Swing High, Swing Low

Ist half is kinda fun, with a nice, relaxed tale of three Americans down on their luck in Panama. Director Mitchell Leisen, who cut his teeth as an art director, puts it to good use, along with cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff, in managing to make the viewer (well this viewer, at least) feel they were in Panama City and not the Paramount backlot. And Lombard and MacMurray have good chem. Unfortunately, the second half, set largely in NYC and featuring that hoariest of story/chestnuts...the guy who goes all to pot when his true love leaves him...is a bit of a comedown. Give it a C plus. PS...How long a career did Tony Quinn have, for cryin out loud? This film was made in 1937 and he looks at least as old as MacMurray, if not older.

The third Fred MacMurray/Carole Lombard film is a bit more serious than Hands Across the Table and The Princess Comes Across. It's yet another adaption of the play Burlesque which apparently was popular back in the day.

The original play Burlesque ran on Broadway in the 1927-1928 season for 372 performances and it's the role that Carole Lombard plays that Barbara Stanwyck originated on Broadway that brought her to Hollywood. A version starred Nancy Carroll in the early days of talkies and later on Betty Grable and Dan Dailey did still another version of it in When My Baby Smiles At Me.

In fact I have a vinyl album of a radio version that Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler did for the Lux Radio Theater. That's an interesting work, believe me.

Anyway MacMurray and Lombard do fine by the old chestnut, the story is now set in a nightclub where Lombard is a singer and MacMurray is a jazz trumpeter. Note a nice performance by Dorothy Lamour as the Latin vixen who gets between Fred and Carole. Also Anthony Quinn is in one of his earliest films as a wolf on the make for Lombard.

Swing High, Swing Low holds up real nice today and I wouldn't be surprised if we see yet another version of Burlesque for the Twenty First Century.

... so what's in those missing 10 minutes that were so horrible they had to cut them out from the original film? We were three years into the film production code... Barbara Stanwyck had starred in the original play, but here, Carole Lombard plays Maggie King. Co star Fred MacMurray is probably best known for "Double Indemnity", with Stanwyck, as well as his hit TV show "My Three Sons". Keep an eye out for a young Dorothy Lamour (Bob Hope movies) and the too-fabulous Franklin Pangborn, who spiced up just about every film put on tape. Of course, he works in the beauty salon on the ship! Add the sublime Charles Butterworth and Anthony Quinn. Good timing and clever banter at the beginning. Maggie's buddy Ella is played by Jean Dixon, who was the best friend in "Holiday" and "My Man Godfrey". In "Swing High", Maggie the tourist meets a soldier who is leaving the army. Maggie misses her boat when it leaves port and gets tangled up with the soldier. The dashing 20-something Quinn has a small scene at the local bar in Panama where Johnson (MacMurray) has been playing the trumpet. Maggie, Harry (Butterworth), and Skid band together and try to figure out how to get back to the States. Some good singing by Lamour. Good (but brief) acting performance by Cecil Cunningham as "Murph", the wise, helpful owner of the local saloon in Panama. While others have lamented at how bad it is, it wasn't so awful, and is even a little exotic, with the fake Central America locale setting for the first half of the film.

Cruising through the Panama Canal, pretty Carole Lombard (as Maggie King) resists the advances of date-hungry Fred MacMurray (as Skid Johnson), who is celebrating his last day in the US Army. When Ms. Lombard jumps ship, Mr. MacMurray manages to put himself in her driver's seat. The couple fight and bicker while dating, which you can safely bet means love and marriage are on deck. Credit the film will putting a little delay in that department, however. Lombard gets interested when MacMurray pulls out his trumpet. He turns out to be a professional musician. Eventually MacMurray's boozing "Skid" hits the skids...

The stars are an attractive couple with natural chemistry, but there is too little spark in this middling story. Moreover, MacMurray plays a character written with little appeal. Lombard's character seems not too bright. You can tell "Skid" has a problem. It's too bad, because MacMurray's performance is fine. Watch for a young and handsome Anthony Quinn to try to pick up Lombard, and brawl with MacMurray. Also, lovely young Dorothy Lamour (as Anita Alvarez) plays the exotic other woman. Charles Butterworth (as Harry) is MacMurray's loyal male pal, and Franklin Pangborn appears too briefly. It's cast high, but swings low.

****** Swing High, Swing Low (3/12/37) Mitchell Leisen ~ Fred MacMurray, Carole Lombard, Dorothy Lamour, Charles Butterworth

I am quite the Mitchell Leisen fan so it was a great anticipation that I rented this movie but the print I got was extremely bad, so worn down from use and scorched seemingly beyond repair, the movie was so dark. So dark that in certain scenes that are cinematographed in the dark, you can't see a single thing. That said, I believe I share the same opinion as the first review of this movie. It starts out unusually and does not tote the lines and rhythms of your typical Hollywood 30's movie. Heck, not even your typical Hollywod movie of any era. It seems the director has been influenced by the Europeans because there is a certain caustic realism to the proceedings from the opening shot which is so crafted in camera movement and placement as Maggie (Carole Lombard) and Skid (Fred Macmurray) meet. You half expect them to start singing "Make believe" from Show boat.It starts with a few laughs and poor Anthony in a one scene role where he speaks not a word of English gets slapped around by Freddie. Skids is a bum who doesn't care that he's a bum. That's why he signs up in the army where he can hide from the world. He's just been released though and in a set of screenplay shenanigans, she misses her boat for New York. This is when the movie kicks into high gear and we begin to get those French movie of the sixties vibes to the whole proceedings. The scenes are so well acted by Lombard and Cecil Cunningham, the movie gains a pulse. MacMurray is good too as he and Lombard fall for each other as she nurtures his talent for the trumpet. Then the temptress arrives in the form of Dorothy Lamour. Enough with plot. The movie has fantastic montage sequences that dazzled me. They are very good. And Lombard scores a home run in this movie but in the second half, a bit more is called of Freddie and he fails to deliver the goods. With a heavily melodramatic ending and an actor you don't believe, the movie falls short but since it is not your typical movie in structure, set design, and direction. It is worth a look. For what is what it was one of the 37 hits of the 1936-37 season. I don't know its exact rank though.