Tag Archives: King Vidor

The Dark Side of Robert Young

Posted on by
Reply
Robert Young plays an embezzler and a womanizer whose luck runs out in THEY WON’T BELIEVE ME (1947), an underrated film noir.

When most baby boomers think of actor Robert Young, they probably recall his popular TV medical series Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969-1976) where he was the epitome of the kind, compassionate doctor or they remember Jim Anderson, the perfect dad in the all-American family sitcom Father Knows Best (1954-1960). He was also typecast as “Mr. Nice Guy” in most of his Hollywood films, playing cheerful romantic leads or the leading man’s best friend or some other debonair, noble or well-intentioned character who rarely made a strong impression compared to more assertive male leads like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper or Spencer Tracy. But there were several occasions when Young discarded his good guy image by playing shadowy characters, outright villains, or damaged human beings.  Among these atypical casting choices, Young is most memorable in Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Agent (1936) as an undercover spy, a budding fascist in The Mortal Storm (1940), a shellshocked and physically maimed war veteran in The Enchanted Cottage (1945), a complete cad and accused murderer in the underrated film noir They Won’t Believe Me (1947), directed by Irving Pichel, and an architect who is suspected of being a dangerous criminal in The Second Woman (1950).

Robert Young as the star of the popular TV series, MARCUS WELBY, M.D. (1969-1976).
Continue reading →

A Monument to Objectivism

Posted on by
Reply

If you look up the word melodrama in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the description reads “a work (such as a movie or play) characterized by extravagant theatricality.” The Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries offers a similar definition: “a story, play, or novel that is full of exciting events and in which the characters and emotions seem too exaggerated to be real.” Some popular examples of this in the movies would have to include The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and The Best of Everything (1959). But they are some films in this category that are so excessive in tone and style that they belong in their own category of extreme melodrama. Among the more glaring examples of this are Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956), The Caretakers (1963), which is set in a psychiatric hospital where Joan Crawford teaches karate, the Tinseltown expose The Oscar (1966), and four films – yes, four! – from director King Vidor: Duel in the Sun (1946), Beyond the Forest (1949) with Bette Davis, Ruby Gentry (1952) starring Jennifer Jones, and my personal favorite, The Fountainhead (1949), which scales dazzling heights in operatic excess.

Continue reading →

The Double Life of Tokiko

Posted on by
2
By day Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) works as a typist in a business firm but after dark she frequents the favorite haunts of gangsters with her yakuza boyfriend in DRAGNET GIRL (1933), directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

Tokiko works as a typist in a business office where Okazki, the owner’s son, is the office manager. He is smitten with his employee and often flirts with her behind closed doors in his private office. Tokiko manages to keep him at bay even though he showers her with gifts and offers her an engagement ring. What Okazki doesn’t know is that Tokiko leads a completely different life after work when she sheds her office worker identity and transforms into a chic underworld player with a gangster boyfriend, Joji. Tokiko not only supports Joji with her day job but also serves as his partner in crime in various money-making schemes. From this brief description you probably wouldn’t suspect that the Japanese crime drama, Hijosen no Onna (English title: Dragnet Girl, 1933), was directed by the celebrated Yasujiro Ozu, but it is an early and surprising entry in his filmography before he became famous for his portraits of Japanese family life in such post-WW2 movies as Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951) and his 1953 masterpiece, Tokyo Story.

Continue reading →