Classic Films in Focus: ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949)

The Faust story has inspired many revisions over the centuries, so it's no surprise that director John Farrow's 1949 film noir, Alias Nick Beal, re-imagines the familiar tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil and comes to regret the bargain. In this version, however, it's not the Faust character who gets top billing, but the Devil himself, aka Nick Beal, brilliantly played by Ray Milland with suave menace and brimstone eyes. Thomas Mitchell's tempted attorney seems rather mild to warrant such a satanic charmer, but Audrey Totter's reluctant seductress makes a perfect feminine (and ultimately very human) foil to Milland's diabolical antagonist. It's a bit too tame and moral - especially in the final scenes - to be a truly outstanding adaptation of the tale, but Milland and Totter make it well worth viewing.

Thomas Mitchell plays righteous district attorney Joseph Foster, who unwittingly summons the demonic Nick Beal (Ray Milland) when he says he would give his soul to convict a notorious local criminal. Nick soon enables Foster to realize his goal and also promotes his candidacy for governor, but his help inevitably pushes Foster into deeper entanglements and more unethical situations. Foster's wife, Martha (Geraldine Wall), and friend, Reverend Garfield (George Macready), try to warn Foster against Nick's machinations, but Nick enlists the help of the attractive Donna Allen (Audrey Totter) to undermine Foster's marriage. By the time Foster climbs the steps of the governor's mansion, he realizes how far Nick has caused him to stray from his original ethics, but the only way out might literally lead him through the gates of Hell.

As its title and billing hierarchy imply, this movie belongs to its villain, and the good man exists mostly to give the Devil something to do. I don't mean to malign Thomas Mitchell, who is truly brilliant in films like Stagecoach (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), but his character, like Adam and Eve in Milton's Paradise Lost, proves far less interesting than the infernal antagonist. Milland has a way with dangerous, sly types that makes him absolutely perfect for the role. If you've seen him in Dial M for Murder (1954), or the less familiar So Evil My Love (1948), you know what a terrific heel he makes, and with Nick Beal he gets to inhabit an inhuman being of pure evil. Beal never makes much of a secret of his identity, even remarking to the Reverend Garfield that Rembrandt painted his portrait, and he simply appears and disappears wherever he likes. The human characters eventually catch on to his supernatural nature, but it takes Foster a surprisingly long time to confront the fact that he really has made a deal with the Devil.

Audrey Totter has long been a particular favorite of mine, and here she's perfectly cast as the temptress struggling with pangs of conscience over her part in Foster's corruption. Nobody aims a hard, hateful glare better than Totter, but she also shows her mastery of more complex emotions like fear, doubt, and deep regret. We first meet Donna at the low point of her life thus far, and Nick clearly believes she'll stoop to anything for a little worldly comfort. For a while she plays along, posing as a civic-minded socialite to infiltrate Foster's personal and political circles. Once she gets to know both Foster and Nick better, she proves that she's not nearly as morally bankrupt as Nick would like, although she finds him impossible to escape. Totter's performance helps to elevate Donna; she's far more than a mere phantom of desire like Faust's Helen of Troy and a more serious character than Lola in Damn Yankees (1958). After her role as Donna, Totter moved on to play both a faithful wife in The Set-Up (1949) and a truly vicious femme fatale in Tension (1949), but Alias Nick Beal gives her a complex character who possesses both good and evil qualities.

 John Farrow earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director for his work on the WWII war picture, Wake Island (1942), and he won Best Adapted Screenplay as a writer for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). His other noir pictures include The Big Clock (1948), Where Danger Lives (1950), and His Kind of Woman (1951). Ray Milland won Best Actor for The Lost Weekend (1945), but for lighter roles see him in The Major and the Minor (1942) and Rhubarb (1951). For more of Audrey Totter, try Lady in the Lake (1946) and The Unsuspected (1947). If you're interested in other classic films inspired by the Faust story, check out The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Angel on My Shoulder (1946), Bedazzled (1967), Doctor Faustus (1967), or the cult classic musical, Phantom of the Paradise (1974).

Classic Films in Focus: THEODORA GOES WILD (1936)

The truly delightful Theodora Goes Wild (1936) is an underappreciated gem of the screwball genre, one that ought to be much better known today among fans of classic romantic comedy. Its stars, Irene Dunne and Melvyn Douglas, are A-listers performing at their comedic best in this outing, although director Richard Boleslawski lacks the name recognition of Capra, Hawks, and Sturges, all widely celebrated for their screwball films. The movie was a hit in 1936, and Dunne, in her first starring comedic role, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance as the titular Theodora, a young woman living a double life in a conservative New England town. Knowing that some readers won't have seen it before, I'm hesitant to spoil too much of the plot of Theodora Goes Wild, which makes great use of its second act twist, but it's such a charmer that I can't help shouting its praise now that I've finally seen it myself.

Dunne plays Theodora Lynn, a church organist raised by her strict spinster aunts (Elisabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade) in a narrow-minded little town named for the Lynn family. Under the pseudonym Caroline Adams, Theodora is also the best-selling author of a racy romance novel, with heaps of money piling up in her bank account and her publisher (Thurston Hall) eager for a new book. Theodora's effort to keep her two lives completely separate becomes complicated once nosy, carefree illustrator Michael Grant (Melvyn Douglas) learns her secret and blackmails his way into her aunts' house. When Theodora finally "goes wild," Michael finds that his intervention has worked far better than expected, and with alarming consequences for everyone connected to her, including Michael himself.

The situation of a young person chafing under the constraints of life in a small, uptight town full of busybodies has enduring appeal, especially to those who experience it in real life, but the movie softens its criticism with scenes of berry picking, fishing, and other rural pleasures. Still, it won't make you want to relocate to Lynnfield, where self-righteous old women decry the liberal values of "civilization" and threaten to boycott the local newspaper run by Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell) when he publishes the Caroline Adams novel as a serial. Theodora's aunts have great sway with this crowd as representatives of the Lynn family, but the worst of the lot is the gossipy, hypocritical Rebecca Perry, played with particular comedic malice by Spring Byington. Melvyn Douglas' Michael drops into the town like a bomb, and he quickly throws Theodora, her aunts, and the gossips into a tizzy. The rakish troublemaker is determined to dig Theodora up like a rosebush in her aunts' garden and see her transplanted into more suitable soil, preferably New York, where her literary talents and her youthful energy have room to breathe. As it turns out, Michael also needs some digging up, which Theodora proves only too happy to undertake.

Screwball comedies so often turn on the idea of the woman as a chaotic, disruptive force, and it's great fun to see that switched here, with Douglas gamely balancing the obnoxious and attractive elements of the role. His constant whistling is especially destructive of the Lynn family's peace, but his instant attachment to a stray dog speaks to his generous heart, so we know that he's really a good guy in spite of his antics. When their situations are reversed, Theodora takes on the role of the relentless saboteur with equal enthusiasm and a striking disregard for her own reputation. Dunne is absolutely hilarious throughout, whether she's in retreat from Douglas or on the attack, and it's easy to see how this performance launched her into comedy classics like The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940). In spite of the disapproving Lynnfield ladies, the entire movie cheers for modernity, women's liberation, and gender parity with palpable enthusiasm. Ironically, their two chief supporters are both old men: Waterbury, the newspaper publisher, is an unrepentant radical, and Theodora's Uncle John (Robert Greig) is an unreformed rake who encourages her to live as she pleases. The second half of the story establishes the perfect equality between the two protagonists and gives Theodora Goes Wild an especially satisfying conclusion, with a finale that scandalizes Lynnfield in uproarious fashion and flirts with the limits of the recently enforced Hays Code.

Richard Boleslawski's directorial credits include The Painted Veil (1934), Les Miserables (1935), and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937); his sudden death in 1937 put a premature end to his career. A five-time nominee for Best Actress, Irene Dunne never won an Oscar but gained lasting fame in dramatic films like Show Boat (1936), Love Affair (1939), and I Remember Mama (1948), as well as her comedy roles. Melvyn Douglas won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars late in his career, for Hud (1963) and Being There (1979), and earned a Best Actor nomination for I Never Sang for My Father (1970), but be sure to see him in earlier pictures like Ninotchka (1939) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). Nana Bryant has a small but very funny role as the book publisher's wife, Ethel Stevenson, which might tempt you to look for more of her in Brewster's Millions (1945) and Harvey (1950).

Theodora Goes Wild is currently available for streaming on The Criterion Channel.

 

  

Classic Films in Focus: OUT OF THE FOG (1941)

Director Anatole Litvak's Out of the Fog (1941) delivers on the promised atmosphere, with fog heavy piers and dark alleys providing a moody setting for this story of Brooklyn's waterfront working class, but the tone veers away from true noir thanks to the sympathetic and often very funny characters played by Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen. Adapted from a play called The Gentle People by Irwin Shaw, the movie also features compelling performances from John Garfield and Ida Lupino as more typical noir types, with Eddie Albert in a supporting role, but the title of the original work suggests that the characters played by Mitchell and Qualen, two old men who dream only of boats and fishing, are the real protagonists here. Still, Garfield and Lupino fans will find plenty of scenes with the stars to appreciate, and the picture's message about standing up to a bully is a pointed commentary on the looming American entrance into World War II.

Mitchell and Qualen play Jonah Goodwin and Olaf Johnson, two working men who are saving their money to buy a seaworthy fishing boat for a long imagined trip to Cuba. Their dream is threatened when small-time racketeer Harold Goff (John Garfield) forces them to pay protection money for the little boat they already own. Goff also takes up with Goodwin's restless daughter, Stella (Ida Lupino), who chafes at her bland future with boyfriend George (Eddie Albert) and is attracted by the money and excitement Goff offers. With Goff trying to steal both his savings and his daughter, Goodwin becomes increasingly desperate to make a stand against the dangerous gangster. 

Garfield's crook is a grinning menace, bright enough to cause trouble and make himself untouchable by the local law while happily spending his ill-gotten cash. In an especially ironic moment, he uses the money he just extorted from her father to buy Stella a bottle of perfume. Even Stella knows Goff is headed for a violent end, but she likes the excitement of being around him after her humdrum days as a telephone operator and nights on predictably cheap dates with George. Garfield and Lupino don't give us the impression that these two characters share any genuine romance; they're just thrill seekers using each other for their own ends. If they really loved each other this would be an entirely different, and much darker, story because it's clear that nothing good can come out of their relationship. George would undoubtedly be better off with a steadier girl than Stella, especially as a wife, but she doesn't seem any more devoted to him than to Goff. She's a young version of the two older women we see in the picture: her mother, played by Aline MacMahon as a shrill hypochondriac, and Caroline (Odette Myrtil), the domineering owner of the restaurant where Olaf works. Domestic bliss is a myth in this world.

Counterbalancing the classic noir setup are Mitchell and Qualen as the kindly old men, whose scenes without Garfield generally involve fussing about their boat, dodging their disagreeable women, and debating the merits of making a stand against Goff. Mitchell, a brilliant character actor with iconic appearances in Stagecoach (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), deftly navigates the shifts between gentle comedy, paternal suffering, and hardened resolution. Qualen acts more as his sidekick but perfectly embodies the cook's mild-mannered, philosophical nature. Given the noir atmosphere of the picture the two seem destined for victimization, but the third act sees them rally against their oppressor, first through the useless court of law and then through their own devices. Throughout the narrative they make an argument to the audience about the importance of pushing back against an insatiable antagonist who only takes more and more if left to operate unchecked. The parallels between Goff and Nazi Germany aren't meant to be subtle, especially with Jonah and Olaf frequently punctuating their conversations with discussions of what America ought to be.

Lupino and Garfield also starred in The Sea Wolf (1941) the same year they made Out of the Fog. Garfield would go on to a particularly memorable noir role in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), while Lupino would star in The Man I Love (1946), Road House (1948), and On Dangerous Ground (1951). Thomas Mitchell is easy to find given his prominent roles in some of Hollywood's greatest hits, but look for more of prolific supporting player John Qualen in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Casablanca (1942), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Anatole Litvak also directed the noir classic, Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Director for The Snake Pit (1948). Moontide (1942) makes a particularly good follow-up to Out of the Fog because it reunites Lupino and Mitchell in another waterfront noir, this time costarring Jean Gabin and directed by Archie Mayo.

Classic Films in Focus: DARK WATERS (1944)

Somewhere between Lifeboat (1944) and Gaslight (1944) lies the plot of Dark Waters (1944), in which Merle Oberon stars as the survivor of a U-boat attack whose fragile sanity is tested by a collection of nefarious characters. All three pictures appeared in the same year, but the first two are decidedly better films, while Dark Waters holds interest primarily for its cast. Joining Oberon for this wartime swamp Gothic are Franchot Tone, Thomas Mitchell, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Fay Bainter, with Rex Ingram making sporadic but memorable appearances as a former employee who suspects that something is amiss at the old plantation. Dark Waters fails to deliver enough creepy atmosphere to achieve its Gothic ambitions, and the ending is more a hard stop than a proper conclusion, but Oberon is fascinating to watch as she tries to figure out whether she's going or being driven insane.

Oberon's perpetually imperiled heroine is Leslie Calvin, whose family flees the Japanese descent on Batavia (present day Jakarta) only to fall victim to a German U-boat attack at sea. Leslie survives many days in an open boat before ending up in a New Orleans hospital. After months of convalescence she travels to a nearby plantation owned by her aunt and uncle, where she hopes to recover from her post traumatic stress. She meets a handsome doctor (Franchot Tone), who quickly falls for her, but everything else goes awry as she is constantly exposed to situations that recall her ordeal and unsettle her sense of reality. Leslie begins to suspect that the manipulative Mr. Sydney (Thomas Mitchell) and his sidekick, Cleeve (Elisha Cook, Jr.), are tormenting her on purpose, but to what end?

Gothic mystery is a fine setting for Oberon's exotic beauty, but she gets better material to work with in both Wuthering Heights (1939) and The Lodger (1944), where her characters have more energy and more successfully developed plots. Franchot Tone's country doctor, George, doesn't spark much chemistry, but he seems to be the only available man in the area aside from Elisha Cook Jr.'s creepy Cleeve. It doesn't take two minutes to recognize both Cleeve and Sydney as the villains of this piece, and Thomas Mitchell has a handful of effectively menacing scenes, but Fay Bainter's Aunt Emily is neither disturbing nor reassuring, and it's hard to justify John Qualen's presence as Uncle Norbert, since he barely comes out of his room to utter a few lines at dinner. Fine actors inhabiting the background don't get enough to do, either, especially Rex Ingram and Odette Myrtil, who turns up as the mother of a large, friendly Cajun family.

There's enough potential in Dark Waters to see the movie it could be, and that warrants a viewing, especially for contrast with moodier explorations of similar plots and atmospheres. The Louisiana bayou makes an evocative setting, and the premise of Leslie's very justified anxiety about water and boats creates numerous opportunities for her to be tormented. We know from the beginning where the third act of this story will inevitably end (hence the title), but when the film finally reaches that point it seems in a hurry to wrap things up, and quite a few loose ends are left dangling. The pacing is more of a shock because there had apparently been plenty of time to linger on an earlier fais do-do sequence that adds nothing to the story. It's hard to say if director Andre De Toth or the writers are to blame for these issues, but De Toth certainly made tighter pictures over the course of his career.

Do pause a moment to appreciate the underused Nina Mae McKinney as the housemaid, Florella, who unfortunately disappears from the picture in the third act. For more of Merle Oberon, try The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), or That Uncertain Feeling (1941). See earlier roles for Franchot Tone in Bombshell (1933), Dancing Lady (1933), and Dangerous (1935). Thomas Mitchell is best remembered for more sympathetic characters in Stagecoach (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), while Elisha Cook, Jr. offers more of his usual type in The Maltese Falcon (1941), I Wake Up Screaming (1941), and The Killing (1956). For a more thoughtful and provocative treatment of a similar atmosphere, try I Walked with a Zombie (1943), or, for some really excessive gaslighting bayou horror, go for Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).


* As of February 2019, DARK WATERS is available for streaming on Amazon Prime, but the print is rather muddy, especially in the outdoor night sequences.

Classic Films in Focus: MOONTIDE (1942)

Although its name doesn't telegraph anything about the plot, Moontide (1942) does give the viewer an accurate impression of its mood, which is dreamy but dark, yielding a seductive fantasy with noir's sharp edge, or perhaps a noir film with romance's soft center. France's Jean Gabin and rising star Ida Lupino take top billing as two bits of lonely flotsam washing up together into love and peril, and under the direction of Archie Mayo they drift across the screen into each other's arms, even as the treachery of an unlikely enemy threatens them both. Moontide is an unusual picture, not, perhaps, essential viewing for noir or romance fans, but certain to appeal to those who like their genres mixed with a side of European sensibility. Unexpected performances by Thomas Mitchell and Claude Rains have their own charms, while Gabin and Lupino have plenty to offer in their chemistry onscreen.

Gabin stars as Bobo, a French longshoreman who can't remember what happened after a long night of drinking near the California docks. His parasitic friend, Tiny (Thomas Mitchell), suggests that Bobo might have killed a man during his drunken stupor, which Tiny sees as reason for the pair to leave town quickly. Troubled by the idea but not convinced of his own guilt, Bobo instead takes a job running a remote bait barge, where he saves the desperate young Anna (Lupino) from suicide. The two fall in love and decide to marry, but Tiny proves dangerously jealous of Anna and her ability to affect Bobo's plans.

Moontide struggled with many problems during production, not least of which was the departure of Fritz Lang as the original director, but none of them diminish the film as it appears onscreen. Gabin has a great face for this kind of picture, broad and strong, but open and innocent in its own way; like everything else about the movie, he occupies the space where noir and romance meet. We believe that he might have strangled a man to death in a boozy rage, but we also believe that he might not. After all, he isn't sure himself. Lupino, having electrified the screen with her courtroom crackup in They Drive by Night (1940), here takes a turn as a fragile waif, a girl broken by life when we first meet her but strong enough to survive incredible suffering if only someone like Bobo will give her a reason to keep going. Her appearance in the film's poster makes her look like a juke joint floozy, but the dress is merely an odd gift of Bobo's; Anna is a kind, simple soul who yearns for a home and a place of belonging.

The fairy tale fog and isolation of the bait shack enhance our sense of this tidal fantasy as a story that exists outside of reality, and the supporting characters also add to that impression. Thomas Mitchell, a character actor best remembered for more genial or paternal roles, exorcises some inner demons as the trollish Tiny; he's rotten through and through, even if Bobo is too generous to admit it. The usually debonair Claude Rains becomes downright scruffy as Nutsy, a night watchman who befriends Bobo and Anna and encourages their romance. The names of the characters underscore their detachment from a realistic world of details and hard data; we don't know their real names, or where they came from, and tedious facts like those hardly matter. Other characters, including Jerome Cowan's lovelorn doctor and Henry, the bait barge's owner (Chester Gan), drift in and out of the plot as the moment demands. The third act sees a storm break over the lovers and their happiness; both Nutsy and Tiny have their roles to play as the climax hits like a typhoon, violent and terrible. A true noir would have ended differently, and a pure romance would never have gone to such a dark place at all, but the ending works within the context of this genre mingling.

Moontide picked up an Oscar nomination for Charles G. Clarke's dreamy cinematography but lost in a crowd of ten nominees to Mrs. Miniver (1942). For more from Archie Mayo, see The Petrified Forest (1936), It's Love I'm After (1937), and the delightfully wacky Charley's Aunt (1941). Jean Gabin, who spent only the war years in Hollywood, was a huge star in his native France, where he made films like Pepe Le Moko (1937), Grand Illusion (1937), and Port of Shadows (1938). Don't miss Ida Lupino in They Drive by Night (1940), High Sierra (1941) and On Dangerous Ground (1951). Thomas Mitchell won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with Stagecoach (1939), but most people remember him best for Gone with the Wind (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). For more of Claude Rains' most unusual roles, try The Invisible Man (1933), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Phantom of the Opera (1943).

Classic Films in Focus: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

The vast array of memorabilia that has sprung up around It's a Wonderful Life (1946) over the last two decades tends to support the general sense of the holiday staple as the ultimate example of director Frank Capra's corny sentimentality, strengthening that idea we have of the movie being all about angels and family values and the treacly sweetness embodied in a kid named Zuzu. There are snow globes and coffee table books, Christmas tree ornaments and talking greeting cards, all of them spouting the fuzzy warmth of the movie's ending: "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings!"

These things, as ubiquitous as they are, do not go to the heart of It's a Wonderful Life; they show us only the the last glimpse of a story that has endured not because of its few bright moments, but because of its deeper understanding of the dark side of Christmas and of life, as well. It's a Wonderful Life is a Christmas story for the losers, the nice guys who finish last, the Bob Cratchits drowning in a world of Scrooges. It's a holiday film for those who find themselves miserably and helplessly depressed, not in spite of the season, but because of it. For these reasons it remains ones of the best and most truthful of seasonal films, and people who only ever catch the ending have missed everything that matters about it.

George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is a good man, yes, but this is a story that finds him trying to commit suicide at Christmas; his life has overwhelmed him so completely that the view from the bridge looks awfully tempting. Neither his loving wife (Donna Reed) nor their brood of young children are compelling enough reasons to keep George from jumping; it takes divine intervention to interrupt his despair, and that intervention turns up in the person of a daft little fellow named Clarence (Henry Travers), who tells a skeptical George that he is an angel. George, still miserable, wishes that he had never been born, and with this utterance the action of the story gets into gear, telling both the story of George's life and the story of life without George.

The memorabilia enshrines only the final scene of the film, that of a happy George and his family beneath the Christmas tree, but the darker scenes work themselves more subtly into the viewer's memory. George, having never been born, meets the woman who would have been his mother, and of course she does not know him. Lovely Mary, a lonely spinster, runs from him in fear. The grief stricken pharmacist whom George saved from a fatal mistake now wanders the town a broken drunk, mocked and reviled. Loathsome Potter, like a fat spider, looms over this town full of flies, and in George's absence the whole scene sinks and gasps and gives itself up to despair. Without George, the town becomes like him at the beginning of the film. His suffering is replaced by that of everyone else in Bedford Falls.

Of course, the ultimate message is positive, that one person makes a difference, that people will come together and do what is right when the time comes, that it really is a wonderful life, no matter how bad it may seem in the short term. Still, it acknowledges depression and suffering as a part of the Christmas experience, and it presents George as a sympathetic protagonist even when he is most unhappy. Looking at George's life in review, we have to admit that he has plenty of things to be unhappy about, and the redemption of George's faith at the end of the film is not a correction of his erroneous attitude so much as it is a long-overdue evening of the balance. George is not Scrooge, hardened and cruel, but Cratchit pushed one last lump of coal too far. We want to see him win for a change because we feel like him, overburdened, always one step behind our dreams, never in the right place at the right time to make life work for us for once.

Most of us have days when the view from the bridge looks tempting, and it's because of that shared misery that George speaks to us. If you have been a winner all your life and are happy at Christmas then you don't need to watch It's a Wonderful Life; it's not for you. It's for those of us who doubt, who grieve, who harbor sadness in our hearts as the carols are sung. It's for those of us who need to be reminded not so much that it's a wonderful life, but that we aren't alone in sometimes feeling that it's not.

If Capra's holiday classic is your only experience with the director, be sure to see Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). George Bailey was Jimmy Stewart's first post-war role; see him in Destry Rides Again (1939) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) for more pre-war work, and then compare those with other post-war films like Rope (1948), Winchester '73 (1950), and Vertigo (1958). For more Christmas classics, try Christmas in Connecticut (1945), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and White Christmas (1954).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: THE BLACK SWAN (1942)

 Of course Tyrone Power had to play a pirate at some point in his career. Like Errol Flynn, he exuded the kind of masculine charisma that lent itself to the swashbuckler, and in director Henry King's The Black Swan (1942) we get to see that quality exhibited in spades, along with a pretty good portion of Power's attractive torso. Although there are some rather thorny issues to deal with when it comes to the picture's representation of romance, The Black Swan works very well as an old school adventure film, with exciting performances from Power and the rest of the cast.

Power takes the lead as English pirate Jamie Waring, who finds his activities at sea and on land complicated by the appointment of his old friend, Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar), to the governorship of Jamaica. Henry expects Jamie's assistance in hunting down former comrades, particularly the rebellious Captain Leech (George Sanders), but Jamie finds himself distracted by the previous governor's beautiful daughter, Lady Margaret (Maureen O'Hara). Sparks fly between the sparring couple even as Jamie comes to realize that Margaret's father (George Zucco) and suitor (Edward Ashley) have resorted to some seriously underhanded measures in order to oust Henry Morgan from his new office.

Laird Cregar as Henry Morgan

The presence of real pirate Henry Morgan makes for an interesting spin on the usual swashbuckler tale of the era, but the film's interest in politics is mainly focused on the idea that piracy and politics are really the same thing once you get past the semantics. Henry is pirate first and politician second, while his adversaries present the reverse order, but Henry and his comrades come off as appealing because their piratical nature is transparent, while the scheming Lord Denby and Roger Ingram are despicable because they hide their black colors under hypocritical righteousness. Like Morgan, Jamie Waring is, therefore, a lovable rogue, despite his boorish and even felonious behavior, because we know he's a pirate and so does he. The casting of the "good" pirates highlights their demand for our sympathy. Laird Cregar creates an immensely interesting character out of Morgan as an old sea dog trying to learn a new trick; you have to feel sorry for him squirming in his respectable clothes, clearly trying to bluff his way out of every situation and ready to eat his wig as the whole mess gets more and more out of control. Brilliant character actor Thomas Mitchell gets to cut loose as Jamie's first mate, Tommie Blue, and he looks like he's having a wonderful time. Contrast these charming scoundrels with the "bad" pirates played by George Sanders and Anthony Quinn, both of them looking quite wild, and it's clear which ones we're supposed to like.

The romantic plot of the film plays less well for a modern audience. It's hard for us today to defend or even grasp the idea of romance predicated on violence, even though it was a common trope for certain kinds of classic films. The first time we meet Margaret Denby, Jamie assaults her, hits her, tries to kidnap her, and then drops her on the floor once his attention is directed elsewhere. No wonder she doesn't seem to like him! The only justification for this love as war theme is the fact that Margaret gives as good as she gets; these two firebrands both like it rough, and that's why they're attracted to each other. The casting of Maureen O'Hara as Margaret makes this squaring off of the sexes more palatable; she makes a very credible hellcat, and of course that's why she appears in so many similar roles opposite John Wayne in movies like The Quiet Man (1952) and McLintock! (1963). Still, the idea of "saying no, saying yes" makes serious trouble for the astute modern viewer, and it might be wise to have a thoughtful conversation about this element of the film with any youngsters watching the picture. There's a certain forced quality to the end of the movie, akin to that of The Taming of the Shrew, that defends the idea that a battle of the sexes ends well when a woman chooses to "win" by losing.

Younger viewers who enjoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean movies should certainly find plenty to like in The Black Swan, while older fans of the swashbuckler will enjoy the lively performances from the first rate cast. Don't miss Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940) for an even better example of Power's talent and charisma. You can see more of the beautiful Maureen O’Hara in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and Miracle on 34^th Street (1947). Catch the fantastic Laird Cregar in This Gun for Hire (1942), Heaven Can Wait (1943), and The Lodger (1944). Henry King also directed Jesse James (1939), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and The Gunfighter (1950). If the battle of sexes really revs your motor, go directly to the musicals Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Kiss Me Kate (1953), and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). Given the similarities, I'm almost surprised in retrospect that Power and O'Hara don't burst into song! 

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.