Rich Man Poor Girl (1938)

Every girl dreams of finding a rich man that will love her unconditionally… well, let’s face it we dream about marrying a rich man for the money and if there is love well that is a bonus! Haha. Rich Man Poor Girl kind of takes the whole poor-girl-pining-for-the-rich-man- scenario and flips it around to the rich man pining for the poor girl.

            Joan Thayer (Ruth Hussey) is secretary to Bill Harrison (Robert Young). She is going away on vacation for a few days. Bill tells her the office might as well close without her there she runs everything so smoothly. He offers to take her on vacation on his boat up the coast to his place where his sister is currently staying. Joan tells him thanks for the offer but she wants to go away in her own.

            Joan’s cousin Henry (Lew Ayres), her sister Helen (Lana Turner), her parents, and brother go to see her off at the train station but she does not show up on time. She comes and tells everyone she is not ready to leave the office yet it is too busy at the moment.

            Bill asks Joan to marrying him. He wants to get married that night. Joan agrees and she goes home to tell her family. Helen is excited and so are her parents. Henry hates authority and especially hates the idea of Joan marrying the boss. She tells them Bill is coming over to pick her up and to meet them. The house is totally crazy when Bill arrives but he likes every one of them. Joan has second thoughts about getting married in a hurry. She would love to run away with Bill but she loves her family. Joan decides to ease him into her family and her family to him. She wants to get to know him outside of the office.

            The next day Bill talks to Joan’s mother. Her mother tells him how her husband came up to where she lived when they were young and slept in a spare room at her house. This story gives Bill the idea to stay their place to get used to them. Joan wants him to leave that night she thinks he thinks the whole thing is a joke. Bill tries to spend the night. It is hot and noisy for him in the small apartment. He leaves a note inviting them all out on his boat that afternoon. The entire family thinks Bill has a large yacht and get all dressed up. When they get to the dock they are disappointed to see he has a small sailboat.

            The mother told Bill that Henry would love to go on an adventure. Bill sends Henry down to Brazil through a company. Henry is beyond thrilled and excited to be going down to Brazil. At his going away party Henry finds out the head of the company knows Bill. Now he does not want to take the job.

            At work Bill asks Joan to give him reports on his accounts. Joan is upset he never came to their apartment. Later that night Bill’s sister Sally goes to see Joan. She tells the family that Bill is planning on giving up his money all because Henry talked to him about the middle class. The whole family is upset especially Helen because she does not want to stay where she is socially. Sally has the family come with her to her house she tells them it is important. They pull up to a big house. Bill comes out. The whole thing was a trick. He wanted to open a hardware place with Joan’s father and wants to send her brother to aviation school. Sally will take on Helen as a bit of a project. Bill gives Ma his sailboat since she had such a great time on it.

            Joan is taken with Bill’s kindness and genuine love for her family.

            I loved the cast. Ruth Hussey and Robert Young are such underrated actors. I liked them together. They looked like normal people. They were not the typical flashy screen stars of classic Hollywood at this time they were both just second tier actors. Both their characters had a good heart and were smart. I really liked how Joan did not throw herself at Bill she was smart and wanted to get to know her boss as more than a boss. And also how her family came first but did not run her life. I would want to be like Joan if I were to ever (never) be in her situation. Lana Turner was so unbelievably adorable I could not even take it. She was hilarious. Turner looked great with her natural brunette hair, I am not a fan of her platinum blonde hair she sported for the rest of her career. Lew Ayres’s character sounded like a communist. He hated authority and democracy. Henry was a good character I think he represented the feelings of most of America at the time.

            Rich Man Poor Girl is a very cute and enjoyable film. It is not the best film any of the actors were in but they all did a fantastic job. Rich Man Poor Girl is not available to view on Youtube nor is it on DVD. I caught this on TCM quite a long time ago so keep an eye out for it on the channel.

 

Remember? (1939)

Through my travels of watching films from all decades I have seen some really good ones that I have loved and obsess over and then there have been some where I ask what on earth were the writers and producers thinking this is so bad. Proving that not every film released in 1939 was a huge success MGM released the film Remember? with two of their biggest stars Greer Garson and Robert Taylor.

            Sky Ames (Lew Ayres) comes back from vacation engaged. His friend Jeff (Taylor) is not happy with Sky for leaving him behind. Sky takes Jeff out to lunch with Linda (Garson) his fiancée. Linda is waiting for them in the lobby of a hotel. Jeff just stares at her. He thinks she is beautiful and wants to marry her that day. Jeff tricks Sky into going back to his office to be alone with Linda. No one knows where Linda has gone. Her parents are waiting for her at their house to throw her a party. Her mother tells Sky Linda called saying she was with Jeff. Linda and Jeff finally arrive at the party. During a fox hunt the next day Jeff and Linda get caught kissing. Sky is not really mad at Linda he actually says it was alright for her to do that to get Jeff out of her mind. Jeff says the Linda that they should put Sky out their minds.

            Back in the city Jeff has Linda meet him at his office. She was supposed to say the time and he would know what that means and he would stop everything to be with her. Jeff completely forgets. She gets upset but he tells her he just has to see someone before they can run off together. Of course he does not get out when he says he will and Linda is ready to leave by herself. And of course Jeff shows up right on time for them to run away together and elope somewhere.

            When they arrive back in New York City Linda invites Sky over. She tells Sky that she and Jeff are now married and that she still wants the three of them to be friends. Before Jeff and Linda go away for a honeymoon her parents hold a surprise party for her. Her mother has everyone hide to surprise Linda and wants them to come out when she says a specific word. Jeff starts talking about all their friends he cannot stand and they are all hiding listening to everything. Jeff gets a call to go into town to meet with a client. Linda does not want him to go and he does anyway. And big shock they get a divorce.

            Sky works for Jeff’s important client Mr. McIntyre. McIntyre has come up with a serum that makes people forget. He gives the serum to Linda and Jeff thinking he could get back Linda before Jeff took her. They forget everything that happened in the past six months. Jeff thinks he is back when Sky returns home from his vacation and Linda still thinks she is engaged to Sky. Sky makes the same mistake having Jeff and Linda meet exactly the same way they met the last time.

            Linda and Jeff go to get married again and get pulled by the same cop that pulled them over the first time they got married. The cop thinks they are crazy and takes them to judge again.

            I cannot believe Louis B. Mayer put Greer Garson in a film like this. According to IMDB Garson became so popular with the release of Goodbye Mr. Chips that Mayer rushed her into this film to capitalize on her. Garson, no actress for that matter, did not deserve to be put into a film like this. She was so talented and this film was so beneath her talent. I feel even worse for Lew Ayres and Robert Taylor. They did not deserve to be in a film like this either. Despite the story all three actors did a good job with what they were given. I wish all three of them could have been in a better film together.

            Remember? flopped at the box office and is today a forgotten film. I do not blame anyone for forgetting this. It is very unimpressive with a story that was even silly for the time. 

These Glamour Girls (1939)

I seriously hate girls. The worse kind of girls who walk around like the whole world is theirs and that they can walk all over people. Those are the kind of girls who have never had to work a day in their lives and do not appreciate anything because whatever they want is handed to them. They are the girls who have no obstacles in their lives and when one comes along they are the nastiest, most vile creatures on the face of the earth. Why girls have to torture and be bitches to one another boggles my mind. I am a girl who is never jealous of another girl and I work my ass off for everything. I would not want it any other way I am proud of the way my life is.

            I do not usually like films like These Glamour Girls because they show girls/women being awful to each other and being so cruel to someone who does not run in their circles nor has a lot of money. The girl who is outside the circle is being treated cruelly; to me it is unjust. But I found myself really liking Lana Turner’s character and that made the film more bearable.

            Phil Griswold (Lew Ayres) is a college boy at the fictional Kingsford College who has had life handed to him. His father has a load of money so all he has to worry about is partying and his social status. He and two of his college buddies go to NYC for the weekend. They go to a place where dances with women are a few cents each. They go into the dance hall plastered and cause some trouble. Phil dances with a beautiful girl named Jane Thomas (Lana Turner).

            After Phil gets kicked out of the hall he and Jane share a taxi. On the ride back to her place he asks her to come to Kingsford’s infamous house party. All the girls of upper society are looking forward to it they all have their dates with the college boys so their lives are set for the year. Jane is thrilled and tells Phil she will be there. The only problem is Phil has already asked a girl who he has known for years to go to the house party.

            That weekend Jane shows up at Kingsford and Phil does not remember meeting her for a moment. When he remembers he tells Jane it was a mistake that he was drunk when he asked her. She wants to go home but he tells her to stay he will make up for it. Instead of spending the night with his girlfriend Phil spends it with Jane (his girlfriend does not mind one bit she has another flame). The two have a fabulous time. One of the evil queen bees lets it be known her information that she knows Jane is a taxi dancer. Jane confidently but with tears forming says yes she is a taxi dancer and dances with her are ten cents. After that she is the hit of the whole night.

            The next day the social girls are all jealous that Jane was the hit of the night. They get their claws out and dig in deep.

            It is a shame that there were/are women like this who all they care about is their social status and money. The only reason Phil ends up with Jane is because his father has been charged in a fraud scheme within his company. He now has no social standing so he gets with the girl from Kansas with no social standing… asshole. The girls were after the college boys because they knew their families had money. I felt terrible for this one character Betty who was older than most of the girls and had been attending the house parties for the past five years and never found a boyfriend. She is like one of those ladies today who thinks she is twenty years old and looks really pathetic but in reality this girl was probably like twenty-four and these girls were looking at her like she was an old maid (shit, I am twenty-four with no boyfriend, a BA degree in Art History that is useless, and I work as a hostess making less than minimum wage… what does this make me?). In the end the girls’ cruelness and the rejection from one of the boys she spends the weekend makes her commit suicide. Girls, man, they really are killer.

            Jane Hall, who wrote the story the film is based on, spent her teens going up and down the east coast to parties like this where she was with snotty society girls. Hall found great inspiration she created a great story even if it is annoying at times to show how cruel society could be which is the point. She wrote with a great wit and a great pace.

            Before this I had never seen Lana Turner in a film. I really liked her I thought she was adorable as Jane. She was not over dramatic or commanded pity, she was a tough girl who knew where she came from and was not a shamed about that. Lew Ayres was so charming and cute. He was thirty when he made this film (Turner was eighteen!!) so he was a little too old to be playing a college boy, you can kind of see that if you look hard enough. The rest of the cast alright mostly because hated their characters. It seems like MGM needed as many girls as possible so they just picked from their large stock of background actresses as well as actors. Turner and Ayres are the only really known names in the film (or the ones I know anyway).

            These Glamour Girls is not a film I would immediately suggest watching. It was alright. I got pissed off at the girls which distracted me from the rest of the film. Lana Turner was adorable and very good so I got something out of it at least. 

The Dark Mirror (1946)



Like many films during and after World War WII the plot of The Dark Mirror deals with psychology and how the mind drives someone to snap and do something with great consequences.

            A doctor is found murdered in his apartment. Witnesses who saw the doctor leave that night tell detective Lt. Stevenson that he left with a woman named Ruth Collins. Lt. Stevenson has these witnesses go to the office building and identify Ruth who works behind a newspaper counter. Each witness identifies her as the woman who left with the doctor. When Ruth is told the doctor died the previous night she cannot believe what she hears and faints.

            Lt. Stevenson takes Ruth home and discovers she has a twin named Terry. Each twin has an alibi for the night before which are later confirmed and solid. The case does not go to court because it would be made a mockery with no solid evidence against either woman. Lt. Stevenson is convinced that one of the twins is guilty of the murder. He talks to a psychologist he knows, Dr. Scott Elliot, who specializes in the study of twins.

            As Dr. Elliot conducts his tests of ink blots, word association, and more we can see the mind frame of each twin: Ruth is sweet and nervous and light; Terry is cool and disturbed.  Dr. Elliot begins to fall in love with Ruth. Terry knows what is going on between them and becomes very jealous. The doctor begins to see that Terry is jealous of Ruth and has always been from stories each sister has told him of their childhood. At one of their sessions Dr. Elliot gives Terry a lie detector test. Whenever he asks Terry about Ruth and she says her sister’s name her blood pressure rises creating a spike on the detector.

            Terry starts to slowly torment her sister telling Ruth she has been having bad nightmares and yelling out in her sleep and that she should be take more sleeping pills so she can sleep restfully. Quite possibly the cruelest mind tease Terry pulls is flashing a light in Ruth’s direction for many nights waking her up in a paranoid panic. Terry tells her sister there was no light she must be going crazy.

            Dr. Elliot reports to Lt. Stevenson that Ruth is in real danger of Terry driving her to insanity or worse murdering her.

            The psychological aspect of this film is very interesting. Many films during this time period dealt with the issues of psychology and what can make someone a murderer or make them go insane. The psychological differences between Ruth and Terry added a good touch of suspense and interest. We waited to see what mean, calculating move Terry would pull to fool everyone around her. We want Ruth to get away from her manipulative sister before she goes out of her mind and be saved before it is too late. The evilness of one woman and the paranoia of the other creates the suspense and the drama. 

            For the first few scenes where Olivia de Havilland is both twins in the same scene all you can think of is “how on earth did they pull this off in 1946?” I had a good time picking out her stand-in when the camera was filming de Havilland from the front and the other twin from behind. A few scenes when Ruth and Terry are talking to each other and the one is filmed in the mirror and the other is filmed talking to the other in front of the mirror, that was a really cool effect (for some reason I like mirror shots though).

            Olivia de Havilland was excellent playing the twins and creating their opposite personalities. For each character she changed her voice: for Terry her tone was harder and for Ruth her tone was gentler. Even in body language de Havilland used subtle but very good actions: Terry had a coldness to her you can see her coolness in her facial expressions and she smoked; Ruth had a softness with a bit of a tense nervousness that showed in her eyes and the way she carried herself. Before watching The Dark Mirror I was a bit on the fence on how I felt about de Havilland’s acting since I had only seen her in period films like Gone with the Wind and My Cousin Rachel I can now say I like her as an actress after seeing her fantastic range as Terry and Ruth and in a modern setting. It is hard not to think of the possibility that de Havilland playing Terry might have been thinking of her real sister Joan Fontaine and all the jealousy and hate between them (the two sisters apparently have not talked to each other since the '70s)

            I had never seen Lew Ayres in a film before. He was not bad as Dr. Scott Elliot, I found him to be a good actor I would not mind seeing him in another film. He had the look of a doctor. This was actually his second film back after serving as a medic during World War II and in both films he was a doctor.

            Robert Siodmak is a fabulous director. He captured every tick each character had and all their essential emotions.

            The Dark Mirror is a very good Noir. Once you get a sense for who the twins are as characters you can guess which one could have committed the murder and is the disturbed one. The mystery is simple and is tied up nicely like all films had to be back then. What makes The Dark Mirror a top notch Noir is the acting by Olivia de Havilland and Siodmak’s direction.