1939: Invisible Stripes (81st)

What else happened this year? WWII stuff in Europe, for sure!

What is the plot - in one sentence? We meet an ex-con named Cliff, played by George Raft, as he tries to live a straight life...

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? He has trouble finding work, then gets dragged back into crime by Humphrey Bogart, who masterminds some very relaxed bank robberies. At the end, Cliff is killed in a shoot-out with Bogart’s gang. However, he’s left some money behind for his biologically improbable brother, which will allow him to open a garage, get married, and avoid some of the same mistakes his brother made.

What is the meaning of the title? Quite early in the story (and it’s not a long story anyway) Bogart mentions that even when you’re out of prison, it’s difficult to live a normal life, because it’s like you’ve still got invisible stripes on you all the time. Turns out old Bogie is right.

Here the 'brothers' have a chat. I'd just watched the Wild Bunch. and I freaked out a bit that William Holding was so handsome and young once.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? It appears that the late thirties was the absolute pinnacle for high-panted fashion, and my prediction is that before 2040, that will come around again. I can only hope that some global catatstrophe means that it is impossible. 

There’re a few weird things other than this, such as a focus on not being rich enough to get married – despite the couple basically living together. You’ll be happy to know, however that the slapping in this movie is done between fully-grown, pock-marked gangsters.

Speaking of note ageing well, George Raft’s character claims to be 27, but he’s a solid 40 if he’s a day. It’s even more preposterous that he’s the brother of William Holding, who is a tall, dream boy whose only flaws seem to be a lack of money, and a hair-trigger temper. Another thing that hasn’t aged well is the romantic depictions of love between George Raft and his mother, right down to sexy dancing and mouth kisses. Yep. That’s not aged well.

Any thoughts? In the beginning, they’re just out of prison and Bogart travels on the train with our hero, George Raft, whose character name is Cliff Taylor. Bogart describes a woman he’d like to be with most of all, and the woman he describes is Lauren Bacall, to a tee. They hadn’t met yet, but I’m glad his dreams came true.

Cliff looks for work, but has to tell them he’s a con and so is rejected for any good jobs. At one of the crappier jobs, he’s described as a ‘snooty con’ by someone. I was sure I'd heard a c-bomb dropping. Another thing that I had struggle listening to was William Holding criticising (possibly) his brother and mother worrying about him, by saying ‘you keep me like a rubber stamp’ – even from context, I don’t know if this is good or bad.

Would you recommend this? Yeah this a swift, interesting character piece with some nice parts. There’s a promotion-at-work montage, and a bank-robbery montage too, which might be a first in cinema history.

I’ve seen George Raft in a few things: he’s the lead gangster who’s hunting them in Some Like it Hot, for example – so it was good to put a name to the face. A brief search shows that despite his tough guy demeanour, you’re never far from a video of him sexy dancing to a group of G.I.s in WWII movies. A similar shock happened when we get to see James Cagney dancing in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Final thoughts? After a false accusation, Cliff loses his job and is forced to stay ‘2 nights in a cell’ for no reason. For the record I watched this during a 2 week strict quarantine while deep nose tests were administered, so come on.

Bogart only really appears at the beginning and the end of the movie, but… you really notice his eyebrows both times, they’re approaching monobrow, and they obviously got some grooming later on in his career.

Oh yeah, and as George Raft leaves prison, the warden seems really nice and says ‘if you feel like committing a crime again, call me!’ - but he doesn’t. He also doesn’t get his old job, which he was doing very well at, after a false accusation of robbery. Perhaps they were just a bit freaked out by him dirty dancing with his mother, which happened right before the robbery was meant to take place.

Anyway, may you all have snowmen dreams.And if your dream is to read more of these year-by-year movie reviews, you should click here.