Movie Review: Dead End (1937)

A drama about class tensions between rich and poor, Dead End explores life at the edge with plenty of ambience but only fragments of story.

In Manhattan, new high-rises are encroaching towards traditionally poor riverfront neighbourhoods. At the base of one new swanky building, a group of tenement boys (the Dead End Kids) spend their days coming up with new ways to cause mostly harmless mischief. Painter and aspiring architect Dave (Joel McCrea) keeps an eye on the street, while Drina (Sylvia Sidney), the older sister and sole guardian of one of the boys, pines for Dave's attention.

But Dave is now more interested in Kay (Wendie Barrie), one of the wealthy women occupying an apartment in the new high rise. Gangster Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) grew up in the neighbourhood and now returns with his henchman Hunk (Allen Jenkins), hoping to reconnect with his estranged mother (Marjorie Main) and former lover Francey (Claire Trevor). The street kids get themselves into trouble when they bully a wealthy kid, while Dave stands up to Martin's intrusion, leading to violence.

An adaptation of the stage play by Sidney Kingsley, Dead End introduces the Dead End Kids to movie audiences and provides Bogart with another stock and poorly defined gangster role. The Lillian Hellman screenplay is notably sympathetic towards the hardscrabble street life of the disadvantaged, the rich folks here presented as uncaring elitists infringing on the turf of the oppressed. William Wyler does his best to add a sense of place, but the film remains a stage-bound spectacle essentially confined to one set.

Wyler does capture tension caused by the expanding footprint of wealth. The poor neighbourhood is now in the literal shadow of a building built by and for the rich. No commonalities exist between the two worlds, and when the curious but clueless Kay tentatively explores the run-down building where Dave lives, she quickly concludes she cannot belong here - or with him.

Hellman's script lacks a singular focus and instead invests an inordinate amount of time with the Dead End Kids and their juvenile street level shenanigans. But it remains unclear whether their lifestyle, consisting of horseplay, bullying, pushing and shoving, tough talk and threats of violence, is being condemned or celebrated as boys-being-boys. 

The children-as-a-product-of-their-environment theme is frail, and a feeble attempt to get away with a bullying-and-stabbing episode falls foul of the Hays Code. The good Dave and bad Martin are supposed to represent the two alternative outcomes for the kids to pursue, but neither man is provided a meaningful opportunity to chart a path or make a case.

Humphrey Bogart as Baby Face Martin generates the best electricity, and he enjoys a partial arc as his encounters with his mother and former lover don't go as planned. Along with Dave, Drina and Kay, the adults are far more interesting than the kids and create the basis for what could have been a more compelling drama. But at this waterfront, the grownups are on the sidelines and the dead end street is overwhelmed by rowdiness.

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.

Movie Review: Foreign Correspondent (1940)

A World War Two thriller, Foreign Correspondent overcomes some war time propaganda stiffness thanks to epic espionage showpieces expertly crafted by director Alfred Hitchcock.

It's 1939, and hard-nosed reporter John Jones (Joel McCrea) is chosen by the editor of the New York Globe newspaper to head to Europe, cut through the diplomatic drivel and determine if war is indeed imminent. In London, Jones interviews key diplomat Van Meer (Albert Basserman) but can get little useful information out of him. Jones also meets Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), who runs a for-peace advocacy group, and falls in love with Fisher's activist daughter Carol (Laraine Day).

Moving on to Amsterdam, Jones finds himself witness to a shocking assassination and a cover-up, and stumbles onto a nefarious enemy agitator cell hiding out at a rural windmill. As the war drums beat louder, he teams up with fellow reporter ffolliott (George Sanders, playing a character with two "f"s and no capitals in his surname) to try and uncover the work of enemy agents in western Europe, and Jones himself becomes a target.

After a slowish start to establish the premise, director Hitchcock transforms Foreign Correspondent into an unrelenting spy adventure movie. In his second Hollywood production after Rebecca, many of the director's soon-to-be signature themes emerge. Jones is a man plunged into events greater than he could have imagined, vast conspiracies are unfolding behind veneers of respectability, and the bad guys are quick to resort to innovative assassination methods to get the job done and cover their tracks.

Foreign Correspondent features several highlights signalling Hitchcock's emerging mastery of the polished and playful suspense set-piece. The Amsterdam staircase assassination scene and subsequent escape, starting on foot amongst a sea of black umbrellas and evolving into a car chase, is the film's startling pivot point. Quickly afterwards, Hitchcock unspools a tense hide-and-seek game inside a windmill, filled with clever touches including an uncooperative overcoat and unforgiving machinery.

The director then hits his stride. Jones has to extricate himself from an upper-floor hotel room with two assassins waiting inside. But this is only a prelude to another deliciously taut encounter with a covert killer-for-hire (Edmund Gwenn), this time culminating at the top of a cathedral observation tower, and another gasp-inducing punctuation mark of a climax.

Remarkably, Hitchcock is far from done. The film ends with a prolonged climax featuring a spectacular plane crash into the water, and then a rescue and still more clever duplicity onboard a neutral American ship. After Jones' epic survival saga on land, air and sea, the film's appeal for American involvement in the war emerges as a short but powerfully effective piece of propaganda.

A large part of the film's appeal is the wealth of characters and events that make it onto the screen. Hitchcock populates every scene with details and people who may or may not prove to be relevant, but keep the eye and mind engaged. From Jones being provided with the clumsy pseudonym Huntley Haverstock to the wide-eyed Latvian diplomat seemingly hovering on the edge of every encounter, there is always something going on just to the side of the main plot.

Before dedicating most of his career to Westerns, Joel McCrea was a versatile actor, and he is surprisingly effective as Jones. He gives the central character a sharper edge compared to Hitchcock's later reliance on the more rounded personas of Cary Grant and James Stewart. Herbert Marshall and George Sanders provide potent support, both men scheming their way in and out of trouble, and indeed in the second half of the film the dynamic between Fisher and ffolliott takes some of the load off Jones.

Hitchcock's McGuffin in this case is career diplomat Van Meer, Albert Basserman bringing to life a frustrating obfuscator harbouring valuable secrets that could tip the balance of power in the event of war.

Foreign Correspondent is an entertaining milestone, creating the how-to template for powering an absorbing plot with a high voltage current of suspense.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Ride The High Country (1962)

A western exploring the changing times, Ride The High Country (also known as Guns In The Afternoon) gets bogged down in a tedious subplot and plods its way into blandness.

Former respected Marshall Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) has fallen on hard times. He arrives in the gold rush town of Hornitos, California, where he accepts an assignment from the local bank to provide security services on the dangerous trail to and from the Coarse Gold mining camp. Steve recruits his old friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott) as backup. Gil himself is also past his glory days and along with his young sidekick Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) is now part of a cheesy traveling wild west show.

The trio head out to the gold camp, with Steve unaware that Gil and Heck have intentions to double cross him. Along the way they rest at the ranch of religious zealot Joshua Knudsen (R.G. Armstrong) and his daughter Elsa (Mariette Hartley). Heck is immediately attracted to Elsa, but she has already decided to marry Billy Hammond, who is working the gold mines. Elsa is desperate to escape her father and joins Steve, Gil and Heck as they journey to the mines. Once there, her husband-to-be Billy (James Drury) and his boorish brothers Elder (John Anderson), Sylvus (L. Q. Jones), Jimmy (John Davis Chandler) and Henry (Warren Oates) prove to be nothing but trouble, making Steve's security assignment much more complicated.

The second film directed by Sam Peckinpah and the final screen role of Randolph Scott's career, Ride The High Country contains some points of interest. Filmed in CinemaScope and featuring some stunning mountainous scenery bathed in rich colours, the film carries strong visual appeal. The story of two aging and imperfect veterans in the twilight of their life experiencing the dying days of the old west, the film contains many of the themes Peckinpah would return to in later efforts.

Ride The High Country is punctuated with reminders that the past was better, the glory days have been firmly left behind, and final acts should be invested to either polish a legacy or chase a final pay day. However, after a slow but steady start, that appealing narrative stumbles, and badly.

The intrusion of Heck, Elsa, Billy and his idiot band of brothers starts as an irritating distraction and is allowed to morph into the dominant story. Heck and Elsa have nowhere near the depth of Steve and Gil, and yet many precious scenes are burned on their non-romance and the rough treatment she receives at the hands of her father and then the Hammond clan. Steve's mission to protect the gold trail is forgotten, the simmering tension with Gil taking a firm back seat for long stretches, much to the film's detriment.

Peckinpah also falls into the trap of inserting unnecessary juvenile fistfights or face slaps at regular intervals, the film often descending into literal and only partially intended slapstick.

McCrea and Scott bring grizzled maturity to their roles, and are by far the best thing about Ride The High Country. Their journey to atonement would have been worthwhile, but this western drama rides the wrong horse.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.