Stubs - Rationing

Rationing (1944) Starring: Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, Donald Meek. Directed by Willis Goldbeck. Screenplay by William R. Lipman, Grant Garrett, Harry Ruskin. Produced by Orville O. Dull. Run Time: 94 minutes. USA. Black and White. Comedy.

Marjorie Main is probably best known for her appearances as Ma Kettle in eight films opposite Percy Kilbride and one opposite Parker Fennelly between 1947 and 1957. Prior to that, she had a fairly successful career at MGM, including such films as Stella Dallas (1937), Dead End (1937), The Women (1939), and Another Thin Man (1939). Additionally, she starred in 6 films opposite Wallace Beery, including Wyoming (1940), Barnacle Bill (1941), Jackass Mail (1942), Bad Bascomb (1946), and Rationing (1944).

To give a little background, during World War II, Americans on the home front were called upon to make sacrifices so that there were materials and food available to the troops. People could buy goods but they had to, in some cases, have coupons. On August 28, 1941, before the U.S. entered the war, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8875 created the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA’s main responsibility was to place a ceiling on prices of most goods, and to limit consumption by rationing. Americans received their first ration cards in May 1942. The first card, War Ration Card Number One, became known as the “Sugar Book,” for one of the commodities Americans could purchase with their ration card.

The OPA rationed automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Americans used their ration cards and stamps to take their meager share of household staples including meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils.

At the same time, black markets sprung up around the country, offering limited goods at a premium, and some people took to hoarding ration stamps and precious supplies.

With that, some of what goes on during the movie might make more sense.

Stubs - The Curse of the Cat People

The Curse of the Cat People (1944) Starring: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter and Sir Lancelot. Directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise. Produced by Val Lewton. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen. Run time: 70 minutes. USA Black and White. Fantasy, Horror.

Following the success of Cat People, RKO wanted to make a follow-up. While Cat People can be stretched to call it a little h horror film, the sequel that was made, The Curse of the Cat People, is more Fantasy than anything really scary.

Stubs - One Mysterious Night

One Mysterious Night (1944) Starring: Chester Morris, Janis Carter, William Wright, Richard Lane, George E. Stone, Robert Williams, Robert E. Scott, Dorothy Malone (aka Dorothy Maloney). Directed by Oscar Boetticher Jr. Screenplay by Paul Yawitz Based on the character created by Jack Boyle. Produced by Ted Richmond. Run Time: 62 minutes. USA Drama, Mystery

Boston Blackie is the brainchild of Jack Boyle. A former newspaper reporter, Boyle became an opium addict and was later jailed for writing bad checks before being convicted of robbery. While spending time in San Quentin, Boyle created the character of Blackie, a jewel thief and safecracker. Under the nom de plume “No. 6066” Boyle published his first story, “The Price of Principle," in The American Magazine in July 1914. Blackie’s adventures would continue in short story form, appearing in such publications as American, The Red Book, The Strand Magazine and Cosmopolitan until December 1920.

Hollywood began making films based on the character in 1918 with Boston Blackie's Little Pal starring Bert Lytell. Some of the films made were based on some of Boyle’s short stories, like The Silk Lined Burglar (1919) based on "Miss Doris, Safe-Cracker," and Blackie's Redemption (1919) based on “Boston Blackie's Mary" and "Fred the Count". A few used the character of Boston Blackie, even if he was not the lead role in the film, such as William S. Hart’s The Poppy Girl's Husband (1919); while Boomerang Bill (1922) doesn’t even have Boston Blackie as a character in it. The last of the early Boston Blackie films was The Return of Boston Blackie (1927). By then, nine different actors had played the character, perhaps the most famous amongst them was 

Lionel Barrymore in A Face in the Fog (1922).

Columbia Pictures revived the character with Meet Boston Blackie (1941), starring Chester Morris in the title role. Like most actors in Hollywood, Morris developed his craft on the stage, appearing on Broadway as far back as the 1918 production Copperhead at the Schubert Theater in New York. By then he had appeared in one film, An Amateur Orphan (1917). Throughout the 1920s, he would appear on both the Broadway stage and in films until Alibi (1929). In his first starring role, Morris was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing to Warner Baxter for his role as The Cisco Kid in the film In Old Arizona. Alibi would also receive nominations for Best Picture, losing to The Broadway Melody, and for William Cameron Menzies’ work as Best Interior Design, losing to Cedric Gibbons’ work on The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

Morris was a busy actor in the 1930s, appearing in such film as The Big House (1930) and Red-Headed Woman (1932), but by the mid-decade, his popularity had waned and he was appearing in B-movies like Smashing the Rackets (1938) and Five Came Back (1939).

Playing Boston Blackie revived Morris’ career. From 1941 to 1949, he would appear in fourteen films in the series, after which he virtually retired from films, though he would appear in the 1950s and in The Great White Hope (1970). He concentrated on television work after the series ended, but usually in guest star roles.

One Mysterious Night was the seventh in the series and marks the directorial debut of Oscar “Bud” Boetticher, Jr. Boetticher would be best remembered for the B-Westerns he made with Randolph Scott in the late 1950s, including Seven Men from Now (1956), The Tall T (1957) and Buchanan Rides Alone (1958).

The film was shot over two weeks between May 31 and June 13, 1944, and released on September 19, 1944.

The film opens with the world famous Blue Star of the Nile diamond, on exhibit to help raise funds, being stolen despite a heavy police presence at the Carleton Plaza Hotel. William Wright (Paul Martens) and Robert Williams (Matt Healy) create a disturbance and when it’s cleared up, the diamond is gone.

When pressed, Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) tells reporters that it is the work of reformed jewel thief Boston Blackie (Chester Morris). Of course, Blackie had nothing to do with it, as he has turned to legitimate business. In fact, it is while he is in a meeting at his friend Arthur Manleder's (Harrison Greene) tool factory that his sidekick, The Runt (George E. Stone), shows him the accusatory headline in the paper.

Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) with The Runt (George E
Stone) go to confront Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane).

Blackie goes to the police station to confront Farraday, who apologizes for the rouse but explains that planting the story was the only way to get Blackie to come to his office. Farraday needs Blackie’s help and deputizes him to recover the stolen diamond. Blackie agrees as long as he can go about it his way.

Blackie returns to the scene of the crime disguised as Professor Hunter.

In disguise as an elderly Professor Hunter, Blackie visits the jewel exhibit firsthand. Feeling around, he discovers a wad of chewing gum stuck underneath one of the display cases. When he learns that George Daley (Robert E. Scott), the hotel’s general manager, is in charge of the exhibit. He first calls Daley’s office and his sister Eileen (Dorothy Maloney), who also works at the hotel as a phone operator, answers the call. She’s been suspicious since unknown men have been calling her brother. She doesn’t know where her brother is, but tells Blackie that he can wait for him in his office. She then intercepts him in the office and, seeing that he’s an older man, feels comfortable leaving him alone in her brother’s office.

Reporter Dorothy Anderson (Janis Carter) turns in Blackie to the police.

Unbeknownst to her, Blackie has already been searching the office and finds a pack of chewing gum in Daley’s desk. When he later goes downstairs to the hotel’s newsstand to ask about Daley’s gum chewing, the woman behind the counter (Ann Loos) tells him that Daley chews a lot of gum. While he’s standing there, a reporter, Dorothy Anderson (Janis Carter), sees through Blackie’s disguises and turns him into the police.

Blackie is questioned by reporters after being arrested.

Back at headquarters, after being questioned by the press, Blackie tells Farraday he’ll have to tell the press that Blackie escaped and then returns to the hotel. This time, with The Runt’s help, they pose as repairmen from the phone company. When Eileen isn’t there, Blackie convinces one of the operators that she and he are an item to get her address.

Blackie returns again, this time as a telephone company repairman.

Meanwhile, back at the apartment Eileen and George share, George refuses to answer any of her questions and instead goes into her room and through her dresser. In the drawer, he takes out one of her purses. In one of her pockets, he’s hidden the Blue Star.

Blackie convinces one of Eileen's co-workers to give him her address.

Later, when Eileen decides to leave, she switches out her purses, taking the one from the drawer. But before she leaves, Blackie rings the doorbell. Once inside the apartment, he accuses George of being involved in the robbery. George denies it, of course, and Blackie leaves. When he does, Eileen decides to follow him. After she’s gone, George realizes that she’s taken the purse with the diamond in it.

Blackie visits George ( Robert E. Scott) and his sister Eileen (Dorothy Malone) about the robbery.

But Wright and Williams show up at the apartment and demand the gem. When George confesses that Eileen has it with her, they give him until later that night to obtain it.

Eileen, meanwhile, has followed Blackie to a Chinese restaurant. There, he shows her the wads of gum and explains his theory about how her brother stole the diamond and hid it in the room. The Runt informs Blackie that the reporter Dorothy is outside the restaurant. Blackie tells Eileen that he’ll see her later that night and then escapes out the back door.

When Dorothy enters, she almost immediately follows Eileen into the powder room. There, using the rouse that she has something in her eye, Dorothy gets Eileen to help her. And while her attention is taken, Dorothy swaps her black purse for Eileen’s very similar looking black purse. Dorothy’s goal is to discover Eileen's name and address.

Upon Eileen’s return to the apartment, George grabs her purse and is very disappointed to find the diamond missing and that she has the wrong bag. But soon after, Dorothy comes to the door to return Eileen’s purse. Soon after she leaves, Eileen discovers the diamond and insists that George meet Blackie that night to give it back.

Later, when George tries to give it back to Blackie, Williams and Wright show up and demand the diamond at gunpoint. Dorothy, who happens to see the confrontation, goes nearby to use a payphone and call the police. But before they arrive, in the ensuing struggle, George is shot and killed. Wright forces Blackie and The Runt into his car and speeds away.

Based on Dorothy’s eyewitness testimony, Blackie is charged with George’s murder. To ensure that the police continue to believe that, Wright takes Blackie and The Runt prisoner. In an effort to buy some time, Blackie tries to convince them that the diamond is a fake and that the real diamond is locked away in the hotel’s safe.

Wright and Williams decide to have the gem examined by Jumbo Madigan (Joseph Crehan), the owner of a
pawn shop. In order to keep Blackie and The Runt from escaping, they are tied upside down to the bottom of a Murphy bed. When they’re left alone, the two manage to escape their ropes and Blackie telephones Farraday with an update. He directs him to Madigan’s shop.

But Wright and Williams are already there and Madigan is examining it when the bell at the back of the door rings. Blackie acts like a delivery boy to get Madigan outside and then tells him to claim the diamond is fake and stall the robbers until the police can arrive.

When they hear the police sirens, Wright and Williams try to take Madigan hostage. But when he fights back, they shoot him. When the police enter the shop, the two gunmen pretend to be a pair of mannequins to fit in with others that are in the shop. They continue to pretend while two fairly dimwitted policemen stay with Madigan until the ambulance arrives.

Once the police leave, Wright and Williams also leave, returning back to the apartment where they had left Blackie and The Runt tied up. Blackie offers to get the real gem back, but Wright and Williams insist on keeping Runt as collateral.

Blackie returns to police headquarters and gives the diamond to Farraday, who orders his assistant, Matthews (Lyle Latell), to organize a police dragnet around the crooks’ hiding place while he and Blackie go in. But the two crooks aren’t fooled so easily and take Farraday and Blackie hostage and they tie them up. Wright and Williams try to escape out the back door. They even go so far as to set the apartment on fire trying to create a diversion to aid their escape.

The police notice the fire and break in and rescue them. Blackie captures Williams and Wright and Farraday apologizes for misjudging him. Dorothy, ever the reporter, takes their photograph for her paper. Blackie ends up chasing after her and the Runt after him.

While not a great actor, Chester Morris seems very comfortable in the role. It’s one of those blends of actors and roles that makes it difficult to imagine anyone else in the part. There was a short-lived ZIV syndicated series, The Adventures of Boston Blackie, which ran for two seasons in 1951. Kent Taylor played Blackie in that series, but I don’t think many people would think of him as the definitive Boston Blackie, that is if anyone thinks of Boston Blackie at all.

The movie plays more like an hour-long TV drama. With regulars like Morris, George E. Stone and Richard Lane playing against this episode's guest stars, Robert E. Scott, Dorothy Malone and Janis Carter.

The plot is fairly straight-forward despite the attempts at having plot twists. The use of chewed gum is both clever and a little gross at the same time. The police from the Inspector on down to the beat cop are shown to be incompetent, which is nothing new for these types of films. If they were better at their jobs, they wouldn’t need an ex-con like Blackie to come in and save the day for them. There is little or no fat on this bone of a story, though the murder of George is sort of passed over as a plot point and his sister, Eileen, is unceremoniously dropped as well.

It was actually the actress playing Eileen, an uncredited Dorothy Malone, under the name of Dorothy Maloney that caught my eye and kept me watching. Dorothy Malone began her film career at 18 at RKO and her first appearance was Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943). She would spend most of her film career in supporting roles in B-movies, many of them Westerns. Perhaps one of her most notable film roles was as the pretty and brainy Acme Bookstore proprietress in The Big Sleep (1946) in which she shares a bottle of Rye with Humphrey Bogart while he waits for Geiger to show.

She would later shed her good-girl image and become a platinum blonde in Douglas Sirk’s Written in the Wind (1956), in which she plays Marylee Hadley, the nymphomaniac daughter of a Texas oil baron. For the role, Malone would win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Malone would later star as Constance Mackenzie Carson in 342 episodes of TV’s Peyton Place. Her presence in this film didn’t really have much impact, as Eileen is little more than a throwaway character.

The fact that George and Eileen are portrayed as brother and sister, rather than husband and wife, suggests there may have been something left unexplored about the story. There is little in their give and take that wouldn't have worked as spouses rather than siblings. Not sure why this difference was necessary otherwise to the story. It might have made sense if Eileen was supposed to be a love interest for Blackie, but she's not.

The main love interest, if there is one, is Janis Carter, who plays Dorothy Anderson, a reporter for one of the many daily papers in the city. She’s good, but ultimately forgettable in the role. While she would appear in a couple of movies in the Whistler series, The Mark of the Whistler (1944) and The Power of the Whistler (1945), she may be best remembered for roles in Night Editor (1946), I Love Trouble (1946) and Flying Leathernecks (1951).

While it is not too involving, One Mysterious Night is still a well-made mystery film. But it is one of those films that you’ll like while you watch, but don’t expect for it to stay with you very long after you’re done watching it. Fun, but forgettable by the light of day.

Stubs - Three Men in White

Three Men in White (1944) Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Marilyn Maxwell, Keye Luke, Ava Gardner, Alma Kruger, "Rags" Ragland, Nell Craig. Directed by Willis Goldbeck. Screenplay by Martin Berkeley, Harry Ruskin. Based on characters created by Max Brand. Producer: Carey Wilson. Run time 85 min. USA. Drama

Medical dramas are a staple of network television. It may come as no surprise that they were also a staple of movie series as well. One of the longest running was the Dr. Kildare series. Based on a series of short stories and serialized novels written by Frederick Schiller Faust under the name Max Brand, there were sixteen films made featuring his characters, Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie.

Even though the series is most closely associated with MGM, the first film based on a Brand story, Internes Can’t Make Money (1937), was made at Paramount. But the film did not prove to be a financial success at the box-office and the studio planned no more films. Enter MGM, which bet on the popularity of the character in print and made a deal with Faust to develop stories for a film series.

In their first film, MGM introduced Lew Ayers as Dr. Kildare and Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie. These two actors would play these roles throughout the Dr. Kildare series and Barrymore would continue as Dr. Gillespie in that series. The original series ended with Lew Ayers being placed in an internment camp as a conscientious objector to World War II. This caused the last film in that series, Dr. Kildare’s Victory (1942), to receive a lot of bad press and cancellations. When Ayers requested a change in status to non-combatant, the boycott against Ayers lessened, but MGM would move on with the Kildare series without him.

Lew Ayres was young Dr. Kildare playing opposite Lionel Barrymore's Dr. Gillespie in a series of films.

My introduction to the series came through TCM’s screening of the MGM series and the first one I saw was Three Men in White (1944), one of the films featuring Dr. Gillespie and the fourth in that series. While Dr. Gillespie was first introduced in Brand’s Young Dr. Kildare, the Gillespie series were not based on Brand's stories.

The production of the film was not without incident. A flu epidemic shut down it down as Van Johnson, Lionel Barrymore and producer Carey Wilson were all laid up by the disease. Production began on November 20, 1943 and finished on January 6, 1944. The final film was first shown to troops overseas before it was released in the U.S. on May 26, 1944.

Three Men in White sort of picks up where the previous films, Dr. Gillespie’s New Assistant (1942) and Dr. Gillespie’s Criminal Case (1943), have left the storyline. Criminal Case seems more action-packed than the other films, with its prison break and shootout, but we have most of the same characters in the same relationships at the start of Three Men in White. Gone is Dr. Dennis Lindsay (Richard Quine), the third assistant temporarily selected in New Assistant.

Having been overworked, Dr. Gillespie had been ordered by the authorities at Blair General Hospital, where he lives and works, to hire an assistant. Unable to make up his mind, he settled on three men, the above mentioned Dr. Lindsay, Dr. Randall “Red” Adams (Van Johnson) and Dr. Lee Wong How (Keye Luke). In Criminal Case, Red has already met and is romantically interested in Ruth Edly (Marilyn Maxwell), though it seems that events are conspiring to keep them apart.

Three Men in White opens with Dr. Gillespie, being wheeled into his office by Conover (George H. Reed), his sometimes helper, after his office adversary, Nurse Byrd (Alma Kruger), has been through his mail. Prominently on top of the stack is an invitation for Dr. Gillespie and his assistant to attend a medical forum.

Conover (George H. Reed) wheels Dr. Gillespie into his office.

But Gillespie already knows that Byrd has been in his office and he surprises her when she thinks she’s avoided him. They compare notes about their stooges, whose are better, etc.  After he’s chased her away, he goes into his office. Thinking he knows what is in the envelope, a wedding invitation, he rips it up and throws it into the trash.

The inherent issue on Gillespie’s to-do-list is and has been choosing between the two interns vying to be his assistant. To try and rectify that situation, Gillespie speaks with his protégés Randall “Red” Adams and Lee Wong How. Both men are eager to impress the doctor and each takes turns bragging about his latest diagnosis. Determined to make a final decision, Gillespie tells them that he will assign each a special case and the one that makes the correct diagnosis and cure will then win the coveted assignment as his assistant.

Dr. Gillespie gives his two assistants, Randall "Red" Adams (Van Johnson) and Lee
 Wong How (Keye Luke), a challenge to see who wins the coveted assignment as his assistant.

Once he discovers the envelope was an invite, he naturally blames his nurse, Parker (Nell Craig), and decides to take Red. Meanwhile, Dr. How draws the assignment of a young girl, Mary Jones (Patricia Barker), who goes into convulsions when she eats candy.

When they get to the conference, they find that they have the wrong date. On the way back to the parking lot, they notice a young woman, Jean Brown (Ava Gardner), staggering out to her car, seemingly drunk. Before the parking lot assistant (George Chandler) can stop her, she gets into her car and runs into a parked one. The beat cop (James Burke) comes over to question her. Red comes to her aid because she has a license plate from his home state and county on her car. While they’re talking to the cop, she faints. Red tells the cop that he’ll take her to the hospital and give her the alcohol test there. Even though the cop thinks there’s hanky-panky afoot, he lets Gillespie convince him to let Red take her away.

Dr. Gillespie talks with Red before he drives Jean Brown to the Hospital.

On the way to the hospital, Jean won’t tell who she is, even going so far as throwing her purse out the window. She does admit to Red that she only pretended to faint to get out of the ticket. But before too long, she actually does pass out in the car.

The next morning, the beat cop shows up to check up on Jean and on Red’s honesty. Red shows the cop the test which shows no alcohol was found in her blood. Even though Red runs interference for her with the policeman, she still refuses to say who she is and, against his concerns, checks herself out of the hospital. When Red updates Gillespie about her, he makes Jean his case.

Ava Gardner as Jean Brown in Three Men in White.

Gillespie gives him the purse the woman threw out of the car and the driver’s license leads Red to her. Jean lives with her father (Addison Richards) and invalid mother (Barbara Brown). He finds out that that the mom suffers from debilitating and incurable spinal arthritis. It is simply too painful for her to walk.

Jean tells Red that the night before, she had gone out to get away from having to care for her mother. At a party, she had taken someone else’s prescription, which made her act drunk. After Jean admits that she and her fiancé had broken up because of her mother’s condition, Red promises to do something to help her.

But back at the hospital, Gillespie tells Red that the mother’s arthritis is indeed incurable, but Red insists on trying to find a way to make Jean’s mother mobile.

Meanwhile, Lee has been treating Mary by putting her on a sugar-free, vitamin enriched diet and confidentially proclaims that he’ll soon have her cured. Which is a good thing, since Gillespie’s self-imposed deadline is the next day.

That evening, Red agrees to drop by Ruth Edley’s apartment. She has been trying everything she can to be alone with Red, but he’s afraid that if she kisses him, he’ll want to marry her and want to settle down. This night, Red enlists How to help him keep things in check. How agrees to call him after he’s been there seven minutes, which Red thinks is just enough time to break it off with Ruth.

Ruth Edly (Marilyn Maxwell) lets Red know that she's interested.

But things never go as planned. Ruth is too alluring for Red to resist and when How never calls, Red is about to succumb to her wiles. That is until ambulance driver Hobart Genet (Rags Ragland) shows up and, with police support, takes Red back to the hospital.

Dr. How is waiting in the ambulance and is surprised that Red is not happy with his plan to rescue him. But Lee has bigger plans, as well. He takes Red to watch a boy play in the street, hopping down the street with one leg on the sidewalk and the other in the street. Red is not sure what Lee is showing him, until Lee explains to him his theory that Mrs. Brown’s arthritis might have caused one of her legs to become shorter than the other, causing her pain.

Back at the hospital, Lee prepares to administer insulin to Mary if his experiment doesn’t work. He has her eat several small pieces of candy and waits for her to react. When nothing adverse happens, Lee waits until the next morning to inform Gillespie that she had been suffering from a mineral deficiency that caused her to crave sugar and have convulsions. Gillespie doesn’t let Lee’s success go to his head, informing the intern that he had aided him in much the same way Lee had Red.

When Gillespie goes to see Red’s update on his case, there is only a note, announcing that he has decided to not only withdraw from the competition but to return to Missouri. Gillespie, along with Conover, goes in search of Red.

He is at the Brown’s apartment, where he convinces Mrs. Brown to try on a pair of specially made shoes, one which has a higher heel than the other. With her orthopedic shoes on, Mrs. Brown can walk without assistance for the first time in many years. Even though everyone is thrilled by him, Red insists he has to leave.

But outside the building, Gillespie confronts him. After Conover, from the fire escape, had spied Mrs. Brown walking, he wants to offer him the job as his assistant. Red turns him down, saying Lee is a more qualified physician.

Back at the hospital, Lee learns that Gillespie has arranged for something Lee wants more than being his assistant, a commission in the Chinese Army. (China was at the time a wartime ally of the U.S.) However, Lee will be assigned to Gillespie for the near future and vows to help bring Red back.

On his way to the train station, Red has arranged for Ruth to meet him in the lobby of a hotel one last time. Incidentally, this is the same hotel where Red and Gillespie had missed attending that conference earlier. Ruth tries, but can’t convince Red to stay. But before he can get to his car, Hobart, the ambulance driver, sent by Lee, shows up and knocks Red out in the parking lot. Red is headed back to the hospital.

Made on a budget of $450,000, Three Men in White made $868,000 at the box-office. Far from stellar, even in its day, it was still good enough to keep the franchise going for at least two more films.

That pretty much describes the film as well. While not great by any stretch, Three Men in White is still very entertaining to watch. There is a lot of talent on the screen, though not always fully utilized.

Lionel Barrymore is probably best known as Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the perennial Christmas classic. The eldest son of the Barrymore family, which included siblings Ethel and John, Lionel had been in movies since the early silent films working with D.W. Griffith at the Biograph Studios, starting in 1911. He would act in about 60 films for Griffith, including The New York Hat (1912). He would also write and direct, including Life’s Whirlpool (1917) for Metro Pictures, starring sister Ethel.

Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie.

After 1926, Barrymore worked exclusively for MGM, starring in films opposite the likes of John Gilbert, Lon Chaney, Sr., Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, his brother John and sister Ethel. He would also still direct, including The Rogue Song (1930), Laurel & Hardy's first color film, in which they were also not the stars.

Barrymore played many of his later roles in a wheelchair. Suffering from arthritis, which caused him to limp, he would also break his hip twice, once when a drawing table fell on it in 1936 and a year later when he tripped over cables while filming Saratoga (1937). In great pain, there are stories of Barrymore being addicted to heroin and to cocaine. There are even reports that Louis B. Mayer bought the star $400 of cocaine every day for the pain and to allow him to sleep. Nevertheless, the hip fracture never healed quite right and Barrymore was unable to walk. The last film he can be seen walking and standing in, without help, is Captains Courageous (1937). That did not keep him from acting and he would appear in such films as A Guy Named Joe (1943), It’s A Wonderful Life, Duel in the Sun (1946) and Key Largo (1948). His last films would be Lone Star (1952) and Main Street to Broadway (1953); in the latter he played himself. He would die in 1954.

His role as Dr. Gillespie is what holds this film, and no doubt the others in the series, together. Even confined to a wheelchair, Barrymore has more screen presence than his capable co-stars Van Johnson and Keye Luke.

Van Johnson’s big break came in 1943 with the film A Guy Named Joe, in which he starred opposite Spencer Tracy and Lionel Barrymore. He had been in movies since 1940, having already appeared in two of the Dr. Gillespie films, Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942) and Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case (1943), along with Keye Luke, before Three Men In White. He would also appear in one more in the series, with Keye Between Two Women (1945).

Johnson is a fine actor, but I find his fear of kissing a woman a little hard to swallow even for the times. Of course, that’s not his fault, that’s the way the part was written and he plays it mostly for laughs.

Keye Luke is probably best remembered for his seven appearances as Charlie Chan’s #1 Son, Lee Chan, in the series starring Warner Oland as the famous Chinese detective. He would also play Lee Chan in one of the Mr. Moto films, opposite Peter Lorre, Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938). Interestingly enough, he would also play Dr. Lee Wong How, his role in the Gillespie series in two unrelated films: Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944) and Dark Delusion (1947). He would also appear as Kato in two Green Hornet serials The Green Hornet (1940) and The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1941). He would return to #1 Son in two of Roland Winters' turns as Chan, The Feathered Serpent (1948) and Sky Dragon (1949). By then, he was older than the actor playing the father.

Luke’s Dr. Lee Wong How comes across as also having a robust ego. He knows he’s smart and he likes to show it off. He has a lot of energy, but he is a little off-putting at the same time, but I think that’s more the character than the actor.

A still relatively unknown Ava Gardner also makes an appearance. She had been in the movies since 1941 and had even appeared in the earlier Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942) in an uncredited role. Her role as Jean Brown was only her second feature which she received credit, the other being Ghosts on the Loose (1943).

She is strikingly beautiful, though her acting would improve over her career as would her star status. Three Men in White and her role as Jean Brown is not the sort of high-profile film she would be known for throughout her career. She would first draw attention for her role in The Killers (1946) and would eventually be nominated for Best Actress for her role in Mogambo (1953), the remake of Red Dust (1932).

In publicity photo Lionel Barrymore poses with Marilyn Maxwell and Ava Gardner.

Marilyn Maxwell played Red’s love interest, Ruth Edly, a role she had played in the previous film in the series, Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case (1943). She is cute, but it doesn’t appear she was able to put together much of a career. Most of her movie roles were either in films you’ve probably never heard of or were roles that were not credited. She doesn’t necessarily shine in this film, but really no one does except for Barrymore.

The closest modern equivalent to the Dr. Gillespie character and the way Barrymore plays him would be House as played on TV by Hugh Laurie. Both men are handicapped, House with his gamy leg and cane and Gillespie wheel-chair bound; both men have a certain disdain for their fellow employees and display very healthy egos, thinking they are the best doctors around; this sentiment is often reinforced by their colleagues and subordinates. And both have trouble making up their minds on who their assistant will be. House spent whole seasons trying to make that decision, Gillespie takes a few movies.

And it is Barrymore’s performance that is the real reason to watch this film. A great actor makes the most of the material and Barrymore shines as the arrogant and irascible Dr. Gillespie. He is the only reason to make an appointment to see this film.

This film is available in the Dr. Gillespie Movie Collection from Warner Archive.

Stubs - Laura

Laura (1944) Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson. Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Betty Reinhardt. Based on the novel Laura by Vera Caspary. Produced by Otto Preminger Run Time: 88 minutes. U.S. Black and White. Drama, Film Noir, Mystery

Any time I have a chance to see a classic film noir, I will take it. I had heard a lot about this film, though until recently I had never seen it. Put that down to too many films and too little time. While Otto Preminger is not one of my favorite directors, I do respect his work. Laura was a bit of a watershed film for him, setting him up for his peak years that were to follow its release.

The film opens with narration by Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), an eccentirc New York columnist who talks about the weekend Laura Hunt died. Police lieutenant Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) has come to interview him as part of the murder investigation. Waldo is a well-known close friend of the deceased and a bit of an eccentric as he meets with Mark while he’s in the bathtub. Waldo knows Mark from his heroic battles with gangsters. And it is Waldo’s writing that has brought Mark to see him. Seems Waldo once wrote about a murder committed by a shotgun loaded with buckshot, the same way Laura had been killed.

Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) is interviewed by detective
Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) while he's taking a bath.

Telling Mark that he’s interest in writing about the murder, he is allowed to tag along on the investigation. First stop is Laura’s aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson). Mark is interested in Treadwell’s relationship with Laura’s fiancé, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). While she claims never to have given him money, Mark has evidence that says otherwise.

Lydecker accompanies Mark when he interviews Laura's aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson)

Turns out that Shelby, a charming Southern gentleman, is already there, having come to Ann’s to escape the press and police. Shelby says that he and Laura were to be married later that week, but Waldo insists Laura had cancelled their dinner on Friday night so she could go to her country home to decide if she wanted to go through with the wedding.

When Mark asks if Shelby has a key to her country home, he says he doesn’t and accompanies the detective and Waldo to her apartment to look for it. The apartment is dominated by a large portrait of Laura. There Shelby “finds” the key in a drawer that had already been inventoried by the police. Shelby admits he didn’t want to give him the key in front of Waldo, who accuses Shelby of the murder.

Later, Waldo takes Mark to the restaurant he and Laura frequented and recalls how he met her five years earlier. He was having lunch at the Algonquin when he is approached by Laura, an eager young employee of an advertising agency. Laura wants Waldo to endorse a pen for her company, and is hurt and disillusioned when he rudely dismisses her, telling her his lunch was more important than her career. But he wasn’t able to get her out of his mind and goes to see Laura at the agency, where he apologizes and agrees to the endorsement. They become friends, and under Waldo's tutelage, Laura rises in her profession, starting her own successful agency and moving up in society, but always at his side. She became as synonymous with Waldo Lydecker as his cane. Two nights a week, Tuesday and Friday, the two stay in and listen to Waldo’s music and listen to his reports.

Although their relationship is purely platonic, Waldo is jealous of any suitors, and uses both his column and his influence over her to keep any rivals for her affections at bay. One night, at one of Ann's parties, Laura meets Shelby, who confesses that his family has been bankrupt for years. Laura gives him a job at her advertising agency, and next we see them they are romantically involved.

Laura (Gene Tierney) meets Shelby (Vincent Price) at one of Aunt Ann's parties.

Waldo has Shelby investigated and informs Laura that her fiancé is seeing one of her models, Diane Redfern. Laura is furious at Waldo's interference and dismisses the accusations until he produces a gold cigarette case that she gave Shelby, saying he retrieved it after Diane pawned it. He infers that Shelby is also seeing her aunt and she feels compelled to find out. She is furious about seeing them together and gives Shelby back the cigarette case. Back in the restaurant, Waldo tells Mark that Laura had lunch with Diane the day of her death and had planned to go to her country home for a few days, cancelling their usual Friday night together.

In one of the more famous shots in the film, Mark is obviously obsessed with a woman he thinks is dead.

Mark, who is growing obsessed with Laura, returns to the apartment the next night and continues searching through her personal effects. Waldo stops in and says he knows Mark has secretly put in a bid for Laura's portrait, and chides him for falling in love with a corpse. After Waldo leaves, Mark falls asleep under the portrait. He awakens to the sound of someone entering the room, and looks up to see Laura standing before him. Laura, who has been isolated in the country, is stunned when Mark shows her a newspaper story about her "murder." She claims the radio in her country home wasn’t working. Laura then discovers one of Diane's dresses in her closet, and Mark concludes that the murder victim, whose face was damaged beyond recognition, was actually Diane. Mark questions Laura, brightening when she says she had decided not to marry Shelby, and instructs her not to leave the apartment or use the phone.

Laura returns home from the country to find Mark sleeping in her apartment.

But as soon as Mark leaves, Laura calls Shelby, unaware that the police have tapped her phone. Shelby and Laura meet briefly, and Mark follows Shelby to Laura's country home, where he finds him removing a shotgun from a rack. Shelby claims that he had brought Diane to Laura's apartment to talk, but when Diane answered the door and was shot to death, he panicked and fled. As Mark escorts him out, he checks the radio and is disappointed to find that it works.

Lydecker faints when he sees Laura alive.

Waldo, who initially faints when he sees Laura is alive, arranges for a party to celebrate her return. At the party, she asks Shelby why he went to the cottage, and when he replies that he went to hide the shotgun, she realizes with horror that Shelby believes she is the murderer. Mark, who is being pressured by superiors to make an arrest, takes Laura into custody in front of her guests. After she’s been taken away, Ann makes her play for Shelby. After questioning her at the police station, he is convinced of her innocence.

Mark takes Laura in for questioning.

After taking Laura home, Mark searches Waldo's house while he’s not home and discovers a hollow compartment in the grandfather clock, for which there is a duplicate clock in Laura’s apartment. When he kicks it in, he finds that it’s empty, but the discovery sends him back to Laura's apartment. Waldo is still at Laura's when Mark announces that her gun was not the one used in the murder.

Resentful of the growing bond between Laura and the handsome detective, Waldo insults Mark, and Laura coolly sends her old friend away. Mark examines Laura's clock, which is a duplicate of the one in Waldo's home, and finds a shotgun hidden inside with two spent shells. He tells Laura that Waldo killed Diane, thinking it was Laura, and hid the gun in the clock after Shelby ran out.

Mark tells her that he’ll have the clock taken in for evidence in the morning. After kissing Laura goodnight, he locks her in and leaves, and Laura prepares for bed, unaware that Ly has come back into the apartment through the service entrance. When Mark asks who is tailing Waldo, he’s told he hasn’t come out. Mark and his men head back up as Waldo enters Laura's room. He is about to shoot her when Mark and his men break in. Waldo is shot by the police and, as he dies, says good-bye to Laura.

Looking at the production history of this film, it’s amazing to think that it actually got made. Director Otto Preminger’s work on the story predates the film. In 1942, while looking for a stage production to direct, he became aware of a play written by Vera Caspary called Ring Twice for Laura. Preminger liked the setting of the story, but, of course, thought it needed revisions. While Caspary was open to revising the play, she and Preminger disagreed on the direction it should take. She did a rewrite with someone else, George Sklar, but ultimately could not find a producer to back the play.

Director Otto Preminger

Caspary turned the play into a novel, first serialized in Colliers in 1942 as Ring Twice for Laura and then published the following year as Laura. 20^th Century Fox bought the film rights to the book. Meanwhile, Preminger, an Austrian born director, had made a return to Hollywood, following his banishment from 20^th Century Fox by Darryl Zanuck over creative differences while filming Kidnapped (1938), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel written by Zanuck himself.

Preminger had gone to Broadway, where he found success directing such plays and stars as Outward Bound with Laurette Taylor and Vincent Price, My Dear Children with John and Elaine Barrymore and Margin for Error. In the latter, Preminger played the part of a Nazi. Preminger also took a position teaching acting and directing at the Yale school of drama. Preminger was offered a part by Nunnally Johnson to play a Nazi in the film The Pied Piper (1942), a 20^th Century Fox production. In need of money, Preminger accepted. Zanuck was already in the Army, having joined following the Pearl Harbor attack the previous year.

Thinking he was through with Hollywood, Preminger was offered a chance to reprise his Nazi role in the film version of Margin for Error (1943). But when director Ernst Lubitsch had to withdraw from the film, Preminger managed to persuade interim studio head William Goetz to let him direct. While the film did not do well with critics or movie goers, Preminger tried to line up projects while Zanuck was still on active duty.

One of the projects Preminger had lined up was Laura, which Goetz had let him produce and direct. When Zanuck returned to the studio, he had not given up on his grudge against Preminger and while he would forgive him, Zanuck didn’t want Preminger to direct the film. Rouben Mamoulian, the director of Love Me Tonight (1932) and Golden Boy (1939), was Zanuck’s choice. Mamoulian had previously directed The Mark of Zorro (1940), Blood and Sand (1941) and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) for the studio. The latter film starred Gene Tierney, who was cast as Laura.

Mamoulian and Preminger did not work well together. Mamoulian started to rewrite the script and the two clashed over casting. While Preminger had no problems with Tierney or Dana Andrews, he did object to the casting of Waldo Lydecker. Mamoulian had cast Laird Cregar, who had been previously cast as a Jack the Ripper type character in The Lodger (1944). Preminger felt casting him as Lydecker was giving away too much to the audience who already saw him as a villain. Preminger wanted Clifton Webb, who had left Hollywood in 1930 to act on stage. At the time, Webb was starring in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirits in Los Angeles. Zanuck didn’t want Webb because of his homosexuality and effeminate mannerisms. But after viewing a filmed monologue from the play, Zanuck relented.

Filming began on April 27, 1944, but Mamoulian had trouble with the cast and it showed in the dailies. Zanuck let producer Preminger take over the directing duties. But Preminger and the cast had their own rough start. Mamoulian had informed them that Preminger was unhappy with their work, but once they figured out their working relationship they got along fine. Production ended on June 29, but Zanuck was not happy with the first cut of the film. He insisted that an ending be shot revealing that the story was all a dream by Lydecker.

The film was screened with that ending, but columnist Walter Winchell told Zanuck that he didn’t understand it and that Zanuck should change it, so the film ends the way Preminger intended.

Preminger would go onto direct some of the most controversial films of his day, movies that pushed the limits of the production code by depicting drug addiction in the Man With the Golden Arm (1955), rape in Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and homosexuality in Advice & Consent (1962).

The motive in the film is interesting in that Lydecker and Laura’s relationship was obviously not romantic. The film does not come out and say Lydecker is gay, but his finicky mannerisms suggest he is, especially given the day and age the film was made. Without romance, his motive is due to the injury to his ego that Laura would choose to be in a romantic (read that physical) relationship with a man, first Shelby and then Mark McPherson, over their intellectual (platonic) one. How could his protégé choose muscle and brawn over his brain and friendship?

I have not seen many Gene Tierney films before. She proves herself to be not only beautiful, but a talented actress. While Laura may be her most famous role, she did receive a nomination for Best Actress for her role as Ellen Brent Harland the following year in Leave Her to Heaven. Laura was not her first time to share the screen with Dana Andrews, they appeared together in Tobacco Road (1941) and would so again in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950).

Gene Tierney as Laura.

We touched briefly on Dana Andrews in our review of Ball of Fire (1941), but he was a major star in the 1940’s and 50’s, appearing in such films as The Ox-Box Incident (1943), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), While the City Sleeps (1956), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) and Zero Hour! (1957). (Zero Hour! Is probably best remembered as the basis for the comedy spoof Airplane! (1980).) Andrews was a good dramatic actor whose alcoholism derailed his career.

Dana Andrews

Before Laura I believe I had only seen Clifton Webb in a couple of films, Cheaper by the Dozen (1950) and Titanic (1953). In both those roles Webb played characters not too terribly different than Waldo Lydecker, except they weren’t murderers. Laura, as mentioned above, marks his return to Hollywood. He had been in very few films in the teens and 20’s and had returned to Broadway in 1930. There he was best known for musical comedies, so his role as a murderer in Laura was casting against type.

Laura was also a big film in the career of Vincent Price, establishing him as a character actor. His association with horror and teen films would come later in his career. He got his start in Hollywood as a contract player for Universal, in Service de Luxe (1938). He would work twice more with Gene Tierney in Dragonwyck and Leave Her to Heaven, both 1946. He also appeared in several film noirs: The Web (1947), The Long Night (1947), Rogues' Regiment (1948) and The Bribe (1949). He also appeared on radio as Simon Templar in The Saint (1947-1951), a role Roger Moore would later play on television. He would appear in the 3D horror film The House of Wax (1953) from director Andre de Toth. He appeared in Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps with Dana Andrews and The Ten Commandments (1956) for Cecil B. DeMille.

Vincent Price would go on to have a career in horror films.

Price would become known for horror thanks to films like The Fly (1958) and Fly Returns (1959), as well as a series of films for Roger Corman and American International Pictures (AIP), including House of Usher (1960), Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), Tower of London (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1965). During this same time he was also appearing in AIP’s other big genre, beach movies: Beach Party (1963), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966). He would appear in numerous other horror movies, but might best be known to some as the narrator on the Michael Jackson music video Thriller (1983), directed by John Landis. He also worked twice for Tim Burton as the narrator in Vincent (1982) and Edward Scissorhands (1990). Price would die in 1993.

Judith Anderson, who played Ann Treadwell, is probably best known for her work in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), for which she received an Academy nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who torments Joan Fontaine’s character throughout the film. Best known for her dramatic stage work, she won a Tony award for Best Actress in a Play for Medea (1948), she would also appear in a revival of the play in 1982 and was nominated as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance.

All said, Laura is not without its flaws. The biggest to me is the fact that Mark left the murder weapon in place instead of bagging it as evidence and then doesn’t stay with Laura or insure her safety, which seems to be against procedure and an obvious plot device to put Laura in danger, especially when the real killer is not in custody. That seems like a lazy rookie move rather than something a seasoned veteran detective would do.

The others are more relationship based: What’s wrong with Mark’s life that he would fall romantically in love with a woman he thinks is dead? And what sort of lack of judgment does Laura, a smart and successful woman, have to have to be involved with a gold-digger like Shelby?

I’ve seen better film noirs, but I’m glad I saw this one and I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it before. There are some very fine performances even if there are a few plot holes to go with them.