Gangster Squad

Film: The Racket
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

First off, please forgive any typos. My left hand is a bit messed up at the moment, so I’m not sure how accurate my typing will be. I may even be more accurate than normal today because I’m aware of it. Anyway, there’s a collection of movies that I’m unlikely to ever see on my various Oscar lists because I just can’t get them. I was excited when TCM scheduled The Patent Leather Kid for its 31 Days of Oscar, but they pulled it last minute. The did run The Racket, though, a film that was thought lost until a single copy turned up in the vaults of Howard Hughes.

The Racket is an old school gangster film that features a couple of different factions butting heads. There are the gangsters, of course. One group of bootlegging thugs is led by Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim, who seriously looks the part). The rival gang is headed by a thug nicknamed Spike (Henry Sedley). The only good thing we can say about Spike is that he’s not Nick Scarsi. The only thing good we can say about Nick is that he’s sent his brother Joe (George E. Stone) off to college and wants to keep him out of the rackets.

Propaganda, Comrade

Film: The North Star (Armored Attack)
Format: Internet video on The Nook.

I’ve been hitting a lot of internet-available films lately. There are days when it’s easier to watch something in this format than a more typical one. There is a more serious reason, though. Slightly more than one-third of the movies I have left to watch on my various Oscar lists at this moment are ones I don’t own and that aren’t available through NetFlix. That number is a little better if I include libraries that I can use, but there are still a lot of movies that need to be watched in a different way—more than 25%. Thus, The North Star (often shown under the name (Armored Attack) was on the docket for today.

Since this is a war film from 1943, it should come as no surprise that The North Star is a propaganda film. What makes it particularly interesting is that this is an American production, but concerns Ukrainian peasants, not American troops. The movie skirts the idea of being pro-communist, but it’s certainly pro-Russian. Evidently, The North Star was cited as a premiere example of the sort of thing HUAC wanted to root out of Hollywood. In fact, it’s why the film was released under the different title. As Armored Attack, The North Star has all references to Russian and Ukrainian peasantry removed.

I'm Your Mutineer

Film: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Format: DVDs (two of ‘em!) from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s a rough go when a movie shows up on two DVDs, because it’s a guarantee that it’s going to be a long one. A few minutes into the film, I was convinced it was going to be even longer: I heard Marlon Brando’s effete and nasal British accent. Three hours of Brando aping an Etonian. On the other hand, at least Mutiny on the Bounty is a big, ballsy adventure film featuring wooden ships and iron men. I’m a sucker for those.

This is the same basic story as the film that won Best Picture in 1935. A crew of men sail away from England and head to Tahiti. Their mission is to take a cargo of breadfruit trees to Jamaica with the hope of establishing the crop there to feed the slaves. The two most prominent and important personalities on deck are 1st Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando) and the ship’s captain, William Bligh (Trevor Howard).

The Sheik of Araby

Film: Two Arabian Knights
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Turner Classic Movies is gearing up for their 31 Days of Oscar, which means I need to burn through as much as I’ve got saved as I can to make room for those rarities to come. Two Arabian Knights is one I’ve had sitting there for quite some time. No time like the present, right? Silent films pose their own particular problem in viewing. The conventions are so different from modern films, that it takes some doing to get through without too much frustration.

Two Arabian Knights is both a World War I film and a comedy, a combination of genres that can work if done well. Actually, as I think about it, I tend to like war comedies in general, so it has that going for it. We start with a pair of American soldiers in a trench with the German troops about ready to overrun their position. Knowing their about to die, Private W. Daingerfield Phelps III (William Boyd) decides that this is as good a time as any to finally have it out with his hated sergeant, Peter O’Gaffney (smash-faced Louis Wolheim). The two duke it out, not noticing that by the time they are done, they are surrounded by German troops and taken prisoner.

Rabbits

Film: Of Mice and Men
Format: DVD from NetFlix on Sue’s Mother’s Day present.

When I wrote up The Grapes of Wrath some time ago, I mentioned the arguments between my brother Tom and my dad about Tom’s reading habits. Dad never failed to push classics on Tom while Tom was much more attuned to reading pulp novels. The book dad pushed the most was, in fact, The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men is arguably the Steinbeck story that is more famous than the one Dad constantly wanted one of us to read. I’ve still never read The Grapes of Wrath, but I’ve read Of Mice and Men.

Of course, it’s been years since I’ve read it, but I remember the basics of the story. I also remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the Abominable Snowman who was based completely on one of the characters from this. This isn’t a story I enjoy much because of where it goes, but I can’t disagree with it being a true classic of American literature.

Watching Oscar: The Front Page

Film: The Front Page
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

When I started watching The Front Page, it certainly seemed familiar to me. And then people started talking about Hildy Johnson, and I knew I knew that name. Hildy Johnson is the character played by Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. I suddenly got the impression that this might be an earlier film, sort of a “Hildy Johnson before we got to the famous film” sort of thing. So imagine my surprise when it turns out that The Front Page is essentially the same film as the later (and better) His Girl Friday, and in this version, Hildy Johnson in a man. Yeah, I know. Weird, right?

But that’s what we’re left with—a precursor version of a classic screwball comedy. Newspaper man Hildy Johnson (Pat O’Brien) is planning on quitting the paper and moving to New York for a job in advertising. The impetus for this is not just the cushy salary of the new job, but also his impending marriage to Peggy Grant (Mary Brian), who wants him to have a normal life instead of running around after stories at all hours. This move does not sit well with Hildy’s boss, Walter Burns (Adolphe Menjou), who realizes that Hildy is a born newspaper man and wants to keep him on staff.