In Old Chicago (1938) - King delivers splendid period drama

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A dashing poster with three very teeth-smiling painted stars up front for Henry King's In Old Chicago

From the loving, dynamic O'Leary family comes Chicago's new mayor around the year 1870, but his brother Dion comes on collision course with him concerning the future of the growing metropolis' wood-built slums...

 

In Old Chicago is written by Sonya Levien (Hit the Deck (1955)) and Lamar Trotti (Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)), adapting the 1936 story We the O'Learys by Niven Busch (Continent's Edge (1980)), and directed by Henry King (Who Pays? (1915)). It depicts the real-life 1871 Great Chicago Fire with a mostly fictional story of the O'Learys at its center.

A thoroughly splendid and spectacular piece of escapism with delightful performances from especially Tyrone Power (Witness for the Prosecution (1957)), but also from Alice Faye (State Fair (1962)) and Don Ameche (So Goes My Love (1946)) and from Alice Brady (Three Smart Girls (1936)) as Mrs. Molly O'Leary, the mother. A compelling story with good song and dance numbers at Dion's bar, good visual ideas and a brisk pace. The blazing inferno at the end is incredibly staged and accomplished. In Old Chicago is a tremendous picture.

 

Related post:

 

Henry King: The Bravados (1958) or, Complications of Revenge!

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Estimated 1.8 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 4.91 mil. $ (estimated North American gross)

= Big hit (projected return of 4.38 times its cost)

[In Old Chicago premiered 6 January (New York) and runs 111 minutes (roadshow version)/96 minutes (theatrical version). Shooting took place from June - September 1937 in Arizona and California, including in Los Angeles. The film arrived as part of a wave of big budget films that ended with a spectacular disaster: San Francisco (1936, earthquake), The Good Earth (1937, locust plague), Made at Night (1937, shipwreck). It was among the most expensive films ever made at the time, and the climactic fire sequence cost reportedly 150k $ to stage, burning for 3 days on the Fox backlot. The total cost is rumored to have been "over 1 mil. $" with IMDb listing it as reportedly 1.8 mil. $. A 1.964 mil. $ North-American rental figure from Variety in 1990 points to a domestic gross around 4.9 mil. $. The film was also launched abroad prior to WWII, and a cautious foreign estimate of 3 mil. $ would give it a 7.9 mil. $ final gross, enough to make it a big hit even if the 1.8 mil. $ estimate holds up. It was nominated for 6 Oscars, winning 2: Best Supporting Actress (Brady) and Assistant Director (Robert D. Webb). It lost Best Score (Louis Silvers) to Charles Previn for One Hundred Men and a Girl, Picture to The Life of Emile Zola, Sound to The Hurricane and Writing - Original Story to William A. Wellman and Robert Carson for A Star Is Born. King returned with Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938). Power returned in Alexander's Ragtime Band; Faye in Sally, Irene and Mary (1938); and Ameche in Happy Landing (1938). In Old Chicago is fresh at 67 % with a 6.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of In Old Chicago?

Alexander Nevsky (1938) - Eisenstein's propaganda turkey

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The Russian folk hero and his right hand man on this poster for Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev's Alexander Nevsky

During Stalin's dictatorship in the Soviet Union, the country's most prominent filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin (1925)) was engaged to make a film of a Russian prince, who protected Russia against the German Teutonic Knights in the 13th century.

Nevsky stands up to the incoming Mongols and speaks many a passionate word of Russia's greatness, as he ventures out to lead his army against the German imperialists.

The Nevsky legend obviously fit the times well in the late 30s, as Russia, along with large parts of the rest of the world and Europe in particular, were anxious about Germany's aggressive new direction under Nazi leadership. And Alexander Nevsky is obviously a propaganda film.
It is also made under strict restrictions to the freedom of expression:
The film was screened directly for Stalin before its release, as Eisenstein had publicly compared Nevsky to Stalin, and it apparently lost a reel at the event; probably a piece of the film that didn't suit the butcher. The filmmakers were awarded the Stalin Prize for the film in 1941.

Nikolai Cherkasov as the title character in Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev's Alexander Nevsky

The details:

Unsurprisingly, a good film doesn't materialize in such a context:
Nevsky lacks the experimental excitement that characterize other Eisenstein works: It is a conventional story of a hero without any depth to him, who speechifies at any given moment and seems much more like a blown up figurine than a real man. He is played by Nikolai Cherkasov (Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958)), who leads a cast, who are all uniformly stiff and have uniformly bad haircuts.
None of the other characters in the film are any more believable or interesting than their dull leader: The big subplot in Nevsky concerns two soldiers in his army, who are courting the same honorable woman. - This plays out about as romantic as dried toast if you were wondering.
It is all executed in oddly staged scenes in front of what is obviously immobile backdrops. The fight scenes are technically pathetic by any contemporary standards. Any seriousness of struggle, sacrifice, pain and the nature of war is lost, also due in part to the strangely celebrated score by Sergei Prokofiev (Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1945)), which plays circus-like, high-spirited melodies during scenes of mass-slaughters and religious ceremonies indiscriminately, seemingly ridiculing, satirizing or just distancing what goes on for the audience. The film awakens no emotions whatsoever.
Eisenstein co-wrote it with Pyotr Pavlenko (Man of Music (1953)) and co-directed it with Dmitri Vasilyev (Lenin in October (1937)).
Alexander Nevsky is praised by some, but it is little more than a boring, blatantly nationalistic piece of uncompelling propaganda from a time when film was actively used in instances such as this as a direct tool to control entire populations by their mad rulers, in this case one of the biggest murderers of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin.

Watch the film in its entirety with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[But reportedly a huge hit. Nevsky was Eisentein's first Russian feature in about a decade, (he had made a few in Mexico during the period), and it was reportedly seen by as many as 23 mil. Russians! It also made Stalin call Eisenstein, who had previously been criticized for being a 'formalist' (prioritizing style and cinematic experiments over substance and ideology), "a true Bolshevik." The film was taken out of circulation in the summer of 1939, as Russia and Germany agreed on a non-aggression pact, but when Germany invaded Russia in 1941, the film was released again. Eisenstein himself was very dissatisfied with Nevsky, as is known from his private notes. The opportunistic and programmatic nature of the film, his servile product to please the empire's tyrant more than anything else, and the film's unexperimental straightforwardness really bothered the man, - understandably. He returned to more personal, experimental and wild filmmaking with Ivan the Terrible. You can read more about this here.]

What do you think of Alexander Nevsky?

Child Bride/Child Brides/Child Bride of the Ozarks/Dust to Dust (1938) - Revier's dubious curio

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An original, boding poster for Harry Revier's Child Bride

QUICK REVIEW:

A female teacher in the Ozark mountains talks against village stupidity and the custom of taking a child bride, but she encounters strong resistance.

I saw this short (62 min.) feature from the Internet Archive, where it is in public domain, and the copy there is, unfortunately, terrible, both image- and sound-wise. But it is an interesting and unusual film, controversial for its lengthy scene of its 12 year-old star Shirley Mills' (The Grapes of Wrath (1940)) skinny dipping.
It has therefore been labeled an exploitation film by many, (undoubtedly also due to its suggestive posters like the one above), but it is also an honest rejection of the unnatural marriage system depicted. - Although, of course, its blending of the two is highly unusual, questionable, and, for many, hard to take.
The film's cast also includes one of the little people of Tod Browning's Freaks (1932). Among its oddities counts also its ending, SPOILER in which the girl is allowed to avoid the marriage and be in love with her half-brother!?!
It is directed by Harry Revier (The Revenge of Tarzan (1920)) as his penultimate film (out of 26, including a few shorts.)

This collage of stills from the film also includes some from the notorious nude swimming scene:

This original trailer seems to lend something to the exploitation argument: 'Sextastic' the film was actually sold as ...

Cost: Estimated 24k $
Box office: Unknown
[Reportedly, the film ran the 'exploitation circuit' for many years. The controversial elements got past the Hays Office, because the film was made independently and claimed to be educational. It is now available free and legal right here.]

What do you think of Child Bride?
If you've seen other films by Revier, how was/were it/they?

Bringing Up Baby (1938) - A screwy gathering

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Bright stars Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant on the silly poster for Howard Hawks' screwy Bringing Up Baby

QUICK REVIEW:

A paleontologist receives a rare bone and is getting married, when an odd woman derails these plans completely.
There are charming moments in this screwball comedy classic that tends to divide the waters, (some even consider it one of the greatest films of all times!), which was the last that great American director Howard Hawks (Rio Bravo (1959)) directed for RKO. Hawks stated later in life to Peter Bogdanovich (which can be read in his great interview-book Who the Devil Made It), - which seems to corroborate some to my rather lukewarm appreciation for Bringing Up Baby; - [the film] "had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I learned my lesson and don't intend ever again to make everybody crazy."
Cary Grant (Notorious (1946)) is at times funny in his attempts at being amusing, while Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen (1951)) steams and adorns the screen, - but overall, the laughs are to far between in this wild drive of entanglements, set off by an utterly idiotic female character (Hepburn's, which also poses a problem for the film.)
The film has a strange subplot with animals, and its leopard-recordings are noteworthy. It is also noted for perhaps the screen's first use of the word 'gay' with homosexuality as its meaning, spoken by Grant in a dress, but definite proof on the point is missing.
Bogdanovich loves screwball comedies and contributed a fantastic laugh-fest with his own homage screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972) with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neil. I like it a lot better than Baby.
Here's a couple of stills of the strained stars in this zany comedy:

Related reviews:

What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Screwball comedy revived for a wonderful show
Howard Hawks: The Big Sleep (1946) - The sexiest noir carousel you will ever ride
Katharine Hepburn: The African Queen (1951) Classic romance bravura de Huston/Bogart/Hepburn

Watch some of the silliness of Bringing Up Baby here in its trailer

Budget: 1 mil. $
Box office: 1.1 mil. $
= Flop at release

What do you think of Bringing Up Baby?
Other screwball comedies that you think are recommendable?

The Human Beast/La Bête Humaine/Judas Was a Woman (1938) or, Train of Love, Lust and Murder!

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Impressionistic style dramatic poster for Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine

QUICK REVIEW:

In La Bête Humaine, we get involved in a ménage a trois, whereof one character is really more furtive and unsympathetic than the next, and yet French master director Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game (1939)) succeeds in making endearing characters out of at least two of these, the two played by Jean Gabin (Le Grande Illusion (1937)) and Simone Simon (Cat People (1942)). The latter is as sweet as honey and as dangerous as a true femme fatale simultaneously in this fine pre-WWII adaptation.
SPOILER The finalizing murder is shocking and took me unawares, and it comes on top of a mildly speaking oddly arranged start and middle.
The train, where most of the film plays out, has been described as the fourth main character in the film, and it was what set off the production, as Gabin was looking to make a train picture. Personally, I share Gabin's fondness for the train locale in films, and this only heightened my enjoyment of Renoir's Émile Zola (La Joie de Vivre (1884)) adaptation La Bête Humaine ('The Human Beast'), which is truly a dark and troubling film. Its timing right before the terrible waste and bloodsheds of WWII feels eerily appropriate.

The train motif adorns this cover of Zola's book

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of this dark triangle of love, lust and murder?
What other fine train movies do you remember?

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) - The quintessential anti-hero picture, Curtiz's electric gangster masterpiece

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With strong, splashy colors, striking composition and great detail, this is one delicious poster for Michael Curtiz's Angels With Dirty Faces

Rocky Sullivan wasn't a bad kid. But in juvenile penitentiary, he became one. Outside a gangster, and then behind bars again. When Rocky gets out, the neighborhood brats look up to him. But Rocky is heading into his own private abyss of self-destruction.

Angels With Dirty Faces is written by John Wexley (Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)) and Warren Duff (Step Lively (1944)), based on a story by Rowland Brown (Widow's Might (1935)), with Ben Hecht (Angel Face (1953)) and Charles MacArthur (The Mad Doctor (1941)) contributing uncredited work, and is directed by Hungarian master filmmaker Michael Curtiz (Mildred Pierce (1945)).
James Cagney (The West Point Story (1950)) has street smarts and an electric charisma that beats every other actor's who has ever tried portraying a tantalizing hoodlum; as Rocky Sullivan, he's on fire! The character seems to trick himself through just about everything in the film, especially in the ultra-real scenes with The Dead End Kids (Crime School (1938)) group of teenage outcasts.
Across from Cagney in Curtiz' timeless, hugely quotable gangster masterpiece is Humphrey Bogart (The Harder They Fall (1956)) as the slimy lawyer and Pat O'Brien (Johnny One-Eye (1950)) as Rocky's childhood friend who has become a the minister, the redeeming character of the film, beautifully acted and written.
Angels With Dirty Faces is a singularly electrifying street drama and one of the best gangster movies ever; an incredibly potent, raw and enjoyable film that feels like it claws right through your imagination and sheds its juice into your open, palpitating heart. A true classic.

Related posts:

Michael Curtiz: Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Casablanca (1942) - The perfect film

 

Get a sense of the intensity of Angels With Dirty Faces from its original trailer right here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 1.7 mil. $
= Uncertain
[Angels With Dirty Faces was released 26 November (USA) and runs 96 minutes. Cagney took the story with him to Warner Bros. from Grand National Pictures when that company was nearing its 1939 bankruptcy. He drew on his memories of growing up in Manhattan and even of losing a childhood friend to the electric chair. Shooting took place in California and New York from June - August 1938. Cagney at one point used force to instill order around the notoriously unruly Dead End Kids. Later in the shoot the star was nearly shot, when live machine gun fire was used in a shootout scene, leading Cagney to conclude that the practice of using real bullets on film was "ridiculous." The film's budget is not known, but it is said to have been a financial success. It was nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Actor (Cagney), lost to Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, Director (Curtiz was also nominated that year for Four Daughters), lost to Frank Capra with You Can't Take It with You, and Original Story, lost to Boys Town. It won a National Board of Review award. Curtiz returned with uncredited direction on Blackwell's Island (1939) and credited as director with Dodge City (1939). Cagney returned in The Oklahoma Kid (1939); O'Brien in Swingtime in the Movies (1938, short) and theatrically in Off the Record (1939). Angels With Dirty Faces is certified fresh at 100 % with an 8.18/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Angels With Dirty Faces?