Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 6!

After having enjoyed "Gangway" with Jessie Matthews and Barry MacKay, I thought it appropriate to watch their third and final screen pairing - "Sailing Along" from 1938!

It's also Barry's last movie in England before going Hollywood for MGM's "A Christmas Carol" later in 1938.

"Sailing Along" is another fun movie with Jessie and Barry still displaying good chemistry, but it's a bit different from "Evergreen" and "Gangway" in a few ways.

A big difference is that their characters already know each other when the movie starts, so they don't "meet cute" as is often the case.

They argue a lot and profess not to like each other, but if you've ever seen a movie before, you know that couples who argue that much must really love each other. In the movies at least!

Another difference is that Jessie is given a polished song and dance man to perform with, as opposed to having Barry sing a little and dance a little.

The singer/dancer in question is American Jack Whiting, who was mainly a stage performer, making only a handful of movie appearances. His only other movie of the period is Paramount's "Give Me a Sailor," also from 1938, a Martha Raye/Bob Hope vehicle in which Jack is cast as Hope's brother!

Funny that Jack Whiting has those two movies from 1938, but one's American and one's British, yet they both have "sail" in the title!

Whatever the case, he's quite good here in "Sailing Along," which gives him a better chance to showcase his musical skills than "Give Me a Sailor" does.

Jack's character is also a romantic rival for the affections of Miss Matthews, an idea not present in the first two movies.

Also different is the setting, as a lot of the action takes place on a barge, Barry's character being the son of a barge owner, with Jessie the foster daughter of the same owner.

Said barge owner, the Skipper, is played by Frank Pettingell, whom we remember from his 1959 recording of "A Christmas Carol."

Second (but much smaller than Jessie Matthews) billed is Roland Young, whom I've always enjoyed in the many movies in which I've seen him.

He has a British stiff-upper-lip mumbly delivery that enhances the one-liners he gets to toss off.

Roland Young's main Dickens connection is his terrific performance as Uriah Heep in MGM's 1935 adaptation of David Copperfield," in which he cast against type but delivers the goods.

Also on hand in "Sailing Along" is Alastair Sim, playing another wacky side character as he had in "Gangway."

Watching these movies definitely gives me context for Barry MacKay, but it's also enlightening to see Alastair Sim early in his career playing very eccentric characters. You wouldn't think he be giving an acclaimed performance as Scrooge as dozen or so years later!

Here's a clip from the VCI's DVD of "Sailing Along":

All in all a fun flick!

That's "Love Is Not a Joke" in Italian!

Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 5!

While virtually hanging around the 1930s and realizing that it's been over a year since our last Barry MacKay lesson, I thought it was time to watch another of his movies!

So, I tracked down "Gangway" from 1937, his second co-starring film with Jessie Matthews, following 1934's "Evergreen."

This is another British musical from Gaumont Studios and it's a lot of fun!

It has a mistaken identity plot, which is so common in 1930s musicals and I can see this being adapted for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers without too much trouble.

Jessie plays a newspaper movie reviewer who gets mistaken for an international jewel thief by most of the rest of the cast, including Barry as an inspector from Scotland Yard. 

Alastair Sim and Nat Pendleton provide the comedy relief

The movie is something of a spoof of American gangster movies and American actor Nat Pendleton is a riot as the main gangster, spouting gangster-lingo in a way that British filmmakers would think Americans actually talk!

Also on hand is Alastair Sim in an early role as a wacky insurance investigator.  In a movie filled with screwball characters, he's the screwiest!

Mr. Sim looks younger than he did as Scrooge, but he still doesn't look young, despite being only 37 at the time. Some people never looked young!

So, how's Barry MacKay here? He's very good and has great chemistry with Jessie Matthews.

She's a way better singer and dancer than he is, but the numbers are staged in a way that he does what he does and more or less stays out of the way while she is showcased.

Jessie Matthews is definitely the star attraction here and she's billed in huge letters above the title, but Barry's role is also pretty big.

Here's a promo clip from VCI's DVD release:

VCI offers a number of Jessie Matthews movies in nice prints!

Small font or not, at least Robert Young's name is on this lobby card!

In the meantime, I had also seen Jessie Matthews in 1936's "It's Love Again" opposite Robert Young and I'm officially a fan!

"Fred" in Hi-Def!

A while back I had mentioned watching the 1934 British musical "Evergreen" starring Jessie Matthews as part of my Barry MacKay excavation project.

It recently popped up on TCM and the high definition version of movie looked absolutely dynamite!

If only every movie from the 1930s looked this good!

Not to pick on "Scrooge" from 1935, as it probably never looked as good as "Evergreen," but I'd still like to see a really good print of it.

Carry on!

Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 4

We pick up the Barry MacKay trail with "The Pickwick Papers," a 1952 British film from George Minter Productions, the same outfit that had produced the famous "Scrooge" with Alastair Sim the year before.

This was Barry MacKay's first film since 1939's "Smuggled Cargo," so quite some time had gone by since audiences had seen him!

I had actually seen "The Pickwick Papers" before, but it was a long time ago and I didn't remember too much about it.

Somehow I had in my head that this was kind of a poor cousin to "Scrooge" and the David Lean adaptations of "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" from the 1940s as far as contemporary Dickens adaptations go, but I was incorrect (hand raised)!

The tone of "The Pickwick Papers" is lighter than those other three films and it might not quite be up to their level, but it's very entertaining and marks a nice end to that run of Dickens movies.

There are a ton of colorful characters brought to life and a real Dickensian atmosphere. 

The poster at the top of the page compares "The Pickwick Papers" to "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" as well as the two 1935 MGM features "David Copperfield" and "A Tale of Two Cities," but does not mention "Scrooge," which I presume was not yet lauded as a classic Dickens adaptation.

I really don't know most of the actors in "The Pickwick Papers," but I think they all are well-cast and largely look like they stepped out of from the original pages.

Mr. Pickwick is played by James Hayter and I do recognize him as Friar Tuck from "The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men," the Walt Disney production filmed in England and also released in 1952. (That's an awesome flick as well!)

Speaking of Friar Tuck, the actor who played that role on the Richard Greene 1950s "The Adventures of Robin Hood" TV series, Alexander Gauge, appears here as Mr. Tupman. What's interesting is that he played the Ghost of Christmas Present in the "Fredric March Presents Tales from Dickens" episode of "A Christmas Carol," which starred Basil Rathbone as Scrooge and was discussed here!

I don't know Nigel Patrick otherwise, but he steals the picture as Mr. Jingle, nailing the odd speech pattern of the character.

I do know two actresses from the movie, though: Hermione Baddeley and Kathleen Harrison, who both have good roles here and had, of course, also been featured in "Scrooge" the year before.

Wow, we have Fred, the Ghost of Christmas Present, Mrs. Cratchit and Mrs. Dilber all in this movie!

So, how does Fred, er, Barry MacKay fit into this particular film?

Well, he's the last actor within the large cast to be billed in the credits. Since his name does appear, I wonder how many moviegoers remembered him from his 1930s movies and were looking for him in this one. 

The movie itself doesn't list what roles the actors play, but most sources I consulted before watching the movie indicate that Barry plays "Mr. Snubbins." I checked to see what character this is so I could get an idea of when he might appear, expecting him to look more like he did in "Knights of the Round Table" than "A Christmas Carol," so perhaps hard to recognize, and found that the character is actually named "Snubbin" (leave the last S off...).

Armed with the knowledge that Mr. Snubbin represents Mr. Pickwick during a trial, I was ready!

Actually, I recognized Barry right away when he appeared in the courtroom scene. I don't think anyone calls him "Snubbins" or "Snubbin" or anything else, by the way.

He doesn't have a lot to do, but reacts amusingly during the trial, as things keep getting worse for Mr. Pickwick. 

As a barrister he's very ineffectual and his only line consists of him saying he has no questions!

That whole trial scene is an awesome satire of the British legal system on the part of Mr. Dickens!

I think Barry MacKay does quite well here with his small part. I wonder how he wound up in this movie after having been away so long.

After watching these other movies, I now have an idea of how "A Christmas Carol" fits into his film career. Not that I thought he fell off the turnip truck outside the MGM studio gates, but I finally have context!

End of lessons (for now)!

Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 3

Now that we've seen Barry MacKay's first movie, let's take a look at another one from a little bit later.

This is the only other American move he made (besides 1938's "A Christmas Carol"): "Smuggled Cargo" from Republic Pictures in 1939!

I had mentioned last time that I don't think Barry MacKay was under contract to MGM, as he was only in that one movie from them. No other movies, no shorts or anything else. I'm guessing he was in Hollywood already and was cast as Fred (which was a great idea by somebody) because they wanted someone British. 

I don't know what circumstances led him to working for Republic the next year, but the difference between MGM and Republic is about as great as possible during the golden age of Hollywood.

I actually love Republic, as they made the best B-westerns and serials, but they were definitely on "poverty row" as they used to say. The top of that heap, perhaps, but still on the heap!

They had better stunts and special effects than any other studio, major or minor, but the movies themselves tended to be formulaic.

They seemed to plug whoever was available into the leading roles as opposed to tailoring vehicles for them.

The exceptions would be Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and John Wayne, but they were big moneymakers and warranted somewhat fancier treatment.

This leadup brings us to "Smuggled Cargo." I think it's a solid programmer and a good way to spend under an hour of your entertainment time budget.

But... there's no particular reason for Barry MacKay to be in this movie. It takes place in California and the rest of the cast seems pretty American. 

As is often the case with such movies, the hero has a father who needs help with some situation and the hero/son jumps in and ultimately saves the day.

Barry's the son, Gerry Clayton, and his father John is played by Ralph Morgan, who's very American!

They look alike, but Frank (left) and Ralph (right) had very different screen personae! 

Ralph was the older brother of Frank Morgan, the better-known and wackier of the two. 

Ralph was usually cast as an authority figure, but he would sometimes be a villain abusing his authority. 

The authority-ness carried over into real-life, as Ralph Morgan helped found the Screen Actors Guild and was its first president!

Gerry has a race car he drives around and his father refers to it as "the car you brought back from England" or something to that effect, which is I guess to explain why Gerry has a British accent!

Gerry also has a wacky mechanic sidekick known as the Professor. He's played by Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards, who's a lot of fun.

Cliff would soon provide the voice of Jiminy Cricket in "Pinocchio" (1940), making his voice familiar to this day.

He even gets to sing a little song at the end of "Smuggled Cargo" as the Gerry and his love interest get the final clinch. 

Said love interest is provided by Rochelle Hudson, who is very lovely but doesn't have a lot to do. 

She was also probably wondering how she wound up at Republic after a reasonably promising start to her career!

Not to get too far off-topic (too late?), but it's worth noting that Rochelle Hudson later popped up as Natalie Wood's character's mother in the 1956 classic "Rebel Without a Cause." She's opposite William Hopper as her husband. Both actors had been knocking around since the 1930s and were about the same age, but Rochelle's glory days were far behind, yet William Hopper would finally find his greatest fame the next year when he began co-starring on the "Perry Mason" TV series. Such are the capricious ways of show biz!

Just to bring things back around a bit, James Dean's father in "Rebel" is played by Jim Backus who played a certain nearsighted cartoon character who starred in a certain TV special...

Anyway, so, how does Barry MacKay fare in a movie like "Smuggled Cargo" that he just seems to have been plopped into?

The answer is that he's just fine. The demands of such roles are to sell the material with some personality and presence and he does that!

I think he could have continued in such roles if he wanted to. A lot of the leading men that Republic used at times brought a lot less to the table.

I don't know what he thought of the whole movie thing, but after "Smuggled Cargo" he did not appear in another movie until the 1952 British production of "The Pickwick Papers."

Did he just not really like making movies? Does anyone still around know the answer?

The movie is *not* this lurid!

Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 2

We had our first lesson in "Barry MacKay 101" by checking out one of his last roles, but for Lesson 2 we're going back to the beginning of his movie career!

His first movie appearance is in "Evergreen" a British film from 1934, so I thought I'd give it a watch.

I had never seen it before, but I thought I had heard of it. I knew the star of the movie, Jessie Matthews, by name, but I don't think I had ever seen her in anything, although knew she was very popular.

It turns out that "Evergreen" is a lot of fun! It's a musical and kind of plays like a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers picture of the era, with a wacky mistaken identity type plot in which Jessie Matthews pretends to be her mother and her leading man is thought to be her son!

Said leading man is Barry MacKay!

He acquits himself quite well here as a light leading man and even does a little singing and dancing. He looks and sounds the same as he would as "Fred" a few years later in MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol," so you recognize him right away. He doesn't act the same exactly, so he has some range.

This is a Jessie Matthews picture, though, and I can see why she was popular, as she's delightful here. She could sing, dance and act and was very pretty, so what's not to like?

She sings and performs a stunning dance number to the great Rodgers & Hart standard "Dancing on the Ceiling," which made realize I had heard of "Evergreen" from seeing it on record labels!

Jessie and Barry make a nice couple and co-starred in a couple more movies, "Gangway" (1937) and "Sailing Along" (1938). I'll have to check those out as well.

I've seen a number of British films from the 1930s, but way more American ones, so I sometimes forget that British films were a bit saucier, if you will.

In any event, it's good to get some context for Barry MacKay as "Fred" and fun to discover a new/old movie!

Barry MacKay 101 - Lesson 1

I know I've mentioned a number of times that I really enjoy Barry MacKay's performance as "Fred" in MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol."

I've also said that I didn't know him from any other movies. 

So I thought I would rectify that with a crash course on him, and we'll call it "Barry MacKay 101!"

I had noticed when doing my All-Star team that the only other movie listed among his credits that I had ever seen was "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), another MGM movie.

Well, "Knights" popped up on TCM recently, so I checked it out. I hadn't seen it in quite some time, but I remember liking it and I'm glad to say it holds up! Robert Taylor, 20ish years into his MGM contract, easily carries the picture as Sir Lancelot. He and Ava Gardner (as Guinevere) are about as good-looking a couple as 1953 had to offer!

Anyway, armed with the knowledge that Barry MacKay is unbilled as "Green Knight's Squire," I was ready to go!

A while into the movie, Lancelot encounters a couple of varlets who refer to each other as "squire" although neither one looks like Barry to me. But their master is indeed a knight who's dressed in green!

Another quick peek at the IMDB shows another actor, Derek Tansley, also credited as "Green Knight's Squire," so there are two squires. One of them must be Barry!

Wait a minute, where's that rewind button? 

OK, a look at Derek Tansley's head shot indicates that he's definitely the squire on the left. So, that means the other is Barry MacKay!

Studying things closely, I can sort of see that it's him, but I never would have picked him out otherwise. I get a strong Oliver Hardy from "Babes in Toyland" vibe!

It had been 15 years since "A Christmas Carol," but how come Robert Taylor still looks like he did in 1938?

Next up: Lesson 2!

A Journey Back to 1938

So, around the holidays, TCM always shows MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol" with Reginald Owen. Certainly makes sense!

I usually either record it or watch it "On Demand" as that's easier than digging out  the DVD or whatever.

This particular version is not overly well-regarded and I have certainly taken it to task, but if I get past what it's not, I do enjoy it as a bit of fluff.

TCM showed it as part of a Dickens block with the David O. Selznick produced MGM blockbusters "David Copperfield" and "A Tale of Two Cities" from 1935 and David Lean's brilliant "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" from 1946 and 1948, respectively.

The 1938 "A Christmas Carol" suffers mightily in such company (1951's "Scrooge" can stand with them), but take it away from those other ones and it's a pleasant diversion.

"All-Star" Barry MacKay's Fred is awesome and Gene Lockhart's Bob Cratchit is outstanding too. They carry the movie, offsetting Reginald Owen's somewhat cartoonish Scrooge and the miscasting of Terry Kilburn as Tiny Tim.

Wait, did I go full-circle and start "dissing" the movie again?

Oh, well...

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 21

As we continue to assemble our "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, we move from the supernatural figures to what I consider to be the major human characters.

Up to the plate steps Scrooge's nephew Fred!

He's an important character as his holiday cheerfulness contracts sharply with Scrooge's lack of said cheerfulness. Fred actually gets the first line, wishing his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and getting a "Bah! Humbug!" for his efforts!

And as the son of Scrooge's deceased younger sister, Fred provides  a link to some relatively happy moments from Scrooge's childhood.

There are naturally lots of Freds out there, but my favorite is Barry MacKay from MGM's 1938 version with Reginald Owen:

That production certainly has its issues, but Barry MacKay's Fred is not one of them. His role is expanded quite a bit from the original book, but he's up to the task.

I really like the way he interacts with the other characters, including Bob, Peter and Tiny Tim Cratchit, as well as his fiancée Bess and Scrooge himself. He's extremely cheerful, but it never seems forced.

I only know Barry MacKay from this one role and I don't know his story, but he's terrific here! He's in a few British movies, mostly in the 1930s and his last move credit is from 1955, although he was around for another 30 years after that!

I believe the only other movie I've seen in which he's involved is "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), the big MGM picture with Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Barry has an uncredited part as "Green Knight's Squire," so I'll have to see if I can spot him the next time that flick shows up on TCM.

This American one for Republic Pictures in 1939 looks cool, though:

I'll have to see if I can track it down!

Interesting that Barry MacKay plays Fred here and Fred MacKaye plays Fred on Ronald Colman's 1941 Decca recording. Coincidence, no doubt, but fun!