Sylvia Sidney

  • The Wagons Roll at Night (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Humphrey Bogart’s pre-stardom years are sometimes a wild ride. Back before Warner Brothers figured out that a tough-guy persona was ideal for him, he could show up as a mad scientist, a glib-talking boxing promoter or, in the case of The Wagons Roll at Night, as a travelling carnival owner. In this melodramatic tale, he’s the mean and cruel taskmaster who welcomes a naïve young guy as replacement lion tamer, and he gets increasingly vexed once the young man starts pining after his sister. If you’re thinking that lions are a very cinematic way of justifying violent scenes… you’re absolutely correct. (Some of the footage feels authentically dangerous.) Seeing Bogart mauled by a lion is good fun (nominally a spoiler, but, come on, it’s the film’s biggest selling point)—the rest of the film, not so much. It’s not bad, it’s just quite familiar, with Eddie Albert being good as the naïve kid, and the attractive Sylvia Sidney playing the cynical carnival girl—outshining Joan Leslie as an ingenue. Watchable and with a few moments of interest, The Wagons Roll at Night comes across as a bit too much of a routine melodrama for the times, but one that sustains modern viewing—especially if you’re interested in Bogart’s role right on the cusp to his stardom.

  • Thirty Day Princess (1934)

    Thirty Day Princess (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Cary Grant wasn’t always Cary Grant—his accession to Hollywood superstardom was the result of refining his screen persona until it hit an apex, quite unlike the young man born Archibald Leach. Thirty Day Princess hangs at the end of Grant’s apprenticeship in the movies—right before his breakthrough in Sylvia Scarlett, but already demonstrating his talent for suave, confident leading men. He’s not the star of the film—that would be Sylvia Sidney, playing a dual role as both a foreign princess come to America on a fundraising tour, and a young struggling actress who’s asked to impersonate the princess during a bout of illness. Grant plays the love interest—an influential New York City paper owner who is seduced by the actress playing princess. It’s a fair comedy: not hilarious by any means, but decently amusing and probably a film most viewers haven’t yet seen unless they’ve dug down deep in the Grant filmography. Its (barely) Pre-Code nature can be most clearly seen in some of the banter between princess and actress, as royalty lives vicariously through the impersonator’s romantic episodes. I really enjoyed the look inside an Automat—a relic of a past age that, somehow, always earns my fascination. Thirty Day Princess is not a film for the ages, but it’s watchable enough, gets a few laughs and certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome at a mere 74 minutes. Plus, you get Grant as a young thirty-year-old, a bit rough around the edges but already showing the world what everyone would love from him a few years later.