A Million Pound Note (1954) with Gregory Peck

Brewster's Millions meets My Fair Lady.

Based on a short story by Mark Twain, A Million Pound Note (1954) (aka Man with a Million) follows an American, Henry Adams (Gregory Peck), who is washed ashore in England without a penny. He runs into two gentlemen (Wilfrid Hyde-White and Ronald Squire) who will give him a job if he will keep a £1,000,000 banknote intact for a month.

Reminiscent of the plot in My Fair Lady (in which Hyde-White also appears), the catalyst of the action in Million is a bet between two men who enjoy toying with social experiments.

The film's title in Denmark is translated "Mr. Adams in Paradise," however, as it is with stories of this kind, the suddenly wealthy person has fun only initially. After that, problems begin. In the case of Mr. Adams, now that charities and stock brokers hang on his every word, the strain of weighty responsibilities leaves him sleepless and tormented, quite the opposite of utopia.


There's even a lady (Jane Griffiths) who might be disappointed if she discovers the truth about her new beau and his millions.

A Million Pound Note doesn't always hit the right comic notes, but it makes up for it with social commentary (as only Peck can do it) about the disparate treatment of the same poor man once he's perceived worthy of everyone's time.

Further Resources

• Read the short story "The £1,000,000 Bank-Note" by Mark Twain

Dear Brigitte (1965) - James Stewart and Billy Mumy in a Family Comedy

Dear Classic Movie Fans,

You won't believe the gem of a film I found today. It's Dear Brigitte (1965) with James Stewart as  humanities professor Robert Leaf, who feels unwanted and dated. With the space race and the threat of nuclear war, mathematics and sciences are the stars on campus. Feeling shoved aside, Leaf constantly threatens to resign.

Though there are challenges at Leaf's work, this film is mostly about his problems at home. Leaf's teenaged daughter Pandora (Cindy Carol) is more interested in money than formal education, Leaf's wife Vina (Glynis Johns) is concerned about the strained family budget, and their eight-year son Erasmus (Billy Mumy) is not proficient in anything. During family music time, for instance, their son is the only one who is off key.

 

One day they discover Erasmus is a prodigy in mathematics. Once this gets out, everyone wants to exploit his genius. His sister bribes him to help with math homework, her boyfriend Kenneth (Fabian) pays him to help with college homework, the scientists at the university test him against their mechanical brain - a computer, and the boy even becomes involved in racetrack bets to raise money for a university scholarship.

 

Since the film so ardently sets up Leaf's opposition to math and science, you'd think the movie would play up the tension that is now in his own home, caused by his only beloved son.  There is a short scene where the idea of his son becoming a -gasp!- mathematician is discussed with horror, but it's just one scene.

You'd expect the rest of the movie would see Leaf ranting "they might take my job, but they won't take my son," or some other nonsense. However, no further hubbub is made about the father's dislike for the other disciplines.  It's confusing that there is little follow through for this heavily set-up joke.

The film also fails to take advantage of the parallels between father and son - each one's wishes in life are ignored. Which brings us to another point.

Throughout all of this no one asks what interests the boy, except a psychiatrist (Jack Kruschen) who discovers Erasmus' fascination with French movie star Brigitte Bardot. The child, in his isolation, writes his heart out to this international icon every day, hence the title of this film.

The novel from which Dear Brigitte is adapted has a more suitable title - Erasmus with Freckles. This is his story, after all. But, just as in the plot itself, the character is moved aside to accommodate something more interesting. Movie audiences would flock to see a film with the French star's name in the title.

This is not the only pop culture reference in the film. Ed Wynn, our narrator and fourth wall-breaking guide mentions the Academy Award-winning film Tom Jones(1963). He is also the one who pontificates (as so many comedies of this era do) on the on-going battle of the sexes. This film is happily nestled in its time. It's not meant to be a classic. 

All the winking at the camera could have become tiresome, except you have Stewart and Johns doing what they do best - persuading the audience that their characters are rational people, even when they do the craziest things. Their performance is our foundation, so that when even more zany characters show up, the Leafs are reassuringly reasonable by comparison.

 

Also charming the socks off you, and the main reason to stay with this film, is Mumy's performance as Erasmus. At this point, Mumy had spent about half of his young life in movies and television. This is a professional and it shows (but not in a cloying way). This is one of the most natural young child actors of the era I've seen in a while.

For me, child actors can get by on being... well, children, and fascinate me endlessly just on that basis. But what you have here is a well-sculpted performance of a young man wanting to please his family and also longing for something else. Mumy's work here is pitch perfect.

Dear Brigitte is a charming family film that leaves a few ends loose, but is ultimately a great way to spend ninety minutes. You should check it out.

Sincerely,

Java

P.S. Cindy Carol, who plays James Stewart's daughter here, also plays the title character in Gidget Goes to Rome. The first Gidget was Sandra Dee who also plays James Stewart's daughter in Take Her, She's Mine. Is there something in the Gidget contract that says you must play the offspring of Stewart? Now I have to look up the filmography for Deborah Walley (Gidget Goes Hawaiian)...

Framing a Movie: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Sometimes one frame of a movie totally arrests your attention. Today, Java's Journey examines an inanimate object's brief appearance in a film and how it symbolizes the personalities of the characters.

The Story
In Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), two sisters of a certain age have become insane and cheerfully murder men who inquire about renting a room from them. They consider it their service to humanity to kill old men who are "all alone in the world." So they spike a gentleman's wine with an arsenic cocktail and bury him in the basement.

The Frame
Here, one of the sisters - Martha Brewster (Jean Adair)-  gingerly places the hat of their latest arsenic victim into a cupboard. These are the hats their dead visitors last wore as they came into the house. The movie begins after Abby Brewster (Josephine Hull) has poisoned their 12th "charity case." ("That makes an even dozen," she proudly says.)

Otherwise innocuous rows of hats stand as frightening reminders of Martha's and Abby's delusion. These hats are a clever substitute for the corpses that the characters talk about but the audience never sees.

A bowler, a pageboy, several fedoras, a straw hat - there's quite a variety-  hinting at the personalities that the ladies have snuffed out. The sisters are consciousness, even brushing off the hat before placing it on the shelf. It's almost like a trophy case or butterfly collection.

As she puts away the hat, note the look of pleasure on Martha's face (noticeable even from the side), the heirloom ring on her left hand (reiterating her commitment to family and her genuine pity for those who haven't a family), the apron, the tchotchkes and bowls on the table underneath the cupboard.

These remind you of how utterly nice, homey,  familiar, even saccharine sweet, the ladies appear to everyone. It gives you a chill that you might know someone just like this.

A nondescript cupboard holds a lot of violent secrets,  not unlike the Brewster sisters themselves.

Peter Lawford's Lesson in Perseverance and Risk-Taking

Between major stardom at MGM Studios during the 1940s and swinging with the Rat Pack in the 1960s, actor Peter Lawford (1923-1984) struggled professionally.

Listed with the likes of box office gold Van Johnson during and after WWII, Lawford could throb the hearts of many bobbysoxers as well as thrill their parents. However, the actor would later say that he squandered those years at MGM. The star of Good News (1947) and Little Women (1949) felt his career was over at the age of 29 - with no big studio contract and no movie deals.

 

Says the actor in an interview with Bob Thomas,

"The studio had done a lot for me, and after ten years of security, it's rugged to go it alone. I could have stayed on, but at a cut. Months before my contract was up, I had a meeting with Nick Schenck... who said I could stay at the studio at less money. That was happening to most of the actors whose contracts were ending. I decided not to stay."

Being an independent performer is a frightening prospect after the stability of a steady salary. But Lawford was sure it was the best thing to do for creative control of his career.

"...I was afraid of getting stuck as a B-picture actor. I had been doing a lot of B's (sic) and there was no indication that I would be getting bigger pictures.... [If I signed an MGM contract] again, I would be 36 when I got out. If I were still a B-picture actor then, I'd be washed up. "

Lawford took a risk in not signing another contract with MGM, a risk that didn't immediately pay off. In the studio system, you are handed projects. At the studio, as Lawford says in That's Entertainment (1974), "We did what we were told to do."  However, on his own, things weren't coming his way,  projects did not simply fall into his lap. The actor was terribly discouraged.

In 1953, when friend Tony Martin asked him to introduce one of Martin's acts, Lawford believed the audience would be indifferent, but they were not. "I suddenly discovered that the last ten years weren't lost at all," he said.

This was a turning point.

 

With renewed determination, Lawford would find a haven in many projects, including television. Throughout the 1950s, the performer would appear in several shows, including starring in "Dear Phoebe" and "The Thin Man."

The young people who adored him in the previous decade were now established adults, watching one of their favorite stars at home.

 

Lawford also enjoyed financing television, including famously securing funding in 1958 for the pilot of what would become the Emmy Award -winning program "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Lawford's new career was on the rise.

Was it worth the risk to give up the life he'd known earlier? How did Lawford's 36th year  -the year in which he was afraid he'd be washed up if he stayed at MGM - turn out?

Pretty well. That year -1959- would be a very important one for the actor. It would start a new era for him. It was in that year that old MGM pal, Frank Sinatra, invited Lawford to join the Rat Pack - a group of influential performers who would headline in Las Vegas, pal around, make movies and invest in politics and entertainment.

 

A year later the Rat Pack -Sinatra, Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin and Joey Bishop- would release the first film featuring all of them together - Ocean's 11. This film would become a classic which would be remade in 2001 with a new crop of Hollywood big shots.

It is for Sinatra's Rat Pack era that Lawford is lionized today.
 

Lawford in his 20s could not have foreseen that the risk of keeping creative control of his career would pay off.

How could the terrified matinee idol -who made the mistake of not utilizing his stardom when he had it, who doubted his career could survive into his 30s- have known that he would be far more famous generation after generation for his middle-aged years than his extraordinarily popular younger years?

There are lessons here of perseverance, calculated risk-taking, trying against all odds, understanding that you don't have all the answers, and not sitting in the doldrums for too long.

100 years ago, Thomas Edison - another risk-taking go-getter- said at the age of 67 when his factory burned down, "There’s value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God, we can start anew."

Peter Lawford's legacy is better off because he understood this concept.

"Lucy Hunts Uranium" & It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

Don't have time to sit through the hilarious three hour "comedy to end all comedies" called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)? Then take a gander at a shorter, yet strikingly similar story - "Lucy Hunts Uranium" an episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour originally aired on January 3, 1958 for CBS.

Ricky and Lucy Ricardo (Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball) are in Las Vegas for Ricky's musical show.

With their neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance) and guest star Fred MacMurray as himself, the quintet stumbles upon uranium in the Nevada desert. There's a rush to the claim's office for cash.

In the feature-length, all-star movie Mad World (Originally titled "So Many Thieves," then "Something a Little Less Serious"), a dying gangster tells passers-by where he hid stolen money. The group of strangers (including Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney and Jonathan Winters) must decide what to do next.

In each story there is

The preliminary discussion of percentage shares of the potential cash.

A car chase through the desert

A convertible getting stuck.

A meetup at a gas station.

 

No one ends up in the vehicle in which he/she started.

And general slapstick malarkey

"I Love Lucy" veteran writers Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Martin, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf penned the "Uranium" script.

Writer William Rose and his wife/co-writer Tania Price Rose wrote the Mad World script. Rose, known for writing screenplays in both the U.S. and the U.K., originally set the script in Scotland. The Mad World comedy chase might have been inspired by a story for which he is credited in Genevieve (1953), a plot which involves two people racing against each other.

Both scripts take human motivations -like greed- and dial it up to wacky proportions.  They are each an hilarious tribute to comedy on film.

Further Resources

• More information at Terry-Thomas World
• Urban Cinefile's Mad World page 
• Phil Silver's Mad World Page
• You can watch "Lucy Hunts Uranium"
• "Lucy Hunts Uranium" is available for purchase on VHS.
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is available for purchase on DVD.