A young wife (Dorothy McGuire) is struggling with the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood while her husband (Robert Young) builds a successful career as an architect. Her immaturity leads her to behave unreasonably and suspiciously. Based on the short stories by Rose Franken and directed by Walter Lang (THE KING AND I). This was a sequel to the 1943 film CLAUDIA which had been a great success on Broadway starring McGuire, who recreated her role in the movie version. The first film was a big hit and this sequel also hit pay dirt at the box office. Honestly, this sequel didn't do much for me and I like both McGuire and Young. In between the two CLAUDIA movies, they did THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE which is a better film. The film benefits from an excellent supporting cast including Mary Astor, John Sutton, Gail Patrick, Rose Hobart, Florence Cates and Harry Davenport.
Set during the Sino Japanese war, a gunrunner (George Sanders) becomes enmeshed in a scheme involving fraudulent customs certificates. Meanwhile, he finds the time to fall in love with a mysterious chanteuse (Dolores Del Rio). Directed by Eugene Forde (CHARLIE CHAN AT MONTE CARLO), this exotic combination of romance and intrigue is very entertaining. Reunited from the previous year's LANCER SPY, Sanders and Del Rio make for an attractive couple and the Shanghai backdrop (actually the 20th Century Fox backlot) adds a bit of mystery and glamour. It's a minor film (CASABLANCA it's not) but one needn't try too hard to like it. A slight annoyance is the secondary romantic couple (June Lang and Dick Baldwin) who the movie could easily have done without as they add nothing to the story. With Leon Ames, Keye Luke, John Carradine and Harold Huber.
A jazz pianist (Richard Carlson) is about to be married when he is visited by a woman (Juli Reding) he had an affair with. She threatens to expose him to his fiancee (Lugene Sanders). When a railing high atop a lighthouse gives way, she falls clinging to the railing and asking to be saved but the pianist allows her to fall to her death. But that is not the end of her as her ghost stalks him. Directed by schlockmeister Bert I. Gordon (VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS), this low budget B (or is it C) movie is like an extended version of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode. Its ending is telegraphed so there are no surprises and Gordon isn't a stylish enough director to provide the requisite atmosphere that might have made a ghost story work. While absurd, it's not quite silly enough to qualify as "camp" but the movie has one stylish asset, the B&W cinematography of Ernest Laszlo (IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD). With Joe Turkel and Susan Gordon.
The lives of songwriting team Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton) and their rise to fame from Tin Pan Alley to Broadway to Hollywood. Directed by Richard Thorpe (IVANHOE), this is yet another glossy highly fictionalized biography of popular composers courtesy of MGM, who had recently done Jerome Kern (TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY) and Rodgers and Hart (WORDS AND MUSIC). The narrative is a tub of cliches but one doesn't watch movies like this for their plot (and certainly not their accuracy) but the songs and dances. In this case, that might be enough because we have Astaire partnered with Vera Ellen and Hermes Pan doing the choreography. There's also Debbie Reynolds as Helen Kane singing (dubbed by the real Kane) I Wanna Be Loved By You and Gloria DeHaven playing her real life mother singing Who's Sorry Now? There's also Arlene Dahl displaying a lovely singing voice leading one to wonder why MGM didn't put her in more musicals. With Keenan Wynn, Gale Robbins and Carleton Carpenter.
A young flapper (Colleen Moore) enjoys the wild life but she's really a "good" girl. When the son (Neil Hamilton) of a rich businessman (Edward Martindel) falls for her, his father cautions him against girls like her. Directed by William A. Seiter (YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER). Ah, the 1920s! Flaming youth! Flappers and sheiks doing the Charleston and drinking booze from silver flasks! This silent movie captures the frenzied spirit of the era wonderfully but its story is bland and inane. It's just a routine cautionary tale though Colleen Moore has a fiery speech about men who push girls to dress and behave a certain way for their male pleasure and then judge them as "bad" girls. Colleen Moore is the reason to see the movie! With her bobbed hair, slinky chemise and frenetic dancing, she embodies the flaming youth of the jazz age as much as Clara Bow or Joan Crawford. With Bodil Rosing and John St. Polis.
Set in the 1920s, a society heiress and flapper (Bess Armstrong) is living the high life in Istanbul. But she needs to find her missing father (Wilford Brimley) or risk losing her inheritance to her father's scheming business partner (Robert Morley). To this end, she hires a womanizing, hard drinking ex-WWI pilot (Tom Selleck) to fly her to Afghanistan where she believes her father might be. Loosely based on the novel by Jon Cleary and directed by Brian G. Hutton (WHERE EAGLES DARE). Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indiana Jones in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK but he had to pass because he was tied up with the TV series, MAGNUM P.I. This action movie has a lot in common with RAIDERS (though the source material preceded the Spielberg movie) and we get a taste of what Selleck might have been like as Indiana Jones. Initial reviews were tepid but I suspect that's because it was considered a RAIDERS imitator. Today, it holds up very well. Unlike a lot of TV actors trying to transition to the big screen, Selleck has a strong screen presence. The aerial sequences are well done, Selleck and Armstrong have a nice chemistry and there's a beautiful score by John Barry. With Jack Weston, Brian Blessed and Cassandra Gava.
Set in 1870s Northern California, hydraulic mining sends floods of muddy water into the Sacramento Valley destroying land and water resources necessary to the wheat farmers in the valley. Against this backdrop, a mining engineer (George Brent) and a farmer's daughter (Olivia De Havilland) fall in love although their loyalties belong to different factions. Based on the book by Clement Ripley and directed by Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA). The movie is a fictionalized take on the 1882 Woodruff vs. North Bloomfield Mining Company lawsuit. It's an agreeable potboiler more interesting for its landmark court decision than its anemic romance. The film was shot in the relatively new three strip Technicolor process. Unfortunately, the print I watched was somewhat faded and not very sharp. It needs a major restoration but it's not an important enough film to spend the necessary funds. With Claude Rains, Margaret Lindsay, Tim Holt, Sidney Toler and John Litel.
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