Today We Live (1933)

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Looks like MGM threw a lot of money and big stars at this and hoped for the best, thinking that the William Faulkner book would give it a prestige flavor. It's possible that with some major script revisions and a different cast it might have worked. But in it's current state it more resembles a train wreck that you just can't turn your head away from. With it's stars and it's director, expectations are high. Just does not deliver.My major problem with it is that 3 actors in the lead are supposed to be British. Looks like only a half-hearted effort was made by Crawford, Tone and Young to adopt an English accent. The result is some sort of hybrid that not only sounds unauthentic but succeeds in making their dialog almost impossible to understand. One curious thing is that through almost all of it's running time there is no background music. Then towards the end at an emotional high point the sound of a solo piano is heard. Being a high class production you would expect to hear the legendary MGM orchestra. The score for the solo piano is so wrong for this scene that it makes me wonder "what were they thinking?" Crawford does her best over-the-top emoting from start to finish trying desperately to breath some life into this, all for naught.Cooper gives his characteristic laconic reading. Just about right for this part. Tone is not given much chance to show what he can do here. He fools with his pipe a lot and sort of mumbles. (Pipes are a visual cue that shows the character to be British, right?)Young never was much of an actor and never seemed to rise above the level of acting here through the rest of his career. He is just plain wrong here. Maybe Howard Hawks knew early on that this one was going to be a railroad disaster and just sort of punched the clock to it's finish.Waste your time on this one if you insist but in my opinion it is NOT an undiscovered jewel.

Couldn't believe it! Clipped sentences? Good grief! Know what? All true! Real people ever talk like this? Don't think so. Good girl! Stout fellow! Stiffen upper lip! Only reason given movie 2 instead of 0 Gary Cooper such a dish. Movie as a whole ridiculous unless you like watching endless biplane dogfights. Seemed endless, anyway. Think all Franchot Tone's dialogue dubbed. When Crawford and Young make a special effort to sound British they come over as Irish. Handy tip - we Brits clip words, not sentences. And somehow we manage to draaaaaaaawl at the same time. But that's only if we've been to a really good public (that's private to you) school.

This early Hawks' film has many of the themes that will frequently appear in all his filmography, like friendship between men or the professional skill as a mean of survival in dangerous situations. After a weak start the movie takes off during the plane and boat attacks, when Joan Crawford's character is somehow left aside. All in all, her character appears more like a nuisance than anything else. Her first appearance during the tea scene is promising but from there on she'll lack the mannish qualities of other Hawks' females. It is clear that the love interests all through the film are between Cooper, Tone and Young. Claude's blindness reminds other physical impediments of Hawksian heroes. This film, however, closes with a display of self sacrifice and heroism seldom seen in the director's universe. There's also some unusual appearance of religious elements. Although a film "d'epoque", Hawks cannot help turning the material into a modern piece. Some fine scenes, like the aviator instructing the neophyte gunman about the dangers of throwing up, or the wake of the dead cockroach are a true landmark of the director's imaginary, and a clear proof of his ability to turn any material into his own.

I enjoyed the story by itself, but the things that I learned about WWI Planes & boats, make this movie a must see. The close-ups on the plane & the torpedo boat & how they were used were completely new to me. I heartily recommend.