When Irish Eyes are Murderous

Film: Night Must Fall
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Night Must Fall has been sitting on my DVR since last February. It’s one of the dozen or so movies that I’ve had recorded and simply have not gotten to. So why watch it now? I decided to watch it when I realized it was the last movie I had to see to complete 1937 as a year. So it was that I decided to finish off a second year and finally knock this film out. I knew nothing about it beyond the short TCM summary on the recording, so I went in essentially with no preconceptions and not much in the way of expectations.

Well, there are times when having no expectations works out because the film isn’t worthy of expectations. There are other times when having no expectations works out even better because the film is surprisingly good. Happily, Night Must Fall is of the second variety. This is a surprisingly effective and tight thriller that goes to some very unexpected places for a film from 1937. While it’s pretty tame by today’s standards, there are some gruesome implications here and suggestions of murder and dismemberment as well as a the unseen but obvious presence of the first murder victim’s head in a basket.

Another Boring Knight

Film: Ivanhoe
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Because of my regular Friday posts, I tend to look for times when I can complete a particular Oscar category in a particular year. That’s the sole reason I watched Ivanhoe today. This isn’t one that I wasn’t looking forward to for a very specific reason: Robert Taylor. I have consistently found Robert Taylor to be so utterly dull that he makes Franchot Tone look like Captain Charisma. He’s bland on a saltine cracker. He’s Blandy McBlanderstein, and anything that stars him starts with a strike against it in my opinion.

Ivanhoe is essentially the same story as The Adventures of Robin Hood from a completely different perspective. So, while there’s still a Richard the Lionheart and still a King John and even a Locksley, most of the other familiar characters—Maid Marian, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Little John—aren’t a part of this at all. Instead, we’re going to see the story from the perspective of Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor), a Saxon knight who accompanied Richard on the Crusades. On his way home, Ivanhoe discovers that Richard has been imprisoned and that the asked-for ransom is 150,000 marks of silver. Worse, since Richard’s brother John (Guy Rolfe) is usurping the throne, there is no plan to pay that ransom and return Richard to England.

What's Next is Skipping This Film

Film: What Next, Corporal Hargrove?
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve said before that these Oscar categories take me to some strange places. Few have been as strange as What Next, Corporal Hargrove?, a military comedy that appeared just at the end of World War II. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. It’s not nearly as funny as it thinks it is. It also doesn’t have any idea of what it wants to be, which is a significant problem.

In truth, there isn’t a great deal of plot here. We follow the exploits of Corporal Marion Hargrove (Robert Walker) and his scam-happy friend Private Tom Mulvehill (Keenan Wynn) as their artillery battery makes its way through France and toward Germany after D-Day. One of the recurring themes of the film is that Hargrove frequently gets promoted to corporal for competence and bravery and almost as quickly busted back to private for stupidity, incompetence, or bad luck. This is, again, supposed to be funny, but generally is not.

It's Not Porn

Film: Two Girls and a Sailor
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are times when going back multiple decades into film history pays off, but it’s always a crapshoot. I understand when people complain about old movies. There are plenty of them that have significantly different sensibilities than more modern movies. One such movie that is very much in the mode of morale-boosting propaganda film is Two Girls and a Sailor, which honestly sounds like a porn title. Anyway, this is a musical very much in the classical vein, which will please a number of people and tends to leave me flat.

Like many a classic musical, this is essentially a romance with a whisper-thin plot. Seriously, this plot would fall apart with a sneeze. Two sisters, Patsy (June Allyson) and Jean Deyo (Gloria DeHaven) grow up in the vaudeville business. Eventually, they become pretty successful and start working at a club in New York. After work, they essentially operate something like a USO club out of their apartment, bringing up lonely soldiers, sailors, and marines and feeding them.

How the West Was Won

Film: How the West Was Won
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

This is not going to be easy. How the West Was Won is a film that not only spans a massive amount of time, a good 40-50 years, and has one of those casts that starts on a Tuesday and ends on Friday. Lots of folks are given top billing for a few minutes work here but nonetheless, there are so many stars and future stars involved in the cast of this that it would take a full paragraph or two to name them all. Just as interestingly, many of them are not immediately recognizable, but can be identified by their voices. Henry Fonda in particular doesn’t look anything like himself, but there’s no mistaking that voice. Ditto for John Wayne, who makes a several minute appearance as William Tecumseh Sherman. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, and his voice is just as immediately recognizable.

We begin with the Westward quest of the Prescott family, heading to the wild country of Ohio. Led by patriarch Zebulon (Karl Malden) have little but their own gumption for the trip, and they encounter a series of problems. One of those problems turns out instead to be a friend named Linus Rawlings (James Stewart). There is a mutual attraction between Linus and Eve Prescott (Carroll Baker), but Linus is a mountain man. When he saves the family from being bushwhacked, that attraction grows. It’s not until a serious accident kills off Zeb and his wife that Eve makes a choice to stay on that spot, and Linus agrees to stay with her.