Cinéma Inhabituel for November 16-30

A Guide to the Interesting and Unusual on TCM

By Ed Garea

The TCM Spotlight, “The Hollywood Blacklist,” continues with more example of films performed in, directed or written by those who suffered blacklisting. What one will immediately notice from the films is that they are totally innocuous. There is no overt “commie propaganda” to be had. The studios simply wouldn’t have allowed it. What should also be noted is that this was a battle of ignorant bullies versus gullible idiots. Although there were many innocent souls caught in the fishnets who were guilty only of being idealistic, this cannot be said of the Hollywood Ten. The opening documentary, Hollywood on Trial, would have the viewer believe these ten were heroic artists persecuted by the government. But in reality they were no more than arrogant hacks. Not one of them produced anything that could be identified as a classic of literature. They were failed novelists and playwrights, working at the pleasure of the studios. They participated the making of a few excellent movies, but a movie requires more than a screenwriter, or in Dmytryk’s case, a director. The movies to which they contributed in World War II were made at the behest of the Roosevelt Administration, which wanted to push and strengthen morale.

For instance, consider Tender Comrade. It’s no more communist than The Phantom of the Opera. If it’s dominated by anything it’s pro-Americanism, as seen by all the jingoistic speeches. The idea of the lady welders – note that they work at a defense plant – pooling their resources was an idea actively pushed by the Administration as an answer to the shortages brought about by the war effort. Petrol and food were in short supply and were rationed. The most notorious movie of the war, Mission to Moscow, which was not shown, was the direct result of the Administration as propaganda to get the public behind our “ally,” Russia. 

These movies came back to haunt only some of those who made them. Studio heads such as Louis Mayer and Jack Warner were untouched. They were powerful and had lawyers to look after their interests. Those at the bottom of the food chain were considered expendable as they had no power and couldn’t afford legal help.

But the Hollywood Ten could have availed themselves of legal counsel. They were on the higher rungs of the employee ladder, earning roughly $2,000-$3,000 per week. Their downfall came from their arrogant idea to take on Congress, a blatant misreading of the temper of the times. When asked the standard question of “Are no now or have you ever been…,” Lardner replied, “I could answer the question exactly the way you want, but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning.” That worked fine in the movies he wrote, but in the real world it fell flat on its face and alienated public support, which was vital if these characters were to get off. Looking over various documentaries on the hearings, I noted the absence of any effective legal counsel. Even the Mob had the good sense to have lawyers present when appearing at hearings.

And not everyone suffered the wrath of the HUAC. For instance, Lucille Ball admitted she listed her party affiliation as Communist when she registered to vote in 1936. And, according to the records of the California Secretary of State, in 1936 she was appointed to the State Central Committee of the Communist Party of California. In 1953 she met privately with HUAC investigator William Wheeler and gave him sealed testimony stating stated that she had registered to vote as a Communist "or intended to vote the Communist Party ticket" in 1936 at the insistence of her grandfather, who was a socialist. She also added that at no time did she intend to vote as a Communist. However, she also registered to vote as a Communist in 1938 and held Communist Party meetings and classes in her home. Ball was a very popular and loved television star who had the weight of the CBS legal counsel behind her. 

As for Dmytryk, he returned to the hearing in 1951, confessed all, and named 26 other party members. This ended his blacklisting and he was hired by producer Stanley Kramer to direct The Caine Mutiny.

November 20: The evening begins at 8 pm with Herbert Biberman’s 1954 indie production, Salt of the Earth. Written by Michael Wilson, directed by Biberman and produced by Paul Jarrico, it stars blacklisted actor Will Geer. The film concerns Latino mine workers who go on strike and the hardships they face as a consequence. Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, who plays Esperanza Quintero, one of the miner’s wives, was mysteriously deported during the making of the film on a minor passport violation and her role in the film had to be completed by a double.

At 10 pm comes The Brave One (1956), a cute story of a young Mexican boy who saves his pet bull from a certain death in the bull ring by securing a pardon from the president. The screenplay was by “Robert Rich,” a pseudonym for blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo.

At Midnight, Cry the Beloved Country (1952), an expose of the apartheid system of South Africa. It stars blacklisted actor Canada Lee.

Rififi, blacklisted director Jules Dassin’s 1955 film about a jewelry heist, airs at the late hour of 2 am. For those who haven’t yet seen this classic, we urge you to record it. It is the best heist film ever made and influenced many others that followed.

Closing out the evening is The Big Night (1951), a film about a teenager (John Barrymore, Jr.) who takes on the Mob after they beat up his father (Preston Foster). Directed by the blacklisted Joseph Losey (who was forced to flee to England to work), one of its stars is the blacklisted actress Dorothy Comingore,

November 21: At 8 pm it’s Friendly Persuasion (1956), a drama about a peaceful Quaker family in Indiana whose principles are tested by the Civil War. One of its writers was Michael Wilson.

At 10:30 pm, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), David Lean’s classic film based on Pierre Boulle’s novel about how the Japanese press-ganged Allied POWs to build a railroad from Bangkok, Thailand to Rangoon, Burma. Blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson couldn’t take credit, so the script was credited to Boulle.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), at 1:30 am, is a noir about three men – ex-con Robert Ryan, former cop Ed Begley and chronic gambler (Harry Belafonte) – who try to change their lot in life by teaming up to steal a payroll from a small-town bank in upstate New York. But their partnership is doomed from the start because of the racial tensions within the group. One of the film’s writers was the blacklisted Abraham Polonsky.

At 3:30 am comes The Law vs. Billy the Kid, a 1954 cheapie from producer Sam Katzman and director William Castle with a script by blacklisted Bernard Gordon. “Unmemorable” is the beast way to describe it.

November 27: At 8 pm, Exodus (1960), director Otto Preminger’s adaptation of Leon Uris’s novel about the birth of Israel. Preminger not only hired blacklisted Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplay, but also gave him screen credit, which along with Kirk Douglas’ Spartacus, also written by Trumbo with screen credit, broke the back off the blacklist. 

11:45 pm, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), the tale of a Palute Indian (Robert Blake) who kills the father of his girlfriend in a fight, directed by Polansky, who was now free of the blacklist.

1:45 am, The Cincinnati Kid (1963), the story of a brash young gambler (Steve McQueen) who challenges the undisputed king of the poker gaming tables in New Orleans (blacklisted Edward G. Robinson). Ring Lardner, Jr, one of the Hollywood Ten, worked uncredited on an early draft of the script.

3:45 am, Edge of the City (1957), a drama about an army deserter (John Cassavettes) and a Black dock worker (Sidney Poitier) who join forced to take on corrupt union racketeer Jack Warden. The blacklisted Ruby Dee plays Poitier’s wife.

November 28: The final night begins at 8 pm with The Front (1976), a comedy-drama about the blacklist, with Woody Allen as a bookie hired to act as a front for a blacklisted writer. Directed by the blacklisted Martin Ritt with Zero Mostel, also blacklisted, as one of its co-stars.

10 pm, The Landlord (1970), a drama about a spoiled rich kid (Beau Bridges) who buys a tenement building in Brooklyn and gets involved in the lives of its tenants. With the blacklisted Lee Grant as Beau’s racist, high society mother. (She received a Best Supporting Actress nomination that year for her performance.)

Midnight, David and Lisa (1962), a story about a troubled young man (Keir Dullea) who begins to deal with his problems after befriending a young schizophrenic (Janet Margolin). Blacklisted Howard Da Silva co-stars as Dr. Alan Swinford, Keir’s psychiatrist.

2 am, The Loved One (1965), based on novelist Evelyn Waugh’s wicked satire of the funeral industry in California. Blacklisted Lionel Stander is one of the supporting cast.

NOTABLE

November 17: At 4:45 am, the great Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodore Dreyer’s 1928 silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc, about the last period in the life of the famous martyr and saint. Falconetti, a major star of the Paris stage, was put through hell by Dreyer, who wanted “an authentic performance” from his star. The shoot was so grueling that Falconetti swore off films altogether. 

November 19: At 2:15 am comes the 1967 Czech avant-garde epic, Marketa Lazarova. The film, set in the Middle Ages, focuses on the relationship between two warring families. The plan clan led by Kozlk (Josef Kemr) and his son Mikolas (Frantisek Veleck) are bandit knights at war with the king and royal army, who want everyone to convert to Christianity. Their rival is the family led by bandit knight Lazar (Michal Kozuch), who are leaning toward Christianity. Lazar's daughter, Marketa Lazarova (Magda Vsryov), due to join a convent, is kidnapped by Mikolas, who makes her his mistress. The two eventually fall in love, but cannot change the film’s tragic outcome.

November 24: Director Jean Renoir’s 1937 Grand Illusion, airing at 3:30 am, a thoughtful story of French POWs and their relationship to their German captors, was the first foreign film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Starring Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich Von Stroheim, Dita Parlo and Marcel Dallo, it’s a complex antiwar film. Famed French critic Andre Bazin saw it as revealing the hidden meanings behind the events of World War I. For Bazin, the Grand Illusion is the illusion of hatred, “which arbitrarily divides men who are in reality not separated by anything.” He also noted the illusion of boundaries and the wars which result from them; the illusion of races, and the illusion of social classes. In the final analysis, “The war, the product of hatred and division, paradoxically reveals the falseness of all barriers of prejudice separating man from man.” This is a film everyone interested in cinema should see, a beautifully constructed story of men in crisis and their reactions to one another. 

November 26: A late night treat from Italy with Marco Bellocchio’s Fist in His Pocket (1968), a tale of a deeply disturbed man, subject to seizures, who decides to wipe out his highly dysfunctional family. It’s followed at 4 am by Fellini’s early gem from 1953, I Vitelloni. Many consider 1954’s La Strada as the best of his early films, but this one has it beat. Originally released in the U.S. as The Young and the Passionate, it’s usually translated as “The Young Bulls.” However, a more idiomatic translation would be “Adolescent Slobs.” It’s about five frustrated small town boys with big plans. The five are sons of indulgent, middle-class families who live off their parents while loafing and dreaming of riches, glory and especially, women. While their ideals are lofty, their execution is often pointless. They waste their time and energies on dubious pursuits and whatever dreams or ideas they have are childish. The brilliance of the film lies in Fellini’s observation of them without any hint of disdain; while his tone is satirical, he balances it with warmth and a certain amount of nostalgia. The film influenced a host of directors both in Europe and America. We can see its influence in such films as Scorsese’s Mean Streets, Lucas’ American Graffiti, and Levinson’s Diner. The film is autobiographical, and Fellini’s character, Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi), is the only one to escape from the futility of life in the small town. The film launched the career of Alberto Sordi and was awarded The Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion (best director) in 1953.

ST. ANDREW’S DAY

November 30: TCM is celebrating St, Andrew’s Day, the national day of Scotland, with five films beginning at 8 pm with 1955’s Wee Geordie. Starring Alastair Sim and Bill Travers, it’s a delightful film about the young Travers, who is sent to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics to compete in the hammer throwing contest. 

Following at 10 pm is High and Dry (aka The Maggie), a comedy about the skipper (Alex Mackenzie) of a small cargo boat (called a puffer) who cons his way into hauling a load of expensive furniture to the holiday island home of high-strung American financier Paul Douglas. When Douglas discovers his valuable cargo is being hauled on Mackenzie’s decrepit boat, he flies up from London to demand the goods be moved to a modern vessel for hauling. But Mackenzie needs the freight hauling fee to stay afloat and he is bound and determined to see it through. It’s a typical Ealing effort, with strong characters and an excellent script. I haven’t seen this since I watched it on my local PBS station as a teenager, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing it again.

At Midnight comes the Errol Flynn swashbuckler, The Master of Ballantrae, from 1953, followed by Gene Kelly and Van Johnson in the MGM musical, Brigadoon, about a town in Scotland that materializes once every century. 

Finally, it’s Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert in the wonderful Local Hero (1983). Riegert is a successful oil company executive sent by Lancaster to Scotland to purchase an idyllic seaside village to be converted into a refinery. But things don’t go as planned when both succumb to the charms of the area and its inhabitants. It’s a gentle comedy with a good script and strong characters, filled with a good number of incredible moments. As it’s being shown at the ungodly hour of 3:45 am, we recommend that one should record it. You won’t be disappointed. 

PRE-CODE

November 16: At 6 am Marion Davies stars as a scatterbrained young woman who throws a big party to advance her boyfriend's career. in King Vidor’s 1930 comedy, Not So Dumb. . .  At 9:00 am, American heiress Constance Bennett marries into British nobility in Our Betters from 1933. . . 3:00 pm has Jimmy Durante in the 1934 comedy Hollywood Party. It’s a so-so affair with the best scene being the battle between Lupe Velez versus Laurel and Hardy at the hotel bar. . . Following at 4:15 is the classic ensemble comedy, Dinner at Eight (1933), directed by George Cukor with an all-star cast led by Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery and the Barrymore brothers.

November 17: Honest working woman Irene Dunne falls for skirt-chasing playboy Lowell Sherman in the sophisticated comedy Bachelor Apartment (1931) at 6 am. . . At 8 am womanizing opera star Adolphe Menjou falls in love with his young protege Irene Dunne in The Great Lover (1931). . . Young Jewish doctor (Ricardo Cortez) who rises from the slums of New York to become a West End Avenue – and later Park Avenue – surgeon and loses touch with his roots in the 1932 melodrama Symphony of Six Million. After Cortez botches an operation on his father (Gregory Ratoff), he vows never again to touch another surgical instrument. But he must break his vow when his crippled girlfriend (Irene Dunne) decides to have an operation to fix her spinal condition. . . Embittered Eurasian Myrna Loy is out for revenge on everyone who made her life miserable in school in 1933’s Thirteen Women (read our essay on it here). And that includes Irene Dunne. . . At 12:15 Dunne stars as a social worker whose fight for reform is compromised by her love for corrupt judge Walter Huston in Ann Vickers (1933). Following at 1:45 pm, Anna and Jim Stanley (Irene Dunne and Charles Bickford discover their newly-found wealth is driving them apart in No Other Woman (1933). . . And at 3 pm, music-hall singer (Irene Dunne) loses her son (Douglas Walton) to her callous father-in-law (Lionel Atwill) after her husband (Phillips Holmes) kills himself in the well-made 1933 soaper The Secret of Madame Blanche. Later complications involving murder conspire to reunite mother and son, but you won’t believe it. 

November 19: Ann Harding and William Powell star in the excellent Double Harness (1933) at 6 am. (Record it.)

November 20: A Ginger Rogers morning features Professional Sweetheart from 1933 at 7:45 am.

November 26: Rogers returns in Rafter Romance, also from 1933, at 6 am. . . At Noon, it’s William Powell, Kay Francis, Aline MacMahon and Frank McHugh run the superior romance, One Way Passage, from 1932. Read our review of it here.

November 27: Irene Dunne and Pat O’Brien headline the interesting Consolation Marriage (1931) at 12:15 pm.

PSYCHOTRONICA AND THE B-HIVE

November 16: Janice Templeton (Marsha Mason) and husband Bill (John Beck) fear daughter Ivy (Susan Swift) is the reincarnation of Anthony Hopkins’ daughter, who burned to death in a terrible accident, in Audrey Rose from 1977, directed by Robert Wise.

November 18: Donovan’s Brain, from 1947, starring Lew Ayres, Gene Evans and Nancy (Reagan) Davis, airs at 3 pm. A Pam Grier double feature begins at 2 am with Black Mama, White Mama (1972), followed by Pam starring with Bernie Casey in Hit Man (1973) at 3:45 am.

November 19: A double feature featuring Robby the Robot begins at 8 pm with Forbidden Planet (1956), followed at 10 pm by The Invisible Boy from 1957.