Leo-86 Reviews

Four Daughters (1938)

Garfield's Movie Debut

[9/10 · 14 January 2000]

Directed by Michael Curtiz, Four Daughters is about four musically gifted sisters, their suitors, and their father, a minor conductor.Playing sardonic, quick talking Mickey Borden is John Garfield in the role that made him an instant star.The movie also stars Claude Rains as Adam Lemp and the Lane sisters, Lola, Rosemary, and Priscilla, and Gale Page as his spirited daughters.Its definitive scene takes place in the Lemps' living room. Cigarette hanging from his lips, Borden is playing one of his own compositions. Priscilla Lane's Ann Lemp tells him the piece is beautiful. But he says, "It stinks." He continues: "It hasn't got a beginning or an end, only a middle." Ann urges him to create a beginning and an end. Borden replies, "What for? The fates are against me. They tossed a coin--heads I'm poor, tails I'm rich. But they tossed a two-headed coin." Audiences loved the way Garfield, in his tough city voice, said It stinks. That scene created Garfield's screen persona as the eternal outsider. Four Daughters is a slice of Americana with Garfield, in a compelling performance, supplying more than a hint of darkness.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

"Except on Occasion"

[10/10 · 8 September 1999]

The Philadelphia Story is one of filmdom's most sophisticated romantic comedies. It involves wealthy socialite Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn)who is soon to be married for the second time; C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), her first husband; and Mac Connor (James Stewart), the down-to-earth reporter who becomes smitten with Tracy....Tracy, C.K. and Mac all face a dilemma. In addition to learning about life and love and themselves, they must decide whom they really love. So be ready for a number of surprises before the film is over....That Grant's C.K. is affable, stylish, and a bit conniving is proved during an interesting exchange between him and the two reporters, Mac and Liz Imrie (Ruth Hussey). Liz was one of the reporters who, after C.K. and Tracy were married, dogged them on their honeymoon. She tells Mac that C.K. didn't smash her camera but instead threw it in the ocean, and later paid for it. "I got a nice letter of apology, too," she says. Mac says, somewhat sarcastically, "Always the gentlemen, huh?" C.K. replies, "Except on occasion."...Interesting,too, is that Hepburn originally wanted Clark Gable to play C.K. and Spencer Tracy for the reporter. After both actors declined, Director George Cukor suggested Grant for the C.K. part and MGM boss Louis B. Mayer suggested Stewart portray Mac....The film was a commercial and critical success. Stewart won 1940's Best Actor and the other Stewart, Donald Ogden, took home an Oscar for Best Screenplay. The film was also nominated for Best Picture of the year.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Reciprocal healing

[10/10 · 27 August 1999]

Bruce Willis plays troubled child psychologist Malcom Crowe, and young Haley Joel Osment is Cole Sear, his patient, a disturbed nine-year-old who sees ghosts. Slowly Crowe gains young Cole's trust; and just as slowly Cole gains Crowe's trust. Therein lies the heart of this extraordinary film--for both individuals, when the film is over, have healed each other. And that's what the film is about--recirpocal healing. Willis gives his best performance since In Country, and young Osment is a revelation. The lad should be nominated for 1999's Best Actor. What a performance! The Sixth Sense isn't a horror film. The Sixth Sense isn't merely a ghost story. It's more: It's a terrific, riveting film, one the viewer will think about long after it's over. Final words: The wonderful twist at the end alters the film's entire meaning; and the name M. Night Shyamala should be kept in mind: He has directed and written the summer's best film.

Message in a Bottle (1999)

Tearjerker

[18 August 1999]

Message In A Bottle isn't a good movie; at the same time, it isn't a bad movie. For sure, though, it's much too long. Kevin Costner whines too much, and Paul Newman as his father (good bit of casting) is a tad too grumpy. Robin Wright Penn is the best thing about the film: She's an undervalued, underused, intelligent actress. (She runs well, too.)The folks who made the film should have studied some of those 1940 weepers more closely, which is what this film unsuccessfully aspires to. Those great Bette Davis, Olivia DeHavilland, Claudette Colbert films were nicely paced and moved right along. As far as Message is concerned, I wanted to shout, "Get on with it, gang!" So let's give it **1/2....

To Each His Own (1946)

A Superior Soap Opera

[8/10 · 7 July 1999]

To Each His Own covers more than twenty years in the life of Josephine "Jody" Norris (Olivia DeHavilland), a successful American-born businesswoman now working in London as an air raid warden. Jody thinks back to an earlier time in her life when she had fallen in love with a handsome WWI fighter pilot named Bart Cosgrove (John Lund, in his motion picture debut). Shortly after she becomes pregnant by Cosgrove, Jody learns he has been killed in action. To avoid public scandal, she concocts a scheme to keep her child, but it backfires. Her son, who becomes a fighter pilot like his late father, doesn't know who his real mother is. But Jody's confidante, Lord Desham (Roland Culver, in a wonderfully understated performance), does, and he believes it's his duty to right the situation. A superior soap opera, the film is deftly directed by Mitchell Leisen and features restrained, impressive performances by the entire cast. For her efforts as Jody, deHavilland won the 1946 Oscar for Best Actress. Victor Young's music is never overbearing, and Charles Brackett and Jacques Thery's screenplay is wise and intelligently written.

The Letter (1940)

Twisted and Hypocritical

[2 June 1999]

In the opening scene of The Letter, which takes place under an ominous, full Malayan moon, Leslie follows her lover, Geoffrey Hammond, onto the veranda of her home and shoots him several times. Later she claims he tried to attack her and she was acting in self-defense. Her husband Robert (Herbert Marshall) believes her; her lawyer and friend, Howard Joyce (Robert Stephanson) doesn't....After Leslie is released on bail, she learns that Hammond's widow (Gale Sondergaard at her mysterious best) is in possession of the incriminating letter Leslie wrote to the deceased on the night of the shooting. Risking disbarment, Howard agrees to pay the $10,000 Hammond's widow wants for it. But there is one stipulation: Leslie must come for the letter herself. Under William Wyler's strong, expert direction the confrontation between the two women is the most memorable scene in the film. As Leslie faces her nemesis, and looks straight into her eyes, the complexities of her character are revealed. During this moment nothing is said, the only sound being the foreboding twinkle of wind chimes....Davis's twisted, hypocritical Leslie Crosby is one of her best acting jobs.

Strangers on a Train (1951)

"Bruno Sometimes Goes a Little Too Far"

[10/10 · 22 May 1999]

While traveling on a train from Washington, D.C. to Long Island, tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets Bruno Antony(Robert Walker). They chat amicably and near the end of their journey, Bruno--who knows a great deal about Guy's personal life--makes a bizarre suggestion. He and Guy will exchange murders. He'll murder Guy's clinging wife Miriam, enabling Guy to marry Anne Morton, a senator's daughter; Guy, in turn, will murder Bruno's strict father. Bruno is positive the murders will succeed. If Guy had only known what Bruno's mother told Anne--that "Bruno sometimes goes a little too far"--he would have taken Bruno's plan seriously, instead of dismissing him as a crackpot. Soon Guy learns that Bruno was, dead serious and has kept his end of the bargain: Miriam is found strangled to death in an amusement park. Guy refuses to murder Bruno's father. Incensed, Bruno intends to frame him for Miriam's murder by planting Guy's cigarette lighter at the crime scene. Realizing this, Guy races against time: He must win his tennis match, evade the police who are watching him, and get to the amusement park before Bruno. The showdown between them, a fight on a merry-go-round whirling out of control at tremendous speed, is one of the film's key moments. Casting bay-faced Robert Walker, who had made his mark in boy-next-door roles, as the twisted Bruno was inspired. His performance was excellent. Stealing every scene he's in, Walker's Bruno is certainly one of Hitchcock's most unforgettable villains. Strangers on a Train is one of Hitchcock's best films.

A Double Life (1947)

Imagination Against Reality

[10/10 · 17 May 1999]

Ronald Colman gives an electrifying performance as Tony John, a Broadway actor who can't separate his offstage life from Shakespeare's Othello, the character he plays on stage....Two important scenes illustrate Tony's dilemma. The first one takes place in producer Max Lasker's office. Acting is a matter of talent for the practical-minded Lasker. But Donlan, Tony's friend, disagrees: "No, no. When you do it like Tony does it, it's much more. The way he has of becoming someone else every night...so completely. No, don't tell me his whole system isn't affected by it."....The other scene occurs in waitress Pat Kroll's apartment. Tony tells her his name is Martin. She thanks him. Then he says: "Or Paul. Hamlet. Joe. And maybe Othello."....When Tony begins rehearsing Othello, we learn that though he's trying to keep his real life separated from his stage life, "The part begins to seep into your life, and the battle begins. Reality against imagination." He can't keep the two separated: In his mind Pat is Desdemona and he's Othello, and he wrongly believes she has been unfaithful to him. He murders her....Colman's bravura performance, in a complex and difficult role, earned him 1947's Academy Award for Best Actor. Oscar nominations went to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin for Best Original Screenplay. Not to be overlooked is Milton Krasner's atomspheric cinematography.

Key Largo (1948)

Robinson's Movie

[15 May 1999]

After arriving in Key Largo, Major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart), an ex-war hero, goes to an isolated hotel run by wheel-chair bound John Temple (Lionel Barrymore) and Nora (Lauren Bacall), his daughter-in-law, whose late husband was McCloud's wartime buddy. McCloud learns that the hotel has been taken over by Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), a deported gangster, and his gang....Key Largo is Robinson's movie. Stealing every scene he's in, he has a grand time playing the crazed gangster. The first time we see him he's soaking in a tub, cooled by a fan, gnawing on a cigar. It's a comical scene--and the last time his character will provide any laughs for the viewer....Not only does Rocco delight in terrorizing Temple and Nora, but he taunts McCloud, and viciously humiliates his ex-mistress, a former nightclub singer turned alcoholic, Gaye Dawn(Claire Trevor)....Robinson's finest moment comes during the storm scene, when he expresses what's happening inside his character with broad, physical acting. As the storm rages, Rocco begins coming apart: his fear-filled eyes dart in different directions, and he paces the floor, sweating profusely. He has used his gun to kill many people, but now he knows it's useless against the storm....Theater-trained, the underrated Robinson was a versatile actor. Consider the range of his characterizations in such films as Double Indemnity, The Stranger, Scarlet Street, All My Sons, and of course Key Largo.

I Love You Again (1940)

Secret Sharer

[9/10 · 13 May 1999]

William Powell plays both George Carey and Larry Wilson, and Myrna Loy is his wife Kay in this wonderful, deft, entertaining screwball comedy directed by Woody Van Dyke III...."Hey, this is kinda funny. We're not talking about you but a lug named Wilson, and you're both fellas." The words are those of Doc Ryan, George Carey's pal. George, you see, has had amnesia for nine years, and during that time he became Larry Wilson, a pompous businessman....Enter Larry's charming wife Kay. George learns that Kay is eager to divorce Larry because of his miserable, suffocatingly materialistic ways; and when meets Kay, whom he has forgotten, he falls for her and sets out to reclaim her love....The film's defining moment surprises us with its tenderness. Standing in contrast to the film's madcap goings-on, it takes place when George escorts Kay, who thinks he's Larry, to the spot where years before he proposed to her as Larry. The scene precisely captures the distinctive and wonderful chemistry between Powell and Loy, who went on to make ten more pictures together....Like his two most famous characters (Godfrey of MY MAN GODFREY and Nick Charles of THE THIN MAN), Powell's George Carey emerges as a humane individual with the common touch. In fact, he becomes a hero, saving the townsfolk of quaint Haversville from a criminal scam perpetuated by a big city gangster named Duke Sheldon.

Gilda (1946)

Hate Talk

[9/10 · 11 May 1999]

Things begin to heat up in GILDA--Rita Hayworth's signature film--as soon as mysterious casino owner Ballin Mundson (George Macready) hires Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) as his right hand man. We soon learn that Johnny and Gilda (Rita Hayworth), Mundson's provocative wife, were lovers before she married Mundson....As Gilda's possessive husband, Macready's Mundson thrives on hate. "Hate can be an exciting emotion," he tells Gilda. "Hate is the only thing that warms me." The other characters, too, thrive almost as much on hate as Mundon does. "I hated her so much," Johnny says, "I couldn't get her out of my mind." Later Gilda blasts Johnny: "I hate you so much I would destroy myself to take you down with me." Later she echoes Mundson's words, telling Johnny that "hate is a very exciting emotion."...But be careful about all that hate talk when it's between Gilda and Johnny. Watch them instead--because one of the film's most memorable qualities is the dichotomy between what is heard and seen....Set in South America, GILDA's storyline is contrived and the ending a cop out. But who cares? Rita Hayworth is the main reason to see GILDA. She sings. She dances. She drives Farrell, Mundson, and the other males into a tizzy. Rita was never better.

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

A Most Unusual Fable

[9 May 1999]

Portrait of Jennie is an eerie romantic fantasy. It's also a mystery--with Joseph Cotten's character, a penniless artist named Eben Adams, as the detective....The year is 1932. In Central Park Adams meets Jennie, a strange girl who dresses as if she were from another era. Time passes and every time Jennie reappears she's much older....One day Cotten asks her to pose for a portrait. She agrees. When a wealthy art dealer (Ethel Barrymore) sees the painting she says, "It's a great picture."...Haunted by the mysterious Jennie, Adams investigates her background and learns from a woman who knew her family that her parents, trapeze artists, were killed in a highwire accident years ago. Then Adams speaks with the mother superior of the convent Jennie attended. What he learns nearly wrecks his life....Cotten gives a sensitive performance as the struggling artist, and Jones is convincing as the ethereal Jennie. Dimitri Tiompkin's music score, drawn from DeBussy's themes, is haunting. Joseph August's cinematography, which received an Academy Award, is superb. Under Joseph Dieterle's direction, Portrait of Jennie is a haunting, unusual, romantic fable.

Twentieth Century (1934)

Barrymore, Lombard, and Hawks Are Outstanding

[5 May 1999]

John Barrymore is in rare form in Twentieth Century (1934), Howard Hawks's hilarious, fast-paced screwball comedy. He plays flamboyant Broadway director-producer Oscar Jaffe, a man for whom the whole world is truly a stage. The always enchanting Carole Lombard co-stars as Mildred Plotka/Lily Garland. (Oscar demanded the name change because Mildred Plotka isn't nearly as glamorous sounding as Lily Garland.) Mildred, an aspiring Broadway actress, is remade by Oscar into a star of the New York stage. For three years he directs her plays, guides her career, and is her lover. But after they have a big disagreement, she takes off for Hollywood. Her career soars; his plummets. Time passes and then on board the Twentieth Century heading for Grand Central Station, they meet again. As usual in a Hawks film, the supporting cast is outstanding; and Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's screenplay is one of their finest.

The Narrow Margin (1952)

"...Use Your Own Sink"

[3 May 1999]

Charles McGraw plays edgy cop Walter Brown. His job is to protect a dead racketeer's wife, Mrs Neil (Marie Windsor) from the mob. She's a key witness in a grand jury probe, and also has a payoff list linking gang members to the LAPD. Most of the film's action takes place on board the train taking Brown and Neil to Los Angeles, where she will testify.In Mrs. Neil, played to perfection by Windsor, the queen of B movies, the tough talking, wise-cracking Brown meets his match. On the way to meet her, he glibly tells his partner, Gus Forbes that "She's the sixty cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Sticky poison under the gravy." When he and Forbes, both from Los Angeles, first meet her, she says, "How nice. How Los Angeles." Then looking Brown up and down, she snarls, "Sunburn wear off on the way?" My favorite wisecrack occurs after Brown has finally had enough of her wise remarks and lashes out, "You make me sick to my stomach." Her retaliation is a gem: "Well, use your own sink." Unlike the banter between Nick and Noira Charles of The Thin Man series, there's nothing the least sophisticated about the way Brown and Neil talk each other. Director Richard Fleischer uses inventive camera work, the sounds of the train rather than a music score, and the train's claustrophobic atomsphere to create and sustain tension. An RKO picture, The Narrow Margin is an unpretentious, taut low-budget thriller, a minor classic far superior to the 1990 Gene Hackman-Anne Archer remake.