A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

Following the success of MGM’s production of David Copperfield, directed by George Cukor, Hollywood’s most lavish studio of the time would release yet second feature for 1935 based on yet another masterpiece by the English author Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities allows once again for MGM the chance to produce a period piece, which the studio seemed to love to make, and did better than most other studios with thanks to their far deeper pockets and literal armies of artists and decorators. In this adaptation of a Dickens classic we receive a fine production filled with good depth of emotion sharing the sorrow of want, jealousy, loneliness, and sacrifice. It makes for a well artistically assembled film directed by Jack Conway with beautiful acting, art direction, and cinematography, most of all leaving you with a sense of sadness that the original literary work contained instead of the polished and positive Hollywood endings many times slapped on my Hollywood during the era.

A Tale of Two Cities is a dramatic adaption of the Charles Dickens novel, about one man’s plight in discovering that he cannot have the happiness that he wants, but finds peace in his own sacrifice that others he cares for can live in happiness, set to the background of the rise of the French Revolution. Sydney Carton (Ronald Coleman) is a creatively intelligent, yet alcoholic English attorney who helps French aristocrat Charles Darnay (Donald Woods) escape charges of treason after leaving Paris for London for his sympathy to the downtrodden masses. Carton, whom shares a similar likeness to Darnay, however falls in love with the charming Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allen), who is romantically linked with Darnay. However, Carton knowing he will never have someone like her for his own, falls into a deeper depression, mainly at the bottom of a bottle. Carton being a good man, does not hurt anyone with his troubles, rather contains his inner struggles, and cares for those he is fond of. When a plot is set to capture and execute Darnay for treason when he returns to Paris, Carton helps Darnay escape the prison, taking his place due to their similar features, ultimately sacrificing himself to the guillotine for his care of Darnay and Lucie being able to live happily together.

The story is a sad one about the inner struggles of one man as he tries to be good and care for others, but never really finding the benefits in his own life. To watch the flawed character of Carton as he moves himself forward to doom for the better of others makes for a very Christian tale as one man sacrifices his life for another. Jack Coway, director of such films as Red-Headed Woman and Viva Villa!, creates a wonderful canvas on which for this story to be told. He captures, with the fine acting job of Ronald Colman, the internal struggles of Carton so clearly, but without having the character say too much, which is a change from the usual films of the day. Conway’s visuals are masterful in portraying the mood set in each scene as we watch our hero move his way to ultimate sacrifice, hitting is paramount point with the ending shot as the camera pans up away from Carton as we hear the guillotine fall, claiming its sacrificial lamb for the wrongfully accused Darnay. It’s a sad tale, but strangely leaves you satisfied with the story of sacrifice for the ultimate good.

The film begins surrounded by the story of Lucie and Darnay, played by Elizabeth Allen and Donald Woods, long before we meet Colman as Carton, leaving it to be important that we get attached to these characters before the hero and main plot takes its place. Allen was an English actress who had started her career in the drama Alibi, working in her native country before finding a contract for MGM and moving to the US. For 1935 she would best be remembered for her work in both of the studio’s Dickens adoptions, appearing in David Copperfield earlier in the year. Woods as an actor feels less polished, a smaller known performer from B pictures that serves as a clean, righteous man in this love story. His lack of range would be from the story, not necessarily himself, for he only sets up for Colman’s performance and the flawed hero.

Ronald Colman does a wonderful job in carrying the picture. Playing the role of the good-hearted, but heavily blemished Englishman puts a great deal on Colman’s shoulders in this film. The feature would be produced somewhat around Colman and the execution of his acting. As the novel dictates Carton and Darnay look very similar, driving the main points of the story as Darnay gets the girl, despite Carton having similar handsome features, and Carton’s ability to fool guardsmen that he is Darney at the time of execution. With this point heavily in mind it is conceived that the roles of Carton and Darnay be played by the same man to further drive this point and create the tension of the characters similarities. However when Colman signed on to the picture he insisted that he play only Carton, focusing on his plight and depth, leaving the role of Darnay for another actor, ending up with Donald Woods. Woods and Colman share very little similarities physically so it was needed to be let known in the writing that the two are to have looked alike in some way by those in the film. Colman’s performance would be praised and greatly marketed by the studio as one of the finest performances on screen. His acting is very good, but not the best of the year, as seen with no nominations for an Academy Award.

A Tale of Two Cities makes for a compelling story that can be enjoyed by those that have never read the novel, which is vital in producing a picture. Praised by critics the film would be nominated for two Academy Awards for the year 1936 (because of it release at the tail end of 1935), nominations for best editing and best picture. The film does well transferring through the decades, remaining a watchable period piece many years later, manifesting a yet another fine, lavish picture by MGM of the 1930s.

Captain Blood (1935)

On Christmas Day 1935 Warner Bros. would premiere in New York City a swashbuckling adventure picture that captured the imaginations of audiences and launched an unknown actor into movie stardom. This million dollar picture directed by well seasoned, but still not yet legendary Michael Curtiz would bring Australian born actor Errol Flynn to American audiences in a high seas escapade of piracy. With bold, thrilling action and a leading man that seemed to embody many of the attributes a leading man called for during the golden age of Hollywood, Captain Blood would be one of the most successful films critically and financially for the year ending 1935 and beginning 1936.

Captain Blood is a swashbuckling adventure of a man wrongful sentenced into slavery, creating his only way into a free life through mean of piracy, turning him into a legend of the high seas. Errol Flynn plays Dr. Peter Blood, whose good deeds as a physician wrongfully lands him a sentence of treason for treating a freedom fighter against the crown of England, sentencing him to slavery in the English colony of Port Royal, Jamaica. Blood’s education and chivalrous ways earn him respect from both slave and masters alike, but when the mistreatment of fellow slaves get out of hand, especially being they all were sentenced for treason under the mad and unjust King James,  he bands up his fellow slaves on a hijacked pirate ship as a means of escape, creating a livelihood as pirates. Blood’s leadership earns him and his men a infamous name across the ocean, and when sought after to serve the new King of England after the overthrowing of James, the men fight heroically as new members of the British navy, all the while saving his former owner and lover interest Arabelle Bishop (Olivia de Haviland). Through his accolades Blood is then appointed the new governor of the colony with his new love by his side.

The picture is an impressive production with high energy and adventure. Curtiz’s direction is masterful as he moves the camera and edits with great intensity that enhances the action that takes place both on the waters and battles on land. The only drawback may be from the writing, where title cards are created to fill in the story for lengths of time in the tale, creating a disruption in the flow of the picture. A seemingly new treasure in found in Errol Flynn, an actor plucked from Australia for having that special something words cannot describe. As if channeling the swashbuckling adventure and suave demeanor seen in the silent days of Douglas Fairbanks, Flynn seems to bring you back to the feelings one may have shared in The Black Pirate or Robin Hood with Fairbanks as star, but with Flynn’s own more subtle way or carrying himself. The plot is fair, about freedom fighters that suffer because of political injustice and returning to be patriots after the man in power is overthrown by his ways. Together with a decent plot, good action, masterful direction, and just a little overplayed acting (as was normal at the time) it makes for a good film, a good enough picture to warrant an Academy Award nomination for best picture of 1935.

Curtiz was a busy filmmaker over the two decades leading to this feature. He was well respected enough to continually receive work dating back to the silent days of the 1910s, but here we begin to really see this man blossom into a master of the craft. It would be his first shot at a major picture of this status and his work would not go unnoticed. Despite not being nominated for best director that year Academy voters wrote him in so often that he would finish second in the category to John Ford for his work in The Informer. It is admirable praise to have academy colleagues usurp the listed nominations to write Curtiz in and nearly win the award.

The film’s star Errol Flynn was a literal no-name actor when Warner Bros discovered him in films produced in Australia. To cast such an actor in a starring role in his first major American picture would be a bit of a gamble that paid off handsomely as Flynn would become a massive star in Hollywood for years to come. His smile and demeanor evokes the same style of Fairbanks of the not too distant past, but for the days of the talking feature Flynn was subtle enough with his overly handsome charm that he would become a star in the adventure films that dotted the screen for the next decade plus.

Flynn’s fellow co-stars were relative unknowns as well. His love interest in the film was Olivia de Havilland, a freshly picked actress out of the local amateur stage scene in the Los Angeles area. Her simple beauty and grace coupled with her acting would help her find work, first as a Shakespearian actress, but with the help of this feature she would land bigger and better roles, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, along side of co-star Flynn, and Gone with the Wind as a major supporting character. For the villain of the picture was Lionel Atwill, an actor known for his roles in horror features, but here plays his usual role as a overly-righteous man bent on catching Captain Blood. Atwill’s role seemed to not stray too far from the range he could provide as a somewhat limited actor. Then there is Basil Rathbone who plays a smaller role as a shortly lived fellow pirate captain that Blood at first sides with, then turns against after he proves to do more unjust while mistreating Miss Bishop. A South African born actor who falls right in with the Shakespeare crowd, Rathbone would one day don the familiar cap and magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes for a number of pictures, an image that would long stand with the character’s portrayal.

Captain Blood would a greatly thought of picture that winter season at theaters. The film would be praised not simply on story, direction, and acting, but also for its sound, receiving nominations for best sound recording and editing at that year’s Academy Awards as well. Above all the film launched the career of Errol Flynn and pushed Curtiz to producing some of the best movies ever made in his coming future. Captain Blood stands as a fine film for its period with its romantic view of the days of swashbucklers. In watching the feature you will notice its hints of how it inspired the countless films that have followed in its wake even decades later.

The Littlest Rebel (1935)

Shirley Temple fights for her right to be free in her role as The Littlest Rebel. Becoming what is perhaps the greatest financial draw at movie theaters in America during 1935, the young, dimple-face, curly haired seven year-old had taken movie audiences by storm starring in a string of clean, wholesome pictures that fit right in with the wants of the newly enforced Production Code, the board that censored movies of the era. As usual Temple plays a little girl with tons of charm, along with her singing and dancing skill, that wins over the harshest of people, this time set to the background of the American Civil War. Shirley’s overall cuteness allows you to be wrapped up in the story of her being a delightful Southern girl, surprisingly leading you to forget that her and her family actually own slaves during this feature, an act long since considered immoral.

The Littlest Rebel is a Shirley Temple drama about the struggles of a six year old Southern Belle and her family at the time when the Civil War breaks out, and how her father tries to protect and her from harm while serving in the Army with treat of the invading Union soliers literally making their way to their doorsteps. Here Temple plays Virgie Clay, who during her sixth birthday party learns of the battle of Fort Sumter, marking the beginning of war between the North and South, effectively turning the Clay family into Confederate patriots. Virgie’s father Herbert (John Boles) becomes a scout for the Confederate Army, but works tirelessly to protect his wife, daughter, and loyal slaves, including Uncle Billy (Bill Robinson), by moving them further away from Union armies down to Richmond. While carrying out this noble act of family first, Virgie’s father is aided by a sympathetic Union officer by the name of Morrison (Jack Holt), but both Clay and Morrison are caught and sentenced to death. Their only hope is in Virgie who raises money by dancing with Uncle Billy for a trip to Washington, where she visits Lincoln himself, he too being won over by the little girl, granting a pardon to both men, bringing back happiness to the Clay family.

The movie is a cute film that, as always, charms you with the overall loveliness if Shirley Temple. Her innocence and dedication to love and happiness with her family and those associated with her is the key to making this an appealing feature to watch. For as I see it there are two ways to look at this film. The first is being able to simply allow for suspension of disbelief and permitting the movie to just play out with the innocence of its original intent. If you do this the picture can be enjoyable, and overall adorable while watching little Ms. Temple. The second way is to tear apart the story’s fabric and think of it as absolutely ridiculous. The slaves of the Clay plantation actually fear the northern soldiers, as if they were frightened children and not own property with the North coming to free them from their masters. Northern soldiers do not devastate the Southern plantation as armies realistically did during war, and a little girl is able to walk into the White House to get a pardon for her rebel father, who is essentially a spy. The plot in real life does not work at all, but the movie is not about that. The film is about love, and how innocence and joy win outright in the hearts of those in times and trails of hardship. Yes, it is an overly simplistic film with unbelievable plot points, but Shirley Temple is a charmer, and in the end she must to win, at least that is movie logic.

For this picture is the usual formula of a random assembly abound Temple, providing the story while she is the object of the plot that drives the whole thing forward. Directed by David Butler, his third picture as a vehicle for Shirley Temple, his general skill with the camera is admirable as he captures everything that is necessary, but does not make the picture feel overly simple. He would not be particularly special with his filmmaking skill, but good enough to keep him in the business for a long time. The handsome and suave-like actor John Boles makes his second appearance with Temple as his child, previously in Curly Top where he adopts Temple. Boles is a steady actor with little drive when he is seen in these Temple movies, very two-dimensional as a hero, lacking a range in emotion.

A short list of small time actors line the remaining supporting cast of the film. Jack Holt plays the Morrison, the Union officer that sympathizes with Clay as he tries to protect his family. Holt was more known for his work in westerns, first as a stunt man before being cast in small roles for his decent acting skill beyond physicality. Karen Morley plays Virgie’s mother, a character who falls ill during the course of the picture, adding further drama aside from the immediate danger of being near enemy lines. Morley was a smaller known actress with years of work under MGM before arguments split that relationship. At this time she was just looking for work when it came; something that would not come often in the near future. In the short, but honorable role as Abraham Lincoln is the very little known actor Frank McGlynn, whose stage work as the 16^th President would get him noticed, ultimately landing him this small part.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this film is the treatment of African Americans. Being the film takes place in the South during the Civil War the blacks are slaves. Though the slaves are treated well in the picture, never yelled at or mistreated, this film tries not to put down the race too much from the perspective of audiences in the mid-1930s. But through the eyes of time it is seen differently. As mentioned before, the slaves see the war as a hindrance on them as much as any Confederate, fearing for their lives and staying true to their masters instead of seeing the Union soldiers as saviors for a race of men long mistreated as pieces of property, and not human beings. They are happy-go-lucky, smiling, dancing, and undereducated people that serve by their master’s sides throughout. The most notable of these characters is the lively Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Robinson was a longsuffering vaudevillian before he made his mark as Temple’s butler in a handful of pictures. His dancing skill, like Temple’s, would win the hearts that watched him, especially when he danced with the little Caucasian girl. They could be perhaps the first mixed race dancing pair recorded on a major motion picture as the practice was very uncommon for a time of racial issues seen then, but both are so likable that it would hardly be thought of.

Critics would enjoy the delightful film, even though it was primarily fluff, but they too were won over by Temple. Audiences loved the picture enough to rank the film as one of the highest grossing films of the years. Along with the great success for Curly Top earlier in the year, Shirley Temple was the top draw in 1935, a huge triumph for 20^th Century Fox. They only wished that they could bottle up this little girl and keep her at this ever cute age, but everyone grows up and this high would not last forever, and Fox looked to milk this run for everything its got in these next few short years.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

After a two year hiatus from the silver screen the Marx Brothers return to create even more ciaos in A Night at the Opera. Since we last saw the Marx Bros. in Duck Soup in 1933 the group had left Paramount over contract disputes, youngest brother Zeppo left the group, and the three remaining members would sign on with the biggest and most lavish studio in Hollywood, MGM. In this picture we see how a new studio and it’s larger budget changed the Marx Bros.’ brand  of comedy by corralling the silliness and channeling it through a film that actually has a reasonable plot, with a true beginning, middle, and end along with production value above anything that they had worked in before. Some would say the change limited the group’s humor, while others thought less was more for a team that had previously felt out of control. In either case this feature would make for a highly entertaining movie that would be remembered as one of the groups very best.

A Night at the Opera is a Marx Bros. comedy about the reuniting of a young couple who are being separated due to one going on tour with an opera company, and the several messes created by the men that help make it possible. Despite the film being a madcap runaround with the Marx brothers, it is centered on the tale of two young lovers Rosa (Kitty Carlisle), a successful blooming opera singer picked to join a New York opera group with very famous and egotistical star, and Riccardo (Allen Jones), an equally talented, yet overshadowed singer whom Rosa loves and reluctantly leaves behind in Italy while setting sail for America. With the help of Riccardo’s manger Fiorelli (Chico) and his sidekick Tomasso (Harpo), Riccardo is perceived by silly opera executive Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho) to be the real talent of the opera  instead of Rosa’s narcissistic co-star. Riccardo, Fiorelli, and Tomasso stow away in Otis’ luggage as they set sail across the Atlantic for America and cause a humorous ruckus on board of the ocean liner, eventually sabotaging the opera’s opening night reuniting the young lovers, concluding with the creation of a new sensation in the New York opera.

Unlike the Marx Bros. films with Paramount, where they tend to simply run around and cause all sorts of trouble for laughs, A Night at the Opera contains a serviceable story with a complete arc in development, proceeding to an ultimate conclusion. The studio MGM, producer Irving Thalberg in particular, saw the brothers as a great draw, but thought that their overall troublesome actions made their characters unsympathetic. Believing that a solid plot complete with villains and story structure would make for their characters more likable and would have audiences to root for the Marx Bros. as heroes. In a way Thalberg was correct. The laughs are not flying at you a mile a minute as you might have seen in their previous  features, such as Monkey Business or Horse Feathers, but the characters seem more sympathetic instead of men just destroying the civility that surround them. In all they are very much the Marx Bros. of old, minus straight man Zeppo who was easily replaced by a minor actor, supplying us with tremendous physical and word gags that the team worked hard on in a small stage tour to perfect the laughs they desired on the film.

To corral the zany brothers in this picture was Sam Wood, a long time veteran director that had worked with the likes of Cecil B. DeMille in the silent days of film and proceeded to become a lesser known studio director at MGM. Wood was said to be a perfectionist, working Groucho, Chico, and Harpo to great lengths to get his shots perfect. Added in this feature, unlike the films made for Paramount, were lavish musical numbers that added to the more sophisticated production quality that MGM had over other studios. The large dance number would seem a little out of place when you think about it, but it blends in well with the overall picture, something that can be seen as acceptable and appreciated of an added spectacle which MGM provides.

Even with the transition to MGM we still see familiar friends to the Marx Bros. Margret Dumont in her usual role as elder love interest to Groucho, for who to bounce jokes off of, her being the straight, sophisticated woman whom he clashes with. Her role is somewhat reduced, but helps mask the transition from one studio to the other. With Zeppo exiting the group, being the straight man and lesser entertaining of the brothers, his style character as the usual center of the actual plot would be handed to Allan Jones. This newcomer to the screen would not quite be as entertaining as Zeppo in interacting with the brothers, but his musically trained vocal cords would be on show as he sings with and serenades his co-star Kitty Carlisle. Kitty would call A Night at the Opera her big break, showcasing her own musical talents as well as her acting skill.

The picture would feature two of the groups most well known scenes, known simply as “the contact scene” and “the stateroom scene” to anyone who is a historian of film comedy. The contract scene is a dialogue heavy sketch between Chico and Harpo with the usual misguided understanding of Chico and his poorer grasp of the English language, including his disbelief of a “Sanity Claus” (Santa Claus). Their banter back and forth ends up with a contract that is a piece of paper about one inch in height compared to the very large paper it started out as. The stateroom however would be a much loved scene by many comedians. It is a scene that starts in Groucho’s stateroom, starting off already very  cramped, but the addition of his large trunk fills much of the. Bursting out from the truck is Chico and Harpo, then over time enter maids, engineers, waiters, and more until the tiny room contains 15 characters total, each committed to performing their task. It is a scene that needs to watched to appreciated to its fullest, using the comic rule of building on a joke, which expands the humor. It is said the scene was a difficult one to perform, originally not producing the flare the brothers wished it would have. Eventually they would throw away the script and for the most part improvise the scene creating the spontaneity of the humor.

A Night at the Opera was a monster success for MGM and the Marx Bros. Critics for the most part liked the film, but there were few that saw this as a limiting version of the brothers, preferring the pile of jokes thrown wildly on the screen in their Paramount features. This picture would keep the humor more contained, but it allowed for a timed execution of the jokes that permitted more space for laughter than they had previously. Despite the reasonable critiques, the movie would be hailed as one of the teams very best along side of Duck Soup. Its legacy would be rewarded with listing on AFI’s Top Laughs list of 2000 as the #12 all time best American comedy, as well as the 2007 AFI list of all time best American movies at #85; a rare occasion to find a silly comedy bring compared side-by-side to such highly praised dramas. Furthermore, it would be preserved in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress as a national treasure of sorts for importance to the American culture of the 20^th century.

The Marx Bros. had found a new home in Hollywood with a studio that provided them the opportunity for far greater success than they would have had anywhere else. They would not be quite as juvenile as they were before, but their skills were still there, including Chico’s masterful tickling of the piano and Harpo’s namesake of playing a beautiful harp. Things were not quite the same with the barrage of jokes before, but it would not seem to matter as people continued to enjoy Groucho, Chico, and Harpo as they persisted to create a humorous mess on screen.