Woman Wanted (1935)

I've been a little Joel McCrea crazy (Joel McCrazy?) lately so I really dug this 1935 outing with too oft-over-looked Maureen O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan plays a woman on the run for a crime she didn't commit and Joel McCrea plays a lawyer who helps her out. It's no surprise thathe falls for her and even less surprise that he manages to get her out of the mess.

The film is quite romantic and funny. There is a deliberate It Happened One Night vibe here as the couple bum around the countryside hiding from the cops. There is also a fair amount of suspense as they lurk around the waterfront and other foggy locations. One of the great "only in the movies" touches is that McCrea's character lives on a houseboat, and drives around in a speedboat most of the time. He also has a funny butler (Robert Grieg), which is another one of those things that usually only happens in the movies. To add to the drama, McCrea has a fiancee (Adrienne Ames) from whom he must hide his beautiful fugitive. Woman Wanted is really a romantic drama, crying out to be screwball. Make that fiancee a bit more of a dragon lady, steal a few more cars, throw in an animal, and you'd have it!

O'Sullivan is an actress who I've probably seen in a dozen films, but haven't noticed her acting until recently. To confess the truth, she is part of a cabal of actresses whom I get confused with one another: Maureen O'Sullivan, Maureen O'Hara, Margaret Sullavan and Margaret Lockwood. I actually like ALL of these actresses and am well aware which one I'm watching at the time that I'm doing so. But get me away from one of their movies or the IMDB and I'm at a loss. They are all from the British Isles, their names all start with "M" and most sound Irish. I've had to develop a memory device O' Sullivan is Tarzan's girl. She has the extra "O" in her name, that sounds like Tarzan's call. O'Hara is the Quiet man's Woman. He's so quiet you don't "O'HEAR-a him. (Hey, I didn't say these were clever, just that they work!) Margaret Sullavan is spelled with an "a" as in "The shop around the Corner tried to sell a van to me today." Margaret Lockwood was in the Lady Vanishes. "Michael Redgrave had to knock wood to get lucky with Lockwood." Memorize these idiotic sayings and you'll never get them confused again, I promise.



As for Woman Wanted, despite my efforts to re-write it mentally, it is probably hopelessly mediocre. It's predictable, derivative and forgettable, all that, I give you, and yet... Joel McCrea and speedboats! What's not to love?

Jamaica Inn

Charles Laughton and 19-year-old Maureen O'Hara in Jamaica Inn (1939). The pair had kind of a creepy chemistry which worked to the advantage of this picture as well as The Hunchback of Notre Dame later that year.

Jamaica Inn feels almost as much like a Tod Browning movie as it does an Alfred Hitchcock film. It creates a dark mood, full of grotesque characters and swirling seas. To me the words "Jamaica Inn" conjure up a caribbean resort or perhaps a lair for pirates. The latter is close to truth, as the Inn is a dilapidated hotel on the stormy Cornish coast that is home to a band of ship wreckers-- cutthroats so nasty, each one is more bizarre and devilish than the last. In one scene a man is hung and two of the wreckers fight over the buckles on his shoes before he's even dead. Further adding to the piratical air of the film, is hero Jem Trehorne, portrayed by Robert Newton the patron saint of "Talk Like a Pirate Day" who is best remembered for his portrayal of Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island.

When young Mary Yellen (O'Hara) goes to visit her aunt on the storm-torn coast of Cornwall, the stage drivers refuse to stop at the desolate Inn. She is dropped off instead at the estate of Sir Humphrey (Laughton) a lecherous old aristocrat who lives for lavish dinners and the occasional pretty face. We learn that Humprey's ancestors have all gone mad and Laughton gives us every indication that he's got his ticket to Happydale all but punched and ready to go.

The movie devolves into an extended chase when Mary rescues Newton's character, the 19th century equivalent of an undercover cop, from the wreckers. In one sequence the pair wind up stranded in a cave that gets cut off from the mainland by high tide. The romantic setting is reminiscent of Hitchcock's later travelogue films that made great use of location. Jamaica Inn isn't a great Hitchock film but it's quite a bit of fun and Laughton is always worth watching.

Eye Candy of the Day: The Quiet Man

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara just seconds before one of my all-time favorite screen kisses, in The Quiet Man. Thanks to Doctor Macro for the image.

As one of my late father's favorite films, The Quiet Man is a movie that I have watched at least once a year, possibly more, for the last three decades. I don't need to wait till the traditional St. Patrick's Day trot out the films about Ireland fest, either. July, for example, is as good a time as any other to watch this movie.

For my money this is one of the most staggeringly romantic movies ever made. John Wayne, who was not known for romance had amazing chemistry with his co-star Maureen O'Hara. There is haunting, Bronte-esque quality to the love scenes, as if the atmosphere itself was being effected by the cloud of pheromones swirling around the stars. As a counterweight, the film bristles with fine comic performances from the supporting actors Barry Fitzgerald, and Ward Bond and a whole village full of "Irish" extras. (The movie was filmed in Cong, County Mayo, Ireland, but is mostly acted by Americans and Irish -Americans who were part of Ford's regular company.)