In the year of Barbenheimer, The Canterville Ghost—animated in a style similar to but more accomplished than the popular Barbie direct-to-video movies for youngsters—offers a strong female character that girls can identify with in a life-or-death adventure that prominently features science and progress. Think Scooby-Do! mysteries, but with a real ghost that, despite having a history of haunting people for hundreds of years, meets his match when an American family visits and isn’t a bit scared. In fact, they torment him.
Has he lost it, or are these Americans something quite different from Brits? And will this ghost sink into depression or be lifted up by the family’s brave and compassionate daughter?
Though aimed at children, this Shout! Studios release holds appeal for adults as well, since it’s a fairly close adaptation of an Oscar Wilde story.
Out of the 30 Canterville Ghost films and TV movies/episodes that have been made since 1944, only a literal handful have been animated. This entry is one of the best because it offers a more hardened and hearty version of the teenage daughter that drives the narrative, but softens the crime that’s at the center of Wilde’s 1887 story. In the original and in other film/TV versions, the genial and hapless ghost, Sir Simon, is doomed to haunt his mansion, Canterville Chase, because he killed his wife. In this UK version, he’s deeply in love with his wife, and related circumstances caused him to forever wander the grounds until someone like Virginia came along.
This animated version features distinctive characters and rich nonverbal depictions. Crisply paced, it holds no-scare appeal for all ages because the ghost encounters are played for laughs. It’s only toward the end of the film that the daughter, who has befriended the ghost, decides to fulfill the prophecy that will allow the Canterville ghost to rest in peace.
To tell the story, director Kim Burdon and co-director Robert Chandler enlisted top voice talent Stephen Fry (The Morning Show, Danger Mouse) to follow in the footsteps of such actors as Charles Laughton, Patrick Stewart, and David Niven in playing Sir Simon. Emily Carey (House of the Dragon) voices the other main role of Virginia, while additional voice talents include Imelda Staunton (The Crown, Harry Potter films), Hugh Laurie (House), and Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
Released for Valentine’s Day, while laughs and mischief predominate, The Canterville Ghost does have a little romance in it: Sir Simon’s centuries-old love for his wife, and a blossoming love between Virginia and the heir of Sir Simon’s rival.
Female characters in children’s movies have come a long ways, and Virginia emerges as a strong character who isn’t artificially so. Her actions and attitudes are a reflection of today’s young girls and teens who, at the very least, are the equal sex.
Rated PG for thematic elements, peril and some violence
Language: 1/10—I didn’t catch anything offensive
Sex: 1/10—Nothing here kids can’t see
Violence: 3/10—Comic for the first two-thirds, after which there’s one party scene where guests are genuinely terrified and a third-act sequence where Virginia confronts Death personified; some swordfighting, objects hurled, etc.
Adult situations: 2/10—Some drinking in a social situation, the discovery of a skeleton, and a scene in which Virginia and Sir Simon both appear to be doomed
Takeaway: The Canterville Ghost 2023 is a solid animated film that should get plenty of replays. Though not available on Blu-ray, you can get it at Walmart and other retailers and purchase/rent from digital platforms like AppleTV, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft, DirecTV, DISH, et alia
Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, merited a chapter in the 2018 book Shapers of American Childhood, and why wouldn’t she? Barbie was a blank slate. For the first time, girls had a doll that wasn’t a baby who dictated pretend motherhood play. With Barbie, they had a doll who was ostensibly a teen or adult, and that invited them to pretend play in a totally different way. They could be more than nurturing mothers.
Sure, Hasbro coined the term “action figure” to apply to a similar sized doll—G.I. Joe—that would appeal to boys, but that was in 1964. Barbie debuted in 1959, and though Mattel marketed her originally as a “fashion doll” with multiple outfits to buy and rotate, she had moveable arms, legs, and head, same as the army doll. Girls could pose her to ride in her pink convertible or boat, surf at the beach, swim in her pool, shop at the stores, or work behind the desk as a business executive. So yeah, a case can also be made for Barbie being the first action figure.
But through four waves of feminist criticism, Barbie also has come under fire for everything from the unnatural “ideal” shape of her body and what it does to girls’ self-image, to some of the things that the talking Barbies said (“Math is hard”) and early attempts at diversity that still used the same body mold and Caucasian features.
Barbie the live-action film (not to be confused with the 42 animated and streaming TV films) celebrates the iconic nature of the doll and is chock full of allusions to the wardrobe and accessories of Barbies past. The thoughts behind Barbie’s creation—“A doll can help change the world” and “You can be anything”—celebrate the creator’s intent and Barbie’s iconic status. But that’s offset by the campy Zoolander airheadedness of the various Barbies and Kens. Surprisingly, the criticisms are also taken into account, with plenty of jokes and allusions. The result is a rich assessment of a doll that was an important part of postwar American culture—a clever film that manages to have it both ways. For that, credit co-writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, as well as Gerwig’s direction.
Barbie, as the world knows by now, stars Margot Robbie as the title character, and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the doll who exists only in relation to Barbie as a kind of accessory. Almost every other female is also named Barbie to reflect the different models and types that were produced over the decades, and there’s more than one Ken as well. The elevator pitch for this film could have been made between two floors: First Barbie, then Ken has an existential crisis.
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling nail it as the main Barbie and Ken, the forever California beach-culture kids who never age and never seem to change in a sort of utopian alternate reality where all Barbies are successful businesswomen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and elected officials, while Kens are just arm candy and perpetual beach boys with nothing to do but be “Ken.” That in itself makes for a clever construct of an inverted world.
There’s also something Elf-like about Barbie. Like Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf, a wide-eyed, naïve Barbie and Ken leave their highly stylized fantasy world full of bright colors for the industrial look of the real world. The result is a fish-out-of-water comedy. Buddy was on a mission to find his “naughty” father, while Barbie is told by “Weird Barbie” (Kate McKinnon) that she needs to travel to the real world to find the child who’s playing with her in order to get to the bottom of why she’s experiencing sudden concerns about mortality and discovering such human imperfections as cellulite, bad breath, and flat feet. Like Back to the Future, the reason for having to go back might be crucial to the plot, but it’s not the source of pleasure. Juxtapositions between the two worlds are, and Ken’s discovery that in the real world men (rhymes with Ken) are in charge. Suddenly he’s embracing “the patriarchy” and bringing those ideas back to Barbieland.
So far Barbie is the highest grossing film of 2023, and the film’s musical numbers received 11 Grammy nominations. Even if it wasn’t half of the pop-culture “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that saw post-COVID moviegoers flocking to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer because they were released about the same time, odds are that Barbie would have been a tremendous success because it appeals to both Barbie fans and critics. Throw in musical numbers and humor, and it expands the appreciative audience even more. And the soundtrack features Ava Max, Charli XCX, Dominic Fike, Fifty Fifty, Gayle, Haim, Ice Spice, Kali, Karol G, Khalid, Sam Smith, Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Pink Pantheress, Tame Impala, the Kid Laroi, and cast members.
Because of its complexity and ideational juggling act, Barbie the movie ends up being as much of a blank slate as the dolls. People will see what they want to see in the film, and that’s almost as phenomenal as Barbie, whose creator, Ruth Handler, also is celebrated. And I mean celebrated. That’s the overall tone of this film, and the music makes it feel like somebody’s birthday—like Barbie’s 64th.
Entire family: Yes (most of the PG-13 stuff will fly right over their heads)
Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language
Language: 2/10—One censored f-bomb, references to “phallic”, and a few “bitches” that pop up in one soundtrack song
Sex: 2/10—Construction workers catcall Barbie, who responds that she has no vagina and Ken has no penis; Skipper’s breasts inflate to imitate the short-lived “Growing Up Skipper” doll; male cops and a man on the street sexualize Barbie, the latter by slapping her butt off camera; and Barbie showers, with nothing shown
Violence: 1/10—A comical big fight, with punches, kicks, and silly weapons applied here and occasionally elsewhere that seems clearly cartoonish
Adult situations: 1/10—The Kens drink beer though it’s only pretend beer, as with all Barbie and Ken actions to imitate pretend play of the dolls.
Takeaway: This is one film I hope isn’t followed by a sequel, for a sequel, I fear, would totally remove any have-it-both-ways ambiguity toward Barbie and Ken; Barbie works, but I’m not sure Barbie II would
Not rated (would be PG for adult drinking and smoking)
I Love Lucy was one of the early TV series that made the leap from vaudeville and radio to television. It began as My Favorite Husband, a radio program starring Ball and Dick Denning. But Lucy suggested that her TV husband be played by her real husband, who was then appearing as a panelist on the game show What’s My Line? The rest is TV history. I Love Lucy was an immediate fan favorite, finishing #3 in the Nielsen ratings its first year, and #1 seasons two through four, #2 their fifth season, then back to #1 again for the sixth.
Lucille Ball set the gold standard for physical comedy and character comedy playing opposite real-life husband and band leader Desi Arnaz in a sitcom that revolved around only four characters: Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz), his wife Lucy, and their neighbors, Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance). That is, two housewives prone to get into trouble, one fuddy-duddy who wore his pants up to his chin, and a Latin lover whose love for Lucy was sorely tested in just about every episode.
All of the episodes are fueled by Lucy’s frequent paranoia, jealousy, and her tendency to misunderstand things, to blow things out of proportion, or to scheme behind Ricky’s back to try to get her way—which often involves her best friend and her not-so-secret desire to break into show business, although she has no talent except unintentional comedy.
In 2002, TV Guide named the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and I Love Lucy ranked No. 2 behind Seinfeld. Season 2 earned a Primetime Emmy for Best Comedy Show—one of four the show would receive over its 6-season run.
Season 2 includes one of the all-time greatest I Love Lucy episodes, “Job Switching,” and this Ultimate Blu-ray has it in both black-and-white and as a colorized bonus extra. This season the show made TV history with Ball’s pregnancy and two very funny episodes, “Lucy Is Enceinte” (when she tries to figure out how to tell her easily excitable husband) and “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” which drew the largest TV audience to date: 71.7 percent of American TV sets were tuned into the show so that people could see Lucy give birth.
To put that into perspective, more Americans watched this episode than the Eisenhower inauguration and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation combined. It was the first birth on television, though censors wouldn’t allow the show to use the term “pregnant.” “Expecting” was the preferred genteel term in January 1953, and Little Ricky appeared on TV just 12 hours after Lucy gave birth in real life. So call this a comic reenactment.
Other notable Season 2 episodes include “Redecorating,” “Lucy Wants New Furniture,” “Never Do Business with Friends,” “The Camping Trip,” “The Handcuffs,” “Club Election,” and “Lucy Becomes a Sculptress.” And it is a treat seeing one of the all-time great episodes in color.
All of the episodes are fueled by Lucy’s frequent paranoia, jealousy, and her tendency to misunderstand things, to blow things out of proportion, or to scheme behind Ricky’s back to try to get her way—which often involves her best friend and her not-so-secret desire to break into show business, although she has no talent except unintentional comedy. A number of episodes each season deal with the battle of the sexes that was fought in kitchens and living rooms across America, and all of the episodes will now seem sexist.
Some of the episodes also include what is now called “unfortunate cultural stereotypes.” In other words, this isn’t just TV history; it’s cultural history. This was the early years of television when not every family had a television set and relatives gathered to watch together during the Eisenhower years. The values are totally ‘50s, with Ricky’s relationship to his wife so paternalistic that the episodes might spark a few family discussions about then and now. And that’s not a bad thing.
All 31 uncut Season 2 episodes are included here on five discs, housed on plastic “pages” in a slightly wider Blu-ray case. Disc contents are listed on every disc label, and episodes and brief descriptions are also printed on the inside of the paper cover (which can be tough to read through blue plastic). As with the Ultimate Season 1 release, fans have the choice of watching the episodes with or without original commercials (some tobacco, by way of warning).
Not rated (would be PG, for adult smoking/drinking)
Language: 1/10—A few mild expletives, is all
Sex: 1/10—Some kissing, but that’s about it
Violence: 2/10—Any “violence” is mild by today’s standards and tied to laughs
Adult situations: 2/10—Other than beer or cigarettes, some viewers might be shocked that verbal abuse and, once, spanking was used for humor purposes, and there are those outdated cultural depictions
Takeaway: It’s a mystery why CBS hasn’t come out with a complete series Blu-ray, unless there are negotiation issues with Desilu Productions, because I Love Lucy is a classic as classic TV gets; in fact, how’s this for a classic TV fact: Desi Arnaz was the one who invented the rerun, airing several Season 1 episodes after the birth of their son in order to give his wife time to recover
People who grew up watching Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, In Search of the Castaways, Summer Magic, The Moon-Spinners and That Darn Cat! no doubt think of Hayley Mills as a Disney actress. But other than those early films and much later sequels to The Parent Trap, Mills made far more movies and TV shows with other studios. And the coming-of-age comedy The Trouble with Angels (Columbia, 1966) still stands as one of her best ‘tween and teen films.
Mills gets second billing behind Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) in this story of students sent to live and study at the St. Francis Academy for girls, which is located in a convent and staffed by nuns. Russell plays the droll longsuffering Mother Superior, who, like Peter Pan’s shadow, seems to be everywhere the girls are, no matter what hijinks they’re trying to pull. And this is most certainly a hijinks film.
It opens on a train headed for St. Francis, with an openly rebellious Mary Clancy (Mills) lighting up a cigarette despite the no smoking rule. Onboard she meets Rachel Devery (June Harding), who seems “simpatico” and delighted to have found a friend. From that moment the two become inseparable . . . and insufferable as they begin their first year at St. Francis Academy.
The film documents their antics over the four years that they spend in the nunnery, whether it’s pranks and practical jokes, defiance of rules, or the kind of simple shenanigans that many teens pull when they haven’t prepared for class or are trying to get out of P.E. Mary and Rachel aren’t bad girls, mind you, but they behave more like hares than the tortoise approach Mother Superior seems to take, clearly hoping that over time she might make some difference in the girls’ lives. As a result, The Trouble with Angels has more depth than the typical light comedy, and viewers are encouraged to see things from both sides. It’s a surprisingly subtle transformational film in the Going My Way mold.
Columbia certainly picked the right director for the job. Not only was Ida Lupino one of the few female directors working in Hollywood, but she was also a bit of a rebel herself. She bucked the studio system by refusing roles and films she thought were not strong enough—so much so that she was frequently suspended by Warner Bros.
So how does a 1966 film about Catholic schoolgirls hold up today?
It’s still fun and entertaining becauseof the depth, the subtlety, the intelligent writing, and the crisp pacing. There’s also something inherently timeless about a wise adult who tries to mentor semi-resistant young people, whether we’re talking about Yoda and Luke Skywalker or a nun and a Catholic schoolgirl she identified as the ringleader. The pranks and antics keep it fun, while the relationship between the nuns and the girls keep it interesting.
In the irony department, famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee turns up as an outside instructor that Mother Superior hired to teach the girls graceful movement. Russell had played Lee’s mother in the musical biopic Gypsy in the film she made immediately before this one, and film buffs will find such additional layers fun. Some familiar faces turn up, too, like Mary Wickes, who also donned a habit in the Sister Act films and played the secretary to TV’s mystery-solving priest, Father Dowling.
Collectively, this group of nuns is as entertaining as the ones from The Sound of Music, with individual personalities (eccentricities?) that shine through their habits—whether it’s teaching the girls how to swim, how to play an instrument, or any of the subjects that make school a beneficial burden.
Mills was 19 when Angels was shot, and perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is that the actress who plays Sundance to her Butch was 28 years old at the time—older than some of the actresses who played nuns. But the two work well together and are plenty convincing that they are in need of both maturity and understanding. The Trouble with Angels remains good fun and a great choice for family home theaters.
Sex: 1/10—Some revealing band uniforms, girls en masse shopping for bras (and trying some on over their blouses) and brief allusion to one parent having an affair
Violence: 0/10—Nothing at all; you were expecting rulers across the knuckles?
Adult situations: 3/10—Several instances of juvenile smoking (cigarettes and cigars)
Takeaway: The Trouble with Angels remains current because the Catholic church remains constant in so many ways, and the characters under Lupino’s direction aren’t caricatures
It’s hard to believe people ever lived slower lives—especially at a time when folks can’t seem to spend a single moment without multitasking or yakking on cell phones in walk-and-talks that, despite their content (“I’m on my way to the grocery store now”), are conducted with West Wing importance. If you need a refresher course in slowing down, watch The Andy Griffith Show.
If Frank Capra had worked in television, I’m guessing he would have produced something along the lines of this folksy, feel-good, homespun situation comedy that offered an idealized portrait of small-town life. Never once during its eight-season run did the series finish outside the Nielsen Top 10, and its final season the show ended as the No. 1 watched show in America. I Love Lucy and Seinfeld were the only other shows to accomplish that feat.
The series, which ran on CBS from 1960-68, was ranked No. 9 on TV Guide’s list of 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. One thing that contributed to the show’s success was that it appealed to both rural and (sub)urban people, and white-collar as well as blue-collar workers. The writing was much sharper than other rural comedies that aired on television before or after it, and the aw-shucks sheriff without a gun solved problems with common sense and wit that was broadly entertaining.
The Town of Mayberry, North Carolina was a sleepy little backwater where Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Andy Taylor (Griffith) doesn’t drink, refrains from using harsh language, and seldom raises his voice. Before The Cosby Show got all sorts of love for modeling a kinder, gentler parenting style, the widowed Sheriff Taylor was showing an earlier generation a better way to raise kids and relate to people. With an aw-shucks demeanor, a bushel full of aphorisms, and a smile that could disarm all but the most hardened criminals, Andy spent much of his time dispensing common-sense advice to family, friends, residents, visitors, and yes, sometimes even criminals.
The writing for this character-driven comedy also featured some very funny lines, and a killer ensemble cast delivered them with verve. When you saw bumbling Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife (Don Knotts) and Floyd the Barber (Howard McNear) week after week, it was almost like living in a small town. You felt as if you knew them, and the show had a comfortable feel to it. Andy’s son, Opie, is played to perfection by a very young Ron Howard, while Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) is introduced in the first episode as the one who raised Andy and will now do the same with Opie. Fans of Father Knows Best were treated to Elinor Donahue (“Princess” from that earlier TV series) as a druggist and possible love interest for Andy in a five-episode arc.
This first season Griffith played Sheriff Taylor more folksy than he would in later years, and more than a few episodes ended with him sitting on the front porch with his guitar, serenading his “kinfolks.” In one classic episode, a state police task force uses the sheriff’s office as headquarters for an operation to catch an escaped convict, and they exclude Andy and Barney. But Andy plays a hunch and he and Barney end up catching the fellow, with the help of Andy’s leaky rowboat. Of course, the state officer in charge changes his tune about Andy and small town “sheriffin’.” That pattern would repeat itself with fun variations over the next seven years.
It’s tobacco country, so there’s occasional smoking, and fictional Mayberry is in the foothills of Appalachia, so there are poor folks who are accustomed to making their own liquor, no matter what the law says. But to underscore how relatively innocent it all is, in an episode titled “Alcohol and Old Lace” Barney and Andy follow a moonshine trail that leads them straight to a pair of sweet little old ladies. Meanwhile, town drunk Otis lets himself in and out of the jail, and Andy treats him as he is: a friendly neighbor who happens to have a problem with alcohol. Over time, even Otis becomes more than a town drunk, and viewers begin to embrace him as much as the other characters in this endearing ensemble.
For the first several seasons the producers clearly tried to give the show a boost by featuring a string of guest stars that included Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk), Buddy Ebsen (TheBeverly Hillbillies), Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie), Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island), Edgar Buchanan (Petticoat Junction), and Arte Johnson (Laugh-In). They were interesting, but in truth unnecessary. Fans would have kept tuning in regardless, just to see the Mayberry regulars.
After two solid seasons, CBS added more Mayberry characters, among them dim-witted mechanical wizard Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors), schoolteacher/love interest Helen Crump (Aneta Corsaut), the rowdy, bluegrass-playing Darlings (real-life bluegrass band The Dillards), and rock-throwing, poetry-spouting nut-case Ernest T. Bass (Howard Morris).
The 249 half-hour episodes (plus a faux pilot episode of Andy on The Danny Thomas Show and Opie on Gomer Pyle: USMC) are on 32 discs, with each season having it’s own Blu-ray case and a slipcase holding them all together. The first five seasons aired in black-and-white, and that’s how they’re presented here. The introduction of color coincided with Knotts’ departure, so it felt like an attempt to compensate fans for the loss of the three-time Emmy winner. As if to reinforce how much he meant to the series, Knotts earned two more Emmys for a pair of guest appearances that he made, bringing his total—and the show’s—to five.
This show would easily have been an A-/B+ had Knotts stayed and had Nabors not left the show to star in his own spin-off, replaced by a game George Lindsay as Goober, not nearly as interesting a character as Gomer. But the series had a knack of elevating minor characters so that they had the kind of depth that made people care about them, and that helped the show continue to evolve and stay relatively fresh over the years.
For fans, it will be a real pleasure to pop in a disc and sit back and watch 6-9 episodes per disk, plus eclectic bonus features that include behind-the-scenes clips, the Howards’ home movies on the set, opening clips, and original sponsor ads. Blu-ray is a visible improvement over the DVDs, and can be enjoyed even when streaming signals or Internet connections are spotty. I have only two complaints, and they have nothing to do with the show or quality of presentation. One is that the boxed set includes no master list of episodes or any annotated descriptions. All we get are lists of hard-to-read titles on the discs themselves. That’s it. My other complaint is that the plastic “pages” that hold each disc have pretty flimsy points of attachment. When my set arrived, at least two discs from each season case were loose. When you pay over $100 for a set, you expect better. Paramount/CBS, are you listening?
When you watch these episodes you’ll see so many that you don’t remember, simply because relatively few of the episodes are shown on TV in rerun. It’s like discovering the show all over again.
Entire family: Yes
Run time: 6343 min. (249 episodes, 105.7 hours), Black-and-white (Seasons 1-5) / Color (Seasons 6-8)
Not rated (would be G or PG for adult drinking and smoking)
Language: 1/10—Only occasional sanitized versions, like “dad gum it”
Sex: 1/10—Wholesome as can be, though there is a bathing suit contest in one episode
Violence: 1/10—Some “wrasslin’” and scufflin’, some black eyes, but the actual violence is mostly off-screen, just as guns are pulled but fired only occasionally
Adult situations: 2/10—Some adult smoking, drinking, and drunkenness
Takeaway: This complete set came on the heels of the Blu-ray release of The Andy Griffith Show: Season 1; while those who bought that set might think they wasted their money, savvy classic TV fans know that when a studio tests the waters, if fans don’t respond there might not be another Blu-ray release
In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, two young Disney stars were among the most popular on the planet: Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and British actress Hayley Mills, whose debut with Disney (Pollyanna, 1960) earned her the last special Juvenile Oscar awarded. A year later she starred as separated twins trying to reunite their divorced parents in The Parent Trap, and a song she performed, “Let’s Get Together,” reached No. 1 on the charts in the U.S.
For a decade, Hayley was big—even bigger than Annette. Stanley Kubrick offered her the title role in Lolita (which her father, Sir John Mills, turned down), and her performance in the 1961 British film Whistle Down the Wind (an adaptation of a novel written by her mother) earned her a BAFTA Best British Actress nomination. She also was voted the biggest star in Britain that year.
The Truth About Spring(1965) was the third film Mills made with her famous thespian father—fourth, if you count the elder Mills cameo as a golf caddy in The Parent Trap—and this star vehicle plays very much like an affectionate last daddy-daughter hurrah before the later leaves the nest, as Hayley would. Just a year later her father would direct her Sky West and Crooked and she would marry adirector 33 years her senior from The Family Way, in which John Mills had only a minor rle. So there’s something inherently poignant in the Mills pairing in The Truth About Spring.
If you don’t look at the credits, you’d swear that this film was made by Disney, with the familiar musical cues, structure, characters, tone, and direction—except that it’s not. Universal made this one and tried the Disney formula, with disappointing effects.
In his autobiography, John Mills wrote, “If the picture had turned out to be half as good as the food, the wine, the time and the laughs we had on that location it would have been a sensation—unfortunately it wasn’t.”
Though it’s also an adventure with some romance involving a young girl initially dressed as a boy, The Truth About Spring wasn’t nearly as successful as Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson (1960), in which the elder Mills played the father of a family marooned in the early 1800s on an island paradise. That film had real pirates and a lush tropical setting full of all sorts of animals and a cast of characters that provided plenty of side stories.
This adventure allegedly took place in the Caribbean. But the scenery was actually the barren rocky coast of southern Spain, and the pirates are contemporary—pirate in spirit and function, not dress. There may be a treasure hunt, but it somehow seems nothing more than a plot device.
Other than two groups of “pirates,” The Truth About Spring also has only the two Mills and Swiss Family Robinson veteran James MacArthur (perhaps most famous for his role as Danno on TV’s Hawaii Five-O) for plot possibilities. For much of the film they’re aboard a small sailing vessel where the free-spirited con-artist Tommy Tyler (J. Mills) lives with his daughter, Spring. Into their lives comes William Ashton (MacArthur), a newly minted young lawyer who’s on his uncle’s yacht for a vacation before starting his job in Philadelphia.
Looking to work another con, Tommy invites him to jump ship to do a little fishing on their sailboat, and the next thing you know Ashton is accepting an invitation to spend a few weeks on their boat. Contrived? Certainly. But once you get past a hokey title sequence, there’s a wholesome charm to this coming-of-age film that remains all these years later.
Not rated (would be PG for some peril and social drinking)
Language: 1/10—I didn’t hear a single word, but I’m listing it as a 1 just in case . . .
Sex: 1/10—A first and second kiss, and a playboy uncle surrounded by cougars
Violence: 2/10—Guns are pulled, but no one is shot; there’s an explosion, but no one is hurt; and the fight against pirates involves punching, pushing, and whacking them with a mop
Adult situations: 1/10—Cocktails are held aboard the yacht, and Tommy channels his inner Popeye by smoking a pipe (and cigars)
Takeaway: Hayley Mills still has a loyal following, and that fan base will be happy to have this seldom-broadcast film in their Blu-ray collections
Child actor Shirley Temple became a household name in the 1930s and was considered to be 20th Century-Fox’s greatest asset. When she was only seven years old, the studio assigned a team of 19 writers to develop original stories for her. Discovered at age three, she became the inspiration for stage mothers all across America who pushed their own small children to become singers and dancers. Her signature song (“On the Good Ship Lollipop”) sold 500,000 copies on sheet music—presumably to those same stage mothers—while her likeness was used to sell such merchandise as dolls, clothing, plates, and glassware. She even had a drink named for her, and was the first performer to receive a special Juvenile Oscar.
By the time a six-year-old (but looking younger) Temple appeared in Little Miss Marker (1934)—the film that established her as a star—she had already acted in 13 film shorts and nine feature films. By contrast, Dorothy Bell, the female lead who plays a nightclub singer in this Damon Runyon adaptation, had only one film short and a single feature to her credit.
Runyon was a journalist whose published short stories celebrated the denizens of Prohibition-era Broadway: hard-boiled newsmen, gamblers, bookies, singers, racketeers, reformers, and other colorful characters that inhabited his little corner of Brooklyn. They were people who frequented racetracks and clubs, had colorful nicknames, yet had a soft spot. If you’ve seen Guys and Dolls, you’ve seen the most famous adaptation of two of his short stories. But “Little Miss Marker” comes in second, having spawned this film and three remakes.
In Little Miss Marker, bookie Sorrowful Jones (Adolphe Menjou) accepts an unusual I.O.U. “marker”: the daughter of a desperate man looking to get back on track with a racing win. When the man never returns to get her and pay his debt, the bookie is forced to take the child home. Soon he, his associates, and everyone under the thumb of racketeer Big Steve (Charles Bickford) find themselves being charmed by her. That includes the racketeer’s girlfriend, club singer Bangles (Dell), who envisions a more respectable life when she looks at the orphan.
Of Temple films, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “It is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles.” But not everyone could forget their troubles. America wasn’t exactly equal, and films from this era, with their unfortunate racial stereotypes, are a reminder of that. Willie Best, like Stepin Fetchit, played a lazy, simpleminded, easily spooked character whose eyes bug out and words meander in a slow exaggerated drawl. But at least he received credit for his work, as did Wong Chung for a single walk-on line spoken again as an stereotypical caricature of what white America thought Asians sounded like when they spoke English. Mildred Gover, who plays the club singer’s maid, isn’t even credited . . . though at least her delivery seems less caricatured as the film progresses. At one point we even catch her having a drink and putting her feet up on the furniture when the missus isn’t home.
So yeah, a few unfortunate cultural stereotypes mar a film that otherwise is entertaining in a hokey sort of way. Hardened men and women become like putty in the hands of “Marky.” When they realize they’re having as much of a negative effect on her as the positive effect she’s having on them, they resolve to do something about it—even if it involves sabotaging Big Steve’s plan to use the girl as “owner” of a racehorse that they plan to use to fix a race, or holding an elaborate dress-up party to refuel the child’s belief in fairy tales. And even if it means kidnapping a doctor when, like Pollyanna, Marky needs emergency care.
Shirley Temple was America’s screen orphan and her movies were a mainstay on family-oriented TV movie series of the ‘50s and ‘60s. But these days the safest ones to watch with your small children remain those that are the least outdated and have the fewest unsavory characters in need of transformation.
Those would be Heidi (1937), The Little Princess (1939), Bright Eyes (1934, “The Good Ship Lollipop” film), and Captain January (1936), in that order. But Wee Willie Winkie (1937, Temple’s favorite) and Little Miss Marker aren’t far behind. While this Little Miss Marker might lose by a nose to Bob Hope’s Sorrowful Jones (1949), it remains far superior to the 1980 adaptation or looser remakes like Little Big Shot (1935) or Forty Pounds of Trouble (1962).
Today’s audiences know Donald O’Connor mostly as the third wheel in the 1952 Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds musical romance Singin’ in the Rain—you know, the “Make ‘Em Laugh” guy?
But O’Connor, a former vaudevillian, also had his share of top billings, starting with 1938’s Tom Sawyer, Detective and continuing with a series of romantic leads and Francis the Talking Mule pictures. Typecast as a mild-mannered nice guy / funny man, he became Universal’s version of Bob Hope.
Hope made a Western comedy-musical in 1950 (Fancy Pants), and so did O’Connor (Curtain Call at Cactus Creek). Double Crossbones, which followed a year later,is Universal’s answer to the Hope comedy The Princess and the Pirate, in which a bumbling non-pirate finds himself at sea pretending to be one.
While the Hope film is a classic comedy that was frequently televised and released for home video, Double Crossbones got buried somehow—a forgotten little treasure that was recently dug up by Kino Lorber and released for the first time on Blu-ray for family home theaters. Like many films from the ‘50s, it’s a fun costumed romp that’s heavy on light entertainment, with a plot that’s just complicated enough to keep it interesting.
O’Connor is engaging as always, but surprisingly up to the task of shivering a few timbers and slitting a few gullets—far less cowardly than Hope’s characters. He plays shopkeeper’s apprentice Davy Crandall, whose boss turns out to have been selling stolen merchandise bought from pirates. When he’s wrongfully accused of being one of the pirates, Davy ironically takes to the high seas with his newfound sidekick (Will Geer) and bumbles his way across the Spanish Main to the top of the brotherhood (and sisterhood—pirate Anne Bonny makes an appearance).
Double Crossbones is directed by Charles Barton, who would later direct Disney’s The Shaggy Dog (1959), and in both films the comedy is mostly situational. Fans of classic TV will recognize Geer as the grandpa from The Waltons and Hayden Rorke as the suspicious Dr. Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie. And if the actor playing Captain Kidd looks familiar, it’s because Alan Napier would go on to play Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred, in the campy sixties Batman series.
There’s action, but the violence is minimal compared to films today.
There’s comedy, but the jokes aren’t as clever or in-your-face as in films today.
There’s drama, but not the melodrama of most films of the era or the anxiety-driven films of today.
As I said, Double Crossbones is light entertainment, but fun and watchable light entertainment that manages to sneak in a comic dance routine from O’Connor . . . who indeed makes his cutlass-and-pistol-wielding audience laugh.
Will he have the same effect on audiences today? Probably not. Hope’s The Princess and the Pirate (1944) is still the better movie of the two, and The Crimson Pirate, Treasure Island, and Against All Flags are the best of the pirate movies that Hollywood made in the fifties. Everything else falls somewhere in the 2-2 ½ star range out of 4, and Double Crossbones lands near the higher end of those colorful genre films. It’s guilty pleasure pirate booty that still makes for an entertaining family movie . . . perhaps as the warm-up for one of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies?
Language: 1/10—Squeaky clean, but I might have missed something
Sex: 0/10—Tepid, not torrid, love interest, with an occasional embrace
Violence: 3/10—There are swordfights (uh, “Pirate!”) and brawls, but nothing cringeworthy
Adult situations: 2/10—Pirates hang out in pubs in Tortuga, and so there’s drinking and smoking in such scenes
Takeaway: Disney’s Treasure Island sparked several dozen pirate movies in the fifties, more than were made in the previous decades, and Double Cross is an artifact of that era
How do you explain the Elvis Presley phenomenon? You start with the music. Until Elvis, rock and roll was an evolving synthesis of blues, gospel, jazz, boogie woogie, and western swing. As a type of music that was deliberately dance-oriented, it hooked America’s youths. But Elvis and his “rockabilly” variation made the new music sexy, with hip-swiveling gyrations that caused girls to scream and faint. In no time at all, he became the biggest rock-and-roll star of them all and is still recognized by Guinness as the best-selling solo musical artist of all time, with more than 500 million records sold worldwide.
If you saw Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis you learned that Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, was exploitive as a promoter. The big money was in movies, so he pushed Elvis away from giving concerts (some of which were banned or caused riots) and instead pointed him in the direction of Hollywood. From 1956-69, Elvis starred in 30 films. Since Elvis wasn’t doing concerts anymore, his movies were the only way fans could actually seehim perform, and they turned out in droves. As a result, Hal Wallis remarked, “A Presley picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood.”
Variety called Blue Hawaii a “handsome, picture-postcard production,” and that’s what it was. With Hawaii becoming the 50th state on August 21, 1959, Americans wanted to see and learn more, and location filming added to the film’s interest—along with a tagline that promised “Ecstatic romance…Exotic dances…Exciting music in the World’s Lushest Paradise of Song.”
Elvis plays Chad Gates, the son of a wealthy pineapple plantation owner (Roland Winters) and a doting, suffocating mother (Angela Lansbury). Chad dreads seeing his parents after returning from military service and instead goes straight to his beach house to hang with his girlfriend (Joan Blackman as Maile) and local musicians. The premise was genius, since Elvis himself had only recently returned stateside after a stint in the Army. Blue Hawaii was his third post-service film, following Flaming Star and Wild in the Country. Not wanting to work at the family business, Chad instead proposes to start a tourist guide business with Maile. But their first client proves that Chad’s charm is both an asset and a liability as he is tasked with showing a schoolteacher and her four teenage charges a good time.
On a four-star scale, all Elvis movies fall in the 2-to-3 star range, but Blue Hawaii makes everyone’s Elvis Top 10 movie list because of the music. Some of the movies skimped on songs, but this one has 15 of them, including “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which sold a million copies as a single release. The soundtrack album spent 20 weeks at the top of the Billboard Pop Albums chart. Some of the songs are throwaways, but there are some solid ones here too, like “Almost Always True” (though it’s a bit mind-boggling that Maile would smile and groove along with him as he fudges, in song, the question of whether he was faithful to her). Other upbeat songs that work as something more than soundtrack music include “Rock-a-Hula Baby,” “Beach Boy Blues,” and possibly “Slicin’ Sand,” while Elvis’s renditions of “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” “Aloha Oe,” and “Blue Hawaii” are serviceable enough.
Blue Hawaii finished as the 10th top-grossing film of 1961—so successful that it would provide the formula for many of the Elvis films that followed. The image that these films cultivated was an Elvis meant to be everything to women. A nice guy and a perfect gentleman yet handy with his fists if need be, he also had a slight bad boy or rebellious streak. He was also good with kids and respectful of elders—the kind of guy that, despite the attitude, you could still bring home to meet Mom and Dad. The formula called for Elvis to have at least two women interested in him, at least one cutesy scene with children, one scene with elders, and one scene where he comes to the defense of a woman. And as much as the formula Elvis movie is ridiculed—Top Secret! offers a pretty wicked spoof!—it was still what fans seemed to want. Year after year.
Do the Elvis films still work? Probably not, unless you’re wanting to put yourself in the mindset of young people from the time period, or unless you’re an Elvis fan. If you are, this still ranks in the top third of his films.
This Paramount release contains a superior 4K feature and a Blu-ray version with special features that’s a little grainier.
Entire family: Yes (pretty wholesome, overall) Run time: 101 min. Color Studio/Distributor: Paramount Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 widescreen Featured audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Bonus features: C Includes: 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, Digital Copy Amazon link Trailer Rated PG for mild sensuality
Language: 1/10—I didn’t catch anything
Sex: 3/10—Women come on to Elvis, and a girl who’s supposed to be 17 throws herself at him and flirts with others; a woman loses her top in the ocean but nothing is shown and nothing is sexualized
Violence: 2/10—Just a brief restaurant-bar fight
Adult situations: 3/10—One young woman acts up and ostensibly tries to drown herself and is subsequently “spanked” in a rather outdated sequence; flirting and suspicions of cheating
Takeaway: It’s dizzying reading all of the movies, studio recordings, benefits, and other things that Elvis did, and you can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t so overworked if his personal outcome might have been different
Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) is one of those legendary movies that I hadn’t gotten around to seeing until Kino Lorber came out with this sparkling new 2K Master Blu-ray release.
As it turns out, Ronald Reagan was a better actor in the political arena than he was in movies. He’s out-acted in this one by a chimpanzee named Peggy, whose performance earned her a PATSY Award (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) from the American Humane Society. But it’s fun to watch a comedy starring the future 40th president of the United States, and this film was so much a part of the public consciousness that Reagan used a “Bonzo” campaign to help him win the White House in 1980.
The history of animals forced to perform in Hollywood movies is not a happy one that often involved beatings and other abuses. But according to numerous accounts, Peggy was a real pro who enjoyed working and was therefore not subject to some of the cruel treatments that befell other simian performers. PETA tells us that even as recent as a decade ago there were “at least a dozen” chimpanzees working in Hollywood.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, though, chimpanzees were extremely popular and appeared in such live-action films as Monkey Business (with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe), Disney’s The Monkey’s Uncle (with Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello), the early Planet of the Apes films, all of the Tarzan features, every episode of the Jungle Jim TV series, and a 1961 series called The Hathaways, which was about a realtor and his wife, who happened to be the manager-owner of three chimps working in Hollywood.
Now there are none, thanks to the efforts of PETA and other groups, and CGI has forever removed the need to train animals for motion picture performances. That said, there is something fascinating about watching Peggy, who, as Bonzo, gets way more screen time than any of the human actors. We watch her climb up trees and buildings, steal and return jewelry, ride a tricycle, walk “like a person,” and act like a couple’s child throughout the film—as in a real, wholesome family.
That’s actually the premise of this film, the plot of which might remind viewers of My Fair Lady without the music or an academic version of Trading Places. Reagan plays psychology professor Peter Boyd, who sets out to prove the nature vs. nurture debate by hiring a woman named Jane (Diana Lynn) to move into his house and pose as the chimp’s “mother” while he plays the part of the father . . . albeit an absentee one much of the time, because he also happens to be engaged. He conveniently fails to tell that to his fiancée (Lucille Barkley) or Jane, who, like Bonzo, becomes enamored with the thought of being part of a family.
Family Home Theater 