Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, Max, TCM, YouTube.]

Preston Sturges at the Criterion Channel

The Great McGinty (dir. Preston Sturges, 1940). “I was the governor of a state, baby”: a satire of big-city politics, and a fable about the cost of “one crazy moment” of honesty or its opposite. Brian Donlevy is Dan McGinty, a poverty-struck Depressionite who rose from repeat voter ($2 a pop) to elected office and now tells his story in a “banana republic” barroom. A great Sturges screenplay, with brilliant deadpan lines that fly by (pay attention at every moment). Also starring Muriel Angelus (a little-known actor in her final movie), William Demarest, and Akim Tamiroff. ★★★★

The Palm Beach Story (1942). A little sex comedy, with Gerry and Tom Jeffers, a down-on-their-luck couple of the verge of divorce (Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea), and brother and sister swells, J.D. Hackensacker III and the Princess Centimillia (Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor), each of whom is besotted by a Jeffers. With a Weenie King in a bathtub, an Ale and Quail Club on a train (with dogs and shotguns), a speaker of foreign gibberish, and a ya-chit (yacht). The comedy ranges from silent-era hijinks to the snappiest innuendo-driven patter. Now competing with Sullivan’s Travels for the title of My Favorite Sturges Movie. ★★★★

The Lady Eve (1941). Shipboard artistry, card and con, as the trio of Jean, the Colonel, and Gerald (Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Coburn, Melville Cooper) attempt to take Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), innocent brewery heir and herpetologist, for thousands. Jean falls in love with Charles, for real, but when he learns of the trio’s criminality, he calls the whole thing off. So Jean, back on land, seeks revenge by fashioning a new identity for herself as a look-alike, the Lady Eve Sidwich, niece of another con man (Eric Blore) who’s been fleecing the bridge players of Connecticut. Quick and funny, and I’m amazed that they got the scene with the shoes past the censors. ★★★★

*

Kansas City Confidential (dir. Phil Karlson, 1952). It’s the one with the armored-car robbers wearing eerie-looking masks. To my surprise, I’d never seen all the way through. John Payne stars as an ex-con wrongly accused, roughed up, cleared, and determined to find the real crooks. Featuring three extraordinarily feral criminal types: Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, and Jack Elam. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

The Boss (dir. Byron Haskin, 1956). John Payne again, this time as a post-WWI big-city political boss and king of crime. His rise takes decades (with convincing makeup); his downfall is swifter. Stealing the show here is Robin Morse (the guy who summarizes Mickey Spillane in Marty ) as a hood looking to take all he can from the boss. Best scene: the candy crane. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Secret of the Blue Room (dir. Kurt Neumann, 1933). Years ago, three people were murdered in a manor house’s mysterious blue room, which locks from the inside. Now, three suitors (William Janney, Paul Lukas, Onslow Stevens) competing for the hand of the beautiful Irene von Helldorf (Gloria Stuart) take up, one by one, the challenge to spend a night in the room. Complications follow. Dumb plot, good performances, and bizarre sets (the house’s basement seems to have four or five or six sublevels). ★★★ (YT)

*

12 Angry Men (dir. William Friedkin, 1997). A remake for Showtime, with a revised screenplay by Reginald Rose, and I’m surprised to find that I prefer it to Sidney Lumet’s 1957 original — the performances are that good. Jack Lemmon is Juror 8: not Henry Fonda’s sainted figure in white but a tired and patient man who wants to give a young defendant due consideration. In 2024, George C. Scott’s Juror 3 sounds eerily Trump-like: it’s easy to imagine this juror calling for the deaths of the Central Park Five. With Hume Cronyn, Tony Danza, Ossie Davis, James Gandolfini, Edward James Olmos, and five more jurors. ★★★★ (CC)
*

Witness for the Prosecution (dir. Billy Wilder, 1957). From the Agatha Christie play. Tyrone Power gets top billing as Leonard Vole, a man accused of murdering an older woman from whom he may have hoped to get money, with Power’s acting mostly limited to protests of innocence in the courtroom. The real stars here are Marlene Dietrich as Vole’s wife Christine and, above all, Charles Laughton as Vole’s lawyer, Sir Wilfrid Robarts, dyspeptic, late to trial, lucky and clever in the extreme, and bringing cranky comedy to the proceedings in his tiffs with his nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s wife). The closing credits include a plea from United Artists not to reveal the surprise ending — which of course I would never do. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Stopping the Steal (dir. Dan Reed, 2024). A documentary devoted largely to interviews with Republican state officials and members of the Trump administration who refused to cooperate with efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Points that hit home, as confirmed by those who know Trump: Trump will never admit error or defeat; he will repeat a lie often enough that (some) people will believe it; his efforts to fire up his base only serve to alienate the so-called suburban voters who would add to his vote totals. My one complaint: Reed’s interviewees are never pressed about whether, given what they saw, they’ll be voting for Trump in 2024. William Barr, for one, is on record that he is. ★★★ (M)

*

The Pearl of Death (dir. Roy William Neill, 1944). It looks more like the ball bearing of death, and it brings harm to those who seek it. Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is a bit of a dope here: knowledgeable enough to identify the make and model of a cigar from its ash but dumb enough to disconnect an alarm that protects the pearl from theft. His effort to retrieve the priceless orb (that’s inelegant variation) brings him to scenes of murder and smashed china. Deductions galore, some comic moments from Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce), and several convincing disguises, but the most memorable moments are provided by the unforgettable Rondo Hatton as The Creeper. ★★ (YT)

*

Bad for Each Other (dir. Irving Rapper, 1953). A morality tale of high and low places. Tom Owen (Charlton Heston) is an Army colonel and doctor, a veteran of two wars, home on leave in the mining town of Coalville, and lured up and away by the (not readily discernible) charms of the mine owner’s daughter Helen Curtis (Lizabeth Scott) and the big money to be had as a partner in a metropolitan practice catering to rich hypochondriacs. Opposing forces: Jim Crowley (Arthur Franz), a fellow veteran and fellow doctor treating lung disease among Coalville’s miners, and Joan Lasher (Dianne Foster), a nurse hoping to become a doctor. It’s difficult to be serious about typing “no spoilers” in light of these sentences, though there’s plenty of suspense in the way the story plays out. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Sensation Hunters (dir. Charles Vidor, 1933). “It’s gonna take more than a climate or a crowd to make me a wanton,” says Dale Jordan (Marion Burns), a college grad who has (inexplicably) signed up with a company of cabaret girls headed for a long run in the Panama Canal Zone. To which the Canal Zone climate might reply, “Oh yeah?” Capable singing, passable dancing, and adversity follow, with plenty of wisecracks from Dale’s pal Jerry (Arline Judge). Did working women really drop a piece of jewelry from an upstairs window to signal their availability to a customer? ★★★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)