[5] This early Oscar-winning best picture is uneven at best. Richard Dix makes for a hammy lead, while Irene Dunne is stuck playing his harpy of a wife. The film follows the two as they move west to Oklahoma at the end of the 1800s. The second half of the movie skips through so much time and character development, I felt pretty discombobulated by the …
[7] Twins Billy and Bobby Mauch do very well as the title characters in this lavish production of Mark Twain’s oft-told tale of mistaken identity. Claude Rains takes the role of villainy this time, playing an evil Earl who forces the beggar boy to be king for his own selfish gain, while Errol Flynn (at his dashing best) plays the soldier of fortune who helps …
[5] Bette Davis marries Errol Flynn and moves to San Francisco, but their happy marriage begins to disintegrate when he can’t support the couple and turns to drinking. It may be the writing more than the performances, but there’s not much chemistry between Flynn and Davis (who hated each other in real life). The film sticks primarily with Davis’ character, short-changing the subplots revolving around …
[7] Errol Flynn tries a Western on for size (his first of eight), seizing the sheriff’s badge and cleaning up the lawless town of Dodge City. He’s with his usual leading lady, Olivia de Havilland, and his usual sidekick, Alan Hale, all under Michael Curtiz’s sure-handed direction. (In fact, there’s a scene in the saloon where rival groups compete in song, a scene Curtiz would …
[3] Katharine Hepburn plays an aspiring composer who falls in love with a successful conductor. He cheats on her, they split up, they miss each other, they get back together. Snore. Supporting player John Beal is five times more appealing than phoney baloney leading man Charles Boyer. There’s no chemistry between Hepburn and Boyer, and no believable reason they should ever want to stay together. …
[6] Five ladies of ill repute muster the courage to take the stand against their evil nightclub boss in this Bette Davis vehicle. Davis overacts a tad (doesn’t she always?), but Humphrey Bogart is reliable in the role of the tenacious district attorney. This is an instance where I’d love to have seen some of the off-screen action, but the film works remarkably well under …
[7] It’s surprising Errol Flynn didn’t make more screwball comedies, because he’s completely at home in this ‘who’s duping who’ comedy, outrunning the guard dogs, shaking hands with people in side-by-side moving cars, and carrying on romantic telephone conversations with two women simultaneously. In Four’s a Crowd, he’s teamed with his regular leading lady Olivia de Havilland, as well as Rosalind Russell (in a newspaper …
[8] This one is often regarded as the first quintessential Alfred Hitchcock film, and what’s not to like? A little girl is kidnapped and her family are forced to go through the hoops for her safe return. Peter Lorre steals the show as the baddie, complete with a scarred brow and white streak in his hair. There are some wonderfully understated moments of horror, like …
[6] Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan take a third swing at playing Tarzan and Jane in another solid entry in the long-running Tarzan series. This time around, swindlers convince Jane to leave the jungle to settle an inheritance dispute back in England. Meanwhile, Tarzan is captured by a circus exhibitionist who plans to exploit our hero as a side-show attraction. One of the highlights of …
[6] When a madman kidnaps the inventor of a lethal ray gun, it’s up to a powerful hypnotist named Chandu to stop the fiend from unleashing the death ray on the world. This is Bela Lugosi in his prime. His performance as the madman Roxan is definitely the best part of this old, Saturday matinee movie. I did not care at all, however, for Edmund …
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