about to commit suicide. He is an Austrian and cannot get an exit visa. She convinces him she cannot live without him and will die with him.

When all these various people next wake up, they are on board a fog enclosed, curiously empty ship. Naturally, they think that somehow they made their way on board and are happily (if a bit mystified) on their way to their original destination.

But Eleanor Parker (who is wonderful in the role), playing Ann Bergner to Paul Henreid's Henry Bergner, notices that the other people on board the mysterious ship are the same people who were in the car that was blown up. They could NOT have survived. She realizes that they are all dead.

There is a just one ship's 'officer' on board, his name is Scrubby (played by Edmund Gwenn) and he is more like a general factotum. He asks Ann and her husband not to let the others know the truth - to let them discover it themselves. It makes for an easier transition.

But Tom Prior (played by John Garfield), a cynical newspaperman, overhears them talking. Then one by one the others find out and each acts out his or her shock in keeping with their own personalities. This part of the film is very well done. As they all must face facts and the idea that an examiner is on board to determine their individual fates in the hereafter. The ship is just an interim measure - a kind of temporary purgatory, so to speak.

The examiner turns out to be none other than Sidney Greenstreet in one of his most intimidating roles. He is superb as the Reverend Tim Thompson, the final judge and jury.

Each passenger, according to who they were in life, how they behaved, what they did, what they aspired to, must face the Reverend. He holds their eternal fates in his implacable hands.

But it is in the devising of this heaven or hell that the story excels. Each of these characters' fates is not generalized, it is individualized to that person's personality and character. It is this part of the story that I love, that I found so touching and even, a bit frightening. This is the kind of hereafter that makes some sense to me. Well, at least it does to my romantic soul.

I am going to reveal some SPOILERS here, the fates of a few of the characters.

One of the couples on board are an elderly man and his status seeking wife. They are played by Isobel Elsom and Gilbert Emory and their fate never fails to move me. She is a shallow, vain woman who all her life has cared for nothing but wealth and possessions and has made her gentle husband's life a living hell with her infidelities and her social climbing. He is happy to find out that he has been given a choice. He can either stay with his wife or he can go on to his eternity meeting up with his old chums, friends he'd missed over the years. He will spend eternity puttering about with his old friends, maybe playing a game or two of golf. He chooses his friends to the chagrin of his wife who expected him to stay by her side as he'd done so meekly in life.

Her fate is the one that moves me most in the film. She is condemned to spend eternity in a gorgeous home, filled with wonderful possessions and every convenience. But she will be there alone, never seeing another soul, unable to show off her lifestyle and wealth to anyone ever again It is a hideous fate for a woman of this sort. As she takes in the verdict, she turns to Greenstreet and says, "You swine." Then she walks off to meet her destiny. A woman doomed by her own inability to find her own humanity. I always think of her as being 'marooned' on a desert island without being able to look forward to death. She is played to perfection by Elsom. This is my favorite scene in the film.

The others all receive their individual fates in turn. Including one loathesome man played by the ever cringingly loathsome George Coulouris. He is a wealthy black market financier who we are led to understand is going straight to his own hell. He cannot buy his way out of this one - though he tries to bribe the Reverend.

John Garfield's character will spend his eternity unable to hide from who he is, all defenses down. He must face the weaknesses that turned him into a hardened cynic without honor, unable to find love or value in his own life. There is a twist at the end though and I won't reveal it. But it's a good one. I don't want to give every single thing away.

When it comes to the end. Henry Bergner (Paul Henreid) is made to understand that since he is a suicide he cannot leave the ship. Scrubby is revealed to have been a suicide and that is why he is meant to spend eternity on board, ushering in all the new souls as they arrive. Henry will be given a ship and he will never see his wife Ann again. She will be allowed to find her eternity without him since she is considered a victim and not an active suicide.

Scrubby moved by their plight begs the Reverend Thompson to change the rules this one time. But he seems unmoved.

All of a sudden, Henry hears the faint sound of breaking glass. He goes on deck to think things through and disappears. Ann is frantic searching for him on board. Then we see their apartment. A baseball has broken a glass window, air is allowed to enter and Henry and Ann are saved from death. They have been given a second chance.

This is such an unique film. I truly do urge you to see it if you ever get a chance.

A Favorite Film: AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1999) starring Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver and Jeremy Northam.

Yeah, quite a cast. I love this film based on the play written by the great Irish playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde. My two favorite cast members in this case, are the one and only devilishly, impishly, suave Rupert Everett and the wonderful Minnie Driver. Both are perfection in this movie. Everett spins his witty Oscar Wilde bon mots as if he just thought of them himself. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

The rest of the splendid cast (directed by Oliver Parker in a screenplay adapted by Parker) is excellent. Though I had trouble at first believing that Julianne Moore could play cold-hearted AND a blackmailer to boot. (I should have known she can do practically anything.) AND that Cate Blanchett could play the rather vapid role of the wife. But both delivered the goods. Jeremy Northam is not my favorite actor, I must say. But even he fits the role of blackmail victim rather well. He is the perfect uptight, government minister.

Unfortunately, most of the people in this Victorian social comedy (with dark undertones), are not especially likable. That may throw you off for a bit. But the great Rupert's character, Lord Goring, just oozes indulgent charm and you'll be smitten with him, I'm sure, as I was. Minnie's character is Mabel Chiltern, younger sister to Jerermy Northam's character, Sir Robert Chiltern. To my mind, she is the only really likable woman in the plot, if you're going to choose. And the way she goes about casting her cap for the ultra-confirmed bachelor, Lord Goring, is wonderful to behold. She is so subtle, so sure he's the man for her, that it just makes you smile to think she just might corral him.

And he, I think, is well aware of her skills, but falls for her anyway. As I said: perfection. My favorite scene in the whole film is the marriage proposal. Rupert Everett as Goring is so uneasy, so dead set against marriage he practically squirms with reluctance. You can see all the arguments against going on within him and yet, he simply cannot help himself, he has fallen for Mabel and there's not much he's going to do about it except ask her to marry him. His reputation as London's most confirmed bachelor is done for.

The scenes these two are in just sparkle with wit and life and amusement. As do the scenes between Goring and his exasperated father, played by the remarkable John Wood.

Okay, the rest of the plot: Lord Goring - London's idlest man - is called on to help his good friend Sir Robert Chiltern - played by Jeremy Northam - who is snared in a blackmailing scheme. Mrs. Cheveley - played by Julianne Moore - a shady character from the past has turned up with an incriminating letter that proves Chiltern's riches are based on insider knowledge. Something to do with the Brits and the Suez Canal. It's really not that important to know the details of this past indiscretion, it's more a macguffin kind of thing. Just something that gets the ball rolling.

Since Sir Chiltern is a government minister, Mrs. Cheveley wants his public support for a fraudulent canal scheme proposed for Argentina. A con she is obviously heavily involved in. Few of these parts of the plot make clear sense, but they really don't have to. What is important is the fact of blackmail and the possible ruination of Chiltern's marriage and his political career.

Chiltern is married to Lady Gertrude - played by Cate Blanchett - a morally inflexible young woman who likes to believe that her Chiltern is the 'ideal' husband - a man of impeccable character and no dark shadows. If she finds out that Chiltern has (or had) clay feet, she'd never forgive and might divorce him. She is firm in her beliefs, you see. For her, he must pretend perfection.

Okay so all this takes place within a day or two in London (Grosvenor Square) and in some gorgeous country house settings, with the actors wearing the kind of costumes that make your mouth water. (Well, they did, mine.) I couldn't find any good photos, but if you watch the trailer - see link at the bottom - you'll see the settings and clothing in their glory.

While the ins and outs of the blackmail scheme are taking place and lots of witty banter and witticisms are spouted, Lord Goring continues to spar with Sir Chiltern's sister Mabel and she with him. Eventually Goring, who appears the only truly intelligent man in the cast, comes up with a scheme to outfox the clever Mrs. Cheveley and save his friend. Though in the end, most of the truth comes out anyway and everyone forgives everyone else and all's well that ends well. My favorite kind of story.


A Link to the Film's Trailer.

If, for whatever reason, you'd like to know all the details of the plot before seeing the film, please go here.

To learn about playwright Oscar Wilde, please go here.

A Favorite Film: PIMPERNEL SMITH (1941) starring Leslie Howard

Doing a quick juggling of my blogging schedule: I've moved my Favorite Film post over to Wednesday for the foreseeable future so I can indulge the meme, TOP TEN TUESDAYS on...well, Tuesdays. I'm moving Thursday's Favorite Book post to Friday and leaving Thursday open for the CRIME ALPHABET meme. Any extra book reviews and esoteric stuff, outside of Monday's Book Review will have to be wedged in there somewhere as the mood hits. Don't want to crowd the blog with too many posts in one day. (Though I have been known to do that, anyway) In case you hadn't noticed, I have a tendency to get carried away. Can't help it. I'm just having so much fun with this blogging gig. Fun is contagious. Ha!

Today's Favorite Film is PIMPERNEL SMITH starring the wonderful, understated and remarkably suave, British actor, Leslie Howard (1893 - 1943), who also directed. Leslie Howard was always one of my favorite actors - the personification of British gentility. Howard's life was tragically cut short when his plane was shot down by the Nazis (well, the Luftwaffe) in 1943. Lots of pix of Leslie Howard in this post. Here's the reason: I loved the man. He was always the gentle, yet hard as steel, leading man who did it all with his eyes. That gleam of remarkably pleasing intelligence was just always there.

A personal aside: Here's the difference between Howard and Paul Henreid who was of similar physical type but whom I simply could not stand - the look in the eyes. That's it. Had Henreid had Howard's intelligent gleam, all would have been different. Henreid had two expressions: pained and smug. That's it. Okay, enough of that

PIMPERNEL SMITH is based, as you can guess from the title, on Baroness Orczy's classic, THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. The setting for Orczy's book is England and France during the worst of the French Revolution - The Reign of Terror. The Pimpernel (a sort of flower) is by day, Sir Percy Blakeney, the kind of Brit dandy you want to kick in the butt and by night a courageous hero, The Scarlet Pimpernel, spiriting nobles out of France and away from the services of Madame la Guillotine.

They seek him here,
They seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven?

Or is he in hell?

That damned elusive Pimpernel.

PIMPERNEL SMITH takes place during another Reign of Terror, that of the Nazis. The setting is perfect: Nazi, Germany before the actual fighting war between England and Germany begins. Howard plays Oxford professor of archeology, Horatio Smith. He and some of his students are in Germany working an archeology dig professing to be looking for the origins of the 'Aryan' race so beloved of Hitler and his evil minions. Of course the Nazis welcome this expedition with open arms and more importantly, the necessary paperwork.

But, what the Nazis don't know, at least in the beginning of the film, is that the 'foppishly foolish' professor is, in reality, a British agent under cover of his Oxford credentials. (He really is an archaeologist and really teaches at Oxford.) His mission (should he choose to accept it, and he does) is to try and save victims bound for concentration camps, spiriting them out of Germany into friendlier hands.

The scarecrow you see in some of the old PIMPERNEL SMITH movie posters makes for one of the best sequences in the films : both spooky and thrilling. The professor turns himself into a scarecrow actually positioned in a field where he can watch what's going on. During this mission, he's shot, still pretending to be a scarecrow. But he manages, nonetheless to get his quarry out of the country.

Once his students find out about the professor's wound, they put two and two together and immediately want to join in the 'game'. Spying is not so much fun, but they're young and spirited and want to help their fearless leader in any way they can.

My quibble here is with the casting. Most of the 'students' look too old to be 'young and spirited' college youths. But other than that, I'm good with this movie. I love it.

Francis L. Sullivan as the hideous Nazi commandant who knows Howard is up to something but has trouble grasping just what that 'something' is, is worth the price of admission on his own. He is truly a large lump of detestable flesh - cunning and nasty as they come.

I like the dichotomy too of the slim and agile Howard vs. the corpulent, bloated Nazi. Good casting there. Sullivan has rarely been creepier. The eerie camera work in the fog at the end is especially good, designed to make the point between the stronger spirit will-o-the-wisp nature of the professor as opposed to the turgid presence of the Nazi. Just wonderful stuff.

There's a vague sort of love interest too, when the professor is called upon to save a Polish woman who's father is being held at a camp. But basically this is a quiet, intelligent thriller with some terrific escapades. An underrated film deserving of a bigger audience. One of its more interesting quirks, at least for me, is that this film was shot before most nations in the West supposedly knew what was going on in the camps. At least that's the excuse for inaction I've always heard.

If you belong to Netflix, here's some good news: PIMPERNEL SMITH is available for instant view through your computer or TV. How great is that? They also have the Richard Grant version (a good one) of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL available for instant view. PLUS the Anthony Andrews version (I love Anthony Andrews) available on dvd as well as the original with Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey. I've lined them all up. (No I am not paid by Netflix to say this.) Ha!

A Favorite Film: TWENTIETH CENTURY starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard

It's John Barrymore's birthday today so my Tuesday Favorite Film post, naturally, is about one of my all time favorite films. TWENTIETH CENTURY. A manic screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks. A film that made me fall off the sofa laughing. No harm done, except to my dignity.

John Barrymore was one of those legendary actors who, far as I'm concerned, was best in roles that mocked his legendary status. He was superb in comedy. That devilish twinkle in his eye was picked up by the camera and you knew that he knew that you knew. Know what I mean? He really was the most awful scoundrel. It did him in, in the end, just as it did Erroll Flynn and several other charming, reckless, carousing types. Not easy people to be around, in reality (unless you were of similar type), not easy people to like or marry or live with, I imagine. But, on film, they occasionally made magic.

The one dramatic role I liked Barrymore in, was GRAND HOTEL.)

Anyway, in TWENTIETH CENTURY (the film is named after the cross-country train on which a great deal of the action takes place.), Barrymore plays Oscar Jaffee a has-been Broadway producer/director/actor who spends most of the film trying to get his one-time protege - now Hollywood star - Lily Garland (played by Carole Lombard), to star in his new come-back show. That's basically it. It's in the way Barrymore and Lombard go about this, not to mention the stellar supporting cast of wonderful character actors headed by the inimitable Roscoe Karns. Everyone in this film has their own madcap agenda, their own reason for pushing the two stars together or attempting to keep them apart.

Oh, and did I mention that most everyone in the film is nutso? Well, yeah. It's a fact. Movie-nutso, as opposed to reality-nutso. So it's okay to laugh.

Barrymore and Lombard play theatrical types, heavy on the temperament and overblown gesture. They live to make Drama out of every day life - turmoil is their middle name. Neither of them is very likable. You don't really care what happens to them in the end. It's one of those comedies that sort of spins on its own, perpetual frenzied motion. AND YET - yeah, you want to see what preposterous thing happens next. You can't help it. It's all so absurd. The film has its own lunatic lure. In a way, you can't help feeling a bit dejected that you don't know anyone like this in real life. These people may all be crazy but boy, do they have fun and she makes the most of it. Barrymore plays another caricature of himself (something I think he got used to doing over the years) but does it so manically and so theatrically that you get caught up in it despite knowing that he really is just a perfect ham-bone.

Lombard is no better, first as a young actress who catches Barrymore's eye and is given a small role in one his early Broadway smash hits. She then allows herself to be seduced into stardom, literally and figuratively. There is one scene near the beginning of the film when Lombard is crying on Barrymore's shoulder over some nonsense or other and you can see Barrymore skillfully guiding her backwards towards his dressing room while seeming to console her. Finally he gets her in the room, her back to us, his face leering out at the camera as he grins and closes the dressing room door on us. SO FUNNY! What a dreadful man!

But really, Lombard is his flamboyant equal. She plays Lily Garland as a temperamental, borderline hysteric using Barrymore to get ahead just as much as he's using her. Eventually she leaves his clutches and becomes a famous Hollywood star while Barrymore's career goes down the tubes after a series of bad productions.

When after some years, he gets his hands on a preposterous script for a Biblical (?!) play he wants to produce with Lombard as star, he makes plans to get her to sign on the dotted line for old time's sake, never mind that they parted on the most acrimonious of terms. (He can't get backing for the show unless Lily Garland stars in it.) On the eve of her planned marriage to some ridiculous Hollywood type (if I'm remembering correctly), they are all travelling together on the Twentieth Century either headed east or headed west - doesn't much matter.

Lombard's fiancee is the sort of perpetual weak-chinned, sniveling sort that these types always were in these films and among Barrymore's travelling companions is the one and only Roscoe Karns who play his wise-cracking agent as only Roscoe can. They're also accompanied by a bunch of loonies straight from central-casting who traipse in and out of scenes either stealing them or being overwhelmed by Barrymore and Lombard's duelling personalities. Among the train passengers is one harmless looking little guy who spends the trip passing out religous pamphlets and stickers. I can say no more or I'll ruin the fun. The funniest scene, from my view is one that involves a perceived attempt on Barrymore's life. I can say no more. I laughed until I cried and fell off the sofa. Comedy can be dangerous.

An aside: another of the traveling cast of outrageous characters is Charles Lane who went on to play these sorts of guys over and over and over again, later in television. The guy practically lived forever - he only passed away, finally, a couple of years ago. What can I say, he was the most wonderful, cantankerous type. There's no one like him in films today.

TWENTIETH CENTURY is a gem from devilish beginning to inspired end.

If you haven't seen it, you really must. But only if you enjoy laughing AND you have a weakness for Broadway/Hollywood types of the 30's and 40's AND a softspot for Barrymore and Lombard.