In the pantheon of great Hollywood directors from the 1930s, Frank Borzage and his films are often overshadowed by the work of such peers as Frank Capra, George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch. Yet many film historians and scholars consider his work the equal of these better-known directors with such exemplary examples as 7th Heaven (1927) and Bad Girl (1931) – both of which won Borzage the Oscar for Best Director – plus Man’s Castle (1933), History is Made at Night (1937), Three Comrades (1938) and The Mortal Storm (1940). Often referred to as “The Great Romanticist,” whose most famous films usually focused on the redemptive power of love, Borzage began to fall out of favor in his later career when his films were seen as old-fashioned and anachronistic. But he was still capable of turning out a late period masterpiece such as the poetic film noir Moonrise (1948) as well as handle a big budget studio entertainment like The Spanish Main (1945). The latter pirate tale may seem atypical for a Borzage film but don’t forget he also dabbled in other unlikely genres such as war dramas (Flight Command, 1940) and musicals (Seven Sweethearts, 1942). It was also a rousing costume adventure which compared favorably to the swashbucklers of Errol Flynn such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Sea Hawk (1940), with the added attraction of being filmed in glorious Technicolor by George Barnes.
Continue readingTag Archives: Casablanca
The Stranger Upstairs
A mysterious stranger arrives at a boarding house in London and inquires about the advertised room to let. The landlady has some reservations about him but his good manners, personal charisma and willingness to pay his rent in advance convinces her he will be a respectable lodger. How many times have we seen movies that open with the same scenario where the new boarder turns out to be a suspicious character and possibly mentally unhinged? Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927), Man in the Attic (1953), Roman Polanski’s The Tenant (1976) and The Minus Man (1999) are some of the more famous examples of this. The 1935 British film, The Passing of the Third Floor Back, however, gives us a protagonist who could be some kind of savior in disguise, a spiritual being who has come to help the unhappy and misanthropic boarders. Is he an angel, a Christ figure or maybe a figment of someone’s imagination?
Continue readingWear the Face of Your Enemy
When the United States officially entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hollywood got busy producing morale-boosting entertainments with a heavy accent on flag-waving patriotism and pro-American propaganda. One of the stranger efforts to emerge from this uncertain time in U.S. history was First Yank in Tokyo (1945), a B-movie espionage thriller directed by Gordon Douglas and set inside a Japanese concentration camp. Continue reading

