The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937)

I love stories that have to do with espionage. It all started with the TV show Alias back in the day. Since then I have seen most of the James Bond films and plenty of other spy films. I just love how this one person and their entire world work in secrecy. They have to become different characters all the time. Sometimes what they do is for the good of people. That is how it always seems in classic films to me anyway. In classic films that deal with espionage usually it is a man who works for his country or for the good of his people to overcome some bad guys. He is only thwarted in his plans by a woman who works for the bad guys. She seduces him and he gives up the plans. I just realized I have described the plot of Mata Hari with Greta Garbo and Ramon Navarro but that is how most classic spy stories seem to me. The Emperor’s Candlesticks from 1937 starts off cleverly enough and almost like Mata Hari but it is in no way strong like the previous film and definitely not as entertaining.

            The film begins at a masquerade ball at an opera house. The Grand Duke Peter (Robert Young) is in attendance as Romeo. They go into an opera box on the lower level. Several girls come over to his box but he is looking for one girl in particular, his Juliet (Maureen O’Sullivan). She comes into the box but is quickly ushered out by Suroff who does not want anyone else in there with them for fear something might happen to Peter. With Suroff standing outside the door the girl comes back around and talks to Peter. He jumps down and they begin to dance. Soon she has the Grand Duke follow her to a house. Once inside Peter is taken prisoner.

            Peter is brought before a group of men who want to ransom him for a man who is working for their freedom. The man is the father of Maria Orlich, Peter’s Juliet. They have written a letter as Peter to his father the Czar of Russia about the kidnapping and to release Orlich. The letter is then given to a man named Baron Stephen Wolensky (William Powell). The baron has fifteen days to get the letter to the Czar.

            Countess Olga Mironova (Luise Rainer) is a young woman with multiple social connections throughout Vienna. She is told that Baron Wolensky is Polish Agent # 14, an agent who has been a problem for some time. Through a superior she is given the orders to stop Wolensky from delivering a letter to the Czar.

            Someone Stephen knows shows him two candlesticks that were supposed to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. The story is that just before she was about to be sent to her death she wrote a letter to some relatives in Vienna and hid them in the candlestick in a secret compartment. Stephen hides the letter in one of them. Just as he is leaving the building Olga comes in. The same man shows her another candlestick just like the one he had shown Stephen. Olga tells the man she wants one to give to the queen.

            Stephen finds out that Olga is also a spy. He has his train car changed but he finds out that night that Olga had gotten on a train the day before. The candlesticks get switched out and stolen by Olga’s maid and the maid’s boyfriend. When his train stops at a station he sees a notice that Olga’s valuables have been stolen and that there is a reward for whoever stole them. He throws his stuff off of the moving train and looks for her. When he finds her Stephen tells Olga about the candlesticks how they have the same ones and that they mean a lot to him. She tells him about her maid taking all her belongings. Stephen offers to stay with her and protect her and whatever valuables she has left. Not long later the police come to tell Olga that they caught the boyfriend but he is not telling them where anything is. They do not realize that the maid knows where the candlesticks are. That night Stephen and Olga go out to dinner. They just talk until they get back to their hotel.

            Stephen tracks down the maid. She does not say much but she gets an idea where the candlesticks could be. Olga sees Stephen leaving the hotel and has her carriage follow his. They find out from a pawnbroker that the candlesticks had been sold to someone in Paris. Stephen and Olga find the candlesticks at an auction house in Paris and purchase them together by pooling their cash together. They each take their candlesticks back to their own rooms. Stephen finds Olga’s note in the one he has taken. Olga comes to the room and reads the letter. She loves Peter she does not want anything to happen to him.

            The men who have Peter want to do something with him. Maria tells them to wait until they hear from Stephen. The note setting Orlich free reaches the Czar.

            Both Stephen and Olga are arrested and brought before the Czar. They should have both been killed but they saved Peter.

            The Emperor’s Candlesticks was not a great film. The story was did not seem to be very well planned out. It seems like MGM just wanted to pair Luise Rainer and William Powell together again since they were in The Great Ziegfeld together the previous year. William Powell was great. The man was never bad if his character was bad it was the fault of the writers. He made the character of Stephen work as well as he could have. Rainer I think is a terrible actress. In the few films I have seen her in she drives me crazy. I tried to like her I wanted to like her but I could not. Maureen O’Sullivan and Robert Young did well in the few scenes they were in. Frank Morgan was a panic as the nervous, paranoid aid to the Grand Duke. The Emperor’s Candlesticks was not a good espionage film. It was definitely made to be more romantic not tense or even believable. There seemed to be some plot holes but that could be down to the fact that I got bored with the film barely half way through. I only suggest seeing The Emperor’s Candlesticks if you like any of the actors other than them skip it. 

My Dear Miss Aldrich (1937)

Studios in the 1930s seemed to have a thing for making films set around the newspaper business. The most famous of the newspaper business- set films is His Girl Friday which was made in 1940. I have written about a few newspaper themed films including Headline Shooter, Picture Snatcher, and Love is a Racket, Meet John Doe, and I am sure plenty more that I am not thinking of. My Dear Miss Aldrich is a nice light comedy based around a young woman inheriting a newspaper and trying to prove she can be a reporter.

            A newspaper publisher named Thomas Hanson has died. His only relative is an old maid step-sister called Aunt Lu (Edna May Oliver) and a young niece named Martha Aldrich (Maureen O’Sullivan) who is a school teacher in Nebraska. The publisher has left his newspaper to Martha. She does not know the first thing about running a newspaper but she is excited to see how the business works and especially because she gets to move to New York City.

            Ken Morley (Walter Pidgeon) is the newspaper’s top reporter. He is not at all happy about Martha taking over the paper. When Martha and Aunt Lu walk Thomas Hanson’s office Ken thinks Aunt Lu is Martha. He gets very nervous until he sees Martha and is relieved. Martha, Aunt Lu, and Ken are invited to dinner at the governor’s house. All through dinner Ken cannot keep his eyes off of Martha. The governor tells her how Ken does not have a modern view of women. Ken is not crazy about them especially one running his newspaper. Ken tries to tell Martha haw the male readers would not like to read a newspaper run by a woman.

            Ken has been trying to find out if a queen of a foreign country is expecting a baby. It is only a rumor and every paper in the city has been trying to get the real story. No matter his tactics Ken cannot get any information. Martha asks him why he did not just call the queen at the hotel she is staying at. He thinks it is a stupid idea the queen will not answer the phone and just talk to someone she does not know, she probably will not even be the one to pick up the phone. Martha picks up the phone, calls the queen, the queen confirms the story, and she even has Martha send over a reporter to speak with her. Since this task was so easy Martha begs Ken to make her a reporter.

            Martha goes to a wedding of her friend’s. A rival newspaper happens to get the story before her paper and even mentions her name. Ken is furious with her and yells at her. Martha is so upset she goes out and buys a new hat. While at the store she sees a woman, Mrs. Sinclair,  whose husband is part of a large strike that happening. Ken is chasing that story. Mrs. Sinclair tells the salesgirl that she must have the hat by six o’clock that night. Martha pretends to be a salesgirl to speak to Mrs. Sinclair. Unfortunately Mrs. Sinclair knows who Martha is.

            Martha was following a lead that took her to a building. In her snooping she gets hit on the head and faints. When she wakes up she sees the Sinclairs leaving through the backdoor into a car to leave town. She gets a car and a driver and follows the Sinclairs. Aunt Lu and Ken go looking for Martha. They track her down to the building. Aunt Lu has a maid take her downstairs to look for a trunk. She finds a piece of her puzzle there where Martha had thrown it.

            Martha follows the Sinclairs down to a hotel. She hears people talking about the strike. Mrs. Sinclair hears Martha is around and invites her in. Martha sees Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Talbot, who is also part of the strike, talking over terms. All three tie Martha up so they can get away. Ken and Aunt Lu find out that Martha is at the hotel. Ken finds Martha but him and another reporter get knocked out.

            Now Ken, the reporter, and Aunt Lu have been tied up. Aunt Lu and Martha manage to get untied. Martha planned to leave Ken and the reporter behind until they work out a plan. They send a call to the hospital that a case of smallpox is at the hotel. They even cute the wires to the hotel so that no one makes outgoing calls. The “doctors” Ken called are two guys from the newspaper.

            Needless to say Ken has a change of heart and does not mind having Martha around at his paper.

            Maureen O’Sullivan and Walter Pidgeon seemed a little miss matched but in a way they worked very well together. Both O’Sullivan and Pidgeon were very good actors that do not get enough credit. Neither really had tremendous talent to be the leads in large films but they did a good job as leads in smaller films such as this. O’Sullivan, in the films I have seen of hers, adds some light to the films she was never really too over dramatic she was just right for her parts. Edna May Oliver gets top billing even though she is not really the focus. She was hysterical in every one of her scenes. She was quiet then all the sudden she would come out with a witty line and say it quickly. Pidgeon really did not do anything for me. He is not bad I have seen several of his films but he just does not really leave an impression on me.

            My Dear Miss Aldrich is a very funny and entertaining film. The story is good but at times it moves a little slow. The dialogue, like most 1930s newspaper film and just 1930s films in general, is sharp and quick. My Dear Miss Aldrich is not available on DVD nor is it available on Youtube. I caught the film on TCM. If the channel ever airs it again definitely watch it.

 

A Connecticut Yankee (1931)

I went into watching A Connecticut Yankee thinking it would just be a comedy with some funny lines but be a bit boring. I really did not know what to expect with this film because I never saw Will Rogers in a film before and I figured Myrna Loy (if you follow this blog at all you should know she is the reason I even sat to watch it) and Maureen O’Sullivan would be in it for like five minutes out of the whole thing if that at all. Five minutes into the film I was hooked I found Rogers so funny and as the film went on he just got funnier.

            Hank Martin (Rogers) is a radio host and electrician. He is asked by the man who lives in an old mansion on top of the hill to come and help him. Hank’s assistant refuses to go because, as he said, he was already up there four times that week and the house scares him plus it is storming out. Hank gets a little scared driving up to the house as well and becomes even more so when he enters the mansion. He is brought upstairs by a butler but is stopped in the hallway by a frightened young girl (Maureen O’Sullivan) who says that a woman is trying to kill and she has to hide. When the girl disappears Hank hears a noise coming from a suit of armor. A young man is in the suit he is looking for the girl that just ran past him. Before he can take another step a mysterious looking woman (Myrna Loy) comes to him also looking for the girl. She tells him not to be afraid of her and to look into her eyes and tell him where the girl went. He does not tell her and she too runs off.

            Hank is brought into a room with all sorts of radio equipment. He is introduced to the inventor and master of the house. The inventor has been trying to make a machine work that will be able to pick up white noise from history such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and other historical moments. Hank gets the machine working and it does seem for a moment as if the inventor has picked up on the past with King Arthur and his knights. Hank backs out slowly from the room but before he can get out a door swings open sending a suit of armor tumbling down upon him.

            When Hank comes to he is sitting against a wall with a man in a suit of armor on horseback poking him. He has been knocked back to the year 528 where King Arthur is ruler of England. He is brought in front of the King as well as Merlin. The knight who caught Hank tells the King that he looked high and low for him and had to poke him out of a tree. Merlin and the King believe Hank knows black magic. Playing a long Hank pulls out his lighter says a few words over it and lights it. Merlin convinces the King to have Hank burned at the stake the next day for his black magic. In a little pocket book his pulls out Hank finds a list of years eclipses have occurred. He asked his fellow prisoner Emile what day it is and finds that the eclipse is supposed to happen the following day. Hank comes up with a plan to get him and Emile, or Clarence as he as renamed the young man because he looks like a girl, away from the castle. Unfortunately Merlin talks the King into killing the two prisoners that day. When Hank gets to the stake a man tells him what the day is and it is the day of eclipse Clarence got the date wrong. Hank pretends he is causing the eclipse and scares the King and people into letting him go. The King knights Hank simply as The Boss after he made the eclipse disappear. As The Boss Hank begins a factory and has phones installed in the castle!

            King Arthur had sent his daughter Alisande (O’Sullivan) to live with his sister Morgan Le Fay (Loy) when she fell in love Clarence a commoner. Now Morgan says she is taking Alisande as her prisoner and will kill her unless Arthur hands over his kingdom to her. A jousting tournament is to take place. A match is set up to between Hank and the knight who captured him to fight to see who will rescue Alisande. Morgan goes to tournament in disguise to see Merlin. She sees Hank fighting the knight and is completely taken by him. Hank defeats the knight by wrangling him up like a cowboy. The knight feels he has been shamed and Merlin playing on his shame tells the knight to tell Morgan that Arthur and Hank are coming to rescue the princess.

            Morgan has her men capture Arthur and remove his beard so she can claim she does not know who he is when he is brought to her. Morgan has Arthur brought down to her dungeon and Hank changed into nice clothes and brought back to her. She basically attacks Hank trying to kiss him and be close to him but he is shy and has no idea what is going on and back away. He hears the prisoners screaming in the dungeon and gets even more frightened. Once he figures if he can be nice and play up Morgan’s love for him he can ask her to release Arthur and Alisande. Hank gets away and almost saves the King and princess but Morgan’s men catch them and she has them brought out to the gallows.

            Hank told Clarence if he was not back at a certain time to send reinforcements. Clarence sticks to the plan sending in all the cars and tanks that the factory built along with an airplane to go save them all.

            Hank wakes up in the inventor’s house. The poor inventor’s machine did not work he picked up a broadcast of The Adventures of King Arthur. Hank rushes out of mansion to his van outside. He hears voices in the back. When he stops the car and looks in the back he finds the girl and her boyfriend Clarence. She tells Hank that they want to run away and get married they could not get out of the house. Her father will not let her marry Clarence and was going to send her away with her aunt. Hank tells them where they can get married and lets them borrow his van and he walks home.

            The story and the acting got a little silly but some of the lines that Will Rogers says completely make up for those moments. I was dying laughing at some of his dialogue. When he first wakes up he asks the knight “caneth tell me where the helleth I am?” haha. When he first meets Clarence he cannot get over the poor boy’s looks. He asks Clarence “Not to be inquisitive but what is thy sex?” Just listening to some of the lines and the way he says them there is no doubt Rogers did a little ad libbing. Rogers was so funny and so enjoyable. He was a bumbling fool at the beginning but as the film went on he became more hysterical. I loved seeing how uncomfortable he was with Morgan he was like a little boy. Myrna Loy in her autobiography wrote that Rogers was shyer on set than off.

            Myrna Loy is gorgeous and adorable in her period costumes I loved the way they framed her small face. I laughed so hard when she spoke her lines as Morgan because it was so weird to see this modern 1930s woman speak this old way of speaking. This was the period in Loy’s career where she got out of playing the vamp/exotic roles but got stuck playing the mean, spoiled, bad girl. Loy had the look for that sort of role which is I am sure why the studios kept putting her in those roles. Her eyes at this time looked mean and menacing especially when they had heavy dark makeup around them. There were some scenes where all you could see were her pupils because her eyes were so light and that made added to her menacing evil character.

            Maureen O’Sullivan is barely in the film. She was nineteen years old at the time and just been brought to Hollywood from her native Ireland. At the end of the film if you did not know she was Maureen O’Sullivan you would be asking yourself who the actress is she was so young and looked so different. If you have seen enough films of her though you can tell right away it is her because of her shaky voice.

            A Connecticut Yankee is a very funny and entertaining film. The film is a far from perfect comedy but it was so much fun to sit through. A Connecticut Yankee is hard to find I found it a few months ago and saved it. If TCM ever airs it give it a watch.

 

A Yank at Oxford (1938)

Do not ask me why but one day I watched an episode of The Jersey Shore where they go to Italy (it is bad enough I live a half hour away from Sleazside- excuse me- Seaside). All I could think of was why did the Italian government allow these assholes into their country. They are the last group of people who should be allowed in a cultured place. I was so pissed off because they went to the country for free and none of them appreciated the culture or the art and architecture when someone like me who loves art and history and appreciates and respects other cultures has to pay an arm and a leg to go.

            This just proves how ignorant people can be of other cultures. I find that Americans are the worst at respecting other cultures. When you are in a foreign country you need to respect the people who live there and their customs and shut the hell up about how they think America is awesome. That drives me so insane.

            A Yank at Oxford pokes fun at Americans and their ignorance about other countries. The film is about Lee Sheridan (Robert Taylor) who is an All-American colligate athlete. His father Dan (Lionel Barrymore) does nothing but praise him in his paper and reports on Lee’s events. The college Lee is at in his small hometown does not want him there anymore since he does not do well in his classes so the dean decides to send him to Cardinal College (a fictional school) at Oxford where he happens to be friends with one of their deans. Right away Lee sees this opportunity as a way to show the Brits what Americans are made of and thinks of ways he can beat them at sports. He is given a big send off with a parade that the whole town attends.

            While taking the train to London he meets three fellow Oxford students named Paul Beaumont, Wavertree, and Ramsey. They see Lee as an American showoff and they do not like that. They play a trick on him telling him that there is a procession waiting for him at the station that he should get off at the next station. Lee agrees he does not want to make a bad impression on the other students. Before he gets off he meets Paul’s sister Molly (Maureen O’Sullivan). Lee gets off the train and finds that the school is ten miles away.

            When Lee gets to the college Paul plays another trick this time it is one that is meant to boost Lee’s too big ego. Lee sees through the trick and is upset. This starts off his rivalry with Paul that threatens to run both of them out of the college.

            The athletes begin to like Lee. He wins the track team some titles. At one race everyone sees him for the ultra competitor he is when he get taken out of a race but knocks Paul out when he feels Paul is running too slow. Molly does not like what Lee has done not just because he knocked her brother out of the race but because it was very un-sportsman-like.

            As the film goes on there is still a lot of back and forth between Lee and Paul and they actually cover for each other when each gets into big trouble. They eventually make up and become friends to help win the rowing championship against Cambridge. And Lee does end up with Molly; she and Dan help to get him out of some deep trouble. In the end Lee learns to be a team player.

            Robert Taylor was the best choice for the lead. He really did have that All-American colligate look to him. He was incredibly handsome and outrageously well built. Maureen O’Sullivan was ridiculously adorable and sweet as Molly. This is the best film I have seen her in she was not over the top she was just right. There was a very cute scene between her and Taylor in the bookstore when they talk between the bookshelves. Vivien Leigh plays Elsa Craddock who is a much younger woman married to a much older man. Elsa and her husband run the local bookstore where the students go for their books. She gets all her attention from the younger men on campus. Paul is her latest squeeze but of course she starts flirting with Lee as soon as she lays eyes on him. Leigh was a year away from playing her most famous role, in her few scenes you can just see that she had a load of star power she completely commands your attention (even if she looks awful with pencil thin eyebrows and a bad hair style). Lionel Barrymore was made to look like a little old man. He was good but I have not seen a film of his yet where he was not excellent. The rest of the cast were all well known British actors.

            Knowing that Vivien Leigh got the part of Scarlett O’Hara most likely that year there is a good part in the film: Lee is meeting with his tutor for the first time and the tutor asks him what he is reading. Lee responds that he is reading Gone With the Wind but he is only half way through it.

            A Yank at Oxford is a very cute film romantic comedy. At times the constant back and forth between Lee and Paul gets tiresome but for the most part the film is very enjoyable and very funny. Robert Taylor, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Vivien Leigh were great to see together (especially O’Sullivan and Leigh because they were good friends in real life when they were still at school in England). I liked how A Yank at Oxford poked fun of how ignorant Americans can be and how ridiculously we are obsessed with sports and being the best.