The people at Warner Home Video have finally got their collective stuff together and are releasing The Asphalt Jungle, Murder, My Sweet, Out of the Past and The Set-Up to DVD. Four of the finest noirs ever made, and they're due to hit the street on July 6.

As Danny Kaye once sang, "Life couldn't possibly better be..."
11:49:21 PM    comment []  trackback []  

The verdict is in…

I received my VHS copy of Partners in Time (1946) I recently purchased off of eBay a few days ago, but I hadn’t been able to take a look at it until last night—my day off. I am pleased to report that the positive buzz on the film is 100% accurate; it most assuredly lives up to its reputation. (John Cocchi speaks glowingly of the movie in his wonderful book on B-films, Second Feature.) Partners in Time was the final film in a series of six Lum & Abner features produced by Jack Wm. Votion (for Post Pictures) and released by RKO from 1940-46. (A seventh Lum & Abner feature, 1956’s Lum & Abner Abroad, was culled from three television pilots produced for a possible TV series.)

There are two major plot points in Partners in Time, the first being that Pine Ridge’s resident “Kingfish,” Squire Skimp (Dick Elliott), is introducing to his fellow townsfolk an equally conniving scalawag named Gerald Sharpe (Charles Jordan). Sharpe is the grandson of Lucky Parker, a Pine Ridge-ian who once owned all of the land in town, and whose son Jeff sold said land to the town's populace, including Lum Edwards (Chester Lauck) and Abner Peabody (Norris Goff), who built their Jot ‘Em Down Store on the property. Sharpe maintains that Jeff wasn’t Parker’s son, and he’s insisting that everyone who bought land from Jeff pay him $500—a sum no one in town could possibly raise (Abner remarks, “This town couldn’t raise $500 on lend lease.”). So our heroes attempt to find proof that Jeff is Parker’s son in an effort to save the town.

The second storyline involves Lum’s niece Janet (Teala Loring) and her boyfriend, Tim Matthews (John James). Tim has been away from Pine Ridge for two years, serving a hitch in the Army, and Janet spent that same amount of time with her aunt in the big city. The young couple pledged to get married on Tim’s return and put down stakes in Pine Ridge, but Janet is beginning to have second thoughts. Lum then proceeds to tell the two lovebirds the tale of how Abner came to Pine Ridge in 1906; he, too, was “just passing through” and he ended up staying put. By flashing back to their past, the boys’ memories are jogged about Jeff Parker and they are able to present to necessary proof to foil Skimp and Sharpe’s scheme.

I had decidedly mixed feelings about Partners in Time: I lamented the fact that the Lum & Abner film series came to an end just as the films were beginning to hit their stride (their previous vehicle, Goin’ to Town, was a very enjoyable romp), but on the other hand, I was pleased that the series went out on such a high note—an extreme rarity for many a movie series. In Partners in Time, a fine screenplay by Charles E. Roberts fleshes out these beloved radio characters wonderfully, blending bucolic comedy and moments of real pathos and poignancy.

In the film, we learn that the two partners first met in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. Abner is headed west to California, and he stops by Pine Ridge to say “hi-dy” to his war buddy Lum. Well, actually, he’s arrested for speeding, going 20 m.p.h. in his “horseless carriage”; he’s picked up by Constable Milford Spears (Danny Duncan), whom Abner addresses as “Grandpap” even at their first encounter. Grandpap brings Abner before Justice of the Peace Lum, who is surprised and pleased to see his old friend; Lum in turns introduces Abner to the people of Pine Ridge (including a young Squire Skimp!), particularly a young woman named Elizabeth Meadows (Pamela Blake), a female friend of Lum’s whom he desperately wants to marry but can’t seem to find the words to propose. Lum also invites Abner to become his partner in a new business venture—namely, the Jot ‘Em Down Store.

Chet Lauck and Norris Goff play Lum & Abner in the 1906 scenes sans their old-age makeup, and I agree with OTR historian Terry Salomonson’s observation that one gets “to see and hear more of the real Chester Lauck and Norris Goff than their characters in the flashbacks.” Both men display some very impressive acting chops, particularly Lauck, who conveys beautifully a marvelous melancholy sadness when his best friend marries the woman he loves—and to add insult to injury, Lum must perform the ceremony as Justice of the Peace when the minister is unable to officiate. What is so heart-breaking about this is that Abner has never learned about his friend’s sacrifice; only the audience is in on the secret in a wonderful sequence in which Lum remembers telling a dying friend on her deathbed that he’s planning to ask Elizabeth to marry him very soon, but alas, he's too late. Only niece Janet has figured out his secret, and he simply places a finger to her lips, effortless communicating that he plans to carry it to his grave. I completely puddled up after seeing this, and if you don’t when you watch it, than you’re a robot—pure and simple.

Partners in Time was directed by B-movie veteran William Nigh, who had a fairly impressive career at MGM in silent films (directing Lon Chaney in Mr. Wu and Thunder), but later eked out a living at Monogram in the 1930s and 1940s, guiding the sterling efforts of detective Mr. Wong (the decidedly un-Asian Boris Karloff) and the East Side Kids (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, etc.). The movie also features a first-rate cast, with Blake, Elliott, Duncan and Grady Sutton (as Cedric Weehunt) all turning in fine performances. I was pleased that Duncan had a much meatier role in this L&A effort, and Sutton is hysterically funny as always, particularly in a scene in which he’s been enlisted to warn the other merchants of Pine Ridge of Skimp’s scheme, and as the Squire enters the doorways of the various businesses he keeps running into Cedric. If you only intend see one of the Lum & Abner films, this is definitely the one to view—but if you plan to see them all, take my advice and save this wonderful movie for last (for dessert, you know).
11:17:48 AM    comment []  trackback []