The Best Movies You May Have Never Seen (January 2016)

Recommended and reviewed by Gary Cahall, MovieFanFare

Murder, He Says (1945).  This playfully macabre dark comedy is packed with homicidal hillbillies, a hidden fortune and, maybe, an NPR theme song. A sleepy Ozarks community panics over news that Bonnie Fleagle–part of a notorious local outlaw clan–has escaped prison. Picking that moment to pedal into town is Pete Marshall (Fred MacMurray), a bike-riding polling company survey-taker looking for a missing co-worker. Pete’s backwoods search lands him in the clutches of the aforementioned Fleagles: short-tempered, bullwhip-wielding matriarch Mamie (Marjorie Main, Fred's future The Egg and I co-star); her dim-witted twins Bert and Mert (Peter Whitney) and addled daughter Elany (Jean Heather); and Mamie’s latest husband, toxins expert Mr. Johnson (Porter Hall, the twitchy Macy’s psychologist in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street).

Twins Bert and Mert (far left and right) were played by Peter Whitney.

The oddball brood's final member, bed-ridden Grandma Fleagle (Mabel Paige), is being slowly poisoned--with a substance that makes her glow in the dark--because she knows where Bonnie and her bank-robber pa stashed $70,000 before being caught. Mamie and company coerce Pete into posing as Bonnie’s boyfriend so that Grandma might confide in him before dying. She gives him a sampler whose stitched musical notes (“To them what doesn’t know the tune, sounds like the ravin’s of a loon”) offer a clue. A hitch arises when the fugitive Bonnie (Helen Walker) arrives...sort of. "Bonnie" is really the daughter of a banker wrongly convicted of aiding the Fleagles. Can she and Pete decipher the nonsensical-sounding lyrics (“Honors flysis, Income beezis, Onches nobis, Inob keesis”) Elany sings to the sampler’s melody?

Like 1940's The Ghost Breakers (which this movie mentions in one scene; both were directed by George Marshall for Paramount), Murder, He Says briskly delivers heapin' helpin's of laughs and chills. Along with a dinner which a Lazy Susan-style table and a poisoned dish turn a gastronomic Russian Roulette game, there are chases through secret passages and a climactic barnyard battle with a hay-bailing machine. The bone-riddled decor of the Fleagles’ run-down abode predates the Texas Chain Saw Massacre house, and a luminous dog–one of Hall’s test animals–running through the woods could have come from The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Helen Walker and Fred MacMurray.

The ever-versatile MacMurray easily goes from befuddled to fearful to heroic without skipping a beat. Leading lady Walker, whose career and personal life never recovered after a 1946 car crash, is a suitably spunky heroine. Main mixes Ma Kettle with Ma Barker as the conniving “poor old lady” who can kill a fly in mid-air with her whip, while shifty-eyed Hall continuously pops up from hidden doorways or tunnels. Best, though, is the hulking Whitney's dual turn as Mert/Bert (the trick photography is convincing, even by today’s standards). When MacMurray asks how you tell them apart, Main explains that Bert has “a crick in his back,” then demonstrates by slapping Whitney’s back…instantly dropping him to his knees in a contorted, immobilized heap.

Oh, and the NPR theme? Listen to Elany sing Gramdma’s song. Doesn’t it sound like the opening notes to “All Things Considered?”
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Recommended and reviewed by Silver Screenings

Scott of the Antarctic (1948).  Have you ever wanted to go on an adventure that tests you so thoroughly you don't know if you'll come through it intact?

If so, you might be interested in the 1948 British adventure flick, Scott of the Antarctic, a grim re-enactment of Robert Falcon Scott's 1911-12 expedition to the South Pole. Scott, a former naval officer, is consumed with being the first person to reach the South Pole.

As you might imagine, Scott and his team are up against it on all sides. Not only must they contend with the weather and inhospitable landscape, they're racing against another team, led by famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen is never shown in the film, but he is an ever-present monkey on Scott's back.

Much of the movie was filmed in the desolate snow of Norway. The actors pull heavy sleds through deep snow and pour tea inside cramped tents. No scenes shot in front of a green screen here; this filmmaking is about authentic as it gets.

It’s not a movie that spares you the savage realities of travelling through the Antarctic. Prior to embarking on his expedition, Scott is advised not to bring motorized sleds. Dogs are much more useful, he is told, because once "a dog is finished, he is still useful to the other dogs."

Man vs. the harsh elements.

Yikes! Now that we've almost frightened you away, let us point out that the acting in the movie is pitch-perfect. Expedition leader Scott is portrayed by the great John Mills who, as it turns out, has a passing resemblance to the real Scott.

Then there's James Robertson Justice, who plays injured team member Evans. In one scene, there is a close-up of Justice against the bitter white snow: his face reveals his determination despite his physical pain; then the realization that he is unable keep up with the others; and, finally, the knowledge that he's going to die, here, at the bottom of the world.

The legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff has captured amazing images: penguins squirting out of the water and onto the ice; stark white icebergs resting in the ocean; sled dogs breaking out of drifts of snow after a night's sleep.

Scott of the Antarctic is a haunting movie that was the #4 box-office draw in Britain in 1948. It is arguably one of the best adventure movies made.

The Five Best Fred MacMurray Performances

A versatile performer in film and television for five decades, Fred MacMurray deserved more opportunities to display his acting talents. Still, when he got the chance to bite into a good role, he did so convincingly--whether it was in a Billy Wilder film noir or a Walt Disney family comedy. Below are our picks for his six best performances--yes, there's a tie for the fifth spot. Do you agree? Disagree? As always, all feedback is welcomed.

1. Double Indemnity - Fred gave a career-defining performance as the cynical protagonist of Billy Wilder's classic film noir. His insurance salesman is no fool; he realizes that Barbara Stanwyck's femme fatale is up to no good from their first meeting. However, he also knows that he can't resist her and thus is pulled into a web of deceit and murder. Amazingly, MacMurray keeps the audience from despising his character. His genuine friendship with nice guy Edward G. Robinson helps, as does the feeling that he knows he's doing wrong, but is powerless to do anything about it.

2. The Apartment - There is nothing redeeming about Jeff Sheldrake, a corporate executive that uses his position for personal gain, cheats on his wife, and lies to his mistress. MacMurray, reteaming with Billy Wilder, plays Sheldrake with a hard edge. The only time he displays what appears to be genuine emotion is when he tells his mistress that he's leaving his wife--and, of course, that turns out to be a ploy, too. Sheldrake is a jerk and Fred plays him beautifully.

3. Murder, He Says - I'm surprised this cult comedy hasn't gained a more mainstream reputation over the years. Fred plays a pollster trying to find a missing co-worker who was sent to interview the backwoods Fleagle clan (headed by matriarch Marjorie Main). MacMurray grounds the film as the bewildered hero plopped into a plot about hidden gold, murder, assumed identities, and a seemingly nonsensical song. He and Marjorie Main play off each other extremely well. They later appeared together in the more popular The Egg and I, which led to the Ma and Pa Kettle film series.

4. Remember the Night - Prior to Double Indemnity, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck starred in this charming romance about a prosecutor and a shoplifter who fall in love over the Christmas holidays as she awaits trial. It's an unlikely premise, of course, but the two stars pull it off nicely and Preston Sturges' script carefully navigates through the film's more sentimental scenes. Though some people find the ending disappointing, I love it--primarily because it's true to MacMurray's character.

5. Quantez - The best of MacMurray's 1950s Westerns is a nifty character drama about an outlaw gang hiding out in a ghost town en route to Mexico. MacMurray's bandit, while the toughest and most rugged of the lot, is also the one least prone to condone violence. It's no surprise that he's harboring a secret past, but the way in which it's revealed is the highlight of this intriguing little picture.

5. The Absent-Minded Professor - Fred is perfectly cast as an (what else?) absent-minded college professor who gets so caught up with his experiments that he forgets his own wedding. Fortunately, his latest invention, Flubber, eventually saves the day. During the latter part of his career, Fred specialized in family films, often playing occasionally befuddled fathers in comedies like The Shaggy Dog and The Happiest Millionaire and on TV in My Three Sons. It's fascinating to watch him playing those parts with such ease after a recent viewing of Double Indemnity or The Apartment.

Honorable Mentions: The Caine Mutiny; Take a Letter, Darling; and Alice Adams.