Tonight we are going with Bruckner's 4th, aka his "Romantic" symphony. This version was just posted on Youtube three days ago, played by the Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Gimeno. The video is crystal clear in HD and it sounds good so far (I am listening while I type), so check it out if you are becoming a Brucknerite, which I am sure you are. :) No really......I actually am sure of it!
You know you love symphonies, and opera. You even love string quartets! Okay, so you don't "love" string quartets, but you at least like 'em. And I must say that you have good taste. ////
Now, for tonight's movie, you already know Humphrey Bogart was the star, so let's see if you can guess the title. It was made in 1939, co-starred the excellent teenaged actor Billy Halop (from the "Dead End Kids"), and much of it's 79 minute running time took place in Ossining State Prison in New York. Did you say "You Can't Get Away With Murder"? Well that's it, you got it right! You've probably already seen it, but I'll review it anyway.
Bogie is a bad influence in this one.
Billy Halop is the younger brother of the beautiful Gale Page. She is engaged to be married to her security guard boyfriend (Harvey Stephens), who has just been promoted to managerial status. His new job will be in Boston, and he and Page are excited about their future. They will finally be able to move out of Hell's Kitchen in NYC and live a decent life. She is worried about her little brother, however, because he is hanging out with a no-goodnik, a small time hood (Bogart) whom he idolises.
Bogie is again playing the same kind of ill-educated but street smart wisecracking criminal that we saw in last night's "King of The Underworld". He's not quite a sociopath, he even splits the money with the kid after their first robbery, and he seems to be looking after Billy, insofar as a bad guy will do. Bogie is schooling him in the ways of making crime pay. Billy's older sister Page is beside herself, trying to extract him from Bogart's grip so she can take him to Boston to live with her and her soon-to-be husband, but now he has some cash on hand, from the robbery. He has a new suit of fancy clothes and he tells his sister that he ain't going to Boston, because he's got it made now and the straight life is for suckers.
All of this happens in the first 20 minutes. Then, a second robbery goes bad. Bogie kills a pawn shop owner in the course of the stickup. Billy Halop has brought along a gun to use for himself, but Bogart confiscated it on the way, and made him stay in the car as a lookout. What the kid doesn't know is that Bogie is gonna frame somebody for the murder of the pawnshop owner. It won't be Billy, because he stole the gun he brought with him. Instead, it will be his brother-in-law, the security guard, whose gun Billy stole and which Bogie took from him. He used Billy's gun to shoot the pawnshop owner, and now the security guard - Billy's brother in law - is going to be prosecuted for the murder.
Soon, he will be going to the Electric Chair in Sing Sing. In those days, up until about the 1950s, if you did a murder you generally got the death penalty, and a horrible death it was, either in the Electric Chair or the Gas Chamber. So now, Billy is in a jam. He and Humphrey Bogart have in the meantime been sent to Sing Sing on the earlier robbery charge. They are doing a few years each, but once his brother-in-law arrives and is escorted onto Death Row, Billy begins to suffer terrible pangs of conscience.
He is torn between telling the truth about the pawnshop killing, and keeping it to himself. He can't win, for if he tells the truth, he will either go to The Chair himself, or Humphrey Bogart will, and if he rats on Bogie he will surely be killed in prison anyway. So Billy Halop is between a rock and a hard place, and this is the thrust of the final hour of the movie.
I'd say it is one of the best prison movies I've seen from the time period of the 1930s. The location appears to be a real prison, and the script does not resort to cliches. The prison staff interact with their charges and have sympathy for the cons who are trying to go straight. Billy gets a job in the library and is taken under the wing of a wise and kindly old timer who tries to steer him away from Bogart's influence. Meanwhile the clock is ticking on his brother-in-law's execution date.
Billy knows that Bogart is the real killer, but will he tell anyone? The warden suspects he knows something, as does the district attorney and his sister. But boy is he scared of Bogart, and of getting sent to the Electric Chair himself.
In an aside, man.....can you believe they once used the Electric Chair on people? And the Gas Chamber? Now, I am no fan of criminals as you know, and murderers are the worst, and though I am not a fan of the death penalty I still would have to put myself in the shoes of a family member who has suffered such a loss before I could presume to pass judgement on a pro-death penalty person.
But still.....the Electric Chair? The Gas Chamber?
Man, were those ever some cruel and unusual punishments, even for the worst murderers. And up until the late 1950s, those punishments were handed out on a regular basis.
Sorry to go off on a tirade, and just to be clear I hate criminals and murderers especially, but I am not sure it is the job of sane humanity to put anyone to death. Maybe better to just lock them away permanently.
But in "You Can't Get Away With Murder", the key issue is who is gonna end up sitting in The Chair?
Time has almost run out for the convicted brother-in-law, even though he is innocent (reason enough to do away with the death penalty). Billy Halop knows the truth, but if he tells it, he might sit in The Chair.
Bogart is gonna take part in a planned prison break masterminded by a low down lifer who knows all the secrets, about Bogie and the kid and everyone else, and uses his knowledge to intimidate.
The fate of all involved will come down to the escape attempt, which is to take place just hours before Billy's brother-in-law is to be executed. //////
This one is a real stomach churner, featuring a tense performance by nineteen year old Halop. He is painted into a corner and you feel every minute of it. Humphrey Bogart is great as always, though he is playing more of a Standard Mook character here rather than one of his more nuances roles.
Two Big Thumbs Up in any event. "You Can't Get Away With Murder" is highly recommended, a top entry from the prison movie genre with a ton of plot and multiple character threads in it's 79 minute running time.
Hopefully we will soon get an end to the February weather we have been experiencing all this May. Today I wore a sweatshirt over a tee-shirt with a Pendleton over the top, just like I did in Winter, except that tomorrow will be the start of Memorial Day weekend, when it used to be sunny and hot.
That's our Global Warming weather in Southern California. It doesn't get hot here anymore, except for maybe a week or two in Summer. For the past few years, you have to wear sweatshirts more months than not, and the weather is grey and crummy most of the time. For real. Warm, Sunny So Cal is a thing of the past.
See you in the morning. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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