Last night's film was a little bit different: "Passport to Destiny"(1944) a British-American WW2 comedy starring Elsa Lanchester as a Cockney cleaning lady named "Ella Muggins", who - after finding a good luck charm belonging to her late husband - sets out to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Talk about high concept. Ella is riding the double-decker bus to work in London, along with two of her fellow charladies. She loves reminiscing about her deceased hubby, who was a teller of tall tales as well as a hero of the First World War. In life, he claimed to have a "magic glass eye" that he found after one of his regiment's battles. "He said it kept him alive," Ella tells her friends, "even in the deadliest situations." Indeed, in her husband's stories, which the two other cleaning ladies scoff at, he survived all manner of calamitous encounters due to the magical glass eye in his pocket. The charladies part ways off the bus to go to their separate jobs, but one asks a question of Ella: "What would you do if you found that glass eye? You don't suppose it would be among his belongings?" Seeing as how the whole city of London has had to hunker in the tube night after night because of the Luftwaffe's blitz bombing, Ella says, "hmm....well, I think I'd use it to pay Herr Hitler a visit, and give him a piece of my mind."
That night at home, inspired by the conversation, she goes up into the attic and opens her husband's dusty suitcase, which contains his old WW1 army uniform. Taking it out, she holds it up to her shoulders, then puts her hand in a pocket, and says, "Blimey! What've we got 'ere?" Why, it's the magic glass eye, naturally. The next we see Ella, she's on a train to the coast, where she catches a boat for the Continent. The captain finds her stowing away, but then the boat is sunk by a German bomb. All aboard abandon ship and Ella makes it to France, where an American spy in a Nazi uniform flies her to Berlin (pr.bear-leen) in his plane. All of this death-defying transport is due to the Glass Eye Charm, and - after locating the Reich Chancellery - she walks into the joint with her galvanized cleaning pail in hand (it has "Made in England" stamped on the bottom), and gets the ingenious idea to pretend shes a deaf/mute, to cover up her East End accent.
This is where Lanchester shines as a comedienne, with her big eyes and dimpled features. We all know her as the electrified Bride of Frankenschtein, but at heart she was a comic actress with a "wink/nudge" connection to the audience. Once Ella fakes her way into Hitler's headquarters, an adjutant gives her a job scrubbing floors and she overhears a lot of top secret info. This reunites her with the American spy, after she helps get his girlfriend out of jail.
The Sturmbannfuhrer likes her because she's deaf and there's no danger in speaking openly around her, but then he starts to suspect that she might be faking it her after a Veddy Brrrittish expat radio propagandist is caught talking to her over an intercom. Why would he do that if she can only communicate in person by lip-reading? But she stays out of hot water because of the Glass Eye good luck charm, and when she finally finagles her way into Hitler's office, with a gun she's borrowed from the American spy, she "confronts" Adolph at his desk, though he isn't actually in the room. What she does is imagine what she'd say to him before shooting him, and it's as great a scene as you'll see in any WW2 movie, because it was filmed in 1944 and she's speaking for the entire United Kingdom. Of course, even though Nazis are always portrayed as buffoonish in British films, they are also never shown as stupid, so it turns out that the Sturmbannfuhrer has been listening in on Ella's Hitler office speech the whole time, by the same intercom that was used when she was listening to the Englishman. Now she's finally in a jam that she may not be able to get out of, along with her American spy. Will the Glass Eye save her yet again? This is classic stuff, and there's s punch line at the end of the movie, just before Lanchester breaks the Fourth Wall. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Passport to Destiny." Who else would make a quirky Hitler death-plot comedy but the English, and who could star in it but Elsa Lanchester? She's perfect, the movie is highly recommended, and the picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night brought the return of Zasu Pitts in "So's Your Aunt Emma"(1942), in which she does her Ditzy Spinster thing in a crime comedy of mistaken identity. Pitts plays "Aunt Emma Bates", who, when we first see her, is sitting in her rocking chair, looking at photos of her long lost love, boxer "Jim O'Bannion" (not portrayed onscreen). He's deceased, but on this night his son is fighting a big match downtown, and she's determined to go see him, even over the objections of her fussy elder sisters. After taking the train to the city, she finagles a ticket from a sportswriter (Roger Pryor), because the match is sold out. Pryor has his own woes; he was supposed to have graduated to the crime beat, but he screwed up his one assignment. Now he's been bounced back to the sports page, but things are brewing at the boxing arena because "Mickey O'Bannion" (Malcolm McTaggart), is gonna take a fall and throw his match. A hoodlum named "Flower Henderson" (Tristam Coffin) has big bucks invested in Mickey losing, so he throws it and gets to live another day. Mickey is in Flower's pocket.
Aunt Emma is eager to meet Mickey because he's her old flame's son, so she goes backstage to his dwessing woom after the match and introduces herself. And it turns out she knows a lot about boxing. She also knows chiropracting and straightens out a crick in his neck. Reporter Pryor gets a kick out of Aunt Emma, because she's nothing like her image. She looks like an old maid, but she also knows her way around a boxing ring. She's "for real" in other words, so Pryor asks her to hang out with him for the rest of the night. Who knows, maybe she'll make a good story. He could use one because his boss is about ready to fire him.
They go to a nightclub, where Pryor's sometime girlfriend "Zelda" (Elizabeth Russell) is singing. But now, it seems she's in with Flower, the hoodlum. Pryor is dismayed, but he's got Aunt Emma and she's a hoot after drinking a few Zombies. Then, a an associate of Flower's gets kidnapped. There's a shooting in the club and someone dies. It's reported that Aunt Emma was seen leaving the club right after these things happened, and because she carries an umbrella, she's mistaken for the notorious crime matron Ma Parker. "Gus Hammond" (Douglas Fowley), Flower's right hand man, knows where she's staying, at a hotel with reporter Roger Pryor. Hammond is ready to rat her out, but because of Ma Parker's reputation as a ruthless killer, he's tenuous: it's rumored that Ma can shoot out the knot in a bow tie from a hundred paces with her umbrella gun.
Pryor, needing a story, asks Aunt Emma to help him out, and she agrees to pretend to be Ma Parker and to confront Flower for "taking over her territory." But first, she has to learn how to speak like a Mama Gangster. When she gets comfortable spouting the lingo, she's ready to become Ma Parker, and her confrontation scene with Flower is hilarious because of Zasu Pitts. She has a way of delivering her lines, no matter the story, that is nitwitted yet deceptively resilient. She's kind of like Chauncey Gar-din-er (though smarter), in that she has an Angel of the Meek watching over her. But in this movie she's downright intrepid. "So's You Aunt Emma" is a Monogram picture, which was one of the better Poverty Row studios (in fact it's movies were a notch above), and the script is surprisingly layered. There are several other henchmen and agendas besides the ones I've mentioned, and the boxer gets a whole subthread of his own with Zelda, the Elizabeth Russell character. It's a great cast all around, especially Douglas Fowley (Kim's Dad) as the fast-talking Gus Hammond. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, and a high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp, and you can watch these movies as a double feature, two great comedic actresses in two entirely different sets of circumstances. ////
That's all for tonight. I hope you are enjoying the start of your weekend. I may go to Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, to see their first Air Show in 13 years. The last time I went was 2006, so it's been 16 years for me. I used to go to air shows all the time; my Dad took me as a kid, and then as an adult we started going again in 1995, that year to Edwards, where we saw the Thunderbirds and the B-2. Dad and I went to that one, along with Mom and the late, great Mr. D. I also took Dad to Vandenberg AFB in 2003, and Pt. Mugu in 2004. And, we always went to the Van Nuys Airshow, right up until 2007 when they converted part of the airport for news choppers and fire tankers. So, it's been a long time for me, and I really wanna go to Edwards. There's no place like it. The only things holding me back are the outregisphilbin gas prices (Edwards is a 180 mile round trip), and the sad fact that I'm tired of going places by myself. But I just might do it anyway. Sometimes ya gotta win one for the Gipper. At any rate, my blogging music tonight was "On the Sunday of Life" by Porcupine Tree, and my late night is "Lohengrin" by Wagner. Have a great day tomorrow. I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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