Film Reviews by Steve

Energetic and very funny mystery-comedy set in Greenwich Village. An urbane married couple (Loretta Young and Brian Aherne) move into a new apartment and stumble on a corpse, a houseful of shady characters, and a harassed, laconic police inspector (Sidney Toler) and his goons.

So of course the duo investigate the dangerous suspects while getting in the way of the cops. As Aherne is playing a mystery writer who moved into the district to research a novel, this could all be the product of his crazy imagination…

These are only second level lead actors, plus a journeyman director, but this punches way above its weight. Young and Aherne are a fun, lively combo. She is vivacious, and he has plenty of charm. They handle the frantic one-liners like screwball stars.

And director Richard Wallace does fine work too. It's an atmospheric picture with a spooky pre-noir look. The story is pacy and coherent. Often in mystery-comedies the puzzle comes a poor second, but this is genuinely suspenseful. By the ’40s these kooky Manhattan thrillers were out of fashion, but this is one of the very best. 

High concept noir which must have felt close to home for those who lost their men in WWII. A broke, pregnant woman is cruelly given a ticket out of town by the feckless dad. After the train crashes she is assumed to be the expectant wife travelling with her husband to meet her rich in-laws for the first time… Because they are both dead and unrecognisable.

 So it’s a classic mistaken identity scenario adapted from a Cornell Woolrich story. Mother (Barbara Stanwyck) and baby are taken into a secure, loving home while the brother (John Lund) of the dead man falls in love with her. And the anxiety of being exposed gradually unravels the imposter’s nerves. Especially when the real father turns up for a spot of blackmail!

Stanwyck is at least 20 years too old but still effective and arouses maximum sympathy for an archetype familiar from depression melodramas. Lund is a little humdrum as her suitor, but his steadfast dependability is clearly the answer to her prayers. It's a dreamy domestic noir with a gloomy expressionist look.

And director Mitchell Leisen is good at the suspense. It's necessary to buy into the crazy concept… but this is a classy production with a fine cast, which conveys an emotional truth. And maybe even offered empathy for the widows of war, left behind without economic support at a time when it was improbable for a woman to survive alone.

Popular Warner Brothers comedy-soap which differs from many peak period Bette Davis vehicles, and in interesting ways. While romance is a theme, this isn't really a love story. It's about the on-off friendship between two women. And Bette's character is the strong-minded protagonist. The men are satellites of her authority and are uncertain and dependent.

It all takes place over 20 years of constant feuding between a couple of childhood pals. Bette is an author of critically respected but poorly selling literary works. Miriam Hopkins writes popular romantic trash. The battle between the stars is legendary; the scene when Davis violently shakes Hopkins by the shoulders is one of the great moments in ’40s melodrama.

Miriam plays a diva who pulls everyone into the vortex of her egotism. Davis is a plateau of calm who attracts her frenemy's husband and daughter with her wise pragmatism, which provokes further conflict. The performances are exaggerated, but enjoyable. Gig Young is surprisingly charming as Bette's much younger trophy-boyfriend.

This is the best of the multitude of 'women's pictures' Vincent Sherman made at Warner Brothers. There are many genuinely funny moments, but also some heartbreak.... Bette is obviously the star, but the screen only really catches fire when Miriam is on too. 

This is the kind of UK heritage cinema which usually does well around the world, which is curious as the upper-class society in this faithful adaptation of EM Forster's satirical novel now seems alien even to his future compatriots. It's at least debatable why all this should still resonate, given this milieu was swept away by social change and two world wars. 

Maybe there is a vicarious lifestyle nostalgia for the early Edwardian period. Yes the frocks and National Trust locations. And for those who like the Merchant-Ivory experience, this is as good as it gets, with the ultimate ensemble cast, the artistic photography, the gorgeous vistas of Florence and the Tuscany countryside and the sort of lived-in home counties estate where tea is taken on the terrace.

Helena Bonham Carter is the inexperienced debutante from a wealthy family who travels to Italy with her spinster chaperone (Maggie Smith)... and her view of the world alters as she rejects the privileged hypocrisy of an aristocrat (Daniel Day-Lewis) and chooses the earthy freedom of the middle class nonconformist (Julian Sands). This is a comedy that spoofs its elite caricatures.

But now... we know WWI coming. This generation is haunted by history and incoming sacrifices. And later... the choice between fascism and freedom, oppression and emancipation. They are not really bad or even decadent; but trivial and inhibited by propriety and faith and the enigmas of taste. Until their lives are ultimately squandered. And that is why this still resonates.

Offbeat and wonderfully pretentious police noir shot on location in Chicago in which the big, sad, suffering city is the narrator and personified as an impassive police sergeant (Chill Wills) who just might save a rogue prowl car cop (Gig Young) from a crooked lawyer (Edward Arnold) and a psycho-killer (William Talman).

Aside from the talking metropolis, the most memorable moments belong to Wally Cassell as a lonely deadbeat who performs an act as a mechanical man in the window of a burlesque theatre, doing his robotic dance moves decades before Jeffrey Daniel. But dreaming of a better life, like the many millions of sleeping citizens.

The standard crime narrative isn't all that interesting. This is all about the pessimistic noir atmosphere of the city at night and the humdrum lives of its people; the ambient futility. John Auer was a minor B-picture director but he creates a strong sense of fatalism. There is the artistic feel of the socialist noirs of the '40s.

It suggests the American way devours the dreams of its people. This is low budget poetic realism with an interesting if un-starry cast. Marie Windsor is always a standout as the duplicitous bad girl. It's melodramatic, yet opiated; another noir about the many lives that come together in the naked city. But its heightened mood sets it apart.

Obscure, no-budget hostage drama which carries the MGM logo but looks like the sort of crime film soon to be a regular on television. There's one principal set and a minor cast. It begins with studio propaganda about the low quality of entertainment on the small screen, so it is ironic that everyone in this would become more famous on the box...

William Conrad (Cannon) plays the glum bartender who has just installed the tv set in his struggling hostelry. Marshall Thompson (Daktari) is the escaped psychopathic killer who murders him in cold blood and holds his regulars at gunpoint. The story is told in real time as the cops seek to relieve the siege, while they discuss the merits of the death penalty.

There isn't a progressive message. This is pro-capital punishment, though its arguments are not sophisticated. Its a decent thriller which doesn't fluff the naturally suspenseful scenario. There's engaging sad/funny dialogue, sympathetic archetypes, and director Gerald Mayer (nephew of studio boss Louis B. Mayer) tells the slim story with some skill.

It's a shame Conrad is gunned down so early. But Virginia Field is appealing as the sassy B-girl and the actors work well as an ensemble. Crucially, though the the psycho-killer is daunting, he isn't so creepy the film is actually hard to look at. And about that title... apparently there wasn't a unified emergency number in the US in 1950, so they made one up. 

If this cold war comedy thriller feels like a reboot of those pre-war adventures about political intrigue in the Balkans, then that's what it is. Eric Ambler updates his 1936 debut novel to make the Communists the unnamed enemy. Margaret Lockwood is the unmarried, middle aged entomologist enlisted to investigate the use of bugs in chemical warfare.

So Lockwood is back in the Balkans, 12 years after The Lady Vanishes. She had planned on Torquay. Everything about this espionage caper is familiar, but still fun. When the bookish spinster gets pumped full of truth drug, she starts to imagine she is a spy superhero and breaks into the Reds' research centre to steal some enemy insects...

So it gets a bit silly. And the idiotic propaganda in the later scenes is disappointing. Dane Clark as the token American doesn't have much to offer and there is zero romantic chemistry. But Lockwood reliably carries the slender plot. This was developed as a vehicle for her- she has a new look- but her big screen career was winding down.

It's the sort of story that years earlier would have featured Charters and Caldicott, so it's a nice touch when Naunton Wayne turns up in a small part. Sure, it's all been done better before, especially by Eric Ambler, but it's a resilient genre and the formula works again, and the theme of germ warfare had some topicality. 

This comes toward the end of Hammer's cycle of '60s psychological thrillers and while the formula must have been getting familiar at the time, seen in isolation this is still an entertaining suspense picture. Though characteristically implausible. Robert Webber is an American travelling through Europe who loses his memory in a car crash.

He discovers that someone is trying to manipulate his loss of identity and fit him up as the fall guy on a murder rap. These films all owe a debt to Alfred Hitchcock, as do most thrillers of the period. There's even a shower scene. And the credits are a tacky rip off of Saul Bass' for Vertigo. Though it most obviously takes its premise from Gaslight (1940).

Until... the customary big final twist. Webber is more of a tv actor, but carries off the hokum pretty well. The support cast is underwhelming, apart from Maurice Denham who is most enjoyable as an enigmatic, cranky private detective.

There's a sleazy/sexy jazz soundtrack, some swanky high life interiors and, as standard with Hammer psycho-thrillers, a gallery of arresting b&w images. It is expertly made. The story is slight so there is some padding. It won't change your life, but this is a lively, lowbrow escapism. 

Routine comedy-drama which is of interest today for the pre-fame appearances of the two big Columbia stars of the '40s, Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Brian Aherne is actually the lead, as a bumptious family man called to do jury service, who employs the murder suspect (Rita) when she is acquitted.

And then she falls for his teenage son (Ford). It's a sitcom with much of the comedy derived from the pompous old dad falling out with his wife (Irene Rich) and long suffering adolescent children. As a bonus we get a young, exuberant Evelyn Keyes as the scatterbrained daughter.

Hayworth is the closest to arrival as a star. She has that low voice and passive demeanour which she would employ in her noir roles. But there is no spark yet. Ford is just a skinny, puppyish kid with a lopsided grin. When the US joined WWII he volunteered for the Marines.

After his return, Charles Vidor directed them again in Gilda, and made Hollywood history. Ford, and Hayworth- who was the biggest name in pictures by then- burned up the set with their sexy innuendo. And Keyes? Well she married Vidor, for a year! This though, is just a slight diversion kept buoyant by its energetic cast. 

One of Lon Chaney’s last films before his death in 1930. He’s mainly remembered now for horror roles, but was versatile and this wild romantic melodrama is quintessential. He plays a popular clown who raises a foundling that grows up to be Loretta Young; and a tightrope walker in his stage act.

And he tenderly, wretchedly falls in love with her. But she is attracted to a handsome aristocrat (Nils Asther). So will it end in tragedy for the sad clown? This is not the sort of picture which can be made now. It exists within the sentimental and mysterious principles of silent melodrama.

The casting of a 15 year old female romantic lead wasn’t unusual in its time. Loretta is indeed very young to be the love interest of two older men. She plays an archetype of the Victorian stage, a virtuous waif. But she has a luminous star quality on screen and is persuasively, dreamily melancholic.

This is the kind of film where a doctor will prescribe true love because the Count has a sickness which makes him neurotically laugh… And the same cure for the clown’s tears. There is no realism; it’s a vehicle for Lon’s harlequin makeup and the pathos of his unrequited infatuation. But for fans of silent melodrama, this is a knockout. 

Fascinating political comedy, from a James Thurber play, which exposes the deep divide between US academics... and the capitalists who disguise their motives in patriotism. Henry Fonda is a literature professor at a midwest university who wants to read out a composition by so-called anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

He is opposed by the head of the trustees (Eugene Palette) who raises cash for athletic facilities. Any academic theory at variance with corporate interest is labelled communism and suppressed. This predicts the communist witch-hunt of the ’50s, and articulates a defence of liberalism which it would attempt to shut down.

It was released in 1942 with fascism ascendant in Europe. And it presents a polarised society quick to form into mobs. It all plays out against a college football game which brings an all American great (Jack Carson) back to campus, the ex-flame of former cheerleader (Olivia de Havilland) now married to… Fonda.

This is a witty, funny film which never gets choked by its political themes. Carson is a joy as his usual amiable klutz. Fonda is a likeable hero. Hattie McDaniel gets laughs as… the sassy maid... It's a comedy about the need to fight for free speech, which is what the world was doing in ’42, but invites the US to look inside its own conflicts. 

Lesser known Ernst Lubitsch musical-comedy set in his beloved France. But, naturally, shot in the Paramount studios. Jeanette MacDonald stars as a penniless aristocrat attracted to the rich Count (Jack Buchanan) who poses as a hairdresser to get close to her. Though she can't fall in love because of his- apparent- lower social class...

And much farce ensues. It's funny, and the inimitable Lubitsch touch lends a frisson of worldly sophistication. It's rated the first film musical which uses the songs to advance the plot. They are all duets which function as dialogues between the would-be lovers. The melodies are standard, but the lyrics are witty.

There are impediments. The Countess is an unlovable snob and Jeanette hasn't the charm to make that ok. Buchanan lacks panache and virility and- crucially- can't sing. He's no stand-in for Maurice Chevalier. It's precode so there's a lot of innuendo and lingerie. But it feels odd that audiences sat still for all this continental privilege during the depression.

British actor Claud Allister stands out among the support cast. He devoted a career to playing upper class halfwits; who were known as the 'silly arse'. The comedy of manners would soon be absorbed into the more egalitarian screwball genre, set in a less elitist US. But for a few years, they offered a cosmopolitan alternative to the slapstick of the silent comedians.

Slight, low budget police noir which reprises the classic genre scenario of the guilty police inspector who must make inquiries into his own crime. That's Lee J. Cobb as the rugged, cynical homicide cop who covers up for his upmarket squeeze (Jane Wyatt) when she guns down her surplus husband.

The hangdog Lieutenant investigates with his newly appointed brother (John Dall). Who turns out to be far too precocious for comfort. Setting aside the improbability of making partners out of actual brothers, the actors make the familiar expert/novice dynamic engaging with their natural rapport.

The film gets criticised for casting Wyatt as the wealthy femme fatale, who may have set up her cop boyfriend to protect her from the murder rap. She usually played good-girl roles. But it works because it makes the privilege which camouflages her real intentions more convincing. Besides, she really was from that background.

Frank Feist was the quintessential journeyman director who inevitably ended up doing huge amounts of tv. This is his best film. The plot is farfetched but he keeps the story moving forward and makes a virtue of the meagre budget. And he gives his actors room. It's a minor B-noir, yet the formula succeeds again. 

Harold talks! Though he’s still playing a small town boy living with mum and dad. He leaves for Hollywood to make it big as a dramatic star, but is so accident prone he eventually gets a chance as a comedian. Lloyd isn't a great sound actor. He behaves and speaks surprisingly like Elisha Cook, Jr.

But his physical comedy remains out of this world. Like when he goes to a party of high-rollers but gets his jacket mixed up with the magic act… And there is still an extended climactic set piece, when he gets into a mighty punch up on set with his rival for the sassy female actor he falls for (Constance Cummings).

This is a very funny picture. And if the friction between the silent comedy and early screwball is so easy to overlook, then credit to Cummings, who is sensational (and beautiful) playing both a Hollywood star and the Spanish character which is her role in the film within a film. Both of whom Harold tries to romance. She steals every scene.

This was Lloyd’s last big hit. The sophisticated charm, artifice and verbal wit exemplified by his female co-star would swallow Hollywood comedy. Now we’re all waiting for Cary Grant to turn up. But this is a welcome late success by a great interloper from the silents. Hooray for Harold Lloyd! 

Delirious precode melodrama which stitches a student nurse comedy to quite a nasty crime story. Barbara Stanwyck plays a tough broad who blags her way into nursing school, and gets to hang out on the wards with Joan Blondell's cynical, gum chewing finagler. Edit in a shower scene and you've got a Russ Meyer exploitation picture.

After the girls graduate they get posted to a house of dipsomaniacs hell bent on starving to death a couple of moppets to get their trust fund. The scheme is led by pre-stardom Clark Gable as a sort of chauffeur/gangster who actually knocks out Stanwyck’s night nurse stone cold when she turns whistleblower to shut down the corrupt doctor charged with their care.

It's an unpolished but zesty performance from the star, matched by Blondell's perky, sassy insolence. It's got all the merits of '30s Warner Brothers, with proletarian scenarios and punchy dialogue spoken by wise guys. Nursing demands a pragmatic approach in this city of mobsters and if the students aren't drinking in speakeasies, they're patching up bullet wounds.

It takes some longueurs to get the scanty material to stretch to the (brief) running time but mostly this is crisply directed by William Wellman. More importantly, he gets the laconic script to crackle. Really it's just a weird potboiler, but it delivers that characteristic precode thrill of the utterly unexpected.