In The Big Street, a Broadway nightclub waiter falls in love with a crippled singer who selfishly accepts his help without loving him in return.
Read More »The Big Street (1942) starring Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Eugene Pallette
Jonathan Street is a struggling composer when he meets and marries Annette. The problem is that Jonathan was drunk and does not want to be married. Annette does go with him to Paris and does the cooking and cleaning. To get his music published, Annette takes it to Paul and he is won over – by her voice and not the music. So he manages her career and she becomes a star as an opera singer everywhere she goes. Since Jonathan cannot sell anything he writes, he leaves Annette. That makes Annette sad as she wants only to be his wife.
Read More »I Dream Too Much
I can honestly say that Yours, Mine and Ours is one of my family’s favorite movies. It’s a wonderful story, about the merging of two large families. The Beardsley family of ten children, with the widowed father played by Henry Fonda. And the North family of eight children, with the widowed mother played by Lucille Ball). First comes the courtship of the father and mother… Awkwardly, clumsily, with the very understandable resentment of the children who don’t want their deceased parents ‘replaced’. This leads to “An alcoholic Pearl Harbor” that gives Lucille Ball an opportunity to play the drunk. It’s reminiscent of the classic Vitameatavegamin episode of her classic I Love Lucy series. Ending with the dramatic revelation that she’s fallen in love again.
Read More »Yours, Mine and Ours
An exciting rediscovery from the studio vaults, The Long Night is an emotionally gripping, visually dynamic film noir, in which Henry Fonda, at the peak of his career, delivers an unforgettable performance. Presented in an intricate web of flashbacks, The Long Night follows the fractured thoughts of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda), a factory worker pinned inside his third-floor apartment after gunning down a mysterious, dapper gentleman (Vincent Price). Joe’s memories (often containing flashbacks within flashbacks) reconstruct the events leading up to the shooting, revealing his romance with a quiet young girl (Barbara Bel Geddes), his less romantic involvement with an emotionally calloused showgirl (Ann Dvorak), and the varied twists of fate that drove Joe to murder.
Read More »Long Night [Henry Fonda, Vincent Price]
Henry Fonda stars in this epic story of one of the deciding battles of World War II. By December, 1944 the Allies believe that the Nazi Army is on the brink of total collapse. But the Germans counterattack, pushing the American Army back in a bloody offensive. Now in a battle that could decide the outcome of the war, victory or defeat depends on fuel, without which the German tanks are powerless–and the fate of the world hangs on the outcome of one small, determined fight for a single fuel depot.
Read More »Battle of the Bulge
Young American master director John Ford crafts a fictionalized account of ten years in the life of Abraham Lincoln (magnificently portrayed by Henry Fonda), before he became known to the world
In short, Advise and Consent is one of the best political intrigue movies that I’ve ever seen. The basic plot involves a very ill President of the United States (Franchot Tone) who wants to nominate for Secretary of State a senator. A man with a small secret in his past (played beautifully by Henry Fonda – a great performance). The Senate Majority Leader (a wonderful performance by Walter Pidgeon) tries to line up the votes. But he’s being undercut by a zealous young senator (Don Murray). And, on the “other side of the aisle” by a Southern senator (played by Charles Laughton in his final performance), a man who views himself as a kingmaker, using the other senators and people like pawns on a chess board.
Read More »Advise and Consent
