Classic Films in Focus: THE SPANISH MAIN (1945)

The Spanish Main (1945) revisits many of the same elements as earlier swashbucklers, especially Captain Blood (1935) and The Black Swan (1942), but this time instead of Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power we get Paul Henreid as the heroic pirate, and the actor gives a perfectly winning performance in the role. The picture suffers a bit in comparison with the greatest examples of the genre, and it certainly doesn't break any new ground, but Henreid and leading lady Maureen O'Hara make The Spanish Main an entertaining way to spend an evening. Gorgeous Technicolor costumes and supporting performances from Walter Slezak, Mike Mazurki, and the very engaging Binnie Barnes also add to the appeal.

Henreid plays Laurent Van Horn, a Dutch captain whose ship of immigrants to the Carolinas wrecks off the coast of Cartagena. Van Horn and his passengers become the prisoners of the foppish, corrupt viceroy, Don Juan Alvarado (Walter Slezak), but Van Horn escapes from the dungeons and reinvents himself as the notorious pirate known as The Barracuda. With his crew of former prisoners, Van Horn exacts revenge on Alvarado at every opportunity, but the best chance of all comes when the pirates take the ship carrying Alvarado's intended bride, the beautiful Francesca (Maureen O'Hara). Van Horn promptly marries Francesca to gall Alvarado, but his actions anger his pirate peers, especially the jealous Anne Bonney (Binnie Barnes) and his second-in-command, Mario (John Emery). With plots rising against him at every turn, Van Horn finds that he might actually be in love with his stolen bride.

Paul Henreid is, of course, best remembered for Casablanca (1942); in The Spanish Main he gets to play a more physical, roguish role, but his refined air softens his character in comparison with Tyrone Power's protagonist in The Black Swan. The juxtaposition of the two comes naturally because both actors play pirates engaged in a war of the sexes with Maureen O'Hara, who was classic Hollywood's go-to girl for gorgeous shrews. Henreid has an air of continental class, even when he's tied to the mast and being lashed, that makes us doubt the sincerity of Van Horn's misogynist threats, but the actor looks remarkably good in the period costumes, especially with his tousled blond curls. This is a sexier, looser Henreid, who looks like he's having a lot of fun. He's exciting to watch in the sword fight sequences, too, and the audience can certainly sympathize when Francesca falls for him. O'Hara is radiantly lovely in a series of dazzling gowns, but as usual her fiery spirit serves as her chief attraction, and she has some wonderful scenes in which her character gets to prove her mettle to Van Horn, even standing to a pistol duel and organizing the pirates' escape from Alvarado's treacherous clutches.

If the miniature ships and painted backdrops look a little obvious to modern eyes, the performances of the supporting players also help to make up for it, particularly Binnie Barnes in a delightful turn as the real lady pirate Anne Bonney. She's so feisty and fun that she could have carried her own movie, although the resolution for her character is one of the places where the picture falls flat. Walter Slezak makes for a preening, pompous villain as Alvarado; he would play a very similar role in The Pirate (1948), and in both pictures he's a perfect foil for the vigorous, virile hero. John Emery rocks his roguish hair and mustache as the slippery Mario, although he doesn't really have a lot to do until the last third of the picture, while Mike Mazurki proves the standout of the minor characters without ever uttering a word. Fritz Leiber, who had also appeared in The Sea Hawk, plays yet another priest character, and naturally he looks very much at home in the role, although he disappears toward the end of the movie as the action heats up.

Frank Borzage, a two-time winner of the Oscar for Best Director, made The Spanish Main toward the end of his career, which had started out during the silent era. He is probably best remembered today for A Farewell to Arms (1932) and the wartime morale booster, Stage Door Canteen (1943). For more of Paul Henreid, see Now, Voyager (1942), Deception (1946), and Rope of Sand (1949); he returned to piracy in Last of the Buccaneers (1950) and Pirates of Tripoli (1955). Maureen O'Hara plays more beautiful firebrands in The Quiet Man (1952) and McClintock! (1963), opposite frequent costar John Wayne, but for something different see her in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). Catch Binnie Barnes in The Private Life of King Henry VIII (1933), The Last of the Mohicans (1936), and In Old California (1942). If you really want to loathe a Walter Slezak villain, see him at his worst in Lifeboat (1944).

Classic Films in Focus: NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)

Tyrone Power is best remembered today as a swashbuckling hero, but in Nightmare Alley (1947) the star gets to revel in his darker side, using his good looks and intense charisma to chilling effect as a callous heel whose con games inevitably catch up with him. Directed by Edmund Goulding, this classic film noir bursts with shady characters and seedy ambiance; no setting could be better suited to the fatalistic shadow play of the genre than a two-bit traveling carnival, with its losers, crooks, and abject sideshow freaks. Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker give solid performances as the trio of women who shape Power’s protagonist, but it’s Power himself who dominates the show in a role he truly was made for.

Power plays ambitious carny Stan Carlisle, who hopes to become a big time performer with the help of middle-aged mentalist Zeena (Joan Blondell). When Zeena’s alcoholic husband dies, she gives Stan the break he wants, but Stan uses the opportunity to quit the carnival and take his naive young bride, Molly (Coleen Gray), with him. Stan’s fame and fortune rise, but he courts disaster when he falls in with a beautiful psychologist (Helen Walker) who encourages him to begin a dangerously complicated con.

Power gives an electrifying performance as Stan. His handsome features here take on a dissipated edge, with crow’s feet crinkling around his hungry, burning eyes. We know from the start that Stan is no good, but Power makes him more anti-hero than true villain, a small-time guy whose ambition is always too big for him. Stan uses everyone he meets, especially the women, but he surprises us and perhaps himself, as well, when it turns out that he really does love Molly. His young wife’s refusal to carry out his cynical deception is not a betrayal of Stan but an expression of her own innate goodness; we expect him to be furious with her, but instead he rushes to get her out of harm’s way, leading to a brief, tender moment of farewell. In many noir films, a good girl like Molly can be as much the protagonist’s undoing as the femme fatale, but the final scene suggests that in this case Molly might yet be Stan’s saving grace. Power’s character walks a fine enough moral line that we want to see that glimmer of hope at the end, even as we relish Stan’s much-deserved fall.

Noir generally deals in the workings of fate, but in Nightmare Alley the theme has special significance. The turning of Fortune’s wheel is represented as inevitable, irresistible, and grimly ironic. When we first meet Stan we find him both fascinated and horrified by the carnival geek, a poor sap fallen so low that he’ll bite the heads off of live chickens for a bottle of booze and a place to sleep. Throughout the film, Stan’s moments of crisis are punctuated by the remembered screams of the geek; we know, as Stan himself does, that this fate waits for him as surely as death waits for us all. Zeena’s Tarot cards confirm that Stan must take his place as the hanged man, the heir to Zeena’s doomed husband and the geek, as well. In the world of carnival noir, the characters’ belief in Tarot is never merely superstition; the cards reveal the truth about a world controlled by fate. Only a fool like Stan tries to fight it. His last line in the film, “Mister, I was made for it,” is both an ironic echo of his earlier ego and a signal that Stan finally accepts the card he has been dealt.

In addition to the major players, be sure to appreciate the distinctive presence of Mike Mazurki as the carnival strongman, Bruno. Tyrone Power is best known for films like The Mark of Zorro (1940) and The Black Swan (1942), but he also plays a darker character in his final picture, Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Sample Joan Blondell’s long career with Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), and Desk Set (1957). Look for Coleen Gray in Kiss of Death (1947), Red River (1948), and Kansas City Confidential (1952). Helen Walker also stars in Brewster’s Millions (1945), Murder, He Says (1945), and Call Northside 777 (1948). For more from director Edmund Goulding, see Grand Hotel (1932), Dark Victory (1939), and The Razor’s Edge (1946).

Classic Films in Focus: MURDER, MY SWEET (1944)

Several actors have played Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, in memorable films: Humphrey Bogart took on the role in The Big Sleep (1946), Robert Montgomery tried it in Lady in the Lake (1947), and Elliott Gould offered a neo-noir version in The Long Goodbye (1973). George Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, and James Garner have all donned Marlowe’s mantle, as well, but the most surprising actor to appear as the noir icon might be former crooner Dick Powell, who stars as the first big screen Marlowe in Edward Dmytryk’s highly regarded Murder, My Sweet (1944). Joining Powell for this wild, dark ride are Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley as members of a murderously dysfunctional family who pull the detective into a series of deadly encounters. With its fatal females, sardonic voiceover, and tangled passions, Murder, My Sweet has all the hallmarks we associate with classic noir style, although it also offers surreal thrills thanks to Marlowe’s psychotropic adventures.

Powell’s Marlowe is first drawn into his latest case by newly paroled muscle man, Moose (Mike Mazurki), who wants the detective to track down an old flame. Before he can do much with that job, Marlowe finds himself drawn into another mystery when he plays bodyguard to a man who ends up being killed on Marlowe’s watch. The murderer’s trail leads Marlowe to the wealthy Grayle family, where trophy wife Helen (Claire Trevor) is trying to recover a stolen jade necklace given to her by her elderly husband (Miles Mander). Helen’s stepdaughter Ann (Anne Shirley) dislikes Marlowe but wants to protect her father from whatever trouble Helen has caused. Marlowe, however, isn’t sure whether he can trust any of the Grayles, especially since his two cases seem to be strangely entwined.

The story is told in flashback, and in the opening we meet Powell sitting in a police interrogation room with bandaged eyes and a crowd of unfriendly cops, so we know Marlowe’s adventure isn’t going to be any walk in the park. In fact, Marlowe really takes a beating; he gets hit over the head, strangled, drugged, shot at, locked up, and hounded by the police throughout the picture. Murder, My Sweet ventures into really bizarre territory when Marlowe is shot full of mind-altering drugs and experiences hallucinations worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, but the segment works with the unlucky detective’s repeated trips to the “black pool” of unconsciousness. For a guy who’s supposed to be thinking fast, Marlowe spends a lot of time in the dark, an irony not lost on the picture’s attitude toward its dazed protagonist and convoluted plot.

Powell originally gained fame as a musical star in Busby Berkeley productions like 42nd Street (1933), but he plays cat and mouse with Claire Trevor just as well as he had sung to Ruby Keeler. He has a perfect voice for Marlowe's narration and throws his wry lines around with a jaded, casual cool. Powell’s cast mates give him plenty to work with, especially Claire Trevor as the sexy, secretive wife and Mike Mazurki as the tough mug with a one-track mind. Otto Kruger is ominously urbane as Jules Amthor, a crooked psychiatrist who abuses his relationship with his clients in a lucrative, if grossly unethical, manner, although Mazurki is so interesting as both a physical presence and a character that his henchman really overshadows the more intellectual boss.

Murder, My Sweet is required viewing for classic noir fans; try a double bill with one of the other Marlowe pictures for different takes on Chandler's streetwise detective. Catch the lighter side of Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), and Dames (1934). Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Key Largo (1948); she also has memorable roles in Dead End (1937), Stagecoach (1939), and Raw Deal (1948). Anne Shirley earned her own Best Supporting Actress nomination for Stella Dallas (1937), which put her in direct competition with Trevor that year, although both lost to Alice Brady for In Old Chicago (1937). Look for Mike Mazurki's distinctive face in many films from the 1940s and 50s, including The Canterville Ghost (1944), Nightmare Alley (1947), and Some Like It Hot (1959). Edward Dmytryk also directed Back to Bataan (1945), The Caine Mutiny (1954), and Raintree County (1957).