Alexander’s Ragtime Band

We first see Roger (Tyrone Power) having just finished conducting a classical concert.  The ladies try to get near him and his proud old professor tries to give the young man some advice, but he brushes them aside.  He and his band pals Charlie (Don Ameche) and Davey (Jack Haley) have an audition to get to.

At Dirty’s Eddie’s a band has just been kicked out by the owner when Stella Kirby (Alice Faye) arrives hoping for a job singing in the joint.  She tells the bartender she’s got some new music straight from New York.  While she’s catching up with an old friend, Roger and his band show up missing their music.  The bartender hands them Stella’s music entitled Alexander’s Ragtime Band.

Now, these boys are used to playing classical, more serious music.  As they begin to play, they ask, “What time is this?” The music is stiff for a few seconds before Roger tells them, “Swing into it.”  It isn’t long before Stella realizes they’re playing the new music she brought and fumes.  She gets up and starts singing with the band, not wanting to lose her own audition.  Before the boys can tell Stella to get lost, the owner hires all of them.  In that moment, they have become Alexander’s Ragtime Band with Roger replacing his name to the lead Alexander.

Though they’ve got the job, it’s not smooth sailing.  Alex and Stella are at each other’s throats at first.  She thinks he’s a snob and he thinks she is too crass.  There’s a great power struggle scene where Alex is trying to make Stella’s costume look classier, but she won’t budge and knows what keeps the audience entertained.  Throughout their fights, Charlie keeps the peace and plays referee.

Soon, a love triangle forms.  Charlie falls for Stella and writes a beautiful song for her, but as she sings it during a performance, she and Alex realize their love for each other.  Their romance is sweet, especially when they incorporate their feuds.  Nothing like embracing and telling your love, “And that’s for all the times I wanted to break your neck.”

With Charlie approving of Alex and Stella’s relationship and the band about to grab the ear of Broadway producer Charles Dillingham (Joseph King), everything seems smooth sailing.  Unfortunately, Dillingham only wants to put Stella on Broadway and soon after the rest of the band gets recruited into the army for WWI.  The rest of the film follows changes through the roaring twenties and days of prohibition where Alex tries to become a post war success and Stella tries to make up for lost time.

I believe I’m finally starting to warm up to these 1930’s musicals.  Either that or Alexander’s Ragtime Band is simply a film that cannot work without all the ragtime numbers spread throughout.  One of the great things about this film is that the plot doesn’t come to a dead stop for each musical number.  Many times they’re part of the action, like when Alex and Stella realize their affections and Stella runs off the stage mid-song and Alex simply hands his baton to Charlie to go after her.  Later, the army’s shows finale doubles as the troops deployment.  Talk about improvising.

In the end, Alexander’s Ragtime Band is an engaging story through the 1910s and 20’s.  Our emotions are pulled and pushed between the love story, Stella’s stage career and Alex’s rise from ruin.  Just like in the audition at Dirty Eddie’s, the band would not have worked without Stella’s voice, and the film cannot go on without the Oscar winning music.

“Just because you can stand here and shout you know everything about music.”

In Old Chicago

The legend in Chicago goes that it was one of Mrs. O’Leary’s cows that started the great Chicago fire in 1871.  This film gives a little more history and drama to that infamous family.

We meet the O’Leary’s in a covered wagon heading toward Chicago.  The young boys get excited at the sight of a train and encourage their father to race it.  Bad idea.  The horses get spooked, break away from the wagon and drag poor old dad for a while.  With his dying breath, he tells his sons that they will be great men of Chicago.

So yeah, early on we see these people don’t have the best luck with animals.

In Chicago, Mrs. O’Leary makes money by running a washing business and her sons grow up to become hardworking men.  Jack (Don Ameche) becomes an honest lawyer who’s proud of his work but doesn’t alway get paid since he represents families down on their luck.  Dion (Tyrone Power) is a rogue, enjoys the saloon life and pursues the beautiful dancer Belle (Alice Faye).  His techniques are brash, intrusive and should get him arrested, but every time Belle’s ultra-stereotype-black-girl-helper runs to get a police officer she returns to the couple making out.

As the story unfolds, Dion opens the best saloon in town, The Senate, and runs his competitor into running for mayor, asking Dion to help with his campaign.  The problem is that Jack is running as well, so it seems that the brothers will be competing.  Or will they?  Whatever, watch and find out.  In the end, we know there will be the great Chicago fire.

At the time, this was the most expensive film ever produced.  The depictions of the great fire is probably what made this film so expensive.  The fires are daring and frightening.  The chaos in the streets is done wonderfully.

The musical numbers aren’t anything special, but I did finally learn the words to In Old Chicago.  Wait, wasn’t this motif used the previous year in San Francisco?  You know, named after the song in it about the city and in the end a great disaster strikes.  Way too similar, it even has the protagonist do that long walk among desperate displaced people looking for someone.  My suggestion, go with the city you’re most connected to.  If you feel equally impartial to both, San Francisco is better and doesn’t feel like a copycat.

Heaven Can Wait

After Henry (Don Ameche) dies, he heads straight to Hell’s lobby to tell Satan the story of his life in order to gain entrance to the underworld.  You see, Henry is convinced that with all his womanizing over the years he’d never be admitted into heaven.  What unfolds is the life of a wealthy man who’s not as bad as he says he is.  The story becomes a classic romantic comedy that everyone can enjoy.

Now, when I say romantic comedy, don’t cringe (that’s my initial reaction anyway).  Today when we hear those two words that flock estrogen filled women to theaters with their ill fated males in tow, we conjure up images of some chick who used to be in a popular show with that one hot guy and cliche moments of misunderstandings and the girl all mad and crying and the guy running to catch her plane just in time to kiss her as what ever song is popular then plays.  How many of you imagined Jennifer Aniston or Sarah Jessica Parker in that mess?  Then you know what a bad romantic comedy is.  In 1943, that extent of dribble hadn’t been invented yet, what a wonderful world.

What makes Heaven Can Wait a romantic comedy is the fact that it follows Henry’s conquests in a delightfully humorous way.  It starts at infancy and grows to where he gives a girl a beetle in the park.  As a teenager, he sneaks out of the house to drink with the French maid and onward through adulthood and marriage.  It’s funny, romantic and never becomes cliche.

One thing that makes this film so wonderful is the great spread of characters.  That’s another thing that makes this so different from today’s RCs, their characters are usually flimsy as the newspaper their two star reviews are printed on.  Here, in Heaven Can Wait, everyone is well rounded and interesting.  Henry’s parents realize their son’s behavior is out of line, worry constantly over him and have a mind to punish him, yet the moment he walks in the door their hearts melt and they baby him and give him all he money he asks for until he’s a grown man.  Henry’s cousin, Albert, seems to be the competition since he’s a good boy who becomes a lawer, but he’s such a twerpy little know-it-all no one can really stand him.  He also has some air to him that reminds me of Ned Flanders from The Simpsons.  Even the few minutes we see of Satan are wonderful.  I mean, he is His Excellency in a nice tux, slicked hair and some priceless facial expressions, but he never falls into a cliche when he could so easily have some horns.

Yes, in the realm of romantic comedies, I usually puke.  But Heaven Can Wait is delightful, charming and just a wonderful film.  Give it a try and I guarantee that it’ll make you laugh more than watching Sarah Jessica Parker and that lame British guy act like dopes in the country.

“Sometimes it looks as if the whole world is coming to hell.”