Star Witness (1931)/ Heroes For Sale (1933)
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Mr. Arkadin
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Star Witness (1931)/ Heroes For Sale (1933)
I'm recording these 2 on principal, but have never seen either. Can anyone fill me in?
HEROES FOR SALE is one of William Wellman's best Depression-era melodramas--dealing with, among other things (like drug addiction) a man's (Richard Barthelmess) re-entry into society after returning home from the war. (It's a combat injury that has him hooked on morphine, not simply kicks, making its pre-code qualifications somewhat less salacious.) Finding himself jobless and homeless, his situation goes from bad to worse quite rapidly. It's a steady stream of misery for just about everyone concerned and done in grand, over-the-top Warner Bros style. Not as focused or penetrating as WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD but nonetheless a compelling (if not overloaded) panorama of life at the bottom. Well worth catching. I've never seen STAR WITNESS.
Star Witness is pretty good film that involves a family witnessing a couple murders and the family being positive as to who did it. Unfortunately things change when their youngest son is kidnapped. The ADA played (wonderfully) by Walter Huston tries EVERYTHING he can to get the family to spill the beans. Only the grandfather played by Chic Sale (very funny at times in this movie) is willing to testify and he also has the message that we should be all patriotic in our duty even if it means harm.
It's an enthralling little film and has a heartwarming ending. I had planned to watch it again last night but well....I was under the weather.
It's an enthralling little film and has a heartwarming ending. I had planned to watch it again last night but well....I was under the weather.
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Mr. Arkadin
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Wow, Jon, tell us how you really feel about Chic Sales in Star Witness (1931)!? 
Mr. Sales is pretty irksome after the first of his many seemingly ad-libbed monologues about the old days in this movie, by crackie...but how many times do you ever get to see anyone hijack a movie away from as strong a presence as Walter Huston?
Despite the fact that intellectually I agreed with Chic Sales' commitment to being a good citizen and modeling ideal behavior (of a sort) for the grandkid, my sympathy was entirely with the family breadwinner: grumpy, middle-aged Grant Mitchell, who just wanted some peace and quiet so he could maybe read the paper and finish a meal without those pesky tommy gun bullets flying through the house.
Grant Mitchell, (on the floor, above), getting the worst of it, as usual, in Star Witness.
I thought that Heroes for Sale was excellent, especially in the way it showed how little help was available for WWI veteran Richard Barthelmess and his fellow vets. The complex portrait of his struggle to cope with his addiction and the way in which it was looked on as primarily a moral weakness by society was well done too. I liked the way that the movie refused to accept easy solutions to Barthelmess' problems, though, like many a good Warner Bros. flick from the period, the mention of Rooselvelt's name causes a reverent hush to fall over even a bunch of hobos, (similar to the effect of the mention of Richard the Lionhearted in The Adventures of Robin Hood).
Also, any movie with Aline MacMahon is better for it. Her matter of fact do-gooder, who one moment is giving the brush to a guy spouting off about the masses, and the next is giving real, practical help to one of them was delightful. Her largely unspoken love for the Barthelmess' character, despite his involvement with Loretta Young, was a marvel of economical character expression.
I also liked the encounter that Barthelmess' character had with Robert Barrat's "radical", (who soon went to the other extreme of becoming an unbridled capitalist). While the movie toyed with ideas of the time for social change, I liked the way that the film ultimately found little good in the alleged "scientific" approach to solving social, labor or personal problems--though, of course, this was once again a case of WB movies exploiting real pain and dramatic issues of the period while still expressing underlying support for the system that made the success of the studio possible.
Richard Barthelmess' performance as a humane man trying to live an ethical life, despite everything, was very good in a stoic, bottled up way that made his plight more touching when he allowed his emotions to pour out in brief moments of the movie. There were no easy solutions given for him, his compatriots, or society, though his generosity of spirit, expressed in his openhearted, weary forgiveness for the young man who had done him harm at the end of the film, seems to imply that the determination and basic goodness of people will triumph in the end...well, maybe.
I do wonder how audiences in the Depression truly felt about this film. It must've been hard to take, since so much of it was close to the misery many of them were experiencing at the time.
Mr. Sales is pretty irksome after the first of his many seemingly ad-libbed monologues about the old days in this movie, by crackie...but how many times do you ever get to see anyone hijack a movie away from as strong a presence as Walter Huston?
Despite the fact that intellectually I agreed with Chic Sales' commitment to being a good citizen and modeling ideal behavior (of a sort) for the grandkid, my sympathy was entirely with the family breadwinner: grumpy, middle-aged Grant Mitchell, who just wanted some peace and quiet so he could maybe read the paper and finish a meal without those pesky tommy gun bullets flying through the house.
Grant Mitchell, (on the floor, above), getting the worst of it, as usual, in Star Witness.
I thought that Heroes for Sale was excellent, especially in the way it showed how little help was available for WWI veteran Richard Barthelmess and his fellow vets. The complex portrait of his struggle to cope with his addiction and the way in which it was looked on as primarily a moral weakness by society was well done too. I liked the way that the movie refused to accept easy solutions to Barthelmess' problems, though, like many a good Warner Bros. flick from the period, the mention of Rooselvelt's name causes a reverent hush to fall over even a bunch of hobos, (similar to the effect of the mention of Richard the Lionhearted in The Adventures of Robin Hood).
Also, any movie with Aline MacMahon is better for it. Her matter of fact do-gooder, who one moment is giving the brush to a guy spouting off about the masses, and the next is giving real, practical help to one of them was delightful. Her largely unspoken love for the Barthelmess' character, despite his involvement with Loretta Young, was a marvel of economical character expression.
I also liked the encounter that Barthelmess' character had with Robert Barrat's "radical", (who soon went to the other extreme of becoming an unbridled capitalist). While the movie toyed with ideas of the time for social change, I liked the way that the film ultimately found little good in the alleged "scientific" approach to solving social, labor or personal problems--though, of course, this was once again a case of WB movies exploiting real pain and dramatic issues of the period while still expressing underlying support for the system that made the success of the studio possible.
Richard Barthelmess' performance as a humane man trying to live an ethical life, despite everything, was very good in a stoic, bottled up way that made his plight more touching when he allowed his emotions to pour out in brief moments of the movie. There were no easy solutions given for him, his compatriots, or society, though his generosity of spirit, expressed in his openhearted, weary forgiveness for the young man who had done him harm at the end of the film, seems to imply that the determination and basic goodness of people will triumph in the end...well, maybe.
I do wonder how audiences in the Depression truly felt about this film. It must've been hard to take, since so much of it was close to the misery many of them were experiencing at the time.
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Mr. Arkadin
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