Michael Curtiz's Mountain Justice (1937)

Mountain Justice is one of Curtiz's forgotten pictures.  Deftly photographed by Ernest Haller, it is an entertaining but flawed film.
--Alan K. Rode. Michael Curtiz:  A Life in Film (University Press of Kentucky, 2017)

Michael Curtiz was a skilled director, though more of a craftsman than an artist.  Even his best pictures --Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Breaking Point (1950) -- are not always appreciated as his work; I have heard more than one person say how Casablanca is their favorite movie -- usually among the few they know from the classical period -- while having no idea who directed it.  For most of his professional life after he left Hungary in 1926 Curtiz was employed by Warner Brothers and mostly did as he was told by Jack Warner and Hal Wallis, though he always did it well, with the help of the WB reliable professionals. Curtiz turned out movies on time and on budget and was skilled with the camera and with actors, after years of making silent films in Hungary.

There's a growing tendency to see Casablanca as having common themes with Curtiz's other work and Mountain Justice has things in common with many of his films, including ideas of loyalty, independence, freedom and intense criticism of patriarchy. Mountain Justice is one of many gritty films from Warner Brothers in the thirties; it was one of six films that Curtiz directed in 1937 and was, as they said "torn from today's headlines," though I have never quite understood why "based on a true story" is supposed to be an effective marketing phrase.  Mountain Justice (the title being somewhat ironical) tells the story of Edith Maxwell, who was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for killing her father in self-defense and was eventually pardoned by the governor of Virginia.  Warner Brothers had to make changes in the script in order to avoid litigation but kept most of the harrowing story, as a mountain girl, Ruth Harkins (played by Josephine Hutchinson) decides to study nursing and open a clinic, against the wishes of her church, community and father (her mother encourages her).  A lawyer, Paul Cameron (played by George Brent), comes to town from New York to prosecute Ruth's father for murder and Ruth and Paul fall in love.  Ruth's father tries to whip Ruth and she kills him in self-defense -- under a sign that says "honor thy father and mother" -- is prosecuted and receives a sentence of twenty-five years.  This sentence is deemed insufficient by the mountain people so with the help of Paul and some friends Ruth manages to escape the state with a lynch mob on her heels.  The governor of the state to which she escapes refuses to extradite her.

The film runs a brisk eighty-two minutes and tries to incorporate too many themes, leaving the Ruth/Paul relationship rather perfunctory, along with the issues of rural medical care, abusive treatment of women and mob violence.  Curtiz and cinematographer Ernest Haller do effectively capture the claustrophobia and oppressiveness of an isolated rural town.  Margaret Hamilton and Guy Kibbee play an older couple that serves both as comic relief and a serious example of peope trapped in their environment.

Turner Classic Movies Oct. 2018

October is Halloween month, of course, and I recommend any of the horror films -- if one likes cerebral horror films --of Terence Fisher (The Devil Rides Out, 1968, on Oct. 10 is one of my favorites) and Val Lewton (Cat People, 1942, on Oct.31, is a favorite of mine). e-mail me if you have questions.  Other recommendations.

Oct. 2:  Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings (1939); a great civilian airplane film.

Oct. 3:  Raoul Walsh's Strawberry Blonde (1941), a funny and moving valentine to the era of Walsh's childhood.  And, yes, Walsh played John Wilkes Booth in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

Oct. 5:  Hitchcock's marvelous comic thriller The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Oct. 6: Leo McCarey's touching film about growing old before there was Social Security, Make Way for Tomorrow (1937); John Ford's poetic Young Mr. Lincoln (1939); Raoul Walsh's grimly beautiful war film Objective Burma (1945); Robert Wise's film noir Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), filmed partly in Hudson, N.Y.

Oct. 8:  Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday (1940)

Oct. 13:  Hawks's Rio Bravo (1959)

Oct. 14:  Chaplin's City Lights (1931)

Oct. 18: John Ford's Stagecoach (1939)

Oct. 22: Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

Oct 27:  Anthony Mann's corrosive Western The Naked Spur (1953).

Jewels NYC Ballet Sept. 22, 2018

The track atmosphere was one of the many elements that he was integrating into Rubies; horse racing seemed to be behind all our prancing.... There were other influences... Degas, Astaire, the world of jazz and show dancing, the brashness and confidence of Broadway nightclubs.  Balanchine choreographed a tango into the pas de deux.  He even worked cakewalk movements into some of the steps.  This kind of layering is a part of every Balanchine ballet and gives them a extra dimension, a subtext that he rarely took time to point our or discuss.
--Edward Villella, Prodigal Son (Simon and Schuster, 1992).

One of the reasons one can see Balanchine ballets over and over and never exhaust their beauty and complexity is because of the extensive layering of sources, of which there were many for each ballet.  Balanchine's knowledge was extensive, not just of dance and music but of movement itself, contemporary and historic; I remember saying to Susan once when we were watching Balanchine's "Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 "the whole world is in this ballet" and that's also true of "Jewels," three parts to three different pieces by three different composers.

"Jewels" was beautifully danced on Saturday, though one of the reasons "Rubies" was such a standout (my daughter Victoria's favorite) was because the new regime at NYC Ballet, replacing the autocratic Peter Martins, of Justin Peck, Rebecca Krohn, Jonathan Stafford, Craig Hall brought in the original dancers --Patricia McBride and Edward Villella -- to help coach the dancers.  Perhaps next they will bring back Conrad Ludlow of "Emeralds" (his partner Violette Verdy is no longer with us) and Suzanne Farrell and Jacques d'Amboise from the original "Diamonds."

"Emeralds" was elegantly danced by Tiler Peck and Taylor Stanley, Unity Phelan and Adrian Danchig-Waring. Its layers suggest myth and fairies and poets and troubadours, as well as hunters in a lovely green forest.  The ballet is slow and meditative compared to "Rubies" and "Diamonds," with music by Faure, including a suite for Pelleas et Melisande, a story of doomed love in a sylvan environment.  Ten years after "Jewels" premiered in 1967 Balanchine added the exquisite epilogue, an adagio with four women and three men; as the women slowly leave the stage the men kneel and raise their arms in epaulment, perhaps suggesting farewell to the women of their imagination.

"Rubies" is related to the several other ballets Balanchine did to Stravinsky music; in this case he uses the Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra and emphasizes arabesques, flexed feet and jogging playfully around the stage.  Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette were the lead dancers and they and the corps conveyed excitement and pleasure in their energetic and forceful dancing.  "Diamonds" is very much in the tradition of Balanchine's spectacular Tschaikovsky ballets, especially "Theme and Variations"(1947).  Sara Mearns did a superb job with all the off-balance turns and arabesques done originally by Suzanne Farrell and soloist Joseph Gordon provided intense support as well as spectacular tours en l'air. "Diamonds" is done to Tschaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D Major, though interestingly Balanchine does not use the first movement, just as he rearranged the order of movements in his first ballet in America, "Serenade," (1934) to Tschaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C.

I think too much is often made of the idea that the three ballets in "Jewels" are "abstract" just because they do not have linear plots.  Each of the ballets has different layers of stories, with an emphasis on couples, solos and groups and the beauty and necessity of human interaction.

Blondie on a Budget (1940)

Blondie on a Budget, written by Richard Flourney and directed by the reliable Frank R. Strayer, was the fifth Blondie movie and one of three Blondie movies released in 1940; there were 28 in all between 1938 and 1950.  Character actor Don Beddoe, who plays Dagwood's fishing buddy Marvin in the film, appeared in 29 films in 1940.  He has an important role in Blondie on a Budget, playing Dagwood's "beard", i.e., when Blondie (Penny Singleton) calls the poetically named Swan Lake Trout Club to tell Dagwood (Arthur Lake) that Baby Dumpling (Larry Sims) has a loose tooth Marvin imitates Dagwood's voice and says he will be right home, though he makes the mistake of calling Blondie "lovey," something Dagwood never does.  Meanwhile Dagwood is not fishing but in "lovers lane" with the glamorous Joan Forest (Rita Hayworth, still not a star after thirty movies) so she can reminisce about their old romance, rather than taking him to the fishing club as she had promised; she had originally shown up at his house because of a business deal with his boss, though this is one of the few Blondie movies with no Mr. Dithers.

Dagwood is innocent in all this, of course, even when Joan can't start her Packard roadster and they have to get towed.  While they wait for the car to be fixed they decide to take in a movie at a theatre complete with ticket seller, ticket taker and two ushers, one who opens the door and the other with a flashlight who signals where there are seats.  Dagwood is feeling guilty so he tries to hide in his seat and imagines everyone around him looks like Blondie, even an Asian woman and her young child.  Dagwood faints and as he is leaving the theatre he runs into Marvin, who takes him home and rehearses with him, in Blondie's voice, what he should say to Blondie.  Then Marvin gives Dagwood his own fishing rod and creel so that Blondie thinks he has been fishing.  No sooner does Dagwood get home when Blondie questions him about "lovey," finds Joan's gloves in his pocket, and opens the door to two policemen who have Dagwood's rod and creel (with his name on it) that they found in lover's lane.

That evening Dagwood gets a call from the manager of the movie theatre who tells Dagwood that he just won $200 in a drawing at the theatre.  Dagwood goes down to the theatre but doesn't have his ticket (he tore it up so that Blondie didn't see it) nor did he sign the entry form, since Joan had done that for him, so he has to call Joan (who he swore to Blondie he would never see again) to come to the theatre to verify the signature.  When the manager, with an amused smile, hands over the $200. Joan asks Dagwood what he is going to do with the money and he says he is going to buy Blondie the fur coat she wants but couldn't afford because of the budget.  When Joan asks Blondie's size Dagwood says he doesn't know so she volunteers to go with him to try on the coat, since she is just about Blondie's size.  Meanwhile, Blondie is feeling bad for suspecting Dagwood and takes the last $200 our of their bank account so he can join the trout club, stopping at the fur store to take one last look at the coat she wants.  Of course at the store she sees Joan trying on the coat for Dagwood (they don't see her) and draws what she thinks is the obvious conclusion.

Blondie takes Baby Dumpling to the bus depot to get a bus to Reno and meets a lawyer who asks her if her husband beats her, drinks, fails to support her.  Blondie realizes she may be wrong about Dagwood and heads back home.  Meanwhile Dagwood has arrived home with the fur coat and finds the house empty and a note in the stewpot, where Blondie knew he would look.  He has a bottle of champagne which he now tries to open and spills all over the floor; Daisy the dog licks it up.  When Dagwood goes to bed he puts pillows in the bed next to his and covers them up as if Blondie were still there. Blondie and Baby Dumpling return and everyone is reconciled, at least for now. 

This is one of the more stylish and poignant entries in the Blondie series, with strong elements of fantasy, subjectivity and surrealism; e.g., the usual white paperboy is replaced by African-American Willie Best, who thinks Daisy is after him when she just is making her usual run to get the paper and bring it in.

The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), directed by William Clemens

The Case of the Velvet Claws is directed by B movie director William Clemens and runs a mere 60 minutes, effectively moving the Perry Mason franchise into B moviedom, perhaps the reason it was Warren Williams fourth and last appearance as Mason.  By this point Mason bears little resemblance to Erle Stanley Gardner's original character, even though the film is based on a Gardner story.  Gardner's strength is in his courtroom scenes but The Case of the Velvet Claws has only two scenes in a courtroom, run by Judge Mary F. O' Daugherty (Clara Blandick):  when Perry marries Della Street (Claire Dodd) in the morning and when Della wants an annulment in the evening.

It is not even clear how Mason solves the murder of the owner of a gossip rag that is trying to blackmail femme fatale Eva Belter (Wini Shaw), though Mason is not beneath doing some modest blackmailing himself.  The attempts at humor in Tom Reed's script mostly fall flat, though I did like when a magazine editor asks Mason "Are you smoking something or putting it in your arm?" After a day of sleuthing by Mason and Spudsy Drake (Eddie Acuff) in drag, as Mason himself takes it on the lam after being himself accused of the murder, Perry and Della finally leave for Pinehurst Lodge on their honeymoon.

I'm Keith Hernandez by Keith Hernandez

Domestic life just wasn't for me, especially on the heels of a batting race with Pete Rose and playing in front of 40,000 people on their feet every time I came up to the plate.
--Keith Hernandez, I'm Keith Hernandez (Little, Brown and Company 2018)

If you don't watch the Mets on SNY then you may not know what an enormous ego Keith Hernandez has; you can read this book to find out.  In 1979 he won the batting title and a Gold Glove but still resents that he had to share the MVP title with Willie Stargell of the Pirates, who Hernandez didn't think had as good a year.  For someone else this might have been an opportunity to reflect on the question of how MVP is defined, many writers and fans thinking that it goes beyond statistics, which Hernandez is quick to criticize when he is mocked for not hitting home runs.

Like many players married to baseball Hernandez's world is quite small; ever since his father (a minor leaguer turned firefighter) had him hitting a tennis ball tied to a rope Hernandez had wanted to be a baseball player and was always looking for father figures ("my father taught me …" is stated many times), finding them in managers such as Ken Boyer and thoughtful players like Pete Rose, who taught him some basic arithmetic about hitting and batting average.

Hernandez admits to smoking marijuana and cheating on his wives ("it was hard not to want something I had never had before") but fudges the question of cocaine use:  "if someone offered me coke I probably said sure."  The book ends before Hernandez is traded to the Mets, so perhaps there is another book in the works that deals with drug use and his years with the Mets, where Hernandez had a key role in the 1986 championship.

For those who listen closely to the Mets broadcasts it is clear than Hernandez's color commentary partner, Ron Darling, knows more of the vast world outside baseball than Hernandez (Darling was drafted in his junior year at Yale) but Hernandez gives as effective analyses of hitting as Darling does of pitching.  I do give Hernandez credit for mentioning in his book the key roles of Curt Flood, Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, as well as the players union, for bringing the onerous reserve clause to an end.

Frank R. Strayer's Blondie Brings Up Baby (1939)

Blondie Brings Up Baby is the fourth in the Blondie series at Columbia; the first three I wrote about earlier this year.  This film has all the effective elements of this populist series -- written by regulars Gladys Lehman and Richard Flournoy, directed by Frank R. Strayer and cinematography by Henry Freudlich -- it has a boy and his best friend, the dog Daisy; a mailman that keeps getting run down by Dagwood on his way out the door; a paperboy on a bicycle who whistles for the dog to come to get the paper; an irascible boss (Jonathan Hale); a friendly neighbor who lends a pie tin; a wealthy neighbor who coddles his child; housewife Blondie (Penny Singleton); a scamming real estate developer who hornswoggles Dagwood; a door-to-door salesman who gives a phony test to Baby Dumpling (Larry Simms) in order to sell an encyclopedia (it cost $85 and Dagwood rips it up), dog catchers who take Daisy after she follows Baby Dumpling to school (tags weren't required in those days?); a spinsterish elementary school principal and even cops who think Dagwood kidnapped someone after a gardener hits him over the head with a shovel as he looks for Daisy and Baby Dumpling.

Is this film funny?  Perhaps to some.  It demonstrates that there is redemption for those with a good heart and punishment for the flim-flammers.  In other words, a pleasant populist fable, with the rich and poor coming together at the end.  Some of it is indeed amusing but one can decide for oneself whether to laugh, rather than being subjected to the forced laughter of the laugh tracks on the TV shows that have replaced such B movies as the Blondie series.  Blondie Brings Up Baby may be a bit corny but it has genuine compassion and beauty, rich chiaroscuro found at home, in the street and in the office with the help of director Strayer and cinematographer Freudlich.

John Ford's Judge Priest 1934

Healing America's intolerance is one of the major themes of Ford's [Will] Rogers trilogy.
---Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford (St. Martin's Press, 1999)

Judge Priest today has not aged; a storyland of myth and symbol, it looks just as fresh and old-fashioned as it did fifty years ago.
---Tag Gallagher, John Ford:  The Man and His Films (U. of California Press, 1986).

I don't write enough about John Ford, a particular favorite of mine who produced an impressive body of work. Turner Classic movies recently showed Judge Priest in a series of films devoted to Anita Louise, who has a minor but significant role in the film.  Judge Priest has seldom been shown on commercial television because Stepin Fetchit has an important part, a part that was sometimes cut out when the film was shown on TV, so that the movie made no sense.  I've talked about Fetchit before, how his character outwitted white people by pretending to be ignorant and shiftless.  To quote V.S. Naipaul, who adored Fetchit when he was a child in Trinidad, "the sight of Stepin Fetchit with white people was like a dream of a happier world."  Certainly one of the loveliest images in Ford's film is Will Rogers and Stepin Fetchit walking down the road together on their way to the fishing hole.

Judge Priest was one of three films Rogers made with John Ford; Dr. Bull (1933) and Steamboat Round the Bend  (1935) were the other two.  The film, based on stories by Irvin S. Cobb, takes place in Kentucky in 1890, where the Civil War is still fresh in many minds.  The folksy Rogers plays a judge who helps to acquit a man accused of assault by evoking his bravery in The War Between the States, even having Stepin Fetchit play Dixie on the harmonica outside the courtroom window during some important testimony. The African-Americans in the film -- including Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel -- are treated with dignity; they may technically servants but they are very much in charge.  John Ford's indebtedness to D.W. Griffith in Judge Priest is clear in many ways; not only was Ford one of the klansmen in Griffith's Birth of the Nation but the major witness at the trial in Judge Priest, Rev. Ashby Brand, is played by Henry B. Walthall, one of the stars of Griffith's 1916 film.  And Ford's re-creation of a Civil War battle during Brand's testimony is a clear tribute to Griffith.

Charles Bennett's No Escape (1953)

Although No Escape is of higher quality that most of [Sonny] Tufts's fare, he turns in his usual bad performance, and the rest of the cast, though competent, cannot rescue a movie that is slow paced and wordy.
--Arthur Lyons, Death on the Cheap:  The Lost B Movies of Film Noir (Da Capo, 2000)

I don't care much one way or the other about Sonny Tufts but I like Lew Ayres, who took a big risk with his career by registering as a conscientious objector in WWII and served as a medic in the Pacific.  He did make a few movies after the war; I particularly admire his effectively low-key role as the Vice-President in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962).  Ayres has the lead role in No Escape as a washed-up dipsomaniac songwriter on the lam from a murder charge with co-star Marjorie Steele, in the last of her four movie roles.

I recommend this film for those who, like the late Gore Vidal, think the writer of the script is the true "author" of a film.  No Escape is one of the two films that Bennett directed (Madness of the Heart, 1949, was the other) after writing a number of excellent films, including Hitchcock's 39 Steps (1935) and Sabotage (1936).  Bennett's script for No Escape could have made an excellent film, with the theme of the innocent man on the run so common in Hitchcock, if it had been better and more intelligently directed, the film alternating between claustrophobic sets and shots of San Francisco obviously shot by a second unit.