Movie Review: A Stranger In My Arms (1959)

A sudsy melodrama, A Stranger In My Arms features enough talent to survive a torrid story of misplaced passion.

Test pilot Major Pike Yarnell (Jeff Chandler) is approached by widow Christina Beasley (June Allyson) with an invitation to attend a memorial service for her deceased husband Donald (Peter Graves). Towards the end of the Korean War, Pike and Donald drifted for days in an ocean survival raft before Donald expired. Now the dead man's domineering mother Virginie (Mary Astor) is intent on building a case for posthumously awarding her son the Medal of Honor, and needs Pike's testimony to support her lobbying.

Pike knows Donald is far from deserving of any medal, and reluctantly travels to the small Georgia town dominated by the Beasleys. He is interested in pursuing a romance with Christina, but also finds himself targeted by the flirty Pat Beasley (Sandra Dee), Donald's younger sister. Virginie and her father-in-law Vance (Charles Coburn) are soon working on Pike to spin the right story, but from the desperate days on the raft Pike knows enough secrets about the family to resist their crass pressure while still trying to win Christina's heart.

An adaptation of the Robert Wilder novel And Ride a Tiger, A Stranger In My Arms is ambitious but also vaguely under-resourced. Filmed in CinemaScope but in black and white, featuring a healthy number of intriguing characters but a less than stellar cast and clocking in at just 88 minutes, the production appears in conflict with itself. Nevertheless director Helmut Kautner conjures up a passable drama centred on a mother in love with herself and the phantom idea of an ideal son, with all those around her acquiescing to her warped reality and afraid to confront her with the truth.

Mary Astor bites into the role of Virginie Beasley with some venom, her manipulative antics a hot pepper amidst all the hot sauce emotions. June Allyson and Jeff Chandler are supposed to be the main characters but both are relatively bland. Sandra Dee delivers the other notable role, Pat not allowing her self-awareness and precocious maturity to stifle a purring sexuality.

Kautner would have had an even shorter film on his hands had the clenched-jawed Pike revealed exactly what happened on the raft the first time he met Christina. Instead the revelations are stretched out in flashback snippets, the running time occupied with stand-ins riding muscular horses in pretty landscapes, until a rather tepid climax in which a key letter is not even read out. A Stranger In My Arms generates heat but does not always quite know what to do with it.



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Movie Review: Other Men's Women (1931)

A depression-era love triangle drama, Other Men's Women offers an intriguing supporting cast and good cinematography, but is otherwise dull and emotionally overcooked. 

Railwaymen Bill (Grant Withers) and Jack (Regis Toomey) have been best buddies for a long time. Bill likes to party and hangs out with waitress Marie (Joan Blondell), but is not ready settle down. Jack is married to Lily (Mary Astor), and brings Bill home to dry out after a night of hard drinking. Soon Bill and Lily fall in love, severely straining the friendship between the two men and leading to tragedy and sacrifice on the rail tracks.

Most notable for featuring James Cagney (as another rail buddy) and Joan Blondell in early roles, Other Men's Women also enjoys adventurous on-location cinematography by Barney McGill. Many scenes feature impressively mammoth freight trains and chugging engines, and director William A. Wellman makes excellent use of nighttime, heavy rain and spot lighting to create stark silhouettes, dark moods and a glistening aesthetic.

Unfortunately, the plot itself is bland and overclocked, with two charisma-challenged leading men in Grant Withers and Regis Toomey never registering much personality. Mary Astor's role as the subject of their affection is limited and she disappears for long stretches. The downward spiral of events triggered by illicit love accelerates from the silent treatment to a physical altercation then a life-changing injury and finally a catastrophic train event. Peter Berneis' script just barely avoids cramming locusts and the plague into the 71 minutes of running time.

Cagney makes the most of his few minutes of screen time, most memorably with an airy jig onto the dance floor, and Blondell fires off sassy retorts to railway men on the prowl. As it turns out, Other Men's Women is most interesting for the other man and other woman supporting the main players.



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Movie Review: The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937)

A swashbuckling adventure, The Prisoner Of Zenda is a breezy story of palace intrigue, conspiracy, romance, and one wild coincidence.

British aristocrat Rudolf Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) arrives in an unnamed small eastern european country for a fishing vacation. He carries an uncanny resemblance to king-to-be Rudolf V (also Colman), who is about to be coronated the next day. The future king and his loyal assistants Colonel Zapt (C. Aubrey Smith) and Captain Fritz von Tarlenheim (David Niven) spend the evening drinking with Rassendyll.

Unfortunately, Rudolf V consumes a wine bottle spiked with a sleeping drug, courtesy of his evil brother Duke Michael (Raymond Massey) and co-conspirator Rupert of Hentzau (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Michael will ascend to the throne if Rudolf misses his coronation, with a bonus prize of marrying Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll), who is promised to whoever becomes king. Antoinette de Mauban (Mary Astor) truly loves Michael, and is therefore in danger of losing her man.

With Rudolf V incapacitated, Colonel Zapt thinks quickly and convinces doppelganger Rassendyll to show up at the coronation, disrupting Michael's plot. Rudolf V is captured and imprisoned by Hentzau, and Rassendyll now has to pretend to be King. He starts to fall in love with Flavia and is thrust into a ruthless battle for the crown.

The adaptation of the classic Anthony Hope novel is given lush, high-quality treatment in this David O. Selznick production. As a story The Prisoner Of Zelda may operate best at an almost childlike level of thrills and wonder, but the movie just powers ahead, fully committed to the absurd tale of an Englishman asked to fool an entire foreign nation and getting away with it for much longer than makes sense.

With eager pacing, director John Cromwell somehow packs the multiple characters, twisted agendas, numerous double-crosses, and convoluted but internally logical events into just the 101 minutes. The actors help by appearing resplendent in their outfits, the men convincing as they partake in a joust for dominance, the ladies leaning heavily towards theatricality and heavy breathing. The impressive set designs, featuring hundreds of extras, create a bountiful ambience. A few athletic sword and dagger battles add punctuation marks.

The stellar cast is deep in talent, and Colman is in fine form playing dual roles and overcoming a few incidents of clunky editing when Rassendyll and Rudolf V appear together. Surprisingly C. Aubrey Smith overshadows almost everyone else as Colonel Zapt, a wily veteran patriotic officer with a singular mission to protect the throne's reputation.

Slicing its way through any scrutiny of rationality, The Prisoner Of Zenda is an exuberant escape to exotic exploits.



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The Movies Of Mary Astor

All movies starring Mary Astor and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Other Men's Women (1931)

The Prisoner Of Zenda (1937)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Across The Pacific (1942)

Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)

A Stranger In My Arms (1959)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)

A family musical set in the lead-up to the 1904 World's Fair, Meet Me In St. Louis is a heartfelt story of suburban normalcy with excellent performances, gleaming colours and Judy Garland at her artistic peak.

The middle-class Smith family of St. Louis is anticipating the arrival of the World's Fair, now a matter of months away. Anna (Mary Astor) keeps the household humming, her husband Alonzo (Leon Ames) is a respected lawyer, and his father, referred to only as Grandpa (Harry Davenport), is the resident curmudgeon. Daughter Rose (Lucille Bremer) is waiting for her beau Warren Sheffield (Robert Sully) to propose, while her younger sister Esther (Garland) is trying hard to attract the attention of John Truett (Tom Drake), the boy next door. Precocious youngest daughter Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) idolizes her older sisters.

Alonzo drops a bombshell by suddenly announcing that he has accepted a new lucrative position with his firm to head up the New York office, forcing the entire family into an unpopular move. Rose and Esther scramble to firm up their romances, Tootie finds a whole pile of new trouble on Halloween night, and as a wistful Christmas approaches, the family prepares for major change.

The genius of Meet Me In St. Louis emanates from weaving musical magic around typical family life. The Smiths are not any different than any other middle class household, and they are occupied with the routine challenges of preparing meals, falling in love, managing work, growing up and anticipating the upcoming arrival of a major event in their fair city. The most dramatic moments befall tiny Tootie on Halloween night, and even then most of the turbulence is in her imagination. Otherwise life is just ordinary.

And from the narrative of daily life director Vincente Minnelli creates a joyful low-key musical tapestry, the short songs naturally and beautifully embedded in the story to enhance key moments. The musical highlights include The Trolley Song as the family heads out to check out the fairgrounds months before the big event arrives in town, and Esther singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to try and cheer up a disconsolate Tootie.

The essence of the film is captured in a scene of enormous yet calm power.  Minnelli finds the glowing heart of the family when Anna sits at the piano and joins Alonzo in singing You and I, the rest of the family quietly reconvening in the living room to eat cake, minutes after they had splintered in anger after Alonzo's moving-to-New-York surprise. It's a moment of movie magic that defines love and trust within a close knit family.

Judy Garland, at 22 years old, was probably at her peak for Meet Me In St. Louis. Looking radiant in every scene, she acts and sings with understated confidence. Esther is the hinge point of the family, growing into a fine adult while still young enough to relate to her younger sisters, and Garland effortlessly carries Esther's burden of proactively managing the family equilibrium while planning her own flirty pursuit of John Truett.

Filmed in shiny colours and with an infectiously charming attitude, Meet Me In St. Louis is an irresistible invitation.

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Movie Review: Across The Pacific (1942)

A World War Two adventure conceived before the attack on Pearl Harbor and hurriedly re-written afterwards, Across The Pacific is a would-be classic, unfortunately let down by a poor ending.

It's 1941, World War Two is well underway, and Japan is making aggressive gestures towards the US. In the Panama Canal Captain Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is unceremoniously drummed out of the US Coast Artillery after being caught stealing money. He travels to Halifax but even the Canadian Army refuses to recruit him. He boards the Japanese ship Genoa Maru, intending to travel to Asia via New York and the Panama Canal, to join Chiang Kai-shek's army.

But it's all a ruse. Rick is working for US intelligence, with a mission to cozy up to the wealthy Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet), a Philippines-based professor traveling back to Asia on the Genoa Maru. Dr. Lorenz has strong ties to Japan, and may harbour treacherous plans. Also on board is Canadian girl Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor), and Rick immediately tries to get close to her, as it becomes evident that her story of being a small-town girl from Medicine Hat does not ring true. As they steam to New York and then approach the Canal, the trip becomes hazardous when Rick thwarts an assassination attempt and uncovers Dr. Lorenz's true intentions.

Across The Pacific is four-fifths of an excellent film. Director John Huston headed off to the real war before the ending was wrapped, apparently taking the script with him. An uncredited Vincent Sherman was left to find and film any sort of an ending, and it's miserable B-movie botch of a job. The final 15 minutes almost undo all the preceding good work, and leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

But up until all the main characters find themselves at the Morton Plantation in Panama, Across The Pacific (despite being set entirely in the Atlantic) is a sassy and clever espionage caper, benefiting from three intriguing characters playing a game of cat and mouse on board a tense ship in the shadow of a war that is about to get a lot worse. Across The Pacific is fast-paced, with sharp dialogue (by Robert Garson and Richard Macaulay) and edgy direction. Rick, Dr. Lorenz and Alberta rarely say what they mean or reveal their true intentions, creating a delightful dance of duplicity balanced on a knife's edge.

Huston, Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet reunite from The Maltese Falcon (1941), and the chemistry is immediately evident. Huston transforms the Genoa Maru into a veritable maze of spies and a den of love, Rick and Dr. Lorenz engaged in dangerous deceit while Rick makes a separate play for Alberta. Of course she is hiding secrets of her own, setting up a triangle of saucy secrets on the high seas. Grim-faced Japanese crewmen who seem to eavesdrop on all conversations add to the mounting tension.

But then the climax arrives, a horribly staged, childishly simplistic and brain dead resolution. Across The Pacific is a seductive journey that flounders badly at the final port of call.

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Movie Review: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Dashiell Hammett's book reads like a screenplay, and director John Huston knew better than to tamper with brilliance. This movie version of The Maltese Falcon is a skillfully faithful adaptation of the story featuring a colourful group of ruthless back-stabbing crooks in pursuit of a precious treasure.

Detective Sam Spade finds himself in the middle of the muddle, and has to sort through the mess while keeping himself off the growing list of murder victims.

The strengths of the book are effectively translated to the screen. In a star-making role, Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade defines the 1940's private detective role, all cool under increasing pressure, manipulating diverse characters and cascading events to his advantage despite a shortage of complete information and an even more disadvantageous shortage of guns.

The core of the film is Spade matching wits with Kasper Gutman. Sydney Greenstreet creates one of the most memorable villains of the screen, a combination of faux-intellect, cold-blooded evil, and a really large stomach. Surrounding, complementing, and counterbalancing Greenstreet are the effeminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and the too-tough-for-his-own-good Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.). They both add immeasurable depth to the texture of the film.

The weak spot of the movie, much as in the book, is Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Astor, with her weird hair style and wide open eyes, cannot bring any depth or darkness to the unconvincing O'Shaughnessy as created by Hammett, and is simply not believable neither as a villainess nor as a seductress.

With a lot of the actual action and murder happening off-screen, and most of the character interaction taking place indoors and through sharp conversation, John Huston creates tightning tension and dynamic movement with his camera angles and framing. There is menace, danger and hidden intent behind every line of dialogue, and Huston, working from his own script, captures it all perfectly.

The Maltese Falcon movie, much like the bird at the centre of everyone's attention, is indeed the stuff that dreams are made of.

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