A Million to One

I find it interesting seeing films by future stars and occasionally you can't even tell it's them! Take, for example, Ida Lupino and Joan Fontaine. Both were born and raised abroad and had decidedly non-American accents in their early films. Moreover, they underwent HUGE makeovers--with new hair styles, makeup...everything. Both these women also have an odd connection--two of their earliest films were made with American Olympians. In "Search for Beauty", Ida is cast along side Buster Crabbe (winner of three medals for swimming, two of which were golds) and here in "A Million to One" Joan is cast along side Herman Brix (Bruce Bennett) who won Olympic silver for the shot-put. While both are very cheap films and their acting isn't particularly distinguished, both are must-sees for old movie buffs.

This film begins at the 1912 Olympics. John Kent won the Decathalon--only to have it soon stripped away on a technicality*. Then, John uses his energy to raise his son, Johnny (Herman Brix), to eventually be an Olympic decathletes as well. Unfortunately, during his training, he meets Joan (Joan Fontaine) and the father is worried she'll be a distraction and ruin Johnny's chances for Olympic gold.

This film was distributed by Puritan Pictures which means that the picture is about as low budget and cheap as can be. Several scenes were extremely poor acted--so poor that you marvel that they didn't bother re-filming these scenes. One example is the guy playing the newspaper editor, as he could barely deliver his lines and honestly sounds like a middle schooler trying to act! Another is the fight scene as both look completely inept and it is laughably done. A consultant should have been used as the pair look like they are dancing more than fighting! The movie also lacks incidental music and is curiously quiet at times. Clearly this film is a B---and a very low budgeted and cheaply assembled one.

So despite these problems, is the film any good? Not especially. Brix and Fontaine were not yet polished actors and the script is rather pedestrian. It's rarely terrible but also rarely very good. But still, worth watching so you can see Joan with her much more British accent and odd pre-makeover look. It's hard to imagine looking at her that only a few years later she'd win the Oscar for Best Actress!

Real life athelete Herman Brix stars as an Olympic hopeful, rigorously trained by his father (silent star Monte Blue). They train at a camp run by former silent star Kenneth Harlan, who has a marvelously modern daughter (very young Joan Fontaine) who can scarcely contain her attraction to the fit Mr. Brix. Enter two carloads of rich young things, and the athelete's life becomes complicated by all the temptations that the fast life has to offer. Aside from exciting track and field event footage, the picture is a series of "getting even" schemes, lead by the unusual combination of future forties girl Suzanne Kaarn and a clotheshorse turn by former Arrow Collar man-silent "B" action star, Reed Howes. The glory of this film is noticing that Mr. Howes, always a star so long as he kept moving, does all of his own stunt work, which in this film includes keeping up with Mr. Brix, a professional athelete some 8 years his junior, not only on the field and in a series of jumps and breathtaking javelin lunges, but also in an extended fight scene during which the panting Miss Fontaine locks herself inside the tennis courts with the battling duo. Mr. Howes, one of the best looking men of the 1920s, still looks terrific, if a bit stiff in his talking sequences, and reminds one at times of the Donna Reed Show's Carl Betz. Monte Blue does his usual good work. Mr. Brix isn't bad, but the camera hasn't settled on that face as of yet, while Fontaine gives more hints of her future worth than could be found in any of her early RKO vehicles.

In 1912, Monte Blue won the Olympic decathlon. Second-placer Kenneth Harlan got him disqualified,and took the Olympic gold himself. Now, twenty-five years later, Harlan regrets this -- not enough to give back the medal -- and helps Blue's son, Bruce Bennett (still credited as Herman Brix) to train and win. However, Harlan's daughter is more interested in Bennett than his Olympic chances, and it's hard and boring work to train.

It's a surprisingly good movie from Gower Gulch director Lynn Shores, who was on a bit of an upswing from horse operas, on his way to directing 20th Century-Fox's profitable Charlie Chan movies, then finishing his career as an assistant director on top Fox movies. Bennett is low-key in his delivery, but good, although when he's opposite the slumming Fontaine he sounds dull. Maybe he's in awe.