Here we go.
In Old Chicago (1938)
A story of the birth of one of America’s biggest cities told through the history of one family. The O’Learys drive to Chicago when the father, while trying to impress his sons and racing a train, gets dragged by the horses and dies. The mother starts a laundry business and raises her sons to grow up well. Although one of them, Tyrone Power (who looks really handsome here, sorry to objectify but I sometimes wonder why he was considered so hot – now I know) is into some shady stuff. The other, Don Ameche, is smart, successful, and responsible. By the way, the mother is Alice Brady who won an Oscar for this role.
Brian Donlevy plays a local businessman. One day, Alice Brady discovers a drawing he made on a sheet she got in her laundry that the brothers read as a plan to scam the land owners, get their land, and build a tramline (yes – this is how conflict is introduced in this film). Later Donlevy wants to run for mayor so Ameche decides to do that as well.
Also, Alice Faye is in the film and she plays a singer-showgirl who allegedly is incredible and the greatest talent in Chicago (I would say it’s debatable). Tyrone Power and her fall in love but at one point he starts treating her terribly.
I don’t think it’s too much of a [SPOILER], since this is what the film was supposed to be about, but it ends with the great Chicago fire in what is quite an impressive sequence. You know – they said it was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that kicked the lantern and that burned Chicago down. But we all know it was Mame who kissed the buyer from out of town, right?
Apparently the film was made as 20th Century Fox’s response to MGM’s San Francisco from 1936 (Mame’s fault again…) which did not quite work as they hoped. I wouldn’t say In Old Chicago is a great film but I do appreciate the subject matter, the stories of cities are fascinating and not told often enough.
Beau Geste (1939)
The film starts in a desert where a group of soldiers sees a base where everybody seems to be dead. In a note they find they read about the „great sapphire”. The rest of the story is told in flashbacks. It’s fifteen years earlier and we see a group of children playing (one of those children is a very young Donald O’Connor and he’s adorable). The kids are being raised together as adopted brothers in a big mansion. The lady of the house has a big sapphire that she’s about to sell it. Now, it’s years later, kids are all grown up and they want to see the sapphire. But it’s missing! They all accuse each other for a minute, then separate. Gary Cooper who is among the, now men, then kids, leaves a note that says he took the sapphire (and that „Blue Water and [his] blue eyes go so well together” – I hate to say it but that’s hot). The men then go to the desert with the Foreign Legion.
Brian Donlevy is the sergeant and in his first scene he essentially does I’ll Make a Man Out of You as a speech. He later turns out to be a sleaze bag pretty much (again!).
I loved this film. Brian Donlevy was probably the part I cared least about but he still did a good job. I just loved Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. The “cinnamon tography” was beautiful and I got genuinely invested in the story. I know there are other, earlier versions but I haven’t seen them so my experience was unspoiled.
The Great McGinty (1940)
Brian Donlevy is the lead in this one. He plays a bartender in a banana republic who can’t go back home and over the course of the film he explains why. He was a tramp who one day got paid for voting in rigged elections. He continued to be involved in politics in that way until one day he becomes a mayor. To do so, he had to have a wife (because marriage is a sign of a good man) so he marries a secretary but eventually they truly do fall in love. Since she’s not scummy, she actually starts influencing his views and he starts having problems with the corruption he’s a part of.
It’s always nice to see politics exposed for what they are and the performances and script are fine but after Beau Geste I needed more to be truly impressed.
The Great Man’s Lady (1942)
When the film begins with a variation of the „behind every great man is a great woman” cliche… Let’s just say I don’t expect a lot.
The Great Man’s Lady is not that great. But it does involve Barbara Stanwyck in age-defying make-up turning her into a hundred-year-old lady so do with that what you will.
Barbara plays Hannah Hoyt, the widow of the founder of Hoyt City, Ethan Hoyt. In the town there is supposed to be a celebration for Ethan during which his statue is going to be unveiled. People don’t know much about him, though, and a group invades Hannah’s home and ambushes her with questions. One woman, who looks like Maggie from The Nanny, saves the old lady. When they’re alone, it turns out that she too has a hidden agenda, though – she wants to write Ethan Hoyt’s biography. Barbara recounts her life story, from being a daughter of a wealthy man who refused to give Joel McCrea (that’s Ethan) money for his dream of building a new city in the wilderness, through running away with him to make the dream come true, to their separation and what comes next.
Let’s just say that A LOT happens, and a lot of that is very dramatic and none other than Brian Donlevy is pretty central to the drama. He starts of as a massive creep who wants to gamble with Barbara for a kiss from her (in effect the wins back all the money Joel lost earlier when he was drunk) but then they become friends and Joel actually thinks she’s cheating on him with Brian. The film is very cute before that and very melodramatic after with some real tragedy happening.
In the end K.T. Stevens, the Maggie-look-a-like, gets a little bit feminist as she says that she thinks the wrong person got the statue in the square but Barbara shuts her down when she says how hard it is for men on the road to greatness and how they need their help. Not my thing.
The Errand Boy (1961)
A Jerry Lewis comedy about Hollywood. Brian Donlevy plays an executive who hires Jerry as a spy of sorts who is going to work for the studio and tell them what exactly is going on there.
I don’t have a lot to say about The Errand Boy because it’s simply a collection of funny episodes and misadventures and I am not familiar with Lewis’s oeuvre to have any insightful commentary here. It’s fun.
Okay. That was five films. I got a bit lazy this last few days so now I’m exhausted. Tomorrow is going to be possibly pretty intense as well so I’m going to end here.
Swingin' at the Seance 