PAT O'BRIEN AND THE AMERICAN LEGION

For providing quality family entertainment and serving his country during World War I, O'Brien received the Legion's Distinguished Service Medal in 1976.

Accustomed to the spotlight, O'Brien, a Navy veteran, was nevertheless humble when accepting the award. "The pride in all of our hearts as Legionnaires is something that is beyond description in words," he said. "I have been a Legionnaire since 1927. That's practically 50 years."

The Irish-American O'Brien grew up in Milwaukee as an altar boy before the acting world, where he amassed more than 100 screen credits. He appeared with James Cagney in eight films, including "Angels with Dirty Faces" and Cagney's last film, "Ragtime." Some of O'Brien's more well-known roles include a police detective in "Some Like It Hot" and a football coach in "Knute Rockne, All American," in which he gave the famous "win just one for the Gipper" speech.

He earned numerous honorary degrees, including one from his alma mater, Marquette University. He was also named a Knight of Malta and a Knight of Papal Charity by the Catholic Church.

O'Brien died in California in 1983, at 83...

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GUEST REVIEW: RAGTIME

Bruce Kogan is back with his guest review to end our month of Ragtime stories. This review is a look at the 1981 movie version of Ragtime. It's a great movie with a great review from Bruce...

Back in the day when Hollywood was grinding out B westerns it wasn't unusual at all to see famous folks of the west in stories that had absolutely nothing to do with their own lives or to see many famous people interacting when they never even met in real life.

Ragtime revives some of that dubious tradition in filming E.L. Doctorow's novel about the Teddy Roosevelt years of the first decade of the last century. Teddy figures into this briefly as does his Vice President Charles Fairbanks. Booker T. Washington is here too, as are the principals of the Stanford White murder, and New York City Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo.

It's quite a blend because Roosevelt and Fairbanks ran for re-election in 1904 as Fairbanks is shown delivering a campaign speech. He wasn't even Vice President then, just a Senator from Indiana. Fairbanks was running for Vice President because Roosevelt had no Vice President in his first term. He succeeded to the presidency when Willima McKinley was assassinated.

The Stanford White murder took place in 1906 and was then called the crime of the century. Many such murders right up to O.J. Simpson were given that dubious distinction. And Rhinelander Waldo was not NYPD Police Commissioner until 1910 and he was much younger than James Cagney. 

Still and all E.L. Doctorow's book is made into a fine film which got a whole bunch of Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Milos Forman and Supporting player nominations for Howard Rollins, Jr. and Elizabeth McGovern.

The main story is about Coalhouse Walker, Jr. a black ragtime pianist and his Sarah. She has his baby and they'd like to get married. But a whole lot of things, some of them peripherally connected to the true events and people previously mentioned that lead him and a gang to take possession of the Morgan Library and threaten to blow it up.

Howard Rollins was a real tragedy. This was a great start to a short, but brilliant career that included his long running role as Virgil Tibbs in the TV series In the Heat of the Night and the film A Soldier's Story. He died way too young from AIDS contracted from a lot of intravenous drug use.

Elizabeth McGovern is the famous Evelyn Nisbet, the girl on the red velvet swing which was the title of another film that dealt with the Stanford White murder. McGovern's performance is probably closer to the real Evelyn than Joan Collins was in that earlier film. She's basically a goldigger who juggled two men, her husband Harry K. Thaw and her upscale lover, society architect Stanford White. Her circus act led to White's death, Thaw's commitment to an insane asylum and a vaudeville career for her.

Ragtime was eagerly awaited because of the anticipated return of James Cagney to the screen after being off for 19 years. Cagney is clearly aged, but he gets through the role because unlike that television film Terrible Joe Moran, he's not the center of the film, though he's first billed. Note that he's sitting down during most of his performance and when he has to stand the camera is a discreet distance. It's nothing like the bouncing Cagney of old, but light years better than Terrible Joe Moran.

This was also the final joint appearance as it turned for the team that invented the buddy film, James Cagney and Pat O'Brien even though they have no scenes together. O'Brien is Harry K. Thaw's attorney and Mrs. O'Brien plays Thaw's mother under her maiden name of Eloise Taylor. She was an actress before she married Pat, but gave up her career to raise their four children.

Author Norman Mailer plays Stanford White, fulltime architect and hedonist and Robert Joy plays the demented millionaire Harry K. Thaw and both fit the parts perfectly. Maybe one day we will have a definitive film version just concentrating on the murder and it's aftermath for the three principals.

Milos Forman gave us a remarkable evocation of an exciting time in American history. It seemed that America had limitless possibilities then. I doubt they'll be saying that about the first decade of this century...

BRUCE RATING: 9 OUT OF 10

MY REVIEW: 10 OUT OF 10

THE BOY WITH THE GREEN HAIR: A 1948 REVIEW

One of my guilty pleasures when I was first collecting movies was The Boy With The Green Hair. At the time it was a rare movie that was just different. I liked it though. Here is the original 1948 review by Bosley Crowther from the New York Times of January 13, 1949...

A novel and noble endeavor to say something withering against war on behalf of the world's unnumbered children who are the most piteous victims thereof is made in the RKO picture, "The Boy With Green Hair," a fantasy-drama in color, which opened at the Palace yesterday. But the fact that the effort is earnest is no surety of its success. For all its proper intentions, the gesture falls short of its aim.

As mere sentimental entertainment, this tale of a lad whose hair turns green as a sort of miraculous token of the cruelty of war is unevenly appealing, it being, in certain respects, a beneficiary of the pattern of the charming "On Borrowed Time." The lad in the case is an orphan and he lives with a kindly old man who has a rare tenderness toward children—and who goes by the winning name of "Gramp." Furthermore, this attractive youngster becomes obsessed with a frightening idea, from which his gentle old guardian attempts to protect and deliver him.

In its scan of the poignant relations between the elderly man and the troubled boy, this film does project intimations of real compassion which are irresistible. And it profits in this projection from cozy performances by Dean Stockwell as the youngster and Pat O'Brien as the old man. Master Stockwell is lovable yet sturdy, diminutive yet strong, and Mr. O'Brien is softly sentimental without going into "Hearts and Flowers."

But, unfortunately, the idea with which the lad becomes obsessed—and which is, supposedly, responsible for his hair turning green—is weakly motivated. And the fanciful device of rendering his hair symbolic is not only arbitrary but vague.

It is not established, for instance, whether all this we see on the screen—the phenomenal hirsute coloration and the resentment of the townsfolk thereto—is supposed to be a boy's hallucination, just another of a couple he has, or whether it is intended as a strictly whimsical device. If the former, it isn't consistent with the evident fancies of this lad's mind. If the latter, it is strangely inconclusive, when pictured thusly. And, frankly, it's banal.

For it might stand to reason that a youngster of a particularly introverted sort could be so upset by anxieties that he would sense an extreme conspicuousness. And he might even tie up this fancy in a childish way with the victimizations of war. But to reason, in adult whimsey, that wars are caused by such a superficial thing as resentment of coloration is absurd and misleading.

It is very much to be regretted that Ben Barzman and Alfred Lewis Levitt, in writing this film's script from a modest little story by Betsy Beaton, and Joseph Losey in directing it, did not clarify the implication. Not only is it now confused, but one gets the uncomfortable feeling that it is just a bright adult notion gone wrong. The use of the by-now quite hackneyed "Nature Boy" as a musical theme does not dignify the conception. The supporting cast is adequate...

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MOVIE REVIEW: THE BOY WITH THE GREEN HAIR

As a youth in the 1980s, I remember seeing the movie The Boy With The Green Hair often on AMC. This was back when AMC aired "classic movies". Anyways, the movie always sort of scared me. It scared me, but it also haunted me in a good way. Since that movie aired, my copy on an old Beta tape has since broken, but the still haunts me. It is an odd movie, but a good one nevertheless.

The Boy with Green Hair was a 1948 American comedy-drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It starred Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after he awakens one morning to find his hair mysteriously turned green. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale.

Finding a curiously silent young runaway boy (Stockwell) whose head has been completely shaved, small-town police call in a psychologist (Ryan) and discover that he is a war orphan named Peter Frye. Moving in with an understanding retired actor named Gramps (O'Brien), Peter starts attending school and generally begins living the life of a normal boy until his class gets involved with trying to help war orphans in Europe and Asia.

Peter soon realizes that—like the children on the posters, whose images haunt him—he, too, is a war orphan. The realization about his parents and the work helping the orphans makes Peter turn very serious, and he is further troubled when he overhears the adults around him talking about the world preparing for another war. Peter awakens the next day and his hair has turned green, prompting him to run away after being taunted by the townspeople and his peers. Suddenly, appearing before him in a lonely part of the woods are the orphaned children whose pictures he saw on the posters.

They tell him that he is a war orphan, but that with his green hair he can make a difference and must tell people that war is dangerous for children. He leaves determined to deliver his message to any and all. Upon his return, the townspeople chase Peter, and even Gramps tries to encourage him to consider shaving his hair so that it might grow back normally. He agrees to get his head shaved, and the town barber does the job—that night, however, Peter runs away. Later reunited with Gramps, Peter learns that there are adults out there who accept what he has to say and want him to go on saying it. He's sure that his hair will grow back in green again, and he will continue to carry his message.

Pat O'Brien and Dean Stockwell give Oscar worthy performances as the adopted parent and orphaned boy. Stockwell especially showed tenderness and sadness in his role. For a child star to make the audience feel that in their hearts is a sign of a great talent. For a movie made only three years after the war ended, The Boy With The Green Hair was a great commentary on the plight of war orphans.

The song "Nature Boy" written by Eden Ahbez and sung by an uncredited chorus was a primary theme of the score for the motion picture. Nat King Cole's version of "Nature Boy" shot to #1 on the Billboard charts, and remained there for eight weeks straight during the summer of 1948.

The Boy With The Green Hair may be dated by today's standards, but I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a different type of movie. It is a movie that will stick with you and make you think for years to come...

my rating: 9 out of 10

INTERVIEW: JAMES CAGNEY and PAT O'BRIEN - 1981

Here is a great interview with the legendary James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. Together they starred in many great gangster movies of the 1930s. This interview is from 1981...