Gene Lockhart Archives | Deep Focus Review

The Sea Wolf

Brian Eggert — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 14:07:25 +0000

Wolf Larsen, the barbarous, intelligent, and vengeful despot who clings to his authority with cruelty and violence, is the unforgettable villain of 1941’s The Sea Wolf. Edward G. Robinson delivers a combustible performance that dominates the film, just as Larsen dominates his ship, the Ghost. A distinguished entry in Warner Bros.’s many literary adaptations of the era, this film version of Jack London’s novel features a richly baroque visual aesthetic and Oscar-nominated special effects, overseen by the brilliant direction of Michael Curtiz, a taskmaster himself. However, the picture’s voice stems from the talented screenwriter and actors, mindful of how the events onscreen mirrored their contemporary political dynamics. Like many historical and literary adaptations made by Warner Bros. during this period, The Sea Wolf is an anti-Nazi film that never mentions Nazism and an anti-Hitler film that presents a fictional counterpart to Hitler. It supplies a passionate message against the fascist ideologies that fuel authoritarians, and at a time when it mattered most. The Sea Wolf is at once a sterling example of prestige filmmaking in the Golden Age of Hollywood and an impassioned work that demonstrates how even commercial art can have a perspective. The full 4,500-word essay is currently […]

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Meet John Doe

Brian Eggert — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 18:53:46 +0000

Frank Capra kept an earnest faith in the American Dream. As a Sicilian immigrant, America had been good to him; he treasured the idealistic pledge of liberty and justice for all. During Capra’s height as a Hollywood filmmaker, a period lasting the decade of the 1930s, the American Dream was always under siege from threats such as the Great Depression, the rise of fascism in the United States, or the rumblings of the Second World War. With the country on the verge of collapse and its foundational standards disintegrating, many Americans were losing hope. Capra’s most popular films sought to counteract this decline with stories that spoke to people in terms of the moral principles that drive the civic culture, bolstering national pride from its foundation in the average American moviegoer. But his artistic ambitions were sometimes confronted, even contradicted by his devotion to that audience, his need to please, make us laugh, and warm our hearts. Capra was sentimental and politically idealistic, a profoundly humanistic filmmaker who told stories about people with an unshakable belief in their country and the goodness of the everyday American because he, too, had an unshakable belief in America. He dealt with serious issues […]

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His Girl Friday

Brian Eggert — Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:49 +0000

One has to wonder if newspapermen like the ones in His Girl Friday ever existed, or if the films like these created the stereotype. You know the sort: fast-talking, hard-nosed reporters willing to do anything for a scoop; they quip with Smithy the typesetter or Sweeny the fact-checker; their fedoras rest on the back of their head as they dictate wispy prose to themselves while punching keys into their typewriter for last-minute inclusion to the evening edition. Though Howard Hawks’ archetypal 1940 comedy was based on the 1928 stage play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the film became even more popular than its source for its romantic trimmings, and later played a crucial role in establishing Hollywood’s notions of what goes on behind-the-scenes at a newspaper. Moreover, Hawks’ film also remains one of the most enduring of all those frenzy-paced screwball comedies, a genre that the director himself helped establish. Adapted for the screen by Charles Lederer for Hawks, His Girl Friday was not the only rendition of the newspaper play. It had already been turned into a motion picture in 1931 by Lewis Milestone, which took the play’s name and starred Adolphe Menjou and Pat […]

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