I’m grateful to Mike (https://mikestakeonthemovies.com ) for reviewing RETURN FROM THE SEA,a film I’d never heard of. Neville Brand stars in a rare opportunity to get away from his usual gangster roles.

Set during the Korean War, Brand is a Chief Petty Officer on board a war ship. His men ( including Robert Arthur, Alvy Moore and James Best) look  up to him, but when they get leave back at base in San Diego, Brand finds himself alone in a bar he frequents run by Lloyd Corrigan .

Jan Sterling is a new face behind the bar and she and Neville get acquainted.

Despite a small budget, the film has two well done action sequences on board the U.S.S. Maddox.

Definitely worth seeing if it ever turns up on TV, especially to see Brand as we don’t normally see him, subdued, kindly, unsure of himself.  Jan Sterling, always good of course.

Released by Allied Artists, the film was made by independent Scott R. Dunlap. The advert above doesn’t reflect the nature of the film which is really about two people, Brand and Sterling , learning to trust one another.

Scott R Dunlap (1892-1970) had a long career in Hollywood, directing many silents, then, at the start of talkies,  becoming a talent agent/business manager (he managed Buck Jones) and then got into producing from 1937 to 1961 – mainly westerns.

He was in charge of production at Monogram in the 1940s. Some of the films his company made include COW COUNTRY (Edmund O’Brienj, THE HUNTED (Preston Foster) and JOHNNY ROCCO (Stephen McNally).

 

CHARLIE AND THE LOON!

I love the scene in BRINGING UP BABY where Charlie Ruggles, as Major Horace Applegate ( an unlikely big game hunter) hears ‘Baby’ (the leopard) and says to his friend Elizabeth (May Robson), ”That was a loon, Elizabeth.”

When David (Cary Grant) says it is a leopard, the major says it is not and then proceeds to demonstrate to them what the  wail of a leopard  sounds like.

 

He is so convincing, the leopard answers! Still convinced it is a loon, he then says, ”I can’t understand why a loon would answer a leopard’s call.”

 

”There aren’t any leopards in Connecticut, are there?”

 

Loons are found throughout Canada and the Canadian one dollar coin has a loon on one side and the coin is called a ‘loonie’!

 

VERREE TEASDALE

When I saw the delightful A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM some years ago, I was impressed by Verree Teasdale (1903-1987) as Hippolyta , Queen of the Amazons.

 

 

The Harold Lloyd comedy, THE MILKY WAY(1936) was a welcome surprise on You Tube. Harold is very funny as a milkman who gets caught up with boxing promoter Adolphe Menjou . Verree is Menjou’s girlfriend and she gets plenty of Eve Arden style wisecracks.

( When Harold Lloyd says to her, “My, you look lovely this morning.”   Her reply is fast and short, “And  vice versa.”)

William Gargan and Lionel Stander add to the fun. The Milky Way ( directed by Leo McCarey) deserves a dvd release.

Wonder why Harold Lloyd didn’t do more talkies.

 

Verree was Ian Hunter’s  understanding wife in COME LIVE WITH ME (1941) , her last film,  and Hedy Lamarr’s best friend in I TAKE THIS WOMAN (1940).

 

Verree  has the very last scene in the 1932 pre-code, “Skyscraper Souls” , and it’s spectacular!  ( The above photo is only  the second last scene!)

 

Another of Verree’s films I’d like to see is THE FIREBIRD (1934) which looks like a good murder mystery. Has anyone seen it? She plays Anita Louise’ s mother in it.

Verree only made about 20 films from 1929 to 1941, after a successful stage career. On her marriage to Adolphe Menjou  in 1935, she wasn’t as active in films as she might have been as, apparently, Menjou had several illnesses.

Her height and bearing  often had her cast as a society lady, or ‘other woman’, and generally second leads, but the little I’ve seen of her shows a very capable actress whose characters are a little bit Eve Arden or Connie Bennett, smart, witty, scene- stealing, likeable.

She’s also in Ginger Rogers’ FIFTH AVENUE GIRL – as Walter Connolly’s wife!  And again with her husband Adolph Menjou in the funny TURNABOUT.

Verree and her husband were active on the radio in a series called MEET THE MENJOUS.

 

I love the following photo of the cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

How many can you identify!  Verree’s there in the middle next  to Ian Hunter.