Double Dealing DVDs: Kind Lady (1935/1951) and Strictly Dishonorable (1931/1951)

Ever try watching a double feature that is two versions of the same story? I did it at a film festival once. It was a screening of the silent Chinese film Cave of the Spider Woman (1927) and its glossier go-go remake The Cave of the Silken Web (1967). What struck me most about the pairing was how much more I enjoyed the individual films when I had the added interest of comparing them to each other.

That is the experience I had watching a pair of original/remake double features from Warner Archive recently. The DVD double feature debuts of Strictly Dishonorable (1931/1951) and Kind Lady (1935/1951) stuck with me a lot longer than they would had I seen only one of the films in each set. The former pair was pleasant fun, while the latter filled me with dread, but won my appreciation.

Strictly Dishonorable (1931/1951)

Though the source of this comedy romance is a successful Preston Sturges play, neither screen version has quite the sexy oomph that the director could give to his stories. The films are different takes on the story of a young woman who ditches her uptight fiancée for a more exciting Italian opera singer.

The raciest is unsurprisingly the pre-code one, starring Sidney Fox as the restless lady, George Meeker as her rude husband-to-be and Paul Lukas as the taller and more romantic man of song. Meeker is one of those utterly baffling screen boyfriends: he’s unattractive, irritable and seems to hate everyone and everything, which makes you question Fox’s wisdom in taking up with him in the first place. 

Fox starts to acquire better taste when they encounter Lukas in a speakeasy and over the course of a night he seduces her seemingly by not being an uptight jerk, though the accent had to help. Fox is an odd actress; she can seem passive, but if you spend enough time watching her, her subversive nature begins to reveal itself and you begin to understand who is in control. This isn’t as steamy or playful as it should be, but it’s cute.

The MGM remake is very much of its age: glossy, cheerful and with a more elaborate plot. Opera star Enzio Pinza plays the lead and there are several pleasant, if unmemorable musical numbers in the film to show off his talents. In this version Janet Leigh is a young actress in one of singer's stage productions who is obsessed with him, while her stuffy boyfriend (Arthur Franz) wants her to give up the business and settle with him in New Jersey. Here the story expands to unfold over more than a night and takes on subplots involving revenge, spies, breach of promise and then more revenge. It’s too busy to have the same intimate charm as the original, and the extensive age difference between Pinza and Leigh adds a creep factor, but it is jaunty and pleasantly brisk in that familiar MGM style.

Kind Lady (1935/1951)

I was a bit stunned by how strongly I was affected by both versions of this thriller, which is also based on a stage play. They’re two solid productions that succeed in dramatically different ways. The core story is of a wealthy woman who lives with her cook and maid. She is known for her kindness, so it is not surprising when she takes an interest in a struggling painter. By the time she realizes his intentions are not honorable, he has already taken control of her life.

The 1935 version stars Aline MacMahon as the lady, which is a departure from the play which featured an elderly heroine. She makes the part work though, relying on her character’s heart ailment to give her the necessary fragility. Basil Rathbone is the seedy painter and while he is attractive, MacMahon quickly becomes ill at ease in his presence. Nevertheless, he quickly cons her into taking in his supposedly ailing wife and child while an additional cast of unsavory characters descend on her home. 

Suddenly this sharp, compassionate woman is rendered powerless and in danger of losing the art collection she treasures. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable film to watch; MacMahon is completely loveable and she suffers so much. That it is well made and unbearably tense is undeniable though.

While the 1951 remake returns to form by casting the elderly Ethel Barrymore in the lead, there’s almost no frailty about her. Though Maurice Evans is much more physically threatening than the merely greedy Rathbone, this grand dame doesn’t lose her head. Even though she is overpowered by the advances of this psychopathic creep and his band of thugs (including the excellent Keenan Wynn, Betsy Byers and Angela Lansbury), she remains icy, swiping away breakfast trays like a queen and shaming them all. She is also allowed to be much sharper in this version, using her compassion to find allies and in the process saving herself.

I loved the contrasts between these two films and the amazing performances of the leads. While the plot was essentially the same for each the tone was dramatically different. The original oozes with greed, bizarre little quirks and emotionally imbalanced characters, leaving you wondering if anyone is on even footing. It gets under your skin a bit. 

Barrymore’s bad ass take on her character adds a bit more straight shooting pleasure to the remake, but she faces a much more disturbing villain in Evans, who enjoys causing fear as much as he desires feeding his greed. It was not easy watching these lovable women go through what they do in these films, but they are both tense, well-acted thrillers.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing copies of the films for review. These are Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVDs. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

On DVD: William Powell and a Land-Bound Esther Williams in The Hoodlum Saint (1946)

William Powell, Esther Williams and Angela Lansbury in a love triangle. Who thought up that one? I love all three of them, but I'd never put them together. It was this curious casting that led me to The Hoodlum Saint, now on DVD from Warner Archive.

Set in the years after World War I, Powell is Terry O'Neill, a veteran who returns home to find he has lost his job as a reporter. Barely missing a beat, he crashes a wedding, where with the help of socialite Kay Lorrison (Williams), he meets the right people and finds a job on another paper. Kay and Terry fall in love, but the socialite loses her beau when ambition leads him to work with an unsavory tycoon.

While Terry movies on to nightclub singer Dusty Millard (Lansbury), he never forgets Kay, much to the frustration of his chanteuse. He becomes wealthy, but not happy, and by discarding his old friends, he finds himself in more trouble.

The Hoodlum Saint is a pleasant enough experience, but it doesn't quite come together. There is never any real sense of peril. Problems are solved with relative ease, resulting in a lack of dramatic tension.

Part of the problem is a lack of unified tone. The movie starts like a comedy, and is even a little goofy , but then it makes an abrupt shift into drama. And it's not a very intense kind of drama; it just stops being lighthearted.

The leads aren't given much to work with, but they're enjoyable to watch. Powell is too old for his role, but once he starts talking in that familiar, jovial, cadence you start to feel at home. He's miscast, but not unwelcome.

While Williams could never have been a star if she'd stayed on land, she could act. That said, she's not particularly compelling here; I have to admit I made the mistake of thinking Carole Lombard would be good in her part as I watched those early comic scenes. Williams doesn't seem as happy in straight drama and that dims some of her charisma, though she is still an appealing presence.

Lansbury comes off best. I can't think of any time that she didn't. In these years she tended to play the gentle-hearted victim of love. Here she does get dumped, but rather than wilting away, she is dangerously icy in the way she'd be more often in later roles.

So about the curious casting? They're all fine together, but it never feels comfortable. I could never accept that these two women would get hot and bothered about Powell. He doesn't exude the power or sex appeal  that would inspire that reaction.

Still, it all works fine if you accept the movie on its own terms. Start comparing to other comedies and dramas and you might start to get restless. For fans of its stars though, it's worth the watch.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. This is a Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVD. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

The Picture of Dorian Grey on Blu-ray

Actor Hurd Hatfield sealed his doom in Hollywood with his second film role, where much like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, he was almost too effective. As the star of The Picture of Dorian Gray, he not only horrified audiences, but people in the industry who could not separate the man from his performance. His elegantly cold portrayal of Gray can now be enjoyed on a new Blu-ray from Warner Archive.

Gray was Oscar Wilde's only novel. The dark tale created a scandal when it was first released in serial form in a magazine. When the chapters were collected into a book, the author wrote a preface in which he defended his art so eloquently that it became nearly as famous as the story it introduced.

Here Wilde's horror drama has been translated to the screen with all of its unease intact. The film was remarkably intense for its time, with very little to relieve the bleakness of its story.

Dorian Gray is a young, wealthy man in London. He poses for a portrait by his friend Basil Hallward (Lowell Gilmore), an experience that mysteriously unsettles the artist. He decides never to exhibit his work.

The devastatingly witty Lord Henry Wotton (played by George Sanders, because otherwise there would have been riots), also admires the portrait. Inspired by its beauty, he talks of enduring youth, and the pursuit of pleasure with such passion that the impressionable Grey decides he wishes to always appear as he does in the painting. The moment leads him to a life of soulless hedonism.

Hanging around an opium den, bringing shame to high class ladies and disturbing all of London with his never-changing visage, Grey inspires fascination as well as horror. He wins the heart of a humble singer (Angela Lansbury), but then subjects her to a cruel test of supposed decency that she is too in love to pass to his satisfaction. Watching his songbird crumble, with her soft trembling up do and perfectly placed heart locket, you feel the warmth go out of the movie.

As Grey, Hurd Hatfield defies time.

While his appearance remains unchanged, Dorian's dark deeds are recorded on his mysterious portrait, which he keeps under lock and key. In four brief shots, the ever-changing painting is shown in bright Technicolor. These moments are startling: the first glimpses are deeply sensual as you gaze upon Gray's beauty. Later views are sickeningly florid as the image becomes that of a bloodied monster.

While nothing in the production has quite the shock value of those portrait shots, it is an effectively eerie film. Hatfield's distance from the rest of the human race is captured in long shots, where he is out of focus in the distance, on the edges of normal life. Slightly off-kilter framing and other unexpected compositions help to communicate the feelings of unease and confusion Dorian causes in those around him.

Hatfield is the stand out here, perfectly cast as the handsome, but otherworldly Gray. Lansbury is the perfectly pure counterpoint to his emptiness, all warmth and acceptance. In between is the always wisecracking, but secretly decent Lord Henry, who seriously could not have been played by anyone by Sanders.

I was especially taken by Donna Reed's performance as the daughter of the portrait's artist. She is in love with Grey, or at least under his spell. Though she is known for playing characters with warm domesticity, Reed could have a bit of an edge, a hardness in her eyes. She plays that quality to good effect here, never screaming when a lady should and refusing to be oversentimental when her dreams of love disintegrate. The part could have easily been played by a bland ingénue, but the movie is much more powerful because of her interpretation.

In my research of Hurd Hatfield, I found it interesting that, much like Grey, he stayed remarkably young looking throughout his life. Though he didn't last long in the movies, he did have a long television career. Hatfield's relationship with Lansbury had a much better outcome offscreen; the two were life-long friends, and he even purchased an estate near hers in Ireland.

While the actor always regretted the impact his most famous performance had on his career, he did make a unique contribution to film as Gray. In a movie with a style and themes ahead of its time, his presence was timeless and unique.

Special features on the disc include a trailer, a Tom and Jerry cartoon and a fascinating short documentary about a pioneering mental health professional. Screenwriter and film historian Steve Haberman and Angela Lansbury provide the commentary track.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the Blu-ray for review. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

Powerful Angela Lansbury

As Angela Lansbury is turning 84 tomorrow, I thought it a good time to give her a little attention--because while she seems to be universally adored, there hardly ever seems to be much discussion about her accomplished movie career.

I usually like to pick a handful of titles when I pay tribute to an actor, but I found that impossible to do with Lansbury. For one, I feel that all her performances have something to distinguish them--no matter what the quality of the movie (I call this the “James Cagney Syndrome”). Even among her very early films, there are so many great performances to admire: her youthful haughtiness in Gaslight and National Velvet (both 1944), her charming freshness in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), the lush romance of her queen in The Three Musketeers (1948), her saucy showgirl/hostess in The Harvey Girls (1946)--and check out her flirty specialty number in Til the Clouds Roll By (1946):



I’m going to sidle away from her Academy Award-nominated roles, including her iconic steely mother in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and focus on two widely different characters she tackled within a year of each other:

The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
It is heartbreaking to see Lansbury’s charming single mother fall prey to eternal cad George Sanders in this dark period drama. Quite often, the good girls can lose audience interest to more vibrant and less apologetic villains. This is not the case with Lansbury. Though she is all decency and kindness, her warmth is entrancing; the whole drama is infused with her spirit. As the only pure adult in a landscape of bitterness, she lifts the movie from total blackness. She also makes you want to give Sanders a strong kick to the rear.

State of the Union (1948)
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn are as sharply attuned to each other as ever in this political drama, but even playing against such mighty leads, Lansbury has a strong presence, whether or not she is onscreen. Her portrayal of a woman desperate to elevate her lover, and herself, into the White House is almost entirely uncompromising in its coldness. In those moments when she is onscreen, she is riveting. Impeccably dressed and coiffed, often still and observant—she is always ready to pounce. Even when her back is to the camera, she radiates power—you can sense the tension within her. However, in her first scene, she rescues her character from one-note villainy with a show of emotion that efficiently explains her ruthless behavior. That powerful moment changes the meaning of all that follows.

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