Lionel Barrymore

  • Dinner at Eight (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2021) Some movies make for fascinating viewing because they’re dated, and so much of Dinner at Eight’s charm comes from some witty writing showing early-1930s Manhattan socialites trying to put together a fancy dinner party. This is an excuse to go and explore the lives of the invited guests, as the ever-changing line-up of the dinner party features archetypes and preoccupations of the time. Unlike many films of the 1930s, Dinner at Eight does not ignore the Great Depression, nor (as a Pre-Code film) does it shy away from upsetting sensibilities with subplots of adultery, suicide, desperation and terminal illness. Although clearly put together as drama, the script has some exceptional dialogue that makes it feel vastly funnier than it ought to be. (It’s a logical link between the comedies-of-manner from the Edwardian Era and the Screwball Hollywood comedies.)  Conceived as a star-studded epic drama in the footsteps of the previous year’s Grand Hotel, the film can boast of an impressive cast if you’re up to your early-sound film superstars: Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore, as well as Jean Harlow are the standout names, but the more you know about the era, the more the cast will seem impressive. While technically rough in the way most early-sound-era films were, the dialogue and acting are still exceptional (with a few allowances made for how standards have evolved) and manage to impress. But it’s still Dinner at Eight’s look at circa-1933 New York that works best, with a thick web of contemporary allusions, characters of their times, and assumptions that almost feel alien today.

  • 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.

  • Tennessee Johnson (1942)

    Tennessee Johnson (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) I firmly believe that Hollywood movies can be very educational about history, but not by watching them — that would be silly. True education is attained only by fact-checking the Hollywood film against other sources. In the grand tradition of biopics, Tennessee Johnson sets out to produce a proudly nationalistic biography of Andrew Johnson, the first American president to be impeached (but not convicted). For political junkies with a historical bent, it’s weird to see Van Heflin take on the role of Johnson in the middle of a script that can’t stop praising him. After all, Johnson is not particularly well-regarded these days — the expression “one of the worst presidents” is often associated with him for good reason: Acceding to the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination, he mishandled the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. While he managed to keep the nation together after its trauma, his blunt racism led to continued white supremacy in the southern states. His reputation has sailed the ebbs and flows of American racism: After some damning assessments in the early twentieth century, he was partially rehabilitated in the 1930s–1950s as American racism rose, only to be re-condemned following the Civil Rights era. Tennessee Johnson is clearly from the crest of his better-regarded period — he’s heroically portrayed as coming from very humble origins, learning to read late in life, gathering popular support, making a mistake during his inauguration (in real life: showing up drunk after self-medicating typhoid fever with alcohol –a then-common practice—and making a spectacle of himself), avoiding assassination and then stepping up as president after Lincoln’s death. Then the film focuses on his impeachment, focusing its anger toward a clearly defined antagonist trumping up charges against him and having Johnson make an impassioned speech in its own defence (which never happened). Once not convicted, the film blips forward to show him returning to the US Senate after the end of his presidential term. If the film ends there, it’s because there isn’t much more to say: he died after a few months as a senator. But what’s missing from this? Then entire racial question, for once — the very reason why he’s widely reviled as the president who won the war but failed to enact any meaningful change in the southern states, thus prolonging southern segregation for nearly a century. This is Hollywood at its most hypocritical in whitewashing biographical figures, ignoring the worst, making excuses for the dubious and hyping the rest. I had a severe case of cognitive dissonance watching the film: Johnson is best seen, even today, as a complex man who had good traits but made terrible decisions and that would make a fascinating miniseries, as a film is probably too short to do justice to its topic and leads by design to unsatisfying results. Taken at face value, Tennessee Johnson is not that bad a movie: in the heroic-biopic mould, it clearly presents its subject, cleanly gives reasons why he’s admirable, and goes through the historical (or, ahem, pseudo-historical) events with some steady rhythm. Heflin does well in a role that asks him to go from peasant to president, and the film becomes even better once Lionel Barrymore makes an entrance as Johnson’s opponent. But I don’t quite believe in assessing films at face value, especially when they deal with specific, well-documented history. Watch Tennessee Johnson if you want, but make sure to keep Wikipedia nearby as you do.

  • Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

    Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) There are films that are a lot more fun to read about than to watch, and Rasputin and the Empress comes close to earning that distinction. As an early-sound-era depiction of Rasputin’s reign of terror over Russia, it’s suitably melodramatic but, in the end, the narrative feels dull and meandering on its way to a somewhat more gripping ending. The technical credentials are about as good as they get for the time, what with the film being a prestige MGM production — excellent sets and costumes, but with the limitations of early-sound-era filmmaking limiting the camera movements. For film fans, this has the distinction of featuring three members of the Barrymore family in the same film, although it’s clear that Lionel Barrymore is the one having the most fun playing Rasputin. There wouldn’t be much more to say about Rasputin and the Empress itself — it’s a decent costume drama, but not much more. When you start reading about the film, however, the making of it and what happened after its release become far more interesting as an illustration of Hollywood’s growing pains than what was shown on-screen. For one thing, there’s the rushed production of the film, which went forward with an unfinished script and a screenwriter who only agreed to work on it when threatened by Ethel Barrymore breaking things in his bungalow. Then there’s the monstrous ego of the three Barrymores, including Ethel coming back to the big screen at 53 due to financial woes, not having experience working on a sound film, and being concerned about how the camera would portray her. Finally, there are the lawsuits that followed Rasputin and the Empress’s release: MGM got sued by two Russian families for including a historically inaccurate rape scene, leading to expensive fines, the shelving of the film for decades, and the addition of the now-standard “all characters are fictional” disclaimer in films going forward. Now that’s a making-of that almost deserves its own movie.

  • 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.

  • Night Flight (1933)

    Night Flight (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) The most interesting things about Night Flight are all about the movie than in the movie itself. Taken at face value, it’s a decent-enough adventure film about the heroic age of aviation in South America, featuring efforts by a company led by an American to establish trade routes through the treacherous Andes, especially when life-saving medication is involved. The technical quality of the film is rough by contemporary standards, reflecting Pre-Code era films’ limited ability to portray complex adventure stories. It’s interesting, and the cast (John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Myrna Loy and Helen Hayes) is amazing enough… but it’s hard to watch it without pining for Only Angel Have Wings, a very similar 1939 film with much better direction, script and production values. It’s when you start digging into the film’s production history that the most fascinating aspects of the film appear: Based on an Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novel, the author did not like the film and, through contractual shenanigans, had MGM take the film out of circulation in 1942… until 2011, when Warner Bros struck a deal with Saint-Exupéry’s estate to have the film shown again. That’s kind of amazing in itself—that a somewhat popular film starring well-known actors could disappear for nearly seventy years and become available once more to twenty-first century cinephiles, while their parents and grandparents would not have been able to see the film. The movie itself may not warrant that much devotion, but as an illustration of how contemporary film buffs have it much better than any previous generation of movie fans, it’s almost unparalleled.

  • The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) As faithful an adaptation of Dicken’s semi-autobiographical novel as could be expected from a mid-thirties Hollywood super production. (Today, David Copperfield would be best handled as a miniseries.)  Great production values, from costumes to sets to then-rare outdoors shots. But the film is perhaps best seen to the semi-amazing cast, including W. C. Fields in a more or less serious role, the incomparable Edna May Oliver in a likable role, and other 1930s notables such as Basil Rathbone and Lionel Barrymore. Directed by George Cukor, showing early prowess handling complex ensemble cast.

  • Captains Courageous (1937)

    Captains Courageous (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) It’s amazing to see what earlier era considered perfectly acceptable entertainment for kids. 1937’s Captain Courageous, for instance, adapted an 1897 Rudyard Kipling novel and refashioned it as a coming-of-age story for a spoiled rich boy swept overboard and rescued by fishermen, who teach him much about fishing and life. Considering that it’s a story that includes the gruesome death of a main character by sagittal bisection, well, I’m not going to begrudge the current crop of kids’ films. Still, the result can be surprisingly enjoyable. Freddie Bartholomew turns in a good performance as the boy, with an endearing turn by curly-haired Spencer Tracy, and supporting roles for both Lionel Barrymore and Mickey Rooney. Tracy has the best role here, as a loquacious Portuguese fisherman who helps the initially detestable boy protagonist become a better person. One thing that holds up surprisingly well is the depiction of fishermen working the Grand Banks of Newfoundland—the footage of real fishermen at sea (in sailboats!) is a terrific time capsule, and the integration of water-tank footage with rear-projection special effects is often better than you’d expect. Despite a drawn-out ending, Captain Courageous does wrap up in a satisfying fashion, capping off a film that still works well today, albeit to an older audience.

  • Grand Hotel (1932)

    Grand Hotel (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018)  The thirties were a decade when Hollywood perfected the grammar and sales pitch of cinema, with Grand Hotel earning a minor place in history for two innovations: on an artistic level, pioneering the use of a 360-degree lobby set that allowed the camera to be pointed in any direction, and commercially for bringing together as many movie stars as the (comparatively large) budget would allow. It netted Grand Hotel a Best Picture Oscar back in 1933, but today the result has visibly aged. While the script still holds some interest by bringing together a bunch of vignettes that sometimes interact, much of the film is shot as a theatre piece, the lobby sequences being an exception that highlight the more traditional nature of the rest of the film. As far as star power is concerned, modern viewers can still enjoy the presences of Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford as well as Lionel and John Barrymore—even as reminders of why they were or became superstars. While the Berlin setting of the film may strike some as odd considering Hollywood’s insularity and the whole World War II unpleasantness a few years later, it’s worth noting that at the time, Hollywood was filled with German expats, that Berlin was a world-class city and the best-selling source novel spoke for itself. Also: this was the depression, and a bit of gentle European exoticism couldn’t hurt the movie-watching masses. Grand Hotel will forever live on as a Best Picture winner, and as a representative of the Hollywood machine as it was revving up in the early thirties, it’s a master class in itself.

  • You Can’t Take it With You (1938)

    You Can’t Take it With You (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2018) Despite James Stewart’s considerable charm (and here he has the chance to play as pure a young romantic lead as he ever got), it took me a while to warm up to You Can’t Take it with You. Despite an eccentric cast of characters, it takes a long time for the comedy to truly take off. Fortunately, this happens midway through, as an explosive sequence is followed up by a rather amusing courtroom sequence. That’s when director Frank Capra feels freest to truly unleash the madness of his characters, and what it means for the plot. Less successful is the film’s last act, which focuses on more manners moral lessons (it’s right there in the title), lessening the film’s laugh quotient but ensuring that it would present an easy moral lesson fit for the film to win that year’s Best Picture Oscar. This being said, the film is not a chore to watch even today. James Stewart is always good, of course, while Lionel Barrymore is unusually sympathetic as the patriarch of an oddball family and 15-year-old Ann Miller makes an impression as the family’s dance-crazy daughter. The film’s mid-point highlight is good for a few laughs, and even easy moral lessons can work well in wrapping up a satisfying viewing experience. As a checkmark for best Picture completists, it’s an odd but not a bothersome entry.