Caravan

Despite having a couple fine actors in the leading roles (Loretta Young and Charles Boyer), "Caravan" is a pretty limp movie. It's very poorly written, with characters who are caricatures...and ridiculous stereotypes. Back in 1934, it obviously played much better than it does today and the idea of happy, singing, thieving and child-like 'Gypsies' is one that is problematic since it's anything but politically correct. Today, folks are using the more appropriate term 'Romani' or 'Roma' and these people aren't so often described in such pejorative terms. After all, WWII and the slaughter of the Romani does tend to put a new light on things!

When the film begins, Countess Wilma (Loretta Young) arrives back in Hungary to assume control of the family fortune and estate. However, when the will is read, she learns that she MUST be married to inherit....and her uncle assumes she'll just marry his son, the indolent playboy, Lt. Tokay (Phillips Holmes). But she has no interest in the guy and instead impulsively marries one of the Gypsies on her property, Latzi (Charles Boyer). Now, not marrying the cousin...perhaps this makes sense because he's a jerk. But to just marry some stranger like Latzi...that seemed bizarre to say the least.

Later, while Countess Wilma is celebrating her marriage, she's dressed as one of the Romani. The Lieutenant sees her...and thinks she's one of these people...and he begins trying to woo her. After all, he lives for pleasure and is a jerk-face...and he STILL plans on marrying the cousin when he meets her! Soon, however, things are a bit of a mess, as the woman who really loves Latzi, Timka, now is falling for the Lieutenant as well! And soon everybody seems to be in love with several folks...all the while, there is lots of singing. Some of the singing is catchy...some just seemed tedious. A few less musical numbers might have made the film a bit easier to like.

The film has several problems, however, and singing isn't the main one. The biggest is the writing. To call this movie fluff is pretty accurate....silly, inconsequential fluff. And, since characters seem unreal and goofy, it's also hard to take seriously or care about very much. I like the actors, just not this treacle they were forced into making. Politically incorrect or not, it's just a dopey movie.

The film tries to do Lubitsch, but, despite having Lubitsch's screenwriters, is not successful. It's more boring than funny. A clear example is what happens during the wedding night, when the most important plot points literally happen behind closed doors. We get instead Jean Parker, back to the audience, looking through a keyhole telling the audience what happens. Lubitsch would have worked out something more entertaining.

The film is miscast, especially Loretta Young and Phillips Holmes. Imagine how much better it would have been with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell playing those roles. Having those actors would have telegraphed which coupling to root for. Instead, the movie is a little confusing here. Loretta Young has chemistry with charismatic Charles Boyer, but ends up preferring wooden Phillips Holmes. Loretta seems confused as to how to play it. She doesn't come off well, as her character just ends up seeming mean.

The swallowing of the William Fox product, by the Twentieth Century Fox company which followed it, made this one vanish for the better part of (gulp) a century but dodgy DVD has brought it back - a major clue in the mystery of Erich Charrell, director of the greatest Operetta film CONGRESS DANCES and author of that amiable repertory standard "White Horse Inn," who made only these two films.

For the first part it looks like an over produced return to CONGRESS, even using a couple of the Viennese waltz numbers from that score and swimming in unnecessary costume extras. The predictable plot unites gypsy fiddler Boyer with city-raised heiress Young, who refuses an arranged marriage with C. Aubrey Smith's nephew. However once we get the scene where the army marches in to subdue the gypsy revolution and, on the order "Hands up!", Boyer's lot (who include a tame bear)raise musical instruments, as the girls pour out and pair with the troops, we can see the elements of the best films of Willi Forst or Ludwig Berger creep in. This starts with a minute plus single take. The arrival of the dissolute nephew, Philip Holmes uncharacteristically dashing, creates a genuine dramatic tension in the work as it becomes possible for Loretta to pair with either one.

The night, where Holmes finds "spirited" Jean Parker in the deserted gypsy camp, has the mood of ZOO IN BUDAPEST. This success could have had many fathers. However it disappeared from movie goer awareness and most physical distribution and never acquired the status of GREAT WALTZ.

The film could have been trimmed to advantage and it doesn't have the bite of Feyder's not dissimilar DAYBREAK but it certainly repays attention and leaves the viewer deploring the absence of more Charrell movies.

Erik Charrell had an artistic and financial success with his lively and original CONGRESS DANCES and was imported into the United States. You can see some of the same impulses in this movie, particularly the scene in which the army attacks to restore order -- and the gypsies, led by Charles Boyer on the violin, counter-attack with music and swamp them.

The movie is full of good bits like that. Charles Boyer is great, Phillips Holmes -- he looks like a blonde Kirk Douglas to me -- is good, and the supporting cast, who are all old pros are good. I think, though, that Charrell was having trouble giving directions in English, so that leading lady, Loretta Young, is pretty erratic, even though she is luminously beautiful. And does every shot having to make use of a traveling camera? The result is a failure to produce a good German operetta in Hollywood. It winds up bloated and ill-balanced; the hit song from it was "It's Up to You to Do the Hot-Cha-Cha", for which Gus Kahn probably wrote the lyrics while drunk.

Fox was falling apart, between the lack of a strong front office and troughing ticket sales. Popular star Will Rogers would die in a plane crash, Janet Gaynor was struggling to find more adult, modern vehicles and no one seemed sure how to deal with the newly enforced production code. CARAVAN looks like it could have been saved -- cut here, shoot a new scene there, but there was no one to make the decision. Soon the studio would be forcibly merged with Zanuck's 20th Century production and changes would be made.

It wouldn't be soon enough for this movie or Charrell. This would be his last movie as a director, although he would wind up with a decent enough career as a writer. Too bad.