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. 

Hard to Get (1938)

“Ah, your little games beginning to backfire on you?”

            Maggie Richards (Olivia de Havilland) is a rich spoiled young woman. Her mother and younger sister are leaving for vacation in Connecticut. Maggie does not want to go she wants to stay in the city. Her mother and sister are a terrible annoyance. The mother calls for the father. The father puts in foot down a few minutes that neither he nor Maggie will be joining them on vacation. But it is not long before the father lets the mother walk all over him and makes him tell Maggie she must go. In a fit Maggie races out of the out of the house and jumps in her chauffer’s car and leaves.

            Maggie comes to a gas station to fill up the car. She does not have any money on her so she asks the attendant to put the payment on credit and send the bill to her father. The owner of the station Bill Davis (Dick Powell) comes out. He does not believe a word Maggie says because she does not have any ID on her. She tries to get away but winds up backing up into a truck. Maggie gets out of the car to argue some more but Bill picks her up and carries her into one of the stop’s motel rooms to make her clean to repay her debt. Again Maggie tries to run away this time by jumping out one of the windows but  Bill catches her trying to go out. Eventually Maggie cleans all the rooms and goes home. As soon as she gets home she tells her father what happened to her and wants Bill fired since the station uses oil from the company the father owns. Much to Maggie’s displeasure her father sides with Bill on his course of action to make Maggie pay. He feels his daughter has been too sheltered and has had everything taken care of for her. She has to work this problem out for herself.

            The next day Maggie goes back to the station. She flirts with Bill and lets go of trying to tell him she is rich. He asks her to go out with him sometime maybe later that night thinking she works at night. She lets him think that and agrees to go out with him. On their date Maggie keeps giving Bill her Fifth Avenue address but quickly comes up with the story that she works as a maid in the house. At dinner Bill tells her that he wants to open up a chain of gas stations with motels across the country. Maggie comes up with the idea to ask her “employer” Mr. Richards. She gives Bill a nickname she said she has overheard people calling him as a way of getting in to see him without an appointment.

            Bill goes to see Mr. Richards with his plans the following day. He gets into the office pretty smoothly but the meeting does not go as Bill had hoped it would. As Bill is trying to tell Mr. Richards of his plans the rich man does not listen and goes on trying to wrestle his butler (throughout the film Mr. Richards and the butler play sports and other games and bet for money. He usually winds up losing). Mr. Richards sends Bill over to someone else named Atwater jut to get rid of him. Atwater and some of his employees give Bill a hard time. But Bill is determined and keeps going back to Atwater until he is heard.

            Bill goes back to Mr. Richards to say that he could not get in to see Mr. Atwater. He asks Bill where he heard his nickname from in the first place. Bill replies that his (Mr. Richard’s) maid Maggie told him. He knows his daughter set up the whole meeting and has Bill come over for dinner that night. Maggie dresses up as the maid and the actual maid, Hattie, to be the daughter. After dinner Maggie and Bill go out to Central Park for a boat ride and of, course, she really falls in love with him. When Maggie gets home she tells her father that she loves Bill and what she should do. He advises his daughter to tell Bill the truth.

            At Atwater’s office, Bill overhears there will be a party at Atwater’s apartment that night and sees that as his way in to show his plans. He finds Atwater, along with Mr. Richards and a few other men, in a room and they are all talking about him. Maggie walks in the room. He is upset about everything and walks out leaving his plans behind. Mr. Richards and Atwater see something in Bill’s plans. Now both rich business men are interested in Bill’s plans.

            The days and weeks go on. Bill lost his job at the gas station since he was always in the city and now has a new job as a riveter. Since their tactics are not working on an individual level, Mr. Richards and Atwater partner up and come to terms with Bill over his chain of gas stations. He agrees to their terms just as long as he never has to see Maggie again. Bill begins working on his new plans on the station he previously worked for. Maggie comes by to try to apologize. She brings her father along as well as a judge to marry them. At first Bill does not want to marry Maggie until her mother and sister come and create a giant fuss. They get married to make her mother furious. Maggie and Bill really do love each other and get married inside a motel room to keep the mother out.

            Hard to Get was alright. I always love seeing Olivia de Havilland in comedy movies since I am so used to seeing her in dramas. The woman really could play any kind of part and be fantastic. Dick Powell is underrated he was also very good at comedy and in the films I have seen him in he never went over the top with his comedy he played it just right. Hard to Get is not the best from either actor. I only suggest watching Hard to Get if you are a fan of either Olivia de Havilland or Dick Powell.  

She's Got Everything (1937)

With classic films there is always one guarantee: the main actress and actor will come together at the end despite whatever obstacles come their way. Sometimes that plot gets a little tedious to watch over and over again especially with comedies. With comedies things can get too silly and too out of hand with the obstacles or even the plot is too much and too silly. She’s Got Everything is one of those types of comedies.

            Carol Rogers (Ann Sothern) has just come back from Europe to find her house in complete chaos. Her father has just died and all the people he owed money to from the grocer to the dressmakers to the furniture store are all packed in her house taking their things back. She scares them out of the house so she can be alone. Carol tells her aunt Jane (Helen Broderick) that she wants to get a job so she can start paying some people back. She feels bad that she never asked her father if he needed help instead she ran off to Europe.

            A man named Waldo Eddington (Victor Moore)snuck into the house and stayed when everyone else left. He talks to Jane about a rich miner in South America that was crazy about Carol but she did not like him. Waldo owned some horses that her father had kept and wants her to marry the miner so he can be paid as well. To do this, he says, they must get backing from a few people just so that Carol has some money.  Jane likes the idea but neither of them want to tell Carol of their plan. Waldo goes to three of the people who the father owed money to and they are suckered into giving five hundred dollars each.

            Waldo puts in a call to Fuller Partridge (Gene Raymond) who owns a coffee company. He wants to sell one of the horses to him but Fuller does not want a horse. Fuller happens to mention he needs a secretary and this gives Waldo the idea to tell him about Carol. Carol gets the job as Fuller’s new secretary. One of her job requirements is that she will have to test the coffee the company makes so Fuller can have an idea of what women think of it. The only problem Carol hates coffee. After her taste testing Fuller takes Carol out for a walk in the park. It starts to rain and he immediately comes down with a cold. Over a few days she helps him to get better.

            A few days later at work Carol faints. A doctor tells her and Fuller that she is overworked and underfed. She needs a vacation. Fuller sends her away for a while to get better. The three backers follow Carol, Waldo, and Jane on their vacation. Waldo finds out that Fuller is worth more than the minor and now their plans change to trying to bring Fuller and Carol together. Waldo calls Fuller with the story that Carol is so sick she is delusional and keeps asking for him. Now the problem is trying to get Carol to look delusional and sick and call out Fuller’s name. He happened to meet an illusionist and hypnotist. The hypnosis does not work on Carol but it does somehow work on Jane.

            Waldo and Jane have fun dancing and spending time together. He wants to marry her but that all changes when he reads the newspapers the next morning and thinks Carol was just setting him up. Instead of coming straight out with the situation with her, Fuller tries to get her to be the one who walks away. He orders weird things for breakfast, wants to buy her clothes and picks the ugliest ones, and even goes out in the rain and gets them both a little sick. She gets fed up with him and he finally tells her what is wrong. Carol swears she had nothing to do with what was said in the papers. When he gets back to the hotel Fuller sees Waldo talking to the press and realizes he is the one who spilled to the papers.

            Waldo explains everything to Fuller. Fuller tries to call Carol to talk to her bust she does not want to. He goes to her house and asks her to marry him. She says yes but she is not too happy. The next day Carol leaves Fuller jilted at the altar which was her plan the whole time. He finds out that Carol and Jane are leaving for Europe. He manages to get his trucks to block the car Carol is in and needless the say that they fall back in love and get married.

            She’s Got Everything was alright. This was a B movie for RKO. It was made very well and the cast was very good. You can tell the story was definitely a subpar B movie story. Ann Sothern was wonderful she is always a delight to see in a film. Gene Raymond just does nothing for me but I will say he was better and more entertaining than in some of his other films I have seen. Helen Broderick and Victor Moore are hilarious together. I did not really like the characters of Fuller, Waldo, and Jane. I found them annoying. They were all using and wanting Carol for their own purposes and that I did not like… probably because I like Ann Sothern a lot and I did not like seeing her taken advantage of. The entire plot got too out of hand with the supporting characters they were too silly and, I felt, barely moved the story along.  She’s Got Everything I only suggest watching if you like Ann Sothern or the other three leads.