[6] Sylvia Sidney (Sabotage, Beetlejuice) plays two roles in this spin on the classic tale of The Prince and the Pauper. After a European princess (Sidney) comes down with the mumps on a good will tour of America, her political liaison (Edward Arnold) scours the city to find the perfect look-alike (also Sidney) to carry out her duties. When the doppelganger falls in love with …
[5] Cary Grant stars as a wealthy Parisian with terrible taste in women. When one of his most recent girlfriends rejects him over the phone, he jokes about killing himself — bringing his apartment’s telephone operator, played by Frances Drake (Mad Love), running to him in tears. Drake tells him she’s been listening to all his phone calls and that one of his ladies of …
[6] A floundering Broadway director ingratiates himself to an old flame in order to rekindle his career in Twentieth Century. This film is often regarded as the grandfather of screwball comedy, one of my favorite genres. John Barrymore and Carole Lombard give remarkably madcap performances as the theatre director and his ingenue, but these aren’t charming or likeable characters. I don’t always have to like …
[5] A young minister (John Beal) falls in love with a gypsy (Katharine Hepburn) and begins a village scandal. Hepburn and Beal are fairly matched and the rural setting is lovingly evoked through impressive indoor sets. The story, based on a novel by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, doesn’t quite break free from the hackneyed cross-class romance mold, but you could do worse for formulaic …
[4] Katharine Hepburn goes as far against type as possible in Spitfire, playing a hillbillie faith healer who gets accused of witchcraft by her backwoods community. Hepburn is far too erudite to sell the role convincingly, but it’s interesting to watch her attempt Appalachian jargon and throw rocks at people. The film doesn’t get as preachy as I’d expected, but it loses focus in its …
[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] Poachers are looking to rob a legendary elephant graveyard of its ivory in the first Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan sequel. I think the sequel is just as entertaining as the original. The sexual innuendo is more pronounced (we even get a nude swimming scene), and it definitely delivers plenty matinee action, culminating in a nice finale where we have Tarzan and Jane fighting their way …
[6] Cary Grant and Loretta Young star in this pre-Code drama about a devious mother and her young son who feign injury to fleece a wealthy businessman after a minor car accident. Hollywood is known for neat and tidy little narratives, but if you dig into the years before the Hayes Code took effect, you can find some offbeat gems. You certainly wouldn’t see a …
[5] I love the concept, but Death Takes a Holiday has a hard time overcoming the theatricality of its source material, a stage play by Alberto Casella. The sets are extravagant and the visual effects used to depict Death are remarkable for the time (double-exposure with a moving camera — I don’t know how they did it without computers). But the film is way too …
[9] Somewhere along the way, Hollywood forgot how to make good romantic comedies. Because there are plenty of them to be found in the ’30s and ’40s, with Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night being chief among them. Claudette Colbert plays a rich gal running away from what is essentially an arranged marriage. After she bumps into a reporter played by Clark Gable on a …
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