Minstrel Man (1944)

Minstrel Man is a diegetic movie musical designed as a vehicle for and celebration of Benny Fields. He sings his hit "Melancholy Baby" in this twice. In fact, he sings nearly every song twice, and he sings the Oscar-nominated "Remember Me to Carolina" a total of four times in this 65-minute movie. 

This is a nostalgic piece of film history that was very popular, and it anticipated the popularity of The Jolson Story two years later. 

Blackface minstrelsy is so fucking weird. In the first place, this movie was popular in 1944, during the war, and that's already mind blowing, but I really just don't understand why this singer needed to be in blackface in the first place. These songs are fine, and they could be sung easily enough without the burnt cork. 

As for the movie itself, it has only a whiff of a plot and is fairly dumb.

I watched Minstrel Man via the Cave of Forgotten Films.

Can't Help Singing (1944)

I've been watching a lot of old Hollywood musicals these days. Can't Help Singing is very silly. But, then, it's Deanna Durbin, and her stuff is usually pretty silly. She leaves Washington to go West and follow some lieutenant who works in California. He's a heel, but she doesn't know it, and then she falls in love with Robert Paige, who is very handsome and sings very well, but who is also a con artist/criminal. 

Still, as I said, he sings well and is handsome. And he's rather a gentleman. 

The thing about Can't Help Singing, is that it has several gorgeous Jerome Kern songs. The song "More and More" was nominated for an Oscar, but the real standout is "Any Moment Now", which Durbin sings while staring at the Grand Canyon. There's also a really great number called "Elbow Room" that is sung by everyone riding in this giant wagon train. Anyway, this is harmless and sweet if kinda dumb.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)

Absolute perfection. I cannot believe that The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero were released seven months apart. Eddie Bracken is hilarious, and the script is flat-out brilliant. William Demarest is an unsung comic genius.

I watched Hail the Conquering Hero on the Criterion Channel as part of the Preston Sturges series. It's leaving the channel on May 31, but you can always rent this gem somewhere else. And you should.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is a very silly screwball comedy that is very funny and completely fascinating. The first thing to underline is just how funny it is, and how pleasurable the laughs are. The film begins by making fun of a sweet young man who loves a young woman but is way too unattractive and uncool actually to get a date with her. Eddie Bracken is a strange movie star, but his comedic timing is perfect. He's like a junior Danny Kaye with the pratfalls turned up.

The true genius of Sturges' movie, though, is the skewering of the USAmerican value of marriage. It's brilliant. This young woman, played by Betty Hutton, finds herself pregnant the morning after a long night of drinking and dancing (and driving!) with a bunch of guys headed off to WWII. She is sure, during this period of being blackout drunk, that she got married to some G.I., but she can't actually remember which G.I. it was, since she knows she was dancing with at least three guys. So she's pregnant, and the dumb townspeople now have things to say about that, so she decides to get married to our dorky young friend. Hilarity ensues, about half of which is due to Bracken's extraordinary characterization and about half of which are due to satirizing the value of marriage. 

The whole thing is great. And in the end, [I'm about to spoil one of the big jokes in act three] Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton get married, the governor of the state steps in and makes everything ok with the law, and our young mother gives birth to six boys. She's married already, of course, and he's happy to be the father–husband, but the implication here is, quite clearly, that this respectably married young woman had sex with six strangers during her all-nighter. The fact that this got past the censors in 1944 is kind of insane.

I watched this on the Criterion Channel.

The Uninvited (1944)

What a cool movie! The Uninvited is a bit of a generic anomaly. It's definitely a ghost story, but I am not sure it's much of a horror movie or monster movie. I mean, there is a scary ghost who haunts the house, but this is charming and romantic for much of the story, and it never really moves into scary territory. The score and photography are both excellent.

I watched this right before it was about to leave the Criterion Channel on January 31st and I'm so glad I did. This is not to be missed.

Siodmak Double Feature

Robert Siodmak is a king. As you probably know, The Killers is my absolute favorite film noir, and Criterion has been showing some other Siodmak films this month, including Criss Cross, which is only ok, and Phantom Lady, which is absolutely excellent. It's chilling and troubling, and it's masterfully shot. The photography is just breathtakingly good. This is a very, very good film – sexy and psychologically thrilling, while also being a good mystery – it's a total pleasure to watch.

Criss Cross is just a serviceable noir. Siodmak paired up with Burt Lancaster again after The Killers. Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo both bring the smolder, but this film just isn't plotted that interestingly. It's structured in such a way that I had forgotten all that I needed to remember by the time we jumped back forward in time. I understand why Daniel Fuchs wrote the screenplay the way he did, but it distinctly lessened the kind of tension any crime film like this is trying to build. Also, Dan Duryea is a smarmy looking actor, sure, but he's not really menacing.

I watched these movies on the Criterion channel. They had three Siodmak films and I had only seen The Killers, so I was really delighted to see that they were showing these others.

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944)

I have been continuing my obsession with WWII pilot movies, but Thirty Seconds over Tokyo kind of sucked. It's soooo long, and it's way more about Van Heflin and his wife than it is about the bombing. The truth is that the title is right, and I should have believed it. All we get is thirty seconds over Tokyo. No joke. The 1942 Tokyo bombing takes up very little space in this film, but wow! The bombing is so so so so so cool. Like in the middle of it I was screaming This is so cool!!! The effects in this movie are incredible. But then the movie goes back to being super boring... with an hour left in it.

Up in Arms (1944)

There is a whole bevy of Danny Kaye musicals on Amazon Prime right now, for reasons I couldn't possibly fathom. And since I declared my love for Kaye last week, I thought I'd try another one. Up in Arms is easily the weirdest wartime musical I've ever seen. It's the most bizarre of military musicals - at one point the entire company of the Goldwyn Girls are in bathing suits lounging on the deck of a military ship. I scoffed, of course, and then a sailor said I wish we had had this in the last war and another replied We don't have it in this war. What? 

The thing is, Danny Kaye is just so funny. His antics are absurd. Like truly idiotic and stupid, but I find myself laughing out loud. It's all just so silly! Up in Arms has a lot of gay humor in it too (Or is it anti-gay? Who can tell?). And Kaye is just so downright feminine all the time! The homoeroticism - and there is a ton of it - seems part and parcel to his kind of humor. At one point he even lipsyncs to a recording. It's a great drag show.

Lady in the Dark (1944)

Lady in the Dark is a strange movie. In the first place, it is outrageously sexist – perhaps even by the standards of 1944 – and in the second, it transmutes the stage musical into something that isn't really a musical at all but has these sort of fantasy numbers, a bit like Chicago would do 58 years later. But the filmmakers also cut "My Ship", which is frankly unforgivable. Mischa Auer is hilariously genius (as usual) in a supporting part.

The Memphis Belle: a Story of a Flying Fortress

The Memphis Belle is fairly conventional pro-war, anti-German propaganda, but the footage is awesome and the whole thing feels very personal and exciting. I especially like the animated sequences that are incorporated into this and other documentaries from this period during the War.

I watched it, remastered, at a Veterans Day situation at school with mostly military folks in attendance. That was a decidedly weird situation, let me tell you. All of that nationalism really makes me uncomfortable. But I was grateful for the opportunity to see the film.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

This adaptation of The Bridge of San Luis Rey was terrible. (This is the 1944 United Artists film directed by Rowland Lee – not the 1929 MGM picture directed by Charles Brabin, which I haven't seen and haven't given up on yet.) 

I was in a Thornton Wilder mood since I am reading Jacob Gallagher-Ross's book Theaters of the Everyday, but this version of Wilder's novel is disastrously bad. The writing is bad, the adaptation is bad, the acting is terrible, and the directing is worse than all three. Akim Tamiroff (as usual) is a redeeming feature, but otherwise this is painfully terrible.

Go read Jake's book instead: