Oct 20, 2023
This week's RKO 1944 episode brings a Hollywood slant to an English working-class perspective on the war. In her only first-billed feature film role, in Passport to Destiny, Elsa Lanchester plays an indomitable charwoman who embarks upon a self-appointed mission to assassinate Hitler after coming to believe that she's magically protected, while in None But the Lonely Heart, American playwright Clifford Odets' directorial debut, Cary Grant plays a Cockney dreamer who struggles with the reality of lower-class life during the Depression after trying to settle down and take care of his dying mother. We discuss the similarity in style and subject matter between None But the Lonely Heart and the poetic realist films of 1930s French cinema, and the curiosity of this underrated art movie being made by RKO so soon after its infamous entanglement with Orson Welles' similarly grim and poetic Magnificent Ambersons. If you've ever wanted to hear Dave start crying by recounting a crying scene, this is your chance.
Time Codes:
0h 00m 45s: RKO in 1944
0h 05m 12s: PASSPORT TO DESTINY [dir. Ray McCarey]
0h 19m 22s: NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART [dir. Clifford Odets]
Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin
Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler
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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.
* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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