The Silver Screen Oasis

I saw it forever ago. I remember it being rather dull. Maybe I was expecting more John Wayne and at the time not really aware that this would have been rather early in his stardom, if it even qualifies for that title.

I've never really liked Joan and I suspect this was early enough in my movie life that it was part of the basis for it. But, since it has been 25+ years it has certainly bound for a review. Frankly, never thought much about it until now.

I caught Reunion in France (1942) for the umpteenth time recently and found myself feeling sorry for Philip Dorn more than the Duke, who seemed to spend most of the movie in heavy chiaroscuro while trying to become a bigger movie star than he already was in 1942. I would love to know what Jules Dassin thought of Wayne and Crawford, (who looked way too gorgeous in this movie in those Irene creations). My favorite sequence comes early in the movie, when we see the invasion and fall of France in 1940 from the aristocratic POV of Michele de la Becque (that's our Joan) in a great montage (courtesy of spec. fx by Warren Newcombe and editing by Elmo Veron) that begins and ends at the train station in Paris. There she is! Startled on the beach at Biarritz as a Messerschmidt flies overhead! There she is! Yanking off her sunglasses and glaring at the tanks that are pushing cars off the road. There she is! Stunned and flummoxed as she watches refugees with baby carriages careening out of control as they try to escape from invading Huns. There she is! Alighting from a train back in Paris in a neatly pressed suit, with her hair loosened and an expression that dares any passing Nazi to ask her for her papers.

Oh, the humanity.

I never thought that being conquered could look quite so glamorous. Only at MGM.

John Wayne had great chemistry with all his costars. He's very underrated as a leading man. I have yet to find a woman he didn't work well with.

The fact that he and Joan had a good rapport in this movie speaks to his talent for making women comfortable with him. He's very supportive of his co-stars, treating each one differently according to their personality. I can't imagine the two of them together, but I'm sure he made it work.

I really enjoyed reading your review, kingrat! It makes me want to go and find a copy of the movie - especially because Dassin was directing.

Having had one of the hottest streaks in filmdom -- BRUTE FORCE (1947), THE NAKED CITY (1948), THIEVES HIGHWAY (1949), NIGHT IN THE CITY (1950), RIFIFI (1955) -- I make a point of recording every other Dassin movie that TCM airs. For me, none of them -- those before and those after the streak -- come close to that level, and for the most part are fair to middlin'. Another one of those directors who tests the auteur approach.

That may be true about Dassin, but I think it's worth watching the fair to middling works too. I like to see how directors got to the point where they can make a brilliant movie likeNight in the City. For instance, Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich last night showed very little resemblance to Reed's string of later masterpieces, it was a workmanlike film with a nice pace. And yet, there were flashes of something fascinating in it - I like to see how time creates the director.

I agree about the early works by a director like Jules Dassin, which are sometimes more playful and less self-conscious than their "important" movies. This August 23rd on TCM you can see his first feature film with Conrad Veidt in the MGM B movie, Nazi Agent (1942), which is very enjoyable since it gives Connie a chance to play twins (he did the doppelganger bit very well and often, starting in silents). Initially, Veidt was reportedly not happy to have a neophyte behind the camera trying to breathe life into a formulaic script, but, as Dassin acknowledged, cinematographer Harry Stradling, Jr. made him look good (and fast), helping enormously. From what I've read in interviews, Jules Dassin seems to have been one of the few directors who readily acknowledged the contributions of others to his success.

Love Nazi Agent....anything that gives Conrad Veidt more screen time....even if it means he plays twins - is alright by me.

JackFavell wrote:John Wayne had great chemistry with all his costars. He's very underrated as a leading man. I have yet to find a woman he didn't work well with.

Vera Ralston in DAKOTA - (45), but then she didn't work well with anyone.

Crawford's other great contribution to the war effort was ABOVE SUSPICION - (1943).
It was designed to be an espionage thriller but MGM's trailer plays it up like a screwball comedy.

"Watch Joan & Fred honeymoon across Europe while bedeviling those crazy Nazis...."

Gary J. wrote:

JackFavell wrote:John Wayne had great chemistry with all his costars. He's very underrated as a leading man. I have yet to find a woman he didn't work well with.

Vera Ralston in DAKOTA - (45), but then she didn't work well with anyone.

That's not what Herbert Yates said.

Not being very up on the Dassin, I never looked at the two war pictures--Nazi Agent and Reunion in France--as directorial efforts. But I like them both a lot and have watched them multiple times. And I'm with you movieman, I really have to be in the right mood to appreciate Joan Crawford.

What's kind of icky for me about RIF is the elevated level of sass Crawford gives the Nazis. Not that I know what things were really like at that place and time, but it seems that her character ought to have been taken out back and shot on multiple occasions for her over-the-top insolence to the occupying forces. Why is that icky? Because it makes the conflict a vehicle to elevate Crawford's stature, rather than dramatizing the gravity of the situation. At that time, nobody knew how things would end up. Other stars in other films during that period--like Bogart--were in the fight with their performances. In this film, the real-time Nazi threat is just a backdrop to set her up and make her look good.

intothenitrate wrote: In this film, the real-time Nazi threat is just a backdrop to set her up and make her look good.

I agree, but I like Joan, even when she's ludicrous and way too movie-starish. I feel that the real-time Nazi threat was a dramatic prop in many films of the period, (Once Upon a Honeymoon, Golden Earrings, and Gilda come to mind). The Nazis in Reunion in France were too tame by half. These guys couldn't have invaded anything more daunting than Schwab's Drug Store, much less most of Europe.

Good one. Sig Rumann..nonplussed!!!

Didn't Myrna Loy sit out the war (acting-wise)? I'd like to learn what she was thinking during all that.

Didn't Myrna Loy sit out the war (acting-wise)? I'd like to learn what she was thinking during all that.

Myrna Loy worked for the Red Cross throughout the war. MGM was not pleased, but she told them that was tough, (and promised to come back). She also worked to make the United Nations a reality at the end of the war through the American Association for The United Nations to keep the public informed about the formation of the organization. She also became involved in UNESCO for the rest of her life. I don't think that Myrna cared about looking good as much as being of some good.