Category: Golden Age Article

Golden Age Article

The Oscar-Winning Short Films of John Nesbitt, Part Three: Main Street on the March

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Previous Films: That Mothers Might Live and Of Pups and Puzzles

Main Street on the March (1942)

From 1936-1956, there were actually two categories for live-action short films, one-reel films (up to eleven minutes long) and two-reel films (up to 22 minutes long.) The only year which saw Nesbitt win an Oscar for the two-reel category was 1942. It actually won the same year that  Pups and Puzzles won in the one-reel category.

Some Americans might imagine that the country moved immediately from a footing of self-satisfied isolationism to the country being all-in for World War II. The reality was more complicated than that. Main Street on the March shows America undergoing a subtle evolution, with the events of Pearl Harbor being the end rather than the beginning. It starts on a typical American Main Street in May 1940, where Americans tended to believe the year-old War was a “phony war.” However, Germany’s May 10, 1940 invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland began to awaken Americans to the importance of strengthening America’s national defense.

The film is of great historical significance, as Nesbitt’s narration is mixed with real-life historic statements by figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Nesbitt describes a process of change and the country passing through multiple stages over the year and a half between Germany’s actions and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It also shows how Americans prepared for war in that crucial year and a half. Without those prepartions, the war could have had a very different outcome.

The film had actually been completed and slated for release on December 8, 1941. However, events led to the film being pulled back, and new scenes and narration being added to reflect the events of Pearl Harbor and America’s final evolution. The original film wrapped before America’s entry into the war, and would have had a different conclusion, and you can see a few hints of what that might have been in the surviving footage.

Not all edits were merely for dramatic or thematic purposes. Some street scenes were filmed in Hagerstown, Maryland on West Washington Street and North Potomac. As such, the premiere of the film was held on January 5, 1942 in Hagerstown. However, in the original cut, there were more scenes in Hagerstown’s leading defense factories, but after the US joined the War, it was determined that these scenes had to be removed.

While I’d be curious to see the original cut, the final film is well worth a view and definitely earned its Oscar. It tells how America changed over the course of a year and a half. It’s a film that would really be of interest to anyone who’s interested in the events of World War II and America’s involvement in it.

As of this writing, Main Street on the March is available on YouTube.

Golden Age Article

The Oscar-Winning Short-Films of John Nesbitt, Part Two: Of Pups and Puzzles

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Previous Film: That Mothers Might Live

Of Pups and Puzzles (1941)

This short film is about a revolution in American industrial hiring practices. The one-reel film talks about the old way, where a foreman would look at a group of men, and make a superficial choice as to whom to hire based on who looked strong.

Circumstances were going to make such arcane hiring practices untenable. While the film was released three months prior to Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II, America had begun a peace-time draft and ramped up national defense production. Getting the right person into the right job would be critical. To do that, employers turned to psychologists, and behavioral experiments involving three dogs and a chimpanzee.

The film does a good job of making its potentially dry content interesting, as it explains how animal behavior studies changed human hiring practices. Having cute animals on the screen for much of the run time keeps things interesting, and Nesbitt’s storytelling abilities keep the story moving along. The resulting hiring practices of the 1940s are quaint to say the least, as we travel back to a time when unexpectedly pulling a gun out of a drawer and firing it was just all part of the hiring process.

While Of Pups and Puzzles presents its material in an entertaining way, I can’t help but feel actual interest in the film’s content is a bit niche for modern audiences. One IMDB user said it’d be of most interest to “research psychologists and industrial/ organizational personnel specialists.” If you fit that niche or just want to see some old animal footage, you may enjoy this film.

Of Pups and Puzzles is available on YouTube.

Golden Age Article

The Oscar-Winning Short-Films of John Nesbitt, Part One: That Mothers Might Live

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John Nesbitt was a mainstay of the Golden Age of Radio as one of radio’s great storytellers. Nesbitt was known for his Passing Parade, which aired for more than a decade, both as a stand-alone program as well as a segment on longer programs, such as Johnson’s Wax Summer Program and The John Charles Thomas Show.

However, Nesbitt’s talents weren’t just enjoyed by radio listeners. He narrated more than fifty short films, which were played in theaters before the feature attraction. Many, but not all, were a film series of Passing Parade. Nesbitt’s voice would be the only speaking role as he told viewers an unusual or remarkable true life story.

Nesbitt’s films were not just filler. Films that Nesbitt narrated and either produced or wrote received a total of five Academy Awards for short films over an eleven-year period from 1938-49.

In this series, we’ll take a look at each one.

That Mothers Might Live (1938) 

That Mothers Might Live opens with shots of a 1930s hospital. We’re then told of a man who dreamed of this a century before and are transported to a 19th-century hospital. There, a popular young obstetrician named Doctor Semmelweis (Shepherd Strudwick) becomes obsessed with finding out what has caused the death of more than two thousand women over the course of six years.

Semmelweis’s tireless research leads to a breakthrough discovery that could change medicine and save the lives of numerous patients. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it was considered common sense. But in the nineteenth century, it rubbed against hospital politics and the pride of physicians. The film shows Semmelweis’s fight and the toll it would take on him.

Strudwick’s acting is solid. In what’s a non-speaking role, he manages to bring Semmelweis to life and to go through the whole gamut of emotions in just a few minutes.  The film is well-directed and well-edited, taking the audience on this emotional roller coaster ride in ten minutes through the incidental music and cuts. Nesbitt’s narration is flawless and keeps the audience engaged from start to finish.

Semelweis’ story was a footnote in history that the average viewer both then and now had never heard of. For those who saw That Mothers Might Live, Semelweis’ story is one that’s impossible to forget.

The film won the Oscar for Best Short Subject (One-Reel) in 1939.

That Mothers Might Live is currently available on YouTube.

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Father Brown’s Not Buying It: A Review of the Incredulity of Father Brown

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A version of this article was posted in 2011.

Twelve years after his second Father Brown book, G.K. Chesterton brought readers a new collection in 1926 entitled, The Incredulity of Father Brown.

While the previous titles, The Innocence of Father Brown and The Wisdom of Father Brown had very little with the theme of the stories, Incredulity is a key theme of each story in this collection.

In each story, an event happens to which a miraculous supernatural explanation is offered. Father Brown by and by doesn’t buy into the supernatural solution, but finds a natural, but often amazing solution to the case. Of course, in each case, the people expect Father Brown to go along with a supernatural solution as he’s a priest and all. However, the book makes the point that being religious and being  superstitious are not the same thing.

In “The Curse of the Golden Cross,” Brown explains his belief in “common sense as he understands it:

It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing–room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand.

Father Brown applies such incisive common sense to eight problems, with all but one of them involving murder. One thing that makes these stories different is that the goal of the story is not catching the murderer. In the vast majority of cases, the suspect is not caught. The story is about the puzzle and how Father Brown solves it. In one case, “The Oracle of the Dog,” Brown stays one hundred miles away from the scene of the crime and solves it secondhand.

The best story in the book is, “The Arrow of Heaven” which involves the seemingly impossible murder of a millionaire in a high tower with an arrow when it was impossible for anyone to be able to shoot it that distance.

“The Miracle of the Moon Crescent” is a fascinating story that has three religious skeptics contemptuously dismiss Father Brown but they begin to think a supernatural cause may be involved in the seemingly impossible murder of a millionaire when the police fail to turn up any satisfactory solution.

“The Doom of the Darnaways”  may be one of the most profound stories in the collection. Father Brown encounters a young man whose family is said to be subject to a curse that leads inevitably to murder and suicide. An expert on genetics declares the curse is nonsense, but that heredity indicates the same type of fate. Here Chesterton illustrated that it’s possible for both superstition and science to develop a fatalism about human life and destiny that excludes free and leads people to helplessness and despair. The story has a well-told murder mystery, though I don’t know why Father Brown put off the solution.

There’s not really a story I didn’t like in the collection, although I do think, “Oracle of the Dog” may have a little too much literary criticism and not enough story. All in all, The Incredulity of Father Brown is a truly wonderful collection of stories about the original clerical detective.

The Incredulity of Father Brown entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2022 and is available on Project Gutenberg Australia

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Father Dowling, Season Three

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A version of this article appeared in 2017.

After a TV movie and two partial seasons, ABC gave the Father Dowling Mysteries a regular season of 22 episodes in 1990-91.

The same cast of regulars from Season Two returns with Father Frank Dowling (Tom Boswell) and Sister Steve (Tracy Nelson) investigating mysteries, and Father Prestwick (James Stephens) and housekeeper Marie (Mary Wickes) providing comic relief.

The series maintains a pleasant, family-friendly tone with likable characters. Steve does a lot of undercover work and handles most tasks well, but you don’t get the impression she’s unrealistically super competent in everything like during Season One.

Some of the past seasons had episodes that could more rightly be called “adventures”  than “mysteries,” but this season all the episodes are true mysteries. The plots are thought-out but never too intricate.

The one thing I did miss from Season Two was the little touches that made Father Dowling and Sister Steve seem more like a real Catholic priest and nun. Except as discussed below, they don’t do anything to cut against that idea, other than the fact that the two can always run off to investigate a mystery.

One of the best episodes of the season is “The Christmas Mystery.” It’s a nice mystery with a few suspect twists, but it’s a fun Christmas treat and there aren’t enough good Christmas mysteries out there. In “The Moving Target Mystery,” another of my favorites, a contract killer comes into Father Dowling’s confessional and confesses he was hired to kill Father Dowling. He is backing out because he won’t kill a priest, but somebody else will. It’s a good set-up for a story.

The “Fugitive Priest Mystery” finds Father Dowling on the run thanks to his evil twin Blaine, and he has to clear his name and find out what Blaine’s up to. “The Hard-Boiled Mystery” is my favorite episode of the season. Father Dowling goes to have words with a writer who has decided to write a story based on Father Dowling. It’s set during the 1930s, with Dowling as a hard-boiled priest-detective. We flash from the present to the hard-boiled detective scenes and they’re absolutely hilarious.

On the downside, some stories just didn’t work. After having an angel in Season Two, the writers decided, “How about having Father Dowling encounter the devil?” Thus we are given “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Mystery.” What we get is a Hollywood version of the Devil, who is defeated by a plot ripped off from “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” The story introduces an older brother for Steve and contradicts a previous season’s story featuring Steve’s younger brother. Further, it has the characters acting really out of character. It’s the worst episode of the series.

“The Consulting Detective Mystery” is also a bit of clunker. Father Dowling makes a deduction as to who committed a crime. He’s wrong, leading to an innocent ex-con losing his job. This leads to Sherlock Holmes appearing in order to restore Father Dowling’s confidence. It’s not a great set-up and the actor playing Holmes doesn’t work. It’s not as bad as “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Mystery,”  but it’s weak and poorly executed.

The rest of the box set is serviceable and fun. Father Dowling was never a big budget show, and it never featured television’s most clever mystery writers. It was a show you could enjoy with the whole family. Another reviewer described the show as “cute,” and I’ll go with that. This season, in particular, features Father Dowling and Sister Steve working to save a cute zoo monkey who is framed for murder. It’s easy viewing with a bit of nostalgia for simpler times thrown into the deal.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Father Dowling Mysteries, Season 2

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Note: A version of this article was posted in 2016. 

This 3-DVD series collects the second short season of The Father Dowling Mysteries, originally broadcast in 1990 when the series moved to ABC after NBC produced its first season. The main cast is Tom Bosley (Father Frank Dowling), Tracy Nelson (Sister Steve), James Stephens (Father Prestwick), and Marie (Mary Wickles).

If I had to describe the difference between this season and season one, I’d have to use the word “authenticity.” In season one, our heroes are people who solve mysteries, who just happen to be a priest and a nun. In season two, they are a priest and a nun who come across mysteries in the course of their lives and duties.

They say prayers, perform ceremonies and deal with church hierarchy and bureaucracy. It plays into the plots. In “The Solid Gold Headache Mystery,” Sister Steve is named custodian of the estate of a wealthy man whom she was visiting. In “The Blind Man’s Bluff Mystery,” she shows kindness to a blind conman and is taken in by him. A similar event happens to Father Prestwick in “The Confidence Mystery.” Father Dowling knows who an art thief is, but is far more concerned about his life and his soul than bringing him to justice in “The Legacy Mystery.”  And Father Dowling’s pastoral relationship is key to his involvement in “The Falling Angel Mystery” and “The Perfect Couple Mystery.”

The show isn’t preachy but it makes the characters more believable. Characterization is also better for Sister Steve. She’s still resourceful and frequently ditches her habit to go undercover. However, this doesn’t happen every episode. Unlike in season one, where she seemed to be super-competent at everything, she fails at a couple of her tasks. Sister Steve doesn’t make a good skater, and doesn’t win at every video game. Thus she’s much more of a real person. This is also helps as we learn that she has a hoodlum brother in “The Sanctuary Mystery,” and that her father was an alcoholic in “The Passionate Painter Mystery.”

The supporting acting shifted as subplots became more about Father Prestwick (who works for the Bishop) than their cook Marie. I didn’t like this as much, as I prefer Marie as a character. Still, the officious and demanding Father Prestwick is more effective as a comic foil for Father Dowling.

The guest cast is mostly solid, although a couple of scenes in “The Perfect Couple Mystery”  were painful to watch.

In terms of the plots, they’re mostly okay. Many of the episodes feel more like adventures rather than typical mysteries, and some were not all that clever, such as “The Ghost of a Chance Mystery.” Some of the better ones were “The Visiting Priest Mystery,” where a mob hitman tries to go undercover as a visiting priest at Saint Michael’s; “The Exotic Dance Mystery,” which ends up with Steve going undercover as a card shark; and “The Confidence Mystery” and “Blind Man’s Bluff Mystery,” both of which have some clever twists, though the similarity in plot made airing them both in the same season a dubious decision.

This season also featured “The Falling Angel Mystery,” where a scruffy angel named Michael (not the archangel) shows up with a warning for Father Dowling. I was dubious about the plot as it could have been cheesy and there were some problems with the story. However, James McGeachin does a good job in the role and the twist is one I didn’t see coming. Of course, Father Dowling’s criminal twin brother Blaine has a return appearance, much to Father Dowling’s chagrin.

Ultimately, the plots were not all fantastic. What holds it together is the characters are incredibly likable and a joy to watch.

 

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

 

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Father Dowling Mysteries, Season One

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A version of this article was originatlly published in 2014.

The Father Dowling Mysteries was a delightful mystery series starring Tom Bosley (Happy Days) and Tracy Nelson as Chicago-based Father Frank Dowling and Sister Stephanie “Steve” Oskowski, a priest and nun who constantly find themselves in the the thick of mysteries. The duo first appeared in a 1987 TV movie before joining the 1989 NBC line up as a mid-season replacement before moving to ABC in 1990 for another mid-season replacement season and its only full season. Having aired on NBC and ABC, the DVD release, of course, comes from CBS Home video. Father Dowling was a character created by Ralph McHenry in a series of popular novels, but the novels really don’t appear to have come much into play in the stories.

The first season set collects the 1987 movie, The Fatal Confession, as well as the seven-episode first season of Father Dowling.

Ultimately, this isn’t a series made by the cleverness of its mysteries, or by bone-chilling suspense, or by CSI-like crime scene details. In the end, Father Dowling stands firmly on the charm and chemistry of its two protagonists, and Bosley and Nelson are wonderful to watch.

Bosley is very believable as Father Dowling. He does a perfect job creating the balance that’s required in a clerical detective. Dowling is clever, but he’s also compassionate. He cares about catching the bad guy, but he also cares about people’s souls and lives. In so many ways, Frank Dowling is a bit of a throwback to a gentler era in television that spawned characters like Andy Taylor. He is truly good and kind, and also doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Sister Steve is street-smart but also very compassionate. The biggest flaw with the way the series played the character was that in each episode, they had to have her do something you wouldn’t typically expect a nun to do, mostly in the line of duty but sometimes not: beating the neighborhood boys at basketball, playing pool, fixing a car, mixing drinks at a bar, or teaching an aerobics class. It was all in the line of work. Sometimes, it was humorous, though at times it could get goofy and a little repetitive. The first few episodes had her being able to do every single thing well. Thankfully, in the “Face in the Mirror Mystery,” they finally had her undertake a task she couldn’t do well: rollerskating.

Rounding out the regulars were Father Dowling’s cranky housekeeper Marie (Mary Wickes) and the very particular Father Phil (James Stephens), who would appear in the first and last episodes of the 1989 series before becoming a regular.

As for the episodes themselves:

The Fatal Confession had some good moments in it as Father Dowling looks into the apparent suicide of a former parishioner, but the last quarter of it or so is just too much like a soap opera

“The Missing Body Mystery,” the feature-length first episode of the 1989 series, begins with a man stumbling into St. Michaels and dying. When Father Dowling returns after calling the police, the body is gone. His stability is called into question and the bishop wants to relieve him and replace him with Father Phil. It’s a great story and a solid beginning.

“What Do You Call Girl Mystery” is a story about a slain high-priced call girl that manages to tell a good story without being exploitative or sleazy.

“The Man Who Came to Dinner Mystery” is probably the only clunker in the first season. Steve’s ex-fiance (played by Nelson’s then-husband William Moses) witnesses a murder, but when he shows up with the police, the body’s gone. Even worse, someone’s trying to kill him. This story not only has a similar plot to a much better episode that aired two weeks previously, as a well as a weak conclusion, but it tries to create dramatic conflict over Steve’s decision to become a nun and fails.

The main problem is that we’re told that Steve was almost ready to marry her ex when she ran off to the convent to become a nun. Why would a young woman make this very radical decision? All of the reasons Sister Steve gives, such as, “It was the right thing for me,” don’t really ring true. It’s impossible to believe that the Catholic Church would allow someone with such weak reasons, or inability to articulate them, to become a nun at all. Of course, treating the subject realistically may have required too much religiosity for network TV executives’ liking. But if you can’t do it well, why do it at all? Why try to introduce a dramatic subplot that’s not believable?

The season got back on track with the two part “Mafia Priest Mystery,” in which Father Luciana, the son of a mafia family, becomes Father Dowling’s new assistant. He’s trying to make a break with the family business, but is drawn into an effort to help his brother Peter go straight, and finds himself framed for murdering the DA. This is a great story with a lot of tension, suspects, and situations. We do learn whodunit about halfway through the second episode, but there’s still some great suspense including a delightful train chase. I also appreciate how the episode highlights both Frank and Steve’s compassion as they deal with and minister to members of the crime family even while trying to find the killer.

“The Face in the Mirror Mystery” is actually a pretty decent story despite the fact that the premise of an “evil twin” of the main character has been done to death. This is a great cat-and-mouse game between Father Dowling and his twin brother Blaine, though the payoff scene is a little silly.

The season concluded with “The Pretty Baby Mystery,” which has a woman chased by armed men, leaving her baby in the church. Father Dowling and Steve try to find the mother and end up getting arrested by the Feds. This is another episode that really respects the characters’ vocation and differentiates them from the typical TV detective. The episode also marks the return of James Stevens as Father Phil, who has become the Bishop’s assistant.

Overall, the first season of Father Dowling was thoroughly enjoyable. It manages to be a mostly well-written, family-friendly detective series with likable characters. It treats its main characters with respect, but also manages a great deal of humor and warmth. I’ll look forward to future seasons.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0

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