Ladies in Retirement (1941)

Ida Lupino is cheerless and intense in this. It’s rather odd. But Louis Hayward is very charming, and the whole thing manages to work despite not being able to transcend its theatrical roots. The trouble with Ladies in Retirement, though, is that it is neither mysterious nor scary. We know who is doing what at every point, and because the film is from neither Lupino's point of view nor Hayward's, we are never really confused or puzzling over anything. We know exactly what has happened and can easily predict what is going to happen. All of this made Ladies in Retirement rather boring, if I'm honest.

Sundown (1941)

This is British colonial war propaganda made during WWII. It has a cool vibe for a while, honestly, and it's a sort of exciting spy-adventure-mystery film with an intriguing tension and mood – not Five Graves to Cairo level, but approaching it. Sundown also stars Gene Tierney, looking lovely in orientalist clothes by Walter Plunkett.

Where Sundown fails is when it becomes explicitly propagandistic at the film's end. For some reason, the film thinks it can accomplish this using a character whom we've hated for the entire running time. He dies at the end, and he pityingly says out of nowhere that war is just like church. He then gives this whole speech about church and religion and fighting the Axis Powers. It makes no actual sense and has nothing, really, to do with the film, which is about fighting Nazis in British-colonized Kenya, but is absolutely not about religion. Worse yet, in many ways, this character (played in usual withering style by George Sanders) is hateful. He makes numerous bad decisions as soon as he arrives – and they're shown to be bad decisions immediately – and he is a racist jerk to Gene Tierney's character for being mixed race, yet another trait that is shown to be terrible and awful immediately. After George Sanders gives his church speech, we fast forward to England and are suddenly in a bombed-out church in London, where Sanders' bishop father gives yet another speech to his entire congregation about how fighting in the war and sending your sons off to war (these men never want to go themselves) is a pure and wonderful sacrifice. We also find out – in another insane plot leap – that the bishop has officiated a wedding between Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot, who sit in the congregation and repeat the bishop's words before (presumably) heading back to the British East Africa Protectorate to fight the Nazis.

Ok, but it is good and mysterious and intriguing for a while, even if it is colonial propaganda.

Man Hunt (1941)

I love a WWII movie made during WWII. Man Hunt was made before the U.S. entered the war, and it's a sharp noir film directed by Fritz Lang. In it, a sharpshooter slash big-game hunter has Hitler in his sights, is tortured by the Nazis, and then is chased through London by a Nazi George Sanders. There is lots to love here, including a very young Roddy McDowell, who is excellent. Joan Bennett is very strangely miscast as a working-class Londoner, but overall this is an exciting and fun picture with lost of surprises up its sleeve.

Sun Valley Serenade (1941)

Another weird Sonja Henie romantic comedy! Sun Valley Serenade has many of the same bits as 1939's Second Fiddle, although the plot is totally different. But there is much skiing and much ice skating and many musical numbers. Most of the musical numbers are diegetic, but there is a very strange non-diegetic one as everyone in the cast goes up to "Sun Valley". 

What else to say about this? John Payne, who had once been referred to as a kind of poor man's Tyrone Power, is very handsome and sings beautifully. (I guess I'm making the comparison again by comparing Sun Valley Serenade to Second Fiddle, but that's not really fair to Payne at all. He is quite fun in this.) The Glenn Miller Orchestra is fabulous, and his sequences are the best. They play "In the Mood", and we just sit and listen while nothing else happens. It's great.

The real reason I watched this film, though, is that the Nicholas Brothers make an appearance. It's much briefer than their famous appearance in Stormy Weather, and more comparable to their short appearance in Down Argentine Way. They appear as part of a section of the "Chattanooga Choo Choo" number. One can clearly see how it's filmed so that it can be cut out for racist audiences who don't want to see Black performers. And they appear with Dorothy Dandridge, who looks fabulous. I say this number is short, but I think it might even be better than their viral number in Stormy Weather. Their sequence in this film deserves to go viral all over again.

Meet John Doe (1941)

Meet John Doe still contains much of the corniness of Frank Capra's usual fare, but it's actually much much darker than we usually expect from Capra. Meet John Doe is a rather terrifying portrait of anticommunism/fascism and big political money in the United States and the truly evil depths these fuckers will sink to in order to maintain a stranglehold on US American politics.

Also surprisingly, the ending of Meet John Doe is fairly grim. We do not end with a great deal of hope for the potential of the little guy and the honest worker to join together to defeat the cynical politician, and yet the potential is there! The film shows us that it is possible to join together and help each other and redistribute wealth, and if it also shows us that those possibilities are frail and need nurturing and commitment, it still shows us a great many people who are willing to work at them.

I didn't love Meet John Doe: Cooper's ingenuous yokel figure never feels quite honest to me. But the character actor Regis Toomey shows up in act two and gives us a breathtakingly performed monologue. Toomey is brilliant in this movie.

Birth of the Blues. Is It, Though?

In Birth of the Blues, Bing Crosby, Brian Donlevy, and Mary Martin invent the blues. Well, slightly more accurately, they learn the blues from Black folks and then they teach white people to love Black music. (In other words, we don't get the birth of the blues in this film; we get its rise in popularity among white people.) 

There is only a mere wisp of a plot, and the movie itself is honestly not that interesting. How can it be when the stakes are will people understand that blues music is awesome or not? We know they're going to. In fact, the entire film is premised on the fact that we already know the blues are great. Much of the film's humor comes from white people being confused by the blues; the audience is supposed to feel superior to these fools.

Still, there are some solid numbers in Birth of the Blues, including a gorgeous rendition of "My Melancholy Baby" sung by Bing, and a breathtaking "St. Louis Blues" sung by Ruby Elzy in her final film performance.

The Devil Pays Off

The version of The Devil Pays Off on the internet is missing something like 15 minutes, at least I think so. There's a disjointed sequence in act two where a captain who holds all of the information to solve the case has just been put into a coma by some nefarious men, and then we jump cut to him laughing and drinking with our heroes in a stateroom. In any case, the movie itself is also quite a disjointed thing, moving rather awkwardly in lots of ways with some very silly writing that doesn't quite work. Still, the story could have been rather cool with a better screenplay. It's a kind of poor man's Gilda or Affair in Trinidad, but William Wright is really charming!

It Started with Eve (1941)

Now, I'm not really sure what this movie thinks is supposed to have started with Eve... Deception? Heterosexuality? Romance? But it doesn't much matter, It Started with Eve is an absolute delight. Charles Laughton and Deanna Durbin are legitimately great, and even Robert Cummings is quite sweet. I laughed aloud numerous times.

That Hamilton Woman! (Exclamation Only for the Poster)

That Hamilton Woman is kind of great – whether Winston Churchill wrote some of it or not. This is a WWII movie disguised as a movie about a hero of the Napoleonic Wars. Vivien Leigh is wonderful, and the gowns and the production design and the visual effects are excellent. It's a true Alexander Korda picture: big budget, fancy costumes, enormous naval battles. Delightful stuff. All of this is couched in a rather tiresome old plot about jilted wives and cheating husbands and other infidelities, but it's good fun all the same.

Buck Privates (1941)

Buck Privates is a really cute musical comedy, and Abbot and Costello are quite funny. I don't really understand the appeal of the Andrews Sisters, personally, but they're a huge part of this film, and they're fun enough. The real trouble with Buck Privates is that it's totally invested in getting more people to apply to be in the Army. The Army is, apparently a place where boys become men, where you can date women, and where you prove your masculinity. So I liked Buck Privates, but its politics are bullshit and sort of typical of the immediate pre-WWII period.

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Sullivan's Travels is fun, but I didn't love it as much as everyone else seems to love it. I think I Married a Witch, another Veronica Lake film from the same period, is much funnier. Obviously this is charming, but the turn the film takes in the third act, in which the main character goes to a privately run prison, is difficult to stomach. The film is trying to give us a portrait of injustice, and it certainly does that, but it doesn't seem very interested in justice. I don't know. It just didn't sit right with me. I need to see some more Sturges.

You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

This is a delightful film. I love the premise, and Rita Hayworth is completely dynamic in this. You'll Never Get Rich is, of course, a pro-war, pro-soldier bit of business, it being 1941, but this film is not hampered by jingoism or pro-war sentiments, even if the entire plot is designed as a kind of pro-military diversion. You'll Never Get Rich sees the army as sort of a funny place.

The film contains several excellent tap numbers, some with Fred Astaire alone and several with Rita Hayworth and Astaire together. There's even one in which Astaire never enters the shot with the crew of black musicians so that they can be cut out for especially racist markets. This is a really excellent movie, though, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Incidentally, I've no idea what the title means. It hasn't a thing to do with the plot.

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)

What an absolute delight of a film The Devil and Miss Jones is! Jean Arthur is brilliant, as usual – just perfect comic timing. Spring Byington is a joy to watch. Robert Cummings is a charming and very funny leading man. And Charles Coburn is hilarious. These are Hollywood's best comedians in a sparkling, socially relevant comedy. I loved this movie. For folks who haven't laughed since 1929!

That Uncertain Feeling (1941)

That Uncertain Feeling is hilarious and delightful. The script is very funny, Oberon and Douglas are charming, and the direction is bright and fast. I am sort of surprised at how sexually frank this was. For 1941 that is rather a surprise.