Random Thoughts

Our Town. Sam Wood. 1940.

I hadn’t quite realised how many of films from the early 40s were based on theatre plays. I think so far it’s been… all of them? Almost all of them? This is another one.

This was nominated for all the Oscar awards, including “best sound, recording”, and the sound is horrible. But perhaps “recording” doesn’t mean the actual sound on the film? I can barely make out what they’re saying.

Could be the transfer. I watched the Amazon Prime version, and those are frequently astoundingly awful.

It didn’t win any.

It’s a pretty unique movie. It’s a cod-serious presentation of the town interspersed with “dramatic” scenes. Very sentimental… but it really works, I think.

But my enjoyment was serious impaired by the sound quality, so the dice rolled lower than it would otherwise, I think.

Popular movies in May 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	7198	7.8	Waterloo Bridge
	928	7.7	Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise
	7317	7.4	My Favorite Wife
	1204	7.1	Edison, the Man
	980	6.9	Torrid Zone
	1762	6.8	Our Town
	885	6.7	Beyond Tomorrow
	306	6.7	Lillian Russell
	428	6.6	The Saint Takes Over

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

The Doctor Takes A Wife. Alexander Hall. 1940.

You gotta admire the sheer preposterousness (that’s a word) of the premise here, but it just doesn’t fire on all cylinders. It’s also a very typical “battle of the sexes” thing of the period, which doesn’t help.

But there’s a lot here to enjoy. The performances are on fleek, and it’s got a nice propulsive energy throughout. When it works, it really works.

Popular movies in April 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	1821	7.2	Saps at Sea
	895	7.1	Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
	240	7.1	Buck Benny Rides Again
	552	7.0	The Doctor Takes a Wife
	1742	6.9	Dark Command
	405	6.9	‘Til We Meet Again
	262	6.7	The Proud Valley
	724	6.7	It All Came True
	1610	6.5	Dr. Cyclops
	386	6.5	The Man with Nine Lives

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Too Many Husbands. Wesley Ruggles. 1940.

Hm… Did I see this before? I didn’t think so… Is it part of a box set I’ve bought some years ago?

*time passes while I rummage through the bookcase*

I dud have it! On “Icons of Screwball Comedy Volume One”. Well, this isn’t a very good track record for this blog series so far: I’ve seen 66% of the films previously.

Anyway, it’s a very high concept movie. A man was lost, presumed dead, and his wife remarried. Then he returns, and now she’s married to two people. Hilarity ensues.

There’s a lot of lines like “She’s our wife!” and people doing double takes. It’s fun! I, like, lol-ed out loud at bits. It dances around all the awkward bits and ends up being very modern.

But this isn’t exactly a masterpiece. I think it aims for madcap insanity, but it only achieves slightly bizarre quirkiness.

But it’s a great premise and they soldier through admirably. It’s from a veteran director, Wesley Ruggles, who’d made films from 1917 on.

Popular movies in March 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	91851	8.2	Rebecca
	220	7.4	Drums of Fu Manchu
	3004	7.1	Road to Singapore
	789	7.0	Johnny Apollo
	944	7.0	Primrose Path
	1581	6.9	Strange Cargo
	1598	6.8	Virginia City
	374	6.7	It’s a Date
	293	6.5	The House Across the Bay
	946	6.5	Too Many Husbands

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Pinocchio. Norman Ferguson. 1940.

I’ve never seen this one, but I’ve seen excerpts from it every Xmas (on a couple of channels), so I’ve heard the intro song more than a 80 times, and I’m feeling very Xmas-y now.

You can say many things about Disney, but at least they took really good care of all the stuff created under their auspices. So this Bluray looks really good, and in its original aspect ratio.

I find the animation somewhat confusing, though. That is, I thought that Disney was better at this stuff? Like, the fox villain character just… doesn’t look all that good.

Film critic Leonard Maltin said, “with Pinocchio, Disney reached not only the height of his powers, but the apex of what many critics consider to be the realm of the animated cartoon.”

See? It’s not that good.

It was a box office disaster upon release, which doesn’t surprise me. The character animation just doesn’t seem to be as accomplished as the 30s Disney shorts. But the background stuff and the effects are very nice.

The story is also… Well, it makes absolutely no sense, so I guess they justified it as “a parable”. It gets rather tedious. But the first half (before the plot, as it is, gets going) our is kinda nice.

Popular movies in February 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	984	7.7	Charlie Chan in Panama
	95739	7.5	Pinocchio
	1146	7.5	Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet
	1607	7.4	Broadway Melody of 1940
	606	7.2	The House of the Seven Gables
	2081	7.0	My Little Chickadee
	826	7.0	Young Tom Edison
	244	7.0	Blondie on a Budget
	573	6.8	Vigil in the Night
	391	6.8	Castle on the Hudson

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

His Girl Friday. Howard Hawks. 1940.

And we’re off!

I’ve seen this movie plenty of times before, and that’s not what I want to do in this blog series, really, but I had bought a new copy of this (as part of a screwball box set), so what the hey.

And, as you all know, it’s a wonderful film. The snappy repartee between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell really er snaps, and it’s got an interesting milieu (a newspaper office) and built-in tension (they have to save an innocent (well, he’d only killed a “colored” policeman, which is the next best thing) man from being executed).

It’s a romantic screwball comedy, but perhaps some of Grant’s strategies towards getting Russell back veer into creepy coercion at oints, but what the hey. It’s a clockwork plot. Everything slots together neatly.

“He sounds like a man I ought to marry,” Grant says at one point, and I’m sure the entire set chortled. And describes what Bruce Baldwin looks like as “that guy from the movies… Ralph Bellamy”. Which is the actor playing him.

It’s all so meta!

It’s a strangely shot film, with most of it happening in a couple of rooms with people running in and out of them. It’s not very visual.

Which is a staple of screwball comedy, but was this based on a play, by any chance? Hm… It was!

It’s a thrill.

Popular movies in January 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	20952	8.1	The Shop Around the Corner
	66551	8.1	The Grapes of Wrath
	42649	8.0	His Girl Friday
	3165	7.7	Remember the Night
	239	7.4	Where’s That Fire?
	1365	7.4	Abe Lincoln in Illinois
	2632	7.4	A Chump at Oxford
	683	7.2	The Stars Look Down
	360	7.1	The Green Hornet
	1415	6.8	The Fighting 69th

This blog post is part of the Decade series.