Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1939 adaptation of the 1936 bestseller is directed by John Ford, and a prime piece of Fordian mythmaking it is to be sure. The film covers the period from  1776 to 1781, which takes us from the Declaration of Independence to the surrender of the British.  These hist oric events form the backdrop to the story of a  community in the Mohawk valley in upstate New York, and in particular  a newlywed couple of Gil and Lana (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) who are creating a home for themselves. Things seem to be going swimmingly (after a shaky start) until the day when the rest of the community is at their farm to help clear the land for cultivation, when out of the blue a party of Native Americans attack, destroying Gil and Lana's home.  This sets the dynamic for what follows: the community trying to get on with their lives, punctuated by attacks, and by the menfolk going off to war. Henry Fonda is the perfect actor to portray the virtues of resilience, decen...

Having recently watched 'Arabesque' which was an unsuccessful attempt by director Stanley Donen to replicate the success of this earlier film I decided to go to the OG, which I had seen before, some time ago. It has so much going for it compared with the follow-up, notably a twisty plot yet one with a simple and intriguing premise. Audrey Hepburn's husband has died in mysterious circumstances, and then three sinister figures turn up claiming that he had stolen money from them which she must now have.  They were comrades of her husband in the war who together stole some gold from the US government. It’s a frightening situation for her but thankfully handsome Cary Grant turns up like a white knight to help her. Except that she soon discovers that he is not who he says he is and that he is not a disinterested party.  A lot of the pleasure in the film is in the ups and downs of their relationship and whether she can trust him, whilst all the time they are falling for each other...

Well finally I got round to watching one of Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodramas.  This one is about a brother and sister, Kyle and Marylee, (played by Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone) who are filthy rich because their father is an oil tycoon (we’re in Texas). Needless to say their money doesn’t make them happy. Marylee is in love with handsome Mitch (Rock Hudson) who she has known since childhood. Problem is that he only loves her as a brother.  It might also be the case that he recognises that she is Trouble. Mitch is Kyle’s best friend and works as a geologist for Kyle's dad's oil company.  Mitch is the opposite of Kyle; he has studied and worked hard, and he’s not an alcoholic.  In comparison with Mitch, Kyle doubts his masculinity and resents the fact that his father would probably prefer to have Mitch as his son. Into this combustible mix walks Lucy (Lauren Bacall) who both Kyle and Mitch fall for instantly, but it’s Kyle she marries, not for his money but because o...

The title credit announces this as 'Hammerstein's Carmen Jones' which seems rather tough on Bizet who after all did write the music.    All Oscar did was to adapt the opera so as to create a stage musical set in World War II which features an all black cast. Otto Preminger then adapted the musical for the cinema. My understanding is that in so doing he moved the music more back to its opera roots.  Maybe because of this  the end result is a film that falls between several stools, not being successful as either a musical, or an opera, or as a drama.  Bizarrely we have two lead performers (Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte) who are fine singers in their own right but who here are dubbed by opera singers.  Although the dubbing is done well enough it still seems odd for Belafonte in particular to be singing in an operatic style. The racial politics of this film are a potential minefield.   Preminger deserves credit for getting the film made with a...

This is a superficially enjoyable comedy which is totally disposable, and so forgettable that it was only towards the end that I realised I had seen it before. It’s about a couple of male figure skaters who are complete opposites and rivals but who out of desperation (both having been banned from singles competition) become a pair, because it turns out there’s nothing in the rule book that prohibits it. One of the skaters is Will Ferrell,  who is the only reason to watch this film. He plays a crude show-off who claims to suffer from sex-addiction (there‘s a funny scene when he attends a therapy class) But his crassness is about the only joke we have here and it wears thin after a while.   The other skater, played by Jon Heder, doesn’t bring much to the party comedy-wise.  Inevitably he and Ferrell get to bond over the course of the story, but the film makes no effort to make this plausible. There's a rival pair of ruthless brother-and-sister skaters, played by Amy Poehler...

This 1941 Frank Capra film takes some big swings which don't totally work, but it's a fascinating piece of 'Capra-Corn' which tackles some big ideas.   The great Barbara Stanwyck plays a resourceful newspaper columnist, Anne, who invents a fictitious man, whom she names John Doe, who is so angry at the state of the world that he threatens to kill himself on Christmas Eve, some months hence.   John Doe so captures people's interest that Stanwyck comes up with the bright idea, as a stunt to increase the newspaper's circulation, of taking someone off the street to pretend to be him. The guy she chooses, Gary Cooper, is a homeless man who used to be a baseball player before he injured his elbow. He's a simple fellow who is happy enough to be pampered by the newspaper.   He's sufficiently taken with Stanwyck that he turns down an opportunity to make money by exposing the stunt, and instead delivers on radio a rousing speech she has written, extolling the virt...