J. Spurlin

Thanks to a screening by movie archivist Eric Grayson, I had the chance to see a very rare print of this comedy about a Hitler-like figure orchestrating the destruction of a Hollywood propaganda movie via two stooges.

John Barrymore, who was near death from his alcoholism, plays the clownishly conceited producer of the film. He is awful, as is the usually terrific Eugene Pallette, who as Barrymore's right-hand man, is all screaming and gesticulating. I suspect that having to play off the degraded Barrymore had something to do with it.

Frances Farmer plays the star of Barrymore's film, who spends most of the movie in a jealous rage because her husband and leading man (Ricardo Cortez) is chasing a blonde supporting actress (Virginia Dale). The blonde's husband (Don Castle) is a publicist, but their marriage is a secret because otherwise it would jeopardize her career.

Fritz Feld as the pseudo-Hitler and Sig Ruman and Luis Alberni as the buffoonish saboteurs give the best performances; but even their antics grow stale, thanks to a tedious script by Earl Felton and Gordon Kahn. A tiger and a monkey provide thrills and humor; Feld slapping the tiger across the face provides the movie's single best moment.

Spurned by the married county attorney (Cornel Wilde) she loves, the wife (Linda Darnell) of a newspaperman (Kirk Douglas) tries every trick to lift her husband into a political career at the expense of her would-be lover and the she-lawyer (Anne Baxter) he illicitly falls for.

This turn-of-the-century period piece starts out terrific, slows down, and then falls apart in silly courtroom scenes. An intense fight scene involving Barton MacLane near the beginning is the highlight. Anne Dvorak as the attorney's drunken wife, Frank Ferguson as the father of a runaway, and Henry Hull as a besotted has-been lawyer are welcome presences.

A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp is unrecognizable after facial reconstruction, yet goes along with her husband's scheme to pose as the wife he believes is dead.

The passive mousiness of the main character, while perfectly forgivable and understandable of someone with such a past, nevertheless kept me at arm's length from the story. Just an ounce of extra spirit might have made the character more interesting and sympathetic and helped to fulfill the rich promise of the story. The ending is so good, though, that it left me fairly satisfied.