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Reviews
So Dear to My Heart (1948)
Even minor Disney movies from the lare40's- early 50's were exquisite 50's
This film was another opportunity to see the talented Bobby Driscoll(possibly the best child actor of all time) and Luana Patten(the epitome of feminine demureness and modesty in a child actress). Although not as good overall as The Song of the South, which featured Driscoll and Patten at a younger age, this film celebrates the anglo-protestant core of America, and the honesty and religious values of America's past before Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson launched us on the road to empire-a road Americans never wanted to travel. The animated beginning is poignant, and the Christian faith that unselfconciously permeates the film portray America's rural past as an idyll, The cast is superb-Harry Carey captures perfectly the kindly rectitude of an older generation of Americans as the chief livestock judge at the county fair-he has the air of a stern but insightful church deacon, touched by and concerned with rewarding the virtues he sees in the emerging generation of his day. Beulah Bondi is superb as the stern but wise and loving grandmother. Each of the adults, even Uncle Hiram(Burl Ives) show a commendable concern for the children, providing not only for their safety but protecting their souls as well. What a wonderful world we once had!
The Kid from Borneo (1933)
One of the very best
Millions of children howled with delight when they saw this film on television in the 50's, and its just as funny today! Although there is arguably a subtle anti-miscegenation message here-what would happen if white children actually had a black uncle?-you must understand that sex, not race, was the taboo topic then, and 1930's audiences would have thought this perfectly appropriate comic fare, but would have been shocked and offended by what we would regard as the mildest of sexual innuendo found in current comedies! Children, however, are impressed by the madcap frenetic pace of the film, and the musical score that matches the action so perfectly-it is a work of true artistry in this regard. Most of the best Our Gang comedies have a racial theme-check out "Little Sinner" or"A Lad and a Lamp", for example. The comedy is nonetheless excellent-it's a marvel that they did so well on such a small budget. Anyone who can't appreciate these films is wound a little too tightly.
The Body Snatcher (1945)
A fine performance that shows Karloff's true acting abilities
This movie was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's short story of the same name. Both were inspired by Burke and Hare, two immigrant irish cabmen who "moonlighted" as "resurrection men"-a euphemism for grave robbers who didn't rob graves of valuables buried with the dead, but provided fresh cadavers to medical schools for anatomical instruction. When their craft became increasingly difficult due to the guarding of graveyards by an outraged public, they began offing derelicts to use instead, and became Scotland's most prolific mass-murderers to date. This occurred in Edinburgh in the 1820's. Karloff's character refers to these murders when, in the scene in which he murders the Lugosi character, he demonstrates to the thick-witted Lugosi character how the infamous pair "Burked" their victims. In Stevenson's short story, the tale is told from the viewpoint of Fettes, the one-time protégé of Dr. McFarland who has become a ruined man haunted by his complicity in McFarland's crimes. The occasion for the short story is a chance meeting between the two, years later, at a remote country inn. There is an element of class warfare between the two, which Karloff transfers to his Gray the cabman character. The dialogue between McFarland(portrayed pitch-perfect by veteran English character actor Henry Daniell)and Karloff's Gray is crisp and intelligent, although the Fettes character in the film is insipid, totally unlike the Fettes of the short story. Karloff's character is forced, by a rigid class system that undoubtedly existed in 1820's Edinburgh, to subsist as a hansom cab taxi driver, who moonlights as a "resurrection man" for McFarland. He realizes he has Toddy over a barrel, and defies convention by publicly embarrassing him. McFarland can do nothing for fear that Gray will spill the beans. In an interesting parallel subplot, Lugosi, as Toddy's thick-witted, immigrant servant Joseph(another excellent performance), tries to blackmail Gray, who lures him to his humble quarters on the pretext of paying him off, but instead murdering him, and getting paid by the unknowing Fettes for the corpse as just another anatomical specimen. Gray's goals are more subtle-he enjoys the power his complicity and knowledge give him over his "better" Toddy, and he gets revenge upon him and the entire social order through these manipulations. Gray's manipulative intelligence draws the audience into an uneasy empathy with the character, and reveals Karloff's acting genius. It's a shame the movie neglects certain high points of the short story, particularly McFarland's chilling "lions and lambs" speech to Fettes, but the movie provides psychological and intellectual insights of its own. If not for the sappy subplot about the little girl needing surgery-totally pedestrian-this might have been a great film.