Last night, we had a rom/com entitled "Half Angel"(1951), starring Loretta Young as "Nora Gilpin", a nurse who disrupts the life of a famous attorney (Joseph Cotten). Nora enjoys her nursing career but she's running on autopilot. On her breaks, she talks about men (what else?) with her fellow Florence Nightingale "Nurse Kay" (Irene Ryan, aka Granny). But they're too dedicated to nursing to do anything but dream of marriage. Then Nora sees a newspaper article about a lawyer named "John Raymond Jr." (Cotten), who is about to argue a case before the Supreme Court. The next thing you know, we're taken to his house late at night, and without any warning or exposition to let us know what's going on, a fantasy develops.
We see Raymond arrive home. His walkway is dark and he trips over a lawnmower, cutting up his leg. As he curses his bad luck, suddenly on his porch appears Nora Gilpin, not in her nurse's whites but in a trademark Loretta Young gown, beckoning him come hither. But he can't get up because he's hurt his knee, so she goes to him, reverting to her nursing instinct. Nora bandages his knee, and to thank her, he takes her inside and offers her a drink. This is very much a "suspend disbelief" opening, because you are given no explanation as to what is going on. Why is Nora at Raymond's house? How did she get there, or know where he lives? It's the middle of the night. Why is he accepting her presence without question? Well, it is a romantic comedy, so you just go with it. But this was one of the more belief-stretching openings we've seen. However, there is a reason.
Nora leaves that night, and Raymond is intrigued, so he seeks and finds her at her hospital the next day. He wants to know more about her and have a second "date". But now, in the light of day she is offended and taken aback. She pushes him away, swearing she doesn't know him, has never even met him. What's going on? During that attempted meeting at the hospital, her fiance shows up and a punchout ensues. Security guards cart Raymond away, and he can't figure out the deal. What's up with this chick?
Then she shows up at his house again, this time calling him pet names like "Frog," telling him she wants to "kiss his warts away". He remembers that nickname, and now he remembers where he knows Nora from. She was his teenage sweetheart! (yeah, but how could he forget her in the first place? Answer that, Mr. Screenwriter.) They were boyfriend and girlfriend twenty years ago in high school. But then why didn't Nora remember him at the hospital? Something strange is going on.
About two thirds of the way through, we finally find out what's going on - in court - when she tries to get a restraining order against him. We learn Nora's a sleepwalker. Aha, now things make sense. Every time we've seen her at Raymond's house in the middle of the night, she's been sleepwalking. There's an extended rollercoaster sequence at an amusement park that sweetly symbolizes their relationship, but Nora's fiance keeps getting in the way. After Raymond destroys her in court (remember, he's a Supreme Court attorney) he decides he wants to marry her. But which Nora is he proposing to? The one who loves him in her sleepwalking state, or the daytime nurse who claims she doesn't know him?
We're huge Loretta Young fans here at the blog. My Mom was a fan also and used to mention Loretta. We like her because she's got such a unique screen presence: beautiful, yet wholesome; theatrical and willowy, yet down to Earth; a romantic leading lady who is capable of hamming it up. She's also an excellent actress and comedienne, and she's so great in this movie. She pretty much carries every scene. Cotten is her perfect foil, and Mr. Howell is good as his sidekick attorney, who's always in need of a martini. What a cast! Loretta, Joseph Cotten, Jim Backus, Irene Ryan, Cecil Kellaway as her Dad, who at wit's end finally resorts to rigging her bedroom with trip wires and overhanging pails of water, to foil any future sleepwalks. But then, how does she keep ending up at John Raymond's house, even as the daytime Nora professes to "hate him"?
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Half Angel". It wasn't a Christmas movie (we looked but couldn't find any unseen ones), but it had the romantic vibe of a light, seasonal comedy. We love Loretta Young, she's our kind of gal. Color by Deluxe, nine years before my Dad worked there, fifty years before I did. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night we found a crime drama called "I Was a Shoplifter"(1950). It begins scenically in Orbach's on Wilshire Boulevard during the height of style in the department store era. Store detectives are following "Faye Burton" (Mona Freeman), a young kleptomaniac from a wealthy family. Faye is detained as she leaves the store, and is scared to death that her bigwig father will find out she's been shoplifting again. "Detective Jeff Andrews" (Scott Brady), who is heading up the task force for the Sheriff's Department, agrees to let her off with a warning if she'll sign a confession admitting guilt in the store crime. She does so, and now Orbach's has a record on file if she ever steals from them again.
Faye goes back to her job at the public library, and all is well until a woman comes in and brings a book to the counter entitled "The History of Kleptomania". It's an intimidation tactic. The woman is "Ina Perdue" (Andrea King), a horrible person who insinuates that she knows all about Faye's history, telling her "you'd better come see me tonight if you know what's good for you. I have a copy of your confession to the department store. I can release it to the newspapers, or to your father. How do you suppose he'd like it made public?" Ina Perdue owns a nightclub, out of which she runs one of the nation's largest shoplifting and merchandise fencing rings, made up of troubled young women like Faye, kleptos with no control over their compulsions to steal. Ina and her squad find out about these kleptomaniacs from a leak in the Sheriff's Dept, then they blackmail and threaten them into joining the ring. Faye is trapped in this way, and Detective Andrews and the task force decide to use her as bait to catch whoever is fencing the merchandise, and to nail the mole in the Sheriff's Dept.
It's good stuff in an investigative way, but I must say (and I rarely do this) that I didn't care for the performance of Andrea King as Ina Perdue. Maybe she was too effective, I dunno, but she came across as so callous it was a turn off. Also, she has a way of saying her lines without moving a single facial muscle, and after a while it grates on you. I absolutely couldn't stand her character. The movie is also very, very talky and could be cut down from 73 minutes to 65 or even 60. There is a lot of good location footage, however, inside Orbach's, and on a car chase down the highway to San Diego, then the actual Mexican border and into Tijuana. The main problems are the Ina Perdue character; I mean, c'mon, make an expression when you talk, some kind of expression, any kind, just a little twitch, even. I've never seen anyone who could act a part without making even the slightest facial expression. It drove me nuts. So there's that, and the fact that the movie has people yakking and yakking and yakking, and punchouts that are so over-the-top brutal that somebody would've died. I'm getting a little tired of movie punchouts, to be honest. They're to be expected in 60 Minute Westerns, so I can tolerate them there, but I don't like watching men hit each other with that horrible smacking sound the dubbing department uses to simulate punches to the face. In real life, even one such punch could kill a man, but in these crime movies, the hitting goes on and on for close to two minutes, and I think that directors used it as a device to fill time.
"I Was a Shoplifter" could've done better with a real script that delved into the psychology of kleptomania, or the power structure and dynamics of the merchandise-fencing gang. But the writer didn't dive that deep. I think it was a "directors movie", because you can see how the stops are pulled out and it elevates itself technically during the lengthy car chase down to Mexico. But good Great Lordy Moses Killed the Skunk and Jumping Jiminy Christmas, stop all the dialogue and the brutal punchouts! This could've been an excellent movie. We're still gonna give it Two Bigs, because Scott Brady was good in these kinds of roles, as a good guy or bad guy, and I'm sure Andrea King was a good actress too. Her bio says she played on Broadway. But man, did her portrayal of Ina Perdue irritate me. Watch it anyway, the picture is razor sharp like off a Blu-ray. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is Cream's Farewell Concert from 1968, part of which I also watched on Youtube yesterday. I'm on a bit of a Cream kick because of "Strange Brew" (mentioned in the Disneyland blog). Have you ever watched the Farewell Concert? Talk about Holy Jumping Jiminy. I've never seen a band play like that, not even Rush. I mean, as trios go, Rush was as great as they come, but they were a precision band, not jammers (though they could jam in a song like "Working Man"). But watching Cream, every song turns into a jam, but they aren't loosey-goosey jams. It's like three guys playing solos all simultaneously, and all of it fits the song. Their instrumental abilities were just off the charts, and what makes it even more astounding was that it was 1968, when most of the instrumental rock playing hadn't evolved that far. Go watch the Farewell Concert to see what I mean, it's just insane. My late night music is still "Lohengrin" by Wagner. This has been a year of Wagner immersion for me. I hope you are enjoying the holiday week. We're still gonna look for some more Christmas movies.
I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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