James Stewart

  • Bend of the River (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube streaming, October 2022) James Stewart is back on the trail in Bend of the River, once again teaming up with director Anthony Mann to play an imperfect middle-aged man who learns better over the course of the film. I like the idea of a solidly fortysomething protagonist with a bit of personal growth to do, and so here we find him as an ex-outlaw who has settled into being a guide to settlers heading west. His motto is simple: get the people to destination, nothing more. But that intent is tested when the Gold Rush makes it so that his prepaid provisions are no longer available. Suddenly feeling responsible for the fate of a few dozen people, the rest of Bend of the River sees him forming closer bonds with those he took in charge. The vivid colour cinematography helps a lot in ensuring that this film has aged well—the rest being a solid story of easterners heading west, and the caravan required for this kind of (re)settlement. Stewart is exemplary here in his 1950s western phase, playing characters with charm, but not entirely concealing a strong streak for violence. There’s a nicely stripped-down quality to the plot that goes well with shots of unspoiled wilderness—back to basics in many ways. Rock Hudson has a supporting role here, but there’s little to notice him. The film definitely loses points for overt colonialism and the usual kind of racism so prevalent at the time. Still: I don’t particularly enjoy 1950s westerns, but Bend of the River is better than most, and it does feature Stewart at an interesting point in his career.

  • Firecreek (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) The appeal of Firecreek is that it brings together two of Classic Hollywood’s best-known leading men—two lifelong friends, actually—into a story leading to a fatal confrontation. James Stewart isn’t too far away from his 1950s western heydays here, playing the “sheriff” of a small dead-end town made of rejects, oddballs and cast-offs. He, too, would like nothing more than to be left alone. Alas, outlaws ride in town and start making trouble. They’re led by Henry Fonda and while Fonda’s character may be a tad more respectable than his hoodlums, he’s still creating chaos in a small town, and must be stopped. In a reprise of High Noon, Stewart seems to be the only one willing to do what it takes to stop the outlaws, as everyone else cowers inside. As a blueprint for a dramatic Western, this isn’t too bad—it’s stealing from the best, and somewhat reflective of the growing disillusionment of its era. Seeing Stewart facing off against Fonda is a show by itself, even if Stewart chooses weary lassitude over his more typical aw-shucks mannerisms and if Fonda isn’t quite at ease playing the villain. (He would do much better as a villain in Once a Time in the West.)  This being said, Firecreek is too long at 104 minutes—the opening act drags, and there’s a sense that the final confrontation could have been made more meaningful. Still, as far as westerns go, this one is accessible enough: there’s a clash between civilization and anarchy brewing here, and the clean-cut colour cinematography gives a sense of place. While Firecreek won’t turn up in many best-westerns lists (especially considering how, at the time, the western was going for much rougher and violent material), it’s a competent, somewhat well-handled effort that doesn’t waste its leads even in taking too long to get to the point.

  • The Shopworn Angel (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Some of the weirdest things about 1930s Hollywood are the surprisingly numerous films that, in talking about the American experience during World War I, ended up prefiguring what would happen during WW2—sometimes with the same actors that would go on to star in very similar wartime propaganda films. Many films seemingly custom-made for WW2 home-front morale boosting actually date from a few years before WW2 was even declared. Tearjerking romantic drama The Shopworn Angel is one of those, with Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart playing a mismatched couple whose romance is ill-fated from the start. Sullavan is the usual generic female protagonist (sub-variant: weary Broadway star), while Stewart reaches the end of his gangly young premier phase (and the beginning of his dominant screen persona) as a naïve aw-shucks soldier headed to war. She falls for him but in a complicated way that tells you that this isn’t meant to be a feel-good film: she’s got a serious, far more suitable (read: rich and older) boyfriend and her adventures with the soldier are just a sideshow to what she’s got going on with the other suitor—she marries the young man in the casual way typical of 1930s romantic films, but everything is thankfully resolved by the maudlin sad finale. There are some interesting comparisons to be made with the numerous previous versions of the same story—all of them predating the Hays Code, leading to some unwieldy creakiness in this one. The theme of soldiers going to war seems custom-fit to tell the young ladies in the audience to expect heartbreak when their boyfriends/husbands are shipped overseas—a reality that would hit only a few years later. This being said, The Shopworn Angel isn’t exactly a film to watch for fun. Sure, Sullavan and Stewart do what they do best here (without forgetting about Walter Pidgeon as the older, richer man) but the film itself is designed to be a downer, and seems artificially plotted to placate the Production Code censors in taking a story that demands more narrative freedom. The Shopworn Angel is an interesting piece of film history (and I’m skipping over its tumultuous production history), but saying that it’s a conventionally satisfying film by itself would be stretching it.

  • The Big Sleep (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2022) Forty-five years later, the decision to remake a classic 1940s Los Angeles-based film noir as a 1970s London-based thriller smacks more of a stunt than a modernization of the story. There is, to be fair, a rather amazing cast in the 1978 version of The Big Sleep. With Robert Mitchum playing the private investigator to an elderly James Stewart, the film then goes on to have Joan Collins in a small role… even if Sarah Miles gets most of the appreciative stares playing a mop-topped redhead. While updated elements include colour cinematography and free mentions of elements too racy to have been acknowledged by classic Hollywood, the deliberately labyrinthine plotting has been kept almost intact. It makes for interesting viewing, but that may have more to do with the incongruity of the adaptation than its success. It’s a fun ride, but it would be an exaggeration to call it a good movie. Mitchum is easily twenty or thirty years too old for the role, and the film tortures itself to justify the American-accented Mitchum and Stewart in the middle of an otherwise very British film. Director Michael Winner’s pacing is slack, and Mitchum relies a bit too much on his tough taciturn persona rather than inhabiting the character. The period feel is more flashy than transparent (exactly the opposite of what the filmmakers intended for audiences at the time) and the direction is much flatter than expected, with the actors not always fully engaged in their roles. Oh, I still liked this The Big Sleep remake—but I liked it as a perversion of a much-admired original rather than its own thing.

  • The Last Gangster (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) As the story goes, Edward G. Robinson was getting tired of playing gangsters but was remodeling his house and needed the money. An offer from MGM (rather than his usual Warner Brothers) later—voilà, one more gangster role in The Last Gangster, albeit one that greatly benefited from Robinson’s experience in lending depth to what could have been a caricature. More significantly, it offers a singular film in which Robinson, in his prime, plays an ascendant James Stewart—two recognizable actors going at each other with their own styles. Stewart is quite good (even with an unusual moustache) as an urbane, compassionate newspaperman who rivals Robinson’s gangster for the affection of his ex-wife and son. It all escalates, providing Robinson with a few showcase sequences and a heroic guns-blazing finale with an even worse criminal. Executed by the professional standards of the time, The Last Gangster is not quite as grandiose as its title suggests, but it’s a nice actor’s showcase and the best opportunity to see two screen legends on opposite sides. (They’d later reunite on Cheyenne Autumn, but not as direct opponents.)

  • The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939)

    The Ice Follies of 1939 (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Let’s admit that it is fun to watch James Stewart as an ice skater putting together an epic skating show in The Ice Follies of 1939. It’s even more fun when he’s alongside Joan Crawford playing a mediocre skater who finds great success as an actress even as he’s still putting together his groundbreaking “musical on ice.”  Don’t worry — they’ll make it work eventually, but much of the film is spent with the two obsessing about the other one’s success (or lack thereof) and how it makes them feel. There’s a decent bit of business about showbusiness when our female lead stumbles into stardom thanks to her good looks and great attitude. The conflict between matrimony and success is given a fairer shake in this film than many others, largely because it’s a conflict between two successful people, not necessarily a star and someone offering support. Both lead actors are better than the undercooked material, which feels sandwiched between the requirements of a musical and the demands of making something interesting about ice skating. (The solution, as could be expected, was to blend movies and ice skating.)  It ends with a colour musical… on ice. But that’s Hollywood for you: stars pressed in ill-fitting roles, no matter their suitability for the setting… or the believability of the setting itself. The Ice Follies of 1939 is, at least, worth a look for the climactic dance number on ice, and some of the scenes between Steward and Crawford. Otherwise, well, there’s a reason why it’s more seen as a curio these days.

  • The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

    The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) I have no doubt that the filmmakers behind The Cheyenne Social Club did exactly what they intended in casting James Stewart as a cowboy who inherits a brothel. Even at a time when New Hollywood was breaking all of the rules, Stewart’s aw-shucks appeal meant that this wasn’t a film that was out to offend sensibilities. At best, it uses the suggestion of naughtiness as a lure, but doesn’t do anything that could be misconstrued as offensive. (The closest it gets to actual naughtiness is in its repeated suggestions that the house of ill repute is actually a boon for the town… and clearly not of ill repute.)  Stewart plays a laconic cowboy thrust in a situation he doesn’t want — it’s a rather familiar role, and the demands of the comedy don’t stretch his range too much either. Where the film does get more interesting is in pairing him with his good friend Henry Fonda in front of the camera, with none other than Gene Kelly as a director. The plot is thin to the point of aimlessness, an impression that is not helped by a rather disappointing conclusion that fails to show growth for the protagonist. Except that maybe that’s the point — such a fundamentally conservative film (despite Kelly’s often-bawdy instincts) could not end in any other way, and that’s probably the biggest joke in the entire story. Still, even with its flaws and lack of audacity, The Cheyenne Social Club remains a smooth film to watch — more light-hearted than many of Stewart’s previous westerns, and with some cleavage on display. I don’t think it fully uses the elements at its disposal, but that’s the case for most movies anyway. The paying public probably wouldn’t have stood for anything too daring.

  • Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)

    Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2021) As much as I wanted to like Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, there’s so much wasted potential in the milquetoast result that it starts to grate. Of course, that may be an overreaction — the film was obviously built by director Henry Koster to be an innocuous broad-public comedy, and isn’t meant to sustain more elaborate expectations. Still, as a family goes to a beach house for an extended vacation, the film skirts the edge of something more interesting but never gets there. James Stewart remains the film’s best asset as a harried father driven nuts by the entire family vacation (the framing device has him narrate a very funny exasperated letter, his drawl making everything even better — a shame that the finale of the film never quite goes back to it.), and having Maureen O’Hara play the mother is not a bad choice at all. Occasional set-pieces involving a persnickety steam heater, or a steam-filled bathroom, hint at a better film. (And the two references to a father purchasing a Playboy magazine for his son are… surprising.)  But for most of its duration, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation ends up being a curiously tame affair, content to let Stewart run exasperated at everything going wrong during his vacations. It works fine in the way many subsequent family vacations films do — a bit of humiliation comedy, a dash of comic contretemps, and a heaping of traditional values at the trip brings the family back together as one unit. Familiar stuff, perhaps tamer than expected by modern audiences, considering how the envelope has been pushed since then. I can’t, in good conscience, call this a bad movie, but it’s certainly disappointing — although one notes that it led to the somewhat better Take Her, She’s Mine the following year with the same director/star combo.

  • Airport ’77 (1977)

    Airport ’77 (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2021) By 1977, both the Airport series and the disaster-movie subgenre had evolved to make the existence of a ludicrous film like Airport ’77 inevitable. While the first Airport was an ensemble melodrama enlivened with some techno-thriller elements, the success of its imitators focused on the thrills and by the time the follow-ups came around, the drama was clearly an accessory to the spectacle, although it allowed some Classic Hollywood superstars one last go at box-office gold. So it is that one of the two most engaging elements of Airport ’77 is James Stewart, with a relatively small role as the owner of an airline—so proud of his newest plane that he loads it up with invaluable treasures right before it’s set to travel from New York to the Caribbean, with none other than Jack Lemmon playing the plane’s pilot. But this wouldn’t be a disaster without a disaster, and so thieves drug the passengers, steal the valuables and make a dumb mistake that sends the plane crashing into the ocean and settling down a few metres down the surface. The other asset of the film kicks in at that point — a relatively credible description of how such a disaster would be tackled by the US Navy (with some assistance from series mascot George Kennedy), slipping large balloons underneath the wings of the plan to raise it up to the surface so that passengers can be rescued. (Let’s all agree to ignore the extremely high likelihood of the plane breaking up upon hitting the ocean in the first place.)  Stewart, Lemmon and the US Navy don’t quite add up to a completely enjoyable film, but they do help rescue it from disaster. I don’t necessarily count the unlikeliness of the plotting against Airport ’77 — it’s a disaster film, after all. But there’s still too much dead weight, too many bog-standard subplots, and too little of a climax to cap things off. It fits with the other films of the series… even if the steady drop-off in quality becomes more and more obvious.

  • After the Thin Man (1936)

    After the Thin Man (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2021) Nick and Norah Charles are back for more married-couple high society sleuthing in After the Thin Man, this time going to their hometown of San Francisco for witty repartee and dead bodies. Their triumphant return home is marked by a welcome party they haven’t asked for and, in fact, flee whenever they have the chance. Murder soon follows. As was the case in the first film, the chemistry between William Powell and Myrna Loy (as the very charming married couple trading quips and tracking down killers) is far more interesting than the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Whenever the plot gets going, viewers will wonder when the comedy will get back on track. Still, there are a few noteworthy things about the non-funny scenes: James Stewart is the biggest of them, as his turn as a young romantic premier becomes something quite atypical in his filmography—enough so to make some of his fans very uneasy. Still, it’s Powell and Loy who are the stars here, and the final sequence, in which the usual suspects are brought together, works more on Powell’s pure charm than his deductive talents. Twenty-first century viewers may be particularly interested in the character played by William Law, a rare Asian actor in a cast of Caucasians — and while his role is clearly racist, it eventually ends up portrayed in a somewhat interesting light. As a follow-up to the first The Thin Man, it clearly hits upon the same notes (albeit tempered by the then-recent introduction of the Hays Code) and provides most of the same thrills — namely the comic romance rather than the crime mystery.

  • Fools’ Parade (1971)

    Fools’ Parade (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) A surprisingly older James Stewart anchors Fools’ Parade, a Depression-era comic thriller in which a just-released ex-con with a sizeable check in his pocket gets involved in a number of adventures to protect his hard-earned money. Playing with his usual drawl, good-natured persona and exaggerated squint (the character is missing a glass eye), Stewart does have some company in the cast: It’s a shock to recognize a young Kurt Russell in a supporting role (meaning that you can jump from 2021’s The Fast and the Furious 9 to 1936’s Rose-Marie with this one degree of separation), or have George Kennedy play the heavy. It’s billed as a comedy for obvious reasons—it ends well, for one thing, and there’s one sequence that ends with a surprising bang—but the tone is not always jolly. Clearly shot in the muddy 1970s, it’s a film drowning in browns and blacks, which does take away from a comic atmosphere. Still, it’s reasonably entertaining: Where else can you watch Stewart with sticks of dynamite strapped to his body, genially threatening to blow up the bank if his reasonable demands aren’t met? As you may guess, Fools’ Parade doesn’t quite fit together: a bit too sombre for pure comedy, and too comic for pure thrills. But it does work, largely thanks to Stewart being so effortlessly watchable.

  • An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)

    An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) After taking on the classic immigrant experience in An American Tail, the sequel goes after another piece of Americana in sequel Fievel Goes West. As the title suggests, the Mousekewitzes decide to head west after getting tired of the limited opportunities in New York City. As in the prequel, their journey finds young Fievel separated from them, learning valuable life lessons along the way. Taking on familiar western tropes with more enthusiasm than innovation, Fievel Goes West seems content to follow a very classical way of making animated movies, with plenty of songs and dances to go around. Some of the musical numbers are not bad: I’m particularly fond of the short “Rawhide” sequence. Some celebrity voices are also ear-catching: John Cleese turns in a fun villainous performance, while James Stewart’s unmistakable drawl is here heard for the last time. It’s family entertainment in a comfortable old-school mould, perhaps a bit more superficial and fast-paced than other similar films, but clearly having fun with the conventions of westerns. Fievel Goes West feels less profound but more fun than its prequel, which will strike some as ideal and others as a step down.

  • The Gorgeous Hussey (1936)

    The Gorgeous Hussey (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) Maybe it’s my still-evolving understanding of English vocabulary, but I’m still grinning at the moxie required to name a movie The Gorgeous Hussey. It does fit, though: As a very fictionalized retelling of the life of a humble woman who became an unlikely power broker thanks to her friendship with American politicians such as Andrew Jackson, it’s meant to be a clash of sensibilities between beauty and politics within a character definitely meant to illustrate more contemporary values. In the surprisingly large filmography about American politics, this film stands out by being more about saucy romance and backroom dealings than policy or memorable speeches. Of course, the project was crippled from the get-go — made in the early aggressive early days of the Hays Code, The Gorgeous Hussey got away with its title, but could not do justice to the affairs, bawdy actions and ostracism of the Petticoat Affair it describes. As a result, it feels neutered — especially when you look up the historical record of the events that the film is meant to explore. It’s not a complete loss, though: visually, the film makes the most out of its period settings with great costumes and sets. Acting-wise, the good news is that the cast has a number of very familiar names, from Joan Crawford in the lead, James Stewart and Franchot Tone as supporting players, and Lionel Barrymore playing Jackson with panache. Unfortunately, that casting is now a double-edged sword: Crawford’s persona is too modern to play a historical figure without reminding audiences of her other films, and a similar problem also affects Stewart — magnified by the thinness of his part. All of these issues make The Gorgeous Hussey more a curio than a satisfying film in its own right. It’s worth a look to see how a Hays-Code-era film tried to portray a subject matter too salacious for its own good, but it’s not really much of a success on its own.

  • Navy Blue and Gold (1937)

    Navy Blue and Gold (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) Despite being made in peacetime, Navy Blue and Gold check off many of the characteristics of the wartime propaganda films that became so prevalent during WW2. Its academic setting is tightly focused on one specific area of the armed forces — the US Naval Academy. It features three young men who go on not just to better themselves, but to understand and uphold the traditions of their branch of the service. The wrinkle, so to speak, is that the film combines this recruitment pitch with the ever-popular college football film tradition: Our three protagonists (including a young James Stewart, stealing the show in his usual aw-shucks manner) aren’t just recruits from various areas of society, but all enroll to play on the Navy team. The finale, being in peacetime, takes place not in combat but an ersatz of it — the Army/Navy game, won through theatrics that can only exist in Hollywood since its creation. Director Sam Wood makes sure that all the subplots (romantic, medical, academic) climax at or near the game itself. Navy Blue and Gold is not exactly a bad film, but its elements may be obvious to twenty-first century audiences. On the other hand, they still work… so what does that tell us about the value of a good formula?

  • Come Live with Me (1941)

    Come Live with Me (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) The casting in Come Live with Me is enough to make any classic Hollywood cinephile perk up — Hedy Lamarr and James Stewart in a romantic comedy? Well, yes — she plays a refugee with citizenship issues, and he plays a single writer in search of inspiration. It’s a match made in citizenship application heaven, and he gets enough inspiration to write a book about their non-romance. It’s all complicated by some adultery (surprisingly enough for 1941), but the key driver of the last act is Stewart saying with his usual aw-shucks “Now, it’s perfectly all right for two strangers to get married; they’ve got to know each other before they get divorced!” Blending screwball comedy of remarriage with a far lower-octane style of romance, Come Live with Me is nowhere near any top tier of film — but it has Lamarr looking beautiful, Stewart ably playing a romantic lead at the height of this romantic-premier era, and that’s more than enough to check off the essential boxes of what the film must deliver.