Hattie McDaniel

  • The Mad Miss Manton (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) There’s a wonderfully entertaining quality to The Mad Miss Manton that cannot be solely explained by seeing Barbara Stanwick and Henry Fonda in their first co-starring appearance—although it helps. No, the sheer scene-by-scene interest of the film has more to do with its ridiculously likable atmosphere, with 1930s Manhattan socialites running around solving murders and falling in love as if there wasn’t anything more important going around. (One day, I’ll try to figure out why I’m a wealth-redistribution advocate who nonetheless loves Classic Hollywood depictions of the idle rich, but not today.) There’s nothing funnier here than seeing Stanwyck’s queen-bee character running around with seven (!) socialite butterflies following her as a Greek chorus of commentary—and often taking on Fonda’s journalistic protagonist as the target of their patter. But murders are the plot justification of this film, and it’s great fun seeing the leads aggravate each other as Fonda appeases a police corps exasperated at the women’s meddling in their investigation. (Both Stanwyck and Fonda end up slapping each other at some point.)  Some good dialogue helps flesh out a typically-short film (at 80 minutes, it’s even a bit long for 1930 amateur sleuth comedies), leading to a result that can be enjoyed every day of the week. Future Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel also shows up for some voice-of-reason housekeeping duties. Sure, you can see Stanwyck/Fonda pairing in The Mad Miss Manton as a dress rehearsal for the superior The Lady Eve three years later—but it’s perfectly enjoyable on its own terms as well.

  • The Little Colonel (1935)

    The Little Colonel (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) I usually watch and enjoy older movies on their own terms, but sometimes that doesn’t happen and I’m forced to power through them out of a sense of film history. The Little Colonel is, for many reasons, a difficult sit: Never mind the shaky technical qualities of a 1935 film, it’s an incredibly problematic film on issues of race. The portrayal of black characters is difficult to accept, and the sympathy that the film has for its ex-Confederate characters is troubling. On the other hand, well, The Little Colonel does feature two of the best-known black actors of the 1930s (Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Hattie McDaniels), and its famous interracial staircase tap sequence between Robinson and a young Shirley Temple attracted a fair amount of controversy in the racist US southern states, so much so that it was removed from southern-states showings according to the practices of the time. The film is still known for being one of Temple’s best showcases, and it does feature Lionel Barrymore in a leading role. There is also the ending sequence in which the black-and-white film transitions to colour, a still-striking transformation that remains one of the earliest uses of colour in popular feature films. Still, I found The Little Colonel a slog to get through—the melodrama is overdone, the pacing is tepid, the characters are not always likable and nearly every scene reminds us of the racism of the time. But so it goes: not every title in anyone’s film history appreciation regimen has to be interesting or enjoyable. At least I can now strike it off my list of what to see.