The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) 5/10

By 1949 John Wayne had become one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Tiny Republic studios who had employed the Duke before he became a big star in Stagecoach (1939) were very happy to retain his services. They allowed him to produce some movies including this one which is possibly for a few reasons is a little more interesting than the general run of John Wayne westerns.

It starts with a rather sombre voiceover and the shadow of Napoleon indicating that the movie is based on a true story about French refugees from the Napoleonic wars, supporters of the great French emperor.

Wayne plays John Breen who helps a group of French refugees to save their land from unscrupulous Americans. John of course falls in love with one of the refugees, Fleurette (Vera Ralston). There is some good action near the end but not much fighting really from this particular Kentucky rifleman.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the movie is the appearance of Oliver Hardy without Stan Laurel but behaving most of the time like Stanley. Still a lot of Ollie mannerisms and takes are present, he ends up in the drink at one point recalling Way Out West (1937).

He is good as Wayne's sidekick a role he at first turned down before being encouraged to do it by Stan Laurel. Hardy made two other solo appearances after teaming with Stan in Zenobia (1939) with Harry Langdon and a year after this with Bing Crosby in Frank Capra's Riding High (1950).

The film is on the whole quite appealing without being very distinguished or exciting.

Sixty Glorious Years (1938) 5/10

Usually a sequel to a biopic continues a life story already started : the few sequels which have been made generally followed that pattern as in Jolson Sings Again (1949) and Funny Lady (1975). However when writer and director Herbert Wilcox decided to make a second film about Queen Victoria it wasn't a continuation of the first film. That would have been rather difficult as Victoria the Great (1937) mainly covered the early and final years of the queen's reign, instead he decided that her reign had been so long and eventful it couldn't be covered in one film, he had missed a fair bit out so it could go in a second film.

So here we have Sixty Glorious Years (1938) a pot pourri of events in the reign of Queen Victoria with assorted politicians played by character actors including C.Aubrey Smith as the Duke of Wellington, the only one who makes any kind of impact. Both Wilcox's films starred Anna Neagle as the Queen who gives a very reverential performance in fact in an era when criticism of the monarchy was rare they are too sycophantic and stuffy, you never get to feel you know this woman as in the more recent Mrs Brown (1997). Even less critically portrayed is Prince Albert (Anton Walbrook) who despite great efforts on his part never quite connects with the British public or the haughty English as a fairly stereotypical John Brown points out.

A lack of real drama and excitement in the end makes this pagaent fairly dull. Victoria the Great (1937) concentrated on fewer events in her life and didn't seem so episodic. Here we have many events such as the Corn Laws, the Crimean War, the murder of General Gordon inserted it seems fairly arbitralily to increase the running time. Not that its a long film at 90 minutes but it really takes a dip after the death of Albert about an hour in.

It is a handsome production in Technicolor though the print I watched was fairly ropey and faded. Still this film cost me nothing, it is available to download at archive.org  as it appears to have entered the public domain. Though made and released in Britain in 1938 it didn't appear in the US till 1940, the print retains the RKO intro with radio masthead.

Possessed (1947) (6/10)

The Joan Crawford of the late 1940s was very different from the young flapper of the 20s or the shop, professional or show girl of the 30s. An important difference was that she had moved from MGM to Warners and the post war period was darker, the film noir style infiltrated every type of melodrama and women's picture. It isn't surprising that Crawford's comeback picture for which she won an Academy Award : Mildred Pierce (1945) and some of the films that followed have been called noirs.

Possessed (1947) is described on the DVD cover and in the featurette on the disc as the quintessential film noir. It certainly has the style though there are no trench-coated detectives and oddly enough no femme fatales either. In this film and previously Mildred Pierce (1945) Crawford is very much the victim rather than the villainness, though what happens in Possessed is perhaps more down to her character's actions than in the earlier film.

Crawford plays Louise Howell who is seen not looking her best to say the least at the start of the film, disoriented she is taken to a hospital and slowly the film reveals how she got into this state. Most of it stems from her obsession for David Sutton (Van Heflin) a rather swarmy character who says he feels smothered by her love. He also appears a bit dim not realising the depth of Louise's obsession with him which seems fairly obvious from the start. It also doesn't seem right that someone like Louise would be a nurse for another mental case, Dean Graham's (Raymond Massey) wife. When the wife commits suicide guilt sends Louise over the edge and she begins hallucinating, in one scene pushing Dean's daughter down the stairs, oddly enough this is a great scene slightly spoiled for me when its revealed as a dream. As is a later episode in the movie where you are asking yourself : did she really do it ?

Pauline Kael described Crawford in this movie as an actress not satisfied with one Oscar and its a good performance almost making you believe the improbable plot. As for the film's noir credentials it was directed by Curtis Bernhardt a European and certainly uses shadows and sound very effectively, particularly  in a scene where Crawford is frightened first by the tick-tocking of the clock then by the drip-dropping of the rain leading her to hurriedly pull down the window.

Engaging enough to watch with the fascination with psychology popular during this period ((Shock (1945), Spellbound (1945) etc)) though no classic.

Mr DeMille I'm ready for my close up.

Thought it was about time I did a blog and really made an effort to keep it up. My passion is cinema particularly classic movies from the earliest silents to 1960. I enjoy quite a few more recent movies too but I really believe that the Golden Age of Hollywood when the industry was dominated by a small number of major studios was the peak of the motion picture.

I've already done a fair bit online to celebrate classic movies. A website at goldenageofhollywood.co.uk , a weekly podcast at thegoldenageofhollywood.blogspot.com and a 5 year old messageboard (in October) which developed into a social network at goldenageofhollywood.ning.com .

So why a blog and why now ? The title 100 Years of Hollywood offers part of the answer, 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the first filming in Hollywood by the great pioneer director D.W. Griffith. I thought it was worth marking that milestone.

My other inspiration came from my good friend film historian Maria Ciacca who co-hosts the podcast with me. I found she had contributed over 1000 reviews to imdb.com in the last few years. I felt it was something I should have done as I watch a lot of movies, the best always stay with you but I find myself forgetting the details of many. I felt then that even from my own viewpoint this was worth doing to keep a record of what I watch.

FWIW my screenings are in my room almost every night using a projector connected to my DVD player : I tend to do a different genre each night of the week : Monday is usually Comedy, Tuesday is Drama/Romance, Wednesday is Action/Adventure, Thursday is General (sometimes Action, Sci-Fi or Thriller), Friday is Thrillers, Saturday is Musicals and Sunday is Silent Films. Sometimes that order can change.

So what can you expect on the blog : well mainly reviews of classic movies though I hope to cover the whole first 100 years if you like of the "Hollywood" era though I won't be restricted to American or English language films and might very occasionally go before 1910.