Best One-Reel Short Subject for 1938

 

The Great Heart relates the history of Father Damien, a Belgian priest who arrived in Hawaii in the mid-19^th Century and started working with lepers. Well, he wasn’t actually a priest yet when he arrived, but since he was the only one who was willing to break the taboo on touching lepers, he became the priest to a leper colony on the island of Molokai. The lepers who were isolated there initially resist his efforts to help as well as his attempts to get them to worship. He does get their attention when he destroys the places where they drink too much alcohol and engage in what a priest might consider bad behavior, stuff like dancing and, as the narrator puts it, “love-making” (even though an astute viewer certainly knows what that euphemism means). Father Damien (played by youthful-looking Tom Neal, sometimes in less-than-realistic old-age makeup) and a few others slowly start making improvements to the island, but when he changes the opening of his sermons from “my brethren” to “we lepers,” revealing that he too has become infected, the news of his illness generates lots of donations and other assistance—plus greater attention to the plight of those afflicted with leprosy. Carey Wilson, the narrator of this short, displays a sense of earnestness that borders on the hyperbolic at times. When he asks, “Your heart is undaunted, isn’t it, Damien?”, you want to remind Wilson that Father Damien has been long dead and buried and probably cannot answer such an excessive question. I did learn from this film that one of the effects of leprosy is that the body feels no pain due to a loss of nerve sensation; that’s actually how Father Damien learns of his infection, being unable to feel the heat from the water in which he is soaking his feet. Thousands died from the horrible disease, but this film does take it pretty easy on its viewers by never showing the faces of any of the lepers, just their backs or their silhouettes. The implication is that it’s perhaps just too hideous a disease to witness closely in person. That is, unless (as Wilson puts it) you have a “great brave young heart” like Father Damien. I suppose by the end of the story of his life and all of the sacrifices that he made, the hyperbole might be earned – just a bit.

That Mothers Might Live details the realization by a 19^th-Century Hungarian physician, Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, of the need by medical professionals to wash their hands before treating patients. It begins with his concern that so many women were dying in hospitals after giving birth. Dr. Semmelweis (played by Sheppard Strudwick) even writes a book, The Prevention of Childhood Fever (the film’s shorter version of the actual title, Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever), detailing the need for antiseptic measures to limit the spread of germs and prevent puerperal fever, but he is, of course, initially ostracized by the medical community. We all know now that his ideas later caught on and are considered standard medical procedure, but it took decades for his ideas to slowly catch on throughout Europe. This short is a nice, illuminating tribute to a somewhat forgotten medical pioneer, and it reaches quite an emotional climax with Emmelweis’s increasing mental instability and his death in an asylum. However, the filmmakers made a rather strange choice: Strudwick and the other actors do not speak on camera. Voiceover narration by John Nesbitt (most famous nowadays for his narration of the MGM series The Passing Parade) provides the dialogue, all in a rather melodramatic, even hyperbolic, at times, tone. Why weren’t the actors allowed to speak their lines? Was it cheaper just to have a narrator say everything? It’s quite distracting to watch as the actors recited dialogue only to hear Nesbitt’s voice instead. This choice doesn’t detract too much from the overall strength of the storyline, but it is odd nonetheless. (By the way, The Great Heart makes the same choice for voiceover narration rather than the actors speaking their lines. It must have been a thing in the 1930s.)

I’ve had no luck finding information on Timber Toppers, the third nominee for Best One-Reel Short Subject. All that’s available online is that it runs 10 minutes, was directed by Tom Cumminsky, and was released by 20^th Century Fox. It’s not available for streaming, not even on “those websites” that specialize in films that are not available elsewhere. Presumably, it’s about the timber industry since “timber topping” is a term associated with the production of lumber, but that’s hardly enough to judge the quality of a short film. Oddly enough, no one even states whether or not it’s a lost film. Since that’s the case, I have not choice but to add it to my list of movies I’m likely never to see in order to complete this project.

Oscar Winner: That Mothers Might Live

My Choice: Since I’ve only seen two of the three and both of those were melodramatic and over-the-top, I’d pick That Mothers Might Live as a toss-up. They both deal with individuals who made a difference in the treatment and care of others, but Dr. Emmelweis might have had a somewhat larger and profound impact. Both That Mothers Might Live and The Great Heart tread some of the same territory, though, and use some of the same storytelling methods.

Best Two-Reel Short Subject of 1938

 

The Declaration of Independence depicts the events leading up to the signing of the document that created the United States. It’s an earnest short, almost to the point of stodginess, and the acting is particularly stiff, but it does a nice job of showing some of the different points of debate that much of the delegates considered during their lengthy deliberations. The focus here is primarily upon Caesar Rodney, a delegate from the colony of Delaware who had to escape being held by loyalists and sidestep the subsequent attempts to halt him on his journey to Philadelphia to sign the final document. He makes it just in time to cast the deciding vote in favor of independence, but that can hardly be considered a spoiler at this point. Having such a relatively minor historical person get this much attention is a rarity, and it does allow us to consider these events from a different perspective. However, we also get some of the more expected moments of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin hashing out the wording of the declaration. There’s even a mention of the issues associated with slavery, but those are quickly passed over in favor of frequent moments of the reading of lengthy passages from the document. (However, it is a bit jarring to see Adams make the point that the Northern states were too invested in the slave trade to support any anti-slavery statements in the document!) You shouldn’t necessarily turn to a short film, or any film, for that matter, to get historically accurate information, but I do think that the broad outlines of what happened in 1776 ring mostly true in this film. The recreation of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is also impressive, thanks to the use of Technicolor to enliven what has become such an indelible image from our American history.

Swingtime in the Movies manages to cram a series of lively musical numbers into its twenty-minute run time. It’s essentially a backstage musical that shows us what happens when a film production goes badly. The director of the film within a film (a strange Western entitled The Texas Tornado) is Nitvitch (Fritz Feld), and he has a thick unidentifiable accent, and that makes it tough for his actors to understand him. He asks his leading lady for a “sous” or “soused” accent when he wants a “South” accent, and her attempts to play drunk cause Nitvitch even more frustration. Only Sammy (the gifted and sly Charley Foy) seems to understand what Nitvitch wants, and he serves as an ersatz translator, handing out jibes along with his explanations. However, when the leading lady starts to lisp out of nervousness, Nitvitch and Sammy decide a break for lunch is in order. The studio cafeteria is filled with stars of the time: George Brent, Marie Wilson, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Crime School Kids, John Garfield, Rosemary Lane, and Priscilla Lane. It also has some amazingly talented singing and dancing waitresses, who have one marvelous number involving some very precise moves through a row of kitchen doors. One of them, Joan Mason (played by the very game Katherine Kane), catches the director’s eye after there’s a misunderstanding involving a group of aspiring starlets from Joan’s hometown (and he hears her “authentic” Southern accent). Joan is hired, and as the saying goes, a star is born. Despite a series of mishaps during filming, including several attempts by different men to demonstrate how to kiss Joan properly on film, Joan (and Kane herself) shine in the scenes they film, especially the ones in which she gets to sing. Jerry Colonna, famous for his big eyes and large mustache, also has a cameo in the short, playing the title character of the Texas Tornado. Kane, who would later spell her first name Kathryn, also went by the nickname of “Sugar” (as in Sugar Kane…). She was very talented, featured in several shorts and a couple of features, but had a relatively brief Hollywood career. Even though it is a short film, Swingtime in the Movies is a great showcase for Kane’s talents.

They’re Always Caught, an entry in MGM’s Crime Does Not Pay series of shorts, highlights what early crime investigation labs were able to accomplish. The plot revolves around the recently elected Mayor Fletcher (a brusque Charles Waldron) who wants to clean up the city by removing its criminal elements. He upsets contractors who have been taking money from the city without doing their promised work, he fires employees who’ve been taking bribes, and he criticizes and threatens those who are profiting from illegal gambling in the city’s parks. Needless to say, the criminals are unhappy with Fletcher’s crusade, particularly the aptly named Big Matty and his syndicate. The city’s prosecutor, Jimmy Stark (an unctuous John Eldredge), has a radio show where he touts his many successes (all of them small-time crooks) and remarks upon his close working relationship with the mayor. Of course, Stark is also on the take; he’s working with Big Matty more than he is with Mayor Fletcher. After listening to one of Stark’s broadcast, a small business owner, dry cleaner Eddie Diesel (Louis Jean Heydt, appropriately jittery from being a target of the crime syndicate), decides that he needs to talk to the mayor because he’s still having to pay protection money. He feels that Stark is arresting only the “little” criminals, not the ones in control. After the mayor is killed in a car explosion, Diesel gets framed for the murder because he was “prowling” around the mayor’s house the night before the explosion. Stark is particularly anxious to have Diesel convicted, but the crime scene investigations send a lot of evidence to the crime lab. While the plot up to this point has been interesting, when the crime lab (under the direction of Stanley Ridges’ Dr. Pritchard) begins its work, the short becomes much more intriguing as it demonstrates the methodical process that helps to identify the actual murder (if you haven’t already figured out that it’s Stark, you’ve not watched a lot of crime films). Examining burlap fibers and gunpowder residue might sound boring, but the earnestness with which Pritchard and his team search for the truth is quite endearing. They also have a suspect early on—and it’s definitely not Diesel. They allow Stark to watch as they determine the source of the bomb, prompting the prosecutor to get a manicure so that he can’t be connected to the materials from which the bomb was composed. That just makes Pritchard even more suspicious, and when the crime lab uses iodine spray on the mayor’s notepad, discovering that he wanted to fire Stark, they just have to figure out how to ensure that the police can arrest the right person for the crime. The Crime Does Not Pay series always had tight plots and restrained acting, but They’re Always Caught highlights just how even a seemingly minor aspect of law enforcement (a crime lab) can be key to having the right person in jail.

Oscar Winner: The Declaration of Independence

My Choice: They’re Always Caught takes a seemingly minor aspect of police work and makes it central to the solving of crime. This was decades before any of the CSI television series, but They’re Always Caught demonstrates the same sort of intellectual curiosity about how relatively minor-seeming clues can be the key to finding the true criminals.

Test Pilot (1938)

I suspect that Test Pilot was nominated for Best Picture of 1938 on the strength of its spectacular flying sequences. The film features Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy, all of them good, but what I paid particular attention to was the way that director Victor Fleming (one year away from helming Gone With the Wind) handles the footage of the planes. The planes themselves get closeups, and we’re treated to a lot of spinning propellors and gleaming metal surfaces. For a story about men who are trying out new, experimental planes, Test Pilot also never disappoints with its depictions of the dangers inherent in the title job.

Gable plays Jim Lane, a pilot for an airline run by Howard B. Drake (the ubiquitous Lionel Barrymore). Lane is a womanizer and a hard drinker who seldom gets enough sleep to make him truly ready to fly. That's where Tracy's Gunner Morris comes in. He's Jim's best friend and the only one who can seem to get him in the air and back down on the ground safely. It probably has a lot to do with the gum Gunner sticks on the plane before each flight; at least, that's what we as an audience are meant to believe. It’s an unexpectedly sweet move on the part of someone involved in such a typically macho pursuit.

While trying to set a speed record flying cross country, Jim encounters a thunderstorm. After the new plane starts leaking oil, he dumps all of the gasoline so it won't explode and lands in a field in Kansas. And who should happen to be in that field but the lovely Myrna Loy, playing a farm girl named Ann Barton. While Jim waits for Gunner to arrive and then finish repairs to the plane, he and Ann go to a baseball game and take in a movie. In short, they fall in love. Ann already has a boyfriend, Joe (Ted Pearson), but when Clark Gable asks you to fly away with him, you go. Even though he had already left for New York, once Jim sees the baseball field where they saw the game together, he turns the plane around and takes her to Indianapolis to be married.

Of course, test pilots would naturally make less-than-desirable husbands, given their propensity for dangerous behavior, and the owners of the airlines probably prefer single men to be test pilots since they have fewer reasons to play it safe in the air. So when Jim says he’s taking a week off for a honeymoon, Drake fires him instead. Jim and Ann (with Gunner tagging along too) now have to find a place of their own and another job for Jim to make money. He begins working for a rival of Drake's, even defeating Drake's new flyer, Benson (Louis Jean Heydt), in an air race that ends with a fatal crash. The sequence involving the crash also includes Jim flying a plane that catches on fire soon after take-off. The special effects were state-of-the-art stuff for 1938, and they're still pretty thrilling to watch even today.

Both Jim and Ann start to ponder the possibility of a crash ending his life, and each reacts in a different way. After giving half of the prize money to Benson's widow, Jim goes on a four-day bender, winding up in a Chicago hotel. Ann makes plans to leave Jim. He decides that he needs money to show Ann that he can support her and be a good husband, so he takes on every dangerous mission available. Perhaps they hadn't yet invented irony in 1938. He even tries to fly higher than any plane has flown before in a new military plane that will be carrying bombs.

It's the sequence involving the experiments with that new military plane that provide some of the most thrilling moments of Test Pilot. Tracy's Gunner forgets to put his gum on the plane the way he always does for luck, so you immediately know what's going to happen. He accompanies Jim on the flight, which involves carrying enough weight to simulate the size of the bomb the plane is designed to carry. As Jim keeps pushing the plane to reach 30,000 feet, the sand bags break loose and trap Gunner. The plane crashes into a forest, killing Gunner and leaving Jim to be the one to tell Ann that someone is dead from a plane crash, a task Gunner always feared he would have. It's a nerve-wracking, thrilling, emotional sequence to watch, and it's the highlight of the film.

Interestingly, the film starts with two disclaimers. The first is about the safety of air travel, no doubt an attempt to keep the airline industry from losing business when people see that planes can and do crash and that people sometimes die when planes crash: “Any hazards [the film] presents bear no relation to the safety of modern air transportation.” Sure. The other is about the military and the need to keep secret its operations and developments of new technology: “the technical data used [in the film] in no way represent the performance of any actual aircraft, either military or civil.” Again, sure. I doubt either warning was necessary although I can imagine that, given the powerful imagery of the film, some people might have thought they were watching a documentary.

Gable and Tracy are their usual reliable selves here. Both men were natural actors, and they work well together here. You can sense that their characters’ friendship is real (more on that in a bit), and they seem to have a good time in the scenes where they bicker. The gem among the actors in this movie, though, is Loy. She could be humorous, quick-witted, teary-eyed, sharp-tongued—you name it. Here she has what could be a thankless job, diverting attention away from the macho story involving the dangerous work of men in the air, but she always manages to make herself intriguing. Aside from the sequences involving the planes, the most interesting element of Test Pilot is Loy's performance.

When you watch some of these older films, you can’t help but notice that sometimes the tension isn’t always between just a male and female character. Consider that Tracy’s Gunner is the most consistent person in Jim Lane’s life, and he’s always trying to get Gable’s Jim to leave women alone. He even seems jealous when Jim marries Ann. Oh, I know some will say that’s just because Gunner wants Jim to keep making money so that Gunner can get his share, and he fears that marriage will “tame” Jim to where he won’t desire to keep flying. How then does a viewer explain that Gunner is just as tense as Ann when Jim flies. He’s just as worried about what might happen in a crash. Remember that the two men shared an apartment, and Jim even ensures that Gunner has a room in his new home with Ann. The bickering between Gunner and Jim is almost as pointed and racy as the bantering between Ann and Jim, and should I remind you that Gunner blows Jim a kiss more than once before takeoff? This usually occurs after one or the other of them has used “darling” or “honey” as a term of endearment. Even the camera seems to support this interpretation. At one point, while Loy’s Ann is driving, Gable’s Jim sits next to her in the front seat. Meanwhile, in the middle of the back seat, literally between them on the screen, sits Tracy’s Gunner. Remember, too, that it’s Gunner’s death after a crash that causes Jim to give up flying, not Ann’s consistent worrying about his safety. Yes, I’m fully aware that others will watch this film without noting any of the homoerotic moments I’ve discussed, but something seems to have been going on a lot in those older films after the implementation of the Production Code.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Original Story, and Best Film Editing

You Can't Take It with You (1938)

You Can't Take It with You was directed by Frank Capra, perhaps the most famous director of the decade of the 1930s. It deals with some typical Capra themes: the class struggle in America during the Depression, gender politics, our connections to our fellow human beings, all very much a part of the FDR era in the United States. Yet, at its heart, it's a bit of a farce, a story of how confusion can lead to the most intriguing of outcomes. The title of the film is, as you probably already know, about the value of money. You can’t take it (money) with you when you pass away, but the relationships between you and other people is something that you’ll always treasure, maybe (?) even more than the money you have.

Anthony P. Kirby (the solid Edward Arnold) is trying to obtain a monopoly over the munitions industry in America. To do so, he needs to buy up all of the property in a 12-block area, but he faces one holdout: an elderly gentleman named Martin Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), who lives in a home full of eccentrics. What Kirby doesn't know is that his son Tony (a young and smoothly handsome Jimmy Stewart) is in love with Vanderhof's granddaughter Alice (Jean Arthur), who works as Tony's secretary. Tony and Alice are unaware of the machinations of the elder Kirby, and even Grandpa Vanderhof doesn't make the connection to Kirby upon first sight because the businessman has been using a go-between for the negotiations. Tony meets Alice's family and still wants to marry her. Alice then tries to set up a dinner with Tony's parents where the Vanderhofs will allegedly all be on their best behavior. When the Kirbys arrive a day early for dinner, though, all hell breaks loose.

You may be wondering what is so eccentric about the Vanderhof family. Well, Grandpa quit work one day and hasn't earned a living in almost thirty years; he's also refused to pay his income taxes. His daughter, played by Spring Byington, has taken up playwriting because a typewriter was delivered by accident to their home; she keeps getting stuck, however, because she puts her characters into situations (like being in a monastery) about which she has no knowledge. Her husband makes illegal fireworks in the basement. Alice's sister Essie (Ann Miller in one of her earliest movie roles) has taken up dance lessons with an exiled Russian who likes to wrestle—that is, when she's not busy making candy named "Love Dreams" in the family's kitchen. Miller is almost always on her toes when she’s on the screen, and it’s an odd affection that turned out to be a precursor for her long career. Her screen husband (played by Dub Taylor, who has apparently always sounded that way) plays the vibraphone for her and likes to put cards in the candy with sayings like "The Revolution Is Coming." And those are just the family members. Anyone who wants to live in the house is welcome so long as they continue to have fun.

The dinner involving the two families, the Vanderhofs and the Kirbys, is meant to be an example of the divide in America at the time. The Vanderhofs seem to be at their weirdest on that particular day. They’re just being themselves really, but one of them is dancing around and another one has taken up painting with a model who’s wearing just a toga and a pet crow that keeps flying around the house. The Russian dance teacher decides to throw Mr. Kirby to the ground in a strange wrestling maneuver. All Mrs. Kirby (the stalwart Mary Forbes) seems to be able to do is look shocked or exasperated; she comes across as quite the snob regardless of the situation she’s in. The dinner party eventually breaks up—before a meal of frankfurters can actually be served—due to a police raid that results in everyone’s arrest. Why everyone has to be arrested is a subject for a much longer discussion elsewhere.

Frankly, I'm not sure that this family would be considered all that odd these days. More restrictive times might have called for them to be more isolated, yet they are friends with everyone in the neighborhood. In fact, when everyone in the house is arrested—oh, it's really just too complicated to explain it all here—the courtroom is filled with their friends, all of whom take up a collection to pay for the bail money as soon as the judge passes sentence. The judge (played by reliable character actor Henry Davenport) looks on with bemusement as the collecting of the money renders his courtroom too chaotic to control with his gavel. It's actually one of the funniest courtroom scenes I've watched since What's Up, Doc?

There are some serious issues at work here as well. The elder Kirby begins to develop a conscience after spending time in jail with some of the poorer classes of people. And Grandpa Vanderhof spouts some pretty Socialist-sounding ideas at times. Not that those ideas would have been uncommon in 1938 anyway, given the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal and all. This movie is quite obviously on the side of the downtrodden and tends to showcase their humanity and friendliness. Those who make money are all portrayed as greedy and unconcerned with the fate of other people. They're also friendless, perhaps the greatest indignity of all in the context of this film. All of it is pretty typical of a Capra movie from this time period.

I’ve mentioned performers like Mary Forbes and Henry Davenport, but You Can’t Take It with You is filled with lots of great character actors. Donald Meek, for example, plays an accountant who really wants to make toys, such as a mechanical rabbit that rises up out of a cabbage. He moves into the Vanderhof home and starts participating in such activities as making explosives. Eddie Anderson, who would later play the character of Rochester on the Jack Benny television series, plays one of the Vanderhof servants. Even the visitors to the home are played by actors with long careers. Charles Lane plays the IRS agent who tries to get back taxes from Grandpa, and Ward Bond, of all people, shows up as a police detective. Even Kolenkhov, the Russian dance teacher who really just wants dinner with the Vanderhofs when he visits, is played by Mischa Auer, who would have a long career in the movies and on television.

Jean Arthur is actually the top-billed actor for the film, and while she’s very good here, almost everyone else in the movie outshines her in terms of getting laughs. She’s almost the calm in the center of a storm of strangeness. Jimmy Stewart is very sweet and rather subtle as Tony Kirby, the wealthy son who is questioning his father’s principles. Stewart has a sly grin on his face most of the time, and his look of amusement is rather consistent, particularly in his encounters with the Vanderhof family. Even Lionel Barrymore, who is not my favorite actor from this time period even though he seems to be in almost every movie that was nominated for an Academy Award, is rather funny.

This movie is, overall, somewhat amusing, but I’m not certain that it breaks any new ground stylistically or thematically. The film’s origins as a stage play are somewhat obvious, given how much of the plot takes place in the central room of the Vanderhof family, but the filmmakers have opened the narrative a bit to allow for other locations. The film is sort of charming in its depiction of the kind of people who aren't often the subject of movies, but even they are given a pretty glossy shine. There's no "real" poverty on display here; all of the members of the family are perfectly content with their lives and none of them are struggling to find food to eat or shelter or any other of life's necessities. You Can't Take It with You has a message at its heart, but I doubt it's a message that was "radical" when the film was released. I'm pretty certain almost everyone would have been against corporate greed in the midst of the recovery from the Great Depression. Perhaps it was just the timing of its release that worked in its favor, what with its message that everyone wanted to see being reinforced, but I suspect it might have just been the hard-to-resist thought of living with such a band of people who live how they want to live, no questions asked. It’s not truly a slapstick comedy or a screwball comedy in the classic sense, I suppose, since it’s not quite as hilarious as the filmmakers think it is, but it’s an entertaining enough couple of hours.

Oscar Wins: Outstanding Production and Best Director (Frank Capra)

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Spring Byington), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Recording, and Best Film Editing

Jezebel (1938)

Many people might be tempted to compare Jezebel to the film that would win the Oscar for Best Picture one year later, Gone with the Wind. However, they aren't similar at all despite both being about willful Southern belles. Bette Davis’s Julie Marsden puts Scarlett O’Hara to shame in terms of her abilities to manipulate people. Having two strong female characters from the South in back-to-back years would make comparisons inevitable, but Davis must make an unsympathetic character into one we like and even admire by film's end. Vivien Leigh's Scarlett is never truly fully a woman we can't like. We can certainly feel sorry for her or perhaps wonder at some of the silly choices she makes, but she never loses our sympathy the way that Julie sometimes can. It’s a rather unlikely redemption arc that the film follows for her, but in the hands of Bette Davis, it’s completely believable.

Jezebel is about the mores of a time before the Civil War, but the point upon which its plot revolves is a wave of “yellowjack” or “yellow fever,” one of those that periodically swept through the swamps around New Orleans and decimated that city's population. In the midst of a threat of an outbreak, we watch as Julie destroys her chance at love. She loses the man she loves because of her inability or lack of desire to follow the rigid guidelines for "proper" behavior in antebellum Louisiana.

It's intriguing to consider some of the "shocking" behavior that Julie exhibits. She wears a riding habit (what they call “horse clothes”) to a party because she hasn't had time to change. The party guests, including the always entertaining Spring Byington as Mrs. Kendrick, give her the once-over to suggest just how galling they find her attire to be. She walks into a bank to ask Preston why he isn't joining her at a dress fitting. Only men would have been allowed in a bank during the 1850s, presumably, judging from the looks on the faces of the other patrons and bank employees. And wouldn’t it be strange to have a man at a dress fitting when he’s not married yet to the woman trying on dresses?

Speaking of outfits, Julie wearing an infamous red dress to the Olympus Ball, an event where young unmarried women are expected to wear white to demonstrate their virginity, I guess, is one of the best known sequences in the film. One of my friends always referred to this as the “malaria ball” because it stands out so much. Others try to warn Julie not to wear such a vulgar color, and I’ve always suspected that it’s because a red dress at that time might be associated with a, uh, loose woman? Everyone responds to her arrival at the ball as if she were contagious. Watch Davis's face as Henry Fonda’s Preston Dillard forces her to dance after everyone else has left the floor out of shame or embarrassment or some other "appropriate" reaction to her choice of attire.

Preston leaves for New York due to his obligations to the Dillard family’s banking business, but he returns a year later with, gasp, a Yankee wife, Amy. Julie tries to attract his attention by wearing, at last, the white dress she was supposed to wear to the ball, but he’s devoted to his wife and resists Julie’s attempts at seduction. Now, you’d think that a reasonable person might give up, but much to the shock of her Aunt Belle (Fay Bainter, stealing every small moment in a supporting role), she vows to break up her ex-beau’s marriage rather than concede defeat. Again, a movie built around such an unsympathetic, willfully “bad” character shouldn’t work as well as it does here.

Davis’ Julie has a fire in her eyes when she doesn’t get her way, and it leads to some incredibly horrible behavior. Perhaps most shocking of all, she gets her friend Buck Cantrell (George Brent) killed in a duel over her honor, the second time he has had to defend her after their break-up. To commit this kind of "sin" yet still have some viewer sympathy takes an actor with an amazing talent. She, of course, is the primary focus of the film, and she’s at the height of her acting abilities here. However, there are other people in the film worthy of praise. A young Fonda brings a strong, stoic sense of moral rectitude to his part. Brent plays Buck as the sort of dashing young man lots of women at the time would have found irresistible but whom Julie rejects in favor of Preston. I always thought Brent was underrated as an actor, and his performance here is an example of just how good he was. Donald Crisp gives his usually reliable support as the doctor who keeps trying to warn everyone about an impending yellow fever epidemic.

The technical aspects of the film are also first-rate, fine examples of the studio system’s quality. Look at the tracking shot at the beginning of the film that transports us through the street market or even the one at the Olympus Ball that swirls around Julie and Preston before the camera rises above them to give a full view of the ballroom and its inhabitants. Listen to the score by Max Steiner, who would write that oh-so-memorable score for Gone With the Wind the next year. Admire the production design, especially of Halcyon Plantation, where several characters have to wait out the latest yellow fever outbreak that has swept through New Orleans. And, of course, check out those fantastic dresses by Orry-Kelly that Julie wears. This movie is, in many ways, about Davis’s costumes: the riding habit, that red gown, the redemptive white dress, all of them. Even the dress she wears in the final moments of the film is fantastic although I think it’s really too glamorous to wear for a trip to a leper colony.

Because this film is set in the South before the Civil War, we must grapple with the depictions of the black characters. I would just note that it takes a lot of gall for a group of white Southerners to talk about abolition at a dinner party where all of the servants are black. The filmmakers must have been commenting on this kind of hypocrisy, but the movie still traffics in stereotyping. There’s even a horrid sequence where Davis joins a large number of black characters singing “Raise a Ruckus.” None of the African American actors play significant characters, but you might still recognize Stymie Beard of “Our Gang” fame, Eddie Anderson (who would later play Rochester alongside Jack Benny), or perhaps Lew Payton as Uncle Cato. Payton, a character actor who appeared in lots of films, and Fonda have an interesting scene where Preston asks Cato to have a mint julep with him, but Cato, certainly aware of where he is, says he will take his drink outside. You might also note Theresa Harris as Zette, Julie’s servant, who was in dozens of movies but often in uncredited roles. She’s such a beautiful, accomplished actress that she makes her few moments on screen memorable.

At film's end, Julie sacrifices on behalf of someone else, and the transformation is an astonishing one. She has been such a bitch throughout much of the film, so defiant and mean-spirited, that to see her consider someone else's life above hers is a bit of a shock, particularly since she does so for the "right" reasons. She manages to convince Amy to let her go to the leper colony where the yellow-fever-infected Preston will be confined in Amy’s place. It’s wild to think that Amy consents. The final sequence of Julie atop a wagon filled with sick, possibly dying people, including her former fiancée, is powerful. I'd compare the close-up of her face at the end of Jezebel to be as iconic as Garbo's final shot in Queen Christina. It's that memorable, that indelible an image.

Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Bette Davis) and Best Supporting Actress (Fay Bainter)

Other Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Cinematography, and Best Scoring 

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

 

I’ve seen clips from The Adventures of Robin Hood over the years, mostly some of the fight sequences (and there are several that are just spectacular), but I never had the chance to watch the entire movie until this project. What a great couple of hours of entertainment it is! It’s an action-filled film, with at least a dozen interesting characters and true suspense, honestly earned even though most of us are very familiar with the legends of Robin Hood. I think almost anyone, regardless of their age or gender, would find something about this movie to enjoy. I doubt that I’d want to rely on it too heavily for historical accuracy, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less fun to watch. We don’t have to learn a history lesson from a movie that isn’t a documentary.

There is, actually, historical context for the film. It’s set in 1191, and King Richard the Lion-Hearted has been off on another crusade and has just been captured by the Duke of Austria on his way home to England. His brother, Prince John, has taken control of the country in his absence, and he’s been using his time to take as much money and goods as possible from the Saxons in the country. He and his Norman minions even enslave some of the Saxons, and it’s this horrible behavior that prompts Robin Hood (a Saxon himself, but still supportive of the king) to begin his campaign of revenge and retribution.

There are sword fights aplenty in the movie, and lots of archery. I was struck by how many people (men) get shot in the chest by arrows, which was quite unusual to depict directly at the time that the film was produced, but I suppose it takes on an almost cartoonish quality and perhaps the censors let it pass because of the famous context? The archery contest for the Golden Arrow is masterpiece of editing, no doubt one of the sequences that earned the film Oscar recognition for its editing. The great Hollywood archery consultant Howard Hill choreographed the sequence, and he even makes a cameo appearance as the Captain of Archers during the contest. At times, there are so many soldiers and swordsmen and archers on the screen that it seems like the whole of England is participating in a battle.

As the film progresses, we get some insight into how the band of Robin Hood’s followers got formed. Most of the time, he first has to defeat them in some sort of test of strength. That’s how we meet Much and Little John, for example. He doesn’t defeat Friar Tuck, but the good friar joins his band nonetheless because he believes in the cause. There’s a lot of respect among the various members of this group sworn to help the poor and fight against injustice, but they also tease each other mercilessly, and it’s a delight seeing them pull pranks and insult each other.

At the center of the movie is, of course, Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, or Sir Robin of Locksley. Flynn always seems to be enjoying himself in every movie he's in. He has a smile or grin on his face in almost every scene, and he certainly looks athletic (and good) in a pair of green tights. Flynn was a true movie star and a capable actor, but he seems to relish the role of star most, and the camera loves him from the moment of his first appearance on screen. It’s a bit surprising that he never was nominated for an Oscar, but perhaps his wild personal life was too much of an impediment to getting awards attention.

There's certainly clear chemistry between him and co-star Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian (it was rumored that they were having an affair at the time), and you can understand why Warner Brothers kept putting the two of them in movies throughout the 1930s and 40s. She was never my favorite (in fact, I've always kind of resented her presence in Gone with the Wind), but she and Flynn work so well together here. Of course, I think most of the credit goes to Flynn. He makes the screen so much brighter with his presence that it can't help but affect those around him. By the way, I never realized that he was almost a foot taller in height than she was; it’s disconcerting at times to see him almost bend in half in order to kiss her.

The supporting cast is phenomenal, one of the consistent traits of the studio system that hired talented people and kept them under contract and put them in dozens of films. I was particularly entranced by the performance of Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne. His face was so strikingly like a young Vincent Price's, but Rathbone has his own charms. He played a series of bad guys in the movies before taking on the role that would most define his career: Sherlock Holmes. Yet in The Adventures of Robin Hood, he's oddly attractive even though he's Prince John's primary henchman. You feel compelled to watch him; it's as if you're drawn to him despite his despicable ways. We always do love a bad boy, don’t we? I can only imagine what he might have been like as a romantic lead.

I have been very consistent in my love of Claude Rains’ acting. It's always a delight when he shows up in a film, and I’ve yet to see him give a bad performance. The part of Prince John gives him numerous opportunities to steal the movie. However, the hair and make-up people have given him a wig that makes him look like a red-haired Bettie Page. It's so distracting at times that you almost forget to enjoy his wickedly funny performance. Rains always seems to be in on the joke, whatever it is, or making the joke, usually at someone’s expense in the most withering fashion imaginable.

I want to point out a couple of other great performers. Una O’Connor as Bess is so funny, and her scenes with Herbert Mundin’s Much are hilarious. They’re the sort of comic relief secondary couple for the film. Patric Knowles isn’t given a lot to do here as Will Scarlett, but what a dashing figure he makes on the screen. At times, he almost distracts your attention from Flynn! And, of course, there’s Eugene Pallette with that bullfrog-like voice as Friar Tuck and Alan Hale Sr. (father of Alan Hale Jr., who played the skipper on Gilligan’s Island) as Little John. They’re having a blast, and they contribute a lot to the overall pleasure we derive from watching the movie.

The technical aspects of the film are also first-rate. Apparently, the filmmakers originally planned to make the film in black-and-white. While this is a somewhat early Technicolor film, it is so incredibly vibrant. Many of the costumes are in greens and browns, in keeping with the "hiding in Sherwood Forest" motif. Yet these colors really "pop" on the screen. Someone has done a painstaking job of keeping the colors bright in this film. Look at the gowns de Havilland gets to wear; she must have had quite the wardrobe budget for her character. The production design is also stunning, and it and the original score by the great Erich Wolfgang Korngold also received Oscars.

Oscar Wins: Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score

Other Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production