Hey Elizabeth! It's nice to see you back & posting again. I hope your year is going well so far, and I know you must be enjoying the start of Spring. I trust you're getting out on a lot of hikes, and still working on music of course. Well, those were some nice pics this morning (and the homemade jam looked really good!) Keep posting whenever you can; your pictures always inspire me to shoot as well. :)
And now for some movies : For starters, how 'bout John Wayne in a screwball comedy crime caper? Throw in a political scandal involving election fraud, and the beautiful Francis Dee as the crooked politician's socialite daughter - whom Wayne woos - and you've got the mashup that is "A Man Betrayed"(1941), courtesy of Republic Pictures.
The Duke plays a small-town lawyer who comes to an unnamed big city to investigate the death of a college friend. It's been ruled a suicide, but Wayne knows his pal wouldn't have killed himself. "Heck, he was a basketball star with everything to live for". After making some inquiries, he learns that the young man was partying in a local nightclub right before he died. Wayne heads over to the joint, and boy is he in for an eyeful. The place is called Club Inferno, and even though this is 1941, it's every bit as out-Regis as a modern club. In fact, it has a Satanic theme! You walk through the Devil's mouth to enter, then down a flight of steps (down, naturally) to the floor proper. There, dancers in devil costumes cavort with pitchforks to a faux-flaming background. The waiters all wear similar get-ups, complete with long pointy tails. I'm telling ya, today's Goth clubs have nothing on this place. There's even a line of Hipster Chicks waiting behind a rope, hoping the doorman will let them in.
Aha!, thinks Wayne : "So this is where my buddy was last seen". Now he's sure something shady is afoot, and sets out to find the owner of the club, who turns out to be a wealthy and influential city supervisor. This is where the plot will make a significant turn, for the young man's murder and the setting of the nightclub will have little to do with the rest of the story (only serving as a bookend), and the tone itself will change, from murder mystery to fast-talking screwball. Wayne meets the politician, who at first seems friendly enough, and by association honest. He confirms that the death of Wayne's friend was indeed a suicide : "Yes, I'm afraid he shot himself. He'd lost all his money in a dice game and was too ashamed to return home".
Aha!, thinks Wayne again : "So there's gambling going on in that club"! He's "shocked" of course, just like Claude Rains in "Casablanca", but he figures it must be backroom gambling, since he didn't see any on the main floor, and thereby likely illegal. So he starts digging into the finances of the club, and it's owner the politician, and he discovers a "political machine" at work, one in which the wealthy supervisor maintains power through election fraud (I told ya this story is current!).
The thing is, though, the supervisor has a daughter (Frances Dee) who's a charmer of the first order. She dresses in skin tight lame', and is the kind of chic young 40s gal who calls her father "darling". As an aside, I've wondered how this practice originated and have Googled it, but to no avail. Does anyone know the origin of young rich kids calling their parents "darling" in the 30s and 40s? Well anyhow, it's pretty obvious what's gonna happen, and it does : Wayne falls for Dee, and now he's in a real dilemma, because how's he gonna investigate her dad without alienating her in the process. She's 100% loyal to her Dad, and anyway, he really doesn't seem like such a bad guy in person. On paper he's a certified crook, but could someone else be behind the voting schemes?
This is a highly stylised film full of breezy rather than menacing performances, and if you're wondering if John Wayne can do screwball comedy the answer is yes. He's really good, and I didn't know (until I IMDB-ed him) that Republic Pictures owned Wayne's contract at that early point in his career, and were placing him in a wide variety of roles to make him as marketable as possible. Of course he found his niche in Westerns, but he's very adept in a Cary Grantish role in this film, believe it or not. I looked up Frances Dee too, wondering why someone with her looks and talent wasn't a major star, but it seems she married Joel McCrea (one of our favorite Western stars and a friend of The Duke's) and left Hollywood to raise a family on their ranch in Thousand Oaks. Dee and McCrea were married 57 years (both are now gone) and their ranch is an open space park now that the public can visit, like the William S. Hart Ranch in Newhall. So, I'll have to take a trip to the McCrea Ranch one of these days, which I discovered via this film.
"A Man Betrayed" is a conglomeration of styles, as noted, and has a subtheme of social justice commentary, kind of like a Preston Sturges movie. But overall it's a jazzy comedy with a lot of zest, and you've gotta dig that nightclub. It's worth seeing just for that! The whole thing is really good, though, and it's been restored by Olive Films so it looks perfect. Two Big Thumbs up from me. /////
The previous night, I found a cracking good thriller from Paul's Classic British Films: "The Man in the Road"(1956), in which a Man wakes up in the hospital with no memory of how he got there. His arm and leg are broken and he's got a bandage on his head. He can't remember his name, either. In fact, he has full blown amnesia. His doctors explain that he was found in The Road after being hit by a car. We the audience saw the incident at the beginning of the movie and may beg to differ, but then we are not in charge of this patient, nor the plot. His care is given over to a certain "Professor Cattrell" (Donald Wolfit), whose resemblance to Leonid Brezhnev and skill as a hypnotist might give us a clue as to what is taking place.
"Cattrell" informs the patient that after a diligent effort, he has been able to establish the man's identity : "You are Ivan Mason". While saying this, he flicks on his cigarette lighter and waves it slowly back and forth until the groggy gentleman agrees, well sort of : "Ivan......Mason? Are you sure that's my name? It doesn't ring a bell but if you say so".
"Yes. You are Ivannn........Mayyy...sonnn (waving the lighter again). You were born of an English father and Russian mother, and you work at the Russian embassy in London". This is of course a brainwashing ruse to set the man up as a Russian courier, so that he will enter the Soviet Union. The problem for "Professor Cattrell" is that the truth is partially revealed to the amnesiac by a drunken former doctor at the facility. The man will then try to escape, and in the process will stumble upon a Thatched Cottage in the English countryside. The cottage is owned by - of all people - an American woman who just so happens to be a mystery author. She knows how these kind of plots work, in other words, and she offers to help the man foil the the spooks back at the asylum, and uncover his real identity in the bargain.
The budget is low here, but everything is well photographed and the acting and script are very good. Think "Manchurian Candidate" without the assassination plot. "The Man in the Road" has no frills, but no fat either, and gets Two Solid Thumbs Up. Both films reviewed are highly recommended. ////
Well, that's all for the moment. I'm gonna head up to Aliso for a quick hike, then to Vons for some shopping.
Did you know that "Mull of Kintyre" is the biggest selling single in British history? Just another tidbit I learned from my Paul McCartney book. Ah, that Sir Paul.....what an amazing life story.
Have a great rest of the day, and tons of love as always! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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