317. An Affair to Remember (1957)

Running Time: 119 minutes
Directed By: Leo McCarey
Written By: Leo McCarey, Mildred Cram, Delmer Daves, Donald Ogden Stewart
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Cathleen Nesbit

NICE STORIES DON'T ALWAYS MAKE GOOD MOVIES

On this, the one year anniversary of the beginning of my journey through film, I'm trying to squeeze in a few movies to commemorate the occasion. The second movie that I chose for the day was "An Affair to Remember" and after finishing it I can admit that, although the story was nice and romantic, the film itself failed to impress me.

Nickie Ferrante (Grant) is an infamous womanizer who has finally decided to settle down and make an honest woman out of young, beautiful heiress, Lois Clark (Patterson). En route from England to New York City, aboard the SS Constitution, where he will meet up with his bride to be, Ferrante meets up with another woman by the name of Terry McKay (the elegant Kerr) and although they squabble over Ferrante's lost cigarette case at first, she is ultimately invited to dinner on his behalf. Unable to pass up a beautiful woman, Ferrante turns on his charm and sweeps McKay off of her feet. During a five hour stop made by the ocean liner, Ferrante invites McKay to join him as he visits his grandmother on the Mediterranean coast. McKay immediately hits it off with Nickie's grandmother and learns that there is more to Ferrante than meets the eye, like that he has a knack for painting and playing the piano, but it's the things that he can't have that appeal to him the most, so he gave up talents that came so easy to him.

Back aboard the SS Constitution, Nickie and Terry realize that they've indeed fallen head over heels in love with each other and that their respective fiance's will have to fall to the wayside. There is only one problem and that is that they are both supported by said fiances and neither of them have done much real work in their lives and have come accustomed to living the swanky lifestyle. They decide to turn their lives around, get jobs and get out of their relationships and meet each other in six months time atop the Empire State Building, an agreement that is made as they reach New York and see the building towering over them. Six months go by, Nickie gets back into painting and manages to sell a few and Terry goes to Boston and revisits her roots, being a nightclub singer. The six months expire and they're all set for the big meeting. Terry is running late due to being stopped and questioned by her ex-fiance and runs into traffic, with only four minutes to spare before 5 o'clock, when she's to meet Nickie. As she races into traffic she is hit by a car and ends up in the hospital, leaving Nickie to his broken heart atop the Empire State Building.

As my headline eludes to, this is a nice story. In fact, when thinking of a single word to describe "An Affair to Remember" that's the one that kept popping to mind. It's not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, this movie takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions. When we start out it seems as though the comedy is being laid on pretty thick, and Grant is shining as the funny man and Kerr is relatively charming, although there never seems to be any real chemistry between the two. Then we get to the grandmother scene, and to me this is a throw away scene, as nothing is really established here, except a few coincidental things that are eluded to later, like the song that the grandmother plays on piano and the shawl that she promises to send to McKay because she likes it so much. It's an entire segment of movie that could've easily been taken out, as it really slowed down the entire pace of the film and the movie, in my opinion, never picks back up.
Then the six month deal is struck, Terry gets hit by the car and the movie finishes off with some more throw away stuff that really doesn't work, like Terry turning some troubled youths into a choir and Nickie having a few dates with his ex-fiance.

It seems to me that Leo McCarey had a small idea for a film and instead of saying "I could never turn that small idea into a two-hour film", he instead just ran with it and the finished product is like going down a street and hitting all red lights, as every time the movie picks up a bit of pace, it is halted by yet another scene that is out of place and totally halts the flow of the film. The entire film hinges on the six month meeting and Terry getting hit by the car and basically everything else, outside of the first thirty minutes, is of no crucial importance, and we're forced to go through the motions until we get to the next crucial scene. And I've said it before and after all this time, I'll say it again...There is just something about Cary Grant that I don't like and I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it. He just has an air about him that doesn't appeal to me and unless the film is overly stellar, it is hard for me to settle into a film starring him.

RATING: 5/10 And that's being generous, but the first thirty minutes of the film were engaging and interesting enough to, at least, warrant that much.

MOVIES WATCHED: 142
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 859

September 11, 2010 8:50pm

111. The Awful Truth (1937)

Running Time: 90 minutes
Directed By: Leo McCarey
Written By: Vina Delmar, from play by Arthur Richman
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy, Cecil Cunningham

Sidenote: I watched "The Crowd" last night (1928 - King Vidor), one that I previously skipped and aired last night on TCM. The review has been posted and can be found here

NUMBER 100 IS A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT

I'll have to agree with Leo McCarey's sentiments when he accepted his Best Director Oscar for "The Awful Truth", as he said: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture", referring to his previous film "Make Way for Tomorrow". This is one of the few films that I've watched thus far in the book, where my high hopes for their greatness fell flat on their face.

When Jerry Warriner (Grant) returns home from, what was supposed to be a trip to Florida, he finds, to his surprise, that his wife is out. In actuality, Jerry never went to Florida and we never find out for sure what he did do or where he did go. When his wife, Lucy (Dunne) returns home, moments after he does, he finds her followed by her music teacher, Armand Duvalle and he immediately smells affair. Their excuse is that they went out the previous night and the car broke down, and they were forced to spend the night at an inn. This is an excuse which Jerry doesn't believe for a minute. However, Lucy soon uncovers that Jerry never went to Florida and the two think the worst of the other one, and accusations of affairs and hidden truths are soon thrown out. The couple decide to divorce, seeing as how their trust in one another has been shattered.

From here, the movie takes a series of pointless turns, as Lucy finds herself being courted by southern boy, Dan (Bellamy, in one of the few great things about this movie). Jerry follows them around and always seems to pop up and be a smart ass toward the couple. At about the halfway mark of the film, Lucy gets sick of Dan and realizes that she still holds a flame for Jerry, who is now courting a gal of his own, a snobby heiress type named Barbara Vance. The tables are now turned with Lucy showing up when she's not wanted and spoiling the plans of Jerry and Barbara. It all winds down to the final thirty minutes, before the couples divorce is to be finalized and they find themselves in a car together, being chased by the police, for a loud radio that won't turn off, due to a broken knob.

This movie has a massive amount of potential and had a great cast all lined up and ready to deliver a fantastic comedy, with Leo McCarey at the helm. It starts out pretty basic, a divorce, one that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, in a scene that plays out as though it was jotted down on a napkin over lunch, but a divorce nonetheless. Then it all begins to go downhill, as nothing happens. I was literally waiting for the proverbial shoe to fall and for the movie to continue it's at an average pacing, but absolutely nothing happens. Dan is introduced, and Bellamy plays him so well, but he's really not needed and the character really feels out of place, like a third wheel, so to speak. It's just a big jumbled mess in my opinion, that didn't come off as particularly funny at all and seemed to be all thrown together on the fly. I was HIGHLY disappointed in this film, as I really thought it'd deliver the goods, but all that it delivered to me was a big mess of a film.

RATING: 4/10 I gave it a few notches for the performances, which were good and seemed to be lost in a bad movie.

NEXT UP: Pepe Le Moko...Number 101 has finally arrived and when this is watched we'll be 1/10 of the way finished with our journey. Review to come tomorrow.

February 19, 2010 5:58pm

109. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Running Time: 91 minutes
Directed By: Leo McCarey
Written By: Vina Delmar, from the novel The Years Are So Long by Josephine Lawrence
Main Cast: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter

"IT WOULD MAKE A STONE CRY" - ORSON WELLES on MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW

When Leo McCarey accepted his Oscar for Best Director for "The Awful Truth" he said, and I quote: "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture", referring to the fact that if he was going to be named Best Director, it should've been for make way for tomorrow.

The plot is quite simple. When Barkley and Lucy Cooper face financial hardships and the bank takes their home away from them, they turn to their five children for a solution. During a meeting, called by the couple of fifty years, they talk over with their children the options of where to go from here. Wanting to divide the responsibility up, the children decide that two of them we'll house one of the parents, with George taking his mother and Cora taking her father. From there we flip flop between the new living conditions of the two elders. Lucy Cooper, who is now living with her son George, his wife Anita and their daughter, Rhoda. The house is forced to undertake a new way of life with Lucy in the picture, as Rhoda now refuses to have her friends over, for fear that her grandmother will talk their legs off. Anita, Lucy's daughter-in-law, is also hesitant to teach her bridge class, for fear that Lucy will get in the way.

On the other side of the fence, Barkley or Bark, as he's referred to in the film, has taken to long chats with the owner of the local general store and does so to get away from his very demanding, very irritable daughter, Cora. When Bark becomes sick with a cold, Cora bosses him around and refuses to put up with his whiny ways, as all Bark wants is his wife by his side, as he's sure that she could cure his illness. When push comes to shove, and things just don't seem to be working out on either end, the two sides both make decisions. George makes the decision to put his mother in a nursing home, while Cora thinks it's best if her father goes to California to live with one of the other siblings. The final thirty minutes of the movie are the parts that Orson Welles was referring to when he talked about the film making a stone cry, as Bark and Lucy say their final goodbyes and I dare any viewer to hold back the tears.

Of course, being a married man, this film made me think a lot of my wife. In fact, I was constantly putting myself in the place of the actors and envisioning what it'd be like to be in these characters' shoes. I think that's what made the water works come on for me so hard when the final moments of the film were taking place. The two primary actors: Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, do a fine job of creating that special on screen chemistry and use a very natural dialogue to get their characters over as a real married couple. As the two quibble about whether their honeymoon began on a Wednesday or a Thursday, you really get into the spirit of these two characters and it makes it that much more sad when they're torn apart. Few films that I've seen have actually made tears stream down my face, but this one did just that, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. This is quite possibly, and without putting a lot of thought to it, the saddest movie I've ever seen, as it forced me to remember personal experiences and that helped me relate to the characters so well.

RATING: 9/10 Another movie makes a big time bid to get into my Top 20 and with only four films left 'till we hit the 101 mark, who knows what the Top 20 will consist of...not even me, yet.

NEXT UP: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves...My first animated film in the book and Walt Disney's first full length feature film. It should arrive from Netflix tomorrow and I will review it directly.

February 18, 2010 1:54am

75. Duck Soup (1933)

Running Time: 68 minutes
Directed By: Leo McCarey
Written By: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby
Main Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern

ON MY JOURNEY I MET THE BROTHERS 'MARX'

"Groucho Marx was the best comedian this country ever produced. [...] He is simply unique in the same way that Picasso or Stravinsky are." —Woody Allen

As soon as I finished watching "Duck Soup", I immediately found myself on Amazon.com looking at Marx Brothers collections. That should tell you something of how much I enjoyed it and how much I especially enjoyed watching Groucho Marx on the sceen.

Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, who has just been appointed leader of the small nation of Freedonia, on the insistence of Mrs. Teasdale. After much fanfare, Groucho finally makes his big debut as the new leader and immediately starts in with some classic one-liners, mainly insulting Mrs. Teasdale. Meanwhile, as Rufus is adjusting as the new leader, Ambassador Trentino of the neighboring country of Sylvania is plotting to take over Freedonia and all he needs, is to dig up a little bit of dirt on Rufus. He hires two spies to keep watch on Rufus, Pinky and Chicolini (played by Harpo and Chico respectively). Pinky doesn't talk and instead uses horns that he keeps tucked in his waist band, to communicate. He also seems to have some sort of scissor fetish, as he cuts anything that is dangled in front of him, such as Trentino's coattails or the end of his cigar.

The spies are basically hopeless in tracking Rufus, but deliver the funny, especially with the peanut vendor and the great "three-hat routine". Rufus eventually hires them for himself and they play both sides, constantly getting more and more confused and not knowing who they're working for. The climax sees the two countries initially go to war, as Rufus and Trentino insult each other to the point of battle.

The only bad thing that I can say about "Duck Soup", is that it ends way too soon. I wish this had gone on for another hour, as I could've listened to Groucho insult people for that much longer. The "three-hat routine" and the mirror scene are both classics and I've actually seen the mirror scene imitated before on an old episode of "I Love Lucy", but never realized that this was it's origin. The timing of the brothers was impecable and there was just something about Groucho that made my ears perk up whenever he was on, as I just didn't want to miss anything he had to say, because 99% of it was probably going to be something to laugh at. Harpo and Chico were great too, and the expressions on Harpo's face were classic and the ongoing cutting gag was hilarious. A lot of times when you watch older comedies, they same stuff that worked back then and was funny back then, just doesn't hold up today. That is not the case with "Duck Soup", as everything still holds up and is still really funny.

RATING: 10/10 I'm starting the countdown right now to "A Night at the Opera" which is my next Marx brothers movie and one that I cannot wait to see now.

NEXT UP: Queen Christina...My first Greta Garbo film and one that should be watched and reviewed later tonight.

January 23, 2010 4:19pm