Gentleman Jim

Gentleman Jim (Raoul Walsh, 1942) It's all background in this Errol Flynn vehicle, as the audience focuses on Flynn portraying boxer "Gentleman" Jim Corbett as he serves as point-man (chin variety) for the gentrification of the pugilistic sport.  As we fade in the first rule  of the fight game is "nobody talks about the fight game." Not in polite society anyway.  As it is, floating boxing matches are staged hectically before the police can find out and they regularly end, not with the sound of a bell, but the sound of a gavel in a courtroom.  Once "Johnny Law" gets wind of the fight (or hears the sound of one, they're fairly rambunctious affairs), they descend, the crowd scattering as they round up fighters and fans alike.  It's all strictly word-of-mouth, grudge matches, really, the only civility being those of the Marquis of Queensbury—and anybody who's seen Wilde knows what a toad he was.

But Corbett brings some civility to the hammering blows, even to the point of impressing heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond), who goes so far as to meet up with Corbett at a post-match soiree to congratulate him for being the man who took him down.  

Walsh contrasts the match fighting (which takes up relatively little screen-time) with Corbett's efforts to rise in the ranks of Society, as well as in the ring standings, learning to exploit his victories to promote himself to the hoi polloi as well as fight promoters.  It's the burgeoning of the age of sports figures as superstars, and not thugs, rising above gutter tactics and championing their skills as valuable commodities to the elite, giving the rich a taste of the hard-scrabble competition they've left behind.

It's a natural extension of Flynn's persona as a cavalier, being the winking bad boy who's naughty to all the right people, but especially to the really bad ones—the jaunty trickster with a gleam in his eye, who'll find a way to get ahead...by left hook or by crook, the competent high-wire artist in marked contrast to buddy Walter Lowrie (Jack Carson, one of my favorite character actors), the lovable schlub who plays pilot-fish to Corbett's shark, never ablt to achieve success, but omnipresent to enjoy it for him.

The Big Trail

The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh, 1930) Wow, this one is kinda fun.  Made in 1930, in the transition between the silent and sound eras,* The Big Trail is a big sprawling "wagon train" movie filmed in 65mm and stereo sound (although it only played that way in New York and Los Angeles—it was filmed twice by Walsh,*** in this format and in the standard Academy approved box format,** where more traditional close-ups were employed), the wide screen taking advantage of large vistas of horizon in gen-u-ine outdoor locations and long meandering lines of properly scrabble-wood wagons and hastily improvised buildings—there isn't a right angle in any of the construction along the route—and the buck-skin and gingham costumes look lived in, sweat-stained and grubby.  It actually has a more authentic feel than later films that covered the same territory.  As films progressed, the pains director Walsh took to create that realistic thread-bare look were replaced by the studios' efforts to make everything well-scrubbed and travel-worthy.  But here, everything is in a state of chaos in need of some permanence.  That'll happen when everything stops moving.

But, at this juncture, less than a hundred years after such odysseys actually occurred, the portrayal of the way west feels more real, despite the simplistic story, the "Big Misunderstanding" love story (the path of love, like cross-country trails, never runs smooth) and some quite amazing set-pieces.  Fording a river actually looks dangerous with cattle swimming downstream with the swift current, and overturning wagons featuring some inelegant (because it wasn't planned) stunt-work.  And there's a sequence, unscripted and jerry-rigged, of lowering wagons and cattle down a cliff-side by ropes, that is just fascinating to watch, especially when things literally go "south" (Walsh and his cameraman managed to to catch the mayhem as some knots slipped).

Along the way, we see every sort of terrain: plains, desert, rivers, cliffs, mountains and forests, and because the trip takes a year, four seasons of various weathers, all giving Walsh a new impediment to the travellers to exploit for drama, from blistering desert heat to nearly white-out conditions of snow—and there's one torrential down-pour that bogs wagons, horses, and men alike in a constant slick of mud.  Who needs melodrama when God and Nature are throwing everything in the pioneers' path to slow them down?  For a film of this era, it is amazing to see the efforts made to bring it all to the screen...and with the added use of on-set sound—in the outdoor settings—it is quite the stunning achievement.

But, there's one other thing The Big Trail is known for: It is also the first starring role of a full-time prop-master and part-time bit player named Marion Morrison, who, starting with this film would operate under the name given him by director Walsh, "John Wayne."

Interesting to watch this kid who would become a screen legend.  He had yet to learn the pausing cadence that would give his sentences more weight, and there's a tendency to put a little too much of everything into the role, the glowers, the tightening jaw-muscles, the "hail-fellow-well-met" jocularity—if you want to see how Wayne plays it, there's a lot of similarity to how Ricky Nelson ambled through the role of "Colorado" in Hawks' Rio Bravo).

But, the casualness is there, always was.  Even here, his first starring role, there is the informal grace of how he'd just lean back in a scene.  There's a sequence where Wayne is talking to a large group of elders—because of the primitive sound equipment in camera trucks, everyone is encouraged to shout the dialogue a bit as it was filmed outdoors—while he sits cross-legged on a horse, as naturally as if he was draped over a dining room chair, the horse shuffling nervously despite having steadying hands on him, and Wayne balanced effortlessly, not missing a beat, even swinging his foot in conversation.

There are things that are a little wince-inducing: it's all very white hat/black hat with the bad guys (Tyrone Power Sr., Charles Stevens, and Ian Keith all pushing villainy at the top of their lungs that you almost think there should be a "hiss" track whenever they walk on-screen), Marguerite Churchill is a trifle too "fiddle-dee-dee" for my taste, and there's some rather antiquated humor about mothers-in-law, and goofy ethnics (hard to place...Swedish?) that's just a step away from the "gag-men" antics of the silent era.

But, I spent the majority of the movie goggle-eyed at the incredible shots by Walsh and his cinematographer Arthur Edeson**** (a mainstay at both Fox and Warners, Edeson has an impressive list of credits, in which he managed to squeeze in among the B-pictures and programmers Frankenstein, The Maltese Falcon, The Old Dark House, and Casablanca) that take advantage of the western locations and The Big Sky (still remarkably free of air-traffic), artfully composed as if they were framed by Frederic Remington.

Look past the dated material, and some of the more vaudevillian (and vaude-villain) moments and there are many visual wonders to behold here, brought about by one of the great directors who doesn't get nearly enough attention: Raoul Walsh.

* Transitions are handled by the insertion of title cards anticipating the action of the next episode.

** In addition, there were foreign language versions shot at the same time—Spanish, French and German—with different casts.

**** The first outdoor sound film—In Old Arizona—was made the year before, photographed by Edeson and planned out by Walsh, who was set to star (as the Cisko Kid, no less) and direct until the traffic accident (a jackrabbit smashed into his windshield) that cost him his right eye.



***

Captain Horatio Hornblower (R.N.)

"Captain Horatio Hornblower (R.N.)"* (Raoul Walsh, 1951) Supposedly C.S. Forester himself adapted his first three Hornblower novels to make the screen-story for this swashbuckling distillation of the Royal Navy's fictional hero. It is 1805, and his majesty has sent the HMS Lydia on a secret mission. England is at war with Spain and France, and Hornblower must enlist the aid of a mad South American dictator in the war efforts a world away. But, upon arriving, Hornblower's distaste for the assignment and the "El Supremo" (Alec Mango) has him violating the Admiralty's standard orders, and when he captures the massive El Natividad (commanded by a very young Christopher Lee), he is forced to turn over the ship to the mad-man. Heading for home, he finds out that Spain is now England's ally (oops!) and he must re-take the massive ship on open seas, risking his crew and an unwanted passenger, Her Ladyship Barbara Wellesley (Virginia Mayo), sister to tthe Duke of Wellington and betrothed to Admiral Leighton (Denis O'Dea).

The crew is very British (including a young Stanley Baker), but its Captain is played by the very American Gregory Peck,** ramrod-stiff and stoic, so even though the accent is wrong, the attitude is just so—Forrester's Hornblower is a stoic, constantly questioning himself and his failings, reflected in his constant lecturing and drilling of his crew. And Raoul Walsh is the perfect man to direct, as the action director has a keen eye toward the psychological and characters with complicated motivations. Peck has the attitude, but is a bit uneasy when called upon to display the comical aspects of the still-upper-lip Hornblower—his uneasy "harumphs" are constantly dubbed in to make more of them than Peck could convey on-set. But for the brooding and irritation (and the authoritarian air), Peck is fine.

The battles are well-choreographed for the times—one can practically see the wires yanking pieces of ship-railing past the players—and sometimes the falling masts and ropes get a little out of control, but the model-work and staging are excitingly done. A fine way to spend a rainy afternoon.

* The added "R.N." because the British version of the title included them, the American did not. As with the recent "Master and Commander," nothing is made of Hornblower maybe having to fight the American Navy, as he might have seven years in the future.

** The screen-rights were acquired for a vehicle for Errol Flynn, but after Flynn's previous movies had poor ticket sales (and the actor was proving difficult to manage), other actors (including Burt Lancaster) were considered. Peck got the part. Lancaster would star in "The Crimson Pirate" the next year.

They Drive By Night

"They Drive By Night" (Raoul Walsh, 1940) Warner Brothers-style action-and-intrigue pot-boiler about...wild-cat truckers. The brothers Fabrini (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart) are partners in a truck who decide to stop working for other shipping companies and do the deals themselves. This pushes their murderous schedules to the edge and consequences determine a change of focus. An interesting little movie where two Warner's tough-guys—Raft and his understudy at the time, Bogart*—do "everyman" jobs and mine real drama out of it. Of course, it couldn't be a Warner's picture without action and the film boasts two nail-biters where truck-drivers fall asleep at the wheel, filmed with the snap that one can expect from Raoul Walsh.

Where the movie excels is the smart patter that spins drama in the economic realities of this corps of transport specialists. The movie manages to slip in lessons in Unionization and Modernization amid the wise-cracks and the trumped murder-plot that dominates the film's second half. You begin to feel like you're learning something without being preached to.

And there's enough good acting going on that raises it above "B" level. Raft is a bit looser in the starring role, but Bogart has the most dramatic...and fun part. Ann Sheridan does well with her wise-acre dialog and Ida Lupino manages a mine-filed of femme fatale neuroses with dexterity and quick-silver reactions. But the stand-out is Alan Hale—"The Skipper''s" dad—who takes the part of a trucker-who-owns-a-company and can't believe his good fortune. Hale's "Ed Carlsen" never has a "down" moment, and is carried out with wolfish good spirits and the sense that he's making it up as he goes along. His performance is the diamond in the rough in this rough little film about trucking.

*At this time in his career, Bogie was still upset at the way his career was going, he was still doing the occasional western, and just the previous year he starred in the worst movie of his career--"The Return of Doctor X!" But in his next movie would be a part that Raft tosses aside--"Mad Dog" Roy Earle in "High Sierra." And the next part meant for Raft but inherited by Bogart would be detective Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon."