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This is my kind of movie!
I initially approached Billy the Kid with trepidation. The great King Vidor directing a 1930 MGM western? The movie had to be an odd antique. It is, as it turns out, odd, but it's not an antique.
Billy the Kid is a slick, romanticized version of the real Henry McCarty and Pat Garrett and their involvement in the six-month long, 1878 Lincoln County War of New Mexico. Though the war is much simplified, some of what happens in the film was apparently true: the corrupt, government-tied land monopoly in the county, the cold-blooded murder of John Tunstall, the women's safe passage from the McSween house before it was burned.
It was Pat Garrett himself who helped mythologize Henry McCarty after the Kid's death. Garrett claimed to have killed him, but that story's been disputed. The real Billy was reportedly as cold-blooded a killer as the posse he was fighting against, an unscrupulous opportunist. Played here by Johnny Mack Brown in a star-making role, Billy is a romantic, non-compromising sharpshooter who's willing to risk everything for justice and is heroically non-plussed; when the ceiling beams of a burning house fall in front of him, he takes the opportunity to light his cigarette from the flames.
Wallace Beery, in a role which confirmed him as a star, is perfect at the ambiguously-motivated Garrett. Kay Johnson plays the love interest in a minimally-written role, and the movie is packed with character actors like Karl Dane, Roscoe Ates and Russell Simpson.
This is a western that doesn't play the by the rules of western movies. Like most MGM films of the period, it mixes humor into the events, creating some bizarrely incongruous, violent scenes.
King Vidor does a fine directing job; the location shots are gorgeous, the sets memorable, the storytelling compelling.
Billy the Kid was originally shot in the widescreen format, but only the more standard size ratio print exists. The film is available on Warner Archive DVD and has been broadcast by Turner Classic Movies. The version shown is the American one, wherein Pat Garrett allows Billy to escape with his life; the European version has Garrett shooting him dead.
If only films had been preserved as well as literature. Imagine, for example, some of S.J. Perelman or Robert Benchley's earliest books not surviving. Seems preposterous, but here we have MGM's second full-length musical, Chasing Rainbows, and the biggest music segments (in early Technicolor, yet) are missing. This is the movie that presented the song "Happy Days Are Here Again" to the world - and that song is missing.
Because of this, it's difficult to determine how good of a musical Chasing Rainbows is. What we have left seems, to my mind, not as focused or driven as MGM's earlier The Broadway Melody, but also not without charms.
A very young Jack Benny plays the ringmaster, the stage manager of a touring road show. Bessie Love is teamed again, as in The Broadway Melody, with Charles King. Marie Dressler and Polly Moran are the comic relief.
Jack Benny is fine for his role, but the problem is it isn't much of a role: the stage manager tries to keep the company on an even keel - and that's about as interesting as his character gets.
Bessie Love plays virtually the same role as in The Broadway Melody, jilted through most ofthe film by the clueless and weak Terry (Charles King), whose seduction by Nina Marten provides the movie's conflict. Love's big emotional scene is so acute, it's practically dropped in from a different movie.
You either find Marie Dressler and Polly Moran funny or not. I do - guilty as charged. Dressler was capable of both serious work and comedy (and singing, which she does in this film and which she did on stage years before she enteredthe movies) and Moran, with her expressive face and body language, had unexploited dramatic potential as well.
The version of Chasing Rainbows showing on TCM inserts explanatory title cards in the spots which have been lost to time. Still, several songs remain, all enjoyable.
This film has been released on Warner Archives DVD.
From the April, 1931 Silver Screen.
"Would you rather have a French or American hero make love to you? Robert Montgomery gazes at Constance Bennett in that worshipping, wistful way in the American version of the "Easiest Way," but Andre Burgere in the French version asks no questions but seizes lovely Lily Damita in his arms. The American humbly pleads for love; the Frenchman takes it boldly."
Skyscraper Souls just didn't do it for me. It's a low-rent Grand Hotel, with Warren William at the top (literally) as the sordid, egotistical, predatory owner of a very tall new building. He's also out to own Maureen O'Sullivan, an innocent secretary (though he's already having an affair with O'Sullivan's boss, Verree Teasdale, and he's married to Hedda Hopper!).
Skyscraper Souls also has a few other sub-plots, including one about Jean Hersholt and Anita Page (as a prostitute) that I never could make much sense of. Mainly it's about wheeling and dealing Warren William, who gave perfomances later in his career much better than this. His nonchalant self-assuredness serves him well, for example, in his Lone Wolf series for Columbia, and he's more enjoyable to watch there. Here, he's hampered by an over-the-top script in which he justifies whatever suits his fancy for the sake of his glorious building and progress.
Skyscraper Souls is beloved by a lot of pre-code fans (it may be one of the edgiest), but the combination of characters I didn't care about with sub-plots MGM had already over-used kept this one away from my heart.
Skyscraper Souls has been released on VHS and Laserdisc. It's not currently available on DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.
Not So Dumb, filmed in 1929 and released in 1930, is a lot of fun. Based on the 1921 play, Dulcy, written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, the film lost $39,000 for MGM. That's a shame because Not So Dumb was a perfect vehicle for Marion Davies' comedic talents.
Davies plays the ditzy fiancee of Elliot Nugent, who's trying to strike an important business deal with a big shot staying with them for the weekend. Will Davies inadvertently mess up Nugent's plans, or will everything turn out right in the end? Hmmm....
It's all light as air, flighty, inconsequential and entertaining, with some very witty lines. Davies looks like she was having a lot of fun here. The eccentric characters portrayed by a fine ensemble cast point the way to future plays and films also written or co-written by George S. Kaufman like You Can't Take It With You and The Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. George Davis plays an ex-convict butler. Franklin Pangborn plays a screenwriter named Vincent Leach (great name!), who regales his trapped hosts with a scenario ripped from Cecil B. DeMille's Intolerance. DeMille's often used actress Julia Faye is hilarious as the easily-led-astray big shot's wife. Only Donald Ogden Stewart falls flat as the requisite "crazy" of the bunch, but that's due to the screenplay; crazy doesn't automatically equal funny.
Those unaccustomed to early sound films may be bothered by the bad (sometimes bordering on the bizarre) editing; the sound is also bad in the first scene. Life's short - you can get over it.
Dulcy was filmed earlier in 1923 with Constance Talmadge (it's easy to picture her playing the part; is there a print of this film still in existence?), and in 1940 with Ann Southern. Zazu Pitts and Gracie Allen also played the role in radio versions.
Not So Dumb is not available on VHS or DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.
I like this movie. It covers territory most '30s films stayed away from (the effects of a divorce and remarriage on two young brothers) and it holds your interest to the end.
Jackie Cooper is the attention-needing younger brother who dislikes his new, emotionally detached step-father (who can blame him?) and feels betrayed by his emotionally weak mother (again...). They don't even tell Cooper they're getting married until the deed is done, the weasels! His older brother, played just adequately by Maurice Murphy, is gone for half the picture and sidetracked by the girl next door in the other half, so he's not much help, either.
The lone parental figure Cooper can rely on (to the extent that the law will allow it) is his biological father, played by Lewis Stone. He's cool. In his very first scene he finds a skull in the ground - it doesn't get any cooler than that! Their scenes together are wonderful, two consummate professionals of very different age, playing off each other with a casual ease.
Alas, this story is determined to have Cooper embrace his new lot in life, so a melodramatic climax is contrived wherein the step-father (Conrad Nagel), a family doctor, saves the life of Cooper's brother and proves himself worthy of Cooper's acceptance.
That ending's wack. I'd rather see a movie where Lewis Stone and Jackie Cooper rage against the social order! There needed to be a high-octane sequel, directed by Quentin Tarantino or Jean-Luc Godard. I'd pay to watch that.
Divorce in the Family is not available on DVD or VHS, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.
Emma (no relation to the Jane Austin story) is one of the best Marie Dressler dramas - perhaps, in its gentle way, even stronger than Min and Bill.
Nominated for an Academy award for her role, Dressler plays the nanny for the four children of an inventor (well-played by Jean Hersholt). When Dressler and the inventor marry, most of the children revolt against the relationship, culminating in Dressler being dragged to court on malicious charges by the very kids she spent her life raising.
The screenplay, written by Dressler's friend and supporter, Frances Marion, is tailor-made for her, allowing Dressler a full range of emotions. The story is sentimental and endearing in the best ways; it has the ache of real emotions in it, such as the very effective scene in which Emma sees the ghost memories of the children she raised, in her vacant, lonely house.The long marriage proposal scene, beginning in her bedroom and ending in the middle of an airport, is also quite effectively sustained; the director, Clarence Brown, was perfect for sequences such as this.
One could argue that Emma's unblinking belief in her children (most of whom grew up vile and greedy) was naive. So what? Emma's not a perfect person, and it's the humanity of the characters that makes the film enjoyable eighty years later.
That Dressler's style could be utilized for dramas like this in addition to her career as a comedian is a testament to her versatility and professionalism.
Myrna Loy plays one of the bratty kids, in a role that in no way stands out.
Side note: the railroad station scene, featuring lingering close-up shots of a broad-range of just-released magazines, is a freeze-frame extravaganza for magazine collectors.
Emma has been released on Warner Bros. Archive DVD.
This is my kind of movie!
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