Film Reviews by Steve

WC Fields used his feature films to recycle favourite sketches from his stage act, so they are inevitably episodic. This feels like his first masterpiece because his tragicomic persona crystallises perfectly. He is a timeless, suffering everyman whose plans are always thwarted. He only wants to go to California to run an orange grove...  

Fields' is a middle aged man whose wife has become alien to him. He is aware that he has been left behind by a changing world. His coping strategies have made him weary and unfulfilled. There is a residual charm which is evident to the kindhearted, but looks grotesque to most. Traumatised by domesticity, he is much kinder than his times.

 Like all film comedians, Fields creates a strong visual image: his cigar, white flannel suit and boater, the ruined nose. The opening episode is the funniest with his grocery store destroyed by the blind/deaf Mr. Muggles, who after wrecking the glassware, hilariously crosses the road outside untouched by the speeding traffic.

Such are the frustrating laws of the Fieldsian universe. He can see every disaster as it approaches, but is powerless to resist. All he can do is palliate with whisky and cigars. It is a standard strategy in comedy to place your protagonist in the last place he wants to be, which is exactly where his immortal alter ego lives his life. 

When comic acts from vaudeville got to make Hollywood films they were usually stiffed with B directors and budgets. The Marx Brothers fared better than most and here rated multiple Oscar winner Leo McCarey. Harpo, Groucho and Chico (and Zeppo in his last film) worked their act for years, and finessed their strong visual image and contrasting comic styles.

There's Groucho's fast talking wordplay, Chico's garbled malapropisms, and Harpo's destructive, primal mime. Groucho takes over the corrupt oligarchy of Freedonia which is slipping into war with neighbours Sylvania for whom Harpo and Chico are operating as spies. With populist governments emerging in 1930s Europe, this was satire.

But it's mainly an opportunity for the trio to unleash their trademark anarchy. There's a great visual joke with Groucho playing both sides of a mirror. Margaret Dupont again scores as their uncomprehending stooge.  Marx Brothers films are best when Groucho is reeling off sardonic, convoluted, rapid-fire gags and not so much for the musical interludes of the other two.

Which makes this their best film, dense with immaculate Grouchoisms.  It's the pick of their early Paramount films and it bombed at the box office, badly. The remaining three brothers left for MGM thinking that they were finished. But Duck Soup has become an influential comedy (there's plenty of Monty Python here) and is now rated their masterpiece. 

With 42nd Street a hit, Warner Brothers made Gold Diggers in its image. Busby Berkley arranges the dance numbers and the brilliant songs are again by Dubin and Warren. There are familiar faces on screen with Dick Powell as a blue-blood composer romancing Broadway showgirl Ruby Keeler, to the outrage of his stuffy Boston family.        

If the comedy, script and situations aren't quite to the standard of 42nd Street, Berkley's musical numbers are still sensational and the best part of the film. It opens with Ginger Rogers singing We're in the Money as the rented scenery and costumes are reclaimed. Broadway is feeling the impact of the depression.  

There's Shadow Dance and the amazing Pettin' In the Park. This time it's Powell who has to go on at the last minute after the juvenile wrecks his back, and he ends the routine trying to get Keeler out of her steel corset with a tin opener. There's some fizzy, salacious dialogue from Joan Blondell and Aline MacMahan. This is still a year before the production code.

Remember My Forgotten Man is the showstopper with a phenomenal vocal from Etta Moten,  mimed by Blondell. Berkley cuts from the stage to scenes of men queuing at a soup kitchens. Warner Brothers supported the New Deal and Roosevelt. Berkley's numbers are usually exquisite confections, but here he shows us how to dance the blues.

This civil war comedy-drama is now considered Buster Keaton's classic though it wasn't well received at the time.  He plays a rebel engine driver who isn't allowed to enlist and so is shunned by his fiancée. When his train, with his girl on board, is stolen by Northern spies, Buster must retrieve the locomotive, rescue the girl and secure a strategic advantage for the South.  

 It's an ambitious film, with armies of extras staging huge battles, with spectacular stunts, shot in remote locations in a period setting. Keaton was thinking bigger than his comic contemporaries. Sadly, its failure meant his independence was compromised and he would soon sign a disastrous deal with MGM which sent his career into a spiral.  

But he was still at his peak. His gymnastics around the engine are graceful and breathtaking, with many truly hair-raising stunts. He still performs his familiar persona, the Great Stoneface, but also inhabits a believable character. Marion Mack gives an appealingly ditsy performance as his capricious sweetheart.  

While the film is spectacular, it isn't among Buster's funniest films. It doesn't help that so many people are dying on screen. It's an action film. The period detail is persuasive and the star gives a brilliant demonstration of his prodigious talent as a physical actor and comic artist.

When the Marx Brothers signed with Irving Thalberg, he asked them if they would take a pay cut as Zeppo had quit. Groucho replied that without him they were worth twice as much. It's a shame that no one brought similar insight to the musical numbers that stretch their MGM debut over 90 minutes and introduce longueurs to their manic, fast talking comedy.  

The act was revised, toning down the anarchy, and making the trio more likeable by having them roast the bad guys, rather than just anyone. The difference is obvious, but there are still some long sequences of fabulous wordplay, including the legendary Sanity Claus sketch.

 There is also the famous crowded stateroom scene. Margaret Dumont adds a little continuity by leaving Paramount with the remaining trio to play their stooge.  The vocals of Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones are, I guess, a matter of personal taste.

It's tempting to lean on the FF during the musical numbers. Harpo and Chico's recitals are actually more of a challenge than the opera. Hard to be too critical as this was the biggest box office hit of their careers, but my preference is for the earlier, crazier Paramount comedies.

Classic meditation on greed which is sometimes credited as a western, but isn't really a genre film. It is set in Mexico in 1925, opening in an unprosperous town where desperate, destitute American drifters congregate and chisel out a few lousy pesos from other crooks. After lucking into a little money, three bums decide to fund an arduous trip to search for gold in the mountains.

When they find it, they become possessed by the mesmeric lure of wealth. The gold distorts them. This is no surprise to the old prospector who has seen it all before (Walter Huston). A younger man (Tim Holt) becomes suspicious and fiercely protective of his good fortune, to the point of murder. But Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) is consumed entirely by the power of greed.

And he becomes violently paranoid. This is a persuasive and intense parable which the locations help make realistic. But it is mainly an actors film. Holt is very good in a more neutral role. Bogart is astonishing as the shifty lowlife who is destroyed by his own moral weakness. Best of all is Walter Huston who is absolutely convincing as a grizzled veteran of both mining, and human frailty.

These have become legendary film characters. It's a hugely unconventional and influential work from John Huston. Unfortunately it didn't find an audience at the time, maybe because people were unsure of what it was. Few films end as bitterly and brutally as this. There are no good guys. It feels as epic and eternal as a a tale from the Old Testament.

Howard Hawks' legendary western is bursting with points of interest, but there are many flaws too. It is an archetypal cowboy story as a group of men move cattle from Texas to Abilene after the Civil War. John Wayne has built his huge cattle empire up from the dirt, and must transport the stock through 'Indian' country with Montgomery Clift, the foundling he brought up as a son.

Wayne assumes the role of law and order among his men, enforced by his gun. It was a breakthrough for Duke; a complex role which he fortunately elects to underplay rather than go the whole Captain Bligh. Clift emerges as a star in his debut role, as the boy who takes over the cattle drive. In the early scenes, Hawks seems to have Clift and John Ireland sparking like Bogart and Bacall.

But there is plenty of evidence of a troubled production. Ireland just disappears after a promising start. The later episodes are badly scripted and the plot resolves poorly (with a typical Hollywood ending). Joanne Dru's character and dialogue are disasters and she's not good enough to salvage such a terrible role.

There is an impression of the vast interior and its many dangers. The photography and score are excellent. While Wayne is obviously at home in the skin of his western archetype, it's Clift that makes the greater impact. It's a generational film (James Dean stole Monty's performance). Clift is an exciting, unconventional presence and must be the quickest on draw in all Hollywood.

Henry Fonda's portrayal of a narcissistic and mediocre cavalry officer is the film's main asset. If a new leader announces himself with 'I am not a martinet but...' you know where this is heading. Fort Apache is a remote camp intended to simply keep Native Americans on the reservation but the new boss' vanity escalates this task into the bloody massacre of his own men.

The other impressive factor is its interpretation of the 'Indian' wars, which isn't flattering towards the settlers. The Apaches are portrayed as sophisticated guerrilla warriors, wronged by political expediency. John Ford deserves credit for revising the representation of Native Americans usual in Hollywood westerns, and indeed in his own films.

Sadly, the themes and Fonda's great performance are set adrift in a vast epic of sentimental whimsy: the constant, idiotic quest for whisky supplies; the comedy punch-ups; the singing group harmonising Irish ballads; the comical drilling of inept new recruits. The actual story constantly wanders off into long diversions of knockabout tomfoolery.

Ford's company of character actors is well capable of carrying off this horseplay. The photography and the familiar locations are fine. John Wayne has a badly written support role as the experienced veteran. There is the standard western theme of what too much power does to the few that exercise it. But the comic relief ultimately overwhelms the film.

This is the only major Hollywood film about the war in Burma made during WWII. It follows a platoon of paratroopers dropped into the jungle to blow up a Japanese radar, which they achieve with little difficulty. But, when they fail to be met by air support, they must walk to their base through hundreds of miles of hazardous and unfamiliar terrain. The jungle becomes the enemy.

The opening scenes are realistic and focus on the logistics of running the audacious operation. The leader of the group is played by Errol Flynn, who is trenchant, and quite moving. The latter part of the story deals with their formidable escape. As their ordeal becomes increasingly forlorn and arduous, their endurance becomes epic.

It is brilliantly photographed and scored. Raoul Walsh directs with his usual laconic toughness. Attitudes to Japan have hardened since Pearl Harbour. When the US soldiers encounter the butchery of the Japanese torture of POWs we are confronted by the real horror of war. And become even more inspired by the American cause.  

This became infamous for its impact in the UK, where it was accused of overlooking the British effort, and was withdrawn. I don't think this is fair. Hollywood was telling one story of its own soldiers. Other stories would be told. It is a film about the heroism of a group of ordinary men and their survival against the odds. It's a relentless, inspirational war film

Romantic adventure featuring one of cinema's oddest couples, coming together to torpedo a German warship on Lake Victoria in WWI. It's a two-hander with Oscar winning Humphrey Bogart as a drunken, Canadian river-rat and Katherine Hepburn as a genteel, Methodist spinster travelling downstream on a ramshackle steamboat, the African Queen.

 Which makes for the grandest of entertainment as they fight each other before turning on the enemy. And during their implausible campaign they rather sweetly fall in love. Bogart is a variation on his reluctant heroes who come late to the cause. Hepburn plays the vinegary old maid to far greater effect than she ever did her screwball ingenues of the thirties. 

We see almost nothing of the experience of the Africans. There is the country and the wildlife, but little of the indigenous people caught up in a European war. It's a romance and a vehicle for its great American stars. Jack Cardiff's Technicolor location photography of the Congo is magnificent. The whole film represents an audacious triumph of logistics.

Credit is due to John Huston for driving the production way beyond the normal comfort zone of a film made in the 1950s. And there is something enchanting about watching the old couple drifting via their heart of darkness to a foolhardy assignation. And it's inspirational and moving. The film observes that the pity of life isn't that they suffer, but that the one they love should suffer too.

Warner Brothers adapted a true story from WWI, to make a case for why America must fight again. Alvin York was an uneducated farmer from rural Tennessee. He was a conscientious objector on religious grounds, but went to the Western Front and used his gift as a sniper, plus his extraordinary bravery, to silence machine gun nests and capture 130 German soldiers.

He became a decorated hero and a legend. Gary Cooper was well cast and he won an Oscar. The first half of the film is about his conversion to Christianity among the enduring poor of the American south. Howard Hawks creates this world with humour and affection. Margaret Wycherly is excellent as the steadfast and durable mother.

This isn't typical Hawks. There is zero screwball fizz, no fast talking dames. The slow, introspective hero is an anti-Hawks character, a loner. The director performs a miracle in largely avoiding sentimentality, helped by Max Steiner elegant score. Though the film is unashamedly mystical.

This was propaganda aimed at the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans reluctant to fight in another foreign war. The model of the peaceful man who must act for the greater good is a pitch that Hollywood would use extensively in WWII.  Freedom must be defended. After Pearl Harbour, Hawks' film became a popular vehicle for patriotic American interventionism.

William Wellman's low budget adaptation of the classic classroom text is set within the framework of the western, but really it is a polemic against mob justice. In Nevada, 1885 a popular rancher is reported dead and three cowboys passing through the territory are summarily lynched on insubstantial evidence.

Some of the men react to the rumoured death of the local man with a lust for instant revenge. This desire passes through the group, but each has his own personal motivation for their reckless, unlawful action. Even those who oppose the lynching are reluctant to speak in case the mob turns on them too. Once the urge is in motion, it must be satisfied.

Of course, the local farmer isn't dead and the strangers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Several of the mob are charged with murder. This is a brief film which makes its case with little diversion, which enables its impact to be precise and powerful. There is a fine ensemble cast, with Dana Andrews particularly effective as on of the victims.

Henry Fonda is the lead, as one of the few who stand against the vigilantes. It is interesting to place his role as a forerunner of 12 Angry Men (1957). This is a low budget film. There is no incidental noise on the soundtrack, no extras, hardly any set decoration. The studio look is artificial. It's a skeletal, dark, schematic tragedy that lingers and haunts the memory.

Guadalcanal was the first land battle in the Pacific War between USA and Japan. This film was released in the same year as the events. Sure, there is plenty of patriotism and propaganda, but for a Hollywood combat film made in the war years, this is relatively understated. It warns that Japan is a formidable enemy and victory for the US military will be hard won.

This isn't war as hell. It is a morale booster intended to reassure the homefront. It is narrated by the character of a war correspondent, adapted from a book by a journalist reporting back for a news service. It follows the US Marines for six months, from landing on the beaches to being relieved by the US army. The voice over contributes strategic and philosophical context.

The focus is on the ordinary soldiers, who are presented as classless and multi-ethnic. It's a vehicle for a range of fine ensemble performances. William Bendix stands out as a brave, determined but slightly dim GI Joe from Brooklyn, a role he would play a few times. These men are not really fighting for strategic gain or country, but for each other. And to survive.  

The film has a practical message for the homefront: send mail, give blood and buy war bonds. It warns them of what the returning soldiers will have experienced. By rowing back on the heroics, the film feels even more moving because it is credible. It shows death and suffering and told their families, and people of the future, that their sacrifice was worthy of respect.

There is so much knockabout farce and harmonising of Irish ballads in the third of John Ford's cavalry trilogy that it's as much a sentimental musical comedy as a western. When the Apache attack finally arrives in the last reel, it gives the film an action climax but this isn't really about the 'Indian' Wars. There is nothing about the aims or the justness of either cause.

The plot actually rests on the rekindling of a long ago romance between a cavalry officer (John Wayne) and his estranged wife (Maureen O'Hara). There is some chemistry, and O'Hara smoulders effectively. They would have a bigger hit with Ford in 1952 with The Quiet Man.

The battle is well staged, but the best of the action is a boisterous though incongruous episode with the troops 'roman riding' during their initial training. That's standing on two horses simultaneously, while circuiting the corral. Apparently Ford got the actors to do this rather than use stuntmen.

It's a typical John Ford western, for good and bad. Victor McLaglen ineptly drills yet another set of raw recruits. The Sons of Pioneers sing a sweet lullaby.  There's yet another comical punch up. The era is plausibly recreated and Ford captures many fine images of his cavalry photographed against the Utah landscape.

One of a pair of films directed by Sam Fuller during the Korean War. The other is The Steel Helmet. This could as easily be set in WWII, but it is staged against a real incident, a long retreat by American soldiers. A rearguard of 48 men is left behind to protect the retreat and to keep Chinese soldiers tied up in the snow of a strategically critical mountain thoroughfare.

 Richard Basehart plays a Corporal who lives in fear of command and who must suffer the anxiety of seeing everyone senior die during the conflict, leaving him in charge. Fuller fought in the US 1st Infantry in WWII from North Africa to the concentration camps so his war films have an implied authority.

The men have little individuality or back story. We see their response to the intensity of fear, and demoralising hopelessness. It is staged on a small studio set in artificial snow, with no music or ambient sound (like wind), with Fuller's camera mounted on a crane, searching out pockets of US soldiers trapped by fire into their tiny ice caves.

This is a psychological war film. Most of the dialogue is a back and forth exchange of trench wit, a way of not confronting the danger. It's not about the pity of war, or anti-war, or a propaganda film. It attempts to authentically capture the impact of combat on the men who are made to fight. Their interior war.