Set in 1940, but belatedly released until well after the USA had joined in the war. Lillian Hellman's play is sadly still much in evidence, as people talk and talk about Fascism and Hitler, until eventually things start happening in the third act.
And Dashiell Hammett, who's also credited on the screenplay, doesn't help matters. How it should have begun is with the scene that is only described later: Paul Lukas and his colleague breaking into a German HQ, stealing a list of names and then escaping across the Swiss border, pursued by Nazis. That way we would have had some excitement, plus we would get to know exactly who this fellow is rather than the vague 'I fight Fascism' blarney we have to sit through before getting to the facts. I don't even know what 'Watch on the Rhine' means.
It's not even a very successful or convincing Better Davis role, though George Coulouris as the Nazi in their midst is effectively creepy, and Lucile Watson and Beulah Bondi are fine as the mother / aunt. The kids provide a sort of comedy value I suppose, Lukas is good, and the romantic support comes from Geraldine Fitzgerald and Donald Woods. Plus: Henry Daniell, Kurt Katch, Clarence Muse.
Even Max Steiner's music (orchestrated by Hugo Friedhofer) lacks punch. Expertly photographed by Hal Mohr and Merrit Gerstad. I learn from Maltin's 'The Art of the Cinematographer' that Shumlin was a stage director who didn't know anything about making films. When it wasn't working out Warners called in Hal Mohr to take over the cinematography and after Shumlin had rehearsed a scene, it was Mohr who would 'plot out the mechanics of how we would shoot this sequence'. A rare Hal Wallis misfire. Rudi Fehr is the editor.
One good thing that was interesting is that Warner Bros understood early what was going on in Hitler's Germany and pulled out of distributing films there as early as 1934/5, whilst the others merrily went on selling them there right up until the war.
Fehr makes a more positive impact in Humoresque, particularly in musical performance scenes where we're watching the response of the audience to violin virtuoso John Garfield and to each other, the interested parties being his sponsor Joan Crawford, his previous (and much nicer) girlfriend Joan Chandler and his parents J. Caroll Naish and Ruth Nelson (good). Also good is his smart-talking pianist accompanist Oscar Levant. But here's the problem - actually way too many musical performance scenes. The film's two hours, and I would have cut fifteen minutes of performance footage.
The other main problem, especially for Q, is that the Crawford character gets a divorce, and her man, but realises she will never mean as much to him as the Music, so goes off into an alcoholic sulk before submitting to the waves - how very A Star Is Born.
So overall another disappointment, though I do have to mention an amazing, almost Man With A Movie Camera quality- montage, by James Leicester (though what part it plays in the film overall I'd have to question). And some of Negulesco's connecting shots are a bit cheesy.
Lovely cinematography by Ernie Haller, and Garfield is brilliant. (He's played as a child by In Cold Blood's Robert Blake). Paul Cavanagh is Crawford's husband. Written by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold, from Fannie Hurst story.
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