Tag: Claudette Colbert

Since You Went Away (1944)

Overlong attempt to make an American Mrs Miniver which can’t sustain its focus over three hours

Director: James Cromwell

Cast: Claudette Colbert (Anne Hilton), Jennifer Jones (Jane Hilton), Joseph Cotton (Lt Tony Willett), Shirley Temple (Bridget Hilton), Monty Woolley (Colonel William G Smollett), Lionel Barrymore (Clergyman), Robert Walker (Corporal William G Smollett II), Hattie McDaniel (Fidelia), Agnes Moorehead (Emily Hawkins), Nazimova (Zofia Koslowska), Albert Basserman (Dr Golden), Keenan Wynn (Lt Solomon)

With America embroiled in the Second World War, David O. Selznick felt it was his duty to do his bit. And what better way than making a movie. So was born Since You Went Away, adapted by Selznick himself from Margaret Buell Wilder’s epistolary novel, about a woman writing letters to her husband while he fights the good fight abroad. It was nothing more or less than Selznick’s attempt to create a Mrs Miniver for America, to bring the tribulations of those left behind to the screen.

Our family is the Hiltons. Over the course of 1943, they wait for news of husband and father Tim as serves abroad. With Tim’s income gone, wife Anne (Claudette Colbert) needs to make economies and bring in a lodger, avuncular retired Colonel Smollett (Monty Woolley). This brings into their lives Smollett’s nephew Bill (Robert Walker), who begins a romance with Anne’s oldest daughter Jane (Jennifer Jones), while her younger daughter Bridget (Shirley Temple) builds a friendship with their lodger. The family is aided by friends, not least Tim’s best friend Tony Willett (Joseph Cotton), the subject of a long-standing crush of Jane’s and is himself in love with Anne. Over the year, the family does everything they can to support the war effort.

There is probably a fine couple of hours in Since You Went Away. Unfortunately, it’s buried in a film so long it sometimes feels like you are living a year in the life in real-time. It’s not helped by the film’s sentimental scope often repeating the same beats over and over again, a soapy message of the overwhelming importance of hearth and home and the unbreakable bonds of love that keep families faithfully together forever (it’s ironic that this paean to duty and fidelity was made while Selznick was breaking up his marriage for an affair with Jones, while she ended her marriage to Robert Walker).

Essentially, the film has made most of its points and observations by the half-way mark, and is reduced to repeating them again in the second half, all accompanied by Max Steiner’s overly insistent score (which won the film’s only Oscar) which hammers home every single emotional point with laboured riffs on songs like No Place Like Home or Come Let Us Adore Him. Much of the drama is undermined by having almost no sense of threat: unlike Mrs Miniver there is zero chance of any of the characters actually being bombed at home but, just like that film, there is also absolutely no chance at all that Anne will be tempted by the heavily suggestive flirtation of Tony.

Instead, there is a slightly cosy air of gentleness under Since You Went Away. We are told the war, and loss of Tim’s salary, has caused hardship for the family – but it’s the sort of hardship that sees a hugely wealthy family adjusting to merely being comfortably well-off. The main concessions seem to be setting up a vegetable patch and taking in a well-paying lodger (who, of course, becomes an honorary family member). Even their Black maid (Hattie McDaniel, in a truly thankless part) is so devoted that she continues to serve them during her time-off from her new job (for no pay). There is never even a suggestion they may need to move from their massive five-bedroomed house or stop moving in their affluent circle.

This circle is represented by Agnes Moorehead, sneering like a suburban witch wrapped in ostentatious furs, who scorns any idea of pulling her weight during the war and crows about how cleverly she’s exploiting rationing loopholes. This is contrasted with the families growing civic duty, embodied by Jennifer Jones’ Jane casting aside her giddy teenage years to devotedly work as a volunteer nurse with war wounded (much to the disgust of Moorehead) and Anne’s shift to training as a welder in a munitions factory. Since You Went Away heavily pushes the angle that everyone must do their bit, hammered home by refugee welder Nazimova who gives a misty eyed reading of the famous Statue of Liberty message.

What Since You Went Away starts to feel like at times is an over-inflated, Little Women-ish drama, with war as a backdrop. There are moments of loss: Tim is reported missing, cause for much stoic resilience and heartbreak and the son of the local store is killed early on. The film has a tragic romance in the form of Jones and Walker’s Smollett Jnr, which goes through a gentle flirtation, playful hay-rolling into an overly empathetic departing train goodbye (expertly parodied in Airplane!), that holds together due to the charm of the actors. But the main message is one of cosy reassurance: it’s a million miles away from the more doubtful The Best Years of Our Lives – there’s no doubt Tim will settle straight back into a world unchanged from that he left behind.

The characters are pretty uniformly predictable and conventional, but are delivered effectively. Colbert, in many ways with a rather dull part, effectively underplays as the endlessly patient, dutiful and calm Anne, bottling up her doubts and fears into her diary. She makes a generous still centre of the film, even if the film doesn’t call for one minute of playfulness for her as an actor. She cedes much of the best ground to Jones (Selznick’s complete control of the film surely played a role in this), who is full of radiant sparkiness, even if her teenage giddiness gets a little wearing. Jones, looking in her twenties, plays the role as if she was in her teens while Shirley Temple, looking in her early teens, plays her like she was still at elementary school. Needless to say, there is no chance of either of these girls causing serious trouble or going off the rails.

Opposite them, Monty Woolley delivers exactly what is required as the outwardly gruff Colonel whose frosty exterior inevitably melts over time. Woolley does bring a lot of depth to Smollett’s quiet grief and playfulness from Smollett’s love-hate relationship with the families pet bulldog. Joseph Cotton just about manages to make Tony charming – charming enough that his hanging around and constantly flirtation with both mother and daughter isn’t too reminiscent of his psychopathic uncle in Shadow of Doubt. (In many ways, Tony is an overly insistent creep).

But the successes of the film are drowned by its absurd length and overly insistent sentimental hammering home of every single point. It does look fabulous – the shadow-laden photography of Lee Garmes and Stanley Cortez adds a great deal of noirish emotional depth – but it’s flatly directed (Cromwell was one of many directors on the project, including Selznick himself) and lacks pace. In trying to present a reassuring celebration of all-American family values, it frequently lets character and drama drift and never presents a plot development that surprises or challenges. It’s no Mrs Miniver.

Cleopatra (1934)

DeMille’s blockbuster is a fun, camp spectacle with plenty of his suggested sex and naughtiness

Director: Cecil B DeMille

Cast: Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Julius Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Marc Anthony), Joseph Schildkraut (King Herod), Ian Keith (Octavian), Gertrude Michael (Calpurnia), C Aubrey Smith (Enobarbus), Irving Pichel (Apollodorus), Arthur Hohl (Brutus), Edwin Maxwell (Casca), Ian Maclaren (Cassius), Eleanor Phelps (Charmion), Leonard Mudie (Pothinos)

When a sand-and-sandals epic opens with a not-particularly-disguised naked woman cavorting erotically with incense, you know you are in Cecil B DeMille territory. Thirty years before the ill-fated Taylor-Burton epic, DeMille’s Cleopatra was the box-office hit of 1934. It was also a stompingly silly film, crammed with hammy performances and sexual imagery which it got-away-with in those pre-code days because it was an important historical subject taking place on humongous sets. But Cleopatra is also extremely good fun, a film so camply delighted in its naughtiness (and bowling along with such pantomimic energy) that it knocks spots off the turgid 1963 flop.

This Cleopatra follows pretty much the same structure (literally in half the time). Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) is at war with her brother for the throne of Egypt. Smuggled into the presence of Julius Caesar (Warren William) wrapped in a carpet, she reveals the evil machinations of her rival Pothinus (Leonard Muddie) and seduces Caesar (possibly more with the prospect of controlling Egypt, since this Caesar is a power-mad cold-fish). When Caesar is dispatched by conspirators during the Ides of March, Cleopatra’s focuses on man’s-man Marc Anthony (Henry Wilcoxon) who is very open to her seduction. Before they know it though, the two are at war with envious technocrat Octavian (Ian Keith) who marches all of Rome to Cairo to crush the two. Bring on the asps!

DeMille shoots all this with relentless energy and pace, though not quite enough that you don’t notice the dialogue clunking out of the actor’s mouths (“You and your Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” a bitter Octavius observes about Anthony’s funeral oration). Cleopatra, like many of the Great Showman’s finest films (of which this is unquestionably one) gives us all the sex and smut we could possibly want, disguised in its classic setting. Cleopatra absolutely drips in lust and is crammed with suggestive imagery from top to bottom.

From that cavorting incense-carrier, we cut to the rooms Cleopatra has been kidnapped from. These look like nothing less than the aftermath of a kinky orgy, including a hog-tied servant who looks like he’s passed out in an asphyxiation sex-game. Colbert models a series of deep-dive dresses that leave little to the imagination. Poor, randy Marc Anthony doesn’t stand a chance (we know he’s a hot-blooded man because he never goes anywhere without his two barking greyhounds). Cleopatra even dresses at time like some musicals starlet, trailing billowing fabric behind her as she descends stairs.

Meeting her on her pleasure barge (this ship is practically Tardis-like in its interior dimensions) he’s treated to the sort of show that wouldn’t be out of place in Amsterdam’s Red-Light district. Scantily-clad ladies cavort, dancers dressed in skin-tight leopard skin are marshalled by a whip-carrying ring-master, while they cavort and engage in (literal) cat-fights until broken up by a crack of the whip. All the time Cleopatra reclines on a silk-covered bed, Colbert’s eyes flashing unmistakable “come hither” glances. No wonder the randy sod quickly finds himself going all-in on Egypt.

Along with sex, the film mixes in plenty of action. Caesar’s assassin is rather imaginatively filmed through a POV shot (“You? You too Brutus?!” Warren William intones in despair), as daggers fly in. The forthcoming battles are teased in an early scene where Caesar, bored with an Egyptian delegation, fiddles with various models of siege engines. All of these come into play in the film’s later sequences, that sees a parade of fast-cut war scenes overlaid: siege engines fire, armies plough at each other over deserts, ships clash at sea, men drown in agony. Much like the epic scale of Cleopatra’s court and barge, the film doesn’t skip on the epic conflict.

Between these two tent poles, we basically get a soap dressed to-the-nines in sandals, short skirts and armour. Claudette Colbert in a banner year (this was one of three hits she had, and she won the Oscar for It Happened One Night) is sultry, playful and if she never feels for even-one-minute like a figure from antiquity, at least she has that in common with the rest of the cast. She gives Cleopatra a charismatic energy that makes her believable as a figure round whom all else revolves. Wilcoxon plays Anthony with a thigh-slapping, hail-fellow-well-met quality. Warren William underplays as Caesar – which can make him look dull in a film as overblown as this – but makes for an effectively cold and calculating man.

Egypt, in its voluptuous naughtiness makes all Rome look rather dull though. Our capital is introduced in a house-party where the conspirators pose and moan like hammy matinee performers, stroking their historically incorrect beards, while the ladies bitch like New York housewives gleefully spreading catty gossip. Octavian is re-imagined as whining middle-manager, a weasily Ian Keith constantly moaning about never getting enough attention and clearly far-too inhuman to ever be stirred by Cleopatra the way the lusty Anthony is. With the frame of the film being classic antiquity, we can even pretend this is somehow serious drama when really it’s just Dallas.

These actors march their way through a series of break-ups and get-togethers, punctuated by moments of silly drama. (Cleopatra, Hamlet-like, even stabs Porthinus through a curtain seconds before he can assassinate Caesar!) But it all kind of works because you suspect nothing is really taken that seriously. DeMille is making a big pageant here, a walloping epic of lusty suggestion, powered by larger-than-life performances. It’s meant to fill you with excitement and awe, to make you gasp in awe. It doesn’t really matter that we get a shit-stirring King Herod (a smirking Joseph Schildkraut) or an Enobarbus who puffs like a regimental sergeant-major (C Aubrey Smith, giant of beard). It’s all about the spectacle, the drama and showmanship. And no one really does that sort of stuff better than Cecil B DeMille.

It Happened One Night (1934)

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert as the original odd-couple who find love in It Happened One Night

Director: Frank Capra

Cast: Clark Gable (Peter Warne), Claudette Colbert (Ellie Andrews), Walter Connolly (Alexander Andrews), Roscoe Karns (Oscar Shapeley), Jameson Thomas (“King” Westley), Alan Hale (Danker), Arthur Hoyt (Zeke), Blanche Friderici (Zeke’s wife), Charles G Wilson (Joe Gordon)

Two contrasting people thrown together over a set period of time, at first rub each other up the wrong way but then, doncha know it, frustration turns to love and suddenly we’re nervously watching to see if a last minute complication will throw a spanner into the works. If it sounds like a classic set-up – that’s because it is. Where did you think the set-up came from? Capra’s comedy – which scooped the Big Five at the Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay) is one of the most influential films ever made – and one of the funniest and sharpest examples of great film-making from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

“Daughter escaped again, watch all roads, airports, and railway stations in Miami.” Heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) has eloped with daring-but-dull flying ace “King” Westley (Jameson Thomas) but her father Alexander (Walter Connolly) won’t wear it as he’s sure Westley is only after her money. So, Ellie literally jumps ship in Florida (swimming to shore from her father’s yacht, she’s got some guts that girl) and decides to make her way to New York to reunite with her husband. Hopping on a Greyhound bus to New York, she meets recently fired New York reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and, after a series of unfortunate incidents, the two of them end up penniless and travelling across America together. Will their waspish banter blossom into something else?

It Happened One Night is so delightful, as soon as its finished, you fancy skipping back and watch it again. It’s such a brilliant, sexy, romantic comedy it’s odd to think nearly everyone involved wasn’t even sure they wanted to do it. Re-named from the less catchy Night Bus (and who cares if the film actually takes place over several nights), it was rushed into production to take advantage of Colbert’s availability (she only agreed to do it if it filming took four weeks). Gable was loaned out by MGM against his will. Capra and Colbert didn’t really get in and screenwriter Robert Riskin re-wrote the script on set. If you ever needed proof adversity leads to a classic, take a look at this.

It Happened One Night beautifully charts how two mismatched people can be surprised by how much in common they have. Both are, in their own way, fiercely independent. Ellie will marry the man she wants, and hang the consequences. Peter gets the spike permanently because his unique way of doing things doesn’t fit with his editor. They are both quick-witted people with dreams who don’t suffer fools. At first she thinks he’s smug (and in a way he is), he feels she’s entitled (after all its day two before she asks his name). But they bounce off each other from the start, each an equal match for wit (not to mention they both clearly fancy the pants off each immediately).

What’s going to bring the “walls of Jericho” tumbling down between these two? Forced into sharing a hotel room at night, Peter astounds Ellie’s expectations by throwing a sheet up between them, their own little wall of Jericho. Colbert judges perfectly this scene how Ellie’s exasperation also mixes with something pretty close to disappointment. After all she’s already cuddled up to Peter, sleeping on the bus – and Peter in no way objected. Later, in a mirroring hotel room scene Peter will speak openly about how he’s longed for a woman with freedom and spirit (and Gable does this with a beautiful wistfulness) – exactly the qualities he has seen grow in Ellie over their days together.

What works wonderfully is how naturally this relationship becomes first a friendship, then something deeper. Improvising a marital argument, pretending to be a plumber and his wife to put detectives off her scent, they complement each other perfectly. What’s fabulous about this scene, is that (to their surprise) they are equally delighted by how smart and witty the other is. Their gleeful giggling is not only very sweet, but also the start of a new chapter in their relationship. The scene culminates with one of the few moments of intimacy on film involving clothes going on, as Peter helps Ellie button up her blouse.

What’s endearing about them – helped by Riskin’s sparkling dialogue – is how they settle into ‘roles’ and eagerly bounce off each other. Peter increasingly effects a parody of self-importance, claiming to be a world expert on everything from donot dunking to hitchhiking. Ellie gleefully punctures his grandiose claims, but enjoys playing up to her own image of the heiress, at sea in the real world. This is how real people fall in love – and the film is confident enough to have them exchange private jokes we can’t hear on the backseat of a car. It’s gloriously romantic because it feels true.

Gable and Colbert’s chemistry is scintillating. Both are supremely funny, but also grounded. When they lark about they feel like real-life sweethearts. Colbert gives Ellie a wonderful vulnerability under the self-entitlement. She’s snappy and quick-witted but confused and even a bit frightened by her growing feelings. Gable’s easy charm also has a slight chip on his shoulder: but he’s also laid-back and more than willing to look silly, proud but self-aware with it. He’s also a hugely adept physical comedian (his demonstration of how to hitch-hike is hilarious).

Moments have passed into film lore. Gable’s extraordinarily silly hitch-hiking routine, cars streaming past, until Colbert flashes a bit of leg. This is a beautifully staged scene, a cheeky bit of sexuality a brilliant punchline to an extended showcase for Gable’s comic timing and Colbert’s reactive skills and composure. The dialogue exchanges between the two are superbly delivered. The film was a massive sleeper hit – it even has one of the best examples of reverse product placement, when the reveal Gable’s character didn’t wear an undershirt allegedly led to sales of that garment plummeting.

The direction from Capra is spot-on, classic Hollywood but mixed with some beautiful framing and some dynamic camera movements, including some lovely tracking shots particularly through the bus (Capra’s visual direction in a confined space here doesn’t get enough credit). Capra also ensures we don’t forget this was the time of depression: money is tight for everyone, many of those on the bus are desperate for work and the out-of-touch affluence of Ellie rightly raises heckles.

Above all, Capra creates a hugely sweet romance – with lashings of sexy chemistry but not a jot of sex. Wipes and fast transitions keep the pace up. The dialogue pacing is perfect. He uses light wonderfully: in the two hotel room scenes, light carefully divides up and then unifies our two leads, dancing off their Ellie’s eyes and reflecting how they are beginning to see each other in a new light. It has a reputation as a screwball comedy, but really its a carefully paced character comedy, where Capra lets the relationship flourish organically from scene-to-scene (only Peter’s “hold-the-press” editor and irritating fellow bus rider Shapely – the inspiration for Bugs Bunny – are characters who could walk into screwball unchanged).

Above all, he draws fresh, relaxed and emotional performances from the two leads. The bond between them has been so comfortably formed – and resonates so strongly – that the film can get away with being possibly the only romantic comedy in history where the couple never kiss and don’t share the screen in the final act. It’s a film where two characters bantering and sharing heartfelt truths, sleeping in separate beds on opposite sides of a sheet has more sexiness and emotion to it than a world of rumpy-pumpy. It Happened One Night is just about the perfect romantic comedy, oft-imitated but never-bettered. You’ll want to watch it again as soon as it finishes.