History Is Made at Night (Frank Borzage, 1937)

Leo Carrillo, Charles Boyer, and Jean Arthur in History Is Made at Night

Cast: Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Colin Clive, Ivan Lebedeff, George Meeker, Lucien Prival, George Davis. Screenplay: Gene Towne, C. Graham Baker, Vincent Lawrence, David Hertz. Cinematography: David Abel. Art direction: Alexander Toluboff. Film editing: Margaret Clancey. Music: Alfred Newman.

It starts as a domestic drama about a failing marriage, then becomes a suspense thriller, then a romance, then a rom-com with screwball touches, and winds up as a disaster movie. Objectively viewed, History Is Made at Night is a mess. But somehow it holds together, partly because of the chemistry of its leads, Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur, as well as some good comic acting by Leo Carrillo and the creepiness of Colin Clive, outdoing even his Dr. Frankenstein. And most of all, I think, by the direction of Frank Borzage, an under-recognized helmsman who seems willing to take anything the screenwriters and producer Walter Wanger throw at him. I've always been a fan of Arthur, and I think she's at her best here. She's not the sort of leading lady that makes you think men readily fall deeply in love with her, but here her character, Irene Vail, causes both the sinister steamship magnate Bruce Vail (Clive) and the suave Parisian headwaiter Paul Dumond (Boyer) to become obsessed with her, to the point that Dumond pursues her from France to America and Vail is willing not only to murder his chauffeur but even to sink an ocean liner with 3,000 passengers for her sake. Somehow, Arthur imbues the character with a quirky charm that makes all this credible. No, it's not a great movie by anyone's standards, but as a sample of Hollywood hokum it's at least great fun.  

A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932)

A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932)

Cast: Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Philips, Jack La Rue, Blanche Federici, Mary Forbes, Gilbert Emery. Screenplay: Benjamin Glazer, Oliver H.P. Garrett, based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway. Cinematography: Charles Lang. Art direction: Roland Anderson, Hans Dreier. Film editing: Otho Lovering, George Nichols Jr.

Desire (Frank Borzage, 1936)

Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, John Halliday in Desire

Madeleine de Beaupre: Marlene Dietrich
Tom Bradley: Gary Cooper
Carlos Margoli: John Halliday
Mr. Gibson: William Frawley
Aristide Duvalle: Ernest Cossart
Avilia: Akim Tamiroff
Dr. Maurice Pauquet: Alan Mowbray
Aunt Olga: Zeffie Tilbury

Director: Frank Borzage
Screenplay: Edwin Justus Mayer, Waldemar Young, Samuel Hoffenstein
Based on a play by Hans Székely and Robert A. Stemmle
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Art direction: Hans Dreier, Robert Usher
Film editing: William Shea
Costume design: Travis Banton
Music: Friedrich Hollaender

Frank Borzage's Desire was one of the first films Marlene Dietrich made after she and Josef von Sternberg went their separate ways. Though she's still very much in the Sternberg mode in her makeup, her consciousness of the way she's being lighted, and the couture by Travis Banton, she's also softer, funnier, and more human. She also benefits from being re-teamed with Gary Cooper, her co-star in Sternberg's Morocco (1930), and the only leading man with whom she had any real chemistry in the Sternberg films. Desire is still glamorous nonsense, a romantic comedy in which Dietrich plays a jewel thief and Cooper a seemingly naïve American automotive engineer. They meet on the road to Spain, where Cooper's Tom Bradley plans to spend his vacation and Dietrich's Madeleine de Beaupre is meeting up with her accomplice, Carlos Margoli -- a part planned for John Gilbert that went to John Halliday after Gilbert suffered a heart attack. Cooper is delightful as the infatuated American, whose native shrewdness manifests itself eventually. A subtext about the unsettled situation in Europe runs through the film, though there's no direct reference to the civil war brewing in Spain. Tom Bradley is not one to be outwitted by Europeans like Carlos, who, in a conversation about whether the United States would get involved if war breaks out in Europe, observes, "America's a very large country." Tom replies, "Six feet three." Like most good romantic comedies, Desire gets the best out of its supporting players, including Ernest Cossart as the jeweler and Alan Mowbray as the neurologist whom Madeleine plays off against each other to get her hands on the loot, Akim Tamiroff as a police officer, and Zeffie Tilbury as the larcenous, tippling Aunt Olga. Ernst Lubitsch, who produced, also directed some scenes while Borzage was finishing up another film, and his celebrated touch gives Desire some of its vivacity.

Mannequin (Frank Borzage, 1937)

Spencer Tracy and Joan Crawford in Mannequin

Jessie Cassidy: Joan Crawford
John L. Hennessey: Spencer Tracy
Eddie Miller: Alan Curtis
Briggs: Ralph Morgan
Beryl: Mary Philips
Pa Cassidy: Oscar O'Shea
Mrs. Cassidy: Elisabeth Risdon
Clifford: Leo Gorcey

Director: Frank Borzage
Screenplay: Lawrence Hazard, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Based on a story by Katharine Brush
Cinematography: George J. Folsey
Art direction: Cedric Gibbons
Film editing: Fredrick Y. Smith
Costume design: Adrian
Music: Edward Ward

Joan Crawford in her MGM prime, tough but slinky, convincing as the factory girl trudging up the stairs to the Hester Street flat she shares with her family, but also as the chorus girl, the high-fashion model, the fur-bedecked millionaire's wife. Mannequin is a very talky melodrama, but one with a kind of reassuring confidence about what it's doing, helped along by Crawford's skill and commitment as an actress. She never does anything by rote. The screenplay is by Lawrence Hazard, but anyone who knows the work of the film's producer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, as a screenwriter can sense the uncredited contribution of the writer-director of A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950). Not that Mannequin is up to the standard of those films, but that someone connected to all three movies knows that smart talk can bring a film to life. Frank Borzage, who had won Oscars for directing the "women's pictures" 7th Heaven (1927) and Bad Girl (1931), had just the right touch for this movie. It somehow manages to overcome a lack of chemistry between its leads, Crawford and Spencer Tracy, who didn't hit it off -- she later accused him of stepping on her feet when they were dancing together and of chewing garlic before their love scenes, in addition to his typical "bad drunk" behavior -- and never worked together again. There is, however, a good performance by Alan Curtis as her sleazy first husband, a would-be fight promoter who comes up with the scheme that she should divorce him to marry Tracy's millionaire shipping magnate, then soak him of his millions. And Oscar O'Shea as her ne'er-do-well father, Elisabeth Risdon as her doormat mother, and a terrific Leo Gorcey as her wise-ass brother all make it clear that Crawford's character has no way to go but up.