Frank Capra didn’t always have good ideas for his films, but doubtless he did when he chose to direct a movie version of a Damon Runyon story, the title of which movie is Lady for a Day (1933), with a screenplay by Robert Riskin.

There are no idealists or innocents in this Capra film.  Instead we see the interesting phenomenon of small-time mobsters and a pool shark trying to help a financially poor woman—the apple-selling Apple Annie (May Robson)—fool the woman’s daughter into thinking her mother is a society lady.  This is the fiction Apple Annie has maintained for years.  At first the lowlifes treat their service to the old gal as something extraneous, beside the point, but later it doesn’t quite seem that way to them. Basically they are harmless lowlifes, never even roughing anyone up.

Yes, Lady for a Day has a couple of flaws, but it’s a work of a certain purity for which both Capra and Riskin are responsible.  It’s one of Capra’s feel-gooders, energetic and droll but without moralism.  The director worked well with his actors, the result being that May Robson is exemplary, Warren William amusingly assertive, and Guy Kibbee charming and commanding.

Lady for a Day (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Director Robert Altman had “a succession of dreams” and afterwards based one of his movies—Three Women (1977)—on these dreams.  Hence the film, though linear, is profoundly weird.

It is the story of Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) and Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek)—as well as a nonverbal painter named Willie (Janice Rule)—who work at a rehab center with mineral baths for the elderly.  Millie is talkative, but very few people listen to her (funny, this); which easily leads us to infer that social interaction in the film amounts to almost nothing.  And yet, ironically, the shy Pinky quasi-worships Millie, seeing a certain perfection in her.  And there is nothing sexual in this—Pinky, like Millie, likes men—but . . . a question must be asked:  Is Pinky a psychotic who actually wants Millie’s personality for herself?

The film never indicates that someone is dreaming this dreamlike story.  Is it reality, then?  Is it a work of art simply meant to resemble a dream—in other words, a work that is only about itself?  Three Women is unceasingly perplexing.  There are fine performances from Spacek and Duvall, though.  The former is suitably eccentric and beautifully nuanced.  With her diffident, little-girl face, the latter is oddly beguiling, improvising nicely.  For improvisation is certainly here—but what about a raison d’etre?

(All reviews are by Earl Dean)

It is unusual these days to see a film where a man suffers inner torment because he has committed sin.  But it goes on in the 19-minute Catholic film, “The Confession” (2017)—an award winner at a Catholic film festival—and, as it happens, it is not only the Big Sinner who grieves.  So does the confessor priest, who finds he must offer personal forgiveness.

This John LaRaw picture is simple and heartfelt, uncommon for displaying South Korean Christianity.  Plus, it has lighting just right for a religious film.  You might want to pay “The Confession” a visit on YouTube.