Showing posts with label 1930's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1930's. Show all posts
Tuesday, 25 October 2016
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Only Angels Have Wings
The exotic lands of South America provide the location for one of the big adventure films of Hollywood’s most famous year (1939). Cary Grant as an adventure-seeking enigmatic airline pilot running mail into dangerous regions of an unnamed town in the Andes established his Hollywood star status as a true leading man, game for comedy, romance and adventure. Howard Hawks’ recurring themes of male comraderie and his knack for wordy rhythmic dialogue elevate this straight-ahead actioner into something memorable and resonant.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Grand Hotel
Once billed as "featuring the greatest cast in stage or screen history," Grand Hotel exemplifies the height of Hollywood allure in the early '30s, when the country was in the midst of the Depression and the institution of cinema supplied the dream factory escapism audiences desired.
Monday, 19 November 2012
Abraham Lincoln
It’s weird to say, but Abe Lincoln is hot right now. Piggybacking on the critical praise of Steven Spielberg’s film is a release of the DW Griffith’s 1930 film about Lincoln, one of the last pictures, a talkie, from the cinema pioneer. While virtually unknown, or at least rarely discussed in Griffith’s ouevre, under Kino Classic’s terrific restoration it survives well as a genuinely terrific, visually dynamic chronicle of Honest Abe's life.
Abraham Lincoln (1930) dir. D. W. Griffith
Starring: Walter Huston, Una Merkle, E. Alyn Warren
As the iconic American figure Walter Huston’s strong physical presence and warm affective demeanor anchors the film. Huston ages terrifically from the young Lincoln, the salt-of-the-earth prairie lawyer of his youth, to his final years as the bearded, stately and nearly gaunt President suffering under the toils of a Civil War.
At 90 minutes Griffith has to fast-forward through time quickly, but at each stage of Lincoln's life we can see the formation of the personality and conviction which equipped him to be the man who would free the slaves and still hold the country together (at the cost of his life). Some of the benchmark moments of Lincoln’s early life include the tragic romance with Ann Rutledge, a death which brings out a fine mourning scene from Huston; his courtship of Mary Todd; and his celebrated political battles with Stephen Douglas. By the midpoint Lincoln is chosen to be the Republican nominee for the Presidency and then in a cut, we move into the White House.
Griffith takes most of his time with the events of the Civil War - before, during and after. Lincoln's determination to fight and keep the Union together versus letting the Southern states go puts him at odds with everyone around him. As such, the film portrays Lincoln as a lone wolf fighting the good fight against both his friends and his foes. Griffith’s agenda is clear, and even within the context of the dramatic aesthetics of the era, the themes and character values are on the nose. At one point Huston even looks directly into the camera and says, "We must save the Union."
That said, the film admirably distills out the extraneous focusing in on Lincoln while leaving out the complex political people and events around him. As such, despite Griffith’s reputation for cinematic grandeur, Abraham Lincoln feels like a small and contained film.
And within these constraints the picture looks fantastic and surprisingly nimble and technically proficient for a director at the end of his career. The opening slave boat sequence is especially harrowing and recalls the opening sequence of Spielberg’s Amistad. Throughout the film Griffith uses camera movement and expressive lighting to maximize the visual experience. Aiding him to craft sequences like this are two of the best craftsmen in cinema at the time, cinematographer Karl Struss, who lensed Sunrise for F.W. Murnau, and art director William Cameron Menzies, perhaps best known for his work on Gone With the Wind, but a terrific director as well, as he helmed the genre sci-fi classics Chandu the Magician and Things to Come.
***½
Abraham Lincoln is available on Blu-ray from Kino-Lorber.
Friday, 31 August 2012
La Grande Illusion
The futility of war was never more intelligently articulated with wit and poignancy than in Jean Renoir’s 'La Grand Illusion', a prison-escape film which presents almost no conflict or action in favour of a sharp commentary on the absurdities of war.
Grand Illusion (1937) dir. Jean Renoir
Starring: Jean Gabin, Erich Von Stroheim, Dito Parlo, Pierre Fresnay
By Alan Bacchus
Here war is a gentlemanly game, where mutual respect and admiration for each other extend from the front lines to war camps. In the opening scene the German captain hosts a shot-down officer for a splendid dinner. Everyone is polite and accommodating and orderly - a far cry from the gut-wrenching pain and agony the soldiers on the ground conduct against each other. I’m not sure if this was the reality of WWI, but for sophisticated cinema Renoir is making a statement not unlike his satire of class system stupidity in Rules of the Game. The officers’ first meal is ‘the best they ever had' - chicken, foie gras, fine spirits and wine.
If it was so good for these soldiers at these prisons then where’s the drama? I can’t answer this, but Renoir doesn't need traditional notions of cinematic conflict to make his point and tell an engrossing dramatic story.
Admittedly, it took me a few viewings for this picture to really sink in. It's consciously anti-climactic, not a traditional war film at all, and not even a traditional prisoner of war film either. There are three distinct stories. At first we see Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) being shot down behind enemy lines in WWI Germany. As officers they’re greeted at the German base with honour and respect by their captor, Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim).
They’re then sent to a formal POW camp, and once locked into their prison cells the pair discovers an affable group of international prisoners. Despite their joyous carousing they’re also plotting their escape, tunnelling underneath the camp and beyond the fence. The procedural mechanics of their scheme are choreographed beautifully – arguably influencing the granddaddy of prison escape films, The Great Escape.
But it’s an anti-climax, as Maréchal, de Boeldieu and their new friend Rosenthal are shipped away to another camp in the mountain region, headed by the same Captain Rauffenstein from earlier. Due to Rauffenstein’s aristocratic roots and respect for de Boeldieu’s lineage, their stay is even more laid back and they enjoy good food and respectful treatment. But again, it’s a rouse with the trio plotting their escape to return home and endure more fighting.
And so after a dramatic escape, aided by the sacrifice of de Boeldieu, Renoir changes gears by showing Rosenthal and Maréchal’s comfy stay as borders at a local German widow’s home. As Maréchal and the girl fall in love, Renoir remarkably shifts us emotionally with a deeply emotional love story.
If this film was made today, we would have seen the love story placed before the trio’s movement to Rauffenstein’s camp, thus ending the film with the action-oriented escape and likely the reunification of the estranged war torn lovers at the end. But somehow, as arranged by Renoir, it works.
For Renoir theme runs deeper than conflict, and here his commentary on patriotism is thought provoking. For Maréchal, de Boeldieu and Rosenthal their desire to escape from a prison despite being well fed and far from the carnage of the trenches stems from their instinctual need to subvert the enemy and fight the war by whatever means necessary.
While Von Stroheim is characterized like an Emperor with No Clothes, I don’t see this as an anti-war statement. Instead, Maréchal's and de Boeldieu’s duty as soldiers to escape and fight is as patriotic as it gets. And with the onset of WWII at the time of the making of this film, La Grand Illusion is as encouraging to French citizens to stand up against aggressive authority as any war propaganda at the time.
****
La Grande Illusion is available on Blu-ray from Alliance Films in Canada.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Destry Rides Again
Destry Rides Again (1939) dir. George Marshall
Starring: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Mischa Auerm, Brian Donlevy, Samuel S. Hinds
***½
By Alan Bacchus
Destry Rides Again showcases Jimmy Stewart in one of his earliest starring roles. As a spry 29-year-old, Mr. Aw Shucks is as amiable, compelling and undeniably a star as he ever was.
The film portrays a typical situation in the western genre. A corrupt frontier town (appropriately called ‘Bottleneck’) has difficulty maintaining law and order. The local sheriff is completely ineffective and is beholden to the local criminal syndicate. Even the mayor is under the corruptive influence of the malfeasants. Marlene Dietrich plays Frenchy, the local saloon owner who quietly helps the criminals cheat and steal their way to money and power.
When the new Sheriff is knocked off by a cheating gangster, Kent (Brian Dunlevy), Mayor Slade gives the badge to the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale. Instead of doing Slade and Kent’s bidding, Dimsdale considers the appointment as an opportunity to make something of his life. And so he hires an old friend and the son of a legendary lawman, Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart). Destry arrives in town gunless and is ridiculed for his passivity toward armed violence. But beneath his easy-going demeanour is a stone cold hombre who refuses to back down against the local tyranny.
The film takes its time establishing the situation. In fact, Jimmy Stewart doesn’t appear until 30 minutes into the film. George Marshall, a stock studio director with over 150 directing credits but few classic titles, directs the film with the utmost of studio perfection. Watch the scenes from the opening titles to just after Destry arrives in town. Though most of the film takes place in the saloon through camera movement, shot selection and creative staging, Marshall manages to sustain 45 minutes of high cinema energy and action.
After Destry's introduction, Marshall stages one of the all-time great cat-fights in cinema history. It’s Marlene Dietrich as Frenchy versus Una Merkel, who plays the wife of a husband who was cheated out of his money. The fight starts out as a fall-down, hair-pulling match between the gals, but when Destry breaks it up Frenchy continues to battle the new deputy for a total of 5 minutes of bottle-throwing and chair-smashing action. The sequence is a lengthy but exciting and inspired duel of wills. Of course, it’s played for humour, but Marshall’s staging is invisible to the extensive stunts required to make the scene look real.
Though Stewart refuses to carry a gun and uses intelligence to best his opponents, the filmmakers are clear to tell us that Destry is no sissy. In fact, he’s a crack shot with a gun. At one point he picks up a pistol and nonchalantly shoots six targets with his six bullets. But in a genre where the attitudes toward violence are defined by the liberal 'western code of honour', Destry's 'non-violent' approach is a smart nod toward pacifism. These themes would be reworked and remade a number of times after Destry. Marshall would remake the film again in 1954 with Audie Murphy, and Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner borrows its central concept of a lawman with guns. Enjoy.
Destry Rides Again is available on the James Stewart Westerns Collection from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Oher related postings: THE FAR COUNTRY
Here's the classic catfight scene:
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Rules of the Game
Rules of the Game (1939) dir. Jean Renoir
Starring: Marcel Dario, Nora Gregor, Jean Renoir
****
By Alan Bacchus
Robert de la Chesnaye (to the Servant): “Please, will you end this farce?”
The Servant: “Which one?”
Generally cited in most international polls as one of the greatest films of all time, Rules of the Game has proven to be a major influence on the unique sub-genre of ensemble-chamber films and a major influence on Altman, Lars von Trier, Woody Allen, Denys Arcand, Luis Bunuel and many others. It’s a biting farce and critique of the social follies of upper-class French aristocrats.
A snobby French aristocrat, Robert de la Chesnaye, is planning a hunt at his country estate, and he invites not only his friends, but their husbands, wives, mistresses and lovers as well. In Renoir’s world, wives and mistresses are interchangeable. Husbands have mistresses, and their wives are mistresses to other men. Even the mistresses have other lovers. And everyone is invited to the party. The title is appropriate because Renoir’s upper-class twits have ‘rules’ to their social games, where everyone is supposed to accept their dalliances as such. But only the upper-class can be naïve enough to think their social superiority will immunize them against envy and greed. That’s how it starts, but of course we know the house of cards will eventually fall – it always does.
Renoir deftly juggles half a dozen plotlines and character relationships throughout the film. He uses pre-Citizen Kane deep-focus photography to show action and dialogue in the background and foreground. It was innovative then and is still fresh and exciting to watch today. After establishing all the characters and their relationships with each other, the film moves to another level with the famous hunting sequence. Renoir crafts the scene well, with a terrific montage of the killing of rabbits, pheasants and various other animals. The foreshadowing isn’t subtle, but it provides the film with a darkly comic edge.
In the evening during a stage masquerade show for the guests, the energy of the film is ramped up to another level. Jealous anger boils over causing a series of arguments and fights throughout the house. These scenes, which make up much of the second act, create one of cinema’s most famous set-pieces – a masterpiece of movement and choreography.
Unlike Kane, which begins with a bang and announces itself as a cinematic rule breaker with force, Rules of the Game is more subtle. At the outset it may not be an obvious masterpiece, but as Roger Ebert puts it, ‘You can't simply watch it, you have to absorb it.' By the end the characters get into your skin. And it's not just the follies of the rich, but every substrata of class as well – the wait-staff, servants and grounds keepers all watch and participate in the elaborate game.
The impending war, though not specifically referenced, provides another level of socio-political context. Renoir made the film prior to WWII and didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, which makes his achievement even more remarkable. With the war on their doorstep, the naiveté of the ruling class and the triteness of their ego-driven preoccupations are even more scathing.
Unfortunately, the result was a complete dismissal of the film by critics and the public when it was released, as well as being banned by the Vichy government for being unpatriotic. Like Citizen Kane, it wasn’t until the late ‘50s that Renoir's masterpiece could be appreciated as a film years and decades ahead of its time.
Rules of the Game is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Design For Living
Starring: Gary Cooper, Frederic Marsh, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton
****
By Alan Bacchus
Tom Chambers (Marsh) is a playwright, George Curtis (Cooper) is an artist, and in between these two libidinous best friends is Gilda Farrell (Hopkins), the third angle of a unique love triangle, which in the pre-code era resulted in a coy spin on our preconceived notions of male-female sexual relations.
The Criterion Collection has appropriately dug out this delicious farce directed by the master of romantic-sexual comedies, Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise, Ninotochka), and written by the master of British wit, poise and the complexity of relationships, Noel Coward. What a team!
It’s so refreshing to watch how quickly these older movies get to the point. The opening scene features Gilda getting into a train car to Paris occupied by Tom and George. Both are sleeping against each other. A carefully framed close-up of Cooper’s hand on Marsh's might even suggest a homosexual relationship. They aren’t gay, but their proximity foreshadows just how closely they will be linked. There’s clearly an attraction between all three. Once in Paris, Gilda engages in a sexual relationship with both of them (separately).
When they find out that both of them have tasted the fruit of her loins, in order to save their friendship Gilda proposes they make a ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ to become platonic friends, professional colleagues critiquing each other’s work, but never sleeping with each other. These best laid plans go awry when, while Chambers is making it big in London, George genuinely falls for Gilda and starts up a real relationship with her. Of course, the tables switch again when Tom sleeps with Gilda after returning from London. The wildcard, which eventually causes the biggest rift, is Max Plunkett (Horton), a long-time admirer of Gilda, who manages to weasel in between the friends and steal her away. It would then take a full reconciliation of Tom and George and some social savvy to save Gilda from a dull marriage to the drab advertising man Plunkett.
As we all know, some of the sharpest and delightfully salacious sex comedies came from the pre-code, that is the brief time in the talking picture era when Hollywood could do whatever they wanted on screen – before the Hays Code (and then the Breen Code) spelled out in detail what was ‘acceptable’ to show on screen. That said, these pre-code films still exercised restraint and subtlety with their bawdy material. The word sex is mentioned on a couple of occasions in this picture, a word which immediately makes us turn our heads, especially coming out of the mouth of Miriam Hopkins, but everything is between the lines.
Gilda’s liberated view of sex can be seen as a pre-dated feminist ideal. It would be years before we would see a woman take control of and be frank about her sexual predilections. In Design For Living this comes in the form of the film’s best scene, the moment when Gilda confesses to both men that she has no problem sleeping with both of them. For the most part Gilda has this power through the film. I wonder if the Farrelly Brothers had seen Design For Living before making There’s Something About Mary, arguably an updated and grossly exaggerated version of the male obsession with women.
Coward provides a delightful witty and light tone for most of the film, but things get the most interesting when the film finds a very serious tone in the second half. While the sexual games make for fun repartee, we gradually start to feel the emotional weight of their mutual attraction to Gilda. Frederic Marsh has a great scene in which we see him break down when he discovers that George has broken the agreement and courted Gilda in his absence. The weight of Gilda’s forlorn love and the betrayal from his best friend is simply too much.
And for a film made in 1932 we’re also treated to a beautifully art decorated picture full of wondrous gothic/art deco imagery and pristine compositions and camera movement proving Lubistch’s mastery of the art form. In addition to the beautiful high definition imagery, one of the treasures of the disc is Lubitsch’s short film Clerk starring Charles Laughton, one part of the omnibus film If I Had a Million. Lubitsch’s superlative images and delirious visual techniques are a pure cinematic delight, all showcased in a matter of minutes.
Design For Living is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
The Lady Vanishes
Starring: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
A delicious early Hitchcock classic featuring all the familiar Hitchcock tropes – contained and precise choreographed action aboard a train, an ordinary female heroine inadvertently caught in a world of international espionage, a mysterious but high-priced maguffin and that dry British wit to ensure the film never takes itself too seriously.
Hitch places us conspicuously in a fake European country with the continent on the brink of war. A varied group of travellers includes a couple of British fops desperately trying to get updates on the cricket scores back home, an Italian magician, a suave British folk singer, a trio of sexually charged gals, and a host of inept locals. Before anyone steps on a train or anyone 'vanishes', we're introduced to our ensemble of characters stranded in a small town with only one hotel while snow is being cleared from the tracks. We're not even sure who the hero will be. Perhaps it’s the affable cricket fans, the musician, the old British Governess or the betrothed young woman at the end of her world tour of sowing her wild oats (Hitch is very coy but clear about this). This opening act is nothing but comedy, completely disarming us to where the journey will ultimately take us.
Once aboard the train, Hitch spends more time with Mrs. Froy, the Governess, and the bride-to-be, Iris. The shoe for this picture drops when Iris falls asleep in her train car only to wake up and find Froy missing, gone, vanished into thin air. The magician, who now sits across from her, claims he's never seen Froy. It’s the same with everyone else on the train. Is Iris crazy? The conveniently placed psychoanalyst on board thinks so. But just as she's about to accept her own insanity she finds an ally in Gilbert, the folk singer, who after finding a shred of evidence that Froy is real, becomes Iris’s sleuthing partner.
The entire second act plays out aboard the train, a frequent motif for Hitchcock and a device that serves to create claustrophobia and containment of the characters, as well as a metaphor for the intensity of the chase that ensues. Hitchcock remarkably shot all these train sequences within a 90-foot space with only one replica train car, meticulously storyboarding his shots, of course, to create an efficient production.
The film's most famous and celebrated scene comes midway in - a confrontation between Iris and Gilbert and one of the kidnapping suspects, during which the suspect attempts to poison the duo with drinks. Hitchcock squeezes out every drop of tension from the exchange by shooting the scene through the wine glasses placed mere inches away from the camera.
The film arguably loses its edge once the train comes to a stop and a gunfight ensues between the heroes at the clandestine political enemy faction. The Lady Vanishes works best in motion in the moments of confusion and mystery from Iris's point of view. Hitch not-so-subtly drops hints about the mystery along the way, unbeknownst to Iris, but very clear to the audience. We know that Froy's dropped eyeglasses, which are given a bold close-up, will pay off somewhere down the line, same with the Governess' handwritten name on the foggy window, or the very specific herbal tea she requests on the train, fun clues to trace back later on to prove Iris' sanity.
The Lady Vanishes, which was extremely popular in its day, was one of Hitchcock's last British films before he moved to Hollywood, and it marks the end of this pre-war espionage pictures, such as The 39 Steps and The Man Who Knew Too Much. His move to Hollywood and his work under David O. Selznick would be marked by significantly higher budgets and production values. But there's something more inspiring and vivacious in the production constraints through which Hitchcock crafted some of his best works. The Lady Vanishes exemplifies this unique period of his career.
The Lady Vanishes is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Chandu the Magician
Chandu the Magician (1932) dir. William Cameron Menzies, Marcel Varnel
Starring: Edmund Lowe, Irene Ware, Bela Lugosi
***½
By Alan Bacchus
Chandu the Magician is a rare and near forgotten adventure film from the great period of early horror/adventure classics. The ‘30s was the era of King Kong, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and more. Chandu the Magician stands up well against all of these films for its production value, cinematic energy, exuberance and innovations in cinema that inspired the likes of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Edward Lowe plays Frank Chandler, a British secret agent trained in the eastern mystics of “Yogi,” which has given him powers of hypnosis and mind control. After completing his training he’s told to “go forth with his youth and strength to conquer the evil that threatens mankind.” Chandler is assigned to combat the nefarious Egyptian megalomaniac, Ruxor (Bela Lugosi), who is seeking world domination. Ruxor has kidnapped Chandler’s brother-in-law and scientist, Robert Regent, who has developed a dangerous death ray with the ability to kill many people half-way around the world. Chandu encounters a series of spine-tingling adventures and daring escapes in order to save the world from destruction.
Chandu appears to be one of the main influences on Stephen Somers to make his version of The Mummy. In fact, I'd argue that this film was more influential than even the original 1932 The Mummy. Chandu’s three main protags – Chandler, his sister and the drunken comic relief, Biggles – form the same bumbling trio played by Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah.
Chandu is credited with two directors, Marcel Varnel, a stage director who directed the actors, and William Cameron Menzies, who was in charge of the technical design of the picture. Even by b-movie standards the acting is mostly atrocious, but with today’s eyes, Edmond Lowe’s mixture of British superiority and uber-seriousness is just too silly to criticize. It’s so much fun.
Menzies is the real star of the show and one of cinema’s most ambitious filmmakers. He was a director or co-director in the 1930s on pulpy films such as Chandu. Perhaps his crowning achievement is the British science-fiction masterpiece Things to Come – a cautionary tale of war, which spans 2000 years of history. In Chandu he sets the tone of adventure, mysticism and intrigue with a number of inspired sequences, which, unlike the acting, stands up against any of the films of its era, including King Kong. You just need to watch the opening sequence for evidence. It’s a wonderful shot that introduces us to Chandler’s Yogi training fortress. The shot starts with a miniature of the Yogi castle high atop a mountain (dramatically lit with noir-like texture by the great James Wong Howe), then seamlessly transitions to a tracking shot through the hallways of the lair. The sequence is capped with a wonderful showcase of Menzies’ fine superimposition photography demonstrating Chandler’s new mystical powers.
Chandu the Magician is a whole lot of pulpy goodness, a wonderful time capsule of the ambitiousness of early Hollywood to entertain its audiences and amaze them with new worlds, mad scientists, death rays, charming heroes and exotic villains.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Freaks
Starring: Harry Earles, Olga Baclanova, Wallace Ford
****
By Alan Bacchus
Tod Browning’s Freaks is a sublime piece of cinema. Despite the title and its cultish reputation, it's a wholly accessible film and simply one of the greatest films ever made.
Browning was light years ahead of his time. Upon the film’s release the parade of deformed and physically challenged actors that make up the main characters were dismissed as grotesque monsters people didn’t want to see on screen. And so for Browning it was art imitating life, as the film suffered from the same type of stigmata that afflicted these physically disabled persons.
But the fact is Freaks is both a terse and emotionally engaging melodrama on a trajectory that is wholly disturbing beyond the surface freakiness of the circus milieu.
The film opens with the introduction of a brand new circus act freakier than anything anyone has ever seen. Before we get to see the monstrosity, Browning brings us back into the past and into the unique subculture of circus life. It’s a vagabond lifestyle of living in trailers and being in constant flux and travel, but it’s also a microcosm of regular domestic life. There are all sorts of wonderful characters, including the half man/half lady, the Siamese twins, a legless man, the human torso, small headed women, pinheads, midgets and more.
While Browning revels is showing us the deformities of these people, at the heart is a deeply affecting romantic relationship between two midgets, Hans and his girlfriend. It’s a love that is tested by the greed and deceit of a conniving femme fatale trapeze artist named Cleopatra. When she hears of Hans' large inheritance, she seduces him with charm and affection, eventually resulting in marriage with the intention of killing him and eventually claiming his money.
Though his girlfriend and his friends can see through this deceit, Hans is blinded by the attention he never received from an able-bodied person. Harry Earles is so marvelous as the love-stricken midget, his sad face generates so much sympathy the action plays out like a classic Greek tragedy.
Eventually, Hans catches on and fights back against Cleopatra, tricking her into revealing her true intentions, which sparks an intense finale during which the freaks band together to exact revenge on the evil woman. And the link-up with the scene at the beginning of the film is astounding and easily one of the most shocking scenes I’ve seen in a film – a reveal that makes as much of an impact today as it did in 1932.
Whether conscious or not, it’s easy to see the influence of Freaks in the work of Tim Burton and David Lynch, specifically Edward Scissorhands and The Elephant Man. But it took more than 30 years, after Browning's work (Dracula) started replaying in revivals in the ‘60s, before there was a demand to revive Freaks and rediscover it as the masterpiece it is. Nonetheless, even to this day the film is shamefully categorized as a 'horror' film in video stores.
Friday, 9 December 2011
The Four Feathers (1939)
The Four Feathers (1939) dir. Zoltan Korda
Starring: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, June Duprez, C. Aubrey Smith
***
By Greg Klymkiw
I wonder if it's better, at least with some movies, to hold childhood memories dear and assume those same feelings of joy will NEVER be rekindled in adulthood. Zoltan Korda's celebrated 1939 film adaptation of A.E.W. Mason's turn-of-the-century Boys Own-styled novel of war and redemption during Britain's colonial struggles during the late 19th century in Egypt and Sudan, was a movie near and dear to my heart. Seeing it now, I can SEE why I loved it. I just don't FEEL it anymore.
Mason's book spawned numerous adaptations for the silver screen, and of those I've seen, I still believe it's the best. Don Sharp directed a low-budget version in the 70s with a great cast, but sub-par production value and Shekhar (Bandit Queen, Elizabeth) Kapur generated a dull, annoyingly revisionist version with the late Heath Ledger in 2002. What these subsequent versions lack, frankly, are the stunningly directed battle scenes of Korda's film (Sharp's were proficient, Kapur's a mess) and, surprisingly, the Kapur offers less food for thought in terms of the notions of imperialism and war.
It's a simple tale. Harry Faversham (John Clements) is descended from an upper-crust British family of war-mongers and against his better judgement, he follows in their footsteps. On the eve of Britain going to war with the Dervishes in Egypt and Sudan, he resigns his post. His three best friends, military men all, send him three feathers - signifying that they believe him to be a coward. His fiance, Ethne (June Duprez) and her father General Burroughs (C. Aubrey Smith) are disgusted with his decision. Ethne always loved Harry's best friend, Captain John Durrance (Ralph Richardson) anyway, so she also bestows Harry with a feather symbolizing his cowardice and breaks off her betrothal (a marriage of convenience to please her father who now has nothing but contempt for his son-in-law-to-be). Harry, is not a coward, however. Once the war begins in earnest, he secretly journeys to the middle east in disguise and sacrifices everything to rescue his three friends from the hands of the Dervishes.
This is, purely and simply, a great story! Great! As a movie, it would take a total bonehead to mess it up and Zoltan Korda (along with legendary producer Alexander Korda) render it with skill, production value and impeccable taste. So why, you might ask, does the movie not send me soaring to the same heights I ascended as a young boy? It's a reasonable question and one I find difficult to answer. Allow me to try.
The movie opens with an astounding battle montage that lays the historical groundwork for what follows. So far, so good. We're then introduced to Harry as a young man and get a sense of of his intelligent, sensitive, introspective nature - at odds with his family and those around him. Leaping ten years later, we find him on the cusp of marriage and war. When he resigns his commission, he makes it clear to both his superiors and fiance that his dream is to use his wealth to HELP people, not to engage in senseless war (especially this one which, is rooted in both vengeance and the maintenance of colonial exploitation). When the movie settles into Harry coming to the decision to assist his comrades and begin the long, dangerous journey into the Middle East, the movie begins to slow down - not so much due to pace, but because a number of interesting elements that have been introduced take a back seat to the proceedings.
Korda seems to settle into a weird auto-pilot here. We get all the basic plot details by rote, but with little passion. Oh, there's plenty of spirit infused in the surface action, but by abandoning the very interesting thematic and character-rooted ideas of a man struggling with the "values" of colonialism is precisely what drags the movie down. This theme is not one rooted in the same kind of revisionism applied to contemporary adaptations of period work, but is, in fact, anchored in both the source material and the first third of the screenplay. Even more odd, is that we don't adequately get a sense of how Harry's friendship with the three men is what pushes him forward. He pushes forward because the plot would have it so.
As a kid, this WAS good enough. Alas, as an adult, it's not - especially since the groundwork of some very interesting and ahead of its time notions of anti-colonialism are introduced, but dropped and/or just glanced upon. Plot takes over, but there are layers - already and consciously set-up - that are begging to be plumbed.
When the film shifts its focus to his old pal John and we're treated to an astounding night attack sequence upon the British by the Dervishes, the movie springs miraculously back to life. When Harry catches up to John and the arduous rescue sequence across the desert begins, the movie slows down again. This time, it's a similar problem. Korda hits all the plot points, but seldom rests long enough to explore the true resonance of the tale.
There are several more rescue and action scenes - including a battle sequence that is clearly one of the best ever committed to film, so this is not to say I was disappointed in seeing the movie again. On the contrary, it's still a fine story and there's enough by way of spectacular derring-do with a huge cast, great costumes and stunning technicolor photography. The problem, perhaps, is all mine - assuming it's possible to recreate childhood wonder with EVERY movie I loved as a kid.
It's not the movie's fault. Korda ultimately delivered what audiences at the time wanted. After all, the world was on the cusp of war with Hitler. Propaganda in all things war-related was starting to heat up.
Historically, in terms of the British film industry, this movie and subsequent British films thrived because of the Act of Parliament passed in 1927 which instituted a stringent exhibition quota that lasted for ten years and was responsible for developing a vibrant indigenous film industry in Britain. Sure, there were bombs and it also gave way to what was referred to as the "quota quickie" (low budget B-movies), but it helped the Korda family establish a great British studio and generate product that, while expensive and unable to recoup costs entirely in Britain, did so spectacularly in the international marketplace. It also gave rise to consistent output from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and The Powell-Pressburger Archers' team.
The Four Feathers was beloved the world over - for decades. Certainly, as a child, it did what it was supposed to do and as an adult, it has plenty of great things going for it. It's a good movie. Don't mind me.
"The Four Feathers" is now available on a Criterion Blu-ray version. The source material seems to have needed quite a brush-up and, at the very least, the colour is spectacular. The uncompressed mono sound is a joy - proving once again that a great mono mix is as spectacular as anything. There's a bevy of decent extras in this package including an audio commentary by film historian Charles Drazin, a new video interview with David Korda, son of director Zoltán Korda, "A Day at Denham", a short film from 1939 featuring footage of Zoltán Korda on the set of "The Four Feathers", a trailer and an essay by Michael Sragow.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Night Flight
Night Flight (1933) dir. Clarence Brown
Starring: John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Irving Pichel
***
By Greg Klymkiw
Night Flight was unseen for over 60 years due to MGM allowing a lapse in the rights to the excellent novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince). The book thrillingly fictionalized the author's experience as an airmail flyer in those dangerous days when night flying - due to a lack of radar, proper lighting and iffy radio communication - was, for the brave pilots who manned the controls, an act of taking one's life in one's hands.
I had never seen the picture and was more than delighted when TCM picked up the tab on the underlying literary rights to this historically important picture which then freed Warner Home Entertainment to properly release it on DVD. It's not a great movie, by any means, but is replete with enough engaging cinematic elements to merit a viewing or two. It's especially unique as it explores an issue that - when the film was made - was contemporary to the period and now sheds a fair bit of historical light on those early days of aviation.
Night Flight, produced by David O. Selznick (Gone With The Wind), is an episodic, star-studded drama that takes place over a 24-hour period in the burgeoning days of air mail. Riviere (John Barrymore) is the tough-as-nails General Manager of a French aviation company in South America. He's out to prove that the danger inherent in night flying is a risk worth taking. On one stormy night, a package of serum for infant paralysis desperately needs to get over the Andes mountains, but oddly, what's more important to Riviere is that ALL the mail must get to where it has to be and ON-TIME!!! He will accept no excuses - none whatsoever - and threatens to severely fine any of the company's pilots if they fail in their respective missions. He's cold, callous and obsessed with the bottom line.
On this long, dark night, he's breaking in his new second-in-command Robineau (Lionel Barrymore, John's equally famous, brilliant real-life brother), an ex-cop who knows something about loyalty to men in the line of fire. Riviere has contempt for this and tries to drill the virtues of being a martinet into him. Robineau, afflicted with severe eczema, is constantly scratching his irritated skin - a physical reminder for him in his more humane instincts and his inability to successfully master the dubious virtues of heartless automatons. Hell, he even hits a club in Rio with a pilot for some steak and booze for which Rivière chastises him - fraternizing with hired guns does not a good martinet make.
In addition to the trials of these men behind the scenes, we follow the stories of three pilots on their dangerous air mail runs: a Brazilian (William Gargan), whose loving, happy-go-lucky and ever-so-sexy wife (Myrna Loy) waits to be reunited with him, the dashing girl-in-every-port Auguste (Robert Montogomery) who lives for adventure and fleshly variety and finally, the ace pilot Jules Fabian (Clark Gable) who flies with his eyes closed whilst dreaming of returning to his wife (Helen Hayes) who has a romantic dinner party just-for-two waiting in celebration of his making the first nighttime flight clear across the Andes Mountains.
And, let it be said, that Helen Hayes weeps enough buckets of tears in this picture to sink the Titanic.
Let it furthermore be noted that, in grand old Hollywood tradition, no attempt is made to saddle the American actors playing any character of the Gallic persuasion with fake French accents. This is a happy decision and one I wish more contemporary films would do.
The whole affair is compelling stuff and a good deal of the credit goes to the legendary studio director Clarence Brown who in previous lives before Hollywood, was one of the youngest men to earn a degree in electrical and mechanical engineering, the owner of a successful auto dealership and while on hiatus from movie making, served his country as an ace fighter pilot during World War One. (I suspect Brett Ratner, Michael Bay and others of the woeful contemporary ilk have little life experience to bring to their action pictures - resorting solely to whatever they were spoonfed in film school.)
On his background alone, Brown might well have been the perfect man for the job, but let's just add that he mentored as an assistant director under the pioneering filmmaker Maurice Tourneur (father of Jacques Tourneur) and once on his own as a solo director, generated as many hits for MGM "as there are stars in heaven" (to coin the studio's own phrase). In spite of generating over one hundred Academy Award nominations for those associated with his films, Brown never once copped the Oscar for Best Director and remains tied with both Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman in having the most directing nominations, but no statuette. Not that this should really mean anything, but I do think it's significant that Brown failed, in the loftiest of all peer-voted awards, to cop even a booby prize (as Martin Scorsese was finally tossed for The Departed on his sixth nomination).
What's great about Brown is not only his excellent work with actors (Garbo adored him), but his terrific eye and adherence to an expressionistic visual style that enhances his visual storytelling with considerable panache.
Brown also placed a great deal of value in the cinematic properties of monologues and Night Flight is replete with them. The best, of course are John Barrymore's rantings and ravings in his office (against the backdrop of a humungous deco-style wall-sized map of South America) about how the value of human lives pale in comparison to conquering the air of the night skies. He does, though, occasionally drop his guard and attempts to convince those who will listen (including himself) that he's human and DOES have a heart.
Brown also knows when to unfold the action without any dialogue. Many of the flying sequences capture the loneliness, claustrophobia and sheer terror in the cockpits of the pilots. The best sequences are those involving Clark Gable who utters few words and is masked with his flying cap and goggles as he alternates between fear, bravery, compassion, love and finally, grim acceptance of his fate. These are some of the most moving sequences in the film - due to both Gable and Brown.
One especially heartbreaking moment involves Gable writing a note for his co-pilot to broadcast to head office over the radio. The first few lines are all business until Gable pauses and begins to write: "Tell my wife how much I love her." He regards the words, then stalwartly crosses them out - not so much as an act of manliness, but because he needs to write and see the words himself.
Allow me to digress briefly and admit to the innumerable geysers of tears I spewed out over this scene.
The flying sequences are also superb. They're gruelling and suspenseful - especially Gable's. As his character is caught in a horrendous storm over the Andes - there's a great blend of stock footage and cockpit closeups with background process shots. Given the period, some of these effects seem clunky now, but it's a testament to Brown's brilliance as a director that we ultimately focus upon the characters themselves.
One of the most amazing things about watching this movie was seeing it with my 10-year-old daughter. She was absolutely riveted by it and the cockles of my heart are always warmed when she is gripped by movies sans digital effects and/or Miley Cyrus.
Two terrific things occurred during the screening. When the first process shot came on screen, she proudly beamed, "That's green screen!" I paused the picture and explained the difference between green screen digital effects and optical effects. That, was Homeschool Lesson #1. Even more important was Homeschool Lesson #2 when I needed to pause a few times and answer her questions about the beginnings of aviation.
This, of course, is why I urge all parents and/or parents-to-be to expose their children as early as possible to the oldest movies before tainting them with anything contemporary. It helps them learn so much about storytelling techniques, assists in their media literacy and offers ample opportunities to discuss any number of subjects in a historical context. My own child - having been exposed to thousands of movies from all periods of cinema (and the majority of them being pre-1940 titles when she was a toddler) has allowed to her to appreciate and learn from ALL movies. It also helped her realize - ON HER OWN - why most contemporary films are crap.
At the same time, it's not stopped her from enjoying Hannah Montana or, for that matter, Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Frankly, it seems lazy and pointless to me when parents subject their toddlers to The Lion King and/or Star Wars as entry-level viewing material when there's a hundred years worth of great work to show them.
Interestingly enough, Night Flight came at a perfect point in my daughter's life. If she'd seen it earlier, she'd have probably been bored, but because she already had a wealth of great films under her belt, she was able to appreciate the film for what it is, learn from it and be entertained all at the same time. (She even commented how she loved the optical effects because they were more like a fairytale than digital effects! Is this awesome, or what?)
The ultimate triumph was after Night Flight ended.
My little cherub beamed and said, "Wow! That was cool!"
Indeed!
Night Flight is available on DVD from Warner Home Entertainment in a decent official release (as opposed to an overpriced Archival DVD-R).
Saturday, 13 August 2011
The Hurricane
Starring: Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor, C Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey
***½
By Alan Bacchus
This little-known, infrequently discussed John Ford picture features what might be the greatest action scene ever filmed. OK, Ben Hur might have it beat, but it certainly has the best action scene you’ve never seen or even heard about.
The scene occurs at the end of this rousing adventure story set in the South Pacific. It’s the colonial era, a passenger ship of British sailors and other imperialists arrives at the fictional Polynesian island of Manikoora to restock on supplies. It’s also the reunification of lovebirds Terangi (Jon Hall), the strong first mate, and Marama (Dorothy Lamour), the daughter of the Tahitian chief. It’s bliss Polynesian-style for everyone in the first act culminating with Terangi and Marama’s wedding – a raucous event filled with lavish drinking, celebration and dancing.
The fun ends when, while celebrating at a Tahitian bar, Terangi is coaxed into a bar fight with a racist white man who resents Terengi’s presence. Terengi is arrested, tried and sent to prison for six months. He is too lovesick to stay put and engages in numerous escape attempts, thus increasing his sentence from half a year to 16 years. The snowball effect of Terengi’s poor judgment in the bar is terrifying.
The journey of Terengi feeds into Ford’s strong themes of resistance, sympathy for the marginalization of people and the tyranny of the imperialist era. These issues fit easily into his body of work and perhaps his personal attachment to the political struggle of his Irish countrymen against their British occupiers.
Terengi is characterized as blindly heroic, accomplishing remarkable feats of strength and courage for the love of his wife. Ford uses this simple motivation brilliantly and increases the stakes and intensity over the course of the film. The time frame expands to encompass several years, which, after Terengi’s dramatic reunion with his wife and daughter he’s never seen, fully realizes the epic scope of this picture.
If the film ended here, we’d all be satisfied. But as the title suggests, The Hurricane ends with a massive Hurricane sequence – a storm of the century teased and foreshadowed to us from the beginning of the film. The sequence does not disappoint. Just as the couple are reunited, the storm hits their island, as if Terengi brought with him all the rage of his imperialist captors.
Of course there’s no computer effects here. Instead, the massive destruction is done in real time with real studio sets and brilliant miniature work. The wind effects alone are unbelievable. Ford blasts his actors and his sets with some of the most powerful wind machines ever used in cinema. Watching Terengi and his family clinging to the palm trees as they bend and sway like straw resisting the force of the wind is astonishing. Ford’s sound design is equally magnificent. The loud roars and whistles of the storm drone on consistently through the entire scene. On a television screen it’s intense. In a theatre in 1937 it would have been something else.
What fails the picture, unfortunately, is Jon Hall’s performance as Terengi, a white person fulfilling a Polynesian role while the rest of the film is populated with real Polynesians. It’s a shame, as Hall comes off as a Tarzan-like cheat on the audience. For the authenticity in all the technical aspects of the film, this cheat on casting is rather shameful. But then again, historical context and cinematic conventions of the time must be taken into consideration.
All things considered, The Hurricane is a remarkable piece of cinema, largely under-appreciated and ripe for rediscovery. A DVD exists somewhere, but it can be seen sporadically on TCM.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
People on Sunday
Starring: Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen, Christl Ehlers, Annie Schreyer
****
By Alan Bacchus
What a pedigree of talent behind this remarkable landmark in experimental independent cinema. It’s a silent German film at the end of the famed ‘Weimar period’ of German cinema, directed by future ex-pats Robert Siodmak and his brother Curt, and co-written by Billy Wilder. The film was produced by Edgar Ulmer, who was the set designer for Metropolis and M and himself a future Hollywood emigrant. Look closely and you’ll find the great Fred Zinneman (High Noon, From Here to Eternity) as cameraman. All of these guys were hopeful filmmakers in the ‘20s, unable to break into the German film industry themselves and thus, like any young emerging filmmaker today, they were forced to make it on their own with guile.
The result is a film that meets the mark we’d expect from such young and talented collaborators, a freeform kind of neo-realism combining non-actors in an unsecured real-world setting with only a semblance of a narrative script. And it's intoxicating.
The vague title is an indication of the unrestrictive nature of the story at play. A taxi driver, a model, a film extra and a wine dealer, all young Berliners who float about the city as strangers, eventually meet up for a relaxing double date involving a paddleboat on the river on a Sunday afternoon.
The sexual tension between the four of them is palpable. Edwin, the taxi driver, for example, is engaged to Annie who spends her days moping around the house. On the day of their date he finds her sleeping on the bed, but he leaves anyway to meet up with Wolfgang. Together they pick up Christl and Brigitte for said 'double date'. Siodmak and his colleagues never pass judgement on Edwin for possibly cheating on his girlfriend. A carefree 'swinging' attitude is something we’d see in New Wave film or British kitchen sink dramas of the ‘60s.
The sexual liberties can also be seen in a number of suggestive metaphors with creative editing. At one point Wolfgang chases after Brigit, where they make out on the grass. The next scene begins with a shot of a nude mannequin implying they just had casual sex. Wolfgang, in fact, freely flirts with both women in an astute and playful battle of sexes.
Zinneman’s camera is always in a state of flux, capturing the flavour of the city with the same laconic style as the characters in the film. Siodmak’s placement of the 'actors' in real locations with unrehearsed real background crowds lends a remarkable production value to this very small film. And look out for the sharpness of the editing (which is not credited). The brisk pace from the variety of camera angles feels thoroughly modern, arguably taking some strong influence from the famed Soviet editing techniques. In fact, in the Criterion Collection liner notes, Dsiga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera and the Eisenstein films seem to be the filmmakers’ prime influence.
Part of the joy of the film is the contention between all these great filmmakers about who the true author of the picture is. Robert Siodmak denies Wilder had any involvement at all, and Ulmer (the credited producer) worked just a handful of days on the film. In his older age Billy Wilder would once tell Cameron Crowe that ‘they all directed it.’ Much of these speculations are storied in the fine documentary produced in 2000, as well as the comprehensive liner notes included on the Blu-ray disc.
As usual, Criterion outdoes itself by introducing the cinema world at large to a rare gem featuring some of the greatest filmmakers – young, ambitious, carefree and passionate artists looking to make their mark in the great medium of film.
People on Sunday is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Frankenstein
Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff
****
By Alan Bacchus
Mary Shelley’s classic tragic horror fantasy has never been filmed with more genre goodness and tragic Hollywood sentimentality than the James Whale Universal classic. Of course, just as much of the novel was discarded as was retained. Instead, Whale and his writers, under the guidance of producer/studio head Carl Laemmle Jr., embellish the salacious and grisly details of Shelley’s concept and condense it into its own patchwork beast of a movie, not unlike the creature itself.
Although, it should be stated that this film version was in fact not directly based on the novel, but rather Peggy Webling’s 1920s stage play. With that said, despite severe bastardization of the original story, the themes of scientific malfeasance and the attempts of man to become God and create man in man’s own image resonate as strongly as in the original book.
Whale’s direction is simply masterful, employing the prevailing visual trends of the day, German expressionism and art deco to create a deliciously gothic and brooding look to his film. Just look at the fantastic opening sequence during which Dr. Henry Frankenstein (not Victor here) and his hunchback servant Fritz grave-rob the cemetery looking for his individual body parts. Whale’s gothic compositions, such as placing his characters in dark, nearly silhouetted black and white against the ominous studio-constructed cloudscape backdrop is rich with atmosphere.
The Frankenstein castle and his experimental lair are meticulously constructed to reflect the futurism of the art deco style. We can’t help but see Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in both theme and the production design of the sets.
Frankenstein makes an interesting comparison with 1933's King Kong. The monsters in both films are born from man’s insatiable desire to conquer science at all costs. Both Dr. Frankenstein and King Kong’s Carl Denham recklessly attempt to tame science and nature with such careless abandon that they tragically destroy an innocent life. Like Kong, Boris Karloff is an unabashedly sympathetic monster. We compassionately identify with him after he’s birthed into being then frightened with fire torches by Henry and Fritz. Watching the monster cower in fear of Henry’s torches is a heartbreaking scene. And the subsequent heinous torture and imprisonment of the monster is directed with sincere humanism and compassion.
And so when the monster inadvertently murders the young girl in the lake, it’s a sad and tragically ironic moment for the audience because we know the monster doesn’t know any better. He is like an infant, a product of his father or master, and the result of man’s general irresponsibility with the tools of science.
Like King Kong, the hunt for and eventual destruction of the monster by the angry villagers is a tragic and sad moment for the audience. Whale’s magnificent staging of the scene, including the awesome final imagery of the burning windmill behind the bloodthirsty mob, is almost as powerful as Kong’s final fight atop the Empire State Building. They’re two of the greatest humanistic moments ever created in the genre of horror-fantasy.
Monday, 6 December 2010
Mutiny on the Bounty
Starring: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone, Eddie Quillan, Dudley Digges
****
By Alan Bacchus
High seas adventure cinema par excellence. Three big screen versions of this story have been made and there’s no doubt this version is the best. Five Academy Awards nominations including a winner for best picture doesn't lie, but watching Clark Gable in his prime squaring off against Charles Laughton is undeniably powerful and exciting cinema.
It's 1789, the Fletcher Christian (Gable), is scouring the port for sailors and midshipmen to pilot the HMS Bounty, a King's ship assigned to a mission to Tahiti. It's two year expedition, a lengthy journey which frightens some, but it's the Captain, William Bligh (Laughton) who strikes the fear of God in the men.
Bligh lives by the code of leadership by fear. Fear of the brutal punishment which Bligh continually inflicts on his men. Whether it's whipping with a cat 'o' nine tails or keel hauling, the crew take beating after beating. Christian watches in horror but knows Bligh's orders are condoned by the laws of the King. After arriving at Tahiti and enjoying three months of tropical bliss, once back on the ship Christian just can't take it anymore and fights back against Bligh, engineering the most famous mutiny in sailing history.
Charles Laughton and Clark Gable are a terrific match. Two of the great adversaries ever on film. One American, arguably the biggest star in the world, and the other one of Britain's best actors. Though Laughton is shorter and considerably less handsome, he is an imposing presence on screen. It’s interesting to note Clark Gable using his usual American accent to play a Briton. Strangely it doesn’t matter. All it takes is Gable’s personification of honour and poise which makes him believable as an upper classman of Britain.
It was a big production then and even 80+ years later the production value is still stunning and realistic. The castoff scene for instance which launches the Bounty is staged magnificently by director Lloyd, full of epic grandeur. If anything many of the Tahiti scenes, shot on a sound stage with rear projected palm trees, look fake and betrays the realism of the sailing sequences.
But in all versions of the story, and this one included, the weakest moments all seem to be the Tahiti sequences wherein the crew of the Bounty make stay on the island for 3 months collecting fruit, sunbathing in skimpy bathing suits, bedding the native women and in general living high on the hog. While this sequence in this picture is unabashedly sentimental and conflict free the period of rest is necessary for the audience. For when the crew eventually gets back on the ship and into the cauldron of punishment from the Captain it seems even more intense and cruel. And thus, the eventual Mutiny in the second half becomes even more cathartic.
The fact is when Bligh and Christian are on board together at sea, it’s a cinematic dynamo of tension and conflict. The actual mutiny scene seems to come as an afterthought, and based on the intense build up, the scene is, if anything, under whelming. Despite the faults of the 1962 version, the calmer more reluctant muniteer as portrayed by Brando and under the direction of Lewis Milestone executes his mutiny with more panache , but at nearly 3 hours, it's simply too long to hold our attention before this scene. At 130 mins, the 1935 seems just right.
'The Mutiny on the Bounty" is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video
Friday, 3 December 2010
Swing Time
Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
The Warner Bros four-pack (The Gay Divorcee, Top Hat, Swing Time and Shall We Dance) acts like a four part time capsule of one of the legendary eras of the studio system - the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers song and dance team. Three of the pictures were directed by the same man, Mark Sandrich and this fourth one, Swing Time, arguably the most celebrated picture of the bunch, directed by the great George Stevens.
As usual there’s a scheme and a whole lot of disreputable behaviour going on. Lucky Garnett (Astaire) is mostly despicable in his journey, playing a gambler who needs to make $25,000 in order to appease his father in law to be to marry his daughter. After he moves to New York he meets his dance partner Penny (Ginger Rogers) who holds the key to his success as an dancer in the big city, Problem is he falls in love with her thus complicating his desire to make money and his obligation to go back home and marry his girlfriend. And so, there's a whole bunch of scheming, Lucky lying to Penny, his girlfriend, and himself and at the same time gambling his way into debt. Also, his unconditional hatred for Ricky Romero the latino bandleader is slightly racist.
As traditional for these types of movies in the 30's, it's classic screwball plotting taking us through the silly hijinx in between main dance set pieces.
It takes 30mins before we see Astaire and Rogers in action, and when they get going, they are both electric. Astaire's effortless style makes him look like he’s floating on air, gliding across the dance floor with ease and elegance. There’s also a clever smirk on his face, a cocky look and recognition of his immense talent. And Rogers, she's nimble and athletic and doing it all in heels.
These films aren’t really traditional musicals, but dance pictures with the occasional song. In Swing Time we don’t get a song until 25mins in and a second until the very end. But there's four stunning dance set pieces, each one distinct and unique and a classic in the annals of cinema history.
The final ballroom set design is magnificent and the stuff of the great Bubsy Berkeley pictures. Stevens stages the last numbers with great pizazz, dressing the set with a great black staircase and a luscious sparkly walled backdrop. And the reflective floor is perhaps borrowed from Berkeley's trademark design - and who knows maybe even borrowed from another Warner Bros set.
The Bo Jangles number is the best though, deservedly celebrated, Astaire's performance, a stunning solo tap dance backed up by three different shadow versions of himself projected as giants in the background. And we barely even notice that Astaire is in blackface.
"Swing Time" is available on DVD from Warner Bros Home Video via the TCM/Warner Astraire-Rogers Collection
Friday, 12 November 2010
Dames
Starring: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keelor, Guy Kibbee, Zasu Pitts, Hugh Herbert
***
By Alan Bacchus
Warner Bros has packaged yet another fabulous, reasonably priced four pack of Hollywood classics under their label association with Turner Classic Movies, this time, the films of Busby Berkeley, the unique choreographer/director/magician/showman renowned for visually inventive dance sequences.
Dames, a film Berkeley only directed the musical sequences for, finds his usual leading man Dick Powell playing Jimmy Hughes, a broadway actor and producer looking to 'put on a show', but lacking the financial backing to make it happen. Remember this was the time of Great Depression and many of these populist movies pitted big business vs. the common working man. In this case, Jimmy targets his rich Uncle Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert) for the cash. Problem is Ezra is a right wing boob and thinks anything to do with the arts, especially shows with 'dames' as immoral. And so the scheme is on to free Ounce's money from his tight reins and to put it to good use, that is, a lavish Busby Berkeley revue full of scantily clad ladies with pretty smiles and long legs.
Like most of the Berkeley pictures, it's 60mins of screwball plotting and one long 30mins musical sequence wherein our young hero finally gets a chance to put his work on the stage. In this case, Ray Enright's direction in especially stodgy compared to when Berkeley's whirling dervish of a camera takes over.
Berkeley wasn't a dancer by trade, in fact he couldn't dance at all. But his eye for design and patterns and composition is what put him in the business of Hollywood musicals. Once Jimmy's show starts, it's truly a magical experience, something no other director then or now could recreate. Even Berkeley would admit the dancing of each individual is not perfect, but watching all the dancers elegantly move in time with one another is majestic.
Two numbers anchor the big grand finale, which of course, takes place in a theatre. The "I Only Have Eyes For You" sequence has Jimmy in song confessing his love to Ruby Keelor's character on a journey through the streets of New York and aboard a subway ride, intercut with expressive fantasy sequences visualizing Keelor's eyes and head in Berekley's grand kaleidoscope style.
The other song, is shamelessly sexist, “What Do We Go For? Beautiful Dames!”, which is Jimmy's answer to a question asked in a dramatized financial meeting in the story within the story. To visualize Jimmy's theory, Berkeley has his camera travelling through the lilly white legs of a hundred dames wearing nighties, and then having them lather up their naked bodies in a hundred bubble baths.
Who can resist that? Luckily the new TCM set has four of these pictures, and even better ones than this gem, specifically 42nd Street, Footlight Parade featuring James Cagney, and The Golddiggers of 1937. More coverage on these pictures to come. Enjoy.
Monday, 8 November 2010
The Public Enemy
Starring: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, Mae Clarke, Leslie Fenton, Donald Cook, Robert O'Connor and Murray Kinnell
****
By Greg Klymkiw
"I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
They fly so high,
Nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams,
They fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere,
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air."
Not once in William A. Wellman's seminal Warner Bros. gangster picture The Public Enemy do we hear a single lyric sung from I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, the famous Tin Pan Alley waltz, but we do hear the melody played as a main theme over the haunting opening titles and at other key points. And even without the lyrics, the euphonic melancholia of John Kellette's 1918 show tune takes us back, just as it would have for audiences upon the film's original release in 1931, to a time when men were men; romantically living and dying by a gun, when blondes were platinum, when Mother was sacred, when a halved breakfast grapefruit was ground into the face of a lover merely expressing her wishes and dreams - when the bootlegged booze that flowed so freely during the Prohibition period was tainted by the streams of blood from those who were brutally killed in the wars to control the illegal circulation of the devil's brew.
With a flourish that typified the best work of "The Vitaphone Orchestra", Warner Brothers' in-house music unit, staccato blasts of horns and percussion blare, clarion-call-like within the first few bars of the aforementioned song, playing over the titles on top of a bare, grey wall of bricks. Announcing a headlong plunge into a world of violence right from the opening frames of the film, the title sequence gradually switches gears when the music morphs from malevolence to a nostalgic sadness of days gone by and we're treated to a series of singles on every principal character in the film (accompanied by the name of the actor and the role they play). Each character/actor appears standing, often performing a distinctive gesture that occurs in the film and/or that best represents who the character is.
Action is everything in movies and for characters (and the actors who play them and the audiences who view them), actions indeed speak louder than words.
First to appear is principal character Tom Powers, the star-making role played by James Cagney. We get the sense that what we're seeing is Cagney as Cagney as Tom, without even a hint at the seething, psychotic we eventually come to know. Standing on a 45-degree angle, Cagney/Powers is all charm and smiles - adorned casually in a cap, black undershirt and unbuttoned grey and white smock-like garment with black stripes, he winks, wiggles his eyebrows and delivers what becomes a trademark play punch that he bestows upon those he loves as the film progresses.
Platinum blonde bombshell Jean Harlow appears as Tom's favoured moll Gwen Allen, garbed in virginal white with sexy 30s raccoon-eye makeup as she smiles pleasantly and also delivers a wink, but not as brashly as Cagney - it's subtle and ever-so come-hither.
Edward Woods as Tom's slightly dim-witted, but loyal best friend and chief partner in crime Matt, is poker-faced, with only the hint of a smile before he takes his big hand and wipes his mouth broadly.
The stunning Joan Blondell as Matt's girl Mamie, is all smiles and glitter - exuding the same warmth she displays throughout the picture.
Donald Cook as Tom's upright, honest war-hero brother Mike is completely in character - rigid and serious, adorned tightly and uncomfortably in his streetcar conductor's uniform. It's like a straight jacket.
The rest of the characters; Nails Nathan (Leslie Fenton) the dapper mobster smiles and chews his gum, Ma Powers (Beryl Mercer) smiles radiantly as only a Mom can, Paddy Ryan (Robert O'Connor), bartender-turned-hood puffs his cigar pleasurably, while the Fagin-like Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell) chalks his pool cue with confidence.
These haunting introductions introduce us - not only to the characters, but the stars who play them - like odd still-life portraits that come to life. They give us a hint of the personality playing the character as well as the personality of the character. It's simple and, after all these decades since the film was unleashed, still unique. Sure, there were similar introductions to characters in silent pictures before The Public Enemy and many afterwards, but this was the first of very few instances where an introduction placed equal emphasis on character and player in a knowing and borderline cerebral fashion.
And, of course, all of these introductions are presented with the melancholy of Kellete's music. And those who would have been (or are) familiar with the lyrics - especially the chorus quoted above would have known they were about to witness a tale of those who reach for the heavens, only to have them snuffed out when the pretty bubbles of dreamland burst and all that's left is grim reality.
Like Warner Brothers' other 1931 gangster hit Little Caesar, The Public Enemy delivers a fast-paced rise and fall tale of a gangster. The difference, is that the former centres on a character who is right off his nut from the beginning and only gets meaner and crazier, while the former charts a character who is mildly irascible and becomes nastier and crazier as the thirst for power eventually leads to a taste of it and both gluttony and evil become comfy bedfellows.
While both pictures are great, the critical reputation of Little Caesar seemed to be overshadowed by that of The Public Enemy. Though both films were regarded highly as the true launching pads for stars Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney respectively, it was the latter film that garnered much of the hoopla, whilst the former was regarded almost solely for Robinson's performance.
This, of course, was nonsense.
Stylistically, the films are night and day. Though they both deliver similar rise and fall trajectories, Mervyn LeRoy's approach to Little Caesar is brilliantly, insanely relentless while Wellman takes the slow-burn approach with The Public Enemy. If one is to make any sort of contemporary comparison, Brian DePalma's crazed version of Scarface is to Little Caesar that Scorsese's brilliant, meticulous razzle dazzle of Goodfellas is to The Public Enemy. Ultimately, it's apples and oranges, save for one thing - all four pictures are iconic, separated respectively by 30 and 40 years.
Interestingly enough, we owe the gangster genre, not so much to the dabblings of Griffith and Von Sterberg within the silent era, but to the efforts of Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at Warner Brothers during the late 20s to early 30s. Zanuck, like all GREAT producers was no paper-pusher. He was a filmmaker. His skill and knowledge in all areas of making movies was equalled only by that of David O. Selznick and Val Lewton. They were all visionaries of the highest order. Zanuck, in particular, almost single-handedly established Warners as a true force to be reckoned with and, as a studio, one that bears a style and legacy that continues to this day. (All of Scorsese's great crime pictures - Mean Streets, Goodfellas and The Departed - are Warner Brothers pictures.)
This was especially remarkable since Zanuck's tenure at Warner Brothers was less than ten years and for most of his career that followed, he carved out a special niche at 20th Century Fox. At Warners, however, he was the man responsible for bringing sound to motion pictures - insisting that The Jazz Singer be the first true "talkie".
As a producer, Zanuck was not just a great filmmaker, but a storyteller par excellence. Not surprisingly, Zanuck began as a literal storyteller - a screenwriter. Even during the silent period, while most others were crafting tales of a historical nature, Zanuck was interested in the world around him and fashioned screenplays about contemporary American life. This is, in general, a marked contrast from his interest in historical drama once he took over 20th Century Fox - though even at Fox, he, like the young man he was when he ran Warners, was always interested in social issues and figuring on how to work them into drama.
This interest in contemporary social issues led to the production of Little Caesar and The Public Enemy. With these two films, not only was a genre born, but the style and approach to story - one that Warners maintained, even after his departure - had his imprint all over it.
The Public Enemy is extraordinary in a number of ways, but if anything, its success lies in creating a story that is, at first, rooted in history and nostalgia and gradually shifts focus to a contemporary social issue gangster picture. The early part of the film establishes Tom's rivalry with his do-gooder goody-two-shoes brother Mike, his brutal abusive father (a cop, no less, and enough reason for his hatred of law and authority), his love for his kind, gentle mother and his need to protect and shower her with riches and his friendship with the simple, loyal tag-along Matt and finally, his need for father figures whom he finds in criminals like the Fagin-like Putty Nose and Paddy Ryan, the patriarchal Irish barman-turned-hood.
After charting these early years, the story becomes as contemporary as the world in which the film itself was released into. Tasting money and power, Tom becomes more brutal with each passing story beat. His attraction to women is also interesting. Unlike pal Matt or brother Mike, both of whom seek and find steady women, Tom is drawn to the company of whores, or rather, ex-whores who eventually drop their attachment to easy money in exchange for sex.
Still, when his whores want more, Tom turns into a nasty, rage-ridden magma head. The iconic grapefruit he shoves into Mae Clarke's face during the famous breakfast scene is the direct result of her having dreams and wishes of normalcy. Tom doesn't want normal. He wants more money, more power and more instant gratification. Tom is only truly happy when he gets in with Gwen, a tough, sexy streetwalker who makes it clear that although she loves him, she too has a desire for money and power (the only kind she can wield, the power of her pussy). Somehow, though not surprisingly, this makes Tom love Gwen even more.
Finally, loyalty means more to Tom than anything. When loyalty is betrayed, he becomes a vengeance-ridden psychopath and it's loyalty and the need for revenge that leads to his downfall (and one of the most grotesquely, grimly powerful endings in movie history).
There's no two ways about it. The Public Enemy is a corker! One brilliant set-piece after another delivers a tale hell-bent on destruction and it's either going to be everyone and everything in Tom Powers' path or Powers himself. Redemption is never in the cards. It's all about the here and now and getting more - taking whatever one can from the trough until one explodes.
There's something brilliantly and uniquely American about all this. One of the great set-pieces has Tom hosting an opulent dinner in his mother's home with a huge keg of beer in the middle of the table (like Little Caesar, we're smack in the middle of Prohibition). The food is plentiful, of the highest quality and prepared by Ma's own hands. Tom and his pal Matt fill themselves with food and beer voraciously while brother Mike picks at his food and glares at his gluttonous criminal sibling. This silent juxtaposition slow burns into an explosion of emotion. When Mike points to the beer and suggests it's tainted with the blood of those Tom has murdered, Tom responds with disgust that Mike is surely no matter than him - that he must have enjoyed killing just as much - that all those medals won in battle came from the blood of German soldiers.
This, of course, is one of the more brilliant aspects of the story - brothers who are rivals, who detest what each other represents - Tom is freedom attained through crime, Mike is the chains of incarceration afforded through being one of the working poor - and yet, they are "both part of the same hypocrisy" (to quote the line Michael Corleone utters to Senator Geary in Godfather II). Tom kills for his family in gang wars. Mike killed for his family in war. Both are products of America. Both are America.
Thematically, The Public Enemy (in addition to many of the Warners gangster pictures) is so ahead of its time. Stylistically, it's an original and most importantly, the model for every subsequent examination of crime in America to follow.
And like our fictional counterparts, we're all part of the same hypocrisy.
Or like the song says, we're all "forever blowing bubbles..." and ultimately, all of our dreams, "they fade and die".
"The Public Enemy" is available in a extras-packed and very reasonably priced new box set of four prohibition era gangster pictures from Warner Home Entertainment under the TCM Archives banner. The package is slender and the discs are flippers, but for movie lovers, it's one of the best deals around.
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