Joel McCrea

  • Rockabye (1932)

    Rockabye (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) There’s something just a bit off about Rockabye that I can’t quite grasp—I suspect it’s a mixture of contrived plotting, unconvincing dialogue, outright melodrama, an intentionally frustrating ending and changing social mores during the Pre-Code era. (Reading about the film’s production, it also looks as if the film was significantly re-shot midway through, adding even more chaos into the mix.) Even from the onset, as an actress is separated from the child she wanted to adopt after testifying at an unsavoury trial, the film goes for big emotional beats that don’t quite resonate. The miseries quickly pile up upon our heroine, as nearly nothing goes to plan and the film delights into taking away all of her successes. As a showbiz drama, it features actresses, writers and impresarios in the main roles, breathing in the Broadway scene of the time with gusto. An early leading role for Joel McCrea has him trying to inject some sympathy into a character with some really unlikable moments. The Pre-Code nature of the film is obvious in its depiction of an affair between the heroine and a married man. Constance Bennet is stuck with a tough role and does what she can with it. But Rockabye really isn’t all that compelling—there are many, many moments where the emotional reactions of the leads defy any understanding, or seem unusually muted. I could still find a few nuggets of interest here and there, but there are many better movies in this mould.

  • Ride the High Country (1962)

    Ride the High Country (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) If you start watching Ride the High Country and see Sam Peckinpah’s name as a director, you may end up making a few unfortunate presumptions as to how the film is going to go. But seven years before The Wild Bunch made him define his own brand of ultraviolence, Peckinpah was still developing his skills as a filmmaker when he put together Ride the High Country, and while the result does show many of Peckinpah’s later trademarks, it’s also something much closer to traditional westerns. The plot has to do with two aging gunslingers taking on an assignment to transport gold from a miner’s camp back to the bank. But things get more complicated when they encounter a man with a daughter, and trouble follows them all the way to the miner’s camp. If you watch the film based on Peckinpah’s reputation, you will be surprised at some of the over-comedic touches of the film’s first half (complete with amusing musical cues), yet dreading the inevitable descent into violence that is sure to come. But while I’m no big fan of westerns, this one does things slightly differently enough, and well enough, that I found myself gradually taken by the result. By the time a rather dour finale rolls by, the film is actually quite remarkable, and we can understand those who call it Peckinpah’s first success. Former Golden-age Hollywood leading men Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott both get one last role here, with Peckinpah getting an early chance to showcase one of his predominant themes—the end of the wild west. Ride the High Country is both a representative western and an unusual one as well—the result is good enough to be worth a look even for those who don’t regard westerns with any particular affection.

  • The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

    The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) At a mere 62 minutes, this early-sound adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game doesn’t have time to mess around—it’s about as effective a straight-ahead thriller as you could get during the Pre-Code era, and it certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome. (It could be nice to see a return to this “barely feature length” for appropriate works—not everything needs to be two hours!)  This is a film that goes all-in on the story, delivers what’s expected and leaves before any additional detail.  It’s easy to respect that dedication. The similarities to King Kong are not merely atmospheric to just any jungle island setting—it was filmed on the same set with some of the same actors—including Fay Wray. The xenophobia in making sure that the villain is “foreign” is annoying, but Joel McCrea is quite convincing in the lead character’s role. Otherwise, there isn’t much to say here—solid story, good execution, entertaining results. Worth a look, especially if you’re looking into the 1930s take on horror and high suspense.

  • The More the Merrier (1943)

    The More the Merrier (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) Sure, yes, you can watch WW2 military dramas all day long, but there was plenty going on at home during that time, and The More the Merrier takes as pretext the comparatively little-known wartime housing shortage in Washington, DC, during the war, as government needs rapidly expanded past the housing supply. While, in real life, this led to tension, overcrowding and bed-sharing, this romantic comedy uses the situation as a pretext to some silly shenanigans. Jean Arthur plays a woman subletting her apartment, while Charles Coburn is all scene-stealing twinkles as an older rich man subletting his half of her apartment to a suitable soldier played by the ever-affable Joel McCrea. Sparks fly in many different directions in a plot set in a very specific situation where eligible men are scarce and privacy is in even shorter supply. Arthur and McCrea make for a fine pair, but it’s Coburn who gets the best role here as an independently rich retiree who engineers their romance. (When the film was remade in the mid-1960s as Walk, Don’t Run, that role ended up being Cary Grant’s final turn.) While The More the Merrier isn’t particularly ambitious, it’s quite successful at managing the little bit of chaos it has created for itself. The ending doesn’t quite pull all of the threads together as tightly as it should, but don’t worry: Romance triumphs and everyone finds a place of their own. You can see why the film earned a Best Picture Academy Award nomination.

  • Come and Get It (1936)

    Come and Get It (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I’m on a mission to watch the entire Howard Hawks filmography, and at this point in the process, having covered most of his classics, I’m starting to get to his lesser-known films. Come and Get It is one of those, and a bit of an oddball title as he was reportedly fired about two thirds of the way through. Adapted from a novel, it’s a complex and occasionally off-putting story of multi-generational infatuation, as a married lumber baron falls for the daughter of the woman he left behind decades previously. There are multiple complications, to the point of resulting in a messy plot that leaves few people happy when it reaches its ending, spurned would-be adulterous protagonist and all. (Note to modern viewers: The Hays Code was slightly more permissive when filmmakers worked from existing novels, but not that much—which helps explain the film’s jerky and unconvincing morals.)  Considering that Hawks didn’t direct all of Come and Get It, it’s hard to pinpoint his exact contribution, but the spectacular footage of old-school logging operations early in the film was enough to warm my French-Canadian heart and certainly resonates with other Hawks movies. Much of the film’s best moments come early on, what with barroom brawling and sharp scenes to establish the characters. It’s afterwards that Come and Get It seems to lose its way, never quite sure whether to commit to tragedy or romance. (Or to say something about environmental matters, which had been one of Hawks’ initial concerns.)  Three good actors manage to make the film better than its confused screenplay: Edward Arnold as the morally ambiguous protagonist, Joel McCrea as the romantic lead, but especially Frances Farmer in a well-controlled dual role. Walter Brennan is a bit annoying, but that’s his character more than the actor. Despite a fair start, Come and Get It ultimately feels aimless and maybe even a bit cut short—it doesn’t completely capitalize on its strengths, and knowing about its troubled production explains some of the issues.

  • Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

    Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) An integral part of writer-director Preston Sturge’s incredible early-1940s steak, Sullivan’s Travels remains quite a watch even today. It helps that it’s firing on all cylinders, from casting (Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake) to writing/directing (featuring Sturges’ early-career manic energy) to its subject matter (a movie star sinking to a work prison camp) to its full-throated defence of comedy as a noble pursuit. It would be quite a heady film even without Sturges’ sure touch on the dialogue and directing, but with them it becomes an incredible film. There’s even an unusually respectful treatment of black characters at a time when those were usually marginalized or stereotyped, and that clear demonstration of Sturge’s humanism explains why his films are still delightful today. Lake delivers a good performance, McCrea a great one and the film is fit to stand alongside The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story as the very best of what Sturges did in rapid succession.

  • Union Pacific (1939)

    Union Pacific (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I’m not sure how much we twenty-first century sophisticates truly understand the meaning and importance of the first coast-to-coast railway. To put in modern context, it was akin to building the first highway and the first Internet link throughout the country at the same time. The first transcontinental railway (1869 in the United States, 1886 in Canada) did as much to tie the country together as any law. It standardized time, facilitated the mobility of labour, ended the wild frontier, improved the flow of news and information—all things that we now take for granted. We may never be able to fully appreciate that it meant then, but at least there are movies like Union Pacific to make us appreciate the details of how it was done. Focusing on a troubleshooter for a railroad company, this is a film that takes a look at the nitty-gritty of building such a revolutionary endeavour, from shooing away undesirables that prey on railroad workers, to the logistics of keeping such a group of workers fed and productive, to negotiations with the native tribes. Joel McCrea plays the troubleshooter, bringing his usual charisma to the part and helping to humanize a complex subject. Barbara Stanwyck plays the love interest, while you can see (or rather hear) Robert Preston and Anthony Quinn in the supporting cast. But this is director Cecil B. de Mille’s film—an expansive, spectacular subject matter that never misses a chance to stage a large-scale action sequence. While the film does regrettably rely on native attacks as a pretext to action scenes, it does spend more time than was usual back in 1939 showing how those attacks were motivated by the white businessmen breaking their promises to the tribes. Union Pacific is my kind of western—not a celebration of the wild frontier using the usual macho tropes of the genre, but a study in how civilization spread throughout the land and closed the frontier. Some film historians point to this film and Stagecoach as when the Western grew up, but I can only testify as to the interest that it created and sustained over a two-hours-and-fifteen minutes running time: It’s a fascinating railway procedural, and it manages to have a nice human edge to it.