The Sea Wolf (1941)

“There's a price no man will pay for living.”

            I am not too much of a fan of swashbucklers. I do not like thinking about what life on a pirate ship must have been like: all the men cramped together and smelly beyond anything that is holy. Also when there is a woman involved she has usually been kidnapped and must be rescued in a beyond silly way. I just do not really like pirate films. I can handle Captain Blood that film is fantastic but other than that I cannot sit through pirate films (this also includes all the Pirates of the Caribbean. I tried watching the first one and thought it boring). So now I am sure you are probably thinking if I do not like swashbucklers/pirate film why on earth did I watch The Sea Wolf which takes place on an early 1900s pirate ship. Well I watched The Sea Wolf for the cast. And it turns out the story was not so bad.

            In a bar George Leach (John Garfield) overhears someone ask a sailor if they want to go on a job on a ship called The Ghost. The sailor refuses. George is wanted by the police and takes the takes the job. On the boat to the ship a drunken man says to George “when you go to sleep at night you pray for morning and in the day you pray for night.”

            On a steam ship Ruth (Ida Lupino) is running away from the law. She meets Humphrey Van Weyden (Alexander Knox). As they are sitting down on the deck their ship collides with another one and sinks it. Ruth and Humphrey survive the crash. In the water Humphrey sees The Ghost sail pass them. He calls out for help.

            The next day Humphrey sees a man die from a bad heart on the ship’s deck and no one shows any emotion about it. He meets the captain a man named Wolf Larsen (Edward G. Robinson). Wolf does not plan on setting Humphrey on land any time soon and makes him work on the ship. George stands up to Wolf and Wolf puts George in his place by having him beat. At dinner that night someone keeps asking Wolf why they keep changing direction all the time. Wolf’s brother has a ship and his brother is after him in revenge.

            The cook finds Humphrey’s notes on what he thinks of the voyage and gives them to Wolf. Wolf likes the notes. Humphrey tells the captain that he wants to write about his time on the ship. Wolf likes that idea he wants people to know the real him that he has been on the sea his whole life. At that moment George comes to the quarters and tells Wolf and Humphrey that Ruth is not doing too well she may be dying. In her delirium she rambles how she does not want to go back to prison. Wolf finds it funny that they saved someone like them. The ship’s doctor is drunk and not confident in his abilities anymore. Ruth needs a transfusion but he does not think he can do it with what is on board the ship.

            Fortunately the doctor is able to sober up and save Ruth’s life. Ruth comes on deck and Wolf tells the men to make her comfortable by putting her behind bars. She gets upset because she thinks Humphrey talked since she had told him she had been running away. He tells her he said nothing that she was the one who had talked in her delirium.

            The ship’s doctor, Louie, asks Wolf to tell the men to treat him with respect. Wolf makes him look like a bigger fool by agreeing and then tripping him and mocking him in front of the men. In haste to get away from the taunting men Louie climbs up to the mast. When he reaches the top he yells down that the men will mostly never come back alive and that Wolf is afraid of his brother. After this Louie jumps to his death.

            Ruth goes to see George. He promises to get them both off of the ship. That night a couple of men, including George, gang up on Wolf and throw him overboard. Wolf manages to climb back on board. He gets the cook to find out who started the mutiny but he is not going to do anything because he needs help fighting his brother. He makes it sound like all the men will have to do is steal whale skins. Wolf tells the men there is a trader among them. He singles out the cook who had been doing the spying he told him to do. The men throw the cook overboard.

            Wolf gets blinding headaches where he goes blind. While Wolf is temporarily blind Humphrey helps George get off the ship with Ruth and he plans to leave as well. Wolf knew what they would do and filled a jug with vinegar instead of water. The men on the ship see Wolf is blind.

            Out at sea George, Humphrey, and Ruth see The Ghost with no one on it. They go aboard to get food and water. George gets locked in the storage room by Wolf. Ruth and Humphrey find him. Humphrey makes up the end of his book about Wolf. Wolf shoots him. Humphrey plays on Wolf’s blindness and says he is not hurt. He does this to get the key to let George out. Humphrey winds up dying as the ship sinks into the water. George and Ruth see they are only two miles away from a small fishing village and sail there.

            The cast was very good. Ida Lupino was not in the film very much. She was definitely put in the film for a romantic interest and to add some drama. But whatever scenes Lupino was in she was fantastic. John Garfield always played the tough guy. I was not too crazy about his character. Like Lupino I felt he was just thrown in there for the sake of putting in a tough guy character. The Sea Wolf is based off a story by Jack London which I have never read so I am not sure if George Leach was a character in the book or not. I would not be surprised though if Warner Bros. threw Garfield and Lupino in the film because they were two popular actors at the time. Edward G. Robinson did a great job playing the sadistic bad guy. Wolf was crazy and twisted and Robinson just nailed the part. Alexander Knox I saw in Rossellini’s Europe 51’ and I did not like him very much in that and I did not particularly care for him in The Sea Wolf although he was better in this.

            I liked The Sea Wolf. The story was different from other pirate films. The girl was not kidnapped from a ship the pirates got aboard and the hero was also not kidnapped nor was he someone who had to go save the girl and the ship. I liked the line “When you go to sleep at night you pray for morning and in the day you pray for night” it just set an ominous scary tone for the story and film. I do suggest watching The Sea Wolf. Unfortunately it is not available to own on DVD nor is it available to view on Youtube. I caught this on TCM some time ago so keep an eye out for it on the channel.

 

Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)

Thank Your Lucky Stars is a Warner Bros. hit parade of their famous stars from the 1930s and 1940s. This film was made to benefit World War II and give the audience a good time seeing some of their favorite stars in short parts and in ways they were not used to seeing them.

            There is a plot to this film but it is rather silly and boring. An actor named Tommy Randolph (Dennis Morgan) wants a contract with Eddie Cantor’s variety show. He cannot get anywhere near Eddie Cantor no matter how hard he tries. Outside the theater where the show is being staged is a bus tour guide named Joe Simpson (Eddie Cantor in a dual role). Joe wants to be an actor but he looks too much like Eddie Cantor and everyone laughs at him. Tommy also meets a girl named Pat (Joan Leslie) who wants to be a songwriter. He tries to win her over by bringing her back to a place called Gower Gultch. Gower Gultch is a small little village of old movie sets where Tommy and some of his friends live.

            The show’s producers wants Dianh Shore for a number but they cannot get her unless they talk to Eddie Cantor since she is under contract to him. They do not want Eddie in the show because he has a reputation for taking over everything.

            To make a long story very short Eddie Cantor gets kidnapped, Joe takes his place and makes the show run a lot smoother, Tommy gets into the show along with Dinah and Pat.

            It was so cool to see so many dramatic actors being funny and singing. The first number I ever saw from the film was the one with Olivia de Havilland and Ida Lupino singing with George Tobias. De Havilland and Lupino did a few comedies here and there in their careers but they were never all out screwy. In their number they were a panic and totally silly. I honestly have a whole new respect for de Havilland and Lupino. Every time I watch the number I start cracking up with tears in my eyes.

            Errol Flynn even sings a song! It is called “That’s What You Jolly Well Get.” He was so silly and so adorable I love him even more.

            Jack Carson and Alan Hale have a number. They were funny together. It was weird to hear them sing, they were not bad at all I could just never picture them singing.

            Bette Davis sings. I could not believe the studio let Davis do this. She was so bad! She reminded me of Madeline Kahn singing in Blazzing Saddles haha. The only difference is Madeline Kahn could actually sing.

            There are so many more good song and dance numbers done by actors and actresses you never would have thought could sing. Dennis Morgan sings a song and he was perfect.

            Humphrey Bogart in no way sings but he is made to question his toughness by S.Z. Sakall which I found amusing since they were in Casablanca together.

            This was the first time I ever saw Joan Leslie in a film. She does the most fabulous impression of Ida Lupino and James Cagney. Her impression of Lupino is so spot on and her impression of Cagney is hysterical.

            Thank Your Lucky Stars was fun to watch only when the musical numbers were on. The whole story with Eddie Cantor and Dennis Morgan and Joan Leslie was annoying. If you are a fan of the big stars from Warner Bros. from the 1930s and 1940s you will have a good time sitting through Thank Your Lucky Stars. 

Tortilla Flat (1942)

“They say that a little love is like a little wine. Too much of either makes a man sick.” 

I kind of had a feeling as soon as I recorded Tortilla Flat that I was not going to enjoy it too much. I am not too much of a fan of Spencer Tracy although he is a very good actor but there is something to him that I cannot get into. Once I read a synopsis of what the film was about I had a feeling I would be bored. So with the plot and Tracy as well this being from a Steinbeck novel I knew I was not going to be sitting through this with too much enjoyment. The only reason I recorded this was because John Garfield and Hedy Lemarr are in it, I have been on the lookout for more of their films. 

The story takes place in a northern California area known with a large Mexican- American community. Many of the people in the area are poor and several of the men are wondering bums. Pilon (Tracy) is one of those men. He is good at getting people to do what he wants and to do things for him. While sitting down by the beach one day a lawyer comes to Pilon asking where he can find Danny Alvarez (Garfield). Pilon tells the lawyer that Danny is jail for disorderly conduct after he got drunk. The lawyer asks Pilon to take him to the jail he needs to speak to Danny about him having inheriting two houses from his grandfather who passed. 

Danny only has one day of jail left so with the guard they leave to check out the houses. Before they go they all stop to get some wine so they can celebrate. While walking to the house Danny is introduced to a beautiful woman named Dolores (Lemarr). Pilon sees that nothing good can come of the relationship, or so he thinks because he wants Danny to stay with them not get a job and run off with some girl. Pilon manages to talk Danny into letting him rent the second house. The guard tells Pilon he can that he (Pilon) has been leading Danny around. Pilon grabs the man and tells the guard that he never take advantage of his friends. 

Pilon does not like Dolores at all when she comes to the house one night. She tells him that she does not like him or his friends at all. From this point Pilon sets out to cause a rift between Danny and Dolores. His plan backfires though when Danny goes on a drunken binge and shows up at the factory where Dolores works and causes a fight where he gets seriously hurt. During Danny’s time in the hospital Pilon feels terrible and prays to go that Danny gets better. He even gets a job that no one knows about so he can help his friend buy a boat. Danny does get better and marries Dolores. 

There is a lot more to this story but I am in no mood to write more about it. 

Spencer Tracy I wound up not minding too much even if his character was a pain in the ass. Pilon was a character who knew what he was doing he knew that his friends were dumb enough to listen to him and he could manipulate them very easily. I do not like people or characters like if they are not the bad guys. You can see Pilon has a heart in him somewhere but he keeps that closed off so everything he says sounds like a load of crap. John Garfield reminded me of a little boy being manipulated by the older boys and once he found what was going on went into a rage. This is only the third time I have ever seen Garfield in a film and I really like him he was a very good actor. Hedy Lemarr was great. She looked like she could have been a local of the community. Her character was feisty and she played that perfectly. Frank Morgan plays a character named Pirate who has a couple of dogs. The character once prayed to St. Francis to help one of his dogs who had been seriously sick and the dog became better. Morgan stole the whole film. He was fantastic in this role. He seemed like such a nice man like you want to reach through the screen and hug him! 

Tortilla Flat was an alright film. As I mentioned I knew I was not going to like it too much because of Spencer Tracy and the plot. I will say all the actors were perfect in their roles they all did great. Tortilla Flat is worth at least one viewing. If TCM ever airs the film again give it a try. 

Out of the Fog (1941)

“The man that collects the money always comes.”

            Out of the Fog was really boring. I think I grew bored with the film like ten minutes into it. The story was not too great and John Garfield or his character was just outrageously annoying. You know what now that I think about it both actor and character were annoying to no end. There were too many aspects of the film that were bothersome to sit through there was really nothing I liked about it.

            The story takes place on the docks of Brooklyn. Jonah Goodwin (Thomas Mitchell) and his friend Olaf Johnson are fishermen. They dream of owning a large boat that is for sale so they can sail down to the Gulf of Mexico and catch all the large fish they can possibly find.

            On the pier a man named Harold Goff (Garfield) sets fire to a boat to convince some of the fishermen to buy protection from him. Harold eventually corners Jonah and Olaf and forces them to buy his protection for five dollars a week. Harold sees Jonah’s daughter Stella (Ida Lupino) in a local restaurant and starts following her around. He hears that she wants more out of life she does not want to stay around the pier and have a typical life with her boyfriend George (Eddie Bracken).

            Stella starts going out with Harold having no idea what he is doing to her father and Olaf. At some point Stella told Harold that her father was giving her one hundred and ninety dollars to go away to Cuba to get away. Harold just hears the money and goes to Jonah and Harold for it. Jonah gets fed up and calls for the police but nothing happens to Harold because he pulls out a contract he forced the men to sign at gun point.

            Jonah realizes the only way to get Harold off their back is to kill him. He and Olaf take Harold out into the middle of the harbor where they make like their engine has seized. Harold starts getting upset and nervous because he cannot swim. He stands up and accidentally goes overboard.

            I think the police find Harold’s death was an accident I am not sure because by this time I just zoned out and lost track of what was going on.

            Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen, and Ida Lupino were the only good actors in the whole film. Lupino was not even really that good she was a little too over dramatic but still she was good compared to most of the others. She was barely in the film and she gets top billing. Warners was dumb they knew who drew in the money for the studio. John Garfield as I said was annoying I could not stand him after one minute of him being on the screen.

            Out of the Fog is not a long film, but because it was slow and boring it felt like it took forever. Humphrey Bogart was supposed to have John Garfield’s part but Ida Lupino did not want to work with him again and got her way (at twenty- three years old she had a lot of pull at Warner Bros.). Bogart was upset but I think after the film was released he should thanked her because he would not have been right for the role at all. Out of the Fog is only a film I would recommend seeing if you are a huge fan of Ida Lupino or John Garfield other than them skip it completely.