Meet John Doe

 Meet John Doe (1941)

Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, and Waltter Brennan

Directed by Frank Capra

Written by Robert Riskin

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Remember the Night

 Remember the Night (1940)

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, and Sterling Holloway

Directed by Mitchel Leisen

Written by Preston Sturges

Click here for my Letterboxd review

Click here for my prior RyMickey Ramblings review

The (current) RyMickey Rating:  B+

The Lady Eve

 The Lady Eve (1941)

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, and Charles Coburn

Directed by Preston Sturges

Written by Preston Sturges

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

There's Always Tomorrow

There's Always Tomorrow (1956) 

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Joan Bennett, William Reynolds, Pat Crowley, Gigi Perreau, and Judy Nugent

Directed by Douglas Sirk

Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C+

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity (1944)

Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, and Jean Heather

Directed by Billy Wilder

Written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

Click here for my Letterboxd review

Click here for my earlier RyMickey's Rambling review

The RyMickey Rating: A

The Two Mrs. Carrolls

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)

Starring Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith, and Ann Carter

Directed by Peter Godfrey

Written by Thomas Job

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - Remember the Night

Remember the Night (1940)

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, and Sterling Holloway

Directed by Mitchell Leisen

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray teamed up for one of the best films ever in Double Indemnity so I was looking forward to their partnership in Remember the Night, a romantic comedy that is quite a departure from the film noir I had seen them in prior.  While Remember the Night is no Double Indemnity the film is moderately successful...although I still find it a bit odd that Stanwyck's rather sassy demeanor garnered her leading lady status in romantic films like this.

Here Stanwyck is Lee Leander, a woman justly accused of shoplifting an expensive piece of jewelry from a department store the week before Christmas.  MacMurray is the prosecuting attorney John Sargent who, after hearing the defense attorney's plea that Lee was "hypnotized" by the glimmer of the jewelry, calls for a recess so the state's psychiatrist who is on Christmas vacation can testify against Ms. Leander.  When the judge agrees, Lee is to be held in jail over the holidays.  John feels a bit bad about this and ends up asking the agreeable bail bondsman a favor to let Lee out for Christmas.  After discovering that as a youth Lee lived just miles from John's hometown in Indiana, the two resident New Yorkers set out on a road trip to see John's family for the holidays with a stop in at Lee's mother's house along the way.  Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if the two begin to feel affection for one another, would it?

Both Stanwyck and MacMurray are good here -- but they're always good in nearly everything I've seen them in.  Director Mitchell Leisen actually does a bit here with shadows and lighting to make his film stand out from the typical holiday norms, but Preston Sturges' screenplay which is strong at the beginning during the courtroom scenes, falters quite a bit as Lee and John take their road trip.  In fact, their journey is almost painfully mundane.  Fortunately, the film picks up again when John makes it to his family thanks to some nice supporting turns from Beulah Bondi and Sterling Holloway (the voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh, Kaa the Snake, and many more) as John's mother and brother, respectively.

Remember the Night isn't particularly memorable, but it's not cloyingly sentimental either as some holiday flicks are wont to be.  And plus, Stanwyck and MacMurray are always a treat to watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - No Man of Her Own

No Man of Her Own (1950)

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Lyle Bettger, and John Lund

Directed by Mitchell Leisen

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Movies from the 1950s can so easily tip to the melodramatic, and while they sometimes can be successfully believable, oftentimes they feel too over-the-top.  Fortunately, while No Man of Her Own certainly gets overly dramatic at times, it proves to be a nicely told film noir with a great performance from Barbara Stanwyck that makes me wonder why I'd never heard of this film before I saw it pop up on Netflix Streaming.

Ms. Stanwyck plays Helen Ferguson, a down-and-out woman with hardly a penny to her name who, while eight months pregnant, travels from San Francisco to New York City to see Steve (Lyle Bettger), her former boyfriend and father of her unborn child.  He refuses to even open his door to her, but buys her a one way train ticket back to California.  A devastated Helen boards the train where she meets the newly married Patrice and Hugh Harkness.  The Harkness's are traveling to meet Hugh's parents whom Patrice, who happens to be seven months pregnant, has never met before.  While the three strike up a nice friendship, things quickly go south when a horrible train accident leaves the Patrice and Hugh dead and, thanks to an odd stroke of luck, Helen being mistaken for Patrice.  Although initially wary of being doted upon by the rich Harkness family, including Hugh's brother Bill (John Lund), Helen eventually gives in, realizing that pretending to be Patrice will help her provide great opportunities for her newborn son that she could have never given him.

I must say that I was absolutely intrigued by the story here.  While it eventually falters a little bit as it dips into the noir aspects in its final act, the "case of mistaken identity" on display here seemed fresh despite being something we've all seen before in films.  It's certainly helped by a very nice performance from Barbara Stanwyck who is able to escape (although perhaps just barely) the typical melodramatic performance "required" by this type of role in the '50s.  Thanks to some nicely directed moments and a surprisingly nifty special effect in the first half hour that I actually rewatched to see its simple effectiveness, No Man of Her Own is a flick I heartily recommend to lovers of classic movies.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Witness to Murder

Witness to Murder (1954)

Starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, and Gary Merrill

Directed by Roy Rowland

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

When forty-something single woman interior designer Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck) witnesses the murder of a woman in the apartment complex across from her abode, she immediately calls the police.  Investigator Lawrence Mathews (Gary Merrill) takes the case, but finds that British novelist Albert Richter, the possible killer, has a story that seems to check out.  Cheryl's adamant that she's sure of what she saw and when Richter finds out she's the one who called the police, he refuses to let her ruin his devious plans.

A Rear Window-lite (released two months before that Hitchcock classic), Witness to Murder is actually a decent low budget 1950s B-movie.  It's got a solid story, manages to never get bogged down with unnecessary subplots, and contains some successful performances from the three main actors.  Still, there's nothing overly ambitious on display here.  For the most part, everything's rather rote and by the book.  While the tale contains a rather odd and seemingly out-of-place motive behind Richter's crime (let's just say it seems a few too many years removed from WWII to go the route the screenwriters go), it doesn't necessarily harm the film (and, in fact, actually leads to a genuinely exciting final few minutes)...the corniness just reiterates the film's B-movie status.  But a "B-movie" isn't necessarily a put down (despite the negative connotations it often carries) and it's certainly not meant to be in this film's case.  Don't get me wrong...you're not getting a fantastic flick with Witness to Murder, but you're getting a decent one that is worth a watch if you're in the mood for a black-and-white crime pic.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Christmas Movie a Day #4
Christmas in Connecticut
Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan
Directed by Peter Godfrey

This flick was certainly innocuous enough, but I couldn't help but think I've seen better versions of a similar premise. Playing somewhat off of a case of mistaken identity, Christmas in Connecticut is pleasant, but, in the end, could have been much funnier than it was.

Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) is a writer for the woman's magazine, Smart Housekeeping. She has crafted a life for her in the pages of the magazine that is very different from her own -- while she actually lives alone in an apartment in the city, her readers (and her publisher, Alexander Yardley) think that she's quite the housewife, living in a beautiful farmhouse in Connecticut, cooking up the most beautiful meals, married to a lovely man named John, and the mother to a beautiful baby. The readership eats it up, including a young nurse who is caring for a recently returned war veteran, Jefferson (Dennis Morgan). Thinking that Jeff is falling for her, but aware that he is not the domesticated type, the young nurse writes a letter to family friend Alexander Yardley asking him to allow Jeff to spend time with Ms. Lane in order to realize that he can become acclimated to "normal" life. Little does the nurse know that Jeff will fall for Ms. Lane and Ms. Lane will fall for Jeff, and much confusion will ensue due to Elizabeth's attempts to fool everyone into thinking she's the ultimate domestic goddess.

It's not that the film is bad by any means, and it's certainly one I'd watch again in the future, but it's just not as good as it could be. The humor could've been amplified and this would've been a much better flick. Barbara Stanwyck, who I'm really only familiar with from the fantastic Double Indemnity, is quite good as the romantic comedic lead. Her co-star, Dennis Morgan, however, is fairly bland, which is maybe why I've never heard of him before. Their chemistry was fine, but I never really bought into their falling in love.

Additionally (and this isn't a factor that affects the overall rating), there's very little "Christmas" about this despite the fact that the holiday gets prominent placement in the title. Yes, it snows and there's a Christmas tree, but there's really nothing holiday-oriented here.

The RyMickey Rating: C
The Christmas Spirit Scale: 3/10

(The Christmas Spirit Scale is a totally pointless rating that is simply my feeling about how "Christmas-y" the movie felt to me)

Classic Movie Review - Double Indemnity (1944)

So I got to see one of my favorite movies of all time on 35mm last night. As I posted on Facebook, there's something special about watching old black-and-white movies on 35mm film in a theater. Call me a film geek, but I love the scratches, the sound fading in and out, the communal experience of seeing a film with an audience. In my original review below, I state that Double Indemnity may be in my Top Ten favorite movies of all time, but I'm fairly certain now that the film is entrenched in my Top Five movies. I love it. It's not perfect, but I love it nonetheless.

Below is a repost of my original review of the film.

***Originally posted on January 31, 2009***

starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson
directed by Billy Wilder
screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

Neff: You want to know who killed Deitrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson. Me, Walter Neff, 35 years old, unmarried, no physical scars...until a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. And I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it? It all began last May...

Seriously, they don't make movies like this anymore. With all the crap that they release today, it's nice to see that the film industry at least was able to produce excellent movies at one point in time and thank goodness we can go back and watch them.

A classic film noir, Double Indemnity has all that you would expect in the genre -- people doing bad things to get what they want, putting the audience on the side of the killer, a femme fatale, smoky rooms, and shadowy shots.

Walter Neff (MacMurray), an insurance sales man, confesses at the very beginning of the film to the murder of a man -- a man whose wife Walter has fallen in love with. Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) is unhappy in her marriage and she makes that perfectly clear when Neff visits the Dietrichson home on a sunny summer afternoon to renew her husband's auto insurance. The hubby isn't home, but Phyllis and Neff hit it off right away -- bouncing some incredibly witty, sexy lines off of each other (I am a big Billy Wilder fan and he does not disappoint here).

Unhappy in her marriage, Phyllis desires to take out accident insurance on her husband without his knowledge -- a sure giveaway that she intends to somehow kill him and take the insurance money. Neff doesn't want to be involved at first, but his newfound infatuation takes him over and he agrees to help Phyllis plan and carry out her husband's murder so long as they'll be together in the end.

Believe me, that's not ruining a thing for you as that is all laid out in the first thirty minutes of the film. And it's not ruining a thing to tell you that their plan doesn't succeed as they had planned...heck, you discover that within the first three minutes. It's what happens leading up to the murder and the clean-up afterwards that's a doozy. It's not that it's got a shocker ending like movies today, but there are plenty of unexpected twists that it never gets the least bit boring.



The acting is all top-notch. MacMurray (best known to me as the Absent Minded Professor of Disney movies) is the everyman who turns to the dark side -- completely believable as both a good guy and a bad one. Stanwyck is great -- sexy (in that 1940s Hollywood kind of way) and completely slimy at the same time. You know she's no good from the get-go, but you're lured in by her sultry mystique. Edward G. Robinson, playing an insurance claims investigator (and Neff's co-worker who is researching the Dietrichson case) is a hoot. His wise-ass retorts were spot-on.

And it's Wilder who's to thank for the words that come out of these characters' mouths. The repartee between Neff and Phyllis is amazing -- some of the best lines I've heard in a long time. As I already said, he saves a lot of great stuff for Robinson's character as well.

There's not a wasted scene in this movie. I can't recommend this one more highly. If you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue right away.

The RyMickey Rating: A

I'm going to try and make this classic movie review (movies pre-1980) thing happen once a week. I'm not sure they'll always be good movies (as I may take the time to watch movies I haven't seen before), but I'm hoping that the "classic" moniker will make most of them decent!