Repost: Happy Autumn!

NOTE: I'm traveling this week so while I'm gone, please enjoy the first day of fall with this seasonal photo post from half a decade ago.

Happy Autumn!

In honor of the season, here are a few fall movie magazine covers featuring favorite classic film actresses. Enjoy!

Ann Sheridan on Photoplay in November 1943:

Jeanne Crain, Photoplay, October 1948:

Gene Tierney on Screen Album in 1941:

Lana Turner in an October issue of Photoplay:

An October issue of Movie Mirror with Olivia de Havilland:

Lizabeth Scott on Modern Screen in 1947:

Enjoy the season!

Update: Happy Autumn 2022.

Tonight's Movie: Woman of the North Country (1952) at Cinecon

One of the films I was most interested to see at Cinecon last Labor Day was WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY (1952).

This Republic Pictures film was another real rarity. To my knowledge, it's never had an authorized release for home viewing.

Going into the movie "cold," I expected a film with actors like Rod Cameron, Jim Davis, and John Agar to be a Western, but while it had a "Western" setting, WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY proved to be more of a melodrama, centered around the title character.

Ruth Hussey plays Christine Powell, one of a trio of Minnesota siblings who are wealthy thanks to iron ore.

Christine's brother David (Agar) doesn't have a head for business, so Christine pushes for control, backed by their other brother, murderous, greedy Steve (Davis).

Christine loves money and power and can be downright malevolent to get what she wants -- makes you wonder who raised these siblings! -- and she wants to thwart the success of geologist Kyle Ramlo (Cameron).  Christine has her eye on Kyle's nearby land lease, where he's found ore near the surface of his claim.

Christine goes to the extent of luring Kyle away from his sweetheart Cathy (Gale Storm) and convincing him to marry her; she bides her time for a couple of years before making moves to destroy her husband's business. 

This is the bare outline of a very detailed, convoluted plot which packs numerous twists and turns into its 90 minutes. The screenplay by Norman Reilly Raine was from a story by Charles Marquis Warren and Prescott Chaplin.

I'm not sure I'd ever seen Hussey play a character like this before; Christine is a truly awful woman, and Hussey conveys the ice in her veins from her first appearance. We never really know what motivates her, but she appears to have simply been born bad.  Double-crossing her own loving husband after a couple of years was truly "something else" to behold.

Hussey's character contrasts strongly with Storm as the warm Cathy; honestly, even with Kyle not realizing Christine's true nature, it's hard to believe he'd dump Cathy for the chillier Christine. I'm quite a fan of Rod Cameron's, but I think his role needed an actor with more nuance who could convey deep-seated emotions, perhaps someone like Dana Andrews.

Cameron and Storm, incidentally, had previously costarred in STAMPEDE (1949).

Agar was barely used in the film as the ineffectual David, making me wonder if any of his part was left on the cutting-room floor.  Davis comes off better in a sparky performance as the evil Steve.

The extensive cast also includes Jay C. Flippen, J. Carrol Naish, Hank Worden, Grant Withers, Barry Kelley, Taylor Holmes, Howard Petrie, Thurston Hall, and Virginia Brissac.

The movie was directed by longtime Western specialist Joseph Kane, who had previously directed Cameron in BRIMSTONE (1949). They also made RIDE THE MAN DOWN (1952) the same year as WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY and SAN ANTONE (1953) the following year.

WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY was filmed in Trucolor by Jack Marta, who also worked on several of the Kane-Cameron collaborations. All three men also worked on SPOILERS OF THE FOREST (1957) which coincidentally will be shown in a restored print at this year's Lone Pine Film Festival with Rod's son Tony in attendance.

The opening credits of the print shown at Cinecon, along with a couple later scenes, were in black and white, with the rest a fabulous Trucolor print. What a treat to see it!  While not a top-notch film and quite different from what I expected, I enjoyed it.

The final movie of the day, THAT'S MY GAL (1947), had some of the most striking Trucolor I've ever seen, heavy on the mint green and orange. It looked amazing!

Around the Blogosphere This Week...

...will not appear this weekend.

The column will also not appear on September 26th.

Around the Blogosphere This Week will return on Saturday, October 3rd.

In the meantime, I have prescheduled some posts for the coming week, so please check back periodically for new content.

For the most recent classic film news links, please visit my September 12th column.

Repost: Cars (2006)

NOTE: A few days ago I went to a 20th anniversary screening of CARS (2006). Has it really been that long since it came out?!

I'm not certain if I'd seen the film in its entirety since 2006; it was long enough since my last viewing that it really felt fresh and new. The movie is endlessly creative in a way we perhaps now take for granted, given the passing of a couple decades.

Below is a short review from the early days of this blog. If, like me, you haven't seen CARS in years -- or perhaps ever -- I recommend enjoying it.

Please also visit my 2012 photo posts of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure, beginning here, with more linked at the bottom of that post. As I rediscovered watching CARS, the full-sized version created in Anaheim is remarkably faithful to the film!

One of our traditions is that we gift the family with a new DVD on Thanksgiving, which we all sit down together to watch after dinner.

Tonight's movie was the Disney/Pixar animated film CARS (2006), which the rest of the family saw last summer but which was new to me.

I enjoyed it very much. As a NASCAR fan I got a particular kick out of the race sequences, including appearances by "Darrell Cartrip" and "Junior."

I also loved the depiction of Route 66. The souvenir store in Radiator Springs was very much like the store we stopped in in Barstow on our way to the Grand Canyon a couple years ago! The concept of a world in which everything -- even bugs -- is some form of car was unique.

The film has an impressive voice cast, especially Paul Newman as Doc, the long-retired racing car. Did his role and performance remind anyone else a bit of Burt Lancaster in FIELD OF DREAMS (1989)?

Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Billy Crystal even recorded new "car-based" TOY STORY (1995) and MONSTERS, INC. (2001), sequences for the end credits tribute to John Ratzenberger, the only actor to have appeared in every Pixar film. Be sure not to skip the end credits when you watch. :)

CARS runs 116 minutes. It was directed by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft.

It's available on DVD.

If, like me, you are late to seeing CARS for the first time, I recommend it. A good time was had by all.

Update: Here's a review of CARS 3 (2017).

Tonight's Movie: The Second Greatest Sex (1955) at Cinecon

I'm a Jeanne Crain fan, so one of the movies I was most delighted to see at Cinecon on Labor Day was THE SECOND GREATEST SEX (1956).

THE SECOND GREATEST SEX is, to my knowledge, not available in any authorized home viewing format. Seeing this Technicolor CinemaScope film in a good print on a large screen was thus a particular treat!

I must have read about the movie in my Jeanne Crain books in years past, but it had escaped my mind that THE SECOND GREATEST SEX is a musical.

Given that, I was quite surprised when the movie began with Jeanne (dubbed by Doreen Tryden) singing "What Good is a Woman Without a Man." (And I have to say, I haven't been able to get this tune, written by Phil Moody and Doris "Pony" Sherrell, out of my head ever since!)

The frankly nonsensical plot has the men of Osake, Kansas, vying with two other towns to be the country seat. Battles between the towns for a safe containing papers authorizing the county seat have kept the menfolk away for extended periods, and Liza (Crain) is thus missing her on-again, off-again boyfriend Matt Davis (George Nader).

The men come home with the safe and Liza agrees to marry Matt, but on their wedding night the townsmen take off again when the safe is stolen.

Liza, inspired by Aristophanes' LYSISTRATA, leads the townswomen in locking themselves into a fort. When the men return they learn the women will only return to town -- and their men -- if the men finally agree to a truce and stay home for good.

Given that the women of the other two towns are also in the fort, one guess how the movie ends...

Was THE SECOND GREATEST SEX a good movie? No, not really. But was it entertaining and interesting for various reasons? Definitely yes.

One of the things which fascinated me was the film's obvious inspiration from both SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954) and OKLAHOMA! (1955); in the latter case it was more so inspired by the stage show than the movie, which debuted in theaters almost simultaneously with THE SECOND GREATEST SEX.

Like SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, the movie's central plotline is based around ancient literature.

THE SECOND GREATEST SEX also features big group dance numbers, with Tommy Rall (Frank of SEVEN BRIDES) front and center.

For that matter, Bill Lee, who dubs George Nader, also dubbed Matt Mattox in SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, notably in that film's "Lonesome Polecat" number.

In THE SECOND GREATEST SEX the tempestuous relationship of Liza and Matt rather mimics the loving-battling relationship of Curly and Laurey from OKLAHOMA!

THE SECOND GREATEST SEX, like OKLAHOMA!, features a dream ballet, and one of its big group numbers echoes "The Farmer and the Cowman" just a bit.

Wedding night community shenanigans also emulate OKLAHOMA!, only in this case it's chasing after a stolen safe rather than a shivaree. As a musicals fan, I found it fascinating to make these comparisons.

Unfortunately THE SECOND GREATEST SEX does not repeat the success of SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS as an original movie musical, for a variety of reasons, including a weak script by Charles Hoffman and a mostly unmemorable score. In addition to songs by Moody and Sherrell, the title song was by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and one song was by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer.

A more lively, sharply written script and better supporting characters might have made more of the silly premise, but the end result, directed by George Marshall, is only middling -- and frankly downright weird at some points. That said, I had fun and would watch this 87-minute film again.

Crain is lovely and spunky, Nader is handsome, and I'm always happy to watch Rall dance. His dances include the previously mentioned dream ballet while his wife (Kitty Kallen) sings longingly, wishing he were home.

I also enjoyed Keith Andes (SPLIT SECOND) as the town minister and Mamie Van Doren (GUNS, GIRLS AND GANGSTERS) as the goofy miss who captures his heart.

The supporting cast also includes Bert Lahr, Jimmy Boyd, Mary Marlo, and Paul Gilbert. Look for Barrie Chase as a dancer in the "Travelin' Man" number.

THE SECOND GREATEST SEX was followed at Cinecon by a rarely seen 20th Century-Fox "B" film, CHASING DANGER (1939), starring Preston Foster and Lynn Bari. I reviewed it a decade ago. It was glad to see it in a sparkling print!

A John Wayne Giveaway

This summer I hosted a James Garner giveaway in honor of my blog's anniversary.

As I mentioned at the conclusion of that event, a John Wayne giveaway was in the works, and here it is!

This time I'm giving away a box with a very nice selection of John Wayne films, seen above.

The entry format will be the same as it was for my last giveaway: Click this link and answer a five-question quiz about John Wayne movies!

Be sure to include your email address on the quiz form so I can contact the winner for a mailing address.

These discs are extras I've accumulated over time; sure, I could take them to Goodwill, but I thought it would be more fun to send them to an appreciative home.

The quiz will be "live" through the evening of Monday, September 28th. I'll draw a winner shortly thereafter from among those entries which answered all the questions correctly and announce it here along with the quiz answers, as I did last time.

If no one gets all five answers correct, then I'll move down to those who answered all but one correctly, and so on.

I will cover Media Mail postage to the winner. With apologies to my greatly appreciated readers in Canada, Europe, and beyond, the drawing is limited to residents of the United States.

I hope some of my readers will enjoy taking the quiz. Good luck!

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Tonight's Movie: The Great Train Robbery (1941) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

It's been about a year since the last Dark Side of Cinema Collection, Volume XXVI, was released by Kino Lorber.

I'm very happy to say that the Kino Lorber Studio Classics series has now returned with the Dark Side of Cinema XXVII Collection!

It's a terrific selection of little-known movies: UNMASKED (1950), THE MAN IS ARMED! (1956), and the subject of this review, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1941).

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY isn't to be confused with the 1978 film which I reviewed here a few years ago. Rather, it's a tight little 62-minute "B" film from Republic Pictures, the kind of movie I'm frankly amazed has made it to Blu-ray. I was absolutely thrilled to see it in a beautiful print and am so appreciative of Kino Lorber making it happen.

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY has a fairly simple plot, but the screenplay by Olive Cooper, Garnett Weston, and Robert T. Shannon tells the story with some original touches. Years before Stanley Kubrick thought of doing it in THE KILLING (1956), THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY travels backwards and forwards in time to tell its tale. The storytelling technique is all the more impressive given the film's short running time.

It's the classic tale of a good brother who's a member of law enforcement versus his brother who's gone bad. Tom Logan (Bob Steele) is the good brother, and Duke (Milburn Stone) is the bad sibling.

Duke owns a roadhouse, but behind the scenes he's a crook, and he and his confederates are about to steal a million dollars in gold from a train -- a train which literally disappears off the tracks, confounding both law enforcement and railroad employees.

Among those on the train: Kay Stevens (Claire Carleton), who is loved by both brothers...

To be sure, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY is no one's idea of a classic movie, but it's just the kind of film I love to discover. I'm a fan of Steele, and it's also fun to see Stone as a baddie in his pre-GUNSMOKE years.

It's also not film noir, but really, who cares? I absolutely love that this short little crime film was included in a Dark Side of Cinema set, and I'd be very happy to see similar films released in the future.

I'm not sure where the movie was filmed, but it appears in spots to be the Southern California desert, which would make sense as Republic Pictures probably didn't have the budget to go too far. 

The movie also has some great train miniatures which are surprisingly convincing, adding viewing interest.

Steele is heroic, Carleton is cute and spunky, and I thought this was a fun little hour. I'd happily watch a marathon of several more films such as this.

The movie was directed by longtime Republic Pictures director Joseph Kane. Look for a review of his film WOMAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRY (1952), which I recently saw at Cinecon, to be published here in a few days.

The movie was filmed by Reggie Lanning.

The supporting cast includes Helen MacKellar, Monte Blue, Si Jenks, Hal Taliaferro, Jay Novello, and Eddie Acuff.

The extras consist of a commentary track by Gary Gerani, which I'm particularly looking forward to hearing, and a gallery of three trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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Quick Preview of TCM in October

Time for a brief peek ahead at the Turner Classic Movies schedule for October!

Myrna Loy is the October Star of the Month. Her films will screen on Monday evenings, including silents, pre-Codes, and her films with William Powell.

October 12th will feature an evening of Thin Man movies.

The October Noir Alley titles are LOOPHOLE (1954), which is a TCM premiere, plus CRIME WAVE (1954), CHICAGO SYNDICATE (1955), THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951), and a Halloween trio of Val Lewton films: THE LEOPARD MAN (1943), THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943), and CAT PEOPLE (1942).

CHICAGO SYNDICATE, a rarely screened film starring Dennis O'Keefe, is a movie I've really enjoyed. I revisited it earlier this year in preparation for a writing project; more on that in the future.

The TCM Spotlight features Mario Cantone returning with "Creepy Cinema."

Filmmakers receiving multifilm tributes in October will include Rossano Brazzi, Lon Chaney (Sr.), Laraine Day, Joe Dante, Jacques Tati, Leslie Howard, and John Boles.

October programming themes include plays which were filmed, movies by German filmmakers, disguises, Rome, and politics.

As has been the case in recent months, only part of the schedule is available a couple weeks out from the coming month, but I'm glad to have enough information to provide a tantilizing preview.

I'll have a much more detailed look at TCM's October schedule posted here around October 1st.

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Warner Archive Collection October Blu-ray Releases

The Warner Archive Collection announced a number of late October Blu-ray releases today.

The Warner Archive previously announced the early October release of the classic MAVERICK (1957-62) TV series on Blu-ray.

Since I won't be able to write an "Around the Blogosphere This Week" column for the next couple weekends, I wanted to go ahead and alert readers to the additional October titles now.

Titles releasing on either October 20th or 27th will include:

*JEWEL ROBBERY (1932)

*THE MERRY WIDOW (1934)

*LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY (1938)

*LOVE CRAZY (1941)

*MR. SKEFFINGTON (1944)

*THE HUCKSTERS (1947)

*THAT FORSTYE WOMAN (1949)

*BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955)

These are the highlights of greatest interest to me. The complete list may be found at Blu-ray.com.

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Tonight's Movie: Random Harvest (1942) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

I have very fond memories of reading the novel RANDOM HARVEST, by James Hilton, when I was in high school.

Years later I owned the 1942 movie on VHS. I fondly recall the film, yet I had not seen it for many years before watching it this weekend thanks to the new Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection.

I'm glad to say, now having revisited it, that RANDOM HARVEST is just as good as my memories of it. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, it's MGM '40s moviemaking at its very best.

The plot is rather difficult to describe, yet it all makes sense when watching. Paula (Greer Garson), a touring music hall performer, comes to the rescue of an amnesiac (Ronald Colman) who has left the local smalltown asylum. The man she comes to call "Smithy" lost his memory during his service in World War I.

Eventually Smithy regains his health, though not his memory, and he and Paula fall in love and marry, despite not knowing anything about his past. They have a baby son, but when Smithy goes to Liverpool to discuss a writing job, he's hit by a taxi, and when he comes to, he's wealthy Charles Rainier, without a clue where he's been for the past few years or why he's in Liverpool.  But there's a mysterious key in his pocket...

Charles goes home to his family's estate and begins running the family business. Eventually it's revealed that his secretary, Margaret Hanson, is Paula. (Paula was Margaret's stage name.) After her husband went missing and her baby boy died, Margaret/Paula chanced to see Charles's photo in a publication and obtained the job as his secretary.

Kitty Chilcet (Susan Peters), a young girl who's a relative's stepdaughter, loves Charles for many years and he eventually proposes, but when they're planning their wedding she suddenly intuitively realizes he's in love with someone else and breaks off the engagement.

There's still much plot to go in the film's 127 minutes, but I'll leave it there, using the above to hopefully whet viewers' appetites and curiosity to see what happens next. There's more, a lot more...and it's all great stuff.

I recall reading years ago that RANDOM HARVEST starred the two most beautiful voices in Hollywood, and I don't know that I'd disagree. Both Colman and Garson offer beautiful performances and completely sell a story which in other hands might seem absurd. They have wonderful chemistry, and this film is some of their best work.

It's interesting that James Hilton stories were significant in the careers of both Garson and Colman. Garson's big Hollywood break came in Hilton's GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1939), and one of Colman's very best films was Frank Capra's filming of Hilton's LOST HORIZON (1937).

Colman was nominated for Best Actor for RANDOM HARVEST, with Peters nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Garson wasn't nominated, but ironically she was the one of the three who took home the Academy Award that year -- for MRS. MINIVER (1942).

Peters, who lost to Teresa Wright of MRS. MINIVER, does an excellent job, conveying Kitty's growth from a happy-go-lucky young girl to a more mature woman whose love for Charles deepens with each passing year. 

The wordless moments where Kitty watches Charles in the church and suddenly realizes their relationship isn't going to work out is really well done, as a series of expressions cross her face, ultimately showing a devastated woman.

RANDOM HARVEST features a fine cast including Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Rhys Williams, Aubrey Mather, Margaret Wycherly, Alan Napier, and Melville Cooper, to name just a few. Philip Dorn, who also starred that year in REUNION IN FRANCE (1942), plays "Smithy's" doctor, who falls himself for Margaret/Paula.

The movie was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and filmed in black and white by Joseph Ruttenberg.

Although nominated for seven Oscars, also including Picture and Director, it didn't win any; however, if one looks at the other nominees, competition was pretty incredible that year; for instance, solely looking at the competition for Peters and Wright, the other nominees were Agnes Moorehead in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942), Gladys Cooper for NOW, VOYAGER (1942), and Dame May Whitty for MRS. MINIVER. The cliched saying "It's an honor just to be nominated" was never more true.

The Blu-ray print and sound quality are both superb. This is a truly outstanding release.

Extras include the 22-minute Crime Does Not Pay short DON'T TALK (1942) with an interesting cast including Donald Douglas, Barry Nelson, James Millican, Arthur Space, and James Warren, directed by Joseph M. Newman; the Pete Smith Specialty MARINES IN THE MAKING (1942); the trailer; and a January 1944 Lux Radio Theater broadcast of RANDOM HARVEST starring Garson, Colman, and Joan Lorring.

Both the disc and the film are highly recommended.

Related posts: A Visit to Santa Barbara Cemetery (Ronald Colman); A Visit to the Forest Lawn Museum (Susan Peters).

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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