El refugio

It's a modest movie. Not a big deal. But it's got some things in it I like. First, it stars Robert Montgomery, and Maureen O'Sullivan, which though not a guarantee of a good movie, sure is a sign of promise. And in this case it pays off. Montgomery plays a racketeer who has to lam it to the countryside to wait for some heat to die down. The odd thing is, I could not really figure out what his "racket" was. There he is injured and stays with a family to recover, meeting and chumming it with the daughter. That's where the dividing line is. In the first part you are in precode gangster land. Then Montgomery wakes up in a four poster bed with a gingham bedspread - he has arrived in production code land. The plot's flimsy, for sure, on both sides of the line, but it's there to provide the opportunity for Montgomery and O'Sullivan to meet and chatter. And that's the main attraction. The banter between the simple, ingenuous, yet clear-headed and no-nonsense country lass, and the sophisticated, jaded, out-of-his-element city feller, as they get to know each other, like each other, and fall in love. The style of their exchanges has an informal, conversational feel, as if they were talking, not reciting lines.

Of course, the love story is accompanied by his character reformation into a good person, or one that looks to be in the future. But it's handled discretely, and if you ignore it, it doesn't spoil things. The supporting cast is a bunch of pros, so they know how not to step on things: Elizabeth Patterson and Whitford Kane as the ma and pa, Mickey Rooney-for once not insufferably irritating playing an insufferably irritating son, and Edward Arnold as the dogged cop. One other thing I like about the movie is that it achieves portraying a lively, energetic, spontaneous family scene without being noisy, discordant, and irritating. Something a lot of movies attempt, but fail miserably at doing.

"Sweet" is not a word I've ever used to describe a film, mostly because the films that might merit the word are invariably too sappy to qualify. But "Hide-Out" pulls it off and truly deserves that description.

Much like "Bad Bascomb" (1946) and "Angel and the Badman" (1947) this is the story of an incorrigible criminal who is reformed because of his accidental association with good people. In "Hide-out" they are not reformers and there is no deliberate effort to reform; the character change comes because the positive examples cause him to adopt their values and belief system.

Robert Montgomery plays Lucky Wilson, a charming Broadway playboy who is part of a protection racket specializing in nightclubs. His boss gets a percentage of each club's profits and Lucky insures the payoff is correct by estimating each club's business from their napkin usage (a convenient procedure because they control the laundry the clubs use).

The opening sequence is exceptionally well staged, with Lucky's insatiable appetite for women revealed through a montage of blonde conquests; in the opening minutes he goes from a girlfriend's maid, to the girlfriend, to another girlfriend waiting for him in a car, to a new conquest at the night club he visits. During the brief intervals between conquests he finds time to leer and flirt with every pretty girl who crosses his path.

All these girls are blonds with lots of makeup and with elaborate hairstyles. Their appearances are meant to contrast with the natural appearance of Pauline Miller (Margaret O'Sullivan), the girl with whom he eventually falls in love.

"Hide-Out" is one of those films where the casting is perfect, as you cannot imagine anyone but Montgomery and O'Sullivan being able to pull this out without appearing completely silly. They are nicely assisted by Elizabeth Patterson (as Pauline's mother) and by a very young Mickey Rooney (as Pauline's younger brother Willie). The standing gag is Willie's frustrated attempts to get the family to call him Bill. His scenes with Montgomery are especially good and it is interesting how much natural acting talent he exhibits this early in his career. They go out on a standing gag about the reproductive abilities of the rabbits he has been raising.

A big reason why the film works is the attention paid to the details,. A second viewing will reveal many things you do not even notice the first time around, like Montgomery's continuing discomfort with "nature" when he brushes a rose bush in the front of the house. There are hundreds of these little details, most of them involving the citified Montgomery's fish-out-of-water adjustments to country life.

There was a 1941 remake titled "I'll Wait for You" staring Robert Sterling and Marsha Hunt. Although I love Marsha Hunt the 1934 original is easily the better film.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Robert Montgomery plays a gangster hiding out on a farm in "Hide-Out," a 1934 film also starring Maureen O'Sullivan, Edward Arnold, Elizabeth Patterson, Whitford Kane, and Mickey Rooney.

With the police after him, Lucky Wilson takes off but ends up shot and unconscious. He is then found by a farmer Miller (Kane) who takes him home.

There, Lucky, now calling himself by his real name, Jonathan, meets a normal American family, including an above-normal looking Pauline (Maureen O'Sullivan), who is the daughter of the house.

Jonathan stretches out his recovery and begins to enjoy the idyllic life of milking cows, feeding chickens, romancing Pauline, and being sort of a big brother to her younger sibling Willie (Mickey Rooney).

This is a sweet film with nothing special to recommend it except the beautiful young O'Sullivan and an amusing performance by Montgomery. In one of the best scenes, he sits at a ringside table and asks a singer out - while she's singing - and she answers him under her breath during short orchestral interludes.

The end seems a little abrupt, but this is a pleasant film. If Mrs. Miller looks familiar, she was Mrs. Trumbull, the neighbor who babysat Little Ricky on "I Love Lucy."

This sentimental M-G-M "gangster" film works like a "Tarzan" in reverse: here the seemingly incorrigible hood played by Montgomery, urbane and a touch cynical, finds his cold heart surely melting in the warm embrace of a simple farm family and their soothing workaday life.

In "Tarzan" Maureen O'Sullivan is the "outsider", and although she must adjust to life in the jungle the thrust of that story is that she "domesticates" the "ape man" even as she learns to accept the simpler pleasures of living "close to nature". Here Montgomery is the one out of his element and we find him mystified by the sounds of crickets in the evening--something almost as strange and foreign to him as the unpretentious caring ways of the Miller family. When Mom and Pop and little "don't call me" Willy (played by young Mickey Rooney) conveniently leave the farm for a day, Montgomery and O'Sullivan get to play "farm" (baling the hay, splitting wood) the same way Tarzan and Jane get to play "house" together. In both cases O'Sullivan has "tamed" the wild beast.

"Tarzan" was an adventure film, however--the journey takes place in the great outdoors and nature is a mirror. "Hide-out" is an inner journey, on the other hand--even as he's hauled off to prison Montgomery smiles because he's finally come "home".

This is a very enjoyable though predictable film--exactly the sort of classic Hollywood film I like and they just don't make any more. The first portion of the film shows leading man Robert Montgomery to be a real jerk. Not only is he a mobster, but he's also completely selfish and a real cad. Eventually, though, his larcenous ways nearly get him killed and he is forced to escape to the countryside to avoid the law and heal following being shot by police in his escape.

Montgomery is discovered by a nice and unsuspecting family who have no idea he's a crook. They sweetly agree to let him stay there and they treat him like a member of the family. While the dad is a pretty forgettable but nice character, long-time character actress Elizabeth Patterson does an amazingly effective job as the mother and Mickey Rooney is cute as a nice little boy who is all boy! The sister was played by a young Maureen O'Sullivan who is simply radiant. It isn't surprising that Montgomery soon falls for O'Sullivan, but her inherent decency and sweetness result in a change in the crook. Over time, he realizes for the first time that he truly cares about her--as well as the entire family. Is this predictable? Sure,...but it's handled so well and the film is so engaging that you probably won't mind--I know I sure didn't! Overall, the film gets very high marks for acting (with a great ensemble cast), a well-written script (especially the dialog) and is just plain entertaining. See this one--you probably won't be sorry.