L'île des angoisses

1938's "Gateway" is yet another little seen Fox feature among John Carradine's early years as a character star, again teaming him opposite Don Ameche, from "Ramona," "Love Under Fire," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," and "The Three Musketeers." Ameche headlines as war correspondent Dick Court, returning to the US aboard a liner bound for New York, meeting lovely Irish girl Catherine O'Shea (Arleen Whelan), who will be marrying her fiancée, Henry Porter (Lyle Talbot), as soon as she arrives. Complications set in when the overtly flirtatious Benjamin McNutt (Raymond Walburn) makes one pass too many at the still single beauty, succeeding only in knocking himself out. His irate wife refuses to acknowledge the truth about her philandering husband, raising some moral issues concerning the innocent girl. Blaming himself for her predicament, the now smitten Court decides to help Catherine any way he can, accompanying her to Ellis Island (the Statue of Liberty serves as the 'Gateway to Freedom'), where the less than cordial greeting from her intended does not go unnoticed. John Carradine makes his long awaited entrance a full hour into this 75 minute feature, the unnamed 'Leader of Refugees,' all awaiting deportation at Ellis Island, taking advantage of Court's untimely imprisonment to attempt a breakout. It's a small part, typical of many such roles at Fox, until after "Drums Along the Mohawk" and "The Grapes of Wrath" at least put him in a higher bracket of supporting players. Harry Carey again provides solid authority, while Gilbert Roland supplies some welcome villainy. What really deserves to be seen is the breathtaking, auburn haired beauty of little used Arleen Whelan, coming off her debut performance opposite Warner Baxter in "Kidnapped" (my first sight of her came in the 1941 Charlie Chan finale at Fox, "Castle in the Desert").

Actually, there is not much to say about this rare item, produced by Twentieth Century Fox, and directed by the prolific Alfred Werker. A kind of mix-up of romance and drama, soft drama. There were thousand of film like this one, during the thirties and forties. The story of an Irish girl who, aboard an Atlantic liner, meets a war correspondent - Don Ameche. Much talk and plenty of goof feeings in this very common movie. But, I repeat, not unpleasant for most of the audiences fond of old vintage films. But I am afraid to forget it till tomorrow morning, so I hurry to comment it.

Alfred Werker will be most famous to me for his film noirs such as HE WALKED BY NIGHT and also his westerns: LAST POSSEE, DEVIL'S CANYON, THREE HOURS TO KILL...

According to IMDB, Don Ameche hated this film. Perhaps he thought it was a bad film, perhaps it was a bad filming experience (such as his disliking the director or co-stars....who knows). All I know is that he didn't like it....and that certainly piqued my curiosity!

The story begins on an ocean liner. Like the 'good old days', passengers are segregated according to class...and second class ticketed passengers like Catherine (Arleen Whelan) are not allowed into the first class dining room. But when Dick (Ameche) sees her watching the folks up in first class, he insists she join him and the other first class passengers. Soon, however, his plan backfires. A dirty old man soon tries to force himself on Catherine and she slugs him....and the man's wife INSISTS that the assault was unprovoked. As a result, she's not allowed to meet her fiance (Lyle Talbot) but is detained at Ellis Island. What's to come of Catherine, Dick and the incredibly disappointing fiance?

There is a huge problem that viewers cannot help but notice at the beginning of the story....Whelan cannot act. Or, more precisely, she is supposed to be Irish but sound about as Irish as Charlie Chan!! She cannot approximate the accent and the casting decision seems odd to say the least. Why not get an Irish actress or at least one that sounds Irish?! Regardless, I just felt baffled at her choice.

The funny thing is that although she's NOT good, the two very foreign sounding comic relief actors (with Russian-style accents) sound good....but are really, really annoying. The banter between the revolutionary and Imperial Russians is pretty dopey...and they seem like distractions more than anything else.

So is there anything I liked about the film? Well, Ameche was, as usual, very good...as was Binnie Barnes. Both came off well in the movie, mostly because they were real professionals. But the rest of the film...well....it's a bit disappointing. I could see why Ameche probably didn't like it...but compared to really bad films by other top stars (such as Clark Gable in "Parnell" and Humphrey Bogart in "Swing Your Lady"), he could have done a lot worse!