Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: Hugh Herbert

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Showing posts with label Hugh Herbert. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Fog Over Frisco (William Dieterle, 1934)

Fog Over Frisco (William Dieterle, 1934)

Cast: Bette Davis, Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot, Hugh Herbert, Arthur Byron, Robert Barrat, Henry O'Neill, Irving Pichel, Douglas Dumbrille, Alan Hale, Gordon Westcott. Screenplay: Robert N. Lee, Eugene Solow, based on a story by George Dyer. Cinematography: Tony Gaudio. Art direction: Jack Okey. Film editing: Harold McLernon. Music: Bernhard Kaun.

San Franciscans don't call it Frisco anymore but they do call the fog Karl. Not that fog has a lot to do with the story of Fog Over Frisco, which is mostly a fast-paced murder mystery involving a socially prominent family and some stolen securities. Although Bette Davis is nominally the star, she's the murder victim and disappears from the film halfway through. Her prominent billing probably has to do with the realization at Warner Bros. that she was becoming a big star: This is also the year of Of Human Bondage, the John Cromwell film that Davis made on loanout to RKO. Although Margaret Lindsay, who plays Davis's stepsister, has the larger part, and the cast is full of watchable character actors like Hugh Herbert, Alan Hale, and (in a small part) William Demarest, Davis still shines -- so much so that we miss her in the latter half of the movie. Another attraction to the film are the scenes shot on location in San Francisco, notably lacking any shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, which was under construction.

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Faithless (Harry Beaumont, 1932)

Robert Montgomery and Tallulah Bankhead in Faithless

Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Hugh Herbert, Maurice Murphy, Louise Closser Hale, Anna Appel, Lawrence Grant, Henry Kolker. Screenplay: Carey Wilson, based on a novel by Mildred Cram. Cinematography: Oliver T. Marsh. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Film editing: Hugh Wynn. Costume design: Adrian.

Faithless is a pretty good demonstration of why Tallulah Bankhead failed to become a major Hollywood star. It has a standard weepie plot: Rich girl loses her money in the Depression, becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, breaks with him when a former boyfriend discovers their relationship, reconciles with the boyfriend and marries him, but when he's injured in an accident finds that prostitution is the only way she can pay his medical bills; rescued from a life on the streets by a kindly cop, she confesses to her husband, who forgives her. The trouble is that Bankhead is not a sufferer; she's too tough and clever to play a role that should have gone to the likes of Janet Gaynor or Ruth Chatterton. The film is chiefly of interest as an example of what Hollywood could get away with before the Production Code. It's also interesting to see comic actor Hugh Herbert cast (wrongly) in a serious role as the man whose mistress Bankhead becomes.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley, 1935)

Cast: Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Adolphe Menjou, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell, Dorothy Dare, Wini Shaw. Screenplay: Manuel Seff, Peter Milne, Robert Lord. Cinematography: George Barnes. Art direction: Anton Grot. Film editing: George Amy.