Penny Serenade (1941)

“You see there's so many little things about her that nobody would understand her the way Julie and I do. We love her” 

            I once found a quote about music that is so perfect: "With the right music, you either forget everything or you remember everything." Some songs I hear and I think back to when I was growing up and I would sit in my room over the weekends when I used to obsessively cut things out of magazines of my favorite singers and bands and organize them. Some I think back to fun times with my friends. If I am listening to Kelly Clarkson I think of all the great times I have seen her in concert or to the night she won American Idol. Other songs I think of sad times I went through when I was feeling depressed and going through rough things with work and school. Just like movies there is always a song to match your moods and periods of your life.

            In the 1941 film Penny Serenade music takes one of the main characters back to both sad and happy times in her life.

            Julie (Irene Dunne) comes home. She is agitated and asks her friend Applejack to pick up trains tickets and cash a check for her. She can no longer live with her husband Roger (Cary Grant) there is nothing between them anymore. While she is packing Julie looks to the record player. On top of the player are records in a book and within the book with the records are memories of moments in her life with Roger.

            The first song brings her back to the day she and Roger met. Julie had been working in a record shop. A record had started skipping and Roger, walking outside past the shop heard the skipping record. Through the window he sees Julie. He walks in and begins talking to the girl behind the counter trying to get her to go away so he can be alone with Julie. Roger finally manages to walk over to Julie. He asks for a specific record and when she walks away he grabs a whole bunch of records. Soon enough they are walking back to her apartment. Roger asks her if she has a player since he does not. Julie asks him why he would have bought twenty-seven records if he did not have a player. She figures out why and invites him up.

            Julie and Roger head down to the beach together for the day. They have fortune cookies reading their fortunes aloud to each other. One of them was something about children but Julie hides it. Another one that Roger gets was something about marriage. A little boy comes over trying to play with Roger and he tells the kid to go away.

            Roger is a reporter for a newspaper. The paper sends him out to Japan. He is excited about going at first but he sees Julie is upset. They decide to get married. In Japan he finds a nice house for them to live in along with a helper who has three little children. Thinking back to the day at the beach when Roger told a little boy to go away, Julie is worried about telling Roger she is having a baby. She has her fortune from her cookie in a locket. She takes it out and shows Roger. He is beyond excited. He tells her he chose a helper with three small children for a reason. Their happiness is unfortunately short lived. A powerful earthquake comes along and Julie is hurt. The couple goes back home to America devastated.

            In the present Julie changes the record to a lullaby.

            In time Roger starts his own newspaper in a small town which is moderately successful. Applejack comes to help Roger out as newspaper manager. One night Roger is out late and it is just Julie and Applejack at dinner. Applejack brings up that the apartment is lonely that there should be a kid around and mentions about adopting. Julie has thought about it but she is not sure Roger would ever want to have a child that was not his own. Applejack says that Roger has brought up the idea of adoption before and thinks it would be a good idea. When Roger comes home Julie tells him what Applejack told her and both of them are very happy.

            They go out to an adoption agency in the city. A Mrs. Oliver looks over their case. They want a two year old boy with blue eyes and curly hair. Mrs. Oliver tells the couple other couples want a baby just like that. It could take them over a year to get a baby not just one that they want. Defeated Roger and Julie head home. Mrs. Oliver has kept the couple in mind. She calls them telling them that there is a five week old baby girl that has come in. Another couple had been promised first choice but she wants Roger and Julie to come down. Roger is not happy about their baby being a girl while Julie is beyond thrilled and wants to take the baby home. Mrs. Oliver lets them have the baby girl on a yearlong probation. Their first night with the baby is comical. Julie and Roger are very nervous with the baby watching her sleep, trying to make too much noise to wake her up, and following directions the orphanage gave them. Julie almost has a meltdown the following day while trying to give the baby a bath until Applejack, whose sister has four kids, come in and takes over.

            A year passes. Mrs. Oliver comes to interview Julie and Roger again before they are to formally adopt their daughter who they have named Trina. The paper has failed and Roger at the time does not have an income. That would have been the nail in the coffin for anyone else. Roger brings Trina into the city to go before a judge. The judge deems that Roger and Julie cannot have the baby because they have no income. Roger makes a passionate speech about how much he and Julie love Trina and how he would do anything just to make money for Trina to stay with them. That night Roger arrives back home with Trina in his arms.

            In the present Julie changes the record to a birthday song.

            Years have passed and Trina is a little school girl. It is Julie’s birthday. Roger had Applejack make a turkey. When Julie comes home father, daughter, and friend had hoped to surprise Julie. They hide from her but she finds them around the corner of the kitchen and pretends to be happily surprised. The birthday party goes over very well everyone is happy. Trina tells her parents that she will be an angel in the school play but she is an angel who is an echo she will be carrying the moon and singing an echo. She hopes the following year she will be an angel and be able to be seen. Julie and Roger are very proud of their daughter even if she was not seen and she did trip and knock down a little bit of the scenery.

            In the present Julie changes the record for the last time.

            A few days ago Julie had sent a letter to Mrs. Oliver telling her about happier times. Three weeks before, after a brief and sudden illness Trina died. Roger and Julie now have nothing to live for and have nothing in common. They both feel like they have no love left inside of them. Before Julie started packing to leave a lady and her son had come by the apartment. The mother needed to use a phone to call for a ride since her car broke down. Her son needs to get to the Christmas play. Roger and Julie give the mother and son a ride to the same play that Trina had been in the year before.

            Roger comes back just as Julie was about to leave. The phone rings. Mrs. Oliver is on the other side. She tells Julie a little boy matching their letter from when they were first looking into adopting has come in. Again she tells Julie that another couple were supposed to have first choice but she feels the baby is special and wants them to see him. Julie tells Mrs. Oliver not to let the other couple come they will be there as soon as possible. Roger and Julie are happy again.

            Cary Grant and Irene Dunne were amazing together. I am used to seeing them in their comedies where they were silly together it was actually great seeing them in a drama. Both of them were such amazing actors in their own right and together they just lit up the screen. Dunne, for some reason, I could not get over her face. She looked absolutely gorgeous. She was forty-three years old when she made this film and she does not look a day over thirty. Grant just blew me away when Roger had to give his speech in front of the judge. I never saw him cry or be really dramatic before in a film. He was brilliant. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are one of my favorite screen pairings of all time all their films are fantastic.

            George Stevens did a great job with his direction. He really captured every emotion and every feeling of his characters especially in the scene where it was the first night the baby home and Julia and Roger are so nervous.

            Penny Serenade is a beautiful film. Even thought the story is melodramatic is was fantastic. I love the idea of how music can bring back such a flood of memories both good and bad. It let Julie remember how good her life was even through the sad moments. Music should be considered a powerful emotion! I cannot understand how this film is not more well known and celebrated. If you love film, Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and do not mind a soapy melodramatic story absolutely watch Penny Serenade. 

Talk of the Town (1942)

“What is the law? It's a gun pointed at somebody's head. All depends upon which end of the gun you stand, whether the law is just or not.”

            When I read the summary for Talk of the Town I was expecting the film to be a long straight forward drama. I should have known a bit better since Jean Arthur one of the funniest classic actresses and Cary Grant are in the film together… although they had made the drama Only Angels Have Wings which was not that great. Anyway, honestly I watched the film mostly because I was looking for something different to watch and I found it on Youtube and I wanted to watch it before it disappeared. I had an excellent time watching Talk of the Town it was a perfect mix of seriousness and comedy.

            The film begins with a fire at a factory and a man dying in the fire. The fire and the death are immediately blamed on Leopold Dilg (Grant). Leopold escapes from jail. He evades the police long enough to run to the home of a woman he had grown up with. Nora Shelley (Arthur) was at her former house that she and her mother are renting out to someone the next day when Leopold shows up. She is not happy to see him but has no choice to keep him in the house after he collapses from running and the pain in his ankle.

            Not long after there is a knock on the door. Nora rushes Leopold to the attic. Standing outside is the renter a law professor named Michael Lightcap (Ronald Coleman). Nora keeps Michael outside for a few minutes to allow Leopold to get to the attic. She is freaking out a little bit because Michael was not supposed to be at the house until the following day. All Michael wants is to go to sleep he is very tired. He tells Nora not to slam the door on her way out but she slams the door and runs back upstairs to Leopold. When Michael wakes up in the middle of the night for another blanket he sees Nora is still in the house. She tells him that she and her mother have had a fight and she had planned to stay the night to give her some space from her mother. Michael gives her pajamas to sleep in. During the rest of the night Leopold can be heard snoring very loudly in the attic. Michael thinks the snoring is coming from Nora and tells her in the morning.

            In the morning Leopold’s lawyer comes to the house explaining that Leopold was set up for the fire and the murder the owner of the factory hated him. Michael does not want anything to do with the case he is on vacation to write a book. At this point everyone and their mother comes to the house either reporters or furniture movers or the police. When everyone leaves Nora tells Michael she can be his stenographer and cook so she can stay in the house for Leopold. He reluctantly agrees.

            One day as Michael was dictating a letter to Nora outside she sees Leopold come downstairs from the attic looking for food. He cannot help but put in his two cents about law and philosophy. Nora quickly pulls herself together telling Michael that Leopold is the gardener Joseph. The same day the senator comes by the house to tell Michael that the President of the United States has named him (Michael) as a judge of the Supreme Court. All he has to do is stay out of the papers.

            As the days go by Leopold and Michael become very good friends. He has Nora take Michael places to see how corrupt the town is with their views on Leopold. The judge of the case already has his mind made up that Leopold is guilty without hearing the evidence. The police get a tip that Leopold is at Nora’s house after Michael and Nora order food from a deli of something only he gets. Michael finds out who Leopold really is but when he goes to call the police Leopold punches him out.

            To make a very long story short Michael and Nora help to get the man who was supposed to be dead and expose the corrupt judge as well as the factory owner.

            I loved the way Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Coleman all worked together they were excellent. You can tell they all got along (well I hope they got along it seems like they did) and had good chemistry. I like seeing Cary Grant play a seemingly bad guy but turns out to be good. That did not work too well for him in Suspicion but that aspect works very well for him here. Jean Arthur was a panic. She was a neurotic mess. She was the comedic break of the film. I was cracking up when she woke up the morning after Leopold and Michael came to the house and she was in Michael’s pajamas. She was looking at herself in the mirror and doing a little act that was so cute and hysterical. The whole scene where she is in Michael’s pajamas was adorable everyone kept commenting. Ronald Coleman was just charming and sweet. I can listen to the man talk all day he is the kind of actor that can make the phone book sound interesting. Coleman was in his fifties by this time and he did not look like it at all he was still incredibly handsome.

            Talk of the Town while a little long and drawn out in some parts especially at the end was very good and very entertaining. The story was not bad at all. The characters and the actors were perfect. Talk of the Town is still on Youtube so watch it if you can before it gets taken down.

 

Gunga Din (1939)

"Though I've belted you and flayed you / By the living God that made you / You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din." 

Gunga Din, based very loosely on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, was the second highest grossing film of 1939 behind Gone with the Wind. Although not as epic and awesome as Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din is still an excellent film and I can see why it made so much money. It is a mix of drama, comedy, action, and suspense. Also it has an excellent cast with Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, Victor McLagen, and Sam Jaffe.

            In Imperial India the British army is having issues with the resurgence of the evil Thugee cult who worship the blood goddess Kali and go on murderess rampages. A whole village was wiped out by this group. The colonel sends his best sergeants- Cutter, MacChesney, and Ballantine- to inspect the village. The sergeants are more like school children when we are first introduced to them. Cutter (Cary Grant) bought a map to some buried treasure but then found out they were swindled. MacChesney (Victor McLagen) and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) join in on the fight.

            The three sergeants arrive at the village. All is quiet and eerily still. Soldiers that had been assigned to posts either on roof tops or cliff tops disappears by the hands of Thugee assassins. Ballantine finds a group of Thugees hiding in a building. At first everything is under control until more of the assassins come and a small battle breaks out. The three friends make it out of the battle unharmed.

            Once back at headquarters Ballantine tells his friends that in a few days when his time in the army is over he is getting married and working in the tea business. MacChesney and Cutter are not happy about this news whatsoever and give Ballantine a very hard time. They see Ballantine being affectionate to his fiancé Emmy (Joan Fontaine) in the street and they just stare him down until they move around the building. At their engagement party Cutter and MacChesney get the replacement officer sick so Ballantine will have to go back to the village with them the next day. Their plan works and neither Ballantine nor Emmy is very happy.

            On the last day of Ballantine’s duty as a soldier, Cutter is thrown into the brig when he tries to get MacChesney to follow Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe) to a palace made of gold. MacChesney went through the same thing before with the map and wants none of Cutter’s nonsense but Cutter is drunk and keeps annoying MacChensey so he gets thrown in the brig. Gunga Din is friends with Cutter and with the help of an elephant name Annie gets Cutter out of his cell. Din takes Cutter to the palace of gold which happens to be the headquarters for the Thugee cult. Cutter creates a distraction while Din gets away to tell MacChesney and Ballantine they found the Thugee’s leader and hide out.

            Instead of bringing the whole cavalry only Ballantine and MacChesney arrive to save their friend. They are held hostage by the Guru of the cult on the roof top. He tells the three men that he is their shield without them they will die and also of his plans for when their regiment comes to rescue them. He plans a surprise attack by his highly skilled mountain fighters. The regiment draws closer and closer. Gunga Din and Cutter have been stabbed and MacChesney and Ballantine have had their mouths gagged. Gunga Din with the little strength that he has finds a bugle and sounds the signal for the regiment to get into fighting mode.

            The English army winds the victory and puts an end to the cult. Gunga Din died when he was shot down on the tower as he was blowing the bugle. The colonel posthumously makes Gunga Din a corporal and gives him full military burial and recognition for his heroic deeds.

            Grant, Fairbanks, and McLagen were excellent together. They were each funny and entertaining. Cary Grant was hilarious he put on his cockney accent and was such a nut. McLagen I do not believe I have ever in a film before this he was good but he was the tough guy who ran the regiment. Fairbanks was so handsome. I liked him as the straight man. Joan Fontaine was barely in the film but she was adorable. It is funny to see Fontaine in her early films in the thirties because she looks and sounds so much like her sister and after the thirties you cannot even tell they are sisters they changed so much in appearance (yet another parallel with the sisters: Olivia was in Gone with the Wind which was the highest grossing film of the year and Joan was in the second highest grossing film of the year). Sam Jaffe was of Jewish decent but he pulled off playing an Indian very well. His performance borders on the cute to the really creepy. The creepy coming from the brown makeup the makeup department put on him as well as some of his faces.

            Gunga Din is a great entertaining film I enjoyed sitting through it so much. Gunga Din is without a doubt one of the best films to have been released in 1939.