Coming Home After WWII

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A dear friend of mine (now deceased) was a big fan of Clark Gable, and I am sure she saw most of the movies he made — especially "Gone With the Wind," which was one of her favorite books as well. In fact, she spoke so highly of it that I purchased a paperback copy of the book when we were in high school. That book still has a spot on my bookshelf. I expect it to still be in my possession when I die.

I have no idea, though, whether my friend ever saw Mervyn LeRoy's "Homecoming," which premiered in May 1948.

If she didn't, she probably saw movies that were similar. There has never been a shortage of soap operaesque movies coming from Hollywood, and "Homecoming" really went the extra mile in that regard. Seldom did "Homecoming" fail to apply a cliché to its storyline.

The acting was good in spite of the material.

Gable played a surgeon returning to America from World War II. Ordinarily, he was a tough guy in his movies, but he was unusually sensitive in this one. Perhaps that was a result of Gable losing his own wife, Carole Lombard, in a plane crash six years earlier. Maybe that sensitized his performances in the years after Lombard's death, especially his performance in "Homecoming."

In "Homecoming," he played a surgeon who went to war not so much out of a sense of patriotism but a sense of duty. His real loyalty was to his wife (Anne Baxter) at home, but that loyalty was severely tested when he experienced a growing passion for his nurse (Lana Turner).

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It was long rumored that Gable had been having an affair with Turner at the time of Lombard's death. I don't know if there was any truth to that rumor. I do know that, while Turner was regarded as a great beauty, she played a decidedly unglamorous role in "Homecoming."

Of course, that may just be my personal opinion in the context of the film. Turner was always beautiful, but she seemed ignorant of that fact in "Homecoming."

Turner's character was the tough one, the one who knew what was best for all concerned. Gable was obsessed with himself.

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"Homecoming" was worth seeing because of Turner's performance. She didn't always play the tough one, but in this movie she did, and it benefited from that performance.

From Beyond Maps

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"Trees lie where they fall, and men were buried where they died."

Narrator (Howard Keel)

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If you like horses, you'll probably like "Across the Wide Missouri," which premiered on this day in 1951. It had a lot of horses.

Does that sound flippant? It isn't intentional. Fact is, I do like horses — and I liked "Across the Wide Missouri," too, but not simply because it had horses.

To be honest, though, there really wasn't much of a plot — at least by the standards of the times. When you sit down to watch a western from the '40s or '50s, you expect a movie that has obviously good guys (usually the cowboys or the soldiers) and definitely bad guys (typically the Indians although sometimes they were outlaws). The idea that the cowboys/soldiers might be the bad guys and the Indians/outlaws might be the good guys was seldom if ever explored in the movies — at least until comparatively recently.

And "Across the Wide Missouri" wasn't necessarily a radical departure from that norm. It simply seemed to take a more neutral position than most of the movies I have seen from that time. It made few judgments about who was right and who was wrong although it often spoke of issues that would provoke intense debates today. It simply told a story — in much the same way that a textbook would. You know ... This happened and then this happened and then this happened.

No in–depth exploration of cause and effect. All very matter of fact.

I'm not suggesting it lacked a story, but "matter of fact" is an apt description. The movie was based on an historian's book about actual fur traders and their experiences with the Indians. Clark Gable played the central character, a fur trapper, and he was surrounded by some well–known people — James Whitmore, Howard Keel (who did the off–screen narration), Ricardo Montalban — and some who were not so well known.

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Like 24–year–old Mexican actress–singer María Elena Marqués, who portrayed the adopted daughter of an Indian chief. She had been in Mexican movies for nearly 10 years, but "Across the Wide Missouri" was one of her few Hollywood movies so she couldn't have been too familiar to American audiences. She was Gable's love interest.

Gable actually came to love her in time, but the marriage began as one of convenience. It basically allowed Gable's character to trap at will in Indian territory. It also saved him from being scalped.

His wife gave birth to a son then was killed by a warring Indian tribe. And for awhile, after Marqués' character was killed, it was uncertain whether Gable would care for his son or not. That wouldn't be a politically correct angle in the 21st century, but nearly 200 years ago it was apparently acceptable for a man to abandon his children if he lost his wife.

Well, perhaps not acceptable, but in those days it may have been considered a legitimate option for a man whose work kept him away from his home for much of the year.

It is important to keep such things in context. The movie was set about 30 years before the start of the Civil War. Many of the modern states west of the Missouri River were nothing more than unsettled territories, if that.

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It's safe to say the rules were different in those days — starting with the fact that there were no rules in many places. In fact, there were few boundaries. A man lived by his wits and seizing the day.

In my favorite line from the movie, at a gathering of trappers, one was asked where they all came from. He replied, "They come from beyond maps."

I thought "Across the Wide Missouri" was probably a more realistic depiction of the times and the people than most movies of its genre — precisely because it kept that in mind.

And then there were the horses.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable): But the prisoner is dead, sir!

Capt. William Bligh (Charles Laughton): Never mind. Continue with the punishment!

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Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the reason why movies in the '30s and '40s were so good is because so many were based on classic stories.

Sometimes the recent original stories on which movies are based are pretty good, but, in my experience, most are not. If reliably quality storytelling is what you want, you can't go wrong with the classics — the stories by Shakespeare or Mark Twain or Robert Louis Stevenson or Charles Dickens. It isn't a foolproof system, of course. It is possible to mess those stories up, but you really have to work at it.

Director Frank Lloyd's "Mutiny on the Bounty" was such a story although it was not really a classic. There have always been questions about the accuracy of the story, but that is not the fault of the movie. It is the inevitable fault of a novel about certain facts, not a report about the facts themselves. Consequently, the fault lies with Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, who published the novel in 1932.

While the novel may not have been written in another century, the movie on which it was based took home Best Picture, beating several movies that were based on stories that were at least a century older than "Mutiny on the Bounty" — "David Copperfield," "Les Misérables," "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

But the movie won no other Oscars, even though it was nominated for several, and that is an extremely rare occurrence for a Best Picture. One would think, even in those early days of filmmaking, that the Best Picture of the year would also stand out in some other way — for its acting or its editing or its music, something. And, in fact, that was the last time — to date — that the Best Picture took home no other awards.

The movie's three stars — Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone — were all nominated for Best Actor and lost to Victor McLaglen for "The Informer." I've never seen "The Informer" so I don't know if McLaglen's performance really was better, but my guess is that Laughton, Gable and Tone wound up canceling each other out.

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That's only speculation, of course, and a rather obvious conclusion, I think. It's much harder to figure out the reasons for the other Oscar losses.

Modern conventional wisdom holds that the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars usually go to the same movie, but John Ford ("The Informer"), not Lloyd, won Best Director. "Mutiny on the Bounty" lost Best Adapted Screenplay, again to "The Informer." It lost Best Score to guess who? Right. "The Informer."

(Maybe I ought to see "The Informer.")

It also lost Best Film Editing — this time to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

As I say, there were questions about the accuracy of the story, but it was a novel, not a work of nonfiction. Poetic license was taken, much of it, apparently, at the expense of Capt. Bligh, who was portrayed as a callous fiend, calling for the continued flogging of a prisoner who was already dead. Certainly, Capt. Bligh is an effective villain. The American Film Institute named the character the 19th–best movie villain of all time. AFI didn't say which film portrayal — Laughton's or Trevor Howard's 27 years later — was the best, and I haven't seen the movie that was showing at theaters in 1962, but it would be hard to beat Laughton's performance. It's good material, a juicy role, but it's not entirely true.

There were other things like that in the movie. Apparently much of Bligh's treatment of his men in the movie and book simply doesn't find support in the historical record.

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So, while Laughton's performance was great as always, it wasn't necessarily true to life.

There was an HMS Bounty, and there was a mutiny aboard the Bounty in the late 18th century.

But anyone who is researching the event for a term paper or something should look elsewhere for the facts.

Making an Escape to 'Boom Town'

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"Now, how can a guy be breaking the law when he's trying to save the resources of this country? He didn't know that he was doin' anything that you might call conservation, but bein' one of the best oilmen there is, he's got the right hunch about oil. He knows it took billions of years to put it there, and takin' it out at the rate we're goin', there won't be any oil left in the good U.S.A."

Square John (Spencer Tracy)

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Interesting thing about the movies — well, actually, this particular stream of consciousness began when I was watching a movie from 1939, which is often regarded as the greatest year in the history of the movies, and it re–emerges from time to time, usually when I am writing about one of the movies of the '30s or '40s.

As I am today.

It was 75 years ago today that "Boom Town" an adventure about some oil wildcatters (Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy), made its debut. It wasn't the best movie ever made, but it was enjoyable enough, and it featured four of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time — Gable, Tracy, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. (Frank Morgan, who may be best remembered for his part in "The Wizard of Oz," made it five names.)

And that is where my stream of consciousness comes in.

The movies of the '30s and '40s were almost entirely about escapism. In the '30s, nearly all the movies that dealt with the economic realities of the Great Depression were presented in such a way that the protagonist(s) rose above the circumstances and found success anyway. In other words, those movies encouraged hope. There were a few — like "The Grapes of Wrath" — that told it like it was and pulled few, if any, punches. But, mostly, the movies of that day were about other times, other places, other people. They were adaptations of great works of literature, Day–to–day life in the Depression was bad enough — for awhile, about a quarter of America's adult population was out of work — and money was precious enough that people would seldom pay to sit in a theater and watch other people struggling as they did.

They couldn't afford to go anywhere, so they went to the movies for a couple of hours — to escape. My grandmother once told me that the movie stars of that time were more than movie stars. They were like friends. People had their favorite stars, and they went to see every movie they made. Then as now, studios were interested in pairings that were profitable; what could be more profitable than bringing together four popular stars?

A few modern movie stars inspire that kind of loyalty — but not many. Maybe they are overruled by the prices that are charged for movie tickets these days.

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"Boom Town" reunited the stars of "It Happened One Night," the unexpected hit of 1934 — Gable and Colbert. Their partnership didn't have the same sizzle that it had six years earlier, but it must have been great for fans of Gable and Colbert to see them together again — even if it was in an inferior movie. Turned out, it was their last on–screen pairing.

If one is bound and determined to find an agenda in a movie, it probably isn't too hard with "Boom Town." Its message of unfettered capitalism does seem obvious — it may have seemed just as obvious to audiences three–quarters of a century ago — and it also extols the virtues of entrepreneurship.

The story was far from perfect, but it made up for it in sheer star power. Well, unless you were a fan of Spencer Tracy. Seemed he was always getting the short end of the stick from Gable — mostly in matters of the heart.

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Both named John, Gable's character was called "Big John" and Tracy's was called "Square John." For starters, Big John stole Square John's girl (Colbert). Then, when Square John discovered that Big John had been having an affair (with Lamarr), he offered to marry the mistress in order to save Big John's marriage.

But in matters of the head, my memory is that Square John always came out on top. They both had their times of booms and busts, but my impression, by the time the movie ended, was that Tracy's character had enjoyed more economic success.

Tracy, I have heard, was fond of Gable, but "Boom Town" was the third — and last — movie they made together. It was a capsule of all the things that Tracy didn't like about working with Gable. He didn't like taking second billing to Gable in movie credits, and he didn't like being Gable's "eunuch."

"Boom Town" was nominated for two Oscars — Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Special Effects.

Burning Down the House

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"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Rhett Butler (Clark Gable)

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(1939 is widely regarded as the greatest year ever for the motion picture. Ten movies were nominated for Best Picture that year, and today I take a look at the ninth of those 10 movies to hit the theaters.)

That is the greatest movie quote of all time, according to the American Film Institute, and it is hard to argue with that conclusion.

AFI had some great quotes on that list — "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," "I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," "Go ahead, make my day" — but Clark Gable got the nod for the greatest quote.

As I say, it's hard to argue with. But it isn't the only memorable line in "Gone With the Wind," which premiered on this day in 1939. Of course, that almost goes without saying. The movie is darn near four hours long. There had to be at least one more memorable line in there, right? In fact, Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) had several. I'll bet one or two leap to mind with virtually no effort.

Overall, AFI ranked "Gone With the Wind" sixth — behind some other movies with memorable quotes.

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But, in the history of movies, few could match "Gone With the Wind" for both memorable lines and iconic images.

Like the burning of Atlanta.

I remember an episode of M*A*S*H in which Hawkeye had been trying unsuccessfully to seduce a nurse with whom he had, apparently, had a previous relationship, and the nurse was taking a "been there, done that" approach.

"'Gone With the Wind' is a great movie, Hawkeye," I remember her saying to him, "but after you've seen 'em burn Atlanta several times, it's not so hot anymore."

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See, I disagree with that. Great line for a sitcom, but, in reality, it doesn't hold up. At least, not for me. I think "Gone With the Wind" is great moviemaking, especially given the technological constraints of that time, and it never gets old for me.

"Gone With the Wind" is great storytelling, too, even if there are some historical inaccuracies. In the realm of fiction, one is permitted certain liberties, and "Gone With the Wind" has never, to my knowledge, been marketed as nonfiction.

No one ever pretended that Rhett and Scarlett really existed. But people who were like them — or mostly like them — did exist in the Old South, and Rhett and Scarlett represented them. Good fiction makes it possible to do that plausibly, and much of "Gone With the Wind" was, indeed, good fiction. But some of it was not.

I have always been impressed with the way "Gone With the Wind" presented the pre–war arrogance of the South juxtaposed against the post–war South, humbled by loss. Wow, what a contrast.

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For the Southerners who survived the war, it must have been astonishing to experience the reversal of fortune at every level of Southern society. Not every Southerner was a slave owner, of course. That was something that only those with land and money could afford; then as now, not everyone had land and money.

So, while, yes, it is true that "Gone With the Wind" was historically inaccurate at times, it was spot–on accurate at others. Some historians may tell you that does a disservice to the story of the Civil War.

I don't agree with that. To teach, it is often necessary to put a little jam on the bread.

'The Gay Bride' Was Carole Lombard's Niche

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Daniel (Sam Hardy): Mary, how about a little kiss?

Mary (Carole Lombard): Mr. Dingle, you forget I'm in mourning!

Daniel: What's that got to do with it?

Mary: Well, how would you feel if you were dead, and I kissed somebody else?

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"The Gay Bride," a screwball comedy that made its debut on this date in 1934, wasn't the best movie Carole Lombard ever made. In fact, I have heard that she regarded it as her worst movie.

But Carole Lombard made it better than it would have been with anyone else playing her role. She played a chorus girl who was determined to marry a man of considerable means. Then as now, money was at the top of many a girl's list of desirable qualities in a potential mate.

(Interesting trivia point here: Lombard's future real–life husband, Clark Gable, was considered for the male lead.)

There was an earthy quality to Lombard's performances — perfect for screwball comedies — in the early to mid–'30s that disappeared a few years later when she appears to have been aiming for Oscar's recognition that she was an actress of substance. Her characters were blunt in their approaches to their lives. They knew what they wanted, and they weren't bashful about going for it.

Even if the odds were against them.

I guess that was how Lombard approached her own life.

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Lombard almost certainly had her life under better control than the character she played in "The Gay Bride." I mean, even if she neglected her own life for extended periods, she would still have things under better control than Mary the chorus girl. Men were dying around her, right and left.

Of course, I guess it didn't help that she was engaged to a rum–running gangster whose livelihood was threatened by the repeal of Prohibition — and she had been warned that that type didn't tend to have long lives.

As I say, Lombard is said to have considered it her worst movie. I don't really think it was her worst, but it was a lot closer to her worst than to her best.

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It wasn't a problem with the story. In general, it was a pretty good story, but the movie was indecisive. It couldn't commit to being a screwball comedy, which is how it was perceived at the time and how it is still seen today, or quasi–drama so it tried to walk a tightrope between the two and never really managed to become either.

Still, it is pretty clear when you watch "The Gay Bride" today that Lombard really was meant for screwball comedy. She tried to get more dramatic roles later in her career when she was trying to get Oscar to legitimize her skill as an actress — but it was her skill at screwball comedy that made her the highest–paid actress in Hollywood in the late 1930s.

And it is for that skill that she is mostly remembered today.

The First Movie to Sweep the Major Oscars

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"I want to see what love looks like when it's triumphant. I haven't had a good laugh in a week."

Peter (Clark Gable)

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There may have been movies that premiered before this date in 1934 that could be classified as screwball comedies.

But the genre really began to gain popularity when "It Happened One Night" premiered on this date in 1934. For all intents and purposes, I suppose, the screwball comedy was born 80 years ago today. (As a comedy, the American Film Institute ranks it eighth all time.)

And its influence can be seen in numerous movies in the decades that followed, even though the screwball comedy's heyday was in the 1930s. The blueprint for the genre — a headstrong, runaway heiress gets hooked up with someone, frequently a reporter, who can gain something from the relationship — has shown up in various forms over the years.

"Roman Holiday," for instance, had a runaway princess (Audrey Hepburn) in the company of a reporter (Gregory Peck) who needed a scoop to revive his career.

That, in a nutshell, was the plot of "It Happened One Night." (There were a few differences, but not many.)

But, because it was so different from other movies in the still–emerging motion picture art form, it didn't enjoy the enthusiastic support of some of its principal participants. Claudette Colbert, for example, had worked with director Frank Capra before, and the experience had not been pleasant. She wasn't going to work with him again, but she relented on the conditions that her pay be doubled and that her work on the project be done in time for her to take a planned vacation.

Capra claimed that Clark Gable was hesitant to participate in the project as well.

And Capra himself reportedly said it was "the worst picture in the world."

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Ellie (Claudette Colbert): I'll stop a car, and I won't use my thumb!

Peter (Clark Gable): What're you gonna do?

Ellie: It's a system all my own.

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Thus, it caught just about everyone by surprise when "It Happened One Night" became the first movie to sweep Best Picture, Best Actor (Gable), Best Actress (Colbert), Best Director (Capra) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Riskin) at the Academy Awards. It was a feat that would not be duplicated for more than 40 years — until 1975, when "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" won all five Oscars.

Modern movie viewers who have watched other movies from the 1930s undoubtedly will notice that "It Happened One Night" was more daring than its contemporaries, and there is a good reason for that. "It Happened One Night" was made just before enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code for Will Hays, Hollywood's censor–in–chief of the day) began.

Consequently, there was more of a sense of freedom in "It Happened One Night" than there was in most of the screwball comedies of the 1930s. Certainly, there was more bare skin than one sees in most movies from that decade. No nudity, but scenes in which skin — like Gable's bare chest and Colbert's bare leg — was shown.

In other movies of the '30s (and for decades after), you rarely, if ever, saw an unmarried couple sleeping in the same room, much less the same bed (even married movie couples didn't do that).

Gable and Colbert didn't sleep in the same bed, but they did sleep in the same room.

And they used a clever strategy for maintaining their individual privacy — they hung a blanket between the beds.

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Peter (Clark Gable): Remember me? I'm the fellow you slept on last night.

Ellie (Claudette Colbert): You needn't concern yourself about me. I can take care of myself.

Peter: You'll never get away with it, Miss Andrews.

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I never understood the objections that some actors had to the quality of the script. I thought it was smart, clever.

To be fair, some movie stars who turned down the roles that ultimately went to Gable and Colbert claimed that the actual script in the movie was not the same script they had been shown.

Be that as it may, there was an undeniable chemistry between Gable and Colbert in "It Happened One Night," and that more than anything else made it such an appealing movie.

The story transcended global politics — both Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler were said to be fans of "It Happened One Night."

They weren't the only ones. Before "It Happened One Night" swept the Oscars, it swept the country. It was a smash hit for Columbia Pictures. Made for an investment of $325,000, it earned $2.5 million at the box office.

It's hard to imagine a better return on your investment in 1934.

A Remake By Another Name

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Most movie remakes are, to borrow from Yogi Berra, like deja vu all over again.

And "Mogambo," which was released 60 years ago today, was no exception.

Many years ago, I was watching a movie from the early 1930s on the late, late show called "Red Dust." I had never heard of it before, but I saw it in the listings, noticed that Clark Gable was in it, and decided to watch it.

When I did, I had the feeling that I had seen and heard the story before — and I had. It was, essentially, the same story with only a few deviations. The first movie was set in Indochina, the second was set in Africa, but darn near everything else was the same.

Well, except for one big thing. "Red Dust" had more energy, more sizzle. In spite of the improvements in filmmaking that had occurred in a couple of decades, "Mogambo" lacked something. "Red Dust" made "Mogambo" seem tame.

In "Red Dust," Gable was the overseer of a rubber plantation. In "Mogambo," he was a safari leader.

In both, he was the center of attention from two women, a primary love interest (Jean Harlow in the first, Ava Gardner in the second) and a married woman as a secondary love interest (Mary Astor in the first, Grace Kelly in the second).

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Frankly, it was kind of disappointing. I mean, I would have expected this kind of setting with Gable, Gardner and Kelly — and director John Ford behind the camera — to be a cinematic slam dunk, but it really wasn't. Not compared to what it could have been.

Everything turned out the way viewers probably secretly hoped they would — Gable wound up with Gardner, and Kelly remained with her husband. The movie might have been made in Africa, but it was a Hollywood production.

In real life, I've been told, Gable and Kelly had an off–screen relationship that fizzled when their age difference (Gable was more than 28 years older) became too great to ignore.

On screen, though, the sparks — such as they were — were between Gable and Gardner, not Kelly.

I've often wondered if the so–called Hays Code was the reason "Mogambo" was so uninspiring, at least when compared to "Red Dust." The Hays Code imposed restrictions that would seem prudish compared to modern movie standards. "Red Dust" was made in the early days of the Hays Code, when movies could still get away with things they wouldn't be able to get away with for decades.

Perhaps that isn't fair. "Mogambo" did have some things going for it — it was shot on location, for one thing. "Red Dust" wasn't filmed in Indochina — it was filmed on a studio backlot in Hollywood, as I understand it — but Americans wouldn't be familiar with Indochina for another 35 years so it really didn't matter. I'm sure the studio heads figured no one would know the difference, and they were probably right.

Most Americans probably weren't too familiar with Africa, either, in 1953, but they likely had more of an idea of what Africa should look like than they did of Indochina.

Whether they did or not, what they got in "Mogambo" was the real thing, and the cinematography really was remarkable for its time. At the Academy Awards, though, Gardner and Kelly were rewarded with nominations, but the technical aspects were entirely overlooked.

And that, I think, is a shame. Gardner (nominated for Best Actress) and Kelly (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) were good, but I've seen both perform better. Gable wasn't nominated at all, and I have no problem with that. His role in "Mogambo" wasn't one of his best performances.

The material in "Mogambo" wasn't terrible — but neither was it great, and, while I have heard some people describe Gardner's performance as the best of her career, I'm inclined to think that several other performances were better.

I've always felt that Kelly was a rare mix of beauty and talent. There was a vulnerability to her performances that was very appealing, and I thought that vulnerability may never have been so striking as it was when Kelly played the young and lusty Linda of "Mogambo." Her character projected a cool reserve, but there was a smoldering sensuality beneath it.

I guess you could say that about all the roles she played — especially her roles in Hitchcock movies, which always seemed to bring out that quality in her performances.

It was still early in her career, though, and Kelly played a character that was a lot like the one she played a year earlier in "High Noon." She didn't begin to show her range as an actress until a year later, when she made "The Country Girl," for which she received her only Oscar.

I guess the biggest problem I had with "Mogambo" was that it never really made up its mind whether it was going to be a love story or an adventure movie. Ford seemed to want to make "Mogambo" a story worthy of Hemingway — and there were plenty of jungle scenes — but the star power of the cast seemed to pull him back to the love triangle.

In the end, I guess you could say the love triangle won. Again, this is a Hollywood production we're talking about.

But sometimes I think it was more of an adventure story. That's the real problem with remakes.