Employees’ Entrance February 11, 2009
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Film Forum in New York City is having another of its wonderful series of classic Hollywood movies, most of which are being shown in double features and many of the films haven’t been released on DVD. The title this time is “Breadlines and Champagne,” with a theme focusing on movies released around the time of the Great Depression. Nearly all were made prior to the implementation of the Production Code and they remain incredibly fresh even today. Some of the plots and jokes are relevant now more than in a very long time, adding a sad but fascinating layer to the viewing experience. This doesn’t seem lost on the folks at FF, as they’ve scheduled giveaway drawings each Tuesday night and even kicked off the program with a full day of the Mae West picture I’m No Angel at only 35 cents admission. I found a quarter beside a subway turnstile and it covered my full member ticket!
Filmwise, I was more interested in a double feature pairing two Warren William pictures. Skyscraper Souls, from 1932, has William as the namesake and owner of a 100-story skyscraper who uses nefarious means to get most anything he wants. It’s usually compared to Grand Hotel due to both films centering on several characters in a single setting. The cast is a step down in name recognition, including Maureen O’Sullivan, Norman Foster, and Anita Page, but they perform ably. In particular, there’s a sequence late in the film where William has devised a scheme to obtain full ownership of the building by paying all his outstanding loans. The plan involves basically ruining the lives, sometimes in the immediate sense while others more permanently, of everyone else in the cast. It plays out with a gravity that completely shifts the tone of the movie and feels all too familiar to followers of current events. Some nice camera work from William Daniels also contributes to making Skyscraper Souls entirely worth watching.
Even still, it’s not in the same league with Employees’ Entrance, which is simultaneously shocking and giddily enjoyable. William is basically the same character as in the earlier film, but the performance is far more ferocious and unapologetic. If you’re not familiar with Warren William as an actor, track down this movie (it’s on VHS and shows on TCM occasionally) to see someone who essentially has no peer from that era for charismatically playing complete pricks. His characterization of department store boss Kurt Anderson teeters between going over the top and being so forceful as to almost make the viewer feel sorry for this guy. He’s an inveterate womanizer, setting his sights on Loretta Young both before and after she’s married his protege, and he has zero compassion, reacting to the suicide of a longtime employee he’d recently fired with the rationalization that all men should kill themselves when they’re no longer useful. And yet, you can’t take your eyes off of William, with a face resembling a bull terrier, when he’s on the screen.
As in Skyscraper Souls, there’s quite a bit to ponder regarding capitalism in Employees’ Entrance. The film is set almost entirely in a large department store, where William’s character Anderson quickly rises to the top based on his proven ability to increase sales. His entire existence, save for carnal flings, revolves around how to improve the store’s profits and he’s unwilling to tolerate even a single mistake. He eschews ethics and decency for the success at whatever cost mentality. He’s cutthroat, diabolical and irredeemable, but he gets the job done while displaying a total commitment to his endeavor. The portrayal feels very American to me for its insistence on being number one. I feel like that’s the ideal of the country, the secret of success, and I don’t know how relevant it remains right now. Part of the sheer glee in watching William unload on the various levels of incompetence around him is in knowing that he’s almost always in the right. His methods are debatable, but we see no one in the film working more passionately than Anderson does.
Just how he works is also part of the fun. Anderson thinks one character is overseeing his every move a little too closely so he sends a very willing model from the women’s department to keep the man company, doubling her salary for the trouble. The model is played by Alice White, an actress who ideally should’ve been a much bigger name than she was. She was also in the James Cagney movie Picture Snatcher, among a few others, but she’s really great here as a bubbled up blonde who’s more sly than she seems. Her scenes with William have some of the snappiest dialogue, from a screenplay filled with breakneck quips, in the film. I believe it’s their first meeting we see when he tells her that he didn’t recognize her with all those clothes on. The line isn’t delivered in a cutesy and forced provocative way like one of Mae West’s quips, making it even more jawdropping.
Though the ostensible plot of Employees’ Entrance is most concerned with a romance between Young and Wallace Ford, and their secret marriage, the film and director Roy Del Ruth seem more interested in William terrorizing everyone in his path. You might still expect some redemption of the character, given the film’s time and place, but we instead get a good 75 minutes of behavior totally lacking in scruples. Anderson doesn’t change, see the light, face punishment, or any of that other Production Code nonsense. His stripes remain firmly in place all the way to the end. When his protege, played by Ford, threatens to shoot him from point blank range, Anderson provides encouragement and then mocks him for only hitting his wrist. He seems to be almost laughing at the thought that a mere bullet could take him down.
TCM Complete Lost and Found RKO Collection February 3, 2009
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Back in December, cable channel and haven of quality older films Turner Classic Movies did something a bit strange. In conjunction with online retailer Movies Unlimited, TCM put together a package of six films originally made for RKO studios in the 1930s and released them exclusively through its website, both together in a box and individually. TCM had previously partnered with corporate buddy Warner Bros. Home Video for several DVD releases through a separate TCM Archives banner. These will surely continue, with a Forbidden Hollywood Volume 3 scheduled to hit shelves in March. The RKO films are different, however, and have no connection to Warner Bros. at all.
The six films (titles later) were all picked up by former RKO head and King Kong producer Merian C. Cooper several years after he left the studio. Legal stuff. They had very few television showings in the 1950s, mostly in the New York City area I believe, but hadn’t been seen again until February 2007 when they all screened at Film Forum in NYC. In April of the same year they made their debut on TCM, and the channel has aired the pictures intermittently ever since. The films were presumed lost, but actually had been stowed away safely by Cooper. Some more legal wrangling eventually allowed for the TCM broadcasts and freshly struck film prints. Though Warner Bros. owns the majority of the RKO catalog, these films weren’t included due to the rights being used as payment to Cooper decades ago. At some point, TCM apparently anted up for the films’ rights and we now have a lovely box set of early Hollywood films.
The artwork used and entire presentation is really quite elegant and classy. My particular set was a Christmas present, but I was eyeing it strong enough that a purchase was nonetheless imminent. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened the sturdy keepcases only to realize that the discs are not actual manufactured DVDs, but burned DVD-R copies. This is clearly a blunder on TCM’s part. DVD-R discs are less stable than regular DVDs and can sometimes refuse to play on certain players and/or crap out after a period of time. The set isn’t cheap either, costing $65 plus shipping with no friendly competition to drive the price down. None of this DVD-R business was advertised either. I had assumed this was a legitimate operation and that I’d receive DVDs. Future releases are apparently planned and I now dread the idea of paying high prices for DVD-R copies. This particular set, dubbed the TCM Complete Lost and Found RKO Collection, is being advertised as only available for a limited time. How limited is anyone’s guess. Aren’t we all only available for a limited time?
Going in, I’d only seen one of these RKO pictures - the Ginger Rogers movie Rafter Romance. I almost always find Ginger’s movies from the ’30s to be delightful and this is no exception. She stars alongside Norman Foster as a pair of youngsters who unwittingly fall for one another while sharing the same Greenwich Village apartment. Ginger’s character rents during the night because she’s a telephone salesperson hocking ice boxes by day. Foster lives in the same room during the day and acts as a night watchman while she’s in the apartment. They meet away from home, not knowing they’re roommates, and a sweet little romance develops. It’s cute enough for 70 minutes and definitely my favorite in the set. There’s even a stray dig at the Nazis thrown in for little reason other than a somewhat hidden political statement.
The other title I was most interested in was Double Harness, with William Powell and Ann Harding. Powell was under contract at Warner Bros., though he’d gotten attention while making Philo Vance mysteries for Paramount, and was loaned out to RKO for the picture. The plot has Powell as a rich playboy shipping magnate who’s sort of conned into marrying Harding. It’s slightly interesting that the rationale for their entire marriage is Harding’s father coming over after the couple had presumably engaged in premarital relations. Though seeing such topics addressed just prior to the implementation of the Production Code does hold some value, the film overall is dull and aggressively depressing. No one seems happy, even the typically jubilant Powell, and there’s a sense of doom hanging over the entire thing. The Depression is referenced twice (a surefire downer for anyone watching at this point in time), most cleverly early on when we’re told everyone’s broke and those who aren’t should pretend to be.
The somber tone of the film feels odd. Harding’s sister is constantly in debt for buying expensive clothes, but it’s hardly a few bucks here and there. Her bill at one store prior to getting married is over $3,000. That’s $3,000 in 1933 money. Later she tries to wrangle another $1,000 from Harding and anyone else who’ll listen. That’s an insane amount of cash for that time period. Even crazier is Powell’s character, who thinks nothing of writing out a check for it. Something with all of this sits funny with me. Really no one in the film has it together at all. Each character is undeserving of what they have and completely unsympathetic. Harding makes almost zero impression. The final wrap-up is jarring and takes about as long as it would to rip a bow off of a gift. Aside from a couple of good lines (Powell’s likening of geraniums to Harding) and a sometimes interesting performance from Powell, Double Harness is difficult to recommend with any enthusiasm.
A bit better is the third film from 1933 in the set, One Man’s Journey. It stars Lionel Barrymore, who’s considerably folksy and humble as a doctor still wounded from the death of his wife in child birth when the movie begins. He moves back to the country and tries to establish himself as a physician in the small town, but falters on his first try when an expectant mother doesn’t survive the birth of her child. The father is so angry he doesn’t want to keep his own baby daughter. Barrymore’s Dr. Eli Watt begins raising the little girl alongside his young son, with a helpful May Robson moving in to keep things afloat. Soon enough (the film only runs 72 minutes), the doctor gains respect in the town by successfully treating a smallpox epidemic. His son grows up to be Joel McCrea, and he wishes to follow his father’s career path except as a specialist who can work in the city. The casting here is notable because McCrea’s love interest is played by Frances Dee. Shortly after filming the two would be married and remain so for 57 years, until his death in 1990.
One Man’s Journey was a nice little surprise that plays well to my innate sense of American small town folksiness. Barrymore’s restraint is noteworthy, as is the film’s resistance to ever becoming overly preachy or simplistic. Dr. Watt is portrayed as a generous man who’s primarily concerned with treating those in need more than earning even a modest wage. That overly simple portrayal of a life that may have never even existed (though I suspect it did) usually wins favor from me. The film has a few other moments of interest, belying its pre-Code production, which also tend to mitigate the rushed nature and other shortcomings. Most fascinating is a quick, and a bit awkward, scene where Barrymore and Robson are driving and her dialogue comes to an abrupt stop only to then be picked up by the now grown-up girl taken in at the beginning (played by Dorothy Jordan, who had just become Mrs. Merian C. Cooper and wouldn’t make another film for twenty years) and her paramour. The presentation is unexpected, but so is the subject matter. The Jordan character is pressured into premarital sex under the stars, later leading to a pregnancy. There’s what seems to be a punishment that immediately follows the act. For a film this homespun, the scene plays as even more naughty than it probably should.
While One Man’s Journey lends itself to a sense of being realistically grounded in a definite time and place, the 1934 film Stingaree more closely resembles a peacock in a fish tank. Its sincere ridiculousness keeps the viewer interested at all times, if for no other reason than to see whether the film will acknowledge in some way how absurd it is. That this movie, which involves an English bandit in the Australian outback whose superpower seems to be the ability to write songs, was directed by William Wellman only furthers the disbelief. Wellman was a prolific studio craftsman who excelled in the 1930s with pictures often aimed in the direction of exploring social issues. Wellman’s films like The Public Enemy, Wild Boys of the Road, and Heroes for Sale still have quite the impact several decades later and play as hard-hitting, to the point dramas. In comparison to these and other Wellman pictures, Stingaree seems almost like a joke.
Reuniting Irene Dunne and Richard Dix from Best Picture winner Cimarron, Wellman’s film pairs the leads, respectively, as a woman who dreams of singing but is essentially trapped in the home of a rich, badgering woman who has a terrible voice and the infamous bandit Stingaree who poses as a music box salesman. The movie starts off well enough as Stingaree and his goofy sidekick Howie (Andy Devine) enter a saloon quietly and leave with much more of a commotion. The mustachioed bandit then shows up unannounced at Dunne’s home as she’s singing and playing the piano. Where exactly he thought this visit would lead is anyone’s guess, but the path taken is probably even more unlikely. Stingaree, pretending to be a famous composer, teaches Dunne a song, which she later uses to become world renowned with help from the real composer. The creeping feeling of how sensationally silly the plot is sort of makes the film an early contender for the “so bad it’s good” mantle. Aided by Wellman’s direction and the lead performances, Stingaree’s flaws are strange enough to very nearly become strengths. I’d rather watch a movie like this than bland retreads of the Living on Love variety.
Canvassing the same ground as Rafter Romance did just four years earlier, Living on Love takes a pretty good story and buries it in mediocrity. James Dunn picks up the Norman Foster role and while he doesn’t embarrass himself, I still prefer Foster’s lanky slickness. More discouraging is Ginger Rogers’ replacement, Whitney Bourne, who shows herself to be a poor actress and has no chemistry with Dunn. It’s easier to believe the warring anonymous roommates portion of the plot than the budding lovebirds business. A direct comparison of the two films also favors the slightly risqué nature of Rafter Romance. Its pre-Code mischievousness makes the remake look prudish. Scenes that are duplicated across both films especially suffer. When the landlord is showing his female tenant her new shared apartment in Rafter Romance, he cheekily shoves a liquor bottle out of the way before also claiming a pipe as his own. Living on Love omits the liquor bottle altogether. You won’t be seeing the equivalent of Ginger Rogers showering in the latter either, which instead seems to have a strange preoccupation with shots of legs running or walking down the street.
The final film in the set is also a remake of another one of these very movies. A Man to Remember, the first picture directed by Garson Kanin (at the tender age of 25) and released originally in 1938 , follows the same story as One Man’s Journey. It was made quickly and cheaply, but garnered rave reviews when first shown. Much of the later film is familiar territory, but without a lot of the sentimentality found in the earlier version. Star Edward Ellis was older than Lionel Barrymore had been and it shows in his performance, which comes across as more serious and dignified. The straightforward humanity displayed is once again impressive and perhaps the film’s strongest attribute.
Future blacklistee Dalton Trumbo received sole credit for the screenplay. He altered the story structure from the original film and source novel, starting A Man to Remember at doctor John Abbott’s funeral and flashing back to moments in the man’s life. That the remembrances occur with visual fades from various debts Abbott owed at his death seems of some definite importance. Trumbo’s work is often scrutinized for hints into his leftist politics, and while One Man’s Journey also had a sharp focus on the doctor’s somewhat selfless work done for little money, A Man to Remember particularly emphasizes this point in terms of duty versus monetary reward. Some of the other small differences are especially intriguing, with events rearranged or altered between the two films. One particular contrast is the much warmer, eventually romantic relationship that develops between Abbott’s son and the orphaned girl he raised. The earlier One Man’s Journey gave both characters separate companions while Kanin and Trumbo use an odd, almost incestuous fix to the romantic angle that one would normally expect more from a pre-Code film.
Though the idea to pounce on one event after another in the man’s life makes for some awkward and unconvincing transitions, the more distracting issue with A Man to Remember is something that can’t be helped. The other films in this set were all licensed out for regional television broadcast in the 1950s, but A Man to Remember hadn’t been seen since its original release in 1938. The only known print to have survived originated in the Netherlands and has Dutch subtitles burned into the bottom of the picture. This is a mild imposition on its own and can be ignored once the viewer settles in a bit. For awhile my eyes kept gravitating to the subtitles like they would for any other subtitled film, except I can’t read Dutch. The bigger problem is that most all of the written material in the film, the notes of debt and various other things, has also been converted to Dutch without any English equivalent provided. I knew silent films often did this, but I don’t think I realized other pictures were altered for international audiences in this manner.
Regarding the quality of the prints used, nothing was disappointing. There’s some minor dirt and vertical line damage on most of the films, but not to the point of distraction. A few frames seem to be missing, particularly on A Man to Remember. Stingaree has an annoying habit of sometimes looking slightly greenish. It doesn’t appear that any major clean-up was done, as evidenced by the amount of dirt and occasional scratches, but all the films look good enough to satisfy the reasonable viewer.
The bonus material on these releases initially seems generous, and indeed some thought and care must have been put into it, but only a couple of titles really have much of any substance. Each film has a selection of stills, lobby cards and posters accessible from the disc. Pressbooks are also available from the menu and as pdf files upon inserting the DVD-R into a computer. All the films are advertised as having a “Rudy Behlmer Video Commentary,” but this is a tad misleading since Behlmer’s comments are quite short at just a couple of minutes per title and the two remakes share the same pieces with their originals. Stingaree doesn’t even have one of these, though it does have a short bit on the history of these RKO titles, as do all the other discs. The main interest in the extra features comes from an interview on Stingaree with William Wellman that runs 10 minutes and finds the director being quite candid and entertaining. It’s taken from Richard Schickel’s The Men Who Made the Movies episode on Wellman, which is soon to be released in the Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3 set. Equally worthwhile is a piece with Garson Kanin from 1995 that lasts just over 11 minutes. It was done for TCM and has him discussing Samuel Goldwyn and Kanin’s preference for writing over directing.
All in all, the overly expensive set has some flaws both in the decision to use DVD-R’s and the quality of the films as a whole, but the simple option to own these films in relatively good editions should still be pleasing enough to the classic film consumer.
Lombard Bombard December 2, 2008
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Since we last met I’ve found myself binging on all the previously unseen Carole Lombard films I could find. This isn’t as easy a task as one might think since too many of her films are unavailable on DVD (thanks Universal and Sony). The first option this past week should have been Film Forum, which continued to show many unpolished gems. I didn’t get over there as much as I’d have liked to, though. A Thanksgiving day triple feature of From Hell to Heaven, Ladies’ Man and Man of the World (which is in the Lombard Glamour Collection set) was a particularly painful omission, but sleep is often valued even higher than Ms. Lombard. Nothing Sacred was shown a couple of days too, and I wondered whether the print was an improvement over the dodgy public domain stuff you usually see. Didn’t make it then either. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. You know how it is.
What I did see in the meantime was an absolutely gobsmackingly good WWI movie I mentioned in my TCM Ten picks a few weeks ago - The Eagle and the Hawk. Stuart Walker, who directed the iffy White Woman with Lombard and Charles Laughton, is the credited director, but Mitchell Leisen is given a very prominent associate director credit. I’m generally no big fan of Leisen, though his choice of material was at one point top notch. I’ve read he really directed this film and, if so, it’s probably the second best thing I’ve seen from him, after Midnight. Either way, it’s Fredric March’s performance that immediately grabs your attention. March is an ace pilot stationed in London and sent to France to fly in two-man photography missions. Over and over, his partners are killed and the March character is shown increasingly cracking up as a result.
Lombard appears in just one scene, but it’s highly memorable and no one seeing the film could possibly forget her. March takes a one-week leave and sees Lombard in an angelic white dress. She attaches herself to him, taking the same Hansom cab in the night, and he returns refreshed, yet still contemplative. Though the film is quite short at under seventy minutes, the impact is piercingly strong. After March returns to combat, he discovers some bad news and blames Cary Grant’s character. The movie’s been out three quarters of a century, but I still hate to ruin it so I won’t detail the ending. It’s devastating, to be sure. Absolutely one of the most harrowing, and bravest, conclusions to a Hollywood film of its decade that I’ve witnessed. And March’s performance is entirely extraordinary. I’m not sure Fredric March was ever a big movie star, but he was surely one of the finest actors of his era, and quite versatile as well. Before the finale, there’s a nightmarish freak-out scene he has that’s brilliantly lit, filmed, and acted. Bravura stuff, really. And not on DVD, of course.
The other at-home viewing was No Man of Her Own, a bland title owing little to the actual film. It was Lombard’s only onscreen pairing with future husband Clark Gable, and the two apparently were strictly business during filming. Gable is an inveterate gambler and cheater who puts together elaborate card games only to cheat high rollers. Lombard plays the small town librarian who’s unaware of Gable’s “occupation” and falls for then marries him. It’s a fun, breezy picture that relies quite a bit on the two leads’ star power and chemistry. I actually enjoyed it a lot and found it superior to some of the Lombard-MacMurray films contained in the Glamour Collection set. She’s typically quick and strong-chinned in the film and he’s firmly in that pre-moustache, It Happened One Night time when playing rogues was not just acceptable, but endearing. Like a lot of these Lombard pictures, it’s also gloriously pre-Code, released in 1932, and astute viewers can tell. What gave it away? The fact that she has a scene running around (literally) in her underwear?
Less obviously made before the Production Code were the three I saw in a triple feature at FF. In this trio, Lombard is about as green as a fried tomato and she’s mostly in support. Two of the pictures featured Norman Foster and Skeets Gallagher, a couple of actors who never made it big like she did and seemed to hold Lombard back, if anything. Foster, though, shouldn’t be entirely dismissed because he’s fairly likable in the two films I saw (It Pays to Advertise and Up Pops the Devil), and he’d eventually write and direct several of the Mr. Moto features. He also earned a directing credit on Journey Into Fear, the Orson Welles film largely thought to be directed by Welles himself. Regardless, I thought Foster was a good enough lead in the two features and his main detriment may have been a goofy voice not up to leading man standards. Of the two Foster-Lombard pairings, and neither was especially great, It Pays to Advertise was the most enjoyable and still relevant. Plus it has Louise Brooks in the opening scene.
In the film, Foster is a rich, good for nothing son of Eugene Pallette’s businessman soapmaker and Lombard is Pallette’s secretary. A particularly interesting scene early on finds Lombard scheming Pallette out of $5,000 after making Foster fall in love with her. She then agrees to try for another five grand by staying with Foster in a business deal. Things get especially haywire when the two, along with Skeets Gallagher, venture into their own soap company, but focus entirely on advertising. Billboards, sandwich boards, and all sorts of creative advertising endeavors end up crippling the company’s finances, but making them known by everyone. The problem, predictably, is that they have neither an actual product in hand, nor any orders. In its own innocent way, the film lays into consumerism by declaring that 50% of all buyers are sheep and will covet whatever product they see advertised, regardless of any question of value or efficacy. The soap company essentially invented without any additional attribute of existence becomes a hot item based solely on advertising.
Lombard is buried far enough into the picture that she fails to make an impression of any worth. She also can be noticeably seen mouthing her co-stars’ lines when preparing to recite her own. The big screen especially reveals these little details and it probably just goes to show how totally out of their element burgeoning stars like Lombard were back then with four or five films a year mandated by a studio contract. I think I caught her doing this very slightly in the other two films, as well, but it’s most blatant here. It also made me wonder if the director’s attention to detail was maybe less than his peers. The helmer in question was actually Frank Tuttle, who later made This Gun for Hire, a very early film noir with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake that I like quite a bit. Tuttle is obviously not a key director of anything, and the guys behind Up Pops the Devil - A. Edward Sutherland - and Fast and Loose - Fred Newmeyer - weren’t either. With that in mind, it comes as little surprise that their films are best for Lombard completists and of questionable value otherwise.
Up Pops the Devil is a wildly uneven try at mixing comedy and drama that doesn’t sincerely register in either direction. Foster and Lombard play a newly married couple who experience problems when she encourages him to quit his job in hopes of cementing a writing career. Meanwhile, she takes up a full time dancing gig while he stews away in their lovely Manhattan apartment. Lots of question marks and lots of continuity issues. Foster is again okay to fine, but his role is a difficult one to play by anyone’s standards. In real life, he was married to Claudette Colbert at the time so it’s perhaps interesting to read some truth into the frustration his character expresses at having a wife who’s more successful than he manages to be. Colbert was just establishing herself at the time, but she did have Lubitsch’s The Smiling Lieutenant in 1931, the same year as Up Pops the Devil. Her greatest successes would, of course, come later, making hindsight a more cruel judge of Foster’s career against hers.
Though Lombard is reasonably effective in the picture, and gives her best performance of the three, I didn’t find it overall as pleasing as the previous one, mostly because of that varying tone that never seems certain as to where it wants to go. The film begins strongly in the direction of comedy, but gradually grows more serious, to the point of separating Lombard and Foster while the former is newly pregnant. You want the two kids to patch things up, even though you also know it both stretches reality and is a foregone conclusion in Hollywood. Only the leads and Joyce Compton as the would-be monkeywrench Southern belle make it worthwhile. Some of the drunken comedy between Skeets Gallagher and Edward J. Nugent feels forced and is performed unconvincingly. Lilyan Tashman’s reviewer character seemed only modestly effective, but she still acquits herself generously enough in comparison. Tragically, Tashman would die from cancer at just 37 years of age in 1934.
The highest hopes in the triple feature were reserved for 1930’s Fast and Loose, also from Paramount and with dialogue credited to Preston Sturges. Those were a bit misplaced, unfortunately. The film is the debut of Miriam Hopkins, and she also has the starring role. Hopkins can be shrill, annoying even, but she was sort of cute and charming in her own way. She was probably never better than in Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise two years later, also for Paramount. In Fast and Loose, Hopkins is a socialite and daughter of a wealthy businessman. It’s a winning performance in that the character can be unlikable, but Hopkins makes her briefly adorable when she wants. A lesser actress would have probably come across as far more grating. Hopkins instead at least allows the viewer to not actively dislike the total worthlessness of the silver spoon socialite. This comes in handy since she’s on screen the vast majority of the film. The actor who plays her brother - Henry Wadsworth - doesn’t register much.
The film’s stage origins aren’t really overcome by Sturges’ dialogue. He was pretty new to Hollywood at this point and you can’t reasonably expect a full Preston Sturges film just by a few script punch-ups. Some of the dialogue does still sparkle, particularly a line about Hopkins’ brother taking a fictional blue ribbon in the dog show for being a rumhound, but it’s clearly Sturges at his most early point in movies. Likewise, this is Lombard at some of her earliest stabs, as well. She doesn’t have a lot of screen time and she doesn’t really make use of what she has, but she does at least look nice not doing much of anything. The story goes that this was the film where the “e” was accidentally added to her first name and it stuck. Probably just myth, and I’ve read elsewhere that her name was spelled with the “e” in publications prior to this film. She doesn’t really show much of the striking charisma that would come later so it doesn’t make sense as to why this would be the performance to determine how her first name was spelled.
Speaking of interesting names, even Ilka Chase as Millie steals any ideas Lombard may have had of making much of an impression. A tall and thin brunette, Chase is dynamite in her handful of scenes. Both Chase and Hopkins outshine Lombard, but there was surely a good deal of trial and error for studio stars of the era. Paramount didn’t let her have many prime roles at her home lot and she ended up getting loaned out to Columbia on several occasions, becoming a bona fide star with that studio’s Twentieth Century in 1934. When you look back at several of the pictures prior to that, there’s a clear evolution in Lombard’s performances and the early roles almost certainly allowed her to learn and create that screwball goddess persona for which she’s best remembered.
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.
