Movie Review: I'll Be Seeing You (1944)

A romantic drama, I'll Be Seeing You is an involving wartime story designed for maximum sentimentality.

Christmas is approaching, and Mary Marshall (Ginger Rogers) and decorated Sergeant Zachary Morgan (Joseph Cotten) meet on a train trip in California. They are both harbouring secrets that they hide from each other: she is a prisoner on a short break for good behaviour. He is suffering from shell shock after being wounded in battle, and is on temporary release from hospital to test his emotional resilience in society.

During her furlough Mary stays at the house of her Uncle Henry and Aunt Sarah (Tom Tully and Spring Byington) and her teenaged niece Barbara (Shirley Temple). They welcome Zach to dinner and a relationship starts to blossom between him and Mary. Zach finds comfort with his new companion and reveals his condition, but Mary cannot bring herself to talk about her imprisonment, and also has to navigate around young Barbara's passive hostility.

Directed by William Dieterle and with a title derived from a hit song of the day. I'll Be Seeing You covers some of the same ground later tackled with more polish in The Best Years Of Our Lives. While I'll Be Seeing You deserves credit for delving into the world of what is now called post traumatic stress disorder, the film is less about the impacts of war and more about damaged souls helping each other heal. Dieterle delivers a purposeful and compact sub-90 minute drama, the film's efficacy matched only by its predictability.

The tension between Mary and Zach is generated by the shame they carry, and an inability to navigate towards honesty. She cannot imagine any form of bright future as a future ex-convict, and is sure revealing her status will drive away anyone who may care about her. After a couple of meltdowns Zach starts to understand that Mary is good for him and stumbles his way towards revealing his condition, creating a growing but uneven dependency.

With a sappy music score milking every scene, Dieterle carefully constructs the film for maximum tragic effect, the lovers' happiness doomed to fall into a deep pothole. I'll Be Seeing You does not disappoint in its singular intent to deliver intense romance in the face of hopelessness, with Mary and Zach carrying enough humanity to make the experience worth caring about.

Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are serviceable but both also appear older than their characters. The Marshall household provides the supporting cast, and Shirley Temple adds an enterprising dimension as the niece caught between curiosity and repulsion.

Arriving exactly at the intended station, I'll Be Seeing You is professionally syrupy.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Primrose Path (1940)

A social drama and romance, Primrose Path tackles weighty issues including poverty, prostitution and alcoholism.

In a small seaside California town near San Francisco, Ellie May Adams (Ginger Rogers) is a teenager growing up poor in the working class Primrose Hill neighbourhood. Her mother Mamie (Marjorie Rambeau) supports the family by working as prostitute. Grandma (Queenie Vassar) is a bitter former prostitute herself. Ellie May's father Homer (Miles Mander) is a college educated expert on Greek philosophy now wasting his life as an unemployable alcoholic.

On a trip to the beach Ellie May meets and quickly falls in love with Ed (Joel McCrea), a jovial server at the restaurant owned by the good-natured Gramp (Henry Travers). Embarrassed by her family, Ellie May lies her way into Ed's heart. They get married and find happiness, but when she finally finds the courage to introduce Ed to her family, life takes a turn for the worse.

Co-written, produced and directed by Gregory La Cava, Primrose Path is a noteworthy adaptation of the stage play by Robert L. Buckner and Walter Hart. The film is an unblinking view of the class divide and the myriad social problems holding back women desperate to break the cycle. Despite the censorship constraints of the time, La Cava succeeds in getting the requite messages to the screen thanks to a sly and uncompromising script.

The difficult issues are addressed in the frank language of economic necessity. Mamie is a prostitute in her prime, and her family would starve without her income. Homer is a fallen would-academic, now utterly dependent on the bottle to get through every day. And most heartbreaking is Grandma, a sour elderly woman who has allowed daily domestic stresses to ravage life's opportunities.

Ellie May, already a school drop out and now burgeoning into adulthood, is doomed to retrace the career path of the women in her family. Grandma is shocked that Ellie May does not naturally appear inclined to follow in her mother's footsteps, and emotionally shoves her granddaughter towards whoredom.

In to this morass Ellie May's whirlwind romance with Ed is introduced, a relationship not so much about love as it is about a young woman gaining exposure to alternatives and thriving when given half a chance. Ellie May resorts to deception to win Ed's affection, but once she gains entry into the respectability of a job at Gramp's, she is a vivacious income-earning young woman powering her way into happiness.

La Cava effortlessly breaks the film away from its stage confines. Primrose Path does remain a series of dialogue exchanges but the settings move briskly between rooms within Ellie May's house, with several excursions to Gramp's restaurant, the beach, and the swanky bar where the town elites go to party. Several scenes even take place in moving vehicles, although some ill-conceived motorcycle antics backfire.

Ginger Rogers proves her dramatic role abilities and dominates Primrose Path. At age 29 she convincingly brings to life a character more than ten years younger, and excels at portraying a young woman caught between her family and her future.

Bold for its time, Primrose Path retains its clear eyed passion.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Ginger Rogers

All movies starring Ginger Rogers and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:

Top Hat (1935)

Primrose Path (1940)

The Major And The Minor (1942)

I'll Be Seeing You (1944)

The Barkleys Of Broadway (1949)

Monkey Business (1952)

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.

Movie Review: The Major And The Minor (1942)

A bland one-trick comedy, The Major And The Minor suffers from a ridiculous premise, a lack of wit and phony execution.

Frustrated with a series of dead-end jobs in New York City, Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) gives up on life in the big city and decides to return to her simpler roots in Iowa. Short of money for the adult train fare, Susan pretends to be 12 years old and buys a discounted child's ticket. On board the train she plays a cat and mouse game with the conductors to avoid detection. She finally hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland), who is returning to his military academy where his smothering fiancée Pamela Hill (Rita Johnson) awaits.

Philip falls for the child trick and takes Susan under his wing, housing her at the academy for a few days after train trouble delays her trip. She finds herself having to carry on pretending to be 12 years old, surrounded by lustful adolescent cadets. Pamela's younger sister Lucy (Diana Lynn) immediately sees through Susan's disguise, but more trouble awaits when Philip and Susan start to develop genuine feelings for each other.

The first Hollywood film directed by Billy Wilder, The Major And The Minor has seedlings of ideas that would grow into better films in the future, notably the adults-in-disguise theme of Some Like It Hot. But in and of itself, The Major And The Minor is a flimsy and forgettable effort that has aged exceptionally poorly. There is very little that is funny about 31 year old Ginger Rogers unconvincingly pretending to be 12 for almost the entire duration of the film, and it's made worse with all the other adults in the story somehow falling for the lame deception.

The film would be more tolerable if it stumbled onto some moments of cleverness or romance, but it does not. The script (co-written by Wilder) is hampered by poor pacing, repetitiveness and scenes prolonged well past their useful length, and the narrative is filled with generally unappealing characters behaving poorly. It's difficult to remember a knock-out scene or even one sharp exchange of dialogue. OK, there is one:

Train conductor, suspicious that Susan is not who she says she is: If you're Swedish, suppose you say something in Swedish.
Susan: I vant to be alone.

The romance never has an opportunity to gain traction, because Philip believes that Susan is 12. The adult affection he starts to develop for her is fundamental for the film and yet can only be icky. Susan is left to engage in a battle of surreptitious wills with the possessive Pamela, and starts to demonstrate the emotional maturity of a 12 year old by using juvenile antics to get between Philip and his chosen fiancée.

The Major And The Minor is an inauspicious US debut for Wilder, neither major nor minor, just annoyingly discordant.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Top Hat (1935)

A lightweight musical comedy with a few excellent moments, Top Hat struggles to stretch its single gag into a story between the song and dance routines.

Showman Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) is invited to London by promoter Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton) to prepare for a new show. While staying at a swanky hotel, Jerry's tap dancing disturbs the sleep of model Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers), who is being pursued by smarmy fashion designer Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes). Jerry starts to court Dale, without telling her who he is. Meanwhile, Horace is engaged in a long-running verbal sparring march with his butler Bates (Eric Blore).

Dale confuses Jerry with Horace, who is married to Madge (Helen Broderick), and she believes that Jerry is a two-timer. Jerry's show opens and is a huge success. As everyone moves to Venice where Dale is modeling, Jerry has to clear up the confusion before Dale succumbs to marriage pressure from Alberto.

With a score by Irving Berlin, Top Hat features some all-time classic musical numbers. Top Hat, White Tie and Tails has Jerry dancing up a distinguished storm on the London stage, joined by a supporting army of top-hatted men. Cheek to Cheek finds Jerry and Dale dancing to the bittersweet romantic melody matching her uncertain mood, as she grows ever more attracted to a man that she believes is married to someone else. Rogers dancing in that gorgeous but feather-shedding gown earned her the eternal nickname Feathers from Astaire. Less notable but still good, Isn't This a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain) kicks off the romance between Jerry and Dale as they dance in a park gazebo.

But there is precious little to fill in the gaps between the musical highlights, and at over 100 minutes, Top Hat is not trying for brevity. It's difficult to imagine what up to five screenwriters spent their time doing, because they certainly were not developing compelling plot points.

The mistaken identity joke is carried way past its best-by date, but in the absence of any other meaningful story elements, it just gets dragged along from London to Venice. Erik Rhodes as Beddini is overly theatrical and quickly irritating, while the rest of the cast offer no musical support and no memorable acting.

But director Mark Sandrich does ensure that the song and dance numbers are well staged, capturing the magic of Astaire and Rogers in long takes and full-length. Sandrich also makes good use of the final, elaborate Busby Berkeley-style Venitian set, as the film ends with the flourish of The Piccolino.

Top Hat may lack depth, but it kicks up its heels when it comes to exuberance.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Monkey Business (1952)

A science farce trying to recreate the vibe of Bringing Up Baby (1938), Monkey Business finds Cary Grant reunited with Howard Hawks but neither the script nor the execution are sharp enough. Some good laughs are scattered in the story about a monkey-made concoction that reverses ageing, but also quite a few clunky and awkward moments.

Research scientist Dr. Barnaby Fulton (Grant) is struggling to come up with a formula that reverses the ageing process. Barnaby is happily married to the supportive Edwina (Ginger Rogers), who tolerates with good humour her husband's absent-mindedness. Working with monkeys at the laboratory of a pharmaceutical company owned by industrialist Oliver Oxley (Charles Coburn), Barnaby's latest formulation is going nowhere, but an escaped monkey randomly mixes the right ingredients, producing a powerful formula that rejuvenates youth. The monkey promptly dumps the mix into the lab's drinking water tank.

Barnaby is the first to unwittingly drink from the monkey's formula and temporarily reverts to the behaviour of a teenager, setting out on a wild adventure with Oxley's curvaceous secretary Lois (Marilyn Monroe). With Oxley dreaming of the riches that the formula will bring to his company but unable to have a rational conversation with the bewildered Barnaby, Edwina gets her turn to unexpectedly become young at heart, and her stint as a juvenile stresses the marriage to Barnaby as she revives memories of old boyfriend Hank Entwhistle (Hugh Marlowe).

With a monkey replacing a leopard, Hawks and Grant must have hoped that the mix of science, animals, and comedy that worked so well in Bringing Up Baby would click again. But the Monkey Business script, by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, and I.A.L. Diamond, is lacking the necessary cutting edge. While the start of the movie sets up the premise with assurance, the story development sinks into general predictability as the cast members take turns acting like younger versions of themselves.

But it's in the final third that Monkey Business stumbles badly. An attempt to descend into farce spirals clumsily into cringe-inducing incompetence, as Edwina incomprehensibly mistakes a baby for Barnaby, while the real Barnaby is busy tying Hank to a tree and attempting to scalp him. It's as awful as it sounds, an embarrassing stretch of intended comedy veering wildly off target.

Thankfully, the rest of the movie is better. Grant's early scenes as the easily distracted scientist demonstrate his quirky charisma to good effect, and Rogers is excellent as the loving wife who understands and celebrates her husband's uniqueness. A pre-stardom Monroe as the secretary with no secretarial skills other than killer curves is unfortunately underutilized, but her scenes cavorting with a rejuvenated Barnaby hint at her irresistible screen presence and subtle comic timing.

Monkey Business proves true to its title animal: sometimes funny, but unfortunately also over-the-top and prone to causing unintended embarrassment.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Barkleys Of Broadway (1949)

The last teaming of Fred Astaire and frequent screen dance partner Ginger Rogers, The Barkleys Of Broadway is a light hearted musical with satisfying dance numbers, good humour, and plenty of style.

Josh (Astaire) and Dinah (Rogers) Barkley are a married musical show business couple, very much in love but also constantly engaged in a bickering war. Their latest Broadway show, in collaboration with their friend Ezra Millar (Oscar Levant), is a huge hit. But when Dinah meets French theatrical author Jacques Pierre Barredout (Jacques François), he convinces her that musical comedy is beneath her, and that she is capable of becoming a leading dramatic actress.

Barredout casts Dinah as his leading lady in a play about the young Sara Bernhardt, causing a split between Dinah and Josh. She struggles to adapt to the rigours of dramatic acting, while Ezra does his best to reconcile the once-happy couple.

Astaire and Rogers had last appeared together in 1939, and Rogers was a last minute replacement for Judy Garland, who dropped out of The Barkleys Of Broadway due to ill health caused by prescription medication dependencies. Rogers stepped in admirably, and her tenth and final collaboration with Astaire allowed them to sign-off as a team in stylish colour.

The movie is well paced by director Charles Walters, the song and dance numbers appearing at regular intervals, and enough of a romantic comedy plot and colourful characters to maintain interest in-between. In addition to several classic Astaire / Rogers dance numbers, Astaire gets an innovative sequence with a store-full of shoes that dance by themselves, an early example of well-executed special effects adding panache to an established genre.

Oscar Levant, in addition to contributing most of the dry wit, adds further variety by performing two high-energy, crowd-pleasing piano pieces. The supporting cast also features Gale Robbins as Shirleen, Dinah's all-too-eager understudy, and a good source of humour throughout the movie.

Astaire and Rogers deserved a successful conclusion to their screen partnership, and The Barkleys Of Broadway delivers the dancing goods.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.