Category: 1940s

Cass Timberlane (1947)

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Cass Timberlane is an awful film from the very beginning when we first encounter Spencer Tracy camped out on the bench as the Circuit Judge of Backwoods, Minnesota where he delivers a smug sermon to a couple seeking a divorce about the sanctity of marriage. Easy for him to say, what with his old lady dying in the first year of their marriage.

I will confess that I gave Judge Cass some credit when he thought to himself about how boring it was to be sitting there listening to all these boring cases. But then again, it wasn’t like he had to sit through a movie about it, either. Continue reading “Cass Timberlane (1947)” →

Father Was a Fullback (1949)

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A comedy with Fred MacMurry as the hapless coach at good ole State U? Losing season? Job in jeopardy? Bring on the Flubber! Where’s the field goal kicking mule? And how about that invisibility serum and/or speed pill? And the mascots? You know they’re going to get kidnapped or at the very least eat the playbook right before State U takes on City Tech, right? Continue reading “Father Was a Fullback (1949)” →

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

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Here’s a movie that’s signed onto the pro-orphan agenda that certain special interests groups continuously push in this country. It’s one of those do-gooder fairy tales where stuff like suicides and dead kids occur at convenient intervals just so that our heroine can be inspired to new heights of self-sacrifice while the audience is inspired to new depths of self-loathing for ever firing up a movie about a woman who crusades to have Texas’ law about illegitimate kids having to be identified as such on birth certificates and marriage licenses changed. Continue reading “Blossoms in the Dust (1941)” →

Old Acquaintance (1943)

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There’s only one reason anyone would ever seek out this semi-obscure Bette Davis movie (one of only about 19 that she made during the 1940s alone!) and that can be summed up in one semi-questionable word: catfight! What began a few years before in The Old Maid comes to a throat-throttling head as Bette finally has it out with arch foe Miriam Hopkins.

And by the time Bette gets around to choking the life out of her late in the film, you’re inclined to think that she was peeved that Miriam’s hammy and clueless performance was ruining the movie.

Miriam’s inability to tone down her shrill antics isn’t the sole reason that you end up wishing that she and Bette had just set up a boxing ring on the set of The Old Maid and hashed it out over the lunch hour between set up shots four years before this mess, it’s just the most glaring. Continue reading “Old Acquaintance (1943)” →

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

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In this beloved musical effort set against the backdrop of the 1903 World’s Fair, Judy Garland sings her way through a world where the most pressing problem of the day is the fact that the boy-next-door’s tailor is closed meaning that he can’t get his tuxedo in time for the big graduation dance.

As is to be expected in this kind of film, the lovable grandfather comes through and lends his tuxedo to the young man. I’m not sure what it says about Judy’s date that he would have the same build as a seventy year old man, but this was back in olden times where chicks actually wore corsets instead of letting their beer bellies hang over the fraying elastic waistband of their stretch pants like so many of St. Louis’ women do today. Continue reading “Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)” →