Dad's Movies: "Decision Before Dawn"

It's been slow going getting through this admittedly long list but here's another one.

Decision Before Dawn (1951)

This was a really interesting WW2 film about espionage in the waning days of the war in Europe that provides a a bridge, stylistically at least, between the older war/spy genres and the Cold War hard-edged movies that would follow. The show opens with what would have been at the time, a fairly conventional setup with German POWs and their American captors who need intelligence on the German military what has not yet been defeated. You almost expect the movie to lead in a "Dirty Dozen" direction with the commander putting together a team of German prisoners willing to basically betray their own nation but the focus becomes one of the Germans' motivations.

The movie is a little slow to get going with narration doing some of the heavy lifting exposition work but once the scene changes to German soil, the movie gets a lot more interesting. The scenes where the team goes behind enemy lines, which were actually filmed in German cities, look very real with a quality you don't usually see in WW2 movies of that era. The main focus of the movie really is Oskar Werner's young German medic who completely overshadows the top billed star, Richard Basehart. I find Werner, who was really underused in his overall career, great in anything I've seen him in. This was his First American film. 

By modern standards, this film is a mixed bag. The voice overs seem creaky now and the Germans, who were as far as I can tell, really Germans (not Brits playing Nazis as a lot of other movies seemed to do) all speak English, even when the scenes are ostensibly in Germany. However, it's unrealistic to expect a Hollywood production to have extended scenes with subtitles in 1951. However, the photography and editing pace, combined with the realism of the bombed-out locations in Germany, make the movie look ahead of its time.

I'll be revisiting this one for sure.

Dad's Movies: "Cluny Brown"

This movie wasn't on my Dad's initial list since he never got around to getting a copy. However, among the files he left on his computer was a list of "films to look for" which was his running list of movies he wanted to seek out on video that he remembered liking from long ago. He'd found most of these but "Cluny Brown" (1946) was one of them. I don't think it was on DVD before and Criterion did a blu ray just last year. There are a few others from this list I am still looking out for.

He was right to be looking for this one. This was my first viewing of this Lubitsch classic rom-com/sendup of British class and society (albeit in the 1930s) and it won't be the last.

Jones and Boyer are so charming and well developed as characters but not overplayed. The rest of the cast is just right as the fairly ridiculous and silly supporting characters. The movie doesn't make a false move or overstay its welcome. It's also an interesting contrast to Jennifer Jones' other film made around the same time, "Duel In The Sun" which can also be amusing when watched today but not intentionally. Jones is obviously working very hard on both films but the result couldn't be more different. I have to chalk this up to Lubitsch being allowed to direct Jones free of her then-husband David O Selznick who often meddled in her movies, including the screenplays. The result is clear and made me forget all about the campy and overheated performance she gave in "Duel".

Lastly, the movie holds up with the way the woman's character is so much more developed, with agency intact than so many other movies of this era so it comes off as relatively progressive (and hey, she fixes peoples' sinks!). 

Dad's Movies: The Hill

 Up today:  The Hill (1965).

I think this was part of another DVD box set so I don't really know if this is one my Dad sought out. The rest of the films don't seem to be in the same league as this one, at least emotionally. The box set is called "The World War II Collection, Vol. 2: Heroes Fight for Freedom" which is a bit of a stretch for this movie. 

I somehow had the idea going in that this was at least somewhat a WW2 combat film; the film's title is vague enough for this idea.

Instead, this turned out to be a fantastic prison drama that points its spotlight at the English military and abusive authority. The movie takes place during the war but confines its subject to the central characters and the cruel system they are all trapped in.

The film mostly takes place in one location set but never feels stagey. The screenplay is tight and Lumet really paces the film well and lets the cast do their best. 

That cast is something else. Everyone is great and yes, at times the performances are almost over the top but no one chews the scenery; the high voltage scenes and emotional dialogue are all earned.

Connery is so good here; one of his very best performances with a lot more range than he usually had in his acting. It's kind of hard to believe he did this movie while making his iconic Bond films. I picked this movie, which I'd not seen before, to mark the passing of Connery and I'm very glad I did. I like him in anything he did but this movie really stands out. 

This is one of the few times I've had to turn on the English subtitles in an English language film. The location (I assume) dialogue recording can get a little muddy and the accents get thick for me when the actors are screaming at each other.

The Hill is sometimes hard to watch and of course a very tense 2 hours but I am looking forward to revisiting. It deserves to be better known.

Dad's Movies: Cheyenne Autumn

I'm back at it, or back in the saddle so to speak with more of Dad's Movies. This time I'm covering the 1964 John Ford film, Cheyenne Autumn. I don't know that Dad was much of fan of this movie; I think it was part of a box set of John Ford movies so I'll give him a pass. :-)

This might be the weakest I've watched so far and is definitely the worst Ford film I've yet seen (there are a number of his movies I've yet to see though). I don't know that Dad was much of fan of this movie; I think it was part of a box set of John Ford movies so I'll give him a pass. :-)

Ford was very obviously going for a sympathetic take on the plight of Native Americans which he hinted at in earlier Westerns. However, the movie is a real slog to get through and feels every bit of its 154 minute running time. The pacing is poor and the story very episodic with little character development. The American Indian characters are given some story time but the leads, all played by non-native actors, are so undeveloped as characters that its very hard to empathize with them even when the white leading character, Captain Archer (!), played decently enough by Richard Widmark endlessly tells us we should via a lot of droning voice overs. Sure, I always like seeing Ricardo Montalban work but he's pretty much wasted playing a tribal leader.

The one woman who has much of a character isn't bad (Carroll Baker) but she too gets the job of explaining to us how badly the Indians are being treated. Karl Malden plays a cartoonish German post commander with some awkward Nazi German characterization...watch that accent, Karl!

There is also this sequence in the middle of the film that takes place in (Artful) Dodge City with James Stewart plunge Wyatt Earp. The section was cut shortly after the movie's premiere and I think it was a good move. This part is very jokey - a tonal clash with the other parts of the movie and seems to have little to do with the rest of the film, plot wise. No one would miss the section and the lazy acting that goes along with the scenes.  Speaking of jokey, as Ford was prone to do, there is an Irish character, the post doctor but at least he isn't as silly as some of the similar sidekicks Ford populated his Westerns with.

I think it's fair to wonder what kind of progressive Western could have come out of Hollywood in 1964 and don't get me wrong:  this movie is pretty progressive for the time. The fact that it's acknowledged that white people treated Native Americans badly and cheated them out of their lands is a step in the right direction but the movie is so clumsy and well, boring that it comes off as a lame lecture or a mediocre documentary. How boring? One of the credit title cards reads, "Edward G. Robinson as the Secretary of the Interior"! Oof.

The musical score is decent (Alex North) and the 70mm Monument Valley (which stands in for the Dakotas in parts, LOL) cinematography is beautiful. I don't know how this movie could have really worked without some serious re writes and is now a somewhat sad footnote to Ford's output of films. This makes me wonder if Ford needed to retire earlier. 

Dad's Movies: A New Leaf (1971)

Today, it's A New Leaf (1971), an odd but very well done comedy from Elaine May whose career was sadly cut short after the financial disaster of "Ishtar". 

I sometimes tire of Walter Matthau in some roles but he's great in this film. Apparently the original version of this movie, before the studio took control of it from May, was longer and had Matthau's character murdering two people. This would have definitely moved this film into very dark comedy territory, much further than it is in the version we have now. The film does have an edge to it but there is a sweetness to the whole thing that is satisfying and the character does still work for me, even knowing that there was more range perhaps in May's version. I suppose it's a matter of what kind of story you want to tell here for the movie as it is now makes it hard to buy that Matthau's character would actually kill people. Sure, he fantasizes about getting rid of his new wife but you don't actually think he'd go there as there's noting in the lead up that would make us think he'd do that. Again, it would probably be a different kind of movie so probably an apples/oranges thing. 

In any case, the movie we have is really fun. May's performance is fantastic; her character is genuinely irritating at times and hard to warm up to which makes the later part of the movie work. We like her more and she's a developed character with an arc just like Matthau's - it's a rare movie that can balance the sweet with the cynical/sarcastic.

Dad's Movies: Command Decision (1949)

It's back to WWII with Command Decision (1949).

This is an interesting one: a movie about WWII bombing that doesn't really have any depiction of combat or other action. Loading bombs onto B-17s and one scene of an emergency landing make up the bulk of the action. No, this is a very talky show about the importance of strategic bombing during the war and the (according to its author at least) need to just let those military men do their damn jobs! The main idea here is that Clark Gable's General Dennis character has a secret mission:  the destruction of a German facility that is working on new jet fighters that, according to the movie will tip the balance in the war (this is pretty exaggerated here as the German jet capacity wasn't nearly as large as the movie portrays). The problem is that the facilities are deep in Germany and the bombers have to fly beyond the range of fighter support, leaving them vulnerable to attack so each mission is racking up heavy casualties. Those losses and the pressure by visiting politicians and reporters to minimize the numbers of American dead are the conflicts here. Dennis truly believes in the mission but his superiors and a wary press are questioning it.

In the end, the film clearly comes down on the side of not questioning the people making the "command decisions". The reporters come off as weak and the civilian elected leaders are meddling fools who must be talked to like children. Now, I don't doubt that there is truth in this and things do change during a war setting but the film is very one sided about this. It's also conveniently free of any concern about the horrible civilian losses during the war due to the gazillion tons of bombs that were dropped on cities. I wouldn't expect this kind of perspective in a film made during the war, but this was a few years later and in that context, it seems already retrograde and a little bit propagandistic. By 1949, America was more ready to hear a better balanced story of the war (again, this is probably all present in the source play). Still, it's an interesting show and is different from most movies I've seen of the genre. I think the most powerful parts are the drama about Gable's character dealing with the pressure of having so many men in his command sent to their graves every day; the scenes where he is dealing with this are good.


This was based on a broadway play and it doesn't seem as though it was changed a whole lot for its film adaptation. Most of the movie is confined to a few static sets with the characters delivering long winded speeches. The show is slow going at the beginning but comes more alive in the second half.

Gable is actually good here, even in a non action role. Van Johnson plays a snarky, proto-Radar O'Reilly sergeant and Walter Pigeon as Gable's boss. Pidgeon rattles off his speeches well but seems exactly the same as his Dr. Morbius character from Forbidden Planet ("The Krell must not be allowed to develop jets!").

Dad's Movies: The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

Today we have The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

This movie came up conveniently while I am reading this book on director Frank Capra (this was one of his earlier films, perhaps the earliest important one) and it was an interesting choice as it's not really the stereotypical Capra movie like It's A Wonderful Life or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

This is mainly an "exotic" romantic drama, set as it is during a Chinese civil war. The film is tough sledding for a modern audience as you'd expect given the time it was made, the casting of a Swedish actor to play the Chinese general, and the usual colonialist dismissal of other cultures. However, again given the context of the time, the movie does push some boundaries here and there.

The American missionaries aren't perfect and there is doubt expressed in the dialogue about whether their work in China is worthwhile (this is much more prominent in the source novel which doesn't have the romantic angle but is instead more focused on the philosophical differences between Western and Chinese culture) but the biggest thing here is the potential for a relationship between  Stanwyk's character, the fiancee of an American missionary, and the Chinese general. In fact she even has a dream sequence where Yen comes to her bed in the night and is clearly meant to be sexual. This was a pre-code film so anything even suggesting of desire between a white woman and any man not similarly white was soon to be forbidden in American movies which makes this movie an interesting watch.

The performances are actually good. This was an early performance in Barbara Stanwyck's career and while she's good here as Megan, she got better in future movies with a great long-lasting run of movies and television. Nils Asther, as Yen is pretty wooden but I suspect it's the part he was playing. I will say that while he's not the most interesting guy, he does at least have some amount of depth. However, I felt it was a stretch to see what Megan finds desirable about him other than his being so exotic but maybe that's the point here. It also helps that her fiancee is sympathetic if uninteresting.

This is also one of the most artistic films Capra did before settling into his usual style which would, at least for a while, serve him well. There are interesting readings of this movie regarding Capra's mental makeup:  frustrated romance and suicidal ideas emerge here and did in at least one earlier Capra movie plus several future ones (Wonderful Life being a prime example of Capra's use of suicide in his movies). The book I'm reading about Capra also mentions that Capra had been having an affair with Stanwyck that had recently ended around the time this movie was made. The implication seems to be that Capra projected his own self into the character of Yen:  this thing between me and Megan/Stanwyck isn't going to be possible so I no longer have anything to live for. At least that's the idea. The film also has a lot of visual flair with a fairly dreary mood; much of the movie seems to take place on rainy nights.

So, an interesting movie that I'd tentatively recommend if you can look past the problematic issues and definitely worth seeking out for anyone interested in Capra's lesser known movies.