Random Thoughts

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:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	2795	7.8	The Devil and Miss Jones
	3024	7.4	That Hamilton Woman
	2577	7.3	The Great Lie
	2394	7.2	Road to Zanzibar
	4785	7.2	Penny Serenade
	542	6.9	That Night in Rio
	1900	6.9	Ziegfeld Girl
	311	6.8	Love on the Dole
	1705	6.8	That Uncertain Feeling
	818	6.6	Men of Boys Town

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

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:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	9569	7.7	Meet John Doe
	724	7.6	Adventures of Captain Marvel
	2372	7.5	The Sea Wolf
	863	7.5	Dead Men Tell
	406	7.0	Flying Wild
	940	7.0	Major Barbara
	1861	7.0	Topper Returns
	654	6.8	Footsteps in the Dark
	263	6.8	Sleepers West
	228	6.7	A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

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:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	15154	8.0	The Lady Eve
	2375	7.4	The Strawberry Blonde
	300	7.2	The Ghost of St. Michael’s
	373	7.0	Back Street
	1729	6.8	Western Union
	1540	6.7	Tobacco Road
	357	6.7	Meet Boston Blackie
	223	6.7	Nice Girl?
	443	6.7	Cheers for Miss Bishop
	332	6.7	Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

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:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	11859	7.6	High Sierra
	3375	7.3	Buck Privates
	695	7.2	The Face Behind the Mask
	203	7.1	Play Girl
	1270	7.1	Come Live with Me

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

Kitty Foyle. Sam Wood. 1940.

I guess you could call this a light-hearted romp… or loathsome misogynistic propaganda.

But that’s only the intro, and then we’re into the main part of the movie, and things get less divisive, I guess, but… I don’t understand these people at all. “My favorite movie of all time” “Another Philadelphia Story” “Probably Ginger Roger’s best film” What are they seeing that I’m not?

I totally see what they’re going for: A serious romantic film about a life-changing dilemma. It’s got Ginger Rogers in the main role. This should be great!

But it’s not. I hate using the b-word, but it’s downright boring. I just have zero interest in the proceedings, and that’s either on me or it’s because this just isn’t a very good film. Or perhaps I just don’t like any of the male leads, but especially the Wyn guy.

I can’t stop imagining what a director like Douglas Sirk could have done with this material. It would have been glorious.

But here Ginger tells whatsisface they can’t get married because of class differences. “Is that all?” “We’re both the same color, if that’s what you mean.”

Zing.

Heh. The DVD includes two animated shorts that both do the “Kitty Foiled” pun:

Popular movies in December 1940 according to IMDB:

Poster	Votes	Rating	Movie
	51856	8.0	The Philadelphia Story
	913	7.5	Murder Over New York
	260	7.2	The Green Hornet Strikes Again!
	2379	7.1	Kitty Foyle
	480	7.0	Pride of the Bowery
	4217	6.9	Go West

This blog post is part of the Decade series.