Director: Edwin L. Marin
This briskly-paced programmer packs an impressive number of action sequences into its hour running time. Chester Morris stars as an aviator who is given the task of transporting a child (Scotty Beckett) to Mexico so that his mother won’t lose the custody battle. He’s accompanied by a child protective agent played by Sally Eilers, who initially despises him before their mutual affection grows (they begin their adventure handcuffed together!). Director Edwin L. Marin ably handles the suspense of his action scenes, especially an early one in which Morris chases and eventually leaps onto a runaway plane to save a child. The cutting between the long-shots of the plane, Morris’ heroic stunt, and the child in fear shows a Griffithian eye for how to stage and edit a suspense scene. Beyond such excitements, what makes the film really work is the chemistry between the underrated stars. Their bantering on country roads reminds one of It Happened One Night, and Eilers in particular is up to the task of inviting such a weighty comparison. The child at the center of it all, on the other hand, is a weakness–he seems like an afterthought for most of the picture, and only tends to be used to create problems for the couple to solve.
Director: Edwin L. Marin
The third of the Maisie films is a radical diversion from other installments in the series. While it follows the expected outline of the stranded Maisie (Ann Sothern) trying her best to make a living in a new locale, it just about abandons her romantic exploits (although chemistry is occasionally teased between her and a hermetic rancher played by Lee Bowman) and takes on a much more somber tone. It seems absurd to put the brassy showgirl in the middle of The Grapes of Wrath, but something about the mix works. After all, Maisie is an icon of the working class–a woman who begins every film with nowhere to go and by the end of it finds some level of financial success and changes lives while she’s at it. Gold Rush Maisie seriously confronts poverty by introducing the Davis family (Virginia Weidler, Mary Nash, John F. Hamilton & Scotty Beckett), a Joad family knockoff who she gains an enormous affection for. The tropes of the noble poor are the expected ones (in their introduction, the matriarch distributes a paltry supper to her family and takes the least for herself), but Sothern’s reaction shots and the calm sincerity in which she talks to the family really sells the dynamic. Although it doesn’t provide the laughs and lightness of tone expected of the series, Gold Rush Maisie is one of the more interesting installments.
Director: Edwin L. Marin
Ann Sothern’s career had floundered at Columbia and RKO for several years before she was given an MGM contract and attached to a property originally intended for Jean Harlow: Maisie. It was the first of what would be a series of ten films and it laid the groundwork for what would follow. Maisie Revere is a sassy, out-of-work showgirl who finds herself in a humiliating job until she meets a man that she initially finds repulsive. Fate shifts her into a new career path, and gradually she starts falling for the man that she had initially hated. Other than the excellent Sothern, the pleasure of the Maisie series is how improbably it hops between genres–look no further than the juxtaposition between this low-key romantic western and its successor in the series, which involves Revere falling for an African rubber plantation owner in the middle of the jungle. Robert Young is the love interest, playing a salt-of-the-Earth misogynist (he confesses that he distrusts all women because of a failed relationship in his past). Young seems reluctant to indulge the bitterness of his character and ultimately he feels too restrained and bland to bring out passion in the spunky Revere. It’s a shaky start to what is ultimately an enjoyable series, but Sothern is reliably excellent, as is the urbane, capricious Ruth Hussey in a supporting role.
Director: Edwin L. Marin
A surprising programmer that involves a few refreshing departures from usual mystery conventions, Moonlight Murder stars Leo Carrillo as a womanizing opera singer who is told that if he sings at his next performance he will die. Because the inevitable happens much later than one might expect, for a short while the audience is left questioning whether or not a game of misdirection is being played. Enter detective Steve Farrell (Chester Morris) and scientist Toni Adams (Madge Evans) to crack the case. The picture has no shortage of potential suspects and will manage to surprise even seasoned mystery consumers. More striking than the reveal itself is the way that it’s handled–absent is the familiar scene in which the detective marches around a room filled with suspects who respond by glancing at each other suspiciously while the case is spelled out in all of its details. Rather, it’s an unusual narrative in that the focus seems to shrink smaller and smaller in scope as it continues, culminating in one of the most intimate and sympathetic confessions one could expect of the genre. Director Edwin L. Marin worked on some underrated B-pictures, and here he takes some artful risks along the way. Immediately following the murder, an extended amount of time is given to watching the continued opera performance, as if performing a eulogy for the fallen singer while several funeral processions of sorts happen concurrently.
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