Tag: Alice Brady

In Old Chicago (1937)

Entertaining melodrama leads into a very well-staged disaster epic that burns a city

Director: Henry King

Cast: Tyrone Power (Dion O’Leary), Alice Faye (Belle Fawcett), Don Ameche (Jack O’Leary), Alice Brady (Molly O’Leary), Phyllis Brooks (Ann Colby), Andy Devine (Pickle Bixby), Brian Donlevy (Gil Warren), Tom Brown (Bob O’Leary), Berton Churchill (Senator Colby), Sidney Blackmer (General Phil Sheridan)

San Francisco showed Hollywood the way: spice up a melodrama with a disaster-laden ending. The first took the San Francisco earthquake: In Old Chicago takes the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which burnt down over three-square miles of the city, destroyed over 17,000 buildings and killed over 300 peoples. Despite a rather earnest message that research was scrupulously carried out with the Chicago Historical Society – other than the fire itself, the entire film is a great big fictionalised soapy melodrama, building towards a grandly staged recreation of the great conflagration itself.

The melodrama is built around the O’Leary family. In legend Mrs Catherine O’Leary, of the city’s large Irish community, was the fire’s unwitting cause after her cow knocked over a barn lamp. Here she is reimagined as Molly (Alice Brady), mother to a flock of sons. In the way of these melodramas one, Dion (Tyone Power), is a cheeky rogue with criminal links the other, Jack (Don Ameche), is a legal straight-shooter determined to clean this town up. Club owner Dion controls a stack of corrupt votes to get Jack elected Mayor – screwing over kingpin rival Gil Warren (Brian Donlevy) in the process – under the mistaken impression he can control his brother (dead wrong). Meantime, Dion bounces through a heated love-hate relationship with glamourous bar-singer Belle (Alice Faye), who knows a little too much about his corrupt dealings.

These elements are expertly melodramatically mixed together with very few narrative surprises to establish some recognisable faces for when the city-burning destruction kicks in, with its punishments and redemptions. King directs all this with a glitzy, big-budget flair while the shallow characters go through familiar motions. Truth be told, there isn’t much especially new about In Old Chicago, which follows the San Francisco model to a tee with soapy personal rivalries (skimming the surface of Chicago’s corruption) beefed up with (fairly forgettable) songs from Alice Faye. There’s even a literally soap-sud filled transition at the start to take us into a superbly re-constructed nineteenth century Chicago, in a film full of impressive production design. But yet, don’t get me wrong, it’s all done with such energy it’s consistently enjoyable.

The two brothers are, of course, studies in contrast (third brother, Tom Brown’s Bob is so decently dull he barely makes any impression). As the ‘bad’ brother, Tyrone Power enjoys himself as a lip-smacking cad obsessed with power. Smirking and full of self-satisfaction at his own cleverness (not as clever as he thinks), he’s a ruthless liar and manipulator who deceives everyone around him: his brothers, the woman he loves, his political allies and rivals. It’s one of Power’s most engaging performances, successfully making Dion the sort of bastard you love to hate without ever making him utterly deplorable. In fact, he feels like a big kid (and a mummy’s boy at that), literally leaning back in his chair and expecting praise for his cleverness.

Opposite him, Don Ameche is saddled with the impossibly noble Jack, a crusading lawyer (who wouldn’t think of charging low-earning clients) and who wants to become Mayor to change the town for the better. His straitlaced decency is constantly thrown off by his brother’s dastardly lack of principle (their relationship eventually culminates in an entertainingly well-staged, no holds-barred fisticuff scuffle). Ameche does a good job of investing depth in this on-paper rather dull character.

The film presents an entertainingly straight-forward picture of machine politics, with votes controlled by bosses, various voters encouraged to register (and vote) multiple times and bosses controlling vast teams of followers. Brian Donlevy brings a very fine sense of arrogant domination to would-be boss Gill Warren (the sort of guy who casually mentions a rival’s bar looks rather flammable during a shake-down). It’s all very much presented as bad apples spoiling the whole barrel (rather than the whole system being a bucket of corrupt snakes), but fun nevertheless.

The romance comes between Dion and Belle, played with a decent mix of rascally bad-girl and misunderstood decency be Alice Faye. Faye (taking over the role at short notice from the late Jean Harlow) gets a few decent songs but the meat of the role is her love-struck switching between adoring and loathing Dion, who (with his flirtation with Senator’s daughter Ann Colby, played by Phyllis Brooks) barely deserves her. Some of Dion’s initial courting – consisting of sneaking into her carriage, pinning her down and kissing her – hardly feels comfortable now, but it supports a neat running joke of Belle’s maid running for help only to return to find the two locked in a passionate embrace.

But all of this is just build-up for the main event: an impressively staged reconstruction of the Great Fire. Shot with a mix of real sets and models – you can see where the money was spent on (briefly) the most expensive film ever made. It throws at us buildings aflame, crashing to the ground, huge crowds of extras charging past the camera in tracking shots, a panicked army of bulls fleeing (and crushing those unlucky enough to get in the way). This sequence is genuinely grippingly put-together and impressively epic, utilising some very effective aerial model shots of the city to establish the scale of the fire and the devastation. It balances culminating its plot threads at the same time as embracing the disaster excitement.

This end sequence makes the slightly patchy, familiar soap beforehand retrospectively work even better. It certainly helped deliver a box office bonanza for the film – just as Alice Brady’s closing speech about the unbeatable spirit of Chicago probably helped her to an Oscar (it’s a part Brady clearly enjoys, cementing a stereotype of the domineering Irish mother). After San Francisco, In Old Chicago proved entertaining disaster epics could thrill audiences with destruction for years to come.

My Man Godfrey (1936)

Carole Lombard and William Powell flirt, fight and buttel in My Man Godfrey

Director: Gregory La Cava

Cast: William Powell (Godfrey), Carole Lombard (Irene Bullock), Alice Brady (Angelica Bullock), Gail Patrick (Cornelia Bullock), Jean Dixon (Molly), Eugene Pallette (Alexander Bullock), Alan Mowbray (Tommy Gray), Mischa Auer (Carlo), Pat Flaherty (Mike)

My Man Godfrey is one of the most beloved of all screwball comedies. It’s also the only film in history to be nominated in every acting category and the directing and writing categories at the Oscars and still not get nominated for Best Picture (proving comedy was devalued even then). Today it still carries a heck of a comedic wallop, splicing this in with an ever more acute and profound social commentary. It’s a gem of Golden Era Hollywood.

With New York in the midst of the Great Depression, affluent socialites the Bullock sisters – snob Cornelia (Gail Patrick) and ditzy, scatter-brained Irene (Carole Lombard) – are in hunt for a “forgotten man” so they can claim victory in their scavenger hunt. In a rubbish dump – turned home for the unemployed – they find the well-spoken Godfrey (William Powell). Godfrey is having none of the condescension of Cornelia, but finds the honesty and kindness of Irene more touching agrees to help her win the prize – whereupon he promptly admonishes the upper-class crowd at the Waldorf for their lack of concern for the working man. Ashamed, Irene offers him the job of Bullock family butler, which Godfrey accepts. But as he navigates the eccentric family, is Godfrey also hiding secrets of his own, secrets that suggest he is much more than he seems?

My Man Godfrey is a very funny film, centre-piecing the fast-paced comedic delivery of the era, the script never going more than a minute without a killer line or brilliant piece of comedic business. It’s helped as well by the casting, with every actor being perfectly selected for their roles, and each of them bringing their absolute A-game. Not least the partnership of Powell and Lombard – divorced in real life but still close – who spark off each other wonderfully and keep the will-they-won’t-they question beautifully balanced throughout the whole film.

La Cava’s film – wonderfully directed with imagination and visual chutzpah – matches this up with an extremely neat, but not too preachy, line in social commentary. The self-obsessions and petty concerns of the Bullock family are frequently contrasted with the poverty and struggles of the working man, while the families’ lack of concern for the struggles of the vagrants and down-and-outs only a taxi ride away from their mansion home is striking. Godfrey frequently points up this lack of empathy in this ‘classless’ country (which is in fact defined by class), stressing he found more decency and kindness at the rubbish dump than he did in the palaces of the mighty.

Sure Godfrey’s secret may well be that he is from loaded stock himself – but has given it all up in shame and self-disgust – but that only makes him all the better an observer of the whims of the rich treading on the poor. In fact My Man Godfrey could well be the film for today. The scavenger hunt dinner – a brilliantly directed, frenetic scene that looks years ahead of its time in its technical accomplishment – really captures this. The guests haw and shout over each other, clutching with an ironic glee their examples of poverty (from everyday objects to a goat to, of course. the ‘forgotten’ man, who has as much value as the goat to them). We get more of it at the posh clubs and cocktail parties the Bullock frequent, the guests (while not cruel) being as blasé and oblivious of their fortune as they are of the suffering in the rest of the city.

But that makes this sound like a civics lessons, whereas the film is first-and-foremost a comedy. It has a terrific performance from William Powell as Godfrey. Powell makes the part a mix of Jeeves and Wooster: the intelligence and calm of Jeeves with the warmth and tendency for scrapes of Wooster. Powell is brilliant at balancing the wry observer quality of Godfrey, while never sacrificing his warmer, generous soul. And also brilliantly suggests his wonderful judgement of situations and characters, without ever making him smug or a know-it-all. It’s a quite exquisite performance of unflappility covering emotional depth.

Lombard sparks off him very well as Irene, allowed to frequently head further over the top as Powell grounds Godfrey in normality (Lombard was a famously electric performer, and the outtakes reel for the film frequently show her screwing up her fast-paced dialogue with copious swear-words). Today the more ditzy Irene sometimes comes across as a more tiresome, less believable character – she is so obviously a narrative construction rather than someone who could be real that it becomes harder to connect with her (or to imagine Godfrey might find her attractive). But Lombard’s energy and drive carries the film through and the film highlights her electric qualities in several show-stopping scenes.

The entire Bullock household is in fact spot in, with gorgeous performances. Alice Brady (Oscar-nominated) is the quintessential disapproving society mother, archly self-obsessed. Eugene Pallette is wonderfully funny as the exasperated father of the household, barely able to understand either his family or his investments. Gail Patrick is a delight as Irene’s manipulative sister, proud and selfish. Mischa Auer (Oscar nominated surely off the bag of his extraordinary gorilla impersonation) is very funny as Angelica’s “protégé”, a preening, talent-free musician and freeloader who spends most of his scenes eating. Jean Dixon is smart and sassy as the maid Molly. There isn’t a bum note in this ensemble.

La Cava directs all this with great skill, framing the action with a beautiful sense of composition, pace and style. You know you are in save hands with the opening scene that show the credits appearing like neon bill boards during a slow, continuous tracking shot along the New York riverside. With dialogue that glides beautifully from humour to pathos, and delivery that creates comic archetypes that feel like real people, it’s a film that gets nearly everything right – which is why it’s still a classic today.

Young Mr Lincoln (1939)

Henry Fonda excels in the origins story as the Young Mr Lincoln

Director: John Ford

Cast: Henry Fonda (Abraham Lincoln), Alice Brady (Abigail Clay), Marjorie Weaver (Mary Todd), Arleen Weaver (Sarah Clay), Eddie Collins (Efe Turner), Pauline Moore (Ann Rutledge), Richard Cromwell (Matt Clay), Donald Meek (Prosecutor John Felder), Eddie Quillan (Adam Clay), Spencer Charters (Judge Herbert A Bell), Ward Bond (John Palmer Cass), Milburn Stone (Stephen A Douglas)

John Ford is often called the mythmaker of America, the director who perhaps contributed more than any other to building a romantic vision of America’s roots and past. As an explorer of the legends and mythology that underpinned his country, it’s perhaps no great surprise that he directed a film about the American revered more than any other since the Founding Fathers – Abraham Lincoln himself.

Playing out over 10 years, the film follows Young Honest Abe (Henry Fonda) from his days of autodidactism with a law book in Illinois, through his love for, and the death of, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore) and his arrival in Springfield to practice law (which he does with a shrewdness mixed with the wisdom of Solomon). The bulk of the film’s plot focuses in particular on him representing two brothers accused of murder in a courtroom trial, where Lincoln’s wit, wisdom and determination see justice done.

Okay reading that subplot, it’s pretty clear that this is a fairly rose-tinted view of The Great Emancipator. Henry Fonda had put off playing the role, as he felt it would be like hewing a performance out of marble. It’s hard for non-Americans to even begin to understand the reverence with which Lincoln is almost universally held in America, but it runs through this film like sugar through a stick of rock. Lincoln throughout the film is maybe an increasingly canny operator with a mastery of winning people over and playing crowds large and small, but he’s also always right, always does the right thing and always has a warm regard and love for genuine real people.

If you made the film today it would probably be called Abraham Lincoln: Origins, as Ford shows Lincoln building up all the weapons that would become central to his political artistry. Fonda starts the film gangly and physically awkward, finding it hard to know what to do with his height or long arms while giving speeches (Fonda wore platform shoes to increase his height). But even at the start his words are warm and genuine, even if his delivery is awkward. It’s something he masters to a far greater degree by the mid-way point of the film, when he skilfully diffuses a potential lynch mob with wit, gentleness, calm and a bit of righteous shaming. By the time he hits the courtroom, he’s overwhelmingly confident in his physicality and able to match it up with his oratorical brilliance and his skill at using seemingly rambling, inconsequential stories to suddenly hit home a sharp and painful truth.

Fonda’s impressive performance as Lincoln makes the film. Fonda gives Lincoln not just these positives but also hints at his sharpness of mind and his cunning. Negotiating a legal disagreement between two farmers (which he does with such skill that both end up paying him), he not only gives a fair sentence, but shows how he is not above manipulating men to achieve his ends (and, in biting one of the coins that he is given, that he may be honest himself but he’s not always trusting). He has a romantic regard for the mother of his clients (played very well by Alice Brady), but can still gently patronise her with his romantic ideal of her as an ideal American mother.

But when the push comes, Lincoln is a man of principle, wrapped in a skilful performance. The idea of mob justice is anathema to him, while Fonda makes clear he’s smart enough to not say that outright but to guide the crowd to agree with him. During the selection of the jury for the courtroom scene, he will accept men honest enough to say they favour hanging for the guilty, but turn down equivocators or those who believe they are better than the accused men. During the trial scene, he erupts in moral outage when the boys’ mother is pressured into naming one of her sons as the killer so as to save the other from the death penalty.

But he’s also a clever and brilliant player of the game, able to charm both the working classes and the rich, even if he’s not comfortable with either. During the trial scene, his quick wit and relaxation run rings around the government prosecutor (a good role of absolute convictions from Donald Meek) and he easily wins the crowd over with a series of gags and light touches that also carry with them a real, deep truth. Ford is also able to show his ambition – over the grave of Ann Rutledge he lets the fall of a stick decide whether he will continue his career or stay at home, and he all too clearly lets the stick lean over one way before letting it fall (he even acknowledges this himself).

Ford’s film is only very loosely based on actual true events – only the final coup Lincoln uses to win the case is really based on fact. The film is covered with smatterings of what look now like clumsy droppings in of key facts or persons from Lincoln’s life – from the cowpoke who plays “Dixie” (“Sounds like a song you could march to” is Lincoln’s comment) to Lincoln meeting future-wife Mary Todd, to his legal (and romantic) rival being none other than Stephen A Douglas his later rival for the presidency. There could have been a lot more, but afraid that it would make the film ridiculous, Ford kept these to a minimum by simply refusing to shoot them (such as a planned scene where Lincoln met John Wilkes Booth).

It all works because the audience knows who Lincoln will become, and it’s told with an earnestness and a certain amount of pace. Ford however really crafts a modern American myth and it even ends in a suitably epic scale: having won the case, Lincoln strikes off for a walk up a hill, trudging into the distance while a storm brews, heading onwards and upwards away from us and into his future. Sure it’s corn, but it works.