Last night we discovered a fantastic comedic actress named Anne Nagel. Have you heard of her? Looking at her credits on IMDB, we've seen her in a few movies over the years, but never in a starring role. Anyhow, she was so great in "A Bride for Henry"(1937), that I'm surprised she wasn't a major star. She's hilarious as "Sheila Curtis", a socialite who's been stood up on her wedding day by her nitwit fiance "Eric" (Henry Mollison), who chose that morning to go to a movie. Because the press are going to be covering the wedding (they follow Sheila's every move), she needs a groom to go through with it. She can't be seen as being left at the altar; it would be humiliating.
But by now it's the last minute. What to do? Thinking quickly, she calls her lawyer, "Henry Tuttle" (Warren Hull). "Henry, get over here!" When he arrives, she tells him what she needs. "What?!" He's flabbergasted. Then she explains that the marriage will only be temporary. "Until I find Eric and give him what for." Sheila and Tuttle go through with the "replacement" marriage, and the press follows them back to their honeymoon suite. Soon after they arrive, her fiance shows up. He's found out she married another man and is ready to fight him. "But Eric, you went to the movies!" "Yes," agrees Tuttle "and what kind of man goes to a movie in the morning anyway?" Let alone on the morning he's getting married. But behind his pompous exterior, Eric is kind of a numbskull. Sheila diffuses the situation by telling Eric that the marriage to Tuttle was only for show, to placate the press and avoid bad publicity. "We're going to get a divorce tomorrow. Then I can marry you. That is, if you stay away from the movie theater." Tuttle then departs, saying "I've done my job. I'll leave you two lovebirds to yourselves."
Sheila and Eric leave their hotel room and are accosted by reporters snapping pictures. "That isn't the man we saw her marry!" says one. To escape, they steal two nearby bicycles and ride off into the woods. But Eric is a clumsy rider. They crash in some scrub brush and are discovered by a man and his two daughters. "I'll thank you to give those bikes back" says the man.
Now they have to walk back to their hotel. On the way, they trespass over a farmer's pasture, ending up penned with his cows. A cop arrests them and they wind up in jail. Meanwhile, Henry Tuttle (who's secretly in love with Sheila), has remained at the same hotel, and has taken up with a blonde bombshell (Claudia Dell) with the intent to make Sheila jealous. He's betting she likes him more than the doofus Eric. The whole screwball show is a showcase for Anne Nagel, who has a 1980s look and comedic sensibility, with the voice, hairdo and body language of an SNL comedienne. I was wondering, "why wasn't this woman huge?", and then I read her IMDB bio, and.........her life was tragic. It's a shame, because you'd never guess it from her performance. Two Big Thumbs Up for "A Bride for Henry", a perfect movie to start the year. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night, on New Year's Eve, we had a Technicolor widescreen spy film called "Night People"(1954), starring Gruggery Puck as "Col. Steve Van Dyke", an MP officer stationed in Berlin during the Allied occupation. He's got a problem on his hands, because bad guys from the Russian sector are sneaking over and kidnapping soldiers. No one knows exactly who they are. Are they mobsters? Independent criminals? Or perhaps Nazis who've so far escaped capture? As the movie opens, they nab an American corporal who's out for a date with his German girlfriend.
Back home in the good ol' USA, "Charles Leatherby" (Broderick Crawford) gets the news while playing golf. "Your son's been been abducted". Leatherby's a big-time corporate honcho who names Senators among his friends. He hops on a plane and flies straight to Germany to get his boy back. He's gonna do it his way and call the shots, because he thinks the Army are a bunch of idiots while he's a self made millionaire. He goes over there and demands to see Gregory Peck, assuming Peck will receive him with all due honor and respect. He's stunned when Peck shines him on. After a lengthy meeting in which Peck cuts Leatherby down to size, he lifts him up again because Peck knows he's just scared for his son. Leatherby then becomes an observer, mostly, as Peck and his team, which includes German informers, tries to get his boy back. The Brittney Griner trade is pertinent here, because that is what the Germans (or is it the Russians?) want: a trade. In exchange for Corporal Leatherby, they want a married couple - a middle-aged cabaret pianist and her elderly husband. Peck can't understand why until he talks to his female German go-between, who tells him that during the war, the couple were double agents abetting the English.
The go-between is an absinthe drinker, which will lead to complications later on. The important point midway through, is that when Broderick Crawford learns what will happen to the couple if they are traded for his son, and sent to the Russian sector (where the Nazi kidnappers are hiding), he backs off and asks to stop the trade. "I think we should let Johnny work it out for himself", he says of his son. "Even is it takes him a few years to get free, it'll save that couples' lives." Indeed, the old man has already been tortured during the war. Peck describes it to Crawford in graphic detail.
Two things must be noted here. First of all, Gregory Peck is one of the greatest actors of all time. Secondly, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson invented Aaron Sorkin. Watch this movie and see. The espionage confusion combined with idiosyncratic, bantering characters, and minor attempts at humor. You can't handle the truth, Aaron Sorkin! Nunnally Johnson invented you.
Man, we've talked about some convoluted plots lately. This one takes the cake, but you just have to go with it. Peck knows whats going on, but you and Broderick Crawford do not. Buddy Ebsen is Peck's assistant, tagging along for the ride. He's constantly sneaking off to a barracks office to listen to the World Series on the radium. He's got money on the Yankees. Is it Sorkin enough for you yet?
It's a really good movie that would like to be great, but the best part is Peck's performance. The absinthe stuff is overplayed. We get it already: it's cool to mention absinthe, because no one knows exactly what it is, though everyone will say they do, because it sounds hip. So forget the absinthe, already. It would've been better if Johnson concentrated as much on the kidnap as he does on the rescue, but this is the guy who wrote "Three Faces of Eve" and "The Grapes of Wrath" (among others), so maybe this was an afterthought script. Still, Two Huge Thumbs Up based on Peck's performance, but we could've done without the full-length confusion. The picture is dvd quality. ////
And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack" by The Nice. Some of it sounds like early Pink Floyd. My late night is Handel's "Joshua" oratorio. I know we were gonna do a Top Ten for last year's movies, but - like all of us tonight - I'm distracted by Damar Hamlin's injury. We'll get to the list in our next blog. I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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