The Ghost Breakers (1940)

THE GHOST BREAKERS (1940)

 By Ralph Santini - ***

There are some films that might be described as both equally funny and eerie and I think that the finest example of a film that can fit such description is the 1940 comedy horror picture “The Ghost Breakers” which starred funnyman Bob Hope and beautiful Paulette Goddard. Goddard plays young heiress Mary Carter, whose prize is a haunted castle in Cuba. In a dark and stormy night Mary must pack up so she can leave New York for Cuba. But her story is actually half of the film, the other half goes to Hope who plays radio broadcaster Larry Lawrence, who mistakenly thinks he's killed a strange person played by Anthony Quinn (who happens to have a dual role in the film). When Goddard, Hope and his butler, Willie Best, head for Cuba and they find the castle full of ghosts, zombies, and buried treasures.

Goddard is terrific as the heiress because she happens to portray a damsel in distress in a witty, intelligent way and at the same time romantic female leading foil. She and Hope have brilliant chemistry together with the latter giving a good comedic effort when the comedy is toned down because his character is among his wittier roles in his long film comedy career. Here he doesn’t use his routine one-liners that seem to put him out of focus in other comedies he has done. Willie Best is also amazing as the cowardly black butler but unfortunately, because of his race he is not even third billed as the otherwise hilarious sidekick. The supporting cast besides Quinn and Best, is also provided by Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas and Tom Dugan.

At 85 min, the film’s time-run is surprisingly brilliant. The atmospheric cinematography by Charles Lang in Black and White during the horror sequences is delightfully chilling. That’s right, the horror sequences seem surprisingly dark and that’s very unique for a comedy horror picture, especially for 1940 standards. George Marshall seemed to know how to handle such a rare gem like this with a good blend of light comedy and edgy horror.

The Cariboo Trail (1950)

THE CARIBOO TRAIL (1950)

By Ralph Santini - ***

                The Cariboo Trail is one the several independent productions that Randolph Scott was concentrating on at the time and this one is his seventh western filmed in Cinecolor. This process was apparently adapated in the B-film industry because it attracted many smaller companies and independent producers as well. According to the definition on Wikipedia it was “an early subtractive color-model two color motion picture process, based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and Alan M. Gundelfinger, and its various formats were in use from 1932 to 1955.” It also denotes that “A bi-pack color process, the photographer loaded a standard camera with two film stocks, an orthochromatic strip dyed red, plus a panchromatic strip behind it. The ortho film stock recorded only blue and green, while its red filtration passed red light to the panchromatic film stock. In the laboratory, the negatives were processed on duplitized film and each emulsion was toned red or cyan. While Cinecolor could produce vibrant reds, oranges, blues, browns and flesh tones, its renderings of other colors such as bright greens (rendered dark green) and purples (rendered a sort of dark magenta) were muted.”

                Now before I get to tell you about this movie this is one of my own methods for criticisms, they are usually more story rather than process related, and I don’t think this film is an exception. Many Cinecolor films do not seem to be very much valued mainly because of the format but that might not prevent me from recommending the movie if it goes for good writing. And this movie I think is one of the best westerns ever filmed in Cinecolor, mainly because of the effective storyline. It concerns two cattlemen (Randolph Scott and Bill Williams from TV’s Kit Carson) who with the help of their Asian sidekick (Lee Tung Foo) dream of having cattle of their own by attempting to settle at The Cariboo Trail in British Columbia. Suddenly they learn about a savage Gold Rush going on and they are joined by an old prospector (George “Gabby” Hayes which was his final cinematic role) with plenty of bad luck in his life. The bad news is that a ruthless grafter (Victory Jory, whom you might remember as the merciless Northern overseer from Gone with the Wind) will stop at nothing to ruin our heroes’ dreams. Jory orders his men to stampede their cattle leading to Williams’ arm loss and thus becoming a cold, selfish anti-hero. He begins to hate Scott blaming him for what happened and goes around with his sleazy conduct with many other people around him. So Scott all alone with no help from his embittered friend will have to handle many sacrifices and many difficult ones since Jory owns the town he arrived. So Scott goes on and on until finding gold with the help of his two sidekcicks Foo and “Gabby” Hayes.

                I know what you are thinking, this western is far from a masterpiece but as I said before it has a pretty decent story for this traditional western. I like how the film focuses on Randolp Scott’s sacrificing adventure with his searching for gold and buying back his friend Bill Williams after losing his arm. Williams does an effective job on playing a rare anti-hero role for this traditional oater and I think he steals every scene he appears. I have never seen such effective character development and I find that more or less exceptional. I also this is one of Victor Jory’s less exaggerated villain roles because here he manages to portray a more suave one rather than just a bloodthirsty cutthroat more or less like in 1939’s Dodge City even though he is just one the hitmen hired by Bruce Cabot in that film. I mean he is more dressed like a gentleman unlike his many other westerns which he plays a villain. Sure there are some clichés added in the film, including a fist fight between Randolph Scott and a more invinicible villain played Jim Davis and it only lasts a couple of minutes until Davis is killed, losing the battle but what really matters in the film is the story about Randolph Scott fighting for his reconciliation Bill Williams after being amputated resulting from the stampeding.

                The Cariboo Trail is basically one of those westerns to see as escapist entertainment not necessarily a work of art like some others. I’ve seen some other Cinecolor westerns, but none of them seem to match the careful premise of this one. I think you should give it a second look if you don’t seem to care about it. On the other hand, to each his own but I personally find it worth seeing for Randolph Scott fans and those like watching westerns a lot and those who might want to be good experts on Cinecolor’s history.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

 By Ralph Santini - ****

                A sensationally remarkable tour de force, Billy Wilder’s take on the ugly of side of Hollywood “Sunset Boulevard” is among one the finest films to ever tell such tragic stories. It’s a haunting story of a mentally-deranged forgotten movie star Norma Desmond (a terrific performance by Gloria Swanson) who meets up with an incompetent screenwriter Joe Gillis (an equally distinguished portrayal by William Holden) to make some “improvements” on a hopelessly impossible screenplay after 20 years for a “return” to the cinema. She is aided by her pleasing majordomo, Max Von Mayerling (Erich Von Stroheim) and she seems to be mired in the Silent Era, which of course was the era when she was most famous.

                Joe’s life on the other hand is far more obscure than that of Norma’s. Only 2 of his scripts where produced as “B” films to his own credit and he is threatened by two repo men who are ordered to take his car. That’s why he must find a hideout until he reaches Norma Desmond’s grotesque mansion at Sunset Boulevard. When Gillis sees Ms. Desmond he mentions something about once being big in silent pictures. She delivers one of the most brilliant lines ever spoken by telling him “I AM big. It’s the pictures that got small”.  

                Things however don’t go well for Joe as his car is eventually repossessed for good, invited to a New Year’s Eve party with no other guests which really makes Joe uncomfortable hanging around only with Norma after dancing with her. He tells Norma that he is all wrong for her and it makes Norma hysterical by even slapping him. Joe is not very pleased and leaves Norma’s mansion for a good while and hitchhikes his way to a more happy New Year’s Eve party with a lot more guests including an old friend Artie Green (Jack Webb) and his fiancée Betty Schaeffer (Nancy Olson) a script-girl at Paramount Pictures who at the beginning of the film rejected Joe’s screenplay calling “flat and trite”.

                Although Joe is close to being happy leaving Norma’s wretched mansion he makes a phone call to Max by asking him to pack up his things but the butler ignores him because it turns out that Norma has cut her wrists. This of course, somewhat, shocks Joe leading him to stay even more at Norma’s home until she is called by Paramount, not on behalf of Cecil B. Demille, as demanded by Ms. Desmond, but by an obscure production executive which makes her extremely mad because she’s been writing her screenplay for a very long time. Later Norma, Max and Joe visit the old studio in a darkly hilarious scene where a young guard does not recognize Norma Desmond and it makes both Norma and Max furious until an older guard does let them in and Norma says yet another comically memorable line where she tells the old guard to teach the younger one some manners by saying “without me there wouldn’t be ANY Paramount Studios”.

                Soon after, Norma wants to see Cecil B. Demille (playing himself in the movie) in person which causes the director, with a dubious thought of Norma’s screenplay, to stop the shooting of his new historical epic for Paramount. We later find in possibly one of the most beautifully moving scenes ever filmed, where Norma cries in Demille’s presence about missing her old job at Paramount in the silent days and Demille somewhat shows some wonderful empathy towards her. Meanwhile Joe goes to Betty’s office about a good idea of writing a screenplay together, an incident that might affect something in Joe’s life later on. Suddenly we get a mighty bad feeling over the reason why the executive called Norma and tragically it’s not because of Norma’s screenplay but because of her old "Isotta Fraschini" limousine for a new Bing Crosby film. However after Norma and company leave Paramount Demille decides to tell the studio not to use the car at all given that he clearly doesn’t want to hurt Norma’s feelings over it.

                There is not much to give away for the film’s conclusion since they can spoilers but the closing of this film has arguably one of the greatest of all ending speeches ever used in Cinema. It consists of Norma saying a wonderful discussion to the public of what it’s like to come back to the film industry telling that she and Demille will make one picture after another since her days of when silence was golden. It concludes by Ms. Desmond saying “All right Mr. Demille, I’m ready for my close-up”. That it is just pure screenwriting perfection because nothing in absolute can top this closing ending. That’s why the film is not just a motion picture but a great milestone in the history of filmmaking. Swanson gave an Oscar-worthy performance as delusional has been film star, Holden is just as terrific as the loser screenwriter, and even Erich Von Stronheim delivers as the butler who not only is Norma’s butler but also was once a film director who discovered her when she was young and was once her first husband. This film featured some of the greatest cameos ever including Buster Keaton as one of Norma’s friends from the silent Era along with Hedda Hopper and H.B. Warner, the druggist from It’s A Wonderful Life. Franz Waxman’s score is refreshingly breathtaking, John F. Seitz’s photography is stunningly pristine and the shots called by the great Billy Wilder not only makes this film one of the greatest of all time but also an absolute milestone in film history.