Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne January 17, 2007
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Robert Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne was borne from a novelette written by Denis Diderot in 1773 and published in 1796. Like Jean-Pierre Melville, Bresson’s second feature film was partially written by Jean Cocteau, who receives screen credit for the dialogue here and had written the novel and screenplay for Melville’s Les Enfants terribles. Interestingly, the two diverse directors then took bold steps in creating their respective styles with their brilliant third films - Diary of a Country Priest for Bresson and Bob le Flambeur for Melville. Meanwhile, Cocteau followed up his work on Bresson’s film with his masterpiece Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la bête).
While Cocteau’s filmed fairy tale is certainly an overt love story, I’d argue that the Bresson film is only superficially romantic. Hélène’s feelings for Jean are ultimately selfish and vengeful. She’s in love with him, but her actions illustrate a possessive quality more often found in modern-day thrillers than traditional romances. The film does a nice job of concealing Hélène’s exact motives (though I’m sure plenty of cinephile Sherlock Holmeses will have the entire storyline deduced from the first frame) and allows the viewer to piece together precisely what her plan is with Jean and Agnès. That Hélène can still elicit sympathy from the audience for much of the picture is a testament to the acting of Maria Casarès. There’s a great scene between Hélène and Jean about midway through the film where, even with the less than ideal picture quality, you can see tears silently rolling down her face as he’s oblivious to the love she still has for him.
I think it would also be a misnomer to describe Jean’s pursuit of Agnès as a truly romantic endeavor. He speaks of her in Cinderella-like terms to Hélène and seems charmed by the image of her as an unvarnished social misfit. As she becomes more difficult to obtain, Jean has an increased affection for her. It’s a classic example of someone unaccustomed to being refused consequently becoming more and more determined to attain his prey after being repeatedly rejected. Eventually the pursuer is more interested in the chase and the challenge than actually having what he was trying to catch. Jean’s ultimate decision at the film’s end is certainly noble, but it seems contrary to his character’s previous actions throughout the film. That audiences would most likely be repulsed and dissatisfied by the alternative presumably played a large part in how the film ends. Depressing, cynical endings are for real life, not the movies.
Regardless, it’s at least a near-great film. As I mentioned earlier, Maria Casarès as Hélène gives a stunning and memorable performance. Her cunning is really best appreciated at the end when you fully realize exactly what she’s pulled off and it’s the chilling Casarès that brings the character full circle. The actress who plays Agnès, Élina Labourdette, is also very effective and quite attractive. She’s the most redeeming part of the film’s triangle and manages to somehow retain a contradictory innocence about her. I’ve read things that place Agnès as a precursor to the female characters in Bresson’s later films and even claim that she’s the true focus of this film. Yet, I felt there was too much mystery and uncertainty in Agnès to realistically consider her as the most important or main character. We know she’s ashamed of her work in the cabaret, and all that implies, but there’s not enough information about her character to otherwise make much of an emotional connection.
Unfortunately, this worthwhile film suffers from one of Criterion’s more disappointing releases on DVD. The somewhat intimidating title itself is probably not going to entice consumers new to Bresson and the cover is, in my eyes, nearly indefensible. People can say what they will, but there’s no denying that DVD cover art plays a large role in attracting would-be consumers unfamiliar with the film inside. In addition, the only supplement on the disc is a stills gallery. The DVD transfer is so-so and certainly not at the level of what we’ve come to expect from Criterion, but it’s difficult to complain when a film over sixty years old looks this good. Plus I would assume that the company did all they could with the materials they have to work with and the disc’s producer even took the time to respond to concerns directly. Nevertheless, for the prestigious company’s first release of a filmmaker as highly revered as Bresson to be so underwhelming is a surprise.
It seems that Bresson’s films, of which Criterion has now released five on DVD, often take some getting used to for many viewers. I think this is understandable and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is evidence that the director himself even had to adjust to the more naturalistic style early in his career. Watching this film sort of reminds me of looking at some of Picasso’s blue period paintings. That may be an odd comparison, but, essentially, I think it’s apt. Both situations first involve a more conventional, though accomplished, work or series of works by an artist at the early stages of his career before he went on to carve out his own niche and style. Additionally, both men’s initial, more accessible work has its own merits and can be enjoyed separate from their more formidable later offerings. Bresson would soon turn his attention away from more secular works, but Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne remains one of his essential films, providing hints of better things to come.
Cluny Brown January 4, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Ernst Lubitsch , 1 comment so far
Cluny Brown, Ernst Lubitsch’s final completed film, is a charming enough story of two outsiders living on the country estate of a wealthy English family in the late 1930s. (That’s them in the opening titles.) The title character is a kooky young woman (Jennifer Jones, hanging on to her American accent) who’s been raised by her plumber uncle and picked up some trade skills (mostly just banging at the pipes) along the way. By chance, she meets Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer, French accent and all) after taking a service call meant for her uncle, who was otherwise occupied. Belinski, a Czech professor and writer, shows up to the same London apartment just before Cluny arrives, not realizing the friend he was intending to see had sublet his dwelling to a man who now has a clogged sink.
Their paths will cross again, after Cluny is hired as a maid at the same residence where Mr. Belinski had been taken in as a guest. This improbable reunion is highlighted by some advice Belinski had told Cluny back at their initial meeting, which she repeats aloud the first time she sees him again, just as she drops her first dinner service plate. Unconvincingly, both agree to maintain a platonic friendship despite Mr. Belinski’s obvious interest in Cluny. A large portion of the film separates the actions of each with little or no convergence between the characters. Cluny pursues another romance while Belinski endears himself to the English family who’ve graciously agreed to lodge him indefinitely as a result of a misunderstanding about his safety from the Nazis.
Lubitsch and his screenwriters gently skewer the English upper class, as well as class in general, frequently portraying them as out of touch and frivolous. Peter Lawford’s Andrew is so upset about Hitler’s impending war that he wrote a letter to the Times. He sees Belinski’s requests for money as opportunities to help show his respect for a brave and honorable man, as opposed to being taken advantage of by a layabout. His father is oblivious to world events, so much so that he’s ready to praise the Nazis when he thinks that’s the popular opinion. Meanwhile, their service staff openly disdains Cluny’s innocent blunders and is taken aback when Mr. Belinski treats them as equals.
Even more so than Heaven Can Wait, the Technicolor enriched Fox film he made just previous, Cluny Brown is a significant step down from the great Lubitsch comedies. It meanders between the two characters and often seems to suffer from a lack of focus on either. The result is sometimes disjointed and awkward, with the ending inevitable to anyone who’s ever watched a romantic comedy. Furthermore, the laughs are less prevalent than in other Lubitsch films (aside from Una O’Connor’s wheezing and hacking) and missing the thougtful undertones found in To Be or Not to Be and Heaven Can Wait, both of which often sacrificed humor for more serious themes. I also found the line between charming cad and opportunistic leach to be blurred a little too much by Mr. Bilenski. Similarly, Cluny’s ill-advised courtship with the town pharmacist stretches her naive innocence into the realm of ridiculousness.
The casting is also a notch below many of the director’s earlier pictures, as Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer pale in comparison to other prominent Lubitsch couples (or triangles, for that matter). Boyer comes across a little too much like a poor Frenchman’s Cary Grant and Jones is a tad too ditzy. Minor criticisms aside, I found nothing especially wrong in either’s performance, but more memorable actors might have elevated the film into another level. I never felt like either lead truly owned his or her role and there are probably half a dozen actors easily imaginable in each. (Although Jennifer Jones drunkenly writhing on a couch is perfectly fine by me.)
All that’s not to say that Cluny Brown isn’t a good film. It is, but it lacks much of the ethereal, almost intangible qualities audiences came to expect from the director. Lubitsch’s career was so rich that his lesser films are judged against some of the greatest light comedies ever made. I’m certainly not aware of other movies Twentieth Century Fox was cranking out in 1946 that are as fun and witty as Cluny Brown. It’s likeable enough to put a smile on the viewer’s face and has a sophisticated flair largely unseen in modern romantic comedies. Mr. Belinski may wear the same suit for much of the picture, but it’s an undeniably snazzy one.
The 1946 film was never released on VHS and is currently unavailable on DVD in R1, but the British Board of Film Classification has recently certified it for release by the British Film Institute in the UK. There’s also a French offering with fine image quality already available. In the United States, Fox Movie Channel airs the film from time to time in a relatively good print. It’s a deserving title (as are all Lubitsch films) and hopefully Fox, or Criterion if there’s enough interest, will put something out in R1 soon.
(Edit: I reviewed the BFI release in May of 2008 for DVD Times, and was much more impressed with the film after additional viewings.)
Remember the Night December 24, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s , 1 comment so far
I’m continuing my unofficial series on films unavailable on DVD that were directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by brilliant future writer-directors (see Midnight) with Remember the Night, from 1940. Scripted by Preston Sturges, the film is set at Christmas in New York City (although Paramount released it in early January for some reason, probably the worst time of the year to release a Christmas-themed movie). After catching up with the film recently via its Turner Classic Movies debut, I searched around the internet for information about this neglected gem. I read almost everything I could find about the film, which wasn’t much, and nearly every article or blurb seemed to point out its status as a forgotten Christmas treasure with a perfect balance of sentimentality and humor. Well then, why, I wondered, is Remember the Night not better known, even among classic film buffs.
It certainly seems to have the pedigree. Leisen was a capable director who had just made the wonderful Midnight, written for the screen by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the year before. Sturges was a true wunderkind who began his string of classic comedies the year after Remember the Night, which would be the last screenplay he wrote but didn’t also direct, was released. Stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray are genuinely likeable, popular actors who reteamed for one of the absolute greatest movies of all time four years later when they made Double Indemnity so one would think that the interest would definitely be there in that regard.
The cast of supporting characters is quite good as well, with Beulah Bondi and Sterling Holloway (who’d go on to voice such Disney characters as Winnie the Pooh and the Cheshire Cat) featured prominently. There are no legal problems regarding its showing or release to home video (it was released on VHS, but prices are now outrageously hefty for a copy). Universal controls those rights, from their lucrative deal with Paramount, but thus far there’s been no hint that they’re interested in providing a DVD release, even though the print shown on TCM looked quite good and absent any significant damage.
Then there’s the film itself, which is not quite at the level of other films scripted by Sturges, but still manages to be highly enjoyable. It’s genuinely moving and romantic at times, as well as offering a decent amount of humor. Opening with a shot of a woman’s wristwatch in a jewelry store, we soon realize that she has left the store without paying for her expensive timepiece. She’s later caught trying to pawn the watch and arrested. The next scenes take place in a courtroom with prosecutor Fred MacMurray trying to convict the shoplifter, played by the enchanting Barbara Stanwyck. MacMurray’s problem is that it’s much more difficult, he claims, to persuade a jury to convict near Christmas, especially when the accused is female.
Following an over-the-top summation by the defense attorney, who posits that his client may have been hypnotized by the shiny jewels (!), MacMurray wins a continuance to have the trial postponed until after Christmas, leaving Stanwyck in jail for the holiday. With his guilt getting the better of him, MacMurray has a bail bondsman provide her release and the next thing you know the two are on their way to Indiana, where it just so happens both of them are from. Not surprisingly, although it never seems like a foregone conclusion in these actors’ hands, the two grow closer during their time away from the big city and they begin to dread the pending remainder of the trial. The ending shouldn’t be spoiled, but it’s well done and comparatively realistic despite being somewhat unsatisfying.
While MacMurray is effective and an enjoyable screen presence, the film really belongs to Barbara Stanwyck. As anyone who’s seen The Lady Eve, directed by Sturges a year later, can attest, she was at her alluring height at this time and her performance here is really of a high caliber. I read one article on the film that mentioned Sturges’ original script focused much more on MacMurray’s character, but Leisen was very impressed with Stanwyck and altered the final product to make her the main character. If this is accurate then it was a good decision by Leisen (who didn’t always have the best instincts in such situations and didn’t appreciate input from his screenwriters), catering to the strengths of both MacMurray, who evokes a perfect sense of noble understatement, and Stanwyck, who excelled at playing strong female characters while retaining just the right amount of sensitivity.
Now, returning to the idea of Remember the Night as an underseen Christmas classic, it’s worth mentioning that the film doesn’t have a lot of the things found in other, more enduring holiday films. While there’s a healthy dash of humor, it’s more romance than comedy overall with the romance not really kicking in for much of the picture and, even then, unavoidably as somewhat of a doomed proposition given the circumstances. Also, the sentimentality is never grating and not as heavy as in many other holiday-themed classics. In fact, Christmas serves mostly as a backdrop for the story, necessary to bring these two together, and not as the film’s main attraction. The only scene that feels truly to belong in a Christmas-themed film is when MacMurray’s family, along with Stanwyck, are gathered around their tree. Of course, many of the themes in the film are closely tied to Christmas and certainly appropriate to the holiday. Nevertheless, my point is that it works as a seasonal favorite while also playing well other times of the year, more so than, say, Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life.
Unfortunately, the use of Fred “Snowflake” Toones as MacMurray’s butler Rufus is, despite being thankfully brief and only in the first part of the film, cringingly offensive to today’s audiences and troubling enough to make me wonder if it may have contributed to Remember the Night’s unavailability on DVD. I’m not a believer in censoring or ignoring shameful moments in cinema history, but I can also see (even if I don’t agree with) the argument for suppressing such hurtful content. The problem thus lies in the numerous instances in classic movies with racially insensitive scenes, making it virtually impossible to release unaltered versions of many otherwise worthy films without including some offensive content. The only real solution is to trust the audience enough to allow for these films to be released despite their undesirable moments, with the hope that we can learn from past mistakes and recognize the wrongness in such scenes.
Despite those brief, distasteful moments, Remember the Night remains a more than worthy candidate for DVD release and a welcome addition to the holiday film catalog. There are enough of the staples we’ve come to expect from such films, while also providing a refreshing absence of cloying sentimentality. As in It’s a Wonderful Life, there are some serious themes and darker ideas explored in Remember the Night that would please the cynical viewers who are fed up with more saccharine fare. And the romance between the tough prosecutor and his accused is effective enough to melt even the most Grinch-like of hearts. All in all, it’s a fine film made even more enjoyable by its relative obscurity, which adds a sense of discovery that’s becoming increasingly rare nowadays.
Leave Her to Heaven December 22, 2006
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Humans are so easily seduced by beauty that we often associate it with positive qualities such as virtue, innocence and goodness. Regardless of how much we know about beautiful things, we want to think the best of them and often demonstrate an unearned sense of trust as though they’re somehow above normal fallibility. Children are taught at a young age to think of villainous characters as ugly, beastly creatures through fairy tales and other stories. Movies and television shows frequently show us dark, grimy streets as synonymous to dangerous areas where crime always threatens. By contrast, the wilderness, instead of being a lonely, isolated locale, is thought of as serene, calm and pure. Sunny suburbia with its green lawns and abundant flowers has come to symbolize a happy safety which, aside from subversive films such as Blue Velvet, has continued the positive reinforcement of beauty as a wholesome quality.
The filmmaker Douglas Sirk dared to peel back this apparent beauty (well over forty years before Best Picture winner American Beauty shoved the tagline “look closer” down audiences’ throats) and show its ugly underside with his forays into the subversive melodrama of films such as All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. The latter two of these had actually been filmed roughly twenty years before Sirk’s versions by director John M. Stahl. Stahl’s major contribution to showing beauty as a deceptive tool to achieving horrifically evil outcomes is the 1945 film Leave Her to Heaven
On the surface, Leave Her to Heaven looks like one of the most beautifully gorgeous movies of its era. The rich Technicolor is put to great use in the many outdoor scenes. We see vivid blue skies, rippling water, and rugged mountains. Then we have Gene Tierney, certainly one of the most luminous presences to ever appear onscreen. Just one year prior, Dana Andrews was so taken with her in Laura that he fell in love with her picture despite thinking she was dead. By being so closely associated with her attractive looks, Tierney was the perfect choice for the role of Ellen in Leave Her to Heaven. It continued the misleading aesthetic of plastering beauty on the screen despite the film’s inherent nastiness and parallels to film noir.
In the film, Ellen meets Richard Harland (the bland Cornel Wilde) on a train when she drops a book, of which he happens to be the author, in front of him. This is the type of first encounter perfectly suited for a romantic comedy, yet Leave Her to Heaven is neither of these. That’s not apparent throughout most of the first half, however, as we see the couple fall for each other, culminating in Ellen breaking her engagement to a fledgling district attorney (Vincent Price) via telegram and quickly marrying Richard. This all happens just days after spreading her father’s ashes on horseback, which we see in a scene that’s memorable for both its cinematography and as a testament to Ellen’s peculiar feelings for her father.
Things begin to go awry shortly after the marriage, when Ellen feels Richard’s brother Danny (a “cripple,” as Ellen describes him) is infringing on her time with her new husband. Hints of sexual frustration run rampant as Ellen’s morning approach into Richard’s bed is interrupted by Danny pecking on the thin walls right behind them. The younger brother’s chilling fate is sealed, but Ellen’s jealousy and paranoia (hints of which are shown in the stories she tells about the time she spent with her father) will continue until she’s no longer capable of such emotions. Her idea to substitute a new baby for the loss of Danny is a momentary solution until she realizes how much attention a child would divert from her. By the time her jealousy reaches its zenith, as she suspects Richard has fallen for her adopted sister Ruth, Ellen decides to get back at both of them regardless of the personal consequences.
Tierney’s performance is best appreciated on a second viewing, I think, after the viewer already knows the lengths in which her character goes to keep her husband to herself and, then, punish him for his perceived neglect. Being aware of Ellen’s future actions makes Tierney all the more chilling early on, especially when she describes her future husband’s physical resemblance to her recently deceased father. The seemingly innocent suggestion, met with uncertain glances by the rest of her family, becomes a warning sign for Ellen’s future actions. Likewise the unexpected engagement thrust on the couple from Ellen’s seemingly impulsive rationale to dump her fiance serves as an ominous foreshadowing of things to come. Tierney’s sunny demeanor in these first several scenes, along with the idea that she’s acting just as an audience would expect from a lead actress in a Technicolor melodrama, make for a greater jolt of an impact once she puts on those dark sunglasses and transforms into an icy murderess.
The courtroom scenes at the end, as well as the ridiculous bookends of Richard returning from two years in prison, are by far the film’s weakest segments. By no coincidence, those happen to be the only times when Gene Tierney isn’t on the screen and they make you realize how important her presence is to elevate Leave Her to Heaven above the corny and dated melodrama of other similar movies. Vincent Price hammily questioning witnesses is just not as captivating as Gene Tierney doing pretty much anything. It’s a small complaint, but I also couldn’t help but be frustrated by the completely moronic behavior of the defense attorney both in court and as the opening storyteller at the beginning. As a lawyer, it’s most likely not a good idea to tell a total stranger that you were probably responsible for a client’s two-year prison term.
Until it descends into a laughable courtroom drama (blatant disregard for the rules of hearsay in film makes me cringe!), Leave Her to Heaven is an interesting spin on both melodrama and film noir, as though the two sub-genres gave birth to a beautifully disturbed slice of cinema. The focus on a jealously paranoid (and beautiful) murderer as a heroine makes the film much more compelling than it would have been if she were a peripheral character. It twists the preconceived notions the audience has about main characters in movies, as well as about beauty, by offering up a lead actress who ably transforms herself into the opposite of what we’ve come to expect from movies of the 1940s and earlier. She’s the well-liked gunfighter with the white hat who carries himself like a sheriff, but then shoots an unarmed man in the back. Just as we don’t often see such activity in westerns, it’s rare to find a movie that so willfully turns assumptions upside down as Leave Her to Heaven.
Dark Passage September 9, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s , add a comment 
There’s something perversely appealing about a movie which stars Humphrey Bogart, voted the number one movie star ever by the American Film Institute a few years back, yet prevents the audience from seeing his face for 2/3 of the picture. Dark Passage
Adapting a novel by David Goodis, who would later have his book Down There brought to the screen by François Truffaut as Shoot the Piano Player, Delmer Daves effectively served as the director and, less successfully, as the sole credited screenwriter of Dark Passage. The film starts off with some unusual shots of Bogart’s character, Vincent Parry, escaping from a large barrel on a San Quentin delivery truck where the audience’s perspective is that of Parry looking out of the barrel. Parry’s cinematic luck leads to a rescue by Lauren Bacall, who just happened to be in the area and felt like giving a fugitive a break. We later find out that Bacall’s character had followed Parry’s case because of a similarity in her own life and that they have a mutual acquaintance, played by the always impressive Agnes Moorehead. Since Parry’s face is plastered across every newspaper in San Francisco, he eventually resorts to a disgraced plastic surgeon who warns that he can make someone look like a bulldog or a monkey if he doesn’t like them. Luckily for the audience, he likes Parry, who, after a week of wearing bandages over his face, comes out looking like Humphrey Bogart.
In many ways, Dark Passage is a nonsensical mishmash of coincidences, albeit one that I enjoyed. The subjective camera technique works for me because it’s a rarely used device, but I could also see the argument that it’s unnecessary here. The coincidental plot contrivances are a tad more grating, but somehow the two leads make up for it. A deviously sinister cast of characters helps as well. However, the most glaring head-scratcher for me was the detective in the diner who proceeds to interrogate Bogart because he mistakenly asked about the results from a racetrack which had closed down a month previous. Even that bit of absurdity, though, doesn’t detract much from such a highly watchable film.
This was the third of four legendary collaborations between Bogart and Bacall and probably the most neglected. Delmer Daves wasn’t Howard Hawks or John Huston and David Goodis wasn’t Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Chandler. Regardless, Dark Passage is an entertaining film greatly aided by the pair’s obvious chemistry and Bogart’s terrific performance. He skillfully treads the line between the fugitive nature of Parry, such as when he’s pounding the first guy who offers to give him a lift following the escape, and his professed innocence. Bogart’s Parry isn’t exactly a tough guy, nor is he incredibly bright as he shows repeatedly in his encounters with the cab driver and the cop in the diner. Instead, he’s just a regular guy looking to keep his freedom and eventually make his way to a South American paradise.
Putting aside the often inane coincidences (such as the cabbie with a heart of gold who not only gives up a possible $5,000 reward for turning in fugitive Parry, but also conveniently knows a plastic surgeon who’s cheap, nearby and works in the middle of the night!), Dark Passage is a testament to classic Hollywood star power and the allure of film noir. Bogart was winding down his hero roles and Bacall was at the height of her powers. Even if it’s not a prototypical noir, Dark Passage has enough elements of that genre to mostly fit into its ever-broadening definition, although the ending probably should have come a scene earlier.
Heaven Can Wait August 4, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Ernst Lubitsch , 1 comment so far
In 1943, Twentieth Century Fox released Heaven Can Wait
Ameche plays Henry Van Cleve, a man who has recently died and is bargaining with the devil (played with wicked charm by Laird Cregar) for a spot in Hell. Van Cleve doesn’t think there’s any way he belongs in heaven after the things he’s done in his life. The movie takes us from a childhood crush on his French nurse up to his last years. The birthdays in between are used as jumping off points for each piece of Van Cleve’s life story. This is a perfect touch since birthdays, so joyous in youth, become representative of our advancing number of years lived as we get older. In this sense, Heaven Can Wait confronts the aging process head-on and we see Ameche transition from a young vibrant man to an elderly widower as the film progresses. In tow through much of the film is Charles Coburn, who steals scenes as Hugo Van Cleve, Henry’s grandfather. Despite being responsible for the family fortune, Hugo was never able to throw caution to the wind and is delighted to live vicariously through Henry’s playboy lifestyle.
It’s interesting to place the film in the context of when it was made in regards to World War II. Americans were at a patriotic feverpitch and Lubitsch gave moviegoers a wealthy, yet mostly charming lothario with few redeemable qualities. Van Cleve is, like most everyone, an unapologetically flawed character. Unlike many other movie characters, he’s not necessarily someone we want or would aspire to be. The reassuring aspect of the film is that, despite Van Cleve’s indiscretions, he still manages to have lived a good life and found a great woman who loves him. Surely we, the audience, have accomplished as much as Van Cleve and can hope to rest peacefully in the afterlife as well. Unlike the thematically similar It’s a Wonderful Life, Lubitsch’s film has a protoganist who hasn’t done the right things throughout his life. He’s made mistakes of character and, yet, he’s also brought happiness to others and redeemed himself at times.
The Criterion Collection’s excellent DVD displays the vibrant Technicolor beautifully. Films made with the Technicolor process are much more vivid and bright than subsequent color film techniques and they remain gorgeous to look at decades after they were made. For anyone interested, there’s a very entertaining and informative documentary on Technicolor found among the supplements of Warner Bros.’ two-disc special edition of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. Getting back to Criterion’s release of Heaven Can Wait, there are some nice supplements included such as a conversation between film critics Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell that provides a lot of good details and analysis about the film. It also has one of my favorite covers of any Criterion release. It’s admittedly somewhat odd-looking but I’ve really grown to love the cover since the DVD’s release last summer. All in all, it’s a terrific package that helps the viewer appreciate the film without reveling in mindless minutiae.
Films like Heaven Can Wait make us think about our own lives and legacies. The introspective viewer sees the life of Henry Van Cleve and starts to wonder how his own would measure up if such a devilish meeting ever took place. Van Cleve’s ultimate fate in Heaven Can Wait makes us feel better about ourselves and our lives. If you believe in an afterlife as a reward for the life lived on Earth, it’s nice to have movies such as this one to reassure us that no one’s perfect and we’re not expected to be either.
The Leopard Man March 18, 2006
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The Leopard Man, directed by Jacques Tourneur, is a truly creepy and somewhat frightening film produced by the legendary Val Lewton in 1943. Lewton was an RKO producer who somehow managed to turn small budgeted horror films into mini-masterpieces of psychological terror in the 1940s. In 1943 alone, Tourneur directed this film, as well as the most famous Lewton production Cat People and the Caribbean gothic classic I Walked with a Zombie. All of Lewton’s films were short and tightly paced. The Leopard Man, in particular, is a stand-out and is a testament to the power of not showing horrific acts to the audience in lieu of allowing them to create their own images from insinuation and atmosphere.
The plot of The Leopard Man is mostly straightforward. Set in New Mexico, where a showbiz promoter borrows a large black cat (the “leopard” of the title) from an Indian circus man to use in his show. The cat is frightened and escapes. Soon a young girl is killed by the cat and more murders follow. Whether the cat has also committed the subsequent murders is part of the mystery. If not the cat, then who is the murderer and why? After watching the movie a second time, this question became obvious (and not just because I already knew the answer from my initial viewing) but the first time I saw it I was so swept up in what was going on that I didn’t see the ending coming. It’s really quite a film and my favorite of the nine produced by Lewton contained in Warner Bros.’ recent DVD collection.One of the things that makes The Leopard Man so interesting is its willingness to abruptly switch to new characters after the initial introduction of the promoter and the cat’s escape. This jars the audience somewhat and removes any sense of comfort because we immediately suspect that something terrible will happen. While a little confusing at first, this change of focus to different characters is one of the many reasons to give the film multiple viewings. The Leopard Man only lasts 66 minutes, yet has a lot taking place and gives viewers few, if any, chances to catch their breath.
Unlike many of today’s blood-splattered gorefests, The Leopard Man is genuinely creepy. Using shadows and an ominous score, Tourneur never allows his audience to settle in comfortably. Even the titular cat, with its glowing eyes and dark black frame, is quite unsettling. When we see the animal’s eyes beneath the night shadows just before the first girl is killed, it’s nearly impossible not to be a little freaked out, especially if you’ve ever walked around a dark street at night. Of course this uneasiness will certainly be followed by frustration at the girl’s mother for hesitating to let her daughter in the house when she’s screaming and yelling outside!
Tourneur was a master at setting the right mood for these horror classics and it’s no surprise that he achieved a similar proficiency at film noir in the quintessential Out of the Past. Lewton’s prolific work is just as stunning and, more than sixty years later, it’s a joy to have these films together in the DVD set.
