Colonel Effingham's Raid

Charles Coburn is his usual wonderful self. He is in a hurry, as he says `at 65, you have to be in a hurry'.

A charming and funny `surprise' film - the surprises are all the little points of humor, which keep occurring throughout the film usually as punctuations to the events. A `Greek chorus' comments on Joan Bennett's legs, a character continually passes out `repent' cards to characters, mostly the politicians, and look for the sleeping husband in the background of one scene. A little heavy on the Southern touches for our current politically correct times, but not too bad in this regard. The ending is a little abrupt, but all in all, a very enjoyable film.

At the time I post this only 56 other users have rated this little film and only one other user has posted comments, and it's rated an average of 6.2. It's a shame that so few people have seen this little gem, and it's sad that our times are so out of step with its sentiments.

This is the humorous and romantic story of a retired colonel who returns to the town he grew up in and finds that few of its citizens are involved in its care, noting that a very small percentage even bothers to vote and finding that they are afraid to get involved, not for any sinister reasons but simply because the mayor and his cronies have the town locked up pretty tight and can bluster their way out of anything. This town needs a focal point for change, and the Colonel is just the man for the job. His young second cousin and a society writer on the local paper join in, with satisfactory results and some poignant dialogue along the way. Nice film. 9/10. I'd give it a solid 10 if not for the unfortunate racial attitudes that come from a southern town still in love with its pre-Lincoln heritage, but even these are handled fairly delicately considering the movie's era.

The film was apparently just restored in 2005, so probably it's not been seen often for many years. Watch for it on TCM; just caught it today on their Joan Bennett day, so it'll turn up again sometime. Well worth its brief run time.

A large cast bustle about in this aggressively whimsical comedy a very long way after Frank Capra, including some of his original repertory company.

Charles Coburn's his usual pompous self, there's an awful lot of talk and Irving Pichel does his usual dull job as director. But as a power-suited newspaperwoman Joan Bennett makes a very attractive substitute for Jean Arthur, rendering the annoying wolf whistles on the soundtrack every time she adjusts her stockings entirely superfluous.

I found this to be quite an entertaining tale of the eponymous, curmudgeonly, old gent (Charles Coburn) who returns from the army to his home town, only to find that standards have gone to pot and that there is no longer any civic pride in the place. The culmination of this cultural disintegration is the proposed demolition of the dilapidated city hall on the town's rallying "Confederate Monument Sq.". Can he galvanise the locals into thwarting the plans of the city planners and of an increasingly indifferent population? Irving Pichel leaves almost all of the heavy lifting here to a competent Coburn, but the rest of the cast (most notably a lacklustre Joan Bennett) and the rather uninspiring script let the film down a bit. Coburn always did have oodles of charisma, and is ideally cast here - but he can't do it all himself, and after a while the story runs too thin and thereby too predicably. That said, it is enjoyable to see a character actor having some fun on screen and it's a short and sweet nostalgia ride that does, certainly, raise the odd smile.

So, looking at the cast, you KNOW its going to be pretty good, and probably a comedy, with Charles Coburn (starred in Gentleman Prefere Blondes), and regulars Donald Meek, and Cora Witherspoon. Many of the roles on IMDb were either "scenes deleted" or "uncredited", so there must be a story there somewhere. Meek, Witherspoon, and Bobby Barber were in just about every black and with movie made in the 1930s and 1940s. Also stars Joan Bennett, and William Eythe, but their parts aren't that big. In our story, retired Colonel Effingham decides he wants to write a column in the local town paper, and becomes a local hero. But then, writing isn't enough, and he starts making waves, and taking action... We knew SOMETHING was going to start happening, since right from the beginning, he quotes sayings from the military, and treats everyone around him as if they WERE in the military. City Hall doesn't like the things he's doing, and now there's trouble brewing! It's the Mayor and his cronies versus the Colonel. The mayor is played by Thurston Hall, who was born in 1882, and had started in silent movies in 1915. Looking at his list of roles, Hall always played the governor, the senator, the major. There are some clever lines here, and no plot issues, but the story itself is plain and simple, and a little slow-moving. Also a little annoying is the narrator who occasionally breaks in with his personal comments (his cousin ?). Although this is the only entry in IMDb for the original author Berry Fleming, a search on Library of Congress shows numerous works by Fleming, translated in various languages. Released in Atlanta, Georgia, in January 1946, the last thing we see on the screen is "Buy Your War Bonds in this Theater". WWII had just ended, after all.