Virtue November 25, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s , 2 comments
The centennial of Carole Lombard has been celebrated quietly, but nonetheless in many of the best places (though unfortunately not on DVD). Turner Classic Movies made her Star of the Month in October, Lombard’s birth month, and Film Forum in NYC has recently begun a nice tribute of 23 films, several not on DVD. Seeing the blonde queen of screwball on a large screen obviously has its advantages. You tend to see things previously unappreciated, assuming it’s a relatively good print. The long scar on her left cheek is especially prominent. She was in a serious car accident in the 1920s and I guess this was a side effect. Beauty requires “imperfection” though, right? And her eyes. Oh my. Not only the wide and intense focus, but the piercing stares that are only magnified on the big screen. This was a movie star for any era. I was reminded of Norma Desmond’s assertion that the silent stars had “faces.” Carole Lombard certainly fit the bill.
Like a lot of actors and actresses, Lombard was petite but it’s nearly imperceptible while watching. In the particular film I’ve chosen to discuss a little here, Virtue, she has a scene that involves violently slapping another woman and threatening to kill her. And for those few minutes while it’s happening, you believe her fully. For most of the film, she settles into a natural rhythm of one-liners and soft focus close-ups, but never pretend this wasn’t an actress capable of much more than looking nice. Speaking of which, the big screen also accentuates Lombard’s reluctance to wearing a bra. Without being overtly sensual or seemingly even trying to be alluring, she completely does it. She was approachably perfect, meaning she had an incredible beauty but her screen persona, possibly owing to those midwestern roots, was more normal than glamorous. Part of the appeal is a rare intelligence you can sense in nearly all of her performances. I don’t know a lot about the former Miss Jane Peters, and the lack of a good in-print biography doesn’t help, but few actresses of the studio system era were in possession of the built-in wit Lombard carried around. She makes things funny in a completely different way than, say, Mae West or Jean Harlow. There’s some elegance in Lombard’s screwiness.
Despite her appearance - underlined by that shock of platinum and the pencil eyebrows that hardly ever look appealing on anyone else - she didn’t seem concerned with playing less wholesome types. I saw Lady by Choice on TCM when it aired in October, and even though it’s understandably sugarcoated, her character is a stripper who’s arrested and then takes in a drunk vagrant to play the part of her mother. In Virtue, she’s a full-on prostitute. Her character, Mae, gets picked up for solicitation by the police and tries to lay low. She ends up falling for cab driver Pat O’Brien, but doesn’t tell him about her past. He does find out, probably at the absolute worst time possible, and it creates a significant rift in the relationship. They try to work through it until one of those convenient cinematic twists rears its head and Mae ends up behind bars on a murder rap. O’Brien’s character leans in the direction of being a stereotypical and chauvinistic male, but he’s not without redeeming qualities and soon tries to clear his wife’s name.
Virtue tries to be a whole lot in just a little more than an hour’s worth of time and that somewhat haphazard quality prevents it from focusing heavily on any of the plot details. The film, like a lot of pictures of the ’30s, seems more concerned with simply moving things along before the audience tires of any particular aspect. There’s a charm to that sort of approach and Virtue plays especially well when examined in such a regard. Its screenplay was by the extraordinary Robert Riskin, who wrote many of Frank Capra’s best films including It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe. In keeping with the ideas of the day, the female lead is portrayed as inferior to the male income-earner, but Lombard was such a strong actress in every sense of the word that she’s almost misogynist-proof. Can you think of a film where she comes across as helpless or dainty? I’m not sure there’s a cage brave enough to hold her. Whatever overriding ideas contained in the screenplay, possibly including the theme of redemption obtained by establishing a nice, normal life and literally destroying the older existence, Lombard ends up overpowering O’Brien (and everyone else) so that the helpless female idea is rendered inapplicable.
Adding further interest to a picture already full of curiosities, the only one of Mae’s former acquaintances who turns out to be helpful is played by Mayo Methot. Aside from Methot’s impossibly funny name, she’s known primarily for two unflattering facts. First, she was married to Humphrey Bogart when he met Lauren Bacall, though their marriage had been troubled nearly from the start. Methot was also a depressive alcoholic who died when she was only 47 years old, alone in a hotel room outside Portland, Oregon and not found for days afterwards. It’s truly astounding to think that Mayo Methot was only 27 or 28 when Virtue was filmed. She looks a decade or two older. Harsh doesn’t begin to describe that face.
Lombard, by comparison, would’ve been probably 23 when Virtue was filmed, given its 1932 release. Her premature death has provided timeless youth, but there’s nothing precocious or ingenue-like here. As in most of Lombard’s lead roles, she displays confidence and certainty with aplomb. In a lesser role, she also does this in the other screening I caught - the 1933 feature White Woman, which I didn’t hardly care for as much. Charles Laughton really, really tries to ham it up, and even though he’s often funny it goes too far over the top, to the point where I wondered if the director Stuart Walker was even attempting to rein in Laughton. One of the other main actors, Kent Taylor, makes a weak impression, as well. Some strange business with Percy Kilbride and a chimpanzee does get points in the oddity department. Even so, I’d be glad to pick up both films on DVD if Sony, which controls the Columbia-produced Virtue, and Universal, which has Paramount’s pre-1950 back catalog including White Woman, would pick up the pace.
Invisible Stripes November 18, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s , 2 comments
Humphrey Bogart and William Holden have very little in common. They both won an Oscar. Both men were obviously accomplished actors and movie stars. Each was married to an actress. But the most obvious thing they’ve shared for over fifty years now is Billy Wilder’s Sabrina, where the two played the brothers Larrabee. There’s no real chemistry between them in that film, perhaps understandable given the different styles and significant age difference, but they’re supposedly vying for the same girl. If you go back a few years earlier, Bogart and Holden actually appeared together in another film, a gangster picture made for Warner Bros. called Invisible Stripes, directed by Lloyd Bacon. Neither was the star, though. Bogart was still in his phase of playing second fiddle, largely uninteresting gangsters and Holden was a babyfaced runt just lucky to have a role of any significance. His first breakthrough Golden Boy was released the same year, but there was little reason to think Holden would be anything big during filming.
The lead in the film was actually George Raft, who must’ve stood under five and a half feet tall and had the acting range of a surly gorilla. Bogart would soon become a star thanks to Raft turning down roles in High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, all parts the latter would’ve been mediocre in. None of the three are particularly special here, but Raft probably makes more of an impression than either Bogart or Holden. He has far more screen time and a much better role. Both Raft and Bogart are in Sing Sing when the picture begins, each awaiting parole. As luck would have it, they get out on the same day, but end up taking different paths. Raft is determined to stay straight and set an example for his kid brother, played by Holden. Bogart figures less importantly, but it’s clear that he’s more interested in finding a natural blonde to cozy up next to than a legitimate job.
There’s real effort put into showing that Raft as a parolee and ex-con has a lot of trouble finding and keeping a job. I can’t think of too many other films of this time that seem so intent on bringing to light the struggles of someone just released from prison. Maybe Raoul Walsh’s The Roaring Twenties, which has Cagney try to go straight before ultimately failing back into old habits, but Invisible Stripes seems more focused on that difficulty than merely using it as a jumping off point for the plot. Even its title refers to the stigma that prison life carries over into the outside world. Raft somewhat humorously ends up as a stock boy at a department store working alongside Leo Gorcey. So was Warner Bros. actively lobbying for better treatment of ex-cons in these gangster films of the late ’30s/early ’40s? It definitely seems that way by having popular movie stars portray men with records who can’t find work. I don’t know if this was another effort in the studio’s continual attempts to bring social realism and awareness into its movies or if there really was a prevalent problem concerning out of work ex-cons. I’d guess some of both, but it’s so obvious in this film as to seem peculiar.
With Raft trying to eke out a living and little brother Holden constantly frustrated at his low rung on the totem pole, it doesn’t take a well-seasoned viewer to figure out where we’re going. It seems like Warner Bros. made this type of film over and over again. A gangster or criminal tries to go straight and can’t, or he has a younger brother who flirts with the dark side against the elder’s wishes. Standard issue, but Invisible Stripes remains interesting solely because of the cast. Holden feels really unnatural here. You can barely squint your eyes and see the actor he’d later become. His girlfriend as played by Jane Bryan is another interesting choice, and Bryan, who appeared in several semi-popular WB films, has an oddly intriguing presence despite lacking any real star quality. She looks rather plain, almost resembling Patricia Neal, and her role in the film is of the basic girlfriend/wife variety. But she’s still distinctive enough to make an impression where several other generic looking actresses might have barely registered.
These little attributes, of Holden and Bryan and Bogart, make it all serviceable and maybe slightly ahead of the typical gangster fare. Despite his fate, Raft is sort of a good guy too and his troubles are carefully portrayed as sympathetic. Bogart has no real color, but it was one of his final supporting gangster parts so there’s that bit of notoriety I guess. It’s funny watching Bogart in so many of those thoughtless roles, a dozen or so are probably found within the four volumes of Warner Bros. Gangster sets. He has none of the electricity of Cagney or the forcefulness of Edward G. Robinson. Many of these pictures show absolutely nothing to hint at how bright Bogart’s future would be. You can say the same for Holden here, but he was barely twenty years old. Raft, meanwhile, was in his early forties and destined for semi-obscurity. Like his co-stars, he’d eventually work for Billy Wilder too, but in a much smaller capacity as the lead gangster in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that kicks off Some Like It Hot. It’s kind of funny to see Invisible Stripes and be reminded that Raft was at one point a significantly bigger name than either Bogart or Holden, and even capable of delivering a performance of some merit.
Of Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder June 12, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, 1940s, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch , 4 commentsThough it initially seemed anticlimactic, the recent fire at Universal Studios in California proved to be more damaging than common sense would have first envisioned. Screening prints of the classic Paramount films of the ’30s and ’40s, owned by Universal and including films by the three directors in the post title as well as several others, were destroyed forever. A programmer for Film Forum in New York told the NY Times that a potential Preston Sturges festival would most likely be scrapped as a result. Bad news all around. The media focused on a comparatively inconsequential King Kong theme park ride while beautiful silver celluloid is transformed into ashes. I can’t hardly classify the loss as tragic, a word which really should be reserved for life and death calamities, but it’s upsetting nonetheless.
These three guys, Lubitsch, Sturges and Wilder, form the backbone of classic Hollywood comedy. Their colleague Leo McCarey was another vital presence who also worked at Paramount and whose key films (including Ruggles of Red Gap) remain largely unreleased, now increasingly difficult to see in repertory screenings, as well. Josef von Sternberg is right there, too. If there’s anything at all worth smiling about, it’s that several films related to this trio have recently surfaced on DVD. Quite a few of their films as writer and director are still without a DVD release, possibly deterred even further by this turn of events, but I wanted to mention the few that have reached the market, which, conveniently, I’ve also reviewed for DVD Times.
Back in February, Criterion’s Eclipse line released Lubitsch’s four Paramount musicals in a nifty, extras-less edition. It’s a must-own for fans of the director. Around the same time, Wilder’s The Apartment got a nice upgrade from MGM. (It was originally released by United Artists.) More recently, the BFI put out Lubitsch’s final completed film, Cluny Brown. Made for Fox in 1946, it’s an appropriate ending to a great career. I had vastly underestimated the film after an initial viewing when I put up a review back early last year on this site. The more pertinent Paramount/Universal titles hit stores in April. I’ve reviewed all these, including Wilder’s first film as director in Hollywood, The Major and the Minor. Also out are a pair of Mitchell Leisen-directed efforts. Easy Living, with screenplay from Sturges, and Midnight, a sparkling film written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, finally received their digital releases, I believe, for the first time anywhere in the world.
This still leaves several Paramount-made, Universal-controlled pictures from the Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder cycle unavailable on R1 DVD. Most notably - Angel, directed by Lubitsch and available in a Marlene Dietrich set in R2, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, another Lubitsch picture and written by Brackett and Wilder, Remember the Night, written by Sturges and directed by Leisen but not on DVD anywhere, Hold Back the Dawn, which was directed by Leisen and scripted by Brackett and Wilder, and two early Wilder-directed films, Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair. Both of those latter movies are available in other regions, but still absent in R1. There are a handful of others, things like Arise My Love which I’ve been anxious to see, but I’m now hesitant as to whether any of these films will make it onto R1 DVD in the near future. Despite business concerns, it would seem appropriate for Universal to reveal exactly what films were lost (surely their bookkeeping contains such records) instead of playing so coy.
Ruggles of Red Gap October 30, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s , add a comment
When I attended a conversation with Wes Anderson during the New York Film Festival a few weeks ago, an audience member asked the director what movies from the last few years had he seen and enjoyed. Anderson struggled a bit with the question, clearly preoccupied by the significant amount of time he’d been devoting to his new film The Darjeeling Limited and perhaps unwilling to play favorites among recent fare. He finally did recommend a film: Ruggles of Red Gap. Leo McCarey’s comedy about a British manservant who’s lost in a poker game and has his services transferred from an English Earl to a wealthy American cowboy was actually released in 1935. Ehh, what’s seventy years or so.
I knew of Ruggles of Red Gap, but not much beyond that. My philosophy, for better or worse, is usually to wait for a DVD release because I have an interest in so many movies that I haven’t yet seen as to make it literally impossible to catch up with everything I want to see in the next couple of years (decades?). But then I saw Ruggles of Red Gap was getting a theatrical showing in Brooklyn, courtesy of being a selection in gifted author Jonathan Lethem’s series of picks for BAM. I love most everything I’ve seen from Leo McCarey and Charles Laughton (who stars as Ruggles) is nearly without peer in film acting throughout the ’30s, ’40s,’ and ’50s (plus Spartacus and Advise & Consent). Since Ruggles doesn’t have a DVD release anywhere in the world that I know of, I figured this was as good of an opportunity as any.
Bingo! I was right. Ruggles of Red Gap immediately took its place as one of the better comedies I’ve seen from the 1930s. Laughton is really outstanding as the title character. His transformation from completely uptight and proper valet to a liberated man of the people is extraordinary. The scene where his new employer, Egbert Floud, and Floud’s friend are drinking at a Paris cafe, suddenly drunk after a cut fast forwards the drinking time, perfectly plays with the audience. We see the two Americans obnoxiously hooting and hollering as Ruggles sits silently in the middle with mostly full glasses of alcohol. Suddenly, though, Ruggles lets out his own exclamation and it becomes obvious that he too is tanked, albeit with considerably less consumed. From then on, Ruggles is his own man, slowly freed from a life of servitude.
There are enough shenanigans and humorous moments in McCarey’s film to merit a strong recommendation on the sole basis of it making the audience laugh without feeling bad about what we find funny, but there’s also a stronger, more touching stream running beneath the comedy. When Ruggles is first told by his master, the Earl of Bumstead (Roland Young), that he’s been lost in a poker game and will have to make America his new home, he associates the continent with slavery. Such an inhumane and cruel practice is obviously looked upon unfavorably by this man, one who ironically spends his life at the beck and call of another human being, someone who treats him like a lesser citizen and requires his services for seemingly personal and simple matters like dressing and reading the newspaper.
Obviously, this is a big part of the film’s point. Despite Ruggles’ apprehension at living in a nation where slavery thrived not too long ago, his own existence is not far removed and certainly lacking in any sort of autonomous independence. By showing and gently beating the audience over the head with this idea, the film shines the spotlight on the ridiculous distinctions between classes and generations encumbered with status quo acceptances of rigid, outdated refusals to recognize individual liberty. Funny, biting humor is one thing and should be applauded accordingly, but inserting reminders like this of the worth of each person and the eventual refusal to accept society’s placement remains a refreshing prospect.
That, of course, leads me to the film’s most touching and profound scene. Ruggles has just been fired by his nemesis, the opportunistic Easterner Charles Belknap-Jackson, and coincidentally runs into Egbert and Ma Pettingill at the Silver Dollar Saloon. Egbert cites Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg, but has trouble remembering exactly what Lincoln said. No one else in the bar knows either. Suddenly Ruggles, in a near whisper, begins to recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, one of the most eloquent and moving speeches in American history. This Englishman knows what a room full of Americans doesn’t. It’s a touching, misty-eyed scene that rises above preachiness and, instead, works as a beautiful reminder of the easily-forgotten beauty the United States has to offer in its history, if not its present.
When Laughton recites the Gettysburg Address in full, it got me. This from someone who’s constantly looking for ways to leave the country for a peaceful and fresh start. I suppose I’m just as susceptible to well-done patriotism as the next person. None of the cloying, candycoated nonsense too often prevalent in the propaganda-laced films of World War II-era America, please. This is entirely different. Aside from just being highly accomplished and believable, it plays as real and sincere. Whatever my country has destroyed in the last seventy-two years, there will always be that artifact of true equality espoused by a legitimate president who apparently believed the words he spoke and wasn’t subject to inane blogs and all-day news channels questioning his every bathroom break. Again, Laughton’s scene is full of grace and beauty that remarkably holds years of history and incompetence on its shoulders without diminishing any of its power.
Along with Laughton, I’ll give credit for the film’s success to director Leo McCarey. A true titan of the 1930s, McCarey is often overlooked today due to a lack of availability of his films and the fact that his most popular picture, Duck Soup, is usually credited to the Marx Brothers more than its director. An even better film, The Awful Truth starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and the dog who’d play Asta in the Thin Man series, won McCarey an Academy Award, but doesn’t receive very much acclaim among today’s audiences. He also won the Oscar for Going My Way, a crowd-pleasing 1944 film starring Bing Crosby as a priest, but his modest reputation belies the talent shown in great films from The Milky Way, with Harold Lloyd, to Make Way for Tomorrow, a picture about the struggle of the elderly.
Ruggles of Red Gap had been tried on film twice before McCarey’s effort, but never afterwards. This version was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and is, presumably, the definitive telling of the story. Until Universal, who controls the home video rights through a deal with Paramount several years ago, decides to let the film breathe on DVD, viewers will have to be content with tracking down the VHS, praying for a television airing or the rare theatrical screening. I’d expect little more out of Universal, the studio who still controls the most accomplished and unreleased classic film library, and one who hasn’t released barely anything from it this year. Let’s hope Ruggles of Red Gap gets released sooner rather than later.
Midnight October 13, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, Billy Wilder , 1 comment so far
As the DVD medium enters its second decade, consumers have been blessed with more titles than many of us can find the time to watch. Nevertheless, there are still many, many deserving films from Hollywood’s golden age that remain unreleased. Warner Bros. and Fox are mostly doing their part to rectify the situation, but Universal, who controls almost all of Paramount’s catalog prior to 1948, has seemingly devoted most of its attention to re-releasing more contemporary films (often poorly). The digital crumbs that Universal has thrown out in R1, vis-à-vis classic cinema, have often been value-priced, with two or three feature films per disc. It’s difficult to complain about five or six movies retailing for less than $30 (as with the recent Glamour Collections), but these releases seem to be few and far between. This leaves Universal with a hefty library of unreleased gems, none more deserving than the classic 1939 comedy Midnight.
Midnight is not usually placed in the same category of great early comedies with the best of Lubitsch, Sturges, Capra, Hawks, et al., but perhaps it should be. The film begins with American Eve Peabody (the always charming Claudette Colbert) getting off a train after arriving in soggy Paris. “So this, as they say, is Paris, huh?” “Yes, madame.” “Well, from here it looks an awful lot like a rainy night in Kokomo, Indiana.” We soon find out she has no money, nowhere to stay, and she had to pawn off her luggage in Monte Carlo. Enter Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), a Hungarian cab driver looking for his next fare. After the two settle on a wager to pay off the taxi fee, they spend the evening driving around Paris searching for Eve a singing job.
Somehow she ends up at a posh, invitation-only soiree and substitutes her pawn shop ticket for the invitation. There, she meets two men and a married couple, the Flammarions (played by John Barrymore and Mary Astor). The husband realizes right away that Eve is out of place, but realizes he can put her to good use - as bait for his wife’s playboy lover. From there, Eve transforms herself into Baroness Czerny while the real Mr. Czerny has cab drivers all over Paris searching frantically for her. When Czerny actually finds his fake wife, things really get out of control and you realize Midnight rivals the best comedies of its era.
The three lead performances, along with the breezy, smart script, provide much of the film’s success. It’s rare to have three actors and movie stars of this caliber in the same film without it turning into a mess or an “all-star spectacle.” Thankfully, Colbert, Ameche and Barrymore don’t try to outdo each other here and are content to bask in the spotlight at their given times. All three are wonderful, with Barrymore shining particularly bright in his brief comedic scenes. Colbert’s performance, as in many of her other roles, is so winning that you nearly believe someone like Barrymore’s benefactor would actually put her up in a fancy hotel and buy her that expensive wardrobe. Ameche is just as good, in a role that you’d think lots of other actors could pull of, yet once you’ve seen Midnight, anyone else is unimaginable.
The film has several funny, laugh-out-loud sequences that reminded me of screwball comedy, though I wouldn’t place Midnight in that category. While even a stone-face would get tickled by the screwball-esque “Francie” bit, overall, there’s more romance than farce. Midnight actually resembles the smart, sophisticated comedies of Ernst Lubitsch more than perhaps any other film not directed by Lubitsch. It’s not surprising, then, that it was written by the screenwriting team from Lubtisch’s own Ninotchka (also from 1939), Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, who always considered Lubitsch to be his mentor. More so than any other film Wilder wrote, including those he would later direct, Midnight has the elusive ingredients often found in Lubitsch’s films that came to be known as the ”Lubitsch touch.”
The man who actually did direct Midnight was Mitchell Leisen, a former art designer. Leisen is notable for inspiring two of the premiere screenwriters in 1930s and 40s Hollywood, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder, to become directors after their frustrations in working with him. Since Sturges and Wilder are my two favorite filmmakers from that era, Leisen’s work with their scripts has a bittersweet quality for me. I can’t help but be glad that Leisen angered the two men enough to inspire them to direct, yet I wonder how films such as Midnight or Hold Back the Dawn would have turned out with Wilder at the helm (likewise for Sturges with Easy Living and Remember the Night). It’s probably doubtful that Wilder would have been accomplished enough to handle Midnight as well as the final product turned out. On the other hand, a sequence from the script for Hold Back the Dawn involving Charles Boyer talking to a cockroach in a Mexican hotel and which Leisen refused to film, the incident that Wilder claimed was the final straw and lead to him directing his next script himself, would have been quite interesting to see.
Getting back to Universal dragging their feet about releasing so many classic films on DVD in R1, it would be more excusable if there was a valid reason for withholding these releases, but I can’t seem to find one. The VHS copy I recently saw of Midnight looked very good and any restoration for a DVD release need be minimal. The low prices Universal has charged for their classic product thus far almost surely have helped with sales and there’s no reason to think consumers aren’t hungry for some of these unreleased treasures. While Midnight is prime material, there are still plenty of other worthy titles languishing in their library. Billy Wilder fans, in particular, are still waiting for two films he directed (The Major and the Minor and A Foreign Affair) as well as three more he wrote, the two previously mentioned and the Lubitsch directed Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. A “Written by Billy Wilder” Glamour Collection (complete with slipcover and cheesy color glamour shot!), anyone?
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse April 8, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, Fritz Lang , add a comment
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse) was Fritz Lang’s last film before fleeing Nazi Germany. It was banned in Germany and not shown there until after World War II. Regardless of Lang’s foresight into Hitler’s dictatorship, the film can be viewed as a strong rebuke of the Nazi regime and anti-propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels refused to allow German audiences to see it. The great thing about the film, though, is that it plays beautifully even if you don’t take into account that it was completed in 1933 Nazi Germany. It’s a compelling story that, like many of Lang’s other German films, holds up remarkably well today.
The basic plot is that Dr. Mabuse (pronounced Mah-boo-sah), an evil genius who has refused to speak and is locked up in an insane asylum, has begun scribbling elaborate criminal plans from his bed. Somehow, an “empire of crime” has formed and they are carrying out these horrific crimes. Even after Dr. Mabuse dies, the crimes continue and the crafty Inspector Lohmann must try to solve the elaborate puzzle. There’s also a romantic subplot involving one of the men in Dr. Mabuse’s gang who becomes frustrated when he is unable to find honest work and reluctantly returns to a life of crime. He finds redemption in a woman he meets at the employment office and wants to get out of the gang and settle down with her. Eventually, he becomes vital in Inspector Lohmann’s investigation.
It was only Lang’s second sound film (following M), but the director manages to keenly employ everyday noises to achieve a realistic result. The first few minutes of the film are mostly silent until we hear various street noises. This immediately allows the viewer to build an interest and sweeps us into Lang’s film. I was also struck by the image of Dr. Mabuse’s “ghost” conversing and hypnotizing the psychiatrist. It’s an eerie scene and gives the film some elements of horror.
Interestingly, Lang simultaneously filmed a French language version of the film starring mostly different actors. Criterion’s two-disc special edition has included this version, albeit in a much more damaged transfer than the German version, which looks remarkably good for a movie over seventy years old. There is also a useful comparison between the two versions, as as the American dubbed version released several years later, after World War II. The American version changes dialogue and attempts to make more direct connections to Hitler and the Nazis. It appears, not surprisingly, that Lang always intended the German version to be the definitive film and his opinion of the American release is unclear.
Maybe the most remarkable thing about The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is its continued relevance. It has aged very well and may even play better today, when people are more informed as to terrorists and organized crime, than when it was first made. The idea of a criminal mastermind pulling strings from an undisclosed location and having people who’ve never seen or met him carrying out his crimes is a timely and always fascinating story. I’m not sure if Fritz Lang was simply a gifted filmmaker with incredible foresight or if possibly Hollywood used his template to craft their studio crime films and maybe that’s why Lang’s German movies still seem so fresh today. Either way, Lang was certainly on to something and seeing his films restored onto DVD today is a real treat.
Design for Living February 26, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, Ernst Lubitsch , add a comment
“Immorality may be fun, but it isn’t fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.”
The “Lubitsch Touch” is an often cited cinematic gift that director Ernst Lubitsch employed to give his films an unparalleled wit and charm throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. Lubitsch directed comedies that still retain their vitality and charisma, sixty or seventy years after they were made. The characters in his films have a knack for light humor that exhibits wry sophistication without crossing the line to snobbery. I was not around when Lubitsch made films, but watching them makes me wish I were and that I could have been exactly like one of the many characters found therein. That, to me, is the “Lubitsch Touch.”
Design for Living came during an especially fruitful string of films for Lubitsch. The 1933 film followed Trouble in Paradise, a wonderful comedy about the debonair thief Gaston Monescu, and preceded another highly regarded film, The Merry Widow. Lubitsch and screenwriter Ben Hecht replaced the British characters from Noel Coward’s play with three Americans, all living in Paris. A young Gary Cooper plays the struggling painter, Fredric March is the playwright who “writes unproduced plays,” and Lubitsch favorite Miriam Hopkins is the object of both their affections. Edward Everett Horton, later to be the narrator of “Fractured Fairy Tales” on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, is Ms. Hopkins’ boss and suitor.
While Design for Living falls into the category of great films, what really sets it apart is how fun it is to see actual adult and grown-up comedy in a classic American film. It was made after the implementation of the Production Code, but apparently before it became as strict as it would be the next thirty-plus years. This allowed Lubitsch and Hecht to get away with Hopkins’ discussion about sleeping with Cooper the day before and, then, March earlier in the present day (!) and, also, for Cooper and March to make a “gentleman’s agreement” where the three would co-exist but with “no sex.” The whole film is filled with mature, yet almost screwball comedy that Hollywood has struggled to consistently produce for years, especially in today’s current cinema.
The performances here are all incredibly fun to watch. Cooper and March make a terrific team and really give the impression they’ve been great friends and have no intention of letting their attraction for Hopkins come between them, even if they can’t make good on their “agreement.” Miriam Hopkins is perfect here, as well, and makes the viewer see how two men can nearly break up a friendship over her affection. I’m really not sure why Hopkins never became a bigger star, but then again Hollywood was even more arbitrary back then than today in selecting its movie stars to feed into the movie machine. Regardless, this film, along with Trouble in Paradise show how lovely and sophisticated an actress she was. Edward Everett Horton also manages to be very funny when he needs to, never more so than when he’s attending March’s play in London and hears the line I’ve quoted at the beginning here, one which he had separately told both March and Cooper at the beginning of the film regarding their trysts with Hopkins.
Billy Wilder, who wrote the screenplay for Lubitsch’s film Ninotchka, often said that he tried to duplicate the “Lubitsch Touch” in several of his films and was never able to completely succeed. While Wilder almost always injected a knowing sense of cynicism into his comedies, Lubitsch chose to give his films an elegance and warmth that remains refreshing today. In my opinion, Lubitsch and Wilder were the best comedic filmmakers Hollywood has seen and I’m glad we have both of their films to enjoy for generations to come. I only wish the “Lubitsch Touch” would inspire more filmmakers to produce similar types of sophisticated comedies.
