VICE SQUAD: one star swims as co-star sinks

This 1953 day-in-the-life-of-a-detective drama is notable for two reasons. Firstly, the tenacity of it's star, Edward G.Robinson to keep working despite the Hollywood blacklist, and to give his best regardless of the quality of the material and, secondly, as a stark illustration of just how far co-star Paulette Goddard's career had fallen.

Robinson is the sole reason for watching this film. By his presence and with his understated performance he lifts what is otherwise a very run of the mill B-movie to a higher level with his presence and understated performance. He gives the production class, and a reason for us to watch.
While there's much to admire in Robinson's interpretation of Captain Barney Barnaby there's also perverse admiration in watching Goddard. Here is an actress famed for her beauty and recognised for her talent with an Oscar nomination a decade earlier now clinging to her career by her fingernails. Despite her billing, the part of local madam Mona Ross is more of an extended cameo than a genuine co-starring role, and Goddard brings nothing to it that a host of lesser known actresses could not have done. It's sad not only to watch a once big name in such reduced circumstances but also to see how Goddard's famed beauty has hardened and faded with the onset of middle age.
As for the film itself the most interesting aspect is how easily and routinely Captain Barnaby bends the law in order to achieve his objectives. He's clearly the good guy in this story yet he has not the slightest qualms about repeatedly re-arresting and intimidating a witness who's reluctant to identify the killer of a police officer, and having another character detained on a blatantly trumped up charge, without making the slightest effort to investigate the veracity of the accuser's allegations. It's never said out loud but the attitude is very obviously that the ends justify the means, and while it's presented in a very benign light the implications are actually very disturbing.
Despite Robinson's presence VICE SQUAD is not a must-see movie but it's definitely worth taking in if you find yourself with 90 minutes to spare.

AN IDEAL HUSBAND: I'm not Wilde about this

Oscar Wilde was a brilliant playwright with a biting wit and a brilliant way with words, but you wouldn't know that if all you had to go on was this 1947 British version of his 1895 stage play AN IDEAL HUSBAND.
For much of the running time the cast are swamped by the garish Technicolor and drowned out by the insistent classical muzak score, but that's not an entirely bad thing because in the moments when it's quiet enough to hear them speak it's obvious that none of them are up to the task of delivering Wilde's words in an amusing or convincing way.
Imported American star Paulette Goddard is well out of her depth as the seductive and scheming Mrs Cheveley, and Hugh Williams as the target of her machinations is so dull that it's impossible to evoke any sympathy for his plight. Diana Wynyard just looks bored with the whole affair while Michael Wilding should have sued cameraman Georges Perinal for shooting him exclusively from angles so bad that he reduces the dashing matinee idol to a collection of sharp angles clinging to an enormous nose.
Perhaps director Alexander Korda was so distracted by his efforts to cram as many different bright colours as possible into every frame of film that he didn't notice the dismal performances being delivered by his cast. Not even the venerable Sir C Aubrey Smith in his penultimate role can save this flop.
Utterly undistinguished on every level, my advice is to give this film a very wide berth and watch the 1999 version with Rupert Everett and Julianne Moore instead.

THE CAT AND THE CANARY: scarily over-rated

Newly released on DVD, the1939 comedy thriller THE CAT AND THE CANARY is garnering a lot of favorable press  primarily - it would appear - from reviewers who've read the press release from Universal rather than watched the film itself.

The plot is as creaky as the floorboards of the creepy Louisiana bayou mansion in which it's set. A mismatched group of relatives gather for the reading of the will of it's wealthy, deceased owner. Their disappointment at discovering the old man's left everything to Paulette Goddard is compounded by their fear on learning that not only do they have to spend the night in the dark old house but that one of them may be a murderer.
Hope, as the aptly named Wally Campbell, offers to protect Goddard even though he's a solid gold coward, and he soon finds himself torn between his natural urge to run the other way and his desire to impress her with his courage.
The problem is that many of Hope's verbal retorts and physical responses lack a pay-off line. They just deflate. It's possible that director Elliott Nugent was anticipating that a gale of laughter from the cinema audience would provide the equivalent of a ba-dom-cha! on the drum and cymbal, but that requires that the gags and double-takes be funny, which for the most part they aren't.
The weak smile and muted titters they provoke don't provide the pay-off these comedy bits desperately need. 
To call THE CAT AND THE CANARY a classic is to lavish it with far more praise than it's due.