Renegades (1930)

Today is the lovely Myrna Loy’s birthday. It is only fitting since I adore her to no end, that I watch a film of hers today. The film I shall be reviewing is an early talking film titled Renegades in which Loy is a seductive vamp.

            A group of four French Foreign Legion officers have been placed in jail for disorderly conduct. They stationed with the rest of the legion in the middle of the sweltering desert. The men are a Belgian named Deucalion (Warner Baxter), a German named Machwurth (Noah Beery), a Russian named Dmitri and an American named Biloxi. All of the men joined the French Foreign Legion because they are trying to hide from shameful things in their past. The reason they were disorderly was because they got bored and got drunk. They are told by their captain that they will be staying in the prison at the fort while the other better men will be fighting the Arabs.

            Deucalion and the others manage to escape the jail and join the legion. The captain is furious. As payback he forces the four men to bring a TNT charge to the wall of an Arab fort. He is hoping the men will be shot and killed and taken off his hands. Deucalion and the others manage to blow up the wall. Again the captain is furious with them. This time he does not let them pick up a gun to fight claiming he wants them all back in one piece to finish out their sentence.

            Deucalion, Machwurth, Dmitri, and Biloxi are given medals for their bravery in blowing up the wall. At the ceremony Deucalion sees a woman, she catches his attention and is obviously shaken. The men crash an officer’s ball that night. The woman, Eleanor (Loy), is there. Deucalion pulls her outside. They had once been engaged years ago when he was an eager young officer with the French Army. The army was everything to Deucalion and his family. To serve for their country was a great source of pride. Everything changed for Deucalion when he met Eleanor. He told her things about the army important things that she would later go and tell the enemy. Eleanor was a spy sent to use Deucalion. He was branded as a trader even though deep down he was not it had all been Eleanor. He could have given her up but he could not he loved her too much. For five years Deucalion tried to find her. He goes to strangle her but a couple from the party sees what has happened. Eleanor tries to play it off she does not want trouble. Soon the incident turns into a brawl between the officers. Deucalion, Machwurth, Dmitri, and Biloxi manage to run away from their pursuers and jump into the water. Biloxi unfortunately cannot swim and he is left behind to take the brunt of the punishment. The captain puts on the other men’s records that they are deserters.

            Not long after their escape Deucalion has made a deal with the Arabs to lead their rebel armies against the legion. He has Biloxi kidnapped from the fort and brought to his camp. The same night Deucalion disguises himself as an Arab and kidnaps Eleanor. At the camp he has her treated like the Arab women who are seen as worthless and nothing. For a few moments Machwurth, Dmitri, and Biloxi are on Eleanor’s side because she is a white women, until they hear what she did to their fearless leader.

            To make the rest of this short: Eleanor shifts her loyalty to the Arab leader Deucalion was trying to control. The men are sent to attack the legion but when it comes down to it they cannot attack their own men. During the fight, Eleanor is out in the field. She sees Deucalion coming towards the fort. She has the machine gunner shoot at Deucalion. Dmitri sees what Eleanor is doing and shoots her in the back. The former lovers are gravely injured. Eleanor calls out for Deucalion and they crawl towards each other. When she is near Deucalion Eleanor shoots him with nothing but evil in her eyes. After the battle Deucalion, Machwurth, Dmitri, and Biloxi are made heroes.

            So, the only one that gave a decent performance in the film was Myrna Loy. This was definitely most vampish, evil role I have seen her in yet. She was perfect. She looked and acted like a spoiled woman and you can totally believe she could use men then throw them away like trash. Loy was twenty-five when she made this film. She looked gorgeous especially in the scenes where her hair has fallen out of its clips and it blows in the wind. Loy’s face looked beautiful. I went crazy with her evil face when Eleanor shot Deucalion it was perfect and so not what I am used to seeing from Loy! Warner Baxter was not too bad. He over acted a bit too much for my liking. The acting besides Loy and Baxter was not that great all the actors were stiff and some over acted especially the actor who played the captain.

            Renegades is a film I will only suggest seeing for Myrna Loy and partly for Warner Baxter. Other than Loy and Baxter it is not a film I would say should be seen by everyone. I found the story boring and a bit drawn out. Renegades is definitely only a film Myrna Loy or Warner Baxter fans will like seeing. 

The Millerson Case (1947)

The Millerson Case is one film in a series called “Crime Doctor.” No worries about not having seen the other films before this you will be able to follow the character of Dr. Robert Ordway and the rest of the characters.

            Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) works in New York City. He is going on vacation to the country in Brook Falls, Virginia. He guide in the small town brings him to the home of Sam Millerson who is the local doctor. The guide tells Robert that in town offer suffer from what the doctor calls “summer complaints” and they die pretty quickly. Robert asks Mrs. Millerson of the doctor ever made a bacteria sample of the water or milk in the area. The wife has no idea what he is talking about which means that Sam never did any such thing.

            The state health office comes to town. They have to quarantine the town since the ones who have been sick are suffering from Typhoid Fever. The locals are not at all happy with state officials coming into their town and disrupting their lives. Dr. Millerson thinks the city clinic is trying to force him out of his practice. He has been telling his patience not to get their vaccination shots. The doctor does not understand how sick everyone can get if they do not get their shots.

            Since Robert came to town there are have been three deaths. He takes a look at the samples collected from the victims. Two of the people died from Typhoid fever. One of the state doctors did an autopsy on the third victim Ward Beachey and found that the man’s stomach looked like it had been corroded by poison. They think Millerson is the murderer out of revenge because Beachey went to the county clinic the month before. Robert and the police find out that Millerson bought a large amount of poison. Millerson says he bought the poison to treat boils. While standing in the school house talking the clinic doctor is shot. The rifle is traced back to being Robert’s. When he goes to the Millerson house he finds his rifle is missing. Later on when he returns to his room his rifle is right where he had left it before it went missing.

            Robert begins to stand up for Dr. Millerson because everyone is convinced he is the killer when there is no hard evidence to link him to it. Robert and the detective on the case find out that Beachey fooled around with other women. Through a man named Judd, Robert finds out that Beachey was meeting with his (Judd’s) wife. The wife asks Robert how he found out about her messing around with Beachey. He tells her it was from another woman and thus pits the two women against each other which later leads the women to a huge cat fight in the middle of the town.

            At the county fair Dr. Millerson is given a note to meet someone out in the woods. When he arrives at the spot he is shot down. Robert figures the doctor knew something that was dangerous to someone. Robert comes to figure out that a local farmer is somehow involved with the murders and makes the man a suspect. The farmer had his daughter write the letter to lure Dr. Millerson out into the woods. He killed Beachey with the poison he uses on his farm because Beachey was breaking up his home. The farmer had to get rid of Dr. Millerson because he had asked the doctor someone time before how much poison it would take to kill a man. Robert gets into a brawl with the farmer and is almost killed. Luckily the police come in time.

            Warner Baxter was very good as Dr. Robert Ordway. He starred in the other Crime Doctor films that I have yet to find and watch. I liked seeing him as this crime solving doctor. He was calm and level headed and he was not condescending to the simple minded rural town folks.

            The Millerson Case was a good film. The story, I thought, was different from your run-of-the- mill crime films from the late forties. There were several people who could have been the murderer and it turned out to be someone that was not front and center or seen too much in the film. The Millerson Case is not available on DVD or on Youtube. If TCM airs the film again give it a try. 

The Squaw Man (1931)

When The Squaw Man was made in 1931 America was still coming out of the Jazz Age and the silent era of films. Studios were still working out sound in 1931 and still looking for fresh new stories. So many films of the 1930s come from novels of either classic or contemporary literature or classic or contemporary theater. The Squaw Man had been made by Cecil B. DeMille twice before this during the very early days of film. His first version was the very first film to be made in what is now Hollywood. The Squaw Man had a run on Broadway at the beginning of the 1900s. Needless to say the story of The Squaw Man, with its Victorian ideas of honor and what was right, were old and tried over and over again. This is a story that is dated even by 1930s standards.

            Jim Wingate (Warner Baxter) and his cousin Henry are from a long line of British aristocracy. They have raised money through their name for an orphanage. Jim loves Lady Diana Kerhill (Eleanor Boardman) but she is Henry’s wife. Jim and Diana have always loved each other. She wants Jim to go away to America so he will not complicate things for the both of them. Henry hears that a man has killed himself over embezzling. He was in on the embezzlement. Henry was going to kill himself when Jim walks in. Jim tells Henry he is leaving for America and that he will take the blame so Henry can stay with Diana and repay the funds. Everyone at the party of course suspects Jim of having taken the money. Someone at the party says that Jim’s leaving exonerates Henry of any blame. Henry, standing on the staircase, has a very guilty look on his face.

            Jim has changed his last name to Carston, moved to the Mid West, and owns a range. His neighbor Cash Hawkins (Charles Bickford) wants to buy his range but Jim refuses. A young Indian woman named Naturich (Lupe Velez) comes into town with her father to sell cattle. Cash wants to buy his cattle really cheap and throw in liquor. Naturich hears about the liquor, comes into the room where her father and Cash are, and tears the contract up. Cash grabs her and does not let her go. Jim comes into the saloon, sees what is going on and saves Naturich. In retaliation Cash has two of his men shoot Jim while he is out riding. Jim is shot in the shoulder. Naturich stays with Jim until his shoulder is healed. The whole town starts talking about them together.

            Henry has been hurt in a riding accident. Diana and their friend Sir John Applegate (Roland Young) have Jim tracked down. They go out to the Mid West to see him. Diana tells Jim that Henry told her that he was the one who embezzled the money. Jim wants to go back to London with them but he cannot leave he is married to Naturich and they have a young son. John cannot understand how Jim could raise a child in place such as where he lives and depriving him of his English heritage. John does not want the boy to be primitive like his mother. Jim tells Naturich about sending their son to England to go to school there. He tells her he has a good heart and that their son must go. Naturich keeps saying “mine” over and over again and will not let their son go.

            Cash had been killed seven years ago. The sheriff comes by with a bag that had belonged to Naturich that had been found in the floorboards in the place Cash was killed. Bullets have been found in the bag. Jim sends Naturich into the woods to her family so she cannot be found by the sheriff. Naturich comes back to the house one night. She sees her son being taken away from her. In a horrible sadness she kills herself.

            I have to admit I fell asleep through much of the film. I was so tired from working all week and the story was getting boring. I could not keep my eyes open. I never fall asleep through a film but I could not help it here.

            I cannot really comment on the cast because they really did not stand out to me. This is the first time I have seen Eleanor Boardman in film. Before this I had only ever seen her in photographs or heard of her when I was reading about King Vidor. I would actually like to see more of her films. This was also the first time I have ever seen Lupe Velez in a film. She really did not talk which I guess comes down to the fact that she mainly spoke Spanish and not English.

            As I said at the beginning The Squaw Man is very dated even by 1930s standards. I do not really like stories or characters that are honor bound they drive me crazy. I really did not like the ending either because it was so sad. I do not have children but I cannot even imagine even thinking about what Naturich must have been going through when she saw her son going away. She had to have known that she would never see him again and that as he grew older he would never accept her as his mother. That broke my heart. I guess I was thinking of my mom and how much she loves me and my brothers and how something like that would break her heart to no end too. The Squaw Man is a film to watch once just to say you saw it. I cannot imagine audiences in 1931 liking this too much, they probably wanted something to take their minds off the economic troubles that were just starting to hit the country. I am sure in context the original silent version is better than this one.