PUBLIC HERO #1

 

PUBLIC HERO #1 is a 1935 MGM gangster story with some comedic elements. Much of the film is inspired by the criminal life of John Dillinger. 

The movie begins with Jeff Crane (Chester Morris) being incarcerated in a large prison. Once inside, Crane goes out of his way to cause as much trouble as possible--so much so, you just know there's a reason for it. Sure enough, Crane is an undercover Federal agent, and he's trying to earn the trust of his cellmate, Sonny Black (Joseph Calleia). Sonny is the leader of the notorious Purple Gang, but he's in jail on a lesser charge, and the Feds are hoping to use him to track down the rest of the gang. Jeff and Sonny escape, but the latter is wounded while fleeing the law. While the two men hide out, Jeff is sent out to find the drunken doctor (Lionel Barrymore) who provides medical services for the Purple Gang. While finding the doc Jeff encounters a pretty young woman named Terry (Jean Arthur). She is trying to find her brother, who she hasn't seen in years--and Jeff learns that her sibling is none other than Sonny. Jeff is determined to bring Sonny and the Purple Gang to justice, but he also doesn't want to hurt Terry, since the two have fallen for one another. 

PUBLIC HERO #1 starts out as a hard-boiled prison drama, and it immediately reminds one of THE BIG HOUSE, a famous tale about convicts that was also made at MGM and starred Chester Morris. Once Jeff goes off on a stormy night to find the tipsy doctor, the movie almost becomes a screwball comedy, as Lionel Barrymore's wildly hammy antics and Jeff and Terry's back-and-forth patter take center stage. The climax goes back to crime thriller mode, as the downfall of Sonny and his gang parallel major events in John Dillinger's life. The gang has a hideout in Wisconsin called "Little Paree" (Dillinger and several other gunmen hid out in Little Bohemia, Wisconsin), and a major gun battle takes place there, much like the one that actually did happen in Little Bohemia. After getting away in the chaos of the gunfight, Sonny attempts to change his appearance through plastic surgery (as Dillinger did), and eventually he's gunned down in an alley near the "Bijou" theater, while Dillinger came to his end outside the Biograph in Chicago. 

The always-surly Chester Morris is perfect as Jeff Crane, although his tough-guy act while in prison is way too obvious. Jean Arthur is appealing as always as Terry (one big twist is that she goes out of her way to attract Jeff's attention, instead of the other way around). There are times when it feels as if Arthur is acting as if she's in another film altogether, and it's hard to believe that the blonde, perky actress could be the sister to the dark, brooding Calleia. (Ann Dvorak would have been much more fitting as Terry.) It's also hard to believe that Terry would have such loyalty to her brother, especially when she finds out what he has done, and considering how he treats her. Instead of acting like the typical brash & bold big shot gangster, Calleia gives Sonny a quiet, snakelike menacing aura that works very well. Paul Kelly plays Jeff's boss, a tough Federal agent determined to wipe out the Purple Gang. (Ironically Kelly spent time in prison himself due to a manslaughter conviction.) 

Lionel Barrymore gets top billing as the drunken doctor, but he's character is basically a nuisance, and the actor overplays outrageously (even for him). The Purple Gang features such tough-guy actors as Paul Hurst and George E. Stone, and among the supporting cast are Lewis Stone as the warden of the prison in the beginning of the film, and Bert Roach and Arthur Housman, who have comedic roles. 

PUBLIC HERO #1 was directed by J. Walter Ruben, who doesn't have much of a legacy among classic Hollywood studio directors (probably due to the fact that he died quite young). The real talent behind this film is cinematographer Gregg Toland, who gives the crime scenes an expressionist feel, while making Jean Arthur look fantastic at the same time. 

I'm a huge Jean Arthur fan, but I must say that PUBLIC HERO #1 might have been better if her character had not been in it, and the story was just a straight crime thriller. Despite the lead billing of Lionel Barrymore and Arthur, their characters only serve as distractions from the main drama between Chester Morris and Joseph Calleia. Perhaps MGM was hoping that Barrymore and Arthur would steer the movie away from being a violent gangster tale and getting in trouble with the Code--it is rather brutal at times for a picture made at that particular studio. 

THE VICTORS

 

I've seen most of the epic World War II movies made in the 1950s and 60s, but until last night THE VICTORS (1963) had eluded me. The movie has never been officially released on DVD or Blu-ray in North America, and I don't remember any TV showings of it in my area during my younger days. 

THE VICTORS was written, produced, and directed by Carl Foreman, a man who was primarily a screenwriter. Foreman wanted THE VICTORS to be different than the standard WWII picture--the film follows a squad of American GIs as they fight through Europe, but there's no main character, and there are no major battles or action sequences. There isn't even what one could technically define as a plot--the script is made up of several random incidents involving members of the squad that are strung together. They serve in England, Italy, Western Europe, and one of the group winds up in 1946 postwar Berlin. 

The squad includes Sgt. Joe Craig (Eli Wallach), Cpl. Frank Chase (George Peppard), Cpl. Trower (George Hamilton), and smaller roles played by Vince Edwards, James Mitchum, Michael Callan, and Peter Fonda. Among their experiences are getting drunk whenever they can, encountering survivors from a concentration camp, witnessing a fellow soldier being executed for desertion, and dealing with a number of women along the way. 

Carl Foreman went out of his way to avoid the heroic or exciting elements one typically finds in WWII movies featuring American soldiers. The squad in THE VICTORS are not Audie Murphy types, nor are they memorable personalities. They're just regular guys trying to get through the war the best way they can. 

The gritty realism that Foreman was aiming for is negated by the sequences involving the women the squad encounters. The ladies are played by a half-dozen Euro babes--Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau, Rosanna Schiaffino, Romy Schneider, Senta Berger, and Elke Sommer. All of the characters played by these women have been negatively affected by the war in various ways, yet they still all manage to look gorgeous (see photo below). The scenes with the ladies have a soap opera type of feel to them, and they make an already slow paced film even more sluggish. 

The version I saw of THE VICTORS on Tubi ran a little bit over two and a half hours. Throughout the movie a number of newsreels of the period are inserted, as a way to let the audience know how time is progressing. If the newsreels had not been included, the film's pace might have improved. According to multiple sources the original running time of THE VICTORS was about three hours. One of the sequences that was cut in involved a young refugee boy who survives by being a prostitute, and there was also a nude scene for Elke Sommer. 

If it's surprising that Foreman would try to put in elements involving child prostitution and nudity in a 1963 production, consider that the writer/director had a left-leaning attitude, which permeates THE VICTORS overall. This attitude is heavy-handed at times. At one point while members of the squad are relaxing at a cafe, some racist soldiers come in and attack a couple of black GIs, while the song "Remember Pearl Harbor" is being played. During the sequence showing the execution of the deserter, the incident is backed by Frank Sinatra's version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". The ending has a confrontation between Cpl. Trower and a Russian soldier in 1946 Berlin, a meeting that Foreman presents as a warning of what could happen if the "victors" of WWII do not learn to get along with one another. (The Russian soldier is played by Albert Finney, who, despite getting second billing, has only a couple minutes on screen, and doesn't even get to speak any lines in English.) 

THE VICTORS has elements of a true epic (it was filmed on location in England and Europe), but none of the characters reach out and grab you, and the multiple vignettes give the film a meandering, depressing tone. The six Euro babes generate some interest, but honestly their sequences could have been replaced by scenes that gave the squad more important things to do. THE VICTORS certainly is an unusual type of WWII movie, but it goes on too long and it never really comes together. 

Romy Schneider in THE VICTORS

The 70th Anniversary Restoration Of SEVEN SAMURAI

 

Last night I had the great privilege of seeing the 70th anniversary restoration of Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI on the big screen, at the Browning Cinema on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, along with my good friend Paul Lyzun. 

Seeing SEVEN SAMURAI under any circumstances is a treat, but viewing a fantastic looking and sounding version of it in an actual theater, with an audience, was magnificent. There's no need for me to state how great this film is--but watching it again last night did make me notice a few things in particular. 

One is what an exemplary performance Takashi Shimura gives as Kambei, the leader of the Seven. When it comes to actors in this film everyone talks about Toshiro Mifrune as the roguish Kikuchiyo--it is the showiest role, and Mifune does make the most of it (and the audience last night had a big reaction to his antics). But Shimura is the heart and soul of this picture, he's the one that holds everything together. Kambei is such a wise and knowing leader that not only would you want the man next to you during a difficult situation, but you'd want him to coach your favorite sports team. SEVEN SAMURAI doesn't even contain Shimura's greatest performance--that would be his haunting portrayal in Kurosawa's IKIRU--but the movie shows what a fine (and underrated) actor he was. 

Something else about Takashi Shimura's Kambei--he's the original Jedi Master. THE HIDDEN FORTRESS gets the major credit as the main Kurosawa influence on George Lucas and STAR WARS, but SEVEN SAMURAI should get plenty of notice as well. (As Paul Lyzun pointed out to me, the villagers joining together to fight the bandits are basically the Ewoks battling the Imperial troops on Endor.) SEVEN SAMURAI has inspired hundreds of movies and TV shows--or more accurately, hundreds of movies and TV shows have ripped it off, including less obvious examples like THE A-TEAM and THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES. A group of misfits banding together to accomplish an impossible mission? That has to be one of the most frequently used tropes in filmed entertainment history....but no one did it like Akira Kurosawa did. 

What really comes out in SEVEN SAMURAI is Kurosawa's adept use of the environment and the terrain. No director used such elements so well as Kurosawa did (except maybe John Ford and David Lean). You don't think you're just watching a movie while viewing SEVEN SAMURAI--you believe you are in 16th Century Japan, and you are witnessing a real-life event unfold in front of your eyes. Wind, rain, fire, mist--you feel as if you are experiencing all these things along with the characters. That's how effective and complete the situation is that Kurosawa created here. 

There's not as many action sequences in SEVEN SAMURAI as one would think (it's actually more of a character study). But when the action does come, it's swift and compelling. The final battle isn't filled with perfectly choreographed moves and tight editing, it's presented as a muddy, chaotic mess, as if the actors are actually trying to kill each other, while at the same time not having much of an idea about what is happening. It's no video game, that's for sure. 

If the restored version of SEVEN SAMURAI happens to be playing at a theater near you, by all means take the opportunity to see it. It truly is one of the greatest movies ever made. 

THE EXECUTIONER (1970)

 

This is another Tubi discovery, a movie I had never heard of. It's a Cold War espionage tale that came out after the 1960s spy craze had already died down. It doesn't try to be an exciting Bond-like glitzy adventure--it takes the dour John Le Carre route of lies, deceit, and bureaucratic infighting, and it succeeds too well in doing it. 

George Peppard is British Intelligence agent John Shay (the character was born in England, but grew up in America, explaining his accent). Shay gets the blame for a botched operation in Czechoslovakia, but he believes the fault is that of a double agent working for the Russians. With the help of his girlfriend Polly (Judy Geeson), who happens to be a clerk in the Intelligence office, Shay gets access to files that convinces him the traitor is high-level operative Adam Booth (Keith Michell). Booth happens to be married to Sarah (Joan Collins), an old flame of John's, and mainly due to this no one takes Shay's charges seriously. Undaunted, Shay proceeds to take matters into his own hands, causing more trouble and grief to all those involved in the situation. 

THE EXECUTIONER has a slow pace, very little action, and a storyline that is hard to follow (it doesn't help that a number of flashbacks are inserted from time to time). The choice of leading man also hurts the movie. On the big screen George Peppard, at least in the films I've seen him in, always has a remote, detached persona, and he certainly has that in THE EXECUTIONER. One could make the excuse that an intelligence agent needs to be remote and detached, but Peppard's Shay doesn't engage the audience, and he's not very likable either. Shay uses his girlfriend to steal files for him, causing her to lose his job, while still desiring Sarah, who happens to be married to the man he's accusing of being a traitor. It's no wonder Shay's bosses at British Intelligence don't believe him--while watching the movie I started to wonder if Shay was the one who was going to turn out to be a Russian agent. (Peppard did much better as an actor on American TV.) 

The delectable Judy Geeson does bring some much needed brightness to the plot as Polly, a young woman, who, amazingly, stays loyal to Shay throughout the film. Joan Collins as Sarah is less truculent than usual, but she's still portraying a woman who entices multiple men, and causes problems for all of them. The cast is rounded out by the likes of stalwart supporting players one always sees in this type of international production--Oskar Homolka, Charles Gray, Nigel Patrick, and George Baker. 

THE EXECUTIONER was produced by Charles Schneer, who is best known for his collaborations with Ray Harryhausen and Columbia Pictures. The movie was directed by Sam Wanamaker, who uses a lot of artsy camera set-ups, but doesn't do much to increase the pace or make things more gripping. The film was shot in London and Greece, but none of the locations particularly stand out. 

A late plot twist in THE EXECUTIONER might have enabled it to stand out from all the other many spy films made during this period, but the twist is negated at the very end in order to make a "safer" ending. The result is that the movie is very low on the list of 007 knockoffs. It's not very entertaining, or suspenseful, and the leading character is someone you're not all that concerned for. 

SWING HIGH, SWING LOW

 

SWING HIGH, SWING LOW is the third of four films made by Paramount that starred Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray. Today the movie, which fell into public domain, is only available in a mediocre-looking version that doesn't give credit to the talent and effort of those who worked on it. Turner Classic Movies showed the film recently, and their presentation had a bit better visual quality than the public domain version, but the dialogue was still hard to make out at times. 

SWING HIGH, SWING LOW was based on a Broadway play called BURLESQUE, and the main story had already been adapted to film in 1929. The property would be made again as WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME, starring Betty Grable. All the versions deal with the tribulations of a performing man-and-wife team who break up. 

Carole Lomabrd plays Maggie King, a not-very-successful singer who gets stranded in Panama after the boat she is working on stops at the Canal Zone. While there she meets Skid Johnson (Fred MacMurray), who has just left the military. Maggie and Skid are both broke, and they wind up staying with Skid's friend Harry (Charles Butterworth). Skid plays the trumpet, and Harry plays the piano, and they and Maggie get jobs at a local cafe. Maggie and Skid develop an act together, and get noticed--but it's Skid who gets an offer to go and play in New York City. Not wanting to hold Skid back, Maggie lets him go on his own. While in the big city, Skid enjoys the high life, forgetting all about Maggie back in Panama. Maggie borrows money to go to New York and track Skid down, but a misunderstanding causes her to want a divorce. Because of this Skid literally hits the skids, but in classic Hollywood fashion, Maggie shows up at the end to save the day. 

SWING HIGH, SWING LOW is a comedy/drama/musical. and the elements don't mesh very well. The movie starts off with Maggie and Skid developing their relationship while trying to earn a living in Panama. From my point of view this was the best part of the film. It gave Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray a chance to show off their easy rapport with each other, and they both got plenty of snappy dialogue. Once Skid gets the chance to go to New York, the story becomes very predictable. You just know that Skid is going to get a swelled head, and that poor Maggie is going to be left in Panama to worry about their relationship. You also know that Skid is going to get his comeuppance (which happens over about a couple minutes). 

This means that once again we see another Carole Lombard movie where the actress gives his heart, soul, and loyalty to a man that doesn't deserve it. Fred MacMurray is more appealing than most of Lombard's leading men of the 1930s, but Skid lacks focus and commitment, and various characters even tell Maggie she shouldn't fall for the guy. (It would have been nice, if, just once in a Lombard movie, she tells one of her below-average beaus "The hell with you, I'm outta here" and just walked away for good--but this was 1930s Hollywood, after all.) 

Director Mitchell Leisen (who worked with Lombard and MacMurray in their first pairing, HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE) and cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff (an expert technician who Lomabrd insisted be assigned to her features) went out of their way to try and make SWING HIGH, SWING LOW special. There's plenty of expressionist camera work and unique shot angles. Lomabrd is given several exquisite closeups (one can only imagine how beautiful Carole would look in a pristine print of this film), and she also gets to wear an impressive Travis Banton-designed wardrobe, despite the fact that the character of Maggie supposedly doesn't have much money. The movie also has a number of showy montage sequences depicting Skid's rise and fall in New York. There's also the musical aspects of the story. While Fred MacMurray's trumpet playing was dubbed, Lombard actually got a chance to sing a few times, although she didn't want to. Carole does more reciting than singing, but she comes off well. Dorothy Lamour, who plays an old flame of Skid's, gets a few numbers of her own. Of course Lamour becomes a rival of Carole's on-screen, but according to various Lombard biographies the star went out of her way to help the young up-and-comer. 

The supporting cast has the aforementioned Charles Butterworth, along with Jean Dixon, who almost stole MY MAN GODFREY, and just about does the same thing here. Anthony Quinn and Franklin Pangborn have small roles. 

When it comes to the Lombard--MacMurray pairings, I believe that SWING HIGH, SWING LOW isn't as good as HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE or THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS, but it is better than the silly TRUE CONFESSION. A restored print of this film, with much-improved picture and sound, would do wonders for it, but it still wouldn't do much for the plot. According to multiple sources, SWING HIGH, SWING LOW did make a lot of money for Paramount in 1937, proving the popularity of Carole Lombard.