The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Stephen King gave an interview once where he was foolishly challenged with a question about literary history. I don’t know why, but journalists always think they can show up popular authors by exposing them on literature knowledge — this one oddly asked the former English teacher if he had ever “read the classics.” It was like some poor sap trying to heckle Don Rickles. King, like nearly every other best-seller out there, not only knows his business but is usually slicker than the person asking the questions. I’ve always loved his glib response, which went something like: “I don’t know anything about William Faulkner, but I’ve read everything Dean Koontz ever wrote.”

I recently had a similar moment chatting on a Facebook message board when someone accused me of not knowing anything about “film” because I’m not a David Lynch fan. For example: “If you knew anything about surrealism you might begin to understand and appreciate Lynch’s films.” Instead of taking the easy way out, as Stephen King could have done, and sharing that in real life I’m in the chair of a university department of art and art history, I took a page out of King’s book and shot back, “I may not know anything about surrealism, but I’ve seen every picture Tyrone Power ever made.”

That was almost true — I had somehow missed this one; which you can file neatly in the forgotten gems category. Like most other musical biopics, Columbia’s 1956 film The Eddie Duchin Story relates the life events of yet another mid-century musical personality. Aside from a relatively early Kim Novak performance there’s little about the film that would really pull in contemporary audiences, which is a shame. After all, Duchin’s name is all but forgotten these days — as he wasn’t a composer or lyricist none of his tunes became standards, and his untimely death in 1951 didn’t contribute to his longevity. The Eddie Duchin Story isn’t an MGM picture either — coming instead from Harry Cohn and major-minor Columbia, not a studio well known for musicals that didn’t feature Rita Hayworth. Still though, stars and studios aside Duchin’s story is great film fodder; and the resulting movie is a fine romance and a tear-jerker of the first order.

Tyrone Power and Kim Novak are a strange match — a generation apart, Power exists in the mind as a primarily a black and white film actor while Novak is pure Technicolor. He on the tail end of a robust career and she at the beginning of one too short. Opinions differ concerning Novak’s strengths and weaknesses, but who doesn’t wish she made more films? This one cleverly handles the delicate issue of the billing: Power above Novak, same size type on the printed materials; but Novak first in the film’s titles, with Power getting a special “Starring Tyrone Power as Eddie Duchin” screen to himself just after director George Sidney’s. Although Power was nearly twenty years Novak’s senior, her character was actually supposed to be a little older than his. The film tries to split the difference, clumsily hiding Power’s age in the early scenes, and making Kim look a bit dowdier than necessary.

Power was 41 when this was made, so it seems a bit strange that he would be cast in the first place, however all concerns evaporate when he sits down at the piano. Duchin’s trademark as a pianist was the speed and complexity of his fingering, and Power is certainly up to the challenge. Sidney and cameraman Harry Stradling (he of 14 Oscar nominations, Eddy Duchin included — and 2 wins) go out of their way to ensure the viewer knows that the hands on the keyboard belong to the star — and if Power is somehow faking Duchin’s virtuosity then he deserved an award for it. All of the musical scenes are well done, and any inclination viewers might want to hit the fast-forward button during the musical bits (Can anyone say Funny Lady?) is lost here. The film is beautifully photographed and makes New York City look stunning. A pseudo-montage that takes place when Power and Novak are courting is particularly beautiful, and takes full advantage of Novak’s spectacular rapport with the camera.

Surprisingly, Novak’s part is short given her billing; and there’s a great deal more to the story than has been mentioned here. As I wrote earlier this is both a romantic film and a tear-jerker, with the emotional scenes coming on heavy as the film approaches the two hour mark. There’s one moment in particular — a small one — where a uniformed Power happens upon a burnt up piano in a wrecked bar on Mindanao. It’s a brief but important scene, and certain to bring a smile to your face — for me it made the picture. In the end, this is a movie about more than just those loved and lost. It’s concerned greatly with familial relationships and the ties that bind fathers to their sons. It looks good, it sounds good, and it entertains. What’s not to like?

The Eddie Duchin Story (1956)

Grade: B

Directed by George Sidney
Released by Columbia Pictures
Starring Tyrone Power, Kim Novak, and James Whitmore
Running time: 121 minutes
Availability: DVD, Netflix

No Sad Songs for Me (1950)

No Sad Songs for Me is an atypical postwar Hollywood tearjerker. A woman learns she is dying of cancer and decides to withhold her prognosis from her family, while secretly encouraging the woman she hopes will eventually take her place.

What makes this movie so atypical is the presence of the leading lady, Margaret Sullavan, a sublime actress of exceptional skill, who has nevertheless been forgotten over the years by the general public. Her life was tempestuous: married four times (including a 60-day stint with Henry Fonda), torn between Los Angeles and Broadway, and often both severely physically ill and mentally depressed. Sullavan never enjoyed the stability of one able to choose a coast and settle there. She’d give birth to three children, two of whom would eventually commit suicide, though neither would do so while Sullavan herself was still living. The troubled and unhappy actress would die of a barbiturate overdose in 1960 at the age of fifty-one.

In spite of making only sixteen films, she was as highly regarded as any actress in the business. Unlike most, she left Hollywood on her own terms. Other aging actresses faded from the film scene for a variety of reasons, but Hollywood always had a part waiting for Sullavan. Her performances are nuanced and damned smart—and she was gifted with an extraordinary voice. She starred opposite Jimmy Stewart in three bona fide classics: The Shopworn Angel (1938), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and The Mortal Storm (1940). Her best performance, in Three Comrades (1938), with Robert Taylor and Franchot Tone, earned her only Oscar nomination. She made No Sad Songs for Me after a seven-year breather, and it would end up being the final film of her career. For the remaining decade of her life, she confined her efforts to the stage and an occasional television appearance.

Although No Sad Songs for Me has the same melodramatic honeycomb as a Douglas Sirk picture, it’s saved by subtle and clever casting—and not just in Sullavan's case. Each of Columbia boss Harry Cohn and director Rudolph Maté’s choices keeps the film from straying into histrionics. Wendell Corey plays Sullavan’s husband. Most often utilized as a foil to a more charismatic and romantic male star, Corey’s sensitive, wry screen persona is perfect here. You could argue that his limited range mars the picture in one crucial moment, when he finally learns the truth about his wife’s condition, but on the whole his presence is a lesson in inspired, slow-burn restraint. The movie's other woman is Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors, who plays Corey’s co-worker, and isn’t so beautiful or glamorous that you can’t imagine her ending up with him. Little Natalie Wood plays the kid.

The film benefits from a well-constructed script, tight as a drum from start to finish. It favors the romantic triangle over Sullavan’s struggle to come to grips with her illness and her relationship with her daughter, but it’s entertaining enough that you won’t care. Although there are some routine elements of 1950s scandal / gossip present, the film doesn’t linger on them. No Sad Songs for Me is worthwhile for softening the tired Depression-era cliché of the dying wife and mother. Sullavan herself had already starred in one the preeminent such films of the 1930s, Three Comrades. It’s clear that by the early 1950s (and in the wake of the war) filmmakers were less concerned with Greek tragedy and more aware that life moves on the wake of death.

No Sad Songs for Me (1950)

Grade: B+

Directed by Rudolph Maté

Starring Margaret Sullavan, Wendell Corey, Natalie Wood

Released by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 88 minutes

Availability: Airs on TCM.

Hit Parade of 1941 (1940)

I’ve seen countless Hollywood musicals, and any more it’s rare that I discover a film that I enjoy, or have even the slightest desire to write about. Such is the case, however, with the elusive Hit Parade of 1941. There have been numerous films to appear under the Hit Parade banner, and they have little in common with each other. The most well-known is the 1943 entry starring Susan Hayward — it’s available via Netflix streaming and is well worth a look — and just like the Hit Parade of 1941 it’s a double Academy Award nominee, in both the Song and Score categories.

Of course all of these films — just like the Broadway Melody series — are little more than cinematic fluff, but that rather goes without saying. Hit Parade of 1941 is nevertheless a charming and entertaining film that, excuse the horrible pun, hits all the right notes. It features radio star Kenny Baker, who I first encountered in the odd 1937 film Mr. Dodd Takes the Air. If you know Baker at all, it’s likely from his supporting role in the Garland’s The Harvey Girls. He had boyish good looks and a beautifully clear voice. The studios tended to use him in unsophisticated, innocent, aw-shucks parts, and Hit Parade is no different.

Baker plays David Farraday, who helps his zany uncle (Hugh Herbert) run a Connecticut trading post (or is it a swap shop? or maybe a flea market?) that advertises on WPX, a Brooklyn radio station. The station is floundering, so when the elder Farraday threatens to pull his sponsorship the station manager makes the trip to the suburbs hoping to convince him to hang on a little while longer. Yet somehow, Farraday pulls an impressive swap of his own, and trades the swap meet for the radio station! Both Farraday men easily transition to life as radio station owners, and quickly set their sights on the newly expanding world of television. (A 1940 film that embraces television? How Hollywood’s attitudes would change in the coming decade!) Longtime advertiser Mrs. Potter (character actress par excellence Mary Boland) is happy to sign on in support of WPX’s new television hour, but only if it features her niece Annabelle (Ann Miller). The problem is that, in spite of thousands of dollars in singing lessons, Annabelle can’t carry a tune. David has an idea: he asks singer and wannabe girlfriend Pat (Frances Langford) to dub Annabelle from a nearby sound booth. It works for a while, with predictable movie musical results. But fortunately for us all, Annabelle doesn’t want to sing anyway — we know what she wants to do…

Hit Parade of 1941 has what you are looking for: the comedy bits are actually funny, and the musical numbers are memorable. Baker and Langford make a good couple: solid chemistry and superb voices. Langford wasn’t exactly a minor star, but given her looks and talent it is somewhat surprising she wasn’t bigger. Although she only made two dozen or so films, mostly light musicals similar to this one, the “Sweetheart of the Fighting Fronts” was a staple of Bob Hope’s USO tours, an on the radio. In addition to Baker and Langford, Hit Parade gives us two more couples: Patsy Kelly and Phil Silvers, and Mary Boland pairs with Hugh Herbert. Top to bottom, it all works. One of the most entertaining musical acts in the film is, oddly enough, “Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals.” I know, I know, but trust me. If you can’t manage to locate this film, you can catch them in two pictures that are a little easier to find: 1942’s Always in My Heart with Kay Francis and Walter Huston, or in the 1936 Sonja Henie movie, One in a Million. These guys are worth it, fulfilling the same role as the Nicholas Brothers in numerous Fox pictures; they don’t contribute much to the story, but they punctuate it with something rather special.

The stars themselves do quite well too, but one musical sequence is truly spectacular. It finds Langford behind the microphone at a Manhattan nightclub, belting out “Swing Low, Sweet Rhythm,” while Ann Miller takes to the dance floor in an skimpy black get-up cadged from the cigarette girl. It’s a show-stopping treat of a number, offering the chance to see two beautiful young women doing what they do best. Langford is in great form, a full swing orchestra behind her — while Miller spins, sparkles, and taps her way across the floor — knowing no one in the world save Eleanor Powell could match her. It’s one of those moments that remind us why we like these films; it brims over with that special magic of the best forties musicals. You’ll stop what you are doing and pay close attention, hoping it will go on forever. But everything about these films, just like the months and years of that all-important decade — and the flickering images themselves — is fleeting. 

Hit Parade of 1941 (1940)
Directed by John Auer
Starring Kenny Baker, Frances Langford, Ann Miller, Patsy Kelly, and Phil Silvers.
Released by Republic Pictures
Running time 88 minutes.
Availability: Rare
Grade: A-

Billy Rose’s Jumbo (1962)

It isn’t often that an MGM musical misses, but in the case of Billy Rose’s Jumbo the arrow flies well wide of the mark. Based on the 1935 play of the same name, it is said that the old Broadway showman, in a fit of ego, insisted that the filmed version — produced some twenty-five years later — use the complete title. It’s clear that as nostalgic as the final product actually is, MGM must have conceded grudgingly — it’s a terrible title.

The 1962 film employs that peculiar sixties casting strategy of pairing two younger stars with two older stars in order to appease multiple generations of movie-goers. Forties icons Jimmy Durante and Martha Raye appear as the proprietors of the Wonder Circus, a small outfit constantly on the verge of falling apart. Durante’s Pop Wonder is always finding ways to make do as the better acts flee for circus jobs that — ahem — actually pay a salary. Doris Day plays Pop’s daughter Kitty. She’s a clever girl who knows the angles, and is always scrambling to keep the circus wheels turning, especially on those occasions that Pop loses the night’s take at the craps table. Day’s part was originally intended for Debbie Reynolds, and certainly Jumbo would be a different film with her in the lead. Day in Calamity Jane aside, the more athletic Reynolds always did better in those “regular folks” sorts of parts (The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Mating Game) than Day, who almost seems like she’s slogging her way through this picture in an attempt to avoid getting dirty. Regardless, Doris isn’t the film’s problem. That honor belongs to Stephen Boyd, of Ben-Hur and The Oscar fame. Why Boyd was cast as love interest Sam Noble is a mystery; the sixties answer to Dana Andrews is far too intense and not nearly talented enough musically to make a go of it. He and Day are jigsaw pieces from different puzzles — they’re just not compatible. Why put America’s sweetheart next to an actor who’s entire screen persona can be summed up in one word: brooding?

Jumbo, in any case, refers to the star attraction of the Wonder Circus, a versatile elephant at the center of many of the film’s production numbers. The Rodgers and Hart songs are good enough, but something here just doesn’t feel right: by 1962 the notion of characters slipping from conversation into song doesn’t come across the same way it did in the previous decade, even if we are in the realm of period subject matter. (For further proof of this, check out the Disney film The Happiest Millionaire — and it comes in at nearly three hours). Fred Astaire could do it and it was charming, but in the wake of West Side Story the musical had changed, and these abrupt segues to melody became rather difficult to swallow. At any rate, the story revolves around the hostile takeover of the Wonder Circus, and Jumbo in particular, by John Noble (Dean Jagger), who has been secretly purchasing all of Pop’s debt from a veritable army of creditors. And guess what? Noble is also Sam’s father, which leads to a pedestrian sequence of romantic complications between Boyd and Day, that resolve predictably by film’s end. You can practically predict the dialogue. 

Watch this if you are a die-hard fan or Doris Day or the music of Rodgers and Hart, or even nostalgic for Durante and Ray. With a running time in excess of two hours, those looking to pass the time should try elsewhere. 

Billy Rose’s Jumbo

Directed by Charles Waters

Starring Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante, and Martha Raye

Released by MGM

Running time: 127 minutes

Grade C-

The House of the Seven Gables (1940)

It’s Vincent Price versus George Sanders in Universal’s seldom-seen 1940 adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s early American gothic, The House of the Seven Gables. The two actors play bickering brothers who grapple over the fate of the family’s ancestral home. The titular house, located in that literary haven of ill-fortune: Salem, Massachusetts, comes with plenty of baggage though, including creditors and a centuries-old curse — not to mention a curmudgeonly father who isn’t quite ready for the grave.

Hang on a second, “what’s a gable?” you say? A gable is the triangular end of a building. Look below for a small illustration of a home with three gables. Got it? Back to the film.

Price’s Clifford Pyncheon is the good guy here, while Sanders barely stretches to bring snide older brother Jaffrey to life. Margaret Lindsay, who you’ll likely remember as Amy from Bette Davis’s Jezebel, is along for the ride in a featured role as cousin Hepzibah, Clifford’s devoted fiancé. The story sets up like this, I promise not to give anything away: The lion’s share of the action stems from a boisterous confrontation between Clifford and his father regarding the fate of the house. At the peak of his ire, the old fellow suffers from some sort of bizarre throat contraction and topples to the floor dead. For good measure bangs his head on the corner of a desk on the way down, drawing a bead of fresh blood and causing an exotic paperweight to fall and settle conveniently beside his fresh corpse. It seems that the whole town is listening to the fray out on the street, and Jaffrey rushes into the room just in time to accuse the innocent Clifford of murder by bludgeoning. In Hawthorne’s world, where women are either gossips or saints and men saints or rascals, it doesn’t take long to pack Clifford off to the state prison for a life sentence. Jaffrey triumph is short-lived though, he fails to inherit the coveted house after all — the elder Pyncheon has surprisingly bequeathed it to Hepzibah, who tosses Jaffrey onto the street and in short order becomes the town spinster, patiently waiting two decades on a pardon for Clifford. In the meantime, Jaffrey becomes a powerful judge — also engaged in some very shady ‘shipping’ deals — while Clifford languishes in his cell, determinedly going gray and studying his Alexandre Dumas — revenge is in the works…along with a little karma.

Even at 89 minutes this is a short film, and if my tone seems a bit glib it’s because Universal cuts enough corners with the source material that it becomes difficult to take The House of the Seven Gables entirely seriously. Certainly a film can score at that rather standard running time, but this one spans more than twenty years in narrative time and a mere five or ten additional minutes of film would have gone a long way towards pushing this into classic adaptation territory. Though coming from Universal in 1940, when it was all about Deanna and Dracula, corner-cutting should be expected. Make no mistake though, this is entertaining movie in spite of its deficiencies — with these two stars, how could it not be? Price wins the battle of screen time, with Sanders, the superior actor, doing more with his moments. When Sanders committed suicide in 1972, he famously did so by telling us all that he was bored with life. It is to his credit though that as an actor he was always able to bring some verve to his performances, even though the studios constantly cast him as an urbane heel. Given his incredible gifts and perpetual typecasting, it isn’t surprising that after a lifetime of such parts Sanders would have grown weary.

If this suffers at all it’s because of Lindsay, who actually has the largest role but nonetheless gets crowded out of the screen by two charismatic male leads. Grinning Dick Foran, Nan Grey, and Cecil Kellaway round out the cast, but all three of them could have given some way in order to strengthen the central narrative. It isn’t that the secondary characters aren’t important, it’s just that in such a brief film their roles seem rather puffed-up — often at the expense of some inexplicable narrative moments that would have benefitted from a tad more fleshing-out. In the end though this is a modest thriller — competently produced, satisfyingly suspenseful, and very-well performed. Oh, and with an Oscar nominated original score. 

The House of the Seven Gables (1940)

Directed by Joe May

Starring Vincent Price and George Sanders

Released by Universal

Running time: 89 minutes

Grade: B

Arabian Nights (1942)

Arabian Nights is a first-rate Saturday afternoon matinee released in 1942 by Universal. It’s one of the many recent classic DVD releases that Netflix has not chosen to add to their library. I’ve had it in my queue since the DVD debuted in 2007, and I finally gave up and requested a copy via interlibrary loan. The exclusion by Netflix is particularly disappointing considering that this is a relevant film that earned an impressive four 1942 Academy Award nominations. I’ll be the first to admit that Oscar nods don’t guarantee quality and rentals, but

Arabian Nights is a safe bet. It has top production values, including fantastic costumes and some of the most vivid Technicolor photography you’ll ever see — accentuated by the pristine DVD transfer. This is all especially surprising considering the film was made at Universal; and falls outside of the constantly struggling studio’s big four proven cornerstones: horror, Deanna Durbin, Sherlock Holmes, and Abbott and Costello. The story of how this came about is an interesting one.

Maverick producer Walter Wanger had just been released from a long-term contract with United Artists before coming to Universal in 1941. Wanger was a proven commodity in Hollywood, and his deal with UA had been a rich one that offered the filmmaker a great deal of latitude in the production of prestige products. Under the deal Wanger developed Algiers with Charles Boyer and the John Ford / John Wayne classic (6 Oscar nominations) The Long Voyage Home. The relationship with UA went sour after a few box office disappointments, including (surprisingly) Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent, which led Wanger to shop his in-development projects around Hollywood — Universal took the bait. Wanger signed on to produce films for Universal on a picture-by-picture basis, the first of which was Arabian Nights. The film would be Universal's first three-color Technicolor production, and the studio was willing to risk the colossal sum (for them) of $900,000 on the budget. Although Wanger himself dismissed the film as merely an exercise in “tits and sand,” the movie paid big dividends ($4,000,000 gross) for all involved and cemented the producer-studio relationship for the next few years and six more pictures.*

The business model at Universal, more than any other studio, relied on turning successful projects into drums that could be beaten again and again, until the public grew tired of the tune. Yet during the war audiences were hungry for the most lavish and exotic escapist fare possible, and the stars of Arabian Nights caught the public interest at exactly the right moment. Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Jungle Book star Sabu would appear together regularly in a succession of lower-and-lower budgeted features that nevertheless raked in the wartime dollars for the studio. Sabu, the unlikely teen superstar, would receive top billing in most of the features, with Hall second and Montez third. Hall was the good-looking star of numerous B projects at Universal, he enjoyed modest success in Hollywood but never achieved the big time. Much the same can be said of Montez, though in her case it’s surprising. She was truly a stunning woman — bearing a vague resemblance to Gloria Grahame, only with a better figure — it’s difficult to take your eyes off her.

On a morbid note, each of the film’s three stars died tragically: Hall, wrecked with cancer, shot himself at 64, while Sabu died of a heart attack at age 39, and Montez drowned (due to a heart attack) in her Paris bathtub at only 34.

Arabian Nights is a winner. It’s easy to see why wartime audiences responded so well — the film couldn't get much lighter. We expect these things to be special-effects bonanzas, but there’s not much too see here beyond a parade of girls and marvelous costumes. All the genies have been replaced with light comedy, and supporting characters merely named Sinbad (Shemp Howard!) and Aladdin will have to placate those looking for faithful literary adaption.

* Thanks to Thomas Schatz and his wonderfully instructive book, The Genius of the System for the assist on the facts and figures.

Arabian Nights (1942)

Directed by John Rawlins

Starring Sabu, Jon Hall, Maria Montez

Released by Universal Studios

Running time: 93 minutes

Availability: DVD, but no Netflix.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

Having spent a great deal of time in recent weeks watching and rewatching musicals made during the Second World War, I’ve come to the conclusion that For Me and My Gal might be the best of the bunch. Produced by Arthur Freed and ably directed by none other than Busby Berkeley, For Me and My Gal is probably most well-known for being the screen debut of Gene Kelly. Yet Kelly’s debut aside this is still a fine wartime musical, of which charming may be the most appropriate one-word description.

The film represents the first of three pairings [The Pirate (1948) and Summer Stock (1950) being the other two], of young stars Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Kelly left Broadway at the behest of David O. Selznick to come west as a replacement for the previously cast Dan Dailey, and he never looked back. The film is also evidence that Kelly didn't have much of a learning curve either — he looks almost as polished here as he does in any of his legendary fifties roles. Yet at age twenty Judy Garland was a screen veteran. But For Me and My Gal wasn’t just another film for her, it represented her first truly grown up role, and a testing of the waters away from her usual male lead, Mickey Rooney.

I’ve never considered myself much of a Judy Garland fan, but I have always clearly recognized the it that made her one of the screen’s great stars. And although I have always adored Deanna Durbin, Judy’s talent is such that you can’t hold Louis B. Mayer’s famous decision against him. Still, I usually struggle to hit the play button on a Garland film, but once it gets going I’m

always somehow inexorably pulled in. There’s just something charismatic about Judy — some vulnerability — that draws you into her performances, and unlike other stars she accomplishes this magic without being overtly sexual. It’s almost as if Judy comes across as a little sister whose happiness you desperately want to ensure. She has fine romantic chemistry with Kelly, and the young couple’s numbers together are tops. I’ve seen so many films that I hold every performer’s individual role against the arc of his career, so when Garland and Kelly sing and dance the title number of For Me and My Gal in a deserted coffee shop, the effect is marvelous. On its own merits it’s a great number, but attaching the weight of the careers and the great routines that this one portends leaves one with chills.

Unlike other rah-rah musicals of the War era, this one is something of a period piece: it’s set in the Great War. Gene and Judy are vaudevilleians who meet, fall in love, and set their hearts on playing the Palace on Broadway — the dream destination for those slogging and hoofing on the circuit. The dramatic tension comes after the US enters the war, and circumstances contrive for Judy to believe Gene a coward. They try to go their separate ways but are thrown together once again, this time overseas doing the USO thing (YMCA during WWI). Of course Gene’s no coward, but Judy has to learn it the hard way. The film is light on propaganda, which makes it moving moments all the more effective — and there are a few of them. By the fade out I was ready to load up on war bonds.

For Me and My Gal (1942)

Grade: B+

Directed by Busby Berkeley

Starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, and the sadly forgotten George Murphy.

Released by MGM

Running Time: 104 minutes

Availability: DVD, Netflix

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

If ever a poster didn’t do its film justice, this is it. The darn thing is too heavily steeped in what we (I’m a graphic design professor) have a tendency to call 101-Dalmatians-style to suggest the content of the Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw, which while romantic, is too tinged with melancholy and loneliness to be captured in this light-and-bright style.

Robert Mitchum stars as an attorney from Omaha who flees his failing marriage for the streets of New York, where he chances upon an unusual romance with Bohemian dreamer Shirley MacLaine. Seldom was Mitch’s signature world-weariness put to better use. He comes across beautifully here, channelling (ha!) all of the alienation and loneliness that one can feel amidst the canyons of Manhattan into his role. Though the films have nothing in common, Mitchum is almost as good here as he would be as Eddie Coyle more than a decade later. While Mitchum is thought of as a screen persona (or force of nature) more than as an actor, he holds his own quite well opposite the incredibly gifted MacLaine — she of the Best Actress Oscar and trio of Best Pictures. The clash of his repressive midwestern morality versus her Greenwich Village flightiness makes for an interesting contrast in the early scenes. The film is primarily concerned with how the pair manage to contrive a romance in spite of their differences.

Before I get any farther, I have to talk about Ted McCord’s black-and-white cinematography for Two for the Seesaw, which is among, I kid you not, the best in the history of Hollywood. I was able to watch this recently in high-definition on the MGM HD channel, and found the depiction of the streets of lower Manhattan to be nothing short of staggering. As a film noir enthusiast, this film ironically boast one or two of the most iconic representations of not only the urban landscape, but of a trench-coated protagonist among them. There is a scene in the middle of the film that finds a chain-smoking Mitchum waiting on a dark street outside MacLaine’s apartment following a bitter a quarrel. Mitchum is framed so beautifully against the deserted streets that my breath literally caught in my throat. At the conclusion of the picture, I rewound to the moment and enjoyed the frame for quite some time. McCord had a long-lasting career in Hollywood, but he isn't particularly well known to film buffs. His two biggest credits are East of Eden and The Sound of Music, as well as a three or four B-noirs. Wise however was a visually stylish director, especially when utilizing black-and-white, and the two worked together here to craft a sensuously, richly beautiful film — all the more surprising considering theatrical source material.

It has been said by some that Mitchum and MacLaine don’t have solid chemistry and the film is too long, but I disagree and would advise anyone to see this and judge for themselves. See this for the performances, for the beauty of the filming and of the city, and for the verve of Andre Previn’s great score. Just do me a favor and see it.

Although this does air on television from time to time, it isn't generally available otherwise, having never been widely released on DVD. It was recently made available from Amazon.com as a made-on-demand DVD, in much the same fashion as the Warner Archive DVD series.

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Grade: A-

Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine
Released by United Artists
Running time: 119 minutes
Availability: Amazon DVD on Demand.