John Ford Retrospective - Wee Willie Winkie (1937)

WEE WILLIE WINKIE (1937)

Starring:  Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, June Lang, Michael Whalen, Cesar Romero, Constance Collier, Douglas Scott

Writers:  Ernest Pascal, Julien Josephson (based on the story by Rudyard Kipling)

Cinematography:  Arthur C. Miller

Music:  Alfred Newman

Editor:  Walter Thompson

Sepiatone with blue tinted sequences; 1h 40m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  June 25, 1937 by 20th Century Fox.

My experience:  Ford at Fox DVD box set.

There are some things that achieve mass popularity that years later one looks back on and wonders what everybody was thinking.  Pet rocks, 1980s hairstyles, Tamagotchis, that kind of thing.  Same thing goes for celebrities.  

The celebrity whose popularity I never quite understood was Shirley Temple.  Nowadays her fame has for the most part passed on; apart from Heidi or The Little Princess, or her later post-pubescent films with name directors and actors (The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Fort Apache), they go mostly unwatched in this day and age.  

In part her popularity was due to the Depression; in those dark days of misery and hardship people went to the movies to escape, and an effervescent smiling child full of positivity and good cheer who also looked cute (but not too professional) singing and dancing was just what the country needed.  And 20th Century Fox capitalized on that, putting her to work in as many movies as possible before she grew too old, with Shirley appearing in roughly four movies a year for the greater part of the 1930s.  In 1934 at the height of her popularity, she appeared in a total of ten films, although "only" six of them were anything more than a cameo!

They also capitalized on her popularity by putting her in movies directed by studio hands like David Butler and William Seiter, who put her front and center and would cut away to the star for every cute little reaction possible, and give her as many big musical numbers as she could carry, even if her voice (at least to modern ears) was quite grating.  But when Fox contract director John Ford returned to the studio after two pictures at RKO, somebody -- perhaps Darryl F. Zanuck -- had the idea to team their top star with their top director.  Aside from a role in Henry Hathaway's Now and Forever, it would be Shirley's first film with a name helmsman.  

What 20th Century Fox didn't realize -- or, perhaps they did? -- is that John Ford marches to the beat of his own drum.  Far be it for him to treat the star of his film with the kid gloves others had, or follow the same unofficial directorial working rules; in Wee Willie Winkie Ford treats Temple as just another actor, which works marvellously well for both her performance and the film.  We still get a few cutesy antics to keep the crowd happy, but otherwise she's just another actor in the frame, albeit the lead character.  No songs to be sung here, with the exception of a tremulous version of "Auld Lang Syne" that, perhaps because of the lack of schmaltzy musical numbers, works quite well.  The cutaways to Temple's reaction shots are few and far between, and always tastefully done.  In short, he made an actor with a very time-specific style turn in a performance that would be watchable in any era.

Temple plays Priscilla Williams, who travels from America to Northern India in 1897 with her mother Joyce (June Lang) after being left destitute by the death of her father.  They aim to meet up with her grandfather, Colonel Williams (C. Aubrey Smith).  There she makes friends with her grandfather's subordinates, such as Sgt. Donald MacDuff (Victor McLaglen), Capt. Bibberbeigh (Gavin Muir), Pipe Major Sneath (Clyde Cook), and Lt. Coppy Brandes (Michael Whalen), who takes a fancy to Priscilla's mother.  Trouble arises when Khoda Khan (Cesar Romero) escapes from jail, putting the family and the company in danger.  Constance Collier shows up as nosy busybody Mrs. Allardyce, and Douglas Scott plays a young boy called Mott.  

The film starts off quite interestingly.  From what I knew about it, and the writer of its original story, Rudyard Kipling, I figured we were in for a rah-rah, Anglophilic military adventure along the lines of The Four Feathers or Gunga Din.  In the opening conversation between Shirley and her mother, the question of expansionism and, to that effect, imperialism is brought up.  This being a 1930s film, it doesn't delve into the matter too deeply, but the fact that it is questioned, even if by a little girl, is quite interesting.  Priscilla continues to question the necessity of war throughout the film, accosting her grandfather and even, in an interesting turn of events, Khoda Khan, about why they feel the need to keep fighting.  Ford's early idealism -- which would largely disappear from his work in the post-war years -- is on full display as the film marches towards its climax.

That's not to say that the film is free from the racist tendencies of its time.  The character of Mohammet Dihn, played by Chinese-American actor Willie Fung (who, by the way, is billed tenth in the credits behind Collier -- even though his character is an important character and hers is basically a cameo -- and child actor Douglas Scott) is grating in its widely smiling, bowing and scraping, broken English insensitivity.  The way his character is disposed of needs to be seen to be believed.  And of course most of the hill tribesmen are played either by white actors or Latinos like Cesar Romero (who, to his credit, plays his role brilliantly).  But all this is to be expected, and only slightly took me out of the movie.

Wee Willie Winkie was shot in sepiatone, with blue-tinted sequences for the nighttime scenes, and it works wonderfully well in a Traffic sort of way, as the sepia really brings out the feel of the scorching Indian sun, and of course the blue helps the nighttime feel.  There is a straight silver nitrate version on the flipside of the DVD, which I sampled, and it didn't work as well for me.  The film has solid direction by Ford, with some nicely composed images, and strong acting by Temple, McLaglen, and especially C. Aubrey Smith, who by this point in his career was cinematic shorthand for the Old Guard British military establishment.  

Ford has always been a master when it comes to comedy and sentiment, and this film has both of these, from McLaglen teaching his troops how to box to the bedside death of a main character.  While I don't know if I'd rush to watch it again in the near future, I found it quite entertaining, and am pleased to finally say I have thoroughly enjoyed a Shirley Temple film.

Seven precocious prodigies out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - The Plough and the Stars (1936)

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS (1936)

Starring:  Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Una O'Connor, Barry Fitzgerald, Denis O'Dea, Eileen Crowe, F.J. McCormick, Arthur Shields, Moroni Olsen, J.M. Kerrigan, Bonita Granville, Erin O'Brien-Moore, Neil Fitzgerald, Robert Homans

Writer:  Dudley Nichols (based on the play by Sean O'Casey)

Cinematography:  Joseph H. August

Music:  Roy Webb

Editor:  George Hively

B&W, 1h 07m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  December 26, 1936 by RKO Radio Pictures

My experience:  Criterion Channel

The Plough and the Stars is one of the least seen of John Ford's oeuvre.  Not sure why, because it's an RKO film and that studio's films have regularly appeared on physical media thanks to Warner Bros. buying out their library years ago and releasing plenty of box sets back in the early 2000s.  Perhaps it's the subject matter.  An anti-violence, pro-Irish freedom film lasting slightly over an hour is not a huge sell, even if it is from one of the greatest directors ever, and features one of the greatest classic Hollywood actresses in Barbara Stanwyck.  Still, you'd think it would be available somewhere, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Perhaps because it completely bowdlerizes anything slightly controversial that the Sean O'Casey play it is based on would have presented to audiences at the time.

American actors Stanwyck and Preston Foster are Nora and Jack Clitheroe, a Dublin couple in 1916 whom we meet in the midst of an argument.  Jack is a commandant in the Irish Republican Army, and is waiting for a summons to arms, and Nora is firmly against his going, wishing he would choose her over his country.  The rest of the cast is filled out by a mix of character actors and also original cast members from the 1926 Abbey Theatre production, including F.J. McCormick as Captain Brennan, who comes to Jack with his orders to move out.  We then witness all the IRA soldiers, led by Lieutenant Langon (Neil Fitzgerald), gathering together to march towards the Post Office to commence the Easter Rising.

From here we follow the residents of the tenement house that the Clitheroes live in, including charwoman Maggie Gogan (Una O'Connor) and her daughter Mollser (Bonita Granville); Nora's uncle, Peter Flynn (J.M. Kerrigan) and cousin, the Young Covey (Denis O'Dea); alcoholic socialist Fluther Good (Barry Fitzgerald); and Protestant and British sympathiser Bessie Burgess (Eileen Crowe).  We also spend some time down in the pub, where we meet Timmy the Barman (Robert Homans) and prostitute Rosie Redmond (Erin O'Brien-Moore), then follow Nora as she heads to the barricades at the Post Office to try to persuade her husband to come home, and gets chastised by two of the women there (Mary Gordon & Doris Lloyd).

As we all know, the Easter Rising was unsuccessful, and we don't get to see too much of it, although Arthur Shields and Moroni Olsen appear briefly as Padraig Pearse and James Connolly, respectively.  Instead we are treated to the aftermath of the affair, as the family in the tenement house mourns a deceased tenant, while the British crack down on any remaining IRA soldiers they can find.  Still, some people are still fighting back, including a sniper (Wesley Barry) who takes potshots at the soldiers while Nick clambers over the rooftops searching the safety of home.  Just as he gets home, British Sergeant Tinley (Brandon Hurst) and Corporal Stoddard (Cyril McLaglen) pound down the door looking for him.  D'Arcy Corrigan also appears as a priest at a firing squad.

This is a well-shot film, and I enjoyed it, but it's not one hundred percent successful at what it sets out to achieve.  Firstly, O'Casey's play deals heavily with antiwar themes from a socialist point of view, and indeed most of its characters are such.  The film, however, takes away that POV entirely, and only a couple of characters are deemed socialists, and their views are pretty much shrugged off.  The play itself has four acts, and can run anywhere from three to its full six hours, depending on what edits the director chooses to make to the script.  Obviously, with a 67 minute film, there's not a lot of time to sift through what remains of a dialogue-heavy play, and even then there's at least ten minutes of montage in place of actual dialogue.   Not to mention the ending, in which Nora has delivered a stillborn child (she's not even pregnant in the film) and starts hallucinating that she and Jack (who by this point has been shot dead in the play - not so in the film) are walking in the woods (a scene which is transposed to an idyllic pre-Rising scene about a third of the way through the film).  Missing as well is the scene in which she deliriously goes to a window in the apartment, causing Bessie to pull her away and get shot by a sniper.  

So you see, the film is not the play at all.  But how does it hold up as a work of cinema?  Well, it's shot quite well.  Lots of shadowy lighting give the thing a sense of oppression which helps, and some of the action scenes are quite nicely filmed, adding a real sense of brutality and danger to the mix.  The acting is quite good.  Stanwyck is always good in everything she does, and is here too, even though her Irish accent is sometimes laughable.  Foster barely attempts one at all, which stands in sharp contrast with the rest of the cast, most of whom are Irish through and through.  The other American actors gamely attempt a go at the famous lilt, child actress Bonita Granville most successfully.  

The first roll call of the Irish Republic Army is shot backlit by torches, as the camera pans sideways past a couple of dozen soldiers, then cuts to a bunch of soldiers marching by at an angle.  My first thought was, "this is quite impressive!"  My second thought was, "Holy shit, Ford is cribbing from Triumph of the Will!"  For those unfamiliar, the aforementioned film is a Nazi propaganda film, and while I can't see Ford connecting his beloved Irish with Hitler's party in a derogatory sense (in fact he most probably chose to shoot the scene that way because he saw the film and was impressed with its cinematic iconography), with what we know now, it seems in very bad taste indeed.  

There is, however, an unexpectedly beautiful shot that says almost everything.  We look through a window to see a woman sitting in silence at what looks like a desk; we only realize the desk is actually a coffin when a man comes in with a hammer and starts to nail the top on.  This cinematic shorthand is something Ford was always very good at, and such is the case here.  

Ford was also good at silly comedic moments, and there's a fun one here which engages in the comedy rule of three, in which O'Connor, who's just been kicked out of a bar for fighting with Crowe, throws a rock through the window and storms off.  Crowe leaves the pub shortly thereafter and does the same with another window.  After about a minute, the barman sees one of the rocks on the floor, picks it up and absentmindedly tosses it aside -- through what I can only assume is the window of the door.

As a whole, though, the film is very scattered and episodic.  It's a decent enough piece of work, with some good performances and nice photography on the part of Ford's BFF Joseph H. August, and the performances are good (Barry Fitzgerald especially impressed me), but as a whole it never really gels.  Doing research on it makes me want to see the play, however, so there's that!

Five polemical poets out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - Mary of Scotland (1936)

MARY OF SCOTLAND (1936)

Starring:  Katharine Hepburn, Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Douglas Walton, John Carradine, Robert Barrat, Gavin Muir, Ian Keith, Moroni Olsen, William Stack, Ralph Forbes, Alan Mowbray, Frieda Inescort, Donald Crisp

Writer:  Dudley Nichols (based on the play by Maxwell Anderson)

Cinematography:  Joseph H. August

Music:  Nathaniel Shilkret

Editor:  Jane Loring (editorial associate)

B&W, 2h 03m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  July 28, 1936 by RKO Radio Pictures.

My experience:  John Ford Film Collection DVD box set.

Luminous.

That's the best word I can use to describe Katharine Hepburn in this movie, both in appearance and performance.  She is the heart and soul of the film, and it lives and dies by her.  In the 1930s, this picture's success (or rather, lack of it) led, for a short time, to Kate being declared box office poison, a moniker she wouldn't shake until The Philadelphia Story four years later.  Viewed today, however, I have to wonder what audiences back then were thinking.  She's magnificent.

This is not the sort of film you would expect to be made by John Ford, being more of the sort of picture George Cukor would take on.  Ford's insertion into the production, however, ensures a strong focus on the political machinations in lieu of the rather bland romance angle and makes it visually much more striking than Cukor would ever have done.  On which, more later.

Catholic Mary Stuart (Hepburn), more famously known today as Mary, Queen of Scots, lately wife to the deceased child king Francois II of France, makes her way to Scotland with her private secretary David Rizzio (John Carradine) and courtier Mary Beaton (Frieda Inescort) to start her life afresh.  Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England (Florence Eldridge) considers Mary a threat due to her close proximity, both physical and familial, to Liz's throne.  She wishes her ambassador, the the Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley (Gavin Muir) to be around her, so sends Sir Francis Throckmorton (Alan Mowbray) up north to stir up the clan leaders against her.  These include Lords Ruthven (William Stack), Morton (Robert Barrat), Randolph (Ralph Forbes), and Scotland's regent, Mary's own brother James Stuart, the Earl of Moray (Ian Keith).  The only one who seems to support her is Lord Huntly (Donald Crisp).

Even Huntly has limits to his support of Mary, especially when he finds out that she prefers to marry James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell (Fredric March), a Protestant, over the clan leaders' choice, her own cousin Henry Stuart, aka Lord Darnley (Douglas Walton).  Her hard is forced, and she reluctantly accepts Darnley's proposal.  All this is a ruse by the clan leaders, who assassinate Darnley, who by this time is living apart from his wife, and blame Mary and her associates for it.  This, along with her hasty remarriage of Bothwell, prompts John Knox (Moroni Olsen), the leader of the Protestant reformation in Scotland, to rile up the citizens against her, causing her to escape to England.  All the while, Elizabeth plots from afar, until they meet in the penultimate scene of the film.

You probably read that last paragraph and thought - well, wait a minute.  That never happened!  You're right, dear reader.  Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I of England never did meet in person.  However, if you're looking to a classic Hollywood costume drama for precise historical accuracy, I'm afeared you'll be sorely disappointed.  From Queen Christina to The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, from Clive of India to The Charge of the Light Brigade, these films were made for pure entertainment value, not lessons in history.  If it helped spur an interest in a certain subject, all the better.  But Mary of Scotland and its ilk are not to be mistaken for documentary works.

One thing all these films do have in common is a cast of thousands.  In this case, I'm not just talking about extras.  There are 42 -- count 'em, 42 -- credited speaking parts in the opening credits.  That's the most I've seen in any film from the classic studio era, at least at the beginning of a film.  Another thing they have in common is COSTUMES!!!  Honestly, I'm a bit of a slut for a costume drama, so I may be biased.  The Elizabethan-era finery here is by Walter Plunkett, who would go on to outdo himself with the outfits from Gone With The Wind just three years later.

John Ford shoots the hell out of this film, inserting expressionistic and proto-noir touches that enhance the staging.  Firstly, the way he stages the crowd scenes are stunning in their complex simplicity.  Like a modern day field general with a camera, he's able to move hundreds of soldiers from one aesthetically pleasing formation to the next, without seeming overly precious about it.

The things he does with lighting are also phenomenal.  He uses stage lighting to great effect here -- sensible, as the film is based off a Broadway play from three years prior.  In certain scenes the "house lights" as it were are dimmed or dampened completely, leaving only a key light or a spotlight to enhance the viewer's ability to feel the essence of the scene.  Take, for instance, the scene when Darnley proposes to Mary; the lighting adds a dark touch to the moment, allowing us a glimpse into Mary's feelings.  Ford's use of shadow is on point as well.  There is one scene in which Rizzio eavesdrops on a conspiracy, and all we see is his shadow projected on the wall as the plot is hatched.  Another scene has the weak Darnley cowering by a pillar in the midst of a melee, while the shadows of swords clanging appears on the wall over his shoulder.

Another scene has Mary ascend the scaffold from the viewpoint of said objet de mort, as if she were ascending to heaven.  Lightning strikes, the stage lighting dims, and we hear Bothwell's theme (sounding an awful lot like the music that plays when Titanic is sailing across the open seas in James Cameron's epic).

Performances are good across the board.  Hepburn, who along with Audrey Hepburn are distantly related to the actual Earl of Bothwell (thus playing the lover of her great-great-great-great-whatever?) is phenomenal in the role.  She brings fire and passion to her role, and lights up the screen whenever she's on.  Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen her so beautiful onscreen.  Fredric March plays to the balcony, as was his style in his early career.  Thankfully, this is effective, as his performance needed to be strong in order not to get overwhelmed by Hepburn's work.  It also contrasts well with Walton's portrayal of Darnley, which is, shall we say, foppish, effete -- even gay coded, perhaps.  

Now the film is not perfect.  There's a lot of mansplaining going on towards the Queen of Scots, a powerful woman who if portrayed today would no doubt have cut any sort of condescension off at the knees.  Not only that, at over two hours this film feels long.  Not sure what I would have cut out, as there aren't really any scenes that stick out as unnecessary.  Bothwell's scenes in jail, perhaps, as they are the only scenes with March in which Mary is not present.  Or perhaps we didn't need so many cutaways to Queen Elizabeth, but then again, to an Anglophilic American public in the 1930s, she would have been A Name To Put Butts In Seats.  It's like making a movie about Colonel Tom Parker and not putting Elvis in the film.

At any rate, these complaints notwithstanding, Mary of Scotland is a very good film, with strong direction and performances.  Although not a typical John Ford film, it is nonetheless a strong entry in his canon.

Eight quiescent queens out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936)

THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (1936)

Starring:  Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron, O.P. Heggie, Harry Carey, Francis Ford, John McGuire, Francis McDonald, Douglas Wood, John Carradine, Joyce Kay, Fred Kohler Jr., Ernest Whitman, Paul Fix, Frank Shannon, Frank McGlynn Sr., Leila McIntyre, Etta McDaniel, J.M. Kerrigan, Arthur Loft, Paul McVey, Maurice Murphy

Writer:  Nunnally Johnson

Cinematography:  Bert Glennon

Editor:  Jack Murray

B&W, 1h 36m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  February 12, 1936 by Twentieth Century Fox.

My experience:  Ford at Fox DVD box set.

The Prisoner of Shark Island gets my vote for must underrated John Ford movie that has pretty much been cancelled by the general population at large.  It's a wonderfully told character study / history lesson / prison break film / wrong man story that happens to be a product of its time in regards to racial stereotypes.  Check that.  It's probably a bit ahead of its time, as there are a couple of black characters who have significant roles in the film, and are treated and portrayed far better than in most studio films of the time, but is definitely far behind our times, in that in general the African-American actors, while not all bug-eyed and subservient, are still painted with the same askance-looking brush as in other cinematic documents of its era.

Which is too bad, because other than that, quite frankly, this is a great film.

Warner Baxter, the second ever best actor Oscar winner for 1929's In Old Arizona, plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, a country doctor in rural Maryland who unwittingly aids a fugitive John Wilkes Booth (Francis McDonald), by setting his leg and giving him directions after the infamous former actor has gone on the run for shooting president Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.).  When two Union soldiers (John McGuire and Fred Kohler Jr.) find one of Booth's discarded boots on the Mudd property, the well-meaning doctor is taken away from his wife Peggy (Gloria Stuart) and daughter Martha (Joyce Kay), and father-in-law, former Confederate colonel Jeremiah Milford Dyer (Claude Gillingwater), quickly paraded through a kangaroo court by Secretary General Erickson (Arthur Byron) along with other various "conspirators" - both innocent and guilty among them - and sentenced to do time at Devil's Island, in the Dry Tortugas off Key West in Florida.

Upon arriving at the prison, Mudd is treated with disdain and hatred by staff and prisoners alike, including Sgt. Rankin (John Carradine), who goes out of his way to make Mudd's life a living hell.  His only friend is his former neighbour, Buck Milford (Ernest Whitman), who has attached himself to the prison as one of their multitude of black guards, and helps correspond with Mudd's wife in an attempt to help him escape the prison.  The attempt fails, however, and Mudd is thrown in solitary along with Buck.

The good doctor's luck changes when an epidemic of yellow fever sweeps the island, rendering most of the staff and prisoners either very sick or very dead.  When the prison doctor, MacIntyre (O.P. Heggie), comes down with the sickness, it's up to Mudd, along with the prison commandant (Harry Carey) and Corporal O'Toole (Francis Ford), to save the people on the island.  Will such a good deed go unnoticed, or will it finally bring recognition and a pardon from president Andrew Johnson?  

There's so much to like about this movie.  Firstly, let's talk about how well it's shot.  For Lincoln's assassination, we follow Booth through the inner rooms of the theatre, the sound of the actors performing dropping in and out of the soundtrack depending on Booth's position in relation to them.  Brings a nice realism and tenseness to a scene that's frankly been done to death over the years.  Ford also shoots the demise of the former president beautifully.  At the moment the president passes, a muslin curtain is pulled before between the actor and the camera, which then racks focus towards the curtain, a figurative representation of the dimming of the light of the late statesman.  

The use of odd angles and unusual setups help make the court scenes, short as they are, stand out for their oppression and judgment.  Then when we get to the prison, the light and shadows work wonders to convey the atmosphere of loneliness and terror.  When we think of John Ford's work, we usually think of the Technicolor westerns of the 1950s, but his black and white work from the 1930s and 1940s is just as gorgeous, and I feel works more towards telling the story rather than just being picturesque.  

The acting is top-notch, with the exception perhaps of the little girl who plays Dr. Mudd's daughter.  Then again, most child actors of the time grate on me, so your mileage may vary.  Aside from the aforementioned social attitudes that are very much of their time, I really can't think of anything negative to say about this one.  The Prisoner of Shark Island is an underrated gem that deserves more recognition in the Ford pantheon.

Nine misjudged medics out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - Steamboat Round The Bend (1935)

STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND (1935)

Starring:  Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Irvin S. Cobb, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire, Berton Churchill, Francis Ford, Stepin Fetchit, Roger Imhof, Raymond Hatton, Hobart Bosworth

Writers:  Dudley Nichols, Lamar Trotti (based on the novel "Steamboat 'round the Bend" by Ben Lucien Burman)

Cinematography:  George Schneiderman

Music:  Samuel Kaylin

Editor:  Alfred DeGaetano

B&W, 1h 22m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  September 6, 1935 by Twentieth Century Fox.

My experience:  Ford at Fox DVD box set.

Definitely a lesser Ford film, in both recognition and artistry, and yet there's something about it that makes it a pretty enjoyable show.

Will Rogers, in the penultimate role of his career before his untimely demise in a plane crash in August of 1935 (the film was released six weeks after his death), stars in the last of his three rural Americana joints for John Ford.  Here, the comedian and social humorist plays Dr. John Pearly, owner and captain of the Claremont Queen, a run down shell of a vessel that, like its owner, has seen better days.  Dr. John's nephew Duke (John McGuire), has been wrongfully accused of killing a man, and takes shelter along with his love, the incredibly named Fleety Belle (Anne Shirley) on the vessel.  After being caught, Duke languishes in jail under the watchful yet sympathetic eye of Sheriff Rufe Jeffers (Eugene Pallette), while Dr. John takes on a couple of comedic assistants (Jonah, played by Stepin Fetchit, and Efe, played by Francis Ford) on the boat to help him and Fleety Belle out, all the while searching out the self-proclaimed prophet New Moses (Berton Churchill), the only man who can prove Duke's innocence.  All the while in a race down the Mississippi against rival Captain Eli (Irvin S. Cobb, author of a previous Ford/Rogers venture, Judge Priest).

While there are visually few obvious Fordian touches to be seen, his hand is felt in the direction of the comedic scenes.  While not nearly on a par with Bringing Up Baby, this film has plenty of chuckles to be proud of.  The physical comedy is top tier, as when Francis Ford mistakenly drinks a bottle of turpentine while painting the boat.  Another great moment was when, during a scene in which Dr. John is putting together a museum of historical figures on the boat, Efe brings a mannequin of Elizabeth I to Dr. John, bends it over doggy-style, and asks, "Where do you want this ... virgin queen?"  That one got past the censors!

I've always been a fan of the classic Hollywood character actors, and we've got a few of them in this one, including Hobart Bosworth as a chaplain on the hanging block, Roger Imhof as Fleety Belle's pa, and the aforementioned Eugene Pallette -- distinctly recognizable with his bullfrog voice -- and Francis Ford, the director's brother, who gets a plumb part here as Efe.  I feel the need to mention Berton Churchill here, however.  Churchill was almost always cast as the villain of any given piece, or if alternatively as a stoic authority figure.  So it's a nice change seeing him in a heroic role as a half-crazy self-proclaimed prophet who throws himself wholeheartedly into the madcap proceedings.  The scenes when everybody uses jugs of liquor to power the steamship had me in stitches.

There's not much more to be said about Steamboat Round The Bend.  Did Ford really fill up a river with four steamboats and just let them go at it?  Definitely looks impressive for sure, especially in these days of everything being CGI.  The ending was a little too quick and pat, like many films of the era, but all told, it's only slightly more than an hour, filled with laughs, and worth watching if you're into this kind of thing.

Seven speedy steamboats out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - The Informer (1935)

THE INFORMER (1935)

Starring:  Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford, Una O'Connor, J.M. Kerrigan, Joe Sawyer, Neil Fitzgerald, Donald Meek, D'Arcy Corrigan, Leo McCabe, Steve Pendleton, Francis Ford, May Boley, Grizelda Hervey, Denis O'Dea

Writer:  Dudley Nichols (based on the novel "The Informer" by Liam O'Flaherty)

Cinematography:  Joseph H. August

Music:  Max Steiner

Editor:  George Hively

B&W, 1h 31m.  1.37:1 presentation.

Released on:  May 8, 1935 by RKO Radio Pictures.

My experience:  John Ford Film Collection DVD box set.

When you think of a John Ford movie what's the first thing that comes to mind?  Probably an epic wide vista shot of Monument Valley, perhaps some horses riding through it; or alternatively, an image of John Wayne might be the first thing that pops into your mind.

For me, the shadow-and-fog expressionism of The Informer is what my mind immediately gravitates towards when thinking of John Ford.  Before his Technicolor westerns of the 1940s and 1950s, John Ford was a master of the Germanic expressionist style first pioneered by Murnau and Pabst, among others.  This is an amazingly shot film that won four Oscars (Ford for director, Victor McLaglen for actor, Dudley Nichols for screenplay and George Hively for editing), and nominated for two more (best picture and Max Steinern for the musical score).  Surprisingly, the cinematography by Joseph H. August wasn't nominated.

The story is fairly simple.  The Informer takes places in one night in 1922 Dublin, during the Troubles.  McLaglen plays Gypo Nolan, our protagonist for this film.  Gypo is a hulking brute of a man and a bit of a dullard, who has been down on his luck and never knowing where his next meal is coming from.  A former member of the IRA, he has been cast out of the group by Commandant Dan Gallagher (Preston Foster) for letting a captured British soldier go free.  As Gypo puts it at one point, "the British think I'm with the Irish and the Irish think I'm with the British.  The long and short of it is, I'm walkin' around without a dog to lick my trousers!"  

Gypo's old friend Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford) is wanted by the Black & Tans - the Royal Irish Constabulary in Dublin - with a 20 pound reward for his whereabouts.  He sneaks back into town to visit his mother (Una O'Connor) and sister Mary (Heather Angel) and meets up with Gypo to make sure the house isn't still being surveilled.  Later Gypo meets up with his girlfriend Katie (Margot Grahame) and dreams of getting out of their situation and taking a boat to America, which costs 10 pounds each.  He remembers the bounty on his friend's head and sells him out to the Black & Tans for said price.  

The rest of the film follows Gypo through the night, as he recklessly spends his blood money, being urged on and followed around by Terry (J.M. Kerrigan).  Meanwhile, Gallagher, who is courting Mary, and his seconds-in-command Barty Mulholland (Joe Sawyer) and Tommy Connor (Neil Fitzgerald) begin to suspect Gypo of the betrayal, after they bring him in for questioning and he fingers the innocent tailor Mulligan (Donald Meek) of the crime.  After causing a scene and spending half of his money at a thinly veiled whorehouse run by Madame Betty (May Boley), he is brought to a kangaroo court in order to be sentenced, by "Judge" Flynn (Francis Ford), with witnesses including a blind man (D'Arcy Corrigan) to whom he gave money outside the station and Mary herself.  Steve Pendleton plays a young soldier who draws the short stick to pull the trigger on him.  Famous Irish singer/actor Denis O'Dea plays a street singer in the film also.

The cinematography, as mentioned before, is just stunning.  The chiaroscuro expressionism of thick fog and sets often lit by a single streetlight combine to not only make an incredibly beautiful visual mark on the film, but an accurate representation of the alcoholic Gypo's constantly muddled state of mind.  The film moves very quickly; while not specifically a real-time feature, it does take place in one night, and the stakes are ever present.  Max Steiner's score is simple and iconic.

McLaglen does a wonderful job of playing Gypo.  He pulls off the double take of self-pity and bluster very nicely.  Some people have criticized his performance for being a little too big but people like that are basically a human id; they have no sense of what their thoughts and actions are accountable for, except for in the immediate sense of the word; they are, for whatever reason, children in an adult body.  The bigness of his performance works for me.  In fact this film is filled with nicely subtle performances that contrast McLaglen's performance quite well.  

One thing I need to criticise about The Informer is the obviousness of repeatedly superimposing the poster of the bounty on McPhillip's head overtop of Gypo thinking, which happens about a half dozen times over the first 45 minutes of the film.  It gets to be a bit much, honestly.  

John Ford won an Oscar for this film, making use of a near-negligible budget to create a stylized expressionistic work of art.  The themes, in and of themselves, are fairly simplistic, but what a gorgeous look it has.  The Informer has tumbled a bit from its regard as a classic, but I still think it's a great example of 1930s filmmaking, and of what classic studio film directors could do when given a challenge.

Eight idiotic informers out of ten.

John Ford Retrospective - The Whole Town's Talking (1935)

THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING (1935)

Starring:  Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Arthur Hohl, James Donlan, Arthur Byron, Wallace Ford, Donald Meek, Etienne Girardot, Edward Brophy, Paul Harvey

Writers:  Jo Swerling & Robert Riskin (based on the story "Jail Breaker" by W.R. Burnett

Cinematography:  Joseph H. August

Editor:  Viola Lawrence

B&W, 1h 33m.  1.37:1 presentation

Released on:  February 21, 1935 by Columbia Pictures.

My experience:  John Ford: The Columbia Films Collection DVD box set

I've always loved me a good screwball comedy, and The Whole Town's Talking ranks up there with the best of the bunch.  While there are no distinctly Fordian touches that stand out, Ford shows a deft touch with the screwball genre, and I'm just sorry he never truly returned to the format.

Edward G. Robinson, playing against type, portrays Arthur Ferguson Jones, a milquetoast office corporate drone working in an office overseen by the persnickety Seaver (Etienne Girardot), alongside wisecracking dame Wilhelmina Clark (Jean Arthur).  It comes to the attention of people in the office that Jones looks an awful lot like the notorious Killer Mannion, whose picture has made the front page of the newspaper.  The mix-up is further confounded by Hoyt (Donald Meek), a nosy type who calls the cops on Jones after seeing him and Miss Clark dining in a restaurant.  The cops make a shambles of the whole situation, assuming Jones is Mannion without doing their due diligence, including using one of the gangster's professional nemeses, Slugs Martin (Edward Brophy), as a witness.  Meanwhile the equally innocent Miss Clark has fun with the situation whilst being interrogated by Detectives Boyle (Arthur Hohl) and Howe (James Donlan).  District Attorney Spencer (Arthur Byron) is ready to have Jones indicted for murder when it is announced that the real Mannion has just robbed a bank while they were putting all their eggs in Jones' basket.  

Jones is released and becomes the new favourite of his boss, JG Carpenter (Paul Harvey), who sets him up writing a column for his friend Healy (Wallace Ford), who runs a newspaper.  Things get interesting, however, when Jones returns home to find the real Mannion in his apartment.  How will the timid office worker deal with the newest unreal situation in his rapidly changing life?

While visually nothing about The Whole Town's Talking stands out as a John Ford film, his mark is all over it, albeit in a comedic way.  Ford never wastes an opportunity to poke fun at the hypocrisy and ineptitude of those in positions of authority, and the police get it good in this one.  None of them are portrayed as corrupt per se (with the possible exception of the D.A.), but they all, in the best tradition of the screwball comedy, jump to conclusions regarding Jones without doing the slightest bit of research into either the man or the situation.  The pace of the film is also handled deftly by Ford, at least until the third act when the action picks up and the comedy slows down.

Can I just say how much I loved the look of the film?  I've always been extremely partial to the art deco designs of the early 1930s, and this movie has it in spades.  There's something about the look and feel of a 1930s screwball comedy, from Nothing Sacred to The Awful Truth or Bringing Up Baby that just pleases me immensely, and this one is no different.  It's beautifully shot and lit by longtime Ford cinematographer Joseph H. August, and technically, I had fun trying to figure out how the two characters played by Robinson were able to occupy the same space.  Some rear projection was involved, as well as doubles, and it's a fun little game to play while watching the movie.

Robinson is fantastic in his dual role.  He is cemented in our culture as a gangster, which is so far away from what he was in real life, so it's nice to see him play against type -- and against himself.  He seems to really be having fun, and I as a viewer did as well.  Jean Arthur takes on the first of the roles that made her a screwball megastar in the late 1930s and early 1940s; she's great in this, and will only get better from here.  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Ex-Mrs. Bradford, Easy Living, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Devil and Miss Jones, The Talk of the Town, and The More the Merrier were all films she made over the next eight years, after which she semi-retired from acting.  It's too bad that she's not more well-known today, because she had incredible timing and delivery.

The film also includes a number of character actors playing bit parts, some with speaking roles, some in blink and you'll miss em parts.  These actors include Ford stock company members J. Farrell MacDonald, Francis Ford, and other actors more closely related to the gangster genre, like Robert Emmett O'Connor, Joe Sawyer, Harry Tenbrook, and Lucille Ball as a bank employee herded into the basement.

The Whole Town's Talking is a wonderful way to pass a rainy hour and a half, full of gutbusting laughs and action.  Highly recommended.

Eight demonic doppelgangers out of ten.