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For Me and My Gal (1942)
Gene Kelly's Film Debut With a Dancing Judy Garland
Gene Kelly came a long way from getting beaten up as a kid for taking dance lessons to his first film role in October 1942's "For Me and My Gal." In his rough and tumble Pittsburgh neighborhood where he grew up, Kelly remembers his mother enrolling he and his siblings in dance classes when he was eight. "We didn't like it much and were continually involved in fistfights with the neighborhood boys who called us sissies," Kelly remembered. "I didn't dance again until I was 15."
Kelly's introduction to film in 1942 introduced to the public a new style of dancing, one that he said was "dance for the common man." Melding ballet with the modern dance form, his athleticism combined everything, "from American folk dance, tap-dancing, jitterbugging." Kelly was an ardent follower of George M. Cohan's form of dancing. "I have a lot of Cohan in me," Kelly related. "It's an Irish quality, a jaw-jutting, up-on-the-toes cockiness-which is a good quality for a male dancer to have."
Kelly had Judy Garland to thank for his first big role in film. The actress was impressed by his talent when she saw him a year earlier in the Broadway play 'Pal Joey.' She recommended him for the role of Harry Palmer, a cocksure vaudeville performer who falls for Garland's Jo Hayden in "For Me and My Gal." Kelly had been in limbo for close to a year after signing with independent producer David O. Selznick, who failed to find any projects a good fit for him. Garland convinced MGM producer Arthur Freed, head of the studio's musical unit, Kelly, 30, would be perfect for the part of Harry. Selznick agreed to loan him out. "She recommended Gene to the studio before anyone knew who he was," wrote Garland's biographer Tom Johnson.
"As soon as Gene Kelly appears onscreen - all swagger and smiles - to flirt with the girls passing by, you barely need the train he just stepped off of to tell you that a new star has arrived," says film reviewer Jen Johans.
Before arriving in Hollywood, Kelly was a successful manager of several family dance schools in the Pittsburgh area. As an instructor in dancing as well as performing in his hometown, Kelly's choreographic skills and his stage presence opened the doors for him on Broadway in the late 1930s. His big breakthrough on the stage was 1939's Pulitzer Prize winner 'The Time of Your Life,' where he first danced to his own designed choreography. His lead in 1940's 'Pal Joey' was followed by several Hollywood offers, with producer Selznick willing to wait until after the October 1941 closing of 'Pal Joey' to relocate him to Hollywood.
When Kelly first saw himself on the screen in "For Me and My Gal" he was shocked. He wrote later he was "appalled at the sight of myself blown up 20 times. I had an awful feeling that I was a tremendous flop." Just the opposite happened. The movie became the tenth highest box office hit of the year. Arthur Freed was able to buy his contract from Selznick and Kelly's career was off and running at MGM. Though ten years younger than Kelly, Garland mentored him throughout the filming. Busby Berkeley was in the director's chair, and Garland warned the rookie actor on the director's martinet style. This was her fourth movie under his direction, and backed Kelly when the actor argued with Berkeley.
"For Me and My Gal" was the first time Judy Garland's name is seen above the title, giving her top billing. The film was also the first time Judy, 20, played an adult throughout the movie. The musical fully displayed Garland's dancing abilities, especially when dancing perfectly in synch with Kelly. "Garland does most of the singing," noticed film reviewer Victoria Large, "but when they dance, they match each other step-for-step. And what's more, they seem fully engaged with one another, smiling into each other's eyes at least as often as they beam at their unseen matinee audience." Garland and Kelly starred in two further movies together. When Gene's career skyrocketed in the 1950s, Judy was humble about helping him get noticed for his film debut. "She would never take credit for any of Gene's success. She just thought he was fantastic and should be given a shot in movies," biographer Johnson wrote. The two remained lifelong friends.
The Academy Awards nominated "For Me and My Gal" for the Best Musical Score, while the National Board of Review awarded Kelly the year's Best Actor. The American Film Institute nominated the MGM film for its title tune as the Best Original Movie Song as well as the Greatest Movie Musical.
Now, Voyager (1942)
Bette Davis' Fifth Straight Best Actress Oscar nomination--a Record at the Time
Cigarettes as props were an important element in movies during the 1940s. One of cinema's most famous scenes where cigarettes played a memorable part was in October 1942's "Now, Voyager." Bette Davis' counterpart, Paul Henried, famously lights up two cigarettes in his mouth and gives one to her. The act carried heavy symbolism in a movie which Davis earned a record fifth straight Oscar nomination for Best Actress and her seventh (so far) overall. The trademark lit cigarettes proved to be an enduring image for both co-stars for the remainder of their lives.
Bette claimed it was Henreid's idea for the cigarette hand-off, saying he lit cigarettes for him and his wife whenever they were together. As Davis was giving a celebrity tour during the 1970s reminiscing about her career while showing a movie clip of the famous cigarette scene, she found fans lighting two smokes, one for her and the other for themselves. Henreid couldn't go anywhere without females begging him to light a cigarette for them. The cover of Henreid's autobiography, 'Ladies Man,' shows him lighting two cigarettes in his mouth at the same time. Film critic Clive James said he tried it once on a date, only to have the woman emphatically state she didn't smoke, leaving him look like a walrus.
"Now, Voyager," based on Olive Higgins Prouty's 1941 novel of the same name, is a reflection of the mental anguish an over-bearing mother is capable of producing on a vulnerable daughter. Charlotte (Davis) was an unwanted child for her mother, Mrs. Windle Vale (Gladys Cooper in her Oscar nominated Best Supporting Actress role), who takes her bitterness out on the young Boston girl, creating a highly neurotic woman when she grows up. Lisa (Ilka Chase), Mrs. Vale's daughter-in-law, hires psychologist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) for therapy at his Vermont sanitarium. His treatment of Charlotte is nothing short of miraculous, so much so she's confident enough to go on a cruise vacation by herself where she meets and falls for Jerry.
After the release of "Now, Voyager," Davis was stunned at the amount of letters she received from children claiming their mothers mentally ruined their lives. The film ironically was an eye opener for mothers who wrote to the actress they instantly identified with Mrs. Vale, realizing the damage their cruelty did to their kids. Before the film's production, Davis was pouting about her previous picture, 1942's "In This Our Life" while at her vacation home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. Producer Hal Wallis, casting Charlotte, first eyed Irene Dunne, who wasn't available, then Ginger Rogers, who loved the script. "I would have given anything to play Charlotte Vale," said Rogers, "even if I did let Jack Warner beat me at tennis!" Davis got wind of Roger's interest, and immediately asked for the part, claiming her Bostonian roots was perfect to the character's background. Wallis agreed, and assigned Irving Rapper, who directed Bette in four films. Rapper failed to stand up to Davis' strong personality on the set, deferring to her in nearly every scene while she meticulously analyzed her character's behavior. The filming lagged 15 days behind schedule because of Davis' attention to detail as well as her illness and Gladys Cooper's exhaustion from their long nights entertaining the soldiers at the Hollywood Canteen. Claude Rains and Henreid also had to work around their schedule while filming "Casablanca" to complete "Now, Voyager" which took priority before fully devoting themselves to the Humphrey Bogart film.
Davis was in position to give an opinion on the selection of her co-star in "Now, Voyager." She first favored Ronald Reagan, whom she loved in 1942 "King's Row." Wallis, though, felt the future president was too young to play opposite her. Austrian Henreid's first screen test was ridiculed for his grease-slicked hair and pancake make-up before he submitted a retest with a more natural look, which Davis looked at favorably. Henreid, 34, a staunch anti-Nazi, appeared in several German and Austrian films during the 1930s, seeing all his property confiscated when he left Germany in 1937. After appearing in a successful Broadway play, Henreid was signed by Warner Brothers to a movie contract.
Davis' performance transforming from a neurotic, fragile Charlotte into a confident worldly woman was Oscar-worthy, only to be beaten out by Greer Garson in "Mrs. Miniver." Garson coincidentally would eventually tie Bette's record for five straight Academy Award nominations. "Now, Voyager" was also Davis' biggest box office success despite Japan, where she enjoyed a tremendous following, unable to import the Hollywood movie. Film historians acknowledge "Now, Voyager" is one of the best women pictures ever seen in cinema as Charlotte "represents the admirable principle of sad self-sacrifice." It won the Oscar for Best Musical Scoring by Max Steiner, although Davis had complained his score intruded on her performance. The American Film Institute listed the movie's ending quote, "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars," as the 46th Best Quote in movies. AFI nominated the weepy for Best Movie, Greatest Love Story and Best Film Score. It's also one of '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.'
The Glass Key (1942)
Alan Ladd's Second Feature Film Lead with Veronica Lake a Big Hit
There's no bones about it, actor Alan Ladd was short. Studios were mindful of that fact and paired him once he reached stardom with short co-stars. At five feet, five inches, Ladd's contracted studio Paramount Pictures teamed him up with five-foot Veronica Lake in October 1942's "The Glass Key," a remake of George Raft's 1935 thriller. Both were based on a Dashiell Hammett novel about a murder of the son of a governor's candidate.
At this point of his career, Ladd was still pigeonholed in playing unsavory characters. Following his breakout role as a hitman in 1942's "This Gun For Hire," Ladd is an enforcer for an unscrupulous power broker in "The Glass Key." Height played a factor when actress Patricia Morison, originally cast as his love interest Janet Henry, daughter of candidate Ralph Henry (Moroni Olsen), towered over Ladd. Looking for a shorter actress, studio executives turned to Veronica Lake, who also co-starred opposite Ladd in his earlier hit. Added to the shortie mix was actress Bonita Granville, sister to corrupt power broker Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy). Granville, who played Nancy Drew in several films, was only five feet tall, well below Ladd's height. William Bendix, just off his Oscar nominated Best Supporting Actor in 1942's "Wake Island," reverts to a sadistic enforcer who, in one of cinema's more violent scenes, beats Ladd's character, Ed Beaumont, to a pulp. On the set, Bendix miscalculated his punch to Ladd on the first take, knocking him out cold, which is seen in the film. Bendix was lamentably remorseful when Ladd came to, sending the husky actor in tears. Seeing this, Ladd became good friends with William, even becoming neighbors in Beverly Hills. Later Ladd landed Bendix a number of roles. They were so close the two died within a year of one another. Veronica Lake also appreciated Bendix's big heart. "I came to adore the guy," she later wrote. "It was a platonic adoration for a marvelous human being." Many critics say Bendix stole the show in "The Glass Key." Film reviewer Colin McGuigan claimed, "There's a disconcerting whiff of the comedic about this menacing mob heavy; a bit like a psychotic teddy bear come to life. He comes across as one seriously sick puppy who positively relishes the hammering he metes out to Ladd and longs for an opportunity to do so again."
Just as Lake exacted revenge with Frederic March in "I Married A Witch," actor Donlevy was the recipient of Veronica's venom when she got wind the actor didn't think too much of her acting talent. The screenplay gave her the chance to take out her wrath when she was scripted to punch Donlevy. "I'd learned in my Brooklyn youth to lead with the hip when you throw a punch," Lake wrote in her autobiography. "Every pound I owned was behind it when it caught his jaw." Shocked, Donlevy looked at director Stuart Heisler for an explanation. Upon the inquiry, Veronica said she didn't know how to fake a slap, to which the actor snipped, "I'll give you until the next take to learn." Donlevy is in another scene that today still perplexes modern viewers: he's brushing his teeth while talking with Ladd when he sucks some toothpaste from the tube into his mouth, swishes it around before applying his brush to his teeth. This was a common method of brushing one's teeth before an ad showed an actor placing toothpaste on the brush first before brushing.
Film critic Hal Erickson noted "The Glass Key" was a huge film for both Ladd and Lake. "This 1942 remake improves on the original, especially in replacing the stolid Raft with the charismatic Alan Ladd." The picture increased the box-office appeal for both actors, who were paired in two more movies together. In a Motion Picture Herald poll Ladd was ranked as one of the ten 'stars of tomorrow.' "Paramount of course was delighted," said film critic David Shipman. "After his second film for them, he had not merely hit the leading-men category, but had gone beyond it to films which were constructed around his personality."
I Married a Witch (1942)
Inspiration for Bewitch TV Show
The creator of the popular TV show 'Bewitched' credited the October 1942 Rene Clair-directed fantasy film "I Married A Witch" as inspiration for his series' witchery plot.
Clair, recently immigrated to Hollywood from his homeland France, read Thorne Smith's 1941 novel 'The Passionate Witch.' The director recalled, "Paramount had been trying to find something right for Veronica Lake, who had been receiving lots of publicity partly because of her beautiful hair. They didn't want an ordinary role for her, and Preston Sturges (the film's producer) convinced them that 'I Married A Witch' was just what they needed. That's what did it: Veronica Lake got me that job; she was a lot more important to Paramount than I was, believe me." Joel McCrea was scheduled to be her co-star, but he vowed never to work with her again after his frustrating experience with her in 1941's "Sullivan's Travels." Frederic March stepped in despite what he heard about the young actress. Word leaked out March's feelings toward her, describing Lake as "a brainless little blonde sexpot, void of any acting ability." Hearing about his opinion, Veronica called him "pompous poseur" right to his face in an early prep meeting. Filming didn't get any better for the two. In an early scene March had to carry Lake from inside a hotel to save her from a fire. For spite she arranged for the film crew to place a 40-pound weight under her dress, causing him to struggle carrying her. In another close-up scene, she wrote in her autobiography March "was standing directly in front of the chair. I carefully brought my foot up between his legs. And I moved my foot up and down, each upward movement pushing it ever so slightly into his groin. Pro that he is, he never showed his predicament during the scene. But it wasn't easy for him, and I delighted in knowing what was going through his mind. Naturally, when the scene was over, he laced into me. I just smiled." After several days, March told his friends he's working on a movie called 'I Married a B....'
Director Clair felt Lake was self-conscious. Telling Leslie Caron years later Clair related, "The trouble with her is she didn't have confidence in herself. Nothing could convince her that she was beautiful. It was a fight every morning to get her to face the camera." Clair also discovered Lake was best on the first take while March improved with each subsequent shot. "The discrepancy between the two actors' best takes on any given shot led me to devise all sorts of tricks," Clair revealed, "including actually shooting Veronica when she thought we were still rehearsing." Unlike Lana Turner who cut her hair for 1942's "Somewhere I'll Find You" as a symbolic gesture to working female factory workers, Veronica didn't shear her iconic long blond hair. Her popularized style resulted in numerous workplace equipment injuries. The government sent her a request to cut the hair, which she eventually did in 1944. Sporting the new shorn look has been attributed as one of the reasons her drop-off in popularity happened so quickly
An enormous success at the box office, "I Married A Witch" elevated Lake's on-screen appeal. "It is one of the funniest pictures of the decade, and one of the most influential," said film reviewer Glenn Erickson. "With a rare, wicked sense of humor, it mixes witchcraft and romance to fashion a delightful screwball horror comedy." In the film, Jennifer (Lake) and her father Daniel (Cecil Kellaway), accused of witchcraft during the Salem Trials of 1692 led by Puritan Jonathan Wooley (March), are burned at the stake, then buried under a tree. They had cast a curse on each generation of Wooley males, confining them to marry only mean, abusive women. The latest Wooley, Wallace (March), a candidate for state governor, is engaged to spoiled Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward). A lightning bolt strikes the tree the father/daughter are buried under, freeing Jennifer and Daniel's spirits, and transforms them into human form to play tricks on Wallace to ruin his wedding plans.
"I Married A Witch" was proof Rene Clair could work within the Hollywood system and still have the freedom to apply his auteur creative fantasy trademark. Upon seeing the movie, Charlie Chaplin told his friend Rene, "There was no need to see the credits, in two minutes I had known it was your work." The comedy was nominated by the Academy Awards for Best Music Score. The American Film Institute also nominated it as one of the Funniest Movies ever made.
Desperate Journey (1942)
A Mix of Comedy with a War Thriller
War is serious business-unless it's a war comedy series on TV or in the case of movies it's September 1942's "Desperate Journey." The Warner Brothers film introduced a mix of solemn scenes following a B-17 bomber crew whose crash resulted in several casualties, with comedy, offering perfunctory witticisms from its actors in the middle of blazing bullets. Preceding the 1960s television series 'Hogan's Heroes,' this World War Two adventure movie anticipates the popular POW show with John Banner, who played Sergeant Schultz on TV, in a secondary role.
"What with the banter among the air crew and some incredibly stupid Nazis, this journey was less desperate than entertaining," describes film reviewer Bea Soila. "This movie is a hoot and, if approached in the right spirit, totally enjoyable."
One of the hilarious highlights of "Desperate Journey" has Ronald Reagan, off his career-best performance in "Kings Row," playing Flying Officer Johnny Hammond. He's a member of the B-17 crew captured by the Germans after they crashed in Germany from a bombing mission. He's interrogated by German Major Otto Baumeister (Raymond Massey) how a certain sophisticated mechanism in his plane works. The verbal salad of nonsensical complexities confuses the German officer so much he becomes twisted like a pretzel, allowing Hammond to easily knock him out. Errol Flynn, as the bomber's flight commander Terrence Forbes, lobbied hard to play that scene. But producer Hal Wallis felt Reagan could handle the verbiage way better. "I've always been grateful to Hal for that," said Reagan, who reported to his duty station in the United States Army after his scenes were shot. Flynn became cool to Reagan thereafter, and vowed never to work with the future President again. This was Reagan's final movie until 1947 (with the exception of 1943's "This is the Army"), despite being stationed in Culver City, California, a stone's throw from Hollywood. He did narrate several military service films during that span.
"Desperate Journey" follows the surviving American pilots fleeing the Germans, continuously fending off the enemy as they make their way through Germany and the Netherlands towards England. Pilot Forbes (Flynn), whose decision to fly low in the fog to see their targets, makes up for his poor decision by heroically guiding his men. Flynn appears slimmer on the screen than in the past. While in production, the actor was drafted. A military physical detected he had tuberculosis, making him ineligible for the service. The actor, fearing a studio suspension if it knew of his illness, kept his condition secret. The physical role was taxing on Flynn, causing his weight to plummet to 165 pounds. His clothes had to be tailored while padding was added. "Errol's agony of mind can only be imagined," Flynn's biographer Charles Higham wrote. "Knowing that untreated tuberculosis can be a death sentence, he still felt he had to go on and make 'Desperate Journey.'"
Scripted by Arthur Horman, co-writer to the British film 1942's "49th Parallel," his "Desperate Journey" both have similar plots, with military personnel stuck in enemy territory trying to return home. Raoul Walsh, directing Errol Flynn for the second of seven movies, handled the levity-filled script with aplomb, knowing its humor was designed to lighten the war atmosphere for young Americans as they set off overseas. "The comic book ease with which these downed Allied soldiers outwit, out maneuver, and out fight the Nazis borders on self parody," notes film reviewer Patrick Nash. "Together this band of soldiers form a classic war picture trope."
This comedy war thriller, also starring Alan Hale Sr. And Arthur Kennedy, was nominated for the Academy Awards Best Effects, partly for the spectacular bombing sequences early in the film.
In Which We Serve (1942)
Noel Coward's Unusual War Drama and David Lean's First Credited Directorial Debut
English playwright Noel Coward was known for his drawing room comedies appealing specifically to the women in the audience. A conversation with his painting buddy, England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, spurred on one of the most popular British World War Two movies produced during the war, September 1942's "In Which We Serve." Coward, who wrote the script as well as acted, was one of the most unlikely writers to produce a hard-hitting war film. The picture examined both the naval war battles on the seas as well as on the home front where husbands and older sons and daughters had left--and died--fighting into their fourth year of WW2. Coward's movie was so well done the Academy Awards nominated it for Best Picture, a rare acknowledgement for a British movie.
"While soldiers valiantly strove to gain ground," wrote film reviewer Tyler Smith, "their families were back at home, huddled in closets, listening with dread as the Germans mercilessly bombed the city. It is these scenes that really stick in my mind."
Coward had relinquished his typewriter at the outbreak of WW2 and joined the British Secret Service. Churchill saw the value in his playwright friend. Coward was multifaceted on the stage, directing and acting in the plays he wrote entertaining the troops on the European, African and Asian fronts. The playwright was inspired to compose a movie script by the sinking of the HMS Kelly during the battle of Crete in May 1941, commanded by his friend Lord Louis Mountbatten. The ship, bombed by German aircraft, lost half its crew. Changing the vessel's name to HMS Torrin, Coward concluded "In Which We Serve" with a speech by the captain, E. V. Kinross (Coward), taken almost verbatim from Mountbatten's address to the ship's survivors before they returned back home from Egypt. Mountbatten served as an advisor to Coward and pulled strings to lend the Twin Cities Film studio, producers of the picture, two hundred sailors as extras.
Originally Coward began directing "In Which We Serve" as well as performing before the camera. He soon realized he needed assistance to handle the scenes he was busy acting. John Mills, who appeared as Ordinary Seaman Shorty Blake, suggested David Lean, calling him "the best editor in the country." Tired of the long hours after three weeks of directing, Coward handed over to him the directing reins, realizing Lean knew a lot more about filmmaking than he did. "In Which We Serve" marked Leans' first credited debut as a director. Lean eventually directed three more Coward adaptations, including 1945's "Blithe Spirit" and 1945's "Brief Encounter."
"In Which We Serve" was actor Richard Attenborough's first screen appearance, an uncredited but important role as a sailor who deserts his post cowering from the German bombing. Electrician Jock Dymore accidentally was killed when he was handling a container of flash powder he was adding to a gun turret. In a rush to get to lunch, Dymore poured the powder into the still white-hot barrel of the turret shortly after Lean called for a reshoot, exploding in the face of Dymore and seriously injuring two nearby technicians.
So realistic was "In Which We Serve" the Royal Navy showed it to its recruits, giving them a taste of Navy life in the war. The Coward film was the second most popular British film in 1943 in England. Beside Best Picture, the Academy Awards nominated it for Best Original Screenplay. Noel Coward received an Academy Honorary Award for his "outstanding production achievement."
The Battle of Midway (1942)
First Documentary Showing Americans in Combat in WW2
Director John Ford had no idea what he was in for when he headed to Midway Island in the late spring of '42, the first year of the United States' involvement in World War Two. For a man looking for action he certainly ended up in the right place at the right time, producing the first documentary capturing American troops in combat in the Oscar-winning September 1942 "The Battle of Midway."
The 18-minute film, shot in color, was a pivotal naval and air engagement in the first year of the Pacific conflict. But the production wasn't planned ahead of time by Ford, a future four-time Oscar-winning Best Director. As a United States Navy Reserve officer, Ford, 47, headed the photographic unit for the Office of Strategic Services, and was on assignment on a secret mission to the island of Midway. "Our job was to photograph both for the records and for our intelligence assessment, the work of guerrillas, saboteurs, Resistance outfits," described Ford later on his unit's responsibilities. After stopping off at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to photograph the damage at the naval base, Ford volunteered to be shipped to the remote Pacific island of Midway to document the progress of the submarine base being built on the atoll. Unbeknownst to Ford, the Japanese were setting their sights on capturing the air base on Midway.
Accompanied by U. S. Navy photographer Jack MacKenzie, a former RKO assistant cameraman, Ford was filming much of the island's preparations when he heard about the Japanese fleet approaching the region-and the United States' plans to ambush it on June 4, 1942. The commanding officer of the island base, Captain Cyril Simard, told Ford, "Forget the pictures as much as you can. But I want a good accurate account of the bombing. We expect to be attacked tomorrow." Ford sought the island's highest point, a power station on the base. He situated MacKenzie and himself there equipped with two 16mm cameras and Kodachrome color film stock. Another film crew was stationed on one of the attacking carriers, the USS Hornet, to record all the sea action.
Once the Japanese Zeros appeared over the horizon, Ford and MacKenzie began cranking their cameras. Being high up posed an enormous danger to the pair. "The image jumps a lot because the grenades were exploding right next to me," Ford recalled in 1966. "Since then, they do that on purpose, shaking the cameras when filming war scenes. For me it was authentic because the shells were exploding at my feet." One bomb knocked the two down, slicing a deep gash in Ford's arm-from which he earned a Purple Heart. "It's where the plane flies over the hangar and everything goes up in smoke and debris, you can see one big chunk coming for the camera," described Ford.
The pair reeled off four hours of silent footage. After the monumental battle, they left immediately for Los Angeles. Ford knew he captured a ton of action which could make for an exciting documentary. Combining what was filmed on the island and those shot on the USS Hornet, he handed all the reels to editor Robert Parrish, who had assisted Ford in 1941's "How Green Was My Valley." Two scriptwriters shaped the narrative with Ford, voiced by actors Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and Donald Crisp. Alfred Newman, the music director for 20th Century Fox, composed the patriotic soundtrack. Ford mixed special sound effects from the studio's library to add to the excitement of the documentary. In six short days, the picture was ready. But working for the OSS, Ford was suspicious the military would suppress the movie. Arranging a private screening at the White House with Franklin Roosevelt in attendance, Ford cleverly inserted a clip of president's son, Major James Roosevelt of the Marine Corps, who was overseeing the memorial service on the island soon after the battle. The impact at the conclusion when the segment was show was quite emotional for the Roosevelts. "When the lights came up, Mrs. Roosevelt was crying," Parrish in attendance noticed. "The president turned to Admiral Leahy and said, 'I want every mother in America to see this picture'." With that "The Battle of Midway" was released nationwide, with many viewers teary-eyed leaving the theaters
The Academy Awards had established the Best Documentary for the first time, handing out four separate Oscars during its 15th annual ceremonies, the only time multiple awards were given in one category. "The Battle of Midway" was one of six Oscars Ford received in his lifetime.
My Sister Eileen (1942)
Rosalind Russell's Academy Awards Nominated Best Actress Performance
Even though Rosalind Russell played in a lot of comedic roles, she took her craft seriously on the set. As an experienced film actress since 1934, Russell was more than a little peeved with her co-star Janet Blair in September 1942's "My Sister Eileen." Blair, new to Hollywood, was obviously trying to upstage Russell in several scenes, causing the veteran's blood pressure to boil.
"She was new and nervous, the same way I'd been when I started," recalled Russell in her autobiography, "so I invited her into my dressing room and delivered a short speech about the inadvisability of the course she'd embarked on. 'Look,' I said, 'you're not going to steal the picture from me because I've got the better part, the sympathy comes to me. And you're not going to get any place with what you're doing. I know all those old tricks. When you upstage me, all I do is turn my back on the camera, and then they have to come around on me full-face for my close-up.'" After a few forceful coaching tips to Blair, 21, the young actress stopped her antics on the set. "I'm not doing it because I like you," Russell said candidly, "I don't know anything about you. I'm doing it to get a good picture."
The incident displayed why Russell, whose performance as writer Ruth Sherwood in "My Sister Eileen" was hailed as one of her best while garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Coming on the heels of her bravo performance as Hildy Johnson in 1940's "His Girl Friday," Russell showed an adeptness to roll off her tongue rapid-fire dialogue which earned her four Oscar nominations, five Golden Globe wins and a Tony Best Actress award.
"My Sister Eileen," writes film reviewer Noel Murray, "presents Russell to good advantage, by contrasting her with the pretty but dim Blair. If there's one major difference between the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s and the Hollywood of today, it's that film fans were expected to identify with and cheer on characters like Russell, who were prized as much for their intelligence as their attractiveness, and who seemed to know more about the way the world really worked than any men they might marry."
"My Sister Eileen," an adaptation of the Broadway hit of the same name, is about two sisters from Ohio who try to make a go of it in New York City by renting a cheap basement apartment in Greenwich Village. Russell plays the older and wiser sister to Blair, who's her younger, more naive Eileen. The play, written by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, centers on the real writer Ruth McKenney's move to New York City with her sister. Later McKenney wrote for The New Yorker, describing the many eccentric characters who floated by her basement apartment throughout the day and evening, collecting her articles into a 1938 anthology book. Her sister married screenwriter Nathanael West ('The Day of the Locust' author) after she relocated to Los Angeles. Driving from a hunting trip, the couple was killed in late 1940 running a stop sign four days before they were scheduled to attend the opening of the Broadway play "My Sister Eileen." The play, with actress Shirley Booth, was a hit with 864 performances, and was still on the New York stage while the movie was released, an unusual occurrence at the time.
To get the treasured role of Ruth, Russell agreed to a five-year, two picture-a-year contract with Columbia Pictures. The appearance of the Three Stooges near the end of the film also assured a boast at the box office. "My Sister Eileen" was further adapted into the 1953 Broadway musical 'Wonderful Town' with composer Leonard Bernstein's score. Janet Leigh, Betty Garrett and Jack Lemmon starred in the updated film 1955 version of "My Sister Eileen," while a 1960 short-lived TV comedy series was based on the premise. Coincidentally, the 1976 television comedy series 'Laverne & Shirley' has the same basement apartment setting as the play and the movie, only relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The First of the Few (1942)
Leslie Howard's Last Movie Before Shot Down by the German Luftwaffe
Many theories abound as to the reasons why the German Luftwaffe shot down the KLM Dutch Airline passenger plane flying from Lisbon to England carrying actor Leslie Howard, 50, on June 1, 1943. Some speculate the three British war propaganda films the actor/producer made, especially his final one, September 1942's "The First of the Few," had a lot to do with the Nazis targeting the plane. The film, the United Kingdom's most popular box office picture for 1942, centered around R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire, the fastest fighter plane in the Royal Air Force. The airplane played a crucial role in warding off the German Luftwaffe during 1940's 'Battle of Britain.' Some theorize Howard was a high priority of the Germans knowing his death would demoralize the British, and at the same time get rid of an effective anti-Nazi propaganda filmmaker.
Howard, best known to Americans as Ashley Wilkes in 1939's "Gone With The Wind," left Hollywood after completing the Civil War epic to return to his native England as soon as war was declared on Germany, sparking World War Two. Concentrating on creating morale-boosting movies, Howard produced, directed and acted in his last major film, "The First of the Few." He plays R. J. Mitchell, the aviation designer who revolutionized the shape of fighter airplanes, making them faster and more maneuverable, a radical departure from the Royal Air Force's fleet of bi-planes. Mitchell was inspired by the seagulls' aerodynamics when first designing his one-winged monoplane. His stubborn airplane manufacturer employer wasn't convinced Mitchell's unique model was an improvement over the reliable two-winged planes. Assisted by pilot Geoffrey Crisp (David Niven), who symbolized in the movie a composite of true-life RAF pilots, Mitchell set out to prove his new design was far superior by conducting a series of successful test flights. Mitchell's visit to Germany in the 1930s included a chance meeting with Willy Messerschmitt, the country's leading aircraft designer. The tour of the Messerschmitt factory was an eye-opener to Mitchell, who instantly realized Britain was falling way behind in new aircraft development.
Howard's portrayal of Mitchell was opposite the real designer's disposition. While the actor displayed a calm demeanor on the screen, the aircraft designer reportedly possessed an explosive temper. In "The First of the Few" Mitchell calls his innovative plane the Spitfire, analogous to "a bird that breathes fire and spits out death and destruction." In real life, however, the Royal Air Force was the one who gave the plane's name 'Spitfire," a moniker Mitchell hated, saying, "Just the sort of bloody silly name they would think of." Also Mitchell's four-year struggle with rectal cancer before dying at age 42 in 1937 is not detailed in the film. Instead the implication is he's so overworked on his new plane he succumbs to failing health.
David Niven, the first Hollywood star to enlist in the war in 1939, was assigned to a variety of jobs with the British Army during his six years of military service. The Army gave Niven leave to make two movies in England, "The First of the Few" and the 1944 Carol Reed-directed 'The Way Ahead.' Niven was under contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn, who loaned him out with the proviso he could have United States distribution rights. When Goldwyn saw the movie, he was upset Niven didn't receive star billing. He abruptly sliced 40 minutes from the film where Niven wasn't in and renamed it 'Spitfire.'
"The First of the Few" contains rare footage of the Mitchell-designed early 1920s Supermarine S.4 seaplane, a predecessor to the Spitfire. A few of the RAF fighter pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain are seen as extras in the movie while footage of the actual Spitfire factory captures the construction of those innovative planes. Film reviewer Lucy Brown notes, "As a piece of wartime propaganda it is probably one of the best; as a dramatic film seen by a modern viewer it works almost as well. Niven is superb and this, as Howard's swansong, is a fitting remembrance."
Somewhere I'll Find You (1942)
Garble's First Movie After Lombard's Death--and Last Film Before Enlisting in WW2
Clark Gable was devastated, both physically and emotionally, over Carole Lombard's untimely death in a plane crash. He was three days into filming September 1942's "Somewhere I'll Find You" when he received word of the sad fate of his wife in a fatal aircraft accident. He flew to the crash site to identify her, Lombard's mother Elizabeth Peters and her press agent Otto Winkler, the best man at their March 1939 wedding. Returning from a war bond campaign in her home state of Indiana, Lombard was in a TWA plane that flew into the Potosi Mountain shortly after taking off from Las Vegas on January 16, 1942. She was declared the first World War Two-related American female death. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a personal note of condolence to Gable.
"He was never the same," remarked actress Esther Williams, a friend of his. "He had been devastated by Carole's death."
MGM planned to scrap "Somewhere I'll Find You," figuring Gable wasn't in any condition to come back to the studio anytime soon. But after a month mourning while losing twenty pounds, Gable told the studio he would return as long as the title was changed and the set was closed to everyone except for essential film crew members. "You'll have to get them to change the title," he told studio executives. "I couldn't walk on a set with those words before me." They retitled the picture to 'Red Light' during its production, but reverted back to its original name upon the movie's release.
Esther Williams was planning to replace co-star Lana Turner since MGM head Louis B. Mayer was stung by Turner's impulsive behavior of eloping and marrying bandleader Artie Shaw in Vegas. The highly-publicized four-month marriage was an embarrassment for Mayer, who wanted to put Turner, 20, in her place. But Lana exerted her star power to appear with Gable after the delightful experience with the actor in their first of four movies together in the 1941 hit "Honky Tonk." The press tried to make a romance between the two, but Turner was vocal squashing the rumors, claiming, "I adored Mr. Gable, but we're just friends. When six o'clock came, he went his way and I went mine."
Turner's character Paula Lane is a news correspondent in the middle of an affair between brothers Jonny Davis (Gable) and his brother Kirk "Junior" Davis (Robert Sterling). She's joined by the two brothers in Manila where all three are caught in the cross-hairs of the invading Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In deference to Gable's tragedy, Lana restrained her normal prankster behavior as he sadly slinked into his dressing room during setups. Turner sported a shorter hairdo than her normal long, wavy look. MGM publicized her new appearance as "The Victory Hairdo," a practical style for the 'Rosy the Riveter' women laboring on factory machinery where their regular long hair could get caught in the gears, causing injuries.
Before her death Lombard had encouraged her husband to join the war effort right after Pearl Harbor. Shortly after filming wrapped in "Somewhere I'll Find You,' Gable enlisted in the United States Army's Aviation Division. After training he was assigned to head a six-man movie crew producing documentaries on the United States bombardier efforts over Europe. Despite the official tally of flying in five combat missions with the 351st Bomb Group, his colleagues admitted the actor flew a lot more bombing flights. In one mission over Germany, a fellow crewman on board his bomber was killed and two others wounded by a German fighter plane. A bullet tore through the actor's boot and another narrowly missed his head. Hearing how close its star was to death, MGM contacted the Army Air Force demanding he be reassign to noncombat duty. Hitler heard Gable was flying bombardier missions over Germany, and placed a top priority for his troops to capture the actor, offering a huge reward.
Because of all the publicity generated by Gable's loss and military enlistment, "Somewhere I'll Find You" was a smash hit for MGM at the box office. Clips of the movie where Gable and Turner embraced with a kiss were shown on the screen in 1949's "The Stratton Story" as James Stewart and June Allyson are cuddling in a movie theater. In the picture, a viewer sitting behind them sees the two smooching, and barks, "Hey, you're good, but they're better."
The Big Street (1942)
Lucille Ball Big Break in a Dramatic Role
Known as the "Queen of the B's," Lucille Ball was becoming increasingly discouraged with the direction of her career in the early 1940s, stuck in either "B" low-budgeted pictures or bit parts in larger feature films. Her friend Carole Lombard recommended to RKO studio Lucy should be the lead in September 1942's "The Big Street." After hesitating the studio relented, giving Ball the enormous break she was searching for years. Critics loved her portrayal of a cold-hearted entertainer who becomes paralyzed by a night club owner's push down the stairs. The club's busboy 'Little Pinks' (Henry Fonda) secretly loves the prima donna singer Gloria Lyons (Ball), and devotes his entire life to her after her paralyzing fall.
"Ball, in a rare straight role," writes film reviewer Gary Tooze, "is stunning as the hard-as-nails, embittered exploiter of Fonda's affections."
Scouting for possible leads in "The Big Street," adapted from Damon Runyon's 1940 short story, 'Little Pinks' which was published in Collier's Weekly, RKO first looked to Lombard and Charles Laughton. The English actor felt he had too strong of a personality to play the timid busboy, while Lombard, who would shortly die in a plane crash, felt the Gloria character was too coarse for her to play and passed. Some claim if she had accepted the role she would have been too busy to go on that fatal bond drive in the Midwest which claimed her life. Producer Damon Runyan, the columnist who wrote the original story, felt Lombard's suggestion on Ball had merit, despite RKO's misgivings on Lucy's second-tier status. Ball later recalled, "Nothing much seemed to be happening for me at the studio. My $1000 weekly paycheck came regularly, but I was still a regular among the B's." The critics loved her, with Life Magazine proclaiming, "The girl can really act." Lucy herself felt she deserved the Oscar for her performance.
Ball was a bit intimated by the part. She sought advice from Laughton, who was familiar with the script. He told her, "If you play a b..., play it!" She did, putting the poor busboy Fonda through the wringer. Andy Warhol later said when he saw Lucy's behavior towards 'Little Pink' it was" the sickest film ever made." Married to Desi Arnaz in November 1940, Ball noticed her husband hovering around the studio during its production watching Fonda's every move. Henry had dated Lucy briefly in the past, spurring the ever-jealous Arnaz to keep a close eye on the pair.
Not a blockbuster in the theaters, "The Big Street" nevertheless impressed MGM chief music producer Arthur Freed with Ball's acting, and persuaded his studio to sign her. Ironically, Lucy and Desi bought RKO's facilities where the actress had spent her first seven years in film when the financially-distressed studio went bankrupt in 1957. Ball and Fonda appeared in just one other film together, 1968's comedy "Yours, Mine and Ours." Despite Henry's huge star status, Lucy was top billed because of her popular TV series.
Wake Island (1942)
Hollywood's First Feature Film Based on an Actual WW2 Battle
Hollywood's first American major feature film reenacting actual battles of World War Two, released nine months after Pearl Harbor, was September 1942's "Wake Island." This Academy Award Best Picture nominee introduced an entirely new genre to the screen, 'the World War II combat film.'
What's remarkable about the Paramount picture was it was produced without knowing whether there were any survivors from the actual late December 1941 Japanese invasion on the small Pacific island. The movie's ambiguous ending placed "Wake Island" in the category of those films which portrayed unsolved conflagrations with seemingly no surviving 'good guys' such as in General George Custer's Battle of Bighorn as well as the Battle of the Alamo. (It was later learned in Wake Island's case over 1,200 civilian contractors did survive the Japanese attack but 98 of those forced to remain on the island were executed in 1943. All told, 122 U. S. military and civilians were killed in the battle while the Japanese toll was between 700 and 1000 dead. Japan also lost two destroyers and a submarine.).
"Wake Island" was produced during the bleak spring of 1942 when the United States military was experiencing a series of setbacks in the Pacific as the Japanese military captured one island after the next. Film historian Jeanine Basinger said the movie's message was "we may be losers, but we never give up - and losers who never give up will finally win." The motion picture was the "first of many to dramatize American war heroics for the home front," according to author Robert Sklar. Added film reviewer Glenn Erickson, "Paramount's careful morale-builder doesn't exaggerate or sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny atoll in the Pacific, and stands as an example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.""
"Wake Island" opens on the island's activity a month before Pearl Harbor when Major Geoffrey Caton (Brian Donlevy) assumes command of the small remote base as contractors fortify the area for a potential war with Japan. A pair of trouble makers, Privates Randall (William Bendix), who is about to ship back to the states, and his friend Doyle (Robert Preston) are being punished for their transgressions. Soon after Caton receives word Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor, the island comes under aerial attack, followed by a troop invasion, which is initially turned back. Following several more attacks from the air, the Japanese land a much bigger landing force, this time with different results.
Since film crews were unable to film in the volatile Pacific Ocean islands, Southern California's Salton Sea, a large, shallow lake with a desert-like shoreline, served as an authentic lookalike backdrop for Wake Island. Australian native John Farrow, who actually was on Wake Island before WW2 for the Royal Canadian Navy before he was discharged for contracting typhus fever in Trinidad, directed the namesake movie. As a busy film director before joining the navy, Farrow's handling of 1939's "Five Came Back" encouraged Paramount to sign him to helm "Wake Island," earning him a Best Director Oscar nomination. The movie's success led to a long-term contract with the studio. He was married to actress Maureen O'Sullivan (Jane in the "Tarzan" series) in 1936, and is the father to seven children, including Mia Farrow, born in 1945.
William Bendix received his only Academy Awards nomination playing the rambunctious Pvt. Randall, whose return to civilian life was postponed by Pearl Harbor. Mostly known today for his title character in the 1950s television series 'The Life of Riley,' the Manhattan native was a New York Yankees bat boy when he carried out Babe Ruth's request to pick up an order of a large cache of hot dogs and cans of soda before a game. Ruth became so sick after chunking down the stuff he was unable to play, prompting the Yankees to fire Bendix. Catching the acting bug when he was 30, Bendix appeared in small parts on the screen beginning in 1936 before his big break in "Wake Island." The gruff actor enjoyed a steady movie and television career which included, coincidentally, playing the ballplayer who got him in trouble as a bat boy, 1948's "The Babe Ruth Story." He was last regularly seen in NBC-TVs 'Overland Trail' in 1960. Bendix died in December 1964 at 58 from a chronic stomach ailment.
"Wake Island" was shown to soldiers during training to boast their morale. The public was equally receptive towards the movie, ranking it 7th at the box office. Besides Best Picture, Bendix's Best Supporting Actor, and Farrow's Best Director nominations, "Wake Island" was also nominated by Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay.
The Major and the Minor (1942)
Billy Wilder's Directorial Debut is a Treasure
Scriptwriter Billy Wilder's ambition to direct a movie from the scripts he and his writing partner Charles Bracket wrote finally was granted when Paramount Pictures gave him his first Hollywood opportunity in September 1942's "The Major and the Minor," a sprightly comedy with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland.
Wilder recalled how careful he was not to ruin his directorial opportunity. "Everybody was sure I was going to do some German Expressionist thing sure to fail, and that crazy Wilder would go back to his typewriter and stop bothering everybody," the newfound director said. "But I was very careful. I set out to make a commercial picture I wouldn't be ashamed of, so my first picture as a director wouldn't be my last. I wrote the part of the major for Cary Grant. I always wanted him in one of my pictures, but it never worked out."
The Austrian-Hungarian-born Wilder did direct one film years earlier, the 1934 French action comedy 'Mauvaise Graine' just before immigrating to Hollywood. In America he was accompanied by a portfolio of his scripts to secure his first job as a screenwriter. After earning two Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay with Brackett, Wilder's numerous requests to direct at Paramount was finally granted under producer Arthur Hornblow's guidance. Adapting the 1923 play 'Connie Goes Home' by Edward Carpenter, Wilder and Brackett scripted a breezy comedy about a young woman who wants to leave the big city to return to her Midwestern roots. Her meager savings weren't enough to pay full fare for the train, so she disguises herself as a little girl to qualify for the half-price fare. But things don't go smoothly for the disguised girl, finding herself in some sticky situations on the way home.
Wilder was a big fan of Ginger Rogers, a recent Oscar Best Actress winner in 1941's "Kitty Foyle," and invited her to dinner to offer her the role of Susan 'Su-Su' Applegate, a New York City scalp massager who's constantly sexually harassed while on the job. Susan reaches a boiling point when, arriving at a client's apartment to work on his scalp, she's greeted by "Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?" a line nominated by the American Film Institute for Best Movie Quote. Rogers distinctively remembered the evening's meeting with Wilder, saying, "he had the qualities to become a good director. He knew just how to order in the restaurant, but remembered to ask me what I liked. I felt that he would be strong, but that he would listen. He certainly understood how to pay attention to women." She also was intrigued by the part of playing a 12-year-old girl. "I loved 'The Major and the Minor' because it was my story, as if they knew my life. Mother and I often didn't have enough money when we traveled, so I carried my stuffed doll named Freakus, which made me look younger, especially when I hugged it and talked with it, and then, at night, I could just use it as a pillow. Just like Su-Su." Ginger's real mother, Lela, who was a film producer, film editor and scriptwriter herself, plays Susan's mother in the movie, an additional proposed incentive Wilder dangled in front of Ginger to entice her for the part.
Rogers' character was the 'Minor' in the title while Wilder spontaneously offered Ray Milland the 'Major' when he pulled up next to him at a red light on a Hollywood street. "Would you like to work in a picture I'm going to direct?" Wilder yelled out through the open car window. "Sure," Milland answer, thinking Wilder was just joking. When the script arrived at his door a couple of weeks later, he loved what he read and accepted the role of Major Philip Kirby. In the picture he meets Su-Su in his private train compartment while she's escaping the conductors, who had spotted her smoking a cigarette. He offers the little girl the lower berth in his private sleeper, all innocent, of course.
The filming went smoothly for the neophyte Hollywood director, who ordered "champagne for everybody!" every time he was satisfied with a take. Unfamiliar with the Hollywood method of directing, Wilder knew he had to have someone guide him on the set. He felt Doane Harrison, a veteran film editor who cut the last movie Wilder and Brackett had scripted, would be perfect for the job. "He was much more of a help to me than the cameraman," praised Wilder. Harrison gave Wilder's his biggest tip by describing the method of 'cutting in the camera,' where Wilder would map out ahead of time each scene and film just what he needed. "When I finish a film, there is nothing on the cutting room floor but chewing gum wrappers and tears," Wilder said, with a twinkle in his eye. Harrison would be on the set as an advisor for every movie Wilder directed through 1966's "The Fortune Cookie."
In "The Major and the Minor," Major Kirby's destination is the military academy where he's assigned. Su-Su finds out his girlfriend, Pamela Hill (Rita Johnson) wants to keep him there against his wishes when he revealed to the little girl he wants to join the war effort. Through some clever maneuvering, Susan attempts to fulfill his ambition, with some hilarious results. "Rogers and Milland and the entire cast are clearly having fun with their roles, and never push the sexual humor into knowingness or obviousness," writes film reviewer Elizabeth Periale. The movie, she adds, "may have been the first Hollywood film directed by Billy Wilder, but it is also one of his best." The American Film Institute members heartedly agreed, nominating Wilder's directorial debut for the Funniest Movie as well as the Most Passionate. Wilder would forever be assigned the director's chair for every script he wrote from here on.
Across the Pacific (1942)
Uncanny Script Predicted Pearl Harbor Attack Before it Happened
Pearl Harbor changed everything in Hollywood when 1942 rolled around. The production of September 1942's "Across the Pacific" with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor was particularly affected by the attack. Its original plot coincidentally was centered around an attack on Hawaii, specifically at the naval base on Pearl Harbor. Warner Brothers postponed filming the movie for three months after the bombing to revise its script, a costly but necessary decision for the studio.
"It was kind of a creepy feeling," recalled Mary Astor in her autobiography, "to have been talking about 'the plans of the Japanese' in the picture, and have them practically blueprint our script." Adapted from a Saturday Evening Post series by Robert Garson, 'Aloha Means Goodbye,' published in the summer of 1941, "Across the Pacific' abruptly saw the studio change the location of the Japanese attack from Hawaii to the Panama Canal.
Warner Brothers figured lightning would strike twice after its blockbuster 1941 "The Maltese Falcon," hiring the same director and cast. John Huston was brought in along with Bogart, Astor and Sidney Greenstreet. In "Across the Pacific" the three meet on a Japanese-bound ship departing Nova Scotia, Canada. Rick Leland (Bogart) is an undercover agent for United States intelligence who, on the guise of a disgraced soldier dishonorably discharged from the Army, pretends he's joining Chiang Kai-shek's fighting forces in China. On board is Dr. Lorenz (Greenstreet), a known enemy spy busy nefariously percolating a secret plan. Leland meets Canadian passenger Alberta Marlow (Astor), who, like magnets, become attracted to one another. The ship is stopped when it reaches the Panama Canal. The captain is informed because the boat is going to Japan precautions dictate it'll have to go around South America. All disembark, but Leland soon discovers Lorenz and a cadre of Japanese plan to bomb the canal's locks.
"Across the Pacific" was Bogart's final movie before his monumental classic 1942's "Casablanca." John Huston, directing only his second picture, was called up by the United States Army and had to depart quickly with a fifth of the movie still remaining to be filmed. Vincent Sherman replaced Huston, and discovered he had to pick up in the middle of the film's pivotal scene where Bogart is cornered in a movie theater by thugs with no escape route. "How does he get out?" Sherman, without the script, asked Huston as he was leaving out the door. Huston replied, "Bogie will know how to get out. I'm off to the war!" Huston later recalled, "There was no way in God's green world that Bogart could logically escape. I shot the scene, then called Jack Warner and said, 'Jack, I'm on my way. I'm in the army." With Huston hightailing out of the country with the only script, the studio scrubbed the filmed scene and rejiggered the escape sequence.
"It's unexpectedly humorous," described film reviewer Laura Grieve, "particularly in the first half, and the repartee between Bogart and Astor is great fun. The suspense builds nicely, ratcheting up in intensity as the action-packed climax approaches." Variety added at the time, "Although the picture does not quite hit the edge-of-seat tension engendered by Maltese Falcon, it's a breezy and fast-paced melodrama. Huston directs deftly from the thrill-packed script."
Holiday Inn (1942)
The Movie Which Introduced the Holliday Hit 'White Christmas'
After Bing Crosby finished recording 'White Christmas' for the first time, he turned to its composer, Irving Berlin, and laconically stated, "I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving." Little did anyone know when the song was first introduced to the pubic in August 1942's "Holiday Inn" where Bing, accompanied by Marjorie Reynolds (her singing voice dubbed by Martha Mears), is at the piano did anyone know 'White Christmas' would be recognized by the Guinness World Records as the best selling song in the history of singles and record albums. Berlin's tune proved for the first time a secular Christmas song could be commercially wildly successful. The soon-to-be classic also earned the Oscar for Best Original Song.
'White Christmas' wasn't planned to be the stand-out song of fourteen tunes Berlin composed for "Holiday Inn," with Crosby, Reynolds, Fred Astaire and Virginia Dale. The featured song for the movie was supposed to be 'Be Careful, It's My Heart," performed during the Valentine's Day segment. To American servicemen shipped overseas during World War Two, 'White Christmas' resonated, conjuring images of home and family. Shortly after the release of "Holiday Inn," the Yuletide song soared to the top of Your Hit Parade and Billboard charts. The Armed Forces Network was deluged with requests to play the Crosby song.
"Holiday Inn" was the brainchild of Berlin's, who envisioned a musical centered around an inn opened just on holidays, offering lodging, dinner as well as entertainment to a paying public. Berlin's idea morphed into a plot where Jim Hardy (Crosby), Ted Hanover (Astaire), and Lila Dixon (Dale) were a popular song-and-dance team in New York City. Jim longs to own a farm in Connecticut, but his fiancee Lila falls for Ted instead. Jim leaves the pair for farm life. But after a year of hard work he realizes living in green acres isn't for him. He has a lightbulb moment to transform his farm into a lodge offering robust live singing and hoofing, with themed acts operating solely on holidays. He calls the establishment Holiday Inn. Aspiring performer Linda Mason (Reynolds) drops in on Jim, where he sings to her a new song he just composed, 'White Christmas.'
"While structurally the film tends to play out as a series of vignettes built around the various holidays depicted," noticed film reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman, "there's a through line of enterprising entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it with a niche hotel." A bevy of Berlin songs as well as spectacular dancing from Astaire dominate "Holiday Inn." Highlights include the July Fourth segment where Astaire enthusiastically dances to 'Let's Say It with Firecrackers,' complete with bang snaps he throws on the floor. The patriotic number was added when Pearl Harbor was attacked in the middle of the movie's production. Fred rehearsed for three days before a laborious two days of filming requiring 38 takes before the perfectionist Astaire was happy. The special effects team added the blast visuals in post to make the number pop. To raise money for war bonds, Astaire auctioned his dancing shoes he wore in the routine for $116,000. Theodore Strauss, film critic to The New York Times, praised the movie, writing, "all very easy and graceful; it never tries too hard to dazzle; even in the rousing and topical Fourth of July number, it never commits a breach of taste by violently waving the flag."
"Holiday Inn" was a big winner for Paramount Pictures, ranking sixth at the box office. Besides its Oscar win for Best Song, the holiday movie was nominated by the Academy Awards for Best Musical Score and Best Original Story. Berlin's 'Easter Parade' song performed during the Easter segment was later the title tune for the 1948 Astaire and Judy Garland film. "Holiday Inn's" remake, the 1954 Technicolor "White Christmas," with Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Cooney and Vera-Ellen, used the same 1942 hotel set. And the popular hotel chain, Holiday Inn, established in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee, was named after the Irving Berlin motion picture.
Bambi (1942)
First Full-Length Animated Movie To Highlight Realistically Animals' Movements
When Walt Disney became interested in what eventually was August 1942's "Bambi," he envisioned the animation to be as realistic as live animals. Such a sophisticated look had never been achieved in cinema before. His animators stepped up to the challenge and unveiled a new look in full-length cartoon movies, mesmerizing viewers. Adapted from Felix Salten's 1923 adult-fiction novel, 'Bambi, a Life in the Woods,' Disney's fifth animated feature film toned down the book's violent and bloody scenes. Gestating since the release of 1937's "Snow White," the picture benefited from the experimentation and innovations in cel animation developed over the years, creating a unique magical spectacle on the screen.
Disney claimed "Bambi" was his all-time favorite film made by his studio. In retrospect, Walt's first full-length cartoon movies are considered an integral part of an era called the 'Golden Age of Animation,' which witnessed rapid advances in technology. "Bambi" marked the end of the first phase of the string of Disney's ambitious feature films as World War Two, with the loss of the lucrative European market, forced him to rein in his critically-acclaimed but extraordinarily expensive output. It would be another eight years before Walt produced his next independently produced full-length totally animated movie, 1950's "Cinderella."
"Bambi," notes film reviewer Alan Bacchus, is the "closest relative in the Disney canon next to 'Fantasia,' more a visual/tonal essay than a traditional fairytale or other narrative story. There's very little story to be told at all here, instead, using a dance of image, sounds and music Disney shows us the cycle of life of the creatures of the forest, specifically the majestic deer." The simple plot with a scant 1,000 words of dialogue focuses on Bambi, whose father is the Prince of the Forest. The young fawn's friends include a skunk Flower and a rabbit Thumper, a character not in Salten's novel who was inserted by Disney for levity. Through several adventures, Bambi grows up to find Man is the forest animals' biggest enemy, followed closely by fire, which coincidentally is started by Man by neglecting his campfire. Acknowledged as one of the saddest scenes in any Disney movie is when Bambi's mother is shot and killed-off camera. The tragedy occurs when she and her fawn flee the Man hunting in the woods. The mother deer is last seen leaping before the camera reverts to Bambi running when a gunshot suddenly cracks. No other scene in a Disney flick compares to the heartbreak the young Bambi experiences until 1994's "The Lion King" when the title character's dad dies. "Bambi" took years from conception until its release, mainly, as animator Mel Shaw recalled, the artists were constantly being sidetracked during its development, either by a workers' strike or Walt's unrestrained imagination. "I remember one situation when Walt became involved," said Shaw. "He said 'Suppose we have Bambi step on an ant hill and we cut inside and see all the damage he's done to the ant civilization.' We spent weeks and weeks developing the ants, and then all of a sudden we decided, you know, we're way off the story."
Animals were rarely drawn realistically in cartoons before "Bambi," despite 1941's "Dumbo's" setting in an animal-filled circus environment. Disney wanted to increase animation's realism and expressions of animals. He had his artists closely study the movements of those at the Los Angeles Zoo as well as transporting some to his studio. These extensive studies of animal movements proved invaluable in later Disney productions, with some "Bambi" incidental footage reused in 1977's "The Rescuers" and 1991's "Beauty and the Beast."
Disney hired children to voice the young characters in "Bambi." Peter Behn, 6, was recording animal voices when the casting director yelled from another room, "Get that kid out of here! He can't act!" Shortly afterwards the artists heard Behn's recordings and found his voice perfect for their new character Thumper, basing the rabbit's personality around Behn's unique tonality. Another youngster, Donnie Dunagan, voiced a young Bambi. The kid's facial expressions while speaking served as a model for the animators to pattern the fawn's facial features. As an adult, Donnie kept his childhood job at Disney a secret fearing he would be nicknamed 'Bambi.' Dunagan joined the United States Marine Corps, and was its youngest drill instructor. In combat he was a decorated Vietnam War hero for valor, wounded three times in battle. "Bambi" derived from the Italian word 'bambino,' meaning small boy, and was the first Disney feature not to have one song sung by its characters, something not seen again until 1961's "One Hundred and One Dalmatians."
"Bambi" received three Academy Awards nominations: 'Love is a Song' (heard in the opening credits) for Best Original Song, Best Musical Score, and Best Sound Recording. The American Film Institute voted "Bambi" as the third best Animated Film Ever, while Man holds the distinction as the only AFI Hero and Villain, ranked the 20th Worst Villain, not to appear on screen. AFI nominated the Disney classic for the Best Movie and Best Film Score. Time magazine includes "Bambi" in its Top 25 Horror Movies, justifying its inclusion by stating the film "has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters who saw it 40, 50, 65 years ago."
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
Duvivier Directed Film Solidifies Anthology Format in Cinema
Although not seen regularly on the screen, anthology films offer unique entertainment by presenting several short stories tied together by common themes. Film historians cite August 1942's "Tales of Manhattan" as popularizing the genre. Consisting of six stories, all directed by Julien Duvivier, the movie's separate episodes are all linked by the same formal tailcoat worn by the main character in each tale.
"Tales of Manhattan," wrote film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, "is one of those rare films-a tricky departure from the norm, which, in spite of its five-ring-circus nature, achieves an impressive effect. It manages to convey a gentle, detached comprehension of the irony and pity of life, and it constantly grabs one's interest with its run of assorted incidents."
The short stories are written by prominent scriptwriters, most notably Ben Hecht, Alan Campbell and Donald Ogden Stewart. The narrative begins when popular stage actor Paul Orman (Charles Boyer) pays for a tailor-made tailcoat to impress his former girlfriend, Ethel Halloway (Rita Hayworth), who's married to John (Thomas Mitchell), a big-game gun collector. The jacket though brings bad luck in the opening salvo which continues throughout the film, but is always accompanied by a silver lining. Another link to each episode is, just like Paul Orman, all the protagonists are not whom they make themselves to be. "That thematic connection is part of what makes this film a classic," notes film reviewer Martin Purvis. "All in all, the tailcoat's social straitjacket paradoxically opened the door for displays of authentic, loving human compassion across a wide spectrum."
"Tales of Manhattan" is also known for having the most actors and actresses listed in the American Film Institute's rankings of '100 Top Stars," with Henry Fonda, Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth and Edward G. Robinson headlining the anthology. This was also the last of twelve movies for Paul Robeson, surrendering a lucrative film career because he was tired of the stereotype portrayal of his race in cinema. Initially he was enthusiastic about appearing in the film's final story of a sharecropper who finds the tailcoat filled with thousands of dollars dropped from the sky by a thief, escaping to Mexico after robbing a casino, who tossed it out of the plane as the coat caught on fire. Robeson initially felt the plot could lend a socialist message inspiring African-Americans to plan communal groups to take advantage of the capitalistic system. The actor didn't see his vision come to fruition, realizing the producers stuck to, as he bitterly said, making "the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition, the same old story, the Negro singing his way to glory." Robeson did continue his stage acting for the remainder of his life.
One episode cut from "Tales of Manhattan's" initial release to shorten its running time starred W. C. Fields, Phil Silvers and Margaret Dumont (of Marx Brothers fame), with input from Buster Keaton. In it, Fields gives a lecture on abstaining from drinking alcohol. Trouble is, the husband of the host (Dumont) plays a joke by spiking the coconut milk refreshment handed out with liquor, causing a riotous scene.
Julien Duvivier, known for directing 1937's "Pepe le Moko" and 1938's "The Great Waltz," left France just before the German invasion in 1940 to work in Hollywood. He followed up on the success of "Tales of Manhattan" to direct another anthology film the following year, 'Flesh and Fantasy.' Duvivier returned to Europe after the war to resume directing several films in France, England and Spain. "Tales of Manhattan" was the first movie shown in Paris theaters after the Allies liberated the city in October 1944.
Anthology films, known as omnibus films or portmanteaus, had its beginnings in D. W. Griffith's silent film 1916 epic "Intolerance," which involved four plots in a three hour-plus feature film. The first more segmented 'packaged film' offering multiple stories in progression was 1932's "If I Had a Million." Duvivier's "Tales of Manhattan" solidified the genre, giving the format new life, which extends to this day.
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Two Sides of the Law Merge With Powerhouse Trio Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman
Hollywood studios long have relied on preview audiences before releasing their movies nationwide to seek out viewers' opinions. Sometimes their comments on the survey cards would reshape a film. This was the case in August 1942's "Talk of the Town," an Academy Awards Best Picture nominee. Columbia Pictures was unsure about its ending, whether mill worker and political activist Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) or highly-respected law professor Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman) would end up with Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur). Director George Stevens filmed two separate endings, showing each getting Shelley.
Columbia executives were not convinced the script's selection of a mate was the right choice, and reportedly relied on viewers' survey cards to determine "Talk of the Town's" outcome. The studio may have tipped its hand when Grant's name was listed above Colman's in the opening credits, the first time Ronald hadn't received top billing since his early silent movie days. While in production Grant insisted Columbia change the name of the working script, 'Mr. Twilight,' which alluded to Colman's character.
"Talk of the Town" presents two sides of the law: the practical, real-life justice Leopold faces as he's accused of arson in the factory he works at (it was a set-up by its owner), and the theoretical aspects of the law college professor Lightcap teaches. "Leopold's practical, common sense variety," writes film reviewer Ed Howard, "is seen from the perspective of an innocent man wrongly accused; and the iron, unshakable faith in justice possessed by Lightcap, a scholar who never considers the practical applications of the law but only its principles." Lightcap is a boarder in Shelley's house while Leopold, a former schoolmate of hers, seeks refuge from prison after mugging a guard to get the jail's keys for his escape. Claiming to be her gardener, Leopold discusses the merits of the law with Lightcap before they become steadfast friends, a relationship that proves beneficial in the end.
"The Talk of The Town," says film reviewer Lisa Bowman, "is an odd little movie. For the most part, it's a drama. But it also has plenty of comedic elements, mostly dealing with the attempts to keep Leopold's identity a secret." Jean Arthur ranked George Stevens as her favorite director while he called her "the finest actress he ever worked with." Critic Bill Wren describes the Oscar nominated Best Picture as "really Jean Arthur's movie, and she is wonderful in it, even if she is playing the Jean Arthur character - pretty self-assured till she's in a fix, then a bit scrambled." She had earlier worked with Grant in Howard Hawks' 1939 "Only Angels Have Wings," and although 41 at the time, Arthur's make-up with darker hair and cinematographer Ted Tedziaff's lighting was able to knock ten years off her appearance-except in the rare close-ups revealing her real age.
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther loved "Talk of the Town," gushing, "the essential purpose of this tale is to amuse with some devious dilemmas, and that it does right well." The Academy members concurred, nominating the film in seven categories, including Best Picture, Best Original Story, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Black-and-White), Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing and Best Musical Score. However, no Oscars were awarded to the Columbia studio's picture. The American Film Institute nominated the picture as the Greatest Love Story and the Funniest Movie Ever Made.
Pardon My Sarong (1942)
Comedy Helps Abbott and Costello Gain Number One Box Office Status
The comedy team of Abbott and Costello was Hollywood's biggest box office stars in 1942, supplanting Mickey Rooney's three-year run as the ticket champion. The pair's top ranking was helped by its highest grossing picture that year in August 1942's "Pardon My Sarong."
The movie, whose title pays homage to the famous South Pacific wardrobe of actress Dorothy Lamour, who wasn't in the picture, contains one of the wackiest plots ever dreamed up, written by Abbott and Costello's "chief idea man," John Grant, along with a couple of Marx Brothers writers. Grant had met Lou while the young comedian was working in a theater box office during the early 1920s, and a decade later had suggested he team up with straight man William 'Bud' Abbott. The comedians hired Grant to write their vaudeville skits, many of which carried over to their movies. Newspaper Hollywood columnist Heddy Hopper said of Grant he was "much more than the writer of those laugh jerkers that have zoomed the pair into box office tops; he's their friend, confidant and godfather, and the three of them are more like brothers than business associates."
"Pardon My Sarong" centers around newly-hired Chicago bus drivers Abbott and Costello, who drive their empty passenger bus to California where rich bachelor Tommy Layton (Robert Paige) pays them to help him on his yacht for a race. Along the way, Detective Kendall (William Demarest) corners them at a theatre, only to be thwarted by the two posing as magicians. The sequence was the first time Abbott and Costello performed separately, with an exceptionally funny Bud displaying his comedIc skills with Demarest as the straight man. The two link up with Tommy while Joan Marshall (Virginia Bruce), serving as the picture's love interest, joins them as they race towards Hawaii. The plot takes an interesting twist when they find themselves veering off course to an uncharted island inhabited by superstitious natives.
Film reviewer Hal Erickson describes "Pardon My Sarong, as "filled to overflowing with hilarious sight gags, cross-talk routines and throwaway lines. 'Pardon My Sarong' scores on two levels: as a devastating send-up of Dorothy Lamour jungle epics and as a first-rate vehicle for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello." Universal Pictures, realizing the value Lou and Bud brought to their bottom line, beefed up the movie's casting with Demarest (a Preston Sturges regular), Virginia Bruce (the late John Gilbert's former wife who starred in 1940's "The Invisible Woman"), villain actor Lionel Atwill and Western film actor Leif Erickson (TV's 'The High Chaparral.') Spicing the film were the singers 'The Ink Spots,' belting out two songs in only their second Hollywood film. The studio's extra expense paid dividends as "Pardon My Sarong" became Universal's second highest grossing film of the year.
"Pardon My Sarong" showed a dark side of Bud towards Lou when they were marooned on the yacht in the middle of the Pacific. Running out of food, Abbott eats Costello's allotment of rations, and shortly afterwards hands Lou a gun for him to commit suicide for the sake of those on the boat. Despite the macabre twist, the public loved the pair's comedy, especially the final ten madcap minutes, rocketing the two to the top of the box office charts for the year.
The Pied Piper (1942)
Monty Woolley's Heroics, Despite Himself, Save Children
More than a few movie stars have learned their craft through the Yale School of Acting, including Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, and Sigourney Weaver. But not many professors teaching at the Ivy League university have become successful Hollywood actors. Monty Woolley was one of the most noteworthy dramatic instructors at Yale to make a go in movies. He earned the first of two Academy Awards Best Actor nominations for his role in August 1942's "The Pied Piper," as a Brit on a fishing vacation who finds himself leading a group of youngsters to freedom. The movie so impressed the Academy members they nominated it for Best Picture.
Nicknamed "The Beard," Woolley, a Manhattan native, taught English and Drama at Yale before directing Broadway plays beginning in 1929, followed by small roles in Hollywood starting in 1936. In his first film lead, 1942 "The Man Who Came to Dinner," Woolley re-enacted his stage role of the same name. "The Pied Piper" came next, causing him to admire his own acting talents, but was even more proud of his trademark beard. "Take the beards away from Santa Claus and Bluebeard and what do you have?" asked Woolley. "Nothing but a pair of middle-aged, overstuffed bores."
In "The Pied Piper," Woolley, 64, plays Howard, an Englishman visiting France near the border of Switzerland when the Germans invade. Anxious to return home, he reluctantly takes his hosts' two children, Ronnie (Roddy McDowall) and Sheila (Peggy Ann Garner) to their relatives in England. On his way via train, Howard and company run into a number of obstacles while collecting other children along the way. One child includes the Jewish niece of Nazi officer Major Diessen (Otto Preminger), who wants Howard, who's his prisoner, to take her out of France. The Nunnally Johnson-written script adapted from Nevil Shute's 1942 novel of the same name emphasizes British patriotism as well as a critique on Nazi cruelty. The negative criticism of the Nazis in the movie would never have been permitted by the Hays Office censors before Pearl Harbor, but six months after the Japanese attack the honest portrayal of the German government was allowed.
Woolley had many fans, with an equal amount of critics who didn't particularly appreciate his brand of acting. Critic Erik Beck harped on his on-screen demeanor, claiming, "His acting seems to consist of standing around, blustering, and generally acting irritated. Wooley isn't a bad actor, but he's just bluster." Film reviewer Lura Grieve countered, "I have a soft spot for Monty Woolley, who was so good in films." His role as the guardian for the kids won him the Best Actor award from the National Board of Review.
"The Pied Piper" was the first film to star Otto Preminger, 37. The Austria-Hungary born director moved to the United States with his family at the outbreak of World War One. His first passion was the stage, both acting and directing. Handling four pictures in the 1930s, he increased his directing in the mid-1940s by producing a number of classics, including 1944 "Laura" and 1959 "Anatomy of a Murder." His performance as Major Diessen in "The Pied Piper" opened the eyes of the studios, pigeonholing him in a number roles playing German WW2 officers, including Colonel von Scherback in 1953's "Stalag 17."
Besides the Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture and Woolley's Best Actor, "The Pied Piper" earned Edward Cronjager his third of seven Best Cinematographer (Black-and-White) nominations.
Matri-Phony (1942)
Stooges Assigned Studio's Worst Director to Handle Their Short Film
The filming of July 1942's "Matri-Phony," a play on the word 'matrimony,' did not go smoothly for The Three Stooges. Set in 'Ancient Erysipelas' (reminiscent to Ancient Rome), "Matri-Phony" was directed by Harry Edwards, who was known as Columbia Pictures' worst director. Edwards reportedly possessed no peoples skills, constantly lambasting both cast and crew. The Stooges usually knocked out filming their 17-minute movies in four days, mostly with their pair of steady directors Jules White and Del Lord helming the productions. Under Edwards, who was silent movie comedian Harry Langdon's favorite director, "Matri-Phony" took three weeks to complete, with script changes and reshoots lengthening the filming. Viewers can readily spot Edwards' awkward staging, unexpected jump cuts and even blurry, out of focus shots. In the concluding scene, Edwards directed the soldiers carrying the Stooges by the points of their spears to walk straight into the wall. The production was so chaotic the Stooges, in a rare request, asked the studio never to assign Edwards to their movies again-which unfortunately for the Stooges he returned the following year with 1943's "Three Little Twirps," his last one with them.
"Matri-Phony" is also known for introducing a faster beat to the Stooges' theme song 'Three Blind Mice,' heard in the opening titles, lasting until the end of 1944. The short is also famous for being the first instance the word "sexy" is heard on film. Curly, dressing in drag pretending to be intended bride of the Emperor Octopus Grabus' (Vernon Dent) gets advuce from Moe when he says, "Go on, get sexy!"
Three Smart Saps (1942)
Curly Shows Off His Dancing Agility
Three Stooges observers rank Curly as the best dancer of any of the actors appearing as a stooge. He exhibited his exceptional agility on the dance floor in July 1942's "Three Smart Saps," the 64th short film for the trio. What's remarkable about Curly's dexterity is his left leg was thinner from a bullet than his right leg. He shot himself in the left ankle when he was thirteen, and the injury plagued him for the rest of his life. The teenager was cleaning his rifle when the gun went off, prompting his older brother Moe to rush him to the hospital, saving not only his leg but his life. He walked with a slight limp because of his thinner left leg. He learned to hide the defect by exaggerating his walk on the set. Determined to develop the muscles on the leg, he danced regularly at the Triangle Ballroom in Queens, New York, near his family's home, where he would occasionally see future actor George Raft dancing alongside him.
Curly's famous dance sequence in "Three Smart Saps," a title gleaned from the 1936 musical "Three Smart Girls" starring Diana Durbin, was part of an undercover investigation by the Stooges. They had discovered their fiancees' father, a warden at the penitentiary, jailed by the mob. After several attempts to get themselves embedded in jail, the three simply walked in and found the future father in a cell. He tells them about the mobsters converting the prison to a hotel with a nightclub and gambling casino, and hands them a camera to film the evidence. Securing formal clothes to gain entry to the nightclub, the Stooges begin scoping the joint before actress Barbara Slater asks Curly if he rumbas. "Only when I take bicarbonate," answers Curly. "Yuk. Yuk. Let's dance anyway." The nearly six-foot Slater towered over Curly, but he made up for the discrepancy by gyrating in step with the music. In a later Charlie Chaplin movie, 1947's "Monsieur Verdoux," Barbara Slater used her height advantage by playing a florist who eavesdrops on Chaplin's character as he phones his next victim. While dancing Curly's attire begins to separate in the seams. He seeks stitching help from Larry, who, in a rare moment in Stooges' filmography, gets drunk behind the curtain guzzling a hidden stash of liquor. Scriptwriter Clyde Bruckman, later sued by comedian Harold Lloyd for stealing one of his movie ideas, was at it again in "Three Smart Saps" by writing the dancing seam-unraveling skit which was similar to Lloyd's 1925 silent "The Freshman."
L'assassin habite... au 21 (1942)
Clouzot's First Feature Film He Directed
France had one of the most vibrant movie industries internationally before the outbreak of World War Two. Most of its top filmmakers beat a hasty retreat once Germany invaded the country. A few did remain in France, however. One was Henri-Georges Clouzot, who made his feature film directorial debut in the German-occupied France in July 1942 "The Murderer Lives at Number 21." Clouzot mixed comedy with serial killing, one of the first motion pictures to see humor in such a reprehensible act as a satirical farce.
Germany invaded France in the spring of 1940, confiscating every film studio. Realizing the importance of cinema for the French where Hollywood films were banned after the takeover, the Nazi government began subsidizing original productions that were not necessarily propaganda. Clouzot benefited from the Germans spending a considerably amount of money on "The Murderer Lives at Number 21," feeling it had the potential of being a big hit.
Clouzot, 35, who directed later classics as 1953's "The Wages of Fear" and 1955's "Les Diaboliques," was a French citizen who lived in Germany in the early-1930s while employed by that country's largest studio, UFA, as a scriptwriter and a director's assistant. He developed a debilitating case of tuberculosis, returning to France and Switzerland, and wasn't eligible for military service because of his illness. Continental Films, established by the Germans in France, had a president who knew Clouzot from his UFA years and offered him a job. Living in poverty, Clouzot reluctantly signed a contract, writing four successful thrillers before named head of the script department.
Clouzot adapted his script, "The Murder Lives at Number 21" from Belgian author Stanislas-Andre Steeman's 1939 novel of the same name about a serial murderer in Paris befuddling the police. One of the many detectives are assigned to the case is Inspector Wenceslas Vorobeychik, shortened to Wrens (Pierre Fresnay). Engaged to wacky singer Mila Malou (Suzy Delair), he gets a tip where the killer who leaves his calling card on his victim, known as Monster Durand, lives. Disguising himself as a minister, Wren rents a room at the killer's boarding house where he meets the craziest tenants. As the murders continue, Wrens has his colleagues arrest one renter, then another, then a third, but all have concrete alibis. Then a lightbulb moment occurs to the detective.
Clouzot was demanding to his actors and film crew on the set. Delair as singer Mila claims he was cruel during the production. "He slapped me," Delair revealed years later. "So what? He slapped others as well. He could only get the best out of actors by hitting them. He was tough, but I'm not about to complain." The male lead, Pierre Fresnay added, "He worked relentlessly, which made for a juicy spectacle."
Film reviewer David Flint said, "Clouzot keeps the atmosphere here fairly light, the emphasis as much on comedy as it is on drama, but his visuals are pure noir and his moments of violent shock - the first murder particularly - are handled with aplomb and considerable style." Once the war ended, Clouzot along with other French directors were put on trial for collaborating with the Germans. Found guilty, he was banned for life from any involvement of filmmaking or setting foot inside studios. Filmmakers and artists were outraged by the sentence; the clamor became so loud the courts reduced his sentence to two years. During that time Clouzot worked alongside writer Jean-Paul Sartre. "The Murderer Living at Number 21" was released in the United States in 1947, gaining an appreciative audience. Quentin Tarantino was so inspired by Clouzot's early film he displayed a poster of the movie in the theatre scene in 2009 "Inglourious Basterds."
The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
One of Best Sports Biopics With an Emotional Ending
A little over a year after baseball great Lou Gehrig passed away at 37, producer Samual Goldwyn had approached Gary Cooper to appear as the first baseman in July 1942 "The Pride of the Yankees," an Oscar Best Picture nominee. The actor, who never played baseball in his life and remarkably had never seen a game in person, was hesitant in assuming the mantle of one of the giants in sports. Never mind at 41 his age precluded him from acting in the scenes where young Gehrig playing for Columbia University first gained attention with baseball scouts
Cooper changed his mind when Gehrig's wife Eleanor paid a visit to the actor's home and convinced him to play her late husband. After days of hard work Cooper convincingly played Gehrig so well his widow was emotionally overcome by his performance. Mrs. Gehrig, who was hired as a consultant for the movie, said after seeing the preview of "The Pride of the Yankees," "Gary and Lou have the same expressions. They are the same type of man. Gary studied every picture of Lou's. He had every one of his mannerisms down to a science and he is so like my husband in the picture that there were times when I felt I couldn't bear it."
Initially Goldwyn was skeptical on financing a movie about a baseball player since sports movies were in his opinion box office poison with half of the population, women, uninterested in them. Director Sam Wood, a big sports fan, lobbied the producer to back a film on Gehrig's life. The movie would have a natural audience made up of millions of passionate fans who were devastated of hearing Gehrig was affected by amyotrophic later sclerosis (ALS), a terminal disease which had stricken him at age 36 in 1939. It's ironic a disease affecting the body's muscles would strike the New York Yankees' first baseman nicknamed the 'Iron Horse' because of his longevity of playing every game for 17 years. Once Wood showed Goldwyn's footage of Gehrig's farewell to a sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium where he said he was the "luckiest man alive," the producer, with his eyes tearing, immediately told the director he would finance the biopic.
Once released, "The Pride of the Yankees" became the eighth highest box office film in 1942. Cooper was nominated as the Academy Awards' Best Actor while the feature film garnered eleven nominations. To make his performance believable as a baseball player, Cooper, had to learn the basics of baseball, which was compounded by being right-handed emulating a throwing and batting lefty. The actor mastered the batting task, but as far as throwing lefty, former baseball player Lefty O'Doul, hired to tutor him, described Cooper's throwing "the ball like an old woman tossing a hot biscuit." So unconvincing was Cooper's slinging player Babe Herman was his stand-in in the throwing scenes while the only shot shown of Cooper hurling the ball during Gehrig's Hartford, Connecticut minor league days had the print flipped in post as the actor threw right-handed. Cinematographer Rudolph Mate, nominated by the Academy for his Best Black-and-White Cinematography, positioned the key lighting below Cooper to soften his wrinkles filming the scenes of Gehrig's college days. . Wood felt as he directed Cooper for the first time in his career the actor was totally inept in front of the camera. He was shocked once he viewed Cooper's acting on the screen, "I was amazed at the result," Wood said. "What I thought was underplaying turned out to be just the right approach. On the screen, he's perfect."
Eleanor Gehrig at first was skeptical of young actress Teresa Wright, 24, hired to play her. She felt experience actresses such as Barbara Stanwyck or Jean Arthur would portrayed her far better than Wright, only in her third film. After witnessing Wright's performance, Eleanor admitted, "now I know no one could do better, or even as well as little Teresa. Of course she's prettier and younger but then no woman could object to that, could they?" Wright earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, her third after 1941's "The Little Foxes" and a win in 1942's "Mrs. Miniver," the only actress in Academy history to be named for three nominations in two years.
Gehrig's former teammate Babe Ruth was asked to play himself, who had been away from baseball for seven years. The much heavier Ruth, in his tenth film, went on a strict diet, which, compounded by the long hours on the set as well as his customary late night carousing, sent him to the hospital after filming wrapped with pneumonia.
Filming for "The Pride of the Yankees" final speech of Gehrig, the Los Angeles' minor league stadium, Wrigley Field, served as the backdrop for Cooper's reenactment. Wrote film reviewer Scott Nash, "Perhaps the thing about Gehrig that most impresses those who know of him is that here was a man given a death sentence and yet was able to proclaim himself the luckiest man on earth. Perhaps anyone who can say that about their life when they're on the verge of losing it truly is. We should all be so lucky."
Only "The Pride of the Yankees'" Daniel Mandell took home an Oscar, that for Best Editing. The eleven nominations the Best Picture nominee was voted for in the Academy Awards included Best Art Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Music (Leigh Harline), Best Sound Recording, Best Original Story (Paul Gallico), and Best Screenplay (Jo Swerling and Herman Mankiewicz). The American Film Institute ranks "The Pride of the Yankees" as the third Best Sports movie, the 22nd Most Inspirational film, and Cooper's Gehrig as the 25th Greatest American Hero in motion pictures. "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," was listed as the 38th Best Quote in film, according to AFI.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Orson Welles' Second Movie a Classic, But RKO is Unimpressed
Orson Welles introduced himself to Hollywood by directing and acting in what's considered the best movie ever made. His second directed film, July 1942's "The Magnificent Ambersons," also considered a masterpiece, was made with intense interference from RKO studio, who sliced and diced the final edit while he was abroad. Despite the severe modifications, the Academy Award Best Picture-nominee today finds itself consistently ranked in a number of 'Best Of...' lists. During its release, however, the bar was set unrealistically high after Welles' film debut 1941's "Citizen Kane," prompting the filmmaker to reflect years later, "I started at the top and worked my way down."
Welles chose Booth Tarkington's 1918 Pulitzer Prize novel, which he had earlier adapted into a radio dramatization in 1939 about two wealthy Midwestern families during the waning years of the 19th century in the face of great advancements in technologies and industrialization. Welles, who didn't appear in the film, concentrated solely on directing. Working on a two-picture contract with RKO, Welles was unable to get cinematographer Gregg Tolland, who was so instrumental in the look of "Citizen Kane," and hired for his cameraman Stanley Cortez, largely known for handling low-budget affairs. As filming progressed, Welles became disenchanted with Cortez despite his complex camera movements and contrast lighting, demoting him to second unit while assistant cameraman Harry Wild took over. Ironically Cortez was nominated for an Oscar for cinematograph.
A highlight of "The Magnificent Ambersons" was a winter scene showing the comparisons between the horse-driven sled of George Amberson Minafers' (Tim Holt) and the horseless carriage (an early automobile) engineered by Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton). Welles chose to film the sequence inside a large ice house in Los Angeles instead of using artificial snow outside simply because he wanted to see the actors' breath. Trouble arose when the sensitive movie light bulbs kept popping in the cold, the film stock in the camera constantly froze, its lenses fogging up, and Welles caught a severe cold while actor Ray Collins came down with pneumonia.
"The Magnificent Ambersons" centered on the rich Minafers, whose son George (Holt), a spoiled brat as a kid who grows up dead set against technological change, and the Morgans, led by Eugene (Cotton), who harbors an affection for Mrs. Isabel Amberson Minafer (Dorothy Costello) while his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) falls for George. Tagging along is George's sister Fanny (Agnes Morehead). The families' fortunes go in opposite directions: the Minafers and the Ambersons, sticking to the old ways of life, are financially sinking while the Morgans, riding on their new invention in the automobile, become wealthy. This was the second-to-last movie for Dolores Costello, 39, the former wife of actor John Barrymore and grandmother to actress Drew Barrymore. After years of using skin damaging make-up during her silent movie years, Costello retired from the screen to marry her obstetrician in 1939 and manage an avocado farm. "The Magnificent Ambersons" was the biggest role yet for Tim Holt, 23, son of actor Jack Holt, a B-movie Western actor. "It was a lucky decision," said Welles years later on hiring Holt to play the obstinate George Minafer. "He's one of the most interesting actors that's ever been in American movies." Agnes Morehead received an Oscar Best Supporting Actress nomination, voted largely for the scene where her Fanny has a near nervous breakdown seeing her fortune lost on a bad investment. Although she found it 'exhilarating" as Welles demanded numerous takes on the highly-charged sequence, Morehead said she could have slept for a week from exhaustion after the scene was completed.
Welles accepted an offer from Nelson Rockefeller, the United States Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and a major shareholder of RKO, to oversee a film project in Brazil, a hotbed for Nazi sympathizers, as well as give lectures and radio broadcasts on American culture there. The assignment prevented him from personally editing "The Magnificent Ambersons." Welles left detailed notes to editor Robert Wise, later director of 1965's "The Sound of Music." Studio executives felt the first rough cut was way too long. Producer Bryan Foy reportedly told Wise to "Just throw all the footage up in the air and grab everything but 50 minutes." Welles had a direct phone hookup to the editing suite from Brazil, but after repeated calls, studio rep Jack Moss decided not to answer the phone since his directions were too lengthy and convoluted. Wartime travel restrictions didn't allow Wise to journey to Brazil to preview the film with Welles, which had many of the movie's subplots cut, such as George's Oedipal relationship with his mother. The shortened version was shown at a legendary Pomona, California preview in March 1942, comprised largely of teenagers waiting to see the lighthearted musical "The Fleet's In." The restless viewers chuckled at all the wrong scenes, with one card stating, "People like to laugh, not be bored to death," with another lamenting, "Too bad audience was so unappreciative." RKO's president George Schaefer, who was fired after the studio lost money on the film, called it the worst preview he had ever seen in his 28 years in the film industry.
Because of the preview's response, RKO altered "The Magnificent Amberson's" dark ending, which Welles called the picture's best scene, portraying Fanny managing a boarding house. Welles' vision had the camera widen out to the Amberson mansion filled with a bunch of crazies as tenants. RKO reshot the ending by Wise in his first directing assignment, which was in line with Tarkington's book where Lucy is reconciled with the injured George recovering in a hospital. Welles was upset at the new ending as well as the overall slicing job, claiming it had "been edited by a lawn mower. They destroyed the whole heart of the story." He refused to talk for years afterwards to Wise and Cotton, a close friend of his who acquiesced to be in the concluding scene.
RKO released "The Magnificent Ambersons" in a double feature with the B-movie comedy 'Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost,' losing over $600,000. RKO, severing ties with Welles and terminating his Brazilian project, destroyed all the existing footage not used in the final cut, which is considered one of the great loses in cinema. Welles refused to see the film for years until the early 1980's when a director friend convinced him to watch it on cable TV. He stayed with the movie for the first hour, then turned it off, exclaiming, "From here on it becomes their movie."
Besides Best Picture, Cortez and Morehead's Oscar nominees, "The Magnificent Ambersons" received an Academy Award nomination for Best Black-and-White Art Direction. Time Out magazine voters ranks "The Magnificent Ambersons" the 62nd best film of all time while Sight and Sound includes it in the top ten greatest films ever made. The Village Voice has the picture in its 100 Greatest Films list and the BBC ranks it as the eleventh Best Movie. The film is included in the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.'