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Knock Knock (1940)
Woody Woodpecker's Cartoon Debut
Inspiration for an artist sometimes comes when least expected. The idea for cartoon's Woody Woodpecker is a story of legends when the bird made his film debut in November 1940 "Knock Knock." Director Walter Lantz found himself in need of a new character for Universal Pictures' animated division. During his honeymoon at a Nevada ranch with bride actress Grace Stafford, the newlyweds heard a persistent woodpecker doing his work on the roof. Grace, knowing Walt was searching for a new cartoon protagonist, suggested he use the irksome bird.
Although Lantz was a bit dubious a bird could successfully carry a cartoon series, he assigned animator Ben Hardaway to draw the pesky avian (Some, including the director, claim drawer Alex Lovy deserves credit for its initial design). Hardaway, who drew the first sketches of Bugs Bunny, promptly outlined a rendition of the Woody Woodpecker seen in "Knock Knock." He showed the drawing of the woodpecker to voice actor Mel Blanc who spoke for Woody in the first three cartoons, only to be replaced by a number of actors, including Lantz's wife Grace in 1950. She's uncredited because she felt kids shouldn't know the pecker's verbal skills were voiced by a woman. Meanwhile, Blanc sued Lantz in 1948 for using his laughter in the Academy Award-nominated "The Woody Woodpecker Song." While a judge ruled Blanc had no standing because he failed to copyright his Woody voice, Lantz paid him an out-of-settlement amount on appeal.
Andy Panda, who appears in "Knock, Knock," was Universal studio's primary character at the time before Woody knocked him off his mantle. Earlier Andy had replaced Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (originally a Walt Disney creation) series in 1939. The bear's popularity soared until Woody arrived on the scene. In Woody's debut Andy Panda and his father, Papa Panda, are irritated by the woodpecker's constant drilling on the roof of their house. Woody's first words when he breaks through the roof is "Guess who?" which soon became his trademark phrase. In a series of misdirected attempts to capture the woodpecker, both pandas are frustrated by the crafty Woody. A trick Andy always was successful in using, sprinkling salt on the bird's tail, boomerangs on the bears, resulting in a surprise ending.
At first Bernie Krieser, the distributor for Universal, didn't want to handle the cartoon, telling Lantz, "He's the ugliest thing I've ever seen." Walter replied, "You're not paying for these pictures, all you're doing is distributing them, so release him, because I'm taking a chance." The response to Woody was overwhelmingly off the charts by the enthusiastic paying public. Universal green lit Lantz's new character for further cartoons in the woodpecker's new series, with his solo cartoon, 1941's "Woody Woodpecker," the first to call him that name. Since then, Woody's physical appearance has somewhat been altered with the times. As a mainstay and official mascot for Universal studio, the bird's popularity remains consistent in film and on television. Woody is ranked by TV Guide as the 46th Greatest Cartoon Character of All Time. His image is seen on the nose of William Engineering team's racing cars in the Formula One Grand Prix while his balloon is one of the highlights in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The Letter (1940)
Meticulous Director William Wyler Delivers Another Winner
When the American Film Institute held a banquet honoring Bette Davis for its 1977 Life Achievement Award, William Wyler stood up to recognize the actress he had directed in three movies. In his speech Wyler mentioned one scene in particular gnawing at him since directing November 1940 "The Letter," an Academy Awards Best Picture nominee. The director revealed he and the actress still argue 37 years later how Davis' character Leslie Crosbie should have looked into her husband's eyes after a passionate kiss, saying, "With all my heart I still love the man I killed." Wyler wanted her to stare at her husband Robert (Herbert Marshall) while telling him the devastating revelation of loving another man--even though he's dead. Davis had a different opinion.
"It was such a cruel thing to say to the husband," Davis later wrote in her memoirs. "I couldn't conceive of any woman looking into her husband's eyes and admitting such a thing. Willie (Wyler) disagreed with me - most definitely. I walked off the set! Something I had never done in my whole career. I came back eventually and I did it his way. It played validly, heaven knows, but to this day I think my way was the right way. I lost, but I lost to an artist."
"The Letter," an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play, was based on a 1911 scandal in Malaysia where a jealous wife shoots her lover. In what many claim is cinema's best opening scene, Leslie, the wife of rubber plantation owner Robert Crosbie, fires a bullet into her secret lover Geoffrey Hammond at night on the plantation's outside stairs while everybody's sleeping. A meticulous director whose habit was to film a scene multiple times, Wyler insisted on 33 takes on the murder before he was satisfied. Davis was so tired holding up and repeatedly shooting the hand gun she could barely raise her arm in the final takes. Producer Hal Wallis was disgruntled Wyler took an entire day to shoot what was the opening paragraph of the script. "It was a simple setup," Wallis recalled, "and could easily have been done in two or three takes, but Wyler insisted on shooting thirty-three. Bette kept running out of ammunition."
"I felt this opening shot should shock you," Wyler said in his defense. "To get the full impact of the revolver being fired, I thought everything should be very quiet first." When it came time to editing the scene, Wallis stayed up all night carefully examining those 33 takes. "Then I made a selection of one of them. When the picture was completed, I ran it for Wyler and asked him if he was pleased with the opening scene. He said, 'Yes. Now you see the value of doing it thirty-three times.' 'I'm sorry to inform you,' I replied, 'that I used the first take.'"
Wyler also got into several verbal confrontations with actor James Stevenson, who played Leslie's lawyer Howard Joyce as he discovers a letter clearly implicating his client. Stevenson was a late bloomer in Hollywood, remaining strictly as a stage actor until his first screen appearance in 1937 at age 49. Extremely active in movies in his first three years (he appeared in fourteen films just in 1939 alone), Stevenson was hand-picked by Wyler to play Joyce, much to producer Wallis's chagrin. But the director won out, a role earning the British actor his only Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The arguments between Stevenson and Wyler were so contentious the actor stormed off the set on several occasions. Davis remembers, "Every time Jimmy would leave, I would run after him and make him come back, saying, 'It will be worth it. You will give the great performance of your career under Wyler's direction.'" After the picture was released, Davis recalled Stevenson, at the studio dining hall for another movie, approached her and said, "Bette, I'll thank you all my life for making me stay on the picture." The actor died shortly after the conversation from a heart attack at 53 in July 1941.
In "The Letter," Joyce is informed by the late-Geoffrey Hammond's wife (Gale Sondergaard) she has a letter written by Leslie on the day of the murder explaining why she was so mad at her victim. Mrs. Hammond demands a large sum of money for the letter, which Leslie's husband Robert agrees to pay, sapping his life savings but allowing his wife to walk free. But her freedom comes at a price, which sends viewers on an emotional roller coaster ride. Film critic Pauline Kael called it "A superbly crafted melodrama," while Time Magazine added, "Meticulous director William Wyler has packed this picture with atmosphere, an elusive quality for movies. He keeps the audience strained with a most effective dramatic time bomb the constant feeling that something very bad is about to occur."
The Academy Awards nominated "The Letter" in seven categories, for Best Picture, Wyler for Best Director, Davis for Best Actress, Stephenson for Best Supporting Actor, Tony Gaudio for Best Black and White Cinematography, Warren Low for Best Film Editing and Max Steiner for Best Original Score. "The Letter," however, didn't win one Oscar. The American Film Institute nominated Leslie Crosbie for Movie's Best Villain.
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Tyrone Power's Version of Zorro
Basil Rathbone is probably more known today as the prototype film version of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes than he is as a sword fighter. But during his prime, the actor had a reputation of being the best swordsman in Hollywood. In November 1940 "The Mark of Zorro," Rathbone displays his dexterity in sword fighting when he battles Don Diego Vega, otherwise known as Zorro (Spanish for "fox"), during the film's climatic finale.
"Basil Rathbone was a superb classical fencer," film reviewer Patrick Nash points out. Rathbone and Tyron Power as Vega "fight in one room where they are forced to interact rather than chase each other about. At any rate it is an excitingly staged and shot finale and the highlight of the movie." Power transforms in "The Mark of Zorro" from the foppish son of a southern California Mexican administrator who was attending a military academy when he's summoned home by his father. Don Diego Vega discovers his dad has been disposed by Luis Quintero (J. Edward Bromberg), with the assistance of his strongman Captain Esteban Pasquale (Rathbone). Vega Jr. Laments how the common people are overtaxed and mistreated by Quintero, and he sets out to correct these wrongs. Trouble is he falls for Quintero's niece, Lolita (Linda Darnell) and ingratiates himself with Quintero's wife, Inez (Gale Sondergaard), to get closer to Lolita. Meanwhile, he can't settle scores without donning his mask in the form of Zorro, and emerges as the hero for the common folk but a scourge to Quintero and his evil goals.
"The Mark of Zorro" marked a personal career change for the type of roles Power, 26, received from his contracted studio, 20th Century Fox. As the second biggest box-office draw in 1939, Power's adeptness at the sword as well as his marquee looks typecast the actor into several glamorous physical roles. Rathbone described Power "as the most agile man with a sword I've ever faced before a camera. Tyrone could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat."
This was Linda Darnell's, 16, who played Vega Jr.'s lover, fifth movie since she made her film debut in 1939. The Dallas native was a protege of her aggressive mother, whose obsession with Linda pushed her into acting while neglecting her five other children. "Mother really shoved me along, spotting me in one contest after another," recalled Darnell. "I had no great talent, and I didn't want to be a movie star particularly, but Mother had always wanted it for herself, and I guess she attained it through me." Her first film with Tyrone Power was in the 1939 comedy 'Star Dust," where her character dates Mickey Rooney. This was followed by the 1940 bio-pic 'Brigham Young' before "The Mark of Zorro" heightened her popularity. Darnell was quite active in Hollywood, appearing on the screen until the late 1950s.
"The Mark of Zorro" is known as the movie the eight-year-old Bruce Wayne went to see with his parents just before his mother and father were brutally murdered, according to 1986's comic book miniseries 'The Dark Knight Returns' as well as the 2016 film 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.' However, the original 1939 Batman comic book points to the Waynes' viewing the original 1920 silent Zorro film with Douglas Fairbanks. The American Film Institute nominated the Zorro movie as one of the Greatest American motion pictures.
From Nurse to Worse (1940)
Insurance Scheme Backfires in This Stooges Classic
In the Three Stooges movie, August 1940 "From Nurse to Worse," their 49th in the series, the three are approached by a friend Jerry, an insurance salesman who concocts a scheme where they can claim $500 a month if one of them pretends to be crazy. Curly's elected to act like he's a dog, except their plan backfires when the examining doctor demands he perform brain surgery on him.
In one scene where they're trapped in a dog kennel, Moe calls Curly "Seabiscuit," the championship race horse who beat Triple Crown winner War Admiral in a 1937 race and was voted American Horse of the Year in 1938. The three are seen racing inside a smoke-filled fumigated dog kennel when Moe and Larry realize they're running in circles. The two stop and see Curly continue to run around the dog catcher's truck before they stop him, labeling him "Seabiscuit."
"From Nurse to Worse" was actor Joe Palma's first Stooges' appearance. The former mortician-turned-actor was in a typical role as a background figure when he was playing a male nurse in the hospital where Curly was about to be operated. The non-distinct actor usually was seen in dozens of movies as an extra. His claim to fame was as a substitute for the late Shemp Howard in 1955 after the Stooge died from a heart attack. Through the magic of film editing, he stood in for Shemp in four Stooges' episodes, earning the moniker the "Fake Shemp."
No Census, No Feeling (1940)
Historians Look To the Three Stooges in Their Research of the Past
Watching The Three Stooges films today can help gain an insight on America's history of the past. In the case of October 1940's "No Census, No Feeling," there are several instances where the modern viewer can get a perspective of the timeline of events in the 1940s, some trivial, some breathtaking, but all enlightening.
The Stooges find themselves as census takers, getting paid four cents a person to write down each citizens' particulars. Their job takes them inside a sprawling mansion where the owner is hosting a bridge game. While preparing the party's punch Curly pours in Alum, a pickling preservative he thinks is sugar. Once the guests drink the stuff they pucker up when conversing, creating a hilarious situation where words are barely intelligible. Still on the job, the Stooges end up at a college football game attempting to get census information on the players. Just before entering the football arena filled with a hundred thousand fans, the Stooges hear the roar of the spectators, prompting Curly to say, "Maybe it's the Fourth of July!" Moe retorts, "The Fourth of July in October?" "You never can tell," Curly says. "Look what they did to Thanksgiving." Today's viewers scratch their heads asking what happened back then to our Pilgrim-inspired holiday. Since Abraham Lincoln's time, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the last Thursday in November. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 pushed back Turkey Day to the third week of the month to allow an extra week for Christmas shopping, pleasing business owners who loved shoppers to have one more week to spend their money, but angering many state governors and the public. FDR's mandate lasted three years until Congress passed a law permanently resetting Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of the month.
Hollywood films shown in general public movie theaters were required to be stamped with an approval from the Hays Office, named after the first president of the Motion Picture Association of America, William Harrison Hays, the chief censor for Hollywood movies before Joseph Breen took charge. Moe says the Stooges just got a job working for the Census. A confused Curly asks, "Will Hays?" thinking they've become censors for the movies. Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.
The Stooges also loved to throw several inside jokes into their movies. Curly and Larry play a joke on Moe, who unknowingly thinks he's canvassing others when its really his partners, asking them where they were born. "Lake Winnipesaukee (a lake in New Hampshire)," Curly answers. Moe says, "How do you spell that?" "W-O ... woof! Make it Lake Erie I got an Uncle there!" Curly responds. Moe, still unaware it's Curly he's talking to, replies, "What was your family decomposed of?" "Well, I'll tell ya! There was a litter of three, and I was the one they kept!" Curly says, reminding viewers his last name was Howard, the real brother to Moe Howard, with Shemp, a later addition to the Stooges, the third. A scene later, Moe approaches a man with a newspaper over his head sleeping on a couch. Moe asks, "Pardon me sir, but I'm taking census, where were you born?" Larry, who's reclining on a nearby couch not in Moe's sites, answers, "Lake Winnipesaukee." Moe: Lake Winnip-how many in the family?" Larry: "I was one of a litter of three." Moe: "Now don't tell me you're the one they kept!" Larry: "Nah, I was the one they threw away!" Larry Fine was not a member of the Howard family even though he was the original member of the Stooges.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Chaplin's Niting Satire on the Fuhrer and His Barbaric Behavior
Film studio owner producer Alexander Korda, a friend of Charlie Chaplin, told the comedian director he looked just like German leader Adolf Hitler. The comment planted a seed in Chaplin's head, inspiring him to create a satirical attack on the German chancellor, resulting in the classic October 1940 "The Great Dictator," his biggest box office hit ever while it was an Academy Awards Best Picture nominee.
Korda said it was a coincidence Chaplin and Hitler were born within a week of each other, they both rose up from poverty, they had the same physical build, and they both sported the distinctive toothbrush mustache. The son of Charlie Chaplin's wrote about the comparison between the two. "Their destinies were poles apart," Charlie Chaplin Jr. Said. "One was to make millions weep, while the other was to set the whole world laughing. Dad could never think of Hitler without a shudder, half of horror, half of fascination. 'Just think,' he would say uneasily, 'he's the madman, I'm the comic. But it could have been the other way around.'" After viewing Leni Risfenstahl's 1935's "Triumph of the Will," a propaganda film on the Nazis' gathering in Nuremberg, Germany, Chaplin found comic possibilities in mimicking Hitler's gestures on the screen. Chaplin spent hours studying the Fuhrer's speaking style, which came in handy since "The Great Dictator" was Chaplin's first movie with sound dialogue.
Chaplain wrapped his studio set around a shroud of total secrecy while filming "The Great Dictator," making sure word didn't get out on his poking fun at the German leader. George Gyssling, the German consul who made a habit of threatening Hollywood studios to not criticize the Nazi government and its leaders, heard what Chaplin was doing. He wrote a letter to the head of the Hay's Office Joseph Breen protesting the "burlesque' of Hitler by Chaplin. The timing of Gyssling's threat was perfect for Chaplin's pet project since it arrived on Breen's desk a week after Germany invaded Poland, setting off World War Two. What was discouraged by the censors a week before was now permissible, allowing Chaplin to mock the Nazi leader.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "In 1940, this would have played as very highly charged, because Chaplin was launching his comic persona against Hitler in an attempt, largely successful, to ridicule him as a clown." "The Great Dictator" contains two plots, both converging at the end. One featured the head of a fictitious European country Tomainia, whose leader Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplain) rules with an iron-clad hand comically seeking world domination, symbolically portrayed in the famous sequence of the dictator bouncing a gigantic global balloon in his office. The other storyline focuses on a Jewish barber (Chaplain), an injured World War One German veteran suffering amnesia for twenty years. Returning to his shop, he's confronted by storm troopers painting the word "Jew" on his shop's windows. He and his next door neighbor, Hannah (Paulette Goddard), are able to temporarily fend off the SS assaults. The Barber wears The Tramp's signature mustache and bowler hat, which film historians say was Chaplin's final appearance as his famous character. "The Great Dictator's" two arcs converge, leading to what critics say is one of the greatest monologues in film, spoken by the assumed Tomainian leader.
The perfectionist Chaplin took an inordinate 539 days to film "The Great Dictator." He claimed when he wore the Nazi-type uniform it made him feel more aggressive. Those working close to Chaplin say he was more difficult to deal with when he was dressed as Hynkel. In addition, his relationship with Paulette Goddard was strained while directing his blockbuster; he was jealous she was receiving a number of lead offers for several big-budgeted movies. Goddard was unhappy with her small role in the film as well as the shoddy clothes and unkept hair style she was forced to wear. One nasty fight erupted when Chaplin harped on the way she was scrubbing the floor, claiming she didn't have "the proper swing of the brush." Goddard walked off after he demanded she clean the entire studio floor until she got the technique correct.
Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" wasn't Hollywood's first satirical look at Hitler. The Three Stooges beat him by several months in January 1940's release of "You Nazty Spy." Germany and its allies banned the Chaplin film, but according to Hitler's girlfriend Eva Braun, Hitler did view Chaplin's movie twice and enjoyed the globe dance sequence. Hitler even remodeled his office to resemble the one in the film. Chaplin heard of the chancellor's viewing and declared, "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it." One theatre in Nazi-occupied Balkans packed with German soldiers contained resistance fighters switching reels in the middle of the movie it was playing to the "The Great Dictator." The stern soldiers began laughing at Chaplin's antics until they realized what was happening. While a few left others, angered by its content, shot their guns at the screen. When England's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain first heard about Chaplin's filming the Hitler satire in the summer of 1939, he declared the movie was against his appeasement policy, and would ban it from playing. When war was declared, the picture was allowed to be shown in the United Kingdom, to great popular demand.
When he heard about the horrors of the Holocaust, Chaplin expressed regrets about making "The Great Dictator," claiming if he ever knew the full extent of the Nazi's brutalization, he would have never made the movie. Controlling all rights to the film, he withdrew it from circulation in the middle of World War Two knowing its humor would be tough to amuse a war-weary audience. The film was shown in Rome in late 1944 shortly after Benito Mussolini high-tailed out the country, liberating Italy. Actor Jack Oakie's parody of the Italian dictator as the bumbling Benzino Napaloni had the Italians sitting in stunned silence after they previously laughed at the Hynkel scenes. Oakie later said he "had made hundreds of pictures, but they only remember me as Napaloni." When the movie reappeared in 1961, the Italians flocked to the theaters lapping up every minute of it. In Spain, "The Great Dictator" was withheld until 1975 when its dictator, General Francisco Franco, died.
Film reviewer James Kendrick remarked Chaplin "is certainly his bravest, if not one of the bravest films ever made. It was a lone cinematic cry for humanity to stand together against the ominous dark clouds of fascism that were rapidly spreading across Europe." The Academy Awards nominated the film for five categories, including Best Picture (Chaplin's only Best Pic nominee), Best Actor (Chaplin's only nominated performance), Best Supporting Actor (Oakie), Best Original Screenplay (Chaplin), and Best Original Musical Score (Meredith Wilson), but didn't take home one Oscar. Chaplin is the only actor to refuse to accept the New York Film Critics award for Best Actor. The American Film Institute ranks his picture the 37th Funniest Movie of All Time.
Down Argentine Way (1940)
Bette Grable's Big Break, Re-launching Her Stellar Career
Unusual for a young woman in her mid-20s, Bette Grable was experiencing job burnout. But she received a boast in her acting career as a substitute for the ailing Alice Faye posing as a horse owner in October 1940 "Down Argentina Way." The 20th Century Fox musical re-energized the actress singer/dancer, serving as a launching pad which saw her become Hollywood's top box office star three years later.
Grable plays opposite Don Ameche in "Down Argentina Way," highlighted by her singing the title song. Observed film reviewers Constance and Diana Metzinger, "Bedecked in eye-popping Travis Banton costumes, Betty Grable is a veritable feast for the eyes in this picture. She jiggles her way through the samba-inspired 'Down Argentine Way' dance number wearing a gorgeous two-piece ensemble adorned with blue beads." The film jump-started a long line of successful box-office Technicolor musicals Grable excelled in for the next fifteen years.
Grable's movie career began at the tender age of thirteen (her mother added a couple of years so she would be eligible for work) beginning in 1929's 'Happy Days' as a chorus girl. One of the original Goldwyn Girls for producer Samuel Goldwyn, she followed up in Busby Berkeley's 1930's "Whoopie!" Contracted by several studios throughout the decade, Grable was limited to small roles, although 1939's 'Million Dollar Legs,' with her husband actor Jackie Coogan gave her the famous nickname on those stunning legs of hers. But Paramount terminated Grable's contract, prompting her to seriously consider retiring from Hollywood, stating she was "sick and tired" of the film business. An offer to star in a Broadway musical with Ethel Merman gave Grable the opportunity to show off her performing talents to New York City critics, who unanimously raved about her. Head of 20th Century Fox Darryl F. Zanuck saw the newly-confident singer/dancer on the stage and inked her to a long-term contract. Grable said after the signing, "If that's not luck, I don't know what you'd call it."
"Down Argentina Way" was the Hollywood debut for singer/actress Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian superstar who was on Broadway when Zanuck signed her. While she was obligated to remain in New York City, a studio crew filmed her singing three of her patented Brazilian samba songs and spliced them into the movie. And the Nicholas Brothers, Harold (named after Lloyd the comedian) and Fayard, thrilled viewers with their dancing and singing, one of the many pictures from the early 1930s they had performed.
"Down Argentina Way" was the first movie emerging from the United States government's Good Neighbor Policy, enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to familiarize Latin American culture to North Americans, and vice versa. FDR's concern was the large German population in Argentina had the potential to swing many South American governments towards the Nazi alliance. Also, Hollywood was looking at the Central and South American markets when World War Two shut off most of the lucrative European cinemas to American films. But "Down Argentina Way" had the opposite effect in Argentina, appalling many in the country by its content. Viewers there felt the movie was saturated with Caribbean (especially Cuban) and Brazilian performers and songs, little resembling their country except for the establishing shots. Because of this, the Argentinian government banned the film, negating the purpose in producing the movie.
Back in the states, however, "Down Argentina Way" was a big hit, earning three Academy Award nominations: Best Color Cinematography, Best Original Song (the title song), and Best Color Art Direction. The American Film Institute also nominated it for the Greatest Movie Musical.
Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Rita Hayworth's Biggest Role So Far and Ben Hecht's Favorite Script
Ever since she first stepped in front of a camera as a teenager in 1935, Rita Hayworth found herself in a number of low-budgeted movies. After years of fine-tuning her acting, Hayworth, 22, finally received a big role in an "A" listed film with top tier actors in October 1940 "Angels Over Broadway." The opportunity to play a New York City nightclub showgirl came when Jean Arthur refused the role of Nina Barona, who finds herself in the company of three men, one who is seriously contemplating suicide.
After writing a number of scripts that turned into immediate classics, journalist-turned-screenwriter Ben Hecht considered "Angels Over Broadway" one "of his most personal works." He described his script as an experiment, saying it was "reflections of life - as if a ghost were drifting in the rain." Hecht's script has a business owner discovering his employee, Charles Engle (John Qualen), embezzling $3,000 on his highfalutin wife, who has squandered all the money. Engle is told he has until the next morning to come up with the money or the police will be notified. Writing a suicide note, Charles goes uptown where he ends up in a nightclub. Steady customer Pulitzer-winning playwright Gene Gibbons (Thomas Mitchell) comes across the note and sets out to know Engle. Nina (Hayworth) and conman Bill O'Brien (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) join the table. The big question posed by Hecht is would ordinary people with their own self interests sacrifice a bit of themselves to save a person intent on killing himself?
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther loved Hecht's script, which earned an Academy Awards nomination for Best Original Screenplay, exclaiming, "If it is not the best work that Mr. Hecht has done for the screen, certainly it is the most satisfying of his work that we have seen. As the writer, director and producer, Mr. Hecht has taken the opportunity to reaffirm the fact that drama is created out of people and not out of a warehouse full of props and sets."
Harry Cohn, the boss of Columbia Pictures which produced "Angels Over Broadway," barely noticed Hayworth as she hopscotched throughout low-budgeted pictures. Her husband, Eddie Judson, encouraged her to go through painful electrolysis treatments to lift her hairline. When she did, the procedure completely changed her appearance. One of her bigger roles before "Angels Over Broadway" was Howard Hawks' 1939 "Only Angels Have Wings." Cohn twisted Hawk's arm to get Hayward assigned to a minor, but important role as Cary Grant's ex-girlfriend. Hayworth's performance in the Hecht-directed "Angels Over Broadway" gravitated towards her break-out role in 1941's "Strawberry Blonde." That movie lead to her famous photo spread in Life Magazine during the summer of 1941. Hayworth along with Bette Grable became the top pin-up girls in World War Two.
Christmas in July (1940)
Preston Sturges' Second Directed Film, One of His Most Underrated One
Once given the opportunity to direct his own scripts, Preston Sturges was off and running by producing some of Hollywood wittiest films during its Golden Era. His second picture where he had complete control of the production was October 1940 "Christmas in July." Sturges, a Hollywood fixture since 1930 as a scriptwriter, was making his mark by penning brilliant dialogue and original scenarios distinctive from ordinary movies.
It had been a long slog for the writer, said the Chicago native Sturges. "It's taken me eight years to reach what I wanted. But now, if I don't run out of ideas - and I won't - we'll have some fun. There are some wonderful pictures to be made, and God willing, I will make some of them." After winning his first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for 1940's 'The Great McGinty,' the first film he directed a script of his, Sturges set about working on his his second personal film by rewriting his unproduced three-act 1931 play 'A Cup of Coffee.' After throwing out such titles as 'The New Yorkers' and 'Something to Shout About,' he settled on "Christmas in July." Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell) is a low-salaried clerk at a coffee chain who enters a contest of a competing company, Maxford House Coffee, for the snappiest slogan. Jimmy is convinced he won with his "If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk." A delay on the announcement of the winner allows three of his co-workers to fake a cable from Maxford claiming Jimmy won the $25,000 (over half-a-million today) prize. This kicks off a wild series of events that only Sturges could deliver.
Film critic Andrew Sarris described Sturges' unique perspective of American life as "repeatedly suggested that the lowliest boob could rise to the top with the right degree of luck, bluff, and fraud." Not that Jimmy MacDonald was bluffing or committing a fraud, but in thinking he won the grand prize it gave him a new-found confidence he had never possessed before. Sturges could identify with Jimmy, whose inventive mind was always working. Film reviewer Aaron Pinkston noted Sturges' hard-work ethic is seen in Jimmy's supervisor, who says "success comes down to effort - it doesn't matter if you've reaped financial benefit as long as you've tried, though ultimately, the harder you try, the better off you'll be."
Alongside Jimmy's adventures was the behavior of his girlfriend/fiance, Betty Casey, played by Ellen Drew. For the Kansas City native Drew, 26, her part as Jimmy's love interest in "Christmas in July" was her biggest role yet after appearing in dozens of films since 1936. William Demarest, a Sturges regular stock actor, is part of the Maxford panel in charge of selecting the best slogan. He coincidentally discovers Drew working at an ice cream parlor whose ambition is to be a star.
Film critic Johnathan Rosenbaum cites "Christmas in July" as Sturges' most underrated of his movies. The American Film Institute nominated it as one of America's Funniest Movies.
The Long Voyage Home (1940)
Cinematographer Gregg Toland's Imprint in Ford's Best Picture Nominee Classic
Cinematographers usually take instructions from directors while offering bits of advice. In the case of October 1940's "The Long Voyage Home," it was the director of photography, Gregg Toland, who was practically telling director John Ford, a normally forceful director in command of his productions, what to do. His work on the movie produced an Academy Awards Best Picture nomination.
John Wayne, in his second film under Ford's direction, recalled, "Usually it would be Mr. Ford who helped the cinematographer get his compositions for maximum effect, but in this case it was Gregg Toland who helped Mr. Ford. 'Long Voyage' is about as beautifully photographed a movie as there ever has been."
Toland had previously worked with Ford in 1939's "The Grapes of Wrath." The director appreciated the cameraman's ability to capture the pathos of the actors on to film. Toland's work in "The Long Voyage Home" set up the dynamics visible in Orson Welles' 1941 "Citizen Kane," the next project he tackled. Toland loved to illuminate his set with chiaroscuro lighting, contrasting lit areas with dark patches and shadows. His expertise in depth of field lens work, where distant objects and close ones near the camera are kept in focus, is constantly on display. Toland was forced to work with back projection footage since much of the movie takes place inside the studio sound stage on a reconstructed freighter. The cameraman gave his set on the boat's deck a three-dimensional look by creating contrasting dark shadows with white highlights. One famous example is the sequence of the native women standing on the distant shore singing to the crew on the SS Glencairn deck enticing them to come to their island. Ford recognized Toland's great contribution to the film in the opening credits by printing his name the same size as the director's.
Film critic for The New Yorker, John Mosher, called Toland's work "one of the magnificent films of film history. Never has the sea, its infinite pictorial possibilities, been so comprehended upon the screen and its beauty and its threat so eloquently conveyed."
"The Long Voyage Home" was condensed by scriptwriter Dudley Nichols from four early Eugene O'Neill one-act plays. Ford, a good friend of O'Neill's, personally gave the playwright a print of the movie. Citing it as was one of his favorite films, O'Neill wore out the print by projecting it so much. Ford had founded Argosy Pictures, his own independent film company with good friend Merian C. Cooper of 1933 "King Kong" fame, and had in his contract with 20th Century Fox permission to make one movie a year outside the studio. The director convinced Walter Wagner, producer for Ford's 1939 hit "Stagecoach," to fund the motion picture.
The episodic movie features many of Ford's stock actors, including Thomas Mitchell, Barry Fitzgerald and Ward Bond. John Wayne was approached by Ford to appear as the Swede Ole Olsen, a role the actor was hesitant to play since it required speaking in a heavy Swedish accent. Ford arranged for Danish actress Osa Massen to tutor Wayne on talking with a Swedish twang. Wayne, who was still acting in an occasional low-budget Western with his contracted Republic Pictures, was just finishing 'Three Faces West," with its last day of filming stretching to midnight. Reporting to the set early the next morning for the the Ford movie, Wayne recalled, "I wanna tell you, that was quite a switch from the night before, knocking people around and jumping on a horse." The actor claims playing the Swedish character Olsen was one of his favorite roles.
The movie public wasn't as excited as the critics were on "The Long Voyage Home," which lost Wanger some of the profits he had made producing "Stagecoach." Part of the problem was the film's gloomy portrayal of the ocean freighter's motley crew in the early days of World War Two. The British tramp steamer SS Glencairn sailed from the West Indies to the states to pick up a cargo of high explosives before heading off to England. En route the members think they have a German spy on board in the sulking Smitty (Ian Hunter), before discovering a secret of his in a small hidden box. Shortly afterwards a German plane sprays bullets throughout the ship, giving the crew members incentive to sign up again for another spin around the Atlantic to aid the British cause.
"The Long Voyage Home" earned six Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Screenplay, Best Special Effects, Best Original Score, and Best Black-and-White Cinematography. Although the movie didn't earn any Oscars, it did place a spotlight on the hazards of manning cargo freighters during World War Two where numerous ships were sunk by the Germans in their attempt to break the lifeline between England and the United States.
North West Mounted Police (1940)
DeMille and Cooper's First Technicolor Film
Whenever director Cecil B. DeMille's name appeared on theater marquees, long lines snaked out the doors. His newest film, a Technicolor extravaganza, October 1940 "North West Mounted Police," was no exception. With Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard and Madeleine Carroll, the Canadian setting enticed enough viewers to make it one of Paramount Pictures' top movies in 1940.
"North West Mounted Police's" premier in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, drew rave reviews, including Variety gushing the "scripters weave a story which has its exciting moments, a reasonable and convincing romance." Adapted from R. C. Fetherstonhaugh's 1938 'The Royal Canadian Mountain Police,' this sprawling blockbuster was the first complete Technicolor picture for DeMille as well as for actor Gary Cooper. Technicolor's vivid crisp look, especially the red uniforms of the Canadian Mountain Police, gave the director a new dimension to work with.
"North West Mounted Police" takes place during Canada's North-West Rebellion in 1885, involving 200 indigenous people from the Metis Indian tribe, led by discontented Louis Riel. The protest culminated in a military confrontation between Canadian police and the natives. Amidst the battle scenes in DeMille's picture was romance galore, with Mountie Ronnie Logan's (Robert Preston) affair with mixed Indian Louvette Corbeau (Paulette Goddard). Meanwhile, Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers (Cooper) is caught in the middle of the rebellion while chasing wanted criminal Jacques Corbeau (George Bancroft), who happens to be the rebel leader North West Mounted Police Sergeant Jim Brett (Preston Foster) wants to apprehend. Both Jim and Dusty find themselves vying for the attention of nurse April Logan (Madeleine Carroll).
"North West Mounted Police" was the second straight Western Cooper appeared, but was his last until after World War Two. Joel McCrae, the original choice to play Dusty, traded places with Cooper, who didn't want to be in Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 "Foreign Correspondent," a decision he later regretted. Paulette Goddard was an unlikely choice to play Corbeau's flighty half-Indian daughter since DeMille was seriously considering Marlene Dietrich and Vivien Leigh among others. Goddard stepped into DeMille's office dressed in Indian garb and spoke pidgin English, impressing the director so much she received the part with the caveat she wear high heels.
There were critics of the film, including Leonard Maltin, saying "North West Mountain Police," is a "superficial tale of Texas Ranger searching for fugitive in Canada. Much of the outdoor action filmed was on obviously indoor sets." Harry Medved's 1978 book 'The Fifty Worst Films of All Time' lists the DeMille epic in his book, although a number of film scholars discount the author's work as not worth reading.
"North West Mountain Police" was nominated for five Academy Awards, for Color Art Direction, Color Cinematography, Original Musical Score (Victor Young) and Best Sound Recording, winning Best Editing (Anne Bauchens).
The Westerner (1940)
Early Example of Revisionist Western with Walter Brennan's Third Oscar
Revisionist Westerns, where the anti-hero emerged in such movies as directed by Sergio Leone, saw its early beginnings in September 1940 "The Westerner," introducing a new slant to the gritty genre. The milestone film, starring Gary Cooper, lent a psychological twist to the normal good guy/bad guy roles blurring its heroes and villains to become interchangeable.
At the core of "The Westerner" is the relationship between drifter Cole Harden (Cooper) and Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan). Film reviewer Jeff Arnold wrote director William Wyler "thought it was essentially a story of a needling love/hate relationship between Harden and Bean." Wyler himself said of the movie, "There was subtle comedy in there." Wyler's biographer Jan Herman observed the "critics agreed that Wyler had made something unusual, a horse opera that subverted the genre's conventions. It had shoot-outs, cowboy chases, an epic range war and a spectacular fire. But it was also an intimate character study filled with comic overtones about the peculiar friendship between a hanging judge and the mild-mannered drifter who outfoxes him."
When Cooper read the initial script of "The Westerner" he refused the role. "You can't make a western without a gunfight," he told producer Samuel Goldwyn, whom he was under contract. The actor also protested his Cole Harden played second fiddle to Brennan's Judge Roy Bean. After bringing in another screenwriter to spice up the action scenes and elevate Harden's presence, Cooper still wasn't happy. Goldwyn reminded the actor he had spent $400,000 on the production so far, and without Cooper the film would flail at the box office. The persuasive lobbying finally brought Cooper around.
The director appreciated Cooper's acting, even though the actor labeled Wyler years later as "a laborious plodder with an inflated reputation." Wyler, the director of such classics as 1959's "Ben Hur," paid Cooper an ultimate complement when filming wrapped on "The Westerner." "If you tell Gary that here, after this line, is a chance for a funny look, he'll get the idea," said Wyler. "He'll do something with that look that no one else can do." Wyler's wife Talli observed the actor on the set and related, "Cooper would do a scene, and it looked like nothing. He just seemed to stand there like a block of wood. The next night, I'd go to view the rushes. It was incredible. Everything showed in his face. It was all there. He had something special with the camera, really extraordinary."
Despite the elevated status of the movie's Cole Harden, it is Walter Brennan's role as the Judge which dominates "The Westerner." Harden is brought before the judge at his saloon where he holds court for horse stealing. The two establish a certain bond despite Roy Bean enforcing a hanging sentence meted out by the judge's drinking customers as the jury. A mutual admiration for British entertainer Lily Langtry, whom in real life Judge Bean renamed the town he was practicing, links the unusual friendship between the jurist and the drifter. When the actual horse thief turns up, Harden is given a two week reprieve to retrieve a tuft of Lily's hair he claims he possesses. Meanwhile, Harden is caught in a war between the ranchers and the cattlemen who want to drive their livestock through ranch land, whom the judge favors. The drifter meets Jane Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport), a rancher's daughter, and both fall head-over-heels with one another.
Brennan won his third Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the judge, snaring three Academy Award wins in five years. Back in the day film extras had the power to vote in the Academy's awards, and Brennan was a particular favorite for many of those seen in the background. They came out in force when he won for his acting in 1936's 'Come and Get It' and 1938's 'Kentucky." Brennan was somewhat embarrassed by the process when he won his third Oscar, the most of any actor at the time. After the awards ceremony, the Academy stripped the union members representing film extras the right to vote, resulting in Brennan never earning another Oscar.
"The Westerner" was the film debut of Forrest Meredith Tucker, known as television's Sergeant Morgan O'Rourke in 'F Troop.' The Plainfield, Indiana native moved near Washington D. C. as a teenager, graduating from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. Always an entertainer, Tucker dabbled in vaudeville and stage acting before a Hollywood screen test stereotyped him in the large "ugly guys" category in the vein of Wallace Beery and Victor McLaglen. Tucker is seen as the farmer in "The Westerner" who has a monumental fist fight with Cooper.
Assisting Wyler was cinematographer Gregg Toland, a deep focus expert which particularly came in handy filming the spectacular crop fire sequence ignited by the cattlemen. Wyler called Toland "an artist," who shortly helped rookie director Orson Welles in his 1941 classic "Citizen Kane."
City for Conquest (1940)
FIlm Debut of Arthur Kennedy and Elia Kazan in James Cagney's Boxing Movie
Director Anatole Litvak loved to place his camera and actors in constant motion while filming September 1940 "City For Conquest." He failed to appreciate how difficult it was for actors to stop exactly where their marks were laid out on the floor while walking and speaking their lines at the same time. Litvak's instructions to his cameraman, James Wong Howe, consisted of complex dollying and panning shots all the while framing the actors going in all directions. The rehearsals were long and brutal largely because of all the movement, causing friction on the set, especially in the high strung star of the movie, James Cagney.
Actor Elia Kazan remembered Cagney taking subtle command of the set despite Litvak's volatile temperament. In one instance, Kazan recalled Cagney sporting a make-up scar over one eye for the movie after a boxing scene. "Toward the end of the afternoon, Cagney, whose contract specified that he was through at five-thirty, would look at his watch, and if, in his opinion Cagney's, not Tola's (Litvak's nickname), not the cameraman's, there wasn't enough time to get the shot the electricians were preparing, Jimmy would pull off the scar and so bring the day's work to a close. He'd walk off the set without a word to Litvak."
The two never got into blows with one another, which is probably a good thing for the director since Cagney was a former New York State lightweight boxer runner-up. His talent in the sport came in handy since he plays Denny Kenny, a truck driver who won the state's Golden Glove title. Denny's brother Eddie (Arthur Kennedy in his film debut) is an aspiring composer lacking money to put himself through music school. Even though he harbors a dislike for boxing, Denny forces himself into the ring to earn tuition money for Eddie. Meanwhile, Denny's girlfriend Peggy Nash (Ann Sheridan) dreams of a professional dancing career and wins a local contest with accomplished dancer Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn), who entices Peggy to take lessons from him. Denny becomes insanely jealous of the pair's closeness and calls off his wedding with her. Peggy eventually regrets her decision to stick with Murray as the dancer becomes abusive. Frank Craven reprises his role of a narrator in "City From Conquest' similar to his part in 1940's "Our Town," this time as a tramp who talks onto the camera while praising the merits of New York City.
The Worcester, Massachusetts native Arthur Kennedy, 26, was one of many of talented Group Theatre actors in New York City making their way to Hollywood. He moved to Los Angeles in 1938 to act on the stage there when Cagney saw him and recommended Warner Brothers hire him as his brother for "City For Conquest." Kennedy became one of Hollywood's more active lead and character actors for the next fifty years. Anthony Quinn and he were in four movies together, including 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia." When actor Edmond O'Brien suffered a heart attack while filming scenes in the David Lean-directed desert epic, Quinn recommended Kennedy as his replacement.
"City For Conquest's" Elia Kazan as gangster Googi Zucco marked his first movie appearance. The Turkish-born Kazan immigrated to the United States at four and later graduated from the Yale University School of Drama. He joined the Group Theatre as an actor in 1932, and directed his first play in the mid-1930s. Kazan learned some valuable lessons in screen acting from Cagney while working on the film. In his autobiography Kazan wrote, "Jimmy was a completely honest actor. I imagine he'd have figured out each scene at home, what he'd do and how he'd do it, then come to work prepared. But what he did always seemed spontaneous. Jimmy didn't see scenes in great complexity; he saw them in a forthright fashion, played them with savage energy, enjoyed his work."
Film reviewer Patrick Nash observed that "Cagney worked out hard to get in shape for this picture and it shows. At 40 this would be the last time he realistically pulled off playing a 'young' man."
The Howards of Virginia (1940)
Rare Hollywood Revolutionary War Era Film Serves as Time Capsule to Colonel Williamsburg in the Early 1940s
Millionaire John D. Rockefeller Jr, who had spent over a decade reconstructing Colonel Williamsburg in Virginia, offered Columbia Pictures the use of the newly restored historic grounds for the studio's September 1940 "The Howards of Virginia." The tight-fisted head of the studio, Harry Cohn, readily agreed. The exteriors of the Revolutionary War era film serve as a time-capsule of how 'the world's largest living history museum,' including the colonial Capitol, Raleigh Tavern, and the Governor's Palace appeared in the early 1940s. The offer saved Cohn a tremendous amount of money on a film Columbia's president felt added to his studio's patriotic messages he felt his movies needed to send out with the United States facing the very real prospect of fighting in the European war.
Actor Cary Grant yearned to become an American citizen in the country he had lived in since arriving from his native England as a teenager. Cohn convinced the free-lancing actor to take the role of Matt Howard, a backwoodsman who sells his family's farm in the East to move to Ohio, so Grant could improve his chances of U. S. citizenship in the face of a ton of applicants flooding the State Department. The actor did receive his naturalized United States citizenship in June 1942. In "The Howard's of Virginia," Matt's plans to move to Ohio are thwarted when his friend Thomas Jefferson (Richard Carlson) convinces him to buy a 1,000 acre farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley after Howard falls in love with Jane (Martha Scott), whose brother is royalist Fleetwood Peyton (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). A quickie marriage between Matt and Jane creates unbearable tension when her brother, loyal to England's cause, locks horns with the colonial American patriot Matt and his friend Tom Jefferson.
The decision to make an anti-British movie was one Columbia Pictures soon regretted when its release coincided with the German Luftwaffe bombing of England in the beginning stages of the Battle of Britain. Grant, 36, was remorseful in appearing in "The Howards of Virginia," portraying a rebel fighting the British, and was especially morose over some of the scathing reviews the movie received. The actor was in the middle of his most robust year in film in 1940, appearing in "My Girl Friday," "My Favorite Wife" and the soon-to-be released "The Philadelphia Story" with Katherine Hepburn. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times noticed in Grant's acting "There is a familiar comic archness about his style which is disquieting in his present serious role, and he never quite overcomes a bumptiousness which is distinctly annoying." The reviews were the most critical in his thirty-five years of acting. Grant was most upset with Cohn, finding himself miscast in the film, and vowed he would never be in another historic-period movie again. However, seventeen years later a more mature Grant found himself in the Napoleonic-era war film 1957's "The Pride and the Passion" with Sophia Loren.
Despite such harsh contemporary reviews, today's critics find the historical aspects of "The Howards of Virginia" intriguing since it's one of a select few Hollywood movies about the Revolutionary War. Writes film reviewer Jonathan Lewes, the motion picture is "a significant entry in Grant's early film career and a surprisingly gritty portrayal of soldiering during the campaign for American independence."
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Hitchcock's Second Academy Awards Best Picture Nomination in One Year
Alfred Hitchcock had just relocated to the United States when his native England became embroiled in its conflict with Germany. On the heels of his Oscar-winning Best Picture "Rebecca," the director's second Hollywood film was August 1940 "Foreign Correspondent," a white-knuckled thriller in Great Britain and the Netherlands in the months leading up to World War Two. After filming wrapped in June 1940, Hitchcock journeyed to England to check on his family and friends. He told the movie's producer Walter Wanger the country was expected to be bombed by the Germans any day, igniting the aerial Battle of Britain. Hearing Hitchcock's prediction Wanger corralled writer Ben Hecht to rewrite the movie's conclusion. The new ending has newspaper reporter John Jones (Joel McCrea) read a dispatch to his stateside radio audience "to keep those lights burning" as bombs are heard in the background. It was a brilliant revision since the actual air raids in England began shortly after the scene was edited into the film.
Hitchcock was loaned out by his contracted boss David O. Selznick to Wagner Productions for "Foreign Correspondent," nominated for the Academy Awards Best Picture. Wanger bought the film rights to journalist Vincent Sheean's 1935 'Personal History,' and constantly revised its script as developments unfolded overseas. Hitchcock, though, felt keeping up with the fast events was futile and stuck to the original screenplay. The director didn't want to throw away all his meticulous pre-production planning. Wanger noticed the pages of the film's script contained Hitchcock's "dialogue corrections on one side, sketches showing the composition of scenes, medium shots and close-ups on the other," Wagner said. "In addition to having art directors prepare many sketches showing lights, shades, and suggested composition, Hitchcock will make as many as three hundred quick pencil sketches of his own to show the crew just how he wants scenes to look."
"Foreign Correspondent" is known for three set pieces: the windmill scene, the assassination of a Dutch diplomat on the rainy stairs flanked by a sea of black umbrellas on both sides, and the spectacular airplane crash from enemy fire towards the end. The film follows Hitchcock's pattern of an ordinary man caught up in dangerous intrigue. Jones (McCrea), reporter for the New York Morning Globe, is assigned to interview Dutch diplomate Van Meer (Albert Basserman) in England. Once there he meets and falls for Carol Fisher (Laraine Day), daughter of the head of the Universal Peace Party, Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall). He follows Van Meer to Amsterdam, where the diplomat is assassinated on the stairs. Jones jumps into a cab to chase the assassin where he coincidentally meets Carol and a reporter friend Scott "ffolliott" (George Sanders). Thus begins the harrowing scene in a rural windmill where Jones discovers an espionage ring. The 'MacGuffin' in the movie was a secret Clause 27 in the treaty Van Meer knew about which his kidnappers tortured him to reveal.
"What really sells this movie is the visuals," commented film reviewer J. P. Roscoe. "Mostly combining stock footage and scale models, the movie looks great." The sets for "Foreign Correspondent," laid out by award-winner production designer William Cameron Menzies, involved over 600 workers, including electricians, carpenters and prop personnel on the re-creation of Waterloo Station and a replica of an Amsterdam square costing over $200,000. Wanger sent a second unit film crew over to London and Amsterdam during the early stages of WW2 for rear screen projection footage in the studio. The ship carrying the film crew over to Europe was hit by a German torpedo and all the equipment was lost. New cameras and accessories had to be purchased. An interior of a Clipper airplane was constructed in the Hollywood studio. The cockpit window made of rice paper projected footage shot from a stunt plane showing the plane crashing onto the ocean's surface. Hitchcock cued two outside chutes filled with water aimed at the windows and pressed the button to ignite tons of water into the cockpit, sending the pilots scampering.
Gary Cooper turned down the role of reporter John Jones, feeling it was beneath him to make a thriller, a decision he later regretted. Hitchcock wanted Joan Fontaine to play Carole Fisher, but Selznick, who owned her contract, felt the movie was too small for such a follow-up of the actress who earned a Best Actress nomination for her last movie in "Rebecca." His second choice was Barbara Stanwyck, who was unavailable. Hitch turned to Roosevelt, Utah-native Laraine Day, 19, as Jones' love interest. After brief high school stage appearances, Day entered movies in 1938, and became well known for her role as nurse Mary Lamont in the 'Dr. Kildare' film series. After a number of movies, Day appeared in several television roles from the 1950s through 1986, her last in 'Murder, She Wrote.' Playing the notorious spy Stephen Fisher in "Foreign Correspondent," the usually mild-mannered good-guy actor Herbert Marshall plays in a mean-spirited villainous role, while George Sanders, still active in the detective film series "The Saint," assists fellow reporter Jones on his espionage investigative caper.
Nominated for six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Basserman, the Dutch diplomat, for Best Supporting Actor, Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison for Best Original Screenplay, Rudolph Mate for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects, the Hitchcock film received zero Oscars. But Hitchcock did become the fifth of (currently) ten directors to have two of their movies nominated for Best Picture Oscar in one year-the last Steven Soderbergh for "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic" in the 2001's 73rd Academy Awards.
Boom Town (1940)
The 1940 Number One Box Office Movie of the Year
Hollywood magic with a star-studded cast creates an experience theater-goers grow giddy over. That was the case in August 1940's "Boom Town." Capitalizing on its previous successes matching their actors, MGM decided the great chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, which worked in 1934's "It Happened One Night" as well as Gable with Spencer Tracy in their third film together would produce a mega-hit. Add a dose of stunning Hedy Lamar, and MGM's hunch was correct as "Boom Town" emerged as the number one box office feature film for the year 1940.
"Boom Town was a big show with a big promotion," film reviewer Glenn Erickson noted. "Ads show the four stars walking arm in arm on a treadmill, all puffed up and ready to fill America with their smiles."
For Clark Gable, less than a year past his much talked-about performance in 1939's "Gone With The Wind," filming "Boom Town" was personal for him. His father was an oil "wildcatter" who took chances on drilling for black gold in areas where oil fields weren't known to exist. As a teenager, Clark worked in the Oklahoma oil fields as a rigger where he was hired to remove sludge from the fields where oil overflowed. Gable patterned his character Big John McMasters after his father William.
Hedy Lamarr, playing Karen Vanmeer, an advisor to McMasters' refinery competitors, had warm words to say about Gable during the filming of "Boom Town." She recalled, "Clark was kind to me all during the film. Spencer was aloof but worked hard. When a picture is going good everyone feels it. We felt all during the filming we had a good one. And it was." At this period of his career Tracy was getting tired of playing second fiddle to Gable after his previous films, 1936's "San Francisco" and 1938's "Test Pilot" placed him in the background. In "Boom Town," he plays "Square John" Sand, who invites his girlfriend Betsy Bartlett (Colbert) to travel out West for a visit. Upon arriving, she meets McMasters, spending a most enjoyable night on the town. The two fall for one another. Meanwhile, Square John couldn't even entice Karen, who also was starry-eyed towards McMasters. Tracy, not enjoying another role where Gable gets his girl, took out his frustrations on Lamarr in a scene where she's moving in on McMasters' marriage with Betsy. While the camera rolls, Tracy emphasized his message a bit too much as he poked Lamarr with his finger repeatedly into her chest. The perceptive viewer can readily see Hedy's temper rising with each forceful stab before she pushes him away. This was the last film Tracy appeared with Gable.
In "Boom Town," the business partnership of McMasters and Square John goes through a series of boom/bust cycles, affecting their wallets. The stress of romantic and financial relationships end up splitting the two, only to find each other at the climatic trial where McMasters is charged with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harold Rosson, cameraman for 1939's "The Wizard of Oz," was nominated for Best Black and White Cinematography while the picture earned a nomination for Best Special Effects, notably for the spectacular oil derrick fire sequence.
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
A Feminist Cult Film, and Dorothy Arzner's Last Completely Directed Movie
Sometimes a movie bombs on its initial release, only to be rejuvenated later when significant developments change the world. Such was the case of August 1940's "Dance, Girl, Dance," when the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s sparked a renewed interest in Dorothy Arzner's last completely directed film.
"Dance, Girl, Dance," starring Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara, was an abject failure when it was originally released, losing an astronomical $400,000. Arzner, sadly Hollywood's only female director, was in the middle of directing a 1943 feature when she came down with a case of pleurisy, forcing her major studio retirement at 46. After making Women's Army Corps training films and TV commercials before teaching at UCLA, Arzner lived long enough to see a resurgence in her popularity, especially in the early 1970s when "Dance, Girl, Dance" was reexamined for its feminist focus on a group of struggling women dancers. The movie contrasts the high art of Judy O'Brien (O'Hara), whose ambition is to be a ballet dancer, and the low art exhibited by Bubbles (Ball), who rationalizes her talents in burlesque is the best way to make money and ensnare a rich man.
"Dance, Girl, Dance's" filming was at first handled by director Roy Del Ruth, a veteran of several musicals such as 1936's "Born to Dance" and "Broadway Melody of 1938." He quit after two weeks, not understanding the point of the script. Arzner stepped in and gave the screenplay a fresh look, saying, "I decided the theme should be 'The Art Spirit,' (O'Hara) versus the commercial 'Go-Getter' (Ball).'" Besides the pair's independent spirits, feminists loved the climatic speech by Judy, reacting to the catcalls from the audience from her ballet movements on the burlesque stage. "I know you want me to tear my clothes off so's you can look your fifty cents worth," barks Judy to the lecherous men in the audience. "Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wife won't let you, so you can go home when the show's over and strut before your wives and sweethearts and play at being the stronger sex for a minute. I'm sure they see through you just like we do."
Never was there such a speech on the defense of women seen on film before. "Arzner's female perspective was not only rare at the time but singular," notes film historian Sheila O'Malley. By Judy dressing down her audience, "She calls out the dirty secret of what looking is all about, reminding everyone that the looked-ats know exactly what's going on, and may have some feelings of their own about the exchange. Judy shatters the unspoken contract between audience and performer. The scene has a fourth-wall-breaking power to this day."
"Dance, Girls, Dance" was O'Hara's third movie. Historian O'Malley says the Arzner film "allows her to call forth all kinds of qualities she wasn't often asked to utilize: tenderness, innocence, vulnerability, shame." Beside all the drama, "Dance, Girls, Dance" contains a great amount of dancing, including O'Hara's ballet expertise. A body double was used for her more complex moves, with her face always pointing away from the camera.
O'Hara and Lucille Ball became lifelong friends while making "Dance, Girls, Dance." Right after filming her impassioned speech, O'Hara was standing next to Ball in the studio commissary waiting to grab a bite to eat when she bumped into Desi Arnaz, who was prepping for his first movie 'Too Many Girls.' Wearing make-up including a black eye and bandages for the catfight scene with O'Hara, Ball failed to make an impression on the handsome orchestra leader. O'Hara later recalled the reaction of Lucy when she first spotted Desi: "It was like Wow! A bolt of lightening! Lucille fell like a ton of bricks. Friends and family warned Ball away from Arnaz as their courtship heated up, but Ball was inflexible. 'I had flipped,' she admitted." Arnaz later warmed up to Ball when the two appeared together in 'Too Many Girls.' Coincidently years later the married Lucy and Desi bought the RKO sound stages and the back lot where the two movies were filmed.
Robert Wise was the editor of "Dance, Girls, Dance." The Winchester, Indiana-born Wise had a brother working at RKO when Robert expressed interest in film. Beginning in the shipping department in the early 1930s, Wise went from a sound and music editor to an assistant editor for William Hamilton, helping him cut such films as 1937's "Stage Door" and 1939's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." He had his first solo editing assignment for 1939's "Bachelor Mother" and "My Favorite Wife." Immediately after "Dance, Girl, Dance," Wise's next assignment was to edit Orson Welles' 1941 "Citizen Kane." He later turned to directing, handling 1961's "West Side Story" and 1965's "The Sound of Music."
Modern critics have labeled Arzner's work as a bone fide feminist masterpiece. "Dance, Girl, Dance" has become a women's cult film, and is the highlight every year in a number of film festivals. It's included as '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.'
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
Historians Say This Is Where Film Noirs Truly Began
Film historians trace the movie genre known as 'film noir' beginning with the low budget August 1940 "Stranger on the Third Floor." Film noir, a cinematic style not fully recognized until the mid-1950s, was immensely popular in the later 1940s and into the 1950s. The 'Neo-Noir' look is still found in today's movies. The style evolved from the early German Expressionistic silent films and was evident in many European directors' works throughout the 1930s. But the ingredients of film noir began to come together with a combination of Hollywood's talent admiring the look, all merging in this Grade B-listed RKO motion picture.
Film noir historian Robert Porfirio wrote "Stranger on the Third Floor" offered "a distinct break in style and substance with the preceding mystery, crime, detection and horror films of the 1930s." Noir specialist Eddie Muller described the term as "technically the French word for 'black,' but it's used to mean darkness." In a noir flick shadows extend from people and objects, populated by less than reputable characters, rooms are dimly lit, and dark alleys and streets are seen throughout. The spark of World War Two introduced the cynical style of noirs after a nation, weary from the Great Depression, was facing yet another dreary prospect of a major conflict.
Although there's much disagreement on 1941's "The Maltese Falcon" as the first true film noir, most historians acknowledge the "Stranger on the Third Floor" inaugurated the noir craze. A former student of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, the film's director Boris Ingster had been hired in Hollywood as a scriptwriter in the mid-1930s, writing such screenplays as 1935's "The Last Days of Pompeii." His directing debut was "Stranger on the Third Floor." Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, a cameraman since 1922 with over 100 films under his belt, had shown hints of favoring the noir look in his 1938 'Night Spot' and 1939's "Five Came Back," and would later shoot 1942's "Cat People" and 1947's "Out of the Past." Van Nest Polglase's art direction, who later sketched the sets for 1941's "Citizen Kane," lent a claustrophobic atmosphere to almost every scene he designed.
The Frank Partos story places newspaper reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) as the key witness to a murder where he saw cab driver Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook) standing over a dead man. On the basis of the reporter's testimony, Briggs is found guilty. Meanwhile Ward's fiancee, Jane (Margaret Tallichet), who attended the trial, has doubts about Briggs' guilt, and makes her feelings known. Ward, who lives in a boarding house, bickers with his neighbor Albert (Charles Halton) while a stranger (Peter Lorre) hovers nearby. Ward's surrealistic nightmare about being accused of murdering his neighbor turns into reality when he later discovers Albert's dead body.
Borrowing elements from German director Robert Wiene's 1920 "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," the dream sequence is described by writers Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn as filled with "strong contrasts in lighting, angular shadow patterns, and distorted, emblematic architecture; in short, a kind of total stylization that manages to be both extremely evocative and somewhat theatrical." According to film historian Anthony D'Ambra, "The nightmare sequence in this picture has to be the best dream-scape ever produced by Hollywood."
Although "Stranger on the Third Floor" doesn't check all the boxes of a classic film noir, it does set the pattern of the genre with its lighting and a plot containing psychoanalysis of the main character. Add to this Peter Lorre, owing two days of work to RKO to fulfill his contract, was the stranger seen in the boarding house and chasing Jane around the 'noir' streets. His role in the 1931 Fritz Lang-directed "M" contains many German Expressionistic elements many film historians say is one of the earliest movies to display many of the noir aesthetics.
Although the RKO picture failed to make a profit because it had a slew of negative press reviews on its departure from the normal Hollywood crime melodrama, "Stranger on the Third Floor" introduced a new era in movie making. For Boris Ingster, he would direct only two more films before turning to television. He was proliferate in directing a number of episodes of programs such as 'Wagon Train' and 'The Man from U. N. C. L. E."
The Return of Frank James (1940)
Fritz Lang's First Western and Gene Tierney's Film Debut
Henry Fonda vowed never to work with Fritz Lang again after his experience with him in August 1940's "The Return of Frank James." The actor, nicknamed 'One-Take Fonda' for his ability to knock out a scene in one take through his meticulous rehearsals, was coming off a string of immensely popular pictures, almost unprecedented in Hollywood. But working under the former German director's great attention to detail, Fonda became increasingly frustrated by Lang's scrupulous habits on the set. Lang was an odd choice for 20th Century Fox to direct his third Hollywood movie. Leaving Germany in 1933 after Adolf Hitler's rise in power, the director was totally unfamiliar with the heritage of the Old West. But Lang rationalized his selection in the Frank James film during a 1959 interview, saying Westerns are "based on a very simple and essential ethical code. Even with Shakespeare the moral is simple. The struggle of good against evil is as old as the world."
His deliberate and methodical style of directing is seen in "The Return of Frank James," a sequel to the Henry King-directed 1939 "Jesse James." The follow-up movie begins where the previous one left off, showing Jesse, played by Tyron Power, shot in the back while hanging a picture in his living room by friend Bob Ford (John Carradine) and his brother Charlie (Charles Tannen). After his brother is killed, Frank James retreats secretly to a farm where his farmhands are the son of a former gang member, Clem (Jackie Cooper), and Pinky (Ernest Whitman). At first Frank is happy at the thought justice will be served by the Ford's conviction of his brother's murder-until he hears they've been pardoned and released. He becomes so upset he embarks on a vendetta seeking revenge.
Even though the movie uses names of real characters, "The Return of Frank James" plays loose with the facts. The real Frank James turned himself in to the governor of Missouri five months after his brother's death. He was tried for only two robberies and murders, and acquitted. He lived with his mother in Oklahoma and worked a series of jobs, including as a theatre ticket taker and a lecturer, spinning yarns about his adventures, dying in 1915. None of this appears in the "Jesse James" sequel, where he meets the daughter of a Denver newspaper owner, aspiring reporter Eleanor Stone (Gene Tierney). While Frank is chasing the Fords, Clem concocts a story overheard by bar patrons about his death in Texas, amplified when Eleanor interviews Frank's friend.
"Return of Frank James" was Gene Tierney' film debut. The Brooklyn, New York born and Westport, Connecticut-raised daughter of a successful insurance broker, Tierney later starred in such classics as 1944 "Laura" and 1947 "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." Attending Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Ct., Tierney was infected by the acting bug, taking lessons in Greenwich Village. Through connections, she made her Broadway debut in 1938's 'What a Life!' carrying a bucket of water across the stage. One Variety reviewer noted, "Miss Tierney is certainly the most beautiful water carrier I've ever seen!" Several stage appearances later she was noticed by Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, who signed her to play in the James film. When Tierney, 20, first saw herself on the big screen during the movie's premier, she was startled. "I could not believe how high and strident my voice came across," she said. "I sounded like an angry Minnie Mouse. My God, I thought, if that's really how I sound, I'll never make it." To lower her voice, she began to smoke cigarettes, a habit leading later in life to emphysema. In her memoirs she related the Harvard University Lampoon named her 'The Worst Female Discovery of 1940,' where she humbly remarked "I did not feel undeserving of the award."
Jackie Cooper, 17, continued his fame as a young actor first noticed in 1931 "The Champ" and "Skippy," where he was nominated for the Academy Awards Best Actor, the youngest ever in that category at nine. He enlisted in the United States Navy during World War Two and remained in the Naval Reserves as an officer for several decades. After the war Cooper resumed his movie and television acting, most notably as newspaper editor Perry White in 1978's film "Superman."
For Lang, "The Return of Frank James" was the first of three Westerns he directed as well as his first Technicolor movie. Film critic Robert Dana of the New York Herald Tribune noticed the deliberate direction of Lang's, writing his "emphasis on small things like gestures and shadows and sounds of nature reveal the Western in a new and interesting light."
Nutty But Nice (1940)
Stooges Film Features Ned Glass, Future Sit-Com TV Star
In the Three Stooges 47th short Columbia picture, June 1940's "Nutty But Nice," they have an elongated sequence in their search for a missing father who has been kidnapped transporting $300,000 worth of bonds for his bank. In order to cheer up his depressed daughter, the Stooges, as singing waiters, volunteer to search for her father, Mr. Williams. In a series of mistaken identities because they're only given a verbal description of the father, the Three Stooges accost several men on the street, including lighting matches they stick inside the souls of one pedestrian's shoes so they could determine, as the kidnapped banker's profile reads, how tall the man's height is "in his stocking feet."
Today's viewers may recognize the kidnapped banker, actor Ned Glass. Even though he was a neighbor of Moe Howard's, Glass didn't benefit from knowing the comic personally when he got the part of the father of Betty Williams, the little girl who is sobbing to have him free. Not only was Glass, with his distinctive bald head and New York City accent, in several high profile movies such as 1961's "West Side Story" and 1963's "Charade," his claim to fame was his familiar face in nearly every TV series sit-coms up until his last appearance in 1982's 'Cagney & Lacey.'
How High Is Up? (1940)
Stooges Master of Simple Tasks Stretched to Hilarious Skits
The Three Stooges were masters in creating memorable skits by stretching the simplest of tasks and making them sidesplitting hilarious. A prime example finds Curly struggling to get his tight sweater off in July 1940's "How High is Up?" Moe and Larry lend a hand, only to compound his problems. The three are paid tinkers who think they can do any job that comes their way-except for removing sweaters.
Between jobs, Curly's tight-fitting sweater causes him fits. Instead of simply pulling off the sweater over his head, Curly's head can't fit through the neck opening. Moe has the bright idea of using tools in his company's arsenal. Wedging two crowbars around Curly's neck, Moe and Larry attempt to slip the sweater over the tools, but instead press his nose between the two bars. Moe then takes the tactic to hit Curly in the head with a giant hammer while lifting the sweater in an attempt to smash down his skull through its neckline. Alas, after several wacks, Moe's hammer still hasn't produced the intended results. Finally, Moe opts for pulling the sweater over Curly's head and cutting his prized apparel with scissors. The plan has its disadvantages by destroying Curly's valuable sweater. But he finds himself with two mittens out of the carnage.
"How High is Up?" gets its title from the Stooges standing on the 97th floor of a building under construction. To drum up work, the three tinkers come across a construction site where the workers lunch pails are lined up. As Larry pokes holes in the containers, Moe offers to fix the workers' pails before the targets realize they've been had. Ducking into the site where the foreman (Edmund Cobb) is hiring riveters, Moe brags how he and his two colleagues are proficient in the task. One of the extras waiting in line for a job is actor Bruce Bennett, an Olympian silver medalist shot putter who played in the Rose Bowl for the University of Washington football team. He was picked by MGM to be its first sound version of Tarzan. But he broke his shoulder while filming the 1931 movie 'Touchdown,' and was replaced by Johnny Weissmuller. He later played roles in such classics as 1945's "Mildred Pierce" and 1948's "The Treasure of Sierra Madre."
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Events of 1500 Parallel Opening of World War Two
The English government begged Hollywood to produce pro-British movies after the United Kingdom found itself enmeshed in World War Two. Warner Brothers listened to England's persuasion even though the United States remained neutral, and produced the pro-British swashbuckler July 1940 "The Sea Hawk." Even though the movie was set in the Elizabethan era during the late 1500s when England was preparing for war with Spain, "The Sea Hawk's" script by Howard Koch and Seton Miller was revised to reflect the current political situation in Europe.
"The Sea Hawk" was actor Errol Flynn and director Michael Curtiz's tenth film together, and became a huge box office hit, especially with the British pubic. It also was a morale booster for imperiled England in the summer of 1940 when its Royal Air Force was fighting the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Clearly the movie draws many parallels to the European conglict in the early 1940s, beginning with its opening scenes of King Philip of Spain expressing his desire to conquer England in his quest for world domination. Queen Elizabeth 1, acting as a later-day Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, insists diplomacy is the only way to peace in the face of Spain's increasingly efforts to arm itself to the teeth, as the Nazis had done. When she finally realizes what the King of Spain's intentions are, the queen gives a speech which could have been applied to Hitler: "when the ruthless ambition of a man threatens to engulf the world, it becomes the solemn obligation of all free men to affirm that the earth belongs not to any one man, but to all men, and that freedom is the deed and title to the soil on which we exist."
Film critic Ken Peary admits "The Sea Hawk" is a thinly "veiled propaganda piece that attempts to get Americans solidly into the war effort." Reviewer Danielle Solzman adds, "While the film takes place in the late 1500s, one can definitely see how they use the launch of the Spanish Armada as an allegory for Nazi Germany seeking to expand their own land. Look no further than the Queen's speech towards the end of the film."
"The Sea Hawk" also entertains with its intrigues, romance, and epic sword fighting scenes. Warner Brothers delved into its film library to insert footage from its 1924 silent movie predecessor of the same name as well as from its 1935 "Captain Blood" to illustrate the battles in the open seas. To complement those clips the studio built two replicas of ships of that era into its massive sound stage called the 'Maritime Stage.' It was the second largest film stage for its time in Hollywood, only behind MGM's enormous Stage 15. A water tank inside the studio created the illusion of the sea. The 1940 movie "The Sea Hawk" is based on Seton Miller's story 'Beggars of the Sea.' Flynn plays Geoffrey Thorpe, a Sir Francis Drake-type personality who commands a privateer ship raiding Spanish merchants. Thorpe gives most of his prizes to Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson), who uses the money to fund England's Navy. Thorpe concocts a land raid in Panama to ambush a caravan laden with Spanish gold, just as Drake did. Thorpe's plans are thwarted when he and his men are captured, when they overhear plans for the Spanish invasion of England by its Armada.
In only her second year in film, actress Brenda Marshall serves as Thorpe's love interest. She's Doria Maria, niece to Spanish envoy Don Alvarez (Claude Rains). Marshall, who despised her stage name given by the studio, wanted to be called her real name, Ardis Ankerson. She was wedded to William Holden in 1941, culminating in an unhappy marriage, even though they were matron of honor and best man in Ronald and Nancy Reagan's 1952 wedding. Her film career lasted until 1950, when she gave up acting to raise two sons.
Flora Robson gives her second rendition of Queen Elizabeth following her stirring performance in 1937's "Fire Over England." Film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, noted for his rousing score in 1935's "Captain Blood" and 1938's "The Adventures of Robin Hood," composed his final swashbuckler in "The Sea Hawk." Korngold enjoyed a resurgence of popularity 15 years after his death by the release of 1972's RCA's album 'The Sea Hawk: The Classic Film Scores of Korngold" by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, which introduced his movie compositions to a new generation of listeners.
Korngold was nominated by the Academy Awards for his Original Score, while "The Sea Hawk" was also nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Sound Recording, and Best Special Effects. A Winston Churchill favorite, the swashbuckler was nominated by the American Film Institute as one of Hollywood's Most Thrilling Movies and Best Film Scores.
They Drive by Night (1940)
Cited as One of Raoul Walsh's Best Directed Film
George Raft was probably the best thing to come the way of Warner Brothers' contract actor Humphrey Bogart. Although respected in Hollywood by his tough edged on-screen personality, Raft had a habit for refusing parts which turned out to be massive hits. Soon after he and Bogart appeared in July 1940's "They Drive By Night," considered one of director Raoul Walsh's best films, Raft was offered a role where he dies as Roy Earle in 1941's "High Sierra." He refused, opening the door for Bogart in what was his breakout film. Raft later turned down the lead in 1941's "The Maltese Falcon" and reportedly 1942's "Casablanca," all movies Bogart was his replacement, furthering his star status.
But in "They Drive By Night," Raft did accept top billing as Joe Fabrini, who along with his brother Paul (Bogart) criss-cross the country delivering goods by truck. Using elements from the Paul Muni and Bette Davis' 1935 'Bordertown,' Joe is hired by good friend and truck business owner Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale) after Paul lost his arm in an accident and is unable to drive. Trouble enters when Ed's wife, Lana (Ida Lupino), who had a crush on Joe for years, renews her passion for him. She eventually kills her inebriated husband Ed, which police rule as an accident. Lana then entices Joe a share of her late-husband's business. But Joe loves waitress Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan), setting Lana's head steaming.
"They Drive By Night" was the big break for actress Ida Lupino. Later Hollywood's only female director in the 1950s, Lupino was encouraged as a child by her musical comedian father to go into acting. The British native Lupino had a photographic memory, learning in every Shakespearean play the entire female dialogue by the age of ten. The film debut of Lupino, 13, was 1931's British film 'Her First Affair.' Soon Lupino earned the moniker "the English Jean Harlow" because of her good girl/bad girl roles. After a dozen films, Lupino was signed by Warner Brothers to play Lana. Critics say she dominated "They Drive By Night" with her crazy dramatic courtroom testimony. Film reviewer Anthony Clarke says "Watch for Ida Lupino's courtroom scene towards the film's close. Without giving anything away, it's easy to see why she stole the movie." In her next pict she plays Roy Earle's girlfriend in 1941's "High Sierra." Years later Lupino directed Alan Hale's son in several 'Gilligan's Island' television episodes. Alan Hale Jr. As the Skipper wore the gold ring his father is seen wearing in "They Drive By Night" for the rest of his life in honor of his dad, whom he was very close.
"They Drive By Night" would never have seen the light of day if it weren't for Gladys Glad, wife of producer Mark Hellinger. She had a habit of reading scripts her husband would bring home after work. She insisted Mark read the adaptation of A. I. Bezzerides' 1938 novel 'Long Haul.' Hellinger, after reading the script, told her, "nobody would pay money to see a bunch of truck drivers." Through Gladys' persistence, Warner Brothers eventually made the film, becoming one of the studio's sleeper hits of the year, taking in more than $4 million at the box office on a $400,000 budget.
Warner Brothers was impressed by Raft's performance in "They Drive By Night," but he continued to reject scripts left and right. "Our association with Raft was a constant struggle from start to finish," recalled studio producer Hal Wallis. "Hypersensitive to public accusations of underworld connections, he flatly refused to play the heavy in any film. Time and time again we offered him gangster parts and time and time again he turned them down." Filmlink Magazine complemented Raft's acting in the Warner Brothers film, but saw the movie "a sensationally entertaining flick that was a solid box office success and should have convinced Raft that his new employers knew what they were doing, but his judgement continued to get worse." Thankfully for Humphrey Bogart, he capitalized on Raft's bad decisions.
All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
Warner Brothers Answer to Gone With The Wind
Charles Boyer was one of the first Hollywood actors to enlist in World War Two when his native France declared war on Germany in September 1939. Because of Boyer's age, 40, and his movie popularity, he was assigned to desk duty, a job he loathed. After listening to his complaints, the French government felt the actor would be more effective to his county's cause by making Hollywood films than pushing paper. The military discharged him in November so he could appear in July 1940's "All This, and Heaven Too" with Bette Davis, nominated for the Academy Awards Best Picture.
Boyer didn't talk much about his limited 'war' service. By the time he returned to Warner Brothers' studio to make the period picture "All This, and Heaven Too," set in 1847 France, Boyer was sporting a receding hairline and a paunch. To tuck in his bulging stomach while filming, he had to wear a corset underneath his outer clothes. Seeing him for the first time without his hairpiece, Davis failed to recognize the famous actor and called the studio's security to have 'the stranger' removed from the set. Boyer was also shorter than she ever imagined, a stature requiring him to stand on a box next to others, especially for the actresses who towered over him. Despite his short comings, film reviewer Patrick Nash observed, "He holds his own with Davis and in fact has the scene with the biggest emotional impact." That scene has Boyer's character, the Duke de-Praslin, killing his cruel wife Francoise (Barbara O'Neil). The duke had earlier hired Henriette Deluzy-Desportes (Bette Davis) to tutor the family's four girls. The jealous Francoise is cold to her children, her husband and especially to the new teacher, who lives in the household. "All This, and Heaven Too" is based on a true story, which Rachel Field wrote her 1938 novel of the same name. The author had personal insight on the murder. Her great aunt was the family tutor Henriette, and the murder of the duke's wife caused a scandal in King Louis-Philippe's administration in 1847, one of many compounding political events leading up to the French Revolution of 1848.
Many film historians point to the long two hours and twenty minutes movie as Warner Brothers' answer to producer David O. Selznick's four-hour 1939 "Gone With The Wind." Studio head Jack Warner spent almost $1.4 million on this elaborate prestige pictures, nearly three-quarters of the budget spent on 65 exterior sets and 35 interiors, meticulously displayed with real antique furniture and 150 paintings and sculptures from the King Louis Philippes period. Davis wore 37 different dresses with several layers of undergarments and corsets, which took her 40 minutes each day to put on. The relationship between the Warners' film and "Gone With The Wind" is uncanny: the bed in the duchess' bedroom was the same Scarlett O'Hara slept on when married to Rhett Butler, and actress Barbara O'Neill, 30, (the duchess) played Scarlett's mother. The St. Louis-born O'Neill as a teenager played in summer stock and attended the Yale School of Drama, making her Broadway debut in 1932 and her inaugural film in 1937's "Stella Dallas." She was nominated for the Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress for her role as the duchess in "All This, and Heaven Too." Married to stage and film director Joshua Logan for only one year, she took a break from film until 1948, remaining single after her divorce.
Director Anatole Litvak and Davis were having an affair during the production of "All This, and Heaven Too." Litvak's marriage to actress Miriam Hopkins, who was considered for the role of the duchess, ended shortly before filming began. Hopkins and Davis had a rivalry ever since they appeared in 1939's "Old Maid" and continued in their second movie together, 1943 "Old Acquaintance." Despite the love arrows between them, Davis was disdainful toward Litvak's direction, saying later, "Litvak had it all on paper; he planned every move. There is not the spontaneity or flexibility." Some critics say Litvak's style didn't suit the more free-wheeling two-time Oscar winner Davis.
Playing the oldest daughter of the Praslin family was child actress June Lockhart, 14, who latter was in television's "Lassie" and "Lost in Space." "All This, and Heaven Too" was nominated not only for Best Picture and O'Neil's performance but Ernest Haller for Best Black and White Cinematography. Film Daily's national poll at the time listed the Warner Brothers' picture the fifth best movie of 1940.
Pride and Prejudice (1940)
First Movie Version of Jane Austen's 1813 Classic; Greer Garson's Second Film
Popular movies based on classic novels almost assure a revival in interest in the books. In cinema's first adaptation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel, MGM's July 1940 "Pride and Prejudice," the hit film immediately created a wave of Austen-fever which centered around Elizabeth Bennett and her male counterpart, Mr. Darcy. Five editions of the 19th-century novel hit the bookstands shortly after the motion picture was released. Less than a decade later twenty-one printings could still barely keep up with public demand. So in vogue was the movie the now prestigious Jane Austen Society was formed in the United Kingdom soon after its release in 1940.
On Harpo Marx's suggestion, the late MGM producer Irving Thalberg bought the rights to Helen Jerome's popular 1936 Broadway play based on Austen's book. Irving had planned to have his wife Norma Shearer play Elizabeth and Clark Gable as Mr. Darcy. But his untimely death put a hold on the project until MGM decided to produce it at its England studio. The war put the kibosh to those plans after MGM shuttered its British facility. Back in Hollywood, the studio decided to cast "Pride and Prejudice" largely with English actors, who, once hired demanded-and received-their daily afternoon tea time. England's Laurence Olivier was a shoe-in to be Mr. Darcy after his performances in 1939 "Wuthering Heights" and 1940 "Rebecca." Just as in his other movies, Olivier demanded his soon-to-be wife Vivien Leigh be co-star alongside him. And as always, the studio rejected his demands feeling the couple's scandalous relationship would have turned off American audiences. In just her second movie, British actress Greer Garson received the role of Elizabeth.
Olivier was disappointed with the movie after filming wrapped. "I was very unhappy with the picture," the actor lamented. "It was difficult to make Darcy into anything more than an unattractive-looking prig, and darling Greer seemed to me all wrong as Elizabeth." It was an odd comment for Olivier since he praised the young actress years earlier in the opening night speech of his 1935 stage play 'Golden Arrow,' which he produced and directed. Garson, 35, was believable as 20-year-old Elizabeth, with film reviewer R. B. Armstrong writing, "Garson's performance brims with intelligence and charm." This was Olivier's final Hollywood film for the next twelve years. He returned to his native England to continue in plays and movies until he went back to California for 1952 "Carrie."
One criticism of MGM's "Pride and Prejudice" was it showcases dresses made much later than the setting of Austen's novel. Studio executives felt the early 1800's attire was more akin to night-time pajamas rather than elegant dresses viewers were used to seeing in period films. To cut down expenses, MGM recycled much of 1939 "Gone With The Wind's" clothes for the actresses and extras. Since the costumes and sets were so vibrant, the studio wanted to shoot the picture in color. Technicolor claimed its film stock was low because of the great amount used for "Gone With The Wind." As it was, the picture still earned an Oscar for Best Art Direction in a Black and White Film.
The script for "Pride and Prejudice" was much lighter in tone than in Austen's novel. Screwball comedies were still in vogue, so the studio's ad campaign hyped, "Bachelors beware! Five gorgeous beauties are on a madcap manhunt!" which described the five daughters of the Bennetts looking for suitable mates. Nine writers shaped the Austen adaptation, with writers Jane Murfin and Aldous Huxley injecting humor. The author of 1932's 'Brave New World," Huxley embarked on his first Hollywood scriptwriting assignment since relocating from England in 1937. Jane Murfin's previous works were known for their witty scenarios, including 1935 "Alice Adams" and 1939 "The Women." The American Film Institute nominated "Pride and Prejudice" as one of cinema's Funniest Movies. Film reviewer Chip Lary noticed the difference in humor from the subsequent movies based on the Austen novel. "If you have seen other versions, but not this one, then you should probably watch it to see how it compares with the others," recommends Lary. "It presents the most humor of any of the versions."