A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

This drama delivers.


Email would make the premise of this film obsolete, so let's hear it for the storytelling merits of the United States postal system.


Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) have a few key factors in common.


TROUBLE IN PARADISE?


They're all friends and get together regularly with their husbands to socialize at a country club.


Each has boarded a ferry to help chaperone a picnic for a whack of youngsters on the same Saturday morning.


All their husbands have more than passing interest in Addie Ross (Celeste Holm), described but never seen as a ravishing woman with a solid head on her shoulders.


Just before the ferry is about to leave, the three ladies get a letter from Addie herself. When you come back later today, she says, I will have left town with one of your husbands.


How's that for hitting an iceberg before even leaving dock?


JUMPING SHIP

As we learn through flashbacks, each woman has reason to worry it's her husband who's jumped ship.


Deborah's the farm girl who grew up in a cash-strapped family. She's finding it hard to adjust to the upper-middle class circle her husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) calls home. The confidence she experienced in the navy during the Second World War, serving alongside other women in the same boat, is gone now that she's rubbing shoulders with the well-to-do of this unnamed American town.


Rita writes scripts for radio shows. She's so busy with her career she forgets about the birthday of her husband, George (Kirk Douglas). But, Addie remembered. She even sent him an album of one of his favourite classical recordings. George isn't keen about the dreck Rita writes to pay the bills. Rita's a little upset at the suggestive comment Addie penned in her card to her better half. There's some tension over her salary being bigger than his.


Lora Mae spends most of her time bickering with her husband, successful businessman Porter (Paul Douglas, Panic in the Streets (Fox Film Noir)). Funny how he never found the time to move Addie's portrait from his living room. Porter is convinced Lora Mae married him for his cash, not love.


YOU'LL LAUGH, YOU'LL CRY


A Letter to Three Wives doesn't get caught up in just hand-wringing among the three women. There are plenty of laughs too.


Thelma Ritter is a delight as Sadie Dugan, maid to the Phipps and best friend of Lora Mae's mother. Her wisecracks are a hoot.


George does a slow burn as he's forced to listen to cruddy radio show after cruddy radio show when his wife invites a powerful industry type over for dinner. Hold on when said power magnet asks him for his impression of the shows he's just suffered through.


Joseph Mankiewicz won two Oscars, direction and screenplay, for A Letter to Three Wives. The 103-minute black-and-white drama was also nominated for best picture.

This, folks, is a film well-worth seeing. Highly recommended.


RATING: 9/10


FUN FACTS: Jeffrey Lynn appeared alongside James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties.

Barbara Lawrence, who appears as Lora Mae's younger sister, is still alive. Her other credits include the original Unfaithfully Yours and Oklahoma!

Wow, Carl Switzer (Alfalfa in the Our Gang shorts) has a small role in this film. Did you know he was murdered in 1959 over an argument about $50?


Celeste Holm appeared in the Oscar winner for best picture, Gentleman's Agreement

The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Here's a movie that still makes its mark after 71 years.


The Mark of Zorro is great fun with a strong cast and exceptional score by Alfred Newman (The King and I, The Song of Bernadette).


Don Diego Vega (Tyrone Power) is in Spain, being schooled in the fine arts of horsemanship and fencing, when he gets the call to return home to California.


He doesn't take the news well. Vega expects his life of rousing adventure will soon turn to stupefying boredom.


But his folks haven't told him of some stunning developments back in Los Angeles. His father, Don Alejandro Vega (Montague Love) is out as governor.


The corrupt Don Luis Quintero (J.Edward Bromberg) and his nasty henchman, Capt. Esteban Pasquale (Basil Rathbone), now rule the roost. Their subjects are afraid, not to mention broke because of all the taxes they're forced to pay.


The senior Vega won't lead a rebellion because he fears the effort will be crushed. A 30-year government veteran, he also believes in obeying the law. His son quickly decides he'll challenge the oppressive government.


Drawing on what he learned back in Spain, Don Diego will ride by night as Zorro (Spanish for fox). A mask will conceal his identity. He'll dress in black as he strikes back at Don Luis Quintero.


To throw off his opponents, and even his own family, Don Diego adopts a peace, not war, attitude who gets queasy at the thought of holding a sword. "Sword play is such a violent business," he says. His supposed beliefs disgust his father, and Fray Felipe (Eugene Pallette) and earn the contempt of Pasquale. The governor's right hand man is well skilled with his sword.



Power is a treat to watch as Vega/Zorro. There's good reason why he was a huge matinee idol. He's a good looking young buck (in his mid 20s when this film was made) who can act.


His romancing of the governor's teenaged niece, Lolita Quintero (Linda Darnell) includes a great scene in a chapel. She's praying. Zorro, dressed as a padre, is trying to elude the governor's men. Thinking he's a man of the cloth, she wants advice about finding love. Zorro tries to conceal his identity while trying to sneak peeks at the lovely young lady. Great stuff.


Save some popcorn for the final showdown between Pasquale and Zorro. Their duel is thrilling to watch. Rathbone more than fills the bill as the chief villain. Relish how good he is at being bad.


Director Rouben Mamoulian shows off his chops in the film's opening scene with a field of swordsman practising their craft in a field.


Pallette, a veteran actor with 251 titles to his credit over his career, is a hoot as a priest more than eager to take up arms against Quintero. He repeatedly asks for God's forgiveness as he whacks soldiers on the head during the film's final fight scene.


Alfred Newman, who won nine Oscars for his musical work, provides the rousing score.


This is entertainment, folks. Well recommended.


RATING: 8/10


FUN FACTS: Rouben Mamoulian was fired from helming what would become one of Hollywood's most acclaimed film noirs, Laura.


Linda Darnell appeared as Henry Fonda's love interest in My Darling Clementine.



Both films are reviewed on this site.


This fact isn't so fun. Tyrone Power died of a heart attack in 1958. He was just 44. Darnell died in a house fire in 1965. She was 41.


Gale Sondergaard, who appears as Quintero's wife, Inez, appeared in an episode of Get Smart in 1970.

My Darling Clementine (1946)

Victor Mature's take on Doc Holliday is the perfect prescription for western movie fans.

Henry Fonda gets top billing in John Ford's 1946 western, but Mature is a real treat to watch as the former doctor who now sends people to the graveyard instead of restoring their health.

MATURE'S DOC A STANDOUT

The town of Tombstone is the perfect place for the Shakespeare-quoting killer with a taste for champagne and lots of readin'.

Mature's Doc speaks softly and is tormented by who he used to be and who he has become.

The four Earp brothers are herding cattle to California. When Wyatt (Fonda), Morgan (Ward Bond) and Virgil (Tim Holt) ride into Tombstone, youngest brother James (Don Garner) is killed by cattle rustlers.

LISTEN TO PA, OR ELSE

Wyatt, ex-marshall of Dodge City, decides to enforce the law in Tombstone. Old Man Clanton (a great Walter Brennan) and his boys stand out as the likely culprits. The ominous music when pops and one of his boys appear on camera the first time is a pretty good hint these aren't peace-lovin' folks.

But give Brennan top marks in his secondary role as one mean, cruel father. Here's a guy who whips his sons when they mess up. "When you pull a gun, kill a man," is one of the practical pieces of advice he offers his offspring.

Holliday and Earp aren't chummy buddies at first, but a respect does grow between the two men. The now bad doctor, who is keeping time with saloon girl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), confronts his past when old flame Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) ends up in Tombstone after a long search for her much-loved beau.

FORD'S GREATEST WESTERN?

Veteran movie critic Roger Ebert hails My Darling Clementine as director John Ford's greatest western. Those are high words of praise for the American filmmaker whose resume also includes The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Rio Grande.

Besides several great performances, there is plenty of humour in this film ranging from slapstick to clever word play. The scenery is beautiful and the composition of some of Ford's shots in this black-and-white film is inspired.

The DVD I watched included an interesting 42-minute documentary about the preview print screened compared to the final version released to theatres. Learn why producer Darryl F. Zanuck wasn't entirely happy with Ford's cut of My Darling Clementine.

Rating: 8/10

FUN FACTS: Mature appeared in the 1976 film, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood. Linda Darnell was Hollywood's youngest leading lady when, at 16, she appeared in Hotel for Women in 1939. Her next fact isn't fun, but sad. Darnell died in a house fire in 1965. She was 41. Darnell was watching Star Dust, a film she made in 1940, at the time. Cathy Downs moved from westerns to science-fiction/horror films with credits in Missile to the Moon and The She-Creature in the 1950s.

My Darling Clementine (1946, 97 minutes). Cast includes Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt, Ward Bond, Alan Mowbray, John Ireland, Roy Roberts, Jane Darwell and Grant Withers.