What’s the point of these introductions anyway? We don’t need them. Let’s get straight to the point.
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
Well, let’s kind of get to the point. When I checked which Walter Brennan films I had on my to-watch list, the first position was a little-known 1935 film Biography of a Bachelor Girl in which Brennan plays an… uncredited reporter. I’m coming clean – I watched the film and completely missed our star. So I’m including this film for transparency’s sake but let’s not dwell here, I did not like it that much anyway.
A Stolen Life (1946)
Ugh, this isn’t the best 1940s Bette Davis melodrama. Honestly, this isn’t even the best Bette Davis-playing-twins film.
One of two Bettes is sweet and kind and in love with Glenn Ford. The other Bette is nasty and, um, sexually active, and she is the one married to Glenn Ford. But one day the sisters go sailing together and the shady one dies in a storm. The good one takes her identity as a mean to achieve happiness with the man she loves but this proves hard when her sister’s reputation is taken into consideration.
I admit that I am really bothered by the slutshaming (I am tired of this term but whatever) of the „bad Bette” and I think it’s kind of messed up how her death is not even presented as that big of a deal anyway because she was such a skank. Sign of the times, I know, but this film presents a true tragedy as simply a stepping stone in „the good one’s” road to eternal happiness – she only gets the man because her TWIN SISTER DIES IN A HORRIFIC ACCIDENT. And that’s a good thing apparently!
On a lighter note, Walter Brennan plays a lighthouse keeper and I thought it was kind of sweet.
Curtain Call at Cactus Creek (1950)
Dear Lord, this day is testing me. Curtain Call at Cactus Creek is a truly bizarre creation and not necessarily in a good way.
A group of actors are supposed to do a show but it does not go smoothly when a group os bandits get involved (it IS a western).
It seems strange that this film seems to be so little-known (only 77 user votes on IMDb?) considering how insane the cast is: we have Donald O’Connor as the goofy stage hand who dreams of a stage career, we have my queen Eve Arden KILLING IT, and we have Vincent freakin’ Price as the flamboyant, megalomaniac artist.
Oh, and of course our reason to be here today, Walter Brennan. He plays a bandit called… Rimrock…
But whatever charm and star power the film might have, it loses greatly with a very meh intrigue and not the strongest musical numbers – including one of the worst examples of blackface (maybe not something that should be ranked but WOW) I have ever seen in the finale.
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
That’s more like it. Bad Day at Black Rock is a very good film. I would be suspicious of a mix of western and film noir but now I’ve seen it and it works so well.
Our main character is Spencer Tracy (I am too lazy to check it out but I feel like we have seen a lot of him this Summer Under the Stars; Captains Courageous, for one) who arrives in the town of Black Rock (the train stopped there for the first time in four years). The town has a strange aura, the people are very hostile towards Tracy and they do not want to help him – he’s looking for a Japanese man who lived in the place but no one says a word.
Walter Brennan plays a man who is both a vet and an undertaker and he tells Spencer to get out of the town.
There’s suspense, there’s great acting, and there’s a very interesting take on racism which I did not expect. I am so glad I watched it.
How the West Was Won (1962)
And we end up with a western as well. And Spencer Tracy is in it as well although this time he’s just a narrator. As for Walter Brennan, he plays the chief of RIVER PIRATES (what’s with this film and Curtain Call at Cactus Creek casting Brennan as a crime person, he seems lovely). And all of this is just a tiny little speck in the epic insanity that is How the West Was Won.
Everybody’s in this film: James Stewart (Summer Under the Stars alumni), Henry Fonda (likewise), Debbie Reynolds (big presence on Shirley MacLaine day and tiny on Red Skelton day), John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Harry Dean Stanton (!)…
„Epic” is the word to explain this film and even if you’re not into westerns or this particular story is hard not to let yourself get swept up in in. Plus, I fell in love with the songs.
Swingin' at the Seance 