Trying to make sense of the story gets in the way of what is genuinely importantthe snappy banter full of covetable lines between the rich, sophisticated Nora and her sharp lush of a husband. Disarming an unwanted guest one night, the incident is reported in the morning news. I was shot twice in the Tribune, says Nick. I
read you were shot five times in the tabloids, says Nora. Its not true. He didnt come anywhere near my tabloids. Said with cast-off ease, the lines are funny without jumping out as such. Nick may seem like an alcoholic, but he springs back and forth from relaxed giddiness to active sobriety in the wink of an eye. The couples prodigious boozing seems to have little effect on their actions; its more of an elegant propa vital element for a country just coming out of the Great Depression.
Taken from a novel written in the same year by Dashiell Hammett, Nick and Nora were supposedly modeled on Hammetts relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman. Shot in fourteen days, this sparkling screwball detective story earned over $2 million and was nominated for four Academy Awards. Not surprisingly, popularity spawned four more movies as well as a radio and television series, and was the inspiration behind TV shows such as McMillian & Wife and Hart to Hart. KK
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1930s
CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935)
U.S. (Cosmopolitan, First National, Warner Bros.) 119m BW
Language: English / French
Director: Michael Curtiz
Producer: Harry Joe Brown, Gordon Hollingshead, Hal B. Wallis
Screenplay: Casey Robinson, from novel by Rafael Sabatini
Photography: Ernest Haller, Hal Mohr
Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Liszt
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson, Robert Barrat, Hobart Cavanaugh, Donald Meek, Jessie Ralph, Forrester Harvey, Frank McGlynn Sr., Holmes Herbert, David Torrence
Oscar nominations: Erich Wolfgang Korngold (best picturenot awarded), Michael Curtiz (director), Casey Robinson (screenplay), Leo F. Forbstein (music), Nathan Levinson (sound)
A quintessential swashbuckling adventure directed by expert Michael Curtiz, Captain Blood made divinely attractive Australian Errol Flynn a star overnight. His animal magnetism hugely impressed Jack Warner, who handed him this break when Robert Donat disdained the role. The film marks the first pairing in a string of winning romantic costume pictures of Flynn with Olivia de Havilland, whose genteel prettiness was a charming foil for his exuberance and athletic sex appeal.
Flynn plays an honorable seventeenth-century Irish doctor, Peter Blood, unjustly sentenced to deportation to and slavery in the Caribbean, where he aims insolent barbs and suggestive glances at dainty mistress Arabella Bishop (de Havilland). Leading an escape he turns pirate, the vengeful scourge of the bounding main, and forms an uneasy alliance with dastardly French buccaneer Captain Levasseur (Basil Rathbone). Relations become strained when they fall out over booty and the captive beauty, Arabella, resulting in a duel to the death in the first of their famously thrilling screen sword fights. Captain Blood has everything you could want in a swashbucklersea battles and flashing blades, a dashing hero, an imperiled but plucky heroine, cutthroats, plumed hats, wrongs righted, fellows swinging like gymnasts from masts, and a rousing score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It is great fun. AE
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1930s
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)
U.S. (MGM) 132m BW
Director: Frank Lloyd
Producer: Albert Lewin, Irving Thalberg
Screenplay: Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, from book by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall
Photography: Arthur Edeson
Music: Herbert Stothart, Walter Jurmann, Gus Kahn, Bronislau
Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin, Eddie Quillan, Dudley Digges, Donald Crisp, Henry Stephenson, Francis Lister, Spring Byington, Movita, Mamo Clark, Byron Russell, Percy Waram, David Torrence
Oscar: Albert Lewin, Irving Thalberg (best picture)
Oscar nominations: Frank Lloyd (director), Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings, Carey Wilson (screenplay), Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Charles Laughton (actor), Margaret Booth (editing), Nat W. Finston (music)
Epitomizing the classic Hollywood spirit, Frank Lloyds Mutiny on the Bounty is a masterwork of studio moviemaking. The films spare-no-expense canvas, travelogue quality, and moral center result in an adventure tale of remarkable beauty. Of course this overlooks an acting style long since left behind. Then theres an American cast imbuing this British cautionary tale with Depression-era optimism. Still, these minor criticisms serve to support how well produced the film is when considering MGMs house style that simultaneously emphasized profits, escapism, and the broadest possible entertainment.
Set in the late 18th century, when the British Empire crested across the decks of its navy, the crew of the ship Bounty mutinies after months of mistreatment. Led by Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), they put their cruel captain, Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton), to sea, only for him to find his way back to port in an effort nothing short of amazing. Into his wake sails the Bounty for the South Pacific, beset by various complications.