Practically Yours (1944)

As I (finally) watched this, my only thought was "well, you wanted to see it".

I had high expectations, which were unlikely to be met, but at the very least I was expecting to enjoy it:  I love Claudette Colbert and like Fred MacMurray, the two leads, and I think Mitchell Leisen is one of the most underrated directors of the 1930s and 1940s. The three together produced an unusual 1940s comedy which I liked very much. So how could the follow-up be anything if not entertaining? From that opening line go, you can guess that I wasn't particularly impressed with the film. And not for the reasons that MacMurray mentioned somewhere (that they were too old, which is actually irrelevant for this story). No, the problem is that the premise isn't in the right tone and the plot is badly constructed.

The premise is that a pilot about to embark on a suicide mission says he'll miss Peggy the most in his farewell message. Except he didn't say Peggy (a former co-worker) but Piggy (his dog). This would have worked wonderfully in another context than a suicide mission during WWII and filmed straight (as it should). As he survives, the mistake needs to be upheld to the obvious conclusion. The problem is that we are expected to move from serious (and real) drama to light romance (and back again a few times). This is never an easy change in key and not Norman Krasna (the writer), not Leisen nor the actors manages to do so. And as the key keeps changing, we go from MacMurray's female pursuits to serious war concerns back to romance. You would need a better script, better motivated actors and more inspired director to do it.

If the wrong tone can be ascribed to everyone, Krasna is the sole responsible for the bad plot. Following a clear (and perhaps forced) three-act structure, implausibility sinks in when the two leads, allegedly in love, are never left alone for the whole of Act I. At this stage, the truth comes out and for the sake of war effort, they decide to continue with the deception. The plot is further contrived by the fact that they are "invited" to spend his two week leave in a house of a millionaire who decides he can meddle in other people's affairs and treating them as children (locking a door?!). By the end of Act II there has been way too much fuss about sleeping bags and other nonsense, but there was a decent, even amusing, Act III (with even a dig at twin beds).

The cast is painfully underused. Colbert's part is very one-dimensional, and her performance lacks any spark, only allowing some rather welcome mischief in the last third. This was her last film for Paramount, and by golly, it shows it was an obligation. MacMurray is wrong for the part and probably lacked any interest to do something with it, as around this time he was showing he could actually act in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity". And there is a major problem in the architecture of 1940s romantic comedies. The de facto lead was always the woman. A few exceptions apply, as usual. Here the female lead is reduced to a cardboard figure, and MacMurray carries the film through the first hour. Or rather doesn't. Ray Milland, who usually got the not so wholesome leading ladies' leading men parts at Paramount would have been a better choice. Because the part is less than wholesome for the first two acts, and at times could be a young Sheldrake, his part in Wilder's "The Apartment".

This is the weakest of all Leisen's films I have seen (although I stopped "The Lady is Willing" because I thought it was atrocious) and second weakest of the seven Colbert/MacMurray pairings. I am glad to have seen it - I would have been very frustrated otherwise - but not something I intend to do again.

Zaza (1938)

In George Cukor's career, "Zaza" comes after "Holiday" and before "The Women" and "The Philadelphia Story". In Claudette Colbert's, it comes between "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" and "Midnight", two wonderful Wilder/Brackett scripted films. And yet, the film is little more than a footnote in both their careers.

While the film's story is perfectly banal (doomed love affair with a married man), for once I don't think the problems start with the script. It's solid, competent, gives characters a chance to develop and keeps the story moving at a good pace. To me the main problem are the two leads: Colbert and Herbert Marshall. Marshall has even less presence than in other films, and devoids his character of any charm - although to be fair he doesn't have as much screen time as his character should have. But I don't like him, and it pains me to see him on screen. Colbert on the other hand is completely miscast, despite a few glorious moments. When she plays Marshall (the meeting at the station, the backstage meeting) she excels - but then she overdoes the innocent girl moments. And this is the key - she is far too knowing for me to believe she could ever be deceived by a man, any man.

Cukor himself, should have been more at ease with the material - we are in his favoured milieu of the theatre ("A Double Life", "Les Girls"). The Portuguese Cinematheque note on film also draws comparisons with "Camille". But I never felt his heart was on this. The good moments - the opening and closing, the scenes I mentioned above, and Colbert's scene with the doll - are few and far between. The opening scene in particular, with the camera travelling through the occupants of third class train carriage ending in Colbert in a shot that anticipates her similar introduction in "Midnight" On the other hand, certain scenes drag (Colbert's visit to Marshall's Paris apartment) or fail to achieve the right tone (most of the backstage scenes, where there is a lot of repetition).

The best thing in the film are the three supporting actors, playing Colbert's stepmother, her maid and her agent/partner (respectively Helen Westley, Constance Collier and Bert Lahr). Their presence helps bridge the duller moments of the film.

Family Honeymoon (1948)

"Family Honeymoon" is the last pairing of Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. And of the six I have seen (I am missing the elusive "Practically Yours"), it is the dullest and most uninspired. It is also the most reactionary, even if it starts off with a good premise. A widow with three children is to marry an academic. However, the kids babysitter (her spinster sister) breaks her leg and is unable to manage the kids who tag along on the honeymoon.

Up to the end of WWII, marriage meant the couple was finally allowed to have sex (e.g. Minnelli's "The Clock"). This meant that the film (and its leads) could, particularly in comedy, increase and escalate tension with the audience knowing that at the end there would be some release (yes, I know awful pun). Whereas here the children are the excuse to keep everything censor friendly. Colbert dexterously avoids any move from MacMurray; one scene has her giving a stern look, completely emasculating him: MacMurray is an an absent minded professor who is not will not be rewarded until he ascertains his masculinity over an over feminine Colbert, who seems to have failed to notice her children are unruly until she looses her man - the double implication that a) a woman can't raise children without a man and b) a woman needs a man to guide her to life. These are lazy post-war Hollywood stereotypes at their worst.

The plot is also full of preposterous incidents (a mother not paying attention to their kids at a train stop?!) and a predatory woman (Rita Johnson, failing to do what Gail Patrick could do so well) to keep the story moving to its 90th minute. This latter point is actually extraordinarily annoying, as it passes all possible suspension of disbelief, with Johnson's character too eager to disrupt the honeymoon. Although I must confess that the party sequence at the end was a slight improvement over the rest of the film.

Neither Colbert or MacMurray do more than the bare minimum and I would suggest that all they thought of was the pay check, and honestly I can't blame them. Hattie McDaniel has a small role, just a bit more than a cameo, and looks very ill in what was one of her last film roles. Only Lilian Bronson as Colbert's sister manages to make something interesting of what is an disappointing
farewell of one of my favourite actor pairings of old Hollywood.

No Time for Love (1943)

Mitchell Leisen's "No Time for Love", starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray is a slightly unusual romantic comedy of the 1940s. The key element that makes it different is its sexual politics, by how obviously it states that the attraction of its two leads is sexual, not romantic. This is highlighted by the fact that it is a socially unequal pairing (i.e. not a match of minds); he is a construction worker, she's a sophisticated photographer. This social inequality is a theme recurrent in Leisen's comedies of the early 40s, particularly "Take a Letter, Darling". Moreover, the audience's point of view (this being 1943 was expected to be mostly female) is Colbert's and Fred MacMurray is treated, from the first time we see him, as a sex object (shirtless and sweaty, see also his terrible portrait in a poster below).

In fact, the whole film works around this. Having seen him, and felt attracted to him, Colbert is unable to forget him (or stop lusting after him). When she inadvertently causes him to be suspended from his job; she offers him a temporary one, hoping (?) that spending time with him will cure her from her "problem". The film objectifies him as a masculine object of desire even further by pairing Colbert at the start with a man who isn't terribly different from her gay friends (something the film also doesn't shy from). And it is sexual jealousy they both feel, not a romantic one: she, when he has sex with the dancer; he, when feels less masculine than the model she's photographing.

(Slight spoilers ahead:) Perhaps feeling that all this was too overt, the characters' social differences are toned down slightly (turns out he's an engineer, not a worker - just doing the job of one for macguffin reasons), but by the time her most present (and hungry) gay friend joins them up, sex has resurfaced (their exit from scene and her last line should be enough). But, in difference to what would happen later in the decade, none conceded to the other. This is still a union of equals.

Both leads are great, Colbert exuding her usual charm and MacMurray giving one of his best comedic performances. It's also one of their best pairings. I also had a soft spot for Ilka Chase and Richard Haydn as Colbert's sister and aforementioned friend.

Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray worked together in seven films. Six are available on DVD. The one missing is their second outing directed by Mitchell Leisen, "Practically Yours" which I would like very much to watch. Last screening I know of was in 2008, in Paris. But my bigger question is why was it missed from a boxset collecting some of their films?

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)

On the Riviera, an American millionaire (Gary Cooper) falls in love with the daughter (Claudette Colbert) of a bankrupt French marquis (Edward Everett Horton). When she finds out she's going to be wife number eighth, and that marriage for him is just another business venture, she decides to teach him a lesson.

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, this was his last Paramount film. When I wrote about "Ninotchka", also directed by Lubitsch, also scripted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, I mentioned that it felt more like Wilder than it Lubitsch. Here, this is pure Lubitsch, full of the wit that made him famous (the opening sequences at the store, the charge Cooper makes towards Colbert's bedroom, the many Czechoslovakia gags) even if its Lubitschian meet-cute is pure Wilder according to IMDb. The film's location (Paris and the Riviera) and cast (Cooper and Everett Horton) also seem to reference previous films ("Trouble in Paradise", "Design for Living", "Angel" and the Borzage directed "Desire").

The impact of the Hays Code is striking: a woman decides to teach the man a lesson because he doesn't act according to the sanctity of marriage. But the way she does it is slightly subversive. In post-1934 Hollywood, marriage was first and foremost a way to sanctify sex. Whole films, such as Minnelli's "The Clock", basically exist because the two leads are not allowed just to get a hotel room. Here, Claudette Colbert suppresses it after the wedding as well (the distancing of the two during the honeymoon is another lovely Lubitsch touch), thus exposing the hypocrisy of the whole thing: Gary Cooper can't have sex outside marriage because he's not allowed (basically the reason why he married seven times before), but he's also denied it afterwards because he doesn't believe in the right type of marriage, having basically bought Colbert. But, supreme irony of Lubitsch, Wilder and Brackett, when they do have sex, they aren't married anymore, proving the point that censors aren't really the cleverest of people.

While not an absolute masterpiece, it is delightful and entertaining - I confess that having seen it once before I didn't remember anything other than the pajamas at the beginning. While there is some good support from Edward Everett Horton and David Niven, this is really a two hander between the two leads. Claudette Colbert is a delight to watch, at her prime as commedienne, and so is Cooper for that matter. I have to say this is probably my favourite performance of his although he usually doesn't do it for me. I usually find him a bit wooden, but here there is a vitality unmatched in any of his performances I have seen.

The film also reminded me somewhat of "The Lady Eve", which was a couple of years into the future, with the idea of a woman seeking to punish a man that she feels has let her down by marrying him and then making mince meat out of him.

It Happened One Night (1934)

When I was much younger and getting into classic films I often fell in love with the Frank Capra’s films I had a chance to see, i.e. those from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s (roughly from “Lady for a Day” to “It’s a Wonderful Life”). As I grew older, and more cynical, I found that my taste changed, and I grew further apart from his films (I have changed my mind again on one or two). There were, however, some exceptions: “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”; “Arsenic and Old Lace” which has to be the less-Capraesque of all his films and, of course, “It Happened One Night”.

Like “Arsenic and Old Lace”, “It Happened One Night” seems to be far from his bolder social statements. Yes, there is some criticism of the upper classes, but nothing that is too distracting. Instead the focus is really in the war of the sexes love story between a spoiled heiress (Claudette Colbert) and a fast talking and recently unemployed reported (Clark Gable) while travelling from Miami to New York.

While this indeed one of the great romantic comedies ever made, after watching it I was able to put it in context in a way I hadn’t before. For the past few years I became more and more familiar with silent and Pre-code films, as this blog attests. So while before my film knowledge really started at around 1934, now it goes much further back. And this allowed me to see the film in an altogether different light.

Suddenly I fully understand why this is a cornerstone film. Perhaps its key achievement is how subtly different in construction is from its contemporary comedies. Unlike many other comedies from the early 1930s, for instance, the WB comedies with the likes of Joan Blondell or James Cagney or Lubitsch’s films at Paramount, this is a milder affair – both sexually and verbally. Yes, there are clear innuendos and dialogue flies, but comparing that with Howard Hawks’ “Twentieth Century” (along which is credited as the first important screwball comedy) it’s tame. But this apparent loss is actually to the film’s gain. The story is told in less fragmented manner, more coherently. This approach allowed the characters to develop, instead of being one or two dimensional creatures and would be the template on how Hollywood treated comedy until the end of WWII. And yes, for the following few years, spoiled heiresses would keep falling in love with wisecracks and witty dialogue would attempt to reveal the sexual tension that could not be properly shown, thus creating what is known as “screwball comedy”.

In case you haven’t seen the film, I think I should mention that Colbert and Gable are excellent, both giving career high performances and both, like Capra, collecting Oscars – making this the first of only three films to win the five main awards: film, director, actor, actress and screenplay. Gable’s performance is probably the most relaxed I have ever seen him on screen. Oh yes, and that end scene that brought the house down with laughter...

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Much has been said on Preston Sturges’ amazing run of films at Paramount during the early 1940s. While I could not finish “Christmas in July” and “The Great Moment” is an awkward thing that was reassembled by the studio, the other six are astonishing satires (I am still in awe that “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” ever passed the censors), although I confess that I never have completely fallen for “Sullivan’s Travels”’.

“The Palm Beach Story” is the fifth in the run, and my second favourite after “The Lady Eve”. It stars Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea as a married couple. The film starts with their wedding over the opening credits and then forwards five years – by now they are flooded by debts. When by chance they clear them, Colbert decides to get a divorce to give her husband a chance in life and to find a millionaire than can take care of her. Of course, he doesn’t really agree with his plan, so she goes to Palm Beach meeting millionaire Rudy Vallee and his sister Mary Astor.

Colbert is a tour de force and it’s a pity that Sturges didn’t use her again. She was so at ease in the sophisticated romantic comedy Paramount made into an art form that she doesn’t get enough credit for it. What I hadn’t fully noticed before was Mary Astor’s exquisite performance as the man eater Princess Centimillia. Obsessed with men, and finding Joel McCrea ideally suitable to be her next husband, she desperately tries to get rid of her current “entertainment” who insists he should stick around. While McCrea and Vallee are good, they really can't compete.

An interesting aspect of the film is that Colbert and McCrea clearly have a healthy sex life. Since they are married and never actually divorce, Sturges got away with far more than he otherwise would. Although apparently he had to tone down Mary Astor’s character lust, reducing the number of her marriages from eight to three, plus two annulments. As if that would make that much difference.

The very end is a bit frustrating and feels a bit of an easy solution out – the opening sequence that helps explain is, probably purposely, not very clear. If had to point out a fault in the film, that would be my choice.

Three-Cornered Moon (1933)

My copy of the Claudette Colbert DVD collection arrived a few days ago, making me very happy. "Three-Cornered Moon" is earliest film in it, made in 1933 as Claudette Colbert was becoming an established star and is advertised as the first screwball comedy. Looking at the most relevant examples of the genre (such as "Twentieth Century", "My Man Godfrey", "Bringing up Baby") it certainly fits that bill. It has only one little flaw: it isn't funny.

In fairness, the last 20 minutes or so are an improvement, but I think it took me nearly an hour to sketch a smile (the film is around 80 minutes long). As a comparison, when I watched "I Met Him in Paris" a few days before, which is part of the same collection, I laughed beginning to end, despite its predictability. But back to "Moon" - a rich, silly family in NY finds out they're bankrupt and now they must go earn a living. It's the depression, so it isn't easy. Only the daughter (Colbert) seems to have some sense, except in her choice of man. You can fill the rest.

I can't recommend this one to anyone - it might put them off old films forever. But this box also has Lubitsch's "Bluebeard's Eight Wife", Leisen's "No Time for Love" and the above mentioned "I Met Him in Paris" with a wonderful performance from Melvyn Douglas. I haven't seen the other two films ("Maid of Salem" and "The Egg and I") but these three are great fun, with the first two somewhat neglected classics.

Cleopatra (1934)

If you're looking for a more or less accurate story of Cleopatra's life and loves, then Cecil B. DeMille's 1934 classic might not be your best choice. On the other hand, if you are looking for Egyptian Art Deco, spectacle over substance, Claudette Colbert in shiny costumes or a complete disregard for History, timescale or logic, then this is the film for you.

I very seldom laugh at a film. Like them too much for that, but I caught myself doing that at some of the preposterous things going on the screen - Anthony sending a message to Cleopatra in which they should meet at noon in a square in some city I forgot, Julius Caesar (Warren William) coming back to Rome and surprising everyone. I understand that film doesn't require to follow the facts, but in this case it becomes unintentionally funny. I expected the climax of the film to be the Battle of Actium. Well, it seems they must have ran out of money. It's simply a montage of soldiers in land, marching, and occasionally the shot of a few miniature boats moving around. I would never know from this it was a battle at sea. It really isn't worth of DeMille.

Of course there were interesting things. Claudette Colbert tough gal from NY, I mean the Nile, is actually the main reason why the film is engaging. She's quite charming, beautifully dressed and lit, although lacking the power and charisma of Elizabeth Taylor. Colbert herself is much, much better in that year's "It Happened One Night" for which she won an Oscar. There also a few good lines, and the Egyptian art deco feel is actually quite cool. But I guess it pretty much ends there.

I was also expecting the film to be a full-on pre-code. Except it isn't really. IMDb lists an October 1934 release date, which is past the cut date of 1st July 1934 when the Hays Code became the Law. It's a strange hybrid in a sense - neither pre-code or post-code, an aborted epic from DeMille. As Angelina Jolie's character in "Changeling" says, it's an overrated film.

Imitation of Life (1959)

From the beautiful opening credits to the tear-inducing ending, Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life is one of the great American melodramas of the 1950's. It's the story of two single mothers, one black (Juanita Moore) and one white (Lana Turner), who form a bond to better survive. This being Hollywood in the 1950s means that the white character wants desperately to be an actress and the black just wants a job, so being Lana Turner's maid will do. And then there are their daughters, the perfect teenager (Sandra Dee) and the not so perfect one (Susan Kohner). It is also the remake of a 1934 film of the same name directed by John M Stahl and starring Claudette Colbert.

In both films, there are two main story lines. One concerns the white characters, with the daughter falling in love with the man that is in love with her mother (who really is in love with herself in the 1959 version). The other, far more interesting to me is the complex social and racial issues raised by the relationship between a black mother and her daughter who wants and can pass off herself as white (I'd say there is a hint that daddy was white, but because of the Hayes code he just had very white skin). In the 1959 version, is really hard for me to take sides. The mother does not want her daughter to be like her. She wants her to be better off, only she has limited goals. The daughter on the other hand just wants to be like everyone else and fit in. It reminded me of a line in Guess who's coming for dinner, when Sidney Poitier turns to his father and says "You think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. " - only that was still 8 years into the future (and a lot of real events separate the two films). All this is much better than it sounds, especially the Juanita Moore-Susan Kohner relationship. The two actresses excel and both got Oscar nominations (they lost to Shelley Winters for The Diary of Anne Frank).

The film also proves that there are exceptions to the rule: I think the remake is much better than the original. Annie is a much better and rounded character than her 1934 counterpart Delilah and Sirk has a much better grasp of how to touch an audience than Stahl did - the best example is how both directors treat the ending of the film: Sirk finishes at the climatic moment, Stahl continues for a few more minutes to assure the audience that Claudette Colbert does end with Warren William. Which we already knew...

However, it is not without is faults. Sandra Dee is irritating every time she appears on screen (ok, one exception, when she says to her mother to stop playing the martyr), Lana Turner looks way older than her 38 years (I'd say she looks more like 48, so desperately is she to look young), and her character is rather annoying at times. Still, like in her most famous, deadliest and sexiest role the first thing you see of her are her legs.

The film is widely available on DVD, and often is paired with the 1934 version. I have the French DVD from this Douglas Sirk Boxset. And there's a second volume coming in November.