Four Daughters (1938)

 

Four Daughters is a soap opera about how all of the sisters in one family have the hots for one guy, but after seemingly flirting with every woman in the household (including the elderly aunt), he picks the youngest one as his target. This charmer is played by Jeffrey Lynn, a quite handsome young actor, so you can understand everyone’s infatuation with him. He’s starring as a young, talented composer in this film, but he doesn’t stand a chance when James Garfield, playing his friend Mickey, shows up halfway through the film. I’ll talk more about Garfield later, but it’s little wonder that this film made him a star.

The daughters are all an interesting group, each of them having a particular musical talent. The oldest is Emma (Gale Page), and she plays the harp. She likes a neighborhood boy named Ernest (played by Dick Foran of singing Westerns fame), but he’s too… conventional and reliable and nice, I guess. When Felix Deitz (Lynn) appears at their home, she kind of forgets about Ernest as a serious love interest and concentrates on Felix until Ernest shows that it’s good to have someone who takes care of issues, especially when your baby sister’s wedding is in shambles.

The second oldest sister is Thea (played by Lola Lane of the Lane Sisters musical group), and her specialty is the piano. She’s in love, I guess, with an older man named Ben Crowley (Frank McHugh). Crowley is rich and seems to be very generous in giving it away, but Thea just isn’t certain that he’s the right one even though she is at times very enamored of him and his generosity. He even manages to overcome his initial intimidation at dealing with the entire Lemp family, especially all of the daughters. You imagine that he’s not been a man whose life has been filled with women. The first time he comes for dinner, youngest sister Ann forgets to light the oven to cook dinner, and he seems to take it all in stride, which bodes well for his future as part of this family.

The next daughter is Kay, an accomplished singer who’s up for a scholarship that might help to make her a star. Kay is played by another Lane sister, Rosemary. Her character seems the least interested in all of the talk of romance, but even she cannot help but be smitten with Felix. She seems more focused on her career, and it leads to her singing on the radio (hey, that was a big deal back in 1938!) on Christmas, an event that everyone in the family listens to at their dad’s home. Rosemary Lane does have a lovely singing voice, and her rendition of “On Wings of Song” is delightful, a highlight in a film filled with lots of music.

I’ve not yet mentioned their dad, the one who inspired them all musically. He’s played by the always enjoyable Claude Rains, and his Adam Lemp plays the flute when his daughters practice. I do enjoy watching Rains’ face; he always seems amused at what’s going on around him, and it’s quite a whirlwind of activity. His sister, Aunt Etta, is played by the great May Robson with a touch of humor and a little bit of sarcasm. Honestly, it’s the kind of role that used to get nominated for Best Supporting Actress honors, but she was apparently not considered for this film.

I’ve also not discussed the youngest daughter yet. Ann is only 18 and plays the violin. (By the way, only five years separate the oldest and youngest daughter age-wise.) She’s played by Priscilla Lane, and her talent is the violin. She’s the most idealistic and romantic of the daughters. Ann is actually the first sister to encounter Felix. She’s practicing when she hears a loud squeaking sound. After initially thinking it might be her playing or her violin, she discovers that he’s swinging back and forth on the front gate and seemingly having a great time. It’s not long before she joins him, much to the shock of one of the town’s busybodies, Mrs. Ridgefield, whom Felix naturally tries to charm.

There’s clearly a strong bond between these sisters, and they don’t fight with each other over Felix’s attention, at least not directly. He certainly seems to be willing to flirt with each of them until he sorts out his own emotions, I guess. He’s also working on a composition that will get him a coveted prize, but he spends time with each daughter so that everyone falls in love with him. We see him giving attention to each one, and I think we all know what’s happening here. He’s smooth talking and tall and good-looking, so it’s just a matter of time before he picks one of them to marry. Isn’t that the whole premise of the movie?

And then in walks John Garfield’s Mickey. He’s a friend of Felix’s and doesn’t appear until after about thirty minutes into the film, but his very appearance shakes up the narrative. He and Ann have a very strange initial conversation. He’s unlike anyone she’s met before, and he doesn’t have the sunniest disposition. In short measure, we learn that he has a rather tough view of life because he was poor and had no real opportunities for a formal education. He also seems to have a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow and says he knows what “type” a person is as soon as he meets them. You might call him a beacon of darkness. It’s only after he starts to fall in love with Ann that he begins to brighten (and starts to shave more closely).

Then the complications begin. Felix tells Ann that he loves her and wants to marry her. The other sisters and Mickey are, as you might expect, jealous, and Mickey is especially bitter over missing out on Ann. Just an hour before her wedding to Felix, Mickey tells her that Emma also loves Felix. Somehow this doesn’t make Ann think that Mickey is an asshole, and she runs off with him to get married and live in New York City. You might guess correctly that their life in the city doesn’t turn out well. Even after her marriage, Ann is still wearing a charm bracelet that Felix gave her, not the most promising sign.

The film might have had a tragic ending if it stopped after Mickey seemingly kills himself while driving in a snowstorm. There’s a shot from beneath the steering wheel during this sequence that is a masterwork of cinematography, but you can’t let a movie about four mostly happy, mostly upbeat young women end that way, can you? No, the final sequence of the film repeats the beginning sequence where we were introduced to each daughter and her musical talent while their dad is conducting. In the final sequence, the widowed Ann hears that squeaky gate again, discovers that it’s Felix back to his old tricks, and seems to forget rather quickly that her husband died tragically, but I guess that’s a Hollywood ending for you.

Four Daughters was the first in a series of trilogy of films about the Lemp family, and it’s the equivalent of the first episode of a soap opera. Of course, it packs in a lot of plotlines in its tight ninety minutes. The performances, especially by Garfield and Rains and Robson, are noteworthy. The costume designer also seems to have enjoyed this gig because the sisters get new dresses for every sequence, and they’re pretty spectacular gowns. Even Mrs. Ridgefield gets another small moment of glory at the end, and that’s a lovely way to wrap up the film’s narrative.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Director (Michael Curtiz), Best Supporting Actor (John Garfield), Best Screenplay, and Best Sound Recording

The Grand Illusion (1938)

 

I won’t start the perpetual debate here (again) over whether every war movie is inherently an anti-war movie, but The Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion in the film’s original French) is certainly a movie that makes you contemplate the futility of war. The illusion that director Jean Renoir reveals is the notion that war ever settles anything definitively. You see so many connections between the soldiers on different sides of the war, so many ways that they hold common beliefs and backgrounds, that you wonder why they’re at war. You also see so many distinctions between soldiers who come from the same home country that you wonder if they truly are on the same side. It’s a masterpiece in so many ways, and it holds the distinction of being the first film in a language other than English to be nominated for Best Picture.

The film opens with a scene involving the French and then one involving the Germans, and they’re doing mostly the same activities: having a drink and conversing with colleagues. It’s only after two French aviators, Capt. de Boeldieu (a debonair Pierre Fresnay) and Lt. Marechal (the great Jean Gabin), are shot down by German Capt. von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim, showing off his consummate acting skills) that we begin to learn of the connections that these men at war have across the boundaries of their countries. Boeldieu and Rauffenstein have traveled in the same upper-class circles, and Rauffenstein even knows one of Boeldieu’s relatives in Austria. Marchel also learns of some commonalities between himself and the Germans who have taken him and Boeldieu as prisoners of war.

They’re all so civil to each other that you have to wonder how the principles of warfare have changed so much in the years since World War I. Rauffenstein even invites the men to lunch with him and his colleagues and then apologizes to Boeldieu for shooting down his plane: “I’m so sorry for this convenience.” When the two Frenchmen are taken to their first POW camp, one seemingly reserved for officers only, they discover that prisoners are allowed to receive parcels from their families. One of the men, Lt. Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), gets food and cognac regularly and shares with the other captured Frenchmen and sometimes with the German guards. He’s Jewish and the subject of several antisemitic remarks throughout the film. The other Frenchmen in the camp – prisoners seem to be segregated by country – include a vaudeville performer and a mechanic, a rather diverse group.

The film has a few intriguing moments that raise some interesting questions about homoerotic (or related) activity in the camp. A collection of women’s clothing arrives as the prisoners are planning a theatrical performance. One of the men dons a wig and dress, and all the prisoners stop to stare silently at the man in drag, who’s actually rather fetching whether dressed in men’s or women’s clothing. How long has it been since they’ve seen a woman in person? What is going through their minds as they are reminded of what is on the outside of the camp? What are they thinking of this beautiful young man? Later, several of the prisoners sing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” while dressed in women’s clothing. Again, they do make for a somewhat fascinating display.

It’s during the theatrical presentation that the filmmakers reveal another one of the most galling aspects of war. The town or village of Douaumont keeps changing hands between the French and the Germans. When the Germans are in control, bells ring for their victory. When it’s back in the hands of the French, the Germas proclaim and bemoan the defeat in their papers. Marechal interrupts the show to share the good news, and everyone in the audience who isn’t German begins to sing “"La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem. I’d remind you that this is about five years before a similar scene occurs in another masterpiece, Casablanca. Needless to say, the Germans are not happy about this alleged sign of revolt and toss Marechal into solitary confinement.

The prisoners have some intriguing philosophical discussions about the purposes of war, and they certainly mourn what they’re missing while they’re imprisoned. That’s probably why they keep trying to escape. The French are digging a tunnel to escape in the first camp, and they’re close to finishing it when someone else tries to escape and is shot and killed near the spot where they would be escaping as well. It’s a harrowing moment for them to realize the dangers in what they are attempting. Of course, the repeated escape attempts also mean that they keep getting relocated to other prisoner-of-war camps. Three of the French prisoners wind up at Wintersborn, a huge stone castle being run by none other Rauffenstein, now wounded from battle and serving as a major. By this point in the film, Lt. Demolder (Sylvain Itkine) has three escape attempts on his record, Boeldieu four, and Marechal five times! Rosenthal is already at Wintersborn, presumably because he has also attempted to escape multiple times. It’s not very long before they begin plotting another escape. The one they pull off is certainly a clever one.

By the way, why do Rauffenstein and Boeldieu get along so well, and why does Rauffenstein treat Boeldieu with so much more respect than the others? Is there antisemitism involved? (Yes, this is a film from 1938, and it’s showing viewers what lies ahead in the next war.) Is it simply because they are from somewhat the same class, albeit from different countries? Are they, in a sense, equals? Or is there a level of attraction between them? Boeldieu is quite handsome, and Rauffenstein is rather, um, fastidious in his clothing and appearance. Consider those immaculate white gloves he wears. I know that seems to be trafficking in stereotypes, and the two men do discuss what will happen to the upper classes after the war ends, but to maintain a relationship over so much time and geography seems a little unexpected.

Then there’s the geranium that Rauffenstein grows. When he later kills Boeldieu during an attempted escape, he returns to his quarters and snips the bloom from the geranium. I don’t think it takes too much psychoanalyzing to recognize that he’s implying the death of something or someone beautiful. How emotionally bonded is he with Boeldieu at this point? Why is Rauffenstein the only soldier growing flowers? He even apologizes to Boeldieu for shooting him! Why is he the one who, after touching Boeldieu’s shoulder during a moving death scene, closes the Frenchman’s eyes and appears incredibly sad? More must be going on there than just simple respect.

One of the most moving sequences involves Marechal and Rosenthal hiding out on a farm in Germany after Rosenthal injures his foot while escaping. A German woman (played by Dita Parlo with a gentle stoicism befitting the role) shelters and feeds them, and she points to pictures of her husband and her brothers, all of whom were killed in various battles. She wonders aloud at the futility of war. She and Marechal fall in love, and he vows to return after the war and take her and her daughter to France with him. They have to escape Germany first, though, because they’re still being hunted. When looking at a map on their way to Switzerland, Marechal comments that he cannot see the borders between countries when he looks at the landscape. Rosenthal replies, “You can’t see borders. They’re man-made. Nature doesn’t care.” Indeed, it’s only people who care about such things, but the Germans shoot at them until they realize the two men have apparently crossed over into neutral territory.

The cinematography throughout the film is spectacular, and it deserved Oscar recognition. The use of darkness, in particular, is consistently effective, and the interiors of the various prisoner-of-war campus are designed to cast shadows, perhaps suggesting that not everything is quite as it appears. I’m not certain why the film was only nominated for Best Picture and nothing else, but this was before the Academy developed its Best Foreign Language Film (now Best International Film) category, so we should perhaps just marvel that the voters singled this now-classic film out for recognition.

Aside from its Best Picture nomination, The Grand Illusion holds another special place in film history because it apparently led to the formation of the Cannes Film Festival. It was apparently going to win the Mussolini Cup for best foreign film at the Venice Film Festival, but Mussolini himself intervened and prevented Renoir’s film from receiving the honor. The French Minister of National Education and Fine Arts at the time, Jean Zay, proposed the creation of a French film festival, and that eventually became the one we know as Cannes. You should know that if the fascists are against a film when war is actually looming, you might reconsider whether war films aren’t truly anti-war, but there I go again, raising a subject I said I wouldn’t.

Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production

Bad Girl (1931-32)

The title character of Bad Girl, Dorothy Haley (played by Sally Eilers), isn’t truly a bad girl at all. She’s tough, certainly, but she’s living in a city (New York) and a time where she and all other women are constantly the target of men’s attention, mostly unwanted and often repugnant. She and her friend Edna Briggs (a tough-talking Minna Gombell) are models for a store, and we get to see them displaying bridal gowns in the opening sequence, only to face the stares and leers and harassment by the men who are watching them. It begs the question of why the men are looking at women’s bridal gowns, but perhaps that’s to demonstrate just how tough it was for a single woman in the early 1930s.

Dorothy and Edna like to have a good time, so they head off to Coney Island after a tough day on the job. The scenes there have a lovely documentary feel, and it’s always fun to see footage from those earlier times and learn how people enjoyed themselves. Dorothy would like to meet a nice guy, but she thinks every man is going to be problematic. When she meets Eddie (a terrific James Dunn), he turns down her advances initially but starts to warm up to her. He lets her know quickly, though, that he wants a serious relationship, not a so-called “good time girl.” Dorothy and Ednar aren’t really those kinds of women, but what’s wrong with them going out and having some fun after work? Oh, that’s right. It’s 1931. I momentarily forgot.

Eddie walks Dorothy home, but he’s rather critical of the tenement life she lives. The movie isn’t clear on this, but she likely has no other choice than to live with her terrible brother in their small apartment. The tenement dwellers waste no time in demonstrating the full range of human experience in just a few minutes. There’s been a death and a birth and even a couple fighting over the husband smelling of limburger. You know, it’s a regular place, in other words. Eddie and Dorothy start to see each other regularly, and you can sense that they’re probably heading for a more permanent relationship.

However, Dorothy is quite tough, and when Eddie is late for a date one night, she shows up at his place to find him caught up in his work repairing radios. She tells him off pretty directly, but he begs her to stay with him and talk. Just talk. The movie doesn’t show anything more than that, and people do sometimes talk into the late hours when they’re falling in love. Unfortunately, she’s worried that being out so late will ruin her reputation and likely upset her controlling brother. She’s right, naturally, even though her brother has been staying up late with his girlfriend, Dorothy’s co-worker Edna. So… hypocrisy, unsurprisingly, shows up early in the film.

The plot then asks us to accept a series of rather silly misunderstandings between Eddie and Dorothy. He asks her to marry him and then can’t be reached for a day or so. Her brother has kicked her out and she has gone to stay with Edna, who is a widow with a young son who seems oddly interested in talking to Dorothy while she’s still in bed. Dorothy tries to call Eddie, but he’s moved out of his old place and apparently lost his job. When he shows up, he explains that he’s found them a new home, one that’s a bit bigger and more appropriate for a couple. They marry, and their relationship crisis seems to have been averted—temporarily.

Eddie has always wanted to own his own radio store, and he finds a nice location just when Dorothy finds out she’s pregnant. She’s frightened because her own mother died giving birth to her, but she won’t tell him that she’s expecting, which I suppose makes sense to her and no one else, including Edna. She seems frustrated about where they live (because it’s going to be too small to raise a family), but he misinterprets her emotions as displeasure with how small their apartment is. She wants to go back to work to earn some money for the baby, but she doesn’t tell him the reason, and he says he doesn’t want her to work because he feels like the husband should pay for everything so that his wife can stay home. Again, what year is this? 1931? You could still live on one person’s salary then?

He takes the money that’s he’s saved to open his own store and buys a new apartment and lots of new furniture because he thought she wanted a new place. She’s upset that he spent his money when she was probably hoping that it could be used, in part, to pay for the baby. It’s really quite silly that they both somehow wind up thinking that neither one wants to have a baby when it should be apparent that both of them are very excited. They clearly love each other; they’re just horrible at communicating their feelings.

The misunderstandings just keep piling on. Again, none of them make Dorothy a “bad girl.” She just doesn’t communicate clearly with her husband, and he doesn’t communicate clearly with her, so they’re always talking and acting at cross purposes. (Does this mean he is also a “bad boy”?) She’s worried about the delivery and mentions this expensive society doctor who would perhaps be more helpful. Eddie starts taking up boxing matches for extra cash and goes to visit this fancy obstetrician and breaks down asking the doctor to help him and his wife. Dunn is particularly effective in this scene, and you can understand why the doctor agrees to take the case.

On the day that Dorothy is supposed to go to the hospital, Eddie takes another match, and it’s quite brutal. He’s left bruised and bandaged, and she is upset when he shows up at the hospital, thinking he didn’t want to be there to see his own son being born. He just can’t seem to say the right things, and neither can she. If it weren’t for Edna’s interference at times, they might have separated or divorced before they could have their happy reconciliation. It is a Hollywood movie, after all, so you expect them to figure out how each other feels at some point before “The End” appears on screen.

The film was adapted from a book that was apparently much more scandalous in terms of what happens to Dorothy. This version, however, seems relatively tame to me. Dorothy and Eddie don’t really do anything that would cause their reputations to tarnish, and most of the plot complications are easily fixable, you know, if they just talk to each other honestly. It is interesting to see the difficult situation that women of that time were in. It’s certainly a professionally made film with some solid performances by the leads and major supporting characters. I’m not just certain that I would consider it to be Best Picture material.

Oscar Wins: Best Director (Frank Borzage) and Best Writing/Adaptation

Other Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production

Best Picture of 1930-31

 

The Winner: Cimarron, surely one of the worst films ever to be chosen for the Academy’s highest honor

The Other Nominees: East Lynne, The Front Page, Skippy, Trader Horn

My Choice: The Front Page, but just barely over Skippy. Both films feature great performances from big casts, but I’d give the edge to The Front Page for its skill with dialog and for the moments when it shows a real fluency with camerawork.

The Front Page (1930-31)

  

A lot of the action in The Front Page takes place in a news reporters’ room at a courthouse. The reporters banter with each other and discuss various news events, and from time to time, they seem to write actual articles. Of course, most of their articles seem to be fictions rather than fact, and perhaps that’s part of the central joke of this film. Keeping most of the action restricted to one room is perhaps a holdover from the movie’s origins as a play, but what makes it stand out (and perhaps got it nominated for Best Pictures) is the fast talking and sharp, overlapping dialog. The characters sure say a lot in the film’s brisk 100 minutes.

The central character is “Hildy” Johnson (played by Pat O’Brien with his usual charm), a reporter for the Morning Post who is leaving his job to move to New York and become an advertising man. He’s also marrying his long-time girlfriend, Peggy (Mary Brian), and he’s starting to realize that perhaps he’s devoted more time to his job than to his relationship with Mary. The problem is that a really intriguing news event happens, and his instinct is to write about it. You know, just-one-more-before-I-leave-for-good kind of thinking.

His boss/editor, Walter Burns (played by the Oscar-nominated Adolphe Menjou), also schemes to keep Hildy on the job instead of letting him go easily. Menjou always has a sly look on his face, and his Burns is always scheming to get what we wants, which is usually for his paper to get the scoop. However, just when you think you’ve detected some trend in his behavior, Menjou’s Burns takes a sharp, surprising turn. It’s quite a vehicle for a good performance even though it might be considered a supporting role nowadays.

The plot concerns the impending hanging execution of a prisoner named Williams. It’s set for the next morning, and the sequence of events involving Williams borders on the farcical at times. The sheriff (Clarence Williams) and the mayor (James Gordon) want the hanging because it will help them with the black vote in the upcoming election. (Williams is accused of murdering a black policeman). The sheriff also warns of possible communist rallies at the execution even though Williams is a self-professed anarchist rather than a communist, as the sheriff falsely claims. There’s also a prostitute named Molly (an appropriately acidic Mae Clarke) who witnessed the alleged crime and is angry at the reporters because none of them is printing the truth of what happened.

In an odd turn of events, an alienist asks Williams to help reenact the crime, allowing the convicted man (George E. Stone, funnier than you might expect him to be) to steal a gun and escape captivity. It happens to be the sheriff’s gun, which is certainly an embarrassing detail that the sheriff tries to conceal. It’s little wonder that the reporters mock the sheriff through the film; he really doesn’t seem very competent at his job. The film offers quite a subtle commentary on the corrupt nature of politicians like the mayor and sheriff.

The cast is filled with some other first-rate character actors besides those I’ve already mentioned. Edward Everett Horton plays a news reporter named Bensinger who works for a rival paper. He’s obsessed, weirdly, with smells and illnesses. He also has an old-fashioned rolltop desk that plays a pivotal part in the plot, but more on that later. Slim Summerville shows up as an envoy from the governor, who has granted Williams a reprieve. The sheriff and mayor attempt to bribe him with money and a night at a whorehouse to keep him silent. Clearly, they’ve never seen Summerville’s other movies.

Williams actually never makes it out of the courthouse. He uses a drainpipe to reach the newsroom, where Hildy and Burns and Molly try to help him hide. He winds up in the rolltop desk, and given how many people come and go through that room, it’s crazy that no one suspects he’s hiding there. It’s something of a running gag, and even though the film is sometimes described as a black comedy, it reached slapstick proportions at times like this. The resolution at the film’s ending is quite preposterous, honestly, but it’s a comedy after all, so some creative liberties fit right in.

I’d like to point out a couple of clever decisions the filmmakers have made. One is the opening credits sequence. Since the film is about reporters, we get to watch as someone flips through a series of newspaper pages, including ones that introduce the cast by having their images on the page with a caption about the actor and their character. It’s pretty cool to watch. The other happens near the end of the film, and it demonstrates some sharp editing skills. We again get a series of images, close-ups of the different reporters calling in to their papers with stories.

The Front Page is now in the public domain, so copies can be easily made and distributed. It’s been preserved by Library of Congress, and I do hope that the print they have is one of higher quality both visually and auditorily. I saw a pretty murky and fuzzy version. Let’s hope someone cleans up the film for a future release.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Actor (Adolphe Menjou), and Best Director (Lewis Milestone)

Skippy (1930-31)

 

Skippy is probably easily dismissed by many viewers as a children’s movie. Its hero is a young boy who leaves his prominent family’s home to play almost every day in the shantytown (called, literally, “Shantytown” here) because it’s more exciting and more fun than the boring, staid environment where he lives. However, the film subverts our expectations about the concerns of children, placing the issues that the poor young people face squarely at the center of the narrative. Yes, most of the characters are kids, but they’re living in the Great Depression and facing some very systemic obstacles to survival and happiness.

Jackie Cooper, still the youngest ever nominee for Best Actor, is marvelous as the lead character of Skippy. He’s a mischievous kid whose stern father, a doctor with the Board of Health, tries to teach him manners and the concepts of right and wrong (from the dad’s narrow perspective, of course). Skippy just wants to have fun, and Cooper is quite funny in the scenes where he’s looking for an angle to circumvent his father’s (and mother’s) expectations. Watching him trying to avoid getting ready in the morning is a master class in physical comedy. Skippy just wants to stay in bed, but that’s not permitted in his home, so he finds some shortcuts, such as wetting his hair rather than combing it and making sure that the toothbrush is wet without brushing his teeth.

He likes hanging out in Shantytown across the tracks because there are seemingly no rules there. He defies his father’s order not to cross over the tracks by crawling through a pipe under them, adhering to the so-called letter of the “law” if not the spirit of it. The kids of Shantytown are a diverse group. There’s a bully named Harley Nubbins (played by Donald Haines), a young black boy named Snowflake (which is supposed to be funny, I guess, but it certainly raises a lot of questions), and a new kid named Sooky (Robert Coogan) who befriends Skippy after almost fighting over some wood he’s collected from the boys’ clubhouse so that his mother can have firewood to keep them warm.

The film was based upon a comic strip and novel by Percy Crosby, and it retains a bit of the episodic flavor of a comic strip. The film takes on a very serious subject, though, with its examination of what happens when a child learns a truth about grown-ups and adult life. Sooky’s dog, Penny, doesn’t have a license because it costs $3, money he and his mother don’t have. Skippy’s father, played by Willard Robertson, is trying to raze Shantytown because of concerns about disease and crime in the area. Of course, the residents struggle to survive and have no alternatives to their run-down homes, but that’s not how Dr. Skinner and his colleagues see the place.

It’s a little complicated to explain what happens with Penny, but Harley takes Skippy’s yo-yo and accidentally breaks the windshield of his father’s car. His father just happens to be the dogcatcher, and soon Penny is missing from Sooky’s home. They don’t have the money to pay for the license and when they do obtain it from Skippy’s bank, the dogcatcher takes it to pay for his windshield instead. What follows is a series of frantic and, at times, funny escapades. The boys try to sell glass bottles, run errands for cash, sell lemonade made from a single lemon, and even put on a show to raise the funds. The show is very similar to the ones you’ve seen in the Our Gang/Little Rascals comedies, with a terrible magical act where Skippy tries to saw a box in half that has Sooky in one end and Snowflake in the other. It culminates in the reading of a truly awful poem by Eloise, Skippy’s annoying neighbor.

Penny is a mutt, to be sure, but she’s Sooky’s dog, and he describes her as an “all-around thoroughbred,” and his reasoning has to be heard to be understood. It certainly represents the way a child could rationale something like a thoroughbred designation. When the boys fall a bit short in collecting the necessary amount, they try to bargain with the dogcatcher, only to learn that Penny and all of the other dogs have already been euthanized. It’s so eerie to watch them walk past all of the silent cages, quite the contrast from all of the barking dogs seen there earlier in the film.

How do you console a child with a broken heart? Skippy tries to get Penny’s body so that they can bury her, but all of the dogs have already been disposed of. It’s when he sees his father’s name on the orders for catching dogs that Skippy realizes how complicit his father is in the death of his friend’s beloved pet. He tries to distract Sooky as they walk back to his shack, but Sooky runs to his mother’s arms and says he wants to die now that his dog is dead. It’s heartbreaking to watch this sequence, and Coogan (the younger brother of the great Jackie Coogan) is exceptional here.

Skippy has learned that adults are unconcerned about what children are dealing with, and he returns home so sad that he won’t eat dinner and goes straight to bed. He prays to God to help Sooky and keep him alive. His father overhears the prayers but doesn’t understand the context, and Skippy won’t tell him or even let his father try to comfort him. Cooper secured his Best Actor nomination with this scene, no doubt. The next morning, Skippy cannot even take any joy in the new bicycle his father purchases as a means to cheer him up.

The ending is perhaps not all that surprising. Through a series of odd events, Sooky winds up with two new dogs, including one that Skippy got by trading away his bike. Dr. Skinner changes his mind about Shantytown and decides to help them get rid of the dangers of contagious diseases in the homes there. He also manages to get into a fight with the dogcatcher after accidentally breaking the man’s car windshield himself. It’s quite a turnaround for a man so conservative and limited in his thinking earlier in the film, but I suppose when grown-ups realize that children are dealing with serious concerns too, maybe they can step up to do the right thing.

Norman Taurog won the Oscar for Best Director, no doubt for his ability to wrangle so many child actors and capture such moving performances from them. However, I think he also delicately balances the tone of the film, mixing comic moments with a very serious subject. Taurog was the youngest winner for Best Director until Damien Chazelle won for La La Land (2016). He was also Cooper’s uncle, and if the story is true about how he made the young boy cry by pretending to have Cooper’s dog shot by a security officer, then I’m not sure he should have kept his Oscar.

Oscar Win: Best Director (Norman Taurog)

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Actor (Jackie Cooper), and Best Writing, Adaptation

Trader Horn (1930-31)

  

Trader Horn is based upon the real-life adventures of Alfred Aloysius “Trader” Horn and was reportedly the first non-documentary film to be shot on location in Africa. Horn was one of those white guys who traveled the rivers and jungles and plains of Africa trading goods like salt for treasures like ivory, and he certainly must have had some fascinating encounters. The film reportedly took six months to make as the crew went to the countries of Tanganyika, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, and the Belgian Congo with the help of “white hunters” who are thanked by name in the opening credits.

It’s best to state up front that the film represents the colonial attitude that many white explorers had towards the continent of Africa and the African people there. Horn (played here by Harry Carey) thinks all of the native tribespeople, including the bearers who do all the work on his expeditions, are savages. It’s Peru (Duncan Renaldo, years away from his performances as the Cisco Kid in the movies and on the TV series) who corrects Horn and says they’re just “happy, ignorant children.” That certainly isn’t helpful since it’s just a different form of condescension. It also isn’t helped any that this line follows Peru looking at a series of African women with bare breasts.

I suppose it would be interesting to know if the filmmakers were truly depicting the native villages with any measure of accuracy. There’s an early sequence involving daily life where we see people getting their hair braided, playing games, and talking with others. We get close-ups of their faces and hairstyles and clothing, and we can only hope that these were all correct depictions, but that does seem rather unlikely. At times, I thought that perhaps some of the rituals performed during the movie might actually be a mixture from different tribes. What could have been an intriguing ethnographic film instead becomes a template for a lot of later movies set in Africa and the continuing misrepresentation of the people of Africa.

One of the interesting aspects of the film is the footage of the various animals Horn and Peru and their company encounter. It’s quite a list, and I’m not even sure I was comprehensive in my accounting: hippos, crocodiles, various birds, monkeys, giraffes, lions, Thompson’s gazelles, waterbuck, hyenas, leopards, impala, buffalo, baboons, warthogs, eland, and many, many more. It must have been like being on safari for the audiences in 1931, and I guess the commentary as these men travel (almost a voiceover) is helpful in identifying and describing the various animals. A bit of editing might have helped, though, so we aren’t just cataloguing every creature they meet. By the way, the threat of crocodiles seem particularly constant. Perhaps it’s because the men travel by water, but you see a lot of crocodiles jumping off the shore into the water as the film progresses. The Africa in Trader Horn is just overrun with crocodiles. Again, a little more editing would have made the film more interesting.

Other than introducing audiences to a lot of African animals, the film concerns itself with the slimmest of plots. Horn and his company meet a missionary named Edith Trent, whose baby daughter was kidnapped by a tribe many years earlier. Her husband was also taken, but he was killed, so now Mrs. Kent devotes her time to searching for their daughter. She doesn’t get much time in the film, though, as she’s found dead herself in the next scene. Horn and Peru decide that they must find the now grown daughter, so they begin a trek across Africa to find the tribe that took the child.

They themselves are captured after the halfway mark of the film and taken to a village controlled by Nina, the White Goddess (played by Edwina Booth with wild eyes and a lot of frantic aggression and quite a cascade of long blonde hair). She’s the daughter, of course, but now she’s in control of a tribe and seems to maintain her power by beating people. She even beats Peru at one point—right after he tells her “white people must help each other”—but he just takes it, an act that intrigues her a great deal, but more on that later. They’re forced to watch at the bearers are killed, and then they’re tied to crosses and hoisted upside down and about to be lit on fire when Nina finally stops the villagers. Even though she doesn’t speak any English, she’s decided to escape with them across a lake. How she figured out who they are and where she came from and what she has in common with them is all very mysterious.

The film then proceeds to put everyone in the cast in danger. Horn, Peru, Nina and Horn’s most loyal bearer, Rencharo (Mutia Oomulu, giving the part more dignity than it truly deserves) take a wooden canoe across a lake filled with hippos, some of the most aggressive and dangerous animals in the water. They later try to take some meat away from a pack of lions and almost get Nina killed. Horn had already pointed out about the wilds of Africa: “When you're not eating somebody, you're trying to keep somebody else from eating you.” That certainly seems to be the case for most of the film.

The cinematography for the film is quite lovely, but it is rather dark at times so that can make it tough to see all of what’s on the screen. The scenic vista shots are beautiful, and the sequence by a waterfall is quite breathtaking. But the film cannot seem to pick a rhythm to go with the action. At times, it cranks up the movement via fast motion, but why? We’ve had a long, languid walk across the veldt, but now that something exciting is happening, we need to speed it up? I realize it’s not a key plot point, but I was also fascinated by the enormous pith helmet Peru wears throughout the film, and it’s looking pretty rough by the end. Is it meant to be symbolic? Of what exactly?

Nina’s old tribe shows up to scare everyone into running, splitting up into pairs to be more efficient. Ranchero dies by Horn’s side, allowing the film to superimpose his image over the African skyline at the film’s end in one of the most maudlin moments I’ve seen in a while. Nina and Peru get rescued (if that’s the word for it) by a group of pygmies, who take then safely to a village and then to a trading post to be reunited with Horn just before he puts them both on a ship to leave. You see, Nina has to be educated so that she can be her true self; that means she’ll be white again according to the racialized thinking of the movie. Horn will stay behind in Africa and see Ranchero’s face in the sky.

The novelty of the film’s subject matter and the images of Africa must have been the key aspects that got it nominated for Best Picture. Carey plays a crusty old adventurer with a lot of gusto, certainly, and Renaldo makes for a handsome “love interest.” Seeing the two men side-by-side does make a viewer wonder how they both thought that Nina might pick them. Isn’t it clear that she’d choose the good-looking younger man with the impressive sideburns (not to mention the size of his pith helmet)? Then again, watching this movie nowadays raises so many questions. How staged were the animal attacks? Why are there drums in the background for so much of the film? Were there not other, better movies in this year that were eligible for awards consideration?

Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production