Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

The Criterion DVD includes a 1991 audio interview with Robert Montgomery's daughter, Elizabeth Montgomery. Dang it, Criterion. These are the sort of extras that Criterion includes that are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because they're usually pretty cool. A curse, because I'm always tempted to skip them so I can watch another movie... especially if it's an audio-only supplement. For every 90-minute film, you need to budget 4 or 5 hours just to go through all the extras.

Then the stuff you learn in the extras make you want to follow-up with Google searches. Then you probably have a list of movies and actors that you want to add to your watch list. It just goes on and on.

And that's great, because I will never ever run out of content to watch, read, or listen to.

In the interview, Elizabeth -- what a great, happy voice -- admits that she still didn't know her father's body of work all that well. Keep in mind she was 58 at the time, and she would be dead of colon cancer just four years later.

But later in life, she started watching his films. She talks about how she thinks her father was underrated, and why. To me, Robert Montgomery's acting in Here Comes Mr. Jordan is kind of like early Cary Grant (before Grant finds his acting chops). Since this is the only film of his that I've watched, I wonder if my impression is correct, or if he acted that way specifically to portray Joe?

I watched Here Comes Mr. Jordan ten days after watching Heaven Can Wait (1978). Overall, I do like this original movie version better. Maybe a lot better. Mostly I attributed that to Claude Rains (Mr. Jordan) and Edward Everett Horton (Messenger 7013), two of my favorite supporting actors.

Would the ending in the original be better? I was hoping, but it follows the same basic ending that Heaven Can Wait used. In this case, Joe has to enter the body of KO. This allows him to "win" the boxing championship, but he didn't feel "whole." He felt more like KO's surrogate, and at that point, Mr. Jordan tells him that "Joe" and Joe's memories will fade away. He will still be part of KO, but for some reason, KO will be the primary "spirit" controlling the body and the life memories.

And I don't get that. KO was supposed to have been shot right in the ring, during the bout. Huh? Joe even shows off the bullet's entry wound to his manager (it's never shown to us) after the fight. How would that be possible? For a boxer to be shot in the middle of a match, and no one noticed, even though the bullet should have killed (or did kill?) KO?

And why would KO be "brought back to life" if it was "his time" to die? For reasons never explained, the bullet wound miraculously disappears, KO retakes control of his body, and Joe, still inside somewhere, leads Bette (Evelyn Keyes) to start a romance with KO. She can see Joe/Farnsworth in KO's "eyes." Nope. Don't understand or like that ending at all. Is this what Mr. Jordan had in mind the whole time? Was he not being completely upfront and truthful with Joe?

The supplemental features connect this film to Rita Hayworth's Down to Earth (1947), which is going to lead me down a rabbit hole, as I'll need to watch that movie, and then I'll likely go ahead and watch a bunch of Hayworth movies.

In the 1991 audio interview, one of the reasons why Elizabeth hadn't seen her father's work: It wasn't easily accessible. Not released on video and not shown often on TV.

Thank god for DVDs (and to a lesser extent, streaming).

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X. It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether. And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it. So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants. The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...

In Utero

In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history. She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.

The Writer's Poke

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