Robert Walker

  • Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)

    Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) As far as old-school Hollywood romantic fantasies go, Her Highness and the Bellboy is both typical and innocuous, as it embraces the very American notion of class mobility in the core of its narrative. It features a princess falling for a bellboy already pining for a bedridden invalid, but don’t worry given that everything is going to turn out all right for everyone. The casting is perhaps more interesting than the premise, as the role is the Highness is held by none other than Hedy Lamarr (in a relatively rare comic role), while the Bellboy is played by a very likable Robert Walker — while June Allyson transforms the role of a crippled ex-dancer into more than just clichés. (Don’t worry — there’s eventually another man to round up this love triangle.)  Production values for the film are fine without being spectacular — after all, this is mostly a studio-set film featuring a small number of characters: no need to go all-out on the Manhattan location shooting. It gives Her Highness and the Bellboy perhaps more of a sitcom feeling than it should, but that’s the nature of the story: a straightforward narrative, enough time for comic subplots and a big romantic finale upholding anti-monarchic ideals. It’s pretty much exactly what anyone would expect, and that’s its biggest strength.

  • Strangers on a Train (1951)

    Strangers on a Train (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) I’m still working my way through the Hitchcock filmography, and while I think that most of his classics are from the late fifties, there are still quite a few good movies from outside that timeframe. The case in point here is 1951’s Stranger on a Train, a tense and non-nonsense (yet deceptively layered) thriller in which two strangers meet and don’t quite agree to swap murders. The problems come when one of the two men does his part of the deal he thought he had … and then comes to collect. Shot in striking film-noir black-and-white, it’s a much-better-than-competent work from an acknowledged master of the form. Farley Granger and Robert Walker are good in the lead roles, but the star here is Hitchcock and the script, which steadily tightens the screws on the lead character with ever-increasing complications. The climax, set on a park carrousel, works well as a final set-piece, but the fun of the film is in seeing the walls close in on the lead character. Old but still a model for suspense films, Strangers on a Train is still worth a look—it doesn’t quite measure up to Hitchcock’s masterpieces, but it’s a solid film in its own right.