Men and cigarettes - part 2

It seemed popular to show half naked men in a post some time ago, to break from the pattern of beautiful half naked women, so I'll go ahead and do a follow-up on my Men and Cigarettes post from February. Then I added the cause of death also (just to make it a little more depressing), so I'll continue in that manner.
Enjoy - Men and cigarettes - part 2! As usual you can just click on the pictures to see them in a larger version. If you are like me and steal pictures on every site you visit, that is.

(I will do my best to do a follow-up on the Male Cheesecake post ASAP. Fight your demons until then, ladies!)

Alain Delon (1935-)
I just recently realized how God darn good looking Mr. Delon is. Phuh...

Chico Marx (1887-1961)
(Heart ailment)
I can't remember if I already have confessed on this blog that I find Chico Marx extremely sexy. I was oh-so delighted when I found this picture of him - here's your proof of his sex appeal. And the fact that he got his name because he "chased the chicks" just adds to my opinion of him as one of the most desirable ladies men ever. (Am I being weird again? I can seldom tell.)

Conrad Veidt (1893-1943)
(Heart attack)
The cool German actor you probably remember best as Gestapo Maj. Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He died while playing golf. As he was blacklisted in Nazi Germany his death wasn't officially announced - his wife and daughter heard about it on the radio.

Harry Langdon (1884-1944)
(Cerebral hemorrhage)
Does this look like a guy who ran away from home and joined a circus at the age of 12?

James Dean (1931-1955)
(Car crash)
This picture just makes me drool... (When I ordered a calender you could make yourself online I chose this picture for my birthday month. As a present to myself.)

Michael Caine (1933-)
Oh, how I adore Englishmen! This is the son of a fish-market porter and a charlady. He is also the father of Austin Powers.

Preston Sturges (1898-1959)
(Heart attack)
The director of the 1941 films Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve looks like someone I wouldn't like to meet in a dark alley by myself. (Or maybe I would...?)

Raoul Walsh (1887-1980)
(Natural causes)
Together with two extras, Italia and Venezia Frandi, in the days before a killer rabbit stole one of his eyes. Such beautiful, bright eyes too.

Ricardo Cortez (1899-1977)
(Natural causes)
An Austrian guy who went to Hollywood to make a career as an "exotic screen lover", went on to play Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1931), and by the end of his life he was a member of one of Wall Street's top brokerage firms. He died after having lived quite a comfortable life.

Notice that the article above says he was born in 1889 and not 1899. Typo or intentionally wrong information?

Robert Montgomery (1904-1981)
(Cancer)
Such a beautiful photograph. Quote from Mr. Montgomery:

"If you are lucky enough to be a success, by all means enjoy the applause and the adulation of the public. But never, never believe it."

Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996)

(Pancreatic cancer)
Seems like a privileged fellow - bathing in Fontana Di Trevi with a Swedish blonde one minute, lying in a bed next to Sophia Loren and airing his hairy chest the next.

Tod Browning (1880-1962)

(Cancer)
Looking cool with Lon Chaney on a break from shooting The Road to Mandalay (1926). Chaney looks just a tiny bit creepy. Oh, and he died of lung cancer four years later.

*anti-smokers cheering*

Symphony of Six Million

Symphony of Six Million

Director: Gregory La Cava

USA 1932

94 min

A City --

Six million human hearts -

Each with a dream --

a hope -- a goal ---

Each soul a vagrant

melody in the eternal

Symphony of Life!

Well, you wouldn't be surprised by a laugh from a modern audience at that intro - but it actually sums up the spirit of this film pretty good.

A lovely pre-code melodrama, about a poor and loud Jewish family living in the ghetto. It doesn't take too many minutes into the film until you realize that one of the three children, Felix Klauber, has high ambitions - he wants to be a doctor. His best friend is Jessica, another poor ghetto child with a spine problem, Jessica.

Felix and Jessica being bullied by some tough guys.

Felix reads a book while playing chess with his temperamental father.

We jump ahead a few years. Felix (Ricardo Cortez) is now a beloved doctor in the ghetto, and Jessica (Irene Dunne) is a school teacher for blind children - all the while limping around because of her spine defect. Felix seems to enjoy his life and get energy for helping those in need, but his brat brother Magnus has some other plans for his talented brother. Magnus manipulates their mother to convince Felix that she doesn't enjoy her life, and that she wishes for him to get a doctor's practice in the fancier part of the town so the family can move. Said and done (who wouldn't do anything for their mother?).

Still best friends, Felix visits Jessica and the blind children every once in a while.

"Oh, Felix, I don't like it here..." That spineless woman!

We take another leap in time. Felix now has a fancy office uptown, and financially supports his whole family. He is too busy with appointments with frustrated high society women who wants to be examined by their handsome, young doctor, that he nearly looses all contact with his family - and Jessica. When he misses an operation on one of Jessica's blind boy students, and he sadly looses his life, Jessica gives him an eye-opener to get nightmares about. What has happened to Felix? What happened to his strong will and moral? Is he happy with his life, even if it includes a lot of money and social status?

A sick boy, waiting for his favorite doctor - Felix Klauber.

Who wouldn't go to the doctor more often if he looked like Ricardo Cortez?

When he finally realizes that he wants to spend more time with his family, he gets to them just in time for his father to get a brain tumour. And who does his family think is the most suitable person to operate him, if not Felix.

It is no surprise that the director behind this enthrilling film is Gregory La Cava, directing My Man Godfrey (1936) four years later. The whole film is very beautiful and engaging - I especially admire the operating scene where Felix is forced to perform brain surgery on his own father. The music grows more and more intense, until it abruptly stops dead when Felix grabs the first operating instrument. It almost feels mean - in an important and intense scene like that, a little musical distraction would help to tell the film apart from real life - but oh, no. This is serious stuff, and you're supposed to feel it.

Behind the camera is cinematographer Leo Tover, also responsible for the photography work of two other films I've reviewed - Thirteen Women (1932) and I'm No Angel (1933).

As Felix grabs the scalpel, the merciless silence falls upon us.

Felix Klauber - not so popular in the ghetto anymore.

A great example of the beautiful photo by Leo Tover.

One more thing. Before seeing this film, I had only encountered Cortez in sleezy bad guy parts (something he is exceptionally good at), so I had some worries that he wouldn't be able to put off a serious dramatic role. But was I wrong? Oh, yes.
More Cortez for the people!

Illicit (1931)

Illicit
Director: Archie Mayo
USA 1931
79 min

See the film on YouTube here. (There seems to be a little gap between the first and the second clip, but nothing disturbing.)


In this pre-code production Anne Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck), a modern woman, and Richard "Dick" Ives II (James Rennie), a member of a rich and respected family, is a happy young couple with only one problem: Dick wants to get married, but Anne doesn't. Her view of the holy sacrament is that people always seem to either unhappily married or unhappily divorced.
Anne is strong in her opinions and even challenges Dick's father Richard Ives I (Claude Gillingwater), but is after much ado about it convinced to become Mrs. Anne Ives.

Before the marriage Anne receives a telegram from an ex-lover, now friend, Price Baines (Ricardo Cortez), that he wants to see her. Dick tries to forbid Anne to receive him (an early sign of the destructive results of becoming a man's possession?), but being an independent woman she does exactly as she pleases. Price, of course, tries to convince her to stick to her principles.

See the brilliant acting and the perfected dialogue in the following clip. Do you feel the tension between the soon-to-be husband and the ex-lover? Gives me the creeps.

What you see in the clip above is also the beginning of another marriage problem - a woman friend, Margie (Natalie Moorhead), who keeps her eyes (and arms) open for Dick. Is she a threat? Is she more of a threat to a married couple who starts to get too casual with each other, than to a pre-marriage couple consisting of two independent people?
In other words, this drama between two people develops into a triangle drama, shifting into a different triangle drama - but in the most modern and untheatrical way.

The characters in this film are very well cast (see the wonderfully modern Joan Blondell as "Duckie") into the smallest bit parts, though I personally didn't care too much about Rennie as Dick (even though there's nothing wrong with his performance, what I can see). But maybe his part isn't very well written, neither. He whines about getting married, and when he finally gets what he wants he neglects his wife - making the viewer hope that she runs away with the latino lover instead (and I guess that was not what was intended).
But about Stanwyck, to quote Addison DeWitt from All About Eve (1950), you can really see her career rise in the East like the sun.

The female characters, l-r: Margie, Anne and Duckie.

Illicit seems like it wasn't given the credit that it deserved, it's a truly brilliant film. The characters are very down to earth, especially Stanwyck's. Her way of delivering the most heart breaking feelings by simply walking through a room, and barely move a facial muscle, is astonishing. The drama is professionally dimmed, a lot of the emotions are expressed by seemingly every-day talk.
And, the best of all (a thing I was quite worried about, but fortunately didn't come true) - the moral of the story does not seem to be "marriage solves all problems". Actually, the moral of the story didn't seem to have anything about marriage at all. As Stanwyck's last line indicates:

"What have theories to do with love?"

Quotes:

Richard 'Dick' Ives II: Dad, what would you do with a girl like that?
Richard Ives Sr: I'd grab her any way she'd have me.

Anne Vincent Ives: Why Georgie, you look a little emaciated!
George Evans: Well, I was just emaciated into the Elks Saturday night.