Foster on Film

Ginger Rogers will forever be known as the dancing partner of Fred Astaire; they fit together. Together they made some of the greatest film musicals of all time. She could manage the steps, as well as both the sophisticated and common attitudes needed for the comedy and romance. Astaire danced with others who were technically better, but no one who was such a perfect partner. Apart from Astaire she strove to have a “serious” career (after a group of “let’s put on a Broadway show” films) that led to a string of turgid melodramas that she could never pull off—not that anyone could have made Kitty Foyle watchable. Her best “solo” works were comedies.

An honorable mention goes to the anthology film, Tales of Manhattan (1942) simply for the large number of golden age stars in it.

#8 – The Major and the Minor (1942) — 31-year-old Rogers pretends to be a child to get a half price train ticket and ends up with Ray Milland at a military school. As this is a romantic comedy, they’d never make it today. [Also on the Ray Milland list]

#7 – Carefree (1938) — A lesser Astaire/Rogers film which is more of a screwball comedy than their typical musicals.

#6 – Star of Midnight (1935) — A ripoff of the Thin Man series; if I can’t get another real one, close is good enough. William Powell is a gentleman detective—this time a lawyer—and Rogers is the girl who wants to marry him.

#5 – Flying Down to Rio (1933) — The first pairing of Astaire and Rogers, though not as the leads. It was intended as a vehicle for breathtaking Mexican actress Dolores del Rio and she’s good, but the pair steal the film. Beyond the music, there’s the exquisite and totally unreal world. Brazil never looked like this but I wish it did. This is a pre-code film; jokes about rounded heels (look it up) and what South American women have that’s better below the equator would have been censored a few years later. Likewise the transparent tops of the female wing-walkers. [Also on the Fred Astaire list]

#4 – Swing Time (1936) – The 6th Astaire/Rogers film, it has some of the best dance numbers, but with a weaker script than their earlier films. The humor fails and the world is not as magical, none of which matters when Astaire sings “The Way You Look Tonight.” [Also on the Fred Astaire list]

#3 – Shall We Dance (1937) – Another Astaire/Rogers, with another assist from the always good Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore. I find this to be the funniest Astaire film with Astaire playing a jazz dancer who has made it in ballet so must put on a persona of an arrogant Russian. The songs are solid, with “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” the standout. [Also on the Fred Astaire list]

#2 – The Gay Divorcee (1934) – The 2nd Astaire/Rogers film, and the first with them as leads, this one has Rogers attempting to get a divorce from her absent husband and mistaking Astaire as the gigolo she planned to use for cause. Horton and Blore appear again. [Also on the Fred Astaire list]

#1 – Top Hat (1935) – The 4th Astaire/Rogers picture and they’d perfected the routine. The jokes are solid and the fantasy world of shining marble is wondrous and where I want to live (much less depression era audiences). And of course the dance numbers are fantastic. Rogers falls for a very forward Astaire until she incorrectly deduces that he’s the husband of her good friend. Horton, Blore, and Helen Broderick add to the comedy. [Also on the Fred Astaire list]

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Stewart had a more varied career than most actors and far more than most leading men of the golden age. He not only was in, but was known for, comedies, dramas, melodramas, family films, romances, thrillers, and Westerns. Early in his career, he was in a string of sentimental Frank Capra movies, with It’s A Wonderful Life being the most famous. I’m not a fan of these as they tend to go over the top with shmaltz, letting both real human interaction and humor die for the sake of sentimentality. The worst offender is You Can’t Take It with You, a wonderful play that is gutted by Capra. Luckily, Stewart had other moments, with strong turns in comedies before becoming one of Hitchcock’s two favorites (Cary Grant being the other).

Stewart’s performances were unusual too. He pushed the edges, and his brilliant performances were often one twitch away from a ham mess. When he held it just right, he was a master at frustration, anger, hatred, and loss. When he let it go too far…

Honorable mentions go to Vivacious Lady (1938)—a romantic comedy with Ginger Rogers, Destry Rides Again (1939)—a comedy western with Marlene Dietrich, Call Northside 777 (1948)—a detective crime drama, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)—a western with John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

And for the best:

8 – The Mortal Storm (1940) — The movie that upset the Nazis; Hollywood finally took a stand on what had been going on in Europe. Stewart plays the friend of a “non-Aryan” family during the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.

7 – Bell Book and Candle (1958) — This should be on everyone’s Halloween viewing list, or Christmas. Stewart is a bit gray for his starring role in a supernatural romantic comedy, but Kim Novak is breathtaking as a powerful, sexy witch and Ernie Kovacs, Else Lanchester, and Jack Lemmon are all marvelous. [Also on the Jack Lemmon list]

6 – Vertigo (1958) — A second Hitchcock film, this one even more over-hyped than the last having replaced Citizen Kane as the greatest movie of all time according to Sight and Sound. It’s still a good flick, with Stewart as an obsessed and troubled man. While it is shot as a thriller, it is really a character drama.

5 – Rear Window (1954) — A Hitchcock thriller seeped in voyeurism. It’s become hip to love it in recent years, but don’t let that dissuade you. It is a nicely tense work.

4 – Anatomy of a Murder (1959) — A courtroom drama that questions our prejudices. Stewart attempts to defend an unpleasant and violent defendant with a promiscuous wife from a murder everyone would be happy to hang on him.

3 – Harvey (1950) — A happy man with a giant invisible rabbit as his best friend upsets his uptight family. This may be Stewart’s best performance. It is certainly his most unusual.

2 – After the Thin Man (1936) — Stewart plays third banana to William Powell and Myrna Loy. Taking place soon after The Thin Man, Nick and Nora are summoned by Nora’s snobbish family because a husband is missing. The relationship material is wonderful, the humor is spot on, and the mystery is engaging. [Also on the Myrna Loy list and the William Powell list]

1 – The Philadelphia Story (1940) — This is the essential romcom, and was the perfect vehicle for its three leads, Stewart, Cary Grant, and Katherine Hepburn. None of them ever had a role that more completely played to their strengths. This is as witty as film gets. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list and the Cary Grant list]

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With his no-nonsense, man’s man persona and natural style, Spencer Tracy was successful in both dramas and comedies. Although he was an alcoholic, he was known for his professionalism. It was with that understanding of addiction that he helped a broken Montgomery Clift give his great performance in Judgment at Nuremberg.

Tracy often worked with director Stanley Kramer, mostly on the powerful, political/ethical films that Kramer was known for. He frequently co-stared with Katherine Hepburn (their semi-secret affair lasted nearly thirty years), making nine films together.

Before mentioning the good, I’d feel lax if I didn’t give a dishonorable mention to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), where his poor performance matched the films confused sexuality and drab dialog.

An Honorable mention goes to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1963), which is more important than good, and to It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), which is fun if not terribly good, and to Boys Town (1938), which works for a family film provided you have a couple kids under ten watching.

Now the eight best:

8 – Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) — A wartime propaganda film that is both exciting and supposedly accurate, at least militarily.

7 – Pat and Mike (1952) — The second Hepburn/Tracy film, it tries to wave a feminist flag, but in 2017, it feels like it does the opposite. Still, it has some funny moments. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

6 – Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) — A strange noir/western hybrid set in 1945. It’s tense, showing the worst of humanity—including a nod at racism—in a nowhere town of miserable people. It’s a little too nihilistic to be fun, but it’s interesting.

5 – Adam’s Rib (1949) — Another Hepburn/Tracy film, this one setting them as competing lawyers. The best bits come from a young Judy Holliday as the defendant who shoots her unfaithful husband. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

4 – Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) — The first of two Stanley Kramer films on this list (of four if you count the Honorable mentions). This one deals with a trial of Nazi war criminals and has lost none of its relevancy.

3 – Desk Set (1957) — A romantic comedy with middle-aged characters for a change. It’s Hepburn and Tracy again. This time she’s a genius and he’s an eccentric tech guru. It’s a Christmas movie and delightful. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

2 – Libeled Lady (1936) — A four-way romantic comedy with Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. Powell is hired by Tracy to stop Loy from suing a newspaper for libel, any way he can. [Also on both the William Powell list and the Myrna Loy list]

1 – Inherit the Wind (1960) – The second Stanley Kramer film on this list. A fictitious take on the Monkey Trial, with amazing work by Tracy and Fredric Marsh in the greatest court battle ever on screen.

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Edward G. Robinson was one of the kings of early gangster cinema (along with Jimmy Cagney, George Raft, and their second banana, Humphrey Bogart).Things changed in a decade, with old-style crime movies fading, replaced by war movies and Film Noir, and elevating Bogart over the other three. But most of Robinson’s best films came after his biggest fame. His gangster roles quickly became clichés and many of his early performances barely varied from the impersonator’s over-the-top imitations. By the end of the ’30s Robinson was using his persona in comedies or to give a meta meaning to his parts, and that worked. Of his top 8 films, only 1 is a straight ’30s gangster film.

I expect big fans of Robinson (and I wonder how many of those are reading this) will be displeased with my top 8 as it doesn’t include either of the Fritz Lang Noirs, The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street. Both have great casts, good dialog, interesting characters, meaningful themes, and generally good plots. But both are unsatisfying due to poor (and in the case of the first, horrible) endings. The production code-sanctified ending for Scarlet Street saps the strength from the film. And the ending for The Woman in the Window… It takes effort to so efficiently destroy a film in only a few minutes.

An honorable mention for his cameo in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)—good enough to make the list, but I require more than a few seconds of screen time.

8 – The Sea Wolf (1941) – As 8th favorite I’d go with Brother Orchid, but The Sea Wolf is a more weighty film, that takes Jack London’s philosophical work and uses it as metaphor for the fascism taking over Europe.

7 – Little Caesar (1931) – A good film, but it is so over the top, so over-acted, that it is impossible for me to take seriously. Still, it is a must-see as one of THE gangster movies of the 1930s.

6 – The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) – Robinson stars with Bogart with a script by John Huston in a light comedy that has Robinson playing a scientist who wants to study crime, so becomes a crime lord.

5 – Larceny, Inc. (1942) – The second crime comedy on this list, but this one is less crime, more comedy. Robinson and his gang take over a luggage store in order to tunnel into the bank next door and turn out way more successful than planned at selling luggage.

4 – Key Largo (1948) – A movie given extra power from its casting. Robinson plays a washed up gangster, trying to return. Bogart is a man broken by life and Lauren Bacall is the young, clever beauty who could give him a reason to live. It’s incredibly meta. The best performance goes to Claire Tevor as the aging, alcoholic moll. [Also on the Humphrey Bogart List]

3 – The Ten Commandments (1956) – It is all loud and colorful, and for that you need actors who are louder and more colorful than life. Robinson fits that. He’s 5th or 6th banana in a cast of loud, colorful stars and it’s all good. Sometimes you want subtlety. Sometimes you don’t. This is bluster as art. [Also on both the Vincent Price List and the Charlton Heston list]

2 – Double Indemnity (1944) – A masterpiece. One of the top Film Noirs and a strangely comedic bit of pure cynicism. Fred MacMurry and Barbara Stanwyck are the stars, but Robinson is superb as the closest thing the world of Double Indemnity has to a good man. (Full review) [Also on the Barbara Stanwyck list]

1 – Soylent Green (1973) – A film where the ending has eclipsed the fame of the movie in general, and that’s sad as there’s so much good in Soylent Green. The relationship between Charlton Heston’s Thorn and Robinson’s Sol is the heart of the film, and gives us both actors’ finest performances. This is one of the great science fiction films that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. [Also on the Charlton Heston list]

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The second of the Big Three horror icons (Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr.), Boris Karloff found stardom with Frankenstein after struggling in silent films. He was grateful for his success and never minded being typecast, and typecast he was. If he wasn’t a monster, a monstrous servant, or a crazed killer, he was a mad doctor. His résumé includes dozens of roles that had “Dr” as part of the name.

As he has so many films that are worth seeing, but not absolutely essential, I have a greater number of honorable mentions than usual. One goes to the enjoyable The Raven (1963), and another to the incredible set design for The Black Cat (1934), and yet another to The Ghoul (1933), the first British horror film; it’s a solid old dark house film and Karloff is excellent. Also an honorable mention to Scarface (1932), which is an important film, but flawed—and Karloff is poor in it. And one more for The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), which has multiple problems, but Karloff and Myrna Loy are amazing, and if “best” meant “favorite,” it would be on the list below. And a final mention for Five Star Final (1931), a look at the evils of yellow journalism starring Edward G. Robinson. Karloff plays a drunken and particularly sleazy agent of the paper who dresses as a priest to get information, which makes him not only the best supporting actor for that year (from #2 below), but also the second best.

A list of Karloff’s best performances would include his marvelous narration for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a film which would take third on the list below, but I’m keeping it off the list for entirely arbitrary reasons. Karloff’s best list is solid all the way through, but it is top heavy.

His top films, starting at #8:

8 – Isle of the Dead (1945) – One of three collaborations with Val Lewton. A complicated character piece with a simple plot: a plague sweeping an island.

7 – The Old Dark House (1932) – A quirky film—part horror, part comedy, but not a horror comedy, directed by James Whale. A group of odd characters are stranded in a mysterious house. (My review)

6 – The Mummy (1932) – A retread of Dracula—a bit slow, but Karloff is wonderful as his second great monster. The first few minutes make it all worthwhile. (My review)

5 – Tower of London (1931) – A horror-tinged version of the story of Richard III. Karloff plays Mord,the executioner, who is Richard’s right hand man. and is essentially Richard’s darker aspect taken human form. It is another fantastic performance by Karloff, as well as star Basil Rathbone and a young Vincent Price. (My Review) [Also on the Vincent Price List]

4 – The Body Snatcher (1945) – There are more Victorian body snatcher movies than there were Victorian body snatchers, and this is the best. Karloff rules the film, with Bela Lugosi in a lesser part as a servant. [Also on the Bela Lugosi List]

3 – Son of Frankenstein (1939) – A surprisingly good third entry in the franchise. It is seeped in German expressionism. Karloff gets a reduced role; Basil Rathbone is the lead, but Lugosi steals the film as Ygor. (My review) [Also on the Bela Lugosi List]

2 – Frankenstein (1931) – Does Frankenstein need an explanation? (My Review)

1 – Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – Arguably the greatest horror film of all time, and the greatest sequel of all time. It is (without argument) Karloff’s best performance. (My review)

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When I was a child in the ‘60s, Stanwyck was known primarily as a television Western star. But time is not kind to TV shows in general and particularly not to Westerns, so that work is fading from cultural memory, which is for the best in this case as she should be remembered first as a film actress.

Stanwyck rarely played the damsel or proper doting wife. Her roles were of tough women, often from harsh backgrounds, making their own way. They could be heroes, but were often morally complex, and she had her share of steely villains.

An honorable mention goes to Meet John Doe (1941). It is certainly the best of Frank Capra’s social/political morality trilogy (the others being Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Stanwyck is excellent in it, but like its two cousins, it is too preachy and far too saccharine.

My top 8 films of Barbara Stanwyck:

#8 – The Mad Miss Manton (1938) — The first of her three films with Henry Fonda and one of two on this list, it puts Stanwyck in one of her rare silver spoon roles. She’s a rich young woman who comes upon a murder and no one believes her. She’s stared in moves that took this same premise seriously years later.

#7 – Baby Face (1933) — I’m not sure this movie would be as much fun if made now as it is the taboo nature of it that’s such a riot. The story is of a woman, sold as a prostitute by her father since she was 14, sleeping her way to the top. It was way ahead of its time on racial and gender issues. It loses a bit from a tacked on ending—and I’m only talking about the pre-release version. This is one of the films that got the production code going and the theatrical version is a mess, with most of the sex gone and changes to the philosophy. Luckily, the pre-release version is available now.

#6 – Ball of Fire (1941) — A screwball comedy normally in the shadow of her more famous one (coming further up the list), this one stars Cary Cooper as a hopelessly naïve professor researching slang and Stanwyck as a showgirl in need of a place to hide.

#5 – Remember the Night (1940) — A romance, and perhaps even a weepie, with some comic touches, filmed like a Noir, and set at Christmas, this is an unusual film. Stanwyck is a shoplifter and Fred MacMurray is the prosecutor who takes her home for the holiday.

#4 – The Lady Eve (1941) — Her best known comedy, Stanwyck is a conwoman and Henry Fonda is her hopelessly naïve target.

#3 – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) — A Film Noir with a good dose of the gothic, it has Stanwyck at her most steely. If you are looking for the worst in humanity, here’s the place to look. It was Kirk Douglas’s first role and he’s as good as she is, and she’s fantastic. (Full Review)

#2 – Christmas in Connecticut (1945) — A delight in every way (and as far from the two films surrounding it on this list as you can get), this film has been an Xmas tradition for me for fifty years. Romantic, funny and joyful.

#1 – Double Indemnity (1944) — The quintessential Film Noir. In a meaningless world, two jaded people, one a sleazy insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray), the other a sociopathic trophy wife, decide to commit murder. It’s brilliant. (Full Review) [Also on the Edward G. Robinson list]

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