Van Heflin

  • Battle Cry (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) Running at a leisurely two and a half hours, it’s no surprise if Battle Cry ends up containing two different films. The first is a classic Hollywood war narrative, with recruits joining the army, forging themselves into a fighting unit throughout training, and going to war in the second half of the film. That first film, following a familiar formula, is rather well done: The colour cinematography helps in capturing the atmosphere of a World War II Marine regiment, and the execution does justice to familiar material. The second film, alas, keeps intruding on the first, and it’s a set of very, very lengthy romantic digressions in which our protagonists manage to find love interests in the usual places. It’s not that I object to romantic subplots — in war movies, they’re often great ways to put a stake in perspective, not to mention being interesting in their own right. But the way Battle Cry goes about it is completely lopsided, spending far too much time running over repetitive sequences that scarcely add to the whole. Our young protagonists would have been better off developing their character by interacting with their fellow soldiers, considering the exasperating tripe of the romantic segments. I can only suppose that this was a deliberate decision to gather the widest possible audience — but I’m not sure it succeeds from a narrative perspective. Heck, some main characters die and disappear from the film through voiceover! At least Battle Cry is slightly better when it focuses on military matters: Despite the colour cinematography, there’s a woolly WW2-era sensibility to the way everything is handled, with none other than Van Heflin to provide authority as a senior officer tasked to the group of trainees and Aldo Ray as a soldier who learns better from it all. The final result is muddled — good in some ways, dull in others for rather mixed results. See Battle Cry for the good parts, tolerate the not-so-good ones and wonder at how many recent films still use the same plot template.

  • The Golden Mask aka South of Algiers (1953)

    The Golden Mask aka South of Algiers (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) This obscure Van Heflin vehicle is perhaps most amusing for a plot summary — archeologist finds precious relics and is pursued by villains—that could (and has) fuelled dozens of big-spectacle action movies. Alas, this specific take on the high concept is a somewhat dull affair, with Heflin spending most of his time looking intensely at ruins. He tepidly avoids the bad guys, keeps the mask, and romances the girl — all familiar elements executed without much excitement. Given those lacklustre adventure elements, perhaps the best reason to watch the film today is a relatively restrained depiction of pre-revolution Algiers in the early 1950s, shot in colour with plenty of location footage. (Alas, the surest mark of the film’s obscurity is the terrible state of the copy shown on TCM — faded, blurry and clearly in need of restoration.)  The setting is unusual enough — although, inevitably, the movie’s inherent colonialism is frequently irritating. The Golden Mask is not a terrible film, but even Van Heflin fans will have trouble deciding whether the viewing time was worth it.

  • 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.

  • Saturday’s Heroes (1937)

    Saturday’s Heroes (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) At a length of barely 60 minutes, I’m not sure that Saturday’s Heroes should be called a movie — I’m sure it must have been commercially viable back then (perhaps as part of a double-bill?) but by today’s standards it straddles the line between feature and featurette. There are two reasons to watch it, though: The first being Van Heflin in one of his earliest starring roles as a star college football player. Heflin is in good form here, showing some of the quiet assurance bordering on arrogance that would mark some of his best turns later during his career. But it’s the second reason to see the film that’s perhaps more interesting. Rather than offer a sanitized, unquestioning, wholesome picture of American college football as the pride of the nation, Saturday’s Heroes gets interested in the exploitation of amateur student-athletes (barely able to survive without scalping tickets) even as the university makes plenty of money from their efforts. That’s a contemporary viewpoint far more modern than the football pictures at the time, and there’s some quiet surprise in encountering a 1937 film that is already poking at that thorny issue. Otherwise, well, it is a 60-minute film: not quite enough to do justice to its various subplots and characters. Still, this is a great pick for Heflin fans looking at the actor’s earliest featured roles.

  • Grand Central Murder (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) Oh, what a fun film Grand Central Murder is. The 1930s, and to a lesser extent, the early 1940s (before film noir took over) were big on short silly murder mysteries, usually featuring amateur sleuths taking on investigations in cozy locations. Grand Central Murder is not quite like that, but it’s very much in this lineage. It begins with the murder of a gold-digging actress in a train car inside Grand Central Station, and the film is quick to round up the usual suspects in a small police office, including a private investigator who starts matching wits with the assigned detective. Van Heflin is in fine form as the protagonist, playing a role equally comic and quick-witted. There’s an amusing number of fisticuffs, structural quirks, twists, railroad operational details, snappy dialogue and characterization in the film’s breezy 73 minutes — thanks to director Sylvan Simon, it’s seldom boring. It’s impressive how many characters the script is able to sketch in a few moments, with some credit going to the actors — including the young Betty Wells, whose handful of credited roles doesn’t stop her from doing a great job as “Baby” Delroy. Patricia Dane is quite good as the antagonistic victim (mostly seen in flashbacks), while the ever-beautiful Virginia Grey is largely there for comic relief as the protagonist’s wife looking askance at his flirtatious detecting. The script is more interesting than usual, as the murder investigation takes place in flashbacks, including a flashback immediately contradicted by another character — not quite Rashomon, but more ambitious than many other films. The dialogue is often very funny, and the rapport between the two male leads (Heflin and Tom Conway) is interesting: at one point, they even crack themselves up right before a quick cut. Short and satisfying, Grand Central Murder is the kind of nice little surprise that pops up ever so often on TCM — echoes of a Hollywood system that cranked out hundreds of films per year, with many of them actually being quite entertaining.

  • Seven Sweethearts (1942)

    Seven Sweethearts (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) Sometimes, you don’t need plot as much as a few likable actors playing to their persona. Ask me in a few weeks about the plot of Seven Sweethearts and I’m liable to blurt something about a father wanting to marry his seven daughters in chronological order, largely dependent on the film’s log-line. But I’ll be far more voluble about what fun it is to see Van Heflin as a young romantic lead going up against S. Z. Sakall as the marrying dad and the rather wonderful ensemble of young women (including leads Kathryn Grayson and Marsha Hunt) that make up the seven titular daughters. It’s all rather cute and fun if you make it past the film’s strong paternalism, with a rather comforting embrace of middle-western values, decent work by actors playing in their wheelhouse (most especially Sakall, clearly enjoying playing a patriarch), some local Dutch-American atmosphere (it all takes place in a small town with a significant Dutch-born population and a big tulip festival) and a happy ending that is never, ever in doubt. You can see why it would play well in an anxious America then plunged into war. A few musical numbers integrated in the action help this reach musical fans, with the romance and character work doing the rest. Seven Sweetheats is not a great or particularly memorable movie by any means, but it’s pleasant enough to make anyone smile.

  • Johnny Eager (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) Not quite film noir yet but more than gangster films of the 1930s, Johnny Eager does begin on a strong note, with a charming ex-con managing to keep the authorities convinced that he’s back on the straight path, even as he’s back to controlling a good chunk of the metropolitan underground—and being utterly ruthless in doing so. Things get far more twisted when he gets an occasion to seduce the daughter of an influential district attorney. The plotting gets to be a lot of fun after that, with romance, crime and thrills thrown into the mix. Still, the highlight here is Van Heflin in an Oscar-winning performance as an alcoholic intellectual with florid dialogue, the only person able to talk back to the protagonist and get away with it. Robert Taylor is also quite good as Johnny Eager himself, both charming and homicidal. Meanwhile, Lana Turner does her best at, well, being Lana Turner. As a criminal melodrama, Johnny Eager isn’t particularly respectable, but it moves quickly, features a few good performances, and wraps everything up in some well-crafted irony.

  • Airport (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, July 2021) The big irony about Airport is that even if it’s credited with launching the disaster movie boom of the 1970s, it’s not quite a disaster film through and through: Adapted from a thick procedural novel from the legendary Arthur Hailey, it spends more than an hour and a half detailing the professional and personal struggles of an airport manager during a particularly trying snowstorm. Launching an ensemble cast’s worth of subplots, Airport does gradually build the suspense of its impending disaster, but it remains quite an intimate affair compared to the excesses of its later imitators. For much of the first hour, it remains a remarkably sedate affair. Our airport manager (a solid turn by Burt Lancaster) struggles with a status-seeking wife, a bickering brother-in-law (Dean Martin, playing a playboy pilot), protesting homeowners and that’s all before the film starts, because in the opening moments a pilot error blocks the airport’s main runway even as the snow piles up. Plenty of other subplots are brewing as well — including a charming elderly stowaway (Helen Hayes in an Oscar-winning role), a cigar-chomping maintenance chief tasked with resolving the problem of the stuck plane (George Kennedy in a delightful role — no surprise that he reprised it in the three sequels), and, most crucially, a psychotic engineer with plans to bring down a plane over the Atlantic (Van Heflin in his last role, really not looking as trim as he was twenty years earlier). The all-star ensemble cast is something that other disaster films would reprise with gusto (indeed, watching all four entries in the Airport series is like getting a reunion of classic Hollywood celebrities) even if the formula would eventually be tweaked to bring the disaster earlier in the film. It’s amusing to see the hostile reviews that Airport got upon release, even as it topped the box office for weeks: By 1970, the New Hollywood was getting all of the critical attention, and holdovers like Airport were treated with disdain even as audiences lapped it up. Decades later, Airport’s filmmaking style has become the standard, meaning that it still plays rather well once you get past the slow opening. It’s clear that Airport often gets dinged for the excesses of its successors — the sequels are progressively wilder, cheaper and dumber and that’s not mentioning the other disaster films of the decade—but it’s best seen as a slow-burn suspense film with a still-realistic execution. It’s hardly perfect — the dialogue is often ordinary and there are scenes with as bad a case of “as you know, Bob,” as I can recall seeing—but it’s quite entertaining in its own way, and almost charming in its insistence on sticking to tried-and-true formulas.

  • Possessed (1947)

    Possessed (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2021) I’m not a big Joan Crawford fan (I’ve made my choice in the Davis-versus-Crawford feud), but it’s hard not to be impressed by the performance she gives in classic film noir Possessed, and by the overwhelming bleakness of the film surrounding her. The framing device has a woman (Crawford) telling a doctor about the events that have landed her in a psychiatric help facility, the film going through a multi-year dramatic story. There’s a very noirish sense of fatalism to the events, as Crawford’s character goes to the end of her murderous crush on a man. The story is told with admirable fuzziness, blurring the lines between subjective recollection of a troubled mind and the descriptive realism that was Hollywood’s mainstream style at the time. No less than Van Heflin and Raymond Massey play the two men with polar relationships with the protagonist — one of them she loves and who doesn’t in return, the other she doesn’t love even though he does. While conceived as a psychological drama rather than a crime film, the dark ending and sombre cinematography mean that Possessed has been included with some fanfare in the film noir corpus. It’s not a bad pick — and much of that credit goes back to Crawford herself.

  • Presenting Lily Mars (1943)

    Presenting Lily Mars (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2021) I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll end up seeing Presenting Lily Mars a few more times in my life — not because it’s good, not because it’s bad, but because it’s so utterly generic. I will forget all about it and then grow curious enough to watch it again. Hence this review as a warning to myself. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, classic movie fans: Small-town girl goes to Broadway, where she catches her break and becomes a star. Even saying that Judy Garland stars in the film doesn’t help narrow it all that much. Fortunately, the film itself is not bad even in its utter genericity: the usually likable Van Heflin co-stars, and the film eventually works itself up to a big musical finale to the tune of “Broadway Rhythm.”  Much of the film was tailored for Garland, intending to smooth her transition from child star to adult actress with a coming-of-age story beginning with a small-town girl and ending with a Broadway star. Mid-1940s is probably my favourite Garland era, and Presenting Lily Mars is a clear demonstration of why. As for the rest, it’s a familiar film both in form and function — not much removed from the Broadway Melody films, or any of the near-countless movie musicals that used a rise to Broadway stardom as their narrative engine. Heflin and Garland do bring something extra for their fans, but otherwise this is the same song-and-dance — which is admittedly very watchable.

  • The Feminine Touch (1941)

    The Feminine Touch (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) One of my favourite kinds of comedy, especially in the Classic Hollywood era, if when the entire premise of the film causes characters to act in counter-natural ways. The Feminine Touch has that as a driving principle: the idea that an academic working on a book about jealousy would be blithely unable to be jealous, even despite ample provocations from his wife. The story does get more complex when other characters are introduced with non-mutual infatuations for other characters. Notable players here include Don Ameche as a comic/romantic lead playing the academic author, Rosalind Russell as his scheming wife trying to get a reaction out of him, Van Heflin as a romantic pretender, and Kay Francis as the fourth point in this romantic quadrangle. While The Feminine Touch is more charming and amusing than outright funny, it does culminate into a rather spectacular scuffle between the leads, and that’s a nice capper to an entertaining film. There’s a pretty good bit involving Van Heflin sporting an uncharacteristic beard and wolfish attitude. The material here is better than usual for a romantic comedy, and if you’re a fan of any of those actors (if not all four of them, because this is a seriously good cast), then The Feminine Touch is a can’t miss.

  • Once a Thief (1965)

    Once a Thief (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) There’s a hit-and-miss quality to Once a Thief that steadily brings the film close to a good movie, then retreats and repeats. It does set itself an impossible high bar with a very modern-feeling opening sequence blending a great jazz piece with a robbery sequence. It soon settles for a much less flashy drama — the story of an immigrant (none other than Alain Delon!) trying to forget his past criminal life in order to settle down with his son and wife (none other than Ann-Margret!) but keeps getting dragged back into the criminal life. If you’re going to talk about a cast, this film has a pretty good one, with other roles played by Jack Palance and personal favourite Van Heflin. Ann-Margret’s red mane is wasted in the film’s black-and-white cinematography, but she gets quite a showcase for dramatic intensity with wild hair and screaming sequences. While Once a Thief came too late to be considered a classic film noir, it does have the advantage of its late production date: it’s socially conscious to a degree that would have been unusual in the 1940s and 1950s, concerned as it is about the immigrant experience and the way marginalized people are punished beyond fair retribution. The ending is quite harsh even by the standards of the genre, which paradoxically makes Once a Thief age better than its contemporaries.

  • H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)

    H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) I have now seen just enough of King Vidor’s movies to expect more than the usual Hollywood formula from him, and in this regard H. M. Pulham, Esq. does not disappoint: The story of a middle-aged businessman trying to reconnect with a former flame, it’s a film that defies the usual conventions of romance, settling for wistful drama instead. While Robert Young is a rock in the lead role, there’s perhaps more to appreciate in the performance of Van Heflin as a friend, and especially Hedy Lamarr as the former flame of the protagonist, a free-spirited woman who offers an alluring distraction from his conservative lifestyle. Lamarr has more to do here than in many of her other movies, and she delivers an interesting character in the middle of an unusual story. As with other romances in which the characters recognize that they cannot have a happy ending together, it’s a film that plays in minor chords — interesting but not spectacular, quiet rather than bombastic. Even the ending, giving some solace to the main character, is a small victory rather than an outright triumph. It makes sense that H. M. Pulham, Esq. may be fondly remembered among the connoisseurs but a bit too esoteric to be a crowd favourite — it’s in this area that Vidor excelled, rather than trying to make outright crowd-pleasers.

  • B.F.’s Daughter (1948)

    B.F.’s Daughter (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I know, intellectually, that there are thousands of perfectly enjoyable movies that have been more or less forgotten by history. Still, it’s always fun to catch some random film on TCM and be unexpectedly charmed by the result. I probably recorded B.F.’s Daughter because it stars Barbara Stanwyck—she’s one of the few stars of the 1940 that I find interesting in her own right and not simply as a variation on leading lady stereotypes. But the story of the film does have a way of drawing audiences in, as our protagonist, the daughter of a rich self-made man, decides to trade off an ambitious upper-society lawyer boyfriend, for a humble working-class academic. It does help that the male lead is played by Van Heflin, a likable actor I’ve recently put in perspective thanks to such movies as East Side, West Side. But that whirlwind romance is only the beginning of a story that stretches over ten years and into World War II, as our hero becomes a noted academic and a trusted advisor to the upper sphere of the US government thanks to hard work… and an initial secret push from his wife. Their romance is prickly, complicated by other factors and severely put in jeopardy thanks to a crucial evening. Much of the third act is dedicated to the resolution of two crises, as the heroine suspects her estranged husband is having an affair (he’s not in the film, but he was in the original novel), and her old flame is presumed dead over the Pacific. It’s not really a great movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed Stanwyck and Heflin at work, and the look at the professional progression of an academic over a few years is the kind of material I actually enjoy watching. By the time the film raises issues about selling out principles in favour of access, I was as invested in those ideas as the central romance. Some movies, for lack of better descriptions, simply click and B.F.’s Daughter is one of those: I approached it without too many expectations and was very pleased by the results. Now let’s keep watching older films to see what other happy surprises are hidden in the archives…

  • East Side, West Side (1949)

    East Side, West Side (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) There’s a glorious, fascinating messiness to East Side, West Side that shows how the Hays Code era wasn’t necessarily an impediment for some heavy-duty melodrama. The film begins with a seemingly-happily married couple. But this façade soon comes tumbling down when, first, an ex-flame of the husband comes to town and then an ex-crush of the wife comes to town. That would be enough to power a film by itself, but the script peppers complications throughout, throwing in performers such as Cyd Charisse in a minor role that serves no real big purpose, then hinges an entire third act on the murder of one of the four main players, leading to a detective subplot that suddenly involves another main character. (It also leads to a fairly long and now-shocking sequence in which the male detective gets into a slaps-and-punches struggle with a female killer.) There are characters and sudden shifts of tone here that add a lot of texture, at the expense of what we would consider a polished script. It’s messy but a lot of fun, although you’ll have to work harder than usual to keep up with the twists and turns. An all-star cast sweetens the deal. James Mason is quite good in his own distinctive fashion as the protagonist cad, while Barbara Stanwyck is equally compelling as his increasingly estranged wife. Ava Gardner is the temptress that exposes the fault lines in their marriage, while Van Heflin rounds up the main cast with a character that increasingly reveals how resourceful he truly is over the course of the film. Top dialogue keeps things rolling, while the cinematography gives a noirish edge to New York City. Director Mervyn Leroy has enough experience to keep all the moving pieces together, and the result is a strong drama that will keep you invested from beginning to end despite its lack of clear focus.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, June 2021) The interesting thing about revisiting East Side West Side, even after a few months, is its all-star cast. In-between James Mason, Barbara Stanwyck, Eva Gardner and Van Heflin (with none other than Cyd Charisse being fifth-billed in a remarkably small role), it’s very much a collection of some of my favourite actors in the business at the time. But here’s the thing: It took me an embarrassingly long time to become a fan of Stanwyck and Gardner – While Mason is distinctive and easy to like, and a previous viewing of East Side West Side made me an instant fan of Van Heflin largely thanks to his remarkable character, it took me years to like Stanwyck given her lack of adherence to a rigid persona. Meanwhile, it took me until Night of the Lizard to finally see what others saw in Ava Gardner. But now that I’m on-board for all of them, East Side West Side takes on a different quality. Oh, the film more than stands on its own as a 1950s Manhattan melodrama – With the plot revolving around an ill-fitting couple contemplating affairs with past flames, it’s rife with dramatic situations, including woman-to-woman verbal combat and a superb mother-in-law-to-no-good-husband put-down. Mason is (as often) surprisingly good as a bad husband, while Heflin gets to play a character than, in most other movies, would be the protagonist: an immensely capable special forces operative with an uncanny ability to solve problems. One of the film’s highlights remains the physical altercation he gets with a murder suspect while they’re both sitting in a car – the fact that it’s a male/female fight is surprisingly shocking, perhaps even more so given that he’s clearly in the right in subduing a killer. The slapping, pulling and grabbing goes on for a surprisingly long time, and the close quarters of the car’s front seats mean that there’s nowhere to go. It’s not necessary to like the entire film (including a slow start and adequate finale) when it has those highlights and those stars. East Side West Side is well worth a revisit, especially if you get to appreciate the actors in other films in between those viewings.