Walter Pidgeon

  • Sky Murder (1940)

    Sky Murder (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) My not-so-secret reason to watch Sky Murder was to get a glimpse of Virginia O’Brien’s screen debut, and I got exactly that: she shows up as part of a group of models and doesn’t get any discernible dialogue other than group screaming, but she’s there all right for the first half of the film. Of course, Virginia O’Brien is not the point of the film — Sky Murder is the third and final film in a series of mysteries featuring Walter Pidgeon as the then-popular literary hero Nick Carter. The plot has to do with subversive villains plotting attacks within the United States, and showing their hands too early by murdering someone aboard a charter plane in which Carter (and the models) are also present. After much screaming and another murder attempt, Carter gets on the case in a narrative that would feel familiar to any action movie fan: Chases, explosions, spies, high-stake gambits and villain unmasking are all part of the routine for Carter, and Pidgeon does carry the role with authority. It’s relatively easy to deduce that this is a film in the series by the way the protagonist moves around the screen, fully established and self-confident that audiences are watching. For a 72-minute film, Sky Murder features a steady series of sensational episodes, comic relief, romantic interests, perfidious antagonists (all of them caught by the police) and steadfast allies. It’s fun to watch, even though it won’t fool anyone into thinking that this was a high-class production. I’m now curious enough to seek out the other Carter movies — with any luck, TCM will run a marathon sometime soon.

  • Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

    Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) If you want a specific illustration of the kind of overwrought melodrama that the major studios could produce in the 1940s (and get them nominated for an Oscar along the way), then Blossoms in the Dust can be your pick. Tackling social issues (in this case; advocating for adopted children) using a weeping dose of personal tragedy (a dead sister and child all in the first act), this is a film that wants to make you cry your eyes out and think that it’s all coming from an admirable source. Bleh. The film’s saving graces are its colour cinematography (still a rarity in the early 1940s, and a measure of how much of a prestige production this was despite the unspectacular nature of the visuals) and the first pairing of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as the likable lead couple. Garson could make even the most hackneyed material look dignified and she does not disappoint here, even as the entire film around her is a pure weeper. The plot itself is manipulated for maximum pathos—while adapted from a real story, it’s cheerfully tweaked for drama whenever it can, even at the expense of basic credibility. Director Mervyn LeRoy was a veteran at that point, but even he can’t make Blossoms in the Dust work for modern audiences.

  • Madame Curie (1943)

    Madame Curie (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The ever-compelling Greer Garson had a remarkable five-year run of Oscar nominations in the early 1940s, and the biographical drama Marie Curie was right in the middle of it, focusing on the scientist’s turn-of-the-century discovery of radium. As befits a 1940s Hollywood production tackling scientific subjects, the emphasis here is on melodramatic sentiments, beautiful romantic black-and-white cinematography and actors mouthing off grandiose statements about science, peering sagely in a long-distant future to extrapolate the meaning of their research. Some of it comes across as silly and overdone, but everything must be put in perspective, and by most standards (including, often, our own), Madame Curie is still quite an admirable movie—it doesn’t soft-pedal either Curie’s femininity (easy enough with Garson in the lead role), the heartwarming loving relationship with her husband (Walter Pidgeon, looking dashing with a sharp-chinned beard), the importance of her discoveries or the effort that goes into actual science. While it does allow itself quite a few moments of unabashed Hollywood romanticism, those more conventional passages work at making the characters likable in addition to illustrating their serious intellectual achievements. The scientific vulgarization is not bad (despite a few shortcuts) and the portrayal of a woman scientist is still remarkable either for 1900, 1943 or 2019. I quite liked it, and I remain surprised that at an age where STEM for girls is rightfully seen an unabashed good, Madame Curie isn’t better known or more widely seen.

  • Mrs. Miniver (1942)

    Mrs. Miniver (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) One of the reasons why I suspect it’s better to start watching older movies after a certain age is that you get to appreciate not only the movie but its place at the time in which it was made. It’s impossible to watch Mrs. Miniver today without thinking about 1942 America, watching aghast at the disastrous first few years of World War II in Europe but not yet committed to the war effort. Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda piece designed to sway public opinion toward supporting America’s entry into World War II, and it does so by presenting the life of an ordinary (well; ordinary upper-middle-class) English family before and immediately during World War II. That’s how we spend a rather dull first act with a family doing ordinary things, but as events evolve we see them react to news of the war, then be directly involved as their daily lives are disrupted, as their son enlists in the air force, as bombing raids destroy their house, as dad goes down the river to help the Dunkirk invasion, and as death strikes. After a slow start, the film gets progressively more involving up until a gut punch of a conclusion that still works surprisingly well despite the decades since the film’s release. A sequence between Mrs. Miniver and a German soldier is designed to infuriate the audience and reading contemporary accounts of reactions to the film, it’s clear that the film was deemed incredibly influential in rallying American audiences in the war effort. The film won the Best Picture Oscar that year (presenting an interesting counterpoint to the following year’s winning Casablanca). Even acknowledging its quality as propaganda doesn’t take away its emotional or narrative impact. Greer Garson is quite good in the title role, gradually showing inner reserves of strength as the war marches on and hits closer. Walter Pidgeon is also noteworthy at the husband, as are Teresa Wright and Dame May Whitty in very different roles. I defy anyone to listen to Mrs. Miniver’s closing speech and not feel even a little bit stirred toward Nazi-punching action even in a war won decades ago. It’s still that good.