Fury (1936)

Spencer Tracy is an icon for a reason. His film career spanned over four decades and in that time he portrayed every type of character imaginable: priest, fisherman, politician, father, newspaper man, lawyer...and, perhaps most beloved, male lead opposite Katharine Hepburn in a string of fantastic comedies.

In Fury, Tracy stars as Joe Wilson, a decent, hardworking young man of modest means living in Chicago. He and his fiancee, Katherine (Sylvia Sidney), haven't enough money to marry straightaway, so Katherine takes a better-paying job on the west coast while Joe remains in Chicago.

Months pass and finally their hard work pays off. Joe and his two brothers, Tom (George Walcott) and Charlie (Frank Albertson), purchase a gas station which the three will operate together.

Ecstatic that he's finally reached his goal, Joe hits the road to meet Katherine and bring her home. On the way there he drives through a small town where he is apprehended by the local police and brought into the police station for questioning. Apparently there has been a recent local kidnapping and the police and townspeople are eager to find the culprit and save the abducted young woman.

Of course, Joe had nothing to do with the kidnapping, but circumstantial evidence and being in the wrong place at the wrong time lead to his arrest. He maintains his innocence throughout the interrogation, but since he's the only viable suspect the police have they hold him in a jail cell while the investigation continues.

Word gets out that the police have a suspect in custody and the news quickly spreads through town, losing accuracy with each re-telling. Add booze and a loudmouthed rabble-rouser to the mix and the situation quickly escalates into a mob of angry townspeople gathered outside the police station with lit torches in hand.

A confrontation ensues until, inevitably, the police station is set ablaze...with Joe still locked up inside. Katherine learns of Joe's arrest and arrives just in time to see the horrible scene unfold. She, and everyone else, believes Joe died in that fire.

Of course, not long after, the real kidnapper is apprehended and Joe's name is cleared, but...there's something no one knows. Joe is alive. His brush with death has changed him into an angry, embittered man hungry for revenge.

He meets with his two brothers and persuades them to convince the district attorney (Walter Abel) to take the case to court. In Joe's mind, dead or alive, that mob is guilty of his murder and he won't rest until he sees every last man and woman fry...


Fury is director Fritz Lang's first American film and it's a powerful one, which uses a fictitious story to criticize and condemn anyone who has participated in or supported a real-life lynching. The script is fantastic and I really enjoyed Spencer Tracy's performance. He brings something so raw and so real to his portrayal as poor Joe.

I truly think this is a great movie (despite the cringe-worthy depiction of small-town women as bloodthirsty busybodies, which I'm choosing to overlook) and I have every intention of re-visiting it again someday.

P.S. I LOVE reading original movie reviews and found the New York Times' review of the film quite fascinating!

Romance in Manhattan (1935)

Romance in Manhattan is an absolute treat.  As a big Ginger Rogers fan, I expect to enjoy everything she's in, but this film proved to be so much more than I thought it would be. The story has a lot of heart and I was completely charmed by the characters.

Released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1935, the film stars Frances Lederer as Karel Novak, a Czech immigrant who makes the trip to America with his life savings and the expectation of a chance at a better life.  He's managed to save up the $58 he needs to obtain citizenship, only to find out upon arrival that the price has gone up to $200.  Desperate, he offers to work off the balance owed, but to no avail. He is ordered to return to Czechoslovakia.

Heartbroken, he reluctantly boards the ship, but as he watches New York City grow smaller in the distance he finds it impossible to leave after all he went through to get there, so he jumps ship and swims to shore. He doesn't realize until later that he has lost all of the money he had, leaving him flat-broke and homeless in a strange city.

Enter Ginger Rogers as Sylvia Dennis, a spunky chorus girl who happens upon Karel sneaking food left out for her and her fellow chorus girls outside of their club. She permits him to eat his fill and even offers him money, but he refuses, insisting all he really wants is a job. She offers to speak with her brother to see if he knows of anything available. Her brother, Frank (Jimmy Butler) is only about thirteen years old, but he agrees to share his gig selling newspapers with Karel until he's able to find a better job, and Sylvia provides Karel with blankets so he can sleep on the roof of their building.

Everything is rosy...for a while. From there we see the trio suffer through unemployment and trouble with the law, but nothing is so bad it can't be fixed, right? (Especially in a romantic drama released during the Depression!)

Primarily the story focuses on Karel's journey as an illegal immigrant trying to make it in Depression-era New York City. It's wonderful to see him triumph in spite of the many obstacles in his path. Sylvia's close bond with her precocious little brother is also a delight, as is the expected - but very sweet - love story with Karel.

Jimmy Butler is adorable as Frank. He appeared in several movies from the early thirties through the early forties (including Stella Dallas and Boys Town) before joining the army during World War II. He died in combat on February 18, 1945 - two days before his 24th birthday.

(The film's director, Stephen Roberts, died from a heart attack at age 40 the year after Romance in Manhattan was released. This was his final picture.)

The film also features J. Farrell MacDonald as a no-nonsense, kind-hearted police officer and the wonderful Donald Meek doing what he does best as a nervous judge.

Overall, I found a lot to enjoy in Romance in Manhattan. It's short and sweet with a great script and characters to root for - I highly recommend it. If you love Ginger Rogers and films made in the thirties, this one is a must.

I Love You Again (1940)

For me, Myrna Loy is never better than when she's playing verbal volleyball with William Powell and I Love You Again is another fantastic demonstration of the pair's chemistry: chock full of sass and those droll one-liners that Loy and Powell both do so well.  

Released in 1940 by MGM Studios, the film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke (who directed Powell and Loy in the first four movies of The Thin Man series) and went on to be a big success. 

I Love You Again stars William Powell as stuffy, penny-pinching businessman Larry Wilson...at first.  The film opens at the bar on a vacation cruise and here we meet Larry, whose uptight personality has earned him quite a reputation with his fellow passengers, who call him Grape Juice Man in reference to his signature drink: ginger ale and grape juice.

On the last night of the cruise, an inebriated man named 'Doc' Ryan (Frank McHugh) hassles Larry for being too high-and-mighty to have a drink with him, but when Doc slips and falls into the ocean, Larry jumps in after him and winds up saving his life, taking an oar to the head while he's at it. 

   

The blow knocks him unconscious and when he comes to, Larry Wilson is no more.  Doc is there in his room with him, wishing to befriend the man who saved his life, but the two of them soon discover that he is not the same man that just rescued Doc from drowning.  

Larry Wilson is really George Carey, a suave conman who suffered amnesia for the past nine years after he took a blow to the head.  Unfortunately for George, he has no memory of his life as Larry Wilson - he doesn't know what he does for a living or even where he lives, but a quick glance at his bank account balance indicates that he has saved up a sizable chunk of money ripe for the taking.

So, in typical swindler fashion, he decides to go "home" to Habersville, New York and collect his money, which he agrees to share with Doc in exchange for his assistance in pulling it off. 

He doesn't count on the surprise waiting for him at the pier, though: turns out he's married to a beautiful woman named Kay (Myrna Loy) and he thinks it's his lucky day, but he soon finds out that he and his wife are separated and she is ready to make the separation legal.  So much so that she's already seeing other people.

George doesn't care all that much, at first.  After all, Kay is really Larry's wife, not George's, and he doesn't feel one way or the other about her or anyone else in Habersville.  All he wants is the money.  Unfortunately, nothing is ever easy and he learns that the hundred grand he thought was his is, in fact, money held in trust for community projects.  He only has a modest savings to call his own.

So George, ever the enterprising fellow, cooks up a scheme to bilk some of the town's wealthier men out of their money.  But when the best laid plans mix with the worst of intentions, George finds himself in spot after spot of trouble, all the while falling in love with his own wife.  

Will George go through with it or will he choose Larry's life over George's?

There are so many fantastic scenes in the film: George dancing with himself, Kay dumping eggs on George's head, George tramping through the woods with a troupe of reverent Boy Scouts.  William Powell is very funny as debonair George Carey, especially in scenes that put George out of his element.   Powell delivers his lines with perfect timing and inflection, but this role also showcases his skill as a physical comedian, which is an absolute treat.  

Myrna Loy is fantastic, as always.  She doesn't get as much screen time here as in some of her other pairings with Powell, but she is effective and engaging in every one of her scenes.  She is the perfect counterpart to Powell's character: wholly (and often humorously) unimpressed with George, who is using every trick in the book to win her back.  

The supporting cast is good.  Frank McHugh as Doc, George Carey's partner of sorts, is funny and gets a lot of good lines.  I enjoyed his performance a lot. The film also features Nella Walker as Kay's mother,  Donald Douglas as Kay's boyfriend and Edmund Lowe as the "villain of the piece".

I Love You Again is a wonderful film.  The story is original, fast-paced and immensely funny.  I love every minute of it.