Jean Prescott Movies
- 1949
A Christmastime TV perennial, Come to the Stable is the gentle saga of two French nuns (Celeste Holm with accent, Loretta Young without) who come to America in hopes of raising funds for a children's hospital. Travelling to a small New England town presciently named Bethlehem, the nuns befriend eccentric painter Elsa Lanchester, who allows them to use her studio (actually a stable) for their base of operations. Utterly ingenuous when it comes to American mores and customs (they tear up a parking ticket, assuming it to be an advertisement), the sisters raise money in a variety of amusing fashions. One of their "agents" is outwardly tough gambler Mike Mazurki, who gets his equally raffish pals to invest in the hospital. And towards the end, the nuns even play a little professional tennis to raise money. Careful not to overwhelm the viewer with sentiment and religiosity, Come to the Stable (based on a story by Clare Booth Luce) is ideal holiday film fare. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, (more)
- 1947
Often mistakenly identified as a sequel to My Friend Flicka, Thunder in the Valley actually has more in common with the Lassie saga. Lon McAllister plays the son of truculent Scottish sheepherder Edmund Gwenn. Though he has no time for people, Gwenn is quite fond of his collie dog. Partly as a means of defying his intractible father, McAllister raises his own dog and beats Gwenn at an annual contest. Father and son are brought closer together when Gwenn is forced to do away with his collie, who has gone mad. Breathtakingly photographed in Technicolor (those nocturnal Highlands scenes are terrific!), Thunder in the Valley is based on the popular Alfred Ollivant novel Bob, Son of Battle. Lending excellent support to stars Gwenn and McAllister are Peggy Ann Garner and Reginald Owen; reportedly, perennial Laurel and Hardy foil James Finlayson also appears in the role of a judge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Allen, James Finlayson, (more)
- 1946
The time is just prior to World War II. Lovely Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the niece of a London plumber; when her uncle is indisposed, Cluny rolls up her sleeves and takes a plumbing job at a society home, where she meets a handsome Czech author (Charles Boyer) - a refugee who has fled the Nazis and now resides with a snobbish and stuck-up family. Hoping to advance herself socially, Cluny accepts a position as a maid in a fancy country home, where she once more meets the Czech author, who is a house guest; they promptly fall for each other, and Cluny follows his lead by turning her nose up at stiff-necked English propriety. Cluny Brown is directed by the matchless Ernst Lubitsch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norman Ainsley, Jennifer Jones, (more)
- 1945
A servant with no experience ends up teaching the master of the house a thing or two in this comedy. Molly Barry (Gracie Fields) is a struggling actress who is short on money and needs paying work. When she learns that John Graham (Monty Woolley), a wealthy and respected former politician, needs a housekeeper, Molly figures that being a maid can't be that much different than playing one, and she takes the job. However, the straight-laced and prickly Graham has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way, having driven away his wife and seriously alienated his son Jimmy (Roddy McDowell). Graham's butler Peabody (Reginald Gardiner) is one of the only people willing to stand by him. But Molly tolerates no nonsense from Graham and teaches him how to better get along with people, including his son. Meanwhile, as various members of the staff quit, Molly begins to replace them with old friends from her days in the theater, until Graham's estate is practically a refuge for out-of-work thespians (Molly also makes a surprise discovery about Peabody's work history). Molly and Me also features several songs sung by Gracie Fields, a major musical comedy star in Great Britain. This proved to be her last feature film, though she remained active in television and on the stage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gracie Fields, Monty Woolley, (more)
- 1944
The White Cliffs of Dover is one of those overlong MGM wartime films that everyone seems to have seen a part of, but no one can remember the film as a sum total. Based on a poem by Alice Duer Miller, the story chronicles the trials and tribulations of one courageous woman through two world wars. Irene Dunne plays an American girl who, in 1914, falls in love with titled Englishman Alan Marshal. At the end of World War 1 in 1918, it is painfully clear that Marshal will not be returning from the battlefields. Remaining loyal to her husband, Irene vows to raise their child in England. Played by Roddy McDowell in his early scenes, Irene's son grows up to be Peter Lawford. At the outbreak of World War 2, Irene despairs at the thought of losing another loved one, but Lawford convinces her that his dad would have wanted him to answer his country's call to the colors. While working as a Red Cross volunteer, Irene finds that she must tend her own mortally wounded son. Unable to save his life, she is grief-stricken, but is gratified with the notion that neither her husband nor her boy have died in vain. Like many films of its ilk and era, White Cliffs of Dover struck a responsive chord with filmgoers, to the tune of a $4 million profit. Watch for a touching scene between Roddy McDowell and 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor; 19 years later, lifelong friends Roddy and Liz would be playing mortal enemies in Cleopatra (1963). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Irene Dunne, Alan Marshal, (more)
- 1944
Opening in England during the middle of World War II, A Guy Named Joe tells the story of Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy), a tough, devil-may-care bomber pilot who's amassed an enviable record in combat, mostly by taking chances that give his C.O. (James Gleason) the shakes, much as he and the top brass appreciate the results. Pete lives to fly, but he also appreciates the fairer sex, which for the last couple of years means Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), herself a hot-shot air-ferry pilot. She's also worried about the chances he takes, even after Pete and his best friend, Al Yackey (Ward Bond), are transferred to Scotland and switched to flying reconnaissance missions. Pete finally agrees to take a training position back in the States, but he must fly one last mission, to locate a German force threatening an Allied convoy. He and Al do the job and have turned for home when the German fighter cover attacks; Pete's plane is damaged and he's wounded, and after his crew bails out he takes the burning ship down and drops his bomb-load on the main German attack ship (a carrier, which is totally inaccurate) at zero altitude. His plane is caught in the blast and destroyed, and that's where the main body of the movie begins.
Pete arrives in a hereafter that's a pilot's version of heaven, including a five-star general (Lionel Barrymore). He doesn't even appreciate what's happened to him until he meets Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson), a friend and fellow pilot who was previously killed in action. It seems that the powers of the hereafter are contributing to the war effort, sending departed pilots like Pete and Dick to Earth to help guide and help young pilots; Pete himself discovers that he benefited from these efforts in peacetime. Pete ends up at Luke Field near Phoenix, AZ, where he takes on helping Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a young pilot who lacks confidence. By the time he's done, riding along while Ted "solos," Ted is a natural in the air and ends up as the star of his squadron when he become operational in New Guinea -- in a group under the command of Al Yackey -- and ends up taking over command when their own leader is shot down. Pete's like a proud teacher, and also enjoys his unheard ribbing of Al and his ex-C.O. to Rumney, over their promotions, but then Dorinda shows up, and suddenly Pete finds all of his unresolved feelings about her recalled, even as he sees that she's never gotten over losing him. And when, with Al's help, she and Ted meet and seem to fall for each other, Pete's jealousy gets the better of him. It's only when he is made to realize just how important life was to him, and how important the future is for those still living, that he begins to understand that he has to let go of his feelings, and let Dorinda and Ted get on with their lives. But first he has to help Dorinda survive a suicide mission that she's taken over from Ted, attacking a huge and heavily defended Japanese ammo dump. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Pete arrives in a hereafter that's a pilot's version of heaven, including a five-star general (Lionel Barrymore). He doesn't even appreciate what's happened to him until he meets Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson), a friend and fellow pilot who was previously killed in action. It seems that the powers of the hereafter are contributing to the war effort, sending departed pilots like Pete and Dick to Earth to help guide and help young pilots; Pete himself discovers that he benefited from these efforts in peacetime. Pete ends up at Luke Field near Phoenix, AZ, where he takes on helping Ted Randall (Van Johnson), a young pilot who lacks confidence. By the time he's done, riding along while Ted "solos," Ted is a natural in the air and ends up as the star of his squadron when he become operational in New Guinea -- in a group under the command of Al Yackey -- and ends up taking over command when their own leader is shot down. Pete's like a proud teacher, and also enjoys his unheard ribbing of Al and his ex-C.O. to Rumney, over their promotions, but then Dorinda shows up, and suddenly Pete finds all of his unresolved feelings about her recalled, even as he sees that she's never gotten over losing him. And when, with Al's help, she and Ted meet and seem to fall for each other, Pete's jealousy gets the better of him. It's only when he is made to realize just how important life was to him, and how important the future is for those still living, that he begins to understand that he has to let go of his feelings, and let Dorinda and Ted get on with their lives. But first he has to help Dorinda survive a suicide mission that she's taken over from Ted, attacking a huge and heavily defended Japanese ammo dump. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, (more)
- 1943
If you believe all-American Fred MacMurray as an Oxford don, you'll probably swallow the rest of Above Suspicion. Newly married to Joan Crawford, MacMurray goes on a honeymoon in prewar Germany. Actually it's more business than pleasure: they are secret agents for the British, attempting to smuggle back information about a new superweapon being developed by the Nazis. Evil, mean, cruel and also wicked German officer Basil Rathbone imprisons and tortures Crawford (though she still looks like a million bucks), but McMurray comes to the rescue, paving the way for a suspenseful race-to-the-border climax. The tenor of Above Suspicion can be summed up in a scene in which, after being confronted by a monolingual stormtrooper, Fred MacMurray says in English "Nuts to you, dope!," whereupon the Nazi scratches his head and wonders aloud, "Vass iss das 'dope'?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, (more)
- 1943
The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Merle Oberon, Brian Aherne, (more)
- 1942
Eric Knight's wartime novel This Above All was given the Tiffany treatment in the this 20th Century Fox big-budgeter. Tyrone Power plays Clive Briggs, a conscientious objector from humble origins, who deserts the British Army because he doesn't believe in fighting to preserve his country's oppressive class structure. But Briggs is no coward, and he performs admirably in rescuing air-raid victims. Through the love of Prudence Cathaway (Joan Fontaine), a doctor's daughter and member of the women's air corps, Briggs realizes that love of country supersedes all social outrage. This Above All ends with Briggs seriously wounded, though given a good chance to survive. In the original novel, the hero not only dies, but also has a censor-baiting love affair with the Prudence character (who, of course, is as pure as the driven snow in the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tyrone Power, Joan Fontaine, (more)
- 1941
Don Ameche, an American news bureau chief stationed in London, is frustrated by the British government's censorship of his wildly speculative dispatches to the United States. Joan Bennett is the government Teletype operator assigned to make sure that Ameche doesn't send out any story that hasn't been cleared. At first adversarial towards each other, Ameche and Bennet fall in love while huddled in various bomb shelters during the 1940 London blitz. Clearly inspired by Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (40), Confirm or Deny was one of many "preparedness" films turned out by Hollywood in the months just prior to Pearl Harbor. Any political proselytizing, however, takes second place to the Don Ameche/Joan Bennett love story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Ameche, Joan Bennett, (more)
Given the omnipresence of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1940, the second film version of Robert E. Sherwood's Waterloo Bridge would have to be laundered and softened to pass muster. In the original, made in 1931, the heroine is nothing more or less than a streetwalker, patrolling London's Waterloo Bridge during World War I in hopes of picking up the occasional soldier. She falls in love with one of her clients, a young officer from an aristocratic family. Gently informed by the young man's mother that any marriage would be absolutely impossible, the streetwalker tearfully agrees, letting her beau down gently before ending her own life by walking directly into the path of an enemy bomb. In the remake, told in flashback as a means of "distancing" the audience from what few unsavory story elements were left, the heroine, Vivien Leigh, starts out as a virginal ballerina. Robert Taylor, a British officer from a wealthy family, falls in love with Vivien and brings her home to his folks. This time around, Taylor's uncle (C. Aubrey Smith), impressed by Vivien's sincerity, reluctantly agrees to the upcoming marriage. When Taylor marches off to war, Vivien abandons an important dance recital to bid her fiance goodbye, losing her job as a result. Later, she is led to believe that Taylor has been killed in battle. Thus impoverished and aggrieved, she is given a motivation for turning to prostitution, a plot element deemed unecessary in the original-which indeed it was. Now the stage is set for her final sacrifice, though the suicidal elements are carefully weeded out. Waterloo Bridge was remade for a second time in 1956 as Gaby, with Leslie Caron and John Kerr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, (more)
