Showing posts with label stage adaptation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stage adaptation. Show all posts
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| Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler share a cocktail |
"If my old man don't help me, it's men again. Men all the time."
In this loose adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play, the first film in which "Garbo Talks," coal barge captain Chris Christopherson (George F. Marion) is nervous because the daughter he hasn't seen in may years is coming to town. Chris' companion, Marthy (Marie Dressler), agrees to move off the barge to make way for Anna (Greta Garbo), who far from being innocent was employed as a prostitute after her cousins on the farm had their way with her. As father and daughter awkwardly try to mend fences, into their lives comes a sailor named Matt (Charles Bickford), who falls in love with Anna. But what will he think when he learns of the woman's past? Garbo's performance in her first talkie is a bit uneven, still influenced by the style of silents, but she does have some fine moments, such as when she delivers the poignant "I am my own boss" speech in which she tells of being misused by men throughout her life, and there's a beautifully played scene when Anna and Chris have their first meeting in the bar. Marie Dressler [The Patsy] almost walks off with the movie as Marthy, and has some especially splendid moments when she has a drink with Anna when the younger woman first arrives at the saloon. "You're me," Anna tells her, "forty years from now!" Charles Bickford [The Big Country] is a little broad but effective as Matt. The story is resolved much too neatly [except for poor Marthy] but the movie is well-done and well-acted for the most part. A German language version was made immediately afterward using the same sets but Garbo [Mata Hari] was the only cast carry-over. O'Neill's play was also the basis for the musical "New Girl in Town" decades later.
Verdict: Garbo Talks and More! ***.
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| Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn |
Doris (Ellen Burstyn) and George (Alan Alda) are dining alone in a restaurant at a country inn, when they decide to have dinner together, leading into a one-night stand. Both of them are happily married with children, but decide to meet again at the same inn the following year. In five year increments, the movie shows them meeting up each year for a romantic weekend, telling each other both good and bad stories about their spouses, and changing with the times and as they grow older, suffering losses but remaining in love. Same Time, Next Year is entertaining but it never quite recovers from its highly contrived and theatrical premise, which probably worked much better on the stage. The performances are okay -- sitcom star Alda [The Mephisto Waltz] seems perfect for what is, in effect, a two hour sitcom, but Burstyn [The Wicker Man] completely lacks a finely-honed comedic gift, tossing off lines that might have been funnier had her timing and delivery been better. One foolish sequence has Doris showing up for one rendezvous when she's eight months pregnant. Some nice moments, but it probably should have been done as a TV special and not a theatrical movie. A basic problem with the whole concept is that it would be hard for two people to grow that close when they only see each other one weekend out of the year. Robert Mulligan also directed To Kill a Mockingbird and many others.
Verdict: Pleasant enough but very small-scale. **1/2.
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| Mischa Auer, Dennis O'Keefe and baby |
Gary (Dennis O'Keefe) is married to the easily excitable and almost neurotically jealous Geraldine (Marjorie Reynolds). Years ago Gary had a drunken fling in Mexico City with Mabel (Gail Patrick), and gave her some intimate lingerie with a love message embroidered on it with his name. Mabel, who is engaged to Gary's prospective business partner, Arthur (Lee Bowman), thinks Gary should be honest about it and they can all laugh about it and forget it -- very sensible -- but not-so-sensible, nervous Gary wants to get the notorious slip out of Mabel's hands and destroy it. To that end he hires Boris (Mischa Auer) to help him get it when the two couples and others converge at a house party. Somehow, after much hiding under beds and marital misunderstandings, the rumor gets around that Gary and Mabel's big secret isn't a mere slip, but a "slip" of a baby! Up in Mabel's Room is based on a creaky old farce that might have been hilarious in its day, but this attempt to turn it into a wartime screwball comedy just doesn't come off. There are some talented players in this -- O'Keefe certainly tries hard, Patrick is quite likable as the sophisticated Mabel, and Mischa Auer gets the film's only laughs (and there are far too few of them) -- but Marjorie Reynolds [Bring On the Girls] and most of the others show no gift for farce. If the picture were really funny you might overlook that most of the characters are quite stupid. John Hubbard [The Mummy's Tomb] and Binnie Barnes play another couple, and Charlotte Greenwood is an older woman who thinks Boris is a burglar and tries to shoot him. Allan Dwan also directed the terrible Brewster's Millions with O'Keefe.
Verdict: Pick any Mexican Spitfire movie and it will be a lot funnier -- this is leaden. *1/2
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| Charles Laughton as Tony Patucci |
This is the third film version of Sidney Howard's 1924 Pulitzer prize-winning play, and the only one to use his title. The story line -- later used by Frank Loesser in his brilliant musical theater piece The Most Happy Fella -- concerns a middle-aged vintner named Tony (Charles Laughton) who becomes infatuated with a pretty waitress named Amy (Carol Lombard), and asks for her hand in marriage -- but sends a photo of his younger, better-looking hired hand, Joe (William Gargan), instead of his own. When Amy arrives she's horrified to discover that the man she's been dreaming about is years older, uneducated, and rather homely, but her attraction to Joe is still there -- and vice versa ... Although you wouldn't first think of Laughton for the role of the Italian-American Tony Patucci, he's as superb as ever. Similarly, Lombard might not be considered the best casting but she is also excellent, as is Gargan [Strange Impersonation.] The biggest problem with the movie is that the production code was in effect, and there's an awful lot of moralizing and hand-wringing, and the ending is changed from happy to bittersweet [which kind of works anyway]. There's also an annoying priest, Father McKee (played by Frank Fay, who was Barbara Stanwyck's first husband), hovering over the whole movie like the literal embodiment of a censor. Tony is also a bit of an idiot, drunkenly falling off of a roof as he shows off for Amy [in the original version he is in an accident instead]. Despite its many flaws They Knew What They Wanted works because of the superior performances, good direction from Kanin, and a fine score by Alfred Newman. Karl Malden has a small role as Red. Playwright Howard did the screenplay for Dodsworth. Kanin also directed Next Time I Marry with Lucille Ball.
Verdict: Not all it could have been, but noteworthy for the acting. ***.
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| John Boles and Rosalind Russell |
"If a wife is the right kind of woman, her destiny should be in her own hands, not her husband's."
In the second film version of George Kelly's Pulitzer prize-winning play (after the silent), Rosalind Russell stars as Harriet Craig, whose home and its furnishings are the most important things in her life, much more important than people. Harriet likes things just so, and isn't above running other people's lives when she feels the need to. When a friend of Walter, her husband's (John Boles), murders his wife and commits suicide, Harriet fears their involvement may cause an unwanted wrinkle in their pristine universe. In the meantime, Walter's beloved Aunt Ellen (Alma Kruger of Saboteur) objects to the way her niece-by-marriage keeps everyone out of her home, and is slowly but surely distancing Walter from all of his friends, and has it out with her. "It isn't an opinion I have of you, Harriet," she tells the younger woman. "It's you I have." Harriet's sister is sick, so she has her own niece, Ethel (Dorothy Wilson), stay with her and tries to run her life as well. Craig's Wife is pretty faithful to the play [unlike the remake with Joan Crawford] but the problem is that Kelly's play is rather dated, and by no means can be seen as having a truly feminist perspective despite some of Harriet's cold if sensible attitudes. The performances are all very good, including Billie Burke as the widowed neighbor, Mrs. Frasier, and Jane Darwell as the housekeeper, Mrs. Harold. Arzner also directed Merrily We Go to Hell.
Verdict: Intriguing at times despite its age, and well-acted by all. ***.
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| Ann Blythe, Edmund O'Brien and Fredric March |
"I don't like you, Ben. I don't like any of my children. I just feel sorry for you." -- Lavinia Hubbard.
In this prequel to The Little Foxes set in the post-Civil War period, war profiteer Marcus Hubbard (Fredric March) is father of young Regina (Ann Blyth), who has set her cap for John Bagtry (John Dall); Oscar (Dan Duryea), who is basically a screw-up; and Ben (Edmond O'Brien), who is of the same diabolical mind-set as his father. The story begins on Confederate Day, when the town remembers the slaughter of many rebel soldiers because an unknown person sold them out [it seems hard to believe that the entire town wouldn't know right away who the traitor was]. Oscar has fallen for Laurette (Dona Drake of Beyond the Forest), a woman from the wrong side of the tracks, and things are quite unpleasant when she meets his father at a party at the Hubbards. Birdie Bagtry (Betsy Blair of The Snake Pit) hopes to get a very important loan from Marcus, a situation that Ben hopes to take distinct advantage of. In the meantime, the tired matriarch, Lavinia Hubbard (Florence Eldridge), reminds her husband that she still remembers where the bodies are buried ... William Wyler could have probably made this a more powerful and memorable movie, but as it is it features some fine acting, especially from Duryea, Eldridge, Blair and Drake. March is good but seems to lose his footing toward the end; it's not one of his best performances in any case. Some great dialogue throughout. Eldridge, who was married to March in real life, also played his wife in Inherit the Wind and other movies.
Verdict: Portrait of a fairly appalling family. ***.