John Ford Retrospective - Four Men and a Prayer (1938)

FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER (1938)

Starring:  Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith, J. Edward Bromberg, William Henry, John Carradine, Alan Hale, Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill, Barry Fitzgerald

Writers:  Richard Sherman, Sonya Levien & Walter Ferris (based on the novel by David Garth)

Cinematography:  Ernest Palmer

Editor:  Louis R. Loeffler

B&W, 1h 25m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  April 29, 1938 by Twentieth Century Fox.

My experience:  Ford at Fox DVD box set

I really had a lot of fun with this one, but tonally the film is all over the place.  It's got suspense, intrigue, adventure, and it can be a barrel of laughs at times.  All great assets to have, no doubt.  But when a scene where a group of revolutionaries being gunned down in cold blood is sandwiched between David Niven doing a Donald Duck impression and a scene taken from straight from the screwball comedy playbook, one can be forgiven for lifting a critical eyebrow and looking a little askance!

The four men referred to in the film's title are the sons of disgraced British colonel Loring Leigh (C. Aubrey Smith), who has been cashiered out of the military for supposedly wilfully leading his troops into a slaughter.  Wyatt (George Sanders) is a barrister in London; Geoffrey (Richard Greene) is a diplomat in the British embassy in Washington D.C.; Christopher (David Niven) is a playboy aviator; and the youngest, Rodney (William Henry), is a college student at Oxford.  Colonel Leigh calls them all home to their residence at St. John-Cum-Leigh to ponder how to proceed.  Before they can get very far, he is found dead in his study.  Officially ruled a suicide, the boys know the truth that he was murdered, and they set about following any and all leads to prove it.

Geoffrey's somewhat ignored main squeeze, Lynn Cherrington (Loretta Young), has a habit of popping up wherever he is, if only to get him to pay her some attention, and finds herself getting mixed up in all of this.  But does she have her own agenda?  Her father, Martin Cherrington (Berton Churchill) is one of the owners of Atlas Arms, a company responsible for manufacturing the weaponry which led to the slaughter of the late colonel's troops.  While Wyatt and Rodney search India for clues by interviewing people like trooper Mulcahay (Barry Fitzgerald) who might have known their father, Geoffrey and Christopher follow their leads to South America, where they meet Captain Loveland (Reginald Denny), who came into a bit of money and moved to Buenos Aires, leading industrialist Furnoy (Alan Hale), and General Torres (J. Edward Bromberg), a bandit turned revolutionary who is involved in purchasing weapons from Atlas Arms.  A counter-revolution appears to be taking place, led by General Adolfo Arturios Gregario Sebastian (John Carradine).  All road lead not to Rome but Egypt in this story, before the curtain falls on our tale.

This film is quickly paced and packs a lot of story into its less than 90 minute running time, thanks to some judicious editing by Ford and his cutter Louis Loeffler.  The entire tribunal that sets off the plot AND the introduction of Leigh's four sons happens within the first ten minutes, and this pace continues consistently.  A man falls out of a car dead in the driveway of the Leigh residence, and that's all we need to take us to the next scene; no fat on the bone here.  This helps uphold the jaunty feeling the film has, as we travel from London to India to islands off the coast of South America, to Egypt with no problem whatsoever.  For filmgoers in 1938, this must have been like watching a James Bond movie 25 years before the 007 films became synonymous with globetrotting adventure.

And while the lighthearted, adventuresome spirit persists throughout the film, there are a couple of detours that stand out as perhaps not inessential story-wise, but tonally off.  The first is a scene with Barry Fitzgerald which instigates a barroom brawl by taking offence to being called British by a native.  While funny and amusing, this excursion into Three Stooges style chair-throwing comedy is plainly an excuse for Ford to indulge spending time with one of his favourite actors, throwing some barbs at the British in favour of his beloved Irish, and getting some "manly man" action into the scene.  It's a quick distillation of everything I didn't like about The Quiet Man.  

The other scene that bothered me a little bit is the aforementioned scene involving the revolutionaries.  I very nearly got whiplash from the maddening inconsistencies in tonality.  Ford and DP Ernest Palmer, who until then had kept their sets lit fairly brightly, all of a sudden indulge themselves in foreboding chiaroscuro lighting, threatening camera angles, and menacing low-angle shots of certain characters.  Intentionally, it seems, as one scene on the island has Generals Torres and Sebastian engaging in some morbidly funny dialogue against a wall before the camera pans to a firing squad.  Again, nothing wrong with it as a scene, it just feels like it's in the wrong film.

All that being said, I very much liked Four Men and a Prayer.  While Indiana Jones probably wouldn't be the first connection one would make to this film, I believe it makes sense -- not for plot reasons, but for the lighthearted tone the film has.  There is plenty of humour to be found here, and although referring to it as an out and out comedy would be a stretch, there are long swathes of the picture that are chock full of delicious performances and lines.  The actors must have had a grand old time.

A baby-faced David Niven damn near steals the show in this one, with so many priceless gestures and facial tics I was damn near in stitches half the time.  The distasteful face he makes when he asks his brother, who has been residing in America, to say, "okay, toots"; the conversations he has in the hybrid voice of "Donald Mouse"; his reactions to Lynn and Geoffrey's PDAs; and physical comedy involving a rather on the nose rubber rat squeak toy.  All of them made me snicker to no end.  Loretta Young also impresses with her comic timing, from the adorable way she sticks out her tongue after pronouncing St. John-Cum-Leigh ("sinjun cumley") to her flirtatious ways wrapping various men around her finger, to the bewildered way she yelps, "Hey, don't mind me!" when Geoffrey and Christopher walk off without her to follow a lead.  Honestly, I have to say I'm a little bit in love with her in this film.  The piece is also classed up with the creme de la creme of Hollywood's British acting royalty, all turning in solid performances, especially George Sanders, who handles scenes both light and "actorly" with equal aplomb; his final scene at the end of the film is especially stirring.  And I must say I got a kick out of seeing Alan Hale wearing the skipper's hat while on his yacht, especially considering what his son would be getting up to a quarter century later!

With the exception of the aforementioned scenes involving the revolutionaries, John Ford keeps his directorial toolkit pretty empty in this one.  It was probably just a film for him to do, and while there are scenes that he subtly augmented (check the key lighting on Niven, Greene and Henry's faces while Sanders toasts their late parents -- the effect is very angelic), for the most part he seems to have been a director for hire here.  

I may be going against my better judgment here, but although I recognize Four Men and a Prayer has many flaws, I have to say I really enjoyed it.  Dated, to be sure, but sometimes you just need to set aside an hour and a half and have some mindless fun.  And this does the job as good as any.

Eight barnstorming brothers out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - The Hurricane (1937)

THE HURRICANE (1937)

Starring:  Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, Jerome Cowan, Al Kikume, Kuulei De Clercq, Layne Tom Jr.

Writers:  Dudley Nichols, Oliver H.P. Garrett (from the novel by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall

Cinematography:  Bert Glennon

Music:  Alfred Newman

Editor:  Lloyd Nosler

B&W, 1h 44m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  November 5, 1937 by United Artists

My experience:  Kino Lorber Blu-Ray

The Hurricane is one I've been looking forward to for quite a while.  I'd heard a lot about it, but it's not one of Ford's more revered films.  The special effects have been praised, and for good reason; the at that time jaw dropping natural disaster-based visuals of 1936's San Francisco, and In Old Chicago and The Hurricane from '37, were enough to persuade the Academy to create a best visual effects Oscar starting in 1939 (which was won by the monsoon effects for The Rains Came, naturally). 

Dorothy Lamour is top-billed and plays Marama, but our protagonist is Terangi (Jon Hall), a free spirited South Seas native of the island of Manakoora who works as first mate on a boat run by Captain Nagle (Jerome Cowan), and is loved and respected by everybody on the island:  the colonisers, including Father Paul (C. Aubrey Smith) and Dr. Kersaint (Thomas Mitchell), as well as the colonised, including Chief Mehevi (Al Kikume), Mako (Layne Tom, Jr.), Hitia (Mamo Clark), and Arai (Movita Castaneda).  Everyone, that is, except DeLaage (Raymond Massey), the governor of the island, whose entire existence depends on the upholding of law and order.  His wife (Mary Astor) is more open-minded, and befriends Marama when Terangi is jailed in Tahiti for breaking a racist man's jaw.  

Terangi is not a man to be held captive, and continually tries to escape imprisonment from his sadistic warden, played by John Carradine.  He finally escapes, and is rescued by Father Paul, and after reuniting with Marama and meeting his now eight year old daughter Tita (Kuulei De Clercq), he's forced to go into hiding after the relentless governor learns of his escape.  He's helped in this pursuit by Chief Mehevi and the plucky Mako ... and then the titular hurricane comes and unleashes hell on everybody, friend and foe alike.

I quite enjoyed The Hurricane.  The special effects held up well, the acting is for the most part quite strong, it has nice visuals, and it moves at a nice pace.  Jon Hall isn't much of an actor, but he makes up for it with his physical presence.  Originally I thought he was too Caucasian looking, but apparently he was half Tahitian, which is more than I can say for New Orleans-born Latina Dorothy Lamour, who nevertheless fills out her sarong quite nicely indeed.  John Carradine always seemed to find himself cast as the baddest people around, and here he plays the warden with all scowls and evil grins permeating his long, gaunt face.  Mary Astor fails to make much of an impression, but Massey pretty much carries this film in a supporting role as the conflicted governor.  He's basically playing Javert from "Les Miserables", as he ignores his moral compass in favour of upholding the law to the letter.  Thomas Mitchell, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role, bookends the film as the narrator, and plays basically the same jolly alcoholic he would play two years later for Ford in Stagecoach.

The casting of the two romantic leads aside, the film seems quite novel for its time as most (although not all) of the islanders seem to have been played by people of Asian-American or Pan-Pacific descent.  In fact the film goes out of its way -- sometimes in an overly heavy-handed way -- to condemn racism and profiling.  It's made clear that the film strongly disapproves of DeLaage's stance, the warden is a caricature of evil, and Tarangi is held up almost as a Christ-like figure at times.  There's one scene where Father Paul proclaims his belief in the virtues of Tarangi, and then the camera pans upwards to the clouds as heavenly music swells.  A bit on the nose, Mr. Ford!  When I was watching The Hurricane I couldn't help but think of it as a precursor of sorts to the type of films Stanley Kramer would make his name producing some twenty years later.  

If you want more proof as to the progressive views of the filmmakers, Tarangi and Marama get married twice, once by Father Paul and once in a native ceremony.  We don't see anything of the Christian wedding, only the newlyweds leaving the church as the colonisers and a few natives stand on the steps looking after them.  More attention is given to the native ceremony directly following, as the islanders disrobe the lovers' European attire and proceed to host a joyous celebration led by Chief Mehevi.  This is followed, cheekily enough, by the couple running away to a clearing by the beach, where it is not so subtly insinuated that they are running off to fuuuuuuuuccckkkk.  Indeed the scene ends on a medium close up of just their legs intertwined with each other, the rest of their bodies hidden from the reeds.  By 1937 standards, it's kinda hot!

The climactic hurricane sequences, justly heralded, were created by James Basevi, who would later transition into being an art director, winning an Oscar for 1943's The Song of Bernadette.  Here he created the entire island on a soundstage, spending $150,000 to build the sets, and $250,000 including use of the largest water tank in Hollywood to destroy them for posterity.  The fourteen minute sequence is phenomenal, with quick cutting and Oscar-winning sound design combining with the visuals to create an intense spectacle.

Natural disaster aside, there are some great moments that stand out in The Hurricane.  The montage of escape attempts as Tarangi tries to get away from his Tahitian jail and rejoin his family, is really great, mixing a little bit of expressionistic visuals with intense close-ups of the many members of the cast.  While not quite The Godfather in terms of storytelling, it's right up there with The Roaring Twenties in terms of virtuoso editing.  There's also a scene (again involving the jail) in which we get a shot from Tarangi's point of view, of John Carradine glowering at him and telling him he'll ensure Tarangi never escapes, in which Carradine's face is filmed through a spider's web.  Pretty sure I don't need to explain the symbolism to you, but suffice it to say it makes for a fantastic visual.

I was waiting for this to come up in my chronological journey through John Ford's filmography, and it was worth the wait.  Aside from some fairly prevalent focus issues in certain scenes, the film looks fantastic, and sounds just as great.  While it probably only rates in the middle tier (maybe upper-middle) of his resume when all is said and done, I quite enjoyed it.  Outside the box Ford is still worth checking out.

Eight galvanised gales out of ten.