The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949)

Film: The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949)

Stars: Basil Rathbone, Bing Crosby

Director: Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, & James Algar

Oscar History: None, but it oddly won the Golden Globe for Best Cinematography-isn't that weird?

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

In continuing during quarantine to stream more films than I have in the past, with a particular focus on Disney films, we come now to another Disney movie that I've never seen before, and in this case, we're getting a blast from the past.  Throughout the 1940's, Disney Studios made six pictures that are normally called their "package films"-movies that are less one long story, and instead a series of short films tied together, in some ways emulating Fantasia, but rarely given the same level of acclaim.  I suspect if you are someone who is a Disney fanatic, but not an organized one, that you're missing these in your "Disney completist" list, and I definitely was, so I'm moving through this list, and I weirdly decided to start with the last one, and the one that is generally considered to be the best, The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad.

(Spoilers Ahead) The films are not, like the previous package films, a number of movies, but instead here just two, and both have literary roots.  Narrated by Basil Rathbone, the first half is an animated adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, where we see the rambunctious Mr. Toad spending all of his money on reckless adventures, and when he sees his first automobile, he decides he must have it and spends all of his time dangerously roaming the countryside.  Even his more cautious friends Ratty & Moley cannot stop him, but the law does when Mr. Toad is accused of stealing an automobile, and is framed in a trial by a group of weasels and a man named Mr. Winky who are plotting to take Toad Hall (his palatial estate) for themselves.  Mr. Toad is saved by his friends, returns to Toad Hall, but never is reformed-the movie ends with him now moving on to airplanes in his "need for speed."

The second movie is a retelling of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  Here we have Ichabod Crane, the dandy schoolmaster who comes to Sleepy Hollow and begins to woo the beautiful Katrina van Tassel, buxom (boy howdy-someone was thirsty in the animation room while drawing Katrina) and the daughter of the richest man in town.  It is implied that while he loves her, he's probably more after her money, and seems to be able to charm her away from Brom, the man she was originally inclined toward (Brom also is drawn thirstily, and clearly is an early inspiration for Gaston).  The film's climax is when Ichabod meets the Headless Horseman on the outside of town, riding a black horse (worth noting-the same color as Brom's horse), and is scared out of town.  The film ends with Brom & Katrina married and the narrator (Crosby) implying that Ichabod did not die that night, but ended up married to a wealthy widow in another town (getting his money after all), but the legend of what happened to him continues to persist.

It's worth noting that if history was different, this package film wouldn't exist.  The Wind in the Willows was considered an option for Disney to make into a feature-length film as early as 1938, one year after Snow White.  Along with Bambi and Dumbo, Wind in the Willows was one of only three productions to be allowed to continue at the beginning of World War II when Disney Studios were in dire straits financially, but of the three Wind was considered the least promising and was shelved until it came back in the post-war era, frequently paired with a number of films (including a canned big-screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Gremlins) until it was finally settled to package it with Sleepy Hollow, and to hire big-name actors as the narrators to gain more publicity for the film (the first time that movie stars were used to gin up excitement for a film, now a commonplace practice).

The films themselves are fun, if admittedly lighter-weight Disney.  Wind in the Willows is a great adventure, with some winning animation, but it would never hold a candle to movies like Bambi or Dumbo.  I don't do halves for my star rating, but if I did Wind in the Willows would be a 3-star, as it's a bit frivolous and repetitive even if it's good-natured, and Sleepy Hollow would get 4-stars, a it's more atmospheric and the animation is better.  Particularly the sequence with the headless horseman is fantastic-the cinematography playing with the audience (frequently it feels like we're taking the place of Ichabod in the chase), and genuinely haunting.  Overall, though, I'll go with 3-stars here.  The idea of a stringed-together short film isn't really my jam unless there's some overarching theme (anthology films always struggle with story consistency), and this movie definitely doesn't have any cohesion.

Bathing Beauty (1944)

Film: Bathing Beauty (1944)
Stars: Red Skelton, Esther Williams, Basil Rathbone, Bill Goodwin
Director: George Sidney
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Esther Williams-click here to learn more about Ms. Williams (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I may have literally worked a 12-hour day non-stop yesterday, but that isn't going to stop me from continuing my nearly nine-month long streak of hitting a "Saturday with the Stars" every Saturday, even though this is a bit later in the day than we're used to seeing.  This week, we have our first dive (I swear, I'll limit myself on the aquatic puns, but I've gotta have some) into the career of Esther Williams.  In 1944, after an impressive stint as a professional swimmer (which surely would have resulted in Olympic medals had it not been for World War II) she'd had a couple of small parts opposite Mickey Rooney & Van Johnson, but hadn't really been given the star treatment she'd hoped for when she made it to Hollywood.  Bathing Beauty changed all of that.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's plot, like most MGM musicals save for Singin' in the Rain, is of little consequence to why you're actually watching, but let's at least acknowledge the writers.  The movie is about Steve Elliot (Skelton), who is in love with a ravishing teacher Caroline Brooks (Williams), and is about to marry her.  However, he's threatening to quit writing songs and musical numbers if he does so, so in order to end the marriage his boss George (Rathbone) has a woman pretend to be Steve's first wife, making him a bigamist.  Caroline runs back to her school, being romanced in some parts by a stuffy professor Willis Evans (Goodwin).  In order to win her back Steve enrolls in the all girl's school, giving him opportunities to be lusted after by some of the co-eds, as well as be put in ridiculous situations (including two opportunities for Skelton to dress in drag).  The film ends with Caroline eventually getting a part in the new musical that Steve is writing for George, and they end up happily ever after.

The film itself is quite silly-the plot seems to be ancillary, and just an excuse to have Skelton do his comedy & Williams do her swimming.  I will admit to knowing very little about Skelton's filmography (this might be the first of his movies I've ever seen, though I'm familiar with him from his long-running eponymous television program), and I left not being super impressed, despite my fondness for men with red hair.  His comedy bits aren't as wry or witty as some of the other men of the Classical Hollywood era (I prefer Jack Benny or Groucho Marx), and the parts with the girls feels a bit phoned in, as they all sort of meld together rather than Steve distinguishing the women who are helping him win back his girl.  All-in-all, he left something to be desired, though we'll get a second chance with Skelton later this month as I have another one of his frequent outings with Williams in store for a future "Saturdays with..." article.

Williams, though, is really fun.  Her acting takes a back seat to Skelton (she's not a natural ham like he is in front of the camera, and doesn't steal focus), but she makes up for it during the gigantic water numbers, particularly the iconic final water ballet that's been parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to the Muppets.  It's rare to see an MGM musical this impressive without the guiding hand of Arthur Freed (he'd soon be the producer on a number of Williams pictures, one of which we'll also get to later this month), but I found her charming & acrobatic, and the water numbers are magical.  It's hard to assess her as a talent because Skelton so often hogs the spotlight, but I'm hopeful for her in a way I wasn't last month, particularly since she became SUCH a big star after this (as a result, it's doubtful that she'll be a supporting part masquerading like a league like so many of our outings with Ruth Roman & Rhonda Fleming).  At the time, she was granted top billing after the first cut of the film was made, she made such an impression on MGM executives, and they were right-Bathing Beauty became the biggest hit for the studio since Gone with the Wind.

OVP: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Film: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains
Director: Michael Curtiz & William Keighley
Oscar History: 4 nods/3 wins (Best Picture, Editing*, Art Direction*, Score*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Movies can tug on the hearts of men, they can make their souls fly and their eyes weep and their dreams flutter.  Movies like Schindler's List or Sunset Boulevard or Citizen Kane are heavy, discussing the human experience in all of its depth and complexity.  We need these sorts of movies to launch important discussions & to confirm the emotions that the medium can bring, as rich as any art form.

And then there are movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood, which are about as deep as a teaspoon, but are as frothy and fluffy and delightful as ice cream in August.  I don't know how I have not seen this movie (along with Strangers on a Train which we'll be seeing for this month's "Saturdays with the Stars," this might be the most important American film that I'd never seen before), as it regularly shows up on the lists of the "Greatest Films of All Time," but boy am I glad that I finally got around to the movie.  Shot in dizzying Technicolor, the movie is cinematic magic, wry & whimsical, the perfect way to spend an afternoon for even the most jaded of film lovers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie doesn't really stray too much from what we think of as the Robin Hood legend (in many ways this is the film that most of the future Robin Hood filmic iterations is based upon), but I'll go over it briefly just for posterity.  Robin Hood (Flynn) is a Saxon nobleman loyal to Richard the Lionheart, who has been taken captive by an Austrian Duke, leaving behind his brother Prince John (Rains) to run England.  This is a problem since Prince John, as you surely must know, is terrible (side note: as a royalty buff, it's always bugged the crap out of me that the only English king to share my name is generally considered one of their worst).  He begins to fleece and hang the countryside with the aid of his ruthless righthand-man Sir Guy (Rathbone), who is smitten with King Richard's ward Lady Marian (de Havilland).  Robin Hood creates a band of merry men to stop Prince John & Sir Guy, and while he is captured, he quickly escapes in a fit of daring, and eventually brings back King Richard to throw Prince John into exile and Robin kills Sir Guy in combat.  The film ends with him getting to marry Lady Marian.

The film, as you can see from above, is relatively in-line with what we expect from the Robin Hood legend, but where Adventures sets itself apart is through the actual acting and production of the film.  Errol Flynn has never been more dashing & just impossibly sexy as Robin, a righteous do-gooder who still has a wry smile whenever he's in the presence of Lady Marian.  In real-life Flynn was a drunken scoundrel who slept with anything that moved, so it's proof of how well he could play against type here that he's honorable, noble, but giving off the sort of energy that he's clearly well-funded in his codpiece.  Rains is also so good even if this is also a bit of type-casting for the actor, who seems to always play erudite villains.  De Havilland makes the most of a role that could easily have just been no lines and just said "look beautiful," making her Marian true & actually landing her bigger scenes in a way that would recall her momentous work the following year in Gone with the Wind.  Overall, for an action-adventure the acting is a treat, and it enhanced the careers of pretty much everyone on set.  Even de Havilland's palomino, named Golden Cloud, got work as a result of this picture-the horse was seen by Roy Rogers, who loved it, purchased it, and renamed it Trigger...the rest is western history.

But it's the production value that makes this a classic.  The costuming is divine-de Havilland has never looked more radiant (and considering how long she was in pictures, this is saying something).  The movie didn't win an Oscar nomination for the category (because the category didn't exist yet, it certainly would have otherwise), but it did nab trophies for editing, art direction, and score, all of which were well-earned.  The editing is splendid-the action sequences are incredible, and while the stunts are in hindsight an OSHA nightmare (legend has it that men were paid $150 for actual arrows to be shot at their chest, a risky move in case, you know, the arrow moved north & missed the target), the scenes are riveting.  The moment where Flynn's Robin jumps from a noose onto a horse is staggering, and this ranks as one of the best action-adventures I've had the privilege of seeing, with the sharp editing a main culprit.  The art direction is sublime, especially in gaudy Technicolor, and the score is legend.  Erich Wolfgang Korngold thought the movie beneath him, but wanting an operatic score for the picture, Warner Brothers chief Hal Wallis allowed Korngold a weekly contract (unheard of at the time) to complete the picture.  Korngold relented, and while he was composing the score in Los Angeles, his Austrian home was broken into by the Nazis.  Korngold ended up making one of the cinema's most iconic scores & grabbing an Oscar for his work; had he not done the picture, it's very likely that the Jewish musician would have died in a concentration camp during World War II.

OVP: The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Film: The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Stars: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, J. Edward Bromberg
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Linda Darnell-click here to learn more about Ms. Darnell (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

The career of Linda Darnell can be broken up into two parts, largely before-and-after her work in Fallen Angel, which we profiled last week as the final starring role in the career of Alice Faye.  We’ll also split our series about Darnell into two parts, with a pair of films from the first half of her career pre-Fallen Angel, and then two post Fallen Angel when her career as a proper leading woman (rather than just “the love interest”) took off, with her landing critically-lauded and more important pictures before her career derailed permanently in the early 1950’s.  This week, we will profile her work with her most famous costar, Tyrone Power, in a massive hit for FOX that was seen at the time as a reaction to Warner Brothers success with The Adventures of Robin Hood.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film tells the story of Don Diego Vega (Power), a wealthy young man who returns to California from Spain to find that his father is no longer in charge of Los Angeles, and instead he is being backed by a corrupt mayor (Bromberg), whose true muscle in office is the cruel Captain Esteban (Rathbone).  Don Diego comes across as a dandy (and quite frankly, there’s a LOT of coded language implying that he’s pretending to be gay), but it’s all an act-he’s actually Zorro, the masked bandit who steals from the rich and gives back to the poor. Zorro comes across a beautiful woman Lolita (Darnell), who at first is disgusted by Don Diego even though she’s smitten with Zorro, and then eventually falls for them both, realizing they are one in the same.  Don Diego fights Esteban to the death toward the end of the film, sending the corrupt mayor back to Spain & getting the girl while saving the city, a fitting & quick ending to a surprisingly brisk film.

The movie is a remake of a Douglas Fairbanks picture from 1920, and you can kind of see the lines from the Silent Era into the sound.  The most thrilling aspects of the movie are all action that could have worked without dialogue, with my favorite being an incredible jump from a bridge where Zorro, mounted on a horse, jumps into a real river and somehow stays atop the animal (it’s hard to imagine anyone, much less Power, doing this stunt in the era before CGI).  However, the movie’s actual scripted parts fall flat, even with Bromberg & character actress Gale Sondergaard as his horny-for-Power wife providing some comic relief.  Even the Oscar-nominated score fails to impress, frequently feeling rather banal & while bouncy, not particularly memorable or in aid to the film itself.

Darnell’s major complaint about her earliest starring films was that she didn’t have anything to do except look beautiful…this feels like a pretty valid criticism of The Mark of Zorro.  Darnell’s performance here is nothing above ordinary, with her looking beautiful but given little to do except be commented upon.  There’s a scene where she’s talking with Zorro dressed as a monk (she doesn’t know it’s Zorro or Don Diego at this point), and she seems stunned that someone thinks she’s pretty since she’s only ever heard that from her maid, which feels vaguely absurd as she clearly has access to a mirror.  Power is considerably better, dashing and funny and occasionally a bit more camp than you’d expect a film to be self-aware enough to achieve in 1940. This is the third of the four films I’m profiling of Darnell’s that I’ll be seeing this month, so I know she’s capable of more, and it’s a pity she’s mostly an ornament for Zorro to win here rather than adding much else to the picture.

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Film: Son of Frankenstein (1939)
Stars: Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson
Director: Rowland V. Lee
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We continue on our month of classic horrors with a film that made it on the marathon partially because it was already on my Netflix queue, but mostly because I was so shocked when researching this article how the studio system, while it was generally unkind to actors such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi when they stopped being bankable, also didn't exploit them as ferociously as I would have expected.  In an era when, say, Myrna Loy and William Powell were playing Nick & Nora every year, stars like Karloff & Lugosi didn't continually reprise their most iconic characters, instead only playing them a few times.  Karloff, for example, only donned the Frankenstein makeup thrice-first for his two classic outings (reviews listed below) and then one last time after Universal, who was suffering after ousting the Laemmles, wanted to take advantage of a recent revival in theaters of Frankenstein movies (a bankrupt LA theater ran Dracula, Frankenstein, and King Kong as a Hail Mary to make money and the gimmick worked, leading to a second wave of horror movies from Universal).  Son of Frankenstein would not be Karloff's last outing in a Frankenstein picture (he'd appear as a mad doctor in House of Frankenstein, which we'll get to later this month), but it was his last time in the monster's getup, and is famously considered the final "A-Grade" horror movie of its era, as soon the Universal horror films were being made cheaply and more generically.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around, as the title suggests, the son of Frankenstein, named Wolf (Rathbone), who has come back to his father's castle to claim his inheritance, the estate and, most specifically, the laboratory.  The people in the local village loathe Wolf, as they view he and his family as bad omens, and so the only friend to Wolf, his wife Elsa (Hutchinson) and son Peter is a local lawman, Inspector Krogh (Atwill), who lost an arm to the monster as a child.  Despite clear reasons not to do so, Wolf is set to avenge his father, trying to prove his place in scientific history by reanimating the monster (Karloff), with the help of Ygor (Lugosi), who has taken control of the monster and is using him to murder members of a jury that once tried to have Ygor hanged.  As one could expect, Wolf's plans go awry as the monster kills and terrorizes the surrounding countryside, but is ultimately saved by Inspector Krogh, with the monster and Ygor dying while the Frankensteins leave the village, presumably forever (or at least until the next sequel).

One of the harder things about reviewing older movies is trying to figure out what is being played for laughs and what is genuinely supposed to be terrifying.  A contemporary review of the film at the time called it "the silliest picture ever made," but that's hard to digest since many of the horror movies of that era play for camp to modern audiences.  Still, you can see the way that articulate, Shakespearean-trained Rathbone feels a tad ridiculous as Wolf von Frankenstein.  The way that he descends so quickly into the same madness that doomed his father feels hackneyed and preposterous, but it's also quite fun.  Rathbone has such a theatrical flare that he fits right in and feels like an appropriate offspring of Colin Clive (it's alive, it's ALIVE!).  Atwill is a strange oddity in the film (and also feels weird when you think of the chronology of the picture as he feels too old to have been hurt as a child by the monster), and Hutchinson is as generic as you can get as Wolf's clingy, wispy wife.

But the whole point of these films is the monsters, and weirdly it's Lugosi's Ygor and not Karloff's Frankenstein that stands out in a major way here despite Karloff generally being the better actor.  Lugosi basically steals the picture, as Karloff's Frankenstein has been muted and is less defined than in the previous iterations of the series.  Ygor, though, is cruel, funny, and played as much for laughs as he is for fears.  It's hilarious to think that this creepy, nasty guy would so easily fool Wolf, and it's practically like he's breaking the fourth wall with his "behind Wolf's back" sorts of grimaces.  All-in-all, it is, as the Times put it, quite silly, but it's also more fun than I was suspecting, especially as Wolf goes mad, and not a bad way to spend a cloudy afternoon.

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love