Fredric March wore gravitas like the grimace of fear and anger beading his brow in William Wyler’s gripping home invasion THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955). Choking back DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931), for which he won his first Oscar, euthanizing Willy Loman in DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1951), roaring sanctimonious through INHERIT THE WIND (1960), March faced his big screen fates with Chekhovian resolve. Valjean of LES MISERABLES, Vronsky in ANNA KARENINA, Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel (1897-1975) from Racine, Wisconsin, served the U.S. Army during World War I, received a degree in Economics afterwards, and chose theatre over banking (and often film) in truncating his mother’s maiden name Marcher. He also proved himself time and again as lithe a comedian as Marcel Marceau. Beginning with his cinematic breakthrough in Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman’s flank of Barrymore ham, THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY (1930), March mugged his way through melodrama (A STAR IS BORN) and cherished Americana (THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES) equally hilarious. Fed straight lines by Noel Coward & Ernst Lubitsch (DESIGN FOR LIVING), Carole Lombard (NOTHING SACRED), and comic spellbinder René Clair (I MARRIED A WITCH), March fixed it so that even DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY…. – Raoul Hernandez, Guest Curator, Austin Chronicle
Tom, a playwright, and George, an artist, share a garret in Paris where they have struggled for success for 12 years. Gilda, a lovely young commercial artist, enters their lives and their hearts and brings them success. Amazingly, the ménage a trois manages to work out the kinks in their complicated relationship – even after Gilda marries her stodgy boss. This decidedly pre-Code comedy got onto American screens right before the Hollywood censors cracked down on a whole host of representations of “immorality.” » read more
Death is curious about why people fear him and cling to life, so he takes a short holiday as “Prince Sirki” and persuades Duke Lambert to invite him to a weekend party in his villa. There “Sirki” meets Grazia, who despite her engagement to Corrado, feels strangely drawn to the mysterious stranger. Two other female guests, Rhoda and Alda, are also intrigued by the Prince, but Alda feels frightened when she looks into his eyes. Death actually wishes to experience love and chooses Grazia as the object of his inexperienced “affection.” In such a scenario, complications are bound to arise. » read more
Small town folks were usually depicted cinematically in the 30s as fish out of water when landing in New York City, but Hazel Flagg figures out a way to put one over on the big city slickers. Getting a quack diagnosis that she is dying from radium poisoning after painting too many watch dials, the eager young woman wins a free trip to the Big Apple where she is the proverbial toast of the town and object of a journalist’s fantasies.
Burned at the stake several hundred years before, Jennifer returns to life to make life hell for the descendant of her Puritan executioner. But her love potion gets misdirected and she instead becomes infatuated with Jonathan rather than vice- versa. Attracted but not drawn to her, the man is more focused on his fiancée and his upcoming senatorial election. Jennifer’s drunken warlock father only further complicates matters in this classic screwball comedy.
Still one of the most powerful and relevant postwar movies to come out of Hollywood, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES follows the lives of three returning veterans trying to reintegrate into their rather unremarkable pre-war lives. One has lost his hands in combat , another is returning to a dead-end job and a dying marriage, and the third (March), though securely middle-class, has been dramatically changed by wartime and intense male bonding, which transcended class divisions. » read more
