The African Queen (1951)

Meet Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). Charlie's a happy man. He's got it all figured out. Charlie owns a small steam launch called the African Queen. Charlie and the Queen make a living ferrying passengers, freight and mail up and down the Ulanga River in German East Africa. Charlie is living the good life...or so he thinks. Then World War I breaks out and everything changes. Suddenly, all of the non-German residents are enemies. When the Germans raid a mission run by the Reverend Samuel Sayer (Robert Morely) and his sister Rose (Katherine Hepburn), Charlie comes to evacuate them. Unfortunately, he's too late to save the reverend, who dies of fever. When Charlie tries to take Rose back up river to safety, she comes up with a counter plan. She wants to sail downstream to Lake Tanganyika and destroy the Louisa, a German gunboat that plies the waters of the lake. Charlie tries to point out the impossibility of the trip: there's a German fort to get past; there are rapids; there's a dense swamp. Rose is adamant, though. They must do this for England. Reluctantly, Charlie agrees, and they argue their way down river. When Charlie gets drunk soon after they start out, Rose dumps all of his alcohol overboard. By the time they've made it past the fort and shot the rapids, both Charlie and Rose have changed. They begin to see each other in a new light. Yes, they fall in love. And the harder their journey becomes, the deeper in love they fall. By the time they finally - and miraculously - reach the lake, they are a committed pair. Charlie fashions crude torpedoes out of dynamite and oxygen cylinders, and they head out onto Lake Tanganyika to sink the Louisa. Unfortunately, a storm sinks the African Queen instead. Picked up by the Louisa, Charlie and Rose beg the ships captain to marry them before they are executed as spies. As the doomed couple say "I do," the Louisa strikes the half submerged hulk of the African Queen, detonating the torpedoes. The Louisa sinks, and Charlie and Rose swim off to safety.

Well, that - in a nut shell - is the story. It doesn't sound like much when you read it that way. You have to experience it. The African Queen is simply one of the finest movies ever made. Based on the novel by E. M. Forester, and directed by John Huston, it is the only movie for which Humphrey Bogart won an academy award during his long career. It is also a movie that nearly killed everyone involved in the making of it. The movie was shot largely on location in Africa, and dysentery, malaria, contaminated water and wild animals were a constant danger. The only members of the cast and crew who didn't get sick were Bogart and Huston who lived on a diet of baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Bogart famously said, "Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead." Katherine Hepburn was so sick with dysentery during the filming that a bucket had to be kept just off camera for her to throw up in between takes. Now that's dedication. And that dedication brought forth a movie worth watching again and again. Bogart's portrayal of the lazy, drunken Allnut is one of the finest of his career, and his Oscar was well deserved. Hepburn is fantastic as the straight-laced Rose Sayer, who can't help but fall in love with her surly, pickled companion. It's fun to watch the relationship between the two characters grow and blossom into a deep abiding love. And the scenery and cinematography are amazing as well. It's just hard to imagine what Huston and his crew had to do in order to film this movie. They had to build a raft in order to float all of the camera equipment to get shots inside of the Queen when it was out on the water.

All in all, The African Queen is just a great visual feast, as well as being a whole lot of fun to watch. The movie is rated G, and it's filmed in Technicolor (it was, in fact, Katherine Hepburn's first color movie). Runtime is 105 minutes, and it's worth every second.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) is a teacher at Brookfield Academy, a British boarding school. Unfortunately, he's not a very good teacher. None of the boys like him. None of the other teachers do either. None except Staefel (Paul Henreid), the German teacher. One summer, Staefel invites Chipping to come along with him on a walking tour of the Tyrol. Chipping reluctantly agrees. It is a decision that will change his life. While climbing a mountain in Switzerland, Chipping becomes lost in dense cloud cover and stumbles across Katherine (Greer Garson), who is also lost. They decide to wait together. They share sandwiches. They share a coat. By the time they are rescued, the die has been cast. When Mr. Chipping returns to Brookfield for the start of the new season, he brings with him Katherine as Mrs. Chipping. Katherine has a decidedly positive effect on everyone she meets. The other teachers go gaga over her, as do all of the boys. More importantly, though, Katherine changes Mr. Chipping. She softens him. She opens him up. Where he was once a strict disciplinarian, he now overlooks little infractions of the rules. Where he was once stern, he now begins to tell jokes. This, of course, has a marvelous effect on the boys. No longer do they fear him. Instead, they all like the person he's become. He is now Mr. Chips, the beloved schoolmaster. But life has more turns in store for Chips. With little warning, Katherine dies giving birth to their first child. The child dies too. At first, Chips is devastated. Then, he realizes that Katherine will always be in his heart. As the years go by, Chips guides many young boys through adolescence and into manhood. During World War I, Chips comes out of retirement and takes over as headmaster of the school, shepherding Brookfield through the dark days of the war, watching with growing sorrow as so many of his former students and colleagues march off to their death. Finally, old and frail, Chips too must shuffle off this mortal coil. While on his deathbed, one of his friends says that it's too bad Chips never had any children of his own. Mr. Chips replies that he had hundreds of children, and they were all boys.

Sam Woods' Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a sappy, sentimental film about the effect one school teacher can have on the lives of many pupils, and the effect those pupils can have on the life of that one teacher. It's also a film about redemption, as the unpopular Mr. Chipping is transformed by his love for Katherine into the much-adored Mr. Chips. Having never read the James Hilton novel on which it's based, I don't know how faithful this version is to the original, but it is my favorite version of this story (at least one other version was filmed in 1969, a musical starring Peter O'Toole). I love watching the transformative effect that love has on Mr. Chips. I also enjoy watching the friendship that grows between Chips and Staefel, a friendship that endures even when they are on opposite sides during the war. Robert Donat is wonderful as both the severe Mr. Chipping and the lovable Mr. Chips. They do a pretty good job of aging him down through the decades too. He's really quite believable as the young, the middle aged and the elderly man. Of course, Greer Garson is radiant as always as the gentle, loving Katherine who always sees the good in everyone. It's also fun to watch the parade of Colley's who come marching through the school - John, his son Peter I, followed by Peter II, and Peter III, all played by young Terry Kilburn. If you're in the mood for a good tear-jerking, feel-good film, then Goodbye, Mr. Chips is just the ticket.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips is rated G. It's filmed in glorious black and white and has a runtime of 114 minutes.

Tomorrow Is Forever (1946)

The year is 1917. America has finally entered WWI. Young John McDonald (Orson Welles) signs up to do his patriotic duty. His pregnant wife, Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) isn't so sure that this is such a good idea. He tells her not to worry, that the war will be over in no time and he'll be back home with her. She's not so sure. Maybe she has a premonition. John walks out the door, never to walk back into it. Fast-forward twenty four years. America is on the verge of another world war. Elizabeth has been happily married to Lawrence Hamilton (George Brent) since John disappeared. She has two sons: Drew (Richard Long) and Brian (Sonny Howe). Brian is Lawrence's son; Drew is John's. Lawrence has raised him as his own son, however, so he doesn't know that he's not. One day, a man comes into Lawrence's factory to look for a job. His name is Erik Kessler. He's a chemist. He fled Germany with his young daughter Margaret (Natalie Wood). Lawrence hires Kessler. What nobody knows is that Erik Kessler is John McDonald. He was severely injured during WWI, his body crippled, his face disfigured. Instead of going home, he stayed in Germany. He didn't want to burden his young wife with a crippled husband. Better, he decides, if she thinks he's dead. He became a chemist, lived his life. Margaret was the daughter of John/Erik's best friend, Dr. Ludwig (John Wengraf), the surgeon who saved his life. When the doctor was killed by the Nazis, John/Erik adopted Margaret.

When Elizabeth first meets John/Erik, she finds him oddly familiar, but she can't place where she's seen him before. Besides, she has other problems. Her son Drew wants to enlist in the war. Elizabeth fears a repetition of the tragedy with John and refuses to let him. One rainy night, when Lawrence is out of town, Drew runs away with some of his buddies to enlist. Not able to reach Lawrence, Elizabeth turns to John/Erik for help. He goes out into the stormy night and catches up with Drew at the train station. He tries to convince the boy to wait until he has finished school before enlisting. After some serious arm twisting, Drew finally agrees and accompanies John/Erik home, still not knowing that the man in the cab with him is his true father. Later, John/Erik takes ill from being out in the storm. To his dying breath, he insists that he is Erik Kessler, even though Elizabeth knows that he is really her long, lost husband, John McDonald. Referring to Lawrence, John/Erik tells Elizabeth, "Here is the one you wait for. No other man is your husband." After John/Erik dies, Elizabeth and Lawrence adopt Margaret.

Irving Pichel's Tomorrow Is Forever is one of the finest films that Orson Welles ever made. Sure, he's great in Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, but he's never played a more tender role than that of Erik Kessler. He is simply fantastic. His character is a broken, sad man, and the depth of passion that Welles is able to evoke with just the slightest movement of his sad eyes is unbelievable. And Claudette Colbert is fantastic as Elizabeth, the woman whose dead husband walks back through her front door one day. As the film progresses, and you watch Elizabeth slowly figuring out who Kessler is, your heart aches for these two souls, but mostly for John/Erik. And that's due entirely to the strength of Welles' performance. George Brent puts in a strong performance as Lawrence Hamilton, the man whose entire world stands on the brink of destruction, and Richard Long is great as the hot-headed Drew, the young man who wants so badly to get into the war, not understanding - as his parents do - just how destructive war can really be. Natalie Wood (this was her 3rd film) is charming as little Margaret, who knows far more about the destruction of war than Drew does. And therein lies the message of this film and the reason that it still works so well today. Tomorrow Is Forever was made just as America was emerging from its second world war in less than three decades. Americans knew well then what Americans are just finding out again - war destroys lives.

Tomorrow Is Forever is rated G. It is filmed in glorious black and white and has a running time of 105 minutes.

The Petrified Forest (1936)

Far out in the Arizona desert sits a small gas station and diner. It's a dusty, ramshackle sort of place, the kind of establishment that used to dot the landscape of rural America in the days before cookie-cutter chain gas stations and fast food joints moved in. You can fill your tank, check your oil, make sure your radiator is topped off, then grab a bite to eat and be on your way again. You always go on your way again. This is the kind of place that people pass through. No one ever stops here. It's run by Jason Maple (Porter Hall), a veteran of World War I and a man of no importance except in his own mind. He's helped out by his father, Gramps (Charlie Grapewin), and his daughter, Gabrielle (Bette Davis). There are a couple of hired hands too - a cook (Nina Campana) and a gas pump attendant named Boze (Dick Foran). Together, they keep the place running, feed the hungry customers and their thirsty cars. Jason and Gramps dream of their past glories; Gabrielle dreams of her future ones. She wants to leave Arizona, wants to go to Paris where her mother lives, wants to study art. But this is 1936, in the middle of the Great Depression, and money is tight. Boze thinks he knows what Gabrielle really needs. You can guess what that is.

One day, Alan Squire (Leslie Howard) stumbles into this enclave of desperation and longing. He's hitchhiking across the country, heading to California. He has a notion that he'd like to see the Pacific Ocean, thinks it would be a good place to drown himself. When Alan and Gabrielle meet, the air crackles with electricity. These are two kindred spirits, meant for each other. And in a fairer universe, they would have been. But Alan, a man who has failed at everything, is worn out, weary of the world. Gabrielle is young and in love with life and dreaming of all that she is going to do. She's not yet known the bitterness of disappointment, of failure, of love gone sour, of life's dreams unfulfilled. Life to her is still a Christmas present with the paper on it, and she's giddy with the anticipation of opening it. Alan's already opened it. All he got was coal. But Alan believes in Gabrielle. He praises her paintings. Encourages her to follow her dreams, not Boze's or her father's. She gives him a free meal and a dollar. Arranges a ride for him with a wealthy couple who are passing through. They part reluctantly.

And here the story might have ended, were it not for Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart). Mantee is a bank robber and a murderer - a character modelled on John Dillinger - on the lamb with his gang. They're heading for Mexico, when their car breaks down. They steal the car owned by the wealthy couple that Alan is riding in. While the couple's chauffeur attempts to get the stalled car running again, Alan hoofs it back to the gas station, fearing for Gabrielle's safety. When he gets there, Mantee and his gang have already arrived. Alan joins the hostages. Soon the wealthy couple shows up, and they're taken hostage too. Now begins a tense stand-off, a handful of unarmed citizens held by a bunch of armed thugs. But Mantee has a soft spot. He's waiting for a girl. Mantee, the famous killer, is in love, and that love will be his downfall. When the cops arrive, as we know they will, bullets fly. I won't say anymore. Don't wanna give away the ending. Best watch yourself to see who lives, who dies, who's stuck in the petrified forest, and who leaves.

Archie Mayo's The Petrified Forest is one of the most outstanding films ever made. Based on the stage play by Robert E. Sherwood, almost all of the action takes place in or outside of the little dessert gas station. This gives the film a claustrophobic feeling, one that is helped by the immensity of the Arizona dessert that forms the backdrop for all that happens. This was Bogart's breakout role. Of course, he had been in other movies, had made twelve films in the previous eight years, including two with Bette Davis. But his portrayal of the cold-blooded killer, Duke Mantee, is what made Bogart a household name. Bogart had starred in the stage play with Leslie Howard. When Warner Brothers decide to do the film, Howard was asked to reprise his role, but the studio wanted Edward G. Robinson to play Duke Mantee. Howard refused to do the film unless Bogart was given the part of Mantee. WB gave in. The rest, as they say, is movie history.

There's a lot of desperation in The Petrified Forest. A lot of hope and idealism too, and some pretty heroic stuff going on. You'll want to see for yourself. You won't regret that you did.

The Petrified Forest is rated G and is filmed in glorious black and white.

Enchanted April (1992)

Mike Newell's Enchanted April, adapted from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, is one of those rare gems of a movie that come along every now and then and sail right under the radar. I'm always amazed at how many people have never heard of this film. Everything about this movie is perfect, from the cast to the stunning scenery that forms the backdrop of the the action. The only complaint I ever had with this film was that it took so long to bring it out on DVD. The movie originally came out in '92, but it wasn't released on DVD until just last year.

The story starts on a rainy London day in the years right after WWI. Two women, Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence) and Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson) are fed up with the day to day humdrum of their middle-class lives and decide to spend April in an Italian villa, which they rent from George Briggs (Michael Kitchen). Because they don't have a lot of money, they advertise for two companions to join them and share the expense. Their ad is answered by Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), and aging dowager, and Lady Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), a disillusioned young socialite. Lottie's husband Mellersh (Alfred Molina) - a family lawyer - is outraged that his wife would want to go on a vacation without him; Rose's husband Frederick (Jim Broadbent) - a writer of scandalous romances - thinks it's a great idea. Once the four women arrive at San Salvatore, the villa begins to work its magic upon them. You see them unfold beneath the hot Mediterranean sun, melt into the exquisite landscape. Their guards come down. So do their pretenses and facades. Lottie invites Mellersh to come and join her. She knows that the villa will change him too. It does. Then Rose invites Frederick. He arrives - having not received her letter - looking for Caroline, who he has a passion for. The villa's magic takes care of that as well. By the end, all are friends, including Mr. Briggs who came to see how things were going and was invited to stay on.

Enchanted April is not a loud or a fast paced movie. There aren't any chase scenes or gun fights or explosions in it. There are no CGI effects to wow the audience. You won't see any nudity or sex or even hear any profanity. What you will get, instead, is a truly wonderful story - one could say magical - set against some of the most enchanting scenery in the whole world. The musical score is lovely and relaxing, and the cinematography takes full advantage of the breathtaking Italian coast. Some would call Enchanted April a chick-flick. I disagree. It is a movie for anyone who is tired of rushing around and multi-tasking and just wants to enjoy a film that unfolds itself gradually, carefully, until it arrives at a totally satisfying conclusion.

Enchanted April is rated PG.

Random Harvest (1942)

Random Harvest is a four-hankie weepie from 1942, starring Ronald Colman as Charles Rainier, aka Smith, a wealthy man who loses his memory during WWI then regains it again with tragic results, and Greer Garson as Paula, the wife he forgets he had. I have to start right out by saying that I think Ronald Colman was one of the finest actors of the golden age of Hollywood. He had the look of a man who had witnessed great tragedies, coupled with what Stephen Vito of the American Film Institute called "a bewitching, finely-modulated, resonant voice." When you see him on screen, you think, "Here's a man who understands sorrow." I've never seen a film of his that I didn't enjoy, from Raffles to A Double Life.

Random Harvest opens at a mental institution that houses shell-shocked victims of WWI. Charles Rainier, known to the staff as merely "Smith", has lost all memory of who he is. On the night of the Armistice, "Smith" slips out of the hospital during the celebrations and meets Paula, a singer with a travelling variety show. When "Smith" is recognized as an escaped "loony", he and Paula run away together. They settle in a tiny village, marry and have a baby boy. Meanwhile, "Smith" starts writing newspaper articles, which get the attention of a Liverpool paper. When they offer him a job, "Smith" travels alone to Liverpool for an interview. While there, he's struck by a car and knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he's Charles Rainier once again, having forgotten everything that has happened to him, including his marriage to Paula. He immediately returns to his ancestral home and resumes that life he had before the war. His only clue to what happened during his missing years is a key, which he carries with him at all times.

The years go by in a brief montage, and we see Charles Rainier as the head of the family corporation, one of the great tycoons of England, engaged to be married to the beautiful, young Kitty (Susan Peters), and totally unaware that the woman who is now his personal secretary was once his wife, Paula. She and their son became ill shortly after "Smith's" disappearance, and their son died. When she recovered, she began searching for her lost husband, only to find that he had become someone else. To be near "Smith", Paula takes a job at his company, eventually working her way up to his personal secretary. And though he is around her every day, Charles still does not remember that he was once madly in love with Paula.

Meanwhile, Kitty breaks off her engagement to Charles when she realizes what Charles does not really love her - that he is, in fact, in love with someone else. At this point, Charles decides to run for public office. After he's elected to Parliament, Charles surprises Paula by asking her if she'll marry him, not out of love but because a politician needs a good wife. Paula agrees, even though she knows that Charles does not love her as "Smith" did. Will Charles ever regain his memory of the time that he was Smith? Will he ever remember that he loves the woman he's married to?

Random Harvest was not well received when it first came out, with the critics roundly panning both the plot line and the excessive melodrama. Colman did receive an Oscar nomination for his performance (which no one could fault), but he lost out in the end to Jimmy Cagne in Yankee Doodle Dandy. So, while I wouldn't classify it as a "great" movie, I still enjoy it immensely. It's a movie about redemption and the power of love to conquer all things, a movie about two people whose love for each other drives them through excruciating misery and loneliness as they try to regain something they lost. It's a movie that resonates in my life, having found again the lost love of my life. It's a movie that maybe we need in these days of disposable marriages, co-habitation and one night stands. For here is a film that says you can love just one person throughout your entire life and stay faithful to that person come what may. And that's a good message for any time.

Random Harvest is rated G and was filed in glorious black and white.