REVIEW: Victoria and Abdul

Directed by Stephen Frears
2017 Historical Biography
1 hour 52 minutes
From Focus Features

Starring
Judi Dench
Ali Fazal
Eddie Izzard
Tim Pigott-Smith
Adeel Akhtar
Paul Higgins
Michael Gambon
Olivia Williams
Simon Callow

REVIEW: Rebel in the Rye

Directed by Danny Strong
2017 Biography
2 hours, 31 minutes
From IFC Films

Starring
Nicholas Hoult
Kevin Spacey
Sarah Paulson
Victor Garber
Hope Davis
Zoey Deutch
Lucy Boynton

REVIEW: Stronger

Directed by David Gordon Green
Biographical Drama
1 hour 56 minutes
From Roadside Attractions

Starring
Jake Gyllenhaal
Tatiana Maslany
Miranda Richardson
Clancy Brown

The Directors: Raoul Walsh

He got my attention when I was quite young because he directed some westerns I much admired.  He also directed many adventure films and crime dramas, two other genres I have always been drawn to.  He was a tough guy in real life and as a director but he never minded getting as much as he gave in that department.  It's probably one reason he was drawn more to male-driven stories and worked often with actors like Cagney, Flynn and Bogart.  He and I also had in common a love of those sassy, smart-mouthed actresses with some of his favorites being Virginia Mayo, Ida Lupino and Jane Russell. 

Good 30s Films: San Francisco

1936 Drama
From MGM
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke

Starring 
Clark Gable
Jeanette MacDonald
Spencer Tracy
Jack Holt
Jessie Ralph
Shirley Ross

Paramount Pictures

It comes well-pedigreed being the fifth oldest film studio in the world.  It is also the second oldest American studio (behind Universal) and is the only one of the Big Six still in Hollywood. Like all but one of the big studios it was founded by a savvy Jewish businessman from Europe who saw early on that there was a future for him in the entertainment business.

William Powell & Myrna Loy

The gentleman once said about himself and his most frequent co-star...  we weren't acting, we were just two people in perfect timing.  Indeed.  The always-dapper dude from Pittsburgh and the rancher's daughter from Montana made 14 films together and seemed so perfect for one another that much of the public thought they were married in real life.  Interestingly (for Hollywood types), they weren't even romantically involved.

Good 30s Films: Drums Along the Mohawk

1939 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by John Ford

Starring
Claudette Colbert
Henry Fonda
Edna May Oliver
Ward Bond
John Carradine
Jessie Ralph
Robert Lowery
Arthur Shields
Chief Big Tree

Clark Gable

I saw him several times in the late 1950s at the ultra-glam Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles.  As I outlined in a piece I called The Caddy, I was hopelessly trying to be one.  Gable and I had seen one another several times in passing.  One day we were in an area alone together and he looked at me, flashing that famous smile, and asked me if I was new.  He seemed very nice and not at all like the world-famous movie star he was.  He also looked even older than he appeared on the screen.  I thought he appeared quite worn out from his jaunt around the links but was trying to cover it up. I was rarely in awe of meeting movie stars but I made an exception for him.

Movie-Making in the 1930s

To be perfectly upfront, it took me years to get into films of the 1930s.  Oh sure, I liked some movies from that time but I generally just found them to be so old, mostly in black and white and kind of corny. In some ways, a bit of that still feels the same but let there be no doubt I have come to appreciate the decade. Quite a number of the movies are classics, a large number of actors remain among the most memorable of all-time and the decade undeniably had some bouts with history.