Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….
“The Glass Key” (1942) was based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. The novel was Hammett’s favorite among all his books. (There were five, not including short story collections.)
The book is about Ned Beaumont’s efforts to keep his friend and employer, political boss Paul Madvig, from being arrested for the murder of a senator’s son. Complicating matters is both men’s attraction to the senator’s daughter, Janet Henry.
I read the book some years ago and reread parts of it after I saw this movie. I’m afraid I don’t share Hammett’s affection for it, though the book is certainly respectable and enjoyable. But I much prefer Hammett’s first-person stuff – his Continental Op stories and “The Thin Man.”
In “The Glass Key,” Hammett seems to be aiming for a Hemingwayesque objectivity, never outright telling us how anyone feels about anything, apparently feeling that describing what they do and say is enough, and the readers can form their own conclusions. This type of writing can work really well or it can seem really mannered; it doesn’t help that Ned Beaumont is always referred to as Ned Beaumont, never as Ned or Beaumont. (Erle Stanley Gardner treated Della Street the same way. Maybe Ned Beaumont and Della Street should have paired up.)
Stuart Heisler’s movie pretty much sticks to the book, which was adapted by another mystery writer (and a very capable one, too), Jonathan Latimer. Latimer, who later adapted several of Gardner’s books for the “Perry Mason” show in addition to writing original scripts for that program, does a good job of shepherding Hammett’s work to the screen -- knowing when, for example, to combine characters for the sake of cinematic economy.
Then again, I’d be interested to know why a couple of the characters’ names were changed. Shad O’Rory, the villain in the book, becomes Nick Varna. Was Paramount afraid of offending the Irish, or had the actor – Joseph Calleia – already been cast and someone decided he didn’t look like an O’Rory? And why does Ned Beaumont become Ed Beaumont while Paul Madvig gets to keep his name?
Not that this really matters; the movie still works today, and for two reasons.
The first is the casting. Alan Ladd (Beaumont) and Veronica Lake (Janet) had already set off sparks in “This Gun for Hire.” True, the two of them have a limited range – perhaps a very limited range – but for the purposes of the film they’re perfect. William Bendix, as Varna’s chief henchman, is exactly what you’d find if the Yellow Pages had a listing for “vicious” or “brutal.” He probably could have taught Quentin Tarantino’s thugs a few things.
But Brian Donlevy, as Madvig, is perhaps the standout. He’s playing a guy who’s corrupt, who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty or violent, but who is also likable – and sympathetically clueless and vulnerable when it comes to romance. That’s a tall order to fill, but Donlevy does it with little if any apparent effort. Never mind Willy Loman – if you want to take the movies of the 1930s and 1940s seriously, attention must be paid to Brian Donlevy.
The second reason the movie still works is that it seems to take it for granted that politics is, at best, a slightly tainted business, to say the least; Frank Capra’s heroes need not apply. Whether or not you agree with this philosophy, it does make for good movies, and today’s jaded audiences can probably go along with it.
Me, I’m still wondering how this kind of world view got past the Hays Office. But for the sake of enduring movie entertainment, I’m glad it did.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
At the (old) movies: 'Waikiki Wedding'
Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society….
Paramount Pictures, like 20th Century Fox, had its own stable of performers who were perfectly suited for various permutations of whatever musical formula hadn’t been used lately. (And “lately” sometimes seemed to mean “in the last three months.”)
So, in “Waikiki Wedding” (1937), directed by Frank Tuttle, we have Bing Crosby (who, to be fair, was First Among Equals in the pecking order, unlike, say, Fox’s Don Ameche and John Payne, neither of whom had Bing’s status) along with Shirley Ross, Martha Raye and Bob Burns.
Shirley Ross is perhaps most famous for introducing two songs, both with Bob Hope – “Thanks for the Memory” and “Two Sleepy People” – in a couple of other Paramount films.
Martha Raye made 14 Paramount movies in the 1930s alone, beginning in 1936. Talk about overexposure – if moviegoers didn’t see her on the screen, they probably figured she was elsewhere in the building, making the popcorn.
Bob Burns, an Arkansas native, was a comedian who specialized in hillbilly characters – kind of a more mature version of Goober Pyle, which isn’t saying much, though I prefer George Lindsey. Burns was famous for a weird musical instrument he invented, called a bazooka – and yes, that’s where the military got its name for its handheld anti-tank rocket launchers during World War II.
In “Waikiki Wedding,” Burns is Bing’s sidekick. Bing, in turn, plays a PR guy for a Hawaii-based pineapple company. His latest bright idea is to have a Miss Pineapple contest, the winner of which gets a trip to Hawaii, during which Bing will ghostwrite syndicated newspaper pieces for her, extolling the island’s charms.
Problem is, the contest winner (Ross), who has arrived at the island with Raye, isn’t all that charmed. In fact, she’s bored. Which means Bing’s in hot water (or maybe even hot lava) if he can’t get her to change her attitude.
Actually, it’s hard to imagine why Ross would be bored by Hawaii, considering that her fiancé, back at home, is a stolid and humorless dentist played by a singularly stolid and humorless actor, Leif Erickson.
A not-yet-famous Anthony Quinn is also around, playing a native.
The movie goes down relatively easily – a sly plot twist involving a volcano helps – and although the songs written for the movie by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger are OK, most of them aren’t the types of tunes that you whistle on the way out, even subconsciously. (Your subconscious’ subconscious won’t even remember them.)
One possible exception: “Blue Hawaii.” (Though I haven't found myself whistling or humming it lately.)
Another song was added as an afterthought. (Specifically Bing’s afterthought, and at that point in his career Bing’s afterthoughts carried enough clout to make the amendments to the Constitution look like mere suggestions scribbled on a cocktail napkin.)
That composition, “Sweet Leilani,” by Harry Owens, won the Academy Award for best song and became Crosby's first gold record. But like the previous year's Oscar winner, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields’ immortal “The Way You Look Tonight” from “Swing Time,” it doesn’t seem to get much screen time.
Then again, in the long run, I doubt that Mr. Owens, and his heirs, minded very much.
Paramount Pictures, like 20th Century Fox, had its own stable of performers who were perfectly suited for various permutations of whatever musical formula hadn’t been used lately. (And “lately” sometimes seemed to mean “in the last three months.”)
So, in “Waikiki Wedding” (1937), directed by Frank Tuttle, we have Bing Crosby (who, to be fair, was First Among Equals in the pecking order, unlike, say, Fox’s Don Ameche and John Payne, neither of whom had Bing’s status) along with Shirley Ross, Martha Raye and Bob Burns.
Shirley Ross is perhaps most famous for introducing two songs, both with Bob Hope – “Thanks for the Memory” and “Two Sleepy People” – in a couple of other Paramount films.
Martha Raye made 14 Paramount movies in the 1930s alone, beginning in 1936. Talk about overexposure – if moviegoers didn’t see her on the screen, they probably figured she was elsewhere in the building, making the popcorn.
Bob Burns, an Arkansas native, was a comedian who specialized in hillbilly characters – kind of a more mature version of Goober Pyle, which isn’t saying much, though I prefer George Lindsey. Burns was famous for a weird musical instrument he invented, called a bazooka – and yes, that’s where the military got its name for its handheld anti-tank rocket launchers during World War II.
In “Waikiki Wedding,” Burns is Bing’s sidekick. Bing, in turn, plays a PR guy for a Hawaii-based pineapple company. His latest bright idea is to have a Miss Pineapple contest, the winner of which gets a trip to Hawaii, during which Bing will ghostwrite syndicated newspaper pieces for her, extolling the island’s charms.
Problem is, the contest winner (Ross), who has arrived at the island with Raye, isn’t all that charmed. In fact, she’s bored. Which means Bing’s in hot water (or maybe even hot lava) if he can’t get her to change her attitude.
Actually, it’s hard to imagine why Ross would be bored by Hawaii, considering that her fiancé, back at home, is a stolid and humorless dentist played by a singularly stolid and humorless actor, Leif Erickson.
A not-yet-famous Anthony Quinn is also around, playing a native.
The movie goes down relatively easily – a sly plot twist involving a volcano helps – and although the songs written for the movie by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger are OK, most of them aren’t the types of tunes that you whistle on the way out, even subconsciously. (Your subconscious’ subconscious won’t even remember them.)
One possible exception: “Blue Hawaii.” (Though I haven't found myself whistling or humming it lately.)
Another song was added as an afterthought. (Specifically Bing’s afterthought, and at that point in his career Bing’s afterthoughts carried enough clout to make the amendments to the Constitution look like mere suggestions scribbled on a cocktail napkin.)
That composition, “Sweet Leilani,” by Harry Owens, won the Academy Award for best song and became Crosby's first gold record. But like the previous year's Oscar winner, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields’ immortal “The Way You Look Tonight” from “Swing Time,” it doesn’t seem to get much screen time.
Then again, in the long run, I doubt that Mr. Owens, and his heirs, minded very much.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
When dress codes and penal codes collide
Sign at the entrance to a clothing store:
Must Have
SHORTS
50%
OFF
Must Have
SHORTS
50%
OFF
Friday, April 30, 2010
I hear Floyd the Barber is packing heat
The actress who played Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show” was robbed this week.
According to The Associated Press, Betty Lynn was robbed in Mount Airy, the North Carolina city that is the birthplace of Mr. Griffith and was the inspiration for the show’s setting, the fictional town of Mayberry.
Ironically, Ms. Lynn, whose character was the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife, had moved to Mount Airy because she’d been robbed several times in Los Angeles.
This is indeed disquieting news for those of us who grew up watching TV in the 1950s and 1960s and enjoyed the comedies that were set in a pleasant, much more innocent world – such as “The Real McCoys,” "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and “The Lucy Show.”
But if reality continues to intrude on our fond memories, we baby boomers should perhaps steel ourselves for headlines like these:
THIEVES FROM METH LAB TARGET McCOYS' FARM
NELSONS LOSE HOME OVER SUBPRIME MORTGAGE
Fed Official 'Can't Believe Bank Approved Application
From Guy Who Apparently Hasn't Held a Job in Years!'
MR. MOONEY ACCUSED OF MASTERMINDING PONZI SCHEME;
SECRETARY, IN AFFIDAVIT, SAYS 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!'
According to The Associated Press, Betty Lynn was robbed in Mount Airy, the North Carolina city that is the birthplace of Mr. Griffith and was the inspiration for the show’s setting, the fictional town of Mayberry.
Ironically, Ms. Lynn, whose character was the girlfriend of Deputy Barney Fife, had moved to Mount Airy because she’d been robbed several times in Los Angeles.
This is indeed disquieting news for those of us who grew up watching TV in the 1950s and 1960s and enjoyed the comedies that were set in a pleasant, much more innocent world – such as “The Real McCoys,” "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and “The Lucy Show.”
But if reality continues to intrude on our fond memories, we baby boomers should perhaps steel ourselves for headlines like these:
THIEVES FROM METH LAB TARGET McCOYS' FARM
NELSONS LOSE HOME OVER SUBPRIME MORTGAGE
Fed Official 'Can't Believe Bank Approved Application
From Guy Who Apparently Hasn't Held a Job in Years!'
MR. MOONEY ACCUSED OF MASTERMINDING PONZI SCHEME;
SECRETARY, IN AFFIDAVIT, SAYS 'WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!'
Sunday, April 25, 2010
At the (old) movies: 'Captain Blood'
Some notes from a recent gathering of the local cinephile society:
I hadn’t seen “Captain Blood” (Warner Bros., 1935) in many years.
I think the last time I’d seen it might have been when I was a kid, watching a local show called “Hollywood Matinee.”
Actually, that might not be exactly right, if you consider that the host, Ed Murphy, always seemed to pronounce this as “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!”
The show ran Mondays through Fridays, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Into those 90 minutes the station would shoehorn Ed’s opening and closing, a bunch of commercial breaks and, oh yes, a movie.
I’m guessing that most of the movies Ed showed had a running time of 90 minutes, tops, or an hour and 45 minutes.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that most of the time, the movies were not presented in full. They’d show the opening credits, then jump to the second reel, or maybe the third.
Surprisingly, as I recall, this didn’t hurt that many movies, especially as a good number seemed to be Universal B pictures.
Occasionally a movie would be so long that the traditional “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” treatment wouldn’t work. So they’d make it a two-parter.
I especially remember that they did this for Frank Capra’s “Arsenic and Old Lace.” I don’t know why, but they always seemed to show this while I was home sick from school.
As the years went by, I suspect the ratings began to slip, because the station decided to add something in an attempt to perk things up (though it cut into the movies even more):
Dialing for Dollars.
Remember that? And remember Bowling for Dollars, which the same station aired at 7 p.m.? I’ve sometimes wondered why they didn’t combine the two, for a show called Dialing for Bowlers. But then again, I don’t have the brains to be a network executive and come up with red-hot show ideas like “Minute to Win It.” (Which I never enjoyed all that much years ago when it was called “Beat the Clock.”)
Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about “Captain Blood”?
OK, if you insist.
“Captain Blood” was one of those two-part “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” movies. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid, and I’m happy to report that years later it seems to hold up quite well.
The hero, played by Errol Flynn in his first big role, is about a pirate named, quite conveniently, Peter Blood. Actually, Blood doesn’t start out as a pirate but as a doctor (go ahead, write your own joke here, I'll wait), and when he gets called away one night to attend to a patient and tells his housekeeper that he’ll surely be back in time for breakfast, well, even audiences in 1935 knew that the housekeeper’s next paycheck would be a long time coming.
Blood gets into trouble for treating someone who is unpopular with the kind of folks who can, if they want, have Blood deported and made a slave somewhere in the Caribbean. And of course it turns out that this is exactly what they want to do.
So Blood winds up being sold to Olivia De Havilland, who’s the niece of perennial bad guy Lionel Atwill, here wearing a wig that makes him look like a demented Buster Brown.
Blood gets revenge – and Ms. De Havilland – all to the strains of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score and under the expert directorial supervision of Michael Curtiz.
On the one hand there is something triumphant about the picture – not only Blood’s triumph but the triumph of a studio that was gambling that Flynn could become a major star. It was a gamble that paid off big-time, and I can only imagine the thrill that the audiences felt as they realized they were seeing a major star become a major star before their eyes.
And there’s something about Flynn’s boyishness and inexperience that works in his favor, and you do root for his character.
But, 75 years after the film’s first release, the sense of triumph and the thrills are offset by what we know now: that as the years pass, Flynn and his characters will gradually grow more cynical and dissolute; only eight years after this film came out, Flynn was parodying himself during a number in the Warner variety film “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” He was quite amusing as he parodied himself, but still.
And he was only 50 when he died.
But I suppose his diehard fans can take comfort in knowing that the young, promising Flynn, on a fast and seemingly inevitable track to stardom and good fortune beyond a Powerball player’s dreams, will always be with us as long as “Captain Blood” survives.
I hadn’t seen “Captain Blood” (Warner Bros., 1935) in many years.
I think the last time I’d seen it might have been when I was a kid, watching a local show called “Hollywood Matinee.”
Actually, that might not be exactly right, if you consider that the host, Ed Murphy, always seemed to pronounce this as “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!”
The show ran Mondays through Fridays, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Into those 90 minutes the station would shoehorn Ed’s opening and closing, a bunch of commercial breaks and, oh yes, a movie.
I’m guessing that most of the movies Ed showed had a running time of 90 minutes, tops, or an hour and 45 minutes.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that most of the time, the movies were not presented in full. They’d show the opening credits, then jump to the second reel, or maybe the third.
Surprisingly, as I recall, this didn’t hurt that many movies, especially as a good number seemed to be Universal B pictures.
Occasionally a movie would be so long that the traditional “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” treatment wouldn’t work. So they’d make it a two-parter.
I especially remember that they did this for Frank Capra’s “Arsenic and Old Lace.” I don’t know why, but they always seemed to show this while I was home sick from school.
As the years went by, I suspect the ratings began to slip, because the station decided to add something in an attempt to perk things up (though it cut into the movies even more):
Dialing for Dollars.
Remember that? And remember Bowling for Dollars, which the same station aired at 7 p.m.? I’ve sometimes wondered why they didn’t combine the two, for a show called Dialing for Bowlers. But then again, I don’t have the brains to be a network executive and come up with red-hot show ideas like “Minute to Win It.” (Which I never enjoyed all that much years ago when it was called “Beat the Clock.”)
Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about “Captain Blood”?
OK, if you insist.
“Captain Blood” was one of those two-part “Hollywood Mmmmmmmmmmmatinee!” movies. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid, and I’m happy to report that years later it seems to hold up quite well.
The hero, played by Errol Flynn in his first big role, is about a pirate named, quite conveniently, Peter Blood. Actually, Blood doesn’t start out as a pirate but as a doctor (go ahead, write your own joke here, I'll wait), and when he gets called away one night to attend to a patient and tells his housekeeper that he’ll surely be back in time for breakfast, well, even audiences in 1935 knew that the housekeeper’s next paycheck would be a long time coming.
Blood gets into trouble for treating someone who is unpopular with the kind of folks who can, if they want, have Blood deported and made a slave somewhere in the Caribbean. And of course it turns out that this is exactly what they want to do.
So Blood winds up being sold to Olivia De Havilland, who’s the niece of perennial bad guy Lionel Atwill, here wearing a wig that makes him look like a demented Buster Brown.
Blood gets revenge – and Ms. De Havilland – all to the strains of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score and under the expert directorial supervision of Michael Curtiz.
On the one hand there is something triumphant about the picture – not only Blood’s triumph but the triumph of a studio that was gambling that Flynn could become a major star. It was a gamble that paid off big-time, and I can only imagine the thrill that the audiences felt as they realized they were seeing a major star become a major star before their eyes.
And there’s something about Flynn’s boyishness and inexperience that works in his favor, and you do root for his character.
But, 75 years after the film’s first release, the sense of triumph and the thrills are offset by what we know now: that as the years pass, Flynn and his characters will gradually grow more cynical and dissolute; only eight years after this film came out, Flynn was parodying himself during a number in the Warner variety film “Thank Your Lucky Stars.” He was quite amusing as he parodied himself, but still.
And he was only 50 when he died.
But I suppose his diehard fans can take comfort in knowing that the young, promising Flynn, on a fast and seemingly inevitable track to stardom and good fortune beyond a Powerball player’s dreams, will always be with us as long as “Captain Blood” survives.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Elizabeth Montgomery
There are some concepts that are beyond imagination.
I cannot imagine a square circle.
Or the total immensity of the universe.
Or an insurance policy that's easy to understand.
And there is at least one concept that is way way beyond imagination.
I cannot imagine being a growing boy in the 1960s and not having a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery.
And neither, apparently, can Ken Levine, whose name you might have noticed on my blogroll.
I suppose I would have gotten around to writing about her sooner or later.
And I also suppose that as a former journalist, I should resent being scooped.
But when the scooper is as eloquent as Ken is, and when, after all, he has saved me some work, what's there to resent?
Read this, and see if you don't agree.
I cannot imagine a square circle.
Or the total immensity of the universe.
Or an insurance policy that's easy to understand.
And there is at least one concept that is way way beyond imagination.
I cannot imagine being a growing boy in the 1960s and not having a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery.
And neither, apparently, can Ken Levine, whose name you might have noticed on my blogroll.
I suppose I would have gotten around to writing about her sooner or later.
And I also suppose that as a former journalist, I should resent being scooped.
But when the scooper is as eloquent as Ken is, and when, after all, he has saved me some work, what's there to resent?
Read this, and see if you don't agree.
At the (old) movies: 'Murder at the Vanities'
Some notes from the local cinephile society’s first presentation of the new spring season….
I don’t know what modern-day critics think of “Murder at the Vanities” (Paramount, 1934), but the Federal Trade Commission would probably approve of it, and why not? It’s a perfect example of truth in advertising. You have a murder (actually, more than one), and the story takes place at a Broadway show called “Earl Carroll’s Vanities.”
And of course, and as you’ve probably already figured, it takes place on the show’s opening night. (As much as we might yearn for a more original approach, I suppose you do have to grudgingly admit that “Murder During the 13,517th Performance of ‘Cats’” doesn’t exactly evoke a frisson of excitement.)
But if you’re hard up to find an actor who’s name rhymes with frisson (or at least seems to), there’s Carl Brisson, who plays Eric Lander. Brisson comes across as a combination of Laurence Harvey and Allan Jones, but that’s not as gruesome as it might sound because he does have some charm, or at least enough of it to attract Kitty Carlisle, as Ann Ware. Unfortunately, as Mitchell Leisen’s film gets under way, we find that although Carl has fallen for Kitty, heavy objects – such as a sandbag or two – have been falling for but just missing Kitty.
The plot thickens (“congeals” might be a better word) when a Private Detective Who Knows Something is murdered. (The dick – or dickette? – is played by Gail Patrick, years before she produced the “Perry Mason” series.)
This leads Jack Oakie, who is running the show, to reluctantly call in a police lieutenant, played by Victor McLaglen, who spends a lot of the movie trying to lose his Scottish accent.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, the show’s diva gets her just deserts.
Along the way we meet a number of 1930s character actors, a couple of whom seem a bit out of character – Donald Meek, as a police doctor, plays the role without any of his usual fussy, jittery mannerisms, and Jessie Ralph, whom I’ve most often seen in aristocratic roles (I’m particularly thinking of “After the Thin Man”), plays a Wardrobe Mistress Who Has a Secret.
The always welcome Duke Ellington is also on hand.
Although a real-life, honest-to-goodness mystery writer had a hand in the plot (Rufus King, pretty much forgotten today), if you ever see “Murder at the Vanities,” don’t waste your time trying to figure out whodunit, because the plot is resolved by a sort of deus ex murderer who, near the end, confesses to keep the chief suspect from being arrested.
Perhaps “Murder at the Vanities” is best known for two of its songs – “Cocktails for Two,” still a nice standard and often the object (some might say “victim” is a better word) of parodies, most notably the one perpetrated by Spike Jones. My own favorite send-up of it features Steve Allen and his old gang – Don Knotts, Pat Harrington Jr., Louis Nye and Gabe Dell, with assists from Jo Stafford and Tony Randall. You can find it here.
The other famous song – well, maybe not that famous, and maybe “notorious” would be a better word – is “Sweet Marijuana,” which is performed by Gertrude Michael and has to be seen and heard to be believed. And as luck (I’ll let you decide whether it’s good or bad) would have it, you can see and hear it here.
I don’t know what modern-day critics think of “Murder at the Vanities” (Paramount, 1934), but the Federal Trade Commission would probably approve of it, and why not? It’s a perfect example of truth in advertising. You have a murder (actually, more than one), and the story takes place at a Broadway show called “Earl Carroll’s Vanities.”
And of course, and as you’ve probably already figured, it takes place on the show’s opening night. (As much as we might yearn for a more original approach, I suppose you do have to grudgingly admit that “Murder During the 13,517th Performance of ‘Cats’” doesn’t exactly evoke a frisson of excitement.)
But if you’re hard up to find an actor who’s name rhymes with frisson (or at least seems to), there’s Carl Brisson, who plays Eric Lander. Brisson comes across as a combination of Laurence Harvey and Allan Jones, but that’s not as gruesome as it might sound because he does have some charm, or at least enough of it to attract Kitty Carlisle, as Ann Ware. Unfortunately, as Mitchell Leisen’s film gets under way, we find that although Carl has fallen for Kitty, heavy objects – such as a sandbag or two – have been falling for but just missing Kitty.
The plot thickens (“congeals” might be a better word) when a Private Detective Who Knows Something is murdered. (The dick – or dickette? – is played by Gail Patrick, years before she produced the “Perry Mason” series.)
This leads Jack Oakie, who is running the show, to reluctantly call in a police lieutenant, played by Victor McLaglen, who spends a lot of the movie trying to lose his Scottish accent.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, the show’s diva gets her just deserts.
Along the way we meet a number of 1930s character actors, a couple of whom seem a bit out of character – Donald Meek, as a police doctor, plays the role without any of his usual fussy, jittery mannerisms, and Jessie Ralph, whom I’ve most often seen in aristocratic roles (I’m particularly thinking of “After the Thin Man”), plays a Wardrobe Mistress Who Has a Secret.
The always welcome Duke Ellington is also on hand.
Although a real-life, honest-to-goodness mystery writer had a hand in the plot (Rufus King, pretty much forgotten today), if you ever see “Murder at the Vanities,” don’t waste your time trying to figure out whodunit, because the plot is resolved by a sort of deus ex murderer who, near the end, confesses to keep the chief suspect from being arrested.
Perhaps “Murder at the Vanities” is best known for two of its songs – “Cocktails for Two,” still a nice standard and often the object (some might say “victim” is a better word) of parodies, most notably the one perpetrated by Spike Jones. My own favorite send-up of it features Steve Allen and his old gang – Don Knotts, Pat Harrington Jr., Louis Nye and Gabe Dell, with assists from Jo Stafford and Tony Randall. You can find it here.
The other famous song – well, maybe not that famous, and maybe “notorious” would be a better word – is “Sweet Marijuana,” which is performed by Gertrude Michael and has to be seen and heard to be believed. And as luck (I’ll let you decide whether it’s good or bad) would have it, you can see and hear it here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
