May 1941: Sunny

Sunny. Herbert Wilcox. 1941.

This is more the video quality I expected from the 50-movie DVD box set. Completely unrestored. But the sound’s kinda good.

This is based on a stage musical, so it’s chock-full with musical numbers and doesn’t have much of a plot. Which is fine by me.

Yay! Edward Everett Horton! I must have seen him in dozens of movies, I think? Or one film a dozen times?

This probably isn’t a very good movie, really, by any sensible standard, but I’m entertained.

Popular movies in May 1941 according to IMDB:

PosterVotesRatingMovie
sc-tt0033467.jpg3116078.4Citizen Kane
sc-tt0034184.jpg3767.7Shining Victory
sc-tt0033852.jpg20747.5Love Crazy
sc-tt0034399.jpg17657.2A Woman’s Face
sc-tt0033754.jpg24787.1In the Navy
sc-tt0033405.jpg16217.0Blood and Sand
sc-tt0034223.jpg2156.9The Spider Returns
sc-tt0034013.jpg2206.3The People vs. Dr. Kildare
sc-tt0033397.jpg9146.3The Black Cat
sc-tt0033910.jpg3106.3Million Dollar Baby

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

April 1941: That Uncertain Feeling

That Uncertain Feeling. Ernst Lubitsch. 1941.

There’s like… nothing here. The film spins its wheels from the start to the end, and nothing really happens.

It’s plain weird.

But it might just be my lack of concentration? I don’t know. I skipped back a few times because I just didn’t track what (if anything) was happening, and I still don’t know what this film is all about.

I blame alcohol!

I should probably watch this all over again while sober, so take the dice with a grain of salt.

Popular movies in April 1941 according to IMDB:

PosterVotesRatingMovie
sc-tt0033533.jpg27957.8The Devil and Miss Jones
sc-tt0034272.jpg30247.4That Hamilton Woman
sc-tt0033677.jpg25777.3The Great Lie
sc-tt0034116.jpg23947.2Road to Zanzibar
sc-tt0034012.jpg47857.2Penny Serenade
sc-tt0034273.jpg5426.9That Night in Rio
sc-tt0034415.jpg19006.9Ziegfeld Girl
sc-tt0033853.jpg3116.8Love on the Dole
sc-tt0034274.jpg17056.8That Uncertain Feeling
sc-tt0033902.jpg8186.6Men of Boys Town

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

March 1941: Meet John Doe

Meet John Doe. Frank Capra. 1941.

I’ve seen this before!

Unfortunately, this is the Amazon Prime version of this movie, and the video sucks and the audio is very mp3-artifactey. (Everybody is talking from underneath the ocean. Whoosh whoosh.)

NEVER AMAZON PRIME AGAIN (unless I really have to).

This is, of course, a very good movie by Frank Capra. Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper are great, and the conceit of the film is totally original. It’s somewhat amusing that the premise of the film is that newspapers are downsizing because of reasons, which pretty much describes our times.

And the fake news, of course.

And the fascist who tries to co-opt the popular uprising. It’s kinda a movie for 2018.

But I’m not enjoying watching this movie as much as I probably ought to, and I think that’s all down to the lousy Amazon Prime video quality. So my rating is probably way too low.

I liked the speech from that milkman or whatever he was.

Amazon sucks!

Popular movies in March 1941 according to IMDB:

PosterVotesRatingMovie
sc-tt0033891.jpg95697.7Meet John Doe
sc-tt0033317.jpg7247.6Adventures of Captain Marvel
sc-tt0034162.jpg23727.5The Sea Wolf
sc-tt0033519.jpg8637.5Dead Men Tell
sc-tt0033613.jpg4067.0Flying Wild
sc-tt0033868.jpg9407.0Major Barbara
sc-tt0034303.jpg18617.0Topper Returns
sc-tt0033616.jpg6546.8Footsteps in the Dark
sc-tt0034199.jpg2636.8Sleepers West
sc-tt0033664.jpg2286.7A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

February 1941: Road Show

Road Show. Hal Roach. 1941.

I love it! It’s one of those screwball comedy things. It’s absolutely insane.

This is another movie from the absurd box set, and the audio/video quality is a lot better than anybody has a reason to expect.

It’s a low budget movie, so I guess it’s a “B movie” of its time, but it’s so inventive and cooky. It doesn’t really make much sense, but if you go along with the antics, it’s something else.

And! It’s got a random musical scene! With a four-man black singing troupe! The Charioteers? It’s positively pinko commie.

(It does bring us back to that eternal question: Is it more racist to make a movie without any black actors, or a movie with some black actors, where at least a couple of them do the totally standard “wide-open eyes and totally a coward’ thing? And watermelon? Not to mention the Native American thing. But is it!?)

No mention of the European Situation, though.

Popular movies in February 1941 according to IMDB:

PosterVotesRatingMovie
sc-tt0033804.jpg151548.0The Lady Eve
sc-tt0034236.jpg23757.4The Strawberry Blonde
sc-tt0033661.jpg3007.2The Ghost of St. Michael’s
sc-tt0033365.jpg3737.0Back Street
sc-tt0034384.jpg17296.8Western Union
sc-tt0034297.jpg15406.7Tobacco Road
sc-tt0033890.jpg3576.7Meet Boston Blackie
sc-tt0033950.jpg2236.7Nice Girl?
sc-tt0033459.jpg4436.7Cheers for Miss Bishop
sc-tt0033342.jpg3326.7Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

January 1941: Come Live With Me

Come Live With Me. Clarence Brown. 1941.

This is another pro-immigration movie, with a refugee from Austria who’s being deported, and the very odd hi-jinx that ensue. (Which include her married boyfriend frittering and his wife (and her boyfriend) and you know.)

It’s obliquely making references to the Situation in Europe.

It’s very risque, and Verree Teasdale’s dialect is so perfectly mid-Atlantic that I would have taken this for a much earlier movie if I didn’t know better. And she’s wonderful.

I had a look at James Stewart’s imdb listing, and it’s empty after this film until 1946. So I thought, wha? They sent as famous people as James Stewart into the military? Not only that, but:

In October 1940, Stewart was drafted into the United States Army but was rejected for failing to meet the weight requirements for his height for new recruits—Stewart was 5 pounds (2.3 kg) under the standard. To get up to 143 pounds (65 kg), he sought out the help of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s muscle man and trainer Don Loomis, who was noted for his ability to help people gain or lose weight in his studio gymnasium.

He got in, became a fly boy, and finally convinced the powers that be that he should do real service and flew a number of raids.

I had no idea.

ANYWAY! You have to admire Hollywood movies like this: They have such clarity of vision. Instead of cluttering things up with extraneous characters and complications, they keep the focus on what matters: The love story, and how to bring the star-crossed lovers together for real, somehow.

Popular movies in January 1941 according to IMDB:

PosterVotesRatingMovie
sc-tt0033717.jpg118597.6High Sierra
sc-tt0033436.jpg33757.3Buck Privates
sc-tt0033582.jpg6957.2The Face Behind the Mask
sc-tt0032916.jpg2037.1Play Girl
sc-tt0033477.jpg12707.1Come Live with Me

This blog post is part of the Decade series.