Men Must Fight

Courtesy the fine folks at TCM, the most interesting movie I’ve seen in awhile is M-G-M’s “Men Must Fight” (1933). It offers strong evidence to something I’ve always believed – that movies - yes even Hollywood movies - often offer insightful looks as to what society was feeling at the time. Indeed, while “Men Must Fight” tells a most unusual and interesting narrative, it also shows what the country’s mood was at the time. Like several other 1933 films, it reflects what no doubt many felt at the time: society was crumbling at its foundations and there was no way out but Fascism.

“Men Must Fight” was directed by the underrated Edgar Selwyn, who the year before helmed the equally fascinating “Skyscraper Souls”. His filmography isn’t very long, but based on these two movies, I may have to dig deeper into the Selwyn canon.

“Men Must Fight” begins in World War I with battlefront nurse Laura (Diana Wynward, she of the Norma Shearer-like eyes) saying goodbye to her lover Geoffrey (a very young Robert Young). Geoffrey is killed in action leaving Laura alone and pregnant. A sympathetic older man Ned Seward (Lewis Stone, who, in these early scenes, wears one of the cinema’s most ill-fitting toupees) is in love with Laura, proposes to her and promises to help raise her son Bob. Laura agrees, for her unborn son’s sake.

The years flash ahead to 1940 and the world is on the brink of war. (Remember, the movie was made in 1933). Ned is now Secretary of State desperately trying to quell the rising international tides of war. A grown-up Bob (Phillips Holmes) has fallen in love Peggy (Ruth Selwyn) a young woman he met on a cruise. Bob feels it’s his duty to fight but is a sensitive type in the best Phillips Holmes manner and really doesn’t want to go to war. He admits to his mother that the boys at his school use to call him sissy for not engaging in school fights.

Laura, now a doyenne of high society, pleads with her husband to prevent war at all possible costs. During a speech she says if older men did the fighting there would never be a war and says women should stop sending their sons to fight in these unnecessary wars. The women at an assembly nod knowingly while the men in the crowd are ready to erupt in violence.

Meanwhile there is near rioting in the streets and in assembled gatherings. There is a bit of science fiction in these scenes, with the inhabitants of an almost dystopian society using violence to express their emotions. The mob thinks nothing of hurtling rocks and breaking windows of the Seward mansion at the thought of the upcoming war.

Adding to the futuristic bent of the film is its presentation of television as an everyday device. Not only television but picture phones where people can see the faces of those they are having conversations with.

We’ve all head stories about how the studio heads looked with fear upon television in the late 1940s and 1950s but I wonder if even back in the 1930s they knew television would be a formidable competitor?

The televisions on display in “Men Must Fight” deliver nothing but bad news. During a pool hall scene at what looks like a military base, one of the soldiers breaks the television in frustration at the ever-increasing bad news from overseas.

Before I saw “Men Must Fight”, the earliest reference to television in movies that I could remember is the wonderful “International House” (1933), and there the demonstration of a television broadcast brings out all kinds of kooks and ridiculous situations.

Consider the titles of a couple of “B” movies from the era, Columbia’s “Trapped by Television” (1936) starring Mary Astor and Lyle Talbot and the infamous Grade-Z production “Murder by Television” (1935) from Cameo Productions starring Bela Lugosi. It didn’t look television would be the movie’s best friend, at least according to 1930s movies.

Despite the film’s futuristic setting, “Men Must Fight” appears to reflect the country’s growing unrest. Consider the country’s mood in 1933. The country was mired in the depths of the Great Depression, and it looked like there was no end in sight. The year before, troops under the direction of President Hoover fired at former World War I veterans camped outside Washington D.C. who were demanding reparation payment from the Great War. In Europe, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January of 1933 and Italy had been under Mussolini’s Fascist rule for years. Maybe Democracy was coming to an end after all?

Cinema patrons during 1933 could be forgiven for thinking such thoughts. They didn’t have to read the newspapers or listen to the radio to think that perhaps Fascism was the answer.

In addition to “Men Must Fight” M-G-M also gave us that year one of its oddest offerings ever, “Gabriel Over the White House” with President Walter Huston, concerned with the growing criminal element sweeping the nation, receiving a message from God to go out and rid of the country of the underworld using any and all means. Which he does with great glee.

Consider DeMille’s “This Day and Age” (1933) which celebrates the vigilante activities of a group of teenagers who seek vengeance on some gangsters who murdered an elderly shopkeeper in their small town. No judge and jury for these criminals. Here the movie appears to approve of mob rule. It’s been years since I’ve seen it but I still recall the scene of one of the gangsters, trussed up like a turkey and ready to be dumped into a pit of hungry rats. Yikes!

Only Warner Bros., the most socially conscious of the major studios, would end “Gold Diggers of 1933), one of its toe-tapping Busby Berkeley musicals, with the unforgettable musical number, “Remember My Forgotten Man”, decrying a government that turns its back on its World War I veterans. It’s one of the most powerful and bleakest sequences of 1930s cinema.

“Men Must Fight” isn’t as Fascist as the DeMille or Gabriel films, but it does portray a society on the brink of anarchy. Government isn’t the answer, as the same fools who got us in the predicament are now expected to get us out. Shocking scenes showing New York City getting aerial bombed only highlight what is one of the most interesting, and unsung, movies of the 1930s.

I Met Him in Paris

Director Ernst Lubitsch once famously said, “I’ve been to Paris, France and I’ve been to Paris Paramount. Paris Paramount is better.”

Despite its title, only a small portion of Paramount’s “I Met Him in Paris” (1937) takes place in the title city, but its there in all its glory.

Paris Paramount is where the world’s most beautiful and sophisticated people wear the latest fashions, drink and say witty things to each other. No one talks politics, there’s no war, and there’s no poverty or unemployment. Of course there’s no unemployment – someone has to keep those massive Art Deco apartments and nightclubs gleaming.

In “I Met Him in Paris” Claudette Colbert plays Kay Harding, a fashion buyer for a New York apartment store who has been saving for four years for a Paris vacation. She has an OK time, but misses the companionship of someone who speaks English. One night in a bar she meets two Americans, George Potter (Melvyn Douglas) and Gene Anders (Robert Young.) Soon the two men are vying for her affections and the three of them decide to vacation together in Switzerland. Separate rooms in the hotel of course.

While “I Met Him in Paris” is a fine title, a more accurate title would be “I Vacationed with Two Men in Switzerland.” However, that would have never made it past the Hays Office.

Paramount Switzerland is every bit as wonderful as Paramount Paris. Even the outdoor bar is staffed by a waiter wearing a tuxedo. In one of my favorite scenes, Douglas and Colbert are skating together at the outdoors skating rink and she says she hasn’t had breakfast yet. Douglas calls for a waiter and the tuxedo-clad waiter skates up to them and takes their order for coffee and orange juice. I don’t even like winter sports, but I want to stay at that resort.

The film itself is most agreeable concoction. There’s little doubt who’s going to wind up with the fair Claudette in the end, especially when Gene’s wife (Mona Barrie) shows up. Oh, there’s a third suitor (Lee Bowman, as ineffectual as ever) but he’s such a mope there’s never a question that she and Melvyn Douglas will wind up together.

The more I see Melvyn Douglas in these light comedy roles, the more I appreciate him. He did a million of them and I think it’s because he never overshadows his leading ladies. Whether he’s playing against Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Joan Blondell, Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert and, of course, Greta Garbo, he never takes the limelight away from them. Bette Davis liked playing with George Brent for the same reason.

But Douglas is a better actor than Brent, with a twinkle in his eye and the slight twitch of a smile as he teases his leading ladies. He appreciates them as the great ladies they are but can’t resist bringing them down a peg.

There’s a surprising amount of slapstick comedy on hand here as the three engage in all manners of winter sports. My favorite scenes involve novice skier Robert Young constantly being overtaken by a group of skiers who can’t resist yodeling as they ski down a hill. The more they yodel, the more annoyed Young becomes. (Can’t blame him there).

Another amusing sequence has the three on a bobsled. Well, really two, because Young, the brakeman, has fallen off the back as they’re pushing off. And then Douglas and Colbert start going really fast. She falls off, and can’t scramble up the ice-crusted bobsled run. She’s trapped in the run’s narrow confines and off in the distance she can hear another bobsled barreling towards her. It’s comedy as suspense, and it’s probably the best bobsled sequence until 007 raced after Blofeld in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969).

There seems to some dispute as to where these outdoor scenes were filmed. IMDB says Sun Valley, Idaho, but the DVD says Lake Placid, New York, site of the 1932 Olympics. Regardless of which one it was, it's a fine substitute for Switzerland, with able assistance from the always reliable Paramount set decorators.

“I Met Him in Paris” is an agreeable concoction. Not the most memorable comedy of the era, but a most enjoyable one. It’s fun seeing the trio of stars take some well-executed pratfalls in the snow, and it’s the type of movie one happily watches with a smile on one’s face, and one that lingers pleasantly in the memory. Good show.

Death on the Diamond

With the St. Louis Cardinals in town this past weekend to battle their heated rivals, the Chicago Cubs, it seemed a good opportunity to visit “Death on the Diamond” (1934) an engaging mystery from M-G-M dealing with a killer stalking the Cardinals team and killing off its members one by one. If more Cubs fans knew about “Death on the Diamond”, it may rank among their favorite movies.

Cardinals Manager David Landau is determined to keep criminal elements out of his team. Why these gangsters try to bribe Cardinals players to throw games so they can bet –and win big – on the outcome. Landau’s refusal to consort with gangsters doesn’t sit well with the underworld, but are they that low that they will start bumping off players?

One Cardinal gets shot and killed within full view of a crowded stadium as he races around third for an inside-the-park homerun. One of the starting pitchers misses his start and if later found strangled –and stuffed – inside his locker. A hot dog-loving player is done in by poisonous mustard.

New Cardinals starting pitcher Robert Young and team secretary (and Landau’s daughter) Madge Evans try to solve the mystery and, naturally, fall in love.

As can be seen by the above description, “Death on the Diamond” throws a lot of incident in its 67-minute running time. It’s not a home run, but a strong and durable double.

A huge part of the enjoyment of Golden Age movies is the wonderful supporting cast and
“Death on the Diamond” is loaded with familiar faces. In addition to Robert Young, Madge Evans and David Landau, we get Nat Pendleton, Ted Healy (minus the Stooges), C. Henry Gordon, Paul Kelly, Edward Brophy, Joe Sawyer, Robert Livingston, Mickey Rooney as a bat boy and Ward Bond as a cop. I think I also spotted an unbilled Walter Brennan as a hot dog vendor.

Just looking at that cast list and you can almost guess who the killer is. I did, and I was wrong.

Robert Young’s pitching scenes aren’t very inspired. There’s a noticeable splice between his wind-up and release. Maybe his follow through was lacking? But we shouldn’t be too hard on Mr. Young. He had eight movies in release in 1934, so no time to train with big league pitchers for what was essentially a B mystery (albeit with a nice M-G-M sheen).

While the Cubs are never mentioned by name, the Cardinals do play Chicago in the Opening Day match-up. Later in the film, Joe Sawyer is talking about the Chicago team and says something along the lines of, “If I could hit against them all the time, I could be batting .1000.”

Hmmm, maybe the Cubs fans wouldn’t like this movie after all.

Rating for “Death on the Diamond”: Two and a half stars.